#i also apologize for having absolute no consistency w my style
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icedpee · 1 year ago
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Felt physically ill after not drawing my fav for too long so I cranked this out
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+ a less shaded ver so u can see the details a bit better
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fictarian · 1 year ago
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Hobie w/ an equally as punk reader? <3 🤘🎸
𝐇𝐢𝐦 <𝟑 . ⋆.ೃ࿔*:・ 𝐏𝐭. 𝟔
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ღ Of course! I apologize if there are issues with this fic, because i’m not very familiar with the style despite trying to learn about it 😭 Fun facts and criticism is VERY MUCH appreciated in the comments, so don’t be afraid to comment
ღ Gang we’re like 21 followers away from 100… i’m shivering in boots ‼️‼️ Tysm for following me omg
ღ Here’s a couple headcannons for if Hobie was with a punk partner (relationship goals, shout out to all my punk lovers I aspire to be like you)
ღ Paring: Hobie Brown and a GN! Punk reader 🙏
ღ Previous part can be found here !
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• Whenever the two of you go out together, you always make an effort to go to your local record store. It has become a tradition between you and Hobie to buy two records (preferably of a song that the other hasn’t listened to or knows about) each and gift them to the other at the end of the trip. This helps broaden your guys’ music taste, introduce each other to a new possible favorite band, and just be a bonding experience all together
“The Skids?” You question while looking down at the album in your hands, intrigued by the vibrant colors on the cover. Hobie only nods his head, looking down at the records you had gotten for him. “Mhm, one of my favorites. You’ll like it luv, I promise.”
• No matter what either of you say, you and Hobie are both history nerds. Especially about punk history. So there’s no doubt that whenever you both are on call or are just relaxing in your room in silence, one of you are bound to start a conversation with a history fact. And for the next couple of hours, you’ll both be ranting and exchanging facts to each other
• Since you guys have practically the same style, you often find yourself taking some of Hobie’s jackets, pins, jewelry, etc. Hobie doesn’t mind, in fact, it gets his heart racing whenever he sees you in something that belonged to him at one point (let’s be fr, he isn’t gonna get shit back). So don’t be surprised when you catch him leaning against the doorway to your room, watching you try on one of his leather jackets or ripped jeans with a small smirk and a blush coating his face 🤭
“Y’know, it’s rude to stare” “I just can’t ‘elp it luv, not when something so pretty is right ‘front of me” Hobie cooed, causing you to blush from the tone of his voice. “Whatever…”
• You’re Hobie’s #1 hype person during the concerts he participates in (he doesn’t like consistency, so obviously he switches it up a lot and plays with different bands). This makes him go absolutely WILD. Just seeing you go full on crazy and vibe to the song he’s playing makes him 🥺. Hobie makes it a requirement for you to go to every one of his gigs, which obviously, you don’t mind at all
• You always get a front row view during his concerts, no questions asked. While you’re jamming away to the song his band is performing, Hobie is staring directly at you (somehow managing to not mess up his playing). And when you notice this and finally meet his gaze, the bastard doesn’t even look the least bit shamed or embarrassed. He even sends you a wink, making you the embarrassed one instead
• Hobie dedicates songs to you. Hell, bro will full on WRITE songs for you. He just loves you so much, and wants to show you that in a form that you both bond over constantly every single day. And when Hobie does dedicate a song to you, he makes it very clear to the audience. This makes you want to stomp on him with your platform boots, but it also makes you want to pull him in by the collar of his shirt and kiss him all over his face
“This one is for my arsekicker, _____. Didn’t tell em I was gonna do this before ‘and, since they would ‘ave done just that.” Hobie announced, meeting your sharp glare with a wink and his usual smug smirk. You shook your head, feeling your face burn as the band started to play.
tag list ! @zalayni @luvstarrstruck @jrrantss @pixqlsin @kairiscorner @k4tsu3 @asmobeuses
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sroloc--elbisivni · 1 year ago
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Sorrow is an Autumn Heart bibliography
October 16, 2022 is the day I put up the first chapter of what I still refer to as the spookyfic, and I'm overwhelmed and delighted that people are still finding it enjoyable. @letsgetempirical asked about the bibliography, and because I still have a lot of the info and wanted to do something for the ficiversary, here we go!
some notes: this is in two sections. The first section is the officially-formatted version (Chicago style) of stuff I knew I would need to refer back to or would definitely be using something from and remembered to put in Zotero while I was looking at it. The second section is...all of the links I zipped away into onetab when the fic was done. It's much less coherent. Not everything in here showed up in the fic, either--some stuff was just me following rabbit holes that looked interesting, or finding out that whatever I was looking at wouldn't fit for whatever reason.
Some of the jstor links are very ugly and I apologize for that. I also apologize that not all of the sources are going to be publicly available, as I was using university library access through work. The gun stuff in particular was maddeningly hard to get Anglophone sources on. I also just gave up on food at some point which is why the only visible meals in this story are the two from Usagi's recovery, and which I still managed to fuck up by forgetting the difference between yams (native to Japan) and sweet potatoes (from south america via pourtugese traders, not at all widespread). c'est la vie.
I WOULD like to shout out three of my absolute favorite open-access sources I found while researching this: Sengoku Daimyo, an SCA site that consistently had specific terminology or details I needed and whose 'Calendar and Time' page was probably my single most frequently consulted website; Shinsen On-Hiinagata: A New selection of Respected Patterns, which is a genuine Early Edo period book of kimono patterns and where I got the chrysanthemums kosode Leo wears in chapter 3; and The Rice Harvest, an online game where you play through a rice growing season in the Edo Period as resource manager. Yeah. I never managed to get all the way through because it was more time than I had to invest when I wanted to get back to writing, but its existence delights me and it DID teach me what tea orchards were.
Part 1:
Aoki, Reiko. “Innovation and Incentives in Japan Focus on Pre-Meiji,” n.d., 24.
Armstrong, Katie. “History of Kimono: The Edo Period.” Owlcation. Accessed November 5, 2022. https://owlcation.com/humanities/History-of-Kimono-Part-4-The-Early-Modern-Period-Edo-Period.
Breen, John. "Resurrecting the Sacred Land of Japan: The State of Shinto in the Twenty-First Century." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Vol. 37, Issue 2, (2010): 294-315
Brown, Delmer M. “The Impact of Firearms on Japanese Warfare, 1543–98.” The Journal of Asian Studies 7, no. 3 (May 1948): 236–53. https://doi.org/10.2307/2048846.
“Danka System.” In Wikipedia, October 16, 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Danka_system&oldid=1116488468.
Docslib. “Talismans and Amulets in the Japanese Collection1.” Accessed October 14, 2022. https://docslib.org/doc/1588708/talismans-and-amulets-in-the-japanese-collection1.
“Fudai Daimyo - in The Edo Period.” Accessed November 6, 2022. https://www.liquisearch.com/fudai_daimyo/in_the_edo_period.
Greve, Gabi. “Edo - the EDOPEDIA -: Teppo Guns.” Edo - the EDOPEDIA - (blog), April 30, 2016. https://edoflourishing.blogspot.com/2016/04/teppo-guns.html.
“Ofuda.” In Wikipedia, October 4, 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ofuda&oldid=1114105231.
Sengoku Daimyo. “Etiquette.” Accessed October 14, 2022. https://sengokudaimyo.com/etiquette.
“Shinsen On-Hiinagata (A New Selection of Respected Patterns).” Accessed November 5, 2022. https://collections.mfa.org/objects/316014/shinsen-onhiinagata-a-new-selection-of-respected-patterns;jsessionid=B2C387B7B543B9D56C2759D94A3A8755.
"Special Exhibition: The Introduction of Guns in Japanese Warfare," National Museum of Japanese History, Oct. 3 to Nov. 26, 2006, 9.
Walthall, Anne. “Do Guns Have Gender?,” 24–47, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520267374.003.0002.
Yu, A. C. “Chigyo - Japanese Wiki Corpus.” Accessed October 14, 2022. https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/history/Chigyo.html.
———. “Kamishimo - Japanese Wiki Corpus.” Accessed November 5, 2022. https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/culture/Kamishimo.html.
———. “Kokushu - Japanese Wiki Corpus.” Accessed October 14, 2022. https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/title/Kokushu.html.
国友鉄砲ミュージアム. “STORY,” March 16, 2020. https://kunitomo-teppo.jp/ikkansai_en/story_en/.
Part 2:
https://www.justonecookbook.com/tsukimi-japanese-mid-autumn-festival/ | Celebrating Tsukimi: Japanese Autumn Festival • Just One Cookbook
https://owlcation.com/humanities/The-Role-of-Shintoism-in-Art-During-Edo-Period-Japan | The Role of Shintoism in Art During Edo Period Japan - Owlcation
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/45744 | Autumn Grasses | Japan | Edo period (1615–1868) | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
http://dwl.gov-online.go.jp/video/cao/dl/public_html/gov/pdf/hlj/20151101/06-07.pdf | 06-07.pdf
https://metimejp.com/lucky-charms3/ | Looking for Good Health in Ancient Japanese Culture - Me Time Japan
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=Morishio&atb=v229-1&ia=web | Morishio at DuckDuckGo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzu_(bell) | Suzu (bell) - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Japanese_musical_instruments | Traditional Japanese musical instruments - Wikipedia
https://japanobjects.com/features/furin-wind-chimes | Furin: All You Need to Know About Japanese Wind Chimes
https://sengokudaimyo.com/calendar-and-time | Calendar and Time — Sengoku Daimyo
https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/building/Yamajiro%20(mountain%20castles).html | Yamajiro (mountain castles) - Japanese Wiki Corpus
https://www.britannica.com/place/Japan/The-Tokugawa-status-system | Japan - The Tokugawa status system | Britannica https://www.pin1.harvard.edu/cas/login?service=https%3A%2F%2Fkey-
https://nbthkebscandinavia.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/e6968-pettersson_16th_century_matchlocks.pdf | The evolution of the Japanese matchlock during the 16th century - e6968-pettersson_16th_century_matchlocks.pdf
https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/history/Joshu%20Daimyo%20(governors%20of%20castles).html | Joshu Daimyo (governors of castles) - Japanese Wiki Corpus
https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/culture/Jinya.html | Jinya - Japanese Wiki Corpus
https://www.kikkoman.co.jp/kiifc/foodculture/pdf_12/e_002_006.pdf | e_002_006.pdf https://wattention.com/traditional-rice-harvesting-in-japan/ | Traditional Rice Harvesting in Japan - WAttention.com
http://www.thericeharvest.com/info/game-basics-and-tips/growing-tea.html | Growing Tea | Game Basics & Tips | The Rice Harvest
http://www.thericeharvest.com/game.html?difficulty=easy&villageType=mountain | The Rice Harvest
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/44674 | Farmers' Lives in the Twelve Months | Japan | Edo period (1615–1868) | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
https://www.tokyoweekender.com/2022/01/in-old-japan-rice-luxury/ | In Old Japan, Rice Used to Be a Luxury | Tokyo Weekender https://sake-museum.jp/en/saketalk/1010/ | The History of Rice Polishing in the Edo Period - Sake Museum (Hakushika Memorial Museum of Sake)
https://www.japanpowered.com/japan-culture/understanding-japanese-good-luck-charms | Understanding Japanese Good Luck Charms
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11776994/ | [Camphor in the Edo era fireworks] - PubMed
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv176ktd4?searchText=mountain%20castles%20edo%20period&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dmountain%2Bcastles%2Bedo%2Bperiod&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A335be2b0edac87a2794e24ced0c184ea | Technical Knowledge in Early Modern Japan on JSTOR
ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A335be2b0edac87a2794e24ced0c184ea | The castle town of Hikone and its future on JSTOR
https://www.jcastle.com/view/Daimyo | Daimyo - JCastle, the guide to Japanese Castles
https://www.jcastle.info/view/Edo_Period | Edo Period - Jcastle.info
https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/building/Yamajiro%20(mountain%20castles).html | Yamajiro (mountain castles) - Japanese Wiki Corpus
https://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?452907-Food-during-the-Sengoku-Era | Food during the Sengoku Era
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/81d8gf/what_was_japanese_cuisine_like_during_sengoku/ | What was Japanese cuisine like during Sengoku Jidai era Japan? How was it different to modern Japanese cuisine? : AskHistorians
https://www.britannica.com/place/Japan/Samurai-groups-and-farming-villages | Japan - Samurai groups and farming villages | Britannica
https://kokorocares.com/blogs/blog/life-in-edo-a-prominent-era-of-establishing-japanese-food-culture | Life in Edo: A Prominent Era of Establishing Japanese Food Culture - Kokoro Care Packages
https://www.kikkoman.co.jp/kiifc/foodculture/pdf_12/e_002_006.pdf | e_002_006.pdf
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.Z480GtLLhOvuc1zsHfsakQAAAA%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=17bd9f98803761c2300bdae496a0afb2a793b5ba6a5c3fb55316692806ed8087&ipo=images | th-1957266066 (JPEG Image, 129 × 180 pixels)
https://www.liquisearch.com/fudai_daimyo/in_the_edo_period | Fudai Daimyo - in The Edo Period
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fudai_daimy%C5%8D | Fudai daimyō - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fief | Fief - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimyo | Daimyo - Wikipedia
https://www.adfontes.uzh.ch/en/tutorium/old-japanese-maps/edo-period-maps | Ad fontes: Tutorial / Old Japanese Maps / Edo-period maps
https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/das/image-l/M1000000000000000309 | 和州郡山城絵図 https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1286203?_lang=en | 〔日本図〕 - NDL Digital Collections
https://www.nakasendoway.com/castle-towns-2/ | Castle Towns
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=topographical+map+japan&t=ffab&atb=v229-1&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FGNBAmxXsj_ebIW6pZj0pV6ZYu--m3oHxwgpYveuCgo.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D8b008a3a286a814e1e7cf96b79a33dfe5b070883 | topographical map japan at DuckDuckGo
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valtsv · 2 years ago
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hi re: hell followed with us i read it a couple of months ago and came to the same conclusion u seem to be at so far, i liked the writing style a lot in that i thought it was descriptive and beautiful and i LOVED the scenes w the graces however the plot and story itself felt a bit amateur and needed quite a bit of work. sorry for the out of the blue ask i just needed to discuss this w someone else who has also read/is reading the book lmao
no don't apologize, i'm glad you gave me an opportunity to discuss it more! i agree, and i know that it's a YA novel so i definitely wasn't expecting something life changing, but i was very excited by the premise (trans cult survivor who has angelic monster powers escapes his abusers and joins a group of rebels; lots of good body horror and, in the summary's own words "embracing the monster within and unleashing its power against your oppressors") and then the actual novel itself has turned out to be a bit disappointing to me. although it presents a lot of very creative and compelling ideas, concepts, and imagery, the body horror is very well written - definitely one of the book's strengths - and the core themes and messages the author is trying to convey are very clearly communicated, the writing feels a bit like it it's rushing past things and just trying to check off boxes as quickly as possible at times. the story just doesn't grip me; i can't get fully immersed in the world it's showing me because sometimes it just doesn't feel real enough. the best books i've read have always managed to convince me to suspend my disbelief and dive into the universe they're showing me, which this one does sometimes, but not consistently. there are areas in the worldbuilding and relationship developments between characters that need more attention to reach their full potential. it comes across very surface level and repetitive at times (especially the descriptions of gore? there seems to be a lot of repetitive imagery about broken ribs, red and/or black blood and rot, and bodies being turned inside out by transformation and/or violence, and it doesn't feel more impactful or like it's exploring and developing the concepts each time, it just feels overused). i'm glad the story exists and that the author wrote it, i think it's a perfectly solid book and that he has a promising future in a career as an author, and i know it's his debut novel so there's always room for improvement and probably will be. but unfortunately as a lover of monster angels, queer fiction, and stories about what it means to be monstrous and balancing personal satisfaction and empowerment with justice and helping others, who should have been absolutely consumed by this book based on the summaries and reviews of it, it just isn't doing what i hoped it would for me.
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unholyplumpprincess · 4 years ago
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Of Flowers and Lust
Here is a kofi commission for @uhohko who I had the absolute pleasure of working with because they really said ‘hey Peach here’s all your kinks in one’ and so I kind of went absolutely bonkers with this. The idea? Sex pollen, Elliott getting a full whiff of it, Bloodhound getting WRECKED LIKE THEY DESERVE.
Summary: Bloodhound loves to collects herbs and natural flora for at home remedies and cooking. This can involve some things such as mushrooms that can calm down anxieties, to natural foliage that can help you sleep, or even to the pretty yellow flowers they bring home that are to increase sex drive and fertility. Elliott is always effected much harder, more intensely by these things for some reason. Yet, he never takes the time to consider that Bloodhound says 'don't touch this' was a demand, rather than the 'suggestion' he takes it as. Or. In which Elliott inhales sex pollen and wants to breed Bloodhound until the morning is night.
Reblogs > Likes. Age in your bio (18+ only) or be blocked.
Fandom: Apex Legends
Relationship: Mirage/Bloodhound
Warnings: NSFT/R18+, Bloodhound has a vulva and hella body mods (you can find my hc of them listed in my masterlist), Sex pollen BUT CONSENSUAL, copious amounts of cum, loud loud breeding kink, The term ‘mama’ is used for Bloodhound which is bc nb folk Can use gendered terms u know and I’m only putting this here bC SOMEONE IS GONNA CLOWN, Lots of dirty talk like filthy filthy talk, cum swallowing.
Words: 6.1k
__________
It should be best stated now that: Elliott did not take to listening very well.  
No, no, not emotionally. No, Elliott was a fantastic partner. He was kind and sweet, even going so far as to try with all his might to help with Bloodhound’s insomnia. Gods bless him, trying to stay awake with them through the nights, eyes fighting to stay open whilst Bloodhound cozily read up next to him. It wasn’t that he didn’t take to listening well in their relationship, no, Elliott was just as attentive as Bloodhound was to their beloved in turn.  
No. It is simply the fact of the matter that Elliott did not take to listening to things like ‘Don’t put that in your mouth’ as a warning, but more as a suggestion.   
For most things Bloodhound foraged, it wasn’t an issue. It would have minor side effects or Elliott would simply not enjoy the taste or smell of it. They did a lot of cooking now that they could cook for two- when they weren’t cooking with  Makoa  for the whole compound that is- and Bloodhound enjoyed finding fresh ingredients. Whether that was from the various plants they grew in their room, or what they could find on planet. Including meats that they’d hunt themself and Elliott would be ‘wowed’ by all the dishes they could create.  
They took pride in being able to cook for him, and in turn they watched Elliott light up when it was his turn to make something. Their two styles of cooking varied vastly, with Elliott leaning more comforting, filling foods. Whilst Bloodhound leaned more for spices and what would be earthier and slow cooked.  
With this, also came Bloodhound foraging for ‘alien plants’ as Elliott called them.
~Rest under the cut~
Nearing the arena was natural foliage and thick woods that weren’t recommended to go in, woods in which Bloodhound often found a creature to get meat from and organic vegetation. This could also lead to them going out merely to collect flora that they would crush and turn into salves, teas, medicines, various things that they must have learned from their uncle. Who Elliott only knew from Bloodhound gently opening up one night, but not a lot about him.  
Bloodhound was more reserved, and Elliott made sure they knew how proud he was of them anytime they opened up with one more little thing.  
It was the little things.  
Recently, Elliott had been staying in their room for longer periods of time. Going from hours to days to staying an entire week. Bloodhound didn’t mind, not in the slightest. Elliott had stated it was to help their insomnia at first, only to shyly rub the back of his neck with a soft laugh and say, “And, uh, I...I like your company at night- w-well, all the time, I mean, like, of course I love your company! All the time, I just meant like, when we’re sleeping together and- and-and--”   
And they’d let him talk it out of his system, hands moving only to slow down when he peeked over to see their patient gaze. He’d taken a slow breath, his cheeks flushed and a soft laugh bubbling from him when Bloodhound had smiled kindly and stated, “I understand, beloved. You need not to worry. I enjoy your company as well. At all hours.”   
Just the tiniest joke to ease his nerves and make that blindingly beautiful, dimpled smile split across his face.  
But, now that he was here more often, it meant he was curious in the flora Bloodhound always brought back. They had a thin cord run across their window to sun dry any flora. Always tied up and strung upside down to be dried and later crushed into powders or turned into various other things. Mushrooms were dried the same way and anything else they might try- however, Elliott was a curious creature.  
Bloodhound tries to teach him, explaining the properties and uses of certain things and why they collect them. The strange vibrant, violet mushrooms were to ease anxiety if used in a small dosage. Normally used in teas or to hold under the tongue until mush to spit out.  
They had started to explain that eating one, or not dissolving into tea, could cause a feeling as if being high. But when they turn around, they’d found Elliott already chomping down on one with a face of ‘uh-oh’ when they’d turned to look at him.  
It was amusing to watch him laze about and whine that he couldn’t move. It wouldn’t harm him bodily or mentally, no, but Bloodhound did mildly delight in watching Elliott roll around on their bed and chirp about how ‘soooft and waaaarm and great smelling’ their bed was. Although, even more delight arose when they realized he was practically humping their bed.  
Yes, it appeared Elliott’s body reacted more...acutely to certain things.  
Side effects that could be rarer, such as arousal from that particular mushroom. Though even more peculiar is when he’d cum in their mouth, only to sigh and thank them in a lazy tone and say, “Yeah, you’re WAY better than a pumpkin.”  
A response that had them quirking a brow, but never receiving an answer when they’d heard him snoring. Able to see him spread out like a starfish with a half hard dick flopped on his hip.  
Attractive.  
For most things, Bloodhound has learned that in the case of them bringing home foreign flora or vegetation, that by default Elliott will not listen. Thankfully they’ve never brought anything dangerous home, besides some poisonous bark that they kept AWAY from Elliott in another area in which he would not curiously bring it to his nose.  
Today, however, they’ve brought home beautiful yellow flowers. They’re small, almost budding open like a tube with its petals with cobalt pollen stems inside. They bloom in a group, almost looking like lavender on their trimmed stems to be able to fit into a tightly sealed bag.  
Bloodhound enters their room in full gear, shutting and locking the door behind them and finding their home cleaned up. With only just a jacket over the pile of cushions and furs that acted almost as a couch in the center of the main room.  
Different bones rest along the walls of their home, either from their own hunts or Artur or Munnin bringing them in. Picture frames that Elliott had brought them with pictures of them in more intimate scenarios like their first date, or a picture that just consisted of Elliott taking a selfie that he had given as a joke gift for their birthday that they wound up cherishing. To different potted plants that lined the open wall towards their small kitchen area.  
Elliott comes around the corner looking freshly showered. He’s got on a black t-shirt that’s a little tight on him and showing his midriff, most certainly belonging to Bloodhound, and some gray sweatpants. It’s casual wear, showing he’s already made up his mind on staying for a few days.  
A decision that Bloodhound gladly accepts.  
His curls are still a bit damp, it looks like, and as they start to remove their gear, starting with their respirator, they inhale and can smell the products he uses in his hair and the soaps he must have borrowed. Their full lips quirk up briefly, the idea that he smelled like them always irking a flicker of possessiveness in their stomach.  
Theirs.  
“Ah, hey, Houndie! Was wondering when you’d be back!” Elliott greets, coming closer as they start to remove their helmet, shaking their frizzy red curls free and pulling their goggles up and onto the top of their head.  
They greet him properly once he reaches them, gently cupping his cheeks and pulling him close to rest their foreheads together.   
It’s quiet and intimate, letting their breath mingle and noses gently nuzzling. Elliott would have never guessed for them to be so affection and intimate, not back before they were dating- or even friends for that matter! It had taken all of Bloodhound’s courage to even hook their pinkies their first date.  
Even now he smiles through it, keeping his eyes closed for the twenty seconds Bloodhound holds him before gently letting him go. “I apologize. It took longer to find than I thought it would.” Speaking as they move to remove their upper armor. Too heavy and hot to be worn indoors. They’re left in their long sleeved, tight black shirt, gloves, combat boots, and tactical pants.   
A look in which they know Elliott is graciously looking at their ass once they turn their back to him.  
Bloodhound moves around him towards their counter area they’d built. Set up with cutting boards to the side, herb separators, and various knives to help them with the set up. They set the clear bag full of flowers atop, feeling as Elliott curiously stalks behind them.  
With their hands still gloved, they pull out the flowers and set them on top of the smooth counter. Peeking around for their ribbon to tie them up and huffing when they find it not in sight. They can already feel Elliott hovering behind them, making that curious little noise he does in a quiet question of what they had.  
“They are called The Child Bestowers,” Bloodhound begins, watching from the corner of their good eye as Elliott shuffles to their side to peek around them. “They are for aiding in arousal, for those who need help, as well as providing a pleasant sensation if turned into lubrication. They are also said to help with fertility, if you are to drink them in teas or bathe with them. Or to increase sperm count, if the person having them has external genitalia.” They explain, gently aligning them into a bouquet to rest on top of each other.  
“Soooo...it’s a sex plant?” Elliott frankly says. A statement to which Bloodhound lets out a rushed breath of amusement from their nose.  
“I suppose, if you wish to be blunt, yes. Wait here, and do not touch them. Elliott, am I understood?”  
“Aw, c’mon, babe! What’s the harm? I just get horny? Don’t need plants to do that.” Elliott coos at them, making an obvious look back at their ass. But when they shoot him a look, he sighs, holding a hand over his heart and a hand flat palmed towards them with his eyes closed. “I, Elliott ‘Mirage’ Witt, will not touch the horny flowers. Scout’s honor.”  
There’s a strain to that word.  
Elliott was always good with his words; Silver tongued and quick witted, a trickster truly walking among the mortal plane. It is what attracted Bloodhound to him in the first place, besides his kindness. They narrow their eyes at his face, watching him peek open one eye and giving his very best puppy dog eyes when they look at him until it’s Bloodhound’s turn to relent with a sigh.  
He’s going to do something. They know he will. Always so curious about the effects. There should be nothing odd if he were to touch them, just that the pollen was potent as is and Elliott always had...new reactions to things. As if his immune system were built differently. He would most certainly become aroused, but they worried about what the full effect would be...  
They leave the room to find ribbon so they may string up the bouquets to dry. Finding the ribbon resting in the window sill where they must have left it absentmindedly. And in just maybe the minute they are gone, they return to Elliott who is standing perfectly innocent with his hands folded behind his back.  
Suspicious at his innocent looking face, his doe-like eyes fluttering at them, they narrow their own. Carefully coming around the counter and setting the ribbon next to the flowers. It’s with great attention to detail do they see the speck of yellow on his nose, “Elliott did you tou--”  
“I did not TOUCH the flowers, swear!”  
“Did you smell them?”  
That’s when Elliott’s lips purse, eyes flickering to the side away from their face as if a child who had been caught. He eventually gives in, sighing, “Yeah, but they smelled really good? And I don’t think anything is  gonna  happen! Look, no boner!” As if to make a point, he leans back and away from the counter, gesturing blatantly to his crotch. Their eyes briefly flicker down, quirking a brow to see the tent resting there and their own cheeks warming.  
“Elliott...”  
“What?” He blinks, looking down and then his own face flushes. It’s as if Bloodhound and himself had never had intercourse because both his hands fly to hide said tent, his face burning red. “Shit! I-I-I didn’t even feel it??? It just- it just feels warm? Like usual? Aw shit maybe it did do something? I’m not  gonna  die, right? Death by horny doesn’t really sound like an extrav - an extgan-  ext — a cool way to go .”  
Bloodhound sighs with an amused tone at his franticness, amused at how his hands had gone from hiding to instead gesturing like he normally does. Yes, it was supposed to aid in arousal, but it wasn’t supposed to have such a quick effect. Then again, Elliott’s body always seemed to experience the more intense side of things when it came to new flora and foliage.  
“No, there is nothing deadly within their pollens. However, you may be more difficult to satis--” They cut themself off then when Elliott lets out this pained whine, seeming to scoot closer to them until they’re backed up against the counter throughout their singular sentence.  
Their breath hitches, hands coming to rest on his waist in almost a comforting manner when he ducks his head down. At first, they think he’s going for a kiss, until he’s nosing at their neck, nudging their head to the side and pressing open mouthed, hot kisses up to their pierced ear.  
Bloodhound’s breath catches, squeezing his waist gently and running their hands up along his body until they can get to his curls. “Y-you may be more difficult to satisfy, when you are- ah- affected by the- the pollen-” They manage to breathe out, twisting their fingers at the root to hold him, a soft gasp leaving them when his teeth nip at their jawline.  
But, even through the haze Elliott must be feeling, he still manages to huff out in a strained tone, ”Do...Do you want to...? I can go to the shower and deal- ah- deal with this?”  
“I wish to aid in however you need.” Bloodhound responds honestly, pulling his hair gently when his teeth sink into their neck and they feel him sucking. Sensitive there, they let out a soft growl that only makes Elliott groan. His hands going from gripping the counter to hoisting them up by their thighs onto it, pushing the flowers to the side to get them out of the way.  
They know a hickey will rest over their flesh over the splash of lighter skin tone they had resting on their neck- one of Elliott’s favorite places to bruise them. Bloodhound’s breath hitches when his hands slide over their pants-clad thighs, up to their waist as he starts to leave another bruise just under their ear.  
Bloodhound snarls softly, running their nails over his scalp and one hand dragging down Elliott’s nape like he likes. He lets out the prettiest sound against their neck, his hips absentmindedly humping against them without thinking. They abuse this by dragging their nails down his back, grabbing his muscular ass and pressing him forward with each thrust so he’d properly dry hump them.  
It sparks the reaction they crave, where Elliott lets out this beautiful, shaky, sharp whimper. His mouth trails back up, pressing kisses up their jawline until he can press their foreheads together.  
Bloodhound takes the time to let their eyes remain half lidded to watch him. Elliott looked gorgeous, his hair a mess, brows furrowed and his eyes shut in concentration. His full lips are parted, letting their breath mingle in small pants puffing from his mouth. Something they can’t help but lean forward to kiss him to take his breaths.  
Elliott moans into their mouth upon contact, one of his hands pressing to the counter, the other holding onto their waist to drag them closer to the edge. His hips are frantic, pounding against them as if he could fuck them through both their layers of clothing. It feels like he’s trying to, really. Bloodhound can feel every grind up against them, making their own breath strain as wetness builds up between their own legs from the consistent pressure on their clit.  
Not to mention how much they adored to see him so desperate.  
Their hands drag back up to his hair, pulling on his curls to break the kiss and watching as he follows the motion beautifully. “Fuck, Hound, baby- God, fuck- it's really- ah- it's so hot, it feels so hot, he-heavy-” He’s sobbing out so sweetly, his hips stuttering when they go for his exposed throat, dragging their double canines over the side of his neck and lightly biting down on him to leave a bruise.  
Elliott sobs out, his hips slamming up against them and his hands falling to their ass. He practically yanks them to him, near making them get knocked off the counter. But they quickly figure out why when they’re halfway through sucking a dark bruise into his neck when they feel the wetness starting to seep into the front of their own pants-  
Wait why can they feel it through their own pants?  
Elliott’s still clinging to them, his body shaking and moans leaving his throat. His hips are still gently humping against them, his arms still locked, when normally by now he’d ease up and maybe be embarrassed.  
“Elliott-” Bloodhound breathes out in his ear, causing him to turn his face into their neck. He’s whimpering something, his lips moving against their skin, but they can’t hear him quite well.  
 Not until he’s repeating the same phrase, so shaky and high pitched of; “Still  cumming , oh-oh God, baby, fuck, s-still cumming, cumming, cumming, cumming-” In this string of desperation that makes Bloodhound’s breath catch.  
It takes a total of thirty seconds until he can finally stop shaking. Elliott is falling to his knees; His entire body trembling and Bloodhound can smell how strong his scent lingers on them. It makes their mouth water, but even more so when they look down to see him sitting on his knees, thighs apart and head back. His face is flushed, lips parted and panting and his doe-like eyes half lidded looking up at them like they’re the only thing keeping him grounded.  
If he wasn’t in such a desperate state, perhaps they’d toy with him like this. Make him beg for release. But as it appears right now, Elliott was cumming for a rather long time, and that alone warranted some looking into. And sadly, that did not involve seeing his resolve crumble and making him beg like a good boy.  
Bloodhound’s eyes trail down his body, noticing that the wet spot isn’t just soaking a spot on the front of his pants, but instead almost as if someone had dumped a bottle full of water on his front- and Bloodhound’s for that matter.  
Side effects-  
“Houndie-” Elliott whimpers out, stopping Bloodhound’s staring as they shuffle off the counter. He immediately seeks their comfort, wrapping his arms around their leg and pressing his cheek to their outer thigh. Their breath hitches at the sight of him so close, but they gently rest their hand atop his head, using their nails to massage gently at his scalp.  
“Shh, shh, you are alright, beloved, you are alright. Can you stand? Or crawl, perhaps?” Their last words are playful, warranting that beautiful smile to etch across Elliott’s face. More upturned on one side with his dimples creasing into his cheeks. And at first it seems he’s relaxed himself, especially when he murmurs a playful ’woof’ before his body trembles and a whimper erupts from his lips. “Perhaps I shall carry you?”  
“N-no, no, I can do it, just- God, baby, I’m...I hate to say it, but I don’t think I-I'm close to done?” Elliott manages to get out, his tone breathless, his pupils blown huge when he turns his gaze up to them. Their heart constricts at how helpless he looks, but unfortunately it only turns Bloodhound on further to see him so desperate.  
It’s a bit of a shaky walk back into Bloodhound’s bedroom. Immediately Elliott is flopped onto the bed, the furs cool against his overheated flesh. Bloodhound helps him to strip, removing their own boots and their ruined pants so they may sit in their boyshorts and sports bra with Elliott completely nude.  
Bloodhound’s breath hitches when their eyes fall to his cock, already hard again and pressed against his abdomen. The head was red, flushed and peeking from his foreskin, but what really gets their attention is his balls.  
They’re swollen, almost a handful each rather than as a whole. Gently, Bloodhound rests their cold fingertips over the flesh, their eyes flickering up to watch Elliott as he pants heavily and squirms like a dog in heat. Even going so far as to his hips humping upwards and a heavy glob of pre-cum to bead at the head of his cock.   
Oh, he was getting affected hard.  
Bloodhound had a feeling they wouldn’t be able to walk straight after this.  
Running their fingertips along his cock, Elliott lets out a sound as if they would have been grabbing him fully. Sensitive, it seemed. Bloodhound fights a smile, gently grabbing his cock beneath the head and smearing the pre-cum with their thumb with a soft coo arising from them, ”You are so wet, my love.”  
Elliott makes a strained sound in his throat, his hips thrusting up into their loose grip and sobbing out something incoherent. He’s a mess, panting and starting to look more flushed by the second. And judging by the way his abdomen is tightening, they can only guess how sensitive he was.  
Yes, this was going to be a long session. It appeared the pollen he’d inhaled worked more like a ‘sex pollen’ on him, something that should only effect beasts with outer genitalia that came across the plant. Working like an aphrodisiac, for beasts it made their stamina much longer, including their...their sperm count to be higher, resulting in swollen looking testicles and an insatiable need to breed their mates.  
Bloodhound swallows, their mouth already feeling dry at the idea of Elliott trying to breed them. It makes their thighs press closer together, a shaky breath leaving them as they try to compose themself in order to take care of him.  
They only get to pump his cock a few times before Elliott’s scrambling for them, whimpering about something frantically that sounds a lot like he’s mumbling, “Need to taste you, need you, baby, I need you-” But they can hardly make it out over the sound of their own yelp when he’s flipping them.  
He’s at least got enough coherency to pause when he hooks his fingers around their underwear, waiting until they give their consent before  he‘ s quick to tug their boyshorts off. He sits back between their spread thighs with this starving look in his eyes as they rake across their form. Flustered at the attention and control being tugged out from under them, Bloodhound’s face flushes and a soft growl of his name starts to arise as they bristle and lean up on their elbows.  
“R-right!” He manages to get out, immediately moving to lie on his abdomen, hooking his arms under their powerful thighs and nuzzling at their red curls between their thighs.  
Normally, Elliott was a starving man between their thighs, always a mess of humping the bed and moaning into them as if they tasted divine. And now is no different; His tongue desperately licking up their cunt to their fat, engorged clit, lapping at it and letting his tongue rest just underneath to feel them throb in anticipation.  
It’s with another snarl and Bloodhound’s hand pressing at the back of his head does Elliott wrap his lips around their enlarged clit, suckling how they liked and making their head toss to the side. A moan blossoms from their chest, their hips tilting upwards when his tongue frantically dips down to their hole to lick up the wetness seeping from them. But then he’s pulling back briefly, pressing his nose to their mound just above their clit and inhaling their scent, letting his nose nuzzle at their clit in a way that makes Bloodhound gasp out.  
“You smell so good, baby, can’t get enough-” Elliott is just about moaning into them, his words causing their ears to burn red and for them to bite their bottom lip at the attention. Bloodhound starts to growl out something in reply, maybe for him to focus on his meal rather than speaking, but then he’s continuing with a low voice, “Want to fill you full of pups. Would you like that, puppy? Want to be filled?”  
That...  
That is most certainly new.  
Bloodhound’s body betrays their thoughts when their clit jerks heavily and a fresh wave of slick seeps out of them. Their face burns, their body desperately aching in ways they didn’t think they’d ever experienced before. They can feel their pulse in their clit when Elliott lets out this low moan of appreciation, wrapping his lips around it and moaning into them as if even the thought of breeding them was too much to bear.  
Bloodhound cums in record time, fingers scrabbling to hold Elliott’s hair as huffing, small growls come out with every breath. Their brows are knitted, their head thrown back and full lips parted to pant heavily. They’re almost dizzy from the orgasm, managing to make enough sense to feel Elliott’s fingers pressing into them. Two fingers go in with ease, curling up expertly into their g-spot and making their head throw to the side with a cry of, “Elliott!” Leaving them in a desperate tone.  
“Fuck, yes, keep crying like that, sweetheart.” Elliott’s voice is thick with lust, something they think they’d only ever heard when he was on his knees and woofing like a dog for them.  
To see him- to feel him take control even in a state like this? Bloodhound isn’t too sure how to feel quite yet about their lack of control on him but oh, oh if he keeps  moving  his fingers like that-  
“Good pup, let me stretch out your sweet little cunt so I can breed you so full, you’re gonna feel so good on my cock-” Elliott breathes against them, his tone desperate and tinging on a whine, licking flatly over their clit and making their hips jerk. Bloodhound doesn’t think they can get any redder at this point from his filthy mouth. Even more so when they feel him nuzzle at their mound just to hear him inhale their scent as his fingers curl upwards and fuck into them.  
Their second orgasm comes quick, fit with them snarling and their eyes flashing a glowing red without their permission. Every sense is enhanced, the scent of Elliott, the scent of themself, the feeling of him touching their body, every sound made, their vision black and white and Elliott’s body highlighted in glowing red. The feeling of his fingers pounding into them is almost too much again, a whimper sharply leaving their throat just as Elliott pulls his fingers out and sits up.  
He uses their slick to lubricate his own cock, the sight sending a possessive feeling through their body resulting in a low, rolling snarl. They go to move, to maybe sit up and shove him down, to take back their control that they had lost- but that’s quickly cut off when he’s rolling them onto their abdomen. He’s yanking their hips up until they’re forced to brace their upper body by crossing their arms on a pillow and resting their head on their forearms.  
“Elliott-” They manage to choke out when he’s taking his cock and sliding the head a few times over their lower lips and over their clit. Bloodhound’s body is tensed, feeling the press into them and their mouth falls open to let out a cry when he sinks home into them in one, clean thrust.  
It’s as if Elliott’s body had only enough in of himself to remember foreplay for them before the storm hits. Because he’s grabbing onto their hips, tugging them back in a way he’s never done before, fucking into them with harsh thrusts. His balls, as engorged and heavy as they are, slap forward against them and cause consistent stimulation that has Bloodhound’s nails sinking into their own arms. They move their mouth to press against their own flesh, trying to muffle the pathetic sounds erupting from their chest.  
Normally, they had the control in the bedroom. Even in positions like this, they would talk Elliott through it, call him their dog or how pathetic he sounded. Or ride him and hold their hands over his throat, or yank his hair back and force him to cry out.   
The control they had was for their own comfort, always so nervous to give it up. On the nights Elliott could gently coax them to, it was with gentle words and nudges.  
They...they think they prefer when he just takes it like this.  
There’s no thinking as Elliott fucks into their body. He’s vocal, as always, moaning behind them and filth spilling out of, “Want me to cum inside you, baby?” Which Bloodhound keens in response to without thinking, their hips pressing back into a thrust and that seems to do it.  
Again, in record time, Elliott is cumming. His nails dragging into their thighs until he falls forward to hook his arms around them tightly. He trembles as he cums inside of them, and they quickly figure out that Elliott did in fact get the same results that a beast might. Because they’re feeling fuller...and fuller...and fuller by the second.  
So much so that when Elliott pulls his hips back in the slightest, cum comes spilling out and down their thighs messily. Bloodhound can’t help but lift their hips a bit to their best of ability, peeking down to watch it trail messily down with a low groan.  
It’s when Elliott runs his fingers through it and brings them to Bloodhound’s lips  do  they really think he’s being swayed even further by the pollen. When they don’t immediately take him up on the offering, his fingers grab their long hair into a ponytail, pulling it and effectively making their head come up with a matching snarl erupting from their lips.  
And that’s when they part their lips, allowing for him to smear his cum on their split, pierced tongue with a satisfied groan of, “Good dog.” Cooing from his lips. Fit with his fingers messily dragging down the corner of their mouth as if to smear it on their face.  
From there, it’s a blur. At some point Elliott’s managed to take off Bloodhound’s sports bra to leave them in nothing, moving them around again and again. So many different positions they wind up in- bent over the bed, on top of Elliott and riding him with his hips slamming up into them, to on their side with their leg thrown over his shoulder and their snarling and growling ending up slowly turning to weak moans and cries, their voice growing hoarse. To them riding him again, their arms pulled behind their back and angling their body just so Elliott could fuck up into them like a toy.  
They’ve both cum so many times, Bloodhound’s lost count. Only feeling fuller by the minute, the taste of his cum lingering on their tongue from  every time  he’s shoved his fingers into their mouth eagerly.   
Now Elliott has them with their back to his chest, one arm tossed around his shoulders and one of his own arms tucked around their waist to hold them. His other hand had been grabbing their jaw, forcing them to watch their own shaky body get fucked by him. “Look at you, Houndie, so good for me. My good dog. You're gonna be so cute all swollen, hm?”  
Bloodhound had sobbed out, eyes near about rolling as another weak orgasm wracked their own frame. The visuals and the scent too much, able to watch his fat cock slam into their cunt with their clit engorged and reddened jerking with each contraction. From this angle, they can see how his cock moves inside of them from the slight bump of their lower abdomen, to how messy their thighs are with cum and how strings of it are left connecting them to Elliott’s hips with each messy slap up against them.  
Elliott’s beautiful moans in their ear are low when he scoops up a glob of cum on their thigh, dragging it to Bloodhound’s mouth to smear it all over their tongue again. They obey near instantly, sticking out their tongue to let him do so before swallowing with a whimper. They must do it too soon, because Elliott’s smearing the rest over the corner of their mouth, moving to cup their cheek this time and smearing it over their cheekbone as well.  
“Nngh --” Bloodhound moans out, trying to turn their head to bury it into Elliott’s hair, but he quickly catches their jaw again, forcing them to keep watching as he fucks up into them.  
“That’s it, good dog, take it, take it-” Elliott near about growls out, moving his hand from their jaw when they finally stay put. He moves it to grab at one of their breasts, thumbing a sensitive, pierced nipple just to make their cunt clench weakly. Before he’s splaying his hand out on their abdomen and cooing through desperate little moans, “G- gonna  be the cutest mama.  Gonna  fill you fucking full, baby, make sure you’re full of pups w-with your cute little- ah- cunt--”  
Bloodhound doesn’t think that either of them have any thoughts left. He’s almost frantic to breed them, but there’s something loving about the way he speaks the word ‘mama’. It could almost make them believe the effects were starting to wear off with how tenderly spoken it is.  But,  perhaps that is merely their own secret interest in perhaps having a child with him trying to emerge.  
They must have turned their head, because Elliott’s got his hand back on their jaw to keep them watching. Bloodhound’s breathing so hard, panting and sobbing out by the time Elliott finally cums again. It must have been the twelfth time already, and they’d lost count of even their own.  
He groans so beautifully in their ear, burying his face into their shoulder and clinging to them as he cums. And dutifully, Bloodhound watches as he does, burying himself to the hilt inside of them and watching his balls tighten, how cum dribbles out of them because it’s too much.  
Bloodhound isn’t really too sure at what point they do finally pass out. But they wake up with possibly the most sleep they’d ever had in years, rested, sore, bruised, and...  
Clean?  
They’re still naked, a low groan leaving them as their eyes flutter open. They sit up to find their furs that had been on their bed are gone, possibly gone to be washed, and instead they are curled up in one of Elliott’s blankets that he leaves when their furs become too hot for him. Carefully, they roll to their side as they lie back down, finding said menace of a boyfriend passed out as well and cleaned up.  
He must have had the time to wash them both off before he’d fallen asleep. How thoughtful.  
Carefully moving once again, they scoot closer to Elliott to gently rest a hand on his head. Immediately he makes a soft, moaning sound, rolling over into them so he can wrap their arms around their waist and bury his face into their chest. Resulting in Bloodhound lying back on their back, playing with his hair in the morning light.  
Perhaps they could keep a sampling of the pollen for more...experimentation.  
If Elliott were to be interested in having another six hour long session.  
Bloodhound’s lips flicker up into a small smile as a thought crosses their mind.  
Perhaps Elliott would be interested in actually...trying for a child at some point. He had said he always wanted to be a stay at home father...  
When they hear him snore against their chest, nosing his way back in with a comforted sigh, they can’t help how bright their heart feels at the idea.  
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blastyboisbitch · 4 years ago
Text
Thinking Out Loud || Katsuki Bakugou x Reader
It’s been a while since I’ve written any one shots...be gentle with me ; ^ ; Edit: updated 10/5 after a beta read ~
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Ouch - !”
“I’m so sorry, Y/N!”
For what felt like the hundredth time that night, Izuku apologized, bowing his head low as you sat down on a nearby couch with a sigh to nurse bruised toes hidden beneath your school slippers. “It’s alright. Can we take a break?”
“Yeah, alright…I should watch that video again…” Embarrassed, the verdant haired student mumbled as he drew away to grab a water bottle from the table nearby, his phone already in hand. 
You two had been at it for a couple of hours now with no improvement – on either end. Izuku had clearly stated, even while offering to help you, that he didn’t have any experience. With no other offers at the time (besides Mineta, who was quickly silenced by Sero and Denki), the two of you had hoped that his enthusiasm would make up for the lack of experience. 
Hope seemed futile, however. At least according to your aching feet.
You sat back, stretching your legs out in front of you as you took a long drink from the water you had procured. It was late in the evening and the dorms were quiet as you two sat in the silence, green curtains drawn over the arched picture windows to the darkness of the outdoors. 
“It’s getting late and I know we’ve got class early...but can we give it one more shot?” Izuku might have been even more determined than you were, or maybe at this point it was just that he was just stubborn. “I think I’ve got it now.” Your classmate held up his phone as a ‘waltzing for idiots’ video flashed on the screen, and you nearly choked on your water.
“Alright. Once more and then we’ll call it a night.” Trying to act appreciative, you just barely stifled a wince when you stood to join him.
Hesitantly, Izuku’s scarred right hand gently tucked itself just below your left shoulder blade, and the left found its place cupping your right hand while partially extended from your bodies. His palms weren’t sweaty, thankfully, but their clamminess was not exactly the most pleasant.
“At least it wasn’t Mineta.”
Even stranger was the fact that not once while he was holding you had he made eye contact through the entire ordeal. Every time you looked to try and catch his gaze, his wide green eyes were consistently focusing on where his feet were. Izuku was determined to do things exactly as it was shown in his video – and it was killing your feet.
Everything seemed to line up perfectly while the two of you were still, and even into his first step forward with his left foot and your first step back with your right this time. But after that, everything fell apart. Into the second step and partial turn, Izuku’s right heel caught your ankle and effectively stopped his rotation, causing the both of you to trip as you moved to swing toward him.
For all the times you didn’t end up sitting on the floor, it was the last one that did you both in. Izuku released his hold on your torso and hand on the way down in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent you from falling with him. You couldn’t help the exhausted groan that slid past your lips, pinching the bridge of your nose with your free hand. Your classmate was quick to untangle his legs once he realized what happened – again – and once more he apologized profusely, obviously upset over the blunder.
“Maybe Mineta wouldn’t have two left feet…”
“What the hell are you extras doing?” 
You shook yourself of the idea of even allowing the other student near you, just in time for your attention to be drawn to the doorway. Fresh from pro-hero training it appeared, Katsuki casually leaned against the door frame with his bag draped over his shoulder. How long had he been there?
“K-Kaachan!” Izuku stuttered, shocked by the sudden appearance of his ‘friend’. On a typical day, it wasn’t uncommon for the blonde to already be sleeping within the confines of his dorm room. “W-we were just…Y/N asked for help -”
“Dancing. Ballroom waltz, to be specific.” You finished the sentence that Izuku was caught up in, brushing a hand through your hair as you watched him carefully.
Carmine colored eyes darted from Izuku – who’s hand was at the back of his neck as he stood, mumbling to himself - to you. You felt the heat rise in your cheeks when his gaze refused to falter, and you looked away first, closing your eyes and leaning forward onto one knee. You knew it was bad, but bad enough for Katsuki to call it out? 
“Tch. You call that a waltz?” You looked back once more to him at the call out, preparing for what would probably become an argument. But as you did, you could have sworn a shadow of curiosity and questioning graced sharp features, before being masked once more with nonchalance and indifference.
“My oldest brother is marrying his partner in a few weeks…” You didn’t owe Katsuki an explanation. Yes, he was your classmate. But in your mutual - and final - year at UA after you transferred into the hero course, you’d had very few actual interactions with the explosive man. He was always too busy, for everything and everyone except himself, it seemed. At least you might look like less of an idiot if you tried.
“Our mom died a few years back. She can’t be there, but I can, and I wanted to make sure he could still have his “mother”-son dance…” You’d planned the surprise with the help of your soon to be brother-in-law, right down to the last detail - the slideshow of old videos playing in the background, the song, everything - except for how you were going to learn how to do a simple waltz in a matter of weeks.
Your line of sight dropped back down to your slippers, and you smiled. One way or another, you’d figure it out. Right? And worst case scenario, you’d make a fool of yourself in front of your family who already knew you well enough that it didn’t matter. It looked like that was going to be the case.
Nearby, Izuku fisted his phone in one hand, stepping forward to attempt to apologize – but the sound of a school bag, heavy with god-only-knew-what, hitting the hardwood floor caught you both off-guard.
You looked back up to find Katsuki rolling up his long sleeves even as he glared your direction. 
“Wait, what are you doing?” You raised an eyebrow and stared incredulously as he stepped up to you, extending a hand to help you up from the floor. 
“Tch…dumbass, do you want to learn, or not?!” Your feet were sore. You were exhausted, not just with the failure, but just with life in general. And here was Katsuki-fucking-Bakugou – one of the big three of UA - offering to teach you how to waltz.
You took his hand willingly, a heady combination of burnt sugar and spice filling your senses as he pulled you up in one swift movement. His touch was firmer than Izuku’s, an absolute confidence that the other didn’t have. You had little time to protest as your face was suddenly only inches away from his broad chest, warm hands taking the same positions that his classmate’s had been before - beneath your left shoulder blade and cupping your right hand extended from your bodies. Involuntarily, your free hand caught his shoulder, and the muscle beneath his shirt tensed with the sudden contact.
“That shitty nerd wouldn’t know the first thing about how to dance if his life depended on it,” Katsuki remarked, flashing an annoyed glance over to Izuku standing nearby and fumbling with his phone at his friend’s remarks. He didn’t contest what they all knew, an embarrassed smile crossing his face. But at least he’d tried, right?
“It’s ok Izuku. Thank you for trying to help!” At the very least, you were appreciative that he had tried. That was what mattered in the long run, right? Taking it as his cue to leave, the green-haired male removed himself from the room, and left the two of you to your devices.
For all of the piss and vinegar that seemed to be the outer layer that was Katsuki Bakugou, the coming weeks proved that there was more to him than met the eye. Harsh words and sweaty, long practice sessions into the dead of the night - some even outside in the cool, damp grass when the dorm was occupied - gave way to unexpectedly gentle touches as he first taught you how to follow, and then to lead – a secret kept between the two of you, because what man in their right mind would allow a woman to lead.
It’d come out fairly early into your sessions that not only had his mother had him take music lessons as a child, but also dance lessons. And if there was one thing Katsuki was good at, it was excelling at everything he did. He would be the best, regardless of the task, because that was who he was. Ballroom waltz? It was the easiest thing in the book, as he berated you for not knowing even the basic steps. With a partner who knew what they were doing however, it was much easier for you to get past those first two steps and move on to the more complicated ones.
At first, you thought you felt nervous around him. Your hands shook with every touch; your voice, trembling against every order you mentally gave yourself not to. And to say your stomach was in knots wasn’t even close to describing how excessively anxious you were. But it swiftly morphed into something more behind your back - stolen smiles behind closed doors, laughing together in private over the stupidest things that didn’t involve dancing, and praise just when you needed it most. You soon found that you couldn’t help that every heartbeat felt like an explosion when you were with him. An unkind metaphor, you found yourself thinking.
The day of your brother’s wedding came quicker than anticipated. You were a bundle of nerves once more, dolled up for the occasion - but despite that, you were more than confident when you finally walked out onto that ballroom floor. You’d only had a few chances to dance with your brother in the few days leading up, passing it off as just wanting to practice for his first dance with his partner. Every lie told was worth it in the end when the videos that came on in the background left the poor groom a sobbing mess. ‘Awe’s’ and applause filled the room as you led your brother a bit slower than your normal pace with Katsuki, unable to hide the smile that graced your face as you caught sight of your plus-one for the evening with the biggest shit-eating-grin, right up in front of the crowd – observing his hard work paying off.
By the time it was said and done, you and your sibling were both a sobbing mess, the woman smiling down from the enlarged video on the white screen nearly your spitting image. It was all surreal, in a sense. After receiving long hugs from both your sibling and his partner, you left them to do their thing, joining your own ‘partner’ off to the side. You couldn’t stop smiling. And it was contagious.
“See. You did fine, idiot.” Katsuki didn’t often smile in public, but with his hands in his pockets, he praised you in his own way, glancing back out to your family and then bringing his attention back to you.
“I couldn’t have done it without you, ‘Tsukii.” Using a napkin, you carefully dabbed at your under eyes, hoping to remove the last traces of any smudged makeup. “You know, you’d make a good teacher for UA, someday.”
In the dim lighting it was hard to tell, but you swore that there was a pink-tinge to his cheeks as he brushed your compliment aside.
“Tch...stop talking nonsense, dumbass.” You couldn’t help but grin at him while tucking the napkin in your hand into a pocket to dispose of later, before boldly slipping a hand into his pocket to lace your fingers through his. He flinched but didn’t push you away – instead, holding the hand you’d given him a bit tighter as his gaze focused away from the situation at hand.
After a moment of standing there together, watching as others began celebrating the new union, you squeezed Katsuki’s hand gently. “We should show them how it’s done.” It wasn’t a question, or a request. It was a statement.
One that he eagerly took you up on as you pulled him out onto the dance floor.
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imnotoverlyobsessive · 3 years ago
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Lost in Translation: Author’s Note
PART ONE PART TWO PART THREE AUTHOR’S NOTE TRANSLATIONS ON AO3
Yes, I know it’s OOC. I hope you like it anyway, but if you don’t, please do keep in mind that I originally wrote it for my eyes only, and possibly a couple of friends.
It has, like, half of the kinks I have.
Yes, I’m aware it’s prolly the most graphic smut in this fairly tiny fandom. You’re fucking welcome.
It’s overdramatic. I’m aware of this. I love drama.
It is indeed an AU! For one, he’s six years older than her instead of just three, and obviously the plot goes differently. She’s thinking that, for him, it’s more of a marriage of convenience, albeit one that takes place because he cares for her and her family and doesn’t feel comfortable leaving all of them without a surefire way of them being cared for. She’s assuming that he simply doesn’t trust Fred to take care of her and be good to her and take care of her family, and while she’s correct in that, he also proposes because he’s in love with her. He’s just not super communicative of that fact.
Some of the clothing-related stuff I have here is from what I recall from my costume design class, in which we studied clothing styles from many different time periods (what types of bustles were popular and when, that sort of thing), and for the rest is from research on the clothing of the time, which is 1870.
I didn’t mean to write a The Notebook style ending. It just happened. I make no apologies.
Laurie lives until the age of 89, dying in 1933. Amy dies a few months later at the age of 83. And before anyone questions if just saying “peace out, I’m done” and dying is something people actually do when their spouse dies, let me assure you that it absolutely is. It happened to my great-grandmother. When you’ve spent the vast majority of your life with somebody, so long that you cannot remember what life was like without them, sometimes life is no longer something you’re interested in. I’m not saying Amy committed suicide. She didn’t. I’m saying she was like, “alright, I’m good, see you bitches on the other side”, went to bed, and that was that.
They weren’t really all that affected by the Great Depression, because fuck you that’s why.
Yes, I know that canonically, they had one child. This is because Alcott died unmarried in 1888, and therefore very likely had little to know knowledge of sex. Women were not educated on sex hardly at all, and what they were told was on the eve of their wedding, if my understanding is correct. Therefore, she wouldn’t have known that two people in love would want to have a lot of sex, and since, at the time, most people didn’t use birth control, they’d probably have a fair number of kids. After six, Laurie started pulling out, at least until Amy hit menopause. And, yeah, they continued having sex even after menopause. My grandparents had sex right up until my granny died at the age of 77, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they continued until their health started failing.
Yes, Amy was a vocal supporter of women’s suffrage and the early African-American rights movement. Laurie was a vocal supporter of the latter as well, and the former he was mostly like, “if you think women should vote, I’ll trust your judgment” because he pretty much accepted anything and everything she said cause boy was w h i p p e d
Idk how much Italian Laurie would know, if any, but kids learn languages ridiculously fast, so as long as he learned it consistently from a fairly early age, he probably still knows most of it. Especially if he used it regularly, which, in New York and traveled Europe, he probably did.
A little about the sex. So, some PSA’s: pee after having penetrative sex, regardless of what type of genitalia you have! Vagina-havers especially, but penis-havers should, too! Sex isn’t supposed to hurt, and hymens aren’t really that big of a deal. I think a tampon broke mine, if I had one at all, and my childhood best friend broke hers at the age of eight while horseback riding. If Amy was born with one (which not everyone is), she probably broke it at a fairly young age from some strenuous activity or other. Now, sex can hurt under specific circumstances. Sometimes there’s a medical condition, so if you’re having regular pain, see a doctor. If you’re having bleeding, see a doctor. What is normal is pain if there’s not enough lubricant, natural or otherwise. Not all vaginas produce a lot of lubricant, and that’s totally fine. She does here cause it’s easier to write that way, but like. A lot of people just don’t produce much no matter how aroused they are, and there’s nothing wrong with you if that’s the case. Don’t let anybody tell you different. Now, it’s also normal to have some muscular pain the first couple of times you have sex, or even if it’s been awhile. This isn’t necessarily a “loss of virginity” thing, but more of (as I understand it) a muscle memory thing. The vagina just has to learn and adapt, that’s all. I strongly suspect that that and the lube issue are where the whole “pain of losing virginity” came from. It’s a little difficult for Amy because she hasn’t had much of anything up there, so it takes her a few minutes to adjust. What she experiences here is almost exactly like my first experience with PIV sex. Not everyone can orgasm during penetration, or even likes orgasming during penetration, and that’s okay. Whatever your preferences are for sex, there’s nothing wrong with you.
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crazycookiemaniac · 4 years ago
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Omg why are you losing so many followers youve been drawing gay shit for forever??? (Or maybe i as a gay was just interpreting it that way)
Because I literally spammed people every day for one week lmao. And also, a lot of people follow others for specific content. The moment I stop drawing that exact thing they followed me for, they unfollow me. There are also accounts that follow just to make you follow them & if you don’t, they unfollow you after a while. There’s people who followed me for haikyuu & weren’t interested in BC content, and there were people who followed me for BC content but got showered in gay art instead and that was not their cuppa tea. 
But mostly, i start appearing on people’s feed the more I post. So having me post incessantly for one week made me show up on feeds that I hadn’t shown up for  a good while, so there were probably people who forgot they had followed me in the first place & me posting was a reminder to unfollow.
Truthfully, follower counts are dumb. Yes, it is important for you to have a high follower count for you to get attention, but the amount of people actually following you if you don’t have a consistent art style & rarely ever post something with different vibes than your usual ones, is equal or less than 1% of your total amount of following.
My instagram tells me I have 43k. I do not have 43k people following me. I’ve had 43k that once saw my account & pressed the follow button, but their feeds are filled up with other people’s accs that interest them more than mine (as well as my own feed does not show all the content of the 200+ something people I follow, unless I scroll down till the depths of hell to find every single post on that day and then do so on the next day as well).
Essentially, 95% of your followers are there because of content. They want to see what entertains them. Most of them don’t care about the artist and don’t interact with them at all. Many of them are scared to, given the high follower count. Social media & big accounts make people forget that there are other, real, living & breathing people that are behind them all.
So, to many, I was just a random artist they found and “lol”ed at one of my comics & pressed follow without thinking about it. Most of them don’t go to my account and see all other art I’ve posted to see if they actually like what I do, or me as a person and as an artist at all.
People who don’t know this get really discouraged when they don’t earn a lot of followers, or when they lose a lot (like I did). And some people think you gotta have hundreds of thousands to be famous. I’ve seen accs going around that paid for ads, that had over 150k followers and less than 1k likes on their posts.
Truly famous, loved, growing and/or steady accounts have an amount of likes per post proportional to their follower count. For example, if someone has 150k followers, most of their posts will vary from 20k to 100k likes.
When I was growing my account because I hopped in the fandom bandwagon and stupid little me didn’t know that would only make me crash later, I had like 20~30k and some of my posts reached more than 20k likes (because people liked my stupid comics). Nowadays, I’m not part of the fandom that made me grow anymore. I’m part of a very underrated one (Black Clover), as well a I am drawing a very underrated ship (LuGna) that above all else is getting hated on. I have everything against me in this, so it’s no wonder I lost so many followers.
They didn’t wanna see gay art. They didn’t wanna see Black Clover. They didn’t even know what the fuck was going on. Not everyone paid attention or kept up with my warnings. Despite me explaining multiple times in multiple posts what the Thunder Flames project was about, a lot of people still didn’t know what I was doing that for.
The thing about being a big follower count is that, unless you’re actually loved for what you do (and to do that, once again, I need to emphasize that you need to keep a steady rhythm, a steady vibe, a steady you. Because people follow you for your first impression on them, and you gotta keep up to that first impression if you wanna keep your followers.
I’m unsteady. One look at my gallery and you’ll see how disorganized everything is. Oh, lookit, a 1 min speedpaint of a random drawing I did on an old piece of paper! And right on the left there’s a stupid random comic I did–on the right there’s this super detailed, shaded drawing I’ve done that actually looks terrible to me and I will 100% archive it later, and then there’s B&W mixed with gray shaded, flat colored and fully shaded characters of different fandoms + OCs from commissions and whatever else. 
The thing is, I made my follower count based on a fandom, and now that I’m not there most of that follower count does not have me on their feed. And most of them do not want me on their feed. Now, I’m trying to build a follower count for who I am as an artist, because the few people who have actually stayed and followed me throughout the years know how inconsistent I am in terms of art style, fandoms and everything else.
A solution to this would me either keep creating/posting the same thing all over again (just in different patterns), or creating original content (which I do plan on doing at some point). But for now? Since my follower count does absolutely not reflect on how many people actually like me and/or my art, I’m going to be as chaotic as fucking ever and do whatever the fuck I want.
So yes, I do find it comical that I lost 1k followers over this and am not fazed in the very least, especially because I literally foreshadowed losing 1k and hit the fucking jackpot.
The only reason I’m talking about this at all is because 1- it’s impossible not to notice my follower count decreasing, especially because every new 1k I thank people publicly through stories; 2- some people were actually worried I was upset over it and I have to 3- show that I am not, while simultaneously trying to show people that just because you’re losing followers doesn’t mean you have to stop doing what you want to create content to please people. It doesn’t mean you should be upset, and it doesn’t mean that what you’re doing is bad or wrong.
It means you’re fucking renewing your followers & you’ll now grow for what you’re trying to grow for, bitch. That’s what it’s all about.
Obviously, people do take a great risk doing this. I am taking a great risk doing this. I could’ve lost 5k, I could’ve lost 10k. But I only lost 1k! And that’s because I believe in the project I worked on; I knew there were people out there who enjoyed what I was doing and it’s on them that I was focused on. On the people who supported me AND my art, not just that one single funny comic post I did 3 years ago.
This answer is 100% a lot longer than what you could’ve possibly expected for and I am typing this while being awake for more than 24h so I’m sure that I’ve repeated myself a lot and that there are a lotta typos or w/e and I apologize for that!! But I’m too lazy to go back to read everything over & turn this into a neat post & I’m pretty sure I could answer your question in the first paragraph.
Oh and also. Yes. Yes I have been drawing gay shit ever since I’ve become an artist because I’m so fucking pissed at the lack of canon gay content in a way that it’s depicted as a normal fucking romantic couple instead of having eeeeeeeeveryone point their finger to the gay couple and scream “HEY THAT’S GAY!!! THIS CAN’T BE PART OF THIS VERY HETEROSEXUAL SHOW WHERE EVERYONE IS OBVIOUSLY HETEROSEXUAL EVEN THOUGH NONE OF THE CHARACTERS HAVE EVER SAID THAT EXPLICITLY BECAUSE WE KNOW THAT THE CREATORS ARE EITHER HETEROSEXUAL OR TOO AFRAID TO LOSE AUDIENCE IF THEY TREAT GAY PEOPLE AS NORMAL PEOPLE!??!! WHAT SORT OF ABSURD NONSENSE IS THAT??!! GAY PEOPLE AREN’T NORMAL!! THEY’RE GAY AND THEY SHOULD HAVE A GAY SHOW JUST FOR THEM IF THEY WANNA GET SCREENTIME” and yadda yadda yadda.
I’m tired of this bullshit. Ever since I was an artist I’ve been rooting for gay ships in shonen manga while knowing they would never happen just because they were gay, and now that we are in our Blessed-By-Satan, Pandemic-Chaotic, What-The-Fuck-Is-Going-On, We-Don’t-Know-If-We-Wanna-Go-Back-Or-To-The-Future-Or-Just-IDK-Fucking-Die year 2020, in which the LGBT community is thriving and being louder than ever to fight for our rights, Me, in my twenty four years of fucking age, having gone through several fucking disappointments ONLY regarding this matter, am sitting here on my ass, hopeful as all galactic, glittery shit that for some fucking reason, my new OTP formed by very underrated characters from this very underrated franchise in the southern and western communities, becomes canon because my stupid eyes can see chemistry between them even though those stupid haters’ can’t. But that’s because they’re stupid and homophobic, and they really should just shut the fuck up. I don’t wanna dream, I want to believe. Let a bitch pray in peace.
But even if I’m getting ready for disappointment, I’m gonna make this project happen and I’m gonna have a shit ton of artbooks from this Thunder Flames project inside my fucking garage if no one wants to buy them. But I am going to invest a shit ton of money in it and I am going to have these artbooks come to life. Because I am spiteful and petty and homophobes should shut the fuck up, and I wanna do what I wanna do bc as an independent artist, I’m building my future with my own two, very toned and buff by now from all the drawing I did, hands. 
God fucking damn it.
Jesus christ I’m just rambling at this point, I’m so sorry. If anyone ever reads this out of context people are going to be so confused.
But that’s fine. They won’t. You know why? Cuz I got almost 11k followers here on tumblr but less than 0.5% gives a shit that I’m here, so I’m safe.
Have a nice day, drink your water and fuck homophobes. Peace
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tangerinegod · 4 years ago
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Hello! I am sorry to bother you but I am a senior getting ready for college this year. I am in the US and I wanted to major in the same thing you did, do you have any possible tips for me? I still haven't even looked for colleges that would be best for animation majors so I figured if you were up to giving out any tips/saying any basic ideas if you wanted to/if you had the time to then maybe I'll have a better idea! I apologise for if I sound weird! I'm tried to word it correctly but I can't 😿
hi!! i’m totally down to share my experiences! someone else also had some questions so i’m going to put them all together in this post haha, hopefully this helps! it’ll get pretty long so apologies ahead of time but art school is a lot to think about so i wanna be as helpful as i can around it, its a lot of time and money. I’m gonna put it all under a read more cus it is really really long!
i wanna start off with the fact that I had the privilege of attending school in a financially stable environment, my parents were/are really supportive so w merit scholarship i only came out with around 20-30k in debt and i also had housing support my entire time in school. they were ok with me focusing on academics so i didn’t hold a retail job unless i was out of school like summer/winter break. Ofc though i regularly take commissions/do merch/cons to try and pay for all bills that arent rent cus i did want to be financially independent where it was possible. I also did try and work during the semester but everytime i did my body would deff start to breakdown from the fact that i didnt wanna compromise schoolwork with jobs.. so just read ahead know this experience is from a student who was able to attend focusing only on school work for most of the time!
the biggest thing is knowing art school is not required to become a professional in either freelancing or industry! there are a huuuge amount of online tools and classes these days that provide the exact same education and for cheaper too. i think it depends on what experience you prefer/can handle/want but it’s definitely possible to make art/animation art your living without higher education. the thing that college will for sure give you though is the ability to meet deadlines, work even when you dont want to, and connections with peers+teachers. i think the connections part is invaluable because you’re basically coming out with a network of people you already know and who know you! 
also its good to know if you want to attend/can handle art school! it’s a lot of time and energy and students get burned out really fast. the best piece of advice i got before going was ‘if you draw every single day, even if its for only like 5-10 minutes or a doodle for a whole year you should be fine’ consistency is super key because you’re attending school to draw, and you’ll have to create work for stuff you aren’t excited for at some point or another. burnout is extremely real and the only reason i didn’t experience it was probably because i got super into drawing naruto fanart again inbetween sophomore and junior year! it helped give me something to draw seperated from school which is the only thing i was drawing for since i had entered rip. a heads up id also consider myself a workaholic so i fit in ok with the ‘art school’ environment but it is suuper unhealthy. if you are fantastic at managing your schedule then it’s definitely possible to take care of yourself! freshman year i got 8 hours a sleep a night and only pulled all nighters for some second semester finals at the end. sophomore year + up though i ended up prioritizing hw over sleep and like for sure, definitely shortened my life span. there’s another q down below where i’ll go more into detail but ya, be careful w ur work balance!
another tip especially for animation is knowing for a fact what type of animation you’re looking to go into, and what the school is offering. I didn’t think i’d get into art school at the time so i only applied to two places + decided if i didnt get into either id attend community to get credits out of the way while building portfolio. honestly? i did not do a lot of research LOL but like i did end up having the chance to tour and stuff! just know that each school will have a very different curriculum. The main differences are schools that prioritize 3D (cg animation, cg modeling, ect) and 2D/traditional (hand drawn, ‘oldschool’, digital or traditional based) this is a huge difference so make sure you do research for it! in most cases a 2D/traditional program will also offer 3D since it’s at the forefront of the industry animation wise rn. My school taught 2D but like hand drawn on physical paper 2D, frame by frame. while it was a good experience it’s super outdated because digital tools make it way faster + easier! i’d recommend looking for a program that is digital 2D over traditional 2D. 
if after your senior year covid is still affecting campuses in the US to keep them shut down i’d recommend attending a community college to get credits and then transferring into school. one of the negatives is paying money for gened classes when ur not there for them; if you can get them out of the way sooner and cheaper there is absolutely no negative + you could graduate earlier or use the extra time for better work or to work a job! 
these are all the general tips i think i’d give on like a broad basis of attending or not to think about? let me know if u have more q’s! someone asked q’s im answering below that go more into personal experiences + work culture so heres those:
- how many hours a week do u spend studying, in class, otherwise making art? like how much of ur life does it consume?
I was basically working on art.... 24/7! since i wasnt working a job at the same time i crammed as many credits as possible into my schedule so on avg i did 18 credit semesters (around 6 classes) art classes go for 6 hours and non art go for 3, so i’d spent around 30-35 hours in class a week! hw wise it varied on the class but combined it would be around 35-50 hours a week... im guessing? on average studio classes would have 8-10 hours of hw, maybe 5 for a light week, and gened classes 5 hours w them all combined. or this was probably how things were before junior year? junior+senior year i had thesis + everything else ontop.. i’d spend around 30-40 hours on thesis a week with other classes ontop of that bc my film was super long cus im a dummy! 
- is it hard going to art school n realising that altho u were probably quite talented… so is everyone else? Like. all of a sudden. ur not special and everyone seems as good as u, you know? More generally, how do u deal with comparison?
kinda?? i think instead of the idea of like you vs others it feels more of like a competition at first to be the best. this varies hugely on school culture though; my animation year was really friendly with each other and get along extremely well, so my answer to this is v different than some others who attended different schools. i think that the idea of ‘comparison’ only lasts a portion of the first year because at some point you realize that it’s not a who’s better as much as its a ‘these are my coworkers’ type thing? like healthy competition 100% because we’re all working to improve but i think most of us learned pretty early on that viewing each other as peers going into the same workforce helped a lot. also at some point everyone develops their own style/starts to develop their artistic preferences so there isn’t a way to compare whos 'better’ anymore? i dont think there ever is tbh because style is appealing based off of an individuals preferences. If anything realizing everyone else is also amazing makes you wanna work harder ig? or thats how i felt! it’s inspiring to be surrounded by so many people who create such amazing work. 
- is there a lot of workaholic culture? all nighter culture?
100000% there can be a workaholic and all nighter culture. i know people who avoided it and thats honestly fantastic because i fall super easily into that pit. sometimes i’ll pull all nighters on a personal project just because i really want to finish it... i am definitely considered a workaholic all the way through and its not healthy rip... i’d estimate at the worst i was pulling 2-3 all nighters a week and only 4-5 hours of sleep on the nights i didn’t? that was only for one year tho, after that i was like yeah ok this is really bad for my health in the long run LOL so i tried to cut it down to one all nighter a week and around 5-6 hours of sleep the rest of the week! by senior year my decision to cram in full semesters paid off and i was able to consistently get around 7 hours of sleep a night + no all nighters minus finals since my schedule was lighter despite thesis 😭 while there is that culture i don’t think people view it as like a badge of honor or something to be proud of anymore which is good, we mostly view it as a flaw of the art school system and something that needs to be fixed!!
- are you glad u did it? how did u know it was what u wanted?
i am glad i did it! i’m definitely in a limbo right now of if it was worth both my time, money, and my parents money rip but i think with what i got out of it i definitely wouldn’t be as far skill wise or knowledge wise when it comes to the art industry. i would say it was only worth it for be because i had so much support going in though so i was able to focus so much on improving. if i had only been able to put in part of the effort and not make full use of the resources provided i would honestly have a different answer.. 
i knew it was what i wanted when i realized i really couldn’t see myself pursuing a different profession happily! despite all the bumps and stuff im fully in love with drawing still and feel honored that it’s a field that can provide a living. my second profession choice was to go into culinary school? and third option i think going was into music cus i was also a band kid hehe.  
- how do u cope with ur hobby becoming ur job? how do u deal with art going from something u do for fun to something u do on command constantly?
i think seperating work art from personal art is important! in my case im doubling naruto into being personal work so i have something to fall back onto that isn’t work related. its been a hyperfixation for 12+ years? so drawing it at this point is just like personal art imo. some people have hobbies outside of art and only draw for their job! i think after attending classes for so long the idea of hobby turning into job feels extremely natural? also i enjoy doing it so thats a huge plus! 
sorry this is SO long but i hope i answered your guys’ questions! if you have more just lmk!
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embidoesocrp · 5 years ago
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Comprehensive RP Standards & Rules
Please Note: If I’m slow or unable to reply, there’s likely a very good reason behind it (ie. mental illness/lack of spoons, inability to get into character, personal matters, etc). All I ask is that you’re patient and understanding -- we’re only human after all! You can even occasionally inquire updates from my end since I do care about keeping both of us up-to-date. Thanks for understanding!
RP Standards & Guidelines
This RPer is friendly/practices [unless otherwise stated] towards the following:
OCs and muses
Multi-verse & AU’s (unless otherwise stated or specified in RP Blog descriptions)
Smut/SRP, NSFW, Fluff, Dark/Triggering content
Trigger Warnings will be tagged respectively -- please notify the mun if you’d like a TW tagged on a post!
SRP will be censored via Read-More Feature
Multi-ships – both platonically & romantically; Canon×OCs are welcome!
by default, i make ships strictly tied to a respective relationship sub-verse tag -- main verses are usually left without a permanent relationship.
because the mun welcomes almost all kinds of ships (albeit depending on the fandom), be sure to check for respective ship tags in order to blacklist appropriately for those you do not like!
Chemistry/Relations between muses = RP/Interacting with each other
This way, I’m able to get a feel for how you portray your muses, and can determine whether or not there’s compatibility. This also helps me understand you as an RPer, too!
regardless of muses being canon or OC’s, please consider having some chemistry (interactions/threads) done before trying to ship with my muses!
As much as I advocate having All the Ships™, jumping straight into ships without getting a feel of your muse(s) makes it difficult for me to get into them. (´・ω・`) Apologies about that!
pre-plotted/pre-existing relationships will require that we’ve RP’d together enough for me to get a feel of your RP style, especially with OC’s.
canon characters & their canonical history/relations are assumed to be their default and are thus taken into consideration unless circumstances (i.e. AU’s, verses, etc.) state otherwise
regardless, i would still highly recommend we interact with each other enough so that I get a feel of your portrayal!
Format Leniency™ w/ icons, rp length and formatting as well as script-style and paragraph-style RPing (link for info on ‘em) 
script-style/in-character RPing for me will always be in third-person for action
basically, you are absolutely free to follow your own kind of format, and are not obligated to follow the length/format that I use so long as I have something to work with!
Getting referenced/mentioned/involved in other RP threads (IT’D BE AN HONOR.) 
muses that I refer to for specific circumstances (i.e. events from a thread, sub-verses, etc.) will be @mentioned on my part.
‘Read-More’ Censorship – for SRP, spoiler content, extreme gore [on a (N)SFW labeled blog], & long posts
Aged-up versions of fictional characters who are originally/canonically no younger than 14 years old.
I am perfectly, absolutely aware of the fine lines over aging up fictional minors for smut content and will admit that I am perfectly fine/understanding towards RPing such things—so long as it applies to the 14+)—while also fully understanding the controversy it brings.
Aged-up characters or verses that I RP/provide are never intentionally or solely made for smut/SRP content, nor will they ever be.
There’s a good chance that any of my originally/canonically minor teenager whose blog is labeled 18+ may imply an aged-up verse for SRP content. Hopefully, this will help determine if you should be wary of these blogs of mine!
If all else fails, you are absolutely allowed to politely and respectfully ask if there is an aged-up verse with potential SRP content! This way, you can blacklist appropriately.
RP Blogs with smut content will always be labeled accordingly
Rule of Thumb on Age Gaps for Ships: no more than 2 years between minors with 18-year olds, and 3 years between muses aged 18-20 years old with 21+.
Even then, minor×adult SRP/smut is PROHIBITED.
Both muns must take/understand necessary precautions when involving aged-up fictional characters or minor muses, consider any adjustments that may be needed, and must be both adults (18+). 
Of course, if you yourself actually condone pedophilia, I will block you.
This RPer is against/does not practice the following:
Godmodding Rude/Excessive reminders to reply to thread Complaints of unreplied/dropped threads
Engaging in SRP content with minors – will be blocked upon discovery
doesn’t include engaging in SFW content, but once you are blocked you’re unable to interact with me at all
I do not condone pedophilia and RP smut with RPers who are minors.
Reblog Karma – you are not obligated/required to send an ask in exchange for its respective inbox meme; feel free to reblog any memes from me!
If you, however, do practice reblog karma and I reblog without sending something in, though, please let me know!
Likewise, if you prefer people reblogging from the source and not you, please let me know if I ever do as such! I am a very forgetful bun.
Hate mail/anons in any shape or form (ie. suicide instigation, death threats, cyber-bullying)
Hate/‘Phobias’ towards any gender
Soft-blocks — you’re either permanently blocked or not, so be sure to act accordingly.
If for any reason I have blocked you by mistake or under a misunderstanding, I will either unblock or consider unblocking.
Likewise, if you have soft-blocked me for any reason and I, for some reason, somehow, still get to you, you have every right to let me know that I’ve made you uncomfortable and request that I no longer interact with you! (And if it still persists because I can be one hell of a forgetful bun, do remember that you have the right to permanently block me, I understand!)
I’m honestly still trying to understand these soft-block mechanics, if I’m honest...
Racism, Discrimination, Witch Hunts/Call-Out posts — being actively involved in one will automatically be an unfollow & potential block from me.
Pressure regarding thread replies/involvement in drama/desired content
Mutuals-Only interactions
More often than not, my RP blogs may be side-blogs to a main hub (especially if I’m RPing more than one muse in a fandom). Please be sure to check if they are! They’ll usually be mentioned in the descriptions of the blog.
If you are a mutuals-exclusive RPer, please let me know!
Outside Reblogs on RP Threads — Unless you are the RPer(s) involved, DO NOT REBLOG the thread.
Liking & commenting the post is okay for me. HOWEVER, please also respect what rules & policies the other RPer(s) may have! They have the right to react accordingly on their part.
This RPer has the rights towards the following:
Not expanding on ask-response replies
Refusing to start/continue a thread for any particular reason
Dropping a thread for any particular reason (especially when it feels that there isn’t much to continue on in it)
Giving more attention to some threads than others
Being finicky between doing legitimate RP threads vs. casually being IC
Being finicky with social interactions between individuals
Not becoming mutuals
Other Universal Standards & Guidelines
Dash Organization > Mutuals-Exclusive Practices
Follows & Mutuals =/= Interaction Privileges --- for me, follows are a means of controlling the content on my dash, not an indication of whether or not I want us to interact!
Depending on the blog’s popularity, RP blogs may or may not be fandom-restricted (interactions exclusive to canon/-versed/-oriented muses/OCs), unless exceptions for particular individuals are granted.
Multi-Muse Blogs are less likely to be followed (which might also be highly dependent on blog’s popularity) for dash content organization, especially if the muses extend across multiple fandoms.
Interactions > Reading Rules/Following when it comes to receiving a follow from me as it again depends on how often we interact.
Individual RP Blogs can and will have their own, more specific guidelines to follow depending on its fandom/popularity! 
 Policies can usually be found at the top of the blog’s description, listing what the blog consists of and what content is followed/allowed/restricted.
These policies can and will overrule respective universal policies here.
RP & Liked Content =/= Morals & What I Condone
Likewise, even if there are ships/morals/opinions that do not match with mine, it’s just as the saying goes: to each their own. So long as conflicts do not rise, we can still interact! People can like different things and still be nice to each other. God, I can’t stress this enough.
“I find that, for me, the work is a safe place to put all the stuff you don't want to put in your real life. I don't want to be a crazy, manic asshole. I don't want to have an affair. I don't want to have a fucking gunfight. But! There's a part of your brain that wants to experience everything, and so work's a safe place to explore it all. Both in the writing and in the performing. I get to write about an affair. I get to have the guilt and the feeling of that without having to fuck my life up. [laughs] Art is the place to safely explore all those other sides of you, because the side you want to bring home is the side that wants to be a good father and be a good husband and be a good son. In art we can be fucking nuts.” -- Lin-Manuel Miranda [ x ]
Muse =/= Mun
Rule of Thumb: if the muse’s behavior is beginning to come on too strongly, chances are that I’m fully aware of this and will most likely show it via tags!
Tag Commentary — you are absolutely free to not provide OOC commentary in the tags, especially if you are an IC blog. This just helps show who I am as a mun!
Level of Investment = Thread Priorities & Muse Activity
I, unfortunately, am inspirationally-driven when it comes to my musings, and can therefore be selective with my activity or drop threads I’m unable to continue having a musing for. However, this does not mean I have anything against you, it’s just how my fuel for RPing works. 
Still, I do my best to answer all my threads, so please be patient and understanding with me! Thanks!
By default, I will always assume that threads with me are the lowest priority and can/will eventually be dropped at any time by you.
All in all, so long as we keep to our own lanes instead of actively pursuing the other on behalf of our differences in beliefs, there shouldn’t be any problems. RPing is meant to be a fun, creative and laid-back FICTIONAL environment that is meant to be kept separately from reality.
Regarding Asks & IMs
IC & OOC Asks outside of inbox memes are allowed!
If sent anonymously for side-blog reasons, tag your blog and it will be re-tagged for notification purposes!
ex: ((@nameofrpsidebloghere))
If responding to an ask-response, please post it in a new text post by tagging the blog name and adding a link to the ask-response!
ask-response posts and even photo posts clutter the dashboard and ruin RP consistency...!
You are free to IM me for plots and reply reminders! (I’m a really lenient, GWF/go-with-flow RPer) 
Please note, however, that if I feel the thread isn’t really going anywhere, no longer following a sort of plot, and/or isn’t keeping my interest, I eventually assume that it’s drop-able and will drop it myself.
Universal Tags for Inbox Memes & Themed Starters
For IC
Ask/M!A/RP asks --- #askmarp memes || #askmarp response
Ask/Inbox Memes --- #inbox memes || #inbox response
Themed Starter Memes --- #starter memes || #starter response
Drabble Memes --- #drabble memes || #drabble response
For OOC aka the Mun 
Ask/Inbox Memes --- #mun inbox memes || #mun inbox response
Themed Starter Memes --- #mun starter memes || #mun starter response
For NSFW Content
Ask/M!A/RP asks --- #nsfw askmarp memes || #nsfw askmarp response
Ask/Inbox Memes --- #nsfw inbox memes || #nsfw inbox response
Themed Starter Memes --- #nsfw starter memes || #nsfw starter response
For a Faster Inbox Response – include corresponding rp/ask meme post! 
 ex: [Name of Meme Here!:] ♡ - symbol description here!
If even after reading the standards you still aren’t certain how RPing with me is like, you can also refer to these universal tags:
#rp guidelines - guidelines I follow as an RPer
#chill rp blog is chill - worrisome topics I’m okay with as an RPer
That aside, when in doubt, just ask! I’m totally cool with it, and always want to make sure the both of us are having a fun, comfortable time RP/interacting IC with each other! Do also remember that you are always, always able to just unfollow me, even softblock me if you have to (though I’d appreciate a direct notification/explanation for the first time I address the softblock if that ever occurs...!).
Were you able to read the whole thing?
Feel free to let me know by sending ‘whispers among psithurism’ in the ask (you aren’t required to, though)! Thanks for taking time to read this! Happy RPing!
2 notes · View notes
embidoesbnharp · 6 years ago
Text
Comprehensive RP Standards & Rules
Please Note: If I’m slow or unable to reply, there’s likely a very good reason behind it (ie. mental illness/lack of spoons, inability to get into character, personal matters, etc). All I ask is that you’re patient and understanding -- we’re only human after all! You can even occasionally inquire updates from my end since I do care about keeping both of us up-to-date. Thanks for understanding!
RP Standards & Guidelines
This RPer is friendly/practices [unless otherwise stated] towards the following:
OCs and muses
Multi-verse & AU’s (unless otherwise stated or specified in RP Blog descriptions)
Smut/SRP, NSFW, Fluff, Dark/Triggering content
Trigger Warnings will be tagged respectively -- please notify the mun if you’d like a TW tagged on a post!
SRP will be censored via Read-More Feature
Multi-ships – both platonically & romantically; Canon×OCs are welcome!
by default, i make ships strictly tied to a respective relationship sub-verse tag -- main verses are usually left without a permanent relationship.
because the mun welcomes almost all kinds of ships (albeit depending on the fandom), be sure to check for respective ship tags in order to blacklist appropriately for those you do not like!
Chemistry/Relations between muses = RP/Interacting with each other
This way, I’m able to get a feel for how you portray your muses, and can determine whether or not there’s compatibility. This also helps me understand you as an RPer, too!
regardless of muses being canon or OC’s, please consider having some chemistry (interactions/threads) done before trying to ship with my muses!
As much as I advocate having All the Ships™, jumping straight into ships without getting a feel of your muse(s) makes it difficult for me to get into them. (´・ω・`) Apologies about that!
pre-plotted/pre-existing relationships will require that we’ve RP’d together enough for me to get a feel of your RP style, especially with OC’s.
canon characters & their canonical history/relations are assumed to be their default and are thus taken into consideration unless circumstances (i.e. AU’s, verses, etc.) state otherwise
regardless, i would still highly recommend we interact with each other enough so that I get a feel of your portrayal!
Format Leniency™ w/ icons, rp length and formatting as well as script-style and paragraph-style RPing (link for info on ‘em)
script-style/in-character RPing for me will always be in third-person for action
basically, you are absolutely free to follow your own kind of format, and are not obligated to follow the length/format that I use so long as I have something to work with!
Getting referenced/mentioned/involved in other RP threads (IT’D BE AN HONOR.)
muses that I refer to for specific circumstances (i.e. events from a thread, sub-verses, etc.) will be @mentioned on my part.
‘Read-More’ Censorship -- for SRP, spoiler content, extreme gore [on a (N)SFW labeled blog], & long posts
Aged-up fictional characters who are originally/canonically no younger than 14 years old. 
I am perfectly, absolutely aware of the fine lines over aging up fictional minors for smut content and will admit that I am perfectly fine/understanding towards RPing such things---so long as it applies to the 14+)---while also fully understanding the controversy it brings.
Aged-up characters or verses that I RP/provide are never intentionally or solely made for smut/SRP content, nor will they ever be.
There’s a good chance that any of my originally/canonically minor teenager whose blog is labeled 18+ may imply an aged-up verse for SRP content. Hopefully, this will help determine if you should be wary of these blogs of mine!
If all else fails, you are absolutely allowed to politely and respectfully ask if there is an aged-up verse with potential SRP content! This way, you can blacklist appropriately.
RP Blogs with smut content will always be labeled accordingly
Rule of Thumb on Age Gaps for Ships: no more than 2 years between minors with 18-year olds, and 3 years between muses aged 18-20 years old with 21+.
Even then, minor×adult SRP/smut is PROHIBITED.
Both muns must take/understand necessary precautions when involving aged-up fictional characters or minor muses, consider any adjustments that may be needed, and must be both adults (18+).
Of course, if you yourself actually condone pedophilia, I will block you.
This RPer is against/does not practice the following:
Godmodding
Rude/Excessive reminders to reply to thread
Complaints of unreplied/dropped threads
Engaging in SRP content with minors – will be blocked upon discovery
doesn’t include engaging in SFW content, but once you are blocked you’re unable to interact with me at all
I do not condone pedophilia and RP smut with RPers who are minors.
Reblog Karma -- you are not obligated/required to send an ask in exchange for its respective inbox meme; feel free to reblog any memes from me!
If you, however, do practice reblog karma and I reblog without sending something in, though, please let me know!
Likewise, if you prefer people reblogging from the source and not you, please let me know if I ever do as such! I am a very forgetful bun.
Hate mail/anons in any shape or form (ie. suicide instigation, death threats, cyber-bullying)
Hate/‘Phobias’ towards any gender
Soft-blocks --- you’re either permanently blocked or not, so be sure to act accordingly.
If for any reason I have blocked you by mistake or under a misunderstanding, I will either unblock or consider unblocking.
Likewise, if you have soft-blocked me for any reason and I, for some reason, somehow, still get to you, you have every right to let me know that I’ve made you uncomfortable and request that I no longer interact with you! (And if it still persists because I can be one hell of a forgetful bun, do remember that you have the right to permanently block me, I understand!)
I’m honestly still trying to understand these soft-block mechanics, if I’m honest...
Racism, Discrimination, Witch Hunts/Call-Out posts --- being actively involved in one will automatically be an unfollow & potential block from me.
Pressure regarding thread replies/involvement in drama/desired content
Mutuals-Only interactions
More often than not, my RP blogs may be side-blogs to a main hub (especially if I’m RPing more than one muse in a fandom). Please be sure to check if they are! They’ll usually be mentioned in the descriptions of the blog.
If you are a mutuals-exclusive RPer, please let me know!
Outside Reblogs on RP Threads --- Unless you are the RPer(s) involved, DO NOT REBLOG the thread.
Liking & commenting the post is okay for me, but please also respect what rules & policies the other RPer(s) may have! They have the right to react accordingly on their part.
This RPer has the rights towards the following:
Not expanding on ask-response replies
Refusing to start/continue a thread for any particular reason
Dropping a thread for any particular reason (especially when it feels that there isn’t much to continue on in it)
Giving more attention to some threads than others
Being finicky between doing legitimate RP threads vs. casually being IC
Being finicky with social interactions between individuals
Not becoming mutuals
Other Universal Standards & Guidelines
Dash Organization > Mutuals-Exclusive Practices
Follows & Mutuals =/= Interaction Privileges --- for me, follows are a means of controlling the content on my dash, not an indication of whether or not I want us to interact!
Depending on the blog’s popularity, RP blogs may or may not be fandom-restricted (interactions exclusive to canon/-versed/-oriented muses/OCs), unless exceptions for particular individuals are granted.
Multi-Muse Blogs are less likely to be followed (which might also be highly dependent on blog’s popularity) for dash content organization, especially if the muses extend across multiple fandoms.
Interactions > Reading Rules/Following when it comes to receiving a follow from me as it again depends on how often we interact.
Individual RP Blogs can and will have their own, more specific guidelines to follow depending on its fandom/popularity!
Policies can usually be found at the top of the blog’s description, listing what the blog consists of and what content is followed/restricted/allowed.
These policies can and will overrule respective universal policies here.
RP & Liked Content =/= Morals & What I Condone
Likewise, even if there are ships/morals/opinions that do not match with mine, it’s just as the saying goes: to each their own. So long as conflicts do not rise, we can still interact! People can like different things and still be nice to each other. God, I can’t stress this enough.
“I find that, for me, the work is a safe place to put all the stuff you don't want to put in your real life. I don't want to be a crazy, manic asshole. I don't want to have an affair. I don't want to have a fucking gunfight. But! There's a part of your brain that wants to experience everything, and so work's a safe place to explore it all. Both in the writing and in the performing. I get to write about an affair. I get to have the guilt and the feeling of that without having to fuck my life up. [laughs] Art is the place to safely explore all those other sides of you, because the side you want to bring home is the side that wants to be a good father and be a good husband and be a good son. In art we can be fucking nuts.” -- Lin-Manuel Miranda [ x ]
Muse =/= Mun
Rule of Thumb: if the muse’s behavior is beginning to come on too strongly, chances are that I’m fully aware of this and will most likely show it via tags!
Tag Commentary --- you are absolutely free to not provide OOC commentary in the tags, especially if you are an IC blog. This just helps show who I am as a mun!
Level of Investment = Thread Priorities & Muse Activity
I, unfortunately, am inspirationally-driven when it comes to my musings, and can therefore be selective with my activity or drop threads I’m unable to continue having a musing for. However, this does not mean I have anything against you, it’s just how my fuel for RPing works.
Still, I do my best to answer all my threads, so please be patient and understanding with me! Thanks!
IMPORTANT NOTE: by default, I will always assume that threads with me are the lowest priority and can/will eventually dropped at any time by you.
All in all, so long as we keep to our own lanes instead of actively pursuing the other on behalf of our differences in beliefs, there will be no problems. RPing is meant to be a fun, creative and laid-back FICTIONAL environment that is meant to be kept separately from reality.
Regarding Asks & IMs
IC & OOC Asks outside of inbox memes are allowed!
If sent anonymously for side-blog reasons, tag your blog and it will be re-tagged for notification purposes!
ex: ((@nameofrpsidebloghere))
If responding to an ask-response, please post it in a new text post by tagging the blog name and adding a link to the ask-response!
ask-response posts and even photo posts clutter the dashboard and ruin RP consistency...!
You are free to IM me for plots and reply reminders! (I’m a really lenient, GWF/go-with-flow RPer)
IMPORTANT NOTE: I’m pretty asocial, so more often than not I tend to forget about replying to IMs especially if there’s no need for it (like an end to the conversation topic). but, don’t worry, it’s not you! you aren’t annoying me! it’s just me being an asocial moron. ( ◉◞౪◟◉) you are in the safe zone, friend!
That aside, when in doubt, just ask! I’m totally cool with it, and always want to make sure the both of us are having a fun, comfortable time RP/interacting IC with each other! Do also remember that you are always, always able to just unfollow me, even softblock me if you have to (though I’d appreciate a direct notification/explanation for the first time I address the softblock if that ever occurs...!).
Were you able to read up to this point for the RP standards/rules? Then feel free to let me know by sending ‘whispers among psithurism’ in the ask (you aren’t required to, though)! Thanks for taking time to read this! Happy RPing!
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the-poutine-routine · 6 years ago
Note
Hi! In your opinion what is the difference on tecnical side between tessa/scott and davis/white? I know that before the comeback they were equal in terms of victories. Their styles are pretty opposite and this is clear, but since i'm new fan of this sport i'd like to know more tecnical aspects about this rivalry. Also which is the strongest rivals between d/w and p/c? (sorry for the poor grammar, english isn't my first l
Hi anon!
First of all, I am sooooooo sorry for taking so long to get back to you on this, I don’t really have an excuse other than laziness, and for that I cannot apologize enough. Secondly, your grammar is so much better than mine is most of the rime, so there is absolutely no need to be apologizing! Finally, you ask an excellent question, so I guess we should get into it! (as always, I am no expert, so this is all based on my own observations etc. and could be, and most likely am, very wrong about everything)…
So I guess the difference between Tessa and Scott and Meryl and Charlie at least really comes down to the country they started out in. Because they trained with the same coaches for so long (and up until both of their retirements / pseudo-retirements), the actual differences in the technical aspects style of their programs are pretty subtle. However, there are actually some pretty big differences in the skating styles of skaters who learned basic skills in Canada and those who did so in America (this is easier to see in disciplines like synchro and ice dance where the majority of he programs aren’t made up of jumps and spins). 
I apologize in advance for any of this being super confusing, because it’s a little hard to explain but I will definitely try my best. The main thing that it comes down to for the difference between these two styles is knee bend. So the Canadian style tends to have a somewhat softer up-and-down knee bend. Between each new step (strokes, different portions of crossovers, etc.), skaters will straighten their knees ever so slightly which creates this rising and falling motion (think breathing but through your knees… I don’t know… that probably doesn’t make sense…). The American style, meanwhile, tends to be a lot more uniform in motion, staying down in the knees rather than lilting up and down. In addition, the American style often tends to include large, sharp movements of the extremities, while the Canadian style often focuses on a strong core and being able to move the limbs outward from that base. (This last difference can be seen particularly well in the juxtaposition between dw and vm, particularly post-comeback vm.) Neither one of these styles is necessarily better than the other, they’re just different ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Building off of this, a really interesting comparison would be between Sochi era Tessa and Scott, Sochi era Meryl and Charlie, and post-comeback Tessa and Scott. So my main thing about this comparison, would I guess go under skating skills if we’re looking at the component score; and this “thing”, as I guess I’m calling it, is the neatness of the feet. Foot placement is a HUGE thing in ice dance (or at least used to be), especially when you’re coming up through the ranks and testing your compulsory dances. For example, there are very specific places on one boot, where the other skate is supposed to be placed when doing certain steps like mohawks or choctaws. Furthermore, the feet are generally a lot tighter or closer together when performing steps in ice dance than in other disciplines. Between Sochi era Meryl and Charlie, and post-comeback Tessa and Scott, neatness of feet is one area of skating in which I personally saw a huge difference. While dw, have a tendency to wide-step (feet not super close together), vm have insanely neat feet, with each step they do placed extremely deliberately. 
Another major difference between the two, comes down to lifts. Meryl is tiny. Tessa is small of course, but Meryl is really something else. As a result of this, Meryl and Charlie tend to have a lot more acrobatic lifts; lifts that you might see in pairs if only Charlie would straighten his arms, where Meryl is in some sort of difficult position that exhibits her flexibility and Charlie is supporting her fully. Whereas Tessa and Scott tend to have lifts that require just as much strength from Tessa as they do from Scott.
When it comes to edge quality and actual skating skills, however, I think dw and vm are very well matched, which I think is part of the reason why dw were able to remain vm’s top competition for so many years.
As you may have guessed, my opinion is that dw were a lot stronger competition for vm than pc were. Now, I’m going to be totally honest here, I don’t think pc suck. I actually do think they’re a very good ice dance team, despite wrongly being constantly scored at the same level technically as vm. My main issue when it comes to them, however, is consistency. Although it’s not like they screw up elements majorly from competition to competition, throughout each of their programs they often have a couple extensions where their (well… Gabi) knees aren’t totally straight, or an edge that isn’t quite as deep as it could be. It’s almost like these basic skills aren’t as engrained into their brains as they could be, and thus if they come to a difficult part of the program, they maybe let their basic skills lapse a little bit. From other parts of their programs, however, it is clear that they are capable of hitting these edges or extensions, yet at this point in their career, it doesn’t seem to me that they are leaving it all out on the ice (even if their scores show differently) as Tessa and Scott and Meryl and Charlie were at the end of their careers. ( I don’t know if this is intentional laziness or just because they need a bit more time to practice their skills… but I’m not really going to dwell on that)
So to answer your questions in a much more concise way, anon… There isn’t a huge technical difference between Tessa and Scott and Meryl and Charlie. Both have excellent skills, however, I definitely do think that post-comeback Tessa and Scott would have without a doubt out-skated Meryl and Charlie simply due to the exactness(…?) and smoothness of their skating. That being said, you are right in that the main difference I see between the two teams is stylistic, rather than on technicalities (huge props to you for noticing that, by the way, you say you’re a new fan, but wow… good eyes). If it wasn’t clear already, I definitely think that Meryl and Charlie were not only stronger, but also more longstanding, rivals to Tessa and Scott than Gabi and Guillaume were (but also, I’m American and may or may not be a former dw stan so I’m sort of biased…). 
Thank you so much for your excellent questions anon! I apologize for writing an extremely boring and incredibly long and nonsensical response… yikes… ok time to shut up. Have a lovely day :)
28 notes · View notes
equalitae · 7 years ago
Text
L i k e  I   W o u l d (III)
Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader
Genre: Angst, lots of swearing (lol)
Song to suggest: Hold Me – Eric Nam
Synopsis: I was doomed from the very moment I met him.
It was a mistake that I didn’t regret, but that I profoundly wanted to undo in the deepest part of my heart. I tried my best to untangle myself out of that mess, but he was right.
No one knew me like he did. No one would love me like him.
Word count:  6,4K
Part 1 -  Part 2 - Part 3
Tumblr media
A/N: Well, hello! Welcome, finally, to the last part of LIW!  Before you start reading, i want to profoundly apologize for taking so long in posting it, but i had a writter’s block and i hadn’t been feeling like posting yet  :(
Even so, i fought it and came up with this! I’m really sad to finish it, but excited for you to read it!
  I hope you enjoy a lot and if you do feel free to give it some love!!   Requests are open! Just remember to read the r u l e s before requesting! See you soon! 
equalitae, x.
My room began to feel like a prison for more time than what I could count.
The curtains remained closed and the bare rays of sun that trespassed them were the only source of light that crossed into the loneliness of it. The dishes piled up in the sink, dirty and untouched, probably already reuniting bad smell and bugs. The clothes scattered around the room, also unwashed and forgotten, and I was already running out of shirts to wear.
My day had become a routine that consisted in waking up, eating breakfast, showering, doing homework and finally crying myself to sleep. The winter break was almost finishing, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to leave the safety of my place to the public eye. I was running out of food and clothes, but I still didn’t feel with energy enough to do the chores and become a whole once again. I was crushed, converted into dust that was being flown away by the wind in a blink of an eye. My ego, hopes and feelings were a complete mess. I felt used and thrown away, but I still thought about the tattooed artist.
My thoughts still revolved around him even when I hadn’t heard from him in quite some time. The days after our last encounter consisted mostly in him constantly visiting my room, relentlessly knocking to my door and begging for my absolution. I spent all those hours sitting on my door frame, quietly sobbing and wondering why things like this happened to me. I felt weak, and every second that passed carved deep into my flesh, causing me an incessant desire to open that door and forgive him.
I wanted to feel him close to me and the way his body heat caused my skin to bristle. I wanted to feel his soft lips, making my heart go nuts and my head cloud. I needed to know he thought about me just by the way his soft eyes stared when he thought I wasn’t looking, even though I could feel his burning gaze on my skin. I wanted to smell like him once I left his place, covered in his essence and presence. His sole existence caused thousands of reactions in me that I couldn’t explain but needed to turn off unless I wanted to leave with my heart more crushed than before.
Byun Baekhyun was a pleasure that felt so good but hurt so bad.
After a few tries, his knocks stopped. The lonely shadow in the door frame wasn’t there and his begs weren’t heard for the longest time. I started to miss his presence, but I knew that if I came back to him, I would be giving up on my pride and what made me myself. He was the one who decided to play with me, he was the one who decided that lying was his best shot; and I was the fool that believed all his words completely unaware that sweet lies were part of his vocabulary.
And now, lying still on the floor covered by clothes, I was looking at ceiling with a million questions and scenarios crawling into my brain like ants looking for sugar. I was unaware of how much time had passed until I barely heard the door being unlocked and set of keys clashing against each other with the movement. I remained still, knowing who was inside my place and not even bothering to check if he had a knife with him.
“What the fuck, Y/N?!”, was all he said. I could feel his anger from meters away with his usually resting eyes burning holes in my body like lasers.
I opened and eye to peek at his shocked expression, before closing it again calmly. He didn’t more nor said anything for the longest time before he walked closer to me with harsh steps. Once he stopped, I opened my mouth to salute him, but I was suddenly being pulled up by an unknown force that carried me in a bridal style, -much to my surprise. I opened my eyes widely and started to protest, but he stepped into the bathroom and threw me into the cubicle, opening the shower in a blink. The cold water hit me instantly, waking me up from my conscious dream, and I quickly snapped my head to him.
“Do Kyungsoo!” I shouted, mad. My pajama was now wet, and it was sticking to me like a second skin. I felt uncomfortable, but I was wide awake now and knew that I had to confront him. Soo stepped back and crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow unbothered as he inspected my appearance.
“Do me a favor and wash yourself up. You smell like death.”
“Hey-”, I protested again, but he raised a finger to stop me.
“Once you are done, we are going to talk.” He closed the door behind me, leaving me by myself freezing under the cold water but aware that if I didn’t hurry, he will come in and drag me out of the bathroom. I sighed loudly and started to strip out of the now ruined outfit I was wearing.
When I had showered, I dried myself up and covered my body with a pink robe, walking silently into my room to find a prepared outfit over my now done bed. I closed the door behind me, and started to dress up with the black skirt and grey sweater he had put together for me. Once I had even put my knee-length socks on and had my hair combed, I left my room with soft steps. The sunlight was covering my whole living room, and I could see the mess I had made over the last few days. Kyungsoo was in the kitchen sink, taking care of the last remaining of unwashed dishes, mumbling something to himself.
I picked up the clothes scattered in the room, not saying a word but aware that he knew I was there. After a few minutes, everything was on the laundry bag and now I could see the khaki carpet under my feet. He reunited the forgotten boxes of fast food I used and threw them into the trashcan with a disgusted expression in his soft features. I felt ashamed, but I helped him with the cleaning; and when we were done after an hour, he looked at me with a disappointed look in his eyes. He pointed to the sofa, asking me silently to take a seat and started talking of what was actually happening. Then, he took my small hand in between his much larger ones and I suddenly felt naked under his burning gaze full of concern and care.
“I’m sorry.” He stated. “I hadn’t take care of you in the last few months and I ignored what was happening without noticing it would hurt you this much.”
I began to shake my head. “You don’t need to be sorry. I was playing with fire, I knew that, but I still got burned.” My voice was really low, mostly caused by my lack of energy, and I with a loud sigh, my head hung low. “I am drained, both mentally and physically. I had given everything I got to him, trying to fit in my head why he would have had done this to me and which were his reasons to approach to me the way he did the first time we met.  I thought he was genuinely interested in me and this could be the relationship I had being waiting for so long.” A low chuckle left my lips, “Just see how everything ended up.”
“He is my friend, Y/N.” Kyungsoo ran a hand threw his, now shaved, head. “Baekhyun has being a friend of mine for the longest time and I didn’t think he would do something like this to you.”
“What about her?”
“Min, you say?” I nodded my head, biting my lip. “She is just someone we saw every few reunions. She met Baekhyun in high school and stayed with him after that. She was sticky, following him and dragging him with her everywhere. They were just kids, so we tried to understand their weird accord.” With a frown, he pouted. “Why don’t you tell me what happened between you two, so I can understand?”
And so, I did. I told Kyungsoo about how I had met him in the elevator, how he had rose my pulse in a mere second and how I was weaken on my knees just with his slow smirk. I told him how our relationship had become closer after the first time his skin touched mine and my mind clouded with dreams. I told him how I had slowly fallen for a red-haired angel that owned every part of me without even asking for it, making me part of him from the very first moment we crossed paths. I was attached to him and breaking our bond felt like I was ripping my heart out of my chest and like I was throwing it on the bare floor with ease. My time with him had being enough to make me naïve and unaware of what was behind that marble-carved sculpture Baekhyun was.
Kyungsoo stayed in silence, nodding every few times to let me know he was listening carefully. He didn’t change his expression throughout the whole story and his caresses on my hand never stopped, only becoming more frequent by the time my voice started to shake. I was losing my composure, falling apart as I remembered the memories that I had saved in the darkest part of my brain, imprinted on me like a tattoo. My body begun to heat up, just as my eyes started to tickle and fill with water. I was angry. Angry at myself for being so stupid. Angry at him for playing with me and then throwing me away like a chewed toy. And angry with the universe for doing this in my face with a big “Told you so” after sending so many mixed signals.
Being the golden boy of the campus had its benefits, but I already understood why. He was a dark angel that crashed just in front of me, showing himself to the world as an incomprehensible and mysterious artist that caught everyone’s eye just by passing by. He had a trap and I had fallen deep into it with no opportunity to liberate myself, doomed to stay in his claws for as much as he wanted me to. The silent cries became louder and the vibrating sound inside my ears was cutting me open, leaving me with nothing else than broken porcelain and dust for me to repair. And I wasn’t sure if I would be able to…
 And that is how, going back to the start, I left the history class once it was over.
Seeing Baekhyun holding some else’s hand and telling her how beautiful she was made my heart reduce like raisin and my chest hurt like a whole bitch. He seemed better now, happier; since the winter break was over, and he apparently had cut all his strings with the past that haunted him. Me, myself, had been dating a guy for some time, and even when it wasn’t anything serious, I still didn’t feel prepared enough.
Once that Kyungsoo had left my apartment the day after he found the mess I was, he had somehow fixed me up, showing me how I was still the same girl I had always been. I felt secure and ready to go out and face all of those who knew that our relationship was over, but once I stepped inside our first class together after weeks of not knowing where he was or what had been of him, all my walls fell showing the little girl that was broken and still trying to glue all the pieces together. Once I saw how he had changed me and how I had “changed” him, the air left my lungs faster than what it took me to fill them up. The safe façade I was portraying wasn’t more than that, a façade. Good enough to convince everyone else around me, but not enough to convince me that I was okay and finally ready to let all those memories go.  
And so, I was immerse in my thoughts that I stood still in front of a tree, admiring at the branches like they were the most precious creation on earth. There were no birds standing on them, meaning the cold was too much for them to even come outside on a clouded day. The soil beneath my feet was wet, covering my shoes on mud and a few strands of grass that I didn’t bother to clean. It was drizzling, a few sprinkles of water falling over me and making the humidity of my hair to turn into a frizz mess. I didn’t care, though, as I raised my face to the sky, so a few droplets of cold water could fall over my face, luckily waking me up from this mess with a special someone by my side on a cold morning. It didn’t, of course, but it was good enough to make my shoulders fall a little and the air return safely to my inner self.
The low steps behind me weren’t heard, neither were noticed the hands that held my waist after that, making me almost fell into the ground out of the surprise. The warmness of a body covered me up as a familiar face entered in my visual field, calming the rapid heart beating I was currently having. The softness of his glowing features was there, as his bright and big smile took my attention for a second. His dark eyes were shining, as he inspected my face like it was unknown for him. His soft hands held me without an effort, as if it was a natural action for him to hold me like this, making my body warm up. I sniffed a little, catching a mild scent of his cologne, recognizing it instantly as I placed my tiny hands on his broad chest.
The pompous material of his long coat tingled in my fingers, as I imaginary-drew slowly on the dark-colored lapels of it. A black turtle neck sweater raised from underneath it, causing a sophisticated look on his muscular figure. I ran my eyes from the tips of my fingers, through his long neck to his pointed chin, his rosy lips, buttoned nose and, finally, his shiny dark eyes. They were behind a pair of golden specs that I clearly knew he didn’t need but used to decorate his already pretty face. Strands of his silky black hair hung right over his eyes, barely touching his shaped eyebrows.
I saw him shifting his feet over the soil, pulling me closer to him as his soft lips touched my skin in graceful kiss on my forehead. I smiled content, holding his coat even harder than before, feeling the small movements, his chest did as he took long breaths of air.
“Where have you been, Y/N?”, his sweet voice said, catching my attention. I blinked, fully aware now, as I enjoyed his presence in front of me.
“I just finished my history class,” I responded, trying to avoid the sour tone in me as I remembered a certain red-haired. “What about you, Xiumin? Are you done now?”
He nodded happily, reminding me of a puppy. “I just finished my last English class, thankfully. I’m free for the rest of the day.”
I smiled knowingly, winking at him as I placed my now warm hands on his nape, playing with the short hairs that were in there. “Does it mean you’re all mine for the day? Hmm?” Xiumin chuckled under his breath, catching the tip of his tongue under his white teeth with amusement. I admired the way his shaped eyes almost disappeared as he smiled, remarking more of his rounded cheeks and true happiness while doing so. I close-smiled too, feeling strangely calmed too.
“It depends on what you have planned to do.”
“Is that a challenge?” His nose almost touched mine, as he got closer to my, probably blushed, face. I raised an eyebrow playfully, following his little game.
Xiumin shrugged, nonchalantly. “Maybe…” As he finished his sentence, his humid lips touched mine in a kiss, as his warmth engulfed me up completely. I kissed him back, almost standing in my tip-toes to reach his lips, but contently accepting the sudden show of affection the black-haired boy was giving me. He sighed happily, pulling me even closer, if that was possible, as if he wanted to merge with me once and for all. I had met him less than a month ago, mostly because Soo obliged me to, but I had enjoyed the time together. We both just had ended difficult “relationships” and weren’t looking for a “serious thing” right now, as if we were just playing around and enjoying what the future might bring for us.
I suddenly felt a strange sensation in the back of my head, so I pulled away from him for a bit, enough for me to catch my breath, and turned my head to see what was happening. I didn’t see anyone, though, since almost everyone was inside to keep their warmth, and Xiumin and I were the dumb enough to stand outside in the cold. The tips of his fingers touched mine, reaching for my hand to hold his, while his pink lips left a soft kiss in my jawline. I directed my eyes to the floor we stepped on, as his body pulled me beside him to the food trucks near the university. He told me about his day and I listened to it carefully, pushing the image of Baekhyun holding someone else out of my mind. The conversations with Xiumin always flowed easily, as if we had everything to talk about but at the same time nothing to share with each other. I knew something was off, something was missing, but I did my best to not follow those thoughts and just force myself to think about someone else other than him.
Xiumin had made his way into my life in an easy way. We both had met when we were too broken to even think properly, and had put each other’s pieces together for long enough that we shared time together often even if we didn’t have anything to do. It felt comfortable, easy to do, and I appreciated that after the constant roller coaster being with Baekhyun was. I liked the steadiness of it, keeping it simple and familiar to the point it felt like a constant thing. He seemed to enjoy it too, looking healthier and better than the first time I had met him, and I felt content I could help someone as good as him beside me.
He was in the middle of telling me a story, when my phone suddenly buzzed with a call of an unknown number. I frowned a bit, as he eyed my phone with a curious expression, as he sipped a gulp of his lemonade. I stood up, holding my finger up in a sign to ask him to wait, and walked far enough to listen to whoever was on the phone.
“Hello?”, I mumbled to the speaker. Someone on the other side of the phone inhaled with force, and coughed a bit. I bit the tip of my tongue, in order to distract myself, as I waited for the other person to finally identify.
“I can’t believe you replaced me already.”
A breath stuck in the back of my throat as I heard him inhale air again. The tips of my fingers started to tickle once again, and I almost dropped my phone
“Baekhyun?”, I mumbled, incredulous.
“Was it easy?”, he responded, avoiding my question even when I knew the answer. I frowned with confusion.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I felt frustrated, angry again with him. I wasn’t a toy for him to play whenever he wanted to, and knowing he was just looking for me because he felt threatened with his position as the one who broke my heart. I had seen him earlier with her, and now he seemed to have seen me with Xiumin, talking to me for the first time in a long time.
“You clearly know about what, Y/N”, he chuckled dryly with no humor at all. I clenched my fists in an unconscious manner, almost hearing my head clicking with several thoughts and ideas related about how bad I wanted to hurt him. About how badly I wanted him to know how much it hurt and how broken you felt once you were left by someone you trusted with every bone in your body.
“What do you want?”
“There are thousands of things I want, sweetheart”, he joked around, playing with my patience. “One billion won, for example.”
“Don’t we all…”, I rolled my eyes. “Stop fucking up with me and just tell me what you want.”
“You.”
I froze in place, opening my eyes as wide as I could. I felt my hands starting to tremble, feeling unsure of how to react. “W-what?”
He sighed with defeat. “I want you, Y/N.” Baekhyun stopped for a moment. “I wanted you before and still want you now. I haven’t stopped wanting you.”
He sounded so done, so… sick. His usually cheerful voice was soft, almost as if he was whispering every single word with a strange sensation of calmness and tiredness unusual in him. It almost made my heart clench. Almost. But I knew that it all was playing pretend and he was just pulling a show for me to fall all over my heels for him once again; believing all the crap that left his mouth, following him as if he was the legendary pied piper the old stories tended to tell.
“Stop it, Baekhyun.”, I barked. “Fucking stop and let me alone. Just get out of my life and live yours as however the hell you might want to.” I was sure I was almost red out of anger. How dared him to give himself the right to annoy me again after it took me so long to get over what he had done to me. I wanted to shout, kick and destroy everything I had in sight, clearly furious at myself for letting him have such a control over me not minding the past.
“You know I can’t, Y/N.” His voice suddenly felt too close, and I had to stop myself from turning around and placing my tired body against the wall. I was drained of whatever emotion I could ever hold on my body, feeling almost empty and ready to shut down. I sighed loudly, sensing a tight knot forming in the middle of my chest, crushing my lungs with ease. I needed to get rid of him, completely forgetting he once existed and made part of my short amount of life. He hadn’t been with me long enough but had managed to destroy me in such little pieces, not even the strongest glue in this world would be able to keep them back together.
“Baekhyun…”, I murmured again, eyes as tight closed as how they let me. The grip on my phone left my fingers almost numb.
The harsh breathing on the phone stopped, as he hung the phone as quickly as possible. I stood there, defeated and breathless, with half of my phone still clinging to the tip of my ear and the other hand hanging motionless from the edge of my blouse. I could see Xiumin still sitting on the table, eating his sandwich distractedly as he read something on his textbook and wrote on his notebook. My own plate of food was right in front of him, untouched and getting cold, but I couldn’t pull myself to go sit and eat it with him. I didn’t feel right anymore, and all I wanted was to go back home and sleep. I pushed myself off the wall and started to walk, before a hand placed itself over my shoulder, stopping any intention I had of going back with the dark-haired boy.
I followed the fingers that pressed the flesh on my shoulder, crashing with a familiar set of tattoos drawn over the skin. The long-sleeved shirt he was wearing was something I had given him a few weeks after we started this chaos. It was a stripped black and red shirt, mostly common but that somehow managed to fit as if it was made just for him. His red hair seemed like if he hadn’t combed it before coming here, and the lilac ovals under his eyes attracted my attention like a beacon. His usual rosy-plump lips were dry and ripped, as if he had bitten them too many times to even consider it healthy. His dark eyes stared at me with an expressionless face, and I could feel my skin burning there where he touched it.
“Come with me”, he ordered. His light tone was covered by a serious sound that came right from the back of his throat. His hand moved from my shoulder and closed itself around my wrist, pulling me a little bit closer to the heat of his body. I couldn’t find what to say, not when I could finally smell his cologne after weeks and feel his warmth after missing it so much it almost cut me open. The muscles in his jaw twitched as he observed me silently, asking in a silent request if I would follow him even when he knew I was badly hurt. My wrist slipped from his touch and I closed my hands in fists both at each side of my body, so I wouldn’t be able to unconsciously pull them up and finally feel the softness of his skin that I have been craving so much to touch.
“Leave me alone, I already asked once.” I responded instead.
He sighed exasperated and ran his fingers through his hair, as if he wanted to tear them out. His eyes closed with force as he spitted his next words one by one.
“Go back there and tell him you need to leave, and come with me.”
I chuckled with no humor at all. I couldn’t believe his words –no, I couldn’t believe him. And even so, I stared at him directly in the eye, looking for answers of questions I hadn’t even formulated yet. Looking for reasons to stay, to listen what he had to say, and just follow what he told me to do. I knew I was reckless and stupid, following him like a dog with the tail in between my legs, but it had been so long, and I just wanted to finish all the hell he put me through, so I would be able to continue with my life as I wanted to. If I left him behind, I would be able to start over where I had left it before his red hair, tattoos and meaningless words craved so deep into my flesh I was almost afraid I could never get completely rid of him.
I walked back to the table, fully aware his burning gaze was still lingering on my back, and placed myself in the empty booth left. Xiumin looked up, instantly smiling in my direction with warmth and a tiny sparkle in behind his dark eyes. I smiled back, crossing my fingers together as I prepared myself to tell him an excuse to leave and follow a certain devil that kept getting in my way. His hand placed itself in the table, caressing my knuckles softly, searching something in my eyes.
“Is everything alright?”, he wondered. “You look a little bit pale.”
I nodded carefully, smiling to reassure him as I took his hand in between mine. “I just had to take that call. Soo just called me, he needed a hand back at home. It’s okay if I leave you here and end the date for the day? I will pay you back, I promise.” As I expected, he smiled widely and nodded cheerfully, not minding if I had to leave him.
“It’s totally fine! I understand.” His soft lips placed themselves on the top of my fingers as a slight kiss. “Send Kyungsoo a hug for me.”
I stood up, and surrounded the table ready to give him a warm hug. He stood up too and engulfed me in between his arms, kissing the top of my head with fondness and ran his fingers over my back, sending small tickles to my spine. As we pulled apart, he nodded in my direction, and waved before sitting back in the table and continuing what he was doing earlier. I let a breath I didn’t know I was containing leave my lungs, stepping outside the small place and spotting Baekhyun right beside the door with a lollypop lazily hanging from his lips. His eyes were closed, and his head was pulled back, both of his hands in his back pockets. I cleared my throat, catching his attention before walking beside him to wherever he wanted to go.
He stopped in one of the design classes, opening the door with a small key that was hidden in his wallet, and left the door open for me to go inside. I inspected the whole class, ignoring his presence, as I visualized the last clothing designs the students were doing. There were some delicate drawings, followed by colors and explosions of imagination and creativity. Drafts were thrown and pasted everywhere, unintentionally decorating the class with their presence and as a form of inspiration for those who didn’t know what to do with those minds of theirs.
“That was pathetic”, he murmured out of the blue. I blinked repeatedly, confused while I concentrated myself back to him.
“What do you mean?”
Baekhyun chuckled, “You and him. It’s pathetic.” He sat himself in the main desk, staring at me with a smirk drawn over his features and both of hands behind him to support his body. I put my hands in my hips, frowning profoundly.
“I don’t see what none of that has to do with you”, I growled. “What I do or not do with someone is my problem, not yours.”
“Of course, it is my problem, sweetheart.” He chuckled. “Specially if it affects me directly.” He jumped back on his feet, walking slowly in my direction, like a lion following his prey with caution, scared it would run away.
“It affects me directly because he is involving himself with you.” Baekhyun’s nose suddenly touched my cheek, running till it caressed the core of my ear. “It affects me directly because he is the one who gets to be with you and he isn’t me.” I opened my eyes widely, and I stared at him with a serious expression. I was beyond pissed.
“What did you want me to do?” I shouted as I pushed his chest with as much force as I could. He barely seemed to notice, not even moving a bit. His face was scrunched, and I knew he was trying really hard to not scream at me. The veins in his neck were pulsing and both of his hands were fists pressed against his sides.
“Did you expect me to wait?” I continued. “You left me, Baekhyun! You never looked back and threw yourself to those girls like candy!”
“I left you because you asked me to!” He shouted back, losing the little sanity he had left. “I was the one all heartbroken when you kept living your life! I needed to distract myself!”
“Dist-distract yourself? Baekhyun, please! You and I both know that it wasn’t just a distraction!”
“Of course, it was! I had to get rid of your smell, rid of your kisses, rid of you!” By now, he was breathing so heavily that I could see his chest move in rapid ways. “I had to find a way to get rid of all of you, so I decided to find someone to replace you.”
“Seems like you did a pretty good job. Your flavor of the month is ten times better than what I ever was to you”
He looked away. “She is not you, Y/N. She wasn’t, isn’t and will never be you.”
“That’s what you said when I found out you were cheating on her with me. When I found you calling her, her memories, and when I found her fighting for you. Aren’t you ashamed Baekhyun? You played with the both us like toys.”
“That’s not true. I wasn’t happy with her. Not as how I was with you. I need you more than I need the air I breathe, Y/N. Don’t you fucking get that?”
His arm extended, taking my hand into his. I looked at him in the eye, searching for answers, something that made me think differently, but I found nothing else than dark holes looking away.
“I-I’m happy, Baekhyun. He makes me happier than you ever did”, slipped from my lips. It was a lie, a sweet lie that not even I believed, I barely knew the guy but Baekhyun didn’t know that, but I had to get away. I had to kick him out of my life, because if I kept him in it, I would’ve end up destroyed. His face hardened as he pressed his lips in a thin line, and his jaw tightened as well.
With a quick move, he took me by the wrists, twirling them with his fingers, barely applying any pressure on my skin. His large delicate fingers caused me a tickle that traveled through my arm, paralyzing me for a light moment. He towered over me, looking me right in the eye without saying a word.
He pulled his grip, dragging me towards him, and searching my eyes with his. I tensed my jaw, unsure of what to do and reluctant to his touch. It wasn’t that I didn’t want it, God knew I did. My body begged for his touch, his attentions and his caresses; but I couldn’t fall like this. I had to be strong and avoid looking weak in front of him.
His eyes softened almost immediately, when my eyes finally crashed with his and he brought his mouth near my hair, his soft lips brushing my ear. I breathed heavily and closed my eyes. Baekhyun knew what he was doing, and he used it against me. This was a fight I was going to lose sooner or later.
“You can lie to me as much as you want, Y/N”, he said softly, assuring that I couldn’t move. “Fuck. You can lie to yourself as much as you want, too. You can believe all the nonsense leaving your lips.”
I shook my head, not knowing what to do. What was he doing?
“You can tell me that you love him more than how you ever loved me”, he continued. “But they’re not more than empty words. We both know that at the end of the day, I’m the one you look for.”
A thread of brown hair appeared in my thoughts, but it was rapidly appeased by a sense of heat running in my arm. Baekhyun’s breath felt even closer and his body positioned behind mine, making my back crash against his hard chest. I felt my knees weaken, but I refused to show it. His fingers trailed to my collarbone, where they softly pulled from the fabric, uncovering my skin.
“He doesn’t know where’s your soft spot is.” Baekhyun whispered again, kissing a path from my collarbone to my neck. There where the heat and the tickles hit me harder every time he kissed me. There where my pulse was running every time he was close, just like now.  
“He doesn’t know where to find your weaknesses, Y/N”, he kept wandering in my neck with the tip of his nose. His hot breath couldn’t help but crash against it. “He doesn’t know where to touch your skin properly. He doesn’t know shit about you, even when he swears knowing you more than me.”
“Baekhyun…”, I finally said, unsure of my words. I couldn’t think clearly, since my mind kept spinning. It was always like this around him, it was like this since the very first moment I saw him. I was just too stupid to see it. Till now.
His hands slipped in mine, caressing them slowly, intertwining his fingers with my fingers. It felt so good. So… right. The ways his hand fitted perfectly with mine, making me feel protected and secure. I didn’t doubt that with Baekhyun I was feeling new things that I had never felt before.
“Don’t talk”, his thumb rubbed my knuckles, barely touching them. “It’s okay if you want me, because I want you too. Stop trying to avoid it, stop thinking. Just let it be.”
He surrounded my body and placed his hands over my waist. His eyes bored into mine, in such a way, that I saw myself drowning in their darkness. Millions of emotions swirled in them, overwhelming me. Unconsciously, I set my arms over his shoulders, caressing his face with the tips of my fingers, fascinated by the beauty of his face.
“He will never love you like I do.”
And when he silently asked for permission to kiss me, I nodded. Baekhyun smirked before crashing his lips against mine in a desperate manner; and someway, somehow, I knew he was right. I wouldn’t be able to find someone who pulled me in such a rollercoaster as Baekhyun did, nor someone who ignited a fire inside me that almost turned my bones into ashes, and my blood completely boil. He turned a spark in me that I’d never felt before, and I was sure no one else would be able to do it either. Somewhere in my subconscious, I had clear he was the one for me; specially when every piece of his body fit perfectly with mine. His lips, his fingers, his chest. Everything seemed like a finally resolved puzzle, and I had let it complete itself without even noticing it. 
And now, there was no way to undo it ever again.
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lapublicites · 4 years ago
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INSTAX @ HOME PROJECT.
 For this project, I decided to recreate one of the first ever projects I did in my first year of university at UAL.
This project consisted of two images, showing off various polaroids that I had, however that project - although aesthetically pleasing - didn’t exactly make me feel any type of way towards it. It was pretty but I felt that it lacked depth and meaning, which always helps an advert feel more personal.
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With this, I decided to start researching up previous Instax adverts. While I researched, I realised that their adverts were quite minimalist and bare and I wanted to step away from that.
Not every memory is shot like a day in an Instagrammers life, I wanted my adverts to be messier and more lifelike, something people can relate to in their busy lives, especially now with all of us staying home and houses getting messier, more memories being made despite everything and I wanted to be able to catch that at this vital moment.
I went through a lot of ideas, debating whether I should stay with just photo advertisements or branch out more. I decided on the latter, however the progress to it gave me a lot of things to research.
Instax’ previous adverts are very minimal. 
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They’re almost similar to my first try back in 2017, hence why I tried to go in a different direction. I focused less on the partying and the adventurous aspect that Instaxs hold, but I inside went for the more close to home and personal vibe.
I asked my friends and people close to me to take photos of their own polaroids, scattered on their bed with things they love and that define them.
With these photos, I tried a few different methods of what I wanted to do (insert pic of the faded adverts w the slogan), I was still stuck on wanting to do print adverts before Brian suggested that I try to do this as a live project, so that’s what I did.
I researched into two projects, one called the ‘It Gets Better’ project (@itgetsbetter) and The Live Drawing Project (@livedrawingproject). 
These two projects both have under 100k followers and while rather small, they still have a community within them. I first looked at ‘It Gets Better’.
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The ‘It Gets Better’ project focuses on uplifting, empowering and connecting with LGBT+ youth around the world. Their posts are primarily video posts from actors and other people all around the world, sharing and showing their support for the LGBT+ youth, especially during this tough time. They’re still active, receiving a decent amount of likes on each post.
I looked at this project as I want my project to be able to uplift peoples day to day lives, showing them that there can be memories in everything, showing them that this quarantine can be used to create memories, despite how sullen the world is currently.
The second project is the Live Drawing Project.
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This instagram is the home of LDP, an art project started in France. While the location exactly is unknown (I’m unable to enter their website as I don’t have a log in), their instagram shows pictures of peoples art and creativity shown up on the walls of buildings and houses. They also have an event called the Night Of Illuminations where they’ll have people gather while they project the drawings for all to see in the night, making them show up best.
I absolutely adore this project, I love the fact that it’s still being updated this year and that many, many people are joining in.  
While only a small following, they’ve been around for a year and have grown a gathering of people who will follow their projects. They also hosted various art lessons throughout France, which I found amazing.
I chose to focus on this project as I wanted to see the drive that a smaller instagram had. They may not have thousands of followers but they’re still updating and inspiring others to do the same as I said previously with the ‘It Gets Better’ project. I want to bring people together and to inspire them to create memories from their own homes.
I started to create the adverts with Instagram in mind and started to look through the photos and choose which ones I wanted to post first on the ‘gram.
I used these two pictures that my mum (picture one) and my best friend (picture two) sent me and used these to create my first set of posts on my Instagram.
I decided to have a white background as Instagram doesn’t have a ‘dark mode’ and therefore works with the minimalist feel of the whole account. I also used the yellow from the icon as it would match.
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For the ‘@ home’ font I used Sweet Purple, a fun and simplistic style yet one that looks homemade and personal. I’ve used this font on other projects such as my Animal Crossing Amiibo Cards, that can be found on my portfolio here.
I posted these with a relatability in mind. I wanted to hone in to people's personal sides, to make them feel nostalgic and happy to look at photos that they took with loved ones and I want them to feel the urge to create them within their own home, to make memories that’ll replace the thoughts and things that have happened over the last few months.
While creating the Instagram posts, I decided to go with a yellow colour scheme. Yellow is not only my favourite colour but it’s also widely recognised as the happiest colour, according to sources. I wanted to keep the colours light and happy to keep with my message of creating happy and fond memories. 
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I decided on having ‘picture breaks’, where I’d include a picture like the one above in between photos to somewhat break up the posts, and to be able to give commenters a place to ask questions and talk if they wanted to know anything but didn’t want to comment on the polaroid picture itself. I added a post with what Instax @ Home is, explaining my ideas behind the project and what I would like people to do (partake, comment, tag me in posts, etc). This turned out to work wonderfully, as I’ve had people tagging me in posts!
I created 5 of my own polaroid posts to beef up my feed and to get traction within my account, creating content and tagging it so it can bring in more traffic to my page, as well as bringing in people who’ll want to take part! These photos are ones rom my past memories, 
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This is what the account looks like currently (apologies if the image is bad quality - it shouldn’t be!).
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Now the Instagram is live and I’m waiting for people to start joining in. I’ve got a lot of likes on my first few posts and I hope that I’ll be able to continue this project well after the deadline, or for as long as quarantine is.
UPDATE: 17TH JUNE 2020, DAY BEFORE HAND IN
After I posted the images on Instagram, I got immediate following and interactions!
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While I only have 30 or so followers, I’m getting interactions and people tagging me and sharing their own Instax pictures!
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I realised, I shouldn’t be so focused on making new memories in a household, but instead finding the polaroids and reminiscing on the old photos that have been taken.
One person, under the @ silenceofthesunflower, they captioned a picture of themselves with ‘a long throwback, @instaxathome made me miss my polaroid camera. I should’ve brought it in with me’
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This made me realise that people don’t particularly want to make new memories in this pandemic, but instead focus on the past ones to be able to remember happier times. I wanted to combat the sadness of the world's current situation by creating more memories, but I realise now that some people just want to remember, and that’s okay too. I will be posting both old and new polaroids to this account as a way to expand my userbase!
However, despite that, I do hope this makes more people pick up their Instax camera and use it more in the future. I have my own and I know I don’t use it as much as I should. This project has made me realise, as well, that I should be using my camera more often. I have the means to make memories so why aren’t I?
I know I will absolutely be continuing this project past my deadline and hope to make it a fully fledged account with followers and interactions daily.
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ravenbcys-remade · 7 years ago
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blogs/mutuals you love??
oh boy this one is going to be,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, long
obviously my best bub my a+ pal the owner of my favorite pup @iiemo–mermaidii has !!! the key to my hort i can always talk to her about absolutely anything and she’ll just run w it!!! sometimes i’ll rant to her for hours about something stupid and she wont even get mad?? what an angel also i may have turned her brother into an ailee stan which i dont apologize for at all bu t any wa y i love her hekk
also !! @parkyoongay shilpi is th best person to scream w about tbh anything because even if she doesnt know what im talking about she’ll pretend to be enthusiastic so that i wont feel bad about screaming to her,,,, also we share a common love for b99 which means in the next month we’ll be crying for h o u r s together and i look forward to it!
nd @tasty-taetae honestly,,,, god tier friend who else would just run w it whenever i cry to her about some obscure concept that nobody else even remotely gets,,, also i ask her stupid art questions and she never makes fun of me so bless her soul for that and !!!! she has the patience to read through all my writing and edit it?? and my first drafts are consistently terrible?? an angel truly
@stardustfootsteps !!! shakthi, even though she hates bread nd swedish fish and for some reason actually likes avocados,,,,, is such a lovely person !!! i always feel like conversation w her flows really easily? like whether we’re talking abt like idk music or food or the heckin weather im always engaged and for someone w my attention span that’s uhhh extremely hard to do anyway i love shakthi w my whole heart wow
@snugglesterr !!! yukati’s always sosososo kind every interaction i’ve had w her has been super positive and uplifting nd that ask she sent me earlier,,, i dont even think i can express how grateful i was wow i love her so much and!!!! her art!!!! incredible!!! showstopping!!! amazing!!!! she’s so talented omg her style is so cool nd wow im amazed she’s truly a talented lovely human being nd im so glad i know her
@8hao ;;; lani, a real actual angel whomst the world must protect,, my fellow bread/rice/pineapple pizza enthusiast,,, she’s so ??? kind?? like she spreads positivity to all her mutuals and followers so effortlessly it’s wow?? also she’s the cutest minghao stan i ever knew !!! her love for him could light up the universe heck and she’s s o funny hsfndf oh my gosh wow anyway i love lani but so does !!! everyone bc she’s such a lovely person!!
@jinnies !! nidhi and i started talking fairly recently, but we’ve been mutuals for i think almost the entire summer? which is wild anyway !!! she’s really really funny omg her memes? god tier nd she’s always so kind!!! about everything!! she just like?? oozes niceness ig and like whenever i talk to her i feel strangely comforted? idk but heck i love her
@honeyjihoons is another !! god tier mutual honestly i wish i could talk to renee more bc she seems so sweet nd funny and her love for jihoon? incredible wow she’s exactly the type of stan he deserves her tags are amazing nd !!! she’s such a good singer wow heck she posted a video once i think? and idk if she took it down but she’s s o talented omg
ahh that’s all im going to list for now because this is getting too long but also !!! i love @platniclove bc kiki is too kind for this universe and her mbs? gorgeous and she’s so funny nd cool and even though she forced me 2 use the most embarrassing voice i’ve ever used i cherish and adore her wow i really love her w my entire being and more
ok i promise that’s it but!!! for blogs i look up to / blog crushes there’s : @howlingremus @delacourr @njmphadora @lilyevcans @thlestrals @awjily nd @hjppogriff !!!
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outofcases · 8 years ago
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cleaning out my saved docs and found 2.3k of lirry w an open ending set right after the break started. figured i’d put it up, along w a couple other things i found. anyway, here it is:
Liam opens the door to a whirlwind.
Harry hugs him so tightly Liam feels like he can’t breathe, and it’s a beautiful, heaving relief. “Hey,” he chokes out, half laughing. He can’t explain why it feels like a house has been lifted from his chest.
“Mm,” says Harry, “hi,” and something else that gets muffled in Liam’s shoulder.
It’s silly to think this way, but it’s almost like they’re… together, or they were, or something, and this is their reunion. Like any second Harry will pull back and kiss Liam full on the lips and Liam will wind a hand into Harry’s hair and they’ll barely be able to speak with how close they are.  Liam rips himself out of the fantasy as quickly as he can, ears burning at the tips.
Clearly his crush on Harry hasn’t dissipated any since the last time they saw each other.
Good to know.
“I’ll put the kettle on,” he says as they pull away. “The dogs are in the back if you want to meet them.”
He looks down at that, tucks his feet in, can’t help but feel shy offering. When the silence has gone too long, though, he peeks up to check Harry’s reaction.
Harry looks like he’s a perfect mix of shocked and thrilled. “Dogs? Like, plural? You got a dog?” he demands, already walking toward the back of the house where the yard is.
“Actually,” says Liam, starting to giggle, “I got four.”
He’d mention that Sophia took both of the dogs with her when she left, the two of them agreeing that they shouldn’t be separated, but he doesn’t want to ruin the moment, and he figures the puppies will be distracting enough to derail that conversation before it starts. He’d rather not dwell on all of the empty space he’d had the first few weeks of break, or how big the house feels without someone else’s presence helping him fill it up.
There’s a pause, and then Harry honest-to-god spins on the heel of his fancy designer boot. “You’re fucking with me,” he says, even as the delighted grin spreads over his face. When Liam smiles back, Harry turns back around and runs to the sliding glass doors that lead outside.
Liam hears a delighted shout and follows the sound to Harry, kneeling in the grass surrounded by the puppies. “What’re their names?” asks Harry, cooing at them.
Liam’s heart hurts from how perfect this is. He clears his throat, focuses. “Uh, that’s Roger, and the one with the spot on his nose is Buck, and then the girls on your lap are Nat and Peggy.”
It takes a minute to click, and then Harry turns on Liam with the most ridiculously fond, incredulous expression. “You adopted a litter of Captain America dogs? Really? Not sure why I’m surprised, though. If anyone was gonna do this… it’d be you, mate.”
Liam concedes the point easily, stepping outside and crouching down beside Harry. Peggy bounds over to him immediately, and she’s so precious Liam feels himself melting. “Hi, sweetheart,” he mumbles in the voice he really only uses with the puppies, scritching gently under her chin and behind her ears. Her eyes slip half-closed, pleased, and then she rolls over and turns her belly to him. When Liam looks over, he sees that Harry is still trying to pet the other three pups all at once.
“They’re so sweet,” murmurs Harry. His eyes are so, so green in the light, like blown glass, like they’re lit from behind.
“Yeah,” says Liam, but it feels like a breath that catches in his throat. “Um,” he continues, coughing, “are you hungry?”
Harry blinks, looks up. “Sure,” he answers. “Unless you’re cooking.”
There’s a sweet, mischievous glint in his eye, playful like he’s always been. “Hey now,” protests Liam mildly, but he feels himself smiling, helpless. “No, my mum left some food when she dropped by yesterday.”
“Thank you, Karen,” says Harry appreciatively, hamming it up in that way he has. “And here I thought you were going to starve now that you’re living alone-“ He seems to realize what he’s said as soon as he’s said it, eyes widening a fraction and face losing some of it color. “Shit,” he says immediately, “sorry, forget I said that, that was rude and I wasn’t thinking.”
He goes polite when he’s flustered, thinks Liam, and almost hates himself for feeling so fond about it. “It’s fine,” he answers, waving his hand around. It stings, but Sophia was gone even before Liam got back to this empty house. It stings, but not nearly as much as it used to. “Anyway, food?”
“Yeah, please,” agrees Harry. The gratitude in his tone is for more than just the food, Liam knows.
“I think it’s about dinner time for these buggers, too.” The dogs all perk up at hearing the word dinner, the braver of the bunch yipping excitedly. “I know,” says Liam, “you’re hungry, I know. C’mon.”
They all go inside, puppies included, and Harry almost lands flat on his face when Roger tries to sneak in between his legs. “Cheeky,” he chides, pointing at the dog, but he’s grinning.
“He just wanted to see a legendary Harry Styles fall,” says Liam, giggling. “They’re epic, you’ve got to admit. Your arms go like a windmill.”
Harry looks hilariously offended. “Excuse me, Liam,” he crows, and it’s so reminiscent of tour and interviews and all of the mess that came before the break that Liam has to stop for a minute, take a quick breath, reorient himself with his surroundings.
He shrugs instead of saying something embarrassing, and chalks it up to a win.
The puppies eat while Liam heats up the leftover chicken potpie, and Harry hums as he sets the table. It feels dangerously domestic, like this could be something they do fairly often, but Liam knows better than to get his hopes up. Harry doesn’t stay in one place for long, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make him hard to keep track of. Liam likes consistency. He likes his house, and he likes his dogs, and he likes to feel dependable. To know where to find people. To be there when people need him.
For all Liam knows, Harry could be on the first flight back to the States in the morning. So it’s best not to entertain any fantasies while Harry is here, and try to just enjoy his company while it lasts.
The two of them eat quietly, Harry offering some random conversation every once in a while and Liam responding, though it might lack some of his trademark enthusiasm. He’s just tired, is the thing, feels suddenly exhausted even though he hasn’t been doing all that much. He’d only just gotten the puppies a week and a half ago, and they’re lots of work, but his songwriting notebook is collecting dust under the bed and Harry’s was the first call he took in five days.
It’s only when Harry gets up from the table and grabs for his keys that Liam starts to get nervous, though.
“Wait,” he says, not shy but trying not to be over-eager. He knows he sounds confused but that’s better than sounding upset, at least. “Do you have somewhere to be?”
Harry’s hand freezes over the keys. “No,” he says, slowly.
It’s the tone of voice he gets when he wants to say more but he won’t without a push, so Liam raises his eyebrows and waits.
Harry pulls his hand back and touches the back of his neck. “I just,” he says, “thought you might, like. Want me to go.”
Liam’s heart sinks. “What? Why?” he asks, though the turn in his stomach seems pretty self-explanatory. He almost wishes that he weren’t usually so chatty; when he’s not feeling his best, the silence always gives him away.
There’s a pause, and Liam immediately wants to apologize, starts to before Harry cuts in and says, “Liam, come on. I know you. Something’s bugging you, and I didn’t want to, like, bother you. Or whatever. I just thought you’d want me to go.”
When something is bothering Liam, he hates to be alone, and Harry knows that. The lie sinks to the bottom of his stomach like a rock. “You don’t have to,” he answers, quieter than he’d meant to, “but if you want to go, don’t let me stop you.”
This feels stupid, melodramatic, but if Harry leaves then at least Liam will have an excuse for curling up in bed with the dogs and not moving until he absolutely has to. Unlike the last few days, when he did it for no valid reason at all.
“Liam,” says Harry, a tiny bit exasperated, and Liam gets up from the table, throws on a smile.
“It’s fine,” he says, “sorry, I’m fine. I’ll see you later, yeah?”
“Hey-“ protests Harry, but Liam has had enough humiliation for one day.
“I’ll walk you out,” he interrupts quickly, scooping up all of the plates and carrying them into the kitchen to drop in the sink. When he walks back out, Harry is just standing there, watching him. “Might want to put a coat on,” suggests Liam.
Harry doesn’t say anything to that, nor does he move to get his coat. “I’m staying,” he says, and Liam isn’t sure he can really handle this much emotional whiplash in one evening, but he also isn’t up to fighting.
He nods. “Okay,” he says, exhausted.
Harry’s eyes are full of concern and something else swirling underneath that Liam can’t place. He looks like he’s about to say something when Peggy jumps on his leg, probably shedding all over Harry’s black jeans. “Well hello,” Harry tells her, smiling, and his dimples are too much to look at it, so Liam turns and finds the other dogs.
Buck is playing with Nat in the living room, but Roger is missing. Liam calls out a bit, wandering through the house, and finds the dog curled up on the middle of Liam’s bed, chewing on Liam’s pajama pants.
“No,” he chides, tugging the pants away.
He tosses them into the laundry and goes to find another pair, but he doesn’t have any clean. He’d meant to do laundry yesterday but then he’d got caught up cleaning after Peggy, who’d eaten something she wasn’t supposed to and subsequently spit it up, and he contemplates just sleeping naked before the day (week, month, year) catches up to him and his eyes are watering without his permission.
He scrubs at his face, wiping away the building tears. It’s embarrassing, and he really does need to just take a breath.
He’s ready to dart into the bathroom and splash some water on his face before heading back out to talk to Harry, but he turns around and-
“Hey,” Harry says, much less hesitant than before, “hey, what’s wrong?”
And Liam was fine, is the thing. He was fine, and he is fine, and he can handle it, but when Harry hugs him he finds that he can’t stop crying no matter how he tries. He must be ruining Harry’s shirt at this pace, the sheer material not holding up well to water. “Sorry,” he says, thick with tears. “I��m sorry, sorry.”
Harry shushes him, holding him a little closer, and it’s almost humiliating, how safe it feels to be held like this.
It takes Liam a good few minutes to finally calm down enough to pull away, and Harry’s expression is tight with worry. “You can talk to me,” he says, after a long pause. “I know you’re upset and all, but you can talk to me instead of running off, you know.”
That’s rich, thinks Liam, that Harry is talking about dealing with things instead of running off, but it’s a mean thought, unfair. Harry is here now, and Liam has been hiding from the world for weeks. He’s got no ground to stand on.
“The house is too big,” is what he finally comes up with, and wants to kick himself for how weird and shaky it comes out, and how little sense it even makes.
Harry, for his part, takes it in stride. “Okay,” he says, a little bit prodding.
Liam takes a deep breath and tries again. “Ever since Sophia left,” he says, this time more coherently. “Everything is just so quiet, and, like, empty. I hate it. And we’re not touring or anything, and it’s just. Nothing. I don’t know.”
“So you got the dogs,” continues Harry slowly, filling in a few of the blanks. “Have you been taking care of them by yourself?”
Liam nods, shrugs, feels himself flush a little. He knows it’s stupid, okay. He knows he probably can’t handle all of them, but he’s been lonely, and he didn’t want to separate them from each other.
They needed each other, he thought.
“Okay,” says Harry, again, still slow. He takes in Liam’s tearstained face, the tension in his shoulders, and his gaze feels like it burns when it runs over Liam’s body. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m gonna move in for a bit, and you’re going to actually talk to people when you’re upset instead of adopting more dogs, and you’re not going to run yourself into the ground trying to keep up with everything. Yeah?”
Liam feels frozen to the spot. “You’re staying?” he asks, and wants to bite his tongue immediately after. “I mean, don’t you have stuff to do?”
Again, it comes out awkwardly, but Harry just smiles this time, half-shrugs. “Nothing this important,” he answers.
If Liam wasn’t looking for it, he’d have missed the trace of a blush, high on Harry’s cheekbones.
But he was looking for it, wasn’t he. Embarrassing to the last.
It still makes him feel warm from the inside out.
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