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useblond · 9 days ago

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Figure Me Out ─ D.A

ᯓ★ synopsis: one night at a dimly lit bar, a quiet connection sparks between you and a girl dressed in all black—hiding behind mystery, her eyes tell you a story you want to pry into, drawn in by the weight of unspoken truths.

ᯓ★ warnings/tags: daniela x fem!reader, angst, fluff?? (but a pretty minimal amount), drinking, daniela also goes by her middle name for like almost the whole story, (w.c: 2.5k), lowercase intended, lmk if i missed anything else

ᯓ★ a/n: coming back to tumblr after deactivating my previous account so first fic in AWHILE !! rushed the story just a lil guys.. i just really wanted to post dawg so sorry if this is lowk ass </3

you lay stretched out on the playground bridge, the world quiet around you. the wood—or maybe the rope beneath you—gently shifts with the breeze, cradling you like a hammock suspended in the sky. above, the stars scatter across the night like glitter on velvet, and the faint hum of distant traffic mixes with the soft creaks of the playground settling into silence. the air is cool, brushing your skin just enough to remind you you’re alive, but not enough to make you move. it’s peaceful here, between two slides, halfway to nowhere, with nothing pressing but the rhythm of your own breath and the feeling of the night holding you still.

your phone had been turned off, shoved into the pocket of your jeans as you blink away the tears that begged to come out your eyes.

the cause of your emotions?

andrea.

she was someone who came into your life spontaneously, without any warning, the girl had practically graced you with her presence at the bar in which you had always been. she was all alone, dressed in all black in hopes she wouldn’t be seen, yet you saw through the hat, those eyes that lured you in.

you were leaning against the bar table, half lost in your drink, when you notice her slip in through the side entrance. you didn’t pay any mind at first, despite her all black outfit being stuck out like a thumb. but nonetheless it was just another shadow moving through a dimly lit room. but then she glances up. just a flicker. and through the shadow of her hat, you catch her eyes dark, steady, and quietly electric. they don’t ask for attention, but they hold it anyway, like they’ve been watching long before you noticed. there’s something about the way she carries silence like a secret, like a dare. you don’t even know her name, but you already want to know what those eyes have seen, and if they’ll ever look at you the same way twice.

you push yourself off the table and walk carefully, toward the woman who continued to look at you. you crack a smile but she doesn’t return one, only looking at you with a blank stare.

“hey ive never seen you around, whats your name?”

she tilts her head, “is this a local bar or what?”

“well sort of, everyone kind of just knows everyone here.” you awkwardly stand in front of her, fiddling with the drink in your hands, “so uh your name?”

“buy me a drink and i’ll let you in on my name” she smiles but it wasn’t genuine, more like the kind of smile you wear when you know something no one else in the room does—quiet, unreadable, and laced with a secret she had no intention of telling.

she turned her gaze back to the bar, fingers tracing the rim of her empty glass, she slides it towards you and you laugh, awkwardly again.

“sure.. if that what’s gonna get you to tell me” you turn your back to her and quirk a brow at how unusual the situation was. buy you a drink just to know your name? you scoff in disbelief, is this some sort of a trend now to pay less at a bar?

even if your in disagreement with it, you still walk up to the bar. you didn’t want to, but something about the girl intrigued you.

the bartender eyes you as you approach, gives a small nod like he’s seen this kind of thing unfold a hundred times. you order whatever she was having, even though you don’t know what it is. it feels like the kind of decision you’re supposed to make quickly around someone like her—like hesitating would give her the upper hand.

you slide the drink back to her and she accepts it wordlessly, the glass barely making a sound as she lifts it. she takes a sip, then finally speaks again—low, like she’s telling you something she shouldn’t.

but she hesitates before speaking, “andrea,” she says, setting the glass down. “but names don’t really mean much, do they?”

you blink. that was it? after all that?

“you made me buy you a drink for that?”

she shrugs, eyes glinting beneath the brim of her hat. “i didn’t say i'd tell you everything.”

you laugh softly, “yeah i- i guess your right.”

she hums, “and yours?”

“its y/n”

“cute name y/n, suits you perfectly” she cracks a smile, “i suppose this is the part where we get to know each other?”

you nod, “so,” you say, trying to sound casual, “what brings someone like you to a place like this?”

she swirls the drink in her glass, watching the liquid catch the light. “same thing that brings most people,” she answers vaguely. “a night to forget, or maybe to remember. depends on how it ends.”

her eyes meet yours again—steady, unreadable. the music hums low behind you, the murmur of conversation blurring into background noise.

you glance down at her drink, then back up at her. “so, are you always this mysterious, or is it just for show tonight?”

she raises a brow, lips twitching like she’s holding back a laugh. “maybe I just like watching people try to figure me out.”

you chuckle under your breath, leaning just slightly closer. “well, it’s working.”

that’s when she tilts her head, eyes narrowing with amusement. “and what makes you think you’ll figure me out in just one night?”

“what makes you think i wont?”

she laughs, “you’re real funny”

“im serious.”

“then go ahead y/n, figure me out.”

you glance around the dim bar one more time, then back at her. the way her eyes catch the low light—like they’re holding some kind of secret you almost want to ask about but don’t dare. you shrug, finally leaning in closer, letting your voice drop.

“alright, i’ll play along. but only if you tell me one thing, why don’t you want to be seen?”

“how come you say that?”

you scoff, “do you see yourself? your in a all black outfit in a room filled with people practically dressed in sparkles and glitter”

she lets out a soft, almost amused sigh. “maybe I’m afraid of what people see when they look too close. or maybe… i just don’t want to get too close to anyone.”

you nod slowly, understanding more than you let on. “so the silence, the distance—it’s protection?”

“for the most part,” she says, eyes flicking to the glass in front of her, “but sometimes, it’s just easier to disappear.”

“disappear from what though?”

the words hang between you, heavier than the music or the chatter. you hesitate but reach out, gently brushing a stray lock of her curl from her face. her skin feels warm beneath your fingertips—real and fragile.

“you know you can tell me, i may be a stranger but its not like i'll just out you for whatever it is your hiding, even if you committed some crime.”

for a long moment, she doesn’t answer. then, finally, she looks up — directly at you, no shadows behind those eyes. for a second you see her eyes soften at your words, her curl coming back to hide her eye again.

“hmm it’s nothing special, i just live a life thats chaotic, sometimes i yearn for silence from it.” she answers, vaguely.

“what do you do for a living?”

she smiles, shaking her head, “that’s what you have to figure out.”

“oh come on! you cant even tell wether your some doctor or like a lawyer?!”

“well it’s none of those things i'll tell you that”

you look at her, but she doesn’t look back this time. her gaze stays on her glass, watching the way the ice melts and shifts like something far away and familiar. the smirk on her lips fades as quickly as it appeared.

“…you know,” you say after a moment, “you’re really good at not answering questions.”

she finally glances at you, eyes softer now. “maybe i just like making people work for answers.”

“maybe,” you say, “you’re just scared to tell the truth.”

something about that lands harder than you intended. but she doesn’t snap back. doesn’t tease. she just nods, barely, like you touched a bruise without meaning to.

you both go quiet again.

the music behind you fades into something slow and hushed—something a little sad. no one’s dancing anymore. the bar’s thinning out. conversations have lowered into murmurs. but you stay.

she leans back, finally lifting her head, finally looking at you like she sees you. not the stranger trying to unravel her, not the person she has to dodge. just someone who stayed longer than most would.

“you ever feel like you built a whole life that doesn’t even belong to you?” she asks. “like you’re borrowing it from someone else?”

you blink. “yeah,” you say. “sometimes i feel like i’m watching myself do things. from far away. like i’m in a story i didn’t write.”

her gaze lingers on you, and you think—no, you know—that you just said the right thing. maybe not the cleverest thing. but the honest one. the only one she needed to hear.

she exhales. “god, that’s exactly it.”

a long silence stretches between you after that. and you let it. because maybe that’s what she came here for—not attention, not a drink, not even to flirt. just to sit across from someone who might understand even a sliver of what she’s trying to hold in.

you both sit with it, and it’s strangely comfortable.

finally, she pulls a small ring from her pocket and spins it once on the table. “i tend to wear this on stage,” she murmurs.

“so your what? an actor? a singer?”

“its one of the two this time” she smiles, “but this ring was bought on an impulse, thought it was cute until i bought a better one, this one practically just holds trauma from when i used to be a little girl who trained her ass off.”

you don’t ask why. you don’t ask what happened or what went wrong.

you just reach out, gently stilling the ring with your fingers.

“well you’re not on stage tonight,” you say. “you don’t have to perform here.”

that’s when she really looks at you again—no walls, no sarcasm, no games. just tired eyes and a quiet kind of gratitude.

“thank you,” she says.

you nod.

you begin to talk much more after that. sitting beside her while the night thins out and the bar lights get a little brighter. she eventually grabs her coat and says she should go, and you offer to walk her to her car. she lets you.

outside, it’s colder than before. you both walk slow, the kind of slow that doesn’t want to end. her steps are quiet, her hat pulled low again.

you shiver from the cold, mentally cursing at yourself for not bringing a jacket. until you feel a jacket hanging around your shoulder, you look up to see her, “hey it’s fine i dont need-”

“take it y/n, last thing i want is a pretty girl like you catching hyperthermia.”

you thanked the stars that she didn’t catch the faint blush that coated your cheeks.

at her car, she pauses before unlocking it.

“you were easy to talk to,” she says. “that’s rare.”

you smile a little, not quite sure what to say.

she opens the door but doesn’t get in right away. she turns back to you, hands in her pockets. “you need a ride home?”

instantly you nod, and she opens the door of her car wider.

the city lights blur softly through the car windows as she drives you home, the quiet hum of the engine filling the space between you.

every now and then, her gaze flickers your way, and you catch a fleeting smile before she looks back at the road. when you pull up to your building, the world outside feels colder and more distant than the warmth between you in that quiet ride.

she parks the car just beside the building, and sighs. “thank you for today, i needed that.”

“youre welcome” you simply say, shrugging off her jacket but she stops you, “keep it.”

“why?”

“so you can remember this night and the moment you decided getting me a drink was worth it.”

you tighten the grip of her jacket but tilt your head, “your not gonna give me your number?”

she smiles, stepping out the car and opening the door for you, “wheres the fun in that?”

you raise an eyebrow. “oh?”

“i want to. you know, get your number and all. but if i do… it won’t feel real anymore. and I liked this. i liked… not being so out there for a day.”

you nod. you understand. even if it hurts a little.

she hesitates again. then, quietly: “maybe i’ll see you around.”

you don’t say anything. just give her a soft look, one that says me too.

she gets in the car, and before she closes the door, she looks at you one last time and says, “oh and my name’s not andrea.”

and then she drives off.

you stand there in the cold for a while, dumbfounded, while clutching onto her jacket, her scent, trying to hold onto what just happened.

and the next night, you go to the same bar. just in case.

she’s not there.

so you end up at the playground. the one near your apartment, where you used to sit when the world felt too heavy.

the tears that begged to escape your eyes managed to, the jacket she gave was what kept you warm because your mind had been filled with nothing but the girl you had talked to at the bar.

your phone buzzes in your pocket. not a message. just the time.

midnight.

you sigh and open it anyway. out of habit more than anything. you scroll through your apps, through old photos, through the contact list you’d hoped she’d be in.

then, on impulse, you open google.

you type in a few words, not expecting anything to come of it.

“actor with long black curly hair, cat like eyes and a sliver ring”

you scroll.

click.

scroll.

but nothing.

you sigh, trying again but replacing actor with singer.

you scroll once again.

click.

scroll.

click.

stop.

there she is. and she’s not alone.

a photo taken from the side—hugging a group of girls with a smile spread across her face, one that was different from the bar, it was more brighter. although that same silver ring on her finger, is what caught your attention. the article beneath it lists a name.

Katseye celebrates Daniela Avanzini’s 21st birthday.

you look closely, the picture is her. the hat, the curls, those eyes. the stillness in her posture that you remember so clearly. but the name… daniela.

you blink. stare. the pieces fall into place.

and just like that, the girl you met is everywhere—and somehow, more unreachable than ever.

you lock your phone.

and look up at the sky.

because you don’t know how to find her again without losing the version of her you met that night.

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blacknedsoul-blog · 3 months ago

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Montresor (and Willtresor) is the Bad Ending of the White Raven IV: the saga continues

Okay, now that these chapters have been released I can talk about this issue. I must say that this twist has been just the way I like twists: no, the surprising thing is not that it happened, but that, when you look back, it not only makes sense, it also recontextualizes some little things that stick around.

A person who is not there

There's one thing that's cross-cutting to these four idiots: they're absolutely desperate for someone to look at them. And when you think about it, it kind of makes sense: Lenore has lost the one person who seemed to even slightly care about her and locked up like an animal, Annabel is a hypocrite so terrified of being perceived as crazy that she's a breath away from collapse, Will is the kind of guy who blends in with the walls to such an extent that hardly anyone remembers his face, and Montresor has been seen as an devil since fucking birth.

However, the fine line that separates the Annabel/Will and Lenore/Montresor duo is drawn into something quite complicated: who are on the edge of the abyss and who can't fall any lower.

Both Montresor and Lenore, for different reasons, are trapped in inescapable situations: Montresor will never be anything more than a shit-talking charlatan in anyone's eyes and Lenore will die before she shakes off the label of a madwoman.

Then, they come along. These two people who have not only been able to look them in the eye, they are also people in whom they can see themselves reflected: a weak pushover who can't fend for himself and a lady who is one mental health slip away from being put in a straitjacket.

They have been that person. And their desperate cries for help have never been answered.

But this time may be different. If Lenore and Montresor can save Annabel and Will, in a way, they are also saving themselves. A 50/50 between a selfless motivation and a huge reassertion of one's own ego.

Which leads to the first difference.

Where Lenore offers Annabel a deal on equal terms, a “you and me against the world, baby”; Montresor has with Will a relationship based on subordination: it is he who must take care of Will and, thus, Will is beneath him.

What Annabel and Will understand from the arrangements of this deal are two very different things: where Annabel must live up to the extraordinary person that Lenore is in order to accompany her on equal terms, Will must make sure that he is a weak individual that Montresor can take care of and mistreat in order to feel superior when necessary.

This is not a problem for either of them because there is one little thing that Annabel and Will are able to mold as if it were plasticine: their identity.

Fragmented identities

These scenes have exactly the same purpose.

And I absolutely love them for that.

But let's take them one at a time.

Both Annabel and Will are two invisible people who at least feel like they've been saved by their favorite person. Lenore is Annabel's knight in shining armor and Montresor is the bad boy capable of moving forward despite everything that Will longs for.

They love them. And they need them.

Because Annabel is just a pretty accessory incapable of thinking outside the golden cage she's lived in all her life. And Will is incapable of thinking for himself because he doesn't want to deal with the responsibility of doing so.

So they build this perfect mask to please their special people. A carefully chiseled mask tailored to be loved based on what they believe their special person wants from them.

In both scenes, Annabel and Will have their world fall apart as they realize that the mask they have created for their loved one is not only unwanted, but viewed with disgust and contempt. So the mask slips for an instant to reveal what lies beneath only for their special people. But to very different ends and consequences.

Annabel drops her self-imposed role as unbeatable queen, begins to cry her eyes out, has a panic attack and even -to Lenore's surprise and horror- comes to doubt that she is loved. She is far from living up to the role she should have: she is scared, lonely and, from her reaction, probably doesn't even want to do this.

Of course, Lenore swoops in to comfort her because her beloved damsel in distress is in a vulnerable moment. But all it takes is for Lenore to suggest that Annabel can approach other people for the unbeatable queen to come back: even pushing her to the limit hasn't gotten her to get what's really going on out of her. And after Annabel would rather have Duke and Pluto throw her off a balcony than allow Lenore to reveal herself as a traitor to her friends, it is definite that Lenore has lost this battle: she has already exhausted all her options which have ranged from pleading, to loving words and, in this scene, to verbal violence. The unbeatable queen is in a place where she can't reach her and any future attempts will only succeed in putting the two of them in a more complicated situation.

On the other hand, Will has a small moment of vulnerability with Montresor, giving her this little speech that works as a confession: this confusion about whether he wants him or wants to be him is, as I read in some places, a fairly common situation among gay men. Before he dies, he ends up stealing Montresor a kiss.

But all this has been nothing more than to see his reaction. Because Will is not dead. Not at all.

Although he's put his feelings on the table, he doesn't seem to expect Montresor to return his affection. Just knowing that he cares seems to be enough for the moment, because he plays dumb after it all happens. But Will's made it pretty clear that he is capable of an enormous level of manipulation and that he works with a subtlety that even Annabel couldn't dream of.

Now that they've gotten a peek at what's beneath the masks, Lenore and Montresor find themselves trapped with monsters of their own creation that they are unable to comprehend: Lenore can't even fathom why Annabel continues to do this despite how much she's suffering and Montresor doesn't even know what Will's intentions really are.

Kind of deliciously ironic because didn't Lenore want her partner in crime? Didn't Montresor want his little mutt to fight a little?

Weren't they the ones who wanted to be their number one?

And, as the icing on the cake, they are alone in this, because the monsters they have created only let them get close. Everyone else in the world has been fooled by Annabel and Will's perfect masks, so if they wanted to (or even could) tell anyone about this absolutely no one would believe them.

Even if Lenore wanted to convince her friends that Annabel isn't a homicidal maniac, it's virtually impossible for them to believe her after what happened with Duke. And Montresor can't even begin to explain what Will did.

Love and control

Here I need to stir up the duos a bit.

Montresor and Annabel are not only blonde charlatans with parental problems, they have also learned to relate to the world in terms of control: they protect themselves by moving others around like pieces to get them to do what they want (at least in Nevermore, Annabel in life would not have been able to do these things as far as we know).

Where Annabel puts herself at the center of the board as a queen, Montresor is all about pissing off everyone around him because that's the only way he feels seen.

But they are not the ones with the upper hand in their relationship.

Will and Lenore have demonstrated by actions -we can't be sure in Lenore's case it's a conscious thing- that they are capable of giving all the affection, security, and loyalty if they get what they want from Montresor and Annabel.

It's hard to know what Will wants from Montresor at this point, but he seems quite content for his bad boy to remain his bad boy who has something resembling a soft side to him. In Lenore's case, this waltz between having doki dokis every time Annabel exists around her and being absolutely furious seems to be tied up in her desire to have Annabel by her side: when Annabel plays queen and walks away, pushing Lenore away from whatever is going on; she immediately becomes wary or, at worst, aggressive; but is caring and responsive when Annabel shows a vulnerable side.

This ends up generating a funny situation where the relationship between Montresor and Will is more functional than Lenore and Annabel's because there is one side subordinate to the other: Will has Montresor by the balls, but lets himself be mistreated; while Annabel refuses to put Lenore's desires above the danger they are both in (and even refuses to tell her what the fuck is going on).

Conclusions

Okay, I have to admit that I have been a bit dramatic in some parts of this essay and I have to rectify that so that you are not left with the wrong idea.

The first (and most obvious) thing is that it looks like Annabel is going to get to have honest relationships beyond Lenore. Of course, her friendship with Ada and Prospero can't really begin until the “allies till battle royale do them part” deal is dissolved and she's confronted for putting them both in a sticky situation. That yes, they signed up to be allies of the Machiavellian mastermind, but to Caesar what is Caesar's: no real friendship will form here until those bumps are crossed.

And speaking of Annabel, if there's one person who has a microscopic chance of believing Montresor the fucked up shit Will has done, it's possibly Annabel. My only argument is this:

Like, she doesn't say Will is harmless, she says isolation makes him pliable. And although she is underestimating him and not knows Will is a threat, but maybe she'd be willing to think Montresor isn't crazy if she finds out what happened.

Another point is the conclusion she ended up coming to in all these trials: the line that separates things is drawn on who has their heart in the right place and who doesn't. So, where Montresor is terrified of Will while Will holds a threat over Montresor's head, neither Lenore nor Annabel is afraid that the other might hurt them. And while we don't know what Lenore's feelings are about how she's been treating Annabel in some respects (this for the date I've uploaded this essay), if her face in this scene and the little spoiler that was uploaded to tumblr tell us one thing: It's that the answer is probably guilt. Let's see what comes out of that.

Finally, there's one not too nice thing I'd like to say about when I saw spoilers from the fast pass. Okay, I know this comic is moving at a snail's pace and that while it's been a few days for the characters, this chapter came out like fifty weeks ago. But people, with all my love: I want you to see the difference between Ada and Will's reactions in this scene. Ada is obviously uncomfortable and guilty; while Will has an “upsi” face.

And when Lenore confronts him, Will has the face to complaining that he is scared. He at no point in this confrontation shows a single shred of real remorse.

I know there are people who have been through abusive relationships who have identified with Will and I don't mean to go on to bring that up. But what these scenes raised at the time is that there is something off about this guy, something that should give you a bad feeling because his behavior doesn't fit that of a person who has been forced to do something terrible.

Another thing I've seen someone point out at the time is that Will feels different in his character presentation and has been getting more pathetic as we see him more screen time. We now know that he has been learning how to behave.

Add to that that his reaction is the only one we don't see when it's revealed that there's only a second life available and we only see it when Montresor shakes him. But he doesn't seem particularly affected beyond the chaos that's going on around him.

All these little things keep telling you that there's something wrong with Will. And what Chapter 120 does, is show you what the thing that didn't add up was: what we've been seeing so far is a mask worn by a much more twisted individual and, now that we know that, we can start to figure out who he is and what he really wants.

This, people, is William Willson in all his glory. And Will turns out not to be the protagonist, but the doppelganger tormenting him. I don't remember who said that theory, but: you were absolutely right.

Anyway, this has gotten long. Thank you very much for making it this far.

#nevermore webtoon #annabel lee nevermore #lenore nevermore #annabel lee whitlock #lenore vandernacht #white raven #nevermore webcomic #annabel lee x lenore #lennabel #Willtresor Nevermore #monty nevermore #nevermore will #I didn't know how to put this in the essay but also #where Will and Lenore make themselves look weaker than they really are #Montresor and Annabel pretend to be stronger than they really are #On a positive note: now I need Will and Annabel to have a cup of tea while talking about their crush #I like to think Annabel would come out of that conversation very horrified jajajajaja

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miffysoo · 4 months ago

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super long rant incoming for lads (if you read this i love you to pieces, if not i still love you to pieces): im not always the biggest fan of the reincarnation/past lover trope (which is ironic bc that’s literally the entire foundation of lads lore LMAO) because sometimes it feels like the LI’s are in love with the idea of us seeing as mc in the storyline is the past version of their beloved. i just can’t help but think, like are they actually in love with MC? or are they in love with some other version of her and that’s the only reason they’re drawn to her? it almost feels like they’re projecting who they THINK she is when she’s no longer the same person at all in this current timeline & lifetime.

it almost makes it feel like current mc is “the other woman” in some sense, even though that’s a bit illogical because the past version of her is literally her but so much time has passed, things change, people change, and mc is a completely different person than who she was in their past lives. bc truly, the only one who i feel like truly loves her present day for who she is, is caleb. i would argue zayne to an extent too because he technically doesn’t have any memories whatsoever of his past lives so him and MC falling in love feels like it’s happening for the first time again, it’s a blank slate.

and not to say that the boys can’t grow to love who she is without painting her as her past version, but a part of it feels ingenuine sometimes to me. bc although she shares the same face, the same body, arguably the same soul as her past self, seeing as it’s again, literally her SELF, at the core of it, she’s not actually HER anymore. she’s someone completely different. so sometimes it feels super bittersweet & the lines get blurred. i have a love hate relationship w some of the lads lore for these reasons.

so sorry for the fatass post, but the lore & past life concept in the game always makes me feel hesitant to truly immerse myself into the game (i don’t even actually play the game, everything ik and have seen are from youtube clips that people have uploaded for all the myths, memories, and the overall storyline). this isn’t to say i don’t look forward to new updates and such, i love love lads. but like whenever i indulge in fanfic, especially as a chronic reader of ‘x reader’ fics, i have to separate reader from being MC, which is why i always stray towards non!mc reader bc there’s no tangible lore and past lives/reincarnations attached to a nonmc! reader. at least not to the same extent as the og MC depending on how much the author diverges from canon and just basic background context for reader. but overall imo, non!mc reader just doesn’t carry the same heavy implications of the boys’ true feelings when it’s the actual MC vs a non!mc reader if any of that connected 😔

similarly why i also love iseki/transmigration fics as well; basically any concept where the reader is NOT the mc. bc just like in iseki fics, the boys don’t have the same attachments & feelings towards reader as they do MC. it just feels more sincere imo, idk.

i wonder if im just crazy and have too much time to think & talk to myself about this, or if other players/readers feel the same way. bc ik the whole point of an otome game is that WE are the MC. but ive just never been able to fully immerse myself like that, i see MC as a completely separate character, almost like an OC sometimes. like i just can’t connect or fully enjoy any fanfic with MC being the “reader”. i view MC and reader to be two different people if that makes sense.

and again, im completely aware that as the storyline continues, the boys have obviously shown to care and have deep affectionate feelings (love is a bit too ambiguous imo to truly label that as what they feel for mc) for current mc and its probably only going to strengthen as the story moves forth. but my mind still spirals and thinks about all the “what-ifs” and semantics of reincarnation and past lives. i wish i didn’t think this way, the game and concept of it would probably be more enjoyable all around for me, but i apparently hate myself to think too light heartedly, even for a fictional game/story 😭

truly tho, it’s never that serious, i just had to get that off my chest bc i really don’t know if any other (not sane) person felt this ardent & torn about this as i do, which is a little silly honestly but here we are LMAO 🧍‍♀️ but in the end, there’s something for everyone here in the world of fanfic & delusions! 🫶🏼🫧

#long big ass rant bc i think too hardly about shit #i have mixed feelings about the love story between MC and the love interests #maybe i should go outside and get some sun #i overthink everything for no reason #maybe im self projecting bc im unwell #at the end of the day this is literally just a game #love and deepspace #love and deepspace x reader #lads x reader #lads x non!mc reader #lads lore #iseki

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shuavez · 2 months ago

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litany 𓄧 k.mg

iv. parlay.

summary 𓄧 every oath has a cost. every touch has a consequence. sent deep undercover into one of the city’s most illicit vampire clubs, two detectives must navigate the delicate balance between duty and desire — and survive the consequences when pretending stops feeling like pretending.

and some hungers, once fed, are impossible to starve.

tags 𓄧 detective!au, vampire!mingyu x human!reader. slow-ish burn. fake dating. friends/coworkers to lovers. various svt members/idols.

warnings 𓄧 mentions of death and autopsy, discussion of rituals. wc. 7k.

previous chapter ↜ iii. dizzy.

Mingyu remembers the first time he saw you—four years ago, fluorescent banquet-hall lighting bruising the air at some interdepartmental mixer no one wanted to attend. He was two months out of the Vampire Crimes and Affairs Division, collar too stiff, tie a shade too expensive for a room that smelled like lukewarm canapés and bureaucratic small talk.

Nice tie, you’d said, deadpan—one brow cocked as if you could already sense how out of place he felt. Bit fancy for an HR-mandated pissing contest. Then you’d smiled—quick, bright, entirely unthreatening—and asked if his new peers were playing nice, if he missed V-CAD’s twenty-four-hour blood banks, if vampires really could clear Olympic hurdles on a whim and, if so, why he hadn’t gone pro. In under five minutes you made him feel less like a cautionary tale and more like a man who just happened to drink his dinner through a straw.

After that, your paths kept brushing: joint task forces, midnight hand-offs, homicide briefs that smelled of grief and copy-machine toner. He heard the whispers—ice queen, hardass, ego-killer—but they bounced off the picture he’d already drawn of you in his head. Two years later, when the brass pinned new silver bars on your collar and bumped you and Jeonghan to Detective Lieutenant, he finally saw the steel that made lesser men mutter heinous bitch. He saw it when a veteran captain tried to talk over you and you shut him up with nothing more than the lift of your left eyebrow. He saw it when you spent forty-six straight minutes dismantling a murderer’s psyche in the interrogation room until the man wept into his cuffed hands, begging for the comfort of a cell before you’d even pulled out your first piece of evidence. He also watched you press a travel pack of tissues into a grieving mother’s hands while you stroked her knuckles twenty minutes later.

He can’t pin the moment colleague became something else. Maybe it was the day a rookie muttered a half-slur after briefing and Mingyu wordlessly dropped a disciplinary memo from Kang on the kid’s desk—your silent enforcer. Maybe it was every building you two cleared on opposite wings, trusting a flicker of the other’s eyes more than radio. But he knows the moment certainty crystallized: Eden’s first night, your pulse under his mouth while you whispered feed off me like an oath. Duty blurred, gravity bent, and he wanted—achingly—to wake up with that scent of copper and skin in his lungs for the rest of time.

Now: fluorescent conference room, 8 a.m. light slicing through Venetian blinds, and you sit across the table, shoulders square beneath yesterday’s fatigue, eyes raking Min Seo-yeon’s autopsy report. He sees the way the words carve into you—how you lean closer, almost protective, as if the report itself were a body that deserved gentler handling. That fierce absorption is what first drew him, long before longing stitched itself into his ribs: your capacity to carry terrible things and still keep a hand free to steady someone else.

He watches that heat consume you now.

The glow of your laptop burns your barely rested eyes while you scroll through the report—again, as if repetition might conjure a pulse in the dead woman’s throat. Dark crescents cling beneath your eyes; your hairline is still damp from the shower you forced yourself to take at dawn. The precinct around you hums, but you’re marble-still, jaw set like a drawn bow.

You drag your gaze down the report one more time even though every word is already branded behind your eyes: primary exsanguination, secondary healed punctures, probable consensual feeding. The clinical phrasing curls in your stomach like sour milk. Wonwoo’s data packet of burner-phone messages waits beside the keyboard, but you can’t open it yet; you need one clean breath first.

It doesn’t come.

Instead you look up—and catch Mingyu watching you.

His hands are folded on the tabletop, thumbs worrying a phantom seam. The overhead fluorescents silver the faint scars at his knuckles. His eyes—dark, steady, impossibly gentle—don’t flinch when you meet them. He doesn’t look away. Doesn’t pretend he wasn’t watching you like someone might watch a star collapse quietly under its own gravity. Like he’s worried you’ll fold in on yourself if he blinks.

His hands stay still now, perfectly still, like moving might disturb something delicate. Like you are that delicate thing. And maybe, just maybe, you are—because the autopsy report still burns in your periphery and the sour churn in your stomach won’t settle and Seo-yeon is gone, completely and truly gone, and you’re sitting here trying not to crawl out of your skin because you’ve felt what she felt. Or some twisted, bright-shadowed echo of it.

You lower your gaze, press your fingers to your temples like it might dam the tide behind your eyes.

You don’t cry. Not in rooms like this. But the sting lingers.

Mingyu shifts in his seat—not loudly, not obviously, but just enough to draw your attention back. His foot bumps yours beneath the table, deliberate and grounding. You glance up again, and this time, the line of his mouth breaks just slightly.

A question. Unspoken, but there.

You okay?

You give the smallest nod. Not really. Not entirely. But enough.

He accepts it like a promise and doesn’t push.

You flick through the last batch of screencapped messages and sigh—loud, frustrated, the sound dragging from the back of your throat like it’s been waiting there all morning. You lean back and press both hands over your face. Hard. The kind of pressure that makes little bursts of stars bloom behind your eyelids—if you push hard enough, one of them might spell out the answer.

Nothing.

Just black, and static, and the low, simmering churn in your stomach.

You drop your hands and look up. Mingyu watches you quietly, still, like he’s afraid to disturb whatever you’re building in your head. Wonwoo’s behind his screen, scrolling, expression unreadable.

“She trusted whoever killed her,” you say finally. Your voice is rough. Flat. “Between these messages and the way she looked at her killer in that CCTV clip… this wasn’t some randomised attack. Not a little opportunistic feed.” You gesture to the file, the stills. “She didn’t run. She turned.”

Mingyu’s brow furrows. He’s quiet for a second, thinking, then nods slowly.

“She looked less…” His voice lowers, thoughtful. “Less scared. More… discomfort than fear. Like she was hurt. Like she was realizing something too late.”

The words land hard. Like they know something you don’t.

Wonwoo’s fingers clack across his keyboard. “TARU’s triangulating the burner her loverboy was working off. We’re pulling cell tower dumps, traffic cams, working on locating close friends.”

You nod once, sharp. “And we’ve got nothing on the guy?”

He exhales through his nose, leans back in his chair with a shake of his head. “He’s a ghost, so far. No ID. No footage. No receipts. We’re hoping traffic cams will give us something—face, car plate, even a jacket.”

You’re about to say something else when Jeonghan, leaning with one arm braced on the arm of his chair, speaks instead. His tone isn’t unkind—just direct.

“We’re passing this down to Seokmin and Soonyoung.”

You glance up, startled. “What?”

“They’ll keep digging into Seo-yeon’s side of things,” he says. “You and Mingyu need to stay focused on the trafficking angle. That’s the priority. The bigger picture. These deaths aren't happening in a vacuum.”

Your throat tightens. You know how this works. You do. Minor threads—personal connections, unactionable leads—get handed off. You’ve done the handoff yourself, more times than you can count. But this doesn’t feel minor.

It feels deliberate.

It feels like a message.

But you don’t argue.

You just nod. Once. Curt. Your jaw ticks.

Jeonghan watches you for a beat longer, his gaze perceptive in that way you’ve always hated and needed in equal measure. “Don’t get too attached,” he says, more gently now. “We’ll find out what happened.”

You don’t say anything. Just look back down at the report, fingers tightening around the edge of the screen until the LCD bleeds.

Mingyu’s presence is its own kind of ballast—quiet, unflinching, a constant weight that steadies the room without ever demanding space. He’s settled across from you at your desk, angled slightly off to the side in the second chair that never quite belonged to anyone but has somehow become his. His posture is casual, long legs stretched out in front of him, but there’s a sharpness to the way his eyes scan the screen, a coiled readiness in the set of his jaw. He’s not relaxed—he’s prepared.

For nearly an hour, the two of you work in tandem, barely speaking. The clack of your keyboards forms a syncopated rhythm, broken only by the soft scrape of a pen on notepad or the occasional creak of your chair. A spread of files fans between you—printed membership logs, fragmented surveillance stills, notes scribbled in shorthand you can both read in your sleep.

You comb through aliases, cross-checking flagged names with criminal databases and archived case notes, but your mind drifts more often than it should. To the club. To the corridor. To the way Mingyu’s voice had coiled around you like a tether, pulling you back from something you didn’t want to name.

Eventually, he nudges your calf under the desk with the side of his boot. Not a kick. Just enough to pull your focus.

“This guy, Han Jiwoo. Name ring any bells?”

He rotates his laptop toward you, and you lean in. The image on screen is grainy, pulled from old footage, but the shape of the man’s face is distinct. Angular cheekbones, eyes slightly too close-set, and a pale scar beneath his left eye like a thumbprint of old violence.

“Yeah,” you murmur. “He was working the door last night. Didn’t even flinch when we walked in.”

“Exactly,” Mingyu says, tapping the laptop’s edge. “I clocked him signaling to one of the floor runners during the bar convo. Subtle. Could’ve missed it if I hadn’t been watching.”

You sit back in your chair, tapping your pen against your knee. “You think he’s just security?”

“I think he’s part of the movement chain,” Mingyu replies. “Low-rung maybe, but he’s more than a bouncer. Could be hands-on during transfers. Auction prep, maybe.”

You nod slowly, already reaching for your keyboard. “Let’s flag him. I’ll have TARU pull movement data—any shifts in the back corridor cameras, deliveries, anything that doesn’t align with club hours.”

He logs the note with two quick keystrokes, then leans back slightly, his gaze drifting to you again. “You good?”

The question is gentle but pointed. You nod once, eyes still on your screen.

But he knows. Of course he does.

The silence between you settles again, but it’s no longer weightless. You can feel his attention like static—low-level, constant, reassuring.

It’s not until the door creaks open and Jeonghan leans against the frame, arms crossed and one brow arched, that the rhythm breaks.

“Wonwoo’s on his way up,” he says. “He’s got something from the drop box. Says it’s priority.”

That gets your attention.

You and Mingyu trade a look—brief, unreadable to anyone else—but it’s enough. The temperature in the room drops by half a degree, focus sharpening like a blade between you.

Ten minutes pass before the knock sounds—a gentle, measured tap, but it lands like a bullet. You sit up straighter, heart nudging at your ribs.

Wonwoo steps inside with the kind of careful economy that always precedes bad news. He’s wearing gloves, black nitrile, already smeared faintly with powder from the envelope he holds delicately between two fingers. It’s matte black, unmarked, sealed with a plain strip of wax.

He says nothing at first—just crosses to your desk and lays it down like a body. His movements are deliberate. Controlled. But there’s something in the corners of his eyes that snags your breath: unease.

It takes a lot to rattle Wonwoo, which is exactly why your pulse picks up.

Mingyu leans in slightly, his forearm brushing yours. Grounding. Not accidental.

“It came from the OC dropbox they assigned when you first went undercover,” Wonwoo says, tone clipped but calm.

He doesn’t look at you when he says it. He’s speaking to Mingyu, like it’s safer that way.

“No stamps. No tracking,” he continues, glancing down at the envelope between his gloved fingers. “I had it dusted before I brought it in—prints, heat mapping, fiber scan. Clean. Not just wiped. Manufactured without trace. No printer-tracing dots either.”

He finally looks up, meeting your gaze.

“Whoever sent this wanted it between them and God.”

You reach for it slowly, thumb brushing the seal. The paper is heavier than you expected. Smooth, expensive, thick as cardstock and faintly ridged like skin that’s been too long under pressure. Cold to the touch. It feels like something you’re not meant to be holding.

Jeonghan crosses the room, his footsteps soft but sure, and stops behind you. He says nothing, but you feel the weight of him there—his silence alert and bracing, like a hand braced between your shoulder blades. You peel the flap open with practiced care and draw the contents free.

Your stomach flips the moment your eyes land on it.

A card. Dense, matte black, so dark it seems to swallow light. The ink on it is embossed in deep crimson, glossy and wet-looking, like it might still be bleeding.

VELVET EDEN CORDIALLY INVITES YOU TO PARTAKE IN

THE RITE

25 SEPTEMBER 2025. FROM 12:00 AM

Discretion is mandatory. Consent is absolute. Bonds will be honored in blood & trust.

The language is archaic, ceremonial. A script that looks closer to a brand than an invitation.

You read the last line again—bonds will be honored in blood & trust—and your fingers tighten faintly at the edge of the card.

“What does that mean?” you ask, your voice barely above a breath. You extend the invitation toward Mingyu without looking at him.

He takes it with the same quiet care, his brow furrowing as he scans the wording.

“It’s old vampire phrasing,” he says, finally. “Symbolic. Traditional. ‘Blood and trust’—that’s not poetic. That’s a vow. A witnessed bond, something public. Ritualized.”

He hesitates, and when he speaks again, his voice has gone flatter.

“A Rite, capital R… usually means a feeding ceremony. It’s formal. Observed. The kind of thing that hasn’t been done outside of pureblood circles in decades. If they’re reviving it, it’s not for tradition—it’s a message. A power play.”

You swallow hard.

“Private?”

Mingyu shakes his head once.

“No. Center stage. Everyone watching. No curtains. No booths. You’re not just part of the crowd. You’re the event.”

The cold that rushes through you is immediate and full-bodied, like ice water poured down your spine. This isn’t subterfuge anymore. It’s not even seduction. This is theatre. Ceremony. The kind of thing meant to be consumed by an audience.

And you’re the show.

You brace a hand on the desk to steady yourself, exhaling slowly through your nose. You take the card back from Mingyu, willing your fingers not to tremble.

“There’s more,” Wonwoo says, and you can tell by the way his voice gentles that he already knows what kind of weight this next part carries.

He reaches into a manila folder tucked in his underarm, unfolding two thick packets of paperwork and laying them out in front of you. The pages are crisp, heavy with legalese.

“I found these a few days ago, and flagged them as unusual. They didn’t match any of Eden’s posted events, but… this invite triggered something. I think they’re connected.”

You skim the headers.

NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT. PARTICIPANT LIABILITY WAIVER. CONTRACTUAL CONSENT DOCUMENT.

The clauses are worse.

Clause 4.3.2: Participant acknowledges that consent may be interpreted contextually within the ritual’s performance.

Clause 7.1: The host assumes no liability for physical, emotional, or supernatural injury incurred during participation.

Clause 9.6: Breach of confidentiality may incur legal, supernatural, or discretionary penalties at the host’s discretion.

Every clause tightens something in your chest, slow and mean. Your eyes keep moving, but your breath slows, like your body is trying to shield you from the content even as you absorb it.

You set the papers down carefully and flex your fingers once on the wood. The pads of your fingertips tingle with cold. Your pulse echoes up your throat like thunder through stone.

Wonwoo leans lightly against the desk, voice low. “I ran them by the DA. Nothing illegal on paper. But airtight. Like, corporate horror airtight. If something happens in that room, they’ve covered every possible angle. If you bleed out on that floor, they walk.”

Silence settles, dense and unmoving.

You hand the envelope to Mingyu to double-check. Just in case.

He tilts it, slides his fingers in once more—and freezes.

“Wait.”

He reaches in, slow and precise, and draws out something flat and glossy.

It’s a photo.

No, not a photo—a still. Security footage.

And you know it the moment you see it.

It’s you. And him. Your first night inside Velvet Eden. The Red Room.

You’re straddling Mingyu’s lap, his mouth at your throat. Your head is tipped back, mouth parted, expression loose with euphoria. You’re holding him like he’s the only thing tethering you to the earth—one hand buried in his hair, the other curled tight around his shoulder. Mingyu’s hand is curved low on your waist, splayed just above the curve of your ass. His other arm anchors you across the back, pulling you closer, deeper.

If not for the fact that you’re both still fully dressed, anyone looking at this frame out of context would assume it was something pornographic. It practically is.

Jeonghan lets out a low whistle. You can’t look away. The burn rising in your cheeks has nothing to do with fear.

If you weren’t already nauseated by the implications, the embarrassment alone would’ve done it.

Wonwoo doesn’t flinch. He’s already seen it. Already processed it.

“It’s not a threat,” he says simply. “No message. No watermark. Not even a burn tag. This wasn’t leaked or meant to expose anything.”

“Then what is it?” Jeonghan asks, frowning.

Wonwoo meets your gaze. It’s steady. Unblinking.

“It’s an invitation. They see you. They see a bond. And they’re asking you to prove it.”

Mingyu doesn’t say anything. Not yet. But when you glance at him, his jaw is tight, his mouth set in a hard line.

You try to breathe through it. Try to find the voice that always rises in moments like this—the calm, level one. The voice that says: Here’s the plan. Here’s what we do.

But it doesn’t come.

A single thought finally surfaces through the chaotic churn of your mind, slicing clear and sharp through the tangled knot of anxiety.

You lift your head, meeting Mingyu’s gaze head-on. Your voice is steadier than it has any right to be, edged with suspicion and a bone-deep confusion you can’t shake.

You ask it because you have to. Because it’s the only question still spinning in your brain after the invite, the waiver, the photograph burned into the backs of all your eyes.

“Why?” you say, your voice quieter than intended, but it still cuts through the low hum of tension in the room. “I’ve been in that club twice. I can count on one hand how many people I’ve spoken to. Why would they trust me enough for this?”

Mingyu doesn’t answer right away. He’s still holding the invitation, thumb running along the blood-red lettering like it might peel back something useful. His gaze flicks up, settling on you with that same quiet focus that never fails to make you feel both exposed and understood.

“They don’t,” he says finally, voice low. “This isn’t trust. It’s… curiosity. Your blood—it’s something to parlay. Something rare. They want to see if you’ll give it up. Possibly not just to me.”

You feel your pulse hitch. Mingyu sees it, because of course he does.

He swallows. “They want to know how far you’re willing to go. If you understand what it means. What you’re worth to them.”

He doesn’t need to finish the thought, but he does anyway.

“They’ll bleed you like an animal,” he says, the words bitter in his mouth, “and call it ceremony.”

Jeonghan shifts beside you, no sudden movement—just a sharp inhale, like he’s trying to keep a lid on something hot. One hand lifts to rake through his hair, the other tightening at his side. His jaw ticks, tension wound so tight it practically hums through the air between you.

“No,” he says flatly. “No fucking way. I’m not signing off on this. Not without taking it to Seungcheol.”

“Han—” you start.

“I don’t care how many fancy envelopes they send,” he snaps, a rare crack in the even-keeled tone you know by heart. “You’re not walking into that place on a stage like a sacrificial lamb. That’s not a mission. That’s bait. That’s suicide.”

A silence follows, not awkward, but full—thick as wool and humming at the seams.

You’re still thinking it through, ticking through every possible variable like your hands are already on the fuse box.

Wonwoo, still half-leaning against the desk, clears his throat. “She’s been bait this whole time,” he says, not unkind, just… blunt. Like a scalpel rather than a hammer. “I’m not exactly thrilled about it either, but if we execute this right, it’s the closest we’ll get to working out what the hell they’re doing. This isn’t a booth feed. This isn’t a night of flirty bloodletting and veiled threats. It’s an invitation to meet the bones of their whole operation.”

You nod slow, but certain. “Wonwoo’s right. We’ve been chasing ghosts for weeks. This could be it.”

Jeonghan looks at you like you’ve gone mad.

“You can’t actually be considering this,” he says, voice low, incredulous. “What’s your plan when it goes south? When the lights go out, and there’s a dozen vampires between you and the door?”

“I won’t let it get that far,” Mingyu cuts in, sharp and certain.

Jeonghan’s gaze rounds on him, the air between them snapping taut.

“Your charm isn’t going to stop a room full of clinically insane vampires from sucking her dry, Mingyu.”

“It’s not going to get to that,” Mingyu shoots back, leaning in, jaw tight.

“Because you’ll stop it?” Jeonghan spits, almost laughing. “Because you’ll say the magic words and they’ll all roll over and play dead?”

“I’ll be right there,” Mingyu shoots back. “I’m not letting her walk into anything I can’t pull her out of.”

The room falls quiet again, but this silence is colder—tense in a different way. Like the air’s been pulled too tight over something sharp.

You exhale slowly. Force your hands to unclench. “Can you guys stop talking about me like I’m not in the room?”

Both men look at you. Different expressions, same protectiveness bleeding out in stubborn lines.

“I’m not signing up to die,” you say. “I’m not suicidal, and I’m not stupid. But if they want a show… if that gets us in the door—really in—we have to take it. This could be the first actually solid lead we get.”

The only sound is the distant hum of the precinct beyond your office, muffled and far away. In here, you’re all caged inside a single moment, one tick of the clock stretching into eternity.

Jeonghan’s shoulders rise and fall once, tension still bleeding through every line of him. Mingyu doesn’t move, but his fingers flex at his sides like he’s restraining himself from reaching for you, just to make sure you’re still intact.

Wonwoo just nods, the barest tilt of his head. “If we do this,” he says, “we do it right. No assumptions. No improvisation. We’ll run every possible outcome. We’ve got… what? Just over twenty-four hours to plan.”

“Agreed,” you murmur, eyes fixed on the desk but mind already spinning.

Jeonghan mutters something under his breath and finally sits back down behind his own desk, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Cheol is going to hate this.”

“He’s not going to love it,” you agree, “but he’ll see the logic.”

You feel Mingyu shift across from you. Not closer. Not further. Just there. Present. Solid.

“We do it together,” he says, not looking at anyone in particular, but the words land anyway. “All of us. Every step.”

The room isn’t cold, not physically—the precinct runs too hot, if anything—but there’s a stillness that creeps in whenever Seungcheol says nothing.

The file rests in the center of his desk. Your invitation to the feeding ceremony. The waivers. You feel its weight even after you’ve set it down. Even after you’ve sat back in your chair and folded your hands in your lap like they don’t twitch under his gaze.

He doesn’t speak right away. Doesn’t look at you, either. Not in a way that would make this harder. His attention is on the invite, the wax seal you’d carefully cracked, the too-elegant scrawl of Mingyu’s name.

The silence ticks by. You’re used to Seungcheol’s quiet. It’s never empty—he fills it with thought, with calculation.

Eventually, he leans back. “Explain.”

You do. You and Jeonghan. You don’t get into the argument you had. There’s no time and no use for it here. The summary is clinical. Targeted. Precise. An invitation extended to your undercover identity, a chance to gain rare access to the most protected inner circle of Velvet Eden. Exclusive. Dangerous. High stakes. Higher reward.

You mention the NDAs. The liability waiver. You mention the parameters of the ceremony—public, but intimate. Feeding as a ritual. Feeding as spectacle. You pass him the CCTV still. That’s when he lifts his eyes.

It’s the first time in years he’s seen you flinch.

Not a wince. Not overt. Just a small disruption in your stillness, barely there. But enough.

He doesn’t comment on it. Just places it facedown on his desk.

Instead, he says, “Jeonghan?”

The shift in his voice tells you he’s already noticed the tension in him. Jeonghan sits straighter, jaw tight.

“I think it’s reckless,” he says. “We don’t have the control we need. If anything goes sideways—if either of them get exposed, if the room closes in—we’re not getting them out fast enough. And it’s not like we can plant backup in there. Not without compromising the entire operation.”

There’s a beat. His gaze lifts to you, unreadable. Then back to Seungcheol again. “I don’t like it. At all.”

Seungcheol nods, slowly. His expression doesn’t change. He turns to Mingyu.

Mingyu meets his eyes. His voice is low. Measured. “There’s risk, but we’re out of safe options. The inner ring moves quietly. This is one of the few ways we can draw them out. The invite was personalized—it’s rare. It’s bait, but it’s also leverage.”

“And you’re the one who’d be feeding?” Seungcheol asks.

A pause. Then Mingyu nods. “I’m fairly certain, yes.”

You feel it then—something settles in the room. Something inevitable.

Wonwoo speaks next, unprompted. “We can set up every safeguard possible. Trackers. Deadman switches. Remote feeds. We’ll be working with limited visibility, but not none. If they go forward with this, I’ll pull from every department we need. No red tape.”

Seungcheol finally looks at you. “And you?”

You nod. “It’s dangerous. But we can manage it.”

He watches you for a long moment. That same unreadable calm. You can’t tell if he’s measuring your certainty or mourning it.

“Alright,” he says. “Then I’ll back your call. If you both feel you can handle it, we’ll run with it. But if either of you change your mind—even last minute—we pivot. We’ll find another way.”

You exhale. A knot loosens in your chest you didn’t realize you’d been holding.

Seungcheol leans forward, folding his hands over the papers. “I’ll sign off on the prep work. But I want to be in the loop until this goes down. One misstep, and we pull you out. Understood?”

You both nod.

Meeting adjourned.

You step out of Seungcheol’s office. The operation settles on your shoulders like lead. Wonwoo breaks off down the corridor immediately, already tapping notes into his phone as he goes, preparing to update TARU on the adjusted strategy. Jeonghan pauses beside you, exhaustion evident in the set of his jaw, before he nods once and turns toward the bullpen to brief the rest of your team.

You let out a long, exasperated breath and glance up to find Mingyu’s eyes already fixed on you, something gentle yet unreadable in his expression.

“I guess I should probably read through these again,” you say, lifting the folder containing the waiver and NDA, the papers heavy enough to feel almost absurd in your hands. “Figure out exactly what rights I’m signing away before I put my name to it.”

Mingyu hesitates for only a moment, shifting his weight slightly before speaking up, voice low but steady. “Can we talk first? Just us?”

You nod immediately, ignoring the way your heartbeat picks up a notch at the quiet intensity behind his words. “Yeah, of course.”

He follows you back down the hall toward your office, footsteps echoing behind yours. You can feel the tension emanating from him even without looking—like a cord drawn tight between you. It’s impossible to tell whether it’s your own nerves feeding into him, or his bleeding into you, but the anxiety is palpable enough to almost taste.

Your shared office is quiet, the usual chaotic energy now muffled beneath the heavy blanket of tomorrow’s uncertainty. Mingyu steps in after you, closing the door softly behind him, and the click of the latch makes you flinch despite yourself. You gesture toward his usual chair at the end of your desk, watching as he settles into it carefully, like he’s wary of breaking something delicate between you.

“Are you doing okay?” he finally asks, gaze meeting yours openly, with an earnestness that makes something in your chest ache.

“I’m handling it,” you answer honestly, sinking down into your own chair, the leather sighing beneath you. “But I won’t lie, Mingyu. This is…” You pause. The truth is too raw, too close to the surface. “…a lot.”

His expression softens almost imperceptibly, his dark eyes flickering with understanding, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly in recognition of your honesty.

“Look, I don’t even fully know what we’re walking into,” Mingyu admits quietly, leaning forward so his forearms rest against the desk between you, bridging the distance. “I’ve heard about these ceremonies, sure, but I’ve never attended one—never been trusted enough to be invited. Until now.”

You swallow around the dryness in your throat, grateful for the steady, grounding weight of his presence across from you. “We need a solid game plan, then.”

“Absolutely,” he agrees without hesitation. “But before that—I need to know your boundaries. Clearly. I need to know how far is too far, what’s off-limits. This isn’t like any other undercover op we’ve done before.”

You press your fingertips gently into your temple, trying to ease the tension there, your heart thudding painfully in your chest. It’s difficult to maintain professional neutrality when everything inside you feels so deeply unsettled.

“I trust you implicitly, Mingyu,” you say quietly, feeling his eyes on you, patient and unwavering. “But if I’m being completely honest… I’m scared. Not just about the risk or what might go wrong. I’m scared about us. About what tomorrow could do to our partnership, to how we work together afterward. This…this level of intimacy…it’s more than we’ve ever had to navigate.”

You pause, biting down gently on your lip to prevent yourself from admitting more, but it’s too late—the vulnerability has already slipped past, raw and unguarded. You brace yourself for discomfort, for tension, but Mingyu just watches you steadily, and then something softens in his eyes, something achingly gentle.

“I get it,” he says quietly, with no trace of judgment or awkwardness. “And it’s okay to be nervous. Hell, I’d be worried if you weren’t. This isn’t just an undercover assignment, it’s… well, it’s something completely different. It’s pushing us both into uncharted territory. But the one thing I’m sure of—the one thing we can hold onto—is that no matter how far we have to push it, we’ll take care of each other. I promise you that.”

His voice is quiet. Steady. The knot in your chest loosens. The sincerity behind his words grounds you, reminds you that this isn’t something you have to navigate alone. It’s more than a reassurance—it’s a lifeline extended when you need it most.

He doesn’t reach for your hand. He just hooks his pinkie out, subtly, simply, like it’s the most natural thing in the world now. Like it means everything.

Your breath hitches—then a quiet, surprised laugh slips out. Real. Comforting. You loop your finger through his without a word.

His smile is big and warm and a little crooked. Like he knows what it means, too.

“Thank you,” you whisper, the words slipping free before you can stop them. “I needed to hear that.”

And for the first time, you realize Mingyu’s nervousness mirrors your own. That maybe you aren’t the only one whose carefully constructed boundaries have started to fray beneath the intimacy of this mission.

You feel yourself begin to relax, a subtle loosening of the muscles along your spine, as if just his presence, his quiet sincerity, is enough to make you feel less alone in this.

“Alright, let’s get through this paperwork,” he finally says, easing back into his seat, expression resolute again, professional. “We’ll work out exactly what we’re up against, figure out our signals, our limits—and we’ll do it as a team.”

You nod, reaching for the pen, and he moves closer instinctively, leaning in as the two of you start to work through the documents. The quiet rhythm of his voice explaining clauses, his patient tone guiding you through the legal and vampire-noir jargon, the steady warmth radiating from his presence—all of it serves to gradually dissolve the anxious tension that had knotted itself in your bones.

Halfway through, your shoulders feel lighter. Your heart steadier. Beneath the fear, something stronger rises. Something that holds everything together.

Trust.

Trust that Mingyu will watch your back, that he won’t let you fall—and maybe, just maybe, trust that whatever this mission dredges up between you won’t be something either of you regrets.

You glance up at him briefly, catching the warmth in his dark eyes as he continues carefully explaining the next waiver clause. A quiet, private smile slips from you, and Mingyu returns it immediately, as if he’s been waiting all along for you to finally feel safe enough to let your guard down.

Maybe the lines have blurred. Maybe they’ll blur even further tomorrow.

But for now, here with him, that doesn’t scare you quite as much anymore.

The projector clicks on with a low whir, its glow bathing the precinct’s war room in a dim, cold light. Maps and floorplans ripple across the glass board at the front—Velvet Eden’s rough schematics, layered with TARU’s annotations, timestamp overlays, and sensor-blind zones.

You stand off to the left, hands clasped behind your back, the satin of your deep crimson skirt whispering as you shift your weight. The off-shoulder corset clings to your frame like it was sewn on, the hem of the skirt brushing your heels as you turn to glance across the room. Your hair is pinned back just enough to expose the vulnerable line of your neck—and the discreet, steel-sharp hairpin nestled behind your ear. A gift from Soojin.

“Something slim,” she’d murmured earlier, handing it over with a meaningful look. “Not poisoned. That would be sick. But pointed enough.”

You’d taken it with a nod, hoping you wouldn’t need it but grateful all the same.

Mingyu is at your side, silent and composed, but you can feel the simmer beneath the surface like heat trapped under skin. His black shirt is tucked in, the top three buttons undone, revealing the faint glint of his collarbone and the fine silver chain resting against it. The sleeves are rolled once, casually, like he’s giving the illusion of ease while ready to strike. His slacks are tailored like sin—clean lines over a body built like temptation.

Together, you look lethal.

Jeonghan is the first to break the tension. He whistles, low and amused, from his seat at the edge of the table.

“Jesus,” he mutters. “Should’ve sent a camera crew. You two look like a fucking Vogue spread.”

A ripple of laughter passes through the room. Even Seungcheol cracks the corner of his mouth into a dry smile. You glance at Mingyu, and despite yourself, you both smile—just for a moment. Because it’s funny. Because it’s absurd. Because yeah—you do look good. And the room needed a moment to breathe.

Then you turn back toward the board, posture straightening, your voice sharp enough to slice through silk.

“Alright. Let’s keep this tight. Tonight’s invite-only. Very little recon to go off. We’re walking in mostly blind.”

You nod to Mingyu, who steps forward and flicks to the next slide.

“This is the only part of the floor plan we’re confident about,” he explains. “We know the ritual won’t be held on the public floor—there’s a lower level beneath the private wings. VIP access only. We believe that’s where this is happening.”

Wonwoo, posted near the back, adds, “We’ve got audio feeds set on the north and west wings. One North stairwell. Entry and exit points are covered. But inside that sub-level? We’re dark.”

“So,” Jeonghan cuts in, all business now, “you’re gonna be relying on what?”

Mingyu glances at you. You take over without missing a beat.

“As you guys know,” you begin, eyes sweeping the room, “vampires have heightened hearing. Mingyu and I can’t communicate verbally—not to each other, and definitely not to you. That leaves us with hand signals. We have three.”

You hold up a hand, fingers steady—only because you’ve trained them to be.

“First—if either of us scratches the inside of our left wrist, we need help. Subtle. Just a shift in body language. Easy to miss unless you’re watching for it. We’ll handle it between ourselves.”

You pause, letting the room absorb it.

“Second—if Mingyu adjusts his chain, or I touch my necklace, it means abort the mission. No breach. We extract clean, fast, quiet.”

A glance to Mingyu. He nods once.

“Third,” you say, voice steadier now, “if Mingyu tugs on the back of my corset or I tug his sleeve, it means danger. Immediate. We’re compromised. You breach. Loud.”

A ripple of quiet runs through the room—not fear, exactly. But tension, crystallizing.

Jisoo leans forward from tactical’s corner. “Okay. But if we lose visuals on the sublevels—which, let’s be real, we will—how does that help us? Or you?”

You let the silence stretch for a beat, then flash a sharp smile. “I’m so glad you asked, Jisoo.”

Wonwoo doesn’t miss a beat. “She’ll be wearing a gold wristwatch. Slim, analog, vintage Omega style. Custom-modified.”

He steps to the screen, flicking through schematics until a wireframe of the watch appears—highlighting a barely visible pin on the crown.

“The time adjustment dial functions as a panic transmitter. One tap means nothing. Two taps could be a glitch. But three?” He taps the screen gently. “Three means live. We come in. No backsies.”

Jeonghan nods approvingly. “That’s hot.”

“Hotter than dying,” Soojin mutters without looking up.

“We tested the signal strength,” Mingyu adds, calm and precise. “Frequency’s tight. No bleed. Doesn’t register on vampire auditory range. No ambient feedback. It’s quiet. Clean.”

Jisoo exhales, nodding once. “Alright. Still risky as hell, but I’ve seen worse.”

“Cleaner than that bust in Anyang that time,” Jeonghan teases. Jisoo rolls his eyes, but there’s no venom.

Seungcheol grunts. “It’s not about clean. It’s about possible. If she hits that transmitter—”

“We go,” Jisoo finishes. “I know. Team’s staged two blocks out. Stealth gear. If you give the signal, we’re coming in hard and loud.”

Wonwoo clicks through a few more images—photos of the club, of figures caught briefly on camera. “We’re looking at a crowd of maybe thirty, max. Most are upper-rank. If they suspect you’re not who you say you are, you’re worse than exposed.”

The words settle in the room like lead.

But you don’t flinch.

You feel the hum of Mingyu beside you—not just nerves, but heat. Focus. Purpose.

You’ve run countless operations before, and so has he. But none like this. None that demand this kind of performance. This level of vulnerability. This blurring of lines.

And still—you know he’ll keep you safe.

And he knows you’ll do the same.

You flick your gaze across the room once more. These are your people. Your family. And tonight, they’ll be your last line of defense.

“Any final questions?” you ask, voice calm but commanding.

“Just one,” Jeonghan deadpans, eyes glinting with mischief. “Are you guys planning on attending the Met Gala next year?”

Laughter again—tighter this time. Everyone’s running on adrenaline. But they’re ready.

You glance down at your wrist, adjust your earring, feeling the weight of the hairpin tucked in the coil of your updo.

Mingyu leans slightly closer, not enough to touch, but enough for his voice to find only your ear.

“You ready?”

You nod once. Then, without looking, you hook your pinkie against his. He doesn’t react for a beat. Then you feel it—his finger curling gently around yours, solid and warm and unshakable.

A breath escapes you—half nerves, half laugh.

“Let’s get raunchy,” you murmur, and he grins like he’s already survived it. You laugh, but it doesn’t reach your stomach. There’s no room left in it. Just nerves.

You return your attention to the team, hands clasped together as though it might help ground you to the spot. “Let’s roll out, guys. We’ll see you on the other side.”

next chapter ↝ v. the rite. (coming soon)

click here for tag list submission / removal.

tag list!

@bangtanbolo @ateez-atiny380 @hipsdofangirl @rem-mp3 @minghaofied @gyu-woo @dreamingofpcy @jonginjinyoungjaehyun @gabbwaa @wonu13 @tokitosun @lalataitai @callmehoweveruwatblog @celestialbs

#elle’s worx #seventeen #mingyu #kim mingyu #mingyu scenarios #mingyu fluff #mingyu angst #seventeen fluff #seventeen angst #seventeen x reader #mingyu x reader #mingyu smut #mingyu imagines #kim mingyu x reader

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newttxt · 5 months ago

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hi quip! i really like your one piece comics and i am curious how you do them! i'm not good at comics and want to be better at drawing them! how do you learn how to make comics?

thank you!

uh oh... im afraid u have caught me at the perfect crossroad of "bored at work" and "unrelated task ive been meaning to do but keep putting off."

this is long. i hope you like reading (and grayscale progress pics). and of course!!! disclaimer before we begin that this is just how I, personally draw comics. there is no "right way."

quip's comic-making process!

Switching my typing to make this more legible...

My process can kinda be broken down into 6 steps:

Brainstorming

Thumbnailing

Sketching

Panels & Text

Lines

Tones/Colors

1. Brainstorming

My brain is a leaky sieve on a good day, so I sloppily jot down ideas in my phone notes the moment I have them. This helps me when it's time to draw too, because if I feel art blocked, I can look through old concepts and see what catches my interest.

Otherwise, I love drawing for other people's writing. :) And if worst comes to worst, doing manga/comic page redraws in my style teaches me new things every time.

Once I have my idea, I'll usually make a bulletpoint list of "plot points" or "story beats" I want. Then I plan the comic with this format that I've adapted from a tutorial I read once. I'm going to use my most recent comic (original comic post) as an example.

I start in the third column, writing notes of what I'd want to see in each panel. I also include the dialogue (in this case, I didn't have to write the dialogue! it's from the fanfic linked in the original comic post!). I usually write the whole name like [Luffy:], but at this point I've drawn so much of these guys, just the first letter works.

I like to handwrite these notes to get an idea for how much text I'm putting in a single panel.

After I describe all the panels, I go back and separate them into pages. I can't tell you how to know how many panels to a page. It's whatever works for you. I just kinda know about how big each panel will be, and so I can feel when I'm probably running out of space. (Also. You can change things later. I don't in this example, but I add/drop pages/panels all the time.)

2. Thumbnailing

Thumbnailing—as the name suggests—should be done tiny. Too tiny to accidentally get sucked into details.

This is about marking down blobs where items/characters go, and figuring out the paneling. I'll draw and redraw these a bunch of times too.

This is also the most time-consuming/brain-working part for me. If I were in a zine that did progress percentage, I'd try to finish thumbnailing around the 50% mark (but I'm also a moderately fast artist, so your mileage may vary).

I think the terrible quality makes them charming, actually. I really like how silly they look. :')))

I will add, when you draw your "page" rectangle, make sure it's the same proportions as your actual canvas for the final image. You want an accurate idea of how much space each panel will take up, especially if you have a lot of text.

3. Sketching

This is my most recent change to my usual workflow, and it's saving me a lot of time. I make my thumbnails a bit bigger (each one about half the size of the final canvas), and I sketch these basic body forms right over them.

It just helps give me placement for my actual lines!

I usually draw these in a paleish color so I can lower the opacity and not get distracted by them while lining. The random darker parts are to either help keep two forms separate (like when two characters have their limbs all over) or to better define sections that were too sloppy/poorly proportioned.

I also think this helps my poses stay looser, because I have more dramatic/wriggly shapes that aren't too bogged down by proportions yet.

Sidenote: I CANNOT show this here, but sometimes this is when I take videos. Of myself. I prop my phone camera up and shoot a video of me acting each panel. :/// It looks really dumb, but it also shows me fun body language ideas like hand gestures, expressions, weight distribution, etc. Just pretend you're an overdramatic cartoon character, and try not to worry about your roommates or mother walking in on you doing odd things. (You can also use the video for anatomy reference later, but I usually just capture the vibe and don't try to copy the actual video frame.)

4. Panels & Text

Oh, boy. So, the panels are usually just straight lines (though it's fun to make creative exceptions, like a round panel to mimic looking through a spyglass), but there are some fancy rules that I don't strictly adhere to.

I believe (I have no technical training in this. Take everything I say with a grain of salt) the vertical gaps (between two side-by-side panels) should all be a consistent width and the horizontal gaps (between two panels on top of each other) should be another. The vertical ones? Should be thinner? Because you want the eye to easily glide between them, whereas the horizontal gaps should be a visual barrier to keep you from jumping ahead. Just something I've vaguely noticed.

There are lots of fun "default layouts" you can look up. Or keep it a consistent grid. I think it's fun to sometimes have characters/objects sticking out of panels and overlapping others. This is just a matter of taste, creativity, and inspiration. (Read Witch Hat Atelier... It has some of my favorite paneling...)

You may also notice I have already done the speech bubbles. This is, to me, a crucial step. This helps me catch early if I don't have enough room for all the words. It also lets me plan the art in each panel with the speech bubbles in mind. There's nothing worse than working really hard on a panel, and then you realize there's no room for the bubbles.

I also try to lay them out in a way that guides the eye! Even without art, can people tell where to go next? Better yet, if I want people to look at panels out of order (aka not left to right, in my case), can I use the speech bubble path to make them? Here's just a vague example of what I mean.

As an added bonus, doing speech bubbles early also allows me to be lazy! :) Ignore the comic; I'm not supposed to post it yet oops,, There's a whole lot of drawing to do on each comic page, and I am not wasting my time on stuff that will be covered up. So yes, if I hide my bubbles, there are a lot of unfinished lines trailing off into nothing. (As a bonus, if there's a part of a character you're struggling with—and it won't look weird to do so—you can move speech bubbles to just hide the problem area yayyy)

Making the actual bubbles could be their own whole tutorial, tbh, but there are some general guidelines I use.

Zoom out when you choose your font size. You want to know how it will look to the average reader, so it isn't super teeny tiny or way too big. You generally want to keep the same text size for all your pages/bubbles.

When I draw bubbles, I try to size them about one vertical letter height (and some change) around the words [left side]. This isn't always the case though, because humorously large or funny shaped text bubbles can convey different feelings [right side].

On Procreate, I set my bubble lines to Reference and just drag-and-drop the white fill on a separate layer below the lines. (Remember to turn Reference back off again when you're done, or your fill bucket won't work right when you're drawing.)

To get the white outlines I use to keep the bubbles from cluttering up the art, I literally just Gaussian blur an all-white copy of the lines + fills... and then I copy and merge it 5 times until it's opaque enough. This is a terrible way to do it, but it works for me. :')

5. Lines

This is the part that I can't tell you how to do. I literally just. Draw right over my wacky sketched body forms. Boom. Comic drawn.

I'll make three suggestions:

Don't focus on making every panel perfect. Give a little extra love to big ones or ones you want people to linger on. Otherwise, know that people are typically speeding through the art. It's way more important to focus on storytelling than art technique. In my opinion, a good story that's told well will always be better than a beautiful one told poorly. (Some comics are beautiful AND well-written... Alas, I am just a hobbyist who needs to get the ideas out of my head at top speed.)

Put your background lines on a different layer. Put your foreground lines on a different layer too, if you have those. Basically, I try to keep the main part of each panel (usually a character or object) on my lines layer so I can erase background/foreground/etc lines to ensure clarity/focus.

You can make background lines lighter colors too. I have too many numbers sorry. (1) Background. The stuff that's farthest away. Lightest lines. Few details; more focused on shapes and the suggestion of a background (I'm not good at backgrounds). (2) Midground. Same distance away as the characters are. Lines can be black. (3) Also midground, and also the same distance away. But they're very detailed, so I lighten them so they aren't so distracting. (4) The characters. Black lines for focus. For people who haven't seen the comic, I swear they are just hugging. This is SFW. D:

6. Tones/Colors

Do not. Do NOT ask me. I don't understand colors. I hate working with them, but I try because I want to improve. I hate doing anything beyond the simplest grayscale shading. Please go elsewhere for your coloring/tone advice. This is how my color picker looks 95% of the time. I have pre-set "percentages" of black that I got by lowering the opacity of a black layer and just color picking it. I don't even know the exact percentages I used. Good luck out there. Be better than me.

7. Sharing

This is a bonus step that I didn't mention earlier, but it's actually the most important of all of them.

You need a friend. Or maybe a groupchat or discord. A family member or coworker if you're really close like that. I don't know.

Find SOMEWHERE you can spam wips and be cheered on. Drawing comics takes a while, especially if you're trying to tell longer stories than I'd dare to attempt. If I don't force someone to praise me for every line I draw, I shrivel up and die.

Also if and when you post online, add alt text. I'll admit I'm the first person to complain and drag my feet on this, and I literally use a screenreader myself when my eyes hurt (strong prescription glasses wearer). Comics should be accessible, because stories are fun and everyone should be able to enjoy them.

***

Learning???

And I guess lastly, how do you learn to make comics? Two steps: 1) read them and 2) make them. This is the tragedy of creating things.

1) Reading them: I grew up reading comic strips, western serialized comics, and webcomics. I've always loved graphic novels too. Then in late middle school, I started reading manga (Death Note and Haikyuu were my first two), and now I'm trying to read more webtoons (sorry im so slow bree)!

I also... mass-consume doujinshi, thanks to proxy mailing services and bilingual friends/Google Translate/knowing some Korean. (I have an entire bookshelf of doujin, actually,,)

The thing is, it's not usually enough to just read comics. You also need to be thinking. :/ I notice paneling, comic devices, clever comedic timing, etc. as I go. It's just a lot of studying/learning while also enjoying the story.

2) Making them: You just have to start. :( Even if you think they're "bad." My first comics were actually just drawings placed randomly all over the page, connected by speech bubbles (yay... I was already practicing how to place bubbles to lead the eye around the page...). I was going to post a pic here, but I'm a coward. Backscroll my account and you can find some older ones though.

I also know my art in general improved dramatically when I did ten comics in ten weeks for my friend's fic. Don't do this. It hurt my hands/wrists. But do practice in moderation.

***

If you actually read all that... I hope it made even a modicum of sense. And maybe it was even helpful? Just know at the end of the day, there is literally no right way to draw a comic.

And if you aren't ready to go for it yet, you can start by just adding a couple speech bubbles to your illustrations or doodles! It's a way to add storytelling and dialogue writing to things you may already be making.

Yay. I love comics. :))))

#art tips #ask #THANK YOU FOR ASKING THIS #PLEASE TALK TO ME ABOUT STORYTELLING AND ART AND COMICS #i have so much more i can say but i will not because this post is already way too dense #ive been meaning to finish/post this for so long im sorry #making comics is this fun blend of THINKING REALLY HARD AND WITH PURPOSE and doing things innately and you rly dont know why #reference #art reference #i dont remember my tutorial tag #oh. was it #tutorial #I DONT REMEMBER

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watarfallar · 6 months ago

Text

Still got the brain worms

Grian: Are you good? Scar: In what sense? Grian: Generally. Scar: Oh, definitely not.

Scar: Wait you like me? For my personality? Grian: I know, I was surprised too.

Grian: I'm not mean. Name one mean thing I’ve ever done. Scar: When we were younger, you convinced me eggs weren't real. Grian: They're not. Scar: Haha, very funny. Grian: I'm serious. Didn't you hear? Scar: No… what happened? Grian: …Why would you fall for this again-

Grian: Why are you on fire? Scar: This is just how my day is going.

Grian: DID YOU REALLY THINK THAT JOKE WAS FUNNY? IT WASNT. NOBODY IS LAUGHING. Grian: pulls up a graph THIS IS WHEN YOU TOLD YOUR JOKE, YOU HAVE SINGLE HANDEDLY RUINED COMEDY! IVE ALSO ASKED MANY COMEDY SCHOLARS ON THEIR OPINION OF YOUR JOKE AND THIS IS WHAT THEY HAD TO SAY! Scar: I've been researching comedy for the past 20 years, and I have genuinely never seen a joke this bad. We have used quantum physics to look into alternate universes to see every joke made, and yours was still by far the worst. Grian: CONGRATULATIONS! YOUVE SINGLE HANDEDLY CREATED THE WORST JOKE IN HUMAN HISTORY! HERES A MEDAL! pulls up a horrible ms paint drawn star that says "you need help

Grian: I believe in you, Scar! Scar, to themself: God, I must suck. The nicest thing Grian can think to say to me is that they don’t doubt my existence.

Grian: Last night, I had a dream about sandwich pizza. Scar: What? Grian: It was pizza with bread on the top and the bottom. Scar: So a calzone? Grian: You can’t just name things I dream up.

Scar: Good morning! Grian: Is it? Is it really?

Scar: Grian just said "I have an appetite for destruction" and then they reached down and untied my shoe.

Grian: But that’s censorship. Scar: Well done. You are correct. You’re being censored. Now go.

Scar: So I was just having a conversation with Grian about Star Wars; particularly, about the choice of architecture. The amount of people who die from falling down bottomless pits is TOO DAMN HIGH! Like, who designs architecture like this? Catwalks with no guard rails whatsoever, just zigging and zagging through enormous voids. Giant holes to nowhere! Grian: It's by design. It's a cleaner look, for a more elegant time. Scar: Like… who the fuck put this hole here???? And why???? Grian: Exhaust? Scar: Darth Maul falls down a hole, Palpatine falls down a hole, Solo falls down a hole, everyone falls down a hole! Star Wars universe needs OSHA. Grian: Luke falls down a hole, Boba Fett falls down a hole… Scar: Yes, yes, I forgot about those! R2-D2 falls down a hole in the Millenium Falcon after he fixes the hyperdrive. Grian: We're onto something here! Scar: Obi-Wan almost falls down a hole. Grian: C-3PO falls off the barge into the sand. Pretty close to falling down a hole. Scar: His lightsaber does though. Grian thinks hard about what other Star Wars Characters fall down holes Scar: What if the hole is symbolic? The hole represents the dark side. Grian: Nah, doesn't work. Luke chooses to fall down the hole instead of joining Vader/The Dark Side. Scar: Fair point.

Grian: How long do you think it'll take? Scar: I don’t know, three or four. Grian: Three or four what? Days? Weeks? Months? Scar: Yeah, maybe five. Grian: Five what?!

Scar: Ah shit, I forgot. Grian: Forgot what? Scar: How do you expect me to answer that?

Scar: Why do you think I don’t like you? I do. I would kill for you. Scar: Ask me to kill for you. Grian: …First of all, calm down-

Grian: Being half asleep and feeling someone gently plant a kiss on your forehead is one of the purest kinds of love in the world. Scar: Unless you're home alone.

Scar: My goal is not to be the best, but to inspire someone enough to one day surpass me. Grian: YOU CAN'T JUST SAY THAT EVERY TIME YOU BEAT ME AT CONNECT FOUR!

Grian: Act natural. Scar: For this kind of situation, the most natural thing would be to panic, so technically I can panic. Grian: NO, that’s not what I meant! Act like it’s a normal day! Scar: My ‘normal’ days of late, consist of a lot of panic. Grian: Will you just cooperate? Scar: When a person is panicking, they are not apt to cooperate very well!

Scar: venting endlessly to Grian about their week Grian, every once in a while: in a monotone Wow, that is so wild.

Grian: A banker? Me? Scar: Yes, Grian. Grian: But I don’t know anything about running a bank! Scar: Good. No preconceived ideas. Grian: I’ve robbed banks! Scar: Capital! Just reverse your thinking. The money should be on the inside.

At the police station Scar: Hi, I’m here for Grian. Police officer: Who’s Grian? Scar: Ah, you must be new.

#grian #gtws #incorrect quotes #desert duo #scarian #enjoy💜💜💜

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mercuriians · 11 months ago

Note

I feel like a fic about Atsumu, Oikawa, and Bokuto finding their s/o reading fanfic about them would be hilarious

(You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to <3)

Have a lovely day and thank you if you end up doing this request <33333

a fantasy world

content info — gender neutral! reader, fluffy hq!! drabbles with some crack & hurt/comfort (sounds weird but bear w it, all separate). a teeny tiny bit suggestive in atsumu's part cuz he's a little shit.

word count — 1.9k words.

author’s note — holy HELL this is so late 😭 anon i hope ur still here, i made this pretty long so that's my way of apologizing. im also praying that atsumu is in character because this is only the second time ive written him. anyway, tysm for requesting!! hope u all like this <3

MIYA ATSUMU

your eyes are obstinately glued to your phone, wholly transfixed by the words that were typed across the screen. not a single soul knew about your little hobby and quite frankly, it was likely better that they remained oblivious. you wouldn’t know how to react if anyone found out, but really, there was one particular person who absolutely had to stay unaware.

as it turns out, they were also the very subject of the story you’re currently reading—of course, none other than your sweet, beloved boyfriend, atsumu. not that the term ‘sweet’ was an especially fitting term for him. ooh, that was a sick burn.

now, obviously you loved the boy. atsumu was bold, intelligent, thoughtful, hardworking, and affectionate to the point where osamu and the rest of his team often complained about how shameless he was in front of them. his spirit burned bright with fiery ambition, glimmering red and orange and yellow, and he introduced a kind of light into your life that you had never quite experienced before. at first you were a little wary at first, a little blinded by how much he shone, but because you were just as stubborn as he was, you soon grew used to it.

if anything, you came to learn that atsumu was undoubtedly one of the most inspirational people out there. motivating his peers was like second-nature to him, and even if he didn’t consciously put in the effort to inspire them, he still ended up doing so anyway. his love for volleyball was blatant in its authenticity, in its obsession. so when coupled with his charisma, and, yes, his boyishly good looks, atsumu developed a serious kind of gravitational pull. it was no wonder so many people were drawn in—yourself included.

but, inevitably, something had to be sacrificed. your boyfriend’s devotion to the game often meant that you two didn’t get to spend much time together. if atsumu wasn’t practicing at the gym, then he was either thinking about doing it, on his way to doing it, or—this happens only under the direst of circumstances—recovering from doing it. he was, in every sense of the word, a workaholic.

you were fine with it for the most part, mostly because you had a busy schedule to deal with yourself. if you weren’t doing homework or studying for an upcoming exam for the sake of staying on top of your classes, then you were either fulfilling your duties as a student council member, playing your respective sport, or taking care of things at home.

regardless, there were still times when you wished atsumu was with you. it didn’t matter if he was spewing volleyball jargon, or forcing you to pepper with him, or anything like that. you just wanted to spend time with him, to actually see him and his stupid face and his stupid smile that you want to kiss so badly.

maybe that’s why you’re so zeroed in on the fanfiction you’re reading—to try and make up for what you’ve been deprived of for days on end. a very palpable twinge of sadness tugs at your heart. you push the unwanted sentiment to the depths of your mind, trying to focus on reading the story again.

god, what sentence were you even on? and why was the door suddenly opening—

“hey baby, did ya miss me?”

your soul leaves your body.

before you even have time to think, a shrill scream rips from your throat as you scramble to hide your phone underneath the covers. atsumu's jaw drops, completely and utterly befuddled by your behavior. after a moment he raises his hands in mock surrender. "jeez, darlin', it's just me. your boyfriend, remember?" atsumu says, brow raised. there's a mixture of emotions written across his face—slight concern, palpable amusement, even some suspicion. "what are ya hidin' there on your phone, anyway?"

finally, you seem to find your voice. "n-nothing important," you mumble, clearly and very intentionally avoiding the intensity of atsumu's hawk-like gaze. "i didn't even know you'd be visiting today.. thought you would be busy with practice again."

maybe it's because your boyfriend knows you so well by now, but he catches the hint of bitterness in your tone. his face softens, and he takes one, two, three steps toward you until he's taking up the space on your left. "coach called in sick, so mister perfect decided to just cancel practice for today," atsumu shrugs. you're still somewhat upset, but you can't help but smile at the setter's nickname for his captain—kita shinsuke, the closest embodiment of perfection that anyone's ever seen.

"i'm pretty sure i texted ya that i would be dropping by," your boyfriend adds, glancing over at you. cautiously, you pull out your phone again and open up the messages app. lo and behold, he did in fact text you, but you were too busy with your fanfiction to notice.

your face burns with the weight of your embarrassment.

a small chuckle escapes from atsumu's mouth. "wow, i haven't even done anything and you're already blushin' for me," he teases. you hit his chest halfheartedly, muttering about how mean he's being. you fail to notice the calculating glint in his eyes. you also fail to notice his hand wandering.

a second later, atsumu grins smugly, your phone held securely in his grip.

"what the hell, 'sumu?!" you screech, trying to retrieve the object in vain. "how did you even—"

"i'm good with my hands," he winks, and you don't even have time to scold him for the clear innuendo because he's typing in the password to your phone. all you can do is accept your fate as atsumu discovers the story you were reading.

as expected, he laughs. loudly. it's almost like the laugh he lets out whenever he wins a bet against osamu. you turn away, shame and humiliation gnawing at your chest. there's nothing more you want than to be swallowed by the floor beneath you.

however, when atsumu's laughter dies down a few moments later, you feel him wrapping an arm around your shoulder. "baby," he begins, voice still a little breathless from all his cackling, "why are ya reading this when ya got the real thing right here?"

you look up at him, a confusing mess of emotions swirling within your stomach. "because we don't seem to spend much time together anymore," you admit, lowering your eyes to the ground. "laugh all you want, but these stories are there for me whenever i need them. you probably think it's stupid, or pathetic, or whatever, but.. i miss you, 'sumu."

you close your eyes, preparing to hear another round of thunderous laughter. it never comes.

"open yer eyes for me, babe," atsumu's voice is unexpectedly soft, tender. hesitantly, you do, and your gaze meets his. your boyfriend reaches out, resting a calloused hand against your cheek. his touch is so familiar, so comforting, that you can't do anything else but lean in and welcome it. "i didn't know that ya were feelin' this way, and i'll admit that it's my fault for not noticing. but hey, you wanna know somethin'?"

"what is it?" you whisper.

"i miss ya too," your boyfriend confesses. he leans in, placing a soft kiss against your lips. "and tomorrow, i'm taking ya out on a date."

OIKAWA TOORU

"oh my god, this is so cute," you sigh dreamily, swinging your feet in satisfaction as you indulge yourself. it was fanfiction, for crying out loud—can you really be blamed? this particular story practically reeked of fluff. you had just received flowers from the male lead, with you two having confessed just a few days ago. now you were on the first date, entering the doorway to a beautiful relationship that made every reader jealous.

the fact that the male lead—the infamous setter of aoba johsai, fanboy of iwaizumi hajime, hater of ushijima wakatoshi—also happened to be your boyfriend was just a minor detail.

you continued reading, the outside world completely irrelevant as you immersed yourself in the story. soon another squeal leaves your lips as oikawa, the male lead, bends down to kiss your hand. he says something swoonworthy, causing you to giggle like a madman. "that's it, i'm marrying you," you say, as if he can hear you through the story.

"marrying who?"

you let out a defeated sigh as your boyfriend pops his head into your room. there's a pout on oikawa's face, his mocha eyes filled with mock betrayal. still there's a part of you that knows he actually is a little bit jealous; he just doesn't know that technically, he's jealous of himself. "who are you marrying, babe?" he asks you somewhat accusingly. "i think it's a bit too early for—"

"shut up please," you groan, a bit sad that your reading session got interrupted. "i'm reading this fanfiction of you, and in the story, you're actually nice to me."

you immediately hear an indignant gasp from your boyfriend. he puts a hand to his chest, his pout now even more prominent. "excuse me, i am nice to you," oikawa scoffs as he walks over, squinting at the story you're reading. "i'm way better than him!"

"you are him," you deadpan.

"exactly! why are you reading that when i'm right here? i'm hurt," oikawa says in disapproval, shaking his head at you. "now move over."

you blink—once, twice. "wait, what?"

"i wanna read too," oikawa says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world, "so i can list all the things they got wrong about me."

BOKUTO KOUTAROU

maybe reading fanfiction about your boyfriend wasn't the best idea. it's not that the story wasn't great because it really was—the characterization was on-point, the writing style was smooth and elegant, and the plot was creative. it's more about your boyfriend himself. particularly the way that he reacted when he found out.

"am i not good enough?" bokuto asked you quietly as he stared up at you. his golden eyes were absolutely despondent, his shoulders were slouched, and even his owlish hair looked like it was deflated. you didn't need akaashi to understand that those were all signs of an emo bokuto.

and it was all because of you.

man, the guilt was unbearable.

"koutarou," you say softly, reaching out to wrap your arms around his broad shoulders. "baby, you are more than enough for me. you're amazing, okay? you're my anchor, and you make me smile when no one else can. compared to you, this fanfiction means nothing." you pause, placing a tender kiss against his warm cheek. "seeing you sad makes me sad, you know?"

"i'm sorry," bokuto mumbles, burying his face in the crook of your shoulder. "i thought i'd let you down or something, like i wasn't being a good boyfriend. it scared me."

his words make your heart hurt even more. you pull away from the hug, letting your earnest gaze meet his. "from now on, you don't have to be scared," you tell him seriously. "i'll stop reading fanfiction, and every day, i'll remind you of how much you mean to me. is that fair, kou?"

bokuto nods, and it's at that moment that you start to see the gloomy aura around him disappear. "i love you," he says, and you can tell that he means it. he always does.

you pull him closer, your fingers combing through his hair soothingly. he hums quietly, enjoying the feeling. "i love you too, koutarou," you smile. "and no story will ever change that."

you let a few moments pass by, simply listening to the comforting sound of his heartbeat. slowly, you let your eyes close, your boyfriend's strong embrace lulling you to a light rest. after a few moments, though, bokuto's voice breaks through the silence. "can i ask you a question, babe?"

you open your eyes. "anything."

he pulls away, his expression completely serious as he looks at you. "can we get something to eat?"

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dreamsy990 · 5 months ago

Text

heres my designs for all the important gods (I FORGOT HEPHAESTUS SORRY) in epic

thoughts/explanations behind the designs + sketches under the cut

general notes: my biggest headcanon for the gods designs is that they can be just about anything because they (within some limits) choose how they appear. so a god can look like just about anything, but its almost always mostly human. the only real rules to that i think are that 1) their design should usually try to incorporate their main symbols/domain in some way (in some way allows for a lot of range though, so athena for example is very much a bird creature since shes very associated with owls, but aphrodite has just some roses and shells in her hair, and 2) things like scars and such cant be hidden. this rule mostly only matters for athena. i realize i incorporated gold into almost all of their designs but that wasnt intentional lol. anyways let meee talk about the specific gods now. also for fun, no god has normal eyes. theyre either shadowed out entirely, weird shapes, or have no pupils. or all three! i think weird eyes is what distinguishes a god in my designs. i havent done this in my circe or calypso designs but since theyre not quite gods but adjacent i might give them similarly weird eye shapes but also pupils. idk we'll see!

aeolus: so my aeolus design is originally from a sketch i did in class. i was trying to draw telemachus with long hair based on a friends fic and then i was like "oh this looks like how i imagine aeolus would" and the next thing i drew is pretty much Just this final design. i drew aeolus very loosely, he has a clear shape but he should never be fully defined if that makes sense? so when coloring it i decided fuck it he looks like a weird mass of clouds now. its fun! i might change that but idk. also its subtly trans colors because i believe in transmasc aeolus supremacy. i imagine him moving around very freely and seeming to appear and disappear out of nowhere

apollo: so i think apollo is actually the oldest design here? which is to say that i drew apollo ONCE in my sketchbook at the start of my epic hyperfixation and got really into this specific design. i sort of wanted to color him similarly to uh, if you know ginjaninja their design for their oc kynthia? but i ended up going with more just white and gold to keep it simple. i LOVE tiny color palettes lol. the original outfit i believeee was inspired by gigi's hermes actually? but i havent looked at that design in a while so its probably changed. he has a halo that originally looked more like the sun but ive simplified it a bit. why? its cool. also i mightve stolen that from somebody else but i literally CANNOT remember. anyways one fact about this design is that the first time i drew it i labelled it WHORE. you can see i did that in the sketch here too. in his honor.

hermes: little freak guy!! theres honestly not THAT much to say here about hermes. i drew him with a little messenger bag once and i cant NOT draw him with it now i think its cute. i draw odysseus, ctimene, and telemachus all with a gaptooth, and i've never drawn anticlea but i've had the conscious thought that id give it to her too, so fuck it! hermes gets it. it comes from him. the family gaptooth is from him i hope youre happy hermes erfgfrefgfr. color scheme wise i wanted to keep it mostly simple again, i always pictured hermes with silver/white hair for some reason idk why but thats here! and he has rainbow. because is it even hermes without rainbow. i might darken this palette a bit but i am pretty happy with him.

athena: so my athena design ive drawn a ton and shes changed a lot over time. i didnt originally want her to look tooooo birdlike? and then i committed to owlthena because its just FUN man. anyways her silhouette is meant to look very closed off, her "cloak" covers most of her body, just generally shes supposed to seem sort of unapproachable. (note: hes not here but i do this with odysseus too! both because i wanted a similar kind of closed off look for him, and that i wanted him and athena to have visual parallels). her cloak is actually just her wings though! i doodled them unfolded so you can see her without them, as well as without her helmet. her helmet covers one of her eyes with a shadow (again to make her look like shes sort of hiding something), which was a design choice i made BEFORE we found out she lost an eye to zeus, so! coincidentally its good for hiding that scar :]. i doodled her with long black hair ONE WHOLE TIME and its stuck in my mind since so i have to keep that design element forever now. sorry official brunette athena youre not real to me. her color scheme was a STRUGGLE for me though. i knew i wanted to fit blue in there somewhere, but i wasnt really sure how? i eventually caved and made her mostly black and silver with a bit of blue in there. the blue and black gives more magpie energy to her than owl, but i dont know, i like it. i might mess with it more, but yeah! athena! shes really fun to draw lol. i imagine shed be animated in a very constrained sort of way most of the time like her design sort of implies. she doesnt really make big gestures or unnecessary movements she would be sort of uncanny in how still she is most of the time i think.

aries: ive had an aries design for a while so i was basically just finalizing it here. he was supposed to look both very similar to athena and very opposite of her. so they have nearly identical outfits, they both have a helmet shadowing their eyes (but it shadows both of aries' here), theyve both got a lot of animal features (although aries is less visible here, he's a bit dog inspired. you can see his tail eheh), etc. the main difference is that aries is meant to look a lot less, for lack of a better word restrained? his scarf (because its really more of a scarf than a cloak like athena has) only covers part of his face and absolutely none of his body, so it think it gives him a look more like hes ready to fight at any second than athena. i also wanted him to look very scarred/like his armor is scratched up. he and athena are both war gods, but aries is much more likely to throw himself into things and get hurt, while athena plans things in such a way where shes almost never actually hit. brute force vs strategy and whatnot. i sort of wish id made his scars golden too, to look a bit more like athena though. originally the black was red, but it looked really bad, which SUCKS because i wanted the red to contrast with athenas blue. but he just has red eyes here.

aphrodite: very little thought behind this one because my first sketch of her was like two days ago and very inspired by gigis. i sort of wanted her to look doll-like and have a cupids bow lip, but otherwise i got NOTHING girl. shes got pearls and shells in her hair to allude to her connection with the sea though. also roses because i wanted to put in one more symbol and that was a nice way to get a bit more red in there.

hera: im the least happy with this design, almost entirely because of the coloring. i sketched it being more purple, but then i realized that 1) peacocks are a lot more green and 2) IM STEALING FROM JUNE AGAIN!!! THATS HOW JUNE DREW THEIR OC IN A MIRACULOUS AU GODDAMNIT. so the colors are traditional peacock and im NOT happy with them at all. the design is also still basically stolen from june once again i am SO sorry their work is just so integrated into my mind that its a part of me now i do it without thinking. very little notes here otherwise unfortunately,,,,

zeus: weirdly enough i think this is my favorite design? which is WILD because i basically thought of it on the spot like two or three days ago for a shitpost based on a silly manwhore au-adjacent fic i read. the design over all is inspired by neal's? but honestly i think ive done my own thing with it a bit. i didnt really want to do clouds in his hair because id associated that with aeolus in my head, but then i thought of it fading into a dark grey like stormclouds, and having his scarf like lightning? and then he appeared fully formed in front of me. bro is BARELY dressed dude put a shirt on. also his eyebrows are cloud shaped like ursaluna. i fucking hate this dude but im happy with this design

poseidon: OKAY SO POSEIDON IS THE MOST OUT THERE DESIGN HERE I THINK. hes definitely the most inhuman looking one despite us having literally a bird right there, but that was somewhat intentional? and also somewhat because i had a very clear vision of him and needed to make it real exactly as i first thought sorry. anyways, for some characterization, i think with my idea of the gods choosing their appearances and poseidon being a lot more monstrous, you could say he CHOOSES to look unnerving. side note, this is very personal to me but i really like the idea of athena looking more like poseidon than any of her other family. i dont know WHY i just got really attached to that idea. so they have the same hair and somewhat similar faces i think. the resemblance isnt major but it is THERE for sure.

and thaaaats all the gods! i hope you like them :] im going to go review for a test i have tomorrow now

#doodles #epic the musical #aeolus #hermes #athena #aphrodite #zeus #poseidon #ares #apollo #hera #thaats all of them i think #i put a lot of love into these designs i hope people like them

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