#WE ARE ALL THE BIGGEST FANS BUT ALSO I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS HOW MUCH I LOVE CSH

[azaharinflames]

Today on reasons why I am mad:

“Oh my God just let it go”

And also: “We know this comment isn’t from a real person”

To all the buddies making these type of comments (because we all know it’s them): I hope you lick a rock and your tongue gets stuck.

(I want to say so much worse, but. I’m trying to be nice)

Because: No. We are not letting it go.

But also - who the hell are you to policy how people are feeling? How they react to things? Who the hell are you to decide if something should bother us, or if something is completely fine?

Also - have you let go of Gay Eddie yet? Of Buddie? No, right? So why should we let go of our indignation at the poor way 911 dealt with a queer storyline and the apparent exit of a queer man?

You don’t like Tommy, we get it, we do not give a single fuck about it. The fact is that, despite what you try to deny by claiming comments made by the GA are BTs in disguise, BuckTommy’s been a generally well liked couple for the viewers. And I know they ignore that because God forbid the viewers like BT and don’t see or like the idea of Buddie.

It’s also incredibly easy to se these are GA members, especially when you only need to click on their profiles to see they are normal people who, for once, are going to the official account to show disappointment.

(Also very telling most of the people buddie comments are made with fan accounts, but I digress here)

I do think they don’t want comments like the ones we’ve seen to be liked, or to grow, because they are scared of the consequences of them. They are more scared than us, actually. We know the comments won’t necessarily do a thing, we just want to express our disappointment at anger at how they played their audience and mistreated it, especially their queer audience. We know that bringing Tommy back isn’t gonna be magically done by our comments. But they are scared about them. They thought their voice was the biggest and the loudest and every time they try to speak over us in the comments, they drown.

Anyway. Just needed to get that off my chest.

[jamiepaige]

Constant Companions Closeup #2: NOT QUITE THERE

(also on spotify!)

b-b-back once again

Round two of the Constant Companions Closeups - a series of in-depth dives into the songs off of my latest album, Constant Companions! Yesterday was track one, Dyad - today is track two, Not Quite There, featuring the incomparable telebasher!

This one's a bit of a dark horse relative to the rest of the album, but it may very well be my personal favorite song on the entire thing so dammit let's Yap

---

For the uninitiated, this song pulls heavily from a song off my previous album called Gummyworm, both in vibe and by very directly quoting its synth motif.

Both of these songs deal with two sides of the same emotional coin. I actually don't want to go into too much detail about it - I feel like the lyrics spell things out clearly enough - but I will say this:

When it's all you know, it's easy to believe that a love that isolates you, a love that doesn't respect you, a love that hurts is better than no love at all.

You deserve better. There are always people who genuinely want what's best for you, who want you to feel truly loved. It certainly isn't always easy - it's genuinely good if your interpersonal relationships have a little friction sometimes - but love should make your life brighter.

You deserve a love that's fair.

---

The original version of this song was actually intended to be on Bittersweet alongside Gummyworm. The original concept for that album had a whole heady concept involving duality, songs reflecting each other, the two halves basically being reprisals of each other... Ultimately, I'm glad I scrapped that idea, because it was waaaaaay too much for me to manage after a couple years of barely making music. Maybe I'll revisit it someday though?

The drums on this song are sampled from an Instagram post by Louis Cole, where he's doing this crazy one-handed hi-hat blast by holding a drumstick sideways. I'm a drummer and that shit genuinely scares me a little like i dont know how he does half the things he does its fucked BUT. I bring this up because he's one of my biggest inspirations as a musician! I'm really big on jazz in general, in case my love for spicy chords wasn't enough of an indication, but his specific brand of freaky hyperactive bullshit just does it for me.

Seriously, go watch his band KNOWER play their song Overtime. Absolutely insane performances across the board. also Clown Core

This whole song is really just my attempt at matching some of that hectic jazzy energy with my own style of music, so I figured it only made sense to make it another collab with another musician making delightfully frantic jazz bullshit - the legend herself, telebasher! I really am such a massive fan of her work, and I struggle to think of anyone who plays guitar quite like she does. We previously worked together on another Bittersweet track, Asemic Speech, and her guitar work is a major reason why that song is still one of my favorite I've ever released!! She's just built different like listen to this oh my god!!!!

Lastly, since this song was one of the first written for this entire project... it is admittedly a case of me shoehorning the album's leitmotif in after the fact. It's a little forced when it shows up in the backing vocals! But, the choir of vocal synths during the guitar solo served an additional purpose - my own voice doesn't show up on the album again for another four entire songs, and this would've otherwise been the only song on the entire album that didn't feature any vocal synths. Thus did I attempt to bridge the gap, as it were. Hopefully it makes the final product feel more natural!!

Either way, that's all for today's post.... i think.... which means that tomorrow.... we're gonna rot.... for clout

[newx-menfan]

Yeah- a lot of fans weren’t thrilled about the “Prodigy/Hellion” climax after years of build up; I definitely thought it was fine if there’s more TO the fight than what we actually saw (like Prodigy/Hellion working together) but it definitely seemed to alienate some readers- if the “Laura/Hellion confrontation” sucks as well… I don’t think NYX will recover after, sales wise, because the major SELLING point of this book was the “the return of X-Men soap opera theatrics”, a new “youth book”, and it being “a stealth NXM book”…

There’s a LOT of X-23 fans who are basically reading this solely for Hellion and Laura… if the “Love triangle” ends up being “Local/Laura/Synch” or “Local/Laura/Kiden”… I could see it blowing up in the writers faces HARD…

Kiden hasn’t been included in books in YEARS… and honestly fans would rather see Laura with Jubes than a D-list character that vanished from X-Men lore more or less completely; I know you’re not a big Jubes/Laura fan (neither am I)- but it’s undoubtedly the BIGGEST female ship Laura has and I could see this basically being “Karolina Dean and Julie Power” and Jubilee fans being PISSED (personally I would rather have Kiden over Jubes, but I know that I am in the minority)…

The Synch relationship was miserable… everyone WANTS it gone… no one is going to be happy if Everett is the other part of the love triangle and THAT’S the only thing brought back from the Krakoa era (I like Everett- but even I HATED him with Laura)…

Local is basically a character that will 100% disappear after this book is over- while nowhere NEAR as bad as Valmont in “Catwoman”… he’s just not going to reliably stick around- it’ll be “Haymaker” or “Trinary “ all over again…

Hellion is the ONLY successful hetero relationship that’s been teased for Laura- BOTH Warren and Synch tanked HARD with readers and people forget Bendis even planned teen Scott to be a thing…

Honestly X-23 fans are getting sick of Laura’s storytelling being just lackluster romances and I think if the Hellion/Laura reunion ends up really poorly written- it’ll be hard to do any romantic storylines for Laura in the future and get ANY fan readership.

Hellion is the ONLY one fans seem to be largely clamoring for besides Jubilee, AND Hellion and Laura was one of the LAST well written comic relationships represented- no one cares for the newer comic “ships” anymore. There is no fan following for ANY of the newer relationships lthe same way there is with Jott, Scemma, ect…

Honestly- they need to cut down on Kamala time, and if this issue DOESN’T do it… I don’t think the book will survive.

I like Kamala and enjoy her as a character- but X-Men fans objectively don’t want a stealth “Ms Marvel Solo”. It was fine for the first four issues- but as a team book, it NEEDS to be more balanced out.

I actually was happy with Empath being the “bigger bad”- in PART because I want a “Hellion/Empath throw-down”… but also because Manuel IS a really interesting character, that got buried in X-Men Lore.

But yeah- I think the first four issues has been fine, but I definitely think this book needs to pivot a bit, or sales numbers will undoubtedly drop.

My biggest worry is that they originally wanted QQ for “The Krakoan” and didn’t personally request Hellion, even though he makes MORE sense for this book- will that translate into them basically IGNORING Hellion as a character and writing him as a Quentin copy? Or will they actually take his characterization and history into account?

I guess we will find out on Wednesday…

🥺🥺🥺

😭😭😭

Friendship bracelet. In the trash.

[msnihilist]

I'm not super involved in the Nicktoons Unite fandom, but I have been combing through fics and I'm already tried of Danny being portrayed as the big brother/second smartest one instead of what he actually is: a fucking idiot.

[cavity-collector]

finally hit 10k car seat headrest scrobbles, kiss my ass peasants

[bluetimeombre]

・❥ 'Are you Hugh down under?' p2

You and Hugh were the stars of the biggest movie, Wolverine and Ladypool, and fans love the two of you.

[Here's p2, thank you for loving the last one and being as obsessed as I am. I hope i got everyone on the tag list and the second part to Ladypool and Wolverine is on its way. Again this isn't proof read, this is just vibes. There's some sexual innuendos and sexist comments that Hugh is at the rescue for. Also, i'm British so half of these interviews just end up being British icons]

part one

You and Hugh being in love for twenty-five minutes (part two)

2017, Y/N heart monitor

You were doing an interview for your latest movie with Nick Grimshaw on BBC radio one. It was a new thing he'd come up with, trying it with you for the first time as you were hooked up to a heart rate monitor.

'Is it working?' asked Nick. 'Is she alive?'

You help him put the stickers onto you. 'It's like, there's nothing there,' you joke with them.

'She's a robot.'

The beeping began and it found your heart beating at a steady pace, a good start.

'So, I'm going to show you a series of images and we're just gonna see how you react to these images, ok?' he asked.

You grin, nerves kicking in. 'Ok.' It could have been anything. And boy were you right.

Some of them were fine, easy, normal. A picture of a co-star the heart rate was fine, a pair of shoes that you wore a lot, a picture of cash and an ex that had it risen but not alarmingly.

'And finally,' Nick picked up an image. 'Hugh Jackman! How does he make you feel?'

Your cheeks go red and you laugh. 'I hate you all so much, um, Hugh Jackman?' you were too busy laughing. Once you had made a joke about Wolverine and how good looking he was, now it was following you everywhere.

'Heartbeats rising!' Nick cheered as you covered your face. 'Heartbeats the highest it's ever been, eighty-five, up to ninety! One hundred!' he claps.

You bang your head on the table, finally finding control over yourself. 'I can't believe you all.'

Nick slid the picture over to you. 'Here, you can take that one home with you.'

'Thanks. He looks great there, doesn't he?' you say. 'A classic, Hugh Jackman picture.'

'Yeah, you like it?' he teased.

You grinned. 'That's going on my wall when I get home.'

The Graham Norton show

You and Hugh had walked out, waving at the adorning crowd that cheered as you took the sofa.

‘Hello! Hello!’ Graham called.

The two of you looked the pair as you smiled and sat next to each other in spite of the space on the sofa.

‘Sofa to ourselves, i like that,’ you say, lying back.

‘The other guests were too intimidated,’ said Graham. ‘Now, was the walk out ok for you guys, Hugh, are you happy?’ He asked.

Hugh frowned. The crowd laughed. ‘It was very good, thank you.’

‘Because, is it true- and Y/N correct me if I’m wrong, you had a specific song you walked out onto set with?’ He asked.

Immediately knowing what he was talking about, you laugh while Hugh hangs his head and sighs.

You sat straight and took to explaining while patting his back. ‘You see, it’s very tough for Hugh to get into character as Wolverine sometimes. So the only way was to get him out the trailer was to play a specific song.’

‘Ok, ok so shall we do it again, this time with the song?’ Graham proposed. He ushered you both backstage, Hugh squeezing your shoulders as you went.

‘Whatta a man’ by salt and pepper started playing and you led the way out for Hugh who danced his way out. The crowd clapped along as Hugh shows his moves and ended with dipping.

‘Oh wonderful!’ Graham called as the two of you took your seats again.

For the rest of the interview thing went very smoothly.

‘Now is is true that the first time you met, Hugh, you didn’t actually meet Y/N?’

Hugh again huffed and shook his head. ‘This show is all to embarrass me, isn’t it?’

‘Makes a change honestly,’ you say.

Hugh looked back to you and started to tell the story. Through out, his body had moved toward you, his entire presence facing you despite talking out to everyone. ‘When I first walked on set, you know, at the ready, I was very excited to be there and even more excited to meet this wonderful lady here. And I got suited up, you know, went to hair and makeup and one of our first shots was quite a challenging one, a big stunt.’

‘Big,’ you agreed, taking a sip of your drink. You knew where the story was going.

‘Yea, so anyway, I walk over to Y/N whose already in her suit. Looks great by the way. Anyway so I start introducing myself and saying hello and how thankful I am for being here, a real heart to heart you know-‘ he says, ‘and then Y/N walked in and i realized I’d been speaking to her stunt double the whole time- whole time!’

The crowd laugh as do you, almost choking on your drink.

Wolverine and Ladypool press:

You and Hugh sat with each other all day doing press. You kept it light with jokes between the two of you, working through the people and questions.

One particular interviewer just had to get his answers though. ‘So your suit,’ he starts, looking to you. ‘It’s very tight and eventuated several parts of you, did you find that hard to manoeuvre around?’

Hugh answered before you had the chance to open your mouth. ‘I found it very easy to move around in. You know, first x-men movie, not so much but these suits, are perfect.’

The guy chuckled, it was clearly forced but you thanked Hugh for taking the question, patting his knee. ‘Can you wear like panties with them or thongs, cause they are skin tight.’

‘I’ll take this one!’ Said Hugh again. ‘I go commando, but that’s just because I like it.’

‘He does, he does like it,’ you nod, grinning. ‘He’s going commando right now actually.’

The guy tried one more time to ask you a question about the suit. At this rate, your entire body turned to face Hugh. ‘Do you feel sexy in the suit?’ He asked you.

‘Very,’ said Hugh.

After that, Hugh made several vulgar comments when you were alone, but luckily for you, Hugh was your own superhero.

Buzzfeed quiz

'Hello!' you greet the camera, holding your phone to your chest. 'I'm something-something Jackman.'

'And i'm the greatest actress of all time,' said Hugh.

You deflated, looking at him. 'Oh, well now I just look like a dick.'

'No, it's ok,' he shrugged. 'One of us has to look like a dick.'

The two of you were doing quizzes for Buzzfeed, answering if you're more Ladypool or Wolverine. Although you were sat next to each other, you'd both craned your bodies back so the other couldn't see what you were putting in, like it was a test.

'We're really competitive with each other,' Hugh told the crew.

'Yeah, not with anybody else, but I have to- I just have to prove i'm better than Hugh Jackman at something,' you said.

'Who are you hoping to get?' asked the lady behind the camera.

'Oh, Ladypool, obviously,' you said.

Hugh nodded along, watching you. (Did this man ever not look at you?) 'I wouldn't be angry about getting Ladypool either.'

You tut. 'So quick to betray yourself.'

If you could have a super power, what would you chose?

You read through the options. 'I think telekinesis,' you said. 'Mainly just because I'm lazy and it would be so easy to pick up the tv remote or close the curtains. Very practical.'

'Yeah, that's a good one,' Hugh hummed about it for longer. 'Maybe healing ability.'

You roll your eyes, throwing your head back. 'That's such a Wolverine answer!'

'I know, but I'm getting old, be nice for things to not hurt a lot,' he said.

Who's your favourite MCU character?

Hugh scanned the options. 'I er, don't see Wolverine on here?' he looked around at the crew behind the camera's shaking his head.

'Can't get the staff these days- oh my god Spider-Man's on here!' you cheered, distracted.

'She loves Spider-Man,' Hugh told the camera.

'I do. I really do,' you agreed. 'If it wasn't gonna be Wolvie, it was gonna be Spidey,' you look into the camera, holding your phone to your ear, mimicking for Andrew Garfield to call you.

Hugh dragged his finger of his neck in a cutting off motion if he ever did.

Who do you pick to be your road-trip buddy?

'You have to pick the Wolverine, c'mon,' Hugh nudged you.

You looked through the options which all considered x-men. You hesitated, humming. 'I dunno.'

'We had great fun in the car!'

A red blush took over your cheeks as you re-called the multiple, multiple takes you and Hugh had to do. Hugh saw this and draped his arm over the back of your chair.

'Yeah, but that was- that was different, this is a roadtrip not a porn video in a car,' you joked. 'And Wolverine's like so serious, Rogue, she's so fun.'

'Woah, woah,' Hugh paused everything. 'Rogue is great, don't get me wrong. But who's better!' he pointed at himself. 'Wolverine's not grumpy with you, he loves you!'

You look over at him, grinning sweetly. 'No, you love me and it's judging your character.' For five minutes, the two of you argued over who you'd rather have as a road-trip buddy. Most of it got sped up during the video. 'Ok, fine, I pick Wolverine. Who are you picking?'

'Charles,' said Hugh even though Ladypool was on the list.

You faced the camera, mouth hung open as Hugh laughed loudly and gave you a side hug, assuring you it was a joke but he still clicked on Charles!

Which musical number would you want to perform with your 'Wolverine and Ladypool' cast mate?

'Oh, some great choices!' boasted Hugh as he read through them all.

You smile at him, eyes softening. 'You've awakened the musical theatre beast.'

'Y/n, there's so many good choices! What do we pick?!' he grabbed your hand and squeezed as you watched him with joy.

There was a few choices: 'Love is an Open Door,' from Frozen, 'The other side,' which Hugh obviously did for The Greatest showman. But there was also 'The Love Melody' from Moulin Rouge and 'You're the one that I want,' from Grease and when you both saw that you gave each other a look and knew which one you were picking.

By the end when your results came up you cheered and punched the air, practically jumping out you seat. 'Ladypool! God, this felt like my audition for the character all over again,' you wipe pretend sweat from your brows. 'What did you get?'

Hugh showed you his phone. 'Ladypool! I got Ladypool!'

'We're so alike!' you entwined your fingers. Slowly and dramatically the two of you leant in, pretending you were going in for what would have been a very wet kiss before you both pulled back and explained your answers.

You and Hugh with Alison Hammond again!

The interview with the two of you and Alison Hammond was pretty much the two of you flirting and Alison fangirling. Fans couldn't stop editing it together.

'Ok so obviously there's been a lot of competition between the two of you, so we need to settle who's better once and for all,' said Alison. 'So i've got a series of challenges for the two of you to complete but there's a twist.'

'We're naked!' said Hugh causing you to laugh. 'No, sorry.'

Alison handed you both each a boxing glove. 'I want you to put one on each and sign your autographs, which ever is close wins the point.'

'You're on, Jackman,' you said, already sliding your hand into the boxing glove.

Hugh gave you a cocky smile. 'I am so gonna win this, you know why? Cause you've given me a right boxing glove, but i'm left-handed!' he quickly got to scribbling his autograph.

'Fuck!' you cursed, struggling with your own. (It was bleeped out on this morning).

When you handed them both back to Alison it was obvious who the winner was. 'Thanks for this guys, it'll do numbers on Ebay.'

The two of you practically topple on each other with how hard you laugh.

Next you had to try to open a bottle of water with your gloves on and pour it into glasses and try drinking from it, both of which you failed at. Then the two of you just started fighting each other so Alison called it off like she was your teacher in a rowdy class.

'So, as I am a morning presenter, I thought I'd see how good the two of you would be if you had your own Hugh and Y/N morning show- so here's some guards, scoot closer, scoot closer,' said Alison.

The two of you took the cards and moved your chairs together until your thighs were pressed together. You waited for your cue before the two of you began your audition for your own morning show.

Hugh threw his arm around your shoulder, drawing you in.

'No, Hugh,' you denied, 'we must be professional on tv!'

Alison cackled. 'Yeah, you wouldn't do that on tv.'

Hugh looked offended at the both of you. 'We're re-defining what it means!'

You push him off you and hit him with your cards.

Hugh assesses the camera. 'Where's the shot? Above our chests, perfect, so I can do this.' And he puts his hand on your thigh, sprawling it out as you bite your lip to stop the grin.

'I'm taking this audition seriously, Hugh!'

Finally, the two of you start, acting as if it was a real morning show while Alison gave you pointers.

'Did you have a good weekend?' Hugh asked you (in reality all your weekends had been spent in his company) 'What did you get up to?'

You shrug. 'Nothing much.'

'No,' he interrupted causing you and Alison to laugh. 'When I ask a generic how was your weekend, you have to tell me a great funny story that we've set up before. So, Y/N, what did you do on your weekend?'

'I went fishing,' you said the first thing that popped into your head.

'Did you fall in?' he asked.

'I fell in.'

'That's hilarious!' the way he said it and the way he looked into the camera, caring about it just made you laugh so bad. 'Don't go anywhere, we'll see you after the break!' you were still laughing when Hugh wrapped his arms around you and nuzzled into your neck, making kissing noises and hiding behind the cards.

Even more at the premier

You and Hugh stood next to each other, him keeping an arm around your waist as you both listened to the interviewer ask you questions.

'So, Y/N, we found this interview from 2017 and we thought Hugh might like to take a look at it,' they said, pulling out their phone and clicking on a video.

As soon as it started playing, you knew what it was. 'Oh god.' you hid yourself, turning to Hugh as he watched.

It was the famous heart-rate monitor interview, where, when you saw a picture of a shirtless Hugh Jackman, your heart-rate spiked higher than any other picture.

Hugh was smiling the whole time and beamed at you when the video finished. 'You have that effect on me,' he assured you, leaning his head on top of yours and smiling at the interviewer.

'Y/N, do you still feel that way when you look at him now?' they asked.

'More,' you said, speaking loudly over all the noise. 'I feel it ten times more.'

And fans, anyone, could see how much the two of you were in love. Whether it was just flirting or if it was real, it was there and everyone was happy for you.

As the two of you walked off, the camera followed you. Hugh's head was bowed low, seemingly taking low to you as his arm remained around your waist and yours came up to rub his back up and down. He laughed loudly at something you had said before dropping a kiss to the top of your head and continuing on the journey.

(there probably won't be part three but I'm working on another compilation with you and Hugh)

taglist (thank you all!): @geeksareunique, @angstdaddy, @tranquilty, @gotta-go-now, @pear-1206, @chronicallybubbly

[lailau7904]

So y'all have seen the Williams F1 Logo before, yeah?

well get ready, becaues I am about to ruin your day!

where does one even begin with this. i am sorry in advance. -just a poor learning graphic design student, who simply tried to enjoy their saturday evening

The Logo

For anyone that doesn't know, here's the Williams F1 Logo. Entirely unedited, copied straight from Wikipedia:

Now like many fans, I actually quite enjoy this logo. I like the modern, sharp edges of it and it's simple yet intriguiging design. It's memorable, while also easily recognizable as a W. I also really enjoy the colour choice (this, however, is entirely a personal preference.)

(entire rant under the cut. please keep reading this took years off my life span.)

How did we even get here?

Let's start at the beginning. How did we even get here? Well I, a poor poor learning graphic designer, was watching this lovely video from Mr. V's Garage about bad F1 Logo's over the past 35 or so seasons. Very interesting, I can only recommend it (but you don't need to watch the video to understand this post)!

Now, to cleanse the palette at the end of the video, Mr. V included a top 10 GOOD logos from this time span, it was very kind of him.

On P4 of this "Good List," Mr. V placed the current Williams F1 Logo, as pictured above. At first I vaguely agreed with this, believing that he probably simply hadn't noticed one of the things that's been bothering me about that Logo since the first time I saw it up close.

The first sign of Trouble

So, what is this mystery issue, you might ask?

It's simple really. You don't necessarily notice it at a first glance, but something about that logo seems off. Taking a second longer, you may notice it yourself.

No, I mean it, take a minute and go look at the logo. It looks wonky as hell, doesn't it?

Well I can tell you the first thing that I personally noticed. The arms of the W aren't in line with the bottom half, see:

(Graphic by @girlrussell who was so kind to let me use it, as it is way prettier than the one I made)

It's a crooked W. There is no good explanation for this. The rest of the font is perfectly fine, geometrical shapes.

Anyway, the good person that I am I went to point this out to my partner ( @leftneb ) who proceeded to inform me that he, infact, was not aware about this and was, quote, "never going to unsee that."

Now, the good FRIEND that I am, I, of course, proceeded to rush into our broader F1 friendgroup to make them suffer for eternity.

What's the logical next step to take? Of course, fix the logo in Adobe Photoshop, you know, as a joke.

(Disclaimer at this point, I am not necessarily the biggest fan of Williams Management Team. I enjoy ALL their drivers this season. I do NOT enjoy James Vowels. Be warned.)(Also I am aware that he probably did not have an influence on the logo)

Trying to fix it. Oh god, I was so innocent back then

Trying to fix the logo in Photoshop is the worst mistake I could've made. THE worst path to take. I could've just giggled about making my friends suffer (which I succeeded in, by the way) and moved on. Instead I ruined a perfectly good Saturday evening, and for what? I don't know anymore.

Anyway, how was I gonna go about fixing the logo in the simplest way possible? Simplest way I could come up with: slap the thing in Photoshop and put two, mirrored boxes at each side to make the sides line up. Small issue, how do I make the thing actually even? Fix: line them up at the intersecting point with the bottom tips of the W.

Here's the result:

Hey, anyone care to explain to me why in THE LORDS NAME the arms are different sized? I mean, surely they weren't before. Surely, certainly, I must've messed up.

I double, I tripple checked. I made sure everything was lined up and made sense. But no.

It just couldn't be. Something was uneven in this logo, something even deeper. Something I could not have predicted when first taking a closer look. It was at this point I realized I had messed up. What rabbit hole had I stumbled across? Certainly, it couldn't get much worse.

And that's when I noticed.

(pictured above; my genuine reaction)

There's MORE? (oh god, the top isn't lined up)

I couldn't believe my eyes. This is the PINNACLE of the sport, and THIS was the logo of one of the competing teams? I mean, yeah, we have a Visa Cash App RB or a Kick Sauber or even a MoneyGram Haas which are all terrible logos, but at least they're CLEAN. (this has not been checked. If anyone wishes to ruin a nice Saturday evening, feel free to check them and tell me how wrong I was in the previous statement!)

But you can see that there is no end in sight for this post. I'm sure you're as scared as I was at this point. By now we were sitting in VC, discussing the horribleness of this logo. I had long informed my irl's about this, who take said design classes with me. And it was one of them who pointed out the next thing that had been bothering me, but I had not been able to put a finger on up to this point.

thE DISTANCE, HOW DID THEY FUCK IT?

I'm afraid I have to confirm your fears.

Yes, those lines are the same length. According to Photoshop, they're on the same level as well, so no flunking with angles.

The gaps of the arms to the main W are not the same. They're differently sized gaps.

It was clear to us, this logo is inherintely flawed. They're subtle issues, but once you pay attention you start to notice things. It all looks slightly wonky and off centre. And eventually, you get paranoid, and start comparing other angles and sizes. And you will keep finding things. This has ruined my life.

HOOOOOW

Honestly, I don't even know what to say. Yes, yes sadly those lines, too, are the same length. Just copied over from one side to the other and layed over on the same height. I admit, they're not layed over perfectly. I was honestly holding back tears at this point. But the point still stands, you can clearly see a difference in width.

Honestly, the only way I can explain it is that at some point there was a mess up of distance or proportions and whoever was designing the logo couldn't pin it down and tried to restore the visual balance by making manual adjustments. And in all honesty? They kinda did a good job, if that's what's happened. I mean, you notice the crookedness of the arms, and then maybe the difference in height, but the rest you probably will not notice if you don't spend too much time staring at it. (like some of us) And even those issues clearly aren't noticeable to the vast majority, considering I had to go point it out to a group chat for my friends at least to notice.

what the fuck is THAT?

Now, the thing about doing this investigative work of prooving a team you dislike is worse in more aspects than you previously thought, is that you do a lot of zooming in. And zooming in means you might notice bits that yours eyes simply overlooked before, because they were too small.

Here you can witness the top of the middle point, that, for whatever reason, really wants to touch the top border of the Logo. I'm relatively certain that's the highest few pixel in the entire graphic, considering earlier chapter "There's MORE?" I have no idea why it looks like that or why they thought it was necessary for it to not end in a clean point.

I just actually have no idea how to even describe what is going on on the top of the left arm. That left hand side, again, touches the side and is therefore the most-left-pixel in the graphic. I, once again, have no idea the purpose of this. However the RIGHT hand side also makes no sense, as it is the most prominent corner in the whole logo. There's pointed corners, and rounded OF corners, but nothing that is trying to form it's own colony in a distant land that hopefully isn't this god awful logo. I hope that blob gets away. I really do. You go king.

i'm loosing my mind

Anyway, the only reason I could come UP with those weird "reachy-outy-bits" was to establish the dimensions of the logo? But if that was the case, I don't understand why they managed to keep all the other potentially border touching corners clean?

Like, look. Those are clean, sharp corners with some clearance off the borders. I have no clue why they managed it here but not with the others.

guys. please.

Backtrackig a little bit, going back to the positioning of the arms.

Do I need to mention that those lines are both the same length and the same (mirrored) angle? I really hope I don't, because I don't think I could be making this shit up. Like, once you roughly know what you need to look for it just kinda becomes easy to find.

As said before, I genuinely do think that most of these issues happened in a chain-reaction. For example, the distances between the main part and the W wouldn't be as noticeable (and they do get noticeable once you start looking at it) if the angle wasn't fucked. And guess what, there's more fucked angles here! Which ALSO influence this specific area of the logo!

this is just embarrasing for you.

something something same line copied over and mirrored etc etc

It's not as visible but the angles defintely don't line up here as well. As mentioned before, these issues for the most part all influence each other. It doesn't really excuse the issues, in my opinion as a designer, because a big company like this shouldn't have these sort of issues in their logo.

So let's review;

to sum it up,

i cannot even BEGIN to explain to you how big of a fucking JOKE this FUCKING logo is. because, i thought to myself, to round the post out, hey, why not show ALL the issues i pointed out in one picture? that would round it out quite nicely, wouldn't it?

Yeah well, this logo sent STRAIGHT FROM HELL just could NOT let me rest. I had only done the lines visualizing the crooked arms in PAINT up until this point, i.e. I had only pulled both up individually. To make a nice "rounding out" picture I still had to add them into PHOTOSHOP. so i did. i pulled up the line. i mirrored the line.

THE ANGLE IS FUCKING DIFFERENT

none. and i mean NONE of my friends had noticed this before. i need you to understand that we looked at this thing with FIVE pair of eyes, and NONE of us noticed that until i thought to myself "Oh I still need to add these specific lines to have ALL the issues I pointed out in my SILLY TUMBLR POST in ONE image" and i get THAT FUCKING SURPRISE

I was PLANNING to round the post out with a statement on how obviously this isn't a serious post. Here, I even had it all written out already because I accidentally started writing it in the last paragraph:

Of course, this is nitpicking, and it's not that serious. I'm aware of that. AS MENTIONED most of these would not be noticeable if we hadn't gone specifically looking for them.

yeah, well, fuck that. i just spent two hours seething about this logo. i'm ending the post on this instead.

[ahsxual]

Stu Macher x Fem!Reader where they are dating but the readers parents hate him so one night are 2:33 am Stu knocks on the readers window and she opens it it tells him to leave but before she can get a word out Stu is kissing her and telling her how much he misses her and one thing lead to, and so Stu had to push the readers head into her pillow so she didn’t wake anyone.

Sorry if the store request does not make any sense i’ve been wanting to request something from you for a while and this idea kinda came to my brain as I was falling asleep at four in the morning so I am very sleep deprived lol anyways I love your story. I hope you have a great day

Surprise Baby

Genre: Fluff & Smut

Warnings: +18 content, clingy and soft Stu, dirty talk, degrading, cursing, dom!Stu, p in v (w/o protection), sad Stu at the end (reader comforts him)

Word Count: 1,8k

A/N: This was actually a very interesting request and Ik very well that our daydreams before we sleep are the best 🤭 I added something to the plot at the end, so I hope you still like it! Tysm, I'm so glad you like my writing! It always feels so gratifying whenever you guys tell me that <33

Right now you're lying on your bed crying, while hugging your favorite bunny plush that Stu gave you for Valentine's Day. You'd just had an argument with your parents, since they weren't the biggest fans and supporters of your relationship with your boyfriend Stu Macher. You didn't understand why they didn't like him and didn't even make an effort to, even though Stu always made you happy and made your life more colorful and enjoyable from the moment you met him. Of course Stu had his flaws like everyone else, since perfection is impossible to achieve and that was fine by you. But not for your parents. They said that Stu distracted you from school, that he "lived" for parties and didn't give you your "precious" time to concentrate on your studies, because he always took you on dates so that he could spend more time with you, even when you said you were busy.

You perfectly knew that Stu wasn't a guy who would take "no" for an answer. Maybe it was because he'd always been spoiled by his parents and didn't understand the meaning of that word? Maybe he hated the fact that you would say "no" to him, because if you truly love him as you always say, why would you reject an opportunity to go out with him? Both answers to those questions are probably correct, because you knew that Stu didn't know how to respect your personal space either, not that you minded anyway. But your parents did and that was the problem. They even told you once that Stu was obsessed with you and that your personal life has also become his, as if it were his property. Maybe they were right about that, but that's how Stu showed how much he loved and cared for you and it always worked well in your relationship. And you really missed him.

Sleep didn't want to make its presence known, so you decided to watch your favorite show on your new tv. However, you still couldn't stop thinking about the argument with your parents. Of course you defended your boyfriend and were always on his side to protect him against anyone, even your own parents, but it did made you very upset... all you wanted was for your family to see how genuinely happy Stu makes you feel, how he always admired you and treated you as if you were the only woman to walk on earth and how he's so funny that it's practically impossible not to laugh because of some silly joke he's made until your cheeks hurt. You just wished your family accepted him and loved him as much as you did...

Your thoughts were suddenly interrupted when you heard your window being knocked on repeatedly. You screamed for a second, because you weren't expecting that to happen in the middle of the cold night. Nevertheless, you immediately felt relieved when you saw Stu standing there with his puppy eyes and big smile on his handsome face you loved so much. A wide smile appeared on your face the moment you realized your boyfriend wanted to surprise you and that he had actually made an effort to see you.

His giant body barely fit through your window and the way he clumsily tried to get into your room, like a cartoon thief, made you laugh until your belly started to get sore.

"Baby, what are you doing?? It's cold outside!" you asked worriedly, before you watched him fall face down on the floor as he let out an "ouch". You couldn't stop laughing at his poor attempt to sneak into your room, as he already knew that your parents would never let him in, especially so late at night. You looked over your bedside table, where your alarm clock was, to see what time it was, as it marked 2:33 am.

"Surprisee baby!" he shouted excitedly, with a contagious smile that didn't leave his face for a moment. His breathing was accelerated, which made you realize he had some trouble climbing up to your window. You felt your heart warming at his romantic gesture, yet you didn't want your parents to find out and kick him out of your house or worse.

"Be quiet babe, you're not supposed to be here! You need to leave Stu, my parents are gonna ki-" you were really worried about your boyfriend's safety, but Stu didn't give you a chance to finish your sentence, as he grabbed you firmly around your waist and began kissing you passionately with his long, skilled tongue. His hands were all over your body and his grip was tight, not allowing you to move away from him.

"Shh- don't worry about them. It's just us now. I've missed you so much, baby." he admitted, before kissing your neck eagerly. When he he'd had enough, he pulled you up by your hips and laid you down on your bed, his mouth never leaving yours. You couldn't help moaning as you felt his sweet, loving assaults on your body, his lips and big hands making you melt into his addictive touch.

"Love, we have to be quiet... and you're making it hard for me." by now you were feeling breathless, unable to contain your desire for your horny and needy boyfriend. Instinctively, you rubbed against Stu's crotch which made him groan in pleasure, as you could feel him already hard under his jeans. He began to gently pinch your nipples through the fabric of your short pajama top, enjoying and closely analyzing your reactions to his teasing touch.

"Looks like I have to shut you up so we don't get caught, baby..." the last thing you saw was a mischievous grin on your boyfriend's face, before he firmly turned you around so that you were on all fours for him. He pressed his erection against your ass, while his eyes rolled back as he put his head back from the stimulation and his mouth was slightly open. You were starting to enjoy this game way too much, to see who couldn't hold back their moans, and you made sure you would win this battle. You pushed your ass against him and started rolling your hips in a provocative way, knowing that Stu wouldn't be able to hold it much longer. He bit his lips at this and frowned, realizing what you were trying to do to him.

"My girl really wants to get some, huh? You wanna play dirty, doll? Do you really think you can win this game against me?" he laughed trying to mock you, making you feel pathetic if you really thought you could stay quiet with the way he was about to fuck you.

"Just fuck me already Stu, I can't hold it much longer..." you quickly gave up and decided to beg him for mercy, so you could feel him inside you for once. You were dripping by now and the thought of having to keep quiet so no one would catch you at such a vulnerable and intimate moment turned you on even more for some reason.

You finally felt him give you want you wanted, since Stu himself wasn't a very self-controlled guy when it came to you. You felt his tongue lick a long, firm strip from your throbbing clit to your pulsing, empty hole. This made you grip your pillow as hard as you could while he ate you out from behind. Unfortunately, it didn't last much longer like you'd hoped, as you didn't realize how horny and impatient Stu was feeling that night. Suddenly, you felt his fully erect cock enter you without any resistance, sliding easily into you because you were so wet with your cum and his saliva. He didn't give you any time to adjust to him as he usually did and started pounding you hard and fast. He knew you all too well, so he pushed your face against your pillow to prevent any sound coming out of your pretty mouth and kept his strong hand on your head. You prayed that no one would hear you both fucking like horny teenagers who can't control their sexual hormones. It wasn't your fault that you and Stu were so fucking attracted to each other and that your shared love was considered obsessive, right?

"You like that, don't you babygirl? You love it when I fuck you like this... You needy slut, can't get enough of your boyfriend's cock inside your tight hole. I bet your parents would be so embarrassed if they saw you getting fucked this good." he whispered in your ear before changing his angle to fuck you deeper. Wet sounds, your muffled moans and his heavy breathing were the only sounds being heard in your room, turning you both on even more. It didn't last much longer when you both came at the same time, since Stu was way too horny to hold his orgasm. He was so glad he'd made you cum before he climaxed inside you.

After the moment of ecstasy you both experienced, you lay there trying to catch your breath while staring at the ceiling. It was then that Stu pulled you closer to him and hid his face on your neck, clinging to you more than usual. He was acting way too needy and clingy, and wasn't trying to be the "dominant" one, which made you worry about him.

"Are you ok, love? Do you wanna talk about it?" you asked him softly as you caressed his hair and cheeks. You knew him too well to recognize whenever he wasn't feeling good, even when he was trying to hide it.

"My girl knows me so well." he chuckled weakly, trying to find the right words to tell you what was had been bothering him. After a moment of silence in which you tried to comfort him with your tender touches, he finally spoke. "My parents won't be able to make it for my birthday. Again." your heart ached for him, because you knew this problem had happened before. Although Stu's parents loved him and treated him right, they had never been very present throughout his life and that took a tool on his emotional behavior. That explained why he was so addicted to your attention and wanted you all to himself, all the time. It made you really sad that you couldn't help your boyfriend properly, because the presence of anyone's parents is irreplaceable.

"I'm so sorry to hear that, baby. I'm sure they're extremely busy with work and that's the only reason for their absence on such a special day. We both know that they love you and I'll be there for you to make sure you have the biggest party ever." you gently grabbed his face and smiled warmly at him, admiring his ocean eyes that reminded you of the maldivian water, as he stared back at you with pure love.

"I know you will. What would I do without you? You're the love of my life, you know that right?" you chuckled as you softly kissed his cute nose.

"I love you too, Stu... so much. You have no idea of how much love I have for you and no one ever will."

[delusional-day-dreamer]

So High School Part¹- k.m

‣ kate martin x celebrity reader (inspired fully by @ellienator)

‣ wc: 1216

‣‣ synopsis: reader, who has been famous all her life (think mckenna grace or peyton elizabeth lee), reveals her celebrity crush in a Vanity Fair interview with close friend, Sabrina Carpenter.

‣‣‣ a/n: pre write: i'm so obsessed with the wcbb x celebrity trope, also sorry it’s so long but i wanted to use this fic to practice writing more dialogue! after: i started around one a.m. and somehow finished this at almost FOUR AM after writing non-stop... (IT WOULDN'T LET ME UPLOAD THIS, I TRIED LIKE TWENTY TIMES)

"I swear to god, you have to stop touching your hair y/n," my manager, Alyssa, looked up from her phone just to scold me for the second time in the last twenty minutes.

"I'm sorry but I literally cannot help it right now Lyss, you don't understand how nervous I am for this," I insisted to her. "I'm so stupid, out of all the men AND women in the entire celebrity pool world wide, why did I have to say that Kate freaking Martin was my celebrity crush," I whine, albeit childishly, while squirming in the leather seats of our limo.

Three Weeks Ago

"Hi my name is Y/N L/N, and today I am here with Vanity Fair with the one and only..." You introduced yourself to the camera before gesturing to the woman next to you, one of your closest childhood friends.

"Sabrina Carpenter! And today we are going to be testing out a little lie detector test," After growing up on Disney sets together and respectively journeying out of the acting industry into music, you and Sabrina had only grown closer over the years you had known each other.

As the proctor introduces how the interview will go, Sabrina volunteers you to be in the hot seat first, and with some small bickering, you relent.

"So let's start of small just to test it out you know, how old are you?" Sabrina asks you from the other end of the table.

"I actually just turned 23 years old," you respond calmly, happy that your friend was taking it slow. With the proctor's approval, the two of you move on with the questioning.

SMALL TIME SKIP

"What is your biggest ick in a relationship? Wait I think we've talked about this before right?" Sabrina animatedly asks, eager to hear you response.

"No yea we definitely have, but the thing is for me," you start, "I don't have a type, like at all. Man, woman, celebrity, athlete, a totally regular person, I don't really care. To me, if you're attractive then you're attractive right?" Sabrina nodded in agreement to your statement. "So it's not often I get icked out, however, my biggest and literal immediate turn-off is when they start being overwhelmingly jealousy or being possessive about me, even like just being overbearing about my every move is an immediate no for me. It's honestly why I've been single for a while now," You respond thoroughly.

It was no secret to your fans that you were bisexual, considering your last very public relationship was with a woman.

"That's honestly such a valid ick, like if you think you own me then please escort yourself out that's honestly so gross," Sabrina piggybacks off your answer. "But I'm dying to ask and there's no way you expected me to not ask you this question, but, you've been a single lady for quite some time now," Sabrina teases, wiggling her eyebrows repeatedly at you.

"Oh no, I know where you're going with this," You complain, already beginning to feel a flush rising in your face.

"Do you have your eyes on anybody right now? Specifically, do you currently have a celebrity crush?" Sabrina asks you with the widest, most smug shit-eating grin on her face as she watches the blush begin to form on your cheeks.

"Yes I do," you mumble, rolling your eyes at your friend in the process.

"Who is it?" She pushes, knowing that once she asked, you basically had no choice but to answer according to the interview rules.

"Dude that's so not fair I don't wanna tell the entire internet that," you protest weakly.

"Come on! It's not even that big of a deal, besides you're super hot, I'm sure she'll be flattered," Sabrina insisted to you while trying to hold back her grin.

"Sab!" You groan as her big mouth reveals the gender of your crush, automatically giving away part of their identity.

"Oh shoot sorry," She quickly apologizes, covering her mouth with the interview question card in her hand. "But like, you're gonna tell them who it is either way so I'm not sure it matters," She adds in slyly, reveling in the red flush that had now visibly engulfed the entirety of your face.

"Okay fine whatever, it's Kate Martin," you mumble under your breath looking down at your shoes, attempting to escape the embarrassment burning inside of you.

"No that's definitely cheating, you have to actually say her name," Sab giggled at the state you were in.

"Oh my gosh fine," you exclaimed while waving your face with a paper from the desk, trying to lessen the appearance of the blush on your face. "It's Kate Martin alright? She plays basketball at the University of Iowa, has just declared for the WNBA Draft, and she's incredibly attractive, so literally sue me." You end the mini rant with both hands in the air, embarrassed and mildly annoyed at the fact that your friend had coaxed you into admitting your crush.

Sabrina laughed in delight, smacking her hand excitedly on the table in front of you to in response to your confession.

"OH MY GOSH, OH MY GOSH, tell me you've seen the edits of her on tiktok because there's no way you don't have any favorited or saved on your phone," Sabrina wheezed through her bout of laughter.

"Obviously I've seen them but I haven't favorited any of them," you defended weakly.

"That's a lie," the proctor informed you two, which sent Sabrina into a second round of wheezing laughs.

"NO WAY, how many? Like a hundred? Two hundred? More than that?" She exclaimed, somehow managing to tease you while still being out of breath with laughter.

"Like two or three maybe, like at most," You lied, despite knowing that they would find out.

"Still lying," the proctor slightly smiled, only furthering Sabrina's howling laughter to the point she nearly fell out of her chair.

"My god, you could at least pretend to be a little less overjoyed at this," you grumbled, attempting and failing to hide the giggles beginning to spill out of you at the sound of your friend's infectious laughter. You eventually gave up on trying to pretend being annoyed and joined Sab with her maniacal laughing, unable to control yourselves for the next few minutes.

"I hope you realize I'm so getting you back for that," You teased Sabrina as the two of you switched seats to continue the second half of the interview, your questions and Sabrina's answers.

END OF FLASHBACK

"Y/n it's not even that big of a deal, you just said she was attractive, it's not like you professed your deep-profound love for her," Alyssa insisted.

"I practically admitted to favoriting tiktok edits of her Alyssa, I'm literally doomed," you sighed dramatically leaning your head to the cool glass of the limo window.

"Yea well," Alyssa began, texting on her phone once again, "You're just gonna have to put on your big girl pants and deal with it because we're almost there and they wanna interview you on the red carpet and right when you enter the theater, and it’s quite literally the WNBA Draft, so there's no way they're not gonna bring up Kate," she informed you.

"I'm actually gonna die," you declare.

Thanks for reading all the way through! I'll be coming out with part two very soon!!

[outlawinthisworld1117]

And they were roommates…

☆ pairing: Mingi x (fem)reader

☆ genre: Friends to Lovers. Fluff. A sprinkle of angst. Slow burn? I guess…

☆ summary: KQ was holding the raffle of a lifetime - the opportunity to live with Ateez for an entire year. As someone who isn't particularly a K-pop fan, you were intrigued by the opportunity to travel with free housing. You didn’t think that you would actually end up winning… nor that you’d end up getting close to a certain member.

☆ warnings: toxic bf (not Mingi), some cursing, nsfw? suggestive material, mentions of cheating (again, not Mingi), some poorly written angst, there could be more but I don’t think so??

☆ word count: 14.5k (I went a bit insane for my first fic. I could probably cut it down, but I’m not gonna :P)

☆ authors note: This is heavily based on a scenario I had in my notes app for months. Mingi is my Ult! and I’m a hopeless romantic, which was a huge inspiration for this story. This work is fiction and purely self-indulgent (really as all fanfics should be), it doesn’t reflect any of the members personally. Also, I know that Mingi isn’t afraid of heights and actually enjoys rollercoasters, but for the sake of my 20th Century Girl reference… I had to make him the ultimate scaredy cat. Also, Yn is supposed to be the nickname version of Y/N… Enjoy!

Eight pairs of eyes are locked onto you as you awkwardly smiled back at them, waving ever so slightly. Eight of the most stunning men you’ve ever encountered stood before you, and one of them had particularly captivated your attention. His intense gaze, defined nose, and grown-out bleached hair pulled you in, igniting a spark of something new within you. His stare burned into your very soul, making you break your gaze and scream internally, overwhelmed by self-consciousness, Jesus H. Christ… how did I end up here???

—Two Weeks Prior—

(translator mode on :3, Hinata is Japanese)

Hinata: -Yn, look at this-

You catch sight of the notification glowing on your phone, and curiously you click the link your friend sent you.

-Win a once-in-a-lifetime chance to live with ATEEZ for an ENTIRE YEAR!!! Simply sign up through email, and you could be our lucky winner! If you’re chosen, you’ll receive free housing, travel expenses covered, an incredible job working alongside ATEEZ, and the opportunity to become friends with the group!-

You scoff, wondering, What is this? It seems like a scam. Your phone pings once more, a new message from your friend lighting up the screen.

Hinata: -I thought it was fake at first, but look!!! The raffle is posted on the official Instagram!! *screenshotted post*-

You: -Hina…you are the K-pop fan, what are you telling me for?-

Hinata: -You have been nonstop talking about wanting to travel somewhere you have never been before. Why not take the chance? Just sign up for the raffle. What harm could it do?-

You: -I don’t know, but it’s not very likely I’ll win anyway.-

Hinata: -So? It’s not likely you’ll get struck by lightning either, but we both know that it is still possible. Just do it!-

You: -Fine. Though you have to promise me that you won’t be mad at me if I win. I know how much you love those guys.-

Hinata: -Trust me, I will not be mad. I applied and if I win I’m giving it to you. I love them, but I will not be able to function if I am around them. Ironically, my biggest fear is meeting Ateez lol :3-

-Plus, you know how to speak Korean pretty well because of school, whereas I can hardly speak the only language I do know…</3-

Smiling at your friend’s text, you opened up the website for the raffle on your phone and signed up, thinking with a hint of sarcasm, I’m probably more likely to get struck by lightning… may the odds forever be in my favor, right? Little did you know that just a week later, you’d receive an ear-piercing call from Hinata, her voice bursting with excitement as she screamed that you won the raffle.

The next week was a complete blur for you. Phone calls with KQ executives, packing bags, and getting on a plane bound for Seoul, South Korea. Your head felt so strange as if you were wearing a large fishbowl; everything you heard echoed, yet at the same time was also muffled. Your knuckles were nearly white from the grip you had on your carry-on’s handle. The rhythmic pounding in your chest was so fast you feared your heart might leap out. You sat down in your cozy window seat and took deep, calming breaths. You reminded yourself that change was a gift, and this was an opportunity of a lifetime. Hinata was beyond excited for you, so why shouldn’t you feel the same for yourself? Finally, a chance to embark on your long-held dream of traveling abroad, and luckily for you, you already had a very solid grasp on the language… it’s almost like it was fate. You shook your head, Fate? Please, since when do you believe in such silly things. You closed your eyes as the plane took off, willing yourself to sleep for the duration of the flight.

—Present Day/End of Spring—

The eight men in front of you began to speak, starting from left to right, introducing themselves one at a time. The eldest, had long, dark hair framing his face, a comforting smile, and eyes full of curiosity. His name, Park Seonghwa. The way he carried himself instilled an overwhelming sense of safety within you, and you just felt in your bones you would get along well. 

The next man in line was much shorter. Actually, out of all of them you noted, he was the shortest, only taller than you by an inch. His exterior had a look of calm composure, but you could sense chaos within when you made eye contact with him— Kim Hongjoong, he was the Captain of the ship. Despite the intense energy he gave off though, you didn’t find his chaotic nature intimidating. Instead, you could tell that you were both quite similar but weren’t sure whether or not that was a good thing. 

Moving on to the man with fluffy brown hair that towered above the rest, his smile was radiant and slightly crooked, which you found very endearing. He waved his large hand at you as he said his name, Jeong Yunho. He had a familiar aura, like a home away from home, so you hoped you would be like family. 

Shifting over to the shy man in line, who gave off the energy of a Doberman, but looked like a Maltese. He politely introduced himself— Kang Yeosang. His smile was so warm, it made all your anxieties melt away and suddenly you knew that this raffle was a good change for you. He looked over to the man standing next to him and your gaze followed to the sturdy mountain with dimples. His broad chest and confident posture made him seem scary, but as soon as he spoke his true nature was revealed as the very sweet, Choi San. His upbeat and comic personality had you feeling excited to be his friend. As if a magnet was pulling you towards him, you looked over to the next man in line and felt your face flush a bit.

Song Mingi was his name. His face had such a look of careful observation, disguised as cold indifference. If you hadn’t known any better you would have felt hurt by the look on his face, but something pulled at your heart and you could just feel that he was the most goofy, caring, and kind soul you would ever meet. Fate? I don’t believe in such things… So you brushed off his current expression and begrudgingly moved on to the others in the line. 

Next was Jung Wooyoung. He seemed like the polar opposite of Hongjoong, presenting a chaotic exterior, concealing a polite and calm soul that shone brightly through the cracks. You sensed he might be a bit of a handful and would take some adjusting to, but deep down, you could also feel that, once you got to know him, he would prove to be one of the most treasured friends to have by your side. You smiled warmly at him before shifting your gaze to the last, but certainly not the least, man in the group. The moment your eyes fell upon him, memories of the big teddy bear in your room back home flooded your mind. He possessed the most fascinating eyes, somehow managing to be both intensely intimidating and incredibly comforting all at once.

With the final introduction behind you, you realized it was now your turn to speak. You swallowed thickly and took a deep breath, striving to recall all the Korean language lessons you had diligently attended in college.

(translator mode on :3)

“Hello, I’m Y/N and I’m very excited and grateful for the opportunity to live here with you guys. It is so nice to meet you all and I can already feel like we will get along well. Thank you for welcoming me into your home, and I hope that this coming year will be one full of great memories!” You bowed your head quickly and straightened out with a nervous, but excited, smile. The group gazed at you with surprise painted on their faces, though Mingi couldn't help but let a sly smirk dance at the corner of his mouth, as his eyes sparkled with amusement. With all formal introductions fully out of the way, the remaining KQ staff slowly departed from the house, leaving just you and the boys in the living room; the atmosphere was thick with newcomer jitters.

“Aigo! Your Korean is quite good,” Hongjoong praised. He motioned toward the couch for you to sit while the other guys situated themselves in various sitting places around the room. You took note of where Mingi chose to sit, which was on the floor, next to your spot on the couch. Leaning back and propping himself up with his arms, he just focused on you. You shifted a bit in your spot and tried to pry your eyes away from him and onto Hongjoong. 

Dismissively you waved your hands, “Ah, it’s not really. I only took a few years of classes during university, but I haven’t gotten to use it much since then, so I am a bit rusty.”

“Nonsense! We understood you perfectly,” Seonghwa smiled.

“Well, either way, I get to practice the language now and I’m very excited to see how much I improve over the next several months,” You buzzed.

“Just talk to Wooyoung, you’ll get plenty of practice in,” San chuckled, casting a playful glance at his best friend.

“Hardy har, I don’t talk that much,” Wooyoung responded, his eyes sending dull daggers toward San.

“Wellll… you kind of do. But we all still love you!” Yeosang chimed in.

“Speak for yourself, Yeo,” Jongho scoffed. Wooyoung lightly pushed the bear of a man, and Jongho pushed back a bit harder. Wooyoung wobbled on his chair trying not to fall over as he regained his balance. You giggled at the comfortable banter amongst the boys.

You looked over at Mingi to see his reaction, but you found that he had been looking at you the whole time. Your breath hitched in your throat as his eyes bore into you, and he opened his mouth to speak.

“So who’s your bias?” He questioned. The other men moved their attention from Wooyoung and Jongho, onto Mingi, and then to you.

“My what?” You asked, brows furrowed.

“Bias? You know, which one of us is your favorite?” He also furrowed his brows, wondering what was with the confusion.

“Who’s my favorite…?” You paused, absorbing the strange requested information from the tall man.

“Yeah… Typically Atiny’s have a favorite member,” He grinned at you, thinking that you were playing a game. Changing his sitting position he rubbed his nose and sniffed, moving to cross his arms smugly adding, “I’m kind of a crowd favorite.” His tongue poked at his cheek mischievously. The others just looked at him with blank stares and shook their heads slightly.

“Are you now?” You teased, looking him up and down. You didn’t doubt for a second that what he said was the truth, he was gorgeous and charismatic, but you and the other guys wouldn’t give him the satisfaction by agreeing with him.

“I’m sure I’ll be your favorite in no time,” He smirked at you and winked. You forced the blush creeping up on your face to go away.

“Well, I’m not really one to play favorites, Mingi,” You teased, feeling comfortable enough with him already to do so, “Plus I don’t know you guys at all, so even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to answer you right now,” You lightly laughed, crossing your arms, and shaking your head at the bleach blond man.

Your response had all eight of them looking at you strangely, and you wondered what you said that made them react that way. Yunho decided to speak for the group, “You don’t… know us?”

Oh… right, they were probably expecting a fan to live with them, you thought before answering, “Not really… I mean I know who you guys are. I don’t live under a rock, my best friend is a huge fan of ATEEZ. Personally, though, I don’t really listen to K-pop much, so aside from what my friend tells me… I know almost nothing. I didn’t even know your names until you guys said them.”

They all raised their eyebrows as far as they could go, mouths nearly agape. It took a second for them to process what they just heard. Mingi however was just curiously eyeing you, a grin still plastered on his face, as he breathily laughed.

“How ironic that out of the hundreds of thousands of Atiny’s that entered the raffle, the person who won isn’t even a fan of ours,” Wooyoung chuckled, which created a chain reaction amongst the boys, who all started laughing.

Thankfully, they didn’t appear to be upset by your lack of fandom, and there was something about Mingi’s reaction that had you thinking he was actually a bit relieved. You couldn’t help but nervously laugh along with them for a moment, as the sheer absurdity of the whole situation finally hit you, “I guess it’s probably a bit disappointing that I don’t know you guys, huh?”

As the boys calmed down, Mingi took the opportunity to answer, “Disappointing? I wouldn’t say that at all. I don’t know about the other guys, but personally, I much prefer that it turned out like this.” He looked at you with wonder, making you feel like the only person in the room. His eyes are so pretty…you snapped out of it when Hongjoong spoke, “I’m curious though, if you aren’t a fan of us, then why did you apply to the raffle?”

“I wanted to travel to someplace new, and it seemed like a really interesting opportunity. A place to live and a job included? It’s not exactly something I would want to pass up. My friend knows me well I guess, which is why she encouraged me to apply,” You stated simply and the boys nodded in approval at your answer.

“That’s a good friend you have,” San approved.

“Yeah, Hinata, she’s great. Actually, she lives in Japan, so this is the closest I’ve ever been to her, which is kind of nice,” You smiled at the realization, “Maybe I’ll take the chance to visit her next year before I have to go.”

The eight men around you had only known you for a short amount of time, but the mention of you leaving them already had them feeling pangs of sadness in their chests. Mingi just looked at you with a straight face, but his eyes— oh his eyes… he’s like a puppy— tell you everything he was feeling.

“So you speak English, Korean, and Japanese… it’s almost like you’re an idol,” Hongjoong pointed out, trying to shift the mood of his group, laughing weakly at his own joke.

“Ha! I’d make a pretty shabby idol,” You chuckled, a shiver running down your spine at the idea of performing, “I don’t do well when it comes to stages or crowds. If only I didn’t have stage fright though because I do like singing and dancing, and I’m not too bad at rapping either…”

“Plus you’re gorgeous,” Wooyoung added, making you feel bashful.

“Looks like we’ve got an ace in the group,” Mingi smirked in the most sinful way as he continued to stare at you. God, those lips of his…

Hongjoong nearly shouted, preventing your mind from going somewhere it shouldn’t, “Oh! Before I forget, we should go over the rules that have been put in place for the coming year.” He got up and grabbed a piece of paper on the kitchen counter before returning to his spot on the couch.

“Rules? Don’t we have enough already because of Hwa?” Mingi sighed. Seonghwa gave him a poisonous side glare, which made Mingi airily laugh.

“There’s only a couple of them. The managers thought it would be a good idea to have them,” Hongjoong said to prevent any arguments.

“So what are they?” You asked, wondering what could be so important that rules had to be put in place.

Hongjoong cleared his throat before he read off the page, “First rule: no unapproved content of the group or Y/N, whether it be pictures or videos, can be posted online.”

“I don’t even use social media, so that’s the easiest rule I’ve ever had to follow,” You chirped.

“Not even TikTok?!” Wooyoung blurted, shocked at what you admitted.

“Especially not that one,” You shook your head, thinking about the days you wasted away on that app in the past. Sure, you had an Instagram account to keep up with Hinata and your friends from back home, but that was it. You never posted on there anyway.

“Glad I won’t have to worry about you then, Y/N. The rule applies to all of us though… so please-” Hongjoong paused to look sternly at San, Yeosang, and Wooyoung, “-just don’t post anything with her okay? There will be a group picture uploaded to ateez_official to show our winner and that’ll be it for now.”

The three boys just gave sheepish grins and looked at the ground. You giggled, loving more and more the dynamic they all had with each other.

“Okay, final rule, and the managers have it in bold so I assume it’s the most important,” Hongjoong read it inaudibly to himself first, eyes going wide, he coughed a bit before sharing it with the room, “uh- um… it just says You aren’t allowed to date her, so don’t even think about it…”

If you were drinking something you would’ve spit it out. You choked on nothing and started laughing, “Seems like another easy rule… as if that would happen.”

Each of the boys had different reactions though. Hongjoong and Seonghwa kept serious faces, thinking that your response was valid but they knew that the rule was actually very necessary. San, Wooyoung, and Yeosang giggled a bit at it and your subsequent reaction, but they too understood how essential the rule was. Yunho and Jongho just looked at Mingi because they already knew that rule would be needed. Mingi looked like a kicked puppy, and your reaction made him feel even worse.

“Ha yeah… easy rule,” Jongho doubted, feeling that having the rule in place might end up causing more trouble than not having it, “Y/N, you will be living with eight guys around the same age as you. It’s more likely than you think…”

You calm down from your laughter, realizing that you were the only one not taking it seriously, “Oh… um— it’s not that I think it’s unlikely. It’s just that it won’t be a problem. Trust me.”

“The managers didn’t seem to think so,” Seonghwa frowned, giving you a worried look.

“I don’t think you understand, Y/N. Since we will all be living together and spending lots of time around you, one of us may end up developing feelings for you,” Yunho clarified, already glaring at Mingi. You suddenly felt very hot in your seat as eight pairs of eyes stared at you once again.

“Oh…” You addressed calmly, “Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news to whoever that could be, but I’m already in a relationship. So when I said to trust me, that it wouldn’t be a problem, I meant it.”

That’s right, you already have a boyfriend, Yn!! Sure… we’ve technically only been dating for a month and it’s not like we love each other. I was going to end things with him before leaving… I mean for crying out loud your love language is quality time! But I do like him though…and he wanted to try long-distance, sooo why not give it a chance. Right???, You internally screamed, kicking yourself ever since you arrived. You were a loyal person above all else and cheating was something you would never ever do. So they really did have nothing to worry about.

The group of boys had a look of relief on their faces, especially Hongjoong, who was glad that there was a solid reason for the rule to be followed. Mingi, however, had a blank expression on his face, trying his best to hide that he felt like he’d been shot by your words.

“Fantastic…” Hongjoong started, “… well then… shall we show you to your room?”

—Beginning of Summer—

The first month of living with them was truly an experience. Hongjoong and San had the best English, so you turned to them whenever the language felt overwhelming, though before you knew it, you were chatting comfortably with each of them. It felt wonderful to form such genuine friendships with them all. Hongjoong loved to share clothes and always showered you with compliments about your unique style. Ever since he discovered your birthday was the day before his, he affectionately started calling you “twin.” When Seonghwa caught you playing Animal Crossing on your Switch, he insisted you add him as a friend, and now you both trade items and play events together. 

Typically, when you hung out with San and Wooyoung, you found yourself either acting as a moderator or third wheel, but you didn’t mind one bit because they were always so sweet and made you laugh wholeheartedly; And whenever you craved some peace, you’d seek out Yeosang. His calm demeanor always put you at ease, and when he finally opened up, you discovered his hidden sense of humor, leading to a treasure trove of inside jokes between the two of you about the others. 

On the days when you deeply missed your family, spending time with Yunho was a comforting relief. He reminded you so much of your brother and always welcomed you to join him in video games, making everything feel just a little bit more like home. Jongho was happy to have you around since you were the youngest person in the house; only by a year, but to him it meant he could say, “I’m not the maknae, Yn is.”

You once thought that living with a bunch of boys would be a challenge, and while there were moments that tested your patience, they became the most incredible roommates you could have ever hoped for. Thanks to Seonghwa, the house always sparkled with cleanliness, and you never found yourself confronted by those gross odors typical of boys back in the States. To your relief, they weren’t overly rowdy either, which was essential since you cherished the peace and quiet. They would only unleash their loudness on game nights, revealing their fiercely competitive spirits. 

Playing games with them was a unique experience; there were times when you knew winning was a distant dream, and others when you felt a glimmer of hope. As you got to understand each of them better, devising strategies became easier. Jongho shared that same competitive fire, and when the two of you teamed up, you were a force to be reckoned with. However, it wasn’t long before the others grew a bit weary of your winning streak, and soon enough, everyone was reassigned to new game night partners. You pulled his name out of the bowl, which is how you ended up with Mingi. When the boys found out that your MBTI was INTP they called you and him the “two Ts in a pod”, thankfully though it didn’t catch on.

After the first week, your initial infatuation with Mingi wore off. So now you were able to enjoy having him as a friend. He was always around you when he could be. Watching movies with you in the living room, helping out in the kitchen as you made food, sitting on your bed when you folded your laundry, playing video games with you and Yunho, teaching you choreography at the studio, walking around with you whenever you decided to get some fresh air, doing his lives with you in the room— behind the screen though, as to not break the first rule, whatever you were doing he was there with you. You liked having him around; and now that it’d been a month of living with him, you considered him to be your best friend, and you were his— well… except when Yunho was around. He would get pouty and Mingi would have to reassure him, “She’s my best girl friend, Yun. You are my soulmate.”

“You mean it?” Yunho would sulk until Mingi would hug him.

“Soulmates since 9th grade,” Mingi reassured him, putting their foreheads together to do their little spin, giving you a wink as he faced you.

Your relationship with your boyfriend had been doing pretty well too. He was putting in a lot of effort to keep in touch with you, which was not something you were expecting but still appreciated. He would call you several times a week when the time difference allowed for it. You noticed every time you picked up his call Mingi would give you a look before he left the room. It was always the same look, and you could never tell what it meant because he somehow looked sad, annoyed, and unbothered all at the same time. Those brown puppy eyes of his made you feel uneasy as he closed the door behind him. It feels like guilt…why? Your calls with him were usually short, and afterward, you would go find Mingi and sit in a comfortable silence until one of you spoke. It was a strange routine you had and you still hadn’t quite figured out why you two had it in the first place.

“How’s the boyfriend?” Mingi asked, breaking you out of your head before you could go down a thought spiral. He’d never asked that question before.

“He’s good, about to go to sleep…” You looked into his eyes searching for any clues to fulfill your curiosity. You kept eye contact for a few seconds, though it felt like an eternity. His boba eyes searched yours, secretly hoping you could hear his internal struggle; wanting you to understand how he felt while also hoping you’d never find out. He looked away and put on a sly smile.

“Good, I get you to myself then,” he laughed. You rolled your eyes, glad to have your familiar banter back.

“You’ve always got me to yourself,” You shook your head, “I hardly get any time with him so it’s nice to have the phone calls.”

He just nodded and snarkily protested, “Yeah but you love me, not him.”

“I…” unsure of how to react to that you looked at the floor and thought, I should be offended that he said that, but I’m not. Your face actually felt kind of hot because of his words and you took a second to brush the feeling off before responding, “Of course I love you, Min. It’s different with him though. I may not be in love with him, but I really do care for him.”

He turned and smiled at you, reaching out to ruffle your hair up. You playfully swatted his arm away and smoothed your hair back down. He just sighed, “He better know how lucky he is to have you then.”

Yawning, he stretched and rested his hands atop his head, which lifted his shirt up a bit exposing a small area of his naval. It caught your eye and you found yourself staring, your face felt hot again. He looked over at you and smirked, “You hungry?”

“Wha—h-huh?” You looked away quickly, meeting his gaze as he lowered his hands back down, a small tint of blush was visible on your face.

“I’m hungry. Do you want to come eat with me?” He rephrased, giving you a knowing look.

“Sure,” you smiled sheepishly, trying to will away the butterflies you were feeling.

—Middle of Summer—

Your job certainly kept you busy, and you were feeling the rush of it all. It had been a few weeks since you started; KQ had graciously allowed you to settle into the house before handing it over to you.

“What’s your dream job?” Hongjoong queried. You thought about it for a moment. Having a job was never something you dreamed of, but you liked having something to keep you occupied, and of course, having money was always nice. Going to college meant you got to be independent for a while, so you did it for the sake of the experience. You majored in art and design since it had always been a passion of yours, but after graduating you weren’t too sure that you wanted to make it a career. It was always more of a hobby anyway.

“Hmmm, I guess I don’t have one,” Your face looked contemplative, but not sad. You were okay with this aspect of yourself, “My dream has always been to travel, so maybe if my job lets me do that then I’d be happy.”

Hongjoong nodded, thinking over your response and then smiled, “Lucky for you then that your job with us will have plenty of that.”

You perked up, “My job?” That’s right, that was part of the raffle. I almost forgot, “What will I be doing?”

After weeks of traveling to multiple places alongside them on tour, you were finally back home, even if just for a little while. That’s how you found yourself sitting on the floor in the middle of the empty studio late at night, staring at your reflection in the large mirror. Ateez’s newest assistant manager… has a nice ring to it I guess. You’re basically a glorified nanny— picking up food for the boys while they were practicing, running errands, and ensuring they didn’t overwork themselves. But, honestly, you didn’t mind at all; you had already been doing these things for them before anyway. It just meant you got to spend all day with them and get paid for it, which made you happy. The work wasn’t hard, and the salary was generous— far more than you ever earned at any of your jobs in the US. As you laid down on the floor and gazed up at the ceiling, you reflected on the long day you had. Watching the boys pour their hearts into perfecting their art deepened your admiration for them tenfold. You stretched out on the floor and yawned. I probably should head back to the house, I’m sure they’re all wondering where I’ve been. As you sat back up you heard a light knock at the open door. Mingi walked in and sat next to you, nudging your shoulder with his.

“You good?” He smiled warmly, giving you a much-needed energy boost. You smiled back at him and nodded, looking at his eyes— those eyes, gosh I never get tired of looking at them, full of so much emotion. He always looked at you with such care and it made your stomach flutter.

“Aigo, what time is it?” You opened your phone to check and noticed a missed call from your boyfriend, “Shit…”

Mingi’s eyebrows raised, “Where’d you learn to talk like—” He stopped as he saw the notification, taking a sharp inhale, and furrowing his eyebrows. You tried calling him back but it just went to voicemail.

“Shit. He’s probably upset that I didn’t pick up,” You put your phone down and flopped back onto the floor, looking at the ceiling once again.

Mingi had never seen you upset like this before and he hated it. Hated that he was the cause of it. He laid down next to you, your arms brushed up against each other, and he looked over at you, “Maybe he’s just asleep… I’m sure he’s not mad about one missed phone call.”

You could feel your eyes getting misty and you tried to blink away tears before they could form, “It’s not just one missed phone call. He’s been a lot busier lately and with my new job, our schedules just don’t line up anymore… I— I haven’t talked to him in a few weeks. I just don’t know what I’m doing with him anymore, Min. I’ve been with him for over three months… I thought by now that my feelings for him would have grown stronger, but they haven’t. Maybe I should’ve ended things with him like I had planned before coming here…”

Mingi thought hearing you say something like that would’ve made him feel ecstatic but it didn’t. He looked over at you and saw a single tear break free, rolling down your cheek. He thumbed it away and grabbed your hand, rubbing soothing circles on it. You covered your eyes with your other arm trying to hide as you started to softly cry. Mingi could feel tears threatening to bubble up to his eyes, but he forced them away trying to focus on consoling you. He continued to rub circles on your hand, slowly as you calmed down until the tears stopped. Your face felt hot and your eyes puffy. Using his free hand, Mingi slowly caressed the tear stains on your face. It made you understand just how much he cared for you, whether it be as a friend or as more, you didn’t care. What you truly cared about was the realization that you had devoted more time and affection to him, your best friend, than to your own boyfriend— you felt immensely guilty like you had been emotionally cheating. You know what you have to do, Yn. You turned to look at Mingi, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, his gaze offering you comfort.

“Thank you,” You whispered to him.

“For what?” He whispered back.

“For always making me feel better, for always being here,” You comfortably sighed.

“I’ll always be there for you, Yn. Always,” A stray tear started to roll down his cheek and you wiped it away, carefully caressing his face with your thumb. He closed his eyes and melted into your touch. You waited a bit to enjoy the moment before you spoke.

“I have to break up with him… don’t I?” You whispered so quietly that he almost didn’t hear you. His eyes opened when your words registered with him, making his heart beat faster.

He cleared his throat before answering, “Is that what your heart is telling you?”

You thought about it and nodded slowly. Your heart wasn’t telling you he was the one, and maybe you always knew it would end up this way. You knew with full certainty though that you’d be fine, as long as you had Mingi by your side.

It took a few days, but you were finally able to call him. You expected that he wouldn’t take the news well, but what you didn’t expect was him yelling that you didn’t even try, nor did you ever care for him. The phone call ended with your face once again tear-stained, shocked at his reaction, left wondering if you really knew who he was in the first place. 

As you opened the door to your room, Mingi was waiting, leaning against the wall. His arms were crossed and his face looked angry, you assumed that he could hear your boyfriend— no, ex-boyfriend— yelling at you. You were tired and didn’t want to deal with trying to talk him down, but as soon as he saw your face, his angry expression dropped, and he pulled you into a deep hug. His chin rested on your head, hot tears finding their way to the corners of his eyes. You wrapped your arms around him tightly, his warm embrace being everything you needed in that moment. The other boys had heard the yelling too and were huddled at the end of the hall, feeling a range of emotions, but most of all aching that they couldn’t do anything to help you right now. They each went back to their rooms, letting Mingi do what he did best. Love. 

After what seemed like hours, he graciously guided you to your room, helped you prepare for bed, and laid down beside you. That night, you found solace in his embrace, holding onto him tightly as tears streamed down your cheeks until you finally drifted off to sleep, comforted by his tender strokes through your hair.

—Last Day of Summer—

It’d been four months since you moved in and three short weeks since the breakup. The morning after, you had woken up to find yourself in bed alone, assuming that Mingi must have gone to his room quietly after you had drifted off to sleep. The events of the night before had been intense, you couldn't shake the memory of how furious he was. Though, strangely enough, you didn’t feel guilty like you'd expected. Instead, an overwhelming wave of relief washed over you. You hadn’t fully grasped the mental toll that relationship was taking on you, and now that you were free from him, you could finally see just how toxic he truly was. You felt silly for not seeing it before. 

So now that it’d been a few weeks, you were getting ready for work and found yourself feeling the happiest you’d ever been—enjoying single life and the moments spent with your eight amazing roommates. Feeling especially grateful for your best friend and the depth of his care for you. You thought back to when he helped you get ready for bed, even when all you wanted was to curl into a ball and sob until you lost consciousness. He chose your favorite pajamas, turned away while you changed, and gently helped you through your skincare routine. He even grabbed his toothbrush from his bathroom so you could brush your teeth together. Then, when it was time to sleep, he laid down beside you, ensuring you fell asleep with a sense of peace. 

Mingi was truly a blessing in your life, and your love for him ran deep. You couldn't help but smile, thinking about how his personality did a one-eighty from when you first met him to now; you laughed as you remembered the little crush you used to have on him. Used to? You stopped laughing, eyes shooting wide at your intrusive thought. You shook your head trying to clear it away like you were an etch-a-sketch, Yes… used to. I don’t anymore. I love him, but I’m not in love with him. Deciding to move past it, you finished getting ready and headed to work with the guys.

————————————-☆-—————————————

Today was a rare day, everyone had a free afternoon in their schedules and the boys had decided it would be fun to do something together.

“How about karaoke?” San suggested. Everyone looked at him with blank expressions and side eyes, deflating him a bit.

“Really? We just got back from the studio, no more singing today,” Yunho groaned, “How about an amusement park?”

Yunho’s suggestion made San perk back up, liking that idea much more than his own. The other guys and you agreed too, and you felt a rush of anticipation—an amusement park sounded like a blast, and luckily there was one not too far away. Memories flooded back; could it really have been so long since your last visit to a theme park? Maybe Disney World when I was ten? The thought sent a thrill through you, especially at the idea of the roller coasters, knowing how much joy they had brought you back then. A harsh reminder brought you down from your excitement though; a famous boy group in a crowded park? Not a good idea. You sulked, which grabbed the attention of Mingi.

“What’s got you down? You seemed so excited just a second ago,” he prodded.

“Did you guys forget who you are for a second? We couldn’t possibly go to such a popular place so close to a comeback, you’d be swarmed,” You looked at each of the boys, some of them already sporting a new haircut or color. Mingi’s grown-out bleach job was replaced with brown dye and blonde streaks. It made him look a bit like a calico cat actually, which you thought was really cute. Yeosang had neon green hair peppered with black stripes, Yunho’s hair was silver, and San’s flaming red hair practically begged for the attention of everyone within a kilometer radius. A few of them furrowed their brows, a flicker of understanding passing over their faces as they realized you were right. They slumped a little, the weight of disappointment settling in as they felt their fun afternoon slipping away. Hongjoong, however, pulled out his phone and smirked.

“Give me a second,” He said, dialing a number.

A couple of phone calls later, you found yourself in an empty, Lotte World, a surreal playground all to yourselves. The entire park had been closed for the rest of the day just for the eight boys standing beside you. Sometimes, you forgot about the immense power they possessed, and you found it extremely intimidating. The only other people around were you and the few park staff members left to keep the rides running. Oh— and a crew of cameras—Hongjoong only managed to convince them to go along with the idea by agreeing to have content filmed. So, while you were technically working, your only real task was to have fun.

This was the very first time you’d be on camera with them since the group picture that was taken when you first met. It sent a wave of unease through you as if a million prying eyes would be scrutinizing your every move. Mingi noticed the change in your demeanor as the cameras were being set up and turned on.

Instinctively, he draped his arm over your shoulders, his hand offering a gentle, reassuring comfort as he slowly rubbed up and down your right shoulder. You eased into his touch and felt your anxiety levels decrease as you searched for his familiar cologne to envelope your senses; he always smelled of wood, citrus, and mint, a combination you’d grown to love. Today though, his cologne smelled a bit more musky, like warm sage and sea salt. To your surprise it made your mouth water a bit; breathing in deeply, you asked him, “New cologne?” 

He looked at you with a smirk, hoping you’d notice. He gave a quiet mhmm in response, as he moved you in front of him and started massaging between your neck and shoulders. The varied pressure made you close your eyes and quietly sigh, melting beneath his ministrations. Pulling you a bit closer to him, he leaned down next to your ear, and just slightly above a whisper asked, “Alrighty then, where should we go first?” 

It made you jump a bit and squirm out of his hold on you, your ears felt hot. What the hell is in the air here? Mingi looked more attractive to you than ever and you swallowed a thick lump in your throat you didn’t realize was there. You coughed a bit to clear it, and the feeling, away before you spoke. Thinking about what you wanted to do most here, your eyes gleamed with excitement, “How about we go on a rollercoaster?”

As if it was now his turn to have his demeanor change, Mingi’s aura shifted. He no longer had that flirty air about him, instead, he froze. He tried hiding it, but his face went pale and eyes wide. The calm breathing he had before was replaced with shallow breaths as his heart rate picked up. He really was a big scaredy cat. You didn’t seem to notice though as you grabbed his hand and dragged him along with you to find the nearest rollercoaster, yelling out to the others, “Who wants to come with us?”

Wooyoung, Yeosang, and Yunho eagerly joined in, and San, wanting to stick close to you all, tagged along as well. However, when you reached the coaster, he suddenly hesitated, backing out and opting to wait at the entrance. “Are you sure?” you asked, disliking the thought of him waiting alone. He nodded quietly, but before you could offer to stay with him, Mingi interjected, “I’ll wait with him, it’s okay.” 

Mentally, he let out a sigh of relief, grateful for this easy escape from having to ride what he considered to be a death trap. You watched as they walked away from the empty line, heading towards the outside of the ride. Turning your attention back to the exciting rollercoaster in front of you, you felt a rush of anticipation as the employee prepared everything. You shared a glance with Yunho, both of you silently agreeing to sit together. Outside, San stood captivated by the sprawling metal structure of the coaster, while Mingi's gaze was fixated on the entrance. 

Once the initial sense of relief passed over him, a different feeling began to settle in—regret. Now that he was away from your side, he couldn’t shake the longing feeling that he wished to have stayed and pushed through his fears. It wasn’t until he was out of breath, one hand resting on Yunho’s shoulder, that he realized he had sprinted back. You were already situated in your seat on the coaster, and Mingi had just reached Yunho in time before he boarded. Yunho, recognizing the urgency in Mingi’s eyes, nodded with understanding, aware of his friend's silent plea, and quickly left to accompany San. You looked over with confusion in your eyes, but a smile on your face when you saw him sitting down in the seat next to yours, pulling the bar above over his shoulders to secure himself in. There was no going back now, but he didn’t care, as long as it meant he got to be beside you.

Despite how he felt on the inside though, he couldn’t stop his body from reacting to his fear. As the ride slowly started to go up the incline towards the first drop his eyes screwed shut and his breath began to match his erratic heartbeat. You heard the labored breathing next to you and saw that Mingi was absolutely terrified, worried for him you asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I…” He struggled to speak, hyperventilating by this point, “I’m scared of heights…”

“What!” Your eyes blew wide, full of concern, “Then… why did you get on?”

He grabbed your hand, and squeezed it tightly, hoping that your touch would help ground him, “I… I wanted to be with you.”

The coaster was now only a mere meter away from the drop, but all you could do was look at him. His desire to be with me outweighed his fear… Your eyes remained locked on him, brimming with a mix of love and concern. You gently intertwined your fingers, and he finally opened his eyes to meet yours. In those familiar brown depths, you could read his every emotion. His gaze had always been a window to his soul, revealing his true feelings. While on the surface he looked mortified, his eyes whispered a different truth—that he had never felt more at ease and secure in his life. As the coaster finally dropped he exclaimed, “Y/N-ah!— I love you!” 

The exhilarating rush of adrenaline from the coaster intertwined with his confession left you feeling truly electric. You raised your hands high, savoring every second of the ride, and slowly, he lifted his hands too, a radiant smile blossoming on his face. Seeing his huge smile as his fears melted away tugged at your heartstrings so deeply that whatever had been holding you back from embracing your feelings for him shattered completely. You found yourself swept up on a rollercoaster of emotions, realizing with extreme clarity that you were truly in love with Song Mingi, finally allowing yourself to believe in the magic of fate. Just loud enough for him to hear you gushed, “I love you too, Mingi-ah!”

You couldn’t see his face very clearly, but you could feel his warmth as he shifted your conjoined hands to press a heartfelt kiss against the back of your hand, causing the butterflies in your stomach to flutter uncontrollably. As the coaster finally came to a stop, your hand still remained tightly interlaced with Mingi’s, it just felt so natural; but when an employee approached to assist you both out of your seats and a camera crew waited for you to get off, ready to capture the moment, you found yourself reluctantly having to let go. Holding hands was a sweet, innocent gesture between friends, yet the presence of the camera made you hesitate, it felt too intimate in front of the lens. It took a bit of time to finally pry yourselves away from them, but once you did, you were hit by a sudden desire to get a bag of theme park popcorn.

Making your way back by yourself from a concession stand, you stumbled upon voices speaking in stern, hushed tones. You hadn't intended to eavesdrop, but when you heard your name being mentioned, it froze you in your tracks. Discerning the voices from each other you realized that, Wooyoung, San, Yeosang, and Yunho were talking to Mingi.

“I’m not stupid Mingi, and neither are they, we can clearly see that something is going on between you and Yn,” Wooyoung exasperated.

“Woah, woah, I never said you were stupid,” Mingi rebutted, feeling a little hurt, “Do you really think I would call you that and actually mean it?”

“Woo—” San warned, trying to bring his friend down to a level-headed place, “careful…”

Wooyoung glanced over at San, then to Mingi, and back to San again, taking a deep breath to calm himself because he wished to avoid making things worse, “Right sorry… what I mean is; We heard you on the ride, loudly confessing to her, and then you’re expecting us to pretend like we didn’t?”

Mingi looked at the ground and shuffled his feet, unsure of what to say. You listened intently once he found the words, “I’m not going to ask you to pretend. Feel free to shout it out like I did, but before you do, think about how it affects her. Not me. She’s the one that would face the consequences of my actions. If anyone is stupid here, it’s me. I was selfish instead of being smart. I don’t want to have to regret saying it to her, so please… not for me but for her, could it stay between us?” 

There was a silence as Wooyoung thought over the proposition he was given, and Yunho was the one that commented next, “I can’t say I’m surprised. I figured it was only a matter of time before you told her how you felt.”

“It’s just a shame you can’t do anything about it,” Yeosang added, always being one wanting to see love win.

“Well… not exactly,” San grinned, “We can pretend to not know anything. It’s just a matter of making sure that Joong, Hwa, and the managers don’t find out.”

“And Jongho,” Wooyoung added, finally breaking his silence, finding it hard to stay upset when Mingi’s puppy eyes were present.

“Jongho already knows about Mingi’s feelings, and he would figure it out pretty quickly if we acted like nothing was going on. Getting him in on it is better than keeping him out of it, he’s less trouble that way,” Yunho disagreed, earning concurring nods from the other three.

“Are you guys going to let me in on it too, or am I to be kept in the dark as well?” You chimed in giggling, deciding it was probably a good moment for you to join the conversation.

“How long have you been there?” Mingi asked, his face feeling hot.

“Long enough…” You smirk, giving him a knowing look.

“None of that…” Wooyoung butts in, “It looks hella obvious when you look at each other like that.”

“Like what?” You inquired, tongue in cheek, playing dumb. You felt frustrated by the assumptions being made, especially since you and Mingi hadn't yet had the opportunity to discuss it together.

Wooyoung sighed heavily, and once again Yunho spoke in place of him, “Look… we’ve all been away for a while, and people are going to start noticing. For now, let’s just head back and enjoy the park while we can, we can figure this out later. I’m sure we’re all hungry; where should we eat after?”

————————————-☆-—————————————

You once thought the world to be anti-romantic, but that wasn't always your belief. You grew up filled with hope, longing for the kind of love that danced through the pages of books and lit up the screens of movies, and you were certain that such love would one day find its way to you. It was, without a doubt, your heart's deepest desire. So when you got your first boyfriend, you believed that this was it, your dream was finally going to come true. Except it didn’t— you were only in middle school and two days later he dumped you for the girl you sat next to in class. It was okay though. You were a resilient kid, determined to not let a fleeting moment with a silly boy dim your spirit, so handling it with grace you moved forward. Throughout high school, you had crushes that flickered like weak candle flames, nothing ever truly igniting. It had slowly started to dim your hope. Your standards had become impossibly high molded by the enchanting stories of fictional romance that no ordinary teenage boy could ever hope to match. It wasn’t until college that you entered your first real relationship, the taste of first love felt exhilarating. It lasted for a couple precious years, but it all came crashing down when you discovered your only love had been cheating on you. You were heartbroken, utterly shattered, and this time, your hope didn’t have the strength to bounce back. You couldn’t help but wonder why you even bothered getting into that relationship with your most recent ex-boyfriend, especially when you hadn’t any hope it would work left within you. That is, until you met him— the man sitting in front of you who you hadn’t realized took your shattered hope and pieced it back together with his gentle love. So now, as you watched him set a piece of food on your plate, you could say with full certainty that you no longer believed the world to be anti-romantic, and that true love does exist, it just takes its time to find you once you’re ready for it.

You paused in eating, eager to capture Mingi’s attention. He was always so completely immersed in his food when he truly enjoyed it, and you couldn’t help but find that trait of his really adorable. When he finally looked up and caught your gaze, a wide smile appeared across his face, making your heart swell. Looking down at your shared table, you made sure that no one was looking before you turned back to him and mouthed, I love you. 

You didn’t know it was even possible for him to smile bigger, yet somehow he did. A soft giggle slipped from your lips when you noticed the tips of his ears turning a cute shade of pink, and with an adorably flustered expression, he cupped his face in his hands, trying to hide as the color deepened to a vibrant red. Your heart raced at his reaction, and you could feel a warm blush creeping onto your cheeks. Wooyoung, sitting beside you, caught onto what was going on and lightly nudged your shoulder and Mingi’s foot from beneath the table, delivering a silent reminder that you both needed to tone down the obviousness. Eventually, he uncovered his face, scratching at the back of his head as he struggled to redirect his focus back to his plate. Just when you thought the tension might linger, Hongjoong came through with a perfect distraction— a drinking game. He set down on the table a lottery spinner, and the balls inside held rousing questions just waiting to be unleashed. Rules of play were simple; a spun fork chooses who gets to go, when you get a ball from the cage you have to answer its question, and if you don’t, take a shot.

Hongjoong started off the game with the first spin. You watched the fork tantalizingly go round and round before it stopped on… you. A nervous grin was plastered on your face as the spinner was passed down to you; you gave its handle a couple of turns before a ball popped out. Opening up the small plastic container, you pulled out a folded piece of paper, and smoothed it out before reading aloud, “What physical feature do you find the most attractive?”

A small wave of ‘ooo’s and looks of curiosity passed throughout the group. You weren’t expecting the questions to be risqué, yet here you were, staring down at one that made your stomach do a flip. Your throat felt suddenly dry, and everyone staring at you in anticipation made your seat feel hot. Out of all the people there, Mingi was the last person you expected to say, “Oh, this’ll be good…” 

He had his arms propped up on the table, his chin resting on his hands, and a sinful grin playing at the corner of his lips. To you and the guys who knew, it was painfully clear what he was up to, but to those who didn’t, he appeared to be nothing more than a playful, teasing friend. You gave him a warning glare, to which he responded by mischievously poking his tongue slightly between his teeth and scrunching up his nose. He’s cute… so I’ll let it slide.

“Welll? What’s the answer!” Wooyoung poked, wiggling his eyebrows, earning an amused chortle from you. Figuring there’d been enough suspense for the night, you cleared your throat and then quickly answered, “Lips.”

“Any size?” San inquired, joining in on the apparent group taunt fest.

Face getting red, you answered, “No… I like big lips the most,” Looking down you quietly added, “ I-I mean…I really like kissing and it makes it more enjoyable. At least it is for me anyways, I don’t speak for anyone else.”

Not realizing the effects your words had on him, Mingi’s leg was nervously bouncing, and his cheeks had a slight dusting of blush on them. Ending your turn, you spun the fork and silently prayed that it wouldn’t land on you again for the rest of the night. Round and round it went, coming to a stop on… Mingi. He opened the ball that the spinner spit out for him and read it aloud, “Who was your last spicy dream about?”

His head whipped up in shock, his eyes wide with mortification reaching for his glass to take a shot, receiving a few disappointed groans from his curious friends. After downing his drink, he locked eyes with you, giving you a silent answer that secretly you had desired to know. Smirking you decided to take the opportunity to mess with him like he did with you.

“Come on man, not even going to humor us?” You teased. Wooyoung had stifled a cackle at the look on Mingi’s face— a nervous side eye as he shook his head, spinning the fork to end his turn. You just snickered, feeling content with his reaction.

————————————-☆-—————————————

Nighttime had fully settled in by the time everyone left the restaurant and the hot humidity of the day had dissipated from the air. It was a warm, refreshing walk back to the house, and with the bittersweet knowledge that it was the last day of summer, you felt a deep yearning to do one last thing before it slipped away, “I want to get some ice cream, any of you guys want to join?”

The guys paused for a moment, weighing their options, but after a long and exhausting day, they ultimately decided to head home for some much-needed rest. As expected, Mingi chose to stay behind, lingering in the promise of alone time with you. Once the guys had walked out of view, you felt slightly awkward, uncertain about how to move forward now that things had shifted between you. Almost immediately, though, Mingi reached for your hand, intertwining your fingers in a gentle embrace that brought a sense of comfort through his familiar presence. He always had a remarkable ability to put you at ease in those moments of tension, making your world feel just a little bit lighter. As you started your journey towards the nearest convenience store, he cleared his throat, “So… big lips huh?”

You playfully punched his arm with your free hand and then covered your face, embarrassed you admitted to that truth earlier. He moved your hand away gently so that he could look at you. One of the first things you noticed about him was his lips, and every time you looked at them it stirred something within you. Deep down you’d always wondered what it would be like to kiss him, how his plush lips would feel on yours. Would they be firm? Soft? Slow or hungry? You couldn’t help but stare at them now. He smirked as he realized where your gaze was directed and he licked his lips, “What kind of ice cream do you want?”

You looked away to find that you were already in front of a freezer stocked with the sweet treat. When did we get here? He pulled out a banana flavor for himself and waited patiently, thinking quickly you answered, “Uhhhh… strawberry.”

He picked one out just for you, went inside to pay, and then returned to settle beside you on the bench outside. In the warm air and a comfortable silence, you both savored your ice cream; every now and then stealing glances at the other, before returning back to your delicious treat. You both were acting like giddy kids with their first crush. As you took the last bite of your ice cream and discarded the wrapper in a nearby bin, out of the corner of your eye you spotted a playground and booked it for the swings. Mingi, caught off guard by your sudden movement, understood quickly and followed after, tossing his empty wrapper away. 

You loved the swings, always feeling a rush of freedom when you soared through the air like a bird. Slowly, you swung back and forth, tilting your head back to catch a glimpse of the stars, though you could only catch faint glimmers due to the bright city’s relentless light pollution. Mingi mimicked you, but he ended up losing his balance and tumbled right out of the swing seat. He hit the ground with a soft thud. Instantly you rushed over, anxiously checking if he was okay. His small, infectious laughter reassured you that he was fine, and you couldn’t help but join in, finding it hilarious how he always seemed to forget just how tall he was. 

You grabbed his hand to help him sit up and dusted the dirt off his shoulders, not realizing how close you ended up to his face until you felt his warm breath on you. He was biting at his lip as he stared at yours, causing your heart to flutter. Your faces merely a couple of centimeters away from each other, you’d only have to move just a bit to— Mingi pressed his lips upon yours, closing the gap between you. His lips were soft, like a velvety pillow against your own. You could feel the gentle tickle of his breath beneath your nose, as his fingers wove through your hair. He pulled you closer, deepening the kiss as you both lost yourselves in the intoxicating sensation of each other’s touch. His tongue brushed against your bottom lip, and you happily parted, granting him access into your mouth. In that moment, you realized you would forever love the combination of strawberry and banana that flooded your senses. After what felt like a blissful eternity, you finally separated, your breaths mingling as you rested your foreheads together. He smiled gently, eyes sparkling, and he gave you a quick, tender peck that held a world of affection, “I love you so much, Yn. Ever since I laid eyes on you, I knew you were the one for me.”

His words made you absolutely melt, making you feel like the main character of an early 2000s rom-com movie, “You gave me the hope to believe in love again, Song Mingi.” 

You gave him a deep, heartfelt kiss, pouring into it every emotion you desperately wished to express for him. He grinned against your mouth, glad that he finally had you.

“I’m going to safely assume that this means we're dating now, in secret?” He said looking at you with his beautiful brown eyes that made you feel weak in the knees.

“Oooh, this will be fun. Dating in secret, like we are in some kind of sitcom or something,” You grinned, assuring him he was right in his assumption, “We should head back soon though if we want to keep this a secret.”

—Middle of Fall—

Six months since moving in and over a month of secretly dating Mingi. You two have become quite skilled at creating the illusion of being just friends, though really the only thing that had changed was that now you shared kisses when no one else was watching. For Halloween, you had a couple's "besties" costume;  you dressed up as Fred and Daphne, and somehow you had convinced Yunho, Yeosang, and Jongho to be Shaggy, Scooby, and a gender-bent Velma, to keep suspicion at bay. Hongjoong and Seonghwa seemed none the wiser, and you and Mingi were as happy as ever.

—Beginning of Winter—

7 months. You began researching apartments in the area, knowing that you’d much prefer to stay in Korea than return to the States. This was home for you now. During your secret sleepovers, Mingi would eagerly share his thoughts on which neighborhoods offered the best apartments, that somehow were always conveniently within walking distance for him. You weren’t going to complain though.

—Christmas Day—

8 months. Mingi surprised you with a gift you had always hoped for over the years, and you couldn't help but wonder how he knew that you wanted it. He must be able to read minds… oh, Jesus, I hope not. The thoughts I’ve had about him… You gave him a handmade gift, which made him cry; he was such a deeply emotional person, which you loved more than anything. 

Christmas was one of your favorite holidays, and you had always wanted to share a kiss with your boyfriend under the mistletoe, a sweet moment you had never experienced before. When you had spied some dangling over a door frame, you scanned the area for watchful eyes before you pulled him in for a quick kiss. Well, maybe not so quick… he pulled you back in, turning it into a fervent, hasty make-out session that left you both breathless.

—New Year's Eve—

Only a few days later, the guys and the KQ managers had organized a team New Year’s Eve party. As the clock struck midnight, you and Mingi locked eyes from across the room, playfully blowing kisses to each other, not daring to do it for real in front of everyone. Though, once everyone had gone to bed, you finally got to share your New Year’s kiss, “Happy New Year, Yn.”

“Happy New Year, Min.”

—End of Winter—

10 months. It was nearly a year since you moved in, and today was your five-month anniversary with Mingi. You both were fortunate enough to have the day off and at last, you could finally celebrate together. Since Hongjoong and Seonghwa dedicated their entire day to fine-tuning their Matz performance at the studio, you two were free to do as you pleased, without having to worry about getting caught. He surprised you with a wonderful breakfast, that he made himself, and after you finished eating together, he excitedly told you to get ready because he had something special planned for the day. 

As you were getting ready though, outside rain began to pour, heavily; the moment the first crack of thunder rolled in, it became clear that your plans were dashed. You heard a soft knock at your door, and Mingi poked his head in with a warm smile that brightened the gloomy atmosphere, “Change of plans, put your pajamas back on. Let’s make a blanket fort.”

So you did, and it was amazing. It was enormous, full of soft pillows, twinkling string lights, and an array of fluffy blankets to lay on. The fort’s opening was perfectly positioned right in front of the TV in his room, and you had a double feature of each of your favorite movies.

—Beginning of Spring—

Work comeback was happening in a couple of months and the festival performances were starting to pick up, and after the long winter break from the last tour, you were excited to be traveling with them once again. KCON was upon you in just a few days, and you felt like a hamster tirelessly running on a wheel amidst the whirlwind of preparations. Yet, despite the chaos, everything felt just right because you got to spend every day by his side, watching him passionately rehearse until he deemed the routine to be perfect. He always looks so hot when he’s dancing.

“You’re drooling, Yn,” Yunho laughed.

“Ha ha… am not,” You snapped out of the trance Mingi had you in and you wiped your mouth, it was dry, Yunho was just teasing you.

“You practically were,” San jumped in, also noticing how you were staring, “Gotta be more careful, you’re gonna give yourself away.”

You looked over to where the managers, Joong, and Hwa were, talking to each other about KCON details, “Yeah… they’re too busy to notice anything right now. Thank god…”

“You were looking at him like some horny teenager,” Wooyoung chimed in, joining the bandwagon, “Heck if I didn’t know any better I’d think that you two haven’t— nah, you two have had… right?”

You looked at him with big eyes, face red as ever, whispered yelling at him, “Shhhhhut up, Woo.”

“Are you serious? You two really haven’t slept together yet?” He looked shocked. Yunho pushed him a bit, signaling him to cut it out.

“Who cares if they have or haven’t. It’s none of your business,” Yunho defended.

“Thank you, Yun. It really isn’t his business,” you huffed.

“Yeah, Woo, we all live under the same roof. We would hear them if they were,” San theorized, thinking that he was helping, causing you to hide your face in your hands out of embarrassment.

“They could go somewhere else,” Wooyoung rattled on.

You let out a muffled groan, “Why do you want to know so bad…”

“Know what?” Mingi had walked over to take a water break, wondering what had you so flustered.

“Why you two haven’t fucked yet,” Wooyoung said nonchalantly.

Mingi choked on his water, sending him into a coughing fit, he croaked out, “Wh-what? W-why are you talking about that?”

“The way Yn was looking at you earlier… let’s just say it wasn’t very PG,” Yunho attested. You glared daggers at him. So much for defending me earlier, huh?

Mingi looked at you with a smirk, “Oh really?”

“Please not you too. This is four against one now, it’s not fair,” You whined quietly, “It’s also not a very safe topic of conversation, there are people here that aren’t supposed to know about us, remember??”

They all looked over at said people, who were still not aware of what was going on, you continued, “It’s far too public to talk about that.”

“Careful there, Yn. Your words sound borderline suggestive,” Wooyoung jested.

You got up and started to leave, “Yeah no, not doing this anymore. I’ve got things to do, gotta work ya know.”

“Ahh come on, I’m just having fun,” Wooyoung pouted, Mingi pushed him slightly, causing him to fall over. The three boys just laughed at him as you left the room, taking a much-needed calming breath as the studio door closed behind you.

————————————-☆-—————————————

There was a team meeting in fifteen minutes, and you found yourself preparing coffee for everyone, standing in quiet anticipation as you waited for the coffee maker to finish brewing. Suddenly, you felt a pair of arms wrap gently around your waist, drawing you into a warm back hug. Mingi rested his chin in the crook of your neck, “I’m sorry for earlier. Woo has no filter when it comes to that sort of thing.”

You turned around and hooked your arms around his neck, “Oh I know. It’s fine really, no harm done, just extremely flustered is all.”

He nodded, moving his hands so that they settled on your waist and lazily rubbed circles, “Still, he shouldn’t have kept messing with you. So what if we haven’t? Why rush? We have the rest of our lives together.”

“The rest of our lives?” You grinned.

“Of course, you’re not getting rid of me that easy,” he laughed.

You smirked, “Well I hope I won’t have to wait that long…”

He raised his eyebrows, mouth slightly agape, you continued on, “Do you plan on making me wait, Princess?”

His face flushed at the nickname, caught off guard by how it was used. With a spark of newfound confidence, you playfully continued to tease him, letting your hand glide down his chest before using your pointer and middle finger to slowly walk in a line back up. He leaned in closer, his voice taking on a graveled tone, “Of course not, I just never wanted to make you feel pressured, that's all.”

“You could never make me feel pressured, Min. We don’t have to rush, but it’s been pretty long already… don’t you think?” You whispered, faces close enough to feel each other’s breath.

Mmm, was all he could muster in response before crashing his lips against yours. Unlike the first time you kissed, this one was filled with a deeper hunger and a passionate fire that burned for the other. He lifted you effortlessly and set you down on the counter, continuing to kiss you with fervor, moving from your lips to your ear, and then trailing down to your neck. A soft gasp escaped your lips, and you felt him smirk against your skin, a mixture of desire and longing building inside you both. His hands snaked up under your shirt, resting his hands above your waist, and you carded your fingers through his hair, while your other hand pulled him in closer to you. 

“Hey Y/N, the new choreographer is lactose intoler—” Seonghwa entered the room, stopping at the sight before him. You both broke apart immediately. Mingi helped you down from the counter, and you bit at your thumb nervously. Seonghwa just stared at you both, dumbfounded, and then continued as if nothing happened, “—anyways. Just make sure that you don’t put milk in there alright… I saw nothing.”

As quick as he entered, he left, leaving both you and Mingi in shock. You giggled nervously, “Welp! Hwa knows now. Do you think he will say anything to Joong?”

Mingi thought for a moment before he shook his head and laughed, “No, I think we’re good for now, but it’s probably best to save the hot and heavy stuff for when we aren’t at work from now on.”

You flashed him a sheepish grin as the coffee maker chimed, signaling that it had finished brewing. Turning to pour the dark liquid into each cup, you tried your best to recompose yourself after what just happened. Mingi snapped the lids on once you were done, then offered his hand to help carry half of them to the team meeting, a small gesture that made your heart flutter.

—Coachella—

12 months since winning the raffle, and one week until you had to move out. Lord have mercy on my soul, pleaseeeeee, was all you could think when your platinum blond boyfriend walked out of the dressing room. You felt embarrassingly turned on just by what he was wearing; an unbuttoned jacket, and distressed jeans that left little to the imagination, paired with a large faux tattoo scrawled across his chest advertising his signature phrase. It was all too much, you could already feel your face heating up, and the sweltering weather of the valley was not helping; Neither was the fact that you and him still hadn’t found the chance to relieve any of your accumulated tension… since there was always someone around to interrupt your attempts, keeping you from going through with what you both longed for. You had reached a point where sexual frustration was constantly bothering you, with no way to resolve it. Before you and him had talked about the possibility of it, self-satisfaction was enough to ease the longing, but now, not even that could provide the relief you desperately craved. Just seeing him walk around had you involuntary pressing your thighs together. You had never felt more aroused before than you did now and it was becoming distracting to your task at hand. 

Your job today was to lend a hand with quick changes and keep track of props. The guys would soon start their last performance and you still hadn’t double-checked that each prop was in its correct spot backstage. Shaking your head to clear your mind, you got up and headed towards the prop table. Everything was in its rightful place and you didn’t have much to do but wait, so you kept yourself busy by fiddling with the cane that your silly boyfriend held during his part in Arriba.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to play with the props before?” Mingi leaned in, whispering sweetly in your ear from behind, startling you and causing your heart to race. You spun around, eyes wide, holding your chest as if it would soothe your erratic heartbeat. With furrowed brows and a lighthearted faux frown, you swatted at him, but he effortlessly dodged your playful attempt.

“Jesus Min! Don’t sneak up on me like that,” You lightly chastised as you crossed your arms, not actually upset just spooked.

“Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t resist,” He smiled, hands up in the air in surrender, “Anyways, are you excited for the show?”

“Always!” You beamed.

“What do you think of tonight’s outfit,” He did a little twirl, holding out his arms, displaying the large tattoo for you better. Trying to hide the blush on your face you looked away from him, and he grinned, “I’ll take that as a yes then?”

Nodding, you turned your gaze back to him, biting down on your tongue, your eyes lingering on him with a mix of lust and love, “You’re going to be the death of me, I swear…”

“I’ll go put a shirt on right now, I can’t have you dying on me,” He joked.

“No, keep it off. One less thing to take off later,” You teased, feeling proud as you watched his face turn a light shade of red.

“Oh? What’s later?” He flirted back, a glimmer of excitement in his eyes.

“You’ll find out after the show,” You grinned, leaving him hanging, and giving him a reminder, “You’re on in five.”

“Cheer for me?” He said, flashing a cocky smile as he slowly started walking to join the rest of the guys.

“Of course! Knock ‘em dead, Princess,” You winked, blowing him a kiss.

————————————-☆-—————————————

The morning sun poured in through the hotel curtains, gently coaxing you awake. Your eyes fluttered open, landing on tousled, messy platinum locks. As you yawned, you felt the comforting shift of Mingi’s arm around your waist, drawing you in closer as he nuzzled into the crook of your neck. A soft giggle escaped your lips, feeling tickled as his breath brushed against your bare skin, memories flooded in of all that unfolded the night before. Clothes discarded around the room, his strong grip holding you firmly against the wall, his gentle touch igniting waves of unimaginable pleasure as you both came undone together. Wrapped in each other's warm embrace, eventually drifting into blissful sleep.

“Morning, Love,” He smiled softly against your skin, his voice coarse and warm with the lingering embrace of sleep. He started placing soft, lazy kisses along your neck, and you let out a content sigh.

“M’good morning, Min,” You moved your hand so that you could play with his hair. It still felt soft despite all the times it had been bleached. He hummed happily and you wished that you could stay just like that all day, lost in each other’s presence, but there was so much that had to be done. Begrudgingly you said, “We should get up. There’s a music video that needs filming…”

With his morning voice still present he groaned, “No, let’s just stay here. They can get it done without us.”

You airily laughed at his pathetic, and cute, attempt to convince you, “I wish, but alas it’s quite unfortunate that it can’t be done without us.”

He moved above you, propping himself up with his arms, a sinful look in his eyes, “What if I tried persuading you in a different way,” He slid his knee so that it was in between your legs, slowly moving it up, and pressing lightly against you.

“Mmmmm, tempting,” You breathed out, trying your best to prevent yourself from letting him rile you up, “but I would rather not risk getting scolded by Hongjoong.”

He sighed, a smirk on his face as he flopped back down on the bed, “Okayyy… you’re right.”

“There’s always later tonight, though, if you’re still feeling persuasive,” You grinned, planting a quick kiss on his cheek before you hopped up.

He called out to you before you went into the bathroom, “Count on it, Love.”

—End of Spring/Move Out Day—

The year had flown by and your time at the house had come to an end. You cherished every moment spent there, but a thrilling sense of excitement grew within you for the new chapter awaiting in your new place—conveniently just a few minutes away within walking distance, just as Mingi had always hoped. You looked at your empty room in the house one last time, a bittersweet ache settling in as you closed the door behind you. All of the guys awaited you in the living room, ready to help you get settled into your new apartment. As you looked at each of them, you were reminded of all of the great memories you spent with them over the year, and tears threatened to spill from the corners of your eyes. Half of them had already been crying, and the other half seemed on the verge of starting as they pulled you into a warm group hug. As they let you go, Hongjoong spoke, “I guess this means I can finally stop pretending like I don’t know you and Mingi are dating, huh?”

He enjoyed the look of surprise on everyone’s faces; no one knew that he knew, not even Seonghwa who felt betrayed, “How long have you known?”

“I guess I always knew it would happen eventually, ever since her very first day here. I would be quite disappointing as a Captain if I couldn't sense the feelings of my team members,” He explained, “Plus I saw them canoodling on the playground last summer. Way to be subtle guys…”

“Ope! He’s known since day one,” Yeosang cracked up, covering his mouth.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” You asked, confused.

“The primary reason behind the rule was to prevent conflict. I knew that if I had spoken up and kept you two apart, it would have created even more problems than simply allowing you to be together. Deep down, I couldn’t help but secretly wish that you both would finally start dating, the tension had become almost too much to bear,” He reasoned, then smiling sweetly he admitted, “I’m rooting for you both, genuinely.”

You heard the soft sound of sniffling and turned to see Mingi in tears, his arms outstretched, longing to hug Hongjoong, “Captain… I love you, you really are the best.”

“Yeah, yeah… I love you too— “ He dodged the embrace, redirecting the topic back to you, “Let’s get you moved into the new place shall we, Yn?”

—Epilogue—

Life started to feel like each day was unfolding in a beloved book or favorite movie. You were offered a permanent position at KQ, which you eagerly accepted, thrilled at the thought of seeing the guys every day. You found genuine delight in going to work; albeit it was a strange feeling for you to actually be excited about your job for once, but nevertheless you had no reason at all to complain. Eventually, you got the chance to visit Hinata on a trip to Japan, and when you introduced her to your boyfriend she damn near passed out. She was absolutely ecstatic for you, insisting that you had to make her your maid of honor since she was the one who encouraged you to do the raffle in the first place. You couldn’t help but shake your head and laugh, reassuring her that there was truly no one else you would rather have in that special role when the day came. Mingi joked with her, “I haven’t even proposed yet and she’s already assigning her maid of honor…”

Jokes aside though, he couldn’t wait for that day to come, already dreaming up the perfect way to do it; And he always seized every opportunity to tell you that you were the love of his life and he couldn’t wait to spend forever by your side. You were his everything— and Mingi was yours.

“I love you.”

“Forever and always.”

Masterlist

[linkspooky]

SHIGARAKI VS. YUBEL: HOW TO SAVE YOUR VILLAIN

The failure of Deku to save Shigaraki isn’t just a tragic conclusion for Shigaraki’s arc, it’s also My Hero Academia failing as a story. When I say the story failed, I mean the story has failed to answer any of the questions it asked its audience. It’s themes, character arcs, everything that communicates the meaning of the story to the audience is no longer clear. 

Saving Shigaraki was the central goal of not only the story itself, but the main character Deku. By failing in its goal you can’t call this a good ending. In order to illustrate why this goal of saving the villain is so important to both Deku’s character and the central idea of MHA, I’m going to provide a positive example in Yu-Gi-Oh GX were the main character Judai successfully saves their villain.  One of these stories fails, and the other succeeds. I will illustrate why under the cut. 

BROKEN THEMES = BROKEN STORY

When artists draw they have to consider things like perspective, anatomy, shading, light, coloring. Drawing has rules, and it’s hard to produce good art without knowing these rules beforehand. If I draw something that has bad anatomy, you can criticize me for that. 

Writing has rules, just like drawing. The rules of storytelling are important because writing is an act of communication. You can write whatever you want, just like how you can draw whatever you want, but if you break the rules the audience won’t understand what you are trying to communicate. 

When I refer to MHA as a broken story, I am referring to the fact that it has broken the rules of storytelling. As this youtuber explains.

“I guess we should first define what broke and broken even means in this context. Has the story turned into an unintelligible mess? Not really. Value judgements aside, the narrative is still functional and fulfills the criteria of being a story. So how can a story that still functions be broken? Maybe to you it cannot. But to me a story that is still functional isn’t enough. What I mean when I say MHA is broken is that it’s lost something crucial. A codifying style of structure, pacing and payoff that until a certain point was the core of its identity.” 

I could launch into a long-winded explanation of what themes are, but for the sake of simplicity I like to define themes in terms of “Ask, and answer.” The author asks a question to the audience, and then by the end of the story provides an answer. The audience is also invited to come up with their own answer which prompts them to think about the story on a deeper level.  The question both MHA and GX are asking both its main characters and the audience is “Can you save the villain?” with the additional complicated question of “Should you save the villain?”  This post will detail how both stories go about answering those two questions, and more importantly why those answers matter for the story. 

With Great Power… You know the rest. 

My Hero Academia and Yu-Gi-Oh Gx are actually similar stories once you get past their superficial differences. MHA is a story with way better worldbuilding, compared to a society where everything revolves around the trading card game, and people go to school to be better at a trading card game. 

However, if you get past that. They are both bildungsroman, stories about the main characters growing up into adults. They both have an academy setting where the goal is for the main character to graduate and enter the adult world. They are both shonen manga. GX is the sequel of Yu-Gi-Oh a manga that ran in Shonen Jump the exact same magazine as MHA.  The biggest point of comparison is their main characters, who both start out as young and naive who are driven by their admiration of heroes. Deku is a fan of All Might who wants to become a hero despite not having a quirk, because he loves All might who saves everyone with a smile. Judai’s entire deck archetype revolves around “Elemental Heroes’ and later “Neo-Spacians” who are all based on popular sentai heroes like ultraman. 

The central arc for both characters is to grow up. Growing up for both of them not only requires figuring out what kind of adult they want to be, but also what kind of hero they want to be. 

Now I’m going to drastically oversimplify what a character arc is. 

A character arc first starts out with the character being wrong. Being wrong is essential because if the character is right from the beginning, then there’s no point in telling the story. A character often holds the wrong idea about the world, or has some sort of flaw that hinders their growth.  The narrative then needs to challenge them on that flaw. It usually sets up some kind of goal or win condition. That flaw gets in the way of a character “winning” or achieving their goal, so they need to fix that flaw first. If their ideals are wrong, then they need to think about what the right ideals are. If they’re too childish, they need to grow up. If they have unhealthy behaviors or coping mechanisms, they need to unlearn it and require better ones. Otherwise, that flaw will keep sabotaging them until the end. 

I’m borrowing the word “win condition” from class1akids here because it’s an incredibly appropriate terminology. Midoriya needs to do “x” in order to win, otherwise this victory doesn’t feel earned. The “x” in this case is usually character development. As I said before, a story where the main character hasn’t changed from beginning to end feels pointless. Especially in Deku’s case, he was already a brave, strong hero who would charge right into battle and defeat the bad guys in chapter one, so him defeating Shigaraki in a fist fight doesn’t represent a change. 

The story sets up not only “What does the hero need to do to win?” but also “How does the hero need to change in order to win?” A character either meets these requirements before the end of the story, or they don’t and usually this results in a negative ending. 

MHA in its first half quite clearly set up both the final conflict of saving the villains, and also that saving the villains is its “win conditions.”  The hero shouldn't be allowed to win without first fixing this flaw.

From this panel onward the central question Deku is forced to answer shifts from “Am I strong enough to defeat ShigarakI” to “Can I save Shigaraki?” However, much earlier than that All Might goes on to basically set up the win conditions of what makes the ultimate hero as someone who “Saves by winning, and wins by saving.”

All might: You can become the ultimate heroes. Ones who save by winning, and win by saving.

Therefore the story has set it’s criteria for what kind of hero Deku needs to become. If he wins without saving, then he’s failed to become what the series has set up as the Ultimate Hero. 

Shigaraki and Yubel aren’t just narrative obstacles, or boss monsters to be killed like in a video game. They are narrative challenges, which means that the character can’t grow in any way if they don’t answer the challenge presented by the characters. They are villains who actively resist being saved, to provide a challenge for two heroes who define their heroism by saving others. The challenge they pose adds a third question to the story and the main characters. 

"Can I save the villain?"

"Should I save the villain?"

"If I don't save the villain, then can I really call myself a hero?"

In other words the decision they make in saving, or not saving their final antagonist defines what kind of hero they are. In Deku’s case it’s even more critical he defines what hero he wants to be because the MHA is also a generational story, and several of the kids are asked to prove how exactly this generation of heroes is going to surpass the last one. The kids growing physically stronger than the last generation isn’t a satisfactory answer, Deku getting strong enough to punch Shigaraki hard is not a satisfactory answer, because we are reading a story and not watching a boxing match. 

I’m going to focus on the last two questions though for a moment. Many people who argue against saving villains like Shigaraki argue he is a mass murderer and therefore isn’t worthy of salvation. However, the act of saving Shigaraki isn’t a reflection of Shigaraki himself, but rather the kind of hero Deku wants to be. It all boils down to Spiderman. In the opening issue of Spiderman, teenage Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider and suddenly gains super strength, the ability to stick to walls along with other powers. However, being a teenager he uses these powers selfishly at first. He doesn’t feel the obligation to use his powers for other people, and therefore when he sees a robbery happening right in front of him he lets the robber go. However, because he lets the robber go, the robber then attempts to hijack a car and kills his Uncle Ben in the process. If Spiderman had stopped the robber then he might have prevented that from happening. He had the power to stop the robber, but he didn’t feel responsible or obligated to save other people. As a result Uncle Ben dies. It’s not enough to have power, ti’s how you use that power that reflects who you are, therefore: “with great power comes great responsibility.” 

The choice to save Shigaraki actually has little to do with whether or not Shigaraki is redeemable, but rather how Deku chooses to use his power, and what he thinks he is responsible for reflects who Deku is as a person.  Deku himself also clearly outlines how he wants to use his power, that One for All is a power for saving, and not killing. 

How he uses his power reflects Deku’s ideal in saving others, and therefore if he doesnt use his power to save, then he’s failed to live up to his ideals. It's not whether it's morally right to save a murderer like Shigaraki, but rather the way Deku wants to choose to use his power. It's about whether he feels the responsibility to save others.

Judai explores an incredibly similar arc to Deku. They are basically both asked what kind of responsibilities a hero is supposed to have, which is also a metaphor for growing up to handle the responsibilities of adulthood. As both characters start out with incredibly naive and childish ideas about what a hero is. Therefore realizing what a hero is responsible for is key to them growing as a character.  However, Judai is different from Deku. In some ways he’s more like Bakugo. Judai is a prodigy who’s naturally good at dueling. He doesn’t duel to save others, but rather because duels are fun and he’s good at it. He’s very much like Bakugo, who admired All Might as a hero just as much as Deku did, but admired the fact that he was strong and always won rather than he saved others. 

However, I would say both Deku and Judai are questioning what a hero is responsible for. They are both asking if they have the responsibility to use their power to save others. If they have to fight for other people, just because they have power. His first big challenge as a character comes from Edo Phoenix, who calls out Judai for not thinking through what it means to be a hero, and what responsibilities heroes carry. Judai duels because he thinks it’s fun. He will show up to duel to help his friends, but that’s because he’s the most powerful person in the group. Even then it’s because he finds fighting strong opponents to be enjoyable. Bakugo will beat up a villain, but for him it’s more about winning then if the action will save someone or not. 

Judai is more often than not pushed into the role of being a hero, he doesn’t play the hero because he’s a particularly selfless person, and he’ll often avoid responsibility if not forced. He has power but no sense of responsibility and the narrative calls them out as a problem. 

Edo: Can you even fathom that, Judai?

For Judai, he can’t understand the responsibility of being a hero. For Deku, he idealizes heroes so much he can’t understand that there are people out there the heroes have failed to save. These two callouts towards Deku and Judai are discussing similar because they’re both discussing where a hero’s responsibilities lie. Is a hero responsible for saving everyone? Is someone strong like Judai responsible for using their strength to help other people? 

Judai’s arc continues into the third season where he’s not shown to just be naive but ignorant. He’s not just childish, he actively resists growing up because he doesn’t want to take on adult responsibilities. 

THe same way that Deku just decides not to think about whether or not All Might failed to save people in the panels above. However, in Judai's case he's actively called out for his choice to remain ignorant.

Satou: Now, which one is at fault? Judai: Isn’t it the guy who saw it, but didn’t pick it up. Satou: Not quite. If one is aware of the trash that fell, it may be picked up someday. But there is no possibility fo the unaware one ever picking it up. Judai-kun you are the foolish one unaware of the trash that has fallen. Judai: Are you calling me out for how I am? Satou: Your behavior towards me was atrocious. The worst was attending class only for credit, even if you were there you only slept. Judai: Yeah, I know. I was all bad, but it wasn’t that big a- Satou: It is important. You see, one by one, the students inspired by your attitude were losing their motivation. Now if you were a mediocre duelist, then this would not be an issue. Satou: However, you are the same hero who defeated the three mythic demons. Every single student in the academy admires you. You should have been a model for this academy. Judai: Me, a role model? Are you kidding? I just do whatever I feel like doing. Satou: Great power comes with great responsibility. Yet, as you remain unaware of that, you’ve spread your lethargy and self-indulgence. 

seems like a minor issue, but look how Judai responds to the accusations. “I just do whatever I feel like doing.” Satou is arguing that Judai should pay attention to the influence he has on others because of his power, because how he chooses to use that power affects others. However, Judai chooses to actively not look at the consequences of his actions because he doesn’t want to take on that level of responsibility, and therefore he’s looking away from the trash. 

While it seems like it doesn’t matter in Satou’s specific example, not thinking of the consequences, or how you use your power can have unexpected consequences. Spiderman doesn’t feel like it’s his responsibility to stop a bank robber, and that bank robber shoots his uncle. You could still argue it’s not Spiderman’s responsibility to stop every crime in the world, and I guess no one owes anyone anything from that point of view - but Spiderman failing to act responsibility had the consequence of directly hurting someone else. 

Spiderman has to live with that consequence because it was his own Uncle that was hurt. This is where we really reach the duality of Judai. 

In GX, Judai is, symbolically speaking, The Fool of the Tarot Deck, the Novice Alchemist — a person brimming with infinite potential, yet one who is also supremely ignorant, who walks forward with his eyes closed and often unknowingly causes harm in his great ignorance. In this, he is very much the embodiment of the faults we most commonly associate with teenagers — selfishness, recklessness, shallowness, a lack of dedication or empathy when it’s most needed. Like most people, he has good traits that work to balance out some of the above, but his narrative path through GX ends up being that of the flawed hero undone by his faults — and then that of the atoner, the repentant sinner. In his case, the mistakes of his teenage years are the catalyst for his growth from a boy into a man burdened with duty and purpose.  Judai is someone with infinite potential, with great power, but also ignorant on how he should use that power, and that makes him an incredibly flawed hero who needs to learn how that power should be used. 

Deku similarly exists in a society where heroes deliberately turn a blind eye to the suffering of a certain type of victim. Shigaraki’s speech heavily resmebles Satou’s speech about garbage on the side of the road. 

Shigarali: "For generations you pretended not to see those you coudln't protect and swept their pain under the rug. It's tainted everything you've built."

Deku shares Judai’s ignorance, because he’s not only a part of a system that doesn’t even see trash on the side of the road, but he also worships heroes so much that he’s incapable of criticizing them. If Deku saw the flaws of heroes, but at first didn’t have the courage to speak out, but eventually gained the courage that would be one thing. However, if he doesn’t see the flaws of heroes, then the problem will never be fixed. 

There are also consequences for both Judai and Deku failing to use their powers responsibly. These consequences take the form of the villains who came about because of all of society’s ignorance to the suffering of victims (Shigaraki) and because of the main character’s ignorance to their suffering (Yubel). Shigaraki and Yubel are also explicitly victims that the heroes failed to save, turned into villains who are active threats to the heroes. 

Should I save the villain?

The answer is yes, because the decision to save is reflective of the kind of hero each character wants to be. Each story clearly sets up that Deku and Judai aren’t punisher style heroes who shoot their villains, they are being set up as heroes who save. Deku needs to “save by winning.” As for Judai, a big deal is made of Judai’s admiration for another character Johan who represents a more idealistic kind of hero. Johan unlike Judai is someone who duels with a purpose, something Judai outright says he admires because he’s empty in comparison. 

Judai: Johan what have you been dueling for? See, it’s about fun for me… Well, for the surprise and happiness too. I guess I do do it for the fun. Sorry, I guess I put you on the spot by asking out of nowhere. Johan: What’s this about Judai? Judai: It’s nothing. Johan: I suppose there is one goal I have. Johan: Even if someone doesn’t have the power to see spirits, they can still form a bond with a spirit. That’s why I do it for people like him. [...] Johan: I'll fight for everyone who believes in me, and I'll do it with my Duel Monsters. Judai: I'm jealous you've got feelings like those in you.

Becoming a hero who uses their power to help others isn’t just a goal the story sets for Judai, it’s a goal that Judai sets for himself because of his admiration for Johan. Johan represents the idealistic hero Judai wants to be, but is also held back from because of his personality flaws. Johan represents the kind of heroic ideal that Deku is aspiring to be. 

Johan’s ultimate goal isn’t punishing the wicked, but to use his power to save others. 

Johan: Judai, it was my dream to save everyone through my dueling!

The story sets up the idea that it’s not enough for Judai to simply be strong, he’s also challenged to become a savior who uses his power to help others like Johan. Deku needs to “save by winning” and Judai needs to “Save everyone through his dueling.” However, Johan also adds another condition to what saving means. His idea of saving isn’t to defeat a villain, but rather his dream is to help connect spirits and humans together, even if there are humans who can’t see spirits. Johan doesn’t save people with the power of physical force, but rather the power of human connection. 

Should I save the villain?

Here the answer is "Yes",  because wants to become more like Johan someone who uses their power to help others not just for themselves.  Then we reach the third question

If I don't save the villain, can I really call myself a hero?

It once again comes to power and responsibility. Heroes have great power, and they are responsible in how they use that power, if they use it irresponsibly then there are consequences. Shigaraki wants to destroy hero society, because the heroes irresponsibly use their power to turn a blind eye to everyone’s suffering. 

People suffer when heroes fail to live up to their responsibilities. The entire conflict of season 3 is created by Judai failing to save Yubel. If Judai had helped Yubel when they most needed it, instead of abandoning them, then Yubel would never have been twisted by the light of destruction, would never have attempted to teleport the school to another dimension, would never have attacked all of JUdai’s friends. 

These consequences matter. Deku can turn his eyes away from Shigaraki’s suffering, but let’s say a hero failed to stop a robbery, or rather he didn’t even try, and because of that his mom was shot and died in the street. Would Deku consider the man who failed to stop a bank robbery a hero? When Spiderman let a bank robber go instead of trying to stop him, was he being a hero in that moment? Both the stories and the characters themselves have defined heroes as people who use their powers to save others, therefore if Judai and Yubel fail to save their villains then they can’t be called heroes by the story’s own definition. Now let’s finally return to the question of "Can I save the villain?"

Was there ever someone you couldn’t save?

m going to start with Yu-Gi-Oh Gx as a positive example of how to save your villain. Gx works for two reasons. One, it’s established from the start that Yubel isn’t beyond salvation, and two, it makes it so Judai can’t win without saving Yubel. The conflict of the story does not end until Judai makes the decision to save Yubel.  In some ways the writing is even stronger because Judai is directly responsible for the pain and suffering that Yubel went through that turned them into a villain in the first place. Yubel isn’t just a victim, they’re specifically Judai’s victim. 

Yubel is a duel spirit who is also essentially Judai’s childhood friend. A duel spirit just like the kind that Johan wants to save. During their childhood Yubel got too overprotective of Judai, and started to curse his friends for making him cry or upsetting him in any way. Until everyone Judai’s age started avoiding him and Judai became all alone with only Yubel for company. Judai’s decision was to abandon Yubel at that time. He took the yubel card and shot them into space, hoping that being bathed in space rays will somehow “fix” what was wrong with them. I know that’s silly but just go with it. Judai abandoning Yubel had the unintended consequence of Yubel being subjected to the light of destruction, a corrupting light that subjected Yubel to years of pain. This pain literally takes the form of Yubel burning alive.

Yubel connected to his dreams called out for Judai every night, only for Judai’s parents to give him surgery that repressed his memories of Yubel causing him to forget them entirely. Yubel then spent the next ten years alone in space, continuously subjected to painful torture, with their cries for help being ignored. 

"I was suffering even as you came to forget about me..."

Yubel is then met with the question of how can Judai treat them this way if they loved him so much? As from Yubel’s perspective, they’ve only ever tried to protect Judai, only for Judai to not only throw them away, but subject them to painful torture and ignore their cries for help. Judai effectively moves on with his life, goes to duel academy, makes friends while Yubel is left to suffer in silence all but forgotten. This is where Judai’s ignorance has serious plot consequences. 

It’s not just the pain that Yubel endured that made them snap. It’s that their pain went ignored. 

Yubel holds out the faint hope that Judai will answer their calls fro help until they finally burn up upon re-entry into earth’s orbit. At which point they’re left as nothing more than a single hand crawling on the ground.  Yubel who cannot fathom why Judai would cause them so much pain, and then forget about them, convinces themselves that Judai must be causing them pain, BECAUSE he loves them.

But you see, I couldn't possibly forget about you in the time that I've suffered...

Judai is allowed to move on with his life, to make friends, to spend the next ten years doing so while Yubel is subjected to ten years of agony. When they finally escape their painful torment, they see all the friends Judai has made while they’re left alone and forgotten. However, Yubel’s goal isn’t revenge. Rather, it’s to make Judai share and recognize their pain. WHich is why I said it’s not the fact that they were made to suffer, but their suffering is ignored. Yubel’s entire philosophy revolves around the idea that sharing pain is an expression of love, and that they and Judai share their love for each other by hurting each other. 

"That's why I sought to fill all those linked to you, your world, with both sadness and anguish..."

For Yubel, making all of Judai’s friends suffer and Judai themselves suffer is a way of making them and Judai equals again. They want to show “their love” for Judai, but it’s more about forcing Judai to recognize the pain he’s caused them by forcing him through the same pain. Yubel’s philosophy of sharing pain is actually a twisted form of empathy. 

They’re not entirely wrong either, that even people who love each other can cause each other pain, and that if one person is suffering alone in a relationship or the suffering is one-sided then there’s something wrong with that relationship. 

Yubel: I get it now… You weren’t in love, with Echo. Yubel: No.. you may have loved her just enough to clear the conditions in palace for you to control Exodia, but the you didn’t truly love each other. Yubel: You were only unfairly hurting her, while you stayed unharmed. You wouldn’t suffer. You wouldn’t suffer. You wouldn’t be in pain. Amon: What are you getting at? Yubel: I’ve been hurt! I’ve suffered! I’ve been in pain. That’s why I’m making JUdai feel the same things I did! 

Yubel’s twisted theory of love, is a pretty thinly veiled cry for empathy.

They break out into tears when talking to Amon about the way they’ve hurt and suffered. They clearly state upfront that their goal is for Judai to recognize their love. One of the first things they say to Judai is a plea for Judai to remember them.

Yubel is presented as a very human character suffering through a lot of pain throughout their entire villai arc, they break down into tears multiple times, they cry out in agony, they're visibly suffering and you see their mental walls begin to break down when Judai denies them any empathy.

Yubel is actually incredibly clear and straightforward about their desire to be saved by Judai. However, Judai doesn’t lift a single finger to help Yubel the entire arc, even though they themselves admit they are directly responsible for Yubel’s suffering but they helped create who they are today. 

Judai plunges into a different dimension and gives up everything to save someone, but it’s Johan, not Yubel they try to save. You have Johan, the perfect friend, and perfect victim that Judai gets obsessed over and will not stop at anything to save, and then you have Yubel, the imperfect victim that is actively harming Judai and all of his friends that Judai chooses to ignore. The whole season Judai only focuses on saving the perfect victim Johan, and this is clearly shown to be a flaw. Judai doesn’t just ignore Yubel to save Johan, he also ignores every single one of his friends. 

Judai only caring about saving Johan, and deliberately ignoring and abandoning the friends who came with him to help, essentially abandoning them the way he did Yubel leads to another consequence. After he abandons them they get captured, rounded up, and actually die and become human sacrifices. 

Losing his friends, causes Judai to snap. Judai becomes the supreme king and decides power is all that matters; he starts killing duel spirits en masse in order to forge the super polymerization card.  Which means being left alone, suffering alone, being abandoned by everyone causes Judai to snap the exact same way that Yubel did. 

In fact Judai is only saved from his darkest moment, because two of his friends sacrifice their lives, trying to get through to him and appeal to his humanity. At that point Judai’s friends could have just chosen to put him down like a mad dog, to punish him for the amount of people he’s killed, but instead they try to save him because of their friendship. 

I just want to save my friend. That is all.

By the time Judai is facing Yubel in their final fight, Judai doesn’t have the moral highground against Yubel in any way whatsoever. They’ve both lashed out because of the pain they endured and killed countless people in the process of lashing out.  The only real difference between them is that Judai is lucky. He had friends to support him at his lowest point, while Yubel didn’t. Does Judai learn from Jim’s example, and go out of their way to save Yubel the same way they were saved because Yubel is still a friend? Nope, Judai tries to kill Yubel at this point. 

I made a lot of friends... And they all taught me something… real love is wide enough, large enough and deep enough to fill the universe. Your so-called love is only a conceited delusion.

Like, Judai, sweetie baby honey darling. How was Yubel supposed to make friends when they were floating in the empty void of space?

Judai hasn’t learned, they are still ignorant, and still turn a blind eye to Yubel’s suffering. After all if his love is wide enough, large enough,and deep enough to fill the universe then why don’t thy have any room in their heart whatsoever for empathizing with Yubel?

Judai making friends while Yubel was trapped in space doesn’t make Judai a better person than Yubel, it makes Judai lucky. Judai doesn’t even appreciate that luck, because he treats his friends like garbage. It’s not about whether Yubel is worthy of salvation, because Judai is a mass murderer and his friends still went to great lengths to save them anyway. It’s that Judai doesn’t want to empathize with Yubel, because they still want to remain ignorant and irresponsible. Judai wants to continue playing hero, with a very black and white definition of what a hero is. By this point Judai’s killed lots of people, but if he makes Yubel the villain in the situation, he can keep playing hero. He doesn’t have to look at himself and what he’s done, because blaming everything that happened on Yubel and then putting Yubel down like a mad dog allows Judai to absolve his own guilt. Judai practically ignores Yubel’s cries for help, even when Yubel spells it out for them.

I couldn't have lived with the heartache unless I felt that I was being loved...

At this point Yubel themselves acknowledges that their love was just a delusion. That it was a coping mechanism, because they couldn’t live with all the pain otherwise. WIthout it they would have just died, which makes Judai unmoved. The implication here is that Judai thinks yes, Yubel should have just died in that crater. It would have been easier for Yubel to die a perfect victim, then for Yubel to crawl out of that crater and go on to hurt other people. While that may be true the same can be said for Judai - it would have been better if Judai died rather than become the Supreme King. His friends could have put him down like a mad dog, you could have even called that justice - but they didn’t. Judai making no attempt to save Yubel isn’t because he thinks it’s morally wrong to save someone who’s killed as many people as Yubel has, or because he thinks he can’t forgive Yubel, it’s because Judai is taking the easy way out. Johan is a nice, easy victim to save, because he’s Judai’s perfect boyfriend, while Yubel is a complex victim that requires Judai to understand their suffering. Even the act of saving Johan isn’t about Johan himself, it’s about the fact that Judai feels guilt over Johan’s disappearance. What Judai wants isn’t really to save a friend, but to stop feeling guilty over that friend. Judai isn’t just disgusted by Yubel’s actions towards his friend, he also wants to avoid the guilt he feels over causing all of Yubel’s suffering, because it requires acknowledging the complex reality that he is both victim and perpretrator in this case, just as Yubel is both victim and perpetrator. 

So how can an arc where Judai doesn’t try to save Yubel until the last possible minute, be better than an arc where Deku makes it his goal for the final act of the manga to save the crying boy in Shigaraki? 

It’s because the story does not let Judai get away with his continual refusal to empathize with Yubel. Yubel’s entire character revolves around empathy, in the form of sharing pain. As a duel monster, Yubel’s effect is that they are a 0/0 attack monster who is immune to all damage, but when you attack them they deal all the damage back to you. Which means that Yubel will respond to all the pain they feel, by causing you just as much pain in return. Yubel is not a character who can be defeated in a fight, or a duel. In fact they’re the only Yu-Gi-Oh villain who never loses a duel once. The most Judai can do is duel them to a draw, and they draw three times. Yubel wins against everyone else who challenges them.  In a way Yubel is like Shigaraki, the ultimate, unkillable enemy that can’t be done away with violence. Judai’s refusal to empathize with Yubel or attempt communication also makes them worse, every time Yubel is hurt they escalate. THe more Judai hurts them, the more they will hurt in return, it’s a cycle that will never be broken simply by killing Yubel, because Yubel is unkillable. 

Not only that but the story has gone to great lengths to show that saving Yubel is the correct course of action. If Judai doesn’t save Yubel, he’s basically spitting on the selflessness Jim showed in saving him. In fact if he doesn’t save Yubel, Judai is contradicting his own words on what makes a good friend. Sho once asks Judai after witnessing his brother change, what he should do if a person you lov ehas changed into an entirely different person. What if they're a person you don't even recognize any more? A person you don’t even necessarily like anymore? 

That's why if it were me. I'd probably just be looking after him until the very end, even if I didn't like him. I'd do it cause I think it'd prove that I care about him.

Judai doesn't even say that Sho is obligated to save his brother or morally redeem him, just that he has to keep looking at him instead of turning away or ignoring him.

Judai is being a bad friend, by his own definition. By choosing to deliberately look away from Yubel, Judai’s not living up to his advice for Sho for how you treat people you care about. 

Which is why the resolution for Judai and Yubel’s arc is so important, because it’s done by Judai finally acknowledging Yubel’s pain, and promising to watch over them from now on, words that are followed by the action of physically fusing their souls together so they’ll never be alone again.  Judai doesn’t just say pretty words about how they won’t ignore the crying child inside of Yubel, but instead he makes a sacrifice to save Yubel at risk to themselves to show their words are backed up by actions. Judai says Yubel will never be alone again, and then he commits. 

"And even if that means I won't exist anymore... I don't care."

Judai has resolved his character arc by this action, because Judai is finally taking on responsibility and that responsibility is watching over Yubel, so the two of them can atone together. Judai even says himself this isn’t an act of sacrifice on his part, but rather him finally accepting adult responsibilities. 

Judai: I wouldn't sacrifice myself for you guys. I'm just going on a journey to grow from a kid into a man.

Judai needed to save Yubel to complete his character arc and grow as a person. If Judai hadn’t saved Yubel, he would have still remained an ignorant child. By learning not to turn a blind eye to Yubel’s pain, and also smacking sacrifices and physically doing something to atone for the way they ignored Yubel up until this point they’ve not only saved Yubel they’ve also done something to address their wrongs. This also continues into the fourth season where Judai’s personal growth results in him learning what kind of hero he wants to be as in Season 4 in order to atone for the spirits that Judai slaughtered, he decides to leave his friends behind and walk the earth with Yubel helping spirits and humans get along with each other. In fact Judai’s final speech as a character isn’t even about how strong he is as a hero, but how weak he is as a person.

And I put my friends through some rough times. Form that, I figured a few things out... all I can do is believe in them.

The lesson Judai learned is because he’s weak, he needs to empathize and believe in other people the same way that his friends once believed in him when he was at his lowest point. Judai’s not the strongest hero, he’s the weakest one, but that gives him the ability to empathize with people who were lost just like he was, and guide them back from the darkness. 

The story of how Deku became the worst hero.

I’m going to say this right now it might turn out next week that Shigaraki is just fine, and he’ll use the overhaul quirk to reconstruct his body. However, even if that happens Deku has completely failed at his goal of saving Shigaraki for the reasons I’ll illustrate below. In theory, Deku’s arc of saving Shigaraki, and therefore winning by saving should be much easier for the story to accomplish and also much less frustrating to watch. After all, Shigaraki has been around since the beginning of the manga, he’s literally the first villain that Deku faces. He’s also the first villain that Deku talks to, where he brings up the idea that there were some people All Might failed to save. There’s also many intentional parallels between the two characters, the entire manga is about their parallel journeys of becoming the next generation hero and the next generation villain. Shigaraki even directly quotes the line at one point that all he wanted was for someone in his house to tell him he could still be a hero, the same line Deku said in the first chapter was that he wanted his mom to tell him to be a hero instead of apoalogizing to him for being quirkless. 

Not only is the setup for Shigaraki and Deku made obvious (Deku can redeem Shigaraki by telling him that he can still be a hero too), but Deku himself states out loud that he wants to save the crying child inside of Shigaraki. 

Judai runs away from Yubel the whole time, whereas Deku is running towards Shigaraki and actively makes it his goal to understand Shigaraki and continue to see him as a human being rather than a villain.  The story also makes it clear that saving Shigaraki is necessary to saving hero society as a whole. After all Yubel is just Judai’s victim. Whereas Shigaraki is the victim of all of society. He’s the crying child who was ignored. The cycle won’t be broken if heroes continue choosing to ignore people like Shigaraki, because more victims will grow up to replace him. 

Shigaraki: Everything I've witnessed, this whole system you've built has always rejected me. Now I'm ready to reject it. That's why I destroy. That's why I took this power formyself? Simple enough, yeah? I don't care if you don't understand. That's what makes us heroes and villains.

Shigaraki rejects the world because the world continues to reject him. THe solution to this problem is not rejecting Shigaraki, because Shigaraki won’t go away, the system will just continue to reject people like Shigaraki. As long as heroes and villains don’t understand each other, they’ll keep being forced to fight and the conflict won’t end, because hero society is what engineers it’s own villains.

clear as day by the story itself. If the objective of saving Shigaraki is clear, then how exactly did the story fail in this objective? What went wrong? In this case it’s a failure of framing, and breaking the rules of “show don’t tell.” Stories are all about actions and consequences. When a character makes a certain action in a story, the way other characters around them, the world, and whatever consequences that action frames that action in a certain light. It provides context for how we are supposed to interpret that character in that moment. 

For example, when a character does something wrong and another character directly confronts them over what they did wrong, that frames them as in the wrong. The story is criticizing the character for what they did wrong. Context is everything in a story. Stories are just ideas, so they require framing and context to communicate those ideas for the audience. Certain character attributes can be strengths or flaws depending on the context. My go to example is that if you put Othello in Hamlet, the conflict would be resolved in five seconds because Othello’s straightforward personality and determination would have him kill Hamlet’s uncle without questioning things. Whereas, Hamlet constantly questioning and second guessing himself would lead to the worst ending possible. However, if you put Hamlet in Othello, then Hamlet wouldn’t fall prey to Iago’s manipulations, because Othello doubts and questions everything so he wouldn’t believe Iago the way Othello did. 

Hamlet’s contemplative and introverted nature can be a strength in one situation, and a flaw in another. Othello’s tendency to act without thinking things through can be a strength in one situation, and a flaw in another. Context matters, because context tells you how you’re supposed to interpret a certain characters actions, and therefore tells you more about that character. This is why people repeat “Show don’t tell” as the golden rule of storytelling, it’s one thing to say something about a character, it’s another to us the characters actions in the story itself to show them something about the character. 

What’s even worse then breaking the rules of show don’t tell however, is telling the audience one thing, and then going onto show in the narrative something completely different. In that case the narrative becomes muddled and confusing to read. If I the narrator say “Hamlet is someone who overthinks everything” and then in the story Hamlet walks up to his uncle and kills him with no hesitation, then the narrator is straight up unreliable. It becomes impossible to tell as an author what message I’m trying to get across about these characters, because I’m telling you one thing and showing another. 

This is why the writing fails in the second half of My Hero Academia because we are constantly told one thing, but then the story shows something entirely different and sometimes even contradictory to the thing we are being told. 

Judai is a much worse hero than Deku, he always runs away from Yubel, and we’re never directly told that he’s supposed to save Yubel either. However, the narrative is incredibly consistent. Judai’s behavior of running away is consistent with his character. All the other character call Judai selfish for abandoning his friends (and they’re not even talking about Yubel). Judai is never painted in any positive light for his actions, therefore we as the audience understand Judai’s behavior is wrong and he needs to fix it. The narrative makes it clear that Judai needs to grow up, and Judai is never rewarded for his refusal to grow up, he’s ruthlessly chewed out, not by his enemies but also by his own friends. However, the narrative isn’t merciless on him either. Season 3 of GX is dark, but it’s not grimdark. Even when Judai loses his way, he’s still shown love and compassion by those same friends who go to great lengths for his sake. The narrative criticize Judai but it never insists that he’s beyond redemption and needs to be put down like a mad dog. 

The message is very clear, that not only does Judai need to grow up, but he also deserves the chance to grow and change, which is why he should give Yubel a similar chance. In comparison the story sets out this clear narrative arc for Deku of understanding Shigaraki, but it never challenges him for failing to understand Shigaraki. If you listen to what the narrative says, how other characters describe Deku, and what Deku himself says and only read it on a surface level then yes, Deku’s goal is to save Shigaraki. If you analyze actions however, he is in effect just like Judai he never takes any meaningful action or steps towards Shigaraki, nor does he think of what saving Shigaraki might look like or entail. 

The story describes Deku as someone who is possessed by a drive to save others that eclipses all common understanding, but does the story give us any examples of that behavior?

Judai is characterized as a selfish, irresponsible child, and the story gives us countless examples of his immaturity and how it hurts others. Does the story of MHA do the same for Deku's purported virtues? Let’s run through Deku’s actions, step by step, the actions themselves and how they are framed in order to find any evidence that Deku possesses this drive to save others. Does Deku reflect at all on the question of:

Can Shigaraki be Saved?

Deku leaves on a journey to try to understand villains. When he makes a perfunctory attempt to understand and empathize with Muscle, and Muscle replies that some people are just evil does Deku keep trying to reach his heart? Nope, he just punches him. 

Well, if he’s failed in his goal of understanding a villain then does the story call him out on his failure? Does Deku face any sort of narrative consequence for that failure? Is he framed negatively for failing to understand Muscle, the same way that Judai is framed for abandoning Yubel? Nope. Deku doesn’t express any frustration at all over is inability to reason with Muscle. There’s also no negative consequence for Deku just choosing to punch muscle, it turns out that there was no reasoning with Muscle and some people are just bad eggs so Deku was right. It’s okay for characters to fail, but if a character fails and it’s not framed by the story as a failure then the writing itself as failed. Why even bother to include this scene in the first place if it doesn’t advance Deku’s character in any way? This scene in spite of showing Deku failing to understand someone actively paints Deku in a positive light, because of how much stronger he is ow that he can OHKO a guy that gave him trouble all the way back in the camp arc.

This scene doesn’t tell anything about Deku as a character, it just makes him look cool. In fact that’s precisely the problem, Deku isn’t adequately challenged as a character, because he’s never allowed to fail. Even when he does obviously fail at the things the narrative set out for him to do, he’s never challenged on those failures, because the priority isn’t to make Deku grow, it’s to make Deku look good.  As I said before, Judai is the hero because he’s the weakest. Deku is the hero because he’s the strongest. Well, next a big flaw on Deku’s part is that he worshippd the same heroes that were making the world corrupt. Heroes like Endeavor who created people like Dabi. So, does Deku take action to either criticize the older generation of heroes, or separate himself from them in order to try to be better than them? Nope, he teams up with them. Not only that, Deku can’t do something as simple as tell Gran Torino out loud about his plans to save Shigaraki. If Deku feels that Shigaraki is worthy of salvation then he should at least try to make an argument here about his ideal of saving others.

Now here’s the thing, if Deku hadn’t directly looked at the camera and told us he wanted to save Shgiaraki, would we be able to deduce his intentions from his actions? If you took away all of Deku’s internal monologue, and just showed him punching Muscular and saying nothing when Gran Torino says he may have no choice but to kill Shigaraki would anything about Deku’s actions indicate that he wants to save Shigaraki? Let me use avatar the last airbender as a positive example for a moment. People say that Aang’s desire to spare Ozai’s life comes out of left field, but like if you analyze Aang as a character down to their bending, and the way they react in situations they always prefer de-escalation, or taking a third option as opposed to confronting things head on. It’s literally why Toph says Aang has trouble learning earth bending, because as an airbender, he always tries to look for some other way to solve the problem, instead of a direct confrontation with force. As early as season one, Aang tells Zuko someone who has tried to kill him several times that he was friends with someone from the fire nation one hundred years ago and in a different situation they could be friends. Aang’s desire to save the Firelord may not have been told to us until the last possible minute, but Aang’s aversion to violence has always been a part of his character from the beginning. However, Deku never shows any similar aversion to violence. There’s basically no example where he ever tries to de-escalate a situation, or he avoids a conflict by seeking a third option. 

Anyway, let’s move onto the next example. In the confrontation where Lady Nagant fights Deku, when Deku learns the fact that the heroes were employing government hitmen to attack people for uhh… exercising free speech does Deku give any reaction to this information? When Lady Nagant says that Deku is only going to bring back the status quo, does he show her any meaningful evidence that he won’t do that.

Deku’s response is because the world is so grey, he needs to extend a helping hand to others. Which you know what thay could be a response. Deku saying that his response to the corruption of the hero world is that he now understands that society led some people down the wrong path, so his way of addressing the wrongs of that society is lending a helping hand to as many people as possible even people he used to think was irredeemable. 

I will give Deku the benefit of the doubt, I think this is an acceptable answer. I can’t save everyone, but that’s not going to stop me from trying to save as many people as possible and maybe I can save people who were this society’s victims on the way too.  However, does Deku demonstrate his resolve to extend a helping hand in any meaningful way. 

Deku is met with an armless, insane Overhaul who’s begging for someone to help heal his father figure in the Yakuza from his coma. This isn’t like Muscular who insists that there’s no helping him, Deku is met face by face with someone asking him for help. Deku’s gotta extend a helping arm whenever he can, because he knows some people were abandoned and led astray by this society… Unless that person is someone he doesn’t like personally. At which point he only helps them on a conditional basis. We are told Deku will save anyone and everyone, but Deku is met face to face with an armless man who is begging for help and Deku’s does nothing to help him. Deku’s not criticized for refusing to help overhaul either, it’s never brought up again. When Deku begins to experience a mental breakdown because of all the people he’s trying to help in the Dark Deku arc, we are told this is the result of Deku trying to save everyone, but we do not see Deku attempting to save a single villain after Muscular and Nagant. 

He exhausts himself beating up villains that AFO sends after him, and only helping innocent civilians. Which would be fine if this arc were about how Deku is running away from his real responsibilities the same way that Judai was running, but that’s not what we’re being told. We are told that this is all part of an arc of Deku learning to understand villains and be a hero.

Deku is asked “Can you save Shigaraki?” by the story, but Deku never at any point has to deliberate on that question. Judai doesn’t deliberate on that question either, but him choosing not to think about things and stay ignorant is the point. 

It’s actually fine to make Deku stagnate as a character. It’s fine to have him take the easy way out by just punching villains and giving up on them after one conversation. It’s fine for him to be empathetic to other people’s suffering, or even self-righteous. It’s fine for him to be ignorant. 

He could be all of those things if it was a part of a narrative teaching him to unlearn his behavior. In fact the narrative might have been better if Deku started out by saying he didn’t want to save Shigaraki, that there was no choice but to kill him, because then at least his actions would be consistent with his words. Then his lack of empathy and his tendency to resort to violently beating up villains instead of avoiding violence would be character flaws he could work on. Deku however, is presented to us as this empathic hero who is always willing to give others a second chance though he never actually sticks his neck out in order to do so. Continuing on with our slow crawl through MHA, one of Deku’s friends is revealed as the traitor. Deku has a heartwarming scene fo saying that Aoyama can still be a hero, but look at his actions. He lets the adults in the room physically tie Aoyama in a straightjacket and imprison him, for the crime of… doing bad things while he was in a hostage situation. Apparently, if a bank teller helps the bank robber by giving them money when the robber has a gun to his head, the swat team should just snipe the bank teller. Not only does he not defend Aoyama against the adults, or stand up for him, or tell the adults they’re wrong to treat Aoyama a clear cut victim who had a gun to his head and was bing held hostage like he’s a villain - he also lets the adults use Aoyama an innocent victim as bait in order to lure out AFO.  Deku tells Aoyama he can still be a hero, but he doesn’t defend Aoyama as a victim of being taken hostage, nor does he stop the adults from further taking advantage of him and throwing him right into danger. Some people are just led the wrong way that’s why they need to be extended a helping hand, but fuck Aoyama I guess. He needs to earn the right to be sympathized with by physically putting his life in danger. 

Deku can’t even go out of his way to save a friend who he’s known for the better part of a year, when that friend is a complex victim forced to do bad things. 

Then Deku and Uraraka have a conversation where they both, kind of ruminate on the idea that maybe the villains are human beings who are worthy of sympathy.

In fact Uraraka is actively trying to dehumanize Toga by looking at the destroyed city, so she won't have to think of Togaas a person.

The language here is also a major fault of this arc. It focuses far too hard on “forgiveness” over and over again. As I said before, saving Shigaraki isn’t about Shigaraki at all, it’s about Deku, and how he wants to use his power as a hero. Deku has even stated himself that he doesn’t believe that OFA is a power that should be used for killing people. So why does whether Toga or Shigaraki are forgivable or not even matter? It’s the same with Deku refusing Overhaul any sympathy. If he’s so morally opposed to abusers, then why does he work with Endeavor and defend him at every visible opportunity, even in front of his victims? Whether or not Deku can forgive Shigaraki doesn’t matter, because Deku is not the moral arbitrator or right and wrong. In fact Deku doesn’t even have any morals, so how is this a moral debate? Is there any point where Deku gives a clear definition of what he thinks right and wrong is? Does he quot Immanuel Kant to the audience? 

Batman doesn’t kill people, not because he thinks that every last person on earth can be saved, but because Bruce Wayne an incredibly rich white man thinks that maybe he shouldn’t have the authority to decide who lives and who dies. When Bruce doesn’t kill the joker, it doesn’t mean he thinks the Jokers actions are forgivable, it’s because Bruce thinks it’s not his place to determine whether someone has the right to live. 

The whole conflict that MHA presents us is that heroes pick and choose who to save, and only save the ones they deem as innocent. So, how does Deku saying repeatedly they can’t forgive Shigaraki contribute to that theme in any way? In fact by focusing on forgiveness, rather than whether or not he personally has the right to pick and choose who lives and who dies Deku is ignoring the elephant in the room. The question isn’t about whether Shigaraki’s redeemable or if his deeds should ever be forgiven. The question is whether Deku has the right to decide who gets saved and who doesn’t. 

We are told that Deku as a character is someone who wants to save everyone no matter what, so Deku shouldn’t be focusing on whether or not Shigaraki is worthy of forgiveness, he should be making an idealistic argument like Xavier does in this panel. Why doesn’t Deku talk out loud with Uraraka on how he believes his power is for saving others, and not killing? If he’s meant to represent some idealistic hero, then why doesn’t he even talk about his ideals? Why don’t I as the reader know what those ideals are?

I think Xavier’s ideals of forcing the X-men to provide a good example to the mutant community, in order to try to earn the respect of other human beings is wrong, but at least he has ideals.  He tries to inspire the other people around him to live up to those ideals. The story can criticize him for his ideals and point out how they’re wrong, while it can also uplift parts of his idelogy like where he believes there are no evil mutants. Deku has a chance to do the same to Uraraka, to tell her clearly, “I don’t think we as heroes have the right to pick and choose who we help…?” but he waffles. Not only does he waffle, but this moment is meant to be read as an indication that both Deku and Uraraka are sympathetic individuals who want to save their villains. They are supposed to look good and idealistic here and they don’t. For Deku it just seems like a repeat of his behavior with Overhaul. The only villains that are worthy of sympathy, are the ones that he personally decides are forgivable. 

The story isn’t about whether or not it’s moral to save someone who’s killed as many as Shigaraki has. The story never seriously discusses any sort of complex morality or moral philosophy. Once again to bring up avatar, yes you can argue Aang sparing the life of a war crimminal is bad, but Aang mentions on multiple occasions that he wants to retain the cultural values of the airbending people. Aang has a morality, a consistent morality, it might not be a morality you personally agree with but at least he has one. Deku hates abusers, unless he’s next to Endeavor then he thinks abusers should be given the chance to atone. Deku doesn’t believe that One for All is a power for killing, but he never stands up to any of the adults who are blatantly trying to kill Shigaraki, he doesn’t even express out loud to Uraraka that he doesn’t think heroes have the right to decide who lives and who dies. In fact he’s given the perfect opportunity to, when Hawks kills a villain and it’s broadcast live on the news in font of everyone, but Deku never has anything to say about that. The reason Deku and Uraraka both put such an emphasis on “forgiving” their villains has nothing to do with the story itself. It’s because the author Horikoshi, is afraid that some people will misinterpret his story as saying that he actually thinks that saving a villain like Shigaraki means that he condones mass murder, so he has to have the characters talk about not forgiving Shigaraki. 

Judai doesn’t have any consistent morals either, but once again that’s the point and something the story relentlessly calls him out on.

Cobra: Fortune would never smile on a fool like you who fights while prattling on about enjoying duels.  Cobra: You are certainly a talented duelist. But you have one fatal flaw.  Judai: A fatal flaw? Cobra: Yes, your duels are superficial. Someone who fights with nothing on his shoulders, cannot recover once he loses his enjoyment. What a duelist carries on his shoulders will become the power that supports him when he's up against the wall! Cobra: But you have nothing like that! Those who go through life without anything like that cannot possibly seize victory.  Cobra: But I know that nothing I say will resonate with you... because you have nothing to lose but the match.  Judai: I...  Cobra: Afraid aren't you? Right now, you have nothing to support you. 

Judai’s regularly called out for his superficiality. Judai is only a hero because he’s strong and wins fight, he doesn’t feel any responsibility towards other people, and in fact he loathes having to feel responsible for others. Judai isn’t just naive, he deliberately chooses to remain ignorant. Since he’s ignorant of his own faults, he makes awful decisions when it comes time for him to lead, and his friends die because of choices he made. We are told that Deku doesn’t want to remain ignorant, that he wants to understand villains, but Deku’s actual actions are him continuing to ignore society’s ills and the suffering of victims. In fact if you take away Deku’s internal monologue and the narration, Deku’s actions almost exactly mirror Judai’s.

Deku is just as superficial as Judai, and he also doesn't want to spend any time thinking about what kind of hero he wants to be, but the narrative never punishes him for it.

Judai is asked what burdens he has to bear and he has to meaningfull answer that question, Deku is allowed to get away with not having to think about anything. Deku remains superficial. Both Judai and Deku spend the entire arc running away from their villain rather than confronting them in any meaningful way. They both never express out loud any sympathy for their villain, or try to empathize. THey both never step down from the role of hero, and only confront their villain as a hero, because they don’t want to think about themselves as complicit or in the wrong. Shigaraki and Deku’s final confrontation mirrors Judai and Yubel’s but without the same clear framing. THe entire time Yubel is trying to get Judai to empathize with them, and Judai only responds with physical violence, because they don’t want to stop being the hero and because they can’t see Yubel as anything other than the villain.  As soon as Deku arrives on the battlefield (by the way everyone else and their mom pointed this out, but Deku who doesn’t think OFA is a power for killing, is completely okay with a plan called the “Sky coffin plan” where every other hero was clearly trying to murder Shigaraki).

When Deku arrives he asks if Shigaraki is still in there, but he doesn’t do anything to try to reach Shigaraki, he jumps right to punching him. In fact he never tries anything besides punching him as hard as possible. How is punching Shigaraki with the force of a thousand suns saving him exactly? How is that different from how he tried to defeat Shigaraki the last war arc, before he saw the image of the crying child that made him want to try a different approach in saving Shigaraki?  In Judai’s final fight with Yubel, it’s made explicitly clear that Judai is not trying to save Yubel, and that’s a fault on his part. In fact Judai gives the traditional “I have friends, and you don’t” speech to Yubel but it’s a subversion of how that speech is usually used. Usually that speech is used to show that the protagonist won because of they valued friendship,while the villain treated their friends poorly and only cared about power. However, it’s ironic in this case because Judai got all of his friends killed. Judai treats his friends like garbage. This speech isn’t used to show that Judai is winning because he values his friends more than Yubel does, it shows that Judai is a hypocrite, playing the hero in this situation where they are just as bad as Yubel. Judai’s not morally superior, he’s just lucky that he has good friends. Friends that were willing to save him. The only connection Yubel has to anyone else, Yubel’s only friend is Judai and Judai is a shit friend. 

In fact, Mirio tries to give a version of the “You don’t have any friends” speech to Shigarkai, only for Shigaraki to get mad and tell Mirio that he does have friends and people he wants to protect. 

This fact is also something that is blatantly ignored by Deku, even though Mirio tells him about it… even though we are told that Deku is trying his best to see the humanity in Shigaraki. 

Judai blatantly admits they’re trying to kill Yubel. Which makes them a worse person, but a better character than Deku, because their actions are clearly framed by the narrative and consistent. 

On the other hand we are told that Deku doesn’t want to kill Shigaraki, and yet everything Deku does makes it look like he’s just trying to kill Shigaraki and put him out of its misery. If we didn’t have Deku stating out loud that he wants to save Shigaraki and wants to see him as a human, there’d be nothing in his actions to indicate that he’s trying to avoid killing Shigaraki. Deku says he can’t pretend he didn’t see Shigaraki crying, but like, does he ever hesitate to punch Shigaraki, does he ever think that causing Shigaraki more harm is wrong when he’s already suffered so much? Deku says that Shigaraki is a person but does he treat him like a person? Does he try to talk to him like a person? To use avatar again, Aang does talk to Zuko pretty early on. Deku doesn’t even give the classic “We could have been friends under different circumstances” speech. When Shigaraki resists Deku’s attempts to see him as a person or emapthize with him, Deku’s response is to just resort to punching harder. 

Which is in effect the same thing Judai does to Yubel, just kill them as a villain so they don’t hurt anybody else, but framed in an entirely different light. Judai is shown to be ruthless, and cold in his attempt to only settle the conflict with Yubel by violently putting them down. On the other hand we’re being told that Deku is compassionate and empathic while he punches Shigaraki with the force of a thousand suns. 

There’s another eerie similarity between both of these final confrontations. At the climax of the confrontation, both Judai and Deku have a psychic vision where they see events from Yubel and Shigaraki’s childhood. This vision is supposed to help both characters understand the good in the villain they’re facing.

Let’s see the contents of this vision and how the visions change each character. Judai is shown a vision of his past life where Yubel sacrifices their entire body, and even their humanity to go through painful surgery to turn into an ugly dragon, all for the sake of protecting Judai in a previous life. 

Judai is then forced to witness the good side of Yubel they’ve been ignoring all along to paint them as a villain. Yubel is simultaneously extremely selfish and willing to hurt people Judai cares about, but they’re also extremely selfless and will do anything to protect Judai and have made great sacrifices in the past for Judai’s sake. Deku gives lip service to not ignoring the humanity in Shigaraki, but Judai is literally forced to acknowledge the humanity in Yubel. Not only that, but Judai changes his behavior immediately after learning this new information. After seing the sacrifice that Yubel made for him in the past, Judai responds with a sacrifice of his own. A sacrifice that perfectly mirrors the sacrifice that Yubel once made for him. Yubel gave up their humanity for Judai, so Judai fuses his spirit to Yubel’s, becoming a human / spirit hybrid so Yubel no longer has to be alone. 

Judai also doesn’t just fuse their soul with Yubel’s in order to stop Yubel from destroying everything, it’s because both of them at this point need to atone together, and Judai is fulfilling his responsibility of watching over his friend until the end to prove that you care about them - as he said to Sho. Judai’s also fulfilling Johan’s dream of helping repair the bonds between spirits and humans, by reconciling with Yubel and repairing their bond. It’s also Judai atoning for his previous behavior of abandoning Yubel, by choosing to stay alongside them as they both atone together. Deku does sacrifice OFA during the fight against Shigaraki, but their sacrifice isn’t to help Shigaraki, but rather doing psychic damage to Shigaraki by using OFA is the only way to defeat them. He transfers OFA in order to break Shigaraki’s brain so he’ll stop reissting and Deku can beat him down. Judai fuses their soul together with Yubel out of empathy and a responsibility they feel to help their friend fater abandoning them, Deku transfers One for All to Shigaraki in order to hurt him and make him easier to punch. It's funny that Deku doesn't travel to Shigaraki's mind to learn more about him, but instead with the specific intent of harming him.

Once he's inside Shigaraki's mind, he doesn't take time to reflect on how Shigaraki used to stand up for bullied kids, or how he wants to be a hero to villains because no one else will stick up for the outcasts in society. No, he only care about Shigaraki when he takes the form of a child crying for help.

In the aftermath of the psychic vision Deku’s behavior doesn’t change towards Shigaraki in any way either. You could say he sacrificed his own arms in order to try to comfort Shigaraki within the depths of his own mind - but that’s not a real sacrifice either because his arms immediately come back.  When Judai learns about the sacrifice that Yubel made in a previous life towards him, he stops seeing Yubel as an enemy and finds a way to resolve things peacefully between them. When Deku lanterns that Shigaraki’s a victim of All for One, and that his entire life was a lie, when he sees Shigaraki’s suffering first hand does his beavior twoards Shigaraki change in any way? 

When he sees Afo has taken over Shigaraki’s body again, does he try to shout for Shigaraki, to tell Shigaraki to fight from the inside, to reassure Shigaraki that he’s still in there that there’s still good in him? Nope. He just punches Shigaraki some more.

What Deku needed to tell Shigaraki is so obviously set up by the narrative too. Shigaraki wanted just one person in that house to tell him he could be a hero. Deku wanted his mother to tell him he could be a hero if he was quirkless. Deku sees that Shigaraki started out as a boy who wanted to be a hero, and who was manipulated into being a villain but does he try to appeal to the boy inside of Shigaraki by telling him he can still be a hero? Does he now see the good in Shigaraki? Nope, he just tries to kill him by punching him really hard. 

I purposefully chose the images for the banner of this post, because it shows how differently MHA and GX treated its villains in the end. Yubel is embraced by Judai in the end, Shigaraki evaporates into dust.

"Judai, now that our souls have become one we will never be separated again. I have now been filled with your love and power. Let us fight together, against the wave of light leading this universe to destruction!"

Shigaraki could so easily have been given the love and empathy that Yubel was shown, but instead their life ends with no show of empathy from Deku, and with them dying believing that their long life of tragedy meant nothing in the end. Shigaraki realizes he's a crying kid, but he's never comforted.

Shigaraki: I only stole my body back from Master, and I didn't destroy anything. "In the end, I was just as you said... A crying kid, huh?"

Yubel is embraced and comforted, Shigaraki disintegrates into nothing.

One of these stories is apparently an optimistic story about heroes saving people, but it ends with the lifelong victim being killed in the most nihilistic manner possible, never receiving comfort, and never achieving anything with his long life.

The other story is a silly anime about card games, shows that when people are alone and suffering they can lash out and do terrible things. That all people are weak especially when they're alone, but the solution isn't to abandon them, or condemn them for their faults, but to believe in them and help uplift them the same way that Judai decides to uplift Yubel so they can atone together.

Which is why Deku gets an F in being a hero. Go directly to summer school. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $100. 

[starkwlkr]

Hi. Love your fics!!! Could you do a Charles + Ruby one where Y/N is a singer and they go to one of her concerts or a big performance like her Super Bowl halftime show or something? Thank you!❤️

mommy’s biggest fans | charles leclerc

y/n is in her harry styles fifteen nights at msg era 🫶🏼 so for this imagine we are doing her final night at msg or the kia forum or whichever arena you’d like

also taylor is going to be the faceclaim this time because why not 🙃 also kelly mention but only because p is the cutest kid 🥲

“We are getting ready for my wife’s concert tonight,” Charles spoke to the camera. He decided that Y/n’s last concert would be a great place to make a vlog. He looked at his phone. “It is four thirty and the kids are not ready. Ruby is watching Bluey.”

“And Bingo! Don’t forget Bingo!” Ruby said as she munched on her fruit snacks while seated on the bed.

“Right, Bingo too. All of the family is coming and so are our friends. Maman and Théo are having a nap, but soon we’ll have to go to the arena to see my wife perform, isn’t that exciting, Ruby?” Charles asked the girl.

“She’s going to sing my favorite song, she told me.”

“What’s your favorite song?” Charles asked.

“All of them, duh!”

“How are you feeling?” The camera was pointed at Y/n, who was getting her makeup done for her show. Charles and the kids had arrived so they spent their time in Y/n’s dressing room until the show began. Y/n’s dressing room changed over the years. First, it was filled with makeup and dresses and lots of food for before and after the show. Now, it had a stroller, toys and diaper bags.

“I am so happy. My family and friends are here. I’m so glad all of the nights have been sold out.” Y/n smiled.

“And do you have any surprises for tonight?”

“I have some. . .”

Ruby was escorted to her seat along with the Leclerc family and their friends. As the show began, the lights changed which caused Ruby to scream as loud as she could. She had been to many of her mother’s shows before, but she always had the same reaction.

Y/n started singing and so did Ruby and Mathéo. They knew all of her songs even the unreleased ones. Towards the middle of the show, a man apart of Y/n’s security team whispered something into Charles’ ear then walked with him to the side stage. Ruby was the only one who noticed as her family and friends danced and sang along.

“So this is the part of the show where I usually have some big surprise. And I do have one, but I just want to take the time to thank all of you for being here, for singing these songs, dancing, making friendship bracelets, dressing up. I love you all and I hope you love this next duet.” Y/n said. She smiled as the crowd erupted into cheers.

She walked further down the stage to her piano. The fans immediately thought she would be the one to play the piano, but they were mistaken since Charles had made his way to the piano with the biggest smile on his face.

As Charles sat on the piano bench, Y/n spoke again to the crowd. “Ladies, gentlemen, friends. I am very happy to introduce you to the man that makes me the happiest woman on earth, my husband, my muse, Mr. Charles Leclerc!” Y/n clapped as the crowd cheered for Charles, who got shy by the love he was receiving. “and also the father of my two kids, just had to add that.” She chuckled.

“Hello.” Charles spoke into the microphone which caused more cheers.

“They love you,” Y/n teased as she looked back to Charles. “So Charles and I talked and we had a hard time trying to pick which song to play together. We didn’t know if we wanted to do a cover or one of my songs and finally we decided why not play a new song.”

As Charles played a bit with the keys, Y/n looked back once again to him just to make sure he was alright. She then nodded at him so they could start.

Moon, a hole of light

Through the big top tent up high

Here before and after me

After the duet, Charles whispered an ‘I love you’ to his wife, which she returned. As the show went on, Y/n would often walk to the section that her family was in and blew them a kiss.

Y/n knew that most drivers on the F1 grid were going to attended, one of them being Sebastian with his wife and kids. She remembered Charles mentioning that it was Sebastian and Hanna’s wedding anniversary so she knew that she just had to sing a love song to them.

“This next song is dedicated to two special people who are celebrating their anniversary today. Seb, Hanna, congratulations and you know I will always love you and your family.” Y/n smiled at the Vettel family who were next to hers.

We could leave the Christmas lights up 'til January

And this is our place, we make the rules

f1wagsupdates has added to their story // lilymhe has added to their story

After the show ended, Y/n couldn’t believe she had just played fifteen nights straight. She loved performing, but what she loved the most was her family and her family needed her more than ever. She was finally coming home to her babies and Charles.

When she got backstage, she immediately started asking for her family. A stage manager had told her they were on their way backstage. When she spotted the kids, she ran up to them and hugged them.

“Maman! You sang my favorite song! And then papa played the piano with you! I waved at you but I don’t know if you saw me. I was with uncle Thur and Théo was with uncle Enzo. We sang so loud, could you hear us?” Ruby asked her mother.

“I did. You both sang so beautifully.” Y/n told her babies. They walked together to her dressing room where the rest of her family and friends were waiting.

“Ma fille! You did amazing as always! And that duet with Charles! You two know how to make a grown woman cry.” Pascale gave a hug to her daughter in law.

“Thank you for being here.” Y/n wiped away a couple of tears.

“You know I’ll always be there for you no matter what.”

After greeting and thanking everyone for coming, she finally got some alone time with Charles. He had surprised her with a giant bouquet of flowers and a cake to celebrate the end of tour. Charles sat on the sofa in her dressing room as Y/n was taking off her makeup in front of the vanity.

“When do you think you’ll be back on tour? I know you just finished.” Charles asked.

“I’m not sure. I don’t want to retire from the music industry. I want to be home with the kids, be able to help them with homework, make cakes for their birthdays, I would give anything just to be able to walk them to school.” Y/n explained. She began to feel emotional so she stood up and paced around the room in her white robe.

“I know, and you’re finally going to be able to do that, Mon amour. The kids are going to have their maman home.”

“I love you, I love you so so much.” Y/n said.

“I love you more.”

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y/nleclerc i will miss all these special moments we made during tour. thank you to everyone who came, everyone who helped. THANK YOU! thank you for singing, dancing, trading friendship bracelets and most of all, thank you for making me feel loved! I’m going to go away for some time so in the mean time, take care of each other and I will see you soon ❤️

love, y/n.

carmenmmundt you are incredible ✨

francisca.cgomes I CRIED DURING CORNELIA STREET

pierregasly can confirm

kellypiquet P and I had the best time! Thank you for inviting us!

susie_wolff amazing as always!

carla.brocker THE music industry 🫶🏼

charles_leclerc i love you forever and always

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liked by arthur_leclerc, joris__trouche and 1,366,890 others

charles_leclerc congratulations on everything, mon amour. the kids and i are always proud of you. y/nleclerc

ferraridepressionclub i wish i didn’t know how to read 😭

wolff_toto_ sleeping on the highway tonight

roscoesacutalmom i was there and the way y/n’s eye lit up everytime she saw Charles or their kids 😭

y/nscardigan the speech she gave after the concert 🥲

leclercstype what did she say? the livestream i was watching was lagging 😭

y/nscardigan basically she thanked the fans and she also thanked her family for being so supportive and then she apologized to her kids for being away for so long but she said ‘now maman is coming home’ 😭 which made me cry even more

y/nleclerc I’m not even mad you picked these. Come back to bed, the kids and I miss you.

charles_leclerc on my way 😘

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[leah-lover]

Get better. Alessia Russo × pregnant reader.

Alessia introduces her pregnant girlfriend to the team after the conti cup win.

Words: 1k

You woke up to the sound of rain, and the smell of coffee, but this wasn't your favorite way to wake up because Alessia wasn't there with you. You lazily opened your eyes to a tray with your breakfast on it with a note next to it that said “ good morning beautiful. I love you.”

Since Alessia started dating it was obvious that she was a hopeless romantic. She wanted to protect you, care for you and love you to the best of her ability.as a result, you kept your relationship private since she was getting a lot of hate after leaving man united for you. Your job had nothing to do with football. One day you and Alessia met at a bar while she was celebrating her birthday. The sparks went on immediately and you never left each other after that.

You were originally living in Manchester with her but your work had required you to go live in London , the north to be exact. Upon hearing the news, Alessia decided it was also time to leave her club.

Now you wake up in your shared home in London, have breakfast in bed, then get up to get ready. Alessia had early Training that day and you didn't have work you only had a doctor's appointment.

After getting ready you went to your appointment where the doctor confirmed to you that your baby was in very good health. You ask him for a moment alone with the baby monitor and you call your girlfriend.

“ Hello baby I miss you. Well, we miss you.” You started the conversation by pointing the camera towards the baby monitor. “ Ohh hi baby, oh my God I wish I was their baby. Is everything ok?.” She said with the biggest smile on her face.

“ Yeah it's all okay. I am going to read on the road after this. We want to be with you when you win the cup.” I responded by sipping the gell of my belly.

“ Amor please be careful, besides I am sick I might not even play.” She said,

“ Yeah I know this sickness stopped you from sleeping next to me for a while now. I really miss you and the baby misses your cuddles with me.” I cooked.

“ You wouldn't have to wait much longer. I am getting better. Amor I gotta go I love you tho.” She added blowing a kiss at the camera.

“We love you too.” I said blowing a kiss back.

I got to the stadium at the right time before kick off. Alessia got me the closest seats to the pitch and to the Arsenal fans. The atmosphere was electric when the teams got in. The chants, the tension, and the even score all managed to overwhelm me so I found myself holding on to my bump more than usual. I was sat next to a few Arsenal supporters who managed to all cheer me up again.

Suddenly an uproar filled the stadium, we had won the cup due to Stina’s goal. My happiness overwhelmed me. I was happy for the team and proud of Alessia who played really well despite her illness. I was celebrating with the fans around me when i spotted alessia heading my way not joining her team’s celebration.

“ baby i am fucking proud of you i love you soo soo much.” I yelled as soon as I saw her and hugged her.

“ Hey, mind your language in front of my baby.” she said joinkinly which earned her a pout from me.

“ you should go celebrate with the girls you earn it star girl, you and me can celebrate when i get home.” I added my hands on her shoulder.

“ I don't want to celebrate with them, I want to celebrate with you plus I am not going to drive all the way to London alone again.” she said with the cutest pouty bossy face. Before I had any chance to respond she added. “ Come with me. It's time to introduce you to the team.”

Shocked, I said “ Lesi I don't do anything you are not comfortable with, you are high on adrenaline baby.”

She didn't mind anything I said, she took my hand and slapped passed security and she led me to the changing room.

The music was loud, everybody was dancing, eating pizza, hugging, and taking pictures. I felt so out of place so I tried to stop Lessi but with no luck. Nobody saw us come in, we went undetected until she shut the music off, which earned her a glare from all the team.

“ i know, I know but I wanted to share with you something very important. '' she apologized for the music. '' This beautiful young woman next to me is my girlfriend. She and I have been dating since I was at United and she is now pregnant with our first child. That's it you can now go back to celebrating.” she said and turned the music back on. All of the team’s jaws were on the floor. Leah shut the music off again and said “ you mean to tell us that you are in a secret relationship and you are going to have a secret child why didn't you tell us dumbass.”

“ What Leah here means to say is that you two are welcome. We love you already and we love you baby too right Leah.” said Kim the captain which Leah nodded to.

The encounter was wholesome, I felt welcomed by the girls who wanted to learn everything about us. That night was filled with stories, jokes and laughter.

After we were done celebrating I got on the bus with them and sat next to alessia.

“ I don't want to go home and cuddle with you so that I can get better.” she said her hands on my bump and her head on my shoulder which earned her a kiss on her head.

“ I love you baby and I am so proud of you. x

[stylespresleyhearted]

POV: YOU’RE DATING CALLUM TURNER

or the one where i pretend i am Callum’s girlfriend (and also tagging @precious-little-scoundrel on this bc I GOTTA)

liked by yourinstagram and 56204 others

tmznews Callum Turner spotted with a mystery girl! Is the new heartthrob off the market? Link in bio for everything TMZ has on his new gal.

view all comments

user23 the invasion of privacy … yikes

user12 What does it say about me if I read the article because tbh I’m curious

fan12 don’t do it, lets respect their privacy

callumupdates Don’t give TMZ any clicks. Look at the horrible quality of the photos, they obviously weren’t supposed to obtain these. Callum will share when he is ready.

yourfriendsig At least she’s pretty 😍

yourinstagram stopppp haha

liked by rafflaw, anthonyboyle, and others

yourinstagram soft launching my man bc he’s hot and i love him ❣️ (oh yeah and tmz exposed us)

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fan12 GIRL THIS IS A HARD LAUNCH NOTHING SOFT ABOUT IT!!!!

user41 crrrryingggg omg iconic

user23 lol attention seeker

yourfriendsig It took me three years to be IG official with you, why does he get special treatment 😒

yourusername take a guess 😉

keoghan92 @tmznews you suck

liked by fan12 and 63917 others

deuxmoi Spotted: Callum Turner and his girlfriend at a pub in downtown London. Looks like no more hiding for this couple. Sources tell me they’re in love and don’t care who knows it.

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fan12 wahhh they’re so cute

user23 i’m so jealous but i also ship it so hard

fan41 my friend saw them making out at a diner last week lmao she said they were eating each other not the food

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yourinstagram so proud and moved to tears ♥️ the entire cast and crew did a great job honoring these brave men

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fan12 we love a supportive gf

fan41 what a great picture fr

user23 I met y/n at the event tonight and she was the sweetest, most HILARIOUS person its easy to see why Callum is in love with her ❤️

liked by yourinstagram, rafflaw, and 78912 others

anthonyboyle One Direction

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user97 OMGGG they’re so hot wtf

yourinstagram more like Wrong Direction

keoghan92 you think you’re funny huh

yourinstagram Callum finds me funny 🥲

rafflaw he’s biased he’s in love with u

fan91 cryingg she’s a part of the mota fam 💍🥹

liked by keoghan92 and others

yourinstagram hi movie star ♥️ i love you - your biggest fan

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rafflaw 💍💍💍👀

yourfriendsig @rafflaw LMAO DONT START THE RUMORS

appletv Mr & Mrs Egan spin off?

keoghan92 sappy

yourinstagram @sabrinacarpenter

liked by yourinstagram and 639 others

yourfriendsig good times

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user91 … the hand on her ass … making out … CALLUM TURNER I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE

yourinstagram why would you post this when you know im missing him 🥺

yourinstagram brb omw to ft him

fan23 i love the way y/n loves him she isn’t afraid to be a normal girlfriend

liked by anthonyboyle, keoghan92, austinbutler, and 941633 others

yourinstagram social media making fun of me for this but if he was your man you’d get it 😌 i say that’s my baby and i’m proud ♥️♥️

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fan12 if i didn’t see my bf for a week i’d react the same way people need to mind their business

yourinstagram it was only three days but yes your point still stands 😆

yourfriendsig y/n you’re an icon

fan92 i love them so fucking much pls adopt me

yourinstagram okay! ♥️

liked by austinbutler, rafflaw, and 76043 others

yourinstagram someone tell y/n not to leave her phone unlocked 🤣🤣🥳 - anthony & barry here!

edit: got my phone back. can’t bring myself to delete my boyfriend looks so cute. i guess barry and anthony look okay.

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fan23 LMAO PLS HOW DID THEY STEAL HER PHONE !!!😂😂CALLUM TAKE IT BACK!

yourinstagram he was supposed to hold it for me it didn’t fit in my clutch and he sided w the enemies 🥺

anthonyboyle New profile picture?

yourinstagram i’ll kill you

yourinstagram also i think it’s important for everyone to know @keoghan92 stuck his hand down my boyfriends pants pocket to get my phone

keoghan92 and i liked it

anthonyboyle 😂😂😂

—

The End

Ahhhhhh making this was so much fun!!! Y/N is a bit shameless in her adoration for her man but that’s the point!!! I’d be the same if he was mine (I mean look at Vanessa Kirby and Dua Lipa lmao)

Marina this is for us because this man deserves our love we’d make him so happy 🙌🏼

It was supposed to be silly and funny so don’t give me shit obviously celeb relationships would be a lot more private. And for bonus fun check this out ⬇️

[honeyhoshi]

you do it naturally

summary: the hiding, the secrets, and staying back to watch him shine has never been an issue. until today.

it’s the night before the biggest show of his life, but it’s soonyoung's turn to show her that he’s her biggest fan.

this is a part of the playlist universe

genre: social media au/trad fic hybrid, solo idol au, celebrity x non-celebrity

wordcount: 4,606

pairing: solo idol!hoshi x afab!reader

warnings: discussions about self-esteem issues, body image/weight, feelings of jealousy, plenty of frustrated tears, afab reader, female anatomy, fingering, squirting, oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, creampie, crying during sex (good!!), dirty talk (lovingly), pussy drunk hoshi (canon), implied chubby/bigger reader

author's notes: unfortunately i am horribly in love with hoshi so this is my humble contribution to his smut tag

As someone whose life revolved around sugar, butter, and flour, this was a new world. The tension in the air is palpable and the flurry of activity is so different from the kind of rush you’re used to. You’re nearly tripping over your feet trying to catch up to the member of the staff who's been sent to assist you. This must be so out of their scope of work, it's almost embarrassing how clueless you are to all of this.

It’s been three years since you started dating Soonyoung, and while you’ve never missed one of his shows in Seoul, this is your first time attending one of his rehearsals. He’s notorious for being laser focused and demanding of his team, making sure everyone remembered their collective goal of an amazing show. You never wanted to get in the way of that or to be considered a distraction. 

In fact, that’s always how you’ve operated as his girlfriend. You understand where you stand, what your role is, and when it’s time to work, you will stand back and let him shine.

But when you make it to the front of the stage, taking a seat close to Soonyoung’s managers after giving them a friendly smile, you can’t help the wave of pride that comes over you as you take everything in. The stage is massive, the largest Soonyoung’s ever had, and over thirty dancers are on stage with him as he adjusts the blocking and tweaks steps.

Then he catches your eye.

His eyes disappear as he smiles and you can’t help but do the same. You fight off the urge to wave, wanting him to get back to what he’s doing knowing full well they have limited time to go over everything before resting for the evening. You can’t take your eyes off him though. Preparations for concerts usually take him away from you for weeks at a time, and with the scale of this one, you hadn’t seen each other in the flesh for a month.

Just seeing him in front of you now already makes you feel sated.

“Can we do another run of the new song with the pair choreo. We just want to see which works better,” the director calls from the tech booth.

“Nari-ssi, please come up. Everyone else, take 5,” the choreographer on stage with them calls into her mic.

Soonyoung had mentioned he was debuting a new song at the concert. It was something he and Jihoon had worked on last minute that he couldn’t stop talking about, wanting to drop hints but also saying he wanted it to be a surprise for when you would see it at the show. He had dropped the topic dead a few weeks ago.

Nari bounds up the stage with a glorious spring in her step, bare faced but glowing. Her practice clothes fit her like a glove and her overall vibe gives off the energy that she herself was an idol.

That ugly feeling starts to simmer in your stomach as what you suppose is the song starts to play. The intro is slow and sultry and the sweat in your palms starts to grow uncomfortable. Only an idiot wouldn’t understand the sensuality of this song from the get go.

The love of your life is standing right there but you can’t take your eyes off of Nari as she finds her blocking before the verse starts. Nari smiles at Soonyoung and makes a comment you can’t hear from your seat. You feel sick.

Soonyoung and Nari are facing each other with one of his hands on her chin, lifting her gaze to him. His other hand is resting on her slender hip and in a three count from their choreographer, they move in unison.

“Three, four, five, ‘oh baby, cause I’ da, da da!”

The MR only covers the backing vocals but still you know that’s Soonyoung’s crooning and matched with the way his and Nari’s hands and bodies move, you’re transfixed. Horribly.

You avert your eyes, unable to focus and try to play it off as replying to an urgent message, but you’re startled when you hear a loud “SOONYOUNG FOCUS!”

Your head flies up to find Soonyoung staring you down from the stage, eyebrows furrowed and looking, dare you say, nervous.

“We need to see how this is actually going to look like tomorrow, so please let’s put more effort into this. Poor Nari’s giving it her all, Nyoung-ah.”

Soonyoung tries to communicate with you wordlessly but your unwillingness to keep eye contact makes it difficult for Soonyoung to get whatever it is across.

The music plays back again and they return to their starting positions and you know he’s turned it On.

The look on his face, the focus in his eyes. This is what he looks like when he’s locked in, and when his body starts to move, everything falls away.

But Nari.

They move seamlessly, sensually, and just Right. She matches every beat, wave, and touch he gives her. And gives back that same sultry energy with a flick of her wrist, dip of her hip, and when she leans her head back on his shoulder, allowing him to move her body to the music.

You could never move like that. You could never fit in his arms like that. 

The song ends and the dancers around them hoot and jeer and Nari blushes as she and Soonyoung finally break their grazes, breathless.

They would never cheer for you like that.

This has never gotten to you this badly. Usually, the distance between the two of you allows you to compose yourself when things get muddled in your head, able to piece yourself together when the fear and insecurity claw up your throat. But your usual proximity is nonexistent and the gap has been closed.

Being with an internationally acclaimed artist meant busy schedules and only being able to squeeze in the littlest dates every now and then. You had time to prepare for those, give yourself the pep talk of It’s been three years. If he wanted you gone, he’d have said something by now.

In preparation for the show you two had made prior plans you would stay with him, an impromptu long weekend “getaway” you had put in at work almost 3 months ago. But now it feels like you’re trapped. You’ve been short with him since his rehearsals wrapped and you’d met up with him in his private dressing room. You could only stomach to say surface level good jobs and you’re always so amazing!

There’s no way he hasn’t picked up on it yet because the air in the car was nonexistent. It was stifling and you could feel the waves of anger simmering underneath Soonyoung’s skin, just waiting to burst forth the moment the two of you were alone.

He knew something was wrong. He always knew. 

The ride up the elevator to his unit felt like the longest and shortest elevator ride of both of your lives and the second Soonyoung had let you into his place and locked the door behind him, you wanted to cry.

“Can we finally talk about this?” He starts. 

“What?”

“Babe.”

“Soonyoung.”

“Are we really doing this?” He sighs, exasperated.

You feel bad. But the sadness is gnawing at your head and heart and neither are working correctly.

“We’re not ‘doing’ anything, Soonyoung.” You say as you toe off your shoes and put down your bag before facing him.

And what a glorious face it is. He’s always been the most handsome man you’ve ever seen. He looks best like this, you think. Soft and free of makeup and tired and home.

“I’m sorry,” you start, face beginning to crumple and the sting of hot fresh tears threaten to spill.

“No, no, no, baby. Come on, come here,” Soonyoung’s scrambling to pull you into his arms, “Hey, hey, shhh. Look at me, talk to me.”

He pulls her face into his hands and tries to lift her gaze towards him. But she fights and tries to keep her head down.

“Baby, you have to talk to me, okay? You have to talk to me and tell me what I did wrong, hmm?” He respects your refusal to look at him and instead hugs your head to his chest, resting his chin atop the crown of your head.

Soonyoung wraps his other hand around your shoulders and maneuvers the two of you to lay on the couch, You’re still sobbing, large tears falling from your eyes and dampening the shirt he’s wearing.

When he moves to lay down on one of your favorite spots to cuddle in his home, you freeze in his arms, sobs stopping and shoulders going rigid. You push yourself off of him, hands going up to brush the tears off the face.

“No, no, I’m too heavy, I'll crush you.” It is almost business-like how you snap back into this cold tone.

Soonyoung stops, sits up straight, “What are you talking about?”

You groan, “Soonyoung, I don’t want to get into it. Please, you’ve had a long day, tomorrow is going to be—“

“No,” he cuts you off, “We don’t get to talk about tomorrow until we talk about today. Until we talk about what’s going on right now.”

“Soonyoung—I just. I don’t know how to talk about this. I’m just blowing things out of proportion. It’s nothing, I swea—“

“It isn’t nothing, though, is it?” He says, softer now. He reaches up for your hand, “You’re upset. You’ve been upset since I saw you after rehearsals. We have to talk about this, baby. We promised each other we’d talk things through.”

Your eyes sting again, a fresh batch of tears ready and threatening to make their appearance. That sharp feeling in your nose is there, any second now.

“Tell me how I can make it better, baby.”

The dam breaks and you fall boneless into Soonyoung’s embrace. You straddle his lap and wraps your arms around him, pressing the two of you chest to chest.

You bury you face in Soonyoung’s neck and let out a shuddering sob.

“I’m sorry, I’m being so, so immature and so unreasonable. You didn’t do anything,” you say, still slightly unintelligible from the tears.

“You’ve never done anything that’s made me sad or angry, Soonyoung. It’s me, it’s me and my stupid brain.”

“Hey, hey, no. Please please don’t say that, hmm? Let’s work this out together,” Soonyoung coos.

“I-i-i just felt so horrible, Soonyoung!” You finally cry, “She looked so beautiful and perfect and just so RIGHT in your arms and God, the way you two moved and how everyone watched the two of you.”

Soonyoung pulls away, grasping you face in his hands and finally locking eyes with you.

“I know I said I’m okay keeping this a secret and keeping everything simple and under wraps, and it’s fine! I promise, it really isn’t that.”

“Then what is it, baby?”

You’re quiet for a bit as Soonyoung traces the path of your tears with his thumbs, wiping them away.

“I’ll never be able to do what she can. Nari. I’ll never look like her or act like her or move like her. I can’t even dance with you without looking like a fool.”

Soonyoung feels his heart sink. His own eyes start to grow bleary and when he blinks a tear falls to his cheek. He drops his head to your chest and breathes you in.

“I’m sorry—“

“Oh no, Soonyoung it isn’t yo—“

“I’m sorry that things have gotten this far that you’ve grown to feel that way. I’m sorry because I know in some way or form all of this has become that and I didn’t catch it.”

When he lifts his head, tear tracks mark his pretty face and his nose is red.

“But you have to know,” he starts, eyes very serious, and not daring to look away from you, “You have to know that you are everything. You are everything to me. You’re even more than that.”

“And we are going to dance. Oh we are going to dance all the time. I am going to dance with you in the kitchen when we’re waiting for focaccia to bake, we are going to dance in the bedroom when we change the sheets, and we are going to dance when I marry you. And everyone will have their eyes on you and they will clap and cheer because just look at the woman I love.”

“Soonyoung—“

He stands with a start and you instinctively wrap your arms around him, elbows hooking over his shoulders. His hands are under your thighs, fingers pressing into the soft flesh. He’s carrying you into his room.

The lights automatically flicker on as he enters and kicks the door closed behind you, “In fact, baby, why don’t we start now hmm?”

“What, start what?”

He grins and any semblance of sadness has vanished from his face. He smiles and something in your heart is elated.

“Dancing, of course.”

Soonyoung is known in the industry as an ace — able to sing, rap, compose, choreograph, and above all things, dance. And dance with you he does.

The way he can make your body move is unexplainable because once he placed you at the center of his bed, he’d strummed at your body, mouthed at your pulse and had gotten you out of your top and jeans before you could even fully comprehend.

His mouth is hot on yours and he breathes in your air as soon as you exhale and you’re growing lightheaded as his hands continue to undress you. In an attempt to get some air in both your lungs, he pulls away to frantically tear his shirt over his head, not daring to take his eyes off you. He flings it over his shoulder unceremoniously, not a care in the world where it lands and makes quick work of his sweatpants. 

“What, you thought you’d get lucky tonight?” You quip at him, “Even when you knew I was feeling tilted?

He’d gone commando.

“Good mood, bad mood, whatever the fuck mood, I want you,” he laughs as dives back in to kiss you.

His hands are everywhere, like he doesn’t know what and where to touch, wanting to feel you everywhere before settling on the thickness of your thighs. He spreads your legs slightly so he could slot himself in between them, cock pressed perfectly to your center. 

And then he grinds. The head of his cock nudges perfectly at your clothed clit and you let out a mewl.

“There you go, let me hear you,” he groans into your ear, “Y’sound so good for me, sweetheart.”

“Soonyoooouung,” you can’t control the drawn out moan of his name. After everything you’re pent up and everything feels too much already.

He lets his mouth trail wet, open mouthed kisses from your jaw to your neck as his hands busy themselves undoing the hook of your bra. He scrambles to get it off of you and immediately pulls one nipple in his mouth, nipping and soothing it with a slow lave of his tongue.

He grips your other breast in his palm and squeezes, biting his lip at how your flesh molds to his touch.

“Fuck your tits are fucking perfect.”

This man was groping and grinding against you, and you blush as he compliments your breasts.

He continues kissing down the valley between your breasts and you hold your breath as he starts pressing his lips onto your stomach. It dips and springs back as he moves and your eyes zero in on the deeper colored lines of your stretch marks. There are more on your thighs to match.

But he makes no comment. 

He instead groans whenever he stops to suck a bruise and to run his tongue over the mark he’s made. 

“You’re so,” he starts, almost breathless, “You’re everything.” He laughs at his own inarticulate thoughts before hooking his thumbs into the elastic of your underwear.

He pulls them off and moves back up to press a deep kiss to your mouth, “I want to make you come three times, love.”

“What?” You’re dazed.

His right hand moves down to trace your ass and hook under your knee so he can spread you open.

“First, I’m going to fuck you open on my fingers,” he breathes, “then when you’re nice and wet and open for me, I want you to sit on my face, alright?”

With all his talk distracting you, you’re suddenly startled when you feel his thumb on your lower lips, starting to spread you apart.

“Then when you’ve come all over my face, I’m going to fuck my come into you, just how you like it. Right, baby?”

He slips in two fingers into you with no warning and you keen, high and wanton and uncontrollable.

Soonyoung is rough and quick when he fingers you and no matter how slow and sensual the lovemaking is, this will always be fast, hard, and messy.

While one hand is busy pumping two fingers into you, the other pinches your clit and quickly rubs, wanting your first orgasm to come as quickly as possible.

Your lower lip is close to bleeding as you try to keep your voice down but Soonyoung only chuckles when he sees your attempts at restraint.

“Baby we’re soundproofed in here. Make all the noise you want.”

You want to slap at his chest playfully at least, get him to feel some semblance of shame, but just as you try to make some quick remark, his fingers brush that spot inside of you and he presses down hard.

You’re unable to hold in the scream that rips through your throat as his arm flexes and he roughly thrusts his fingers in and out of you.

You clench your eyes shut as you finally let him have your first release. It’s almost explosive and you spill messily all over his fingers and arm, his other hand making a bigger mess, spraying drops of your release letting them fly further.

Breathing comes hard but he’s already pulling out of you and moving your body around until you’re on your knees.

Soonyoung lays on his back and tugs at your hands to grip at his headboard, “Fuck I’ve wanted this for so long.”

“Soonyoung, what if—“

“If you want to stop, we’ll stop. Just say the word,” he says, propping himself up with his elbow.

“You have to do the same,” you say shakily, still trying to get your bearings after the mind blowing first orgasm.

“Unlikely, but you know I’ll tell you everything, love.”

And just like that he lays back again, looking more eager than you could have ever imagined. You kneel over his chest and slowly inch upwards before lowering yourself over his mouth.

Soonyoung’s always loved eating you out. He loves when sex is wet and messy and loud. He loves the taste of you and making so much noise while he’s pressed up against your pussy it almost seems like he’s the one getting release.

Every flex and curl of his tongue has you whimpering and you can’t help the way you throw your head back as his nose nudges at your clit, still sensitive from your first orgasm.

He coaxes this second one slower but it hits you just as strongly as he continues to mouth at your core even when you’re crying and shaking from the sensitivity. You almost topple off the bed as you climb off Soonyoung to lay back next to him on the bed.

You turn your head to Soonyoung and the entirety of his lower face is wet with your release and your face burns. But Soonyoung is aglow with arousal and just so much love.

He coaxes your mouth to meet his own and it is a reprieve from how quickly he moved for you to reach your high twice in such a short period of time.

You can taste yourself on his mouth but it makes you groan as his tongue pushes its way to mingle with your own.

Despite the desperation at which you both moved, this is slow and quiet. Just you lips moving against each other and the sheets rustling fills the space.

Soonyoung pushes himself off the bed cautiously, desperate to keep his lips on you as he positions himself between your thighs.

Just like that a switch flips and the urgency to have him starts once more. He pressed his cock against your entrance and let the underside slide against your wet cunt. It offers you little relief, the friction hardly enough to get you there.

He pulls away and brings one hand to your face as the other holds him over your body.

Soonyoung’s hooded lids and glazed eyes are a sight to behold. His hair is damp and the shorter strands that frame his face are plastered onto his forehead. There’s a bead of sweat that’s clinging to the cut of his jaw and you ache to press your mouth to it. 

His thumb traces the curve of your cheek, the plumpness of your lower lip, and slowly he’s pressing the finger between your teeth. You press your tongue against the pad of his thumb and wrap your lips around the finger, and suck.

God, I love this man. I will always only love this man.

“I love you,” he gasps as he finally presses in and sinks into you.

Any other day and it would be embarrassing how close you both are to the edge, but you both know that his evening was far from normal. Your heart is hammering in your chest so hard you feel like it’ll rip itself out of its confines. Everything feels too good and too much and you want it. You want this every single day if you could.

Soonyoung sits up and uses both hands to grip onto your hips and to brace himself. What he does next makes your head spin.

“I’m so close, baby. You gotta say it.” He stands on his knees, changing the angle slightly. Then he lifts your hips just right and the noise you let out as his cock sinks into you perfectly is completely pitiful.

“Say it.”

“Soonyoung!” you cry out. It’s a sob, really. Depraved, almost, in the desperation and the raw fucking feeling thats burning through your nerves.

“Just say it baby, you know the words. Say it and I’ll make good on the very last fucking promise I made tonight,” he says, the edge in his voice making itself known. He wanted to make this evening soft, slow, and for every movement to have meaning. But he has always been hungry.

Hungry for the stage, bigger venues, brighter lights, more challenging steps, and of course for you.

He breathes in through his nose sharply and tries to exhale slowly and paced, “Just say it baby, I know you can.”

“You’re mine.”

“That’s it. I’m yours. I’ll always be yours.”

The years of precise practice and this industry expertise has made the man you love into the most exquisite lover.

He thrusts quick and deep and the undulations of his hips have you seeing stars and tearing up once more. He’s everywhere, in your eyes, head, lungs, heart and you’ll be damned if you ever let him go.

The insecurities and the problems and the people will always be there, they will always cause uncertainties but this is one thing you will always be sure of. You will always be sure of him.

Soonyoung comes with a cry of your name and the most beautiful gasp against your mouth as he pumps you full of his cum, pushing you over the edge and he swallows the cry you let out.

He pulls away to press breathless kisses against your face and any other part of you he can get his lips on mumbling, “I’m yours, I’m yours. I’ll always only be yours.”

It starts slowly, warm, and comfortable. The rustling of the sheets and the hot wet press of his mouth slowly coaxing you into that soft space of barely awake, but able to slip back to sleep if you stayed quiet enough.

“I gotta go, baby,” is Soonyoung’s whisper, cheek resting atop your head. 

You hum in response, not fully coherent to put together words after he’d pulled endless strings of moans and cries from your lips the night prior.

He presses a kiss to your hair, “Didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. I’ll see you tonight, gorgeous.”

You feel the way the bed dips and the blankets move as he goes to stand. He slips on his shoes and, unable to leave so easily, moves back towards the bed and kneels by where your head rests on a pillow.

“I love you, think about what I said last night, okay?”

You tried to keep yourself collected, keep the frantic energy sizzling in your veins at bay. Soonyoung had put on the show of his life, something that happens just a few times in a performer’s life, you’re sure. Pride had swelled so grandly in your heart. You had been so lovestruck watching him that it felt like he could see you whenever he had turned his head in your general direction.

Backstage is still abuzz from the end of the show. You’re sure people are still running around making sure the egress goes smoothly, that all the fans are able to exit the stadium safely. But everything comes second the moment you hear his voice.

“Has she been escorted from her se—“

You can’t help it. You’re so happy, so excited, and so in love with him. You’re running toward him. He’s changed out of his encore outfit and into a sweater—oversized the way he likes them— and sweatpants. He could slip into bed any second now it looks like.

“Soonyoung!” You call out, stealing his attention.

He turns to you and the most breathtaking smile spreads on his face and you throw yourself into his arms. He catches you and you wrap your legs around his slender waist.

“It was amazing, you’re so amazing. Congratulations, oh my god!” You’re blabbing, you can feel your mouth going a million miles an hour but you can’t stop.

You pull him into a crushing hug as he gently puts your feet back on the ground, keeping your arms around his neck.

“And that new song, Jesus you weren’t kidding, it’s so good and the choreo! The way you moved! You changed the choreo last minu—“ In a split second, his lips are on yours and you can’t help but smile against him.

You break away, breathless when you remember, “Soonyoung, everyone can see.”

He gives you a silly quizzical look, “Only thinking about that now and not when you jumped into my arms?”

You’re speechless. He’s right.

“I’d be happy if everyone knew,” Soonyoung says simply and pulls you in again for another kiss.

When you pull away, you suck in a large breath and say, “Okay.”

There’s a small smile that he can’t hide as he asks, “Okay…? To what, exactly?”

You blush and bury your head in his chest. You want to while, he’s so annoying.

“To everything. To everything you said last night,” you mumble into his chest, trying to muster enough confidence to keep going.

“Okay, I’ll move in with you. Okay, I’ll tell all my friends about you. Okay, let’s make us public.”

-`✮´- if you've come this far, thank you. if you’d like to drop a like or reblog this, it would mean the world to this new author!

[wosoamazing]

Surprise

Summary: You surprise your Ma for her birthday.

A/N: Just a short one, based off this request.

It was the day before international break, a period of time in which Katie’s Birthday feel, she was upset that yet again your little family would be split on a birthday, little did she know that your Mum was planning to come visit her, she had arranged with Tony to have a break however that was after the team had already been announced, so she asked Tony to wait until the day she surprised Katie to announce that she was no longer available.

“What if I just don’t go to camp this time, they’re only friendlies” she said as she opened a present.

“Katie, babe, no, you should go, it will be okay. Oh, and also you will get your main present on your Birthday” Caitlin said, she of course knew what this was, it was you and her, but Katie didn’t.

“What is it?” “You will have to wait to find out”.

_____

“Which plane ours?” You ask your Mum, you were standing on the window looking out at the planes in the lounge, Steph and Kyra were with you, as always, except for some reason you didn’t have nearly as many bags as them, where usually you would have more than them.

“We aren’t getting on a plane today, Monkey.” She replies, “But why?”

“Because we are going to fly to Ireland tomorrow, so we can surprise Ma for her Birthday,” your Mum informs you excitedly.

“So why we here then?” “To send her photos like we always do so she doesn’t get suspicious. We’re tricking her into thinking we are going to Matilda’s camp”.

“But you say tricking is bad” you pout.

“Well, most of the time it is, but this time it’s for a good reason, so it isn’t bad”.

“Because Ma is sad, she won’t see us on her birfday and if we go and see her she will get all happy?” you question trying to make sense of the situation “Exactly” “kay”

_____

“PLANE!” You exclaim as you watch a plane take off.

“Shh, Monkey, inside voice, people are trying to work and relax,” she tells you softly in your ear before she turns to a group of businesspeople near her, “I am so sorry, she is just very excited, we are going to surprise her Ma today, she is currently away for work, and its her birthday today,”

“Oh no, it’s sweet, and that is such a cute thing to do,” one of the Women say.

“It’s alright, we’re not really doing anything that important, trying to figure out what colour to use for our design, but I’m sure Katie will be happy to see you. Oh god I sound like a stalker, my daughter is an avid football fan, she plays and wants to become a professional”. The man who seems to the boss says.

“That’s okay, but I am sorry, if I ever see you at a game, I’ll make sure to say hi,”

“Thank you, we are actually coming to the first game after international break,”

“Well, I’ll keep a look out and maybe I’ll have a gift for her”.

“Now boarding flight BA830 to Dublin, flight BA830 boarding now”

“Oh, that’s us, nice meeting you all sorry for the noise again,” your Mum picked you up and headed to your gate, you got checked in and sat on the plane, it wasn’t a verry long flight, but you still fell asleep, something about planes sends you to sleep, you had also not slept much last night as you were excited about seeing your Ma.

_____

There was a car in the pick-up spot waiting for you, your Mum had asked Eileen if it was okay if she did surprise your Ma, she was nervous that Eileen would say no as it might cause some tension/drama in the team but Eileen said absolutely, she even offered a driver to pick you up from the airport and take you to the grounds, your Mum had said it’s okay but Eileen said it was the least she could do,

You got in a car with you Mum, which stopped outside a local flower shop, you went inside with her and helped her pick out the biggest and bestest bouquet for your Ma, after you had purchased it, you got back into the car. After about 3 minutes you were there.

“You ready?” “See Ma!”

Eileen was on the sidelines, near where you were entering, when she saw you, she yelled out “Katie, can you come over here for a sec,” you Ma turned around and started jogging before she saw you and stopped, her mouth dropped before she crocked out "Y/N/N, Cait".

“Ma,” you said as you started running as fast as your little legs could go, when you neared her, she put her arms out and you jumped into them, she lifted you up to give you a big hug before perching you on her hip, your Mum wasn’t far behind her.

“Happy Birthday my love,” your Mum said as she placed a kiss on your Mums lips and hugged her, before putting her arm around her shoulders. “How?” “That doesn’t matter now does it, we’re here.” “I love you so much, thank you for surprising me and for coming” your Ma said as a few tears left her eyes, but Caitlin was quick to wipe them away.