#and I had to write them down because theyre really well done

[ashanimus]

Owl House Face Reveals and Why They Work

I'm so behind on my Huntlow week contribution but I have to exorcise these bees from my brain.

One thing I have noticed that The Owl House does really well are face reveals. Each time we've had them they have been genuinely unexpected and interesting. Now, face reveals are nothing new in media, and in many genres within the speculative fiction box they kind of have their own language and preset expectations depending on the assumed archetype of a character.

Growing up in the 90's, this was quite consistent (particularly with anime). When a Cool, Masked Character or Villain shows up, there's usually an instant of the mask getting revealed in a moment of vulnerability that shows us what the character looks like--but in a wide variety of these reveals...the conclusion is often along the lines of:

Protag: Oh. They're a lot cuter than I was expecting!

There's often a little romantic subtext here too, but not always.

And for all the benefits (and true banes) of anime-type character design, it was/is very common for the resultant revealed face to be conventionally attractive (or drawn to be perceived that way). I know that this is a sort of gentle pushback to the historical VILLAIN=UGLY trope that is nowhere near as prevalent as it used to be, but after thirty years of prettyface mask reveals, it ended up paving the way for strong, sleeping expectation of mask=pretty underneath instead.

And as a result, we're not taking away much more information that what was already expected (re: masked character not so bad) when the character showed up masked to begin with.

Now, this isn't always bad. But in the case of a face reveal, it's supposed to be a moment that establishes really important visual information quickly--and if it's doubled with the "masked character is unconscious/injured" there's a good chance they wouldn't normally let our hero get that close to begin with. The point is, the scene has heavy lifting to do!

Which brings me to our first big face reveal in Owl House, Hunter.

So at this point, the Golden Guard has made his debut--he's been set up as a "genius teen prodigy". This is loaded language that anyone who grew up watching anime instantly understands. Even if you don't though, the way Lilith talks about him sets him up for this expectation well. In this scene, he shows up as a cocky little asshole with a lot of bravado but also, importantly, some key visual indicactors of power. He's got a staff in his right hand, a cage in the other, and is wearing heavy armor and of course the mask. He shows up in a fifty foot fist made of boiling salt water.

Without showing us his face, the show has already laid a pretty strong, unconscious foundation for what the audience is going to see under there! So when we get our classic moment:

This scene moves so much VERY quickly.

First, the Golden Guard's face doesn't resemble the archetypal expectation the audience might have had based on what had been set up. If anything, we're getting a lot of traits all at once we're not used to on a sympathetically portrayed character (more on this in a second). They also wisely destroy any possible interpretation of romantic subtext by giving us a sibling slapfight immediately. But the biggest takeaway from this quick scene visually is the fact the Golden Guard here very young, about Luz's age, maybe a little older--a detail highlighted by our hero herself--and VERY vulnerable. Very murderable. See how his torso (heart) is twisted up, head is tipped back and the eyebrows are scrunched up? Makes him quite a bit "smaller" looking even though he's quite tall compared to the other kids.

But what does this do for visual understanding of a scene? When expectations are subverted, the viewer in a way is able to absorb the visual information with new eyes. When a mask reveal shows us something actually surprising, it actually allows us to absorb the visual details without sorting them into an archetype. So what do we see? Who is the Golden Guard without his mask, his armor, or the trappings of his power?

Well...he has a lot of traits classically associated with unsympathetic characters, to start! He has dark heavy brows, reddish eyes in an ashy face, an aquiline nose and a big ol' gap in his teeth. He's got a ragged ear. Now lately, eye bags and facial scars have come into vogue for heroes, but not usually in combination with all of those other traits (if it was just the scar or even the ear, it wouldn't have told us much). And even here, they're startling because no other character in the show displays eye bags or prominent scarring--not even the mercenaries or adults. He's also fabulously expressive and earnest regardless of emotion, which takes the edge off any potential ability to intimidate (and we know he's about as intimidating as a kale salad as shown when he tries to order the Coven Scouts around at the precinct).

At this point, now that whatever preconceived vision of the mysterious Golden Guard has been blown out of the water, we're able to absorb what each individual character design choice is actually telling us.

This is one busted-ass teenager.

The eyebags show he's exhausted/stressed. The facial scar is a brutal fucking injury and the kind of thing that you get when someone is deliberately trying to hurt you (in combat or...well. what's implied to later be the actual reason). The ripped ear highlights the idea he's seen a lot of combat. The gap teeth highlight the childish imperfection and youth.

One of the things that struck me most about watching this for the first time and watching other reaction videos (a lot of them of different ages and demographics to get a decent sample size) was the incredible consistency of the response to all this visual information! Almost every single one of them were some variant or combination of these two thoughts: "Oh no, he's so young, poor thing! Is he okay?" And even better--the audience understands the answer to that question the minute they ask it, even before the conclusion of the episode. No, he is certainly not! This brainwashed child is in a lot of physical and emotional danger!

Which is GREAT! That's clearly what the intent was. An given how much of a little shithead he was in his first appearances, it was really amazing to see how thoroughly he was able to go from that to instantly sympathetic--as well as visually very interesting.

The Owl House demonstrates a lot of mastery over animation and writing techniques/tropes. You could fill a book on the topic (please oh please let there be an art book at the end please please please). But I REALLY loved how they handled face reveals especially, and to date this one in particular is probably my favorite.

[liquidstar]

a friend who'd wait :)

[ofcowardiceandkings]

the sinus headaches are already not great but Extra Shit has been added to the pile and im just sat on that right now trying to figure out what the fuck to do

[renjunphile]

for the rest of ours ᡣ𐭩 song eunseok

୨♡୧ WORD COUNT: 13.4k ୨♡୧ PAIRING: riize's song eunseok x female!reader ୨♡୧ TAGS & WARNINGS: chaebol heirs!au, rich kids!au, one sided enemies to lovers!au, arranged marriage!au, angsty at the start, overall fluff, reader is selfish and mean to eunseok for a good chunk of the story, brief unrequited love but y/n is an unreliable narrator tbh, second chance romance, she fell first but he fell harder trope, drinking, partying, non linear narrative

୨♡୧ SYNOPSIS: you find song eunseok to be utterly and despicably insufferable. too bad he's your fiancé since birth! and there was nothing you could do about it!

୨♡୧ NOTES: OHHHH im having such an intense eunseok rot that i had to write the most gut wrenching and nonsensical piece that becomes to sickeningly fluffy at the end. theyre just so in love with each other and there's literally no plot at all!!!!!!!!!!! lowkey one of the worst pieces i've written in recent times since i rushed it but i will edit and add scenes and plot in the future :> but for now, enjoy! ♡ i.b let my by zayn at the end :)

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

It may be disturbing for some and horrifying to say, but your eyes hadn't even fully formed in the womb to open and your limbs weren't even well defined enough to have joints when your life was signed off to another's. For goodness' sake, it had barely even been a month since your tiny, minuscule heart started beating! What would the Song's have done if you grew up ugly?

You sighed to yourself, muttering under your breath how Korea's third richest family should be grateful you were akin to art in anyone's eyes. You were looking through the dusty photo albums that the housekeeper found while tidying the primary study of the mansion, and you grimaced at the photos of your fiancé that appeared from even the very first page.

It was bad enough that you were engaged before you were born, but did he really have to attend your birth? He probably didn't even have memories then! But there it was, under your fingertips: a perfectly preserved photo of a 3-month old Eunseok bundled up in sleep suit being posed next to where the nurses placed you after they literally just took you out of your mother. You don't even think the umbilical cord had been cut yet.

"Y/N, Mr. Song is outside," your favourite housekeeper coos at you from the double doors going into the study. You give her a terse smile and stand up from your father's office chair, straightening your silk gown before taking her hand as she helped you down the marble stairs of your home.

You roll your eyes (mostly to yourself, but you didn't mind if he noticed) as you saw his car parked at the bottom of the stairs leading to your front door.

"You can't even be bothered to come and collect me? Or open the door for me?" you sneer as soon as you settled yourself into the passenger seat.

"Well hello to you too, my lovely wife," Eunseok smirks, immediately revving and setting off around the fountain of your courtyard.

"I'm not your wife," you snap, deciding to ignore when the word 'yet' seems to slip under his breath, "But seriously Eunseok? This car? I'm going to look so stupid trying to get out of this car in my dress and heels. Why do you love sitting on the floor so much?"

Eunseok has an extensive car range. One that any car junkie would envy, but Song Eunseok knew nothing about cars. He just had them because he could. This car was a sports car where you had to sit in such a ridiculous position just so the car could look cool on the outside.

"It's white!" he defends himself, slightly whining in a cute way to which you swallow down a positive reaction. His eyes flicker over to you momentarily and his tongue traces across his bottom lip, "You look gorgeous, by the way. Very bridal."

You're wearing a white silk dress that looks like it's made for your body. It's draped so beautifully around your hips and hugs every part that needs to be accentuated. You loved this dress the second you saw it in Paris, but you never thought then that it would be used for this occasion. 

"Just shut up and drive," you quip. It takes a few moments of silence for you to feel bad even though his expression remains neutral and you sigh, "I guess you don't look too bad."

"Aw, I knew you were in love with me!" he teases again, a phrase he liked to use every time you said something to him that wasn't snarky, sarcastic or an insult.

You choose not to reply, instead taking in the bright lights of Seoul as he pulls into a main road. You haven't been back in a while, holing yourself up in your penthouse in Manhattan, but you always loved the sight of home.

"But seriously, Y/N," Eunseok coughs to get your attention, his voice dropping down low and suddenly serious, "This actually might be your last chance to back out of this. Just say the word and I'll turn this car around and take you straight to Incheon and you can run away around the world long enough until they find me a new bride."

You turn to look at him, perplexed by his words, "And you? You actually want to get hitched off to some random?"

Eunseok shrugs, not meeting your eyes, "You're not some random. I've known you since you were born. I've known you'd be my wife since the day I could understand what that meant. But if I have to find a replacement because you don't want to do it anymore, I will."

"Gee, ever the gentleman," you deadpan, "I think want is a pretty strong word. I don't want to marry you, but I guess I will."

"You're not backing out? Not leaving me looking stupid up on the altar?" Eunseok taps his finger on the leather steering wheel.

You think about his words sincerely. There's really nothing more in the world that you'd love than to run away to a small little town on the southern coast of Italy- somewhere quaint and quiet where you'd find love and spend the rest of your days cooking, cleaning, baking and finding peace in the ocean. There's nothing more in the world that you want more than for someone to ask to marry you because they were in love with your soul and not having you by their side would be like torture in the cruelest form.

Alas, you're Kang Y/N of the powerful Kang family, the eldest child of your father and the next heir waiting to take over the conglomerate. And because you're Kang Y/N, the eldest daughter of the second richest family in Korea, you were contracted to marry the first son of the third richest family in Korea. After that, your companies would merge and you would overtake the Kim's as the sole ruler of the country.

"It's my duty," you swallow nervously as you begin to recognise the streets of where you were driving, signalling that you were soon approaching the venue, "It's fine, Eunseok."

"I wish it wasn't just fine. I wish this was what you wanted." he breathes out and your heart stops beating for a second before anger seeps in through the cracks of your heart.

"Do you think it's any girl's dream to marry someone that doesn't love them?"

Eunseok sighs as he presses on the breaks, moving through the lifted barrier where they had closed a portion of the street in anticipation for his car and your arrival. He twists his body to look at you, "Y/N-"

"It's fine, Eunseok," you grit your teeth as you repeat your words, eyes trained on the paparazzi camped out on the steps of the venue, eager to get a glimpse of you, "Let's just get this engagement party over with."

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

Song Eunseok had to follow you around the world like a lost puppy.

When you said that you wanted to go to that boarding school in Switzerland where only the richest sent their kids, Eunseok was in the seat next to you on that first class flight. When you said that you were going to Oxford to study for your undergraduate degree, Eunseok was tossing away his dream to study at Harvard to join you getting drunk at 18 under the grey British sky. When you said that you wanted to do your masters at Columbia so you could live in New York City, Eunseok was moving into the apartment across yours while he worked at the company his dad created in New York just for him to have something to do there.

If you said jump, Eunseok had to say how high?

That was just the name of the game considering the Song's had more to gain from this arrangement. Your family was richer. Your family was in a greater range of industries. Your family's money went back a lot further than the Song's. And you- you were the most stunning woman in Eunseok's eyes and because of him, you were stripped of your choice to fall in love. That's why the Song family gave you princess treatment from the second you were able to demand things. 

You had protested until your vocal cords went raw when they found out that they were sending Eunseok to university with you. For years up until you turned 18, you had imagined finally getting away from Eunseok for once, even if just for 3 years. He had always talked about Harvard and with the grades to boot, you thought that you'd finally have an ocean separating you.

It certainly wasn't an easy fight at the airport as you threatened to drop out of university the second that you even stepped foot into the new country. All your father did was bat his eyelashes and give you a heartfelt, "Please, princess? Just do this for us."

The phrase 'just do this for us' nearly knocked you sick nowadays after over 2 decades of hearing it spew out of your father's mouth. Ultimately, yes, you were lucky to have such a loving family that never pushed anything evil or truly despicable onto you. This was the one thing they needed from you. They obliged every want and wish for the trade-off of giving your hand in marriage to the Song's first born son.

In June of your third year of university, a couple months out from your graduation, Eunseok turned up at your door completely drunk.

"What are you doing here?" your arms were crossed tightly, trying to cover as much of yourself as possible as you were clad in the smallest pyjamas for the British summer heat.

He grinned goofily up at you, eyes lazily fluttering open and closed, "Hi, Y/N. I'm drunk." He was leaning against the doorway, nearly making out with the frame.

"I can see that," you sniffed the air and grimaced, "And smell it. But what are you doing here?"

"Can't I visit my lovely fiancée on her 21st birthday?" he batted his long eyelashes sweetly at you, taking one step into the apartment. You gazed at him hesitantly, taking one step back.

"I don't think anyone would appreciate their fiancé turning up on their doorstep piss drunk at 2am," you spat, "If you truly wanted to wish me a happy birthday, you would have left me alone."

"I lost my keys," Eunseok groaned, "I didn't know where else to go."

It should be sweet that out of all the places he could have chosen to go to in the city, he went to yours. Instead, it made you feel angrier.

"Eunseok, stop bothering me," your words contrasted your actions as you pulled him into your apartment and locked the door behind him, "Go sleep in the spare bedroom and leave as soon as you wake up. I'm going out for breakfast with my friends tomorrow so lock the door behind you and keep the key with you 'til you see me next." You pulled the spare key out of the drawer and placed it in his pocket.

Like a pathetic dog, Eunseok followed behind you as you led him through the apartment your parents had bought for you.

"Can I sleep with you?" he murmured.

"In your dreams, Song," you retorted, stopping in front of the spare room door, "Plus, you stink like shit."

"Ah, it's okay," he sighed dreamily, resting his head against the door, "We have the rest of forever to sleep beside each other."

You let out a frustrated screech, shoving his chest, "Can you let me live in peace? Why do you have to keep reminding me?"

"In the hopes that one day the thought of it won't make you sick or angry," he replied, opening the door of the room.

Your strong gaze faltered, "What are you- in love with me?"

"No," Eunseok shook his head, "I could learn to though, if you wanted me to."

"The only thing I want from you is to be far away from me," you ran your hands through your hair to soothe yourself, "And even that you can't do."

"I'm sorry, Y/N. Thanks for letting me stay," Eunseok gave up on his tyranny and dropped his voice, "Happy birthday."

You muster up a near half-smile, turning to return to your bed where you'd be tossing and turning until your alarm went off, "Goodnight Eunseok."

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

The worst thing about your arrangement with Eunseok was that it was kept secret.

Of course, it was an open secret in your families and to the company- and there were always rumours about it since you two ended up always together around the world. But it wasn't like it was announced to the world at any point to protect the prospective merger happening when you and Eunseok came of age.

That made relationships very hard indeed. It always had to end in heartbreak, at least for the other person.

The two of you agreed that you could see other people if you wanted to, and you agreed on this the same day you had your very first heartbreak.

"Eunseok, can we talk?" you poked his side to catch his attention. Eunseok was bouncing his basketball up and down while he spoke with his friends just outside the school courts. It had been 2 months since you moved back to Korea after spending 3 years in Switzerland at boarding school, where you quickly became homesick. Eunseok followed you home immediately.

Your fiancé bid his friends goodbye and gave you a sweet smile, "Yeah of course. What's up?"

You led him to the adjacent square that was thankfully deserted and settled just under the bloomed cherry blossom tree in the middle, "Um."

Eunseok giggled at your hesitancy and pushed your hair behind your ear, "What is it?"

16 year old you blushed terrifically at that moment, highlighting your plump cheeks and shining eyes as Eunseok peered down at you.

"I know this is um, pretty stupid," you began, breaking his stare and looking down at your Prada loafers, "Well basically, my friend Jimin- you know Jimin?- she told me to-"

"Just say it, Y/N."

"I like you?"

It came out more of a question as you quirked your eyebrow up at your fiancé.

His eyes went wide, taking in a deep breath, "Y/N. You," he paused, "You like me?"

"Yeah," you exhaled, "Is that so bad? We're going to get married someday."

Eunseok looked around and noticed his friends turning the corner to the courtyard, presumably to look for him, "Look, Y/N, I'm sorry but I thought we were going to, you know, try experience life like how others do and meet people and do whatever we want to until they tell us we need to get married. I didn't think we were obliged to date."

Your eyes began to water and your lips began to quiver as sheer embarrassment sunk into your bones, "So what? You want to date around?"

Eunseok reached out to cup your face but you quickly took a step back, feeling humiliated and slightly bettayed, "I'm sorry Y/N. I didn't know you felt like this towards me. Look, can we talk later? I'll swing by your house after basketball practice, okay?"

From the ages of 0-16, you would say that you and Eunseok were close childhood friends. Even though you had no concept of marriage or love, your parents had forced the two of you to be together through every occasion with weekly play dates and attending the same schools. When you finally understood what being engaged to each other meant at around 12 years old, it made you swoon that you were going to spend the rest of your life with your best friend, who you'd always found endearingly cute. He became more handsome as the years went by and at 16, he was the object of all of your desires.

He was manly, he was protective, he was sporty and most of all, he treated you so well. He would run around town with you no question to go shopping and indulge you in all of your cravings even if you needed to have ice cream at 10pm in the dead of winter. He would take the train with you all around Switzerland to see different lakes and ski resorts. He would help you study in the library and pass you your favourite snacks whenever it seemed you were getting tired. He would give you his jacket on the breezy nights watching the local sports matches.

You were so blinded with your affection towards him that you had convinced yourself that he did those things because he liked you back. Because he wanted to treat his future wife well.

The day Eunseok stamped all over your little heart was the day you waged a one-sided war against him. Eventually, Eunseok began reciprocating your snarky attitude and the rest had been history.

You told your maids and house security to refuse entry to the grounds to Eunseok that night, but because of your parents' unconditional offer to Eunseok to make your house also his home, he had spent a good part of the night on the other side of your bedroom door trying to get you to open it so he could apologise. For a man you were once smitten for, it was easy to put on your headphones and drown him out until he got exhausted and left.

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

Eunseok opens the car door for you and offers out his hand. In the darkness of his car, you grimace slightly, but force yourself to take his hand and use your free hand to smooth your dress out as you exit the car. The flashes from the press are blinding and carry on all the way up to the bottom of the staircase leading into the venue your parents had hired for the evening.

You try to keep a pleasant smile on your face as Eunseok passes his keys to the valet men before wrapping his arms around your waist. It comes nearly naturally to him, from all the photos your parents had made you pose together in dating back a decade or two. But it's your first official public appearance together, so the flashes intensify and you're taken aback. Eunseok feels you stumble slightly and begins to lead you along the carpet rolled out up to the stairs.

There's shouting from every direction- asking where your dress was from, asking if you were dating, asking why you were with the 'rival' company's son all the time- nothing new to you. After you traverse up the stairs, the two of you turn around and give a small wave at the cameras. You feel Eunseok drop his head down to yours, so you nestle yourself into him a bit more. How sweet, you thought to yourself, pushing down the urge to throw up at all this fakeness.

"Last chance to run," Eunseok murmurs as the doorman opens the glass doors into the foyer.

"Are you begging me to?" you counter, "Why do you keep insisting I back out?"

"I'm not. I just feel guilty, so I'll make up a solution if you want to stop all of this," he whispers into your ear. To others, it's an endearing moment as you keep your face neutral.

"It is all your fault. You should feel guilty. I'm not doing this for you or your family, but for my family. If this is what they want, then I'll oblige," you nod your head firmly.

While Eunseok's family was definitely benefiting more from the merger, it did come with some advantages for your family too: less competition in the market, combined success superseding the current top conglomerate, and for your parents: the knowledge that their first born child was going to have someone that was born to and raised from a good and rich family- someone that would be able to take care of you no matter what and understand your life in a way no other civilian could.

You know that your parents' argument for you to marry this guy was weak- there were plenty of good, rich guys from other companies- but you had been happy with the arrangement at the start and by the time you were 16 and he was breaking your heart, the companies had already started slowly merging or putting the plans into place. It was honestly a shame to your parents that other than rejecting you, Eunseok really had no faults. He was always polite, always courteous and intelligent enough to take over the conglomerate with you when the time would come.

Eunseok drops his arm from your waist, instead sliding his finger between yours.

"Miss. Y/L/N, Mr. Song," your family's general assistant approaches you in the foyer with a tight smile, "The event is about to begin. Please follow me to the stage. Are your speeches prepared?"

"Mhm," you hum, tugging Eunseok with you behind your assistant, "The rest of the family are here?"

"Yes. They're waiting by the stage," she replies as nerves finally settle into your stomach. You suddenly can't even look at Eunseok anymore as the gravity of the situation clicks into your mind. After this, you were going to be officially engaged in front of the world and you were going to be his bride in no less than a year from now. There was no turning back anymore.

Eunseok has to shoot you a look to stop you shaking on the stage as your father and his begin their speeches about their company, and the new era and blah, blah, blah. You tune them out in order to focus on your breathing and make sure you don't barf the second you step up to the podium. After minutes of nonsense, you feel Eunseok place his hand on the small of your back, signalling you to take to the stand.

"Um," you began, suddenly losing all the lessons you had learned in your public speaking classes growing up, "Thank you all for joining us on this occassion. As my father said, we are transitioning into a new era of our company and as I take on the role of COO, we believe it's important to have good people by your side to support you. While my family and the Songs are joining together in business, we are also joining together in family," you look over at Eunseok, who gives you a reassuring nod, "Song Eunseok and I are to be wed in one year's time. We have been close friends and partners since we were born and I couldn't imagine anyone better suited to be by my side. We can go into this business partnership fully trusting each other and our companies and we would be grateful if you could give us your support. Thank you."

You step away from the podiums as gasps ring through the crowd. The business venture was nearly an open secret in the industry, but your relationship with Eunseok was based on rumours only, having never confirmed it. Now that you have, it would stir up all these new rumours- were you only getting married for the merger? Did you two actually love each other? What about all the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes that had been conniving to get even a bit of your or Eunseok's time to beg for your hand in marriage?

Eunseok takes his place beside you, wrapping his arm around your waist again as your families smile together for the pictures. The engagement party also doubled as a celebration for the merger, so at least all of the spotlight wasn't on you.

You're glad that your friends are here. They're all business heirs too, since like attracted like at your school. Your best friend Minjeong attacks you with a hug the second you step down from the stage.

"Ah, my best friend is getting married," she sighs dreamily into your ear, "You know what, Y/N, at least he's handsome. It's harder to hate someone when they look that good."

"Then you marry him," you chide, half-joking, "The problem has never been his looks. It's the situation."

"He doesn't hate you half as much as you hate him," Minjeong tuts, "And he's in the same situation. He never got a choice either."

You know deep down that she's right, but you're committed to making his life hell until the ends of the earth for breaking your heart. If anyone could say anything about you, it was that you could hold a grudge.

"Whose side are you on?" you prod her arm, but she rolls her eyes and links arms with you to join Eunseok and his friends.

"Happy engagement, lovebirds," Sungchan greets you with two kisses on your cheeks, "So excited to be at your wedding."

"I'm sitting you at the back," you retort, sticking your tongue out. You hated that Eunseok's friends were genuinely nice and funny people. It was so hard to distance yourself from Eunseok when your friendship groups had been deeply intertwined since you all could walk.

"Not when I'm a groomsman, right Eunseok-ie?" Sungchan swings his arm around his friend's shoulder, pulling him close, "Now tell me, who's the best man?"

Eunseok shoves his arm off, "You can just draw straws for it."

"I'll be the best man, hyung," Seunghan grins cheekily, "I'll make sure to give a really good speech, okay?"

"It's almost as if it's a real wedding," you smile bitterly, "Jeong, you'll be my maid of honour right?"

"You have to ask me properly," Minjeong whines, "We're going to do this wedding right, okay? My best friend will only get married once. I'm not letting you let your wedding planner do everything; we've been planning our dream weddings since we were 10 so we'll do it according to that."

"C'mon Y/N," Wonbin bumps his shoulder with yours, "We can make it fun. We know you'd rather not marry hyung, but he had always been the groom in all the weddings you'd plan when you were young. Now it's like a dream come true."

"Yah, Park Wonbin," Eunseok grits his teeth at his friend for bringing up the past. You wince at the reminder as Minjeong slaps his arm.

"Y/N, I think your mother is calling over you and Eunseok to dance," Shotaro calls for you softly, and you turn around to see your mother desperately signalling to you to join her on the dance floor.

"I'll see you guys later," you bid your friends a goodbye as you follow Eunseok into the crowd.

The night crawls by. It's nearly painful as you fake a smile with every passerby and acquaintance who congratulates you for your engagement. It feels like you're getting stabbed in the heart over and over again as everyone coos over how in love the two of you seem and how they always knew you were going to end up together. It crushes you as Eunseok leans down to your ear while you dance, apologising for how this was your life.

You get into his car after the party. The ride home is silent, apart from the noise of the city around you that seeps in even through the rolled up windows. Eunseok won't even dare breathe too loud in fear of making your life even less like what you had dreamed it to be.

He pulls up to your house and you make a quick move to unbuckle your seatbelt and open the door in one motion, but Eunseok wraps his hand around your wrist gently, bringing you back down.

"What is it now, Song?" you sigh in frustration, closing your eyes in defeat.

"I know this night has made your hatred for me 10 times worse," Eunseok begins, shuffling in his seat to reach into his inside pocket, "And I know that what we have isn't real to you, but I thought you at least deserved this."

Your eyes flutter open and you look over to him. He uncurls his clenched hand, unveiling a shiny ring in the middle of his palm. You bite back the gasp that bubbles up through your throat, and you reluctantly take the ring between your fingers without looking at him.

It's exactly your dream ring. It's what you imagined the love of your life to propose with when you were younger. It's what you wanted to be someone's physical manifestation of their love and devotion to you. That makes it all the worse when it comes from Eunseok.

"I remembered," Eunseok reads your mind, "When we went ring shopping when we were young for fun because you wanted to make sure I would propose with the right ring. I hope it's still what you want."

You can't bear to look at Eunseok at all, so you clench the ring in your hand and open the door, "Goodnight Eunseok. Thank you. Get home safely."

There's 100 steps between your front door and your bedroom. It takes what's left of your energy to hold back the sobs that threaten to escape prematurely. As soon as your bedroom door clicks shut, you collapse against your floor and break down in tears.

Why did Song Eunseok have to be such a good man? Why did you have to hate him? He was yours now, and that was what younger you wanted all along. Why were you taking it out on him? You had been holding onto a grudge for so long and he had been trying to make amends in private ever since, despite going along with your whole enemies thing for his own fun.

You hated how you knew that Song Eunseok could and would give you the life you wanted. You hated how all you wanted to do was love him like it was your choice and for him to love you back like it was his. But in this world, you were privileged enough to have everything you ever wanted, aside from the choice to love whoever you wanted to.

You hated how you didn't even have a choice in loving someone who didn't love you back.

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

You fought with Eunseok nearly every time that you saw him through your university years. You found problems in the way he positioned himself too close to you and problems in the way he would distance himself and act like strangers when you did complain about that. You found problems in the way he didn't talk to other girls despite rejecting you and found problems when he would go on dates after you said that.

In short, Song Eunseok was a problem to you.

Yizhuo was forcing shots into your hands and demanding that you downed them with her as you tried to tune back in to the party going on around you. You couldn't think of anything else the second that Song Eunseok walked through the door arm in arm with some girl.

It was the last party of your undergraduate university days, since exams had finished and you were going to graduate in just a couple of weeks. Someone had rented out some kind of manor in the outskirts of Oxford, dedicated for everyone to stay at and party for a weekend. You knew the organiser through a friend of a friend, but everyone that had been invited was someone you either knew personally or knew of. The spoilt brats community at your university was large, but tight.

You obliged Yizhuo's request and bitterly downed the drink, hissing as it burned through your tracts, "What is this? It tastes disgusting."

"Alcohol isn't made to taste nice," she tutted at you, following your line of sight before sighing, "I guess it's time to get you more so you don't have to be sober looking at that."

Minjeong shook her head on the other side of you, "I can't believe he would bring someone here. He knew you'd be here. So disrespectful."

You saw that Eunseok was about to turn, so you quickly spin away in order to avoid eye contact, "It doesn't matter to me. We're not dating."

"But he's your fiancé," Yizhuo stomped in defiance, "He should have some respect for you."

"Since he didn't want to date me, i'd rather him date other people. Then it just looks like he rejected me because he didn't like me as a person," you affirmed, taking another shot with Minjeong.

"Y/N, please. You were 16 when you confessed and 16 year old boys don't have the most mature outlook on life," Minjeong argued, coughing after the bitter shot, "I'm sure he's not stupid anymore. You grew up hot and he's practically tripping over his own feet trying to chase after you."

"He's not chasing me," you scoffed, "He brought a girl here."

"Oh, you're impossible, Y/N," Yizhuo cried out, beginning to slur, "What do you actually want that poor boy to do? Even I would be confused with the way you act."

Your best friends have been trying to knock sense into you since you turned 18 and Eunseok gave up his dream to study at Harvard to be with you in England. They had claimed that Eunseok realised his feelings for you and wanted to make up for rejecting you. You claimed that if that was his intention, he would have told you that by now instead of pestering you by inserting himself into your new life without reason.

"He can do whatever he wants," you turned your nose up, "I don't care about him."

"Well you better act that way. He's coming," Minjeong warned you, suddenly disappearing with Yizhuo and leaving you stranded with your fiancé walking towards you.

It honestly felt like the grim reaper floating over in slow motion before he came to collect your soul. You fought hard to control the grimace on your face as he stopped in front of you.

"Y/N," he greeted softly, leaning in to give you a hug. You stood still, but you don't push him away. You ignored the way your heart skipped a beat when he pressed his cheek gently against the top of your head.

"Eunseok,"

"How were exams? You're graduating this year, right?" his head is tilted at you, eyes focused into yours.

"Why are you even asking? I'm sure you know my plans for the next 10 years considering you're still following me around," you scoffed, "Does your new girl know you're moving to New York after graduation so you can stalk me while I do my masters?"

"Are you jealous?" he smirked suddenly, gentle demeanour disappearing, "She's just a friend."

"Does she know that? I don't care what you do, Song. I just feel bad for the poor girl whose heart you're going to break when you tell her you're engaged," you feigned nonchalance, pouring yourself another shot, "I guess it's my fault for telling you to have your fun and experience things since apparently you'll be so devoid of love when you get married."

"Y/N," he trailed off, grabbing the soju bottle that had appeared in your hands, "You know it's not like that. I didn't mean it like that when I reject-"

"Save it, Song," you rolled your eyes, "Your girl is coming. Don't go blaming me when time comes to break her heart."

You turned away in time and managed to snatch back your alcohol before arms wrap around Eunseok's and a high pitch voice squeals to him about how she lost him. You find Sungchan somewhere in the crowd and convince him to call you a taxi to take you back into the town where your apartment was. Before he could even confirm the booking, you had already disappeared into the crowd, the shots you had taken truly seeping into your blood and making your head spin.

You don't really remember what happened the rest of that night, but if you try hard enough, you can remember being tucked into a bed on the third floor, big eyes peering down at you as you tossed under the duvet, a hunched figure sat at the end of the bed on the floor and a soft voice singing you to a deep slumber.

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

"It's gorgeous, darling," your mother's voice takes you out of the focus mode you're in. The sunlight seeps through the stained glass, illuminating the sunroom at the back of your house. If you look down through the windows, you'd find the garden that your mother has been cultivating for decades. The rose garden with its arches and its vines was where you'd dreamed to get proposed to when you were young.

"You think so?" you showed her the sketch in full, turning the pad, "Do you think it's easy enough to create in real life?"

"We can make anything you want happen," your mother takes a seat in the lounge chair next to yours.

"Can you make Eunseok love me back?" you hum dejectedly, shading in the corset of what would be your wedding dress.

"He does, sweetheart. You just refuse to see it," your mother swiftly utters, and you stop your drawing, clenching the pencil tightly in your fist.

"Why does everyone say that?" you growl, "Everyone but Eunseok."

"Because you act like you hate him. You act like marrying him is the worst thing in the world. You act like there's nothing he could say or do that would bring him back into your favour despite you loving him all these years," your mother is lecturing you now, "He follows your lead, my darling. He will go to the ends of the earth for you and he always has. What more does he have to do for you to accept the way he shows his love? What more can he do to have your forgiveness?"

There's tears welling up in your eyes and your mother takes the drawing pad away from you to examine the dress you had envisioned. She carries on while you chew your lip and fight back the tears.

"You're going to be beautiful in this dress. One year's time will fly by, so make amends with Eunseok by then. Even if you don't go into this marriage as lovers, at least go into it as friends. That will make your life easier."

"I don't want to be friends," you grit out.

"Mhm, you want all or nothing. Why don't you ask him, then? He threw the ball in your court when he asked you if this marriage is what you want. Someone who doesn't love you or care about you wouldn't give you the option to run away to save yourself, you know?" you hate how insightful your mother is as she grabs your left hand, "This ring is beautiful, Y/N. He knows your heart like it's his."

"Cause it is his," you choke as the tears begin falling, "And he stamped all over it 8 years ago."

"He was just a young boy back then. He's followed you all over the world to be by your side ever since. He's sacrificed his own life to make your dreams come true. You have no choice but to marry each other, but he's been making choices to give you the life you wanted," she strokes your hair gently, "Can you give the boy a chance?"

Over the years, your parents had apologised to you for putting you in such a situation. They had told you that if you truly, inside your heart, didn't want to get married to Song Eunseok, they would call the whole thing off. The marriage was a way to ensure the merger wouldn't go awry by putting you and Eunseok as collateral if one side ever did try to betray the other. Tying the two of you together in marriage was a way to prevent either families from ruining the other.

You considered putting a stop to things more times than you could count on your fingers, but selfishly, you would imagine yourself on a rocking chair on a porch, hair grey and skin wrinkly and when you would look over to see who would be on the other chair, Eunseok was the only one you could imagine with you.

"But I've treated him so horribly all these years," you hiccup, trying to stop your crying, "There's no way that Eunseok would love someone like me."

"Because you won't let him," she stands up and places the drawing pad back in your lap, "Y/N, your father and I love you very much and all we want is your happiness. We haven't opposed this marriage despite how hard you've tried to push Eunseok away because we know that if you let him, he would make you truly happy. You're the only person stopping that happiness."

You ponder on her words for a while after she leaves, adding little details to your dress. For someone who was acting like this wedding was going to ruin their life, you sure were investing a lot of your free time into it. Maybe Minjeong had gotten into your head; unless you planned to divorce Eunseok (after the 5 year clause, per the contract), you were only going to get married once, so you should at least do it in your style.

Wonbin was right at your engagement party. You'd been planning your wedding since young. You knew exactly which flowers you wanted to adorn the aisle, which flavour of cake you wanted to eat, which song was going to play while you walked down the aisle, and whose eyes you wanted on you on the other side as you did. Eunseok had always been your dream man- he was your first crush, your first love and your first heartbreak all rolled up into one devastatingly handsome package. You imagined him in his crisp suit, laughing through his tears because you just looked so beautiful, and the thought of that takes you out of your fantasy and back into the room that was filled not with tears of happiness, but of silence.

You look down at the ring. The sun is hitting it perfectly, making the diamond shimmer in the beam. You slide it off and inspect the band for the first time, wondering what size he got since you didn't even know your size. Your heart stops when you first notice it. It's so small that if you blinked at that moment, you probably wouldn't have even noticed it and you would've lived the rest of your life not knowing it was there.

You run your nail against the engraving, your breath hitched as you read it.

To the one I'll always choose.

It's always been about choice. This whole time, it's been about your freedom to choose.

You and Eunseok weren't born with the privilege of choosing the one who was going to love you so hard that it would drive you crazy. You were instead born with a silver spoon in your mouth and a signed contract that because your family was going to have a girl first, that girl would be married to the Song's first born when the time came.

There was no question or argument about it. You grew up beside Eunseok knowing you were going to spend the rest of your life together, so you chose to learn everything about him. You chose to learn that he loved playing basketball with his friends and that he became silly and unserious when around them. You chose to learn that he doted on his much younger baby brother and that he would fight anyone and anything that could bring harm to him. You chose to learn that Eunseok had a soft heart that had its very own soft spot reserved just for you- one that grew bigger after your hatred for him did as well.

While you chose to hate Eunseok for rejecting you, he chose to stick by your side anyways. He chose to join you in Oxford, even if most of his friends went to America to study. He chose to live at the block just down the street from yours, so he could walk behind you to lectures and check that you were okay every day without overwhelming you. He chose to sleep on hard floors and wake up with kinks in his neck because he chose to sing you to sleep while you were drunk and then refused to leave to sleep in a nice bed so he could watch over you and protect you in your state. He chose to take on a job in New York for two years instead of joining his father's company straight out of business school so that you had someone to accompany you on your midnight walks through New York City. He chose to give you the choice to leave if marrying him was truly a burden you couldn't bear, because your happiness was the grand reward of the consequences that he would bear in your place.

When you chose to hate him, Eunseok let love grow in the emptiness that you left behind instead. He would choose you a million times over and over again until the day you'd finally see it. Your hatred for the situation stemmed from the fact that you thought your choices were stripped away in being arranged to marry. You wanted Eunseok to love you not because he had to, but because it was his choice to.

You were too blind by your rage to see that Eunseok had been choosing you over and over again not because of the arrangement, but in spite of it. That was the greatest love of them all.

-

On the next sunny day, Eunseok joins you on the bench in the middle of the rose garden. You'd been sketching up ideas on how you want the aisle to look like. You were thinking light flowers along the bottom with candles dispersed to illuminate it. In your dreams, you'd get married at sunset in a glass pavilion that could hold only your closest friends and families. As the sun started dipping, the candles would take over as the source of light and bathe everyone in a soft, golden glow. In your dreams, the light would reflect onto Eunseok's face, highlighting his sharp cheekbones and large, round eyes that were peering down into yours.

"What did you call me over for?" Eunseok sits on his hands and looks around. It's spring time and the garden is at its most vibrant and beautiful.

You hold out your hand in front of you, "I found the engraving on the ring."

Eunseok takes a sharp breath in, "Ah you did?"

"Did you not want me to see it?"

"I had just hoped that whenever you did see it, you would believe it," Eunseok whispered, "It's true, by the way."

"I know," your response has Eunseok turning his head so fast it almost gives him whiplash.

"You do?"

"Mhm. You chose to follow me around the world despite me hating you and you having to give up on your dream schools just so you could try to prove yourself to me. You chose to keep giving me gifts on birthdays when we were abroad since my family often couldn't make it. You always choose me. Why?"

"In part to make amends for the mistake I made when I was young pushing away your feelings like that without thought," Eunseok explained, "But for the most part because I care about you and I want to make the best of a bad situation we're in. I know that no one wants to be in an arranged marriage. I just wanted to show you that I could give you the life you wanted. That you could be happy with me."

Your heart aches at his words as you realise how truly misguided your perception of him was. You had thought that he was following you around to torment you and to remind you that you could never be free, but all this time, he was letting you live your dreams and staying by your side to show that he was supporting you.

"I've treated you so badly over the years and you still want to marry me?" you meet his eyes that have been trained on you since the moment he sat down.

Eunseok giggles and reaches up his warm palm to your cold face, "Hm, your words are harmless Y/N. You've shown your affection to me in other ways; I know you love me."

You roll your eyes and push his hand away, "In your dreams, Song."

"Mhm, actually in your dreams," Eunseok teases, "Considering you've been dreaming about marrying me for 10 years."

"And I don't know why. I must be sick in the head for that. Did you hit me in the head when we were young or something?" you retort, trying to move away from him.

Eunseok lets out a full-bodied laugh that sends butterflies through you instead of the burning rage that usually ensued whenever he was having fun in front of you. He stretched his arm around you behind the bench and pulled you closer to him, "Just admit it, Y/N. Everyone knows you've had a fat crush on me since we were teens and it's only ever grown. There's a very, very fine line between love and hate."

"I still hate you," you grumble, "This doesn't mean anything."

Eunseok drops his head down, pushing your head into his shoulder. Your first instinct is to recoil away and grimace, but Eunseok's grip on your shoulder is tight, so you try to relax in his hold.

"You'll always be my girl, Y/N. You just have to accept that."

You hum and watch the bees buzz around the rose garden, "I've always wanted the whole ordeal- the crushing, the pining, the courting, going on dates, having your firsts, moving in together, proposing how you want. I feel like that was taken away from me before I even knew what they were and even if we do those things, how would I know what's real and what's fake? What you're doing because of me and what you're doing because of the arrangement- that kind of stuff."

Eunseok's heartbeat is slow and strong, "The arrangement only brought us to each other. How can I make you believe that everything I do for you is because I want to?"

"How about we start with when you rejected me and left poor little 16 year old me heartbroken?"

Eunseok scoffs, "Y/N, I was stupid, okay? It was a mistake, I was young and I was too blind to see what was in front of me. You were still special to me back then and I have always cared for you, but I didn't know what I wanted back then. I grew up and haven't looked back since."

"And the girls you brought around at university?"

"Because you were demanding that I dated other people," Eunseok rolls his eyes, thinking about your past explosive arguments about relationships, "I just went on dates here and there, but never anything serious. I always let them know that I couldn't commit, but you know there was a line wrapping around Oxford wanting to date me."

You chuckle at that. Everyone was falling over their feet for the chance to get just a second of Song Eunseok's time, the same way he was doing to you. He was incredibly popular and girls would approach you to ask you to set them up, but you would always growl and send them on their way.

"You were only the most eligible bachelor because you're the son of the third richest family in Korea," you sneer, jokingly.

"And I'm handsome, charming, intelligent and kind," Eunseok lists off his traits on his fingers, "But everyone knows you've always had my heart."

"I don't know if I can believe that."

He shrugs simply beside you, "Doesn't matter. I can show you now."

"What?"

"We can date from now on. I'll show you how I feel. Then in one year's time, you'll be gladly getting married to me instead of having to be dragged up the aisle kicking and screaming by your family," he says it so casually that you question if the shocked reaction you're having is the abnormal one.

"Date?" you splutter out, completely bewildered, pulling away from him, "Us two? Now?"

"Why are you saying it like it's crazy? I basically just confessed to you," Eunseok crosses his arms in front of his chest and tilts his head in confusion, "Are you rejecting me? Is this payback?"

You wave your hand in dismissal, "Yah, you're really confusing me here, Eunseok. I don't know what I'm feeling right now."

He laughs again, and he's glad that he can finally laugh with you for the first time in years. He takes your hand between his and squeezes assuringly, "It's okay. We can figure it out together as we go. Just stay by my side, okay?"

You sigh into the breeze. The air was crisping up as the sky began to illuminate in visions of pink and purple. You look over at Eunseok and the reflection of the sun makes his eyes look iridescent. One thing you've always known about Eunseok is that with him, you felt safe, so you nod and squeeze his hand back, "Yeah."

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

The first time you saw Eunseok again after your undergraduate graduation, it was in New York City at the end of summer.

You had spent the entire summer travelling nearly every country in Europe with your friends, while Eunseok was forced to come home and start learning how to actually work in his father's company before he started his role at the New York branch. You were glad to have this summer without him considering the two of you spent your summers together as children and as teens, your friendship groups overlapped so you also had to hang out with him.

There were endless boxes in your apartment since decorating your space was one of your life's great pleasures. The boxes were organised by room and had been shipped out from England at the start of the summer when you moved out. They'd been collecting dust, so all your windows were thrown open in the summer heat to air out the apartment and the dust. Of course you had AC, but there was something about the noise of the city traffic and the hustle and bustle travelling up to your apartment that made you feel like you were truly in the city.

The knock on your door made you groan instantly and you had to suppress the urge of banging your head into the coffee table you were decorating. You took small and slow steps to the front door, but the pattering on the door wasn't letting up.

"Already here to bother me on my first day? It's only been like 3 hours since I got off the plane," you sighed as you came face to face with your dreaded fiancé.

Eunseok rolled his eyes and pushed past your shoulders into your kitchen, "I know you missed me. I brought takeout since you probably haven't eaten and don't have any food yet." Eunseok held up a bag of his favourite Korean food in the city and placed it on your dining table, dishing out the styrofoam boxes.

He arrived in the city a week and a half before you did, moving into the apartment across the hall so he had been able to get himself settled into both his job and his city before you came to rain down terror on him.

"What makes you think I want to eat with you?"

"I bought it, so I'm gonna eat it. Up to you if you wanna starve or not," Eunseok shrugged, already making himself comfy in one of your expensive dining chairs. He took out some plastic cutlery from the bag and began to dig in to the beef bibimbap he had ordered for himself. There was another few boxes of food in the bag, all of which smelling amazing and instantly causing your stomach to grumble.

Sheepishly, you took the seat across from him and scavenged through the food. He had ordered you some tteokbokki and a stew with some rice. Either he knew you too well or it was a lucky guess. For the sake of your heart, you settled on the latter choice.

The two of you ate in silence for a while, not really looking up at each other and just staring passively at your food. Silence was few and far between when it came to you and Eunseok. It was always hushed arguing or full blown insulting between the two of you no matter where you went or how inappropriate it may have seemed to others. You were sure there were rumours that the two of you didn't always get on despite being photographed together so often, but your families' PR teams were experts in mangling all those 'rumours'. 

You broke the silence first, "How's the new job?"

The heir in front of you coughs and looks at you strangely, as if he couldn't believe you would ask him that, "It's... work. Not horrible and met a couple friendly colleagues. Having this job does make me feel so grown up and responsible, though," after the initial shock of you initiating a conversation, Eunseok began blabbering about his new position at his family's company.

"Well then hopefully it makes you more mature," you snide.

Eunseok scoffed, "Trust me, Y/N, when I say that I'm the more mature one out of us. You'll find out what I mean one day."

"If you were mature enough, you'd know to oppose this crazy marriage with me," you turned your head away from him, feeling the anger bubble up again.

"And it's because I'm mature enough that I'm not," he shrugged, "Unlike you, I don't think this marriage will be the worst thing that can happen to me."

"I'm honoured," you retorted, "I don't know why you think that when all I've done is make your life difficult. Why would you think I can't continue for the rest of our lives?"

He smiled coyly at you, pushing a drink that appeared in the bag towards you, "You'll get tired, sweetheart. Then you'll fall in love with me."

You feel sick at how he's all entirely wrong. Despite that, you appreciate how he's always able to diffuse any tension between the two of you even if his words are always cocky and arrogant. z

You don't say anything to him for a long while. When you finished up your food in silence, he packed everything anyway and placed it in the correct bins. Wordlessly, he began to unpack your boxes with you, unwrapping everything bubble wrapped and placing it on the kitchen counters for you to organise. You would have protested this act of service, but he's right- fighting him all the time does get tiring.

In this light from the living room as the sun setting made your apartment glow and burst with light, Eunseok looks radiant. You hope he can't see you admiring him from the next room. It's almost as if you're a normal couple, moving into their first home and starting their new life together. It's a melancholy sight as you ponder the what if's.

He breaks down all of your boxes flat, humming to himself a song that you think you've heard at the end of parties when you'd be sat on someone's bedroom floor just talking or playing cards half-drunk. Eunseok turned his head towards you and you whipped your head away so fast it hurts your neck.

"You still have this?" he held up a mug that instantly flashed you back to 6 years ago. The mug is majority a light pink and wonky in places since you made it yourself from clay. It was a few months process making and painting the mug, but when you were 15 with the biggest crush on him, having a mug brandishing "Y/N + EUNSEOK" on it made you feel giddy inside.

"All my other mugs broke," you lied through your teeth, snatching it from his grip and placing it in a random empty cupboard, "My mother packed it for me when I moved to Oxford."

"Mhm, okay," you could tell he was smirking but you made yourself busy with the plates, "I'm gonna take the boxes down to the recycling. Do you want any more help?"

"I've had enough of you for today," you breathed out. Too much time with him truly drove you crazy, "But thanks."

"Anytime, princess. I'm just across the hall if you need me and I'll get your number whenever you get it set up." he wiped his hands on his jeans and have you that charming smile that made you fall in the first place.

You see him out wordlessly. You don't argue when he turns up the next day demanding for your number in case you ever needed anything from him (or if he wanted to come and bother you). You feign annoyance when one morning he's insisting that he ran out of coffee in his apartment and wanted some of yours. You leave him in your apartment because you were running late to class, but when you get home, you open the cupboard and try not to fall all over again when you see a matching, much lumpier, handmade blue mug that brandished the words "TO FOREVER <3" on it next to yours.

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

You're tossing and turning in your seat as Eunseok shakes you gently. He laughs when you groan under your breath as he wakes you up, "Sit up. We're landing soon."

The sleep you got on the flight was long, but you still woke up incredibly tired since you kept getting woken up for meals. You were grateful that you could fly first class with separate seats and beds, otherwise you'd be much more groggy than you already were.

Buckling yourself in the seat next to Eunseok's, you yawn, "Eunseok, what the fuck is an engagement trip?"

"A trip celebrating our engagement, duh," he looks at you like you're stupid, so you shove him as hard as your tired body could muster, "Like a honeymoon but before. Never too many excuses to take a vacation. Plus, we're going to be busy this trip."

You've never taken a vacation with just Eunseok before. Sure, you've lived in three different countries together outside of Korea and gone on a couple of vacations as children and with a large group of friends, but never just the two of you with a purpose.

"I don't understand why our wedding planner couldn't just pick a venue for herself and call it a day. Why must we go all the way to Italy and do it ourselves?" you're up to your neck in work, but you couldn't protest when you found a week blocked off in your calendar by your assistant, telling you it was 'orders from above' AKA your father.

"It was my idea," he confesses with a shrug, "Won't it be nice if we actually like where we're getting married? If we chose it ourselves because we can see ourselves getting married there?"

It feels like your heart is clenching at the insinuations behind his words. He wants to get involved with your wedding planning, like it's a real wedding. You sniff and turn away from him. It is a real wedding, you remind yourself. You were going to get married legally and this wedding was real, no matter the intention behind it. No matter if you loved or hated each other, it was a real wedding.

"Yeah. Everywhere in Italy is nice so at leadt it'll be a good trip," the past couple of months since you've been officially engaged to Eunseok, you've been attempting to be nicer and hold back your retorts. You've made an effort to argue less and he's been trying to get on your good side. You've both been busy with work considering the news of the merger brought a whole new wave of problems, so you've had no time to interrogate his profession to "date" you. Thank gosh, because your heart would not be able to take that.

The plane lands soon enough and before you know it, you're in a private car going to your hotel. You were staying in Milan, but driving around Lake Como and Tuscany to tour the list of potential venues that your wedding planner had come up with. You were definitely going to be exhausted by the end of it.

The drive was relatively silent, just listening to music and looking out of the window, but when you arrive at the hotel, Eunseok opens the car door for you and snakes his arm around your waist as you walk up to the front desk, "Hello. We're checking in to the penthouse suite. For Song?"

The hotel clerk smiles sweetly, handing over your keys swiftly, "All ready for you both, Mr Song. Congratulations on your engagement."

You're spluttering a thank you with flushed cheeks as Eunseok drags you over to the elevator, "You told them?"

"I just wanted the free champagne that I assume will be up there," he grins cheekily and you roll your eyes. As if he couldn't afford it.

You are however delighted to find a small cake beside the bucket of ice cold champagne and you dig into the red velvet goodness as you watch Eunseok open up your suitcases and hang your clothes up in the master bedroom wardrobe meticulously. You're halfway into the cake when he drags his suitcases out of the room.

"Wait, where are you going?" you frown.

Eunseok snickers, "To the other bedroom? Why? Do you want me to stay with you?"

"Oh. I just didn't know there were two rooms." you say sheepishly.

Eunseok stops in his tracks, hand on his suitcase loosening, "So you went into this trip okay with the thought of sleeping with me? If so, I'll stay here with you then."

"No!" you call out, "Just- just shut up and go."

The smirk on his face is smug as he nods and continues his leave, "Alright, sweetheart, but let me know if you get nightmares and want company."

You bear the butter knife at him and he laughs melodically on his way out. You pop the champagne yourself and drown a glass down, hoping you'd be able to make it out the trip unscathed. He's running into the room with a pout after hearing the loud pop of the corkscrew, so you pour the both of you a glass and you clink them together as you chugged them back.

The days pass by similarly. You wake up and have breakfast together before embarking on a sleepy drive to a venue. You have lunch in endless terraces and gardens under the sun, basking in the heat and evaluating the venue you saw that morning. You both ooh and ahh at different venues that all look the same before you find a flaw in it that stops you from making the decision to host one of the most important days of your lives there. Some are too big, some too small, too pretentious, not pretty enough, the flowers aren't the ones you envisioned, the location too secluded or not enough. You always agree on the flaws of the venues and it's the penultimate full day when you make it to the final venue on the list.

"If I don't like this venue then I'm not marrying you," you huff in the car as it pulls up the driveway.

"Who knew wedding venues were so complicated?" Eunseok exhales in frustration, "Should we just get married in Seoul?"

You puff out your lips, "Italy was always my dream, but I was naive to the process."

Eunseok smiles and takes your hand, "I have faith in this one. At least I hope." The commitment he has to giving you your dream wedding despite it all is unwavering.

When you enter the final venue, you think that maybe it was the last on the list for a reason, since you're blown away every step you take through the grounds. The hallways to the main room is ornate and delicate at the same time, with pretty floral paintings wrapping the walls and big windows letting in the golden light. The room where your reception could be held is stunning with murals all over the walls and a dome ceiling that compliments it perfectly. It's neither too big, nor too small and there's little nooks and crannies for guests to nestle themselves in. You could see yourself in the middle, slow dancing with your head on your husband's shoulder.

"This is nice," Eunseok awes, coming up behind you with the grounds manager, "Very pretty."

You nod in agreement and ask to see the gardens, since you always wanted to get married outside in the sun. The manager gushes over the outside while she leads you out and your heart is pounding in anticipation. Eunseok probably guessed how giddy you were, because he joins you by your side and gives you a hopeful look.

"We're here. Most brides start from here and have the aisle straight down to the arch."

She throws open the double doors and you gasp in admiration at the sight in front of you. The stairs going down to the garden seen steep, but grand. You envision that your father could probably help you hobble down to the garden, where it was staged as a wedding venue. There's chairs laid out in rows, decorated in tulle and bows with an aisle adorned in flowers. At the end of the garden, there's an arch with vines wrapped around it and flowers creeping up. From where you were standing, you could see that this garden was actually on a balcony overlooking a lake that seemed to be glowing and sparkling as the slight wind caused some ripples on the surface

"I'll give you two some time to explore?" she proposes, to which Eunseok nods and wraps his hand around your wrist, tugging you down the stairs.

"First impressions?" he's looking around with blown out pupils as the two of you reach the bottom of the stairs and the beginning of the aisle.

"I like this one a lot," you shyly admit, "It's exactly what I imagined."

"I love it as well. Why don't you walk down the aisle and see how you feel. Imagine yourself on the day," he's taking off in front of you, running swiftly to the arch before you could even take a breath and get a word out.

At his antics, you let out a full-belly laugh and straighten out the ivory dress you happened to be wearing. You look down at the slip dress hitting your ankles and think it might be fate you chose to wear this specific dress on this specific day. You look up and find Eunseok suddenly frozen still at the other end, hands intertwined in front of him and his eyes trained solely on you.

When he notices that you meet his eyes, he gives you a gentle smile as he mouths to you, "Come here."

It takes you a few breaths to actually muster up the courage to follow his direction. You think that walking down a straight path shouldn't be such a big deal, but the thought that this could be the very steps you take to marry the same man at the end in less than a year's time strikes your heart.

The aisle is a soft and smooth stone, perfect for walking on in high heels. It's wide enough that a wedding dress wouldn't drag along the sides and knock over the flowers and long enough for anticipation to build as Eunseok gazes down at you from afar.

"Y/N," Eunseok calls over.

You take the first step and your breath catches in your throat. All you can look at is Eunseok now, with his shirt unbuttoned at the first three to expose some chest and his hair falling over his eyes. He keeps fidgeting with his fingers, as if he couldn't stand still and his lips are puckering and stretching as if he had much more to say.

The second step is easier than the first and the third one even more so. By the fifth step, Eunseok is chewing on his bottom lip and you're ridden with anticipation to meet him at the end.

With each step you take down the aisle, you're flashed back to all the crucial moments in your life with Song Eunseok so far.

You were sandbox best friends. You learned to walk together, and then ride bikes with each other. You learned to swim in the same swimming pool that still remained in your garden. You learned to ski and snowboard with each other in the blustery mountains of the alps. You were each other's first heartbreaks when you were teens. You took your first alcoholic drink together with your friends by the Han river, faces flushed red and hearts beating out of your chests at the prospect of getting caught. You got blackout drunk together for the first time during your first week of university. You posed together as you threw your graduation caps up in the air at the end of the three years. You chased each other around New York City, running around in blocks after he snatched your phone from your grasp when you would ignore him. You begrudgingly invited him to ride swan paddle boats with you in every lake and river around the city since he was the only person that would drop everything for you at a moment's notice. You would leave containers of home cooked food outside his doors when you noticed he was getting swamped with work, knowing he had the tendency to either order too much unhealthy takeout or stop eating altogether when busy.

With every step you take to meet Eunseok at the bottom of the aisle, you accept that Eunseok has been with you for every step of your life.

He's an arm's length away when you notice his eyes are glossier than usual. Eunseok refuses to break the stare between the two of you as you arrive in front of him, exactly where you would stand under the arch if you got married at this very space.

"Are you crying?" you whisper, afraid of your own voice.

He chortles and dabs at his eyes, "It's just the wind."

"Mhm," you hum, fighting back the smile threatening to expose your emotions, "What do you think?"

Eunseok takes a bold step towards you and closes the gap between your bodies. He's closer than you've ever had him and you can nearly feel his breath on your skin. It's making you dizzy but all you can do is keep your eyes on him.

"Eunseok," you murmur in a hushed tone.

His head is drifting closer down to yours, forehead nearly touching. If you moved your face even just by a centimetre, your noses would bump and you knew you wouldn't be able to stop yourself.

"Let's get married here," Eunseok nudges his face forwards. You have to stop yourself from pulling back even with the drumming in your chest, "You're going to look so beautiful. You do already."

"I like this place. Our parents would like it here too."

Eunseok's eyes flutter shut as he sighs and shakes his head gently, "No, let's get married here because we want to, not because our parents would like it. Let's get married because we want to."

"Eunseok," his name falls out of your mouth like it's the most sacred word you can say.

His forehead is still pressed against yours, his eyes squeezed tight and his palm comes up to make home on your cheek, "I love you. I always have."

Sincerity drips from his words and you know that this time, it's the real thing. It's the words you'd been dying to hear him say sincerely for a decade. It's the words that underlined every fight and argument you've had as adults. He finally and bravely bares his heart to you for the first time, still considerate as he always had been by giving you the choice to determine what will end up of the two of you.

There's something different about his profession of love after all you'd experienced together. Back then, when you confessed that you liked him, the world would probably say it was just some puppy love- a silly high school crush. Something that would fizzle over and dissolve when you would experience the real hardships of life and what it could throw at you. You think that a late confession carries a profound and heartfelt meaning like no other.

"Seok-"

He cuts you off before you could finish, pulling away from you and causing you to open your eyes, "I don't need an answer yet, Y/N. I just need you to know that I want to be with you. I want to be your boyfriend, your husband, your partner- whatever you want me to be. I want to make you only happy from now on, instead of angry or resentful. I want to be by your side and keep following you around the world. I want everything with you."

You've never felt more sure of anything else in the world when you bounce up on your tiptoes and capture his face between your hands, pressing your lips against his. It feels like every nerve ending in your body is on fire, but at the same time feeling relief as if this was the one thing in the world that could finally relieve you from all the anger and bitterness you had been displaying and trying to internalise for all these years. Deep down, you could never ever hate Song Eunseok, the boy who has had your heart since you were just young.

He's rigid for a split second while he processes your own confession, but he quickly regains enough composure to part his lips and deepen the kiss, moulding your lips to each other's. It's unlike anything he's ever felt before and he finally understood the real pleasure of kissing someone you really love. As he runs his tongue along your bottom lip, Eunseok knows that he could do this for the rest of his life.

"Song Eunseok, I love you too," your eyes are glistening with adoration as you pull away from his kiss, "Let's get married?"

When he finally looks you in the eye at the moment you give yourself back to him, he can't help the tears that finally break free from their barrier. He's laughing as he finally pulls you to his chest, wrapping his arms around your body in desperation of keeping you close to him. You nuzzle deeper into him and he tucks his head into your neck. His body is shaking with the laughter of relief and his heartstrings tug when he feels his shirt dampening at the exact spot where your face laid.

"You're the one I'll always choose to love," he coo's into your ear words that travel straight into your heart, "For the rest of my life, for the rest of yours."

You look down at your hand and breathe deeply as the ring glistens on your finger. The Italian sun makes it shine bright as the symbol of your love. You start thinking of what you want to engrave on the inside of the ring that you want to get him. You start thinking of the dress and suit you'll be wearing at this very spot soon enough. You're dreaming of the house you move into together and of the company you'll spearhead by each other's side. You fantasise over your future kids- the kids you hope will have his eyes and your nose. You yearn for the life you know Eunseok will give you and your heart is finally at peace, knowing it will always be him.

˗ˏˋ જ⁀➴ ˎˊ˗

[chaoticallyfluffy]

"What are you, a cop?" and "Now you see me now you don't" both sound interesting

For "What are you, a cop?"

Billy is deaged (actually deaged. He goes from 15 to 10 or something and doesnt remeber the league) during a mission. He suddenly woke up in the middle of a battle so he's freaked out. the Justice League take down the threat then try to calm the boy down, explaining that theyre heros and here to help.

Billy takes a moment to take that in... then bolts.

It takes a bit to catch the kid, he's surprisingly agile for his concerningly small size, but they manage to get him into the jet and hes pouting in the corner looking angrier than the league has ever seen him.

They try to ask questions. Are you okay? Are you hurt? Why are you so thin? Is there anyone we should call? But Billy stays silent and his glares stay intense until he finally speaks.

"I don't talk to pigs." he spits out, giving them the nastiest look as if his glare alone could poison and kill them.

They stare at him for a moment, processing that.

"We're not cops???" Clark says, unconvincingly. Hes never been more confused in his life and has definitely never been confused for a cop.

"Whats wrong with being a cop?" Barry, the forensic scientist, pouts.

They knew that Marvel had a bit of a weird relationship with cops but they didn't realize he hated them, and especially not with such a passion!

The league spends the whole jet ride back to the tower trying to convince Billy that not only are they not cops, but that cops shouldn't be something to be afraid of anyway.

Billy spends the whole trip explaining ACAB to them and that yes, they are in fact cops, and here's all the things that the police system has done wrong that the league have probably also done or been complicit in..

I just want to write Billy radicalizing the Justice League and the league helping to reform the police system.

---

For "Now you see me, now you dont"

In the original comics Billy can and will transform in front of anyone at anytime and they wont realize that it was a transformation. Why?because plot armor. They will just think that the boy ran away right as Captain Marvel appeared or something, and when Billy reappears they don't question it either.

In the fic, its a magic perk that came with the whole Champion of Magic package and its a perk he uses often and irresponsibly. He takes it to the extremes by transforming in front of large crowds (no one questions it), while being recorded (The camera shorts out and stops working completely), and even in front of villains (they curse when the captains escapes yet again, completely ignoring the little boy standing in the middle of their secret base)

The last one is how he figured out that even if he is very much Not supposed to be somewhere, he wont be questioned as long as the only people who see him there also saw Marvel transform in that area. If someone who didn't witness the transformation were to see him, they would realize he wasn't meant to be there and call him out which would cause the witnesses to notice it as well. Leaving the room and then returning would also snap them out of it and he would be questioned.

Its a pretty overpowered ability for a child to have access to and when your a street kid without any video games to play who gets chased out of public parks for being too 'dirty' and can't afford any toys, you have to get creative with your entertainment.

Billy wants to see just how far he can take this power, and decides to transform in front of as many people in one day as possible while on the most highly secure facility in earths orbit- the Watchtower.

Follow Billy as he stretches his powers to their limits by transforming in front of the Justice League while praying he doesn't get caught and see what pranks he's able to pull off in that time!

I really like both of these ideas and I definitely want to write them someday. I already have lots of ideas for ways Billy can abuse that particular power! For now I am focusing on a few other fics but these ones are somewhere in the queue.

[penaltyboxboxbox]

whats stopping you from posting your omegaverse headcanons my king……do it

truly what is stopping me....ok my omegaverse assignments under the damn cut and honestly thank you to @wewentcarracing my fellow scholar who's own research has DEFINITELY influenced my own

Charles: this bitch is an omega. everyone is in love with him and he smells so good and is distracting to everyone in the damn room. we're going to question his abilities because of it too he will face anti-omega media bias despite the achievements of other omega drivers all of charles mishaps are blamed on the fact hes an omega

Carlos: alpha idc what you contradictory parties wanna say hes a big hairy alpha and hes proud of it. but hes like pretty well managed and likes to act like hes a lot more...idk wild during his ruts and stuff but like in all reality he keeps it together very well but just uses being an alpha as an excuse to hoe around.............is not mated to charles but like wants to be soooooo badly and like the way charles plays around it constantly makes him insanely whipped . as he fucking said it himself he wants to bite charles and has to control himself. ok.

Pierre: i cant decide honestly like sometimes i want him to be an alpha who has no self control and sometimes i want him to be a very ashamed omega. depends on the day and also what i'm assigning for esteban....

Esteban: He is either a beta or a really lame alpha..............i like him being an alpha making him super protective of lance but like THEY DONT LIKE EACH OTHER THAT WAY but like. maybe a little a esteban just too polite to lance to say anything. teehee. omega pierre x beta esteban is goated also. just saying.

Lance: OMEGA.............uses this as an excuse to always be laying down and being sweet and asking people to do things for him :) and they always do. also he has the most sweaty disheveled unwell heats ever and just generally reeks of maple syrup and pancakes

Fernando: alpha and he wont let you forget it. he stank. hes freaky. yeah. talks about it TOO openly. everyones had a taste too like can you blame them. guy who is also like slobbering all over lances neck in public theyre gross about it

George: I loooove George as an alpha who really dislikes the loss of control aspect of alphadom. As the wise sadie one said, george thinks being an alpha is terribly gauche. at the same time has his own cockiness about the fact he IS an alpha like he has his moments there......using his alpha privilege when it suits him but hating it when its not something he can use to his advantage or that might make him act a fool

Lewis: Beta who lets people believe he's an Alpha whos just so mentally in the zone and turbo vegan that he is able to remain in complete control of his urges and emotions. Gets testy when questioned about it its NONE of their business. Definitely does in fact really really want to be an alpha. (nico an omega btw just add this to my brocedes narrative)

Yuki: Alpha and proud of it. He's like writing alpha specific instagram captions.

Daniel: This man is THE beta ok. used to be self deprecating about it but now just embraces it. hes the beta they brought into the enclosure to keep max from becoming insane.

Max: an omega but like. weirdly ravenous one. he is breaking down omega stereotypes but like he's not even trying he's just a weirdo.

Checo: also an omega but hes like a tragically lame one when in heat. like this man is the king of the pathetic heat he wants to be led around by the hand and makes everyone around him feel bad for him. smells like orchids and carnations.

Valtteri: beta who is literally just chilling

Guanyu: reverse lewis, alpha who everyone thinks is a beta and he just lets them, doesn't want people prying into that part of his life. does not have a complex about being an alpha though and being around val keeps him w a cool head yk

Alex: Alpha.......knows he's a good one too like too aware that he'll get the job done and WELL definitely more than a little cocky about it and thinks he generally like. deals with himself well doesn't THINK he lets it get to his head as much as it does. HUGE flirt w like any omega.

Logan: Omega like what do you want me to say he spends every moment wiggling and whimpering and blushing like......hes an omega. he smells like he smells like fresh cut citrus and seawater 🫶😔

Lando: he's an omega but he smells offputting he smells like burnt sugar and monster energy. was like convinced mind body and soul he and carlos were a THING until the chussy lured carlos away and now lando is stuck being a little weird about it for all time he cant quite click w someone else and hes a weird mean little tease because of it

Oscar: Alpha who is soooooooooo incredibly chill about it. You wanna hop on my dick? ah. ok i guess. have at it. like this guy is not pressed about any of this shit

KMag: alpha but i have no strong opinion here i just think hes normal

Nico: alpha who smells terrible to every omega ever and can never find a rut partner and yearns for the hole but he just cant win

bonus seb cause i can: seb is an alpha..obvs w charles duh but ALSO was a freakish little alpha in his younger days who got off on being gross and contradictory + wonderful truly paired with beta mark with his absolutely massive complex about being a beta and snaps at anyone who tries to bring it up in regards to his behavior etc etc etc hotheaded beta and evil twink alpha who goads him about oh fuck me all you want youll never be MEEEEE oh i need it actually. anyways

THANKS FOR READING 🫶

[sticks-stones-sonic-insanity]

I JUST FINISHED SONK ADVENTURE 2 IM NOT OKAY OMG

The scene with Shadow falling to earth was funny at first and it all happened so fast i was still trying to wrap my head around it. Ppl talk about that scene a lot which theyre so right for, but i need to talk about the scenes after because oh my god they broke me!?!??!

Sonic, coming back onto the ark, completely silent. Everyone asking if Shadow made it back and he just slowly shakes his head without a word.

The scene where Sonic gives Rouge Shadow's inhibitior ring hold so much more weight to me after actually playing the game: In the short time they knew each other, Shadow saved Rouge's life. Twice. This is the only possession she has to remember him by. Knuckles asks her what shes going to do now and she actually stops to reflect and remarks how shes thinking of changing jobs, something else on her mind now(What exactly shes referring to in this moment isnt stated but theres a fair few connections to draw there). After almost getting killed during a heist and never getting a chance to thank the guy who saved her from it, that's a pretty good and strangely mature call to make from a writing standpoint. This whole scene has a similar feeling like that, like the jokes and the extravagance thats typical of the cutscenes have really been toned down with intention.

This one genuinely shocked me, and im really surprised i havent come across anything about it yet because the scene between Eggman and Tails was actually super deep?? There are a lot of different Sonic medias as far as I im aware that have touched on the paralells between Eggman and Tails: their small similarities and how well they work together when they have to, but the scene here really stuck out to me. Eggman is talking about how much he admired his grandfather as a child, how much his work inspired him to learn and create and strive to be great like him, drifting off to question whether or not he really wanted to see them all fall. Tail's response is very chipper and optimistic, but i really like the idea of Eggman having almost this turning point here, having to face something so saddening as watching someone you love curse the world and everyone on it(including you). After arguably some of the most dangerous and threatening feats have been accomplished by Eggman in this game as the story's primary antagonist, is this moment a nod to him maybe stopping to think about what he's done? Im amazed by how much meaning can be taken from these few seconds of dialogue!!

Finally, the last two moments. Amy, despite having had her own short heart to heart with Shadow before the final battle and ultimately being the one to spurr Shadow on to fight alongside Sonic and the others, doesn't seem as upset by Shadows death as Sonic is. This is genuinely, in my limited knowledge of Sonic media, one of the only instances i have seen Sonic be thoroughly shaken up by something and brushed it off when someone asks him whats wrong. In most cases, he's just relatively unfazed from an emotional standpoint like that, so theres nothing to brush off in the first place. But here, the ever-yapping blue blur remains silent for a while, just staring at Earth in a similar paralell to how Shadow used to. It isn't until Amy comes by that he looks away. Its the really subtle details here that get me: Sonic doesn't look or respond to her right away. There's a prominent pause of silence before he turns to her and says its nothing, switching the topic immediately to rush her along. Sonic, typically impatient and eager to move to the next adventure, slows down and is the last to leave the deck, delivers the farewell line to end the game. Again, the contrast in how slowly and soft he speaks here in comparison to literally anything else he says in the game is insane. The pause between "Shadow" and "the Hedgehog" is still very funny to me and im not lost on how the delivery does end up being chopped up quite goofy like that, but if that isnt an absolutely insane way to end off the game with such a somber, emotional moment...

Sonadow or no sonadow, take it as you will, its undeniable how impactful this adventure in particular is to Sonic. How much Shadow meant to him by the end of the game. How much his sacrifice meant. I really see his discussion with Rouge as both a way to comfort her, and to comfort himself. To say out loud how heroic and brave he'd seen Shadow to be, regardless of the intention that came from his creation. Sonic is big on freedom and giving people the opportunity to live how they want to, and Shadow's sacrifice in that regard means even more to him. He had just come to understand what he had truly promised Maria he'd do, joined Sonic whole-heartedly to help save the planet, and never got to experience anything beyond that. Given Eggmans continuous antangonistic streak at that point (I'm not fully aware of the other villain's Sonic had faced up until that point), it's rare that Sonic actually gets to see someone who opposed him change for the better!! And not only was Shadow one of the first to do so, but he was a speedy teen hedgehog!!! Just like Sonic himself!!! Its like Shadow said, there was so much more to them that they never got to find out about each other!! The fact that Shadow gave up all of that possibility, all of his own personal freedom to help Sonic save the planet and the freedom of all the people on it? That hits. HARD.

Im not familiar with the full canon of how Sonic actually managed to get one of Shadow's inhibitior rings to give to Rouge, as he's actually not shown in any scene taking them off during the final battle(i actually dont even think their mechanics are properly explained which is more confusing but yk), but getting into more headcanony, sonadow adjacent space for a second? I like to think Shadow actually took two of his rings off/had two break off before he fell. Sonic gave one to Rouge, and secretly kept the other for himself. He obviously didn't want his friends to ask him more questions about how he was feeling, so he hid it in his quills before he greeted them back on the ark. Shadow ended up meaning a lot to Sonic, and it's really interesting to think about what was running through Sonic's mind when all was said and done.

Uhhh anyways good game very very infuriating at times but very good game i have a true taste for the appeal of Sonic games now and i want to play them all. If you actually made it this far, thank you for reading my silly sonk rant! If you have any information you know of to patch the spaces where I'm lacking or just want to discuss your own thoughts on the ending feel free!! Have a good day or night wherever you are :]

[mackmp3]

☕how the writers delt with river song

SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP THEY DID MY GIRL SO DIRTY there are so many. good river song moments. and there are so manythat make me want to tear a strip off steven moffat like every goddamn episode with her they have to make some obnoxious sex joke or some Honey Im Home type shit & i understand this is like. A Moffat Theme & i dont always hate it but goddddd its so reductive like there is so much!!!! that could be done with her character !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that is overshadowed by haha what if she was sexy like STOPPPPPPPPPPPP.

like silence in the library was a really good character lead in & i like her!!! as a character !!!! even the overly flirtatiousness unfortunately that would work on me but even aside from that. she is a good character let down but the sheer pull-it-out-of-your-ass writing of her backstory. like?? she could regenerate cos she was conceived in the tardis okay thats really cool much weirder stuff has happened when it comes to tardises & making babies but then WE SeE THIS FOR LIKE. ONE OR TWO EPISODES BEFORE THEYRE LIKE WHOOPS THAT DOESNT WORK ACTUALLY COS SHE'S DEAD UHHH SHE BETTER UHMM IDK SAVE TH E DOCTOR OR SOMETHING WHATEVER> COS HER ENTIRE LIFE HAS TO REVOLVE AROUND HIM. HASHTAG MARRIAGE AMIRITE like even the fact that her entire life was shaped around him isnt a Bad Idea it just feels like no one considered the tragic impies (implications) of this, & simultaneously doing amy so dirty in the process as well like??? she loses baby mels & then discovers she was her (never previously mentioned) childhood friend but then she uhhhh dies & turns into this woman you already know and them????? barely eveer mention it again???? holy shit?????????????????????? amy & river is a freaking horror story but one that the writers seem imcapable of dealing with because sOMEONE is too busy making obnoxious jokes about married life

a lot of thsi is specific to the General Vibes of the eleven era stuff as well which was in general so so weird about women & while its not like twelve or any of teh other doctors are expemt from this eleven is a massive dick to people quite a bit & a lot of this falls on river b/c he is seemingly (iirc i havent seen some of this stuff for a while though it Haunts Me) almost careless? with her? like a sort of 'welllllll she's here now so it was all okay in the end :)' sort of attitude ignoring that she went through A Fuckton Of Stuff before she was even a concious human(mostly??) being

even the husbands of river song is tragically guilty of some of that stuff like. she's seen some wild shit & she should have known it was twelve wayyyyyy way way quicker. like i understand why she didnt for plot reasons but she is in fact very intellegent like. she's allowed to show that. unfortunatley sometimes women cant be smart & have their boobs out at that same time I GUESSSSSSSSS

also the nine & river audios from earlier this year? i really like archipelago i listened to that a couple of times & i thought it was really powerful but AGAIN the writers make river So Fucking Obsessed With Romance like. you'd let it go by that point. nine had literally just proved he's the most aro guy in the universe (good for him) and shes stillllllll flirting at him. which. imo she wouldnt do anymore because, shock horror, she does actually like him as a person & values his company and you would think you would be friends wit hthe guy YOU ARE GONG TO MARRY OR WHATEVER. NOT THAT THEIR MARRIAGE WAS PARTICULARLY ROMANTIC EITHERIM GONNA BE SO REAL. obviously sex is important to her & good for her but yikes. it doesnt need to be mentioned so often.

like its the whole 'inherent tragedy of waiting for a time traveller' stuff which i do eat up every time meeting her in silence of the library & knowong that there is so much more there - VERY COMPELLING !! really good character intro augahagaauuaajaaajahhahahahhhh but nooooo her Entire Fucking Goddman Life has to revolve around being manipulated & The Doctor AS WELL AS !! the completely uncalled for ohhhh im a PSYCHOPATH ( <- unfounded & demonstrably untrue lowkey this is saneism right. thats an ableism there yes? ) thing they alllwaysssss have her say like well!! shes not !! theres 'youre talking about commiting a murder'/'no im not, i'm actually commiting a murder' which i like & is funny & she would say that and then theres teh vauge oooohhhhh im so Freaky & I Have A Gun or whatevr like augsugsaihuahahaouoauauoouauoauoauoauuo

also twelve & river had freaky t4t bi4bi aroallo sex after the end of husbands of river song but no actual dw writer is enlightened enough to see that because they have to flatten her into The Doctors Wife & she would have had a far better dynamic with 12 than with 11 (not that i'm biased) i wish they got more time togetherrrrrrrrrrr also you should listen to the bekdel test (diary of river song audio with missy)

[the-s1lly-corner]

Waking them up w/ a morning kiss! (TADC edition)

slowly but surely i am approaching the end of my tycoon... and yet despite the exhaustion creeping and making a home in my bones, i do not feel the desire to go to bed. perhaps its self destruction or carelessness, i'll be damned that this is the most productive ive been writing wise in a hot minute anyways requests are open

CAINE:

well this is assuming he sleeps... which personally, while i think the others CAN sleep (although they dont need to), i dont think.. caine can.. i think when he falls asleep its akin to how computers to. but one little tap is enough to snap him right back... so you may get startled when he snaps his jaws open the second your lips make contact with his teeth... but dont be alarmed...! hes not upset.. actually i think if anything he might be a little shocked at the gesture... oh he should have done it to you, damn it! definitely going to try to one up you that day, no one gets the jump on # 1 reader simp, Caine!!! 8/10 hes still very giddy and happy about it and hes in a good mood for the entire day

POMNI:

i think she might be a little too groggy to realize youve kissed her, but will flutter her eyes open if you give her another kiss. gets really red in the face before pushing herself deeper under the covers... i think shes generally like that with random gestures of affection and love, so please dont take this as her not enjoying the act! i promise she does like it, its just between this being standard reaction for her and just waking up shes a little... more bashful than she normally would be.. i think she would try to do the same to you the following day.. or maybe do a surprise gesture for you in return to even out the score! 7/10 very cute

RAGATHA:

as time passes i find myself making ragatha more and more of a sap, and honestly i dont hate the direction im going in. i think if you woke her up with a kiss, she would be smiling throughout the day and like caine, be in a more upbeat mood! its such a small thing to wake up to, but it means the world to her, you know? know these are starting to sound samesy with the 'returning the favor' thing but i think ragatha would at least double what you did for her.. you better incorporate the morning kisses into your routine because small stuff like that goes a long way for ragatha! 8/10

JAX:

i think he might just look at you before flipping over to face the other way and try to go back to sleep. its not totally to be mean to you and him being 'eeeewww affection' but mostly because hes not really.... a morning person. he never will be. kiss him all you want, hes not going to wake up... if he doesnt turn over, hes probably going to tug you to his chest and hold you still. probably grumbles at you to stop because he wants to sleep in that morning... but hey, look at it this way, you got some cuddling now! so hey at least theres some side of trade 5/10

KINGER:

i think he might nuzzle into your cheek and try to give you a 'kiss' back when he realizes what youre doing. pulls you to his chest, but he has full intent (unlike jax who mostly just wanted to keep you put and to make you stop moving around)... he may not have arms, but hes going to try his damndest to use his hands to keep you close... tries to push off the beginning of the day for a while longer... despite kinger actually being a morning person. leads to the two of you having a mumbled conversation about your dreams... very nice very sweet 8/10

ZOOBLE:

oh zooble is very much NOT a morning person, but i dont think they would be as mean as jax... they might mumble and tell you to hold back, but once theyre fully awake theyre going to set down some boundaries and apologize if they had upset you. they just dont like being woken up, no matter how sweetly... unless theres an emergency, they dont want to be woken up... though even then they might still be a little irritated... i think in this case swapping out morning kisses for something else that works better for both of you is the best course of action here 6/10

GANGLE:

i think she would lean right into it... maybe she wraps herself around you, if she hadnt already done that in her sleep... her mask is a little cold, so it might shock you a little and wake you up a lot more than you were expecting... oh i think gangle would feel bad about that... she didnt mean to make you uncomfortable (even though ultimately, youre not)...i think throughout the day she might be more happy and bubbly, perhaps even putting herself out more than she normally would. definitely a confidence boost for her! she even doesnt seem as sad or upset when her comedy mask breaks... i mean shes still... upset.. but not as much as she normally would be 7/10 very cute

[philtstone]

24. Showing up injured at their friend/mentor’s house: for shawn? :)

[emerges from writing this fic bloody and beaten and on the verge of collapse] ill explore karen vicks character in an overly complicated post-episode missing scene fic or die trying! set immediately post "right turn or left for dead". i genuinely dont know if im happy with this but i also cant figure out how to fix it. actually, it would have probably been easier to write if i was willing to rewatch the episodes its based on. which i am not, because i am a sensitive little soul. so i winged it. i think there are like 10 different ideas that crop up and theyre all equally fascinating as character threads but i have no idea if i tied them together in an even remotely coherent way. also, WOULD she say that??? i had to call my brother twice to ask. this is what yall get for sending me actually interesting prompts, huh

“Oh, it’s no problem,” Henry’s voice said on the phone. “I’ll send Shawn over with them on his way out. He's going in your direction, anyway.”

In her short tenure as the junior detective to Henry Spencer’s lieutenant, Karen Vick observed two things:

First, that he was a far more clever strategist than most people gave him credit for. Despite the ongoing wreckage of his impending divorce and a kid who was slipping through his fingers as everyone looked on, Karen didn’t agree with the other junior detectives’ impression of him as a smash-the-door-down old school hard ass with thinning hair and a worst attitude. The man played four dimensional chess right out of a bonafide Star Trek episode. When he really wanted something done, Henry Spencer could bullshit and bluff and battle plan with the pros, and half the time you’d get too caught up in the blustering misdirect to realize his game was intricately thought out three steps in advance.

It was how they caught the Shorttown Killer, and also how they got that idiot Trembley at the mayor’s office to finally replace their coffee maker. Karen went home to her then-boyfriend, now-husband, and, right before bed, pulled out an old school workbook and took notes.

The second thing was that Henry Spencer loved his son. 

Not a lot has changed since then, Karen thinks, staring down the weirdness that she now faces through her open front door.

“… Oh — Mr. Spencer,” Karen says, because it’s rude not to greet your employees when they show up at your home outside of work hours, and are also your old friend-slash-colleague’s kid. “Hello. Thanks for — bringing these over.”

“Dad said it was urgent,” Shawn says.

Urgent isn’t quite how Karen would describe it, but hearing through the grapevine that your department might be facing an audit sometime in the next quarter does light a fire under the proverbial ass. Karen would rather bend a few rules and make sure the last year’s i’s and t’s are dotted and crossed right than leave her detectives vulnerable to the whims of a mayoral stooge. 

In general, Karen prides herself on caring about the people under her command just enough that it inspires genuine friendship and loyalty. The just is important. Care needs tempering – it’s important to pull back, press pause, keep certain lines uncrossed. It’s especially important if you want to be successful as a woman in an authority position where lives are often on the line. 

What she’s saying is that she tries to make it none of her business what her employees get up to in their spare time. She really genuinely does. She’s shut O’Hara down gently midway through the twelfth sweetly-frazzled attempt to overshare about her dating life (or her efforts to befriend her next-door neighbor, or the endearing personality quirks of her last cat – rest in peace, Triscuit, you will be missed –) enough times to be well-versed in the art of I Won’t Ask, You Won’t Tell, But You’ll Probably Know I Care Anyway.

An invaluable rapport to maintain. In any situation, Karen thinks, but especially when you’re a person who regularly hires and works alongside Shawn Spencer.

She’s not sure whether what she’s looking at right now makes her want to second guess or double down on her usual policy. 

“Special delivery,” Shawn adds, like everything is super normal.

Karen narrows her eyes. She glances behind them into the quiet residential street.

“Shawn,” she says.

“Yes, Chief?”

“You didn’t drive here, did you?”

“Ha,” he says, half rolling his eyes to accompany a weird aborted grin. “No. Even I don’t think riding a motorcycle with a concussion is a good idea. What if someone who wasn’t me got hurt? That’s — that would be no good, then you’d have to arrest me. Wouldn’t that be a huge bummer for the whole team, Chief? Gus would cry. And my dad wouldn’t let me take his truck.”

Karen stares at him. Shawn stares at the ground.

“I got a cab,” he says.

“And you are … taking another cab – home?”

Shawn looks quite suddenly like he’s going to be sick.

“Sure,” he says. 

Shawn looks terrible. Bruised face, bags under his eyes, and a weird frenetic energy twitching in his limbs that doesn’t pair well with his general air of exhaustion. He’s holding his shoulders stiffly and can barely meet her eye. His t-shirt and sweatpants are rumpled, like he slept in them, even though it’s too early in the evening for Henry to have woken him up to send him here, and when he thrusts the promised files out into the air toward her, abrupt and, admittedly, Shawn-like, he only just hides the awkward wince that immediately overtakes his left side.

The last couple days have been a bit of a whirlwind, so Karen can’t say she necessarily blames herself for not looking more closely. 

Even so.

Slowly, Karen reaches forward and divests him of the case files. They slip a little bit, because Karen can’t seem to stop peering shrewdly at Shawn’s face while she does it, and on instinct he reaches forward to stop the stack from toppling. 

It does help, but the autopilot he moves on makes it harder to mask what is to Karen’s eyes a very obvious flinch. 

“Alright,” is all he says. “Well, good to see you. Time to head back to the old hay stack.”

Like a needle in a haystack and time to hit the hay, Karen supplies needlessly in her own head. Aloud, she says, in many ways against her better judgment, 

“Mr. Spencer, are you okay?”

Shawn sways on the spot for a second, one fist clenched, mouth half open. For a strange moment, Karen gets the impression that he’s trying really hard not to say the wrong thing.

“... As rain,” he finally manages, then nods to himself like he achieved some great feat. “Okay. Well –”

“Did something happen to your shoulder?” 

“What? No!” Shawn’s eyes flutter closed and he shakes his head, “I’m – fine, Chief. It’s not – I mean, I’m – normal, fine. Fine in a normal way.”

“That’s not something an individual who’s fine in a normal way would say,” Karen says. 

“Uh, is it not! It is. I would know, because I am that individual. It’s – I was – there’s just mild – pfft … stab wound – or something, who would even …”

Is Shawn broken? is the unhelpful thought that pops into Karen’s head. She’s never heard an attempt to bullshit collapse so quickly into pathetic nothingness before – certainly not from Shawn.

Perhaps even more than his father, the kid’s a pro.

And then the rest of the sentence catches up with her.

“A mild stab wound?”

Oh boy. She watches Shawn’s eyes widen with the panic that proceeds an unquestionable blunder.

“Chief –” 

“In.”

“Chief, I really, really don’t think –”

“Inside my house. Now.”

He’s certainly uncoordinated enough that he doesn’t put up much of a fight. Karen herds him  through the door as firmly as possible and leads them in a beeline past Richard’s office toward the bathroom, ignoring the reedy stream of consciousness that spills out of Shawn’s mouth as they go.

“Oh, hey, woah, it’s been like forever since I was in here. Did you redecorate? I swear that lamp wasn’t there the last time we visited. It could be the tacos I had earlier, but I’m sensing a distinct neo-modern Chinese aesthetic going on here, Chief, which calls to mind the merits of cultural appreciation in suburban home decor – hey, is that your husband’s office? Can I meet him? Is he home? That man is a true enigma to us, Chief, and it’s leading me to believe that he must possess all the facial and personality qualities of the pop superstar Mr. Pitbull Worldwide –”

Richard is home, actually, and Karen needs to alert him to the fact that they have an unexpected house guest, so, ignoring Shawn completely, she calls out,

“Honey? Shawn Spencer’s here for a couple minutes about a work thing! I’ll go up to put Iris to bed in a second!” in the finely-honed There Are Many Layers Of Complicated To This secret married tone that Richard should probably be able to catch through the closed office door. 

“Alright,” floats out her husband’s pleasant voice. “Tell him hi from me.”

Perfect. There’s about a ninety-three percent chance he understood.

They make it to the bathroom, only stumbling slightly. Shawn says,

“-- or The Rock. Does your husband look like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson? I really think that would make so many things about the Chief Vick family make sense –”

Karen closes the bathroom door with a snap and crosses her arms.

“Sit,” she says, in a voice that even he knows brooks no argument.

Shawn does. He looks – well, beyond uncomfortable, and more than a little bit miserable, and probably closer to completely dissociating than either of them are prepared for. Karen wonders belatedly if he's gotten any sleep at all in the last forty-eight hours.

“I’m assuming you have not been to the hospital.”

He gives her a baleful look, like he really expected better of her. She only just stops herself from rolling her eyes in response. And there’s that huge goose egg on his forehead, too. What, exactly, he got up to in between Carlton’s wedding reception and oh-eight-hundred hours this morning Karen has no idea, but he looks like someone’s run him through the world’s most aggressive industrial tumble dry cycle and spat him mercilessly back out. 

Or maybe over with a truck.

Sending a silent prayer to the universe that Iris never hit puberty and remains a sweet-tempered six-year-old forever, Karen gets to business.

“Well, I had to at least ask. Shawn. Does it need stitches?” He mumbles the answer the first time, and then looks beyond startled when she grabs him under the chin so he’ll look her in the eye. “Listen. I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. But you’re going to tell me the truth. Got it?”

Shawn grimaces so hard at her words it’s almost a flinch. 

“No,” he says finally, clearly enough that she hears him. Karen raises an eyebrow. “No, I don’t think it needs stitches,” he articulates, but doesn’t meet her eye.

“Hm. Alright. I have gauze and tape in the medicine cabinet. Can I … is it alright if I pull up the sleeve of your t-shirt?”

Released from her hold, he groans and presses his face into one palm. “Chief –”

“I don’t really know what you expected, coming here! It’s not like I’m any less of a hardass than your father.”

“Yeah, but I can bitch back at my dad,” Shawn says, sounding like he’s finally realizing the magnitude of his mistake. Karen smiles grimly.

“Tough. Now pull your shirt up while I get the first aid kit.”

While Shawn proceeds to wrestle awkwardly with his t-shirt in a muted shuffle against the toilet seat, Karen rummages efficiently through the cabinet and eyes him through the bathroom mirror. He seems oddly reluctant to expose himself. In fact, in a stark contrast to his usual insistence on making his presence and contributions as obtrusively obvious as possible, Shawn seems intent on shrinking into the aforementioned Asian-flavored floral wallpaper (which does need an update, unfortunately) with all the equanimity of an anxious chameleon. Karen feels her eyebrows crease. Taking the first aid kit in hand, she brings it over and deposits it into his arms, ignoring his small startle.

“How about you hold that,” Karen says. Shawn does, against his chest, like a pillow. She walks around him and surveys the damage, antiseptic gauze in hand.

He wasn’t lying about the severity, at least. It’s a shallow thing, already mostly congealed, and has only stained his shirt in a small smattering spot of crusty brown blood.

Karen swabs at it with the alcohol using light careful fingers.

“Ow, ow ow ah –”

“Don’t be such a baby. It’s hardly a life-threatening injury.”

“Super insightful, Chief,” Shawn snaps, as genuinely sarcastic as he’s probably ever been with her, “never thought of that myself. Totally the reason why I just had to go to the hospital.”

He doesn’t pull away, but she can feel the tension radiating through his back. She blinks, one eyebrow crawling up her forehead. 

Alright then. So that’s how it’s going to be. 

“I’m assuming your father doesn’t know about this,” she says.

Shawn grunts, noncommittal. Huh. Maybe he does know, then, and has just been disallowed from doing anything about it right now.

She tosses the first used antiseptic wipe into the trash.

Goddamn four dimensional chess.

She supposes she’s never been bad at the game. She may as well work her way backwards through the moves: Guster, the most obvious node in Shawn’s turn-to-in-a-crisis-system, would never voluntarily abandon his friend in a time of need, so Karen assumes that whatever this is has either already included his support or not been made known to Gus at all yet. Henry’s likely exhausted his own usefulness in the situation, and Detective O’Hara is …

Karen has to work very hard for her hands not to pause in a way that gives away her hard-earned mental sleuthing. A bad feeling wholly unrelated to her ill-advised hangover of the day before begins to bloom at the back of her gut.

“You have really small hands, Chief.”

Shawn’s voice is notably more subdued than before.

“Do I?” 

“They’re like … little kangaroo hands. Like the mom kangaroo from Whinnie the Pooh.”

“Didn’t you know?” Karen says, not unkindly. “They’re given out at the hospital when all first-time moms leave with their baby.”

He lets out a tired little laugh, more boyish than he probably means it to be, and in spite of herself Karen feels her heart clench. She isn’t blind. In all her last seven years as the leader of their chaotic little precinct, she has never seen Juliet O’Hara look as ill as she did yesterday morning. The usually sweet-faced young woman had all the pallor of a Victorian ghost, and stood so far away from Shawn in any given room that to an unassuming observer he might have had the plague.

There are only a handful of things, Karen thinks, that could have invited that particular evolution in their dynamic. She rips the surgical tape from its canister a little bit more harshly than is strictly necessary and fights the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose between her fingers.

“So,” she says conversationally, laying the tape down in neat, gentle little strips, trying not to pinch the wound too tightly. “Any fun plans for the evening?”

Shawn sniffs. She can see him gripping his hands together over his knee from where she stands above him.

“Um, yeah, uh –” he clears his throat, “you know me, Chief. We’re working our way through a Robert Guillame marathon, which means some good old fashioned Benson, running commentary on the quality of that child acting, naturally.”

“Naturally.” 

“Then Gus and I were gonna hit up the new, the new chili cheese joint up by Hermosa, you know – they’re doing sliders –”

“Chili cheese sliders?” Karen hums, contemplative.

“Buy ‘em by the pound,” Shawn agrees. “Then I was thinking of getting a tattoo, maybe a belly button piercing, I’ve been really – really needing a change – would you let Iris get one, if she asked?”

“A tattoo?” Karen clarifies, cutting off the next piece of tape. The skin around the cut is warm to her touch but Shawn’s arms have goosepimpled. The hair at the back of his head sticks up unstyled, like he slept weirdly and couldn’t be bothered to fix it come morning.

“Of a marmoset. That’s what I’m thinking. With distinctly effeminate vibes.”

“Well, Dick hates marmosets. So I’d probably encourage her toward something else. Perhaps a sea lion.”

“Like Shabby.” The nervous note has bled into his legs again, and his earlier subdued tone has gone back to sounding strained. “Yeah, that’ll – that could be it.”

“All in one night, huh?” Karen says.

“I –” Shawn doesn’t even hiss when she presses down with a cotton gauze to cover the last of the thickened blood. His legs are properly jittering again. “I was – yeah, y-you know me, Chief, total night owl.”

“Shawn?”

“Yeah?”

“What about going home?”

Silence. Shawn doesn’t answer for a moment long and pregnant enough that Karen wonders if her question will be ignored entirely. 

Then,

“Chief,” he says finally, in an awful, tiny little voice, “I really, really fucked up.”

Finally, her hands do falter in their ministrations; as emotionally exuberant as Shawn often is, she doesn’t think she’s ever actually heard him close to tears. For a horrible moment she wonders if Shawn Spencer will suddenly start crying atop her toilet seat for reasons neither of them are capable of discussing honestly. Then she wonders if her horror makes her a terrible boss.

Boss – mother – person.

Oh, dear.

She sets down the surgical tape and lays a ginger palm over the newly-bandaged gouge in his shoulder. It’ll probably scar, but not at all badly. She doesn’t like to think about the far more obvious one just below, puckering in a violent yet unassuming divot. Another narrow miss for Henry’s boy. 

At this point there are so many of them to count, Karen has to question the statistical likelihood of the whole thing. Becoming a mathematical anomaly is, Karen can attest with confidence, not exactly the future the Lieutenant Spencer she knew dreamed of for his increasingly unmanageable teenager. 

Doing what he loved, on the other hand – absolutely. Being with a person he loved, even more so. Karen grits her teeth at the irritating web she’s spent the last six years constructing around herself and wonders if this evening right here is some kind of cosmic karma for leaving Iris in the care of nannies for the first three years of her life.

That sounds like the kind of thing those horrible parenting magazines and Karen’s mother-in-law would claim, anyway.

“Shawn,” she says slowly, because she has to at least knock this possibility off the list before risking her career in an attempt to mediate her detectives’ love lives, “did you … you weren’t – unfaithful, were you?”

“What?!” 

Shawn yanks his shoulder away and whirls around to face her with such a look of horrified betrayal on his face that it’s almost comical. 

“No!” 

Thank fucking God, Karen thinks. Aloud, she says,

“Well, I’m sorry, I had to at least ask!”

“No! No! What the hell, Chief!”

“Oh would you be quiet! I’m gathering my evidence here!”

“How could I – I would never – you’d even think that I could –”

“I know! Shawn, for God’s sake –” He’s scrambled to his feet in the cramped bathroom space, glaring, and has probably messed up all that surgical tape in the process. The half open first aid kit and his crumpled shirt press lopsided against his front and her garbage can is now full of oxidizing bits of cotton. Karen officially gives in to the urge to press her palms against her forehead. “I had to ask!” she repeats finally. “You and I both know you’re not gonna give me much else to work with, and you sounded so – so sad!” 

Shawn barks out a hysterical little laugh. Karen almost growls in frustration. 

“I am not going to risk all the very hard-earned rules I have in place without knowing for sure that my instincts aren’t wrong. Is that so hard to appreciate?”

Does it count as sound police work when the framework for your investigation is an unacknowledged lie? Karen doesn’t really know. Probably there’s another math metaphor to be made in there (you screwed your proof from the very beginning, maybe, Richard the professor would definitely have thoughts), or just a straight up joke. How to solve a case that’s cold before it ever has the chance to go live; a cover-up if she ever saw one. Unlikely that O’Hara will peep a word, and things will be a true mess for a few weeks, if she can’t make an educated guess about it. And no one will be explaining anything to Carlton, either …

Right before their goddamn audit, Karen thinks, aggrieved. She wonders if Henry considered this in his calculus. Send Shawn over, have her deal with him. Offer a huge unspoken you’re gonna be walking into a shitstorm tomorrow canary for her perennially chaotic mess of a coal mine. 

She can’t help but feel begrudgingly grateful, but that doesn’t mean she and he won’t be having words about this later.   

“Jesus, Karen,” Shawn mutters, pressing his face back into his free hand. Karen shakes her head and squares her shoulders.

“Well then! Back to the issue. You fucked up.”

“You know what? I can’t talk about this with you.”

“Oh, Mr. Spencer, I assure you I am more than well aware.”

Shawn blinks at her between his fingers, looking genuinely confused for the first time since he showed up at her door. 

Karen does not bother to clear up his confusion; it’s better this way, anyhow.

“Will you be sleeping at Gus’s place or your father’s?” she asks, crossing her arms.

“I’m – I don’t –” Shawn doesn’t meet her eye. The earlier thread of anxiety is back. “I wasn’t …”

So, neither. 

“Put your shirt back on,” she says. “We’re relocating to the living room.”

“Chief –”

“That was an order, Mr. Spencer.”

The living room is as quiet and mundane as it was an hour ago. It’s past Iris’s bedtime – she’ll have to go up, and soon at that. Karen seats her guest, retrieves a mug and a bag of chamomile from the kitchen, and removes the fluffy throw blanket from the basket behind the couch on her way back in. He’s deflated completely by the time the tea and blanket are set in front of him. Small and exhausted. Caught. It’s a horrible way to think about it. But she can’t avoid the hundred yard stare – Karen has seen it one too many times in people only just realizing they’re about to go away for life.

“Shawn,” she says, firm as she can make it. “Drink the tea. You’re dehydrated.”

“I’m … what?”

“Your lips are dry. You shouldn’t be dehydrated with a concussion.”

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, and Karen suddenly wonders if he’s going to get up and leave. She has experience with these things – she knows a runner when she sees one.

“I might as well have,” Shawn finally whispers.

She doesn’t catch it the first time. “What?”

“I – I might as well ha – Chief, I …” Deep shuddering breaths. He’s finally shutting down, she realizes. She can’t send him back out like this; Henry would give her the stink eye for a month.

Goddamn Spencers and their goddamn irritating overcomplicated lives.

Karen pushes the tea directly into his hands and tilts her chin so she can meet Shawn’s eye. He’s still lucid enough that she doesn’t think he’ll start hyperventilating, but now that the outrage and adrenaline has worn off, the symptoms of shock are pretty hard to miss. “Shawn,” she says again, and wills for him to understand.

“What if she – what if I never –” He can’t get the full sentence out. He looks at her, eyes wide and terrified.

Life sentence, Karen thinks again. The messy stack of files Shawn brought over sits almost unimportantly on the coffee table between them and a memory comes to her, unbidden, of words penned carefully in the corner of a modified police report that she pulled the minute the door closed on the McCallum case seven years ago. 

Date: May 4th, 1995. Reporting Officer, Spencer, Lt. H. Perpetrator a caucasian male, brown hair, five foot nine, insists on wearing those stupid earrings just to spite me. What the hell do you want me to write here, Chief? Spent two hours in the fucking principal’s office convincing them not to expel him one month off from graduation. All that effort, and I still booked the kid. It’s gonna follow him for life, and it’s gonna be me that did it to him. For life. You think he’ll ever forgive me? He’s the greatest thing in my pathetic little world and he keeps breaking my heart, and I can’t even properly accept that it’s my fault. 

How’s that for a fucking crime.

She needs to go put her daughter to bed. It’s the thought that keeps running through her head, oddly enough, like a strange antidote to the impotent anger and heartbreak and frustration she’s feeling for the people under her care.

With all the notes she took in that little workbook, she still let herself become complicit in the painstaking, convoluted resolution of Henry’s mistakes without accounting for all the variables.  

Richard’s footsteps sound muffled in the next room; he’s made his way upstairs in Karen’s absence. She needs to go. She wants to hear the soft and sleepy love you Mama that with her unpredictable hours and regular long nights isn’t nearly routine enough.

“Shawn,” she says evenly. “Do you love her?”

It’s hard to reconcile the smarmy kid who tried to barter with her for twelve hundred a day with the devastated young man sitting on the couch in front of her.

“Chief …” he starts, barely above a whisper.

“Good. Then she’ll see that. Detective O’Hara is a smart and observant woman. What she chooses to do next is her decision, but … you might be – well, comforted by the fact that she’ll know that – truth.”

Shawn stares at her. The tea steams in front of him, cooling in increments. She takes a deep breath and gets to her feet, patting his uninjured shoulder brusquely. 

“I have to go check on Iris. When I come back down, I can drive you to the Psych office.”

Iris is fast asleep when she gets there. A library book lays open face down over her stomach, and her soft brown hair fans out against the pillow, silhouetted by the soft glow of the unicorn nightlight in the wall above her. Karen turns off the bedside lamp, tucks her daughter in, and kisses her forehead. Just before she leaves, she hears it: murmured, half-awake.

“Love you, Mama.”

“I love you too, baby.”

Karen goes back to her living room, car keys in hand. She’s planned her next move in the driver’s seat enough times throughout her career that it shouldn’t be too hard. 

[jinnie-ret]

hii, its the anon who asked about lgbtq+ readers.

what i had in mind was a nonbinary 9th member who uses they/them pronouns and interviewers and talk how hosts etc keep misgendering them and using the wrong pronouns, saying how theyre the only female member. the boys are the one to keep adamantly correcting them, no matter how many times they have to do it. the reader would be annoyed at the interviewers but glad the boys had their back, maybe the boys reassuring them at the end.

obviously only write it if you feel comfortable, thank you for answering my original ask!! your writing is great and a big comfort, i honestly think youd be great at writing it but this is your blog and only write what you feel comfy writing <333

who I am

stray kids x ninth member non-binary!reader (platonic)

genre: angst, fluff

content warnings: ignorant interviewer, misgendering

word count: 1.4k

summary: the boys support y/n for who they are, and show them that they truly have their back when a podcast goes wrong.

Thank you so much! Ok! I finally wrote it! I hope that this brings you great comfort like my other fics do too! And please give me feedback that this was written okay because I would never want to misrepresent anyone or their feelings in my writing.

As always, like, reblog if you enjoyed, and my asks are open for any requests you may have. And let me know if you'd like to be tagged when I post :)

MAIN MASTERLIST

"Welcome back to the podcast! Today we have a special guest, or guests, should I say, Stray Kids! Everyone give it up for Stray Kids!" the interviewer, Oscar, introduces us, the camera panning to us all sat in a cosy studio setting. We were currently in LA promoting our new album.

"Thank you inviting us!" Bang Chan says bashfully. We all knew of the podcast, well, us English speakers did, and we were so excited to be on the show.

"So, let's get right into it, you're here to talk about your new album, right?" Oscar smiles, looking down at his notes before asking us the question.

"Yeah, we've just released our new album 5STAR, and we hope that our fans enjoy it, and, yeah!" Felix begins to explain, smiling as he trails off, not knowing what else to add on. You give him a rub on the shoulder, letting him know that he was doing a good job. That's what you loved about being in Stray Kids, no matter who you were, you had each other's backs.

"It really is so cool to have you all here, and may I say, this really is a unique bunch of members you have here," Oscar waves his hands as he explains.

"Well, we like to think that we all bring something different to the table haha," you laugh along politely.

"Well, that's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about, Y/N," Oscar turns his body towards you slightly.

The others go 'ohhh', making you blush slightly.

"You want to ask me?" you brush your hair back, your newly cut black mullet, which went down a treat with stays.

"Yes, the reason I say you're in quite a unique situation, is because, well, it's so rare to see 8 guys and a girl in one group together!" Oscar smiles.

Oh.

Your smile dropped.

Maybe you had gotten your hopes up, thinking he'd be talking about your input on the fashion of the group, considering it was quite well known, especially with the group's growing popularity that you created many of the pieces that yourself and the boys would wear.

But no. Somehow you didn't think that this topic would be brought up once again.

"Stray Kids is family, no matter what," Hyunjin spoke up, communicating as best he could in English that gender didn't matter.

The boys could sense your discomfort at Oscar blatantly calling you a girl. Surely he's done enough research that he knows you identify differently?

Even the less confident English speakers, Lee Know and Jeongin seemed to catch on what was happening.

"And what an interesting family you are indeed," Oscar didn't notice your unease or the slightly more defensive stances that the boys acquired from their seats.

"I also wanted to comment that I think Y/N is my bias, you guys!"

Seeming to think there was a more lighter mood in the room, Y/N themself to relax a bit and laugh along.

"Come on boys, don't be jealous, I just think she's got this special quality about her," Oscar continued, thinking the frowns on your members' faces were playfully jealous of his comment.

"They are very special to us, we feel lucky to have them in our group," Han spoke up, subtlely linking his pinkie with yours as a form of comfort. The boys knew that such situations like this still hurt you, because of how you struggled to understand why you felt different and finally knew why, it was frustrating when other people, who were clearly in a position to do some research, didn't know.

Of course you'd give the benefit of the doubt, maybe he didn't know and he might be apologetic, in which case it would all smooth over.

But it wasn't in this case.

"Actually, Oscar, Y/N is non-binary," Chan began, looking towards you to see if you wanted to continue.

"Yes, I use they/them pronouns and don't identify as either male or female, I'm just, me," you shrug it off and say casually, because that's how you felt it should be. It wasn't a big deal,.it was just who you are.

"Oh wow, that's quite interesting, so you don't look at it like she's your younger sister? Or you don't think that as a boyband you have a disadvantage having a female member?" Oscar furrowed his brows.

"We don't feel the need to recognise our member by a gender," Seungmin grabbed the mic provided by the studio and calmly spoke into it, it almost fully calmed you down, his soft voice as he spoke in English filling the room.

"It doesn't matter. We are a group. Just a group of people who like making music and entertaining our stays, and that's how they like it, so..." Felix's knee bobbed up and down, and you couldn't tell if the ray of sunshine was slowly turning into a thundercloud or if he was nervous to speak his mind. You were thankful either way.

"Right... I mean, it's funny, it must be weird, like having her as a novelty to the group, almost?" Oscar said genuinely, like he didn't see an issue in how he was conducting himself.

"They are best," Jeongin threw a cheeky smile your way, making the weight on your shoulders feel just a little bit lighter.

"We're a unit. A team. I mean, it's funny, we don't feel the need to separate ourselves based on gender," Chan passive aggressively said, using the man's previous words to show he would not take anymore ignorance to how his member was being treated.

"Look, I don't expect people to understand straight away, but I can appreciate them looking at me not just for what I believe is a socially constructed view, one that I don't align with, but for my talent," you slowly explained, nerves filling your body as you hoped the way that you had explained yourself had made sense and would get a message across to the interviewer.

"See, that's something I think would bring even more attention to your success! Y/N do you think that creating this facade has brought you more fans?" Oscar questioned, his kind intentions slipping away.

"Excuse me?" you were taken aback. Facade? He thought that you were pretending?

"Hyung? We can go now? Yeah, ok, great. We'll be leaving now, thank you for your time, I think," Chan sarcastically smiled at Oscar after getting the green light from their manager that they could leave.

"So, that wraps up our interview with Stray Kids today..."

You sighed as you all got into the van, leaving the studio all together. You sat in the back with Lee Know and Changbin.

"What did he say at the end?" Lee Know questioned, rubbing your knee soothingly.

"That I'm a fake," you scrunch your face, looking at the ceiling of the car to trap your tears and avoid them from escaping.

"He has no idea what he's talking about, Y/Nnie," Changbin turned to you as best he could at the back of the van.

"I just wish I could feel normal, but sometimes it's things like this that just alienate me from everyone else, you know?" you sigh, tapping your leg with your fingers to distract yourself.

"You're far from an alien, Y/N. We don't care about what other people say, you're a part of us. Chan hyung was right, we're a unit, and we'll stay as one forever," Hyunjin reassured you.

"Plus, if anyone is an alien, it's Hannie," Seungmin savagely chuckled.

"I'M AN ALIEN ON THIS EARTH!!!" Han took that as his cue to sing his song loudly, causing you to groan and cover your ears.

"Someone help him return to his home planet," you giggled, making the other boys laugh along with you.

"Seriously though, we've got you, hm? Stupid interviewers like that have no respect..." Jeongin shook his head, feeling irritated.

"He was nice at the start..." you trailed off, thinking about Oscar's bright personality which was for sure what brought in viewers and listeners of the podcast.

"But then he showed his true colours, he was rude, you didn't deserve the disrespect, end of," Chan said from the front of the car, making his voice a little louder than normal so everyone could hear.

"Thanks, Channie," you smiled, the two boys in the back of the car with you letting you relax against them as the stress seemed to leave your body.

They had your back, always.

tagged: @skz-streamer @hannahhbahng @backintomykpopphaseagain @kiraisastay

[elainsgirl]

I dont get it.

Cassian had those sexual desires about nesta before acosf but when its azriel, its just lust??

make it make so much sense.

But anyway, I believe Cassian and Azriel had many parallels in the books.

Acosf/Chapter 16

• Cassian hadn’t slept well. It was hard to sleep well when he’d been so aroused he’d had to pleasure himself not once but three times just to calm the hell down enough to close his eyes. But he awoke before dawn aching for her, her scent still in his nose, and another release had barely taken the edge off. •

then azriel's bonus chapter

• Sleep, they seemed to whisper in his ear. Sleep. I wish I could, he answered silently. But sleep so rarely found him these days. Too many razor-sharp thoughts sliced him any time he grew still long enough for them to strike. Too many wants and needs left his skin overheated and pulling taut across his bones. So he slept only when his body gave out, and even then only for a few hours. •

Acosf/chapter 58

• “Because I was fucking jealous!” he roared, wings splaying. “You looked like a queen, and it was painfully obvious that you should be with a princeling like Eris and not a low-born nothing like me! Because I couldn’t stand the sight of it, right down to my gods-damned bones! •

Az bonus chap

• He left the rest unspoken. Because her mate was here, sleeping a level up. Because her mate had been in the family room and Azriel had needed to stay by the door the whole time because he couldn't stand the sight of it, the scent of their mating bond, and needed to have the option of leaving if it became too much. •

Also when they both mentioned how they felt envy or jealous when seeing their brother(s) in love.

this is just me saying random stuff below lol

I really don't get the hate for elriel at all. Saying theyre sibling coded is just forcing it. Nothing about them is sibling coded, especially after that bonus chapter. (they really gave strangers-friends-lovers) This author's writing is not that hard to understand. why are majors coming to the internet about this book and to mostly just hate on elriel? like... please stop.

I have nothing to say about gwyn or lucien because what is there to say? theyre good characters but not those characters I am so interested about. I would say im more interested in emerie! She deserves more attention!!



BANG ON, ANON

👏👏👏

The spinoffs are explicit NA novels. ACOSF quite literally was filled with explicit scenes, Nessian agreed to a physical relationship only for most of the book. No one batted an eye. No one said nessian isn’t endgame bcs Cass only lusts for Nesta. Yet god absolutely forgive Azriel for having explicit thoughts on the woman he’s literally interested in and said woman - just like Nesta - WANTED HIM BACK. If it wasn’t mutual - if Elain didn’t want to kiss Az back, then it’s a different matter. But she wanted him without hesitation.

I think elriels hatred from the bonus comes down to a matter of things:

. Whether they acknowledge it or not - some antis see Elain more “childish” & “pure” compared to other characters due to her being more feminine. To see Azriel have such thoughts towards her, made them uncomfortable bcs they don’t see Elain as an adult but a child. In other words they infantilise her - which is why they complained about the bonus.

. Instead of taking elriels bonus as part of the development of elriels’ relationship in previous books, they view it as a standalone event. They see it as the only “major” elriel interaction- so for those antis, they wanted to see Azriel show and tell us readers how much he cares & loves elain him staying away from her and buying her a beautiful necklace which symbolises her personality isnt enough Its like everything he’s done for elain previously doesn’t matter. Him giving her TT doesn’t matter, him spending his solstice night listening to her talk doesn’t matter. None of it does bcs they’re only focusing on his bonus. They’re only focusing on Azriel’s thoughts that particular night/time - Oh Az didnt confess his undying love for her right then and there? Clearly he doesn’t care about her. Thats their way of thinking - which is limited and takes a lot of things out of context

The last factor ill share for now, Antis hold Elriel to a different standard then every other ship. Elriel have always been hated, more then every other couple bcs some say Azriel deserves better and the other half want Lucien to be relevant & happy. When you have to accept the reality of something you hate - naturally you’ll hold it to a higher standard then the norm. You’ll nitpick at every single thing bcs you dont like it and want to find faults to justify this dislike. Thats what happened with elriel especially when its compared to ships like Gwynriel and Elucien - who are “perfect” in comparison (bcs they’re not developed in the least therefore easy to mold them to your preference) and make up for everything elriel lacks.

Elriel have so many parallels to other couples - you’ve mentioned some above. Sjm has a clear pattern for acotar- elriel fit this pattern in every way, shape and form. But when you dig deeper into elucien and gwynriel they don’t fit this pattern & parallels.

Anyone that says elriel is platonic- even before that bonus - honestly deserves a rlly big side eye with a side of judgement.

anon, anyone that says they have a major in x and proceed to share the most basic analysis known to man and then further proceed to use the wrong context and purposely act obtuse when it comes to elriel makes me laugh. “i have a degree in english lit and its clear Az only wants a mate 🥸” - Azriel then falling in love w a fated woman that quite literally defeats the purpose of him solely wanting a mate…

I was 14 when it first read these books. At that ripe age, elriel were blaringly obvious to me. I kid you not when I learnt of these ship wars I was genuinely flabbergasted at how people where actually doubting elriel. I didn’t have a degree in anything bcs its not needed. These are basic books with basic cliche tropes and plot. Everything is right there for you to pierce together.

I love Lucien - Im interested in his story. Gwyn didn’t stick out to me. - She was just a typical fantasy side character. I loved the companionship she gave Nesta but even in SF i was invested in elain. Noting everytime she came on page, paying extra attention when her name was mentioned etc. i also love emerie - she definitely deserves more love and recognition as well as her own story of reforming Illyria.

[thefirstlioveyou]

about queerbaiting

this is a byler doubt free post, don’t worry. i’m gonna dove into queerbaiting itself to prove why mike will be confirmed queer.

if byler isn’t canon, the ship as a whole wouldn’t be considered queerbait. however, the fact that mike would be confirmed to just see him as a good friend and is straight is considered queerbait.

byler itself is considered ship teasing due to the fact there’s confirmed feelings on one side already. ship teasing can happen with any type of ship, especially when there is a love triangle involved. ship teasing is done to grab an audience of any kind to watch the show. for example, them liking melvin comments is ship teasing as much as noah’s byler comments are.

because of the fact will byers is confirmed gay and in love with mike, the ship itself could not be qbait… that doesn’t mean the show doesn’t get away with no queerbaiting allegations though - mike wheeler by himself would have been what the queerbait was.

he is so heavily implied to be interested in will, giving will the eyes, how he speaks to him, how he treats him vs his girlfriend, how he cherishes him. outside of byler, he is also implied to not have any attraction to girls. he is the only other boy besides the canon gay boy to show distaste for girls when theyre put in a romantic/sexual light, the comments from his father, the imagery, his s4 bedroom, how he looks at el vs will, intereviews.

all this for him to be confirmed in love with a girl and not into boys in the end and that will’s just a really good friend to him, THAT’S queerbait as well as horrible writing.

however, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of producers and showrunners who do queerbait for a second…

“i want money and publicity. i also notice there’s hardly any queer content out there, i see how desperate the gays are. but.. if i dare even giving them what they want, that can lead to backlash and angry fans who drop the show, causing the viewership to go down, which can lead to the show being cancelled. but at the same time, if i give the gay part of the fanbase what they want that fanbase can grow bigger, which means a growing publicity about my show and ultimately more money for a bigger budget for another installment. but, i also don’t want to lose fans by doing this…. i have an idea! i’ll go 50/50. i’ll hint at a potiential queer characters and by the end of the show, once i got everything i wanted and needed, i’ll tell them they were just good friends or leave it up for interpretation, that way nobody drops the show and the homophobes stay happy. perhaps the gays will be mad, but i doubt they would drop the show. they’re too desperate and will take anything because there’s little to nothing for them anyway. i’m sooo smart, and a pussy!”

(sounds incredibly evil huh? it is.)

now, apply this to stranger things. there is no actual benefit they get from queerbaiting if we’ve already got two confirmed gay characters. they’re already taking the backlash they got from making will gay and from introducing robin in s3, yet… they don’t care. as they should.

think about this… why leave only ONE heavily implied gay character amongst canon ones just to debunk it afterwards to pander to homophobes, when you’ve already pissed them off with said canon gays?? there’s no sense in that. like. at ALL.

noah could’ve just said will’s sexuality was up to interpretation and left it as that. in the end, they had confirmed it later because they wanted to save the audience from spoilers. that’s the same thing happening for mike. him being queer and in love with will is a spoiler and plot twist, they’re not gonna reveal it now, even though it’s blantly obvious.. the same way it was obvious will liked mike.

these big hollywood people queerbait because they BENEFIT from it viewership-wise and ultimately fincially. if stranger things already features canon gay characters with a coming confirmed gay relationship between two girls, they get zero benefit with not falling through and not confirming mike queer, only pure backlash, nothing more or less.

never forget:

they’ve straight baited the audience once no problem, they’ll do it again if they really want to. as they should!

[nightlyrequiem]

Hi there requiemm!!! :3

tis i, jester, back with more requezts 😈

soo, ive got this like, vague idea, idk if its going to be worded correctly (im writing this on 2 hours of sleep and four cans of mango monster energy drinks)

anywhos, yknow how Valeria has that one skin thats full of tattoos? Like, face included? I think it would be genuinly super adorable if she had one of her cartel workers (us, reader) tattoo them on her

(I know some people say she got her tattoos in prison, but, this is fiction, so, who the fuck cares)

i want sexual tension though. Like, inbetween breaks from her lil tattoos reader massages her shoulders or something, or like, they have to get real up close for a tattoo on Valerias upper thigh -- instead of kneeling infront of her etc, reader looms over her shoulder, leaning at the heel of their palm, said palm placed inbetween Valerias legs on the chair underneath her, ykyk?? Idk if u know what im talking about, but, generally, keep the whole thing feeling like theyre about to kiss or smth 😦 real up close and intimate

Or like, Valeria requests reader sits criss-cross on her lap, holding her face as they start up her cheek tattoos, rather than just standing, uncomftorably over her, while loosely adjusting the position of her head, because, 'she values her favorite tattoo artists ease'. Aaagghhh melting 🫠

I ask of you, if pronouns HAVE to be involved, either keep them gn (gender neutral), or fem. I genuinly cannot imagine Valeria with a man of any kind, im sorry 😭

Whether or not smut is involved is up to u :3

as always, take care, and stay silly! No rush, no pressure, thank you in advance, whether or not u decide to write for this :3

much love,

-🃏🌀⭐️

Hiii Jester :3 So, someone actually already requested Valeria x Tattooist Reader a few days before you did. This post, if you were wondering. It was so fun to write though and I liked some of the ideas you had as well so I'm writing some more.

Fem or gender neutral reader 4ever. No hate to any male Valeria enjoyers but Valeria x any man icks me out

Also, mango monster is the best monster. 🙌

More Tattooist Reader x Valeria

I think you’re talking about her blackcell skin. The one with the skull tattoo on her face? Love that. It’s so… 😍

You worked for Valeria for a while. It’s no secret to anyone that you are good at tattooing. It still surprised you when Valeria asked you to do hers. You were incredibly nervous waiting for the upcoming day. She wanted a lot done in one session too.

The day finally came and in walked Valeria in all her glory. She just walked in like she owned the place. Technically she did, it was HER warehouse. You invited her to sit, eyeing the bare space on her arms. Your own canvas.

Valeria wanted her face done first. You awkwardly fumbled for a position before deciding to just invade her personal space. You tried leaning but you couldn’t get a stable grip on the needle. Valeria made a suggestion to simply sit in her lap.

You’re just so talented and she’d hate for your hand to start cramping, or for the awkward angle to do damage to the nerves. Please, sit in her lap, it’s really no trouble at all. She insists.

You considered it. That would be awkward but who wouldn’t take the chance to sit in VALERIA GARZA’S LAP? You certainly would take that chance. You sat your ass down and got to work. Gently holding her jaw as you worked. She stared at you the entire time. And you? You avoided looking into her eyes as if she were Medusa.

Occasionally you’d hit a more sensitive area and she’d tense under you and make a small noise. Oh boy, it was a going to be a long session. You had to fight yourself to focus on the work at hand and not the way her breath softly hit you in the face. How close her lips were to your own. If either you or her just leaned in about three inches you’d be kissing.

The worst part was when Valeria started talking to you. Asking about your work as an artist, and about how you were getting on in the cartel. Practically murmuring into your ear. It’s a good thing you weren’t a guy because you’d be popping an absolute RAGER.

You had finally finished her face tattoos. You hesitated before getting off of her. You wanted to savour the feeling of being in her lap for just a little longer. Not too much longer though. You didn’t want her to think you were weird.

You did her left arm next. A little college of images and symbols coming together right on her arm. You finished up and looked at your work proudly. Her skin was still red and irritated but you knew she was going to look so good when they were fully healed.

She needed a break before you started on her right arm. Valeria had a high pain tolerance but getting a needle repeatedly stabbed into your skin will start to become unbearable after a while. Valeria stretched and then winced.

“Do you think you could help me?”

That’s how you ended up stationed behind her. You weren’t a licensed massage therapist either but it turns out tattooing isn’t your only skill.

You finished up her right arm a few hours later. You still had another session the next week to finish up some smaller details but you were finished for now and Valeria was happy. Happy enough that you somehow ended up in her bed that night. Not that you were complaining.

[pyromegalomaniac]

SOO, I may have requested this to another author but I wanna see how others write/interpret it

Can I have a wally x reader BUT the reader is close with Frank and Frank sees the reader like his kid or somethin,. like theyre friends but they have a father-kid dynamic

an extra idea but what if frank finds out abt wally’s feelings for the reader 😭😭

Anon... this is such a good idea. Must!! Write!! Headcannons!! Ahhh!!!! I hope you like what I did with your prompt!! (I also threw in a dash of Frank x Eddie because I absolutely ship it~) Enjoy!!!

(♡˙︶˙♡)

Wally x dad/kid-type relationship w/Frank!reader headcanons🍎🦋

Hanging out in the backyard while Frank teaches you about the different butterflies

He also teaches you how to catch them, but that you should always be nice to them, and to let them go also

He doesn't like you laying down in the grass when you look at the buggies cus you get stains on your clothes

He's always telling you to "tuck your shirt in" and "tie your shoes" and stuff like that

(His kid-er, freind needs to be presentable, after all!)

He doesn't like being interrupted by Eddie the mailman when you two are observing a specimen in the front yard

But you think their interactions are cute

Thinking to yourself "He should really find someone nice to be with..."

Wally likes staring at you while you stare at the buggies

Wally will ask you to go somewhere with him (as platonic friends do, of course) and you'll ask if Frank can come too

Wally will cheerily agree after a moment's hesitation

Frank will see that Wally is obviously trying to get you to go on a date and say something like "actually I need their help with x right now..."

Eventually he'll talk with Wally and see he has good intentions and would treat you well

So he starts to gently nudge you two together

You start to catch feelings for Wally and are in the early dating stages

You'll make sure Frank knows about it before every date you go on

Except for one time where you two snuck into the apple orchard late one night and...

KISSED!!

(Oooooo!! :0!!!)

You're happy with your boyfriend but you wish Frank had someone of his own...

Suggesting you, Wally, Frank and Eddie should go somewhere to hang out (totally not a double date) like to the park

You convinced Frank to go because there might be some nice butterflies flying around

You and Wally having a nice time together, holding hands and giggling at Frank and Eddie getting along

(It seems like everyone had a good time!! Yay!!)

Wally's happy! Frank and Eddie are happy! You're happy! You're happy that they're happy! Everyone is happy!! Yayyy!!!

Sorry if there wasn't really as much x reader stuff as I maybe should've done... I kinda went ham with the Frank stuff... I still think it turned out good! I hope I was able to capture what you were asking for!! Thanks for requesting these headcanons, they were fun to write and I look forward to doing more in the future!! Much love!!!

ヽ(>∀<☆)ノ

[mxrcjqckspnchqsc]

Hiii! If you're accepting requests for prince Friedrich (bridgerton), could I get a Friedrich and reader fic where theyre royalty too and frenemies? And they end up at the same ball and have to dance tgt (obv)? The next day lady whistledown and the ton out there shipping the two so they have to keep up appearances and promenade together all the time? Eventually fall in love!! (+ points if they childishly argue through the whole dance) thanksss💕

Is It Love Or Hate?

Summary: Read request above!

Prince Friederich x gn!reader

Genre: Fluffiest of fluff, (It's also the only thing I can write about but moving on)

Warnings: Romantic themes, strong language(not really just good old british slang that I love very much), and It is a gender neutral reader, y/n(aka you or just plain old y/n) is a princess and wears a dress in this one-shot!!

A/N: Omg omg omg this is my first request, this is so exciting! This request is so cute, I hope you like it! Also I'm sorry for some of the writing is in third person, I just don't really like first person. And I'm sorry this took too long, I'm quite busy with stuff(school) atm. And now because of this request, I wanna make a prince Friederich fanfic lol but I hope you guys enjoy this one-shot!!(Also this isn't proofread so if there are any errors do tell me!)

Y/n groaned at the thought, they were going to yet again another ball, y/n loved being a royal and all but that meant they had the possibility of seeing him, Prince Friederich, Y/n had mixed feelings about him, they would love him and then the next minute, they hate him. As I finally laid down on the couch, my mother busted in, causing them to jump up.

"Mother, what is it? Why must you rush in here as if I did something wrong?!?" I asked.

"Oh no dear, it's just your dress is finally done! You just have to wear it for tonight's ball." Y/m/n explained as she gave you the dress. "Doesn't the color look nice?"

I had to agreed, the colors on the dress were absolutely stunning, y/f/c always looked good on them, always.

"Well I must agree, the dress does look nice." I agreed.

"Perhaps you might even find the one," Y/m/n teased.

"You said that as the last fifty balls," I exaggerated. "It seems people only see me for my looks Mother, nothing more, I told you many times that I wanted to marry for love."

"Then find someone you love, my dear. You know I will always support you." Y/m/n smiled at you and left moments after.

Y/n changed into the dress and was suprised on how the dress complimented her very well.

"Are you ready to go-?" Y/m/n asked as she busted in the room but stopped once she saw y/n. "My dear, you look beautiful."

"Yes mother I am ready to go," I placed the tiara on her head. "Thank you but we must not make haste," I reminded.

"Oh yes yes!" Y/m/n exclaimed. "We shall go to the carriage at once." Y/m/n announced.

Y/m/n linked her arm with Y/n and they left and headed to the ball, moments later, they had arrived.

"I'll be on the lookout for potential suitors, and you Y/n shall be the princess you are and dance with two men tonight." Y/m/n said.

"One," I corrected.

Y/m/n sighed knowing that Y/n wouldn't listen to her. "Fine, you must dance with one man tonight."

"Good, Ah I think I see the Duchess of Hastings right there. I'll leave you be mother!" I called out.

Before Y/n could make her way to Daphne, she was stopped by the one of the many men she didn't want to see tonight.

"You highness, Princess Y/n," Lord Gray bowed down infront of her. "May I have your first dance?" He asked, holding out his hand.

Y/n was about to tell him off when someone did it for her and she didn't have to turn around to know who it was.

"Actually, the Princess had already offered her first dance on her dance card with me." Prince Friederich explained.

"Oh, I see," Lord Gray seemed to buy the lie and walked away.

"Shall we?" Friederich held his hand out.

Y/n only glared at him before taking his hand, the two royals made their way to the dance floor.

"Now look at what you did," I whispered. "I only wanted to dance with one man tonight and now you're fulfilling my mother's wishes and I'm going to dance with two."

Prince Friederich only snickered in response.

"Well I apologize for doing that but it seemed like you didn't want to dance with him." Friederich stated the obvious.

"Yeah well I didn't want to dance with you either and here we are." I smiled sarcastically.

"You can blame my aunt on that, she actually insisted I'd dance with you first tonight." He replied.

Prince Friederich dipped you and pulled you close, making you gasp, he noticed this and backed away. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" I asked confused.

"For making you uncomfortable," He answered rather quickly.

"If anything, you actually made me feel more safe from the viscount, I can see him glaring at us" I laughed and smiled at him, causing him to smiled back as he pulled you in close again.

...

"Y/n, Oh Miss Y/n! Wake up! Your highness, it is urgent!" Evelyn, one of the lovely servants shook you awake.

"I'm up," I mumbled, not fully awake.

"Lady Whistledown wrote about you and the Prince from the dance, you must read!" Evelyn exclaimed.

"Can I atleast get out of my bed first?" I asked, Evelyn nodded excitingly before leaving.

Y/n got up and ready and finally headed down the stairs where they was greeted by not only Evelyn but their mother as well.

"So Lady Whistledown wrote about me in her paper?" I asked.

Y/m/n nodded happily and gave you the paper. When you were shocked, Lady Whistledown wrote about the two of you dancing and how you two would make quite a lovely couple but before you could read anymore, you got called upon by Prince Friederich, he seemed to have read the latest issue quickly this morning.

"Your highness," Evelyn bowed down at him before he stopped her.

"Oh please, just call me Friederich, is Y/n awake yet? I hope I didn't wake her, I just wanted to have a little chat." Friederich smiled.

"And does your little chat include those lovely y/f/fs?" I asked.

I made my way to him and Evelyn, who now exited the room once she took notice of my appearance.

"Oh these," Friederich looked at them as well. "I didn't send them, maybe Lord Gray no Gary sent them." He teased.

Due to his teasing, I snorted and I quickly covered my mouth in embarrassment.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I normally never do that."

"It's fine, it was quite adorable if I were to be honest." Friederich smiled.

I blushed at his words and smiled softly but quickly changed my expression as I still had no idea what he was doing here so I asked. "Well if you will allow me to Prince-"

"Friederich," He cut you off.

"...Friederich, what are you doing here?" I asked.

"I was just going to ask if well considering what Whistledown wrote about us, maybe she should write about us even more if you give me the opportunity to court you and take to on a promenade?" He asked.

My eyes widened at his words, he wanted to court me out of all people but I realized that maybe this was just his aunt's doing.

"Are you sure that you want to court me and this isn't your aunt's doing because if it is then I'm gonna have to-" I was cut off again.

"No!" He exclaimed before clearing his throat. "My apologies, I did this on my own. My aunt has no idea I am even here." He chuckled.

"Oh, then yes, I would be delighted to be courted by the only prince I seem to know." I laughed.

...

Y/n and Friederich have been courting for quite awhile now, making this their fifth time going on a promenade, Y/n had developed feelings for him and was wondering just as everyone else was thinking once they saw the latest issue "When will he propose?"

"This is the fifth time we're out to promenade, can we please go somewhere else Friederich?" I asked in a hushed whisper. "The sun is practically setting!"

"Please Y/n, just called me Freddie and to answer your question, we can't go somewhere alone, you know that but perhaps a boat ride would be nice."

"Or hunting or we can pretend to get lost in a flower field?" I suggested.

"A flower field would be nice, hm there is one there," He held up his arm. "Shall we go?"

"We shall," I smiled. "Mother, we'll be right back. We're going to pick some flowers from the field!"

"Okay, stay safe!" Y/m/n exclaimed.

But Y/m/n was distracted with Lady Danbury that she didn't even notice that the two royals weren't going to the flower field but instead the woods.

"Ah the woods, why did you take us here Freddie," I asked.

Friederich blushed at the nickname even though he suggested it but brushed it off.

"I wanted to look at the nature, nature is quite interesting. I mean just look at that bird!" He exclaimed in a hushed whisper.

"That bird does look quite fascinating." I comments, making him smile wide.

"I never saw those in Prussia so they are new to me," Friederich revealed.

"Well maybe if you stay here a little longer then maybe you'll see more," I smiled at him.

"Yeah maybe," Friederich smiled.

I took my eyes off him and laid down to look at the sunset, He laid down beside me.

"It's quite beautiful isn't it?" I asked, referring to the setting sun.

"Yeah, it's breathtaking." He whispered, still staring at me.

I looked back at him when he was indeed already staring, he didn't take one look at the sunset and kept his eyes on me. I blushed and tried to look away when his hand caressed my face and leaned in, he kissed me and I kissed back. When we broke apart, he sat up, I repeated the action and we kissed again, he mumbled something in the kiss that I couldn't decipher..

"Freddie, what did you say?" I asked, my hand resting softly on his cheek.

"I wish to marry you Y/n, I'm in love with you." He confessed.

"The night of the ball when we danced, I lied to you, my aunt didn't say anything about you at all, I chose to dance with you that night because not only are you breath taking, you are the only person that I love competing with and poking fun at with, you're the only person who knows the real me and I love for that, I love that you let me in and that you trust me and you share all your conspiracies about who Whistledown is, you're the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, kids or no kids, in London or in Prussia. I want you just the way you are because I'm smitten and I love you oh so much. And I completely understand if you don't desire me the same but I couldn't keep it in any longer and I-" Friederich was cut off by you kissing him again, more passionate this time.

When you pulled away, you spoke. "I love you too, I would say that I want you but that's a lie, I need you and I just can't possibly see my life without you in it. Without you, I could probably be married to Lord Gray and I know we are both happy that isn't the reality," We both chuckled before I continued. "Freddie, just know this. No matter where we are or who we're with, I will always be looking at him and with you because you are now my husband to be, and I wish to be your wife forever." I confessed.

I rested my head on his chest and I heard his heartbeat making me calm, I closed my eyes and hugged him, he hugged me back.

"Your wish has been granted, my love." Prince Friederich kissed the top of my head.