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elizabethrobertajones · 4 months ago

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summer scions!! I absolutely love the new portraits for all their smug happy expressions. Except Y'shtola, who is not going to deign to give a camera a proper saucy look because that's silly. Urianger is smirking twice as hard on her behalf.

Glam review under the cut!

I unlocked Alphinaud first of the twins and didn't know Alisaie had a little necktie yet, so I'm deducting a point from my first impression because the sheer delight that he had a silly little necktie of some sort no matter the situation delighted me so thoroughly. Since they're still engaging in matchy twin dressing to some degree, I have to assume they either like it and won't admit it after digging in so hard, or Ameliance sent them off with cute outfits and matching backpacks, and they still don't really shop for themselves.

He's got the practical watch/compass gloves which are good for a technically proficient Sage and probably the most practical gear he's ever worn except for when he was poncho Alphy, but wearing ankle-length jeans seem like the least weather-appropriate choice of the Scions if we assume their average skin coverage is a good weathervane for the temperature in Tural. I chalk it up to teenage awkwardness.

8/10 unless he and Alisaie chose their outfits themselves, in which case it's a 9/10

I think Alisaie is the only Scion to keep a single piece of their default gear, and those are her usual gloves. She's colour-matched around it.

Because of the gloves and boots, she looks the most ready for hardcore hiking, somehow, and her matching Alphinaud with a cute button down shirt with rolled up sleeves along with that particular choice of baggier shorts (when she normally wears more form fitting shorts) do give me the closest to butch vibes it's probably likely to get for main characters. So I'm giving her an extra point I stole from Alphinaud for the lesbian vibes.

9/10 or 10/10 if she made these choices all by herself.

Everything about this cracks me up, from his portrait above to the image of him tanking open shirted once he pulls mobs.

Believe it or not, he's getting an additional point for those shoes simply because the competition in practicality in tanking is G'raha.

I had a moment of excitement when I thought the necklace was pink because that's always a cute Ryne/Minfillia thing fanartists give him with ribbons and such, but once I got zoomed in on him it was red, so I guess he's just been shopping. Although, the turquoise shorts are her eye colour and the actual large diamond shapes are secretly Mothercrystal coded in those colours, which just cracks me up that you can pick out one of the worse days of his life (Urianger's grand Warrior of Darkness plan) in his Chill Summer Beach Vibes look.

Douchebag beach bro shell bracelet as well, which really makes me double down on him and Urianger spending way too much on tourist bait along the stalls in the Famous Turali Market. The hat and sunglasses are giving him one of the Most tourist-y looks thematically reflecting how a lot of the Scion guys were just here to hang out, narratively or literally. Maybe he's trying not to get such an intense tan again, which is the only reason he's not entirely topless.

11/10 I could not stop laughing when I got him and Urianger to 100 and Beheld The Brilliance in the same moment.

Please note the raised sunglasses in Urianger's portrait, which are not the model his character uses.

I am delighted that I had been incorporating that island watch into my healer glams on both the logic you need to know your clock positionals but also they're largely the smarty pants jobs (WHM being vibes only aside - it gets its own glams :P). And here's Urianger and Alphinaud both using watches.

Now, I had a moment of being vaguely disappointed he had trousers not a skirt or something else swishy and androgynous, but then I did realise that I, a nonbinary weirdo who relates to Urianger since he made me nonbinary, have actually gone to a couple of garden parties dressed in some variation of this exact outfit of light trousers and a nice button up. Plus, the earrings are in both ears, so no "Google, which ear is the gay one?", these are just straight up cute femme dangly earrings with his favourite little dudes on.

More importantly, the colours he's repping are those of Lopporit Radio. He probably tunes in every night for his broadcasts :')

Mirrored sunglasses for the guy notorious for keeping thoughts and plans close to his chest and choosing deliberately to be enigmatic even when it serves zero purpose except for I guess gender affirming care. (The gender is Weird Bitch.)

I can't tell how I feel about those dad sandals. I suppose it depends if he's wearing them like a fashion model (brand new and clean with perfect pedicured feet) or if those are REALLY dad at the beach-like and, since I'm not a foot person, this for me is only a choice between "not off-putting" and "AURGH".

9/10 the proximity to Thancred hauls him up several points of misgivings I had, and the lopporit shout outs are killing me :')

I unlocked Y'shtola last and holy fuck I am a lesbian. I don't even recognise where those boots come from, so either a really expensive glam or something I just have not stumbled on. She has toe rings I think? And painted nails? I have no idea if the garter (?) is part of the boots glam or a custom thing as result of not recognising the boots and how much of them is normal. I feel like they customised a lot on her anyway - the back of her top has purple beads that match her staff (not dyable on the real piece)

and I think the necklace has to be part of the top instead of a separate necklace piece with the way it hangs, AND the bracelets are a glove piece with the original summer glam, but I assume they're layered with the false nails, also in the glove slot. All in all it's giving the sort of effort which is starting to creep up to what I'd expect from the modding community not the game. I mean, not THAT good but getting close. Baby steps towards what fandom can make :P

She really is god's favourite meow meow.

Anyway I can't really judge this fairly because it's really hot and I love her so I'm just going to give it 100/10 and move on. :)

how did I get a picture where Estinien looks like he's stooping to get in the frame...

The fact he has Azure Dragoon Blue Top and then Violently Nidhogg Fuchsia shorts is the colour theory that absolutely killed me. When he lights up during his burst and starts glowing pink all over his shorts are like. Taking him over like the eye once did I think.

love a guy who can embrace his past trauma and dress to match all that has passed before and all that he intends to do now (kill something large and tasty, grill it on the beach, fall asleep with a beer in hand until the waves come in and wake him up).

I gave him that wooden bracelet in the glam he has on my desktop screen so once again I'm feeling weirdly vindicated.

Other details: no ponytail despite the warm weather because he's got enough ventilation. The fact there's cactaurs on his shirt when he's on record for eating them is amazing. We should imagine he's wearing his jobstone like that pendant (since he's one of the only guys with a confirmed jobstone despite being the Guy Without A Job notoriously that one time.)

Unlike Thancred's hat and sunglasses combo, which seems fun and boisterous somehow, he seems the most walled off of all the sunglasses wearers even though he's not the most mysterious. The visor really helps make it a sort of wall. Maybe just because his terse upfront personality and somehow despite his clothes horse habits THIS amount of whimsy seems the most out of character at first glance, but he DOES look uncomfortable to me.

Somehow I find everything about this outfit excellent for his character but also like maybe he was forced into it, everyone cornering him and telling him the Scion Beach Party was a mandatory work event and he was not allowed to beg off of it and he did put some work in expressing himself but also is going to go find a much quieter corner to lurk in for the day, when not competing with Thancred (can't grill, loves it) for the barbeque (Estinien can grill, would only do it because the threat of Thancred doing it wrong is too high).

confused 7/10 mostly because I think Krile is blackmailing him and not because I don't love everything about this.

Here's how G'reenha Tia can still win -

Anyway here's the deducted point for tanking in flip flops (PERFECTLY acceptable BLM gear btw but he's Mr Versatile.)

(I joke but the main character of my novels is a flip-flop wearing menace who could and would tank in them)

Between the padlock and key necklace and the woven bracelet right after we all went feral over the Thavnarian bracelets for couples thing so recently (and Corvos is just across the water!) he's absolutely dripping cutie pie love interest coding yet again.

(Also yes I know the lock and key thing is very funny because we were introduced to him learning he was a fancy key to a big door.)

Gains a point back because the other green g'raha thing is I'm pretty sure people use this shirt glam because it kinda looks like it has weed on it.

Don't quote me on that, vibes only.

Anyway he came colour coordinated (with his original eye colour and hair colour not the bright Allagan dalamud red dye that goes with his normal outfit) so so precise and neat, like he's going to some sort of formal event, and even with flip flops he really does seem incredibly put together like the twins or Y'shtola, just for full outfit cohesiveness.

As someone who would hold G'raha's hand on the romantic gondola vibe, 10/10.

3 out of 10 and a huge cringe if you would not. He's got to stop Striving.

Hey it's the star of the show!! Adorable hairstyle out, cute plot-important earring on, and wearing her exact character colours but adorable beach wear :)

I love that she looks kind of like she went to the girls for advice and got the top from Y'shtola and the shorts from Alisaie, and she probably was very serious and stressed about getting this right even though there's no rules and no one's judging her -

oops.

Anyway the ballet shoes are adorable and go with all the cute picto spins and twirls :)

I think the strict colour scheme does speak to the slight lack of fleshing out she got so far in the story (we don't really have any real character reason that picto in particular spoke to her and this glam isn't one of the many fun takes people had on how to dress to meet that brief ). I don't think DT did more than just repeat that she's serious and sweet and trying really hard to get out of her shell and be more fun and creative and also she's been practicing dodging really hard she shouts mid-Trust combat (bless her). But ALSO getting out of the shell is really hard and she only found out everything and got some closure in the final level 100 quests so there wasn't really much to do with her after that.

This is like her First Non-Plot-Critical Whimsy Moment and losing the hood or any cat ears entirely (and there are perfectly functional cat ears to wear in game) is a good step considering we know she wears it precisely because she needed a sort of advance PR campaign to make her look cute and approachable before she opened her mouth and started bringing down the vibe (serious scary children are SO funny though and i love that for her). Having the same top as Y'shtola is a good thing for trying to make her less childish and have her trying to show that now as she takes this huge step out from the background. I mean, it still has a slight sense of her costuming herself and pushing herself out of comfort zones as she always does, but it's 100% in character so I adore it.

1000/10 because Krile is great and there's so much going on here and it's so fun when a character's whole personality is a costume and then they're like aurgh wait do I even want that??

#ffxiv #dawntrail spoilers #I love these goobers #enough to level all the jobs through Trust rather than more varied and faster means :')

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sailortongue · 1 year ago

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Wingteam

pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

wc: ~1.5k

summary: the team decides that Spencer is in need of a date and they're going to be the ones to help him. But there's just one problem that the team doesn't know about: Spencer already has a girlfriend

a/n: this is my first time writing for criminal minds so they're probably all out of character but pls bear with me. binged the first four seasons in a month and i'm completely hooked on the show and spencer so hopefully i'll write more and improve characterization. any feedback would be super appreciated!

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Spencer Reid was a rather private person, preferring to keep his private life just that: private. But it was getting progressively harder to explain why he didn't want to participate in group outings to the local bars. Truth be told, all he wanted was to get home to you and cuddle on the couch. Not that his teammates knew you even existed. It wasn't that he was ashamed of you! No, never. How could he ever be ashamed of the most wonderful thing in his life? No, it was because he knew he'd never hear the end of the teasing, especially from Morgan. And so he had decided that he would keep you all to himself, after discussing with you, of course. You had no issue with him not disclosing your relationship with his coworkers. However, it was this secrecy that led him to this horribly uncomfortable moment.

“You don't get to weasel out this time, pretty boy. You're coming with us even if I have to manhandle you there,” said Morgan. “And you're not leaving that bar without a girl on your arm,” he added, finger pointed at Reid in an accusatory manner.

It took all of Spencer’s willpower to not outwardly grimace. Like hell he was going to leave with any girl that wasn't you. “I’m not looking for a relationship right now,” he declined. It wasn't exactly a lie; he was already in a relationship, afterall.

“Oh, c’mon, Spence, don't you want to settle down one day?” chimed in Emily. “I bet you'd be an amazing husband.” She redirected her attention, “We just have to find the future Mrs. Reid, right Morgan?”

Morgan smirked, “Sounds like a plan.”

“No. There is no plan. Stop scheming. I told you, I’m not looking for a relationship. And even if I was, I don't think I’d need a team of FBI agents to help me get a date,” Spencer tried to discourage his friends, but to no avail. In fact, it just seemed to egg them on.

“Reid, I’ve never seen you go out with anyone. We’re getting you laid tonight and there's nothing you can do about it.”

“Never seen me go out with anyone? Should I be inviting you along to my dates?”

The sarcasm wasn't lost on Morgan, who rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.” He turned to look at Garcia, “Hey, babygirl, you wanna help us land Reid a date?” The grin that Morgan had whilst asking was soon mirrored by the technical analyst in question.

“Do you even have to ask, sugar?”

A quick glance around the bullpen at his gathered teammates told him that no one was going to help him get out of this. Spencer’s expression changed to one of panic, but not for the reason that his friends assumed, i.e. that he had no experience with girls and was just nervous. Much to his chagrin, Hotch made a different deduction, and whilst everyone else was discussing their plan for later that night, he leaned down to Reid, “Why don't you just tell them you have a girlfriend already?”

Spencer, who was nowhere near as skilled as Hotch at hiding his emotions, had shock written all over his face. He opened his mouth to question how Hotch knew that, not even bothering to deny it. But Hotch answered before Spencer could even ask the question. “I’m a profiler. To be honest, I'm surprised the rest of the team hasn’t figured it out. Rossi has a suspicion, though.” And with that, Hotch stood back up to his full height and resumed conversation with the team, asking what time they had decided to meet.

I’m so screwed thought Spencer.

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“I’m so screwed,” Spencer announced to you as soon as he walked into your shared apartment, dropping his satchel in the entryway. You looked up from the book you were currently reading, “What happened? Are you okay?” You closed your book and set it on the coffee table, giving your perfect boyfriend your full attention. He sighed and joined you where you were reclined on the couch, lying down and placing his head on your tummy, wrapping his arms around you in the process. You smiled down at him gently and brought your hand up to play with his curls, eliciting a satisfied groan from him. “What's eating you, Spence?”

He tilted his head up before answering, “I have to meet the team at a bar later tonight.”

Your brows furrowed in confusion, not seeing what the issue could possibly be. “Ok? Why is that a problem?”

He adjusted himself to be propped up on his elbows on either side of you. “It’s a problem because they've all decided that I'm in need of a girlfriend,” he huffed. Despite your best efforts, you couldn't contain your laughter at Spencer’s obvious distress over the situation. You truly meant no offense, but he was just so gosh darn cute.

“Spencer, sweetheart, why don't you just tell them?”

“Honestly, at this point I just want to see how long it takes them to figure it out without me outright telling them. We're not supposed to profile each other, but it becomes second nature due to the job, so they're bound to pick up on it eventually. Hotch already knows, and he said that Rossi is suspicious. The others haven't caught on yet, but now Morgan wants to be my wingman for the night. How am I supposed to play this off?”

You thought about it for a second before an idea came to mind, a sly grin sliding across the features Spencer loved oh so much. “You're going to do exactly what Morgan wants.”

Spencer blanched, immediately objecting to your words. How could you even suggest that?

“Hold on, I’m not done. I’m not sending the love of my life out to flirt with anyone that isn't me. So what we’re gonna do is….

--------

“Oh, what's this? Did pretty boy find a pretty girl?” teased Derek. His friend practically looked like those wolves from vintage cartoons with hearts for eyes and tongue rolling out of their mouths. His question caught the attention of the rest of the table, all of whom saw Spencer with his eyes trained on a lovely young woman sitting at the bar.

“You should go talk to her!” encouraged Penelope.

“Oh, she's so pretty!” exclaimed JJ. “I agree with Pen, you should definitely go talk to her!”

Hotch watched as the rest of the team, all at least a few drinks in, hyped Spencer up with intoxicated enthusiasm. He had a barely-there smile on his face, watching the events unfold. He watched as Spencer’s face got redder and redder with the attention. As entertaining as this was for the others, it was infinitely more entertaining for Hotch, since he was certain that the woman at the bar was Spencer’s secret girlfriend.

Finally, Spencer gave in to his friends’ demands and approached the bar, seating himself beside the woman. Beside you. Knowing his friends were watching, he had to pretend as if he was meeting you for the first time.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he offered.

You glanced at him coyly before accepting his offer. At some point, the two of you fell into the usual rhythm of conversation you always had, speaking to each other in a way that betrayed how close you really were.

Back at the table, Rossi leaned over to Hotch and gestured for Hotch to lean in as well. “That's the kid’s girlfriend, isn't it?” he whispered. Hotch pulled back with an amused expression and gave the slightest nod, confirming Rossi’s question. Meanwhile, Morgan was placing a bet with Garcia about how long it would take for Reid to leave with you. Morgan was confident that it would be within the next thirty minutes, stating that Reid, who wasn't the most socially adept but was having such a lively conversation, must have really hit it off with you. They watched as Reid spoke to you, all smiles and wild hand gesticulations. And then there was you, the pretty woman who, unbeknownst to the team (minus Hotch and Rossi), was already irrevocably in love with their resident genius long before they took it upon themselves to be a whole wingteam. The radiant smile you wore matched the one Spencer had as you responded to him just as enthusiastically as he had been speaking.

Unfortunately for Garcia, Morgan won their bet. The two of them watched as Reid leaned in to whisper something in your ear. When he pulled away, there was a prominent blush on your face that the minimal amount of alcohol you had couldn't possibly be responsible for. You nodded at him, and he stood from his stool, offering his hand for you to take, which you did as you followed him to the exit.

“My man!” called Morgan from across the bar, raising his beer in Spencer’s direction. Hotch and Rossi chuckled, exchanging glances and shaking their heads. The rest would figure it out eventually. It might be when they receive a wedding invitation, but eventually nonetheless.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid

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bitter-me · 1 year ago

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Coffee

Young Ranpo Edogawa | M. Reader

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"Your smell like coffee!"

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Coffee isn't Ranpo's thing.

They're bitter, sure the barista adds some milk and syrup in them but they're still bitter! Which is why he likes hot chocolate better. Unlike the bitter concoction hot chocolate is sweet and nice and warm, especially if you add marshmallows! Some may say that it's too sweet but not for Ranpo. It's just the right amount of sweetness.

And that leads to his confusion as to why his friend likes coffee.

Ranpo once saw [Name] drunk at least 5 cups to finish his school assignments. Like huh? Maybe it's a thing students have to deal with? I mean -- he's technically not a student so maybe that's why it confuses him to his wits end? Regardless the reason behind that habit Ranpo's not one to judge. After all, [Name] was the first ever person that understands him and doesn't shut him down like those adults were.

In fact, [Name] seemed rather fascinated by Ranpo's deductions and how he managed to know everything in seconds.

[Name] was the first person to do that... his first... friend...

So Ranpo's not going to judge him for something as petty as that.

The day Fukuzawa took him in, even though he won't say it out loud he was happy and grateful for it. And [Name] can't be any more happier to found out how Ranpo's life seemed to have a turn for the better. Even if Ranpo doesn't admit it [Name] had always knew about his struggles, his anxiety, his fears, everything. Which why he was beyond happy to found out about it.

Unlike Ranpo who seems to be very gifted in deductions and all.

[Name] is just an average straight A's high school student.

Ranpo has his life planned out before him, a path already build just for him, a path of being a promising detective. "The greatest detective" he'd put it. While [Name] have to find his own path.

Unknowing to all...

This set's him off the rails.

What is he supposed to do? What does he need? What does he want? People say to get a job that you like, that you enjoy. But what about money? Don't you need that to survive? But what if the job ended up being too hard and he'll not like it? What if it's boring? What if it's dull?

But then again what was the point? We all die anyways right? So what was the point in getting a stable and enjoyable job, and a happy life where we all just die in the end?

What if's and questions filled his head, day in day out.

He's not ready.... He needs more time...

But time won't wait for him.. or anyone in that manner...

Coffee is nice... It keeps your adrenaline high, give you a boost. [Name] couldn't help but enjoy it. That sudden boost of energy makes him more focus on his school work rather than his thoughts. Not to mention that they have quite a nice and pleasant smell the taste is also nice. Because of that [Name] would smell like coffee a scent Ranpo had grown to love, despite saying that coffee isn't his thing.

As time goes on, Ranpo began to be occupied with cases, while [Name] is busy with school. The two barely have time for each other as they used to. But they don't mind as it would just lead to them having a lot more to talk about once they meet again. It was nice... very nice... the warm and pleasant atmosphere...

"Hey Ranpo, since you're practically a detective now. Do you see a lot of bodies."

"Of course I do."

"So seeing one won't scare you? The scent of their blood and the sight of their dead, pale, and possibly disfigured form?"

"Of course not! What kind of detective get's scared of a corpse!"

[Name] chuckles at Ranpo's words, finding the small outburst to be entertaining in some way.

It was a rhetorical question...

It was a rhetorical question, right [Name]..?

Although he doesn't say it, Ranpo felt uneasy at the question. Why is [Name] suddenly asking about that? It felt random. Out of place. Completely out of the blue. It's common to asked that to a new detective, right? But why was it so specific? It probably didn't mean anything, right? But even so... Ranpo can't shake off the feeling that there's a hidden meaning to his friend's words... like a shadow..

As the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months and the months turn into years...

[Name]'s graduation day is growing closer and closer.

Ranpo can't be any happier for his friend, a friend he had grown to love... was finally going to graduate high school! He even requested a few days off for this special occasion! Not that he really need to as he could just walk off like usual. But still!!

As happy as he is, Ranpo can't help but have a gut feeling that something is wrong...

He can't explain it but... It's just felt wrong...

Like a dark cloud is hovering above him... dark shadow...

And....

......He's right as always....

The day before the graduation.

Ranpo received a case, which he had refused since he did requested a few days off for his friend's special occasion, but Fukuzawa insisted that he take it. Almost begging.

With no other choice, Ranpo accepts it.

But what he saw in the crime scene was one out of his nightmares.

He didn't even need to open the sheet that covered the body as his had already knew who it is.

The keychain attached to the book bag speaks for itself.

A keychain that belongs to someone dear to him... someone close... someone he had grown to love and adore... someone he was planning to spill his heart out to... someone he was hoping he could call his...

And the results of his deductions didn't help at all. It just made things worse as it revealed to him how much the victim was suffering. A pain that the victim didn't show until their last moments. A pain that Ranpo was too ignorant to notice. A pain where the victim decided that it was too much for them and wanted it to end.

"Why..?"

The next day... Ranpo graduated from a school he didn't even attend...

He did it in someone's stead.

Ranpo doesn't like coffee.

No....

He hates it.

#top male reader #seme male reader #x male reader #bsd x reader #bsd x male reader #bsd ranpo #ranpo edogawa #ranpo x reader #ranpo x male reader #bungou stray dogs x male reader #bungo stray dogs x reader #bungou stray dogs

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wizardpink · 5 months ago

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I screencapped these two posts four days ago because I had Something to Say and now I have no idea wth it was.

I think it had something to do with power dynamics and how Armand making Daniel a vampire actually handed Daniel a huge amount of power over Armand despite being the fledgling?

So number one Armand rendered his primary weapon against Daniel / form of self-defense completely useless by making Daniel his fledgling. He can no longer use the mind gift to manipulate Daniel or erase his memories. Which of course is true for all makers and fledglings, but most makers' fledglings aren't Sherlock Holmes with a BSJ. Daniel beat Armand's mental saw trap as a human. Armand is never, never getting one over on him now. Daniel will perceive the slightest change in energy coming from Armand and immediately know that he's lying, and 3 seconds of deduction later and he'll know why. He's an open book now, which must be terrifying.

Number two: mentorship. This is how Lestat kept control over Claudia and Louis for so long: he kept them dependent on him through ignorance. He only told them enough about vampirism to get through the day to day: don't go in the sun, don't drink dead blood, the other vampires of the world are vicious, etc. Every fledging needs their maker at LEAST in the beginning to teach them the ropes. Well, Daniel just wrote the goddamned book on vampirism, literally. Daniel sat there and listened as Louis told him everything he knew, everything Lestat ever taught him, everything Armand ever taught him. What other vampire ever got the in-depth two week course on Vampires 101 before they even got turned?! Crazy stuff.

Number three: vampire loneliness. Supposedly the most cruel and painful thing a vampire can endure. It keeps fledglings and makers tied to each other well past the point of being able to stand each other. And god knows Armand is staring down the barrel of having no one but Daniel. Which is unfortunate for him, considering Daniel is besties with his ex husband and touring with his ex boyfriend. Daniel has friends, friends that didn't torture him for 4 days then try to kill him. Oof.

All of this is to say that, with the info we have right now, Daniel has very little need for Armand. Armand in comparison needs him at least not to be alone, but what leverage does he have to get Daniel to stay with him? He's got nothing babes. I'm not a strong believer in the Armand is running from Daniel theory on season 3, but if he is, it's hard to blame him. He is shooting 0 for 1,000 right now, losing left and right, dying of shame and guilt and embarrassment. I'd probably crawl in a hole and die too.

"Oh but wizardpink, that's not very Devil's Minion of you!" AU CONTRAIRE. Because what could be more compelling and romantic than someone who has no use for you but nevertheless wants you? Thinks about you constantly and doesn't know why? You tried to capture them in a glass jar but they broke out and flew away, only to flutter back because they missed you? Yeah inject that straight into my veins.

And on the flip side? Maybe Armand goes straight back to that headspace he was in in '73, the crazed look in his eyes when he told Daniel he was going to teach him to be fascinating. That's ONE thing Armand still has on Daniel, he could probably overpower him enough to keep him trapped somewhere, if Armand thought Daniel was going to leave him. This, too, is Devil's Minion as fuck. Slowest of burns, as they say.

Hmm. Yeah I guess that was what I was gonna say.

#devil's minion #the devil's minion #armandaniel #armaniel #danmand #we all need to unite under one flag y'all #iwtv #amc iwtv #iwtv spoilers #interview with the vampire #armand #the vampire armand #daniel molloy #the vampire daniel

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copperbadge · 6 months ago

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Hi Sam! I wanted to ask if you feel lately like you've been getting anything positive out of your therapy, because a lot of your initial thoughts about it kind of mirror mine. I'm very logical (except when I'm upset at myself) and very skeptical, so I feel like a therapist either isn't going to tell me anything new, or that I'm going to just disregard it because I can't trick myself into believing things that I just plain don't believe.

But I'm also starting to come to a realization, two years after my ADHD diagnosis and letting go (without therapy!) of most of the executive dysfunction-fueled self worth issues I was having, that I'm kind of Not Okay in other ways. I'm safe —going to work every day and doing my job so I won't lose my livelihood and have never had a self harm urge in my life— But I'm not really okay. I'm having major self esteem issues related to my personality separate from the executive dysfunction that are putting me in a bad place. I don't want to take antidepressants for reasons I won't go into but that means my other option is therapy and... I don't know if I'm a person that therapy will actually work on. I found a lot of validation in some of your perspectives, about affirmations being bullshit and "mindfulness" exercises feeling impossible and useless, about not having an inner monologue and how that might be causing issues with traditional methods. So I was just wondering, do you feel like therapy is working now that you've been in it longer?

I've wasted a lot of money on "elective" (and ultimately useless, back to square one) medical nonsense this year and I'm not eager to waste more, but I've also met my insurance deductible so it's the best time to try it if I'm going to.

I mean, it depends on the modality a little but I don't think trying basic talk therapy can hurt, as long as you find a decent therapist. And it's better to try it now when you're feeling Mostly Okay than waiting until you are Really Not Okay. But this entire paragraph comes with a lot of context so....

A lot of what I talked about in terms of struggling with mindfulness, etc. was less related to the therapy I am still in than it was to the DBT class I took at Therapist's suggestion. We were both aware that she was basically throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck, and while it was an interesting class I don't think for me it was helpful. As you mention, I struggled with affirmations and visualization since neurologically I'm not really set up for those; I don't think they're objectively bullshit but I do think there's an assumption within the mental health industry that they will have function for everyone and that's simply untrue, and the expectation that it will is very damaging. I also struggled with the physical-intervention aspects (called TIPP usually) which didn't work at all for me and felt frankly like doctor-approved self harm. DBT can get very culty, which set off a ton of red flags for me -- possibly false flags, but they still waved real big.

And that's because I also have a lot of trust issues surrounding therapy. To the point where, the minute one of the people running the DBT class made actually quite gentle fun of me for asking a question he couldn't answer, I checked out on anything he said. We were learning about a DBT concept called Wise Mind and I asked, "If wise mind is an identifiable mental state, how do we know if we're in it?" and when he couldn't quite answer beyond "It's different for everyone" I said, "But if we know it's real there must be some kind of common denominator, a measurable data point," and he said "Well, Sam, you're not going to levitate" and the rest of the class laughed. Sorry bud, this is almost certainly an over-reaction, but I'm me and you lost me when you came at me instead of just admitting you didn't know. (Also it turns out I just live in Wise Mind like 80% of the time which is one reason I couldn't tell.)

But basic talk therapy outside of DBT is just...you talk at someone about your problems and come up with ways to try and solve them, which is a lot more straightforward and way less frustrating. You have to be an active participant, you have to both have a goal and be willing to discuss reaching it, but that goal can be as simple as just "figure out what my mental health goals should be" at first. You don't have to learn like, vocabulary for it.

The thing is, while I have seen some improvement in regulation issues, I also struggle with basic talk therapy. Most people, and this blew my mind, see measurable improvement in nine to eighteen therapy sessions. A lot of people don't go long-term, they just are having a moment and get help getting through the moment and then can disengage, with their therapist's approval.

I was in therapy consistently from the age of nine to eighteen and only stopped because I reached legal majority and physically refused to go.

Not one minute of those nine years did I want to be there. And, because none of the three therapists I saw across those years actually explained to me why I was there or how therapy worked, for me it felt like "Your punishment for having feelings is to speedrun every feeling you had this week in an hour, to a stranger." There was also what my current therapist believes to be some extremely unethical behavior going on, which didn't help.

So it has taken actually a lot of time to get to a place where I would even allow her to understand what help I need. I've been in therapy for about a year (generally weekly but there have been some gaps) and it has only recently gotten deeper than very basic interpersonal problem-solving.

Like, two weeks ago I told her, "I had a thought this week that I couldn't tell you about something I was doing because then you'd have material on me" (meaning blackmail material) "and that's a fucked-up thing to think." And once I'd actually identified it as fucked up I had zero issue telling her about it, wasn't even nervous as I did so. Who's she going to tell? She's literally legally constrained from telling.

I think well over half of what she does is either validate that whatever emotion I'm having is normal, affirm my reactions so I don't keep believing I behaved weirdly, or praise something I've done that was a positive act. Does this work? Not always, because I'm unfortunately very aware that it's part of her job to do those things. But yeah, sometimes. Even if you don't fully believe it, "Hey that was a really smart move" is nice to hear. Sometimes she helps me come up with a plan for stressful future events or (rarely) behavior modification, and sometimes she either provides me with research or points me towards research I can do on my own. We don't do meditation or affirmations or stuff like that.

Like, last week I brought up the fact that I hadn't really ever thought about how if I have a disability that causes emotional dysregulation and I got it from my parents, they also likely had undiagnosed emotional dysregulation when raising me. So she said I should look into research on children with emotionally dysregulated parents. I was pretty annoyed by what I found (the ONE TIME adults are the focus instead of the kids is the ONE TIME I needed to learn about the kids, really?) but it led to something that was both informative and upsetting, so we discussed that. And when I was stumped about how to move forward with the information, she suggested that my general coping mechanism of writing about it was probably a good plan.

(At which point I just silently advanced my powerpoint presentation to the next slide, where I had a series of quotes from the Shivadh novels where Michaelis, acting as a parent, repeatedly does the exact opposite of the upsetting thing, because I realized even before the meeting that it's an ongoing theme in my work whenever I deal with people being parents. It's a good thing she has a sense of humor and also that I do.)

So yeah. Going into therapy you have to be ready to reject a therapist if you don't like them or if they get weird and pushy, you have to be ready to be a self-advocate, but you are the client; it shouldn't be super difficult to find someone who can at least walk you through what you want from it and agree not to do the stuff you don't want, and if you want to stop going you just...stop going.

Good luck, in any case! I hope you get what you need, whether or not that ends up being therapy.

#not yet fired from therapy #sitting in the back of DBT class

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sooptea · 19 days ago

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Saw that some folks don't know how American Private Insurance Works, so I wanted to show some real life examples of how mine works. For transparency I do not use United Healthcare (I have had them in the past), my numbers are from the insurance I have which is called Aetna; and the plan I use is available through my employer (so if I quit or get fired, I lose my insurance).

So, in my experience. Copays (the amount of money you owe upfront for an appointment) varries depending on what doctor you're seeing. I have to pay this every time I see a doctor, and if I do not have an FSA/HSA card then I have to pay with one of my personal cards.

For a Primary / Family Doctor $30 USD -

For a Specialist (Physical Therapy, Therapist, Orthopedics, literally any specialty doctor) $60 USD -

Urgent Care $75 USD -

Emergency Room $300 USD -

And where does that leave me, 6 months into my year plan (because this resets to Zero every time the plan renews)?

What Does that mean? That means if I went to a hospital today and had to stay overnight, I'd be responsible for $2,422.16 USD before my insurance would cover anything. And I would have to spend another $2,135.40 USD before they would 100% cover the cost. If I needed any surgery, any care, anything that gives a bill, I am responsible for it until I meet those "goals"

But the fun part? I don't know what that would mean for my primary care doctor visits after I meet my out of pocket maximum, because I have NEVER met either my deductible or my out of pocket maximum. Not because I didn't have expensive bills! But because they never fucking applied. Because all of this still hinges on you being IN-network. So if you go to a doctor that's out of network, those numbers are different! They're higher.

I did 13 sessions of physical therapy about 1.5 months ago. That was $780 dollars for the copays. Plus an extra $77.84 because of one of the things I was billed for was not covered with my insurance. Oh yeah, even if you go to an in-network doctor there are procedures that aren't covered by your insurance even if they're necessary. If they were out of network I would have been responsible for a total of $3,885 additional dollars on top of my $780 I paid in co-pays. And that would not have counted towards my deductible. It would have been towards my out-of-pocket max.

I have to look up local doctors in my town to make sure they are in network, people have to look up HOSPITALS to make sure they are in network. Our system is fucked up. I have had reoccurring chest pains since childhood that they can't figure out why, and anytime I get a flair up I have to figure out if I want to take the risk of it being a heart attack or not because it costs $300 to be seen by the emergency room (because urgent care cannot help with chest pain). When my father had a grand mal seizure and possibly hit his head, I as a teenager had to figure out in a moment of crisis if I needed to call 911 or not. Because my father is epileptic with a different type of seizure (partial complex) and while he had frequent episodes, he had not had a grand mal seizure for over 12 years at that point, and I didn't know if we could afford the ambulance. That was one of the most terrifying moments in my life, point blank, made worse because of how fucked up our insurance system is.

#united healthcare #us politics #private insurance

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hamunnyii · 2 years ago

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Y'all I have NOT seen the new BowUigi movie trailer BUT WHAY IS THAT.

WHY DID HE DO THAT.

I saw it in MULTIPLE POSTS here and the way my jaw dropped is undescribable. The way I jumped is not enough to explain what I felt and saw. The way I cried is not enough to say how I feel. My shock was surreal. My eyes widened. I sweated. My eyes both twitched.

I can't even text my thoughts they're going too fast on one thought to another and OMFG is that Luigi in a cage like in a BowUigi comic I read.

Is that Bowser LITERALLY HOLDING UP LUIGI'S FACE.

Is that Bowser not using his CLAWS.

Is that Luigi shifting his gaze from his fingers to BOWSER'S FACE.

ANALYSIS RIGHT NOW.

So first thing first, as another person said (@mau-is-maybe), the cage scene is most likely happening BEFORE Luigi meets Bowser face-to-face. We can deduct that by the fact that in the holding-Luigi's-face-up scene if you look closely you can see his right part of the mustache is messed up. Second thing, why is Bowser NOT USING HIS CLAWS? Be serious, if HE REALLY WANTED to scare Luigi and force him to admit where Mario is, WHY didn't he use his claws or worse.

Assuming this scene happened AFTER the hair pulling, WHY IS HE DOING IT??? There was no need to do that and he knows it. He just wanted to do that. AND WHY DID HE DO IT SO F.CKING SLOWLY AND GENTLY I CAN'T DO THIS. I KNOW YOU COULD HAVE CHOSEN TK DO WORSE, BOWSER. BUT YOU STILL CHOSE TO CARESS LUIGI. He's so clearly f.cking flirting I don't know if I can laugh at it. He did it slowly to see Luigi's reaction.

And WHY did Luigi shift his gaze from BOWSER'S HANDS AND FINGERS to HIS FACE??? HE DIDN'T EVEN LOOK SCARED LOOKING AT A TALKING DRAGON-TURTLE FROM ANOTHER WORLD THAT'S """THREATENING HIM""". Most I can say is that he looked worried, but not scared for his life because of Bowser.

DON'T SAY "children are going to see the movies and Bowser isn't evil to his core" I KNOW IT DAMN WELL, BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT. THE POINT IS THAT BOWSER COULD HAVE DONE WAY WORSE THINGS BUT DIDN'T.

Hear me out.

You get magically teleported to another World with giant mushrooms and lava everywhere. You loose your brother in the process. You get abducted by some guys. They take you to a castle. The King threatens but not really you. The King knows where your brother is. He threatens you gently putting his claws under your chin making you look at him. He caresses you with his claws. Presumably imposing dominance over you. He threatens to pull out one of your hair. He proceeds to do it. He puts his finger under your chin and GENTLY caresses you while making you look up and stare at him.

HOW IS LUIGI NOT ONE BIT SCARED FOR HIS LIFE??? LIKE GENUINELY.

AND TALKING ABOUT LUIGI. WHY did he look up at Bowser??? HE KNOWS Bowser wants to impose dominance AND HE STILL CHOSE TO FOLLOW WHAT BOWSER WANTED. He literally stared at all the movements Bowser's hand made BEFORE STARING AT HIM AND DIDN'T HOLD BACK.

HE DIDN'T EVEN THINK FOR A SECOND TO CLOSE HIS EYES HOPING BOWSER WOULD STOP """THREATENING""" HIM. HE WANTED THAT.

I DON'T EVEN F.CKING KNOW.

I'M DONE.

#luigi x bowser #bowuigi #bowser x luigi #bowser #luigi #bowigi #super mario bros #super mario movie #mario movie

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teaspoonnebula · 3 months ago

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VALL Chapter 1 - The Warning

So as a recap - yes I run this substack. No, I haven't read this novel. I'm really looking forwards to getting to experience new (to me) canonical Sherlock Holmes for the very last time in my life... and I'm going to write a bunch about it, so hold on tight.

“I am inclined to think—” said I. “I should do so,” Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently. I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but I'll admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption.

LOL I love how we jump right into Holmes and Watson banter. Watson's understated "“you are a little trying at times" reminds me of his reaction to Holmes shooting holes in the walls at Baker Street being "I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it."

Of course we don't get any indication of the tone in which he says these things, but I think we can guess Watson is countering with a little acerbic wit of his own.

So, Holmes has received a letter from a mysterious figure known as 'Porlock'

Picture to yourself the pilot fish with the shark, the jackal with the lion—anything that is insignificant in companionship with what is formidable:

This idea of the pilot fish is a very cool metaphor. Unfortunately it is entirely ruined for me because it was also used in the Christmas Invasion episode of Doctor Who to describe these things and that's always where my brain is going to go:

Porlock is one of Moriarty's henchmen or representatives! Which makes me interested in the fact that I've never come across this character in pastiches or adaptations or fanfic - why not?

(Also it makes no sense for Watson to know all about Moriarty but that's a Continuity Thing and we all know Arthur Conan Doyle didn't let that sort of thing get in the way of telling his story - more power to him, honestly.)

“You are developing a certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson, against which I must learn to guard myself.

I JUST SAID THAT, HOLMES.

“May I be there to see!” I exclaimed devoutly.

Well THAT is a sucker punch of a line. No, Watson, you won't be there to see, I'm afraid. See, there will be this Swiss boy... anyway, we're getting off track.

Turns out Porlock is a bit of a mole (I wouldn't quite go so far as to say 'double agent'), and has been giving Holmes information provided he is paid enough. This includes a secret cipher which relates to a particular book, which Holmes assumes will arrive in the second post.

GUTTED I didn't read this book when I was 11, I loved ciphers and would have lapped this up.

“Your native shrewdness, my dear Watson, that innate cunning which is the delight of your friends...

"your friends" Lol Holmes just say "Me" we know that's what you mean - and gosh, he's being so sarcastic with Watson!

Billy the page shows up with the second post and readers, I CHEERED at Billy. Does he say anything? No. But BILLY!!! Alas the letter from Porlock says that he just had an unpleasant encounter with Moriarty (with an envelope addressed to 221b in his possession, whoops!) and so so he won't be sending along the key to the cypher.

I love that Holmes' reaction to this isn't frustration at not getting his cypher, but worry for Fred Porlock, and hope that Moriarty doesn't actually suspect him. THIS is why I love Canon Holmes - I think he is fundamentally kind...

“Perhaps there are points which have escaped your Machiavellian intellect.

Holmes points out that they might be able to work out which book is required for the cypher, and guides Watson through his deductive process - which is adorable. And I loved following along with it too - with my knowledge of Victorian ephemera I was hoping it was going to be a Bradshaw, but as Holmes notes to both Watson and me, the range of vocabulary needs to be broader!

It's a Whitaker's Almanac! But not the new edition - the old one. This is a fun little reversal which gives us a moment of Holmes thinking he's 'failed'.

The message suggests that someone called Douglas who lives at Birlstone House, Birlstone, is in danger.

(Clearly this is a totally different house to Hurlstone, from Musgrave Ritual....)

After deciphering the message, Holmes and Watson get a visit from an Inspector MacDonald. I was a little sorry this isn't one of the familiar Yarders (Hopkins, my beloved...) but I'm going to be interested to get to know him. Alas, Holmes is too late to save Douglas - he has already been murdered.

***

So, uh, I'm having the time of my life reading this, honestly. It's such incredibly good fun. I'm intrigued that whatever has happened to Douglas must somehow be linked to Moriarty.

There's a lot of banter about Watson's intellect which I feel should frustrate me more, a lot of the dialogue feels like it's bordering on being quite patronising to Watson, but I think his reactions suggest this is comfortable back and forth done from a place of security in each other.

#letters from watson #lfw #valley of fear #vall #sherlock holmes

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thecoolerliauditore · 2 months ago

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Can i propose a wild thought to you that I'm rattling off as I just thought of it

Have you considered the lizzie-scott parallels/contrasts?

One of my favourite things about Lizzie is her perpetual "i meant to do that!" attitude she approaches everything with. She thinks herself the leader of sorts and the only compitent bamboozler but my girl is just as big of a loser and klutz, she's just gotten slightly luckier so far. Its why I love her and Jimmy, they both think they're the responsible one when really they play hot potato with the braincell except neither noticed the braincell was replaced with an actual hot potato. She's better at certain things (remembering things and deduction in particular) but none of those things are surviving and its completely negated by her curiosity.

But anyways my point is that like Scott she tries to pretend she's competent and the smart one who is babysitting her teammates, keeping them under control, when she isn't any of those things and actually she cares a lot and is internally screaming all the time.

She's just capable of dropping the mask to be vulnerable. Or, yknow, aware it is in fact a mask in the first place. At the end of the day Lizzie can open up and apologize when she does something silly or says something a bit too mean. She'll just find something new to puff up her chest about.

She's also a sweat, she's just really bad at it.

(Sorry I could probably compare seablings vs fh more to emphasise my point but im trying really hard to keep to the point of this ask without going on tangents and I don't trust myself to not spend 3 hours writing about seablings and forgetting the whole point if I do (also you could also probably compare joel/lizzie to your scott/pearl stuff but 1) i think that probably works better comparing joel and scott more than lizzie and scott and 2) i think comparing their relationship with the same person even if its a different type of relationship might be more revealing and 3) i'm bias))

I ACTUALLY HAVE PONDERED SCOTT AND LIZZIE BEFORE. Not to any level that I feel is worth its own post or anything but they definitely do have a handful of common points that have sent me spiraling in the past (<- guy who really, really likes death games in general and totally didn't try to map out a full hunger games AU at one point. and put scott and lizzie in district 1 together because it just makes sense and has horrifying implications for both of them).

Anyway this is all very true, I hadn't even considered it in the context of their relationships with Jimmy but it makes a lot of sense with the whole. Awhhh I have to Keep Him Alive oop there he goes I guess he'll be die next session 🙄🙄 sort of energy they both try to embody. And how it's kind of performative for both of them, but I think I'll have to let the season play out a bit more before I form any sort of opinion on Lizzie's treatment of Jimmy. (I'm forever sad that Lizzie missed out on three seasons I feel like she might've been a smajor level blorbo to me if she was just there more)

This is a little on the meta side but from what I understand Scott pretty much started off his youtube career with Lizzie's guidance post-WoW-party so I suppose it makes enough sense that he takes after her so much on a persona level as well. Except he's a lot worse at embracing the tongue-in-cheek insincerity. That thing you said about the mask.

I do think Scott is at least acutely aware of his performative nature too, just less willing to acknowledge it for what it is. Lizzie is lying to you, Scott is lying to you but more importantly lying to himself. And that's the difference that I think makes Scott so much more. Dangerous? I suppose would be the word to use. Other than the fact that he is just overall a lot better at being a sweat in general but I'd argue even that could be seen as part of his constant need to keep up his perfect image.

Anyway I'm very unfamiliar with Lizzie and Jimmy's dynamic so I'm excited to see how it goes and even moreso with the comparison to my guy now planted i n my mind. Cheers I loveee stuff like this.

Also sidenote I do find it very entertaining that I'm as predictable as I am <-- has thought about scott/pearl and joel/lizzie as foils alot especially in LL

#asks

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glitterforashes · 5 days ago

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𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐌𝐞. ; 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐧 (𝐀𝐂𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐑) 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

>>>>> hey ya'll, first post since the beginning of time basically. happy new year! i was reading some cassian headcannons recently anddd i just don't like the way he's baby-fied. like, did you guys even pay attention in silver flames?? he's very much a tough love kinda guy. so i thought i'd share my take on how he'd treat you if you were his partner! also sorry if the formatting is weird, from this point on i'll be writing from my laptop!

he doesn't mind you wearing his clothes, but he prefers you don't.

he'd take it as you don't have enough of your own clothes to wear and would buy you more.

loves lethal but pretty women. like, knowing you could take down a full grown male whilst wearing a dress.. whoooo he will be allll over that.

needs a partner who doesn't depend on him to breathe. he values independence and strength within ones self.

checks on you, subtly. does not ask "are you okay?", just walks by wherever you are and gets a read on you and your body language to distinguish if you're alright or not.

if he deducts that you're not okay, then he'll ask.

he'd stand in front of you and just ask straight up what's wrong. won't ask "is something bothering you?"-- he already knows something is bothering you. he just needs to know why.

loves to instigate and push your buttons, only if you're grumpy. knows when to be serious.

imagine you're just in a pissy mood. he's the kind to poke your sides and say things to annoy you to see you pout / get mad.

ends up making you laugh in the end.

is a practical and sentimental gift giver. doesn't believe in buying crap you don't need. unless you ask nicely and give him a kiss.

his love language is acts of service. if you wake up before him in the mornings when he has a mission to make him coffee-- he loves that.

loves coming home after missions to you if you didn't go with him. first thing he's doing is scooping you up and holding you for a while.

isn't very affectionate in public. definitely favors that silent communication you guys have.

eyes you down from across the room, communicates through eye contact and small gestures and smirks.

around the inner circle he's a little better. becomes more flirtatious and teasing.

don't get it twisted-- he makes it known that you're reserved at home and out and about.

his scent is all. over. you.

is extremely jealous. it's not an insecurity thing though. it's more like "how dare this low-life have the audacity to speak to my woman?"

isn't very touchy unless it's behind closed doors. he's definitely a stereotypical elevator boyfriend. like, if you two were in an elevator, he'd be on you before you could blink.

is literally so funny unintentionally. makes you laugh so much you get stitches in your side.

eats. like. a. horse.

this man is huge. gigantic even. a ford f150. it's no surprise he has the appetite of a great white shark.

he would 100% dutch oven you. dies laughing everytime he does.

is undyingly loyal and loves you so much it would make him puke, but that doesn't mean he'll just throw away his own self respect and morals.

tells you when you've messed up or been rude. is always straight up and honest even if you're not going to like what he has to say, because he wants the best for you, but he's not going to spoon feed it to you.

he doesn't really care about physical appearance-- but he cares about the way you carry yourself. for example, if you're walking around the house in casual clothes that you've been in the past two days he doesn't care and will still be all over you, but if you show up to an important meeting in like leggings and a blouse he's gonna be upset.

everyone knows the night court has a certain appearance to upkeep. he will not tolerate you messing that up for yourself, or for the rest of the circle.

loves you though!

"cass. go away." you grumbled, standing at the foot of your bed that was covered in various papers, maps, and documents you would rather throw into a fire than actually read through. cassian was hovering behind you, hands on his hips, dressed casually for once. he had just returned home from a three day long mission to the autumn court, and he was all but ready to get some much needed alone time with his partner. "i've been gone for days and you can't look away from your work long enough to kiss me?" his voice was suddenly against the curve of your ear and his arms had found their way around your waist. his chin came to rest atop your head as he looked down at the pile of papers as well, a small smile gracing his lips as he felt (and heard) the sigh you let out. "you're being a distraction." despite your uninterested tone and the furrow in your brow, you had to stop yourself from instantly melting into him. the familiarity and comfort of his warmth, scent, and general touch enveloped you all at once and made it hard to think straight.

"hmm," his hands began snaking down to your hips, being way too light and feathery with the touch to be purely innocent with no ulterior motive to tickle you. "you don't usually mind distractions when it's me." he teased. you turned in his arms and faced him, ready to tell him off for being annoying when suddenly your feet weren't touching the ground and your back was on the mattress. well, the papers that covered the mattress. in the blink of an eye cassian was straddling your thighs and tickling your waist, pinning you down with his enormous body. "cassian!" you shrieked, still annoyed at him but involuntarily starting to laugh at the sensation. you were simultaneously worried about ruining the documents and laughing at him as you flailed, the smile on his face only making things worse. or better. you couldn't decide just yet.

"say you missed me." he cooed, tone smooth and playful as you thrashed like a fish in a fishing net, hands uselessly slapping at his biceps and chest. you gasped for air, trying to force the words out and failing. you could only manage one word responses. "cassian--" you wheezed, "i missed-- stop it!" you pleaded, now too amused to care about the mess you were making of your previously meticulous layout. "cass i can't-- i can't breathe!" cassian laughed at the way your cheeks turned pink with the force of your laughter, his hands coming to a suspicious still. "say it," he chuckled, leaning down until your noses were touching. he gazed into your wide eyes with his lidded ones, a smirk on his face as he ran his hands up and down your abdomen, waiting.

"i missed you," you huffed, out of breath and still slightly giggling. mostly in fear that he'd start tickling you again but still. "awe, what was that? i can't quite hear you." he put his ear towards your lips as you laughed again, no longer angry or worried about anything in the world. "i said i missed you!" you tilted his face to you in the same moment he began laughing and pulled him into a kiss, both of you laughing and giggling through the entire thing. you broke apart smiling, watching him as he sat up and grabbed you by your hips before flipping the both of you over effortlessly, positioning you so that you were lying on his chest and he was lying on his back.

"let me hold you," he mumbled into your hair, making you laugh again. "i have work to do." "i'll help you do it later. let me hold you." he repeated, and you obliged. "what would i do without my big illyrian baby?" you mumbled against him, finding immense comfort in the rumble of his chest that came when he chuckled. "who knows?" he asked. and you decided you didn't even want to think about it.

#fanfiction #x reader #acotar #writers #fluff #cassian #cassian acotar #acomaf #acowar #acosf #romance #i missed you #headcanon #headcanons #fanfic writing #fanfic #illyrian #batboys

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yuseirra · 5 months ago

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ONK theories: how the ryosuke incident played out & the character's motives/about how the manga will go

ONK SPOILERS CH 155 and beyond:

To get straight to the point, I've correctly guessed all the key elements of the latest chapters of this manga. I'm quite confident in my abilities, so keep making posts about onk... I should stop.. I'm nervous talking about work that's still in progress but well!!! When will I be able to do this again!!

Although I'm usually terrible at solving mysteries and just watch while going "Oh~ Oh~," this manga is more about emotional analysis than deduction, so I've been able to guess a lot of the major points correctly.

Here's what I've guessed right:

Aqua has romantic feelings for Kana.

Ai liked Kamiki quite a lot and was considering him in her future plans.

Kamiki wanted to take responsibility for the children, but Ai hid and disappeared to protect him and avoid burdening him.

This process likely occurred unilaterally without Kamiki knowing about Ai's feelings and circumstances.

I got all of this right. There are some minor differences in the details. Ai didn't just like him quite a lot, she loved him deeply and informed him about the pregnancy (though she said it would be difficult to keep the baby), and they broke up after that.

Having guessed these things consecutively, I have a good sense of what these characters' personalities are like and what actions they'll take, so I'm motivated and have been continuously writing about it. I'm quite confident in this area.

Previously, I wrote a post about something odd during the dome performance celebration incident, but I didn't consider Nino at that time. Even then, I felt that Kamiki didn't seem like the culprit.

Please read that post first, as I plan to continue writing from there. I'll put the rest in the read more for viewers who scroll past!:

In that post, I focused on three possible scenarios.

It’s true that Kamiki leaked the address to Ryosuke. That isn’t a lie, and that character probably believes he is responsible for Ai’s death because of it. So, with that as the baseline, I came up with three possibilities:

If Kamiki and Ryosuke weren’t acquaintances from the start

If they were acquaintances and went to the hospital for Ai’s delivery with a common purpose

If they each had different purposes but met near the hospital on Ai’s delivery day and became acquaintances then.

Except for the first case, the assumption was that the "middle school boy" near the hospital on Ai’s delivery day was Kamiki. However, with Nino entering the picture, I started to think it might have been Nino who was near the hospital.

Therefore, I think it’s most likely that Kamiki is case 1.

There are reasons why it isn't case 2, which you can see if you read the post. Even if it were case 3, I concluded that Kamiki likely had no intention to harm Ai.

So, why do I think it’s most likely that Ryosuke and Kamiki weren’t acquaintances?

If Ryosuke, Nino, and Kamiki are connected in some way,

the one most likely to be acquainted with Ryosuke is Nino.

Ryosuke is a big fan of B-Komachi and Ai and even personally handed over stardust sand at a handshake event. If Ai remembered him as a fan, he must have been either extremely enthusiastic in his activities or conspicuous in some other way. Given Nino’s interest in and jealousy of Ai, it’s highly likely she took notice of Ryosuke.

If Nino found out that Ai planned to have babies, she might see it as an obstacle to Ai’s career as the perfect idol. So, she could have coaxed Ryosuke by revealing this information and formed some kind of collaboration.

From my perspective, Kamiki doesn't seem like the type to have any aversion to the idea of having children with Ai. Even if he thought Ai left him because she got pregnant, she told him she wouldn’t keep the babies before leaving. So, if he later found out that Ai did have the babies, his reaction would likely be one of confusion or curiosity rather than dislike. Something like 'Why did she have them when she said she wouldn’t?' And then, I think his reaction would go beyond surprise to possibly even happiness.

The character’s attitude towards the main characters, the twins, is pretty tender. Even if you assume "Mephisto" is his song, he calls out to the children telling them to come after him. He shows no signs that he intends to harm them. It just makes sense to me that he does care for Ai and his twins. They're his kids too. I keep talking about this, but Kamiki's said he was glad Aqua got to meet and talk with him in 153 and it makes sense given this character’s past personality that he has a father's heart. What he says seems genuine.

Nino is different. Nino cares about Ai, but I don’t think she has positive feelings about Ai’s babies. The whole group went on hiatus because of those babies (which made Nino realize the group revolves around Ai). Ai not only focuses on being an idol but now has something else to focus on because of them. To me, it seems Nino not only hates Ai but also desperately wants to preserve Ai as an idol. She doesn’t want that image to be tarnished at all. If there’s something that threatens it, she might want to remove it. The issue is how extreme she would get. If Nino knew about Gorou’s death, she would realize that someone died because of her actions, which could lead to her breaking down. That could have caused her to act out even more. Nino’s mental state, based on the few panels we’ve seen, seems really unstable and destructive.. the way Ryosuke's been.

When Kamiki and Ai were dating, he didn’t show any signs of being obsessed with Ai’s idol work, like saying, “Wow, you shine so brightly, I want to preserve that image.” At least, based on the movie arc, he seemed to have had a normal relationship with her, aside from his terrible life circumstances. I'm thinking he changed to his current ominous self after Ai’s death. Up until just before they broke up, he seemed fine. There wasn’t a big difference from when he was younger.

The "IDOL" song was a spoiler. It had the stance of, “Our invincible idol Ai, I’ll protect you no matter what. I can’t forgive you for being less than perfect, and I can’t forgive myself either for being this way.” That perspective came from a fellow member. That’s why Nino, who is obsessed with Ai’s "perfection" and would be hostile or at least unkind towards the hidden "children," fits this profile.

For these reasons, I think it was Nino who was at the hospital and collaborated with Ryosuke.

Did she really intend to go as far to harm Ai’s children in a physical sense? That, I don’t know yet...

And then the first attempt failed; Gorou died.

Ai returned to her activities, hiding the existence of the children and doing well. Perhaps, that led Nino to think, "Is this enough...?" and kept low for for 4 years. She had her own career going too and if Ai was performing beautifully, there wasn't a need to take more action.

But then Ai tried to show the babies to her boyfriend... If things had gone well and Ai and Kamiki had become close and interacted well with the children, Ai might have even tried to reveal everything... Maybe Nino wanted to prevent that from happening.

Looking at chapter 132, which shows a glimpse of Nino's insanity, it seems (surprisingly) that Nino didn't want Ai to die either. Ai was very significant to Nino, right? She hated her, was jealous, and wanted her gone, but didn't actually wish for her to die. If someone like that disappeared, it would feel more than liberating; it would feel empty. Nino doesn't seem all that sane. For this character, Ai became an obsession at one point, and losing Ai meant losing her "idol". Kamiki, on the other hand, while he also idolized Ai to some extent, speaks as if he understands that Ai was just an ordinary person. To him, Ai was the love of his life and partner. He liked her differently, not just as an idol to be worshiped.

Nino probably coerced and used Ryosuke again, giving him a knife to scare Ai, which led to her death, resulting in Nino's "regret." Maybe she even arranged for Ryosuke and Kamiki to meet? That bouquet of flowers...; I mean, could it be that Kamiki really asked to deliver flowers to celebrate the dome performance? If Ryosuke was introduced to him as Ai's fan by a B-Komachi member, Kamiki could've just lent the flowers to him to pass it on his stead. Isn't that possible? Am I thinking too optimistically? But it's not because I like Kamiki's character that I interpret it this way; (if he's the one who killed Ai, I'm ready to grab him by the collar and spank him anytime) it's just that his personality shown around that time doesn't fit with him intending to "scare" Ai. He's too mild..;

I can't quite guess how Kamiki and Nino, or Ryosuke and Kamiki, met.

I think it's more likely that Ryosuke and Kamiki met shortly after Ai’s phone call. Honestly, I can’t really picture Kamiki and Ryosuke being long-time acquaintances. What would they do together? Is there anything that would keep them in contact? Meeting his girlfriend’s hardcore fan—what’s the point? It would make sense if Kamiki had the intention to harm Ai, but I believe Kamiki when he says he didn’t actually think Ai would be killed. This seems true to me. I don’t think he could have imagined that the person who killed Gorou wouldn’t kill Ai. Up until that point, Kamiki was probably still relatively gentle. He hadn’t darkened yet.

We need to look at Kamiki’s personality. Even when someone like Airi, who exploited him, died, he was mentally distressed. The timing is a bit tangled... thinking about it, did that happen after the main characters were born? I think this guy was simply... entranced by Ai? As Aqua says in the very beginning (chapter 2), he’s like a moth drawn to a flame, unable to stop himself even as his wings burn and he falls. He seems to genuinely like Ai a lot. He probably blames himself for her death and can’t stop. Omg I just noticed, Aqua’s line is strikingly similar to what's described in "Fatal"...

Kamiki and Nino seem to cooperate, I think their common goal is related to Ai.

After meeting with Ruby, Nino says that no one can surpass Ai, not even her daughter, and she wouldn’t accept it.

In contrast, Kamiki was actually happy when Ruby showed the potential to surpass Ai. He was disappointed when he thought she just wanted to resemble Ai.

From this, it seems they both do want to find someone who can surpass Ai.

Nino can’t accept such a person, but does Kamiki feel the same way? If so, his reaction to Ruby should have been different. I think their intermediate goals are the same, but they might want different outcomes.

I suspect that Kamiki is searching for someone who can replace Ai to offer as a tribute to a "god." Thinking that he simply can't accept someone surpassing Ai and kills them seems too simplistic given the songs. The songs clearly express the desire to find a way to fill the "Lack of AI" (absence of Ai). The songs really seem to reflect Kamiki’s feelings. He is looking for a way to revive Ai or at least meet her again, and there is likely a character in the story who can make that possible. In a world where gods can reincarnate souls, there would be someone with the persuasive power to claim they have such abilities, whether it be real or just a mere taunt.

Ruby is the one who showed that potential, but considering that Kamiki just passed by Ruby in chapter 155, it doesn't seem like he would harm her. I closely examined chapters 153-155, and no matter what, he doesn’t seem like a crazy person who would harm his own daughter for the sake of his wife/girlfriend. If Ai hadn’t died, he would really have been the kind of person who could have raised the children with her as she envisioned. After Ai's death, he strayed off and is now firmly on the wrong path. That’s probably why Ai asked the main characters to help him, she knows what kind of person he originally is.

Continuing on, "stars" are likely the "gods" of this universe. The black star is a "god who loves absurdity and irrationality" and probably possesses great power but demands a high price in return. It seems that Kamiki is influenced by that.

In the anime, Akane's star eye color is different. That might be because it's an imitation. The humans truly inhabited by gods are different. Ruby, Aqua, Kamiki, and Ai are likely to have something inhabiting them.

The white star and the black star may each correspond to the "god who loves humans" and the "god who loves absurdity and irrationality" mentioned in chapter 144. The line "キラキラお星様宿したあなたのeyes(Your eyes with glittering stars in them)" in Fatal’s lyric could imply that Ai may also be a person inhabited by a star=god. Pay attention to the word "宿した" in the lyrics. The original Japanese lyrics can be translated like this: "your eyes that the sparking star that dwells within"

宿した< I looked it up, and it can be translated as "bears" or "conceives" "dwells".. it seems like a "star" was blessing Ai, it lived in her as she was alive (the fact that there's a "god that loves humans" oddly works with how Ai's whole life was about loving, too..)

Coming to think of it, didn't this manga start with a disclaimer that "this story is fiction"?

Then, is this manga in fact a stage meant for the gods?

Wow, and I JUST noticed as I went back and checked, the first scene of chapter 1 has the exact same quotes compared to what Kamiki says in chapter 153.

Fiction being "Fabricated, exaggerated, and everything inconvenient being completely concealed".

But Aqua rebuts him saying what he's made isn't one:

With the basis being Ai's love was genuine and therefore "true".

I have a feeling that the conclusion of this manga might be something similar.

It might be that everyone is like pawns in the game of gods, but the sincerity within them is all genuine.

The development is somewhat ambiguous... but this manga is definitely well-structured. There are certainly a lot of hints, and I see that things mentioned in the very beginning are being brought up again in the latest chapters? Still. So, looking at the bigger picture, maybe we don’t have to worry too much.

There's no new chapter this week... I backed up some drawings on Pixiv without knowing about the break. If I had known, I would have drawn a bit more before uploading... ;v;) well, it'll have to do!

Maybe now is the time to really sit back and watch patiently.

If things go the way I think they will, I can draw a lot more stuff, so I wonder how it will turn out...

The songs are definitely spoilers, for one thing.

They’re definitely related to the development of the story. It feels like they’re spoon-feeding us, but I'm not sure what exactly they’re spoon-feeding us. The creators seem to have a lot in mind.

#oshi no ko #oshi no ko spoilers #hikaai #nino #ai hoshino #spoilers #this's a really long post hehe #oshi no theories

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frodothefair · 2 months ago

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This is merely a philosophical point, but I don't quite understand the "threat" of fanfiction to published authors.

For instance, in the LOTR fandom, we do a lot of writing about minor or obscure characters, some of whom are mentioned once -- such as Celebrían, Lothíriel, Háma, Marigold Gamgee, Rosie Cotton.

Let's say a fan wrote a story about Sam's life with Rosie after the quest, or Sam's initial romance with Rosie (which, per Tolkien, is "nowhere elaborated"). Let's say someone wrote about Lothíriel and gave her a life and a history, when in LOTR she is but a name in an appendix.

This expands on canon -- something Tolkien can no longer do, as he is deceased. What harm, exactly, is there to Tolkien's estate, if someone else did that?

If such a book were to be commercially published -- not saying that it will be, or should be -- then would this pull people away from reading the original LOTR, Silmarillion, The Hobbit, etc? Would it take away the market share? Hardly. There is a decent amount of Jane Austen "fanfiction" on the market, because Austen is now in the public domain. A couple prominent titles are "Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife" and "An Assembly Such As This" -- a sequel and a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, respectively. But has this diminished the popularity of Austen? Not at all. (In fact, I've read a bit of "Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife" and frankly I could barely get through the first chapter, it's so cringey -- I've seen far better things on AO3. But I still think it has a right to exist, and to have been published.)

But anyway, I digress. Back to my point -- I don't believe people are going to read Tolkien fanfiction if they have not already read his original works. But if people like Tolkien's works, and they want to read more about his universe than what he originally chose to provide, then why not let them? And why not reward the creators who give them what they want? This is not out of disrespect for the Professor -- not at all. Rather, it is an homage and a celebration.

And yet, we are forced to be so careful in insisting that we are making no profit from our fanworks, that it's all non-serious, and all in good fun.

Personally, perhaps this is an unpopular opinion, but I think copyright really should end when an author dies. Either that, or there should be some sort of royalty system or limited fans works license if someone chooses to publish fanfiction for profit -- just like there are royalties if someone chooses to put a book to the screen, or make licensed merchandise. The royalties could be a percentage deducted from the proceeds of the fan work sales. It could be a win-win situation, for the original author and the fan authors alike.

Of course, there's an argument to be made about authors wanting to go back and write more about the characters they previously created, and there's a small chance that fanfiction writers might accuse an author of taking their ideas. For example, if I wrote a sequel to LOTR about Sam and Rosie, and Tolkien were alive and decided to do the same at a later date, I could (in theory) accuse Tolkien of stealing my characterization of Rosie -- because I elaborated on her first, when he didn't.

But really, how petty do you have to be to do that? And once again, if there was a limited fan works license, it could have a clause where a fan writer foregoes my rights to sue the original author, acknowledging that their ownership of the characters, events and places takes precedence. And finally, if Tolkien's dead, then there's no chance of him deciding to write any more about Sam and Rosie anyway, so case closed.

#fanfiction #writing

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cartoonsbyandie · 1 year ago

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@akai-anna You have made a mistake

SPOILERS FOR MOVIE 9 below the cut (TW: Depression like oh my god severe depression, suicidal tendencies)

So it's no secret I'm a Kogoro Enjoyer tm, to the point that it's probably more shocking that Movie 9 isn't my #1 pick, and my favorite movie involves Kogoro asleep for 60% of the runtime. BUT it gets the #2 spot on the strength of one scene, which is my favorite moment in any DetCo movie and possibly even the series as a whole.

The moment (which is probably like 20 minutes I'm corralling all into one 'scene') is all of Kogoro's deduction scene and the ensuing fight, basically right up until the point where they have to save Rachel. (The Rachel stuff being where most of my frustrations with Movie 9 are.)

Here's the thing about DetCo: If you're watching Movie 9, you're probably into the series pretty deep, right? You're trained to disregard Kogoro unless you get extremely clear signs otherwise. He's comic relief, he's always wrong, his theories are always wrong. Period. Unless Conan is literally spoonfeeding him clues, or the show goes out of its way to show he's being serious this time, anything he thinks up on his own is completely wrong. The movierunners know this and play into it-- In an earlier scene, Kogoro goes up on stage like always and completely botches a deduction in front of a crowd. He has no evidence and gets called out on it instantly, at which point Conan (via Agasa) steps in and calls out the real culprit, who confesses and the Action Part of the movie begins. Business as usual.

And then the movie proceeds to completely and entirely subvert that.

It's my favorite scene because of just how well the show hid its cards, which your mileage may vary on. Kogoro isn't front and center on the movie poster, but he isn't shoved in the background either, and I did get some inklings beforehand that this movie might have Kogoro playing a more prominent role when he seemed to be acting strange. (I say this is my favorite single scene, but the whole movie does build up to it well with subtle clues.) But during that botched deduction scene, I disregarded all of it-- I've been burned before by this show, thinking they were building to Kogoro doing something cool, only for it to be played for laughs. They fake the audience out by playing exactly to expectations, so Kogoro coming out of NOWHERE to reveal that he was right all along and literally left the botched deduction to go search the culprit's room for evidence and sabotage her murder weapon HAD ME SCREAMING.

Literally all of Kogoro's skills come to fruition here in this scene. He knows enough about guns to sabotage a harpoon gun, knows (almost) exactly what happened for all the crimes at this point, knows how to fight and subdue a criminal (we'll get to that) and is devoted enough to justice and Being A Detective to see this case through to the very end. This should be a crowning moment of triumph, and what's the soundtrack doing?

It's solemn and sad, because where is Kogoro is giving this deduction? On a sinking ship, after he forfeited his spot on the lifeboat, believing that Conan and Ran have already made it out. He gives this deduction alone, with no one but himself and the culprit. He acted like he would arrest the culprit, but... where would he take her? What was his escape plan?

He didn't have one, did he?

The culprit mentions that it's pointless for him to explain her crime to her considering the circumstances, and Kogoro outright says he can't help himself. He knows it's pointless. He was prepared to give his life here, just to stop her plan.

And you know what? That's tragic. The fact that he's willing to die here, for this, leaving behind Ran and Conan, is heartbreaking to watch. The tone of this 'real' deduction scene is a complete 180 from the botched one, because Kogoro isn't playing anything up. He's just calmly explaining the crime because that's what detectives do. That's what detectives live for.

I'm not done, though. There's still the part where the culprit decides her final act is going to be to kick his ass for this stunt. I think it's pretty clear from everything Kogoro says that he's throwing this fight, if not on-purpose then on a subconscious level. Like, Kogoro doesn't really fight for himself, does he? He fights when someone who murdered his friend is attacking his other friends, he fights when Ran and Conan's safety is at risk. He fights for other people, so when it's only himself at stake (and he was already prepared to die, that's why he's here at all), what's the point?

Conan calling out to him snapped him into gear because suddenly it wasn't about him. Suddenly there was someone else to protect.

I haven't mentioned Conan but the fact that Conan is 'present' for this entire scene is great to me too. He got to hear this entire thing, help Kogoro out when he fumbled one detail in his deduction, and even seemed proud by the end. It's so sweet to see Conan proud of Kogoro for once. It's sweet to see just how good Kogoro can be when he really cares, and how good of a team these two could be.

I'm glad we got at least one movie dedicated to that idea.

#Do not read if you haven't seen movie 9 #I'm not the type to care about spoilers but I'm so happy I went into that one with none #detective conan #dcmk #strategy above the depths #kogoro mouri #mouri kogoro

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moochii-daisies · 1 month ago

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2015.04.

- 18+, Minors DNI

Warnings - Content Contains: Cussing, suggestive moments, mentions of sex, TW: pills, drugging (MC describes bits of the night it happened) a fight, drinking, smoking, MC is not doing well but will be okay. Some tears and hurt (attempted comfort). Unhealthy coping mechanisms (a consistent theme). If I missed anything pls lemme know!

Sidenotes: what happened, my only "plan" note for this was "game night". a dark turn of events? quelle surprise! things are gettin real. as always, thank you for reading if you do and i hope you enjoy <3

Find the rest here!

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I want you to imagine a scenario.

Let's say that the person you were seeing (technically) began living with the person you (almost) saw before them. Are you with me so far?

Now - be sure to include the Almost person's person that they are now seeing (confirmed).

Oh - and their five other roommates are there too.

In this totally hypothetical scenario, do you think that things would always go smoothly? That the power of friendship would prevail over any and all odds?

No?

Well congratulations, you're much smarter than I was.

Once the excited, albeit intense, welcoming party was over - the guys focused on moving things from their cars and U-haul trailers into the house. Lacey and I busied ourselves with things we could carry on our own, jumping up at any grunts or cuss words uttered in our general direction. Our cue to come help out.

I was worried at first, about Lacey and I spending too much time together. Her face turned sallow as soon as Yoongi stepped up on the curb and left us, her arms resuming their crossed position over her leather jacketed chest. But the worry didn't last long.

With Jungkook and Yoongi occupied - she seemed to relax around me. Shoulders sagging a bit as if she had been holding them, postured in an attempt to seem taller (she was a few inches shorter than I was). Turning to me with a shy smile, she lifted her eyebrows with an expression that I interpreted as saying, "Just us girls now, huh?" and I returned the smile.

There was no point in making things more awkward than they had to be. If Yoongi - no, never mind. It just wouldn't hurt to make the effort to be friendly, you know? I had no right to be the only one pissed off or weirded out over the situation. We were all in it together anyhow.

This thought seemed to be a shared one as Lacey and I settled into talking quietly together, casual conversation about how ridiculously some of the guys had packed. Joon had of course, labeled everything with a thick black Sharpie. Perfectly packed boxes that weren't too heavy, placed in the U-haul in an orderly fashion. A model packer. Chef's kiss, a 9/10 (One point was deducted only because we found out later that inside of the boxes were a wreck). Hobi was the only other one who would have gotten a score higher than 5. Although he had technically packed everything neatly - the sheer amount of clothing bags knocked him down a couple points. And his incessant fussing over anything getting wrinkled whenever he saw Lacey or I with one of them warranted another point deduction.

But still - even with his nitpicking, at least we knew where to put what.

Everyone else besides Joon and Hobi had packed in, what I could only assume was, a sleep-deprived, over-caffeinated (bordering on coked out) frenzy. Jimin had decided to label his stuff with glitter pens and stickers to indicate their contents - Lacey and I spent 10 minutes staring at a holographic duckling sipping on a pina colada before we finally deduced that it was bathroom supplies.

"A rubber ducky!" Lacey had nearly screamed her realization and snapped me out of my frustrated fantasy of torturing Jimin for the answers to his sticker code.

Tae had exclusively used vintage luggage bags that smelled like mothballs and old perfume which, despite being sturdy, were still sporting their original leather straps from 1901 and not meant for heavy duty packing. Especially not every single book and art supply Tae had in his collection. I walked by him with one in my arms, waddling in a semi-sumo squat and glaring daggers at him while he took a cigarette break. He let me take a drag, murmuring that he'd take dinner in the foyer once I was finished - immediately begging me not to drop his stuff once he saw the look in my eyes.

I felt closer to Lacey than I expected to once we got to Jungkook and Yoongi's belongings. Both of stood in front of their respective piles, snorting out laughter that had us leaning on the back of the U-haul for support.

To our left, was a giant collection of paper bags with barely legible words in red, black, blue and green ink scribbled onto them (Jungkook's pile) and to our right, was a giant collection of black garbage bags that had been tied with various knots at the top to differentiate between them (Yoongi's pile). Some gym and music equipment that couldn't fit into the bags had simply been shoved into places they could fit. Hoodies from both of them tucked in for some semblance of cushioning.

"Good god girl, like, I was literally there with them while we packed and somehow...somehow I missed," Lacey was wiping away tears from laughter and gesturing at the piles in front of us, "All of whatever the hell this is.".

"Okay, okay - lowkey - I have packed the exact same way before..." Choking back my laugh, I had just started to get the words out before Lacey smacked me on the shoulder with a "Shut up!" - dissolving back into a fit of mirth.

"No! I'm serious!! It's so much faster to just shove shit into bags and be done with it!" I was giggling out my defense, trying to reach for a paper bag without ripping it while Lacey began tugging on the plastic of a garbage bag. How gently we had to pull to prevent the bags from ripping only sent us over the edge more, each one making less than a few inches progress at a time.

"What the hell?" A deep voice, one that almost sounded like a jaguar purred and reverberated in the air behind us. It raised the hair on the back of my neck and clicked an anchored chain around my ankles. Shackling me back down to the ground.

Lacey turned abruptly to look at Yoongi with a cheeky wink. "You've got a good friend here defending your honor babe." she teased, gesturing at Yoongi to come get the bag she had been attempting to pull out.

Yoongi kept his eyes low, even though it was dark out, as he moved forward to stand next to me. I had gone into freeze mode, focusing all of my energy into inching the paper bag in front of me closer and trying to make out the words scratched onto its side.

"My honor huh?" Yoongi's response was slow and gruff. It rippled through my ears and into my brain, the small space between our shoulders feeling too close and too far all at once.

I glanced back at Lacey, who had lifted one foot to rest against the hood of her gray car. Her attention seemingly concentrated on lighting her cigarette in a fight against the evening breeze.

"Uh, more like your packing choices. Glad bags? That's name brand man." Nonchalance. I could do this. He wasn't going to see me falter. Jesus Christ the bag in front of me was becoming my Everest.

A snort on my right shot through my body and my neck muscles tightened in an effort to stop myself from turning to look at him.

"Yeah well, you know me - only the highest quality will suffice for my shit. Speaking of -" He cut himself off, and even though I was actively fighting the urge to glimpse at him with every fiber of my being, I could feel him shift to look at what I was doing - which was gripping the edge of the paper bag between my index and middle finger. Trying to pull it closer purely with willpower instead of practicality. Because I could have gotten it easily, if I had lifted myself up into the U-Haul a bit more to get a better grip. However, I couldn't visualize any way of doing this that didn't wind up with my ass in Yoongi's face.

Yoongi seemed to have realized this and out of the corner of my eye, I saw his head move to look toward Lacey, who by the sound of it had won her battle to light her cigarette and was now clacking away on her phone.

Okay, this was good. This was good, right? Lacey was right there behind us, this was a good way to gauge how normal we could be around each other. Just, regular degular friends. Two adults with a normal and manageable amount of chemistry. Definitely not a relationship that gives tangible proof that the red string theory is real. For sure. Neither of us would -

Long, strong fingers wiggled in front of my strained eyes before poking me on the nose. Tearing my gaze away from the blue letters in front of me, the streetlight was shining back out of Yoongi's dark and piercing ones. Stars in his eyes, like there were when I went to see him.

Fuck.

The dejection must've showed on my face, Yoongi's expression turning into concern mixed with something else. Maybe my nervous system had dysregulated the situation out of proportion. He's a kind and caring person, I knew this. Maybe it was just me who felt strapped onto a surgical table that was tied to an extreme roller coaster. Yeah, he was just making the same effort that Lacey and I were making - to not make things more uncomfortable than they needed to be.

Those were thoughts I remember having before they were electrocuted away from our hands coming together in unison. His, palm up and stretching out for me to place mine in.

The "zzt" that came from our skin touching felt thunderous and the pained shock I was experiencing was reflected back at me through his expression. His usual stoic demeanor zapped to reveal the more vulnerable emotions underneath. God, even the callouses on his fingers felt like heaven. Had his skin always been so soft? Or was it just the contrast?

Well, it's not like I could ask him.

I wished I could have asked him.

Instead, our hands dropped in sync the same way that they had risen.

After clearing his throat and reaching up the same hand to rub at the back of his neck, Yoongi twisted his head to look towards Lacey but directed his question at me.

"Seems like...you needed help?" The annoyance in his voice struck a chord and the building heat of the moment we had just shared was doused out with frigid water.

My own feelings of annoyance filled me up to the brim, flooding out into my reply before I could even think to stop it.

"Seems like a pretty girl over there needed help lighting her cigarette." I all but spit the words at him, staring back at the bag in front of me and feeling him bristle at the jab.

There was a moment of silence after that. And it was quiet enough to hear the rest of the group bustling inside, a few disgruntled words like "Fuck no the lamp doesn't -" and "HA! Try putting it somewhere-" ringing out from the open front door.

Lacey hadn't seemed to notice. Thick whiffs of smoke blowing over to where Yoongi and I stood released us from the strangling tension, both of us instinctively reaching into pockets for our own cigarettes.

After we had lit them up, Yoongi opened his mouth while I watched the exhaled plumes twist around in the air. But I never got to hear what he wanted to say. The sound of Jungkook's airy giggle snapped his parted lips closed and he scoffed. Skulking off towards Lacey without looking back, leaving room for an energetic JK as he leapt off the curb to where we were all standing.

If Jungkook had noticed anything going on, he didn't let it show. Leaning down to inhale from the cigarette I was holding and snaking a tattooed arm around my waist.

After a satisfied exhale, he hummed and nuzzled his face into my neck. The cool metal from his lip rings added to the tingling sensation that fizzed a little stronger with each kiss he was pressing against me. They melted all feelings of annoyance towards Yoongi and replaced them with something much sweeter.

I turned my face towards his sculpted chest, an effort to hide the blush that was taking over it.

"Did you figure out my color code baby?" Jungkook grinned the words, nipping at the top of my ear as he did. My mind raced, shuffling noises from Lacey and Yoongi's direction making it impossible to conjure up a single thought beyond "what the fuck". Knowing I needed to answer the question but desperate to buy myself some time, I gave into my impulsivity - something that felt unusually strengthened in JK's presence.

Reaching my free arm around his lower back, I held tight onto his shirt for balance and lifted up onto my toes in order to bite him on the cheek. It squished between my teeth as he broke into a full smile. And I hadn't noticed the tip of my nose being cold until it was pressed against his warmth.

"You couldn't figure it out could you?" Jungkook teased, somehow maneuvering us so that my arms were around his neck and his wrapped around my lower back - hands patting me on the hips once they had assumed their new position.

I didn't care if anyone heard me.

Letting out a small whine, I released the soft bread dough of his cheek to gripe at him. "OooOoOohh I'm Mr. Jungkook and I came up with an asinine color coding system because I'm soooOOOoo smart." My brattiness was rewarded with a kiss on the forehead and my favorite shit-eating grin.

After a brief pause, and a lifted eyebrow I sighed. Trying to rack my brain for some kind of JK logic, landing kind of simply on - "Um, blue...is for bathroom stuff, right?" It wasn't a confident guess, but I peered up at him hopefully. Maybe he'd be happy I tried and would let me believe I was right.

I was met with rounded doe eyes - surprise and pride flashing their way through at my guess. Without looking away, Jungkook reached one arm back to flick the bag I had been struggling to get towards us with frustrating ease. As he turned our bodies to look down at what was packed inside I was more taken aback by its appearance than the actual contents. Thoughts of answering correctly gone in an instant as I tried to make sense of what I was looking at.

"You- you can't - baby what the hell?" I spluttered, untangling myself from Jungkook to peer into the incredulously packed paper bag.

Soaps, toothbrushes, toothpaste, hair care and other bathroom supplies (I guessed right) were all packed in Tetris-style. Each space meticulously filled. Washcloths rolled up into any open space to help prevent anything from moving.

I had packed in bags for sure but never so perfectly. Never like this.

As he continued reaching for bags, I remained dumbfounded until he wiggled his eyebrows and ducked his head to press a quick kiss against my lips. Using one hand to jump into the back of the U-haul, effortlessly. Too sexy for his own good.

Unable to believe what I was seeing, I pulled each bag closer to me so that I could check inside. Every single one was the same as the first and the laughs that Lacey and I had shared earlier started to bubble up within me.

Being close to Jungkook was like having soundproofing against my sensitivity to Yoongi and the sound of Lacey's voice getting closer felt like it was coming from a million miles away.

"What? What? Wait Yoongs - girl, what is it?" Lacey was panting as she came over and I gave a silent prayer of thanks that I had no idea what the two had been doing since JK came outside.

"So, uh, I never packed like this I'll tell you that much." I told her dryly, tilting one of the bags so that she could see the inside of it.

A guffaw came out of her as she doubled over.

"Okay wait, wait - what the fuck?" She wheezed, blinking back tears, "Did you know he had this in him?" and I couldn't stop the smile that crept up at her question.

I shook my head no, grabbing the hand she held out to help her stand upright.

With a little finishing sigh and quick adjustment of her jacket she looked up at me with a strange look. Almost a challenge. Almost pleading.

"Well. Then I guess you two still have a lot to learn about each other." She winked with the words before calling out to Yoongi, "Babe! You've got packing competition over here!" Her words stung more than they should have. A sting that softened with the small grunts of effort Jungkook was making in the U-Haul.

What the fuck did she mean by that though? Did she know things about Jungkook that I didn't? I mean, to be fair, she had been around and known him for much longer than I had but still - what the hell did she mean by that?

The sense of relaxation that had given relief up until that point was gone. And I chewed on the inside of my cheek mindlessly. Reaching to light another cigarette after accidentally biting down too hard. Tobacco and metallic iron. I pressed my tongue against the bitten spot, trying to will the pain out of existence and searching for something to focus on. As Jungkook walked back and forth to take intermittent puffs, I wound up fixated on the way his muscles rippled underneath his baggy white t-shirt. Pausing occasionally to flick away ash, doing so with an aggression that I couldn't figure out how to rid myself of.

The couple's chattering behind me turned into wet smacking sounds. Little "ooh"'s and "mm"'s from Lacey filled my bones with an angry molten lava. Was it really necessary? To do this when I'm right here? When we were right there? The cigarette had burnt down to the filter but I still stamped it out under a combat boot. Twisting my heel back and forth until all that was left was a flattened piece of brown that blended in with the fallen leaves.

Lifting the same foot, I grabbed onto the side of the U-Haul and hefted myself up into the back of it. Flinching slightly at the metal clanging that pinged around its walls. Jungkook had stopped arranging boxes once I entered, a baffled "Baby what-" escaping from his lips before I managed to launch my own against them.

If we had been a more awkward couple - the forcefulness of my kiss would've stopped it just after it started. Luckily, we weren't.

Ok, to be fair, I don't know if we even were officially a couple but - anyways. That's not what mattered.

What mattered is that after my clunky stumbling into his arms and after the slight bumping of our teeth - Jungkook grabbed ahold of me, letting me knock him off balance. His back pressed against a tall stack of boxes gave him firmer footing and he sighed, the edges of it tinted with a small moan.

I think I lost my mind in the moment. My hands diving greedily underneath his shirt to drag my nails down his back and pull him closer. Stepping my feet so close to his body that room between our pelvis's no longer existed.

There was more to learn about Jungkook. Sure. We hadn't really gone into our pasts just yet. But one thing I did know, was that whatever fire I came at him with - he would match.

A firm squeeze on my ass and the rough movement of his hips proved me right. His hard on rubbing against me in a way that felt too good to ever be considered sinful.

Big hands. Warm hands. And curious fingers flirted with the gap of skin showing between my top and my jeans. One made its way to cup my chest, squishing it before toying with the fabric that was getting in the way.

"Baby- Baby hang on, we- mph," Jungkook's attempts to get me to slow down were valiant but ultimately made in vain. The sensation of his lips against mine only made me hungrier. Had I forgotten to eat today? It didn't matter. I would've chosen Jungkook instead of food even if a buffet of my favorites had been there.

Sounds of his ragged breathing, that usually would have sent me on edge, only stoked the need. Unable to remove me without causing harm, he settled for breaking the kisses. Pulling away for a few seconds at a time to look at me with curiosity and the slightest hint of fear.

The third time he did it, I nearly growled. Successfully capturing his bottom lip in a bite, sucking on it just a little before pulling back myself.

"Whyyyy do you keep. Stopping!" It was huffed out darkly, the pounding of his heart beat against the front of my body so strongly I could feel it between my legs.

It was beginning to ache. That he was so close and still so far. I needed him closer. I would have fucked him right in that open U-Haul, in front of Yoongi and Lacey and the whole neighborhood if I could have.

But instead, I clenched my legs together, feeling them brush against the hardness tenting his baggy jeans and made him wince. The look of pain both deepened the ache and softened it. All my muscles turned to steel. Waiting to hear him speak. Cementing my hold around him like if I loosened it at all, I'd never feel him so close again. His own (much more developed) muscles were tightened around me as a form of damage control. Even if I wiggled my ass off, I wouldn't have been able to get out of them.

The two biggest problems, and also two of the parts I appreciated the most about Jungkook - was that he would always choose to trust me and he would almost always give in to what I wanted.

And while I waited for my response, holding onto him like a dog unwilling to give up a bone, Jungkook decided to trust me. Chuckling to himself as he loosened his grip. Hands gently brushing hair behind my ears and away from my face. Holding it in a tender but firm grip before resuming the kisses at a much slower pace. I wasn't going to turn any of it away, pressing my lips back against his as strongly as I could while he held my head in place. Once I had sullenly accepted my fate, I grumbled out between each kiss - "I", "Would never", "Stop you", "You big", "Big", "Stupidly hot", "Jerk.".

A snicker against my lips preluded a sigh.

Lightly dragging the tip of his rounded nose against my own, his arms moved around my shoulders and I was yanked back against his solid upper body. The slight lift in his pectoral muscles acted as neck support and my cheeks were smushed to the point of blurring my vision. Feeling a pout form, I made a disgruntled noise at him. The vibrations tickling the back of my throat and buzzing against my ears.

"Oh baby, baby, baby. What am I gonna do with you, huh?" There was laughter in his voice and a warmth on the back of my head as he pet through my hair.

"Is it fair to let the rest of the guys take care of all the moving?" His tone wasn't condescending, it was genuine.

I "hmph"'d out a no.

"Would it be nice of us? To have so much fun while the others are working so hard?"

"...No. I guess not.".

"Would it be good friend behavior? To fuck each other senseless on probably everyone's belongings?"

The visual memory of Yoongi's pile being next to Jungkook's flashed through my mind. And I gulped down the bratty response I had planned to say.

My rigidity and sudden silence went straight to Jungkook's ego. I almost never acted like a baby, let alone a brat. Not because I didn't want to mind you, but because I didn't like to in front of most people.

Jungkook was different.

And he knew that.

And good lord, did it make him happy when I did.

"Aw baby. Were you so focused on getting me inside you that you forgot what we were doing?" His tone was playful now.

"Can you believe that my babygirl, that's usually so considerate, was SO desperate for dick that she didn't care about getting real down and dirty?" He was thoroughly enjoying this while I made attempts at burying my face, cheeks burning at the truth of his words.

"Who would've known? The sweet girl that calls me a big baby all the time is actually, secretly, an even more perverted and bigger baby than-" His rambling gloating was making me glow red.

Clutching a hand into a fist, his shirt wrinkled with it and I lightly tapped his muscles in a faux punch. Mumbling, "I'm not the baby, you're the baby." with as much ferocity as I could gather.

The frustration that had been building up since that moment with Yoongi had dissipated and left me putty in Jungkook's arms. All fiery passion transformed into something sticky sweet.

Kisses started against the top of my head with an exaggerated "mwah" sound until his lips found my ear, my cheek and then my own again.

It was the sweetest kiss. The curvature of his lips held mine. A content, "ah" escaping from deep within him. But just beneath that sense of contentment, was a mutual fight against a shared craving. The feeling of his opened mouth sparked at the embers he had just put out. Which he realized as soon I had reestablished my boa constrictor-esque hold on him.

Pressing a hand flat and directly over my mouth, Jungkook barked a command with an authoritative tone I'd never heard from him before.

"Baby. No.".

My body went slack. Staring at him for a beat as my glassy eyes worked to find focus.

I don't know if it was due to shock, or if I had become delirious from being around him (and everyone else) again. But once I started laughing this time, I couldn't stop. And Jungkook couldn't either.

We kept laughing until the others came out to see what was going on, Lacey and Yoongi had disappeared to their room which made it easier to stay lighthearted.

When asked what we had been doing, Jungkook opened his mouth - about to blurt out very honestly what had just happened. This time it was my turn to cover his mouth, blabbering about how we had gotten caught up trying to separate whose boxes were whose.

The deadpan stares and wave of lifted eyebrows let me know pretty quickly that nobody was buying it.

"I'd like to request that all...unsavory behavior be kept to our own dedicated rooms." Jimin piped up, tonguing his cheek and trying to look stern.

Jungkook communicated what I was thinking, "Dude, you're too pretty to be the boss. Use those pouters as the good lord intended and pout about it." Jungkook cracked a grin at Jimin's scowl. Scooching us out of the U-Haul to stand with the rest of the guys.

"Well if you're done being lewd, do you wanna come see the house?" Hobi put emphasis on the word "lewd", eyes darting back and forth between Jungkook and I.

Jungkook's hands raised to feign innocence while I sheepishly feigned interest in everyone's choice of shoe.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lessgo." Jungkook was cavalier, a hand grazing mine to interlock fingers and keep me at his side.

If anyone else had something to say, their moment was lost the second Tae threaded his fingers between my own to hold my other hand. Beaming at everyone, he lifted our hands and shook them a bit. "Onwards!" He rallied with a pure-hearted excitement. The others gave in to laughter right away, closing doors behind us as we trudged towards the house.

I don't think I can remember a single time that front door was locked. Oh, besides that one time. But that happened later.

What happened next was me gawking for a solid uninterrupted 3 minutes. Partially due to the house itself and the rest due to the lack of furniture that the guys had actually brought.

Like their previous home, this one was older and a little worn down. Chipped yellow paint on the exterior, a wooden front porch that they had settled the same sunken in couch onto. The same rocking chair and side table from before were also placed to replicate their previous set up, looking like they had been there for years instead of a couple hours. A dark, shingled roof covered the two-story home more sturdily than their old place. There was no stained glass on the front door but the lightbulbs inside had all been changed to warm, low light. Spilling onto the wooden planks as an invitation to its cozy interior. Except, this house was much larger than their last (my city was much cheaper) and the living room that had once been cramped with the gigantic couch, makeshift TV stand, books and art now seemed to go on endlessly. The couch only taking up a quarter of the space that it used to.

Beyond the sea of living room was the kitchen, curving around to the left - the rest of it unseen from where we stood. In the kitchen was a door leading to the basement, where Jungkook, Yoongi and Namjoon's rooms were nestled. Behind our position in the entrance was a staircase that led up to the rest. Boxes littered open areas but still, even then, the amount of space available made me realize that they hadn't brought any other furniture besides what was on their front porch and in their living room and my worried mother mode was flicked on like a light-switch. We moved through the house together while I hovered around each of them with the same energy as a nervous hummingbird. "Do you need this?", "Let me write this down, I'll get you this.", "Oh my GOD you guys didn't bring this?" bumbled out of my mouth as I flitted until Hobi sent Jungkook and I to his room to occupy me.

And that was how they moved in.

30 days later, Jin came bursting through the front door with a rosy pink glittery cowboy hat and matching feather boa. A darker pink looped in cursive letters around the rim of his sunglasses spelling out - "I'm that girl" three times each. Holding a pipe that Sherlock Holmes would have loved, Jin flicked his lighter and sank onto one hip. His neon green, red and blue button down was hanging off of his shoulders, flames around the middle of the shirt hiding a waist much smaller than anyone would expect.

Once he had taken a few comically loud puffs, Jin flipped a wrist up to lower his sunglasses - and gave us all a Big and Cheesy wink. When we didn't immediately react with a round of applause the glasses were whipped off, yells blaring through the echoe-y entryway of the house.

"WOW. I TRAVELED ALL THIS WAY AND THAT IS HOW YOU GREET ME? I WORKED SO HARD TO HAVE A GOOD ATTITUDE FOR YOU EVEN THOUGH IT WAS SO LONG I TRIED TO P -" Jin's full volume grievances were drowned out by an eruption of cheers from everyone.

Full moon lips pressed themselves together and Jin turned to blow the ash from his pipe outside, stepping back in with a pout.

"It doesn't mean as much when you guys do it after I -" Jin's moodiness was cut off by Jimin this time.

"Hey man, are you a little tired? That was a really long drive, you wanna take a nap and we can unpack for you?"

The rest of us shuffled to the side as Jimin corralled Jin up the stairs towards his room.

"See how I'm not making you carry my bags for me? See how kind of a person I am to you?" Jin's suddenly sleepy voice said weakly. Taking plodding steps ahead of Jimin.

Jimin scurried around Jin to stop him from bumping into corners and things, "Uh-huh, you're really brave dude, it's one of the reasons I look up to you." He paused after each step up the stairs, clearly struggling with Jin's half-time pace.

It was my first time experiencing Sleepy Jin. And I remember thinking that I had no idea there was that side to him.

Anyway - the thought that covered that one for a long time was different. It was focused on Jin's arrival being the moment the house fully felt like a home.

While almost everyone got honed in during the start of their new jobs - Jimin, Tae and I were left to help hang things up, put communal things away, etc..., etc..,. It was much easier for us to change work schedules or get time off. I got lucky and switched shifts with a coworker, Jungkook was able to sub for Jimin at the studio and Tae was working from home selling his art prints online - dedicating more of his focus towards his upcoming installation. It mostly went well. Mostly. We found random bookshelves and mattresses for sale around town and helped get things settled, a little less cluttered.

And we also spent hours arguing over how to nail various things to the walls. Jimin was sure we needed a certain tool for it, Tae believed the hanging itself was a creative process and I kept a bottle of Gorilla glue in my pocket to threaten them with whenever their arguments got too out of hand. Everyone felt included in the resulting decision though, - I'll leave it at that.

After about two months had passed, we had all begun to get comfortable with our new routine. I spent 4-5 days a week with them at theirs, sometimes stealing Jungkook away to be alone all over town, sometimes sneaking him into my apartment whenever my mom was working late. My sister had met and loved the guys, putting a subtle bit more effort into her look when she knew Hobi would be around. It was cute, the way that Hobi would puff out his shoulders in her presence, trying to look disinterested until a sound effect would slip past him - turning him cherry red while my sister would break her neutral expression to giggle at him.

Yoongi wasn't around too much. Lacey and I fell into an afternoon coffee and smoke routine whenever Jungkook and Yoongi both were at work. She had gotten a job bartending at a club nearby, only working weekend nights - asking me to go shopping or out for drinks on some of her days off. It was nice until one of us was suddenly hit with the strangeness of the entire dynamic. Jungkook and Yoongi never really interacted, as far as I could tell. The schedule at the dance studio was pretty consistently 2-8 or 5-9. Yoongi on the other hand was working part time at a restaurant as a cook and part time at a convenience store. His 2-12's extended from 2-5's. Sometimes we'd pass by each other on the stairs during the mornings I couldn't sleep. Him heading down to bed, grunting or nodding his hello's as I made my way up. A moment of mutual sleep deprivation, albeit for very different reasons. Sometimes I wanted to offer him coffee or breakfast. To see if he wanted to smoke or talk about how his shift went. But I kept quiet instead. Not wanting to disturb the comforting peace that was still in its infancy of being established.

It was five months in.

Almost half a year after moving when that game night happened.

At the three month mark, Jimin declared to the rest of us that the house had become too tame for a bunch of 20-something's. We were high as all hell on the couch when he did this - a likely reason for the ideas that came spouting back in reply. Ones that we had no right to attempt even when we were stone cold sober. Things like, "We should rent a gigantic trampoline and throw a party with prizes for whoever does the most gnarly flip off the roof". (Jungkook's). Or, "We set up a DJ station right, like buffet style, and whoever plays the best set becomes our honorary party DJ." (Hobi's.)

After much deliberation and a round of bong rips later, we decided on game and party nights for alternating weekends. "Throw a rager, get our money up, recuperate, chill game night. Then repeat." Namjoon said before blowing out a cloud of smoke. We all nodded in agreement, too stoned to counter or throw out any alternatives.

Now, Joon said "chill game night" but they wound up being more like mini-parties.

Usually someone would bring out the bong and place it on the low glass coffee table on Friday morning. Then someone would wind up bringing home drinks "to have with the game" and the 24/7 corner store a block away from their house gave us ample access to "fill up", as Jimin would call it, throughout the night. But we never actually played any games.

This wound up bothering us to the point that we made up a drinking game. One that became our go to event of the evening. So technically, for all intents and purposes - it was a game night.

The rules were simple. Kind of.

Rule 1: If anyone caught you sober - you had to take 3 shots. (Yoongi, who always got home last, hated this rule.)

Rule 2: If a drink was found unfinished then everyone had to pour their own into it until the cup was refilled. Followed by gathering in a circle around the unfinished drink's person and yelling "chug" until they did so. We each had our own assigned cups and a single Sharpie from the move - that somehow never got lost - to initial beer cans. This rule was taken very seriously. (Tae was so notorious for doing this that he became "The Two Rule Champion".)

Rule 3: Time-Up - Basically, it was a play on the concept of a "time-out". If anyone was caught moping or feeling down, they would have two hours to vent or wallow before a mandatory dance party. At least one other person had to be present and it was only over once the mopey person had started to cheer up. (This was a Jimin + Hobi combo rule. Partly as an attempt to help keep things regulated and partly because at least one of them was always down to dance.)

Rule 4: Someone must always be designated as the "game night head counter" and "key bearer". (Ok, this one was because of me. They quickly realized my habit of convincing someone to go somewhere with me once I'd gotten a little too sloshed. This person and I may have passed out on a bus after leaving game night, and it's possible that we woke up a state over with only two dead cell phones and the clothes on our backs.

...And we may have done it again, only to wake up in a small beach town with no service in the middle of a windstorm.

I can't say that the rule wasn't deserved.)

And finally, Rule 5: Absolutely no canoodling allowed outside of each person's designated area (their rooms).

This last rule was agreed upon unanimously. Nobody offered up a sassy remark, witty jab or dry sarcasm. It was collectively understood that everyone cared about each other, and that ruining the overall vibe of the house was no-one's goal.

At least not until that game night.

The temperature had dropped with the sunset and our tradition of fancy attire for these "game nights" was biting me in the ass quite literally. Cold nipped at the skin underneath my dress, a swishy but short little number that was wine red and crushed velvet.

Stomping my feet onto the wooden boards beneath them, the front porch shook a little. A piss poor attempt to warm myself up to be honest - but my heart wasn't really in it.

I was on a mission. Scanning the side table for a neglected (but not empty) pack of smokes. My arms were crossed over my chest, hands rubbing at the exposed upper parts. The cold temporarily subsided as I caught a glimpse of what I was looking for - one lone Marlboro Light. Gross, who the hell smoked these? Nobody in the house did, we collectively shit on Marlboro's (as if what we smoked was any better). Well, beggars can't be choosers, right?

I snatched it up between my fingers with a sense of triumph that quickly faded. Realizing that I still needed to look for a lighter.

This dress did not have pockets.

And Jungkook said - wait, where was Jungkook?

Pausing my hunt for a lighter, I straightened up. Feeling fabric slink down my back and with a fresh awareness of the frigid night air.

I think I was drunk.

Trying to remember where Jungkook had gone and why I wasn't with him sent a ripple of goosebumps up the right side of my body. Where he always stood. Where he should have been. We definitely didn't start the evening this way. We were annoyingly inseparable. So what the hell happened?

I remember Namjoon started the game night early, almost immediately after he had gotten home - he'd had a pretty rough week at work. And that we all ended up dancing with him for a Time-Up until some other people showed up.

One of those people introduced himself as Yoongi's coworker before waving Lacey and Yoongi both over to join us. And then - and then?

A snapshot image of the kitchen found the forefront of muddied thoughts. I could see the back of JK's head, the shoulder of the grey zip up hoodie he had on, and pretty opalescent nails clinging around his bicep.

Oh yeah.

Lacey had just gotten her nails done that color.

That's right.

To make matters worse, I only noticed this after being lost in conversation with Yoongi and his coworker.

I couldn't remember when Jungkook had left my side or if Lacey had been there at all.

God, I really hoped I was drunk.

I sank onto the front porch couch, the tickling on the back of my legs from the wooly covering barely registered.

But it did so just enough. Just so that I could stay sitting on that couch instead of using the flight response to leave my body. I felt strange. Not the usual fucked up strange - more like something was off. Making me not myself. Turning me into a ghost made of marshmallow fluff and weird feelings.

One of my hands had flopped to my side and a lighter was pressed into it. A blurry glimpse of tattooed fingers helped usher out a sigh of relief.

Lifting my head took concentration, and the additional work to get my eyes to meet his sparkling marbles had me feeling out of breath. Sparkling like stars.

Hang on.

Heat on the back of my head brought the world back around me. His hand was big enough to cover it entirely and the sounds coming from inside the house washed into my senses, rushing water from a broken dam.

"NoooOo I saw it! I saw you! You, you - uh, shit ok, no I know what I saw!" Joon was bellowing in a way that let me know he was swaying. Beer cans crinkled before the sound of metal being hit dinged underneath, Yoongi's low and rumbled, "Swish." following after. Other voices jumbled together, music bumping over and underneath them, overlapping and loud - how had I not heard that?

"-by." Wait, there was something.

"Baby." Jungkook's voice was a foghorn. The sound of it rounding out to fill my hearing up completely. Everything else got caught behind a filter and a beam of life came back to me - my head wobbled as it looked towards him, the weight gone from my eyelids in an instant.

He was standing and shaking out each leg, one light gray sleeve rolled up with fingers still tangled into the back of my hair.

"Goddammit, baby did Yoongi give you something?" The tightness in his words kept my eyes open.

Oh that's right. That's why this was all so hazy.

"Correction sweet boy," I warbled, "I just so happened to take something from him actually. If you, you, uh - yeah, most likely." I think that's what happened. A blue pill in the palm of a hand blinked into memory. Yeah, something like that then.

I was pressing my thumb against the lighter and it was taking Herculean effort to get it to light. The hold in my hair was tugged tight enough to set off pinpricks and a slight burn shot down the back my neck.

A tangerine glow was flicked to life for me and I inhaled the cigarette that I had been dangling in front of my lips with a weak wrist. I was immediately hit with the spins and a head rush that made me go limp. I vaguely remember hearing a "woah" as my head dropped its full weight into Jungkook's hand. The cigarette dropped to the floor and there was a shadow that felt like a ray of sun. Heat cast by his body getting closer, bending over my drooping frame to pick up the smoke and keep it for himself. I had enough energy to focus on breathing, grateful for the way he held my head - preventing any strain on my neck.

A thumb rubbing along the base of my skull is all I thought about for the new few moments.

And then - my arms were around Lacey and Jimin, who were each holding a hand and around my waist. All three of us pressed onto one cushion of the couch. Being propped up like that, I could see a bit more of what was happening.

Jungkook was moving very fast and Yoongi was moving with him. Joon had an arm around Jungkook, trying to turn him away from Yoongi without getting an elbow thrown back into his face. Hobi and Jin were darting after Yoongi, trying to stay between the two and keep space between them.

I squinted at the scene, trying to sort out how many of them there were until a pressure on the sides of my head made me aware of another presence. Gently tilting my chin upwards, the swimming sensation in my vision became still water for a moment after recognizing Tae's eye smile.

"Ok. All here." It was like talking with a mouthful of pudding.

"Seriously Lace, what the hell did he give her?" Jimin hissed above my nodding head.

"I swear to god I don't know. I told Jungkook already, I just saw her take a little blue pill and thought I should tell some...one..." Her words trailed off as I felt Jimin straightening his back beside me.

"You need to cut the shit, did you tell him Yoongi gave it to her? Did you see who gave it to her? Were you the one who did?" Jimin was seething.

"I told Jungkook-" Lacey began to repeat. And that was all I heard because that was what she was telling Jungkook. That thing I had been so mad about seeing. A loopy and effortful laugh shook my body in a way that made me nauseous.

The air between Jimin and Lacey neutralized before they both shifted a bit closer to press more support against my legs.

"Jungkookie - you're really needed over here." Jimin sounded worriedly impatient. I almost wondered if he actually said it, it felt so far away. Barely audible. There was no way Jungkook could have heard it.

But the sound of panting dropped into my ear and down my stomach in an instant. Jungkook had heard Jimin and was crouched in front of me, gently resting both elbows on top of my thighs while he helped hold my head up.

"From a friend," Words slurred out of my mouth as I dragged an iron tongue, "Yoongi shared." Keeping my eyes open was almost surely going to make me hurl - something I was fighting against with the few bits of consciousness I was maintaining.

Lips pressed in a straight line and a dutiful nod from Jungkook were worth the sick feeling that came from trying to glance at him.

After that, bigger chunks of time were lost.

I remember being set down in JK's bed and the feeling of my cheek pressing into the top of his thigh. My head resting in his lap like that slowed the spinning. Everything sounded like it was underwater.

Or maybe I felt like I was underwater.

A burning crept into my shoulder and made it impossible to ignore the fact that Jungkook had left at some point. My overly relaxed muscles sunken into a contorted position. I don't know why but the sharp pain of moving tightened my throat and choked me up. The desire to cry heaved in my chest, cut off by a whirlpool of confusion.

Absolutely nothing made sense. I didn't know how I had gotten there, even though it was a safe place. Had I really gotten drugged on game night? By that - wait, who was that?

The pieces of the evening I could remember replayed themselves and I strained to listen for any indication that a fight was going on outside.

I was met with silence. Waiting in the dark. No light from the hallway made it hard to tell if anyone else was in the house at all. JK's room felt like it doubled in size. My focus became as alert as it could get - anxiously anticipating the first sign of footsteps. I don't know how long I waited, but I remember the recognition of Jungkook's gait being followed by a more muffled one.

"Baby, it's Yoongi," a whisper fell over the room that felt louder than the creaking of the door. I lay motionless under a few layers of blankets, watching as the sudden light from the hall brought the walls back to where they should be. "I'll be right outside. As soon as he leaves I'll be here, don't worry." I never had to worry long with Jungkook.

A weight pressed onto the mattress next to me and my first night at their old house played along with real time. Eerie deja vu.

Yoongi's voice cracked when he spoke, "I'm so sorry. I didn't- It doesn't matter, I'm just so sorry." The mattress moved beneath us with a tiny tremble. Or maybe that was Yoongi. A plopping of tears onto bedsheets rang out into the quiet air.

Unable to get words out, I reached a hand back until it bumped against his. The top was slightly damp from his crying, and I attempted to wipe at it with a thumb before tugging it towards me. I could feel the limb drop, spent from the exertion it took to do what little I did.

A thinner arm, but just as warm and strong as Jungkook's found its way around me. Long fingers curled around the side of my ribcage and a wide palm pressed against my stomach.

A little sharp, Yoongi's chin tucked into the back of my shoulder. A repeated string of "I'm sorry"'s were murmured out, spreading warmth across my back in a mild wildfire. I couldn't figure out what he was saying sorry for. Placing my hand over the one on my stomach to try and get the message to him.

I lost what happened after that.

The next thing I can recall, was Jungkook laying on his back underneath me. Holding me to his chest in a full body headlock.

"Mm?" Jungkook managed to croak out the questioning sound mere seconds after my eyes opened. Pressing the back of his hand against my cheeks and forehead before resting two fingers on my neck to monitor my pulse.

I still felt trapped in submerged slow motion.

A plastic water bottle crinkled in his grip while he lifted it over his body. Unscrewing the cap with his other hand and placing the rim of it beneath my bottom lip.

He was even a natural at doing things like this? Or - had he needed to get good at this with someone else? The water tasted sour as it was tilted into my unbelievably dry mouth. It took a couple swallows to get rid of and I tried to use the time to think of a way to get the lid back from Jungkook. But by the time I had finished drinking, his head had knocked onto my shoulder and pinned me further down. The tickle from his light snore making me wriggle like a worm on a hook to get the lid back on the water bottle by myself. Even unconscious - his hold around me remained tightly fastened until the "oh shit" I uttered after spilling some of the bottle made him double down.

"JK!" Was gasped out and I remember that the rawness of it sounded like it couldn't have come from me.

The water bottle was tossed onto the floor behind us, rolling to a spot we wouldn't think about until nearly two days later.

"Baby, baby, baby," Jungkook dragged his nose across my face, following its path with sporadic kisses, "It's okay, it's okay, lemme love you.". And suddenly, I couldn't hear anything else but that. Lips ghosted across mine before pushing together into a kiss. Sleepy, slow and too purposeful to believe it was done unconsciously. "It's okay, lemme love you." singing me back to black in a lullaby.

I slept for the entire next day and most of the day after. Yoongi and Jungkook started to interact with each other a bit more while I was recovering. Jungkook treated me like I was made of the most fragile glass and Yoongi helped him, a little apprehensively. They had planned for Jungkook to call Yoongi's work and get the guy fired. Or maybe to beat him up. It all stopped feeling real. I know they didn't go through with the plan though, whatever it had been.

Yoongi returned from his next shift with news that the guy had bailed. Didn't show up, phone out of service, ignoring anyone that showed up at his door (or maybe he had moved away completely). Either way, nobody knew. Nobody saw him leave the party. I couldn't even remember what he had looked like.

Justice isn't always swift.

Despite speaking more, the trust Jungkook had in Yoongi - and in him being around me - had shrunk considerably.

Looking back at it now - helping that trust rebuild should've been a bigger priority.

Instead, we came up with an unofficial 6th rule - Only housemates (or people trusted by housemates) were to be allowed at game night.

And for three of us - a 7th rule became a vow. One so unspoken that none of us could put it properly into words.

But that's the thing about promises that can't be made out loud. Silent signings of emotional contracts.

If you've no way to explain it, how can you describe what's been broken?

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