#and lately i have only been able to write on my commute. at least until the motion-drowsiness takes over.
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was lowkey feeling kind of down on myself for not having this second chapter finished yet but then checked the word count and realized, oh, it's just gonna be really long. and I'm okay with that.
#liz shouting about her fic writing progress into the void#like there are segments of the movie that fit so neatly into a chapter arc#i guess those would be the acts lol#but it's like...20 to 30 min of action#so there's a LOT to write#but uh...I'm getting to the good part ifyouknowwhatimean#anyways it's weird because for a long while i've been like 'i must have perfect conditions!'#and lately i have only been able to write on my commute. at least until the motion-drowsiness takes over.#but - my boss is out today#which means#i do not want to try that hard#so i may just...write this dair scene instead of doing my job...we'll see...#so ummmmm moral of this post is#the updates may come more slowly#but that's because these are gonna be long ass chapters
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Anyone Still Here?
So... it's been a while. I had a baby. I traveled with her internationally for a wedding. She turned one. I built a house and moved into it. I had a dental emergency a few days before my closing. Everything in the new house is now toddler proofed... until she thinks of a new way to get into a dangerous situation. I think that many life events safely defines my hiatus as "extended."
The Choices fandom is, I'm guessing, dying. I've not been on Tumblr or even the Choices subreddit with any regularity in over a year at this point, so I don't know this as a fact, but I have my suspicions. The mass culling of PB staff, the acquisition of PB by an AI company, former talent from PB starting a competing app would tend to indicate trouble on its own.
But a dying fandom is one that is more worth coming back to, though. I firmly believe that. When the original content is floundering, when fan engagement is dropping, that is the time that fan works matter the most. So, knowing that my readership is likely going to be non-existent and that my series have probably been written off as dead for quite some time, I'm looking to come back.
I've been "writing" in my mind on my commute again lately. Found myself missing engaging with these characters. Most of all, I want to finish my current WIPs. I don't know if literally anyone who was reading them before is still around. But if anyone is, I want to know if you have preferences about how I go about tackling finishing up my two unfinished TRR canon divergent series - Why Are We Still Waiting? and Fight or Flight. (And yes, I still remember how they both end, hahaha)
Not sure there are enough people to warrant true polls, so just going to post this here:
Do you prefer that I alternate between my two ongoing series, or is tackling one first, then moving on to the other preferable? If the latter, any preference on which series I start with?
Do you prefer I post as I have a chapter done without any regular schedule, or would waiting longer for me to finish the series so I am able to guarantee posting dates be better?
Would links to AO3 be acceptable if I find myself getting annoyed with Tumblr formatting, or will you only read on Tumblr itself?
If you have opinions, I want to hear them. If you've left the fandom, I hope life is treating you kindly and don't worry, I'll be posting a tag list clean up post before I start posting any writing again so you won't get spammed. If you've straight up forgotten who I am, no worries. It's been ages. Trying to find my most recent tag list is a joke at this point. I think this is my "up to date" version for my TTR stuff at least, but sorry in advance if you either should or shouldn't be included and weren't/were respectively.
Perma: @forallthatitsworth @mom2000aggie @kingliam2019 @lovingchoices14
TRR/TRH: @motorcitymademadame @iplaydrake @princessleac1 @twinkleallnight @marshmallowsandfire
@axwalker @sirbeepsalot @iaminlovewithtrr @marshmallowsaremyfavorite @hedgehogs-dilemmas
Drake x MC: @rubiwalker @walkerdrakewalker @petiteboheme @mskaneko
ICWAM: @sunnyxdazed
FoF: @burnsoslow @monstercyclops
#choices fanfiction#drake x mc#guess whos back#the in progress label on my masterlists is kind of pushing it at this point#but I want to fix that#if a han leia writer came back after seven years to finish her abandoned wip I can come back after about two right#seriously#I hope at least a few people are around still#But if not I still do plan to wrap these series up properly
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I have unfettered access to nearly any media/entertainment that I could ever want and yet…
I am too [eh?] to enjoy any of it.
I know I’m not the only one dealing with this. Maybe some of y’all are too. Come wallow with me! Tell me what you haven’t finished watching or reading!
I still haven’t finished watching DoTA: Dragon’s Blood s2, haven’t watched LoGH Die Neue These s3 yet, haven’t haven’t watched gen:LOCK s2 yet, haven’t watched any Gundam since part of Iron Blooded Orphans, haven’t watched Trese yet, haven’t finished Heaven Official’s Blessing yet, haven’t the finished Sasuke yet, haven’t watched Yamato 2205…
I’m still excited to see that there will be new animation on Netflix. I hope I will be out of this funk before they drop.
I have time to watch. I want to say it’s depression, but I think it’s more like burnout from environmental overstimulation and chronic pain that’s making it difficult. Like I can’t sit in my favorite chair/couch/etc for hours on end to binge a show or read a book or comic. I’ve always been a marathon reader/player/watcher/etc. My home environment is too cluttered and overwhelming. Too much going on around me. Yay ADHD + Autism.
I met my big life goal of having good career without commute so that I would have time to enjoy things! It’s great! And yet here I am. I have time to do marathon watch/read/play at least once per week. The rest of my free time needs to be put into fixing up my 100 year old home, social/family obligations, and therapy for pain management (for all the good that does me). Chronic pain and fatigue stole my mid-late 30s from me. I’m now in my early 40s and the fatigue is managed/minimal (finally!), but the pain is still a force of chaos in my life—or—rather the manifestation of chaos.
I’ve been like this since late 2018. My solution for watching while in pain was to get an adjustable floor stand for my iPad Pro and watch shows that way. I was able to watch LoGH DNT that way and several other shows. It was working reasonably well, until the pandemic started.
Since 2020, the room where I was watching has been taken over by my partner for watching their shows and playing video games because their comic collecting habit got out of control and took over their own space (media room) in our basement. They work from home now too, and they finally see what it’s like to be surrounded by stuff all the time so they are purging, but that takes a long time.
My home studio is my work space, and the key to not letting work take over your life when you work from home is to have firm boundaries between living space and work space. So I can’t retreat there, and honestly I’m already in that room for 40 hours a week. I may have to give up and rearrange my studio to add a room divider to make a de-sensory space with comfy lounge.
Why did I write all this? Damn therapy hour this morning. I need a drink and a bar fight.
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Break Free
A reflection on the k drama “My Liberation Notes”
“What’s harder than living is finding the reason to” – Freedom by iKON
Freedom. Liberation. Deliverance. Discharge. Get Loose. Release. Break Fee. These words all convey the same idea – to be free from something. But when does one feel like they want to get out of something? When does one feel like they are in a state of confinement? As someone who lives in a democratic country with privileges to enjoy, I have never really thought to myself as a captive or detainee of life until I lie alone on my bed one night and feel suffocated. As I looked at the plain ceiling of my bedroom, I realized how overwhelming my life has become. I realized that in my 26 years of existence I was never really satisfied with how I am living my life. And it’s crazy how while writing this paragraph I can already hear people around me saying “You’re just an ungrateful bitch. Others have it worse” But does others’ “worse” situation than me should be enough reason to invalidate what I am feeling? Now, more than ever, I crave for freedom. I want to be free. I want to be liberated from all these burdens I am carrying. Just like how Mi Jeong in the k drama My Liberation Notes wanted.
Browsing through the clips from the k drama My Liberation Notes has sparked my interest into watching it. Although I’ve read some comments that sometimes it can get boring, I already know that I will be watching it. My sister decided to watch it first though, and she told me that I might be able to relate to it but it can also somehow bore me. Then, I decided to watch it. I have never found a single episode boring or dragging and instead I find it painful. The k drama hurt me by how it mirrors my life. At first, I thought I could only relate to Mi Jeong’s character but then I slowly found pieces of myself in each of the characters.
I do not want to spoil any parts of this k drama as it is very raw and rich and it would be unfair for people who have yet to watch it to be spoiled by its beautiful yet painfully realistic story so, please bear with me if the way I discussed it seems to be vague.
The main characters in this k drama are the three Yeom siblings who are all working in Seoul but still live with their parents in the countryside which is why they spent a lot of their time traveling to and from work (basically like how most Filipinos who work in Manila are experiencing but the big difference is that at least South Korea has a better transportation system while the Philippines…. Oh well, pure fucking hell). One of the characters even said “If I die it will be because of commuting to Seoul for work” and all I can say is “Same, girl” lol. Anyway, with the way they live their everyday lives, I can definitely feel the exhaustion and the feeling of numbness. The Yeom siblings are a great representation of the kind of struggles young adults are facing – sometimes life is a cycle of trying to survive that will only leave one feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. I guess one of the most relatable lines from this drama is when Gi Jeong said “I’ve been so impatient lately. I just want to die already. After 14 years, my job is the same, the meetings are the same, and the people are the same. I curse and get mad the same way. It’s all the same endless repetition” The way the siblings live their life makes me feel like crying because somehow, I live like that too. It mirrors my reality. Like I mentioned a while ago, in this k drama you will not just relate to one character as you will slowly find pieces of yourself in each of the main characters.
The eldest, Gi-Jeong is a hopeless romantic woman in her late 20s (or I guess early 30s? not really quite sure with the characters’ ages) who just wants to find a companion that will love and care for her and at the same time she can love and care for. While at first as a viewer one will find her “desperation” to seek a relationship a bit pitiful, somehow you will learn to understand her. There are days when you feel like you need a different form of release. Like you want to vent to someone that is not a family or a friend… a someone whom you can call home because that someone can understand your soul. Maybe that was also the hopeless romantic in me speaking but yeah, I can totally understand what Gi Jeong is feeling. Although being in a relationship is not a priority for me, there are moments in my life when I feel like the thought of it can be good. Just like Gi Jeong said “Getting to know someone is an amazing thing. It’s not just that person. It’s like they bring several universes with them”
The middle child, Chang Hee, is a hardworking guy who just wanted to be financially secure but it seems like opportunity is elusive. Among the Yeom siblings, Chang Hee is the one who has the most growth by the end of the series and I am proud of him for that. At first, he might be a bit annoying as he is very vocal and is not shy in expressing what he feels. But maybe the feeling of annoyance by Chang Hee’s boldness is more of a feeling of jealousy because at least he can express what he truly feels. Even though he might appear to be ranting, at least he knows how to express himself. And I realized that he has every right to do so. The man has been working hard for years and yet the rewards of his labor seem to not go his way. I can truly relate to the frustrations he is feeling. If one is trying to live their best every single day even though it’s difficult and yet there seems to be no progress, then that person has every right to feel frustrated too. Chang Hee is hard working and yet he seems to not know what he really wants in life. At one moment he even said “I don’t have a specific goal in my life…..Can’t I just live my life without one?” which I find relatable because our society has groomed us to have a specific direction to go to in life which made most of us miserable when we couldn’t find our purpose. Why can’t we just live our life without the pressure to become somebody or something? Is it not enough to live life in a way that could make us feel satisfied? I just want to be financially stable and have the freedom to do things my way. Anyway, another line I like from Chang Hee is “I guess I have been putting up a façade with people. Now that I’m alone, I’ve become so calm and gentle”
Then the youngest one is Mi Jeong, the character I can relate to the most especially when she said the lines “I am not unhappy but I am not happy either” and “It feels like I’m stuck but I don’t know how to get out. That’s probably why I hope everything ends all at once” because it was such a perfect way to describe what I am feeling most of the time. She is an introvert girl who works as a contractual employee in a card design company that has a culture for extroverts. The company requires (but sometimes I feel like they force) their employees to join a club in order for them to have some hang out time outside of work. While I find this culture quite fun and interesting because it seems that the company wants their employees to have a life outside of work, I somehow find it a bit burdensome especially for employees who are just introverted in nature. I felt a bit sad for Mi Jeong as well as her three other co-workers every time they are being called to join a club. I do understand their sides though as I am a bit of an introvert myself. Not everyone has the time and energy to interact with people for a long period of time. Sometimes, people just want to have their peace and solitude through being alone and I hope people would respect that. I remember the times when I was still a newbie at our Department, I got so “culture shocked” by the culture of our division. The way it was required to participate in the dance performances for the Christmas party as a way of initiation for the newly hired scared me. It scared me because I do not like parties and socialization at all. Then there are moments when I feel like I have to join my colleagues at dinners even though all I want is to go home and be left alone. But in my defense, I just want to be alone most of the time and because I live 2 hours (sometimes 3 hours if the traffic is really heavy) away from work so I just want to go home right after work not because I dislike my coworkers. In those moments, I relate to Mi Jeong the most. She did not want to join any club as she lives far from her workplace. And also, what is so bad about not wanting to join dinners and parties after work? Maybe people like Mi Jeong and I just want to do things differently. Mi Jeong even said “Everyone is on their way to their graves so why is everyone so happy and excited?” But since this k drama has a very realistic approach, of course Mi Jeong and her three colleagues have no other choice but to give in to their company’s demand so instead of joining a club, they decided to form their own, The Liberation Club, which I guess is a blessing in disguise. This club brought together the three people who are all fighting their own silent battles and through this club they are able to work on expressing themselves so that eventually they can liberate themselves. Hence, the rule of The Liberation Club is simple: I will not pretend to be happy. I will not pretend to be unhappy. I will be honest.
And since Mi Jeong is the character I relate to the most, allow me to discuss her further. Yeom Mi Jeong might appear to be a sad soul who just wants to be left alone most of the time (like me) but there are moments in life that she questions life in general like when one of her narrations asks “There was only one thing I was curious about: What am I? Why am I here?” The moment she realizes she wants to seek liberation is the moment that touched my heart the most. People like Mi Jeong are often misunderstood by the society because of the sad outlook of life but maybe that happens because one’s feeling of emptiness may manifest itself in the form of self-isolation. Not everyone in this world gets the privilege to wake up one day and realize what they want to be. There are people like Mi Jeong and I who struggle to find meaning in life. And maybe Mi Jeong was right when she said that “Sometimes, I think that people who are damaged are much more honest than those who live their lives happily” because for damaged people like us, there really is no need to pretend that everything is fine that is why we can easily welcome our demons – but defeating them is a whole different story. Mi Jeong is definitely the character that means the most to me.
While the Yeom siblings are the main characters of this show, there are also some characters in here that I find relatable. First is their childhood friend, Du Hwan, who is a coach of a school’s football team and owns a café. Like the Yeom siblings, he seems to be stuck in his life and there are moments when I feel like he wants to be liberated too – he just does not have the courage to make a move. Hyun-ah, another childhood friend of theirs, who seems to be carefree among them all and yet she is also stuck. When she said “I only feel alive when I exhaust myself completely. If I have energy left, I feel heavy” it hurts me. Learning about her life made me feel bad for her as she is fighting her own demons yet putting up a façade that she’s fine. Then there comes the mysterious Mr. Gu. Nobody really knows who he is, even his real name and yet the Yeom family trusts him. Mr. Gu is a very dependable guy at the family business and farm. He is the Yeom patriarch’s right-hand man. He helps a lot in the family business as well as in the farm. He is a quiet person who just helps with the work every day, eats with the family every breakfast, lunch and dinner, and just goes back to his rented house to quietly drink alone. He seems to be living a dull life and drinking alcohol is his only way of finding peace. But like most people, there really is more than just meets the eye.
Mr. Gu, like I have predicted early as I was watching the k drama, is a person who is escaping the demons he has to face. He got lucky to have found a family in the Yeom’s residence. The work he does in the furniture business as well as in the farm of the Yeom’s family seems like a sweet escape from the life that felt like a torture to him. The detour he did ended up being one of the best things to happen in his life – if only he had the willingness to help himself get out of the damnation he is in, then maybe he would not have depended on alcohol so much. In a way, Mi Jeong and Mr. Gu are alike. Both are stuck in the kind of prison that they do not know how to get out of. I am happy that they have found each other and, in a way, have helped each other grow. But then, Mr. Gu was right when he said “That’s how life is. It seems to go well and then stabs you in the back. Did you think it was always going to be peachy?” Because in life, in order for things to truly change, one must take the initiative to do so. Even a small step can help. It all begins with a small step – acknowledge your demons first then work your way towards defeating them. And I hope that Mr. Gu will continue to take those small steps so that eventually he can get liberation too.
This k drama makes me realize that life in general is fast paced and sometimes there are people like me who will be left behind and if I do not take the initiative to pick myself up and at least try to run along with life then I will always be stuck. But how can one be able to break free if she has no idea about what kind of prison she is in? There are times when I feel like this k drama, although I can relate to it a lot, has left me with more questions than answers and it is really up to me to make a move so I can be liberated. Let me end this blog post with a quote from Mi Jeong “I wish I was genuinely happy and be able to say things like ‘Yes, this is life’ ‘This is what life is all about’”.
X,
TinaMae
PS, to anyone who reads this, I hope that whatever demons you are facing, you can defeat them. I hope that you can be free from the kind of prison you are in. Life is all about moving forward, so please hang on and keep on moving forward. Thrive on.
PPS, song recommendations: Freedom by iKON, Jet Black Heart and Permanent Vacation by 5 Seconds of Summer
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Plat!Yan!Chrollo x Autistic!Reader x Plat!Yan!PT - Soulmate AU Part 2
The next part of my growing tale! The next part may be a bit shorter, but I've finally laid out a solid plan for where I want to take this!
Once again, this idea was first brought up by the lovely @kiame-sama. I also have no traditional education in writing, so any advice is greatly appreciated!
Hope you enjoy reading!
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The days following your switch were fairly normal, as you returned to work and your normal schedule. Your coworkers were sometimes nosy, asking when and how you would be reaching out your soulmate. Those questions annoyed you since they never accepted your explanation that you had already tried.
Unfortunately, you didn't really have any plan for finding your soulmate, and searching up the names you had been given hadn't been any help. Google kept trying to auto correct the names, which lead you to believe that they were rather rare. That made you think that you would have more ease in finding them, but you were unable to find anything but odd conspiracy theories that you knew better than to hold faith in.
It was stressful to think of the all the things you weren't able to do in finding your soulmate, so you tried to focus on distracting yourself with that which you found fun in real life. Watching your favorite movies for what had to have been the hundredth time, treating yourself to fancier food and some good new clothes, pulling your own mind away from the anxieties eating away at you.
It wasn't until that weekend that something felt off.
You would normally get a call from Jo in the morning of every Saturday, but they seemed to be delayed today. You truly worried that you had scared them off for good, but Jo themselves had told you multiple times that you shouldn't get too upset if the call came late.
Trying not to be too disheartened, you began the journey to work. Working as a librarian meant that while your work day was happily uneventful most days, your shifts extended into the weekend, so even on a Saturday morning you headed off on a commute.
To keep yourself active, you at least made the journey to and from the library on foot, especially seeing that it wasn't too far from your home. Boredom was rather easy at such a time as this, so you were quick to zone out and see only the pavement in front of your eyes. In your state of peace, you were too slow to notice that there were other footsteps joining yours until you were tugged into a side-path by your arms. Before you could yell out as you had been taught, a familiar voice began behind you.
"It's just me, but you need to listen very closely."
Jo's voice would normally calm you, however there was an insistence in their speech that told you they weren't here to catch up on the week.
"Look, I don't have too long to talk to you, but you need to take this," they pushed a thick binder full of sorted papers into your hands, and you took it quickly, "And follow it to the letter."
"Wait, why? What's going on!?" As you watched the panic in the way that Jo spoke, you felt overcome with the same worry, even though you had no clue what they were so upset about.
"Look, it's - it's about your soulmate, I've done some research, and he is not a good person. Not at all." They only furthered your confusion with such a statement, what research could Jo have done that you missed?
"I can't talk too much right now, but there are bad people on their way for you right now. Really horrible sorts. That binder has every instruction you need to follow to get away. If you follow it properly, there's a safe place for you to stay at the end, and I'll try to meet you there."
You could only splutter in the face of such intensity, half-coherent questions and worrying dying on your lips.
Before you could string together a sentence, your phone began to ring. You fished it out of your pocket, noting that there was no caller ID.
"(Y/N), you should answer that, but be careful what you say. It's probably that soulmate of yours, making them think they have your location will help, but you'll have to give me your phone afterwards."
There was an ache quickly forming in your head from all of the new information thrown at you, but you followed their instruction quickly, putting the phone to your ear.
"(Y/N), dear, I'm glad to have reached you. I should hope you're doing well?"
The voice was certainly the voice of your soulmate, but that didn't quell your anxiety. It took you a moment to realize that last bit was a question, and even when you figured it out, an odd tightness had formed in your throat.
"Um. Uh. I-I'm good, I guess? Are you... alright too?" You cursed your hesitant answer, but Jo looked at you from across the path with a stern nod, silently telling you that you were doing well.
A chuckle rang through the phone, quickly followed by his response, "Yes, dear, I'm doing well. You don't need to worry to much, we're almost prepared to come and meet you in person. You still work at that library, right?"
Your eyes widened at the confident question from him, practically jumping in surprise as you tried to figure out what answer would please both Jo and Chrollo. Jo gave you another nod, reaching out to gently tap your hand, lightly rubbing their thumb over the side of your palm.
With little else to go off of, you had to assume that this was Jo's way of soothing you from your upset, so you answered, "Yeah, I still work there, did - how did you find where I worked?"
As you spoke, you were trying to give Jo hints on what was being said by your soulmate, for which they were grateful, but it was unnecessary as they heard Chrollo speaking with ease.
"That's not important at the moment. You're going to be there until three, right? Like I said, we're still preparing at the moment, but we should be ready to come and get you by then. Does that sound good to you?"
Jo's face grew angry at that statement, but they still didn't speak, not wanting to alert him to their presence lest he realize that you would be missing in just a few hours.
"Err, 'come and get me'?" Even you knew that there was something iffy about that wording, especially since you didn't plan on going anywhere, even with your soulmate on a first meeting.
"Yes, exactly, we'll come and get you. At three O'clock from the Old Town Library. You don't need to leave the building, we'll come in and get you from there. I can't wait to see you, dear, you'll wait for me won't you?"
Before you could respond that you certainly wouldn't be waiting for him, the call was hung up. You felt almost out of breath as you looked mindlessly at your phone's lock screen, having to be snapped back from your trance by Jo taking a more insistent grip on your hand, pulling you to look at them.
"You understand now? Why you have to leave?" They had spoken forcefully before, but their tone was tougher now, pushing you to answer. Though you still struggled to speak as you caught your breath, your nod was enough for Jo.
Suddenly, Jo began to reach for you with their other hand, hesitating for a moment before pulling you into a hug, tight against their broad chest. You jumped at the contact, but that was nowhere near the shock you felt when you noticed the tears streaming down their face as they quickly pulled away. In all your years of friendship, you had never seen Jo cry. You had watched them fight, scream, and tremble in anger or fear, but never had a tear passed their eyes before you.
"Look, that binder has everything you need to get out of here unnoticed, I know that you can follow it and get to safety." Their tone was unaffected by their tears, not even the slightest wobble to be heard, yet they went on, "I know - I know that this going to be hard, but there is hope at the end of this. I can promise that I'll meet you at the safe house, if you can promise that you'll follow every instruction I give you."
At any other moment, you could have chuckled at their insistence, but now you found yourself nodding solemnly to their speech.
"Please, let's meet on the other side. I'll keep you safe no matter what they bring."
#hunter x hunter#hxh#yandere#yandere hunter x hunter#yandere chrollo#phantom troupe#yandere phantom troupe#chrollo#x reader#autistic reader#gender neutral reader#original character#platonic yandere#soulmate au#platonic soulmates#yandere soulmate#hxh x reader
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Every once in a while I’m not in the mood to write fiction...
Sometimes I like to do literary analysis for funsies, or, surprisingly enough thanks to the content of this post, music analysis as well.
When I first watched Guardian, there was one song that stood out to me more than most of the others from the OST. It was always used in the scenes with more emotional weight, and was so haunting that it lingered in my mind long after the scene had passed. Once I was able to hunt the soundtrack down on Amazon (a feat that was much more difficult than it should have been imho) I came to learn that this song was actually Shen Wei’s theme. Shen Wei’s theme was in all of the emotionally hard hitting scenes and haunted me for long after the show had finished.
One day I was driving to work and I was just looping it over and over for my entire commute. It’s an hour long commute ya’ll. Just that song, over and over and over (and I’ve played it for several hours on a loop before and I have no doubt I will do it for many more times to come, this song is beautiful and haunting and I love it to death). As I listened I started to make some realizations, and as those realizations came to light it left me even more heartbroken than originally.
The Shen Wei OST is a perfect character journey. It tells his story in a way that words simply could not come close to. I’ve tried to sum up my best analysis of this song and what it means, and I’m sure I don’t even come close to what Luo Kun intended when he composed the song, but I hope that he would at least agree I have parts of it right.
I’m going to put the actual analysis beneath a “Read More” so please, drop me a line if you like what you read or if you want to discuss it further. I’d love to chat about this! It’s broken up into five distinct movements that I think relate to different points in Shen Wei’s life, and I should mention that this is looking at the character purely from the perspective of the drama. At some point I might go back and see if I can tie it into the novel at all, but that has not been taken into consideration here.
I’d like to state above the cut that my thanks go out to @elvencantation and @eirenical for looking over my initial drafts and giving me their opinions and helping with musical instrument identification. I might come back and clean this up someday, but for right now, I wanted to get something out there for everyone to read. I hope that you enjoy it.
Part I. Gege (0:00 - 0:35)
There is a very melancholy feel to the song, but it also has the quiet grace and strength that the audience can always associate with Shen Wei. This is the beginning of his journey though. This is a young boy caring for his brother. A boy who tries to protect and is cast aside, thrown down to the dirt, and returns too late to save the one remaining person still precious to him. The beginning of this song paints the picture of a solitary figure against the horizon, short in stature from age and inexperience, a blade much too big gripped in too small a hand. The piano solo here emphasizes his lone search for his brother and hoping against all hopes that he might one day find him and the two of them could be reunited.
Part II. Xiao Wei (0:36 - 1:08)
At 37 seconds in the strings make their entrance. I like to think it was a deliberate choice to have Zhao Yunlan pick up the violin during the Tan Xiao and Zheng Yi case, because I firmly believe the strings in this soundtrack are supposed to represent Zhao Yunlan just as the piano represents Shen Wei. These 32 seconds represent the Shen Wei that we see during episodes 34 and 35 in Ye Olde Haixing Era. A bright eyed energetic young warrior who cares about his men despite his position. He hides his fear behind a mask, under a hood, and does what he can to help in the war. But here is also when Kunlun arrives. A famous general who miraculously takes an interest in HIM. And what has he done to warrant such attention? The kindness that he is shown here helps to shape him, mold him into a stronger warrior, a stronger person, but it will be millennia before he will learn why Kunlun saw him for the person he was rather than the blade and power he wielded.
The strings here do not try to overwhelm the piano here, even though they easily could. Instead they seem to try to entwine with the notes from the piano and guide them. It’s a graceful dance between the two that represents the close partnership that Shen Wei and Kunlun shared during the war.
Part III. The Black Cloak Envoy (1:09 - 1:39)
This part of the song is particularly interesting to me. The piano is still present, but the tune has changed, the same for the strings, but now the sounds of a woodwind have joined the other two. It’s at this point Shen Wei has woken up after 10,000 years. He’s thrust into a new world that he must learn, and a Dixing that is far worse off than he ever imagined it would be. He is a legend, but he does not try to take power. His duty is still his to fulfill, but he does not seek to take power aside from that. This is the new life that he forges for himself, from who he was as a boy, to who Kunlun helped him become, but this is something he creates to survive in a world that is unfamiliar to him.
Now he is not needed as just a blade, although he will be that when it is necessary. Now he can pursue his love and inherent gift for learning. This is the man who emerges from the ground and takes up bioengineering as a field of study. This is the person who befriends Cheng Xinyan and probably has more than one or two study sessions with her. This is the college student that I’m sure was dragged to at least one karaoke night to blow off some steam, and may have discovered his aversion to alcohol that same night. This is someone who lived.
Part IV. Professor Shen (1:40 - 2:11)
The woodwind fades out and we are left with the string and the piano once more. The string though is more like the tide, pushing and pulling against the piano, but that is very fitting for the section of the song, and Shen Wei’s life, that Zhao Yunlan is introduced into. The strings surge forth and ease back, pushing Shen Wei for answers, but also easing back when he seems ready to break. The piano has returned to its tune from the first two movements, and it’s probably due to the uncertainty that Zhao Yunlan has brought into his life. Why has Kunlun suddenly reappeared and why is he acting like he doesn’t know who Shen Wei is? Why does Da Qing not remember him? In the face of these questions he retreats to who he was before, until he can determine what the best course of action to take is. If Kunlun is testing him or doesn’t remember too he doesn’t want to risk the chance that the man will not recognize him. This could be why we see the fond smiles and confused blinks, aspects that are so inherent to his character.
Part V. Shen Wei (2:12 - End)
I’m not going to lie, it was coming up with this part that really broke my heart. The strings remain, but fade to the background and are only faintly known. The piano has returned, and is at the forefront once more with no question as to who the lead is. Through all the changes in his life, he has come to realize who he truly is. He is a brother who is afraid he has failed his twin. A warrior and leader afraid he has failed his people. A man afraid that he will lose everything, but willing to make that sacrifice to save his friends and family, to keep the man he loves safe. He is no longer just a blade to be used. He has a purpose, one that has not been forced on him but that he has chosen for himself.
This is the Shen Wei who decides to use the light energy from Zhao Yunlan to make himself a living bomb. The man who decides that if his brother cannot be made to stand down then he will force him to. This is the man who looks into the eyes of his lover as he lays bloodied and broken on the ground, who sees all that they could have had in their lives, and silently begs forgiveness even as he makes the ultimate sacrifice.
And then the song fades out with the slowing piano notes, just as Shen Wei’s life ends with the slowed beating of his heart...
#guardian#zhen hun#镇魂 guardian#shen wei#zhao yunlan#kunlun#weilan#black cloak envoy#hei pao shi#caitlin analyzes stuff and things#caitlin also makes herself sad doing it#caitlin makes great life choices
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Muse
You meet a quiet painter that helps you manage your anger.
Word Count: 4.7k
Pairing: You x Taehyung
Genre: Slight fluff, slight angst, Smut
A/N: I couldn’t get this idea out of my head, so I had to sit down and write it out this afternoon. I hope you guys like it 🥺
What are you thinking?
The pinkish hue of your cheeks had long subsided now, though the heaving in your chest still remained albeit at a minimal level. The part in your lips prevailed as well, if only to huff the stray hairs falling over your face occasionally.
The rest of your hair was sprawled across the back of his couch like wild seaweed. Your favorite necklace rested in the crook of your collarbone as the dainty chain tickled your sensitive neck. Goosebumps broke out across your arms as they, too, were strewn across the couch. Your pose wasn’t ideal, but you knew it was exactly how he wanted you, so you wouldn’t get up to close the window letting in a cold draft.
His apartment was quaint, a studio on the upper west side that resided above a bodega and a taqueria. You’ve had many opportunities to take it all in, yet somehow there was always something new to discover whenever your eyes wandered.
You pondered if this was all a big metaphor with some grand artistic meaning about how it somehow represented his mental state. How he, such a quiet and minimal person could be happy in such a cluttered apartment on one of the busiest streets in the city was beyond you. You peered at the ostentatious wallpaper juxtaposed with the exposed brick behind him. Paintings lent up against the walls on the ground, stacked against each other, even in the kitchen. Only one word came to mind: loud.
Your eyes eventually came back to him, and when they did, the pink hue returned except this time it was in the form of a blush. He had been eyeing you carefully, waiting to make eye contact with you. When you did, he shot you that lopsided smirk you knew so well before he returned to his canvas. It was his way of telling you to stop moving your head so much.
You leaned your head against the back of the couch again and didn’t move until he finally put his brush down. He stood and backed away from his painting to gain some perspective, deciding if he was truly finished or not.
You’d once heard that paintings are truly never finished, it was just a matter of when the artist was willing to stop. Since then, you’d always wondered when Taehyung would deem it acceptable to put the brush down, when he’d feel that he had done everything he could to capture your essence. You knew there had to be something to it, since every time you’d gaze at the finished product it’d take your breath away.
He was always able to capture your inner feelings with eerie accuracy, which was something that endlessly amazed you.
So many afternoons spent in his apartment, you venting about the latest thing that got your blood to boil while he focused on his artwork. And each time, as you’d emptied your brain of all its toxic contents, he’d make magic happen on the paper.
You watched Taehyung shake his head then return to his seat and pick up the brush again. Some days it was harder for him to decide when to stop.
As you laid naked on the upholstery basking in the afternoon sun that was now filtering in through the window, you began to reminisce about the first time you had posed for him. Your face had been the color of a tomato from complaining about a rude bus driver and your hair was a matted mess after waking up late for work that morning. You didn’t understand how you could possibly be anyone’s muse, especially that day.
You had been in no mood to sit around for hours in a strange apartment, but you had given Taehyung your word after he kindly texted you asking for you to be his model earlier that week. You both happened to take a recreational art class downtown together a year ago when he had tapped you on the shoulder two hours into the lesson and extended his phone to you for your number. You had tagged along with a friend that day to see what their art class was like, and you were glad you did when you saw how cute the shy guy across the room was up close. You were flattered, to say the least, especially when he had later texted asking you to be his personal model. After all, the class had been about learning to paint the human anatomy, so the proposition hadn’t come from left field.
But when the day finally came, you just weren’t in the mood. You showed up and took your clothes off in a huff, taking a seat in front of him and attempting the breathing exercises your anger management counselor had taught you.
As the hours went by, you realized you probably weren’t making such a good model, and your annoyance turned into shame as he moved away from his painting. When you were just about done getting redressed, he turned the easel towards you and took your breath away just like that.
He was an amazing artist, but more than that he was exceptionally observant. What you expected to be a painting of you being petulant and looking anywhere but at him, was instead of a girl that looked very unsure of herself. He’d even used a cool toned palette exclusively to convey those feelings perfectly. You could only look at him in awe, feeling more vulnerable than you had been with your clothes off a minute ago.
After that, he texted you to come over on a weekly basis, and each time you came and did much of the same. You’d take your clothes off and pose anywhere in front of where his easel stood ready and waiting. And each time, he’d reveal a part of you on the paper that you never cared to show anyone.
You were ashamed to admit that you were always angry stepping into his apartment, but each time he turned the easel towards you, a different girl stared back at you. Sometimes she was scared, sometimes she was hopeful.
A few sessions later, you felt as though you could trust Taehyung, partly because he seemed to be in tune with parts of you that you hadn’t even known existed deep under the many levels of anger and hatred that bubbled noisily at your surface. He made you want to express yourself, which was something that was tough for you to do, even with your therapist. But it wasn’t like there was anything else to fill the silence with during those quiet hours anyway. So every week you’d come over expose yourself to him in more ways than one.
You couldn’t exactly call it talking, though.
You’d tell him about what happened that day to make you mad, and sometimes what made you feel particularly murderous. Few times, you’d express something that made you happy, because those really came few and far between. And whenever you did, you felt oddly childlike, as if expressing happiness was somehow attributed to being young while expressing grievances was adult-like. Or maybe it was the way Taehyung’s eyes brightened whenever you talked about something positive. It made you want to look for more things to be happy about, and that in itself, was childlike, you supposed.
But it was all one sided. After a long time of posing for him, you began to wonder if that was the deal: you’d express yourself for him while he’d express himself on paper. You figured it wasn’t a terrible trade, but as time went by you found it increasingly frustrating not to have any reciprocation on the same level. His artwork was always a reflection of you, and it left a huge mystery about who Taehyung really was inside.
Of course, you were never one to accept things as they were if you weren’t content with them, so you slowly learned how to better communicate with someone who was mute.
At first it annoyed you that he’d never answer your questions, no matter how simple or complex they were. Occasionally, if you asked him something that warranted an obvious “yes”, he’d look up from the canvas and smile with his eyes before returning to the task at hand. Those small notions were enough to hold you over until the next question arose. And it wasn’t as if you weren’t being heard, or seen, for that matter. His paintings of you proved quite the opposite.
Your painting sessions became like therapy, in a way. You always felt alleviated after posing for him, and over time, you came to depend on them. What started off as you warily stepping into his place with your bag clutched around your shoulder checking for hidden cameras and other red flags turned into you bursting in with two coffees in your hand already starting a story about your bitch of a boss. Taehyung found your workplace gossip hilarious, though you’d never know why. And overtime, his chuckle was also something you felt was like a small yet precious gift to you, another facet of the elusive painter who was still inspired by your body countless artworks later.
Taehyung and his cluttered studio.
They started off as something you didn’t want but definitely needed. You found it quite a drag to commute to his side of town regularly especially when you were in a foul mood most days. You often kicked yourself for agreeing to go.
Yet these days, it was quite the opposite. You had managed to make some serious headway with your anger management over the past few months, partly thanks to Taehyung for giving you a space to safely and comfortably talk through your turbulent thoughts and emotions. But now, you looked forward to paying him visits, not because you needed to vent, but because you wanted to see him. You wanted to find more peculiar things in his apartment, to notice something else about his personality that you hadn’t before, to be in his calming presence. Because just as he had plenty of time to stare at every inch of your body’s anatomy, you did so too. And boy, did you take advantage.
You had already been compiling a mental list of things about Taehyung you had noticed over time, intimate details that somehow set the cosmic scoreboard even for how intimately he was getting to know your naked body.
For example, he had a crinkle between his eyebrows when he focused on painting a particular part of you that was giving him trouble to grasp. When he was really focused, he’d jut his tongue out a bit and swipe his bottom lip. He often liked to run his fingers through his hair when leaning away from his portrait to gain some perspective. He always pursed his lips before smiling, as if showing amusement was somehow forbidden. And when he gave way to a smirk, it almost always bloomed into the widest boxiest smile you’d ever seen. His hair had more highlights in it than you cared to count, and he had a weird aversion to coasters. Dried rings on countertops all over his apartment served as unquestionable proof of.
You felt like you were finally starting to grasp what kind of person he was, though it still felt as if you were outside looking in. You wanted to know him like he knew you, but you weren’t sure it was possible to be let into someone’s heart that you’d never had a proper conversation with. It proved to be a very difficult thing. But when your efforts came to fruition, the recompence you felt was beyond words.
It was during a particularly shitty day, not because anything made you mad, but because the weather was god awful. Nonstop rain mixed in with cold weather and persistent winds made for a troublesome commute. And because of it, it took way longer to get to Taehyung’s place than normal. When he opened the door for you an hour after your agreed meetup time, his eyebrows shot up in surprise but nonetheless let you in. His hair was damp and his TV was on, two things you’d never seen before.
You had dropped your bag, coat and wet shoes at the door, hugging yourself and rubbing your arms as you walked further in. His heater was on, so you immediately went to go sit by it. You hadn’t realized your teeth were chattering until he brought you a steaming cup of coffee with a sympathetic look to boot. You took it from his hands gratefully and fixed your trembling fingers over the smooth ceramic, blowing the steam away before taking a tentative sip. Mmm, dark roast.
Taehyung looked over at his art supplies, his fingers twitching when his eyes landed on his recently cleaned brush, poised and ready on the lip of the easel. But when he looked back at you, he decided it was probably best not to have you take your clothes off right away. So he brought a blanket over to you and draped it over your shoulders before returning to his seat on the couch. He was watching a horror movie, which made you all the more curious about this strange boy that never talks. What kind of person watches horror movies alone?
The coffee, blanket and heater warmed you up rather quickly, and soon you had removed your socks and your sweater before settling in to watch the climax of the spooky film. You wanted to wait for him to suggest he still wanted to paint you, feeling perfectly content to just hang out like this. For the next half hour, you both took turns glancing at each other but missing eye contact as if this was a game of tag. You started smiling to yourself, wondering why today felt so different when you had already been meeting for months now.
You bit the inside of your cheek in contemplation before decidedly moving to sit next to him on the couch. He moved over to give you plenty of room before returning your smile politely, though there was an amused glint in his eyes that you hadn’t missed before he turned to give the television his undivided attention. You wondered if this sudden electricity between you both was all in your head. It’s not like you could ask him directly, or if you wanted to for that matter. It’d be embarrassing if he hadn’t developed a crush on you over these past few months as you had with him.
Yet as you sat on the same couch you had lounged in for months, you couldn’t help but wonder what if?
You swallowed thickly and your pulse quickened as you realized how close his hand was to you. It laid in between you both, flat against the cushion. You never noticed how pretty his hands were before now, taking in the light vans that ran up his arms stemming from his slender fingers, Your own fingers twitched before you slowly inched your hand forward nand placed it over his. Your eyes flitted towards him, regarding him warily. He had been watching the movie with his head leaning on his palm, and when your skin made contact, his eyes moved sideways, first taking in the intimate gesture then looking at you briefly before turning back to the television in what looked to be a bored expression.
Your bravery crumbled and you began moving your hand away, but he caught it in his before you could get away and then laced your fingers together. Your eyebrows shot up and you tried to hold back the huge smile on your face as you finished watching the movie with your hands joined in between you both. Taehyung couldn’t help but look over at you a few more times and grinning at the blush on your face, finding it cute how shy you were when it came to making a move.
When the movie had ended, you both sat quietly, playing with each other’s fingers, you giggling girlishly and him enjoying the sight of you being so flustered. Eventually the flashing of his phone screen from across the room caught his attention and he dropped your hand, much to your disappointment. You figured that was as much as you were going to get out of him today, so you began stripping as he busied himself typing away. When he returned to you, he was surprised to see you naked and posed, ready to be his muse again. You furrowed your brow and gestured toward the easel to which he shook his head slowly. Ah, I guess he doesn’t want to paint any more today.
“Sorry, I figured we were still doing that. Should I just go and come back next week?” Taehyung thought for a moment then shook his head again, coming to sit by you once more. “Then… what? You want to sit here and hold hands all day?” Taehyung quirked his brow at you, his lips pursing as he held back a smile. “You’re so frustrating sometimes you know.” This time he smiled and scratched the top of his head while looking at the floor, not offering any semblance of what his plans were.
It’d been a while before something miniscule got you worked up and angry like it used to, so you were surprised when the way his eyes seemed to roll away from you caused a switch inside of you to click. You were growing angrier by the second and you couldn’t seem to stop it.
You huffed as you yanked your top from the floor and pulled it on over your head. You reached for your underwear and kicked your legs through the holes as Taehyung sat and watched you with patient eyes.
“I mean, you could text me or something and let me know not to come over next time. I don’t live close by you know.” You huffed as you stood up to get your sweater that still laid serenely by the radiator. You weren’t looking forward to braving the wet and cold just after you had dried and warmed up.
But before you could march over to it, Taehyung firmly took hold of your wrist, causing you to spin on your heel.
“I’m sorry, don’t go.”
You ogled at him, looking at his lips for a while to see if they’d move again. You couldn’t believe he just talked aloud. When they didn’t, you looked up at his eyes in confusion. His expression was urgent, his pupils deep pools of sincerity that you could swim in forever. He was genuinely apologizing, though you felt there was no need. You already knew you were throwing a fit needlessly.
“…I…”
Taehyung slowly smiled, realizing it was your turn to be speechless. He tugged at your wrist, guiding you to sit on his lap. Your heart raced at the newfound proximity. You were now close enough to smell his bodywash which was enough to make your head swim if it wasn’t for the fact that Taehyung just spoke in the most rich and velvety voice you’d ever heard.
“I thought…you were mute.”
“Selective.” Taehyung held your gaze for a minute as his fingers brushed against the soft skin under your wrist, feeling your pulse thump furiously. You looked into his eyes with uneven breath as the realization hit. He was finally letting you in.
Suddenly you were leaning in, craving to experience the full extent of his emotions. And so he met you halfway, molding his soft lips around yours in a deep kiss that made your heart stop altogether.
His large hands took hold of your sides and held you tightly against him as he leaned in to savor your taste. His tongue swiped curiously against your lip so you parted your mouth, allowing him full access to it. You leaned back the more he leaned in, and eventually you were both laying down on the couch with him positioned on top of you, making out intensely. When he broke away panting, his lips were swollen and his eyes full of lusty haze. You didn’t get a chance to take his demeanor in fully, because his lips were back on you again except kissing at the skin of your neck instead, leaving marks along their journey to your collar bone. Each bruise was a paragraph of text written on your paper skin, each lick a compliment he longed to give you since the first time you took your clothes off for him.
It seemed as though for all that he lacked verbally, he more than compensated with touch and emotion.
His hands sneaked underneath your shirt and pulled it off of you before he gazed at your chest. You blushed, because although he’d seen your breasts countless times before, he’d never looked at them the way he was now. You felt like a clay statue he was breathing life into as his lips latched onto your buds, causing your back to lift off of the cushions. He was as good with his mouth as he was with his brush strokes.
You made quick work of his shirt, feeling all too eager to feel his burning skin on yours. His touch was setting you ablaze, and you found the dull ache in between your legs increasingly harder to ignore. You carded your fingers through his hair as he took his pants off impatiently. You’d have taken the opportunity to take your own underwear off, but something told you you’d enjoy it a lot more if he did it for you.
Taehyung leaned back on his heels, his eyes shooting downwards as you opened your legs tentatively. He furrowed his brow in concentration as he hooked his fingers around the waistband of your panties and slowly peeled them off of you as if he was opening a present. He licked his lips as he spread your legs wide before him, taking in your glistening sex from his vantage point. Suddenly he bit his lip and stood up, disappearing behind the couch momentarily. He returned with a condom and tore into the packet as you both looked at each other eagerly.
Finally, he sat in between your legs again, brushing his thumb against your reddened clit as he licked his lips. You didn’t want to wait for him anymore, so you sat up and took hold of his lips with yours again, guiding him down onto you and wrapping your legs around his waist. When he plunged inside of you, your eyes rolled to the back of your head.
He rocked his hips slowly at first and continued peppering your body with kisses and bites. Your nails dug into his back while he balanced himself on his elbows, his hands pushing away the hair from your face. When he kissed your lips again, your tongues swirled wildly, causing him to lose control and pick up the pace. You hissed and moaned, your hips coming up to meet him stroke for stroke.
And as his movements got increasingly rougher and more urgent, you lost yourself in them over and over again because now it was his turn to express himself.
Your sweaty bodies writhed against each other all afternoon, each moan of yours an appreciation of his affection towards you and each grown of his conveying a wordless confession.
Making love to Taehyung was like him having a conversation with your body. He knew all the right places to touch and when. He’d get so wrapped up and passionate during your afternoons spent together that he’d hardly seem like the same quiet man sitting across from you staring at a canvas for hours. He was rough yet gentle, persistent yet patient, truly in keeping with the enigma that he had always been to you.
And now, as you sat on the very same couch you both had made love on the first time and many times afterward, you found yourself eyeing him mischievously. It had been 20 minutes after he decided his painting wasn’t quite finished yet, and you were getting antsy.
He’d caught your look, and though a reaction didn’t register on his face, the growing bulge sitting pretty in between his legs was enough for you.
Your nipples were quickly hardening in the frigid air entering through the open window, though the reason for that wasn’t entirely attributed to the col temperature. Normally you were patient enough to wait until he was done, but today was stressful and you wanted so badly for him to help you relieve some of that stress.
So you didn’t bother holding back your joy when he finally stood up from his spot in the corner and sauntered over to you, giving you a disapproving look. You looked back at him apologetically, though you weren’t sure it translated well as you bit your lip lustfully at his approaching figure. He sighed, flicking one of your hardened nipples roughly. You let out a shaky breath to which he snickered as he pulled his shirt off over his head. This time it was his turn to bite his lips as you purposely spread your legs, giving him a full view of what he was capable of doing to you without so much as touching you.
He growled as he crawled onto the couch, groping your curves and dips as he contemplated how to punish you for being a fidgety model. You awaited eagerly with a shallow breath then squealed as he abruptly scooped you into his arms and off the couch. He brought you over to the windowsill and sat you down before kneeling in front of you and spreading your legs again. Your breath hitched in your throat at the first stroke of his tongue on your clit. Your hands gripped the edge of the windowsill as you scooted closer to the edge to give him better access to you. You made a mental note to interrupt his painting sessions more often.
“A-ah….Taehyung…” You moaned softly as he sucked lightly on your clit. His eyes watched you carefully as his tongue navigated your slick folds expertly. When you threw your head back as his tongue got closer to your entrance, he pushed the wet muscle inside and fucked you with his face, causing you to buck your hips onto him. Your head snapped back down, and your fingers latched onto his hair, guiding him in and out of you as you fucked his face. You were so close to cumming, but you needed a bit more. That’s when Taehyung replaced his tongue with two fingers, plunging them inside you and curling them upwards as he milked the orgasm from you. You hunched over, holding onto his head tightly as you came all over his mouth and fingers.
“Fuck…that was…” You panted and let go of him, allowing him to stand back up as he wiped the side of his mouth with his thumb. He smiled at you brightly, all semblance of disapproval gone from his angelic features. You brough him towards you and kissed him passionately, only then feeling the cold wind licking at your backside. You shivered, so he took your hand and led you off the windowsill.
He embraced you as you wrapped your arms around his midsection, holding you in silence for a few moments. Eventually, he tipped your chin up to stare into your eyes and gauge the rest of your sentence from what your eyes could give away. You looked back at him and smiled, feeling brave enough to ask him something that didn’t have a simple yes or no answer for once.
“What are you thinking?”
Taehyung looked down for a moment then took your hand in his. He brought you over to his easel and placed you in front of today’s painting, looking at your reaction carefully. You had expected to see yourself staring at the center of the page looking horny as ever.
But as you gazed at the painting, you saw a girl who was very much in love.
Your chest tightened and your eyes glistened. Turning towards Taehyung, you looked up at his wary eyes. He held his breath as his thumb stroked your knuckles, conveying more than you had ever expected him to be able to. And for once, you were glad there were no words.
#BTS fanfiction#BTS fanfic#BTS smut#BTS angst#BTS fluff#BTS story#BTS stories#taehyung fanfic#Taehyung fanfiction#Taehyung smut#Taehyung fluff#Taehyung angst#Kim Taehyung#Taehyung#V fanfic#V fanfiction#V#V smut#V fluff#V angst#baepop muse#BTS#Bangtan boys#Bangtan smut#Bangtan fluff#Bangtan angst#Bangtan fanfiction#painter au
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Guilt (Part 1): The Rescue
(Din Djarin x ForceSensitive!Fem!Reader)
Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
Slight Chpt 12 and 13 spoilers. Read at your own risk.
Description: Moff Gideon has found someone else to run his experiments on and word gets back to Din. Will he take his son far away and try and find somewhere safe? Or will the guilt of an innocent being put in his son’s place eat away at him? (No Y/N or ___ used)
Word Count: Slightly over 4K
Warnings: Mentions of blood and needles. Broken glass. Fainting. Blood loss. Canon type violence. Possible bad writing (first fic pls go easy on me). If I’m missing anything please let me know, I’ve never done one of these before.
A/N: This is my first fanfic I’ve written so it might be really bad but I couldn’t get the idea out of my head so here it is. I also made up a planet/system and don’t know if star wars has alarm clocks but i wrote it in anyway. I also wrote this in Word first and then realized I couldn’t copy it over so I tried my best to type it over in here.
Normal. That is what was used to describe your life. Nothing out of the ordinary. Life wasn’t boring per se, but it definitely wasn’t compelling enough for your tastes. Studying to be a healer help keep it somewhat interesting but not enough.
Bzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzz. Crust littered eyes creak open as your face unsticks from the textbook scattered across the desk. Bzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzz. Your stiff neck cracks as you finally sit up. Fell asleep studying again. You loved learning about healing, you really did. But the long nights and barely sleeping was enough to make your head explode. Looking over at the clock with bright red numbers blinking at you. 8:15.
8:15! I’m late! You think as you force yourself awake. No not again! Being a student means you need to do hands on hours down at the nearest medcenter. All the late night studying also means that you oversleep most days. Grabbing your work bag filled with a change of clothes, in preparation of these events, you run out the door.
Your feet hit the wet cobble stones as it echos through your little part of the city. Vendors lining up the street ready to start their days. Passing the shop you went to yesterday, your mind too preoccupied to notice that it’s empty today. You know that theres is a faster route to the medcenter, but is it a path you really want to take today? Dark and windy path that you can barely see five feet in front of you on mornings like this. Too foggy and muggy for your liking. You’d rather stick to the main road where there’s people, where if anything were to happen, people would see, they would know. Regardless, it shaves fifteen minutes off your commute. You loathe having to be late for another shift. Making the sharp turn in between tow booths, you pace quickens to get through as quickly as you can. While not having much visibility, you swear you can see a pair of eyes in the dark. Has to just be my imagination, you convince yourself, I just need to keep going. It’ll be fine.
Footsteps echo behind you. Hands grab your shoulders. A scream rises in your throat, but no sound comes out. Everything goes dark when you feel something hit the side of your head.
.
Sigh. “Grogu get back in your seat.” The little baby waddles down off the controls and into his father’s lap. “Not what I meant,” Din grumbles with a smile hidden under his helmet. He grabs Grogu by his little robe and places him in the seat to his right and tells him to buckle up as a holo comes through from Greef Karga.
“Mando, we’ve just got word that Moff Gideon might have been seen in the Braic system. It looks like they found a substitute for the baby for the time being. I would use this time to go find a hide-out and lay low. He could still come back for the little one. Be well,”
Din goes to start the ship and find coordinates to stay out of trouble for a while when he hears the baby whine. Looking back at his adoptive child, all Din can see is Grogu, then a nameless kid, lying unconscious on a metal table, trapped underneath a contraption. Din starts breathing heavy and feeling sick that he ever gave his son up to those Imps. All he can hear is the beeping of the machine he’s hooked up to. Anger boiling back to the surface as he hears himself yell at the doctor all over again in his memories. No, he tells himself, He’s here with me. He’s fine. He’s safe. He shakes himself out of it and goes to fly the Razor Crest off planet.
Before he even gets off the planet, all Din can think about is that innocent person in his son’s place. They were going to kill Grogu, just for his blood for their experiments. Din can’t bring the kid anywhere near those people, he can’t risk losing his family, not when both of them have formed such attachments to each other. But he can’t stop thinking of this person who is in the that position now. He should’ve made sure Gideon was dead. Because of that now more people are going to get hurt.
Without thinking he turns on his holo already asking, “Where is he taking them?”
.
Feeling groggy with heavy eyes, you are able to open them just a bit to a blinding light. Reluctantly closing them again, you lift your arm to rub your eyes, but only they don’t move. What? The rest of your senses start coming back and you can feel the cool metal against your back, the same metal wrapped around your wrists and your ankles attached to the table. Finally bracing the light and opening your eyes, lifting your head slightly off the table and oh no the room is spinning now. There is an IV in your arm drawing your blood out into some odd machine, explaining the dizziness. Second time in two days you’ve had to deal with your own blood.
Walking through the shops on your one day off, you pick up a flower hair pin. The glasswork is so intricate and entrancing, you can’t help but turn it over and over in your hands. A pearl bead sitting in the center of iridescent gray and white petals. Placing it back in its place, your had scrapes against another glass design that is not yet finished, slashing open your palm. “Oh, dear let me help you with that,” the lady running the stand says. She looks you with her white hair barely covering her forehead. Tattoos liter her arms. A design peaks your interest as you swear you know but can’t quite place.
“It’s fine, I can take care of it myself,” you state already inspecting your hand. No shards in it so thats good.
“Oh no I insist. It happened at my booth, let me help clean it,” she declares taking your hand in her own. It feels like she squeezes the wound causing you to wince in pain slightly. Knowing she should just be cleaning it and wrapping it, you’re a little confused. Maybe she just doesn’t know how to tend to these sort of things, not wanted to embarrass her at her stand, you keep quiet. She finally gets a clean rag to help blot away at the blood on your hand. You didn’t think anything of it at the time, but it appears she has put it in a bag to the side.
“I don’t have any gauze to help wrap it up,” the stand lady says.
“Oh, don’t worry, I have plenty of my own,” you mention, “It will be fine until I make it back to my place.” Smiling you walk away. Without looking, you can feel her move the piece you cut your hand on into the bag. Must just be because it’s a dangerous piece, you think, not knowing there’s still some of your blood on it too.
Closing your eyes again, you try to wonder why that is so significant to you right now. It was a harmless thing in passing, so why is it at the forefront of your mind? You are strapped to a table and all you can think about is that little cut you got the day prior. If your head didn’t feel like it was a spinner top right now, you would have laughed. Opening your eyes again you see men all in white armor and helmets guarding the door to your room, while a man in a white coat is working on the machine where your IV is attached. I thought the empire was dead. The same symbol that keeps going through your mind is the same one sewn into the man’s white coat. Your breathing gets shallower as you feel the panic rise in your chest. I’m never getting out of here, you realize as your vision becomes black once again.
.
You’re losing a lot of blood. You know that. You can feel it when noise wakes you up and your eyelids feel like lead. All the noise is muffled, as if you’re underwater. Frankly it feels like you are. It would be so easy to let the waves of darkness just wash over you right now, to let the water take you under. No, you can’t give up the fight and drown into unconsciousness just yet. You force yourself to stay awake.
Barely getting your eyes open, bright red lights flood your vision. You imagine you’re still in bed, or at least asleep at your desk, with the alarm clock blaring, not here with blaster fire. Wait, blaster fire? You attempt to turn your head to the side to look, or to dodge, you aren’t to sure in your current state. The fast action causes you to feel like you’re spinning, or it might be the room, either way your eyes can’t focus on what is going on. Closing your eyes again to make it stop, you hear voices surrounding you. They sound so far away at the moment but finally, after what feels like ages, one voice sounds clearer.
“Please help us. Help us get out of here. Her m-counts aren’t nearly as high as the child’s. They’re demanding more blood. She’s already lost 2 liters, I don’t know how much longer she can last.”
Child? They wanted to do this to a child? You’d choke down a sob if you could just thinking of that poor baby. What did he even say about what-counts? What the hell are those? All these questions are making your head spin more and more. Taking most of your energy to open your eyes, you’re met with a chrome stormtrooper trying to unbind you. Wait no, not a stormtrooper. You’ve heard stories about him and his people. What were they called? For the life of you, you can’t remember right now.
“You’re going to need help getting her out of here,” you realize that the man in the whit coat was the one who spoke before and is now pleading with the metal man, “Please Mandalorian take me with you and I’ll help you get her out of here.”
That’s it. He’s a Mandalorian. He gets your wrists free as the doctor takes the IV out. Pushing off the table to sit up, the world starts spinning again. You don’t even realize you’re about to hit the table again until the Mandalorian grabs your shoulders to keep you semi-upright. You hear some sort of static come from his helmet. “Fine.” he grumbles, “help me get her out of this thing.”
With a flip of a switch, the rest of your body is free from restraints. Eager to get out of there, you swing your legs over the edge of the table, hands finding the arms of the Mandalorian with his hands still on your shoulders. Nauseous and woozy, you try to use the cold metal of his pauldron to ground yourself, to get the room to stop spinning. He can see you start to sway and wraps his arms around your waist as he lowers you from the table. Your feet hit the floor and black dots start to cloud your vision. Blood pounding in your ears trying to tell you to stop and lie back down. Muffled voices come from beside you again as you feel another arm wrap around you from the other side. Your feet dragging against the floor as both men on either side of you go towards the door.
You feel the heavily armored man to your left let go. Eyes that are still fuzzy and unfocused sort of see him peak out the door with his blaster drawn. He leaves the room and all that can be heard is the pew pew pew of blaster fire. Vision start to come back the tiniest bit, you can see him standing in the door way waving his hand as to say Come on.
The three of you hurry as fast as you can down the corridor to get to an exit. Lots of twists and turns, just for you all to come up at a dead end. So much for rescuing, you think to yourself as the doctor still holding you up, leans you up against a pillar as the two of them survey the situation. More of the Mandalorian assessing the situation and the doctor just frantically pacing back and forth.
Sitting down now that the adrenaline of being kidnapped and “rescued” die down, you feel your breathing getting shallower and harder to breath. Eyelids getting heavy again. You just want to lay down and go to sleep, hoping that will fix things. Starting your descent from your upright position to close your eyes, two hands grab your shoulders and jerk you up. It takes a second to realize this modulated voice was talking you you. “Hey, you got to stay with me now,” he pleads, one hand going to the side of your face. Pain spreads across your features due to being struck there earlier, a bruise starting to form in its place. Pulling his hand away like seeing the your face contorted burned him, he continues, “I’m going to get you out of here, you just have to stay awake.” You open your mouth to speak, but your throat feels like it’s filled with sand from Tattooine, so you just weakly nod your head yes. “Okay good,” the shiny man says after letting out a deep breath.
Still holding your shoulders, he helps you stand up and tells the doctor to take you and go further down the hall. Taking something small and circular out of his belt and placing it on the far wall, he speed walks back toward you two. It starts blinking red as his arms come and cage both of you in. Peeking over his shoulder, you see the wall disappear. Well explode, but one second ago it was there and now it’s not. When the explosion first rings in your ears, you reflexively reach out for the Mandalorian’s arm and feel him tense under your touch.
When he deems it safe to move again, letting go of his arm, he hops over the rubble to the outside world, blaster drawn. Looking out you think it looks like a desert, but one you’ve never seen before. You have no idea where you are, even what planet you are on. You eyes go to where the chrome man is stalking towards. It seems he found two speeder bikes that the troopers use, sans the troopers. Your feet hit the gravel and you realize you aren’t wearing shoes anymore. How long was I out? You begin to question when you see a stormtrooper take aim at your rescuer. Right when he pulls the trigger, you reach your hand out and scream, “NO!”
You could’ve sworn it was going to hit him. It should’ve hit him. But at the last second it bent and went in another direction. You knew stormtroopers were bad shots, but nothing like that has ever happened. The Mandalorian whips around at your scream and shoots the trooper down. He goes back to what he originally planned to do, but not without turning to you. You see his chest plate heave up and down a few times before turning back around. After a beat, the only sound you can hear is the Mandalorian starting up the speeders and your heartbeat pounding in your ears. The doctor helps guide you to the bikes and as you’re about to get on behind him, the Mandalorian picks you up bridal style and sits on his own respective bike. You make a noise of discontent at the sudden action and are then seated in front of him, yet again caged in by his arms with your legs draped over one of his. You can hear him breathing through the modulator as he states, “Just in case you pass out again. Can’t have you falling off the back of the bike.” You go to adjust how you are sitting when he takes off.
Gasping in shock, you hug your arms around his neck with you head in his cowl as you take panicked breaths. His hand touches your back as you hear him shout over the noise of the engines, “Put your legs around me, you’re slipping off.” He holds your waist as you sling your right leg around and hook it with your left one behind his back. Not the position you thought you’d end up in as a blush creeps up on your face, but neither the less here you are. His hand lets go of your waist and back to the handlebars as he steers.
Suddenly getting the feeling like you’re being followed, you say into his neck cowl, “Go left!” You don’t know why, but you just get a gut feeling to go that way. He follows your lead, not without a brief hesitation. The doctor follows on his speeder in the same direction. Finally looking up you see two stormtroopers in the distance. I wish their speeders would just stop or something, you plead with yourself and you think back to what happened with the blaster. Testing the waters, you unhook one of your hands from Mando’s neck and hold it out and... nothing. Okay focus, you close your eyes and picture their speeders stopping, or malfunctioning, or anything at this point.
The sound of a crash comes ringing into your ears. Opening your eyes, you can see the troopers flip over their handlebars as if their engines just died. You slightly chuckle to yourself as your eyelids feel heavy again. You try to get them to stay open, but sleep just feels so much better at the moment. And with that, you’re out like a light.
.
Din feels you go limp against him. His arm once again going to grab you by your waist to keep you in place. He wills his speeder to go faster, to get back to the Razor Crest sooner as he’s panicking thinking he somehow made the situation worse. He exposed you on the bike by having you sit like this. Your arms, legs, and head were all exposed to possible blaster fire. Have you been hit? He heard a crash but couldn’t look back without moving you more, risking leaving you more unprotected. His blame for himself spirals as his grip on you grows tighter. He can’t explain why he’s so distraught over a stranger, but still every time he blinks, he swears he sees back on that table. The next time he swears he sees his son on that very table again. First he gave the kid up to those people, now he didn’t finish Gideon off and let you, an innocent stranger who he is now clutching onto for dear life, get in the crossfire. Too many people have gotten hurt because of this. Because of him. He needs to make it right.
Finally Din and Dr. Pershing arrive at the Razor Crest where Din is already lowering the hatch and carrying you in. Kicking some crates together, he gently lowers you down onto this makeshift bed. He uses his thermal setting to see your body temperature, to see how you are recovering from the blood loss. He isn’t thrilled to see it still low, you were getting your energy back slowly before, along with more body heat, bit not enough to Din’s liking. Turning his helmet to Pershing, the doctor says, “She’s going to need more blood.” Din, already standing ready to run out and get some, not even knowing where or how to do that, is stopped by Pershing telling him that he’ll go get it, that it would look less suspicious. Agreeing, Din sits by your side while using his comm-link to tell Greef that he could bring Grogu back to the ship. How Din always finds someone to babysit still surprises him.
.
You wake up with a start. Eyes not yet adjusted to the lights overhead. Looking down you can see an IV in your arm again. Now towards the side, you can see the same doctor from before asleep up against a wall. Please tell me it wasn’t a dream, tears well up in your eyes as you think you’ve made the whole thing up to cope. It wasn’t until you felt your hand come to wipe away your watery eyes that you realized it just might not be a dream. The IV isn’t taking blood this time, it’s giving it.
Finally looking around, you realize you’re on a ship that feels like it’s moving. Confused by this, you try and sit up. Not nearly as dizzy as before, you slowly swing your legs off the wooden crates you’re lying on. Noticing your still barefoot as a chill gets sent up to your spine by the cold metal floor, you grab your IV bag off what appears to be just a hook poorly attached to the ceiling. You venture around the small area of the ship, noticing there isn’t a lot besides these boxes and what appears to be two storage type of units. You don’t even tempt to look in, too intrusive. You do however see a ladder going higher up on the ship. Taking the IV out and ripping a piece of your shirt off to wrap around your arm for pressure, so you can use both hands to climb, you start your ascent up.
Once you finally reach the top, you hear cooing? Didn’t that doctor say something about a child earlier? Looking forward into the cockpit, you see your savior flying while looking to his right at one of the co-pilot chairs. Clearing your throat to get his attention, two little eyes peer at you from the seat. A bright smile appears on this little green things face and you can’t help but stifle a laugh because its ears are the size of his body.
Distracted by this cute baby, you don’t notice the way the Mandalorian swivels his chair to face you. Finally looking at the man who saved you today, your breath hitches. You don’t know how to thank him for what he did, so you sort of just stand and stare for a second. He stands up and lightly grabs your arm with your homemade bandage on it. Tilting his helmet to the side you hear static coming from it. Did he just sigh at you? “You were supposed to keep it in your arm,” he finally states, with a tinge of annoyance.
Eyes not wanting to meet the T of his visor, you direct your gaze to the ground. “ I jus- I-,” you stammer, not able to find the right words. “Thank you.” It comes out more hushed than you’d like, but he still hears you. He just gives you a slight nod before releasing his arm and heading back to his seat. All your muscles turn to stone as you stand there not knowing if you should leave or not, until he cocks his head towards the seat to his left. On shaky legs you find your way to the seat. Before even sitting down fully, the little green child is already trying to get into your lap. Giggling to yourself you let him up onto your lap.
Once you do the strangest thing happens. You can feel what he’s thinking, his emotions, his past. How he was trained with the special abilities, much like the ones you just displayed before. How he was scared and in hiding until the man sitting in front of you found him. How he thinks of him as a father, his dad. Your chest tightens at that one. Still confused as to why the same people who wanted this child, Grogu, for his powers, also wanted you, you pull him to your chest to comfort you both. You finally speak up again and ask, “Did they want me because I might have the same abilities as this one?” You meant it to sound strong, but it just came out sounding weak.
Without looking at you, the Mandalorian replies shortly after a pause, “Yes.” You swore you can see his grip tighten on the ships steering as he says that. Turning to the two of you finally, he says in the sincerest voice you’ve heard out of him, “They wont get to either of you again. I can promise you that.” Your chest swells at this statement and Grogu looks up at you with a smile as if he felt the way your heart fluttered. You wish you were the one wearing the helmet right now because you can feel your cheeks heat up. To ease the situation in the best way you can, awkwardly, you clear your throat before asking, “So where are we headed now?”
Swiveling back in his chair to hit a few buttons, you’re confused not knowing what they are supposed to do until he pulls up a map and points a place out. He tells you that he’s going to drop off Dr. Pershing at one of the squiggles you see and then try and figure it out from there. “So, I guess thats where I get off too?” You meant it to come out more as a statement than a question, but after what you just went through, you’d rather not be left to fend for youself.
“If that’s what you want,” he finally utters after a while. “ But they’re not going to stop coming after you. Either of you. It might be safer for you to stay here with me, us.” The last part comes out so quiet, it’s almost as if he didn’t want you to hear, out of fear of your response.
Trying to not answer too quickly, you take a deep breath and finally say, “Yes. I’d like that a lot.” With a curt nod, he turns back around. Warmth fills your chest yet again at this stranger’s kindness. It’s just because I have the same abilities as his child, you try to convince yourself. But deep down you’re hoping it’s more than that. The child in your lap grips your fingers tightly and coos, as if he’s trying to tell you your hopes might not be too far off.
Oh, it’s going to be an interesting adventure with these two, you smile to yourself.
#din djarin x reader#the mandalorian x reader#the mandalorian#din djarin#guilt fic#mando#mando x reader#greef karga#grandpa greef#dr pershing#star wars#star wars fic#din djarin fic#the mandalorian fic#star wars fanfiction#the mandalorian fanfiction#moff gideon#grogu#baby yoda#the child#pedro pascal#din x reader#din djarin x you#the mandalorian x you
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Title: coward :: brat Pairing: Y/N x Miya Atsumu Genre: angst, romance, and very slow burn [ex to lovers au] Warnings: Cursing, alchohol, mentions of unprotected sex, unplanned pregnancy, and mentions of abortion
Synopsis: you finally see Miya Atsumu after six years, meanwhile, he feels pain when he realizes that you settled down with someone else that wasn’t him. notes: i um want to thank yall for supporting this story im- crying T-T I’m happy to inform everyone that i’ll be updating this twice a week every monday and saturday! yay!!! i was able to finish editing and im writing the last two chapters now. stay safe and big love to each and everyone of you <3
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“...Uh, Youta-Kun, Yuuto-kun, I thought you guys weren’t allowed to go.” Sugawara laughed nervously, knowing all too well where this would lead. He’s familiar with over-enthusiastic boys, in fact, one of those over-enthusiastic balls of sunshine was here right now entertaining them.
“K-Kaasan says it’s alright.” Yuuto lies but Sugawara quirked his brow, it was so obvious that he was lying.
“Yep, she did!” Youta grins, trying to help his twin but like him, he’s failing drastically.
“Then you won’t mind if I call your okaasa-”
“No!” Youta and Yuuto yell in unison. This made other people turn their way, Miya Atsumu watched the pair in amusement from afar. He noticed that they were late and that Sugawara had caught on to their scheme of joining in even without the parental consent, “We won’t join!” Youta proclaims, “Right, yu? W-We’ll pick up balls!”
Hinata feels his eyes glimmer at those words and decides to help them convince Sugawara but in the end, the twins were forced to be benched while the grey-haired teacher had to go back to the faculty to call you.
“It’s alright,” Hinata ruffles both their hairs, “We’ll try to come back next time and I’ll be sure to help convince your ‘kaasan.”
“Hey don’t plant false ideas in their head, Shoyou.” Atsumu grins, lazily jogging to their side. He directs his gaze to the twins that seem to oddly remind him of him and ‘samu when they were younger. The boy's gaze lingered a bit too long on him,unlike other kids who stared at him in awe, these ones were seething, “What are ya lookin’ at, kid?”
“Wow,you’re as mean as your brother.” Yuuto notes, eyeing him up and down.
“Yeah.” Youta echoes.
Atsumu quirks a brow, this was quite the new reaction. Never in his life had a kid told him that he was mean as ‘Samu also how did they even know his twin brother?
“Now, now, don’t you think you should cut me some slack?” Atsumu tried to jokebut the twins remained unamused by the blonde’s antics, somehow Atsumu felt a sense of familiarity from their monotonous reactions.
“No thanks.” Yuuto crossed his arms, “The fake Atsumu made ‘kaasan cry and since you look like him, you might make ‘kaasan cry too.”
“What he said!” Youta agreed loudly, copying his older brother’s action.
Atsumu was just plain confused now, he admitted that Osamu had an attitude sometimes when he was annoyed but letting a mom cry in front of her kids? That’s definitely new and not-so ‘samu like (after all, he was apparently the nicer one between them)
“What’s the name of your okaasan-”
“Youta-Kun, Yuuto-kun, Your mom will be picking you up at the gate! Please go there now.” Sugawara cuts him off, Youta and Yuuto stand up and eye him for a bit.
“We’ll defeat you and your brother! Just wait and see, we’ll be as big as you and that other jiji!” Yuuto exclaims and before Atsumu could retaliate, they’re running off to the opposite direction. Hinata was laughing beside him, clutching his sides because apparently he was too petty while Sugawara looked at him with an apologetic expression.
“I wonder why L/N-san didn’t allow them to go, she’s usually very supportive of their hobbies, especially volleyball.” Sugawara frowns, suddenly voicing out his thoughts. Atsumu felt his shoulders stiffen at the sound of that familiar name.
Osamu revealed he saw you last week then these kids suddenly confessed that his twin made their okaasan cry, he’s never seen you cry throughout your relationship (save for that night when you first me but you guys weren't together yet so that didn’t count). Maybe he was mistaken? it might be your relative or a common name.
After all, you were clear about not wanting a family.
“You know their mom well?” Hinata inquired, Atsumu seems to be listening closely now, wanting to confirm if the person that Sugawara was talking about is you.
“Oh yeah, we're around the same age so I’m much closer to her than the other moms.” Sugawara blinks, “Those boys have to listen to their okaasan more. She’s raising them on her own since their dad died before he even got to know that L/N-san was pregnant. She seemed to be longing for him whenever he’s mentioned.”
A crease appeared on the blonde's forehead as he was suddenly in deep thought. It couldn’t be, right?
“Uh, Sugawara-san, may I know the name of the mom? Her last name sounds kind of familiar.” he questions, pretending to be nonchalant but inside, he feels like he had his heart on his throat.
If it was you, he’d feel those things that he desperately tried to hide behind his confident jokes and laughs.
The pain.
The pain that you chose someone else and was open enough to the idea of starting a family. If that guy probably hadn’t died, you’d be together, happily raising those boys he had just met a while ago. Happily married, something that Atsumu tried to mention one fleeting moment while you were together back in college but you immediately shut the idea down and left him a month later.
The pain that you fell in love in a span of moments unlike Atsumu who relentlessly tried to gain your favour and follow you around like a lost puppy.
“Oh, her name’s Y/N L/N.”
Thankfully nothing unexpected happened after what the twins did, they ended up having to pick if they wanted their video game rights removed for a week or cancel their plans with their favorite ojisan who was coming by a few weeks from now, they chose the first one on that.
They had even mentioned that they met the real Miya Atsumu and although you felt like your heart lurched out of your chest and your shoulders stiffen at the mention of that man --- their father--- they simply had called him a rude jiji like his brother much to your relief.
“L/N-san, we seem to have a problem.” Aiko frowned, handing the papers to you, “The director of the advertisement department wants a bigger budget, do you mind running it through him again? You have to go to the studio though, I heard they’re doing some photo shoot now.”
You nodded in reply, taking the papers from your co-worker. The studio was a bit far so you ended up having to commute to get there, “What a nuisance.” You muttered, you needed to buy a second-hand car soon when you had enough money. It would definitely be easier for both you and the boys, “Uh excuse me? Is Nakamura-san here?” you asked the secretary on the front desk.
“And who are you?” the secretary snapped back, still typing away on her computer.
“Y/N L/N from the finance department, I have to run through the new budget liquidation with him.”
The secretary one-eyes you and the ID on your neck for a split second, “You better be quick, the boss wants only five minutes per guest since he’s personally handling the shoot today.” was all she replied, handing you the pass. You muttered a quick thank you and made your way up to the studio, whoever the model was today, they must’ve been big for Nakamura to handle them personally.
“Oh-ho, is that who I think it is?” a very, very familiar voice calls out.
“Inunaki-san.” You greeted, trying to maintain yourself, were these the big clients that Nakamura was handling? The black jackals? good fucking gracious, god must hate you.
“Wow,” he shakes his head, feigning amusement, “You’re still so calm and cool.”
You narrowed your eyes at the insult but you waved it off, “And you’re playing for a national team, congratulations.” you replied in a blank tone, your senior probably knew what happened between you and his fellow member. You wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he reacted the same way as Osamu did.
“We’re actually doing a shoot now, would you like me to call Atsu-”
“No.” your usual calm tone switched to a colder one, “I’m working now and so is Miya-san, please don’t bother yourself.”
“Gee,” he raised his hands, signalling defeat, “Just say you don’t want to see him. You don’t need to be so cold to me, my dear little kohai.”
“I have to go back to my job, I’m on the clock here.” You ignored his previous statement, “It was nice seeing you again Inunaki-san.”
Before you could give him a chance to reply, you headed towards the studio. You took a deep breath and mentally calculated to three.
one.
It’s been six years, Miya Atsumu would ignore you. He wouldn’t care about the girl who left him out to dry in college. He’s got a girlfriend now, a model who has legs for days and looks ten times better than you and acts more like a girlfriend than you ever did.
two.
Yes, that’s right, he wouldn’t care.
three.
You entered the studio, you could feel the air tighten around you as soon as you heard that laughter. The one you used to hear everyday and never get tired of. For all the laughs you couldn’t do, he’d do it for you and boy, was he patient around you since you didn’t smile a lot back then (who were you kidding? until now you still had the same problem except when the kids were around)
You want to stop and stare, you want to admire him and his glory that you were very much proud of.
Yet your legs continue to carry you to your boss, the laughter seems to have ceased and you could hear someone asking him what was wrong.
“Oh, L/N-san?” Nakamura greeted you, “You’re here for the renewal of the budget?”
You nodded feverishly, your legs seem to be turning into jelly because you want to collapse from the nervousness and thank god that you wore some make-up before arriving here, otherwise, they would’ve noticed how pale you looked, “Everything seems to be in order,” He nods, scanning the sheets and handing them back to you, “Are you busy right now?”
You glanced at the wall clock, checking the time to see if you could extend your stay and Nakamura is quick to pick up on it, “Ah right, you’ve got kids to pick up. It’ll be quick, just help set up the blocks there and you’re free to leave.” he orders.
You nodded obediently and slowly turned to the side only to catch the very familiar chocolate brown eyes of the blonde. You feel your heart hammering in your chest and your feet turn cold, it had been six years since you last saw Miya Atsumu and he was still as winsome and exhilarating as he was back then.
You may have seen him a lot on television but seeing him, right here, a few feet away from you was different. Taking in a big gulp of air, you started working on the set-up as quickly as you could yet you could still feel his burning gaze remaining on you, “Tsum-tsum, lay off her will you.” came Inunaki Shion’s loud voice snaps him out of his daze.
Great, that little twat had to make an appearance.
“Y/N-san you should really say hi,” Inunaki teased as soon as you finish your set-up.
“Oh? You’re Y/N L/N?” the orange one gushed, quickly up on his feet, you recall him as Hinata Shoyou, Youta’s favorite orange-haired ninja, “Sugawara-san’s friend?”
You hesitantly nodded, “Oh, you know her Sho-kun?” Shion asked, seemingly amused by it all.
“What are you all crowding here for, Hinata?” Another asked, peering in them closely. This one must’ve been Bokuto, another favorite of Yuuto.
“Sugawara-san’s friend! she’s the mother of those two boys in the training camp who had to go home early!” he suddenly turns to you and then grins, “Ne, ne, the boys really seem to want to attend one of those. Why don’t you allow them to join us-”
“Forget it, Hinata.” Atsumu suddenly speaks out, that warm voice that you were accustomed to seemed cold and menacing now, “She won’t allow it.”
Shion notices the tension between you two and when he’s about to usher the energetic duo away back to the dressing room along with the other members, you let out a quiet sigh and spoke out, “I was on my way to leave, please don’t bother yourselves.” You simply replied, you didn’t waver and stared at him dead in the eye, this could be the moment to end it all and cut ties with him officially, “I apologize for what I did back then, Miya-san. I should’ve told it to you in person. I offer my sincere congratulations to you for making it this far.”
The blonde clenched his jaw, it seemed like he wanted to say something to you yet when he realizes the usual calm and collected demeanor you're putting up, he decides against it and leaves you alone by storming away first.
Hinata and the guy named Bokuto looked at you --- completely puzzled and lost like a deer in the headlights --- before following the blonde, “You truly are in a whole ‘nuther level, Y/N.” Shion whistles, “Heard you’ve got two boys now though. Congrats, where's the poor bastard?”
You continue to watch the back of Atsumu Miya. Finally, it seemed like he’d left you alone and probably for good this time, “Gone, off to a better place.” was all you replied.
Inunaki notices the longing in your voice, a completely unfamiliar emotion he had never seen back then even when you and Atsumu were together. It seemed like you and Atsumu were both the poor bastards in the end.
Miya Atsumu sleeps alone that night.
He doesn’t call his girlfriend back despite the several missed calls, he doesn’t reply to the unanswered text of his brother and his teammates. All he feels is pain tonight, pain because of your very dry apology, pain because of your bland expression. Pain because you didn’t seem to care like that time six years ago.
He shuts his eyes tight and he feels as if he’s back in college, back to that winter night where he received that dreaded phone call from you after you disappeared from him. He remembered those days clearly, your apartment had been cleaned out and paid for, you weren’t answering him on social media, your phone line was also unresponsive and he couldn’t even call your family since you never mentioned anything about them at all.
You both may have been intimate for the past two years but when you disappeared, he had the frightening realization that he didn’t know you at all.
He didn’t want to push you out of your comfort zone, he wanted you to lead the relationship but right at that moment, he wished he pried just a bit since he was worried about you.
Then in the midst of his anxiety, it came, that phone call.
“Atsumu.” your usual calm voice filled his ears and he suddenly feels the weight of the world is removed from his shoulders, thank god you were okay.
“Y/N? Baby? Where are you?”
“Out.”
“Where outside exactly?” Miya Atsumu dryly asks, “It’s cold, you shouldn’t be out now and wandering about. Would you like me to pick you up-”
“I can’t do this anymore.” you suddenly cut him off and the line goes quiet. The blonde feels the world around him quiet down too when he hears those words that he wished he heard wrong.
“What’s, what’s wrong? Y/N, are you alright?”
“I don’t know,” You mutter, “I’m just tired.”
“Tired of what exactly?”
“Of you, of us…”
“Y/N, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Yes.” Your voice remained dead calm as if you just hadn’t broken his heart in a million pieces that moment, “Let’s stop this here now, Atsumu. Let’s break-up.”
“That’s…” He tries to keep the mood light, praying that this is one of your dark jokes, “That’s not funny, Y/N.”
“It’s not supposed to be since it’s not a joke.”
Your response was curt as usual and he doesn’t know whats worse, the fact that you’re breaking up over the phone or the fact that your tone remains stable and the same.
“Y/N, don’t do this...Baby don’t do this over the phone.” His tone seemed desperate at this point, “I’m not stopping this until you tell me what's wrong between us, you have to give me something to work with Y/N. Is it something I did?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean ya don’t know?” Atsumu started to raise his tone when he notices how unaffected you seem at the other line.Frustration slowly started to bubble in him, the accent turning thicker as he got angrier, “Y/N ya can’t just disappear out of the blue and call me one day and tell me you want to break up! Do you think I’m some sort of fling? Some one-night stand or fuck buddies? We’ve been together for two years, Y/N. Two whole fucking years, What’s wrong? Do you not love me anymore?”
“Yes.”
The line went dead silent again and he hates it, he doesn’t know what to say as his face contorts in sadness and confusion.
“I don’t…” He starts to feel a lump grow on his throat when he hears how easy it was for you to say, he knew he was in love with you more than you were with him. Many had pointed out how dangerous and how painful it would be on his side in the end, he couldn’t believe it would hurt him this much, “ I don’t fucking believe you, say it right at my face. Where the hell are ya? Let’s talk this one out in person.”
“Don’t bother, I just don’t want to see you again.”
“Y/N you can’t just-”
“I can and I will.” You cut him off, your voice was growing more and more detached and he feels like he’s back to that moment two years ago where you didn’t spare him a glance and treated him like a scrub, he hears a hefty sigh on your side and the next few words is another bullet to his heart, “I’m sorry it had to end this way, Atsumu.”
“You…” he shakily replied, trying to mask his grief with a painful chuckle. He wants to be mad at you, he wants to yell at you but for some odd reason, he couldn’t bring himself to, “Jesus christ, you really are something, Y/N. You just broke my heart over the the fucking phone and all you could do is say sorry?”
“Sorry.” you say, like a broken-record on repeat and he hates it. He hates how he feels like this was nothing for you.
“Don’t you dare say that again when you don’t mean it-” He spat and before he could finish what he had to say, the phone line went dead. He tried to call again but it seemed like you had used a payphone. Out of complete vexation, he hurls his phone right across the room towards the blue photo frame with the both of you in it.
The sound of broken glass shards and ragged breathing is the only thing heard in the quiet apartment.
It’s not even the peak of winter that night yet he feels so numb and cold.
taglist [closed]
@fortheloveofiwaizumi ; @svtbitch ; @ryaaaax ; @kiyoomile ; @lovedanii @juno-multifandom ; @gyubit17 ; @saeranoppa ; @nixxona ; @kyomihann @shorttstackk ; @itsmattsunshinehere ; @missingmystogan ; @Etherynaw ; @volleybloop ; @imcravingyou ;
#haikyu!! fanfics#miya atsumu x reader#miya atsumu imagine#atsumu imagines#atsumu x reader#miya atsumu scenarios#haikyuu imagines#haikyuu scenarios#haikyuu angst#miya atsumu#haikyuu headcanons#haikyuu x reader#haikyuu x you#coward series
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Remembrance of Things Past - Eps 1-10 Impression/Rant
Not really a first impressions post since there are only 2 episodes left, but as I’m waiting on the last few episodes, I thought I’d rant a bit about the drama here.
First of all, I agree with everything that AvenueX said in her review of the first 6 episodes. Her review is what prompted me to start the drama. I needed a realistic slice of life drama to balance out the idol drama that is You Are My Glory (which I’m also waiting on for new episodes), and ROTP seemed to fit bill. ROTP is just so good.
I binged ROTP in 3 days. It could have been 2 days, but I started it at 2am on a Wednesday night, so I didn’t get very far the first night. Each episode is about 75 minutes long, so almost the equivalent of 2 regular lengthed episodes, but not quite.
I cried during the first two episodes. The character development is just phenomenal. You really feel for Jing Jing’s character even though you’ve only seen her character for an hour. There are little moments throughout the drama that made me tear up too, like when the girls were celebrating Nan Jia jie’s 36th birthday and I got emotional over how close their bond is, or moments when the girls reflected on their aging parents and how we often take our parents for granted.
Plot pacing and structure
The plot is tight and well-paced, and each girl’s storyline is interwoven well. Sometimes they’d cut between simultaneous scenes between the girls to compare and contrast what they’re each going through. For instance, when Xu Yan is having an argument with her boyfriend, the drama will also cut and flip back and forth to Qiao Xi Chen going through problems at her workplace. When Xu Yan makes up with her boyfriend, the drama cuts to QXC and Nan Jia being romantically pursued by Jian Yi Fan and Ou Yang. It’s interesting to see how their lives mirror and differ from each other.
Because the storylines between the girls are so interwoven and keep flipping back and forth between each other, it makes it hard to skip scenes because you can’t just skip an entire segment or else you’ll miss something important in all 3 storylines. I can see that this might be a little annoying if you have a preference for one of the girls and want to skip someone else’s storyline. But I actually like seeing all 3 of their stories play out, so I’m not bothered by it.
Another aspect about the plot’s structure that I appreciate is how they use the mystery behind Jing Jing’s suicide as a throughline for the drama. Up until episode 8ish(?), each episode ends with a question about Jing Jing’s life prior to her suicide and the next episode opens with the girls trying to find an answer or a clue to it. The girls and we the audience learn more and more about Jing Jing with each episode. However, episodes 9 and 10 deviate from the structure a bit and so the drama has recently been less and less focused on Jing Jing’s story, especially after they found out that she had depression. The drama seems to imply that her depression due to the stress of living in Beijing was the main factor that led to her suicide, while the successive unfortunate events that happened on her birthday was the trigger.
Characters
I like all the main characters in the drama, albeit some a little more than others, which I’ll explain. I think the 3 male love interests are a little too perfect though, and so I guess this slice of life drama is actually a little idealistic after all.
Xu Yan - My least favourite of the four girls. She’s materialistic, but not as spoiled as I though she would be. But it does annoy me how she keeps picking fights with Shen Zi Chang, when he’s just trying his best. He’s so tolerant and patient with her. He apologizes, they make up, and then the cycle repeats. It’s just a very unhealthy relationship, and I’m tried of seeing them fight and make up.
EDIT: So, I started writing this review when I had only watched up until episode 9, but now that I’ve finished episode 10, um, wtf?? Xu Yan made a bad choice and got scammed of all her money, her friends try to comfort her, loan her money, and tell her not to repress her emotions like Jing Jing. And then she just lashes out at them saying they have no right to comfort her because they were the ones who caused Jing Jing’s death. Xu Yan starts off blaming QXC for not knowing that Jing Jing had a crush on her boyfriend, and then she blames Nan Jia for being a bad older cousin. She blames both of them for being ignorant of Jing Jing’s depression and only caring about themselves. QXC (rightfully) retorts back than Xu Yan knew all along that Jing Jing had a crush on her boyfriend, and yet Xu Yan never told anyone, so she’s just as guilty as all of them. Honestly, I was sympathetic towards Xu Yan before, but she was just so ungrateful and entitled in that scene. What right does she have pointing fingers and assigning guilt to people? And to weaponize Jing Jing’s death against them? That’s just cruel. The argument between them in that scene at the end of episode 10 just felt so random and out of place. All of a sudden, Xu Yan points out all of these problems she has with QXC and Nan Jia, when all they’ve ever done is pamper her. Also, you can’t blame QXC for dating Lin Rui even if Jing Jing liked him first, and not to mention that QXC wasn’t even aware. QXC might not have even chosen to date Lin Rui if she had known. But it happens all the time between friends where your friend might date someone you like. All’s fair in love and war, and there’s no first come first serve rule when it comes to dating.
Jing Jing - She becomes more complex as you learn more about her. She puts her friends first and is fiercely supportive and protective of them. We get a glimpse of how far she’s willing to go for them she pulls a butcher knife from the kitchen and points it at QXC’s debt collectors in the first episode. Her friends see her as being really open, expressive, and bubbly. She’s the first one they each go to whenever they need help with a problem or want to show off an achievement. But in reality, she’s really secretive. She hides her feelings to keep her friends happy, and when they slowly uncover her secrets, she becomes less and less recognizable to them, as though she’s been living a double life all along.
At the end of episode 10, Jing Jing is described as the “hole in the tree” that everyone goes to to share their secrets, but they forget that she’s also a person with her own secrets to share, and she’s not just a tree hole to serve others. Can we blame the friends for not paying enough attention to Jing Jing and only using her for emotional support? Yes and no. It’s complicated. We should always do more to try to care for others and to be more attentive to them, but at the same time, it’s impossible to completely know a person. I purposely hide parts of my life from my friends because I don’t want them worrying or judging or commenting. So I would never expect them to be able to figure it out, and neither do I want them to figure it out. I think it’s interesting that the drama is exploring the friends’ self-imposed guilt, but I don’t agree that Xu Yan should be the one to point it out them and to be Jing Jing’s spokesperson. Xu Yan positions herself as Jing Jing’s heroic and righteous advocator, when really Xu Yan is the most problematic person out of the three remaining friends.
Also, after seeing how the friends interact, they don’t feel narcissistic. Yes, they each readily vent about their problems to each other, but they also ask about the other person. It’s not one-sided. Xu Yan talks about her problems with her boyfriend, but she also asks and cares about what’s happening in QXC’s life and vice versa. Nan Jia is more mature and is busy with her business, but she always takes the time and effort to help her friends. All of their conversations are reciprocal and they are genuinely interested in each other’s lives. So, I don’t think they have a major communication problem or that they don’t care or that they’re ignorant. Which again, makes Xu Yan’s accusations in episode 10 feel even more unfair.
Ji Nan Jia - Jing Jing’s cousin and also the oldest of the three girls (about a decade older). Sassy, witty, unapologetic, confident. She’s who you’d think of when you imagine a successful, independent, career-driven woman. She’s extremely annoyed by her mother’s nagging to get married. But she herself is trying to figure out whether she actually wants to find someone to settle down with or if she just wants to beat her biological clock and have children while she still can. She’s pursued by Ou Yang, ten years her junior, and he’s absolutely enamoured with her. He seems to be unconditionally in love with her, which is what I meant when I said that the male leads in this drama seem too perfect and idealistic. But I like Ou Yang though. He’s adorable.
Qiao Xi Chen - The main character of the four main characters. Like Nan Jia, she’s also quite sassy. In some ways, she’s like a younger version of Nan Jia. QXC is also very career driven and competitive. She’s confident and believes in her abilities, but she also gets easily overwhelmed and emotional (like when her stress and nervousness prevented her from being able to give her proposal presentation and she ran out of the room. I’ve definitely felt that way before my committee meetings). QXC is a character you can self-insert as because she represents the everyday employee who struggles with the long commute to work and tries to stand out and make a name for herself in the company. QXC is also extremely paranoid, which is understandable when you’re a woman living alone in the city. I know what it’s like to have to briskly walk home late at night and constantly having to look over your shoulder to make sure no one’s following you, or having to check your hotel room before you change, or having to make it seem like you’re not the only one living in your apartment. QXC is smart, logical, helps people when she can, but is also reasonably selfish when she needs to protect herself, like when her co-workers try to take advantage of her or throw her under the bus. She’s a character everyone can relate to.
She and Jian Yi Fan also make such a cute pairing. I love all their interactions. I love how Jian Yi Fan can’t help but smile when he’s with her, but he tries hard to clamp it down. I love how QXC is aware of her own attraction and easily admits to to Xu Yan that she does have feelings for him instead of beating around the bush. And I especially love the awkward but adorable confession scene in episode 8. Such great banter and play on words (”你是什麼意思” “沒意思” “你對我是不是有意思?”). The drama did a great job of depicting the frustration of trying to guess whether someone likes you when they seem to be sending mixed signals. A lot of dramas that don’t focus on romance seem to do a better job of showing romance than idol dramas that focus on nothing but romance. I grew up with TVB dramas, and in most of them, romance is usually secondary to the main plot, but I always loved the romances in those dramas.
Like Ou Yang, JYF is such an idealistic love interest. He’s so supportive of and attentive to QXC. I haven’t watched too many slice of life dramas, but To Dear Myself and My Best Friend’s Story both had flawed (and sometimes even irredeemable) male love interests. This drama’s rose-coloured glasses definitely reduces the amount of performative angst, but it also makes the drama a little less realistic. The men in Jing Jing’s life aren’t villainized either even when you expected them to be sinister. I think the most antagonistic character is Lin Rui, but even he’s made to be sympathetic. In fact, nearly all the characters in the drama are sympathetic characters because many of the choices they made were forced because of the situation they found themselves in, and what they did was an act of self-preservation. And so, you can’t hate them or blame them.
Acting and Dialogue
I mean, what’s there to say? The acting and dialogue just sucks you right in. I love it so much. The characters are so animated and charming because of how well the actors delivered their lines. I’m not a mandarin speaker (I’m a cantonese speaker but learned mandarin afterwards), but even I was able to notice the colloquialism and slangs and idiosyncratic ticks in speech that made the dialogue feel so real and alive. The actors had great comedic timing, and when they cried, you could feel how vulnerable they are.
Lastly, I also like the little “life lessons” they include at the end of the drama where there’d be a voiceover by one of the actresses and they’d muse about life. One of my favourite musings when when they talked about what it means to have a sense of security. For some people, having a sense of security is about having a certain amount of money in your bank account, or having someone waiting for you to come home, but a sense of security isn’t something tangible or physical that you can achieve or possess. It’s a belief. It’s a belief that you’re able to face any problem and that life will go on. It’s a belief that the one that you love will be faithful and supportive. It’s a type of belief that allows you to be confident to face uncertainty. And thus, a sense of security is something that only you can give yourself. I really like that little food for thought because it’s a great reminder to be self-dependent and to not rely on external gratification. Que sera sera. What will be will be. Don’t get too hung over on failure and don’t let stress dominate your life.
Note: Watching this at the same time as You Are My Glory is extremely humbling. YAMG is an idol drama, and so they make the romance look so easy. Heck, idol dramas make being a protagonist easy. The protagonist is destined to stand out from the crowd. It’s easy to be noticed. It’s easy to cause a change in the status quo. But ROTP is a reminder that we’re all practically nobodies in the big city. It feels impossible to make an impression when there are millions of other people living almost the same life as you are. There’s nothing special about you, and it’s hard to find meaning and purpose. Obviously, the drama shows that even when it feels like you’re trying to swim upstream in a big city, we each have a life worth living. We may feel insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but to our friends and family, we’re their world and they’re ours. I think it was Camus who said that we should find meaning in the face of absurdity. Live in spite of how absurd and meaningless things feels. Anyway, this drama gives you a lot to think about, even though I don’t really like the melodrama they’ve recently added to drag the plot (*cough cough* that explosive argument scene at the end of episode 10 that I keep ranting about). You’d think that a 12-episode drama wouldn’t have filler, and yet here we are.
#我在他乡挺好的#remembrance of things past#cdrama#zhou yu tong#bai yu fan#cdrama review#jolin jin#ren su xi
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[Preview] New fic: Sing to me Instead.
Hello everyone!
I'm happy to share with you a few more details about my new fic, which is titled Sing to me Instead, after Ben Platt's amazing AMAZING album. I listened to it non-stop while I was writing Flowers in the Window and I found myself wanting to write a story based on that album as much as possible. So every chapter is influenced by lyrics from those songs.
It's a fully written roommates!AU (something I've never done before and was really looking forward to! I think I might just write my way through all the popular tropes I haven't yet written). The first chapter will be up on Wednesday, December 2nd, and it will update twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Without further ado, here's a little sneak peek. I hope you will like it :)
His first home had been in Lima, Ohio.
In a way, Kurt Hummel guessed it would always be his home, at least for as long as his father lived there. It was weird, to still think of Lima as home, considering how hard he had worked to get the hell away from there, away from homophobic douchbags, from close-minded neighbors, from a life that had always felt half-lived. Kurt had spent most of his teenage years dreaming of a city made of buildings tall enough to shield him, but large enough to finally, finally be free.
If it weren't for his dad, he wasn't sure he would ever go back. But Kurt still went home – home, when will it stop being home? – regularly, for Christmas and birthdays and every holiday he could. For someone who had been desperate enough to never step on Ohio soil again, he sure made it a priority to return as often as he could. But for his father, Kurt was willing to go to the end of the earth, and he was there, always waiting with his arms open for Kurt to come back, along with his step-mother. Family was important, and a piece of his heart always stayed with them when he had to leave them, so he guessed that Ohio would have a piece of Kurt Hummel hopefully for many, many more years.
His second home had been in Bushwick, New York.
It had been such a contrast to the small town life he had been used to, where life seemed to stop after eight in the evening. In Bushwick, Kurt could hear traffic, police car sirens and music even at three in the morning, or he could walk down the block to get ice cream at the store in the middle of the night – something that wasn't exactly wise, considering it wasn't the safest neighborhood, but the large, albeit quite run down loft, had been all eighteen-year-old Kurt and his best friend Rachel Berry had been able to afford when they first got to the city. And it had been enough, and it had been home, because it was where their dreams finally stretched their wings and attempted to fly.
They had arrived in New York with dreams of stardom. Rachel had been accepted into NYADA and Kurt had followed her despite having received a rejection letter to the same school. But he had been determined to make something of himself, to reach his goals even if the doors kept shutting in his face over and over again. He had gotten an internship – at Vogue, no less – and then reapplied to NYADA for the next term. This time, he had got in. And he never looked back.
At some point while the two of them were busy with school and work and this new life that they couldn't believe was theirs, Santana Lopez had invited herself to move in with them. She had gone to high school with them and one day simply showed up on their doorstep and announced she was staying with them, indeterminately. Kurt and Rachel had simply stared at each other, knowing there was no way to talk her out of it.
Rachel and Santana didn't always get along, which meant Kurt got caught up in their fights more often than not. Around that time, Kurt had also started working at a restaurant as a waiter, and the commute back to Bushwick so late at night became the thing he hated the most about New York.
That's when Mercedes Jones came to the rescue.
Another friend from high school – and it sometimes seemed like most of Kurt's class at McKinley High School was suddenly moving to New York – Mercedes had arrived in Manhattan after getting signed in a recording company. This wasn't only amazing because Mercedes was one of the most talented people Kurt had ever met, which was saying a lot, but also because it came with all kinds of perks, like a small but gorgeous town house in the Upper East Side, a neighborhood Kurt hadn't dreamed of living in until he was at least thirty and considerably more successful.
“Kurt, I've got a spare room,” she had said to him, when they got together for coffee one afternoon and Kurt kept going on and on about how much he hated the late commute, and how exhausting it was to get home late at night only to find Rachel and Santana having screaming matches over whatever they had disagreed on that day. “Why don't you move in with me?”
Kurt hadn't even needed to think about it. He was standing up and going around the table to hug her, saying yes over and over again.
So Kurt's third home was in the Upper East Side.
This was probably the only part of his life he truly loved at the moment. Getting to come home to this beautiful town house feels like a gift – especially since he's pretty disappointed in most of the other areas of his life. He still worked at the restaurant, and two years after graduating NYADA, he thought he would be somewhere else. He thought he would have gotten a steady job performing by now. It was frustrating how people in this town – just like in his hometown – still refused to recognize and appreciate his talent.
But Kurt had never been one for giving up.
#Fic: Sing to me instead#Klaine#Klaine fic#Klaine fanfic#Klaine fanfiction#HERE WE GO AGAIN#Roommates!Klaine
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Wickedly Domestic - Roommates and Puppies
Now that I am back on tumblr I figured I might as well upload my John Wick x Fat!OC fic here as well. Maybe I'll find the motivation to write it as well.
TW: Alternate Universe Canon Diverence, Mutual Pining, Slowburn, Sex
If I miss anything please let me know!
There is a consistent thunk, thunk, thunk of her roommates bed hitting the wall. Despite a whole floor separating them she could still hear the sounds of her roommate getting fucked into next week, literally. Usually Maria wouldn’t care that her roommates late at night shenanigans would run into the next morning but, there was more at stake on the agenda today than usual. Maria pressed her pillow over her ears and looked at her phone; it was almost 4 am Monday morning.
There was a meeting in downtown New York that she had to attend, which the commute was a little more intense then she usually had to deal with. Living and working in a suburb outside of New York City allowed for a stress and traffic free drive to work, usually 15 minutes or less, but driving into the city always was a hassle, that drive tends to be close to an hour. Maria rubbed at her eyes and unlocked her phone, she still had 3 hours before she had to be downtown. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, this meeting was with the CEO. Those kinds of meetings either ended up in promotion or termination, she buried her face into her pillow. She could still hear the thunk and a few giggles from her roommate and company. Considering she was already up and too anxious to go back to bed she might as well get her workout in now instead of later.
Heaving herself up and out of bed with a groan she let out a yawn before looking around for her workout clothes. Pulling on her leggings and finding a clean shirt she fished around her room for her headphones. Despite living in New York state for a little over 3 months now she still hasn’t completely unpacked. Moving boxes were still stacked around the room and there was a stack of art needing to be hung up.
She wasn’t planning on moving when she did, the roommate who was busy getting fucked, offered her a place to stay. All she had to do was pay utilities and cook for the house once a week. The home had been a surprise to her roommate Cooper. An estranged great Aunt had willed it over to her, Cooper was already living in New York, and the full ride she received was barely enough to cover the dorm she had to split with 2 other people. When she was contacted by lawyers telling her she is now a proud homeowner and didn’t have to worry about student loans for the rest of her life.
One of the first things she did was reach out to Maria. Cooper was well aware of the tension at home, brewing in Maria’s family since they met in high-school. Unfortunately she had first hand seen more tear stained faces and frustration that Maria was put through. They spoke often and were close, promising to push each other to do amazing things. Sometimes amazing things means moving across the country but their love and friendship didn’t diminish over the distance. So offering the room
All Maria had to do was fund the move and drive 30 hours across the country. Dying to get out of the town she has spent her whole life, as well as always loving the east coast, she packed up, put in her two weeks at her current job and submitted an application to anywhere within a 10 mile radius of her new address. She thanked the stars when a local bank picked up her application and allowed for Skype and phone interviews, giving her the job before she even moved out there. She was introduced to her coworkers through a group chat and she fell into her role easily before she even met them in person.
The hardest part had been leaving old friends, leaving her family on the other hand had been a blessing. Her father and his side of the family had always been hard to please and any relationship with them over the last couple of years had been more of a formality than anything else. Her mother was a different story, tears were shed and a few fights were had due to this hasty decision on moving across the country. Maria’s mother had always wanted more for her daughter than what she currently had but packing up and leaving across the country in less than a month gave her mother bad feelings. Her mother backed off and gave Maria her blessing once she got her job, knowing how stubborn her daughter is once she puts her mind to something.
Her siblings had felt the same way, constant calls and texts were exchanged during the long drive while everyone was proud and knew she would be better for the move. It still hurt, promising to visit during holidays and letting them stay over if they ever visited. But it was like ripping off a bandaid. It had to be done or else it festers and could lead to infection, staying stagnant had been driving her crazy.
Once changed and headphones found under some papers she had been reviewing at her desk, she slid them over her ears and made her way upstairs, closing the door and making sure it was locked behind her. Her cat had the habit of running outside and getting lost or turning up at the local shelter and the last thing she needed was to also be worrying about her cat while she was working in the city.
She jogged down to the gate and opened it before she got into her car and made her way to the nature preserve just a few minutes away from her home. She could have ran there but she wasn’t quite ready to commit to the workout while the air was so chilly. By the time she has parked and started her stretches the world had started to wake up around her, birds chirping and the distant sounds of honking while she tried to figure out what playlist she wanted to run to. Deciding on something beat heavy she started down the trail that would lead over the swamp, it had been a while since she had run outside, usually opting to do her cardio in a class setting or on a treadmill while she binges whatever series she is watching on Netflix at the moment.
She was only half a mile in the trail before she had to stop for a moment. Her “ultra support” sports bra did not help as much as she hoped, having big tits was a blessing and a curse. They made working out hell on earth but it got her more free drinks at the bar then she would like to admit. But it also kept her from being able to run as much as she would like to before she has to stop and readjust.
She pulled out her phone and checked the time, quarter past 5 am, she still had time. She could do a mile before she went home and showered and get ready for a grueling day. She paused her music, taking deep breaths before she started up again, she thought she heard rustling behind her. Which despite being close to the city the swamp held more wildlife than she thought it would. She sat and listened, chancing a glance behind her. The sun was nearly up but running by herself in public always put her on edge. There was always the chance of someone grabbing her and doing whatever they would like to her, she shuddered and unlocked her phone, sending her location and a text as to when she would be back to the roommate group chat. Just in case she were to get snatched up at least her roommates would know where she was last.
She started up again, turning her music up all the way to drown out her heavy breathing and the sound of her feet hitting the trail. It wasn’t until she was almost across one of the many bridges in the nature preserve stretching her calf muscles when she felt something warm and slimy against the skin of her leg. She screamed and pulled her head phones off, looking down to see if she had unknowingly picked up a slug or if some creep had managed to sneak up on her. Letting out a sigh when she saw it was a small Beagle, whining and licking at her leg. She crouched down pet the dog who was whining at her feet.
“Hey baby, where are your parents?” She picked up the dog and looked it over, she saw a name tag, “Daisy- that’s a cute name. Matches my tattoo,” she flipped over the name tag and saw an address, thankful she wouldn't have to drop the dog off at home and try to find her owners later. Daisy fell asleep in her arms while she walked the pup back to her car, the thought on finishing her run gone from her mind. Once the dog was rested safely in her front seat and plugged the address into her phone. It was a quick drive back to the owners house thankfully, it was getting dangerously close to 6 am but she couldn’t not take the sleepy baby home.
She knew if her cat went missing longer than usual or her roommates dog she would be worried sick. No parent should be worried about their baby, that was the biggest motivator for her as she snaked through the neighborhood following her GPS until she pulled up to one of the biggest houses she had ever seen. She knew she lived in affluent part of the state but pulling up the gravel driveway of what was basically a mansion she started to sweat. The bouncing of her car woke the puppy up, who was happily wagging her tail, grateful to be home after wandering away in the early morning. Maria smiled, happy that the pup was glad to be home.
“Lets go baby, let's get you back home.” Daisy ran up the door and pawed at it. Maria knocked and waited a moment, when she didn’t hear any movement in the house she rang the doorbell. Daisy was sitting by her feet waiting patiently for the door to open, it felt like hours while she stood in the massive door hoping someone was home to take the pup in. In reality It had probably been only 5 or so minutes, she chanced a glance around the driveway and didn’t see a car. Figuring that whoever would have been home was gone she turned and started walking back to her car, calling for Daisy, she could take her home and try again after work. Knowing her roommates would be sympathetic to the lost puppy and take care of her until she could try again. It was then she heard the large door open. She turned and nearly lost her balance when she caught a glance at the man who opened the door.
#peachy writes#wickedly domestic#john wick x oc#john wick fic#slow burn#I hope yall like this#it's been my baby for years#im getting to the smut promise
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how about b25 w stevetony? (+baby peter if youre up for it?)
honestly, I’m always up to write baby Peter. I also wrote SteveTony getting together and adult Peter, just to round it all off. 1300 words of superfamily, getting together, goats, and general softness...
Hold my hand
Tony didn’t get nervous. He’d given enough speeches and headed enough conferences for nerves to be a thing of the past. However, the rapid beating of his heart and the sweat on his palms told a different story.
Although he tried to tell himself that there really wasn’t anything to be nervous about, it was useless.
In his defence, he was sitting opposite the World’s First SuperheroTM in what was unmistakably a romantic restaurant. He hadn’t expected it to be overt, with the low lighting and a bottle of champagne chilling in an ice bucket at the end of their candle-lit table.
“Not enjoying the steak?”
Tony looked down at the plate in front of him. If he’d have been asked before Steve had spoken, he doubted he’d have been able to recall what he’d ordered.
“Yeah,” he said belatedly. It looked nice enough. “I mean no. I am enjoying. How’s, how’s yours? Mussels, was it?”
Steve grinned. “Pea and mushroom risotto, but close enough. It’s good. At least I’ve eaten mine.”
Tony groaned and reached for his wine glass, stopping when he saw that it was empty. He groaned again. “Where is that waiter?” He looked around the restaurant, feeling an uncomfortable flush rising up his neck. “I’ll get the bill and we can go.”
“I don’t want to go.”
Tony’s head snapped round to look at Steve quickly. “What?”
“I don’t,” Steve said again. He lifted a forkful of risotto to his mouth and ate it, looking at Tony the whole time. “Why would I want to go?”
“Because this looks like a,” Tony dropped his voice and leant forward, “a date.”
“Well, of course. That’s what I’d hoped when I asked you out.”
He said it so simply, so carefree that Tony’s mouth dropped open. “You didn’t ask me out.”
“Yes, I did.” Steve took another bite of his meal, looking completely at ease.
“You asked me to go for dinner. To celebrate the battle.”
“Exactly.” Steve frowned. “Wow. You really are oblivious.”
“Rude,” Tony snapped back immediately, even though his heart wasn’t really in it with his attention focused on thinking back to when Steve had asked him. “Oh. Huh. Look at that.”
“Yup,” Steve said happily, “so, you want to eat your steak now?”
Tony smiled. “I think I might.”
They finished their meals in silence, sharing small smiles and soft glances. When their plates had been cleared and dessert ordered, Steve placed his hand on the table, palm facing upwards.
Tony stared at it for a moment and Steve chuckled gently.
“Hold my hand,” he said, smile wide and impossibly soft. “Make it a real date.”
And that sounded good to Tony.
////
“You’re late.”
Tony grinned as he stepped onto the slight platform. “Traffic.”
Steve lifted an unimpressed eyebrow. “Traffic from the suite upstairs you stayed in last night?”
“Yup. Busy commute, I’m afraid.”
“You are the worst.”
“That’s me,” Tony said cheerfully, grin still wide, “but you’re the one standing at the altar waiting for him.”
“You’re in luck,” Steve answered with a straight face, “I was only going to give you five more minutes.”
“Liar. You’d wait for me forever.”
Steve sighed loudly, but a smile started to tug at the corner of his mouth. “Shut up and hold my hand.”
Laughing, Tony took Steve’s hand in his and linked their fingers together. “Always.”
////
“Goats!”
Steve laughed loudly. “Yeah, kid. Goats. You excited?”
“Goats!” Peter squealed again, clapping his hands together and stamping his rain boot-clad feet on the floor. “Goats, goats, goats!”
“Alright, alright,” Tony said, slamming the car door shut and walking round to the trunk, laughing at Peter’s dance. “We get it, bud, we’re going to see the goats, I promise.”
“Wanna feed.”
“You’ll get to feed them,” Steve said, taking his coat from Tony with a quiet thanks and checking the lock on the trunk. “We just have to talk to the nice man on the desk and get some food.”
“Then feed?”
“Yeah, Petey, we’ll get to feed them soon.”
Obviously happy with that, Peter fell quiet, still bouncing on the spot.
“Come on, then. Goat time.”
Tony laughed, heaving their rucksack up onto his shoulder. “There’s a sentence I never expected from you.”
“One I never expected to say, either. But that’s what you do when you have a son who’s obsessed with goats.”
*
“Goats!”
“Yeah, babe, there’s the goats.”
Tony snorted and stepped forward, running his hand over Peter’s shoulder. “You excited, then, bud?”
“Scared, Papa.”
“You’re scared?” Steve knelt down until he was near enough level with Peter. “What’s the matter?”
Peter shrugged, shuffling back until he was leaning against Tony’s legs. “Just scared.”
“You don’t need to be scared, buddy,” Steve said, voice soft. He shook the small bag of goat food towards Peter. “They’re not going to hurt you. They just want a snacky-snack.”
“I like snackies,” Peter muttered, still pressed against Tony’s legs.
“Don’t we know it,” Tony said, smirking when Steve glared at him. Grimacing a little at the mud on the floor, Tony knelt down next to his husband. “Okay, okay. What’s up?”
“Don’t wanna bite me.”
“They’re not going to bite you,” Tony said, poking Peter in the stomach to coax a very small smile from him. “And even if they tried, Papa’s here. He’ll chase them away before they could get a good nibble in.”
A tiny giggle left Peter. “Okay. Goats now?”
Steve laughed and Tony grinned. “That’s my boy. Fearless. Come on, then, let’s follow Papa.”
“Don’t let them get me,” Peter said seriously as Steve and Tony stood up, his eyes following their movements.
“Never,” Steve vowed, smiling widely and stretching out his arm, wiggling his fingers in Peter’s face. “Hold my hand. I’ll protect you.”
////
“I can’t do this.”
Steve laughed and Tony reached forward to smack him on the arm.
“I’m being serious! I can’t do this.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Steve said, a smile still on his face as Tony glared at him. “You have to sit here and do nothing.”
“Which you know it impossible for me,” Tony snapped immediately, following Steve down the aisle between rows of seats, “but I was talking about the emotional side of things, Steve. It’s taking a toll on me.”
Chuckling, Steve drew to a halt and directed Tony to their seats. “It’s not like he’s going anywhere. He’s moving back in with us for the summer.”
“But he’s graduating,” Tony said, pouting far too much for a man of his age. He looked down at the program someone had pushed into his hands and tried not to think about when Peter was nothing but a baby in his arms. “He’s old.”
“He’s 22.”
“And that makes me old.”
“Well, that I can’t argue with.”
“Hey!” Tony smacked Steve again and Steve laughed loudly.
“Come on, sweetheart. Today’s a good day.”
“I know,” Tony said on a sigh. “I just don’t think I’m ready to have a child that’s graduated college.”
“I’m not sure I am, either,” Steve admitted with a grin. “But I don’t think we have much of a choice, do we?”
“Could interrupt the ceremony,” Tony mused, flicking through the program absentmindedly. There were an awful lot of names in it and Tony was hoping that Steve would agree to interrupting the ceremony if it would save him from boredom.
“Pretty sure Pete will still be an adult even if he doesn’t get to shake hands with the Dean.”
Tony huffed, but he couldn’t deny it. “I want to go home.”
As he let out another soft laugh, Steve rested his hand on Tony’s thigh. “I’m still here. Not going anywhere.”
Softening a little bit, Tony turned to look at him with a smile. “You just have a thing for older men.”
“You got me,” Steve said, leaning in and pressing a kiss to Tony’s lips. Turning his palm upwards in Tony’s lap, he tilted his head to the stage. “They’re starting. Hold my hand and please don’t cry.”
“No promises,” Tony said as he slid his hand into Steve’s and gripped it tight. Too tight, probably, but Steve didn’t complain. “Okay, let’s watch my baby make me old.”
(this list)
#i wrote a thing#stony fic#stevetony fic#steve rogers#tony stark#kid fic#peter parker#peter stark rogers#goats#stevetony#stony#stony fic rec#stevetony fic rec#established stony
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Domestic Headcanons
I wrote a fic in which the band were all alive and living together in their early twenties, and @zendrella sent me questions about what them all living together would be like.
**Established Willex, Julynn, and Ruke/PeterPatter in these**
- The band moved in to a large, expensive Hollywood apartment when the boys were 19 and Julie was 18. Their first two albums, released when they were all still in high school, had blown up across the country and the world, so they had plenty of money. They were able to buy their own apartment/house/whatever you want to call it with four bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, bathrooms, and an in-unit washer/dryer
- They still use the Molina’s garage as their studio- partially out of nostalgia because they have so many good memories there and partially out of convenience because Ray doesn’t make them pay and Julie gets to see her family pretty much every day
This got really long so read more under the cut!!
- Since they were already with their significant others when they moved in, Julie and Alex had offered for Flynn and Willie to live with them, too; they certainly had the space. Both turned down the offer, though, because Flynn was attending UCLA for music business and wanted the dorm experiences, and the apartment was just a little too far of a commute for Willie when he had to work at the Hollywood Ghost Club, so the skater has his own place that wasn’t too far away from the band’s
- It takes another two years after they all move in for Reggie and Luke to get together. Julie had been dating Flynn for six months by the time they got the apartment, and Willie and Alex had been together since they were 17. The four of them team up to stage an Intervention with Luke and Reggie so they would finally admit their feelings
- After the Intervention, suddenly Reggie's room becomes completely useless because he's always sleeping in Luke's. Eventually (read: within a week) it becomes their room, and they turn Reggie's old room into a guest space for Julie or Luke's families, or as the space they go to when they want to have a sleepover in their own house (usually with Flynn and Willie, too)
- When it comes to cooking, Julie is surprisingly enough the one Not Allowed in the kitchen. Yeah, she can cook pasta and stuff, but one time she tried to make one of her aunt's recipes for the boys and accidentally set off every fire alarm in their Very Large apartment and maybe a couple of the ones in the apartment above them too
- None of them are great bakers, honestly, but since they're at the studio basically every day, Ray is constantly sending them home with different baked goods from both him and Victoria. When it comes to cookies, though?? There is not a single chef/baker in the world who compares to Luke's cookies. He's never burned them once, can make basically any type the band can think of, and he never uses a recipe??? They're just freaking perfect every time and the rest of them Do Not Understand
- Luke stress bakes most often, but sometimes it’s Reggie in the kitchen at 3AM and he makes the best pie any of them have ever tasted??? But if you try to get Reggie to bake at any other time it always comes out burned or misshapen or just something's a little off and you can't tell what but it's possible he mixed up the baking powder and baking soda and holy fuck Reg is this olive oil???
- Reggie makes the best coffee, but he also disgusts each and every one of them because he drinks it black??? What the fuck, man???
- Alex does the cooking more often than not, with a few nights a week reserved for Luke or Reggie to make dinner, but it's Luke who's in charge of grocery shopping. You'd think, like the rest of his life, it would be a chaotic mess, but in reality he would always go grocery shopping with his mom, every time without fail until he moved out. Emily always knew all the best deals, where to get the Good Coupons, and how to masterfully budget the amount of groceries they would need. She didn't even really teach Luke, but he'd managed to pick it all up. They discovered this the first time the band tried to go shopping, when the rest of them were confused and goofing off a little and Luke came out of nowhere with price calculations in his head and telling them "no, no, no, grab this one, it's less expensive and actually tastes better”
- Whenever they do the dishes, Luke is not allowed to put things away because even thought they’ve lived there for two years already he's the only one who does not seem to understand that THE SILVERWARE GOES IN THE DRAWER BY THE STOVE and THE GLASSES DO NOT GO WITH THE PLATES
- When they can’t sleep, they all get midnight snacks, but Alex is the most likely to get one almost every night. It surprises all of them because Alex is the healthiest eater yet his midnight snacks are always something sugary or very much not his usual healthy food. They lowkey blame Willie for getting Alex hooked on certain sugary foods because the skater has the Sweetest of sweet tooths
- They all stay up way too late, but it's a different person depending on the night. If they've done a gig or a concert, then it's definitely all of them. On weekends Alex and Reggie like to stay up late together to watch SNL reruns. Sometimes Luke and Julie have to physically be dragged to bed because they're working themselves ragged over a new song. Since Alex and Julie don’t get to spend as many nights with their significant others, if Willie or Flynn is over chances are everyone is getting less sleep than usual. Sometimes it’s because the couples get a little too loud and sometimes it’s just the excitement of seeing each other and all six of them start goofing off around the apartment
- Reggie is the designated "would you please go tell the neighbors to fuck off" person. Reggie loves talking to people even though he's kind of an introvert, and when they were moving in he made an effort to go say hi and introduce himself. Reggie has by far the best relationship with their neighbors, so he's usually the one who kindly asks them to quiet down a little because Luke and Julie are in Writing Mood and the noise is making them stressed, which is making Alex stressed, which makes Reggie want to vacate the premises as soon as humanly possible. Considering they're a band in their early 20s, the four of them are actually the quietest apartment in the building
- Julie, though, Julie's the one willing to yell at their neighbors. She may be small and innocent looking, and she really does hate confrontation, but she can destroy you with a single damn look that makes you regret your entire life. The other three just let stuff go usually, but after about 10 incidents of neighbor issues that aren't noise, Julie gets ready to blow and the boys just stand back and let it happen. They tried to stop her once and just got caught in the crossfire. It's even worse if Flynn has been staying over when Julie gets mad because Flynn will hype her up and support her even if she has no idea what the neighbors did
- For the most part they all do their own laundry because they have an in-unit washer dryer, so it's easy to just throw in a load, but if they're doing all their clothes or towels and things at once, Julie is definitely in charge of the laundry. The boys do not understand the concept of delicates or how to properly wash bras and things, so Julie does Not let them touch her clothes. She's had too many shirts shrunk in the wash because of them. And the boys' clothes never seem to come out cleaner than when Julie washes them. The one thing they all insist on washing themselves are underwear and sheets (because let's face it, all of them are in a relationship and things are bound to get at least a little messy, and they might be Close with each other, but no one needs to deal with that when doing the laundry)
- When it comes to holidays, decorating is always, always, always a group activity. They invite Flynn and Willie over when they do, and it becomes like a little party with the six of them. They dress up for whatever they're decorating for (in Halloween costumes, Santa hats and reindeer antlers for Christmas, reds and pinks for Valentine's day) and make hot chocolate, no matter the time of year. The entire apartment looks like holidays threw up on it, but it makes them smile and laugh every time, so they always do it
That’s all I’ve got right now!! If you have any questions about who does what or anything, feel free to send them my way and maybe I’ll do a part 2!! If you made it this far thank you very much for reading and I hope you enjoyed <3
#jatp#julie and the phantoms#headcanons#willex#julynn#ruke#peterpatter#julie molina#luke patterson#reggie peters#alex mercer#flynn jatp#willie jatp#fanfic
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The Flu - SakuAtsu
Writing this for my wonderful friend’s bday !! Sorry it’s posted so late whooops also this is short af bc I might do a part 2 or something idk
Summary: Omi gets the flu, which is a rare occurrence, and Atsumu goes to take care of him. Pure fluff
Background: Sakusa is attending college in Tokyo and Atsumu is still playing volleyball in his home town so like still a commute for them
Omi never got sick. Man was one of the most careful people in the world — he always wore his mask when he was out and about around large groups of people, carried hand sanitizer with him and sanitizing wipes to clean off any surface he may have to touch (the handles on the train, for instance), and made an effort to keep his home spotless, even wiping down groceries as they made their way through the door.
So when he did get sick, it kicked his ass.
The last thing he needed was to get sick now, with an exam in a little less than a week. He had outlined what he needed to study, but hadn’t actually gotten to studying yet. And it wasn’t a cold... his high fever, chills, and congestion made it very clear to him it was the flu.
What was he going to do though? He had to skip class. At least today was a Friday, so he could spend the weekend recovering. He grabbed his phone and texted Komori, begging him to bring some medicine because he couldn’t imagine pulling himself out of bed.
He hated asking people for help, or showing any sort of weakness. That’s why when Atsumu texted him, he proceeded through their conversations like usual, trying to conceal the fact that he was sick until he finally passed out from exhaustion, leaving Atsumu’s texts hanging.
Omi never left the conversation abruptly. It made Atsumu uncomfortable, but he ignored it. He was probably studying. Still, he sent him a few messages to get back to him as soon as possible.
When a few hours had passed, he asked Komori if he knew what was up, and that’s when the cat was out of the bag: Sakusa Kiyoomi was sick.
It was the weekend, so it wasn’t like Atsumu had any priorities. He packed his bag, strapped on a mask, and took the train to Tokyo.
He always traveled this trip with a mask for Omi. His boyfriend was always so careful that he’d feel like a jerk for giving him a sickness he picked up on the trip because he hadn’t been careful. His boyfriend had, admittedly, rubbed off on him just a little—trains were gross and unsanitary and he couldn’t help but think about it from time to time during the trip.
His first stop in Tokyo was at a pharmacy near Omi’s house. He purchased some canned soup (there was no way he’d be able to make anything from scratch... he was... himself), medicine, a few boxes of tissues, the hand sanitizer Omi liked, and some ice cream for good measure. The next stop was to Omi’s place.
It was a good thing they had gotten locked out that one time and his boyfriend told him about the key he hid in the flower planter. He didn’t have to wake the sick man up at all to enter the house.
“Omi Omi!?” He called, not actually expecting an answer. It was pretty clear that he had been napping, and was likely still asleep. He just hoped his boyfriend wouldn’t hear him moving around and think someone had broken in (although technically, he had).
He went to the kitchen and wiped down his groceries with Clorox wipes to make sure they were sanitary before putting them away. He pulled open one of the drawers to grab a piece of notebook paper to write to his boyfriend.
Hi Omi <3 I’m in the shower. Love you lots.
Tsumu
That would be fine for now. He slid the paper under Omi’s bedroom door and went in the direction of the bathroom. He had to make sure he washed away anything he could have picked up on the train.
He liked using Omi’s body wash — it smelled like lavender. He had never been huge on the scent in the past, but now it made him feel all warm and fuzzy, associating it with his boyfriend’s scent. He made sure to wash every square inch of his body, leaving nothing up to chance, but still tried to get done as quickly as possible. He didn’t want to keep his boyfriend waiting (more like even though he knew his boyfriend was sick, he couldn’t wait to see him... it had been two months already since their last hangout).
He turned off the shower and shook some water out of his hair, going into his bag for a fresh, clean pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. He pulled on the outfit then made his way to his boyfriend’s bedroom, knocking quietly on the door before entering.
Omi was passed out in bed, his phone next to him, blanket covering half his body. Atsumu strolled over to the bed, taking a seat on the edge of it next to his peaceful-looking boyfriend. He very gently placed his hand on the sick boy’s forehead, then put his other hand on his own forehead to compare. Yep. He was definitely warm. He tucked a stray hair off of Omi’s forehead and gently took his arm away.
He was going through a crisis of whether he should wake his boyfriend and inform him of his presence or not. He looked so relaxed, and it was probably hard to fall asleep to begin with. But also, he was very worried Omi would groggily beat the shit out of him when he woke up because he was afraid he was an intruder.
Yeah, sounded like his mind was made up.
He shook the man’s shoulder carefully. “Omi,” he whispered, trying to wake him gently. Luckily it worked, as the latter’s eyes peeled open slowly. “Hi,” Atsumu whispered.
“Tsumu?” He asked, his voice hoarse.
“Ya coulda told me you were sick,” Atsumu playfully complained, leaning forward to kiss his boyfriend’s forehead. “I was all worried.”
“I’m okay,” he frowned, but he knew that playing it cool wasn’t working. His throat felt all ticklish and he started to cough.
“You haven’t gotten sick since what? Middle school? Ya need someone to take care of you.”
“I don’t wanna make you sick...” Sakusa whispered, his eyes shutting.
“You won’t. Even if you do, though, I’m a big boy and get sick all the time too, so I’m used to it.”
“Fine. I don’t want you making me more sick because you were out,” Sakusa grumbled. It was clear he was actually concerned about his boyfriend’s health, but sometimes speaking this way was the only way to get it through to Atsumu. Tsumu was somehow the most arrogant and selfless jerk he had ever met.
“I wore a mask on the train and everything! Sanitized the groceries, took a shower before I came in here. All for you Omi,” Atsumu explained proudly, his back straightening a little bit as he spoke.
“Mm whatever,” Omi mumbled. He still hadn’t opened his eyes from when he shut them earlier. “Can we go to sleep now?”
“You want me to too?”
Sakusa reached out and grabbed his boyfriend’s hand, pulling it closer to him. “Cm’ere and lay down. This is the only time in your life you get to be big spoon.”
Atsumu carefully clambered over his boyfriend to the other side of the bed, plopping down beside him eagerly. He was trying to not make too many motions that might shake the bed and make his boyfriend nauseous, but he was extremely cuddle deprived and would be lying if he said he wasn’t on cloud nine. He wrapped his arms around his boyfriend, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck. “Sleep tight Omi. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Omi slept like a rock for a few hours. Atsumu took a nap with him, woke up, went on his phone, checked up on his boyfriend, and those sorts of things. It had probably been about three hours when Sakusa started moving, tossing and turning and trembling.
“Omi? You okay?” He asked, reaching over to feel his boyfriend’s forehead for a temperature. It felt even warmer than before.
Atsumu clambered out of bed, rushing to the kitchen to get an ice pack and a glass of water. When he returned, Omi was now mumbling in his feverish state.
“Atsumu...”
Atsumu rushed to his side, sitting on the edge of the bed. He carefully put the ice pack on his boyfriend’s head, holding it in place despite Omi’s sudden movements.
“I’m here Omi. It’s okay.”
“Don’t...” he whispered.
He pushed the sweat-coated hair off his boyfriend’s forehead so he could get the ice pack on well. “You okay?”
“I’ll be better...”
“Omi? Are you dreaming or talking with your eyes shut? You’re freaking me out.”
“I’m sorry...”
“That’s not helpful for my question honestly.”
“Don’t go...” he sniffled, inhaling heavily, the congestion making it hard to do so.
“Dreaming it is.” Atsumu shook him gently, trying to wake him up. “Get up Omi, it’s just a dream.”
His eyes snapped open, then blinked furiously, a few tears escaping as he did so. “Tsumu?”
“It’s okay. I’m here. It was just a dream,” Atsumu cooed softly, dropping the ice pack and opting cup his face gently and stroke the tears off his cheek.
Sakusa sat up, scooting to his boyfriend to give him a hug, burying his face in the crook of his neck. “Had a dream you left. Said you didn’t love me,” he muttered. “I was still sick and everything.”
“I’d never do that.” Atsumu kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“I know. But I’m sorry Dream Atsumu did that.”
Omi laughed, a pitiful laugh that sent him into a coughing fit, but a laugh nonetheless.
“Oh! Let me check your temperature. You feel warm,” Atsumu remembered, scrambling out of his boyfriend’s grip to run to the bathroom cupboard and grab a thermometer. He quickly returned to his spot, sweeping his legs to plop down on the bed. He held the thermometer out towards his boyfriend. “Say ‘aw’.”
Sakusa sighed, rolling his eyes, then opened his mouth and let out a small ‘aw’. Atsumu put the thermometer in his mouth and waited patiently, silently, as the temperature was being read.
“102. Why is your thermometer in Fahrenheit?”
Sakusa laughed. “I didn’t realize it was when I bought it.”
A Google search later told the two that it was, indeed, a fever, but he would be okay.
“You sure you’re alright? You wanna take some more medicine and go back to sleep?” Atsumu offered, laying back on the bed.
“Not yet. I don’t think I can sleep anymore.”
Atsumu paused, a small smile forming on his face.
“What is it Miya? You’re scaring me...” Sakusa asked, averting his gaze from the blonde’s.
“You know what’ll help your fever? Ice cream. If you’re up for it, I bought a pint.” Atsumu offered, looking up at his boyfriend with a very small pleading look that said ‘please give me ice cream or I’ll cry’.
“Okay,” Omi smiled. “It’s going to help me get better, so how can I say no?”
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Title: Lucid Dreams - Chapter 1
Word Count: 2680
Warnings: Mingyu is featured heavily in the first few chapters and is directly involved in significant plot events. Due to recent events, I understand if reading these chapters may make you uncomfortable, but be aware that you’d be missing core story elements by skipping them. (Details)
Lucid Dreams Masterlist
Prologue |
It was an hour after dawn, the streets were busy with students and workers on their commute. Yn gazed out of her apartment window, forlornly missing when she would do that. Why wasn’t I doing that? I should still be in college, worrying about scores and my social life.
She was still slowly waking up, with unfocused eyes and bad balance, as she sat at her desk. She shifted in her chair and faced her journal again, with two blank pages staring up at her.
It started as a school project, but it turned into a habit that Yn kept through her youth.
Yn stood and left it open without having written anything, frustrated with herself. If she had dreamt last night, it was long gone from her mind, and she had nothing else to write. There were more days like this lately. Update-less, absent days.
Eventually, Yn left the apartment complex with her phone and wallet and walked the familiar path. For weeks she had been going on walks around town, and she’d always somehow pass by the same peculiar store. She found herself lingering there, wanting to go in just to have her questions answered, but something within herself always stopped her. Online searches turned up very little. Just some patents, an under construction website, a local news article, and a few social media postings by previous customers. Everything she found only made her more curious.
The town seemed quiet, though it wasn’t ever busy. It made the journey to Dream Store a peaceful one, even as Yn's nervousness began to bubble.
She arrived a few hours before noon, the sunlight warm and shining brightly past the cartoonish and fluffy clouds. The well-tended potted plants, power washed sidewalk, and neon sign all had a strangely comforting feeling to them that welcomed her. Even the grey layered siding was sweet, despite how it clashed with the surrounding architecture. Yn stood on the sidewalk, facing the front patio, and hardened her resolve. Today would be her first time seeing what it was like inside; she refused to put it off anymore.
Yn approached the door in quick strides and read the print on the window before entering. “Dream Store | keeping hold of our hearts.”
Her breathing went still as soon as she pulled the door open. It was more spacious inside than the exterior led on, having a pastel pallet and being well lit. It felt like the door way was more then just the entrance to a business.
The first thing to see was the bar. A fairly long one, taking up most of the far wall, yet was still tucked in the corner. From the left wall towards the center were eight different taps, and on a counter behind the bar were two large blenders, a sink, and a small ice cream station with five flavors. A small Bluetooth speaker on the end of the counter was playing instrumental lo-fi, and somehow the air itself felt light and bubbly against her skin. On the wall above the bar was a large LED menu with what appeared to all be beverages in narrow-necked glass bottles. On the little space that was left against the far wall was a freezer, decorated in stickers and notes. So it’s a juice bar? The tweets just mentioned ice cream. There was a hallway by the fridge, presumably leading to bathrooms and the staff area. In front of that and against the right wall were wood tables and chairs with mismatched cushions. There were similar tables meant for two on the left side, with what seemed to be medium sized square lockers, and two vending machines full of those same bottled drinks from the LED screen. It all felt surreal, it was too perfect.
“Excuse me?” Yn’s attention was brought back to reality by the voice of man, one she hadn’t even seen standing behind the bar until that moment. His fingers were intertwined and rested gently on the bar while he leaned forward, as if he’d been calling her for a while. Once he saw he had her attention, he stood upright and smiled sincerely.
“Welcome to our Dream Store!” It was as if the entire scenario was a prank, he was an actor and this business was a set. Everything was still and quiet, with nothing and nobody in existence but this store and the two of them.
Finally, Yn approached the bar.
Instead of a name tag, the name Mingyu was sewn onto the collar of his white dress shirt. He was very tall, and his uniform was clearly tailored for to fit him perfectly. His smile was kind and courteous as he spoke to her.
“Is this your first time here?” He asked gently, but with no less energy in his voice than before. Yn nodded.
“Gotcha, let’s find you a table then.” He chirped, and walked around from behind the bar, grabbing a physical menu from somewhere behind the register. “Do you like to sit by the window, or in the corner?”
“Anywhere that lets me see the exits, please.” She answered softly. Mingyu didn’t seem phased by her request and tapped his chin in thought while looking around. Only then did Yn notice one of the benches by the hallway was taken, where two teenage girls were fast asleep. It wasn’t uncommon to see college kids or overworked employees taking powernaps at cafés, but seeing them sleeping so peacefully while hunched over the table was something Yn found odd. Are those pillows matching the seat cushions?
Mingyu decided to seat her at one of the tables for two, the one closest to the taps on the bar. She could observe the whole store there, and had a clear view of the front door and the hallway, while sitting snugly in the corner by the vending machines. Yn sat down carefully as Mingyu set the menus in front of her. Sitting down brought her attention up, making her notice the peculiar ceiling with exposed beams, cords, pipes, and ducts, all painted white to match the ceiling itself. Something about the unconventional look of it was comforting for Yn, as if the establishment itself was being laid bare for her.
“First, thank you for coming in, we really appreciate your interest,” He smiled awkwardly for a moment before continuing, “I’m going to get someone from the back to watch the register for me, feel free to look at that menu in the meantime.” Mingyu lowered his head a tiny bit then swiftly headed down the hallway.
Thank you for visiting our Dream Store! All the staff here are proud of our beverages, passionate about our purpose, and excited to give you a safe, enjoyable experience when you spend time with us. We believe that we offer your community something special, not only with our drinks, but with our potential to give each visitor a unique and individualized experience.
Mingyu came back before she could read further, with another tall young man behind him, who promptly went behind the counter and washed his hands after smiling in acknowledgment to her. He seemed familiar, but she didn’t know why or how. Mingyu sat himself across from her with a sigh, feeling very nervous and struggling to act like he wasn’t.
“Alright, sorry about that. Did you get a chance to look at the menu?”
“Only the first paragraph.”
“Okay cool, the way the menu explains it is kind of weird, so it’s better that I do it.” Yn only grew more confused. She watched as Mingyu glanced over towards the other man, she wanted to look back to see what was going on, but didn’t. Instead, Yn watched as Mingyu squinted, shook his head in confusion, and then silently gasped in realization, all within a few moments. Mingyu swallowed and nodded to himself before redirecting his focus back to her.
“Is it alright if I know your name?”
“Uh, sure? It’s Yn.” He nodded formally and put on awkward smile.
“It's nice to meet you, I’m Mingyu. Like I said, thanks for coming in today.” He failed to fight the cringe on his own face and hurried past it.
“Essentially, we can offer you different kinds of drinks: juices, sodas, and smoothies. They’re all made by us, with our recipes, and you can either have them made for here or to go, or even from the coolers right here.” He leaned over and patted the cooler that had a variety of colored drinks in sturdy glass bottles.
“Why do you need to explain that to me?” She asked without thinking, having already picked up on the fact that this was a place that sold beverages. It was a selling point that they concoct them themselves, and that they can do all this seemingly without a big brand to fund them, but she doubted that it required introduction to every new customer. Yn heard the man behind the register chuckle, then try to hide it with a cough.
“I was getting there.” He stammered, his face flushing a soft red.
“If you’d like to have something here, there’s the option to make it a sleep aid. We call it a Sleepy. With those, we prepare the drink as we usually would, but instead of the liquid sugar we usually use, we use a mix of liquid sugar and drowsiness medicine. We’ve been able to use that in a low volume but effective dose to allow our customers to have a refreshing drink, followed by a recharging nap.” Yn watched him cringe again as he tried his best to explain it without making it sound as bizarre as it was. He continued as soon as she tried to comment, eager to get it the introduction over with.
“You don’t need to worry though! When a visitor picks one of our sleepy drinks, we give them a key to their corresponding table, and that key opens one of those lockers. You can put your things there beforehand so you know they’re safe while you sleep. We have cameras in here and outside, and there’s always at least one member of staff on duty who's trained to handle altercations of any kind, and all of us are trained in first aid and emergency procedures like CPR.” There was another chuckle from behind her, and he didn’t even try to hide it this time. Mingyu glared at him, and this gave Yn her opening to speak.
“So you take safety seriously, that’s good…” She was at a loss of what to say, having been bombarded with information, all of it outside of what she’d expected. She wasn't sure what the odds were leaning toward: him having a scripted yet speedy and thorough defense to any worries or questions she’d have, or that he’d flounder as soon as she asked for details.
“Of course we do. We know it’s a risk to just take a nap at a café. Especially one run but a bunch of young adult guys. But we’re trying something new that no one else in the world is doing, and we really believe in it.” Mingyu’s sudden sentiment was sincere, and his nervousness looked more like vulnerability now. Something compelled her to trust him. Maybe what he was saying about having something completely unique wasn’t true, Yn had no clue, but it might as well be for a town like theirs.
“You’ll notice that we have 13 distinct drink options available right now, each one named after a member of the staff.” Mingyu opened the menu and flipped a few pages till Yn could see depictions of each of the drinks. They were colorful, and beautifully presented on the pages, with descriptions of each one. He stopped on a page of cool toned drinks.
“Let’s say you come in and decide to order a Sleepy Mingyu, that’s this one,” He pointed to the deep purple iced drink and tapped its picture fondly. “It’ll come in a medium glass bottle, with a straw and napkin of course, along with a locker key that corresponds to whatever table you pick. While we’re making it, you can put your stuff in the locker, and inside the locker will be a small pillow, but you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to. We switch the covers after every use and wash all of them each night, so don’t worry about that either. You can decide to keep the key with you, or give it to whoever’s at the register for safekeeping.” He began to ramble again, wracking his brain to make sure he mentioned everything Yn could possibly need to know while to keep himself from growing too embarrassed. She sat there patiently, listening as he helped her understand. He seemed to grow more uneasy with each word.
“You’ll probably want to wait at your table till the drink is done, it usually takes less than five minutes. We’ll bring it to you.”
Mingyu paused and took a deep breath, biting the inside of his cheek in thought, picking his words carefully. He hadn’t looked at her since his sentiment about safety and now it seemed like he was actively choosing not to look up at her.
“The Sleepys only come in medium because the drowsiness medicine is fast acting, and we try to make sure that you’ll have enough time to finish it all before you fall asleep.” He looked to the man behind the counter, and this time Yn dared to look at him too. But he only looked at Mingyu, giving his coworker an encouraging, albeit aggressive, thumbs up. Mingyu shook his head.
“This is really weird, Jun. How do you guys explain this kind of thing without seeming creepy?!” He seemed deeply upset, frustrated and on the verge of tears. It suddenly felt like Yn was intruding on something private.
“Take a breath, okay?” The man came around the counter and spoke gently to his colleague, kneeling to the ground like a father would when speaking to a child. He was close enough now that Yn could read the name on his collar as Junhui. He put his hand on Mingyu’s knee and squeezed it a few times, urging him to relax. Then he turned to Yn.
“Once you finish your drink, you’re gonna fall asleep, and we’ll watch over you while you do. You’ll have a great dream, and we’ll wake you up at whatever time you told us to when you ordered, or after you’ve been asleep for 2 hours.” Junhui stood back up, and patted Mingyu’s shoulder while still looking at Yn.
“Mingyu is a really great guy. He cares a lot about people and about what we're trying to do here. And if you ask me, his drink is one of the best.” Junhui’s smile was warm and his tone of voice was calming as he praised his friend. Mingyu still couldn’t look at her, facing away from her entirely and looking downtrodden. Yn didn’t know what to say and instead decided to read the blurb about Mingyu's concoction.
A sweetly rich concord grape flavored soda! Mingyu’s soda brings one’s imagination to life, while remaining proud and inspired.
“I’ll try it.” She spoke casually, trying to imagine what such a drink would taste like. It had been so long since she’d had a grape flavored drink of any kind, and something carbonated sounded great in that moment.
“You don’t have to.” Mingyu said pitifully, assuming she chose his drink to help him feel better.
“The picture looks really pretty, I wanna see if it really looks like that.” Her bluntness stunned him, and he wondered if she was bluffing. Even so, he resolved to grin and bare it, standing up from the table. Junhui stepped back and smiled, leaving silently as Mingyu went back behind the counter.
“Alright… Let’s get it ordered then!” He bolstered, ready to reaffirm himself in the form of a fancy looking grape juice.f
#rq-s lucid dreams#seventeen#svt#seventeen x reader#mingyu x reader#kim mingyu x reader#svt mingyu x reader#seventeen fluff#seventeen angst#seventeen au#just a note: i'm not sure about hwo realisticly possible the concept of the slyy drinks is#i spent some time researching it but just remeber that this isnt suposed to refelt reality 100%#aka please dont get mad at me if it's weird logistically#id also like to say that in no way shape or form are th esleepys intended to be similar to a club drug or any other type of nefarious drug#im sorry if this makes anyone uncomfortable#please bear with me as things are explained farther in futuer chapters#but rest assured that that kind fo content isnt goign to be in this story in any capacity#ANYWAY this is the first chapter!#after this we'll start getting into more fanfictiony content with the boys but there will still be a bit more explanaton of things#but this is hopefully the most heavy handed that will be#im trying to integrate it better but this was the best i could manage for this section#i hope it wasnt too confusing and if you have any questions please feel free to ask!!#thank you for reading <3
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