#and one last hot take: being attractive doesn't mean being a good person

[0sbrain]

jimmy telling anya that he had sexual fantasies about cartoon horses during a psyche evaluation is sexual harassment and curly acted like it was a meaningless joke. curly knew jimmy before they boarded the ship. how many times has something like this happened. how many times do you think curly brushed off his creepy behavior.

[capslocked]

KINKVEMBER DAY: 8

[prompt: phone sex]

male reader x shin ryujin

16k words

The phone rings one too many times, and Ryujin is in the middle of scrunching up the paper slip that Chaeryeong handed her earlier that afternoon when she hears your voice.

The sounds of her scrambling for the receiver and her head smacking against the headboard come through in pretty good quality.

That never gets old.

"Stimulating conversations," you offer smoothly, like it isn't a euphemism and instead some high-brow intellectual pursuit. "How can I help you?"

Ryujin is speechless for an unbearable five, ten seconds until she lets out the kind of low chuckle that probably sounds better than it looks. "Hi," she says, "hello, I, uh- I don't know how all of this works."

"Why don't we start with who you're looking to speak with tonight?" you ask.

Ryujin sighs. She runs a hand through her hair, looking at the messy tangle of clothes on her bedroom floor with mild resentment. She’ll take her chances, figuring a direct approach is the best route when she doesn't really know where any of the lines get drawn or who is allowed to say what and who isn't.

"Um. Okay. Who you got?"

"We have a large variety of operators to suit any taste," you explain kindly. She appreciates that. "Do you have someone specific in mind? A gender perhaps, to start?"

"Well," Ryujin starts, running her tongue along the edges of her teeth. Lia has this thing she constantly says, that there's always a thousand and one reasons not to do something, and Ryujin is the first person to make fun of her for it - but here she is, finally putting that adage to use.

"I was actually calling to, um," she exhales loudly. "A guy? I mean look - girls. Girls are great, but if you - mmm." She clears her throat. Because she knows how she wants to do this, and it's most definitely: "A man."

You wait for a second before replying, and Ryujin allows the stillness to expand over and fill out every corner of her bedroom before a bright, "Alrighty, well," comes filtering out her phone, tinny but as enticing as ever. "That would be me."

"Oh."

"Yeah," you reply, easy and unhurried. You sound exactly like the kind of person whose company people pay handsomely to be around; the professionalism is undeniable, but there's something to be said for your tone. The softness to the vowels, the almost imperceptible upward lilt to the words - Ryujin gets that, maybe.

You're pretty confident in the answer, but you ask anyway, "have you ever done anything like this?"

Ryujin opens her mouth and hesitates for a brief moment.

"Well," she muses. She's tried porn, she's tried her own fantasies, she's tried cranking up the hot water and touching herself with the head of the shower aimed somewhere she's told by other girls: it's there, free of charge. "I haven't."

"But you have a boyfriend," you state. "You have a man, who you enjoy things with?"

Ryujin laughs nervously. "It's...it's been a little while. Not recently. Sorry. I know you don't-"

"No, no, not at all, you're doing fine, it's just that you sound very attractive over the phone. Excuse the assumption."

Ryujin laughs and rakes her fingers through her fringe. She knows it's a line, but she laughs anyway. She could - if she was looking for the deranged fulfillment of it - pore through a billion comments on instagram, on twitter that call her a lot of things: gorgeous, beautiful, hot. The last comment she read before almost deleting her app entirely was someone who decided to textually imitate a dog barking to a picture Yeji had taken of her in a coffee shop. There's a novelty, she thinks, in being charmed by someone who has no idea who she is.

"You have good ears then," she says, smirking into the receiver. "So do you normally do, what, ask questions? I have no idea."

"Yeah, it helps me build a profile," you reply, "but if you had something else in mind-"

"No, please, shoot." She grabs the pillow from behind her back and flops against the mattress, staring up into the ceiling fan.

"Do you feel comfortable sharing your age with me?"

"Twenty," she answers without missing a beat, even though that isn't right. It's weirdly important to her, keeping it private, and she isn't sure why - but then you say something pleasant and complimentary about college and new experiences that she's unable to register, and you ask her for her name so quick she just blurts it out:

"Ryujin."

"Pretty."

"Fuck," Ryujin grins, immediately chewing on her knuckle to bite back a gasp. "Sorry. The name is cute or, whatever. Whatever. Sorry for the curse. God, I don't really have a filter - what about you? Do you have a name, Mr. Operator?"

"I do."

Ryujin lifts a leg up and puts it down again. She doesn't know if she should already have taken off her pajamas or if that's weird. Or if the fact that it doesn't bother her means this is more or less wholesome. She turns over onto her stomach, humming into the phone and now she doesn't know why she's thinking about your face. You could be- well, fuck, you could be anyone, but there's this gnawing compulsion to put something together.

You tell her your name and she scoffs for a second, before quieting down and returning you a, "pretty."

"Ryujin, tell me." There's probably a slightly too long pause from your end of the line before you get on with asking her, "when was your last orgasm?"

She drops the phone right in her face. It bounces off the bridge of her nose before landing in bedsheets beside her and her eyes are welling with tears while she scrambles blindly across her bed, cursing into the receiver and squirming. She pulls the phone to her ear and catches the last couple seconds of you reassuring her that it's okay, that it's completely fine if she's hung up or gone.

"Actually, I have," and she curls her fingers into a fist, "never came in my whole life."

You clear your throat to keep a less than professional sound from coming out. A quiet space she feels necessary to fill: “Not even once.”

"Really?"

"I know. And I've only recently realized that's, uh - er- a pretty un-normal thing." Ryujin makes a waving motion with her hand even though you can't see it, trailing off into silence and blushing furiously. "Sorry," she apologizes. She doesn't know what she’s apologizing for, but she does it again. "Sorry about that."

"I should be the one feeling sorry for you," you rib.

"Fucking tell me about it."

"Hey, this reminds me, would you be averse to the idea of touching yourself?"

The question stutters Ryujin in her tracks, and she doesn't even say no but a drawn-out "nngh" leaks out before she can stumble into something more intelligible. "Isn't that, like, what you're supposed to do on these calls?"

"Every call is different, Ryujin."

She chews on her lower lip, rolling it under her front teeth. You say her name like you know her, and it's throwing her for a loop. The comfort you have with the whole situation - asking her a million questions and not demanding answers, taking cues and reassurances in stride and turning everything into some sort of ploy for getting her naked. Fuck, she'll take a bit of a plunge:

"Should I be touching myself?"

"It's not my place to say."

"Okay, well that's kind of a frustrating answer."

"So you're saying you like being told what to do," you tell her, and you hear the sharp inhale in reply.

"If I knew what I liked, you think I'd be calling a sex hotline and hoping some stranger might take pity on me?"

You laugh out loud, and her response is the quickest, the cutest little, "seriously!" before she chuckles too.

"Ryujin?" you ask.

"Yeah?"

"Are you straight?"

She nearly chokes - because it's like you're able to just read her mind - and if you can do that then there's nothing you can't do, maybe. And here, excitement feels a lot like apprehension. She twists and curls in on herself, thighs rubbing together, the flat of her hand traveling across her stomach.

"I'm-"

"Because no one should have to pretend that they're interested in guys," you interrupt her and, god, for as much time as she's spent dwelling on that, she wishes it were that simple. 

It would be a hell of a lot easier if she knew why she wanted to get her face between Yeji's thighs and drag her tongue all over her clit until that prettier-than-perfect face of hers cinches up in a pleasure that comes with just the right amount of agony - or if she knew why she didn't feel anything like remorse or guilt or envy when her boyfriend came around instead of wanting, you know, to get on her knees with her mouth around his cock too -

Fuck, it's all very complicated.

"Straight," she answers. She likes cock, as much as anyone realistically can, and she knows the body on a man can get her dripping and easy in all the right ways. So, she just swallows. Says, "straight enough."

"If you were to touch yourself, right now, and someone - say, a man - were telling you exactly what to do: what would spring to mind, if anything."

"Mmm. Is this you asking me to touch myself?"

"Again. That's up to you."

Your voice is light. Very pleasant. Very male, Ryujin realizes. She gulps.

"Can you, I mean," she says, running a hand down the length of her thigh, pressing down at the hollow.

"Ryujin,” you say, letting her mull over how it sounds in your mouth. “Take a breath for me, please."

Her exhale leaves her with a heavy push and she tries not to laugh. Nervous tic. She's getting goosebumps, but she feels warmer than before.

"We could say this isn't the first time, you and me, in some very broad and abstract sense. How does that make you feel?"

"Strange." She touches her outer thighs again and arches her back. "Kind of horny," she admits. And it is odd - your words, the things you say - and maybe it's her nerves because the experience is new, and so are you, and so are her feelings, all wrapped in one.

"Do you want to do something about that?"

There's silence between you for what seems like a very long time, your breathing quiet but apparent - a signal you haven't abandoned her in some state of vulnerability. Ryujin inhales deeply. She's shaking in her fingertips. The tension has her taut and waiting, and that's funny, really, because it's what she's been doing for years. The rubbing. The touching.

Her hips rock forward gently and she answers the unasked question with a sweetly husked, "uh-huh."

"What are you wearing?"

"Ah, really?" Ryujin laughs. Her fingers pause at her waistline. "That old, bad porn trope."

"I like hearing about people's clothes, is all," you excuse yourself lightly. "Helps me get a sense of things."

"Yeah, alright. Sweats. Baggy ones." Her lips fall apart. "Shirt."

"Is that all? Nothing sexy."

"What's sexy?"

"Sexy is…"

She listens to you mull it over, listening for a ruffling or two. "For a girl with a nice body - some body - some curves," you continue, and Ryujin has to drop another finger to the hot line of her thigh, her lower belly. "You need lace. Silk. You've gotta leave the best bits a little hidden, at least for a while longer."

"Wow. You sound a hell of a lot like you'd enjoy taking someone's pants off," she half-teases. "Do you make all your calls like this? One sordid fantasy at a time, huh?"

"Something like that," you reply. And then, as if reading her mind, "are you doing anything, right now?"

"I'm touching myself," she exhales. "Are you?"

"Ryujin, not yet. Please be patient."

She makes a face even though you can't see it or taunt her. That's an unfair request - you have an unfair request.

"Just, wait," you tell her. She's drawing lazy, winding circles across her thigh. "Let me show you something, will you do that for me?"

"But, what."

"Tell me everything. All the things you're thinking. Things you want to do."

"Everything?"

"Yes."

She blinks away her initial disbelief and reaches around for her lamp to switch it off. Until it's just the hallway light peeking in through the crack between her door and the door jamb and you, a stranger who won't be seeing her face or hearing her say anything stupid. She shakes out a few more breaths, shuffles against the sheets, and glides her fingertips past her belly button.

Her hand rises up her stomach in one decisive movement, until her fingers curl beneath the bottoms of her bra, trapped in its underwire. "I'm thinking - unh - about, ah. My friend?"

You're quiet and let the silence linger, until she seems like she might not find her way; so you repeat, "Go ahead."

"And a guy she used to like, fuck, she'd show up here, drunk on, ah. A weeknight. Somewhere, fuck, around midnight. Walk past me into the kitchen where we had the - the light. God." Her hips stutter and she grits out the rest through her teeth. "In the refrigerator. Ah, yeah, a midnight snack. Always looked way too fucking good for, um, oh, for a casual booty-call."

"Does your friend have a name?"

"Yuna," she practically pants, and immediately realizes she shouldn't have said that either.

"Did you always know what was going on? Between Yuna and her-"

"Boy-toy, yes - it was so obvious, I always knew, yeah," she said, clumsily grabbing the sheets with one hand as she drifts further between the peaks. "Just - fuck - he'd be picking at, ah, something with chopsticks."

"In your kitchen?"

"My, uh, table. And I'd be working up the nerve to ask."

You sigh over the phone, "ask him what?"

"What it was, like, I knew she was only- shit." She keens high in her throat. "What it was like, fucking taking that cock of his, and bending Yuna's tight little, ah, ass over and, mm, railing her on the side of her fucking bed - and just pumping her full of cum just like that until- Jesus, she would walk around after and sometimes-"

You groan softly. This encouraging little sound.

"-fuck - sorry, I mean. Yeah, he, sometimes he'd make her walk around with his, ah, stuff inside. Down her fucking pants and, it's like, fucking disgusting, I swear-"

"And?" You breathe a heavy edged noise over the line.

Actually okay, so maybe this was more than she bargained for, maybe she bit off more than she can chew - maybe, she feels like her insides are collapsing; all the fire pooling around in her stomach and gathering into a melting sort of weightlessness.

"And it makes me feel fucking-"

"Fucking what."

"Why am I talking about this, why-"

"Talking to me? Fucking wet, Ryujin, answer the question."

She pants down at her phone and then turns her face into her forearm, rubbing and making sounds. She thinks about, oh, fucking Yuna and how she showed up to hang out once, with cum leaking down the crease of her inner thigh, smearing against her skin and down between her legs.

"Wet." She swallows. "How do I-"

"Say that you wish it was you," you tell her. "That you wanted that, to be fucked. To feel a cock inside."

Her head falls back. "That," she manages, "fucking, that."

You drawl so that the question might roll off, easy: "Is that the kind of girl you are? Told not to curse, not supposed to let anyone else play with you - you just need it, don't you? Do you need someone's cum? Just tell me."

"I think so, ah," and she stops moving her hand. "I think I'm gonna go now. This is fucking embarrassing, like. Okay, sorry."

"Don't hang up," you tell her, and the soft edge to it is one she really wants to indulge. "Don't," you repeat, a little louder.

You start talking, about the same sorts of things she's imagined herself: the sex and the sounds and what he can do to her. You build a slow and aching heat between her thighs that has her dripping through her underwear and grinding against her fingers. Telling her how she's the one that needs to be filled, needs a man who can wrap her legs around his waist, get to the deepest parts of her, the parts untouched and willing.

Ryujin gets that - she wonders, half out of it and stroking faster than she usually would be, how much of it has anything to do with who the voice is on the other end of the receiver, and how it could be what a desperate, pathetic, tired part of her has always wanted.

"Are you?" she asks, panting over the phone.

"Am I what?" you whisper back to her.

"Are you," and you hear how she inhales sharply through her nose, a desperate gasp leaving her lips on the exhale, "going to, um. Are you touching yourself right now?"

Your reply is immediate, and her eyes flutter and close the second you tell her exactly what she wants to hear:

"God, yes."

She drags her hand up the center of her body, runs her fingertips over her jaw and presses the heel of her wrist to her neck to feel her pulse slamming hard.

"I'm fucking throbbing, Ryujin; you sound gorgeous like this, like nothing I've ever heard, I'm stroking my cock just picturing you, please-"

"Tell me." She's mouthing into the center of her palm, saying the words, tasting salt and musk. "Fuck, ah," she babbles, "tell me what you would do with me."

"I'd get you on your knees," you tell her without hesitating for a beat.

"Fuck."

"I'd come up behind you and tell you not to be scared, baby. I wouldn't hurt you, I'd just touch you real gentle. Push my fingers past your tongue, slide a little down your throat."

"Uh huh," she moans, her head falling back and rolling, rocking against the mattress.

"Want you sucking on my fingers. Need your hands around my cock, or better, my balls, play with them. You're going to take those fingers - every finger I got, all five, yeah?- all ten of them," you joke, "and open up your tight cunt - like you are now, like such a good fucking girl-"

The girl fucking yelps. Just this honest sound of depravity; it's what she's paying you for. It's a silly line of bullshit, but it makes her bite hard and ache a little around her own knuckles and moan in her palm and dig her nails hard into her flesh. Her thumb fumbles across the top edge of her underwear and you pant again into her ear as if on cue, giving her a small bit of guidance that has her jolting in pleasure. She didn't know that was there, fuck, fuck-

"Like that, Ryujin. Breathe," and she does.

"Please," she whines, trying to find somewhere for her arm to settle, resting finally in her hair - setting the phone to speaker in a foolish moment of lapsed-judgment, just before it nearly clatters off the side of her bed.

Keep going - she's telling you over and over - keep going, and you’re picturing her there: eyes closed, legs spread wide, bent knees quivering and toes curling into the sheets. It doesn’t sound fake - you've heard a million of them, you've learned them in their different tones and accents and you can spot a faker a mile away. And the girl on the phone right now isn't pretending or thinking about whatever's happening somewhere else.

(You don't join in for everyone. You can't. It's an asinine consideration that you'd be rubbing your fist up and down your cock while it's sore and wanting - aching from the neglect or lack of rhythm. You have to remind yourself it's just a job, that the logistics just can't support such selflessness.

But then there's the very fucking premise.

That the girl on the other end of the line is inches from the goalposts, fingering her cunt and sighing into the throes of her first orgasm - first ever, because you did this, you brought her this far - you're the fucking culprit, and no matter how many girls, or boys-pretending-to-be-girls, how many people have gotten off with the help of your voice, your instruction, this one sets a different fucking precedent.

You're not lying when you say, "I'm rock fucking hard, Ryujin," or "there's precum all over my knuckles, baby."

Because there is, and the poor thing chokes out another desperate sound when you tell her.)

"I'm right there, ah, fuck, keep going-"

"I've got my hand around my shaft, just enough that I can fuck it, can't I? The head is getting slick - baby - and my palm is gliding nice and easy. Are you cumming, Ryujin? You better be, you better be cumming right now."

There's a heaving gasp and she calls out for you, babbling curses and "please" and "fuck" in alternating succession, with enough punctuation for you to have to let your lip slip under the hard bite of your front teeth. "Don't stop," she tells you, voice thready.

"You need this so bad."

"Yes," she gasps. "How would you-"

"How would I fuck you?" you finish her thought.

She waits a moment, sucking in shallow breaths and then replying weakly, "I really like... I like doggy."

"On your knees?"

"Yeah," she stammers, "I like when, like- ah, like, pulling my hair."

"Fuck, I love that," you say into her mewling. "Splayed out with your tits against a pillow and getting your pretty, little pussy pounded? I bet that'd feel so good, huh? Hands so rough on your hips, on your throat, squeezing your neck so you'll turn pink. Just to see you smile, I'd probably fucking let you take whatever you want."

You're met with a broken moan, a long string of syllables ending on a note that has your shoulders clenching and cock jumping in your grip.

Tense over the things you can't see: Ryujin biting down into the side of her hand, the other knocking painfully against the wooden side rail on her mattress, her thighs tightening and screaming and clamping around her wrist as she pulls weaker, wilder whimpers out of her chest each time her fingers drag across her slit and the sensitive curve of her swollen clit. She's dying, she thinks, she's going to fucking die - the in and out of her soaked pussy, through all that sticky, satiny skin, slick fingers diving in, twisting until there's nowhere for them to go.

No other recourse than to fuck in, fuck, fuck, like that, fucking god.

There's heavy silence on the line for god knows how long - well, you have to check the log. But for her, it feels like fucking forever. That was - that was it. It's so fucking mind-wracking how good it was, she can't quite wrap her brain around it. Nowhere near. She thinks she'll have a better idea after two rounds, definitely by four. She'll buy something, use the discount, go shopping - an orgasm just to make sure she's not bullshitting herself.

You clear your throat.

She moves sluggishly, away from the side and against the headboard - the heat still unbearably oppressive, her t-shirt clinging and sticking. "That," she stumbles through the afterglow.

"Do I need to apologize to you?" you ask lightly.

"What? Oh god, no - no way. No way. I just."

"Yes?"

"Like I didn't know it was this-"

"Did you just cum, Ryujin?"

She's laying there with the phone pressed to her brow. A hand palmed over her own racing pulse. The faint smell of her own cunt lingering around her face.

"I don't know," she tells you, and promptly hangs up.

-

The darkness in Ryujin's bedroom is punctuated only by the faint, hazy light streaming in from the hall, and her bedroom fan making its creaking little circles, as she waits in her post-nut-high for her breathing to normalize. Her mind is buzzing, and out of all this, she has a hell of a bill and a couple conclusions:

She's a coward and a pervert, but definitely, definitely bisexual.

Or, like. She's in some weird gray area between not liking whenever anyone buys her drinks, but also the girls at least let her dance a little close. That's a strange thing, isn't it? For how often her mouth does stupid shit - you think at least someone would figure it out for her.

But you, oh fuck. You-

She's fucking shaken up, for sure.

-

(It's a home office set-up, actually.

Your desk isn't organized; you're sure the photos on the wall are askew and the paint looks slightly worse for wear if you were to turn the lights on - which you never really do. There's an aging lamp tucked into the back corner, a bottle of scotch next to your handset that's closer to halfway empty than halfway full, and you can't stop imagining it.

Promise, This never happens.

You've got the name stuck to the roof of your mouth even though you know it's fake. Stuck with something so painfully abstract. Imagining this girl that is probably as brash and bawdy as her voice, or more exciting than either - maybe her hair is long enough to brush along her breasts. Or maybe it hangs just over her shoulders. God knows just how that would frame her features.

You can see it, really. You pump a handful of coconut oil into your palm and the details solidify so easily in your head: her pretty mouth, nose, the dimples in her cheeks - eyes glazed and sultry and gazing at you.

Smelling sweet, all the places you need, skin hot, clit swollen-

Just- fuck. Fuck.

Ryujin, huh, imagine that.

Ryujin.

And you jerk off right into the soft embrace of a tissue.)

-

A little more than a week later:

Ryujin's all wrapped up on the couch, with an arm cushioning her head and watching TV when there's a sudden commotion from the front door. Yuna - her friend, her very nice, very male friend who never shows up after midnight unless there's a promise of sex - comes bumbling into the room.

He has no regard for boundaries.

So,

Yuna starts to say, smug, from where the hallway becomes the living room, "Ryujin - look at us. Stuck on a Friday night. You gotta boyfriend or something?"

She's completely unfazed by this interaction. She's pretty sure he has his own key, so like, he should be used to it by now too.

"Kind of." She shuts off the TV to turn her attention towards the topic at hand. "Why?"

Yuna runs a hand through all her long, silky hair and gestures her cock-du-jour on over to the door of her room. "Waiting for a call, maybe." She waggles her eyebrows. "Are you any good, I mean, you never seem to..."

Annoying brat. 

Ryujin smacks the back of her neck and interrupts, "you gonna fuck him? Go ahead and fuck him, Yuna." She checks the lock. The kitchen. Gets up and tries to ignore the heat flaring behind her ears.

"We could pretend," Yuna muses, tugging the waistband of Ryujin's shorts around her fingers before she's out of arm's reach. The elastic flips back into her waist with a dull snap.

"Dumb idea. That's a dumb, dumb idea," she reasons, because she knows Yuna has no self control. None, and it's showing; the second her shoulders sag forward and her eyes dart, craving, Ryujin steps back in. "Don't be stupid."

Yuna's lips are tilted, playful. Ryujin wants to smack that look right off her face. Like she fucking deserves any kind of victory just because she found out she can fuck anyone she wants while lacking the self-awareness to somehow be contented with anyone. She's not going to call her a slut - out of a matter of principle - but god, does she fucking want to.

"Gotta get ready, is what you should do," Ryujin mumbles under her breath.

"Fine." Yuna shrugs and pecks an annoying kiss to Ryujin's temple on her way to the shower, waving a hand over her head with a casual, "If you want something, you've only got a half-hour."

Ryujin pushes her hair out of her face and does what she does best: overanalyze and overthink the situation.

Whatever. Yuna won't give it up regardless, not in any way she'd actually be able to enjoy. Her cheeks go a little redder while she pretends to not be considering it.

God, a threesome in total functional harmony however: her working her mouth on Yeji (Ryujin doesn't know why she's thinking about Yeji, but she is), Yeji working her mouth on her boyfriend, her boyfriend working his mouth on her -

That'd be something, she thinks. Like one of those Escher diagrams, but one where everyone cums at the end.

The thought makes Ryujin wet enough to squeeze her thighs together and stand up a little straighter.

Then she hears the showerhead turn on, and she wonders just why, exactly, Yuna is such a spoiled asshole.

-

Turns out,

The universe just has this habit of providing Ryujin with what she wants right alongside everything she doesn't.

She’s stretched out in her sweats, sat up at the top of her bed again and touching herself beneath the sheet in a pointless attempt to contain the mess. Fucking horny - it's honestly unbelievable - and her left hand's making lecherous, slick noises until it's absolutely gross. Until Ryujin's gasping and panting and sweating from the nape of her neck and the back of her knees.

All because Yuna's the loudest little-fucking-whore of a roommate anyone has ever heard.

She's moaning like she's getting fucking plowed into the next life. And apparently, the cock she's got in her cunt is fucking huge if those little murmuring whimpers are anything to go on. She keeps begging the guy, coy, for a kiss while she's probably folded up like a lawn chair in there, getting railed, and the fact that the boy keeps obliging is as admirable as it is kind of insulting.

"Goddamn," she thinks out loud, because the walls are paper-fucking-thin. The apartments in the area are built in an earthquake-safe way, which in reality, means they can either withstand a magnitude 6.0 and come out without any severe structural damages - or that it's so cheaply constructed the building will go down like a matchbox house before it stands a chance against a tremor of any significance.

They're easier to replace that way she’s told. And Ryujin's apartment is definitely of the latter; she can hear everything.

The skin on skin, their bodies sliding together in the slippery sheets. Her mouth smacking wet around his tongue as he bucks forward and asks her to do a hundred filthy things, asking her where it feels best - that sort of thing, which gets her wound and agitated and frustrated, and fucking horny as fuck. Ryujin's bent-inward and panting when he really gets to work - the creaks and groans, their mingled pants and the constant thudding and swaying of the headboard smacking into the wall.

She doesn't even need to put her ear to the partition like she's sixteen years old all over again, hoping to catch her old brother going at it while her mom was out. Trying to figure out this whole sex thing - what all the fuss was about.

Just the way Ryujin sighs is nothing short of despondent. Slightly pitiful.

And every tight circle she's running over clit feels so fucking good, until she realizes the room goes real quiet for a bit. The stillness - no slapping, no movement, just wet, panted-breaths and muffled speech. She nearly asks aloud what's wrong - but she hears it: Yuna's hushed but totally undeniable,

"Been so long- don't, don't- hold up," she croons in these high, sing-song little huffs. "That - uhn, ah - that's my - that's my good spot, there, keep - yes, harder!"

Ryujin slams her eyes closed, dropping down onto the mattress and wishing she'd slipped her hands into her sweats sooner. Fuck. And as Yuna's back starts banging against the wall - so rhythmic and fucking thorough - Ryujin can feel the heat curling behind the backs of her knees, radiating along her calf and reaching into the smalls of her feet. Fuck. Fuck, she doesn't even get to watch.

Right there. So good, please, so fucking good, is what Ryujin can’t not hear coming right through the drywall.

She’s three knuckles deep in her pussy, all stretched out, and she's practically drooling - "spread me, baby. Hold the, fuck, spread my lips open. See me- unh. Ah - see me? Please, do it-" - the boy groaning about it as he fucks her, and then, Yuna, needling him with a quiet, breathy, "harder, can't you?"

The answer seems to make Yuna squirm and scream.

And Ryujin's nearly rolling - rocking, fucking humping her own fingers because it's starting to ache a little, a cramping in her wrist and arm and jaw that she's trying really hard to ignore, rubbing and fingering and fucking herself closer, the heels of her feet sinking hard against the sheets, throbbing and aching around the flicks of her knuckles, harder, faster - faster -

"Fucking hell-" she seethes and stops moving all at once - because god, Yuna is un-fucking-believable.

The absolute bitch, she's doing it again: squealing and cursing and calling his name into her orgasm and just basking, it sounds like, right in it. Because she always does this, every single fucking time, she acts like it's the best feeling in the fucking world and she fucking loves everything, and that shit just - Ryujin grits her teeth and grimaces and pulls her slick fingers from her body - that just ruins it.

All that build-up and for what?

Fuck, Yuna really has the nerve to go there too. She's talking about sucking her own damn cunt or some bullshit-

Yeah, it's not fucking fair, Ryujin concedes.

Or maybe she's being punished. She could live with that, but god. The unfairness of it all. She tries, for a half a minute, to let her throbbing stop being a goddamn nuisance. But the noises coming from the other room are making her crankier, more angry, more irate - and definitely hornier than she ever really intended, even though she knows Yuna is thoroughly distracted in there.

Ryujin sits up a little straighter. Squares her shoulders, steadies herself and fishes around in her pockets with her uncoordinated, cum-coated hands until she finds her wallet, a credit card, her cell -

And there's an aching, a sore pulse of neglect between her legs; that's all too much. A quick peek down confirms that, yep, she's practically dripped right out of her shorts and even gotten a dark spot in the front of them. How great is that.

Yuna is over there, all, "thank you - ah - can you please do me a favor and fuck my mouth with your big, big, huge, fucking cock-" and this guy, he sounds so patient, telling her how he wants to do exactly that, but he wants to fill her tiny pussy up first, fuck her here, fuck her there, fuck a baby right into her. Wants to get his cum all over her face, smear her mouth and her throat and her cheeks - 

Ryujin inhales through her nose and holds, eyes falling closed in something between misery and anguish.

He's telling her, yeah, of course he'll fill up her throat - give her so much it's leaking out of her fucking nose - and Yuna sounds like she's moaning and garbling an objection to that last part - but it doesn't actually fucking matter.

"Geez," is Ryujin's quiet, little gasped-out response. He just fucking pounds her right back into place; her next orgasm. Fuck-

And there it is: the slew of moans that start back up and just keep on keeping on.

Shin Ryujin is going to lose her fucking mind.

-

Ryujin only lasts a handful more days before she calls again.

It’s another Wednesday night, if only to increase the odds that you’re working. Yeah, she could go with another guy, but another guy might not do everything you did, talking quietly and calmly - so composed while Ryujin was losing some part of her sanity to the thumb she pressed on her clit. 

No, it has to be you.

That's what Ryujin makes herself say when the operator apologizes and explains you're busy.

"Will he be working much longer? Please, I, um-"

"If you give me your number," the operator tells her, "I can add him as a preferred associate. You'll get him next time instead of going to the line."

Ryujin pauses, finger held to her chin. Will he know that? There's all this implication isn't there, that maybe he won't. Maybe you're popular - are you? It's a lot like texting someone for the very first time. And if you did - know, she means - would she be acting like a stalker? It would feel weird, probably, but no worse than some people do it already.

Oh god, this is kind of fucked up.

Maybe a little. Maybe.

Ryujin pauses, finger to her chin. Will he know that? There's all this implication, isn't there, or maybe he won't. Maybe you're popular - are you? It's a lot like texting someone you like-like for the very first time. And if you did - know, she means - would she be acting like a stalker? It would feel weird, probably, but no worse than some of things other people are undoubtedly doing with this service, Ryujin decides, and rattles off the digits so fast the operator asks for clarification.

"If your schedule doesn't open," the line says, "call back and leave a message with when."

Ryujin shrugs and says, "yeah, okay."

-

You make Ryujin sit through forty-five-fucking minutes of on-hold music - this barely audible synthetic noise that signals a connection is still there, truly a genre for no one - all before she just cuts the fucking line and lays down on the couch.

Okay.

Okay, fine.

Whatever.

-

(You are… going through the motions.

Some girl on the other line is barely holding it together; you can hear her thighs making slick noises. God. She sounds desperate, she's holding the phone all tight and saying your name. She's fucking babbling; it's not attractive, not while you're tilted back as far as your office chair will go and staring up in the ceiling.

You're bored, mostly.

"Please, please, I'm-"

"Going to cum, I know, princess." She asked you to call her that. "Mouth all open? Can't help it? Just need to lick it nice and fast?"

The answer comes all choppy: "I can't, ah, a-ah-nymore, no, I, can't, need-"

"Do you have any idea? How hard I'm fucking stroking my cock right now? Sitting right in my lap. Jerking it right for you," you say, and then she makes an embarrassingly wet noise, gasping through a choked whine, "so I'm ready to give you what you really fucking need."

"Yes," she chokes. "There - um, please, I just-"

"The biggest fucking load," you tell her. She has no idea, really, that you've got one hand on the receiver, the other just pinching the bridge of your nose - neither of which are you jerking the cum out of your cock and balls like a fucking hydrant as you’d described. What she doesn't know won't hurt her, and you keep your face turned to the side as she starts screaming. As it starts running into one noise that lasts forever - so unbearable that, this time, you consider going out to the bathroom to grab a glass of water and a handful of painkillers. "Need it deep. Let me pour it in, yeah?"

"Yes," she gasps again, heard on this distant frequency because, yes, yes, you've plugged your ear with a finger.

"That'll satisfy you. C'mon, now, princess - give it right up," you tell her, but your eyes are a little dull when her moan turns out all-gagging and twitchy and spasming through it, until finally:

"Ugh."

You wait a moment for the gasping and hitching to finish.

"Good girl," is your distant reply, followed by a polite, perfunctory, "call back anytime.")

-

Ryujin feels like she's in grade eleven again as she stares at her phone. Boys. Drama. Girls. The drama.

The overanalyzing, the wondering, the hesitating. Fuck. She wishes she knew a way to change this, because she doesn't feel particularly mature and is somehow reduced to this girl, this idiot sitting here all embarrassed and staring and moping about a thousand different calamities at once.

She's looking right at the lock screen: the wallpaper of her and Yeji and Chaeryeong out getting coffee on a random Sunday, all bundled up. Winter. Like three, four years ago, maybe.

Ryujin looks like shit, it's funny.

But Yeji -

How she can make the winter pallor look good is beyond Ryujin's understanding. It's unfair. All the things are. Her brain is back and forth and spinning, spinning like the hands on the old clock hung up on the wall in the kitchen. So stuck on what's not quite normal. Stuck on what doesn't fucking matter - who even fucking cares who the fuck she's attracted to?

She feels it between her legs.

Has been for like a month, or longer, without an outlet. Without anything to give her the hint that maybe she can get back to it - the right it.

She doesn't need to call, she tells herself. She's not some weirdo who's sitting on this for days just in the hopes that her boyfriend is having a bad week with work or whatever. It's only Wednesday, technically. Still way early. Just another few days, she reasons, another few hours - what does it matter?

Wednesday. She can feel the word settle inside of her.

Though only once her bottom lip is chewed to hell, does she pick up her phone and decide she will.

-

(You're in your bedroom this time around, finishing up your own weekday workout - on the bike, fifteen-second sprints - when your phone goes off. A simple dinging. Very unassuming.

The operator comes in with a cool, level, "line two, callback."

Then there's nothing but silence for a few beats.

You towel some of the sweat off your face. It's warm - your skin, flushed. Bouncing your phone in your palm. The same feeling that's been tugging at your throat for the past two weeks starts to flare and swell.

Not quite a hope, not quite expectation: just something close.

"Are they still there?"

The operator confirms. "Shall I put them through?")

-

Ryujin fumbles in her own rush of bravado, hands pressing against the fronts of her thighs in an unflattering, nervous little gesture as the connection clicks and picks up.

"This is him," comes your voice, a little husky and raspy from all the day-to-day talk, but even and easygoing and maybe - just maybe - something she can hang on to. Ryujin gives an acknowledging "Mmmn," like the phone call isn't causing her major inner-turmoil.

"Right, ah." You sound kind of, dare she say, nervous yourself. You clear your throat into the line and ask, "what brings you here, stranger?"

Ryujin pauses at this; the red in her ears reaches her fucking jaw. Stranger. Jesus christ, okay, okay-

She laughs. Stops immediately at how self-conscious she sounds. Clears her throat and tucks some of her hair back - settles herself into it like her life hangs in the balance. "I'm here to get my rocks off."

"It's not usually my place to say," you begin in earnest, "but if you're anything like me, and this is gonna sound completely off-the-cusp, but those two weeks really seem to build up, don't they?"

God.

She pulls her sock off her ankle. There's eczema on her heel, and it's the kind of thing she can imagine Yeji telling her to not scratch - that she's going to fuck up her skin. It's funny the stupid fucking things she can remember and all the things she forgets. Like just now, with your voice in her ear, a little unsure in a way that says you've got other, much more important things you should be doing. But you're here with her.

With Ryujin.

God. She might hate herself a little.

"Um," is how she finds her bearings. "Actually."

"It's a joke. Not that- I mean." She hears some rustling - assumes it's coming through the ear piece. There's an abrupt slamming on her side of the line and it seems like the worst kind of deja-fucking-vu. Her neighbors. She forgets it's even this late into the evening. That other people don't have to work so hard in their free-time.

"Maybe this isn't a good night," she says, not so much as thinking the words.

"What?" you ask. Then it dawns on you. "No, no. If you're there, I'm here." You clear your throat. "Besides, there's nobody I'd rather hear from than a woman so desperate she's signed onto my frequent flier's club."

She stops chewing the insides of her cheeks long enough to give you a tired, irritated sound. "Whatever."

And you nearly choke trying not to laugh.

"I don't, um-"

"What, do I have a nice voice?" You laugh quietly.

Under normal circumstances, that wry edge, the bit of try-hard-humor would have her rolling her fucking eyes clean out of their sockets. So when instead she opens her mouth and a fatal-fucked-flirty-feminine, stop, comes out, the vowel pulled long like a plea or a request - well, Ryujin's forehead drops against her bedspread in immediate regret.

You seem startled by it too, going quiet for a second.

"I-I'm-"

"Cute," you decide.

Her ears are red-hot and her cheeks have to be pinking and god, she hates this. That she's hearing this so soon, and it's making her brain hazy and soft and stuttering through, um's and yeah, well, um's. A part of her can't believe she's paying for this, and then, at the same time, she can't believe she's not actually putting cash down for more right this second.

Because it feels -

Like maybe -

Her shoulders rise. She wants this to be quick; she hates this feeling of embarrassment creeping its way in and grabbing onto her with both hands, like this weird, pseudo-affection. She's a grown fucking woman and here she is, letting all her guard down for someone she doesn't even fucking know.

You can feel the tension, hear it. Your lips purse. You try for something easy.

"Go on and give me the details, Ryujin."

Before you'd even picked up, she'd already half-undone her shirt, the flaps of the collar hanging loose with her hands gently petting her ribcage - so easily giving and pliant that there's a good portion of her, in spite of the doubt, in spite of what seems completely illogical about all this, that has her realizing maybe she wants this more than she can possibly understand.

God, she feels like a fucking fool.

"It's pretty boring."

"Not to me. I've spent the last few weeks talking to a bunch of assholes who don't appreciate what they got in the first place," you reply. She imagines you're a little playful about it. Wonders, momentarily, how good that smirk looks - if your eyebrows are lifting like you've been teasing her since day one. Fuck. 

“Your operator is a total asshole too, by the way."

"Don't say that," is Ryujin's shy reply, practically moaned out. "You sound like someone I'd absolutely fucking hate, jesus, stop that."

"Just because you don't get on with someone, doesn't mean they can't get you off."

"Smooth, or something."

"I'm taking a break, relaxing a little, enjoying an overrated TV show or whatever this is - not really minding my business," you say, but your smile is so audible it's fucking offensive. And she's - she's maybe, definitely into that. Like the fucking embarrassment in this is turning her on. Ryujin puts the tip of her finger in the waist of her shorts, experimentally, gently, this small brush and press to her sensitive lower stomach. And it's true. All she hears is her own breathing in the receiver, a bit labored over the slightest, least indecent touch. It's amazing, how much her body can want even when her head can't seem to catch up.

"What do you like?" she asks. “You’re a person, working bits and all, something’s gotta get you all worked up and flustered, no?”

"Will you believe me if I tell you this is my absolute favorite?"

"Do you always dodge the question?"

"It's just like a courtesy," you clarify, "it's not personal."

"Now I sound like a desperate pervert."

"On the contrary," is your warm, buttery reply, and it is fucking aggravating just how well this works on her. "I think there are much better things people can say about you."

God, that - the thought, the possibility of something about her that has nothing to do with how 'thick' or 'thin' her thighs are, or the silhouette of her ass in safety shorts, or how her voice makes guys want to ask if they can take her home and fuck the answers from her, or any of that; it's kind of liberating, just a tiny bit. That it can be a good thing for some reason. God.

Ryujin rubs herself. "Yeah, well."

She wants it all the same and says nothing, shifting a little until her hips tilt slightly upwards, letting her pull at the drawstring of her shorts, loosening the grip. She's already kind of feeling woozy in all the best ways, soft and feminine in how she slides her hand underneath her shorts. Over panties first, with no clear idea if you can tell and honestly, too distracted to wonder about that, if she should care or not, too caught up with her fingertips over the raised seam in her underwear - where the fabric's wet from her.

A shush comes into the line when Ryujin swallows.

The ache between her legs grows louder.

"You still there, Ryujin?"

"Of course," and then, she finds a little more reassured finality: "fuck, yeah, fuck. Please, I..."

"Ryujin," you say with all the calm and control in the world, "talk to me."

-

(So - truthfully, honestly, factually - you are a total wreck.

You're sitting there in a heap of bedsheets and a cold sweat when Ryujin finally mutters into the silence, "thanks, for that, I, uh- that felt really good, exactly what I needed," and hangs up before you can ask about her day or comment on the weather or suggest calling back tomorrow.

She is just perfect, the way she lets a small "I..." slip when she's close. Perfect, how she groans her little broken, satisfied sigh of a yes, her last, fleeting exhale just a sweet, high, barely there please, her body tensing with every little shudder and moan and pant. How the pace goes fast and then slow - like she's gotta think it out a second, her own fingers bringing her closer and closer until there's nothing but a flurry of movement and ragged breaths - an enthusiastic little mmph noise - followed by Ryujin's wet and slick little laugh that sounds like relief.

Like you did something to help, like she needed you and wanted you.

There's cum sticking all up your torso and along your wrist, the inside of your thigh - everywhere you could manage, frankly - and, shit, it's not fair, you realize:

She can find you, whenever she needs you.

And you -

You're just sitting here. Nowhere near sure she'll even call again.)

-

There's a sizable difference between being lonely and being alone, Ryujin thinks, running the cloth under the stream of the shower and then pressing it damp against her throat, wiping at the backs of her knees.

Lonely means that something's missing - it's something she feels when she catches a glance at the handsome arm reached around Chaeryeong's waist, the way she dances so close to someone she just met, or whenever she tells her that she's thinking about, maybe, probably, definitely, absolutely going home with him if her friends don't stop her from leaving. God, her smile is always so cute when he's near. When someone's calling her over for drinks - hips sashaying like she doesn't know the whole bar is staring at the creases where her thighs flare into her ass - because he gave her a look from across the room, and she's swaying from drink to drink.

Like, of course, they're fucking; it's a known, unsaid thing.

She knows it, he knows it. Chaeryeong fucking owns it.

Alone however, is just what it says on the tin.

That's something else Ryujin has yet to learn - that everyone loves differently, cares for different things. Yuna is still single after all, and she can never shake the feeling that it's simply to spite her for some perceived slight or another; Yuna can't live without company, no matter how brief or short or meaningless, so perhaps it's better she never catches on or finds anyone worth keeping around.

And Yeji?

Ryujin sighs, rakes the comb through her wet hair.

The showerhead is running hot between Ryujin's fingers, and the water coming off of her skin turns to steam instantly, filling the bathroom with a permanent cloud, stuck in flux - rising towards the ceiling. She passes her fingers under it, watches the flow, a quiet hm escaping the back of her throat - and she considers the way it feels beating against her throat and chest.

Down the concave curve of her stomach. How it burns red right over her thighs. The pressure slips and sinks low, lower - and when she puts a palm out for a little stability, her left leg can't help but buckle just so, lifting itself out and off to the side. So she stands, toes pointing against the shower floor, face first into her arm against the cool tile.

Ryujin sees where the rivulets of water have gathered above her clavicle - feels them trail down over the tightness in her breasts and between. A couple images pass through her mind at once - thoughts of fingers trailing a line back up the center of her body and a gentle tap against her chin, turning her face to some perfect all-consuming kiss - a hand squeezing at her calf, rubbing her muscles gently - Yeji smiling into the crook of her neck, the grasp on her hip, wrist flexing. Her back bowed and fingers, broad and experienced -

"Don't need you," Ryujin quietly says to nobody, which -

You're doing so well, Ryujin hears back in her imagination, you're so beautiful, you can keep this up, I know you can. I bet it feels good, doesn't it? Just let go and I'll...

Ryujin whimpers out. She can feel that line deep inside her going taut, buckling in her core, the reverberations down to her wrists and fingertips and toes. If she didn't have the wall in front of her, she knows she'd be on her knees - kneeling to the hot water pulsing around the knots of nerves right behind her clit. The pressure hitting her like the crack of a whip.

"Fuck me," she says to no one, gasping in that way you only can when no one is listening.

Yeji's smile is what's gotten her this close so many times, the smell of the ends of her hair tickling Ryujin's nose. Hell, she can't stop thinking about the way her nose crinkles or her dimples flare just when she finds Ryujin's name in her mouth.

It's not fair.

She's so close to cumming and letting whatever happens happen. The slick of her release pouring right out into the drain of the shower, washed away with the excess. So when her whole hand shifts and catches in just the right, delicious, frustrating way, Ryujin inhales so deep through the end of the sentence that, as a result, her knees wobble.

She feels like fucking crying.

It's that sweet little lilt in Yeji's voice, saying things like: "It's alright. I promise you can keep this up a little longer." And "Oh, god, baby." And, at worst, the way her voice shakes with a "come here, honey. Let me-"

Ryujin has to catch herself when her footing slips a little from under her. Then, your voice, coming in distant at first, grows louder, clearer. Into something catastrophic, right against her throat, like it knows the very inside-and-out of her, "go on. Fuck, please, cum all over me, baby - show me a face no one else gets to see."

And for the first time,

Ryujin gets herself off. Alone.

She moans and sighs out. Gasps, "there you go-" and whispers an, "ah, jesus." She manages the most silent, the least decipherable, fuck, as it leaves her mouth like a prayer. Her left knee twitches, body curling into itself, and her hand moves - fingers closing and her eyes clenched shut, a wave, cresting - she just-

Collapses.

Wanting: Yeji, sure - and she came - but the only thing she can really wrap her head around is the truth that she's so, utterly fucked.

-

"Are you sure there's no one you can bring?" Yeji asks in the middle of slapping the ever-loving shit out of a coffee maker that has, for as far as anyone can remember, never worked.

"Uh," is Ryujin's inconvenienced reaction, the tips of her fingers idly sorting through her credit card statements, which a more-sober, less-horny version of herself is a little out of sorts over. "I'm not sure there's anyone I'd want to bring."

"Uh huh," Yeji replies.

She pauses and rests the bottom edge of the coffee maker on the edge of the kitchen counter, stopping herself mid-smack - leaning away to try and give the stupid thing a once-over.

"Who the hell says it's got to be someone you wanna make babies with? Maybe it's just someone you'd think would look good beside you, smiling at the cameras with. Or."

"Or."

Yeji's lips tilt. "Or someone you wouldn't mind screwing in the bathroom."

Ryujin spins the pen in her fingers and gives Yeji a look that says back off and can you chill out already, in the sort of way it takes years to ferment - the silent understandings, the good-natured naggings, the good-fucking-luck-with-that-buddy's. Yeji knows she's getting on Ryujin's nerves. Knows that has never stopped her before.

"In my defense," Yeji clarifies, "I can count at least a hundred people that would crawl over broken glass to sleep with you and, uh-" She knocks the coffee maker off of its stand and holds it gingerly to her chest like some child, motherly. "-I don't wanna take a bullet for your unintentional chastity, Shin Ryujin."

"First of all, don’t pretend you’re doing me a favor here," she replies. "Second-"

"Can't hurt just asking, right? I could set you up, you know, someone you've never even met - no pre-burnt bridges to maneuver."

There’s a world, and Ryujin imagines it for all of a second, where she stands up and grabs hold of Yeji by her cute little ponytail - if nothing else, just to stop the way it bounces every time she steps - and maybe, she also kisses her on the mouth so hard she stumbles. Or perhaps she could pull that ribbon free of its holdings and unravel it down against Yeji's jaw. Pull a whimper, a tiny little ah that says this was inevitable. Maybe they crash onto her bed. Maybe she gets her fingers sticky with how soaked through the cotton of Yeji's shorts have gotten in those short, heated moments - what a world that would be.

"One of what's-his-name's friends? I’m assuming."

Yeji looks annoyed and proud and beautiful; all at once.

"Yes, and what's-his-name's pillow talk is exceedingly whiny about how my best friend is so incredibly standoffish and abrasive and-"

"Okay. I'll go." Anything to stop the image of Yeji with the comforter pulled up to her tits and hair splayed all over the place; red and flushed. Her lips curling with the curve of the sheets and god -

"Just for an hour?" Ryujin asks.

Yeji finally places the coffee maker back onto its stand.

"I mean, nothing much happens an hour into a birthday party," Yeji reassures. "It'll be fun."

"Uh-huh."

"Trust me."

Ryujin wonders just how far Yeji could go - if she knows that she can snap her fingers together, and Ryujin will be there: ready to do anything.

-

Ryujin is trying to go to sleep, is how she'll explain it if anyone asks. Though she prays to god no one ever will.

She tries books. And she tries scrolling aimlessly through Instagram. And there's this one guy she kinda-sorta-dated's updates: photos of a vacation to Boracay, which seems nice; his chest is a little more defined, more chiseled than when she was seventeen and kind of fumbling her way around a college boy and his stupid fucking preoccupation with who should be paying for drinks at whatever run down establishment was his pick of the night. Ryujin makes a face at the screen, pursing her lips; there's a girl in the photo - she looks too young for how her ass is falling out the one-piece. To the extent that she makes sure to send an unsolicited meme she's tagged herself in - like "here is my past and here are his balls", and gets a block and a report as a thank you.

It makes her feel good. That's what's most important.

And then, with little other distraction and a decent lack of luck, she picks up the phone.

It rings for a while before the operator comes in and says, "You're at number nine."

"What?"

"The queue. This call has you at number nine."

Ryujin slowly leans up from the pillows and squints into her bedroom.

"Huh."

"Would you still like to be connected, miss?

Ryujin thinks it over for a moment. Of course you're popular, a part of her mind comments, because you've got a voice like gravel-slung honey-gold. She's imagining eight other girls just like her, laying in their bed, panties on their ankles and thumbs covered with spit. All desperate for you. All curled up - one right after the other - with no fucking idea.

"Miss," the operator comes back with.

The line goes quiet - a few beats, but not too uncomfortable a silence. Then she gets a soft little exhale out, saying, "can I leave a callback number?"

"If you like." The operator considers the idea. "I can’t promise whether he’ll call you.”

“No, yeah.” Ryujin curls an arm under her chest and plays a finger against the swell of her breast through her night shirt. Gets lost in her own consideration. “Don't think he would anyway."

-

A new day is defined by new possibilities, or something or another you read once stitched into a frame; Something you muse over the rim of your coffee, nose-deep in the laptop at the kitchen counter top.

Last night ended a bit unexpectedly - this not considering the couple's awkward fight which took up two-thirds of the evening. Or the girlfriend-slash-fiancée of that guy, which somehow led you to wonder just how old was too old. But as you were logging your final client session of the night a ping came through the employee portal and let you know that someone had left their number with the operator in the hopes you'd call.

You swig back the rest of your coffee, roll your shoulders and shrug. Oh, there are at least a million reasons not to call a number that randomly, offhandedly arrives in the middle of the night and gets patched through a phonesex hot line under the cover of darkness.

The same number could be out there, defacing the wall of a truck stop bathroom, or inked into the skin of a squat prison convict who's got a brow like the horizon. Maybe, it belongs to that married business man that took your personal phone number as his private line and spent all the time bragging how he was going to quit his wife and make a run for it with you - just you - even though you'd rather stab him with a fork than be involved with that kind of psychopathy and are honestly just looking for that extra bump in commissions every time his wife calls to ask the exact same thing.

Your clients call. You talk.

You take the cash.

The point is: there's more fucking deviants out there than there are stars in the sky. You would know; you talk to a new handful every goddamn day.

Yet it doesn't really matter. You're gonna do it. Because you're feeling restless. Because - and it sounds insane - there's at least some probability, no matter how remote, that you will pick up that receiver and punch in a number and the line will connect with the girl who's been on your mind almost constantly for the better half of two months. That you might listen to the dial tone turn into her answering with a genuinely indifferent, "this is Ryujin," or whatever her name actually is -

You're living in a pipe dream. You're probably reaching, actually. And all you know about this woman, is, what? What does it really, factually, truly amount to, the amount you feel you've come to know about her.

You know more about how she prefers to methodically, meticulously begin, then draw out, and finally end a blowjob to someone that ain't you than you do about any detail in her life story, frankly. You're reaching, and you know it.

You pick up the phone and dial.

-

(It goes straight to voicemail, and get this: that’s her real fucking name.)

-

Yuna has the audacity to ask, as she slides into the booth, "who do you keep texting?"

Ryujin's eyebrow arches.

The younger girl nods towards where Ryujin's thumbs are practically flying over the keyboard.

"No one." Ryujin puts the phone on her lap and crosses her arms over her chest. Then the words seem to echo through the inside of her skull, so she shakes her head a little, in emphasis. "It's nothing, don't worry about it."

She's right though - and maybe that's the problem. Maybe that's why it's hard to answer.

Chaeryeong washes the shot of whisky down with a swallow of lemon-lime. Her eyes slide open to Ryujin as she wipes at her bottom lip. Then she spikes a finger into Ryujin's ribs.

"Spill."

It's a dangerous order, and she doesn't realize it at first. Chaeryeong's bad ideas have an annoying habit of flinging themselves on Ryujin, like a bomb dropped at low altitude - sudden, quick, and more than enough to shake everything up. Chaeryeong will make Ryujin go out dancing - and then she'll lose her clutch purse. Chaeryeong will remember she started the evening with a scarf - so they need to walk out a whole block or two to find it.

More importantly: Chaeryeong is not a great drunk.

So, of course she spills. She relays her findings, carefully and as deliberately as she can muster.

"Does he have a nice voice?" Chaeryeong asks.

"It's kind of deep?”

Chaeryeong snorts. Apologizes immediately.

"Not... deep. Sultry. I guess. Smooth, easy to hear." Ryujin tells the two across the table.

Yuna whistles low. "Romantic as shit."

“Fuck, I don’t know. In, like a sexy sort of way." Ryujin raises both palms in a vague gesture. She clears her throat at the two pairs of eyes staring back at her as though the words coming out of her mouth belonged to a foreign language. "Uh. Sort of raspy, or something, sometimes, like he's... on the phone a lot, and you know," Ryujin flushes, suddenly caught and wondering where all the confidence went, "yeah."

Yuna's leaning forward, chin in her palm. "I'm having a hard time believing texting is a sort of standard operating procedure."

"Well try a little harder," Ryujin snaps, eyes finding Yuna's and making herself fucking clear.

Chaeryeong has this look about her, she's trying to keep it all in, but then there's her eyes, cinched at the corners and dead-fucking-giveaways. She puts an arm against the table and points at Ryujin with an up-reaching thumb. "This is the cutest shit, like ever, and you two are texting like actual lovers instead of two, apparently rando-stranger fuck buddies, or whatever."

Yuna - for whatever reason - feels at liberty to throw gasoline on the fire. "Does that mean you think he's going to get jealous if you bring some dude along to Lia's birthday?"

Ryujin sucks in a breath; the fact that he'd never - well.

"Ryujin's in love," Yuna adds for dramatic effect, for the sake of being the worst fucking person. She can be so fucking petty. It's a side of her no one ever sees, because she's just so sweet all the time. Like right now, she's doing that smile-smirk thing that gets Chaeryeong giggling against her hand and then coughing into it a second later.

"Jesus christ," Ryujin starts gathering her jacket and purse. "He's- not- this is- God, I'm done." She slips her shoulder under the strap. "Thanks for listening to me sound like a teenager."

"Isn't that just normal for you," Yuna quips back, pulling at her straw until there's only air rushing through the bend of it. "Where are you going?"

"I can't stay here," Ryujin says as if it's obvious, as well as her point, the argument she's trying to make. "Besides, Yeji is gonna want me to get my dress and shit all sorted out."

"Don't fall in love with one of the robot voices at the cross-walk on your way home, or anything!" Yuna laughs out, giving a flippant wave goodbye.

Ryujin lets her eyes roll because sometimes, she hates her friends.

-

It still throws you for a loop whenever Ryujin pings your phone with a text that says something like:

have you jerked yourself off to exhaustion or is there one more in you for someone like me?

Or,

my roommate is getting pounded through the springs of her mattress, wanna see if you can hear it?

Or,

are you free? I really fucking need to cum. bad.

Each text is something you tuck into yourself. Save and mark and spend all your time in those long-form responses imagining how her face looked when her brain typed out the words for you. You wonder if she's sighing through her fingers or hiding her lips behind a pillow while the heat coils in the pits of her hips.

As time goes by, Ryujin slips a little more. From one text about whatever book or series she was rereading last and another about the sadism of politicians and how people are more likely to agree with what they've heard someone else say than the facts of a given subject, to texts with a few scattered thoughts to strings of sexting that has you cumming into the palm of your hand and through your sheets and in the middle of a dream in which there's no clothes and a pretty fucking filthy proposition.

"How have you been lately," you decide, and consider, briefly, the very strong likelihood this call is gonna send her right through the goddamn roof.

When Ryujin eventually finds herself able to get out: "fine," there's a tell-tale pause, then an even longer pause, that implies she'd definitely rather say anything else. Then she kind of stutters a, "pretty good. Not too bad. All that stuff, I suppose."

And not to say any part of this has felt like routine. Both of you breathing into the end of a telephone and letting your eyes clench tight while you cum all over yourself - imagining everything she told you she wanted you to do to her, how it'd all go: "fucking with my arms grappled behind my back," she'd hum, "head pushed into the bedsheets, you're smothering me, ah- I'd let you cum wherever the fuck you like, but please-" or maybe a bit simpler: "so my thighs are straddling your face?" is about the gist.

A second goes by, another, a third.

"Hang on," you end up having to tell her sometimes, "I need a fucking towel-"

"You really are, huh, jerking off with me- I get you that hot, is what you're telling me? Or is just too much imagining how you'd fuck your way right into my guts through my pretty little pussy? Ah, jesus," the cadence of her voice climbs high before ending up back where it belongs, "Jesus, fuck."

"Can you imagine," is how it'd start, "how good it'd feel? My pussy, or- anywhere, everywhere. I think you'd ruin me for anyone else - you- with how, god-"

You can hear Ryujin shift on the sheets, licking at her bottom lip. Silently cumming. Cumming for you.

"Okay."

"Okay what," Ryujin quietly says back.

The gears turning.

You press your hand into the side of your neck. "Fuck me. Now, in a second. Tell me the last fucking thing in the world you want me to be or do and-"

"Wait."

There's this half-breath. This hmm that almost trips off Ryujin's tongue. Her eyes squinting open to a new thought. You think she's about to be sly. About to surprise you with an offhand fuck yes I'd ride that face like a bus seat; that she might come back with, yes I'll put you right in the middle of the best part of me, god you'll love it, and I promise not to make you cum if you're nice enough not to let your hands wander. But.

It's funny how things are -

"I have a confession," she says, matter-of-factly.

That's not entirely unusual. You've had more of those come through your line in a year than a confessional grate might get in a lifetime. So it doesn't sound like something special to you; Ryujin and you are in this candid don't-ask-don't-tell in regards to payments and the exchange of goods and services, but here you are, still using lines and bits. Practiced.

"In the name of the father, and of the son, and-"

"Funny." Ryujin gets the hint to backtrack. "Uhm, I mean. Remember the roommate I was telling you about?"

You hum a, "maybe."

"Uh," and now the hushed voice from her throat sounds distant, suddenly out of the scope of the receiver, "can I be totally, honestly- just really, extremely honest here, are you- or?"

You stop thinking about the ebbs and flows of her voice, how it dips down then arches up a little. Because now her voice has become something that is nervous, bordering on uneasy. So you stop, take stock and hold on. You weren't expecting a voice of worry or tension, or not at least while she wasn't thrown back into her bed and rubbing furiously at the ache between her legs.

"Yeah, of course," you offer her up.

"This is so embarrassing," she's saying, and some part of you feels ready to sink - you haven't the faintest idea for what, but there is something. Your chest clenches.

You can't help the worry and reply: "Okay, um. I mean- yeah. Me too, I can admit I feel a bit- and you can, y'know, be a little-"

"I'm not straight," she says finally, with a little quiver of her voice right at the tail end.

A blink comes, another - there's nothing coming out of you and you have no idea why that should be at all difficult, so the silence grows long. A new sort of awkward; the kind that you find out isn't just the rush of cum cooling in a pair of sweat-damp underwear. No - this is embarrassment, the kind that taints you.

"What?" You exhale a strained laugh, almost too-bright. "Are you- is this some sort of-?"

"Nope, no, this is crazy, sorry." She laughs. "Sorry."

"You certainly had me fooled." You sit up straighter in your bed, resting elbows on your knees. The moon is filtering through the windowsill and bathing the room in blue - casting light all the wrong ways. Making your own heart beat just a little too fast. "Fuck, um. Can I ask a personal question?"

"Sure." Her voice sounds uncharacteristically soft.

"What are you into?" and you as soon as you ask, you're laughing - because you've heard Ryujin wax lyrical for weeks, pontificate about every manner and way she'd take a cock between her hands, lips, fingers. Every. Single. Place, she wants one in - and now you can't believe this is what you went with: "I mean, like girls?"

"It's probably safe to assume I have some, y'know- degree of- yeah."

You chuckle a bit. The stiffness in your shoulders settling out.

"I've been in love, I realize - boy, with my roommate - for a while."

It's said with a sad laugh - as if this were a little shameful. Some deep, dark secret no one could ever be privy to; some stain on her soul that might wash out only after one final scrubbing with dish detergent and the cruelest bristles. A thing that keeps her up at night -

“Not the roommate, by the way, who we listen to get fucking railed like she’s on-demand pornography every weekend. Just to be clear."

"Good, jesus, that'd be fucking something."

Ryujin sounds more cheerful when her voice comes back through the line, "right?"

You wipe the perspiration of your top lip. You laugh nervously at this girl admitting to being in love over the phone - a stranger, truly, in all ways - to some fucked up audio-fetish sex line personality. And now - the fuck's wrong with you?

"Are you mad?" she asks, and some part of you is wrung. A small string of tension twisting so hard inside your gut, you're losing touch.

"No," you let her know. "No, not at all."

And that is honest. This is honest. There's this itching little scratch all over the insides of your skin that seems intent on driving a fucking wedge. Right at the center of your chest, tearing you apart. It feels as you've lost - not an object, not a material. Not an idea, nor a concept - but a feeling, that for once, was distinctly, overwhelmingly yours, without your wanting, or permission, or comprehension.

Ryujin sighs, this elongated relief coming in. She sinks back against the headboard.

She tells you everything. How Yeji smiles, and it's like the whole fucking room has gone up in lights, just from her and her alone. How there is nothing that she'd rather spend all her days around. She talks and you sit there, silent and listening. She talks about her. Her name and everything Yeji does and everything she wants.

The more you listen, you realize it's all real; she's not confused, or mistaken, or out to play a game or convince herself of something she believes is inherently untrue. She's not frustrated, or longing. She doesn't have this stomach-rolling pit of anxiety digging a cavern at her center because she just can't go through the rest of her life, living a life like everyone else. Not ever.

Because, all you really notice is-

She loves Yeji. The quiet kind. And she's sitting there, legs curled under her ass, crying. Not sad, or frightened, or wounded, just this beautiful sort of awed: it's the kind that only someone who is too inexperienced at crying should have. Where you just-

Look away.

"I'm not taking my phone into the bath with me," is the last thing she says to you, tears flooding out in her last couple words, before you can only offer her a meek: "anytime, Ryujin, I'm here."

-

(Four, five weeks go by in the blink of an eye. A month where you figure it's best to let her text or call or make it clear she wants your voice.

She never does.)

-

Lia is taking her sweet time to apply concealer over the cut Ryujin earned herself trying to get a stupid thing off a shelf - that's how low and unreasonable her tolerance for anything mildly inconvenient is.

"That fucking hurts," Ryujin tells her, wincing.

Lia ignores her.

She keeps on dabbing at the spot on her temple with the makeup brush until there isn't any trace of bruising, or where the jagged scar of a cut ends and skin begins, not anymore. At this point, she has gotten better, has developed a kind of surgeon's eye: zeroing in and unblinking, until every inch of damage is looking like Ryujin did when she was brought into this world -

(which is not perfect, but what it ought to look like, all things considered.)

Lia holds her hands in place on either side of Ryujin's head. "Stay."

It takes less than five minutes, and during those, Yuna just offers from around the bathroom door, "Ryujin, sweetheart, you’re looking hot tonight."

There's nothing more Ryujin wants to do than set the girl straight - the girl can't not keep a chirp to herself, for once in her fucking life. Because this flimsy slip of a dress around her middle feels too tight, the air choked out of her lungs if she shifts her weight onto the wrong foot. The hem rides way too fucking high up her thighs. So, if anyone didn't want a good long look at her ass tonight, they better come up with a plan B if she has to so much as approach a staircase.

"Have I ever not," she bites.

Yuna snorts.

And luckily for Ryujin, Lia feels the same way:

"Yuna, would it kill you to find something productive to do with your time?"

Yuna opens her mouth like she has something to say (she usually does) before retreating further away, the edge of her hair disappearing around the doorway. Then Ryujin's grinning - eyes taking in how Lia glowers a bit back, silently judging the stupidity in Ryujin's expression and also, admiring how good the girl looks. "Not bad, though, really."

Lia tells her with an underhanded wave of the brush and a wink: "historically, you do always get laid on my birthday, remember?"

Ryujin jerks a little, and the scar above her eye throbs into Lia's thumb. "Thanks?"

-

The party is miserable, but it's not Lia's fault. It's not really Yeji's fault either. They tried, that's really all she can say for them - her and her permanent-plus-one whose face Ryujin wants to both claw at and kiss until it’s swollen-

What she really can't wrap her mind around, though, is the guy sitting right fucking beside her. The idiot.

"Really, I'm telling you," her date - who is about 3.5 out of five stars at best and not so much handsome or hot as he is 'okay in a pinch' - grins up at her with the smarmiest of smiles, "if you'd just have taken me up on dinner, I would've spent all our time talking about you. We’d figure out how to enjoy ourselves."

"Likely story."

This fuckwad has the absolute goddamn gall to look wounded when his arm starts circling its way around the space where her dress is suffocating her at the waist, and Ryujin starts to shimmy her way out of hot water - again. God, she thinks, god save me-

"I think," she manages with a stilted grin, "I'm going to make myself useful- drinks, no?"

When he leans forward to grab her hand, it's only so she doesn't leave.

"You're not going to ask for my order?" he presses. The only reason Ryujin hasn't knocked out a couple of his front teeth is because Lia would be the one hearing Yeji whine about cleaning up the fucking mess.

"Just scotch. Neat."

Ryujin's a natural when it comes to smiling fake; it's part of her goddamned job. "Of course," she says, like she's not absolutely loathing him.

"Try the oakier, single-barrel variety, alright," he explains, because what's hotter than a man who's an expert in alcohol and being an insufferable tool? Nothing of course. She hopes he knocks back a few too many and his liver explodes - the painless way out. If god would ever fucking allow it.

She barely manages a half-strangled laugh over the blare of the music before he finally releases her wrist. 

The absolute fucking prick.

-

Here's something Ryujin never thought she'd come to appreciate:

Being alone.

It's just her and the breeze through the open doors of the rooftop garden, which is something every bit as refreshing as it is teeth-chatteringly cold. The wind picks up in gusts and billows, until it starts nipping up the fabric around her knees, like it's any one of the drunk, stumbling guests milling about and looking for a noncommittal lay.

Her left foot slips a step outwards, the uncomfortably tall heel bouncing on the edge of her toe and tapping a tune against the brick. Ryujin slouches on the railing that encapsulates the entire terrace, arms pressed over it, hands folded one-over the other - letting the night sky caress her bare shoulders with its wind-brushed kisses. This, is okay. It's better.

Maybe not ideal, but better.

And all it really took was a few fucking moments where she isn't smiling with pursed, stressed lips; where the pressure in her jaw finally settles out enough for the knot in the back of her teeth to fall loose and for her mouth to actually feel, y'know - good.

Not forced, is what. Not fake, or not real, or whatever-

Ryujin almost fishes her phone from her clutch. Almost. Almost texts to tell you that: this fucking night, like all the others in the past month or two or year, has left her feeling particularly done for, and yeah, no, it isn't helping that she'd take whatever would be the alternative if it meant a face like yours came in handy to lean against, or your shoulder or thigh to use. Like some pillow - that's all.

And you are, like. An option. But not, she sighs out, exactly the right one.

An errant chill shudders through her and down her spine.

"Shin Ryujin."

She'd recognize the tilt of that voice anywhere; even if her ears were pounding and her head filled with static and noise, she'd be able to place Yeji at the end of the world. The truth is easy to see, if only Yeji knew where to look: the corners of Ryujin's eyes screw up tight for a second, an immeasurably long time, in order to not do what they wanted. What it would mean.

She does anyway. "I'd hug you," Ryujin throws behind her with an airy sigh, "but I know where you've been."

Yeji's jaw has set at this point; a twist is still in her lip and she lets out this dry, half-laugh, half-not sound - which is the thing that drives Ryujin a little crazy. Yeji turns her attention from the concrete ground, to Ryujin's profile, her body leaning forward, toes tipping in: "sometimes I wonder if my partner in crime can breathe without saying something incendiary."

"Nope." Ryujin offers no further response or follow-up. Instead, the quiet gush of air makes itself the center of attention and a victim of silence.

"Sorry about-"

"Don't be. Don't give it a second thought." Ryujin stretches, leaning a little over the railing. Her fingers arch before her. Her words sounding the slightest bit cold, "can't win 'em all, right?"

Yeji's eyebrows pull together. "That's not how this was supposed-"

"God, Yeji." Ryujin smiles. Yeji hates that she never knows what that means. "I'm trying, really, I am, but you know - I really, I have tried my best, so can we just lay it to rest?"

Yeji leans over the railing - the fucking moon reflecting in these lustrous pools where her eyes go darker than night - and doesn't say anything for the longest moment. Ryujin chews her tongue, and tries to look as interested in the void of stars and night clouds as possible.

"Fuck's going on with you, lately?"

Ryujin just laughs back.

"Really," and the last word dips in a groan. It's almost childishly tragic how petulantly she insists, "talk to me."

But Ryujin has nothing else to say - no witty, scathing remarks. No deadpan observations or funny asides, not even a morose comment to throw back. There are times and moments and fucking periods of her day where she'd happily chew glass if it meant that Yeji would sit there a second longer, be beside her for a while and smile, just smile at only her, once - for once.

Her only response is the worst kind of lie, this soft: "really nothing."

The moment where it slips and hangs between them, when it lingers the longest -

She could reach out, a hand on her thigh, the small of her back, if she could only reach. And Yeji, she'd listen to her, for once. She'd really, genuinely hear what Ryujin says; like she can see it, plain as day, everything there's in Ryujin's eyes, the thoughts inside her head, written on her goddamn face and across the open night air in neon:

I love you. I'm in love with you, you're too close to me.

The seconds pass. They tick, they stretch and grow thin. Yeji looks at Ryujin expectantly, and Ryujin knows. It is something like being put on the spot and called in. Something like a long, pained whimper caught somewhere in her throat.

She is very much still, unmoving, and feeling nothing at all.

Maybe she can blame the alcohol, the dark, the series of events that saw her hiding away behind a bunch of decorative trees and fighting for breath where the wind blows a little cooler. She can pretend like the stars aren't absent above her, and it doesn't hurt a goddamn bit.

“Yeji, I-” She licks at her lip, ready, willing-

Ryujin grabs at her waist with a hand. Her knuckles white around the black of the railing. And with no further fanfare, she spits it out like venom, with no small measure of shame or guilt or worry for how Yeji will take it - or worse: how she herself would react in the wake of admitting it aloud -

“I love you,” Ryujin says, and it pops out of her mouth as neatly as it had the first thousand times practicing alone in her car.

A blink, and another. The look on Yeji's face is hard and blank, as if she'd understood every syllable, but didn't hear it at all - maybe. Her gaze drops, it trails a path along the long line of Ryujin's pale neck. Of the two ways it could ever go in her head, stuck on loop for as long as she can remember, Ryujin had never considered that Yeji might turn this still and vacant. A sudden feeling, a pull or a grip, starts in the lowest part of Ryujin's guts.

"And not-," she hears her own voice falter, "like-"

Then - it's on the back of Ryujin's head and in her hair, a hand curled at the base of her skull and pulling her head a little downward and her, until their foreheads meet. And before she has a chance to walk it back - to stuff it down where it came from and seal the bottle tight - before she can clench her eyes, shake her head, and spit out anything else like the fact that there was not much that had to change, between them -

Yeji just says plainly: "Yeah, hun. Love you too."

And it's shockingly, the most painful thing - that she just squeezes her hand and pats her back like it's all they could ever be. Without even the wherewithal to reject her properly; to tell her something like "don't ever say that again, god," or "oh shit- Ryujin. Sorry. So, no," or at least to spit back with a scathing laugh: "welcome to the fucking party," like what she always does.

"Yeah." Yeji clears her throat quietly and starts retreating back from the brink - with no apparent aim but to pull away as she draws herself away from the warmth of Ryujin's space, "uh, don't forget to say hello to some of the staffers before they go home, okay?"

Ryujin is left with nothing but the air that follows Yeji's outline; left with her heart sinking into the depths of the night; left trying to make sense of the bitter sting ripping her chest in two.

Left with her own hopelessness - the pining - when Yeji walks away.

To be lonely, to be alone; neither are the same. 

And she hates knowing she is so incredibly both.

-

The worst part is she knows how it looks.

Her pace just on the verge of unsteady, the way her feet come up from the ground: Left foot, the right. The other. Back and back and forth again, faster and then slower and- fuck.

A damsel, severely distressed.

She sits down on the curb. She wants to cry, but even just the way she looks, carrying her heels and struggling with this fucking dress she wishes she'd never bothered with at all - oh, the tabloids would be sure every detail gets pinned under all the wrong lights. A breakdown would only serve to confirm all the right things; it would paint a story for anyone who cares enough to glean from her crestfallen posture and red cheeks that she is yes, a little broken, and that everyone wants to be loved and she's no different - and -

She sucks a breath. This time, when her tears fall, it's a quick, perfunctory action, no show in it.

Her palms rub her face - and she wipes, and wipes, and wipes - smearing at the foundation under her eyes before she takes a long drag of night air. Deep from her core, filling up her lungs until she can't hold anymore. Until it hurts and stings the backs of her ribs - it's enough for a single, fleeting moment. The street is mostly empty; an occasional car will speed by every now and then and it's those few and far between intervals that hurt most, that nearly shatter her: if she can barely do this, alone, how can she possibly be enough for anyone?

Ryujin’s smiling only to hold back her tears, and it fucking stings. She flicks hurriedly past the lock screen of her phone and swipes through the message stream with blurry eyes - there’s a whole host of people that want to know where the fuck she went, if she's safe, why she up and vanished the moment Yeji couldn't keep an eye on her. And well. The girl sighs.

Finds your name in her contacts and puts her thumb right beside it.

It rings exactly three times, and she hates the number. She hates how many things can be associated with that number in those seconds alone.

Four, the pause where you must have had the opportunity, but didn't decide to pick up - just leave it be. Then five - Ryujin is definitely no longer looking forward to any of this.

Six: it stops.

There's this crackle, and through the night -

"Just what brings you here, stranger?"

For an indistinct amount of time, Ryujin drifts in the whirlpool current of that question; it sinks her deeper, into the currents of your voice and the tone and what it's suggesting and demanding from her. All the things your voice is giving her permission to ask of and with and-

Until finally she answers back: "do you ever just, like, wish," a shallow pause for the hitch in her breath, "something, someone was a little more for you- or to- with you-"

The swell of a smile through the receiver; and you can't help your laugh, soft.

"Sometimes," is what you say, "that's just human, don't you think?"

She doesn't understand how something like love or life or desire should be a universal trait.

"Uh, maybe," she shrugs out, and thinks.

"It's pretty normal," you tell her.

Quiet, as if you were right in front of her.

"Look," you start, and you can hear how she sniffs her nose and swipes the pad of her hand right along the side of it, to catch anything stupid and stupid sounding leaking down to her upper lip. "You don't have to. Let's just hang out. Tell me anything."

And for once, she does.

She talks.

-

(The whole story.

From the first time Ryujin realizes the world is never going to be fair - that she shouldn't have to look at herself like she's unlovable because she's seen her friends be held as though they are - or at Yeji like she's completely unattainable or somehow, unlovable, and that someone as amazing as Yeji should have been loved from the moment she was born.

The rest comes through as fragments: the truth of her career. Yeji.

The balcony, the breeze, the bitter-fucking-disappointment.

And what came of that -

When Ryujin isn't a million and one words per minute, it feels, almost, it feels - she'd swear there was less noise in her own head: this thrumming in her brain has settled out; the walls around her and the echo coming off of them - the booming and pulsing - it's, gone.

Because even though there was an indistinct shape for where she had landed, in the aftermath, and nothing much had changed - all that did. You listen, and that alone makes it so you're both exactly where you’re supposed to be, even if this, tonight - you are unsure, if it will actually fix anything - if anything needs fixing at all.)

[travelling-wanderer]

・﹒・﹒・ why are ya avoiding me? [2]

Summary: You avoided him at all costs because frankly, he was an asshole, doesn't mean he avoided you though. He constantly flirts with you but you just take it as him trying to anger you. It works, but you start to feel like he's being serious, and you have butterflies in your stomach just thinking about him. However, he finally confronts you one day, and you don't know what to do.

Warnings: 15+, suggestive remarks

Pairing: Jax x GN!reader

Series: Part 1

Notes: I'm not proud of this writing at all, but I'll keep it as it is for you guys!

Did he just say, all the pictures you have of him? How could he have known that? Gulping, you stared him and stop walking, watching as he walks ahead without a care in the world.

“You comin’?” He asks, stopping a few feet in front of you and turning his head to face you, a smirk present.

“Shut the frick up or else I will kick you in the no-no zone” Your eye twitched as you walked ahead of him, taking deep breaths- nobody could actually breathe here so at least you simulated it to calm down. He never failed to piss you off, how the FUCK did get in and why did he go in there at all anyways?

The both of you walked in silence for a few minutes, equal amounts of anger and feeling butterflies in your stomach for the rabbit. The anger was justified, but the attraction was far from it, in fact, the anger came mostly from that attraction. It was ridiculous that you fell for that dumbass rabbit because he was nothing but a tease and a bitch to everyone.

“You're not gonna ask me how I got in, Cutie?” He was fucking with you and he loved it as your door entered your vision. Gripping the handle, you started to turn it before his hand wrapped around your wrist somewhat firmly with his head next to yours yet again. He loved to get up into your personal space huh?

“You can’t fool me, we both know how you truly feel about me, but don't you want to know how I feel about you?” He whispered on the side of your head again- not ear as you had none but a close approximation- and remained there, waiting for a response. There was no need to argue with him about this, he was just taking the piss.

“Oh please, I already know how you feel about me. You flirt to make me mad because you don’t like me. Simple, As. That.” You opened the door roughly and tried to push him away, however, he followed you inside and shut the door behind him. Grumbling, you sat on the bed in shame as he walked over to you with an eyebrow raised. Standing in front of you, he was staring and smirking with his shitty ass face.

“Oh really?” Jax then leaned closer, so close his face was directly in front of yours, causing you to lean back. The rabbit only got closer which led to you falling back on the bed and he pinned you down with both of his hands over yours, face inches now from yours.

“Because I have been flirting with you for so long, waiting for you to make the first move, but I guess I’ll have to” His mouth then covered yours, he was kissing you! You froze for a second, not knowing what to do, then you decided to give in and kiss back, chest fluttering with butterflies. This was actually happening! You relaxed and melted into his affection. His kiss was passionate, but not rough. However, it lasted far too short as before you knew it, he pulled away, staring at you with wide eyes and blush on his round cheeks. You yourself had a very hot face, wide eyes as well looking back. Jax stood up and had a tiny smile on his face, he started to leave.

“Wait! Where are you- where are you going?” You begged, breathless as you quickly sat up, holding your hand out to him.

“To tell Zooble you were too chicken to make the first move” That’s it? He was just going to leave after that? After that kiss? Anger started to seep through you again, how dare he?

“Don’t-don’t leave…please” So why were you begging for him to stay with you? It wasn’t like you were lonely, you were good friends with Ragatha and Kinger! But it felt…different…with him, like you wanted to be vulnerable with him, like you were safe with him.

He stopped as he was just about to open the door, sighing. You knew he had a hard time opening up to others, but maybe he would at least open up to you as he turned around. Jax walked back to the bed and sat down next to you, looking at you with an unreadable expression. He didn’t make any sudden moves though, he just stared down at his folded up hands in his lap. 

Nothing was said for an undetermined amount of time, just enjoying having each other around in pure silence. You didn’t expect him to spew his issues right away, it was just important for him to know that he was no longer alone and can have a person to go to for anything. The status of your relationship was up in the air, but it was confusing how you actually felt towards him. You knew you hated him, but you had such a big crush on him.

“Hey, how did you get in my room in the first place Jax?” He was admiring the pictures you had of him on your walls, Caine gave you a camera a while ago and you took them of Jax when he wasn’t paying attention.

“I got keys to everyone’s room Cutie, I thought you knew that since you were so in love with me” He wiggled his eyebrows in your direction, teasing you. In love? As if. As for the key thing, how did he even have all of those keys?

“First off, how the hell do you have keys to everyone’s rooms? Second off, I am NOT in love with you, it’s…it’s…” You were at a loss for words, it wasn’t love, but what? A silly crush? It’s not like you had many options here in this digital world, most people were already abstracted before you arrived, nobody really sported a human appearance here, and you had next to no memories of your old life in the real world.

“Some secrets are best kept secret” He winked at you “And you totally are in love with me, heh” He chuckled with sad eyes as he sighed, looking down at his feet. You sensed a shift in his tone, now wanting to change the conversation.

“We better uh- leave before they get worried huh?” You looked towards Jax as he was looking through your stuff like it was his, but he was very slow about it, yet not methodical.

“Yeah, sure” He was seeming slightly absent now, voice hollow, as he set down the small figure on your desk and swiftly exited your room with coldness. What the hell got into him?

[taintedpearls]

datting korra headcanons ♡♡ I love your page its so pretty ＼(^^)／

ཐི⋆༊·˚ཋྀ dating korra headcannons — daily click

note: fluff + reg text under cut – tysm anon! ur too sweet.

love language is physical touch and words of affirmation.

thoroughly enjoys pda, it soothes her whenever in a crowd. wether it's holding your hand or keeping a grip on your waist, she's keeping a grip on you to keep her grounded.

zero shame. whatsoever. she knows she's attractive so she's constantly making flirty jokes and comments that get you flustered and nervous

but you're also really fucking hot, so you use it to your advantage. getting up close to her, returning flirty comments, swaying your hips more than you usually would and now she's the one with rosy cheeks.

whenever she has a hard day of being the start (which lets be honest, is most days) all she wants to do is lay in your arms while you speak to her softly.

adores kissing you! she doesn't really have a preference when kissing tbh. this girl could have a surprisingly good day being the avatar and would rush home just to kiss you aggressively as if someone really pissed her off.

loves cuddling. once again, even in public! she's a very affectionate person and you will more often times than not find the girl sneaking up behind you and wrapping her hands around your waist with a head on your shoulder, hot breath going down your neck. doesn't matter if your in the middle of an important conversation!

there are these little moments whenever she's had a particularly busy week and hasn't been able to see you much that she'll just relish in seeing your face and being able to hold you, hugs last forever with this girl.

you two have this sort of balance to each other. shes hot headed and often speaks her mind but you're calmer and think about what you want to say before saying it.

if you argue she's massive on communication. with the limited time you two can see eachother, she wants to savour the time you do have. so if you're upset at her, she's forcing you to talk to her.

but on more stressful days if she's upset at you... she's harsh and doesn't think about what she's saying. she doesn't mean it, but her words come off mean. she needs time to cool down before you let her come to you.

that being said she can definitely come off as possessive and pushy... and she is!

well she's possessive at least, she just comes off as pushy.

she's not a "oh my god she's gonna leave me for someone else so i have to keep my eye on her at all times possessive" she's more of a "i'm literally the fucking avatar and i'm trying to make sure she's safe" type of possessive

for example, if you get hurt she's pissed. super pissed. blinded by pure rage that you got hurt, at both you and whatever caused it.

"how could you be so reckless! so stupid? i swear you don't think before marching into a fight-!"

"can you please stop? my head hurts"

and then she's rushing to your side, asking if you're okay and taking care of you like she didn't say anything she just did.

constantly worried about whatever you're getting yourself into when you aren't around her.

if she's injured, you just sigh disappointedly while patching her up. she tries to make a stupid joke like "i really outdid myself this time huh?" but you stay silent. you don't want to lash out.

to make it up to you she tries to make you something

key word: tries.

she's an awful cook.

tried to make you two breakfast one time and it looked like she had gotten into a fight with flour.

that being said you're usually the one to cook, even if you aren't much better than her.

ALWAYS TAKING FROM YOUR PLATE.

game nights go crazy! she's hiding about 247 uno cards under the table.

whenever she works out, she'll always invite you to come with her. wether or not you're working out yourself or sitting down and reading a book beside her, you just like being around her.

always organising little dates around town for the two of you.

going out at night to the markets and mucking around while finding little trinkets for each other.

yeah this girl knew she loved you when you bought a little ceramic polar bear for naga.

watching her early days of doing pro bending matches and SCREAMING her name so loudly she thinks the whole stadium can hear you.

[ancientgoddessofegypt]

ASTRO OBSERVATIONS - MORE ABOUT THE STARS

Hey! My name is Monet. I wanted to share some more insight on the signs and some house placements. I hope you all enjoy!

Taurus suns are incredible listeners. They are big on gift giving and creating safe and sensual spaces for their partners. However they due tend to argue a lot, its the bull headed energy they have. Its an Adrenaline rush. Be careful not to be around them while their hot tempered, you might get a kick from the bull. On the bright side, their sensual personas is a gift from the cosmos. They can turn this trait into a gold mine. They have the energy to entice you with their words, their bodies and even the way they express themselves.

Jupiter in Aquarius individuals have a complex understanding of the cosmos. It's not typically understood by the masses but I mean it is in aquarius! Jupiter here shows an expansion in knowledge be it whatever it is they put their fingers on. The Midas Touch. Even if the odds are against them, they still have a notoriety to their character that most never saw coming. They change the odds to work in their favor due to a shift in mindset. Good luck bestows them when they go into odd, original territory. You never know what you might find!

Jupiter 10th House individuals have an urgency to be successful, this can be a painful placement to have because while they may have big dreams their is a ton of practicality that comes in with this placement. This placement can be quite depressive when they aren't sure how their plans for the future can commence. They have to work hard to get to this dream however they must take into account that things don't always happen so quickly. Jupiter in this house shows a person with a magnetic persona, where people will feel the good energy on you and will latch on to it. It doesnt quite matter what this character is doing, they will always have a respectable aura to the masses. It is their gift.

Sun in the 11th shows a person who is popular with the masses, however it has its quirks. These are the internet famous geeks. The ones who turn the trends into their favor. Pioneers in the originality train. They normally just have to be themselves and people will be attracted to them. Angel dust is literally sprinkled on their character. For social media of course ;) jk. On another end, these people are quick to join different organizations and groups. However they feel at the moment, they usually take a chance in whatever is not the ordinary. 11th house is ruled by uranus/aquarius naturally, so the 11th house suns have a knack for creating and/or being in spaces where they can connect to people who are different from them.

Neptune 12th housers, whew boy. You guys have a gift in the subconscious that goes untapped by the rest of the world. Your gift in seeing things that arent there, can be used in creative/practical outlets. I'd argue that you could just paint or draw, but its much bigger than that. Sometimes thats not what you're subconscious is looking for. It requires you to seek it. This house placement goes on journeys through the psyche, and in the physical it shows itself in a number of ways. Whether through people, art, locations. Doesn't matter. There is one thing that is always certain, that the imagination has a mission. And that's to bring it to life.

These people are good at reading the world because they are constantly rejected and ocratized on being different. The 'crazy' one. But the one who is also the most talented in astrology, occult, the stars, and mysticism. It's a gift not everyone gets, but it's something work noting. They challenge you too see the beyond, and help others tap into themselves . The escapist, they have others who try to escape with them, but it doesnt last. Be gentle with them, they have a lot going on in their mind. They just want to share it with someone.

Venus in Leo has a royal aura. Their charm can wow others and can make them fall in love easily. Their gift is in works of art but for them i do sense singing would be a great one for them. They don't need to have the 'best' voice. Just the confidence to keep going. Their magnetism is strongest during artistic associations because leo gets a knack out of being in the spotlight.

Mercury in the 3rd House has a significant tone to their voice. Its odd but its very distinctive that people enjoy listening. These people can also have a knack in playing instruments. Jazz style locations works for them. This is so the mind can relax as they are consistently on the go. Researching kills any acts of boredom easily, as this is a necessity for the mind.

[bangtanficsforyou]

They Reject You (maknae line)

Pairing: maknae line x reader (fuckboi! Jimin x Reader, Co-worker Taehyung x Reader, Idol Jungkook x Reader)

Warnings: swear words here and there.

Word count: 4.6K

Park Jimin

"Well if it isn't my favourite girl." A voice slurs slowly, right next to your ears which makes you flinch in surprise.

"Jimin, gosh, what's wrong with you?" You say in an annoyed manner, immediately recognising the person. "Also, maybe keep some distance?"

Jimin pouts exaggeratedly and puts extra effort into widening his eyes for special effects. "Don't you find me being this close to you, heart racing-ly desirable?"

"Heart racing-ly? That's a new one," you snort and roll your eyes. "But to answer your question; no. It is not heart racing-ly desirable." 

"Lie all you want but we all know the truth," Jimin smirks and you can't help but wonder how on earth he manages to remain this cocky even when drunk.

"Cut the crap and stop wasting my time." You turn around to leave, not wanting to give Jimin the time of your day. From your previous experiences, you know that Jimin only ever causes trouble.

"I'm not feeling good, Y/N," he whines, all cockiness suddenly gone from his tone as he pleads gently. "Don't leave me."

You contemplate for a split second before huffing in defeat. "What do you mean by you're not feeling good?" 

"I don't know," he shrugs with a sad frown. "I just don't feel good."

Instinctively, you place your palms on his forehead only to find his skin to be burning hot. 

"Jimin!" You exclaim, your feelings of indifference instantly turning into that of concern. "You have high fever."

"That might explain why I was feeling so hot," he nods. "But I thought that was because of how attractive I am."

Any other time, you would have retorted with a comeback but right now you pay no attention to his words. "Come with me, we need to get you back to your room. You need rest." 

Much to your surprise, Jimin doesn't throw a protest and lets you hold his hand as you make way for the both of you through the partying crowd. 

Thankfully his room is only upstairs (one of the many pros of being a frat boy living in a frat house) and you don't have much trouble getting there.

Making Jimin sit on the bed, you look for medicines that can help with his fever. "How long have you been feeling unwell?"

"For about an hour."

You have half a mind to lecture him on how drinking should be the last thing he should have done while feeling unwell, but you decide to keep it in. Maybe when he's sober and in a better health condition, you will give him an earful.

Right now, it's more important to understand the severity of the situation.

"Did you stay out for too long at night? Or stayed with wet clothes on? Or something that might have led to you having a fever?" 

Jimin's drunk mind feels perplexed by the series of questions you're throwing his way. "Does it matter?" 

"Yes, it does," you respond shortly.

As a nursing student, you know how important it is to know the source of any sickness. If his fever can be tracked down to any possible cause, you'd have this reassurance that there's most likely nothing to worry about. However, if the fever seems to have appeared out of nowhere, there are chances that it may be a symptom of some underlying infection.

Your response makes Jimin think. Has he done anything in recent days that could have led to this? At first, nothing comes to mind. But after a few moments of intense brainstorming, something clicks in his brain.

"Does having two hours of shower sex count?" He queries seriously.

Your hands momentarily falter on their journey of looking for the first aid box but you recover quickly. 

"Should have expected something like that from you," you grumble in annoyance.

"Don't be mean," he complains in a whine. "It's not my fault that the sex was so good. Plus, she kept asking for more and you know I can't say no to that."

You slam the drawer shut and aggressively open the box, having finally found it. You take out a tablet and hand it over to Jimin with a glass of water. 

Once Jimin has taken the medicine, you arrange the pillows for him and take a blanket out. "Go to sleep. Let your body have some rest."

"Are you leaving?" He asks in a quiet voice, reminding you of a small child asking a question they already know the answer to.

"I don't think I have any purpose being here. I'll ask Jungkook to stay with you in case you need something."

"Jungkook won't take care of me the way you do," Jimin replies with a huff, thoroughly displeased with the idea of you leaving him.

"That's not my issue," you shrug.

Jimin switches to his last option, one that works every time and on everyone; his famous, irresistible puppy eyes. "Do you not have any sympathy for me?"

You scoff, your patience running thin. You really don't want to have a fight or speak your mind while he's having a fever, but if he continues to prod you this way, he will be responsible for the inevitable outburst.

Jimin feels unhappy with your lack of response and he attempts once again. "Won't you do this much for me? Please?"

That's it. The way his soft voice pulls at your heartstrings does it for you.

"Can you, for once, not think only for yourself?" You snap.

Now that was not the reaction Jimin was expecting. "What do you mean?"

"Don't try to play dumb," you roll your eyes and cross your arms. "Don't tell me you have no idea how I feel about you."

Although drunk, Jimin's mind registers the seriousness of your words and he immediately looks sheepish. "I don't."

Well, that's a lie and both you and Jimin know it.

A sarcastic smile appears on your face. "I'll spell it out for you, again. I like you Jimin."

Jimin looks down and starts fiddling with the end of the bedsheets as he nods, having no other response. 

You sigh, wondering why you expected any other, perhaps a more thoughtful reaction from him. Feeling disappointed with yourself, you make your way out without another word.

On your way, however, you make sure to find Jungkook and ask him to look after Jimin. 

Once you're out of the frat house and have booked a cab to your rented apartment, you sit on a small bench and take a deep inhale to relax. Sadly and much to your frustration, the emotions that have come to the surface refuse to let you have your peace of mind.

You really should have stayed away from Jimin, from the very start.

Your brain chimes at you and it reminds you that perhaps there's no one else to be blamed but you. You are the one who has been entertaining Jimin all in the name of not entertaining him. 

It was a frat party much similar to that of today's when Jimin had first tried to add your name to the long list of girls he has had sex with. You were surprised, caught off guard and admittedly a little flattered by his flirtatious actions but irrespective of that, you weren't willing to be a part of his list.

You had asked him to fuck off and to leave you alone. Which he had done at the time but only to return later with much more determination to win you over. By then, you weren't feeling flattered by his repeated attempts, you were annoyed. Something, which Jimin found amusing.

The more he tried, the more your annoyance flared and so did Jimin's amusement. It went like this for a couple of weeks.

Things started to change when you stumbled upon a drunk Jimin sitting alone on the terrace. That was the first time the both of you had a proper conversation with each other. It made you realise that the whole fuckboy thing he has going on, is only a small part of him. You realised that there's much more to the guy than what meets the eye.

From then on you stopped treating him like a guy whose sole identity was that of the 'campus fuckboy'. 

That doesn't mean that his actions stopped annoying you. But you sure found it more tolerable.

However, exactly when your feelings for him turned romantic, remains debatable. Was it the night when he drunkenly kissed you? Or was it when he drunkenly confessed that he enjoys your company more than anyone else's? You don't know. 

But you do remember, exactly when you realised that your feelings for him don't fall under the category of platonic. It was when you saw Jimin making out with a petite blonde in a bar. The pain and jealousy that shot through your veins was an indication enough for you to see how your feelings have bloomed into something more.

You, upon realising, did not hesitate to confess. His response to your confession was simple. He does not do relationships and he sees you as a friend.

You could do with that. You weren't expecting Jimin to return your feelings or to commit to you. After all, you were well aware of his lifestyle and how he likes having lovers instead of a lover. 

The only reason you had confessed to him was in hopes that he would stop trying to bed you and realise that it isn't just fun and games for you anymore.

Unfortunately, Jimin didn't stop with his antics.

Annoyed and angry, you had decided to cut Jimin off. But of course, he wouldn't have that. He would, in some way or the other, sneak into your daily life and cause a ruckus as if it were his birthright. 

Truth be told, you weren't hurt by his rejection as much as you were by his total disregard for your feelings and how his actions and choices could affect you. 

The events from today serve as another example of the kind of emotional turmoil he stirs within you. The question is how long will you put up with this?

Your cab honks to announce its arrival and it causes you to break out of your thoughts. You give a small nod to the man in the driving seat and get up. As you walk towards the cab, you make up your mind. 

You're not going to entertain him any longer. 

Kim Taehyung

You: that's very mean of you 👿

You type with a wide grin plastered on your face.

Tae 🐻: mean? me? Never 🥺

You: putting that emoji won't help you 👿

Tae 🐻: ☹️

Tae 🐻: I sent you the snap of the chocolate because it reminded me of you 😔

You: that was NOT your intention 😤

You: you do this every time and then i start craving chocolates 😭

Tae 🐻: then have some 🙇

You: i have to complete the excel sheet by today :(:

You: which mean i can't go out

You: and if I opt for ordering online, I'll end up ordering a bunch of other stuff along with it and that won't be good for my wallet 

Tae 🐻: awwww

Tae 🐻: It's okay! I'll bring you chocolates tomorrow 

Tae 🐻: from your favourite brand 😉

You: you sweetheart 🥺

Tae 🐻: says the sweetest ❤️

A bashful giggle escapes from your lips when you read his text. He sure has a way with words.

You: now let me do my work

You: shoo

Tae: ☹️

Tae: I'm being chased away 

Tae: but okay xD

Tae: I'll let you get back to it. 

You bite on your lower lip to stop smiling like a fool and try to focus your attention on the computer screen. Keyword; try.

The butterflies in your stomach and the fluttering of your heart make it extremely difficult for you to think about anything else that's not Taehyung.

Gosh, he really is the greatest distraction of them all.

--------------------------------------------------------------

The next day, you find a big pack of chocolate from your favourite brand, on your desk. Attached to it is a note that reads for my favourite girl ;). You smile involuntarily and wonder what you ever did to deserve someone like Taehyung in your life. 

You sit on your chair and while the computer boots, you take a small bite from the chocolate bar. As you relish the sweetness that spreads in your mouth, you can't help but think of Taehyung and how much he has come to mean to you, in the few months that you have known him. 

When he first joined the company he was shy, barely talking to anyone and having a hard time socialising with his co-workers. It took him about a couple of weeks to get comfortable and once he did, there was no going back. He somehow became everyone's favourite. 

However, the way you two became friends is a bit different. 

Four months ago, on a fortunate day, there was a huge mishap with the data files. Small groups were formed to work on the mistakes and correct them as necessary. As fate would have it, you and Taehyung were a team. And the amount of jokes you two made about your higher-ups, were perhaps the only source of energy for you both to carry on with the work and ultimately, finish it. 

And those three intense working days were enough for the two of you to become friends. 

It started with having small conversations via text, which then turned into full lengthy regular conversations. In the midst of all of that, when the flirting began, you have no clue. All you remember are those nights when you stayed up late, talking to him and smiling into your pillow, feeling like a teenager. 

He would sneak little compliments and warm affectionate words that would have you looking like a tomato in a matter of seconds.

Most importantly, he has become one of your closest friends. He has been there whenever you needed him and has confided in you whenever he faced challenges. The bond you two share is something you treasure deeply. He has become such an integral part of your life that there hardly goes by a day when the two of you don't talk to each other.

It's one of those 'more than friends' but 'not really dating' scenarios.

You had never given much thought about giving a label to what the two of you were. You were happy having him the way you do. But recently, you can't help but think of taking things to the next level. You find yourself wondering what it would be like to call him your boyfriend. 

As the all too familiar windows tune plays, notifying you of the booting process being completed, you decide to subtly ask him about it. 

----------------------------------------

"Did you like the chocolates?" That's the first thing Taehyung asks as you take the seat opposite to him.

"Do you think I would not like it?" You answer his question with a question of your own. Because honestly, that's a very silly question to ask. Anyone who knows you knows how much you love chocolates.

Taehyung grins, his boxy smile making an appearance. "I mean, it would still be nice to hear it from you."

"Well, then, I loved it." 

He nods, satisfied with your answer. Placing one of his hands on his chest, right above his heart, he bows. "I'm honoured to know that."

You chuckle softly, endeared at his actions. "How was your day so far?"

He rolls his eyes. "Eh, the usual. Mina got some files messed up and I had to do twice the work to fix that."

"That sucks," you grimace. "Work has been so tiring lately, I wish we could take a small break from all this shit."

"Oh, that reminds me–" Taehyung exclaims suddenly, startling you, "–I have got these free tickets to a movie, would you like to go with me?"

Excitement bubbles in your stomach. "Sure! I'd love to."

"Then it's set! I'll let you know of the date and time later, okay?" 

You nod, feeling giddy at the thought of watching a movie with him. It won't be the first time for sure, but it has been a while since the two of you last did something like this. Work hardly leaves any spare time for rest and fun.

However, the thought of spending some alone time with him, makes your mind go back to what you had decided while you were devouring the chocolate. You clear your throat before bringing the topic to the table. "Tae?"

"Hmm?"

"What are we doing?"

He looks up from his food, with a confused smile. "What do you mean by that? We are eating lunch." 

You shake your head softly, and make your question more obvious. "What are we?" 

You see as his confusion clears out and his smile fades. A look of discomfort appears on his face as he swallows the food. "Well, we are friends." 

"Are we just friends though?" You raise a brow in question, not willing to accept his answer. 

A soft sigh escapes his lips when he realises he can't really back out of this or push the conversation away for some time later. "You aren't just a friend to me. I like you. I like you a lot."

You stay quiet, sensing that there's a but coming. 

"But I don't think I'm ready to be in a relationship." He adds, figuring out that there's no way to put it subtly. 

That wasn't the answer you were expecting and naturally, you feel disheartened by his words.

Taehyung notices the way your face has dropped and he immediately feels guilty. "I know I should have told you this before. My intentions weren't to string you along, I genuinely do like you–"

"Then why?" You cut him off, confused and unable to understand what could be the issue if he really likes you the way he claims to.

"I am scared it will distract me from my career."

Your first instinct is to counter his statement and say, it doesn't work that way. That relationships are not a distraction. But you hold yourself back from saying so. 

If he believes that having a relationship will distract him, you cannot force or persuade him to believe otherwise. If anything, you understand where he might be coming from. He has only recently joined the company and you know he has experienced financial issues while growing up. You can see why he might be scared of something making him lose his focus. Having an established career is what he wants and what seems to be his priority.

Although you have been hoping and looking forward to putting a label, you know you can't expect that from him anymore. You could try and ask him to reconsider his choices but what good would that do? 

Even if he were to get into a relationship, he would most likely still have that thought in the back of his mind and will keep worrying about getting sidetracked. What's the point of committing to someone if you can't really enjoy it to the fullest? What is the point of calling someone yours, if you can't fully feel the beauty of it? You see none.

"Maybe, we can wait for each other?" He suggests meekly, too scared to see what your reaction to the question is.

Now, waiting for each other and whatnot sounds really romantic in movies and romcoms but you have to remind yourself that this is not a movie. In real life, irrespective of the intentions the individuals may hold, somewhere along the line, something usually happens that causes chaos and turns things sour. 

"How about we just let things flow and see where it takes us?" You suggest as that seems like the best possible choice at the moment.

Taehyung nods knowing he's in no place to bargain. He will take whatever you will give him. However, it bugs him to no end when you spend the rest of the lunch in silence and with a frown on your face.

Jeon Jungkook

"Can you sit still for a moment?"

The person in question, aka Jungkook, pays no attention to your words and hollers when something exciting occurs on the screen of his mobile phone. 

You sigh and place your palms on both of his cheeks and make him look up. However, the adorable sight of his squished cheeks, pouty lips and doe eyes wide in surprise, has you snorting. When you let go of your hold, he frowns, offended by your laughter.

"What's so funny about my face?" He grumbles.

You shake your head and apply blush on his cheeks. "You just looked like a real bunny for a second there, couldn't help but laugh at that."

He pouts. "That's supposed to be cute, not funny."

A fond smile appears on your face at his displeasure. "You're both cute and funny, I guess."

Jungkook grins at you, now satisfied. "Now make me cuter."

"I'll be able to do that if you stay still for a moment," you retort. 

Jungkook huffs and closes his eyes. "Fine! I'll stay still."

You hum in response and get to work. 

Being Jungkook's make-up artist was fairly easy. You just had to make his beautiful face appear flawless for the cameras. Nothing too difficult. Jungkook was friendly and so were the other BTS members. The pay was, of course, more than satisfactory.

Recently, however, being Jungkook's make-up artist hasn't been easy. It hasn't been easy being this close to him and keeping the fluttering of your heart under control. It hasn't been easy to see his eyes this up close and not let yourself get lost in them. It hasn't been easy to notice that small mole under his lips and resist the urge to kiss it. Oh no, it hasn't been easy at all. 

One might call you unprofessional and to be honest, you don't have much to defend yourself with. Rather, if someone questions your professionalism, you'd challenge them to take your job and not fall for the guy.

You think it's simply impossible.

But you see, that's the simple part. Falling. The consequences of falling, however, are where the complications begin. 

The very first question that comes to mind is; what are the chances that they might feel the same? Then one realises that there's no way to answer this for sure as it's only the other person who's aware of what they feel. Which leads to a major dilemma; to confess or not to confess. 

Confessing your feelings is a very vulnerable thing to do. It feels like exposing yourself at one's mercy. Like a delicate bud that you hand over and whether the flower will bloom or wilt, totally depends on the other person. 

It's beautiful yet scary.

For a long time, you haven't been willing to be that vulnerable with Jungkook.

All anxieties that come with confessing aside, you can't ignore the fact that he's a world-famous idol.

You are not worried about word getting out about you falling for him. You hardly think that it will cause a stir. If anything, the fans will probably make memes out of it and will agree with you on how impossible it is to not fall for the guy. The memes will be all over the internet for a few months and after that, they will be gone and will resurface every once in a while. That doesn't seem like much to you and you think you can handle it.

What does worry you is word getting out and you getting fired and not getting a job henceforth (you're pretty sure that the agencies won't take up on your 'don't fall for Jungkook' challenge). 

This particular fear is what has been holding you back from letting Jungkook know of your feelings. 

However, the thing with love is, you cannot bury it no matter how hard you try. It's like the sun that comes out to shine no matter what. Love blooms in the heart and it refuses to stay hidden for too long behind whatever fears the mind comes up with.

After all, in the battle of mind and heart, when has the former ever won? 

Once you're done with the finishing touches, you let Jungkook know that you're done.

Jungkook opens his eyes and they automatically land on yours. The sharp spike in your breathing rate and the loud thumping of your heartbeat, makes you look away immediately.

You clear your throat and take a slow deep inhale to calm your racing heart. "I'll put the lip balm and foundation in the kit. Just in case you need it."

"You say that every time before a performance as if you're not going to be backstage," he chuckles in amusement.

"Jungkook, the performance is in fifteen," Taehyung says loudly from the other side of the room.

It's like a switch being flipped on. Jungkook's eyes widen and he gets up from his seat instantly. Bidding you a quick goodbye, he exits the room in a hurry. 

You sigh in relief, finally feeling like you can breathe again. Taking a seat on the chair previously occupied by Jungkook, you stare at your reflection in the mirror. You notice the red hue on your cheeks and your lips part in awe at how flustered you look. Almost, as if you have run a mile. 

Something about this moment makes you come to a quick decision. For a long time, you have been toying with the idea of confessing but have always backed out every time you had a chance. But not anymore. 

You grab a small piece of paper and a pen and write down what you have been wanting to tell Jungkook.

You make it direct and simple and put it in Jungkook's handbag. 

The moment you zip the chain, you feel this urge to take the chit out and throw it in the dustbin but you somehow, withhold yourself from doing so. 

You are aware that he won't notice the chit until he's back in his dorms. The bag contains all the skin care products (handpicked by you) he uses before going to bed. Which also means you would have to wait until tomorrow when you're back to work to know Jungkook's answer. 

Seems like it's gonna be a sleepless night for you.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The next day, you go to work with nervous excitement. While in the car, you couldn't wait for your destination to arrive yet at the same time dreaded it. It's this mixed feeling where you can't decide what you want but in the end, realise that it's better to just get over it.

However, while you're walking towards Jungkook's make-up room, Namjoon calls your name.

"Y/N," he shouts to get your attention. Once he notices he has it, he walks up to you. "My dressing room is the other way." 

"I know that," you say with a small frown, wondering why he is telling you this.

"Oh," Namjoon realises that you're unaware of the changes. "You don't know, do you?"

You shake your head, your confusion only increasing. "Know what?"

"Jungkook has requested a new make-up artist. So now, you're in charge of my make up," he replies. 

Namjoon's words ring in your ears and you feel the world around you fade. You knew that there was always the chance that he doesn't feel the same way. You knew if that were the case it'd hurt but you'd accept it. However, you didn't expect Jungkook to do this. 

It feels like the unbloomed flower has been stomped by someone and you're left to feel the crushing pain. 

A/N: if you wish to support me and want to have early access to all my works, consider visiting my patreon!

[spicybylerpolls]

All of the teenage relationships are sexualised from the get-go. Stancy's introduction was all about the trope where bad boy Steve just wants to try getting good girl Nancy into bed. Jancy is also immediately sexualised when Jonathan takes the spicy photos of Nancy. And Steve and Robin make booby jokes before Vickie is even introduced. Meanwhile for Stobin, we only really got Steve thinking that he and Robin would be a cute couple but no sexual innuendos whatsoever, hinting that the relationship will not happen because there is no sexual attraction there.

It is initially a bit different for Mileven/Lumax/Byler because they are actually kids at the start of the show. But Season 3 makes such a big fuss about them not being kids anymore and it is coincidentally also the time some of the characters start to make innuendos themselves. Which also means that who they liked as kids is not necessarily who they are eventually attracted to as teenagers.

In comparison to the other teenage relationships, Mileven seems to be a relationship free of any sexual implications. In Season 3 Hopper wants the door certainly not open because he is afraid of them kissing - however, Mike and El never overtly express a desire for sex, neither with each other nor for other people. Milevens like to say "Oh, this means that Mike and El only have eyes for each other" although the sexual implications are completely absent from their relationship.

Of course you could argue that the characters may be demi/ace, but I think especially in Mike's case it is made clear that he is not acespec but a repressed queer (with the Season 4 Episode 1 montage as biggest proof). Some people also insisted (and still insist) that Will is ace too because they are subconsciously so afraid to see any sort of queer attraction on screen. (As a person on the acespec myself, I really long for the day where asexuality is finally done justice on screen. But Stranger Things is clearly a show where they actively contrast lack of sexual attraction and actual sexual attraction with each other. Unfortunately, 99% of media does not include intentionally-accurate representation of asexuality, so right now Stranger Things is not under the obligation to be the show that is suddenly an exception)

This is all so true! People try to argue that Mike and El "making out all the time" is evidence that they have interest in sexual exploration, but A) the show very clearly draws our attention to the fact that he takes his hands off her when they're making out, B) Mike doesn't express sexual interest in the Phoebe Cates, the hot girl of the day, like his friends, C) the show draws our attention to how unnatural it is by having Hopper comment on it, and D) this doesn't progress or increase in any way. In fact, it decreases. In S4, they have one fairly awkward kiss and never show any signs of desire for each other. Instead, the emphasis is on Mike not being able to say ILY to her.

For a ship that's allegedly the main ship, this is all pretty unusual. When was the last time you saw a ship with teenage characters who "only have eyes for each other" yet never show even the slightest sign that they want to explore the physical side of things, even if only 2nd base? It's like Mike got to 1st base and immediately wanted to abort mission and backtrack and never do anything straight again.

Some Milkvans will say it's because Mike is a gentleman, but... come on. Lucas is a gentleman with Max, and the show goes out of its way to emphasize his sexual desire multiple times. Dustin and his girlfriend aren't even in the same state, and she's a devout Mormon, and still there's no doubt that Dustin would round all the bases multiple times in a heartbeat if he got the chance.

Meanwhile, everything between Mike and El looks like a weird, unnatural performance. And they don't even kiss in the desert!

Especially considering the fact that Mike and Will, who are allegedly just platonic friends, do show signs of physical desire. This is what they're like JUST touching arms ever so slightly. Get a room.

[bekolxeram]

Good morning! (Well, at my place) I've just read your take on fandom, and while I'm personally avoiding most of the cast interviews and stuff, I see your point. I'm just afraid that's too much a voice of reason. Something spread all over the world today, facts do not matter very much. And people really forget that fandom is fun. Anyway, would love to see more of those posts :)

I too usually avoid interviews and stuff, I'm mostly in it for the excuse to unite my love for aviation, disaster documentaries and gay stuff. I'm sure you've stumbled across fandom discourse before and asked yourself "are we watching the same show?" Well, I saw a post about one of the actors "confirming a character's sexual orientation" and I was just wondering if we were reading the same words.

I've seen media literacy, canon vs fanon being brought up numerous times for the last 2 months, but I think I've finally found the right words to describe my gripes with the fandom: the confusion of implication and interpretation.

Maddie pulling Chimney out of the frame in that hotel room then ending up pregnant a few episodes later, implication, it's not the network or the show for explicit sex scenes. Buck making a dirty face while saying the ring cutter was for "other stuff", well what other stuff can you think of? Hen and Chimney hanging out with Tommy at the bar in Bobby Begins Again, would Hen and Chimney knowingly become friends with someone who was still racist and misogynist that they had a problem with? These are all hardly refutable facts that just weren't shown explicitly on screen for whatever reasons.

A male character being emotionally repressed and having trouble dating women on the other hand, could be because he is attracted to men without knowing it, but it also could be due to all sorts of reasons like childhood trauma, religious trauma, trauma from the battlefield, unprocessed grief from on-and-off ex-wife suddenly dying in an accident so any sort of closure is no longer possible etc. Another male character looking after a good kid when his father is trying his best to juggle between raising him and being a first responder, could be because he is romantically interested in said single father and wants to become part of a traditional type of nuclear family unit with the kid, but it also could be just him being kind and empathetic, as he himself grew up with emotionally neglectful and absent parents. You can interpret these things all sorts of ways based on your personal experience, but the show itself doesn't tell you how to frame it, nor does it limits you. Though at the end of the day, other people may interpret the same piece of media in different ways, and that includes the showrunner, the writers and even the actors themselves.

And then there's conflating interpretation with irrefutable explicit fact, like I demonstrated in some of my posts. Like the moment after 7x10 came out, the whole fandom was enshrouded by debates over daddy kink. One side painted Tommy as a sexual predator who exploited Buck's moment of vulnerability to satisfy his own kinks (again, Buck started the daddy thing), the other side defended the rights for gay men to explore sexually whenever they like. Yes, the I know daddy kink is very common among the gay community, but the concept itself has become so mainstream the past few years (I blame Pedro Pascal) that it now vaguely means "an older man who is hot".

After a few weeks of thinking I'm crazy and I lack verbal and reading comprehensions, I finally read the source material behind most of the controversies, and I got things completely different from the mainstream discourse out there? I've never seen anyone from the production of the show explicitly stating or even imply a certain ship would come true? At most, they respect and validate fans' own interpretations of the story, that's it. It doesn't necessarily mean they agree with said interpretation, and it certainly does not invalidate other possibilities.

So here we are, some fans feel betrayed even though they were never promised anything. Other fans get nervous over stuff that is actually just an interpretation of a cast member's interview, which in itself is also an interpretation of their own character, but tutted as absolute fact by some.

Enjoying a piece of media is supposed to be about enjoyment, not like a part-time job, so enjoy the parts you like and ignore the rest. But if you want to participate in the fandom, and you feel anxious anytime there's rumors brewing, tracking down the source might actually bring you more peace.

[hoomandoescosplay]

Checking You Out | Albus Potter x Scorpius Malfoy Oneshot

Albus has been observing the blonde haired man for weeks ever since his schedule got changed.

This was mainly due to the fact he was unsure of how to approach Scorpius, so he would keep himself busy at work and keep glancing over at the boy whenever he wasn't dealing with other library patrons.

Albus can't help but get distracted anytime Scorpius is within his sight. His coworker keeps telling him that he should go up and talk to him, but Albus always gets too anxious to do so.

The most they ever talk is when Albus is lucky enough to be the one checking people’s books out. Even then he mainly stays quiet in fear that he’ll fumble over his words.

Albus feels bad for not being talkative. Especially on the days Scorpius tries to engage in light conversation, asking him about any books he recommends, the weather, and even about work.

The library’s doorbell jingles, pulling him out of his over complicated thoughts as he turns his head towards the door and notices Scorpius walk in.

Albus gets all flustered at the sight of him. He can barely breathe as he watches him walk inside, a bit nervous about talking to him. He's never been good with talking to people, especially when it comes to people he likes.

He just stays behind the desk, hoping that he doesn't have to talk to any other patrons so he can keep an eye on Scorpius.

Today was a lucky day for Albus for two reasons. First was the fast that today was a slow day for the library. Second, he’s working at the counter today which means he’ll get another interaction with Scorpius.

Albus takes a deep breath and waits for Scorpius to come up to the counter. He can feel the heat rising to his cheeks and the nerves in his stomach as he waits for him to get there.

He can hear the sound of footsteps approaching, and soon he spots Scorpius walking over to him. He feels his heart beating faster, but he tries to stay calm before he greets him.

As Scorpius gently places the books he collected on the counter Albus can’t help but stare at him. This guy is hot. Really really hot. Albus can’t help thinking to himself.

The more Albus looks at him, the more he begins to think to himself that this is the most attractive person he has seen in his life. He can't help but notice every little detail about him, from his piercing grey eyes, to his blonde hair, and even his hands.

Albus is getting so lost in thought that he barely realizes that Scorpius has said something.

"What was that?" he asks quietly, shaking himself out of his thoughts. He clears his throat a few times, trying to calm his nerves before returning his gaze up onto Scorpius.

“Are you checking me out?” Scorpius asks the librarian while taking a mental note of his name on his name tag.

“Huh?” Albus’s face immediately turns red. “Oh no, no I’m not. Nope definitely not.” He begins to tap his fingers on the counter nervously.

“Oh? I always return my books on time. Is there a specific reason I can’t check these out today?” He asks clueless.

"Oh no, no no it's not that.” Albus stammers, his face still flustered. “It's just... uh, it's just that…” his voice trails off as he thinks of what he’s even trying to say.

“I just…” he stops talking as he finds it hard to finish his sentence. “I’m so sorry. I um- I made a mistake. You’re all good to check these out today.”

Scorpius gives him a smile as Albus begins to quickly scan all of his books. “Thank you Albus.” After collecting all of his books in his hands Scorpius adds one last thing before leaving the library.

“Too bad you weren’t checking me out, I thought you were cute.” As he walks out all Albus can do is stare at him with a flushed face.

Albus's face turns red as he realizes what Scorpius had said. “Wait, what?” he manages to get out, but he's too slow to catch him.

He can only stand there, his face still flushed with embarrassment. But as he watches him leave, he can't help but feel a bit of a silly, dumb grin on his lips.

Luck must have been on his side however because as he looks back down at the counter he notices a small piece of paper with a number and name on it. Scorpius’s name and number.

Now today was a lucky day for three reasons.

─── ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ ───

Thank you @rewritingcanon for the prompt idea!! I loved writing this oneshot! :)

[rise-my-angel]

I am here for your takes on Dani. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought her x Jon smelled of hot garbage. Like at best she was meh, and then when the two of them met I was just like "oh no....you're an entitled bitch". And now that its been years since I last consumed GoT, my thoughts have fermented into "oh no, she really is a conqueror" "oh no, everyone loves her because 'pretty badass lady'" "oh no i'm the fandom minority again". Anyway, where was I. She and Jon had no chemistry. The end.

The *only* way putting them in a romance even makes sense in concept is when you realize Benioff and Weiss gave Jon the Young Griff arc. It's why they gave him a Targ name, beacuse if they call him "aegon" then they can fufill that part of the books without ever having to establish Young Griff as his own character. He is the supposed son of Rhaegar Targaryean and Elia Martell, he goes to Westeros with intentions of using his better claim to take the throne and intends initially on marrying Dany, and it's theorized heavily that Dany will see his claim as a threat and the Burning of Kings Landing will come down to Aegon against Dany.

Jon Snow has nothing to do with that. He is a moral opposite to Dany as a charecter, and we've seen him time and time again be at strong odds against people with her morals. But by giving him the Young Griff arc, it means putting him into the romance spot when it makes no sense for him.

Hey I put a read more beacuse I cannot shut the fuck up about how this relationship is just rape and abuse but beacuse Jon's a man we think he wants it.

All of season 7 Jon is so out of place because he doesn't belong anywhere near Dany's Iron Throne plot, and he's being forced to interact romantically with a charecter that clearly he does not like as a person and is uncomfortable with.

But, Dany is the sacred cow of the GoT/asoiaf fandom. You love her and if you critizize her for villanious actions or morals then you are using bad faith towards her. While I personally don't like her, I don't mind other people liking her but I despise that her stans all refuse to allow any conversation about her being a morally bad person. A person who enjoys cruelty and death, enjoys creating fear and is smug when she can control others. That is not a person Jon would love, let alone even respect.

Their entire relationship wreaks of abuse, of Jon being forced into this and knows he cannot leave it without risking his and his families lives. Remember when Tyrion gave a very small level critisism of her actions and she angrily accused him of treason and siding with his family instead of her? Well what do people think would she have done, if her attraction to Jon was refused? Someone who she took all the defenses away from, all the power from, and could have killed at any moment (dont make an ygritte comparison mimi dont make an yrgitte comparison this is a different anti jon x fandom female fave charecter post).

I don't care how the show frames it, or what the intent was. What we got on screen, was Jon Snow being held prisoner to an immoral, cruel, military conquerer. And when that woman was attracted to him, she essentially forced herself into his life and gave him all but no choice. The Jon bending the knee scene and..the uh...boat...scene...later...uhhh....anyways, those to me feel so out of charecter. You cannot convince me Jon did any of this willingly. He is clearly trapped in this situation and cannot leave and is only with her beacuse she is violent and bloodthrirsty. But beacause Jon is a strong, capable man, it's not talked about as if he's the victim and that is insane to me. (Oh my good god the ygritte comparisons are almost laughable send help).

I don't consider a lot past season 5 to be canon, but if I am forced too, then I refuse to accept Jon was a willing participant in that relationship.

Jon's parentage reveal will always be about the revelations of his mother, and the understanding and acceptance of WHY Ned raised him the way he did. And how it was both his parents, his mother and his adopted father who loved him and kept him safe. The very fact that Young Griff's entire story is based around whether or not he truly is Rhaegar's son as opposed to that being a twist reveal is beacuse HE is the charecter whose Targaryean links is the important one. Jon's story is about him as Stark, and is always shown to be the moral opposite of Dany.

Their relationship in the best senario is not canon, but if it has to be, then there is no world in which Jon is there of his own free will. He is being forced into this relationship against his will. But considering his other love interest was another charecter who essentially forced him into a relationship against his will, and we were supposed to root for that tells me all I need to know.

Dany is a sacred cow charecter, and her stans are unreasonable in defending her. When you can like a charecter and critize them for their actions. Ned Stark was an idiot for ever trusting Petyr Baelish, Catelyn Stark's spiteful attitude and neglect of Jon Snow is was abusive behavior, Theon Greyjoy was a moron who ruined his own life for a father who long since abandonded him. Bam all charecters I love and there are some major flaws that I refuse to defend them for but thats also what makes them good charecters. Their flaws arent writing flaws, they are personal flaws for them as people.

Dany is not allowed to have personal flaws she is always to be justified even with incredibly bad faith defenses, but when she is flawed it's the writings fault not hers. Dany is a cruel, sadistic, controlling, military tyrant who enjoys watching her subjects fear her and her dragons. And she forced Jon Snow into a relationship with her beacuse otherwise then he is against her and we already knew she has no use for people who dont support her to be alive.

Jon Snow deserved better then to have both his love interests be domineering, controlling, abusive women who forced him into a romantic and sexual relationship.

Also, I mean, incest being normal is only a learned trait from Targaryens supporting their own blood purity. Jon was not raised to think incest is normal. Dany thinks its normal beacuse she and Viserys both were raised to think that, and Young Griff thinks marrying Dany is normal beacuse he too was raised with the mentality that Rhaegar would've been raised with. Jon finding out Dany was his aunt would've had Jon looking right at Sam and just

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

And another average day at Family Video:

"No you literally can't"

"Of course you can, dingus! Some are just classics!"

"Well, and some go to Family Video to browse and randomly choose movies they know nothing about!"

"But doesn't that further prove my point?! Why would someone choose a movie solely by the cover if the cover is just a hot person?!"

"Well you said that Rocky Horror is also a queer classic and me and Tommy chose that one at random back when we were both assholes. If you'd flirted with Carol then you probably would have been hate-crimed."

"That is not a word"

"Well good thing I don't work in a fucking library then"

They glare at each other. If this was another genre, this story would end in a fight to the death. As things are, they are just two best friends getting unnecessarily heated while fighting about nothing. To be fair, it's more entertaining than watching the same two questionable movies over and over again.

Robin crosses her arms. "Okay. So just, let me repeat. To make sure I understood. You - who have admitted that you would sleep with Jonathan and Eddie if the chance arose and made out with Tommy multiple times - watched Rocky Horror Picture Show with Tommy, who may I remind you - you made out with multiple times, which once again, fucking ew-"

"Hey! He was the one who suggested it first!"

"And then you have the audacity to say that Rocky Horror Picture Show isn't gay?!"

"THAT'S NOT WHAT I'M FUCKING SAYING. If one were to see the cover with no context and decided to rent it just to see what it is about-"

"You mean the cover of Tim Curry in drag?!"

"Yeah well, Tommy was the one who chose the movie, and he is straight. So."

"Didn't you just say that Tommy was the one who wanted to kiss you first?!?"

Steve rolls his eyes so hard it's a wonder they stay safely inside their socket. "Yeah, but that's just the normal amount of same-sex attraction every straight dude has. That was just boys being boys. If that made someone gay, the whole basketball team would be full of queers"

"First of all, I will be coming back to that last bit later-"

"You? Coming for the all-male basketball team? Never thought I'd see the day"

He can admit that he probably deserves the kick against his shin.

"Focus, dingus! Let me just repeat what you just said. And I want you to think about it carefully, okay?! So in your words, a boy kissing another boy is not gay, unless one of the boys acknowledges that that is gay?"

"Uhm, duh?"

"So you and Tommy kissing was... straight?"

"I mean. No. Because I have now realized that I am not straight which retroactively makes the making out sessions gay"

Robin thumps her head against the counter. She takes a deep breath and does it again for good measure.

"I- oh my god. Okay. Just. Think about what you just said, okay? Think about it carefully. Think about it while you rewind that stack of tapes."

"Hey isn't it your turn?"

"Wrong thing to think about! You do that while I clean this...already clean counter. Again."

He gives her the stink eye but does as he is told.

They change topics. Robin tells him about the newest gossip in band. It is surprisingly intense. Just like Robin is also intense. Maybe only intense people go to band. Or maybe playing an instrument makes you intense? Well, he has a band member right here, so he asks, and they spend the next half an hour making fun of various instruments. The gay-jokes-whiteboard gains a lot of new points.

Both are laughing so hard they don't even realize they have a customer until the girl is standing in front of the counter, "The Wizard of Oz" in her hands. Steve raises a brow. Do you think this one is gay too? Robin nods to the snap hook hooked to her trousers holding her keys. Duh. He rolls his eyes. I also do this all the fucking time. It's convenient, okay?! It means nothing. Robin only looks at him with a deadpan look. You are literally further proving my point.

It is then that it clicks. "Oh my god it was gay! What the fuck?!"

Robin's face falls. He hears a gasp from somewhere behind him. Oh yeah. They were not alone in the shop right now. Fuck.

Steve thinks he vaguely recognizes her. He never talked to her, but it is hard to miss her bright red hair. Her name was....Vinnie? Or something? Right??

She looks down to her snap hook. It seems like she is going to run out of the shop at any moment. But then she takes a deep breath and looks up again, determination in her eyes. "Are you...are you also a friend of Dorothy?"

Robin's eyes shine. Steve goes to the back to have his mental breakdown in peace.

Steve isn't sure how much time passes before he dares to come out again. Vanessa (?) is gone and Robin looks incredibly smug.

He sighs. A true man knows when to admit defeat. "Okay. Maybe you had a point. With Tommy."

Her smile widens even more. "Only Tommy?"

"And the basketball team. And Valerie."

She frowns. "Who the fuck is Valerie."

"The girl who just left? Red hair? Also in band I think? Friend of Dorothy or whatever?"

"Her name is Vicky."

"Hey, I got the first letter right. If you expect much more from me you are seriously deluding yourself."

Robin rolls her eyes. They continue working in silence, but there is a tension in the air that hasn't been there since Robin first came out to him. Steve is not a very patient dude, but he can wait as long as it takes when it regards someone he cares about. And so he does.

"...Hey Steve?"

"Yes Robin?"

"I- I know we talk about it relatively openly here because it's always deserted when we have a shift together for some reason. But for the love of god, you need to be more careful. Okay?! The thing with Vicky was a lucky shot-"

"You mean your future girlfriend?~"

She pinches his lower back. Everybody looks at them weird when they do that, but it is very effective. The skin is still tender where they got their matching tramp stamps and it hurts like a bitch.

"I'm serious."

He looks at her. Sees the fear in her eyes. And he nods. I know. I promise. I'm sorry. He doesn't have to say it out loud for Robin to understand him. She knows that he means it, that he will probably be overly careful for a few weeks before they find a comfortable middle ground again. That he would never betray her trust. That is the reason they are soulmates, after all.

He isn't angry when she still asks him for reassurance anyway. "I promise", he says, more serious than he has been all day. They are both getting better at that, asking for verbal affirmation.

Another customer comes in. It's a cute girl. She rents the new Tom Cruise movie and Robin finally gets to take out the you-suck-board again.

"Okay, but did you really never realize that making out with other boys is kind of fruity?! Did I literally have to spell it out for you?"

"Hey! You yourself said that it's hard to 'break out of a heteronormative mindset' and shit. Plus, this is actually my second shift. And I used my break to drive you from school to work. So like, cut me some slack"

"Steve! I told you to stop taking double shifts all the time! No wonder you look so exhausted dingus"

"Well, Buckley, I would. But as I am sure you are fully aware Dustin's birthday is in two weeks and I need money to buy him that stupid nerd-thingie he's obsessing about-"

(more average days)

[bitch-butter]

POV ask of the Messy Au

ahh i don't want to spoil pretty from the back too much, but here's a quick imagining of webgott's Official meeting in pretty on the inside.

POV — something that’s already happened, retold from another character’s perspective

The cold was bracing, even all the way down to his marrow, and he slumped against it thankfully, trying to decide whether he'd smoke this cig faster or slower. It was getting easier, showing up sober-ish, but he still missed the hot flush of nothingness at the back of his tongue, being unable to tell whether he was having a good time or a bad time. Gene was being uncharacteristically kind, but then so was everyone as he closed in on a year of...whatever this was.

A whole year. A whole year, the sound of it in his ears like cream off the top of fresh milk, like metal scraping over violin strings.

Like -

The light in Babe and Gene's kitchen was broken abruptly, the warm box of it going dark and shattering into a human form, and suddenly he wasn't alone. Leaning out the window was the wayward kid from last time, the lost boy that Toye felt bad enough to invite into their sorry band of ne'er do wells. Joe had known he didn't belong from the fucking jump with his hair and his face caught between the inside and the outside, blue and orange shapes only catching the edges of his beauty. He'd been shocked the other guys seemed to take to the guy - Webster - as fast as they did, but then Joe always did take an extra ten minutes to warm up to anyone. The bitch flower sometimes only needs an extra ten to sufficiently bloom, so at the very least he gets a full picture.

And here Webster was again, poking his head out from the window with a curious expression on his handsome face, and Joe admitted he found himself surprised.

“You’re back,” he said, unable to think of what else to say, feeling bizarrely pleased. 

Webster nodded. “I’m back," he replied, and his voice was a rich plume of fog in the cold air, the breadth of it stretching out towards Joe like it wanted to lay itself across his face.  

He sounded proud of himself, and Joe huffed out a low sound, smiling in spite of himself. “We didn’t scare you off,” he said, and couldn't help but sound impressed even to his own ears. Webster would not have been the first sad-eyed twunk they chased off with their codependent antics, so the fact that the guy came back for more was worthy of a certain degree of pleasure and alarm. The guy must be some kind of glutton for punishment.

A somewhat ugly sound snorted its way out of Webster's nose, and Joe could see him perfectly in his minds eye: ivy-leagued, sweater-vested, perpetual virgin, trying desperately to impress. “Not a lot scares me," he said wryly, and oddly Joe could detect a note of sincerity.

Bringing his cig up for a long drag, Joe held the other man's eyes in his own, their color washed out by the shadows. Maybe he could give this one a chance. Anybody that at least wants to pretend that they aren't intimidated is at least worthy of a secondary glance, a bit more than just the cursory dismissal Joe affords people.

It doesn't hurt that his long dead libido - currently enrobed in full funerary garb after having to relearn how to have and use pleasure sensors effectively - is threatening to rise from the grave at the sight of the guys face. Joe's first instinct upon feeling attraction for another person is to go completely still, but outside of Jurassic Park that's never been an effective game plan really, so what could it hurt extending an interaction that he could feasibly jerk off to later?

Jerking off to this would truly mean he was beyond help. Eh, who cares?

“That’s good to know,” he said, voice pitched downward, hoping to draw the kid out. “Joe Liebgott,” he introduced, extending his cig-free hand.

“I know,” Webster nodded, taking his hand in a firm grip that Joe would absolutely not think about later. “David Webster.”

“I know,” he mimicked, holding his hand perhaps a bit longer than necessary before releasing him, the warmth of the other man's palm sticking against him like golden honey. He distracted himself from Webster's idling by taking another pull on his smoke, trying not to watch the guy too closely as he glanced from the kitchen and back to Joe, breath billowing in front of him once again.

“Were you all guessing I wouldn't be around this long?” Webster asked, quiet but curious, strangely high and low at once.

Joe expelled a burst of a laugh, all smoke in the night air. “That’s putting it mildly,” he said, the smoke catching in his throat with the chill of the night, and Webster gave him an unimpressed look; brow raised, mouth pursed, and he glanced back into the kitchen.

In the warm glow of the apartment his eyes went bright blue, and their color shot out at him like the Northern lights. They were a rolling wave over him, and the coldness of his hands became less acute, the sting of his cheeks tempered by the warmth of the other man's waters. Suddenly he missed California, missed summer skies, missed the way the air seemed clear and distinct in the mountains.

Webster's eyes held all these things, and Joe felt abruptly as though he knew him very well. Even deeper than their loveliness he could see something down, down, down, far towards the very bottom that called out to him. Hunger. Pain. Longing.

Your eyes, your eyes, your eyes, he thought.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Webster said abruptly, the Harvard brat once more, and he gave Joe a sharp, petulant sniff before shoving off of the ledge and escaping back into the light of the kitchen. “See you later,” he tossed over his shoulder, already gone.

Joe missed his presence, found that he wanted more. And that was always a dangerous pastime for him, wanting more. Wanting more led him down long hallways, through doors that lead to other doors, to trouble, to the greatest of adventures and the most exquisite pain.

“See you,” he said softly, mind already turning with possibilities, with the feeling of looking down from a great height.

Aright, David Webster, he though to himself, pulling on his dying smoke. You're on.

[shadowuserannie]

KOTLC Miraculous AU (pt. 2)

Did not expect the people saying they would actually read it;

So fun fact, it's been a hot minute since I last reread KOTLC (well aware the graphic novel doesn't Really Really count). So now I'm making a list of Fitz character flaws that I want to use my narrative to punish him for, so that he can grow, in my AU.

Because Fitz isn't just the angry golden boy. He's someone who doesn't realize all this privilege is a privilege. The Vackers may fight for 'good' but they still largely benefited from the KOTLC system. Playing back into why Plagg is a good match for him-in canon, both Adrien and Keefe don't care about the status that being Mari/Sophie's boyfriend comes with. But Fitz does.

So Detruire is flirty towards Ladybug. Because who better to impress and benefit his status than the superheroine of Paris?

Then the attraction stops being superfluous. He gets a vibe check-from LB or Plagg, maybe both. Plagg has had too many holders to count, and too many who were angry but angry because of their low status in life because of where they were born/born into poverty. Fitz is angry because of his pressure and lack of freedom (in this AU)-which while is equally valid, means that Plagg will be able to vibe check Fitz's privilege. Will be able to question him, call him out, get him to realize the superfluous reasons why he chases Ladybug.

So that he falls in love with Sophie. The clumsy, funny, slightly awkward classmate who smiles just a little crooked and tugs on her eyelashes and isn't all-powerful, isn't all-seeing. Just Sophie.

(Not the perfect Ladybug. Not the perfect Moonlark.)

(HAHAHAHAHAHA WATCH ME MANIPULATE THE SQUARE FOR MORE TORTURE)

so yes, YET ANOTHER PLOT LINE IG

(fixing character issues ONE BY ONE)

wait but then see Sophie realize Fitz isn't perfect. She screams in Detruire's face that Ladybug isn't perfect, she's not perfect, it's not possible for anyone to be perfect and chasing such an ideal is stupid. See her realize her own hypocrisy. Let Ladybug watch as Detruire changes, stops flirting and gets more genuinely joking instead. Treating her as a real person and not something to attain. LB watches Detruire change, and she starts to fall for someone who has proven they can. Because Detruire listened, and Detruire is trying, and fuck SHE JUST GOT HIM TO QUIT FLIRTING WITH HER-

(extra torture when I reswap the square yay)

Also before you ask, no this is not going to be some kind of s5 swap. Idk when I'll insert this in, BUT IM DEFINITELY NOT GETTING STAMINA TO EVEN THINK OF THAT RN so it'll likely be earlier in the timeline

Rayni as Lila; I saw this in a reblog, AM ADOPTING!! (thanks @ohmygoly) I dislike extra salt and I like the tentative beginnings of Rayni's canon redemption, so let's see if I'll get there before SM either hits or misses in canon!

(also @tiana4evahh I have Plans with Dex and the Lila thing hahahaha hes one of my favs)

Biana as Kagami; BEFORE I GET SHOT. Remember that canonly badass Della will have to be Emilie Agreste. So while Fitz is homeschooled (and I already have a plot reason worked out why Della agrees) Biana Vacker is sent to multiple boarding schools from a young age. When she returns, she doesn't like Sophie trying to make moves ON !HER BROTHER!! So for a while, Sophie sees her as an enemy. (also that means no Kagami/Adrien will exist in this AT ALL JUST TO CLARIFY UTTERLY)

Biana eventually befriending Sophie despite disliking her at first. Biana seeing her brother's indecision and making HER MOVE. Short Sophie/Biana while Soph tries to get over her current thing for Detruire. Biana TELLING HER OWN BROTHER NOT TO HESITATE IM TAKING LUKANETTE AND MAKING IT KAGAMINETTE I DO WHAT I WANT

Btw yk how in canon Mari and Adrien don't question their powers? Sophie and Fitz are too nosy not to HAHA AND THEY START HUNTING DOWN THIS AU'S MASTER FU ALONG WITH HAWKY

Also side note that's kinda irrelevant; When Tam and Linh eventually come in when I finally figure out how to include them, assume they are either already adopted by Tiergan (this will be indicated by their last names being Alenefar and them being proudly introduced as such) or have yet to be adopted by Tiergan and thus the plotline will come later (not introducing themselves with last names)

(@tiana4evahh okay fine I won't scrap this, but I will likely make changes if I ever write in full ao3 fanfic form and not just bullet-pointed)

And finally! While I am taking suggestions for this AU, I'm not going to do stuff because one character in KOTLC matches one in MLB perfectly. That'd be boring. I put characters in slightly unexpected roles because I think the angle would be fun to explore and wouldn't be the same role, same character, same lines. This is adapting MLB's story and adapting KOTLC's characters. I'm not looking to make perfect comparisons and copies (hence my reasoning why Keefe is not the Chat Noir/love interest in pt 1) I'm trying to make a new story where everything is not a repeat of just one of the stories it's adapted from. Not just a copy of MLB but with different names. So please do not expect as such.

Go ahead and rag on me for repeating this too much, but I've always preferred story value and not surface comparisons, which is why I am trying to make this completely clear. I'm not going to make one KOTLC character be the exact same role they had in KOTLC. This is why I am exploring the temporary Sophie/Biana. If you tell me the roles don't perfectly match, then okay! Go create your own AU! (this is not sarcastic) I just don't want getting comments on the whole [but it's not the same thing] because it's not MEANT to be an exact match, and again, sorry for being repetitive. I may include this on all posts of this AU until I finally start writing and fire spoilers.

[thesporkidentity]

an incomplete list of texts i sent as i slowly lost my mind over the second book of rivers of london, because i fully intend to drag at least one more person into this pit with me. come read with me i promise you're gonna feel so good and normal over this book, come closer

wow okay peter remains the absolute horniest bastard ever. is he a tits or an ass man? yes

oh we are just getting the surface levels hints of nightingales MOUNTAIN of unresolved PTSD and i am very 🥺

you ever feel like a character was written specifically to appeal to you? i'm getting so many tantalizing hints and i KNOW he's going to destroy because he's catnip. he is bait specifically designed to hurt my feelings

also his description makes me think of lee pace or like, 90s/00s paul mcgann and that's just Very Good and i'm being deeply not normal about it

also nightingale reads as SO queer to me, and the potential in fic to explore what that means insofar as how he has navigated the changing landscape of queerness from 1900 to present day is so tantalizing. i don't care that the author says he's not, in this case the author is wrong lol

i must say, i do not care for simone. if we absolutely MUST have hetersexual nonsense in this book i would like beverly back please. she was cool and not a cheating homewrecking jazz groupie lol

still not impressed with simone. i mean, far be it from me to judge a woman's grieving process and all, but she doesn't seem very broken up over her within-the-week dead lover. i mean, i LOVE peter and all and he's hot shit, but immediately falling into bed with him? sus

in conclusion bring 👏 bev 👏 back 👏

also peter, buddy, WHAT ARE YOU DOING

he's a disaster so even though i'm screaming DON'T DO THAT i am unsurprised he is being led around by his dick by a beautiful woman throwing herself at him

but i just. i Don't Trust Her. she doesn't make sense, and i can't tell if this is a case of male author writing wish fulfillment and thus not giving the hot girl adequate motivation of her own

or whether i AM supposed to find it suspicious the way she basically doesn't mourn the man she homewrecked who died very suddenly and then IMMEDIATELY jumps into bed with the magic cop investigating his very probable murder

and i REALIZE the only way to find out is to keep reading, it's just frustrating that women are written poorly so often that, even if he's written good women before, i still have to debate with this is a subtle clue or just Male Author Syndrome

oh my god he finally twigs that this may be weird behavior. peter. bud.

at least he got it before trying to sneak her past folly wards?

side note: god lesley really got the short end of the stick. like, her face fell off, her teeth are a fucking mess, and she probably has brain damage. she got royally shafted

peter "i'm totally straight" grant, talking about how he wants to take a muscly guy by the shoulders and kiss his cheeks and making sure to mention how many phone numbers her got while canvasing the gay bar.

hmm sure, jan

look i KNOW peter is Incredibly Horny All The Time when near any attractive woman, but simone appears from NOWHERE half dressed while he's canvassing for the jazz vampire and he just skives off like that? while looking for a potential killer? that doesn't seem like him he's not that irresponsible. that smells like conspiracy and glamour and i don't trust herrrrrrr

like, peter was already horny wanting to motorboat mama thames (lol don't think i didn't catch that pun) last book. but this book has been a whole new level of horny, and peter may be distractible but not THAT distractible surely

another side note. i love molly and nightingale's weird friendship they've developed living basically with just each other for decades.

oh jesus that's fucked up

oh the severed head is talking

oh. oh no. it got worse

peter, darling, beloved, is now REALLY the time to be talking about how hot your boss is? like i appreciate your dedication to the thirst but time and place, bud

oh never mind i forgive you nightingale is so fucking cool, i get it, i love him

he's so good. the most tragic backstory and perfect stiff upper lip old fashioned english gentleman on the outside, and then just below the surface he's a daredevil and a bit of a bitch and he fucking CARES just SO MUCH and have i mentioned how much the casterbrook wall HURTS ME?? this was revealed in the last book but i just remembered it and it stabbed me again

okay i'm done

i feel like peter has miscalculated making a deal with his cousin to teach her if she aces latin. that's gonna come back to bite lol hope you like teaching too smart for their own good teenagers cuz that's gonna be your life now

"but sir, what do we do if you die??!" "well, that doesn't seem like it will be my problem at that point :)" he's such a bitch sometimes and i LOVE him, mother

ohhhhh. oh no. the pale lady looked like molly and now molly is obviously not okay after she died, that resemblance wasn't just coincidence she definitely knew her 😢

and this is the first person peter has killed, no matter how accidentally. and nightingale is back in the hospital with his chest infection. wow everyone is just having a terrible time right now

okay. i realize that as a memory for him this probably isn't a GOOD one, it's from the war and probably much scarier and MUCH more traumatizing than he makes it sound with his dry narration of it. but god. nightingale knocked out two TANKS. by himself. with his mind. fucking sexy lol

oh damn it why can't they just let me be horny about how powerful he is instead of immediately following it with the fact that he was rear guard and making emotional that it means he was the one trusted to watch over and protect the rest of his men while they retreated as that one final shield between them and enemy fire

hhhhhhhholy shit what did simone DO to mama grant???!!!!

she just bitch slapped her!

OH MY GOD SHE TRIED TO HOMEWRECK HIS PARENTS TOO???

she's PLAUSIBLY IMMORTAL???

fuck i was right she was sketchy as hell!!

she's a fucking jazz vampire and she's been glamouring and sucking him dry! buddy, get to dr walid STAT for a brain scan and make sure she's not turning you into cauliflower!

peter don't you make excuses for her you KNOW it's possible, stop lying about your mum and trying to make her feel better you need to take her in she's a m u r d e r e r

i mean, glamour yes i realize but god, frustrating

good lad peter, i see you fighting it 💪🏾

ohhhhhhhh. oh fuck. she didn't KNOW. she didn't know she was from the 40s and killing people. oh this is bad

nightingale, attempting to show concern: "that was not the most intelligent thing you've done" xD 10/10 nailed it buddy

umm, nightingale? this may not be the black and white moral situation you think it is to go in guns blazing...

it's both funny and little sad how militant both molly and dr walid are when nightingale is injured like. i do LOVE when the person who is SUPPOSEDLY in charge gets lovingly bullied, but it hurts because that's also probably the ONLY way to make him take care of himself is if they FORCE him. and peter's not any better, he's gonna need bullying too

i do love when they team up though. molly and nightingale ganging up against peter like. nightingale gets the special treatment and a hot cocoa from molly, but peter gets the dog's leash and smug little "i'm on bedrest :)" or nightingale foisting the rest of his kidney pie on peter while molly is out of the room then grabbing his empty plate back to pretend he ate it all himself when she returns xD

the cases are interesting and all, but i think it's the core characters that are really the standout of the novel and the reason i keep reading even while i'm asking myself things like, but WHY is she killing via vagina dentata instead of literally any other assassination method? i think it's also why simone stood out so much. she HAD no background that we were told (until now) aside from being sexy. which of course i now know was intentional

"this is your brain, which is not only clean and unsullied by thought..." i love dr walid. it probably says something about me that my favorite characters all have to be at least a little bit of a bitch

oh no i'm having feeeeeelings about both nightingale and peter trying to keep the other out of the vampire raid to shield them from the emotional effects of it, just from opposite ends. nightingale doesn't want peter to have the pain of ANOTHER death on his hands, this one purposeful as opposed to the accidental death of the pale lady, so he's trying to just cut him out of it. and then peter ALSO doesn't want NIGHTINGALE to have the weight of more deaths on his soul and wants to protect him from what he sees as the unfortunate necessity of having to off someone who isn't intentionally hurting someone but still may be too dangerous to live. nightingale trying to save peter from his bleeding heart and peter saving nightingale from his practicality overriding his morality 😭 i just love when characters try to take care of each other in mirrored ways

uh...uh oh peter...no i don't think those are the police OR nightingale's paratrooper buddies

okay the audiobook is fucking excellent though, his infomercial voice while extolling the virtues of doc martins is KILLING me

oh this posh wanker. "oh what is feeding on people but another form of exploitation, and we all know there's nothing wrong with exploiting workers, equality is morally bankrupt anyway" god i hate you already you're insufferable

like of COURSE a dining club oxford nose wipe would think that way. he thinks he's sooooo slick and original with his chimeras they're such exciting new COL crimes but it all just boils down the the exact same rich white bullshit mentality

he would hate it if he realized how dull and banal his villainy is once you strip back the shock value of the trappings. just another entitled prick who views people as things, fuck this dude

i'd be tempted to say the faceless man's signare smelling like pork was a dig at david cameron and piggate if i didn't know it was written a few years too early for that lol

peter: oh no nightingale is going to give me SUCH a bollocking nightingale, obviously so relieved he's alive: very much does NOT give him a bollocking and instead tells him how impressive it is that he didn't just immediately die against the faceless man

"for a terrifying moment i thought he was going to huge me, but fortunately we both remembered we were english just in time. still, it was a close call" 🤣🤣🤣

oh ouch peter. just use all his dead friends against him. effective but also, low blow

god he wants so badly for peter to be right, too, that they and HE doesn't have to kill anyone anymore, that how that it's not Just Him ALl Alone they might have the support structure for other options. oh no i want this to work so badly so that hope is validated, but i just know something is gonna go wrong

welp

i didn't like her but i didn't want her fuckin DEAD you know?

and now the ones left standing have to deal with the trauma and the fallout

oh lesley :( they're both trying so hard to be normal about it and they're such good friends 🥺

LESLEY DO MAGIC?

LESLEY JOIN TEAM FOLLY???!!

also don't think you've been sneaky there and that i haven't noticed SOME sort of thematic symmetry of lesley struggling with having lost her face involuntarily from magic, and the faceless man having voluntarily masked himself. involuntary vs voluntary loss of identity. i'm sure there will be more parallels in the next book but like. i see you. i see you setting up face themes with these two

hopefully with lesley regaining her face somehow and thus reclaiming identity while the faceless man is unmasked thus losing the identity he built for himself and revealing the true one he hid. maybe hopefully? i want good things for lesley and bad things for the faceless one.

[irkimatsu]

Okay so i made this request for another writer but didn’t like the answer very much (no hate towards the writer, just want a second opinion on this) this request may be a bit weird. But like, wanted a headcannon of husk choosing between the reader and angel. While Husk comforted angel, reader comforted husk when alastor threatened his soul, reader always tried to be close to husk, offering help at the bar and staying -when they could- by his side to help him to close up, without asking much. But, for Angel’s benefit, reader isn’t much special, they aren’t nearly as pretty as angel, and can be seen even a bit as annoying. Wanted a headcannon of your vision of husk, who would he choose? And why? And how would he?

Again! No hate towards the first writer, just wanted a second opinion on this! Thank you!

I will open this response with the same assurances that I give whenever I discuss Husk/Angel - I do not hate Angel, and I do not hate the ship. I love Angel, and I love his friendship with Husk, whatever form that friendship may take in the end. I want Angel to find peace, and if he finds that peace in a romantic relationship with Husk in canon, I'll accept it. Hell, that's likely so far off in the future that I'll almost certainly have time to get used to the idea. I shipped my last F/O with other characters eventually, I'm sure I'll be able to do it with Husk.

...that said, I do still want it to be possible that, in some timelines, Husk chooses me over Angel. Again, not out of hate for Angel! It's just, damn it I love that man, and it's nice to think of myself as his first option and not just a backup plan if things with Angel don't work out.

With that in mind, there may be some bias here... but in the scenario you described, I do think he'd end up choosing Reader. Angel being conventionally beautiful doesn't impact Husk's decision at all. "No one cares how famous you are, how hot!" He strikes me as the type to see physical attractiveness as an added bonus to a relationship, not a primary reason to start one. His partner's heart is much more important. And if you're there for him, comforting him through his troubles over his past and his contract with Alastor, letting him know he has you to confide in and he doesn't have to act so tough around you... the opportunity to let down those walls means the world to him.

Okay, so you're a little annoying - not like you're unique. Angel was fucking annoying when they first met. (Again, I say this with love, Husk understands now why Angel acted out the way he did but he was clearly not happy about it at the start.) He may be blunt when he tells you to fuck off and stop doing whatever it is that pisses him off so much, but it doesn't mean he doesn't care; hell, I think with both you and Angel, his willingness to actually tell you why you're pissing him off is because he does care on some level and want you to be able to improve. If he saw no hope in any form of relationship with you you'd just get sworn at and ignored. (See his treatment of Mimzy.) He sees something worth knowing under the annoying shell... he just needs you to drop the shell first. (Maybe that's one of Husk's flaws, always trying to fix people... it doesn't mean he can't accept that you're not perfect. He just wants effort.)

If he fell for Angel first - not just a crush, but a true intent to make something work with him - I don't think anyone would be able to break them apart. But by the same token, if you're the one who catches his attention first, Angel won't be able to come between you. To me, Husk is the type who, while loving the concept of romance, takes a long time to properly feel it for someone - but once he does feel it, he's hooked, and it'll take a pretty major deal breaker to pull him away. Treat him gently, but still like an independent person, not a sad animal that you need to "save". Show an interest in his hobbies. (Please let him perform magic tricks for you!) Be a good source of conversation, insightful, intelligent, maybe able to hold a good lighthearted bitching session. Be willing to learn and explore. Don't brush off all his advice without a second thought, but still be your own person who makes your own decisions. Make him fall for your mind and your heart and the rest will fall into place. You don't need to be a famous porn star to win Husk's affections. Just be you, and your authenticity alone will catch his interest.

I'm sure Angel can pull it off in canon, and good for him! But in other timelines where Reader gets there first, he doesn't have to be competition, and I'm sure he'll be happy that his best friend has found love, even if it's not with him.

I love Husk/Reader where Angel is their biggest supporter and wingman. He'd never try to come between what he can see is a genuine relationship. (At the very least, now that Husk is finally showing an interest in someone, Angel is going to make sure that cat gets laid damn it. Maybe getting some hole will finally pull the stick out of his ass!)

[autisticempathydaemon]

Hey hi hello!!! How are you today?

I was wondering if I could get a match up?

What song are you fixated on at the moment? What lyric or verse, and why?

I can't stop listening to Brand New City by Mitski since last week. I just really like the emotion in her voice. I also really associate myself with the line "if I gave on being pretty I wouldn't know how to be alive". So that's that.

What is your Enneagram type?

7w8, used to be a 9w1.

Do you love gargantuan Youtube video essays, and if so, which is your favorite and why?

I dooo! I really like enjoy video essays about linguistics and mental illnesses as well

Tell me about your childhood imaginary friend.

I never really had an imaginary friend. I mean, I remember being annoyed at my shadow for copying everything I do, but I don't think that counts.

I actually didn't have any friend untill I went to school. I was always okay playing by my self.

Though I do remember making little scenarios in my head while playing on the playground; one of them being me as Harley Quinn trapped in jail while Joker saves me (I was obsessed with Harley Quinn as a kid, okay..)

What is your go-to way to fall asleep?

Rambling asmr.

If you had to change your name, what would it be, and why? (In tandem, if you have changed your name, why did you pick that one?)

I'd like to pick a name that sounds nice in most languages, since mine doesn't.

Maybe something like Eleanora with Nora as a nickname.

What is your favorite of Redacted’s audios, and why?

I can't pick one so I'll say "holiday decorating with your boyfriend but he's a chaotic mess" and "listening in on your crush's thoughts". These are the audios that really made me smile like an idiot. They don't really have anything to do with the plot yet they're still my favourite.

What Redacted boy holds no appeal to you, and why? Like, not the one you hate but the one who you don’t get the hype for. (I won’t judge, I promise.)

Hot take but...David. It's just...idk man, I usually like the tsundere type put sometimes I feel like David is too rude. I enjoyed his first audio but the rest...idk man. I like angel a lot tho. I myself a lot in them, but David is definitely not the type I'd go for. I'd probably feel really annoying and unloved with a guy like him 🤷‍♀️

Tell me about that one book/movie/tv show you know all the words to.

"The spy next door". I watched it waaaaaay too many times as a kid and I sometimes still do.

Which Redacted boy are you platonically attracted to? Like- forget dating, which dude do you want to be your best friend?

Asher!!! He seems like so much fun dude. He also reminds me a lot of my friend.

Do you have a go-to thing you ramble about when you’re tired, and if so, what is it? (For example, my boyfriend knows I’m ready to sleep when I start talking about space.)

I start rambling about 'what if' scenarios. Like what if I was born a year later? What if brother hadn't been born? What if that one time at the cafe I didn't order my usual drink?

Stuff like that.

Tell me your go-to gas station and drink combo.

Idk I can't drive...😔

Chocolate and banana milkshake is my go to drink tho.

Tell me about your favorite playlist at the moment. 

All my saved songs mashed up...

What’s your guilty pleasure media, and why?

Harry Potter fanfiction.... hear me out okay... I know it sounds...bad.. But damnit some of the fics are just too good.

Other info:

Idk if this is important or not but my mbti is ENTP-T and I'm also very short (5'1). Do what you must with that information...

Thank you!!

The combination of your personality traits gives me the impression of an extroverted, strong-willed person; they’re giving Smartass, you know? This combined with your preference towards tsunderes makes me think you’d be a good match with Aaron.

I can get what you mean about David being “too rude”; in contrast, Aaron’s certain brand of tsundere reads more playful? Like, he grasped early on when the attitude isn’t serving him or when to tone it down which is why I like him better for you. Also, the fact that your chosen name would be Eleanora and his brother’s name is Elliott, the fact that both his most loved people in the world could be called “El” is just really cute. That’s kismet a little bit.

Your life with Aaron would be such a dream (though that’s any life with Aaron, I will admit.) I can clearly imagine him making you your favorite milkshake every Saturday morning to start your weekend right (even though I can see him personally hating it /lh something about his vibe tells me he hates chocolate and banana together but not as much as he loves you). I can see him asking you about the fanfic you’re reading- not because he cares about Harry Potter (he doesn’t particularly) but because he likes to hear you talk about it. Also, your not being able to drive is fun because he’s an excellent driver, and don’t we all dream just a little bit of having to be a passenger prince(ss)? /lh

Song:

I just don't wanna miss you tonight/ And I don't want the world to see me/ 'Cause I don't think that they'd understand/ When everything's made to be broken/ I just want you to know who I am

One, that last line is very tsundere-core, that sentiment of “I don’t need the world to know or see me as long as I have you”. Two, this song is such a classic, and it matches the alt, rock, grunge vibe that Aaron gives me. I think he likes this song and genre a lot.

Runner-ups:

In addition to giving me Smartass vibes, your personality types also remind me of a more extroverted Damien; because of this, Huxley would be a cute runner-up for you. To do a total one-eighty, your mention of considering What If’s means I just have to give you Echo as a runner-up okay heaR ME OUT-

Read this post and send me an ask if you’d like a match-up of your own! 💌