#even though i think build-drop structure is cheap

[karlachismylife]

Local Spot || The Queen of the Clan pt.6

CW: fem!chubby!reader, some tame unwanted attention.

If not for man-made structures, you wouldn’t be able to tell the border between the territory of the natural reserve you got your filming permit for and the sanctuary that cuts off a smaller part of the landscape. Fenced off, it looks just the same – no surprise there, to be honest; sunlit tall grass, sandy and dusty ground and scattered trees, shielding the inhabitants with their shadow. No doubt, they have water sources too – everything in sanctuary’s power to tend to quite simple needs of animals that can’t be let out back into the wild after surviving each their own trauma. Driving past the tall mesh that makes sunbeams ripple when hitting your little Rover caravan, you try covering your eyes to look into the reserve, but no animals come close to the road, hidden securely somewhere deep in their new forever home.

“I hope you’re prepared to be blown away by the luxurious housing, we’re working our asses off to impress city cookies like you here.” With a distinct chuckle, Kir beckons you inside, holding a simple plywood door open for you and dropping your backpack from his shoulder on the porch of the little cabin – a whole line of them drags along a narrow road, animals’ enclosures basically on the other side of the “street”. Land too expensive, government too hesitant to “lose” everything it could provide by leaving it as untouched reserve; thus, someone had to make room for their neighbours, and humans decided to sacrifice their own comfort for the sake of the animals.

“Check this out,” Kir waits until you finish looking around the single room that serves as bedroom, living room, office – even a kitchen, if you can count the tiny portable stove and a kettle on a counter – and with a theatric gesture of a magician opens a narrow door, revealing the tiniest bathroom behind it: a toilet, a small sink hanging off a wall and just a cheap curtain to separate the shower area with a drain in  the floor. “Not bad, huh? No hot tub, but pretty close. Don’t recommend you putting candles and champagne there, though, if you even mange to find those around here somehow…” Laughing with you at the deeply impressed and amazed expression you feigned at the sight of your lavish bathroom, Kir raises a finger calling for your attention once more and then struggles with the sink tap for a moment, finally getting it to sneeze and run clean water. “Actually working plumbing. You feeling like a queen yet?”

“Grandiose, brother,” you snort and come closer to hold a handful under the stream, gathering slightly warm water and using it to wipe sweat from your face and neck. “But no, really, don’t think there’s much more I could need, so this is perfect. You’re my neighbour or what?”

“I’m just three cabins away, door’s always open for you.” Having closed the tap, Kir shuffles his way out of the cramped space and leaves your cabin, hands in his pockets. Remembering something, he turns on his heels and nods at your backpack. “Laundry’s in the main building, there are bags to separate yours, it’s all done together in the mornings so it’s best to leave yours in the evening. Oh, and I’ll ask around about something to get rid of the stink.”

With a dazzling grin and a wink, Kir salutes you and finally turns his back, returning to work and leaving you to sort through your belongings and settle in. If everything goes well, you’ll spend just a few days here before the head of your crew successfully prolongs the filming permit and you head out into the savannah once more. Having this bureaucratic delay doesn’t feel good, but in a weird way you feel relieved.

You don’t think you would be able to leave this place without a heavy heart if the shoot lasted just three weeks like planned initially.

Settling on the top step of your low porch, you pull your backpack closer and hold your breath instinctively, even though a week in the wild has somewhat tamed the stink. It’s not strong per se, but it has a stinging undertone of concentrated boiled soap, to the point where it almost tastes sweet on the back of your mouth roof. Scoffing, you pull your belongings out of it, throwing crinkled plastic bags onto the floor behind you.

Finally reaching the one with dirty laundry inside, you grab it along with the empty backpack itself and make your way all the way to the main building, quick to find the laundry room – just as tiny as everything else. You empty your crumpled laundry into a nice canvas bag and write down the slightly scraped off number on it to know which one to pick up later, and then drop off the backpack in the corner, only just noticing teeth marks on it in several places – a chewed up strap mostly.

Somehow you don’t even doubt it was all Stinky’s doing.

“Adorable bastard,” you grumble under your breath and nearly ram into Kir’s firm chest at the door, too distracted with thoughts of your spotted acquaintance trotting around somewhere in the yellowish grass of the savannah.

“You called?” He laughs watching you roll your eyes and squeezes past you with a pat on your shoulder, a spray bottle of some kind in his hands along with his own laundry. “It’s for your aromatherapy backpack. If you want, you can spray it yourself, I’ll finish my shift sooner and we’ll hit the town. Bet you didn’t get a good look around when you arrived, yeah?”

Only fair for you to deal with your stink problem yourself, Kir already went above and beyond to help you, so you take the spray from his hand and return to the corner to drag your backpack outside, humming in response.

“No, they picked us up pretty quickly… only saw the bus station basically.” You shake the rattling bottle and make a trial spray, high-pressure mist with another harsh, sweet smell – most similar to a mosquito repellent – bursting into the air. The sticker on the can reads as some water- and sweat-repellent for shoes. “Anything interesting to see?”

The spray hisses, covering your backpack in a generous cloud of chemical smell and slight plastic-y glint after it settles. From inside the laundry room Kir raises his voice, admitting that there’s basically nothing except a couple stores and a dingy bar that can be of interest – it’s still worth it, you decide: just fifteen minutes of scootering down a bumpy dirt road and you get to buy something to treat yourself after a week on canned food and maybe even get a drink.

“I’ll come knock on your door then after I finish, then.” Kir leaves the laundry room and catches the spray can you throw him – if your watering eyes and coughing are any indicators, you’ve applied more then enough. Hanging the backpack outside to let it air out the possibly deadly concoction of sweat repellent and hyena sprayings, you finally drag yourself to your cabin.

A cool shower and a little bit of gentle persuasion via banging on the kettle stand until the loose contact clicks and the heating starts, you settle on your porch with your thermos and breathe in deeply. Nothing disturbs you, the feeling of being watched forgotten like it wasn’t even there. Must have really been the savannah getting in your head..

Sun is slowly sliding to the west, still high, but already a bit dimmed and oranged by the incoming dusk. Dry, clear air is rippling and throbbing above the ground, cooling off, weak wind snaking through the dust of the little road. Crickets and cicadas are chirping repetitively, like an ancient ethnic instrument from the good old times when music had more rhythm than melody. From your steps, you can’t make out which direction the call comes from, but somewhere on the sanctuary’s territory roars a buffalo – must be that young bull Kir told you to be careful around.

Two of the sanctuary employees walk past you, dirty gloves and sweaty noses – they smile and nod at you, barely interrupting a lively discussion, something about water going green in one of the biggest water sources. That’s not good, you think, but they don’t look particularly worried. More like confident.

Like they know what they’re doing and why.

Closing your eyes, you take another deep breath and sip your tea, careful not to burn your mouth. Red and pink prints of the vascular system in your eyelids mix with the way you already saw sky go up in flames at sunsets here, a peaceful feeling washing over you. There’s serenity in the way life flows measuredly around here, clocks and calendars slowly growing meaningless in the face of greater time countdown – seasons and solar cycles dictating times to migrate, to hunt, to procreate. People here made the decision to tie their lives to the nature, preserving and studying, and thus their time obeys the same laws, no hectic anxiety of semesters, quarter reports and tight schedules keeping them in a never-ending race.

It’s a blessing – to do the right thing with a reasonable pace, day after day, knowing you have something meaningful to do every time you wake up. In the outside world no one thinks highly of someone digging elbow-deep into the green mud of a small pond antelopes come to drink from, but here it matters.

You’d like to matter.

“Thinking of me with that smile on your face, I hope?” Kir’s cheeky voice drives you out of the meditative headspace and you open your eyes lazily, wrinkling your nose at him – he even made sure to approach you in a way that wouldn’t obstruct the softened sunrays caressing your face.

“Yeah, you wish. We’re going already?” With a grunt, you raise to your feet with his assistance, noticing just how long you must’ve been sitting there, daydreaming. Kir nods and plops a helmet on your head, adjusting the strap under your chin.

“Shopping first, then the bar?” He leads you to the several scooters in sanctuary’s possession, rolling the most new-looking, sandy and just slightly scraped on the wings, on the road and helping you onto it. The machine dips under your combined weight, but Kir doesn’t seem concerned, starting up the engine and driving off the sanctuary territory.

Nearby town can barely pass as one, looking more like a glorified village – small buildings, no higher than three stories, basically a single curved street between them and continuing on to the bigger road. Finally seeing it in the daylight and without the exhaustion of a long trip that kept weighing your eyelids down when you first arrived there on a bus to be picked up by your crew, you find it just as charming – as well as noticing some larger signs of civilization a couple kilometers to the west, tall power transmission poles and antennas around some fenced off facility.

While you try to remember if there was something industrial mentioned when you read about the place you were going to, Kir drags you inside a cramped convenience store, literal mountains of fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts in crates at the entrance and the most random selection of imported goods on the shelves – in a moment of weakness, you pick up some suspiciously looking lime-flavoured crisps and a few cans of cold soda from a fridge that sounds like a fighter aircraft going down from a direct hit, but still manages to keep products inside cool and wet with the condensate.

You leave the store, chewing on some dried fruits Kir helped you choose – even got a discount from a familiar cashier that was happy to inform that they can place orders for some goods if you’re planning to stay longer. Behind your cheerfully polite smile you felt that same wave of belonging that keeps coming back to you.

“We’re a bit late, so all the tables are probably taken, do you mind sitting at the bar?” After you leave your groceries in the scooter trunk, Kir leads you up to the pub, its neon sign already glowing in the slowly approaching darkness, and holds the door open, nodding at the bar counter with just three free stools to your luck.

Keeping in mind that he has “precious cargo” to deliver back, as he calls you, he orders a coke for himself and pays for your cider, promising that it’s one of the things you can actually drink there.

“That’s my favourite, the pear one. When I come here on foot, always grab a bottle or two.” You lean onto the counter, feet dangling above the dirty wooded floor, as you chat with him – he indulges you in the town gossip with some additions from the bartender, making you chuckle as the cider tickles the roof of your mouth. It’s actually good, you admit, and Kir buys you another one before leaving to the bathroom “to see if they have another spider infestation”, which earns him a shoulder slap from the bartender.

When you turn to watch him make way through packed room, you feel your heart stop for a moment, like a prey that finally notices it’s being watched. It’s a fleeting sensation that almost immediately disappears, but you almost hit yourself in the teeth with the bottle neck, once you notice them.

Four men in the furthest corner, staring at you openly – they’re not trying to be discreet, the bearded one saluting you with his whiskey tumbler and two of his buddies flashing you smiles. Friendly smiles, not the ones that make your skin crawl in similar bar encounters back in the big city. Even the one with his face covered by a mask and arms crossed over his bulky chest nods at you and sinks further in his seat, as if it could help him look smaller and less threatening. They seem chill, clearly minding their own business and avoiding the other patrons in that corner, not interested in the rowdy fun of a work day evening among tired people unwinding before heading home.

To fight that initial creeped out feeling, you nod back at them, quickly averting your gaze with a chuckle once you see them light up almost too obviously. Must’ve been ogling you for quite some time, if the smallest acknowledgement gets you such a reaction. It’s kinda sweet, their excitement radiating from the corner, and you watch from the corner of your eye them exchanging a few words before one of them has to force the big guy with a mohawk back into his seat, as if he was already ready to rush through the bar to talk to you.

“I go away for five minutes, and you’re already making eyes at someone?” Your eyes shoot up to see smiling Kir, but as you watch his expression change once he glances over his shoulder at your four watchers, your brows knit together. “Oh, no, cookie, you stay away from that folk, alright? Come on, let’s go, before they come up here.”

Before you even can object, Kir tugs on your elbow insistently, and you have no choice but to grab your almost finished bottle, say a hasty goodbye to the bartender and follow him, stumbling from the sheer force he drags you with, clearly in hurry to get out of the tightly packed bar.

“Hey, can you at least explain? I’m coming, don’t need to drag me, you know,” you try to keep your irritation down. After all, he has done nothing but look out for you, and if there’s anyone you can trust to know all locals, it’s him. Still, you steal a glance at the four-men company and get the unsettling feeling once again, this time not without a reason: the concentrated, slightly frowning looks all four of the men watch you leave with, don’t feel as friendly anymore.

It's only outside, once the night breeze strokes your heated from the alcohol and crowd proximity cheeks, that Kir lets go of your arm and sighs, putting the helmet on you. His voice sounds hushed, and he looks you dead in the eyes, as he says:

“Don’t mess with them, don’t even talk to them, okay? No one wants them here, they’re not locals. The less business we have with them, the better, especially since you’re here just temporarily. I don’t trust them, and you shouldn’t either. Can you promise?”

By the way you look at him, utterly confused, Kir finally realizes how paranoid he sounds and runs a hand over his face, before looking around and leaning to your ear to say even quieter:

“They’ve been roaming around for months already, cookie. They’re military. They’re bad news from the West.”

Suddenly, you realize what that fenced off facility you saw earlier was. A military base.

Just twenty minutes away from the natural reserve.

Part 5 | Part 6.5 | Part 7

Series masterlist | Main masterlist

Tagging: @elaineiswithyou-blog @creepingeva @my-halo-is-a-little-broken @sillymanjaro @ihatethinkingofnames10 @ravensfeatheruniverse @yaminax @ljh861 @darkangel4121 @ginger-n-coco @grey-shadow6475 @cryingpages @mothsdrabbles @mc-glare-is-king @vixxie22 @aldis-nuts @terraantarctica @henhouse-horrors @blizzivy @perfectus-in-morte @danielle143 @llavalada @yukichan67 @sleepisfortheweakpooh @ilxina @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @misscaller06 @etherealinthewoods

[projecthipster]

The XX

And we, we live half in the daytime / And we, we live half at night / And watch things on VCRs

Our next list is much more broad than the lists of albums, as it’s a list of the artists themselves. It’s harder to review the entire discography or existence of a band, but I won’t shirk from it. Do I have to have heard an entire discography to review properly? It feels wrong to base an opinion on just a few songs, but, good lord, if I have to review Every Single Mountain Goats Song or something, that would need a whole book. 

Fortunately my first band on this list isn’t too daunting. First up is the XX. Or is that the Xx? What’s the capitalization here? And what does that mean? Is this band supposed to feel like medium-quality liquor? Or softcore porn? Or are they somehow a placeholder, twice? Never mind. The idea, I guess, is that the name isn’t important. So then why did the least likable-seeming member make it his last name? Now, when I get into music I like lots of context - funky album covers, album titles that drop unexpectedly at lyrical climaxes, loooong song titles. Music is a package that’s more than just sound. Like charcoal ice cream, though, The Xx go fully the other way into minimalism. Each of their album covers is just an X in different colours, which reminds me, in a bad way, of those Ed Sheeran albums that were just named for mathematical operators. Is he still doing those? I know he got through the basic operators, is he doing albums called √ and ∑ now?

Anyway, the XX. I’m sticking with two capitals. Somehow I missed these guys completely at the turn of the ‘10s when I was getting into indie pop as a wee tween proto-hipster. Maybe it’s because they seem to have hit it big in England, and I was tucked in the little otherworld of Canada listening to Hollerado and Tokyo Police Club? And yet even now, over a decade from the album that featured their biggest hits, this band still has 6 million Spotify followers –half as many again as Arcade Fire! So where’s the Arcade Fire-sized cultural impact?– and apparently they were on the soundtrack for Baz Luhrman’s Great Gatsby? I LIKE that movie! I like that soundtrack! So, in diligence to the blog, while making an overwrought breakfast on this rainy day off (homemade chai masala, waffles, and bacon, if you’re wondering,)  I opened up my TV’s Spotify app and began to listen through the discography of the XX.

Like so many bands that technically still exist but without much indication of that fact, what staying power the XX hold seems mostly confined to a self-titled debut, in this case released in 2009. This is a pretty good pop album! But it’s immediately accessible, and not particularly memorable. It’s entirely possible that I have heard these songs before, echoing through half-empty malls, and I just wasn’t impacted enough to remember. Maybe I heard Romy Croft’s pleasantly breathy vocals and thought I was hearing a Taylor Swift b-side from one of those more downkey of her albums. One of the tracks on this album is called “Basic Space,” and that’s too cheap of a joke to even properly formulate. There are good hooks here, but not much of the structure needed for barbs to hold. Songs repeat catchy choruses without much build, so that it’s hard to say where you are in the structure of the track. There’s not much of an album structure either. Sure, there’s the quite nice instrumental “Intro,” which for some reason is the most listened-to track by a solid 200,000 streams. Spotify is weird like that. But then there’s no real climax or ending, it just sort of stops after a while. Lyrics are about… honestly, hard to say. I do like the nostalgia-baiting groove and vintage implications of “VCR.” I think it’s funny that “VCR” also features the furthest possible sound from Radiohead’s “Videotape” despite being sort of the same title. It’s not just that XX lyrics end up buried in layers of synthesizers (nothing wrong with that! We like shoegaze, right?) but that they’re generic enough love and breakup songs that there’s little distinct imagery in the words once we get past “VCR”. That’s fine. What this album excels at is a neon-drenched ambient soundscape of melancholy urban adolescence. You can just close your eyes and see rain rippling black puddles on halogen-lit London streets, violet lines of bar signs dancing in the tiny waves, stumbling home to dingy studio apartments. Sorry, dingy flats. It’s a British band, so they’re flats. “Fantasy” is a standout track for this, undercut as it is with a spacey hum of wind, as if through an abandoned industrial district, that transitions after a few soft verses into an atmospheric lo-fi beat leading into “Shelter.” Ah! Structure! Transitions! This is the good stuff. Am I becoming a poptimist?

This album sounds like what Euphoria probably is. I don’t know, I haven’t seen it. This isn’t a record to listen to over and over again and dig deep into, though it’s worth a listen or two to catch the hooks. It’s a record for laying down the chill auditory background of your low-lit craft brewery or modern cocktail bar, and that’s just as important for The Hipster Life as the all-time individual classic albums.

Based on that first album, I’d happily leave the XX with a solid four stars. Unfortunately, I was listening to everything on their page in order, and that meant that next up was a truly godawful EDM remix of Florence + the Machine’s “You’ve Got the Love,” courtesy of douchiest-seeming and clearly least musically talented band member Jamie Smith, or, sorry, Jamie XX. Come on, man. Lennon didn’t go around calling himself “John Beatles” for the extra name recognition. So, that desecration of a great song was enough to drop a star right away. Things got better with sophomore album Coexist, but I still thought it was a half-step down from the self-titled. Coexist ramps up the neon ambience and slows down further into melancholy space-pop. I bet this one was big on Tumblr moodboards at the time. Or maybe not, since there aren’t many pithy standout lyrics. I haven’t listened beyond that yet, and I don’t know if I need to. But just like I said about Radiohead, this seems like music for a train ride through the city on a rainy night. If only I didn’t live in a prairie city. I have access to the trains, but rarely the rain.

Oh, and I do recognize the Gatsby song. It's called "Together" and I think it plays over the climax, since it's giving images of Gatsby bleeding into his pool and Myrtle lying dead in the Valley of Ashes. I did always like that riff, and felt it fit the movie well. But it's from a silly little EP of mostly remixes, not a proper XX album, which doesn't seem fair to me. I think I'm going to rewatch that movie now.

I give this hipster band three and a half tiny rays of convenience store lights, refracted in a cloud of cigarette smoke, out of five.

Project Hipster is a futile and disorganized attempt to dive into the world of things that the internet has at some point claimed "are hipster," mostly through ListChallenges search results.

This review comes from the eighth list, Is Your Taste in Music 'Hipster' Enough?

Next up, another book!

Stay deck.

[djvariable]

Chlär — Early Morning Acceleration

(2022 | 🇩🇪 | from Optimized Grooves LP)

[charnelhouse]

Tell me, lover, are you lonely?

Pairing: Benny Miller x F!Reader Words: 4.48+ Warnings: Smut. PTSD. Depression. Substance Abuse. Oral sex(fem receiving). Angst. Fluff. Brief mentions of sex in high school but nothing graphic. Summary: You’re at a party you wish you weren’t. Benny takes care of you in the bathroom. A/N: Apparently I think the Miller bros fuck a lot in bathrooms. Title from Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Tell Me Baby”. 

The first mistake people make about Benjamin Miller is that they pin him down as dumb.

A bumbling idiot. An air-headed jock. 

You know differently. You know how fucking smart Ben is because you went to high school with him. He took every AP class. He played Varsity sports. He managed to do all of that and still show up to house parties. His skin turned brown from the sun as he peeled a calloused hand through his blond hair and smiled all lazy. 

He never had a girlfriend - never a long-term chick. He’d always offer someone a ride home, though. He’d fuck those girls in his beat-up truck and drop them off, leaving them sharply branded in Ben because few boys ever compared when it came to his prowess. It’s not even like he was an asshole or a player. He just didn’t have the time for anything beyond a few hours in the back of his car.

At least - that’s what you had heard and high-school gossip was considered gospel when you were on the cusp of adulthood and saw Ben Miller as a God.

The Miller brothers were fucking legends in Amarillo.

Gorgeous. Hot-headed. Honorable.

Will went to war and Benny followed as he always did when it came to his brother. They returned decorated in medals and badges. They were written about in the city paper. You had only seen Ben a handful of times when he was on leave and you were home from college. 

Once, when you were getting gas at the local Phillips 66, you had spotted him across the way at the other pump. His elbows were resting on the hood of his truck and he was pressing his face into his palms. He had stood there - like that - for what felt like a lifetime. His legs spread, his spine hunched over - the ridges of muscle in his shoulders and back bunching underneath his loose white t-shirt. Suddenly he had looked up - eyes far away - almost red - and when he caught your gaze, he smiled in a way that felt terribly forced. He waved once before sliding back into his car and speeding off.

 His hands had been shaking. 

The brothers left again and it was radio-silence. There were rumors - constant whispers whipping about the women’s book clubs and weekly poker tables. 

June said her boys are still overseas. There’s bad wifi or something. I don’t think she knows a lot.

Or they just can’t tell her what they’re doing.

You don’t see them again. Not for a long time. Years. You’ve heard that they’ve been stationed at Fort Bragg. You’ve seen a photo here and there from their mother on Facebook. In truth, you forget all about Ben Miller because you’re too busy with your own lack of a life. 

You’d gone to college. You’d gotten your degree. You’d moved to Dallas for a year to work in marketing. You’d done everything right.

And yet you were back in Amarillo. Your father was sick and your siblings were useless and your mother was in denial. 

You hated it. You hated this town with its meat-packing plant and its cheap bars and the fact that so many people knew you. It had its niches of lovelies: art deco and Spanish revival buildings, the Route 66 Historic District with its doll-house structures and splashes of color and sepia-pressed nostalgia.

And then there was the weather - the unpredictable temperature changes and raging winds and ruinous hailstorms. Drought. Late frosts. Tornadoes. Dust-storms. Floods.

Your life had become simple. You attempted freelance marketing online, but most of your days were spent going on a morning jog, giving your father his meds, avoiding your mother, and spending hours at the local bar or drinking wine alone in your childhood bedroom. A room that was frozen in time with its hard-rock posters and Pepto-Bismol shade of paint and sun-bleached photographs of parties you barely remember. Prom. Homecoming. Old boyfriends.

You knew that you were falling - collapsing in on yourself. You knew that depression had sunk its claws into the meat of your head. Every morning you woke up and thought:

This is not my life.

This was not meant for me. 

How did I fucking get here?

**

There’s a December storm - ice-slick streets that turn the asphalt to glistening obsidian. It’s brutally wet-cold. The kind that chips away at your lungs. The kind where it hurts to breathe - the kind that so often terrified you because your car would skid or you’d eat shit trying to walk to the store. 

Old friends have returned for the holidays. Most of them knocked up or married or already getting divorced. Hannah - your high school best friend - tells you about a house party at Nathan Engle’s house.

“It’ll be fun,” she tells you - her voice doused in that kind of I can't wait to let loose and pretend that this town is my town again.

Of course - the dismal truth of that - is that Hannah will ultimately leave - go back to her apartment in Nashville with her adult friends and her adult job and her chunky J. Crew necklaces and oat-milk lattes and Soulcycle classes.

“Yeah,” you reply, scrubbing at your old eye make-up that’s caked across your cheeks - spidering along your skin. You’d forgotten to wash your face last night. “Okay. I’ll go.”

***

You first see him across the room. He’s got that blonde hair brushed back - fiddling with the cap on a handle of Titos. He’s in a dark shirt and blue jeans. Even in the dead of December - with everything encased in a thin layer of frost - Ben is golden-tan, most likely from Florida’s constant sun. His cheeks are flushed pink as he sips from a red cup, while a girl with a bleached helmet for hair talks his ear off. You think you recognize her from the grade above you or maybe she contacted you about Herbalife on Facebook.

Ben smiles politely - the sly reveal of bright white teeth as he bites on the rim of his solo cup. Jesus Christ - he is gorgeous. It’s like you’re transported back to high school and Ben is once again an untouchable figure. Someone you admired from afar - desperate to reach and stroke and feel the silk of that hair. 

It’s not that you were ostracized in school. It’s not like you were a loner or incredibly shy. You had friends. You went to parties. You had boyfriends and clumsy make-outs in the backseat of cars on abandoned fields.

But Ben was Ben. You thought him too great - too ideal for you. You knew that if you ever became one of the girls he took in the bed of his truck, you’d never get over it. You’d fall in love and hold tight to it - never giving it up until he hopefully faded from memory. 

He glances up and you catch his eyes. It’s a second. Brief, but jarring all the same. It transports you right back to when you had intruded on that very private moment at the Phillips 66. When you had watched him grieve over something you couldn’t understand. When you saw his hands tremble as they slipped over the handle of his car door.

You think of all the things he’s seen and done. You think of the places he’s been. You think of that young boy with his jawline and his uncanny ability at picking up languages - the surprising way he was able to speak so eloquently about Jane Eyre or Heart of Darkness during AP English. His flawless Spanish that made Señora Dolan titter from her desk. 

He still looks young - boyish handsomeness that hasn’t faded due to time or what you believe was probably continuous devastation overseas. Constant danger. Stress. 

His eyes rake over you for a few seconds - blue and bottomless - before they fall back on his cup of liquor. The girl continues to speak to him - nose nearly shoved into his ear.

You’re not sure how you look. You have good genes. You keep the sun off your face. You’re soft in places - harder in others. You think you look the same.

Maybe - just sadder. Less promise. 

No promise at all.

***

You sit in the upstairs bathroom with a bottle of wine. You’re not drunk - just blown out with a strange combination of anxiety and boredom. You don’t want to be here. You don’t want to talk to any of these people, especially the ones who had gotten out of this town, and like to emphasize the places they’ve traveled to and the worlds they’ve created.

You rest your back against the mirror, your legs splayed apart, heels kicking at the sink’s lower wooden drawers. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. You take a deep swallow of cheap wine - the acidic, sweet burn of it cloying in your throat. You’d have a hangover tomorrow - then again you’d been hungover every morning this week.

Not anything brutal - just your tongue chalky in your mouth - sour breath and a muddled headache. Exhaustion since alcohol rarely led to a good sleep. 

You’re about to call an Uber when the door swings open. Fuck - you’d forgotten to lock it.

Ben strides into the bathroom, nearly knocking into your knees. He’s long-legged and broad-shouldered. His face is alarmingly handsome up close. He startles when he sees you, blue eyes widening as his palms fist into a defensive position.

You bet it’s instinct at this point. You bet that Ben has stumbled into a number of situations and been forced to put up a fight. A girl in a bathroom with a bottle of wine is the outlier for him.

When he sees that it’s you, he lowers his hands, straightening his spine while those pink lips curve upward. He’s tall - you’d forgotten how tall. 

He doesn’t apologize or step out. He just leans back against the wall - arms crossed over his chest as he appraises you. You try to focus on anything else - the floral wallpaper with the corners peeling - the hideous wicker stool by the chipped bathtub -  the butter-yellow hand towels. The little framed prints of water-color fairies. 

But it’s like gravity - like kinetic energy - and your eyes return to those dark jeans - sweep up the tight black t-shirt before they land on Ben’s disarmingly amused face. A lock of hair falling across his brow.

“You were in my class?” he asks in a low voice.

You nod - tilting the bottle of wine in your hands - feeling your stomach collapses in on itself. “Yeah.”

“Like all of my classes, I think,” he adds. 

You’re struck dumb. He had remembered you - noticed you then. It makes you feel warm - makes your cheeks heat up and you curl your fingers into a fist - letting your nails scratch into your palm to keep you centered. 

“Yes,” you reply because you’re incapable of the human language. Your tongue sits fat in your mouth and your heart flutters. Your top is too tight.

He bites his lower lip, tilting his head thoughtfully as he just keeps staring like he’s trying to piece you together - trying to remember the parts of you that are more familiar to him. The younger you. The baby-fat or the really off-color eyeshadow - the cool cucumber body spray from Bath & Body Works. 

“This party fucking sucks,” he finally declares and you laugh.

**

They talk for hours or god maybe it’s just one and they are stuck in a vacuum where every moment feels less real.

Ben - Benny as he told you to call him - is fucking funny. Not in a way that he’s obviously trying to be - just as himself - his dry quips or salty facial expressions when you bring up some chick he’d hooked up with a thousand years ago. 

They discuss high school - they discuss the time after. You tell him about college and how you’d never been that happy you before - just you running wild on campus with no overbearing parents or people who knew your family name. No nosy neighbors who would run home to call up your mama and tell her that she’d seen you hanging off some boy who looked like trouble.

“Were there a lot of boys who looked like trouble?” Benny asks, sinking down to the floor - taking the bottle from you to sip, grimacing at the taste.

You shrug. “I’d say an average number of boys.”

When they talk about Benny, they talk around the war. He says that he made brothers for life over there - that he still has his core group and - of course - Will who apparently spends his days giving motivational speeches while Benny boxes.

“It’s stress relief, I guess,” he remarks - almost shyly as he peers up at you. “You need to find something to do to get rid of some of the stuff you see back there.”

You don’t ask him about “back there”. You’re sure you understand the gist. You saw him shoving the heels of his hands against his eyes all those years back with the flat plains of Texas riding out behind him - endless land showered in the red sun. Maybe he had seen another land - another country where he’d been forced to grow up in a way that hurt him - that bit him deep and didn’t let go. You saw his face screwed up into something broken and you know that Benny Miller isn’t who he was from high school. He’s been roughened - shattered in places and pressed back together in others with thin tape and glue. 

You remember your next-door neighbor Mrs. Mackin - the way she’d talk about her son who went to Afghanistan at 19 and came back a different person. “The nightmares wake up the whole house,” she sighed, rubbing a knuckle across the newly etched lines at the corners of her eyes. “I-I just don’t think he’ll be the same - he’s not the same boy.”

Benny interrupts the dark hole you’re climbing down.

“So you came back here?”

It’s not like it’s coated in a taunt. No disbelief. But the reminder still pinches - still breaks across your back like a rogue wave - sending you headfirst into the muddy sand. You’re still here.

“My dad got sick,” you defend - narrowing your eyes in a way that should read please change the subject.

Benny’s expression stays the same - bright and bold and beautiful as he nods - as he slowly stands to pass you the near-empty bottle. “Sometimes you gotta be there for your family. No shame in that.”

It’s like he’s snuck his hand inside your ribs and snatched the tissue of your lungs. The word “shame” rolling off his tongue and that gruff man-voice being so fucking reasonable. You didn’t even say that you hated it here - that you wanted to be anywhere else. He must have read it off you - the resentment pooling slick over “sick” and “my dad”, while you spoke about life outside Amarillo with a dream in your throat. 

“Yeah,” you breathe. “No shame, I guess.”

And then there’s silence - tense quiet as Benny fiddles with his hands - shoving them into his pockets before pulling them out.

You don’t even know how the rest happens - how the change between casual conversation ascends to something heated and raw. Maybe - it had been happening the whole time - maybe it’s been happening since you sat behind him in English and listened to him drawl about Bronte.

He moves toward you, shifting his hips between your knees. His face is tilted downward as he blinks at you. His gaze - those ice-flecked blue eyes - linger across your face - the bare skin of your sternum. His hands catch at your jaw, thumb sweeping over your warm cheek.

“I always thought about this,” he murmurs - his breath puffing across your lips. “I thought about kissing you all the time back in school.”

Your brain has flat-lined. You didn’t know - couldn’t have guessed.

“Really?” you exhale - your fingers curling around the thin material of his shirt as you tug him closer. “Why didn’t you?”

“I feel like I tried at a couple of parties. You’d disappear.”

Of course, you did. You knew yourself. You didn’t want to feel Ben Miller inside you and never get it again. You didn’t want a hit. You wanted the rest.

You had nothing to lose tonight. You had your shitty bedroom at your parent’s house and the promise of a hangover. You could have this even if you’d never get it a second time.

“I’m here now,” you sigh and then he pulls your mouth up to his.

It’s fucking good. The tentative slide of his lips, his tongue twining around yours as you cling to him for dear life. He tastes like gum and the slight damp of vodka. He smells like expensive cologne and a little sweat. You bet the Ben in high school would have been Axe body spray and cigarettes, but fuck you bet he still could have kissed like he was swallowing your heart. 

It turns hot - his hands fisted in your hair as he drags his lips and teeth across your throat, lowering his chin to nip at the peak of your tit underneath your too-tight blouse. Your knees are locked around his waist as he subtly grinds against the center of your jeans and you feel dirty. His kiss builds into something frantic and he moans against the glide of your wet tongue. 

He pops the button of your jeans. “Can I?”

You nod - seeking out his insistent mouth to kiss him again - to devour him down as you burn for him in all the ways you had hoped. He smirks before dropping to his knees - shucking your jeans off and your booties and your socks before he’s yanking your ass half-off the counter and pushing his face against the lace of your underwear and oh my fucking god -

“Ben,” you start, forcing yourself to concentrate as he brushes his lips across the seam of your inner thigh - his rough hands massaging your flesh. “You don’t - you don’t have to -”

“I want to,” he corrects - meaningfully - edged. “And it’s Benny.”

You slip back against the mirror as Benny leans down, hitching your underwear to the side and latching his mouth to your aching clit. Pleasure shoots through you - spiking your temperature and making you shudder as your thighs wrap around his head and your nails rake through his silky hair. 

“Relax,” he urges against the wet slit of your cunt.

He draws tiny circles around the swollen nub, fingertips grazing your folds before slipping in just enough to make you jump. He changes direction - suctioning his mouth and branding patterns across the tip as he pulls the hood up so he can get even better access.

He rears back and there’s you glossing his lips and chin - captured in the blonde stubble across his jaw.

“You have a really pretty pussy,” he praises before he buries two fingers inside you, making you arch off the sink. His eyes are half-lidded - dark and hungry - as he watches the effect he has on your soaked cunt, his fingers curling and rubbing up against the soft tissue behind your clit. You can’t help yourself as you shamelessly grind against his hand, as he digs his other fingers into the flesh beneath your ass to keep you anchored. “You like that?”

You manage a whimper - something high-pitched and frantic. “Fuck -- yes - Benny - Jesus - “

His lips break apart into the smuggest smile you’ve ever seen. It gilds him - highlights his face like he’s proud of himself for making you an absolute mess.

“Good,” he husks. “I’m gonna make you cum.”

He scoots closer and drags his tongue down the center of your cunt before he licks back up, pressing it flatly against your swollen, spit-wet clit. You writhe beneath him, shutting your eyes as you try to keep from screaming. He sucks and licks and manipulates the pleasure points inside you, alternating between his tongue and his thick fingers. He twists his knuckles, blows cool air against the blazing skin above your mound - your folds - the pieces of you that are coated in a fine film of Benny Miller’s drool and your essence.

He keeps you balanced on the precipice - punching you forward into a near-climax before hauling you backward. He teases - playing your pussy just right as your walls pulse around his knuckles and his darting tongue. You’re ripping at his hair, running between making it hurt and combing it back - smoothing his wrinkled brow as he keeps his eye firmly on your face while he licks at your dripping cunt. 

Sometimes he growls - his whole body vibrating with it against the clench of your knees - other times he moans like you’re the best thing he’s ever tasted. You suddenly realize why all those girls never got over Benny Miller fucking them once and then releasing them to their quiet, little homes as they snuck back into their frilly bedrooms while their parents slept soundly. If Ben ate chicks out like this then who would ever fucking forget it?

Although you have a feeling that this Ben is smoother - firmer in his resolve and experience. He’s seen shit - perhaps the worst of humanity - but still takes the time to make you feel good while doing nothing for himself except subtly grazing his hard-on against the cabinet. 

“Benny,” you cry out as he forces you closer and it’s certainly coming as your lower muscles spasm and bear down on his face. 

“Yeah?” he grunts - the word muffled in between soft kitten licks and deep plunges. “You gonna cum, darlin?”

He looks fucking gorgeous as his eyes slip over you - leaving their marks. Your lacy black panties hooked to the side of his damn cheek as he dips his nose to graze it over your abused clit. The intimacy of it leaves you devastated - nerves lighting up across the expanse of your body.

He removes his tongue before he suctions his lips over the entrance to your pussy. He sucks and sucks, pulling you farther off the counter, digging his fingertips into the flesh of your ass cheeks as he spreads you apart. It’s so much pressure, his mouth forming a seal over you and you’re splitting at the seams as you shake and crush his head between your knees - swallowing half a dozen curses as everything throbs and flutters before you feel yourself go slack and spill right into his mouth. 

There’s sweat pooling in the divot of your lower back - your heart is pounding loudly - your ears buzzing. Benny keeps his mouth on you, gently probing his tongue deep as he nurses you through the aftershocks of your orgasm. 

You peer down at him as he gently releases you, carefully gripping your ankle and pushing it back through your pant leg. He rucks your jeans up before standing to his full height so he looms above you, his damp fingers curl around your chin so he can tilt it up. He moves his hands to cradle your face - dragging your lips up to meet his. There’s the burst of you on his tongue - the salty musk of girl-sex and sweet-heat as he kisses you rough - his hands that are wrinkled with your cum are supporting you - keeping you from melting right off the counter.

“You wanna get out of here?” he asks, nuzzling his nose against yours in an act that exceeds your expectations. It’s affection. It’s a far cry from the dirty, bathroom sex he’d just claimed you with.

“Yeah,” you answer in between heavy, hitched breaths. "Okay.”

***

It’s all black-glass outside. Frozen branches. Slick dark rivers for streets. The blanket of the sky is pressed down with tiny scattered stars. White-bright and pulsing. 

Benny’s in a thick, wooly jacket that makes him look broader than he is. He grips your hand firmly as his long legs practically carry you across the sleet-soaked sidewalk. 

There’s no one out here. Just parked cars and slumbering houses. Benny’s breath puffs smoke with each heavy exhale. There’s a comfortable silence between them. You can barely feel your feet and you’re still aching between your thighs - still wet and pounding, but also wanting for Benny and his fingers and tongue and cock.

He leads you to the main road where the world is more lit. Closed delis and open liquor stores and 24-hour laundromats and chain restaurants and bars.

“Wanna get pizza?” He releases your hand only to wrap a strong arm around your shoulders, tugging you flush against him. He smells like birch - like sex - like old textbooks and the high school library and ten years past.

“Pizza, huh?”

He smiles, scraping a hand across his jaw and chin in an act far too suggestive for your weak-ass heart. “Eating your pussy made me a little hungry.”

It’s delivered so frankly that you almost trip over your own feet. You initially think he’s being too smooth - too charming - before he grabs your wrist and yanks your knuckles to his mouth where he presses his lips to the skin there. Chaste. 

You realize that this is simply Benny. No ulterior motives or unclear messages. Just brute honesty. After all - that’s the only thing the both of them have left. There’s no more time for run-arounds or underhanded moves. You want a future. You want something other than just your childhood bedroom and creeping depression and your mother reminding you of your promising future and career when you had come back for her benefit.

“Pizza sounds good,” you reply as Benny dazzles you with yet another movie-star grin. 

Maybe, it’ll just be tonight. Maybe, you’ll go home and never see him again.

Maybe, you’ll spend the next decade of your life, sliding your fingers through your sex as you recall the exact sensations of his tongue.

“You know my parents throw this dumb New Years’ Eve thing,” he mentions, scratching the back of his head as he stares at the sidewalk. “You should come. It’s like a potluck or something. I don’t know, you don’t have to obviously if you have plans - “

Or maybe not

“Sure!” you chirp - pulling him close so you can press your mouth to the hinge of his jaw - tasting his stubble as it scrapes your bruised lips from all the kissing they’ve done tonight.

“Awesome,” he says as you both continue down the brightly lit street. The world in ice. The stillness of a town near sleep. The sensation of a snow-globe as everything floats to the ground like feathers - confetti. The question of there ever being an existence outside this glass - this perfect night.

There is a space in your chest - buried near the bottom - where all of your dreams used to live.

As Benny helps you through the pizzeria’s door - as his hand presses hot against your lower back, you crack the space open. You let it out.

***

Plz tell me your thots. I love the TF boys.

[atnaterra]

There are two things you should know right off the bat, just to keep things fair. One: though some would say otherwise, Root Hashells wasn’t to blame for the beginning of the fight at Low Fishdrum’s Tavern and Tackle, only the end of it. And two: the spirits she killed didn’t really mind all that much, at least in the long run. It gave them time to cool down and reflect on their actions. Death is sort of like a time-out when you think about it.

Knowing that, I hope you’ll go a little easier on Root. She’s had a rough go of things lately, and it’s certainly not about to get any better. But before we get to her, let’s look a bit more at Low’s.

Whether Low’s got its name for the quality of the food or the price of it was a common source of speculation among first-time patrons. That speculation passed faster than the fare through an unprepared digestive tract as soon as the speculator made the acquaintance of the owner, Low Fishdrum, and found that though their previous theories were an unfortunate coincidence, the greater misfortune was being born to parents who, in addition to already passing along the unlucky surname “Fishdrum,” had the truly regrettable sense to slap the name “Low” before it.

The building itself did little to help matters, but that’s often how these things go. Some considered Low’s an eyesore. But then again, some considered those who considered Low’s an eyesore terribly haughty and bourgeois. So form your own opinion as we go.

The squat building sat like a toad on the bank of the Gob-ui River. In most cases, riverfront property didn’t come cheap in the city of Unn, despite there being quite a lot of it. This abundance was due in no small part to the river’s dramatic oxbows bending this way and that across the whole of the city as if the river itself knew the appeal of its banks and, in a cocky-albeit-generous move, furnished the city with as much waterfront as possible. Somehow, the wealthiest and greediest still managed to own around ninety-one percent of it.

Low’s, however, inhabited a remarkably affordable plot, owing thanks for the steep discount to the neighbors. A feral cat rehabilitation home neighbored the tavern on one side—charitable and quaint, perhaps, but only from upwind. Sandwiching it from the other side was a brothel with a penchant for double entendres, known abroad for its orgies and locally for its minestrone. (Now, neither building might sound like too troublesome a neighbor, but keep in mind: you’re out of earshot.) Together, the two crowded in on the tavern as if trying to squeeze every sour drop from the ale-soaked floorboards.

But Low’s kept the air of an unbothered old drunkard lying woozy in a recliner as it leaned—concerningly, some said—away from the street and out over the muddy riverbank, propped carefully against the algae-covered dock attached to its rear.

Standing at an even one and three-quarters stories, the building was clad in a carapace of warped and worm-eaten siding that seemed determined to escape the structure, judging by the amount of it that lay around the foundation like dozens of spindly legs. The tavern and what Low insisted passed for a tackle shop took up the ground floor, while the stunted attic housed a handful of rooms available for rent to particularly short lodgers, people with a love for crouching, and, of course, smaller spirits.

At the front of the building, hanging crooked from a beam above the cobbled street, was a sign bearing the tavern’s name in chipping daffodil-colored paint. It was this sign that caught Root’s attention as she passed it by in the golden light of the waning day. Though the voices of the change in her pocket provided more of a dialogue than a choir, they were unanimous in urging her to stop in for a drink. For some reason, coins always seem more persuasive in these matters when they have limited backup, and so with a sigh, Root stepped through the open door into the haze of tobacco smoke and the fresh memory of a grease fire.

The grease fire, as she would learn in about two hours, would only be the second worst thing to happen at Low’s that evening.

You've just read the beginning of Atnaterra, a free satirical fantasy web fiction. There's tons more ahead. Keep reading now.

[erwinsvow]

𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬 | 𝐚𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐨𝐲𝐬

a/n: hey everyone! hope you enjoy these college headcanons! part two can be found here! warning for nsfw in jean's, and mentions of alcohol/partying throughout!

jean kirstein

jean shows up to college thinking it’s gonna be high school part two, and quickly gets put in his place

his old antics (for both school and girls) won’t fly anymore, so he tries his hardest at both

i personally see jean as not the smartest, most gifted kid (in college!) but definitely one of the hardest workers

this man comes in pre-law and changes to sports management real quick

he definitely plays some kind of club sport, lacrosse or basketball or maybe even both and he is way too into it

like club lacrosse is his life.

he 100% has eyes for cheerleaders, because he loves idea of someone rooting for him, and if you are one, then it’s instantaneous

he notices you at one of his games, giving a shove to conny and asking if he knew who you were

which is met with “what do i look like, a phone book?”

he builds up the courage to ask you out eventually, to which of course you agree, and it’s pretty much a happy ending after that

makes for a lot of sweaty, post-match sex, with him still in his jersey and you in your uniform hiked up

reiner braun

frat bro reiner is a business major with a focus on finance

reiner is the guy who dedicates 100% of his time to school during the weekdays, and the weekends are for the bros

he’s the first in the library, last to leave lecture because he stayed behind to get clarifications, and pretty much aces everything

halloweekend, he decides to drag annie and bertholdt to a party, because they are in desperate need of letting loose

probably dressed up as something mildly douche-y that didn’t require a lot of thought: a foot ball player jersey with eye black improvised by annie

he is a heavy-weight if you’ve ever seen one, probably on his fifth cup of cheap beer and not even slightly buzzed

annie and bertholdt are sloshed, so he keeps one eye on them to make sure they’re alright

you, on the other hand, are serving as designated-driver for the night and sipping on soda

i think any kind of sweet, innocent costume (angel, fairy, woodland creature) would get his attention immediately

he goes over to you to try to make conversation, and finds himself stumbling over his words even though he just swore he wasn’t tipsy yet

but you find it cute, and given how you have seen him before around campus, studying all the damn time, you’re pleasantly surprised to find a sweet, interesting guy making conversation with you at a halloween party

eventually, your friends take off with their hook-ups, and reiner is left behind alone too after making sure everyone had a safe ride home

with no one left besides you two and his passed out friends, you offer him and his roommates a ride back to his dorm

after dropping annie off, you arrive at the dorm and help lug a blacked-out bertholdt to their room

you say goodnight and as you leave, feeling bold, you leave your number on the whiteboard hanging on their door

so that then turns into coffee-and-studying dates, and eventually a relationship before too long

armin arlert

i think we all know what armin is like in college: marine biology major and history minor

this is an effortless genius, so unlike reiner, he doesn’t have to spend all his time studying

i think armin would be the kind of guy who has school and life figured out, and he slowly realizes a healthy relationship is the one thing missing from his life

there’s honestly plenty of people who want to date him, if he had ever cared to return any of their gazes

i honestly see him being oblivious, so when a fellow classmate asks if he wants to study together, he goes “oh, sorry, i wasn’t really planning on studying, but maybe eren wants a study-buddy, i’ll let him know for you!” instead of realizing that was someone flirting

so it’s the same for you

you’re taking the marine sci class as a last resort, everything else was completely filled up, and you just had to get out of that physics class

but all this talk about oceans and sea-creatures is even worse, somehow. to put it short, you’re struggling, and armin is the kid who raises his hand at every question without so much as jotting down a note during lecture

you know mikasa through a friend-of-a-friend type situation, and ask her if armin would be willing to tutor you sometime

doesn’t matter that part of the reason you’re doing so poorly is because you’re staring at the back of his head most of class

armin and you get together to study on a saturday evening, and what began as a recap on the history of the ocean quickly turns into laughing, talking, and then “you wanna go grab something to eat?”

for someone so smart, he’s really dense

he thinks you’re being friendly and doesn’t want to assume you’re thinking this is a ‘date’ even though you’re internally screaming

it takes you leaning in for a kiss after he’s walked you back to your dorm for it to click

needless to say, he wasn’t quite so oblivious after that

eren yeager

eren was determined to get into the same college as armin and mikasa

my man is undecided, and then sociology after he’s forced to pick

not exactly a fuckboy, not exactly a stoner, just somewhere in between

procrastinates doing work and submits every thing a day late, even though he probably would have gotten full marks if it was on time

him and mikasa decide to take a marine bio class with armin, and he ends up falling asleep during lecture

i don’t see him going for a goody-two shoes type that wants to reform him, because he just wouldn’t want to deal with that

it’s not a toxic relationship, but pretty close to one

on again, off again ever since the two of you met in a dingy frat basement, absolutely hammered, and hooked up

this boy does not want to admit that he’s caught feelings, but eventually it comes to that because he is very much the jealous type

catches you engaging in polite conversation with reiner and he is seeing white in seconds

he realizes he has to make you his

marco bott

the most wholesome nursing major with a minor in english because he is a sucker for lit

i don’t think there is any shortage of girls who want to be with marco, just given how sweet and genuine he is

that being said, i feel like the few time he’s wanted to pursue a relationship with someone, they haven’t reciprocated/just saw him as a friend

which isn’t the easiest thing to deal with, but because he’s a mature angel, he doesn’t hold that against anyone

instead, he kind of succumbs to this false idea that people want to be his friend, and not his girlfriend, which he’s a little insecure about

that’s why i think you and marco would have idiot best friends to lovers, featuring everyone around you knowing how head over heels you both are except the two of you

you two meet in a particularly challenging class, and not recognizing anyone, you both turn to the friendliest face in the room to make study-buddies with

over a whole semester of late-night cramming (and talking), scribbling smiley faces on flashcards, and good luck texts before the exam, you realize how much you’re gonna miss constantly hanging out with marco

and on his end, he’s complaining to jean about how after the final, you two won’t have any reason to keep talking

“so ask her out then, you idiot”

“she probably doesn’t think of me like that…”

“are you blind?” jean says, with a roll of his eyes

after the class has ended and you’re both headed back home for winter break, you work up the nerve to text marco one last time

“let me know if you ever need help studying for another class :)”

you have no idea that he’s over the moon, and that finally brings an end to your friendship, and starts your relationship

bertholdt hoover

mister bertholdt is structural design and architecture major

there’s basically six of those total in your entire college, so he definitely gets a bit isolated/lonely sometimes

he basically came to college with reiner & annie, and figured he didn’t really need more friends than that

so when they’re busy, he’s just by himself

annie definitely makes fun of him for not spreading his wings and flying out of the metaphorical nest, but he’s comfortable with how it is

not a huge fan of the party scene, and prefers a quiet night of studying

i feel like you and him would be the last two studying in the library most nights, and sometimes walk out together after the librarian reminds you both the building is closing

so, when reiner and annie drag him to a party one weekend, he’s shocked to see you there too with outgoing friends of your own

he’s used to seeing you in the bright fluorescent lighting of the library, so this dim, hazy room after the shots have already gone to his head is hard to take in

you two eventually end up talking after your friends push you towards him

“funny seeing you here.” “i could say the same to you.”

he already has a crush (you do too, but he doesn’t want to accept that) so the alcohol inhibits his usual caution

a little bit of dancing, a lot of sitting on the pavement outside while looking at the moon, stars, and each other, topped off with a first-kiss starts your relationship

levi ackerman

teaching assistant levi is a staple of your college

almost infamous, really

you count your lucky blessings that he’s still a year or so away from graduating with his ph.d. in molecular biology and that he’s ta’ing this microbiology class

you’ve definitely heard all sorts of rumors, but you really don’t know what’s truth and fiction

he definitely hasn’t slept with a third of his students (right?) but the lingering way he looks at you isn’t helping quell your thoughts

technically speaking, teaching assistants and students are not allowed to date, interact, etc

until the semester in which you are their student is completed, at least

it doesn’t take long after that for you two to constantly run into each other

“how’re your new classes going? any hot ta’s?” he asks, sipping his tea from the bookstore cafe. you choke on your hot chocolate.

all this being said, you’re an upperclassmen about to graduate, possibly start a ph.d. or masters program yourself. i see him teaching upper-level courses exclusively.

it’s not long after that you admit your feelings to each other, since after all, there’s no time to waste

erwin smith

you’re a second year masters program in the history department. your specialization is military history, so of course professor smith is assigned as your thesis advisor.

i mean, he’s only written several textbooks on the subject

on first sight, you can’t believe he’s a professor. because certainly, this is a some cruel twist of fate. he’s closer to your age than some of his colleagues.

you both try to keep it strictly professional

at first least. this gets gradually harder and harder

there’s a certain chemistry there neither of you can deny.

having a mutual interest in the same subjects doesn’t help too much either. suddenly, you guys are spending hours pouring over topics for his next textbook and your thesis.

the conversation continues over chinese food in his office, long after the rest of the building has cleared out for their friday evenings

“well, i won’t keep you any longer. i’m sure you have much better plans on a friday night than talking military policy with me.”

“there is no where else i’d rather be.”

hope you all liked it! :)

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Dream SMP Recap (June 6/2021) - Techno’s Visit

It’s time for Techno to visit Dream in prison. After saying some parting words to Phil, Techno goes to Pandora’s Vault for the first time...

Later, Quackity, Puffy, Bad, Skeppy and Michael tour around Las Nevadas for a fun chill stream, and Quackity recruits Michael as a worker to build in the city.

A brief summary of the week’s total events can be found at the end of the post.

---

VOD LINKS:

Technoblade

Ranboo

Captain Puffy

QuackityToo

Michaelmcchill

---

- Techno goes to speak with Phil before he visits Dream

- Phil gets a horrible canonical headache and Techno offers him a canonical aspirin

- Phil isn’t sure going to the prison is a good idea, as every time someone’s gone something bad's happened, but Dream saved Techno’s life. Also views

- Phil has his concerns, but Dream called in the favor. Techno thinks he should go and check on him anyways, even without Quackity. Dream’s been in there for five months

- Phil offers his help, but Techno doesn’t want Phil to take any risks paying off his debt

- But there is something Phil can do: Techno wrote a will. He throws a signed book to Phil. Phil asks how many days he should wait. Techno says it varies. The instructions are in the will

Techno: “I took a vow. Those who treat me with kindness see it repaid tenfold...I gotta honor that.”

- He rings the channel member bell

- Techno wonders if he can bring Steve, but probably not. He says goodbye to Phil and heads off for the prison

- He makes it to the prison entrance and says hello to Sam, who welcomes him through the portal

- Techno says he’s come to visit Dream, but Sam says he’s not allowing people to visit right now. Techno throws Sam a book:

---

FIELD TRIP SLIP

---

Sam. Technoblade will be paying Dream a visit. This is business related. Let it happen.

It’s also tax write off :)

- Quackity

---

- Techno reads the waiver aloud and signs it “Techno Blade”

- Sam then asks the questions:

“When is the last time you visited the prison?”

“I have not visited the prison before”

“Where is your place of residence currently located?”

“I live in like this cabin in the north, it’s pretty chill.”

“Do you believe that the prisoner is deserving of being locked up?”

“I’m gonna be honest, I have no idea why he’s in there, so...”

“Are you saying no?”

“I’m not saying, like, yes or no, I don’t really -- I’m not really up to date on the news recently, if I’m being honest.”

“What are your prior relations with the prisoner?”

“Yeah, we’ve been business associates I’d say, in the past, you know. I wouldn’t say I’m like friends with him, honestly -- he’s kinda sus...I’m not gonna lie, it does not surprise me at all that he ended up in a jail, ‘cause that guy -- he’s a little weird sometimes, you know. A little strange...So you know, it’s, eh...it’s up and down.”

- Sam gets to the last question, telling Techno he’s the ultimate authority on the grounds of the prison

Techno: “Oh I love authority, everyone can tell you that.”

- Techno goes to store his belongings in the locker. There’s a bed in an item frame now which he uses to set his spawn. Techno opens up his Ender Chest and stores all of his armor and weapons in it

- Having run out of space in the Ender Chest, Techno puts his remaining items in the locker chest: Potions, gapples, golden carrots, an Ender Chest, Ender Pearls and a stack of stone

Techno: “Well. You know, you seem like a trustworthy man.”

- They go through the security protocol. There’s a new Ender Pearl stasis chamber in the first room that wasn’t there before. Techno zooms in on it before it activates, teleporting Sam in

- Techno’s impressed with the prison’s design. He gets Sam to open the vault door a second time to admire it

- Techno signs the next waivers “sub to techno” as “Technoblade (subscribe to technoblade”

- Techno praises Sam’s creativity with the prison, comparing it to the Butcher Army’s simple execution platform

- The lava wall comes down. Dream isn’t facing them

- Techno walks with the moving platform to the cell. The second Dream sees him, he starts shouting

Techno: “Yo, Dream! Dream, what’s up!”

Dream: “TECHNO NO! NO!”

Techno: “No what?”

Dream: “QUACKITY -- it’s a trap! It’s a trap! Techno--”

Techno: “What about Quackity? Dream, you need to -- I haven’t seen you in a long time, Dream.”

Dream: “(muffled) Techno...He’s been torturing me I gotta -- I didn’t write that note.”

...

Techno: “I’m not gonna lie to you, Dream, I -- I kinda had a feelin’ he was lying, but I kinda had to visit anyways, just to see how you were doing, get to the truth of things, you know? You know? And besides, Quackity’s not even here, man.”

Dream: “...Why did you come?”

Techno: “I wanted to see you! I need to figure out what’s going on here, Dream, and between you and me, I’m an anarchist, so uh -- (looking to Sam) Can he hear me at this volume?”

Dream: “They’re working together...”

Techno: “Who?”

Dream: “Sam and Quackity!”

- Techno asks Dream to tell him everything. Neither the lava wall nor the Netherite barrier have lowered yet

- Techno looks back at Sam, asking how long he has to be in there for

Sam: “I think you could do with a nice long stay with Dream...you’re probably the main threat to uh -- to Dream escaping, aren’t you, ‘cause you know, the two of you have worked together before, and...”

Techno: “I...would never defy authority, alright. I. Love. Authority.”

Sam: “I think we both know that’s probably not true--”

Techno: “Everybody will tell you how much Technoblade loves authority figures.”

- Sam refuses to send the bridge back, saying the two of them will have some catching up to do. He sends the lava wall down

Techno: “Sam, this is NOT DOING MUCH TO CHANGE MY POLITICAL OPINIONS!”

(Dream freaks out in the background)

Techno: “...Alright. Well that was nice.”

- Dream panics. Techno tells him it’s fine, that they’re not out of options

Dream: “I have been in here for six months! What do you mean we’re not out of options, it’s fine -- how?!”

Techno: “Well I mean, maybe you’re out of options, but like I actually have friends now. I know I was kinda like a loser when we first met...”

- He finds the books and quills and tells Dream to write down everything he knows about the prison

Techno: “So...hows it goin’, roommate?”

Dream: (quietly) “Oh my god...”

- Techno seems optimistic about the new experience. Dream tells him he used to have a clock as Techno examines the cell

- Techno tells Dream to get to writing and ends stream

- Ranboo goes back home and is confused by how much the trees have grown. He thinks Phil probably has something to do with it and that he knows something, even though Phil isn’t doing it himself

- He then goes mining

- Quackity does a chill stream on the SMP working on the roads of Las Nevadas while chatting about lore out of character

- He walks down the Prime Path when he gets suddenly jumped by Skeppy and Bad, who attack him together. Quackity threatens to blow up their house

- Captain Puffy joins the fray and stops them

- Quackity offers Puffy and Michael a tour of his country

- He goes eating at McPuffy’s and Michael comes over to give him food as well

- There’s a hostile takeover of McPuffy’s and Bad declares it McSkeppy’s now. Quackity takes the drive-through instead

- Quackity orders a BTS meal and Bad hands him a steak “with extra cruelty”

- He starts walking them all over to his country, asking them what their expectations are (Quackity talking to Bad at this point is non-canonical) Skeppy wants a lot of ducks

- Quackity falls into the Punzo Chunk

- He tells them that his country isn’t even near done, and he’s going to need a lot of cheap labor. Skeppy says it doesn’t sound very enticing, but Quackity says he’ll give him all the ducks he’d want. 

- Michael tells him about his experience with 2b2t

- Quackity shows him the concept of “the house always wins” (a picture of “Finding Doryto”)

- Quackity kills Skeppy and Skeppy logs off. Bad is horrified. Quackity tells Bad it isn’t his fault that Skeppy is dead as Bad buries Skeppy’s dropped things beneath the ground under the Needle

- Quackity shows the remaining people to the gambling machine, teaching them how it works

- Afterwards, he takes them to the strip club and starts stripping at the pole

- He takes Michael into the back, where he tries to mug Michael for his things. But Michael runs out the back door

- Quackity goes back to stripping and offers Bad to go into the back room for a “surprise.” He tries to mug Bad, but Bad goes running out the back door

- He returns to Puffy, defeated, and half-heartedly promises her a surprise in the back room too. Puffy, not at all suspicious, follows him and he tries to mug her. She gives him ink sacs, slabs, Ender Pearls and shears. 

He shows her out the back door

- Afterwards, Quackity takes the three of them to the Tommyinnit Restaurant 

- Then they go to the stage and Quackity puts on a “show” for them...

...Which is more stripping 

- Next up is the hotel. There’s nothing in it, so he takes them to the pool outside. Bad almost drowns

- He wants to show them “something embarrassing,” so he brings them to Tommy and Wilbur’s headquarters

- Quackity then shows them the Eiffel Tower to conclude the country tour and they argue about a trident

- He suggests Michael and Puffy possibly build some structures around Las Nevadas and gathers them at the Needle. He shows Michael the empty plot next to Fundy’s area and says he needs something put there in return for some free spins at the casino. Michael’s down for that

- Quackity tells Puffy and Bad to help Michael build there. Bad asks how much he’s getting paid, and Quackity says he gets free spins at the casino too. Bad and Puffy start arguing again and Quackity leaves, having gained a new worker

- Bad and Puffy continue to argue about the trident 

- Later, Michael builds a statue in Las Nevadas

END OF WEEK RECAP:

5/31 - Wilbur and Tommy visit Las Nevadas

6/1 - Ponk tears down a tower of L’Llamaburg, Tubbo builds an outpost, Techno’s birthday party, Quackity speaks with Foolish about Las Nevadas, Niki finds out about Wilbur’s revival, Bad and Puffy destroy the supreme fridge in an act of war

6/2 - Fundy speedruns self-care, Antfrost confronts Foolish, Bad and Puffy to apologize

6/3 - Nothing much happens.

6/4 - Ponk decides to sue Puffy and Bad, Pubbo

6/5 - Nothing much happens.

6/6 - Techno gets trapped in prison, Quackity tours Bad, Puffy, Skeppy and Michael around Las Nevadas

---

Upcoming Events:

- The final Egg lore stream

- Tales From the SMP: “Space Race”

- Ponk’s lore stream

- Dream’s lore video

[jimlingss]

hi!! for the requests, could I suggest hoseok, fluff, fake dating au, and the sentence 'I’ve been in love with you since we were kids.' thank you!

↳ Humdrum Amore

2.7k || 100% Fluff || Jung Hoseok

“I never thought I’d come back here one day.”

You stare at the brown building that you once dreaded. The same structure that you had to drag your feet into every morning five days a week after your dad dropped you off. But instead of feeling apprehension, there’s a sense of prickling nostalgia while you look at the building.

“Same.” The man beside you exhales, staring at the green field, the brown doors and small windows covered by blinds. “But it’s not all that bad, right?”

You turn to Hoseok who looks sharp in his simple suit and tie ensemble. You’ve seen him in the same clothes plenty of times, but while you’re wearing your red dress and you’re lingering in front of the school, it feels like the two of you have returned to being awkward eighteen year olds nervously going to prom together as friends.

But Hoseok eases you. “Come on.”

He takes your hand, a gesture you still aren’t used to, and tugs you inside.

The moment the doors are open, you follow the signs leading to the gymnasium and you’re met with a table of refreshments and goody bags. But more importantly, there are people already mingling in all corners. Some are wandering while most have gathered into groups to reminisce. There are those that you recognize and those whose faces have long faded in your memories. 

High school. A time of pubescent years, of growing up and trying to prove yourselves while figuring out your future. You have mixed feelings about that time. All you know is that you’re glad it’s over.

“Y/N?” There’s a higher pitched voice to the left and you turn to see Tiffany approaching with a wide smile. “Hoseok?! Oh my god, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you guys! How are you?”

You hug her for a second. “It’s good. You?”

“Yeah.” She exhales as if she can’t believe you’re together again and you admit, it is surreal. There was definitely a difference from glancing at someone’s post, status and updates on social media and seeing them in person. “It’s been great. I didn’t know if you were coming to this reunion or not.”

You smile, glancing at Hoseok. He was right about coming. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Someone walks by with a tray of cheap champagne and all three of you take a glass, thanking the waiter. Tiffany sips her drink and gets down to the nitty-gritty. “So tell me, what do you do now?”

You brace yourself, knowing this was coming. “I’m working as an embryologist at a fertility lab.”

“That’s so cool!” Her eyes widen and she genuinely appears fascinated. “It sounds super fancy.”

You laugh, concealing the note of awkwardness in your voice. Tiffany doesn’t know that it sounds much better than it actually is. It’s an entire step down from being a family doctor, an occupation which you once said was your dream. And she has no clue that you’re struggling under your strict manager, that you just received a cut in pay and your hours are strenuous.

But you don’t dare show your exhaustion. Or your discontentment.

You keep flashing a bright smile.

Everyone in high school expected you to do great, that you would go somewhere, do something. You were the smart one. The hard-working one. There’s always been a certain burden of expectations on your shoulders from your parents to your teachers, and perhaps that’s where the need to prove yourself to your former peers stems. If they knew how mundane and regular and normal you turned out — instead of being the successful achiever — you’re sure their disappointment would have a bigger effect on you more than you’d ever admit. 

And maybe that’s why Hoseok offered to pretend to be your partner for the night after you grieved about not being with anyone, when you struggled to find a plus one. He knows you best after all.

“What are you doing?” you ask Tiffany, and she hesitates, looking down at her drink for a second.

“Actually, I’m in-between jobs at the moment.” She musters a smile. “The economy sucks right now.”

You sympathize. “Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s hard to find a job these days.”

Tiffany turns to Hoseok and when she asks what he’s been up to, he says, “Nothing much. I’m working in IT as a development manager for this company.”

“Oh, that’s super cool too!” She’s about to ask something, but then her eyes incidentally stray downwards. You follow her line of sight, realizing that she’s looking at the way you’re holding hands with Hoseok.

“We’re...actually dating now,” you explain.

Instantaneously, Tiffany brightens. “You guys started dating after high school? When?!”

You laugh awkwardly. “Two...three years ago?” It doesn’t sound terribly convincing, so you try a second time, standing your ground. “Two, I think.” It falls a bit short, but she doesn’t notice. 

No. Tiffany absolutely gushes. “That’s so cute! Oh my god! I always thought you’d both be good together!”

That has you taken aback. The relief of getting away with your lie and not being caught gets overtaken by surprise. “Really?”

“Well yeah. You were always close friends and everyone,” she emphasizes the word by drawing it out, “knew Hoseok had a huge crush on you.”

This was news to you.

But Hoseok outright ignores your stare in favour of smiling at your old friend and holding up your interlaced hands by your heads as if it’s a trophy. “Well, looks like I got the girl in the end.”

“Are you gonna propose any time soon then?”

There’s a glint of mischief in Hoseok’s eye. “Maybe.”

He’s way too good at lying. You’re starting to get convinced this is real.

“Aw, I wish I was at this honeymoon stage again. Everything’s so sweet and cute.”

Speaking of which. “Where’s Nick?” you ask.

Tiffany deflates slightly at the question and you wonder if you said something wrong. You don’t understand until she says, “Oh….yeah...we decided to split up a few months ago.”

“Really?” You would’ve never expected it. From what you remember, they were one of the few high school sweethearts that actually made it in the long run, a couple that you used to be jealous of at sixteen. They ended up getting married too and you saw pictures of them traveling together a year ago. Who knew what her life was actually like behind the scenes. “I’m...so sorry, Tiffany.”

“It’s alright. Life happens, I guess, but it all worked out in the end and we both have joined custody of Sunny. It gets messy sometimes but as long as she’s happy, I am too.” She smiles softly and then nods. “Well, it was really nice to catch up with you two. I’m happy to hear you’re going out. Better put a ring on this one before you lose her, Jung.”

“I will,” he promises.

Tiffany leaves to catch up with a girl she knew from choir, so you both bid your goodbyes. But somehow, the conversation leaves a bad taste in your mouth. 

After greeting a few more old friends and acquaintances, you leave to the hallway. 

The nostalgia slams into you, stronger than before. If you stare long enough, you can picture the hall crammed with your classmates, how you ran from class to class, sat in the desks, bored out of your mind and at times, stressed. The walls and rooms hold so many of your memories without them knowing. And that in itself makes you feel old and gray, even though you aren’t.

Not yet, at least. Hoseok always reassures you that you have another good thirty years before you’re allowed to call yourself old.

Said man glances at your expression and reads it like an open book. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” You sigh. “It’s just….I don’t know. I was trying to save face this entire time and I even went as far as to lie about our relationship.”

“You didn’t do it alone. I lied too.”

“Yeah, but I wanted this.” You shake your head, slowly rounding a corner and making your way down what you remember as the science corridor. “People probably have more going on with themselves than to care what I’m up to. I don’t know why I was so scared about what they would think about me.” 

The corner of his mouth curls, and he nudges you with his elbow. “It’s high school.”

You lightly scoff but a smile tickles at your lips. “I just feel bad. Tiffany was so honest about herself, and she wasn’t ashamed about how her life turned out, not like I am.”

“No one turned out how they expected themselves to,” he hums in a thoughtful tone while glancing at the bulletin board tacked with handmade flyers for clubs. “It’s okay if you didn’t end saving the planet or finding the cure to cancer.”

You snort and soften. “Yeah.”

Hoseok always knows what to say to make you feel better.

“Look!” The peaceful moment is interrupted by the sheer volume of his voice. He points down the hall. “Our old lockers!”

You laugh, quickening your steps with his. The lockers are not technically yours anymore, they haven’t been for a long time and have probably been through tens of students since. Even right now, there are unfamiliar locks that keep them closed. But you still remember which one was yours.

You stand in front of it and Hoseok stands in front of his which is only three lockers down from yours.

The pair of you look at one another, exchanging grins. “Remember when I kept your math textbook for you since you were too lazy to put it away and we had to toss it to each other every morning?”

“Yeah. I never missed once.” He laughs and it’s a bubbly sound that’s exactly the same as back then. “Remember that time Taehyung stuffed himself inside my locker and we locked him in?”

You burst out laughing. “We almost got into trouble by Mr. Min!”

“Yep. That old man was always trying to pick on kids.”

“Except for that time Jimin launched that cake across the hall and it landed on some poor girl. He was nowhere to be found.”

Hoseok grins and comes over to lean on the blue locker next to yours, crossing his arms like he’s waiting for you before you’re late for the bell.

A sentimental feeling that is both wistful and happy washes you over again. You can recall those years as if they were yesterday. Namely, Hoseok would always be there when you closed your locker door, in the exact same position, staring at you with that identical warm expression. You don’t know a lot of your old high school friends anymore, don’t know what they’re doing or if they’ll come. It’s a natural progression of life, of going different paths and naturally drifting apart. 

But Hoseok has always been your side. Since then till now.

“So.” You turn to him. “What’s this about everyone knowing you had a crush on me?”

Hoseok goes wide-eyed and says nothing for a moment. Then he scratches the back of his neck. “Just stupid kid stuff.”

You raise a brow and hum. “Didn’t sound like stupid kid stuff. How long did you even like me for?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“I’m curious.” You shrug. “I never heard about this before.”

Hoseok is embarrassed, that much is obvious. You can tell by the way he’s brushing around the subject, not looking you in the eyes, how much he’s hesitating. It’s not like him and that makes you even more intrigued. “A while.”

Maybe you shouldn’t push him so much when he doesn’t want to talk about it. But for some reason, there’s a burning desire inside of you to know. After all, you thought you knew all of your best friend’s secrets.

“What’s a while?”

“Like sixth grade?”

Your jaw drops. “So when we met?”

“Yeah..?” Hoseok seems unsure and he’s staring at the other wall as if it’s the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. There’s nothing but a dirty shoe print on it. “Something like that.”

Now it’s your turn to be perplexed. Although, for an entirely different kind of reason. “But why?”

He turns his head, as if sensing you’re about to self-deprecate yourself. “You’re funny and smart and pretty, Y/N. Everyone liked you,” Hoseok explains it as if it’s factual and your cheeks grow warm.

You suck in your cheek, fiddling with the fabric of your dress. “Then why didn’t you ever tell me you liked me?”

“I was awkward and I was too scared you’d reject me,” he exhales and you glance at him to find an unreadable expression. Perhaps he’s uncomfortable at the idea now that he’s grown out of it and he knows you too well. Or maybe...just maybe...he’s filled with regret.

You shake off the thought before your imagination runs wild.

You’re about to drop the subject once and for all, but as you turn away, the quiet mutter slips from your mouth, “I wouldn’t have.”

Hoseok catches it. 

He freezes completely and when you realize he’s not following you back to the gymnasium, you turn around. “Earth to Hoseok. What’s wrong?” 

“What about now?”

“What?”

His expression is blank aside from the slight furrow of his brow. It’s not often Hoseok’s entirely serious and you’re caught off guard by his demeanour. He closes the distance in three strides and asks, “If I asked you out now, if I said I wanted to date you for real, would you reject me?”

His gaze is dark. Intense. As if he’s mustered up the courage he’s built for years for this very moment. 

Your mouth opens, eyes unable to look away from him and your voice pipes out a timid— “no.”

In an instant, Hoseok’s mouth is on yours. Your back slams against the lockers as he cradles your cheeks in his palms, tilting his head to capture your lips carefully yet eagerly. You whine in his grasps and quickly reciprocate, moving your mouth against his. It’s soft, warm and comforting. Hoseok has always been comforting to you. A slow burn rather than a bursting firework that eventually fades away. A warm bonfire that’s built from the first spark rather than a forest wildfire that ultimately burns out after consuming everything. 

You’ve always loved him. But perhaps it wasn’t always purely platonic like you thought. At least not until tonight where that’s been challenged.

Hoseok's body is firm and warm against yours. His knee is placed between your thighs and you loop your arms around his neck to get him even closer. Your senses are filled with his cologne, the lingering scent of his shaving cream and shampoo. Hoseok tastes like the champagne he drank and you’re beginning to feel dizzy from it. That or you’re running out of breath.

You whimper rather pathetically, but he doesn’t let up. Not until you push at his shoulder and he has to gather his self-restraint to part from you. 

You’re left panting heavily against him, lips swollen and Hoseok exhales before laughing. “I’ve always wanted to do that.” 

You grin. “Always?”

“I’ve been in love with you since we were kids. Practically.”

Never would you have thought Hoseok would kiss you against your lockers. It’s another memory you’re making in these walls even after years of graduating. But you’d like a second time to make up for all the others, so you start to tug Hoseok’s tie to get him closer again—

“Hey!” 

There’s an ear-splitting shout and the two of you flinch, whirling around to the end of the hall.

“You’re supposed to be in the gymnasium!” Old man Mr. Min is bumbling towards you with a cane, his voice surprisingly still full of power even when he looks like a sack of bones.

“Sorry!” You duck your head and before he can catch you, your hand entwines with Hoseok’s. The two of you dash down the hall as if you were still trouble-making high-schoolers.

Hoseok mutters in complete shock, “He’s still alive?!”

And you laugh, squeezing his hand just a bit tighter.

You return to the reunion and your heart is a bit lighter knowing this time, you don’t have to lie.

[your-brilliant-lady-m]

Part 1 - Basic Concepts of Miraculous Ladybug: Miraculous Jewels

Alright! I promised you meta and now I deliver!

I feel like people mostly watch Miraculous for the romance these days. Shipping is all everyone cares about. I wonder why? Probably because writers themselves don't take their worldbuilding very seriously and because they don't put much effort into making the audience care about something other than Love Square, like the mythology behind the Miraculous, or motivations of the main villain, or some pretty heavy topics for a kid's show that they bring up and then refuse to touch again. You know, all the good things. And this is coming from someone who is a passionate multishipper. I have lived through several shipping wars in different fandoms and came out victorious after all.

I am probably the only person out there who cares about the big picture, the overall storyline and the worldbuilding of Miraculous in addition to all details and implications that could develop into fascinating plotlines relevant to the main story. It is a rather lonely fandom experience, I must confess. But, hey? Who cares? I am here to have fun and bring to the table discussions no one wants to have.

So, let's talk about the basics.

If you, as the writing team, are capable of keeping only 1 thing consistent, then please, I beg you, let it be the basic concepts of your universe. Because in this case, one has to actively put effort into writing characters and conflict resolutions badly. And also because nothing can save bad worldbuilding.

I don't have high worldbuilding standards for Miraculous. They certainly aren't as high as the ones I had for Legend of Korra (which was a badly written trainwreck, that ATLA doesn't deserve as a sequel) or the ones I currently have for Dragon Prince. Therefore I won't be too harsh in my criticisms. Granted, I think that Miraculous has better worldbuilding and lore consistency than Winx Club for example (I haven't seen the reboot yet, so writers might have fixed their worldbuilding at least a little bit). Even though I enjoyed Winx when I was younger and some elements of this story still attract me.

Both serialised and episodic shows as well as movies to the lesser extent must have some flexibility in worldbuilding and plot because you can never be 100% sure where your story is going. Maybe, you'll get money for more seasons, maybe not. However, you must never lose sight of your basic concepts. They have to stay the same no matter what, because rewriting lore and retconning major developments every new season is not and never will be called good writing.

Forgive me for using architectural metaphors, but you need a solid foundation to build any kind of structure. Otherwise, everything falls apart.

I like to apply this logic to writing as well. When designing a world where your story takes place, you must lay a few ground rules. It's especially important if you have a magic system. What kind of ideas absolutely must exist? What kind of conclusion do you want your story to have? Does your magic system has limitations? Where is the grey area? Could you introduce new elements later on?

And I feel like the writing team of Miraculous Ladybug did not ask these questions. This may feel like I am nit-picking canon material and looking for problems that simply aren't there, but I promise that I am not. You see, things that I am about to point out only seem small at first glance. But these details are actually the source of the largest plotholes in the series. And their presence negatively affects character development, conflicts and resolutions of said conflicts.

That doesn't mean that I have nothing good to say about the magic system of the show and its elements. There are a lot of great ideas and concepts. And some of them have the potential to contribute to the delightful story.

Let's dive right into it, shall we?

Camouflage

I have to give credit where it's due because the idea of camouflage and shapeshifting for Miraculouses is brilliant. It seems like Miraculous can't fundamentally change its type of jewellery or accessory. The ring will always be the ring but with a different ornament, colour or shape. This is true most of the time (Monkey Miraculous is an exception since it transformed into earplugs/headphones/headband/circlet) It makes sense and avoids plotholes. Grimoire doesn't have the pictures of each Miraculous in disguise for identity protection. That was very neat too. I have no comments. This concept was very good.

Also, since Marinette wore a nose ring of the Ox in "Kwamibuster" without any problem and Adrien wore Ladybug's earrings in "Reflekdoll", we can assume that you don't need to have piercings to wear a Miraculous. Miraculous just magically passes through your skin.

I'm interested to know the following. Can Kwamis recognise a camouflaged Miraculous on a person? Can the holder order them to confess the identity of this person? This shouldn't be possible for identity protection just like with Kwamis sensing each other. But more on that in later posts.

Power Levels

For a long time, we assume that there are only 7 Miraculouses. Turtle belongs to Master Fu, Gabriel has Butterfly and Peacock, Marinette and Adrien have Ladybug and Black Cat. Everything is pretty straightforward. Then it's revealed that there are more jewels and more boxes. It makes the worldbuilding interesting, but it also majorly complicates things, making them inconsistent.

Their position in the Miracle Box implies their power levels. Creation and destruction are the most powerful forces in existence, therefore they are at the top. Moreover, it makes this Box the most important, the most powerful out of all others. Su Han in "Furious Fu" calls it "Mother Miracle Box". Fox, Turtle, Bee, Butterfly and Peacock have less power than the main pair, but more than the Miraculous of the lower Zodiac tier (since they correspond with animals of the Chinese Zodiac).

1. Ladybug can create anything out of nothing (Lucky Charm, which gives what you need the most at the moment). This Miraculous can resurrect the dead, reverse the effects of the Cataclysm. The power of Miraculous Cure or Miraculous Ladybug can work in several ways:

it simply repairs the damage (puts stuff back together, heals injuries and so on)

it reverses time for the matter, restoring things back to the state they were before the destruction occurred (however, the Cure doesn't erase people's memories of everything that happened unless they were mind-controlled, frozen in place or transformed by Akuma into something else - this is an important point that I'll discuss some other time)

How does Miraculous Cure work when there are no supervillians? In NY Special Marinette just says this.

Excuse me, what? What was that? You can't do anything when the villain is gone? What the hell?

*insert here every scene where Ladybug fixed Paris after destroying akumatized/amokized object (this action causes the Akuma victim to detransform/sentimonster to disappear - villain is gone) and purifying butterfly and feather*

It was such cheap angst. I couldn't even be upset when Adrien gave up his Miraculous, because that whole situation is just stupid. But, never mind. We aren't talking about that today.

Apparently, Lucky Charm and Miraculous Cure only work when summoned to battle a specific villain. What is the point then? Huh? You can't tell me that Ladybug has the power of unlimited creation and then say that she can't repair the damage without a special Lucky Charm that was magically synchronised with specific big bad of the week.

Ladybug also can purify Akumas. It makes sense for Ladybug to have the ability to reverse the magic of less powerful Miraculous. But this power can't be applied universally. How does this power of reversal apply to different situations where there is no evil Butterfly holder? Can Ladybug reverse the magic of any Miraculous?

The unlimited power of creation introduced in season 4 ("Mr. Pidgeon 72") is another fascinating thing. On one hand, it's logical and proves the status of this Miraculous as the most powerful. On the other hand, by introducing this power, you have created a plothole. Look, Marinette can create the charm which repels Akumas. If Ladybug can create anything then what stops her from creating a tool for finding Hawkmoth (like special glasses for discovering identities or a compass)? I mean, the show says that the power of creation is unlimited, it means that the creation of such tool is possible.

2. Black Cat can destroy anything with Cataclysm, even other Miraculous. He can kill living things and turn them into ash, but not himself. This Miraculous is supposed to have other special abilities that we don't see. And they should be equal to powers of Ladybug, both in number and in potency. Unfortunately, after 3 seasons writers didn't give us anything. It makes laughable the idea of balance between Ladybug and Black Cat.

Now, to the second tier. These Miraculouses have a singular ability, but they need a second one to keep the power balanced between Zodiac and the main pair.

3. Butterfly creates champions with different superpowers. But how does the time limit of children work for Butterfly? In theory, the countdown should start right after the creation of the Akuma since for Ladybug and Chat Noir countdown starts after activation of their powers even if they don't use them. However, if the countdown of the Butterfly begins after Akuma creation then there's no point because the holder has to stay transformed to guide their champion. The charged butterfly won't have time to even grant powers before the transformation of the child-holder drops. This issue is never explored because Gabriel doesn't have a time limit. However, I feel like it should be addressed in flashbacks of past Butterfly holders for example.

This Miraculous should be less powerful than Ladybug and Black Cat. It's often not. Some Akumas are too overpowered. Stormy Weather can move the Earth away from the Sun, Timetagger can send people through time and jump through time as well, Chat Blanc destroyed the world with a single energy blast, Miraculer could steal powers of those more powerful than her by default. These are the most notable examples. One could argue that Chat Blanc was a different case. Hawkmoth simply gave the most powerful Miraculous a boost. However, we know that even without a holder (the wildest and the most powerful form of uncontrolled Miraculous magic) Plagg's Cataclysm can't destroy the universe just like that (he presumably wiped out dinosaurs and sunk Atlantis on his own without a holder). I think that the less powerful Miraculous (Butterfly) shouldn't be able to increase the power of destruction to such a degree and give Black Cat the power to destroy celestial bodies and galaxies.

Writers want us to see Hawkmoth as the formidable villain. But it's not easy because he is less powerful than your main heroes by default of your worldbuilding. Sometimes writers make the Butterfly more powerful than creation and destruction to raise the stakes, breaking the laws of their magic system. So, how do you solve this? Let Ladybug and Black Cat keep their status as the most powerful and instead of giving Hawkmoth more magical power, make him smarter, more cunning, inventive. Gabriel is a fashion designer, whose creativity makes him a very good Butterfly holder. He has a life full of experience, he knows much more about things than the main teenage characters. Catalyst was very interesting for this very reason. Gabriel sort of discovered a cheat code to boost his powers. Show us how he experiments with his powers, how he analyses his past Akumas and tries to find the most effective ones. Maybe Gabriel tries to design Akumas that can specifically neutralise Ladybug and Chat Noir. This exploration could also give writers an opportunity to explain how the powers of Butterfly work. Can he control the type of powers he grants? Can he control the appearance of Akumas? There are many things to be explored.

4. Peacock creates sentimonsters. I remember that fans were very disappointed when the power of the Peacock was revealed at the end of season 2. I was one of them. The concept of Amoks is far too similar to akumatized butterflies. Other Miraculouses have unique abilities and keywords for their powers, while Peacock just looks like Butterfly 2.0. That glowing mask effect just adds insult to injury.

You have to start by figuring out the powers of the Peacock in a normal situation. If a holder is a good person, then how does their power work? For example, make them related to sight (because of the "eye" pattern on feathers). Maybe, Peacock grants the ability to see the several possibilities of the future, but only a few minutes ahead. Maybe, this Miraculous gives you the ability to see through someone's eyes for a few minutes (and the victim is completely unaware of the intrusion). Perhaps, Peacock allows the holder to use feathers (or tiny peacocks) as cameras one at a time and be all-seeing. These feather-spies can be destroyed by the holder or disappear on their own after some time. Such power could be devastating when used against heroes in canon.

5. Bee can paralyze. This power is pretty straightforward. Once I read a fanfiction focused on very vell done Chloe Redemption, where she fights alongside Ladybug and Chat Noir. Eventually, she grows and becomes a better person. This fic ends with an Akuma battle, where LB and CN are trapped and Akuma is ready to kill them. But Chloe uses a second power of the Bee on the villain - Miraculous Stinger. It's deadly both for the holder and for the victim (because bees die when they sting someone). Chloe kills the Akuma with a Stinger before it can get LB and CN, but she too dies making the ultimate irreversible sacrifice. I will add a link if I find it again.

6. Turtle can create a shield. I don't have much to say on this either. It feels underpowered compared to others in the second tier. Maybe Turtle can also slow down opponents (because turtles aren't the fasters animals out there).

7. Fox creates illusions and acts as their puppeteer. In order to create a balance between other powers, these illusions must hold for as long as the holder needs them to. I propose this mostly because we see that Venom of the Bee lasts very long, the shield of the Turtle lasts either until it's destroyed or the holder wants to remove it, same goes for Akumas and sentimonsters who disappear only when the holder wants them to or their affected object is destroyed.

Let's talk about Zodiac tier. Miraculous of the third tier shouldn't have the second ability like more powerful ones. These powers are the most inconsistent. Even if we haven't seen all of them yet.

8. Mouse can create many small clones of the holder. It is unclear how these clones communicate with each other and how many of them this Miraculous can create. The holder can control the number of clones. This power was very convenient in "Kwamibuster" and it makes sense symbolically for the mouse. What activates the time-limit for children? Marinette didn't have any problems with it when she became Multimouse.

9. Snake can create a 5-minute time loop and has the ability to come back in time. This Miraculous feels a bit overpowered for the Miraculous of the Zodiac Tier. The holder can reset the time as many times as he/she needs to. It's was a good source of drama and trauma in "Desperada". I was honestly surprised that Adrien was capable of fighting after spending months in a loop. But this doesn't change the fact that Snake is overpowered. You can give this Miraculous the power to hypnotise or keep the time ability but place a limit on the number of resets. How does the lyre work as a weapon? Who knows? No one!

10. Dragon can shapeshift into elements: water, wind and lightning. It has the coolest transformation words hands down (Bring the Storm and Open Sky). Apparently this Miraculous doesn't have the time limit.

11. Rabbit can time travel or jump through alternative realities, even writers aren't sure. Time-travel in this show is so badly written it gives me a headache. This Miraculous shouldn't exist just like its powers. Snake belongs to the same tier, but 5 minutes and whole centuries of time jumps aren't comparable in power levels. They are not and this is the hill I will die on. Give the Rabbit powers related to its symbolism in China like an ability to de-age people, heal them or give them a speed boost in contrast with Turtle who might have the ability to slow down.

This Miraculous is so special that its Kwami - Fluff can live separately from his Miraculous in a Miracle Box for millennia (Fluff lives in the Box in "Sandboy", but his Miraculous, pocket watch, was passed down for generations in Alix's family). This is a discussion for a separate post, however. There's a lot to unpack. We'll do that some other time. You will suffer with me but at a later date.

12. Horse can create portals. They could lead anywhere, which is pretty cool. On the other hand, this power is not very useful in direct combat, especially when it's used by a child since we can have only one portal per transformation.

13. Monkey can cause a malfunction in powers of other people. What is the point of this? This power was specifically created by writers to defeat Akuma in "Party Crasher". That's it. What if your target is not magical? How does this Miraculous work in different circumstances?

14. Pig shows people their greatest desire. Both the holder and the recipient of this power can see this desire. Chat Noir wasn't impressed in "Guiltrip" and neither was I. It's underpowered compared to other Miraculous in this tier. Also, why does the tambourine can shoot energy beams? Why?

That's all I have to say on the matter. I'll update the power analysis as needed.

[thewhiteroseofvermilion]

Moving Forward

Hello everyone. It’s been a long time since I’ve last spoken to you all, and an even longer time since I’ve last updated this story. Over the months and years, my absence has saddened, frustrated, and even angered many of you. Despite my own valid feelings of how—to put it bluntly—I don’t owe any of you anything as this is something I do for free and in my own free time, I still recognize how it must feel for you all to see something you enjoy so much slowly lose momentum and eventually grind to a halt. Furthermore, my habit of making enthusiastic yet empty statements in between didn’t help either. 

As such, a proper and honest explanation is due, as anything less would be unkind. This will be lengthy, but please bear with me. 

For the past four years, it’s been increasingly difficult to find the time, energy, and motivation for me to properly sit down and write. Seemingly gone are the early days of this story’s life when I was able to publish a new chapter every month or so, or even every two weeks when I was at the top of my game in terms of activeness. Even though I had an immense workload due to being a double major in college, leading me to adopt the best work ethic I’ve ever had, I still led a sheltered lifestyle where I didn’t have to worry about the many looming, inevitable adult responsibilities that were ahead of me.

Those tranquil years of course came to an end when I graduated, and I soon felt immense pressure to shift my attention to finding work, living independently, and working on things that would further my career. While I received support as an aspiring writer from the majority of my family, those being my mother and sister, the both of them commented more frequently as time passed by that my “fanfiction” wasn’t something that I should be spending so much time on anymore. After all, it’s not like I could sell the work as my own, and the fact that despite fanfiction absolutely being a valid artform, it wasn’t something that the world of professional employers cared about. 

Nonetheless, when I did eventually find work as a film freelancer, I still tried to persevere and write on the side. My goal back then was to work in film in order to sustain my pursuit in writing. Film was something I went to school for, greatly enjoyed, and even saw a possible future career for myself in, but it was the writing aspect of it that I was truly after, that being primarily screenwriting. 

After two years of living at home, I felt the need to try and live independently as I outgrew my tiny room and my mom started dating a man that I didn’t particularly like. I knew it wasn’t financially smart of me to do so when my mom allowed me to live with her rent-free. But at the time I thought that it would help me to become more mature and productive, as I would have to force myself to work in order to put a roof over my head and food on the table—as opposed to living a sheltered life at home where everything was taken care of for me. Essentially, I was longing for the lifestyle I had in college, thinking that once I returned to it, I would be able to reacquire that once incredible work ethic I had. 

So, I became roommates with a friend from college and together we rented a townhouse together. Rent wasn’t terribly expensive, but it wasn’t cheap either. Regardless, I was able to make ends meet. My greatest challenge however, was to live up to my family’s spoken and unspoken expectations. On one hand, my mother was sweet and understanding, naturally giving me her full support. My father, on the other, always thought that it’d be better for me to pursue something safer and more lucrative, and to not risk being a starving artist. But the one I had to prove myself the most to was my older sister, who was wildly more successful than I was—financially and professionally. My pay compared to hers was like a drop in a bucket, and I felt both indirect and direct pressure from her to be more “professional” like her. Therefore, I threw myself into my work, which is when things slowly began to go downhill. 

As a film freelancer, my work hours usually averaged between 10-12 hours a day, and with my work taking me all over my home state of Maryland and even into neighboring Washington DC and Virginia, my commute time to and from work ranged anywhere from an additional 1-3 hours. It became incredibly common for me to wake up for work anywhere between 3-6 AM and not get home until 8-10 PM. 

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I slowly slipped into a routine where when I did have the “time” to write, I had zero energy or motivation as my work was so taxing. I reached the point where I had to drink two energy drinks with 300mg of caffeine to get myself to and from work. I saw less and less of my roommate and friends. I spent an alarming amount of money and gained weight from ordering take-out so often because I hadn’t the energy to cook for myself when I got home late from work. There would even be days when I fell into what felt like comas, sleeping up to two days straight at one point. My physical, mental, and emotional health was in serious decline. And yet I didn’t see it that way, as I had become obsessed with trying to prove to my family, my sister in particular, that I wasn’t a failure and that my pursuit of writing wasn’t a hopeless one.

During the first month of COVID-19′s outbreak last year, I finally had a much-needed vacation. This was undoubtedly the best time for me to have returned to writing—but I didn’t. At this point, so much time had passed since my last proper writing session that the few times I did try to write, I found myself completely unable to write anything. I was so out of practice and so out of touch with what I had written. This honestly frightened me, and I soon began to doubt if I could ever be able continue the story with the same quality that so many readers fell in love with. Regrettably, I fled from this revelation long enough for a full month to pass by, and I soon found myself busy with yet another distraction: unemployment. 

I was out of work for about 4.5 months, from the middle of March to the beginning of August. During this time, I had to rely on state unemployment, which earned me great scorn from my older sister. Our relationship had always been uneven since we were kids, but it was becoming increasingly toxic as of late since our college years. I felt so ashamed to tell her how much money I made in a year from my job as a film freelancer, and how I barely managed to move to a better position after four years of work. Riddled with guilt and disappointment in myself, when work became readily available again in August, I frantically threw myself back in harder than ever before. In the past where I had turned down the occasional job to give myself some time to relax or in order to make it to a social outing with friends, I now accepted every job thrown my way, only declining those that would make me double-book myself. I earned a lot of money during those months as a result, and I was so happy to finally distance myself from the stigma of being “unemployed.” However, I once again failed to see that I was yet again sliding back into the lifestyle that had been slowly poisoning me for the past two years. 

After essentially working non-stop from August to March, my body, mind, and soul soon returned right back to the brink of collapse. It wasn’t until then at my lowest point when I finally realized how I initially went from working to sustain myself in order to write, to not writing at all and only working to sustain myself to work even more. It was truly scary to see myself fall victim to a brutal cycle of unfulfilling work that could have trapped me for years to come if I hadn’t broken free first. That’s when I realized that my lifestyle was personally unsustainable, and that something had to change. 

Henceforth, I’ve made the difficult decisions to both transition out of film freelancing and to soon return home to live with my father. At the end of April, the homeowner of the townhouse my roommate and I had been living in for close to three years gave us our 30-days-notice to vacate, as they no longer wished to rent but to sell the property. As my roommate had been planning on finding a place of his own with his girlfriend for quite some time, we split amicably at the end of last month in May and I’ve since moved into a temporary apartment with a friend who has traveled back to Maryland for seasonal work. 

Regarding the change in my career, I’ve been looking into applying for writing positions for something that I’ve grown to enjoy over the past few years, which is to write reviews for media such as film, anime, and videogames. This of course is not what I truly want to do in life, but I think that because it actually involves writing, it would be both good practice in terms of practicing my writing and experience in terms of resume-building. Furthermore, a stable “9-5″ job as such would be good for me, I think, as it would introduce some desperately needed structure back into my life. Being a freelancer was definitely fun as I had the power to choose my own schedule, but it unfortunately fostered a lot of laziness and procrastination when I wasn’t completely burnt out. 

I’ve shared with you all this information, a great deal of it being very personal, in the hopes that it helps you better understand who I am as a person and what I’ve been going through these past four years. 

I understand that my word may be difficult to trust due to my history, but I sincerely wish to let you all know from the bottom of my heart that I do plan on continuing writing The White Rose of Vermilion until it’s completed. My fears and insecurities may have alienated me from that promise, but not once did I ever entertain the idea of fully dropping the story. And I promise you, I never will. It most likely will not further my career in any way, bring any revenue in, and will continue to consume a great deal of my precious free time—yet I still choose to pursue continuing it because I can’t see a future where I don’t finish it.

It is after all my most cherished project; the reason that I was able to truly find my calling as an aspiring writer, its success also ultimately being the proof to my mother that I had some skill as a budding writer, who then gave me her full blessings to pursue it as a career. But most important of all is that it’s the reason why I was able to experience first-hand one of the most important and beautiful discoveries in my entire life. That being the incredible phenomenon of how art is like a beacon—its bright light is powerful enough to reach out and inspire others to create art of their own. From Monty Oum to Nancy Phetchareune to myself, I was blessed enough to see readers create wonderful fanart to show me or tell me in a review that reading my story had inspired them to create something of their own.

I am officially leaving behind my prolonged hiatus and returning to working on The White Rose of Vermilion. While I am extremely hesitant to even estimate when the next chapter will be published, please know that I am genuinely trying to leave behind my habits of old and returning to a more consistent schedule. 

The White Rose of Vermilion will return in:

Arc II, Chapter Twenty-Seven: Stranger in the Night

[perfeggso]

every fortress falls (AKIRA x NCT)

Please enjoy this anime-kpop crossover for the Lights, Camera, Fanfiction event hosted by @supermwritersnet​! I chose to write for Shotaro and one of my favorite fictional universes ever, Akira’s Neo-Tokyo. If you know Akira, my story will run parallel to the canon plot. If not, I hope you give this a try and enjoy anyway and I highly recommend the source material! <3

If you’re interested, here is my AKIRA playlist. 

Setting of Akira: It has been thirty years since the end of WWIII, begun due to the detonation of an unidentified superweapon known only as “Akira” over Tokyo. The incident and subsequent war decimated the city which was rebuilt into Neo-Tokyo, a corrupt and crime-ridden megalopolis centered on an artificial island in Tokyo Bay.

Characters: Shotaro, Sungchan, Yuta, Akira main characters, other NCT members upcoming. 

Genres: cyberpunk, sci-fi, action/adventure 

Warnings: drug use/abuse, gangs, some swearing, eventual graphic violence

Rating: mature but not explicit 

Chapter length: 1.3k

Chapter 1:

The capsule cradled in Shotaro’s palm is red and white and shiny, like the earrings that Noriko would wear and which, when Shotaro asked, he found out were supposed to look like “blood and come,” respectively. The drone of Tanaka-Sensei’s voice from the front of the classroom barely penetrates the cloak of sullen disruption shielding Shotaro’s wooden amphitheater seat in classroom 12 of the Eighth District Vocational Training School. Even though realistically no one is paying attention, Shotaro tries to hold the pill so that his hand is obscured by his row’s shared desk. He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous; Tanaka-Sensei is barely commanding control of the room as he attempts to explain how a carburetor works, the closest kid to Shotaro is reading a girly magazine, and everyone at the school is well aware that you can buy as many of these pills as any broke student could afford from the nurse’s office.

It’s just, Shotaro reasons as the patent-leather-like curves of the capsule glint in the jaundiced combination of natural and fluorescent light, he’s always been a good kid. He doesn’t do things like this – at least that’s what Yuta constantly tells him. He doesn’t buy drugs – no matter how cheap they are – from Kaneda’s girlfriend of all people, and he certainly doesn’t take them. Kaneda, Shotaro has always felt, is inextricably linked to him. For one, Shotaro Kaneda’s family name is the same as Shotaro’s given name (though they use slightly different kanji if anyone ever cared to notice). For another thing, the two boys have known of each other since early childhood, having come up in the same orphanage and school system for boys deemed by the state to be “lacking in future prospects.” (Shotaro doesn’t think this label really applies to him; it’s not his fault he doesn’t really like academics and the one activity he really enjoys – dancing – is far too expensive for him to pursue). For a final, crucial thing, Kaneda is the leader of the Capsules, the rival gang to Yuta’s Clowns. The fact that Kaneda could very literally kill Shotaro’s adoptive brother of sorts any day now understandably precludes him from feeling much of an affinity towards his classmate.

Shotaro has been taunted more times than he can remember for being the “boring” Shotaro. But if skating by under the radar to receive his vocational high school diploma, getting out, and not being sent to Jaws for discipline twice a week is boring to his classmates, Shotaro doesn’t really care.

Well, he didn’t care, until he had gotten to thinking one day last week. It started when he’d found Yuta’s stash of drugs. Yuta tries very hard to keep any evidence of his dependency from his little brother, but he’s not always great at it. Over the years, Shotaro couldn’t help but notice the blissful calm which comes over Yuta when Shotaro has caught him thinking he was taking the stuff in private. Nor could Shotaro help but register the ensuing boost in energy and motivation. It had always made him wonder even if Yuta categorically forbid it and he was good at smothering his curiosity. When Shotaro came to school the next day and mentioned finding Yuta’s pills offhand to Sungchan, the younger boy proved less adept at quashing his hunger for new experiences, and Shotaro had begun to truly let his imagination get the best of him.

“Hey!” The harsh whisper startles Shotaro out of his preoccupation with the look and feel of his capsule, to the extent that he almost blunders and drops it down the five graduated rows of seats below him. But fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, he holds on.

The voice is as familiar as the backseat of Yuta’s motorcycle and coming from the level of seats behind Shotaro, so he turns around. Class has devolved to the point that having a full conversation stage-whisper style is about the least disruptive thing occurring.

Sungchan’s oversized frame and comforting smile loom over Shotaro from above, like a benevolent version of the mechanical surveillance vultures Sungchan had once gushed in horror that the American government was trying to build.

“Did I scare you?” Sungchan asks.

Shotaro fakes a glare at his best friend, but only ends up chuckling.

“How could I be scared by a 185cm walking teddy-bear?”

Sungchan tries to look hurt but giggles right back.

“Did you get the stuff?”

Shotaro nods, angling his hand so Sungchan can see the pill.

“Why were you so late to class?” Shotaro asks, feeling irrational panic nipping at the edges of his mind for the first time all day to suggest that maybe Sungchan was held up because someone caught him with drugs. Shotaro wonders why this thought hadn’t occurred to him earlier, hoping that’s an indication of its ridiculousness.

“I got caught up talking to Sawako in the nurse’s office,” Sungchan explains, and Shotaro relaxes a little. “She was very chatty for some reason and I felt bad. I think she’s lonely. Did you know Kaneda got her pregnant?”

“No, what?” Shotaro makes a face as disapproving as he feels. “That asshole. Of course he wouldn’t use protection. Ugh, anyway. Did you get what you wanted? Everything go smoothly?”

Sungchan pulls a button-size plastic bag from his pocket and displays, not quite covertly enough for Shotaro’s liking but he’ll live, the identical red and white capsule within.

“Perfect.”

“I was thinking,” Sungchan continues, “Sawako said she thinks there’ll be a battle between the Capsules and the Clowns tonight. Should we try to catch some of it?”

Shotaro leans his elbows onto the desk in front of his friend and smiles, indulgent.

“While we’re high for the first time? Sounds like a shitty idea.” Sungchan pouts like Shotaro knew he would, so he adds a “we can feel it out in the moment, though,” because he is a weak man when it comes to Sungchan’s wants and needs. They are both that way towards each other, even when it gets them into trouble. But as Yuta always says, “memorable trouble is worth it”; i.e., if it makes a good story in the future, might as well go for it.

“Yuta would kill me if he found out though,” Shotaro wagers, “and I mean that literally.”

The last class of the day ends as he’s speaking and he and Sungchan make plans for meeting in the evening as they filter out of the musty, chipping paint, brutalist structure which is supposed to pass for a place of learning.

Shotaro finds Yuta where he always does after school: unsheathing his motorcycle in the back parking lot.

Yuta’s bike is a souped-up Honda painted to look like a 1940s bomber. Yuta wears a black leather biking suit he probably slipped on in the men’s room before heading out and pulls a helmet decorated with clown makeup over his black mullet as he greets his little brother, following the exchange by offering a similar helmet to Shotaro.

They hop on and head out onto the streets of Neo-Tokyo. Skyscrapers tower grey in the daytime light what feels like miles above the litter-strewn street and block out the sun. They’re so massive they could probably each hold an entire city’s worth of people, Shotaro reckons, and they move sluggishly in opposition to the trajectory of the bike, like cargo ships trudging against water.

“Good day?” Yuta asks when they stop at an intersection next to Flower Alley Mall.

“Yeah,” Shotaro assures. “Sungchan heard something about a battle tonight? What’s up with that?”

“I don’t want to get into it, but he’s right,” Yuta admits. “But don’t try to tag along or I’ll murder you.”

With that, the light turns and Shotaro grabs hold of Yuta, mumbling “I know” fondly into his shoulder. They zip away like that the rest of the way to their apartment, the capsule burning nuclear in Shotaro’s pocket as he’s left to ponder his next move.

[a-pop-of-korean]

Level 9 / Lesson 6: -ㄹ/을 리가 없다

안녕하세요! Hey everyone! Today I have a pretty easy-to-understand lesson for you today, so let’s just get right into it!

Sometimes in English we say “there’s no way I failed that test” or “there’s no way they broke up,” or something like that. In Korean, we can say sentences meaning “there’s no way...” using the following formula:

Present Tense: [verb / adjective stem] + ㄹ/을 리가 없다

Past Tense: [verb / adjective stem] + 았 / 었 + 을 리가 없다

리 is (I believe) a Korean noun that, while having no meaning on its own, means “way” or “possibility” if some sort of modifier precedes it, and 가 is a subject particle --> 리가 없다 = there is no way

Let’s see some examples!

공부도 안 했는데 그 시험에서 100점을 받을 리가 없어요. = There is no way I can get a hundred on that test because I didn’t even study.

백현 씨는 수줍은 많은데 사람들 앞에 연설을 할 리가 없어요. = Baekhyun is really shy, there’s no way he can give a speech in front of others.

저는 하루 종일 자서 아직 졸릴 리가 없어요. = I slept all day, so there’s no way I can still be sleepy.

그 사람이 의사예요. 가난할 리가 없어요. = He’s a doctor. There’s no way he can be poor.

박 선생님이 일을 이렇게 많이 맡겼을 리가 없어요. = There’s no way that Teacher (Mr./Ms.) Park assigned this much work. 

넌 너무��� 인색한데 돈을 그렇게 많이 썼을 리가 없잖아. = You’re so cheap, there’s no way you spent that much money.

그럴 리가 없어요. = No way. / I can’t believe it. / That can’t be. (this is a pretty common phrase)

Pretty simple, right? You can also use this structure with double negatives, as in to say “there is no way something did not happen.”

예지 씨는 정말 똑똑한데 하버드 대학에 들어가지 않았을 리가 없어요. = Yeji is really smart -- there’s no way she didn’t get into Harvard.

시간이 많아서 끝내지 않을 리가 없어요. = You have a lot of time, so there’s no way you won’t finish.

이 노래가 인기 진짜 많아. 모를 리가 없어. = This song is really popular. There’s no way you don’t know it.

그 건물이 정말 크니까 못 볼 리가 없어요. = That building is really big, so you can’t not see it.

Now that we’ve got that down, let’s move onto our next point!

-ㄹ / 을 리가 있다

You can also add -ㄹ / 을 리가 있다 to verb/adjective stems to say that there is a possibility that something could be. Typically, this is used to ask rhetorical questions or something like that, such as “is it possible for him to fail the test even though he’s really smart?” which may also be translated to “there’s no way he failed the test because he’s so smart,” just like our previous examples if that makes sense. (My source for this conclusion is the Korean Wiki Project!) For example:

(from KWP) 그렇게 똑똑한 사람이 그런일을 할리가 있어요? = Would a man that smart do such a thing? / Is it possible that a man so smart would do that? / There’s no way a person so smart would do that.

공부도 안 했는데 그 시험에서 100점을 받을 리가 있어요? = Is it possible that I can get 100 of the test even though I didn’t study? / There is no way I can get a hundred on that test because I didn’t even study.

시간이 많은데 끝내지 않을 리가 있어요? = You have a lot of time, so there’s no way you won’t finish. / You have a lot of time, but is there a chance you won’t finish? 

넌 너무나 인색한데 돈을 그렇게 많이 썼을 리가 있어? = You’re so cheap, there’s no way you spent that much money. / You’re so cheap, is there any way you spent that much money? / Could it be that you spent that much money even though you’re so cheap?

I think that’s all I wanted to share for now! I think this is a pretty useful but simple structure to use, so I hope it all makes sense! As always, feel free to ask any questions you may have!

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[lizacstuff]

Hello, Liza! I hope you are doing well. Passing by because I (and everyone else I think) would like to know your thoughts about episode 25. I watch this show trying my best to avoid spoilers but today somehow I ended up seeing everything. Twitter was and still is mad about the episode and I thought I was going to have the same reaction as them. Surprise, surprise, I didn't which left me speechless. I feel like you might have the same reaction as me so I would love to know your thoughts! xo

Hello! I have a lot of asks and rather than flooding my dash, I think I’ll put them all in one place, so this is going to get very long.  I have mixed feelings. I didn’t hate it, but it was a hard episode to watch.

I wish I had seen the reaction before I watched, then I would have adjusted my expectations. The whole time I was waiting for a twist at the end that didn’t come. Partly because of my own speculation, but partly because I’d watch the live with Hande and Kerem and from the translations, Kerem said there was a shock at the end and called the ending beautiful. Never trust Kerem! LMAO. Not because he would ever intentionally mislead, but boyfriend never remembers anything that happens in any episode. Though he was right about the shock, just not about it being beautiful. (Prince be crazy!) Anyway I kept hoping for the twist of them working together and fooling everyone and it didn’t come. 

So I was disappointed at the end, but with adjusted expectations the episode, taken for what it is, is actually decent and I can definitely get onboard with Eda sacrificing everything to save him. That’s very romantic and they did a great job of setting up how devastated she was and how serious the threat is from Babaanne. Eda did not crumble in the face of a couple of idle threats. No, every moment that Eda waited to break up with him, Babaanne introduced some very real and catastrophic consequence to Serkan or his family. Shit got real and Eda was pushed into a no-win corner and needed to act fast. I’ll talk about that more, but first, I’ll mention a couple of thoughts about the writing and the new writers:

(more under the cut)

Good

Structure - The structure of the episode was a lot better than last week.  Scenes actually made sense one after the other, the emotions of the characters were consistent and it all flowed. 

Plot - I’m not necessarily praising what happened in the episode, more that there was one. And it’s one that will not be forgotten in the next episode and it feels like this plot could sustain a number of episodes which his necessary if the show is to continue.

Characterizations  - The characters felt true to what we’ve watched the last 20+ episodes. As I said above, work went into showing us both Eda and Serkan’s mindset and how that led to the ultimate outcome. It’s impressive that they put together one of the most heartbreaking breakup scenes I’ve seen, and the characters weren’t actually even together. 

Not-so-good

Proposal dream - I’m not a big fan of fooling the audience like this, and I’m really not a big fan of putting it in a teaser or promo. That is a bait and switch, and I think it’s a cheap trick for the production company to have featured it in the fragman. Badly done.  In next week’s fragman we see Serkan “punching” the Prince, I fear that is not real, possibly Serkan’s fantasy, and I’m really hoping that “fake scenes” are not going to be the go-to for these new writers. We’ve already spent 50+ hours with Eda and Serkan, we don’t need to see imaginary things, we need real scenes. No fake outs at this juncture. 

Humor and ‘sparkle’ - I think this is what’s going to be missing from the new writer’s scripts. They tried really hard with the game night at the newlywed’s house and Chef Alexander love triangle, (Team Aydan all the way, Ayfer can fuck off. If she doesn’t care about her niece’s happiness, then she shouldn’t get any herself) but it just didn’t get there comedy wise. Ayse really had a way of pulling together very funny scenarios and making everything sparkle, and I’ll miss that. 

Lack of Edser - This is their show, they are the ONLY reason most people watch. You can’t build a plot that separates them. When Serkan broke up with Eda they were able to build a scenario where they were still thrown together all of the time, and kept finding excuses to be with the other. Their screen time didn’t suffer that much. I’m not sure this scenario will allow the same with him being at risk if Babaanne spots them together.  However, for this episode I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt as @jan31​ brought up to me, Kerem and Hande were very busy last week with rehearsals and then shooting The Voice, so that might have contributed to why there was so much focus on the other characters this ep, they needed to release the leads for other commitments. 

hawaiigirl84 said: So I'm on a SCK Facebook group looking at a lot of irate fans. If you haven't seen the episode yet, I think you're going to have to gird your loins for this one.

@hawaiigirl84 Haha. I wish I’d seen this ask so I could have adjusted expectations. I went on twitter last night and then backed away slowly. Lots of dramatic rending of garments and gnashing of teeth.  You know the fan reaction is bad when both the producer Asena and Nesliyan (Aydan) tweeted out reassurances about the journey to love and then this morning the production company twitter account released video of Eda kissing Serkan in the jail. Trying to feed the fans who were out for blood, I’d guess. 

Anonymous said: Okay so the latest episode of SCK had to be the show creating a very low point for Eda & Serkan in order to build them back up, right? My thought after the episode ended was that things honestly could not get worse. That episode was just disappointing. While I get why Eda did what she did I still absolutely hated it and was pissed the writers could not come up with something better. And how heartbreaking was it to realize the proposal scene was a dream 😭. And now they released a clip showing Eda did kiss Serkan in the jail cell but they decided to cut it out? I get that the show has to create drama but the promotion of the episode as being super romantic was certainly a gut punch. The fragman has me hopefully that Eda & Serkan might finally work together to bring down Grandma or at least Eda will let him in on her plan. I will say even though that episode hurt the actors were absolutely killing it.

Are we the same person?? I think I went through all of these thoughts/emotions since watching, lmao.  

And 100% they are taking Eda and Serkan to their low point before building them back up. Also, think about it, after this they will both have a much better understanding of one another. Eda will understand how he could have made the decision to breakup rather than confide in her, and Serkan will understand why doing what he did hurt her so much and why it wasn’t easy for her to get over it. They’ll both have experienced the situation from all sides.  Ultimately, this will make them stronger.

Honestly, Eda has a LOT better reason to do what she’s doing than Serkan did. As I said above, Evil!Granny is not playing. She is deadly serious and seems to be capable of anything. In the course of 48 hours she had manufactured charges against Serkan that were serious and landed him in jail, she caused him to lose the tender they’d won which would have huge ripple affects for the business, and she was able to set up Alptekin and get him thrown in jail. At this point I could see her ordering a hit! Eda needed to call her off and get her to stop or who the heck knows would have happened to Serkan, Aydan and the business in the next 24 hours. Eda needed to move fast and she needed to be convincing. 

Right now I think Eda is just buying time, so Serkan is safe while she tries to fight her grandmother.  No way she’s rolling over. Not Eda. I’m still very hopeful that Serkan will figure out what she’s up to sooner rather than later and they will start to work together. 

Also, YES, to the performances. The actors were stellar. Hande and Kerem both brought it. I physically felt their pain.

Anonymous said: I'm completely convinced that the writers' room for this last episode wrote it without any knowledge of ep 24 except for the fact that it ended with Serkan getting arrested on NYE. Like I still wouldn't like it, but if we had gone from ep 23 to ep 25, it would make more sense. But not after ep 24. Did Ayse just say "fuck it" while writing that episode and gave the fans everything she could knowing full well what the other writers' plans were? Talk about some severe whiplash.

I don’t know what the background is on the writer change, but I don’t think this is fair.  I got whiplash from the fragman (proposal) to the episode, but not from ep 24 to this one. When watching ep 24 didn’t you think it was just a matter of time before the other shoe dropped? I thought that it was obvious that a dark cloud was gathering, just as Eda was willing to start fresh with him. Babaanne directly threatened Serkan several times to Eda. She told Eda she would destroy Serkan if she found they were together.  Episode 24 was Eda being defiant and letting herself be with Serkan and this episode was the consequences of that.  

There are things to criticize, but I completely disagree with you that this is one.

Anonymous said: I think Eda didn't say ily at that time because she must have already thought about maybe accepting what her grandmother had asked for. It would have been weird if she told him I love you and then broke up with him right afterwards. It wasn't the right time, I think the writers are saving it for a big confession like in episode 11. At least for now we could hear her say it in her dream.

Agreed on the timing, and you’re right about the dream. While I am annoyed they put it in the trailer, in the narrative it did serve to tell us exactly where Eda’s head is at in regards to their relationship.  She loves Serkan, she wants to marry Serkan.  So we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that none of her actions are because of any lingering “confusion,” right now she is acting out of pure love for him. That’s beautiful. (maybe that’s what Kerem meant by the ending being beautiful, lmao) 

Anonymous said: Eda really breaking him by called what they had a mistake and threwing him the parents death in his face like it was his fault, he doesn’t deserve all this. At least im happy serkan walked away first! although he loves her with all his being, he's fed up with Eda behaviour... if she really wants him, she has to fight for him.

Oh boy. 

You understand that Eda didn’t mean anything she said, right?  That the only way for her to convince Serkan she was serious was to bring out the big guns, and that she only did it to save him?

Yes, that was hard to watch. My heart absolutely breaks for Serkan. Actually, it breaks for both of them.  But it’s supposed to, they are in love, and Babaanne is tearing them apart. Did you watch Eda all episode? She was devastated the entire time. That’s one of the reasons this ep was hard to watch. It’s hard to see a beloved character be at that low of a point for 2 straight hours.  

This storyline will be easier for you to watch if you reframe this from applauding Serkan for being “fed up” at Eda, to Eda loving him so much that she is going to do whatever is necessary to save him.  She sacrificed and now she’s going to risk it all fighting Babaanne, and all of it is for LOVE. 

Anonymous said: The ending is so ridiculous, and let's not even talk about the fragman of the next episode I really don't know if I want to continue watching

Okay, you’ve just hit my pet peeve. DO NOT come into my inbox with flounce threats. I don’t care if you watch or not. If you’re done, fine, move on, no need to announce it on anon or add it to any of my posts. Because why even talk about something you’re not going to watch? If you’re not serious, but just saying that cause you’re throwing a temper tantrum and think that you can bring about change that way or think you’re making a point by threatening to withhold your support, I’m not going to validate you. You’re being manipulative and all you’re doing is trying to make other people feel bad.  Anyone else who does this will be blocked.  

Anonymous said:  The new writers are really destroying the series. Eda blamed serkan for not telling her the truth and now she did exactly the same. They're ruining eda's character by doing that. Eda wouldn’t have ever, nor left herself be defeated like this by babaanne, nor used the words she did with Serkan, it was beyond mean, and unnecessary for this plot, im so upset

Dude, pull yourself together. It’s not that bad. The new writers are definitely evolving the series, if feels like it’s going to be more plot driven, than situational, but I think that had to happen if they were going to continue making episodes. Maybe you believe they should just end it, and that’s a fine opinion to have, but if it’s to continue, and I personally want it to, there needs to be a plot, there needs to be a big obstacle and this is what these writers’ have chosen.   

Out of all the thing they could have done, it’s actually a good direction to go. Once again, they’ve chosen to separate them, not because one betrayed the other. Not because of some third-party love interest. Not because one is uncertain about their feelings. Not because one of them made a bad choice that hurt the other. They’re separated because of something that happened when they were children, something completely out of their control.  And Eda made the decision she did, because she loves him more than anything. 

For drama in a romantic story its about as good as you can hope for. Because despite your knee-jerk, overly emotional take, the reality is there is nothing here that taints either character or their love for one another. 

They are NOT ruining Eda’s character.  Eda was pushed into a corner and she made a hasty decision to save the man she loves. Babaanne was watching her constantly, she was having her followed. Eda did what was necessary to get Serkan out of jail and then to stop Babaanne’s relentless, and successful, attacks against him.  She said what she said, because that’s the only thing that would have convinced him she was for real. Anything else he wouldn’t have believed, and if he didn’t believe it then Babaanne wouldn’t have stopped. Also, Eda hasn’t let herself be defeated. She did what she needed to do, so she can keep Serkan safe while she fights. This is just one battle, Babaanne won’t win the war. 

They’ll get to the point when they’re fighting her together, but we’re getting this part first. The part that will give both of them greater insight into the other, and the perspective they both need to truly understand how each felt during the first break up. And it will give us angst and longing and pining and jealousy and all sorts of things. 

Also, curious, why is it okay for Serkan to break her heart because he was afraid of her reaction to the truth of the past, but it’s not okay for Eda to break his heart to save him from huge and real threats to his safety, livelihood, freedom and family?

Anonymous said: I am so sad for serkan he doesn't deserve this. Eda ended up abandoning him like everyone else who comes into his life. The worst thing about it is that he knew it was going to happen and he was afraid it would happen and it did happen 😭

It’s definitely gut-wrenching. Serkan doesn’t deserve this, but neither did Eda. And Eda didn’t abandon him because she wanted to, she did it because very bad things were happening and she had to act quickly.

However, think about what you just said: he knew it was going to happen. It’s also not like the consequences of going against Babaanne are unknown to him.  He knows he was thrown in jail, he knows his dad is in jail, he knows there were serious threats to his business. So what that means is that it won’t take Serkan long to figure out that Babaanne is behind everything and Eda is 100% acting out of love for him.  

He will just need to shake off the sting of her words, and the haze of heartbreak and he’ll see that she did it for him. 

[bisexualhobi]

wait I think I agree not today is really bad but now rank all their title tracks from best to worst pls

lmaoohdksjjdjf i love this question so much anon but due to the fact that i’m me this would get way WAY too long. so i’m doing the top 5 best title tracks and then top 5 worst ones okay? i’m looking at google and apparently they have 26 korean singles so yeah that’s too much.

to rank them as objectively as possible I'm gonna try to take into account gp impact (which is not the same as chart impact since the fandom inflates those numbers), production, creative value (how innovative/different from other pop songs was it?) and the concept of the music video/aesthetic in general. 

BTS TITLE TRACKS: TOP 5

5. Black Swan (2020)

am I cheating by putting here a pre release single? maybe. but it would be a disservice to leave this one out so bear with me

⭐gp impact: this song made more noise as a pre release single than the title track. I saw it in at least 3 end of the year editorials for best kpop songs of 2020. and the thing is it could have been WAY bigger but a lot of stuff happened that sadly made it go away too soon. I don't think this one is as famous or recognizable as the others in this list which is why it's going last, but also I think this song is the most underrated gem in bts discography so it's still going here.

⭐production: this song beat out the front runners (I need u, save me, DNA) solely because of its production. there are not a lot of kpop songs out there that manage to pull off what this song does. it's powerful, it's nostalgic, it's a dark and sexy song without being too on the nose. the mixing is SUPERB I remember the first time I heard it I thought "this would blow the fuck up if it was a Travis Scott song" and I will DIE on that hill. this is an example of heavy autotune on a song done right, not like the rest of their super autotuned songs that sometimes come out unrecognizable and empty sounding.

⭐creative value: it's not truly a new concept in pop to make a song about the Death of the Artist. it’s also not something a rookie group can do, this song needed to be released at exactly the time in bts’ career that it was. there’s just no emotional impact if you just sing about how the music makes your hear beat and you’ve been in the industry for,,, 3 years. this is the type of Swan Song you release at the peak of your career, so that really contributes to the message. mixing a trap beat with a ballet motif is GALAXY BRAIN SHIT.

⭐️concept: the ballet influence is just beautifully executed, this song is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship on all fronts. i think they could literally build an entire ALBUM off this concept, so the fact that they jampacked it onto one single song is both amazing and a little sad for me. i wanna hear more of this. i want a literal Black Swan (the darren aranofsky movie) horror concept where the protagonist falls prey to his own madness because he strives for perfection. but yeah, the song itself and the orchestral version just make this a complete golden concept in my book.

4. IDOL (2018).

⭐️gp impact: i think a lot of people that didn’t know anything about kpop vaguely knew about this song when it was released. i know i wasn’t into kpop at all but in my pop culture circle there was a small bleep from this song bc of the concept and the dance. i think it’s a great “embassador of kpop” track, like if you wanna explain to someone with no previous knowledge what kpop is about you can show them a performance of this song.

⭐️production: the production is a little all over the place for me. the instrumentals are amazing and really creative tho, but like in terms of mixing vocals and the structure of it, it might be a little too grating. it’s not the best produced song in ly: answer by any means but it still makes it work

⭐️creative value: the whole hanbok thing is a 10/10. bts weren’t the first ones to do it, but they did it in such a tightly executed way that honestly that “classic korean roots meets the edgy western feel” concept belongs to them now. groups are still recreating it. it’s a really innovative concept in general.

⭐️concept: the music video is,,,, something. you might love it or hate it, but it’s memorable. i think the purposeful way in which they made it as loud and brilliant as possible can be taken either as a camp adjacent or just as the group going nuts with the budget, which props to them. the choreography is also a BIG plus. the south african influence is really well executed and they made sure to do it as cultural appreciation and not appropriation. definitely the most memorable thing from this song is the choreo

3. Run (2015).

⭐️gp impact: this was their second song to have a music show win. it was the lead single from hyyh pt2 and honestly it might be the best song off hyyh as a whole. it cemented bts as not just another kpop group, because it made non fans turn their heads too! from what i gather this really propelled them forward and made the fanbase grow a lot.

⭐️production: hyyh pt2 is super well produced. i feel like this song in particular makes a fine job of mixing the vocals but it’s not outstanding. the best part is the instrumentals. but overall it’s a really good song with amazing lyrics and a great melody.

⭐️creative value: this built off of what they did with pt1 so they were already in a comfortable place, when they found this sound they really explored it well and deep and it works! i’m glad they went this emo pop route because it was a good contrast to what was dominating the charts in kpop in 2015.

⭐️concept: the aesthetic is PERFECT. there’s not a single other thing that i could add or that i wanted gone. it’s the perfect mix of coming of age teen film and heartfelt, dreamy pop. the music video is by no surprises the favorite mv of a lot of the fandom. the cinematography is beautiful and the song and the video perfectly capture that fleeting moment in life when you’re in the brink of adulthood.

2. Mic Drop (2017).

⭐️gp impact: this song was the first bts song to chart on the billboard hot100. back when the fandom had no idea how to chart, mass buy etc. that’s enough said. (personally i think mic drop is the quintessential bts song and their best release so the fact that i’m not putting it first should count as something).

⭐️production: for the purposes of this ranking i’m using the original mic drop and not the steve aoki remix even tho it was the steve remix that was released as the single. the song has the BEST mastering i’ve heard in kpop. the transitions are flawless, the beat is pure fire, the entire first minute is literally the hardest hype rap i’ve heard in kpop. everything about it WORKS.

⭐️creative value: it’s kinda funny how this song got released the same year as kendrick lamar’s humble, because imho it’s the best hiphop song of that year after humble. 2017 was truly the year of the diss tracks. bonus points for including it right after the billboard acceptance speech skit in ly: answer. SUPER refreshing among the ed sheeran type of pop that dominated that year.

⭐️concept: it’s a great concept but not innovative by any means. still, it works and bts managed to exploit it to the max. the choreo, the mv, the styling, everything was amazing!

1. Blood, Sweat & Tears (2016).

⭐️gp impact: it's probably the first song to put bts on the map beyond the kpop sphere. it really set the tone for their 2017. it's one of their most famous and recognizable songs to date.

⭐️production: this song is STUNNINGLY arranged. the mix, the ambience, the progression,,, it's all brought together to make a very well crafted song. it has a distinctive electronic/pop sound to it that still manages to set itself apart from the trend that was going at the time. black swan is probably the closet single they have to this in terms of production.

⭐️creative value: the song itself is very in compliance with the 2015/2016 trend of hype songs with edm influence, (ie. closer, shape of you, cheap thrills, let me love you, something just like this, etc.) but it still packs that punch that makes it sound fresh even for 2021.

⭐️concept: it wasn't the first song to sound like this in kpop ofc but it was the first truly sexy concept for bts. the aesthetic is innovative and very well thought out, the mv is amazing and the choreography too. i read somewhere that j-hope had a lot of input for this choreo so that's amazing. also blond taehyung is literally the best thing to come out of big hit.

WORST BTS TITLE TRACKS

ok so here we go with the worst ones! this is in ascending order as i prepare myself to pick the worst of them all, but please remember this isn’t meant to be mean spirited, i am simply applying the same criteria to their most underwhelming songs but that doesn’t mean they don’t have their own merit! it’s just that out of 26 singles, SOME of them have got to come out at the bottom right?

5. Life Goes On (2020)

⭐gp impact: this song is not memorable with the general public, its #1 on the bb was the product of mass buying and even though it's a feel good song made to comfort fans in the times of pandemic it's still bland and boring. I think it had no music show appearances either, and as far as bts ballads go this is just bottom tier. it’s not that it’s terrible, it’s just very underwhelming 

⭐production: the autotune in this song is very poorly executed, it doesn't add to the song the way black swan does for example. it's just off putting and the melody is really forgettable. it's funny bc the chorus is directly pulled from the 2018 reggaeton super hit "La Canción" by J Balvin and Bad bunny lmaooo 💀 so I can't get that out of my head either. the structure is just fine and has nothing of substance 

⭐creative value: the song is attempts to be a heartfelt acoustic song but it really has nothing that sets it apart from other songs product of the pandemic like Justin and ariana's stuck with u. for a song in a self produced album it's the song with the least input from the group. the lyrics are good, but they're not as sincere or groundbreaking as for example Spring day. 

⭐concept: as a ballad ofc I'm not expecting it to have a grand choreography, and the mv being filmed in their personal dorms to reflect the lockdown is actually a nice touch but besides that there is nothing exciting, innovative or even sincerely comforting about the song and the concept. the greatest thing abt it is the fact that jk directed the video, which is actually pretty good.

4. We are bulletproof pt 2 (2013)

⭐gp impact: this song made no noise back in the day and to this day its just beloved by the fandom due to a sense of nostalgia and "remembering bts' roots". don't get me wrong it's amazing that bts still perform it in the year of our lord 2020 because you can't forget where you came from, but it's not a good or memorable song by any means. 

⭐production: I went back to listen to it for this and oh god. I can't remember the mixing being THIS bad. jimin, jin and taehyung sound exceptionally bad, they don't sound like themselves especially jin. it's just a really poorly mastered song, but then again the rest of their debut album isn't far better. 

⭐creative value: this is straight up ripping off early 2000s black culture from the US. not only the music, the styling for this era in general is unfortunately really bad and culturally appropriating and overall it's a mess. 

⭐concept: there is nothing of substance to be said about this song. it's just really a miss. the mv is terrible, the only thing that can be salvaged from this is the choreography, but besides that the whole thing feels sloppy, rushed and is also kinda cringey.

3. N.O. (2013)

⭐gp impact: no noise. this song was just a really weird pick for their first comeback when attack on bangtan or coffee was right there. not to be mean but no wonder they didn't have a music win this year. 

⭐production: it's an objectively bad song. it's just really underwhelming, the whole mixing feels amateur. it's not a good hiphop song and it's not a good vocal arrangement and the chorus is also a rip off of a late 90s American song I can't find right now 

⭐creative value: this song isn't innovative in any way, it's just..... there. very meh in general, I have nothing more to say about it 

⭐concept: the storyline kinda wants to go somewhere with the music video but it doesn't manage to make a connection. the styling is plain, simple and not flattering at all. it tries to make a protest of the Korean school system but it doesn't say anything beyond "school bad" which we already knew

2. Not Today (2017)

⭐gp impact: its a very middle of the list song for a lot of the fandom. I literally know of no one that claims this as their favorite mv/era/song. when you ask people about their least favorite bts songs they won't mention this one either, you know why? because it's that irrelevant. it had no music show wins either. it's precisely because of this why I put it so high up on the list. there's nothing worse than an unmemorable song, if it was widely hated then at least that would be a response. 

⭐production: it's a really mediocre song in terms of structure and melody. it tried to be hype but it falls short. the chorus feels half finished and the message of the song is just “the revolution has begun”? which okay? but it adds nothing to the You never walk alone album either.

⭐creative value: there is nothing exciting about this song, and the chorus is too grating. the rhythm is repetitive and nothing new either in kpop or pop in general. 

⭐concept: sadly there's not a lot to be said for the song. it says nothing of value and what it says falls flat. there's no innovation. you can actually see a lot of idol in this song, and also ON. those two songs are what this one tried to be but failed.

1. War of Hormone (2014)

⭐gp impact: thankfully none. this song got the treatment it deserved, if they had won a music show for this one it would feel tainted lol. now it's just a meme in the fandom but overall it made zero noise and contributed nothing to bts' evolution 

⭐production: the production is very lazy, which is odd because dark & wild has some pretty tight tracks. but this one is just meh, nothing outstanding and the melody is just annoying 

⭐creative value: this is a song that was probably born out of the desperation to have a gp friendly hit. it tries really hard to replicate an outdated idea of what boy bands should be, and it does it badly. simply put this song is very mediocre and misogynistic and the fact that it's a running gag in the fandom that "feminism isn't important when war of hormone comes on" isn't funny and it's actually cringe. please stop 

⭐concept: the styling is so ugly :( the mv is very low budget which isn't surprising but they managed to make more with less in past releases. it's just embarrassing and I wish this song didn't exist, there's a reason why they never play it anymore lol. overall a dark mistake in bts' career

[ba-responds]

Imagine: Being Garrett Douglas’ True Mate (Part One)**

Garrett Douglas x Reader

A/n: This is a 2 parter. Don’t get too used to stuff like this, because Older/Younger smut/relationships make me slightly uncomfortable now, but I like how this one turned out! **Warning(s): Smut, Sex, DUBCON*, Alpha Kink, Older/Younger, Teacher/student 

        -Dubcon: consent is unknown or uncertain, and this is distinguished from consent being definitely absent, as in non-con. Often, a character involved is uncertain about whether he or she wants to participate.

Word Count: 4K

Masterlist

Garrett Douglas clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth together as he stared at you from down the hall. You were surrounded by your ‘pack’, all of you talking and laughing about something that Garrett couldn’t care less about. The only thing he could focus on was you. Your smile, your body, everything. You were leaning against the lockers, watching with gleeful eyes as Liam did a little dance move that made you laugh. Garrett took a deep breath, trying to desperately control himself. His fist clenched and his fingernails dug into his palms as he tore his eyes away from you, instead glaring up at the ceiling so he could collect his thoughts. 

“Good morning Mr. Douglas,” a student said as she passed by him to get in the classroom. He glanced down at her with a fake small smile, nodding in acknowledgment to her. Loosening his clenched fist, he pulled them behind his back as he felt the skin heal, before carefully reaching into his pocket, pulling out a tissue to clean the little drops of blood that came out of the healed wounds. He wore a fake smile as more students passed him to enter his class, letting his gaze scan the hallway. You were walking backwards, with your back facing him, as you were saying your last parting words to your friends, Lydia by your side. After saying your last few words, you turned back around, walking side by side with Lydia, heading straight towards Garrett. Garrett genuinely smiled for the first time in a few days as he watched you walk closer and closer to him. 

“Good morning,” He said, letting his eyes linger on you for a second before sliding towards the redhead. Both of you smiled politely, but he felt your eyes look him up and down, trying to be discreet.

“Morning,” Lydia said, barely paying attention to him, and slipping into the class. His eyes snapped back to you, sending you a small smirk and a wink. Your eyes widened as your mouth dropped a little, before you sped past him, muttering a light ‘good morning’. Garrett wore a large smirk as he closed the classroom door, walking up to the front of the classroom.

“Okay, so is everyone ready for AP Physics?” He asked, smiling when he heard a loud series of groans.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

You huffed as you stared down at the textbook in front of you, trying to find out the best way of doing the new ‘fun’ advanced physics project; which consisted of building a functioning boat or raft capable of carrying, and supporting, two people, only using thin plastic materials, cheap tape, and nylon twine. Groaning, you glanced up at Lydia, who was sitting on the other side of the room with her assigned partner, already looking like they had a plan for the project. 

“Can we use Duct tape?” Rylan, your newly assigned lab partner, asked as he stared over your shoulder at the directions sheet in front of you. Shaking your head in response, you flinched lightly when he rested his chin on your shoulder playfully. “Well we're going to need really strong plastic to carry both of us,”

“It can't exceed ¼ of an inch thick, though,” you muttered, leaning your head to the side so it knocked gently on his. Rylan was one of your friends, not a best friend, but a close friend nonetheless. He was a really sweet guy, who always playfully acted as if you two were a couple, despite him being gay, but you didn't mind. 

“Any ideas?” He asked, his chin still on your shoulder as he wrapped his arms around your waist so he could type on the laptop you had on your lap. Shaking your head, you leaned back into his chest with a huff, letting your eyes scan the room to spot if anyone else was as hopeless as you were. Your gaze came to a halt when you saw the look on Mr. Douglas’ face. He had a look you never seen on him before, one that was almost well disguised, but you could tell by his glare and clenched jaw that he was mad. His eyes suddenly met your gaze, making your heart skip a beat as your gaze shot down to the textbook in front of you.

 You cursed yourself for staring, but who wouldn't stare at the young, sexy teacher? As you tried to make sure you didn't seem like you were just staring at him, you couldn't help but imagine all of your dirty little fantasies you had about Mr. Douglas. It was just something you couldn't help, you felt compelled to be near him, to be with him. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you tried to reason to yourself that all these fantasies were actually possible, because of the fact that you were 18 years old, and considered a legal adult. This fact sometimes reassured you, seeming to make the possibility of being with Mr. Douglas even greater.

“(Y/n)? Are you okay?” Rylan asked, pinching your thigh. Snapping out of your thoughts, you immediately nodded, before leaning forwards to continue trying to think of the best structure your boat could have.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Garrett gulped, trying his best to stay in control but you were making it really hard. Even when he turned away and focused on something else, he couldn't help but to continue to think about you; which usually wouldn't bother him, but now that you were in that Bastard’s arms, he could barely stop his hands from shaking in anger. 

“I thought he was fucking gay, or else I wouldn't have partnered him with my (Y/n),”Garrett thought to himself as he forced himself to take deep breaths. He glared up at the clock, waiting for the moment he could let the class leave. When that time finally came, he immediately stood up, telling the class that they were free to go, which everyone seemed happy about. Garrett held his head in his hands as the students packed up, groaning lowly as he felt a headache come on. After a minute of quiet shuffling, a single pair of footsteps made him look up with an annoyed face.

“Um, excuse me Mr. Douglas,” you muttered, with a small smile as you stepped forward. His heart leapt in his chest as he stared up at your (e/c) eyes. He almost grinned, but then he smelled his scent all over you, making him frown and almost let out a growl.

“What?” He snapped, making your eyes widen as you fumbled on your words.

“I-I um… I was wondering if t-there's any tips you can give me for this project. We uh….we really couldn't think of anything useful,” You said, avoiding his gaze. He felt anger bubble up inside him, not because of you, but because that bastard Rylan had distracted you from reaching your full potential.

“Well maybe if you and Rylan were actually listening instead of cuddling in the back, you would have heard me tell the class that there is a tip sheet online,” he growled out, rolling his eyes as he stood up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw you flinch and look down sadly, muttering an apology, your heart pounding in your chest. Garrett couldn't quite tell whether it was beating rapidly out of embarrassment of being called out, or something else.

“Knock that stupid PDA shit out, it's fucking annoyingly,” he hissed lowly, feeling his fist clench just thinking back to how comfortable you seemed to be with Rylan. “You're supposed to be with me, and only me,”.

“I'm sorry,” you muttered, speeding out of the class, a few tears dripping down your face. Garrett felt his eyes change colors as the room was bathed in red, as he lost control of himself. He wanted badly to go after you and apologize, but he just couldn't get the image of you and Rylan out of his head.

You leaning on Rylan’s chest with a small smile, with his arms wrapped around you; Rylan resting his chin on your shoulder, while yours leaned gently against it. Garrett felt his chest become tight as he tried to suck in a desperate breath. His vision started to fade as he stumbled to the supply closet at the far side of the room. Yanking the door open, he grasped at the helium tank on the shelf, pulling it down to him. Grabbing the facemask already connected to it, he held it up to his mouth, before turning the tank on. Garrett took deep breaths of the helium as he let his body slid down the wall until he sat on the cold tile floor. Looking up at the ceiling, he shook his head. These ‘attacks’ had been happening more and more recently, and he knew exactly what was causing it. Not being with his mate was going to kill him.

“That's it. I need her,” 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

You winced and groaned as you limped down the empty street, wrapping your thin jacket further around your body as you desperately tried to cling to the little heat you had. Your eyes scanned the sidewalk, slightly paranoid about all the Ghost Rider activity that has been happening lately. 

“Shit…” you muttered to yourself as you put a little too much pressure on your hurt ankle. Hopping on one foot to the nearby bus stop, you flopped down on the seat. Gently lifting your right leg, you rested your ankle on your left knee. Poking your swollen ankle a little to test the pain, you hissed. Your shoulders slumped as a tear threatened to fall from your eye. 

Of course it was just your luck to sprain your ankle on the walk to your house from Scott's house. Since you were only about 10 minutes away from your house when it happened, you didn't think of calling anyone, not wanting to bother anyone at this time of night; besides your parents weren't going to be home tonight, so you didn't have to worry about being in at a certain time. After resting for a few more minutes, you hesitantly stood up, softly putting more and more pressure on your hurt ankle, until you felt confident enough to continue walking on it. After taking a few agonizing steps, you hissed out in pain, muttering a few curses. A black car driving past made you look up out of curiosity, watching as it slowly came to a stop in the middle of the street a few feet away from you. Your heart dropped as you mentally prepared to run as fast as you could on your hurt ankle, continuing to limp faster than before. The car’s window then started to roll down, and that is when you noticed the familiar face.

“(Y/n)? Are you okay? It's almost 1 in the morning, what are you doing out here so late?” Mr. Douglas questioned as he stepped out of the car, hurrying over to you when you stumbled. You gave him an embarrassed smile, before pointing down at your ankle.

“Uh, I tripped and hurt my ankle. I'm just trying to get home now,” you muttered as he helped you up, letting you grip on his arm as you found your balance.

“Come on, I'll give you a ride,” he said, helping you to the passenger side of the car. Your heart fluttered in your chest at the thought of being in the same car as Mr. Douglas, your mind immediately coming up with a dirty fantasy of what the two of you could do in the car. You looked down at your feet so he couldn't see your face, not wanting to chance the possibility of him reading your expression. After helping you inside the car, he jogged around to the driver's side, sliding into the seat before he turned to you.

“What's your address,” he asked, glancing over at you, concern still etched on his face. You told him your address, looking discreetly around the black interior of the car. 

“Thank you,” you said when there was an awkward silence, looking at him before shifting your gaze out of the window. He sighed deeply, glancing at you from the corner of his eye.

“I'm sorry about earlier… I didn't mean to snap on you, I was just having a bad day,” He said, as he pulled the car up in front of your house. He immediately jumped out, rushing over to your side as you opened the door and tried to put weight on your hurt ankle. “Careful!”

He held out his arm so you could grip it and lean against him to shift your weight. As the two of you walked to your door, taking your time, he looked around at the dark windows, his eyebrows furrowing.

“Is anyone home?” He questioned, as you reached into your pocket to get your house keys. Simply shaking your head, you unlocked the door, trying to pull away from Mr. Douglas, but he held onto your arm, insisting he at least help you to the couch and  check out your ankle. Upon stepping inside and closing the door, you twisted to try to flick on the light, but you ended up putting way too much pressure on your ankle, making your leg crumple from under you. Mr. Douglas immediately reached out to catch you, but instead was tripped by you accidentally, making him fall on top of you. You yelped when the back of your head came in contact with the ground harshly, darting forward to grab a hold of the new injury. Upon doing this, your face mashed into something, your lips catching the side of something soft. You immediately recognized your mistake, and pulled back, slamming your head on the ground once again, this time seemingly harder than the first time. You hissed as you squeezed your eyes shut, your face heating up with embarrassment.

“I think I just accidentally kissed him…” 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“She just kissed me…” Garrett thought shocked, a smile creeping onto his face. Just the small kiss had sent shivers up his spine, his body feeling rejuvenated. In a moment of weakness, he couldn't control himself, so he reached up, catching your jaw. He closed his eyes as he leaned down, connecting your lips. He felt you freeze, and could hear your heart skip a beat before speeding up. Slowly you seemed to melt in the kiss, finally feeling the same sparks he felt. Goosebumps rose on his skin under your touch, your fingers hesitantly drifting up his arms. 

After a few more moments, he reluctantly pulled away, taking a deep breath. You panted under him, and with his Alpha vision, he could see that your eyes were closed, your lips slightly parted. You slowly opened your eyes, staring up at him, dazed. Your eyes suddenly widened, as you shot from under him, crawling backwards.

“Y-Your eyes…” you muttered, staring at him shocked and slightly terrified.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

After the kiss, you laid completely shocked under Mr. Douglas, your eyes still closed as you tried to process everything that just happened. The kiss had your mind clouded, and all you could think about was how perfect his lips felt on yours; the rush that seemed to flow through your body. You slowly opened your eyes, taking a second to be able to focus in the darkness. When you finally made eye contact with him, you gasped, crawling backwards away from him as fast as you could.

“Y-Your eyes…” you muttered, staring into his glowing red eyes. You shook your head, rubbing your eyes for a second before looking at him again, only to see that the red eyes were still there. He looked at you panicked for a moment, as if he couldn't think of an excuse.

“I-I uh…” he stuttered, frozen to his spot.

“Y-You're an Alpha….” you whispered, gulping. “I just made out with an alpha...who's also my teacher…” 

“You're my mate,” he admitted out of nowhere, as if that would explain things, but it only confused you further. 

“His mate? It couldn't be…” you thought, trying to think of everything Deaton had told you about mates. It wasn't much, but you do remember him mentioning a thing called ‘true mates’, but that couldn't be possible right? Not you of all people. You were so wrapped up in your  thoughts, you didn't realize he came closer until he was right in front of you.

“You're mine,” he growled, his nose flaring as he grabbed your arms. His lips suddenly smashed onto yours, making you gasp. His tongue found its way into your mouth as he pushed you back so you were laying down on the ground again. Through your jumbled mind, you couldn't focus on anything other than the need to be with him. That need clouded your judgement, and you found yourself wrapping your arms around his neck, pulling him closer. He groaned, his hands traveling down to grip your thighs as he pulled you closer to him. 

Pulling away, you gasped for air as he began to attack your neck with kisses. The thought of stopping him past through your mind, but it was quickly discarded when he began to suck bruises into your neck. Your eyes fluttered closed as you brought your hands up to run through his soft hair. 

He suddenly pulled away, sitting up to yank off his jacket and shirt. You watched mesmerized as he smirked down at you, his eyes still glowing red, but you couldn't care less at the moment. After tossing his shirt to the side, he pulled you up unexpectedly, lifting you into his arms as he crossed the room to the couch. He fell backwards onto the couch so you were on top of him. After taking a second to get comfortable and to take off your jacket, he grabbed you by the back of your neck, pulling down into another heated kiss. You moaned into the kiss, grinding down on the growing bulge in his pants.

You couldn't understand what came over you, but this urge was making you want him so bad. You broke the kiss to rip off your shirt, tossing it to the side before leaning down for another kiss. A shiver went up your spine as his hands traveled your sides, unclasping your bra, before reaching under to cup your breast. After taking the bra away, without breaking the kiss, you dropped it on the floor next to you. 

Garrett suddenly twisted, maneuvering the two of you so he was now on top. He growled lowly as he attacked your chest, his hands freely roaming your body. You threw your head back, your lips parted in a quiet moan.

“Why am I doing this?” You thought to yourself, as your fingers traced his back muscles. He kissed down your neck, before clamping down on one of your nipples, the other being toyed with his hand. You arched your back some, grinding your hips onto his, drawing a soft groan from him. His fingers drifted south, swiftly pulling down your pants and underwear with your help. You fumbled to unbutton his jeans, zipping down the zipper quickly. Deciding you were taking too long, Garrett decided to do it himself, yanking down his pants. Once everything was off, his lips connected to yours again, this time harder than before, more needy. His nails dug into your skin some, making you whimper slightly, but he ignored it.

“I'm gonna make sure you stay mine,” he growled as he dug his nails further into your thighs, making you squirm under him. He suddenly pulled one of your legs up,  making you gasp as he settled in between your legs, his erection against your core, but not penetrating.

“Mr. Douglas…” you muttered, your eyes rolling back as he sucked on your bare nipple. 

“I'm your alpha! Call me your Alpha!” He growled lowly, nipping at your shoulder. Your mouth dropped open again when his hips started to grind against you, his cock rubbing against your clit. 

“A-Alpha…” you panted, grabbing a fistful of his soft brown hair. He hummed in delight at the name, grinding a little harder against you. “Please Alpha…”

He sat back, his hand reaching down to line himself with your entrance. A sudden thrust later, you yelped, clenching around him at the sudden evasion. A tear rolled down your cheek from pain, but he quickly wiped it away with his thumb. You looked up at him, biting your lip as you adjusted to his size. His eyes were still red, but this time he had a dazed look on his face. He leaned down, his lips only an inch away from yours.

“You're mine,” he mumbled once again, before harshly kissing you, his tongue forcing its way into your mouth. You eagerly kissed back, forgetting the pain, and being consumed by the intense pleasure that being with him brought. He slowly began rocking his hips, pulling out of your slowly, before burying himself back in once again. He groaned loudly as he picked up his pace, his thrusts becoming faster and faster. He suddenly grabbed your hands, which were trailing his chest and down his stomach, holding them above your head with one hand. 

“You're so good for your Alpha, aren't you?” He said, as your head lolled back when his thrust became slow again, teasing you.

“Yes, Alpha,” you moaned, closing your eyes. You desperately wanted to grasp onto something, but his strong grip on both of your wrists prevented you from doing so. With his thrust still going slow, he leaned forward, his lips skimming past yours, before going towards your ear.

“Beg,” he whispered into your ear, which sent a shiver down your spine. You opened your eyes, staring right into his as you begged.

“Please,”

“Please what?”

“Please Alpha, make me yours,” 

“Good girl,” he groaned, his chest rumbling with a low purr. Your response seemed to send a surge of thrill through him, his hips began jerking harder and faster. Your own hips began to move in rhythm with his, soft moans slipping from your parted lips. He began muttering how much of a good girl you were in your ear, pushing you closer and closer to your edge. You felt his nails grow, digging into your wrist, which made you his. His soft groans began to sound more like animalistic growls as his hips jerked harder and harder, shaking the couch erratically. As your legs began to shake, and you started to clench around him, he buried his face into your neck, panting hard. You gasped for breath as your orgasm washed over you, clenching around his cock as he buried himself inside you, growling in pleasure as he came inside you. 

His teeth suddenly sunk into your shoulder harshly, making you let out a loud blood curdling scream and you jerked your body away from him. You fell onto the floor in a heap, your hurt ankle slamming onto the couch, making you cry out and grasp it. Using your good foot, you backed away from him, scrambling to find clothes to put on. Blood dripped from your wounded shoulder, just like the tears dripped down your face. After quickly finding your pants, and tugging on a random shirt, which turned out to be his, you scrambled to your feet, putting most of your weight on your good ankle. 

You gripped your shoulder as agonizing pain exploded in the wound, almost making your knees go weak. Your hands clutched your phone, which was in your pants pocket. Your eyes shot to Garrett as he finally stood up, his naked body standing straight as he looked at you with a smirk.

“What the fuck!” You yelled, stumbling backwards as he walked closer to you. You fell onto your butt, scooting backwards as he came to a stop a few feet in front of you. Discreetly, you pressed the screen on your phone, unlocking it, and dialing Lydia on video-chat, who you hoped would answer.

“You said you wanted me to make you mine, so I just did. Now no one will have you, only me,” he chuckled, as he picked up his discarded pants, tugging them on. Your eyes squeezed closed as tears continued to fall from your eyes. The pain was unbearable, it was so bad, you couldn't even force yourself up so you could get away from your mate. The door suddenly flew open, making you jump and look. 

“No….” you muttered when you spotted a group of Ghost Riders at the door, all walking in to circle you, Garrett standing in the middle of them with a wicked smirk. Your heart was beating painfully in your chest as you shook your head, feeling desperate. Sweat dropped down your forehead as the room suddenly began to get hot, your vision began to blur as a loud high pitched ringing sounded in your ears. Your phone vibrated, making you look down at it, seeing that Lydia had answered and was looking worriedly, yelling words you could no longer hear. 

“Help…” you muttered to her, as you stared up at Garrett, who held one of the Ghost Rider’s whips. The last thing you saw before everything went black, was him bringing the whip down, and a flash of green smoke.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

[atnaterra]

There are two things you should know right off the bat, just to keep things fair. One: though some would say otherwise, Root Hashells wasn’t to blame for the beginning of the fight at Low Fishdrum’s Tavern and Tackle, only the end of it. And two: the spirits she killed didn’t really mind all that much, at least in the long run. It gave them time to cool down and reflect on their actions. Death is sort of like a time-out when you think about it.

Knowing that, I hope you’ll go a little easier on Root. She’s had a rough go of things lately, and it’s certainly not about to get any better. But before we get to her, let’s look a bit more at Low’s.

Whether Low’s got its name for the quality of the food or the price of it was a common source of speculation among first-time patrons. That speculation passed faster than the fare through an unprepared digestive tract as soon as the speculator made the acquaintance of the owner, Low Fishdrum, and found that though their previous theories were an unfortunate coincidence, the greater misfortune was being born to parents who, in addition to already passing along the unlucky surname “Fishdrum,” had the truly regrettable sense to slap the name “Low” before it.

The building itself did little to help matters, but that’s often how these things go. Some considered Low’s an eyesore. But then again, some considered those who considered Low’s an eyesore terribly haughty and bourgeois. So form your own opinion as we go.

The squat building sat like a toad on the bank of the Gob-ui River. In most cases, riverfront property didn’t come cheap in the city of Unn, despite there being quite a lot of it. This abundance was due in no small part to the river’s dramatic oxbows bending this way and that across the whole of the city as if the river itself knew the appeal of its banks and, in a cocky-albeit-generous move, furnished the city with as much waterfront as possible. Somehow, the wealthiest and greediest still managed to own around ninety-one percent of it.

Low’s, however, inhabited a remarkably affordable plot, owing thanks for the steep discount to the neighbors. A feral cat rehabilitation home neighbored the tavern on one side—charitable and quaint, perhaps, but only from upwind. Sandwiching it from the other side was a brothel with a penchant for double entendres, known abroad for its orgies and locally for its minestrone. (Now, neither building might sound like too troublesome a neighbor, but keep in mind: you’re out of earshot.) Together, the two crowded in on the tavern as if trying to squeeze every sour drop from the ale-soaked floorboards.

But Low’s kept the air of an unbothered old drunkard lying woozy in a recliner as it leaned—concerningly, some said—away from the street and out over the muddy riverbank, propped carefully against the algae-covered dock attached to its rear.

Standing at an even one and three-quarters stories, the building was clad in a carapace of warped and worm-eaten siding that seemed determined to escape the structure, judging by the amount of it that lay around the foundation like dozens of spindly legs. The tavern and what Low insisted passed for a tackle shop took up the ground floor, while the stunted attic housed a handful of rooms available for rent to particularly short lodgers, people with a love for crouching, and, of course, smaller spirits.

At the front of the building, hanging crooked from a beam above the cobbled street, was a sign bearing the tavern’s name in chipping daffodil-colored paint. It was this sign that caught Root’s attention as she passed it by in the golden light of the waning day. Though the voices of the change in her pocket provided more of a dialogue than a choir, they were unanimous in urging her to stop in for a drink. For some reason, coins always seem more persuasive in these matters when they have limited backup, and so with a sigh, Root stepped through the open door into the haze of tobacco smoke and the fresh memory of a grease fire.

The grease fire, as she would learn in about two hours, would only be the second worst thing to happen at Low’s that evening.

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