#bc at the very least the game seems to be acknowledging that it is currently Not December
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the-meme-monarch · 3 days ago
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ohhh my god ok so Canonically the christmas toons have been confirmed in at least a couple of ginger’s conversations that they’re only around for the holiday season before they just disappear i think. imagine their first time back since gardenview shut down. merry christmas-! hey where are all the humans. why do you guys look so upset .
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tempkiriri · 9 months ago
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For the fandom ask game, for Tiger & Bunny: could I please have 1, 3, 12, 22 for *rolls mental dice* Antonio and Ryan, and 23, please? ����🩷
Alrighty! 1: OTP This is honestly a tricky one for both men, and people may be surprised by the answer. Who I pair Antonio with may change later since I still need to read the Manga, but I do picture him as having a 'buried so deep he doesn't acknowledge it' crush on Kotetsu and used to have one on Tomoe as well but of course kept his lips shut (which also answers the OT3 question for him as well haha). With *just* the anime taken into account, his crush on Agnes isn't belivable, you 100% need supplementary material to even have his 'I'm trying to get *Agnes* a gift' thing at the end of S2 come across as believable and not just a cheap expectation divergence for the sake of it. So right now it's kind of, no OTP for him, but Antonio/Kotetsu is crammed into a little box in the corner in my head. As for Ryan, I don't ship him with anyone too strongly bc the only 'older' (aka mid 30s at youngest in my head) women in the show are Agnes and Nathan, and whilst either could be interesting in theory I don't think it would work out for either of them lol. I'm a Ryan Milf Hunter truther, meaning I don't ship him with Karina at all. Like, I dunno man, him flirting with her mother right in front of her is kinda sending clear signals to me. Someone please write Golden Ryan x MILF!Reader fics I think that would be funny.
3: NoTP This one is also tricky. I classify a NOTP as something that is able to render me physically uncomfortable if discussed, which aside from some generally obvious child / adult ships and similar ships in here, I don't think I have that reaction to anything. Closest is for Antonio is that I think Ivan is allowed to have a crush on him but Antonio would like, nephew-zone him, much like how Kotetsu has niece-zoned Karina at least twice now. And similarly while not exactly an NOTP for Ryan, I again just don't see him with Karina, she's not in the age bracket he's interested in; too young.
12: Funniest/Craziest AU? Honestly there's not a lot of AUs I can think of that revolve specifically around a character. Antonio has a bit of a sad one I have saved for him so it's not applicable here, but for Ryan I *did* write a fic where he and Ivan go to the beach bc he wants to help Ivan 'hunt for babes', that was pretty fun to write. Molly comes with, btw. But I don't consider that an AU bc I tried to keep it canon compliant, so...yeah, don't have much for ryan, at the moment.
22: Give us a HC Antonio - He's secretly semi-fluent in Japanese because he wanted to learn due to being friends with Kotetsu and Tomoe and wanting to communicate with them in private when in public (at least when in Sternbild). Ryan - Everyone seems to make fun of just how *fake* of a shade of yellow his hair is, but it's also very hard to get it to that colour if your hair is naturally dark (everyone remember Morita's The Live Incident? Bleached his hair so hard by best he could achieve was some cherry red-brown). Naturally, Ryan is a Platinum Blond like Ivan is, but with the colour being so un-vibrant combined with Ryan's desire to stand out, he dyes it a horrific yellow.
23: Has Fav ship changed overtime? Across all fandoms and my time being alive, certainly. As a young kid I got into Avatar, as one does, and something both outright turned me off from Katara with Aang and hooked me on Katara with Zuko. I don't know, I think it's just a difference of how chemistry can be forced in terms of writing. Tunnel of Love is the bane of like 8yo me's existence is all i'm gonna say.
Next I moved onto sonic and oh man there were so many goddamn ships. Sticking strictly to Canon on Canon, I think my first fav sonic ship was Tails and Cream, and currently it's Sonic with either Blaze or Knuckles (though for Sonaze specifically I view it as starcrossed and I do have a fic idea on exploring that *evil laughs*). If anyone wants a thicker rundown of the sonic ship timeline feel free to ask for 23 again and state sonic only lolll
Then I caved into despair like lord Enoshima would have wanted and got a double whammy of Hetalia and Danganronpa around the same timeframe. For Hetalia, you can rip the old bickering married couple of France and England from my cold dead hands, and then I had several for Danganronpa but the one I think I championed for the hardest out of sheer 'it's getting drowned out by the less interesting shit' was Shuichi x Kaito. Like, my guys, Shuichi catches HIS GAY THOUGHTS ON KAITO IN THE MIDDLE OF AN FTE. I genuinely don't know how other ships have stronger bases bc of that one moment. But also, that would require the DR fandom to know how to read, so (/j).
And then came Persona 5. So many good ships in here, I still adore stuff like Joker with both Yusuke and Ryuji, and I also got a soft spot for Ryuji with Yusuke or Haru. (In fact I have an AU fic I promise I havent abandoned abt Ryukita. The two men are early 20s in the fic with jobs and Ryuji is even a single father.)
And now we arrive at present time, where these petty argument idiots have taken over my brain, send help. Honourable mention will have to go to Keith with Cis bc that episode completley destroyed me it's like a brain worm and I cannot pluck it out.
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godtier · 2 years ago
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and now for something completely different—
so I'm playing through ffxvi and I wanted to Rant about my experience so far so spoilers
so firstly, and not actually spoilers lmao, idk why this game makes my ps5 so warm. it's honestly not... *that* impressive graphically? which isn't necessarily a dig at it; I'll play anything as long as I can tell wtf is going on and it's fun to play. so idk if it's just yet another AAA game that isn't optimized well or what, though typically console games are *more* optimized... idk! just a gripe.
other than that, I'm seeing some Issues developing narratively... I'm not what I'd call an Expert Writer but yknow it's been noticeable so far. here are few thoughts and gripes with the story:
the inconsistencies in the story. the biggest one so far, and this is what I'd consider p big spoilers, is clive's whole "I gotta come to terms with the fact I killed Joshua" which is like... okay *fair* I suppose, but once he figured out that he was ifrit, yknow after killing benedikta, he... I mean he kinda *did* immediately accept it?? so... the whole "I gotta accept this" part was odd. I have heard tell that it was meant to represent a jungian acceptance of the shadow, or at least that's what people are alluding to in their own theories (and this is all secondhand btw bc I have the tags blocked til I finish)
to elaborate on what jung's interpretation of the shadow is for those who don't know: the shadow is essentially the suppressed subconscious, the things you don't want to acknowledge, for better or worse. it's most typically applied to things like traumatic events, but jung specifically does not commit to the idea that the shadow is *only* bad things. when you confront the shadow, the next step is to integrate the shadow to the conscious mind or ego, which you could argue was why they may have written it the way they did; clive isn't just acknowledging that he did do that (which he pretty readily did when he figured out he was ifrit's dominant) but he's also accepting it as irrefutable fact and integrating it to the ego so it cannot be repressed again.
now... having said that, the *problem* narratively that I'm seeing is that... well. Joshua isn't dead. clearly if Joshua had died... well, that'd be one thing. now they're saying "well ACKCHUALLY 🤓 he didn't die at all!" so that, to me, renders the entire "journey" pointless. what exactly is he accepting? if he didn't actually do it, why or how could he feasibly accept ifrit in that context? wouldn't his subconscious mind, his shadow (ifrit in this case) remain unincorporated? it's just very clunky and I think it was meant to show Clive as an unreliable narrator.... but there's really no one there but Joshua to confront this false accusation. and Joshua is MIA currently at the point I'm in so! who knows!
moving on, Jill is currently nearly a non-character at this point. what I mean by that is she's always just sort of... there. the only times she's shown depth is her speaking about hating herself for what she did with her powers while in captivity. even then, it doesn't appear to be given the attention smth like that deserves; we see a handful of flashbacks from when we fight her at the very beginning... and that's really it. I would like to see more but I have a feeling they will not be showing us
benedikta died way too early. she seemed like she was going to be a character of mild intrigue, but she was killed so very quickly. her and cid's past relationship (whatever that might have been) was only just elaborated on (we know cid saved her from slavery but little else), but I feel it could have been fleshed out beyond that. they spoke in broad terms about how she was and then what she became... but nothing I would consider to be substantial enough, given her connection to a major character. we also don't see enough of her and hugo, just that scene where they practically dry hump in the hallway. we know he cared a lot about her, esp during the scene with her uh. severed head? which... who did that, exactly? they blame it on cid, but we know he would not have done that. but anyway, fleshing out their relationship would have been nice
cid's death. now, it's not that I'm saying something as basics as "he could have lived" which, maybe? and it's not even that they did the whole "oh [mystery person] (it's Joshua) shows up to save them but he's too late!" trope crap. what bothers me the most about his death from a character perspective is his lack of *any* mention of the daughter he supposedly loved so much as he lay dying. now yes, up til that point, we only know that cid has a daughter via a sidequest that people could miss. but that in and of itself is an issue. why introduce that aspect of his character... and then never do anything with it while he was alive? why did they feel it sidequest worthy? they could have just slipped it in as banter or something, maybe gav teasing him or something?? anything?? basically the fact that he dies without nary an utterance of his so beloved daughter, not even her name, was a huge sour point to me. sure, you could argue that he wanted to get pertinent information to Clive as quickly as possible since he knew he was dying, but I would have been satisfied with just a whisper of her name (which I don't remember them mentioning during the sidequest?) and they could elaborate on it later, maybe in a follow-up sidequest??? maybe you find the letter he meant to send her back?? anything??? it just seems so weird from a characterization standpoint to introduce this concept of him melting for his daughter, his daughter being such a soft spot, etc, and then... never addressing it in a meaningful way when he's on death's doorstep
OK this is a dumb thing and not necessarily a negative thing but how the fuck did tomes, a geriatric librarian, survive the raid on the hideout but a bunch of younger, much more spry characters just croaked and couldn't escape lmao. IDK I LOVE TOMES DONT GET ME WRONG but it was just so... idk. funny? I also get it's a game mechanics contrivance as well, given that they built an entire mechanic around him, but idk I wanted to mention it bc it makes me laugh
that's about it for now. if you message me about this tho, pls no spoilers beyond the iron kingdom crystal raid. thank. 🙏
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thirstyforred · 2 years ago
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the thing about Skyrim, for me at least, is that the PC is so devoided of characteristics in the attempt to make them everyman that every player can mold into whatever they want, that actually making my own Dragonborn seems pointless, none of the quests and their resolutions actually provides me anything about what kind of person my Dragonborn is, so despite having well over 100h before this current playthrough i never finished the main plotline or any other questline really, other than the Dark Brotherhood. there's a lot to do in this game but a lot of it is also kinda nothing, and role-playing anything seems to me senseless
well, up to now, kinda
so starting this playthrough i decided to not make a new PC and just play the game with my oc Namrevlis, i already know this character so i don't have a problem with playing with some blank-faced nothing i can't develop, and bc Witcherverse so kindly comes with multiverse build in, Skyrim version of Nam is not some AU, it's her after everything that happened to her in Witcher and Cyberpunk, she's at the endgame of her development as a character and the state of her abilities, Skyrim is her retirement so to speak, she has fun with this new land knowing that ultimately nothing she does there matters
the very first night Nam spent under Skyrim's two moons and the night sky, she had an absolutely terrible dream, and the very next day she learned she's now something called Dragonborn, and there was Destiny for her to fulfill, and well, Nam being Nam, just accepted it as the thing she apparently needs to do now, to kill Alduin
in Helgen there was a bit of confusion when they asked her the standard race/name questions, (bc i fucked up) bc she's Aen Elle, but doesn't actually look like Tamriel Mer, but she's also over 2 meters tall, and she still claims to be an elf, so they wrote down "Breton (giant)"
Nam had an intense eye-fucking/crime-witnessing moment with Ondolemar which i already described here but then their relationship developed further, Nam invited him to her house (from mods, it has a sauna and i think it's a sex thing, but idiot Ondolemar keeps sleeping on the floor and the only voice lines he has are his vanilla ones so he keeps asking if she saw any Talos worshiping, way to ruin the mood idiot😒), and then they kinda-but-not-really went together to the party in Thalmor embassy, and then was the peace treaty and like thanks gods Elenwen didn't mention Nam is as good as Thalmor asset, Ulrich would storm the fuck off, and even Tullius might be like hey wtf?!
(now, why would such a good Dragonborn be chummy with elven supremacists, and well, have you actually seen Wild Hunt recently? and Namrevlis is at her core a solder, a tool, she can get by on her own, totally, but if someone gives her a quest she will likely just do it just because it's something to do, it works well for video games ofc, but also i see Red Riders as child soldiers, in need of certain structure, even when they manage to escape, and Thalmor is paramilitary, its structure itself, Nam may not know their goals, or be actually in their ranks, but being just adjanced reminds her in some way of life back in Tir na Lia, both bad and good of it. it's messy, Nam is a messy character and i love her)
the first Daedric quest she did was Molag Bal's House of Horrors, and she take away from this situation was "I never fucked with Gaunter O'Dimm, but if these Daedric guys are all like this loser then I'm probably more than fine"
Nam did The Whispering Door quest after becoming the Listener and the whole time kept addressing Mephala as Mother, while Mephala was like "Um, no... Again, I'm just the Whispering Lady..."
speaking of Dark Brotherhood shenanigans: Nam did adopt Aventus Aretino (thanks mods!), because she has a soft spot for fucked up kids (say hi Alvin~); each time she stumbled upon Black Sacrament she would take Nightshade and heart as a way of acknowledging the ritual; she has a weird "not sexual, but still not-not sexual" kind of thing going on with "sweet, sweet Cicero" (one of my mods made him into a twink and y'know...)
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psychewritesbs · 2 years ago
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even though I do not mind the weekly or bi weekly chapter releases and enjoy them, I kind of wish I would wake up one day and the final chapter of jjk would be here lol
I mean this as like the time left with the series is fast forwarded. I don't like rushing in any context, but I feel like I want to know the ending before I fall out of love with the series. I've enjoyed what gege has given in the story so far, but there is plenty of choices I would say I do not agree with imo. He seems like he has a vision of how things need to go, but getting there seems to have some issues. I also kind of hate it when authors say they want to end the story especially when it feels like it will be rushed, and is JJK's case it's sometimes hard to enjoy the story after its been said bc I'm just wondering if we're spending too much time on one thing before we need to move to the next point, but I'll still try to see the story's good and the bad and enjoy what I can. I'm going to reread the culling game arc soon, but I feel like those first fights were about gaining allies, but I can say I wasn't expecting it to go like that if that was the intention. I don't mind kenjaku having secret plans bc it's obvious when it comes to them, but I feel as though that plan overshadowed the point of the cg?? I thought there would be more focus of to kill or not, etc and I see that the most for megumi and yuji (they had my fav colony battles), and I get it somewhat with yuta, but I dont see it too importantly with hakari or maki. I'm going to reread the arc regardless because I can always be confused or a bit slower in catching on so forgive me if my insight is lackluster. I liked the running themes during yuki vs kenjaku, but her "death" felt very unnecessary because she seemed really important in achieving a curse free world and idk about you but that seems like an important goal imo and yeah someone else could lead that charge but what was wrong with yuki doing that? I don't know, but I can only hope the remaining part of the story alongside its ending is something not only we can gain some satisfaction with, but the author too can look back and say, "hey it was pretty good at least"
Gege doesn't seem to drop the ball too much with Yuji or at least megumi too, and I'm not too worried since they're my characters of interest currently, but I want to reread this story and actually believe it when I say I thought all the cast was good and I believe the writing can be better or can get worse (idk) but time will tell it all. I'm a recurring anon, so I'm sorry if the apologies are constant and sound like emails at the end 😅
Dear Recurring Anon,
HOLA! Thanks for being my recurring anon and reaching out again!
Ok but listen... I’ve been sitting on your ask for a while thinking of what I wanted to say and how to say it. I’ve probably started 3 different drafts for my response. So thanks for your patience!
Truth of the matter is that when I read your words, what it comes down to is that, even though you don’t like the recent direction the manga has taken, Jujutsu Kaisen still holds an important place in your heart. 
So I think the most important question to keep in mind is that, in a story like JJK where the strongest sorcerers have the most overwhelming sense of self... where does your sense of self stand in all of this?
What do you want to take with you from JJK? 
The stuff you didn’t like because it didn’t live up to your expectations? 
Or the stuff you loved even though JJK was incredibly flawed?
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Of course there’s more word vomit under the cut lol... you know how I roll.
I’ll start by asking you to forgive me if I’m wrong and you just really needed a container where your thoughts on the current state of JJK would be honored and acknowledged. The truth is that I totally get where you’re coming from. 
I do. 
I hear you.
It’s just that it’s in my perhaps annoying nature to be stupidly optimistic even when I am being a realist. There’s always a silver lining to everything if you are willing to make the effort to find it. 
So, yes, I agree, and I’m also going to challenge you to find a way to continue loving JJK if that’s what you want for yourself.
That said... lets get on with the bitching lol.
Problems with JJK, problems everywhere!
Your concern regarding the pacing in the story is something that I share with you. Most especially the concern that, moving forward, Gege is going to cut corners. I’d also say that at this point this “concern” is factually canon lol. 
I also agree so much with the sentiment of “is he taking too much time on this when he should be addressing this other plot point?” And I think nothing captures that dilemma quite like the Culling Game arc does--ESPECIALLY with the way he handled the chosoyuki ordeal.
Like we got pages upon pages of all of these characters and exposition and dialogue and like... wait, what was the point of the Culling Game again? 
Why has no one died yet?! 
Why is Yuta kissing a cockroach and why are Kashi-chan and Kin-chan trying to see who has the biggest ego (pun intended)? 
Like I swear for weeks I've been like “ok it’s going down!!!! yeah here comes the angst and the deaths aaaaaaand ok never mind then.... maybe next chapter? ok.... next chapter? ok next chapter for sure. no? next chapter?”
FOR WEEKS! It’s all recorded in my chapter liveblogs lol.
Truth is, to me, the Culling Game is a weird arc because I am still trying to understand its significance within the larger Jujutsu scheme of things.
Perhaps he bit more than he could chew with the Culling Game? And as a writer myself I find this kind of relatable. I’m actually seeing what is happening with JJK and taking note of how having too many themes and plot lines can ultimately be detrimental to a story if you can’t, or are unable to execute them all to a satisfying conclusion.
So to your point about re-reading the Culling Game arc... let’s hope that Gege manages to bring it all full circle. But as things stand right now, we’re in the middle of whatever Gege has in mind so it’s hard to see the forest for the trees.
What I’ll say is that I have enjoyed parts of it with reckless abandon...
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Literal picture of me reading through the absolutely ridiculous battle between Kashi-chan and Kin-chan:
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I also think that, at best, we have gotten in-depth character studies (because Gege is harping on the idea about the sense of self being at the core of power in JJK) and needed exposition. 
For example, even though Naoya coming back was soooooo cringe to me, I can still see the purpose it served in the narrative. Did I enjoy the journey? Not really. Same for Maki’s development.
The thing is that even if I agree with you on everything I just mentioned... I can’t unsee the story written between the lines even if the execution of the panels falls short, because I am always reading at a meta level.
I am passionate about story telling and how stories move humans, so to me, now that I’ve seen and acknowledge these flaws in the work, reading JJK is less about what’s on the panels, and more about the story he is trying to tell on a meta level through the panels.
My chosoyuki meta is a great example of me recognizing the story being told between the lines. And once I went down all of the rabbit holes I went down, even though I agree wholeheartedly that the execution fell short, the story told in the symbols was amazing to me. It honestly made me wish that Gege would have had the patience, time, energy, and space to birth that side story into the world the way it deserved to be told.
To me, I want Gege to be able to ground his vision onto the page, but if he is not able to, I’m still there for the “story” told between the lines because there’s so few mangaka whose imagination has captivated me.
In the end, as you say, it does feel like Gege is struggling to ground his vision into the page. And it kind of does suck because we, as an audience, have to work that much harder to understand the story he is trying to tell.
But the story being told is still there... so now it’s up to you to decide what you want to focus on: the flop, the bad execution, the failed attempt, JJK not living up to your expectations, or Gege, the flawed human behind the manga, trying and showing up.
What is good enough for you? That’s something for you to decide. 
I’m not saying to ignore the execution. 
I’m saying to remember that this is Gege’s first manga and that JJK is not what it started as--but not because it’s gotten worse, but rather because JJK is now more like Gege than it has ever been... because in a story like JJK where the strongest sorcerers have the strongest sense of self... yadda yadda yadda.
Trust the process: life is a journey, not a destination
I think your concern that you want to experience the ending makes a lot of sense and feels very relatable even at this point in my life. 
But the truth is... 
Foregoing the journey in favor of the destination is a recipe for perpetual dissatisfaction. Look at what happened to Denji after he finally got to touch boobs!
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Ok yeah, there’s a lot more to it than that in this particular case but the concept still applies.
It also applies to JJK. Again, right now we can’t see the forest for the trees because Gege is executing a complex arc.
The timeline is confusing af, and I think it’s because he may be trying to pull a similar literary trick to what happened in Westworld’s season 1 and 2 where the timeline is scrambled out of order to purposely confuse and mislead the audience. 
Perhaps the timeline is out of order for another grand purpose. Perhaps he just thought it would be fun and wanted to try to execute a fun literary trick.
But we won’t know until he delivers--and delivering is a process, not a destination.
And you know what... if you still get to the end and realize that you didn’t like JJK and the latter part of the story ruined your love for JJK, well...
It’s personal
Dude like... I respect that people LOVE Chainsaw Man, and I also think Chainsaw Man is ridiculously overhyped. I’ve seen countless of videos with people hyping it as the all end be all of manga and that Fujimoto is a genius and...
I. 
just. 
don’t. 
get. 
it.
I am just not a fan of Fujimoto’s brand of navel-gazing existentialism. It feels so anti-climatic to me.
Does that mean that CSM objectively sucks and is bad?! No. It’s personal.
Similarly, I overhype the hell out of CLAMP manga, and I am also aware that people might read CLAMP manga and not like it. 
Even so, to me, the four women behind CLAMP are genius story-tellers.
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Shameless Subaru and CLAMP plug because this is one of my favorite Tokyo Babylon panels.
It comes back to personal taste, right?
For me, I love JJK despite the flaws because I still love the story being told between the lines, I find Gege’s brand of ironic humor funny, and I like how the story has progressed. 
Say goodbye to mainstream, Gege’s work might become a cult classic moving forward
Now... I bring up Fujimoto and CLAMP to illustrate the idea that there are people who are going to be dedicated fans of a mangaka and their work, people who enjoy and appreciate their work but don’t necessarily love it,  people who are in it for the hype, and people who don’t like their work.
CLAMP’s Cardcaptor Sakura is mainstream hype. Tokyo Babylon and Clover are what you read when you’re a hardcore fan.
Fujimoto’s CSM is mainstream hype. Fire dude punch something something and Goodbye Eri is what you read when you’re a hardcore fan. 
Watanabe’s Cowboy Bebop is mainstream hype. Zankyou no Terror and Carole and Tuesday are what you watch when you’re a hardcore fan.
Akutami’s Jujutsu Kaisen is mainstream hype. 
Gege followed the Battle Shonen recipe, added his own twists, and created an accidental mega hit. In fact, oddly enough, JJK has always been known as a story that defies expectations and uses tropes in new and unexpected ways.
So what happened? Why are people not liking Gege’s current execution?
To me, there’s something about how JJK is written that has changed, and it has nothing to do with Gege’s ability to write, and everything to do with his sense of self, who he has become in the process of writing JJK, and what he wants to express through his work.
In other words, JJK is more like Gege than it has ever been. Some people are going to like that, and some are not. 
Truth is that Gege is one of the VERY few mangaka who can write beautiful, multidimensional, engaging and extremely human characters who are true to their nature and aspirations.
He also writes on a very meta level and you don’t see that very often... like at all. 
All this to say that I think this is why you see such vastly different reactions in fandom right now. 
Some people still think he’s a fantastic writer and that he’s writing a unique work that has transcended generic Shonen tropes (like yours truly), and some people think that the way JJK is right now is generic Shonen. I don’t understand this last take but...
Who is right?
Who holds THE ultimate truth?
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It doesn’t really matter because it’s personal.
All I know is that I am going to keep up with anything Gege publishes moving forward because I like the story he is telling through JJK.
Above all, I’m curious to see what other stories want to be born through him into this world.
Now, I HIGHLY recommend you listen to this 20 minute Ted talk by Elizabeth Gilbert to understand what I mean when I say that Gege is giving birth to stories. Her talk is a mind-opening take on what happens to your sense of self when you accidentally write a mega hit, and how that in turn affects your creative process.
I don’t know that this is how Gege sees his work as a mangaka, but I have to wonder about the possibility that Gege, someone who has very clearly studied the psychology of Carl Jung, sees JJK as an exercise in creative imagination, and/or as a story he’s been handed from the collective unconscious.
His job as a mangaka is to show up and write, to play, to express himself creatively.
That means that sometimes what he writes is going to be magnificent in the eyes of others, and sometimes it’s going to fall short of everybody’s expectations.
And that’s what it comes down to... 
Expectations
I see a lot of people complain about JJK failing to live up to their expectations without acknowledging that their expectations are simply that, expectations.
There’s nothing wrong with having expectations per se, and it is also important to realize when expectations are defining what we think is and isn’t good enough. 
And let’s not forget that you too probably don’t live up to other’s expectations. Does that mean that your effort too isn’t good enough? Gosh now I sound like Lacus.
Again... who holds the ultimate truth?
In the end, Gege is the one telling the Jujutsu Kaisen story. 
I also cannot emphasize enough that Gege is also a mangaka in the very early stages of his writing career. 
I don’t buy that his writing was better in the beginning of JJK. 
Quite the opposite, I see his writing AND art in the beginning of JJK as having followed a recipe: the three man team, found family, the strong mentor figure, etc... all the tropes are there executed in fresh and unexpected ways. 
But that was 5 years ago. Again... in a story like JJK where the strongest sorcerers have the strongest sense of self... what does that mean for Gege?
That said, Gege isn’t following the same recipe anymore, he’s coming up with his own recipe and he’s learning how to write his own recipe.
This is not to make excuses for him, it’s just something to think about because most people aren’t born naturally talented at anything that requires mastery, and writing is a craft that requires mastery through execution. 
As a quick side note, if you read Tokyo Babylon and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle by CLAMP, the 10+ year gap between both manga shows a marked improvement in the writing. AND EVEN THEN CLAMP MANAGED TO FUCK UP THE TSUBASA PLOT!
In other words, Gege has to fail to get better. 
Now add to that the pressure of a weekly publishing schedule that dampens the creative process with tight deadlines, and then on top of that having to draw the whole thing. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
Gosh, if I had to guess, I would have to say Gege is ready for an extended vacation. 
But, as you say, I also just want for him to be satisfied with his story. 
As for us being satisfied with his story... well, it depends on what we choose to focus on.
Will you focus on how he failed at executing his vision?
Will you focus on the beautiful story he told between the lines?
Or will you focus on how how he managed to tell a beautiful story despite failing at the execution?
Can you hold the tension of opposites?
Ok SO SORRY this took me so long to get back to you my dear recurring anon. I just had so many thoughts because, like I said before, I agree with you, and I also wanted to challenge you to see things a little differently without being patronizing.
In the end, you want to continue to love JJK, right? 
So love JJK! 
Acknowledge its flaws and be at peace with them for the sake of that love. Nothing is perfect.
Anyways, I love that we can be in conversation about this and that you have come to me to share your thoughts on jjk. 
Merci beaucoup. 
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n0bamak1s · 4 years ago
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drive you crazy - mai zenin x reader
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request: “could you do mai’s reaction to silent treatment? can the read be gender neutral also?” - @hitchsimp
summary: after having to carry mai to the infirmary following the goodwill exchange event, reader finds themself in an argument over mais carelessness. this leads to mai wondering just why she’s so upset over being ignored like this. (genre: enemies to lovers, angst-ish to fluff, oblivious pining)
warnings: mentions of violence, some angst, swearing
word count: 2.2k
a/n: sorry i’ve been kind of slow with writing lately everyone! exams have me pretty busy atm but hopefully i’ll be in less of a slump after i’m done with that. i hope you guys enjoy this in the mean time! also criticism is greatly appreciated bc i’m still kind of a beginner on writing arguments and stuff like that ^_^
mai decided that she hated being ignored.
not that you two were anywhere near best friends or anything, in fact most of the time you guys were at each others throats over something trivial. at least when you guys argued, though, you still acknowledged her presence. she knew you couldn’t stay silent towards her forever, you guys would have to work together eventually, you were teammates of sorts after all.
you had started giving her the cold shoulder not long after the goodwill event. utahime had called you to inform you mai was out of the game, and you had to go retrieve her. you groaned at the idea of having to be her knight in shining armor, but reluctantly began to make your way to the forest that the group had split up in.
by the time you found her lying on the grass, unconscious, you were already irritated as you cursed whoever made these uniforms so stiff to run in. you crouched down to get closer to her level, lightly shaking her shoulder in hopes you would stir her awake. when that didn’t work, you rolled your eyes and picked her up, one hand supporting her upper back and the other tucked under her knees.
at first glance to anyone else who may have seen how you carried her, it would almost seem romantic. thought, their opinions would probably change pretty quickly if they saw how you lectured her when she woke up.
she stirred awake and blinked a couple times to adjust to her surroundings before turning to see your very tired and very annoyed face.
“you could’ve just stuck to the plan, you know.” despite the anger clear in your face as you stated at your lap, your voice had a quality of softness to it mai had never heard. before she could get any words out, you interrupted her train of thought and continued talking. “we made that plan for a reason. you knew you weren’t ready to take on maki, so why would you put yourself in danger like that?” you looked up to make eye contact with her, and she noted the subtle hint of gentleness in your eyes, but not before she jumped to defensiveness.
“what the hell makes you think you know why i wanted to fight maki?” she resented your concern in favor of starting an argument with you.
“have you ever considered that maybe you need to think about how your little revenge fantasy ruins our chances of winning this thing.” the warmth in your voice was now gone, replaced with a tone far from sympathetic. “we’ve all worked hard to get a chance to make it somewhere as jujutsu sorcerer, so it would be nice if you at least tried to care.”
for a moment, mai found it hard to come up with some kind of response. of course she knew how hard you worked to get here, not that she’d admit it. so why did she suddenly feel a twang of sympathy at how betrayed your words sounded?
before she could even think of how to counter what you said, you got up from the seat you had been in and strolled out, not even giving her the satisfaction of some kind of goodbye.
you guys weren’t even friends. she thought you were too irritable and you thought she was too full of herself. she shouldn’t care this much about whether or not she had hurt you. this feeling would probably wash over by morning, and you guys would go back to your usual bickering.
it only took one glance at you the next morning to see that, no, the feeling had not washed over.
for one thing, you had completely ignored her when utahime announced you would choose partners for sparring. normally, you would nod to mai wordlessly and stalk off in her direction so you two would spar together. it was the one thing you guys were good at doing together, maybe just because it was a way for you to get your anger out on each other from all the snide comments and annoyed glares you guys exchanges on the daily.
today, however, you turned to noritoshi and asked him if he would be your partner. when mai glanced in your direction, she couldn’t help but notice the soft smile that graced your face when you asked him, nothing like the stoic one you usually had when you guys partnered up.
why should she care about that? you and noritoshi were a couple of hard asses anyway, so why did it bother her so much if you chose to spar him instead?
she was currently paired with miwa, who seemed to quickly catch on to the quick looks she sent in your direction in between the punches thrown.
“did you get in a fight with them or something?” mai didn’t need to hear your name to know who miwa was asking about.
“something like that.” she caught her breath after dodging a kick at her legs. “apparently i’m too ‘careless’” miwa noted how her punches came with more force when talking about it.
“they probably just want you to stop putting yourself in danger, you know?” as much as miwa loved you guys, it was kind of ridiculous how much obvious stuff she had to say just to egg you guys on to make you realize how in denial you were about your care for each other.
“then they could just tell me that. maybe they should follow their own advice about caring.” she huffed annoyedly, eyes wandering back over to you sparring with noritoshi, seeing how you smiled so kindly at him as you helped him up. her eyes lingered on you for just a moment too long, studying the way all the tension in your face seemed to release, with your eyes growing shinier and the corners of your mouth quirking up without a care in the world.
why didn’t you ever smile at her like that?
your ignoring of her continued for the next few days. mai felt herself grow annoyed, because she had no idea how to get under your skin. she didn’t want to admit that she was bored without the pointless arguments, or baseless insults that you guys shared. now, when she joined you with the rest of your classmates for lunch, it was like she was invisible. instead of criticizing her aim during target practice, you would turn to momo and ask her about the new show she was watching, and it was like mai didn’t even cross your mind.
you couldn’t keep this up forever, surely. even when you weren’t trading insults with each other, it was obvious to anyone else how you would bite back calling out her name in concern when she took a particularly hard hit in training. regardless, you were still far too stubborn to admit how you missed talking to her, even if it was just to lecture her about paying more attention to her surroundings while she rolled her eyes about how you had stopped by the infirmary so late just to say that.
why were you so insistent on preaching to her whenever she went and got herself hurt?
it became rather monotonous for your classmates, watching the both of you glance at the other one with soft eyes when you thought no one else was looking. it was exhausting seeing how you guys grew tense at the mention of the other’s name, trying to pass off your embarrassment for anger.
it had been a few days more of dealing with your stubbornness before you finally managed a break from one another with mai and todo going out for a mission together. you knew them to be somewhat of a chaotic duo together, so you hoped this would work to your advantage in giving you a day of rest from all this pointless drama. you knew it was childish, sulking over problems you had caused entirely on your own, but with the time apart, you couldn’t help but become just a little bit self pitying. it was only natural when you had messed up your chances with the girl you liked because you were too scared to admit your feelings to yourself.
wait, what?
you probably would have sat and soaked up your startling revelation (well, startling to you at least) before you were abruptly interrupted by a knock on the door of your dorm room, followed immediately by a call of your name by miwa. she said something about needing help patching up mai, and you hated yourself for how quickly you sprung up from the spot you had been lounging on your bed. ignoring the strangely knowing look miwa gave you, you picked up your pace to the infirmary, feeling much more limber in your lounge clothes. it was hard not to notice the contrast between the last time you spoke in the infirmary when you swung open the door without even a knock, your eyes flooded with concern.
before mai even had a chance to process your disheveled state from running all the way to the infirmary, you spoke to her for the first time in a week.
“i’m sorry.” your voice was breathless as you leaned against the doorframe.
instead of pointing out the obvious fact that you had suddenly decided to speak to her again, she just adjusted herself so she sat up in the stiff infirmary bed, choosing to point out another obvious fact. “you know it wasn’t your fault i got hurt.” her words made you feel like a dunce, but her tone was earnest, genuine.
“but maybe if i hadn’t been ignoring you i could’ve been there to help you out.” made your way towards her so you sat at the edge of the bed, grabbing a small roll of bandages and leaning down slightly to observe where any injuries remained. “i should’ve been there to help you out.”
she raised an eyebrow. “i don’t need you to protect me.”
“i know that,” until then, you had your eyes trained on the papery sheets adorning the bed, but when you met her eyes, she could see the heartfelt look in your eyes “, but i want you to be able to rely on me.”
you broke eye contact momentarily, reaching for her slightly bloodied hand to wrap, resting it loosely in yours. your fingers settled around her palm so gently as you wrapped the bandages, she noted. it became difficult for you to stay focused with how her eyes watched you so intently.
was she smiling?
“quit beating yourself up over stuff like that.” her voice was hardly above a whisper as she leaned forward, using her good hand to brush away some stray hairs that had fallen in your face. “whenever you’re not there to protect me, you’re always the first one to ask what happened, the first one to come running with bandages, the first one to tell me to take care of myself.”
then she gave you that knowing look. the same one miwa had given you when you rushed to the infirmary, the one noritoshi had given you when you glanced her way during sparring, hell now that you thought of it, the same one todo had given you when he and mai had been paired up for a mission. the once small and nearly undetectable smile gracing her features grew into what was the closest thing you had ever seen to a grin from her. had her face been this close to yours the whole time?
“because i just drive you crazy, don’t i?” her eyes were half lidded as they stared deeply into yours. you couldn’t even be brought to deny her teasing, just nodding meekly at her announcement.
she leaned in close to you, if she just tilted her head, you guys could’ve been kissing.
“that’s good you know.” her voice was so quiet that you were sure had you been any further away, you’d never have heard it. “since i’d be lying if i said i didn’t miss you and that stick up your ass when you were avoiding me.”
you chuckled quietly, tilting your head down so it rested on her shoulder as you did, causing her to let out a soft laugh herself.
“you kind of scare the shit out of me sometimes mai.” you lift your head back up to look her straight in the eye. “but i think i’d lose it if i spent any longer pretending to hate you.”
it’s just for a split second, but in that split second you felt as if you two are the only people in the world. you barely even had to move before your lips brushed up against hers. it’s almost timid, the way you kiss her, as if she’s made of glass. despite your delicacy with her, she’s quick to lean in, as if she’s chasing the feeling of your lips on hers. her bandaged hand that still rests in yours squeezes your hand tightly in reassurance. when she pulls away breathlessly, her cheeks are flushed pink and her face is painted with a smile that you can’t help but swell with pride from knowing you’re the reason it happened.
that same knowing look is back on your classmates’ faces later that same day as they note you and mai exchanging wide smiles they had never seen from either of you as you made your way through the halls of school.
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marshmallowprotection · 2 years ago
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Hey there!
I’d be curious to know who you match me with in mystic messenger:)
My biggest interests in general are character analysis, creating MBTI content analysis and making sense of what’s currently peeking some great insight into a concept.(game theories, film theories etc.)
You could say my love language is discussing fiction, solving issues and finding abstract solutions to someone’s problems. (I’m great at giving practical advice but not much on the emotional perspective- which is ironic bc I’m one of the MM players 😀) Beside rationalising, I like toying with people to watch them laugh or have fun playing, pranking or joking!
Dislikes…not much. Beside narrow mindedness, there’s not much I dislike? Perhaps seeing people react a way that proves their uncomfortableness to the point where they’d leave? What I like…walking through the city while listening to music, watching everyone enjoy their days and pursuing different activities.
I’m not the pickiest eater and try every food out at least once! My memories can’t recall any specific favourite food cause everything can be enjoyable in some way.🤔
My general outfit style is tomboyish and usually very dark themed.(reason why I’m called an EMO 🪨)
The languages I’m capable of communicating with are German, English and Persian! And currently studying Spanish for the sake of it;)
I’m the type of person who goes around asking the questions no one needed to acknowledge they existed in the first place.”what if we used cannibalism to survive?” Or “what if butterflies were capable of fearing height?” So I warn whoever approaches me haha (Jojo reference?👀)
Obviously I’m an ENTP cause what else? An alien? Presumably.
I match you with...
Jaehee!
Hear me out, I understand that this might sound a little silly because it may seem as though the two of you would have nothing in common. However, an interesting tidbit here is that you actually do have a lot in common. You're both driven by a sense of interest in your hobbies and it keeps you grounded on the worst days. You both hate when people beat around the bush. You enjoy knowing that you can understand what somebody else is dealing with so you're not running around trying to figure it out on your own.
All you need is somebody who tells you like it is. That's why it works with Jaehee, believe it or not. Communication can be really hard for some people but when you find somebody who knows how to do it with you the right way, it works. She's interested in hearing you strategize about the media that you can soon. She does the same thing when it comes to the musicals and plays that Zen is in. Imagine if you were to combine the two of those interests together for the both of you. It would be interesting to mix the two things that you enjoy together. I imagine that it would be a very long day in the cafe for people if the two of you were talking like that while working. It's a shame, they should be more excited that the two of you get so bright-eyed and happy about it.
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peaches-writes · 4 years ago
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full circle
description: even if you’ve only known him for eight years, if you think about it, you’ve actually been with minho for most of his entire life. member: minho / lee know genre: fluff, historical au, vampire au, time traveler au, college au, neighbour au, best friends to lovers au, fem reader, this is a longer and revised version of reliable source word count: 10k warnings: explicit language, mentions of animal murder, war, death, blood, alcohol note: yay a third entry to the seven hundred and one universe! oc from seven hundred and one universe is named shiyeon here while the oc from kart rider is named soojung! + this prolly has a lot of plot holes & is just generally mediocre but whatever it’s fiction lmao + @skzwriternet​
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present: February 13, 2020
Even before he saw you on the other side of his apartment door at 9 PM with all of your work materials and equipment, Minho already knew full well that this day was coming. He’s always known most days are coming. He‘s just more excited for this in particular than the rest, given its inevitability that he‘s lived through for almost 600 years of his total 900 years as a vampire. Tonight, as evidenced by the Google Docs displayed on your open laptop, is the night you’d travel to the past for your doctorate thesis and meet his past self for the first time. 
He just didn’t expect this in particular to be on the day right before Valentine’s Day, when he and his two other housemates have decided to make a complete mess out of the kitchen with all of the chocolate they’ve been trying to make.
“Hi, sorry for bothering you at this hour but I was thinking—ew, what’s that smell?” You instinctively and bluntly ask first, sniffing the air escaping his side of the door. Minho could smell it too, strongly at that, and the older vampire could only purse his lips and widen his eyes at you. “Are you guys—please don’t tell me you’re actually cooking humans this ti—“
At that, he immediately shakes his head and breaks out into a nervous laugh, pulling the door closer to his body and effectively hiding Jisung scrambling around for the exhaust (and maybe the fire extinguisher too, for some reason) before you could peer over his shoulder. “No, no! It’s just Jisung and Jeongin—well, it’s mostly Jeongin then he dragged Jisung in on it—they’re making Valentine’s Day chocolates for...some people.”
You could sense the slight bluff in his tone (supported further by the little heart-shaped candy on his cheek) and that at least one of those ‘some people’ he could possibly be referring to is one of your friends, Nari, whom Jeongin has not-so-discreetly been pining over since your second year of college, but you easily let it slide. In the eight years you’ve known the vampires who live and own your apartment complex, after all, you’ve definitely walked in on much wilder things than a couple of questionably burnt chocolates (chocolates aren’t even cooked, as far as you’re concerned!). “Um, okay, sure, I’ll trust you with that.” You squint your eyes at him. “Anyway, can I come in? I need your help with something.” 
Minho exhales a small sigh of relief which he turns into a smile for you before looking over his shoulder once to make sure that the coast is clear then opening the door wide once again. “Yeah, come on in.” He concludes next, picking up your backpack on the floor and your heavy laptop in your hands as you cross the threshold. “But it’s really messy in the common area right now so we’ll have to stay in my room, if that’s okay with you.” 
You’ve never been in his room, not even when you first became friends in your first year of college eight years ago or on game nights when he always asks for help taking out his Play Station sets. All of Jisung and Jeongin’s jokes of his serial killer tendencies when you’re not around could be true for all you know and it’s the only thing going through your head as you wordlessly follow him inside his apartment, pondering on the thought.
In response, Minho bites down a laugh between his teeth next to you as he accidentally reads your thoughts and when you catch him in the act, you make sure to elbow him with your freer arm, careful of your drafts binder. “Ya, stop reading my thoughts without permission, you asshole!” You scold him in a sharp hiss right as you pass Jisung and Jeongin in the open doorway leading to the kitchen. You greet the two courteously and even make a salute to the fallen chocolates, to which Minho laughs even more at and the two boys groan in protest. “Well, shit, it really is...bad.”
“I know, poor people who’ll get that tomorrow.” Minho shrugs.
“You could say Nari, it’s fine, I won’t tell.” You shrug back with a laugh, taking this time to take the candy off of his cheek and walking past him and the other two boys with a parting wave before Jeongin could even process that you caught up to him and his crush so easily.
Minho, meanwhile, clears his throat awkwardly and follows you, in a poor attempt to hide his immediate flustered expression. Some of the chocolates were actually for you but he won’t tell you that too, of course.
Especially not when you arrive in his room not long after, nodding in approval at its cleanliness that clearly contrasts the current state of his kitchen and, by a slight extension, living room. “Glad you to know you don’t murder people in your room, Min. See? We get closer as friends would every day.”
“I’ve been on blood bag and animal diet since we met, you brat. Don’t tease like that.” Minho rolls his eyes, prompting you to laugh.
“So, where do I work, then?” You ask after, turning to Minho on your side and accidentally brushing your shoulders together.
He gestures to his work table in response, naturally placing his other hand on your back and guiding you towards it. He really hopes you’d be oblivious to the way he’s growing more flustered this time. He doesn’t let you in his room for a reason, after all (that being it’s too intimate in his opinion). “You can use my desk.” He instructs you after, following you and pulling an extra chair for himself once you’ve reached his desk. Placing your backpack next to his work bag then your laptop on top of the table, he then asks, “So, are you travelling now or later?”
He already knew you’d do it sometime now, he really just wanted to ask to keep the conversation going. He even has your hanbok ready—bought from Changbin’s wife’s shop last month.
But, to you, he seems to have miscalculated the situation a little bit as a realization dawns on you while you’re taking out the portable time travel machine from your backpack. It’s actually just a watch but your professors insist on keeping them in really fancy boxes. “I can do it now if it’s oka—wait, I haven’t even told you that part yet! How do you know I’m not just going to hoard your wi-fi?” You exclaim mid-thought, your mouth falling agape and forming an ‘o’ shape in surprise. You know he wasn’t reading your mind just now because, usually, Minho would announce his presence obnoxiously loud in your head or make the face he did a while back but he didn’t this time. “So you’re going to agree to my request? Is that it?”
Eyes equally wide in his mistake, Minho falls back in his chair and ends up fumbling around with his words. “Well—no, I mean, you always only need my help when you’re about to time travel so—!” He tries his best to cover up which only elicits a victorious smile from you. “Ugh, fine, you got me!”
“So, you’ll help me? I mean, past you, technically.” You ask again for confirmation, sitting down on your own chair this time as you fully take out the portable machine and place it on your lap. “I have to tell you, though, that I need to travel to three other periods for my thesis this time. Is that okay?” 
Minho props his elbow on the arm rest and nods against his knuckles. “You already know the answer to that, I think.” 
You chuckle at this. If eight years of knowing him has taught you anything, it’s to pay attention to the smallest details. He’s clairvoyant, after all, and you need to up him at his own game every now and then somehow. “Then, I’ll also need the proper attire. Haseul said that she can’t take in commissions at the moment so I couldn’t—“
“In the closet, furthest right.” Minho gestures to the walk-in closet behind him in defeat. “You can use that for all the times you’ll go, too.” 
“Have I told you that you’re my bestest friend in the world today? Even more than Nari, and she’s a witch, might I add!” You dramatically announce with a grin, handing him the machine’s box before standing up and making a beeline to the double doors on the other side of his bed. When you follow his instructions and find a pink and blue hanbok along with a floral hairpin on the very end of his closet, you then take it out and head to the open bathroom across the room. “Oh, wow, you even got my size right! You must’ve been preparing for this for a long time, huh?”
He really has—but, again, Minho is too stubborn to admit it to your face. “Just tell me if it’s uncomfortable or something.” He simply replies to you instead before you could close the door and change. Once he hears you acknowledge him with a hum before clicking the door to a lock, he then quickly prepares the time travel watch for you (by the way he remembers you doing it in front of him countless of times while you were cramming for a school requirement with him) then places it next to your laptop in exchange for his phone to message the rest of his friends.
minho [9:13 PM]: its happening
chan [9:14 PM]: you’re confessing?
hyunjin [9:14 PM]: hey that’s great! good for you hyung!!!
minho [9:16 PM]: no! y/n’s making the travel to 1388!
changbin [9:18 PM]: chan u know not to get ur hopes up w minho alr we all know he’s hopeless
minho [9:21 PM]: just bc ur alr married u brat
Changbin was still typing out a reply in the groupchat when you came out of the bathroom in your hanbok, laughing behind your hand when Minho looks up and momentarily gapes at you. “Why are you looking at me like that, weirdo?” You furrow your brows as you approach, smacking his arm before sitting down on his bed right behind him with a slight struggle. Peering over his shoulder, you smile appreciatively at noticing the time machine already set up. “And I see you’ve set up the machine without breaking anything this time! Progress!”
Minho scoffs, swiveling his wheeled chair to face you properly before gesturing to the hairpin in your hands. “You don’t like the hairpin?”
"I don’t know why you’re making me wear a hairpin that looks like a wedding heirloom.” You frown. Not to mention, from it’s material, you could tell that it’s new as well, meaning it was designed this way on purpose. “Won’t it attract too much attention?” 
Minho doesn’t know why you eventually came to him in the past wearing the hairpin too. He thought his future self was being ridiculous then (and he still does in the moment). “I don’t know, either,” He tells you truthfully this time, standing up from his chair to place it on your tightly-made bun. “But you did come wearing it eventually so just go with the flow, I guess? I don’t know, what do your sci-fi movies say?” 
You scoff at him, puffing out the heat rising up to your cheeks at the proximity. He could read your mind if he wants to but he doesn’t seem to be in the moment, even when his lips are gently fanning air into your ear as he fixes the hairpin with utmost care. “I guess I’ll just have to follow your instincts, then.” You sigh in defeat. “I can’t miss a detail, even if it’s weird.” 
“Right. I was there in the moment before you right now.” He smiles cheekily before sitting back down on his chair, passing you your time travel box after. “Ready to go?” 
You nod, fixing your collar one last time before receiving the machine from his hands. “You haven’t met me in the 1388, right?” 
“The first time you met me in the past was in the 1910s for that graduate thesis of yours and the oldest version of me that you’ve met so far was the one from the the 1740s.” Minho corrects, recalling your fourth year thesis some eight years ago. “But the first time I met you in my history was for this doctorate.” 
Your eyes light up at this. “Really? You’re meeting me for the first time now?” 
“Yeah. Why?” 
“We’ll have differing first impressions after this!” You point out to which he snickers. “Also, I haven’t met this version of you, you might be a snob in 1388 and think I’m weird or something.” 
Minho personally doesn’t think his first impression of you will ever change, no matter when you’ll meet in time. He’ll always think positively of you. “I was already turned for a long time, then. I haven’t met Chan and the others but I’ve seen and heard of weirder things than a time traveler.” He assures you. “Now, go, so I can help Jisung and Jeongin in the kitchen.” 
Rolling your eyes, you then set the date to January 1388 (you notice Minho’s already set the location while you were in the bathroom) before bidding a temporary goodbye to him, disappearing into thin air with the watch on your wrist right after. “I’ll be back before you know it!” 
In the blink of an eye, you’re already in a flea market somewhere in Seoul (then named Hanseong, you made sure to remember that well out of all of your history and anthropology notes). 
past: January 1388
You easily find 1388 Minho wandering around the flea market, a crowd of court men and women following him religiously as he examines the crops, livestock, and flowers being sold in stalls. The sight makes you scoff in disbelief, even more when you approach and see how he ignores each and every one of them up close. 
You know Minho isn’t the one of royal blood in his current coven of vampires (that’s Hyunjin—you know it well from the amount of times you’ve pestered him in your other time travels while he was sulking over his present day fiancée) but he has mentioned in passing once about being popular in the palace court, a socialite of his time if you will. 
But then, who could blame him? He’s just that handsome and charming.  
“Minho...Lee Minho...” You try calling for him in the crowd but to no avail, the slight embarrassment of following the crowd creeping up to you. It reminds you a bit of when you first saw him in your timeline, your first year of college and his fourth year (because Chan keeps insisting that he goes to university every now and then to pass the time) when all kinds of students would also follow him around at the campus library. It’s annoying, regardless of wherever you are in the world timeline. “Excuse me, Lee Minho!” 
He only turns to you when you raise your voice, an eyebrow momentarily raised until your eyes meet and a look seemingly of recognition crosses his features. 
You became friends with him as an older vampire but why is he more intimidating as a younger one? It’s probably the rest of the crowd’s eyes being on you because of your sudden interruption. Either way, you forcibly gulp down your nervousness and call for him again. “Lee Minho?” 
“Yes?” 
“C-Can I—Can I talk to you for a moment?” You gesture for him to follow you, his piercing gaze making your hands shake a bit. This is probably what Chan meant when he said Minho was a bit scary when he first met him in the 1400s. 
Minho follows you, anyway, which alleviates and heightens your nervousness at the same time. The crowd would’ve followed if not for him glaring at them not to right before you turned to the main entrance of the flea market where a few people were loitering around at. He feels like he knows you from somewhere which, if you knew about, you’d tell him that that’s impossible since, chronologically, you haven’t met him before this. 
Once you’re away from the majority of the market crowd, only then do you turn to properly face him and his expectant eyes. He’s still looks the same as he does in the present, just more curious, seeing as you’re a stranger for now. It’s comforting, somehow, so much so that it relaxes you and eventually makes you laugh as well. 
“What’s so funny?” He asks you without any hint of malice once you uncontrollably burst into giggles, prompting you to lift your hand up to your mouth. Already developing his clairvoyant abilities at this time period, he could easily tell by the unfamiliar terms in your thoughts and the way you hold yourself up that you were different—far more different than everyone around you. “And who are you?” 
You wave your other hand dismissively, taking a step back to recuperate. You end up giggling a few more times before you could manage to take a deep breath and exhale slowly by turning your eyes away from Minho momentarily. “I’m sorry, I’m Y/N and I—sorry! It’s just so...it’s a bit weird!” 
“Definitely.” Though your answer is unsatisfactory, the boy nods anyway. “And how do you know my name?”  
“I know you from the futur—wait, you can tell that it’s a bit weird too?” You raise an eyebrow and fold your arms over your chest. “It’s…sometime in the 1300s—“
“Thirteen eighty-eight.”
“Right.” You nodded at his correction with a dry scoff, piquing his interest further. “It’s only 1388 and you’re already this good of a clairvoyant?”
Minho was instinctively taken aback with you. His present self forgot to tell you that clairvoyance doesn’t have an established name in this time yet. “How did you—? What? Huh, well…the hanbok—the hanbok’s a bit of a giveaway too, I guess. It looks different from what the court women usually wear.” 
You then briefly glanced down at your hanbok, a pout resting on your features when you look back up at Minho again. “Really? But you—I mean, my source told me that this was accurate.” Come to think of it, you didn’t really check the attire thoroughly since you really needed to travel immediately to cram your paper. You’ll have to give 2020 Minho an earful about this later. “Ah, guess it’s my fault for not double-checking. I was in a bit of a rush to come here.” 
Minho from 1388, however, shakes his head at you in disapproval then briefly begins pointing out the different design patterns that looked foreign to him. “And this hairpin,” He pointed your hair accessory last, from what you can remember at present. There’s an unreadable expression in his face, one you’re too flustered to interpret as amusement. “This looks like a wedding heirloom but…a bit futuristic for my time, if that makes sense. I don’t suppose you wanted to come here disguised as someone’s wife, right? That’d attract more attention to you.”
And with that, you almost immediately deflate right in front of him with a defeated sigh and he smirks teasingly in return. To the passersby at the flea market, people could’ve easily mistaken the two of you for a quarreling married couple. “So that’s how it is.” You surrender easily, your arms loosening. “I guess even at this time you’re clairvoyant and smart. How annoying.”
His smirk grows even more triumphantly at this. “So, why did you come here?” He asks next. He figures out halfway through your rambles that it’s probably better to go along with you than to insist on his own questions, at least until you’ve organized your thoughts a little bit better. 
You ponder on the question for a moment, shifting your weight between the balls of your feet to pass the time. When you do answer, you explain, “Well, it’s a little crazy but my source has said that you’ll be okay with it so...believe it or not, I’m from the future and doing my doctorate thesis on a dynasty that’s about to establish itself around this time.” When 1388 Minho doesn’t immediately and visibly freak out as he would on your worst case scenario, you take this as your cue to continue. “You’re still alive in my time but I can’t tell you what our relationship is or it’ll be spoilers! All I can say is that you’ve helped me passed a lot of my major requirements in school and if you’re okay with it, you can help me with this one too!” 
The Minho in front of you thinks that you probably know him very well to know that he’s not easily spooked with anything out of the ordinary, not even by someone who claims to be from the future and is doing an academic paper about the past. You did mention knowing his personal history, as well, which effectively gained you his trust. He just hopes you’re not married or something in the future as the hairpin seems to be trying to imply or else he’d consider this first meeting of yours a bit chaotic for his liking. “Sure. Where do you have to be right now?” 
Really? It’s that easy? Is all you can think about, much to Minho’s curiosity when he reads your thoughts. “O-Oh, well, um...if you can take me to the palace courts, that would be...cool, I mean nice.” 
And so, Minho from 1388 ends up showing you around the palace courts for the next six months that follows (but, really, it’s just merely six minutes in the present time), even introducing you to people whom you ended up entrusting with your data-gathering. You almost mentioned Hyunjin and his fiancé, Shiyeon, on more than one occasion, remembering how the vampire would be with Seungmin already by this time while the immortal witch would be travelling around Korea, but opted not to instead when you also remember that no one from this time period really liked talking about the previous fire that killed most of Hyunjin’s family. 
Besides, you didn’t want to mess up the timeline and have Minho meet Hyunjin before he could meet Chan, even when he would ask you about it right before you left. 
“How am I in the future, by the way? Am I allowed to ask that?” Minho asks you curiously as you hold out your watch in front of him. It was starting to get annoying, having to hide it in your bell sleeves all the time. “And what am I doing by then?” 
“I can’t say anything specific that’s important.” You scrunch up your nose disapprovingly to which Minho only glares at you in response. “Just trust me, you’re sort of happy with where you are in my present day. You don’t have to worry about it now, it’s still 600 years away, anyway.” 
Minho mistakenly interprets that as the two of you being married in the future. He doesn’t have feelings for you in this time period but he takes your word not to worry about it until it’s happened. 
Besides, you seem kind. He’ll see something in you eventually. 
“When will I see you again, then?” 
“Um...around 1418, probably?” You answer with a hint of uncertainty as you faintly recall your thesis’ outline. You needed to see King Sejeong’s court next. “You’ll still be here, right?” 
Minho initially had plans on moving to a nearby province but he nods, anyway, thinking that that could wait for a few more years. “Yeah.” 
And with that, you’re gone again. 
present: February 13, 2020 
When you get back to the present day, it’s only 9:35 PM, almost six minutes since you left, but Minho’s already in the kitchen, helping Jisung and Jeongin clean up their mess. 
“Back already?” Minho asks with a blood bag between his teeth when he catches sight of you by the open doorway as he wipes the kitchen island clean, immediately noticing the grin you wear on your face. “What did you think?” 
“You were much chiller then!” You exclaim, ducking past Jeongin and Jisung to sit down right across Minho on the countertop. “I mean, you were a bit scary at first with the whole glaring thing you got going on but you were very calm and collected, then, like you weren’t even phased about me being from the future!” 
Of course he would be at that time, he was literally there when it happened (and also because he’s always had a feeling even from before that you’d meet but that’s also on his long list of things he won’t tell you). Instead, you see him quirk an eyebrow, throwing the rag towel in his hand to the side to pick up his phone and resume his Kart Rider. “Weirdoes vibe with weirdoes, I guess.” He shrugs, chuckling when you protest at this. “Anyway, you got what you need, right?”
You nod happily with a hum, propping an elbow up on the now clean counter and resting your cheek on your palm. “I have enough to write about later when you’re done cleaning.” 
“Ya, Y/N, if you’re gonna stick around at least help us clean the kitchen!” Jisung complains as he drags a wet mop across the floor behind you. 
“And why would I do that? I didn’t even help you make the chocolates!” 
“Because Minho’s been making cho—” Before Jisung could finish his sentence, however, Minho throws his rag towel towards the younger vampire, aiming it directly to his face. “Ya!” 
You shake your head in disbelief, turning to Minho again after. “Anyway, I have to fix my notes for a bit and you need to tell me where else I went for this paper!” 
Also because you were kinda cute back then, you think to yourself more as an after-thought, not really expecting for Minho to accidentally hear it.   
Now, Minho knows why he made you wear the hairpin. Is it normal to be jealous of one’s past self? 
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present: February 16, 2020 
Minho offers you a whole bag of your favorite mini Toblerones the next time that you knock on his door to work on your thesis. The Valentine’s Day homemade chocolates were a fail even when Felix was eventually brought in last-minute (then you just had to disappear for a whole day with Nari and Shiyeon, too), so he rushed to the nearest convenience store to buy you the Toblerones as soon as you told him that you’ll come over again to pester him with his Internet connection and ask him more about your work. 
Maybe this is really it, the one you were talking about in his past. 
“You’re being nice to me with all this chocolate.” You squint your eyes with a piece of the chocolate in between your teeth suspiciously across the dining table as you work, head buried in papers to revise and dusty reference books. Your professor has you on travel limit as everyone else, only allowing you up to four actual visits to the past, hence the mountainous stacks of library books and journals you’ve borrowed from both the campus library and Changbin’s personal collection. “What do you need? Ya, I’m talking to you.” 
Minho, busy in his own academic work on his laptop, only peeks up at you belatedly when he’s reaching out for his blood bag buried underneath all of your papers. “What?” 
“What are the chocolates for?” You ask straightforwardly this time, picking up another mini Toblerone off the yellow bag. “Last time you bought me something from the convenience store was when you ate the squirrel I was feeding in the back garden.” 
Minho only shrugs as nonchalantly as he could, though he can’t help but feel a little flustered as evidenced by the way his eyes briefly widen. The squirrel incident was a long time ago and yet you still won’t let it go. “Can’t I be nice?” He simply asks back in answer to which you scoff at. He laughs along with you, anyway. “Jeongin bought it then gave me the extra, probably to give to you since I can’t really eat it.” 
You wanted to tell him that Nari actually shared the chocolates Jeongin gave her and they were definitely not Toblerones but you let it slide again. For some reason, it’s funny seeing Minho try to cover up something right in front of your face and thinking that he’s doing a good job at it. He’s trained you to see past his bullshit for the past 8 years, he should really know better. “Um...right.” You nod teasingly. “I’m gonna pretend you’re not looking very suspicious right now.” 
Minho could clearly tell that you’re doubting him even without reading you but he does nothing more to it. He’s too deep in his bullshit already and you both know that. 
Truth is, he was just fulfilling something you mentioned in your second visit to him (and probably as a way to give you something on Valentine’s Day even if it’s two days late). 
“Anyway, when are you making the travel again?” 
“Right after I finish summarizing this book.” 
And it happens to come full circle today, too. What luck does your best friend have. 
past: August 1418 
You jump between days in a span of six years this time (which is approximately an hour and twelve minutes back in the present time) with the help of Minho, Chan, and Changbin from 1418 helping you by preparing an entire closet of clothes and coming up with a very detailed background story of how you were a distant relative of Chan’s from the province in the case that someone asked about you. The other two boys were more than happy to welcome you despite how foreign time travel was to them in this time period because, apparently, you’re all Minho’s ever talked about since they met. 
“It’s nice knowing that Minho didn’t fever dreamed you up or something.” Changbin joked to you once towards the end of the six years of your data-gathering, to which he received a full apple shoved in his mouth from Minho. In this time period, his wife, Haseul, was still in that sleeping curse you still don’t understand fully at present, carefully laid in a tomb somewhere in the capital. Fortunately, you managed to avoid telling him that she wakes up seven centuries later (and that they get married) throughout your entire stay and avoided spoilers. “Vampires who’ve lived long like us tend to do that sometimes. Heck, even Chan does that lots of times these days, telling us about this immortal person he’s been looking for a while now. I guess it’s the human brain’s natural response to having a lot of memories.” 
“Minho remembers me just fine in the present, though.” You shrug as you re-write your interview notes, to which Minho mumbles a ‘Really?’ at. When you nod at him, he immediately rolls his eyes up in thought. You want to tell them that the person Chan’s been looking for at this time’s also real (and that he and said person, Eunhye, even live together now), too, but you decide against it later on for spoiler reasons again. “You have really good memory in the present, you even bought me Toblerones today.” 
“What are those?” 
A realization dawns on you right there and then, a small smile forming on your lips to which Minho quirks an eyebrow at and Changbin immediately asks you about. “You’ll find out soon enough. Just know that they’re my favorite.” You simply answer, standing up from the front porch of the inn you’ve been staying at and dusting the dirt off of your new hanbok. You remind yourself to ask Minho and Changbin about where these are at present later on. “Anyway, I’m off! I need to interview a few court people then I’ll be off your hairs again soon!” 
When it’s time for you to leave again, Minho’s still pestering you about what Toblerones are. 
“Come on, tell me!” He protests, going as far as holding your wrist where your watch is before you could escape. “Y/N!” 
You only grin up at him mischievously, gently swatting his hand away. “February 16, 2020! Also, make me ramen and coffee when I get back to the other side, please! I’d really like that!” 
present: February 16, 2020 
A steaming bowl of ramen and a warm cup of miraculously decently-brewed coffee are on the kitchen countertop by the time you come back, just as you asked him six hundred years in the past. What you didn’t expect, however, was the way your notes and references have also been organized neatly on the table while you were away and Minho dozing off on the nearby sofa in the open living room (he really likes genuine sleep lately which you’re yet to ask him as to why). You make sure to check that he really is sleeping by pinching his nose (and getting no response which is his usual indication of actual sleep) before placing the blanket he has reserved for you in his apartment over his hunched over body. 
“You don’t really need it,” You whisper tiredly, tucking the blanket close to his neck. His skin is naturally cold, as any normal vampire’s, but you’ve slowly grown accustomed to it over the years. “but how else am I going to say thank you for remembering my request after six hundred years? You’re going above and beyond anyone I’ve ever met, Lee Minho, you should stop raising the bar too high for men like this.” 
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three
past: May 1592
“Are you sure you want to be here?” Minho from 1592 asks you right after you’ve reappeared in his house. Chan is out for work and Changbin is visiting Haseul on this particular day, leaving him to tend to their main house alone. “We’re in the middle of—”
“A Japanese invasion, I know.” You finish his thought for him, casually plopping down on the front porch right next to him and gingerly receiving the cup of tea he offers you. The garden he’s been trying to tend the last time you were around hasn’t made any significant progress even when an entire century has passed. You want to think it’s because the boys have been travelling elsewhere right before you returned but you also know it’s because they haven’t met Seungmin and Hyunjin yet. Those two are still probably travelling with Shiyeon. “That’s exactly why I’m here.” 
“Don’t tell me you’re—” Minho leans away and gazes back incredulously at you. He can already tell, with his own abilities, that you’re not thinking of what he’s thinking but he asks anyway to fully confirm. “I’m not letting you go to the frontlines if that’s what you’re going to ask me this time.” 
You chuckle at his genuinely mortified expression as you sip on your tea, making the boy furrow his brows at you. You really must be crazy. “You already know I’m not thinking of that! Though, I will ask you crazier things in the distant future.” You assure him. “I’ll only be staying for a year, six years again at most since I only need to complete a few interviews and fact-check a few books.” 
“Good.” Minho sighs in relief, taking a long sip of his tea as well. Even in 1592, the only human beverage Minho could stand is tea, you’re quick to notice. “That’s...that’s a relief.” 
“Why would you even be worried about going to the field, you’re immorta—ya, perhaps, do you you care about me?” You tease, grinning widely at the sudden realization. “We have a really messed-up timeline but you already care about me as early as now, that’s cute!”   
Minho from this time period could only roll his eyes at you against his sudden flustered feeling. If he was curious of your relationship with his future self when you first met, he’s curious as to how his future self keeps up with you this time. “Because you might be important to me in the future or something.” He bluffs to which you only chuckle fondly at. “I can’t really tell since you won’t tell me exactly how I know you in the future.” 
“Well, what am I to you now?” 
“A friend.” And he means it truthfully.
You’re momentarily taken aback, Minho sees even when you’re quick to hide it. Present Minho won’t even call you his best friend like you do to him. “Then just—just remember that until then.” You point out, smiling when you gaze over to his side and see his sincere expression. Something leaps in your chest at hearing him say those words without his usual playful tone of voice. It’s not what you’ve always been hoping for but it’s a start. “Won’t it be better if you just find out in the moment when it does happen?” 
Minho wants to tell you that he can’t wait but his teasing nature always gets the best of him first, “Hm, maybe you don’t actually know me at all in the future, that’s why you’re always being vague when I ask you.” 
You scoff, smacking his arm. “Ya!” 
“So, really, what are you to me in the future?” He insists anyway, swiftly dodging your hits until he’s caught your wrist in his hands. “Friend? Best friend?” 
A lover? He wanted to add further but he bites his tongue back just in time.  
“I always call you my best friend but I’ve yet to hear the same thing from you so, honestly, how would I know when you’re so secretive with your true feelings all the time! I’m even surprised you answered my question just now.” You frown, unintentionally coming off as bitter in your tone of voice as you retract your hand back to your side. You place your cup down as well, careful of the remaining tea so it doesn’t accidentally spill on your hanbok. At this moment, you miss the way Minho’s expression turns into confusion. “If it helps, though, I can only tell you that you always let me in your house to hoard the wi-fi—which you don’t have to know about right now!—and you’ve kept me around long enough to know when you’re trying to lie to me or read my thoughts with your clairvoyance thing going on.” 
Minho nods along, humming in thought. “So you’re a parasite?” 
You inhale a deep breath, focusing all of your energy into restraining yourself from hitting him for a second time. “You’ve called me worse.” You sigh with a controlled laugh. “Expired dinner and ex-wife who has nowhere else to go are my personal favorites.” 
Next to you, Minho’s eyes genuinely widen in curiosity. “We got married?” 
“Um, no? No, no, it’s an expression!” You shake your head and snicker despite the contrasting heat on your neck. Minho grows flustered at sensing the blood rushing up to your face. “I don’t even know if you’re capable of romantic love, dude. You’re always kinda everywhere and nowhere.” 
Minho’s not offended, though, especially not when you try to apologize after at realizing that you’re not as close with this version of him as you are with the version you know in your own time. “It’s fine.” He assures you with a shrug, knowing full well that you were just kidding around. “I’m guessing with that that I’m still single five centuries later.” 
“That and a bit of a flirt, too.” You clarify before his words fully process in your head. “Wait, so that means you haven’t dated even before this?” 
Minho shakes his head. “No, no one’s caught my eye yet.” 
You purse your lips in thought of this new revelation. It’s in moments like this, when you’re meeting past selves of your immortal friends that you realize just how little you actually know of them. “Huh, I didn’t peg you as the type.” 
“The type to what?” 
You shrug slowly, hunching over in your seat. “To be the fall in love just once type? I don’t know...”
Chan has mentioned to you once about Minho believing in soulmates but you were quick to dismiss that then. Remembering that now, maybe he is right. 
And, as if he has been reading your thoughts this entire time, Minho agrees with a nod. “Then, now you know. If you’ve lived as long as I have, soulmates are really nice to think about.” 
“But you always tease me about it...you from the future at least.” You pout. “Again, no offense, it’s just that—from the way I know you in my time, you’re very confusing.” 
When you glance over at Minho, you see him sit up straighter and lean closer to you again, your shoulders bumping against his as he tilts his head to meet your gaze. “Really? How am I confusing? Maybe I can help.” 
You scrunch up your nose. “Ah, but that’s unfair. You’ll take note of this in the future again.” 
“Your time’s five hundred years away, I’m sure I’ll forget this with time.” He assures you to no avail as evidenced by your squinted eyes. 
“You remembered my ramen and coffee request from last time, though.” You argue back, making his eyes light up. 
“I will?” 
You nod, placing a finger on his forehead and pushing his face away from yours. “Yeah, so I don’t trust you. Let’s just leave it at that.” 
Minho doesn’t bother you anymore about it for the rest of your one-year stay, which you’re more than grateful for.
present: February 22, 2020 
He does, however, teases you about it again when you’re back to the present. Closing in on you in one of his bone-crushing hugs when you reappear in his room, he asks, “So, how was meeting me in the 1500s this time, best friend?”
“Excuse me, what did you say?” You furrow your brows at him, your arms going limp on your sides while your entire body freezes on the spot. 
“I just called you my best friend.” He repeats casually with a shrug. “Why?” 
Minho purposely omits the fact that he double-checked his old journals to make sure that you just time traveled to that period when you mentioned to him how he’s never called you his best friend. He’s been waiting for this opportunity to set it right with you since he didn’t know much of the context back then. 
You shake your head in response, reluctantly hugging him back once you’ve regained feeling in your arms again. “Nothing, it’s just...” 
“Dude, you’re acting like past me and present me are different people.” He chuckles against your hair, squeezing your frame once before pulling away. “So, we’re good, right? You’re not bitter about the whole best friend thing now?” 
You frown, slapping his elbow to which he only chuckles at. “Who said I was bitter?” 
“You did in 1592!” He teases, his mischievous grin softening into a fond smile after. “But seriously...sorry about that. I just think it’s cheesy to say most of the time but you really are...my best friend now I guess—maybe until you die in 50 years.”
Minho then runs away before you could even protest, prompting you to chase him out of his room and into the hallway. “Ya, Lee Minho! I’m going to kill you first, you brat!”  
But you know that deep in your heart that he’s only joking (and also because Jeongin has gossiped to you once about accidentally reading one of Minho’s journal entries from the 1700s once about meeting someone who shares your name but was already working as a professor in university and may or may not already be a vampire). 
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present: February 29, 2020
“Okay, to refresh...” You mumble as you adjust the watch on your wrist and the switchblade Minho insisted on you keeping in your pants’ pockets. Next to you, said vampire’s is sprawled on his bed, a reviewer and highlighter in hand. “In 1895, Hyunjin was following Shiyeon around the world, Seungmin was starting out his photography career, Soojung was taking a beauty nap, Haseul was still sleeping, Changbin was going on a Jack the Killer rampage somewhere in Europe, Jisung was still a newborn, Felix, and Jeongin haven’t joined you yet, and Chan was...learning yoga with Eunhye? Is that right?” 
“And I’ve met all versions of you by this time.” Minho adds in absentmindedly before going back to chanting his notes over and over again. He really doesn’t need to since he really has sharp memory these days but you let him study for whatever it is he’s studying, anyway, so he has something else to do besides Kart Rider and annoying his other friends. “Just tell past me who I’m meeting when you arrive since you know how I kept mixing graduate studies you and college thesis you up all the time.” 
“That’s...you guys have lived lives.” You puff out a tired breath, making Minho glance up to you briefly and chuckle. “Sometimes, it makes me and Nari feel so small.” 
“It’s not much.” The boy shrugs back. “It personally hasn’t felt that long.” 
“And why’s that?” You hum curiously. 
He mumbles something behind his paper but you don’t hear it well. When you ask him about it, he only shakes his head and kicks you with his socket foot, urging you to go already. 
Minho actually said, “It’s because you’ve been with me the entire time.” but he’ll just tell you all about it later when you come back. 
With a scoff, you then swat his foot away and bid him goodbye. “Fine, see you later then.” 
“I’ll organize your notes until then. Bye.” 
past: July 1895
Minho sets your location on your watch to his house, now renovated to what was considered modern then. You’ve been here countless of times, albeit in different time periods of your own past (the last being when you had to ask for his help in the 1860s about your graduate thesis), but you’ve never been here in the 1890s, not when a newborn Jisung had the self-control of a toddler and immediately tried pouncing on you the moment he smelled you on their front lawn.  
Now you know what the switchblade is for (and the one time Jisung kept apologizing to you in the 1910s). 
“Ji, calm down!” Minho growls in annoyance, holding the younger boy by his arms as he drags him back inside the house. He can feel your anxiousness increase just by looking at this unfamiliar side of Jisung, prompting him to send you an apologizing look. “Sorry, um, Y/N, I—” 
“I-It’s...it’s fine.” You assure shakily with a curt nod, taking a step back as well when Jisung tries regaining two steps towards you again. “I think I came in the wrong day.” 
“It depends. What are you here for?” He asks, his voice growing faint as he successfully manages to lock Jisung inside the house. He then quickly jogs back to you, examining your face for any recognizable hints of where you could be from.
“Doctorate thesis.” You answer for him, earning you a look of realization from him. 
“Oh, it’s you.” He smiles in relief. You remember distinctly how these were also the very same words he told you when you first met him in a time travel. “I was thinking you’d never come back.” 
You feign a frown in front of him, making him laugh. “Why? Did you think I wouldn’t finish my studies?” 
“It’s just that the next time you came back, from my point of view, is when you were only in college to ask me about the 1810s.” He clarifies, to which you nod in understanding. So he does remember. “I thought it weird at first that you didn’t come back sooner to finish your doctorate.” 
“Ah, well, you in 2020 has been a big help—well, him and a shit ton of books.” You chuckle awkwardly. “This is my last trip for my doctorate, actually, since I have the smallest amount of resources for Queen Min.” 
“T-This is—this is your last?” 
You smirk at his briefly dejected expression, elbowing him gently. “Why do you look so sad? You already know we’ll meet again in the future. Plus, you’ll still meet younger versions of me later on for my college requirements which is a bit confusing to hear right now but you’ll get it later!” 
Minho opens his mouth to speak, initially to tell you something about being frustrated that he’s only seen glimpses (and different versions) of you throughout his life so far, but he’s suddenly cut off by Jisung banging wildly against the front door, making him and you flinch. 
“Um...what if we deal with Jisung first?” You suggest. “I assure you we’re all going to be great friends in the future but no one really told me that this would happen.” 
Minho nods slowly next to you, rubbing the nape of his neck. “Yeah, we should probably take care of him first before your thesis. You could spare five minutes to sit down, right?” 
“Definitely.” 
And so, you spend the rest of your first day getting Jisung to calm down in your presence. 
present: February 29, 2020 
“Chan, babe, please, please, please promise that you won’t flinch when we use the party poppers later.” Eunhye sighs exasperatedly as she leads everyone into organizing the kitchen and living room. “Felix, good job on the cookies by the way! They turned out really well! Jisung, hurry up with that banner!” 
“Babe, I don’t flinch!” Chan yells across the hallway as he re-checks if everyone will have enough party hats, trumpets, and poppers for later. 
“Yes you do!” 
“What’s so significant about today, anyway?” Nari asks Jeongin as the two enter the apartment with boxes upon boxes of blood bags and alcoholic drinks. “Besides Y/N finishing their thesis, of course.” 
Shiyeon and Hyunjin follow closely behind with take-out boxes of chicken wings. “Because today is Y/N’s last time travel before they become a professor! A lot of good things are going to happen after, trust me.” Shiyeon answers with a wink. 
“How come you know all of that? You were barely with us in the 1800s.” Jisung asks while struggling to put the other end of your congratulations banner across the kitchen. Soojung is on the other end, arm beginning to fall asleep as she holds up the other end of the banner for Jisung. “Even Jeongin and Felix don’t know that.” 
“There’s a thing called correspondence and Hyunjin was a diligent gossiper.” Shiyeon only chuckles, setting down the take-out boxes on the countertop. “Also, hey, I was there in one of Y/N’s visits! It just hasn’t happened in our timeline yet but it will in three years!” 
Minho then emerges from his room, phone in hand counting down the seconds until you’re back again. “Okay, we have two hours to get everything ready.”
“Lee Minho where have you been this entire time!” Eunhye complains, finally taking the boy’s presence to take a seat. “I’ve been organizing everyone for a whole ten minutes!”  
“You mean you have two hours to get ready.” Haseul teases, seated on one of the dining table chairs and helping Changbin, Seungmin, and Felix make proper chocolates this time. “Don’t you have something else important you need to prepare?” 
“No, I can just wing it.” Minho dismisses to which Chan immediately laughs at, catching the younger boy’s panicked expression. 
“Sure you do.” Seungmin dryly responds, to which everyone topples over in laughter. 
past: November 1905
“You’ll see me again in five years, at least from your point of view.” You assure Minho from 1905 right before you leave. Jisung’s apologizing again about the incident last time but you’re quick to hug him and effectively shut him up. “The one you’ll meet in 1910 is going to be a little different, though, a little younger.” 
“But it’s still you.” 
You smile at this. “Yeah, still me.” 
Minho wants to tell you so badly that he’s met another version of you while you were away, someone older, but he quickly pushes the thought at the back of his head. Is this how you feel holding back spoilers from him? Instead, he ops to tease you. “You know, when people usually meet, it’s not as backwards as us.” When you raise an eyebrow at him, he continues, “You keep meeting me from the past and I’ve met you from the future countless of times. Even if culture’s going to be different in the future, I’m pretty sure this is still not how it goes there.” 
Finally, understanding, you let out a laugh, hitting his side playfully. “Definitely not.” You agree sheepishly. “But I think that makes it even more special. It makes you wait until we’re in the same time, right?” 
Minho nods. “What date are you going back to again?” 
“February 29, 2020. Why?” 
He says nothing else on it but bids you goodbye with one last hug instead. “Nothing. I’ll see you again soon...or another version of you.” 
“And I’ll see future you.” You chuckle before disappearing. 
present: February 29, 2020 
You come back to all the lights in Minho’s apartment turned off at the present. You hear whispers and the soft clicking of a lighter as well, prompting you to follow the noise outside. 
“I think it’s better if Changbin doesn’t hold the cake, don’t you think?” You recognize Haseul’s loud voice even from the hallways, fueling your curiosity even further. 
A slight pause then follows before you hear Chan agree, “Yeah. Hyunjin, you hold the other cake.” 
“Lix, you’re stepping on my foot.” That’s Jisung, you know by the way he’s always whiny when he complains. 
“Oh shit, sorry!” 
“Everyone, quiet! Y/N’s on their way!” Nari scolds and the hushes then quickly fall silent once you reach the kitchen, flipping the light switch on the hallway to the sound of party poppers exploding right in front of you. Only then do you see the big ‘CONGRATULATIONS Y/N!’ banner hanging right above everyone standing in a line with cake, hats, and trumpets. 
“Um?” You raise an eyebrow at everyone, breaking out into an uncontrollable grin. “What’s with all this?” 
Minho of your time then walks over to you with a Toblerone cake, carefully protecting two candles from the breeze that enters through the windows. “Chan and Eunhye insisted on a party so...congrats on finishing your thesis!” 
Over his shoulder, said vampire and immortal immediately shake their heads in denial. “It’s his idea!” Eunhye mouths to you with a smirk, making you chuckle.
You then turn to Minho with a smile. “I haven’t even finished writing it yet.” You point out only for your best friend to shrug nonchalantly. “And my graduation’s in a month.”  
“Yeah, we can work on that once everyone’s out of the apartment.” He suggests. “Now, just blow on the candles first, Seungmin’s arms are about to fall off waiting to take a picture.” 
You briefly apologize to Seungmin on the side with a sheepish laugh, blowing on the cake’s candles after to the many snaps of his film camera. “Thank you for all this. I really appreciate it, you guys!” You thank your guests after, approaching them with Minho on your side this time. 
“We can call you Professor now, right?” Hyunjin playfully asks, elbowing you gently on your side. 
“It makes me sound really old.” You pout, making him laugh. “In a few years.” 
“Three years.” Shiyeon coughs to which Minho immediately glares them down for. 
Catching this gesture, you decide on purposely ignoring it for now. You’ll have to ask Shiyeon what they mean with that later. “Anyway, let’s eat. Have you guys been here long?” 
“Not really but I’m already starving!” Soojung exclaims, passing you a plate and utensils. Next to her, Felix and Chan instinctively open up all the take-out boxes of food for everyone to dig in. 
“Alright, let’s eat!” 
present: March 1, 2020 
Minho kicks everyone out after by the strike of midnight, when all the food’s been devoured and the party games have been played at least twice. Surprisingly, even Jisung and Jeongin were directed outside by Minho at this time, which you immediately ask him about once the two boys are out of the door. “Don’t those two live here?” You joke with a dry chuckle. “You don’t have to kick them out so we can work.” 
“They’ll come back later.” Minho gently shuts the door before turning to you as you stand with your arms crossed in front of your chest, a genuinely curious expression on your face. “I just...need a moment with you.” 
You pretend to take a step back with your best dramatic expression of fear. “Oh my God, you’re going to kill me after eight years of friendship, right?” 
“What? No.” Minho furrows his brows at this, making you laugh. “It’s just...fuck, now I’m off-tracked.” 
You giggle this time, loosening your arms in front of you. “What is it, Minho?” 
There have been times, both in the past and present though rare, when Minho has looked nervous in front of you. The last time he was, from what you can remember, was when he was about to tell you that he accidentally killed the squirrel in the apartment’s back garden but even then, he wasn’t as nervous as he is now—fiddling with the hem of his blue sweater for a brief moment before finally taking the courage to step closer to you. “I-I, um—” He stammers out, one hand instinctively going up to his nape. “What I want to say is that...remember when I asked you in 1592 about how I know you?” 
“You just teased me about that last week.” You roll your eyes in an attempt to ease the sudden awkwardness, only to make it even worse for Minho. With this, your expression immediately contorts into worry. “What about it?” 
“Then in 1905, where you just came back from, you told me we’ll meet in the right time eventually...” He continues after a while, smiling back when you do reassuringly. “In between those centuries, of course, y-you—you came in for your college homework and your Masteral’s but there was also...there was also someone else.” 
This unexpected turn drops something heavy on your stomach, your smile unconsciously faltering. Minho wants to snicker but, knowing you, you’ll probably think of him cold if he does so he takes in a deep breath and tries his best to continue with less stutters this time. “Don’t be too sad, it’s still you, just a few months in the future.” He assures with a chuckle, hands instinctively going up to your sides to rub your arms comfortingly. Your eyes widen at this in response and you freeze in his touch. “Anyway, July 2020 Y/N just told me to do something tonight, if that’s okay.” 
It takes you a moment to respond but Minho patiently waits, holding back his laugh by biting his lip down. He’s reading your thoughts as they go into overdrive. Is this how you feel when I hide the future from you before? You internally ask to which he nods at. “U-Um, so...what are you going to do?”
“Just tell you that I’ve been in love with you for a long time.” Minho finally confesses, sighing in relief once he’s gotten the words out surprisingly well. “And if you’d like to go out for a trip after your graduation—and not the time travel trip, this time so we can be together right.” 
There’s more to it, actually, Minho has a whole paper written and rehearsed for a span of almost three centuries but he figures you’ll find out about it eventually. He could tell you about how he’s been in love with every version of you that he’s met in the past another time or maybe you already know it. 
“So?” He asks after a while when you don’t speak verbally. Your thoughts are still muddled and your heartbeat’s a little too fast for his liking but he holds any impulsive urge he might have in for your sake. “What do you say?” 
You purse your lips once, mustering up a relieved smile at him after. “You already met me from the future this time—which I commend you for, by the way, because you’ve one-upped me again this time!—so I think you already know the answer to that.” 
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epilogue
past: July 1799
You know full well that you’re not supposed to travel back in time for personal reasons, especially not for the reason you’re coming into 1799 to see a past Minho for, but you figure that you’re already in your university’s faculty roster. If I get caught, you think to yourself as you easily spot Minho with Chan at an art exhibit in Paris, the professors will probably understand. 
“Minho! Chan!” You call with your hand above your head waving frantically at the two, catching theirs and a few patrons’ attentions. You don’t mind the extra attention as you approach him, though, since they did instinctively made way for you because of it. “Hello there, you two!” 
“Hi, Y/N!” Chan greets you happily, giving you a side hug. “Aren’t you back too soon?” 
But knowing full well that you’re probably not the same one the two met last time, Minho smirks in amusement as he eyes your choice of clothes and asks, “And where did you come from? By the clothes, me from the future probably doesn’t know you’re here.” 
“Yeah, I picked out my own clothes for today. Anyway, I won’t be here long.” You roll your eyes with a chuckle. “I’m from July 2020 and I’m not here for any academic work this time! I just wanted to ask you a quick favor.” 
From what you’ve detailed in your own journals, the last time you met from this particular Minho’s point of view was when you were doing a paper on the Baroque movement for one of your college classes. 
“What is it?” He asks you anyway, his body turned away from the painting that he and Chan have been previously admiring as he gives you his full attention. 
Judging from the amount of times you’ve visited him (and the different versions of you he’s meet as well), his future self seems to agree on your requests all the time. 
“I can’t tell you much but please prepare something on February 29, 2020!” You answer, your watch beeping on your side to remind you that it’s almost time to leave. “And make sure to mention me! Remember, Y/N from July 2020!” 
Before he could ask about it, further, however, you were already gone. 
“What do you think that was about, Chan?” Minho asks the older vampire instead. 
But Chan simply shrugs, hands going deeper in his pockets as he thinks. “No idea.” He admits in equal confusion. “Guess we’ll have to see in three hundred years.” 
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koushisatori · 4 years ago
Text
Surprise
kuroo x f!reader
genre: birthday fluff
warnings: none
word count: 2.3k
note: I made it !! Happy Birthday to you, Kuroo ! <3 - Also I’ll beta it later when i’m home from university, bc it’s 3 am here, oops x.x
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Kuroo wasn’t jealous, really because logically there was no reason to be
You were his girlfriend and you did not mind sudden Hollywood blockbuster worthy kisses when he got a spurt of…possessiveness towards you
He is in no way overbearing or anything, both of you share the opinion that even though you’re a couple you don’t have to be together all the time, spend afternoons with your friends
Then again, you two spend quite a lot of time together, with you being the  Volleyball Clubs manager, always staying behind with your team when they practiced way past the official clubs' training's hours
But sometimes he woke up and felt the need to have you all to himself
On those days a slightly lingering gaze by other would irk him enough to    permanently glue himself to your side or back
Because of the rareness of that situation, you generally give into that specific mood and take him either with you if you had plans or adapt to whatever your handsome boyfriend seemed fit
(usually, it consists of getting snacks from the store to make watching movies more fun after you both finished your homework. And also cuddles. Lots and lots and lots of cuddling and kisses.)
Anyway, normally he’s a super laid back, relaxed, and ‘’the best boyfriend in the world, right, baby?’’
Kuroo was happy with being ‘’a bit (big times) nerdy’’ as kenma liked to remark, liked that things had their reasons and were logically intelligible
Well…he quickly realized that, while emotions were chemically explainable this also was as far as logic was helpful with them
Sooo…there was no reasonable excuse for him to feel that ugly burning in his chest watching you ruffle through Lev’s hair and giggle so cutely
But it was his birthday, and you should be all over HIM because HE was YOUR boyfriend and in general, maybe he had one of those not so great days bc not only did he get stuck in his bedsheets and face planted to the ground first thing in the morning but his breakfast toast also landed with its face on the kitchen floor just after he put away all the things he used
You were…not avoiding him but kind of distant with your thoughts
At lunch, he was telling you something you’d usually find at least funny if not hilarious because your humor was so fantastically similar to his, but all you did was smile lightly
You even whispered with Yaku instead of talking to him !! how dare you
Rest in peace, Kuroo (you will survive one day with a bit less attention of your s/o)
He wasn’t jealous of Lev or thought that you suddenly developed feelings for the younger boy
He was jealous because that tall child hoarded all of your attention, while you had looked at him maybe twice, three times tops, in the last hour
‘’Kuroo.’’ To the untrained ear the small setters voice as passive as usual. Kuroo though is able to easily distinguish the various different layers of Kozume Kenma’s very real, emotional bandwidth. The captain did hear Kenma and his questioning as well as slightly worried tone, he simply chooses to not react in favor of shooting (barely) decently hidden death glares at the to-tall-for-his-own-good-boy. 
‘’Kuroo.’’ The slight change in his childhood friend's voice was enough for the black-haired player to grudgingly turn away from you and Lev to look at Kenma.
‘’Yes.’’ Tetsurou huffs out, giving his best to not sound like a petulant child. ‘’You’re so dumb.’’ Kenma said dryly, definitely analyzing him. The questioning sound leaving Kuroo was close to embarrassing, a quick cough and back straightening later, he adds ‘’You wound me. Right here.’’ While pressing his hand flat against his chest. ‘’Where’s my understanding childhood friend to put balm on my hurting heart by sharing emotionally charged, empathic words with me?’’
Instead of offering the desired words, the smaller boy rolls his eyes before he averts them to his hand-held gaming console. ’’Can you put that thing away, we’re at practice Kenma.’’ Kuroo all but unintentionally whined. 
Everything was stressing him out today. Usually, his childhood friend at least stuck to the general rule of not using it outside the breaks. But obviously, there was a plot against him going on with the goal to annoy him more than usual because, of course, why not doing it on his damn birthday. Nice friends and their nice presents.
Just like Kuroo did mere minutes before, Kenma decided to simply…ignore his request half voiced as some kind of instruction. Well…things didn’t work like they were supposed to, he didn’t feel like arguing with his friend so he let him be for now. Rather than that, he turned back to you and Lev, who – for once – seemed eager to train his digging and passing game because you threw the volleyball for him to dive after.
‘’Where in freaking hell is Yaku…’’ Kuroo muttered grumpily, before repeating louder ‘’Yaku! Why am I the only third…Noboyuki!’’These definitely aren’t my friends, he thought while finally giving in to his deepest desire of ripping you away from the grey-haired future wannabe ace. 
‘’You truly are dense when it comes to (Y/N),’’ Kenma says, moving away towards the benches, before swerving around them to leave for the clubroom. ‘’The definition of tunnel vision.’’
The thing is, Kuroo heard Kenma say it, but his brain refused to acknowledge them, too focused on finally being in the spotlight of your focus.
 Meanwhile, you were watching your dark-haired boyfriend closer than he realized. You carried the whole plan. Or rather your ability to make him lose focus on anything that isn’t you, with just the right amount of addressing the slight possessive side of his and deprivation of your attention.
Even though all of this was just so the others could fulfill their part of the plan, you hate how it led him to mope around the whole day. It was so hard to not laugh about his stupid science joke at lunch and overall, not tell him all day how glad you were that he was born. This is his special day, why wouldn’t you tell him how much you loved his presence and his annoyingly attractive smirk? If not for the others and them begging and bribing you, you would smooch his kissable cheeks, nose, forehead, and lips all day long to honor this special date.
You are an amazing and emphatic girlfriend, so…of course, you realize that his mood in general is rather on the bad side today. He wants you close and to himself, and you did the complete opposite! Tetsurou would absolutely give you an ear full later when he finally understood the whole plan.
Nonetheless, it is kind of cute how he tried to hide that he was sulking. Your big baby of a boyfriend was currently trying to kill poor Lev with his gaze alone, staring holes into the back of his head all the while directing puppy dog eyes at you to relent and come over.
Usually, your Tetsurou was the perfect team captain. Attentive, clever, strategical, and just the right amount of authoritarian and approachable. But with his mind stuck on questioning why you were being weird to him on his birthday, he had yet to realize that through the whole time of today’s practice all of his teammates inexplicably went missing for about 15 minutes before they either sneaked back in (the first years and some of the second years) or openly announced a little too detailed information on how, for example, the bathroom visit has been absolutely necessary and could not be postponed.
The only problem: Lev wasn’t allowed to know of the plan until a second beforehand to not accidentally spoil the surprise out of pure excitement to surprise his Kuroo-senpai.
When you see your better half starting to approach the two of you, yelling for his vice-captain and the libero simultaneously, you whisper ‘’Lev, when I say now, you have to start running okay and call for Yaku. Ask him to practice your receives as loud as you can, and take off over to the clubroom as fast as possible, alright? Also, please don’t fall, we don’t need a bloody and broken nose, Tetsu is pissed enough already. Please do it for me, okay?’’ It was a bit unfair of you to look at him hopefully like that, but as the team manager, you posessed a certain power none of the other third years had over the younger players.
Just a moment before Kuroo got the chance to grab the clueless middle blockers shirt collar, you voice out a hushed ‘’Now!’’. You immediately look up innocently to your boyfriend and finally put the warm smile on your lips that wanted to sit there since your eyes fell on him the first time this morning. ‘’Tetsu...is everything okay?’’ - ‘’Yaku-senpai, please help me with my receives!’’
‘’Lev never asks for receiving practice...’’ is…not the thing you wanted your boyfriend to say. Panicking that he might find out now, still a bit too early, you do the only thing that you know WILL take his mind off of it. You cup his cheek with your hands and pull him down to press your lips against his. 
His reaction was immediate, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you so close to him that not even a feather would fit between the two of you. Getting into the spontaneous moment, you happily loop your arms around his neck, smiling softly into the kiss. 
Yeah...you definitely had missed that.
When you break apart, he pecks your lips a few additional times for good measure before he bends down even more to bury his face in your neck, enjoying how your fingers softly stroke through and play with his hair, in all the right ways, helping him to relax for the first time in hours. ‘’Baby,…’’ he murmurs against your skin ‘’…no one is training the way they should, let’s just ditch practice. We get a cake from the bakery down the street and eat it in bed, okay?’’
For the second time today, you feel bad. Your boyfriend's voice sounds tired and that was not how a birthday boy was supposed to sound. With his face in your neck, you were able though to watch the entrance. They should come in any second now. You feel tempted to give into Tetsurou’s wishes.
Can they hurry up?! 
The thought desperately shoots through your head, because even though he was currently not paying attention to anything but recharging and breathing you in, Kuroo is way too perceptive to not get behind the ruckus going on in the gym the whole afternoon.
‘’We can cuddle later, Tetsu, I promise my whole afternoon is all for you. If you want I can even sleep over.’’ Your soothing words made his invisible cat ears prick up and listen interested. You knew that, from the moment you both enter the comfort of his home, he would drape himself over you for permanent, never-ending cuddles. The only reason for him to let go of you - unwillingly so - will be you whining about having to use the bathroom. For everything else, you would have to carry a (nearly) dead weight of the size and weight of your boyfriend everywhere.
‘’I haven’t heard Tora for a while now….’’ The raven-haired middle blocker mumbles, and your heart picks up some speed again.
Looking for words you stammer some intangible syllables, which lead Kuroo to look up, suspicion swirling in his hazel eyes. ‘’Baby…what’s wrong?’’ he asks, cocking his head to the side, watching you like a cat its prey. Quickly waving your hands in front of you, you hastily answer a ‘’Nothing.’’ And try to smile away the panic.
Before he got the chance to repeat his question and pry it out of you, the gym darkens, and you breathe out a sigh of relief. Just on time. With the door opening a little source of light illuminates his teammate's faces with his closest friends at the front. Yaku holding a cake stabbed with 18 sparklers, and Nobuyuki holding an unholy amount of the ugliest birthday ballons you had ever seen. All of them together slaughtering the happy birthday song in such a passionate manner, that you could see yourself being able to forgive them the torture they put you through in the near future. 
‘’Come one, birthday boy.’’ You say with a loving smile, and grab his hand to pull him to the rest of the group.
The moment the lights flicker back on and everyone is cheering out loud one last time. You realize belated that Kuroo (intended) and you (unintended) were besieged with confetti and glitter. (You, until this day, suspect Yamamoto who looked a bit too innocent for your taste.)
‘’All of that…for me?’’ Kuroo questions, his gorgeous eyes shining tell telling in the remaining light of the sparkles. Following his words, Kenma takes a small step forward quickly handing over a small book – filled with birthday wishes, pictures that were taken with each and all of them, inside jokes and doodles - just to move out of the spotlight again as quickly as he jumped into it. ‘’Surprise, Tetsu.’’ You say with a sweet smile, that makes him move closer to you to gift himself a taste of your lips.
Before things get to turn mushy and emotional, a chant of Cake! Cake! Cake! – started by Lev and Tora, joined by everyone, disrupts the moment the two of you had.
‘’Okay, okay! I hear the will of the people, I’ll submit to it!’’ Kuroo gives in laughing. ‘’But…’’ a theatrical moment of silence ‘’I want to cut the cake with (Y/N) together!’’ Your boyfriend proudly announces, and, to his delight, you blush furiously. Yakus laughing remark of ‘’Oi, Kuroo, this is not your wedding, you know!’’ was followed by various joking wolf whistles and some hollering. You didn’t know how you ended up being in the center of attention together with him, but when Tetsuro easily replies ’’Well, I need to perfect this skill it for the real ceremony after party one day.’’ You knew that you wouldn’t want to be somewhere else.
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whyarewecalledtheshipname · 3 years ago
Text
soriku little mermaid thread part 2
(Part 1)
Part 2: Saved by the Light
Starting with Ariel singing “Part of Your World”. I’m not gonna go line by line or anything, just wanna paraphrase certain parts. If you’re not familiar, the song is basically about Ariel wanting to live in the world outside of the ocean. Lol, cutting to the chase. Again, it’s basically Kh1 Riku.
One thing I want to specify is that even though the song is called “Part of Your World”, she doesn’t actually say “your” in the chorus at all. Not when she first sings it in her secret cave, where she has her collection of human stuff. Ariel just wants to be part of “that” world—the human world.
When she’s singing this, she’s in her cave, which has an opening at the top. The hole lets in light from the ocean’s surface, and Ariel reaches for it, but she can’t actually reach it obviously (bc the hole is too small lol). It’s all an obvious metaphor for how Ariel is stuck underwater while wanting to live up on land.
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I wanna note that while the human world is obviously the land, what Ariel actually sings about, what she dreams of, is being in the sunlight. She reaches for the light above her cave, what you assume is the sun above the water. Underwater, sure, there’s light, but the light isn’t properly/directly touching her, she can’t directly feel it, it doesn’t fully reach her. She dreams of being outside of the water, so she can spend her days directly in the sun's light. The light represents and literally touches—encompasses—everything Ariel can’t have. (lol it’s a reverse lion king)
I gotta repeat how Ariel feels trapped in the water, and she is reaching for the light.
Cough. Riku trapped in darkness, reaching out his hand...to Sora. Riku, wanting to be, to live, in Sora’s light in general. (Letting Sora’s light shine onto his darkness.)
A shadow blocks out the light over Ariel’s cave, and she swims to the surface to check it out. Turns out it’s currently nighttime, which means the light Ariel was reaching for was actually the moon. Moonlight.
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(Recoded flashbacks; the memory of Kh1 Riku reaching for the moon and bringing his hand to his chest dramatically, owie)
It gives me thoughts about Sora’s light, and vaguely hearing the idea of Sora being the moon, and Sora being closer to darkness than light. Like, as a personal headcanon ig, perhaps Sora’s light seems so bright because he’s reflecting Riku’s light, the way the moon reflects the sun, and has no light of its own. We know Riku’s light is like. Inhumanly bright. Like, Riku doesn’t just seem to have a bright light in his heart. It seems like he is light itself, or at least he’s connected to it in some way. Especially with all his sun imagery. So to me it’d make sense that even if Sora was merely reflecting Riku’s light (not to mention Riku’s light shines directly onto Sora’s heart), because Riku’s light is so impossibly bright, Sora’s would seem extremely bright as well. The reason Riku’s bright light hasn’t been “obviously attributed to him” is because he was cloaked in darkness ig. The way the sun’s light isn’t visible at night, though it continues to shine, and is only seen at dawn. And I mean, the light second to the sun in the day, is the light of the moon at night. 🤷🏽‍♀️
Anyway, the shadow Ariel saw was a ship. It’s shooting fireworks into the sky, and I mention this because I always gotta mention fireworks lol. Ariel swims up to the ship, sees the crew celebrating, but when she sees Eric, she instantly falls in love. And it just reminds me of how Riku has only ever had eyes for Sora, even since childhood lol.
But why is the crew celebrating? Apparently it’s Prince Eric’s birthday. And for his birthday, he is presented with—a statue. A statue, of himself. Of Eric. Man.
SORA’S STATUE. goodness.
Grimsby, the man who commissioned the statue, apparently had originally intended it as a wedding present, but that didn’t pan out because Eric didn’t fall for the princess he had been set up with.
“Believe me, Grim, when I find her, I’ll know. Without a doubt it’ll just—bam—hit me, like lightning.”
...sure, Sora. But it makes me wonder, once Sora does realize—would it be all at once? Versus Riku, who took his sweet time putting it to words in DDD lol. Who knows.
But lightning does strike—the ship. The ship burns, Eric’s heavy ass stone statue sinks into the ocean, Eric risks his life to save his dog—
Now Eric is drowning.
Sora, at the bottom of the abyss. But in my mind, it lines up more with Sora’s breakdown. His darkness caught up to him and overwhelmed him, and he finally confessed to feeling worthless. Riku expressed his belief in Sora, which helped Sora persist after death, and Riku sacrificed himself, which created the tear in time that let Sora rewrite the fated fall to darkness.
Riku saved Sora.
Ariel saves Eric.
We see them on the shore, under a cloudy sky the morning after the storm. Eric is breathing, but unconscious. Ariel calls Eric beautiful, when the night before she’d called him handsome, and I mention it because I love that line lol. Ariel touches Eric’s cheek and starts singing “Part of Your World”, but with changed lyrics.
This time, the song is specifically about Eric, not just humans in general. Ariel’s priority—her dream—has changed. Man. It’s DDD and Kh3 in one song! Nice.
The clouds part and the sun shines on Ariel and Eric on the shore. A literal ray of light.
Eric starts to wake up (and the sun only shines on him once Ariel’s voice wakes him), and he sees a girl surrounded by a bright light—
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Eric, saved by the light.
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Sora, saved by the light.
—and the girl is singing a song. “...part of your world.”
Your world. And I’m just here, thinking about Riku, and how his quote has changed from being about important people, to being about one important person. Riku doesn’t just want to see the outside world anymore, he wants to be part of Sora’s world, part of Sora’s life. ????? How to be “okay”??
Of course, Ariel has to swim away before Eric fully wakes up and realizes she isn’t human. And all Eric knows is: “A girl...rescued me. She was singing. She had the most beautiful voice.”
AND THAT’S IT, that's all he remembers. He only knows this mystery girl rescued him, he vaguely saw what she looks like, he heard her song, and that she has a beautiful voice.
Ugh. So little yet so much—SORA.
I can’t get over the in-game implication that at the very least, like Eric, the one moment Sora has memory issues with, is Riku’s sacrifice. Specifically the event of Riku saving him.
He doesn’t seem to remember the sacrifice, or who saved him, if Sora remembers he needed saving, which it seems he does. In eng, Sora tells Nameless Star that he “thought it was all over” for him, but that someone told Sora they believed in him.
All Sora remembers. Is that he was in trouble, that he was screwed, and that someone believed in him. And he acknowledges that that’s what’s helping him keep going, to literally persist after death.
But Sora doesn’t seem to remember WHO saved him.
The way Eric doesn’t know WHO rescued him.
And when I think of Eric only knowing Ariel by her voice, by her SONG (bc he didn’t get a good look at her)—I have to think of Sora and Riku’s song. The one that plays either completed or with half the song missing when Sora either defeats or loses to Yozora. Dearly. Beloved. And the fact Eric doesn’t know exactly what Ariel looks like—is a detail for later.
Another note I wanted to make was that at first, Ariel was reaching for the light. But now, we see that Ariel IS the light.
Riku reaching for Sora’s (moon)light, only for Riku to end up being the (sun)light himself.
??????
(Part 3)
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fitzefitcher · 4 years ago
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honestly i've been seeing bastion as like a Buddhist-ish place with ancient greek aesthetics, bc letting go of your earthly attachments to be enlightened is pretty Buddhist. 'If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha. If you meet your father, kill your father.', that kind of thing. i haven't thought of it as a Light place at all, though i can see why others do.
so there's. a lot of things I would like to cover in answering this, and I'm honestly dreading it a little lmao buuuuut I will do the best I can. I have a lot of thoughts about Bastion, and about the Light, so I'm going to take this as an opportunity to explore that. so: content warning for discussion of religion and religious trauma, esp in regards to identity erasure.
full disclosure: I'm an american queer that was raised roman catholic (specifically, roman catholic within the confines of a heavily irish-italian community) and currently identify more as like. an agnostic apostate, would be the closest thing to describe it, I think. generally, while I'm not really crazy about organized religion as a massive institution capable of doing absolutely wretched things to the people it alleges to helping (and by no means am suffering under the delusion that it hasn't and won't continue to do these things so long as oppressive systems of power are in place, just like it would be in any other area, not just religion), I also acknowledge that there's a lot of good in it, too, and it's the cornerstone of many people's community, culture, and identity. ultimately, my opinion is that religion is a tool, and whoever's holding that tool decides its purpose and intention. it's. a complicated matter lmao.
I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert on buddhism, here. obviously this was not the religion (or any of the many cultures its beliefs are centered in) I was raised as, and honestly even the research I've done for this feels like it's barely scratching the surface. so, rather than try and argue or explain something that is really out of the realm of what I'm familiar with or have experience with (esp. something that's not really mine to claim), I will try and explain things from my own experience as a queer AFAB person raised as roman catholic. and speaking from that perspective, it is very incredibly obvious to me how much of bastion was lifted from christian theology. not just the aesthetics of it, all of the weird identity conformity shit, too. the way that kyrian ideology is being used here, is as a tool to enforce this conformity.
same with how the Light as a concept has been developed in recent years- there are no longer any significant differences between the way individual factions use and interact with the light, even though as cultures their views on it should be radically different, or at least different enough that they don't feel like homogenized versions of each other. like, there's no real difference between how the humans view the Light, and how dwarves view the light, and how gnomes view the Light, and it doesn't really feel like there ever was. Nelves' view on it used to be characterized pretty strongly and differently, as did trolls and draenei, but the longer the years go on, the more that they sort of blend together. to get back to your statement, "I haven't thought of it as a Light place at all," I find that very difficult to parse as a statement, as Bastion as a whole has been developed from base concepts of the Light. Like, Kyrians were designed from spirit healers, spirit healers are now confirmed to be Kyrians (for some reason), and all of the aesthetics of their magic, their clothing, their environment are all heavily priest, paladin, and light-inspired. everything is golds and marbles and sky blues, when they become "corrupted," they suddenly become shadow-themed, like all greys and blacks and purples, their wings turn black, etc. but the similarities, and all their short-comings, go much farther than that.
so the general story thread of each area of the shadowlands in this expansion is that things aren't as they seem, right? that their individual systems are beginning to fall to internal corruption and are crumbling under their own weight. and we see this in each of the trailers- the houses of maldraxxus are starting to eat each other, ardenweald is slowly starving to death, revendreth's citizens are being choked with heavy demands from the aristocracy, and bastion is struggling to adjust in the face of new, unprecedented problems, unwilling to change their ways, even when it's explicitly obvious how badly they need to change. like, I've talked about this a little bit before- the trailer and the way it's structured led me to believe that we, the players, are meant to be hanging out with Devos and Uther, trying to help them convince Devos' boss that very obvious bad thing that's happening, is happening. And this is about how it goes for the other trailers- we learn about the betrayal of Draka's house in maldraxxus, and the maldraxxus storyline is centered on helping her figure out what happened and pick up the pieces. We learn about Ardenweald's rapidly shrinking resources and dying environment, and the ardenweald storyline is centered on figuring out what the cause of this famine is. We learn about Revendreth's aristocracy and how they're demanding more and more of the common people, and the revendreth storyline is centered on overthrowing the increasingly tyrannical cruelty of their current leaders and helping the common people, with the help of a leader favored by the common people. And I feel like, given the state of things, and how the IRL world as a whole has been going the past couple years, helping Devos and Uther get to the bottom of this, maybe even helping Bastion adjust and change in the face of these new challenges, would have been a very good, insightful storyline, and very appropriate for the times we're in.
This, clearly, is not what happened lmao. Whether or not they'll decide to develop bastion further, at least in terms of addressing its failings with its own people, is up for debate, but based on WoW's previous history of similar stories, I'm not very confident lmao.
so I will touch on that statement of bastion being a "buddhist-like place" for a moment, I did look into buddhism a bit, and while I very quickly realized that there wasn't really a way that I could discuss this at length in a way that's fair (esp. with how many variations and cultures there are centered around it, again, I am not an expert, I am doing the best I can with the information I have), the very very bare bones basics of buddhism that I can find more or less boil down to, yes, letting go of earthly attachments to attain enlightenment. but this is not really a nuanced assessment of buddhism, and tbh, isn't really the goal of the kyrians' purification rituals. sure, at first glance, it seems to line up- shedding the burdens of their mortal lives in order to achieve ascension- but ascension here, is not enlightenment. buddhist enlightenment, from what I can find, seems to be the act of breaking free from the cycle of death and rebirth and from mortal suffering. kyrian ascension is the act of, not breaking free of that cycle, but tying yourself to it for an eternity of service. and living your life (even  an eternal one- especially an eternal one) in the service of others is a really strongly christian concept. and the kyrian's concept of virtues only strengthens this. the fact that kyrians have virtues at all is heavily christian-coded, and on top of that, the virtues they have feel like they've been lifted directly from christian beliefs. also like. they're literal fucking angels, trying to earn their wings. like. there's not much else I can think of that's that heavy-handed lmao.
let's talk more about those virtues, though.
the kyrian virtues are as follows: purity, humility, courage, wisdom, and loyalty. There are a number of variations on christian virtues, but here are two of the main sets: one set lines up as the ideological opposite to the seven capital sins (or seven deadly sins if you're an FMA fan lmao), and the other is more-or-less what is accepted in contemporary belief. This is what I was taught in sunday school/CCD, so this is what I'm a little more familiar with.
so set 1, the heavenly virtues, are: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility, and set 2, the contemporary virtues, are split further into 2 groups: the cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, and the theological virtues, charity, hope, and faith.
So humility, courage, and wisdom, are pretty straight-forward in terms of what they represent, and line up pretty neatly with humility (lol) from the heavenly virtues, and fortitude and prudence from the contemporary virtues. To touch on those briefly, humility is exactly what it says on the tin, and acts as an ideological opposite to the capital sin of pride, fortitude is bravery and endurance as well as patience, and prudence is reason and self-discipline, esp in terms of handling yourself and how you interact with others. And these are perfectly fine as principles. the ones that set off alarm bells for me, though, are loyalty and purity.
as kyrian virtues, they don't really line up to any christian virtues from either set. but tbh, this is beside the point- the fact that purity and loyalty are considered virtues, at all, especially in combination with each other, at best feel very suspicious, and at worst openly hostile. and the way this is covered in game only enforces this. purity is only obtained by sloughing off pieces of yourself that the kyrians consider obstructive to your ascension and how you can serve the Purpose, and questioning this or any other aspect of their ascension ritual gets you sent to the temple of loyalty to, ostensibly, stay there until you Get Your Priorities Straightened Out lmao. Like, there's no exploration of why these purity rituals are being questioned to begin with, there's no examination of why the rituals are necessary to begin with, and seemingly, prospective kyrians are punished for even asking. like, for a faction that seemingly prides itself on helping their members becoming their best selves, it feels strange that the reaction to their unsure members is punitive instead of therapeutic.
at this point, the link between the kyrians' beliefs and christianity should be readily apparent. it's no secret that over the centuries, christianity has used as a tool for oppressive systems to dominate marginalized groups, both within its ingroup and without. "purity" in christianity is less a virtue and more a heavily enforced, wildly contradictory idea, hiding itself in mealy-mouthed platitudes about being a Good Person or Becoming Your Best Self while simultaneously, stringently punishing its own members for daring to step a toe out of an extremely arbitrary line. like, I remember going to church growing up, and in the same breath that the head priest said to pray for various members of the community (thoughts and prayers, lmao), pray for [insert local sports team here] to win for their upcoming game, he also said that yes, democrats are corrupting the country. yes, homosexuals are going to hell. mass was an exercise in enduring misery most of the time, and a big reason I stayed closeted from my family for the majority of my life is because of this, and I still am, in many ways. I still have to divvy myself up in bits and pieces to become Socially Acceptable enough to appease my extended family, and there are certain family members that I will go to my grave never having come out to them, because I know they will never accept me for who I am, truly. so to have purity be a kyrian virtue with no further examination, no trace of irony, and to have loyalty as a virtue to back it up, feels, at best, extremely tone-deaf.
when you quest alongside kleia and pelagos, you see these purity rituals, and you see how large a toll they take on them. you see pelagos struggle, and you as the player help him overcome the difficulties he faces- difficulties he could not overcome himself. you see kleia, over time, becoming more and more disgruntled with bastion's governing body as a whole, and finding more and more cracks in the kyrians' concept of purity. but no lessons are learned, from either of these. nothing is examined further, and I have doubts that it ever will.
you, the player, see other kyrians, who previously were orcs, tauren, trolls, draenei, all these non-humans, being stripped of their identity, ostensibly for the reason that it will make them more just and fair a judge, a concept that rapidly falls apart the longer you look at it. the idea of all these sentient creatures from all these walks of life, particularly the ones heavily coded as BIPOC, are to be stripped of their cultural identity and made into Homogenous Standard (white-coded) Blue Human is so intrinsically malicious that it is genuinely baffling that it was even seriously considered as an idea, let alone greenlit and put into the game. prospective mortals are scouted to be kyrians theoretically for the lives they lived in service of others, in justice and kindness and wisdom, and then they are made to give up more and more pieces of those lives, rendering whatever they've learned, whatever experiences they've gained, that made them this person that the kyrians sought out in the first place, an utterly pointless and redundant endeavor. things like kindness, wisdom, courage, are not inherent qualities. They are things that have to be learned. They are things in which the context of them is paramount to how they will be measured. So to say that it is Necessary to do this, to make them Fairer, to make them More Just, feels both stunningly nonsensical and just pointlessly, nihilistically mean.
so what does this have to do with the Light?
well, in recent years, it seems to be steering more and more towards the idea that only correct religion within WoW is the Light, and there's only One Way to be Light. Early on in WoW's development, it was established that yeah, shadow has a bit of a reputation and can certainly be misused, but nobody's arguing that the Light can be misused, too, and that neither shadow nor light are inherently good nor inherently evil- they just Are, and each serve their own purpose in this world and its way of things. I had written a post about this like. several years ago, and a lot of it hasn't aged very well (I will not link to it bc woof, it was Pretty Rough to look at again after seven years lmao), but the gist of it was that Light and Shadow, are less like good and evil, and more like the Force from star wars. Well, a more nuanced force- again, Light is not Strictly Good, Shadow is not Strictly Evil. They are merely opposite sides of the same spectrum, but they are not inherently antithetical to each other. It was less a religion/belief system with an established deity, and more just reverence for the universe and its workings as a whole. Yes, it has the markers and drapings of christianity, particularly in its aesthetics, but the actual belief system didn't really lift anything from any particular christian belief system, and didn't really match up to any one of them, besides, again, the aesthetic of it. The Light now, however- now it does have a lot in common with christian beliefs. or at least, it and the church of the light have a lot in common with the mentality of those with strong christian beliefs. Which is to say, again, there is only one Correct Religion, and it's Light, and there's only One Correct Way to be Light. other religions within wow are either condemned, painted as savage, violent, heretical, or watered down so much that they either don't matter or function as mere Extensions to the light.
last summer, when I was reading the "before the storm" novel as research for my sylvanas essay, one of the many, many things that made it a difficult read was how like. unintentionally, thoughtlessly intolerant Golden had written it. Anduin, one of the main characters in it, despite having a history of kindness, compassion, curiosity, and understanding, is kind of shunted into being a 1-dimensional Good Christian Boy(tm). Like, he struggles with interacting with the forsaken, despite them having been in existence for over a decade at this point, and more than half his lifetime, and despite having dealt with them before, and orcs, and tauren, and a great number of other non-human creatures, while still treating them with grace and dignity, and respecting their perspectives, experiences, and beliefs. like, he's painted as thinking that the netherlight temple would be an alliance-only, church of the holy light only affair, and is really surprised, even stunned, at the thought of having to interact with non-alliance, non-light priests. and something that really really stuck with me while reading this, was that Anduin, this compassionate, intelligent, understanding person, could only learn to interact with priests of other factions and species, despite having already done this before, many, many times in his life, on the basis that They, Too, Are Servants Of The Light. and there's just. no examination in this. no irony. Light is Right, Others are Not. No lessons were learned.
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bthump · 3 years ago
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Ever give any thought to what berserk's characters' dnd alignments would be?
Yk to answer this I went and looked up a page of alignment explanations, bc I know of them but I don't really know them lol, and like... idk if I really vibe with the dnd alignment stuff lol, it feels too simplistic to really fit a lot of Berserk to me? Which I guess makes sense because it's devised for a game played with a point system lol. But I'll give it a shot.
Depending on the explanation I'm reading Guts could be either chaotic neutral or true neutral. Maybe chaotic neutral at his most misguided and true neutral when he's doing better? Yk he often does have a 'fuck you fuck fate I do what I want" attitude which seems to fit chaotic neutral from what I see. But other times he's more chill and just has his own priorities that don't really have anything to do with acknowledging authority or morals, like "hang out with my friends" or "take Casca to Elfhelm."
Like this description of true neutral I found seems to fit Guts: "A Neutral character may be preoccupied with their own agenda and simply have no interest in what’s happening around them."
But this description of chaotic neutral also fits Guts very well: "These characters follow their own desires and feelings with little to no regard for how it helps or hurts others. Their own happiness and wellbeing will always come first. They are against rules, government, laws, and anything else that could get in the way of their lifestyle."
so idk really.
And okay like, what the hell would Griff be? What's a character who has a strong sense of ethics, but betrays it all the time for the sake of a greater also ethical goal that guides his life, but is actually mainly just a manifestation of his guilt? lawful good, but like, really bad at it? or down-low chaotic good bc he wants to overturn the current system, but projecting a lawful good image?
Femto would probably be chaotic evil I guess, or neutral evil depending on which explanation I'm reading.
I thought mb NeoGriff could be lawful good in the sense that he devotes himself to a cause and follows a "law" (fate) to bring about what he and many others feel is good, but then the law fate decrees to him to follow is to do whatever the hell he wants, and some of those things are "bad" in service to a greater good, like killing witches and flooding the world with monsters, so maybe that's more neutral? lawful neutral? or is it neutral good? is neogriffith's driving goal on the lawful/chaotic axis or the good/evil axis? idk. Lawful evil also seems to be an obvious choice since the god he (kinda) follows is called "the idea of evil" lol, but the explanations I see for it are all just boring one-dimensional evil rather than 'creating an actual utopia through dubious means,' so idk about that. neutral seems better.
Casca would probably be lawful neutral because of her devotion to Griffith? at least for most of the Golden Age, the last chunk of the arc kinda throws that out.
Farnese... lawful evil to lawful good I guess? following god and setting people on fire to following Guts and helping people
Serpico, lawful neutral? same reason again, bc of devotion to authority, ie farnese.
Schierke, neutral good maybe?
Isidro, idk. probably evolving into chaotic good.
lol that's all I got. Thanks for asking! Sorry my answers for Guts and Griff were so long and noncommittal lol.
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lesbiancarat · 4 years ago
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PREACH IT!! SAY IT LOUDER FOR TH3 PEOPLE IN THE BACK!! *stands up and claps*
Just your comment, please I want to tattoo that entire response on my forehead so people could understand some stuff fjshdhsh. I very much agree with everything you have said, like I do think the bighit deal was more so with the help of say with western connections (which again does NOT mean pledis could have done this without bighit. They clearly could but I saw a theory on a YouTube comment where someone said they focused on the core fanbase aka in Korea which is their main market and it paid off imo) from helping with buisness side of things like we do have merch to buy directly (which I have my opinion on some merch ideas like why the fudge is bighit selling us water!? Bro you thought that worked with bts doesn't mean it will with seventeen) which wasn't common in the past or being able to film concerts with ease during the pandemic. Bighit clearly acknowledges that seventeen is a monster group in their own right I mean as you said, they break records and are 2nd behind bighits own group. They are EXTEMELY big in Japan. They are their own song makers, bang pd confirmed this when pleids was first announced in a press video so the fact people brush all of their achievements and statements because why, their streaming numbers are low?
And oohh such an interesting point as well! Very much i think the current mindset of kpop fans (or at least some) is that streaming is what equals success which to some degree, yes but as you said, many ignore the casual side of listening. People that find the song due to it being viral for whatever reason, a fancam getting popular like in the cass of hani from exid or whatever reason. Dwc is a great example and I saw those comments under their recent performance of that song and it makes me proud that the boys have a song like that. That it has its own "fanbase" quote on quote with how well loved that song simply is and well known. You don't have to have fans doing crazy streaming to be considered "popular", I mean I could give more examples but I don't wanna make this too long nor cause unwanted fandrama lol. Those casual listeners are extremely important and powerful I mean brave girls is a great recent example of that I think! It very much does seem like that when looking at the views, its mainly the core fanbase which isn't bad nor should we feel bad for not having crazy numbers. They seem more organic if that makes sense? Plus I agree, we can stream and can explain how it works, clearing up confusion about it like no emojis don't take down views and yes youtube does take away views but that is due to it making sure it isn't bots only viewing the video. Explaining that streaming should be done with a chill mindset and its ok if you don't stream. But hey, maybe we're too weird of fans to think like this fjajdjajs.
But some few updates! Seventeen is back on Instagram, fully everyone is posting away. Makes me happy hehe m, a bit funny it took so long for them to comeback but am happy nonetheless. The interactions that seungkwan does makes me super soft. Seventeen are also back with doing proper promotions so yay (also pledis is S Wording people over the mingyu issue finally so bless). As for me on the personal side of things. I have OFFICIALLY finished that video game ^_^ it took me a while but I have finished it, my last goodbye was completed and am at ease so to speak? Lowkey am planning on beating all the trophies in the game cx also may I ask about your thoughts on the album? Favorite songs, have you bought the physical cd?
ok finally getting around to this lol!!
and yeah that's absolutely true, pledis focused on kr promotions/fanbase first and foremost (and then expanded to Japan and is now looking toward the US/western promos in general). which i agree was a good thing. i think some companies get too greedy with wanting a group to be ~internationally famous~ that they ignore their Korean fanbase a bit too much and I've seen groups that have failed bc of it, so I'm glad that didn't happen w SVT
and yeah in terms of merch I'm genuinely grateful as an american that for this cb at least there was a US distributor which made things super convenient but wtf is going on w hybes merch those water bottles are not it TT it just sucks to see bc it's clear that at least as far as merch goes hybe doesn't have an interest in like. doing market research to figure out what carats want. which is funny bc they don't even have to start from scratch they could literally just ask pledis?? and tbh what's sad is i don't think hybe is like. purposefully trying to sabotage SVTs merch from my limited perspective i get the feeling they treat all their groups merch like that :( but since us carats have seen in the past what kind of merch we're capable of getting it's disappointing to see such a downgrade. and like tbf pledis's merch decisions were never perfect like that time they tried to sell replicas of the SVT rings and carats were rightfully pissed bc those are something the members earned, not something to be bought. and i also don't think hybe never has or never will make good merch, I'm sure they're fully capable of it. but it just seems obvious that they've put WAY less if any effort into understanding both the market (ie carats) and seventeens brand compared to pledis so like of course most carats aren't gonna like it :/ i really hope they step up their game and do better research or bring ppl onto the team who better understand svt's brand
and yeah i very much agree with everything u said about streaming! tbh i think this mindset isn't as uncommon as you might think, I've actually met a fair number of kpop fans who are critical of streaming culture but as u know there also are a lot of ppl who are really into it and those ppl tend to have the loudest voices. and unfortunately part of streaming culture is that if you question the methods or don't participate you must be a bad fan or secretly an anti or something ridiculous like that. so ppl who aren't into streaming culture end up learning to not be too vocal about it bc of how bad the backlash can be
yes! I'm glad to see insta line (+ now dk!!) active again. i still wonder why pledis made them stop using their ind instas, like I know all the theories people have as to why but honestly none that I've seen seem to fully make sense. it will probably be one of those things where we'll just never know the full story. but i digress!! regardless of the reason I'm just glad to have them back after all this time ^^
congrats on finishing the game! I'm glad it was able to help you work through your grief a bit and that you feel more at ease now ;-; and good luck with the rest of the trophies if you end up trying to get them!
as always I'm answering this a bit late so you may have seen already but i did get the physical album! it was a birthday gift so i only got it the other day, but according to my mom it arrived almost immediately after the album was released so as i said before, I'm very grateful for the US shop this time around ;-; as for the songs usually it's easy for me to pick one or two favorites but this time around it's genuinely a 4-way tie between heavens cloud and all the unit songs TT (i also love anyone and RTL, they're just slightly lower on the list in terms of preference if u get what i mean). i really hope some time in the future we get some kind of performance or special video or something for heavens cloud, since so many carats and the members themselves seem to really love it. i also think it's a song that brings up such beautiful imagery that it would be a shame if it never got any type of visual representation, you know? I'm also really curious to see a performance of wave, since iirc the members said the choreo is a lot more laid back/different from other perf unit choreos?? + that song also evokes such great imagery for me that like... makes feel like it needs some kind of movement so I'm just itching to see a performance. kind of like... even if i didn't know it was a perf unit song i would think it would be great to choreograph to if that makes any sense dhfkf. but yeah overall i think it's just a really solid album, as expected from summerteen ^^
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hwanuels · 5 years ago
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l.hc: stay with me
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summary: the confusing subject of lee haechan 
pairing: highschool!stoner-boi!haechan x reader 
warning: a shit ton of cursing, still got a lot of crackheadness, and DRUGS. no i’m not kidding, if you aren’t okay with that shit don’t read ahead. also! still part of my semi-collab with @huangsren! read her fic here: art-hoe!renjun  BEWARE OF GRAMMATICAL MISTAKES!!!!! 
it’s your favorite local stoner-boi!haechan’s turn
like norenmin, haechan’s name gets tossed around on the daily at NCT Highschool, except not with the same positive connotation
haehcan’s reputation isn’t the best but it could be worse
no it can’t
it’s actually really bad
everyone knows haechan to either be taking a gigantic nap in class or vaping in the bathroom. he gets into detention weekly bc the boy skips school like every other day 
the only reason why haechan hasn’t been expelled was bc he was the principal’s son 
don’t bring that up or he’ll actually cuss you out no cap
although he’s well-known, he’s only got like two friends + college-freshmen!mark lee (hA what a loser)
and one of them was currently in some type of situation with fboi!jaemin that haechan can’t be bothered to deal with –> y/n from fboi!jaemin’s au who will be further known as ara in this story
the other one was you, he liked to keep that one a little more private
it was never explicitly stated that you would maintain your sorta friendship a secret  
although could you really call it friendship if you’re doing all of the things people in relationships actually do? 
like haechan would always call you up in the middle of the night  to get boba or frozen yogurt for no reason
or sometimes yall would be cuddling in your bedroom watching some stupid movie on netflix,,,haechan would probably be throwing popcorn at the laptop screen bc of something stupid the main protagonist would do 
the other times, he would text a simple “pick me up” 
and you knew that that meant that haechan was too high or drunk to operate
there would be nights where you would be chilling in your car as haechan vaped 
you hated it 
but you could never hate lee donghyuck who now went by lee haechan 
yall met around the middle of sophomore year 
damn so much shit goes down sophomore year at NCT high
aNYways, you were stressed out from studying so you decided to take a stroll in the park at like ten at night. 
was that a stupid idea? yes, but at least that’s when you met haechan dressed in a navy green hoodie and a puff of smoke leaving his lips
sophomore!you was like highkey shookth seeing the lee donghyuck smoking in a park
bc at this time, lee donghyuck wasn’t lee haechan 
he was one of the school’s golden boys 
yeah that’s right norenmin used to be norenminhyuck or the 00′s 
he was the star of the school’s choir and the biggest class clown that still managed to get good grades
so imagine your shock when you see him with a cigarette in his hand
you figured that it was best to leave donghyuck alone since you weren’t the nosy type of person
except you weren’t that discreet in leaving when your eyes met donghyuck’s bright red ones 
you stood there for a second, both of you locked in what seemed to be staring contest, before turning to leave since it wasn’t any of your business what donghyuck was getting up to
the next day of school, donghyuck was back to his bubbly, fun self which seemed to be a drastic contrast from the one you saw at the park 
when your eyes interlocked in the hallways, donghyuck raised a finger to his lips when he was sure no one else was looking 
and you understood 
somehow you found yourself in this strange no-talking sit-downs in the park relationship with donghyuck while he smoked on the bench next to you 
this went down for a couple of weeks where the two of you would just sit in heavy silence. the only noises were the cicadas chirping in the background
until one night when donghyuck dressed in the same navy hoodie wasn’t smoking but his eyes were still red
“why haven’t you told anyone yet?” 
you shrugged “because it’s not my secret to tell” 
“you were shocked when you first saw me that night.” haechan commented 
“yeah, i just never expected it from someone like you,” you admitted
you could hear the boy next to let out a dry chuckle, “you’re not the first person i disappointed” 
“it ruins your lungs btw” 
“i know, i want it to” 
“why do you do it?” 
“because it actually makes me feel alive” 
something changed that night bc the next day donghyuck into a physical fight with the student-athlete!jeno who everyone knew was a pacifist. 
that night haechan showed up with a black eye and you didn’t ask why
donghyuck still gave you an explanation even though it was complete bs
“because he was getting on my nerves” 
but it seemed like the whole group of the golden boys was getting on his nerves bc donghyuck stopped hanging around them for the rest of the year
you saw him sometimes sitting outside on the bleachers during lunch, sleeping or smoking, not afraid to be caught 
you never had the courage to approach him in person at school, bc it seemed like your relationship was strictly limited to the park 
but you couldn’t help to be worried about him with the drastic change in character he was undergoing 
one day, he showed up to school with bright red hair and did nothing in all of his classes but take a nap 
sometimes he didn’t even show up to school 
you heard from someone that he quit choir which was shame bc you always wanted to hear him sing 
and sophomore year bled into junior year and donghyuck was no longer known as donghyuck but as haechan 
it was weird, every time you would get the urge to take a midnight stroll in the park, haechan would be sitting there on his usual bench sometimes smoking sometimes not
you always sat down next to him even if you knew that you were just going to sit there in silence
“give me your phone number,” he said bluntly holding out his hand for your phone 
“why” 
“i’m tired of waiting for you to come to the park” 
and you really confuse because does that mean that haechan wanted to be your friend??? 
as if he can read your mind, he rolls his eyes “yes, let’s be friends. you’re a lot better than those fakes in our goddamn school.” 
so that’s how your friendship began with the lee donghyuck, rebranded as haechan 
he doesn’t let anyone call him donghyuck but you,,, you still try your best not to call him that bc he doesn't like it 
gotta respect your friends’ wishes y’know
it wasn’t until haechan was over at like 2am in your room, both of you talking in small whispers bc you don’t want your parents to wake up and find you laying in bed with a BOI, that y'all reached the final level of closeness and haechan let slip one of the reason behind his reckless actions
“you know what sucks? even when i’m acting out like this, my parents still refuse to acknowledge me. it’s like they don’t care” 
and your like :((( 
“i’m pretty sure they care about you a lot,” you didn’t like the listlessly way he was talking 
“you don’t get it. when my dad saw my hair, all he told me to do was to dye it back. my mom didn’t even freak out when she saw me smoking a blunt with my friend in my room. they could care less” 
and haechan begins to spill
“even when i was achieving so much, they rarely ever bat an eye at me. do you know how hard it is to come to school and put on the facade of that i have no worries in the world? that i’m that cheery happy-go-lucky kid? even renjun is allowed to have moody days, but i’m expected to always be the mood maker. i fucking hate it.” 
you stayed silent listening to his rant 
“when jeno was complaining about how his parents invited his whole family to his stupid basketball game, i just got so angry because my parents haven’t been to one recital ever since i joined the choir. nor did they go to the science fair where i actually won first place with that stupid potato rocket i did with renjun.” 
haechan let’s out a bittersweet laugh 
“after that fight with jeno, no one asked if i was okay or why i even did it. none of them did. my dad didn’t even look at me in the eye when i went to his office, all he cared about was if the school’s basketball mvp was okay.” 
“god, i’m so numb to all of this shit. i don’t even know how to be happy anymore” 
that night you didn’t say anything to haechan bc you didn’t know what to say. but that night was the first and last night you ever saw haechan cry or that emotionally vulnerable bc the next day, he acted like it never happened 
by junior year, everyone already knew that the old donghyuck was gone and haechan was here to stay 
BUT your relationship with haechan wasn’t one-sided at all 
nooooo there were nights where you were the one crying and haechan was the one comforting you even though his advice was bs
you best bet that when haechan got his license, he dragged your ass to midnight drives to the cliff, but you would be the one to drive him home bc he probably vaped a little too much on the cliff 
despite breaking down that one night, haechan was very emotionally closed off. he didn’t smile as often as he used to in public unless it was with you
sometimes he would catch himself smiling when you said something really dumb or when he found your antics adorable, but he would never admit it and the smile would be quickly gone from his face.
your hangouts were so lowkey
one night, junior year, you were just chilling in your car with hyuck and he just leans over and kisses you. 
you could still smell the strawberry vape juice on him but you didn’t stop the kiss,,,cuz it felt nice
his lips felt like soft little cloud pillows 
and when haechan pulls away he has this little smirk on his face while you're flustered as fuck 
let’s be honest, that wouldn’t be the last time y'all locked lips 
cause it happened a lot 
especially in the car and sometimes in your room 
you can’t lie and say you don’t have any sort of feelings for haechan 
especially when you do see his real smile that he doesn’t let anyone see or when he made the effort to stop smoking cigarettes 
although you still highly disapprove of his drug usage
drugs are bad kids! 
haechan has his own reasons for continuing to use it so as much as you try to discourage him, you don’t stop him 
you’d like to say that you’re the only girl in his life, but your not
bc you were only hyuck’s friend at night,,,he has a day friend who was also a girl who he didn’t seem to care to be seen w at school 
a really pretty (AKA y/n from jaemin’s au) one who you also saw on multiple occasion haechan flashes his breathtaking smile too 
one of your friends had gossip that that girl was ara, who was dropped by her friend group bc she was dating haechan who had beef w jaemin who was dating ara’s ex-bestfriend? confusing, yeah i thought so too. 
you knew better than to listen to stupid highschool rumors but you couldn’t help but come to your own assumptions about the closeness of their friendship 
bECause haechan never mentioned ara in any of your conversations
at lunch, you can’t but let your eyes drift to the two of them in their own world laughing away 
you only met her once when mark was dropping haechan off at your house bc he much rather be at yours then his 
you were a little bit hurt since she got to know mark before you did 
you knew that mark was one of haechan’s closest friend and someone he really respected even though he liked to bag on him 24/7
as much as you tried not to, you found yourself repeatedly comparing yourself to her 
the subject of ara was left alone, forever stored in your insecurities
you didn’t want to confront haechan about it bc you didn’t want to admit it but you caught the big bad feels for the boy
so your feelings were left untouched until senior year
when the two of you were making out in your room and haechan suddenly pulls away with wide eyes 
and he lets out an “oh fuck” 
now, you were worried 
did you somehow do something wrong? 
“ara is going to fucking kill me,” haechan muttered grabbing his phone, calling someone up 
“hey gramps, can you pick ara up? i kinda left her at school,” haechan said through the phone to someone you presume to be mark
“okay, fine i’ll bring you weed brownies and hurry up before she gives me shit tomorrow. you know how high-maintenance she gets” and he hangs up the phone, throwing it aside 
“sorry about that,” haechan says going to resume what the two of you started but you stop him
cause it hurts too much and you don’t know what the hell you are to haechan
“i can’t do this anymore, hyuck” you say in a small voice, not daring to look him in the eyes bc u know damn well that he’ll see the tears in your eyes
“what do you mean?” you could hear the worry in the voice
“this,” you gesture between the two of you “i can’t anymore” 
and haechan knows what you’re talking about 
he’s been dreading the moment,,,he could sense the end 
which is the last thing he wants
“what’s wrong?” 
you bite your lip not wanting to start breaking down in front of the boy you grew to love so much 
your heart was hurting so bad,,,but you couldn’t continue on pining over a boy that would never love you the same way 
“what am i to you, hyuck?” 
one of the things that haechan hated the most was seeing you sad 
he hated how you saying his nickname in that teary voice made his heart drop 
“you’re my friend, y/n. actually, you're my bestfriend” 
you look him in the eyes this time, but haechan wished you didn’t 
“i’d never be more than that, right?” you smiled sadly at the boy
for once in his life, haechan is rendered completely speechless 
“i think you should leave” 
he knew that he should have put up a fight 
yet he couldn’t bring himself to 
there was this pang of hurt in his chest that he couldn’t quite explain 
so he left 
he wished he didn’t 
the minute he walked out the door he felt all of the happiness leave his body,, he knew that when he walked out the door, he would never be walking back 
when he got home in his room that night, he didn’t have it in him to pick up his usual blunt or his vape pen 
instead, he flopped onto his bed staring up at his ceiling 
there was wetness on his cheeks,,,his vision was blurry,,,and his heart hurt 
he almost contemplated skipping school the next day, but he didn’t want to spend his day wallowing in his despair that he didn’t even know why he felt 
his eyes were red as fuck so he tried to play if off as if he were high because who would question it?
so that’s why he went to school with a pair of sunglasses to hide his puffy, red eyes 
he was expecting everyone to leave him alone cuz he looked like he was faded but his shithead friend ara marched over to him and pulled him away leaving behind a very confused looking jaemin
that’s probably a story i’ll hear later. he thought.
“you fucking moron,” ara exclaimed at him punching him in the arm “this is like the eighteenth time you have gone to school fucking high! get a grip man!” 
“don’t lecture me as if you weren’t talking to the parasite,” haechan huffed, rubbing his arm from the pain
damn she packed a punch 
ara squinted and haechan realized he fucked up with his fake high act 
so the girl reached out and grabbed his sunglasses much to his protest and saw his puffy eyes
“hOLY sHIt, dude were you crying?” 
haechan snatched back his sunglasses and quickly put them back on, “fuck you” 
“sorry man, what happened?” 
“i don’t even know” 
“you want a pity hug?” 
“why the fuck not” 
the thing was haechan wasn’t touchy with other girls except for you, so the hug w ara was like a bro hug 
all that awkward patting and shit
stupid haechan failed to notice that you were standing at the end of the hallway, witnessing the whole scene 
now it was clear to you that you didn’t mean shit to haechan 
you were just a girl that could make him feel less lonely in secret, nothing more 
he had no trouble displaying his relationship w ara in public 
why did he make it seem like he wanted to keep you a secret? 
you were tired of it
spinning on your heel, heart-shattering into pieces, you walked away from lee haechan for the very last time 
basically now, it was simp hours 24/7 for the both of you
even college-freshmen! mark knew something was off with his highschool weed buddy 
“dude, what’s goin on with you lately?” 
the two of them were on their regular get-high cliff except mark was the only one doing the deed, haechan was just spaced out 
“i dunno” haechan shrugged 
mark made a face that was like “if you don’t tell me i’m beating the shit out of you” 
“okay fine, y/n doesn’t want me in her life anymore,” haechan spilled the beans on the whole situation between the two of you and mark is like “and i thought i was the fucking idiot” 
haechan is like wdym bruh? 
“are you dumb, bro? like are you out of touch with your feelings or sum shit?” 
“huh” 
“goddamn i have to do everything in this household, listen to me you little bitch boy, grow a pair and admit that you have feelings for her!” 
haechan’s face is like O.o 
“are you high right now, mark?” 
instant smack on the back of his head 
“no you dumb shit; just say that you like her and that ara is just a friend!” 
“what does this have to do ara?” 
mark is like BOI IF YOU DON’t
“obviously, you failed to mention that you managed to befriend a person who just happens to be a really pretty girl-” 
“dude, ara is fucking ugly. i’d date you before i’d ever date her” 
“stfu and listen bitch boy. anyways, y/n is probably highkey confused bc she probably thinks you’re interested in ara since you’ve been spending a shit ton of time w ara in the day time but you only come to y/n at night.” 
“i do that because i don’t want people to associate her with the things i do just because i’m friends with her. she’s doesn’t deserve to be roped into the same category as me” 
aNOTHer smack in the head 
“go clean up the mess you made and admit your feelings you fucking shithead.” 
“how?” 
“i dunno, ask her to prom or some shit” 
“i don’t want to go to prom” 
“DO SOME ROMEO AND JULIET SHIT IDFC JUST STOP BEING A DUMB PUSSY” enuff said 
so haechan gets dropped back at his house and he does some thinking about his so-called “feelings”
which is a fat surprise bc haechan is the living embodiment of impulsiveness,, he had only one brain cell to do his thinking
did he like you? idk man
he liked the way you smiled every time you told him something good about your day while the two of you cuddled. or when you would watch a funny clip on your phone and share it with him
he liked the way your hair smelled liked vanilla and was always so soft every time he ran his fingers through you hair
he liked the way you never turned him away even when he knew that you hated the way he was living his life. 
all of his other friends didn’t even make the effort to reach out to him when he was so obviously out of it. he felt unimportant with them
you were different
you made him feel happy, loved, and cared for
he no longer craved the attention of his parents or anyone in fact because he has you
or well he HAD you 
right now, all of the phone calls, text messages, and even snaps went straight to delivered, voicemail, or unopened
every time you’d see him in the halls, you would go the other direction
all of the times haechan tried to reach out to you, all of his attempts were deflected 
now how the fuck does one confessed when they’re being ignored???
“that sounds like a personal problem,” ara stated, stabbing her food angrily after haechan told her his predicament during lunch
na jaemin had just gone by their table and did someone bullshit that haechan could care less about, he stopped associating himself w him a long time ago
“no shit sherlock, help me bitch.” 
ara glared at him “you got yourself into this mess so fix it yourself” 
“i hope you fucking choke on an ice cube” 
“i’ll slit your throat in your sleep, lee haechan” 
wow everyone really out here expecting haechan to solve his own problems. how selfish of them.
which is probably why his plan of execution was shitty as fuccck
you, on the other side of the equation, was currently in the depths of your despair as all of your friends had managed to score dates to senior prom which was this weekend
you’re highly disappointed bc if it wasn’t for you being so preoccupied with the thought of haechan you’d probably have a date by now 
hell you even lied to haechan saying how you didn’t want to go to prom bc it was too extravagant for your taste when in actuality, you wanted to get dressed up, take pretty pictures, and dance awkwardly to a slow song 
the typical highschool prom experience
one thing that you didn’t want to admit was that the only boy you could picture as your date was donghyuck, the same boy that you wanted to get out of your thoughts and heart
the night of prom, you were stuck in your bed in a pair of sweats and some random oversized t-shirt scrolling through social media
to say you weren’t jealous of all the fun senior prom seemed to be was a giANT lie you could’ve just went alone!!!
honestly, even your parents were out having fun on a date night while you were being depresso espresso at home
you flopped in bed with a giant huff bc who was haechan to stop you from experiencing your highschool years! who was he to make you feel so bad that you couldn’t even go to prom! 
your phoned buzzed in your hand causing you to look down and nearly scowled at the message that was sent to you
hyuck: open up 
you ignored it, turning your attention back to that stupid rom-com you were watching on your laptop 
your phone continued to ding w messages you were sure were from haechan but you don’t want to open bc you knew that you would probably be launched into another wave of sadness and maybe even break-down cry in front of him so you turned your ringer off 
but out of nowhere, you hear this loud thud against your window 
wtf was that? alert mode on
then you hear a loud shout 
“BITCH ISTG IF YOU DON’T OPEN TF UP” 
you already knew who it was, so you contemplated on whether or not you wanted to actually confront him or run away from all of your problems (*coughs* ara *coughs* haechan)
 you didn’t get much time to think bc another thing was launched at your window
haechan’s shoe
walking over you opened ur window to see below haechan on your lawn with a giant cheeky smile on his face you knew for a fact it was genuine
he only smiled like that when the two of you were bent over laughing at something stupid he or you did
aww shit here comes the sad bugs again 
“what do you want?” you say loud enough for him to hear “go to prom with me!” haechan shouts up making you and your heart flustered af 
“prom already started, you idiot” 
“then let’s dance in your room” 
as much as you knew you should have turned him away, you couldn’t
you were so in love with haechan 
the minute you open the door you were engulfed into his chest
you froze up not knowing how to react 
“don’t let me go please,” haechan says barely louder than a whisper
goDAmmit haechan’s making me tear the fuck up
“you’re the only one in my life that hasn’t left me. the only one that was willing to understand me. i know that i’m not the best guy out there, i know that i’m nothing great, but when you look at me with that stupid smile of yours i feel so god damn on top of the world.”  
he hugs you tighter “please, please, y/n don’t leave me. i need you in my life.” 
something wet drops on your shoulder but you don’t dare to look up at haechan’s teary eyes 
closing your eyes you fall into his chest, his familiar scent triggering tears of your own 
“i love you” he pulls away from you to look at your face for a response, your eyes meeting his shaking brown orbs 
you have to raise your head slightly up to look at him while he was looking down at you
his hair was a mess of a light pastel rainbow (we go up broski) 
that’s when you notice how red his eyes were but there was no stench of weed or alcohol on him 
lee haechan was completely sober 
“i’ve always been yours, lee donghyuck”  
lee haechan wasn’t like other guys. he was lee donghyuck. he was complex and it would take you years to completely unravel him. even when you knew him for so long, you still had no idea was going through his mind. there were times where you found yourself stumped on the subject of haechan, but it was okay 
because you were willing to take the time to understand. 
1K notes · View notes
hawkinslibrary · 4 years ago
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i love hearing what you have to say about season 4!! i promise it’s not too long lol, anyway i have a question for you: what do you think the next season holds for mike & el? i’m a little worried tbh
ahhh thank you !! same rules apply: spoilers ahead, so please read no further and blacklist/filter out the ‘s4′, ‘st4′, ‘spoilers’ tags if you don’t want to see anything !! 
i’m going to talk about them both as individuals and as a pair but first, i have to say that i don’t personally feel like you have to worry about them breaking up or anything again this season. i think s4 is really going to establish romantic jopper and once that happens, i don’t see them, mileven, or jancy not being endgame unless someone actually dies. which -- i’m not going to think about the possibility of anyone dying until i’m forced to confront it, so. this is fiction and it’s already unrealistic and i’m gonna take my ‘everyone survives, happiness all around, time to relax’ endings and go. anyway, i would love to add lumax to this list but i honestly think it could go either way depending on what happens in s4. that’s a different essay, though.
i tend to think that the most important dynamic on the show is the one between the whole group and i just don’t really see them spending much more time trying to develop romantic relationships outside of the ones set up since s1/2. maybe steve, robin, and will get love interests, maybe they decide to develop dustin and suzie more, maybe suzie is never even mentioned again, idk. but these will probably all be secondary -- as in less screen time, not less important than the main romances, but probably still less developed. unless it happens to be a new person added to the main cast. which, as of now, the only new mains are brett and priah who has gone from recurring to regular. so.  
i think s3 showed how messy and complicated romantic relationships (or, really just relationships in general) can be. everyone was arguing, there was miscommunication all around, everyone thought they knew what was best, no one was seeing eye to eye. but when it comes down to it, they would do anything for each other. they understand each other better than anyone else ever could. i can’t see them spending another season on breakups and romance drama after the ending of s3.  
mike and el have already been separated once before. this time, mike knows for sure that she’s alive and that’s she’s with the byers. this time, el won’t be kept completely isolated away from everyone else. they’ve made plans to meet for the holidays. they can still call and talk to each other as much as they want. i’m hoping they handle being separated this time better than they did in s2. i don’t want mike to be moping and i don’t want el to spend a lot of the season thinking about how much she misses him. in fact, i think in their case that some distance could be good for them. the same for jancy and jopper, too, honestly. it’ll be nice to see them existing outside of these relationships while still acknowledging how important they are.   
as far as i know, the byers and el stuff has not started filming yet so all there is to speculate on are rumors, the audition tapes, and logical guesses about where the story goes after s3. el obviously moves away with the byers. we still don’t know where. she’ll still be mourning hopper and trying to figure out life without her powers. and, of course, she’ll be in a long distance relationship with mike. i think she’ll be having a hard time and she’ll wish that mike was around, but she’ll realize she’s got a pretty good support system around her now with the byers, too. i’m very, very excited for more joyce and el content particularly, but there’s gotta be some great scenes with her and will and jonathan as well. 
there’s only one audition tape that i can confidently tie into the byers + el plot(s?) and it’s the queen bee/mean girl character ‘angela’. if we’re running with the whole ‘there may be some truth to the audition vids’ thing, then this one teases that el will be going to school and that angela will be bullying her. this is something she would probably want to talk about with mike (b i g troy s1 vibes) but i don’t know if she actually would ? so this is probably more a thing that el and will could bond over or that she could talk about with joyce or maybe jonathan. i do think there will be at least a few calls between the two of them before the action really hits and the whole group is (hopefully...) reunited.
so, el -- at least in the beginning of s4 -- will be going to school where ‘angela’ bullies her, forming a bond with joyce + will + jonathan and becoming part of the family, mourning hopper (+ hopefully having conversations about him + his past with joyce), missing her friends back in hawkins, continuing to learn how to navigate life without her powers, and trying to maintain a long distance relationship with mike. 
mike... i’ve been seeing some wild theories about him today but they aren’t really that far-fetched i think. first, going back to the audition tapes, the ‘eddie’ audition i saw makes it seem like mike is going to be part of the hellfire club with dustin. i’ve recently learned that there’s another version of the scene where ‘eddie’ is only talking to dustin and mike might not be a part of the club after all. if he isn’t part of the club, then the basketball v. hellfire, jocks v. nerds thing turns into lucas v. dustin and mike’s probably there just caught in the middle while max is off distancing herself from everyone.
at this point, i really want mike and max to become good friends. i think the end of s3 gave them the perfect opportunity. s4 max has s2 mike vibes. it’s not the same situation at all, but he knows kinda what she’s feeling and they could connect through that + the fact that they’ll both be missing el. i also just really want... some wheeler siblings content. i’m hopeful that s4 gives us good nancy and mike scenes bc there’s no reason not to give us good nancy and mike scenes (+holly!). however...
while there’s proof that gaten and sadie and natalia and priah have all been filming since production restarted, and while i have reason to believe that caleb has been filming a lot inside/at the studio recently... there’s no evidence that finn has been on set. there’s none for maya and joe, either, but people have said that finn isn’t even in atlanta right now. maybe he is and maybe he just hasn’t been seen and maybe he’ll pop back up tomorrow. or, maybe he already filmed whatever he needed to film for hawkins before production stopped.  
the wild theory that’s popped up today is that everything gets to be too much for him in hawkins and he just... hops on a train to go visit el + the byers. i don’t know if i buy it, but it is interesting to note that he was sitting with them at the table read. and since we can guess that steve and robin will still be working at the video store, robin and nancy will be investigating pennhurst together, lucas and max may have some angst, joyce and murray are probably teaming up for the finding/saving hopper plot, and el is going to bond with will and jonathan, it seems like the order might mean a little something. i’d even bet that dustin and erica have scenes with them bonding over d&d.    
now this theory pretty much only exists because no one’s seen finn on set and one of the paps posted some pics of some trains. there’s also always theories about how there will be issues at home with the wheeler fam and if that’s going to happen, what better time than in s4 when all of his friends are pulling away and el’s gone again. so if he is missing el (and will) that much, and if he has any reason to worry about her and how she’s doing, or if the party becoming distant and issues at home are weighing on him and he feels like he needs to get away, he’s absolutely the type to venture off on a train by himself. i don’t know how it would work since he’s definitely supposed to still be in school and his friends/nancy at least would notice he’s gone, but.. it’s fun to think about and we’ve got zero actual content to go off of right now.  
another way i could see mike’s plot going is that he’s the one trying to keep the party together this season. playing mediator with lucas and dustin, becoming better friends with max, being the connection between the hawkins plot and the byers plot (along with nancy). 
there was also talk of him joining the track team bc the track has been set up with hawkins high colors for filming. but mike ‘this isn’t a stupid sports game’ wheeler? i don’t think so... basically, no one knows at the moment what’s happening with mike wheeler in s4 lol.
s4 mike is just like s4 byers fam -- a complete mystery to me currently. i don’t personally think that he’ll be leaving school and hopping on a train to visit el. i think he’ll be a part of the hellfire club with dustin, or that he won’t and instead will be attempting to keep the party from completely disbanding. i hope that we get wheeler siblings scenes and that max and mike have a breakthrough and become better friends. i also feel like he’ll be having some complicated feelings about hopper, the last interaction they had, etc. and, again, the whole long distance thing with el. 
so... mike and el broke up in s3. it was messy. but then they reconciled. and then hopper “died”. s3 ended with them at this weird place where she’s heard him say that he loves her and she’s told him that she loves him back. things are a little awkward in the scene bc everything has changed at this point, but a kiss, an ‘i love you’, planning to meet up on the holidays, and promising to call frequently all sounds like they’re back together and going to try making the long distance thing work to me. 
i think they’ll be together when s4 starts. i think that we’ll probably only see them talking on the phone or their radios for the first few eps. maybe we’ll see flashbacks or something to them being together on the holidays. the distance might be hard and they’re definitely going to be missing each other. like... el doesn’t have mike or hopper with her now and i’m thinking the party is going to be drifting apart, plus they’re both probably going to have other personal issues that have nothing to do with each other or the party. maybe they’ll be experiencing some emotional distancing of their own while dealing with the aftermath of hopper’s “death”, the move, and whatever’s going on with them at home and at school. i think that once they reunite (probably not until the last half of the season), they’re likely to be stronger than ever. 
now, onto personal theories that have zero basis. for some reason, i can’t get it out of my head that this season might dive into psychological horror a little bit ? like a greatest fears type of thing ?? and i keep thinking about brenner popping back up and using the people el loves to get to her or something and 👀👀 
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gamerwoo · 6 years ago
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Wonwoo: Focus
Anonymous asked: hi can i ask for a gamer wonwoo smut please? i know you wrote one in the series but could you write one besides that? maybe like the reader want attention but he’s playing games and it leads to smut or they bet over a game and it’s related to smut? i hope it helps! also please don’t feel pressured to post this if you don’t want to xx i love your writing! thank you 💓
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Characters: Wonwoo x female reader
Genre/warnings: gamer/streamer au, smut (kinda exhibitionism, oral, cockwarming), kinda fluffy at the end
Word count: 2,338
Summary: Having a popular Twitch streamer for a boyfriend, his attention is usually on his computer, his games, and his audience rather than you. So you figure if he won’t give you attention, you’ll make it harder for him to keep his attention off of you.
a/n: I didn’t know what to use for twitch usernames so uh I used names of my mutuals dskfhjksdhf shoutout to y’all (especially @sadienita who helped me w the direction it should go toward the end bc i didn’t know if i wanted to keep up w cocky asshat wonwoo or whiny baby wonwoo)
“Sadienita, thank you for the five months; heartskun, thank you for the $5 -- I appreciate it.”
Wonwoo’s eyes drifted over from the game to his chat, thanking the people he didn’t get to while he was playing. He had a break of a few seconds between respawning so he usually used it to look at chat. There were always plenty of questions and comments flooding in, so he’d thank the subs and donors while answering any questions or replying to any comments that stuck out to him.
You were currently kind of pissed off at him because he decided to stream instead of spend time with you. You had a particularly bad day at work today, so you were feeling extra needy because of it. But Wonwoo kept telling you he had a schedule to stick to, so he went straight to the office to stream, ignoring all of your advances.
But was that stopping you? Absolutely not.
You’d snuck into his office while he was distracted with the game. Since he wasn’t using facecam today, you stood behind him and wrapped your hands around him, your palms rubbing up and down his chest as your lips went right to his neck.
“_____-ah, I’m busy,” he whined, silencing his mic so he could scold you.
You let out a huff, moving away from him and sitting on the floor beside him instead. You were still feeling clingy, though, so you wrapped your arms around his leg and leaned your head against his knee, hoping maybe he’d give you some form of attention -- a head pat at the very least. But no, he carried on with his game, shot calling to his team.
Your hands started traveling further up Wonwoo’s leg until your fingers were dancing across his thighs over his shorts. You tilted your head back to glance up at his face only to see that he didn’t seem to care at all. His expression was still neutral as he played the game, the clicks of his keyboard still making the same patterns.
Feeling a little ballsy, you decided to test your luck. You crawled under his desk and knelt between his legs, your hand moving up to palm him through his shorts. He bit his lip but wasn’t fazed other than that. But still, he wasn’t telling you to stop and he wasn’t pulling away...
“My shots are steady, shut up chat,” Wonwoo pouted.
You smirked to yourself. Clearly you did have some kind of affect on your boyfriend if his chat was telling him his aiming was shaky, and that was only made clearer when a tent quickly formed in his shorts. But his face still showed zero emotion.
Your hands ventured higher, hooking your fingers through the waistband of his shorts and underwear, tugging both down just enough for his erection to spring free. You bit your lower lip as you gripped the base and leaned in, licking up the underside of his cock.
Wonwoo cleared his throat. You looked up to see him pushing his glasses up his nose but that was it. So you wrapped your lips around his tip, swirling your tongue as you slowly took more and more of him into your mouth. Still, his eyes never left the screen, but you didn’t see the way his hand clenched around the mouse momentarily before he stretched out his fingers and went back to holding it as he usually did.
You couldn’t tell if it was hotter to have Wonwoo be so passive about you sucking him off or if you’d rather he acknowledge your existence. Did you like how he removed his headphones and ran a hand through his hair before putting them back on, acting as if everything was normal? Or did you prefer he looked down at you and bit his lip to hold back moans, barely able to concentrate on his game?
You got your answer when you lowered your head all the way down, staying there for a moment as you deepthroated your boyfriend. You tried to stay as long as possible, but ultimately ended up gagging after a few seconds and coming back up. You felt fingers grip your hair, making you look up from under the desk to see Wonwoo’s eyes meet yours through his glasses as he put a finger to his lips, an eyebrow raised.
Arousal burned in your lower abdomen, seeing the amused look Wonwoo gave you. You simply nodded and went back to sucking him off, using your hand to stroke whatever you couldn’t fit.
“What was what noise?” Wonwoo asked with a chuckle, apparently reading a comment in chat as he put his hand back on his keyboard. “There was a gagging noise? Ah, it’s probably Neko.”
You tried not to giggle. Of course Wonwoo would blame your cat.
You started moving your head faster, and you could feel Wonwoo’s thigh flexing beneath your hand. Clearly, it was starting to get harder for him to stay quiet, making you smirk around his length.
“There’s somebody on the--" you heard Wonwoo cut off and suddenly suck in sharply as you hollowed your cheeks. He tried to steady his breathing before he continued. “There’s... There’s somebody on the left.”
You slid your free hand down into your panties, teasing your entrance with your index finger before pushing in. You ground down against your palm to get some friction against your clit as you continued to bob your head on Wonwoo’s length. You hummed around his length, sending vibrations through it that had him biting down on his lower lip, keeping his eyes on his screen.  
Wonwoo was back to hardly paying any attention to you. He blew off his strange behavior as him stubbing his toe on his desk before he was back to shot calling and speaking to chat as normal. But it wasn’t long until you were quietly whining and whimpering as you added another finger into your heat, moving them in and out as you rubbed your clit with your thumb. Even with his headphones on, Wonwoo knew you were making little noises from the way his cock vibrated because of your lips around him.
Once he’d died again, he glanced down at you. You had saliva at the corners of your mouth and you had one hand down your panties, and the sight was enough to have Wonwoo smirking. He was more than amused at how desperate you were, and he wanted to use that to his advantage.
He reached down with one hand, stroking your hair back to get your attention. Then he was beckoning for you with two fingers, rolling his chair back. You crawled out from under the desk and stood up, feeling relief in your knees. Wonwoo hooked his fingers into your underwear and dragged them down before he grabbed your hips and pulled your forward, silently telling you that he wanted you to ride him.
“Stream?” you mouthed to him as you put one leg on either side of him on his chair.
“Be quiet,” he mouthed back with a smirk.
Despite the fact you didn’t think you’d be that quiet, you lined yourself up before sinking down on his cock, biting your lip to muffle the whimpers. The way he stretched and filled you would always be way better than anything your fingers could do. Your nails dug into his shoulders as you rested your head in the crook of his neck, nipping at his skin to try to hide the moans that wanted to make their way from your throat.
Wonwoo merely sighed as you slowly bounced your hips. He seemed almost content at the way you rode him and nuzzled into him, continuing to pay attention to the game rather than to you. He let you do all the work as he focused on his game that he was determined to complete before he gave in to you.
Or so he thought.
The way you clenched around him and the way your warm breath hit his skin was slowly breaking his resolve. The quiet mewls that were muffled into his shoulder paired with how your hips sped up as you rode him was enough to have him coughing to hide his moans. It was becoming too hard to hide, and he soon found himself having the urge to leave his game early.
“Chat, I’ll be right back,” he suddenly said, making you pause your movements. “I gotta go check on _____ real quick.”
You sat up straight and looked over your shoulder to see his screen. He muted his mic and then went to leave his game but you quickly reached over and grabbed his wrist, stopping him.
“_____--”
“Keep going,” you told him.
“What?”
“You thought you could ignore me, so do it. Keep playing like nothing’s happening.”
“I can’t,” he whined, slumping back into the chair. “It’s too much, you feel too good.”
“If you don’t, I’ll stop,” you threatened with a smirk.
Wonwoo groaned, “_____, if anybody finds you, I’ll get banned.”
“Then don’t let anybody find out,” you giggled before you unmuted his mic.
“I’m--” Wonwoo stopped, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath as you continued your movements, trying to keep the noise to a minimum while still making sure there was enough friction to push both of you to your releases. “I-I’m back, guys.”
Wonwoo scanned the screen as he chewed on his lip to keep any noises of pleasure back, but he did let out an awkward cough that almost made you laugh.
“Why’d I have to check on _____?” he read off one of the questions. “Sh-she’s uh...not feeling good. She’s s-sick.”
You were pretty impressed Wonwoo was even able to form a sentence considering how hard he was biting his lip. He bucked his hips up into you, causing you to gasp and slap a hand over your mouth, squeezing your eyes shut to concentrate on keeping quiet. You knew Wonwoo was doing this on purpose to embarrass you instead of him, but you weren’t going to let him win that game.
His mind started to get hazy the longer it went on. He could barely pay attention to the game, his tracking only getting worse and worse as he got closer to his orgasm. He could feel it quickly building, something about the thrill of doing this on stream arousing him more than he’d want to admit. But you felt the same, and you were having a hard time hiding the sound of skin hitting skin with how quickly you moved on his length. Your hand had already snaked down between your bodies to rub your clit, hoping to chase your high that was coming closer and closer.
At this point, Wonwoo wasn’t even speaking to his chat or reading comments anymore. His jaw was clenched as he focused on keeping his noises in, only clearing his throat and letting out coughs to hide the groans of pleasure.
For somebody who thought he could play this game, he lost. As his orgasm hit, he let go of his mouse and keyboard, opting to hold you as close as he could as he thrust up into you to ride out his orgasm how he wanted to. His head was thrown back against his chair as he pressed his lips into a thin line, only puffing air out through his nose as he worked through his orgasm. He didn’t even care that his character in-game was dead now. The game was completely forgotten in favor of you.
Feeling Wonwoo’s warm release and seeing the way his jaw clenched over and over was enough to send you over the edge soon after him, letting out a soft, high-pitched whine as you bit down onto his shoulder to stay silent. Your body shuddered as you came, grinding down onto him as he rubbed your back and let you relax before he went back to what he was doing before.
When your muscles had finally relaxed and you melted into the warmth of his body, his eyes flickered over to his chat that was being spammed with comments of him throwing his game and also questioning what that odd squeak was that they heard. He chuckled, keeping one arm around you while the other went back to his mouse.
“Sorry, _____ needed me,” he replied, the sudden sound of his voice making you jump. “That noise was her -- she came into the room because her stomach hurts.”
Despite the fact you were now sexually satisfied, you didn’t want to leave Wonwoo just yet. You were still needy for his touch, and you knew he still wouldn’t be done streaming for a while. That meant you’d have to go lay in bed alone, and that wasn’t something you were excited to do. But you knew you had to.
You went to get up, but Wonwoo tightened his hold on you, keeping you on his softening member as he moved his hand up your back to lay your head back down on his shoulder. You weren’t sure what he was doing, but you went along with it.
“She’s going to sit with me until I’m done,” he told his stream before he pressed a kiss to your forehead. “I’ll probably play one or two more games before I take her to bed.”
Something about your current position was actually really comforting, and you found your eyes closing as Wonwoo let go of you and went back to his game. You could hear soft hums of concentration every now and then, along with the tapping of his keys. His shot calling was softer now, careful not to disturb you, but you liked hearing his voice anyway.
Before you completely fell asleep, you heard him laughing quietly at a comment from chat.
“‘What if those noises were Wonwoo and his girlfriend doing it?’. Chat, we’d never do that. Get your minds out of the gutter.”
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