#but I've got ideas with this storyline so here's hoping I can take it somewhere

[susiequaz12]

Solomon and Lo- Marlowe the Immortal, Vampire AU

Part 3 of this installment of Sol and Lo's story. We left off here. Masterlist is here. CW: Vampire whumpee, manhandling, restraints, gagged, nonsexual nudity, defiant whumpee. Vampires are seen as animals by humans and are treated as such.

-

Solomon awoke to a pounding behind his eyes, and his muscles limp and aching. His forehead was pressed into rough wood beneath him, and he grunted as his body was jostled- his head bouncing up to thud back down. Trying to move his arms felt futile as he realized they had been bound behind his back. Looking up he could see two of the four men that had tackled him to the ground. 

Recollection came back slowly and he realized he was in the back of a wagon- being jostled along a road. He tried to speak- tried to ask any questions to figure out where he was going but there was a cloth tied around his mouth. 

He closed his eyes tight to try and block out the pain and eventually the wagon rolled to a stop. The men grabbed his ankles, dragging him out into the cold night air and forced him to stand. His body still felt shaky and limp and he staggered on his feet. Before Solomon could even get a good look at where they were, he was surrounded on all sides by Ivan’s men. One on either side gripped his arms, keeping him upright, while another led the group in front and another behind, shoving a rod in his back to keep him moving forward. 

What Sol could make out from his surroundings was a large house- made entirely of stone, and surrounded by thick forest on all sides. They were definitely far from the village. 

He was ushered inside through a large wooden door, and taken through several hallways into a large, open area. The walls were made of stone, chains bolted into them, cots lined along the floor. There were a few vampires, curled up, or bound in the chains, wearing the same pale clothes- with the same haunted look in their eyes- staring up at Solomon as he walked past. 

Ivan came to the front of the group, meeting Solomon’s eyes as they continued to walk through the house. 

“This is where you will stay. You will be assigned a cot, and a new set of clothes. However, these are privileges you must earn. Your comfort, your food, your dignity are things that are given to you because you deserve them. You must prove that with your behavior, understand?” 

Solomon stayed silent, refusing to even look at him, keeping his head held high. 

He was led into a near empty room, and brought to a wooden chair in the center. The men forced him to ;sit and before he could resist his bound arms were tied to the chair, and then his ankles as well. 

They untied the cloth from around his mouth and Sol felt the ache in his jaw already. 

“Don’t speak. You are to only speak unless spoken to.”

“Fuck you.” Solomon mumbled. There was a hand, sharp and quick against the side of his face and he groaned as the pounding in his head worsened. 

Ivan’s hand tangled in his hair, wrenching his head back as he leaned down to hiss in his ear. 

“That is one of the most simple rules we have. If you can’t even follow that one, you are going to have quite the time here.”

Solomon spat back in the man’s face, grinning as he staggered back, wiping it off his face with a handkerchief. Ivan shook his head and motioned to the other men, stepping back with a smirk on his face. 

There was a hand on top of his head, a glint of metal at the corner of his eye, and his hair was yanked. The man behind him gathered Solomon’s hair into one fistful, pulling it away with a harsh yank that made Sol hiss. 

“How much sir?” He asked. 

“All. Take all of it.”

“What- wait- no!” Sol cried, bucking away from the man’s grip. He thrashed in the chair but his head was wrenched back. “No- don’t you take my hair- don’t-“

His cries were useless as the shears cut away at the back of his head. In a few snips, his long dark locks had fallen to the floor- shorn off right at the nape of his neck. 

Ivan prowled around the chair, grabbing a handful of the thick hair. He held it up, examining it and dangled it in front of Sol’s face. His hair had previously fallen around his waist- the detached ends now trailing across his lap and spread across the floor. 

“Nothing belongs to you now.” He spat. “Every part of you, every single inch is for your owner. You are an item- a possession- an object designed and created for human use. Because you are a monster. The sooner you realize that, the easier your life will become.”

Solomon glared up at Ivan, tears welling in his eyes. 

“Fuck you.” He snarled again. “Fuck. You!”  

As he went to spit once more in the man’s face, the wad of hair was shoved in his mouth. Ivan clamped his hand down around Solomon’s jaw as the vampire bucked in the chair, pulling tight against his restraints. Ivan’s other hand locked around his throat as he did his best to hold the vampire still. 

Solomon continued to buck, the ropes digging into his wrists, the chair clattering against the floor. 

“Hold still.” Ivan commanded. “You don’t want him to shave off an ear on accident, now would you?” He held Sol’s head tight as the vampire struggled for breath and nodded to the man behind. “Continue. Like I said- take it all.”

Tears leaked out of Solomon’s eyes- and he did his best to hold still despite the lack of breath and his bubbling anger. He could feel the snip of the shears close to his skin- cutting his hair as short as possible, before the was a cold blade against his scalp- shearing off every inch of hair that was left. 

Ivan eased up his grip on Solomon’s throat and removed his hand from his mouth as they finished- leaving just a faint sheen of the dark hair against his scalp. 

Solomon spat out the wad of hair- staring at it where it fell on his lap. His hair had been so long- it had been literal decades since it was last cut. And now it was gone. Just like that. 

He hunched over in the chair, coughing and sputtering to get his breath back- his body trembled, lungs burning. 

He wanted to scream. 

He wanted to throw Ivan to the ground, sink his fangs into him, and tear him into pieces. He was the true monster. And if that’s what he thought Solomon was, that’s what he would become. 

The man behind him bent down to untie his wrists and ankles, leaving Solomon free of his bonds for a moment. 

“Stand, and strip.” Ivan commanded. 

Solomon pulled his hands forward, rubbing his wrists and shakily brought his hands to his head. He felt over the cool skin, his hands trembling as he brought them back to his lap, his hands clenched in fists.

“I’ll give you one more chance to obey on your own or we’ll do it for you. Stand, and remove your clothes.”

Solomon shakily stood from the chair, his legs trembling slightly. He held his head low on his chest, and then quickly turned back around, picking up the chair as he did so. 

In a swift move he swung the chair behind him to the other man, crashing it down over his head and shoulders. 

Solomon screamed- he cried out as the man crashed to the floor, and he threw himself on top of him. He pinned the man down- and was able to land a few good hits before the other guards rushed into the room. They pried Solomon away as he tried to lock his hands around the man’s throat- snarling and screaming as they did so. 

Ivan stood by the door, arms folded across his chest as the men threw the vampire to the floor. 

He watched as the creature pulled one of the men down with him, immediately rolling over to climb on top and start raining blows down to his face. It was three against one, yet the vampire was holding his own. One of the men held his baton against the vampire’s throat, pulling tightly from behind- yet the creature gripped the back of his shirt, throwing him over his head to crash to the ground. 

The vampire clambered off of the guard, making his way to his feet before heading straight for Ivan.

“Fuck you!” Solomon snarled. “I’m going to tear you into pieces!” He screamed. Before the vampire could reach him, one of the guards managed to get to his feet and swung a blow to the side of the creature’s head. It knocked Sol off of his feet and he went crashing to the ground once more in a heap of limbs. 

He snarled and spat- baring his fangs and thrashing against the ground as another blow from the batons crashed down to the other side of his head. Sol rolled over and spat out blood from where he had bit his cheek. He groaned as he clambered to his hands and knees but there was another blow to his back- and then another in between his shoulder blades. 

With a signal from Ivan, all three of the guards let loose onto the vampire. He collapsed onto his stomach as they beat him- crashing the rods down over his back, his legs, and ribs. 

Solomon screamed- crying out with desperate, angry sobs as he was brutally beaten. He spat blood from his mouth onto the cold stone ground below, his head spinning and body trembling until finally they stopped. 

“Strip it.” Ivan commanded. 

Solomon tried to pull himself up to his hands and knees, pulling his limbs underneath him- but it was useless as his limbs were grabbed and pulled away from the safety of his chest. 

One of the guards grabbed the thin tunic shirt he was wearing and pulled it up and over his chest. His trousers were grabbed next, pulled down over and off his hips, leaving him completely laid bare. 

Sol curled in on himself, desperate to shield his body from their prying eyes. He could sense their stares at the scars on his back, the brand at the bottom of his neck. 

He gasped as a bucket of cold water was dumped over him. He blinked the water away from his eyes, trembling and shivering as a second one came crashing down right over his head. 

Sol coughed and sputtered as it rushed up his nose and poured down his throat. 

“Stand up.” Came another command.

Solomon said nothing, gasping and writhing on the floor in pain.

“Don’t make me ask again.”

“Fuck off.” He spat. “You can’t make me do shit.” 

Ivan responded with a chuckle, and there was another blow to his back. Solomon winced, but made no inclination to move. 

“You’ll find very quickly that I can make you do whatever I want.” Ivan knelt down near Solomon, gripping a hand underneath his chin and turning his head sharply to hiss in the vampire’s ear. 

“If you refuse to listen, I’ll just have to pay your dear little human a visit. Who knows, maybe we can bring them here to join you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“You wouldn’t-” Sol whispered.

“We both know dear Marlowe isn’t as innocent as they seem.” He hissed. “A few nights spent locked up, a turn at the whipping post, I’m sure it wouldn’t take much to get them to admit everything between you was consensual. And then you’d never see them again.”

Ivan threw Solomon’s head back towards the ground as he stood up and backed away, waiting for the vampire to move. 

“Your choice.”

Solomon hung his head and spat a wad of blood onto the floor, pulling his arms underneath him before shakily rising to his feet. He stood, hands clenched in fists at his sides, head held high, avoiding Ivan’s gaze. 

“Now that’s a good vampire.” He chuckled as Solomon flinched, resisting the urge to lash out and tear Ivan apart. 

He slowly paced around the vampire, scanning every inch of his naked body. Ivan came a few inches shorter, yet held himself with an air of authority that led every other man in the room to defer to him without a second thought. 

Solomon flinched as Ivan’s hand brushed over the back of his neck, fingers grazing over the scar of his brand. The brand that showed the tribe he had dedicated himself to. The tribe that he abandoned, murdered one of his own- and left them all behind without a second thought. 

That brand was as much a part of him now as the dead locks of hair on the ground.

-

Tag List: @imagination1reality0 @thecyrulik @whumpsday @termsnconditions-apply @spectral-whumpy-writer @raddyscoops 

[morganski-19]

Ok, so I've done a little research and rewatches of the previous midseason finales, and I think I have a few ideas of where this could go.

Firstly, no NDE. If there is a NDE, which I still think is very possible this season, it's most likely going to occur after the mid-season break. I went back and looked at all of the episodes that have the big, most memorable NDEs from all the characters, and all of them are after the mid-season break or early at the beginning of the season. So, while I do think this foreshadowing is going somewhere, it's not going to happen next week.

So, where does that leave us?

We know a few things from the articles that were released this past week (I'll link the ones I'm talking about in case you want to read them yourselves). One, that loose ends are going to be tied up from the last 8 episodes. Two, that there is not going to be a big cliffhanger, but that one character will be hanging off a cliff. And three, that there is going to "Wait what now? What did you say? moment.

Those are really the big ones. There were a few other things like the actor who plays Brad saying that him and Eddie have a connecting moment in the next episode, which I think can play into one of the things I'm going to talk about.

And really, anything that I read in an article I take with a grain of salt. They can't tell us exactly what's going to happen, and also have misdirected multiple times in the past. Whether that be intentional or unintentional. However, there are some things in the above articles that I think have some truth.

In the previous midseason finales, a good majority of the storylines of the first half of the season were wrapped up. They played their part, and provided the characters a chance to move forward in the next half of the season.

Just some examples. In the s2 finale, Eddie reintroduced Shannon to Christopher, ending that particular conflict between them. In s3, Bobby got his test results from that radiation exposure, and Maddie confronts the memory of Doug again to let him go. In season 4, Eddie tells Chris about Ana, and Maddie and Chimney discuss birth plans. All of these things both close certain parts of their storylines, while open up continuation points for the second half.

Then, toward the end of the episode, there is something that acts as a cliffhanger to keep the audience entertained over the break. Most of the time, it is something that happens to a singular character, and isn't as large as a NDE or giant conflict.

Again, some more examples. In s2, Doug reappears pretending to be Jason Bailey. In s3, we find out that Michael has a brain tumor. In s4, Buck is reintroduced to Taylor and they decide to become friends. s5, Eddie leaves the 118. s6 Wendall is killed. And then in s7, even though a short break, Buck invites Tommy to the Madney wedding.

All things that compel the audience to continue watching, while also not being gigantic cliffhangers where the character's life is immediately in danger.

So, where does that leave us for s8?

There are only two main things that haven't been wrapped up, or really talked about, since the beginning of the season. Bathena's house, and Chris in Texas.

And one of these things has actually been discussed in an interview with Peter after episode 7, where he says that won't be discussed until after the hiatus. Or at least "he didn't know anything about it yet". Which yeah, that could be a misdirect. But I couldn't see that being the big thing that leaves someone hanging off a cliff. It's just too inconsequential and also involves two characters instead of one.

This leads me to the other unwrapped plot point, Christopher. Who has basically been MIA since the first episode, except for little nods here and there from Eddie. And honestly, that pisses me off. There has only been a little growth from Eddie while Chris was gone, something that was promised as an opportunity for Eddie to realize who he is.

It's safe to say that I really hope that Eddie is the one left on the cliff hanger next episode. I initially wanted Chris to be the one to initiate a phone call with Eddie, extending his side of the olive branch, but I'm not so sure that's the direction they're going in anymore.

Jumping away from that for a moment, I want to address that possible conversation between Brad and Eddie. Assuming that this scene doesn't get cut for time (which they have been doing with a few scenes talked about in episodes recently), I have a strong inkling that it could be about estranged kids. Brad mentioned having a bunch of ex-wives, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that he has a child with one of them. And given how he treated the waitress in the last episode, it would not surprise me if he treated the mother horribly, and also did not step up as a parent.

I think that route could be interesting for Eddie since it would maybe remind him of his father. And therefore, all the ways he tried to be better than his father. It could make him want to take a step forward, now that he is learning to not punish himself for this, and try to reconnect with Chris again.

Which I think will lead to the hanging off the cliff moment, as well as the "wait what" moment.

I don't think Eddie's going to be able to connect with Chris, but his mother. And his mother is going to say that Chris wants to stay with them a little longer, further continuing her path of keeping Chris away from Eddie.

And then in a perfect world, Eddie gets his ass on a plane to talk to his son face-to-face because he can't trust his mother to be the main method of communication. But who the fuck knows if that is actually going to happen.

They've also, from what I've heard, finished filming ep 9. Which probably doesn't mean a lot, but it makes me think that some scenes in ep 9 might need to be filmed with how they look in ep 8 for continuity reasons. Or maybe it was just a contract thing, idk. Again, probably meaningless but that is weird.

[50calmadeuce]

Ch. 9: Jake and The Hard Deck

Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the Top Gun: Maverick world, trademarked by Paramount Pictures Corporation. I do not claim ownership of the characters and the world that I am borrowing.

The story and situation I am creating are a work of my imagination and I do not ascribe them to official story canon. This work is for entertainment only and is not a part of the storyline.

I also do not own the rights or copyrights of 'Mandolin Rain' by Bruce Hornsby and the Range or 'Second Chance' by 38 Special. I just happen to really like these songs.

I am not profiting financially from the creation and publication of this story, but I do hope it gives you happy thoughts.

These stories are my own, so please do not take them and use them for yourself without my permission. If you see them somewhere else, please let me know. :)

Jake sat on the couch in his apartment, gazing out of the window.

"Bro, you've got to get out. You're starting to drive me crazy," his best friend Javy 'Coyote' Machado urged. "I've never seen you come home this upset before."

Jake turned to look at him. "Have I ever mentioned Y/N to you?"

Coyote pondered for a moment. "I think I recall. High school sweetheart, right? The reason you've been steering clear of relationships since."

"Yeah, she's the one," Jake admitted, taking a moment to gather himself. "And that's also why I've been feeling this need to prove myself, to show her I'm the best for her."

Coyote perched on the armrest of the couch. "I had no idea it ran that deep."

Jake met his gaze. "I saw her."

"Wait, seriously? She was home?"

"Her mom passed away. I had no clue until her brother asked me to help bring in cattle one of the days."

"Damn. I'm really sorry to hear that."

"We shared a kiss."

Coyote's eyes widened. "That's something, man!"

"Before I found out she's engaged."

"Ouch!"

Jake's gaze fell downward. "Yeah."

Coyote sprang up, playfully smacking Jake's arm. "Come on, let's get out of here. Shoot some pool, throw some darts. Anything to take your mind off it.:

Jake met his eyes. "True and I need to clear my head."

"Good. Now go and get dressed."

You entered The Hard Deck around 8 p.m. The place was alive with pilots and women, a mix of those in Navy uniforms and others in civilian attire.

You had phoned ahead, speaking with the owner to inquire about the presence of a jukebox and specifically if they had the song 'Mandolin Rain'. The woman on the other end was pleasant and regretfully informed you they didn't have your song, but assured you she could arrange it. You took the opportunity to share a bit about yourself and the plan to surprise Jake. It didn't surprise you that she was acquainted with him, though she was taken aback to learn about his past relationship. You mentioned that you would introduce yourself when you arrived.

As you scanned the room, your gaze settled on Jake at the pool table, dressed in a khaki uniform like the others around him. He was poised to take a shot, and you found yourself unable to look away. In that moment, Leslie's words rang painfully true. You felt like a fool. For years, you had only seen Jake as, well, Jake. The boy next door, a familiar face your family had known for years, who had professed his love for you, but it had never truly registered. You really didn't understand how deep Jake really loved you.

You approached the bar, where a striking brunette locked eyes with you.

"What can I get you?" she politely inquired.

"I called earlier. I'm Y/N," you explained.

Surprised, she gave you a quick once-over before nodding towards the pool table. "Jake's over there."

"I know. I just wanted to assure you that I'm real and I have no intention of hurting him."

She nodded. "I sensed that. You don't sound like the others." She extended her hand. "I'm Penny. Penny Benjamin."

You smiled and shook her hand. "Thank you, and it's nice to meet you, Penny."

"You want something to drink?"

"I'll take a beer."

"Coming right up." She swiftly wiped the bar.

You continued to watch Jake as he played pool, but something just seemed off. He didn't seem like the cheerful Jake you knew. Just then, a blonde in jean shorts and a white tank top walked up to him and whispered something in his ear, but Jake shook his head and the girl walked away sadly.

Penny came back with the beer. "Here you go."

"How much do I owe you?"

"It's on the house. Any friend of Hangman's is a friend of mine. H22 is your song."

You grabbed the beer. "Thanks." You then made your way to the juke box, grabbed some quarters out of your pocket, put them in when 'Second Chance' by 38 Special caught your eye. You pushed that button and then selected H22. You then stepped over to the table a couple of feet away. Close enough to watch him, but also far enough away to hide.

The current song finished playing and 'Second Chance' by 38 Special started to play.

[bluebudgie]

So, initial SotO thoughts.

tl;dr: Liked it, not my favourite release.

More details below.

It's a little hard to compare to anything we had before since it's not quite an expansion but also a bit bigger than a regular LS release. Somewhere in between.

I liked it overall. I had fun (I don't think I ever didn't have fun with any release in this game). I do however have many smaller gripes that add up a little. Let's actually start with the biggest one:

The new maps

Well, obviously I loved the inclusion of chak on the new maps and seeing the little critters in a new shiny form was very exciting, but let's take the rose-tinted chak glasses off for a moment.

I like the fractal concept of the first map. It's interesting as an idea but I feel like it fell a little flat in execution. Rata Novus is probably the place that differs the most from the actual-Tyria version, and all the other fractals are just kinda... barely different? Like the Crystal Desert taken over by forged is just..... well, it's desert with forged in it. Like it already is in PoF anyway. And the Kaineng section kinda feels like that too, we have enough hostile jade bots in EoD anyway so... yea I don't know. Didn't do super much for me.

I wish NPCs were a bit more interactive. You can't really talk to many people at all. Core maps had so many random guys just standing around giving you little tidbits of dialogue. Especially the first map just feels very... barren.

Visually a great map nonetheless. Same goes for the second (non-hub) map we got, which is really unique in terms of architecture. We haven't really seen anything quite like it in the game before, so that's cool.

Exploration wise... ...yeah. I mean. Basically exactly what I had feared became true, no real exploration depth and at the very least on the first map you're pretty much expected to just skyscale to every point. Which goes really fast too, despite the whopping 50(or so?) POIs. I wish they had at least made some of the new masteries mandatory for reaching certain spots, but nope. Completed entirely without a single mastery leveled. Feels kinda pointless to introduce movement masteries if they aren't at the very least obligatory for certain events or map exploration. The second map makes the updrafts a little more useful since reaching some of the higher places can be a bit more tricky without it, but... yea I don't know.

I'm not exactly disappointed since that's pretty much what I expected to happen, but still I wish there were a few more interesting ways to get around places other than just straight up flying there. I guess I want more hidden stuff. Secrets. A jumping puzzle that spans half the map like in Draconis Mons. Well, for all I know they are there and I just haven't found them yet.

So yea, overall... visually beautiful; I'm glad about Rata Novus being a clownfest of snobs; I think if chak weren't in this I'd feel extremely lukewarm about those maps. That said, Amnytas has some of the highest quality grass I've ever seen in this game. Seriously what the hell is that grass.

Story and characters

I was worried about this for a bit while playing but the ending thankfully took the immediate worries from me for now.

It felt very... prologue-y. Which, in the end, it was. And I'm glad about that. I was so scared we were in another Gyala Delve situation of "here's an entire story that has absolutely no time to unfold and we'll abruptly end it pretending there was a conclusion". But thank god the epilogue made it clear that this was just the beginning to the storyline. (unless anet is preparing some clown make up)

So now that we had this introduction to the setting and first look into a new cast of characters I'm intrigued to see where all of this is going. I hope everyone we've met gets more screentime in the future and maybe some of them will tag along with us for the next adventures? The whole cast felt like it had a lot of potential. I want to see more of Gladium and Galrath. Isgarren seems interesting, I liked his dialogue. Sad about Mabon. Hoped Peitha would be a non-humanoid creature. Narcisse is cute. I like how they handled Zojja so far.

Didn't care much for the whole wizard tower story before SotO released, I'm decently interested now at least.

Gameplay-wise the player 2 experience was pretty miserable once again (Why exactly did I have to be a blue orb during the entire first flesh fortress instance? Why can I pick up and carry keys in the wizard's tower but then can't interact with the object they need to be used on? Seriously.) but that's nothing new.

As mentioned in another post, the German translation was a trainwreck of contextually wrong mistranslations, English sayings/proverbs translated literally into German when that is absolutely not how that works, misgendering (Zojja wasn't the only one with male pronouns - Yao was also back to that again) and entire chunks of voice lines randomly missing on several occasions. Seriously I don't know what went wrong here but please pay your localization team better. Or at least give them more context to work with.

Music

The few new songs I heard were nice. Lacking a bit in identity, but I guess it would be delusional to expect an EoD, HoT or IBS soundtrack here. GW2 music tends to be extremely high quality so I'm nitpicking on a high level with this one.

There is one battle theme that was really cool, though severely overused. I think it's the one that plays during rift events. Or like, during most of the release in general.

I can't quite explain why but I had several instances that made me think "this is what the PoF combat themes should have sounded like". The music as a whole somehow is very reminiscent of PoF. Like if someone took PoF battle music and went "chill a bit, please."

Was also nice to hear that one new ambient track that echoes the TD main theme and the Rata Novus theme.

Metas

They're okay. First map's meta drags on a little. Though I like collecting the essences. That one phase with the coloured bars is severely stressful. Second map meta is pretty neat. Was a little overwhelmed by it since it started literally 2 minutes after I got onto the map for the first time and I had no idea where anything was and just frantically followed the squad to find a giant squid bug demon on top of a huge tower. Seriously man give me a break. Fun experience though. Did it again on another day on an overflow map without a comm and we managed, though barely. Difficulty seems appropriate.

All in all...

Didn't completely blow me away. I liked it as a setup to something larger. Doesn't compare to any of the big expansions (though I do think the storyline in itself is at least more interesting than PoF, though it obviously lacks the polish of the expansion). If compared to LS seasons I'd say I had a better time with most of LS3 and LS4, and also large chunks of the Icebrood Saga.

I think how well SotO does in the long run largely depends on what gets added to it next. I'm excited to see more, and especially to get more context to all the new characters. Don't pull another Gyala Delve on me. Please.

And also.

Finally rid of the Commander title. Wayfinder is so much better.

[shellshocklove]

Hiii, so I really don't know how long it's been since you wrote/finished the I wanna be your lover 70spornstar series, nor do I know if you answered this question in a comment or anything, but I saw where at the end you asked for what people thought about the end. I also saw where you said that you might be convinced to do like small writings to continue the universe.

I think your writing is amazing, and your storyline are very captivating. Honestly I admit to coming back to that series and stuff for a reread. But the ending, admittedly, strikes a cord in me. I understand Joel is supposed to be a porn star and there is a very clear line of it being work, and maybe this is just me, but i wouldn't be able to be in a relationship with someone who I knew was going to fuck someone else everytime they left for work. And the thoughts of 'the reader' throughout, especially in the last chapter, definitely point to her feelings being in that same boat.

Ig that's why the ending just feels incomplete or something ? Like he says to talk to her about it cause his job has caused relationship issues before, but then sex follows and that feels like a place where talking should have actually happened. Ik it's smut, but it made it seems rushed and like their relationship was left open-ended. And again, maybe it's just me, but Joel's whole confession and stuff wouldn't make me anymore secure or confident in a relationship considering his profession, so love or not, there would definitely have to be a change. That's part of why their ending just feels so incomplete.

So I was hoping to ask and see if you'd ever be willing to write some small stuff about them, maybe a short on them having a non-sex resolved conversation where she tells him how she actually feels about his job being having sex with other people (and him hopefully leaving said job), or something.

Ofc this is your story, and whatever you decide to do with it is completely up to you. I hope you don't find any offense in anything I've said, I genuinely admire your writing skills and you ideas, and you seem like a lovely person as well. This ask is being sent with the upmost respect and appreciation to your skills. I don't want to come off as controlling or your stories or anything at all, so I hope I did not <3

hi, thank you so much for your ask . it's been a few months since it was finished and the ending has been a little divisive. i really appreciate your ask so don't worry about that, it's been long enough now that i won't take any offense. i'd probably be a little hurt had this been right after the last part was out, i'm not gonna lie, but that's just how it is with putting yourself and your writing out there. it's raw and scary and you can never know if people will understand what you're trying to say- and some won't. i've answered some of this before in asks (in here somewhere), but i'm gonna try and answer it more in this ask (it's long i'm so sorry).

you're not the first one who wants joel to quit, and from the start that was never my intention. in no scenario in my head would that happen when they got together. and i completely understand that people would have different feelings about this. i think it makes the story interesting bc we're all coming at this from different perspectives. this was also never meant to be a series. i wrote the first part as a one shot in august. i went back and forth on doing a part two, and all of this was just gonna be a part two to further the plot of them getting together, as this whole thing plays out over just one week.

i wanted to explore her more, and the thoughts your brain will conjure up when you are anxious in new situation (or i guess her insecurity since this was all new to her, and her trauma from the past enhancing it all) this is why i think people got so invested? bc i tricked you guys a little bit from writing it from her perspective bc her thoughts are obviously valid, but they also have a mind of their own. i think people who have anxiety can relate to that. that your thoughts start to feed you worst case scenarios, and those thoughts aren't necessarily true. she's not a reliable narrator on this whole thing.

the ending might feel incomplete bc this isn't their love story? it's just the story of how they got together. it's not tied up in a pretty pink bow bc it will continue from here (in their little alternative universe in all our brains). their 'love story' starts after just crazy love, if that makes sense? to me it's not realistic to have one conversation and then everything is fine. they'll have to feel out the relationship and live in it a little, talk to each other and figure out how it works best for them. and that isn't in the series bc it wasn't supposed to be a series originally lol. and also to have some empathy for the reader in all of this at the end. she'd had a few awful days with high anxiety and some depression. her uncle coming only furthered her anxiety and dread about everything. making her have a full thorough conversation with joel at the end of all this felt just cruel to me. she already told him everything about her family, and needed comfort (even if she didn't know it herself), and joel showed her comfort and love the way he knows best (eating pus– *gunshot*).

i won't write an "alternative ending" bc that would be against my original thoughts/ideas. i appreciate that you want more from the story and i guess to be frank or talk about the last part from a doylist perspective: there had to be smut in it bc unfortunately that is what people want to read at the end of the day. i'm sure if there was no smut (in a pornstar au no less), to some it would feel incomplete. so i had to balance the story, trying to tie it up (but not too much so you had something to think about the story, and leave you wanting more 😉), and fit in a smut scene that had the right amount of hot and sweet. i'm sorry if me saying that makes the story lose it's magic or something, but that's just the reality of fanfic writing.

as for continuing the universe i've been open to it if people wanted it, but there hasn't been any feedback from people wanting it so i've just left it. originally my thoughts were a loose blurbiverse of some kind with love-story-furthering stories (less than 10k for once 💀) intertwined with smaller one-shot-esque stories that had nothing to do with the plot but were more of a slices of life type of thing. i have small ideas and an end goal for them in my mind (one that would probably satisfy you guys who wants him to quit), but as there has been no demand for it i've decided to just let them be.

i hope thinking of this story as the beginning and not the end of them will help it not feel as incomplete to you? they will deal with it together at some point even if i write it or not. joel is more whipped for her than you think and he'd really do anything for her, but quitting a job he's successful at and makes a lot of money from, bc of a relationship that hasn't started yet i think is cruel to joel as a character. yes, to him this is love (the real deal), and previous relationships haven't worked out bc of his job. but this relationship haven't started with on the same premise as this one. reader knows the industry, she knows it's not real deep down. they started out this rocky bc nothing was defined, and i think joel underestimated her inexperience and their working relationship. to him they had started dating after pismo beach, and he thinks that's implied. that's why he's coming over- he wants to spend time with his girlfriend. but bc of her professionalism, to him, when they're at work they're professional and it's a secret, but when they're alone she's his girlfriend. joel isn't familiar with her anxiety or her past yet, bc to him it's come across as professionalism. you can't blame a guy for not knowing- he's not a mind reader.

i'm sorry this is so long, but i hope this has shed some light on a few things. don't hesitate to reach out again if something is unclear. i understand that not everything i've talked about here came across well enough in the story, and i can only say that it's my shortcomings as the writer, and i'm sorry about that. but then again i don't consider myself a writer or really any good at in the first place lmao so maybe it's ok to not be great at everything. this is just for fun!

[1d1195]

Hi love, I saw that you were looking for inspo for Physics. I don't remember you promising another part to it because when I read part 5 way back it felt pretty concluded to me for a college story. So if you want to write something, maybe think of it as an extra that way you're not confined to continuing a set storyline. You can place the character two years into dating or three months into it. That was my first idea but my second, I looked up the song you're using for inspo and though I've never heard it I read the lyrics and I had sort of an angsty idea. It's mostly to do with the lyrics "I got too good at fighting chemicals, And dodging arrows I was asking for" and "Love is not an easy thing to admit". Now I don't know how they relate to the song but those lines grabbed my attention. What if you started the story in the middle of a fight that they're having? It's not a bad fight in terms of yelling and being angry with each other but they're both hurting. Maybe the reader and Harry are out somewhere but she's talking to one group and he's elsewhere in the party. And someone asks the reader about her relationship with Harry but she still feels so insecure about him being with her and how that's perceived that she downplays their relationship. And Harry just happens to hear it though the reader isn't aware. It hurts him because he really cares about her (idk whenever you set this they even shared 'I love yous' and such) but he realizes that she has been very lowkey about their relationship whenever they're with other people. I don't know if that makes sense. Anyways, eventually, they talk about it and both make good points for the way that they feel and that's why it's not a fight. There is no right or wrong here. So they feel in limbo and don't even know if they're still a couple. But using the "Love is not an easy thing to admit" line they meet in the middle and patch things up. She's finally honest about why she feels so scared of their relationship or however, you want to do it.

You don't have to take any of this but hopefully, something I've said here sparks something in your brilliant mind. If you ever want more suggestions let me know. I'm always re-reading your stuff anyway so I'm up to date. LOL 😉

Also really hoping to see that commitment idea. There's something so real about their story. And I agree with your anon their first time is gonna be quite something. 😏

Also, what is this new story "DING"? Have you already talked about its possible plot?

I hope this week is kind to you. Take care of yourself, you're too amazing not to be. -🌼

AHHHHH Hi!

This is definitely something to think about! I appreciate your thought that it seemed wrapped up. I thought so too, but I'm a slave to this site and I love to be a people pleaser. I'm happy to do a check-in though! It's not to sound negative. I LOVE writing stuff people want to see and I loved my little physics couple. I never expected them to be very exciting tbh

What you suggested is EXACTLY what I was looking for! I would love an angsty little piece to write about. I've been in angsty mood.

I'M CRYING THAT YOU REREAD MY STUFF 😭😭😭 SO MUCH SO THAT YOU HAVE ENOUGH TO COMMENT ON IT AND COME UP WITH BRILLIANT IDEAS!

You will definitely be seeing the Committed idea 😉 I'm looking forward to writing it 🤭

I've been very stingy about the details of Ding. I'm not sure it's come up much at all. I'm still fine tuning the first part before I share the post. I wanted to write one more piece and that's Physics before I share the main page for Ding. I think you'll like it. 😉

💕 I hope YOU have an amazing week! This is the nicest message and I'm so grateful you took the time to write it. I'm really excited to have a new friend to chat with! I hope you feel like coming back to chat again soon! 💕

xoxo

[redhairedwolfwitch]

Long Time, No See - Legacies x Noralise!Daughter!Reader

Yup, It's a Leprechaun, All Right

B/m/n = biological mother’s name

A/n: season 3 is very ehh for storylines, because I am struggling here, I just want to write season 4, ahh

Previously on Legacies...

"Hope's obsession with Landon is all-consuming. It feels as though she gives no care for anyone else, but him. She is determined to bring the real Landon back, so has no need for this. I do not know what to do with it, in all honesty." Cleo admitted as she left it near your door, stepping into your room as she glanced around.

"Yeah, that's something I figured out a long time ago, and why I'm so hot and cold with hanging around the school. I realised something about myself a while ago, and I'm struggling. Because no matter what I do, my fate is entangled with the fate of Hope Mikaelson."

///

After your conversation with Cleo, you'd teleported back to your aunt's apartment, staying there the night instead of in your room in the Salvatore School.

"Shouldn't you be attending classes?" Valerie enquired as she walked in, taking a blood bag from the fridge to pour into a wine glass.

"Not many going on. Everyone's either on monster watch or trying to bring Landon back. Or attending Mystic Falls High, which is tempting but Hope's supposed to be 19, I'm 18, the twins are 17. Nobody is talking about college besides Landon's musical,, which had completely cut aunt Bonnie from, by the way!"

"They forgot her birthday, with everything going on..." B/m/n whispered, a tear running down her cheek as she realised her baby was grown up.

"You haven't even talked about college before now, what's going on?" Valerie pointed out, raising an eyebrow as you laid on the couch, staring up at the ceiling.

"I've never thought about it because I was wound up about everyone else. Hope, the twins and the merge, I'm going to take a nap." You declared, rolling over to press your face into a cushion.

"You can get into any college of your choosing, Y/n. Compulsion or not." Valerie replied, taking a sip from the wine glass of blood.

///

Hope couldn't get you to respond to her texts, so after Lizzie refused to help with her plan to search the prison world full of monsters, Malivore and the Necromancer, she headed for Josie.

///

"You should head to the school. Hope's doing something dangerous, and apparently got Josie involved." Valerie explained as she read over her phone.

"Doctor Saltzman texted you?" You exclaimed, sitting up immediately as Valerie shook her head.

"Elizabeth did."

"How does she even have your number?" You retorted, grabbing your jacket and tugging it on before teleporting.

"How does Lizzie have Valerie's number?" "I have no idea, but whatever Hope's planning, it could get everyone else killed." Nora asked, but B/m/n answered, gaining a glare from Mary-Louise until reality set in. Hope would be willing to kill everyone to get Landon back.

///

"Hope Andrea Mikaelson. What in the ever-loving fuck, are you doing?" You shouted as Lizzie turned a familiar-looking coin invisible and flung it somewhere.

"Was that the coin with Josie's magic in?" "I'm more interested in Y/n doing a full-name drop to get Hope's attention." "Can everyone just stop talking!" Your mothers bickered as they watched what was going on.

"Ah good, now the band's all here." Lizzie sighed, explaining what Hope was doing as you raised an eyebrow.

"Fine. I'll clean up your mess." You replied, stepping backwards and folding your arms as Hope's eyes softened.

"Now the tribrid realises what she's done." Mary-Louise growled, her fists clenched as Nora stepped forwards with a glare on her features.

"Y/n."

"Time is running out, Hope." You warned, your focus on the ground as you tried to ignore Hope's gaze on you.

///

Your head began to sting as Lizzie began to be infected by the dark magic that radiated the prison world, pain ran through your skull as you fell to your knees, seeing Josie walk into the circle to try help Lizzie before the red energy in the sky grew darker.

"Josie!" Lizzie cried out as Hope glanced from the twins, to you on the ground.

"She's killing them." Mary-Louise whispered, watching the dark veins appear on the twins' necks, travelling up to their faces as the dark magic grew.

"I'm so sorry." Hope whispered, pushing it as she tried anything to get Landon back, even if it killed the twins in the process.

Everything began to go dark for you, as the twins and Hope went flying.

"Landon?" Hope whispered, spotting her love as she stood up.

"Long time, no see." Landon smiled, but you were out cold.

"Y/n!" Your mothers' panicked, but they could do nothing as their hands phased through your body, they could do nothing but watch.

///

Lizzie was with MG, Josie was with Alaric, getting tested to make sure there were no traces of black magic in her system, Hope was with Landon, and Cleo was with Kaleb.

You were laying on your aunt Valerie's couch again, a wet cloth on your forehead as your eyes opened.

"Welcome back, beautiful." Valerie smiled as you let out a groan.

"Ouch. Thanks." You smiled, taking the offered water as Valerie gave you a soft smile.

"You should really be more careful, especially around black magic."

"Well, Landon's back, so it doesn't matter-"

"It does matter. Even if it doesn't to anyone else, you matter, Y/n." Valerie replied, sitting down on the couch as you sat up to lean on her.

"Valerie's right." Nora admitted as Mary-Louise grimaced, hating admitting that she agreed but she'd grown from back when she hated Valerie, because Valerie stepped up and looked after you now.

"I can't help but love her. It sucks, sucks so bad." You whimpered, the floodgates opening as all the stress from the last few weeks crashed over you.

Your mothers could do nothing but watch as you bawled your eyes out over a girl who would never really see you for who you are.

///

Do All Malivore Monsters Provide This Level of Emotional Insight?

[hobipaint]

Graffiti and Chalk- two

summary: You thought you knew him. You thought him gone. Kim Taehyung was part of you that you had carefully suppressed, keeping his memories to one box near the wall of your mind. That was your fault, though - empty walls demand for art. And who other than your own neighbourhood vandal?

↳ pairing: ex police student turned vandal! taehyung x officer! female reader

↳ genres: angst, fluff

↳ word count: 9.6K

↳ disclaimers: pg15!, vandalism, police officers, criminal past and heavy discussion of it, mentions of character deaths.

one | two

a/n: FINALLY AFTER A MONTH IT'S HERE! This took me really long to write but I'm pretty satisfied with how it turned out : it's my longest work yet, and I feel like it would be among my best as well hehe. a massive thank you to @kookiestarlight because i swear i completed this in the first place because of tasha, @swcetnight who pointed out exactly where I need to elaborate stuff and places in which I was loosing parts of the plot because did I forget the whole storyline while writing this 🤡, @vaekth because this bby is absolutely amazing. she's supported me throughout the process of writing this, thank you so much!! thank you to @taecup-fics for beta reading this at the last minute and pointing out a bunch of grammatical errors because otherwise this would be a mess to read 😭 to everyone who has waited - I'm so sorry that it came this late, I suddenly had a bunch of exams that were announced and had to focus on those. Hopefully this lives up to your expectations!! Enjoy reading :)

Morning often dawns with a feeling of hope. With wistful sights of sunrise. Flowers open up to the golden haze that thaws the frost of the night. Birds roam the skies that had been but mysterious domains in the dark. People wake up with groans about the impending day, hopeful for it to end soon. You hoped for your mornings to always be similar to this- some constants were needed in places where you had cases as bewildering as missing pumpkin plushies piling up in your office. 

Your morning today, though, was much different. Much to your annoyance. 

You held the coffee you had brewed for yourself - another espresso, the universe knows you needed it - and handed one to Taehyung just as the cuckoo perching on the clock shrilly announced that it was eight in the morning. 

"Do you still have no answers for me, Y/N?" Taehyung looked at you. His eyes were sullen - no signs of the cheekiness that had peeked at you last night. Scattered rays fell across his body, highlighting the sunken cheeks, brooding eyes and tight smiles you could now see better in the daylight. 

You sighed- probably for the millionth time this night. "I do not understand your question, Taehyung." 

"You remember it. I've asked you thrice since I saw you again, Y/N. Do you not remember anymore? Do you not care for me? Was our idea of us nothing for you?" He looked at you with a myriad of emotions written all over his face- you looked away, not wanting to see them. 

Sighing, you gathered your thoughts the best you could. "Like I said, Taehyung." You looked at him- looking at the person you once fell in love with. The feeling you felt today, though, was much different. There was a feeling of running towards him, taking him in your arms and remembering who he was to you all over again, but it was overwhelmed by the confusion you felt - should you prioritize a past that wanted answers, or a future that was unsure? For now, you chose none pushing the time to make that decision further ahead. "We were an 'us' for only a few hours. Until you stood me up."

He rolled his eyes."That wasn't intentional, Y/N." 

"And how was I supposed to know that, Taehyung? I thought it was, since you had never told me anything beforehand."

Taehyung's eyebrows bunched together, as if coming to hear the stories that his eyes longed to tell- stories of events that you had never seen and never known. "Would you not hear me out, even once? For the sake of our old love?"

You bristled. "What love, Taehyung?" You got up to stretch your legs out, looking at the patchwork blanket that was stuffed in the corner. You had taken that for your first date with Taehyung, planning to cuddle with him and watch the stars - a date that never happened. "What love? A love where you don't speak to me for weeks, and then vanish for some crime? We were young then, and I got hurt then as it is. There's no need to go over this right now." 

"That was not my fault, Y/N. You know that." Taehyung seemingly sunk back into his chair, eyes downcast. "I had said I loved you. Before I ever went out with you." 

"Like that matters,” you scoffed, “what's the point in reminiscing promises from an old love?"

"At least, hear me out?" He looked up at you with hope sprinkled in the abyss of his eyes. "I don't want you to forget me."

You turned back to your chair, tearing your eyes away from the blanket that was now a pale blue in the sunlight - a few shades lighter than the cerulean colour it would be in the afternoon. "Not now, Taehyung." 

Taehyung sighed, looking at the floor, tension exhaled into the room. He sat silently for a few seconds, the ticking clock announcing each moment clearly to you. "That's fair. It's just.." He looked back at you. "I'm used to thinking of you as the person I loved." He nervously let his eyes pan around the windows, gazing at the sunshine that streamed through the window, before turning back towards your gaze. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, I'm just really grateful for your presence-" 

"Taehyung." You sharply interrupted him. "Two years ago, when your case was reopened for investigation. Who did that?" 

"They told me that it was a well wisher in the neighbourhood. Another jailor said it was for good behaviour." He shrugged. 

You scoffed aloud, more loudly than you would have liked him to hear. 

He frowned, lips drawn in a tight line in annoyance. "Don't believe me? I'll have you know, Y/N, I was among the most well behaved at prison. Absolutely no tantrums. I even ate the salt-less, disgusting food they'd give there. No crying. Nothing. I can show you later on if you want, I think I have a report stuffed somewhere here," He got up, shuffled towards his bag and checked the last zip, hunting for a report you had never heard of. 

"It was me." 

Taehyung whirled around to face you, unruly hair swinging like the seats of a carousel at a carnival, and raised an eyebrow. "What were you?" 

"I was the one who insisted on opening the case for reinvestigation, the case of your stepfather's assault. Went around collecting evidence, searching for people who knew about your family better, getting their voices recorded, finding about the whole deal to frame you and stuff. Nearly got fired." You shrugged, sipping your espresso and wincing- too bitter. "You're welcome, by the way. The coffee is getting cold." 

"I don't care about the coffee." He moved the cup aside - nearly spilling the liquid, roughly settling back into the seat he had been occupying for the last few hours. "You were the one who asked for re-opening the case?" 

"Just said that." 

He slumped back in his seat, and your eyes took in how he spread himself out on the chair, tiredness lacing his figure. "I didn't know that." 

"Now you do." You said, sipping your coffee and watching Taehyung do the same. 

Taehyung stared blankly at you, and you couldn't fathom what was swirling in those ebony orbs of his. "Why did you do that, Y/N?"

"Honestly," you smile softly at him, "I was expecting a thank you."

"You should have expected questions, Y/N. Why did you help me?" Taehyung's blank expression made way for a confused one, eyebrows furrowing and lips pouting. 

"I did what I had to do as a-" You paused here, unsure of what to say. "As a friend, Taehyung, nothing more. I knew you were innocent-"

"How were you so assured?" He pressed on."I could be a complete 180 from the man I met you as. I could be fake. I could be an impostor. I could-"

"You could do a bunch of things, Taehyung." You stared him straight in the eye, trying to keep your emotions at bay. "But you could never tell a lie." 

Taehyung scoffed. "You sound like one of the wishy-washy pick-me kind of girls in the movie. No, I don't lie, but I could." 

You sighed. As much as you cared for Taehyung, you had never really cared for his argumentative attitude. "I went with the assumption that you were the same person I knew, Taehyung. The one whom I respected and trusted. I acted on that feeling." 

"That wasn't trust, Y/N. It was naivety. You were naive to believe me." Taehyung paused, uncertainty lining his forehead as he spoke. "You shouldn't have trusted me." 

You rolled your eyes- you couldn't understand why he was so desperate to make sure that you remained aloof from him. What had you done to be treated like that? What had he done to force everyone away from him? 

You tried to play off his remaining doubts and frustrations as insecurities he developed while in jail, and moved on."Alright then, you impostor. I was naive to trust you. And even more naive to believe you. Happy? Now shush. I don't want to talk about this." You tried to clear your mind of any doubts you had about Taehyung, but his behaviour, the way he interacted with you - it couldn't help but increase the worry and confusion in your mind.

Taehyung leaned forward to look you in the eye before smiling softly at you - you couldn't understand why. You were going to give him a criminal record, maybe arrest him. You were potentially ruining his life again, and he smiled at you. "If you say so, officer." Taehyung said, settling into the chair - leaving your mind reeling with questions you weren't sure you wanted the answers to. 

You opened the laptop again, wearily. "Let's get back to the questions; the sooner we finish this, the better. Where did you source the paint from?" 

"You mean the graffiti? And chalk?" You nodded. Taehyung sighed."Terminology, Officer, terminology. Make no errors." He raised a finger to wave at you, as if to say no. You rolled your eyes -it seemed that you were the only one concerned about what would happen to him after this, because Taehyung quite clearly was not. "I bought it with the allowance money that was kept for me in the bank- as much as I hated that man, his cards proved to be useful."

You raised an eyebrow, skeptical. "You didn't steal it." 

"No. Took it from my step-father's account. Technically, now mine. Apparently he left everything to his children, and I'm the only one alive that I know of. Maybe he had other children- I wouldn't doubt it for a moment if he had, but that doesn't change my right to his money either." 

"Any other members of your family who had been granted access to that account?" You asked, wanting to make sure that there were no loopholes - you didn't want a future possibility of Taehyung being entangled with the wrong side of the law again. 

He rolled his eyes, leaning further. "Curious little thing, aren't you? Like I'd told you last night, most of them are dead. Mom had died a few months before I was arrested - thanks to my stepfather being an alcoholic and taking everything out on her. Grandmother already had massive health issues - she passed away after two years of me being in jail - they had let me come out for her funeral."

"My siblings - a brother and sister, if you remember - were taken in by a distant relative, and the last time I spoke to them was three years ago. I'm not allowed to contact them because I might end up being a 'bad influence'," he air quoted the words, laughing mirthlessly. "Guess they won't be too delighted to see me again. You probably know about my stepfather - got drunk and passed out. Permanently. But yeah, that's all. I'm pretty much the sole benefactor from that account."

Hearing how nonchalantly he spoke about it, you were forced to maintain a strong face and be professional. You couldn't possibly think of even wanting to comfort him in any way. "So, you were absolutely not stealing."

"Nope. No. Not at all. Want any further repetitions?" 

"That won't be necessary," You said, having typed out the information - tracking his expenditures would also be necessary now, apparently. "Any expenditure you make shall be monitored, now. Be careful."

"Always have been." He chuckled, getting back to spinning the glass on the table. "You know me." 

You ignored him. "Your cards will be tracked, and any loose cash will be checked by us. If we feel that there's any room for suspicion, you will have reason to be monitored." 

An odd silence filled the room while you tapped away at your laptop, filling in more details about the incident. Taehyung would be having a criminal record again, you thought to yourself. It was the only thought that echoed in your mind. It made you feel uneasy in a way, but you swallowed your unease down. There's a promotion to focus on. 

"Taehyung, something has been bugging me since I caught you vandalising." You shifted a little bit, before deciding to spit out the question. "Why did you do it?" You leaned forwards on the table, elbows digging into the wood as you tried to grasp the answers from him. 

Taehyung looked you in the eyes, and then looked away. "I don't know."

"You don't know." You raised your eyebrows, leaning back incredulously. "Taehyung, that's not an answer." 

"I did it because I wanted to. It was fun. I'd see kids in the morning pointing at my graffiti work and they would like it. There would be people claiming it looked good. I felt acknowledged and I just-" He pleaded, unable to continue without pausing to recollect his calm. "I felt like doing it. After years of having questions raised at me for committing a crime I never did, I finally had people talking about the work I did. Even if it was just chalk drawings." 

You exhaled in confusion. The Taehyung you had known - he was never like this. Confident, assured, independent. That was what he seemed to you when you were younger. And now, to see him want to be validated by others who never even cared for him- it felt ridiculous to you. Why was his only way of feeling validated involving something against the law? "Okay, then." 

You went through the complaints that had been registered against him, hand resting against your forehead as you asked him the most commonly asked question. "Why the insignia 'V'?" 

"V for victory?" He made a 'V' sign with his fingers, "I liked to think that I won against the world by rebelling against its sense of black and white. I saw everyone talk about it, and I felt like the same people who had once pointed fingers at me, blaming me for something I hadn't done, were now pointing fingers at something I had done - I felt victorious. I didn't need to show myself and possibly want more than I had already let myself have - this was enough for me." 

You pulled your lips in a tight line, and hummed in response - there were two places that together had put in about twenty complaints, so you had to respond to all of them. You kept reminding yourself that neither did you have the space to feel sorry for him, nor did you have the power to say sorry to him. You simply kept your head turned to the screen, typing in answers to all the complaints. 

Taehyung leaned forward after a few seconds. "What punishment do you think I'll get, Officer?" 

"If the chief is feeling good, maybe you'll get community service, with a fine," You looked up at him. "Or maybe some time in jail." 

"How much time?"

"Maybe a month or two?" 

"Oh." Taehyung slumped back into his seat nonchalantly. "Cool then." 

How was he this calm? You thought to yourself. He might be going to jail. For a second time.

"Yup." You shut the laptop, finally, after hours of typing information and recording it. Sighing, you lifted the porcelain mug once again to absolutely drain it of coffee, your rather loud gulps echoing in the silence of your office. 

Taehyung tapped his fingers on the table- probably some old tune he had learnt before. You remembered that he played the saxophone - from nights of serenading tunes that he had played for you with his beloved instrument. "How long do you think the chief will take to reach here?" 

"A few hours, maybe? I'd expect him around ten, to be honest. Nevertheless, let me check." You quickly called the chief on your phone, hearing his ringtone play some old Korean trot song before it was picked up. 

"Hello, yes, yes, Y/N. I expected your call." A gravely, rather rough voice responded to you- like it hadn't been used for a few hours. "I shall be reaching the office around eleven. Keep Taehyung with you." 

"Yes sir," you said, keeping the phone on your table and turning to Taehyung.  "The chief said he'll be here by eleven." 

Taehyung nodded in acknowledgement. 

"It's nearly eight thirty now." You looked at the cuckoo clock again. "Would you like to freshen up?" 

"Where?" Taehyung asked, eyes widening. "Shouldn't I just be at the office?" 

"Yeah, you should. My place is right here- the back of this office is where I live, so you'll be fine." You look down at his clothes, grease, paint and metal shrapnel all over them. "Besides, you look like you need a change of clothes." 

Taehyung stepped into your house with an air of curiosity, to see how his once classmate was living. His head stooped low to enter through the small door you had, eyes widening in surprise when he found that the hall of your house was larger than he had anticipated. 

The house was quaint, a hall with an old couch which doubled as a bed when needed. There was a table in the middle of the room, too low to be a dining table and too high to be a center table. For coffee, maybe? There were maybe five or six magazines scattered haphazardly over it, covering nearly every inch- except for one corner, where Taehyung spotted a shining acrylic blue. 

You, however, spotted what page you had left a magazine open at. Squeaking, "I'm sorry!" you ran to shut the booklet close, afraid that Taehyung would spot your love for shirtless men. 

Picking up the magazines, you grinned sheepishly at him. "Just a moment! I'll be back, a bit of cleaning to be done, sit right here!" You patted the couch, trying to convince Taehyung. 

Taehyung turned away from the pictures he had been observing- was there one of you both? - and nodded, eyes widening in surprise as he saw how you scuttled away to hide the magazines. He looked around again, taking a feel of your house- it seemed like the old you. There was some patchwork embroidery you had left in a corner, atop what seemed to be a showpiece? Taehyung stepped closer to see it in detail, and was amazed at the way you had managed to drag the red thread over and over the pink fabric to make floral designs. It reminded him of the rose he had been trying to complete the previous night, and he grit his teeth. He shouldn't be thinking about that now. That shouldn't be what he does anymore. No more.

You came back, looking quizzically at him. "Take a seat, Taehyung! It's alright." 

"Uh, yeah." He shuffled over to the couch again. "Did you make that?" 

You looked in the direction his finger pointed to. "Yeah. Tried doing embroidery for stress release purposes." 

Taehyung grinned at you. "Stress release?" He asked, bemused. 

"Yup." You said while making sure that the magazines were well hidden. "The department I wanted to be in was forensics, you know?" Taehyung nodded, he had been privy to most of your discussions about the advances in forensic technology and analysis - even if he didn't understand anything, he knew your love for it. "Well, they didn't allow me. So the whole 'stress' thing began." You walked back to him, making air quotes as you emphasized on stress. "My mother suggested embroidery would take my mind off it. So, that incomplete piece you see there?" Taehyung nodded, concentrating on every word that left your mouth. "That started a few days ago." 

"It looks like it's complete, though- are you really good at it?" Taehyung looked at you again, turning back from the embroidery you were now rising to get. 

"Pretty much? It's easy once you get the hang of it." 

"Ah." Taehyung said, a dull silence settling into the room for a few moments as Taehyung looked around your room.  

"That picture." He pointed, and you turned your head around. The picture he was focusing on was on your mantelpiece, resting happily. The frame had butterflies stuck on its corners, two large and two small. The border was white, now off white, and had pink dots in certain places. It was a picture of fireworks- red, yellow and blue mixing together in a dull sky to breathe life into the picture. And right in the middle, surrounded by this liveliness, were you and Taehyung. Beaming. 

Taehyung turned to, finger still pointing at the picture. "That's our picture, right?" 

You hummed in affirmation. "That's us, freshman party. We had known each other for a few weeks at this time."

"And I had stopped someone from asking you out, right?" Taehyung reminisced. "That was fun." 

You snort. "You had punched him in the face when he asked for my name, Taehyung." 

Taehyung smiled. "I didn't want anyone to harm you, Y/N, and he seemed like he would harm you." He spread out his arms and grinned smugly at you. "In a way, I rescued you. That night." 

And so many other nights, you wanted to say. For all the time you had known Taehyung, he had been fiercely protective of you - for reasons he never truly told you. You didn't question it either, basking in the feeling of being wanted by someone. 

You cleared your throat, hoping to clear your mind as well. "You should go take a shower, Taehyung." Glancing at the clock, you noted the time and motioned towards the washroom. "It's nearly nine. Go take a shower, call for me if you need anything. I'll go get some clothes for you."

Taehyung nodded, rising up slowly to go in the direction you pointed. "Towels are inside," you shouted after him, and he yelled in response to say he understood. In some ways, too many ways, he felt like the Taehyung you once knew. 

You went to your room to pick out some clothes, opening your meager collection to salvage something that would fit Taehyung. Your eyes scanned over your uniforms, jumpsuits, jeans, t-shirts and finally landed on the hoodies- probably the largest collection in your wardrobe. Thankfully, you loved large, loose hoodies. You started pulling them out, holding each one up and imagining Taehyung's proportions in them. 

The red one, with blue paw prints. "Nah. Too tight." 

The black plain one. "That's mine, I'm not sharing that." 

The grey ones- nearly three. You skipped over all of them, not understanding how none of these oversized hoodies would seemingly fit Taehyung. He'd gotten humongous, broad shoulders and everything. 

You picked out a few more, trying to see whether it would be a fit. None worked. 

When you picked up the next one, you could already picture him wearing it. It was the hoodie you had taken from Taehyung during the first year you knew each other. You looked at its loose sleeves, stretchy from you tugging Taehyung behind you with it way back then. The green fabric of the hoodie was slightly pale in a certain spot - you had spilled soda all over him in a fit of anger.

During your forensic chemistry class,  the teacher didn't recognise their mistakes in the procedure (they used the wrong test for detecting the sample, and blamed it on you), and you were pretty miffed the whole day. Taehyung had bought sodas for the two of you, having planned to go stargazing later on. And you, in a terrible mood, flipped him off in a way that had the soda spilling over him. You cried, Taehyung laughed, but the hoodie was still stained. You took it with you later on to clean it - but the stubborn stain never left. You were agonized, Taehyung amused, but the hoodie- it was still stained. Taehyung had laughed it off, telling you to keep it with you for as long as you wanted- he could buy a dozen more hoodies to last him till then. 

When you left to head home that winter break, you had taken the hoodie with you. You had taken it on your date, crying on its sleeves when you were stood up. And when you came back, Taehyung was suddenly a criminal. 

You shook your head to remove the memories of that time, holding the hoodie in your hand and gently caressing its sleeves. So many memories were held in these threads that meshed together to form the fabric of your youth. Good or bad? You didn't want to dwell on that. 

"Y/N? Could I get the clothes now?" Taehyung called from the washroom. You picked up a extra large pair of cotton shorts and a hoodie, and passed it to him without really thinking- you'd done it before when he got drunk at college too, having him come over at your place, shower, change, and practically behave like a couple- at least, that's what you had thought of it then. 

Get it together, Y/N, why are you thinking about that? 

"Thanks!" he shouted again, grasping the clothes with his fingers and whisking them away to the confines of the washroom. 

You gripped at your hair and pinched your cheeks. You couldn't keep thinking about the old Taehyung. You didn't know if it was truly him anymore. 

"Uh, Y/N?" Taehyung stepped out of the washroom, the previously oversized shorts clinging to his thighs for dear life and the hoodie snugly fitting his figure. "I think it's a bit tight, but I'll make do." 

Your eyes widened in horror; Taehyung looked like he was moments away from bursting the shorts. "I'll get you new pants, wait a second. These ones don't fit." 

You turned back to your cupboard, looking for the loosest bottoms you could find. "I think the hoodie still fits though, right?" 

"Yeah." You heard Taehyung right over your shoulder, scaring you. 

"Jeez, when did you get this close to me?" You turned to face him, crossing your arms, looking at his hair which still had droplets sticking to its edges. 

"When did you get this far from me, Y/N?" His eyes bore into yours, sweetly intense eyes gazing at you like it was the first time he saw you. "What happened?" 

You shrugged, not wanting to answer it. You picked up a loose pair of denim jeans that you had found stuffed away at the back of your closet. Pushing it into his hands, you told him to go change. 

Apparently, your instructions fell on deaf ears. "What happened, Y/N? Answer me. Please."

You moved your gaze to his clothes, not wanting to focus on the thoughts that rushed back when you thought of him. What had happened? You moved your hands to your sides, resisting the need to hold him and know him all over again. "The hoodie looks good on you. Would you-" 

"So do our hands." He held yours, snugly fitting his palm- your calloused fingers against his calloused ones, heat burning in the sleeping embers of your palm. His eyes gazed at the joint fingertips almost reverently. "They fit well."

"Taehyung, now is not the time-" You begin, cut off by his frantic breathing.

"When is the time, Y/N? When will I get to live? When will I get to feel like a human? When will I be innocent?"

His hand caressed your palm, touching your forearm, your elbow, your shoulder, and your cheek -leaving a burning trail behind him everywhere he touched. You shivered. "Do you know how long I have wanted you, Y/N? Years. Seven years, now. I have loved you for years. I have wanted you for years. I did all sorts of things to remember you while in jail- kept asking for you, kept calling for you. I didn't want to forget you, Y/N. Not you. I couldn't forget you, no." 

He pressed your palm to his chest, and you could feel a dull thump echo through the clothes, reverberate in your palms. "That fire, Y/N. My passion in the promises I'd made to you. It never went anywhere. I always loved you. I always will. You can't make me leave again, not again. Please, no." 

He held your palm up to his cheeks, not regarding the tears that were streaking your cheeks and his. "You feel me, right? It's me. Taehyung. I am the one you trusted. I'm the same. Trust me again. Please." 

You tried to hold back the tears that threatened to slide down your cheeks, not wanting to pain Taehyung anymore. He held your forehead to his, pressing on the back of your head to meet his - upclose, you could see the redness that clouded the shine that his eyes would normally have. You couldn't hold back your tears anymore, nearly whimpering when you saw how broken he was- sirens swimming in the whirlpool of his eyes, singing songs of misery. "You know me, right? Do you know me? Do you recognize me? Kim Taehyung, police cadet. Your friend. Your classmate. You know me, right?" He asked, nose nearly brushing yours. "Do you know me?"He cried, eyes washing over the fire that ignited behind his pupils. You didn't see a vandal, or a criminal, or a friend. You saw a broken man. 

"Taehyung, oh, Tae," you cried, putting your hands on his shoulders, watching him slink down to the ground as his body trembled and shivered. You wrapped your arms close around his figure, unable to understand his pain but just wanting it to go away. 

You sat like that for a while, coaxing the tears and short whimpers out of him as he held onto your fingers, wanting to remember something he once had: you. 

"I always asked for you, you know that?" Taehyung shivered as he spoke, even if the chills of the weather outside barely seeped into your home. "I always loved you. I don't know why they kept me there for so long, Y/N. I didn't do anything wrong. I don't know why I'm made to feel like this…" he trailed away, tears gathering at his chin as they endlessly flowed down his cheeks. 

You glanced a nervous eye at the clock, wanting to make sure that you get to the station- no matter what happens. The bubbling of water distracted you from the ticking of the clock, and you turned off the stove. Scouring your cabinets for a chamomile tea bag was hard, but you knew you needed it. Taehyung always seemed to calm down with tea - you had used it multiple times before. Times of which you have multiple memories. Times you wish to forget. 

Why did I ever love Taehyung? The question kept echoing in your mind as you leaned on top of the kitchen counter top. Things would have been so much simpler if simply looking at him wasn't so hard. His smile, his behaviour, his tears - it was all but a painful reminder of what you could have been if things had gone different. If only. 

You poured the hot water into the mug you had settled on the kitchen top, watching the water bloom into a serene shade of yellow as you dipped the tea bag into it repeatedly. You prepared one mug, then another, hearing the soft declarations Taehyung kept repeating while he was seated. 

All you had wanted to study was forensic science, and that was simply for one reason: you didn't want to interact with people. 

People are complicated, over emotional beings. and you couldn't help but feel helpless every time you had to encounter a suspect. You would constantly be told by your professors to see them as lawbreakers - but all you tried finding was signs of humanity in them. That even the most vicious killers had scope for reform. That's why you stuck to the subjects you wanted - you were good at finding signs of life, not squashing them. You consistently failed those classes, without any doubt. And today, it seemed like all those classes were laughing at you. 

"Here." You handed the mug to Taehyung, who muttered thanks. He rubbed his hands once or twice on the pants you told him to change into and took a sip from the warm tea. You resisted the urge to reach out and wipe the tears that lined his face, and try and wipe the scars of the past that had scarred him so badly - but you couldn't. You were a mere spectator in the game of his life. You couldn't possibly do anything other than hurt him more. 

"Thank you. For letting me express all of it. I could finally say everything that I wanted to before I was forbidden from speaking about it again." Taehyung tapped against the mug, fingernails resting on ceramic as the sun slowly headed westward. "I'm sorry that I've been such a burden to you, Y/N. I wonder if I can do anything to reduce the pain and confusion I put you through - I doubt I can." He looked at you carefully, though you couldn't tell what he was thinking. "Thank you." 

You let his words echo in the room, preoccupied with your thoughts. It hurt you to see him so broken, and you couldn't help but worry about him. 

"Taehyung, I-" You opened your mouth to respond, watching Taehyung pay attention to every move you made - only to be interrupted by your phone loudly ringing. 

"Sorry, this must be important." You got up to get your phone, watching Taehyung slump in his seat from the edge of your vision. 

"It's the chief," you announced, picking up the phone. 

He got straight to the point. "Come to the station, soon. Bring Taehyung with you." he told, his voice laced with a rather sharp edge- a tone that you had recognized in the years you had worked under him. Things were- most probably- not good. 

You responded with a simple "yes", mind dwelling on the impending result that Taehyung would get. You felt that it would be unlikely that he would be going to jail- at least, you hoped so.

Turning to Taehyung, you tried to hide the fear and shakiness that lined your voice. "Let's go." 

Taehyung sighed, playing with the mug as he rose up. "It's time, isn't it?"

"Good morning, Sir." You greeted the chief as he hurried into the small office, giving Taehyung a glance and then facing you. 

"Morning." He gruffly responded, turning to your laptop. "We found an eyewitness for the vandalism, so we are getting them for the interrogation as well." 

"Another interrogation? We've already done it, sir, and all the information is recorded here. I doubt it will be necessary-"

"Please, Y/N," He calmly said. "Leave the decision about it being necessary to me." 

You stepped back, subconsciously edging closer to Taehyung - a move noticed by the chief as well. 

"Y/N," he began, "I need to speak to you. In private. Step outside for a few moments, please." 

You nodded, briskly walking towards the doors and yanking them open. There was a warm gust of wind that blew across your face, and you turned to face the chief. 

"Y/N," the chief began, before pausing for a moment, "Officer Y/N. I'm going to need you to think clearly now." 

"Yes." You set your features as tightly as you could, not wanting to seem distracted in any way. 

"Do you have any type of bias in this case, perhaps due to your past relation with him?" he looked quizzically at you, as if trying to decipher an enigma scribbled onto your face. 

Your blood chilled, for some reason. Were you having any bias? "No, sir." 

The chief hummed - you couldn't make head or tail of his reaction. He kicked at a pebble before continuing. "From the recordings I heard the previous night in the office, and the way you let him come with you to freshen up a bit, one particular thing has struck me: you were trying to find reasons for Taehyung to be justified as a victim, weren't you?" 

You gulped before responding. "Yes, sir. I believe the culprit committed vandalism as a coping mechanism to get over the hurt caused over the years." 

The chief sighed heavily. "Well then," he said, "I suggest we continue with our investigation, and find a way to make sure the culprit in the matter is stable as well. We can't have repeated cases like these - we have a reputation to uphold for the police as well." 

You nodded stiffly. "Yes, sir." 

The chief sighed again, glancing at the street. "Our witness should be here soon." He turned to you again. "Funnily enough, she volunteered as a witness with CCTV backup to claim that Taehyung had vandalized her shop too. Apparently she heard you arrest him last night - so we have to hear her out." 

The chief turned again to the road, eyes narrowing in hopes of spotting the witness soon. "The investigator whom she contacted has said she is a reliable witness, but I'm going to need to verify her statement nonetheless." He turned back, heading into the office.

You stared at the road that the chief was looking at before - the direction from which the supposedly reliable eyewitness would come, before heading back inside. 

Taehyung was still slumped in his seat, fingers tracing drawings all over the pants you had given him. The chief was shuffling around behind the desk, pulling two spare chairs ahead - one for Taehyung, you presumed, and one for the eyewitness - whoever that would be. 

"Mr. Kim Taehyung," the chief began, "there has been an eyewitness who has offered their testimony - whether it is to defend you, or further establish evidence of you vandalizing public spaces, I'm not yet aware. We shall be interrogating them - and maybe you, as well, now." 

Taehyung rose up from the corner he had settled into, and shuffled into the seat the chief had set for him, wordlessly. 

The door opened to reveal an older lady, dressed in a purple shaded hanbok, hair delicately pulled back into a tight bun and eyes peering around the whole office in curiosity. She found the chief, walking closer to the desk where he was arranging the records. "I'm here as the eyewitness..?"She said, looking at both you and the chief. 

"Ah, yes. I presume you're Ms. Park?" The chief asked, pulling the chair out for her to settle into it. Under the light that shined across her face, you could make out the wrinkles that lined her skin and the greys in her hair - not that that was relevant to what would happen. 

"I saw him vandalize the outside of my store a few days ago," she earnestly began, pulling out pictures that she had taken of the design on her window.  "I'm a florist, you see. His designs are clearly inspired by that, aren't they?" She pushed the pictures in front of your vision, and you could see what she meant - the designs of orchids, hibiscus and asters stared back at you, intricately painted onto the glass windows of the florist's shop. 

She pulled out more pictures. "There's been similar instances all over the neighbourhood- the other florist had a rose, the school received drawings full of children's stories and fairy tales, and had their walls painted with similar stories. In fact, the restaurants around here even said that their menus were drawn onto the streets, right in front of their doorstep." 

The chief looked at the pictures carefully, with you peering at them as well, taking in the detail that Taehyung had while he worked while making each of his works- no, vandalising, you corrected yourself. He raised an eyebrow at the eyewitness, who seemed to shrink into her seat. "What does this bring forward as evidence for or against the culprit? We already know what the crime is, and its details. We just have to determine a punishment- either a hefty fine or jail. Do you have anything that can justify him getting exempted from either?"

Ms. Park looked at you and the chief before turning to Taehyung apologetically, placing a hand on his knee - as if consoling him. "I think that at the end of the day, all he was doing was beautifying the neighbourhood, wasn't he? And most of the residents here don't have a problem with it-" the chief looked at her incredulously- "so please, don't punish him or something. A lot of people appreciate his work in our neighborhood, you know?" 

"But we have been receiving complaints about him since the past few days," the chief said. "Why the sudden change in opinion?"

Ms. Park fidgeted with the hem of her hanbok for a few moments, shaking her head nervously. "Some of us shopkeepers were really bothered by it at first, yes, but we also had some customers come over to inquire about the artwork. It looked professional to them. So we came to an ultimatum : we will let this young man paint and draw for us, on our walls, as much as he wants - as long as it's pretty," she emphasized, one hand patting her chest, "we'll pay him to do it." 

You held back a sob as you saw Taehyung's eyes glimmer - a ray of hope shining in them.His knee bounced up and down- a habit you knew was something he had had since years - and he smiled softly when Ms. Park squeezed his hand. You felt like things were finally going to go well. The chief exhaled roughly before rubbing his forehead, glancing at Ms. Park, who smiled at him in the hope that he would understand her reasoning. 

"The law, honestly, doesn't care about intentions- I don't think I really understand why I should even let him go. Vandalism is a punishable offence, and the perpetrator has been aware of its consequences. Why the sudden feeling to save him?" The chief questioned, eyes steely and tough. 

Ms. Park hesitated for a few moments. "I believe he deserves a second chance." She pulled her chair ahead, the metal ends scraping against the tiles, and pleaded once again. "He was arrested for years for something he hadn't even done - and now, might face a few more months in the same place for simply being artistic. I don't think it deserves punishment."

"That's for the law to decide, not you, madam." The chief sternly said. "I suggest you leave such decisions to us."

The room remained tense and quiet for the next few moments, and your eyes were trained on Taehyung. You noticed the quiver in his hands, the way he shrunk into his chair - as if to hide away from whatever the upcoming decision would be. 

Ms. Park was the first to interrupt the loud silence. "Oh, come on. Let me just pay for the boy's bail." 

The clock chose that moment to loudly announce the next hour: was it eleven? Twelve? You weren't paying attention. You only saw the way Taehyung rose up from his seat - in happiness, you thought - with fists sticking to his sides. "No. I won't accept it." 

You felt the chief look with just as much disbelief as you did. Why was he so hellbent on being a perpetrator when he could be free? 

Ms. Park laughed. "No. I'm not listening to that whole self righteous thing that you probably have," she swatted the air with her hand, as if to push away any explanations Taehyung could give.

"Look, ma'am. I have the money to get a bail, or even pay the fine. I don't want you to pay for me and then hold it above my head like a massive favour you have done for me." Fire blazed in his eyes as he spoke up, rather indignantly. "I can take care of myself." 

"To hell with that attitude," Ms. Park said. "I decided to help you because I didn't want you to suffer once again because of misunderstandings." She pulled Taehyung back to sit on his chair, clasping his hand between her wrinkled ones. "You had to go through so much pain at such a young age - no one deserves that. I was a mere bystander at the time you were arrested, and I regretted it then. I still regret it now." 

She sighed before caressing the back of his hand lovingly, thumb gently pressing on the skin- as if to feel the pain those hands had to go through, and you thought you saw a hint of a tear on his cheeks. "So don't question me for 'saving' you, or something - what you did was perfectly fine for me. I love the way my street looks now, and so do the neighbours. All that really remained was the artist's identity- and now that I know it's you, I don't feel any sort of guilt in justifying what you did." 

You were right. Taehyung was crying. It wasn't silent tears that rained gently down his cheeks, it was a whole thunderstorm. You saw the chief turn away, from the corner of your vision, but you couldn't bring yourself to do the same. He was biting on his bottom lip to hold back any of the sobs or whimpers that came, head lowering to hide the tears. 

Ms. Park simply caressed his hand, over and over, till he calmed down enough to wipe his tears with his free hand. And when he raised his head up, you saw him like a new person. The wound up Taehyung you had met again a few hours ago was slowly vanishing - in his stead, there was a free Taehyung who smiled like the world's burden had been lifted off his shoulders. "Thank you," he murmured. 

The chief sighed again. "I still don't understand how it came to this." 

"Neither do I," Ms. Park laughed. "But it is what it is. We'll pay the fine."

"I'll do it," Taehyung started, only to be shushed by the elder lady. "I want to do it. Let me do it." She turned again to the chief, the bubbly happiness giving way to seriousness. "You can make sure he pays the fine, right? Withdraw the complaints for us too." 

The chief looked at you and nodded, and you got to work - carefully opening the laptop again and making sure that you transferred the report from 'investigation' to 'resolved', and that the complaint was withdrawn. 

The chief, meanwhile, made physical records of it, and informed Taehyung of the fine - which, despite his insistence, Ms. Park paid off, whipping out a cheque she had kept ready, somehow. You added the details to his resolved record as the chief dictated them to you, keeping them for future references - which you hoped would only be needed to prove his innocence in any situation. 

Nearly twenty minutes of details, questioning, and a written assurance from Taehyung that he would be liable to arrest if he continued illegal activities, it was done. Taehyung was free. 

The chief read over the details once again, thoroughly, eyes getting heavier and softer with every document he checked. Once it was all done, filed, and you had stacked the records back in the drawers they were placed in, the chief sagged into the chair, hands clutching the steel arms for support. 

"Thank God," he whispered, eyes closed. "You're fine now." He got up shakily, hands wiping at his eyes to erase any traces of the tears that had possibly leaked out. He walked around the table, reaching for Taehyung - as if beyond the lines of that desk, his duties as an officer stopped and those as a teacher resumed. "Don't you dare do that again, Taehyung. Never again." He held his student by the shoulder tightly, gripping him and shaking him a little - like a parent would scold a kid. "Live a good life, please." 

Taehyung nodded frantically, eyes still wide in disbelief as he ignored the grubby tear streaks on his face. "I will, sir." He had his hands placed politely in front of him, trembling fingers clutching onto the rough denim fabric of the old, loose jeans you had made him wear. 

"Live well," the chief repeated again, thumping Taehyung's shoulder once and then turning around to collect the documents he would need to take with him. He bowed to Ms. Park, who acknowledged him before something at a corner of the small office caught her eye, and turned sharply to you. "Officer Y/N," he began, and you tensed a little bit more. "There was an opening last night in the forensic science department that I got notice of," he said, a smile tugging on the edges of his lips when he saw how your demeanor brightened. "Reach the head office tomorrow in the morning at ten, and I'll give you the details. All the best." 

You hastily held back the sudden smile that threatened to split on your face, smartly saluting your senior before he turned around to leave the office. As he opened the door, you felt a burst of warmth all over your body - the heat of the sunshine rushing into the room. 

Ms. Park walked from her corner to Taehyung, taking his palm between hers and squeezing. "I'm happy that you're free now, Taehyung." She looked carefully at his face - sternness making way for soft concern, and said, "Live wisely. If you need money, or a job to get you started, come to my shop - it's the one you painted with orchids. You remember it, right?" 

Taehyung responded with a rather choked 'yes', nodding his head frantically. He placed his other, trembling hand upon the lady's hands, and solemnly thanked her. 

"That's not needed, I told you." She smiled, before patting his cheek. "You deserve to let yourself live, so use this chance well. Work hard." She turned her head to look through the window behind her, groaning a bit at the sight of the brightly burning sun. "I better leave now - it seems that I'll end up getting a sunburn the nearer to twelve it is." She turned back to Taehyung, smiling softly, and patting his cheek. "Turn up at the shop tomorrow morning, we'll figure something out." 

"Oh, and officer?" she faced you, pointing in the corner where she was standing a few moments before. "I think my grandson had left his plushie over here a few days ago - it's this one, right?" You followed where her hand was pointing, finding a pumpkin plushie left casually on top of a table. "Sungwoo told me he had lost it some time ago, so I just thought it was this one," she laughed awkwardly. 

"I think it is his, he had come yesterday to file a missing complaint for it too," you said, causing Ms. Park to laugh. "He really loves it, doesn't he?" 

"He's not slept well since it went missing. Anyways, I better take it with me, if that's all."

"Just a moment, ma'am," you stopped her hastily. "He'd left a note for the plushie too - I believe Peter?" 

The elderly woman laughed at her grandson's antics, taking the note you offered her and grinning as she read it. "Yes, yes, Peter. I'll take the note with me. Thank you so much for everything, officer."

Thank you, you wish to say - unable to understand how she volunteered to be an eyewitness and defend the one person you cared so much for. Maybe words wouldn't be enough for you to convey how grateful you were to her, so you simply bowed to the woman. 

She took Taehyung's hand again, gently pressing on the back of his hand. "Your mother used to help me out in the shop, you know." Taehyung nodded, and she smiled. "Your hands are like hers. Delicate, yet strong. You can craft beauty with this hand, Taehyung." She squeezed his hand, smiling. "Don't just let that beauty slip away from you." 

She patted his hand again, before turning to you and smiling, and heading out. The sunlight bounced off her gray hair to shine on Taehyung as you looked at him - even with a tired expression, he looked more alive than you had seen him in the last few hours. 

"I'm free," he said, saying it aloud and letting himself feel the sensation for a few moments. 

He turned to you, watching the way your eyes told him that you understood everything you wanted to tell him - even the things he himself didn't understand. "I'm free, Y/N," he repeated, carefully examining his wrists that were once bound with handcuffs - no. There were no restraints there. 

His eyes panned around the room. There was no investigator who questioned him about why he simply couldn't admit his crime. No one who made fun of him for seeking comfort in his art - even if it was illegal. "I'm really free," he murmured again.

Taehyung leaped towards you, pulling you close and holding you tight, as if unable to believe that you were there with him: and that he was here with you for as long as he wanted to be. You let your arms circle around his neck, one curling through the hair at his nape and pulling him further into your embrace, and the other spread out over his back - trying to remind yourself that yes, he was here, with you. 

"Thank you," you felt him murmur into your shoulder. 

"For what?"

"Just being here. With me." He sighed, further tightening the hands that rested around your waist. "After so many unfamiliar faces over the years, seeing yours feels like a reward of sorts for behaving well." 

You laughed at him, slapping his back light heartedly. "Don't talk like you did anything wrong all those years ago. It's not good." You let your hands pane across the expanse of his skin, feeling him cling on to you as you tried to calm him down. "I'm happy for you, Tae." 

He held you like that, for a few more moments - like you were slowly pulling him back into what could be his new normal life. Waking up every day in a room that doesn't have steel bars as a door. Not having to crash at the old house that had haunted him for years. Not having to hide his face in the fear that someone would taunt him for his past. Actually doing something that made him feel happy, confident, and alive. 

"I'm happy too," he murmured into your shoulder. You hummed as he looked beyond your frame to see the streets outside the window - seeing how they were illuminated in daylight. How animatedly people were talking about what their plans for the day were. A kid kept hopping on a chalk drawing of hopscotch he had drawn on the footpath, clutching onto a plushie that oddly seemed like a pumpkin. Someone walked around their stall, setting things up for the day. 

You pulled him away from your grip to look at him again - not wanting to forget any part of him in any way. "I still care for you as much as I did all those years ago, you know." You put your hands on his biceps, just as you used to do when you had to knock sense into your friend. "You better not hide anything from me now." 

"I have no intentions of," he grinned. "Thank you very much." 

You giggled, a feeling you hadn't felt in years fluttering around your stomach like butterflies. 

"About us," Taehyung began, holding your hands in his, "You know that I love you, right?" You felt yourself tense up, and probably Taehyung did too, as he squeezed your hands. "I'm not in any hurry. I want to take some time to understand myself and what I want to do before I think of anything with you. But when I'm settled, and I'm someone I can be proud of, I want to come back to you. Be with you forever." He let go of your hands to hold your cheeks, smiling as he saw your big eyes peer at him. "You'll let me, right?" 

Your eyes softened. "Of course, Taehyung."

"Tae." He corrected you, coming closer to press a kiss on your forehead. 

You smiled when he moved back, glancing down at all of him and laughing. "For beginners, how about we get you clothes to change into?" 

He looked down at his clothes, laughing with you. "Let's go, then?" 

You nodded at him, pulling him out of the office, and locking it securely before turning to a widely grinning Taehyung. "I have a feeling I'm going to love the daytime. It's just so positive, and nice, don't you think? Really warm all over." 

"You're just saying that because you lived like a night owl," you laughed at him, watching his eyes sparkle in the sunshine. 

"Yeah, that wasn't the best way to live, was it?" He clicked his tongue and frowned. "Guess I better start living well now. To new beginnings, then, Officer!!" He grinned and poked your forehead. 

You watched Taehyung skip over the pebbles that were lined outside the office, walking freely on the streets, feeling the dread that you had let build up in your heart for so long slowly drain out of you. "Wait for me!" You screamed behind him, running to catch up to him. To new beginnings, you thought. 

a/n: hopefully, this piece of writing was worth your time 😊 thank you so much for reading graffiti and chalk!! I'd love to hear any feedback you have. Feel free to send it in as a comment, reblog, or as an ask! love, hazel 💞

taglist: @taejinnies (the torture is over bahaha), @xiaokoo, @thedarkwinterrose, @shatzkrinslinzki

masterlist

[digital-corruption]

Hey! I hope you are doing well :)

And...

Do you have any idea how WONDERFUL your fanfics are?

I just started reading 'Haunted by the Past' and I am in awe of your writing style and storyline and every word you put in there!

Your fanfics are so well-structured, gripping and articulate... Honestly, I have no idea how to describe your writing. I love it so much! I am literally addicted!

Are you an author? Because if you are, I would love to buy all of your books!😂

Seriously, I am not joking! You have already become one of my favorite writers!

So... When did you start writing? and How do you do it?

You know, just after I finished reading a few parts of 'Haunted by the Past' I was like- Why am I only reading this now? Why didn't I know about this sooner?

Now, I am going to stay up all night and read all your fanfics!

Good bye Digi (this is what they call you here, right?)

Have a wonderful day/night! :)

Sorry if this long message bothered you

Um um let me find the right emoji.....

😳☺🥰💓😊😇

Ok, I couldn’t find the right emoji so I've gone with a sequence of emojis showing my progression reading your ask. Really I am at a loss of words. This is such a wonderful ask to wake up too! 😁

Um so no, I don’t write professionally. I did study animation with an interest in creating my own series, but I sort of got side tracked as I finished my degree and after many years our pet project FINALLY bore fruit and now can't stress enough how much I love my job. I literally spend my days spreading the love of stories.

Because of my job, I do encounter a wide-range of stories and I suppose it has its influence on me. 😅

So back to the question... aside from fanfics I wrote at the wee age of 13 (seriously they're trash) I haven't actually posted any writing until I started writing Haunted at the beginning of this year. I have started and stopped a couple of originals over the years. I have a habit of coming up with stories that are too large for me to wrangle. 😅 BUT after such incredible feedback from the fics, I have been more inspired to put better effort into it, once my personal life is... calmer.

As far as how I do it... I ramble write a lot actually. lol I try to have an idea where I want the story to go before I start, though sometimes that changes. Most of my storybeat ideas come to me in the shower (and then @rejectedreality complains to me for taking over 30 minutes because I'm lost in my thoughts). I dunno, something about the sound and warmth of the water fuels my imagination. When I start a scene, I try to have an idea where I want it to go before I start and then... I guess I just let the characters in my head play it out through my thumbs. (I write on my phone.) I don't post immediately. I continue on for several parts and then come back to it to make sure it still makes sense and in case I ended up somewhere else, I try to make it feel like a smooth progression. I cull any useless dialogue afterwards, particularly where I rambled too much. Short and sweet and to the point.

My English teacher of yesteryears would go at me for not putting enough description into my scenes but... I get bored doing that. lol My scriptwriting class trained me to reduce description to allow for the director and actors to add their own creative flair. Honesty I think the same can be said of the reader. 🙂 Less is more? Unless you need something to be a specific way.

I never specify the color of Jake’s eyes. 🤭

Um I hope that answers your questions because I really don’t think I do anything fancy. 👉👈 English is my first language so I have a small advantage there. To be fair though I SUCK at learning second languages! So I am in awe at the number of people writing fanfics in English when it isn't their first language!

Wow I've rambled a lot here. My personal life keeps poking and prodding me for attention so I am going to end this there. I probably forgot something... 😅

Um, yes you can call me Digi! I don't remember who came up with it first, but it is cute. hehe

TL,DR: Thank you so much for your lovely comments! 🥰 You absolutely made my day! I don’t have a discernible method to my madness though. 😅

[thebookreader12345]

750 Followers Celebration - Q&A

Thank you so much for supporting me through this journey! You guys don't know how much this means to me. Every single one of you is amazing.

Below the cut are my answers to the questions that you all submitted.

Q: Do you think Jay is going to become Sergeant this season? A: There has been a lot of debate over this question because of the past few seasons and all of the "Easter eggs", like the sergeant exam poster hanging in the background of the show. In my opinion, I do not believe Jay will become Sergeant. Yet. I think it won't be until the beginning of next season because, if this is a possible storyline, I would expect that the producers and writers would make the finale of season 9 about Voight stepping down/getting promoted, etc.

Q: Did Chicago Justice deserve more episodes? A: I'm sort of split with this question. I loved the fact that there was a big episode involving Kevin, and they always included people from Med, Fire, and PD in some of the episodes. However, the whole plot of the episodes was kind of slow because it wasn't like they were police officers and could go out and chase suspects and arrest people and what not. Their job was just to gather the evidence and then present it in court. I think for many, the show fell flat because there wasn't much action, and part of me does agree with that, but the whole idea of the show itself was kind of cool.

Q: What would make you stop watching each Chicago show? A: This is a tough question because I've only ever dropped one show that I can think of, and it was only because the plotline got really dumb. Maybe if some major characters died in each show I'd stop watching it? But then again, I love the One Chicago universe so much that I don't think even that would stop me from watching. So yeah. I really don't know.

Q: Do you believe in magic? A: As much as I would love for magic to be real, I don't believe it is. But I feel like everyone thinks that way. Cause lets be honest, Harry Potter and Disney make magic look so cool. However, we all know deep down somewhere that it's almost impossible for certain things to be real, and magic just so happens to be one of them.

Q: Are you superstitious? A: I'm not the most superstitious person out there, but I do somewhat follow a few superstitions. Whenever I find a penny on the ground with heads facing up, I pick it up because I believe I'll get good luck. Doing the whole "fingers crossed" thing is something I do a lot. I believe you shouldn't open an umbrella in the house or else you'll receive bad luck. Broken mirrors are bad omens. Those are the top 4 I believe in, but other than that, I'm not really too superstitious.

Q: Is your perception of yourself similar or the same to how others perceive you? A: I mean, I would hope so. I appreciate my level of smarts, and whenever my friends acknowledge them or compliment me on them it makes my day. However, with that, people think that I'm always only doing things to boost my intelligence. For example, I love to read. So whenever I say that I didn't do much over the weekend, people always assume that I read a bunch, when I really didn't. Or that I always study for tests or do homework like a week before it's do. That is not the case. But for the most part, I believe my perception of myself is the same as how other people perceive me.

Q: Who is your favorite couple on each One Chicago show? A: Okay, so for Med, there aren't really any couples at the moment besides Maggie and Ben, whom I love but they aren't my favorite, so I'm gonna pick a past couple. When I first started Med, Manstead was my prime ship, so I'll choose them. Will had been pining after Natalie for so long so I was glad when they finally got together. For Fire, it's gotta be Kelly and Stella. They were literally made for each other, and they support each other with everything. Also, they are so cute together and all of Firehouse 51 ships them as well! And for PD, while I do love Burzek, Upstead is my favorite ship at the moment. I've seen the connection between Hailey and Jay since season 5. You don't understand how angry I was in season 7 when Hailey was so close to confessing her feelings. So season 8 made me very happy when Jay and Hailey finally got together.

Q: Jay and Lindsey or Jay and Hailey? A: I respect everyone's opinions on this matter, so hopefully you all respect mine. I thought that Erin was almost toxic in a way for Jay. She continuously broke his heart when all he wanted to do was help him. But what really does it for me is that she left Chicago without telling him goodbye. Hailey, on the other hand, has pushed Jay to seek out help when he needed it, like when she recommended he take seeing a therapist seriously to help with his PTSD, and she is always there for him, no matter what. That's why I believe Hailey and Jay are the better pairing.

Q: Which character death got to you the most? A: There have been too many sad deaths in the One Chicago world. But if I had to pick one, I've gotta go with Otis on Chicago Fire. Otis was always one of my favorite characters, even way back when I watched Fire with my dad when it was first coming out. He was witty and funny, and his friendship with Cruz was everything. So, when I watched the episode where he died, I was full on balling. I had to pause the episode for 10 minutes because I couldn't stop.

Q: Who is your favorite character on each show and why? A: I'm gonna do favorite male and female character because I've got too many favorites from each show. On Med, my favorites are Will and Natalie. Will has been my favorite since day one, and I like that he will go out of his way to help patients, even if it means he could get in serious trouble. Natalie, even though she's not in the show, always pushes for the best of care for her patients, and whenever she dealt with kids it was always the sweetest thing. On Fire, I like Kelly and Sylvie. Kelly is so headstrong and driven, and he will do anything to protect the other members of Squad 3. Sylvie is such a hard worker and you can tell she is passionate about her job. I feel so bad that she's had to go through so many partners. On PD I love Jay and Hailey. Jay has not always been my favorite male character. Back when I watched the show for the first time, I adored Adam. However, I love that Jay has such good morals and is always pushing to do the right thing even when Voight disagreed. Now, it took a few episodes for me to warm up to Hailey, but after seeing her be so badass, it was hard not to like her.

Q: Where do you get inspiration for your stories?/How do you get inspiration when there's not a request? A: This question is always hard to answer because I really don't know. Most of the time I'm fulfilling requests sent in by you guys and I just write what comes to the top of my mind. If there are requests that are not requested and I come up with them on my own, chances are I saw the plot somewhere else, like in a book or show or movie, and I just tweaked it a bit to fit the One Chicago universe. Either that happens, or while I'm trying to fall asleep, I make up random scenarios in my head, and if I find one that I really like, I'll make a note of it on my phone so I don't forget it, and then I'll write about it.

Q: Do you think Brett and Casey are endgame? Why or why not? A: I'm gonna go with yes on this one. Now, Brettsey is not one of my top ships in the universe. However, they are cute together, and I've been expecting them to get together for a while. The two of them, even when Gabby was around, had a great relationship and always cared for each other. Plus, Matt jumped out of a firetruck to go help Sylvie when the ambulance flipped. He was willing to risk an injury just to make sure she was okay. And now that they are officially together in Chicago Fire, you can see that they really love and care for each other.

Q: What inspired you to start writing? A: I always seem to get this question whenever I do a q&a, but that's okay because I don't mind talking about it. I first got into stuff like this as a reader. Basically, I went on to Wattpad and Tumblr to read other people's stories. I had no intention of creating my own. And then, one day, I started imagining myself in some of the fandoms I was apart of, and I thought, "If I'm imagining myself in these fandoms, chances are others are too," and I began creating stories that followed the plots of movies and shows exactly, just adding Y/n in it. However, that got tiring after a while because I wasn't able to have much freedom because I was following a set script, and that's when I remembered I had a Tumblr account I never used. So, I revamped my account just a little bit and started posting story ideas I had that I couldn't post on Wattpad because either they didn't fit with the stories or they were for someone I didn't write for on Wattpad. And now, here we are. For anyone interested, I've posted this before but I'll post it again, my Wattpad handle is @Writer_Reader05.

Q: Jay or Will Halstead? A: I'm sorry, but I really can't choose between the two of them. I love them both so much. Will and Jay are two of my favorite characters in the whole One Chicago universe. While they do have some qualities that I'm not the fondest of, at the end of the day, I adore the both of them, and I could never choose between them.

Q: Who would you rather date: Jay or Will Halstead? A: Why do you guys do this to me? I love them both so much! But, if I have to choose, I'm gonna pick Jay. The only reason is because I like the characters in PD more than Med, so if I'm dating Jay, chances are I'm friends with Hailey and Adam and all of Intelligence. Will is just as awesome as Jay though and I feel like sometimes people sleep on that.

Q: Which of the requested fics you’ve written is your favorite? A: I think I'm gonna have to go with a Jay Halstead x reader I wrote titled Two Becomes Three. Something about the plot just makes me smile. And to think of Jay being a father......So yeah, while I have so many amazing requested fics thanks to you all, that one has to be one of my favorites.

Q: What’s your favorite series you’ve written so far? A: I love all of the series I have written. Something about creating a whole story that's more than just one part is always fun. If I have to pick one series, I'm gonna pick On the Loose. It was the first series I wrote on Tumblr and the plot of it is something I'm really proud of. However, From the Big Apple to the Windy City, Identity Loss, and Difference of Opinion are all amazing! The first two are finished series and the last one still has a few chapters left to go. Go check them out if you haven't already.

Q: What's your favorite imagine you've come up with and why? A: I don't have a lot of fics that are solely my ideas. Most of my stories have plots that were sent in by you all. However, if I had to pick a favorite out of my stories, it'd be Back Home for Christmas, a Halstead Sister fic I released when I was somewhat new to the platform. Something about writing sibling fics always makes me happy because I get to express the familial side to the characters.

Q: If you had to be roommates with 5 of your mutuals/fellow writers, who would you pick and why? A: I love all of my fellow writers/mutuals so much! I know how much work we put into whatever we post, and most of us are very active on this site. As for who I would pick to be my roommates, I'd choose @hereforhalstead @fighterkimburgess @halsteadlover @resanoona @sylviebrettsey because I feel like we'd all have great conversations, mainly over One Chicago. And every Wednesday night we'd all watch the episodes live together and experience them as a group and then freak out over what happened..........Now watch me fantasize about this all day.

Q: Do you listen to music when you write? A: It depends. On some days when I plan that I'm gonna write, then yes, I do put on some music. When there are days that I have a few minutes to spare, I don't put on music just because I'm only writing for a few minutes and I don't want to waste time. But mostly when I'm writing I do play music in the background.

Q: Do you know how your fics/stories end before you finish writing it? A: This is a really interesting question. The answer is no, I do not know how I'm gonna end a fic before I finish writing it. The only story I had a set ending for was my series On the Loose, but that one wasn't even fully planned out until I got a chapter or two in. Obviously, if I get a request that includes a set ending, like two characters get together or something like that, then I know what the ending will be. Otherwise, I have no clue.

Q: Have you ever met someone who had a very similar personality to your own? Did you get along? A: You know, I can't say that I have. Everyone is different in their own way, and that's what makes us all unique. I would imagine if I did meet someone with a similar personality we'd get along because we'd basically be a carbon copy of each other, but who knows. Maybe our similar personalities would cause us to clash.

Q: Do you hold yourself to higher standards than you hold others? A: Not really. I know myself more than anyone else so I know what my limits are and when I've reached them. With people, on the other hand, I always feel like they can be doing more with themselves and their lives. So I do not hold myself to higher standards than others.

Thank you to all of you who sent in questions! I never thought I'd reach 750 followers on this platform. The only reason I have is all thanks to you wonderful people out there!

@winterberryfox @maximeevansblog @scarletsoldierrr @i-like-sparkly-things @dreamingmanip @soph0864 @ryliegh8 @lorenakaspersen @wanniiieeee @nevertoofarfromivar @securityfriendly-jay @pinkbay-love @stephie123

[prettywordsyouleft]

I was wondering if you have seen The School Nurse Files on Netflix? If you have, I would love to hear your thoughts about it!

Also, lately I've been wanting to get my own guitar (I currently use an extra one that my friend has lent me) and I have this fanfic idea that in an AU the DAY6 members are actually music teachers in an academy or people who work in a musical instruments shop!

Maybe it goes something like this:

Sungjin - the guy that was initially hired as a shop assistant but eventually picks up the guitar

Jae - the electric guitar teacher who's cool and chill. Also loves vintage instruments and has an extensive collection of it. Aaaaand since Jae said somewhere he likes plants, I'd like to think that he's also in charge of taking care of the plants in the music academy/shop.

Young K - a fellow vintage enthusiast who teaches the electric bass. Then again, since he studied business, I'd think he'd make a great manager at the shop?

Wonpil - the piano teacher who's quiet but secretly a DJ at night

Dowoon - the drum teacher who likes to play video games and actually wants to be a professional gamer, it's just that he happens to be good in drums 😅

Maybe eventually they'll form a band that plays for fun/does gigs whenever they feel like it. Y/N can be anyone lol, but I'd like to think Y/N as the one who owns the academy/shop? Or maybe a fellow colleague .... Actually anything will do, I trust your creativity!

I would be glad to know if these thoughts may inspire you for any other fics you want to write (for other groups). But I understand you have many on your plate right now so I don't mind if you let this pass!

Thank you for your fics and have a good day!

Hi there! Thanks for your message! 

Not yet. I actually am incredibly behind on watching new dramas, as I’ve put off watching some others and I’m trying to catch up. My friend said it looks kind of intriguing from the trailer. I’ll no doubt watch it, as I like Nam Joohyuk as an actor! I actually haven’t watched anything of his since The Bride of Habaek so I’ve got to catch up! 

I hope you can get your own guitar soon. So nice of your friend to be lending you one! And your idea sounds really great! I must admit, as I read it, I thought you were just sharing your thought process with me and then I got to the end bit and realised you were sending in a request. I’m so sorry, I’m not open to take on something this large (to me, it sounds like it could be a series!) - Chelle Chats is only for drabbles that I try to keep around 250-400 words. 

But I admit, there’s one storyline that I can’t pass up so I’ll write it into a drabble for you right now - which has actually been hard to keep to the limit, whoops. Of course, I encourage you to give your idea a go to write yourself as you’ve put in a lot of effort creating it! 

Pairing: Kim Wonpil x reader

Word count: 510

________________

You blinked rapidly before returning your focus across the club, peering closely at the DJ. Still, he appeared to be someone who you couldn’t possibly imagine to be here tonight and so you placed down your alcoholic beverage, as if the two sips of it you had taken were the cause of this trickery.

However, Wonpil remained in the DJ booth, bouncing his head along to the tunes. 

“It’s impossible,” you murmured to yourself, getting up from the seat you had taken upstairs and moved down into the throes of bodies moving to the beat. 

Clubs were hardly your thing, but you had never expected to find the piano teacher you hired last summer at your music academy to have a nightlife quite like this. You hadn’t meant to assume, but with Wonpil’s usually soft and gentle ways with you and his students, you half anticipated a Friday night would look like a movie at home with a cat or two curled up next to him before going to bed. 

With some struggle, you made it down to the front of the club, dodging wildly tossed around limbs and a couple of dance requests along the way. As you stared up at Wonpil executing some of the greatest club remixes you had ever heard, you were rather grateful to learn something new about the teacher. Deciding you didn’t want to linger for too long in case he noticed you, you pulled out your phone, took a short clip of his performance and then returned to your group of friends you were with. 

But you couldn’t help it, your eyes remained on him for the rest of the night.

________________

“Mr Kim, good morning,” you greeted on Monday morning and Wonpil glanced at you with his usual bright smile, until something seemed to spring to mind. His eyes lingered on your pants suit for only a moment before he mumbled his reply and took off to his tutoring room.

Again, when you crossed paths with him in the staff kitchen, he almost dropped his freshly made tea as he beelined for the exit. Finally, when the day came to a close, you stepped in front of him.

“I’m guessing you saw me that night too?”

Wonpil’s expression flashed with acknowledgement before he grimaced. “Was I that obvious then?”

“No, but you sure are right now. If it makes you feel uncomfortable about me knowing, I won’t tell the rest of the faculty. Your secret is safe with me.”

“It’s not that,” he blurted out. “I just... didn’t imagine you that way.”

“What way?” 

He gestured to your outfit, his cheeks reddening as the conversation continued. “You’re normally dressed like this.”

“Oh,” you said, chuckling softly. “I guess my dress was rather short that evening.”

“It looked good -- you looked great.”

You grinned. “Well, you exceeded all my expectations also.”

“I did?”

“I pictured your Friday nights much quieter than that.”

Wonpil joined you in grinning. “I guess there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to both of us, huh?”

________________

My ask box is open for this week’s Chelle Chats!

[petekaos]

bro, i've just watched my engineer and idk what to feel. like u, it's sad seeing how bohnduen ended being a couple who doesn't communicate well, to the point they had to break up! as i didn't know a s2 was a certainty, i was kinda surprised seeing so much angst a week before the last ep. now i realize we still have a long way to go... and i'm honestly scared. regarding bohnduen, i saw u saying "wheres the fluffy" and thought bout all the potential for them to be a great sweet couple and ugh now+

i'm sad. however, i'm glad they'll have a chance to learn from mistakes and hopefully will have a healthy relationship. that would be great even for us viewers, so ppl won't romanticize jealousy and will realize that love doesn't survive without communication and respect for others' boundaries. regarding mekboss, deep inside i didn't expect them to have a happy ending but it's breaking my heart seeing where this is going.+

i thought mek had already talked to fong, but he simply stopped seeing her(?). it's not even that surprising, bc mek does seem like someone who avoids conflict and doesn't know how to deal with it. and knowing the problems boss' actor caused, maybe the writers decided to break them up and have someone else on mek's life next season? or will they get another actor and we'll pretend he was always boss? hah+

or they can also pull the "he's studying in another place" card. nway, not that hopeful. NOW, RAMKING. king, sweetie... WTF? i knew king might have some lil gay panic but still wasn't prepared to see him avoid ram. this HURTS LIKE HELL. besides, i'm honestly worried bout ram's feeling. king was the person he trusted, he allowed himself to open up and his actions said a lot bout his feelings.+

what if he becomes insecure and step back? what if he thinks he can't let his feelings be known anymore? i saw u talking bout the kiss on the trailer but what if king turns away? what if doesn't happen this season? uGH MY HEART. how could things become this sad, bro? :( - emo sis

hiii my friend! i hope you’re doing well!

yeah... yeah. bohnduen were so good in the first half of the season and things slowly went downhill. what i’m really hoping for is that this was planned and they don’t get back together next ep, but rather talk about everything and the writers set them up to grow and communicate and get back together next season. i think that would be a super smart idea for a s2, regarding bohnduen at least. i do agree with what you’ve said, i don’t think anybody really thought it was unnecessary or dramatic for them to break up given their current situation, i just... expected the breakup this episode, not gonna lie. Oh Well. i hope the writers do them justice in the next season at least :((

regarding mekboss, i think you got the actors and characters mixed up? yeah, ryan, mek’s actor, was fired and so idk what they’re gonna do with their plotline. at the very best, let’s hope they do a sort of aepete from lbc thing and give them a good ending and then just say he’s studying somewhere else or is doing, like, a foreign semester or something. considering that his voice is already dubbed, i’m sure we could see some phonecalls or something. but yeah... i think boss just assumed he and fon were over and didn’t further talk to her. however, i agree, he does seem like the kind of person to avoid conflict so... i hope they get their happy ending, i really do. but ever since i found out about the drama with ryan, i prepared myself for the fact they might not end well :/

now, ramking. i kind of disagree with you on this one? i don’t think king is necessarily avoiding ram or that this is some sort of pure gay panic. i think this is more of the fact that ram and king got close and vulnerable very fast and that ram went from 0 to 100 real quick as well. up till this point, it was a lot of king taking care of ram, what from tutoring to helping out with his dad, but now ram is taking care of king and it just seems... new to king, who is sorta clearly someone who cares a lot about others but doesn’t expect any of it for himself, as evidenced by the solid advice he gave bohn. i think king needs time and i think it’s also necessary for us to see he needs time and see him step back and sort through his feelings as well, because it’s just... realistic. i don’t think he’s avoiding him, because he gave him a heads up, however indirect it may have been, the night before about spending time with his friends or whatever. and this is coming from someone who loves ram first and foremost... ram was hurt, yes. but he wasn’t mad, and he was sad during the night, but the next day when they were planting trees, well. he looked mostly concerned for king. i do think they will communicate next episode about it and i cannot wait for next saturday.

about the kiss: here’s how i think it’s going to go. considering the fact that it’s king who lunges for ram, i don’t think he’s... in his right mind. i think that either it’s one of the first or last scenes for their storyline next episode. there’s also an argument scene where king pushes ram away and says that he clearly doesn’t care about him (you can watch that in this fanvid here at around 10s, don’t have the trailer/teaser for it handy atm), which ties into my hypothesis. i believe, if the kiss is one of the first scenes, then it’s going to be when king is drunk or extremely emotional. this can go either two ways: either ram pulls away and kisses back or he pulls away because he doesn’t want to take advantage of king while he’s not in his right mind. if that’s the case, then i think the argument scene will follow, where king says ram doesn’t care about him (note how ram seems only worried in that scene and not mad or anything) and ram sort of talks him down and explains the depth of his feelings for him, and then they either get together or we have a happy open ending. if the kiss is one of the last scenes, then they will have that argument at first and ram won’t be able to talk him down and then perhaps they have a talk later and king kisses him to make him see how deep his feelings run for him. depending on if ram kisses back or not, well... there’s our ending. so those are two ways it could go with another two result scenarios in my opinion... but who knows? we’ll see next saturday. don’t lose hope, my friend, perhaps things will turn out okay!

[anneapocalypse]

I've got a pondersome question and I wonder if you could help: if you had to boil the personality of Wash to a single virtue, would it be determination, hope, survivalism, or something else? Like what is the meaty core of the dude?

This is a good question and I will caveat with the fact that as much as I enjoy writing Wash in certain contexts, he is not a favorite character of mine in and of himself. I have no dislike for Wash, and certainly acknowledge that he is an interesting character, but at this point in time, Wash primarily interests me as he relates to other characters that interest me more (read: Carolina and Maine). 

My point in saying all this is to say that you should probably take what I have to say about Wash with a rather larger grain of salt than usual, and I’d point you to the writing of people who’ve really given Wash a lot of intense thought, people like @littlefists, @hakanakiki, @basiacat, and my pal Larissa who has forgotten more about Wash than I’ll ever know (I’m not tagging her because she’s not in the fandom anymore but you can find her archived RvB fics here, and I still think her Anamnesis series nails down a lot of A+ Wash stuff in a way I could never). And all of those folks and anyone else should feel free to chime in here up to and including outright contradicting me, no hard feelings whatsoever. ;)

All that said: I think survivalism is close, but not quite. I think Wash’s real core Thing is adaptability.

It’s not that Wash’s core personality is malleable; it’s his ability to adapt to a role and schema* tailored to his present circumstances. (This might be a learned skill, by the way. It might not. I’m not invested in any particular childhood/backstory for Wash, so I don’t have a strong opinion on that one way or the other.) Wash the by-the-book rule follower in Freelancer makes sense because it is the role he feels he needs to fill to make it in that environment–it is the role that best guarantees his survival (especially if you take the interview in the book as canon). It isn’t necessarily the role that makes him come out on top, just the one that best keeps him afloat. Wash the stone cold hardass in Recollections makes sense for the same reason. Wash the deferential subordinate to Carolina in present-day season 10 makes sense for the same reason. Wash the protective team leader after the crash on Chorus… you get the idea.

This, by the way, is in my opinion somewhere Wash and Carolina diverge considerably. They’re both survivors, but for completely different reasons. This is illustrated pretty well, I think, by the fact that Wash survived Project Freelancer by taking on different roles as his circumstances changed, while Carolina’s intense need to fulfill one particular role while not being allowed to do so ended in her being, essentially, violently ejected from the context of Project Freelancer rather than surviving within it. Season 10, in both the past and present storylines, highlights Carolina’s inflexibility at the same time as it’s highlighting Wash’s adaptability to present external schema even when that adaptation is not necessarily personally healthy for him. 

tl;dr Wash survived by adapting to his circumstances while Carolina survived by being stubborn as hell.

* For more on Wash and the concept of schema, please check out this great essay by @texelations, which has influenced my read on him a lot.

[stileshale]

What are your thoughts on teen wolf? especially writing wise? I have stopped watching regularly around 3b and I wasn't too convinced by what I've seen here on tumblr about the rest of the episodes, in particular 6x10...

i will always have a special place in my heart for the characters i love that the show gave me. i still blog about teen wolf, i write fic, and i enjoyed s1-3a. saying that, i don’t particular enjoy what the show became, or look back on the experience i had as a fan with much nostalgia (i think we were v much used and abused as a fandom online, for sure). i love my part of fandom, though.

short answer about the writing... it was terrible because

1) there was a complete lack of planning and follow through

2) we love this idea/actor/theme for 30 seconds but oops now we don’t

3) they completely misused their social media as a way to a) explain away/correct plot holes in their own writing and b) encourage viewers to watch a show they implied to be many things that it turned out to... not be any of

long answer

as a disclaimer here, i watch a lot of tv, i watch stuff on cbs, abc, fox, cw, bbc, tbs, p much something from every network, and i’ve seen the highs and lows of writing through comedy, drama, medical, supernatural, and everything inbetween. i’m not a professional writer, i am only a consumer. i have, however, over the nearly 20 years of watching shows as a fangirl (where i’ve been into something i follow religiously, and then later became involved in online forums) honed my tastes and opinions. on average i watch 15 shows a week, last year it would have been 21 around february time, but i’ve cut six shows including 3 i started this fall and dropped because of writing issues similar to that of teen wolf, or it just got terrible, either way). i have totally tried to rationalise what teen wolf did and i just... can’t. 

to elongate

1. the whole “let’s throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” approach is terrible. the best thing about breaking bad was that everything was planned to the very minute details. lost only picked up again when they were given an end date and suddenly had to come up with a plausible endgame. every season teen wolf has started off with a new plan, a new theme, and then it’s fallen apart because they’ve quite clearly changed their minds about something and either dropped it completely (they’re especially bad about dropping characters and never speaking of them again, or even acknowledging they were there in the first place), or made up new stuff to fit their new plan (scott is the true alpha so he can move mountain ash, kate is a werejaguar

not to mention they’ve joked about not being able to keep up with their own timelines, unsure how old any of the characters are, forgetting the characters have school/work/should be in prison, introducing siblings, changing history, forgetting actual canon...

2. kinda leads on from 1. where they would introduce an idea or a character and then totally lose interest and instead of trying hard to give them depth or something to do or going somewhere with the concept, they’d just drop it? see, parrish as a hellhound, kira as a kitsune, even way back when with stiles as a spark, a cool idea for thirty seconds to fit in with the plot and then... whoops it never happened, what are you talking about there was never a whole season about japanese culture, that season was about stiles conquering his internal battle with his own psyche telling him he’s never going to be good enough because we always make his dad out to be a total dick to him (surprise, his dad’s called noah, which we know you’ll hate because we dragged it out like some sort of magical plot twist, and also HIS dad is a dick so it’s okay he’s always told stiles he’d rather have had scott as a son) WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT FOXES FOR? THERE WAS NO FOX. THERE WAS NO TREE TRUNK. BANSHEES? THE FUCK? LYDIA JUST SCREAMS EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE AND SOMETIMES HAS MAGIC POWERS. but then doesn’t. pfft it doesn’t actually matter.

 or worse conveniently fix it/disappear it. it was tiring to watch and be confused and wonder why they were treating you like an idiot as a viewer. like the show is on mtv sure, but at least awkward stuck to a clear timeline. awkward covered where characters vanished to. we never actually even got clarification on basics like... why did deaton never want to help derek in season one... even though he was the hale emissary? what did emissaries have to do with anything by the next episode as nothing ever happened with that whole theme... why did stiles have a magic spark... where did cora go... how did she come back and how did the alphas find her before derek... why did the alphas originally start a war with derek, kill off his pack but then decide they didn’t want derek and just wanted scott... why did scott let deucalion walk off into the sunset? WHY IS PETER STILL NOT IN PRISON FOR THE MURDER OF HIS NIECE? these questions are all like three seasons old but that’s all i have and they still bug me. i can’t believe the show has never covered any of these huge issues. it’s lazy. everyone likes consistency, nobody likes writing leaving this big wink like “you don’t really care about this do you???”

again, with the big deaths, the characters they did kill off all had opportunities not to die, they could have had different endings, but each time their death was used to create man pain, probably one of the many reasons i’m not as big on male characters (they always need something to prop them up and make them more heroic and tragic in the long run), and that writing? erica, boyd, allison, was cruel and unnecessary. it did nothing for the show, and it lessened the writing. it actually made it worse when they tried to defend it, because they’d been going on about it for so long before hand as if it was a new and exciting toothpaste they’d all just gotten “now even whiter than before/now with even more death!!!”

the fact they hadn’t planned out a season without stiles (despite knowing dylan was out) and so instead of giving all of the other characters a chance to grow and learn and develop they literally wrote a whole season about stiles (after all of 3b, and from what i can tell most of s4 and s5 was about stiles). every character seemed to be focused on this missing person. the whole season was based around a character that wasn’t even on screen. and all because std fans were promised a big beautiful season of std??? gutted.

3. leading to point three! teasing your internet fanbase with ~thrilling and huge deaths to look forward to all season! using tumblr to answer questions about the plot holes/characters/encourage you to watch for the return of characters and not actually ever going through with it on screen. the teasing. the baiting. the flat out refusal to learn from your own viewership (when more than happy to use their gifs, use their images, their fanfics and their ideas) and then act as if the fanbase are the ungrateful ones. to try and join in with memes and tbt and a bunch of other infuriating actions that made even the actors uncomfortable. the tweets, the writers creating more drama even now, six seasons in, jeff saying “oh yeah if hoechlin had stayed on we’d have tortured derek some more with a fake julia (????? dick) haha i hope the internet doesn’t kill me for that one” as if we’re a bunch of deranged lunatics instead of just fans of a character that deserved better? like he knows what’s up. he’s a grown man. he knows they fucked up, in so many areas, and yet he’s just not willing to learn from it, or acknowledge it, he’s just always said “well if they don’t like it, they shouldn’t watch”... 

i guess we didn’t.