#at least i have a cool keyboard now though

[gamerwoo]

hi im alive i think i have (had??) tonsillitis but my tonsils are feeling a lot better today and im less stuffy but i’ve stayed home from work all week and my boss and coworkers definitely hate me for it 🙃

but in good news: my new keyboard showed up!!!! it’s like clear/pink and it sounds super satisfying to type with, i just need to get used to the new spacing since it is smaller than my old one and doesn’t have a numpad but eeeee im excited to use it!!!!!

[yourdoorisunlocked]

Kill Your Darlings - Part Three

𝐀/𝐍: I think I'll start posting the rest of this series on A03, while posting one-shots and requests on Tumblr. It's been cool posting my series here, but I prefer posting to A03 when it comes to longer fics.

Nonetheless, please enjoy!

➺ 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 | 𝟑,𝟑𝟓𝟎

The incessant clicking of a mousepad and the mad ticking of fingers flying over a keyboard filled the barren kitchen, as he occasional moan of the wind rocking the apartment complex back and forth and the cold, hard blare of the silver screen on your laptop aggravated the pain of your headache.  

The tips of your toes just barely brushed against the frigid kitchen tile as you leaned obsessively over your computer, clicking away on the mousepad like it was your lifeline.  

At that point, it very well could’ve been, since the precious piece of technology held all of your answers, answers that Alastor wouldn’t offer you – not without a price. 

And you had nothing left to barter, since he already owned your soul – a thought that loomed over you when the demon wasn’t around to distract you from that chilling reality. Alastor owned you. He could’ve pushed you around like a dog strapped to a chain, and yet he didn’t. Most likely because he couldn’t truly control you, since you weren’t lost to his wrathful clutches just yet. 

So, using your timed freedom, you did some digging around on the web in a last-ditch attempt to find anything about Alastor himself, and his history. Know thy enemy, as the saying goes. 

But whether he was truly your enemy, would be tested with time. 

And right now, the blasted internet was proving to be a worthy opponent, since you were practically tearing your hair out by the bunches since you barely discovered anything about him. Still, you were determined to decode his mystery. Humans were terrifyingly efficient at finding each other, and dead ones would be no more difficult, even if you found squat about Alastor. 

Mark my words. I’ll find out who you are, Alastor.  

“Where there is a will,” you clicked away from the barren search results, fully prepared to surf around the dark web if you had to, “There is a fucking way.”  

Even though you hadn’t a clue to his origins or background, you were convinced that Alastor had to have been some kind of serial killer while he was alive, and you’d bet your soul on it.  

His personality fit the stereotype – a well-based one, at that – he was haunting your fucking radio – granted, a very swanky radio – and on top of that, Alastor was a literal demon . Maybe. You weren’t all that certain about what exactly he was, but there was too much evidence supporting the theory to consider him being anything but. 

Whatever the case, you were convinced. Alastor was, without a doubt, a bona fide serial murderer . Perhaps that ominous information should’ve put you on edge, but you were twisted too deep in Alastor’s captivating mystery to care. Fascination had overcome your fear of the unknown, and you were ready to dive in, and lose yourself in his mysterious past. 

But that was proving to be damn near impossible, when you could barely find anything about the bastard. He was a footnote in history, at best. No last name, no family members related to him, nothing.  

Still, you were determined. 

Leaning forward, you chewed on your thumb nail whilst scrolling through yet another forum that went into thorough detail about demon encounters and sacrificial rituals. Or, at least, a human’s rendition of them.  

You had sifted through a fair share of information on demons as well but turned up with virtually nothing, save for many helpful bold-lettered warnings that demanded to be heeded: Do not. Fuck. With demons.  

“Gee, thanks,” you muttered to yourself, clicking away from the site before groaning and massaging your aching temples. 

By all standards, it had been an agonizingly unproductive session of information-scouring. However, you had made some headway with a client of yours and finished most of your task list. Everything minor was shoved to the side in desperation of somehow piecing together Alastor’s intentions, stressing over his poorly veiled threats, and trying to figure out just whoever the hell he was in life. 

Just as you were about to yield to the great barriers of the internet, with nothing but an increased hopelessness and frustration at your lack of understanding of your new “Master” – as you were loath to call him – a soft wisp of a shadow flitting about the kitchen caught your attention out of the corner of your eye. 

“Hello, there,” you sighed without looking up at the shadow, already annoyed with its presence as it leaned over the counter with a smug grin.  

One glance at the computer and your hopelessness told it a thousand words regarding your predicament. 

“Yeah, yeah, you can gloat later. I got plenty done, anyhow.” You raised an eyebrow towards it. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about him, would you?” 

The shadow stared down at you, unimpressed as it crossed its arms, crackling curtly in response. Absolutely not.   

“Aw, come on, not even for a snack? I could make you something.” You nodded towards the fridge, grinning when it perked up and followed your glance. “Just throw me a bone here. Give me a hint, anything, and maybe I’ll give you a nice meal. How does that sound? C’mon, I’m sure you’re hungry.” 

Its emerald green sockets glimmered mischievously, and it bristled with a soft purr as it leaned down on the counter, practically drooling at the thought of a meal.  

A low rumble shook the floors with an unmistakable growl of hunger, and it whined softly. 

You pouted sympathetically. Seems like Alastor hasn’t fed it, recently.  

“Oh, poor baby,” it nuzzled into your soothing touch as you scratched behind one ear. “I’m sure he doesn’t feed you as much as he should,” the shadow’s stomach rumbled in response. 

“Resorting to bribery, are we?”  

You rolled your eyes as the radio flickered on, and you raised an eyebrow at it as it sat innocently upon the coffee table. “Wouldn’t you like to know.” You cooed down at the eager shadow as you completely ignored Alastor and his offended scoff.  

“Ignoring someone when they’re talking to you is quite rude, my dear-!”  

“I have some chicken that I can prepare for you. You can choose the spices, the temperature, whatever you want,” you were beaming cheekily when the shadow perked up, one fuzzy ear twitching towards you. 

“Temptress,” Alastor snapped. 

You at least had the decency to feel partly ashamed, though you just grinned triumphantly. You weren’t proud of having to barter for information, but whatever got you the scoop on Alastor was well worth it. 

“That’s right, just imagine those carefully baked, golden-brown edges, and oh, think of the spices!” Alastor rolled his eyes at your dramatic tone, choosing to peek through the shadow’s eyes at you. Pretty little temptress. You’d somehow tamed his shadow, and he was certain it wasn’t just the chicken that it was after.

To Alastor’s chagrin, the devilish phantom had all but leapt over the counter towards you, curling around you with a loud purr as it nuzzled into your neck.  

You chuckled at its antics and pushed yourself up from your seat, stretching your cramped back and legs and wincing from the lightning strikes of pain that shot up your joints from the hours of sitting in a hunched position. 

“Alright, let’s get you some food,” you scratched beneath its chin, and it hummed contentedly in response, its fluffy tail enthusiastically beating the air. 

“Traitor.”  

You cast a triumphant smirk at the slight pout in Alastor’s from the other side of the line. “Oh, I’m just doing some charity work. Clearly, you’ve been starving the poor thing,” you rubbed the shadow’s cheek, grinning smugly as it nuzzled into your neck with a soft coo. 

“Charity work!? You’ve seduced it with your wiles!” Alastor spat indignantly. 

You rolled your eyes while pulling out a few ingredients. “It’s food, Alastor. And you know what they say,” the shadow suddenly tittered and flew away from your side to rummage through the spice cabinet, “The way to a man’s heart, is through his stomach.” 

“It has no heart, and it is no man,” his tone darkened slightly, but you either took no notice or simply didn’t care as you took out the raw chicken from the fridge. 

“But it’s attached to one,” you grinned cheekily as the shadow returned with several spices in its arms while smiling widely with a wagging tail, while Alastor scoffed with a roll of his eyes. 

You clapped your hands. “Alright, let’s get to work.” 

. . .  

Alastor had grown quiet for most of the process, leaving you and the shadow in pure, content silence as you got to work around the kitchen. The shadow was entirely unbothered at his master’s sudden radio silence, instead choosing to make itself comfortable looming around your form while watching you season and prepare its supper. 

As you waited for the chicken to be cooked, you turned to the shadow who had been staring at you with its head resting upon its inky palm while watching you work with salivating, emerald eyes, simmering with the fire of raw gemstones.

“Now, I believe I was promised some information in return?”  

Static buzzed as it put a finger to its chin, humming softly before speeding off into the apartment, and it soon returned with a pen and paper and scribbled madly across the parchment. 

Alastor Hartifelt.  

As soon as the name tumbled from your lips, a loud record-scratching screech sounded from the living room.  

��ᵾȼҟ.  

But you didn’t even flinch at the ear-splitting noise as you grinned and nodded in approval, your determination flickering bright yet again. “Finally, we’re getting somewhere.” You barely got a moment to process your excitement at a new lead, a possible doorway to the holy grail of information about the strange, ominous demon haunting your actual radio-!  

Ding!  

The shadow’s ears twitched in the direction of the noise, and it was suddenly nipping at your nipping at your heels and pushing you insistently towards the oven. You were certain that it was drooling all over your floor, but you stifled your jittering excitement anyway. There were promises to be fulfilled, after all.

“Alright, alright!” Batting the phantom away, you grabbed the oven mitts with a sigh. 

“Not so easy now, is it?”  

“Oh, nobody asked you!” 

You soon plated the chicken and served it over to the phantom, who made quick work of the poor bird in mere seconds. At least it was already dead, you shuddered, trying to push the image of being ferociously torn apart by its razor-sharp canines out of your mind. 

It licked its chops with a satisfied rumble once it finished with not a crumb left on the plate you offered, and you were still reeling from the bizarre few minutes you spent watching it enjoy your cooking. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if it licked the plate. Seriously, how long has it been since the poor thing’s eaten?  

The shadow immediately curled around you as you sat down in front of the counter, hissing lowly at the laptop before burying its face in your neck with a soft growl. You didn’t want to be rude and shove it away, and besides, the shadow’s aura was surprisingly warm, which shielded you from the cold, drafty air of the apartment. 

And so, you allowed it to remain cooing and teething around your neck – as on-edge as it made you – while you typed Alastor’s full name into the search bar. 

As soon as you hit enter, the internet decided to be helpful again, and provided you with a golden website, containing any and all answers to your ever gluttonous curiosity for your new demonic companion, and his shadowy servant.

You smirked and ruffled one of the shadow’s ears. “Nice sleuthing, Alastor Jr.” The shadow grinned into your neck and pulled you even closer, while Alastor chuckled softly at the nickname, choosing to survey the laptop through the eyes of his ghostly scout. 

Not the first choice I’d make, since simply going down to the station would’ve sufficed.  Alastor sniffed and rapped his gleaming nails against his desk, eyeing the device with distaste. Then again, it doesn’t seem like those incompetent oafs would want an account of something so gruesome happening just beneath their noses staining their records!  

You relaxed into your seat, mentally preparing for the deep dive into Alastor’s shady past that you were about to take. It seemed that no information was buried enough to be obscured, so long as you were awfully specific with your search.  

But thank the merciful deities above that some history buff – who seemed quite outraged at the lack of discussion and information around their favorite serial killer – had taken it upon themselves to collect and piece together a consistent timeline of events, all centered around one Alastor Hartifelt. 

Got’chya.

You scrolled a little bit through the Godsent gold mine of information, baffled at just how much there was for you to access. Apparently, Alastor Hartifelt had been a charismatic personality on the radio, a beloved host and rising star in New Orleans. Around the time that he’d made his debut as a radio host, however, was when the murderers started. 

The presence of the Bayou Butcher rocked the city harder than any other scandal at the time, and you couldn’t blame the people for being so paranoid, after reading the brief description of his kills, and his M.O. 

You whistled. “Damn. You have quite the track record, Alastor.” 

“I’m well aware, my dear!”  

You raised an eyebrow at the sound of ruffling paper in the background, accompanied by the clicking of frantic typing. But it didn’t sound anything like the short tapping of a keyboard, and the telltale ring heightened your suspicions. He cannot be serious...  

“Alastor, do you have a goddamn typewriter?”  

“It’s essential, darling! Every good radio host needs a captivating script,” you laughed and shook your head. He’s committed to the bit, I’ll give him that. 

As you explored the very depths of the case surrounding the Bayou Butcher, you began to grow quite curious and weary of just how Alastor disposed of his victims. Unfortunately, there was a certain tab that fed into that very curiosity. At least they provided a warning, before you could view what came next. This one was on yourself. 

“Fucking Christ!” You nearly jumped out of your seat as you clasped your mouth in horror, eyes widened with terror at the gory, uncensored photograph of one of Alastor’s maimed victims.  

The poor soul’s belly had been slit open with a still-inserted butcher knife, with his rotting insides displayed for all to see and staining the floor with bile and undigested food. Squirming maggots and fat cockroaches feasted upon the corpse, which had been festering with mold and disease in Alastor’s basement for quite some time before the authorities found it. 

“Language, my dear~,” said demonic psychopath sang from the radio, and you were just about ready to chuck that thing out of your window as your eye twitched. 

“Prick...” you muttered, quickly scrolling away from the photograph. 

“I heard that.”  

“Greatest apologies, my liege,” you rolled your eyes. Alastor let out an amused huff but said nothing as he went right back to typing out his script. 

Bold headlines like ‘The Bayou Butcher Strikes Again!’ or ‘Victims Brutalized and Missing, Families Torn Apart’ were thrown around wherever you scrolled, and a mere glance at the cohesive timeline provided in one of the documents gave you a good window for how long Alastor had been active. 

“Huh. Seven years...” Alastor perked up at the sudden weariness lacing your meek voice. He had been tuning out for most of your little binging spree, instead electing to tuck into a book in the later evening, since sleep was seldom required for him. Nonetheless, he reluctantly took a peek through his shadow’s eyes to see what you were looking at on that blasted lap-top doohickey of yours, and dread filled his heart. 

Seems that some folks were quite fixated upon my choice of diet...  

Alastor bristled at the other end of the line, practically scenting the small flicker of terror. Your rising fear of him was building up again, and that just wouldn’t do.

Sure, Alastor was cruel, a monster, even, and he knew it. His deeds would instill fear in the hearts of even the most hardened soldiers, and his gluttony, his bloodlust knew no bounds. But not to you, not to the poor, lost little lamb that he’d so graciously taken into his care, that practically domesticated his shadow, who bantered with him. And just when he’d finally broken down a small part of your walls- 

“...So, is it true?” 

Alastor raised an eyebrow, halting from his tireless typing for a moment. “Is what true, my dear?”  

“That you...” you held back from gagging, and a slick smile crept onto his gray lips, “That you ate some of your victims?” 

Sighing, he leaned back in his cushioned chair and gripped the small microphone that he used for broadcasting. The idea of lying to you, treating you like everyone else prickled at his heart with resentment. There was no need to push you away. You were different. It would be different, this time. 

It had to be.

With a defeated sigh, Alastor nodded, though you couldn't see him. At least you’d know, now. At least there wouldn’t be any secrets between you two. 

“Yes,” was the demon, the cannibal’s resounding answer, and the room grew a few degrees colder with tension.  

You’d known that Alastor was... shady, at best. But now, it was out. It was certain. Alastor was a dangerous man, during life and death, but you knew that from the jump.

But at least he told you the truth, and maybe you could count on that, which was a strangely comforting thought. 

You sighed with relief. “As long as you don’t force me to try it.” Alastor chuckled along with you, grinning wider when you clicked away from the computer and sat back with a tired sigh.

“I think that’s enough snooping for tonight. ‘Night, Al’,” you yawned and softly rolled the shoulder that the phantom had been leaning on, and it retracted reluctantly with a soft whine. 

“Wait-!”  

You paused. Turning to the radio, you cocked an eyebrow at the desperation in Alastor’s voice, and he seemed to notice it too, since an awkward silence followed. Heat crept up the radio host’s neck, prompting him to itch and pull at his collar with a low snarl. 

Alastor fucking loathed this feeling. 

“Did you... Did you see anything else? Anything that caught your eye, perhaps?”  

It was the first time that Alastor had spoken to you with anything but suave confidence. “No, why? Is there something even worse than cannibalism, that I should know about?” Crossing your arms, you leaned against the threshold of the living room. 

Alastor softly cleared his throat. “No, nothing like that, my dear. I was simply curious as to how much information was disclosed...” he straightened in his seat, refusing to recognize his anxiousness. “Any mentions of family, spouses, perhaps...?”  

You shook your head with a negatory hum. “Nope, it was all just about you. Why’s that? Did you have a wife? Or a husband?” 

“Just wondering, darling,” he replied hastily, choosing to side-step that question as relief flooded him.

You eyed the radio sympathetically. “Sorry, if that’s... a bit too personal for you. I get it, if you don’t want to talk about it.” Shrugging, you started down the hallway with a wave and a yawn. “Goodnight, Alastor.” 

Alastor watched you, yearning, remorseful eyes tracing the familiar, soft curves of your form as you disappeared down the hallway.

And he answered your final words of the night, a solemn whisper against the cold, bleak air as memories of decades passed invading his memory, threatening overflowing emotions to pool to the surface. 

If you only you could hear the choke in his voice, the restrained tears, the remorse, the regret.  

“Goodnight, my darling.”  

. . .

𝐄𝐧𝐝 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: Thank you for reading <3 It'll be a while before I post here again, since I'll be focusing on my series on A03. If you'd like to read the rest of the fic, I'll put my account below for ya'll

𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐨𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐟𝐞 - A03

. . .

➺ 𝐓𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: @starsformydarlingmazel, @chitter-chatter, @hazzbindarlingg, @darkangel582, @matrixbearer2024, @prosciuttosblog, @frog-fans-unite, @mysterypotatoink, @burgerflipper72, @chibikochannumberone, @strawberry-gothic, @roboticsuccubus83, @lulurubberduckie, @fangirlanxiety74, @viviannagiorgini, @localmsifan, @justtnat, @karolinda007-blog, @mglawwica, @wonderlandangelsposts, @saitisfied, @repostingmyfavs, @weirdflower2024, @montis-posts, @sirens-and-moonflowers, @theperfectmangovoid

@slytherin4ever, @i-love-jafar, @itzlochnessie, @mariaclarade-la-cruz1, @susvale, @valentique, @twismare, @robin-the-enby, @v3n7s, @forbidden-sunlight, @leathesimp, @matemor, @groovybear99, @frompeach, @moonmark98, @nyxnightshade7656, @sushigogo, @crowleysthings, @zombiesnips-blog, @sirens-and-moonflowers, @impulsivethoughtsat2am, @ashdaidiot, @crybabycat1, @repostingmyfavs, @crazii-saber-wolf, @reikamasama, @dudesorriso, @speckle-meow-meow, @alastor-simp

@maggotzdilemma, @cassidywinters

[muekyn]

obsessive!eren headcanons

a/n: i love obsessive!eren so i had to write some blurbs <3 just to be safe minors dni !! t/w: maybe potential yandere/weird behavior ? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

literally head over heels for you. this man will do anything, and i mean anything, to make sure you're his.

though you two aren't "officially" dating, eren decided a long time ago that you're going to be with him. of course, he would never force it. he genuinely believes that with time, you'll be just as into him as he is into you.

he steals small things here and there from you. nothing big, nothing you would miss. just little trinkets of you, like lip balm or hair ties. anything that reminds him of you. for eren, it's like you're sharing a part of him with you.

constantly staring at you or making eye contact with you. even if you're on opposite sides of a room, that boy will be eyeing you down like his life depends on it. he wants to capture your beauty each and every second he gets.

lies awake at night just thinking about you, needing to be with you. it keeps him up most days. he's stepped out his front door a few times, determined to meet with you in the late hours of the night, though he always decides against it. he doesn't want to do anything that might make you afraid or uncomfortable with him. (at least not anything you would be aware of)

texts you 24/7. if eren's in a social setting that he wants to get out of, expect to hear your phone dinging with notifications. sometimes it's just complete gibberish, like keyboard smashes or random memes on his phone. but the fact that you spend your time talking to him makes him all giddy. he has the goofiest smile plastered on his face whenever he reads a text from you.

has threatened jean a few times for teasing him about you. one time jean had made an offhand comment about you (something flirtatious or insulting, eren can't even remember) that sent eren into a rage. the only reason eren didn't maul jean to shreds was due to armin taking him to another room and calming him down. eren didn't talk to jean for a few weeks afterwards.

is very stoic and emotionless around others. however, the second you walk into the room, he's all smiles. everyone has noticed by now and exclaims, "eren's sunshine is here!!" whenever you come to group gatherings. eren's all red in the face but you always just laugh it off, chalking it up to nothing.

this boy doesn't even try to hide his feelings. will actively sulk in the corner if he finds out you're going on a date or texting another guy. you tell yourself he acts this way since he's your friend and is just looking out for you. maybe the guy you're texting actually is an asshole?

will literally find anything in order to convince you not to go on dates. he will insult your date's appearance, make up lies about them, say they're already dating someone, you name it. sometimes he will literally greet the guy that you're supposed to go on a date with, which throws of them off alot. though you won't admit it, eren has ruined alot of dates for you. (if only you could see you should be going out with him)

gives you way too many gifts. it's to the point where you feel bad every time he gets you something, simply because you don't know how to make it up to him. (you could totally just kiss him and that would be enough) if you mentioned something that would be cool to have, expect eren to find a way to get his hands on it in the next week or so. he just can't help himself when he sees your cute excited smile!

super touchy, though he never outright just touches you. he does it in super inconspicuous ways. if you're sitting down, he insists on sitting next to you so that his legs can be touching yours. if you're walking by him, he'll intentionally get a little bit closer so he can feel you graze against him.

one time he got very drunk and cuddled you for hours. he refused to let anyone move him away from you. he was rambling on and on about something involving the two of you, though you couldn't quite understand what exactly he was saying. when you told him you didn't understand, he simply smiled and graced your forehead with a light peck. you could feel yourself tingle with embarrassment, but before you could say anything to him, he passed out. you think about that night still.

[the-travelling-witch]

𝐏𝐈𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐄 𝐌𝐘 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓

summary: everyone with piercings knows, you always come back for more; but this time you might have found a different reason to return again

pairing: piercer!xiao x gn!reader; feat. venti, heizou, scaramouche, kazuha, aether

warnings: piercings, tattoos, needles; xiao in *that* top yes that’s a warning; xiao with piercings and tattoos that is definitely a warning; this is purely self-indulgent and i couldn’t be any less sorry; i simp for xiao, so the reader does too; this is my xiao, everyone back off >///&lt;

a/n: deep down i always knew i had to write this but @kazu-sun slapped me awake yesterday, scara and al-haitham just had to take a backseat; since this xiao is absolutely superior and occupies most of my brain space, i kind of want to turn this into a series or at least write more for this; also considering writing for all of the boys within this ‘universe’

modern au series || genshin impact masterlist

It was hard not to get excited with how your best friend, Venti, was dragging you along, his giggles making your own bubble over.

“Come on!! Hurry up!!” He giggled, pulling your arm further towards him. “Ohh, I can’t wait for you to meet the guys!!”

“Aren’t we here so I can get a piercing?” you mused. 

“That too,” Venti replied cheekily. “I’ve wanted to introduce you guys for ages now, let me have some fun.”

You had always had a particular weakness for your friend and were never able to be upset with him in the first place. The only problem was that he knew it too and had no shame using it to rope you into all sorts of trouble. 

So, when you told him you were contemplating getting another piercing, he was over the moon, hyping you up and already calling his friends to schedule an appointment at their studio. Somehow it seemed Venti was more excited than you and you didn’t find the heart to stump his enthusiasm. Besides, having someone who supported you so fully was really reassuring and stopped you from going back and forth on your decision as usual.

Said someone was currently giving you his brightest grin as he pushed open the glass door to a modern piercing and tattoo studio. With the chime of the bell, 4 heads snapped into your direction; 3 were looking up from their work in the lounge while a white haired man  poked his head into the hallway.

“Ah Venti, you’re finally here.” A long-haired blond was smiling at your friend from behind a counter, clicking away at a keyboard. “And you must be his best friend? Nice to meet you, Venti already told us loads about you.”

“Yeah, he basically didn’t shut up,” someone scoffed. It was a guy with dark blue hair cut in a style you didn’t think anyone else could pull off. Turning back to his work and only showing you the back of his head, you saw a sliver of ink peek from beneath his collar.

“Oh don’t be like that, Scaramouche,” an auburn-haired man sniggered. When he looked over to you it was hard not to be drawn in by his bright olive eyes, accentuated by a mole underneath each one. “I’m Heizou. The grump over there is Kunikuzushi but he goes by his artist name most of the time. Don’t mind him, he always gets like that when he’s working on something.”

“If everyone’s introducing themselves, I don’t want to miss out. My name’s Aether.” He beckoned you over, handing you a few papers. “You’re here for a new piercing, right? I just need you to fill out these. How are you feeling? Did you eat and drink enough?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Sliding the forms back over the counter, you gave him a timid smile. “I can’t help but get a little nervous every time though.”

“That’s alright. You’re in good hands here, I promise.” Aether’s soft way of speaking helped ground you a little again. “Plus, you have a cool new piercing to look forward to, can’t blame you for getting excited.”

“Speaking of which,” Venti sing-songed as he threw an arm around you, “which one of you will have the honours of stabbing my bestie’s ear with a needle?~”

Elbowing him in the ribs, you murmured a low “You’re not helping, you know.”

Pointedly ignoring Heizou’s cheeky ‘I certainly wouldn’t mind’, Aether rolled up a newspaper and gave Venti a light-hearted twack on the head “Nobody’s getting stabbed in our studio, you idiot. But to answer your question, we scheduled them with Xiao.” Addressing you, he added “Xiao is our best piercer, he’s got lots of experience. You won’t feel a thing.”

“Oohhh~” your friend cooed. “Hehe, it’s true though, Xiao’s really good at it. He did most of my piercings too.”

At that you relaxed a little, although nerves were still thrumming through you. Seeing a new piercer for the first time always added more restlessness to your mind but you were willing to trust your friend’s appraisal and Aether sounded genuine as well. That was when a smooth, low voice cut through your thoughts.

“Yes, and you’re always one of my most annoying clients.” Whirling around, you came face to face with a young man, his black and teal hair tied into a messy ponytail, leaving only his bangs to frame his face, half of which was covered by a black mask. It only served to highlight the intense amber eyes scrutinising you from head to toe and back up. As he turned his face towards the blond behind the counter, the studio lights reflected off the multiple piercings decorating his ears. “And you, stop lying to our customers. It’s a piercing, of course it’s going to sting.”

While Xiao and Aether were bickering about ‘soothing a client’s nerves’, your heart rate skyrocketed and you were surprised the muscle still sat within your rib cage. This guy was undeniably the hottest man you had ever seen. And when he shrugged off his jacket to reveal an elaborate sleeve tattoo, it didn’t help your case. The view on the art was granted to you by the sleeveless, high-neck, tight-fitted black top perfectly showing off his defined muscles.

You were about to tell Aether you weren’t feeling so good today after all, surprised you hadn’t fainted yet. It probably wasn’t ideal that you could feel all your blood rushing to your head, heating your cheeks and ears. But then again… you couldn’t pass up this opportunity. Not that Venti would let you anyway.

“Whatever,” Xiao scoffed. Extending one hand towards you, the other went to take off his mask, revealing that the other half of his face was just as gorgeous as the rest. “I’m Xiao, as you’ve probably already heard from these idiots.”

“Nice to meet you.” As you shook his hand and told him your name, you missed the gleeful looks Aether, Venti and Heizou shared. Even Scaramouche raised an eyebrow before promptly going back to sketching. 

“Alright, are you ready to get started?” When you nodded, he tilted his chin to the rooms behind Aether. “Come with me, then.”

Tugging you into a side-hug as you walked past, Venti called after his teal-haired friend,  “Don’t be too rough with them, you hear me?”, earning him a few giggles from Heizou, an eye roll from both Aether and Scaramouche and a stare from Xiao which you were sure could’ve sent him straight to his grave then and there. Still very much alive though, Venti whispered to you, “I’m only joking, you can trust him, really.”

“Wait, didn’t you say you’d come with me?” You incredulously asked.

“Ah well,” Venti loudly proclaimed, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, “since I am apparently so annoying, I believe it’s best to let Xiao work in peace. Besides, I have some catching up to do here.”

Following Xiao to the backrooms, the last thing you heard from the lounge was Heizou’s snide “Doesn’t that just mean you’ll be annoying us instead?”

Your piercer pinched the bridge of his nose. “How do you tolerate that regularly?”

“That,” you pointed a finger at him, “is the million dollar question. But don’t you have to put up with all of them on a daily basis?”

“Unfortunately.” Despite his demeanour you could hear a certain fondness in his voice. He nodded towards something which starkly reminded you of an examination table as he pulled on black latex gloves. “Have a seat and get comfortable while I prepare everything.”

Taking off your jacket you did as you were told. After looking around the small room, your eyes settled on the most interesting thing in there. Xiao. Or more specifically the way his biceps and triceps worked underneath the ink of his tattoo, quickly averting your gaze and examining your nails when he stepped closer with a marker in hand.

“I’ll draw a little dot first to mark where the piercing is going to be. If you don’t like the location, don’t hesitate to tell me, okay? We’ll redraw it as often as needed to make sure you’re happy with it.” You noted he spoke much softer now, his tone not as gruff but still as melodic, making butterflies flap their tiny wings in your stomach.

It was only when he leaned in close that you realised just how difficult this was truly going to be. His slender fingers held your chin gently to angle your head to his liking as he fixed his bright eyes on your ear, brushing every possibly disturbing hair strand behind it. Was now the right time to notice his fluttering long lashes or the perfectly drawn eyeliner accentuating his features? You weren’t sure but you did nonetheless.

Pulling back too soon for your liking, his cologne lingered in the air as he twisted to hand you a mirror. As your fingers brushed, you could feel the heat of his skin even through the gloves he wore and it was making your head spin.

Moving your head around a little, you had to give Venti and Aether credit. They weren’t lying when they said Xiao was a true professional, not that you had expected anything else but how he managed to hit the exact spot you had envisioned on the first try was still beyond you.

Smiling up at him, you handed the mirror back. “It’s perfect.”

“Good to hear.” The corners of his mouth twitched up a little and you quickly found yourself becoming fond of the sight. “It’s on to the main event then. Still feeling alright?”

“Yes, let’s get this over with before I chicken out.”

He chuckled as he prepared the needle. “I won’t lie to you and say it’ll be completely painless, I mean you have a couple of piercings already, so you know. But I’ll do my best to make it as bearable as possible for you, okay?”

You only hummed as you prepared yourself for the sting. It wasn’t so much the actual needle as just your imagination making your stomach churn. As Xiao levelled his face with yours again, though, it was suddenly very easy to focus on something else. 

The feeling of his fingers on your chin, even through the waxy material, sent sparks racing across your body. This time, however, it was his breath fanning across the side of your face and neck which sent your mind into overdrive. Together with the proximity of the rest of him, it made for a dangerous combination, making your thoughts run into all sorts of directions.

Flinching as the jewellery was being pushed through, you were quickly brought back to reality though. 

“Sorry about that,” Xiao murmured.

“No, it’s fine. Just caught me by surprise, that's all.”

When he pulled back once more, he gave you a true -albeit small- smile and you thought you must be melting, easily ignoring the throbbing in your ear. “The good news is that you’re all done. You did so well.” Passing you the mirror one more time, Xiao tilted his head as if in contemplation before speaking decidedly. “Looks to me like I did my job right. It looks good on you.”

He was trying to kill you, no doubt about it.

As you regained your composure, Xiao put a hand on your shoulder and lightly pushed you back down on the table when you tried to stand. Handing you a glass of water, he said “Just stay seated for now. I’ll go finish up the paperwork while you calm down and then I’ll come get you.”

“Okay.” Even in your own ears, your voice sounded so small.

Just as promised, Xiao came back a couple minutes after he left you to your own devices. A few minutes in which you heavily debated asking him for a date or his number. If it was anyone else, you might have decided to shoot your shot. But… this was Venti’s friend. There was a possibility you’d inevitably have to see him again. Besides, he definitely seemed the type to be hit on a lot. So, you thought it better to do nothing.

“Aha, still in one piece I see~”

“Of course,” your piercer scoffed. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

“Now, now, Xiao, Venti is only teasing you. No need to rip his head off.” It was the white-haired man you had only seen briefly before. Otherwise you might have noticed the vibrant streak of crimson running through his locks. “So you’re Venti's friend? I’m Kazuha; looks like I’m the only one who didn’t get to meet you earlier.”

“Seems so.” Kazuha had an infectious sort of smile you couldn’t help but mirror. Two hands on your shoulders quickly spun you around and you blinked rapidly to focus on the blue-green eyes of your best friend.

“Let me see the new addition,” he exclaimed before grinning smugly. “I told you getting a new piercing was a good idea, it’s really pretty.”

“Personally, I think they do most of the heavy lifting in that department,” Heizou winked at you, “but the jewellery obviously enhances that.”

While chaos ensued within the studio over Heizou’s remark, you felt a tap on your shoulder. Xiao was quietly slipping the receipt over the counter, fiddling around with his hands and not quite meeting your eyes. After you handed him the money, he told you to come back in about four or five weeks to check in on the piercing and switch it for one with a shorter bar.

“If you have any trouble at all, feel free to come in and have someone look over it, lest it gets infected,” he sternly said. Then he placed a small plastic bag with a piercing inside in front of you. “Here, this is for you.”

“Oh, thank you. That’s very kind of you.” Maybe it was your imagination but just as a simmering heat flushed back into yours, you thought you saw a light blush settle over Xiao’s cheeks.

Despite not really wanting to leave yet, you said your goodbyes, gaze lingering a little longer on Xiao who held it. As you walked along the street you could feel Venti almost burst with anticipation next to you.

“Spit it out, idiot.”

“So, someone has the hots for a certain piercer,” he squealed excitedly. “Don’t even try to deny it, it’s sooo obvious.”

“Whatever, it’s not like anything is going to happen anyway,” you sighed, still lost in your little daydream.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Venti smugly replied as he grabbed the tiny package in your hand. “Accepting the risk of you giving another stellar impression of a tomato, allow me to point out… this.”

Turning the bag around, your eyes widened at the neatly written number followed by the only name you wanted to see sprawled underneath.

“Xiao, did you seriously just give away jewellery for free just because you have a little crush?!” Rolling up the newspaper again, Scaramouche used it to hit the aforementioned man over the head.

“Relax, it was only one piercing,” Kazuha said, tone placatory.

“He’s right. Besides,” Heizou chuckled, “can you blame the guy? Man, to think that we’d ever see the day… Xiao in love…”

Wordlessly, Xiao held out his hand towards Scaramouche. It was his turn with the newspaper.

© the-travelling-witch 2023 - do not repost, translate, copy or edit

if you like my content, reblogs, comments and asks are always much appreciated ♡

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[villainessprefect]

~Tell It to My Heart~

title: Late Night With You

Prompt #2: Ending a phone call with an accidental “love you”

Idia x gn!reader

Read on AO3

Your eyes glide to the clock at the corner of the screen. You watch as the seconds literally tick by and bite back a sigh once you realize how late it's gotten. If the darkness enveloping your room and the main source of light coming from your computer wasn't obvious that it was well past your bedtime.

"It's getting late," you say. It is late, you mentally correct yourself.

"And?" Comes a voice from your headphones. You roll your eyes at his response. "It's not like we're doing anything tomorrow."

"You're not. I am." You fiddle with your mic that's connected to your headset. "Unless if you want to show up to class with me?"

You hear something akin to a huff and can practically feel his eye roll.

"Hard pass. These drop rates are harder than pulling for a limited edition SSR character and we're only given a week to grind for them? An event like this won't get a rerun for at least a year or two. It's now or never."

You shake your head and let out a yawn. Leave it to Idia to find importance in an online game. You don't doubt that he's right, but you're not a hardcore gamer like him. Life calls whether you want it to or not and you have to answer it.

"You make a convincing argument. Think you can get enough for me too?"

"Do you know who you're talking to? When I'm done we'll have enough materials to make a second set of weapons for display," he says with a chuckle.

A smile inches on your face at the sound. A shame that you can't hear it in person. It sounds better compared to the slightly muffled version in your ears.

"Thanks. We still on for Saturday? That's when the drop rates increase, right?"

"Yeah. I'll send you better armor so we can one-shot those raids too."

"Cool." You feel another yawn coming your way and barely manage to hold it back. You rub your eyes and feel a little guilty for not holding much of a conversation. To be fair though, keeping your eyes open isn't easy even with the blaring light of a laptop shining on your face. "Okay, I can't be up much longer. You should be heading to bed soon even if you're not going to show up for class."

"Eh? No way. I can do this all night!"

"I'll message Ortho," you threaten with a grin. Idia falls silent and you can imagine him glancing back to look at his brother. The image makes you chuckle. It wouldn't be the first time you'd manage to get Ortho to get Idia to bed. "Kidding. Anyway, see you later, Idia. Love you."

You pull off your headset and place it on your desk. You log off your account and then the laptop's screen fades to black. A whine escapes you as you're forced to adjust to the sudden darkness.

You stretch your limbs as you stand from your chair. Carefully, you navigate the walk from desk to bed. It's a short path but you don't know what lies hiding in the dark. Thankfully, your mission is successful and you land in bed with a thud.

Grim rolls around beside you, muttering something in his sleep. The monster doesn't wake, surprisingly, and you take a moment to run a hand through his fur. He purrs, getting cozy underneath your touch, and nestles closer to you. Then he mumbles something about tuna.

"Sweet dreams..." You breathe out. With one last yawn, you shut your eyes.

Only to have them shoot open as your body jerks itself upward.

"Oh my god..." You gasp, a hand flying to your mouth. You can feel your cheeks burning, your heart racing a mile a minute.

Did you...Did you really just tell Idia you love him?

You totally did not just do that.

Idia is frozen in his chair with wide eyes. He feels like a cat that's just been spooked as he repeats your goodbye over and over in his mind. Those two little words you uttered could easily OHKO him. And if you were right in front of him, he really would have died on the spot.

Idia pulls his hands off his keyboard to cover his face. His room is enveloped in a soft blue glow that stems from his hair. Now it begins to flash a light pink. His cheeks began to match the new color surrounding him.

"Th-They didn't mean to say that..." He tells himself. "I-It's late and they're just tired. Yeah. Th-That's it. N-No way they'd tell me that. Besides that's not a way they would confess..."

Not that he's thought about you confessing to him. Well, he has. A bit. Okay, more than he's ever willing to admit. And he's not going to go off about how he imagines it happening underneath a cherry blossom tree after school with flowers sparkling around your image.

"They're right, i-it's getting late..." Idia tries to calm his nerves while logging out of his game. His fingers are set on autopilot as your voice echoes in his head.

Even as he finds himself in bed, curling underneath the covers, he can't fall asleep. You are on his mind now more than ever. His heart bounces around his chest, making him feel giddy while his mind fights against it, scolding it and being realistic about your words being a tired mistake.

Regardless of which one wins, he's definitely not going out tomorrow.

Oh. That brings up another problem. Instead of looking forward to playing with you, now he's dreading it.

What the hell is going to happen on Saturday?!

[lorkai]

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ A/N: Silly and self Indulgent scenario that's been living in my head since I've started learning coding like javascript and html awhile ago, like pls let Idia teach me, I'll listen to everything he has say. Or not. Probably not. I would probably be looking at him all the time like 👀💞.

Coming from someone as quiet as Idia, people would think that he only hides inside his room and that only silence surrounds him. But that was far from true, Idia laughed, screamed or hummed all the time when he was safe and sound inside those comforting walls and, like now, his fingers tapped the keyboard keys frantically.

"What's that supposed to be?" You asked, pointing to a series of strange codes on Idia's dimly lit computer screen. How he could see with all the lights off, you didn't know. But at least, you now knew why he complained about his eyes hurting.

Idia replied without turning around, "They're called arrays. They're used to store more than one code inside a variable, Yuu-shi."

You made an understanding sound even though you didn't understand what that meant. You remembered a thing or two about your world's programming, but the memories were blurred and as today was an especially calm day, you decided to pull a chair close to his desk and sit next to Idia to watch him work. Maybe it would help to understand what those "arrays" were for if you could watch him, besides it was fun.

You noticed how his fingers trembled slightly against the keyboard and the ends of his hair turned pink at your sudden approach, but you preferred to spare him the embarrassment and just watch him create his codes. It was almost peaceful the sound of his fingers and his soft humming.

"That's an opening tag right there, right?" You pointed again not sure and he nodded.

"Yuu-shi..." He mumbled as if unsure of his proposal. Even though you're friends, he's too scared to voice his ideas sometimes and you don't force him to say anything while you wait for him to search for the right words. Finally after a few seconds Idia turns to you with a small smile on his face. "S-sit closer, you'll be able to see better that way. I can even explain what each code is for if that doesn't bore you."

That was his shy way of saying that he would like to have you around and that he didn't mind your questions, and you readily nodded, pulling the chair closer and resting your face in your hand. Idia kept working, fingers practicing typing over and over entire columns of tags and other codes that you gradually remembered the name.

"Yuu-shi, you never told me that you, uh, liked programming." He mutters uncertainly. But then a wide smile spreads across his lips and he looks at you sideways, laughing sinisterly. "But that means I can teach you everything I know, and after I've stuffed all possible coding knowledge into your little pretty head, Yuu-shi, you will evolve from an R card to a UR+."

You shudder comically, wondering if it was too late to run. But Idia's cool hand closes over your wrist and his slender fingers find their way to yours, lacing them together as he opens another page on his computer.

"Let's start with your lesson, Yuu-shi, and... And, uh... And if you get everything right, I have a reward in mind." Idia declares, a rosy blush taking over his face.

And truly how couldn't you deny him that?

[janitorboy-writing]

My Jay, Nya, Pixal, Zane, Kai, and Lloyd Headcanons about their expertise in STEM

I was struck by inspiration and I just had to write it down. It doesn't help that I'm taking a programming class and have a bunch of STEM friends and family, so I was given plenty of ideas

Please excuse any spelling and grammar mistakes. I forgot to switch my keyboard from Portuguese to english

Jay

He is good with circuits and hardware

If he had the funds and motivstion, he would have been an electrical engineer, or at least become certified as an electrician

He practically already has the experience since he always tinkered with circuits and wires as a kid

His parents would always have him fixing the toaster, fridge, TV, basically any electrical appliance at home

He never had once touched a computer program until he came across his first computer at the junkyard

After tinkering with it and booting it up, he began to mess around and trid his best to understand the programs in it

He understood a little, but he wasn't a pro at it until Pixal came along (she taught him about different programming languages and the fundamentals, and he found out he's not into programming as much as he is with messing with circuits)

He does know mechanics and car stuff thanks to his dad, but he's more interested in wires and circuits

Nya

Mechanic

She definitely has a certification as a mechanic

Thanks to Kai, she had the time to study for a technical education

She also knows enough about electrical engineering to make all the cool cars and mechs

She didn't know very much about programming but she was very interested in it

She went to the library and read outdated books on programming (the local library near their village isn't the most well funded)

Hey, at last she grasped the fundamentals even though she learned an ancient language that most programmers don't use or learn anymore

When Pixal joined the team and started to teach her about programming, she was ecstatic

Now all her inventions could be more modern!

Pixal

She is just like her dad, so robotics and computer science are her thing

She does know a bit about everything since she has an entire database in her head to glean info from

Still, programming is her favorite thing and the thing she considers herself the best at

She leaves vehicle maintenance to Nya and any circuitry to Jay

When Jay, Nya, or Zane aren't around, she handles all the things they handle even if she doesn't enjoy it as much as programming. Someone has to be there to take care of all their tech

Whenever there's a bug she can't seem to fix, she explains her code to Zane to help herself think

Zane listens and i happy to be helping his gf <3

When Zane isn't there, she talks to Nya, her bestie, instead

When neither are there, she talks to Jay

Jay only listens since he's not very experienced with programming, but he does try to help from time to time

Zane

Zane doesn't consider himself to be an expert in any tech related field

Like yeah, he knows basically everything and can do it all, but he's not very interested in them

He will fix cars or fix a line of code, but only when it's necessary or if he's asked to

Unlike the others, he doesn't spend his free time inventing or tinkering with anything

He's mostly meditating or hanging out in nature

He likes plants, like, A LOT

Plants, cooking, and animals are his expertise

He also knows a lot about herbs and tea, so he's basically the team's medic

Pixal is his medical assistant just like he is her programming assistant <3

Zane and Cole go out on walks and hikes a lot, and they drag Kai along just for fun

Kai

He knows a bit about mechanic since he sometimes helped Nya with her homework and projects

Him and Nya know exactly what they're talking about when Jya asks him to bring her the thingamabob

Kai had to teach Jay what the hell a thingamabob and a doohickey is so Jay could actually help Nya

In return, Kai learned some of Jay's weird names for tools like the thing and thingamajig

If things are really dire (like none of the team's inventors and Zane are with them) then Kai will try to fix a vehicle

50% chance of failure, 49% chance of success

The 1%? Who knows

It explodes

Lloyd

Like Kai, he knows a bit about mechanics, if not more because he spent a lot of time with Nya when he was younger and when nobody knew he was the green ninja

He has more success fixing vehicles than Kai, so Kai is always the last resort

Lloyd also knows about plants and herbs since he read about them after Wu was gone

Someone had to take care of all the plants for Wu and Zane after the merge happened

Lloyd also knows a bit of programming and electrical engineering, though it's not very useful

He could tell you what a variable is but he cannot write a program to save his life

He can tell you what XOR does, but he can't build a circuit

Due to his interest in video games, he's been trying to learn programming, but due to everything that happened in his life, he hasn't learned much

He's still trying, and that's what matters

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

since i’d already played the original trilogy approximately seven million times in french, i finally got round to playing french apollo justice instead. just finished it and hoooo boy was this localisation just as interesting

just like in the og trilogy, the entire thing now takes place in france (presumably paris, though they didn’t specify in this one). at least there aren’t earthquakes this time so it doesn’t feel quite as surreal.

apollo’s “i’m fine!” catchphrase is now “tout va bien !” which means “everything’s fine!”

some of the names have been translated again. for example, trucy is now called “Vérité” which not only is the french form of the english name “Verity”, but it also is the literal french word for “truth”, which gives some dialogues a double meaning whenever they’re discussing the truth. “Vous dites... la vérité... Apollo Justice... ?”

they did not change lamiroir’s name. they did however change machi tobaye to “Tomas Kashkash”, make of that what you will

in the first case, phoenix and kristoph use formal pronouns when addressing each other in court, and informal pronouns outside of court, which is fun. by the final case they’re exclusively using formal pronouns since their friendship has pretty much ended. (it’s a similar case with klavier and daryan, who switch to formal pronouns when they’re trying to be serious/professional and when their friendship starts to splinter.) (apollo and trucy use informal pronouns on each other pretty much the whole way through.)

trucy says “Mééééééé !” a lot

she also calls apollo “Pollo”

wocky kitaki (”Willy” in french) is my fricking favourite oh my god. he speaks in such verlan-ified slang i had to painstakingly decipher every single thing he said. i love him. when he said “sakom” i felt that 😔✊ he’s nigh-incomprehensible just like he was in the english version. absolute king.

in order to make wocky so iconic they apparently had to sacrifice klavier though, because in this version he is english. ENGLISH. AS IN, FROM ENGLAND. usually the french localisation takes its cues from the english version so i thought they’d keep him german, and then when he started calling people “miss” instead of “Fräulein” i thought maybe they’d made him american, like he was in the original japanese version, but NO IT TURNS OUT HE’S JUST ENGLISH??? LIKE FROM ENGLAND????? U WOT M8 JOLLY GOOD OLD CHAP CHEWSDAY INNIT????? I’M FROM ENGLAND, THIS IS THROWING ME OFF TOO MUCH

and they didn’t even commit to the englishification!! he barely says any english stuff at all! he sometimes says “miss” or “mister” and that’s... about it? he doesn’t even have any “Achtung, baby!” equivalent!! he calls apollo “M. Grand Front” which yeah means basically the same thing as herr forehead but it’s entirely in french so what’s the point?? god if you were gonna curse him by making him from freaking england then at least go all the way?? at least his “Objection !” sounds cool i guess...

and his name is “Konrad” in this version. that’s fine because “clavier” means “keyboard” in french (like the thing you type on) so i get that it would have sounded silly. but imo they should have gone in the opposite direction and picked a random english word to name him then. they should have named him Stapler or something. why’d they give him a normal name. he is Stapler Gavin in my heart

ema calls him “minet pailleté” btw which yeah pretty much just means glimmerous fop. (she studied in england too in this version WHY THE FRICK IS EVERYONE ENGLISH)

there were some fun french puns, such as calling phoenix apollo’s “mentor” (french for “mentor”, if you couldn’t guess) and then calling him “menteur” which means liar and sounds very similar

“I killed a man named “Smith” with a bottle because I am an evil human being.”

[wrongcaitlyn]

also, since i feel bad about making you guys wait so long and i'm also not 100% sure if i'll manage a chapter before sunday (will be trying, but it's been a whileDJSD) here's a snippet of what i've already written!

and a little update on the chapter, i've got like.. 1/6 of it done? ish? and i def could've written more earlier but instead i spent an hour planning and outlining one of nico's future music videos with @wronghuntress

it's a very cool mv and i am very proud of it and just like the details and aesthetics of the next few albums are ahghsldkjsldfj im so so excited for you guys to seee!! i feel like i should be making pinterest boards for these. but that's my brain derailing me again. i will do that over summer.

so!! snippet!!

They decide on the end of July for the rescheduled concerts. Partly because it gives Nico a little over two months to mentally prepare, partly because Will has a summer class in June so he’d be able to travel with them in July (along with Leo, who invited himself along too), and partly because it worked with Alex’s schedule.

Until then, though, there turns out to be a lot to get done.

Will’s rescheduled finals have been all finished by the end of May. Apollo has set up a series of job interviews for the three main people he’s decided they need—a publicist, a tour manager, and an assistant for him (that last one was pushed for by Nico, and then Will as well, and because Apollo isn’t able to resist their combined efforts, it worked)—throughout the last week of May and early June. The Archery World Championships are from the tenth to the sixteenth, in the Netherlands, and the entire family will be there to watch Kayla. 

From there on, it’s studio work, studio work, and more studio work throughout the rest of June. It’s a lot of therapy. It’s some secret project that Apollo keeps obviously working on, but is clearly attempting to hide the evidence of. Nico doesn’t know whether he should be concerned, but his eye bags have faded slightly, and he’s returned to styling his hair rather than throwing it up in a bun, so Nico thinks that’s a good sign.

The New York estate doesn’t have a proper studio—at least, not as good as Apollo’s house in LA. Still, it has the basics, including a mic, a computer with some audio editing software that Nico’s familiar with, and a keyboard, so while Will is studying and out taking his exams, Nico is there. 

For once, he feels like he doesn’t have much to write about the situation. It scares him for a bit when first walking into the studio, expecting to open his phone to an extensive list of depressing lyrics, only to find nothing.

He tells Mr. D that during their next therapy session. There’s no concrete answer, because Nico isn’t quite sure what exactly prompts him to spill out his thoughts in lyric form usually, but Mr. D had suggested the idea that instead of falling straight to the conclusion and having to sort out his thoughts, he was instead stuck in a sort of paralysis while Will was in the hospital, and then immediately talked out his feelings in person rather than on paper afterward.

Nico supposes that it makes sense. But that doesn’t stop him from rushing to the studio as soon as he’s sure Will won’t ‘accidentally’ overwork himself once left alone for over an hour—just to see if there really isn’t anything left to say.

It turns out, there is. There always is. But the songs that he writes now feel more self-deprecating and slightly relieved rather than the accusatory, grieving tones of the rest of the album. And besides, he thinks that he’s too close to a possible release date (or, at least, the beginning of the promotional singles process) to be planning an entirely new series of songs.

He still writes them, of course. They’ll just have to remain in lyric form, for now, though.

[bisnes-socks]

bluza analysis under the cut, i'm feeling two ways about it

i'm a bit conflicted. i didn't listen to any of the recordings of the live version, and that was a purposeful decision, and i'm glad i didn't. i heard the song in helsinki and i haven't heard is since, so i went into this kinda blind, which is how i prefer to approach music tbh.

i have both positive and negative thoughts on this one.

after listening to it three times, my first thought is that i'm personally not feeling the mixing on this (i listened to it in a quiet room with proper noise-cancelling headphones, twice on tidal and once on youtube, so like i cannot blame my surroundings or my own tech for the experience, so i feel pretty confident saying what i hear is actually in the mixing of the song).

when the drums finally come in fully, they are buried in the mix. like usually the point of bringing the full drum kit into play only at the end of the song is to grow the sound and get a big and satisfying finish, but for me, purely because of the mixing, that feeling wasn't there. and the very forward and loud keyboard sounds that are panned heavily to the right distract me from the guitar lead part, that is mixed heavily to the left. i feel a bit disoriented by the mix because i find it difficult to focus on anything.

now that isn't to say the mixing is bad! it's just not what i expected and i, personally, am not finding it easy to get used to. i hope i will get used to it, listening to the song more though. knowing what to expect now, i'm sure i will.

because:

i do like all of the individual elements in the song! it's such a simple song in its structure and basic melody that all of the delicious little details the guys seem to be experimenting with on the third album make it a very interesting song to listen. like there's always something cool happening somewhere! the song feels very familiar and homey (at least in part because it follows very usual and typical chord progressions, but that's not a bad thing! just means it's not super unpredictable, but instead easy and comforting to listen to).

i really do wish i could hear the bass and the drums more clearly, that they were a bit brighter in the mix, buuuut i guess nace and jure got to show off on šta bih ja, so we shall allow a guitar heavy song 😌

final verdict: a very cute song with lots of cool details, that i wish i could hear just a bit brighter.

[harocat]

I find lots of people who are into Cdramas have what I can only describe as “celebrity brain”. They only really watch shows that have their fav actor, always want the character played by their fav to be the endgame romantic choice (even if it goes against character and theme), and seem to hinge their mental health on whether a show with their fav does Big Numbers. Fans of male actors tend to have misogyny problems too, but I think most people who run an account dedicated to a Chinese celeb could afford to take a step back and remember that they don’t actually know these people

Yes it's very stan culture centered. This is one of the reasons I like Cdrama tumblr better. It feels like it's more about actually enjoying the shows (and yes, sometimes the actors), then endless forced promotion, discussion of heat indexes, fan wars, etc.

People have their faves here, and they share news about them, pics of them, etc. They go out of their way to watch their dramas (or at least attempt to if they end up bad lol), and they're happy when they're successful or popular. They share info about accolades and awards.

But most don't make that their whole viewing experience. They aren't becoming keyboard warriors for some dude they don't know and will never know. They're here because they love dramas, not because they have an intense parasocial relationship with an actor or actress.

The way the Wang Yibo blackface discourse morphed from people rightfully calling him out, to the WYB super fans taking over the conversation and making it more about how antis are using it to hate on him is such a good example. Now discussion of it is rebuked with 'oh no don't give the 🐜 more fuel to hate him', and that sucks. I don't give a fuck about antis. I care that WYB did blackface in his movie, and that pisses me off!! They're over there like 'I know in my heart of hearts WYB could not be racist' as if they've ever been within the same wide vicinity of him in their entire life.

With the Dylan thing it's so wild to me because:

he is the male lead

he is the endgame romantic choice

They're pitting him against the female lead for what reason?? They're not rivals. It's giving misogyny, and the fact that they can't handle a woman standing on an equal level with him (she was first billing because she was more famous at the time, yes, but she's also just as much the lead. LBFAD is pretty balanced in that respect). She must be below; both the character and actress. She must be the less popular and important character!! We are going to restructure the narrative of Love Between Fairy and Devil in our minds so it's entirely DFQC's show.

This same person was complaining about the Xiao Lanhua being a goddess storyline because it makes her too important and makes DFQC 'pitiful' (totally out there to me; every other Cdrama fan I know eats it up when a man is pitiful). Like, people would not care about Dylan in LBFAD, and he certainly wouldn't be getting acting accolades, if he were cool all the time in it. It's the pitiful moments, the emotional moments, that make people love him.

It's not even just LBFAD though. I saw major Dylan fan accounts undermining Bai Lu and cropping her out of pics when promoting Only for Love.

I think Esther and XLH just get it worse, because let's be real, LBFAD is good, their chemistry was undeniable, the show was huge, and regardless of how close they are now (we have no idea), it's obvious they were really good friends when on set.

[miastideclock]

quiet, bang chan

requested by: absolutely no one word count: 968 warnings: me being a simp, also not edited :)

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆⁺₊⋆

the humming of the fridge and the slight buzzing of the airconditioner in the other room. cracking of knuckles every now and again. soft tapping on two separate keyboards.

chan was sitting with his back against the headboard, tapping away on his computer. you were sitting cross legged, facing the headboard and using your pillow as a seat for your own laptop. it was just one of those nights where you had been doing each your thing, but together in a sense. you hadn't spoken in the past two and a half hours, but every now and then, you would rest your hand on his knee and rub your thumb against his exposed skin. in the same way, he would take the time to bend over and brush your hair out of your eyes and kiss your cheek once in a while.

you adored time spent like this. you both acknowledged that there was no need for talking all the time, and you could easily spend quality time together in complete silence, focusing on each your thing.

it had been a while since you rested your hand on any part of his leg, so while you were going from one tab to another, you reached your hand over and gave his thigh a light squeeze. it was then you noticed his shorts weren't keeping him warm anymore. the exposed skin on his leg was almost shocking to the touch. you looked up from your screen and at him, waiting from him to do the same.

"are you cold?" you asked him, just above a whisper. he was about to shake his head no when he went to scratch an itch on his leg, right by where you were holding your hand. it then seemed to shock him as well how cool his skin felt.

"i didn't even realize." he admitted, now rubbing his leg, trying to friction up some heat. you turned around and grabbed a wool blanket that was placed on the footstool at the end of the bed. you unfolded it while chan raised his computer so you could place it on his lap. after he had put the computer back down on top of the blanket, he did the same for you.

even though your laptop was resting on your pillow, you still lifted it so he could maneuver the blanket around easily. while you held your laptop up in the air, you looked out the window that was right over your headboard.

as far as you were concerned, the world was a much too noisy place. whether it was loud cars zooming by, or the sound it made when someone was walking across the street, you always thought everything would be better if it was quieter, or at least softer.

"the first snow." you whispered, mostly to yourself, but chan could hear it too. he finished up project-blanket, and looked at you in hopes you would give some context.

"pardon?"

you loved winter for that one particular reason. snow. it fell over the world in a gentle, white sheet that silenced everything. sounds didn't carry half as far, and footsteps grew softer.

"first snow of this season." you spoke again, this time putting your laptop down and nodding slightly in the direction of the windows. it was dark outside, so the only way you could really see the snow, was directly under the warm-colored streetlights.

"i guess it is." chan spoke equally quiet as he turned in his seat and looked outside. "c'mere, i have an idea."

you turned your attention over to the man who was no longer sitting next to you, but standing over by the closet. he changed from shorts to sweatpants, eagering you to do the same as he tossed you a hoodie of his. while you did as you were told, he left the room. you could easily hear based on his footsteps that he went to the kitchen.

after getting dressed and descending the stairs, you found yourself trying to place the smell that suddenly entered your vicinity. not many seconds later, chan revealed it to be hot chocolate as he handed you a steaming cup.

"you grab the massive blanket from the living room, i'll grab pillows for us to sit on, and then we meet out on the front steps?" he half instructed, half asked. you nodded in agreement, without really understanding what he was up to.

you turned around and moved to the living room, grabbing the biggest blanket you could find from the ottoman, as well as your slippers, and you walked out on the front steps. there he was, placing two pillows down for you, him patting the one he wasn't already sitting on, inviting you to join him.

after sitting down on your designated pillow, and wrapping the two of you in the big blanket, you took a sip of your hot drink. it was a nice contrast against the freezing temperatures you were sat in. instinctively, you scooted closer to the man on your left, trying to leech off of his body heat. he shifted and wrapped his arm around you, allowing you to snuggle into his side.

"why are we out here, by the way?" you finally asked, having yet to understand his spontaneity.

"i know how much you love snow, and how much especially you love the first snow; so i thought we could sit here for a while and watch it for a while."

it was the perfect reason. you did love snow, and especially the first snow. so there you sat, on the front steps of your shared apartment, watching the snowfall soundlessly.

no more humming of the fridge, or buzzing from the air conditioner. only muted nothingness.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆⁺₊⋆

cheers, bentley♡

[secretgamergirl]

"They Don't Teach Kids About Computers These Days!"

I see variations on this a LOT these days. Sometimes it's people in their teens/early 20s being frustrated at how they're expected to know everything about computers, sometimes it's college professors straight up HORRIFIED when they realize they have students who don't have any understanding that their hard drive, a school's internal network, and on a public website are completely distinct places for a file to be located, and I kinda figure the weird stress a lot of people seem to have about the concept of getting a game and not having it just go into their Steam library specifically is a related issue.

Now on the one hand, obviously, I sympathize with this. I have a series of posts on this blog called How A Computer Works, because... I want to teach people about this stuff. (That's still ongoing by the way, I've just got a lot else going on and need to settle on the scope of the next lesson.) On the other hand, uh... I'm from the generation before the one that apparently has all the computer literacy problems, and nobody taught us this stuff in school... and the next generation up wouldn't possibly have had access. So was anyone taught how to use them?

Now I say "they didn't teach my generation how to use computers in school" but that isn't technically true. I see a lot of people call people my age "the Oregon Trail generation" when this topic comes up. Sort of on the edge of Gen X and Millennials, going through school in that window where Apple had really really pushed the Apple ][ on schools with big discounts. And they did have "computer classes" to learn how to do some things on those, but... that isn't really a transferable or relevant skill set.

Like, yeah, if you're below the age of let's say 30 or so as of when I'm writing this, the idea of what "a computer" is has been pretty stable for your whole life. You've got some sort of tower case, a monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, and in that tower there's a bunch of RAM, a processor, video and sound cards of some sort, and a big ol' hard drive, and it's running Windows, MacOS, or some flavor of Unix going for the same basic look and functionality of those. It's generally assumed (more than it should be, some of us our poor) that a given person is going to have one in their home, any school is going to have a whole room full of them, libraries will have some too, and they are generally a part of your life. We can probably make the same sort of general assumption about IPhone/Android cellphones for the past what, 15 years or so too, while we're at it. They're ubiquitous enough that, especially in academic circles where they're kind of required professionally, people are going to assume you know them inside and out.

Prior to the mid-90s though? It was kind of a lawless frontier. Let's say you have a real young cool teacher who got way into computers at like 5 years old, and now they're 25 and they're your computer class teacher in the mid-90s. The computer they got way into as a kid? It would have been this.

That's not a component of it, that's the whole thing. A bank of switches for directly inputting binary values into memory addresses and some more switches for opcodes basically, and then some LEDs as your only output. Nothing about this is other than the benefits of fundamentally understanding some low level stuff is going to be useful at all in any sort of practical sense if you sit down a decade later with one of these.

This at least looks a bit more like a computer you'd see today, but to be clear, this has no mouse, no way to connect to the internet, which wasn't really a thing yet to begin with, and no hard drive, even. You did not install things on an Apple ][. You had every program on a big ol' floppy disk (the sort that were just a circle of magnetic film in a thick paper envelope basically and were, in fact, floppy), you would shove that in the disk drive before turning the machine on, it'd make a horrible stuttering knocking sound resetting the drive head, and just read whatever was on that right into memory and jump right on in to running Oregon Trail or a non-wysiwyg text editor (i.e. there's no making bold text appear on screen, you'd just have a big ugly tag on either side of your [BOLD>bold text<BOLD] like that). It was not unlike popping a cartridge or disc into an older video game console, except for the bit where if you wanted to save something you'd have to take the disk out while it was running and pop a blank one into the drive to save to.

So when I was a kid and I'd have my "computer class" it'd be walking into a room, sitting down with one of these, and having a teacher just as new to it as I was just reading out a list of instructions off a sheet like, "flip open the lock on the disk drive, take the disk out of the sleeve, make sure it says Logo Writer on it, slide it in with the label up and facing you, flip the lock back down, hit the power switch in the back of the machine..." We didn't learn anything about file management beyond "don't touch anything until the screen says it's done saving to the disk" because again, no hard drives. I guess there was a typing class? That's something, but really there's nothing to learn about typing that isn't where every key is and you only (but inevitably) learn that through practice.

Now, overlapping with this, I eventually got myself a used computer in the early 90s, very old at the time, but not as old as the ones at school. I had a proper black and white OG Mac. With a hard drive and a window-based operating system and everything. And... nobody taught me a damn thing about how that one worked. My mother just straight up did not touch a computer until something like 2001. I didn't really have any techie mentors. I just plugged it in and messed around and worked everything out. Same way I worked out what I was doing with older computers, mostly on my own at the local library, because that computer class wasn't much, and how I was totally left on my own to work out how to hook up every console I ever owned, which was slightly more involved at the time.

That forky bit in the middle was held in place with a pair of phillips headscrews. Had to keep the VCR and cable box in the right daisy chain order too.

Enough rambling about how old I am though. What's the actual disconnect here? How did my generation work out everything about computers without help but the next one down allegedly goes dear in the headlights if someone asks them to send them a file?

Well first off I'm not at all willing to believe this isn't at least largely a sampling bias issue. Teachers see all the clueless kids, people asking online for help with things is more common than people spontaneously mentioning how everything is second-nature to them, etc. Two things stick out to me though as potential sources of the issue though:

First, holy crap are modern computers ever frail, sickly little things! I'm not even talking about unreliable hardware, but yeah, there's some shoddy builds out there. I mean there's so many software dependencies and auto-updating system files and stuff that looks for specific files in one and only one location, just crashing if they aren't there. Right now on this Windows 10 machine I've got this little outdoor temperature tracker down in the task bar which will frequently start rapidly fluttering between normal and a 50% offset every frame, and the whole bar becomes unresponsive, until I open the task manager (don't even have to do anything, just open it). No clue what's up with that. It was some system update. It also tries to serve me ads. Don't know if it's load-bearing. Roughly every other day I have to force-quit Steam webhelper. Not really sure what that's even for. Loading user reviews? Part of me wants to dig in and yank out all this buggy bloatware, but I genuinely don't know what files are loadbearing. This wasn't an issue on older computers. Again, screwing around with an old Apple ][, and old consoles and such, there wasn't anything I could really break experimenting around. It was all firmware ROM chips, RAM that cleared on power cycling, and disks which were mostly copy-protected or contained my own stuff. No way to cause any problem not fixed by power cycling.

Next, everything runs pretty smoothly and seemlessly these days (when working properly anyway). Files autosave every few seconds, never asking you where you actually want to save them to, things quietly connect to the internet in the background, accessing servers, harvesting your info. Resolutions change on their own. Hell emulators of older systems load themselves up when needed without asking. There's a bunch of stuff that used to be really involved that's basically invisible today. The joke about this being "a 3D print of the save icon" already doesn't work because how often do you even see a UI element for saving? When we still used disks regularly, they held next to nothing and would take like half a minute to read and write.

And don't even get me started on launchers and start menus and all that.

So... basically what I'm getting at here is if you feel like you never learned how to properly use a computer, go get your hands on an old computer and mess around. There's yard sales, there's nice safe runs in a browser emulators, hell there's kits to build your own. That or just look for someone wearing like a Mega Man T-shirt or playing a Madonna CD (hell maybe just any CD these days) and start politely asking questions, because again just because everyone who knows this stuff just had to work it out on our own doesn't mean you should have to.

[lieblingspulli]

Night Routines: SKZ

W.c: 1.9k

Changbin x Reader

Summary: Soft Changbin hours. Lots of cuddles, night routine and the likes. 

A/n: Just a quick little work I did to get my brain juices flowing. I imagine that when I write my brain feels like those clear looking PCs that have tubes with cool looking lava lamp liquid and a fan. I hope you know what I’m talking about LOL. Based on some prompts: “Do you think it would be helpful if we were cuddling?” and “Look at me in the eyes right now and tell me what time you went to bed last night, or if you even went to bed.” Enjoy this sweet and short piece!

Masterlist!

SKZ Masterlist

P.s. I just noticed all my Changbin pieces are about him coming home to you, don’t know why but he’s just such a homey person? Idk. 

Usually, whenever Changbin got home from the studio, you were either making dinner or showering to get ready for bed. Usually. 

Most days, you got home earlier than he did, owing to you being a college student and he, a performer and songwriter. Changbin tried not to make it too late, he knew he had to keep work boundaries, but sometimes he did run a little later than usual. 

The routine was always as follows. You usually got home, got some work done and tried to finish before Changbin got off of work. While he rushed home, you made dinner or showered then made dinner with Changbin. Succeeding this, the two of you did dishes, a minor tidy up of the apartment and then your night routine of washing up and bed cuddles. Most nights, this took you up until almost 10:30 on a good day and past 11 on a bad one. 

Changbin was used to this. He loved the structure. He could run to the gym after work if you had a heavy workload that week, or he could come home and relax with you on evenings which should have been this evening. 

The time read 10:46pm. You were only on page 6 out of 10 and really wanted to rip your hair out for not doing this earlier, but you also had a lab report to write up earlier instead. It wasn’t the latest time ever, but you had been working all day and you felt like a zombie on its feet. Every once in a while, the soft lighting and ambience from your music would lull you to sleep before you snapped your eyes open again. The unfortunate event of Changbin coming home did not snap you out of your constant battle between filling in your outline and trying to stay awake. 

As soon as Changbin entered the apartment, he could hear keyboard keys clicking. There was faint music coming from the bedroom, the living room lights were off and it was oddly silent, even though he could hear the music. Right away, Changbin felt a frown form on his face. 

“Jagiya? You home?” Changbin called out, hoping you would come out and say sorry for not greeting him right away. No response. He could only hear the psychological echoes of his voice. 

Changbin threw his bag down and took off his shoes in the doorway before heading to the bedroom right away. He swung open the door to find you hunched at your desk, completely focused on the screen in front of you. Or, at least that’s what he assumed. You laptop was open to a document, with the extra monitor opened on youtube. However, the youtube video displayed the “are you still watching?” sign. Changbin stood there for a few seconds, waiting to see if you were actually awake, but to no avail. He shuffled forward in hopes the noise might startle you, but it didn’t. 

Hm. He walked over and peeked over your shoulder. You were hunched forward, leaning your cheek on your wrist. Your eyes were closed and your eyebrows scrunched together. You must have fallen asleep while writing. Changbin smiled, mildly entertained by the scene in front of him. He also didn’t want to scare you awake, so he lightly tapped your shoulder and whispered, “Y/n? Baby?” You stirred but didn’t open your eyes. Changbin held his breath. He then poked your cheek. You startled awake. 

“Wha- Was I asleep? Oh. Hi baby.” You mumbled and rubbed your eyes open to see your boyfriend standing right by your side. He cheekily grinned and motioned towards the monitor with his head. 

“What are you working on that has you falling asleep on your desk?” He chuckled and squeezed your shoulder as you readjusted in your seat. 

“Oh, this is my research paper. I gotta get it done by tomorrow.” 

Changbin nodded and gave a little, “Ah.” You nodded and tried to attempt to see where you left off before you fell asleep. Changbin looked at your face and studied how tired you looked. He had walked into a similar scene yesterday and fell asleep to it too. 

“Babe, no offense, but how long has it been since you slept?” He carefully said. You turned your head to answer but kept your eyes on the screen. You non-committedly replied, “I took a nap earlier.” This reply irritated Changbin. He didn’t like when you didn’t rest enough, it only led to worse things for your body. The odd silence in the apartment further irritated him and led Changbin to drag your chair away from the desk, with you in it. This solicited a “Hey, I was working!” from you, but he just shook his head and firmly turned you towards him. He kneeled in front of you and settled his hands on your thighs. You frowned at him, but couldn’t stay mad at his soft looking face. You huffed in annoyance. 

Changbin thought for a bit before asking again. 

“Babe. Y/n. Look at me in the eyes right now and tell me what time you went to bed last night, if you even went to bed at all.” He taunted you with his eyes. You rolled your eyes and tried to look at him in his eyes. You shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. He raised his eyebrows, expecting an answer. 

“3.” 

“Okay. What time did you wake up to finish that lab report? I know you didn’t finish it.” 

Your boyfriend sure was cheeky sometimes. You blew some hair out of your face in annoyance. 

“7.” 

“Oh my gosh, Y/n-” He groaned and let his head drop to touch your knees. You kind of felt bad for worrying him so you hurriedly tried to defend yourself. 

“Hey, Look, it’s not that bad. At least I got some sleep.” You sucked at this. He looked back up to you and rubbed his own tired eyes. “Babe. I just came home to you asleep at your desk. My yelling didn’t even wake you up. You can barely keep your eyes open.” He pointed out. You didn’t know what to say. He sighed and hopped back up to stand. 

“Fine. If you won’t sleep, then I’ll make you go to sleep.” He said with a firm nod, proud of himself for taking some initiative. You started to protest but Changbin just leaned forward and pulled you over his shoulder, eliciting a shriek. 

“Seo Changbin! What are you doing!” 

“Baby, this is for your own good. I’m taking care of my baby, that’s what I’m doing.” He said and you could only prop yourself up on his back. He carried you to the bathroom before setting you down. 

“Why are we here?” You puffed in annoyance. 

Changbin just started getting out your face wash and other things related to your night routine. As soon as he set everything down in front of you he motioned to the mini display and crossed his arms. 

“We are doing our night routine. Like we always do.” He just stood and waited. You scoffed and began to brush your teeth, occasionally looking back at your boyfriend. He really just waited until you started until he began to do it himself. While you two were brushing your teeth, he even tried to smile at you with his toothbrush in his mouth. Unfortunately a bunch of toothpaste foam fell out of his mouth and you laughed at him, almost choking on your own spit. The both of you giggled like kids as you moved on to face wash. 

Changbin insisted on doing this step for you, so you let him put your face wash on your face (with clean hands of course!) and rub it in circles. He put a little too much pressure though, and he was moving your whole face in circles. 

“Changbin!” You laughed and he smiled at the sight of you finally smiling for once. Man, he loved you so much. 

“What?” 

“You’re moving my entire face!” 

“Yah, stop talking unless you want bubbles in your mouth.” He lessened his firmness and continued to emulsify the soap on your face until you tried to pull away. 

“Hey, I’m not done!” He scolded you. 

“Baby, it’s been 60 seconds. We’re done.” You laughed and proceeded to help him do his face. He sat patiently while you spread his face wash on his cheeks, forehead, chin and nose. You also gave him a forehead massage. He sighed and melted in your hands. Entirely focused, you moved on to his cheeks and then his nose. He stood as still as possible. 

After you tapped his cheek, signaling your task was complete, you both rinsed your face and did the rest of your routine together. After that, you climbed into bed as he changed into his sleeping shorts. 

“Yah, what are you staring at?” Changbin feigned to act all shy. You laughed and stared at his shoulders. 

“Oh, I’m just admiring all the hard work my boyfriend puts in at the gym.” You snickered and pulled the blanket over you as Changbin picked up the pillow from the edge of the bed to throw at you. You both giggled. 

Changbin climbed in as you let the cover fall from your face. He snuggled up close to you and you wrapped your arms around his torso as he fit himself into the shape of your body. 

“Baby, I don’t know if I’m tired anymore.” You whispered just as he began to close his eyes. He snapped them open. 

“What?” Changbin pouted. 

You laughed. “I can’t stop thinking about my assignments.” 

“Ah, would it help if I cuddled you how you like?” He pleaded with his doe eyes. 

You nodded and made a sad face. He scrunched his nose in reply. 

“Whatever makes my baby sleep better at night.” He then turned to flip off the lights and readjust you so you were the smaller spoon facing him. 

“This better?” 

“Mmm, yeah.” You sighed and relaxed in his arms. 

“You’re so warm.” You whispered. He rubbed your back to lull you back into a tired state. 

“Go to sleep baby. I’ll be right here to hold you all night.” He whispered back and kissed your head. You were too tired to reply, and before you knew it, his body warmth had lulled you to sleep. You didn’t even get to kiss him goodnight. 

Changbin watched your eyes close and he could feel your breath even out, signaling you fell asleep. He watched your eyelashes flutter as you went off to dreamland. 

“I love you Y/n.” He whispered before relaxing more himself and settling into a deep sleep for himself. 

[dasha022]

Chapter 4

"So, Superman and Phantom were cloned?"

Batman didn't stop his work on the keyboard at any point, so with his eyes on the screen and detailing every word of the information acquired, plus the reports from the YJ group, he proceeded to respond to the curious Nightwing; who had just entered the Batcave only two minutes ago.

"Hnn..."

Nightwing removed his mask and proceeded to roll his eyes in annoyance. "Could you provide a few more than your usual onomatopoeia response" so many years and his mentor hadn't learned his lesson about using mumbles or grunts as a response.

"When I finish the report, you can read it," replied the big bat without turning back...

Dick looked grumpily up at the man, grabbed a chair from the other desks, set down and pulled out his phone. Tim was currently at the YJ base. However, he would be doing the same as Bruce; and young Robin has a worse hiperfijasion than the big bat. So, his only safe bet would be Wally or Donna, but the second one it's traveling through Malawi on a humanitarian aid mission, so he's only left with Wally. He should have done that in the first place if he wanted to know the whole story instead of coming to Bruce. At least the flash family did know how to communicate things willingly and without loss any details.

Alfred, faithful to punctuality, made his presence known at the base bringing with him a tray of late-night snacks. "Master Richard, it's nice to have you around tonight. how's Bludhaven been?"

Nightwing put aside his cell phone and gave his full attention to the butler. Even though his best friend had just sent him a great paragraph telling him what happened and he was about to read it. Gossip can wait when it comes to Alfred. "I can't say it's all right because that would be a lie, but I can claim he's had one or two improvements these past few weeks."

"That's wonderful to hear, Master Richard." Alfred poured a cup of hot chocolate for Dick as he gave him a little smile. "You do what you can, and that's what counts." He continued, then turned to the other older adult in the room and the smile was once again a line on his face. "Master Bruce, do I have to unplug the Batcomputer so you can take a break ? or you will be finally pausing for a snack? you still haven't had any food since you've arrived.”

Bruce’s fingers stopped instantly, a deep sigh left the man’s lungs before he locked the computer, removed his hood mask and turned to his adoptive father with resignation. He did not look at his eldest son, for no reason did he look at that gloating face. He kept his eyes on the mug of hot chocolate and the pair of sandwiches that came with it.

 “Thank you, Alfred.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

Just as Bruce was about to take a bite of his sandwich after a small sip from his chocolate mug, his league communication device started beeping. He heard Alfred sigh and that was all he needed to put his hood back on and put the call through to the big baticomputer screen.

“Batman, here.”

Phantom’s image took up the entire monitor, now without the cloned baby in his arms and a somewhat uncomfortable look on his face. “Hello, Bat. Phantom here, are you busy?”

“Phantom, did something serious happen?” the Gotham knight responded with another question. “Where are the… childrens”

Danny looked at the Gotham’s knight and wondered again how his mask was able to minimize the lenses in his eyes to reflect frowning eyes. Okay, he was straying from the topic at hand. “My little star is with my big sister and Hydor is helping to Cool his mother. Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about-”

“Hydor?” interrupted Dick, now with his mask firmly in place. Next to him, Alfred, also making use of his distinctive black opera mask.

Danny grinned with countless teeth, “Oh, the half-Kryptonian kid was agreed with my name option. I don’t know if he’ll change his mind later, but for the moment Hydor is the name we use to refer to him”.

Nightwing was about to speak again, but Batman cut his opportunity. “What did you mean by mother?” If they were talking about the child made with Superman’s DNA, then Phantom must have named Lex. However, the phantom hero didn’t have to name the villain. Bruce thought about how the hero had said he had ‘sisters’… plural. He didn’t say how many, but it was more than one.

Quickly, Bruce opened another window to the side of the call and brought up the reports regarding Clark’s cloning. As this one searched through the countless notations about the failed experiments, Danny spoke again.

“Yeah, well, I wanted to talk to you about that man.” Danny began, his expression shifting to somewhat serious, though mostly relaxed. “By your hovering movements over the keyboard, I’m taking it for granted that you have a clue what I’m going to say. So, I’ll give you the quick version of the subject.”

The search stopped at the penultimate document on the list and Batman didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried by such a find.

It couldn't be that...

Danny saw his pause and chuckled a little. “That was quick” he commented. “But yes, it looks like Lex was conned by his own team of scientists.” He continued this time without holding back his laughter, though no one in the cave seemed to share his amusement. “So, besides giving me a daughter, Cadmus gave me a nephew. Isn’t that great?”

“You mean the clone of Sup-.”

“Hydor” , corrected Phantom with a warning look and losing all grace from his face.

“You mean Hydor is the son of Superman and one of your sisters?” asked Nightwing again, his face not emerging from the surprise of the fact. “Wait, since when do you have sisters!”

“Since I can remember, And yes, the other donor for Hydor’s creation is not Lex, but is my little sister, Nightmare.” At this point Phantom began to levitate in front of the camera, from what Batman can deduce he is sitting in mid-air while suspending the communicator in front of him with his telequinesis.

[kanmom51]

JK and Vibe

cr./ to all the creators of the media used in this post.

I did promise a post about this, didn't think I'd be doing it so soon.

People are real shit, you know?

I mean, in my line of work I've been in contact with many, at the very least, not good people. But since I've opened this blog, wow, my eyes have been opened up. Supposedly normative people, not criminals, not low lifes, what we like to call 'good' people getting behind a keyboard and just having at it like the worst of the worst.

Give them a sense of anonymity and they will write anything that comes to their mind, unfiltered, unlimited, no caring of other's feelings they might hurt.

They hurt others that share the net with them.

They also hurt the people they claim they 'love'.

And even though this might not be the exact right time to bring it up, I still am, cause I've been kind of pissed since yesterday.

As per usual JK talks, JK's attacked.

He doesn't say enough, he says too much, he just can't do right.

Funny how most of the time these accusations thrown at JK seem to be proven wrong time and time again. But not before the hate wave against him gains momentum.

This time it we saw it with Vibe.

"JK didn't mention JM alone, it was all about Tayang being cool."

"JK didn't know the lyrics, he can't be JM's bf. How disrespectful, he clearly doesn't care about JM."

"JK's a shit boyfriend that mocks his bf all the time, this time included laughing at his song."

Not only didn't JK support JM's song he's now mocking it."

Etc. Etc. Anything that could create that image that JK and JM, god forbid, are in a long term loving relationship.

Well, too bad for them. Cause the truth always comes out.

Let's start by the fact that JK did hype up JM, mentioning JM first, then following with Taeyang.

People run to make conclusions based on half translations and without seeing the actual moment. And it's not that hard to find these little clips of moments to match with the supposed translations out there.

Maybe, and I say maybe because most of them are blind to social queues, facial and vocal expressions, but maybe if they would have seen JK talk about Vibe, they wouldn't be sprouting their nonsense.

The way JK talks there, the "oh, JM", the way he brings up JM's name a second time without any real point, the facial expressions throughout. How can you say JK isn't hyping JM up, or that he doesn't know or love the song (the way he sings it later, especially JM's part is kind of a tell too)?

You can find some of JK's vibings to Vibe here, including his cute dance moves:

Also kinda feels like JK knows the lyrics, mainly JM's that is.

And now let's compare to him singing Taeyang's part...

I'll let you be the judges.

Bottom line: shit people won't stop me from loving those two.