#anyway the scene recycling is so????
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fadetouchedsilk · 6 hours ago
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I think something else that kind of puts me off the neve/lucanis thing is the fact that this appears to be the one NPC romance that re-uses the same lock in scene we get as the player?
To the best of my knowledge this isn’t the case with Taash or Harding’s romance scenes, Emmerich & Strife happens mostly off screen so that’s exempt too. But for some reason with Lucanis it’s basically the same scene with Rook model-swapped for Neve.
Like, some of the vitriol towards this ship can definitely just be marked down as garden variety biphobia & the occasional side of character related possessiveness (no judgement we’re all mentally ill I’ve been there lmao) but I’m also just seeing this overwhelming sense of… idk how to explain it exactly, it’s almost like an energy of depressively resigned rejection across platforms? Was the decision to not have this be a unique scene for the player a budget issue/cut content? You can argue him remembering what your favourite dessert is makes it unique but honestly that’s just a few dialogue flags of difference.
It still comes across as a shortcut for the player’s story. Realism in relationships aside, I actually don’t think it’s a bad look for us as consumers to assume we’re going to get a certain level of indulgence here for that reason. I don’t think everyone needs to be falling over themselves to kiss Rook’s feet, but I think it’s okay for our chosen li to be a bit more of a fantasy, yknow?
If it was a given from the start that the npcs were going to pair off, I think it would have been better if this only happened after your romance of choice was locked in, or at least past the point in the game where you would get a lock in scene (correct me if I’m wrong, but those all seem to trigger around the same time for everyone). Because of how the game is paced, we’d get to avoid spending the first 40 hours listening to ambient flirting when we’re exploring, which imo would also help npcs being received. There’s a distinct lack of interpersonal reactivity Veilguard whenever it comes to Rook (genuinely, why is this such a lonely protagonist?) but the relationships between companions seem to chug along nicely. Seems like a bit of a design flaw to have pre-romance flags active but to still be hearing how much your chosen li is apparently into this other person?
I don’t see the same amount of pushback towards the other NPC romances as I do Neve/Lucanis, which honestly looks like it comes down to how his romance specifically was executed & how the narrative likes to prioritize relationships between other people vs. ones with Rook. I don’t expect writers to not have favourites because that’d be hypocritical of me lmao, but I do expect a professional studio to be more adept at either covering it up better or giving your players enough attention to offset it. I haven’t seen anyone reflecting on how comparatively empty Neve’s romance felt to other companions the way I have with Lucanis, so I have to assume it isn’t. But with his route, it just feels extra :/ that one of maybe three scenes we get is just recycled content for his other possible partner.
(Obligatory disclaimer: I see the vision behind the ship and I don’t hate it nor am I jealous, I just feel like with those two characters in particular it should have unfolded much slower than one game would have allowed & also I expect a certain degree of wish fulfillment when it comes to these games, not feeling like the player character is the writers’ afterthought. Hating Neve for this is a bit much because 1. She’s not real and 2. She’s also not responsible for writing decisions so I think taking jabs at the female character involved is kind of a waste of energy [once again I get the jealousy thing, but still.])
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aroaceleovaldez · 8 months ago
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the show chb logo was also ripped from fandom, like in the past decade all the official chb shirt had the logo without the circle and then the fandom started doing and the show went for it, sorry your tags reminded me of that
[Link to post/tags in question]
Yeah, I know Delphi Strawberry Service has done more circular-based CHB shirt designs for ages, and I've seen the more circular-based designs floating around for awhile. I think Magicbysab's circular-based CHB shirt designs also predate the show design? Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I understand on a level that if they did base it off fandom designs, particularly if they're basing anything on widespread fanon or fandom-based concepts, it can be difficult to pin down credit or may even seen unnecessary. But if they're going to be doing that I feel like at least they could hire like, a fandom consultant of sorts? Instead of just ripping off from the fandom, hire someone from the community who produces that already so at least there's some recognition and acknowledgement of where it originated.
Heck, in some instances if you ask around in the fandom it's not hard to pinpoint who specifically popularized certain concepts! I could talk for ages about Cherryandsisters being a driving force behind photokinesis!Will, or Saberghatz with plague!Will (tbh between the two they spearheaded a ton of early Will/Solangelo fanon), and I swear Drksanctuary alone is behind like 50% of Alabaster fanon, etc etc etc. People in the fandom know these things! Heck, we know ReadRiordan company knows how to do that kind of thing! They commissioned Viria for the official art, and the UK Riordan newsletter reaches out to fans all the time to feature their work (with credit, they're one of the better ones)! Though in Rick's book tours he did showcase Viria's art (at least with credit) without asking before she got commissioned, and during the Tower of Nero book tours they actually straight up stole a solangelo edit from Pervysloth with completely zero credit (link is to my canon url readriordan parody blog).
I think it doesn't help as well that Rick and his editor allegedly use the fandom wiki in place of a series bible. The PJO wiki is notorious for putting inaccurate information or fanon onto pages at random and having no sources. (What I wouldn't give for the PJO wiki to have frequent book/page sources a la Warrior Cats wiki...) There are what, now almost 18 books in the main series alone? Of an extremely renowned best-selling series that's 20 years old and now being adapted for TV? And they STILL don't have a series bible? That's like, step 1 of writing a series. This kind of reliance of the fandom for resources and concepts definitely isn't new for them.
It just feels so bizarre as to what it says about how the ReadRiordan company views the fandom and the creatives within it. I understand that trying to figure out how to give credit to the concept of "CHB shirt design, but circular!" is difficult, if you even can find out who did that first or popularized it. But if you're going to rip things from fandom, at least find somebody to try and credit? Show that you put in even the tiniest amount of effort? And if you get it wrong and people know, they'll correct you and that's that! But ReadRiordan just keeps trying to actively obscure these kinds of things, even with their own media, not ripped from the fandom, which makes it feel all the worse when it gets pointed out. And a lot of the time the whole reason those concepts get popular is because they're filtered through big names in the fandom! The fandom is a community! We know these people! We can point to them and explain exactly what they popularized! Remember how Velinxi popularized long haired Piper with the heart-shaped flyaways? Goodness only knows how many fandom designs are heavily influenced by Viria and Minuiko and Burdge (and Indigonite and Fuocogo and Ikimaru and Thecottonproject and Joker-ace and Sixofclovers and Vikingmera and Saber and Cherry and and and-). If you are in the community this stuff is easy to find. But Rick and the ReadRiordan company clearly being ~5 years behind with fanon pretty obviously tells me that they're not in the community at all, and aren't bothering trying.
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Thou art sufficient. Thou wilt be chosen.
He tried to open his mouth to speak, but—since none of this was truly real, or truly words—no sound came through.
Something raised into the air above him, which was the first time he was able to conceptualize his position—the object itself was indistinct, white and gold– 
–and then it slammed down, cutting straight through his chest, and if he could move, he would have gasped and seized. It wasn’t pain exactly—or, it wasn’t just physical pain—it was something knifing through his heart and mind, tearing it open, a wave of screaming, howling emotion– 
The spear of white and gold removed itself, somehow, but it left something behind. A golden spike, still impaling him, the area around it rapidly soaking through with crimson.
What was not needed hast been removed. It would only have serve to upset thee.
What… was he… he fought to claw back the shreds of whatever-it-was being taken from him, but it was like grabbing at smoke. He’d been… trying to say something… he was… what was… going on…? He couldn’t recall… how had he gotten here? Why was he here?
This must be… what was meant to happen. If… he couldn’t remember being anywhere else… this must be where he was supposed to be.
He ceased fighting.
YOU: What does it think it’s doing! Look at what a mess it’s made, here! This is why you leave these things to the experts—and look at this! These edges are so ragged, it’s a wonder anything’s still there—
US: Well, leave it. There is something there. Mess around with it more and you’re just going to make it worse.
ME: No, no, you can’t just leave it like that… he’s going to be so miserable.
YOU: Let’s tidy up what’s left, at least.
More piercing stabs, these almost surgical in nature, cleaning the ragged edges of the wound, sewing it closed to stop the bleeding—
ME: Hey, don’t just throw that out—
–adding a certain finality to the missing piece.
ME: I don’t think this is a good idea… I think you might do more harm than…
US: Well, it’s done now. You should stop fussing and let him go.
YOU: The Creator better have a very good reason for doing all this. Or else, we, you and I will have words with it.
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watery-melon-baller · 2 years ago
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ultimate writing tip
have a scene you really like but you have to delete it? need to rewrite this section but afraid to lose the original! nervous that the scene you’re deleting you might need later? worry no more! all you need to do is put them in stasis! how do you do this, you may ask, well it’s simple! create a separate google doc and just copypaste the scene/chapter you want to preserve there! now you can edit/delete it without worrying about losing the original!
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ugh-yoongi · 1 year ago
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a word from our sponsors | knj
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you’ve co-hosted a podcast with namjoon for three years; have known him even longer. the two of you have always been the picture of platonic, but that hasn’t stopped the internet from doing what the internet does. the shipping? a little weird at first, but you can understand it: two attractive twenty-somethings always in close proximity to one another, obvious (platonic!) chemistry—people have created ships for less. the fanfiction, though? also pretty funny… until you can’t stop thinking about it. 🎙️
pairing: namjoon x f. reader genre: podcast, friends to lovers au; crack, smut, fluff rating: explicit. minors do not interact. warnings: parasocial relationships galore, a m*n with a p*dcast, author abuses italics, swearing, alcohol, reader uses a pseudonym/nickname (piper) because writing the meta fanfiction scene would've been too weird without one and i refuse to use y/n, dialogue-heavy but it is a fic about a podcast, everyone is down horrendous, mentions of social media & fake r*ddit posts, ex-boyfriend yoongi but in a good, healthy way. let me know if i missed anything but mostly this is just two goofballs not realizing they're in love with one another. smut warnings: kissing, oral sex (f. receiving), fingering, unprotected vaginal sex (fiction), protected vaginal sex (nonfiction), a lil squirting, mild degradation, mentions of a p*ss kink but there is no actual pee i promise (...lest?), i didn't intend to write size kink but it's namjoon so it just showed up anyway, slight dom!joon, everyone orgasms. wordcount: 17.5k credits: this was entirely inspired by that one episode of the basement yard where frankie reads the smut fic of him and joe, so credits to both that author and that podcast. spotify, for their podcast name generator. astro-seek for helping me drag namjoon astrologically. an extra special, gigantic thanks to @effortandmore for writing the meta fanfic (3k of it, no less!) and not batting an eye when i said it could have pee in it as a joke. this is as much yours as it is mine. finally, @hot-soop and @the-boy-meets-evil for reading this over for me and telling me i'm funny. author's note: happy birthday, indigo! here i am to validate every fear you've ever had that the people you write porn about may one day read it. live and on air. :)
You’ve co-hosted a podcast with Namjoon for three years.
You can learn a lot about a guy in that amount of time.
None of it is especially salacious. You know all about his family and his dog and the brand of recycled paper towels he insists on buying in bulk. You know what he’d written his grad school thesis on and what he’d looked like in the thick of it, when he was staving off his fifth mental break of the week. You know how fidgety he gets when it’s closing in on Friday night and he’s got a date—how much he stresses over which restaurant to pick, which cologne, which expensive cashmere sweater to wear.
You also know what the internet thinks about him. Intimately.
Kim Namjoon, according to the internet, is peak husband material. He has cheeks ripe for pinching and thighs small countries would go to war to defend. He has a lap that doubles as a seat and dimples people want to get baptized in. He has Instagram selfies with hundreds of thousands of likes and comment sections full of intelligible keysmashes, especially the ones he posts from the gym.
Kim Namjoon, according to the internet, is a man written by a woman.
Looking at him now, you aren’t sure that’s true, you think people just need to raise their standards. Namjoon is just… Namjoon. He’s intelligent and kind and up to date on modern feminist theory, is all. And, sure, maybe in the current political landscape that puts him far above the rest of men, but the way the internet has latched onto him is a little concerning.
“There’s another post about whether or not we’re dating,” you say, pushing your glasses up the bridge of your nose.
sooo let’s be real here, we ALL think they’re dating, right?? Posted by u/pod-shipper 2 hours ago
Just like he always does, Namjoon huffs out a soft laugh, makes his way around to your side of the table. Puts his large hands on your shoulders as he leans in close to read from your screen, snorting every time he reads a sentence he finds particularly amusing. Whichever cologne he’d chosen this morning is, admittedly, very nice.
It’s sooo obvious, especially in the episodes they film and post on YouTube. The way they look at each other?? I don’t even look at my HUSBAND like that! (+1264) ↳ omg ur sooooo right! i could MAYBE buy that they aren’t full on dating, but they’ve def at least slept together. Namjoon is so 🔥🔥🔥 (+791) ↳ um how can namjoon be dating her when he’s already married to me 😌💅 (+3) ↳ For the millionth time, can we not speculate on their personal lives? This is weird and reinforces really harmful ideas that men and women can’t just be friends. (-51)
“How come they never talk about how hot you are?”
You can tell by the look on Namjoon’s face that he hadn’t meant to say that—or, if he did, he didn’t mean to say it like that, with an entire pout, eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline. “Cursed to be ugly and dumb,” you joke to ease the sudden tension, reading the comment that simply says you’d have to be the dumbest person alive to not sleep with Namjoon.
He scrunches his nose at that. Returns to his side of the table. “Yeah, I don’t think so, lots of people haven’t slept with me.” Starts to unpack all the gear from his bag before he says, “Hey, all that stuff—does it bother you?”
“What do you mean?” you answer, the corner of a protein bar stuck in your mouth. Namjoon always insists on recording at the most inconvenient times.
“People thinking we’re together,” he clarifies.
You shrug. “I dunno. Not really. Comes with the territory, I think, not to mention how much you love to overshare—”
“Hello?”
“I’m just saying,” you retort, hands raised in self-defense. “There really was no need for you to mention you blew your grad school stipend on a porn scam.” Namjoon looks affronted, like he can’t believe you’d stoop so low as to bring that up. “Or that you lost your virginity at fifteen.”
“We have a relationship podcast,” he states simply. “That’s kind of what we do, right? Talk about relationships? And the spectrum of human sexuality is part of that.”
You slump back in your chair as you quirk an eyebrow. “No one said it wasn’t, I just said you overshare. Which you do.”
“And that’s why there’s a dozen Reddit posts a week discussing whether or not we’re dating? Because I overshare?”
“Yeah, exactly. That’s the kind of behavior that leads to parasocial relationships. People latch onto that shit. Makes them think they’re your friend.” He glares. “Don’t give me that look, you know I’m right. It’s bad enough you’ve word-vomited all this highly personal information about yourself, but to not even do it under a pseudonym? It’s like you’re begging for trouble.”
Another comment he doesn’t even realize he’s making: “I don’t beg. For anything.”
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To this day, you’re not sure why Namjoon asked you to co-host a podcast with him.
His reasoning had been simple: “You’re my best friend and we don’t agree on anything.” Hard to argue with that. Namjoon has seemingly endless patience, even in the face of things he shouldn’t entertain, and you… do not, to put it simply.
You’re not a cold person. Your fuse isn’t short. You’re just a little jaded, is all. Have far less propensity for bullshit than Namjoon does, so the two of you play well off each other. You end a sentence with a well-punctuated full stop and Namjoon’s right behind you to sigh and say maybe you shouldn’t be so hasty, not everything in the world can be so black or white.
Except some things are. Somewhere along the way, the podcast—which Namjoon had affectionately named Place Him Gently in the Garbage, even though some people should be shoved in there with force—had picked up a following. A big one. And now, every week, you’re inundated with emails ranging in severity. Sometimes people just want to vent after their tenth bad date in a row or share funny stories, and Namjoon lets you take the lead on those, but sometimes it’s a little more serious. That’s where Namjoon shines, all that endless patience, and people love him for it.
“What’s on the agenda today?” he asks, accepting a thick stack of papers from Jungkook.
Ah, Jungkook.
You aren’t sure what he actually does. Some kind of social media manager, which is obvious from the wildly out-of-context clips he posts of you to TikTok, and it’s his responsibility to go through the thousands of emails you get from listeners, but aside from that all you’ve got are your suspicions that he just sticks around to swindle Namjoon out of more and more money.
“I’m in a silly goofy mood,” comes Jungkook’s reply, and you let out a witch cackle as Namjoon winces. Nothing good ever comes of Jungkook being in a silly goofy mood, and that’s quite alright by you.
Fifteen minutes later finds you with a camera in your face that you greet with an unamused, flat stare. Jungkook is used to it by now. Just films for a few seconds before turning his attention to an unaware Namjoon. Head down, pen and highlighter going a mile a minute as he pores over the stack of papers with all the doggedness and eagle-eyed stare of a literature professor.
That’s the thing about Namjoon—he takes this really seriously. So do you, but not in the ways Namjoon does. He’s all skill and determination and you’re color commentary. It works. It clearly works, so you aren’t too bent out of shape about it, but sometimes you worry. Namjoon takes this really seriously and sometimes you worry that he takes it too seriously, that he carries the burdens and worries of all these strangers, that he’s trying to solve and fix things that aren’t his responsibility to solve and fix.
So he takes it really seriously and you don’t take it as seriously as you maybe should, and everything is by design. Balanced.
Twenty minutes later finds you staring across the table at Namjoon, who asks, “Are you ready?” and does one last equipment check before he launches into, “Welcome back to another episode of Place Him Gently in the Garbage with Namjoon and Piper. What’s new with you, Pipe? Any fun news?”
Pipe. It drives you nuts. Feels like nails on a chalkboard. “I see you almost every single day,” you respond dryly. “But for the sake of entertainment, I’m thinking about getting a cat.”
“A cat?” Namjoon parrots, and his eyebrows disappear beneath his fringe because he knows what that means.
You’ve co-hosted a podcast with Namjoon for three years, but you’ve known him even longer.
Since your first year of college, which is also when you met Yoongi. Yoongi, your ex. Yoongi, the person you’d been with for six years and had planned a life around. Yoongi, now one of your closest friends, because the two of you still love one another but no longer in that way, which is fine. But also—Yoongi, allergic to cats.
So, yeah. Namjoon knows what that means, and he has the good sense not to mention it. Unlike him, you’re intensely private and keep your cards close to your chest. Your listeners don’t even know your real name, let alone that you’d gone through a breakup a year ago.
“What kind of cat?” he continues, like his entire world hasn’t just been turned upside-down.
You shrug. “Eh, I don’t know. Probably one that’s been in the shelter a long time, I guess. I’m not too fussy, you know?”
“Right, a cat is a cat,” Namjoon says, thinking he’s done something. You and Jungkook gasp at the same time. “What? Why are you giving me that look?”
“Because that’s a fucked up thing to say! A cat is not just a cat. They have little personalities, just like people. You’ve got—”
“But you just said you’re not fussy,” he interjects. “And I know they have personalities and that you have to find one that suits your lifestyle! Like, you can’t have one of those really cool cats that likes to go kayaking and shit, it’d never work—”
“What does that mean? Why couldn’t I have a cool cat?”
“Hey, all you cool cats and kittens,” Namjoon mocks, and you can tell he thinks he’s done something again, but his impression falls flatter than flat. An awkward silence fills the studio. He coughs. “Anyway. Do you have pictures?”
“Yeah. I also have a list of candidates ranked by how cool their names are. Number five, Casserole.”
“That’s cute.”
“Mhm,” you agree, “but Casserole is a kitten, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that kind of responsibility.”
“They do say you should adopt kittens in pairs.”
“And that’s how they get you. You want one kitten and they talk you into two, and before you know it you’ve got, like, twelve cats. Number four, Party Girl.”
“Sick name.”
“Number three, Toddler.”
“Toddler?”
“Number two, Flat.”
“Just Flat? Understandable.”
“And, finally, number one: Human Torch.”
“Yoooo.” Namjoon laughs. “You have to adopt Human Torch. Let me see.” You pull up a picture on your phone and hand it over. “Okay, for our listeners—Human Torch is a young, male Domestic Short Hair. He has stripes. I don’t know what that’s called.”
“Tabby,” Jungkook chimes in.
“Jungkook says he’s a tabby. He’s cute. Adopt him.”
You return your phone to your pocket. “Maybe. I still think I want an older cat, but I’ll consider it. What about you, though? Any new dating horror stories to share?”
Ah, the dating horror stories. Your most dedicated shippers are convinced they’re fake, that Namjoon just makes them up on the spot to keep them off your trail. If only. Not in the if only they were fake and Namjoon and I were actually dating kind of way, but the holy shit one of my closest friends is a fucking disaster and it’s a little embarrassing kind of way.
“Not really,” he answers. “I’ve got a date this Friday, though. Trying to decide if dinner and a movie is too boring.”
“It’s a classic for a reason. What are you gonna see, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3?”
“Three?” Namjoon emphasizes, truly sounding scandalized. “Since when are there three? I haven’t even seen one or two.”
“Okay, first of all, the original is a classic and it’s a crime you haven’t seen it.”
“And second of all?”
“There is no second of all. Repeat point one.”
He snorts. “I’m not gonna see that, anyway. Maybe the re-release of Howl’s Moving Castle.”
“Subbed or dubbed, though?”
“Are you trying to get me canceled?”
“Absolutely.”
“I like both,” he chickens out. “Now, let’s stop wasting time and get to the point of the show.”
“Talking about cats is a waste of time?”
“I—no, we’ve just got a lot on the agenda today.”
“Like what?”
“Well, there’s lots to talk about on the celebrity front—”
Namjoon loves this part. As esteemed and educated as he is, not even he is immune to good old celebrity gossip. (Inside him there are two wolves.) Lives for it. Texts you about it at all hours of the night. Sends you links to Reddit threads with hundreds of comments. Has more opinions on Celebrity Big Brother than he does on Ludwig Wittgenstein, sometimes, and when that’s the case you know you’re in for a long evening. You’ve never even seen an episode of Celebrity Big Brother.
But Namjoon loves it, so you’ve become fond of it by association. Reminds you a bit of Yoongi and his love for sports and sports anime.
“—one should we start with?”
“Whatever you want,” you answer, because you haven’t been paying a lick of attention and you aren’t sure it matters anyway. Namjoon can talk to a wall on a good day, but he’s an entirely different beast once mundane, innocuous celeb gossip gets involved.
And even though you hadn’t been paying attention, it seems like this was the right thing to say, because Namjoon smiles so wide his dimples crater his face. “Cool. Let’s start with Taryn Manning. Did you see that bizarre—”
“Who?”
“What?”
“Who is Taryn Manning?”
Namjoon looks a little dumbstruck. Even Jungkook’s arching an eyebrow at you. “Are you serious? She was in Orange is the New Black and Crossroads.”
“The Britney Spears movie?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. Weird, okay. Continue.”
Your co-host shoots you a very pointed look. “I will, thanks. Anyway, she posted a video on social media talking about this affair she had with a married man. Like, she pulled over on the side of the road to record this. Said she can’t stand the man’s wife because she called her a quote-unquote lunatic.”
“I—huh, thought we weren’t supposed to say that anymore. Alright.”
“But wait, it gets even more bizarre. Listen to this quote—and this is direct. This is a direct quote from the video, I can’t stop thinking about it: ‘Don’t you ever threaten me when your husband came to me to get his butthole licked.’ Can you—”
“What? Namjoon, what in the fuck—”
“It’s crazy, right? She was gonna buy this guy a boat.”
“Namjoon, this is a family show, you can’t just talk about ass-eating unprompted.”
“No it’s not.”
“Well, you still shouldn’t talk about ass-eating unprompted. It’s unbecoming.”
“You’re unbecoming,” Namjoon fires back, because he can’t help it. The words are out of his mouth before he can think. “Sorry, that was out of line.”
You sigh. Know whatever look Jungkook is catching on his camera right now is exasperated and pointed, the corners of your mouth probably tugged up just a hint. “Unbecoming, like I said.” Namjoon scoffs. “Anyway, so this actress was gonna buy this married guy a boat and was eating his ass?”
“Yeah. Apparently it was her friend’s husband? They all went to a Taylor Swift concert together.”
“Jesus, this keeps getting worse. Big year for Hollywood cheaters.”
“It is, right? Cheaters and divorces. Something in the water, I guess.”
“I saw the astrology girlies saying a bunch of planets are in retrograde, so—”
“Can you explain that to me? Like, what does it mean for a planet to be in retrograde? Why is it causing divorces?”
“I don’t know, I’m not an astrology girlie. That’s why I said the astrology girlies. What are your big three, though?”
“What’s that?”
“Your sun, moon, and rising signs.”
“How do I find that out?”
“Ugh,” you intone, “don’t worry about it, I’ll do it myself. What time were you born?”
Namjoon rattles off a time.
You grab your laptop. Pull up the page, type in Namjoon’s date of birth and birthplace, and wait. Then you’re staring at a circle with a bunch of lines in it that also don’t make a lick of sense to you. You roll your lips to keep from laughing and school your voice into something deadly serious. “Bad news: it says you’re a virgin.”
“Virgo,” Namjoon corrects, not taking the bait. “I already knew that.”
You scroll a little further down the page. “Your moon is in Sagittarius. Oh god, listen to this, they’ve got you pegged: ‘The greatest need is to always search for something. In order to feel safe you need a philosophy or belief’—”
“Haaa, that’s not—”
“—’You need to have a goal or mission that gives your life meaning. Your faith must be voluntary and it is a paradox that fighting against dogmas may lead you to other dogmas.’ Yeah, that’s you.”
“That could apply to anyone,” he argues. “There are seven-billion people on this planet; I’d imagine a sizable amount of them would say that also describes them.”
“Hm, sounds like your faith in astrology is not yet voluntary. Did you know you’re a Scorpio rising?”
“No. I’m sure you’re gonna tell me all about it, though.”
You smile. “Correct. ‘People with Scorpio on the Ascendant need to fight against dark and destructive power in their life.’ Is that true?”
“Yeah, you’re the dark and destructive power. You keep sidetracking me and we need to get to the point of the podcast.” He grabs the stack of papers Jungkook had given him. Looks more highlighter than paper, if you’re being honest. “I guess Jungkook thought we needed a lighthearted kind of day.”
“That was nice of him, considering what he gave us last week. I guess we’re allowed to have faith in humanity today.”
To your left, Jungkook scoffs.
“Alright,” Namjoon starts, putting on his Very Serious Podcast Guy voice, “first up we’ve got a question from one of our listeners in Canada. It says, ‘Hi, Piper and Namjoon. I recently agreed to go on a blind date with a friend of a friend. She said he was a bit old-fashioned but really talked him up so I thought I was in good hands—and then he showed up to get me in a ‘67 GTO and exclusively referred to me as doll. He didn’t use my name once. I’m torn, because he was really nice and I had a good time otherwise, but this is weird, right? Should I see him agai—’”
“No,” you interject.
“Can I finish?”
“You don’t have to. This guy sounds greasy.”
Namjoon pinches the bridge of his nose. “And why is that?”
“Ignoring the fact that this guy has arguably one of the lamest classic cars around, he didn’t use their name once? Not once, in all the time they spent together? That’s really disrespectful.”
“Some people are just pet name people,” Namjoon argues.
“With absolute strangers, though? It’s really giving the impression that he didn’t even know it, not to mention some people are uncomfortable with pet names. The whole shtick is super lame.”
“I agree it sounds a bit misguided, but—”
Ignoring Namjoon, you say, “Sorry you had to go on a date with the ghost of less-cool James Dean. Into the garbage he goes.”
And, just like he’s done a million times before, Namjoon rolls his eyes and says, “If you really like this guy and want to see him again, a bit of communication will go a long way. Tell him the pet name made you uncomfortable—if it did—and offer to pick him up for the next date. I don’t think he’s completely destined for the garbage, yet.”
“You’re just saying that because you don’t have a license. You probably think a 1967 Pontiac GTO is the pinnacle of romance. That’s probably like picking someone up on a Specialized Aethos to you, eh?”
“That’s a fifteen-thousand dollar bike, I’ll have you know.”
You groan. “Oh my god.”
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Ep: #183 - Namjoon is a Virgin
I think Namjoon had the right idea on this one. Sure, the car can be considered lame, but I think a lot of men are deeply insecure and therefore overcompensate when it comes to dating. Women are hard to impress when they have unlimited options. You have to stand out, so I’m glad he advocated for him. Piper can come off like such a misandrist sometimes. (-649) ↳ just shut up bro namjoon would fuckin hate u (+204) ↳ Imagine caring about something like this when they’re getting a cat together 🙄 (+19)
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You think about the cat thing for nearly a week.
Adopting a cat is certainly not the worst idea you’ve ever had, and truth be told it’s been a little lonely, living by yourself. No more Yoongi in your space; no more Holly. So, having a new little friend around might do you some good.
It’s just—
It’s a big commitment, and there’s also the dog sitting-shaped elephant in the room. Ending things on good terms means you’re still Yoongi’s second-choice sitter whenever he has to go out of town, and while you love Holly dearly (the two of you had adopted him together, after all), he’s a lot like his father in a lot of ways.
Should I get a cat, you type out, and it’s only been in Yoongi’s inbox a few seconds before the most unflattering picture you’ve ever taken of him is flashing across your screen.
“Are you dying?” you ask, because Yoongi doesn’t call you for much else.
And you already know what his response is going to be. “We’re all dying.”
“Lighten up, Yoongi. One might say being so existentially nihilistic before noon causes wrinkles.”
There’s a split-second pause. “It’s nine p.m.”
“Sure, but it’s before tomorrow’s noon, so it still counts.”
“Whatever. Listen, before you adopt that cat, I need a favor.”
“You going out of town again?”
“Yeah. Shouldn’t be long, though. A week at the most, five days if I’m lucky.”
“That’s fine, bring him over whenever. Yijeong’s busy?”
This pause is far, far longer. “No,” comes Yoongi’s eventual response, but it’s slow. Unsure. A two-letter word has never taken so long to say in the history of ever. “He’s, uh. Coming with me?”
Oh, you think. This is where your ex awkwardly and hesitantly breaks the news of his new relationship. You’ve known this day was coming, and this is what you get for staying friends with him. “This is a fanfiction plot,” you accuse. “Hot, mysterious man moves into a gaudy apartment complex after ending a long-term relationship and meets his equally-hot and mysterious neighbor and they fall in love.”
“I—that’s not—my apartment is not gaudy.”
“Yes it is. There’s a giant gold bust of a weird bird in the lobby.”
“Weird bird?” he parrots. “It’s a swan.”
“I see you’re not denying the in-love-with-your-neighbor accusations.”
“Am I on trial?” Yoongi retorts, and it’s such a Yoongi thing to say when what he means is, is this okay? He means, are we able to talk about this without it being weird? He means, I won’t ever say as much out loud, but your acceptance means a lot to me, and I’d like for you to give me this.
So you lower your voice and soften the edges because it’s not really something to joke about, and you say, “No, of course you’re not on trial,” and Yoongi knows what you mean. “And if you were, you'd get locked up for fifty years. You can’t lie for shit.”
There’s a beat of silence before he clears his throat, mutters a thanks that is so quiet you almost don’t catch it. “Send me pictures of the cats.”
Later on, once you’re freshly-showered and tucked into bed with a candle and a book (Eloge de l’amour by Alain Badiou at Namjoon’s insistence and request), your phone buzzes with a text from Yoongi—
Yoongi: toddler is a fucking hilarious name for a cat but so is flat Yoongi: it’s a tie for me You: Okay well pick one 🙄 Yoongi: yijeong says get both You: Both???? Is he paying my vet bills? Yoongi: kinda out of line to proposition him for money. flat is also good with dogs, js You: If he’s now being raised by you two, my perfect, well-behaved son is probably long gone. Does he even count as a dog anymore? Yoongi: me and yijeong both say fuck off Yoongi: holly too. he says he doesn’t miss you anymore and he’s not coming over now Yoongi has added Yijeong to the group Yoongi has changed the group name to #ThirdWheelChat Yijeong: Please don’t drag me into this. Also I did not say “fuck off” You have changed the group name to People Who Have Seen Yoongi Naked Yoongi: fuck you
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You should’ve known something was going on with Jungkook, because it’d started like this:
(When you and Namjoon started the podcast three years ago, it was in the living room of his apartment.
Surrounded by books and plants. He loved to record in the afternoons back then—Namjoon loved to say it was because of his grad school schedule, but you’ve always suspected he just wanted to preen in the golden hour light, much like he’s doing now.
“Is this really necessary?” Jungkook whines from his spot on the couch. He’s already swindled Namjoon out of two bags of microwavable popcorn and three cans of sparkling water. “It’s a Saturday afternoon; I could be doing something so much more fun than this.”
Namjoon scoffs. “Are you saying this isn’t fun?”
“Yeah. It sucks, actually. This could’ve been an email.”
And because Namjoon is accomplished, mature, and absolutely incapable of not taking Jungkook’s bait, the space between his brows creases as he sends a murderous glare Jungkook’s way. “Stop eating my food, then. And drinking my drinks. And lounging on my couch like that—”
“I’m not lounging,” Jungkook argues.
“You’re manspreading all over the leather!”
“This is how I sit!”
“Well, knock it off! My couch is only for fun and people who think I’m fun!”
Jungkook rolls his eyes. “So you fuck on it?”
“What?”
“What other fun things could you possibly do on a couch?”
Namjoon blinks. “Watch… watch a movie?”
Jungkook groans, throws himself backwards against the pillows as if he’s suffering a Victorian ailment. “Jesus. No wonder you can’t score a second date.”
“Okay, that was a little uncalled for. There are a ton of reasons a person might not want a second date, and no one is obligated to go out with me—”
“Uh-huh. Anyway—”
You clear your throat. Try to hide your own can of seltzer you’d taken from Namjoon’s fridge in the midst of his and Jungkook’s bickering. “Not trying to be rude, but I have an appointment at the shelter at three. If, y’know. You wouldn’t mind speeding this up a little.”
“Oh! Yeah, of course—”
“Oh, so you’ll speed this up for her but not—”
Namjoon pinches the bridge of his nose. “She,” he begins, jerking his thumb in your direction, “isn’t needlessly complaining and actually has someplace to be.”)
It was just a quick little rendezvous in Namjoon’s living room to come up with a rough draft for the following month’s episodes. He couldn’t do it over text because he’d fallen down the steps at his office and landed on his ass on the corner of a step and his phone had been in his back pocket. Cracked clean in half. And he couldn’t do it over email because he—rightfully—knew Jungkook would ignore them because he has his inbox set up to send all of Namjoon’s personal emails to the trash.
But Jungkook holds onto things like that. Grudges. Loves to let Namjoon think bygones are bygones and pop up a few days later with some evil scheme. Hence:
“What is this?”
Jungkook smirks. Rocks back on his heels. “It’s fanfiction.”
“I can see that, but… why?”
This is where Jungkook shines: the ominous, cheshire cat grin; the aw, shucks demeanor that gaslights Namjoon into thinking Jungkook couldn’t possibly be fucking with him. “Well, you were having trouble coming up with ideas for episodes, and there’s an email in there from someone whose partner reads really expli—”
“Jungkook, this is fanfiction about me.”
You can’t help the laugh that escapes you. Of all the weird shit you’ve seen on the internet (and there’s been a lot), fanfiction of people you know—your friends—was something you’d managed to escape. Probably by virtue of not knowing anyone famous enough to warrant fanfiction being written about them.
But you should’ve known. You really, really should’ve known.
“Oh my god?”
You’re not sure who says it. Could be you or Namjoon, but the sentiment is the same. He mouths a what the fuck at you that’s met with a shrug. You’re in uncharted territory now, too. “Where did you even find this?” you ask, taking the stack of papers from Namjoon. “And why did you print it out?”
“Because I’m going to track down whoever wrote it and get them to autograph it. Then I’m going to buy a nice frame and hang it on the wall behind him, so we never forget this historical moment in Place Him Gently in the Garbage lore.”
“It’s a podcast,” Namjoon deadpans, “how can it have lore? And how much lore can there possibly be?”
“It’s the internet,” you concede. “The lore possibilities are endless. Don’t tempt them.”
Jungkook nods sagely, well-versed in the degeneracy of the internet. “Yeah, that’s how you end up with shit like 4chan.”
“4chan? There’s Space Jam porn on there.”
As the youngest, all Jungkook can do is roll his eyes. “Sometimes explaining this shit to you feels like trying to teach old people how to rotate PDFs—”
Namjoon scoffs. “I’m not that bad. I know how to rotate a PDF.”
Wow, Jungkook mouths. “Anyway, back to the fanfiction—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Namjoon interjects. He looks at you. “It’s weird, right? Like, it’s weird that people have written this about us?”
About us.
Your scope of the world narrows to the size of a pinhead. It’d just been about Namjoon before. This is fanfiction about me, he’d said, and you hadn’t been included in that. Now it’s written about us and you’re included.
“I—what?”
“It’s about us,” Namjoon repeats.
Jungkook rolls his lips. “It’s about the two of you fucking, to be specific.”
“Can you not—”
“Fucking a lot,” Jungkook continues. “So much fucking.”
Namjoon looks at you, and it’s all you can do to keep from laughing. The look on his face is pure bewilderment, both that Jungkook has cooked up this idea and is hell-bent on executing it and that he remains employed. And maybe it’s a little bit of nerves, too, because neither of you are ignorant of the risks. Reading fanfiction about yourselves—about the two of you as a couple, specifically, or at least two people who have sex—is weird. Not something you can unread.
And maybe it’s because you’re so determined to not make it weird that you send Namjoon a cheeky, exaggerated wink, shrug your shoulders, and say, “I’ll need a couple drinks, but I’m down.”
Jungkook throws his head back and cackles wildly, and that look of bewilderment on Namjoon’s face morphs into something else. Trepidation, maybe; definitely disbelief, because sometimes he lets himself get swept away in Jungkook’s schemes, but it’s rare that you follow suit.
As Jungkook continues to laugh, you wonder if you should’ve said no.
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Namjoon has two stipulations: the two of you have to film the episode completely alone, and he, too, needs to be a little drunk.
The latter? Piece of cake, considering Namjoon has become some sort of whiskey aficionado in recent years. His drinking is streamlined and to the point—he knows exactly how much and what to drink to get him where he wants to be. You can’t say he isn’t efficient.
The former, though? Borderline impossible. From the second Namjoon states his terms, Jungkook is having none of it. Argues that he’s the one who found the story and the one who cleared it with the author, so he deserves to witness the fruits of his labor.
“No,” Namjoon repeats for the nth time, “no way. I’ll barely be able to do this with just her, let alone both of you.”
And that—that doesn’t bother you, right? You force a laugh, because why would it bother you?
There are few secrets between you and Namjoon, except your respective sex lives have been staunchly off-limits. Namjoon could be a virgin for all you know, and as you study him—the way he keeps bobbing his leg, the slight shake in his hands—you wonder if that’s the reason he’s being so weird about this.
It’s just a story.
Fiction.
Most people don’t have to worry about someone writing stories about them fucking their friends. If they do, you reckon even less actually read them. So, sure, it’s a little strange, but people from all over the world send in stranger stuff all the time, don’t they? It’s literally the reason you’re in this predicament.
Eventually Jungkook agrees. His whining has gotten him nowhere, so he just throws up his hands. Posts a cryptic little “u guys won’t believe what the next patreon ep is lmao” that sends the internet into a frenzy. Doubles your Patreon numbers almost immediately, and both you and Namjoon do a good job of pretending the pressure isn’t overwhelming.
Jesus. You have to read explicit fanfiction about yourselves. On camera.
Namjoon gets caught up with work and isn’t available until the weekend, so you’re forced to sit with the nerves for a few days. Not too bad at first, but you’re nearly coming out of your skin by Thursday with the need to know. You’re well-versed in the world of fanfiction, but this is fanfiction about you: your name, your likeness, maybe even your personality.
What will they know of Namjoon, though?
Will they get it right, the way he looks with his jaw clenched? How impossibly deep his voice can go, both when it’s raspy with sleep and when he’s fully at ease? Will the Namjoon in the story be closer to the Namjoon you know, or the version of himself he presents to the public?
And you’ve known him a long time—long enough that there are few secrets between you, but you don’t know the most intimate parts. All the parts the internet loves to speculate on. All the little gaps that, apparently, need to be filled in by fanfiction.
Will they know what Namjoon looks like when he gets off?
No, you scold yourself, jerking awkwardly like you’ve been burned, and neither will you.
Because you are not going to think about this. Your thoughts are not going to go there. Namjoon is your friend, and you’ve listened to him scold an endless amount of men on the podcast for exactly this behavior. Sexualizing their friends. You’re not going to do it, too.
Maybe that’s why you’re kind of seeing double when it comes time to record. Namjoon needed an extra shot and offered you one as well. You’d necked it without a second thought and now you’re here, trying to ignore the slight tilt of the room as Namjoon adjusts the camera.
“How’s the shot look?” he asks, gesturing vaguely behind him at his laptop screen because Jungkook had refused to lend you his fancy cameras if he wasn’t allowed to be involved.
It’s a completely normal question.
It’s a question you’ve asked and answered a million times.
Except—there’s something horribly distracting about Namjoon in this moment. The outline of his back muscles through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. The way the sleeves are tight around his biceps. He’s always been a gym rat, always carries around a protein shake that smells and looks completely foul, but you can’t remember it ever being this obvious.
And you take too long to answer, because Namjoon straightens up just enough to send you a concerned look. Which does not help. You are not imagining what else might cause his brows to pinch like that, what might have his lips parting, have sweat dotting his hairline.
You swallow. Hard.
“Looks fine,” you manage to say. He’s still staring. Are you on fire? You feel like you’re on fire, which would make sense. Would explain Namjoon’s sweating and concerned stare and the fact that he cannot stop staring at you. “Maybe a tiny bit to the right if we’re being picky,” you tack on, hoping it’ll break whatever spell the two of you are ensnared in.
It works. “To the—the right, yeah, makes sense,” he rambles.
He moves it an inch to the left.
Things are tense, to say the least.
Recording hasn’t been this awkward since your first episode, or maybe ever. You’re sat across from one another like you always are, and usually Namjoon would be making quip after quip by now, talking endlessly until Jungkook shushed him long enough to get the intro filmed. Now, there’s just silence.
“Should we…?” Namjoon startles. Bangs his knee on the underside of the table and drops a string of curses. “Sorry, are you—”
“I’m fine,” he says, cutting you off. He gestures vaguely toward the camera. “I’ll just… yeah.”
Showtime.
You wipe your hands on your jeans, unsure of when they got so damp. Unsure of when you’d grown so nervous, too, because you’d been fine an hour ago. Had strolled in with two cups of tea and a little too much confidence, giddy at what you were about to do.
Maybe the nerves had shown up alongside the alcohol. This sounds reasonable, and you do not, under any circumstance or for any reason, think about Namjoon’s back. Or his biceps.
Namjoon makes it through the intro, dimples deep and wide as he smiles, and you also don’t think about the way his voice cracks and gets a little breathy when he introduces you. It’s only because he’d been drinking, and the flush on his cheeks attests to that. The same flush that creeps down his neck, still a little sweaty; disappears beneath the hemline of his shirt.
“—Jungkook had. Right, Piper?”
Now it’s your turn to startle, and there’s not much you can do to hide the obvious except ask Namjoon to redo the shot. Because it’s bad enough the internet already overanalyzes every move you make, every word choice, every instance you’ve stared at Namjoon a second longer than they thought you would—this is a blatant display of… affectedness.
“Sorry,” you say, “I wasn't paying attention. Can we redo it?”
You’re expecting a playful scolding. A ha ha, get it together, because that’s what you usually get. But there’s nothing aside from Namjoon studying you and nodding. Asking if you’re okay. Saying, “Is this—this is weird, right? Is it too weird? Maybe we shouldn’t—”
An out. Namjoon is giving you an out, and you should take it, you know you should take it, so there’s absolutely no reason at all you shake your head and say, “No, no, it’s fine! I think I’m just a little, uh. Drunk?”
“Are you sure? We can—”
“It’s fine, Joon,” you insist. “Besides, it’ll be good content, right?”
“Good content,” he parrots. “Yeah, for sure.” He fidgets in his seat, runs his hands down the span of his thighs. Very, very thick thighs. “I’ll grab us some water.”
You faceplant onto the table as soon as he’s out of the room. When did his thighs get so thick?
But the water helps. Cures whatever strange, insatiable thirst has come over you, because you feel much more human after a few glasses. Less drunk, too, which makes sense. Yoongi could barely escape your drunken, horny wrath when the two of you were together, so you chalk it up to a Pavlovian response.
Namjoon does the intro again. Introduces you strong and steady, not a hint of nerves, and explains, with a fresh blush taking over his upper body, what the episode’s going to be about. “Someone wrote fanfiction about us,” he says, scratching at the back of his neck. “It’s, uh, pretty explicit. Jungkook thought it’d be funny if we read it.”
You snort. “He might get fired, depending on how this goes.”
“He should get fired regardless,” Namjoon deadpans. “Anyway, we have permission from the author to read this so don’t come after us, and, as always, we’ll put all the credits in the video description.”
“Special shoutout to Jungkook, though, who was not allowed to be here with us for this momentous occasion.”
Namjoon laughs. “I’m sure he’s having plenty of fun at home.” You both pause. “That’s not—I’m not implying anything with that! I just meant—you know, like. He’s hanging out and enjoying his day off.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Moving on. I have two copies of this. Do you want your own?”
You grin, wicked and wide. “Nah, just read it to me.”
“Making me do all the work,” he huffs. “Typical.”
“There’s a stack of papers in front of you that might say otherwise.”
It’s clear you catch him off-guard. He cocks an eyebrow, opens and shuts his mouth a few times like a goldfish. An obvious question sits on the tip of his tongue: You think you’d be in charge? Instead he coughs, jerks his head to the side, and says, “I guess we’ll see.”
It sounds like a challenge.
Thirty seconds is all you get before Namjoon’s shuffling his stack of papers and clearing his throat. Asking if you’re ready and jumping right into it once you say you are. Reads the first few lines like they’re some old lecture notes, and they’re conservative and safe-for-work enough that you start to relax.
And then Namjoon reads, “A louder one wonders if Namjoon is a pet name person—if he’d call her ‘honey,’ or ‘gummy bear,’ ‘babe,’ or ‘baby,’” and you choke.
“Gummy bear?”
Namjoon laughs along with you—the weird one that almost sounds like a dog panting. “You want me to call you gummy bear?”
“I want you to call me a Lyft,” you snark. “I’m leaving.”
He continues:
And that’s how it starts, wandering thoughts, wandering fingers—the first time Piper comes to the thought of Namjoon calling her baby, pushing inside her, showing her that he definitely doesn’t beg, but she does… Well, she’s a little ashamed. She’s apparently got a reputation to maintain, anyway, not to mention a friendship.
His eyes leave the paper and lock onto you. “Or maybe you’d prefer baby?”
“Fuck off.”
Weeks after that first time, it’s become a habit, thinking about Namjoon as something more than a friend. It’s confusing and a little mortifying and it’s starting to affect her in ways she hadn’t expected. When they record, she feels fidgety—she’s jumpy when he gets close, has all the stupid obvious tells of an unwanted crush: her breath hitches when he whispers (why the fuck is he whispering in her ear, anyway? Doesn’t he know what that does to a person?) inside jokes to her so Jungkook can’t hear, her heart rate spikes when their fingers accidentally brush, she feels itchy and hot and a little embarrassed whenever he holds eye contact with her. It’s terrible, and it’s only made worse by the way he’s doing all of those things more than usual. Or, at least she thinks he is, thinks she’s not imagining the way his eyes linger on her more than she can remember happening before or the way she’s caught him staring at her lips when she chews on the end of her pencil mindlessly. 
You’ve completely forgotten how to breathe.
Namjoon’s staring again. You need to salvage this. He’s only on paragraph three and you’re already squirming in your chair and imagining things that are not appropriate. So you roll your lips, return his teasing. “Well? Do you stare at my lips?”
It works. “No,” he scowls.
“You sure?” you joke, morphing your face into something half-pout, half-duck face.
“We’re never gonna finish this if you keep making comments.”
“You started it,” you point out. “Go on, then.”
There’s some dialogue. Some prose that hits way too close to home, has you wondering who on earth wrote this and how they plucked every single thought from deep within your psyche. A pang of fear that maybe you haven’t been as subtle as you’d thought all these years. A moment to confirm to yourself that, no, you haven’t been harboring a secret, deeply-buried crush on Namjoon.
Then he reads—
And then he kisses her. It’s greedy and hot, his lips like a branding iron. She moans a little against her better judgment when he licks at the seam of her mouth, and in return, she can feel Namjoon’s lips curve into a smile against her own. It’s better than she’d been imagining it, really. He’s a good kisser—firm at the right times, soft when she needs it, careful but not cautious. He holds her jaw with one hand and keeps her right where he wants her beneath him (as if she’d want to move, anyway).  When their lips finally part, he rests his forehead on hers. It’s intimate in a way she hadn’t expected, and he looks at her as if she’s the answer to every question. Finally, he whispers, “What’re we doing, Piper?” His lips are still wet and pink and a little swollen from kissing, and she barely hears the question—she’s too busy thinking about kissing him again, about pulling his plump bottom lip between her teeth, teasing and…  “Kissing,” she says finally.  “What do you want?” he asks, sinking to his knees in front of her. And if that alone isn’t an answer to his question… “Whatever you’re willing to give,” she replies. It feels like she’s wanted this forever, this and so much more. Once she got the idea in her head, it’s hard to know if she ever felt differently, ever truly thought they could just be friends. Or, if in the back of her mind, in the dark corners that she never lets see daylight, she always knew she wanted Namjoon. Always knew she loved him.
—and everything goes right out the fucking window.
Namjoon sits with those words for a moment. Scans the paper in his hands and frowns a little when he confirms what you already know. “The rest is, uh. Porn.”
“That is why we’re here.”
“Last chance to back out.”
“I’m not scared,” you lie. “Are you? You’re the one who keeps stalling.”
He huffs. “You’re a pain in my ass,” he retorts, and then nothing is all that funny anymore.
Because Namjoon was right: the rest is straight-up porn. He’s barely able to read the part where he goes down on you with a straight face, turning a deep shade of crimson. Stutters through the part where you pull his hair, and that is not something you needed to know about your friend. You think he loses his grasp of language entirely when he reads, “When he slides a long finger into her and brushes past her most sensitive spot, she arches into him and lets his name fall from her lips in a soft cry. Piper, notorious skeptic, is a babbling, trembling mess as she gets closer to her orgasm,” because all the words are garbled together, producing nothing but gibberish. You think he’s ready to keel over and die when he reads, “Namjoon pulls away briefly, lips slick with her juices, and licks over his top one, pausing to tell her how good she tastes before he dives back in.”
“That was nice of them to include. I appreciate their attention to detail in regards to my personal hygiene.”
“This is so embarrassing,” he whines.
You roll your eyes good-naturedly. “Gimme. I’ll finish it.” He hands over the papers immediately.
Except you regret it immediately. The words you’re staring at are not words you ever thought you’d read or recite in your entire life. Not even for a million dollars. “Oh,” you say instead.
“See? Not as easy as it looks.”
“This is really embarrassing,” you confirm. “I might need another shot.”
“Y-yeah. Alcohol sounds good.”
Namjoon staggers forward obligingly, looks completely fucked out and pliant, willing to do whatever she asks. She remembers the sounds he made when she pulled his hair, wonders if he likes being bossed around, if he wants her to tell him what to do, to be a little mean to him. Maybe it’s different from her dreams, maybe he will beg her. She wants him so badly, she’d do anything for him. So, she pulls his briefs down to expose his absurdly large member, already mostly hard, and slaps it. Gently at first to see how he’ll react, and when he shudders and jerks his hips, she does it again, a little harder. “Look at you,” she whispers, “such a needy boy.”  He whimpers at that, eyes pleading. “Please, Piper…” he whines.   “Please what?” “Please let me fuck you,” he begs. She wants to, wants him so much, wants to feel him stretch her open, and from the looks of his cock, thick and long and drooling with precum, he could. “Should I?” she asks. She musters all her confidence to keep the condescending tone up. It feels wrong given how desperate she is to get him inside her, but it also seems to be getting him worked up and equally as desperate. “Do you even know what to do with that big, stupid cock?”  Namjoon’s cock twitches, and he begs, “I—I’ll fuck you so good, Piper…. I know how, I promise. Just… please?”
“Oh my god,” the two of you say in unison.
You so badly want to ask if this is biographical. How Namjoon feels about a little degradation; what he’d do if someone actually called his cock stupid. Ifsomeone has called his cock stupid. You dare a glance at him and conclude that someone’s had to. Namjoon just has that kind of energy.
But you can’t ask because it’d be weird, so you keep reading.
“How do you want me?” she asks softly when their lips part. There’s a wild look in his eyes, like he’s processing all the possible options out of everything he’s considered. And then it occurs to her. “Have you imagined this before? Thought about how you’d fuck me?” she teases him as she stands, stepping into him. Piper pushes one hand through his hair, brushing it back off of his forehead and wraps her other around his dick, squeezing a little for emphasis on her words. “Yes,” he groans as she strokes him, thumbing at the head of his cock. “Tell me what you want, then. Want me on all fours for you? Want me to show you how it’s done, to let you lay back and ride you so you don’t have to put in any work?” Namjoon’s breathing is getting heavy, pupils blown wider with each suggestion. 
“I told you!” you shriek, laughing in between the words. “I told you I’d…” And then your gloating tapers off, because what happens next has your brain malfunctioning.
“All of that,” he whines as she lets go of his hair and brings her hand down to run a fingertip over his perineum. “Want all of that. Want to bend you over the table and fuck you right here. Hear your sounds in the microphone.” Even in her dirtiest thoughts about him, she hadn’t considered the microphone, hadn’t considered recording it. When she thinks about it though, it makes sense. Namjoon is exactly the kind of person that would get off to someone’s voice. So, she does. She makes a show of turning around and slowly bending over the table, sliding her upper body across it carefully until she can reach her microphone and turn it on. When she says into it, “What’re you waiting for?” she sees over her shoulder the way that Namjoon shivers.
This is… not good. You’re never going to be able to look at a microphone the same way, which is extremely not good for a person who supplements their income with a very popular podcast that requires them to speak into a microphone for extended periods of time.
This is very, very bad.
Namjoon must be thinking the same, because he lets out a strangled a-haaa that’s less of a laugh and more a plea to God, the gods, the entire gamut of higher powers that might be able to save him. No one’s going to, you think, staring down at the paper again. This godless piece of fanfiction will be preserved on the internet forever, will be seared into your mind forever, and no amount of praying is going to erase it.
“I should, uh. Just read the rest, yeah? Get it over with?”
“Mhm. Yep. Yes, please.”
Don’t say please, you almost say. You can’t take it; not after what you’ve just read.
So you put on a show. Steel your expression and your nerves and take it seriously. Use voices and sound effects and desperately try to stave off the awkwardness you know is inevitable because a smut fic is probably only going to end one way, and that’s with you acting out Namjoon having an orgasm.
Maybe you’ll have another one, too, if the author is nice.
It’s sweet, she thinks, the way he’s easy for her, takes his time with her. Strokes his fingertips along her sides and kisses the back of her neck reverently. As much as she loves it, part of her hopes he’s not always like this—hopes he’ll give as good as he takes, hopes he’ll put her in her place. She can feel his cock hard against the cleft of her ass, not even inside her yet, and still, she thinks about next time and the time after that. “Still okay?” He breathes into her ear as his tip rubs against her cunt.  “Yeah—want you, Joon.”  “Never thought I’d hear you say those words.”  “I never thought you’d record them,” she teases, eyes glancing up to the flashing light showing the mic picking up all of this as he starts his slow slide into her.  Piper falls even further forward when he bottoms out, letting her forehead rest on the table. He’s whispering filth in her ear, about how he has something to prove, how she’ll never want anyone after this, how no one can fuck her the way he does.  She hates that he’s right.  Each stroke brings a new sensation: sparklers, butterflies, nerve endings on fire as he fucks into her and licks and sucks at her neck, her shoulders, her ear. Piper can’t even think, and this is what people mean when they talk about being fucked stupid, she decides.  It’s perfect.  Every time she thinks she’s getting close again, he changes something: fucks her a little shallower, moves his hips just a little, slows down, speeds up… It’s driving her crazy.  “Come on,” she whines. “I’m so close…” At least she can tell he is, too. No longer able to sustain the dirty talk, he’s breathing heavily, letting out broken moans and sighs of her name. He’s moving rhythmically now, thrusts consistently faster.  “Oh, fuck, Piper,” he groans, “Gonna cum.” One of his hands finds her clit and he rubs careful circles over her, bringing her to her peak along with him, no more teasing.  When she comes, it’s with a loud moan into the studio mic, and that seems to be what tips Namjoon over the edge, too. His hips stutter into hers as he comes, her cunt clenching around him for what feels like forever.
You deserve an award, you think. An Oscar. You didn’t even groan when you had to read the word “cunt,” and that’s a feat in and of itself.
“Is it over?” Namjoon asks, words muffled by the hands covering his face.
“Not quite,” you answer. “There’s some aftercare, and at the end you ask if I’ll piss on you.”
Namjoon gags. “I asked you what—”
“Today’s episode has been brought to you by Stamps-dot-com—”
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HOLY SHIT THE NEW PATREON EPISODE???????? Posted by u/pod-shipper 4 minutes ago NO WAY. NOOOOOOO FUCKING WAY DUDE THERE’S NO FUCKING WAY THEY DID THIS AS AN ACTUAL EPISODE WHAT THE FUCK WHAT HTE FUCK WHAT EHTU FKF DFGLKDG;L (+705) I wasn’t sure if they were messing around before, and I was quite critical of the “shippers,” but now I’m pretty convinced. (+423) ↳ we’ve been telling y’all for YEARS 😤 (+197) ↳ Glad you’ve seen the light, u/RandomAcorn2058! (+5) ↳ ugh. they weren’t messing around before and they aren’t messing around now. do you guys not listen to what they say? namjoon’s been dating, and piper got out of a six-year relationship just over a year ago. if they’ve had something going on for “years” that means they’re both cheaters, and that’s a really shitty thing to assume about them. not to mention it makes the entire point of the podcast moot. (-63) Why do you guys think Jungkook “wasn’t allowed” to be there? (+314) ↳ So they could fuck lmao it’s so obvious (+329) ↳ because it’s awkward af? would you wanna read porn about yourself w all your coworkers in the room? (+2) ↳ the “it’s awkward” excuse is sooooo lame he’s the one who found it and is the one who edited the episode, he’s gonna see it regardless. (+15) ↳ Tbh I’m more curious about how he even found it to begin with? Do they have a throuple thing going on? Like, why was he looking for smut fic about his bosses? (+38)
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You do not get through recording unscathed.
You are very scathed. Perhaps the most scathed a person has ever been.
Jungkook texts the group chat sporadically throughout the week, cracking jokes and making memes at your and Namjoon’s expense which is par for the course and shouldn’t have you off-kilter, but something inside you feels deeply wrong. Feels like someone’s given you devastating news; feels like it used to back in uni when you knew you’d failed an exam and were just waiting to see how badly.
It both helps and doesn’t that the internet is so invested. All the clips Jungkook keeps posting have re-doubled your Patreon numbers, and jumping up a tax bracket never hurt anyone, you included. But all of those jokes and memes largely went unanswered by both you and Namjoon, still too close to the incident to find the humor in it from the other side.
The two of you had sex.
Not literally, of course, but you figure you might as well have with the way you’re feeling. The way you’re avoiding one another. Someone wrote a story about the two of you having sex and you both read it and something about that, days later, feels really fucking unsettling.
In a bad way? You aren’t sure. It’s not like you’re mad or upset or any other synonym. You just feel… off. Itchy from the inside out, and that’s far from the norm in your and Namjoon’s friendship. In all the years you’ve known one another, you’ve never once avoided each other, including the time you’d set him up with a close friend and he showed up 45 minutes late to their date and ghosted after.
(Unsurprisingly, that friendship had not lasted.)
Maybe it’s because Yoongi had always been there as a buffer. You aren’t of the belief that men and women cannot be platonic friends, but being in a years-long committed relationship nixed a lot of awkward interactions and assumptions off the bat. Even Namjoon had known Yoongi first. Had introduced himself to you in your shared 100-level psych course with a, “Hey, you’re Min Yoongi’s girlfriend, right?” because they ran in the same underground circles and Namjoon had idolized him from afar for years.
Pretty fucked up, then, that Yoongi’s off in Los Angeles with his hot new boyfriend and you’re on your couch, Holly at your feet, pointedly ignoring your texts.
“I’m gonna get a cat,” you say to the dog, trying to redirect his attention when he starts chewing on your sock again. Holly doesn’t offer any input, of course, and he’s a lot like his father in that way. “I can’t believe you have a stepfather. You’re a proper child of divorce now, Min Holly.”
There are a pile of unread texts you continue to ignore in lieu of showing Holly pictures of adoptable cats. A few more memes from Jungkook, one from Namjoon’s new phone asking to move the recording date a few days because “something came up at work,” one from the food delivery service you admittedly use too much offering 10% off your next order, and two from Yoongi. This reminded me of you, the first one says beneath a picture of an ice cream cone on the ground, and another one of him holding a water gun that says send me a picture of my son or else.
You eventually reply back with a picture of your middle finger, Holly nothing but a blurred brown blob in the corner of the frame.
That’s how it goes for the better part of a week. Namjoon’s work issue lasts four days. He doesn’t offer an explanation and you don’t ask for one, you just wait for the all-clear text and try to quiet the nerves once you get it.
You’ve never been nervous to see Namjoon before.
The more popular the podcast became, the more money rolled in. The more money that rolled in, the more you could afford nicer things. That meant going from recording in Namjoon’s living room to a bona fide office space. Third floor, an expanse of windows and natural light, thirty-five minute commute by train.
Today, it feels more like thirty-five seconds.
You can hear Jungkook’s witch cackle from the stairwell, and your mind fills in the blanks of Namjoon’s exasperated sigh. It helps, your brain reminding you that you know these people. You know this is Jungkook’s late gym day, so he’ll be in a pair of sweats and a hoodie that drowns his frame. You know that when Namjoon has work issues and feels like an inconvenience, he always shows up with two boxes of baked goods from the bakery near his place, and you know both of them will save the best donut for you.
So you walk in and Jungkook’s in a hoodie and sweats just like you expect him to be, and there are two boxes of baked goods next to the coffee machine. Both of them say hello and wave and, for all intents and purposes, everything is normal.
Except it isn’t.
Because Namjoon looks… different.
Not in a bad way. Not in a bad way. He almost always dresses nicely, always looks polished and put-together, usually because he’s either going to or coming from campus—fitted shirts, either of the tee or dress variety, and earth-toned cardigans; tailored trousers that are sometimes corduroy; polished loafers. Sometimes, if he’s feeling extra casual, a stark white pair of tennis shoes.
Today, he wears none of those things.
No, today torture comes in the form of form-fitting jeans and a t-shirt a little oversized so he can roll the sleeves. His hair is brushed back off his face instead of parted down the middle. He’s wearing gold jewelry that glints in the sun. A pair of off-white Converse high-tops. And, much to your horror, he’s also wearing his glasses.
According to the internet, Kim Namjoon is peak husband material, which you can usually ignore, but not when he’s wearing glasses.
You avert your gaze, convinced you’ll burst into flames if you stare too long, not to mention Jungkook will notice and that’s a ribbing you’d rather die than take. So you avert your gaze and pointedly ignore Namjoon, who’s talking about his work crisis to no one in particular. Something about a co-worker going on an unexpectedly early paternity leave, and Namjoon being asked to cover some of his courses until they could find a more permanent fix.
Jungkook asks a question you don’t catch. Because paternity leave means his co-worker and his partner had a baby, presumably via old-fashioned methods, and it’s not a direct mention of sex but it’s close enough to send you into a coughing fit you have to blame on your donut. Neither of them buy it, but Namjoon is a good enough person to look genuinely concerned. Reaches out, probably to slap your back, but the thought of him touching you is just… too much.
So he barely gets out an, “Are you o—” before you choke down whatever’s left in your mouth and cut him off with a, “Yep, all good!” before you’re scurrying off to the opposite side of the room like a little rat.
It doesn’t get any better.
Both of you are so stilted and awkward during recording that Jungkook has to be the voice of reason and call it, suggest trying again tomorrow. Luckily he has enough b-side stuff he can release if need be, Namjoon’s work emergency providing a decent cover, and he sends the two of you home for the afternoon with all the exasperation and incredulity of a disappointed parent.
Thirty-five minutes back home.
Thirty-five minutes to sit in the embarrassment of not being able to do your job. Thirty-five minutes to catastrophize and wonder what you’re going to do if you can’t get it together. Namjoon will keep the podcast, of course; you’ll be replaced with someone else. Maybe someone less cynical, maybe someone more, but undoubtedly a man. After this mess, you can’t imagine Namjoon would want another female co-host.
But as embarrassed as you are, your traitorous brain keeps thinking about Namjoon.
Thirty-five minutes to think about his glasses and his rolled-up sleeves and the way the denim of his jeans contoured perfectly to his thighs. Thirty-five minutes to think about, “Please let me fuck you,” he begs. Thirty-five minutes to squeeze your thighs together and overanalyze the way he stumbled over his words today; how he could barely make eye contact. Thirty-five minutes to draft a dozen resignation texts and delete them all.
You groan, head thunking against the train window. You’ll take a cold shower as soon as you get home.
That’ll cure you.
You get home and walk Holly so long he gives up halfway through and you have to carry him back to your apartment. You take a cold shower and actually find it pleasant once the initial shock wears off, so it doesn’t work to keep all your rogue Namjoon thoughts at bay. You make a simple dinner and don’t think about Namjoon sitting you on the counter and having his way with you. You tuck yourself into bed far too early and consider going back to therapy, because clearly something very, very bad has happened to your psyche.
Needless to say, nothing cures you.
But it’s a new day, and you’re determined to get your shit together. Yesterday was a fluke, because you’re so normal and so capable of being in the same room as Kim Namjoon.
Except—you’re not.
Jungkook’s there when you arrive, mindlessly scrolling through his phone. Barely looks up at you to say hello, and barely returns it when you do. You double-check the time, because you can count on two fingers the amount of times you’ve shown up and Namjoon wasn’t already there, jotting down extensively-detailed notes, circling and highlighting and chasing down Jungkook to ask questions.
“Where’s Namjoon?”
Jungkook shrugs. “Dunno. Not here.”
You roll your eyes. “Super helpful, thanks.”
Jungkook rolls his eyes right back. “You don’t pay me enough to also be his handler.”
You bite your tongue. Arguing with Jungkook means you’ve already lost the war. Not worth it. But it still eases your worries a bit that he doesn’t know any more than you do. That Namjoon hadn’t only texted him to say why he was running late because he didn’t want to—or couldn’t—talk to you.
So you wait. And you wait and you wait and you wait. Jungkook lets you talk to people on his dating apps and tells you about his new gym routine until your eyes are glazing over. Orders food delivery for the two of you because he gets hungry after an hour and had already eaten what was left of the snacks before you arrived. Cracks a joke that isn’t really a joke about calling the police, because Namjoon still hasn’t shown up and he hasn’t said anything and none of your texts are showing as delivered.
You’re halfway to hour two when the office door bursts open and Namjoon stumbles through, soaked with sweat and stammering over apologies.
“I am so sor—I broke my phone again so my alarm never went off and then I missed my bus? And apparently they’re not running the regular bus schedule today so the next one was a half-hour wait, but then I…”
You don’t catch the rest, because Namjoon is covered in sweat and breathing heavily and a week ago you could’ve survived this. A week ago you would’ve cracked a joke and handed him a towel and told him to get to work. A week ago you would not have been paralyzed in your seat, transfixed on the sweat rolling down the side of his neck.
You are fucked beyond belief.
Jungkook elbows you in the ribs, bringing you back to reality. “...even paying attention?” You startle, face warming in embarrassment. Namjoon still isn’t looking at you. “This is so sad to watch,” Jungkook mumbles, and thankfully it’s only loud enough for you to hear. “Like some stupid shit you only see in nature documentaries.”
Well, you can’t really argue with that, now can you?
But you’re a professional above all, so you hum an acknowledgment and take your regular seat. Pointedly ignore Jungkook. Wait for Namjoon to assume his position as well, and you’re surprised to see the space in front of him empty. No notes. No script. There’s just… nothing.
“Are you okay?” you ask, gesturing to the space in front of him when he seems confused. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without a stack of notes in front of you.”
“I forgot them.”
“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you do that, either.”
Your tone is light and airy, not at all accusing or confrontational, but Namjoon’s jaw clenches nonetheless. He scoffs, fires a shitty little, “Were you not paying attention when I was talking about what a horrible fucking morning I’ve had?” at you that makes even Jungkook flinch. A few moments of stunned silence, and then, “Oh fuck, I’m so sorry, that was rude—”
“Yeah, it was,” you agree, and all of a sudden you feel too big for your body. Feel like there are ants beneath your skin, feel like everything is wrong, and you don’t want to be here anymore. “It’s fine. Let’s just—”
Namjoon looks like he wants to argue, but he just sighs and says, “I—yeah, okay.”
This is where Namjoon would usually launch into the intro, a dimpled smile already plastered on his face that’d drop as he discussed another failed first date with that brand of self-deprecation that makes him so endearing. This is where he’d say what have you been up to, Pipe, and you’d try not to groan because how hard could it possibly be to add one more letter, another syllable, but Namjoon seems incapable of it. This is the part that, for three years, has been seamless and easy and instinctual, just two friends having a conversation.
There’s a red light on your microphones that indicates you’re recording. It’s on and it mocks you, because Namjoon is not doing the intro or telling you about a failed date. He doesn’t use that cringey nickname. He doesn’t say anything at all. His mouth opens and shuts and no words come out. What’s worse is that you know exactly why he can’t speak, because you’re thinking about it, too.
“So, uh,” you begin, and Jungkook makes a gagging sound from behind you. “Come here often?”
Namjoon ignores you. “Right, right, the intro…” He sucks in a breath. “Welcome back to another episode of Put Him in the Trash, I’m—”
“Joon—”
“Namjoon, and my co-host here is—”
“Joon, that’s not—”
“Piper. Wait, why are you looking at me like that?”
“That’s not the name of our podcast.”
“Huh?”
“You said Put Him in the Trash.” Namjoon just blinks. “It’s Place Him Gently in the Garbage.”
“Is it? Since when?”
“Since forever?”
He looks at Jungkook, who is hiding behind his hands. “Is she right?”
A beat of silence. “I can’t do this,” he half-shouts, half-whines. “Are you two going to be like this forever? Because if you are, I’m quitting. I’m so serious. I’m gonna quit. I can’t take it anymore. The two of you are insufferable.” Another beat of silence, before Jungkook stands at full height and lords over you and Namjoon. “Forget today. Just go home and try again on Monday. This is so—I’m seriously gonna quit.”
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Yoongi comes on Saturday afternoon to pick up Holly.
Yijeong isn’t with him, which is almost disappointing. Now that he’s dating again, you were looking forward to seeing just how awkward it could get with the three of you in the same room, but he looks good. Refreshed. The trip clearly did a world of good for him, and you can’t even bring yourself to crack a joke at his expense.
He, however, has no such hang-ups. “You look like shit.”
“Weird way to say thank you.” You click your tongue and look down at Holly. “Do you see how your father treats me? You should bite him.”
“My son would never. But also, thank you.” He flops onto the sofa. “You do look like shit, though. You wanna talk about it?”
“Not with you, preferably.”
“Oh, gross, is it a dating thing, then?”
“I—no.” You pause. It’s not a dating thing, but you still feel like you’ve got motion sickness whenever you think about it. How would you even begin to explain this to Yoongi, anyway? Someone wrote a porn fic about me and Namjoon. You remember Namjoon, right? Namjoon, that I’ve known and have been friends with since college. Yeah, that Namjoon. Anyway, someone wrote fanfiction about us having sex, and it fucked me up so bad I can no longer be in the same room as him.
No fucking way.
“You look like you’re holding in a fart.”
“You know, I’m getting really sick of you. Did you just come here to insult me?”
He snorts, but his smirk dissipates a few seconds later, a familiar seriousness filling the void. “We’re okay, right? Was the Yijeong thing too soon?”
“No,” you answer immediately, leaning over to flick him on the forehead. “We’re fine, and if you’re happy, then I’m happy for you.” He still looks doubtful. “You want me to start singing ‘I Will Always Love You’ or something? It’s just… weird work stuff.”
“Depends. Are you singing the Dolly Parton or Whitney version? And real work or podcast work?”
“Podcast work, and obviously the Whitney version.”
Yoongi seems surprised by this, eyebrows disappearing beneath his fringe. “Like, the podcast with Namjoon?” He presses his tongue into the fat of his cheek when you nod your head. “Not gonna lie, I didn’t think that was possible.”
“Like I said, it’s weird. It wasn’t, like, an argument or anything.”
“How weird?”
“You’re so fake, Min Yoongi. You act like you’re so distinguished and above drama, but really you’re just as hungry for gossip as the rest of us.”
He shrugs. “I’m not denying it.”
God help you, you’re going to rip off the band-aid. “Someone… Jesus, this is so embarrassing. Someone… wrote? Fanfiction? About us.”
“About you and Namjoon?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh my god—”
“About us… uh. Having sex? Specifically.”
“Oh my god—”
“Jungkook found it and thought it’d be funny if we read it for an episode.”
“Oh my god?”
“So we did? And it was really weird, which I expected, because I’ve known Namjoon for a long time, and I never, ever thought about having sex with him because we were together and me and Namjoon are friends, so yeah, it was fucking weird. But now… I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking about it? And now we can’t even be in the same room as one another.” Yoongi is a concerning shade of red. “So our show is gonna get canceled, because we can only release b-side stuff for so long until people realize something’s up, and it was Namjoon’s podcast to begin with so obviously I’ll get fired—”
“Oh my god, you want to fuck Namjoon.”
Yoongi sounds like a strangled cat when he says this, which does not help the way you feel like you’ve been hit square in the face with a frying pan. “No,” you argue, though it sounds more like a question. You do not want to fuck Namjoon. “No, no. No. It’s just because it was weird.”
“Did you forget I dated you for six years? I know what you look like when you want to fuck someone.”
“You’re telling me you wouldn’t be weird if someone wrote fanfiction about you fucking your friend?”
“Not if I didn’t actually want to fuck them, no.”
“You’re a liar. Get your dog and get out of my apartment.”
Yoongi laughs as he stands. Pats you on the back in the most condescending way you’ve ever had someone pat you on the back. “Let me know how it goes. No need to give me credit for your moment of horny clarity.”
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Min Yoongi is a bastard.
Unfortunately, as you come to find out, he’s also a correct bastard.
You want to fuck Namjoon.
Which is… not great, you have to admit, considering he can barely stand to be around you, so you take another cold shower and decide you’re going to take this to your grave. You’re going to spend the rest of the weekend getting your shit together, and you’re going to show up on Monday and be a consummate professional. You’re going to look at Namjoon and say, ha ha, isn’t it so funny someone thought we would have sex? I don’t think about it at all because I am so cool and normal about it.
You’ve got it all planned out. You’re going to show up fifteen minutes early with your own box of pastries. You’re going to look nice, if not a little pretentious—maybe a nice sweater. You’re going to be prepared with notes of your own. You might even be nice to the villain of the week so Namjoon doesn’t have to pinch the bridge of his nose and sigh at you.
And then someone knocks on your door.
You find Namjoon on the other side, and all your plans immediately go to shit.
Has he always been this tall? You can’t remember. You can’t remember a lot of things, including how to speak, because Yoongi had launched you into a crisis of epic proportions and now here’s the source of it, standing right in front of you. With all of his… height. And thighs. And that heady, musky cologne he always wears, that you can still smell now even though there’s an unfortunate amount of distance between you.
“Uh, hi.”
You blink. “Hi,” you parrot, and it’s a little insulting how one single word seems to have sucked up all of your brainpower. “Namjoon,” you tack on, not awkward at all.
“Sorry to just show up,” he says, scratching at the back of his neck. Very bad idea; makes his biceps bulge. You barely swallow your whimper. “It’s just—my phone’s still broken, and it felt bad leaving things how we did? So I was hoping we could talk.”
Talk. Namjoon wants to talk to you. Normally: not a problem. Currently: big problem. You manage a nod, open the door wider to let him in, and you don’t think about how jarring it is to have Namjoon in your space. You don’t think about how your legs feel like jelly all of a sudden, or what it’d be like if Namjoon bent you over the couch, or the kitchen counter, or the—
You cough. “Do you want anything to drink?”
“Oh, sure. Maybe just some water if you have it.”
If you have it. What kind of person doesn’t have water? But you tell him to make himself comfortable and get him some anyway, and you mull too long over the size of the glass. Ultimately decide on a smaller one, because if things get unbearably awkward you can excuse yourself to the kitchen to get more.
“I haven’t been here in a while,” Namjoon says from the living room, and when you look up he’s sorting through a stack of books near the window. Some he’d lent you months ago, notes jotted in the corners, sticky notes in the shape of sea animals on important pages. “You ever wind up reading this?”
The Idiot. Namjoon had raved about it when he was in the midst of his 19th century Russian phase, right after he’d read a bunch of Tolstoy and Pushkin. You shake your head—though, judging from the title, you wonder if someone hadn’t written your biography.
“It’s good. If you have the time, you should definitely give it a shot.”
“Yeah, of course,” you say, handing over his water. You take a seat in an armchair, pull your knees to your chest. Namjoon’s still looking through your books, isn’t looking at you, so it feels safe to say, “You wanted to talk?”
“Yeah.” He moves to sit on the floor, massive thighs spreading until he’s comfortable. Thank god he can’t see the look on your face. “I just wanted to make sure we’re alright. Things have felt pretty weird since we filmed the, uh.” He coughs. “Thing.”
“Right, yeah.” You realize he’s waiting for an answer, and you offer up a very rushed, “We’re fine, Joon.”
“Are you sure?”
Yeah, you’re sure: sure you absolutely cannot be having this conversation in the safety and sanctity of your own home. It’s tainted now, contaminated by all your uncontrolled horny thoughts about the man in front of you. You’ll have to fumigate. Might have to pick up and move, actually, or call an exorcist.
“I’m sure,” you assure him. “The… thing… was weird, but it’s fine. Temporary.”
“Do you think we shouldn’t have done it?”
That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Because, in isolation, reading a porn fic about yourselves wasn’t a big deal. No one got hurt. Everyone who needed to be consulted was consulted. The episode made the two of you a lot of money, and Jungkook even promised to send some of it to the author, so your bases are beyond covered.
So, should you have done it? There wasn’t a good enough reason not to, because the story itself was never the problem.
The problem is staring you right in the face. It’s sitting on your floor, a book cracked in half at the spine and forgotten in his lap. The problem is looking at you like you hold all the answers to the universe’s secrets, and it’s no small thing to be looked at like that. The problem is that Namjoon is looking at you like that from across the room but you’re wondering what it’d look like from on top of you.
The problem is that you’ve co-hosted a podcast with Namjoon for three years, have known him even longer, and you’ve just realized today that you want to have sex with him.
And you can’t say that, can you, because Namjoon came here to fix things which really does not lend itself to a hookup. Namjoon cares about your friendship and your working relationship so much he came here to try and salvage it, so you’re going to keep your mouth shut. You’re going to say, “I think it’s okay that we did,” and leave it at that. Because it is okay.
Because you’re the problem.
It feels like a small victory when Namjoon sags in relief. When he exhales and says, “Okay, good, because I think so, too.”
“It made us a lot of money,” you tack on.
Namjoon’s eyes widen as he laughs. “Right? Like, that was almost too much money. Just to watch us read porn?”
“About ourselves. I think that was the selling point.”
He stands. You do, too. “Never thought I’d be doing that,” he says, returning the book to where it belongs. “Definitely the most embarrassing thing I’ve done for money.”
“Being a man with a podcast wasn’t embarrassing enough?”
He snorts. Gets closer to the door. “Hey now.” You’re going to survive this. “Thanks for entertaining me, by the way. For a second there I was really worried we’d fucked it all up.”
Just the ending. Just one more thing to say and you’ll be done with this, and then you can take your third cold shower in recent memory and triple text Yoongi with a full-fledged mental breakdown. Maybe he’ll bring Holly back and you can register him as your emotional support animal.
And Namjoon must sense the awkwardness that’s crept back in, because he tries to cover it with a joke. Says, “Haaa, like you’d actually piss on me, right?”
Except it sounds like he’s got a mouth full of marbles.
It’s no wonder you mishear him.
Because he says like you’d actually piss on me but you hear like you’d actually kiss me, and there isn’t a universe that exists in which the following makes sense: you, stunned into silence in the doorframe, Namjoon saying his goodbyes, you thinking fuck it, last chance and saying, “Yeah, I’d kiss you.”
Namjoon stops dead in his tracks. “What?”
Your entire body is on fire. “Is, uh. Is that not what you said?”
“I don’t think it matters anymore what I said.”
“I’d argue that it does, for the sake of my digni—”
“You’d kiss me?” Namjoon… doesn’t look put off of the idea, which is surely a point in your favor. Interesting to note that his diction is crystal clear, now. Bastard. “You’d kiss me right now?”
There’s also no explanation for the way you say: “It’s only been an option for ten seconds and you’re already begging for it?”
You’d say there’s no explanation for the way Namjoon’s jaw clenches, the way he repeats I don’t beg for anything, but maybe the simple fact is: the two of you want to fuck each other. And, judging from the way Namjoon crowds your space, keeps dropping his gaze to your mouth, it seems very likely to happen.
All that fixating you’d done on Namjoon’s thighs was wasted, you think, as you take in the shape of his mouth. His lips. The way his tongue darts out to run along the bottom at the last second before he reaches out, tilts your head up, and finally presses his mouth to yours.
And you’ve got to laugh, because no piece of written fiction could ever accurately portray what it feels like. How soft his lips are. The way he touches you—gentle, but still dominant enough to have you moving the way he wants, have you backing up into your apartment so he can smile against your mouth as he closes the door behind him.
No piece of fiction would get it right, the way you’re unsteady on your feet, breathless at the way Namjoon’s kissing you. How he only breaks apart long enough to ask where do you want me in that throaty, deep voice of his. How you’re so overwhelmed you can’t decide: unsure if you want to waste the time it’d take to get to your bedroom, but if it’s only going to happen once, wanting to make it count.
So you decide to risk it. Plant your hands in the middle of his exceptionally broad chest and push him in the direction of the hallway, and if the two of you can’t wait, can’t control yourselves, well.
But the story had gotten one thing right: Namjoon does kiss like a branding iron, hot and greedy. Namjoon kisses you like there’s nothing else he wants to do in this lifetime, and it makes you dizzy. Has you off-kilter, stumbling into the wall as you try to remember where the fuck your bedroom is and why it’s so far. Just like the fictional version of you, you also moan when he licks into your mouth.
“Should I do it the way we did in the fic?” Namjoon asks as the two of you cross the threshold into your bedroom, a cheeky grin on his face. “Do it like this?” he questions, pushing you gently until you’re on the back in the middle of your bed, chest heaving as you lift your head to look at him.
Namjoon is so, so big from where you lay, just hovering at the foot of your bed. Cheeks ruddy, bulge prominent. “What’d you say you wanted?”
Takes a second to remember how to breathe, let alone what you’d read. What do you want, Namjoon had asked, right before he’d sank to his knees in front of you. “Whatever you’re willing to give,” you answer.
Namjoon smiles. Puts one knee on the bed, and the way it dips beneath his weight is unsettling. Why does he have to be so fucking large. “That’s right, baby.” Christ, you think, because there’s another thing that fic had gotten right. No one on earth would be immune to Namjoon calling them baby in that tone of voice.
The riposte biting at the back of your teeth gets swallowed whole as Namjoon grabs your ankles and drags you to the edge of the bed. “May I?” he asks, hands poised above the waistline of your leggings. You nod, and Namjoon drags down your underwear with them. “Fuck, look at you,” he groans, awe creeping into the edge of his words.
“You want me to do it the same way? Hm? You’re being awfully quiet; thought you were giving me shit about being the one in charge,” he chides.
Because you’re short-circuiting. Namjoon’s on his knees, just like you’d envisioned, and his mouth is dangerously close to your cunt. How can you be expected to think and speak under these conditions? But if Namjoon can find the brainpower to be a bastard, so can you, because what you’d read and the way he’d reacted can both never be forgotten. So you thread your hands into his hair and pull. The resulting moan is enough to sustain you for years.
“Are you gonna keep running your mouth, or are you gonna make me come on it?”
He blinks. “Jesus Christ.”
There’s precedent. Fictional Namjoon ate you out like a man starved, like he couldn’t get enough. Had fictional you writhing and insatiable, so it’s a lot to live up to, but it doesn’t deter him in the slightest. He hesitates for only a second, giving you one last chance to back out before the two of you set every last boundary on fire, and then he’s settling between your thighs and making you see stars.
Now you know what it’s like. Now you don’t have to rely on fiction, and it doesn’t matter because it’d never compare to the way Namjoon feels as he works to bring you to your ruin. The way he flattens his tongue to lick long, thick stripes; the way his lips suction around your clit. The way it feels when he groans against your core. The way he says, “Fuck, you do taste good,” like that’s a completely normal thing to say. Like he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing to you.
But you need more and Namjoon knows it. His mouth doesn’t leave your cunt for a second, but his fingers find your mouth, so you put on a show. Wrap your lips around them, suck on them the way he’s doing to you, make sure they’re slick. Namjoon groans again, doubles his efforts. Slides one thick finger inside of you and barely lets you adjust before he’s adding a second.
In an embarrassingly short amount of time, Namjoon has you unraveling. Presses incessantly on a spot that has your vision whiting out. Has you trembling, a little panicked as you say, “Joon, fuck—Namjoon, wait—” as it builds and builds and builds.
You might black out for a second, because you come to and Namjoon looks… stunned. He looks like he can’t believe any of what just happened, and you blink a few times, try to come back into your body, and when you regain enough consciousness, you’re extremely aware of the large wet patch beneath you.
“Um—”
“Holy shit.”
“Namjoon, that’s not—that’s embarrassing—can you grab a—”
He shuts you up with a kiss. Presses the taste of you into your skin, and all those silly protests die in your throat, because if Namjoon was needy before, he’s desperate now. Covers your body with his own, hips dipping down low enough to press his erection into the juncture of your thigh, and the weight of him is delicious. Has you fisting the fabric of his t-shirt to pull him closer, has you pulling it over his head, his pants following. Has your hands skimming down every thick part of his body until you reach his cock, hard and aching and slick with pre-cum.
“I need to suck you off later,” you say, done with overthinking. Time to just be honest, and Kim Namjoon has a dick you need to feel down your throat. “Remind me.”
He whines, thrusts into your hand a little harder. “How could I forget that?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t know if this would be the only time,” you answer. “Did you bring a condom?” Namjoon nods, fetches one from his wallet and rolls it on.
He hovers above you again. Looks nervous, all of a sudden, like he can’t tell his lefts from his rights. All out of sorts. You’re about to tell him it’s fine, you don’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to, don’t have to do anything at all, when he says, “It doesn’t have to be.” You just stare. “The only time.”
There’s a conversation to be had. You know that. Both of you clearly have feelings you need to talk about and sort out, but you reckon they can wait. They’ll still be there in the afterglow, in the morning. So you nod, say okay, Joon, and kiss away the insecurities that still linger.
You think about the fic. Think maybe Namjoon would appreciate it if you cracked a stupid joke, just like he’d tried to do earlier. “Has anyone ever called your cock stupid?”
He laughs, breath fanning against your skin. “No. Wanna try it and see what happens?”
Might as well. You try to remember the exaggerated tone of voice you’d used. Repeat the line—“Do you even know what to do with that big, stupid cock?”—and wait.
There’s a beat of silence, and then—
Namjoon swallows thickly. “I, um. Unfortunately, I think that really works for me.” You laugh. Pull him closer. Wrap your legs around his waist as he starts to move against you. Has jokes of his own. “Please. Please let me fuck you.”
You roll your eyes, laugh tapering into a giggle. “Do you know how?” Namjoon nods, looking all too much like a puppy eager to please its owner. “Do you promise?” He nods again. “Okay. Okay, come here.”
You expect him to move fast; expect the first time to be frenzied and a little awkward. It isn’t. Namjoon lines himself up and pushes the smallest bit inside, and then he’s leaning down to kiss you. Threads your fingers together, squeezes your hand. Pushes further inside and mumbles praise just beneath your ear.
It’s dizzying, the amount of care Namjoon handles you with. How soft he is. Does nothing to ease the discomfort of the stretch, the overwhelming fullness, but he talks you through it. Tells you how good you feel, how beautiful you look. Spills a lot of words you’d probably be embarrassed to hear and he’d be embarrassed to say if this was any other time, but in the heat of the moment it all just works to unravel you faster.
He bottoms out. “Okay?” he asks, and you’re rewarded with a dimpled smile when you say you are. Namjoon is a devastating kind of beautiful.
But, as he gives you time to adjust and you give him the all-clear, he also fucks like a demon. What once was hand-holding is now your wrists pinned to the bed, your body caged beneath him as he rolls his hips at a pace that has your eyes rolling back into your head. You’ve been deceived. Lured into a false sense of security.
It’s almost a shame this isn’t being recorded, because you want to memorize all the sounds Namjoon’s making. Want to hear them for the rest of your life. Don’t want anyone else to be the reason he sounds like this, and as he ups his pace and presses his lips to your neck, you don’t want to sound like this because of anyone else, either.
Maybe one of those times in the future, you can talk him into it.
Namjoon reaches down, rubs circles into your clit. Every time you think you might be close, he pulls his hand away, smiles like the devil. You let him have his fun for a while, let him think you’re keen to lie back and take it, and then you tighten your legs around his waist and flip him onto his back.
He doesn’t think it’s very funny. Looks up at you all bewildered. “What’re you—”
“You were taking too long,” you snark. “Figured I’d take matters into my own hands.”
“Yeah? Shit,” he says as you begin to move. “Fuck, baby, like that. Ride me just like that.”
You do. Don’t change a thing, because Namjoon’s cock is long and thick enough to hit exactly where you need it to. You can feel yourself clenching, feel yourself getting wetter, and the sight of Namjoon beneath you does nothing to stave off the inevitable. He looks even better than you’d imagined: skin flushed, eyes squeezed shut, head thrown back, sweat-slick. You want to make him cry. Want to give him the entire world. You will.
Namjoon thrusts at the same time you roll your hips, and that’s what does it. Has you crying out, has stars flashing behind your eyelids. Has you saying fuck, fuck, fuck as he drives you over the edge for the second time. Has you on the brink of oversensitive as he thrusts a few more times to chase his own end, almost delirious at the way Namjoon moans as he spills into the condom.
Has you swooning, just a bit, at the dopey way Namjoon smiles at you, eyes half-lidded and crinkled at the corners.
“Was that okay?”
You snort. “Yeah, I’d say it was decent.”
“Maybe next time you could pee on me,” he jokes.
You whack him on the chest. “Sure. Or we could record it.”
Has you a little shocked at the way his cock twitches inside of you at the mention of it.
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On Monday, you don’t wear a pretentious sweater.
When you stroll in, Jungkook’s already got the best donut shoved halfway into his mouth because he’s a shithead. He eyes you warily, probably hoping with all his hope that you spent the weekend finding God and getting your shit together.
And then he realizes you’ve got on Namjoon’s hoodie and he nearly chokes to death.
“What the fuck are you wearing—”
Namjoon appears at that very moment, and it’s so hard not to take credit for the way he’s glowing, the dazed smile on his face. But Jungkook notices, because Jungkook notices everything, and his gaze darts between the two of you: your hoodie, Namjoon’s face, your face. He opens his mouth, something inappropriate bound to spill out, but Namjoon beats him to the punch. “Ready?” he asks you, and you nod.
It’s seamless.
No hiccups, no awkward stuttering. Namjoon gets through the intro without a hitch, and it feels exactly like it used to. Just two friends having a conversation. It’s obvious Jungkook still wants to say something, but after suffering through last week, he stays quiet lest he makes it worse and sends the two of you back to the bad place.
“How was your weekend, Pipe? Do anything fun?” Namjoon rolls his lips, tries not to laugh.
So you play along. “No, not really, just some dog sitting. How about you?”
“Oh, you know me. Had another first date on Saturday.”
“Did you? How’d it go?”
“Perfect.”
It’s a blessing Jungkook isn’t filming this, because your eyebrows raise so far they nearly disappear from your face altogether. There isn’t even a hint of hesitation in Namjoon’s voice, and although you would’ve described it the same way, hearing him say it with such conviction has you a little stunned. “Wow. You gonna see her again?”
“Yeah,” Namjoon says, sharing a private smile with you. “I think I am.”
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who the FUCK is namjoon dating Posted by u/pod-shipper 7 minutes ago This has honestly ruined my entire day. I thought all the stories he told about dating were a bit… Like, what kind of guy has a podcast about relationships but can’t seem to be in one? But you could just HEAR it in his voice how much he likes this woman he went on a date with over the weekend and I’m sick to my stomach. (+2195) ↳ bro you and me both 😭 i genuinely thought him and piper had something going on fr (+1302) ↳ Seriously might stop listening because of this! Any woman with self-respect would never let their partner host a podcast with someone they’re obviously in love with. If he gets serious with this woman, Piper will be gone within 6 months, mark my words. (+927) ↳ I wouldn’t worry about it too much! My cousin works at a really nice restaurant in the same city Namjoon lives in, and she said she saw this “date” on Saturday and that it wasn’t anything serious. (+788) ↳ Piper got a cat and Namjoon finally got a second date. Face it, it’s over. (+325) ↳ cannot believe him and piper aren’t dating.. do you think i should delete all my tiktok edits? (+4) ↳ this is unhinged lmfao i thought y’all hated piper? you’re in here bitching abt her being a “misandrist” every week and now ur gonna stop listening bc namjoon isn’t dating her? pick a lane and stay in it (-64)
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Thank you so much for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts, and reblogs/shares are always welcome! I appreciate you very much~ ♡
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fourmoony · 1 year ago
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𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞
james potter x f!reader
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fluff. 1.5k.
Summary: James brings home a baby. A baby that is not kidnapped.
part 2 - part 3 - part 4 - masterlist
...
James is standing in the doorway with a baby in his arms.
You’re so grateful he’s even there, that he’s made it back alive – albeit a little bloody and battered, glasses askew and his face covered in dirt – but alive nonetheless, that you don’t even notice the baby, bundled in a warm, fluffy blanket, wrapped safely in his arms. He’s bouncing his arms gently, probably trying to soothe the baby who’s making soft noises, and it’s really a sight to behold. It’s not until he steps through the doorway and gives you a nervous, lopsided smile that you fully register your boyfriend is holding a baby.
You blink. Once, twice. A third time.
James grows progressively more antsy. He chews his busted lip, winces, and then shifts back and forth on his feet. You have no idea where he could even have procured a baby. He’s been on an order mission for the past four days, scouting possible allies with the vampires whilst simultaneously moving important potions ingredients from one safe house to another, making sure the Death Eaters are always two steps behind order movements. Realistically, there’s been zero opportunity for James to come across a baby that he could just – take home.
“You’re home,” You breathe, because truly, that’s the most important part of the whole ordeal. James is here. He’s safe. He’s alive. Another mission down, and James has returned home. So, you’re glad. Grateful, unbelievably so. But also confused. Deeply confused.
“You have questions,” James is arguably calm about the situation, like he’d expected you to be eyeing him with hesitation – he was right – and he’s already rehearsed this in his head. “That’s normal.”
“Normal,” You repeat, the word tasting foreign on your tongue because nothing about this is normal. “Jamie, you’re holding a baby. Tell me we’re just like, babysitting, or something and you haven’t kidnapped someone’s child!”
James winces at your – albeit, quiet – yelling. The baby whimpers in his arms and immediately James shushes it, bouncing slightly on the spot with a desperate look in his eyes. He’s out of his depth, it’s obvious by the panicked way he’s looking between you and the baby, something pleading in his eyes.
“I didn’t kidnap her,” James argues childishly.
Okay, so, the baby is a girl. And James didn’t kidnap her. You turn and walk towards the kitchen, James follows, hot on your heels. The kitchen is a bit of a mess. There are your dishes from dinner, the bin is full, and there’s a couple of empty cartons for the recycling dotted on the counter closest to the back garden door. But James doesn’t flinch, he surveys his surroundings, but ultimately ignores the mess you’ve allowed to take over the small space in the days he’s been away.
“We were flying over Surrey when Marls spotted the dark mark over a muggle area,” James launches into explanation while you busy yourself with leaning over the sink and running the warm water. “We stopped to assess damage, but the Aurors were already there. Her family was killed, baby. The muggle government won’t touch the scene with a ten-foot pole – not that the baby had any other family, anyway, Alice already checked – and the Ministry won’t do anything except send her to an orphanage.”
The suds around your hands suddenly feel too much. The soup crusted around the side of your dinner bowl won’t come off and you scrub aggressively at it, focussing on that instead of the fact that your boyfriend has essentially just told you he’s informally adopted a child at random, without discussing it with you first.
Well, you know there was no time for him to discuss it. You can’t be mad at him for that. And, really, you can’t be angry at him, either, for bringing her to your home. She’s safe here. She’s already suffered an incredible amount of trauma, and she barely looks more than three months old. Your heart softens with your resolve, and you lift your head to look out of the window above the sink. The cottage you and James live in was a gift from his parents – a gift that had made you incredibly overwhelmed until you found out it had been under their ownership since before James was born, anyway – and has enough room for a swing set and a slide, maybe a trampoline. There’s a spare room, upstairs. Sirius will grumble about giving up his room for when he visits, but you’re sure he’ll get over it with some encouragement from Remus. The cottage is pretty much baby proof for James and Sirius’ sake, anyway. You have enough expendable income to completely kit out an emergency nursery necessary.
The argument isn’t really that you can’t afford to have a baby, or that you don’t have space for a baby. It’s that you’re nineteen, a year out of Hogwarts and in the middle of a war. Things are bad, times are scary, James is gone at least a week out of every month, you spend most of your days confined to the inside of a potions lab with Lily, making key potions that the Order need to work efficiently. You’re still kids yourselves, fighting a war that is taking everything from you.
But the way James is holding her like she’s the most precious thing he’s ever seen, rocking her, and cooing at her, you melt when you turn to face them, and it just feels – right, you suppose.
James looks up, smiles tentatively. You’ve always known he’ll be a great dad. He’s so full of light and love. When he loves, he loves with his entire heart. He loves dotingly and loyally. He’s so sure, standing there. Even though you can tell he’s trying to respect you, waiting to show his excitement until he knows how you feel, you can also see how much love he already has for this little girl, how sure he is that here, with him and with you, is the best place for her.
You take a step towards him, around the kitchen island, and hold your arms out wordlessly. He places her in your arms so gently and then watches as your eyes meet hers. They’re big and round and so blue you feel the breath hitch in your throat. She’s gorgeous. Big puffy cheeks and tufts of dark hair on her small little head. Her tiny lips are curved into a tired pout. You can’t help the smile that overcomes you. When your eyes lift – reluctantly – James is staring at you both. There’s something sickly sweet about the look in his eyes, warm like coffee, sweet like honey.
“We’re at war, Jamie,” You tell him, “Having a baby is a bad idea.”
James nods, “I know.”
A beat of silence passes. An understanding, maybe. It’s a bad time to be two nineteen-year-olds having a baby. But it’s there, in the way James looks at you. He’s never been one to have perfect timing. He asked you to be his girlfriend in the middle of an argument. He asked you to move in with him after school when the first Daily Prophet announcement about the war being confirmed happened. He’s brought a baby home out of nowhere, in the middle of said war. But it feels right. Holding her in your arms, James standing so close you can feel his warmth.
“What’s her name?” You ask, smiling sweetly at James.
He beams. He just – he beams. You know that he knows, then. You’re in. For better or worse.
“No idea. Alice had the muggle police contact the muggle social workers, who had no idea of anything about her. Bit of a mystery, really. But we get to keep her. Keep her safe, love her, raise her. So, I think it worked out. Is that bad?" James whips his head up, like his words surprised himself.
You chuckle lightly, "A little."
"What do you think we should name her?" You ask, eyes flitting back down to her. She's fallen over into sleep, blue irises gone from the world and you feel a tinge of sadness. You miss the bright blue of them, already. She's huffing softly, lips parted cutely. There's something magical about the way she's captured your heart in ten minutes flat. She might have magical powers, after all.
"Not sure. We can think on it. Our meeting with the ministry to officially adopt isn't until Monday." James speaks softly, in awe of the sight of you both.
You nod, "We better ring for Sirius and Remus, send them off for a cot, and then coax them into helping us build it."
You hand her over to James, he takes her, and then make for the phone. James stops you when he speaks, voice an amused whisper, lips pressed to her head, "They're already on their way."
"You knew I'd say yes."
"I knew you'd say yes. How could you not? Look at her." James is all honey voiced as he coos and holds the baby up for you to see and you melt.
She's the cutest thing you've ever seen. You're in awe. She's got your heart, well and truly. It's a strange feeling, to have such adoration for a human so small, who you've only just met. But you know you'll lay your life down to protect her. You'd do anything to make sure she's safe. She promises love, in the darkest time. You can already see the difference in James since returning home. He's lighter, full of smiles, gentle, happy. Usually, after missions, James is dark and brooding. He's filled with a darkness that only being a soldier can bring about.
James is looking at her so lovingly it makes you want to cry. She's happiness, and love. She's-
"Hope." You say, the ghost of a smile on your lips.
James looks up, brows furrowed, a question.
"Hope Potter." You affirm, tears in your eyes.
Your heart fills when James leans forward, presses a kiss to your lips, careful not to jostle Hope, "I love it. I love you."
"I love you. Both."
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astrobei · 1 year ago
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update just scrapped a 3k scene and i’m so sad abt it but at least i like the fic again 🥳
almost done w this lokius scene when it hits me that this is maybe the most stupid scene i have ever written in my entire life and i just have to sit here staring at the screen like Whereeeeeeeee did this idea even come from. how did we get here.
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johnbrand · 2 months ago
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Catch! (βΓΦ)
Have you ever taken a moment to consider how fraternities are still alive these days? We have seen them featured in movies, television, and more recently across social media, but what do they even stand for? Originally, they were built around the concept of brotherhood among younger men entering adulthood, inspiring “fraternal” bonds that could remain strong throughout their lifetimes. Now however, they seem to be constantly embroiled in controversy. Whether it pertains issues of hazing, rapid partying, or the classic sexual harassment, fraternities should be on their way out.
But somehow, they are still sticking around. And worse yet, they appear to be stronger than ever. Young men from around the country are flocking to these institutions–and with no common reason either. Everyone wants to find parties, but you can do that anywhere on a college campus. Everyone wants to make new adult friends, so why not join an extracurricular? Or hit up a peer in your class? There seems to be no valid excuse for all these students to be flocking towards an organized brotherhood. So that raises the question again, how are fraternities still around?
One may guess it is in the marketing. The rampant partying, the buff shirtless men, the fraternal bonds; all of these are enticing to the viewer. And to be granted all three in a package together is even more appealing. But it is much simpler than that. Thanks to modern technology–and fraternities' centuries-old bank accounts–brothers are able to recruit faster and easier than ever. Even if the public is hankering down on initiation rites, fraternities have grown past the point of lengthy periods. Their new members can join in under a minute.
Let us draw out an example. A few of fraternities sponsor a trip out to a private beach. They provide drinks, snacks, and entertainment. It is a common event, showcasing to new students some of the best aspects of being a brother. One of the fraternal brothers, Clay, is holding a football and searching for his next recipient.
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A member of Beta Gamma Phi (βΓΦ), Clay is tall, buff, and hairy, a perfect image of masculinity. From his chiseled jaw and strong stance, one can tell he has it all (like every fraternal brother does). Eventually, he spots his target: a junior specializing in mathematics.
“Catch!”
It is a simple command, and quickly the football is flying through the air. The pigskin itself appears rather ordinary, but as was mentioned before, technological and hefty financial advancements have made it anything but. Once activated by a brother’s touch, the leather absorbs the genetic print, the internal system downloading an almost identical copy. Of course, that copy cannot be completely accurate, otherwise fraternities would be running around with a bunch of clones (although some argue they already do). The imprint is just a base code, enough to replace the recipient’s genetic mainframe. The fine details are then adjusted accordingly by utilizing and recycling the remaining DNA.
Anyway, returning back to the scene, the enhanced initiation object flies toward the lonely junior. Christopher had only come here because his friend had begged him too, stating there was no reason not to partake in the festivities. A smaller-than-average lad lacking a strong will, he could often be a pushover, both in physical and social regards. So when he heard the strapping brother’s command, he did not think twice about turning around. And to his own shock, Christopher was able to catch the football, surprising himself as the leather made contact with his skin.
Once the contact is made, the fate is sealed: Beta Gamma Phi has secured its next brother. Clay’s genetic code is then rapidly installed into Christopher’s mainframe, his biological firewalls useless against the technology. Over the span of seconds, Clay is able to watch as his program is rescripted for Christopher’s body. The junior’s height soars up, easily passing the pseudo-mandatory "six feet and over" rule that all brothers silently abide by. Once that is secure, the muscles begin to inflate.
Firm pectorals, sculpted abdominals, arms that appeared engraved into stone. Christopher’s hands bloat around the football as his bare feet bloat out into the sand. Thick calves, beefy thighs, a plumper pouch and plumper rear. As Clay gets closer, he can visibly examine the flurries of hair that arise across Christopher’s previously-naked skin. Wider neck to support a deeper register, wider jaw to support a more masculine facial structure. Even Christopher’s hair, although a blonder brown compared to Clay’s almost-black, gels up into Clay’s signature hairstyle (although it was often hidden beneath a backwards baseball cap, as it was currently).
By the time Clay approaches βΓΦ’s newest brother, his genetic print had successfully completed installation. Christopher, or Chris as he would now insist to go by, held a near-identical copy of Clay’s mainframe. He displayed Clay’s musculature and masculinity, just in his own genetic font. And his mindset, values, and goals now mimicked the fraternal brother’s too. Chris would find his new purpose relishing in sports, sex, bonding with his brothers, and continuing this pattern through a career in exercise sciences. 
With a broad, pearly white smile and the football still in his right hand, Chris would then accept Clay’s invitation to join Beta Gamma Phi. Thanks to the technology, Chris would never know that he had had not once dreamed of becoming a fraternal brother, that his whole life had not been dedicated to upholding traditional masculinity. And eventually, it would be Chris and his fellow brothers’ turn to keep the fraternities alive by financing any options that would help them gain new members.
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gayeddieagenda · 2 months ago
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scene prompt game - 41: sitting close and knees touching + 😈🍻🎇
for @eddiesgaymustache <3
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“Whoa,” Buck said. “Someone’s late.”
He tilted his head back to take in the burst of light as the firework exploded overhead. Midnight had come and gone a while ago. The bar wasn’t empty yet, but it had been clearing out slowly, since the countdown and the cheering and the champagne an hour and change ago.
Hen and Karen left minutes after midnight, barely giving Buck enough time to kiss them both on the cheek. Bobby and Athena didn’t even wait for midnight; Athena announced they were celebrating on central time, kissed her husband, and said good-bye. Chimney and Maddie lasted slightly longer, but only because Buck kept trying to buy Maddie drinks and whining when she tried to remind him she had a kid to pick up from the Lees’ in the morning.
Buck and Eddie hadn’t made a move to leave.
“The year’s still new, I guess,” Eddie said.
Buck looked at him. Another firework soared through the sky and Buck watched it burst in the reflection in Eddie’s eyes.
They were the first two to the bar. After their shift let out in the afternoon, Buck drove himself home, then to Eddie’s after a shower and changing into his outfit for tonight. Eddie wasn’t dressed when Buck showed up, so Buck followed him around the house, helping him tidy and making sure Chris was actually packing his backpack for his sleepover, Buck in his dress pants and silky green button-up shirt and Eddie in his socks and t-shirt.
Buck didn’t remember the last time they had a New Year’s Eve off. The bar was Maddie’s idea, a cute rooftop bar she and Chimney found for a date night. Buck and Eddie showed up early, Eddie grabbing them a couple beers and Buck laying claim to the big booth in the corner. Eddie slid in to sit next to him, tilting one of the beers at Buck.
As the rest of the 118 and partners arrived, Buck and Eddie found themselves scooting closer and closer together to squeeze everyone in. By the time the countdown started, they were pressed together, shoulder to hip to thigh. Eddie bumped Buck’s knee with his when Buck made him laugh.
It was a fun, loud night. It was too hard for Buck or Eddie to get out of the booth once they were in it, so everyone kept bringing them drinks, more beer and complicated cocktails with fruit and umbrellas sticking out of them that Chimney insisted they try. They were a pair: Buck and Eddie, stuck together shoulder to toe, served the same drinks and answering questions for each other, Buck explaining the fight with Eddie’s neighbors about the recycling bins and Eddie answering when Karen asked why Buck texted her asking what the deal was with some article about the Webb telescope (Chris was looking for a science project).
And when everyone started to filter out, Buck and Eddie didn’t make a move to separate from each other.
Eddie knocked his knee into Buck’s. It wasn’t a particularly cool night, but Buck leaned into the warm line of Eddie’s body against his anyway.
Buck bumped his knee back. “Are you tired?”
“Nah,” Eddie said. “Not really.”
“Me neither,” Buck said.
It was a late night, but they had a lot of late nights together. Sitting in the loft at the station and waiting for something, anything to happen. Driving to a night call, when it was late enough for the traffic to finally take a break for the day. Sitting on Eddie’s couch, credits rolling across the screen, playing chicken with who would admit they needed to go to sleep first.
“I can’t believe they all went home,” Eddie said. He nodded at the empty chairs around the table without taking his eyes off Buck.
“They’re all old,” Buck said. He pressed his knee into Eddie’s again. “Not like us, right?”
Eddie laughed, low and quiet in his throat. “Not like us,” he repeated.
His smile was small, a private thing between them. His eyes were lit up with something bright and amused. Buck couldn’t stop looking at them.
The only funny moment of the evening was when the New Year’s countdown finished and the (replay) of the ball dropping played on the bar TVs and the fireworks started exploding over the heads. It was only then that Buck remembered, with sudden, startling clarity, that he and Eddie were the only single ones at this little party. Everyone yelled zero and screamed and cheered and the couples at the table all turned to kiss each other—all except Buck and Eddie.
It was fine. It was minute, not even, and then Buck was smacking a kiss on Hen’s cheek and trying to get Chimney lean close enough for him to kiss him on the forehead. It was nothing, except, for a second, everyone was kissing and Buck and Eddie were looking at each other. For a second, it was just the two of them.
Kind of like now.
“It freaks me out sometimes,” Buck said quietly. “New Year’s. I get this feeling like, I don’t know. Like I’m waiting for something.”
“Waiting for wait?”
Buck shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Eddie was so warm against him. They were both in short sleeves. Their elbows were touching, bare skin on bare skin.
“The future?” Eddie offered.
“I guess,” Buck said. “Sometimes it’s like, I know it’s all right around the corner. But I don’t know what it is, or where the corner is, or how I’m going to get there.”
Eddie hums. “I get that,” he said. “Sometimes—sometimes, there’s things I want, but they feel so far away. I want them, and I don’t know how I’m ever going to get to them.”
“Things like what?” Buck said.
“Lots of things,” Eddie said quietly.
"Name one," Buck insisted.
Buck looked at him. Eddie looked back. Somewhere out in the bar, someone was calling for their friend over the music. Buck didn’t hear it at all.
"Buck," Eddie said quietly.
"Eddie," Buck parroted.
Eddie pressed his knee into Buck’s. He had a look in his eyes that Buck couldn’t read at all—unless he just meant what it looked like. Unless he just meant, this.
“What kind of things, Eddie?” Buck asked.
Overhead, a firework burst into sparkling blues and golds. Buck felt the boom in his chest. Eddie’s eyes flicked up to the sky, then back to Buck’s.
“Happy New Year, Buck,” he said, and leaned in.
Eddie kissed him. Under the dark sky of the new year, at an empty table an hour and change after midnight—Eddie set one hand on the back of Buck’s neck, gentle. 
Buck kissed him back. He got lost in it in a second, in all the places Eddie was touching him, the press of his fingertips on Buck’s neck and his mouth on Buck’s mouth and their knees, knocking close under the table. He’d chosen Eddie’s cologne for him tonight, a task Eddie set to keep him busy while he second-guessed his outfit, picking through the options on the top of his dresser until he found one he liked. Buck could smell it now.
Buck blinked his eyes open when they separated. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the bar had closed around them, or the sun had come up. They could have been kissing for an hour, two hours, a day. Instead, he just saw Eddie, looking back at him with something bright in his eyes.
Eddie took a slow breath in. Quietly, he asked, "Am I too late?"
“No,” Buck said. He didn’t know when this started—a week ago, six months, seven years, longer. He couldn’t remember when he’d started hoping for this, and he couldn’t imagine ever stopping wanting it. “Never.”
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corneliushickey · 2 months ago
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@ilynpilled
ppl being more interested in Fandom than the actual source text is so real like they do have their own nonexistent text thats just a recycled concoction of the same bland fandom incorrect quotes tropes over and over again which deviates so much from the canon and they prefer to the actual thing lol
my favorite example of sourcecreep is the fact that if you go on reddit, pinterest, or facebook, or google image search 7 years ago, or flickr and photobucket if you're properly fandom old, you will find image edits of disney's jack sparrow with the quote overlay "the problem is not the problem. the problem is your attitude about the problem."
if you've seen enough of these edits (there are many thousands of them), you might even read those two sentences in his trademark cadence.
the problem here, though, is not anyone's attitude about the problem. it's that this quote has never appeared in any of the five films in which jack sparrow appears. nor in any of the video games he stars or guest-stars on. nor in any of the tie-in young jack sparrow novels or the film novelizations. it is not from a deleted scene or an early draft of any script. it's not from any of the disney park parades or firework shows in which jack is included as a face character with recorded speaking lines. it's not from the original ride or the re-dress of the ride post-dead man's chest.
this is a quote from the YA series the sisterhood of the traveling pants. one of the characters' coaches says it to them in one of the books because they are children in high school. there is no reason for it to be attributed to this character or this franchise besides one patient zero at some point or another 20 years ago making an image with a text overlay on picnik photo editor and uploading it to their livejournal or whatever.
anyway this is how asoiaf fans on twitter absorb information about their favs from the series and then post about it. i believe there are many such cases across fandom at large.
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izalith-witch · 14 days ago
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I think it would be so boring and one note of Sauron was just manipulate all the time and couldn’t form a connection and he was just manipulating Galadriel from the beginning.
Even if people don’t see Galadriel/Sauron as romantic, they still have the “cosmic connection” and are two halves of the same coin.
Sauron is not the incarnation of evil, he started out good and believes he’s doing good and that’s what makes him fascinating.
He needs a person to center on with a push and pull dynamic through out the show (Galadriel) or we’ll just keep seeing the same thing recycled with Celebrimbor 2.0. While that was great to see him actually girlboss, gatekeep, gaslight someone, I don’t want see him stuck in a room with a new victim repeating the same thing again. Yes, that’s what he does but as a viewer, it’s not what I want to watch.
Thus Galadriel, who knows his mind and he knows hers and whom he can have an evolving deeper dynamic with (as long as the writers aren’t cowards and don’t go the boring safe route) over the course of the show and allow us to see more than the Great Deceiver.
And personal interpretation is up in the air about the raft scene in the last episode of season 1 but the Forge Scene and Binding Scene after the battle in the Southlands are Sauron being honest and not manipulating cause otherwise how utterly tedious and makes a fascinating character so monotonous.
My two cents anyways.
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atamascolily · 2 months ago
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A few more observations on the second Walpurgis no Kaiten trailer, building on my earlier post. This trailer is so detailed and so intricate, I can really only watch it shot by shot in slow motion, otherwise I miss too much, otherwise it all goes by too fast.
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The scallop shells on the handbag look similar to the scallop shell hand mirror that Homura is holding.
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I can't decide if teapot on the table has the same pattern/design as the cup in this other shot. There are at least 2 tea parties in this trailer, and possibly more that we haven't seen yet.
Speaking of which, the angle on the stabbing shot suggests that the person is stabbing themselves in the arm--it looks like the salamander, representing Devil Homura's power, is trying to get to them, only to get stabbed by what appears to be a box cutter blade (??) and then it morphs into a cuff to try and control the person anyway. So I think perhaps Devil Homura will have a tea party of her own, though it's not clear to me yet if she's meeting with the green-haired girl in the glass dome or not. Or maybe someone else is meeting for tea and the salamander tries to sneak up on them when Devil Homura is not present. TBD.
Before the salamander becomes a cuff, though, it forms this lattice network first:
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Oh, and you know where else the box cutter turns up? The box fan shot, of course. There is something sticking out of the middle left side of the box that looks suspiciously like a handle. And given that the box is all cut up enough to be taped together... well, that certainly seems like some kind of sabotage, doesn't it?
(SHAFT, are you giving us a magical girl whose weapon is a box cutter?? Or is this the Doppelganger Homura's answer to the salamander/dark orb? Either way, I'm here for it.)
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The "fragile, handle with care logo" looks an awful lot like the cracked glass in this shot, too. Things are holding together, what is damaged is being repaired, but for how long??
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Sayaka in the theater is literally experiencing a flash of insight, likely heralding a return of the memories Homura took from her at the end of Rebellion.
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It seems like Sayaka is going to be in a unique position in this movie, since she is both magical girl and witch, and it sure looks like the witches are coming back (along with Walpurgisnacht!) It begs the question of whose side is she going to be on, and I suspect she'll be conflicted about that.
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This other shot also suggests some kind of soul-searching, given that mirrors/portraits/stained glass on the walls were used to symbolize Homura regaining her memory in Rebellion. However, the books that are frozen specifically appear to be associated with the "book of witches" in another shot and the books piled up in the background behind Kyubey:
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You can see one of the Anthonies (Gertrud's puffballs) in this shot along with other witches. Each page looks like an illuminated manuscript and/or possibly a card (?). You can tell Inu Curry had a lot of fun with this one!
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There are madeleines in one of the jars behind Mami, which are associated with memory (cf. Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu) but the jar is closed and they are out of reach.
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I'm really leaning towards this girl being an alternate Nagisa given the similarities between this shot and an early character design from Rebellion. (Either that or they just recycled the design, lol.) I can see the resemblance to the bear girl from episode 12, but somehow I think SHAFT is gonna stick to established characters/witches, especially given the witch book shot.
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I think the exploding white feathers are from the same scene as Madoka-Doppelganger Homura waltz, and either represent Madoka regaining her memories or something going out of control and/or an interruption. TBD.
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Anyway, that's all I got for the moment.
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createserenity · 1 year ago
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Reunions and the sound of glass
I don't often analyse scenes in Good Omens, I much prefer talking about their character dynamics, like I do here (and I have several other posts in the works along similar themes) but there’s a scene in episode 4 that I really want to talk about because it has both relationship stuff and a mystery – specifically the sound of breaking glass (that's not really glass breaking as such).
So let's talk about the scene when Aziraphale arrives back from Edinburgh. How adorable is Aziraphale’s face when he sees Crowley? They’ve literally been apart for a day and he’s so flippin’ delighted to see him. He’s missed him. He had fun investigating, but it wasn’t nearly so much fun without Crowley there. Now he’s back, he’s so very happy about it and he can’t wait to see Crowley. See how excited his face is? And he’s literally leaning forward to peer around the door columns as he approaches the shop.
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Then Crowley appears and Aziraphale beams, he literally lights up with so much joy the moment he sees him and hears his voice. There’s even this split second when he sees Crowley where he opens his arms like he really wants to embrace him.
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Then he gets a face full of plants and my goodness the look of absolute dejection is heartbreaking. I just want to shake Crowley for being so ridiculous here. Just show your angel some love, you silly demon!
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Also I think the disappointment is partly why Aziraphale tells such a silly lie about the journey being uneventful. Crowley has just smacked him in the face literally and figuratively. Literally with a bunch of plants and figuratively with the message, “I’m not really that bothered whether you’re here or not.” Unsurprisingly Aziraphale doesn’t feel like sharing anything with someone who has just done that.
Now let’s take a detour here and talk about the weird sound we hear as they go towards the car. That’s not a pure breaking glass sound as such (like you’d get from a smashed window), it’s the sound of the pub doing its recycling. It’s the noise you get when someone takes out the internal glass bottle bin and empties it into the outside glass recycling bin. It’s why Crowley doesn’t react and Aziraphale simply looks around and then turns back looking unconcerned. They’ll hear that noise all the time, it’s not the noise of something bad happening.
So why is that sound used here? I have no idea. Presumably it’s not just ambiance, although since it’s a noise that could serve that purpose it could very well be that it’s a red herring. It also happens at an odd moment. One thing breaking glass signals is the breaking of trust. Aziraphale has just told a lie, but by the time we hear the noise Crowley is several seconds into his description of ‘Jim’ singing and sleeping. It seems too far removed to be to do with Aziraphale’s lie specifically. So that leaves us with three possibilities – we should ignore the noise because it’s only ambiance, it’s to do with something other than lies, or Crowley is lying about what he and Jim have been up to. I have no idea why this last one might be or what might have happened. Anyone want to speculate? To be honest he doesn’t look or sound like he’s lying to me and Crowley actually lies very very rarely, especially not to Aziraphale (when he does it tends to be by omission rather than a direct lie) so I’m inclined to think the sound is supposed to clue us into something else. But what? And if so why not actual glass breaking, why the weird recycling sound?
Anyway back to Aziraphale and Crowley’s interaction. Crowley manages to piss Aziraphale off even more by being all lovey-dovey towards his car.  After checking out Crowley’s arse (!) as he bends over to put the plants in the car Aziraphale then seems to become anxious as they talk about whether he has anymore clues, even glancing over his shoulder nervously as he talks. Why? No idea. Maybe he just knows that he didn’t really find out all that much on his trip and is worried Crowley is expecting more of him?
What’s quite sweet is that he only completely regains his balance and perkiness after Crowley shuts the car door and Aziraphale is able to step up close to him again. There’s no real need for him to step forward, they’re already at conversation distance, but Aziraphale feels most comfortable when he’s right up in Crowley’s space. Also Crowley admits to his own failure and doesn’t seem inclined to say anything about Aziraphale’s lack of information, so that probably helps too. Symbollically speaking a barrier between them (the car door) has been removed.
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Anyway the scene ends with them heading back to the bookshop and I really hope Aziraphale finally gets that hug he wants. I mean, I know he doesn’t, but I feel so bad for him in this scene and it would be nice for the poor lovestruck angel if he did.
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electronicclowncollector · 13 days ago
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STINGUE ESSAY
(Credit to @lilacharbour for providing me with the screenshots for evidence)
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(^Yours (and your cat’s) reaction to seeing this post)
That’s right, in this essay, I will be persuading you, and any of the doubters out there, that the ship stingue is undeniably canon, and not the sort of canon you can just headcanon away. I will present several pieces of evidence with my vast knowledge of the Fairy Tail franchise (really vast) that can completely prove that stingue is a real ship (also known as Ring, stogue, the sabretooth boys, strong, but for the sake of keeping track of it, I’ll use the most obscure name for it, stingue). P.S. if you haven’t read my Rogue post, go do it, this won’t make any sense without a firm understanding of my analysis of Rogue’s character, and it's way shorter than this so there’s no reason not to.
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Exhibit A: In this manga panel, we can see that sting is wearing a cat outfit. Many of the doubters would dismiss this, saying that this was all a part of his character development in the Saber Tooth arc, where he *Allegedly* wanted to become true to his guild name and become a sabretooth tiger (with cool dragon powers). I propose a different idea. He was doing this to impress Rogue. We all know the entire Fairy Tail franchise loves cats, it’s common knowledge, if you didn’t know that then you did inadequate research in preparation for this essay. But what makes this specific to rogue is that he’s wearing a cat COSTUME. NOT CAT EARS. NOT A CAT TAIL. AN ENTIRE COSTUME. You know who else is a cool cat in costume?!?!? THAT’S RIGHT, FRESH! ROGUES CAT. CLEARLY, sting was doing this in a bid to replace Rogue’s beloved cat Fresh, and you can CLEARLY SEE Rogue blushing, however, the blushing is only in the colored version of the director cut of the manga, and its top secret (only I have a copy), so you’ll have to trust the experts on this one. Also is the girl on the right single? If so, send her my way.
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I’m sure the manga readers In the crowd are reacting just like Sting and Rogue did in exhibit B. But OP, I hear you ask, what about the anime only viewers? They won’t have this part of the manga adapted for years! And I must say, what an astute observation, I completely respect your question and you have earned a red heart, you can redeem it at the bottom of the post, or if you want to pass it to a friend press the two arrows button next to it to recycle the heart. ANYWAY, this shot here, was taken directly from the seen during the the raids on the beaches of Akane, when both Sting and Rogue had been caught in a quicksand trap by the SINISTER Bickslow. Where does Stingue apply to this? You may ask. Well, just outside the frame, we can’t see (but we know its true) that everyone is running around them to get ahead, because even the background characters like Natsu and Gajeel (may the dragons bless his sacrifice for the sins of fairy tail) know that they are romantically involved, but the scene cuts to black to see fresh teaming up with stings cat whatever its name (Bradley or doug or something) to save them, but off screen, they literally reach out and HOLD HANDS in the scene. THEY THOUGHT THEY WOULD DIE but their only thoughts were their mutual love for eachother. If that story didn’t make you cry, then I don’t know what did.
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But OP I hear some of you asking, if they’re in a relationship, WHY havent they been openly talking about the more intimate side of their relationship? First of all, go reread the manga, second of all, this point is for you. Read Exibit C. Now, I’m sure this doesn’t need any explanation, it’s a completely self-explanatory point. But for some It is necessary, and I shall provide. These two were getting very lovey dovey during a date together, they were going on a walk in the forest and oh my, a river, and how did they get across? Stepping stones! The reason why it says a “Person stepping contest” rather than a “Stepping stones constest” is because of a translation error, no need to elaborate further. Another point to be made, more specific to this panel, is the character in the background, that very few people noticed on their first few reads, is Gandalf! Now, I’ll give you a chance to pick up your phone/ipad/PC/book after you all dropped it in shock, because that’s a lot to take in. But how does it relate to the ship? Well, Gandalf is a very close word to Gander, the word for an adult male goose, which in fairy tail culture is an animal associated with passion and romance, so Gandalfs presence obviously correlates with that. He has appeared in every single manga panel with rogue and sting in the background, further proof that they have a romantic, passionate relationship.
My next point relates to the games, which I have played time and time again just for this one cutscene. During the Mt. Hakobe chapter, the two were forced to travel up the mountain to obtain the fabled dragonberry from the mountain, in order to save Rogues adoptive mother/auntie dragon. The following dialogue ensued, starting with rogue: “Heya fresh, do you think you could pass me the beans? They’re in the backpack” (fresh was in rogues backpack at the time), fresh responded with a mix between a meow and a ribbet, and sting responded with the following: “Hahah, not more beans! It’ll stink both of our sleeping bags up for when we’re cuddled up in the tent!”. Rogue proceeded to blush and a quick time event occurred. Their obvious lovers banter shows more then enough to prove that in the games, both characters are incredibly infatuated with eachother, because as Dr Seuss (with help from me) said: “You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because” “Rogue keeps eating all the beans before sleeping”.
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Now my final point in this essay is how syncronised they are. Besides the obvious romantic tension when they do their special move where their massive balls touch (obvious gay symbolism), they’re also syncronised in many other things. Most notably, finishing eachothers sentences, read exhibit D. The example above shows this, where Sting says “Ah!!!” and Rogue finishes it off by saying “!!”, a reference to Stings famous catchphrase, “Ah!!!!!”, but this time rogue added on the last 2 exclamation marks, showing a clear understanding of eachothers speech patterns and mannerisms.
In conclusion, Sting and Rogue are the love of eachothers life, which has been clearly seen throughout the Manga, Anime and Game (s)(?) If you have yet to be convinced by this essay, then I thoroughly recommend you to reread the essay if you aren’t. but if you have been convinced, congratulations, you are officially a stingue shipper, welcome to the club, no, the family. I myself am an honorary member of  the fairy tail community, according to a friend of mine, so I’m qualified to tell you that you will fit right in.
(There was another point to be made about some random person drawing art of the two of them looking at eachothers balls and blushing, but they were mere amateurs without proper understanding of fairy tail as a franchise, so I left it out.)
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my-mt-heart · 10 months ago
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Why Explicit Caryl Canon Matters
Daryl and Carol (Caryl) fans make up a large portion of the spinoff's audience, and this audience wholeheartedly believes that Daryl and Carol are each other's only choice. It's in the writing. It's also reinforced by cast, crew, and EPs. For example, Norman has repeatedly said “If Daryl falls in love, it's forever."
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There's a misconception that Carylers are a bunch of hysterical saps – fans who only want their ship "fucking under the stars" and only care about Daryl because of Carol, but that’s not true. In reality, Caryl fans are the deepest, most intuitive thinkers in the TWD community. To them, story matters. While they recognize and adore all of the subtext, they understand that it's supposed to lead to something worth the 13-year wait. They're expecting that major sense of relief and joy from watching explicit, undeniable, canon.
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Explicit canon respects Carol's and Daryl's character development – individually and together. They started out way behind everybody else in life, convinced they weren't worthy of love. Daryl thought he was better off alone and Carol thought she was just a burden, but then they showed each other their true potential. Carol told Daryl he was a "man of honor" and Daryl taught Carol to have hope for a better future. They've struggled and suffered and strived to be good enough for each other. So, where's the payoff?
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I understand not all fans want the same things, and maybe there's pressure to “keep everyone happy." Maybe it feels like a lose-lose situation. But from a marketing perspective, Caryl fans are a very reliable source of revenue for the show, so keeping them happy secures a reliable audience for future seasons of the show. They'll show up with their wallets out and their enthusiasm turned all the way up for Norman's and Melissa's nuanced performances. They'll create more fanart and other content. They'll make the show trend on Twitter constantly. Fans already adore Norman and Melissa, but explicit canon will amplify it further whereas keeping things ambiguous will cause a significant decline in viewership.
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Ambiguity is the reason that the "I love you" scene in the flagship's finale got mixed reactions. For the fans who also struggle with their self-image, it was important to see Daryl and Carol overcome their own insecurities and finally "take whatever happiness they could get." But instead, many saw Carol's lighthearted "I love you too" and Daryl's departure as if they were both forfeiting what they always wanted. Daryl was submitting to his solitary nature again while Carol assumed she still owed a debt to her community and Daryl would be happier without her anyway. Both of them deserved a happy ending, or at least a piece of happiness to launch them into the next part of their journey. As far as many fans were concerned, neither of them got that.
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That's why a lot of fans had a hard time watching S1 of the spinoff or opted out of watching all together. There were so many moments that teased the "possibility" of Daryl getting together with a younger, blonder woman nun while hints of Caryl's relationship were buried under more subtext. Keeping Daryl's feelings ambiguous just for the "fun" of shipbaiting cheapens Caryl's one-of-a-kind relationship, falsely indicating that their iconic beats can be recycled with someone else and still evoke the same passionate response from fans.
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Ambiguity also perpetuates ageism and gives non-Caryl fans the excuse to say hurtful things to or about Melissa. Whether or not she's online to see it makes no difference because it still degrades her and it damages other women's perceptions of beauty and worth. Explicit canon on the other hand raises both Melissa and Norman up as two powerhouse actors utilizing their unparalleled chemistry to celebrate mature romances. It brings Daryl’s defining character traits to the forefront – the nurturing traits and the epic ones. It positions Daryl and Carol as equals, and it helps drown out the harmful comments against Melissa. 
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Hopes for season 2 of the spinoff are high. Confirmation of Carol's and Daryl's romantic relationship in a way that needs no interpretation and no explanation from anyone offscreen is a dealbreaker. I know in terms of explicit canon, post-production can make all the difference, so it's crucial someone in a position of power pushes for canon that fully and unapologetically lives up to the fans' expectations, does right by the characters, and respects what Melissa wants.
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moonsuke · 7 days ago
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Oh my fucking gosh all these edge lord lines Rin have been spouting were thrown at him by Sae first 😭
It makes me think Rin is constantly living in this trrrraumatic (lol) moment of his brother abandoning him, though it was painful too seeing Sae's expression when his lil brother first dismissed his dreams like that.
But ngl I get hyped seeing scenes like these:
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Like yessss BRING BACK THE OG BLUE LOCK ENERGY. It also reminded me of Reo and Nagi lmao. I know most people when seeing scenes like these tend to take "sides" and hate on the ones who "leave" but I'm not one of them lol. Actually, I tend to like the ones who "leaves" 🤡
Anyway, its clearly meant to be sad and I do feel sad for Rin (and Reo) but my point is, this is what the narrative is going for, just enjoy it and don't make it so personal? Just go with the story??
I do feel very sad for Rin when he's sulking on his bed though, like poor baby ;-;
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Aww 😭😭😭😭
But his reaction after makes me like him a lot more! As expected of my second fav :')
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Especially his "These feelings... That time back then... You can't just pretend like it didn't happen!! Those weren't lies!!" I love how confident he is of his past memories and bond with Sae? It's refreshing? Compared to the typical reaction (that annoys me) of them completely forgetting the past and focusing too much on the present and hurt they feel? I mean he's still basing his future actions and entire personality off this event, but I just really like that he didn't just entirely dismiss and doubt their bond like that. Says a lot about their bond actually, or rather Rin's feelings towards it.
Also, I can see knsr is recycling tropes here 🤡 and loves making the ones who got abandoned react very intensely lol. He mentioned before he likes seeing characters in such downward spirals right? And he likes writing them in an over the top, over-dramatic manner?
I get Rin's logic of spiral though, he's dedicated his entire childhood to soccer because of his "dream" of being the best with his brother. He really gave his everything to it 😭 but it was all trampled upon by Sae, so I can see how this is equivalent to his life being ruined. It's always cool to see characters being so dedicated and single-minded to their goal (because I can never be like that).
So I'm guessing for the Sae and Rin plot, for Rin to crush Sae's "dream", Sae has to want to be a striker again? I would like some "role reversal" where Rin gets to be the midfielder for Sae's striker sometimes, or they take turns. Actually I would love this for ReoNagi too, where Reo wants to be the striker himself, and Nagi supports (and learns some playmaking skills finally) but we'll see... I still have so much of the manga to go 😭
It was very bizarre to see Rin (and Sae) being "normal" as kids, but that's typical right? Their story seems like a typical brotherhood turned enemies slash rivals trope? I've seen many compared them to Itachi and Sasuke but please, they'll never? I like Rin, he's my second fav after Nagi but he'll never be Sasuke no matter how many superficial similarities and tropes they share (Revenger, edgy, brother complex). I'm sorry but Rin lacks the flair that Sasuke has, which I suspect comes from how much the mangaka likes him. You can always tell there's something "extra" to a character because the creator likes them or vibes with them, almost like meta "star quality" lmao. This is why I like Sasuke and Nagi :)
Rin sadly, don't seem to receive that love.
Also I love their current dynamics lmao. Rin being the one to approach Sae first with the sibling rivary, Sae being cold but also getting caught up in it, calling each other shitty older brother and pain in the ass younger brother because their blood still ties them and they acknowledge that despite being so outwardly cold and stoic awwww :')
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