#anyway we haven't really nailed down it all yet but the conversation has finally been started

[rubenesque-as-fuck]

Well damn, today did not go how I expected

[evafrechette]

It’s a Match

↠ yoongi x jimin | smut | hookup au | 18+ | 3.4K

↠ Summary: Loneliness can make you do questionable things. Like signing up to a dating app to suck the cock of a stranger.

↠ Warnings: deep throating, public blowjobs, cum sharing, kind of a social media au - but not, drunk Yoongi, flirting, masturbation, gagging.

Yoongi never thought he'd be desperate enough to download the app on his phone, but here he was at 11:37 on a Friday night, finger hovering over the install button.

"Ahhh fuck it.."

He clicked and watched as the app downloaded and installed on his phone. He never thought it would get to this point. He'd been single for years. Preferring his own company, he never found it necessary to date. People annoyed him, too loud, too intrusive, too manipulative. So he remained alone. But 4 years is a long time to be on your own and he was starting to grow tired of his own hand. Plus he'd watched evey fucking video there was on his favourite porn site a year ago. That should have been the sign he needed to get laid, but his dumb ass wallowed in misery for another 12 months and that's why he's here now, creating a profile in the hopes of getting fucked this weekend.

A frown formed on Yoongi's face, he had been scrolling through profiles for the last 30 minutes and hadn't matched with anyone. He knew it was because he was being incredibly picky, swiping left on nearly every single profile he'd come across. He wasn't gonna get his dick sucked carrying on like this. He swiped left on a profile of a man in his 40s - already starting to bald, arms wrapped around a girl half his age - when his eyes landed upon the profile of a young man.

Yoongi was intrigued. The man had the prettiest face Yoongi had ever seen, beautiful plush lips pulled into a seductive smile, with his blond bangs hanging over his eyes. Yoongi clicked to view the profile in full, Jimin - the beautiful man's name was Jimin. He used emojis in his profile, which made Yoongi let out a frustrated groan. He hated emojis, too childish. He continued to read the profile and decided that the two of them were too different and even though the man was beautiful he would swipe left, like he had been all night. Maybe it was an accident or maybe Yoongi's subconscious wanted those plush lips around his cock, because instead of swiping left he swiped right.

He put the phone down and got up to make a drink. He shouldn't have a coffee this late, but apparently he was living recklessly tonight. With the steaming hot drink in his hand he climbed back onto his bed. He took a sip of the dark hot liquid when he heard the ding of a notification. He cautiously leaned over and grabbed the phone, swiping away his lock screen. He could see that he had been notified of a match, so he quickly opened the app, curious as to which one of the very small pool of men he'd swiped right on that would like him back. Yoongi could feel his cheeks starting to heat up. He didn't expect to match with the blond with the lips to die for. Not only that, but the man had messaged him too.

Yoongi couldn't tell him the truth, he WAS going to swipe left, what the fuck happened with that anyway.

Yoongi choked on his coffee, Jimin looked like an angel, but an angel wouldn't talk that way. How the hell does he respond to that? Does he even want to respond to that? He placed his coffee on the side table and dragged his hand through his hair. If he didn't take this opportunity his blue balls would actually kill him. Well fuck, his response just made him sound like the world's most pathetic asshole.

Yoongi checked the time, it was quite early in the morning now. The coffee had helped wake him up, but the prospect of meeting with the cute man had him feeling even more awake than what was humanly possible. The two of them talked for the next few hours. Sharing stories of their worst dates, childhood pets, who was more powerful Superman or Ironman and their favourite songs. Yoongi finally said goodnight and put his phone on the charger. They had agreed to met at Jimin's favourite bar the 'Hit List' at 8pm that night. Seventeen hours for Yoongi to work himself up into a worried hot ass mess. Fucking great. And yet as he stared up at the ceiling a small smile broke out on his face.

Yoongi spent his Saturday doing everything he possibly could to distract himself from his date that evening. Was it a date? Do you call meeting some random off the internet to possibly fuck a date? He was too old for this shit. He rearranged his vinyl collection, read a decent chunk of his new book and practiced a few new songs on his guitar. Once the sky had turned a beautiful shade of orange and pink Yoongi knew he had to stop stalling and get his ass ready. He took an extra long shower, debating on whether to do some manscaping (since all the young kids do it these days) before deciding not to. He liked his bush, and if pretty boy wasn't a fan well tough shit for him.

He teamed his black and white shirt with a pair of black jeans ripped at the knee, a leather jacket and finished it off with a few pieces of jewellery. With one last look in the mirror Yoongi slid his phone and wallet into the pocket of his jeans and left his apartment. Just as he stepped into the lift his phone pinged. It was a message from Jimin.

*******************

Jimin is sitting at the bar when Yoongi arrives. He's deep in conversation with the bartender, so Yoongi stands by the entrance awkwardly looking around. It's a nice place, very quiet and intimate. It's dark, a few low hanging lights scattered around and tealight candles sitting in a whisky glass on each table. To his right is a large floor to ceiling window, surrounded by a mix match of old leather chairs. There is a faint smell of smoke in the air. Oddly this smell starts to calm Yoongi down, it reminds him of his grandfather. Okay, now he's nervous again. Thinking of his grandfather at a time like this?

"I'm a fucking mess." he mutters to himself as he walks over to the bar.

"Uhh sorry to interrupt, Jimin right?"

The blond turns his head and smiles, he is really more beautiful in real life Yoongi thinks to himself. He's wearing a black shirt with one too many buttons undone, his hair parted in the middle falling gracefully to each side framing his angelic looking face.

"Mmm that's right and you are?"

Um what?! Fuck, Yoongi knew he made a mistake by coming here. Ahh fuck, why did he have to make that stupid profile? He loved Amateur Bareback 3-Way #2, he could have easily watched it 100 more times.

"Relax cutie, I'm just playing, you should have seen your face," a giggle escaped from Jimin's lips. "Nice to meet you Yoongi." he stood up and extended his hand out to shake. Yoongi quickly wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans and returned the handshake. Jimin's hand was engulfed in Yoongi's. He looked down and couldn't help but smile at the scene. Jimin's hands were so petite compared to his. It was a rather lovely sight.

"Order yourself a drink and we'll go sit over there." he pointed to the leather chairs Yoongi has been eyeing up earlier. He ordered an Irish Mule for himself and a Negroni for Jimin. He carried the drinks to the table, while Jimin followed closely behind. A little too close Yoongi thought. He could smell his perfume starting to mix with the smoke smell. It was a delicious combination.

The first half an hour was straight up torture for Yoongi. Even though the two of them had spent the night messaging each other it was different once he was sitting face to face with the most stunning man in all of Seoul. Yoongi avoided eye contact, mumbled and laughed dryly at Jimin's jokes. He was well and truly fucking this entire thing up.

Jimin huffed "You don't have to stick around you know, you can leave whenever you want."

Yep. He had fucked this up.

"Uhh it's not that," Yoongi starts to bite at his thumb nail "Jimin, I'm terrible at this. People stress me the fuck out, I haven't been laid in four years, I don't like leaving my apartment, you are lovely, fantastic even and that's making me even more nervous."

Jimin played with the hoop in his ear while looking directly at Yoongi, he tilted his head to the side "How can I help you relax? I thought we clicked last night?"

They did

"I'm sorry I make you nervous, I can't help it that I'm so cute." Yoongi finally looked into Jimin's eyes and they burst into laughter.

"It's not your fault. Fuck it, I need another drink . . or five that will help." he rolled his eyes before waking back to the bar.

With a few more drinks in him Yoongi was relaxed, he could feel the whiskey warming up his body. The heat in his stomach though, he was sure that was because of the attractive man sitting in front of him. The discomfort had finally vanished and instead a mellowness had fallen over the two.

"I've always liked older men." Jimin purred, his delicate small fingers, adorned with multiple silver rings, brushing against the now half empty glass.

"Aiisshh I'm only two years older than you!" Yoongi huffed, folding his arms across his chest.

"Yeah, but you act like you're nearly 60.” Jimin let out a hearty laugh, his eyes turning into crescents, cheeks plump and slightly pink. He slapped the table causing their glasses to shake. Yoongi quickly grabbed his to prevent it from spilling.

"It's not that funny." he didn't want to admit it, but the blond's laugh was hypnotic, he could watch Jimin laugh for hours and never tire of it.

Jimin straightened up, fingers now tracing the rim of the glass "I bet you don't fuck like an old man though."

Yoongi gulped and looked directly into Jimin's brown eyes, gone was the playful light, it was now replaced with desperate firey lust. He knew what the outcome of this date could be, and yet he was still nervous. He could feel his heart starting to race, his breath becoming faster. "Aaahh shit" Yoongi thought to himself as his left hand started to twitch, the blond's smell - a mix of orange blossom and patchouli was becoming overwhelming, he needed to calm down, he'd cum within seconds if he didn't get his shit under control.

"Heh, well I guess you'll find out later huh?"

Jimin reached over and ran his soft fingers over Yoongi's hand, playing with the bracelets that sat around his wrist.

"Why don't I find out now?"

Yoongi's friends love roasting him for his personality change when drunk. All of a sudden the quiet reserved man becomes giggly and loud. Cracking terrible jokes and singing at the top of his lungs. Sober Yoongi would never dare dream of taking a stranger to the bathroom to jerk off. Drunk Yoongi though? Try to stop him.

"Mmm Jiminshi are you sure?”

Jimin giggled at this "You are SO cute" he continued to draw his fingers over Yoongis hands "Of course I'm sure, do you wanna go back to mine? Or we could go to yours if you're more comfortable with that..."

Without thinking Yoongi stood, grabbed the blonds arm and pulled him up. They walked towards the exit, but before descending the stairs they took a left and made their way into the restroom. Once inside Yoongi pushed Jimin against the door and started kissing at his neck. "Fuck! Jimin, there is no way in hell I can wait to get back to my place, I need to feel you now." Yoongi whispered between kisses.

Yoongi leaned down and kissed his exposed chest, thank fuck Jimin had left those top buttons open. They had been torturing Yoongi all night long, but now he was thankful for it. Jimin's skin was so soft and it faintly smelled like cherry blossom lotion but he wanted more. He was desperate for more. Jimin ran his hands through Yoongi's hair and grabbed hard. Small moans escaped his lips, which drew Yoongi even crazier. He undid the buttons on his shirt and stood back. Jimin had the body of a god. Perfectly sculptured, with beautiful brown nipples begging to be sucked on. Who was Yoongi to deny god his wish?

Jimin let out a squeak when Yoongi ran his tongue over his nipples, hungrily licking and sucking at them. His right hand found it's way to the bulge in Jimin's pants and he pressed his palm down onto it. Jimin was now starting to get louder which made Yoongi smirk, he lightly nipped on Jimin's nipple before standing up and leaning in to sloppily kiss Jimin on those perfect, perfect lips, the taste of spice and bitterness still lingering.

"Uuuhhh Hyung, please touch me."

"That's what I'm doing Jimin."

"No you asshole, I want to feel you properly, get my fucking dick out." Yoongi stopped and looked at Jimin, slightly taken back by the tone of his voice. But he just smiled back - a wicked smile.

Yoongi got onto his knees and began undoing the zip of Jimin's pants. He pulled them down to his ankles, he then drew his hands up Jimin's legs, enjoying how smooth they were. He palmed Jimin's cock through his underwear eliciting a moan from the man above him. Yoongi pressed his face into Jimin's clothed cock. He took a deep breath, Jimin smelled wicked, his arousal mixed with body lotion was rousing. He alternated between sucking and licking on the cock trapped behind Calvin Klein underwear. He repeated this action a few more times before finally removing the now very damp briefs.

Jimin wasn't the biggest cock Yoongi had ever seen, but he was thick and absolutely smooth. He stroked his long fingers over his chiseled abs, along Jimin's length and then down to his balls which he cupped in his hand, massaging back and forth. He let go and brought his hand to his mouth, running his tongue over his entire palm. It was so fucking dirty and Jimin shuddered at the sight. He reached back up and gripped Jimin's cock in his now saliva covered hand. He drew his hand up and down at a frantic pace. He was too worked up to go any slower, but Jimin didn't seem to mind by the noises he was making. Oh shit, he was being too loud now. They'd get caught and thrown out or even worse the cops called.

"Shit Jimin, you need to be quiet or someone will hear us.”

��Mmm Yoongi I don't think I can cutie, why do you think I said we should get out of here."

Yoongi huffed and slowed his hand down. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jimin's briefs, so he picked them up, stood and shoved them in Jimin's mouth.

"That should shut you up.... Is that okay? I can take them out if you don't like it.”

Jimin shook his head and moaned around the underwear. His mouth was stretched open and drool already starting to pool at the corners. What a fucking beautiful thing to witness. Pleased with himself Yoongi got back on his knees and kissed the tip of Jimin's cock. His tongue played with the slit, circling it before he slowly kissed down each side of his shaft. He then licked the base to tip, never taking his eyes off Jimin's. They both looked so fucked already, pupils blown out, flushed cheeks and lips swollen from the rough kissing earlier.

He started pumping slowly, wanting to tease Jimin a little, the blond was impatient though and bucked his hips into Yoongi's fist, letting him know he wanted and desperately needed it faster. Yoongi let out a small chuckle and started to move his hand at a pace the gorgeous man would enjoy. Muffled moans of pleasure let Yoongi know he had found the magic speed. He continued like this for a few minutes before letting go and taking Jimin's cock in his mouth. Oh he tasted good - of course he did he was perfect in every way why would this be any different? Yoongi hollowed his cheeks as he bobbed up and down on Jimin's length, taking it deep before pulling up and letting go with a 'pop'.

He took hold of Jimin's cock and rubbed his lips all over the head, spreading precum all over his lips and chin. He felt like such a slut, but he was loving every moment of it. Yoongi closed his eyes and slowly buried Jimin's entire cock in his mouth until it hit the back of his throat. He moaned around the feeling, this was what he had needed. To feel stuffed by a pretty cock attached to a pretty man. Jimin was squirming above him, his panting and moans muffled by the briefs in his mouth, but there was no doubt he was in ecstasy just like the cock starved brunette. Yoongi felt petite hands fist into his hair and start pulling and pushing trying to take some control of the situation, Yoongi slowed down and allowed Jimin to start fucking into his mouth.

With each of Jimin's thrusts his grunts became louder as he was getting closer to his orgasm. Jimin wasn't the only one getting close, after having practically become a born again virgin, Yoongi's head was dizzy with arousal and he wasn't sure how much longer he would last, his grip on Jimin's thighs tightening, bound to leave light marks the next morning. He closed his eyes and could feel the heat from his stomach rise throughout his body, his muscles tensing as he felt his release. The wet patch in Yoongi's pants made him feel absolutely filthy. He came just from sucking someone's cock? Before he had too much time to start mulling over how much of a slut he is, Jimin spills his load inside Yoongi's hot mouth. He thrusts hard a few times causing the cum to spill out of Yoongi's mouth and dribble down his chin, landing on the floor.

Jimin hisses as he slowly removes himself from Yoongi's mouth, he leans down and Yoongi yanks the underwear out of his mouth before smashing his lips against the blonds. He doesn't care that his mouth is still full of Jimin's cum, he tastes so good he wants him to experience the intoxicating taste too. When their lips part Jimin stands to put his softening cock away. Yoongi stands with him and looks around the room, avoiding eye contact.

"Umm thanks for that, that was .. uhh really good."

Jimin's bewitching smile returns "Yeah, that was amazing cutie can't say I've ever had my underwear shoved into my mouth though, but there is a first time for everything. Come here and I'll treat you good too."

"Well um, no it's okay. Honestly. I may have cum already." he sheepishly replies, still avoiding any damn eye contact.

A small "oh" left his pouty lips "well I'm glad I could have been of assistance."

The two stood awkwardly for a while before Jimin held Yoongi's hand and walked him over to the sink. He made the older man sit on the bench while he cleaned up all the mess he had made. Yoongi's heart couldn't stop beating. There was no need for Jimin to be so nice after what they had just done, but here he was doing something Yoongi actually felt was more intimate than painting the walls of his throat with his cum.

"Ah there ya go, now you can go back into the real world without anyone suspecting a thing.”

They walked outside together in silence, Yoongi had never had a hook up before. Do you crack jokes? Profess your love? Or just act like what happened never did? His mind was a million miles away when soft fingers were suddenly stroking his cheek.

"Please message me anytime you want to see each other again, and I'll be the one doing all the dirty work okay?"

This made Yoongi blush "Yeah okay. Thank you Jimin, truly I had a great night."

And it was the truth, he had so much fun he could relive the moment in his head for the next four years. Amateur Bareback 3-Way #2 wouldn't be needed when the memory of small hands, captivating moans and cum drizzling down his chin was enough to get him hard again. It had been less than 20 minutes. God dammit!

[lokiondisneyplus]

Holy crap. Look at Kate Herron's shirt. When the Loki director pops up on Zoom, she's donning the most glorious image anyone will see since we laid eyes on Alligator Loki: A Teletubby wearing the Loki horns. Are the Teletubbies Loki variants? Sure, why not!

"I got it on Instagram," Herron says. "There's an amazing comic book artist and he designed it. He made it into a T-shirt for me because I saw it and was like, 'That's incredible. Can I get it for the press junket?'"

Herron, no big deal, just pulled off an MCU miracle. Entering a mammoth franchise with, notably, some of Sex Education's best episodes under her belt, the director deftly brought a plot involving multiverses and Richard E. Grant in a cape and superhero mumbo-jumbo to brilliant, beautiful life. Following Loki's tear-jerking, mind-bending finale, the series has been dubbed by critics and fan's alike as one of Marvel's best efforts—which is no small feat. Of course, we needed to ask Herron how she stuck the landing. Following the most epic finale you, me, or any Teletubby can remember, Herron talked to Esquire about the Miss Minutes jump scare, filming the finale's introduction of He Who Remains, and why she won't return for Season Two of Loki.

ESQ: How are you doing?

KH: I'm good. I think I feel very relieved that I don't have to sit on the secret of He Who Remains anymore, It was a very big secret to hold, but for an important reason, right? Because it's such a good character to be launching. So yeah, I feel good.

ESQ: Loking back at your old interviews, you have such a good poker face when you're avoiding spoilers, but you're also incredible at giving aggregator crumbs.

KH: I play a lot of board games, so you need to be quite good at strategy and poker faces so people can't always read your hand. So I think weirdly board games have prepared me more for working with Marvel than anything else.

ESQ: I have to start with the Miss Minutes jump scare. What went into the decision to make her a memeable, creepy apparition in that moment?

KH: I love horror, and my executive, Kevin Wright, knew that. Me and him were talking about Episode Six and I remember that he was like, "Oh, maybe you could do something creepy of Miss Minutes." And I immediately was like, "We have to do a jump scare!" Because I haven't got to do a good jump scare in anything yet and I really wanted to, because a lot of my friends are horror directors. I was like, "I can't let them down." So I was really excited to have a shot at doing a jump scare. And Miss Minutes, it was really fun testing it because we'd kind of bring different people into the edit, me and Emma McCleave, the editor, and we'd just play it for them, watch them, and check that they were jumping when we cut it.

ESQ: One thing that I think is getting missed in all the craziness is that we see a peak moment of the love story between Loki and Sylvie. Where does the finale leave the companionship that they found in each other?

KH: When I started the show, that was always in the DNA of it—that Loki was going to meet a version of himself and they were going to fall in love. And that's honestly what drew me into the story, because I directed Sex Education. I love stories about self-love and finding your identity and your people. Loki is such a broken character when we join him, and seeing him go on this amazing journey with all this growth and finding the good points of himself in seeing her—I think that was very beautiful. It's also paying respect to the fact that Sylvie's in a very different place to him. She hasn't had the Mobius therapy session. She even says, in Episode Five, "I don't know how to do this. I don't have friends." You really feel for her because she has been on the run and her whole life has been this mission.

It's almost funny because these characters are thousands of years old, but it's almost teenage the way they both talk about their feelings for each other. I think everyone can relate to that, right? In any new relationship, there's always that kind of awkwardness and like, "Oh God, am I too keen? The important thing was the hope—like when Sylvie and him kiss, I think it is genuine and it is coming from a place of these feelings they have for each other. Obviously she does push them through that door, but for me it was a goodbye and it was with heart. But it's kind of a goodbye in the sense of like, I care about you, but I'm going to do my mission because that's where I'm at.

ESQ: I would pay for you to direct the Sex Education episode where Otis falls through a portal into the multiverse, into the main MCU.

KH: He really looks like a Loki as well, which is so funny. I always thought that. I was like Asa does look like a Loki. It didn't come to pass or anything, but it would be interesting to do a Sex Ed-Marvel crossover. I wonder who all the different characters would be within the MCU, but it would be quite funny.

ESQ: You're right, he could pull off a teenage Loki.

KH: Yeah, like a teen or a very young ’20s, maybe. But it was just funny because I was like, "Oh yeah, he looks a bit like Tom." I wonder how they could do it. I'm sure they'll find a way to do a crossover anyway.

ESQ: Can you just take me back to filming with Jonathan Majors? And you capturing him in such a compelling, quirky, scary way—I'm sure your direction was such a big part of that.

KH: I was just so excited because Jonathan is an actor that everyone was so excited about. He's like a chameleon in everything he does and he's so talented. I just feel as a director so lucky to have worked on this because I feel like I've got to work with some of the best actors out there. And when you're with Jonathan, you know you're in the presence of just someone really magnificent. For me as a director, it's giving him the space to play and feel safe. Because we filmed it all in a week, but it was a lot to film in a week. So I think it was really about creating a space where he could have fun and find this character because he's going to be playing him for a long time.

ESQ: What went into the decision to introduce us to the good guy first?

KH: I remember in the script, he comes up the elevator and it was so casual. I was like, "Oh man, that's so fun." And then Jonathan, when he plays it, he's relaxed. And I the thing he used to talk about a lot was that this is a character who's been on his own for a long time. Because at the beginning, we introduced him in a space in the universe that feels like this very busy, loud place, but actually, when we see the Citadel, he's surrounded by the Timeline and he's very isolated. Even in his costume with [designer] Christine Wada, for the idea of his outfit, he's a character who's existed for multiple millennia. So it's like, OK, let's pull from lots of different places so you can't necessarily pin down which time or which place he might be from. Also the fact that his clothes look comfy. They were like pajamas because he's living at home. He loved the idea of the office [being] the only finished part of the citadel and that the rest of the citadel was like this Sunset Boulevard kind of dusty, dilapidated space. And just again showed that he probably just keeps himself to his office. All those elements definitely fed into Jonathan's performance in terms of balancing the extrovert, but also the introvert of someone that would be living by themselves and only talking to a cartoon clock.

ESQ: It really is incredible how you pull a nail-biting finale with this battle of wits and dialogue.

KH: It was really exciting because I feel like Episode Five was a lot of fun because we got to play into all the joy of the different versions of Loki, but also just the fact that it was our big usual Marvel third act, right? Like it was where our big spectacle was as they were fighting this big monster. But I love that our finale bookends, right? We began with a conversation and we ended with one.

ESQ: I also loved that there was no end-credits scene—I think it makes the ending that much more impactful. Was there ever an end credit scene on the table, or any kind of a stinger?

KH: I think no, because weirdly, we never went after the kind of mid-credit sequences. I think we always just were thinking just of the story and where we knew we wanted it to end. For example, Episode Four, originally Loki was deleted and then we went straight to him waking up. And it was only in the edit I was like, “I think it'd be really cool actually. We should move that scene to mid-credits because then we'll really feel like Loki has died." Because if I watched that moment and then it went to the credits, I'd be like, "What?!" And then when we were talking about the best way to talk about Season Two, we were like, "Okay, well, let's do that like a little mid-credits at the end because that is exciting to confirm it in that way." I'd say we found both of those in the edit just because we wanted to kind of do it right and have a fun nod to something that Marvel does so well.

ESQ: Is there anything you can tell about the future of the story you've told here—or even where you personally would like to go with the studio or otherwise going forward?

KH: Yeah, so I'm just on for Season One. So I'm so proud of the story we told. I mean, it was amazing getting to set up the TVA and take Loki on this whole new journey. And I mean, I think we've left so much groundwork for his character, and as people see in the comics, there's so much more to be delved into. And I just am excited honestly to just see where all the characters go. Like, who is B-15? What did she see in those memories and where did Ravonna go and where is Loki? I think for me, we've set up these questions and I look forward to seeing them being answered as a fan in the next season.

ESQ: Absolutely. Well, can we please work on the Asa Butterfield Loki?

KH: I will call him and I'll be like, "You want to do some crazy Marvel crossover?"

[wreckofawriter]

Stupid Dance, Stupid Teenagers

Pairing: Remus Lupin x reader

Word Count: 3,135

Warnings: Drinking, mentions of weed? Swearing?

Request: @twilightlover2007: Could I request an imagine with Remus? Bookworm/avid photographer Remus watches from afar until his mates push him to talk to her/ask her to the upcoming ball? :)

A/n: Okay, I am quarantined for a month so I should be writing more but who knows, I am a dumbass. Okay, umm not exscatly in love with this one but I've already re-written it twice so I'm done. So sorry it took so long

Remus felt himself get lost again, before about a month ago he never tended to wander from his classes, they were relatively easy to stick to as most of them were quite interesting, but recently something far more entertaining had caught his attention. 

He watched as your fingers fiddled with the device under your desk two seats to his left and one down. He knew if McGonagall caught you she would give you hell, her patience probably ran out simply because of the sheer number of times she had caught you with the camera during class. 

You weren't doing anything in particular, simply spinning the lense in your hand and clicking on and off the flash. Yet Remus was completely memorised as your fingers moved so gracefully with the object. He had completely forgotten his notes, only a few sentences scribbled down before his eyes found your form. 

He began to wonder how your hands would feel in his hair, fingers ghosting through his curled locks. From there his mind began to wander to your own hair, his eyes following. It looked so soft and smooth, spilling like a waterfall from your head, its y/h/c hue shining in the dusty sunlight which filtered through the classrooms windows. 

A jab in his side forced his gaze from you to his dark haired friend. 

"Uh Moony if you don't take notes then none of us are going to have any and we are definitely going to fail Minnie's test on Friday." Sirius whispered to him.

"Since when do you care if you fail?" Remus muttered.

Sirius flashed a smile, and shrugged, "Since never but you do." 

Remus couldn't exactly argue with that so he simply rolled his eyes and dipped his quill into the ink. But one desk down and two desks over you had taken to messing with your hair and that was far more intriguing so he let his eyes stay there instead. 

Sirius took note of his friend's immediate departure from reality and let out an annoyed huff. 

"Moony seriously," he began knowing just how disappointed in himself the werewolf would be if he didn't score his unusually high performance on the upcoming exam. 

"I'll just ask Lily for notes." He responded, eyes never leaving the girl who sat a few meters away. 

"She never gives anyone notes." Sirius shot back attempting to gain Remus' attention.

"Correction, she never gives you or James notes because you are idiots." Remus commented, still not tearing himself from you.

Sirius was fed up with the lack of attention he was accustomed to receiving and pouted, it only took seconds for that pit to turn to smirk though. 

"Oh well I'm sure that y/l/n would like to hear you've been stalking her for the past month." Sirius' smile grew as his friend's head whipped towards him, eyes just a bit too wide, cheeks tainted a light pink. 

"I have not been stalking her." Remus hissed.

"Sure you haven't, and I'm in love with Malfoy." Sirius grinned, pure ecstasy filling him as Remus turned a deeper red. 

Remus turned away from the Gryffindor attempting to ignore him. In response Sirius plucked the maroon beanie from his head placing it on his own. 

"I don't see why you don't just ask her out." Sirius shrugged leaning back as Remus made a grab for his hat. 

"Give my hat back Sirius." He growled already fed up with his nonsense. 

Sirius pursued his lips pretending to contemplate his answer before breaking out in a smile, "Nah, I think it looks better on me." 

Remus once again rolled his eyes, "I don't want your grease on my hat Pads, now give it back." 

"I don't think I will after that comment." Sirius mused.

Hazel eyes rolled in their sockets once again and he lurched forward in attempts to take the hat from a bed of shimmering black. 

While his efforts did gain him back his beanie, in the process his elbow had found his open bottle of ink and successfully drenched everything on his desk. 

"Shit!" The boy cursed pushing himself backwards to avoid the liquid before it dripped onto his robes. 

"Mr. Lupin!" McGonagall snapped from the front of the class. 

"Sorry Professor!" Remus called back glaring at Sirius who bit back a laugh. 

"Black stop bothering your desk mate." The teacher added in with a glare. 

"Why am I being yelled at?" Sirius questioned.

"Because you are almost always the cause of these issues." 

At this point Remus' mind left the ink now dripping to the floor as his eyes connected to yours. You had a small smile on your face, clearly amused by the situation, your camera was now disregarded on your bag as a quill danced in your hand. The boy told himself to stop staring but it made that nearly impossible. 

You only shook your head slightly and smiled widening before you turned back to your work.

Remus was sure he was still burning red even after his teacher's had vanished the ink from his desk and continued the lesson.  

    The Gryffindor avoided looking at you for the remainder of class. By the time they were dismissed his embarrassment had dulled but not disappeared. Sirius refused to apologise claiming it was not his fault and James thought the whole thing was simply hilarious. So when you appeared in front of the three boys as they exited the classroom different emotions were evoked. 

    “Hey Lupin.” You greeted ignoring the other two boys who stood at his side with wide eyes. 

"Uh h-hey." Remus spoke cursing himself for stumbling over his words. 

You coughed nervously attempting to ignore the fact that three extremely popular boys were now staring you down. Maybe you didn't think this through properly. "Um well I just noticed that your notes were ruined and I am pretty good at this unit so you can use mine if you want." You said shifting your weight from one foot to the other as you spoke. 

The three boys all looked startled, James and Sirius turning to look at Remus who was a bit pale.

You raised your hand to the back of your neck your other holding the notes you had offered up, "It's cool if you don't need them, I'm sure you can get some from Lily or something-"

"No!" Remus said a bit too loudly, cringing at his own actions, "No, Lily would probably be pissed at me anyway." 

Your face visibly brightened, you opened your mouth to speak but was cut off. 

"Y/n come on! We are gonna be late." A girl down the hall huffed. 

"Don't yell at her, she's finally talking to Remus." Another hissed quietly, but not quietly enough. 

Your face erupted into color, "Well I've got to go." You spoke so quickly it was almost inaudible as you shoved the notes at the stunned boy before turning and running towards the group of housemates. 

When you reached them you slapped the two who had spoken with your books you were holding and buried your head in your hands as you walked away. 

Remus stared after you, his cheeks dusted pink as he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. 

When you disappeared around the corner James let out a laugh, "That was one of the most awkward things I have ever seen." 

"I think you mean hilarious." Siriua corrected. 

"Shut up." Remus groaned.

"Look on the bright side Moony, now you know she totally has a thing for you so you can ask her out already." James smirked.

"How do we know that exactly?'' the werewolf asked. 

"Are you blind, deaf or just plain stupid?" Sirius mused.

"Yeah Moony come on. She gave you notes, blushed way too much and did you not hear the 'she's finally talking to Remus' conversation?" James giggled. 

"Whatever." Remus scoffed despite the smile twitching on his lips. 

"I can't believe you did that to me." Your groaned face is still hot from the conversation you had a few minutes ago. 

"I'm so sorry y/n/n. I didn't mean to be so loud." The short blonde next to you apologized for the thousandth time. 

"Well thank Godric you were Elle, that was the funniest thing I've seen in awhile." The brunette who sat on your other side laughed, the memory still pleasant in her head.

"Fuck off Nat." Elle glared, "at least she has the guts to talk to the person she likes, you cant even get within five yards of Alice without turning into a mess." 

"That's not fair! It's different." She argued her cheeks tinting red. "Remus obviously likes her." She grumbled, "Everyone knows Alice has a thing for Frank." 

Elle rolled her eyes, "I wish you would just get over her already." 

"Don't we all." You agreed, happy that the conversation isn't centered around your awkward interaction with the Gryffindor boy. 

Class took years but when it finally ended you and your two companions, who were still bickering, walked out to the quidditch pitch. Your camera felt nice in your hands again as you strolled across the bright grass. 

As Natasha walked into the locker rooms Elle joined your side, looking a bit upset. 

You looked through your device pointing it at the girl who looked on the verge of tears. You dropped the camera so it slung around your neck, pulling her into a hug. 

"She'll get over her eventually." You sighed, "I swear she will." 

"I just feel stupid." She whimpered, whipping her tears fiercely. 

"Dont feel stupid, feel artsy." You giggled, "I wanna go a photoshoot with you." 

Her mood changed drastically, "Really!" 

"Yeah come on let's head back to the lake." You grabbed her hand walking her back to the lake and away from the pitch.

Remus watched as you left the pitch from his place on the stands, Sirius was beside him following his gaze to you.

"Her friend is pretty cute, I think I might ask her out." Sirius sighed picking at his nails. 

"I'm sure she has taste." Remus spoke, rolling his eyes. 

Sirius opened his mouth to state his offence but was cut off, "We should go down to the lake." 

"I wonder why you would want to go to the lake?" Sirius hummed faking contemplation

Remus sighed again, "I'll just go without you." 

"Okay, okay, we'll go, but only because watching James practice is super boring." Sirius agreed standing from his seat. 

As the two made their way towards the lake the two could hear loud laughter.

    Remus stopped glancing cautiously around the tree to see you knee-deep in water holding your skirt up with one hand and holding your camera with the other. Your friend was standing on the dock giggling. 

    Despite the fact that she was the one posing you managed to look like an angel. The sun was low in the sky giving you a golden glow as you photographed your friend. Your upper thigh was exposed, your smooth skin visible. Your hair was loose, a strand falling into your face. 

“Tilt your head back.” You instructed, “Take a step towards me and pop your hip.” 

“God y/n/n I feel ridiculous.” Elle spoke but she did as she was told. 

“You’re not the one waist-deep in water.” You shot back closing your mouth and clicking the shutter. 

“I’m also not the one who insisted on getting into the water to get a good angle.” She shot back.

“Shut up and let me take your picture.”

“Are we gonna just stare at them or..?” Sirius asked, causing Remus to jump from his daze. 

“Shut up.” 

“I didn't know you were such a perv Moony.” Sirius giggled. 

“I am not a perv!” He whisper-shouted. 

“You're kinda acting like one.” Siriys shrugged, smirking. 

“Fuck off I cant just let her know I followed her.”

“Why not?” 

“Okay, we're leaving.” Remus sighed beginning to walk back towards the quidditch pitch. 

“I don't understand why you don't just ask her out.” 

“You say that like it's an easy thing.” Remus sighed. 

“Just ask her to the spring dance.” Sirius shrugged, “It's not that hard.” 

“It’s not that hard for you.” Remus corrected him. 

Sirius just rolled his eyes a small smirk finding the way onto his lips. 

Remus narrowed his eyes, suspicion suddenly filling him, “Don’t give me that look.” 

“What look?” Sirius inquired, face still holding the same expression. 

“That look,” Remus spoke emphasizing the first word.

“There is no look.” Sirius insisted. 

“You’re still doing it.” Remus scowled, “Its that look you always get before you do something idiotic.”

“I don’t have a look.” Sirius maintained. 

“You have a look, James has the same one.” The boy said his look turned from annoyed to scary. “I swear Pads, if you and James plan to meddle in my business I will gut you.” 

“I swear I’m not gonna do anything.” Sirius lied through his teeth. 

The pestering did not stop. James and Sirius were relentless. They refused to let Remus rest in peace. He was completely fine with watching you from afar but his two best friends seemed to have other ideas. 

“What about fireworks Moony?” Sirius asked. 

“That's a brilliant idea Pads!” James gasped excitedly. 

“If you set off fireworks around her I will kill you.” Remus hissed. 

“Fine, but if you don’t do something soon, I am going to tell her.” James shrugged.

“You do and I will-”

“Kill us yeah we know.”

“This is a stupid idea.” You groaned ruffling with your neatly pinned hair. 

“Don’t mess with that y/n, it took me years.” Natasha glared at you, her hands were currently buried in Elle's hair. 

“But it's so uncomfortable.” You groaned. “Why are we even going to this stupid thing anyway?” 

“Because you have done nothing but read and edit holed up in your dorm for the past week and we want to get drunk.” Elle replied leaning back into Nats touch. 

“So now I'm gonna have to look after drunk babies too? You're right that is the perfect evening.” You spoke rolling your eyes. 

“Whatever you’ll probably end up boning Remus anyway.” Natasha smirked.

“I will not!” You huffed picking up the closest thing to you which happened to be a hair brush and chucking it at the girl with red cheeks. 

“Will too.” She mumbled, dodging the object with ease. 

You slowly began to remove a few of the pins from your hair as your two best friends began an argument behind you. This was a bad idea. Remus was probably going to think you looked like you tried too hard or that you looked sluty or stupid. This was a really bad idea. But before you could bail the two behind you were standing. 

“Ready to go y/n/n?” Elle asked. 

“I guess.” You mumbled grabbing a book from your bed and following your friends down the stairs. 

Remus could not belive he had been stupid enough to go to this dumb party. He figured it's what he got for being friends with the two most obnoxious party animals in the entire school. Sirius was already hammered and it was not even eight yet. Remus considered making a break for the dorms but before he could he heard a loud shout. 

“Y/N!” Sirius cheered as you and your friends entered the room. 

You jumped a bit flushing as Sirius threw his arm around you offering you a drink which you declined and the blonde next to you took. 

You sighed shrugging off the shoulder as Sirius continued to slur nonsense into your ear. 

Just as Remus had built up the courage to go talk to you James appeared out of nowhere dragging him off to help with his harassment of Lily. When he returned a bit less than an hour later you had disappeared. 

He caught a glimpse of your friend Elle but to his surprise she was drunk making out with an equally drunk Natasha. He blinked a few times and sighed. You had probably ditched, he didn't blame you, he was going to do the same. 

Checking over his shoulder he then quickly he bagan up the stairs unbuttoning the far too tight shirt he had decided to wear. 

He bust open the door to the dorms closing it behind him before turning and freezing. 

You lay on his bed, hairpins strewn around you, a large book in front of you as you sat in an oversized hoodie he recognized as his own. Remus suddenly had the urge to pinch himself, was this some amazing day dream?

You had a light tinge to your cheeks as you spoke, “Hey.” 

Remus swallowed his mouth feeling very dry, “Hey.” 

“I'm really sorry im up here, I went up to the girls room and they were smoking weed and I just can't stand the smell so I thought I would just come up here instead.” You squeaked out, your eyes suddenly lingered downward. 

Remus glanced down at his shirt realizing he had unbuttoned it and blushed widely, quickly fumbling with the buttons. You refused to meet his gaze as he looked back at you. 

“I’m actually kind of glad you're here, I thought you ditched.” He said walking over to you and sitting on the bed opposite. 

“I would but my friends are drunk idiots.” You smiled softly. 

“Yeah they were making out downstairs.”

“WHAT?!” You yelled causing Remus to jump, “Are you serious!?” 

“Umm yeah.”

“Oh my god, finally, Elle has been in love with her since like forever, it was getting very painful.” You sighed.

“I can imagine.” Remus grinned. 

The room fell into silence, neither of you quite sure what to say. You flipped a page despite not having read it. 

“Hey y/n, I’ve actually been meaning to ask you something.” Remus mumbled picking at the end of his dress shirt. 

“Shoot.” You respond, eyes leaving the book in front of you. 

“Would you like to go to that stupid spring fling with me?” He blurted out face washing crimson as your mouth dropped slightly. 

“Of course.” You respond, your heart beating so loud you were sure he could hear it. 

“Really?” Remus asked. 

“Yeah dummy, but only if we get to act like stupid teenagers.” You giggled and the boy felt his heart soar. 

“Of course.” He answered feeling a heavy weight lift from his chest. “By the way you look really cute in my hoodie.” 

You blushed eyes growing a bit wide. “I’m so sorry I had no idea it was yours, I was just really cold because of this stupid dress and it was just sitting there and-” 

“It’s fine.” Remus laughed, “It looks better on you anyway.” 

Taglist:

@evyiione

@accio-rogers

@roslea

@k3nz-doodl3

@theseuscmander

[naughtygals]

notes on smoothing, noise rejection, workflow

notes on smoothing, noise rejection, workflow i started today with a positive outlook. it's ship day for a new product (or an update of an existing one) and i had a few small bugs to fix, plus a showstopper that i already had a direct solution for in mind. things went pretty well according to plan - i pushed out the showstopper fix in only 15 minutes, and had received confirmation reports within the hour. next i slowly worked through the last of the bug-fixes which took the better part of the day, but i got there, somehow. had a little bit of a celebratory wander around the studio, talking to my workmates and co-habitants about how good it feels to have this pretty much wrapped up (it's dominated the last 2 months of my life, and on-and-off before that for 18 months)! then something occured to me. a little niggle i'd been keeping in the back of my head. i was finally listening to the sounds of the little project, and while the new functionality was sounding fantastic, there was a kind of warbling to the standard tones. often times these things are purely in one's mind, but i sat there and listened, comparing between old and new hardware. it was totally there. the pitch of a thing that is designed to produce a steady tone, was gently squirreling around. shock horror! a sense of dread. maybe the last $20k i just sank into this production might be going straight in the trash. what was wrong with the new version of the hardware?! the only thing i changed was the digital detection of a switch - that couldn't possibly be affecting the functionality - it's only a GPIO pin. what else changed? the power supply.. long story short, we shifted to using a switch-mode power supply internally on this updated project. this allows the power conversion (from 12v down to 3v3 for the microcontroller) to be over 80% efficient, whereas prior it was less than 60% efficient and passed through 2 different regulators (switching and linear). added (perhaps blinding) benefit, is it decreased the unit cost by some $2.50. i checked there was sufficient power supply filtering and it was fine on the schematic. next i started poking around with the scope. thanks to my genius repair-focussed employee natalie, this revision had test points for all the important voltages on the back. they all tested out as solid rails. no ripple was visible, and the peak-to-peak accuracy seemed really good at around 35mV, heavily focussed in the center. i scoped the ADC traces where the pitch input signals hit the uC, and they were a little fuzzy, but no big jittery wandering as i was expecting. it had to be something else. it had to be the power supply! what else could it be. i scoped the 3v3 analog rail again. it looked fine to my eyes. i zoomed right in and all looked well .. except .. little dots were appearing in the bottom of the screen. single dots on my old 90's scope. the kind of dots you generally ignore, but they were happening repeatedly. i turned on peak-to-peak voltage detection and there it was "100mV". these dots weren't random dots, they were part of the voltage readout! static. it must be static. but what is static anyway?! i don't know to be honest. i didn't want to spend all day staring at the datasheet for the power-supply i'd put in there as the only thing that would lead to was changing the hardware itself. we'd already spent wayyy too much time fixing hardware for this product in the past -- that was the whole reason for the re-design. i had to turn to the code. i had to make it work. we'd come too far. the firmware was monumentally better than the original version. we had to ship! // this is how i came to an early evening exploration into signal smoothing & noise rejection. -- linear interpolation / 1-pole lowpass / RC-filter originally i'd already implmented a simple smoothing algorithm to deal with the inherrent noise of the ADCs in the uC i'm using. this was a single stage delay mechanism where the previous output is combined with the new input. the ratios of each define how quickly the output signal moves toward the new input value. this is great for smoothing out random noise at a relatively low level. you just finetune the ratio of old-vs-new to balance between better random-noise rejection and the settling time to reach a new value. if you only move gradually toward new inputs, you reject the randomness very well, but the signal will only 'glide' toward the new destination. this is particularly problematic for pitch, as there is a long tail to the glide (which theoretically never converges). i turned this up all the way to where the glides took 30 seconds (they need to be less than 30ms) and was surprised to find.. the signal still wobbled around! how could this be?! after some ranting, raving, and rubber-ducking with my other workmate, i arrived at a different conclusion - the problem wasn't random-noise, but rather random little spikes in the signal! i did some measurements to print out the stream of values that were being detected by the ADC and they weren't hugely spikey, but there was definite moments where it seemed to jump a little too far out of range. this is only a 12bit ADC so even a change of 4 or 5 LSBs is significant when amplified out to the range of pitch it is controlling. -- windowed averaging before thinking too much further down the line, i thought about how the RC-filter above favours the input sample. every new sample must influence the signal more than the last. all the ratio sets is how similar their influence is over time. alternatively it's possible to just take the average of the last n samples and thus reduce the impact of the spurious samples impact to no-more than the surrounding 'good' samples. i implemented it as a simple queue, storing the last set of values. an added benefit here is that the 'glide' behaviour of the RC-filter is replaced with a 'linear' characteristic. once a value has changed to a new state, it will go there in a fixed amount of time, directly related to length of the averaging queue. i implemented this and tried sizes of 5 then 35, and after still seeing no change, 505. the signal still moved around, albeit in a much slower kind of way! this couldn't be the solution either. -- hysteresis something i use a lot in analog circuits is hysteresis. allowing things to change state only after seeing a certain amount of change. i knew brian had used this in the earthsea design to filter the knobs for the purpose of knowing whether they'd been turned, or were just resting. the main problem i was having is that static knob positions were resulting in jittery tones, thus if i could just know when the knob was stationary, i could lock the pitch to the current state and then pick up again when the knob moved. this was a fun one to implement and of course i got it wrong at first (it would only move if i turned the knob fast enough). eventually though i dialed it in. choosing the hysteresis value was interesting to see the kinds of effects, but eventually i found something i was happy with. once a change was detected, i did a simple 50% mix of the current output and new destination, just to help smooth any quick bumps. this was a solid solution after some refining of the hysteresis values. it tracked the static pitch quite well, and yet the step size was small enough that it didn't sound obviously discreet in it's movement.. until one turned the knob very slowly with a tone of rich harmonics - all those lovely aliased artifacts were jumping around. it was close, but i hadn't quite nailed it yet. -- stepping back and rethinking the problem at this point i had to go home. i'd been at work for almost 12 hours and i'd burnt out on this project at least twice before - i didn't want to make it a 3rd time right as we were about to ship. i knew there was a solution, but i also wasn't going to magically complete and test it in one day. i packed up and was about to get on my bike to ride home, when it occured to me. this whole hysteresis thing is just a binary form of the more general idea:    for small changes, the output should move slowly (or stop)    for large changes, the output should move quickly this is the idea that i'm still running with right now. -- a slope sensitive smoother if we take either the RC or averaging smoother, they both have a smoothing effect on the signal. the problem is we can't use a constant coefficient that is slow enough to smooth out our noisy signal, because our particular signal is too spikey for short decay times, and our use-case is too demanding for long slew times. rather if we break down the problem into the two abovementioned parts, what we need is a filter that follows this small-slow vs large-quick approach. we can implement this by simply using the rate-of-change of the input to control the coefficient of the filter! rate-of-change is easy as we just implemented it for the hysteresis approach as the absolute-difference of output to input. -- bringing it all together i haven't even tried this yet. indeed i'm just home now after this brainwave. but i want to talk about bringing these ideas all together into a resilient filtration mechanism that should have wider use than in this case. there's 2 different areas where previous ideas should be integrated: the first is this idea of exponential vs linear glide time. when moving small distances, the linear time is better for smoothing extraneous signals. while moving large distances requires a more rapidly moving slope to avoid obvious artifacts. the second idea is about integrating smoothing into the rate-of-change detector, vs. the input into the slope-sensitive-smoother. the linear filter introduces a fixed delay equal to it's length, which is not ideal for the signal itself (latency always feels bad). on the other hand, it shouldn't be a huge problem for control the rate-of-change this way, as large changes will start moving (albeit slowly) before the filter picks up, while a little overshoot (in terms of smoothing time) isn't a problem, as the ear is unlikely to notice the pitch warble if it's only at the onset of a new note. the filter is good at rejecting spurious noise, so it seems appropriate for ignoring spikes by keeping the r-o-c relatively static conversely, the exponential smoother acts with a single stage of delay, pushing it toward the real-time use of smoothing the signal itself (controlled by the r-o-c detector). the filter is quick to respond to big changes, so it will deal well with quick note changes (often these occur as large steps). -- final thoughts by combining the benefits of the different averaging techniques, and abstracting the idea of hysteresis to a continuous function, we've arrived at an efficient, responsive, and resilient smoothing technique. it is suited to deal with both white noise, as well as spurious noisy elements in a stream. the coefficients of both averagers, plus the scale of modulation by rate-of-change, can be customized to the use-case. it was only by thinking about the problem with a multi-faceted approach that this conclusion was able to be reached. the answer didn't come about through textbook knowledge, but through practical & lateral thinking about the problem in its surrounding context.