#and im warning u abt this just so u know what kind of tone to expect in those two posts i linked in my 1st paragraph here lol

[lovesickeros]

☆ love; heretical and divine

{☆} characters tsaritsa {☆} notes cult au, yandere, drabble, gender neutral reader {☆} warnings blood {☆} word count 0.8k

To love a God is heretical. It is an act of blasphemy– it is to drag them down from their throne of hollow gold, to topple the pedestal the worshipers uphold on their shoulders like lambs at the herders heel. It is the act of forcing them to their knees and ripping that beating heart of glorious gold and beautiful, cruel divinity from their chest, so pure it burns.

To love a God is to make them sin. To make them painfully, horribly human.

To love a God is to sin.

The love of a worshiper is no love at all, brilliant in its raw purity, untainted by sin. It is fear and obedience masked by adoration so overpowering it corrupts. It makes the lamb so unquestioning in it's faith it will never question the knife that cuts, the teeth that rip, the claws that tear. If the Creator deemed them unworthy of the very life crafted by their hands, then they must have committed a sin so grave there lay no salvation for their horrid soul.

But she is no worshiper– her lips speak of heresy as easily as she breathes, her words nothing but lies, cold and cruel like the ice that crawls along her skin like webs.

She loves a God like a lover should.

A damned sinner reaching longingly for the heavens.

She loves a God in the subtle brush of their lips, their muffled voices behind closed doors as they indulge in curiosity untamed. She is a sinner through and through, but she feels herself fall further with every brush of her hand across their cheeks, every touch she bestows upon them like a lover. She memorizes the imperfections of their body like memorizing a map– every scar, every mark, every line drawn on their body like a canvas, her touch the brush that stains the pristine white.

No devoted lamb shall ever see the painting they create in these stolen moments– it is for the eyes of a heretic so vile it makes them shudder, their body dirtied by the love of a woman so vile even their divinity is obscured by the ice.

The lambs may be satisfied with fleeting glimpses of gold and empty words from lips that guide them to the jaws of the wolves, but she is not. Her hands crave them like a starving hound, aching to touch that imperfect skin hidden by the veil of gold that obscures the painfully human body beneath. She longs to free them from the golden cage that binds them– to see their wings blot out the sky, their divinity tainted by sin and making them all the more beautiful for it.

It is a longing that leaves a festering wound that cannot heal, will not heal. Even if it could, she would not let it.

For as much as she tries, deny it as she may, she is no better then the blind lambs following the herder who holds a blade in their hand, glittering like gold in the sun, stained by dull red.

She is a fool, and what a fool they make of her with the touch of their hands against her skin– so cold it leaves frost on their fingertips. Yet they do not fear the cold, mapping out every inch of her imperfections, carved into her body by her own hands.

She has always been a heretic, cursing the divine until she could speak no more, but if divinity can be found in them – in this love that consumes, that burns her hands and her lips – then she is a Saint, praying at the altar until her throat bled.

But in the end, she has and will always be a cold woman with hands stained with blood. Until it is all she can taste, until it is all she can smell, until it is all she can feel. These hands of hers, heretical and divine, will bleed the God from their veins– she will become the wolf to their lamb until the rivers of Teyvat run gold with their ichor, until the gold bleeds into red, the taste of their divinity on her tongue.

Until she drags a God from their lofty throne and makes of them a monster.

There is no greater triumph to the heretic then to love a God into sin. To make a God sin to love.

To love is to be human, and they are no God.

Even if she must tear the gold from their very being until all that's left is something human. Even if Teyvat crumbles and decays, even if it begins over and over again..

She will do it again and again, until the gold can bleed no longer. Until her sins grow too great for Teyvat to contain.

To love a God is to devour, and be devoured. An endless cycle of sin that dulls the glow of gold into something new– something horrifying and divine, in it's own right. Something just as horrid as her, just as divinely corrupted by the sins she carries on her shoulders like a trophy, as gold as the sun and as cold as ice.

Divinity, carved into something human by love all consuming, until it all bleeds away and they begin their dance anew, for as many cycles as it takes.

An eternity, if she must, of dooming this world of theirs to fire and decay for a glimpse of the being snared by their golden shackles.

[norizz-nation]

Ride it 🧡

Summary: Lando started to tone his abs a little bit more, which made you practically drool. So he kinda puts you in your place

Warnings: nsfw, daddy kink, blowjob, face fucking, spanking, pillow humping, spit kink, face slapping, light bdsm, choking, dacryphilia, 18+, age gap (reader is 19)

Lando and you were always the kind of couple who would fuck 7 times a week. There was no doubt to it. But nowadays it was more of a difficult game cuz Lando have been working out a lot, which made his abs even more toned. And u were loving it.

It was currently a lazy evening and u were on ur phone just scrolling. And lando was away from you, doing his work. He texted u saying that he will be back home in an hour but u didn’t check the message becuase u were too busy laying on ur bed with lights dim. Closing ur eyes and thinking abt lando. His hands all over ur body, his lips between ur thighs, his fingers spreading ur lips apart. Every single thought made u squirm more and more. With no other thought u started to touch urself. You pushed ur satin shorts down and dropped them to the floor and began to rub ur pussy in a slow pace. U closed ur eyes and imagined ur fingers as landos as u started to circle ur clit in a bit fast pace.

After circling ur pussy for a while u looked to ur side and grabbed lando’s pillow and sat on it. U could already feel ur heartbeat inside ur mouth. You threw ur head back as u kept on humping. The thought of landos thighs being the pillow made u wanna cum uncontrollably. You started to hump as fast as u can and grabbed the headboard for support. You were so close to cum. Your whole body starting to sweat. You were so caught up thtu didn’t even notice lando opening ur shared bedroom’s door. You kept on humping as u started to feel a knot inside ur stomach. You started to hump even more faster as u came on his pillow leaving white cum stains on the white pillow case.

You were abt to get down from ur high but u heard ur boyfriend from behind say “tht was good welcoming show, wasn’t it?” As he leaned on the doorframe looking at u with a smirk on his face. Although u guys were really comfortable with everything, still u were really embarrassed as ur face turned red. “Baby, how come u’re home early?” You rlly dont know why u asked him tht question.

“Just missed being with you” he said as he walked over u, standing on the edge of the bed. “But didn’t expect to get a show in front of me, didn’t i tell u to not touch urself when im away?” U were to dumbfounded to say anything so u just nodded. He came closer to u squeezing ur face to look at him. “What is it? Dont just nod ur head. Say words. Use tht pretty mouth baby” the way he was looking at u, u could tell tht tonight was gonna be long. U gulped before saying “yes daddy, u told me not to touch myself whn u’re away.” “And wht did u do?” His grip was getting tighter. U were just silent and he placed a tight slap on ur cheek which burned ur skin. “Wht tf takes u so long to answer huh? Are u trying to test my patience? Answer me. Wht did u do?”

U could feel tears forming and u said “i touched myself evn tho u told me not to” u couldn’t evn look at him. He thn cupped ur face and made u look at him and said “and u even humped on my pillow, ure not evn wearing any bra.” As he grabbed ur left tit and pinched ur nipple hard tht made u squeal. “Tell me wht were u thinking abt?”

U could feel ur whole body burn “i was imagining riding u.” Hearing tht he raised an eyebrow and smirked. “What else?” U barely managed to say “ur abs makes me wanna ride u for hours” he thn smirked again. “Well thn ride me.” Ur eyes widened. Not sure wht to say. Lando removed his t-shirt and jogger and layed comfortably with just his boxers. Tht sight made u wet instantly. The view in front of u was everything u wanted. “Remove tht top baby” u did as he said and dropped it on the floor.

U started to palm his dick but he grabbed ur wrist and said “use ur pretty mouth baby. without ur hands.” His words made ur jaw drop. He then spread ur mouth more with his fingers.

U were trying ur best to suck him without ur hands. But it was quite hard. And ur mouth was getting dry and u sorta chocked. Thn he grabbed ur face and said “open it more” and spitted inside ur mouth and now it was kinda easy for u. U started to bop ur head more faster as he grabbed ur hair and started face fucking u which made ur eyes teary. U were tugging ur nails on his thighs bec it was too much for u.

“Just breathe trough ur nose, ik u can take it baby. Be a good girl, okay?” He thn continued face fucking u. Just whn u felt his dick twitching he pulled u away from his dick. “Come on baby ride me. Fulfill ur fantasy.”

U slowly place urself on top of him and started touching his toned abs. Running ur fingers over thm. Practically drooling. U started slowly moving up and down his dick feeling so full. Tears rolling down ur cheeks. His one hand was choking u and the other one was on ur waist guiding u. “Thts it baby, dont stop okay?” U could just nod. “I feel so full daddy. Im g-gonna c-cum” he then spanked ur ass and said “oh yeah? Already? But we just started”

U we’re literally crying atp. “Please daddy let me cum, i cant hold it any longer.” He started guiding ur ass as he said “cum baby, cum all over my cock” u were literally seeing stars in front of u as u came all over his dick. “Who do u belong to huh?” He asked grabbing ur face placing a light slap. “You daddy, ofc u.”

“Thts a good girl, now get on ur knees.” U got on ur knees as he face fucked u. “Oh baby im gonna cum.” U were looking up at him with heart eyes as he came inside ur mouth and u swallowed all of them. “Such a good girl.” He said as he brushed his thumb on ur lips, as u smiled.

“I love u baby”

“I love u too daddy”

A/N: requests are open! feel free to ask what you want me to write! luv you ❤️

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

i'm not familiar with your fics but from what i'm reading here you definitely don't seem like the kind of izzy fan that makes me sad, lol! im mostly talking abt the kind of izzy fan who is 100% convinced that blackhands or steddyhands is going to be endgame (a very small but very baffling minority) and/or the kind of izzy fan that was described in this ask i got (which is the post that the anon here is referencing, lol) aka izzy fans who become very defensive when people are "mean" to izzy (even tho, like... the show itself is mean to izzy)

i do think a lot of what im whining about here is actually just. a very common phenomenon that happens to basically every fan who stays active in a fandom when said fandom goes ages without new content. the more time spent reading or writing fanfiction and coming up with headcanons and talking with other fans, the less we remember about actual canon. fanon starts to take over and we forget how the show/movie/book/video game/whatever is actually written.

and this has actually happened to me with ofmd a few times—i make a point to rewatch the show every now and then to try and keep things in perspective, and on some of my rewatches i've been like "oh wow, fanon's been really warped my perspective on that!" i forgot how minor a role ivan and fang play in the show and how they sort of just... phase out of existence for episodes 7 and 8 (are they still on the Revenge? did they leave with izzy? i have no fucking idea). i forgot how confident stede is (despite how most of the time he really shouldn't be). i forgot how lighthearted a lot of the scenes are. i forgot how heartbreaking other ones are. all little things, mostly! but like i said, i've been regularly rewatching the show to try and keep things fresh.

so the specific kind of izzy fan i'm talking abt here are really just experiencing that to a truly insane extreme where they've forgotten what the actual show is even about (ed and stede's romance, first and foremost. that's the main plot of the entire show). and as someone who fucking loves this show, that makes me very sad. i understand that some people fixate on a character very strongly, and i'm not necessarily against people who shape their entire fandom experience around one character. but i do think fixating on the show's antagonist makes it a little easier to lose sight of canon on accident (which tbh i think can be a valid way to enjoy fandom!! but at least be aware of it. and also personally i prefer to do that when canon is actually bad, which ofmd is not)

to be clear, i fully understand that most people can't choose which character they fixate on. and while i am absolutely critical of when white side characters become disproportionately favored in fan content, i also recognize that fandom is pastime, not a job, and nobody can force other people to make content that they (or their brains) don't want to make.

(i, for one, would love to make any fanfic content. any at all. please, brain, please let me write fanfic)

so i actually love your approach here! for whatever reason, your brain right now will only let you write izzy-centric content. there are probably a lot of other fans in the same boat, and there probably are a million reasons why that's happened—maybe they want to "fix" izzy to make him fit in like you're suggesting, maybe they have a preference for antagonists, maybe they just think con o'neill is hot, maybe izzy reminds them of someone important to them, maybe they've all been taught by society to care more about white male characters than any other type of character (and as uncomfortable as this one is to consider, we absolutely cannot dismiss it). but even though your brain (and most likely the brains of a lot of izzy fans as well) will only let you write izzy doesn't mean you can't enjoy what other fans have done with all the other characters in the show!

reading and sharing fanfic that isn't izzy-centric, looking for art and gifs of other characters, reblogging other people's headcanons abt the other characters—these are all great ways to celebrate the other parts of this fantastic show even when your brain will only let you create for one character. so i'm going to follow your lead and recommend a few fics that i've really enjoyed that are about less popular characters or explore popular characters in ways most fanfiction doesnt:

all at sea by @peaktotheocean (T, 14k, Complete): post-season 1 jim-centric fic about what happens on the Revenge after the season finale (what happens is ed takes jim under his wing). since u said ur an izzy fan i feel like i should warn u that the fic is not very nice to him. as in he just sort of... dies. and nobody cares. i rlly hope that doesn't put you off this fic tho bc it's very very good!

Transformative Work by @mia-ugly, @pinehutch (E, 41k, Complete): another post-season 1 fic about what happens on the Revenge, but this one is frenchie-centric! ed asks frenchie to write a better ending for him and stede. this turns into frenchie and the rest of the crew writing all sorts of incredibly hilarious fanfiction (for example: a PWP from lucius) abt ed and stede. also frenchie/olu/jim the ot3 i never knew i needed. funny and sweet and heartbreaking and hilarious. (this one does kinda retcon what little we know of frenchie's backstory which is kinda a bummer imo, but it is still very well done)

Now I Will Believe That There Are Unicorns by @meanmisscharles (M, 21k, WIP): pregnant trans!ed: the fanfic! very very cute and sweet. lots of ed bonding with the crew which is *chefs kiss* so fucking healing. also i would die for this baby

What Kind of Pirate Has a Friend? by @thetardigrape (E, 31k, complete): very good fic about ed's hornigold era and the start of blackbeard. no idea if this will be up your alley but one of the biggest reasons i really like this one is bc izzy is actually not in it at all. i mean, i totally understand why everyone headcanons ed, jack, and izzy as being young boys on hornigold's ship together, but the way izzy talks about "i was honored to work for blackbeard" in e4 makes me feel like izzy only met ed once he had already established himself as blackbeard. so personally i love this fic for being an excellent hornigold backstory that fits with my headcanon, lol

thank for that amazing analysis of Izzy apologists. I'm so very tired. I adore some friends I've made in this fandom, but some of them are so deeply drunk on the Jizzy I can not *stand* talking about the show with them or Izzy anymore. It's either "Izzy is just a little guy he can't hurt anyone!" or "Izzy is gay he can't be femmephobic!" I'm so tired! He's the antagonist how is that controversial!? They see themselves as such victims too, the pointing of Izzy flaws is seen as an attack. Sigh.

im so very tired too, anon.

i really dont get it. i've been in fandoms where the fanon content all comes from a deep misunderstanding of what the original text is supposed to be. but like, it was marvel. or voltron. or that transphobic wizard school series. something where fans were actually coming up with a better version of the source material

i came into this fandom not because i wanted content that fixed what i disliked abt the source material, but because i wanted more of the source material, and there was only so many times i could rewatch the ten episodes that we have. this show is fucking phenomenal and has brought me so much joy, and talking abt this show and chewing on good analyses of the show has been so much fucking fun.

it's just disheartening, i guess, that so many people fell down this gradual pipeline of liking the weird little gremlin antagonist to having their entire fandom experience revolve around a version of izzy that reflects fanon more than canon. it makes me fucking sad that there are people who genuinely believe he's the show's secret protagonist and that season one is full of undeniable references to his inevitable redemption arc but also he doesn't need to change anything to be redeemed because he's the skyler white of ofmd (???) and he's a victim of an abusive relationship but also he doesn't know he's in love with his captain who is so mean and unfair to him and doesn't even notice how izzy dedicates his whole life to him and–

like. these people don't even like the show anymore. they just like izzy. rather, they like the version of him they've made up in their heads. it makes me so fucking sad, bro.

we got a gay romcom, y'all. we got a show that revolves entirely around the romantic relationship between two middle-aged men. we got a diverse cast. we got polyamory. we got nonbinary rep. we got fat characters whose fatness was never made into a joke. we got a character with a lisp whose lisp was never commented on. we got so fucking much from this show.

do you remember how it felt to watch this show for the first time? do you remember that joy?

i just dont understand why so many people in the ofmd fandom don't like ofmd anymore

[little-miss-dilf-lover]

omg hi babe it's been so fucking long im not even sure if you remember me but how are you love omg 💗

i had like the worst fucking day ever and lately my mental health has been so fucking horrible and i just wanted to see if you could write a cute little fic ab reader having a horrible day and accidentally snapping at peter quill abt it and feeling annoyed by him a bit. you can write it whenever you want mwah 🫶🫶

but how are you doing omg ive been keeping up w u and your drabbles are so fucking cute omg 😭💗💗

ily mwah

-🎡

hii!! AAAH!! ofc I remember you, ive missed you omg!! im really sorry you’ve been having a hard time bby, I hope this can be of some comfort to you. I got a little carried away as I love comfort fics sm and must admit I kinda needed it too😭 but im doing good, hope things are going well for you too (or as well as they can) you’re so sweet thank you😩 ily angel💗 thank you for requesting, hope you like it💌

…

got your back

peter quill x fem!reader

word count: 807

warnings: little angsty? reader snaps at quill and mentions of reader being insecure in the relationship. fluffy ending

✧.┊ MASTERLIST

Peter has many admirable qualities, the most endearing being his deep-rooted ability to empathise. You adored how he cares so deeply about others, especially the ones he loves most. It was one of the things that drew you to him the most. 

Lately, you have been having a rough time, so to speak, and things weren't going in your favour. Your boyfriend, Peter, was aware and did everything he could for you to feel better, even if it was only for a little while.

Every day was different. Some days were easier, others, not so much, and it just so happened that today was one of the more difficult days. It was the kind of day where everything went wrong. The day where your clothes get caught in every door handle, the kind where you drop everything you hold. The sort of day that leaves you with an empty pit in your stomach when you finally catch a minute alone. 

Peter was always so kind and patient with you that it often made you question what you did to deserve him. For you, he's loving and caring, sweet and funny, the perfect combination of all the best traits a person could have. 

You felt overwhelmed with many things and the self-doubt that Peter would find someone better than you weighed heavy on your mind. You were in your bedroom alone, door closed, curtains shut with your head in your palms. 

A soft knock on your door interrupts you from your thoughts. "Hey, honey? Everything okay?" Peter asks through the door, his tone full of warmth.

"Yeah," you reply shortly, burying your face in your arms.

"Are you sure? You can talk to me," he says. "I'm right here."

"Yes, I'm sure," you respond with more bite, growing frustrated.

"Okay, I'm here if you need me," he adds, speaking just as sweetly as before despite your harsh tone.

"I'm fine, just go away!" you snap, throwing a pillow at the door. "Fuck off, just leave me alone."

You didn't have to see his face to know how much your words had hurt him. You regret the sentence as soon as they slipped past your lips, but it was too late. You said them, and they can’t be unsaid. 

"Okay," he whispers, tapping on the door as a farewell.

It felt like it had all just got a whole lot worse, and you just tarnished the one thing that made it easier to cope. The guilt was eating you up, and all you wanted to do was apologise. But you told him to leave, so why would he still be here?

You pace your room for a few minutes, gathering your words for an apology while momentarily cursing yourself out. You were scrounging for ways to make it up to him and patch over the mess you made.

With a small pep talk and a final nod, you open your door and see Peter sitting on the floor beside the door, leaning against the wall with crossed legs.

"Hi," you smile weakly.

"Hey," he smiles, an airy tone to his voice, speaking like he finally got his breath back. "I'm sorry— I shouldn't have pushed you. I know how you get. It’s the last thing I wanted—" he anxiously gushes, talking like he had practiced it. 

You interrupt, shaking your head. "No, please don't do that. You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s all my fault— I'm so sorry. I should have never spoken to you like that. It all got too much, and I couldn't— I'm just really sorry," you profess, fidgeting with the hem of your sweater. 

"I know, honey," he replies, nodding understandingly. 

"You're too good to me," you whisper, avoiding his green gaze. "I'm just not used to it."

"I'm still here, baby and I ain't gonna leave you," he says, looking up at you with sweet doeful eyes. "I'm not leaving you like the others." 

He extends an arm, his hand reaching for yours as he guides you closer, gently tugging you downwards. He nods at his lap, so you straddle his crossed legs, pressing your chest to his, wrapping your arms around his neck to hug him tighter. His big, warm arms encase you and his hand brushes comforting strokes down your back, as his other clutches the back of your head, holding you like he's protecting you. 

You bury your face further into the crook of his neck, silently weeping and embracing him tighter. "I love you," you mumble against his skin, playing with the curls behind his ears. 

"I love you," he smiles, pulling back to look at you. He wipes under your eyes, softly brushing away your residual tears. He kisses the damp patch of skin beside your nose, looking at you with nothing but admiration. "... so much."

— — — — — — — — — — ☆ — — — — — — — — — —

[seongminiz]

camboy!taeyoung thoughts !!

minors dni ; camboy roommate!taeyoung x afab!reader ; word count: ~770

warnings : not very detailed smut ; masturbation ; dont know how but this mighttt count as dubcon since both taeyoung n reader r doing everything behind each others back ? ; kind of exhibitionism idk ; i overuse the („• ᴗ •„) emoticon bc im insane

based on that one taeyoung video , might be- no its definitely all over the place , not proof read , was supposed to post this last night but i fell asleep , pls guys dont make fun of me idk how long i can still pull the autistic aroace lesbian card to defend myself from the shitty writer allegations , im very sleepy rn :3 , might post a part 2 if anyone is interested bc im not done with the thoughts („• ᴗ •„)

camboy taeyo- GETS RAN OVER BY A TRAIN

my god my god my god

he'd sometimes use fleshlights n stuff like that but nothinggg would beat when hes fucking his hand n cums all over his toned abs („• ᴗ •„) n he'd tease his audience sooo much ! being all cocky n mostly in a dom mood ,, but the most fun streams of his r the ones where hes more subby :( begging n whining n trying sooo hard not to come too early bc being this vulnerable in front of an audience makes him more sensitive n turned on •v• camboy tyoungie i fucking love u thats it

and and and and

roommate!taeyoung who also works as a camboy to have some extra money to spend on himself . u dont know abt it , u just assume hes rlly loud n horny all the time - which, hey, u cant rlly blame him for it - but u do question if hes that loud bc he wants u to hear him ,, if only u knew how ur guess isn't that far fetched , taeyoung having to keep himself from moaning ur name everytime he streams, touching himself to the thought of u - on top of him or under him , anywhere , he doesn't care , just thinking abt u is enough . and if only he knew how u took an habit of touching urself at the same time, ur bed being conveniently against the wall confining with his room .. u dont even worry abt taeyoung hearing u , you pride yourself in being on the quieter side - you really aren't and taeyoung anxiously checks if his mic is picking up on ur sounds every single time he hears u . until one eventful day - while taeyoung is out at the gym or something - u realize oh shit , u r unbelievably horny n ur personal jerk off material isn't home ,, u r so desperate , nothing you find on twitter or even those shitty porn sites seems to do the job , it's almost like you've conditioned yourself to only feel good bc of taeyoung </3 at some point , doom scrolling ur twitter tl u come across an account u follow promoting their ,, streaming channel on some obscure website that sounds like a scam . no its definitely a scam . you've never had that much of an interest in this kind of content , but you figure at this point u could try anything to get rid of how unbearably horny u r . again, nothing of what you're seeing piques your interest, until u see the thumbnail of a specific vod from a few days prior. despite being darker, you can still realize the room looks eerily similar to yours - to taeyoung's. u shake ur head, giving yourself a few slaps for good measure and whispering to yourself to 'fucking snap out of it', there's no way you're so down bad for ur roommate u r starting to imagine him as one of these camboys. no way. but u still cant fight the urge to click on the video, maybe the resemblance to taeyoung is what can get u to finally feel good . you hurriedly put your oh so beloved noise canceling headphones on and turn the volume up. that's when your heart sinks and u freeze, hand stopping halfway inside your shorts bc holy shit that sounds a little too much like taeyoung, n u r now a hundred percent sure u saw those same bedsheets in his room four days ago - coincidentally the same day this was streamed, and yes thats his shirt, the one that always drives u insane bc he looks a little too good in it .... before u know it , you're on ur third vod of his , basically binge watching all of his past streams and on the verge of tears with how much you've been overstimulating yourself . you're so lost in it u dont realize taeyoung has come back home around the midst of 2nd video or so , and knows exactly what ur up to when he hears u moaning his name . poor boy is fighting the urge to just burst into your room , telling himself it wouldn't be morally right to do so - as if jerking off to the thought of his roommate while streaming or standing right by their door as he starts to slowly palm himself over his pants while listening to you getting off is any more decent ,,

this might stay ur little secret , both too shy to confront each other abt it ,, or maybe taeyoung will just have to wait for a repeat of that day to catch you red handed and finally get what he's been craving for weeks („• ᴗ •„)

[matoitech]

ok uhh okay. spiderverse 2 thoughts. in bullet points for the sake of my churning brain cuz im just not rly sure how i feel abt it rn. like it was a good movie? i enjoyed it it was fast paced i didnt realize 2+ hours went by which also segues into  my first thought but like. yeah i have thoughts.

first of all that was like a super weird ending decision to make it a part 1 of 2. zero warning for that. and i sat in that theater till credits bcuz i genuinely thought i was being punked and the movie was going to finish, bcuz it did not at all feel like a place to stop for the movie. it ends like right before the climax?? yes they really. extended themselves damn far for this one and it would be a lot to tie up in like another 45 minutes of movie but also like you couldve done it.. i really dont. understand. like ppl just sat in the movie theater like wait is it done. theyre ending it here? for real? like it wasnt the kind of ending you expect from this movie 

animation was obviously gorgeous and insane i dont even need to talk about what eye candy it was. the different styles all together the fight scenes ugh so good yeah yeah everyone knew it would be a trip

rly cannot stress enough what a Direction this sure was. i dont like say it as crit necessarily just like. did they over extend. maybe. they sure Extended. i would expect this maybe for a third movie not a second but they were clearly trying to blow the first one out of the water. it was just.. a lot looser. it needed to be tighter. i dont know what theyre planning for the 3rd movie but i really did not like. vibe with that ending decision

they changed peni’s design slightly and gave her a cooler mech so thats nice. maybe they listened 2 criticisms abt that

i cant decide how i feel abt a lot of the dialogue tbh it rly wasnt my thing a lot of the time like. the changing writers were kind of.. obvious. and there was a LOT of dialogue bcuz this movies purpose seems to be a very Character Driven story to prepare for the next? like theyre TRYING to say stuff thats for sure. also it was rly quippy in a way that i feel has gotten kind of tired with dialogue writing like SOME dialogue was genuinely funny and good to me like i wouldnt say it was BAD or something (some of it was bad.) it was just.. noticeably different? the tone for this movie was changed from the first which again isnt bad youre telling a different story it was just Different yeah. some things i rly thought couldve been handled like with more subtlety. 

i guess we only had one movie with the original cast but some stuff just like i personally was sitting there trying to figure out if it felt in character or not. its rly hard to explain if u havent watched it i think and maybe im just crazy i dunno. im absolutely not opposed to making ur characters fuck up and make mistakes but like. huh. i guess. i would not expect otherwise from gwen bcuz shes a teenager but i was.. surprised that peter was going along with it like ? hes a middle aged man lol he wasnt like taken advantage of or manipulated in any way. not like they were trying to say that w the like spider group anyway, like i dont think they were tryingto say gwen was necessariyl taken advantage of or anything, like they werent trying to make them read as ‘evil’ if anything just like wow these ppl sure have Problems they are going thruogh. but like still? im not invested in peters character even it just felt kind of weird. miles went fucking through it too like jesus christ im still trying to wrap my brain around all this it sure does feel like theyre putting these ppl thru comic book trauma

what i went through emotionally wheni realized they were going to do Dark Miles i dont even mean that as criticism or anything its just a bold move man. buti was sitting there like yeah of course they would. hope they make it work

i dunno i probably have more thoughts im just kind of like sitting here lol like what a weird decision. if they hadnt ended it like that i probably would have my thoughts more tied together bcuz the movie itself wasnt tied up?? so its kind of hard to even like think through everything on one watch

[elvesofnoldor]

.

[mrvlbimbo]

hey babes!

so I have this request n basically I was think about an eddie munson x bimbo!reader ( cuz their my favs ) but like make the bimbo!reader kind of like the mom friend of the group. Like whenever Eddie brings her to his friends she always has everything they need and is very mother like. I just think that’s so cute <3

Anyway bye I hope you have a great day! Ily 🫶🏾

YES BC LETS TALK ABT IT

this ones long so i'm gonna one of those squiggly line things here

also like a good bit of talk abt pregnancy and having kids so if thats not ur thing im just warning u now

I’ve mentioned before her being a sports mom but like can u imagine.

She walks up to the lunch table and stands beside Eddie with a hand on his shoulder, clearly about to announce something.

“Lucas, I heard someone is on the starting lineup for tonight’s game.” She smiled brightly at him, clearly very proud of the boy.

She may or may not have had her parents bribe the coach to let him (a freshman) start for the championship game

“Oh yeah it’s not a big deal, you guys have hellfire right?” Lucas asks, trying to brush it off so Eddie doesn’t get mad about basketball being brought up at his lunch table.

“It’s a huge deal! We’re all so proud of you.” Her hand on Eddie’s shoulder creeps up to the back of his neck, her thumb brushing over his pulse in a way that she knows drives him crazy. “No hellfire tonight, we’re all going to be there to support you. Isn’t that right Eddie?”

She stills her motion for a second as she waits for his response. His brain is fuzzy with need and he would say just about anything for her to keep touching him so he mumbles out a weak “yep.”

And to his credit he does postpone hellfire and order the whole club to go see Lucas’ game instead. But that has nothing to do with the fact his girlfriend promised him a “special treat” for after.

Before he knows it their in her room getting ready to go pick all the kids up and bring them to the game when she comes out of the bathroom wearing a little robe that barely covers the top of her lace number peaking out.

“What’s this, sugar?“ Eddie mumbles, hands smoothing over her sides to bunch up the fanfic and see what’s underneath.

“That, is a surprise,” she giggled, pushing away from him and securing the robe back over her body. Not before he gets a peak of the lingerie set beneath.

Its his favorite shade of pink, and yes he has a favorite shade because he's decided it's the one that compliments her skin tone the best. "Boo, you're no fun," he grumbled, falling back on to the bed dramatically as she goes to change into her outfit for the night.

He of course can't seem to wait for later for his surprise, pulling her into his arms as soon as she comes back and sitting her in his lap on the bed for a messy makeout session.

"Baaaabe please can I see?" he whines, hands bunching up the fabric of her skirt.

"ok just a peak," she agrees. But before he can make good on his request, they hear loud knocking on their door.

"Who is it?" her cheery voice rings out, hopping off Eddie's lap (much to his dismay) to open the door.

When she opens the door mike is standing there looking furious "you were supposed to pick us up 30 minutes ago," he fumes, angry at the fact they definitely won't have time to stop for snacks.

"It's ok Mikey, I have snacks here. Plus Eddie drives fast, I promise we'll be there on time." She makes her voice even softer if thats possible, giving the boy a pat on the head that he would certainly rebuff if it was from anyone else.

"ok, so I can just like...get snacks from your kitchen."

"Of course sweetie, take whatever you want. Make yourself at home, we'll be down in a minute."

When she turns back around Eddie is gawking and giving her the cutest little heart-eyed expression. "mommy," he mumbles under his breath, getting up to give her a quick but heated kiss and then head downstairs to get the car started.

She stumbles down the stairs after him, wobbling in her high heels. She greeted by the sight of a bunch of freshmen ransacking her kitchen and the foyer.

She just smiles and sighs. Offering them a tote back from the pantry to house all their snacks. As the boys squabble over the last box of toaster strudels, she notices max sitting on the couch alone.

"Hey Maxie! I love the outfit, you look so cute." She of course referred to the beige and green sweater that Max was wearing, courtesy of her closet.

"Couldn't miss it," she grumbled, clearly less than enthusiastic about the game.

"Well, I'm glad you're here. Always nice to have another girl. Aaaand do you think maybe I could do your hair pretty please?" she begs, poking her lip out in a pout and giving the most adorable puppy dog eyes.

"Yeah ok fine." the corners of her lips turned up into a smile despite her best efforts to pull her face into a scowl.

She giggles and sits down on the couch next to her, hands playing in her hair and skillfully twisting it into an intricate formation.

When she's done, she notices Eddie staring at her with that same look from earlier. "What, you goof?" she smiles up at him, grabbing his chin and pulling him down for a quick kiss.

He pulls back to say what he was going to but he gets lost looking into her eyes.

"Oh my god, gross," Max groans, springing up from the couch and going to stand stoically over next to the boys.

Eddie shakes his head, chuckling at his awkwardness. "we gotta get going babe, the kids need a ride."

She couldn't help the way her heart leapt when he said that. Even though they obviously weren't old enough to have kids in Highschool there was something to be said about how much she liked playing house with Eddie.

"mhm, let me just grab my camera. I want to get a picture of my boys." She scurried off to find a camera while Eddie and the freshmen huddled together next to the door, awaiting her return and knowing she'd be grumpy if they weren't in formation when she returned.

She snaps the picture quickly and tucks the camera away in her purse for later.

"How do I look, babe?" Eddie chides, trying to snatch her bag and look at the picture.

"Very handsome, as always. But we're going to be late so hurry your handsome ass to the car please."

"Yes ma'am." Eddie gives her a mock salute and turns on his heels, practically running out to the car with the boys in tow.

"I call shotgun!" Dustin shouted, scrambling to the passenger door of the car.

"No dude. My girlfriend gets to sit shotgun." Eddie was stern, shaking his head and giving her a look like, can u believe this kid?

"Oh that's ok. Dustin you can sit shotgun if you want." Eddie pouts at that, not happy at the idea she won't be sitting next to him.

That is until she gets into the drivers seat after him and sits on his lap (with a little difficulty, but she manages)

"So...Lucas. How does basketball work?" she asked, a bright curiosity in her eyes.

His answers to her question just prompted more questions such as, "what's a point guard?" "There's a point guard and a shooting guard?" "what are they guarding?" "if they're guarding shouldn't they be on defense?" "what is the difference between defense and offense?"

She's just being her sweet self, indulging the boy's interest even though she has no clue what's going on. Eddie can't help but think how she'd be the perfect mother.

He had thoughts about it before obviously, they had sex enough that kids were something he had to think about. But never like this, he had never dreamed about having a family with her like this. It was driving him crazy.

The rest of the night went smoothly, Eddie satiated with his daydreams enough that he wasn't an absolute pain about how bored watching basketball.

He cheered when she cheered and stuttered out a one-liner every once in a while to keep up appearances, but really he was in his own little world.

And his own little world was a bit dirty, imagining fucking her over and over again and filling her with his cum until it stuck. Until she was round with his children. Claiming her as his in a way pretty much nothing else could do.

He never thought he'd want to be a father. But he would give it a try if it meant he would get to have her as the mother to his kids, because motherly was a really good look on her.

He was surprised he had never seen it before. The way she always took care of him was just so sweet, even more so when she was taking care of the freshman he had tasked himself to look after.

He wanted to get her home as soon as the game was over, not even caring that Hawkins high had miraculously won the championship. But he couldn't bring himself to say no to her when she asked if they could go get ice cream to celebrate.

Although in his defense he did put up a little fight "but baaaabe, you don't even like ice cream," he had whined, hugging her close to his chest as they waited outside for the kids who were still in the gym celebrating.

it isn't until after ice cream and all the kids are dropped off that she decides to mention that something is up with him. "Eds, baby what's wrong? you've been weird all night."

"nothings wrong babe, I had a really good time. I'm just thinking about something. Gimme a minute, ok? I'll tell you about it when we get home." he smooths his hand over her leg, thumb rubbing the soft skin of her thigh and making her squirm.

"are you mad at me?" she whispered. She lied splayed out on her bed in a fancy purple lingerie set. He seemingly ignored her, pacing the room in deep thought.

"Ok this is going to sound crazy," he starts.

Prompted by his voice, she climbs out of bed and steps close to him. She takes his face in her hands and looks him right in the eye, their lips brushing softly. "It's ok really. Just please talk to me."

"Ok ok. Would you- have you ever thought of having kids?" He asked.

"y-yeah. Yeah absolutely. Do you want that?" her heart fluttered at his words. Sure she had thought about kids with him, many times before. She had always assumed it was a one sided fantasy.

His hands settled on her hips, pulling her close to his chest and pressing his forehead against hers. "I mean like having kids with me. I know I wouldn't be the perfect father. But you, you would make such a good mother. Seeing you with the kids today, it just all made so much sense. I want this, with you-"

His heart was beating under her hands as she cut him off with a bruising kiss, grabbing the neck of his shirt and tilting his face down to her. "Aw Eds, you wanna put a baby in me?" she teased when she pulled back, hot breath brushing his lips as she blinked up at him innocently.

"Fuuuuuck don't say it like that."

[takahero]

in honour of finishing inkspell, here are some basta observations I picked up along the way. also, inkspell spoilers warning! i also have MANY MANY thoughts so i’d love to hear what you guys think to some of the questions raised

“He hadn’t changed: the same thin face, the same way of narrowing his eyes, and there was an amulet dangling around his neck to ward off the bad luck that Basta thought lurked under every ladder, behind every bush.” — pg.138

“Basta’s left hand was bandaged, Elinor noticed when he took his fingers away from her mouth.” — pg.139

“‘I’d have been here much sooner, believe you me, but they put me in jail for a while on account of something that happened years ago. No sooner was Capricorn gone than all the people who’d been too scared to open their mouths suddenly felt very brave.’” — pg.140 (see they never tell us WHY he was in prison, do they? the possibilities are endless. we know he committed atrocious things, like arson, but imagine if he got put in jail for something completely different…LOL)

“‘You wouldn’t believe how often I’ve told him there’s nothing to be ashamed of in going to jail, particularly when your prisons here are so much more comfortable than our dungeons at home.’” — pg.140 (OHHHTMGOD MEME IDEA)

“Basta flung his arm so roughly round Orpheus’ neck that his glasses slipped down his nose.” — pg.141

“‘Hold your tongue, Basta!’ Mortola interrupted him abruptly. ‘You’ve always liked the sound of your own voice.’” — pg.141

“‘Well, Silvertongue, I’m sorry it’s taken some time,’ he said in his soft, cat-like voice.” — pg.180

“‘My son always said revenge was a dish best eaten cold,’ observed Mortola.” — pg.181 (question. did basta find out about mortola’s true identity between inkheart & inkspell? do u think he realised it when mortola cried when capricorn died?)

“Basta passed a finger over his throat and winked at him.” — pg.186 (wink 2 LMAO)

“Basta bent down and picked up a rusty helmet lying at his feet. ‘What do you expect me to say?’ he growled, throwing the helmet back into the grass with a gloomy expression, and giving it a kick that sent it clattering against the wall. ‘Of course it’s our castle. Didn’t you see the figure of the goat on the wall there? Even the carved devils are still standing, though they wear ivy crowns now — and look, there’s one of the eyes that Slasher liked to paint on the stones.’” — pg.190

“‘So Basta was right after all. He’s dead, here and in the other world too.’” — pg.191 (interesting….so Basta knew Mortola’s plan wouldn’t work? he just wanted a ride home?)

“‘I’d really like to know what happened!’ he muttered. ‘I always said Capricorn wasn’t here, but what about the others?…What are we going to do if they’re all gone?’ Basta sounded like a boy afraid of the dark. ‘Do you want us to live in a cave like brownies until the wolves find us? Have you forgotten the wolves? And the Night-Mares, the fire-elves, all the other creatures crawling around the place…I for one haven’t forgotten them, but you would come back to this accursed spot where there are ghosts lurking behind every tree!’ He reached for the amulet dangling around his neck, but Mortola did not deign to look at him.

“‘Oh, be quiet!’ she said, so sharply that Basta flinched.” — pg.192

“‘You’re going to leave them here?’ That was Basta’s voice.” — pg.193 (at first I was like oh so he has a heart….but then he was mean to resa straight after this 🙄)

“‘Sorry, but he must have overlooked me, shut up in that cage as I was,’ purred Basta in his catlike voice.” — pg.377

“‘Wasn’t it Mortola who had you put in the cage to be fed to the Shadow?’ Basta just shrugged his shoulders and flung back his silver-grey cloak. Of course, he had his knife. A brand new one, it seemed, finer than any he’d ever had in the other world, and undoubtedly just as sharp.

“‘Yes, not very nice of her,’ he said as his fingers caressed the handle of the knife. ‘But she’s really sorry.’” — pg.377 (okay so it SOUNDS like he threatened/made some kind of bargain with his knife, but I strongly doubt that considering how afraid he seems of her?? i know he’s technically working for the adderhead but even by the end of the book, it seems he is far closer to mortola than adderhead. what is their relationship? or does he sincerely think she’s sorry/has deluded himself into believing such? UGH SO MANY QUESTIONS)

“Basta had always liked describing his own and other people’s abominable deeds in detail.” — pg.378

“‘But we’re not going to shoot you.’ Basta came a little closer to Fenoglio, his face as intent as that of a stalking cat.” — pg.378 …. living for all the cat references tbh

“‘He wants you to crawl on your belly to him, that’s what our noble lord and master likes. But never mind, he pays well!’” — pg.378 (yes basta all abt getting that bread LMAOOOO)

“He slowly drew the knife from his belt. Its blade was long and slightly curved.” — pg.379

“‘Hey Basta, I know you like the sound of your own voice.’” — pg.379 (AHAHAHAHA HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE CALLED OUT BASTA ON THIS NOW? IVE LOST TRACK)

“With a regretful sigh, Basta put the knife back in his belt. ‘Yes, very well, you’re right,’ he said in surly tones. ‘I need to take my time with this sort of thing. Questioning people is an art, a real art.’” — pg.380 (LMAOOOOOOO HE IS SUCH A DRAMA QUEEN)

“Basta. The same thin face, the same twisted smile. Only the clothes were different. Basta was no longer wearing his white shirt and black suit with the flower in his buttonhole. No, Basta now wore the Adderhead’s silvery grey, and he had a sword at his side. With a knife in his belt too, of course. But he was holding a dead chicken in his left hand.” — pg. 455

“‘Yes, they are!’ purred Basta. ‘The little witch, and the fire-eater into the bargain. It was well worth the wait. Even though I’ll probably never get that damned flour out of my lungs again.’” — pg.455 (ok….so who’s gonna draw basta sitting amongst the flour AAHHAHA)

“‘Servant? Who’s a servant here? Just listen to him. As bold as if he’d never felt my knife! Have you forgotten how you screamed when it cut your face?’” — pg.457 … don’t call basta a servant…..noted

“‘Oh, don’t look so disbelieving, little witch, I still can’t read and I don’t intend to learn, but there are enough fools around the place who can, even in this world.’” —pg. 457 (i wonder how much capricorn influenced basta’s views on reading. because capricorn said that he learnt how to read from a maid, right? so basta certainly wouldn’t have trash-talked reading in front of him. and even after living in OUR world for nine years, I’m still surprised that he never attempted to learn, given how dependent we are on it. anyway my headcanon is that he secretly wants to, but doesn’t want to give others the satisfaction of knowing they have something he doesn’t. also nobody he knows would be willing to teach him (unless he threatened them) bc of his obviously violent and short-tempered nature…and learning requires so much patience. still, though, would love a fic of basta being taught how to read in secret and having some kind of positive interaction)

“‘You’re even more talkative than you used to be, Basta.’ Dustfinger’s voice sounded as if he found this tedious.” — pg.458 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH IM DYING. honestly the animosity between them was just. A+++

“Basta was in an even worse state. He was sitting close to Mortola, his face so red and swollen that Meggie almost failed to recognise him. But he had escaped death once again. Perhaps the good-luck charms he always wore worked after all.” — pg.526

“The sunlight falling into the room made Basta’s face look like a boiled lobster.��� — pg.575 

“Basta put his hand to the amulet hanging around his neck. It was not a rabbit’s paw, as he had worn in Capricorn’s service, but something that looked suspiciously like a human finger-bone.” — pg.581 (THIS STILL IRKS ME SO MUCH)

“The Piper straightened his back, as ready to attack as the viper on his master’s coat of arms…He was a good head taller than Basta.” — pg.582 WHY DO I KEEP FORGETTING HES NOT TALL LMFAO

“The two men were standing so close that the blade of Basta’s knife wouldn’t have fitted between them.” — pg.582 HAHAHAJAHAAJAHAHHAAHAHAHAH PKESJENE I LOVE THIS SO MUCH … IMAGINE BASTA SQUARING UP W HIS NOSE JUST SMACK BANG IN THE MIDDLE OF PIPER’S CHEST OR SOMETHING

“The Piper struck Basta in the face so hard that his head hit the door frame. Blood ran down his burned cheek in a trail of red. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. ‘Take care to avoid dark corridors, Piper!’ he whispered. ‘You don’t have a nose any more, but one can always find something else to cut off.’” — pg.582-583 THIS SCENE WAS SIMPLY……CHEF’S KISS

are you serious is he dead??? WHAT. okay I knew dustfinger’s love for farid would be the end of him and basta being the instrument to rip that away from him was totally heartrending. i WISH it had been more climactic? like dustfinger unleashing his fury and fighting basta, blind with anger and grief. THE DIALOGUE POTENTIAL BETWEEN THEM AS THEY FINALLY TALK ONE-ON-ONE, and then some revisiting of the scene where dustfinger has the opportunity to kill basta but AGAIN withholds because killing is not in his nature….THEN MO IN SHINING ARMOUR SWOOPS IN TO DO THE JOB

now, off to inkdeath!

[derelicthorror]

okay welcome to the worst post of all time ! ballas edition

this is the one where i’m mostly leaning towards devils' advocate, because this kind of prompt has a hold on the essay-loving side of me and when i tell you it's got claws i Mean it. i have the post clowning on the more. uh clunky and jerky side of the storytelling for this guy and his entire master plot drafted and in the works but this one got Too Long on its own

also, this post is intended as a jumping-off platform for further takes! think of this as me saying “is the earth flat? discuss” but abt whatever the Heck was going on with ballas. varying perspectives etc., and there are some points that i didn’t consider, so with that said i’m all for some further add-ons! this thing is also Not itemized at all it’s potpourri it’s also like 1k words [general content warning here for verbal and emotional abuse/unhealthy relationships, and likely incomplete analysis thereof; also lots of spoilers from the second dream to the new war]

so, ballas. executor of the seven, one of the last surviving orokin, all-around dubious person - but it seems like from the second dream to the sacrifice to the new war, he looked at the slippery slope from “the wet-socks feeling distilled into a man” to “outright abusive in a pretty unfunny way” and he really did grab the sled there now, im not going to b out here dropping phrases off the bat like "rampant narcissistic manipulation" n stuff bc its. a very particular type of language u are employing when you start pulling out the AP psych terms and slinging them around without justifying or dissecting them and also, while DE was very deliberate in the way they wrote him, he is still a video game man. i do, however, find the way he's written to gradually show his worse traits to be really fascinating. like, from the start you know that this guy is kind of bad news and doesn't really care much about how his actions affect others mostly seeing them by the light of his own ego. re: his treatment of margulis, there's always been this almost? dismissive? tone he takes when it comes to the things she has resolved to do on her own? mostly i'm thinking abt some of the lines you hear whispered in the second dream

"Hush, my wilted love. ... tomorrow, you must renounce before the Seven."

i can almost describe the tone here as condescending? like he takes it for granted that his way is correct and that her resolve is this childish thing that he is brushing aside as silly. and then later, after he personally delivers the death sentence, he still seems to believe it's her own fault (!).

"Seven hands raised. For your apostasy, the judgment is death. Margulis… why?"

and my guy knew why; she was very clear in why she chose death. she loved her children too dearly and held her convictions too fiercely, refusing to bow to the court, but instead of acknowledgement, all you get from ballas’s end is this sting of betrayal beautifully delivered by max howarth (in two words no less!! i love this guy's acting). he conveys so well that ballas's disbelief is because she hurt him with her choice, and that's what stood out to him more than anything else. all the way through his story's end, it's like this perceived failing on her part never stops rankling at him and he never stops blaming everyone for it even long after the fact

ballas has a couple traits that start shining through clearer and clearer every time he makes his appearance. there’s his need for control, there’s his vindictiveness, and there is his ego.

he was in one of the, if not the, highest echelons of orokin society. he was one of the executors; he oversaw the creation of the warframes. his influence was such that he could easily silence a dax soldier without raising undue suspicion. ballas comes from a place of power, and even just factoring in the orokin sense of self-aggrandization and superiority, as well as ballas’s own personal character flaws, that makes for a potent mix of prideful and obsessive with the teeth to back it.

but how does his betrayal of the orokin factor in?? how does he handle the hypocrisy that comes from turning his back on his people, because he hurts really badly when the same thing is done to him?? and he doesn’t. he’s already justified himself in his own head (there’s the ego! there’s a refusal to accept blame!). the rest of the orokin made him do this. it’s only right that he turn on them, because they made him pass judgment on margulis, and margulis made him speak the judgment that the orokin forced on him, and he is the blameless one so why shouldn’t they get what they deserve? this mans does olympic level gymnastics jumping through this many mental hoops

so when a particular dax catches wind of his deceit and ballas finds out, his response is nowhere close to shifty or guilt-ridden or anything that would imply he feels Bad about turning on the orokin. he’s angry, and he’s smug, and it’s the first time we see fully just how ugly this man is. rotted through and through

"I've had lifetimes to plan my defection. You spied on me, intercepted my communications, but I saw your move long before you took it. And so... we come to the consequences."

consequences. like justifiable comeuppance? this isn’t the talk of a man who believes he’s wrong and it’s awful bc he’s like that!! the whole time!! he didn’t have to do any of it to umbra; he could have just killed him on the spot. but he drags it out instead, and he doesn’t let it stop at umbra himself, or even just at isaah. ballas makes it clear that in retaliation, he’s going to wipe out everyone umbra cares about.

"This one, a brother. These three, his children. And on and on, all of these gone to the Jade Light."

altogether so far there’s this unwavering belief that he can do no wrong, that nothing in the world is ballas’s fault, and underneath it there’s this malice that just undercuts the whole thiiiing this man is so ugly im. theres no other word for him hes just Ugly great job DE

the thing abt ballas when it comes to margulis the archimedian is that, from his perspective, he seems to have? , really loved her? now, full stop, the problem is that his idea of love is warped beyond all reason. it isn’t the right kind, and it isn’t the healthy kind, and to say that he could do with a reality check or five is an understatement. ballas’s perspective on margulis can be boiled down to I love her, and she is mine to be loved by me, and I know what is best for her. you don’t see him valuing her decisions or taking into account the things that she wants.

re: the flaws of ballas’s relationship to margulis, lundy bancroft puts it pretty succinctly: “Genuine love means respecting the humanity of the other person… This kind of love is incompatible with abuse and coercion.” and he failed on all counts, -11/10

margulis as a character has direction. she has wants. she wants to protect her children. she wants to solve the problem of transference. she wants to salvage the survivors of this wreckage before the orokin destroy them all. she is a brilliant scientific mind and a keen force for compassion and by all accounts, on encountering the zariman problem, she makes the children the focal point of her life, even at the cost of her health.

what ballas sees is margulis turning her back on him to make way for the little void demons. and it’s subtle, the why behind his dislike of the tenno. he’s been calling them devils from that hell the entire time, distrustful of them and reluctant to make use of them.

then the new war happens and it’s. so loud and in your face it’s jealousy this man is jealous of a child because he felt it divided margulis’s affection for him and that possessiveness is integral to what makes him such a shriveled up little pest okay.

and the way he just takes his anger at margulis and places it onto the lotus too? the compartmentalizing is almost impressive. the dissonance. i can’t wrap my head around how this character must think, like??? margulis left me for the demon children. margulis rejected me and chose death instead. she is wicked and spiteful and she is the perfect lover and i miss her every day. the lotus is the new and better margulis. she refuses to be the better margulis??? she is wicked and spiteful unlike my perfect lover margulis like ????? the circles??? the loops??? i dont???

thinking abt why he was like that to the lotus at the end as well, in a lot of ways, ballas finally snapping when he feels an imminent loss of control is like? yeah i can see it. his plan of complete dominion did not succeed completely, and where it did he’s immensely unsatisfied with the shallow compliance of the veiled. but where it didn’t succeed, that’s his focal point, and once he’s getting into his head that he doesn’t have what he wants and it’s all because of this scrawny devil child and the Lotus, who rejected his affection - what else is there to do besides rage?

on that note i still cringe thinking about every single thing he says to her it was textbook. the name-calling. the derision. the refusal to accept blame. i was hiding behind my blanket the whole time

re: the whole eat the sun to power a bus ride to tau thing, ballas did??? speak of tau pretty highly i suppose??? speaking of how the sentients were to bear them “a new, promised land.” maybe?? hes like well who else deserves to see the cool new system than ME and ONLY me. if i can’t have my lover and if i can’t have total control of Everything, Ever then i guess it’s time to Jump Ship and start My Own Club of One. Me.

sigh. the sun-eating thing was. i mean at least there’s a flair for the dramatic that never really goes away

there was a lot of yelling and a lot of doomsday grandstanding and at the end of the day im just glad to be rid of sandal-socks steven

[peaches-writes]

off season

description: student athletes need to look out for each other—well, at least seungmin needs to look out for your clumsy ass most of the time member: seungmin genre: fluff, sports au, best friends to lovers au, slice of life au, summer au, a side of college au (but like the ugly ass summer classes aspect of college life), implied fem reader  word count: 11.3k warning: explicit language, blood, injuries, extreme sports, a very poor attempt at writing sports, seungmin worries the entire time for good reason  note: a bunch of stuff put together it’s not rlly good sldkfsk like it was getting too lengthy i had to like haphazardly end it somehow + the one time you see me write a sports-themed fic & it’s not abt the actual sports i play lmao + also hi @t-toodumbtocare​ u told me to tag u so here we are

one - saturday

Amidst preparations for your incoming senior thesis, choosing your course specialization, clubs, and training, Kim Seungmin rushed getting his driver’s license before the end of your 3rd year’s 2nd semester for the sole purpose of driving you around the city this summer and you’re quite sure that that’s love. Though he disapproves of your specific choice of escapade that has you running around Seoul in circles in the first place, your best friend still made sure to pass his driving classes a whole month before the previous semester ended and with flying colors so he can “look after you” as he would put it. It definitely is love—simultaneously a heartwarming and annoying one at that. 

“I can take care of myself, I’m an adult,” You feign a frown at him stubbornly for the third time this month, sliding in the front seat of his navy Subaru anyway and placing your gym bag in front of your feet. You then busy yourself with taking your roller skates out, switching them out with your old Converse. “and it’s not like I don’t know how to commute.”

But, just as you’ve had this conversation every time he picks you up from your dorm on Saturday evenings, Seungmin only dismisses your argument and replies, “Yeah, and you know transport is not the main reason why I chaperone.” From the corner of your eye, you then see him expertly shifting the gears and turning the steering wheel, driving the car to the campus’ South gate, his serious expression unwavering and making you stifle a giggle. “You could get seriously hurt playing. Your mom will kill me and your coach will kill you for that.” 

“But I haven’t yet.” You counter with a slight teasing in your tone, pretending to ignore his last comment. You don’t even repeat this argument every week in the hopes of changing Seungmin’s mind at this point; after almost two months of the same starting conversation between the two of you, you just press his buttons now for fun. Undeniably, it’s funny seeing him get visibly riled up. “I’ve been playing derby for two months and the most I’ve gotten is a severely bloody nose. It’s nothing I can’t handle—“

“Yet.” He scoffs now in frustration before turning right to the main highway, well-aware of what you’re doing but letting himself get stressed anyway. “Even athletes get seriously hurt in the field, Y/N, we both know that.” 

You only nod with a hum, twisting your body to Seungmin’s direction and poking his side. “I know, Minnie.” You assure, softer now as you finally let out the chuckle you’ve been holding. “Now relax, loosen up a bit! You know I’m just messing with you!” 

“I know and it’s getting a bit concerning.” He rolls his eyes, finally relaxing his shoulders a bit and sighing in disbelief before swiftly swatting your hand away from his waist. “You talk like you’re not training for next year’s Championships.”

“Ah, but it’s because training isn’t as strict yet, at least with mine.” You shrug, sitting up properly in your seat as you take this opportunity to change the topic. “How’s your training, by the way? I barely saw you this week. Is Jeno giving you a hard time as co-capt.?” 

You sink in your seat and look up at Seungmin expectantly after, smiling unconsciously when he doesn’t respond immediately to focus on driving, giving you a brief moment to admire his focused expression. “Training’s okay.” He eventually replies, quirking an eyebrow when he briefly glances at you over his shoulder and catches you staring. “Surprisingly, Jeno’s chill with being co-capt. We’re getting along.”

“’Chill,’ you mean lazy like you.” You scoff playfully. “Why have you been too busy to hang out this week, then?” 

“Practicing my driving so I don’t accidentally kill you first before roller skating could.” He answers dryly, making you roll your eyes. “That and Mr. Im’s giving too much papers for an intersession class.”

“Right, summer classes. So responsible.” You scrunch up your nose. “Aren’t you tired? Training, summer classes, driving me on Saturdays, not to mention we’re going to be seniors after the break...”

When you don’t speak after trailing off, you see him shaking his head. “A bit, but driving you around is relaxing.” He corrects casually, missing the way he catches you off-guard. “It helps me think and, like I’ve said before, I get to look after you so, seriously, don’t try sneaking around me and commuting on your own or I’ll start panicking.” 

Now, that is new to your Saturday conversation starter. 

“Really now?” You raise your own eyebrow, trying your best to not sound too surprised. “So you don’t hate this as much as you make it seem like?”

“I didn’t say that.” Though visibly caught off-guard too, he shakes his head as seriously as he can look, not even sparing you a glance this time as he makes another turn. “But making sure you’re alive is kind of part of the best friend job.” He explains after, making you laugh. “And driving—driving’s always fun.”

“Sure, sure.” You smile as you try playing it off coolly, looking down on your hands as heat rises up your neck. “Whatever you say, Minnie.”

-

You first got into roller derby through Yuna, a freshman in your university and a fellow figure skater who began training alongside you during the 1st semester of your 3rd year. Sometime almost two months ago, one of her derby team members, Yeji, had to cancel a few days prior to an important game to attend to her personal matters and so she immediately turned to you as a possible substitute, noting your figure skating skills and how you’re already familiar with the sport from occasionally watching her. Naturally, with your adventurous streak, curiosity got the best of you when presented with the offer and, especially after winning the game, you’ve been hooked ever since; meeting up with her and the rest of the all-girls team almost every Friday and Saturday at the warehouse on the way to Incheon where the games are usually held. 

So naturally, she always makes sure to meet you at the entrance of the venue, especially now that she’s not training with you for the summer to focus on her own summer classes and a part-time job. 

“Finally, you’re here! I missed you!” She hurriedly waves at Seungmin before throwing an arm around your shoulder in a side hug. “How have you two been, lovebirds?”

“Ya, Minnie and I aren’t like that.” You roll your eyes as you briefly hug her back by her waist, careful of her arm injury from two Saturdays ago while expertly hiding the heat flaming your cheeks. With this gesture, you almost miss the way Seungmin’s lips frown every so slightly in front of you, if it’s because of the nickname or your reaction to it, you dare not to ask for fear of further embarrassment. “And I’ve been well, Coach Park isn’t going beast mode on me yet. Seungmin here’s been busy, though.”

“Oh, right! I heard from Jeno that your first game’s in 2 weeks already.” Yena then turns to your best friend expectantly. “How’s training? The game’s on a Saturday, right?”

“It’s...fine,” Seungmin answers slowly with a hum, almost as if he’s hesitant on what word to use. You then see him narrow his eyes at you when he sees the mischievous glint in your eyes at the familiar question. “...chill, actually.”

“Chill as in lazy.” And as expected, you chime in the same words you commented on the car ride to the venue, making Yuna throw her head back in laughter. “You know how our friends are.” 

“As expected of Seungmin and Jeno together, I guess.” She nods in confirmation between laughs, making Seungmin groan in defeat even more. “How do boys in team sports even do it? Train, I mean?” 

You shrug in response, giggling at Seungmin’s annoyed expression directed mostly to you. “Guess we’ll have to see in two weeks, right? Are you free on that weekend?”

“Yeah, intersession’s been hectic, but I’ll try and clear my schedule!”  

“Oh coo—!” But before you could even comment more on a possible hangout with Yuna, Seungmin is already directing the three of you inside the warehouse impatiently. “Ya!” 

“Yeah, yeah, finish your game tonight first then I’ll think about letting you in mine. Aish, you two are so mean to me and Jeno all the time.” He huffs with a roll of eyes, stopping right in front of the path behind the audience bleachers leading to the locker rooms.

Turning to you again, he then bids you goodbye with an affectionate pat to your head and a long sigh. “Be careful tonight, okay? Make sure to wear your gear properly.”

“Always am.” You assure with a wink, holding your gear up in front of him before he can take another step back. “Relax, would you? Just enjoy the show tonight!” 

Seungmin nods at you with pursed lips one last time before waving goodbye as he starts retreating back into the crowd, most likely to join your other friends at the bleachers. “I’ll see you on the rink!”

“I’ll be the one with the star on my helmet!” You jokingly remind with a chuckle, smiling when he acknowledges you with a final wave before finally turning around to walk away properly. 

“Ah, lovebirds.” Yuna comments on the side once Seungmin fully disappears into the crowd, making you glare at her at already knowing where this conversation is going to lead to. “Every single time you’re here without fail. So romantic!”

“Yuna!” You scold much like you’ve been doing the past two months, throwing your arm around her shoulder this time as the two of you now turn left to the lockers. “It’s really not like that!” 

“I’m friends with Kai and Jeno but you don’t see those two caring if I die on the rink every game. I’m pretty sure they want me dead more than anything, even.” She points out in defense. “I’m telling you, Seungmin’s a whole keeper! And you already told me you like him too so what’s stopping yo—“

“We’re not dating ever.” You insist stubbornly, entering the locker rooms now where your teammates greet you (and Yeji scolds you again for arriving late). “He’s just looking out for me because he thinks I can’t commit to anything without threatening death. Besides, he’s busy, I’m busy—” 

“—You like him, he likes you, you’re both dense.” Yuna interjects in the same enumerating tone you used, settling on a nearby bench as you move to your locker to change and prepare your gear. “The same speech every week, and they’re not even good excuses. Seriously, just date already!”

You open your mouth to respond while taking your outer clothes off, revealing your derby uniform inside, but Lia, as expected, suddenly pops out of nowhere, asking, “Who’s dating?”

“No one—”

“Will date, you mean.” Yuna corrects, turning your frown into a scowl now as you pop your head out of your shirt, carefully discarding the material inside your locker with your gym bag in exchange for your helmet and arm gear. “You already know who.” 

At this, you see Lia smile knowingly and lean back on the bench as you hurriedly put on your gear and helmet. “Right, the lovebirds.” She nods at Yuna before turning to you. “Did anything happen this week?” 

You quickly shake your head, adjusting your helmet as you do so. “No, Yuna’s just teasing me—again.” You then sit in between the two girls, re-tying your roller skate’s laces. “Don’t listen to her, she’s delusional.”

“Um, delusional for a reason!” The girl in question protests much to Lia’s amusement, bumping her shoulders with yours in the process. “Who even drives people to places even when they don’t want to? And he always insists on looking at your injuries after every game too? I think someone’s whipped and his name begins with a Seung and ends with a Min.” 

“He’s just nice and—” You try to insist again but to no avail when you see her raising her eyebrows and smiling suggestively, your hands going up to your face sheepishly as your stubborn front easily breaks down at it. “Ugh, stop with those looks!” 

On your sides, you hear Lia and Yuna laugh, patting your back and shoulders comfortingly.  

“Hey, you know Yuna’s just messing with you.” Lia reminds you softly after a moment, prying your hands off of your face and helping you up. “You won’t let that get in your head now of all weeks, would you? It’s the re-match game against our seniors tonight!”

“It’s just you always put me up to it. Seriously, stop it!” You groan instead in protest, belatedly swatting the two away as you join your team back outside and to the rink. “I swear, if I end up getting thrown by Jeongyeon across the rink again tonight, I’m blaming it on you because you keep teasing me.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop,” Yuna rolls her eyes playfully just as you reach the rink, meeting the crowd’s cheers that momentarily prompts you to wave and smile at them. “maybe until later after the game.”

“Don’t even try pointing at Seungmin to me again mid-game.” You elbow her harshly, ending the conversation as the announcer, Jaemin, calls your team name and starts listing your numbers one by one in introduction. 

“...number 5 Lee Chaeryeong, number 9 Shin Yuna, and number 17 Y/N Y/L/N!” 

“I don’t have to,” Yuna retorts playfully as she prepares to slide in the rink before you, referring to your last comment. “You always find him yourself, anyway.”  

And, as if her words easily got to you, you unconsciously find Seungmin waving at you from the crowd, seated with Jeno, Kai, and Jeongin who are holding yet another cheesy poster for your team. You wave back at him out of courtesy, glancing at Yuna after to roll your eyes in her direction.

“See?” She mouths at you before moving to the very front of the group with Lia and Yeji, starting the game. “Whipped!”

Meanwhile, you skate over to the back with the opposing team’s jammer, Jeongyeon, accepting her high-five before getting in position. 

“Y/N, long time no see! Are you with your boyfriend again?” She teases just as Jaemin, blows the first whistle for the pack to start skating. “Seungmin, right? The kid from Legal Management?” 

You glance at her briefly, skating on the second whistle first before exclaiming, “Jeongyeon, not you too!” 

“I’m just asking!” She holds her hands up in defense, quickening her pace almost at the same time as you do. “Just so I know if you get distracted again!” 

“I won’t this time, promise.” You assure, using the conversation to fuel your momentum and easily overtaking her. “I’ll be focused tonight!” 

“We’ll see about that!” You hear her yell behind you as she catches up, dodging your teammates while you dodge hers to score a point. 

Swiftly, you duck and jump around the pack, making sure to avoid Seungmin’s eyes when you pass his bleachers to prove to Yuna, Lia, and even Jeongyeon otherwise as you come in contact with them. 

Eventually, with a little difficulty and a lot of harsh shoulder and hip bumps from Chaeyoung and Dahyun, you then score the first point with a huge gap between you and Jeongyeon. 

“See, I’m focused!” You brag to your senior who runs behind you before turning your gaze ahead again. 

“And the first 5 points of the night goes to number 17, Y/N!” Meanwhile, Jaemin announces into his mic from the center of the rink, catching a high-five from you as you pass. “Must be all that formal training, huh?” 

“What are you talking about? This is how I usually walk!” You reply playfully, eliciting more cheers from the crowd as you naturally change into your athletic persona. 

“And the figure skater brags again.” Jaemin muses out loud, receiving the banter well as the host. “Careful there, Y/N, Jeongyeon, number 1, is catching up quickly!” 

But despite the warning, you take the time away from the pack to momentarily slow down, waving and receiving more high-fives from the crowd before finally looking over at Seungmin who is now on his feet and clapping wildly while cheering for your team, a stark contrast of his usual worried disposition at the start of the night. When you reach his bleacher as you quicken your pace to try and score another point, you lean over the barrier and send him a confident wink which he receives with a playful scoff. 

“What are you doing? Focus on your game!” He scolds, the other boys snickering next to him.

“I’m just checking in with my biggest fan before he goes back to worried mode.” You grin at him, pinching his cheek affectionately. “How was my first five points?”

“Great, great.” He answers quickly, gently pushing you by your shoulder as if gesturing you to go back to your game. “Now, go, you have a pack to catch up to and a game to win.” 

Cute, you think to yourself, a grin forming on your features as you bid him goodbye again to go back to chasing the pack around the rink. “Okay, Minnie, whatever you say!” 

“You two are so adorable!” Sana points out as you reach her on the side of the pack after, not even bothering to block you or hit you by the hips now with how much she’s gushing over you and Seungmin. “So cute!” 

“I know, right? Unnie, can you believe they’re still not dating?” Yuna agrees, letting her guard down momentarily from blocking Sana until she sees Jeongyeon catching up to you from over your shoulder. 

“Yuna, stop it!” 

“No! It’s fu—oh, look out!” 

Behind you, Jeongyeon easily knocks Lia and Chaeryeong off their skates, her hand reaching your shoulder to propel herself forward in the tightly-knit pack. 

“Come on, guys, less talking more hitting!” Your opponent jammer sticks her tongue out, purposely waiting for you to catch up before picking up the pace again. “Y/N, you said you’re not getting distracted!” 

“Sana and Yuna were ganging up on me!” You retort in protest, bumping her by her shoulders and hips and overtaking her again. “More hitting it is then!” 

“Oh, it seems like this second game between Team Neon and Team Magenta is going to be bloody!” Jaemin, quickly picking up on the commotion, comments. “Who will be our winner tonight? It looks like it’s going to be a very close call!” 

“Ah, not on my watch.” You mumble under your breath, expertly knocking out Jeongyeon on the way to another five points. 

- 

The game ends almost two hours later, the score being 115-110 with your team emerging victorious and at least four overall cuts and bruises around your body. As soon as all the photographs have been taken for Instagram and the weekly plastic trophy has been passed around your team at least twice, Seungmin immediately takes you away from the crowd and your team right after taking your things from the locker room, his adrenaline for watching sports directing its attention to tending to you again and his cheerful expression switching back to worry. 

“Minnieee,” You call for him for the second time as you near the bathroom at the end of the hall, tiredly stumbling over nothing when Seungmin doesn’t slow down a bit with his brisk walking. “Minnie, slow down a bit, my legs are tired!” 

But he only slows down when you reach the bathroom, gently hoisting you up to sit on the cold marble of the sinks before taking out his first-aid kit and the ice packs he got from Jaemin from the outer pockets of his backpack. His serious and worried expression doesn’t falter once, looking even worse than the one he always wears on your car rides to the game. “Don’t move too much until I—until we’ve checked everything.” He instructs you, lifting your gym bag and his backpack that he’s been carrying with him to the side.

“You’re so serious again.” You feign another frown at him once you’re settled on top of the sink, gaze softening as he quietly and hurriedly shuffles around to wrap the ice packs in towels as if ignoring your comment. “Don’t I get another ‘congrats’ or a ‘good job’? I scored 85 of those 115 points. I’m fine.” 

“I already congratulated you with the others out there,” He reminds with a frustrated sigh, carefully inspecting your arms and legs for more bruises he didn’t initially notice. “and you already know you did really well against Jeongyeon this time around but that fall before the 85th point...”

At the mention of your one violent fall tonight, you shift uncomfortably in your seat. “This one?” You ask for confirmation, lifting your shift up and pulling your waistband down slightly against your heated cheeks and Seungmin’s suddenly wide eyes. Clearing your throat, you hide it again from him as quickly as you showed it and assure, “It’s fine, seriously, I—“

But, just as stubborn as you are, Seungmin’s hands move shakily to the hem of your shirt, hesitantly lifting it up after looking up at you in permission to see the harsh mark. “I-It’s turning blue. You didn’t even ice it up properly when you switched positions with Chaeyeon.” He argues back as firmly as he can and thus cutting you off from showing him your other bruises, his other hand holding up the ice pack in between the two of you. “This one really needs the ice pack more than the rest.”

Your eyes widen back at him because of the gesture, freezing for a moment in place until you quickly regain composure and manage to stutter out, “O-okay, fine...” And with that, you take his hand off your shirt, holding it up yourself while your other hand takes the ice pack from him. “Th—shit—t-thanks.”

Seungmin only nods and hums in acknowledgement awkwardly, picking up two other ice packs wrapped in a towels and leaving one to rest on your right thigh while he hovers the other over your your collarbones. “The other two don’t look too bad, though.” He comments, changing the topic and muttering a quick apology when you hiss at the simultaneous cold contact on your skin. “You’re not hurt anywhere else, right?”

“I think I have a cut on my feet, I’m not sure, it stings a bit when I put too much pressure.” You shrug your free shoulder carefully, meeting Seungmin’s eyes when you turn to him again and find him hovering dangerously close to your face. With the way he looks at you expectantly for answers, you immediately figure out that it’s not time to tease or play games with him anymore. “I-I’ll just—walk back out with slippers, it’s probably just the blisters from last week.”

“We’ll have to check that too. You also have a cut on your lip, you know.” He points out after when he leans closer, his free hand picking up a small box of face tissues from the first-aid kit. “When did this even happen?”

Instinctively, you reach out to touch your bare lips first before taking the tissues from him, only then noticing the dry skin bumps that have now formed around what you assume would be a dried cut. “Huh, I didn’t even notice.” You muse out loud, closing your mouth and taking the tissues from Seungmin immediately when you feel the wound open slightly again. “It must be from when Chaeyoung hit me—shit.”

“Nothing you can’t handle, huh?” Seungmin mumbles under his breath, looking down on your thigh to check the bruise under the ice pack he left freely on top of it. “You’re so clumsy.”

You frown at him and the reference to earlier this evening, making him crack a small amused smile when he meets your gaze again. “Fine, maybe I am a bit—clumsy.” You admit hesitantly with a sigh and a roll of your eyes when he raises an eyebrow at you again. “But at least I got you to patch me up every time, right?”

“And that’s why I chaperone you.” He reiterates firmly, briefly taking off the ice pack he’s holding against your collarbones to inspect the bruise after and furrowing his eyebrows. 

“Tch, it’s not like this happens every week. It just happened that tonight was extra violent, you know.” You reply slowly before licking your lips and disposing the tissue into a nearby chute. 

“Yeah but point you still got hurt like you always do every single week.” He retorts before picking up the ointment and cotton balls next to you, taking a step back and crouching down to the level of your skates. Untying your shoelaces then taking your skates and socks off, you lean forward to see Seungmin wince at the amount of red blotches and commenting, “Look, you even managed to open your blisters tonight.” 

“Is it that ba—sh-shit! Ya, Minnie, you’re pressing too hard on i—ya, it hurts!” You wince when Seungmin presses a cotton ball coated in ointment on one of your blisters, making you instinctively grip on the edge of the sink and lean back. 

“Ya, you really didn’t notice this? At all?” He scolds, cleaning your wounds again but this time simultaneously evading your unconscious attempts at kicking his face. 

“Well, I was too happy knowing that we’re advancing to fina—ow, ow, ow, it stings!” 

“Ah, seriously. Ya, stop moving too much, I still need to bandage these.” He hisses, slapping your leg gently before going back to cleaning your wounds. “I’ll make it up to you later, promise.” 

“Piggyback and ice cream?” You pout. “You’re being really harsh on my blisters.” 

“Wheelchair if you don’t behave and kick me in the face.” He threatens, holding your feet in place by your ankles before going back to cleaning the rest of your wounds. “Now, just hold it in a bit.” 

two - sunday

Seungmin also dotes on you by randomly checking in during your training hours. Though he’s always done this even before you started training competitively, ever since you’ve picked up your side hobby of roller derby this summer he’s started picking up a more consistent schedule of coming over on Sunday mornings (when he knows you’d still push yourself to attend training) to make sure that you’re not overworking and further damaging your already bruised and wounded body. It’s a bit too much for his character, you’d know very well as his best friend with years of observing how he treats his other student athlete friends, but he always brings you coffee and a cheat meal bento for when Coach Park isn’t looking so you can’t really complain.

“Minnie!” You greet him with a wave as he finally arrives, 8 PM on the dot just as you finish your best attempt at warming up your already sore body. Skating over to his side of the audience area, you then lean over the barriers with your arms folded on top of it with an anticipating smile, watching him get comfortable in his unofficial seat in the middle of the front row. “What do you have for me today?”

“It’s Korean special for today.” He answers with a smile, taking out a pair of familiar white bento boxes typically sold at the cafeteria of the nearby College of Architecture and shaking it in front of you before placing it on the seat next to him. Looking around the empty rink, he then asks, “Coach Park isn’t with you today?”

“Faculty meeting, won’t be back until lunch,” You shrug before another thought crosses your mind. “Hey, do you want to skate?”

Seungmin hesitantly shakes his head in front of your wide eyes, sinking in his seat. “No, I’m good, thanks.” He shrugs as casually as he can, though you’re quicker to take note of his gaze lingering on the smooth ice.  

So, stubborn as you are, you insist anyway, “I see that look!” 

“You’re supposed to be training—actually, you shouldn’t even be with all the hits you took last night.” He points out. “Anyway, don’t you need the whole rink?”

“I’ll be here the whole day. I can just practice seriously when Coach Park is actually here.” You grin widely, smoothly gliding to the gates now to fetch him. When he doesn’t move in his seat, you continue further up the stairs until your blades hit the rubber mats of the audience area. “And like you said, I shouldn’t be training with all the hits I took last night.”

“We can just skate around leisurely!” You conclude, Seungmin’s eyes narrowing up at you when you reach him and his body automatically cringing at the sound of your blades hitting rubber. 

“Yeah, but—”

In response, you take hold of his free hand with your own while the other puts his backpack to the side, tugging him to the direction of the locker rooms. “I’m injured so I need help getting around.” You answer after halfheartedly. 

“You were already skating before I could even get here.” He tries reasoning out but before he can even continue, you’ve already managed to pull him up to a stand, almost tripping the two of you even until he quickly balanced himself right in front of you. 

“Kids will start training here by next week so this is literally the last time we’ll have the ice on our own for a while.” You counter back, already pulling him to the locker rooms with the loud thud of your blades. Glancing over at him from behind your shoulder, you chuckle as you catch Seungmin’s expression change into that of resignation as he finally lets you pull him along. “Ha, knew it.” 

“I’m just looking out for you,” He states, more to convince himself than you. At that, you reach the locker room, proceeding straight to the unclaimed locker next to yours by the door for Seungmin’s skates—an old pair you stole from his house some two Christmases ago when he started visiting you like this. 

“Right, right.” You giggle at him, passing him his skates and taking out another article of clothing from the lockers, this time a familiar hoodie from your locker that immediately catches Seungmin’s eye. “Just put these on.”

“Didn’t you say you lost this hoodie?” 

“It actually got lost in my laundry for two months bu—ya, don’t look at me like that! At least I’m giving it back now! I don’t want you getting in there cold!” 

-

Seungmin is exceptionally knowledgeable on many things like Legal Management (his course), baseball, music (especially singing with the amount of times he hangs out with Jeongin, his other best friend), and skating—but the last is quite debatable since his knowledge is limited to growing up watching you upgrade from the lake behind your houses when you were five to the rinks you train at today. He still doesn’t get how scoring works (”But you looked so great out there!” “Not to the judges, I guess.” “Huh?!”) and he still can’t differentiate the common jumps in competitive figure skating that well but you trust him as one who has a good eye for artistry and technique. He is a fellow athlete, after all. 

“Can you extend your arms a little more?” He asks after you’ve shown him a particular step in a work-in-progress choreography for next year’s Championships. After a mini argument with him over whether you’ll practice your stunts while he’s still with you or just skate around until you feel tired, he somehow convinced you to show your choreography first before skating with you by offering to treat you to another bento box and a cup of iced coffee later. 

Damn his negotiating skills. 

Skating back to him from the other side of the rink, you sigh. “I mean I can if I’m not injured at the moment.” You answer, gesturing to the bruise on your collarbone hidden behind your own long sleeves. “Maybe on the day itself, you know, 7 months from now.” 

“Then you should make sure to extend your arms out in that move when your bruise heals so you look pretty,” He concludes, taking your phone out of his pocket and pressing pause on your chosen music that now fades to a segment without choreography yet. “and don’t play any derby on that month.” 

The last comment makes you smile as you now leisurely skate in circles around him. “So you’re allowing me to play derby until next year?” You ask with your most hopeful look, halting to a stop next to him and linking your arms with his after.

“I’m just saying in case you still want to play derby until next year.” He shrugs, following you around the rink when you tug him forward. “The choice is still up to you.” 

You then take this as a sign that you can now skate freely around after a whole hour of “practice,” mindlessly leading the two of you around the ice. Seungmin would still trip a little bit no matter how many times you’ve tried teaching him how to glide smoothly on the ice but you pretend to not take notice of this, gently helping him balance himself wordlessly instead. 

“Wait, do you still want to?” He asks after a moment. “Play after the summer, I mean?” 

You shrug back, alternating your attention between thinking of a more elaborate answer and looking down on Seungmin’s skates to make sure he’s not threatening another fall. “Derby’s fun and all, especially right now on my off-season but I don’t know. It does take a toll sometimes.” You end up saying in the end, guiding Seungmin around the curve of the rink in increasingly larger glides. “Coach Park’s kind of getting mad at me already too when she sees some of my blisters since it’s not helping me break in my new skates.”

“So...yes, no, maybe?” 

“Maybe.” You answer, looking up at him and admiring the way he concentrates on balancing himself. “Besides, I still have to ask you about it too.” 

At that, you catch Seungmin’s gaze and raised eyebrow. “Me?” He repeats, almost falling over in front of him and prompting you to slow down. 

“Yeah,” You naturally follow up, skating ahead of him and moving your hands back into his as you try skating backwards this time. “as my no. 1 fan—and by that I mean my best friend who always scolds me before and after the games but cheers on me wildly during—what do you think?”  

You observe Seungmin without too much anticipation in your expression in case he correctly guesses that you’re expecting a certain answer from him. 

“I’ve already told you before...” He eventually trails off after a moment before glancing at you again and sighing. “...it’s just, you look like you’re having fun but—”

“But it’s dangerous.“

“But you should play less.” He corrects seriously, skating the arms distance between the two of you and placing his hands on your upper arms, holding you in place. With this gesture, you look up at him with a confused expression, trying to decipher all the thoughts that seem to run over a mile a second in the way he glances back at you. “I’m always behind you and whatever you do, even if it’s dangerous and stupid, that’s what best friends do—but even that has limits sometimes.” 

You pause. For some reason, you don’t think of an immediate and witty comeback to lighten what has unconsciously become a sincere atmosphere, your thoughts lingering instead to the conversation you had with Yuna just last night. 

“Who even drives people to places even when they don’t want to?” You hear your friend loud and clear in your mind, almost nagging even. 

Definitely not Seungmin, you think to yourself, especially if it’s another person like Hyunjin or Jeongin...

“Y/N?” Seungmin suddenly calls for you, his voice just barely above a whisper as he hesitantly lets go of your arms and snaps you out of your daze. 

Blinking twice up at him, you catch him just in time before he can even skate back away from you, holding him by his fingertips. “So...” You trail off, furrowing your eyebrows in thought. “so yes, no, maybe—?”

“Maybe.” He finishes the thought for you, rubbing the nape of his neck awkwardly before huffing slightly in the cold, a puff of white air escaping his pink lips. “That’s a maybe too, I guess.” 

You nod slowly in acknowledgement, tugging him forwards. “So, in conclusion,” You reply slowly, changing your direction again as you now move yourself and Seungmin to the very center of the rink before breaking out into a chuckle to diffuse the unnecessarily tense atmosphere. “let’s get back to it after the summer?” 

“That and don’t play derby when the time comes that you’re actually in Championships.” Seungmin points out, catching up with you now so you’re skating next to each other again. “Multi-tasking isn’t really your strongest suit.”

“Ya!” You protest, elbowing him gently and making him laugh. 

“I was just kidding!” When you try skating away from him, Seungmin latches onto your elbow and desperately pulls you back to his side, barely missing another threat of a fall. “Don’t let go, I’ll trip!” 

“Says the one who called me clumsy that I can’t multitask.” You roll your eyes with an amused chuckle

“We just had a really heartfelt talk and that’s all you picked up?” Seungmin feigns a frown at you, tightening his arms linked to yours. “You’re unbelievable sometimes.” 

“It’s not like we don’t always talk about it.” You scoff, pulling Seungmin close by linking your arms again. “Though, I am a bit surprised with today’s answer. You just always know how to re-word the same thing a bunch of times, huh?” 

“You brought it up and I answered sincerely.” He gestures to you with a tilt of his head, looking down on his skates after. “I didn’t even know my opinion was that important to you. I mean, you have been ignoring it for 2 months straight.” 

“Like I said, no. 1 fan.” You grin before nudging him by his shoulder. “And I don’t ignore your opinion, I’ve been retiring from the game itself earlier like you asked me to before!” 

“As if that makes a difference.” He rolls his eyes, pursing his lips before he could comment further. “You still play 3/4 of the game, anyway.” 

“We’re going to argue about this for the whole morning if ever, Kim Seungmin.” You chuckle, holding his hand again and leading him to another spin around the rink. “Let’s just skate freely for now, hm?” 

- 

Coach Park arrives an hour earlier than she intended later on while you and Seungmin ate your bento boxes, prompting your best friend to not return to the ice after and to simply watch you from the stands instead. When your training ends almost five hours later, you’re quick to change back into your shoes in the locker rooms to return back to Seungmin’s side, making even your coach laugh in amusement. 

“I’ll see you next week Thursday, correct?” Coach Park asks you as she readies to shut the power off the venue, still chuckling every time she glances at you standing next to Seungmin by the entrance. “Those wounds should improve by then so we can start landing at least half of your jumps.” 

You nod, adjusting your gym bag on your one shoulder. “I’ll rest until then, promise!” 

Coach Park then turns to Seungmin with a feigned strict look, pointing at you as she then instructs, “Look after them, Kim, alright? I trust you’ll keep Y/N in check until then.” 

“I will, coach.” Seungmin assures with a nod and a smile himself, slinging an arm over your waist to help you balance yourself before turning you towards the direction of the entrance doors and concluding, “We’ll be off now!” 

“Alright, see you!” You hear coach Park bid you goodbye before you pass through the double doors of the entrance, getting pulled to the direction of the parking lot by Seungmin after. 

“I thought you’re buying me an extra bento box? And iced coffee?” You ask when you don’t make the turn leading to the College of Architecture, following Seungmin straight ahead to his car parked right across the building entrance anyway. “Ya, Minnie—”

“I texted Changbin to buy, it should be at your dorm’s kitchen by now.” Seungmin answers casually, taking out his keys from his hoodie pocket and pointing it to his car. Once you near the vehicle, he then opens the door for you on the front passenger seat, wordlessly taking your gym bag and placing it in the back along with his backpack. “If not, then I’ll just drive back here, I don’t have anywhere to be today.” 

You smile at the thought, happily putting on your seatbelt. “I love you, have I said that this week?” You chuckle, wrapping an arm behind his waist in a side hug before he can close the door. “You’re the best, capt.!” 

“It’s weird when you call me capt.” He feigns a scowl, patting your head and briefly hugging you back anyway. “And you only love me because I practically babysit you.” 

"I never even asked to be babysit in the first place.” You pout, following him with your eyes even when he closes the door and moves to the other side of the vehicle to the driver’s seat. Turning your body to his direction as he turns on the ignition and starts driving away, you then add, “You’re supposed to say you love me too, capt.” 

Seungmin rolls his eyes in an attempt to move your eyes away from the wild blush on his cheeks. “Put your seatbelt on.” He steers the conversation instead, placing a hand behind your headrest as he backs the car away from the parking. 

“‘I love you too’?” 

“What do you want to do when we get to your dorm?” 

“Okay, I’ll take that. How about you choose the movie for today?” 

three - wednesday

Though he never demands you for it from knowing full-well your own busy training schedule and classes, you’ve always made sure to attend each and every baseball game Seungmin participates in ever since you were children to cheer him on and he’s always thought that that’s your own version of showing your affection to him in return for his support for you. Though you can get a bit embarrassing cheering on him the loudest and always wearing his extra old jerseys to the games, he never complains about it anyway and only argues with you after the game about other things, mostly you skipping your own training to see him or attending his games instead of resting at home like today. It definitely is love—simultaneously a heartwarming and worrying one at that.

So today, at his baseball team’s scrimmage, he’s not even that surprised anymore when you show up with Jeongin by your side, insisting that your cuts and bruises are already manageable enough to let you walk without needing much help. He is, however, still worried over your well-being as usual. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asks you for the fourth time since you met up right outside the field, an arm draped over your shoulder as you walk. Ahead of you, Jeongin and Yuna have already reserved seats along with the rest of your friend group, chatting away with some members of the team. “And you’re not skipping any training today?”

“I already told you, Minnie,” You giggle, limping a little from your blisters and leaning most of your weight to him with your hand on his waist. “My next training’s next week, you were even there when Coach Park reminded me! And it’s not like I’m playing, I’m just going to watch you today!” 

“I’m mainly worried about your blisters since you were training last Sunday. You could’ve just rested at the dorms today.” He points out, sitting you down next to Jeongin on the aisle before kneeling right in front of you. “It’s just a scrimmage, anyway.” 

“But I don’t want to miss a game,” You insist stubbornly, smiling reassuringly at him and his furrowed eyebrows. “and even if it’s just a scrimmage, it’s still you playing. I want to see you play.” 

With this, Seungmin eventually sighs in defeat. “Whatever, not like I can walk you home now and get back to the game in time.”

“I’m already here and you can’t do anything about it.” You affirm with a chuckle, patting his arm. “Now, go, shoo, you have a scrimmage to win.” 

Seungmin then turns to Jeongin, gesturing to you as he stands up, “Look after Y/N, please?” 

“If you mean look after them as in not letting them topple over the seats then sure.” Jeongin nods with a laugh. 

“Hey, I don’t—!”

But, as if ignoring your protests, Seungmin nods gratefully and bids you two goodbye. “Thanks!” He then turns to his teammates before you could even finish another sentence, ushering everyone to jog back to the field. “Okay, guys, chat time’s over. Let’s head to the field!”

“Ay, Seung, don’t get too flustered over Y/N now!” Jisung reminds him with a hand over the younger boy’s shoulders and a snicker, tapping on the mound with his glove as the two reach their designated positions. “Jeno’s pitching, too, you might get hit in the face if you’ll just keep looking at your Y/N.” 

“Shut up, Ji.” Seungmin rolls his eyes, tapping on the mound as well with his bat just as Jeno signals from across the diamond, preparing to pitch. With one last glance at you, he then mutters to himself, “Aish, why did they even come today? They’re injured.” 

Jisung opens his mouth to speak behind his helmet to ask what Seungmin could mean with his last comment but he’s inadvertently cut off by Jeno signaling for everyone to get ready, expertly throwing the first ball which Seungmin instinctively hits hard with his bat, prompting him to start running to first base before Daehwi and Eunwoo could even retrieve it by the chain link fences of the field, thus leaving Jisung to his thoughts. 

“Yay, let’s go Kim Seungmin!” You cheer and yell from the bleachers, almost standing up with a struggle until Jeongin pulls you down by your arms, most likely to remind you of your injuries, which Seungmin is more than grateful for. “Go Minnie! Number 22! Number 22!” 

As he runs, Seungmin makes sure to wave at you in responds when he passes by your bleachers, sending a bashful smile your way that only fuels more teasing from Jeongin without him noticing. You wave both hands back in response before he could turn his eyes back ahead, sinking in your seat as he now tries to aim for second base seeing everyone moving a bit slower than usual. 

Eventually, he makes it to second base just in time, sliding into the plate and narrowly missing Daehwi’s attempt at getting him out. 

“Yay, let’s go Seungmin!” He hears you yell and clap loudly again, making his ears heat up and everyone in the diamond to stifle their giggles. 

“Hey, isn’t Y/N injured from last Saturday?” Daehwi asks at belatedly noticing your presence.

Seungmin then stands up and dusts the dirt off his uniform, adjusting his cap and turning his focus to Jeno and Hyunjin (who bats next) ahead. “I insisted that they skip today’s game since it’s just a scrimmage but you know how they are.” 

“Really? That’s so sweet!” Daehwi squeals in delight, waving at you and the others from others bleachers. “and here everyone thought that Y/N skipping training was already cute enough! They just outdo themselves every time!” 

“Way to romanticize injuries, Dae.” Seungmin scoffs, hiding a smile from Daehwi. Simultaneously, Jeno signals again that the game is about to start, preparing to pitch. “Seriously, it’s not cute. I’m more worried than flattered.” 

“Right, because waving at them while running was definitely being worried,” Daehwi chuckles, getting in position again. “Just say you’re whipped and go.”

“You wish,” Seungmin scrunches up his nose, successfully dodging Daehwi again and leaving him on the second base. “but I do have to get going now!” 

“Ya!” 

“Woo! Go Seungmin!” You yell loudly and repeatedly again, until he successfully reaches home base which prompts you to finally stand up and jump around in cheer despite the pain your lower half. “Way to go Seungmin!” 

Seungmin can only roll his eyes at you as he walks off the field, scoffing in disbelief when you don’t stop cheering even as he approaches you from the other side of the chain link fences since he’s already done for this particular inning. 

“Why are you up? You’re injured.” He frowns, his hands going up the chain links. “Sit down, Y/N.”

“I’m fine!” You dismiss, sitting down anyway when Jeongin and Yuna start tugging on your shirt for you to sit down. “But, more importantly, you did well!” 

“It’s just the first inning—and a scrimmage.”

“Scrimmage, formal game, it’s all the same, you don’t have to say it twice.” You retort, rolling your eyes and chuckling. “You looked really cool out there!” 

The last comment definitely catches Seungmin off-guard but he hides it better this time, waving his hand in front of him. “It was nothing.” 

“So modest,” You scoff with a proud smile, leaning forward and linking your hands between the chain links. “What do you want after the game? Ice cream? Tteokbeokki?” 

“Don’t stand up too much during the game and I’ll think about it,” He answers instead. “and we’re not going anywhere after this with your injuries. I’m taking you straight home.”

“Fine.” You huff in defeat, gesturing to his teammates after. “Okay, now go back, Jeno’s looking at us weird.” 

“Don’t stand up again!”

“I won’t!”

- 

Seungmin meets up with you again after the game. When the scrimmage ends later that afternoon with Jeno’s team winning at 14-18 and everyone heading straight to the showers, he sees you with Jeongin right outside of the locker rooms, sitting on a nearby bench while the younger boy pesters you with questions on your summer training and last Saturday’s game.

“Hey, Y/N!” Jisung, accompanying Seungmin on the way out, greets you with an innocent slap to your back before your best friend could, making you wince in pain. “Oh, shit, sorry!” 

“Ya,” Seungmin reprimands him firmly, slapping Jisung’s hand away from you before helping you up from the bench. “Careful, Y/N’s injured.” 

“Why?” Jisung asks curiously, making everyone turn to him.

“Derby last Saturday.” You answer sheepishly, leaning your weight to Seungmin again appreciatively as he helps you balance yourself. “Got knocked out before scoring a point.”

“You would’ve seen if you didn’t have a date that day.” Hyunjin adds, playfully catching Jisung in a chokehold as your group now walks out of the lockers rooms and outside the field. “It was so bloody as fuck, they were against the league veterans!”

“You make it sound like I died and got resurrected.” You scoff, reaching out for Hyunjin with a struggle and slapping his arm.

“Don’t entertain him too much, he’s just dramatic.” Seungmin assures you, eliciting protests from Hyunjin.

“Really?” Meanwhile, Jisung frowns in jealously, prying Hyunjin off of him and kicking him from behind his knees as a comeback. “Ay, I really would’ve gone if only Haneul liked watching derby.”

“They don’t seem to like watching sports in general,” Jeongin points out bluntly, you nodding along to his right. “why are you still going out with this person, even? Clearly, they’re not interested in your major passion.”

“Because I like them,” the boy in question shrugs without hesitation, making you tilt your head in confusion. “I mean, Haneul’s cool but we—I guess we never really talked about the whole sports thing.”

“Why not? Bro, you’re aiming for the national team.” Hyunjin prods this time. By now, your group has reached and stopped on the sidewalk of the main campus road where you’re supposed to part ways since Jeno’s hosting a get-together but Seungmin’s insisted on taking you home. “In a few years, it’s gonna be weird being in games and having one less person to cheer you on, especially if that person’s your girlfriend.”

“Well, not everyone’s lucky enough to being in love with people who have similar hobbies as they do.” Jisung rolls his eyes dryly, his gaze instinctively landing to you and Seungmin after which only prompts you to raise an eyebrow while Seungmin glares at Jisung.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You ask, making Jisung chuckle.

“Nothing, nothing.” He waves his hand dismissively at you before turning to Hyunjin and Jeongin. “Anyway, Haneul and I will talk about it again more later on. Personally, I’m not that bothered right now—I’m just happy we get to hang out.”

“But that’s because you started dating before any major games.” Seungmin speaks up after a while. 

Jeongin nods in agreement. “We’ll really just have to see next Friday if you still think that way.”

“Seung, Y/N always attends our games so I don’t think you’re qualified to speak over my love life.” Jisung deadpans, prompting Seungmin to hit him again. “Ow! But it’s true!”

“What?” You scoff, finally getting what he means but pretending to not know anyway in embarrassment.

“Whatever.” Seungmin huffs dismissively at Jisung, directing you away from the group now. “Anyway, we’ll get going now. It’s getting late.”

“We’re seriously going home?” You frown up at Seungmin who’s now standing behind you, both his hands on your shoulders as he moves you to the opposite direction of where the rest of the boys are going. “I was hoping you’d change your mind last minute.”

“I didn’t bring my car here today and Jeno’s dorm’s on the other side of campus.” Seungmin answers your question, waving goodbye to the others. “Come on, let’s go home. We can order again or something.”

“Fine.” You sigh in defeat, letting him walk you backwards as you reluctantly wave goodbye at everyone. “Bye, guys. I guess I’ll see you next Friday.”

“Bye!” Hyunjin, Jisung, and Jeongin wave back at you as they laugh over your frown, the eldest boy making sure to add, “Have fun on your date!”

“It’s not a date!” You yell back at him in exasperation, making the three laugh.

“We’ll make sure to eat well for you!” Jisung teases, winking at you before Seungmin could pull you to the left turn leading back to your dorms. Before you completely part ways, you hear him yell, “Alright, now let’s eat samgyeopsal!”

Heading back to your dorm now, Seungmin stands next to you again, draping his arm over your shoulder again and matching your pace. You walk in comfortable silence for a while, that is until you think about Jisung’s words once again, prompting you to ask, “What was that about by the way?”

“What?”

“The thing with Haneul.” You clarify, tearing your gaze away from him to look down on the ground. “Jisung said something about other people being lucky that they like people who have similar hobbies then looked at you.”

“Looked at me? I thought he was looking at you?” Seungmin tries to joke awkwardly before stopping when you don’t laugh along. “It’s nothing, he’s just being weird.”

You furrow your eyebrows, looking up at him only to meet his side profile. Taking a quick inhale, you then try asking, “Seungmin...do you perhaps—do you like anyone lately?”

At that, Seungmin almost trips over nothing uncharacteristically, his grip on your shoulder accidentally tightening when he holds onto you for support. “Sorry, um—w-what?”

“It’s just,” You shrug awkwardly, feeling smaller under his arm now that your impulsive question suddenly made the air awkward. You walk slower now, despite your dorm being only a block away now. “what Jisung said and—and, you know, you’ve been busy lately.”

“Yeah, because of you and classes.” He points out, still with furrowed eyebrows. “I don’t—I don’t have time to date.”

“But do you want to?”

“Hm?”

“I-If you weren’t busy with classes, training...looking after my clumsy ass and all—would you...would you want to date anyone? Do you like...someone?” You clarify as clearly and as eloquently as you can against the pain on your feet from walking and the sudden loud hammering of your heart against your chest. Why did I even ask? You can only scold yourself internally, keeping a front anyway now that you’re in too deep to change the topic now.

Next to you, Seungmin thinks about your question carefully. He’s not actually thinking about the question per se, more like thinking about why you would ask such question. Are you expecting some kind of answer? “I...” He trails off in thought, catching your gaze momentarily from the corner of his eye. “N-No, not really.”

“Oh.” You muse out loud, trying your best to hide your disappointment. “I guess that’s understandable. You’re aiming for the national team, after all.”

Seungmin then stops walking altogether, making you stop. In front of you, you see your dorm building coming into view, confusing you even more when he moves in front of you.

“No, it’s....“ He shrugs, looking down on his hands before flitting his eyes up again to you. “all my time’s for you, classes, and training right now and it’s fine. Sure, the end goal’s the national team but at the same time, I have all I need right now—dating just so happens to not really a top priority right now.”

You nod slowly with a low hum, smiling at his sincerity after a while. “So I’m top priority?”

At your comment, his sincere facade immediately fades into a scoff, rubbing his temples up in frustration. “I answer your question sincerely and all you pick up is you being a priority?” He asks in disbelief, making you laugh. “And here I was, about to offer you piggyback again.”

“I was just kidding!” You bluff in between laughs, extending your arms out for him to carry you. “Piggyback, please! I live on the third floor!”

“Maybe if you didn’t respond weirdly to my emotional rant—“

“Ya, Seungmin!” You protest, hopping on your better foot and jumping on his back before he could even move away from you. “Ha! Got you!” 

Reluctantly, Seungmin then adjusts the strap of his gym bag on his shoulder and hooks his arms under your legs. “If you’re not so injured right now, I’d drop you on the ground.” He hoists you up on his back with a groan, continuing to walk forward anyway. “Ah, this brat.” 

You chuckle, pinching his cheeks before resting your arms on his shoulders. “But seriously...” You trail off with an awkward cough. “Just date, dude, you can multitask, better than me at least.” 

You then hear Seungmin mumble under his breath, “Maybe if...” but you fail to catch the last words as he then shakes his head and adds, “Ah, whatever. How did we even get to this kind of talk?” 

five - saturday 

As if the universe is conspiring against you, you end up getting severely injured halfway through your next derby game the following Saturday. When the score is 45-70 in favor of the opposing team, you end up taking a nasty fall after successfully scoring a point, causing a broken nose. 

So much for all the talks you had with Seungmin in the past days, you think to yourself as you catch his surprised gaze from across the rink. 

Maybe it’s also because of how you’ve been talking to him a lot lately about his concerns for you and this sport that he immediately rushes to your side as Yuna and Yeji help you walk from the rink to the locker room as Jaemin suddenly announces a short break. Quickly and gently taking your arm from Yeji’s shoulder from the sides of the rink, the next three minutes are a bit of a blur to you as Seungmin multitasks between examining your bruises, assuring your teammates that he can take care of you, and walking you to the nearest bathroom—all the while scolding you under his breath. 

You can only pout at him the whole way, letting him drag you along with him until he’s hoisting you up again on top of the sink counter much like every other Saturday. 

Except it feels a bit different this time, especially since Seungmin has never looked this worried since you started this sport 2 months ago.    

“Okay, let’s see that bloody nose again.” He asks you after a while, tilting your face downwards with his one hand (the other holding an ice pack from Jaemin) and scrunching up his nose with furrowed eyebrows. “Yikes.” 

“I’m sort of choking here a bit.” You point out, shifting uncomfortably in your place at the feeling of blood on your tongue and the realization that you also have small cuts on your lips. “Um...” 

You see his eyebrows furrow deeper in thought as he then turns to his side and places his backpack next to you, temporarily placing the ice pack in the space between your leg and his backpack and taking out a first aid kit. “That bad? Fuck.” He hisses under his breath, more to himself than to you, as he proceeds to prepare a whole bag of cotton balls, wipes, and ointment. “I can clean and ice this up but we’ll have to go immediately after this and get you checked out at the clinic across the street.” 

“Really?” You wince at seeing Seungmin hold up a wet wipe to your face. “So I can’t finish the game?” 

“You’re face is broken and you’re thinking about the game? Y/N, please...” He sighs disapprovingly at you, cupping your chin again and lightly dabbing on the trail of blood on your face with the wet wipe. “Try to hold in the pain for a bit while I clean your face and maybe try not to think about the game.” 

"Sorry...” You trail off, pouting up at Seungmin and earning you another sigh from him. 

“This is the worst I’ve seen you.” He muses out loud, his furrowed eyebrows slowly softening as he purses his lips. “What even happened back there? It was all too quick for me, to be honest.” 

“The other team’s jammer bumped me a bit too harsh.” You reply slowly, careful of the blood on your lips and the sting you feel from inhaling. In front of you, Seungmin unconsciously winces through carefully cleaning your face. “We were skating on the slope going up so I ended up hitting my face on the barriers.” 

“They’re visitors, right?” He asks you next and you nod quietly in response. “I’ll have to remind Jaemin to talk to them. If not, I’ll talk to them myself...” 

“Seungmin—”

“You fell really bad, they should be accountable.” He insists anyway. “Even if derby’s a violent sport, there are still limits to it and this is just too much.”     

You unconsciously mirror Seungmin’s frown the longer he stares down at the bloodied lower half of your face, your shoulders slouching deeply when he finally reaches the end of the drying red trail on your chin with his third wet wipe. The physical pain of a broken nose and a bruised lip can’t even compete with the guilt pooling in your stomach now as you observe your best friend’s disappointed expression, making you wince less and sigh more in front of him at knowing full well that it’s all because of how you played tonight. “Just say it already.”

“Say what?” He mumbles back, now with a raised eyebrow at you as he disposes off the used wet wipes next to you on top of the sink counter. He then passes you the ice pack, guiding your hands to slowly move it up to your nose. “Where’s this coming from all of a sudden?” 

You see the genuine anticipation in his eyes of what you meant by your words, making you look down on your free hand rested right on top of the faint bruise marks on your lap. “That I’m being stupid for pursuing this sport, that I should stop playing.” You answer quietly as you shift in your seat. “It’s just that we were talking about this exact thing for the whole week and then it happens and now you look so upset so I thought...” 

In front of you, you hear Seungmin sigh before gently tilting your chin up again, meeting your eyes with a soft gaze before moving his hands up to carefully massage your cheeks. “Ya, you’re not stupid,” He shakes his head. “you’re just clumsy sometimes but that’s because you keep forgetting that you’re supposed to be on wheels here and not blades.”

“Ya—”

“And this incident wasn’t your fault.” He adds after a while, when you don’t immediately speak. “I’m not mad at you, just frustrated. I’m mad at the other team, though.”

"Seungmin—” You huff in his touch, cracking a small and brief smile on his face.

“Anyway, I still think you should lessen playing, especially since the semester’s about to start again.” He interjects quickly before you can even say another word, briefly turning to your side to pass you another bundle of face tissues when he hears you sniffling. “but I’ll never ask you to stop playing completely because I know you really enjoy this. The same applies to the other one, of course.”

“Besides, what sport doesn’t involve getting hurt?” He adds as an after thought, taking out two plies of tissue for your incoming cold and the stray tear on your cheek.

“Um, board games?” You muse out loud as you take the tissues in his hands and place them in between your face and your ice pack, fully cracking his serious façade this time as he breaks into a scoff.

“You know what I mean.” You see Seungmin roll his eyes at you, making you purse your lips as a smile tries making its way on your cuts. When he sees your reaction, his thumb instinctively moves over to your bottom lip, stopping you from smiling. “Don’t smile, dummy, we just fixed that lip cut.”

The gesture makes your heart flip and your gaze unconsciously softens at him as you watch him dispose of all your trash with a small ‘alright, done.’ under his breath. “Have I told you I love you this week?” You speak in a low voice with no intention of sounding teasing at all this time, giving him a tight-lipped smile when he looks up at you again in confusion. “You’re the best, capt.” 

It takes him a moment to process your words, especially with the unusual tone in your voice. Eventually, you see him return your smile. “You already did. I’m just looking out for you as usual.” He shrugs bashfully, offering you a hand which you gladly accept when you stand. “I love you too...” 

“I know.” You nod, tugging on him by your intertwined hands and pressing a light kiss on his cheek when he tilts his head to your side. “I’m sorry again.” 

“You’re being soft all of a sudden.” He points out, biting down a small smile. “It’s probably the fall.” 

You roll your eyes at him, pressing the ice pack closer to your face. “How many minutes do I have to hold this ice again?” 

“If you’re thinking of throwing that on my face, I’ll have you know I can deny you entry on my game next Friday.” He warns, placing his hand on the ice pack again to check your wound. “Fifteen more minutes. I’ll text Jaemin and Yeji for now, the clinic should still be open at this time.” 

[gryphsdeadbones]

hey from one nd person to another the comic where fm gordon says a slur seems kind of in poor taste. ik ur not intentionally making light of it and tht occurring in fm should be criticized but while you dont make it out to be a good thing making jokes about it and calling him a "slurboy" is kind of questionable? it makes it seem more like a plotpoint and angst rather than the creator of fm genuinely fucking up in the past (and having moved on from it)! i think exploring fm coming to terms with being nd is a good idea but this isnt the best way to do it. if you want me to explain my point more lmk if/when u post this and i will! someone already made a post abt it but it was kinda strongly worded and i wanted to approach you more calmly because i genuinely dont want to call you out or start drama or anything ;-;

first off thank you for being civil and patient with me i appreciate this ask a lot- also this got long- im not in a flying rage or anything when i bold or emphasis text, i just needed it also for my own readability and since im not the best at wording- hopefully this hellsite works and my response is under the cut

i would like to know how is it in poor taste when freemind explicitly gets clocked at the very end for saying it. the entire point of the comic was to show that saying the r slur has existed in his source and is bad

im not sure how much more direct i can get, with the disclaimer/warning list growing longer and longer and out there for a huge sign that says “this au can get dark as fuck and these subject matters are treated seriously/not something to mess around with.” Like yes, there are some jokes in the asks and other comics, but that specific comic is not supposed to be “haha thats funny”. it has a serious tone using a rough sketch style bc i was super tired and wanted to vent

was it just the direct reference to it that just made people uncomfortable? because thats 100% understandable, and i made sure i tagged it appropriately (although admittedly, a little bit late since i thought the filter would catch at least the main thing)

i think what some people somehow got from it is “exploring sensitive content = endorsing said content” which! that is not the intent! i absolutely do not want people saying that word! I don’t want people thinking that is any way okay for this character to say

its more of a damned if i do address it, damned if i dont.

if it never comes up, people are gonna assume that ‘oh this character says slurs and is shit, surely the creator or fan-creator MUST be okay with it and woobifies freemind and absolves him of any mistakes’ or something like that. no. this asshole has an arc and i want to do it right. its serious and i think it shouldn’t be shoved under the rug

and people just. dont want to read for context for whatever reason. theyll start watching it and get taken aback by the slur and start blaming me ‘hey you never warned for this’ when very early on i keep mentioning over and over ‘you dont have to watch it if you dont want to! This has slurs and 2000s internet brand humor/style’ You really dont, I’m not forcing you to watch it- Literally all you need to know is either canon half life or hl/vrai. thats it. fm mostly follows hl1 with very slight changes.

so i had to make something that:

1. warns people who arent aware and dont want to go through my asks or about/warning pages (for whatever reason) and just want to see the art

2. also NOT downplay freemind’s canon assholery. listen, i kinda despise writing mean and cruel characters, theyre hard to do, and a lot of people get shit for doing it wrong or people going “character = author”

i’ve also considered leaving the bubbles blank, but then people could fill it with whatever they want, then blame me for being vague. or they’d fill it in with a different kind of slur that freemind has never used, even if he MIGHT be the type to do that. I needed to explicitly mention that it is ableist slur. There are shitty racist and other problematic jokes, but never those kinds of extreme racial slurs to my knowledge.

Although I do see your point that maybe joking about it outside of the serious stuff might not be the best route. The slurboy jokes are getting stale, and I will try a better way to remind people.

The thing that gets to me is that it feels people are more than ready to defend either Ross Scott or Gordon Freeman the fictonal character himself. I don’t??? really care for Ross Scott, so I don’t know if he’s ever brought it up specifically. I’m not really calling him out or cancelling him. Idc for some white man’s feelings, im only bringing the timeframe of That era and reworking it to fit in This current era.

And I hate to break it to people: Gordon Freeman is a blank slate character, you can project whatever the hell you want on him as long as it’s not freakshit illegal garbage. The machinimas (fm, hl/vrai) do have SOME characterization that I want to nail down. It fucking sucks when characters are ooc, and I’m trying not to do that, even if it means sacrificing some comfort. But still mostly staying in my comfort zone if that makes sense

Now about the callout that I do not want to engage with the op directly:

Honestly im very surprised the comic was called out when i just. thought my stuff is relatively tame on exploring the bad shit canon freemind does. ive seen him in fancontent where they really dont hold back and its still played off as ‘kinda funny’ tone.

I really don’t know if people just want any reason to hate me for whatever reason. That’s fine I guess, I can’t please everyone and they dont have to like me.

But like. isn’t it so much easier for the op of that to block me and the post and move on. Why kick up such a fuss. I can see that thinly veiled death threat of a vague. That’s pretty fucked up- Like holy fucking god, you do not have to like my stuff. I’m not holding you at knifepoint to like my stuff. I’ve specifically made two different tags (one general au, one specific au) if anyone wants to blacklist it for their own reasons I do not need to know. I don’t want to know.

You’re allowed to be uncomfortable. You’re allowed to unfollow/blacklist/block.

However you just don’t go ranting about it for something you horribly misinterpreted. If it bothers you so badly, literally just. drop me a message to clarify. thats it. or save yourself the time and block me.

I’ve blocked the op for both our sakes, but if anyone wants to send this post to them, then thats fine. I don’t want anything to do with them.

I don’t want to link the post and blow it up. I just want shit clarified, dropped and we can move the fuck on with our lives. 

If you’re reading this and don’t know what the post is, please don’t bother. I do not want people going after the op with threats, please keep it civil, I’d prefer if you don’t engage with the post at all on my behalf.

Despite this huge wall of text, I do not want this to be a big deal, so please don’t ask me about the details.

_

As for anon, feel free to dm me either on here or. Maybe on discord if you’d still like to suggest or have something more cleared up. I’m still willing to hear any kind of feedback, and i want to thank you again for being reasonable about this

[catboymingi]

and the damsel in distress - veninder chap. 2

navi/masterlist

story masterlist

pairing: mingi x reader

genre: angst, fluff; eventual best friends to lovers

word count: 7.2k

warnings: language, insecurities, past trauma mention, somewhat suicidal thoughts (very briefly, one sentence)

a/n: after ages of exams where i focused on smaller writings i finally am updating... this chapter is a ride but it is the ride i decided to take

yo var det mig / der’ dummet sig? - was it me / that messed up?

when you woke up and unlocked your phone you immediately wished you hadn’t woken up, ever. you had more than a hundred messages from various chats, and while you wished you could just ignore them forever you knew that you’d have to deal with it tomorrow latest, and you’d rather do it without an audience. so you had no choice to reply, opening the private messages first and telling all your friends that you’d reply in the group chat, before you opened that one.

[y/n]: sry for that. forgot my wallet, had no way to get home in time

[y/n]: nothing happened tho

the reply came almost immediately, as if they’d just waited for you to come online.

[saranghoe]: u literally didnt even try 2 call dibs n now ur staying the night?? seems suspicious

[model contract when???]: yeah literally!

[y/n]: as i said, better than sleeping on the street

[model contract when???]: just dont go near them again. ever

[y/n]: fine

[y/n]: deal

you hated the idea, but you knew that if you didn’t agree your life would be a living hell. and that was definitely not something you wanted, knowing how they’d made life hell for other people and knowing that there was no way anyone could protect you from that. so, the next thing you did was click on ‘hyung hate club’, not even bothering to read the messages before leaving the group. you didn’t like this, but it was better this way. as much as you liked the boys, you liked being able to go to uni in peace more, and you knew that would be impossible if you so much as breathed in their direction from now on. you sighed, putting your phone down and laying back onto your bed again, wanting some peace for yourself, but you weren’t granted that. less than a minute after you’d laid down your phone buzzed, once, twice, thrice. knowing that you wouldn’t be able to relax until you knew what was up you sat back up, checking your phone to see messages from an unknown number. curious, you clicked on the notification.

[unknown]: y/n???

[unknown]: im mingi

[unknown]: whats wrong??

you weren’t sure whether to be happy he messaged or scream into your pillow. in some way it was nice he cared, but that also meant it would be harder to avoid the boys. and that meant that, no matter how hard you tried, your friends would have a reason to be upset.

[y/n]: why?

[unknown]: you left the gc?

[unknown]: what happened

[y/n]: nothing dw, im all good

he saw the message but didn’t reply right away, which made you think that maybe he’d accept your reply. but then you saw him typing again, and a message you didn’t expect at all appeared on your screen.

[unknown]: did i mess up

[y/n]: wdym

you genuinely had no idea what he meant, or rather, how he could’ve got the idea that he’d messed up in any way. he’d been nothing but kind to you, there was not a single thing he could possibly have messed up on. but when a new message popped up you knew he was genuinely worrying about it, and you felt bad for not being able to tell him the real reason why you left the group chat, why you had to avoid them.

[unknown]: like did i do something wrong

[y/n]: not at all

[y/n]: its not abt you dw

you hoped he’d leave it be with that, but of course not. he wanted to know what was wrong, he wanted to know why you suddenly didn’t seem to want to talk to him, or any of them for that matter, anymore.

[unknown]: then what is it

and while you were thinking of a good excuse, mingi seemed to have caught on to what exactly the problem was, as was made apparent by his next message.

[unknown]: its your friends isnt it

there was no way you could reply to that decently, so you didn’t, staring at the screen in frustration with your friends and him and mainly yourself. you wanted to say something, you really did, but you had no idea what. tell him you were sorry? tell him to leave you alone? tell him that sometimes life just sucked and you had to deal with it? none of that would’ve been a good reply, and in all honesty you also didn’t want to have to deal with the emotional turmoil it would inevitably bring.

you didn’t notice that you’d spaced out and your phone had locked itself until it buzzed in your hand again, another message from the unknown number you now knew to be mingi. it just read ‘got it’ and you felt awful, scared that you’d hurt or upset one of the only people in forever that had shown genuine care for you. but of course you’d had to mess it up.

//

the next day came and you still felt bad, somewhat fearful as well. your friend group’s chat had returned to the usual topics, but you still weren’t sure how they’d react to you when they saw you again. you were hellbent on acting as usual, hoping that if you acted like nothing happened they would as well, and it was somewhat successful, getting weird stares every now and then, but no more comments than usual. you wouldn’t let yourself relax just yet, but this was a good sign, at least.

but then came lunch. you tried to act casual, not wanting to let on to the fact that you were horrified that one of the boys would shout out for you at any moment. your eyes darted around aimlessly, mainly looking for a certain giant sporting bright red hair, simply because he was easiest to spot out of the group you’d spent saturday night with. when you still hadn’t spotted him when you sat down to eat with your friends your shoulders relaxed, but it had been a mistake to think that they’d forgotten about you.

you hadn’t noticed that yunho was on his way towards you until he was standing right there, having moved surprisingly inconspicuously for someone his height. but there he was, staring down at you with an expression you couldn’t judge. you tried to avoid his eyes, feeling so incredibly guilty for ignoring him when he and his friends had been your saviour when you needed one, but you couldn’t help it. even now you could feel your friends’ angry stares on you, when you hadn’t even acknowledged the boy’s presence.

“y/n”, yunho suddenly spoke up. you couldn’t help but look up at him at that, knowing it was a mistake, but your head moved by itself. and he noticed, a small smile appearing on his face now. he nodded his head as a sign that he wanted to talk to you with a little more privacy, and you knew that if you didn’t go with him he’d try to sort whatever he wanted to sort here, in front of your friends, which would be way worse than leaving with him for maybe two minutes and returning, convincing them that you told him never to come up to you again. so you got up, but before you could actually go to a more private area he picked you up and threw you over his shoulder. you hit his back in a desperate attempt to let you down, but deep down you knew that your punches wouldn’t affect him in any way. so you gave up, hanging like a sack of potatoes, feeling everyone’s curious stares on you.

he first let you down at their table, hongjoong scolding him that a less dramatic approach would’ve done the job as well. wooyoung and yeosang were laughing while the others looked at you curiously, and you were still deciding whether or not to kill yunho right there.

that decision was made for you when mingi spoke up.

“you told me you’d see me at lunch.” you couldn’t quite decipher his tone, whether he was angry or disappointed or hurt, but you knew it wasn’t a positive emotion you heard in his voice. you hated that you were the reason for his upset, but you also hated that your decision about how to deal with the dilemma you were in had been made for you, by people that knew nothing about your situation. you weren’t them, you didn’t have a support system, you didn’t have the option to choose who you were friends with, you didn’t have any of the things that were a given for everyone else. you had to take what you got and make do with it, and they’d just made that significantly harder for you.

“i told you i couldn’t”, you replied, your own voice a mixture of sadness and anger. you wanted to be able to, really, but it wasn’t something you could change. and the fact that he’d seen how your friends had reacted to you doing something they didn’t like and still didn’t stop this, maybe even actively encouraged this, made you angry, even though maybe it shouldn’t. he hadn’t had any ill intentions, but that didn’t really matter to you when you knew he wouldn’t be affected at all by whatever happened as a reaction to this. that he - they - had started a battle you’d have to fight.

no one said anything to that and you thought the conversation was over, that they’d realised that you wouldn’t be able to join their friend group or talk to them at all unless necessary, so you turned around, managing to take a single step before someone grabbed your wrist. you turned around again in surprise and saw that it was seonghwa, whom you’d assumed to be kind and soft-spoken, definitely not the kind to do this. but here you were, being kept from leaving by his hand around your wrist. it was mingi who spoke, though.

“they’re not being nice to you. you deserve better.” and you knew, you knew all that, you knew everything he could tell you to convince you that they weren’t the right friends for you, but that didn’t change anything. and you’d had enough hurt, enough mistreatment in your life to want to avoid it at all costs now. if that meant giving up a bit of your happiness but getting to keep your peace of mind that was a price you were more than willing to pay. but the boy looking at you with softness in his eyes didn’t seem to be willing to have you pay that price.

“sit down.” seonghwa had let go of your arm now, moving a little so that you’d fit next to him. it wasn’t an order, more of a suggestion, but you were too tired, too exhausted to potentially risk a discussion you might not be able to win, so you just complied, resting your head in your palms. and because of that the boys at first didn’t even notice that you didn’t have your food, or any of your things, since it didn’t seem like you wanted to eat anyway.

it was san that noticed, already having finished inhaling his meal when you hadn’t even started yours. the surprise at that was what made him realise that there was no meal for you to finish.

“yunho!”, he suddenly yelled out, making everyone’s heads snap up, even yours. “you forgot y/n’s things when you kidnapped her!” at that realisation, panic made its way onto your face. you had no idea what state your things would be in by the time you’d reach them. your phone, your wallet, all your notes were in your bag, and you’d just left it with your friends that without a doubt were plotting how to ruin your life by now. you jolted up and towards the table they’d been sitting at, but when you saw they’d already left your panic only increased. your bag was still there, carelessly kicked underneath the table when you’d been sitting with the others, but you had no idea what the insides would look like. you probably looked like a maniac all but ripping it open, fumbling with the zipper with shaking hands and ransacking your bag to make sure you still had everything you needed, checking your wallet and phone to see just how fucked you were. everything was still in order, though; it seemed like they’d forgotten about your bag, in part thanks to you having kicked it out of sight thoughtlessly. you almost cried at the relief, and mingi, who’d followed you after your sudden exit to make sure you were okay, wasn’t really sure what to do. he kneeled down next to where you were still crouching on the floor, staring at your bag and its content as if it were the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen, and just looked at you, waiting for you to realise he was there as well.

when after a while (was it seconds? minutes? it felt too long for mingi) you still seemed to not have noticed his presence he carefully tapped your leg, making sure his hand was visible before he actually touched you. you seemed so spaced out that he was pretty certain any sudden touch or noise would scare you to no end. but even though he was so careful not to be too sudden your head still shot up with a force that made him fear you’d break your neck; you’d half expected one of your friends to be the one touching you, so your anxious reaction was at least in part caused by that. but when you saw that it was only him you relaxed a little, though your heartbeat still would not return to normal.

“you okay?”, he asked you once it seemed like you wouldn’t drop dead from shock or kill him if he said anything, worry apparent in his voice, and you could understand him, really - this wasn’t a regular reaction to forgetting your bag with your friends. but you didn’t have regular friends either, so it evened out.

“i guess.” you grabbed your bag and got up, wanting nothing more than to get out of that awkward situation, and the tall boy followed suit.

“wanna join us for the rest of lunch?” he expected you to say no. you knew that you should say no. and a look at where you’d sat at the table confirmed that you didn’t even have anything to eat anymore - they’d probably thrown it away as soon as you left. so there was no reason to go, there was no reason to make yourself even more of a target. but maybe that was why you ended up saying yes. you’d already become a target, so now you might as well spend time with them, you didn’t really have anything to lose anymore. and the smile he gave you when you agreed to join them made you think that it’d maybe be worth it, even.

the others looked at you in surprise when you returned to their table, mingi having a triumphant look on his face. they didn’t say anything, though, scared of putting you off and causing another somewhat-freak out like the one earlier. of course, to them it didn’t make sense, they had no idea just what your friends could do. they’d never been their victim, and they’d never been around to see what their victims had to deal with. but you knew. and the thought of it almost sent you into a panic attack, so you let yourself fall onto the bench (a loud ‘thud’ could be heard, so you really hadn’t been gentle with yourself) and put your head on the table, ignoring how greasy it probably was, your focus being on stopping your breath from speeding up before it was too late. you couldn’t see the looks they gave each other, but you could imagine them. you were a mess, a scared, traumatised mess, and that less than 48 hours after first having met them. you honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they told you to go sit somewhere else, or got up and left themselves. but they were still there when you lifted your head again, looking at you worriedly, but without judgment.

mingi was the first to speak, having put the pieces together by now.

“they’re that bad?” you knew whom he meant. he’d seen the message, he’d been the one to figure out they didn’t want you to talk to them, he’d seen the way you’d rummaged your bag, so it wasn’t hard for him to figure out what, or rather whom, you were scared of. yet he couldn’t imagine why you were that scared of people supposed to be your friends.

“worse.” you tried to mask your fear with a bitter tone, but it didn’t exactly work. the boys didn’t exactly know how to react to that, trying desperately to come up with a way to lighten the mood.

“you have eight bodyguards now.” you weren’t the only one surprised when it was jongho that spoke up, but the others were quick to agree, telling you that the girls had to get past them first. ‘mainly jongho, to be fair’, as wooyoung elaborated. and while you still weren’t feeling good about it, you were feeling better now, the fearful expression replaced by a smile. san, not wanting to waste that chance, asked you if he could re-add you to ‘hyung hate club’, and you couldn’t resist the puppy eyes he gave you, so you agreed. as soon as he did so mingi got his phone out, resending the message he’d sent when he’d brought you home. ‘pyjama party this weekend n y/ns still coming’. your reply was an emoji rolling its eyes, but the smile hadn’t left your face. then you saved his number, asking the others to send a message with their name so you could know who was who.

“they’ll never shut up”, hongjoong informed you casually as he sent his name, and while you knew he was telling you, indirectly, that from this moment on you would never be able to have a moment of peace and quiet and no notifications you were happy about this fact, because it meant that at least you wouldn’t be lonely.

“i have my ways.” you grinned at him as you said that, then you went to save all the numbers in your phone. doing so brought your attention to the time, and you noticed that it was time to leave for class, your happy expression immediately disappearing as you realised that they wouldn’t be around to protect you during class. And class was the place you couldn’t escape from; you needed the credits, and part of you also didn’t want to have to give up on something that always brought you joy just because you had to fear you wouldn’t be left alone.

“i need to go.” your expression didn’t go unnoticed, and seonghwa and yeosang, who had this period off, told you they’d be right there if something happened, you just had to send a message. they also insisted on bringing you to your class, and while you did feel a little like a child that needs their parents to bring them everywhere because they’re scared by themselves you also really appreciated it. so you took off with your two bodyguards, waving at the others as they left for their own classes.

“it’ll be fine”, yeosang said after a couple hundred metres during which neither of you had said anything, and you looked at him with doubt apparent in your eyes.

“it will”, seonghwa stated, a lot more sure about it than you were. “and if not, you know we’ll be right there.” that only did little to reassure you, but you had no choice either way.

you reached your classroom way too fast, and you could feel your breath speed up as soon as you walked towards the door, hesitating. maybe you should just drop out of uni and become a shepherd in a secluded village somewhere in a strange country in europe. maybe that was a better plan. but the choice was made for you as one of your now ex-friends waved towards you, a cheery expression on her face that would have fooled you, had you not seen that same expression on her face countless times before, knowing that it meant nothing but danger. but it was too late to turn around now, so all you could do was pretend you didn’t know what you were about to face.

“hey!” your tone was at least as fake as her expression as you greeted her back. then you went to your seat, and for the first half of class things actually went okay. you were tense, you were stressed, you were scared, but nothing happened. but then the teacher told you that it was time to do group work now, and things went downhill. you were grouped by how you were seating, which included you, one of the girls, and two classmates you barely ever talked to, whose names you didn’t even know, but whom you had nothing against, at least. but they would soon have something against you.

as you were working, one of them had her laptop out to take notes and prepare a presentation, as was the task. and that gave your ex-friend an idea. it was an expensive laptop, and you, as always, had a cup of water on the table, fairly close to the middle so it wouldn’t be able to drop by itself. it wouldn’t have to drop by itself, though. first, the girl next to you dropped her pen and kicked it over to the other two, pretending to have done so in an attempt to retrieve it and be able to pick it up.

“i’m sorry, i dropped my pen! can you maybe pick it up, i can’t reach it.” an apologetic smile was sent their way, as if to say ‘sorry for the hassle’. both girls opposite you ducked at the same time, trying to see where the pen was and who would be able to pick it up more easily. that was what she’d planned, though; as soon as they were no longer able to see you, she spilled your water. over the laptop that was still on the table. and as if that wasn’t enough, she got up, yelling your name loudly, asking you why you’d done that. everyone was looking at you by now, and the girl whose laptop had been sacrificed quickly tried to dry it off with her sleeve, asking for tissues, trying to save it. no use, it seemed like it had broken right away. and everyone thought it was you. that you’d broken the laptop on purpose.

“she was writing her thesis, y/n! i knew you were jealous, but i didn’t think you’d go that far!” you just stared at the scene around you wide-eyed, not even fully realising that this was real. by now even the teacher had come to look at what exactly was going on, and your lack of self defense was a seemingly obvious sign of you actually being the culprit.

“i think you should leave the class now. and you will have to replace the laptop.” all you could do was stare at who used to be your friend, unable to believe that she would do this to you. you hadn’t even actually done anything, and you’d been friends with these girls for almost a year now, yet she’d had no hesitation to ruin not only your reputation but also you financially. she was fully aware that you were barely scraping by. she was fully aware that you would never be able to replace the laptop. she knew all that. and she still did it, just because you’d dared to talk to someone they’d called dibs on. you couldn’t believe it.

//

you didn’t really remember how you’d left the class, and were surprised to find that you’d remembered to pack all your things back into your bag, that you hadn’t forgotten anything. you’d just left, going who even knew where, dropping on the floor when your legs didn’t want to carry you anymore, and starting to cry. and you stayed there, crying, losing all feeling for how much time had passed. this had been your last class of the day, so you had nowhere to be, and you didn’t want to be anywhere, either. you wanted to vanish. you wanted to die, in all honesty. if it continued like this your only choice was dropping out, basically having wasted the past year and all the work and money you’d put into your studies.

you were so caught up in your crying that you hadn’t noticed your phone buzzing with message after message, first paying attention to it when someone called you. it was seonghwa, who’d been there to pick you up after class only to see that you weren’t there. you didn’t feel like picking up, so you pressed the red button through your tears. he tried again, with the same result, and first when your phone started buzzing continuously with new messages you took a look at the group chat. now you found out why they were calling you - they’d tried to get you after class, but you weren’t there, and now you’d neither read their messages nor picked up their calls, so they all were quite worried at this point. you felt sorry about that, so you decided to send a message saying ‘sorry for worrying you’, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say that you were fine. it seemed like any sign of you being alive was already a success, though, lots of relieved messages flooding the chat. you hoped that maybe they wouldn’t ask what happened, but of course they did.

[hongjoong]: what happened?

[y/n]: i dont want to talk abt it

the chat was quiet after that, no one really knowing what to say. but, again, mingi sent you a private message.

[mingi]: where are you???

you didn’t want to explain anything and you didn’t want to pretend you were fine, so you just sent him your location, his ‘ill be right there’ coming just a few seconds after you’d sent your message. you were somewhat relieved that you wouldn’t have to be alone right now, but you also dreaded having to explain what happened. for now, though, you should probably focus on looking a little more like a person and a little less like you’d just spent the past hour crying. even though you had it didn’t have to be obvious like that, so you tried to clean off the streaks of ruined makeup on your cheeks, using your phone as a makeshift mirror. once you were done you tilted your head to see if there was anything you’d missed, but it was okay. it wasn’t good, but it was the best you could do right now. then, you waited.

you’d put in your headphones after roughly two minutes of waiting, way too nervous at every single sound that surrounded you, but that also made you miss mingi shouting your name once he’d arrived, and the sudden appearance of his large frame in your field of vision did surprise you quite some, flinching visibly before you took out your headphones and looked up at him, trying to smile but failing miserably. and he immediately caught on, sitting down next to where you were sitting on the floor and looking at you silently for a moment.

“do you want a hug?” he didn’t know what else to offer, but he wanted to let you know that he was there for you, and you willingly accepted the offer. he wrapped his arms around you then, pulling you a little closer so you could rest your head on his shoulder, and then you continued to sit in silence. it was strangely comforting, having someone there for you even when they had no idea what you were even upset about, offering you their presence and leaving the choice of whether or not you wanted to tell to you. you didn’t want to have to leave this situation, the safety you felt when embraced by mingi, who was much taller than you and who made you feel like, even just by virtue of his height, he could protect you. but you had to, you knew you did, you couldn’t spend all day wherever you were now.

“we should go home.” mingi hummed in response, removing his arms from where they were wrapped around you, and the two of you got up. he looked at you hesitantly - you could tell he wanted to say or ask something, so you cocked your head, encouraging him this way to tell you whatever was on his mind.

“they’re all worried, so i was wondering… i told them i’m going to meet you, but i think they’d feel better if they could see for themselves that you’re in one piece.” you nodded, both as a sign of understanding and to show that it was fine with you to meet them before you went home. he nodded as well, slowly starting to walk and somewhat unsure if you’d actually follow him, but you did.

you walked in silence until you reached the train station, where he bought the ticket for you again. you looked at him, about to protest, but when he told you it was his treat again you just nodded, not having the energy to argue and also glad that you could save the money seeing how very soon you’d need every single won. after that, you were silent again, sitting next to each other with your head on his shoulder, which you’d have been embarrassed and shy about if you weren’t so exhausted. you were exhausted, though, and it took all your energy to not fall asleep on him - but at least you succeeded with that, your eyes still somewhat open when he told you you had to get off at the next stop. you sat up, then, immediately missing the warmth and comfort of him so close to you. the boys made you feel weirdly safe, and you couldn’t tell why it was - maybe it was just the unusual feeling of having friends that cared about you even when you had nothing to offer, but no matter what it was, it was nice.

another thing that was nice was that mingi didn’t make you talk, didn’t even try. he’d talk, but he didn’t mind if you didn’t reply. he’d just resume his story, letting you know that he wasn’t ignoring you but that he didn’t expect anything from you. and with this behaviour you slowly started to feel better, feeling ready to tell what had happened by the point you reached the boys’ place.

“mingi?” it seemed like they’d been waiting for him to come home, shouting his name as soon as he’d closed the door behind you.

“and y/n!”, he replied, entering the living room with you in tow. you were somewhat surprised to find them all already gathered there, but mingi didn’t seem to be. he just plopped down on the couch, patting the space next to him to signal you to sit down as well. so you did, staring at your hands as soon as you’d sat down, unsure how to start. and they were unsure as well, unsure if they should ask you or wait until you started talking by yourself.

“i…”, you started, but then stopped again. this was hard.

“i’m sorry for not taking your calls”, was how you decided on starting. “i just- i couldn’t. everything was so much.” and even though you hadn’t even started actually explaining yet a small sob already escaped from your lips, and you hid your face in shame. you looked up again though when you felt a hand on your knee, giving it a reassuring squeeze, and looked at the boy attached to the hand - mingi. he looked at you with soft, encouraging eyes, and you took a few slow breaths before you started talking again.

“they hate me. in class, one of them spilled water on my classmate’s laptop and broke it, and then she said it was me, that i did it because i was jealous of that classmate’s good grades.” you tried very hard to stay calm while telling, not wanting to break down crying before you even finished explaining why you’d ignored them, why you’d run away from class without telling anyone where you were.

“and everyone believed her because no one saw and she doesn’t have a reason to do it but the way she framed it i do, and now the girl is so angry because she was writing her thesis and i think it’s gone now and also the laptop is broken and i have to replace it and i just… i can’t afford that and i don’t know what to do and- ouch!” mingi’s hand had remained on your knee while you spoke, but the more you elaborated the tighter his grip got, seemingly without him noticing, because when he heard you yelp he immediately took away his hand and apologised profoundly for having hurt you.

“i’m just so fucking angry that she’d do that”, he explained. “you literally haven’t done anything!” and he wasn’t the only angry one, either, all the boys visibly fuming.

“but i can’t do anything about it”, you said, sounding defeated, “but i’m so scared that i’ll be kicked out of the course because i need it for my degree and if i get kicked out due to gross misbehaviour, even when it wasn’t actually me, i’ll lose my scholarship and then i won’t be able to continue studying and i won’t have a degree either and no one will hire me and i’ll end up homeless and in debt and… and…” you were unable to continue, your sobs having completely taken over at this point. you felt pathetic for breaking down like this, but your entire future was on the line just because you’d chosen to pick your friends yourself rather than waiting for approval. it was unfair, and it was horrible, and it reinforced the belief in you that if you didn’t do what others told you to do, the consequences would be horrible.

mingi wrapped his arm around your shoulder, pulling you into his chest - it seemed like out of the eight boys he was the one who’d taken on the role of your protector now, always taking care of you like this, ever since you first met. the others were there as well, of course, but they were more of a silent support as mingi actually pulled you in, and it was okay that way. it worked that way, his deep voice and careful touch being able to calm you down enough that you were able to breathe somewhat regularly again.

“i want to go home now”, you said once the worst was over. you were still sniffling, but you didn’t care. you wanted to go back to your bed, you wanted to hug the teddy bear that you’d owned since you were born, you wanted the comfort of your own home. being here with them was nice, and it had helped you calm down, but your own home, your own bed, was still something different. and it seemed like they could understand that wish to be in a familiar environment, because they just nodded.

“i’ll bring you.” the way he’d said it it didn’t sound like you had a choice, but it was okay. the tall boy had been there for you all afternoon, and he (and the others too, really) would probably feel better if he knew you were home safe and sound. you hummed in response which he correctly interpreted as your okay, because he got up with you and followed you to the door where you stopped to say goodbye and thank them for listening. then you left, the red-haired giant following suit silently.

the train station wasn’t far away, as you knew by now, and the two of you walked next to each other in silence. once there, he paid for your ticket again without a second thought, and while you did feel guilty about it you also were glad he did so. your head rested on his shoulder again during the train ride, something you didn’t even think about anymore; being close to him felt natural, maybe due to the fact that there’d been a lot of good reasons to be close to him in the roughly three days you’d known each other, maybe because he didn’t seem to register it as something noteworthy either.

you didn’t talk during the trip, the first time either of you said anything being when you told him, once you’d gotten off the train, that you were glad he’d brought you, and tried to say goodbye to him unsuccessfully because he told you he’d walk you home unless you’d report him for stalking if he did so. you shook your head, smiling slightly, and started walking. it was once more him who kept the (so far nonexistent) conversation alive, commenting on anything with a child-like wonder in his voice. it sounded like he’d never seen a tree before, or a street, or a house - everything seemed to surprise and somewhat excite him, and in all honesty you thought it was sweet. he managed to distract until you reached your apartment this way, but he noticed the way you tensed up as you unlocked the door. a day ago he’d have thought your fear was an overreaction, and maybe its intensity was, but after what had happened today he was fairly certain it was justified.

“do you want me to go in first?”, he asked as you wouldn’t even fully open the door, obviously scared of what would expect you. you nodded and moved to the side, giving him the option to slip inside. and a couple seconds later he was in front of you again, opening the door widely and telling you that everything was okay. first then did you relax even slightly, entering with careful steps as if you were expecting to jump out of the shadows and murder you. mingi was right, your apartment was fine, but you weren’t. you hated this, hated that you didn’t even feel safe in your own home, and that there was nothing you could do about that.

mingi soon caught on to the fact that even though everything was fine you didn’t seem relaxed at all, looking around like a rabbit expecting the fox to jump out any moment and devour it. and it was your scared expression that made the words leave his mouth before he could stop himself.

“do you want me to stay the night?” you looked at him surprised, both at his words and at the fact that he was still there - you’d forgotten about him in your worry.

“you don’t have to.” you didn’t want to be even more of a bother. you didn’t want him to get annoyed at your scaredy cat-behaviour.

“but do you want me to?”

“you don’t have anything here.” really, you were just trying to come up with excuses for not directly answering his question, because the answer would have been a ‘yes’. yes, you did want him to stay the night, but you didn’t want him to do so because he felt like he had to.

“that’s fine. it’s just a night, and i only have late classes tomorrow. do you want me to?”

you couldn’t stand to look at him as you nodded, feeling weak and vulnerable and like a burden, but he just said ‘okay’, then got out his phone and started typing.

“i’m just letting them know”, he explained when he saw your questioning expression, and you nodded again. you felt slow, tired, and you just wanted to sleep. and yet once more he seemed to know exactly what you were thinking.

“you should go to bed”, he told you softly, “i’ll be right here.”

“you need sleep too!” it was first then you realised that you couldn’t offer him the luxury of choosing his bed for the night, that you couldn’t even offer him the luxury of having anything bigger than a single-person bed. but he didn’t seem to care, nodding.

“just get ready. i’ll wait.” and because you were way too tired to argue about anything at all, you just grabbed your pyjamas from your bed and left for the bathroom to get changed. you got into your pyjamas and wiped the worst stains off your face with a wet washcloth, but didn’t have the energy for anything else. this would have to do for today.

mingi was waiting for you on the floor when you got back, jacket, shirt and shoes huddled together next to him. maybe usually you’d have been a little flushed at him being shirtless, but in this moment all that mattered was getting into bed and sleeping. so you crawled underneath your blanket, moving as close to the wall as possible so he’d be able to still comfortably fit in next to you. he joined, pulling the blanket to cover both of you, and as soon as he’d done so you told him goodnight, him replying with a ‘goodnight’ of his own. he was fairly certain you’d fall asleep right away by how exhausted you seemed, but he found himself surprised when after roughly half an hour you were still tossing and turning.

“you okay?” he didn’t know if this was normal for you or something to be worried about, but he wanted to be sure you weren’t suffering silently just because you didn’t want to bother him.

“tell me something nice”, was what you replied instead of answering his question.

“what do you want to hear?”

“i don’t care. something happy.”

he thought for a moment before he started telling you about his seventh birthday, trying to remember as many details as possible so he’d have something to tell until you’d fallen asleep. his low, calm voice calmed your anxious heartbeat a little, and you stopped shifting so much. you did, however, scoot closer to him subconsciously, your back soon pressed against his chest as you sought out his comforting presence, his warmth. he wasn’t sure if you’d done it on purpose, so he didn’t immediately wrap his arm around you, softly putting his fingertips onto your waist first to wait for your reaction, to see if you’d shy away from his touch. but you did the opposite, grabbing his hand and pressing it close to your chest as if it was a lifeline keeping you from drowning. he just resumed his story, not commenting on it, and you were glad he didn’t. and cuddled up like that his deep, steady voice managed to lull you to sleep.

[twoticky]

im begging u to post the review <3 im on my knees rn

ohhh boy here we go!

Julien's Super Official Review of House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

first of all i gotta say this is like the densest weirdest "horror" book you will ever read. no shit there are several pages just dedicated to naming nearly every famous building/work of architecture ever to exist! the majority of it is written in a faux-academic tone, so if that's already not your thing stop right here. or keep reading if you want to hear me rant about literature for many many paragraphs.

the basic plot of the book is that a man (will navidson) and his family move into a suburban house that seems relatively ordinary until they discover it's bigger on the inside. following this reveal a lot more weird shit happens, including a mysterious door appearing in navidson's living room leading... further in. HOWEVER -- and here's the big catch -- this isn't actually the subject of the book! this is the plot of a fictional film called the navidson record, and the actual text of the book is an analysis of the film written by a man called zampanô, EXCEPT that said analysis is actually a text found by the real narrator, johnny truant, after zampanô's death. still following?

i'm probably making it sound completely confusing and/or like a total slog to get through -- which it definitely could be, believe me! (and i haven't even touched on johnny truant's character. or the significant amounts of Deeply Unnecessary sexual content. did we really need a graphic description of a prostate orgasm, mark? did we really?)

and yet! there were some parts that totally slapped! i'm a total slut for weird horror and experimental fiction, and my absolute favorite horror trope is weird & haunted houses (i mean, even my url is based off that!). if you wished that shirley jackson's the haunting of hill house had a fiction interview with anne rice and contained quotes from homer you're in the right place. im already a bit fond of this book just for being so fucking weird, (how many times have i said "weird" by now? like five?) & the weirdness of house of leaves is pulled off surprisingly well. all three central characters have distinct personalities and voices that come through really clearly and johnny truant isn't necessarily a likeable character but god damn is he complicated! the story is disturbing, too, but the weird detachment of the format makes some of the creepiest moments lose their immediacy (not all of them, though). ultimately i think the way it's told -- including the boring parts -- are part of the story and altho i don't love all of them i respect them as choices.

my only real, genuine, bone to pick is that the treatment of women in the book is pretty ehhhhhh. you'll notice all three central characters are men, and johnny p overtly objectifies the women in his life in an Uncomfy way. (remember what i said abt all the sex scenes?) navidson's wife, karen green, gets to have a bigger part in the story as it goes on, and i'm not saying writing a misogynistic character always makes someone a misogynist, but, like, to my ladies out there i just want yall to have a full disclaimer.

tldr if you don't want to read my long rambling mess: this book is terrible to read AND well written AND totally insufferable AND the cause of all my nightmares <3 if you want to read a real weird book you won't be disappointed, but like... it's hardly light summer reading or necessarily y'know fun. i'm kind of conflicted on it myself, but for whatever it's worth im glad i spent many hours of my life reading whatever the fuck this was.

ALSO: i'd really advise looking up the TWs for this book b4 u read bc there's a lot of Heavy Content of various descriptions. thestorygraph has good community-sourced trigger warnings but if you know of any other sites pls drop em in the notes!

[buckymcbuttfacebarnes]

Bashful Creatures (4)

masterlist

(yall imma be honest with u i dont know what the FUCK is going on with my tags sometimes they work sometimes they dont, im finna edit this so if u get tagged twice IM SO SORRY)

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Word Count: abt 1.8k

Summary: Y/N feels herself beginning to fall in love with her best friend. This part picks up immediately after the incidents of part 3!

Warnings: at this point yall know the drill

A/N: (extended portions written in italics are memories!) love y’all thank u so much for the kind feedback! let me know what u think of this part!!! soz it took 85 yrs school and stuff got me all effed up! i think i might do pt 5 in buckys pov?? or just do both in one and like switch off idk??

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

The sound of the door slamming shut resonated through you, stunned you, but you didn’t try to stop him from leaving. He needed space to cool off. The least you could do was give that to him. The deafening silence settled into something uncomfortable and awkward, even though it was just you and it. You and the silence. It felt like wearing a shirt too tight for your body, an ill-fitting second skin that you couldn’t seem to peel off.

Your eyes flitted around your bedroom, the place where you had retreated immediately after the ordeal, fragments of Bucky were everywhere. In your bed, at your desk, in the silvery glow of the moon’s rays shining through your window... They seemed to haunt the room with his presence, making it impossible to do anything but focus on him. Nothing but the things you had said and the things he had said to you rung in your head. Over and over again. How could you have let the situation escalate so quickly? Why did it escalate so quickly?  

To escape his phantom presence, you wandered the empty compound, heart beating loudly in your ears as if you were still in the midst of yelling at the man you love so dearly, like you were still caught in the thick of it. Am I your friend or your fucking babysitter? Your fingers twitched and fiddled, wiping dismissively against the sides of your thighs or being shaken out as if wicking water off of them. You imagined his face in your head, the sad  tears that rolled down his cheeks. He let you hold him then. You should have kissed them away and soothed his troubles, assured him of your presence. I’ve come back to you. You should have just told him:  I love you, Bucky. God, how terribly you wanted him to tell you that he loved you too. It seemed so far-fetched, like some unattainable dream. Nothing more than whimsical fantasy because there was no way in hell someone as beautiful as Bucky might love you too. Someone so kind and cunning. Coy and charismatic. Someone so sweet...it seemed impossible that your infatuation could be made into something real. That this was more than some paltry story of love unrequited.

The empty spaces of the compound did nothing to help you escape him. You saw him everywhere you went.

As he swung you around you looked to him with the widest smile, your cheeks were beginning to ache.  You couldn’t suppress the laugh that bubbled from your lips, spilling out of you like a kettle boiling over.

“What? What?” he asked defensively, the grin on his face betraying his tone. “Hold on, we haven’t even gotten to the best part!”

It was just the two of you, alone in the compound, and you were embracing every moment of it.

“Quit laughin’ and  listen,” he shushed, tapping his ear with a forefinger before his hand returned to its place on the small of your back.

“I’m listening!”

“You aren’t if you’re ta—” You cut him off by placing a hand over his mouth. You ignored his warning look and slowly removed your hand, revealing his smiling mouth.

The music that blared from the speakers beside the TV  began to swell with the clear, bubbly blare of trumpets. It filled the sunlit room and mingled with the sounds of your uncontrollable giggles and his successive chuckles. It filled  you with an unimaginable warmth. Your heart began to pound faster, was it the music? Or was it Bucky? The way he was smiling, with all of his pearly whites showing, so wide that there were crinkles at the corners of his eyes. Maybe it was the loose strands of hair that framed his face, or the two aquamarine eyes that peered down at you, glittering like two of the most beautiful gemstones you had ever seen.

Perhaps it was the way his hands rested comfortably against your back. There was a time where he was weary about touching you at all. A time where he worried he might frighten you, or underestimate his strength. A time where he wouldn’t remove his glove, even though you’d seen the sparkling metal countless times on missions.  He thought it to be a threat. A  reminder of his dark past, some sort of defect that made him unloveable. How could he believe such a thing when you were standing there in front of him, hands clasped at the back of his neck, grinning up at him like a fool? How could he believe such a thing when the look of love shined in your eyes the way the metal of his left hand glinted in the hot sun? How could he believe such a thing when you loved him?

On a day that felt like yesterday, you had fallen in love with Bucky Barnes. In that moment it felt right, the warmth that spread through you, the way your fingertips seemed to grow hot, and you chewed unknowingly on your lower lip—a telltale sign of nerves. He didn’t seem to notice though, so you basked in the feeling, let it wash over you like the build of the beautiful music he had playing in the background. In that moment, there was no doubts. You confidently thought, This is love. And it was.  

And though after those few sweet moments you’d begun to doubt your feelings were there or that they were more than some immature thirst for romance, the fondness you harbored in your chest for him then remained there for a long time. Now it seemed to burn brighter than ever.

You continued your aimless trek through the compound, your bones felt heavy, your body sluggish. You made a stop in the kitchen to pour a glass of water. Your eyes flickered to the kitchen table that you had once sat at. Where Bucky had stood across from you and vulnerably asked, “Where were you last night?” He had told you he had been looking for you. An indirect way of saying that he had needed you and you weren’t there.

You knew that...yet you still stared into those suddenly child-like eyes and gave him gave him a painfully pathetic reply: “I was out. Had a hot date.”

It was hard not to cringe at the thought of the pitiful exchange. How the fuck was he to forgive you after something like that?

Your eyelids pressed shut, squeezing together in some attempt to force the memory from your brain. Heavy shudders of breath left your parted lips. Weary elbows came to rest upon the cold countertop, your head hung low in your hands. How did this happen? You asked silently. Tears sprung to your eyes and a sudden sob racked your body. You hadn’t expected to cry, but it washed over you in a forceful wave. It was turbulent and uncontrollable. You were glad he wasn’t here to see it. Partly because you feared he might cry again too, partly because it was possible that he may not care at all. How could I leave him all alone? You thought of the way his eyes glistened with tears. How his hands hesitantly came up to pull yours from his face. The way he had fled so urgently from your touch, as if your hands might cause him some physical harm. The thick lump that had formed in your throat choked you, you heaved heavy breaths between your violent sobs. You wept until your eyes formed no more tears, until your head throbbed, until you were completely exhausted.

With a glass of water in hand, you made your way to your room, mind blank. On the way, you abruptly stopped and turned around. You let your legs carry you without protest. They seemed to know where they were going.

You ended up at Bucky’s door. You didn’t know when he would come home, but you knew that when he did, you wanted to be with him. And so you entered. Heavy lidded eyes glanced around the room as the light flickered on. There was a bed, a plain bedside table, a desk, a desk chair. He was more for functionality than style, you had always known that. Upon his desk was a photo of himself and Steve. The surface of his bedside table was covered by a record player, the only special thing that he had ever really asked for. There were a couple plants here and there, courtesy of you. You had wanted to liven up the painfully minimalistic room just a little bit. You flicked the switch and the room went dark again. Curled up beneath his duvet, you inhaled deeply through your nose, exhaling loudly. It was all Bucky. You longed for him. For his gaze, for his touch, his laugh, his silky voice.  You withheld another sob. You needed him here.

When he got home you would tell him. You would tell him that you loved him, that you were sorry. You imagined his warm body slipping into bed beside you. He would hold you in his arms and maybe then you’d tell him. Or maybe he’d say he didn’t want to talk and instead you would fall asleep together. Bodies intertwined like unruly vines, breaths perfectly synchronized. He would sleep all night because he only slept well when you were there to keep him tethered to reality. You’re here, we’re together. It’s alright. You’ve come back to me.

You would wake to the soft crackling of a record on its turntable and the great crescendo of some euphonious song that he happened to know. He might get you to dance with him, as he often liked to do. Swing you around the room and send you smiles full of mischief. Or maybe he’d be lying beside you still asleep. The only music would be the sound of his gentle huffs of breath. You would look upon his softened features, dotingly stroke his cheek, then maybe blush in embarrassment at your sentimental behavior. You would ignore the bashful smile that would force itself upon your lips, ignoring your brain’s protests, and hope that things could be like this all the time. You would tell him so. You would tell him you loved him. You would say that you’re never going to leave. He would say he loved you too.

When you woke the next morning, you woke to an empty bed. Bucky had not come home that night.

@slender–spirit @katielu-blog @bookhoggerph @sergeant-james-bbarnes @killjoynotes @thirstresponsibly @cherrywinedarling @janeyboo @buckybarnesxoxo @depressed-fangirl​ @tchallaholla @rheasneonjournal @lilypalmer1987 @zeonxox @sarahp897 @sebspeach @kat-lives @graveyardfairy @fandom-obsessed-girl @painkiller80  @i-had-a-life-once @writingsleepless @starkxpotts @damagelove @buckybarnestrashh

i had to come back and fix the effing tags since they dont know how to act so if yall got tagged like 849 times it was my fault soz im a dumbass love yall!

message me if you’d like to be added to the taglist for this fic<3

[youngjaelook]

Regret It — Bodyguard!Wu Yifan

author's note — i had gotten requests to do yifan angst and jakwnaowme im so so so sorry it took this long for me to deliver! also this is lowkey abt junmyeon and reader idk im sorryygaiwnajw hope u guys enjoy this anyways <33 #UNEDITED

request from anon — Can I get a request with Kris Wu? Bodyguard AU! Angst.

request from @biathinks — I heard requests were open so can you write an angsty yifan drabble lol thanks

summary — You eventually fall for the man you can't have, your bodyguard. And in the end, it might just get you both killed.

warnings — character death, angst & strong language.

word count — 2.4K

"You're supposed to be protecting the boss' sister, not fucking her brains out." Hui was worried for his hyung. The end result of his reckless behavior and raging hormones would probably be him swallowing led. "Hyung, are you even paying attention to what I'm saying?"

Yifan had heard it all before. The warnings, the scoldings, nothing about it was new to him. He knew the consequences of his actions, but he didn't really bother to quote, "give a flying fuck about it."

Yifan simply smiled at the younger boy and chuckled. "Don't worry about me, Hui-ah. I won't die, at least not yet." Hui visibly cringed at the last part. He cared about Yifan immensely. I mean, how could he not? Yifan had practically raised him ever since he had first joined the mafia and the mere thought of the older man being shot dead, or worse, tortured, made his heart clench in pain.

"What if they hurt her too? Just to spite you."

Yifan hadn't thought of it that way. He swallowed thickly and shook his head. "That won't happen."

Hui fiddled the ends of his jacket and sighed. "Who are you trying to convince here? Me or yourself?"

The images came in a blinding white. You were splayed on the floor, crimson pooling around your limp body. The maniacal laugh of your brother ringing in his ears. Yifan blinked them away. "Just drink your beer and let's get the hell out of here already."

The conversation ended there. There was no more talk after that, not even when they piled inside the car and drove off.

It was nearly half past ten and you were buried underneath layers of soft, silk sheets, asleep and at peace, until had felt the familiar touch of Yifan lingering on the exposed skin of your cheek. You stirred in your sleep and unbeknownst to you, you smiled out of instinct.

Yifan did this often. He would come into your room when the manor fell quiet and asleep, admiring the image of yourself in deep, tranquil slumber. He thought you looked prettiest like this; eyes closed, lips parted and mind at rest. He knew you also felt better when you were asleep because then you wouldn't have to face your demons, or your brother, which who could also amount to the title of the devil's associate himself.

When his touch could no longer be felt on your skin, you whined involuntarily and called for him.

Yifan couldn't resist you, even from the start when you were just merely the boss' sister, whom he'd have to guard and protect at all costs. "Sleep well now, baby." His voice coaxes you back to sleep.

Morning comes and you're now alone in your bed, much to your dismay. You ran a finger along your cheek, reminiscing the way Yifan's touch had lingered there. You smiled to yourself at the thought of him.

And speaking of the devil, he comes through the door, hair slightly unkempt and lips set in a frown. "Get ready, your brother is coming to visit."

"Brother," the word tastes bitter in your mouth and for one reason only; Junmyeon could never call himself your brother. The man, although sweet and kind towards you, was anything but towards those who worked, or rather slaved, for him and to those who had wronged him or your family.

Yifan sighed. "Please just ready," with that, he leaves and you get out of bed with a roll of your eyes, and a slump of your shoulders.

You always dreaded visits from your brother. Talking to him was like talking to a ticking time bomb. At any given moment, he could explode and the damage was far beyond repair. You've been there many times before, but unlike the rest, you're probably the only one who makes it out alive each time. Being his sister had it's perks, I guess you could say.

You're dressed in white when he comes through the manor's doors. He looks dashing and handsome as per usual; hair slicked back, suit pressed and crisp, and designer shoes shiny and pristine as he takes long strides towards you. You don't bother to hide the displeasure in your face when he stops in front of you. You didn't like your brother, that much was obvious, so why bother hiding it?

Junmyeon tried to give you a smile.

"Y/N," he greets you. "how uhm, how have you been?"

Your gaze hardens and you peer behind his shoulder to catch a glimpse of the pretty plaything he managed to drag along. Poor girl, is all you can think of for her. "I've been better. What about yourself? I see you've brought someone along with you today? She's pretty."

Junmyeon glances behind his shoulder and nods. "She's just a friend —"

"Oh I'm sure she is." Junmyeon narrows his eyes at you as if to tell you to cut it out, but you enjoyed to poke fun at him. It's refreshing to see him all flustered and red. It makes you feel better.

"Ah Yifan, so good to see you." You don't miss the shift in your brother's tone. It sends a chill down your spine. And judging by the sinister glint in his eyes, you figure Junmyeon knows something you don't. "Now that you're here, I'd like to speak to both of you in the dining hall. Perhaps, in private?" You glance over at Yifan for a brief moment, panic evident in your eyes.

Yifan, on the other hand, remains calm and stoic. Not flinching once when your brother sends him and yourself a mischievous stare.

Junmyeon situates himself at the the head of the table because growing up, he's been taught that whoever sat at the head of the table had the most power and Junmyeon knew he had power, a lot of it actually.

He pulls out his gun from it's holster and twirls it around in his hand.

"You both know, especially you Yifan, that I hate it when people deceive me." He starts and you already know where this is going and where this will end. "So imagine my surprise when a little birdy tells me that one of my best men goes behind my back and starts fucking around with my sister." You were caught red handed.

Yifan doesn't even flinch when Junmyeon cocks his pistol and aims it at him.

"I need to hear you both admit it right now. Tell me right now, or I swear to god I will shoot you in the fucking head —"

"Why do you even care, Junmyeon?"

Junmyeon can't contain his shock at your informal addressing towards him. You usually called him oppa, or Junmyeon-oppa. He glared at you. "Why do I even — What do you even mean by that? Of course I care! I'm your brother for god's sake!"

You step in front of Yifan, arms crossed and eyes turned into slits. This was your tipping point.

You scoffed. "You don't act like one, that's for sure."

Junmyeon's eyes widen. "Excuse me?"

"You know what I don't get? How can you claim to care for me yet you hurt the people I love, leave me to wither away in this god forsaken mansion? You don't care for me, you don't even love me." Junmyeon had never felt this overwhelmed by hurt in a long time. The last time he felt this way was when your parents had been massacred along with a few of your uncles and close family friends.

"You push me away, locked me in here, and killed our Shownu-oppa and yet demand that I respect and treat you like you're my brother?" Your voice rises with each word your utter and by the end of your sentence, you're screaming your lungs out and crying pathetically.

Yifan has his hands on either side of your waist and this seems to set Junmyeon off. The bullet misses Yifan by millimeters and he cripples to the ground, clutching his ringing ear.

"What the fuck!" You yell at Junmyeon, who looks absolutely livid with his wild, bloodshot eyes.

He stands up from his seat and storms over to where you stood. "Get out of the fucking way." But you stood your ground, shielding Yifan's body with your own.

"Move or I will shoot you." He threatened.

You mocked him. "I dare you."

Junmyeon, blinded by rage, slaps you across the cheek so hard it sends you flying to the floor. Yifan sees this and is quick to tackle Junmyeon to the ground with a yell. "You don't fucking put your hands on her!" He growls in between his jabs.

Yifan is aware that he's a dead man after this whole situation. You don't beat your boss to a pulp and expect to come out alive in the end. Again, there are always consequences to your actions. But for you, Yifan is willing to risk it all.

Hui watches with wide eyes as Yifan lands a particularly hard blow, and a loud crunch could be heard throughout the room. He practically drags Yifan off their boss and rushes to aid Junmyeon, who, by the looks of it, is in pretty bad shape. "Jesus Christ! Yifan, you nearly killed him!" The other men in the room back him into a corner with their guns raised at him.

"Yifan!"

All eyes fall on you and the evident gash on your cheek. There's blood that runs down your face. Junmyeon's ring, the ring that all of the mafia wore, Yifan included, had broke the skin of your face, which resulted in you bleeding profusely. He hit you pretty damn hard.

The pretty girl Junmyeon had brought with him earlier was by his side, wiping away the blood that dripped from the wound on his eyebrow with the sleeves of the blazer she had on and glared at you.

"Get off me, I'm alright!" Junmyeon struggled to get on his feet, but managed anyways. He walked slowly towards Yifan. "You're a fucking dead man, you know that? First, you screw my sister, and now you try to kill me? You have a fucking death wish!" Yifan grins smugly at him. "I should have hit you harder." The first shot was made and the bullet went straight into Yifan's thigh.

You screamed and ran towards Yifan, but you were pulled back by Hui, who looked absolutely mortified in that moment. He didn't want you to get caught in the cross fire.

"Junmyeon stop! Stop it!" But your pleas fell on deaf ears as the second shot echoed in your ears. This time, the bullet dug itself into his arm. "The next bullet is going straight through your fucking head."

You pounded against Hui's chest as you screamed desperately for your brother to stop. "You think killing him will make you a better brother? You think I'd ever forgive you after this? I hate you and I will always hate you no matter what!" That seemed to struck a nerve in Junmyeon as his gun was now aimed at you.

"Shut the fuck up!" He sneered.

Hui's grip seemed to loosen around you, and you took this opportunity to march right up to your brother. "What, you're going to shoot me now? Just like you shot Shownu-oppa? You think you're capable of killing another one of your siblings, huh?"

Tears spilled from the brim of his slightly swollen eyes and it's the first time in a long time you've seen him like this; so vulnerable and hurt.

"Let's face it, Junmyeon. We can never go back to the way we once were, you had decided that the moment you killed our brother."

Junmyeon was practically breathing in your face as he stepped closer. "He killed our parents. He killed aeomma and appa, even Heechul-hyung. You remember Heechul, don't you? He was a kind man, extremely warm and loving. But he's dead and it's all because of Shownu."

You swallowed bitterly. "Our parents weren't good people, nor was Heechul-oppa and you know that. You and I can both attest to their wrong doings. I remember we were kids and you told me, you fucking promised me that you were going to be nothing like them. But here you are now, a monster. Just like our parents. Just like the person you promised you'd never become."

Junmyeon wails and for a moment, you think he'd change his mind, that he'd finally come to his senses. But the gun goes off for the third time and your white dress is tainted in crimson. Your cripple to your knees and you hear Yifan scream in the background.

Junmyeon doesn't even look at you as you bled out on the floor.

"You are a bastard! I'll fucking kill you!" Yifan is red in the face, tears streaming down his cheeks as he watches as you struggle to breathe and cope with the burning sensation in your side. "I'll kill you."

Junmyeon smiles at him. "I'll see you in hell."

Four gun shots and Yifan falls limp to the floor.

Junmyeon sighs. "Get her to Doctor Choi, so he can stitch her up or something."

Everything just happens in a blur and on occasion, you fall in and out of an inviting darkness that wraps itself around you like a warm, cashmere blanket. You had never felt so at peace.

You were half-awake when you hear your brother's soft voice talking to you. "I'm trying. I really am. I don't want you to go down the path I went, or the path Shownu-hyung went. I want you to be different, to be better."

"I'm just scared for you," he admits in a low voice. "All I want is the best for you. Yifan, that man was just going to get you killed. Hell, even being my sister could get you killed. But I just, I don't want to risk it any further." When his lips press against the back of your hand, your heart cries out and you suddenly want to be nine, playing with paper airplanes with Junmyeon and making promises you can't keep.

"I did this for you." He gets up and starts to walk to the exit.

Your eyes flutter open. "You killed the man I love, you could never justify that." Junmyeon spins around and stares at you wide-eyed. "Sometimes, I wish it was you that died and not Shownu-oppa." When the words roll of your tongue, a strange feeling of relief fills your chest along with the bitter taste of regret lingering in your mouth.

Junmyeon nods and smiles softly at you. "Me too, me too."