#bec i am and its hurting me

[ribbittrobbit]

just admiring boggy and being incredibly comforted

[graciebrams]

how do you give someone silent treatment without feeling like the meanest person alive for something they did ?

[boldlypurplepoetry]

,,

[antiquarianfics]

Taken pt. 11

If Bucky Barnes could time travel, he would go back to that morning. He would hold you a little tighter in his arms, and he would kiss you a little deeper. He would pull your daughter in between the two of you, letting her giggle as loudly as she wants whilst her parents kiss her cheeks and tickle her belly. If Bucky Barnes could time travel, he would have told you not to go to the park—to go anywhere else. But Bucky Barnes can’t time travel, and his wife and daughter are gone.

a/n: this is a direct result of the power of commenting/reblogging an author's work. someone said they were sad they didn't think i was going to finish this, and i realized i hadn't finished it, and i have some time for once, so i decided to be skibidi sigma. (gen alpha brainrot is starting to come out unironically. i work with middle schoolers. sorry.)

warnings: swearing, blackmail, mention of murder, themes of conspiracy, canon typical violence.

note: I do not own the character Bucky Barnes or any other Marvel affiliated characters. Any and all characters are a work of fiction and any likeness to real persons is wholly unintentional.

You do not have permission to copy, translate, or repost my work; however, feel free to like, comment, and reblog.

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When the judge tells you, “Mrs. Y/N L/N-Barnes, you’re a free woman,” you let out a sob and feel yourself yanked into a firm chest that you’d recognize anywhere: Bucky.

“You’re okay, sweetheart. You’re coming home.”

—

You would think that months working for the enemy, followed by months locked up in a cell, followed by a month of trial, that finally ended in your freedom and return to your family would bring you peace.

It doesn't.

Sure, finally sleeping in your own bed again and cuddling up next to your husband was amazing, hugging your daughter again was amazing, having privacy again was amazing... but freedom and its perks don't erase trauma. You get to lie in your own bed again and cuddle up next to your husband, but you can't sleep lest the nightmares come. You get to hug your daughter again, but you're always looking over your shoulder, worried someone will snatch her away from you again. You get to have privacy, but you never trust that you're truly alone.

After everything that has happened, you realize, you will never be able to go back to how things were. You're a different person than you were before you and Becca were taken. You're a murderer now, not a hero. When you look at your hands, all you see is blood, and when you look in the mirror, all you see is a shell of the woman you once were.

—

The first week back home as a free woman is spent making amends, as per the recommendation of your court-mandated therapist.

"Steve, I am so sorry for trying to kill you. I... I don't even know what to say. If it weren't for Bec, I wouldn't've, but-" You say, throat dry, palms sweaty as you wipe them on your pants.

"Hey, it's okay. I understand. I forgive you. If anyone is going to understand turning on a friend to protect someone they care about, it's me." Steve gives you a comforting smile, his tone so earnest. "Just ask Tony and Bucky."

You crack a smile.

After Steve, came Fury and Coulson, the late presidents' family, the families of the many politicians you killed... the list felt unending as you worked your way through it.

It takes months to track down the loved ones of all the people you hurt while with HYDRA, and by the time you're finished with it, you're more exhausted than when you were literally locked up and starved while in HYDRA's custody.

With a huff and a frown, you flop onto the couch. You fall over the arm of the couch and land on your back. Bucky laughs a little as he watches your dramatic display, walking over and leaning over you, resting his arms on the back of the couch.

"Tired?" He asks.

"Yeah. This making amends stuff is exhausting. Don't know how you do it." You flop an arm over your eyes.

"Slowly but surely," he says. "And it helps that I have a super hot and supportive wife to encourage me when it feels like too much." He reaches over the couch and pokes your stomach. You giggle and squirm.

"I don't know that the 'hot' part helps the amends," you say pointedly.

"Maybe, but it doesn't hurt."

You smirk but say nothing. Bucky watches for a moment.

"Well?" He asks finally.

"Well what?"

"Are you going to say it back?"

"Say what back?"

"You know."

"I don't know."

"That having a super hot and supportive husband makes making amends easier," he says in a matter-of-fact tone. You lift your arm off your face to look at him; he's wearing a shit-eating grin.

"I guess it does help a little," you concede.

He jumps up, throwing his arms in the air in victory. It's a little out of character for him, but it makes you laugh. He's been going out of his way to make you laugh, even when it includes him doing things that feel unnatural to him. Bucky Barnes wants his wife back, yes, but he is also aware that after everything that you went through, you won't be the same. Things won't go back to normal: there will just be a new normal. In the meantime, he just wants you to laugh a little while you figure out what your new normal is.

—

At some point, you fall asleep on the couch. Bucky leaves you there, afraid to move you lest you wake up. Ever since your captivity with Frost and HYDRA, you've been having nightmares that Bucky worries rival his. Any nightmare-free sleep you get is rare and needed.

Bucky had lain a blanket over you before putting Becca to bed and heading to bed himself, and even though he'd deny it, he was exhausted, too. So when your nightmares start, he doesn't wake up.

The nightmare starts out slow, and you toss and turn in your sleep, pitiful whimpers leaving your lips. Though, it doesn't take long for the nightmares to progress. Soon, you've tossed the blanket onto the floor and your whimpers have turned into screams. Bucky doesn't hear, but Becca does.

The 4 year old walks through the apartment, leaving her room quietly in search of her screaming mother. She's scared; she's never heard you scream like this. While locked up, she heard you scream in anger—she still remembers how you screamed and pulled the chains out of the wall—but she has never heard you scream in fear. Until now. Her mommy has always been the bravest person she knows, and that's even braver than her daddy—he said so himself.

Clutching her stuffed rabbit in one hand, she slowly walks into the living room where she can see you flailing and screaming on the couch.

"Mommy?" Becca calls out softly, nervously. When you don't answer, she tries again, moving closer still. "Mommy, wake up."

Again, you don't answer. You're still deeply asleep. Becca walks up to the couch and stands right beside you. Tentatively, she places the hand not holding her rabbit against your shoulder and shakes.

"Mommy, wake up."

When you still don't wake up, she shakes your shoulder a little harder and speaks up a little louder.

"Mommy, wake up! Mommy, it's just a dream. Just a bad dream. Wake up!" She gives a good push to your shoulder with the last 'wake up' and you sit up quickly, swinging your arms in a punch. You hit Becca, and she stumbles back, loses her balance, and falls, hitting her head against the coffee table.

You start to fully come to. You're looking around the room frantically, breathing heavily, and, slowly, you realize you're in a familiar place. Slowly, you recognize your living room. Slowly, you realize your daughter is bleeding on the floor.

You do a double take. Becca is sat against the coffee table, her bunny abandoned at her side. She's holding her head, but blood is still dripping out from the sides of her small hand, and she's bawling.

"M-m-mommy, I'm s-s-sorry!" She cries.

"Becca! Oh, no, no, no!" You quickly stumble off the couch, sitting on your knees as you hover your hands next to Becca's head, trying to assess the damage.

"I'm so sorry, baby. Mama's so sorry. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to."

The commotion is loud enough that it wakes Bucky up and he slides into the room, panic staining his face.

"Y/N, what's going on? Are you okay? Is Becca okay?" He says worriedly, rushing over to you and kneeling beside you.

Noticing that you're not actually touching Becca or trying to help, he pushes you out of the way, pulling Becca's hand away from her forehead. He grimaces as he gently swipes his thumb across the cut, wiping the blood away. He lets out a relieved breath.

"It's not that bad. It's okay. You're okay, sweetheart," he tells Becca, kissing her forehead.

Bucky turns to see that you've backed yourself into the corner of the room, as far away from him and Becca as you could possibly get. You're holding your head in your hands, crying, and muttering "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to," over and over.

"Doll, she's okay. It's just a small cut. You didn't do anything wrong," Bucky reassures you, scooping Becca in his arms as he speaks. He was piecing together that you'd hurt her in a post-nightmare haze (he was familiar with them).

You just shake your head frantically.

—

Bucky gets Becca cleaned up and put back to bed. When he returns to the living room, you're still huddled in the corner, but you've stopped crying. Instead, you're staring blankly at the wall. He walks over.

"Doll? Hey." He gently tilts your chin towards him. "Bec's okay. She's not mad—a little rattled—but mostly worried about her mama. You didn't do anything wrong. You know that, right?"

You shake your head and he sighs.

"She's asking for you."

You finally make eye contact.

"No. I don't want to see her; I can't see her. You have to keep Becca away from me, Bucky." Each word that leaves your mouth is deadly serious. Bucky's mouth is slightly agape as he takes in your words.

"Sweetheart, she's okay. You can see her," he tries.

"No, I can't. I'm a danger to her, Bucky. I hurt my baby." Your voice cracks, and the pain in your voice breaks Bucky's heart.

"Promise me you will keep her away from me," you beg.

He nods reluctantly. "Okay."

You nod and turn your gaze back to the wall. It's silent for a few minutes.

You stand abruptly and Bucky quickly mirrors the action.

"What is it?" Bucky asks.

"I'm going to kill Frost," you say at the same time.

A beat. Bucky stares at you.

"I'm going to hunt that son of a bitch down, and I am going to make him pay for everything he has done to this family." You make direct eye contact with your husband. "Everything."

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[jimilter]

on the borderline — 04 | pjm. (m)

Park Jimin has been your buoy, your anchor and the ship of sanity that guides you to shore amid storms of self-doubt, nearly all your life; as have you been his. That is not to say nothing has ever brewed beneath the surface of platonic friendship, or that the two of you have never been victims to mistiming. Regardless, you would never risk the friendship you have with him now for anything. Even if you have to hurt him – or even yourself – in the process.

pairing: jimin x reader

rating: m (18+)

genre: humor | drama | friends to lovers!au

word count: 9.3 k

— warnings: swearing + mentions of a past toxic relationship + mentions of therapy/therapists + mentions of sex (some get detailed and explicit, hence the rating!) + some descriptive r-rated daydreaming + emotional constipation at its peaK + denial at its peaK + reader is a mess throughout + jimin cooking breakfast without a shirt 🚨 (will add more if i notice anything while proofreading!)

— note: HAPPY 10 YEARS TO BANGTAN - MY LOVE, MY HEART, MY WORLD! 🥺💜 hello world, i've crawled out of the grave two months later - who remembers me? :] anyways, parts of this aren't proofread (esp the last 2k words) bec i finished jusssst in time to post this today. will edit it in a day, tops! drop me a word~

ps. the rating, genre and warnings mentioned above pertain to this chapter, only.

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𝐈𝐕 ⇢ 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 ♪ i’m sinking faster and faster

What wakes you up is the inability to move your leg. 

It’s not like you urgently need to move, either; you were just casually trying to wiggle into a more comfortable sleeping position, like everyone does at nine am on a Saturday morning, when you encountered a hindrance. Your sleep is disturbed, not out of discomfort, but more out of confusion.

Murmuring a curse under your breath, you part your crusty ass eyelids to peer at the warm and heavy human-like pillow that is laying above your blanket and restricting your movement. Wait, this pillow feels a little too giant. You do not have pillows as giant as—

Holy shit, it’s Jimin!

With a deep and loud and dramatic gasp, last night rushes back to you.

The wine, the movie, the kiss you initiated to prove that you and Jimin could kiss without making things weird – great joke, by the way – the kiss Jimin then initiated God knows why, the really good making out and the…

Fuck, the way he ate you out? You don’t remember the last time someone did it so—

Feeling your cheeks starting to heat up, you snap out of it. He’s Jimin, for fuck’s sake! Park jimin! Your childhood best friend, Park Jimin!

Your childhood best friend Park Jimin who is fantastic in bed—

No. Nope.

This is serious. And it’s bad.

Oh, God this is bad.

The heat that was climbing up your cheeks has now rerouted to your head, and your brain is slowly vaporizing under the tension.

Meanwhile, Jimin is fucking snoring away like an oblivious, angelic fucker. What? No, not angelic, no matter how soft his pouted lips look when he’s asleep, he was a demon with you in this very bed.

Almost subconsciously, you reach behind you to run a hand across the skin of your butt. It’s squeaky clean. Did he clean you up after you’d fallen asleep?

Blinking, you snap yourself out of the tender thoughts. This is no place to be thinking how good of a friend he was for cleaning you up when the reason why you were dirty had no friendly causes, whatsoever.

“Jimin!” you hoarsely call out to him, voice scratchy like sandpaper and honestly, too damn low to wake up your best friend who sleeps like a log.

Sitting up under the constricting blanket with difficulty, you scowl at him and shove his shoulder. 

“Park Jimin! Wake the fuck up!”

No movement, not even a change in his breathing pattern, not even a lapse in the muted snores.

“Jimin!” you try a little louder this time, patting his cheek – so soft and warm, it’s hard to remove your hand from it – and he finally stirs. “Hey, wake up!”

Petulantly whining, he turns his head to the other side. “W’ass th’ime?”

What? Oh, time? 

You check your bedside clock. “Uh, it’s nine. Oh fuck! You have a flight at noon! Wake up, Jimin!”

He groans and tries to fucking turn away. “I can get ready in an hour… Lemme just… th’rty minuhs…”

“Jimin, oh my God—” You break off, choosing to instead tug the blankets off him.

And. Well. It backfires, because he’s as naked as you underneath that. Almost involuntarily, your gaze traces his defined pectorals and travels down across his very prominent abdominal muscles, and then – 

You shut your eyes.

He’s hard.

Swallowing roughly, you clumsily tug the blanket back up to his waist, shivering a little when your fingers accidentally brush his warm skin.

“Jimin,” you begin again, weakly, “please wake up. We really need to talk.”

That makes him sigh and finally crack one eye open to peer up at you. “What do you—”

His lips part, scanning the way you sit with your shoulders bare and covers held up to your chest.

“Oh.”

You can see the moment recollection makes it back to him, both eyes opening, now and widening just a fraction. Then he exhales and promptly shuts his eyes again.

What?

Is he going back to sleep?

“Jimin, what the fuck? Get up!”

With a grumpy whine, Jimin finally moves to sit up in bed, scowling at you with his whole face and looking absolutely adorable. Wait, no—

“What is it?” he murmurs through his pouty mouth, eyes swollen and barely open. “What couldn’t wait for thirty fucking minutes?”

Your jaw slowly drops. “Do… you do remember that we had sex last night, right?”

He nods. “Couldn’t be more obvious.” He points at a dark mark on your chest peeking above the blanket you’ve wrapped around yourself.

Tugging the damn cloth higher up, you gape at the guy. He sits simply blinking at you, and you can’t tell if he’s just sleepy or really that unbothered. “And…? Doesn’t it, like, bother you? At all?”

“Bother me?” He frowns and cocks his head to the side, looking at you as if you’re speaking a language he can’t understand. 

“Jimin. We had sex.”

He blinks again, nonchalant as fuck, and then nods. “Yes, we did.”

At your wit’s end, you fist your free hand in your hair. “Dude. We – we had sex. It… It…”

Your stuttering, already mortifying in itself, gets tenfold worse when you can’t find the words to express yourself. Or maybe you do have the words, but you’re not sure how to voice how shockingly your world has been turned upside down when the other half of the involved party looks this cool about it. You are starting to feel like you’re making a big deal out of nothing – but you know it’s not fucking nothing!

“It was… amazing?” Jimin finishes for you with raised eyebrows, looking more awake but still as unbothered, and that is absolutely not where you were going with your sentence. But he’s not done: “Fantastic? Uncannily good and possibly the best sex you’ve had in a while? ’Cause same.”

And now he’s grinning at you and you’re at a loss. Frowning furiously to hone your focus in when your head has started to ache, you shake your head and try again. “Ye–yeah, all – all of that, yes, but also something that shouldn’t have happened!”

Jimin’s eyes narrow at you. “Are you trying to tell me you regret it?”

“Yes! Obviously! You don’t?”

“Why would I?” He shrugs his shoulders and brushes a hand through his hair, not a single expression changing on his face. “It was really good, we used protection and—”

“Okay, stop!” You interrupt him with a wince, eyes screwed shut. “I cannot do this without coffee.”

—

"I—wow. Maybe I can't do this with a coffee either.” You have frozen at the entrance to your kitchen to gape at the sight of your best friend's shirtless back as he sears something in a pan on the stove. “Not without a whole fucking pot of it.”

At your declaration, Jimin turns his head to cock an eyebrow at you over a shoulder, and you shoot a curse at yourself in your head for the clench your insides give. He looks so good like this. It's so wrong and wholly unfair.

Because you have hung out with a shirtless Jimin plenty of times in your life. You’ve objectively admired his build, too, because one – it has been your duty as his best friend and regular wingwoman to give him reviews, and two – for a female that likes men, you’d have to have been a saint to not admire his beautiful body, like, come on.

But never have you ever had such a visceral reaction to the sight. This is what you get for getting to know all those solid muscles up close and personal and freaking tasting his skin, you’ve been so fucking stupid, good God—

"Please put on a shirt, man," you sigh, attempting to avert your eyes but failing.

Jimin, the absolute dick, rolls his eyes at your request. And then just snorts at you and turns back to the stove, as if he finds the suggestion hilarious. As if you're not seconds away from throwing yourself at him and damaging your friendship more than it has been damaged so far. 

Why is he acting so normal? You’re starting to hate your best friend.

After your conversation had been halted in the bedroom, you left the bed to wash your face and throw on a fresh hoodie because you did not wanna wear the one that’s been sitting on your living room floor all night, not when it reminds you of where and how Jimin ate you out. Dear God. You also stole some coffee from the pot while Jimin washed his face. After which you tossed him out to brush your teeth because your mouth tasted like ass, and assumed he'd use the time to dress up because he had to leave soon.

You did not expect the very domestic sight of him cooking – let alone the very erotic version of it that his state of undress depicts.

And now you're experiencing a meltdown because the man's back muscles are visibly rippling with his motions. The slight bruises you've caused by running your nails across them shine a brilliant red against the taut, golden skin. Taunting you. Reminding you of how you lost your goddamn mind, last night.

You feel embarrassed. But you also feel horny.

Which makes you feel doubly embarrassed.

The guy stays completely unbothered, though, humming to himself and fiddling with the damn omelet he's making that smells too fucking good and makes your stomach rumble.

Why is he making your life so difficult, in every single way?

Sighing, you collect all remnants of your willpower, sanity and self-respect, to turn away and stomp your way back to your bedroom. Grabbing a hoodie from your closet, you stomp your way back to the kitchen, this time stepping in and bravely walking up to your best friend, and press the article of clothing into his back.

"Min. Please just put some clothes on and let me have a full cup of coffee. Please."

This time Jimin fully turns to face you with amusement in his eyes and concealed laughter on his lips if the way he's got them pursed is anything to go by. You resolutely do not look beyond his face, instead turning your gaze to the tamagoyaki this man has expertly whipped up in the time it took for you to brush your teeth.

"This looks so good, how'd you make it?"

Jimin steps away with a laugh, finally accepting the hoodie from you to throw it on. "You had an appropriate pan and nice, bamboo chopsticks. That's all it takes."

That is not all it takes, but you're gonna stop arguing because the three sips of coffee that you could stomach with your unbrushed mouth have been exhausted by this interaction and you need more fuel to go on.

So you and Jimin find yourselves on your kitchen island with the Japanese omelet, a pot of coffee and your respective mugs, quietly eating, sipping and holding a staring contest.

Because now that he's appropriately covered, all the reasons why last night was a horrific idea have made their way back to you. You feel like this is the last time you're sitting and eating together, and it's becoming increasingly hard to stomach the impossibly delicious omelet Jimin has prepared.

He is the one to eventually break the stare, giggling at you when you glare at him over the rim of your mug. “Stop looking so mad, babe. So maybe last night shouldn’t have happened, but at least it was good, yeah?”

“How can you be so fucking happy and calm when I’m literally going through an existential crisis, right now?”

Amusement in his curved eyebrows, Jimin hums as he takes a sip from his cup. “Ever heard of post-orgasmic afterglow?”

“For fuck’s sake, Min!” Throwing your head back, you release a groan. “We really got drunk and put our friendship on the line! We – we swore we’d never do anything to jeopardize our bond and then we have sex like some stupid horny teenagers? Last night should not have happened, Jimin!”

That makes him clear his throat and stop laughing. And then, with the most straight face ever, he asks you: “Okay, but at least the sex was good, right?”

You are fucking dumbfounded. “The sex—”

“Was it or wasn’t it? You haven’t said a word about the quality of the sex and I’m starting to get worried…”

“Jesus Christ, yes, it was fucking bomb, but—”

“Well, then that's one win!” He claps his hand together, stepping off his seat to walk up to you and put both his palms on your shoulders. “Now that we are past that, rest assured that this won’t affect our friendship. I promise.”

“You can’t promise that—”

“I can and I am. I’ve known you since we were, like, twelve.”

“I hated you when we were twelve,” you remind him with a pout.

He laughs at that. “Yeah, but you also had a crush on me when we were thirteen, so explain that, huh?”

Despite the events of last night, his mention of your past crush on him still manages to make your cheeks heat up. Doesn’t help that he looks like this when he’s talking about it, all soft in the huge hoodie you basically forced him, a sweet smile pulling his lips up and eyes sparkling.

“We are way beyond ruining our friendship, trust me,” he tells you again, jostling you by your shoulders. “And honestly, this doesn’t have to affect anything if we don’t let it. So we have great sexual chemistry. Honestly, are you really that surprised?”

You’re really not because your brain has been going wild ever since his birthday party, but what the hell does he mean by that?

At your wide eyes, he throws his head back in a laughter.

“Hasn’t it always been like that between us?”

“Like what?” You feel so fucking clueless, you’re half afraid Jimin’s about to call you out on your confession of your fantasizing and you’re bracing yourself for the embarrassment.

“We get on each other’s nerves all the time, but we also love each other. Those sorts of things tend to build sexual tension, dude,” he explains as if he's telling you about a scientific experiment, and you shove his hands off of you with a scowl.

“You didn’t just talk about our supposed sexual tension and then call me dude in the same sentence, weirdo.”

He’s laughing now, eyes disappearing in a squint as his cheeks push up into them, and the sight is too endearing for you to not smile in adoration. “My point was,” he finally concludes, “that we can make it work. It doesn’t have to happen again, we don’t even have to ever talk about it.”

You like the sound of that. Humming, you take a sip from your coffee and nod. “That sounds like something I'd like to do. Can we put this in the past forever?”

“Yes, we can.” Jimin nods, giving you a thumbs-up before he raises his eyebrows. “I mean, I can’t promise I won’t make jokes about some stuff, because, boy do you have the weirdest erogenous zones. The way you went crazy when I bit into your shoulder? I mean who—”

“Hey, shut the fuck up! I have normal erogenous zones!” You seamlessly slip into the banter, pointing a finger at him. “It’s you that has an ass fetish. You exploded at the sight of my ass!”

A loud gasp leaves him and Jimin places a hand on his chest. “Are you trying to kink shame me?”

“You started it!”

“But you made it worse.” Jimin sighs, dramatically pinching the bridge of his nose. “You know what? You were right. Sleeping with your best friend is a bad idea, and this is why. You already know each other inside out, the only thing you’re unaware of is each other’s sexual lunacy. Now we’ve broken that barrier, we’re absolutely gonna kill each other.”

You’re barely able to keep your face straight after that, breaking into loud laughter. Because he isn’t wrong. You know for a fact you have never had that reaction to being bitten on the shoulder, obviously. Not that you can even recall someone’s teeth being there. But with Jimin, it was just something about him that did the trick. 

His joke alleviates the pressure that this realization could bear down on your chest, though, and that feels a lot freeing.

Maybe this can be okay. Maybe you can move forward without a wall of awkwardness rising between you two.

You will move on with your lives and treat last night as something that came your way – and then passed. Kind of like your crushes on each other during your teenage years. It helped that they never really coincided, but it also had to have helped that you never gave them enough importance to even discuss what you had felt, at the time.

Maybe you shouldn’t be giving this as much importance, either.

It’s you and Jimin! Homies! Bros for life, remember?

Yes, you absolutely do.

So you lean in to hug the guy. “This cannot change anything, okay? Please.”

“It won’t if we don’t let it, you crazy woman.” He laughs but loops his arms around you to tug you closer. “And I don't intend to let that happen.”

You don’t either.

You don’t.

You really don’t.

But…being this close to him is giving you flashbacks to being this close to him when you were naked, and that is making you feel hella hypocritical. Maybe this is just your version of an afterglow; maybe your brain's still high on serotonin. You’ll get over it after this heady rush of last night's multiple orgasms has left. 

Clearing your throat, you separate from him with a tight smile – only to come face to face with a blooming purple and red mark at the base of his throat.

“Fuck, I left a mark!”

Jimin tries to follow your gaze with a cocked eyebrow, but when he can’t, you place a finger against the spot, smudging it as if you’re trying to wipe lipstick off. Which Jimin snorts at, “Yeah, that’s not gonna erase a hickey, ma'am.”

Jimin’s snickering is met by your groan, and you push a finger into his chest. “Please cover that up before you leave for your trip. And keep it covered? You’ve packed turtlenecks, right? You’re obsessed with them!”

Laughter trickles through Jimin, nostrils flared because he has his lips folded in to hold it in. “Why? I could just tell them my girlfriend gave them to me as a parting gift. No one'll question me, anyways.” 

“Dude, you’re going with Tara! And I had a very long conversation with Avni, and—” You break off, unsure about divulging the details of that conversation. “And she…knows we’re just friends.”

“Oh, yeah. Tara. She, um, she’s not the type to ask questions, you know?”

Now that he’s kinda awkwardly looking away and stumbling with his sentence again, you’re reminded of the way he’d stuttered about Tara's name on the phone as well. From what you know, the girl has a husband. Why is your best friend being so suspicious about her?

“But I could always say someone else did this.”

Now wait just a second. Why does that make you wanna scowl?

What kind of teenager shit is this? ‘I worked on this hickey, don’t give someone else the credit?’

God, you need an aspirin.

His dick game really has you hovering in a limbo. But to be fair, it hasn’t even been a whole twelve hours ever since you got into it.

This is definitely gonna take you some time to get over.

Good thing Jimin’s leaving for the next few days, then.

“Do whatever, just – I don’t wanna hear your secretary telling any more of your clients about your girlfriend visiting your office, okay?”

He blinks at you, lips pouted in mock innocence. “Even if it's not you?”

“What? No! Our pact still holds!”

“What if you and Seokjin hit it off tonight, though?”

Seok—

Holy shit, you forgot about Seokjin!

What the fuck is wrong with you? You have a maybe-can-be-probably date with a guy and you literally slept with someone else the night before? It’s obviously worse that it was your best friend, but even so. How did you not even remember about the date? 

Wow, you hoe. This is a new low.

And damn, you and Jimin never ended up having that discussion about your ability to recognize your feelings, after all.

Well. After the events of last night, you don’t think you’ll be needing that conversation, after all. It’s bad enough that you had sex with someone other than the guy you’re going to dinner with, the least you can do is respect both the men enough to not make it a date.

Even as the narrative plays out in your head, you know you’re mostly making excuses. And maybe that should be enough to tell you how desperately your subconscious does not wanna get back into the aspects of romance.

If only the people around you (read: Park Meddling Jimin) could understand as much.

“I really don’t think that’s happening, Min,” you simply state in response, deciding to keep all of your thoughts to yourself for once. 

And Jimin, for once, takes it simply enough, nodding with a small smile. “Well. I still hope you have a good time with him.” He checks his phone, and then gathers you in a quick side hug. “It’s close to ten, I gotta run. See you some time next week?”

You nod. “But stay in touch, okay?”

“Of course! And you too – keep me updated about how things go!” When you scowl, he laughs. “Even if you stay friends, grumpkin.”

“Stop trying to make that happen, it’s not gonna happen!” You push at him and he rolls his eyes with a giggle.

“Sure, Regina George.”

Waving at him, you laugh as Jimin quickly stuffs his last night’s rolled up clothes in a backpack he’s borrowing from you and grabs his glasses from the clutter on your coffee table.

“Have a safe flight, Gretchen!”

“Shut up! Will text you after I land!”

“You do that, Min!”

And then he’s slipping out of the door, dousing your apartment in silence. 

Your eyes casually move toward the coffee table that you will have to clean up, and accidentally land on the couch. 

Fuck.

There’s an immediate throb between your legs when your gaze scans the area where you… well, made out with Jimin and had him basically devour you.

Fuck, indeed.

Jimin was very correct. Last night was some of the best sex you’ve had in a while.

In a really long while.

It’s gonna you take longer than a few days to get over it. How Jimin was able to get back to normal so easily is beyond you. 

But then again – maybe he was putting up a front because he knew he’d be leaving for two days and will be able to get your mind off of last night.

Damn, he’ll be back in just two days? Shit, that doesn’t feel like a nearly big enough time period all of a sudden.

Especially right now when you’re cleaning up your coffee table with your throat dry and your panties wet. You’ll never be able to have him over because every time he sits on this couch, you’ll be reminded of last night.

Fuck, maybe you can never even talk to him normally because every time you look at his lips, you won’t even have to imagine what they can do to you because you now know what they can do to you. 

How the hell are you gonna face him in two days?

You're broken out of your thoughts by the ping of a message on your phone.

10:17 AM | Text Message from Seokjin (office) Hey, we never discussed how we're meeting! Would you like me to pick you up?

You suck in a sharp breath. Seokjin. The date.

Right.

This does not feel right, good God.

A grimace on your face, you type in your response, asking the guy to meet you at the restaurant. You are not showing him your place, just yet. Or at all. And you do not wish to be in another guy’s car when the smell of your best friend’s cologne mixed with the musk of his cum is still stuck to your fucking lungs.

For a brief moment, you wonder if you should cancel the date. 

But then you recall the conversation you had with Jimin less than half an hour ago.

This cannot change anything, okay? Please.

It won’t if we don’t let it, you crazy woman. And I don't intend to let that happen. 

You don’t intend to let that happen, either, which is what stops you from canceling the date.

Besides, maybe hanging out with a guy you’ve been admiring and flirting with might actually help? Now that you’ve established that last night’s activities have to be water under the bridge, there’s nothing wrong with attempting to find a distraction to help you cross that bridge, right?

Jimin, for one, seems to want you to do that really bad. 

A weird feeling tugs at your stomach when you recall his insistence on you working things out romantically with Seokjin. But because you already have a huge pile of dogshit on your plate to deal with, you refuse to think further about the pang and instead attempt to focus on the outfit you will be wearing.

You end up wearing a knee length, a-line dress with no sleeves – the right amount of pretty, hot and available, without being too much. It’s a deep navy in color, but no surprise there because ninety percent of your closet comprises dark shades of blues.

On your short drive to the Korean BBQ place you are to meet up with Seokjin at, you blast The Weeknd at full volume and enjoy a solo karaoke of Starboy. When you get there, you drop a text to your date and receive an immediate reply telling you the location of the table he’s sat on.

He’s here before you which would leave you no time to compose yourself before you face the guy. Good thing you were a mother-effing starboy in the car, five minutes ago.

Inhaling deeply and then exhaling, you exit your car and elegantly walk up to the cute entrance to the restaurant. The place’s ambience kinda surprises you because it looks a lot upscale than the usual KBBQ places you’re used to frequenting. Gold and white aesthetics surround you, not ideal for a place which deals in smoking food, but the level of cleanliness that the decor still manages to maintain has you humming in appreciation. 

But then again, you shouldn't be surprised – Kim Seokjin eludes lavishness. 

Speaking of, you’re able to spot the man the moment you step foot into the place. And, admittedly, his crisp suit jacket and combed back hair make you space out so hard, you miss the doorman’s whole greeting. Seokjin immediately catches your eye, too, curling his plump lips into that smirk he flashes at people when he knows he’s got them under his spell.

Well. He’s not wrong, there.

Walking up to him – only after bowing at the doorman, because mama didn’t raise a mannerless bitch – you smile at his sweet gesture of pulling a chair out for you. Even the chimney above your table has intricate carvings on it, looking like something out of a royal kitchen.

When he’s finally seated back in his place across from you and has allowed his smirk to bloom into a full smile, you nod your head in polite greeting. “You look good today.”

Seokjin waves a hand of perfectly manicured nails and delicate rings in front of his face. “Oh, please. I look good everyday.”

Uh…

Did you mishear him? The place is buzzing but it’s not that loud. 

But given the serene smile on his face, he doesn’t look like he just made a joke. Yeah, you must have misheard him.

“You look absolutely gorgeous.”

Wow, the pace at which heat fills your cheeks is so embarrassing. Jimin would never let you live it down if he knew, especially given what all you managed to get up to without any blushing business, last—

Okay, what the fuck?

You hope Seokjin doesn’t notice the momentary panicked widening of your eyes. 

Did you really just almost think about the one event in your life that you’re supposed to forget about? Granted, it happened less than 24 hours ago – but you’re on a date. With another guy. And he just complimented you.

At this point, you should really be ashamed of yourself.

“Th–thank you, hehe.”

Did you just stutter? And fake-giggle?

Good God, you’re going to cry. This isn’t the afterglow the world promised you.

Thankfully, Seokjin jumps to discussing food straight away without attempting any small talk. And he’s pretty enthusiastic about it, too – asking for all his favorite side dishes and then encouraging you to add on yours to the order as well.

“Do you, um, come here often?” It takes you a while to frame that question but as soon as it is out of your mouth, you immediately realize that it can sound like you’re asking him if he’s been on other dates here. Often.

Your social skills are on an all time low tonight, God help you…

But Seokjin, thankfully, doesn’t think that far and simply nods. “Oh, yes. I know the manager, so I’ve been coming here since they opened a year ago.”

Ah, so he’s somewhat of a social butterfly.

Immediately, your brain wants to switch to thinking of another social butterfly in your life and make unnecessary comparisons – but you stop that line of thought before it can take form, by smiling wide at Seokjin. He’s so fucking handsome and you’re honestly just wasting it.

“That’s nice! Does he offer you discounts?” Your sense of humor might be broken, but at least this embarrassment stays on the surface and doesn’t make you wanna hide beneath the table.

Chuckling at your question, Seokjin leans over the table and gestures for you to lean closer as well – which you do. “The dude’s actually my brother in law, so fat chance, I’d say.”

You laugh a little louder than necessary on the joke, partially giggling out of relief that your lame ass joke didn’t get rejected.

He might not get discounts, but the service for your table definitely seems to be a little faster and more full of smiles than it is for the other patrons. Well. You're not complaining.

Seokjin smiles and nods at your server as well, respectfully tucking his hands in his lap to allow the guy enough room to set your table. After the server leaves, Seokjin is quick to set arrange the meat on the furnace – hands moving expertly as he twists and turns the strips around according to the level of cooking each portion requires.

He is a gentleman to the tee, cutting the meat up for you and everything, but is also careful about boundaries because he forwards his chopstick to your plate and not your mouth. Although you're sure your dumbass would have opened your mouth to accept the bite if he would’ve offered, too, without realizing the implications of letting your date feed you.

"Good?"

You hold back a moan when the soft and tender meat melts in your mouth, instead choosing to cover your lips daintily with a hand and nod at Seokjin with wide eyes. A comment about you being pronographic with food from a certain someone crosses your mind, and you resist the urge to sob out loud because you need to stop thinking about last night. 

"So good," you manage to murmur back, giving Seokjin a thumbs up with your chopstick hand.

He grins at you before taking a bite himself, and – oh, man. He certainly doesn't hold back on the moans. You're barely able to contain your reaction when the man suddenly throws his head back and releases a deep groan that travels through your body in vibrations.

There's no way to stop your brain from bursting out a whole NSFW scenario, now, that features you on your knees between the man's legs, swallowing his dick as if it's your last meal on earth. 

Damn. Man’s never even mentioned if he even has any romantic intentions with this whole thing or if he’s just treating you because he felt bad for you missing out on the group outing yesterday – and here you are, being obscene about him enjoying his food. How very pathetic of you.

It gets worse, though, because Seokjin suddenly opens his eyes and meets your gaze that you know for a fact has gotten all heavy lidded and dark. Evidenced by the way his eyebrows slowly rise up and tongue flicks out to lick away the remnants of grease from his bottom lip.

"It is good," he murmurs, winking at you.

Yeah no, he's definitely got at least flirtatious intentions. A little flustered, you clear your throat and look away from him, picking up a slice of pickled radish to distract yourself. 

"So…" Seokjin begins and then pauses, causing your gaze to connect with his again because he isn't the type to really hesitate. 

But there's a slight dusting of pink on his cheekbones right now that could very well be a result of the heat from the grill – but the undertones of grimace behind his smile suggest to you that it's not. Oh dear. Is he nervous?

"Just so we are on the same page… I'd been planning to do this for a while now."

A… while? He's not about to profess his undying love, is he? Your back straightens in alarm, but you force your lips to form a grin. "Ask me on a… date?"

He shrugs a shoulder, tilting his head. "Not necessarily a date, no. Just spending time with you one-on-one."

Oh, thank fuck.

"I know it's not just me that feels like this pull between us, right?"

Yep, it's not just him. Although you won't exactly call it a pull. It's a tap, at best. Or even a touchless beckoning? You weren't lying when you said you only objectively admire his good looks.

But you're not about to tell him that.

Smiling at him, you nod. "We're on the same page, then. It's not just you. But… why didn't you?"

"Why didn't I what?"

"Ask to do this earlier?"

And you do genuinely wonder. Because now, too, he's almost tricked you into this instead of being forthright with it. You're, like, seventy-eight percent sure you'd have rejected him if he mentioned the word date, but he doesn't know that. Or does he?

Your eyes narrow slightly as Seokjin gives a self-conscious cough of laughter, hand behind his neck. "Well, I wasn't really sure you were… y'know, available?"

Now hold on a second – that's bullshit. You've never made it a secret that you've been as single as they come, ever since you joined this company three years back. Well, you've also made it known that you aren't exactly available either, but what are the odds of Seokjin completely missing the first half and yet catching onto the second one? 

Unless you mixed it up and made it seem that you are unavailable because you had somebody? Oops.

"What do you mean?" you ask him with a light chuckle, leaning towards the table as he reduces the heat on the grill. 

He rolls his eyes, looking at you with a small smile that feels a tad condescending; as if he's about to go, ‘oh, you poor child,’ on you. "That friend of yours? He began to come around a lot, picking you up after work every other day and stuff. I assumed you'd started seeing someone. We all did.”

“Jimin…?” you mumble in surprise because you'd been so eager to spend every minute of your free time with him when you moved to town that you never paused to consider how it looked. "No, we're just friends! He's my best friend, and we're close. But there's nothing there."

Oh no. Why are you talking about him? You were supposed to not even think of the guy – why did you begin to discuss him?

Well now it's too late, because the can of worms has been opened. Now your thoughts are cascading on themselves like a glitching Windows XP screen. 

Your brain's been sent into an obscene overdrive – as if you’d been holding the gates shut to all these images with your back pressed against them and now they’ve been pushed open by this huge wave that flattens you to the ground and engulfs you in itself. And suddenly, you’re reliving it – his hot exhale against your neck, fingers gripping at your hips, tongue flicking over your nipple, teeth digging your flesh.

Best friend? Right. 

Sweat is trailing down your neck and your gaze is stuck unseeingly in your plate full of food that Seokjin has deposited there for your consumption.

Seokjin.

Fuck.

You’re on a fucking date – with another guy.

What the fuck are you doing?

"So yeah,” escapes you in a broken imitation of a chuckle when Seokjin nods, while you try to suppress the slight tremble in your hand when you wave it before your face to emphasize words. “He's just a friend.”

Who gave you the best pounding of your life, but that’s the fine print no one likes to read.

“Yes, yes, I’ve gathered as much now.” Seokjin’s smile is so wholesome, you feel like you’re violating his aura by breathing the same air as him when your mind's so pathetically filthy. “So… about that same page conversation – what do you expect out of this? A casual hangout? Friendship? Something…more?"

Wow, so this guy is actually a pretty cool guy if you look beyond the narcissism, the overenthusiasm and the noseyness. Quite a list to look beyond, but you do reckon him to at least be friendship material with the thoughtfulness his question displays.

The question, though. What do you expect?

Exhaling, you lean back in your seat and squint into space to think about it. You can’t exactly tell him that you're not the least bit emotionally invested in this and would have just tried to get into his pants if it wasn’t for your best friend’s insistence. But number one: you can’t exactly lie to him because that’d be blatantly leading him on and potentially hurting him; number two: he didn't really present you with an option fitting for this.

You need to find a middle ground. 

Because for wholly selfish reasons that you shouldn’t even be involving Seokjin in, you need his company. You need him as a friend, as a potential bed-mate if he's interested. You need him as someone you can spend time with so as to not spend all of it with the one person who's had your brain in a blender since last night. But friendzoning him isn't the way to go, so you're gonna need a second, third, fourth date – whatever number it takes for you to heal the chemical explosion in your head and be a normal human again.

So you need to find a middle ground.

Which just so happens to be you smirking right back at the guy and giving a carefree shrug. "How about a casual hangout with the potential of a friendship with the side of… something else?"

Seokjin bites down on his bottom lip before he smiles again giving you that knowing, tad condescending smirking pull of his lips. Leaning closer to mimic your position, he raises a tentative finger and traces the back of your hand with it, gaze dark but playful. "Sounds fun."

You turn your hand over to allow his fingers to trace the soft, more sensitive skin of your palm instead, grinning at him. "I am fun."

Snorting, he withdraws himself and nods at you. "And funny. I like it."

The compliment makes you grin wider, even though his standards of 'funny' are sure to be questionable with the kind of jokes you've seen him make and laugh at.

The two of you lapse into a comfortable, companionable silence after that, focus shifted to the food. A few words about the quality of the meat and the level of cooking are tossed here and there. Seokjin is definitely a food lover and definitely knows more about cooking than your average guy. He eventually tells you he used to be a good blogger in his early twenties, which you find kind of cute.

You still don't know what he actually does for a living now, however, and the question must be obvious in your squinted gaze when you're cleaning your hands with a wet wipe because kimchi juices cannot be managed by sheer tissue paper.

"I guess it's time I told you," he begins, getting up with you as the two of you prepare to leave.

You raise an eyebrow. "Tell me what?"

"About my profession."

At the reception, you're preparing to put up a fight to split the bill, when Seokjin simply asks the cashier to put this on my tab, grabs some breath mints, and walks away. Following him with a dumbfounded stare, not before popping a breath mint in your own mouth, you see the way the doorman grins at the guy before bowing and you briefly wonder exactly how often he must come here to be able to bhule up this amount of familiarity. And a whole tab.

Your question is hilariously answered the next moment, when Seokjin walks up to your car and leans against it with a smile, pointing at the building with a raise of his eyebrows.

"I own this place."

"What?" You gape at him in pure confusion. "You… the restaurant? But you… you said…"

"My brother in law's the manager, yes, but this restaurant is mine. Actually, there's a chain of these around the country and a few abroad. We started out five years ago, but… business has kinda flourished recently. You don't frequent KBBQ places often, I see."

Okay, wow. Handsome, flirty and rich? Forget being friends, this dude is total Sugar Daddy material! That, and this also explains his knowledge of food and all the free time he's always got on his hands. "Ah… that's really amazing!"

"It kinda is, if I do say so myself."

Overlooking the narcissism, you hum and move to stand next to the guy, your back against your car, arms brushing his. Despite all his red flags, Seokjin is awfully good at picking up clues, you'd give that to him. Because with a slow twist of his heeled shoes, he moves to hover above you, arms extended and hands braced on the door of your vehicle next to your shoulders.

His breath washes over your face, minty but warm, and his dark eyes pull you in. "This was fun."

You attempt to smirk at him, but your lips tremor for some unknown reason. Not to mention the weird weight that pulls at your stomach at his proximity. 

You try to goad yourself into reacting. A horny grab of his coat lapels would be better than staring at him with wide, borderline scared eyes.

What the fuck is wrong with you, you absolute idiot? Where's that imagery of getting on your knees for him now? Remember the horny rush you felt when he moaned after taking a bite of his food?

But nothing works, your throat swallowing your nerves repeatedly and yet failing to clear all of them out of you. 

Seokjin looks visibly confused at your lack of reaction, but still smiles at you for a moment and brings a hand in to cup the side of your face in his warm palm.

Alarm bells blare loud and shrill in your head, your skin tingling at the contact with his and not in a good way. 

The weight in your stomach expands upwards, pressing onto your chest, and the warm breaths on your face suddenly feel not so pleasant anymore. 

Or rather, they don't feel right.

The smell of Seokjin's woodsy cologne, his height towering over you, the calluses in his palm – everything feels wrong. 

It should be citrus, you should be tilting your head at a different angle, the calluses should be on the fingertips.

It should be Jimin.

Fuck.

You're fucked.

"I… I'm sorry, Seokjin, I.m. I don't think I can do this."

Eyes wide and almost horrified, he immediately jumps away from you with both his palms raised up. "Woah woah, did I overstep? I'm so sorry! Shit, I should've asked for your permission before stepping so close—"

"No, no, it's not you! You were reading the signs and you were reading them right." You reassure him, trying to regulate your breathing now that you finally can breathe properly. "I was into it, I swear! I mean… I thought I was into it. But I…" You sigh, placing a hand over your forehead to give an embarrassed shake of your head. "I'm sorry."

"Hey, please don't apologize." Seokjin shakes his head tenderly, looking at you with a frown that spells concern as well as confusion. But then he grins at you, clearly trying to make a joke out of the situation to ease you down. "There will always be more opportunities to make out, my lips aren't going anywhere!"

Oh… But you don't think there will be. You don't want there to be. 

He reads something on your face and slowly raises his eyebrows. "Or maybe not?"

You give a weary sigh, shutting your eyes and slumping against the silver of your car. "I really really don't wanna lead you on, Jin. You're an amazing guy, and… I'd really love to have a friend in you. But I don't think I'm in the right mindspace to invest into anything further than that."

And it is so weird to confess something that has been true for years – except now, it's in a wholly different context. You have steered clear of emotional entanglements for so long because of the way things went south with your ex. That hasn't stopped you from pursuing physical intimacy, however.

But right now, you're stepping away from the latter as well. 

You can feel your brain shutting down on your emotions, refusing to let you assess what you feel, least of all why you feel it. But you most certainly were craving your best friend when another guy was just about to kiss you – so you are most certainly, very royally fucked to a huge degree.

When you finally meet Seokjin's gaze again, trying to avoid your thoughts, he's looking at you with a small smile. It is an extended version of the condescending one you've seen him wear multiple times tonight, except this one seems more sweet than tainting.

"Can I ask you something?"

You blink at the unexpected question. "You just did," you lamely mumble, cringing at your own self. "Sorry. Yes, please, go ahead.

He laughs and tilts his head to the side. "Is Jimin really just a friend to you?"

Eyes widening in surprise, you're at a loss of words at the suddenness of the question. It's not an unfamiliar one – far from it. In your entire existence as Jimin's best friend, you've encountered it more times than you can count; as best friends usually do, before they laugh it off and call each other gross.

But, strangely enough, facing it this time brings out an emotion that is far from humor. It, in fact, takes you back to that time in college when you were all nineteen and you'd freshly revealed about your past crush on Jimin during some game amongst your group of friends. Wheein, Jeongyeon and Seungcheol, the three other friends that completed your group of five, then took it upon themselves to tease the two of you at every chance they got. 

You claimed your crush was old and you'd gotten over it – and yet butterflies filled your tummy every time Jimin flirtatiously wiggled his eyebrows at you at their insistence. You didn't even go to the same college, man used to make you lose braincells over video calls!

Those similar butterflies occupy the cavity beneath your diaphragm now too, as you stay blinking at Seokjin, taking way too long to answer. Which gives away the answer in itself.

Giving you a hum, long and deep, he rolls back on his heels and nods. "I see."

"What? No!" You suddenly jump up to defend yourself. "I… We're just in a… weird phase right now." That's one way to put it, you guess. "B–but we're friends. Just friends. The best of friends."

"Are you sure it's me that you're trying to convince?"

You bite your tongue at the laughter in his voice. Are you really trying to lie to yourself?

Do you really have a crush on your best friend…again?

 Seokjin gives a pat to your shoulder. "Don't worry about it, okay? I can't say I didn't have an inkling. Hell, we've all seen the two of you act impossibly couple-y around each other. Even if you were just friends in the beginning, it was bound to evolve into something more given how you looked at each other."

Okay, enough. That's… too much.

It was one thing when it was just Jimin’s colleagues that thought the two of you acted couple-y because he'd never bothered to correct them. It's a whole other when it’s your colleagues too because you've always brushed off their suspicions, without fail. 

This is getting out of your hands.

"I'll be taking my leave, okay? Drive safe and let me know when you've reached home." Seokjin smiles again when you meet his gaze. "No hard feelings, okay? I'll see on Monday."

You hope you'd be able to face him on Monday without breaking into tears of humiliation.

Sighing, you wave goodbye to Seokjin and, unlocking your car, get into it. Placing both hands on the steering wheel, you rest your forehead against their back, exhaling roughly.

This is all so confusing, you almost want to cry. Or call up Jeongyeon and complain about your confusing state of mind to her. But you're a terrible friend who doesn't keep in touch with people regularly so the last time you talked to the girl would have been on her birthday. Almost a year ago. It's coming up again next month, in fact. So nope, no messages.

With a grimace, you extract your phone to check the time – just as a message pings on it.

07:41 PM | Text Message from Min 🌟 <image_2839.jpg>

Great. Just what you need. More of him to absolutely obliterate any semblance of sanity you could have clung onto.

Heart almost beating out of your chest, you click on the message with embarrassingly shaky fingers. A picture of him awaits you – a dramatic selfie where his face is resting against a pillow with his eyes shut and lips pouted. The accompanying text spells out 'tired' in small letters, followed by multiple ellipses because one couldn't have made the point clearly enough for him.

Your heart has no business thumping like it us at the sight of his shiny mouth, and your face definitely deserves to be sued for heating up like a fucking toaster. You could earn a tortilla on your cheeks.

Oh God. 

You do have a crush on him again. Holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuck.

What the fuck have you done?

On your way back, your whole head was such a mess that you almost turned into the wrong lane. You'd planned a Marvel movie marathon to get your mind off everything and fall asleep in front of the TV – so that you can wake up on Sunday afternoon with Chris Evans’ ass in his tight Cap’n America spandex on your mind.

But as you go through your nightly routine of brushing and showering, you realize that watching TV is out of the question because you cannot stay in your living room without reliving the way you were eaten out, here. And touching yourself to the thought of the guy you don't wanna think about will be sort of counterproductive.

So you decide to pull out your laptop and snuggle in your bed, resolutely turning towards the window in your room to avoid looking at the place where you knelt before Jimin. But that makes you face the picture of the two of you that you keep on your nightstand like a sap, and you release a tired groan.

"Why the fuck are you everywhere?" you lament into your empty room which doesn't feel nearly empty enough with all the traces of your best friend around it.

For the first time in your life, you're beginning to wonder if you've woven Jimin too intricately in your life than a best friend should be.

Good God. A spandex clad ass won’t be enough, you’ll need Chris Evans to get naked for you to be able to deal with this shit. Fuck it, you're watching Not Another Teen Movie.

It's 2 am, you’ve gone through four movies, and yet haven’t been able to gather enough sanity to text your best friend back.

He probably thinks you’re riding Seokjin’s dick by now. Which you would have been, had it not been for this uncalled for, absolutely unwelcome, highly inconvenient and horrendously intense attraction you’re feeling for him instead.

What is worse, it’s accompanied by telltale signs of a crush. What a nightmare to bear.

It all sounds like you’re being extra, but you’re actually just afraid.

The truth is – you're terrified of feelings; of getting too attached to somebody. And not just because you've seen how it can make people dependable, symbiotic to the point of being parasitic, the way they did your ex. But also because they change people in even more, even scarier ways.

Especially friends.

The moment that line is crossed from friendship to romance, everything is changed. At the risk of sounding morbid, you'd like to claim that everything is essentially ruined. 

You've seen it happen to the closest of friends. The mask comes off, and everything that a person was as a friend – completely disappears as they assume the role of a partner. It never makes sense to you why this happens. 

But your biggest fear in life is that it may happen to you. That it may happen with Jimin. You'd realized it when you were 19, so you'd crushed all the giddy feelings in you and moved on with your life as Jimin’s best friend. 

And it worked out great, didn’t it? For eight whole years?

Fuck, what if fizzles out now, though?

“Fuck fuck fuck,” you muter to yourself, covering your face with both your palms.

You really don't wanna say it because it makes you feel like shit, especially given how normal Jimin was this morning, but… had you known getting physically close to him would lead to you getting so lost in your head, you would never have kissed Jimin. You would never have let that conversation with Avni play with your head for so long, in the first place.

Because all that has led you here, to this – leaving him on read and ignoring his face time calls. Poor guy probably just wants to know how your date went.

Well. Maybe you’ll answer him tomorrow.

Maybe you’ll be brave enough to confidently lie your way out of it. Maybe you'll be saner, more composed?

Tomorrow. You promise your self you'll be better tomorrow.

“Tomorrow.”

© jimilter | 2023

[horsetailcurlers2]

addison montgomery fanfiction recs by pairing

(although i am *relatively* new to the greys fandom, once i finished season three i immediately obsessively scoured the internet for any addison montgomery centric fanfiction i could get my hands on. here are just a few of my favorite ones for each of my addison ships (of which there are many). this is by no means an exhaustive list. my qualifications for this are that i’m cool and have good taste and spend way too much time thinking about fictional people)

ADDEK:

-“The Climbing Way” by winter machine (this is actually probably one of my favorite fanfictions of all time, period. this author is just absolutely brilliant at capturing their dynamic and all of its complexities. the entire thing is actually from derek’s POV which i was surprised how much i enjoyed considering i can sometimes be a derek hater lol but it provides some really good insight into his character without being as forgiving as canon or as bash-y as some fics (if that makes any sort of sense?). it also combines two of my favorite addek tropes: “sad baby backstory” and “traumatic event forces them to actually confront their issues”. it is also a very captivating portrait of derek and mark’s realtionship and has lots and lots of flashbacks. big angst warning especially for the early chapters.)

-“Some Bright Morning” by winter machine (i just can’t get enough of this author. i love any addek fic that heavily features savvy and weiss bc i think they should have made more appearances in canon. or savvy should’ve at least lmao. weiss was kind of a dick. but i like him in this fic! this is a very very interesting AU because it takes place largely outiside of canon settings and features a lot of OCs. it also takes place around early season one so the mark wound is still very fresh. its set entirely on a small island in georgia during savvy’s mother’s funeral so there’s plenty of forced proximity and bed sharing. the original setting and cast of characters are really fleshed out and completely captivating. like, i would read a whole separate story just about this island and its inhabitants. also features lots of background on savvy and addison’s friendship. and plenty of angst of course. you may be sending a pattern with these recommendations)

-“do you think i have forgotten (about you)” by crime_wives (this one legitimately made me sob. like, my body produced actual tears. angsty one shot. not happy-addek. a perfect snapshot of their tragic ending)

- “Unhinged (AddisonandDerekandMark)” by RulerOfAllThatIsEvilChiFlowers (very dark. very twisty. somewhat non linear.)

- “This Hurt Can Teach Us Both” by darlingwrecks (oh my lord this one is so so addek- bittersweet, sexy, nostalgic, painful and delightful all at once. my favorite thing about this writer is the way they write backstory, especially for the Med School Trio. this is also kind of fun because we never got to see how these two dealt with their post divorce logistics. derek was just kind of like “take all the property and fuck off” which is not at all how these things work lol)

MEDDISON:

- “lately she’s undressing for revenge” by emilyprentits (only read this if you want to be driven to tear your own hair out by the emotions this will make you feel. this is one of the fics that fully convinced me to ship meddison. so so so good and it’s like it was written from inside of meredith’s actual brain)

-“i’ll show you every version of yourself tonight” by withpeopleinperson (two words: stripper addison. read it. be forewarned it’s only one chapter and has not been updated in a few years but it’s a GREAT chapter regardless)

-“the seven stages of intoxication” by theprincessdiarist (meredith grey doling out meredith grey levels of emotional dysfunction. featuring loads and loads of delightfully frustrating mutual pining)

-“Sex and Caring in Seattle” by Bluefall (meredith once again having totally normal and regular feeling about her ex boyfriend’s wife. i love this one because they are both just kind of bisexual disasters and derek is just Also There. i love the way this author perfectly captures meredith’s perpetual inability to navigate her own emotions)

*EDIT: i also realized i forgot to add that these last two were recommended to me by @crime-wives !!!

-“open the floodgates up” by SugarsweetRomantic (this has EVERYTHING you could want in a meddison fic: mutual hurt/comfort, bed sharing, friends to lovers, these two being absolute dumbasses about each other. had me crying and also kicking my feet. genuinely)

MADDISON:

-“Make This Go On Forever” by darlingwrecks (i am so in love with this universe. i usually don’t gravitate toward kid/family centric fics but this one is so so much more than that. it’s maddison, if those two had made a real go of things, stayed in new york, and kept the pregnancy. there’s even some background merder eventually (which is not usually my jam but i like in this context). very very fluffy at times, a bit angsty at others, super in character but iirc i think this was written pretty early on in the show so addison and mark’s backgrounds may be a smidge different than in canon. this is the link to the rewritten version (i think?) on ao3. the author had the original up on live journal back in the day and i could have SWORN i read a sequel that i found a link to in the depths of their LJ but i cannot find it anywhere rn)

-“When I Grow Up” by winter machine (another maddison-if-they’d-stayed-in-new-york-and-addison-kept-the-pregnancy, but with a twist that brings them to seattle to see derek, who they haven’t spoken to in seven years. a fantastic plot but also sort of just a brilliant exploration of how mark and addison would be as parents given their own childhoods and how they have pretty much been cut off from the one healthy(ish) family dynamic that either of them have experienced. there’s also background merder in this one and it actually kind of made me like merder which is a major feat)

-“Celery” by winter machine (a fun little one shot featuring Derek Being An Idiot, Drunk Addison, and Mark Crossing Boundaries. a little bit sad and a little bit funny. again, everything by this author is just great)

JADDISON:

- “A Certain Slant of Light” by darlingwrecks (this is for those of us that were weirded out by addison’s convo with amelia in season 18. a more fleshed out exploration of addison’s mental health during the pandemic. it’s a very raw and honest portrayal of depression and anxiety and how someone like addison would navigate it while being a doctor in a global pandemic and raising an 8 year old. it’s not nearly as bleak as it sounds though. lots of fluff, a little smut. also touches on how addison might’ve grieved mark and derek. and archer makes some appearances which i loved (i know he’s an asshole but i really like addison’s brother lol))

-“Diamonds in the Sky” by Ziaaaaa_sdc (there’s so few jaddison fics out there, probably because of how compressed their relationship timeline was as they tried to wrap up the show, but this writer has several and they’re all so good. there definitely aren’t enough fun AUs for them so i was really excited when i first found this. its Ballet School Jaddison and there’s actually only three chapters atm. no idea if it will be updated ever again but it’s still more than worth a read. a smidge angsty so far. also seems to be setting up a little enemies to lovers arc)

CADDISON:

-“Help Me (With The Butterflies)” by BlackRoseMatron (a very sweet one shot. this author is single-handedly keeping the caddison shippers fed and i love it. they also have some really great meddison stuff)

[ladydeath-vanserra]

it's really frustrating to be held for something i said well over 5 years ago from someone that has me blocked in the first place to the point posts im making *now* are getting tone policed by a third party. granted, it was something out of line and ableist and thoughtless towards papa archeron and its absolutely fair to be mad about it!! I completely understand and I wouldn't be caught dead saying something like that now as I have done a lot of self educating and growing and reflecting

but what makes it so frustrating is I make a post about being frustrated about Feyre not painting Nesta, but still painting their father. I believe I said something about him being useless and believe it or not, he *was* useless and it had absolutely nothing to do with him being disabled. He was a useless parent long before then. He neglected and abandoned Nesta well before he was hurt or they lost their wealth and the moment they got it back he was miraculously healed up enough to go right back to ignoring his daughters and traversing the world

his character is so hollow and flat that there's very little for me, personally, to find sympathetic. *He* lost their wealth and their fortune and in doing so he lost money to debt collectors. it's absolutely horrific that Feyre was made to bare witness to that and beg for them to stop hurting him. I identify so much with Feyre in that regard. That still does not remove the fact it was his own actions that led to that in the first place. if he got beaten within an inch of his life for losing that much money who the hell was he WORKING with in the first place (we don't know bec SJM is a shitty writer)

He is directly responsible for their loss of wealth and I am not personally holding him responsible for the last of it being used to partially heal his leg. however he IS still responsible for the loss of it in the FIRST place. his disability is a result of poor financial decisions and ofc there is no excuse to be ableist towards him for it

quite frankly he's written so poorly that there's nothing I personally can latch onto to give him much benefit of the doubt. I'm still going to hold him more responsible for not trying to find SOME WAY to take care of his daughters. NESTA reached out to relatives, FEYRE stepped up to hunt for them and he... makes wood carvings that don't even sell

Nesta being more vilified for the cabin years compared to their father, who is directly responsible for the loss of their wealth, has made me heartless towards him

he was useless before they lost their wealth and he was useless well after. He was, quite frankly, a deadbeat father, who threw Nesta to the wolves (his wife and her mother), who favored Feyre and Elain over her time and time again and I'm sorry but me saying he's useless is exactly what he was

he's a useless parent who let his children be neglected and/or further abused by his wife. maybe if SJM wrote him better, with more nuance, actually building on the dynamics between his wife and himself, instead of saying he was afraid of NESTA, a fourteen year old girl, I might have a different opinion but right now he doesn't have a whole lot of sympathy from me considering my own history with my disabled, terminally ill mother doing her best and killing herself taking care of us while also in an abusive, violent marriage

SJM didn't write it well enough for me to offer any kind of grace bec quite frankly, I am also really, really sick of father figure characters getting off the hook while the female characters are burned at the stake for being flawed and/or unperfect caretakers, which, to be clear, Nesta WAS NOT in the first place

[hvnlygrl]

angst quotes.

“how many times do i have to tell you? never go there alone.” 

“hell is empty, and all the devils are here.” 

“you never should’ve brought that into our home, can’t you see that it’s cursed?” 

“believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see.” 

“this wasn’t here before, was it?” 

“even the devil was an angel once.”

“don’t. you’ll regret it if you go in there.” 

“nothing truly ever dies.” 

“you do not have to be good.” 

“did you hear that?” 

“we’re gonna die, aren’t we?” 

“it’s not funny, cut it out!” - “that wasn’t me.” 

“whatever you do, do not say his/her/its name.” 

“don’t say it, don’t think it, right?” 

“there’s rules in hell?” 

“don’t look in the mirror, no matter what you hear.” 

“i can never go home.” 

“you’re dead. i watched you die.” 

“if we stay here we’ll die.” - “we’ll die either way!”

“am i dead?” - “i’m afraid so.”

“am i safe here?” - “i’d never let anything hurt you.”

“are you okay?”

“calm down.” - “calm down?! you died.”

“do you hate me?”

“Don't you pity me.”

“don’t be afraid.”

“don’t be scared, i’m right here.”

“don’t cry.”

“don’t do this, don’t go.” - “i don’t have a choice.”

“don’t leave yet.”

“don’t lie to me.”

“don’t you dare say it.”

“Get it over with”

“Go through me.”

“Go! I’ll just slow you down.”

“here’s your medication.”

“hey, talk to me, what’s going on?”

“hold still, i don’t wanna hurt you.”

“i can tell you’re lying.”

“i can’t be alone right now.”

“i can’t do this on my own.”

“i can’t live without them.” - “you have to.”

“i hate you.” - “it won’t last forever.”

“I know you’re in there somewhere.”

“i love you.” - “i wish you didn’t.”

“i made a mistake, alright?!”

“i need help.”

“I never got to say goodbye.”

“i said i’m fine!”

“I should’ve tried harder”

“i trusted you.” - “and that’s on you.”

“i won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

“is that blood?” - “it’s not my blood.”

“is that-” - “you don’t wanna see them like that.”

“it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It’s my fault.”

“it’s okay to cry.”

“it’s over. we lost.”

“I’ll punish them for your failures.”

“I’m fine.”

“i’m in trouble.”

“i’m just trying to look out for you.”

“i’m not afraid of you anymore.”

“i’m not leaving.”

“i’m not okay.”

“i’m really worried about you.”

“just get the fuck out!”

“Just tell me why!” - “Bec se I’m in love with you!”

“let me see your scars.”

“no one’s perfect.”

“nothing is wrong with you.”

“please don’t do this.”

“Please don’t leave me here.”

“Put the gun down and step away.”

“Take me instead.”

“Take my hand!”

“tell me what’s wrong.”

“that was always the plan, wasn’t it?”

“They will come for me.”

“They’re using me to get to you.”

“This is for your own good.”

“this isn’t goodbye.”

“we need to talk.”

“We quite literally ran into each other.”

“What have I done?”

“what’s on your mind?”

“when was the last time you even slept?”

“who hurt you?”

“why won’t you kill me?” - “you don’t deserve to die.”

“woah, why are you crying?”

“You clean up nicely.”

“you look like hell.” - “feel like it, too.”

“you mean too much to me.”

“you need to breathe, okay?”

“you need to come with me.”

“you promised me.” - “promises are made to be broken.”

“You shouldn’t be here.” - “I had to be sure you were okay.”

“you son of a bitch.” - “nice to see you too.”

“you tricked me.”

“you’re a terrible liar.”

“you’re in danger.”

“you’re quieter than usual.”

-> back to blog guide.

[widefuturesss]

This may be too personal. But I resonate a lot with the ways u speak on sex and sexual liberation and the complex feelings around oppressive dynamics in attraction… I can’t rmr but u said smth on this in a voice note u posted awhile back. I was wondering if u have practices for staying in relation to that complexity without just … being completely abstinent. I am ok to be abstinent for as long as it takes for me to find my way back, if I ever do, but I’m also anxious that I’ll never find my way into reconnection. I haven’t had sex for years bec I don’t know if I can ever re enter any situation like that

Chai dear. It's always so aligned, these interactions. I feel u. I've been rlly pondering upon abstinence... I feel i been chasing my physical and emotional wants. i call them wants because dey dont rlly feel like needs, especially when my wants stay gettin me hurt. But then again, I been goin thru trial and error, tryin to muster the courage to claim self agency.. Been self assessing alot, re-evaluating my self-defence mechanisms, tryin 2 identify patterns, jus tryin tryin. And sometimes i question how far i've rlly come... But then a part of me feels that i need to want, i need wants to learn what i need. Mannn I hope 2 learn within my yearning. I think my yearning knows pleasure is possible. i think its highly mental 4 me, i'm developing my yes n no's, tryna kno what i like and dont like, bein wiser and more protective, more alert (though dis has built fears within me... fears of even more violence perpetrated against me on d premise of my refusal and demands.. but I'm prayin 4 protection and bravery). i dey ask my intuition more questions also, dey let me kno and i try to trust dis guidance.... Some love, some pain, sometime once made me feel good (Attached d pdf as a link). i pray 4 imaginative desires beyond ones rooted in our fears, i pray 4 beautiful pleasure in ur mind and body, i pray 4 great feats in ur trial and error, i pray u l(y)earn

[survivalistghost]

top 10 kdrama bromances to feed your empty heart

if you scroll through my page, you can already guess number 1.

#10 - our beloved summer : choi ung and kim ji ung

beautiful beautiful men choi woo shik and kim sung cheol played ung bros for life in this beautiful beautiful drama. one of the best handled love triangles ive seen. they were there for each other through thick and thin, and helped each other through sm. best. on the tenth spot because they could've expanded on it more :(

#9 - what's wrong with secretary kim? : lee young joon and park yoo sik

i could never make it through the series. i left it behind on ep9/10 i think, and primarily because i physically cannot digest how emotionless park min young is. BUT, kudos to the hilarious office best bromance by the great park seo joon and kang ki young. ps - why is kang ki young the pankaj tripathi of korean dramas?

#8 - strong girl do bong soon : ahn min hyuk and in gook du

can we ever forget the legendary wink? or the dream where min hyuk is dressed as a woman? i think not. this was more of a frenemy type bromance, united by their love for bong soon and ironically divided by it, too. i refuse to acknowledge this as a love triangle tho. bong soon was astronomical in not hurting gook du and i will not take any criticism. is it a bromance if one of them is pretending to be gay? (and no, we will not discuss any sort of iTs pRoBLeMaTiC debates here.)

#7 - tale of the nine tailed : lee yeon and koo shin ju

don't come at me with the lee rang comments. rang was his half brother, related by blood. their relationship was top tier, but the stay at home husband yeon and working husband shin ju was too cute to not be classified as a bromance. in the beginning, i saw their relationship as shin ju serving yeon, a dynamic that they both seemed to embody. but as the show progresses, yeon baby we know you love shin ju just as much :*

#6 - alchemy of souls : jang uk and seo yul

song joon ki seems to have an attachment to bromances. han seo had the best character arc of the ENTIRE kdrama universe fight me. that court scene where vincenzo pats han seo's cheek was max bro cuteness. still not over his death. he deserved better.

#5 - vincenzo : vincenzo cassano and jang han seo

even though i didn't very much like the show's first couple, bromance delivered well. hospital scene peaked, complete true beauty sameness. it was pretty hard to understand who was the superior officer in this tbh initially, since their comraderie was so cool, shi jin was kid to soldier in a split second. loved how they chose not to unnecessarily exaggerate the love triangle initially bec i was only rooting for the second couple.

#4 - descendants of the sun : yoo shi jin and seo dae young

business proposal was the first kdrama i saw. i finished it in a three day trip, and i remember thinking more about the bromance than the romance. i was NOT used to the clumsiness of kdramas in general, like wattpad fics incarnated. the bromance delivered well, made me root for the second couple, and was the only initial indicator of kang tae moo being human instead of archaeopteryx. that word was a nightmare to spell.

#3 - business proposal : kang tae moo and cha sung hoon

the most wolfstar bromance if I ever saw one. and NO, i do not ship wolfstar just like i do not ship these two. they are totally adorable, and specially since their personalities seemed to switch from when they were children. yeong turned all serious face and lee gon got fun. love their years of friendship sm, their wordless communication and yeong in general. the acting was amazing.

#2 - the king - eternal monarch : lee gon and jo yeong

#1 - guardian - the lonely and great god : kim shin aka goblin and wang yeo aka grim reaper

yes, i know I'm missing a lot of iconic ones. unfortunately, i haven't seen alot of kdramas and have left alot in bw (like true beauty bec i couldn't see second lead hurt).

spring onion slays ^

told ya, if u follow me u already knew what the first one was gonna be. being the simp i am for the goblin and grim reaper, these two achieved the max points for their bromance. that slow dynamic of goblin calling reaper's hat tacky to fighting with knives to that iconic 'saranghae' to 'HOW DARE YOU' to goblin boiling eggs with his powers while reaper chills the beer. they know each other so well. love love love them and you should too 🔪

in my heart, the trio of our boys beats nothing (except for the gookdu-minhyuk relationship of the crown prince and uk). but instead of choosing the frenemy thing, i decided to love yul and uk more. yul was such a quiet character, with incredible potential in him for me to hate him, but then...(the guy is literally too sweet and beautiful and nice i can ramble for days). and uk, man, our power baby who loves every version of our beautiful but slow girl, needed so much emotional support. uk and yul were not afraid to show their affection for each other, a trait i admired in all the three boys (jang uk, seo yul and park dang gu).

[dreaming-of-lu]

am v fatigued rn so sorry if this is incomprehensible but im wizard anon from your other blog and i wanna say i appreciate you 👍 i dont write stuff that other people would be interested in consistently enough for me to ever keep up with my own writing sideblog (tho i do have one) so being able to pop in and submit stuff whenever i do manage to make something others might like has been great. worse at interacting with this blog bec i didnt know it existed for a while and am very tired and often forget to reach out when i think about it... but i do like your stuff 🤲 interacting with others on social media is just hard for me for some reason???? not used to reaching out and talking to others online i forget i can do that.

maybe if i get free time from my other writing stuff ill work up the courage to write some whump or something and submit it here, i know my fave things to write are niche or will get repetitive but if other people genuinely like/want lu x reader stuff centred around queerness, disability and hurt/comfort then i might get the itch for it.

apologies if this doesn't make sense. feel free to dm me (i think you know my actual blog) if you ever wanna discuss ideas/brainstorm/chat/etc. ill try to post little thoughts here more often if i get them, and engage more. i get why its discouraging i feel the same with my own stuff but i know im not abled enough to be as consistent as i want to, both in making and replying, so i usually try to put it out my mind. a thing me and my friend does is when we read each other's fics we go back and screenshot/copy paste specific sections we liked especially and add commentary or just point it out as a Good Bit, ill try to do that with more fics here and on tumblr in general i think, and i encourage others to do the same, as someone who puts Themes and Motifs into all their fics. i want people to notice them or let me talk about them lol

anyway. youre cool. remember that 🪄✨

- wizard anon

🧙 anon! Hemlooo! So glad to see you here too! It's completely valid for ya. Social media is a bit harder to interact cause well, you don't see the person's face and you're talking to a complete faceless stranger. It's definitely a bit more daunting and also gathering the will to think of words without scaring/nerving the person off. Either way, sometimes you just gotta be brave and take the leap.

The thoughts?

I will be waiting for your tasty treats as always eue

[selamat-linting]

last night, a little homestuck before bed and :

-i dont think i can maintain the facade of composure or coherence anymore. this is five seconds before john find several people brutally slaughtered, including his own dad, and he himself get stabbed to death. look at him! look at how silly this child is. my zillyhoo son, its unfair theyre piling up all this shit to you.

-i get why rose went grimdark tbh. things are pretty bad out there. it fucks me up that she's like, taking over the suicide mission. and how awful it is that she'd gone off the deep end that she looked at her parents dead body and only think of killing. something i noticed between the two light players is that theyre always burdening themselves with the hard, difficult tasks alone even though the team wanted it to be done as a group effort. its commendable but not always a good thing.

-its pretty funny that the kids with shitty guardians' have a wildly contrasting reactions to their dead parents like

dave, at the beginning of story : my bro is the coolest guy ever

dave now : huh. he's dead. okay. time to use the sword lodged in his chest as a trampoline! sweet loot. i love not getting knifed in my apartment

rose, at the beginning of the story : my loathsome mother and her penchant for the devil's drink!!!!!

rose, now : i should've looked out for her *activates rage mode*

i mean, i suppose thats appropriate but. you know how it is. poor kids, they've been through a lot. did they even have a warm meal lately? also i think bro is kinda handsome and i understand his fascination with puppets. i too, read a tentacle dick spamton fic as a lark and becomes genuinely intrigued with it.

-i am in love, in love! with the format of clicking to a collage of pictures. There was just so much Shit going on and the banner have doc scratch home being burned down and snowman making out after smoking a bloodied pipe. and then jade hunting frogs with dave. it would have been adorable to see these kids finally meeting each other for the first time if the world wasnt going to do a hard reset.

-fuck it. an AU. kids being kids. no sburb no tragedy. theyre just online friends. jade's grandpa is alive, he took jade into civilization often so she's not undersocialized and knows how to function if she wants to live a normal life. and as a birthday gift he took all of her friends to the island as a surprise for her 13th birthday. they spend the day catching frogs and playing paintball. and then at night, rose and jade urge everyone to try lucid dreaming. none of them made it because theyre all too busy making fun of john's movie selection. dave is beatboxing over squiddles music. and then right in the middle of their playing, a ship crash landed to the island. it was the trolls.

-uhhghgghghhh i need to see. an animatic. of jade and dave's fight. with bec noir. look at all the moves theyre making it would have been one hell of a fight and we were robbed of a proper flash with boisterous music! space time vs omnipotence lets fucking go!

-speaking of vriska, wow she really is giving her all in these pages. her last stand with jack. the enemy she took part in creating. she knew she was going to die and done her best asking out literally everyone alive. and the best/worst thing is, everyone accepts. terezi literally came to her with all the rp outfit they used to do. and, i know i should be shocked but im just laughing at karkat showing up late with the sloppy makeout note. And she gave the cutest most adorable date proposal to john like, ugh its cute teenage puppy love! yes, i think they'd go well together. I dunno, maybe its my kimharry enjoyer heart speaking, but i think characters who'd done terrible violence should be with someone who only met them after they strived to be someone better, or at least a blank slate. that way, they get a fresh start and can focus on improving instead of getting distracted with hurt feelings and old wounds. also i am not burdening terezi, aradia, tavros, and all of the kids she personally maimed with All of That tbh. unless they want to ofc.

-anyways, here is the updated vriska relationship chart

matesprit -> still, the poster of nicholas cage in con air, or karkat if youre so inclined to imagine a world where she makes out with karkat before fighting terezi. gross lol.

moirallegiance -> john, full stop. her relationship with terezi needs some peace time before coming back into pale redrom

kismesis -> terezi. im FROTHING at the mouth thinking at the tragedy of their relationship. this is some intergenerational trauma shit, some wicked codependency junk, like the cuno and his buddy C. its the real shit fa- (okay i should stop speaking like cuno before i embarras myself)

-also. WHY WAS IT A JUST DEATH! im hitting the clock im destroying it with jack. fuck you fuck you so much. Doc scratch fix the clock so it gives me what i want or i'll burn your house! asshole!

-im curious about the sprites. i hope they find a way to be relevant again. i've always think theyre awesome and has more info that could have been beneficial for the kids.

-all in all, i give this homestuck liveread and overall rating of what the fuck what the fuck ohhhhh ohhh my fucking godd imma read this again motherfucker

[kadajwifeyff7]

THE LATE GREAT POP MART MANIFESTO

Yes, the title sounds fucking insane but follow me on this.

So I’m guessing by now we all know about POPMART right? It’s become the new decentralized place to get all your dumb stupid trinkets.  all of the popular tick-tock trend hoppers are now hopping on the amazing new Labubu, or the other ones are also super expensive and low-key kind of made, but are cute working, and TikTok popular™️

No listen I do not have a problem with POPMART at all. Even I have bought some POPMART figurine not because I wanted to post them online but because I genuinely found them cute or they were part of my favorite franchises.

But I think I’m more mad at what day now represent to the mass market, which is the glamorization of overconsumption in our media, especially tick-tock, and Instagram, and all other short form platforms.

I believe this all started with the rise of sunny angels, and how companies were able to see that having dumb little trinkets that were cute while also being boring enough, but everyone could like it would make a big money. No I would never call Labubu boring or basic because I like them before they were popular. But I feel like there now just preaching to the choir if that’s the correct term. They aren’t using as many crazy ideas recently and I kind of using the same popular entities like Labubu to grow their brand. I believe there’s so much more actually opened the POPMART amusement park in China and it’s literally all just like labubu. Even though there are other, and sometimes even greater designs out there from different POPMART entities like pucky or crybaby or the smaller ones that aren’t as wide reaching and have not been in stock in sometime .

Labubu and POPMART, in general have really only become popular due to TikTok, and they need to be in a trend. Everybody when it’s sunny angels when it blew up and everyone wanted the boo-boos when it blew up and now it’s the other one turns. I can’t think of her name-skull panda! That’s the name. Everyone only collect them to seem popular and in trend. Which is also hurting the trinket community. How many times have you tried searching for your favorite figurine only to find out that it’s become “TikTok popular” and is now harder to find then the lost Ark? I literally have been trying to look for Sunny angels since like early 2021 and they are always sold out everywhere. Not because people like them but because they’re popular and owning them has become a bit of a status symbol in our society in which we are coming towards economic downfall. 

I have a personal favorite, which is the pucky roly-poly cat line. Sadly, this line its original parent line pucky, and the pucky fur roly poly line have said we become TikTok famous, of course it isn’t as bad as blah boo-boo or sunny angel but it’s become popular enough to where they are constantly sold out and I have yet to find them on places that will ship quicker than two weeks. Now I know what you’re saying, why not just buy them off of AliExpress the official store also is there!?, and while I will do that when I have the money to you also have to remember it takes up to two weeks to even ship! I love AliExpress, but I will only order something if I’m OK with the fact that it’s gonna be a little late.  I usually buy trinkets in figurines when I am either verysad or very happy and need a good pick me up. And I think that’s what trinkets should be for.  they should be for the average person having a bad day that needs a really good light in their life! Not be boring as fuck TikTok influencer, who just wants to seem popular to the now growing community of tick-tock trinket collectors 

THEM

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate TikTok. I actually use it all the time. It’s the best place for discovering or finding out more people who are interested in your special interest! I’m currently hyper fixated on the Infinity Nikki game and I have found a ton of beautiful guide and super cool people because of it! But that doesn’t stop the point that TikTok has a really bad overconsumption problem.

Whether it be make up, body scrub, or just trinkets, tick-tock, find something super niche, and not really popular in the main stream, and makes it popular! To the detriment of the original founders of said strange hobby. TikTok has ruined a lot of things for me personally. I am a big fan of the obscure Sanrio character marumofubiyori. TikTok found out about him and suddenly any and all types of March of him goes up to $200?! Mind you this character has been out of stock since at least late 2022. I can find Charmy kitty merch that cost less than that?! What character that haven’t been used since the 2010’s! One TikTok find something you love, they make it Uber popular, which while can be good for building a community can also break it by making whatever it is cost way more. This is what has happened to pop market and all other types of trinket collecting hobbies. Figurines that used to cost at most $10 now can go up to $100! Do you like Labubu? Tough shit pay me $1000 for this blue colored Labubu or get the fuck out. You like the power puff girls, and found out that crybaby had a collab with them? I literally had to go to a Reseller Kawaii store in my Little China, and this one figurine cost me almost $20?!  do you like monchhichi?? I literally paid $60 for a fucking doll hand puppet that I didn’t even know was a hand puppet?!  It’s included in my picture in the back, I basically had to stop it with cotton to turn into a plushie. It gets ridiculous, and it pushes out the people who bought these things for themselves in to make them selves. Happy to make room for people who buy it to make others happy and jealous.

It has gotten so bad that people are selling premade shrink it keychain and basket and buckets?! Like they are trinkets that somebody buys and then makes them look older or more retro and sold them at almost triple the price it cost to even make it?? And people actually buy this shit?? People spend like $20 on a makeshift trinket keychain that is commercialized and that 20 people they know probably has instead of doing what trinketer like me have always done, make our own!! Trinkets have always been the art of personalizing the unpersonalizable!! Creating your own happiness from the small objects that you are own. Tick-tock has completely ruined that by making everything commercialized and more savory for the average clout demon trendhopper! It honestly makes me feel the future of my favorite series, and if they will be scouted by resellers in the future…. 

My phone is going to die, so I’m going to end this manifesto here. I actually love ranting on Tumblr because it’s so therapeutic it’s like my own blog! I feel like a 2000s blogger Xx

 Anyways, if you truly care about something that cost almost no money, please gatekeep. Hot girls might not get keep but ugly crow bitches do. Be the ugly crow bitch. 

[tryhardgwen]

rs archive 10/26/2024:

hiii i just want to start this by saying that ur amazing kdjfsfhks already commented on ur fic 'all my love' but i want to yap more so here i am bothering u hahahaha when isay that that fic is my roman empire, i mean it. bec these are some of the things that suddenly crossed my mind regarding ur fic fkdjjhk

hyunjoon asking minhyung if he was sure about the promise ring and mentioning it in his best man speech, like oh my god. i know hyunjoon with his bleeding heart didn't mean it maliciously but wooje is stronger than me bec personally that shit would just kill me ksdjfhsk i would cry hahaha like damn, that was something AHAHAHAHHA that would keep me awake at night, i would have high-tailed it and never come back. screaming crying breaking down skfujhkd it was a shot straight to insecurities 😭

pls hyukkyu and sanghyeok is just <333 i love them, i will give them all my mortal possessions, i will jump in front of a bus for them. pls tell me they end up together forever happy ending period 😭 i know its not possible for everyone to just have a happy ending, bec that's really not how it goes, but plssssss tell meeee they end uppp happpyyy annddd not separateddd 😭😭😭

minhyung and minseok, i love them, go my children, be happy. so soulmate!! i cant believe gumakeria just invented love <333 butt i have a question since these two are so soulmate, did they have any instances where they got jealous of another person?? or are they literally a match made in heaven forged by god himself the angels are protecting them, that they are so secure in their relationship?? (did that make sense 😭)

ur just so awesome. if u have a fanclub, i am part of it, i will be the president hahaha like, people always say that to be a good writer 'show dont tell' and thats something that u got in the bad. like 10/10 everything is just so vivid and real!! anyy tips or advice to us fic writers who strive to be like uuuu?? hahaha

(sorry if this is too long kjfksdf)

hii!! sorry for the late response ;A; but omg thank you so much!! yes, you can yap to me anytime. i love yapping about my fics soo much and going on tangents. (roman empire is so flattering and too high praise thanK YOU???)

hyunjoon asking minhyung if he was sure about the promise ring is a fucking slap to the face HAHAHAHAH. but i think it correctly portrayed (wow "i think" as if im not the author) the confusing feelings and whatnot. like, at the time, wooje thought him and hyunjoon would be together forever. yet shown in homemade dynamite, even though he thought that he still wanted more and still wanted to leave. it was almost an acceptance but not quite what he wanted? wooje has always been envious of minhyung and minseok. hyunjoon didn't start until after he asked that and after minhyung answered. hyunjoon was going through a lot of ?? doubts at the time, because, typically dont people want more experience in romance? in the passage after, i also think its interesting because it shows that growing up everyone assumed hyunjoon was the flighty one and the one that was going to leave. wooje was the one that thought they would stay tgt forever, and hyunjoon wasnt sure. but the thing is in his mind, wooje also wanted to leave. hence why he did right? ppl were surprised bc.. well wooje doesnt tell people these things. as for woojes reaction to learning the information, hes stunned for a while. i think its a little ironic how he's hurt by it, in a way. like "what do you mean you didnt think we were going to be together forever?" when he was the one that ended up leaving. its almost selfish how he asks later--“Did you say those things to shame me?” as if it was about him. (it wasnt. sharing the story it was about minhyung + minseok and their dedication to each other, and hyunjoons envy). idk i think it was a very poignant moment i put in and im a little obsessed with it (im not narcissistic i swear im just intrigued by the things i write)

im not going to say a thing about sanghyeok and hyeokgyu. i do not want to get in trouble HAHAHAHHA . however, sanghyeok does have a spinoff in the drafts. this does not mean its coming out soon though because i have 18738234 wips.

minhyung and minseok are so sweet i finally freed gumakeria from the pain i give them in my other fics. when it comes to getting jealous of other people, nah. i dont think outright jealousy ever happened. maybe more of "spend more time with me?" from guma but not the insecurity and eating away feeling that jealousy gives. its definitely never from a place of insecurity.

as for tips and advice kajhahkr well you didnt ask advice on an indepth topic like description or dialogue so imma just skim over them all and say the stuff off the top of my head. theres the basics first. essentially, proper grammar and punctuation. every writer needs a good baseline. if you read my older fics, i struggled with this a bit--starting sentences with verbs (?? gwen why???) and having runons and such. after that its just a matter of figuring out what tone you want to convey and word choice. thesauruses are ur best friend if youre constantly looking for more specific descriptive words to use but make sure to define and make sentences if you dont know a word bcus u wanna learn it! that helps when it comes to description. sometimes when u get in the flow of a fic really fast its hard to do description so reading + rereading and adding more description as you read is a good tip! i do that a lot. figurative language is a broad field and it depends whether or not you like it but playing around with similes and metaphors can be fun! like you said, showing and not telling is important. when it comes to dialogue keep it simple and remember to properly format your dialogue..! its a big help with characterization; figuring out who would say what and who wouldnt is pretty important with that. keeping in mind characterization and dynamic between characters helps dialogue a lot too. i go back and forth in my head a lot when i write dialogue, and i also consider how i would respond as well or whats natural. as for characterization!! highlighting character motivations is important! what is their gOAL in the story, what do they want in the conversation. everything they say or do is trying to get what they want, whether its "to give up a secret" (minseok trying to talk to wooje about his college pre-reveal that he dropped out) or "to hang out."

um i spieled a lot im sorry. i too, am a yapper. but if u have any more specific questions feel free to shoot them here hehe. thank you THANK YOU for this <3 i had a lot of fun reading and respondng. i hope you have an amazing day <3

[thesecoldfeet]

i recently had a talk with my first ex. safe to say that we were good friends (at least on my end because after the ex-fiancée and i broke up, i found out that she still has feelings for me. and it's been 4 years already since we dated)

for context, there was a little betrayal on the friendship part during our time and we haven't talked for a long time. i've already forgiven her for my peace but she made sure that she will pay for all the heartaches she caused me by taking accountability and proving me that she's worth having a second chance - not at love, but in friendship. so there's that. we're civil, we're good. kaya kaya naming pag-usapan yung mga bagay na nangyari in the past because we were both healed. and i intend to keep it that way. :)

and our conversation went like this:

A: alam mo, alam ko namang mali ako during that time. and i'm not trying to defend myself but its just that sobrang daming nangyari sa buhay ko. alam mo yung feeling na for 2 years yung routine ko palagi kitang kasama tapos biglang gigising ka sa umaga na wala ka kasi malayo ka, tapos ang dami pang problema. but j, you also have to understand that it takes two to tango. you kept on telling me na wag ka isama sa mga pangarap ko kasi we don't know kung hanggang kelan tayo, eh ayoko nga ng ganon.

J: so are you saying na enough reason yon for you to find comfort sa ibang taong malapit sayo kesa makipagcommunicate sakin?

A: no. i'm saying lang na nung sinabi mo sakin before na if dumating yung time na ayaw sakin ng pamilya mo, specifically ng mga kapatid mo, iiwan mo ko. and i'm not taking that against you. alam ko lang kung gaano ka strong yung personality mo kaya nung sinabi mo yon, natakot ako. nag-isip ako.

J: yan kasi yung hirap sa inyo..

A: oh, bakit plural na naman? damay na naman ako jusko pinagbayaran ko na lahat yon ano pa ang gusto mo madam?

J: hindi man kita dinadamay but you see, yan kasi ang problema. sa lahat ng taong pinapahalagahan ko in all relationships. hindi naman ako superhero, hindi ko rin alam ang gagawin, wala akong solusyon sa lahat ng problema niyo but i don't understand why is it so hard for people to talk to me? was it really hard to say "j, i fucked up" o "hindi ko alam ang gagawin ko anak". i'm always the person who'll gladly take a bullet for you guys pero sa end nyo, i feel like ordinaryong tao lang ako palagi. na sorry j alam kong masasaktan ka pero kasi di ako okay kaya okay lang yan, masaktan ka nalang din kasi di ako magoopen up ever sorry ka nalang. its like putting an effort to me bec i know what i deserve but you're not interested to the idea of me putting effort to save you all sa shithole kung nasaan kayo. kahit hindi na nga lang save eh, kahit mapafeel ko man lang yung presence ko sa inyo. sa iba palagi hinahanap yung presence. tipong ako yung kasama sa journey pero kapag shit na yung nangyari, hindi na ako yung kailangan. how's that sound?

/end of convo/

surprisingly, this conversation is both satisfying and hurtful all at the same time. i realized that i don't want to be that girl anymore. i'm trying so hard to teach myself not to expect that the people i would gladly cross the oceans for, are not going to do the same thing for me. i never expected them to do the same thing anyway. when i love, i love hard because i'm always whole - i made sure that i am whole kaya i always know what i want before.

for my entire existence, i'm always the girl who shows up for people. making sure that they are enough, valued, and loved. and i am tired.

if hindi kaya ngayon, sana next life there will be people who'll show up for me. this is very exhausting.

[pop-punklouis]

hi hope! i just want to share something and ask for your input as well,, i dont want to ask my friends because i may get a biased response

anyway i had this really close friend to whom i shared everything. we were rlly close but since 2 years ago i started feeling like they werent rlly being a good friend. she would be late to hang outs, or leave early when were together bec she would meet w other ppl, or just cancel on me altogether. they also started dating this person who they admitted was somewhat the reason we started talking less (their partner was rlly weird about us talking a lot). we actually fought over this last year and ended up not talking for months. but we made up this year and yet they still kept doing the same thing. my hurt just turned to exhaustion. and honestly, i dont feel great when im around them anymore. i love them and care for them and i know they feel the same way for me in their own way, but i just feel like shit when i think of them bec i rmr those times they didnt show up for me. theyre planning on moving to new york by the end of this year and i initially wanted to make the most of our remaining time together but i dont think theyll show up if i plan anything anyway. im thinking of cutting them off, do you think this is valid given theyll be gone soon?

hi babe.

i've been in that situation more times than i'd like to admit because i am so loyal and forgiving in friendships. which can be a gift and a curse depending on the friendship.

as someone who tries to give my all and tries to not have any regrets when it comes to friendships potentially ending, i would try to communicate with this person about all these feelings you're still having. just be as open and raw as possible. and if she isn't receptive of it, or she doesn't want to put in the effort of keeping the friendship alive, then you can say you did all you could and its her loss.

but, ultimately, i haven't lived in your shoes during the duration of this friendship, so i can't tell you how to feel or what would be best for you, specifically. if you feel like it isn't worth it to reach back out and express all of this because of how it has been between you two, and if you feel like cutting them off is the best option, then do it.

listen to your gut about things like this, and know that you don' have to put up with anything that isn't serving you anymore just because you have history with this person.

i hope you find better friendships that don't make you feel like this, because it can be really damaging and exhausting. and you (we all) deserve better than that x