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artyandink · 2 months ago

Note

You should definitely do an imagine of Jensen's characters reacting to stretch marks!! I need that 😜😔

nature’s beauty

SUMMARY: You have stretch marks. How would the boys react to that?

TW: Body image, issues with stretch marks— but they’re normal girlies, I have them too, Jensen’s characters being normal about it cause yeah, mild angst, mild smut, mentions of sex, making out, spice

SONG INSPO: Golden Hour by JVKE, Scars to Your Beautiful by Alessia Cara

DEAN WINCHESTER

Dean kissed down your body, undoing your jeans and pushing them down. He had you on your back in his bed, his breaths coming in harsh pants as he marked your skin like the possessive son of a bitch he was, taking your panties with them. “Fuck, baby, you’re gorgeous.”

Dean was the type of guy to hit on every girl he saw, but that’s cause he found them beautiful. Shape or size. Then he met you, and he kept coming back for more and eventually made you his girlfriend after being a charming son of a bitch instead. He normally kissed every dip and curve he found, but today, you pressed your thighs together.

Not in a sexy way. You’d closed your legs. That was a problem— were you ok? You weren’t hurt, right? Or maybe you were on your period, but he didn’t see a pad on your panties and your cycle would be coming way too early— better to ask you.

“You ok, sweetheart?” Dean asked you, lifting his head up and sitting back on his heels, and you were turned on by the sight of his freckled, muscled upper body but also scared he’d get turned off by seeing the stretch marks that had appeared on your stomach and upper thighs. Well, not so much appeared, but you figured you lost some weight.

You nodded, trying to not look at the very obvious stretch marks and play your crippling insecurity off at the same time. “Yeah, I’m good.”

But Dean’s eyes followed yours, and they landed on the stretch marks, and his thumbs immediately moved to trace them. “Darlin’, you can’t seriously think I’m gonna mind these.” Then he saw the embarrassed look on your face, and he kissed down your stretch marks, which surprised you. “God, I love ‘em. It’s nature, baby. Shows you’re a damn beautiful woman with damn beautiful normal things. And guess what?”

He climbed back up until your face was level with his, and he gave you a kiss that blew your mind, took your breath away. “You’ve earned yourself a first class, five star worshipping.”

Your eyes widened, knowing what that meant. “Wait, Dean—”

Your legs went over his shoulders, a wicked grin on his face. “Can’t have my gorgeous girl feelin’ insecure, hm? So you’re gonna feel good. All. Night. Long.”

BEN

You’d just come off the effects of giving birth, and man, when Ben realised that one, you had his kid and two, you were ready to get fucked into oblivion again, he was ecstatic. You’d had a baby girl, Austin, named after the city (“Austin? What the fuck kinda name is— wait, that’s actually perfect.”) and she quickly became a daddy’s girl, as Ben promised you she would as soon as he held the baby in his gigantic hands.

But then there came the problem of stretch marks.

Your belly had, in your words, ‘deflated’, but now you were left with the horror of stretch marks, which kind of made you think. What would Ben say? He loved his women ripe and pretty and perfect, what would he say if he saw those marks on your skin?

You found out when you were standing shirtless in your bedroom, inspecting the marks when Ben stepped in, and his libido fired up the moment he saw you standing with only your bra on. That’d be torn off in a few moments, he was sure.

“Hello, sexy mama.” He grinned wolfishly, stepping behind you, dropping his lips to your neck as his hands rubbed over the stomach that held his kid. “Don’t know about you, but I’m lookin’ to pamper my gorgeous wife and the mother of my kid. Gonna make you come so many times, I swear to God.”

But when you stopped his hand from going down the front of your pants, he raised his eyebrows. Not the time? Or… did someone hurt you?

“Sweetcheeks, did something happen?” He asked, his brow now furrowing. Ben was an impatient man. “I swear, baby girl, you tell the name of the motherfucker who hurt you and I’ll-”

“You don’t see them?” You asked in confusion, and his eyes travelled around the room and then back to you in mirrored emotion. See what? What the fuck was he supposed to see?

Ben chuckled, cupping your cheek. “Did you get into my weed? Are you high, gorgeous?”

“No, I’m not high.” You smiled despite yourself, and gestured down to your stomach, rubbing over the marks. “These. You don’t… see them? You don’t care?”

Ben scoffed, his hand resting over yours to stop them from moving. “Why the fuck should I care when this is proof that you carried our kid? Shit, darlin’, you did that for nine months. If anything, that’s a mark of a damn strong woman, and that? It turns me on. Gets me going.” A kiss to your neck. “Gets me rock hard.” Another kiss, pressing himself fully against your back so you could feel it. “Ain’t no life in which you won’t turn me on, babydoll.”

It brought a smile to your face.

“Now, you’re gonna sit pretty, and I’m gonna fuck this crap out of that gorgeous little head’a yours.”

Shit.

BEAU ARLEN

“H-Hey, Beau, c’mon, that tickles!” You were lying on your back on the bed, your shirt pushed up while Beau kissed over your stretch marks, beard tickling your skin while his hands held your hips in place.

But the Texan cowboy looked up with a shit-eating grin, pressing another kiss to another mark. “You’re the one who felt insecure about this, darlin’. I’ve gotta give it some good old Texan lovin’, so you brought this on yourself.”

He continued kissing over them, fingers tracing them while you couldn’t help but giggle and squirm, but also feel reassured. “Come on, handsome, I get the point.”

Beau still gave you an indignant look paired with a smirk— the stubborn bastard. “No can do, gorgeous. Can’t tear myself away from these. It’s like they’re magnetic.” He continued pressing kisses to them, chuckling under his breath.

His hands kneaded your hips, then rubbed comfortingly up and down your sides, humming at every press of his lips to your stretch marks as if he belonged there.

Beau kissed up your body, then nuzzled his nose against yours before pressing a slow kiss to your lips, covering your hand that came up to cup his cheek, your giggles dissolving into an identical hum. His lips were soft, and they felt like home. He was your home.

When he pulled back, Beau took your hand in his and pressed kisses to your knuckles this time, then every finger.

“I love every inch’a you, sugar.” He rumbled with a loving smile, brushing your hair out of your face. “Don’t you ever forget that, y’hear me?”

CJ BRAXTON

You and CJ were cuddling on the pull-out couch in your co-ed, your head tucked into the crook of his neck while his arms were around you like a koala. His hand rubbed up and down your side over your shirt, fingers lightly brushing your skin and tracing patterns.

It was no secret to anyone that CJ adored you so much it could give him a cavity with how sweet he was on you. He kept on looking down at you, a small smile on his face while he thought of how much of a lucky bastard he was.

His hand slipped under your shirt, not to initiate anything like sex but to just feel you closer, but his fingers brushed your stretch marks and he instantly felt your hand take his wrist, stopping him. That set him off into a world of worry.

“Woah, what’s wrong, sweetheart?” He asked, frowning as his eyes abandoned the movie, instantly locking on you. “Everything ok? You’re not hurt, are you?”

“No, it’s fine, just don’t wanna be touched there.” You murmured, kissing his cheek, but he didn’t believe that. His hand slowly lifted up your shirt, watching you for any signs of extreme discomfort, or even slight. But you didn’t stop him, so when he saw your stretch marks, he raised his eyebrows with a smile.

“Hey, there, beautiful.” He chuckled, rubbing his thumb over them. “Where have you been hiding?”

Wait, what? He didn’t mind?

“You don’t- you’re not grossed out, or you don’t hate them?” You asked, severely confused but hopeful. And slightly embarrassed that you immediately expected him to hate them.

CJ’s eyebrows raised to his hairline, and he kissed your forehead. “Being grossed out by these is like being grossed out when you get your period, and I love you even more when you’re on your period. I get to cuddle with you and love you. This right here just gives me an extra opportunity to show you how beautiful you are. These are normal. It’s a natural process, and I’m a nature guy.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Really.” He grinned, kissing you briefly but sweetly, and it melted all your nerves. He was controversially perfect, you thought, and that made you love him even more.

Damn him.

“Thank you.” You sighed, cupping his cheek. He responded with a smile and kissed the inside of your wrist, rubbing the marks on your skin with a grin on your face.

CJ looked down to the stretch marks, kissing you deeply. “Don’t you ever think anything about you makes you less than.” He murmured against your lips, hand coming up to cup your chin.

ALEC MCDOWELL

Alec McDowell, a cocky-ass son of a bitch. He knew it, everyone knew it, and he did well to remind everyone of it whenever he opened his goddamn mouth. However, he was your cocky-ass son of a bitch, because he was your boyfriend.

As he was a transgenic and you were a human, he’d heard of stretch marks but never seen them on a person because transgenics didn’t have bodily imperfections. It was practically impossible. So when you opened up to him about your insecurities about them, well, he was more than willing to comfort you even if he was inwardly confused as fuck.

You were beautiful. What was this nonsense?

“I don’t see anything that ain’t beautiful, if that’s what you’re asking.” He shrugged, being a little shit and acting as if your stretch marks didn’t exist. “In fact, I see some gorgeous tiger stripes. Absolutely stunning.”

The comparison had you chucking a throw pillow to him, which he caught, obviously. “Alec!”

Alec gave you a grin, setting the pillow aside and catching another one. “What, you’re telling me those things don’t look like tiger stripes? Come on, dollface. Be entirely honest.” He pointed at the stretch marks with a sexy smirk that would’ve had your knees weak not for the situation. “Tiger. Stripes. Cause you’re fierce. Majestic.”

“You’re actually crazy.” Despite yourself, you were grinning like a lovesick idiot.

“Crazy for you, baby.” He replied with a wink, setting the pillow aside before reaching the bed with his advanced speed, beginning to kiss your neck. “Now, about that body of yours…”

JASON TEAGUE

“Wait- hold on for a moment.” Jason raised an eyebrow, pulling back from kissing you senseless on your bed. “You saying ‘I wanna show you something’ wasn’t code for sex? Baby, we gotta make signals more clear.”

You lifted your shirt, showing Jason the marks around your stomach. His eyebrows raised slightly at them, and you bit your lip. “Is this ok with you?”

Is this ok?

“Should it not be?” He raised his eyebrow with a small smile. “I’m not fazed by these, sweetheart. In fact, the fact that you have normal bodily reactions, that makes you more gorgeous to me. In fact, the knowledge that you breathe turns me on, because it’s normal.” You could practically taste the amusement in his words, and you swatted his shoulder with a laugh.

“Alright, I get it.” You pouted, and he let out a small ‘aww’ and wrapped his arms around you, kissing your temple. “I get it.”

Jason hummed, cupping your chin so he could turn it for a slow kiss. “Look, I’m gonna revert back to… seventh grade. I think. And I have no shame in it, especially not when I say that I think you’re really pretty. And I think you’re smart, and funny, and you have a killer body - that’s not seventh grade - but my point is that nothing about that bothers me. Ok? So don’t let it bother you, I don’t love you any less.”

©️ 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐤 / 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐲’𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨

𝐈 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐝/𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝

@goldngguk @sweetpeachbombshell @slut-for-stiles @staple-your-mouth @daddyscrimsstuff

@dob-4-life @marcis-mixtapez @nonoreas0n @gabrielasilva1510

@lucyholmes13 @pandadork-blog1 @nicolstancu @malusinhaaaa @dybalabandolero

@a-cup-of-nightshade @tomatoessoup @sh0rtcakee @fall-06 @mckaykay-fandoms

@b3th13

@demonxangelomegaverse @deanwinchestersgirl87 @capailluiscedove @i723l-interrupted2323 @niyomiii

@all-the-fan-fic @eviekinevie8 @sunflowerlover57

@1-800-dean-winchester

@darichvep @idk-usernme @supernaturalmarvel3000 @ega2025 @deanbrainrotwritings

@targaryenluvs @bucky-hydra-hoe-barnes @leigh70 @aintnowayboi @ripoffsteveharrington

@gleefulleve @sacrosankta

@riteofpassage77 @eevvvaa @thedevilortheangel @thorsballhair @barbienotdoll

@4e1h3r @wolfieblue03 @kianaleani @vicky199625 @sassyslut2003

@impyrz

@didisull @miwp @lastcallatrockysbar @rizlowwritessortof

@zepskies @angelbabyyy99

@autisticgothic

@yourgoldengirls @deansobsessedgirl @mrsjenniferwinchester

@aylacavebear @lailawinchesterr @brightlilith @arcanaa @hobby27

@lyarr24 @ximm19 @deanbrainrotwritings

@a-girl-who-loves-disney @jeneelsworld @deans-spinster-witch @deanspinsterwitchs-readinglist @kayleighwinchester

@k-slla @muhahaha303 @suckitands33

@dean-winchester-is-a-warrior

@katherineeekai @freefallthoughts @angzls @deans-baby-momma @syrma-sensei

@cheynovak

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jhoneybees · 8 months ago

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Hi! i read your other Elvis oneshots

can you make one with early 70s elvis

him and the reader just had a baby, and he doesn’t really help and it turns into this whole big argument. and one day the reader finds him singing the baby to sleep?

idk random though😭

This idea is real sweet :( And I love random ideas! Thank you for requesting 💞☺️

Realization

Characters: Early 70s!Elvis X wife!reader

Warnings/triggers: arguments, crying, avoiding Elvis

_____________________________________________

It is known that it’s the wife’s job to take care of the children while the husbands go out to work but something that you never got as a child was having a father who was present, there for you when you needed one most and you don't want your newborn baby to go through that as well.

You understand that people have very busy schedules and can’t exactly pause their lives to make you feel happy and satisfied and you definitely understand that Elvis is one of those people but his schedule is ten times as busy.

But he could at least try to make time for your child, right?

“Honey, you know my schedule is hectic all the time. '' Elvis exhaled as he placed his glass of bourbon down on the kitchen island. Keeping his head lowered with hands set on the cold marble “Yes Elvis, I know…but- you have to understand that he is our son…we brought him into this world together and-” your eyes lift up “We gotta raise him together, Darlin’ I understand that but again my work is go go go all the time and it’s hard enough as it is…makin’ time for Jesse is almost goddamn near impossible these days'' Elvis replies sharply, your breath being caught in your throat “You can at least try…” your voice soft and quiet.

His eyes shifting to look at you as you look down at your fingers playing with the fabric of your shirt “Try? Y/n you know damn well I try” pushing himself off with his hands “You don’t think I do?” bringing his hands up to rest on his hips “Try to make time to spend with my family? Honey- I hafta fight with the colonel every damn time to get away from the studio to be with you…” you gulp “Elvis I-” he stopped you with a lifted finger “I give you everything, anything you could ever want, Jewellery, clothes, cars, I ain't only working for the fans, Y/n, I’m working to make sure you and now Jesse to have the best life you could ever have and that’s final-” his words came to a halt as you cut in “I don't want all of that, I just want you to be present and be here for Jesse! Is that so hard to ask?!” Elvis' eyes grew with fire and as he was about to say something “I don't want my kids to not have a father figure-” your voice started to break and tears brimming in your eyes, silently shaking your head “Honey-”

“I DON'T WANT THAT!”

Elvis' eyes flinched at the sudden outburst and watched as you stormed out of the kitchen.

_____________________________________________

After what had happened a few weeks ago, it still made your heart sting. You didn't mean to yell at him like that, you just wanted to get your words across.

To possibly make him realise.

You're ashamed of yourself and as much as you cherish the moments of falling asleep with Elvis in your shared bed, you can't bring yourself to even look at him to which you insist on sleeping on the couch, leaving Elvis in the large bed alone.

_____________________________________________

“Darlin’ you don't gotta sleep on the couch, it ain't comfy-”

“Go to bed, I'm sleeping here”

_____________________________________________

He was right, the couch isn't comfortable but you just don't want to be in the same room as him for too long.

You really are ashamed.

Why did you say that to him?

Maybe you should apologise.

Fiddling with the edging of the blanket, you nod to yourself. Breathing in deeply, you get up from the couch and make your way to the bedroom.

Walking up the steps, you breathe in again. Seeing the bedroom door being slightly ajar, you push your fingertips against it “Elvis?” You say softly, scanning the room only to not see him in there. You thought you'll have to wake him up from his much needed rest to apologise but he's not even in the room.

So with a quick look in the bathroom, to see if he's in there. You walk out and begin to walk the halls, poking your head in each room before you stop in your tracks just a couple of metres away from the baby's nursery.

Singing.

Cautiously, you tiptoe towards the door, being careful to not make too much noise.

The sight you see makes your heart melt.

“Love me tender, Love me true..all my dreams fulfil, for my darling… I love you…and I always will'' His chuckle, deep and quiet.

“Ya quite a good-lookin' fella ain't ya?” he snickers softly, as he gently swipes his thumb against the baby's small cheek. A soft grin growing on his face “Gorgeous…” he whispers.

You really can't hold in your tears.

Bringing your hand up to open the door lightly, watching as Elvis lifts his head, his eyes softening at your sadden face.

“Oh Honey…”

#elvis presley #elvis #elvis fans #70s elvis #elvis imagine #i love him #elvis presley x reader #elvis fandom #dad!elvis x wife!reader

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bitethedustfools · 1 year ago

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New sagau idea?

This is my first time posting something on tumblr but I just wanna say that I'm getting tired of seeing the imposter! sagau au where the player/creator is so forgiving once they were declared innocent and not the imposter or something like that.

The eldritch one was good but kinda expecting to go to the dark territory. The yandere one is kinda okay but need more spicy with the creator personality. The one with letter is wholesome in a way but I'm a picky person and the player's personality is just not to my taste.

So uh, I'm just gonna drop some ideas to spice some new inspiration or something. Apologize if these aus/ideas already exist.

Indifferent god/player

You play the game to pass time, you don't even bother speaking, only staying silent the whole duration and maybe murmuring some dissapointing things on the characters when they don't reach your expectation. The characters designs are nice and maybe the personality but you don't give a damn about them. You probably don't read their story or voiceline or something. But anyway, whether they have sobs story or not, you already have enough and don't care as well.

Almost everything bore you and the only thing that keep you going is the curiousity for the ending so you tried to level up and give them the best artifacts so you can speed run or something.

Once you are inside the game, the first thing you do is sigh loudly.

You dont know who the hell is the creator they speak of that finally arrived in Teyvat cause your day is ruined from being approached by the characters who won't leave you alone. (You got that divine presence and distant looks in your eyes that made them tremble with realisation when in fact you're just annoyed with them, never giving them a single glance. "out of sight, out of mind")

You are the Watcher of Teyvat, the God of all Gods and you are finally descending to Teyvat which you create "lovingly" with your bare hands. (Not that you know about that)

Now the characters feeling towarda you can be varies. The characters may be feeling grateful because you helped them getting stronger which may lead to stronger devotion.

Your hurtful comments back in your previous world sometimes drove them insane which may lead them feeling desperate and insecure, ashamed and upset as well as letting their self confidence dwindled. Sometimes they questioned themselves why aren't they abandoned yet and why are they gifted with powerful artifacts instead? So lots misunderstandings here.

The Archons probably go crazy trying to figure out how to please you. Wanting to be by your side and show you how Teyvat came to be under their rule and after that. Use them however you wish, the rules of Teyvat bend to your will and all will act according to you. Maybe that's why their gnoses is in the form of chess pieces? For you to play and use with?

The Fatui harbingers probably have complicated feelings about you. But most probably are upset that you don't give a damn about them or glad that what they are doing doesn't offended you in the slightest and encouraging what they are doing because they thought you have no problem with what they are doing.

Can go yandere route I guess but none what the characters did will ever entered your eyes because you don't give a f*ck about them. Period. No feelings or heart to heart talk.

2) Introvert simping god/player

You are a Genshin Impact lover. You buy every merchandise possible and owned so many of their cosplay. You are probably the top 5 best genshin gamer and made some theories judging by what the game had shown you. No characters can escape your gushing as praises bullet out of your mouth. Nothing in the game could escape you cause you love them so much.

Unfortunately, as much as you love them from the roots of their hair to their fine shoes and the blackest and goodest of hearts, you don't want to be in their world.

Because you are an introvert and a simp! These combinations can't be good if you are to meet one of them!

The solution? Hide.

Needless to say, your ability to become one with the background unintentionally shut off your heavenly divine presence. You became the world's best hider, no Fatui could ever catch a glimpse of your shadow nor an Adeptus nor Archons. Always a game of mouse and cats yet theres no progress in catching the skittish mouse.

You refuse to meet them and can only look from a far. Staring with awe when they fought or walk or talk or whatever they do. It's like seeing an idol in a way.

In short, you're a stalker.

When they learn about how you look like, every place is not safe anymore. Everyone is looking for you, eager to meet you. But not you. By the power of cosplay, it's easy to avert meeting them.

And now, you are not the only world's best hider but the world's best at disguising themself as well.

3) Eldritch god/player

What if Teyvat is only one and the players is many? When you descend to Teyvat, some said you are tall, some said you are short and others said you are a male and another the opposite sex. They even said your hair was curly and black but the other refuted, saying yours was wavy and blonde.

Introducing you. A god who is all yet one individual. A god whose everything changes from one person to another's respectives. Sometimes the same person see you in a different appearance which confused many.

Your whole being is unpredictable, sometimes you're upset and then happy and then angry, all in the blink of a moment. even your accents changes, following the tongue of the one who is speaking currently.

Sometimes, when the feeling is getting intense, mostly anger, the face(s) morph into something horrible as if it couldn't decide which face(s) to take (or was it these players are feeling the same thing at once?) or what language to speak, resulting in gibberish words falling out your many mouth(s). Your eyes however are staring at the cause of your feelings, (enemy? the one that hurts you? experiment purpose?) All varieties of colours ranging from hazelnut to black.

The Archons are regal and full of divine aura, beautiful and something worthy to behold and worship.

But you are a different existence, leaning toward the dark and gory side than the Archons or the whole Teyvat.

But you are still a god, the God of all Gods.

Are you worthy to be loved and worshipped and to be behold?

Yes? No?

You're not you and you're also not them. Yet you are you and you are them.

Acceptance and violence, you have no problem to choose.

The feelings of the many you(s) are distorted and cannot be comprehend.

#genshin sagau #genshin impact #self aware genshin #ideas #sagau #sagau x reader #obsession #yandere

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study-diaries · 7 months ago

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How to do group projects? (If you're selected as the leader of the group)

I hate group projects, it's not necessarily the project rather, the people are not cooperative enough so here's some tips I use when I was chosen to do a PPT and a damn play with 13 members.

(Pictures aren't mine!)

Take phone numbers

Even though my teacher discouraged the idea of it, I still took the numbers of all the members and saved it on the same day the project was given even though the deadline was a month later. You should make sure that you have the necessary means of communication to every member.

Plan and outline within 3 days!

Make an outline of what needs to be done, plan out who's going to do what, how they'll do it, when will they complete it etc etc. The reason i do it within 3 days is because you'll get the base of how you'll do it because generally in group projects, by the time everyone completes the work and gives it to you, it would take atleast a week or two, if you start early, you'll complete earlier than everyone else

No group chats!

I personally don't prefer this because one i realised everyone just didn't reply expecting others to reply, especially when your group is big! So... Dms!! Just send the instructions personally, yes, it takes alot of time but it makes up for the energy wasted in group chats that involve unnecessary talks and questions.

Both face to face and text reminders!

When you've assigned work to every member, make sure they actually do it because you'll be the one responsible. Not gonna lie but reminders help especially when the deadlines are closer. Just a message like "Hey, friendly reminder about the XYZ project."

Save your own name!

This is something I'm really careful about. The accusation that you're being biased and assigning easier work to friends and people I'm close with. So, i figured that the best way to avoid it is to write all the work and the names of members in alphabetical order and assign accordingly. If the member can't do it, then I'll discuss and swap. It saves a hell lot of drama and actually results to better outcomes.

Back up

Make sure that there's always a second in command. This was a mistake I did, on the day of the 2nd project (the play), I was in one of the competitions and our teacher had started with our group first... I didn't exactly tell anyone that everything about the characters assigned to members and the narrations were in my bag so they had to scramble alittle but in the end, our group did the best play despite the situation so that's what you're aiming at. Your group needs to manage without you.

Flexibility

Do not, under any circumstances, expect everything to go well! You need to expect hindrances, like gurl, come on. A mistake I made in the PPT project, i made the PPT and told 4-5 people to explain it because that's how it was supposed to be done but in the end, ALL THE 4-5 PEOPLE HAD TO BE IN SPORTS PRACTICE so we ended up changing plans last minute. But nevertheless, we got an A-. Tell everyone to prepare accordingly.

Be a little lenient

Personally, when the teacher asked me to give the list of work everyone had done, i did'nt just write nothing for the members who didn't, i have even the smallest contribution because in the end, even one person's scores matters. It affects the whole damn group so be careful when you take out anger and frustration on the members when giving the list of contributions or even while doing the project. The last thing you need is drama.

Contact!

Make sure your members are comfortable enough to clear any questions or misunderstandings with you. If you don't know what's going in the group, you can't maintain the group. Be very clear that they can reach you any time.

Demo!!!

This is really important! Decide on a day and keep a demonstration of how your project is going to be presented. Do exactly as how you're going to do it infront of the teacher. Exchange some points on how to do better during the demo and discuss! It helps you to correct your mistakes.

Hope this helps! :)

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zedecksiew · 9 months ago

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What Do Ability Scores Represent?

Recently, Into The Odd and the players in my home game helped me realise something fundamental:

Ability scores represent how good you are at acting under pressure.

STR isn't strength, it's toughness;

DEX really means reflexes;

WIS is more accurately calm or willpower;

etc.

+++

It is convention in roleplaying games that your ability scores / attributes / six stats determine who your character is.

High DEX means your character is spry, capable of acrobatic flourish; a good Willpower generally means you can browbeat others / themselves / reality (if you are spellcaster) into doing what they want; etc.

There is pleasure in looking at a sheet and seeing: Oh! These are the things my character is good at.

But you do run into problems. Does my 18 DEX rogue know they are fleeter than the 17 DEX bard? What if my wizard thinks she is stronger than her 10 STR? What if I have a brilliant scheme but my barbarian only has 9 INT?

How well, in other words, does the map represent the territory?

+++

(Art by Vesha, who is an illustrator! source)

I've got three players in my home game:

Vesha plays the teenaged trader Khabar (and his buffalo friend / parent-figure, Paal);

Amanda plays the monkey warrior Boots-Ra, now going white-furred;

Aish plays Captain Phung.

Phung does not yet own a proper sea-going vessel. Perhaps he lost his previous ship? Perhaps he never had one. (He does have a magic five-person sampan, though!)

He is impulsive. He tends to make dodgy deals with hapless village-folk, pick up dangerous-looking objects, and flirt with dangerous-looking men.

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Mechanics-wise, here's how my interactions with Aish / Phung tend to go:

Me: Okay, make a DEX save to duck before the hunter stabs you. Aish: Damn, my DEX is only 6, guess we'll see ... Amanda: Oh, no, Phung!

In a previous session:

Me: Okay, I think I'll call for a WIL save, because the ghost in the goat skull is trying to possess you. Aish: Well, my WIL is 5, hopefully this works out ... Vesha: Oh shit, Phung!

Some sessions back:

Me: The automaton shoves you. Make a STR save? Otherwise you'll be on the ground at its mercy. Aish: Guys I have 6 STR, I may be in trouble here. Me: Wait wait wait. What are your stats again?

So it turns out that Aish had terrible rolls at chargen. STR 6 DEX 6 WIL 5. Just going by ability scores, Phung is an idiot weakling.

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Thing is, Phung isn't an idiot weakling.

I've got crafty players; they are pretty good at cooking up multi-part schemes. (Their go-to tactic is bamboozling rival factions to show up at the same place, then benefit from the fallout.)

Phung is generally the face for whatever racket they've got going: he's the most obvious leader (the party is generally "Captain Phung and crew"), and Aish plays him as a capable, charismatic go-getter.

Looking at the character sheet, is Aish playing Phung wrong?

Fuck that. A player cannot play their own character wrong. I reject this notion outright.

What's going on?

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Different rulesets try to bridge the gaps between player action, character ability, and abstract math in different ways: eliminating mental attributes; going totally skill-based; etc.

The ruleset that comes closest to "solving" this, for me, is Into The Odd.

Saves are the only kind of test player-characters make, in ITO and its derivatives. This is key.

The ruleset assumes competency on the part of characters; you only go to the dice if you need to figure out stuff that is out of your control.

How badly a straight-up fight goes; whether you can jump aside in time if you've accidentally sprung a trap; whether you can improvise a lie on the fly.

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Implicitly, and in practice:

The STR stat in ITO is more accurately toughness---ie: how well you can withstand a physically demanding situation you didn't prepare for.

Ditto DEX, which is an abstraction for how quickly your reflexes trigger.

Same with WIL, which is how well you stay calm under duress.

I can be sharp when I've got time and it is a subject I have experience in. But suddenly ask me to make a speech and I'm toast (low INT).

Some folks have no martial arts training but can hold their own if a brawl breaks out in a bar (high STR).

Captain Phung is a pretty cool operator when he's in control, but tends to seize up when things go off the rails (low WIL).

There's my answer to the conundrum of Captain Phung: he's a genuinely capable guy. He's just not necessarily great under stress. His reach exceeds his grasp, sometimes.

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Your ability scores don't represent who your character is. Your ability scores represent who your character is, when under duress.

In other words:

Ability scores are who your character is when they are not in control. Ability scores are your character's reactions.

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I do feel slow on the uptake, for only grokking this now.

Chris McDowall probably has a post from the mid 2010s or something where he discusses this aspect design in detail, the clever genius bastard. It is probably internalised play-culture within the ITO-and-descendants community; Emms points out that the current edition of Mothership explicitly talks about stats in this way.

Still!

Am glad to have a regular TTRPG group again, and I have them to thank for my epiphany!

(They are kickass. I ran them through Whirling Mummy a while back and it was a RIOT)

#theory #design #ttrpgs #home games #captain phung #into the odd #ability scores

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datsleepygirl · 9 months ago

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when things get hard, will you still be by my side? Law x Reader Comfort

- most people know this, but if you're new here, law is my comfort character, so I had him in mind when writing this.

before you proceed, please know that :

I've been in a difficult position in life for the past few months, so please don't expect any greatness from me. I'm not really in a position where I can sprinkle some fluff here and there like I was able to in the past, but I tried my best to make the end as fluffy as possible. this is just a simple piece of scrabble with myself as 'inspiration'. I needed a way to express how I felt for the past few months, so I decided to turn it into a piece as I realised that I haven't been posting much lately. hopefully someone can get some enjoyment out of this. :))

status : not proofread

- tw. mentions of depression, self struggles, reader in denial of anyone loving her, self hatred, bunch of comfort, fluff in the end if you squint. law and reader aren't together yet, but they have been playing cat and mouse for a while.

It's like every time I step through these doors, they all look at me with pity in their eyes, like they're looking at a poor stray cat on the street that no one wants.

Aside from all those times, it's also like they're judging me for slacking off and moping around in my room. The captain's probably thinking of ways to get rid of me without telling me that I'm useless. That's how he is. He starts off as this cold and unapproachable person, but once you've entered his life, he'll always find a way to take care of you. The once frequent knocks on my door proves that right. He'd come and check on me, asking if I had eaten anything or have I been feeling ill, but his concerns were always answered with a smile of mine and reassuring him that I'm fine. With that going on for a while, he probably figured out that I was lying to his face, or maybe him simply don't have the energy to pretend that he cares about me anymore. That's how everyone on this submarine behaved lately.

I looked around my room, all dark and gloomy. Yesterday, I found the energy to clean it up a little as it was starting to get out of hand. If there's one thing that gets on Law's nerve the most, it's clean and dirty laundry mixed up on the floor. Even at my lowest, my mind always drift to him. Because even if I knew from the beginning that he won't return my feelings, my feelings for him are just growing stronger and stronger every second. With the state that I'm in now, there's no way that I would be able to be around his presence, let alone look him in the eye and start a conversation with him. Maybe that's why I did everything in my power to avoid leaving my room. The fear of rejection, even after years of being an outcast, still makes me feel like I'm about to suffocate. It's almost like as long as I don't leave this room, as long as I don't see Law, I can keep staying here, even if none of my crewmates like me anymore.

When I look out the window, I can see the moon, a gift for all minks, hanging high up the sky. My thoughts naturally drifted to Bepo, the absolute sweetheart of this crew. And when I think about it, I can't help but feel bad about myself even more. How did I manage to get the sweetest creature in this world to hate me as well?

'Damn y/n... just how pathetic can you be...'

Voices in my head echoed louder and louder every passing day. Voices that tell me I'm useless and unwanted here. Voices that tell me there'll never be a place for me where I can call a home. Voices that tell me I'll never be loved, that I don't deserve to be loved.

When Law came to check up on me in the past, that split second of seeing him and hearing his voice made the voices go away. But when he leaves, the voices come back instantly. I've told myself that relying on other people is a bad decision, simply because I'll always be left alone in the end. But somehow, trying to separate myself from Law is completely different from what I had ever experienced. My heart screams for me to just call out to him for help, but my brain knows that everything will just turn out the same eventually. I'll just be more of a burden to Law than I already am.

"y/n-ya, are you in there?"

A knock and the soft but deep voice that I had fallen in love with startled me.

Why is he here? Why is he here at night? Why is he here when he should be in his study at this hour? A million questions ran through my mind as I could only come up with one conclusion.

He wants me off his submarine.

The voice on the other side of the door called out to me again as I finally stood up, slowly making my way over to the door. A sigh of relief escaped from him as he saw me open my door. However, at this state of mine, I misunderstood it as a sigh of annoyance. He's annoyed that it took me so long to open the door.

"I wanna talk to you. Can I come in?" he wasted no time, cutting straight to the point. I nodded, moving aside as he made his way into my room. I closed the door behind me while he looked around my room, clearly surprised that it has become a lot cleaner than before. "I see you put your laundry away and cleaned up a little." Law started, sitting on my bed while taking off his hat.

Thousands of thoughts in my head are giving me a headache. I wanted to make him believe that I'm doing okay. But before I realised, my words rang around the whole room.

"Yeah... can never be too sure about when I'd have to leave now, can I? It's best to have everything organised so it'd be easier to find what I need to take with me."

Well, that certainly struck a nerve. Law eyebrows creased at my words, only confusion can be found on his face.

"Leaving? y/n-ya, what are you talking about? Who said you're leaving?" the walls around my heart are closing up on it again, preventing me from having a calm and productive conversation with him. Maybe if I were able to believe that someone would actually love me for me, I'd have the courage to seek help from him.

"Well... that's what you all wanted, right? I'm just someone that brings nothing to the table. The others are tired of me, and you're disappointed at me. That's why you came here, right?" I couldn't even look him in the eye as I was afraid that all I'll see in his eyes is disgust.

"What the hell? Wha- who told you that? I came here to talk to you about the list of things we need to buy on the next island, which is about two days away. You also weren't there during dinner, so I wanted to come check on you to see if you're feeling unwell. Actually, that's not the point. How long have you been feeling this way? Why didn't you come to me?" Law stood up and slowly made his way towards me, switching into doctor and caring captain mode.

I sighed, looking at anywhere but him. "It's fine, you don't have to pretend that you care. All my life, I've been abandoned and left behind. I can tell when someone's kindness is coming from pity or not. You don't need to look for an excuse to get rid of me, nor do you need to sugarcoat anything, I get it. I never thought I'd have a place where I can call a home anyways..."

Law put his hands on my shoulders as if he's trying to get me to look at him. "y/n-ya, stop. What are you talking about? This is your home, why wouldn't it be? We're not going to abandon you. I'm not going to abandon you. No one is pitying you. In fact, we've all been worried about you, for weeks. You could've at least come to me. Do you not trust me enough?" his question at the end made my heart clench. The one person that I wanted to impress and protect the most, is disappointed at me. At this point, my eyes were stinging from tears threatening to escape. He wanted to convince me that he cares about me, that everyone does. But how can I trust him? My heart does, but all the trauma from the past is preventing me from thinking logically, preventing me from letting him in. Ironic that I can't trust when the person who stole my heart said that he cares about me is the truth. In any dream, I'd die to hear those words. So why can't I find it in me to believe him?

"You know as well as I do that no one will ever truly love me. Just look at this pathetic mess in front of you. Why would someone love... this? Why would you love this?" his grip on my shoulders tightened, but he didn't say anything. Seeing as he wanted me to continue, I did. "At this point, it'd be better if I leave on my own and spare you some trouble. It's be one less mouth for you to feed anyways." I let out a sour chuckle at the end, laughing at how pathetic I sound. One of his hands reached under my chin and lifted my face up, forcing me to look at him. The look in his eyes held no hint of disgust. Instead, all that can be found was rage and hurt.

"Is this seriously what you think of me? You think that I was looking at you as just 'a mouth to feed'? You really see me as someone who'd lie to your face and say that I care about you? You out of all people should know that I despise shit like that. What can I do to make you believe that you deserve to be loved? What can I do to make you believe that you're loved?" the desperation in Law's voice almost made me believe that he's telling the truth. I escaped from his gaze once again, looking down. His eyes softened as he continued,

"What can I do to make you believe that I love you...? Please, tell me."

My eyes widened at his words. The genuineness in his voice created a huge crack on the thick walls around my heart. This is the first time I've ever heard Law beg for something.

Just a little more, and my walls will break down.

"...do you really?" I found the courage to look him in the eyes with my teary ones. Law pulled me into a tight embrace, one arm around my waist while the other one gently caressed my hair. That vulnerable look and weak voice of mine broke his heart into pieces. He tightened his hold on me as he whispered in my ear,

"I do, I truly love you. Those months of playing cat and mouse with you is just me not having the guts to tell you how I really feel. You have no idea how much it hurts me to see the light in your eyes fade away day by day. You distancing yourself from us and not showing up as frequently as before broke my heart. I wanted to give you some space because I thought that eventually, you'd trust me enough to come to me and tell me about your struggles. I want to be there for you. You're not alone in this y/n-ya, you never were. Let me be there for you, let me in, please."

I returned the hug as I relaxed in his embrace, finally accepting that the man in front of me, who I love so much, is being genuine. I sobbed as he continued to whisper sweet nothings in my ear, reassuring me that he's not going anywhere.

"You're staying in my room from now on. And if anything bothers you, you'll tell me about it immediately, okay?" Law pulled away slightly in order for him to look me in the eyes, signalling that he's serious about this. I nodded, unable to find the energy to muster up a response. With that, Law brought me back into his warm embrace, but not before pressing a sweet kiss to my forehead.

And if the past creeps up on me again, I will have no fear this time. With the sound of your heartbeat, this unique and special lullaby just for me, will protect me from all the voices in my head.

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froginabogg · 3 months ago

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AND ANOTHER THING i also actually need to talk about the flashback family scenes in season one and why those specifically got chosen because hhhhhhh

jake's scene is a tender little moment with his mother, of course showing how much they mean to eachother and she takes care of him as much as he does her, and in one way firmly establishing gary as the ultimate loser dad, classic trope but look i'm a sucker for a momma's boy it's very endearing to me

i also find it interesting that, since jake is the only one without siblings, this is really ALL he has, it's football and his mother, those are his only driving forces and that little flashback is so fun because yeah, you could have figured out this part just from watching the rest of the episodes, but you need to know just HOW important she is and how angry the possibility of a better dad makes him in the alternate universe, she is truly his one lifeline

andy's scene also kind of lives rent free in my head, again because that dynamic with his grandma and his dad is so cool, his mother clearly loves him but she's not a main player in that family (i'll forever love you though mrs lau i would give my life for you), it's his dad and grandma that really set the tone, the constant theme of not being able to live up to her expectations radiating off the both of them, but his father made his peace with it and andy is still stuck in the thick of it, because every time he looks at his sister or at his father he's reminded of not being good enough

also the talk of ghosts and traditions being respected mirroring andy's aversion to magic until he can prove it definitively and just treat it as another subdivision of science that he can study and understand and control? mmmm i love that so much, very excellent little bit of characterisation, where does that need for control come from huh do you need to sit with that for a bit bud? also those dumplings looked great and i want some

i started writing this cause i was thinking about andy's scene and the about the others and i realised i forgot what sam's scene actually is, i think it might be him playing with his brothers? unless the mia scene is actually his flashback, which i am going to go with because that's more interesting actually

he has a whole loving family like i discussed in that other post, but the thing he is reminiscing on is mia, he is obsessed with her through the entire narrative and tries constantly to improve himself for her, it's really cool that that kind of disregard for others comes through in that flashback as well, when pressed, sure, he can tell you what his mum's favourite paintbrush is (OBSESSED with that) but really? he's thinking about himself, and it's one of the first flashbacks as well so it really immediately centers sam's character around, well, sam, and allows him all that wonderful room for growth

and felix, ohhhhh dearest felix, his flashback scene is clearly something that is always on his fucking mind, this bitch is tormented by guilt and he is constantly thinking about that moment no doubt, it's tragic of course to see and a logical choice for a flashback, but it really does SO much. we get a lot of jake's parents both real and au, and they are well established characters, same with andy's parents, we don't see a lot of sam's but it's clearly implied they are incredibly similar both in au and in real world

felix on the other hand, we hardly see any of his parents until the damn movie, and all of mrs ferne's character is in the alternate universe. it's around this time as well the boys start calling attention to felix being the only one happy to be stuck there, and then BOOM the flashback hits and the entire narrative shifts, your entire view is switched upside down cause not only is felix the one responsible for oscar's accident, but his parents, or at least his mother, clearly deeply blames him for it, and all of a sudden you're both angry at him for hiding this for so long and you understand him, because how awful to be fifteen and have that weight on your shoulders? i've felt guilty for so much less, and it makes mrs ferne's character so much more compelling to me, she's hurt and trying desperately to love both her sons but she is struggling, and it must fucking suck for felix to see her happy again when he's literally Not in Existence

#nowhere boys #THIS IS A KIDS SHOw #BY THE fucKiNG Way #can you believe i've only seen it once #i dread the person i'll become when i rewatch it #i also kinda need to freak about the objects they got from their mums but i'll keep my mouth shut for now

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forcedhesitation · 2 months ago

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I definitely do not have the time for a full essay's worth of commentary on the Casting of Frank Stone, but I definitely could give you that if I did. There is...a lot to take apart there. I am certainly...fascinated...by some of the writing & gameplay choices they made, to summarise my thoughts somewhat vaguely.

A few spoilery comments under the cut.

Like I said, I don't really have the time to offer extensive analysis (a full paper) of the game, but I do want to say a few things.

First and foremost: Do not purchase this game. In the words of Mr. Otzdarva himself: Go and watch someone play it instead. Your play through will be 95% the same as theirs. It is not worth your 50 dollars. If you still want it after you've viewed someone else's playthrough, that is your own right.

I honestly became annoyed with the writing much faster than Mr. Otzdarva did, and at first I thought it was because I was spoiled by BG3's infinitely better writing. But no, it's rather that he was being very patient. He finished with a rather negative opinion of the game, after thoroughly going through it to test just how much control you as the player really have.

I will be fair-- It is certainly a visually stunning game, as far as Supermassive titles go. Much better looking than The Devil in Me. The music is also incredible. And some of the voice acting was well done and added much needed life to otherwise bland characters.

But good grief is the writing utterly nonsensical!! Even if you respect the "a multiverse exists, so anything is possible" fact which is canon to Dead by Daylight itself, it still doesn't make any damned sense. I mean, is it ever explained why there is time travel involved? Or how it is even possible? Did they simply expect people to just assume that Augustine figured out time travel in a certain timeline? Does it have something to do with the Entity, since it can clearly traverse time? If so, why was Sam able to voluntarily time travel to Madi & elder Linda's timeline? Why and how the FUCK is Frank Stone first bound to the mill and then camera using what is clearly the same magic as the horologium, when we know the Entity has not yet been brought to that timeline??

And playing the "anything is possible" card would be fine to explain certain things, I will concede, but it really starts to feel meaningless when you realise just how many massive plot elements are never explained and that none of your choices really have any impact on the ending of the game. The story literally ends the same no matter what you do. And to be fair, I do not think it is a bad ending at all. Barring the corny "trial starting" sound that they jammed in at the last second, I thought the ending was one of the better parts of the game. It works great to make you feel hopeless, and like there is truly no escape from the Entity. I just feel that this format of a "your choices impact the outcome of the story" game was the incorrect format for the story they wanted to tell. Because it truly doesn't even matter if you get everyone killed, or you save everyone-- everything happens the same way and the world's fate is the same.

There are other things that bothered me, too. I thought having Frank Stone appear as this corny, glitchy spectral monster for most of the game was...a terrible choice, both design wise and writing wise. Now, I do not think killing him in the opening was necessarily a bad decision. I honestly thought it was a bold choice that functioned well to surprise the viewer and urge them to continue, so they might discover how the story plays out after the death of the titular character. But keeping him as this ghoulish creature, that honestly looked as though it were from some solo indie developer's first low budget horror game, was awful. He did not feel threatening whatsoever, just wildly out of place in a visual quality sense. I hate the final design much less, it is certainly much more threatening and much, much more gruesome, but it still does not make sense as to why he looks that way. The Entity still had not taken him, why did he appear as this inhuman monster before his entry into the Fog? They should have kept a more humanlike design until the very end of the game, when the Entity arrives. Then, a transformation sequence where the Entity mutates him should have been restricted to the ending where no one from the cast is seen in the Fog, so players at least get something different in that allegedly "unique" ending. After all, if a cast member does get taken, at least you get to see visions of what followed the 1980s storyline.

Also why did Augustine work alone when she is clearly part of the Black Vale? The excuse of "the cult didn't exist yet" doesn't work here, because she can time travel and is fully aware of the multiverse she exists in. Like... I thought elder Linda's mention of secret passages being for staff "so they are seen as little as possible" was foreshadowing for Augustine having fellow cultists aiding her, but it just went nowhere. Another thing that goes nowhere is the baby that Sam can save at the very beginning. Should the baby live or die has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the story, which feels like an enormous mistake to me. That baby should have grown up to be a character that the cast could have interacted with to gain...oh I don't know, some piece of important knowledge, or an item, that could then later change the fate of the cast. This way, the player's choices in the 1960s segment actually have an impact on later gameplay, rather than meaning absolutely nothing.

I'd also love to know why the hell elder Sam was sent alone to prevent this situation from occurring, when the Imperatti (I think they were called? The parents of the Pariahs, or something, right?) would have surely realised the gravity of this situation? Like, how does this make any sense? And this is far from the only moment that makes no sense at all.

Why do Jaime and Robert have almost no relevance whatsoever after the 1980s segment concludes? Robert is guaranteed survival of this segment, as that part of the game is written so that two characters always survive-- be that Linda and Robert, or Sam and Robert. As annoying as Stan was, I didn't hate him because he had great dialogue that pushed other characters to have different dialogue than what we were used to. But it felt scummy that Robert was just given this sad, offscreen death instead of being included in a lot more meaningful way.

Not going to lie, it reminded me of how in Stranger Things 4, Patrick was the one teenager whose trauma wasn't really explored or given the same respect as the others. It's like the writers went, "Guys, guys! It's okay! We still have the other Black guy! This makes our game Diverse, and therefore no one could possibly complain!" Meanwhile, we get an entire cutscene about Madi's nightmares, and elder Linda's movie career and associated trauma is talked about numerous times. But all we know about 2024 Robert is that Stan took advantage of him, and then he later died, utterly miserable. Also, Sam somehow knows about this and he and Stan know one another, despite this Sam being from a different timeline than elder Linda, Madi, and Stan himself.

And Jaime, poor sweet Jaime, he really just feels like he's there as someone they can conveniently kill to shock the player. The first chance he has to die results in a horrible, very graphic death (although not the most graphic in the game by a long shot) that I feel many players will encounter because they see it as reasonable to visit the curiosities shop first, and then to later attempt to save Chris (even though her fate is the same here, regardless of what you do). And even if you should keep Jaime alive through that first confrontation with the spectral Frank Stone, it's not as though his survival impacts following events. He can die again, when fleeing Frank with Bonnie and an injured Linda. Why they have Linda, who has a gaping hole in her shoulder, attempt to pull Jaime up the platform alone while HIS OLDER SISTER just WATCHES is beyond me. But writing his death, whether it be here, or earlier, to have no impact on Bonnie's fate, or any future events, is plain bad writing.

You cannot save Bonnie, no matter what you do. And this scene makes no sense. When Frank grabs Bonnie, Linda points the camera at him, which should work. There really isn't any reasonable explanation as to why this should not work, or should not even momentarily distract him (Which could have led to a different ending where Bonnie lives and Linda dies instead?), because in the storm drain, so much as yelling at Frank causes him to abandon whoever he's attacking to seek out the new target. I suppose, at the very least, 1980s Bonnie's death does serve some kind of purpose in the 2024 storyline, because it serves as foreshadowing for Madi's potential fate. But just like Robert, 2024 Bonnie is given a sad offscreen death and we never really learn about how she or Jaime survived that night at the mill.

And I will say, it just feels shitty from a player point of view, to make it so you cannot save certain characters. Like, I'm sorry, is that a canon event? Where is Mr. O'Hara? Because Madi must be a god-damned anomaly, being Bonnie's daughter!! And Chris- god- Chris who mysteriously travels through time...I really do hate this part of the story because understanding its purpose can only happen if you manage to get the secret ending where she goes through the projector screen and DOESN'T burn and die. Which would require you to not have taken the pocket mirror or given the "protective" amulet to her. This unlocks a secret ending where she goes back in time to the moment where she, Jaime, and Linda were inintially shooting in the mill, right before Sam interrupted them. I took this as the writers trying to show us that there would be one timeline in which Frank Stone is never released (not sure how he ever was in the first place, really), likely saving them from the Entity. But other than the player somehow luckily getting this ending, I really don't see the point of Chris' time travel, because she can also be sent immediately back in the horologium, which does nothing meaningful. And why does it have to be Chris? Why not write it so it could be her or Jaime, so that maybe the player's choice to have her and Jaime breakup or not actually has some kind of impact on the gameplay?

One of the worst things about the game though, and I cannot stress this enough, is how badly the references to DBD are integrated. I love a good reference-- it can serve to add a little playful flair to a moment, or even go so far as to have the viewer look at the piece from a different perspective they had not previously considered. Buuuut... this is only if the reference is done well. And, well, what this game does could hardly be described as tolerable, even. In was so heavy-handed, it felt almost as bad as product placement in a Michael Bay movie. Many of these "references" felt out of place to the degree that someone with no knowledge of DBD would be likely able to pick them out, because they heavily disrupt either the game's aesthetic or the gameplay itself! One generator was funny, and honestly expected, but THREE of those damn things? Clunky, corny, and honestly? Lazy.

Unfortunately, I feel those three adjectives describe how I feel about the game overall. I feel bad for the people who put hard work into making it, because there is potential there for something great. But it really felt as though they were pushed to release this game as quickly as possible, so BHVR could sell us a 50 dollar, five-to-six-hour advertisement for their next DLC chapter. Hard to think anything else, really, when completion of the game is followed by a a literal ad for it.

All I can say is-- I really hope we get 2024 Linda as a survivor. It seems more likely that it will be Madi, but it is possible we could have a two-survivor chapter (unless they specifically outlined in the roadmap that there are no upcoming 2-survivor chapters?).

Madi and 2024 Linda would be cool though. We have no older women as survivors, despite having more than one older man. I think it's about damn time. And I love the mother/daughter bond that can sort of develop between Madi and 2024 Linda in the game.

#dbd #the casting of frank stone #the casting of frank stone spoilers #dbd spoilers #thoughts about media #I said essay and essay is at least 8 pages. 12 point font. double spaced by my standards.#so this is A LOT...yes. but it's not an essay. not to me. it's also not super linear and it's written in a very casual tone.#I wrote it here and there when I had a minute to spare.#anyway if you have thoughts about the game or have an answer to a question of mine- feel free to add it!#just....no funny business. I am too tired to deal with such childish behaviour. I will block trolls and the generally rude.#also- if you liked the game- no disrespect to you. if you felt it was worth your money and it entertained you- good. I'm glad.#I am content to have watched Mr. Otz play. I now know it's a game that I wouldn't ever want to play myself.#So I removed it from my wishlist after finishing his VOD. Bless that man for all he does for DBD players.

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skzhocomments · 7 months ago

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The Five Stages of Grief - Bang Chan Oneshot Fanfic

(And a second cover because I couldn't decide)

General Masterlist

Pairing: Bang Chan (Stray Kids) x OC/Reader (Story is written in 2nd person, no name is mentioned)

Genre: angst

Word Count: ~10k

Warnings: death, devastatingly sad, mentions of self-harm, suicidal thoughts. No comfort, although it does end in a positive note. Ending is hopeful if you squint.

This is just a story that doesn’t describe Bang Chan or other mentioned Stray Kids’ members true characters in any way. It’s just a product of my imagination and should be treated as such.

This story is also on Wattpad (click here) and AO3 (click here)

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A/N: As any other writer out there, I would appreciate reblogs and your comments on this story. Please let me know if you enjoyed it, and most importantly, have fun!

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The Five Stages of Grief

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“Hey Channie!” You entered his studio with a smile plastered on your face, that soon enough turned into a frown when you noticed your boyfriend of almost 5 years hasn’t even acknowledged your presence.

He tended to do that a lot, especially when working on new comebacks. His whole focus was on that damn computer which you were sure by now was your life-sworn enemy. It’s hard having to compete with a screen to get your boyfriend’s attention, but such was life sometimes, and there was nothing you could do about it.

You knew the risks that came with dating an idol, you just didn’t know how much worse it could be if you were to date a workaholic, perfectionist idol.

This was Chan.

He spent hours and hours and hours cramped in his small studio, perfecting beats, arranging vocals, switching up different rhythms and trying to figure out what could work out and have the most success between his fans.

“Have you eaten?” You asked, kissing his cheek, and only then did he notice you’re there, and pulled out his headphones.

“Oh, hi. Didn’t see you come in.” Was all he said, his face scrunched in concentration. “Did you say something?”

“Just asked if you’ve had dinner yet.”

He must’ve, right? It was well past 11 pm, but one of his bad habits was working himself to death, and more often than not, he would skip meal times entirely simply because he wasn’t good at keeping track of time.

“I had a protein bar earlier.” He shrugged.

“Want me to order you something? Or even better, why don’t we both head home?” You asked with a smile, trying to be convincing enough for your boyfriend.

It usually worked.

He would normally laugh off your attempts to be nice and realise that you’re just trying to take care of him, and he would comply and go home with you for the night, then resume his work the next day.

Once you’d be home, he would crash immediately, proof of how tired he’d been and how much he’d ignored his body’s needs. His sheer determination was scary.

However, none of this happened tonight. He rolled his eyes and muttered a small “There she goes again.”

You played it off, though, realising he probably didn’t mean for you to hear that. Brave on his part, you thought, in such a small quiet studio.

“What is that supposed to mean?” You asked, your tone still friendly, as if you were joking with him.

What you didn’t expect was for him to turn his whole chair towards you, his expression angrier than you’ve ever seen him.

“You heard me. God, it’s so frustrating having you come here all the time bossing me around. Eat! Sleep! Stop working! Can’t you see I’m busy?!” He ranted, pointing towards his computer screen.

“Wow, sorry, Mr. Busy.” You chuckled, despite being slightly angry with his words.

He doesn’t mean them. You told yourself. This is another one of his bad habits: bursting out and speaking cruel words whenever he’s extremely stressed and has tight deadlines. It hadn’t happened often, only a handful of times in your years long relationship, but it hurt nonetheless whenever it did.

“And there you go mocking me.” He rolled his eyes at you. “It’s like you don’t even care about the work I’m doing.”

“It’s not that, Chan. You know how much I value your work, it’s just-”

“Yeah, bullshit.” He laughs. “If you would, you’d stop barging in here demanding things from me when you know I have stuff to do.”

“Hey, I know you had a tough couple of days with the comeback and all, but there’s no need for you to take it out on my like this.” You crossed your arms in front of your chest, this time feeling genuinely upset. It’s like he’s escalating it on purpose.

“No, it’s not just a tough couple of days. Don’t you get it? You do this shit all the time, and I’m frankly sick and tired of it. Can’t you just leave me be for once and stop being so controlling?”

“Controlling?” You asked, baffled. “How am I controlling, huh? By making sure you eat and sleep when you’re supposed to?”

“How do you even know what I’m supposed to do?! You always think you know best, but you never fucking consider any of my needs and wants.”

“Literally everything I do is fucking consider your needs, Chan.” You answered coldly.

“No. You’re just too deep in your head and can’t fucking figure out when to back down, so I’m telling you. Stop telling me what to do and leave me alone if I’m busy. God, I don’t need this shit.”

He mumbled the last sentence and put his headphones back in, turning his attention back to the screen.

Maybe you shouldn’t have done what you did next, but he hurt you, and you didn’t like the way your conversation apparently ended. You wanted to know what he meant, so you grabbed his headphones’ wire and pulled them out of his ears forcefully.

The way he turned to you and the look he threw you almost made your blood freeze, but you were far too upset to care about upsetting him anymore.

“What exactly don’t you need, huh? What is this shit, exactly?!” You gestured with your hands.

“You can’t fucking let it go, can you?” He laughed in a baffled way.

“No, unless you tell me what this shit is.”

“This. Us. Everything. I’m really fucking done with how overbearing you’re being. I was doing fine before I met you, and I sure as hell do just fine without you over my head every fucking minute of the day.”

“Oh, is that so?” You asked, expressionless.

He hurt you, but by his anger still present on his features, you realised it’s all pointless. You’re not going to see eye to eye tonight.

“Do you want to break up?” You let out, the words burning your tongue, and Chan’s eyes widen.

“What? No! Fuck, you twist my words.” He sighs, exasperated. “Just leave. Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

When he doesn’t say anything else, you let out a shaky breath and watch him put his headphones back in.

“Oh, and this?” He starts, pointing to one end of the headphones. “Never do this shit again.”

You watch silently how he turns his chair to look back at the damn screen, without caring that you’re still there in the room.

The discussion is over.

“I see. Fine. I’ll go.” You let out, tears beginning to spill down your cheeks. He didn’t see them, and it felt like he didn’t even care that he’s made you cry.

You quietly made your way out of the room, your sight too blurry to see anything, and you headed home.

---

Denial

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Chan’s eyes are beginning to sting painfully, and after rubbing them and checking the time, he figures out why.

It’s way over 5 AM when he decides to finally leave the studio, and although it’s still dark out, the streets are already starting to get filled with people hurrying to whatever painful morning shift they are scheduled for.

It takes him about 20 minutes to get back to your shared apartment, and when he does, nothing seems unusual at first.

The house is expectedly quiet, it being so early in the morning, and he already imagines how deep in sleep you must be by now.

He feels guilty for how he treated you, that he let the anger consume him once again, and he regrets it. He always regrets it when he lets stress get the better of him.

As he heads towards the bathroom to wash the harsh day off his skin, he starts thinking about how he could make it up to you. Should he buy you flowers and bring you breakfast in bed in 4 hours when you’ll most likely get up?

Although he hasn’t slept at all.

Should he take you out on a date after he’s well rested? There was this restaurant you mentioned a couple of times that you wanted to try, but he didn’t have enough time to take you there to eat yet, not with all the planned comebacks and the work that keeps piling up.

Maybe tomorrow is finally the day.

He finishes his shower and rubs his eyes again, and God, how tired he is, just as usual when he pulls out all-nighters. Everything seems ordinary, but as he opens the bedroom door, however, something is unusual.

You are not there.

Confused, he takes out his phone to check for any messages you might’ve sent him, but upon noticing there’s no new notifications, he throws the phone on the bed, screen down, defeated.

Did you really think he wants to break up? Did you finally have enough and left him?

He knows he treated you badly tonight, but he thought it’s just a small drop in an ocean of happiness. Arguments are unavoidable, unfortunately, and he can’t always be the perfectly composed man he’s striving to become.

Would you really leave after a couple of cruel words he didn’t even mean? He starts asking himself as he gets into bed. Surely you know how much he loves and needs you there for him. It was just a bad night, that’s all.

Maybe you just wanted some space, and decided to head to a friend, or to a hotel or something.

He thinks about calling you, but with how late it is – or rather, how early – he knows he’d just disturb you or any of your friends you would’ve gone to if he were to call.

He decides to go to sleep instead and figure it all out tomorrow morning, when his mind is clearer, and when you’ve both had enough time to cool down.

His head is pounding with pain as he opens his eyes and feels multiple pulsations against all sides of his skull.

This is the worst migraine he’s ever had, and he realises how right you were when trying to convince him to go to sleep early. He really needed more sleep.

He grabs his phone to check the time, and when he does, he sees it’s flooding with notifications. His manager called him about a dozen times, starting at 8 AM and continuing up until 15 minutes ago, and he has multiple missed calls and messages from all the members.

Ugh, it’s only 10.

Did I have a schedule I’ve forgotten about? He wonders, rubbing his eyes confused, but checking the date, he knows it’s his day off.

He decides to head to the bathroom and freshen up, while picking up his phone and dialling his manager’s number.

He reaches the bathroom and puts toothpaste on his brush, and by the time the phone rang two times, his manager picks up.

“Chan! Where are you?” He asks, his voice hurried. “Why haven’t you picked up?”

He begins lazily brushing his teeth and checks the date again, and sure enough, it’s his free day. There’s nothing in his schedule.

“Huh? What do you mean?” He asks, his voice still ridden with sleep, still tired from the lack of rest. “It’s my day off.”

“Are you at home?”

“Yes. Where else?”

“Good. That’s… okay. Have you talked to anyone yet?”

“No…? You’re acting weird. What’s going on?”

“Listen, Chan. Something… something bad happened. I need you to sit down for a moment, okay?”

“Okay...?” Chan nods absent-mindedly, continuing to brush his teeth, oblivious about what’s coming.

“Last night… God, I don’t even know how to break this to you, so I’ll just say it. Do note that the company will do its best to assist you and-”

“Cut to the chase. What’s wrong?” Chris asks, starting to get worried. He finishes brushing his teeth, and just as he prepares to put the toothbrush down, his manager’s next words make him drop it to the floor instead.

“Your girlfriend passed away last night. She was hit by a drunk driver on a crosswalk, and although an ambulance got there in less than 2 minutes, she was already… I’m sorry.”

The line falls silent as Chan tries to process what his manager just said. The only sound in the room is made by the toothbrush hitting the bathroom’s white floor tiles.

Chan heard wrong. There’s no other explanation.

“That can’t be.” He dismisses his manager completely. “She was just with me in the studio last night, and then she came-”

Home. But you weren’t home.

“She must’ve gone to a hotel or something.”

“Chan… I’m truly, truly sorry. As I said, we’re going to support you through this tough time with everything we’ve got.”

What tough time? Chan wants to ask but stays silent instead.

He picks the discarded toothbrush from the floor and throws it away. How careless he’s been, dropping it.

He wants to chuckle at his stupidity, and he can’t wait to tell you about it. You’re going to nag him again for being careless and dropping things. This is the 3rd toothbrush he’s changing this month.

“Oh, God! Again?” He can already picture you with an amused expression on your face, your arms crossed. “You’re always dropping stuff on the floor!”

The thought brings the ghost of a smile on his face, and he starts wondering again where you might be. Surely your manager is mistaken.

“Her parents tried getting in touch with you, but they said you didn’t pick up. You should give them a call.” His manager continues to say. “From what they’ve told us, the funeral will be held tomorrow morning. JYPE offered to pay for all expenses. Anyways, this must be too much information to swallow for now, so I’ll come pick you up in 20 minutes and we can go to the company together. The rest of the boys are already here.”

“Okay, see you in 20 minutes.” Chan replies, not really understanding what’s happening.

He ignores the countless missed calls and messages and opens his call history to dial your number instead.

It goes straight to voice mail.

“Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?”You chuckled, asking him with an unsure look on your face.

“Yes. The beep-”

“Oh, right! Thanks for calling, please leave your message after the beep. Okay, bye~!” You cheerfully said, ending the recording with a small laugh.

“Are you going to keep it like that?” He asked amused.

“Why not? It’s straight to the point!”

“You left my voice in it, though.”

“Oh, does it bother you? I can record again if you want me to.”

“No, no need. I just – isn’t it a bit weird?” He chuckled. “You even forgot to say your name.”

“Whatever.” You waved a dismissive hand in the air. “If they called my number, they know who they’re calling.”

“Fair enough.” He laughed.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?

Yes. The beep-

Oh, right! Thanks for calling, please leave your message after the beep. Okay, bye~!’

He chuckles absent-mindedly at the memory of him teaching you how to record a message redirecting your callers to leave a voice mail. You’ve never been good at technology.

“Hi, babe. Can you please call me? I need to talk to you.” He says, deciding to leave a message, even though he isn’t convinced that you’ll get to hear it. You usually forget to check your voice mail.

He tries calling again, just for good measure.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?’

Yes. The beep-

Oh, right! Thanks for-‘

And again.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly’?

Yes. The beep-‘

And again.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?’

Yes.’

‘Hello! You’ve called…’

‘Hello!’

He throws his phone on the bed exasperated. Why aren’t you picking up?

You didn’t even come home last night, why is your phone turned off?

Do you want to somehow punish him for being cruel and make him worry?

He shakes his head confused and begins changing his clothes from the comfortable pyjamas to an appropriate enough outfit to go to the company.

It should be a crime to have to go so early in the morning anywhere on your day off.

When he’s done and he looks somewhat presentable, he picks his phone back up and dials your number again.

‘Hello! You’ve called-’

He cancels the call just when he hears a knock on his door, and opening it, his manager is looking at him sombrely.

“Hi.” Chris speaks first, but his manager doesn’t say anything. He just pulls him into a hug that lasts way too long, Chan thinks.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” He finally says after pulling away.

Chan doesn’t know what to reply, so he opts to just stay silent. His manager’s words don’t register in his head anyway; maybe he’s still tired.

He did go to sleep way too late.

They head to the car, and although the ride to the company only lasts 20 minutes or so, the 20 minutes feel like an eternity.

It’s just as his manager said, and everyone else is already at the company. When he sees the boys, they come rushing to him, their faces tear-stained and their clothes black.

“Oh, Chris…” Felix hugs him tightly and starts crying, and Chan starts comforting him by patting his back a few times.

A few tears escape past his eyes as well by seeing all the boys so gloomy, but he still doesn’t seem to be able to wrap his hand around it.

“Her parents said the wake is taking place at their house, so that’s where we’re headed now. I thought it’s better for you to not go alone.” His manager blurts out.

Chris looks dejected for a few seconds, before taking out his phone again and dialling the familiar number. This time, he types it himself. He knows it by heart.

With a shaky hand, he puts it against his ear and waits to connect.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?

Yes. The beep-

Oh, right! Thanks for calling, please leave your message after the beep. Okay, bye~!’

It makes no sense.

You couldn’t possibly… have died.

You are so young. You have so many plans and so many things you still want to do.

He is supposed to apologize to you and pamper you the whole day just to make up to you for being an asshole last night. He is supposed to take you to that restaurant you’ve been bugging him about for weeks.

You can’t possibly be gone, just like that.

Your parents embrace Chris as soon as he steps through the door. They’re sobbing loudly, and there are so many people present – some, he recognises: old friends from middle school you’ve shown him pictures of, some other colleagues from university, some coworkers he had the pleasure of meeting at the last Christmas party held by your company, a few family members…

There are also many people he doesn’t recognise; people your age, and Chan gets reminded once again of how young you are, with your whole life ahead.

He shakes his head once he notices a coffin on the large table in your parents’ living room; the same table you’ve both ate at just two weeks ago when you’ve last visited.

“My baby, Chris is here to see you.” Your mother cries, approaching the coffin and pulling his hand to guide him towards it as well.

It’s closed shut, and on top of it, your picture stares at him with a happy smile. You are so beautiful; he’s always loved this picture of yours. He’s the one who took it, just after you’ve graduated Uni and he handed you a big bouquet of your favourite flowers, rose peonies. You said your eyes wrinkled in a weird way, and never liked it, but he absolutely adored it. It’s been his wall screen ever since.

The coffin is made of dark polished mahogany, and its lid is adorned with golden handles.

You can’t possibly be in there.

Although beautiful, how could such a small coffin hold the large essence of your soul?

It makes no sense whatsoever.

Your parents’ cries seem real enough, though.

He touches the top of the coffin and wonders why it’s closed. Why would it be closed, when you are so gorgeous? People should see you, not a simple picture.

He decides it must be because you’re simply not in it. Or if you are hiding in there, maybe it’s all a joke and you’re going to open it from the inside and yell Surprise!, shocking everyone in the room and making your mother faint. It’s something you’d do.

So, he waits.

He waits, and waits, and waits, and his feet grow tired and his back starts aching after so many hours on his feet. People come and go, paying respects, patting his shoulders and trying to make some small talk, talking about you in past tense.

“She was such a wonderful person.”

“She was so full of life.”

“Her laugh was so intoxicating.”

“Her work ethic was admirable.”

“She was so smart.”

He listens and nods to each of their words. They are right. You are a smart, wonderful person, you are full of life, your laugh is the best thing he’s ever heard. He’s wished more often than not to record it and put it in one of his tracks, but every time he’d mentioned it, you called him silly.

By the time your father brings him a chair and places it next to the coffin so he can sit down instead of standing, it’s already night out.

“You should get some rest, Chris. I’ll stay with her.” He tells him, placing his strong hand on Chan’s shoulder as to attract his attention, but Chan just shakes his head.

How could he go sleep when you might decide any time to wake up?

Would you panic, with the lid closed and all? You’ve always been claustrophobic. Why is it closed, anyway?

It’s already morning when one of your relatives approaches Chris and urges him to get out of the living room to change his clothes.

They’ve brought him a white suit at the request of your father; wedding attire, since you didn’t get the chance to get married before you passed.

He is reluctant to put on the white pants and uncomfortable suit jacket, but he does it anyway. Your mother cries when she sees him, and your father pats his shoulder and thanks him for doing this.

The priest comes, and a lot of your friends visit your home again, to lead you on your last journey, apparently.

It takes the priest about half an hour to finish praying for your soul, and then your coffin is loaded in the back of a hearse. The car moves slow enough for everyone to be able to follow, and Chris is walking right behind it, next to your parents. Felix is behind him with Lee Know and Changbin, and the rest of the boys are somewhere far back. He sticks out like a sore thumb, dressed in all white while everyone else is wearing black.

Each time the car passes next to important places in your life, the hearse stops and people throw coins on the ground. They pass by your kindergarten and your old school, and with each step, your mother cries harder. Your father tries his best to stay composed, but even he bursts into tears when your mother starts talking about your life and what a happy kid you were.

Chris doesn’t shed a tear. He follows the hearse blindly, and when it reaches the cemetery, he watches as his members take out the coffin and place it on the ground next to a large, freshly dug hole.

The priest begins a final prayer, and soon enough, he watches how the coffin disappears inside the hole. People start throwing soil and flowers. He doesn’t know how a couple of roses get in his hands, but he begins throwing them one by one on top of the coffin that keeps getting lowered down.

You’ve never liked roses that much. You like peonies. Why did someone hand him roses?

There is also some music – hymns, or the sorts. Something you wouldn’t like. He doesn’t like it either.

A few moments later, some people begin covering the coffin in dirt, and he watches the scene expressionless. It gets covered fairly quickly. People start crying even harder, and his ears start ringing.

He feels sick to his stomach, so he decides to take a few steps back as soon as the whole gets filled to the brim with the freshly dug soil.

“I can’t believe she’s truly gone. She was so young!” He hears a woman say from somewhere behind him. He doesn’t bother turning his head to check if he knows her or not.

“Right? We were talking just yesterday morning at work about going shopping this weekend.” Another woman replies in a quiet tone.

“They didn’t even open the casket.”

“How could they? Didn’t you hear how she passed?”

“No! What even happened?”

“She was apparently crossing the road and a car came out of nowhere, hitting her with more than 200 km/h. It threw her like 30 metres in the air.”

“Oh my God! I heard it was a car accident, but this…”

“Yeah! It’s insane. There was barely anything left of her… only shattered bones and flesh, nothing resembling a human.”

“Shh, what if someone hears you say that?!” The other woman tried to silence the first one.

After hearing these details, Chris feels even sicker.

He wants to throw up.

“Son, we are going to the reception now. Do you want to come with us in our car?” Your father approaches him, and Chris simply nods.

He hugs him for a few seconds, and then they wait for your mother to come, and the ride to the restaurant is filled with her sobs while your father and Chan remain expressionless.

He sits at a table next to your parents. Felix is on his left, and the rest of the boys and other members of JYPE are sitting nearby.

There is an empty space to his right, and in front of it, the table is full of your favourite foods, snacks and drinks.

His eyes are stuck on that empty seat.

“Wow, they really brought me a lot.” You chuckle, looking at Chris with your head supported by your right hand, your elbow against the table. “How am I supposed to eat all of this?”

He watches the scene stunned.

“What’s wrong, baby? Why the long face?” You ask, the smile on your face wider, raising a hand to caress his cheek.

The next time Chris blinks, you’re gone.

The seat is empty.

The boys insist that Chan comes with them to the dorms, or that at least some of them come home with him.

“It’s not good to be alone.” Hyunjin says sympathetically, and Chris simply shakes his head.

What if you come back home tired and want to rest, but the boys are there visiting? He asks himself. It wouldn’t be fair to you.

So, he goes home alone, after much bargaining with them that he needs some time on his own.

The silence that greets him once he opens the door to your shared apartment is deafening.

He first goes to the bedroom to check if you’re back yet, but the sheets stay as empty as when he woke up two days ago, so he pulls out his phone to dial your number again.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?

Yes. The beep-

Oh, right! Thanks for calling, please leave your message after the beep. Okay, bye~!’

The beep sound follows soon after, and he begins talking.

“Babe, I know you’re mad at me. I was wrong. I’m sorry. It’s time to come back home now. Please?”

A second beep follows, signalling that the time to record his message is over, so he ends the call. He ignores the countless notifications piling up on his screen, all the Condolences messages he’s been receiving, and he places the phone in his pocket and starts making the bed.

“Wow, well done, Channie! I’m impressed!” He can almost hear you chuckling, and turns his head towards the door, fully expecting you to be there laughing at him and praising him for doing the bare minimum, but there’s no one there.

Once the bed is made, he heads towards the living room. A half empty glass of water is on the table, its margins stained by your lipstick, next to a plate full of breadcrumbs.

Tsk, how messy. He rolls his eyes, knowing exactly why you haven’t cleaned up. You must’ve eaten in a rush again, this bad habit of yours.

You’re always complaining about stomach aches, but you keep eating on the go while getting ready for work in the morning, and never enjoy your meals.

He takes a picture of the crime scene and opens his phone again, shooting you a text.

“Forgot to clean up?” He asks, then attaches the picture of the plate and glass.

He knows you’ll probably laugh and start excusing yourself once you see it. If he were to check his gallery, half the pictures are surely of the dirty plates you simply forget about on the table.

Chris always washes them, but never fails to remind you of it.

This time, too, he takes the plate and glass to the sink and turns on the hot water. He rubs the plate with a dish sponge with way too much dish soap on it, and he hears your voice in the back of his head again:

“My, Channie! You’re so wasteful! You only need a drop. A single drop!!! What are you using so much dish soap for???”

He starts laughing as he grabs the glass and throws the half-drunk water out, but before washing it, he notices the lipstick stains again. He smiles to himself and sets the glass aside, wiping it off with a napkin, careful to not accidentally remove the stain.

Your lips left such a pretty mark, he doesn’t want to part with it yet, even if you are going to give him an earful later for not washing the glass properly.

When there is nothing else to do around the house, he opens his laptop and starts sorting out his emails. All of their schedules for the month have been cancelled, and their upcoming comeback postponed indefinitely.

He doesn’t think it’s necessary, but at the end of the day, the company’s rules must be followed. You’ve complained about him working too much anyway. Maybe this is the chance for you two to spend a bit more time together.

All he has to do now is wait for you to come back.

He waits.

And waits.

And waits…

Felix visits with Jisung and Seungmin the next day.

And then the next, Jeongin comes with Changbin and Hyunjin.

Minho drops by every morning with enough food to last Chris the whole day.

His manager comes once a week and makes sure to call him daily.

Whenever he’s on the phone, he paces around the empty apartment and looks around. He sees the jewellery you left on the coffee table; your sports shoes are still on the doormat in front of the door, your face creams and serums stay untouched in the bathroom, your hairbrush lays by the sink filled with loose hair, and there’s a half-ironed shirt on the ironing table in the dressing.

You don’t like other people touching your stuff, so he leaves everything just like that, waiting for you to come back and fix it all.

The glass with your lipstick stain on it is still there on the counter, next to the sink.

He’s texted you about a dozen of times since he first messaged you about it and the plate that’s long been washed, but you haven’t replied to a single text. Your phone still goes directly to voicemail, but worst of all… no matter how much he’s waiting…

… you don’t come home, and the apartment stays empty.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?

Yes. The beep-

Oh, right! Thanks for calling, please leave your message after the beep. Okay, bye~!’

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?

Yes. The beep-

Oh, right!’

‘Hello!’

---

Anger

---

It’s been more than a month, but Chris still sets the table for you each time he eats what Lee Know brings him.

He wouldn’t bother eating much, if Minho wouldn’t have insisted to tag along to practically every meal after he noticed that he’s barely touching the food.

He always places one more plate on the table, right in front of him, at your usual spot.

“Just in case she comes back and gets hungry.” He explains to Minho, but he’s had enough of this.

“Hyung…” Lee Know hesitates. “She… she’s not coming back. You know that, right?”

His tone is quiet, and he tries to approach the subject as gently as possible. However, it’s time for him to do something. You’ve died more than five weeks ago, but Chris hasn’t moved any of your belongings, not even to store them.

There’s a box of tampons on the kitchen counter, but he won’t even move that, for fuck’s sake. He keeps waiting for you to come home, as if he doesn’t realise the fact that you’ve passed away.

“No, she will.” Chris says firmly, daring Minho to challenge him more.

“Hyung… She… she died. She’s not coming back.”

“You’re wrong!” Chris shouts all of a sudden, hitting the table with his fist strong enough to make the tableware bounce. He knows Minho is right. After waiting for you for weeks on end without you coming back, after dialling your number about a million times, after sending countless texts with no reply from you… he knows. But…

“Chris…” Lee Know stares empathetically.

“You’re all wrong! She… she’s coming back, goddamit!” He shouts again, this time grabbing the table’s edges and flipping it. The empty plates fall to the ground and shatter in the process, and Minho’s pot spills on the carpet, staining it.

Chris tries to cling to the last bit of hope he has regarding you, but he knows you’re dead. Everyone else was right, and he was wrong. You’re really gone.

“I’m sorry, Hyung. You… you need some help…” Lee Know continues with a shake of his head, bending down to grab the broken pieces of glass.

When he’s done cleaning up the carpet and the floor to the best of his abilities, he takes one more look at Chan. He looks like a ticking bomb, ready to explode again any second now.

Lee Know doesn’t know if it would be good to give Chan space, or if he should insist again that he comes with him to the dorms.

He decides to ask him anyway, and to his surprise, Chris nods and packs a small bag with clothes and hangs it on his shoulder.

They made their way out to Lee Know’s car, and once they’re at the dorms, they say goodbye as each goes to their respective apartments. Chris used to live with 3RACHA and Hyunjin, so that’s where he’s headed.

The dorms are as messy as he remembers, but they bring him comfort nontheless. His old room brings him solace as well.

There are a few pictures or you on the small desk in his room, and he looks at them fondly. You’re smiling beautifully in all of them. It’s the you he remembers. You, at your first date; you, the first time he took you to an amusement park; you, when all your fingers were coated in chocolate after you attempted to bake him a cake.

It’s you.

God, how he misses you.

How dare you leave him alone?

How dare you?

Why didn’t you fucking look to the left before crossing the road? Even if the traffic light was green, you should’ve fucking looked.

You’ve always been careful to look, so why…?!

Watching the pictures no longer makes him happy. It makes him angry, and out of anger, he punches the wall behind the desk with all his strength.

It makes no sense, really, but the pain in his fist takes away from the pain in his heart, so he punches the wall again.

He decides to try and calm down after hitting the wall two more times, and he hops into his old bed, shutting his eyes tight and thinking about the night you died.

‘I’m really fucking done with how overbearing you’re being. I was doing fine before I met you, and I sure as hell do just fine without you over my head every fucking minute of the day.’

Those were some of the last words he’s said to you.

Since you’ve died a few blocks away from the JYPE building, it happened right after you left.

You died thinking he doesn’t love you.

You died thinking he doesn’t need you.

He does.

He needs you.

If only he’d gone home with you that night, as you asked him, you would’ve never died.

It’s his fault.

It’s his fault you’ve died.

He killed you.

He lashed out on you and blamed all his stress on your attempts to take care of him, and he killed you.

Fuck, it’s all his fault.

For the first time since the funeral, he bursts out in tears, and he is unable to stop. It’s like all of his repressed feelings for the past month and a half come biting him right in the ass.

It’s so hard to breathe. He’s getting suffocated.

He can’t.

He can’t breathe anymore.

You’re on top of him, suffocating him.

“You killed me.” You say, blood running down your face.

He can almost feel the drops hitting him, with your face so close to him.

“It’s your fault. “You knew what you were saying. You killed me.” You say again cruelly, and Chris shuts his eyes even tighter.

His cries soon turn to wails, and he’s being loud enough for Changbin to hear him and get alerted. He opens the door without knocking, and upon seeing Chris, his heart breaks.

He just goes to the bed and throws himself on top of Chris, as if to shelter him somehow from the intense grief he’s feeling.

When his cries quiet down, Changbin takes a look at his friend and sees his injuries.

“Holy fuck, your hand is bleeding. Are you okay?” He asks in panic, standing up quickly to grab the first aid kit to bandage his fist.

“It’s all my fucking fault!” Chris screams at the top of his lungs, and his destructive mood comes back. He stands up, wanting to destroy it all. Every damn picture, every fucking thing in this room.

He wants to set it on fire and let it it all to pieces, letting himself burn as well. It’s what he deserves for killing you.

Sure, the drunk driver that hit you was directly responsible for taking your life, but the way he acted that night… nothing would’ve happened if it weren’t for him.

He killed you.

Changbin sees right through his erratic behaviour and anticipates his moves, throwing himself once more at Chris, holding him tight and not letting him move, no matter how much Chris lashes out. He doesn’t let go until his friend calms down again, and even after he does, he decides to camp in the room with him and keep him company.

---

Bargaining

---

It’s been three months, and Chris still has some difficulties accepting that you’re truly gone.

He probably shouldn't be here so soon, but it’s like he has to make sure again that you’re… that you’re dead.

Your parents did a great job with your grave; your gravestone made of marble stands tall , centred right in front of the ground you’re buried deep within, and the intricate designs of sculpted vines and flowers reminds him of you.

Oh, right. Flowers.

Chris remembers he brought a bouquet of pink peonies with him. He’s been holding onto it tightly ever since he bought it and stepped in a taxi to come here, but as soon as he got to your grave, time stopped, he couldn’t breathe anymore, and he forgot about the flowers in his hands.

It’s not like you need any more; there are so many fresh flowers all over and around your grave. Your parents also planted lots on top of the soil above your coffin, decorating your rest place beautifully.

You’ve always said you wanted a garden, and now, you have one: your little space in the uncomfortably large cemetery at the edge of the city.

“My favourite flowers. Aren’t they pretty?” He swears he can hear your voice, and turning to his left side, his breath hitches in his throat, choking him.

There you are, holding the bouquet of pink peonies he bought with a large smile on your face, but just like last time, he blinks, and the bouquet is in his hands, as it’s been the whole time, and you’re nowhere in sight.

A tear rolls down Chan’s cheek. He wishes he would’ve bought you that house and garden you’ve been dreaming of, instead of the convenient apartment in the city centre.

He wishes he would’ve proposed, and that you’d build a little family together. After all, you were his solace in the midst of all the chaos of his life. The sole person bringing him purpose and comfort.

But now you’re gone.

He wishes he wouldn’t have always put his job first. Especially now, as his schedules stay empty due to the company fearing for his well-being, he realises how much free time he could’ve had if only – if only he’d listened to you.

He regrets all those late nights in the studio when he could’ve been home sleeping next to you.

He regrets every breakfast, lunch and dinner he’s missed because he was too busy with making a new song, learning a new dance, or preparing for a new comeback. Now, none of it matters. You’re gone.

He could’ve postponed all of them. He could’ve done so much differently, and he regrets it all.

You’re gone.

He places the peonies in a little vase near your gravestone, next to some daffodils someone must’ve brought you a few days ago.

Then, he raises his gaze and reads the inscription in the headstone’s marble. It’s your favourite poem by Clare Harner.

Good choice, he thinks, as he goes through the lines of Immortality and traces each engraved letter with his fingers.

‘Do not stand by my grave and weep

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am the thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints in snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain,

I am the gentle, autumn rain.

As you awake with morning's hush,

I am the swift, up-flinging rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight.

I am the day transcending night.

Do not stand by my grave, and cry--

I am not there, I did not die.’

You stopped reciting the poem and took a deep breath, looking expectantly at Chan.

“Isn’t this poem beautiful?” You asked him, your eyes sparkling.

“A bit morbid, but yes.” Chris chuckled as he placed the freshly made pasta dish in a large plate and served you dinner.

“Aww, thank you. Smells so good!” You grinned in delight, your eyes closing into crescents, as they always did whenever you smiled brightly.

He couldn’t help but press a quick chaste kiss against your lips before he sat down as well.

“So, pasta master, show me how it’s done.” You encouraged him, nudging his elbow and handing him your fork and spoon.

“Tsk, you’re so spoiled.” Chris tutted jokingly, but complied nonetheless and started twirling the pasta with the fork. Once it became an appropriate bite-sized portion, he raised the fork and supported it with the spoon as he brought the food to your mouth.

“Mmmm, so good!” You exclaimed with a few quick, excited small claps, as soon as you started feeling the flavours.

“Of course, what were you expecting?” Chris chuckled.

“Only the best from you.” She praised, petting his head fondly. “So, about the poem. Do you think it’s good enough for my presentation?”

“For Uni? Yeah, of course. Anything you’d pick is good enough, babe. You have your way with words, and you recited it very beautifully.”

“You think?” You beamed at his words, and he nodded. “Thank you, Channie. I really really like it, but I was afraid it wasn’t appropriate.”

“No, it is. You can use it.”

“If the lyrical genius says so, it must be true.” You stood up briefly and kissed his cheek, before returning to your seat and starting eating the pasta.

God, how many years ago was that?

Chris bursts out crying for the millionth time this month, and grabs the headstone with both his hands, feeling his knees grow weak.

On the brink of collapse, he uses your gravestone for support as he weeps louder.

“Can’t you come back?” He asks, his voice shaking. “Please. Please come back. Please. I… I promise I’ll do better, hm? I promise I’ll no longer stay as late in the studio, so please… please…”

The headstone can’t support him enough when his hands go weak as well, and he falls to his knees right in front of the poem.

“If only – If only I’d left with you that night. If only we hadn’t fought. God… please, please come back. We still have to make up.”

He cries for what feels like hours, and his body grows cold.

“Please… please…” He forces out again. “Come back… come back… we have so much we want to do… come back… I need… I need more time with you, please. Please.”

And he cries again.

And again.

And again, until he feels a hand on his shoulder a while later, and he turns his head around hopeful, thinking you might’ve somehow heard his pleas and returned to him.

His expression falls as he sees Seungmin looking concerned at him, and then he frowns even more noticing the pathetic way he looks in his eyes’ reflection.

Seungmin falls to the ground next to Chan, hugging his side tightly. Then, he helps him stand up and balance on his feet.

Chris is grateful for Stray Kids being there for him, but he just wishes… it would’ve been you standing next to him instead of Seungmin.

---

Depression

---

Chris has never experienced such an intense fatigue before. Every part of his body hurts, and it’s like his muscles are screaming at him each time he stands up. He is lethargic and looks haggard and in desperate need of rest, but rest doesn’t come by too easily as of late.

It’s 5AM and he’s in the studio again, but instead of doing anything productive, like finishing up that song he’s started working on two months ago that he keeps beating himself up for, he watches how beautiful you looked in the picture on his desk.

You used to be so full of life and so gorgeous. Your smile could make anyone happy, and your laugh – God, how much he misses your laugh.

He misses your voice.

Sometimes, he can’t even remember what it sounds like, and he thinks it’s absurd; it hasn’t been that long since you passed. Only about a year. He shouldn’t forget it so soon.

He grabs his phone and manually types the digits to your number. He still hasn’t forgotten it, and with how deep it’s been ingrained in his memory, he doesn’t think he ever will.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?

Yes. The beep-

Oh, right! Thanks for calling, please leave your message after the beep. Okay, bye~!’

He hasn’t cried in some time while thinking of you, but now, he’s on the verge of tears again. You used to sound so carefree.

You used to be so happy.

He doesn’t know when he started referring to you in past tense, but as soon as the realisation hits him, he lets a couple of tears stain his cheeks.

Chris is tired. He hasn’t slept in… God knows how many days. He’s always had trouble sleeping, but nowadays, his insomnia has been getting worse and worse. His doctor prescribed him some pills that are supposed to help, but he can’t even be bothered to take them anymore. They don’t help him rest anyway. If he takes them, he wakes up confused, disoriented, and with an even worse headache.

His phone is still in his hand and his finger brushes over his screen. He didn’t have the heart to change his lockscreen picture. It’s still you.

He hasn’t seen you in what feels like years. The first few months when he’d been haunted by your ghost were tough, but now that he hasn’t seen any glimpse of you in months, day to day life is getting harder and harder to navigate.

You don’t even visit him in his dreams anymore, on the seldom nights he sleeps. If he takes the small white pills, he doesn’t dream of anything, and he so desperately wants to see you again, to touch you, that he refuses to take them. That’s the other reason he doesn’t.

Fuck, this is hard.

Are you supposed to feel so devastated after a whole year?

Back then, years passed by so quickly – it meant comeback after comeback, work, work and more work, and time with you was scarce but very appreciated. Time used to fly, and without him knowing how much time passed, you’ve celebrated your 5th anniversary. He was planning to propose to you soon. He was looking at rings, but then you…

Time doesn’t pass by as quickly anymore. This year stretched for so long, it felt like a decade instead of barely 12 months. With each passing month, it was like nothing was changing at all for Chris, but now, looking back, everything feels different.

He’s a completely different person than the one that was staying in the studio up until 5 AM last year, and he blames himself so, so much for his unchanging bad habits.

He blames himself for your death still. It’s his fault, and this thought only makes him more hopeless and more depressed.

He’s lost weight. A lot of it, to the point where the company had to have an ‘intervention’. Whereas last year his body was toned, his abs perfectly sculpted and his form admirable, he now looks like a ghost of himself.

If he eats, his stomach immediately starts hurting. He threw up 3 times this week alone.

Your death still has such a big emotional toll on him, and he’s tried it all. He went to therapy. He still goes four times a week at his company’s requests. He’s on medication that makes him groggy and unable to think, medication that shut down all his feelings – not just the negative ones. He is numb, and when he isn’t, he feels utterly devastated and lost.

What is he supposed to do now, without you?

How come a year has already passed without you by his side? He’s even contradicting himself. Sometimes he feels that the year passed by slowly, and sometimes he looks back and doesn’t understand how he was able to live a whole year without you.

He needs you.

Fuck, he needs you so much, he still can’t believe he even insinuated that horrible night that he didn’t.

Life no longer has any purpose, and everyone around him is growing more concerned by the day, as this once optimistic man has left together with you, leaving in his place only a pessimistic, desperate person.

He realised how badly he wants to die exactly 6 months ago, when your sudden disappearance finally started sinking in for real. When he stopped bargaining with God or with whatever cruel higher power there might be in the sky to let you come back, even if just for 10 minutes, for enough time for him to kiss and hug you and tell you how much he’s missing you.

6 months ago, he started decorating his thighs with unsightly marks, some of them faded, other fresh. He can’t do it anywhere else, no matter how much he’d wished to cut his wrists open, for fear of anyone else noticing.

So, he takes his despair out on his poor thighs, pressing the small blade against his skin until he feels something, anything. Until blood starts pouring down and the shower’s water pools down at his feet completely red.

He winces in pain every time he does it, but at least he feels something different than the numbness that grows bigger and bigger in his heart, consuming everything in its way. His whole soul feels absorbed by it, crushed under the pressure.

On the rare occasions he’s not numb, he feels the immense grief your absence left. He now knows that you’ve not only taught him how to love, but also how it is to lose what you love, and it hurts. It’s excruciating, and his heart is being ripped apart still, each and every time he thinks of you, and your absence is tearing him apart from the inside out.

He is physically sick. His headaches are worse than ever. He can’t sleep. He can’t eat. He can’t do anything anymore. He doesn’t want to, either.

The only thing he wants is to die, but even this wish feels selfish. He sees the way his friends look at him, how they’re walking on eggshells around him, to not somehow mention anything that could trigger a bigger depressive episode than what he’s already going through. He only pushes through it because of them, because he knows how it feels to lose someone you truly love, and he doesn’t want them to have to live with this black hole in their chests.

But… the loneliness he feels is simply merciless. It’s pouring down on him like unyielding unforgiving rain, not showing him any pity, and so he tries to fills his days with something that would make him forget about the gap in his soul.

The company let him come back to work a while ago, but they didn’t plan any comeback for Stray Kids for the time being, nor are they planning any for the near future. He’s grateful they’re giving him time, because he’s in no shape or form ready to do anything, not when he’s withdrawn himself so much from everything he used to love.

It’s difficult to compose any up-beat songs, or any song, for that matter. It used to come naturally for him, but not anymore. Changbin and Jisung are doing their best to support him and make up for his lack of concentration, but it feels like he’s not bringing anything to the table anymore.

He’s missed practice over and over again. The Kids meet up every two days to dance to their older songs, and as they don’t have anything new to work with, they even started learning the dances of other popular songs, or creating choreographies that would fit western music. Chan never went. He stopped dancing 12 months ago, and he hasn’t even stepped in the practice room since you died, not even once.

He hasn’t sung since you died either, and no one said anything about it. No one blamed him at all. Not even his company, who he was sure was going to fire him in the first 6 months after your death.

They said they trust him, and that they’re going to give him as much time as he needs to recover. They talk about him like he’s sick, but he’s not sick. They don’t seem to understand that.

He’s not sick, he’s just devastated, and he doesn’t think he’s ever going to be able to live again, to sing and dance on stage and to work hard, because this is no longer his dream.

He only dreams of death, and the thoughts of it are the only ones bringing him any solace. His therapist said he needs more time, and he quoted Lois Tonkin more times than he can count. He said that life will soon begin to grow bigger around grief, and that the intense sadness he’s feeling is just another expression of love for you. One that is permanent, but that will diminish as time passes and as he starts enjoying life again.

He doesn’t believe any of it, though.

How could he begin to enjoy life again, with you not there by his side?

---

Acceptance

---

He met someone.

For the first time in years, he felt genuine happiness again.

It took him one more year to start reengaging in some of his older hobbies and in his work. He started gradually going to the gym with Changbin and Lee Know, and eventually felt ready to start dancing and singing again. Another year later, he was ready to get back on stage and face all his fans, who’ve thankfully shown an unwavering support of his journey with grief.

He started feeling a bit better, and even though you were on his mind all the time, he was no longer dwelling on the pain of the loss of you. Your memory started bringing him more happiness, and he started looking fondly at all the sweet moments you’ve both shared together.

He started appreciating being able to have met you, to have lived 5 beautiful years next to you, and even though he still feels it is unfair that you’ve been taken away from him so cruelly and way too early, he no longer blames himself.

He still regrets the argument you had on the night you passed away, but he started slowly coming to terms with the fact that there was nothing he could do about it anymore, no way to take his words back. He started accepting that this is the one regret he’s going to have to take to his grave with him.

It took him one more year to start embracing life again, to start looking forward to his future with Stray Kids and to start actively making plans. He realised there was so much more he wanted to accomplish, and his dreams started coming back to him little by little, with the support of his friends and family.

He’s met her two years later.

When it happened, he was still not ready to give love a second chance. He thought it was way too soon, that he was disrespecting you by catching feelings for someone else. He felt like he was emotionally cheating on you.

He decided it’s time to join a support group at the recommendation of his friend, and he’s met a lot of people of all ages: some younger than him, some way older. The way they spoke about their former partners warmed up his heart, and they made him realise that loving again is not an affront to your memory. He can still keep loving you while loving someone else as well. He can still honour your memory.

He opened up to her, and he’s told her all about you. She wanted to know who you were, and she even visited your grave with him, holding his hand and talking to you at your gravestone. She told you she loves him and thanked you for being there for him while you were still alive, for giving him precious memories to hold onto.

She apologized for life being so unfair and taking you away from Chris so abruptly, and she assured you she’s going to take care of him to the best of her abilities.

She was really patient with him. She gave him as much time as he needed to come to terms with his feelings. He let him set the pace on what he was comfortable with doing. The first time they slept together was after more than one year of dating, but she didn’t mind waiting for as long as he felt necessary.

She loved him, and he loved her.

He proposed to her almost two years later, and they welcomed a child one year after their wedding.

He visited your grave on your 10th death anniversary with his son in his stroller, a baby boy he’s given your favourite name. You were still present in his thoughts, and his love for you never subsided.

He now simply has additional people to love and to grow old with, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss you still.

He decided to visit your grave again, even if walking has become a bit too difficult. Still, he manages the way from the car until your grave just fine, even if he has to support himself with a crane.

He is now old enough to be called ‘grandpa’, and not just as a joke between him and his friends. His hands are shaking, and his legs are a bit wobbly; his face is adorned with deep lines and creases, his forehead is wrinkly, and each fine line contributes to his now years-long life and experiences. The skin dropped around his cheeks, but every lady in the nursing home assures him he’s still a handsome man.

Your grave is no longer as tidy and beautifully adorned with fresh flowers. The soil has been overtaken by weeds and is in dear need of cleansing. He hasn’t visited in a while, unfortunately, his health issues making it a tad too hard, and with your parents long gone, there is no one else to take care of your resting place.

He makes a mental note to hire someone to clean it up and plant some flowers, but for the time being, he simply sets the bouquet of rose peonies in the small, chipped vase next to your headstone.

The inscription in the once immaculate marble is no longer as visible, but he doesn’t need to read it in order to recognise Immortality by Clare Harner. He still remembers the poem by heart, and also all sorts of other small, insignificant things, like your old phone number that’s been disconnected decades ago.

He looks at your smiling picture, the one he took when you’ve just graduated from university, and he realises as if for the first time how young you were.

He’s grown old; he has multiple wrinkles, his skin sagged everywhere, and his body went through each transformation it was supposed to when advancing in years.

But you?

You’ve stayed young. You’ve stayed beautiful, cheerful, smiling. Your face stayed clear of any creases.

You’ve remained just as he remembers you.

You are immortal.

“I’m sorry for not coming in a while.” He speaks with a soft smile on his face.

“That’s fine. You are probably very tired.”

He swears he could hear your voice. Maybe the poem is right, and the whispers of the wind transform in your saccharine voice he’s so dearly missed.

“I’m truly sorry for what I’ve said.” He continues, feeling the need to apologize again for his harsh words that night. No matter how many years have passed and how many time he’s already apologised, he’s never forgiven himself.

“But I’ve forgiven you long ago.” The wind whispers, and he closes his eyes and nods his head.

“I still love you. I’ve never stopped loving you. I hope you know that.”

“I know.” The sunlight caresses his back, warming him up as the wind strengthens. “And I’m waiting for you, whenever you’re ready to meet me, my love.”

~The End~

---

(A/N) Obligatory song: 11 minutes by Halsey and YUNGBLUD.

youtube

When my best friend showed me this song, I immediately fell in love with the concept of the music video, that’s based on the five stages of grief. I thought to myself that I simply must write a story like this, but of course, that was months ago and I’ve completely forgotten about it, as I usually do with most random ideas that come to mind that I don’t write down lol.

I couldn’t really sleep for the past few nights, so my mind kept brewing ideas and scenarios to keep me busy and hopefully lull me to sleep.

It didn’t work, because the five stages of grief came to mind and I knew I had to immediately write a story about it and not let the idea go this time, so I got out of bed at like 6:30 am and wrote and wrote on and off for a total of 13 hours, until this 10k words of pure despair have been created.

I hope you enjoyed it even though it probably sent you spiralling into depression. Thank you for reading nonetheless!

Love,

Storm

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autumn-foxfire · 2 months ago

Text

I'm finally at the school trip.

I'll be frank, I find these episodes incredibly stupid and contrived.

I know why they exist as he reached 1000 chapter and he wanted Shinichi to reappear and for him to finally have his terrible romance, but as he is an incredibly stupid writer, he managed to do so in the worst way possible <3 Let's just have Shinichi appear in a very public place! And Ai, the incredibly paranoid girl, just LETS HIM!

Sonoko: I want to get a romantic shot of you.

Ran: I'd rather you didn't.

And then the romantic shot in question:

And Shinichi is pushing her away too (he "confessed" first). And of course Sonoko's the one who is truly invest in the romance.

One thing I am looking forward to in these episodes is the Sonoko and Sera interaction. Yes Sera, grill him!

Oh and this is the rando who joins them.

Okay but that's not a nice thing to do. Or cute. Sonoko had no right to tell everyone something private like that. These episodes are really going to test my nerves aren't they.

And here is Ai being OOC to allow the travesty that is these episodes to exist.

Awww, Gosho thinks Shonichi actually had friends outside of Ran or Sonoko (and now Sera).

They're having pictures taken of Shinichi. He's been spotted without any disguise. That totally isn't going to have no consquences at all.

Can. We. Not. They are just talking. I forgot people aren't allowed to speak to the opposite sex, are they.

And of course Sonoko is jealous for Ran- Nevermind. This is so bad already T-T Someone save me.

Sera being cute and immediately looking at Ran to show how cute she is.

Lesbians.

Shinichi and Sera working together <3 Practising for their future as detectives in an agency together!

I will say it again. They really don't play with the fact that it is agony for them to go through the transformation enough.

What a nice way to speak to your "girlfriend" Shinichi.

Oh the room number matched the episode number.

Can we not lie about things like this? I know it was Heiji who did so but still. Telling lies about things you've done with girls is NOT a very good look and can be very insulting to the girl your lying about.

You know, to avoid the roommate situation, you could just tell the teachers you've been pretty ill and or have reasons why you need a seperate room and that if it's an issue your very rich parents could be the ones who buy the room.

But that would be smart and there is nothing smart in these episodes except how the criminal committed the crime.

...Well it is also a Heiji episode so they might as well bring back the demons.

Ran should be so much more pissed off about this but then again, girls aren't allowed to be angry at their love interests, just feigning it.

I don't think Mary should exist. I think Sera should be allowed to have figured out Shinichi's secret and be fucking furious on Ran's behalf, and doing everything in her power to tell her about it. Sorry, I'm just projecting onto the characters but then again, Gosho does that too so can you blame me <3

I have a feeling Gosho is also telling this story not because it relates to the case but also to "mimic" Ran and Shinichi but there is a big difference: Ran isn't respected by Shinichi whatsoever and he plans to NEVER tell her anything. He is actually happy being to continue to gaslight and manipulate her in order to "protect" her.

I will say it's not often I see the women fantasize about a man's lips.

AND Gosho can't resist being gross.

"HEY WANT TO SEXUALLY ASSAULT WOMEN?!"

Rando: You hesitated because you've seen them before.

Me: Actually it just looked like he wasn't really interested.

It's sad that Heiji is more concerned about Shinichi's secret than he is- Nevermind he actually cares more about the school trip. Do they not realise that HIS LIFE WILL BE IN DANGER IF HE'S FOUND OUT?!

I'm mad that Momoji's breasts were brought up but damn is Sera such a lesbian.

And we can't have an episode focused on the romance between Ran and Shinichi without him being disgustingly jealous because how dare Ran be friends with another man doesn't she know she's Shinichi's property!

OKAY SHINICHI PRETENDING TO BE CHILDISH WAS VERY FUNNY THOUGH.

Shinichi probably just heard that Kazuha can see Heiji on TV and he is NOT CONCERNED?! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS PLOT.

And here comes Okita definitely not here to make Shinichi jealous and Sonoko think Ran is "cheating" on a boy she's not even dating.

Yukiko and Yuusaku are that pajamas meme.

Rolling my eyes because here's the jealousy. Sonoko is usually a good friend but I guess she doesn't mind causing issues in relationships for her own amusement.

Shinichi. It's called having a friend. I know you don't know what that is because you're not even friends with Ran but you better fucking learn and stop being an abusive and controlling.

Here's a good idea? WHY DON'T YOU JUST ASK HER WHAT IT WAS ABOUT. OR AN EVEN BETTER IDEA, WHY DON'T YOU JUST TRUST HER?!

...How did Shinichi push off the transformation?

Oh, surprise Kaito!

It's nice to see Shinichi's husband.

And these deaths were caused by miscommunication.

I feel absolutely nothing. Because this moment is not deserved in the absolute slightest.

Shinichi, have you considered that she wasn't ready for a kiss yet? But no, you had to get what YOU wanted. How fucking gross.

I've never been more thankful for the poison. And it's funny how he was able to starve off the transformation for a case but not for Ran. How interesting.

Gosho: how do I make it so Shinichi's presense won't be leaked.

Gosho: I know, I'll ask a bunch of teenagers not to post online

Get with the times, old man.

Ran, always more invested in other relationships over her own. That's not a sign at all.

LMAO I love the men asking how it's like to kiss Shinichi. Seems like they have a crush on him, not Ran.

Gosho, can you at least pretend to respect women.

The Sera and Mary plot are actually the first interesting thing to happen in this episode.

And of course Shinichi insults Ran. I don't have any issue with playful insults in relationships but it's very clear that Shinichi actually thinks of Ran as an idiot who he doesn't trust. But he's okay manipulating her this way because Ran is his possession and he gets what he wants.

I'm so glad I got through these episodes.

#dcmk #foxy's dcmk commentary

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sorikkung · 1 year ago

Text

good boy gone bad | 27

bad bitch lessons, a.k.a the "audition"

wc: 4.8k

a/n: my god we're FINALLY BACK after half a years unofficial hiatus because i forgot how to write <3 on god i wrote this chapter 4 times and its not my favourite still but im not writing it a 5th and i like it Enough so i hope yall enjoy it too SDFGKJSFD we should be able to pick up the pace quickly with normal smau chapters soon :) thank you all for waiting!!!

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Having a dozen men all crammed in a one-man studio apartment is about exactly as cramped as it sounds. How you wish you could have had one of those more spacious studio apartments, complete with floor to ceiling windows, a proper kitchen, and a living room. For now, you will have to settle for six men sitting on your bed, Wooyoung sitting on Yeosang's lap at your desk, Chan and Felix standing in the bathroom doorway after washing the dye and bleach out of their hair, and Hongjoong standing ominously in the corner, pouting after realising the “fake” in the “fake punk polycule” included the punk part, and not just the polycule.

You make do.

Describing exactly the kind of character you want them to play is the easy part – cocky, brash, sleazy and obnoxious are the names of the game, and if everyone absorbed your in-depth explanation as much as Seonghwa has been diligently typing it down on his phone, you think this should be a breeze. The next part of the plan is to see them in action and test their wits — in other words, time for them to audition.

By whatever miracle, you are able to explain the auditioning process without tipping off the others to you and Wooyoung’s little deception – he catches your eye during the explanation and gives you a grateful wink – and set up the scene for your improvisation game. These boys need practice, as too much unfamiliarity will be far too apparent on the day, and it’s already going to be a tough sell to prove that you managed to pull twelve boyfriends. You damn well might be in over your head with this one, but you are in too deep to pump the breaks now.

“Basically, I need you all to show me what you can do. Cause if your acting does not cut it, I’m gonna be the laughingstock here and my back-up plan is probably arson.”

Beomgyu snorts from his spot on your bed. “I think arson is a pretty good back-up plan.”

“Pretty good except for the criminal charges, yeah. So, time to partner up! Who’s got the balls to go first?”

Seonghwa blinks a few times, looking at his phone, then looking back up at you in confusion. “Why is your back-up plan arson?”

“I’ll go first!”

Saved by the bell, Yeonjun pipes up just in time to avoid another hasty bluff to throw the aspiring actor off your tail, and you have no idea if he did that on purpose but you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth either way.

“Perfect, who do you wanna do it with? For the first scenario, I’ll play my dad.”

“I can-“ Hyuka speaks up, but you notice Soobin tugging on his sleeve and freezing in alarm at all the eyes on him, and it seems to make Hyuka hesitate as well. There’s an obvious tension there that you can’t quite place the origins of, but judging by the way Wooyoung is excitedly biting his nails, you figure you can pry later. “Um. Uh-“

Yeonjun smiles at them apologetically, then turns back around to you. “Actually, I was hoping you’d be my partner for this.”

He says those words like he intends for them to linger, and you figure after how forward he’s been so far coming onto you that he means it, but you don’t want to throw Felix under the bus like that after he begged you to bring him along so he could shoot his shot with the man, so you try not to indulge him too much.

“Oh.” You try to ignore the way that makes your face heat up. “Sure, okay. Yeosang, you play my dad, act really judgemental and pissy at us.”

Yeosang wrinkles his nose. “I don’t want to be your dad.”

You were hoping he would say that.

“Perfect! You already know your lines. Annnd, action!”

His disgruntled expression is honestly quite fitting for the role you just cast him in, and Wooyoung stands up to instinctively take what you assume is the role of your mother as he leans on the backrest of your desk chair to mutter to him, “I cannot believe him right now. Does he really think crashing the wedding with all his friends will do him any favours? If only he’d just settled down with a nice girl…”

Yeonjun stares the couple down, then takes a confident step towards you; that’s about as far as he gets before he visibly falters. You raise a brow at him.

“That’s your cue, Yeonjun. If they’re talkin shit, it’s time to act up.”

He fidgets with his sleeves, posture shrinking in on himself, and suddenly his striking appearance and features look far less intimidating than they did just a moment ago. “Um. Well. I should first probably uh… ask. How far I’m meant to go with this?”

You get the feeling you know what he’s asking by that, but not being entirely sure, you press. “What do you mean?”

“Like…” he takes another step closer, this time all the way up in your personal space and cages you to the wall with both arms. His stance seems confident, but the look on his face is very pointedly not, a stark juxtaposition to his usual shameless bravado. “Like, how far can I go to cause a scene? Cause if I was really with my boyfriend hearing his parents spout that shit about him, I’d just kiss him on the mouth and see how mad they get.”

“I like how you think.”

“Is that—” Yeonjun wets his lips in anticipation, wide eyes flicking between yours and your lips as he leans in even closer, “—consent?”

It’s honestly quite charming of the effortlessly flirty one to be so concerned with explicit consent even now, so you just take the leap for him and grab the collar of his shirt, closing the distance. The others erupt behind you, hoots and hollers all drowned out by the feeling of Yeonjun’s plush lips on yours and your heart dancing in your chest so wildly you think it could trip and fall out. He seems completely caught off guard, taking a moment to really process what was happening before he’s kissing you back with such a shocking gentleness that when he reaches up to cup your chin with a feather-light touch, you almost feel like you should slow down for him.

Instead, you back off, leaving him there gawking at you like you just grew a second head while his fingertips ghost over his lips where yours just were. His ears are flushed pink.

“You’d think you’ve never kissed a guy before, with that face you’re making,” you tease, flicking his nose. “It’s very cute. But as much as I enjoyed that, it doesn’t exactly quite have the impact I’m looking for, and that’s exactly why I set today aside to practice— we have to act familiar. It has to be natural, and comfortable, otherwise it’ll be very obvious that it’s an act.”

The way Yeonjun droops at the comment makes you want to rescind it, but you have enough restraint not to. It is quite clear to you now that Yeonjun obviously does seek your approval a lot more than the others do – such as much was hinted to you by Beomgyu, but his reaction here further confirms it – so you want to be nice to him, but without playing a clear favourite.

Lord knows what Felix will think, is the first rogue thought to cross your mind, and suddenly reminding yourself why he’s part of this plan in the first place, you look over to glance at your best friend in horror – did you just string him along this whole time to go directly for the one guy here you wanted to wingman him with most? – but surprisingly enough, the look Felix gives you two isn’t one of burning jealousy or betrayal.

He has half his fist in his mouth and his eyes are positively sparkling.

You make a mental note to ask him about that later.

“Aw, don’t look too down, that took guts to go for straight away!” You turn back to praise Yeonjun, affectionately clasping his shoulder, and he nods quickly with a tiny, hopeful grin. “My only feedback is to not be so careful. I’m not gonna flip out at anything less chaste than a peck, I’m trying to cause a scene. Has to be somewhat scandalous, without, y’know, actually getting us arrested for public indecency.”

Yeonjun chokes on nothing, then recovers with a laugh – but before he gets to say anything back, Taehyun has bolted upright from his seat on the bed, a sudden determination in his steely gaze. He makes himself quite difficult to read, whether on purpose or otherwise; you know factually that this man has some sort of crush on you, that is, if Beomgyu’s word is truthworthy, though, you have no real reason to doubt him thus far. Unlike Yeonjun who wears his heart on his sleeve, Taehyun’s expression remains consistently unreadable to you whenever you observe him. Part of you wonders just how much of that wall is intentional. Regardless, the words that come out of his mouth next are the ones you expect the least.

“Let me try.”

It’s not a question. He gives you room to decline, but it’s very pointedly not a question, and just that confidence from one of the more reserved members of the group is enough to get your heart thrumming again – not that it had much of a chance to calm down yet. Your mind flickers back to the back-n-forth between him and Gyu in the group chat, the hickeys left all over his neck, and the tip he oh-so-graciously gifted you in a pre-emptive strike of revenge, and suddenly you feel hot.

“Sure, go for it.”

Taehyun grabs you by the back of the neck. He doesn’t even hesitate, pulling you in to slot himself where Yeonjun was just a moment ago, crashing your lips together and shoving the other man out of the way with his free arm as he backs you up into the wall again, pressing you against it and kissing you breathless. He’s fucking intoxicating, the way he dares to taste you on his tongue without care for the audience around him, without care for anything else except his hands in your hair and on your hip and the way he gasps against your mouth when you loop your arms around his shoulders and hook a leg around his waist. He shoves his hips forward against you in response and the others react so loudly your neighbours probably thought everyone’s favourite soccer team scored a winning goal.

“Woo! More tongue!” Beomgyu hollers, and Taehyun doesn’t even break the kiss for the one moment it takes for him to presumably flip him off, if the hand leaving your hip was any indication, followed by a very prompt “Fuck you too!” from his roommate. You realise quickly that he isn’t going to be the one to pull away first, so regrettably, you push him back with a coy smile and a thin string of spit connecting your mouths.

“Eww, gross,” Soobin snickers, hiding his laughter with large hands over his mouth. “Wow, I’m shocked. I didn’t think you had it in you, Tyun.”

He shrugged in what sure looks like nonchalance, but you start to think it looks more like self-restraint, given how keen he was on not stopping. “He said he wanted a scandal, and if that won’t scandalise his conservative homophobic parents, I’m not sure what will.”

It takes you a good few seconds just to re-gain your ability to speak, but by then, he’s already turned back to you with his hands in his pockets and a smug grin on his face. Fuck, you must be blushing – the way Chan and Felix are grinning at you from the side with a knowing look in their eyes tells you you’re probably definitely blushing.

“So, how was it?” he prompts cockily, and you hate the way you instinctively swallow and betray how flustered he got you that easily.

“G-Good,” you hum weakly, clearing your throat before repeating yourself. “Good. Um. Yeah that was like, kind of exactly what I was looking for. Flying colours. You pass! Though, I have to say, and don’t get me wrong I am thoroughly happy to kiss you all, um, we do kind of need to be able to sell the act without relying on just. Making out repeatedly every time they look in our direction. Try and save those for when they seem the most pissed off. But yeah, that was like… good.”

Felix wriggles his eyebrows at you suggestively. “That good, huh?”

“Oh, shut up and get over here,” you mutter, making a harsh jerking motion for him to come forward and save you from your embarrassment – he has a towel on his head from drying out the dye in the sink just before, so you snatch it from him to quickly and roughly towel-dry it to distract yourself from your burning face. The black hair looks good on him, you think, the way the dark wet strands fall in front of his face and frame his features in a way you haven’t seen on him before – last time his hair was any darker than blonde, it was his natural brown and didn’t reach past his eyebrows, and now his hair was getting long enough at the front to tickle his nose. He looks like a completely different person, and frankly, now is the worst possible time for him to be looking a lot more attractive than you would allow yourself to internalise prior.

“Right, so we gonna show them how it’s really done, now?” Felix teases, and you punch him in the arm with a scoff, making him recoil as if you just bowled him over. You can’t even tell if he’s gotten flirtier with you if he’s just pulling your leg, but you did say you would use him as a demonstration for the kissing part. Not that you need to, anymore, with Taehyun setting such an example, and you tell yourself that’s a good thing. “Ow, ow! How you wound me, lovebug.”

You wrinkle your nose at both him and how hard you’re thinking about kissing him now. “Don’t call me lovebug.”

“Why not? Aren’t we meant to be boyfriends, now?”

A breathy laugh escapes your lips at his attempts to lighten the mood while you finish towel drying his hair and tossing the cloth into your laundry hamper, fixing the strands atop his head to sit nicely.

“Yeah, yeah, but lovebug is a bit much, I think. You’re on the right track, though, take notes of that everyone – casually dropping pet names between each other in a way that looks natural will be perfect for making a convincing polycule, so utilise that, just try not to lay it on too thick.” You’re back into dedicated drama teacher mode before you even know it, Felix content to stand beside you with a curiously pleased grin as you explain to everyone further.

“For today, I don’t expect all of you to start kissing each other on the mouth, but I do want you all to start getting familiar with breaking the touch barrier, obviously within whatever your partner consents to. Using Felix as my example, some other things I’d like to see and focus on are placements of hands—” you wrap yours around Felix’s waist, and he’s quick to mirror you, only to blush when you slide a hand into his back pocket, “—or small yet intimate actions, like, tucking hair behind their ear, playing with each other’s hands, touching their neck, things like that.”

You demonstrate each action on Felix as you say it, and by the time you have a hand on the side of his neck and caress it gently with your thumb, you find he’s completely relaxed into your touch, leaning back against one of your shelves as he pulls you in front of him between his legs and plops his chin on your shoulder with both arms around your front and playfully patting patterns on your belly.

“Hey,” he murmurs, breath fanning against your neck, and you can hear the smirk in his voice that’s usually so playful and silly but now, standing in front of everyone like this, has goosebumps rising on your skin. “I think just playing around with each other will look the most natural. Real couples do stuff like this all the time, right?”

Frankly, you fully expected you would be using Felix as a human test dummy, figuring he would be content with you throwing yourself at him all you want for the purpose of demonstration, and comfortable enough to do so, but you hardly expected he would be the one demonstrating anything on you of his own accord, and you swear it must be the residual adrenaline of kissing the two men before him that has you still riled up and on edge enough for the rumble of his deep voice in his chest pressed to your back to make your legs feel like jelly. Only a little bit, though, you are not getting genuinely flustered over the flirtatious actions of your best friend, rather, merely surprised at him being a lot less shy in front of others than you thought he would be. Not that he’s ever really been shy towards you, not in a long time now, especially when it comes to things like physical affection, but… you don’t know where that train of thought is going anymore.

“Right, yeah,” you agree, pliantly allowing him to grasp your chin and turn your face towards his, so he could plant a tiny little peck on your nose and beam at you widely. His face is so close, and unlike the previous two, you have not thought about having this man’s face so close to yours since the two of you were in high school. His face has filled out so much since then; he’s lost all the baby fat in his cheeks, his jawline sharper and his features more pronounced, and now that he’s actually started using chapstick his lips aren’t permanently chapped and gross anymore either, in fact they’re now quite glossy and shapely-

You look away before he can kiss you.

You didn’t even realise you were staring so hard at his lips until you were leaning in, and all you hear of the commotion from everyone else around you sounds like static. Gyu is screaming, Wooyoung is cheering, Yeosang is trying to stop him from climbing onto your desk chair, Soobin has bowled Hyuka over with his face buried in his back while the newly-bleached blonde just laughs at him, Yeonjun, Taehyun and Hongjoong seem fixated on you and Felix, all for different reasons, Seonghwa is furiously typing down notes on his notes app again and Chan is nowhere to be found. Probably in the bathroom washing out his hair dye, you think.

“Yeah, so, um, all of that, and like, of course general flirtatiousness, is the kind of thing I’m looking for, even better if you can be an obnoxious prick about it,” you joke, trying to seem chill with no idea how well you were actually succeeding in it. “So, partner up and have some time to practice, I’m gonna go finish up Chris’s hair and then I’ll come back to evaluate y’all.”

Felix’s brilliant grin falls to a slight pout when you pull away from him, arms trailing after you as you leave for the bathroom. “You good?” he calls out after you, and you want him to know he didn’t do anything wrong to make you uncomfortable, but you also can’t handle looking at him right now when the face of your old high school crush in the body of a supermodel stares back at you, so you have to leave.

“Yeah, I’m fine! Just juggling this many people and makeovers is hard,” you reassure him with a slight smile, and that seems to console him enough to allow you to dip to the bathroom and leave the door only slightly ajar behind you, letting you take a deep breath to collect yourself.

Good fucking god. Okay, so Felix is hot now – that shouldn’t really come as a surprise to you, but it does, because you’ve spent the last god knows how many years trying to tell yourself he’s not really your type anymore, but especially in the clothes you picked out for him and his hair styled like that, he fucking is. He’s the spitting image of your type and all of a sudden with the balls to match – or maybe he’s had the guts for a while now, but you pointedly did not want to notice – and you do not know how you are supposed to feel about any of it. You already have a crush on one of your two closest best friends, you definitely don’t need two – especially on one that already rejected you years ago, and especially not when surrounded by plenty of other equally as attractive and far more eager men who would give you their time of day.

You shake your head, ridding yourself the thought, instead letting yourself linger on the kisses you did have, how different they felt but how heart-fluttering each of them were anyway; Yeonjun’s uncharacteristic shyness and gentleness, how cutely flustered he was after in a way you really want to tease more, and Taehyun’s shocking boldness and confidence, how handsy of a kisser he is, how determined—

“Hey, can you pass me that towel?”

And of course, your actual crush, the one you oh-so-desperately want to get over but it’s kind of hard to do that when he’s standing shirtless in your shower with streaky blue dye dripping down his face and neck.

“O-Oh, yeah, sure.”

It’s not the first time you’ve seen Chan shirtless and definitely won’t be the last. That man hates wearing shirts around the house if he doesn’t absolutely have to, and even pants are optional if its warm enough, but you will never truly get used to seeing his muscular body that he works so hard on, all on display like this. You’ve gotten a lot better at not staring as much, though, not that he ever seems to notice, and just as good at acting like it didn’t affect you at all, so falling back into the familiarity of that is a relief after the whirlwind of emotions you just went through outside.

Once Chan finishes towel-drying his hair into a bright blue fluffy cloud, he slips his top back on, re-attaches his earrings and accessories, and it’s only now when you get to realise just how much effort he’s put in his appearance today to match your aesthetic. Not that the two of you were ever that far apart in that respect – he too didn’t have much colour in his wardrobe other than black, and preferred clothes with a bit of an edge to them, albeit, cranked down a significant few notches from your usual over-the-top attire.

When he looks at his reflection in the mirror, though, he doesn’t seem too happy with it.

“Something’s missing,” he mumbles, scratching his chin. “I don’t know what it is. But while I’m dressed the part, even with bright blue hair, it doesn’t quite feel… drastic enough, I guess. I feel like I still just look like the guy down the road your parents know and like enough.”

You give him a long, hard look – while you’re pretty sure part of it is his own low self-esteem not being able to see himself as cool, intimidating or attractive in any calibre, he has a point – he still looks too soft and familiar.

“Can I put makeup on you?”

Chan brightens up at that a little. You wonder if he was hoping you would say that.”

“Sure!”

You grab a stool from the corner of the cramped bathroom where you had the boys sit in earlier for him to sit on, but once you get your makeup out and decide on what kind of look you want to try on him, you realise it’s a little too low for you to work on his face without bending over. Glancing over your shoulder at the crack in the door, and hearing all the liveliness out there filter through it – shrill squeals, lots of laughter, some yelling, someone’s started playing music again – you decide you don’t want to leave the quieter comfort of your bathroom into that chaos just yet, so you straddle Chan’s lap on the singular chair with a shrug and get to work.

Chan has to steady you with both hands on your waist so you don’t both go toppling off the stool – suppose not having a back made it a little more precarious than anticipated, but his strong arms hold you in place just fine. You try not to think about it, because you really, really don’t need to be thinking about that right now, and try to simply focus on the dramatic smoky eyeshadow you’re applying instead that you think will really pop with the spare blue contacts you had lying around that’ll make his warm and approachable gaze a lot more piercing.

He doesn’t say anything, so neither do you, despite your heart beating arguably heavier now than it was what you were being pressed to a wall and made out with – and it becomes a lot more dangerous to think about that now instead of a welcome distraction, because his face is so close that you can observe every little detail, including the tiny, faded little freckles that dust his cheek in the warmer weather, and how plump and soft his lips look. Fuck. You’re rather glad he has to keep his eyes shut for you to do his eye makeup, because you’re looking down at his lips a lot more than you’d usually allow yourself to, but with all the kissing talk and practice and the weakness you’ve always had for his thick, perfect lips, you are just not a strong enough man today.

His hands shift you closer on his lap, and you feel just the slightest bit more insane.

“Open your eyes?” you ask him, to observe your work and snap you out of it, and he blinks at you a few times cautiously. A smile is creeping across his face, the nervous kind you’re all too familiar with – he has a certain smile he does when he knows he’s being perceived whether he likes it or not, and it’s just as adorable as it is saddening that he clearly has no fucking idea how breathtaking he is.

“How is it?”

“You’re beautiful,” you breathe out, a little choked up. The situation seems a lot more tense than you intended it to, but he must feel it too, because he shies away under your gaze. “I mean it. Not because of the makeup, I just used it to enhance your features further, but I really just…”

I really just think you’re fucking gorgeous.

What the fuck has gotten into you today?

“Just… what?”

You slide off his lap, ignoring the way his grip on your hips tighten for the slightest second before letting you go to rummage through your cabinet for the unopened blue contacts you knew you had in there. “Here, put these on. I think they’ll really complete the look.”

He shrugs, taking them from you and taking his time putting them in, not all that used to putting in contacts, but it isn’t his first time, either. You’ve roped him into enough cosplays with you and Felix over the years to have him familiar enough with the process of putting them in, and eventually he turns back to look at you with an icy blue gaze that is equal parts unsettling and arousing.

“Yeah, you definitely look fiercer now. Take a look.”

Chan finally turns to the mirror, taking in his new look, and his long evaluation of himself seems more intrigued this time around than distasteful, which is a win in your book. If he likes what he sees, maybe your confidence can start to rub off on him some, too.

“Wow,” he exhales, twisting his face this way and that. “I look like a completely different person.”

“Not really.” You know that it was against the point, so you elaborate. “Just a different flavour. You’re still the Chris I know and love, but you look more… confident, almost. And half of any act or aura of intimidation or coolness is just that. Confidence.”

“Confidence, huh…” Chan stands up a little straighter, squaring his gaze a bit more and trying to channel his inner you. He looks hot. Ridiculously hot. But that really can’t be your focus right now. “Yeah. I feel more confident, too. I’ll try see if it’s enough for me to put the moves on one of the boys,” he chuckles, and you smack him on the ass and playfully shove him out the door.

“Go get ‘em, tiger.”

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