#She’s so over everyone and aware that she is into a dumb man for some reason
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birdy-reblog · 8 months ago
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who’s your favourite transformers?
WHIRL!!
I just love him, idw specifically which is really funny cause I’ve still yet to actually read them but I love him so much, he story and arc and personality and just everything he’s rotating in my brain all the time and I have nearly cried thinking about him! I will admit that! I just adore him he’s my little guy and he would hate that so much
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If from the shows easily Black Archnia rattrap and Air razor the girls and the gays frfr, I love beast wars so much.
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sweaterkittensahoy · 2 years ago
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Glass Onion did many, many things well. But a few of my favorites are:
Gave Helen the LITERAL POWER of the dumb white man's idea of a good idea to BLOW HIS SHIT UP.
Gave Whiskey a moment to deepen her character beyond "dumb men's right bimbo." Do I agree with the way she's doing things? No. Do I respect that she gets the chance to show she is aware of what she's doing? Yes.
Gave Benoit a live-in partner who straight people don't clock at all. Bitch. The butler is not calling Mister Blanc's famous friends to express worry over his bath time. That's the job of a husband (colloquial).
Benoit solving Gillian Flynn's mystery because it's CLEVER but needing help with the ACTUAL mystery because IT'S DUMB. And not because he's TOO SMART but because he's bad at DUMB PUZZLES.
Everyone only willing to throw Miles under the bus after Helen literally blew up any chance he had of saving their asses. Did they learn anything? Fuck no. It's a very clear lesson on understanding who to trust. As Helen puts it: "You'll lie for a lie, but you won't lie for the truth?" They're not lying for the truth at the end. They're lying for the lie that they're not very much like Miles.
I have seen some people noting the Mona Lisa burned like canvas, and I've seen some people noting the Mona Lisa burned like wood, and what's important to remember is that everything you need to know about Miles is that he's got the fucking audacity of the insulated fuckboy to think he's being clever having someone build an un-failesafe button so the Mona Lisa could be safe.
"It's so dumb, it's brilliant!" / "No, it's just dumb!"
"You'd lie for the lie, but you wouldn't lie for the truth?" -- Yeah, I mentioned it already, but my GOD. WHAT A POINT.
"Your name will forever be remembered in the same breath as the Mona Lisa." -- STAB HIM AGAIN.
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dumpywrites · 8 months ago
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Two Days - Jungkook
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Summary: He just wants you to give him two days. He'll take you on a few dates and you'll decided if you actually like him? Or not?
Genre/tags: mostly fluff, tiny bit of angst, friends to lovers, biker jungkook, jungkook is a goofball and a simp! :)
Pairing: Jungkook x she/her reader
a/n: this is my first ever bts/jk fic, I'm just trying this out since i have some days off from work, hope y'all like it <3
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“Please?”
“No.” 
“You’re missing out.” 
“Jungkook, we’re literally in a Burger King.”
You heard the man playfully saying, “Yes, and?” in a singing tone. All you could do was rolling your eyes in reply. Jeon Jungkook, this guy who had been begging you for his so-called masterplan that he called, “trial date” for weeks, was now yet again begging you for a chance.
You could not exactly pinpoint when it actually began. He was shy the first time you met. You had known the rest of the boys ever since you met Yoongi at an art class. The cold looking guy who was surprisingly friendly and soft-hearted, later on introduced you to the rest of the guys. Jungkook was introduced almost a year later into befriending the group. He was a guy who went to the same gym as Namjoon. They became friends ever since he offered Namjoon a ride one time. 
Being the youngest amongst the guys and also the latest you got to meet, you would think that his shyness would linger at least a little bit longer. Then again, if you really think about it, he probably only stayed quiet and shy on the first meeting. 
The idea of both of you together was never mentioned until recently. Namjoon was the one who started calling out Jungkook’s odd behavior towards you, but the nail on the coffin was when you all got drunk at Jimin’s house that one time. 
It was Jimin’s birthday and truthfully, you knew the guy was loaded rich, but you did not know he was rich with capital R. The selection of bottles in his house was pretty much unlimited from the ones you like to the ones you couldn’t even name. It was five hours into all the celebration and you all were blurting nonsense. You were tipsy, but still aware cause for some reason you were winning all the games that night and got to drink less. But Jungkook on the other hand, who was usually winning everything, was getting pissy cause he kept coming second after you. 
“This is unbelievable.” Jungkook groaned, casually throwing the boardgame cards on the table. 
“You just have a soft spot for her.” Jin shrugged. 
“I do not! I just have a crush on her.” Jungkook retorted back, as if his sentence made any sense. 
You heard Hoseok voiced a small “oh” with his usual judgy expression, and the rest were silent for a second, including you. 
“I mean…” Jungkook tried to correct himself but stopped mid-way, trying to make up words in his already drunk mind. His eyes went back and forth to everyone before he scoffed. “You all act so surprised, as if you didn’t tease me everyday right after the first time I met Y/N.” 
When the room was still silent, Jungkook realized he fucked up, his blurry mind completely ignored the fact that you, the subject of this topic, was in fact also in the room. 
“Shit.” Was all he muttered before he excused himself to the bathroom, and did not come out for twenty minutes. 
When he was done, everyone had decided to wrap it up due to the awkwardness and the absence of Jungkook himself. He found Taehyung and Jin sleeping on both sides of Jimin’s big couch, and a small smile formed on his lips, shaking his head over the dumb expression they had in their sleep. His stomach soon flipped right after he saw you on the kitchen, making yourself a cup of instant noodle. 
“Oh, hey.” You greeted awkwardly. “I got hungry from all that drinking.” You shyly mentioned. 
Jungkook only nodded and took a seat on one of the dinning chairs. 
“You want some?” You offered, trying to break the ice. 
“Y/N stop.” His eyes widened once he realized how bad that sounded. “I mean… I didn’t mean it like that?” He chuckled dryly, it was more of a statement rather than a question. 
When you kept quiet but sat down next to him regardless, and ate your noodles, he decided you were at least comfortable enough to hear him talk. “This whole huge crush on you thingy… that’s not gonna ruin our friendship or anything, right? If you’re uncomfortable I’ll just stop showing up when you’re around for a—”
“What?! No! Jungkook, I’m not uncomfortable.” You sighed. “I’m just a bit surprised, I guess.”
“Why though?” He asked innocently, his big doe eyes looking straight at you, making you slightly nervous. 
“It’s just… you do realize you’re quite popular right?”
“What’s that gotta do with this situation?”
“I thought I wasn’t your type.” 
“You don’t get to decide that.”
That was the last civil conversation you had with him until he decided it was a good idea to cling to you almost every single day, pestering on the idea of this whole trial dating. Everyone other than Yoongi, who was neutral (read: don't really care enough to actually voice an opinion at the moment), was pretty much on board with his plan. You being single for a year now definitely did not help your case. They kept saying that you needed to lit up your dating engine again, so it wouldn’t be rusty. 
It was not that you did not find Jungkook attractive. Heck, he was one of the most attractive person you had ever laid your eyes on. It was just, weird? He felt like a brother, the same as the rest of the boys. If you didn’t treat any of them different, then you should not with Jungkook either, right?
“Have you maybe considered that maybe she’s tired of your bullshit?” Yoongi blurted with a blank expression, as he continue to munch on his burger. 
“It’s only been two weeks.” Jungkook protested. “Besides, you never know 'till you try, right?” He winked at you. 
You rolled your eyes. “I’m good, Kookie.” You pinched his cheeks, a little bit too hard. 
“H-hey!” He pouted, his cheeks forming even rounder. “Two days! Two days!” He suddenly shouted. 
“Oh boy…” Hoseok side-eyed the rest of you, clearly done with the younger one. 
“Give me two days, Y/N!” He said with his two fingers right in front of your face. “You don’t have plans this weekend, right?”
“Hey, maybe—“ Namjoon didn’t even get to finish his sentence before the lad interrupted. 
“I’ll take you on two dates and then you can decide afterwards.” He grinned, as if that was the most brilliant thing he had ever thought of. “If you still don’t like me after that then I will gracefully back off.” He threw his hands in the air. 
“You promise?” You suddenly spoke, after being silent for a while. 
“Wait, you’re actually considering—“ Jin stood up from his seat, almost knocking his table. 
Jungkook hurriedly covered Jin’s mouth, not letting yet another man finish his sentence again. “I promise!” He saluted, grinning so hard his cheeks almost hurt. 
“Are you really sure?” Yoongi whispered to you. 
You only shrugged. Truthfully, you were not sure either. But at this point, you just wanted Jungkook to get over his girl hyperfixation of the month. Which was, you. 
You just did not buy the story of him being head over heels on you since day one. As if he didn’t look like a Greek god himself? As if you did not know how women and even men would kill just to get a taste of him. You just wanted him to get it over with, so he can realize how weird the whole idea was and went back to being the goofball friend you once knew. 
Right, so.
Now here you were, basically having a mini dress-up montage moment, picking an outfit for your cinema date. Even after spending almost an hour getting ready you ended up with just wearing your usual crop top and baggy jeans, hoping it will be fine. Clearly you didn’t wanna seem like a try-hard. It was just Jungkook. He had seen you with pajamas and you didn’t hear him complain, so there shouldn’t be a problem. Why did you even go through the trouble to pick an outfit? You wondered yourself. 
Ten minutes later and Jungkook was already ringing your phone. 
“I’m at your lobby!” He exclaimed loudly over the phone. 
“You’re early.”
“Just can’t wait to see you.” You could not see his face, but you knew he was grinning like an idiot. “Hurry down! Oh, and bring your jacket.”
You didn’t expect him to came with a motorbike. A huge one not to mention. Something stirred in your stomach for a millisecond seeing him in a leather jacket. 
He took a spare helmet and innocently handed it to you. “Gotta make sure my girl is safe.” He sheepishly said. 
You tried your best to ignore the nickname, and spoke. “I didn’t know you ride a motorcycle.” You said, taking the helmet he gave in your hands. 
“I’m just too lazy to drive sometimes so I just lift on Hobi’s car.” He shrugged. “Why? Are you scared?” He teased. 
“Of course not.” You said and put on the helmet. You did not miss his small snickers when you struggle to hop on his Harley, having to grab him by his shoulders. 
“Okay, just wanna let you know, I drive like suuuuuper fast. So, you have to hug me to be safe!” He giggled. 
You rolled your eyes, even if he couldn’t see. “I’m just gonna head back upstairs...”
“Don’t be such a sourpuss.” He chuckled. “I’m a good driver, Namjoon approved! But you can grab onto my jacket if you want.” 
The movie was great. 
And that was a lie, cause truth to be told, you could barely focus on the plot. Every time you caught a glimpse of the boy next to you, his eyes were already looking at you. While it was true that you had not been dating for quite some time, you could feel your spidey-sense tingling, as if you were to turn your head towards him, something would happen. Thinking about it was not exactly the best thing for you.
“We’re getting ice cream.” Jungkook cheerfully said, as you both walked out the cinema. 
“That’s not a question?” You couldn’t help but to smile at the silliness. 
“Not a chance I’m letting you go home yet.” 
“Is this a date or a kidnapping?” 
“Could be both if you want.” He laughed. “So…” He cutely put his hands in his pockets as you walked. 
“So?”
“So… how’s life?” 
“You did not just ask me that.” You laughed.
“What? I’m just trying to make actual conversation!” He laughed as well, but later on his expression softened. “You seemed down these past couple of days though?” 
You tilted your head slightly. You didn’t think he would notice. 
“You… noticed?”
“Of course I did!” He grinned, patting his chest proudly. “You didn’t talk that much at our last movie night at Taehyung’s. You usually love to debate after watching a movie.” He chuckled. "The fact that you're not even starting a discussion right now, is lowkey concerning."
That was because of an entirely different thing, but you chose not to say. “I haven't even told Yoongi.” 
“Even if you tell him, he wouldn’t tell anyone either, so what’s your point?” 
“That’s fair.” You broke a small smile. 
“What happened?” He stopped mid-track, suddenly losing a bit of confidence in his speaking tone. “I mean, only if you’re comfortable enough to tell me…”
Your expression softened. “It’s a bit stupid…”
“It’s okay, I’ll listen!” He nodded towards you. “I’ll just quickly grab those ice cream and we’ll sit down somewhere?” 
Minutes later he came back with two ice creams and a big stupid grin plastered on his face as usual. “Here you go, let’s sit down on that bench.”
You nodded and thanked him before following him to the bench. 
“Come sit close to me!” He patted right next to him. When you only looked at him blankly. He added, “Please?”
You sat down close to him but left a bit of space enough so that your shoulders wouldn’t touch. 
“Are you cold?” 
“Uh… no.”
“Okay, good.” He smiled and took a big bite of his ice cream. “So, do you still wanna tell me? Or we could also just sit and talk shit about Jin while we eat ice cream if you don’t want!”
You smiled. Looking into his eyes, you could feel his sincerity. It could be just you, but you felt somewhat… safe. 
“I used to date this one guy… We dated for three months before I ended things with him.” 
You looked up to Jungkook, expecting to see a negative expression but he remained silent, only nodding to signal you to continue. 
“To be fair we haven’t been in touch for almost a year, but he suddenly called me. He was drunk and said a bunch of nonsense. I still replied at first, cause I was worried for his safety. But after I found out he was drunk at home, I bid my goodbye. Then he suddenly said…” You took a deep breath. “He said that I’m a 4.5 with a bitch attitude and being picky won’t help me.” You broke into a sad grin. “It’s stupid, I know—“
“Who is this fucker? Can I beat the shit outta him? How come I’ve never heard about this?!”
“Probably cause this is how you react.” You chuckled. “It had me quite bothered for quite sometime, maybe the fact that I also haven’t dated in a while adds to it, but I guess I feel somewhat better now.” 
“So that’s why you said you thought you weren’t my type?” 
“Huh?”
“That fucker needs to get his eyes and brain checked.” He shook his head. “You know, it’s fine to not want to settle for less.” He said as he looked at the sun setting in the sky. “He’s just butthurt you don’t want him back.” 
You stayed silent but nodded.
“His dick’s probably small anyway.” When you slapped his arm, he laughed. “What? Am I wrong? Why did you even break up with him?”
“He's sexist!”
“And his dick is small.” He followed. 
“Jungkook!” You began to laugh as well. 
“You know you’re easily a ten, but I’ll give a nine for now.” He said, pretending to be serious with rubbing his chin and squinting his eyes. 
“Why? What deduct the one point?”
“Cause you haven’t like me back yet.” 
“God, make that at least five points then, I hate you.” You rolled your eyes, but laughed. 
He smiled softly. “Feeling better?” 
“Well, I guess? But now my ice cream's all melty.” You pouted, trying to lick some that was melting down the cone. 
“That’s why you eat fast like me.” He proudly said. 
“And have stomach problem? No thanks.”
“Here let me just…” He licked a stripe from your cone and took a big bite. “There.”
You were taken aback. So stunned that you could only blink a few times at him. 
“What? Don’t tell me that turned you on?” He smirked. 
“You… Jungkook, that’s gross!” You whined, which only resulted in his laughter. 
The next day Jungkook wanted a full day date. Boy kept saying that he wanted fair chance since it was his last day. He already planned a list of things both of you would do and all, and the first being eating brunch with you. 
“Do you really have to come this early?” You complained as you opened your apartment door for the guy. 
When the said guy sheepishly didn’t move and enter, you raised one of your eyebrows. His hands were behind his back, clearly holding something, and you can see both of his arms flexed, seemingly grasping something tightly. You were searching for his boyish grin, but his expression seemed worried instead. 
“I got you flowers.” He said, sounding discouraged. 
“Oh?” You replied, but wondered why he just kept standing and not move. 
“I found out last minute that you don’t like flowers…” He frowned. “Yoongi told me in the group chat after I got too excited and sent them a pic of the flowers I got you.”
He looked like a lost puppy, and suddenly you had the urge to hug him to ease all his pain away. You stopped yourself before the impulse got the best of you and you grabbed him by the forearm, dragging him inside and closing the door. 
“You can’t stay in that position the whole day, you have to hand me the flowers.” You folded your arms, trying to hold in a chuckle. 
“But you don’t like them!”
“I haven’t even seen them.”
He finally moved his hands and revealed a small bouquet of fresh daisies. It was a simple bouquet, nothing too extravagant with a brown wrapping paper. It somehow reminded you of his smile and how radiant he looked when he did so. Yes, you did not like flowers, they were unpractical, it felt like an unnecessary addition, a waste of space. But somehow you like it. It made you feel all warm and fuzzy and it was very pleasant. It made you wanna accept it with open arms. Truthfully, the description did not really feel like it was describing flowers anymore, but you decided to not further ponder on it. 
“Thank you.” You took the flowers and sniffed it, before setting it down on your table. 
“I’m sorry I didn’t know, I feel so dumb cause everyone knew already and—“
“Hey, we’ve only known each other for three months.” You assured. “Besides, it’s really not much of a big deal, I actually like them.” 
“You do???”
“Yeah, they look pretty. I don’t know how long I can keep them looking like that though.” 
“Oh my god…” He exhaled deeply. “I was so worried it would be a deal breaker or something. I was literally shaking!”
He laughed and showed his right hand in front of you, it was shaking slightly. You didn’t know why he laughed at it, you didn’t find it funny. 
“It happens sometimes when I’m nervous.” He chuckled. 
Instead of saying something, you took his hand into yours just by intuitive. It was impulsive, but you let go before he had the chance to intertwine his fingers with yours. He didn’t comment on your behavior, but a smile was still on his face as he waited for you to grab your things to go. 
The brunch was on this small cafe near your place. You insisted on paying this time, since he paid for yesterday. The brunch was spent with him trying to sneakily hold your hand, but failed every single time. 
Next activity on the list was buying clothes together. As cringey as that sounded, and you even almost opposed the idea, Jungkook said that he needed to buy new outfit and he wanted to hear your feedback. Plus, some of his clothes barely fit him anymore since he decided to become a gym rat. 
“You actually look great in those skirt.” 
“You’re joking.” You denied, but twirled around in front of the mirror anyway, while trying to convince yourself that you didn’t need the purchase. 
“I’ll buy them for you if you won’t.” 
“We didn’t have all those money-saving talk with Namjoon only for you to say that.” You folded your arms. 
“Oh come on, you look great!” He pointed to you and his lips forming into a small pout. “Besides, we’re on a date today so I think that’s a pretty good excuse.” 
“I thought we are here to help you buy some clothes, not buy me skirt that I probably won’t wear that often.” 
“Let me spoil you for once… please?” He begged, eyes all sparkly. His lips shined along with his two lip piercings. 
“Alright, fine... I’ll get the skirt, but!” You eyed him. “Only if you buy that straight-cut jeans you just tried before.”
“Deal.”
“That’s it? You’re not gonna argue on how those aren’t on trend anymore?” You raised an eyebrow. 
“I was gonna buy them anyways. You were practically drooling when I showed you.” He smirked and wiggled his eyebrows playfully at you. “Kinda was just waiting for you to admit it…”
You only rolled your eyes, but you couldn’t open your lips to deny his words either. 
After you changed back into your clothes and Jungkook paid for the purchases, he went back to you with a sly grin on his face and you immediately suspected something. He came back with a pair of matching string bracelet. 
“You can just not wear them later if you don’t want to, but let me be delusional for today, okay?”
You both left the store after you let him put the bracelet on your wrist. 
Next in line was spending time on a local amusement park. It was nothing too extreme, just a small carnival that has a few rides and snack booths. The guy kept insisting that you both should take a picture when the sun set. 
“Cotton candy!” Jungkook sprinted to the booth like a hungry kid, his laughter could be heard even as him getting far from where you were standing. 
You shook your head, smiling to yourself as you walked to his direction. 
“Pink, blue, or green?” 
“Blue, maybe?”
“Alright.” He grinned and paid the seller as they handed the blue cotton candy stick. “Why blue though?” 
“Dunno, just kinda matches your outfit.”
“Sweetheart, I’m wearing jeans and a plain white t-shirt.” He giggled. 
Which should be a crime! Cause who even looks that good in a basic white t-shirt??? You thought to yourself. “Your jeans, I guess..?”
“If you say so.” He chuckled. “Wanna ride the ferris wheel?”
“Being in a such small space with you sounds dangerous.” 
“I’ll protect you, babe.” He winked. 
“The danger is you, babe.” You mocked. 
He smirked, clearly amused. “Well, at least I got you to call me babe, that’s a win for me.” 
“You’re anno— hmph!” He stuffed a ball of cotton candy in your mouth, laughing continuously at the sight. 
After wandering around for a while and finishing the cotton candy, Jungkook dragged you to the shooting game. You refused, saying how you never really win these kind of games, but knowing him, losing was never really his thing. You saw how big the main prize was and you know Jungkook, you knew his ego, you knew damn well that was what he was aiming. 
“If you’re aiming for that giant teddy bear, don’t. We can’t carry that thing around...”
“You can’t tell me what to do.” He didn’t listen and instead paid for the game tickets. 
“We can’t carry that in your motorcycle, that’s like another passenger!”
“Just watch me.” He smirked, already aiming with the toy gun. 
You rolled your eyes, there’s really no telling him on this. “Fine, whatever.” 
After just two shots, you hear him jump in celebration, fist in the air and the staff rang the bell for him winning the price. You were ready to complain, but the staff handed you a small frog plushie instead. You looked at Jungkook and saw his boyish grin, his eyes almost turned into crescents. You looked back at the plushie in your hands and couldn’t lie to yourself, it was very adorable. 
“You didn’t aim for the grand prize?”
“You told me not to.” He shrugged. “Plus, you like frogs, right?”
“Well…” 
“I wished I took a picture of your expression when they handed you the plushie.” He laughed, a soft blush decorating his cheeks. 
You finally agreed to ride the ferris wheel with him. The park was going to close in an hour anyway, and you thought why not, it wouldn’t hurt anyone to go for one ride. 
You sat across him, hugging the frog plushie on your lap. It was silent for the first few minutes, but it was comfortable, not awkward. You were just looking at the view from above and silently admiring it. 
“Did you have fun?” He asked. Suddenly your attention went back to him and his smile. 
“Well, yeah… I did.” You nodded. “Thanks.” 
“Don’t thank me, I had fun too.” He smiled. “Everything’s fun with you though so I may be biased…” 
You didn’t really know what to say to counter his words. You just smiled and went back to looking at the window. 
“Mind if I sit next to you?”
“Uh… sure. Just be careful, you might tilt the cart.” 
Jungkook carefully moved to sit next to you. He muttered a small “phew” as he sat down. “Wow, the view’s better here.” He said, looking straight at you. 
“What do you mean? How—” And then it clicked to you. “Oh my god… shut up!” You hit his arm, and he laughed. 
“Take my compliment for once!” 
“Never.” You stuck your tongue out. 
The ride soon came to an end. You remembered that you promised Jungkook to take a picture with the sunset, but out of nowhere it started to rain. Although it was just small drizzle, it’s hard to take picture and avoid getting soaked at the same time. You both ran to the nearest sheltered place, with Jungkook’s leather jacket covering both of you. 
You said your sorry about his now wet jacket, but the boy did not seem to be bothered, as you can see how bright and happy he was, just from running with you under the rain. You sighed, but an idea came to you as soon as you saw a photo booth machine, not far from where you were standing. 
“Do you… maybe wanna do that instead?”
“Photobooth?” He looked at you, as if he couldn’t believe your words. 
“Why? You don’t want to?”
“No! I want to!” He said, almost too quickly. “But it’s just weird that you suggest it. But it’s a good weird!” He chuckled. 
“I promised you a picture, so we’re getting a picture.” 
“Aww.” Jungkook pout his lips in a kissy way, teasing you. 
“Let’s go before I regret it.” You dragged him inside the booth. 
The first pose you playfully put peace signs behind Jungkook’s head, giving him bunny ears, while he only stuck out his tongue. The second one, Jungkook made a love sign with both of his hands, and you surprised him with a middle finger, which he yelled at you afterwards, but couldn’t really continue to complain as the countdown for the next photo were already starting. 
Since Jungkook spent at least three and a half seconds with his protest, you both were panicking for the last picture, running out of ideas. As the countdown stating two, he suddenly pulled you closer and leaned on your shoulder. The shutter flashed and the photo was taken. You were still in awe and couldn’t process what just happened. You only followed when you saw Jungkook making his way out from the booth to collect the picture. 
The guy giggled like a highschool boy, taking the printed photos, then giving one copy to you. You stared at the last picture, how genuine Jungkook’s smile when he leaned on your shoulder, while you had your eyes widened in surprise. You felt your face heating in embarrassment. 
“Ugh… can we just cut out the last picture?” 
“I was thinking the same thing, I’m putting it on my wallet!” He said, eyes still looking up and down on the set of photos. 
When you only looked at him in disbelief, he uttered a small “what?”, and laughed. 
Both of you ended up eating some cups of ramen in a nearby convenience store, as you wait for the rain to stop pouring. He took you home right after, insisting on waking you to your door. 
“Take care of little Kookie for me, yeah?” He said, pointing at your frog plushie, as you stopped at your unit’s front door. 
“Why is he named after you?” You chuckled. 
“I’m his father!” He pretended to be offended.
“Well, say bye to your papa now, little Kookie.” You waved the plushie’s small hand to him. 
Jungkook felt his heart somersault. He turned away for a second, covering his mouth. He cleared his throat. “Well, uh… thank you again, for today…”
“Yeah! Thank you too…” You chewed your inner lips, hugging your plushie close. 
“I uh…” He awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. “I just wanna let you know that what I said to you… about deciding whether you like me or not after the dates… I was just saying stuff. I don’t wanna pressure you into deciding your feelings for me or anything, I genuinely just wanna spend some time with you, and I’m thankful for your time.” 
You nodded, smiling at him. Your eyes locked with each other for a quick second. Your heart skipped a beat. Maybe it was the moonlight, or the lamp in front of your door that you recently just got replaced. Either way, you could see the stars in Jungkook’s eyes and his skin glowed, but so did his lips. They were practically sparkling and glossy, you wondered if he had put any lip balm over it. For a moment, your attention stopped at his lips, just wondering how it would feel against yours. Would it be soft? Would you feel the cold metal of his lip piercing against your skin? 
The man in front of you seemed to be lost in his thoughts as well. You swore you saw his eyes darted to your lips for a quick glance, before coming back to your eyes. Just when he leaned down a bit to your height level… 
You froze. What was that? You felt your stomach turned, you couldn’t exactly point out whether it was due to nervousness, or if you were simply just afraid. You took a step back and your back almost hit the front door.
“You should head back, it could rain again soon…” You said, looking away. 
“Oh.” There was disappointment in his voice. “Okay then… bye.” He waved to you awkwardly and walked away. 
As you see his figure walking away, you went inside your apartment and closed the door behind you. Sitting down on your sofa, you put your hand over your chest. Funny how your heart was still beating so fast. You were panicking, feeling everything all at once. Nervousness, excitement, curiosity, but mostly fright. The unknown territory was making you scared. The new feelings you were feeling, you didn’t even know if it would be okay to feel it. 
Still laying down on your sofa, you took your phone and dialed your best friend. 
“You called.” You heard Yoongi’s voice from the other line. 
“Why are you saying it like that.” 
“You only call when you’re stressing over something, otherwise, you only text.” 
You hate how smart and observant your friend was sometimes. “I think I feel something for Jungkook.” 
“Isn’t that… I don’t know, good?” 
“I don’t know… it just hit me like a truck, okay? One minute I wanna punch that stupid grin out of his face, the next thing I know, his lips looked so shiny and he got me wondering if his piercings would feel cold against my lips.” 
“Okay, wow.” Yoongi said in amusement. “Care to elaborate?”
“What if I’m just… super horny or something? I mean I haven’t been with anyone for like god knows how long now, and I could just be desperate and Jungkook is good looking, extremely good looking may I add, and—“
“Okay, okay… Y/N, pause for a second.” Yoongi sighed. “So you think you might be just horny and you feel bad for it?”
“Of course I feel bad! I don’t wanna use Jungkook like that! Just because he has this stupid crush on me, doesn’t mean I can do whatever I want with him. I’m not that kind of person!” You exclaimed, the volume of your voice getting slightly higher. 
“Tell me, how do you feel after the dates? Did you enjoy it?”
“Well yeah, I had a great time actually. I didn’t expect Jungkook to be that caring, and he’s actually very good at initiating conversation…” You wondered what else you could point out. 
“During that time, did Jungkook mention or do anything sexual?” 
“N-no! Of course not! Yoongi, do you take me as the fuck-on-the-first-date kind of person???” You said, slightly offended.
“So you like him.” He stated casually. 
“I’m sorry?”
“You caught feelings. Just admit that Jungkook has officially win you over.”
“I… what…” 
“I knew it. I shouldn’t have let you go on those dates, now both of you are gonna be so gross when we hang out...” You heard your friend groaned. 
“I like him?” You asked, more to yourself rather than to your best friend. 
“Maybe you should call Jungkook instead and tell him.”
You widened your eyes in horror. “No way, that guy only has a crush on me, it’s more of a hyperfixation, like I’m his girl of the month or something. I’m sure it’s not like how you think it is.”
“You should ask him yourself instead of making assumptions, just saying. And you know…” Yoongi paused for a second before continuing. “I think that kid is actually a good person, despite how dumb and annoying he looks.” When he got no respond from you, he spoke again. “Alright, I’ll leave you with your thoughts, just make sure you’ll talk with him about this, okay? Take care, Y/N.” 
Yoongi hang up the call while you were still sitting down, expression blank, staring at the wall in front of you. 
Jungkook didn’t text you at all after the date. Not like you text each other regularly, but you lowkey expected him to after. You wanted to call him, or at least text him. You wanted to say how you feel but you were again, scared. You began to think if you were reading it wrong. He was popular, you wondered if he just acted like that to everyone, if you were catching feelings, while he just wanted to hang out and have a bit of fun. After all, he never really explicitly said that he had feelings for you, all you knew that he admitted his giant crush for you while being under the influence of alcohol. 
You never hear from Jungkook again until the next week. Hoseok invited you all to game night over his place. You wanted so badly to bail and fake being sick, but Yoongi picked you up, basically forcing you to come and face your problem like an actual adult.
With all these new and mixed emotions that you were still getting used to, the thought of seeing Jungkook in person sounded so overwhelming. He would probably just act like how he usually would, because of course, why wouldn’t he. After all you were the one who suddenly took a weird turn.
“Finally!” Hoseok shouted, as he opened the door for both of you and Yoongi. 
“Come on, switch with Namjoon, he sucks!” Jin spoke while his eyes still not leaving the TV screen and his fingers loud against the controller. 
They were playing Tekken 8 on Hoseok’s Playstation. You saw how Namjoon was basically getting his ass kicked, playing as a Panda character, while Jin quickly leading himself towards victory using the character that coincidentally has the same name as him. 
Jin Kazama wins. 
The oldest one screamed happily, while Namjoon’s protests and excuses could be heard very loudly. Everyone laughed at the two, so it was easy to spot the one who didn’t laugh as much, whose expression didn’t hold that much excitement, sitting on the edge of the sofa just playing with his phone instead. 
“Y/N, come on!” Jin patted the on the carpet to the now empty seat next to him, since Namjoon already excused himself to get more popsicles from the fridge. 
You followed and sat down next to Jin on the carpet, which was directly in front of Jungkook, who was slouching on the couch. 
Sitting down quietly, you took the controller and beginning to scroll through the rooster of characters. You chose the character named Lili, while Jin stayed with his current main. 
When you beat Jin and the sound of your friends cheering loudly was heard, you began to feel a little bit relaxed, at the very least you could forget for a moment about your situation with Jungkook. That was until, you heard Yoongi spoke. 
“Jungkook, your turn.” 
You immediately turned your head towards your best friend, eyeing him straight. How could he betray you like this was beyond you. 
“Nah, you play I’m not really in the mood.” He rejected politely.
Your eyes went back to the screen because you refused to see Jungkook’s expression. You pretended to busy yourself pressing the dpad button up and down on the character choices. 
“This is the first time I’ve ever heard Jungkook refusing a match.” Taehyung said while munching on his potato chips. 
“Yeah, that’s so unlike you, man!” Hobi joined. “Come on, we all know you’re good, but Y/N doesn’t know that yet!” He added. 
A small groan came out from Jungkook’s mouth before he stood up, and once again everyone cheered. Jin stood to switch seats with him. The man locked his eyes with you once, before sitting down and picking up the controller in his hand. He didn’t take too long picking a character. His choice landed on a boxer character. 
The match went quietly with only the sound of the video game from the speaker. Your friends behind you somehow went silent as well, and the atmosphere in the room became very tense. 
“Is it just me or it kinda feels like they’re actually fighting with each other…” Jin whispered to Hoseok who was sitting next to him. Hoseok only signaled with his hand shaking next to his neck to cut it out, while the rest only widened their eyes and try their best not to make any comment. 
You pretended like you did not hear any of it and kept mashing the controller buttons. The milliseconds of your attention being taken away from the game gave your opponent a leaway to break your combo and finally beating down your character. 
Steve Fox wins. 
“All right, Yoongi you switch with me, I’m gonna go get some air.” You excused yourself and headed to the balcony, closing the door behind you. 
Technically it was not a lie. It just got a bit stuffy with eight people inside an apartment living room. Especially when the guy you suddenly had feelings for was in the equation as well. 
You searched your back pocket for your pod and cursed silently when it was nowhere inside your jeans pocket. 
“Looking for your vape?” Jungkook entered the balcony uninvited, wiggling your small disposable vape pod in front of you. But when you were about to take it from him, he withdrew his hand. “I thought you’ve stopped.”
“I did. I only do it when I’m nervous. That’s why it’s a disposable.” You said weakly. 
“I noticed.” He replied in a monotone, now pocketing the pod inside his pants, refusing to give it to you. 
“You smoke, don’t act all high.” You retorted. 
“Well, have you seen me smoke these past few weeks?” 
“No, actually… yeah, now that I think of it, you didn’t even smoke once when we went out—“ You stopped when the memories of your date went through your head. “Jungkook, about that…” You bit your lips, nervously facing him. 
He also turned his body to your direction, looking at you directly. “I’m sorry.” He suddenly said. 
“Huh? For what?” 
“I feel like I’ve pressured you into something you don’t actually want. I’ve been thinking and re-thinking about it the past few days and it drives me crazy. I may have feelings for you, but that doesn’t give me the right to drag you along to do stuff with me just because you enjoyed spending time with me as a friend.”
“Wait, Jungkook, I don’t feel that way!”
“I know! That’s why I apologize—“
“No! I mean, I didn’t feel like you dragged me along or anything. I genuinely enjoyed our date and…” You looked away, taking a deep breath before continuing. “If I’m not reading it wrong, you’re saying you truly have feelings for me?” 
“Isn’t that obvious already?” 
“Well, I thought I was just your girl obsession of the week or something… You have celebrity crushes left and right, okay?! Hell, you even had a crush on Namjoon at one point!!!” 
“The Namjoon crush was a joke. Man just got some nice thighs and I was just admiring it.” He defended. 
You took another deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry as well… the emotions were all just come clashing to me at once and I just told you to go home instead of dealing with it.” 
“But, you rejected my kiss...” He said with a weak voice, you almost didn’t catch it. 
“Cause I haven’t figured out what I want yet. I thought I was just so touch deprived that your lips looked inviting that day.” You admitted while cursing yourself secretly inside your mind. That was lowkey embarrassing. 
“Try being me, your lips look inviting every single day!” He exclaimed, his mood now seemed to be improving. 
“Be serious.” You hit his sides. He muttered an “ow” but you doubted it even hurt the slightest bit. 
“So now you’ve figured out what you want?” His doe eyes looking at you directly. 
“I’m getting there… I guess.” You broke the eye contact, it was a bit too much for you and suddenly you felt a bit sweaty. “But I think I like you too.” 
“Say that again while looking at me.” 
“Hell no.” You suddenly covered your face with both of your hands. 
“Please?” He grabbed your wrists, softly trying to prey open your hands. “I just want to have the visual memory of it captured in my brain.”
When you finally loosened your grip, he took his chance and held both of your hands in his. He grabbed them for a few seconds, intertwining his fingers with yours, before letting them go. He traced his fingers along your right wrist where you wore the bracelet that he got you, the one he got matching with his, and then moved his hands up to cup your face. The entire time he did all that, you could actually feel the shakiness in his hands, and it melted your heart. 
“Can I?”
You nodded and he did not waste any second before dipping in and closing the gap between you. 
Oh boy you were right, his piercings did feel cold against your lips, but that was only for a quick second before everything felt warm and soft, and your mind became blurry. You were moving your lips against his carefully, afraid to accidentally hurt him by his piercing, but instead earned a small bite on your bottom lip from Jungkook. You gasped and pulled away, hitting his chest. Since when were you in his embrace? That you did not know. 
“We gotta head back now or they’ll get suspicious.”
He giggled and kissed your forehead. “They’re already suspicious, babe.” 
“Still, we gotta head back…”
“You guys done making out?! We’re hungry!!!” You heard Jimin shouted from inside the apartment. 
Jungkook and you looked at each other with widened eyes, before laughing in unison. He pecked you on the lips one more time before running back inside with you, holding hands. 
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Thank you for reading! 🌸
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ominous-horse-noises · 7 months ago
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im ab to be annoying ab dimension20 fhjy but im genuinely loving the character arcs for the bad kids this season?
kristen going from self-annihilatingly stupid to trying to build a genuine bridge with the man who not only wielded the religion that traumatised her (bobby dawn), but also was trying to ruin her life, just bc she thought a grieving father ought to be comforted in some way? her genuine distress at being unable to revivify buddy even though the two had only had negative interactions, or her biting her tongue in front of her parents so she could better look after her little siblings? grappling with the fact that she still, on some level, expected practising religion to be easy and convenient for her as a holdover from an entire childhood spent being a Chosen One, and finally putting her nose to the grindstone and committing to working her ass off for a deity that couldn't even benefit her for a hot minute? making an effort to be cordial with tracker's new gf and letting go of that codependency? the kristen applebees from ep20 would NOT do all the same stupid shit as ep1 and i love that.
fabian being humbled by the narrative again and again has been an absolute treat for his character. the whole ivy/mazey situation was great: freshman/sophomore year fabian would've gone for ivy no sweat, i mean her character seemed pretty similar to pre-redemption aelwyn and he had a huge crush on her then. but this time, when he realised he'd hurt a genuinely great person, and intentionally swallowed his pride to make it up to mazey, even though it required him being 'uncool' with the whole twister thing. his general arc of learning that earnestness and humility doesn't make him less of a man felt like a natural extension of fabian defining his own version of masculinity- sure, a 'maximum legend', but also someone deeply involved in the arts, and someone who is less afraid of saying sorry and being vulnerable in front of someone he likes
fig. fig fig fig. what a woman. its been absolutely fascinating watching build her sense of identity over these three seasons. at her core, fig is a character that loves so deeply. in freshman, she was terrified of the depth of her own devotion, so she tried to distance herself emotionally from everyone. in sophomore, she built herself around that love for other people. in junior year, fig's arc has been learning she can do both: that she's defined by her love for others, but not solely by it. ik emily wanted to retire the character before this season but i think fig's paladin arc was the best capstone to her journey possible.
gorgug's arc has been about establishing clear boundaries for himself and i love it. im aware there's been some Discourse ab the mango soda scene but to me that was pretty easily chalked up to teenage insecurity. a big part of gorgug's arc was trying to believe in himself when everyone around him told him he was too dumb to follow his passion- imagine struggling in an area that you have no natural aptitude for, and someone comes along and also trounces you in the one area you thought you were the best in. i'd be petty and reactive too (gorgug follows up calling her a freak with the fact that she beat the shit out of him, so its clearly him just still smarting from a bruised ego and not actual malice). in general, i've really like gorgug learning to put his foot down and say enough is enough without completely losing his gentleness.
adaine hasnt had an obvious arc, but considering she addressed most of her baggage in the first two seasons, i'm not surprised. i would've liked to see the other bad kids address her 'teenage adult' behaviour, but her self-awareness about it and relying on fabian to pull in clutch for the oracool stuff still felt like she'd learned to rely on her friends at least + her reaching out to aelwyn and the two of them healing from their parents together has been rewarding it its own right.
riz is perfect and has learned nothing. his neuroticism is part of his natural swag
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waitimcomingtoo · 1 year ago
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And I Wouldn’t Marry Me Either
Pairing: Tom Holland x singer!reader
Synopsis: you release some songs about Tom after a disagreement ends in a breakup
Masterlist
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“Marry me.”
“Right now? But I just got comfortable.” Tom mumbled into his pillow with a sleepy smile.
“I’m serious.” You whispered through a laugh and shook his shoulder. Tom’s eyes slowly opened and he could see the blurry outline of you lying next to him in your bed.
“What?”
“I’m just thinking.” You began. “We’ve been together five years.”
“I’m aware.” Tom laughed and snuggled back into his pillow.
“So we should do it. We should get married.” You propped yourself up on your elbow to look at him.
“We are married. Everyone knows you’re my girl.” Tom said without opening his eyes and pulled you into his arms. He tried to go back to sleep but you still wanted to talk.
“I know.” You laughed. “But I want to make it official.”
“What, in Gods eyes and all that? I didn’t think you cared about that.” He laughed dismissively and rolled over. You sat up fully in the bed and looked down at him.
“It’s not about that. I want the flowers and the dress and the rings. Don’t you want that?” You asked and shook him a little to clue him in that you were trying to have a serious conversation. You watched Tom shrug and roll onto his back to look up at you.
“I don’t know. I always found weddings kinda dumb.”
“What? What do you mean dumb?” You forced a laugh and tried to hide the disappointment in your tone.
“I mean, like, they’re not even legally binding. It’s this whole big celebration that people spend their life savings on just to get drunk and slid rings on each other fingers. You still have to go to the courthouse to get married and even that’s just a piece of paper.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize you felt that way.” You laughed shortly and picked at your nail polish to look busy.
“I didn’t realize you felt a different way.” He said and rolled back onto his stomach. Tom closed his eyes to go back to sleep and you felt your heart sink in your chest. You got out of the bed and opened the curtains a little to distract yourself with the view. You touched the silky white curtains and smiled to yourself as you thought of all the pictures of white dresses you had saved on your Pinterest throughout the years.
“I’ve always dreamed of my wedding.” You said over your shoulder. “I think every little girl does at some point. Every rom com I grew up on ends with the perfect fairy tale wedding. I always wanted that. I wanted my happy ending.”
“But those are just movies. I bet half those couples wouldn’t last in real life.”
“But it’s sweet that they plan that special day together and then get to celebrate their love in front of all their family and friends.”
“Yeah, all that planning just so they can get divorced before the first year is up.” Tom snorted. “I think the whole idea of weddings are stupid. I mean, you spend all that time and money planning for a one day event that people will just attend for the free booze. Plus, women starve themselves for months and spend thousands of dollars on a dress they’ll wear once? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Wow. Tell me how you really feel, Tom.” You laughed shortly and folded your arms to glare at him. Tom sensed your tone and sat up in bed to pay better attention.
“I just think it’s all so ancient.” He shrugged. “I’m surprised you don’t agree. Weddings cannot exist without all the bullshit sexist traditions. I mean, the white dress to symbolize the brides supposed purity, the father of the bride literally “giving her away” to another man after being asked permission to get engaged in the first place, and then to top it off with her taking his last name because she’s now his property or something. It’s all so trivial and perverse.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that. Those traditions may be rooted in old fashioned thinking but I think it’s sweet to ask for my fathers permission. And yeah, I do want my dad holding my hand and walking me down the aisle. He’s not giving me away to be another man’s property, he’s standing by my side as I enter a new chapter of my life. Which is why I want my mama right there on my other side. Plus, lots of people hyphenate their last names nowadays. It doesn’t have to be this monstrous sexism fest you’re making it out to be.” You rolled your eyes and walked into the bathroom that was attached to your bedroom. Tom frowned when you shut the door. You usually left it open a crack when you did your morning skincare routine, but today, you were shutting him out. Tom got out of bed and walked into the bathroom to see you. You didn’t look up at him as you washed your face.
“Come on. Are you seriously mad because I dissed your rom coms?” Tom said as he put his hands on your hips and kissed your shoulder.
“I’m not mad about that.” You mumbled and brushed him off.
“Then what are you mad about, sour patch?” He teased and kissed your shoulder again.
“I’m mad because I’ve been getting my nails done weekly leading up to our five year anniversary just in case you proposed and you just told me that’s never even crossed your mind!” You exclaimed as hot tears of embarrassment brimmed your eyes. You stormed out of the bathroom and when Tom processed what you had said, he followed after you.
“I don’t believe in marriage, okay? I think it’s unnecessary. Why can’t we just live like this forever? What’s the difference?”
“The difference is pretty big. But I guess you don’t see it like that.” You shrugged and kept walking away from him.
“Can you honestly tell me what would be different between us if we signed a stupid piece of paper at the courthouse or didn’t?” Tom said as he put his hands on your shoulders to keep you in place for a second.
“The difference is I’d be your wife and not just the pathetic girlfriend who stayed even though you didn’t lock it down.” You raised your voice at him and pushed his hands off of you.
“So you only want to get married because you care what people think? How romantic.” Tom rolled his eyes at you.
“That’s not the only reason. I want to get married because it’s important to me. It’s a public commitment where we promise to love and protect each other forever. I want that.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t. I don’t need a ceremony to do that. I can promise you that right here.” Tom calmed down and took your hands.
“But that’s not special.” You sighed and withdrew your hands.
“If you don’t find that special then maybe you don’t love me as much as you think you do.” Tom said, immediately regretting it.
“What?” You whispered and looked into his eyes to see if he was serious.
“Look, darling, I’m sorry.” He said softly. “I just don’t see the point in marriage. I don’t need to prove I love you with a ring and wedding. I chose to love you every day. That’s enough for me.”
“What if it’s not enough for me?” You genuinely asked him as you wondered it for yourself.
“Then maybe you need to stop being so shallow and materialistic and ask yourself if you’re with me because you love me or because you want to play out some childhood fantasy that you saw in a stupid movie.” He shouted.
You both instantly got quiet. You were quiet for a very long time.
“I didn’t even mean that.”
“I don’t even care.” Your voice cracked as you grabbed your purse and slammed the front door behind you when you left.
“Is this one okay?” Harrison asked, pulling Tom out of his daydream. He replayed that fight over in his head about a dozen times a day. If his mind wasn’t occupied by something at all times, he’d perform an autopsy on that last conversation with you to try and understand what he should’ve done differently.
“What?” Tom asked without looking at his friend. He was too busy staring at the seat you always used to sit in at the kitchen counter.
“Can I use this one?” Harrison repeated and held up a muted purple mug as the tea kettle went off in the background. Tom tore his eyes away from your chair and when he saw the mug, all he could picture was your lipstick stain that used to stain it.
“That’s Y/n’s mug.” Tom said, descending a chill over the room. Harry and Sam’s attention was caught and they looked at Tom to see where this conversation was going.
“Oh. Sorry. I’ll put it back.” Harry said and quickly went to put it back in the cabinet.
“It’s fine. She’s not using it.” Tom shrugged. Everyone looked at each other as the awkwardness became palpable.
“How’s she’s doing?” Sam asked and sipped his tea to seem less interested than he really was.
“She’s good. Shes been recording some stuff at her New York studio. New music and whatnot.” Tom replied. He didn’t know this because you told him. He knew this because he’d been stalking your fanpages for every possible sighting of you.
“Have you guys talked lately?” Harry asked.
“Not really. Not since she left.” Tom admitted without looking up at his friends.
“You guys didn’t break up, did you?” Harrison asked, worsening the icy tension. Tom froze at the question for a minute and then shrugged. He didn’t really know what the answer was. In the weeks you’d been gone, you’d make small talk sometimes about work and the weather, but it never went beyond that. It was more to be polite. You kept in touch enough to know what the other was up to on a weekly basis, but you both knew you were dragging out something that had died. You wanted Tom to just say it was over already instead of pretending everything was normal, but he was never going to do that.
“I don’t know. We left things kinda up in the air.” Tom replied. The boys exchanged glances and Harrison nodded to let them know he was gonna take charge.
“Up in the air?” He questioned.
“Yep. Up in the air. Ambiguous. Vague. Open to interpretation. Call it what you want.” Tom shrugged again like it didn’t matter, but it did.
“Well what was the last thing you said to each other?” Harry wondered.
“She said she needed some space and was going to New York. And I said okay.” Tom recalled.
“What about before that?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t talk much in the days leading up to her leaving.” Tom replied and took a long sip of his tea.
“She didn’t speak to you?” Sam asked.
“She did.” Tom nodded. “Sometimes.”
“You didn’t speak to her?” Harrison asked, already knowing the answer.
“I didn’t have anything to say.” Tom shrugged. Nobody spoke a word, but all the boys were thinking the same thing. They knew how bad this was, and that it signaled the end of your relationship.
“What?” Tom asked when he noticed the shift in vibe.
“I’m just surprised.” Harrison shrugged. “You guys were never like this. I can’t even remember your last fight.”
“We didn’t fight. You can’t fight when you don’t speak.” Tom said with a sarcastic smile.
“You should call her.” Harry suggested. “It’s gonna be at least a week since she’s been there, right?”
“Four weeks.” Tom corrected without meeting anyone’s else.
“Mate, you gotta call her.” Harry said quietly and put his hand on Tom’s shoulder.
“I can’t.” Tom shook his head.
“Why not?”
“She can’t break up with me if I don’t talk to her. As long as we don’t have that conversation, we’ll still be together.”
“I’m not sure that’s how it works, Buddy.” Harrison said apologetically. Tom sucked in a sharp breath and looked at his friend with tears brimming his bloodshot eyes.
“I don’t know what else to do.” He said with a crack in his voice.
“Oh shit.” Sam said suddenly, getting everyone’s attention.
“What?” Tom asked.
“She’s dropping a song tonight. She just announced it.” Sam said and showed Tom your Twitter. Tom took Sam’s phone to read your announcement better. Sure enough, you had posted a picture of you dramatically lying across a piano bench with your left hand covering half of your face. You had a ring on every finger except for your ring finger, a detail that wasn’t lost on Tom. He handed Sam’s phone back and look at the floor.
“You didn’t know about this?” Sam asked, and Tom shook his head. He’d gone from being the first person you played every song for to finding out on Twitter that you had a song coming out.
“What’s it called?” Harrison wondered. Sam looked down at his phone to read the title and gulped.
“Who cares?” Sam forced a laugh and put his phone away.
“What’s it called?” Tom asked again.
“You Don’t Know Me Anymore.” Sam mumbled. Tom shut his eyes and hung his head in shame. He hadn’t even heard the song yet but knew it was going to be bad news.
“When does that come out?” He asked Sam.
“Midnight. Tonight.”
Tom’s friends stayed with him all day until midnight rolled around. At 11:58, Tom placed his laptop on the kitchen table and opened YouTube. He knew you always released lyric videos when you dropped a new song and he needed to reach every single world you said. When midnight came, he refreshed his screen and clicked on your video. The background image was a picture of you looking in a mirror with messy hair. You had digitally added sparkly, purple tears to run down the still image of your face. You played a couple notes on the piano before the lyrics appeared beside your face in your handwriting.
“I wish you’d just put me out of my misery
You already know I’m at your mercy
I don’t know why you’re dragging this out
You have all the power, if that’s what this is about
I’m not gonna be the one who walks away
So I need you to say what you want to say
I already know it’s over so just let it end
Please don’t give me the pity of asking to stay friends.”
“I don’t think we should be listening to this.” Sam said as he paused the video.
“Play it.” Tom demanded. Sam sighed and pressed play while the other exchanged looks.
“I’ve been feeling you leaving
I hate this part more than the ending
The moments leading up when I know your heart has changed
I don’t know why we keep pretending
If it’s done just say it’s done
Don’t just change your mind and not tell me
I already know so just let me go
Don’t just watch as I sit and bleed.”
“I don’t think-“ Sam began as he paused it again.
“Stop pausing it.” Tom cut him off. “Play it. I need to hear it.”
Sam pressed play again and Tom pulled the laptop over to himself so he could control it.
“Cause I cut my hand on that first crack in the glass
I feel the icy air between us when you pass me
So I took your chain off from around my neck
I’ll think of something else your initial can stand for
You don’t deserve to see me wearing it anyway
You don’t know me anymore.”
Tom didn’t realize he had started to cry until his tears his his keyboard. He couldn’t see the video anymore from his blurry his eyes had gotten. He wiped his face and leaned on his hands to give the song better attention.
“You know I would die for you in secret
Like that song I showed you in my car
I don’t think you even listened to it
You didn’t draw stars around my scars
You drew your arrow and let it fly
Right into my heart and let me die
Actually, I wish that was the curtesy you provided
Instead, you let this love become one sided
And now we’re shattered like a glass that was dropped
You broke my heart until the day that it stopped
You never got down on knee
Even when I crumbled onto both of mine
I wonder if you ever really wanted me
How did you think we were fine?
And at what part did you realize you liked the idea of me?
But who I actually am isn’t someone you wanted
I miss who I was before we met
Now I can’t go back, I’m haunted
And you were right not to marry me
If I could walk away from me too, I would
You were right to leave when you did
I know I would too if I could
But I’m stuck here with myself
Forever scratching and clawing at your door
Keep it all, even my memories
You’re lucky you don’t know me anymore.”
Everyone sat in silence once the song ended. Tom wiped his eyes again but tears just kept falling down his face.
“That probably wasn’t even about you.” Harrison said after a long beat of silence. Tom gave him a look before turning to his brothers.
“What do you think?” He asked Harry.
“It sounds like she’s hurting too.” Harry shrugged. “I think you’re both waiting for the other to say you’re broken up.”
“Well I’m not saying it.” Tom stated. “She has to.”
“And if she doesn’t?” Sam asked kindly.
“Then we don’t break up.”
“Again, I’m not really sure that’s how it works.”
“Well it’s what I’m going with. Because I can’t break up with her.” Tom sniffled and shut the laptop.
“But you can’t go on like this either.” Sam pointed out.
“She’ll come home when she’s ready.” Tom said, but no one in the room believed him.
And didn’t come home for a while.
After another week of silence, Tom flew to New York to see you. He got to your apartment and knocked on your door without any particular plan in mind. You opened it with a smile but when you saw who it was, you tensed up.
“Hi.” He said with a sad smile.
“If you came to to propose to me as some kind of grand gesture-“
“Please, let me talk.” He cut you off. You sighed and nodded as you leaned against your doorway.
“We have different opinions. But I don’t love or respect anyone more than you. So I am willing to hear your side, which is not something I did last time we spoke about this. I was just listening for what I could rebuttal against. I wasn’t actually listening to understand your thoughts and feelings. But I’m ready now.” He said. You nodded again and seemed to drop the wall that you had put up.
“It matters to me that we get married.” You told him. “I know you think it’s pointless and doesn’t change anything, but it changes things for me. If you picked out a ring, asked my parents permission, and got down on one knee, that would all make me feel special and loved. Those things matter to me in a relationship.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t know that.”
“But now you do know so if you propose, I know you’re just gonna do it to appease me. I’ll always know that you think it’s stupid when I look at the ring.”
“I admit that it found it a little dumb in the past. But it matters to you. And nothing that matters to you can be stupid.”
“I can’t get married to you knowing you don’t really want it. It’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to me.” You said and went to close the door.
“But I can’t lose you. My thoughts on marriage literally do not matter to me in the slightest. If it’s important to you and if it is what it takes to make you feel special and loved, then I want it too.” Tom pleaded as he pushed your door back open.
“But you don’t want it. You just don’t want to break up.”
“I can put on a tux for a night and suffer through if it means that much to you.” He said with a slight laugh to lighten the mood. Your face changed and he had somehow made the situation worse.
“Suffer?” You asked quietly with a told of your head.
“I’m sorry. That was a poor choice of words. But darling, I’m saying we can get married. I’ll do whatever it is you want. Why do you still look so upset?”
“Because you don’t get it.” You shook your head. “And I’m afraid you never will.”
“What don’t I get? I don’t understand. I’m telling you I’ll give you what you want.”
“But you don’t want it too. That’s what I’m trying to say. It’s the principle, Tom. Remember how disappointed I was that one time when I said I wanted ice cream so we went to the shop but you didn’t get anything? I didn’t mean I wanted ice cream. I meant I wanted us to get ice cream together so we could eat it and spend time together. This is like that but times a million. You can’t compromise on marriage. You either believe in it or you don’t. So even if we did get married, it wouldn’t mean to you what it means to me. I would always think back to that conversation we had and remember how you really feel about marriage. I keep replaying all the things you said that day in my head. We both know how you feel about marriage and we both know it’s not something you want.”
“So that one conversation ruined it for you? Completely?” He asked.
“Yes, it did.” You answered truthfully. You stared at each other for a minute as both your eyes welled with tears. You both knew you’d reached a stalemate and there was nothing more to be done.
“So what do we do now?” Tom asked without looking at you.
“I love you. More than I’ve ever loved anyone.” You told him, making him perk up.
“So do I.” He smiled as tears rolled down his face.
“But what if that’s not enough?” You asked him. Tom froze and felt the situation escaping from him fast.
“We’ve been together almost 5 years, darling. That’s five birthdays, Christmas’s, anniversaries. You make up so much of my life. We’re exactly right for each other. It’s supposed to be you and me in the end. I can’t do this with anyone else.”
“And I can’t do this with you.” You laughed sadly and gestured to him. Tom’s heart dropped in his chest when it became apparent that this was more than just a fight.
“Are you breaking up with me?”
“I think I am.” You nodded. Neither of you could believe the words that were coming out of your mouth but it was too late to take them back.
“Does marriage really mean that much to you that you’d rather break up instead of just living a long, happy life together?” Tom asked you.
“I guess it does.” You realized. He stood there in shock as you put a hand on his shoulder and brought him closer to kiss his cheek.
“Goodbye, Tom.” You smiled sadly at him and shut your door.
Another month went by and you did not come home. You busied yourself with your music and dove into your next album, but that didn’t stop you from thinking about him on midnights when you were left alone with your thoughts. Tom thought about you a lot more often, like every time he saw your face on his TV. He tuned in one night to watch you debut your latest music video of your newest song. His eyes were glued to the TV as the video opened with your back to some brown eyed actor.
“You say “I don’t understand” and “I say I know you don’t.” We thought a cure would come through in time, now I fear it won’t.” You sang with your eyes glued to the floor. The setting changed and you were walking through an apartment that Tom recognized.
“She filmed this on Cornelia Street?” Tom whispered to himself and sat back on his couch.
“Remember lookin' at this room, we loved it 'cause of the light.” A smiling version of you sang as she walked though the apartment holding the hand of the actor playing Tom. The setting changed again and you were still in the room, but the lights were off and you were sitting alone in the floor.
“Now, I just sit in the dark and wonder if it's time.” You sang while not looking in the camera. The rest of the video followed in suit. You flashed between happy, golden hued memories with the actor to grey toned solo shots of you sitting alone at your piano or on the floor. The difference in the moods made Tom reminisce on the old times and he wondered how long it has been since he had made you smile the way you were doing in the video.
“Stop, you’re losing me. Stop, stop, stop. You’re losing me.” You sang while looking directly into the camera as a purple heart monitor line ran through the background behind you and eventually flatlined. Tom felt like you were staring right into his soul and realized this was the closest he’d gotten to making eye contact with you in a while. He watched the sad, grey version of yourself split from the happy version and suddenly, there were two of you on the screen while the actor playing Tom ignored them both.
“How long can we be a sad song till we were too far gone to bring back to life?” The both of you sang while Tom’s counterpart read the newspaper and didn’t look at either. He thought of the days leading up to you leaving for New York where he’d be doing exactly that, reading the newspaper to pretend to look busy when he felt you glaring at him. He wiped his face and watched as the scene changed to the three of you at a party. The sad version of you was clinging to Tom’s counterpart defensively while the other version of you yelled at him with a drink in your hand.
“Fighting in only your army. Front lines, don’t you ignore me. I’m the best thing as this party.” You yelled and drunkenly stumbled around while the rest of the party watched.
“You’re losing me.” The grey version whispered into Tom’s ear. He assumed that version represented the part of you that missed him while the other version represented the you that knew it was over. The scene changed again and this time, you were back in the Cornelia Street apartment with an open ring box in the center of the table. There was no ring inside, just a burning flame.
“And I wouldn’t marry me either. A pathological people pleaser.Who only wanted you to see her.” You said into the camera while Tom’s character threw things into a bag behind you and went to leave.
“And I’m fading thinking do something babe! Say something! Lose something, babe. Risk something. You’re losing me! Chose something, babe. I got nothing to believe unless you’re choosing me.” The grey version of you desperately said to Tom’s counterpart as she pulled on his arm to beg him to stay. It was like he couldn’t see her at all and just kept walking towards the door. The golden version of yourself opened the door and pointed for him to get out while the other version of you jumped in front of him and dropped to her knees to get him to stay. Tom’s character walked right through her and she faded to dust, leaving just the one version of yourself to watch him go. The music stopped and you ended up running after him, but he was already gone. You turned and ran down Cornelia Street but didn’t go back into your apartment. You just kept running down the street and turned the block so that the camera couldn’t see you anymore. The camera panned out to show the Cornelia Street sign and a violin version of your song by the same name played in the background as the street sign turned grey and faded into dust. The screen turned black and Tom was left alone in the silence.
After another month, he found himself outside your door again. He knocked on it and felt his heart pound until you opened it up.
“Tom? What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for you. I came to fix this.” He said simply.
“Tom, I don’t know that we can fix this.” You said apologetically. It felt amazing to see him, but it didn’t change the fact that you ultimately wanted different things in life.
“You were right. You can’t compromise on marriage. And you either believe in it or you don’t.” He began before getting down on one knee.
“Tom?” You asked skeptically as your eyes went wide. He pulled a ring box out of his pocket and opened it up for you.
“It’s your moms ring. Your dad gave it to her for the third Valentine’s Day they celebrated together in college. She doesn’t wear it anymore because it’s one size too small, so she gave it to me when I asked them for permission to marry you.”
“You asked them?” You smiled in surprise that he had done one of the things you said mattered to you.
“I did. It was a little awkward to find out your mother already knew all about our previous conversations about marriage so you can probably guess how confused I was.” He said with an embarrassed laugh.
“What did my dad say?”
“He said as long as I make you happy, he’s proud to have me join the family.”
“See? No one’s giving me away to anyone. We’re just creating a bigger family for the two of us.”
“I see that now. I see a lot of the points you made. And what your dad said got me thinking.”
“About?”
“All I want is to make you happy. Which is different from agreeing to things I don’t want to do to appease you. I do want to watch you walk down the aisle in a dress that’s been in your Pinterest board since you were 13. I do want to plan the seating arrangement and introduce my weird friends from college to your weird friends from college. I want to plan the entire thing because that’s something we can do together, and those are my favorite things to do.”
“What about the ceremony? And the marriage license? You don’t want those things.”
“I didn’t at first.” He admitted. “But after actually thinking about it and reevaluating the opinion I formed before I ever even had a serious relationship, I realized I feel differently. You make me feel differently. I would proudly sign my name next to yours on a marriage license. Because I happen to think our names look pretty good together. And as for the ceremony, I know we can’t compromise, but we can collaborate. It doesn’t have to be a huge blowout party. It can be the best elements of the both of us. And we can plan it together.”
“That all sounds very lovely, but it doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t believe in marriage just a few months ago. Am I really supposed to believe you’ve truly changed your mind? What if this is just some grand gesture to win me back that you end up regretting?” You asked him.
“I will never end up regretting promising my love for you in front of our family and friends. I’ll never regret hyphenating our names so that everyone knows I’m a part of a duo. I’ll never regret choosing to legally attach myself to my vets friend and spend the rest of my life with her. But I can tell you with the utmost assurance that I would regret letting you walk away and become a name I wince at for the rest of my life.”
“You felt differently not too long ago.” You quietly reminded him. You wanted so badly to believe him, but you couldn’t fully trust it.
“I changed my mind. I realized somethings are more important than other things. And that you’re more important than anything.”
Your skeptical expression turned into a coy smile as you slid your hand into the one that wasn’t holding the open ring box.
“You never actually said the words.” You told him, making Tom break into a relieved smile.
“Darling, would you make me the happiest man-“
“Eh. Try again. Too cliche.” You cut him off. Tom smiled and shook his head, knowing you weren’t gonna make it easy.
“My love, I don’t want to spend another minute as just your boyfriend.” He tried again.
“Lame. Thumbs down.” You shook your head and pointed your thumb down.
“Would you do me the honor-“
“Yawn.” You interrupted.
“Will you just marry me, you annoying brat?” Tom groaned.
“Tom! I thought you’d never ask!” You gushed over dramatically and put your hand over your heart.
“Is that a yes?” Tom asked as he stood up.
“I have to think about it. I don’t know if marriage is for me.” You shrugged as he slid the ring onto your finger. You looked down at the ring and remembered the time you tried it on as a little girl and how it didn’t fit your finger until now.
“Yes. I will marry you.” You smiled as you looked back up at Tom. Tom broke into a grin and scooped you up to spin you around.
“Sorry I wrote all those emo songs about you.” You said into his ear, making him laugh.
“It’s okay. It’s what you do.” He couldn’t stop smiling as he set you down. He then pulled you in for a long kiss to make up for all the time you were apart. When you pulled away, he pulled your face back towards him with his hands to kiss your left cheek.
“I see you.” He said, then kissed you right cheek.
“I choose you.” He continued, then kissed your forehead.
“I love you.” He said, the kissed your nose before looking into your eyes.
“And I know you.” He told you. You smiled softly and nodded your head.
“You do?” You asked him. “You really know me?”
“I do.”
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gildeddlily · 1 year ago
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I need more content about Chuuya. like, Soukoku is the bsd couple with more works on Ao3, the most loved of the whole fandom, there are over 20 thousand fanfictions. there are tons of edits and AMV about him on tiktok and youtube, tons of x reader and fanarts. but it's (almost) always the sweet and a little dumb Chuuya.
Chuuya who's in love with Dazai and is begging him not to leave, who's mad at him for leaving the fricking mafia and "abandoning him", who's crying about being the second choice for everyone (fuck that, especially the "kouyou chose kyouka over chuuya"- you're telling me she chose to protect a 14ys girl over a 22ys man who's a mafia executive? oh sorry she should have left the child alone my bad), who is constantly manipulated by Dazai and betrayed (and content like this is made by people who love Dazai but don't understand him one bit- like yeah he manipulated the Sheep into betraying Chuuya but the Sheep were fucking assholes who didn't deserve Chuuya, and Dazai treated him fucking better than them- don't let me get started ab them or I'll never stop), feminized Chuuya, short and skinny Chuuya who likes to be the little spoon cause Dazai is the big strong man, lonely Chuuya who doesn't have anyone and basically dumb Chuuya who doesn't understand Dazai and cries to his sleep ab him.
fuck no, and I've been reposting every post that talks ab this. we want more Stormbringer Chuuya, and we don't have him 'cause not everyone has access to the novel or wants to read it. but Stormbringer is my Bible and should be everyone's.
We want more 15 years old Chuuya who carried on his shoulder a whole organization, the same organization that treated him like a damned dog, who got betrayed by the people he was sacrificing himself for the moment he tried to do something for himself, who was tricked into joining the Port Mafia (an organization he hated), who's easily read and manipulated and is aware of it, who never gave up on his humanity and worked hard and became important and strong for his new organization in a year as a teenager, who was able to made Dazai survive, giving him some sort of will to live, after like days of knowing him.
We want constantly dehumanized 16 Chuuya that got tortured for hours, that found out about his terrible origins and past, who sacrificed fondamental information about himself to save Yokohama, that almost got himself killed protecting the same person who betrayed him and fought his "brother" in order to do so, that lose the friends he called family and the only chance he had to have a life outside the mafia. Desperate because of his family's death Chuuya, in his painful corrupted form Chuuya, putting his life in Dazai's hands Chuuya, the one who beated the King of Assassins Chuuya, the one who was able to destroy an entire organization with his partner Chuuya. Port Mafia Executive Chuuya, who became who he was because of himself and with Dazai's help, who was able to become stronger even without him. Chuuya who suffered because of Dazai's deflection but understood it.
22 Chuuya who met his ex-partner after four years, stronger than how Dazai remembered him and still able to surprise (Dazai's "how fast!" when Chuuya punched him was hilarious and empowering, especially after his "I know all your moves" talk- and no, we "heard" his thoughts, so it wasn't an act stop saying that he had predicted that too when chuuya's like one of the only ppl able to surprise him) one of the smartest people in their country, who made sure things didn't change between them and made said smart and manipulative man cry from laughing over his damned rich girl impression. Chuuya who is the best martial artist and probably strongest ability user (Q is a child, and his "fight" with Steinbeck said a lot about his strength- crazy yes, but Chuuya could still beat almost everyone even without his ability) in the mafia, who could probably smash a wall with and without For The Tainted Sorrow. The Chuuya who's able to survive in a world surrounded by geniuses who constantly try to manipulate him (Dazai's manipulation is different than Fyodor's shut up), and able to be one of the most influential man in Yokohama without being a freaking genius.
Chuuya who has one of the best character developments I've ever read. Chuuya who has about him a lot of information (more than anyone else, we know you love him Asagiri) (please don't love him the way you loved Odasaku) and still gets mischaracterized again and again. this is an infodump ab what Chuuya means to me.
send ao3 links ty
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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 1 year ago
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Don't Speak 22
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Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as dubcon/noncon, obsession, stalking, manipulation, reclusive behaviour, disordered eating, dissociation, and other possible triggers. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.
This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.
Summary: Reader is a reclusive loner who ventures down to the library on a simple mission. Her task is complicated by the man she meets there. (f!short!reader)
Character: librarian!Andy Barber
Note: So Tuesday was a mess.
As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me <3
Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!)
Love you all. Take care. 💖
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Dr. Kemp leans forward, elbows on his knees as he watches you. Patient, intent, he listens without distraction to every word you say. His attention is almost eerie but only because you’re not used to it. He hangs off of every word.
“I don’t hate Amber,” you frown and hug your legs, only then realising how small you’ve made yourself in the chair, “I love her… I just don’t know if she ever loved me.”
He nods and sits up, dragging his fingers down his chin as he props an elbow on the armrest. He presses his finger against his mouth as he hums thoughtfully. He drops his hand and smiles.
“Are you worried about if she loves you or… are you afraid that you don’t deserve her love? Or anyone’s?” He prompts gently.
You bit down on your tongue. You lower your chin as you think. Your heart plummets deep as your skin tingles hotly.
“Both,” you admit.
“It’s like I said, sweetheart, you have to love yourself first. Then you will see how others can love you,” he drapes one leg over the other, “but we should unpack your relationship with your sister a bit further. We can’t do all that today, but we can start.”
You nod and cup your chin. You make yourself sit up and look at him. You push your feet over the edge and straighten your back.
“Codependency. It’s very toxic. Amber has her flaws, as we all do. What you’ve pointed out about her isn’t out of the question but I don’t know her, I can’t diagnose her. But I can help you draw boundaries and make sense of things,” he explains, “you feel that you were a burden, that you were entirely helpless without her. Did you ever consider she felt the same way? That she attached herself to you because otherwise, she felt useless.”
You look above him and examine the curtain. That’s easier than looking him in the face. You put your hands in your lap and wring them tightly. No, you never thought of it that way because that can’t be true.
“Why… why would she feel like that? I give her nothing. I’m…”
“Now, let’s stop right there,” he raises a thick finger, “what did I say about talking about yourself? Be kind.”
“Yes, Doctor,” you murmur, “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t owe me an apology, you owe yourself one.”
You bow your head guiltily. The more you talk to him, the more aware you are of all your bad habits. Isn’t this supposed to help you feel better? Not feel worse?
“It’s work, it hurts and then it feels good,” he says, “but the important thing is that you keep going. You keep the progress up, even if some days we don’t take a step forward, he have to keep looking ahead.” He lowers his hand over the end of the armrest, “I think this week you should write about Amber, try to get your thoughts out. Along with your other homework which is…”
You blink at him and give a dumb look. He smiles, “be nice to you. I want you to write down everything you do all week to that end. Baths, moisturising, reading a book, sketching something, anything that makes you happy.”
“Okay,” you grip your knees, slowly trailing your hands up to tug down the pleats of your skirt. You’re not used to it, you almost forgot you were wearing the thing, “I’ll try.”
“You’ll do great,” he encourages, “you already have done so much.”
🕊️
You're exhausted after the session. Almost despondent on the drive to Andy's as everything Steve said swirls in your mind. A thousand thoughts to add to your already overcrowded head. 
"Honey," Andy's voice cuts through your trance, "are you okay?"
"Uh, I'm sorry," you say, stunned to find the car parked in front of his house, his eyes boring into you with concern, "yeah, I'm fine."
"Oh, you haven't said a word," he slides the keys free of the ignition, "and you weren't responding."
"No, no, it's... I was thinking."
"Ah," he nods, hesitating to get out of the car as he hovers his hand against the door, "about... did Steve say something?"
"Um, just about stuff," you reply evasively, "nothing big."
"Well, you now I'm always here for you, right? That you can talk to me too?"
You nod and fake a smile. He's nice and all but you can't tell him everything. You can't even tell Steve everything you put in your journal. Somethings are meant just for you.
"I know," you murmur, "is it alright if I lay down for a bit. I'm really tired out."
"Sure you can, dove," he reaches over you caress the crease of your skirt, "just for a little. You don't want to waste the day."
"I won't," you promise and pull the handle on your door.
You turn and hide your face from him. He's right but it still irks you. Sometimes he can be so bossy. You've done what he wants. You're doing the therapy, so why can't you have one day to just burrow away.
🕊️
You spend your time alone staring at the ceiling, all tied up with Andy’s suggestion. Don’t sleep the day away. Sigh, now you can’t even close your eyes. You’re too worried about doing just that.
After a few hours, you give up, hoping to find some solace in a cup of tea. You can pop out and assure Andy that you’re awake. Maybe you should work on the painting. He must be getting impatient for that as well.
You pull on a loose wooly cardigan, the one with the patch sewn into it, and hide your clingy t-shirt beneath it.  You come downstairs and pass the archway of the living room. The TV is lit up with the menu but Andy’s nowhere to be found.
You hear him. You go further down and peek into the kitchen. Something tinkles against porcelain as you watch him pour the contents of a bag into a bowl. There are several set out already, on a neat wooden tray with two glass bottles of soda.
“Um…” you step into the doorway. “I… was going to put the kettle on.”
He looks over at you and smiles. It’s only then you notice his clothing. A pair of thin plaid pajamas and a navy blue sweatshirt. He looks cozy. You’re not used to that. He’s all buttoned-up and tidy.
“Oh, sure,” he says, “I can get some tea out… but er,” he sets the bowl with the rest, “you kinda walked in on my surprise.”
“Surprise?” You wonder.
“Yeah, uh, I was thinking we could do a movie night. Your choice,” he presses closed the seal of the M&Ms bag and puts it at the back of the counter. “I got all these snacks and some soda if you like, but if you want tea instead–”
“Oh,” you bat your lashes.
“Oh?” He sounds nervous as he echoes your syllable.
“I… I wasn’t expecting this. I…” you fold your arms over your stomach, “you really… did all this?”
You tiptoe forward and raise your chin to see onto the tray. He grins proudly as you near and see the assortment of snacks; trail mix, chips, gummies, chocolate…
“Pretty simple but I figured maybe it would be fun.”
You suck your lower lip in and look up at him. His eyes are shining, almost hopeful. He did all this for you. He actually wants to spend time with you. He was even excited about it.
“It’s wonderful,” you say, “I hope… I hope you don’t think I’m ungrateful. Only surprised.”
“Of course, honey,” he slides the tray off the counter, “let me get this.”
He carries the spread across the kitchen and you trail him into the front room. You linger at the threshold as he sets down the snacks on the low coffee table. The room smells of raspberry. You hum at the scent and notice the candle already lit on the table. The lights are dim as the flame lends a flicker to the space.
“Like it?” Andy looks up at your audible sniff. 
“Smells nice,” you assure him.
“Well? You gonna just stand there or find something to watch?”
“Oh, uh, yeah,” you scurry over as he holds out the remote.
You sit on the couch and he drops down beside you. As you sit forward, he leans back, his arm stretched out behind you carelessly. You flick through the title cards of all the movies, intimidated by the endless selection.
“What kind of movies do you like?” You ask, almost embarrassed to choose one yourself.
“Whatever you like, dove,” he says.
It feels like the back of your shirt is moving, just along the bottom. The sensation is so light and you’re too nervous to look at Andy. You put your elbow on your knee and cup your chin. You guess it doesn’t really matter. You choose a title your recognise, not recalling what the movie is about.
“Don’t forget to dig in,” Andy sits up.
“Er, okay,” you put the remote down and take the bottle of soda. You read the label in the low light. It looks fancy. You try to twist the metal cap off but it threatens to cut into your hand. “Ow.”
“Here,” Andy reaches over, “let me.”
He grips the neck and pops off the metal lid with ease. He hands it back to you and takes his own. You thank him under your breath and hover your mouth over the top. You take a sip, the bubbles tickling your nose.
“Mmm,” you hide a cough at the carbonation, “ooh, pretzels.”
You reach for one of the twisted treats. He chuckles as the credits play and he takes a rippled chip. You bite into a pretzel and focus on the screen. He’s sitting so close. You glance over, there’s lots of couch free.
You nibble nervously as the opening scene plays. You focus on the dialogue, not quite picking up on everything. The movie’s much more serious than you expected. You finish a handful of the dry food and wash it down with soda before flopping back.
You squint at the screen and try to untangle the furling plot. It’s kind of boring. You hide a yawn in your cuff and keep your hand to your mouth. The scene shifts and suddenly a bed frame rocks, knocking against the wall as the camera pans down to reveal the two bodies writhing on the mattress.
Oh my! There’s always one of these scenes.
You fight not to close your eyes. You’re mortified as you stare wide-eyed, the room hotly silent except for the activity on screen. You can hear Andy’s breaths and your own. His foot moves as he adjusts his leg and you flinch, almost expecting him to move closer. No, why would he do that?
The scene finally ends. That was torture. Amber always lets you fast forward through those ones. You lean forward to hide your discomfort with another swig of soda. Andy clears his throat but doesn’t comment.
You munch on a mixture of sweet and salty, your stomach squirming. You’re just going to make yourself sick. You recline again, eyes burning and itchy as they threaten to close. No, you don’t want to upset Andy. You can’t fall asleep.
The man and woman argue in the street. You don’t know who would ever do that. Those sorts of conversations are better behind closed doors. You don’t really get relationships; they seem confusing and stressful.
You arch your back, stretching out a kink in your side and a snort from beside you makes you flinch. You don’t look over, not until it comes again. Andy’s shadow sits with its head back, nose to the ceiling as he snores. Oh no, he fell asleep first!
You’re almost happy it’s him. You were so afraid of doing so, fearing at how he might react. You just think it’s funny. This movie really is boring.
You giggle and call his name. He doesn’t react. You call again, “wake up.”
Still nothing. You chew your lip and raise a shaky hand. You touch his arm, poking him with two fingers. You repeat his name. He’s now waking up. You nudge him hard and he slips, first one way then back towards you. Before you can react, he folds over onto your lap.
His weight hits your legs and you squeak. You don’t think as you grab onto his shoulder and try to shake him. He’s so heavy! And big. The difference between you is obvious but even more in that moment. He is immovable, like a boulder crushing you.
“Andy,” you say, “please, wake up.”
He bends his arm and grips your knee, nestling in as he snorts deeper. He must be exhausted. He drove you all the way to therapy and then got all these snacks together for movie night. And now, he can’t even enjoy it. All for you. All his effort spoiled because of you.
You deflate and sink back into the cushions. You kick your legs and try to wiggle free of him. You can’t seem to get out. You surrender and look at the screen. You guess you’ll finish this darn movie.
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dazeddoodles · 2 months ago
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Hey! Looks like the Annons are back at it again😓. It sucks that you keep having to deal with this nonsene. If I’m allowed to be honest; I too don’t really like this whole Eda x Stan thing (especially when our lord and savior Raine Rizzpers is right there), but I just ignore it in favor of your Raeda goodness. Hope you are doing ok☺️. Keep being an awesome artist.
Thank you.
I'm not dumb, I'm aware that there's an entire genre of art that depicts Luz falling in love with some male character (wether it's Hunter, Edric, Marco from Star vs of all people, or some OC) while Amity cries or kills herself (this is not an exaggeration) in the background, usually with a sexual undertone (or overtone) to it.
I know their intentions are being homophobic. I've made my distain for those shippers known. That kind of homophobic "art" was never my intention.
The Stan x Eda stuff has always been a joke to me. A joke about how desirable Eda and Raine are.
Eda being so desirable that she robbed a man and to this day he's still madly in love with her, and out of the many women he's been with, Eda's "the one that got away".
And Raine being so desirable that the woman who could con any man into loving her is helplessly in love with them and only them. There's irony that Eda's experiencing the heartbreak she caused to someone else to feel.
If anything Stan's the butt of the joke when I post stuff like this
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Before Raine I did kinda liked the idea of Stan x Eda because both creators were dating at the time and I thought it was a fun way to connect both shows.
Especially when at the time (and still to this day) people were claiming Owl House was a ripoff of Gravity Falls just because Eda is similar to Stan.
What's funnier than said "ripoff" canonly being married to the character she "copied"?
Plus the creators themselves don't take it too seriously. There was a Owl House and Amphibia crossover that the creators and voice actors did. In it Eda was flirting with HOP POP to steal his wallet. And Dana found it HILARIOUS because it was a joke.
Meanwhile at a Owl House panel this year Alex Hirsch randomly had voice acted Stan processing his love to Eda. (Which I did an animatic of).
And not only was everyone laughing because it was a joke. RAINE'S voice actor put their hand over their heart as if to act heart broken.
None of this was with bad intention.
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echobx · 8 months ago
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broken heart (2) - a JJ Maybank blurb
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summary: JJ gets confronted by his friends
warnings: swearing(?)
word count: 509
author's note: @immyowndefender asked for a pt2 and I honestly still don't know where this is going, but I'm happy to find out. still not really edited, only spell checked.
masterlist part 1
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“Where's y/n?” John B asked and JJ just shrugged.
“I don't know. We stopped talking after last time.”
It could be described like a shockwave that went through the group of friends. Y/n and JJ not talking to each other was unheard of. It never happened. Not once in all the years the seven of them had been friends.
“What do you mean you do talk anymore?” Kiara asked tentatively.
“We had a fight and now she doesn't wanna talk to me, that's it,” JJ rolled his eyes, uncertain why they were all so weird about it.
“What’you do?” John B was stern as he posed the question, more precisely, he demanded to know it because he knew his best friend too well.
“It’s not my fault she's so stuck up about it,” JJ muttered, not wanting to actually repeat the words he had thrown at you in a fit of rage.
“Stuck up about what, JJ?” Kie urged and he started to fidget with his lighter. For some reason he was fully aware of the fact that they wouldn't be on his side with this one, and he didn't want to see it actually happen. To see their heads turn and be against him, because that's how everyone always acted towards him. Everyone but them. And you.
But he had already fucked it up with you and he thought no matter what he would say, it wouldn't help. Drafting text after text at night when he couldn't find sleep and deleting all of them again.
He had never been good at owning up to his mistakes in an adult way, to say sorry and mean it, and not just to get someone to stop annoying him over it.
“JJ?” Pope's eyebrows were lifted to the sky as he stared his friend down. With a small scrunch of his nose, JJ sat up in his seat but his eyes were still fixed downward on the lighter in his hands.
“Told her to quit fussin’ and all, ‘cause she got no reason to. Is not like we're together or anything,” he mumbled and his heart squeezed a little at the confession.
“God, you're dumb,” Sarah exhaled a quick laugh before slapping her hand in front of her mouth as if she hadn't meant to say it at all.
“No, he is,” Pope shook his head. “Every guy she was ever interested in, you threatened them and then she stopped to look for anyone else because clearly there has to be a reason for it. And then you say shit like that to her?”
“None of them were good enough,” JJ replied subdued, his heart pounding heavily as he tried to piece it all together but it still didn't quite make sense to him.
“Just go an’ apologize to her, man,” Cleo sighed.
“And say what?” JJ snapped, a little harsher than he had intended to, but they didn't care about it much.
“The truth,” John B told him, slapping JJ’s shoulder and pulling him up to stand. “Go!”
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please don't copy and/or post my work onto other platforms! ~e©ho
part 3
taglist: @ijustwantttoread
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xoxoavenger · 1 year ago
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I Know Places
pairing: Stiles Stilinski x Fem!Reader
summary: they take their shots, but we're bulletproof (I know places) and you know for me, it's always you
word count: 2579
warnings: some blood, this one kinda got away from me my bad
1989 masterlist main masterlist
"Here's the problem I have with keeping us a secret,"
"I don't want to hear it."
"I wasn't finished." Y/N doesn't let Stiles' dramatics get in the way of her venting, because right now she couldn't be more mad at the fact that they were not public as a couple.
"Y/N, please," She's only going to say things that have been repeated on multiple occasions in the seven months they've been dating, and tonight Stiles doesn't have the energy nor the time to get into it.
"No, Stiles!" He looks over at her as he realizes that she's more fed up with this than usual. He puts his eyes back on the road as he lets her go off even though he's heard it seven times this month. "I can't stick up for you! You get angry when I so much as look at you in front of the pack, much less try and argue. I mean fuck, no one is going to suddenly think we're dating because I voice the problem I have with using you as bait." She hasn't even taken a breath, and while Stiles understands her side of the story he's not wavering his position.
"I'm not saying you can't look at me! But nothing you say is going to make Scott or Lydia agree to change their position."
"And what about you?" She asks, crossing her arms and leaning against the door to see him clearly.
"What about me?" Last time he checked they were talking about her feelings. He chances a glance at her which only makes him feel weirdly guilty about something he's sure he has done but can't actually remember doing.
"Nothing I say can change your position?"
Stiles is a smart man. He gets relatively good grades. He makes countless plans that work, figures out who's trying to fuck with them before even the police can. He can argue and persuade for just about anything. So he knows what Y/N is talking about, and he knows that playing dumb will not help his cause.
"You're mad because I volunteered to be bait." The only reason the two of them are in the Jeep on the way to the woods is because Stiles told everyone that he would gladly draw the new alpha pack to him and run to the check point where the rest of the pack would be waiting. The only problem was the time period before they would make it to the pack, where they would just be to far to help if something happened. They had all been arguing about who it should be when he stepped in, causing Y/N to imagine herself breaking his arm just so he wouldn't.
"I don't know why you have some sort of hero complex," She angrily gets out of the car before he's even parked, leaving him to sigh and slam his own door when he gets out. "But what I'm even more confused about is why you're somehow astonished that your girlfriend would be mad at you throwing yourself into the line of fire." She's freezing as soon as they start walking, but she doesn't say it. In order to draw the alphas, they needed couldn't wear a jacket. In December.
"You didn't have to come with me." He grabs her hand anyway, because they're alone and they don't get to walk holding hands very often.
"Are you even listening to me?" She asks quietly, aware that their pack is intently listening to them, ready to jump in when the alphas arrive. "I'm not mad that I'm here with you, I'm mad you volunteered for sudden death." They make it to the agreed spot, cuddled close together as they shiver.
"You're mad because this plan is the worst." He clarifies, and just like that they're back to normal, clearly understanding each other. They don't need to say it to know that they're both able to forget about the details in the face of death.
"It is," She tells him quietly, smiling wide when he leans his back against a tree and lets her lean against his front. "I mean, having to kiss you, make out even," She isn't able to roll her eyes because Stiles is leaning down, hands coming around her waist as he kisses her.
The amazing plan Stiles came up with is for them to pretend to be lovesick teenagers (because why would a couple of twenty-somethings sneak out to kiss) completely oblivious to the pack roaming the woods. And Y/N wanted to kiss Stiles right then and there when he came up with the plan, which made her even more mad about keeping their relationship a secret. They weren't in high school anymore, and Y/N was sure the pack would be able to handle the knowledge that they were dating, but Stiles was worried, didn't want to step on any toes or break the whole 'no dating pack members' rule that had been established when Malia and Scott broke up.
They kiss for a while, and it keeps them warm for a couple minutes. But soon it's too cold and they're chattering as they kiss, and neither of them even wants to kiss anymore. Just as Y/N's about to tell Stiles that she's not sure she can feel her feet, let alone her hands, they hear it.
They both snap toward the sound of a twig breaking, much closer than they were hoping for. The alphas don't even try to hide, instead flashing three pairs of red eyes through the darkness. It doesn't take anything else for Stiles to begin sprinting, grabbing Y/N's hand and pulling her along.
They run toward where the pack is waiting, desperate to be away from danger and somewhere warm. Y/N's thankful for the adrenaline, which masks pain sparking from her legs as she shakes the cold off and follows Stiles. They're almost to the meeting point when a pair of red eyes makes them veer away.
They hadn't expected that they'd be surrounded.
Stiles doesn't waste a second, pulling Y/N away as if they weren't supposed to be going toward anyone at all. She's freaking out, hoping the pack can hear the change in their footsteps and come meet them. She's lagging behind, the cold burning her lungs in a way that she didn't even think was possible. Her ears are shooting pain into her head as the breeze makes it's way through her body. Her hand is slipping from Stiles' and she's about to give up when she feels pain erupt in her leg, which she previously thought was numb.
She lets out a blood curdling scream as she falls to the ground, Stiles turning to see the sight that haunts his nightmares; Y/N is on the ground, blood pouring out of her leg as she tries to claw herself forward. There's an alpha behind her, a man with a sinister look that tells Stiles the alpha wants to do more than just turn his girlfriend. Before Stiles can even think about how to fight the werewolf that is twice his size, Scott is roaring and tearing at the Alpha's chest, taking him by surprise.
"Run!" He yells at Stiles and Y/N, going back to fighting. Everyone is there within seconds, fighting off the alphas and clearing the path for the couple.
Except Y/N can't run.
She can't stay quiet either, letting out grunts and moans and whimpers with every step. She leans heavily on Stiles, but he's only human. He knows they're surrounded, knows there's not many options for them. It's do or die, and he is not letting his girlfriend die because he just had to be the bait.
He pulls her into a thick patch of bushes, out of sight. They crouch, which becomes sitting and Y/N extends her leg to fully see the bite wound she now has. He knows this isn't enough however, and he squeezes his eyes shut at the thought of what he has to do next.
"They will smell your blood," He whispers to her, maneuvering them to be able to hold her, her back against his chest. Her hands go up to his arm and squeeze, as if he wasn't already feeling guilty enough for what he has to do. He only thinks this quickly because of his recurring nightmare of this exact scenario. He's tried many different ways to hide, and through it all this was the only way they weren't found. "I'm so sorry," He puts a hand over her mouth and pulls her into his chest, his other hand grabbing the moist dirt and pushing it against her wound. She screams at the contact, muffled by his hand that she is clawing at. He grabs more dirt, a tear falling down his face as he presses it harder against her leg.
They will still be able to smell the blood, if they're close and really looking, but they won't be able to track it from afar. All he can do is hope that his pack can take care of it so he can get Y/N to Melissa.
"Stiles," She whimpers, trying not to cry as he moves his hand from her mouth. "Oh God, I'm bit, Stiles!" Her voice was getting high with panic, so Stiles grabs her and holds her as close as he can.
"You're going to be okay, it'll be okay." He doesn't believe his own words, but he needs Y/N to believe them. He needs her to stay strong, because he doesn't know what he'll do if her body rejects the bite.
It feels like they're sitting there for hours, Y/N's grip slowly slackening. Stiles tries not to read too much into it, but the dirt he had put on her leg is wet and dark with blood. He can't put more on, knows that by now there's too much blood to be able to dampen and the only thing it'll do now is introduce infection. He can still hear distant roars, and he hopes someone realizes they never left.
"Stiles!" It's Scott, running quickly. He's able to find them in no time, confirming Stiles' thoughts. He's just glad an enemy didn't find them first.
"She's bit," Stiles tells his best friend, who is currently taking in their position. Y/N's head is lolling, sweat pouring out as her body is fighting to stop the bleeding. This bite was deep, deeper than Scott's or Liam's, and it instantly worries Scott.
"We'll get her out," He assures his best friend, realizing that there's a large possibility that Y/N and Stiles are more than friends. He's surprised they were able to hide it for so long, surprised he never picked up on it.
"I had to put dirt on it. I didn't know where they were, or what was going to happen." Stiles is rambling while Scott helps them stand. "I don't even know if it helped but I couldn't just sit here and let them find us." Y/N is groaning and crying out and finally Scott just picks her up, knowing he has to move.
"You did what you could, Stiles." He tells his best friend, the two of them rushing to get back to the Jeep.
"Stiles," Y/N pants, jostling in Scott's arms as they reach the Jeep.
"It'll be fine." It's the only words Stiles knows, apparently. It's all he can think, because he doesn't even want to imagine any other possibility. He lets Scott put Y/N in the back seat and then climbs in after her, which surprises Scott. He's rarely ever been allowed for drive the jeep, and he realizes now that Y/N and Stiles might be closer than he originally thought. The theory that Stiles has been keeping his girlfriend a secret from his best friend makes him upset, but he knows this isn't as important as keeping Y/N alive.
"Here," He's taking off his sweater and handing it to Stiles to hold to her leg. They both know that they're pushing the dirt in and risking infection, but it's worth it to keep her from bleeding out.
"Y/N," Stiles mutters as he pushes her hair back, trying not to notice how pale she's become. "Hey, baby," He smiles when she opens her eyes.
"I'm bit," She tells him once more, her voice scratchy. She takes shaking breathes, eyes locked on her leg. "Oh my God," She's shaking, the fear in her eyes causing Stiles' heart to jump.
"It'll be okay, I promise. I'm right here." He looks down and sees the blood soaking through Scott's jacket, which makes him uneasy.
"I didn't want this," She cries, causing Scott to squeeze eyes shut.
"I know, I know," Stiles pushes some of her hair off her forehead.
When they get to the hospital, Melissa is waiting outside. She's clearly nervous as Scott gets her out, looking around as they get Y/N on a gurney and rush her in, trying not to be seen by others.
"What happened?" Melissa asks, getting Y/N hooked up to machines. When Stiles pulls the jacket away, she gasps.
"I was bit," Y/N's a little out of it, which worries Stiles. Her blinks are slow.
"Why isn't she healing?" Melissa grabs things she needs to clean and suture the wound.
"We don't know." Stiles answers, gagging as Melissa begins cleaning the blood away.
"We need to get this wound closed, because I can do a lot of things for you guys but I cannot steal blood." She takes a deep breath as she looks at her tools. "I can't steal any drugs to numb your pain either." She's very positive Y/N will pass out before she gets too far into it anyway. 
"I can help." Scott puts a hand on Y/N's leg. Melissa nods before beginning her stitches. Y/N doesn't even have the chance to feel the pain because Scott is already taking it, veins darkening as he breathes deeply to not show how much it hurts. Y/N wishes she could thank him, but everything is heavy. 
"Her eyes are closing." Stiles is freaking out only slightly. He moves closer to her head, trying not to look at the mess that was her leg.
"Try to keep her awake." Melissa instructs. It's the last thing Y/N hears before she gives herself up to the darkness.
~
"Why didn't you tell us?" Y/N hears Malia ask through some fog.
"We were worried you guys would get all weird." Stiles answers.
"What does that even mean?" Lydia asks, and Y/N tries to force her eyes open. She can't quite do it.
"You guys always get strange when two people in the pack start dating! And no offense, but it was so awkward when Malia and Scott broke up. We didn't want to go through that again." She's finally able to open her eyes.
"For the record," She starts, voice scratchy with misuse. "Our last argument was about the fact that I didn't want to hide it." She starts coughing, and everyone is at her side, asking a million questions. She doesn't pay attention to anyone else, only watching her boyfriend's face as he realizes that she's awake and okay. 
"Oh my God." Stiles is holding her close, tears in her eyes that make her emotional.
"I'm okay," She whispers, still weak but squeezing Stiles with all her might. "I'd never leave you." It breaks the dam and Stiles begins crying into her, knee up on the bed to steady himself.
"I'd never let you." 
//
tags: @tbsimp @avada-kedavra-bitch-187  @one-sweet-gubler @mcueveryday
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11queensupreme11 · 22 days ago
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Well America is doomed 🙏 I genuinely do NOT understand people who voted for a CONVICTED FELON A RAPIST AND A PEDO.
(warning: i'm gonna rant a bit because this has really disappointed me. i'm not surprised, but i am disappointed)
there's still a sliver of hope left in me (copium) for a recount just like last time, which helped biden a lot. plus, there's evidence of a lot of voter suppression, election fraud and interference going on (ballot boxes being burned, mail-in ballots being turned away because of "inability to verify signatures", poll stations closing early, bomb threats, etc.) and all of this coincidentally happening in blue areas only smh, so i'm really hoping that kamala doesn't concede and lets the votes keep counting (because there's still millions left), or at least demand a recount later on
remember, counting doesn't last only a day. it takes days, not a single night. there's still more votes to be counted and incidents to be investigated AND the chance for a recount should kamala ask for one.
this election should be an eye-opener on just how deeply hateful and uneducated a lot of americans are. literally the only people who would ever benefit from a trump reign are rich, white, heterosexual, cisgender men and that EXACT combination only. it doesn't matter if you're a rich black woman, or a broke white man, or a heterosexual poc, etc. if you are not rich AND white AND straight AND cisgender male, you will NOT benefit from him at all.
and yet we had exactly those sort of people voting him in. black women and men of all ages did so good voting blue, but their hard work has been ruined because SO many white women and men, and latinos have voted against their own interests. hell i saw gay couples and trans people proudly voting for trump all over twitter. all because of their own hatred and lack of education because some of them GENUINELY thought trump would make their lives better. they hate everyone and they hate themselves, and they aren't even aware of it. they're so stupid too, they don't understand what's going to happen to them under trump and they don't WANT to
don't even get me started on the jill stein bs. i get it that people genuinely thought that voting for her would save palestine, but she was being endorsed by a member of the KKK and has a running mate who is openly against abortion and trump himself has said that he liked her -- that should've been telling. not only that but she's part of the green party. green parties will never win, their sole purpose is to divide votes and that's exactly what happened in some of the states kamala could've won had it not been for so many people choosing jill stein instead. all those wasted votes could've HELPED US.
right now we've lost the senate and house of representatives, we are becoming a very fascistic country -- even more than we were before. rfk jr -- the man who's wife killed herself because of his rampant cheating scandal, the man who chooses conspiracy theories over science, who promised to ban ALL vaccines (polio, flu, covid, measles, smallpox, etc) -- will soon be in charge of public health (including women's health), the department of education will be targeted even more than before because dumb, uneducated americans are more likely to vote red (a fact which has been proven many many times before -- this very election is also proof of that), palestine and ukraine are in more danger than ever -- trump wants all of palestine wiped out for israel and he wants to remove the US out of NATO so european countries are going to have to do whatever they can to protect ukraine and themselves from russia because putin's not gonna stop at ukraine and israel's not gonna stop with palestine, syria, lebanon, and yemen.
this is a country full of dangerously dumb and cruel people and it's going to impact EVERYONE because america can't keep their claws out of other countries' businesses
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petrichor-idyllic · 2 years ago
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Hello are your requests still open? If so, can you pls do a Minho x reader (female: she/her) where Minho wants to just do his job and map the maze in the map room but reader gets in too (she's the only non-runner allowed cuz she's with Minho), and she wants to get his attention like- sit on his lap and whispering things to him, staring at him from across the room etc and its so high on tension. Thank you😊
Ooo, yes, sounds fun. I love writing high tension scenes.
BEHAVE
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MASTERLIST | MINHO MASTERLIST
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SUMMARY: See above. Established relationship. Takes place before the arrival of Thomas.
WARNINGS: Inappropriate language, some high sexual tension, spice, Minho playing hard to get, awkward public flirting.
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It's no secret that you're obsessed with your boyfriend. Everyone in the Glade is fully aware of your infatuation with Minho.
I mean, how could you not? The man is perfect. He's strong, handsome, passionate about the things he loves, determined and actually quite thoughtful. And he has a body that looks like it was sculpted by the Gods themselves.
Which obviously works in Minho's favour since it means the other boys make no attempt to hit on you.
Because Minho would kill them.
The downside to this relationship is that Minho is a very busy dude. Not only is he a Keeper and an integral part of the Glade, but he also spends nearly all of his time out in the Maze. Or mapping the Maze. Or talking about the Maze. Or thinking about the Maze.
The Maze has a hold on his life- which leaves less time for you to have a hold on him.
When Minho said you could start spending time in the Map room whilst he's in there, you were thrilled for obvious reasons. Minho also wants to spend more time with you and feels bad that his job takes the priority of his time. So, being Keeper and basically incharge of the Map room, he decided it would be a smart idea.
It was not.
You are going to be Minho's downfall because you know exactly how to get under his skin, and you love his attention. Which is bad mix, especially since the Runners started to explore the outer sections and Minho is even busier than before.
Which has led to some frustrations from both sides. Not spending as much time alone together means that you're having less moments of physical intimacy. Sure, you still cuddle in bed and share the occasional peck, but Minho is normally too tired to meet your needs.
But you are struggling. Minho is too, but he has a bit too much on his plate for that to be as much of a concern.
"So, you're telling me you found nothing?" Minho and the other Runners sit around the large table in the middle of the room, paper scattered everywhere. Minho looks like he's going to kill Ben if he makes one more bad maze pun.
"Yeah," the other boy leans back in his seat, "basically." Ben has developed the nasty habit of making his adventures sound more interesting than they actually are.
You're sitting on one of the tables that line the room, swinging your legs over the side, directly across from Minho as you watch him. Admittedly, you like watching him work. There's something about watching him lead and be in control that makes you feel some kind of way.
It doesn't help when he wears that dumb tight blue shirt. He pretty much started wearing it religiously when he noticed how much you like it.
"Has anyone found anything of note today?" Minho leans back, throwing his arm over the back of the chair and casually watching his men write down their own routes for the day.
His eyes flicker up, catching your gaze. You flash him a smirk, coyly tilting your head as you cross your cross your legs, leaning back on your hands. He slightly raises his eyebrow before rolling his eyes, returning to his work.
After another fifteen or so minutes, you internally chuckle to yourself, thinking up an idea. You let out an exaggerated sigh, some gravel to the noise.
It's something that the other boys pay no mind to, but Minho has heard it before. And as his body visibly tenses, you can tell he's having all sorts of flashbacks. He sends a warning look your way, and you just pout, batting your eyes to exaggerate innocence.
After a while, the boys start discussing Maze things amongst themselves, but Minho doesn't join in, seemingly in his own little world.
You take the opportunity to stand up, walking around the table and behind your boyfriend- something that raises no concern among the group since it isn't uncommon. You drape your arms over his shoulders, hugging him from behind and crouching down slightly like you're examining his work with him. Though you make an extra effort to push your boobs against his back.
"Looks good," you say, talking normally and at the same volume as everyone else.
"This is the same as all my other work," his voice is hushed, lower than before, probably because you're lightly dragging your fingers up and down his chest- playing it off as absentmindedly fiddling.
"Yeah, well, all your work looks good," you lean closer to him, brushing your lips against his ear and whispering, "kinda like you."
Minho's jaw tenses. You're playing a dangerous game here and, for some reason, that seems to be getting to Minho more than anything else. Something about your very simple acts of seduction in a room full of people that hold the utmost respect for him is making his knees weak and has him shuffling in his seat.
You let one of your arms fall limp when another boy asks Minho a question, not that you're paying enough attention to understand the question. But when your hand comes to the back of Minho's neck, stroking the small hairs at the base of his head, he ever so slightly stumbles over his words, struggling to process the words and the sensation at the same time.
You'd be lying if you said you didn't enjoy Minho like this. It's not very often you manage to make the normally confident Keeper blush or squirm, so the power you hold at the current moment is a pleasant change.
The conversation continues, and the boys slowly start to leave, finishing their work and saying their goodbyes until it's just you, Minho, and Ben.
"Shuck's sake," Ben hisses as his pencil cracks, the lead snapping and leaving a dark dot on his map. "(Y/N)?"
You hum in response, showing he has your attention.
"Can you grab me a new pencil, please? I don't know where you put them."
"Sure," you may or may not have gotten bored waiting for Minho and rearranged the entire Map room to make it more organised.
It took a lot longer than you originally thought, but you were determined to finish it.
But no one else has a clue where anything is.
You go over to one of the boxes under the outer tables, bending down and pulling out the box, making sure to stick your ass up. You hear Minho suck in a deep breath, choosing to ignore Ben's irritated grumbling about the Creators sending up shitty equipment.
"Here," standing back up, you roll the pencil across the table.
You return behind Minho, watching as Ben's eyes burn into the paper, almost cartoonishly hunched over as his tongue sticks out at an angle.
With Ben's full attention on something else, you press a light kiss to Minho's neck. His back straightens, and his eyes flutter shut for a moment. You pull away as he looks at you.
"I need to work," he attempts to sound firm, but his voice wavers, completely giving everything away.
"What?" You pretend to be lost as Ben lifts his head up, visibly confused as to what he's missed. "I'm just bored, shank- you know I don't get half of this Maze klunk. I'm just watching."
Minho presses his tongue into his cheek, glaring at you, but his pupils are wider than before and his eyelids heavier.
You take a seat instead, casually leaning your elbow on the table as you watch Minho work.
"Alright," Ben stands up, the chair scratching against the floor. "I'm done- catch you guys later."
"Later, Ben," you smile at him and he gives you a playful salute.
"Don't even think about it," Minho says the second the door closes, making you groan.
"Think about what?"
"You know what," he doesn't even look at you. "You know I have more work to do than the rest of them- don't make it harder."
Minho knows that if he looks at you, he's going to immediately crack, and he doesn't know if he'll be able to keep his hands off of you.
"You're always working," you flop onto the table, "I never get you to myself anymore."
"We literally sleep together every night."
"Yeah, but not in the way I want," you practically whisper it, but Minho still manages to catch the gist.
"What was that?"
"Doesn't matter."
"Nah, c'mon, tell me," he's finally raised his head, twisting his pencil around his toned hands.
"No, it's fine. Not like it'll make a difference."
He pulls his lips into a thin line. "No, c'mon. You gotta tell me now."
"I want to fuck you."
You sit back, crossing your arms against your chest. You're calm, face stoic- which couldn't be more the opposite to Minho. He's stunned, his heat rate increasing as the tips of his ears start to turn red.
"Behave," he warns.
"What? You asked."
"Yeah, b-but I have to work- yeah? I'll give you attention after."
"You're a liar."
"What?" You stand up, standing in front of him for second.
"I said," you swing your leg over him, straddling him as you sit on his lap, facing him, "you are a liar. We're gonna go to bed, and you're immediately gonna pass out. I want you now."
Instinctively, his hands come to your waist, almost moving him closer to you. His eyes flicker to your lips as you feel his fingers dig into you. "Behave, (Y/N)." His voice is raspy, and he makes no actual attempt to stop you.
Because, honestly, he doesn't want to.
"Fine," you sigh, "but can at least sit here? Be close to you at least?"
He hesitates for a second, but nods. "Alright."
You shuffle slightly closer, your chests pressed together as you rest your head on his shoulder. Your breath lingers on his skin, the warmth of having you close and occasionally moving is making Minho's head go fuzzy.
Your smell is intoxicating. Your skin is hypnotising. Every natural urge in his body is screaming at him, and it only gets worse when you adjust yourself again, unintentionally grinding against him.
At this point, you've accepted your failure. You respect Minho's work and if he says he's too busy, then there's not much you can actually do about it.
That is until you feel him against you.
"Minho, are you-?"
"Shut up," he says almost immediately, "I can't help it, okay?" You chuckle and he feels the vibrations, the maps he's examining and the words he's writing might as well be non-existent.
"Mhm."
"I can't!" You don't need to look at him to be able to tell he's bright red; you can feel the heat radiating of his face.
You start to litter gentle kisses along the base of his neck, and he sucks in a deep breath.
"I told you to behave," he mumbles, his breath hitching and one of his hands returning to your waist.
"Do you want me to stop?" Your question is genuine. Sure, it's entertaining to watch him squirm, but you would never actually want to make him uncomfortable.
"...No." You smirk against his skin, continuing your pursuit until your teeth graze him, lightly biting him before sucking on the skin just above his collarbone in the crook of his neck. It's a particularly sensitive spot to Minho.
You hear the pencil scatter to the floor as he drops his head back, a grunt escaping his throat. His other hand comes to your waist, forcing you to move against him to have some kind of friction.
The action sends electricity through you, causing you to start moving your hips all on your own. His hands travel under your shirt, scratching at your back. You let out a small gasp at the smirk, pulling away to look at him.
His perfect hair has started to become messy, pupils blown wide as he looks up at you. His eyes flicker, hands slipping further under the fabric.
"You're a real shuckin' nightmare, you know that?" He's barely audible, basically mumbling as you ghost your lips against his.
"Yeah, but you love me," you move your hands to his hair, making it even more dishevelled.
A faint smirk plays in his lips. "How could I not?"
Finally, he leans forward, merging your mouths together in a heated kiss that's full of emotion. He basically lifts you up, making you squeak into him before you hit the table.
Papers scatter everywhere, and one of the Runners drinks that was left spills all over the wood. The table even jolts back an inch with the force he moves you.
Falling back, Minho stands between your legs as you hold yourself up with your elbows. After a few seconds, your arms fall weak, making you dip further back, your head hitting the table.
He moves down to your neck, sucking on the sensitive skin and undoubtedly leaving deep, purple bruises. It's not uncommon for Minho to be possessive and territorial, even if he doesn't need to be.
You mumble his name, hands fisting his hair as he moves even lower, lifting your shirt to pepper kisses against your mid-drift.
A deep, almost mischievous chuckle escapes him as he looks up at you, fiddling with your belt.
He smirks. "I warned you."
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Here is a shorter piece since I am still recovering from the last request, but still fun to write all the same. Not as story based either but I do enjoy these more simple one-shots.
I hope you enjoy all the same.
Requests are still open :))
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sepublic · 1 year ago
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            Something I think a lot of people overlook is how King becomes a lot more jaded, snappy, self-aware, and overall more like a teenager during S2. Which about tracks, he DOES undergo Titan puberty…
         But mostly, I see it prompted by Echoes of the Past, which is King’s big Loss of Innocence moment, when his fantasy is shattered before his very eyes, and King realizes things are a lot more mundane and unpleasant than he’d like to admit. There’s just little moments like how he’s frustrated and dismisses Eda and Luz’s attempts to reassure him after the Gland Prix fails in Eda’s Requiem; Or in the very next episode, King’s frustrated breakdown near Hooty.
         A lot of this also has to do with King just becoming more and more frustrated in general, in response to his waning hope regarding his dad; You can see it Keeping Up A-Fear-ances, when after Lilith projects her own parental issues onto King, he has a moment of spiteful, petulant rejection towards his dad. And while King tries to be optimistic, you can see how that little brain worm just slowly grows and takes over. The pessimism it instills eventually bleeds out into the rest of the world…
         I think a lot of how in Edge of the World, King acknowledges that he knows Luz isn’t going to be here forever (or is prepared for that scenario, anyway). It shows a lot of awareness and worldliness on King’s part, he’s not some dumb, naïve kid anymore, he’s matured since S1 and you can really tell. The way he gets frustrated when admitting this to Luz and how he saw the Titan Trappers as his big solution… It really hurts.
         Luz’s Loss of Innocence and her gradual disillusionment throughout S2 is talked about a lot and I absolutely agree, as one of those people who analyzed it plenty; But I think we should give King’s more credit. He’s more clever than a lot of people give him credit for, and I like how his edgy blustering about destroying his enemies en masse is replaced by a more subdued, realist, and yet biting resignation over his situation and the mundane helplessness of it all, the constant disappointment that King is preparing himself for. He doesn’t want to be a powerful ruler, he just wants a dad, and yet something so simple is so prevalent and so unchangeable an issue.
         King is just. SO used to disappointment by the end of S2. But I love how he doesn’t totally plummet off of the deep end, something as simple as King’s trip with Steve helps King develop a more worldly outlook on life, and come to terms with being a Titan. He could easily fall into spite and anger, taking his frustration out on the world around him… But King doesn’t, he’s grown since then, he isn’t going to fall for that as other characters did.
        And this all prepares him so nicely, as did King’s development with Luz and how she supported and helped him grow, for King to take Luz’s place in his dynamic with the Collector; Someone blinded by the optimism of the fantasy. Someone who’s eventually going to have a big Loss of Innocence moment when they learn about death, and realize they CAN’T make a friend out of everyone.
         It just makes King more suited as a parallel/foil to the Collector, and a best friend; Someone who was borderline arrogant in his assurance over his power and dominion, only for his whole world to collapse around him with painful revelations. But with the support of others, King and the Collector pick themselves up after a moment of despair, and strive to accept what they’ve learned and incorporate it into their lives, while still holding onto hope in a more mature manner.
        King has the perfect opportunity to be a tyrant and take vengeance on the world, the Collector is a Yes-Man to the guy; But he doesn’t. He’s better than that. He could’ve easily had the Titan Trappers obliterated, but King evidently let them get turned into puppets like everyone else. Obviously King doesn’t have total control over the Collector, he’s also at the mercy of their whims, but King DOES have influence.
        And what does he use it for? Not to control the Collector or manipulate them. But to genuinely help and teach this kid he sees himself in. King could easily justify or just allow something like Terra being turned into a puppet after insulting him and the Collector, but he’s wizened up. He’s more in control of his emotions, more understanding that there’s more to the world than just King, even if his world IS his dad, technically. 
        He reminds the Collector that they shouldn’t do that even to Terra, of all people; King knows she terrorized his mom as a youth, but King recognizes he has a lot of power and safety in his position compared to others. He’s not going to leverage it, he’ll just have to be the bigger person instead of letting any mistreatment justify being as vindictive as he wants, which is SUCH a turnaround from the kid who wanted to obliterate anyone at the drop of a hat.
        King’s way more in control of his emotional responses now, more tempered. After being reminded of similarities by people like Gus or Luz, King has figured out empathy to see himself in others, more attuned to their emotions; Even moments as small as recognizing how he relates to Edric, or hearing out Alador’s frustrations before breaking the news to him, remind me of this. And again, it prepares King to help the Collector learn empathy, as someone who’s been through that difficult lesson.
        Just. King, man. He’s a funny goofy silly little animal sidekick, except he’s actually a little brother who grows through this whole arc of genuinely maturing and realizing the world around him and its limits. Coming to value his found family in his quest for the biological one. Going through a legitimate storyline of disillusionment, before ultimately coming to terms with his situation, and being given one little wish fulfilled to remind King it was not all for naught; Just the simple reassurance of ‘I loaf you’ from the father he’s been searching for all along.
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kafus · 1 year ago
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okay i just talked to every NPC in veilstone because it's been a long time and man sinnoh's NPCs are peak, at least out of the 2D games i feel like they provide the most humor and the most random lore tidbits and stuff. i love this region. i'm going to talk about it
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first off sinnoh is full of little things like this. random dialogue/flavor text that ties back to the mythos of the region. i love how widespread the sinnoh myths are
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i'm also obsessed with when there's two NPCs that link together like this. you talk to one and you move on and then you talk to another and you're like oh! lmao. by the way the rage candy bars being here is cool because sinnoh is canonically connected to johto through the sinjoh ruins and the rage candy bars are from johto, which means they're imported and sold here. in general i'm obsessed with the locations in pokemon that have special treats associated with them, like the pewter crunchies of pewter city in kanto, or the lava cookies from lavaridge in hoenn. iconic
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btw don't worry lady literally everyone sucks at making poffins. unless you have four players it's pretty much impossible to make poffins that are better than the storebought ones. good luck getting four people with rare berries who are good at the minigame to play with you, ESPECIALLY in 2023 jesus christ. the basement poffins are OPTIMAL
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anyway in speaking of linking NPCs, these two - i wonder if the dialogue in the french version of this game is turned into english? they did that for lt. surge's french pikachu trade, the french versions of HGSS make the pikachu english instead lol. but anyway as usual it's very fascinating to me how much pokemon loves to drop foreign language in its titles, and fittingly i know a lot of people with english as their second language got interested in learning english from a young age due to wanting to play pokemon. how many kids do you think got interested in french because of dialogue like this. the girl even implies what the meaning of his words is
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veilstone isn't short on game hints either, useless to me now as an adult longterm pokemon player who knows all this stuff already but still really cool to see. if sinnoh is your first time playing pokemon, those hints on trade evos and stuff are always appreciated.
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of course, funny dialogue too that got a wheeze out of my nose, not uncommon for pokemon NPC dialogue SDKFSFDK some of this shit takes me so offguard it's like extra funny
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like GIRL ISN'T THAT WHAT A PARASOL IS FOR????
edit: my DUMB ASS (lighthearted) has been reminded that parasols are for the sun and are NOT an umbrella equivalent. okay she makes more sense now LOOL
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also LOOKER JUSTIFYING HIS GAMBLING :skull emoji: this shit is taking me out. see this is useful because it's like oh galactic is really all over this city huh. not only their massive building but they have their logo in the fucking slot machines, they probably have some amount of ownership over this place like team rocket did over the celadon game corner. but also it's funny because SDFSDFK
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OH AND MAYLENE'S DAD IS JUST... HERE? generic NPC. generic sprite. no name. he's just here. maylene's dad. you know, one of the gym leaders. help girl
anyways i'm aware i basically just posted most of the dialogue in veilstone city verbatim but I JUST THINK IT'S INTERESTING! I MISS WHEN POKEMON GAMES WERE FULL OF DIALOGUE LIKE THIS AHHHH i have more to say about the galactic lore but i'm running out of image space and i need to use the bathroom and get some food so i'll post about that a little later
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artbyblastweave · 9 months ago
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So on balance I generally do enjoy Mark Millar, and a big part of why I enjoy Mark Millar is that a lot of his superhero stuff demonstrates the same awareness about the genre that Worm does- the sense of an unstable equilibrium, that the center cannot hold in the superhero universe as typically presented. Jupiter's Legacy, Super Crooks, Old Man Logan, Wanted, The Ultimates. Arguably Civil War. I have a whole other post buried in my drafts about how that bleak throughline keeps cropping up in his cape work. Specifically in his cape work, also- the man has written a lot of lighthearted, at times almost cloyingly sincere and optimistic one-off miniseries in other genres. Starlight: The Return Of Duke McQueen, Huck, Chrononauts, Beyond. In tension with this cynicism about the capes is the fact that he also clearly believes that superheroes are really cool, and on some fundamental level a really deeply noble and empowering idea. Even Wanted, which is probably the most thoroughly tasteless thing of his that I've read all the way through, I recall as having had this interesting subtext of anger over the fact that there's an audience for a superhero work as cynical and grotesque as Wanted. ("Fine. We took all the whimsy and wonder and derring-do you claim to have outgrown out back and shot it. The corpse is cooling. Are you happy yet? Dark enough yet? Mature enough yet? This is what you wanted right?") Anyway, I think Kick-Ass the comic suffers gigantically from a failure to break in one direction or another, in regard to that tension. It gets very, very close to saying useful and interesting things about the genre at several points but keeps undercutting itself by transforming back into the object of its own attack. There's this initial line of questioning, right, which is, "what kind of person, in real life, might actually try this? How would it go?" And the comic has some compellingly miserable answers to that question! Everyone in costume is chasing the same power fantasy, clinging to the idea of being somebody. Dave is, in his own words, motivated by "the right combination of loneliness and despair," and he's not competent. He alternates between minor wins and brutal hospitalizations, the first two issues and change is just the world punishing him for being dumb enough to try this, and for the most part he's a LARPer, a self-identified asshole. Red Mist is a rich kid playing with his father's money. Big Daddy and Hit-girl are framed as the "real deal", genuinely competent in their ability to dish out violence, and the comic to some extent has the self-awareness to recognize that people who were actually any good at this would be even more horrifying than the LARPers. The Reveal that Big Daddy was an accountant- that he made up a tragic backstory and made his daughter a human weapon in order to pursue an escapist fantasy- genuinely lands like a meteor! But it fucks it up, because it also needs to be cool, cool enough to keep our attention, and so it pulls an about face. The horror of Hit-girl gets subsumed by the realization that she's also the coolest thing in the whole book, almost loadbearing in terms of having actually cool and interesting things happen on-panel, and so the end of the book turns into the exact kind of superviolent revenge story it was initially skewering as unrealistic and disconnected from the much more grounded grief and loss Dave is experiencing at the start of the book. Dave's costumed escapades goes from being an obviously stupid and egotistical attempt to claw back control of his life to... an actual method by which he claws back control of his life, and not in a way that feels terribly well-earned!
The sequels double down on this- alternating between "in real life this would be cheap and stupid and tinged with anticlimax" and "woooo! Let's ape Tarantino until something cool happens!" and honestly, that feels less worthy of analysis because what I'm pretty sure happened there is that the movie blew up and created A Demand For More Kick-Ass. In general what it feels like fundamentally happened here is that you ask, "what if superheroes were real," you land on the answer of "they'd look stupid, be stupid and die badly," but what does that leave you with? It's not like that wasn't the obvious answer already and it's definitely not eight issues of material. He can't pull the trigger on having everyone involved die badly in meanspirited ways to drive the point home, and he never quite threads the needle back to the reconstructive middle ground he badly wants the book to inhabit, the "real heroes work in soup kitchens and look out for their neighbors" area. Things just happen.
That said, the gag about the astroturfed swear-word "Tunk" is fantastic. 10/10, no notes
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synnthamonsugar · 4 months ago
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Sending an ask instead of commenting because I prefer to keep discourse away from my blog. but, I have to get some of this off my chest. it's bound to be lengthy, so don't feel like you have to read/respond. you just seem like maybe you'll get my point. Read this as one big I statement because of course it's my opinion and I'm not out here reading everyone's minds.
On that last post. I think a lot of people have gone and manic-pixie-dream-girl'd Eris beyond recognition, and that some of shippers (not all, ofc) have spent so much time with their own headcanons & fanfic that they've forgotten how their real dynamic is. It's easy to project a relationship onto them if you're already looking for one. People see them bicker and go "aw, they're arguing like an old married couple!" when, no. They're just arguing.
Drifter definitely flirts with her, but she doesn't reciprocate and I don't even think that it's necessarily serious. That man would flirt with a wall if he thought it would be funny. He seems like the type to tease people that way regardless of gender or attraction to them.
I don't deny that there's something between them. knowing the lore as I do I think it's safe to say that they're somewhat close, whatever that can even mean for either of them, but for fucks sake close isn't always romantic. Are they friends? Maybe. Can either of them have friends at their level of stability? I genuinely don't know. I don't think that we've been given enough to go off of, honestly. I don't like the idea that they're going to magically have their trauma cured by dating each other. She doesn't need him to "file down her teeth", and I don't think that he would. He definitely seems to benefit from her input, though. I don't feel like their relationship is very balanced in that. There's plenty of lore to back up him getting and using advice from her, and it being helpful to him, but I haven't seen much the other way around. He's immature in a way that she isn't, and people seem to think she's going to settle for that.
I don't care who people ship or what their headcanons are, that's all their own business. If I don't like it, it's not like I'm going off on their blogs in the space they've made themselves about why I don't agree with them. I prefer to just back off a bit, let them have their space and I'll have mine. But I don't always see that respect going both ways, and it starts to really bother me when people try to project their headcanons onto other blogs and onto the developers. Almost anything I see of them independently, it seems someone has to show up with "but where's [the other one]", and I've seen shippers go after multiple people for asking that their fanart of the two isn't tagged as ship art. It's just overstepping at that point.
Of course, I don't like lumping a bunch of people under the single label of drifteris shippers and calling them all a problem, I'm well aware that it's probably a loud minority silent majority type situation and I'm not going to assume someone's like that just because that's their content. But a lot (that I've seen) are.
On the misogyny part, I've definitely seen it in some. I'm a guy, so I'm probably not going to have the world's best explanation of why, but what gets to me is mostly the over-romanticism of Eris as his quirky goth gf. It's dumb and often comes off as objectifying. Sometimes it's like people think she's some edgy egirl twitch streamer. I find it strange how much fanart of her changes her appearance too, given we can barely actually see her. And sometimes it winds up painting Drifter as this douchy dudebro that he just isn't. One of the best things about his character to me is that he has his attitude without the shit treatment of women that comes along with it with most similar characters in games. I don't understand the need to turn around and twist him into someone that pushes her boundaries, which is pretty necessary to read their arguments as flirting.
I don't know what else to say, it's late and I'm tired and I'll probably feel stupid for letting myself get wrapped up in fandom discourse but I might as well say it while the conversation is happening.
(adding in case you do post this) v
No shade to shippers that don't fit the description I've put here. If you're reading this and go "Hey! I don't do that!" then obviously I don't mean you. You're all just doing what makes you happy and, hey, go for it. Tumblr is a great place for that. It's only an issue (imo) when that crosses the line into expecting everyone else to have the same headcanons or ignore what is canon. Go make art and fanfic and whatever you want, there's plenty of people who will appreciate it. I'm glad the positive side of the ship fanbase helps boost both of their stories, I hope it winds up driving Bungie to put more content in of them, together or apart.
Thank you for the thoughtful message Anon. Honestly I cosign all of this and wish I could respond to each of your points, but will at least try to cover a few of the ones that hit most with me.
Replies under the cut, since this is a long one ...
I think a lot of people have gone and manic-pixie-dream-girl’d Eris beyond recognition
I've thought about this for awhile. Eris is frequently written as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl insofar as being the offbeat catalyst for a jaded man's journey to a better version of himself.
He seems like the type to tease people that way regardless of gender or attraction to them.
Whether you ship them or not, it's odd seeing Drifter's canon characterization as a recklessly charismatic flirt lost in fanon. That special significance is placed on his flirtation with Eris, and not with the Guardian, Orin, Efrideet, or Rahool, or the others I'm probably forgetting.
Of course, the Guardian is a blank slate the player can project motives onto, and the others are characters whose interactions with Drifter are limited to lore. His & Eris' interactions stand out. That still doesn't mean it's inherently romantic; I've platonically flirted, held hands, snuggled, danced, bed-shared, and other things fans would dedicate thousands of words of shipfic to were I a fictional character.
Though reading it as such is fine (and I'll concede, probably lines up with the authors' intent, since we know some of them are shippers), nothing in the lore is explicitly romantic. Note, authorial intent, word-of-god and canon are all separate things, as much as fandom conflates them.
An aside, it's interesting how fanon surrounding Drifter paints him as socially anxious, touch starved, romantically awkward ... until he meets Eris. While I understand the utility in shipping — to emphasize the One True Love aspect since serial monogamy, much less polyamory, is unknown to most, especially F/M, shippers — it also comes off as "did not read the lore" at best, and "perpetuating negative stereotypes about Asian men" at worst.
Can either of them have friends at their level of stability? I genuinely don’t know.
This is why Eris' and Drifter's dynamic peaked in Arrivals & Beyond Light. The tenuousness of their alliance, the acceptance and rejection of each other's flaws, the trust between them that wasn't earned but necessary to survive. It was fun, tense and compelling and I wish more of the fandom focused on this era of their relationship.
I don’t like the idea that they’re going to magically have their trauma cured by dating each other.
Cosigned. The idea that love can mend any wound, heal any trauma, or fix any flaw is textbook amatonormativity, and has unfortunate implications when applied to Eris' story. I shouldn't have to detail why "woman overcomes trauma with the affection of a man" leaves a bad taste in my and many other fans' mouths, especially when it's favored over her longer-standing relationships with other characters. Why is her bond with Ikora ignored? Zavala? Asher? Mara? Why is so much of her growth pinned on one man, when there are other, deeper relationships that have existed since practically the beginning of Destiny's narrative? Why is there so little shipping surrounding Eris and these other characters?
Almost anything I see of them independently, it seems someone has to show up with “but where’s [the other one]”, and I’ve seen shippers go after multiple people for asking that their fanart of the two isn’t tagged as ship art.
I don't typically engage with popular Destiny ships, but I draw Mara Sov frequently. By herself, and, frequently, in non-Marasjur pairings. Not once have I gotten a "Where's Sjur?" comment, or even a "Where's Shaxx?" for that matter, as pushy as the "helmet stayed on" bros are. Meanwhile, I expect these comments when posting Eris art, particularly Eris F/F. I've had this happen in art I've drawn of her and Drifter with a disclaimer that the art is platonic/not to tag as ship! At that point it's not misunderstanding, it's entitlement.
I don’t like lumping a bunch of people under the single label of drifteris shippers and calling them all a problem
Agreed. I'm technically an Eris/Drifter shipper in the sense of consuming and producing art & fic for them, though I've pulled back from interacting with that part of the fandom because [waves hands generally]. I have no issues with drifteris as a ship, nor enmity drifteris shippers as a whole, but the individuals who engage in rude behavior.
what gets to me is mostly the over-romanticism of Eris as his quirky goth gf.
I'm going to repost what @/unsaelig said, since it's a salient point:
"I have no actual way of proving this, but given how much it’s been a staple, for the past 9 years, to speak of Eris as an unpleasant, unstable, worrying, suspicious individual, and given how much people like to fixate on how Eris & Drifter’s dynamic “softens” her and makes her more palatable and conventional, I do strongly feel Drifter is probably brought up with her as a “package deal” so often because in their eyes he “defangs” her & makes her much easier to take."
I do think there's a popular fandom read on Drifter as a funny, quirky guy who's a little out-of-pocket, an edgier fandomified-and-flanderized Cayde-6, if you will, and that Eris has to naturally follow by being an inoffensively gothy dommy mommy. It's perplexing, it's objectifying, and it makes me wonder what people are actually shipping them for if they sand down their characterization so much.
I don’t understand the need to turn around and twist him into someone that pushes her boundaries, which is pretty necessary to read their arguments as flirting.
The misogyny - amatonormativity combo again. Before anyone comes for me because I like enemies-to-lovers: sword-fighting your beloved to the death over a pit of lava isn't normalized, but saying that boys who bully girls are "just flirting" is. "I hate my wife", "I wish my husband was dead" and "ol' ball and chain" 'jokes' are. The patriarchy instructs men to disrespect women, and tells women to be flattered by the disrespect of men because at least you're receiving a man's attention. It's neither cute nor funny, and I equally dislike it when empoweringly reversed so that the man is the target of the insult.
No shade to shippers that don't fit the description I've put here. If you're reading this and go "Hey! I don't do that!" then obviously I don't mean you.
Cosigned completely. I know I have reputation as an arch-hater, but I have nothing but respect for people who are shipping them in ways that don't play into tired stereotypes of M/F relationships. (Or misogyny, or racism, or...)
Sometimes I wonder if I should try to put more good Eris/Drifter out there, but most of the time I fear I would only be stemming the tide; I am just one person with limited resources, and there is so much out there that my work will go unnoticed and my time is better spent boosting small ships that need the help.
Mostly I wish there was more focus on Eris and Drifter as individuals, in the game and in the fandom, further exploration of their bonds with other characters, and an environment where a wider range of gen and ship fic/art could flourish.
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