#i feel like peoples just gonna ignore me and that's one of my greatest fears 😂😂😂😂

[officiallyisagibrainrotted]

Ya know I realized that I don't talk to my followers at all like I don't talk to y'all and I feel bad about it , I'm just super shy when it comes to making friends online but I'm willing to try 😤

So is anybody out there ? No? Just me? Ok that's fine .

[bi-bard]

We Ain't Angry at You, Love, You're the Greatest Thing We've Lost - Dream of the Endless Imagine [The Sandman]

Title: We Ain't Angry at You, Love, You're the Greatest Thing We've Lost

Pairing: Morpheus | Dream of the Endless X Dream!Reader

Based On: You're Gonna Go Far

Word Count: 1,638 words

Warning(s): Morpheus being a dick, mention of bullying/mistreatment

Summary: After the events with the Corinthian and the Dream Vortex, many thought that Morpheus may have run out of any remaining kindness and leniency. However, they were gravely mistaken. It simply took a well-intentioned dream to prove it.

Author's Note: I think I've changed this song's story about four times. I'm sorry. Everything just felt repetitive.

STICK SEASON [WE'LL ALL BE HERE FOREVER] - NOAH KAHAN WRITING CHALLENGE MASTERLIST

------------------

After Morpheus went missing, I had been consumed by a deep fear that I would never be able to find a sense of purpose for myself.

It wasn't until a few years later that I finally allowed myself to leave the Dreaming behind me. It was terrifying at first. It was still largely unknown to me. I had to adjust and learn. However, once I started to do that, it was as if all of the puzzle pieces snapped into place.

I had never known peace like I did during my time on Earth.

For nearly a century, I had crafted myself a perfect home. I had established relationships and connections. I had become a fixture.

For the first time, there was a purpose for me that did not feel forced. One that did not leave me feeling burnt out or angry. I was able to merely exist and be enough for those around me.

Yes, there were hard times. I didn't age like humans did. There were times when I would need to move in order to avoid them figuring that out, but then I got to find a new web of people to connect myself to.

It was everything to me.

I had thought about what my life would have been like if I hadn't been confined to the Dreaming, but getting to actually experience it was... perfect.

It was a shame that my perfection was so cruelly interrupted.

I had no indication that anything was wrong as I walked into the small place that I had grown to call my own.

Maybe that was my fault. Maybe I hadn't been paying enough attention. Maybe spending my time in this realm had left me blind to the signs of my old one.

That was the only explanation I had for not being prepared to see Morpheus standing in my living room.

I jumped when I saw him. It had been a century. I had been under the impression that he wasn't coming back. I had convinced myself that I was perfectly safe here because Lucienne hadn't tried to stop me and I had spent so much time here.

It may have sounded foolish, but I wanted to believe it.

"Morpheus," I said quietly, still trying to grapple with the fact that he was alive and standing before me.

"Hello, (Y/n)," he replied.

I stepped inside quickly, shutting and locking the door behind me. "What are you doing here?"

"You abandoned the Dreaming."

"So did the Corinthian," I countered as I set my stuff on the dining room table. "Surely, he is of more importance than I am."

Morpheus's jaw clenched. "I have a plan to take care of the Corinthian and the harm that he has caused."

"The Corinthian has done nothing short of living up to the limits and purpose that you defined for him," I continued. "His work extended to the world of the waking, but you are the reason that he has been able to do such a thing."

"He is not important at this moment. You returning to the Dreaming is."

"Did you not also abandon the Dreaming," I asked, ignoring his statement almost entirely. Delaying the inevitable, but I had no interest in calling it that at the time.

"I was imprisoned," he corrected. "I had no escape for a century. You chose to run out of selfishness."

"Yours was due to imprisonment, mine was out of necessity,"

"Lucienne was watching over the realm. You were safe there."

"I was not when you were in power. Your absence did not change that for better or worse. All that changed was the crumbling of buildings."

He paused for a moment. "I do not understand."

"You never wanted to," I muttered. I crossed my arms and stood in front of him.

"Explain it to me. Tell me why you felt it was so necessary to abandon any and all responsibility that you had."

"Your other dreams and nightmares tormented me as much as they tormented the humans that they had been assigned to," I said bluntly, stepping forward as I did so. "Are you truly shocked that I decided to leave when I knew that it would be safe for me to do so?"

Morpheus had no answer to my question. His jaw merely clenched and his back straightened, as if making himself taller would cause me to step down from this argument.

I shook my head. "You need to go-"

"Regardless of the reason, you have a purpose in the Dreaming," he replied. "You will not abandon it."

"You have been gone for a hundred years, you have no right to demand things of me-"

"It would be wise of you to remember your place," he cut me off. I felt as if the blood in my veins ran cold. "You may return on your own or I will ensure that you do."

"Lord Morpheus," I scoffed. "How could you possibly be so selfish-"

My words were cut off as a cloud of sand surrounded me. It felt as if I had no opportunity to realize what was happening before I was suddenly standing back in the Dreaming.

It was darker than I remembered. Colder. It was clear that some work had been done since it had started to crumble to pieces years ago, but something was still very clearly wrong.

I would have been more worried about the state of the realm if I had not been so consumed by my anger.

I still had a million things to say to Morpheus. Explanations and accusations and pleas. All of them equally important... and all of them going equally unheard.

I had relented to bothering him and Lucienne. I had been told over and over that there was no time. That I needed to get back to what I had been created for.

But I had experienced so much beyond that now. I couldn't just let it go.

I was upsetting them. I knew it. It was a shame that I didn't feel any guilt over that.

It wasn't until the dust settled around the Corinthian's actions and the Vortex that Morpheus ever decided to speak with me.

I walked into the main hall with my heart almost in my throat. I tried to calm myself down. It wasn't going well. I had been so angry before this. So focused on his refusal that now that I would be able to talk to him, I lost every argument that I wanted to make.

Terrified felt like both a word that was too intense and not intense enough.

When I made it there, he was standing at the top of his stairs, staring up at the large stained-glass windows in the room. I took a deep breath.

"You asked to see me, sir," I called.

Morpheus turned around and began walking down the steps. "Yes. There is a discussion that needs to be had."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "What about, sir?"

"About your place here in the Dreaming," he replied.

"Oh?"

"When I sent you back to the Dreaming, I was focused on rebuilding the realm," he explained. "It had fallen apart during my absence, and I knew that returning the dreams that had escaped would aid in returning it to where it was meant to be.

"I understand now that my actions were selfish. My assumption that the world would be the same as it was before my imprisonment led me to ignore the wishes and knowledge of those who cared for me and the realm as a whole. The results were heartless. Blind."

I didn't respond. I was still uneasy about the meeting. He stepped forward a bit.

"The Dreaming was never as kind to you as I wished it to be," he muttered. "I am sorry for not addressing that. For not protecting you as I always should have."

"Thank you," I murmured. Having him acknowledge it would have been enough for the time being. However, that was not the only thing that Morpheus had to say.

"I wish to send you back," he continued. "Back to that life that you had made for yourself in the waking world. If you will allow me to do so."

I felt tears fill my eyes. "Sir, are you being serious?"

A small grin formed on his face. "Yes."

I let out a breathy, shocked laugh before quickly moving forward and hugging him as tightly as I could. I had forgotten any formal behavior or respectful actions in that moment. I almost pulled back and apologized but was stopped by him hugging me back and chuckling to himself.

"Thank you," I murmured.

"You have nothing to thank me for."

I stepped back slowly, smiling fully at him. "When can I leave?"

"Whenever you are ready."

"Now?"

"Are you ready now?"

"Yes."

He reached into his pocket, pulling out a handful of sand. "Well, then I believe that the only thing left is to wish you good luck."

"Thank you, Lord Morpheus."

He nodded to me once before holding out his hand and blowing a handful of sand at me.

I closed my eyes as the sand swept up around me. As the wind died down, I opened my eyes again. I found myself in the hall of my apartment building.

I smiled again before rushing to the door. I found my spare key under the welcome mat and quickly made it inside.

I let out a sigh as I looked around. Everything was exactly how I'd left it. It was all perfect. Not a speck out of place.

I chuckled to myself as my tears filled my eyes.

I had never known peace like that before.

And I would never be more grateful that I was finally given the chance to experience it.

------------------

Navigation Guide

What I Write For

Some Original Characters

[noname-nonartist]

(If you're not comfortable with ask games, feel free to ignore)

When you get this, list 5 songs you like to listen to, publish them, and send this ask to the last 10 people in your notifs!

@not-so-empty-sekai (side blog)

your art is so good btw :3

Oh? A song ask-chain game? Sounds fun! :Dc

Hmmm. Okay, how about this!

I’ll list 5 songs that are pjsk songs (since I’ve been listening to them a lotttt), and 5 other songs that aren’t pjsk related, to mix things up a bit! >:3c

Okay? Nice~

Let’s gooooo!!! (List under the cut)

Side Note: Thank you for saying my art is good! It made my day! >///<

PJSK Songs that I listen to~

1. Bake no Hana

Of course this song is gonna make it into the list! Because ever since Mizu5, I’ve just been listening to this every dayyyy :’)

Mizu5 wreaked me emotional for reals, for realssss ;v;

2. Ultra C

I’m so proud of vbs for finally surpassing RAD Weekend! It was such a good event, and an even banger song! The moment where Miku gave one last encouragement to Kohane? So good. Ahhh! Of course the scene afterwards where vbs when to visit Nagi’s grave! Ahhhhh! It punched me in the guts! In a good way tho! TvT

3. Watashi Wa Ame

I know it’s a joke that all of Ena’s events are about her struggles as an artist, and while it’s true. I do think they mix it up enough and show Ena’s character growth throughout it super well. And this event is the prime example of that.

Her getting insight of what her father struggled with as an artist. Ena learning how she was the main inspiration for his father’s possible last painting. How he sees her as a hope of light in his darkest times. How he genuinely loves and wants to protect her (albeit not in the greatest way as we all know). And how she grew so much in both understanding and confidence to understand her father’s intentions.

It’s such a really nice event for me that also got me emotional. Also the song is so gooddddd~ *v*

4. Regulus

Yepppp, a Leo/Need song! It’s such a banger!

While I’m not that well versed on Leo/Need compared to N25 and VBS, I did read Honami’s stories (look, my adhd brain be hopping around the storyline like crazy whenever i gets attached to a character lol)

And i just gotta say, I’m so proud of Honami! She has definitely grown so much since the main story.

Her initially lacking the confidence to make a decision due to her anxiety, fears, and people pleasing tendencies. (that caused her to initially be distant from her closest friends, and caused her to be depressed during that time)

To now. Being confident to speak truthfully about her feelings and standing up for herself and Leo/Need (seen in the Little Braver event). And now she’s an offical leader of Leo/Need! Ahhhh! So proud of her! >v<

5. Watashi Wa, Watashitachi Wa

Bang! A More More Jump song to finish off this list! >:Dc

And once again, I’m not as well versed in the MMJ, but my adhd brain did get attached to Shizuku, hence me reading the her event stories (i still have read Shizu4 yet tho… •3•;)

But anyway! I absolutely love this song and the event that is associated with it. It’s such a good way for Shizuku to face her past and show how much she has grown and is willing to be more proactive to be the best idol she can be, as herself.

It also gave more insight what happened during her time in Cheerful*Days and how the rift between the members began. Fleshing out the members and showing a more complex situation than a simple jealousy situation at first glance.

And like the song is so catchy and hopeful, a perfect song that embodies Shizuku’s determination. :3c

Oh shoot. That took longer than expected uhhhh… Rapid fire non-pjsk song list, go!

Non-PJSK Songs:

1. 雨乙女 (Ameotome)

2. Sing The Moon

3. Yubikiri Genman

4. ThoughtCrime

5. いばら (Ibara)

[crossyourheartspreparetodie]

Hey there brats, long time no see. Life has been pretty busy I think for most of us, still I haven't checked in for awhile and I'm sorry about that. I'm even more sorry I came back under not the greatest circumstances, but hey, no one is perfect.

I dont think I need to go into much explaining as to why the air feels heavy around us, or why everything and everyone feels more silent than usual. Especially true if you're living in the U.S. Unfortunately, I think many of us will be remembering that day for the rest of our lives, I know I will.

I'll always remember how the color drained out of both my brat's face when they heard the news. The realization. The fear. And the way they looked at me.

And I could say nothing.

What can someone say to try to explain why most a country would go against their own people just because they exist? How does one explain how such hatred and ignorance exists in the world?

All I know is...is that this is not the world I wanted my brats to grow up in.

And that there are two choices.

You can give up. Curse out everything and everyone. Build up walls so high nobody can come in. Believe everyone is out to get you and nobody gives a single shit about anyone else unless they benefit from it somehow.

Or you can keep walking.

Yes, it's ok and valid to be angry. It's valid to be sad and to be disappointed. It's valid to feel fear and to feel like everyone hates you. And you should sit and feel those feelings for awhile. Let them come and go.

But also know that just because you feel that way, in reality it's not true. There are other people out there that are hurting just like you are. There are people out there that love you just the way you are, even if the world didn't show you that. And if you didn't find those people yet, they're out there waiting for you, and just like you, they need you right now.

And if that isn't enough, well I've always been a man who enjoys living to spite other people. We can piss them off together. I mean how sad do you really have to be to be pissed off at someone's existence? Pathetic, honestly-

Anyways I digress...

The world looks cold and ugly out there and I'm not here to tell you it isn't. But there are some beautiful things still here and if you shut yourself away you're gonna miss it.

And if there isn't anything...then make it. I probably haven't seen everything the world is able to offer (who has) but I know over the few years of having this account, how talented and unique you all have been. Each of you has a voice, and I think the best thing we can all do right now is to channel our outrage and our disappointment through our talents (come on you know Tiedoll would be convincing you to do the same).

We can also, I dunno, TP some houses. What? I got a reputation to keep up. I can't go and keep sounding like Tiedoll, people will think I've grown too soft.

The point is...the world would be darker without you in it. So yeah...feel you feelings for a bit, kid. But I hope after you're done, you come back out, ready to kick some ass. Don't let the world take away your light. We all need to stick together.

I'll try to be around more often as well. (Mun has to adult as well ewww gross I know)

Remember to eat something today. Take your medications. Hydrate. Do something for yourself whether it's going for a walk, journaling, playing a game, etc. And get some sleep.

If you even manage to do maybe 3 of these things (I hope it's mostly eating and drinking water) then you did good today.

I'll see you soon brats, and remember my ask box is always open.

[ditizygirl]

omg forgive me for using your askbox as a dumping ground for my rant but you're one of very few people with common sense so I'm sending it in anyways feel free to ignore or delete 🫶

as someone who's been in the mogai community for three whole tiresome years and who has also been heavily involved in communities which literally engage in child exploitation (as a victim LOL I gotta clarify 😭😭) there's a lot of overlap even if some people refuse to admit it

like is it emiko rei asano from the real hit show I Dressed Up As A Drop-dead Gorgeous Model for a Day and My Entire Class Fell In Love With Me?!?!'s fault that predators would decide to target them for their typing quirks and the way they present themselves? no, absolutely not, and it never will be. but is it still relatively their responsibility to make sure that what they're doing doesn't genuinely border on ageplay? yeah, I would say so, because if as many of them are involved in sfw age regression as they claim they should know what's commonly in those sfw communities and what's typically only limited to ageplay—yet they don't.

if you dance around in a landmine field, eventually something is going to explode.

a really common tactic used by child predators which I'm gonna like explain super briefly and avoid giving too much info abt is that they expose people to explicit things under the guise of it still being sfw, and gradually move on from there. if you are a predator and you are entering the editblr community all you need to do is scroll through an anime list, pick one, pick some shitty dividers from canva to slap onto a character and add a psd coloring to it. it isn't that difficult to talk in third person ꒰⁠⑅⁠ᵕ⁠༚⁠ᵕ⁠꒱⁠˖⁠♡, it isn't that difficult for your one and only idol to start dming u abt how cool && awesome ur work is and how they wanna get 2 know u better ^–^ none of this s××t is difficult to replicate xD

and I'm not saying it's their fault if a predator comes up to them. but I am saying that editblr puts a large focus onto fake personas that everyone holds up no matter what, and a lot of them are all-knowing goddesses who are meant to fear nothing—so what happens when you mix that with someone who knows how to use that to their advantage? an explosion.

I'm not gonna sit here and claim that everyone on editblr is pedobaiting or predators because most of them are lonely afabs with no irl friends looking for a safe community they can reside in and be seen as cool. and that's fine. but when you worship a 15 year old and treat their work as if it's the greatest thing to ever touch the tags.. that is going to cause issues. that could potentially cause disorders, or at least traits of disorders which cannot be "fixed" or "cured", for lack of a better word, without a fair bit of therapy.

teenagers are easy to manipulate. lonely teenagers who don't get attention from anyone other than one community are the easiest, because they'll go all the way to get what they want. and when they go too far, get ostracized from the community and end up alone again.. it opens up more opportunities.

I wholeheartedly believe that the emphasis on the personas, the layouts, the typing quirks, the aesthetics and the most important aspect everyone tries to live up to, perfection, will cause the downfall of the community.

I do also think it's funny that everyone is caught up on the dyslexia thing considering half the people in this community are faking disorders and saying slurs they can't reclaim just because nobody will question them for fear of being attacked but uhm that's a different personal topic !! btw for a group all abt acceptance they certainly do hate it when people aren't white or "japanese" (you know fully well why that's in quotes) .. lol .. kinda funny how that works !

.

[typekiku]

TSUKIHIME FASHION REVIEW 3!!!

under the dark crimson moon, i write this newest entry of the much awaited much beloved tsukihime fashion review.

it's a duty i must carry out for the sake of the generations of lost sheep both before and after my time that have yet to truly appreciate the true depth of style that is contained within the single greatest visual novel known to mankind (according to me)

yet, i feel as if i am not doing my duty to its fullest... how can i possibly adequately sum the glory of todays fashionista? how can i dare attempt to sum that up?? no! i cannot waver in my faith in my incredibly lacking writing skills nor fear people figuring out this barely has anything to do with fashion... I WILL PERSEVERE!!

on with the show as the youth say!

(SPOILER ALERT: i should mention ill probably end up spoiling a shit ton of oghime and whatnot here so watch out)

so without further ado todays subject is:

drum roll

MORE DRUM ROLL

thanks uhh whatever you are from

MICHAEL ROA VALDAMJONG

yes the one and only roa

BROA

the legend himself, the Serpent of Akasha, Uroboros, the founder of the burial agency, the infinite reincarnatior, and professional Arcueid simp.

we have gathered here today to judge his design and uh fashion ig and whatever else i feel like ranting today about.

lets get right to it.

look at this dude all shirtless and shit like cmon so shameless... cover em up damn. seriously tho this man has a thing for showing off his (or should i say others) bodies like you will see soon.

i guess this comes down to him enjoying the freedom of being fully in control of whatever body he is currently occupying actually?

maybe this is some super deep look into the merits of semi nudism or whatever idk im not smart.

probably takeuchi just wanted an excuse to draw some seriously ripped abs actually i mean this might seriously be the most abby abs we ever see in any TM work. its fucking shredded and roa probably knew that. weirdo

on the flipside that majestic hair is simply incredible. DAMN thats some 10/10 hair. only other hair in this series that compares is my wife arcueid's long hair before her mean little (Older actually but idc) Altrouge got all mean and shit.

umm who is this? what happened to my incredible haired roa?? TAKEUCHI WHERE ARE YOU??? someone please give me back long haired roa... this isnt funny...

do you see what we lost? long gorgeous haired roa should've stayed and im genuinely upset we lost him to this admittingly much better dressed roa. im ashamed of you serpent of fraudkasha

fr tho where tf did he even get this rockstar ass drip anyways? we know SHIKI has been locked up in the outside house for awhile before released thanks to a certain maid... did he just drop by the local hot topic or whatever? did he manifest it through sheer willpower and arcueid simpery?

understandable tbh i too acheive things through arcueid simpery such as dirty stares and social exclusion!!

for reference, here is SHIKI

yea

i guess he just uhh changes him which in hindsight is really fucking sad to think about so lets not

uhh ANYWAYS

ok so ignoring ciel on the right elesia or should i say roa decides the very first thing hes gonna do in poor elesias body is to strip it naked

huh?

yea roa is definitely a weird one. no wonder the other ancestors hate him (besides nero because he is #HIM)

sick cape tho

why is he so hot here actually? what the hell? i underestimated his looks like damn

no really why is he so hot anyways he should look like an absolute freak like he actually is. i see you roa. i see you got that long braid wrapped around your neck like damn son... you may have fallen in love with a literal killing machine and never even got to speak to her till the very very end but i see you.

rizzless bastard.

well thats enough from me so ill drop this classic mahoyo line because i found it very funny without context.

ciao!

[hschl-fanficwriter]

Slaughtered Harmony: ((Full Story))

Slaughtered Harmony is a Au of Danganronpa v3, inspired by the story:"Island of the Slaughtered",created by Eavee-ry on Tiktok. Mixing Gore and Creppy Elements, our cast has a group of ultimates instead of Campers, are they gonna be luck to survive or not? Lets figure it out!

(( No art for this au, you need to create your own and credit me))

Story:

- A group of sixteen ultimate students were invited to spend a year at a summer camp in order to improve their talents and at the same time, create great memories with each other, a complete package if you ask me.

- However, a fateful incident would be the necessary word for a big explosion, well, we can't always trust everything in the hands of destiny, can we? I just hope that nothing bad happened among our students, it would be horrible if the country's greatest source of hope was extinguished in the blink of an eye.

Day:3

Victim 1#: "Shuichi Saihara"

Rule #1: "Don't go where you don't belong"

- From the beginning, the students thought about finding the Chin director who had now disappeared without leaving any trace. The students would then divide themselves into groups of eight to look for the director and try to get an answer.

- Kaede and Shuichi were together from beginning to end, both were named "Truth Duo" by Kaito who found it admirable to see the courage of the two, especially Kaede, in investigating the truth behind the disappearance. The duo ended up separating from the others when Shuichi heard a noise coming from the camera room, as he approached, leaving Kaede alone in the hallway, but as he touched the doorknob, a masked individual appeared from inside, grabbing Shuichi and scuttling him with a stick.

- The killer tied Shuichi to a chair and a rubber helmet was attached to his head attached to some electrical wires. Upon waking up and noticing things around him, Shuichi was unable to say anything before feeling the electrical charges dominating his body, he tried to scream but the muffled sounds of the machine made it impossible for others to hear him. Shuichi's eyes and ears bled and his skin turned bluish shortly after his electrocution.

- His body was found by Kaede who, upon noticing his disappearance, searched all the doors and found an electric shuichi in the camera room.

Day:5

Victim 2#: Miu Iruma

Rule 2#: "Avoid talking more than necessary."

- The students noticed the seriousness of the situation, not only did they lose a colleague but they were afraid to know what the next steps of the now murderer among them would be. While many were corrupted by fear and doubt, some ignored it.

-Miu was one of those people, the mask that it was all just a big prank still remained, for her Shuichi's "death" was just a technical trick because according to her, Shuichi's stupidity would not be so great as to To die like that, it made a wave of hatred rise in a kaede before crying over the death of her friend. Both were removed by Kaito and Gonta, noticing the stupidity she did, Miu locked herself in her laboratory in order not to be bothered by any of the students, even KIB0 who was the only one to stay by my side even though she had started it all.

- The killer, seeing the fight from afar, took the opportunity to enter and hide in Miu's laboratory until she was alone. Inside the laboratory, the killer surprised me from behind and hit her in the head with a wrench, then he trapped her on a metal stretcher leaving her with her legs open, he then arrested her and replaced the drill bit from a giant drill with a pipe, he activated the drill in the direction of Miu's vaginal canal, causing her to agonize before the killer put another pipe, this time inside the girl's mouth, she was subjected to choking while the drill pierced her vagina. Miu died some time later from choking and blood loss.

- Her body was found the next morning by KIB0 and Kokichi.

Day: 7

Victim 3#: Korekiyo Shinguji

Rule 3#: "Never test for danger"

- Things were going from bad to worse, if they didn't find a way to get out of that camp, how many more bodies would end up in the pile? Under the leadership of Kirumi and her recent assistant Angie, the students were ready to enter the dark depths of the forest to see the possibility of finding some way out or resources not found, logically some chose not to go out of fear or because they thought the idea was too crazy. like Maki who said that he would be handing himself over on a tray to the killer.

- Korekiyo whispered next to Rantaro how such losses meant the return of dark forces and said he was impressed by the way the killer managed to spread despair, wondering if they were worth resisting even if the end result was obvious. This caused him to die in the mouth because the other students abandoned him in the forest at the behest of Angie, who stated that she felt a dark energy around Korekiyo and that the best option would be to abandon him to reflect on his bad behavior. Korekiyo was confident that he would be able to return to camp quickly but this never happened before he was taken to an isolated area by his hair.

- Korekiyo tried to run as fast as possible but his body was split in half with a chainsaw and his face was cut into an elongated smile with a pair of scissors.

- His body was found by Angie and Tenko

Day:9

Victim 4#: Ryoma Hoshi

Rule 4#:"Control your temper"

- Another day of calamity and yet another death, seeing how dangerous the trip to the forest was, the others chose to stay away from the vegetation for fear of going through the same thing as Shinguji, but that wasn't all when Ryoma approached of Angie blaming her for Korekiyo's death saying that if they weren't naive enough to go into the dark woods, maybe they would still have Korekiyo with them

- Everyone was surprised by the sudden outburst of a hitherto neutral and uncommunicative Ryoma, the fight grew when Himiko was Angie's shield, stating that her friend never thought of killing him but wanted to leave him alone to reflect on her feelings. negative thoughts. The discussion ended when Ryoma left the group to go take care of some things in his laboratory. Kaito proposed to go with him, scared of something bad happening, but Ryoma reassured him by saying that a cheap copy of Jason next to an entire mafia was a piece of cake.

- Being inside his laboratory, Ryoma noticed the movement coming from the shadows and out of it came a masked figure raising a knife, Ryoma quickly threw two tennis balls at the killer's face giving him time to run, but before he reached the door, The killer managed to hit him with tranquilizing data, making Ryoma lose consciousness. Minutes later he woke up tied to the tennis court beam when the killer placed a ball machine in front of him but replaced the soft tennis balls with table throws. Ryoma was hit several times by the balls that deformed his entire face, leaving him unrecognizable.

- His body was found Kirumi.

Day: 13

Victim 5#: Himiko Yumeno

Rule 5#:"A friend is the one who warns"

- Three days passed without any appearance of the killer or any corpse, this reassured and frightened the students now under the dictatorship/student council founded by Angie with the aim of preventing murders and disappearances. Many were shocked by such an attitude considering that she was responsible for delivering Korekiyo into the hands of the killer, but this did not make it impossible for her to create rules to bring peace in such a chaotic moment, logically a council cannot be made up of just one person and one One of the components to remain alongside their leader was Himiko.

- One day before the event, Angie proposed an activity capable of taking the focus away from the smell and blood of the corpses present and the activity would be a magic show prepared by Himiko, who was quite surprised that someone had considered her illusionistic skills, but this left her motivated delivering a performance to die for for his colleagues.

- The night everything was ready, the killer replaced the tanks, adding piranhas to the used tank. The next morning, Himiko would perform the trick of escaping from the tangle while she was handcuffed, the person responsible for handcuffing was Maki who made Himiko's request to appear as trapped as possible. At the side of the stage was a smiling Angie introducing the show as a curtain was lowered. Minutes passed and there was no sign of himiko worrying the viewers, tenko asked Angie to lower the curtains with a nervous expression which quickly turned into pure horror because in front of everyone inside the tank would not be the smiling magician but what was not eaten by the piranhas surrounding the red water.

- Her remains were found by all the students. Tenko stood in front of the tank crying for hours.

Day: 16

Victim 6#: K1B0

Rule 6#:"Hope is the last to die"

- The chaos intensified when the killer surprised the students during the afternoon, amidst the frantic chase he focused his eyes on K1B0 and Kokichi who separated from the group during the race. K1B0 appeared to be showing signs of malfunction because without Miu it would be impossible to carry out adequate maintenance, but this did not prevent him from protecting Kokichi, who was grabbed by the scarf, with impressive strength he managed to push the killer, leaving Kokichi to fall to the ground, K1B0 ordered him to run and Kokichi reluctantly complied and ran away.

- The killer used a rock to rip out the parts of K1B0 and thus remove its wires, replacing the electrical material with trash while the lenses of his eyes were ripped out and lit candles illuminated that day called a hopeful beacon.

- His body and remains were found by Gonta and his head was found by Kokichi which was placed next to the door of his laboratory.

Day:20

Victim 7#:"Tsumugi Shirogane"

Rule 7#: "Watch where you are going, don't get caught"

-That day, another surprise affected the group when Kaito started spitting blood, he said it was just an allergy, but an analysis carried out by Kirumi proved the opposite, asking if there was something they could use to treat him, Kaede remembered There was a medicine session in Shuichi's laboratory, but she was against going alone, which Tsumugi chose to help her, in fact two are better than one.

- Both walked through the quiet room with only the shock of their improvised weapons echoing through the environment, when Kaede entered the room next to Tsumugi, she saw a shadow on top of her but she fell asleep thanks to a gas before even identifying the source.

- Tsumugi had been kidnapped and taken to his laboratory, the killer used scissors to cut off part of her clothes and replace them with parts of Enoshima's cosplay. Her long blue hair was violently ripped out while she was alive having the junko wig stapled to the sides of her hair. The killer also removed one of her eyes by placing a sphere of blue light and then tried to hang Tsumugi to death with a rope, but it didn't help, hitting her head several times using a weight throw, thus taking the girl's life, then taking the girl's life. he wrapped ropes around her arms, legs and neck hanging her as if he was performing.

- Her body was found by Rantaro and Kaede.

Day:22

Victim 8#: Angie Yonaga

Rule 8#:"Recognize, Confess and Accept"

- Angie was determined to complete her plan so she stole a vial of poison from Shuichi's laboratory and poured it over the dough that Kirumi would use for breakfast the next day, but before she could hide her trick the killer drugged her and took her into the woods.

- She was tied against a tree and the killer stare at her coldly, the killer asked her to recognize her faults over the days and if she did that he would let her live, surprisingly, Angiu laughed and looked at the killer with disdain and justified his actions claiming to be the work of Atua in order to punish those unable to recognize the greatness of his power over those lost in soul and heart just like him. This enraged the killer who hit Angie in the head using a piece of iron, suddenly making her lose consciousness.

-  Then he used the girl's sculpting materials to open her back into a pair of wings, after which he twisted the iron into the shape of a halo and inserted it into the center of Angie's head, which was placed on the camp statue. Now everyone could admire the radiance of Saint Angie.

- Her body was found the next morning by all the students.

Day: 24 and 25

Victims 9#/10#:Kokichi Ouma and Kaito Momota

Rule 9#:"Don't try too hard"

Rule 10#:"Leave him free"

- Kaito's physical health was depleted as the days went by and he would have less chance of life if he continued in that hell, the antidote which was supposed to have some effect actually made what was already bad worse. To their surprise, old Kaito still maintained his carefree expression because if he was going to die, it wouldn't be at the hands of a murderous son of a bitch, but rather alongside his best friends, even Ouma, however the lights in the cafeteria were cut off, indicating the presence of the killer and so everyone started running around the back of the place while Kokichi held Kaito over his shoulders.

- Kaito and Kokichi ended up hiding inside Kaito's laboratory. Both were physically tired, especially Kaito who was waiting for death to arrive, Kokichi tried to motivate him by telling him not to give up but his attempts were in vain when Kaito took his last breath, at the same moment one of the windows was broken by the killer, Kokichi tried to attack him. but a pair of arrows were stuck into his chest.

- The killer, dissatisfied with not being able to take Kaito's life, grabbed the bodies of the two boys and trapped them inside the rocket in the middle of the room and thus attached several blades to the center of the replica and then made it rotate several times until the bodies of both merge into a mixture of human flesh.

- Their remains were found by Kaede and Maki.

Day:26

Victim 11#: Kirumi Tojo

Rule 11: "An Act of Heroism"

- The survivors climbed the mountain to see several boats approaching the camp, everyone was tired, exhausted but happy to hear about the signal sent by K1B0's AI, when they were about to leave, the killer jumped from one of the bushes and grabbed Kaede by the hair and threatening the blonde with a knife. When Kirimu jumped on the killer's shoulders, making Kaede fall to the ground, the other students saw Kirumi fight the killer, ordering everyone to flee and smiled, thanking them for allowing her to be their maid and thus perform her last service.

- Everyone nodded frighteningly and ran towards the boat, Kirumi was beaten and scratched by a knife and before the killer could escape she grabbed him by the shirt towards the edge of the cliff making them both fall, killing them both on impact.

- No one found their bodies.

Survivors

- Kaede Akamatsu

- Tenko Chabashira

- Maki Harukawa

- Rantaro Amami

- Gonta Gokuhara

[taggedmemes]

SENTENCE MEME ⟶ THE WOMBATS / B - Z Sides ( PART TWO ) always feel free to tweak the sentence to fit your muse.

"I watch repeated wildlife shows to keep my mind ticking."

"I bought a book of Churchill quotes and I thought it might be interesting."

"At least it diverts attention from the things that we all know we should say."

"What a wonderful distraction you are."

"Our friends keep vanishing for their jobs in the city, then reappear as vacant ghosts with titles that no one understands."

"I hope my thoughts don't stray off topic again."

"Keep your feet grounded."

"This is not the time for grandiose."

"Something's not right here."

"The paint watches me as I dry here."

"The pain watches me as I waltz through this black hole."

"I don't feel violent."

"I feel somewhat enlightened."

"The best of us always seem to have the most downfalls."

"When did we get addicted to the cure?"

"Sometimes I get aggravated with my concept of time."

"I am still withdrawing from you."

"Our heads tell us to stop as our chests scream out for more."

"I can see an avalanche rushing towards me."

"Something's making that snow look so inviting."

"I miss the safety of home, but perhaps this is what I need."

"We're young, we're free."

"We're ultimately in denial."

"What's left to lose?"

"We never get what we want without hard work and big compromise."

"I'm not bitter all the time."

"It's not the sociopaths that scare me."

"I'll never get rid of this false endeavor."

"You're so infuriating."

"Was I that infuriating?"

"It's not the Illuminati that scares me, it's the people further down the ranks."

"The creatures like you that are so controlling."

"Rest assured, I'll be on my little-caped crusade."

"God knows that I don't hate you."

"My hand hovers over a button of self-destruct."

"I've lost something that was an integral part of me."

"How can I ignore someone that makes me so happy?"

"It's not impeccable wit that makes me smile."

"She had said something that made me fall to my knees."

"You were always the emo type."

"I don't care much for fashion or socialites."

"The nihilists always get my vote."

"All she ever wanted was a little direction."

"All she ever made where the worst impressions."

"I'm a robot like you."

"I'm a maze of coiling wires held together with glue."

"I'm an artificial man with some artificial plans."

"Instead I pondered my fate."

"I know there's something wrong deep inside."

"She's gonna try and suck my blood tonight."

"What are you gonna do to me?"

"Don't strip me of my dignity."

"Let's steer from trouble just as far as we can."

"Just look at what you've done to me."

"You've stripped my of my dignity."

"You've made a monster out of me."

"I'll wear a smile as she starts draining me of life."

"Just grant me one last request."

"I wanna go where the action is."

"What a beautiful night to be an unexploded bomb."

"Let's not apologize for who we are or what we've done."

"The worst battle is not the one fought."

"Let's hope there's no mirrors in the toilets tonight so we don't have to see what's really going on in our eyes."

"It's now cool to read fairytales as long as you rip out the end."

"Something unwelcome is moving in."

"You described me as a charming nowhere man."

"You must be sick of these rhyming metaphors."

"I've begged all that I can."

"You're a firing squad."

"Despair has its own calms."

"I remember those good old days, happily lost in my charmless nowhere place."

"The greatest fears stem from mum and dad."

"I just do the best with whatever I have."

"Don't resort to violence."

"There's more powerful tools to be found in silence."

"When did peace and love become police and handcuffs?"

"When push comes to shove, you've got to man up."

"I'm the mosquito on your wall and the doubt in your mind."

"Desperation does as desperation feels."

"You used to be my shelter from the storm."

"You were the only book to ever put me in a trance."

"I have more fun when I'm alone."

"This is relentless."

"You must think I'm a fool."

"Why the wandering eye?"

"Don't you know that it's not okay to be a narcissist."

"It's not okay to let me down like this."

"I'm her mosquito, she's my killer bee."

"Together we're something alone we can't be."

"Instead of going home, why don't you just come close."

"Let's see how far we can go."

"Let's see how lost we could be."

"I yearn to detox but I'm retoxing again."

"Don't compare me to them."

"I'd do anything for an easy life."

"Sense didn't help, sense left me blind."

"Fear and coconut water will always be my favorite blend of drink."

"Happy hour must end just as our darkest hours."

"Twist your knife deep into me."

"We're different creatures with similar needs."

"If we can't be kamikaze lovers, then we can never be friends."

"Now we're much too close to be driven apart."

"Why would I shake your hand when I can shake your bed?"

"Sometimes I dream of your sweet demise."

"Always playing the victim."

"You're a tormentor."

"You don't play well with others."

[naphthine]

I LOVE HEARING UR THOUGHTS THANK U... icouldnt decide if i wanted to reply here or on discord with the convo about how he decided to kill but i think i will get word limited. on discord. so im just replying here i hope its okay <3..

this is me agreeing with u and sharing my thoughts..!! pretend im replying on discord lolol.. as like my last wall of text i hope this makes sense. im so impressed how you can articulate your points in writing i feel like im rambling very unclearly whenever i write teeehee

one of my favourite parts of their relationship is how despite both characters seeming to be bound to logic (the analyst and the neurologist), everything they do is bound by emotions which are, at their core, something that cannot be predicted. the brain, the control center for feeling, and the character who can essentially predict anything, being at their core two people who are overwhelmed by their emotions is so important 2 me

and their childhood is an important part of their characterisation because this is matsudas major defining event - the death of his mother, losing her and how that changes a person. especially at such a young age - trauma during the early developmental stages can very sharply change a person, and i think the fact that matsuda never really got see his mother as Mother very strongly affected his emotional attachment to the world. hes characterised as seeing this and going "yep im gonna cure dementia and become the greatest neurologist ever" and buries his emotions ten feet under the ground. except that doesnt work, and hes instead this incredibly neurotic person who seems completely cold to everything and then turns around and snaps on someone.

and i think this is specifically where junko would have been drawn to him. because throughout the series it is emotion - ryoko not killing when junko thought she would, hope being able to overcome despair - that junko cannot predict. and heres matsuda, forced to eat cement when he was 6, who probably has never had a normal emotional response to anything in his life, ever. and i think junko would be interested in him because of it. 6 y/o junko being like "i wonder if i poke him with a pencil will he ignore me or throw a book at me". matsudas undeveloped emotional maturity + junko being drawn to the first thing that she cannot predict = besties. with a lot more steps in between but like thats just how i like to imagine they got along

and as you said it's love - emotion - which compels them to act as they do throughout the series. its love that compels yasuke to protect junko through creating ryoko, its love - and the loss of love - that defines ryoko as a separate character as junko. it is the opposite of logic and rationality that blankets them and keeps them safe. even right at the end, when yasuke tries to kill ryoko, and when junko then successfully kills him, its emotion that is the catalyst for them. and i just like that. in characters that are presented as calculating.

yasuke, as much as he may like to pretend hes not, is a character that is governed by emotion. he wants to save his mother. he wants to save ryoko. he refuses to give in until the very end, and even at the end he never walled himself off completely, even if it meant despairing. ive always read him as one of the more emotional characters in the series even if he does not overtly Act emotional if that...makes sense..

tangentially related, another part that i really love to think about is the role of memories and what defines "you". without junkos memories, is junko still junko? is ryoko a separate person? is his mother, who forgot she had a child, still his mother? What makes you, "you"? is it memories (junko)? is it your emotions (ryoko), is it a combination of the two, or something else entirely? and while im ignoring the second part of what junko said in this line of reasoning, the part where he looks at ryoko and sees his mother which so rawly reflects his fear of being abandoned by one he loves again that hes driven to act even against his own moral compass is so dear to me. to watch your mother lose her memories and be unable to do anything, only to later purposefully inflict the same memory loss in order to save someone from themselves must be like.. really hard on the guy to watch.

but the kicker in all of that is that just as junko promised - she never forgot yasuke. even with her memories wiped, she loved him just as she always did. it goes back to emotions.

which is why during the confrontation where he pretends to be izuru, in the very moment where ryoko had completely forgotten who he was - the way he was mentioned to be so defeated probably would have been the worst point in his life. he wouldve immediately been bought back to when he was a child, chased out of his own house by a mother that forgot him. he had failed, and the one person who promised to never forget him did. which would shortly become the second worst moment of his life but well thats not the point

great character i wish he had more merch Also like u dont gotta reply to this theres no worries <3 i just wanted to tack on my own thoughts as a thanks for sharing ur own hehe

It's just-

Yasuke is SOOOOOOOOOO important to the overall plot and the themes of the series, to the point that he leaves behind a massive plothole in Different Mastermind AUs. It's just disheartening to see that people either don't know about him or significantly downplay his involvement.

His relationship with Junko, the core of Danganronpa, is so fucking amazing. The fact that he was one of the most important people to her, to the point that the only thing she's able to remember is how much she loves him, is such a refreshing take on her character when shes constantly portrayed as the evil force. That, even when she is the villain of dr0, we learn that she is capable of loving something other than despair.

His the only other peice we get of Junko's backstory that isn't from Mukuro (which has to be taken with a grain of salt since shes not telling full truths and was also in Fenrir for a good chunk). The sandcastle story gives us a look at a Junko who does something for the sake of another person, without planning on using them. He's probably the only character who's seen Junko grow up, who knows every step of her life. (Never specified when the met, just that he knew her when she went into elementary school (so prolly around 6yo). But Junko also lies that she was responsible for Matsuda's mom condition, and considering he is unsure to believe her implies that there is some plausibility, so who knows how long that was.)

ANYWAY

The fact that he is so ingrained into the two games is so UGH. Yasuke's the reason class 78 cant remember their past. Why Kyoko doesn't remember her talent. The foundation of the game is reliant on HIS research. And even the NWP, something he helped create, is how the second game is able to play out. (And possibly how Junko knew about it since she made AI Junko to be placed into it.) It's so important to the game that even drv3 had to incorporate it somehow into its games.

Just the amount of love she has for this fucker DRIVES ME CRAZY. To include parts of his life's research into her games, to use the same knife she killed him with to frame her biggest obstacles for her sister's death, to have fragments of your last days with him seeping out of your AI self (the notebook, and the two white noises during 2-6)??? UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

The fact, the fucking FACT, that he was the closest person to actually saving her?? Yasuke! Not Makoto, or hajime, or even her fucking twin. Mr."Shut the fuck up, old man".

But its also the point of no return for Junko. The minute Ryoko "died", all her goodness died. Yasuke could've easily agreed to Ryoko's pleas to forget about everything and go back to his lab. But he didn't. And that's where things were set.

He did so much for Junko, because he loved her.

[starshipsofstarlord]

Sebastian convincing you to have another baby...

Pairing | Sebastian Stan x reader

Summary | Seb wants another baby, but he still has to convince you into wanting the same thing.

Warnings | smut, breeding kink, fluff, oral sex (fem receiving), unprotected sex, mentions of birth control, creampie, swearing, cockwarming

Requested ✖️

Y/e/d/n = Your eldest daughter’s name

Y/d/n = your daughters name

Y/s/n = your son’s name

Quick link to my masterlist, if you’re interested in reading more of my crap 😬

The idea of pregnancy gave you many things to think about, the gruelling and simultaneously tiresome journey had been one hell of a rollercoaster. The countless times (approximately two) that you had endured the swelling of your feet, and the divine hunger for the strangest combinations of food, had left you with three beautiful children.

First you had birthed a little girl, that sparked a new light behind your husband’s eyes, and reinvented his world. She was the princess he adored, and the one that you loved to watch Disney movies with, even if she insisted on Frozen every singular time.

And then, after her, you had a pair of perfect twins. They brought sound and restlessness to the household, after your daughter demanding that she wanted a sibling. Deep down, you had wanted more at the time too, but now, you felt as though your life goal was fulfilled.

Your family was everything that you had ever wanted, it felt as though you had been taken off an idealistic screen and transferred into reality. And if that had happened, you wouldn’t be one to complain, for all your greatest wishes had come true.

But if you were to ask your husband, he would make it very clear that he wanted more little devils running around the house. There was a joke that Evans and Mackie had with you every time that they saw you on set, clothed in a tight catsuit to fit your role. They would act amazed at the appearance of you not bearing one of Sebastian’s gorgeous children, their false shock earning laughs from your various co stars.

It wasn’t the fact that you weren’t open to the idea of another child to grow within your womb, however, it was more out of fear. You were well aware that you had been blessed with the birth of your lovely twins, though you were scared that you would endure the premise of double labour again, and it wasn’t exactly the kind of pain that you were willing to experience for a second time.

Being practically split in half once was bad enough, but twice, one instance straight after the other was bound to be the worst torture that a mother could be provided with. As you stirred your evening cuppa, watching as your kids were all huddled playing a board game after their dinner, two arms found placement around your waist, lightly tugging you back into a strong chest.

“Look at our babies.” Your husband mumbled into the crown at the back of your head, his fingertips rolling circles beneath your shirt. “Aren’t they the sweetest?” He asked, pressing a delicate kiss upon the back of your neck. The feeling of his stubble making your body shake wantonly, but you withheld from making sounds, not wanting to draw the attention of your children.

“When they’re quiet.” You agreed, watching as your eldest helped the twins with beating her. “They’re the most important people in my life, and then, it’s my annoying husband, who cannot stop trying to get in my pants for five minutes.”

“That’s called love; your husband loves you.” Sebastian stated, nibbling on your ear lobe as you ushered a sound of approval, clutching onto his hand that was firmly planted on your side, as his tongue traced the shell of your ear. “And I’m sure he’d love to show you how much, if you stop being mean to him.”

“Mean?” You laughed, taking a sip of your drink before spinning in his arms, allowing him to push you flush against the counter. “I can show him mean.” Biting your lip, you traced the seam of his sweats, that appeared to be all that he was currently wearing, brushing your hands up and against his well attended to torso. “But later.”

Seb groaned, leaning his head back, as he moved closer to you, pushing his thigh between your legs, glancing over your shoulder at the kids. “We could put them to bed right now, and then go to our room, then, you can show me how much of a horrible wife you are.”

“As much as I love that idea bubs, the twins need to be bathed, and you have to help your daughter with her math homework.” Leaning forwards, you pressed a kiss on his bicep, moving out from the entrapment of his arms, and lightly patting his ass.

“You know I was joking about you being mean, but now I’m seeing some truth behind my earlier words.” Sebastian plodded away, and towards the open living space, plopping down on the sofa, as he watched his offspring on the floor, smiling at their kindness to one another, though he was sure that tomorrow would be another story.

With one last look, you headed upstairs, going to the main bathroom, and began to slowly the run the tap. During the time you allowed it to run, you grabbed some pyjamas for your babies, as well as a couple of towels and flannels. By the time you had returned to the bathroom, and put everything down ready, the tub was half filled. And so you stopped the stream, putting in a tad of cold water before descending down the stairs.

“Honey, help y/e/d/n with her school work, I’m gonna get these two trouble makers ready for bed.” Your husband nodded as he pursed his lips, trying to ignore how you leant down to pick the twins up, pretending as through the top of your breast had not been caught by his eyes.

And with that, you got the kids cleaned and ready for the following day, meeting Seb at the doorway of y/d/n’s and y/s/n’s room, giving them each a kiss on the forehead before tucking them in for bed.

As you were walking towards your own room, Sebastian lifted you from behind, carrying you the rest of the way. “You can’t keep it in your pants, can you Mr Stan?” You laughed as he dropped you upon your double bed, him instantly kneeling at the end of it to peel your shirt off.

He trailed kisses along your legs, humming from the much desired contact, as his blue eyes flickered up at you. “That’s your fault, you deprive me.” He muttered against your skin, reaching his fingertips up higher to grasp at the sides of your underwear, pulling the material down.

Your husband blew hot air upon your pussy, grinning to himself as it instinctively clenched around nothing. As he moved closer, he breathed in your scent, rubbing the tip of his nose along your clit, before diving in to feast, sneaking his tongue through your slit, instantly prodding at your entrance, causing your head to wind back, and your hand grasp his hair.

“We should have another.” He mumbled against you, and you were almost too delirious to complain, although a light groan emitted from you, as you fought with yourself whether to let him continue eating you out and not respond, or do the responsible, adult thing, and speak about it.

With much resilience, you pulled his head away, licking your lips at his slick stained chin away, tugging him to be laid beside you. “Is that really want you want Seb?” You asked, biting your lip, wanting to hear his thoughts in hopes that it would relax you for the possibility of you bearing more of his children.

“Of course it is draga.” He answered, his icy pools making your own freeze, he cupped your chin, bringing your lips to his own, placing a few pecks upon your lips, before continuing. “I know that you’re nervous, but I will look after you every step of the way, like I have done both times before. Anyways, I feel like directors take a kick out of challenging themselves with making their actresses appear not pregnant, look at both you and Scar through the years.”

You nodded, understanding that your career wouldn’t take the brunt of things. “I want another but... I’m scared. Just, what if I have two again?” You rambled with your hands, and he clasped them between his own, pausing your panicked hand signals, and rubbing his nose against each set of your knuckles.

“The chances of that aren’t very high my love. But if it happens, then maybe this time you’ll let us call them Wanda and Pietro...” his words earned him a light eye roll and a tender hit on his shoulder, as he rolled on top of you, causing you to squeal. “Remember, don’t wake the kids.”

“Kinda hard when I can feel how hard you are.” You retorted, moaning as he began to suck at the spot on your neck that made your knees shake, his hands drifting beneath your shirt, as he began to raise the material up your torso, and over your breasts. You whipped the material over your head, discarding it as his attention turned to your boobs. “I’ll never get tired of these.”

He hummed, before leaning down, taking a rosey pebble to be captured within his mouth, sucking on it as his fingers fiddled with the other. “Seb, I just need you in me.” You prodded his hips with the heels of your feet, pleased when he leaned back, pulling down his sweats, so that his erection bobbed upwards, the head already leaking precum.

“You want a baby that bad?” He asked in a brisk voice, clambering back onto your awaiting body once again, grasping his base with his heavy hand, dragging his tip to circle around your clit. “Want me to fill you up, so that you grow nice and full with my baby.”

A furrow made its way onto your brow, as you held onto his biceps, lightly rolling your hips up against his leaking head. “Honey.” He paused his movements, staring carefully down at you, reading your expression. “I’m still on birth control.” You informed him, watching as his eyelashes fluttered, and he pressed down unto you again.

“A little practise never hurt gorgeous.” Sebastian spoke, slipping his cock into your entrance, sinking into you as you moaned out his name. “Fuck, so tight, even after three kids.” He groaned, putting his hands either side of your head, as he began to thrust in and out of your pussy, breathing heavily through his nose.

“So big.” Your hands grasped at his naked back, casting down to grasp his ass, causing him to suddenly buck deeper into you, emitting another series of moans out of you. “Love your cock.”

“Yeah?” The romanian smugly asked, his lips drifting up the tip of your nose, before running them back down to your own, biting onto your upper lip, as one hand continued to brace his weight above, and the other moved down to fondle with your clit, causing you to tighten around him, your eyelids blinking repeatedly. “You love my fat cock inside of you, about to pump you full of my cum?”

“Yes Seb, love it.” Your eyes screwed shut, tears slipping out the corner of your eyes, as he made his administrations harder, hitting his hips languidly against your own. “Love it so so so mu- ah - ch.”

“Cum angel. Coat my cock, pretty girl.” You complied, reaching your high, as your legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer as your essence pooled around him. “Want me to make you round with my babe, want me to make you full of my cum?”

“I do, I do, I do.” You squealed, your breath hitching as he stilled for a minute, filling you with seed. “Fuck.” You breathed, your chest rising and falling, as he remained in your for a moment, before pulling out, but you stopped him, clasping his back with your sweaty hands. “Stay.”

“Okay.” Seb said tiredly, his skin flushed as he rolled over, so that you were laid on his chest, your head falling to below his chin. “So beautiful, you know that?”

“Mmh.” You hummed, drawing circles upon his skin. “I’ll come off my birth control tomorrow, then, we don’t have to just practice.” He leant down to press a long kiss upon your lips, sneaking his tongue through their natural seam, gently sucking on your own.

“That sounds more than good to me darling.” He stroked down your back with his talented fingers, pulling you closer again. You felt his dick twitch within you as he felt both of your mixed juices trailed down his balls, that huffed from the sensation.

[katnissmellarkkk]

Hit the wasps nest: Gale Hawthorne

This is just word vomit 😅

I honestly don’t dislike Gale at all but I have many a thoughts on the man and it’s difficult to explain the juxtaposition I’m in with him. He’s strong and sturdy and a good person at his core but he is very pushy and too stubborn and immature (which is fine!!! He’s like 18-19 throughout the story, he’s still a teenager, but like, accept the immaturity people!!!) and it’s not the greatest qualities in combination with Katniss’ personality. My hot takes are pretty much this.

He didn’t actually commit a crime with those bombs because he was tricked by Coin and used and abused but like, also welcome to the club, bro??? Leaders used and abused Kat Kat and Peeta and Haymitch and Finnick long before Gale so like, you’re finally at their level I guess? He spent a lot of Mockingjay acting like he understood what it was like to fight in a Hunger Games and he just didn’t, until he got to the end and you know what??? That’s called character arc and it wasn’t a bad one? So here’s my hot take: he wasn’t screwed over by Suzanne, he didn’t get a bad ending, he just didn’t get the girl? Like he ain’t a war criminal but it’s 1000000 valid that Katniss would never wanna see his face again???? I wouldn’t??? Association would be too strong for me, even if rational I’m aware it’s not his fault. So his ending isn’t bad, but if you read between the lines of all the books, Katniss very clearly loved Peeta in a way she never felt for Gale. Gale or no Gale, she was very confused about her feelings for Peeta, and she would have been even without any love triangle business. Gale got my on nerves more because he just like added to her confusion, but then also it’s understandable probably because I was a teen when I read the books initially and it definitely resonated with the boys I knew at school who made everything “what about me!!!” So anyways I have a juxtaposition with my feelings for him because like he’s got a good heart at his core but he’s also pretty irritating at other points and both antis and lovers of Mr. Haw Haw ignore that I feel???

My other hot takes for him : he doesn’t love Prim like his own sister???? That’s the weirdest headcanon-taken-as-canon I’ve ever heard? If that’s your headcanon, then okay great!!! But that’s not canon and I’ve seen several people say that like it’s totally there in the books and it’s not?? Gale protected Katniss’ family because they were hers, not because they were part of his. I mean I’m sure he cared to some degree for them, he’s a good person like I keep reiterating, but not like they were his own??? When he killed Prim, I’m sure he was sad because he cared for the kid, but his dialogue to Katniss makes it seem like his biggest thought process revolved around losing her because of his inadvertent involvement with the bombs. Okay and ummm another hot take, people should get to dislike him if they wanna. Too much politeness in terms of Gale, like if you like him then cool! But like the fear of saying you dislike him or you think he’s bad (as a character, not a war criminal) isn’t right, like I dislike 100000 characters and I ain’t afraid to say it. Anyways that’s all I can think of for now.

Oh wait one more : the book was written clearly with a bias towards Peeta, it was obvious that’s who she was gonna end up with so like??? Gale didn’t get a bad ending for the character he was, he was just never the one, he was never gonna get Katniss, even just looking at the plot layout this is clear. Peeta and Katniss go into the games together, fake a romance to survive, develop feelings and backtrack, go home winners and enemies of the Capitol, feelings are sore and complicated, Galers takes it into his own hands to add himself to the mix, Katniss feels caught between the two, Gale almost dies and she picks him in theory but never in practice I’m sorry, Katniss and Peeta are called back into the games where she decides to save Peeta and die for him, she gets closer and closer to Peeta, she realizes her feelings on the beach, they get separated and a rebellion starts, he’s in the Capitol, she’s in Thirteen with Gale, Gale and her spend a lot more time together but their friendship ain’t what it used to be, she frets about Peeta until she has to be sedated, Gale volunteers to rescue Peeta because he cares for Katniss’ wellbeing, Peeta though has been brainwashed and tries to murder Katniss (he really should have apologized, like is it that hard to make an “I’m sorry” card with all your free time between frosting cakes, Peeta?????), Katniss gives up Peeta and starts having more of a thing with Gale, then Peeta is brought along on her team and she’s stuck being in proximity to both of them but she focuses much heavier on Peeta’s presence (in negative ways mostly but still), she comes to a crossroads and instead of leaving Peeta to die she chooses to risk her life by kissing his wildin out self to save him, she then says bye bye to Peeta and goes with Gale into the Capitol Circle to kill Snow but gets separated from him and then watches her sister die, only to find out later on that Gale created the bombs that were used to kill Prim, then she has a nervous breakdown and a trial and then gets tossed off in Twelve like a garbage bag at the end of a McDonald’s shift, and then Peeta returns and sparks her back to life… in all of that plot summary, it was pretty obvious who had a bigger part in the overall story…. This shouldn’t be controversial to say.

[snafu-maniac1]

Zuko deserved better

So I rewatched Avatar the Last Airbender recently and let me tell you......

I wanna murder several people.

Looking back on this entire series I’ve come to notice something. I watched the show just like any other audience member and only saw the good and the bad characters. One of these prime examples is Zuko. Zuko’s redemption arc has been praised as one of the greatest in history, succeeding where others have failed. But watching it all again......it wasn’t redemption. Not to me personally.

Before everyone gets angry and defensive at me, please finish reading my post and hear what I have to say. I do not wish to start any fandom wars or discredit or disrespect anyone’s opinion, this is just my personal psychological analysis of Zuko’s character....Sigh and let me give you a warning.

It’s gonna be LONG. 

So if you’re not interested or don’t want to hear it or don’t feel like reading something this long that’s fine, you can go ahead and just click away and ignore this post.

Starting from book 2. 

Now you may be wondering why I’m starting here and not from the start of Zuko’s childhood but I first want to address the one question everyone had been wondering since the series 2 finale. What would have happened if Zuko hadn’t sided with Azula?

My answer is.....that wouldn’t have happened.

Everyone’s been focusing on the entire arc where Zuko was struggling to accept that the war was wrong and how Iroh was trying to get through to him when he tried to capture Appa and afterwards, but here’s something everyone tends to ignore.

Why didn’t Iroh try sooner?

Why didn’t he try to stop Zuko before Aang came, before he’d gotten so deep and desperate to the point that he continuously committed heinous acts to capture the Avatar? People would justify it by saying Iroh wanted Zuko to realize the wrongs of his father and Nation by himself to shape him into his own person. But that is in no way the appropriate way to approach a physically, psychologically and mentally unstable and abused child. Zuko was a thirteen year old boy when he was burned and banished. This is where we go into his childhood. Zuko was raised like any other Fire Nation citizen. As we’ve seen in book 3 and in the Pirate comic book, The Fire Nation citizens were led to believe that the other Nations were ‘savages’ and ‘barbarians’. It villainizes the Fire Nation even more. The very fact that they would spread heinous lies against other people when they themselves were responsible for the war that ruined so many lives. But when you realize, what Sozin and the other Fire Lords did was a solid battle tactic. Making the opposing side out to be these horrendous monsters. Making lies or accentuating every one of their worst traits to dehumanize their enemies so that the people would not have any qualms about fighting them. All of the Fire Nation schools were taught these lies. And Zuko was no exception.

Zuko was a member of the Royal family. And from what was shown in the Avatar series, the Royal family was isolated from the rest of Fire Nation society. Zuko had no way of knowing what the other Nations were really like, no way of knowing the truth about the war and no one had bothered to explain it to him. The one person that could have, did NOT. And yet people had expected him to just automatically know that he was being lied to and that his people were the villains. Zuko’s only social exposure was with Fire Lord Azulon, Fire Lord Ozai, Dragon Of The West General and Crown Prince Iroh, his cousin Prince Lu Ten, his mother Princess Ursa and his younger sister Princess Azula and her friends Mai and Ty Lee. All of whom believed in the Fire Nation propaganda and all of whom had no problem in participating in the war and making jokes about burning Ba Sing Se to the ground. Zuko was under scrutiny and aggression from Ozai. Ozai was Zuko’s ‘handler’, his ‘groomer’. He groomed Zuko into a certain type of submissive and obedient behavior. Zuko was not allowed to show any type of emotion otherwise he would suffer severe repercussions. Ozai and Azula taunted Zuko for having a sense of compassion and with how he was ostracized in a war loving family, he began to believe his behavior and way of thinking was unusual. It was like Azula said to Mai, “Your mother had certain expectations of you and when you strayed from them you were shot down.” In Zuko’s case, the expectations he strayed from resulted in severe punishment. Ozai was willing to permanently disfigure and traumatize Zuko when he was a thirteen year old boy. It’s not unusual to think that his punishments towards Zuko would sometimes very likely be physical and many people even write alternate universes of the Avatar series where Ozai was even more abusive than he already was. He was a manipulative man who brainwashed his daughter into being his perfect, obedient little slave and manipulated his son into questioning his own sense of reality. He would tell him that Azula was born lucky and he was lucky to be born, cementing Azula’s view of herself of receiving everything she wanted and turning her personality toxic while he made Zuko feel inferior and faulty. If there was something wrong with him, his father would tell him and he needed to fix it. But he never could. He strayed towards his mother, who like Iroh, abandoned Azula because of Ozai’s manipulation and did nothing to help her like they ‘helped’ Zuko.

When Zuko was thirteen he wanted to ‘prove’ himself to his father by attending one of his war meetings. Zuko very likely only wished to do what his father wanted because by then, Iroh had abandoned him when he left after the Siege of Ba Sing Se, his mother disappeared and his grandfather and cousin were both dead. The only ones he had left of his family were his father and sister who both abused him and he only wished for their approval and their affection. Humans need mutual affection. Children who do not receive affection from their parents, tend to not take that type of neglect well. Because people need affection to properly function. Our parents love us from when we are young and that emotional connection is something very important to every human being’s mental state. However, Zuko’s only source of affection, his mother, was taken away from him. Azula herself, had no source of affection. Not from her mother, who thought she was demented from her father’s brainwashing, nor from her brother who feared her, nor from her father who used her as a tool. Returning to the day of the Agni Kai, Zuko wished to be of use to his father, he craved his affection because that is what the abuser does. They make you believe they are the only ones who can validate you and if you do not abide by their rules or follow their orders then you mean nothing. Zuko for the most part from what I could see in the flashback, held his promise and did not speak. But when he refused to back down when his people were in danger, Ozai was not pleased. This is because he is an abuser. He is Zuko’s ‘handler’ and when someone who is abusing another person witnesses this type of behavior, they have a feeling of loss of control. They desire control, they crave it, over the abusee especially. So when Zuko showed empathy towards the Fire Nation citizens and did not do as Ozai wished, he decided to ‘rectify’ that. In the most BRUTAL way possible. An Agni Kai. A public spectacle where he would establish dominance over his son, over his pawn and he would make a show of it. He would show everyone that HE was the one in control and NO ONE could defy him. When Zuko refused to fight Ozai, because of his love for his father, Ozai only saw that as a weakness. Ozai is a psychotic man. The fact that he did not have any problem in burning his son so cruelly shows that he does not have any sense of morals. Going back to Zuko, a thirteen year old child at the time, he had just been punished for disobedience, for straying from his father’s expectations, in the worst way possible.

Zuko did what many people would say is the right thing to do. He tried to defend his people from a cruel man intent on sending them to their deaths. But in doing so, he had defied his father and was punished for it. He was punished....for trying to HELP people. His life was essentially DESTROYED and he was thrown out of his home...for trying to help people. For showing empathy towards others. He was punished in the worst way possible for defying his father. His entire perception of right and wrong was thrown out of balance. He was taught that the war was right and that the Fire Lord, his father, was all knowing. And his mother tried to teach him kindness and her lessons of kindness got him punished. The amount of physical and mental damage he had sustained from such a punishment would in some cases be irreversible. Iroh was right there with Zuko and he did nothing. I CAN understand why he did not step in during the Agni Kai. He had been gone from the Fire Nation, his brother had taken the throne and he could have very well himself been punished severely for intervening. However, why did he allow Zuko to continue to believe he was the one at fault? Everyone of us has seen Zhao, has seen the way he treated Zuko during his banishment. Zuko very likely spent those entire two years before Aang’s arrival, being subjected to that type of behavior from everyone around him. All of them blamed him, all of them very likely said that he’d deserved what had happened to him. No one was on his side. He ended up turning aggressive and cruel towards others, because that was the way his father behaved and it was his empathy towards others that got him punished in the first place. He said in The Storm ‘the safety of the crew doesn’t matter’, just like the general that called the 41st division ‘fresh meat’. It was easier for Zuko to lash out at others and be aggressive than to let them see his vulnerabilities and hurt him for them again. It was the same with Song and her mother. Ozai tried to force him to be cruel, he tried to groom him the same way he did Azula. They dehumanized the other Nations and Zuko behaved the exact same way he was expected to. ‘Their compassion would cost them’. It was exactly the way his father wanted him to be. It was what Iroh did not wish for him, and yet despite claiming he thought of Zuko as a son, he did not in any way try to convince Zuko to give up his quest during the two years he had been searching for something that at the time was believed did not exist. The only instance we were shown of Iroh saying anything against his search, and even that is a stretch, was in the Western Air Temple episode where Zuko has a flashback of Iroh telling him that ‘destiny was a funny thing’ when Zuko said it was his destiny to capture the Avatar. Iroh had time to run the White Lotus, an antiwar organization for two YEARS maybe even longer and he did not think of taking two MINUTES to talk to Zuko, to ease him into realizing the wrongs of the war. Okay, yes he could have passed it off as character growth. But how do you expect a person, surrounded by people telling him he was at fault, he had no choice, either obey or never come back, to realize something like that? How do you expect an abuse victim to accept help all by themselves when their abuser forces them to depend on them? Did Iroh take him to some Earth Kingdom villages to see that they aren’t the vicious savages the Fire Nation portrays them to be? Did he take Zuko to the Southern Water Tribe to see the damage done to them at the hands of his own country? No. Instead he acted like an oblivious old man who had no interest other than Pai Sho and speaking proverbs that Zuko could not hope to understand.

Two years Zuko spent looking and looking and he turned desperate to the point that he was willing to do anything to go home. And then The Avatar finally returned. And then the people that Zuko was raised to perceive as brutal savages continued to stand in his way. And did Iroh intervene? No. He still did nothing. He allowed Zuko to continue his pursuit and turn into the worst possible version of himself. People say that Zuko should own up to the consequences of his actions. And he should. But would he have done those actions had Iroh stopped him earlier? Would he have done any of the things he did when the only remaining adult figure in his life had told him otherwise? Would he have listened to Iroh? The answer is yes. He was willing to do what Ozai had expected of him so why would he not listen to Iroh with time and patience instead of waiting till the last possible moment to do so? Children don’t automatically know right from wrong from the moment of their birth. They are taught by their parents, by the adults in their lives and Zuko had Ozai as his parental influence. And Iroh knew that. He knew the type of man his brother was and he did not try to overwrite his brother’s abuse to help his nephew until Zuko was already on the path of no return. When they became refugees Iroh still did nothing until they got to Ba Sing Se and until Zuko, again in an act of desperation, tried to capture Appa. That was when he FINALLY decided to step in. Three years since Zuko’s banishment, sixteen years of his father’s influence and abuse and he decides the very moment his nephew is close to the brink of insanity is the perfect opportunity to DESTROY his entire world view. He had worked day in and day out for two years before Aang appeared, only for his uncle, someone he TRUSTED, to tell him it was all for NOTHING. Two years of TORTURING himself. A year of fighting against his Nation’s enemies and SUDDENLY he’s being told it was all for nothing. When Iroh and Zuko reunited, Iroh told him he found his way again ‘on his own’ like how Zuko told Ozai he had to learn everything ‘on his own’. And they were both right. Zuko had no one to help him. He had to suffer through so much on his own, without anyone’s help and they’re SURPRISED he acted the way he did. When everything came to ahead in Ba Sing Se with Katara, people thought ‘Oh Zuko has changed he’s going to help Katara.’ And when he did not they HATED him for it. 

The reason for this is because Katara was the ‘good guy’ and Zuko was the ‘bad guy’. Black and white. Katara and Zuko shared a moment of understanding from both losing their mothers and Katara offered to heal his scar and he chose to side with Azula and both Katara and the viewers saw this as a betrayal on Zuko’s part. This assumption however is completely unjustified and unfounded. Everyone sees Zuko and the Fire Nation as the bad guys. The villains of the story. But Katara and the Water Tribes and Earth Kingdom were the bad guys in the Fire Nation’s eyes. Katara was the ‘savage’ standing in the way of Zuko going home. The Avatar was his home’s greatest ENEMY and THREAT. Had the situation been reversed and Katara had to choose between Zuko and the Water Tribe and her brother and father, people would have supported her choice because they were the good guys. Zuko’s people were the bad guys so it had to be the wrong decision and a betrayal to Katara and Iroh. But Zuko was an unstable, traumatized child who did not wish to believe his people were bad, who did not want to fight his home after he spent so long trying to capture Aang, his home’s greatest THREAT and ENEMY. Katara hated Zuko because he represented everything that the Fire Nation did to her family. And Zuko hated her because she was the ‘savage’ keeping him from his one way home. To Zuko, Katara was the bad guy. And looking back at their moment of sympathy where Katara said he betrayed her trust I can only ask one thing....how could Zuko have known that Katara wasn’t trying to trick him? Now, the viewers would automatically respond ‘Katara’s not like that! She wouldn’t do that!’ but the fact is, we the viewers KNOW Katara. We know she’s not that type of person because we got to know her through out the series. Zuko does NOT know her. To Zuko, she’s just another faceless enemy out to KILL his father. He chose Azula’s side because he could not accept what Iroh was saying to him because why hadn’t Iroh said so sooner? He did not want to join Aang’s side cause this was the AVATAR. The one out to KILL his FATHER and take down his HOME. When Zuko returned, he was conflicted about what he had done because he had begun to see how wrong his father and sister’s behavior and The Fire Nation’s war truly was. And Iroh cemented that further by proclaiming Zuko’s struggle was because of Roku and Sozin’s conflict when that was clearly not the case. Zuko was groomed and brainwashed by the Fire Nation propaganda like every other citizen but he was not dispelled from that belief by anyone. No one tried to make him question that belief. Iroh did not try to ‘help Zuko’ until the very last moment in Ba Sing Se. People believe Zuko betrayed Iroh because that’s how it’s supposed to be when Zuko was the ‘bad guy’ and Iroh was the ‘caring’ Uncle and ‘voice of reason’. And yet he did not think to ‘reason’ with Zuko before this entire mess even started. He did not in any way try to disrupt Zuko’s view of the other Nations or his father. In my opinion, IROH was the one who betrayed ZUKO. Iroh KNEW the entire time that what Zuko was doing was wrong. Zuko was a child who was not allowed to think for himself and Iroh KNEW Zuko was brainwashed by the exact same propaganda he himself had believed before he lost his son. If Iroh, who had believed in the Fire Nation for so many years, was unable to realize the wrongs of the war until his ADULTHOOD when he lost his son, how in the world did he expect a 13 year old child to do so? And Zuko became even more unstable and then he chose the Fire Nation.

When he realized it was wrong and went to join team Avatar, they were reasonably mistrusting.

Zuko’s redemption arc from a simple perspective, from team Avatar’s perspective was very well done. Team Avatar did not know what Zuko had been through. To them he was just another Fire Nation monster who had hurt them. To the audience, he was just another Fire Nation monster who had hurt the good guys. No one would think that deep into a fictional character’s perspective or psychological and mental state. No one would think past the ‘good guy’ and the ‘bad guy’. But one thing I cannot justify is Katara’s accusation of betrayal towards Zuko. As we have mentioned, Zuko and Katara were enemies who had a mutual hatred towards each other before his ‘redemption’. They had one single moment of shared empathy and understanding and that is NOT the basis for earned trust. What would Katara have done had she been in Zuko’s shoes? Fighting her enemies, fighting people she sees as nothing more than monsters and she has to choose between her long time enemy and her sibling and her home and her family. If she was in that position, she would choose Sokka and Hakoda and Aang and the Water Tribe over Zuko in a heartbeat because those are her FAMILY members and her FRIENDS and people would justify her because she’s the ‘good guy’. The hero. But Zuko is the villain so his actions automatically AREN’T justifiable. I understand Katara’s mistrust towards Zuko because of their history and because again, she doesn’t know anything about him or what he went through. But she cannot expect him to just automatically leave behind everything he’s ever known and ever believed in because of one single moment of understanding. Zuko should have done everything he could to make it up to the group because he owed it to them and they again, did not know any of his reasons for hunting them. But Zuko does not deserve to be labeled simply as ‘a bad guy turned good’ when he was NEVER a bad guy to begin with. When he was never even mentally stable enough to make that type of decision for himself. In today’s day and age Zuko and Azula would have BOTH ended up in a mental institution. And after all of the things he went through, Zuko was the one who ended up going back to Iroh and apologizing when Iroh was the one who abandoned him and then Zuko at 16 years old ended up as the leader of a nearly fallen apart country. He had to suffer through insomnia, assassination attempts and mental instability and abandonment. Iroh left to Ba Sing Se and only made two appearances in a total of SIX comic books after the end of the War and one of those was entirely brief. So while Iroh gets to enjoy the rest of his life selling tea, Zuko has to suffer the consequences for what his family did. He was also abandoned by Mai which brings me to another point.

Zuko’s toxic relationships.

Some people say they dislike Mai because she is emotionally abusive towards Zuko. It never occurred to me before but looking at it now, I have to say that I agree. In the comics after book 2 had ended it was shown that Azula used Mai’s childhood crush on Zuko to manipulate him into going back to the Fire Nation with her. And Mai.....I don’t even know how to get started on the entire mess that is their relationship. Mai is a person who does not like emotion. She doesn’t like to express herself and immediately shuts down anything even close to emotion. The same applies to Zuko. Zuko is a very emotionally unstable and insecure person. And instead of reassuring and calming him, Mai immediately cuts him off whenever he loses a handle of his emotions and just flat out ends their relationship on the spot. She gives Zuko no explanation, just gets angry at him and then all of a sudden when Zuko can’t take anymore and explodes she suddenly says she cares about him. Their relationship is toxic. Mai demeans his problems and things that trouble him. Quote “I just asked if you were cold, I didn’t ask for your whole life story.” when Zuko was nervous about going back home. She demeans his guilt towards Iroh and tries to make him feel better by ordering servants around. And then in the Boiling Rock episode she attacks him for his letter which is reasonable on her part, but there is the problem that despite being Zuko’s girlfriend, up until that point she was Azula’s subordinate first and foremost and she could have tried to let Azula know. Still was a shitty way of ending their relationship, I’m not gonna act like it wasn’t but I still wanted to put that perspective out there just for thought. Not to mention how she ended things in the comic books. The trust issue I understand. But I don’t understand how ONE single mistake would lead to her just immediately ending things instead of at least TRYING to work it out. She could have listened to him and seen why he was so upset and scared of messing up that he went to Ozai of all people for help. She did not stick by him when he needed her and that was what forever ruined their relationship for me. 

In simple terms, Zuko was a bad guy who became a good guy and redeemed himself.

In psychological terms, Zuko was an abuse victim who was brainwashed since his childhood, blamed for it and made into a scapegoat while his sister ended up in a mental institution because of her father’s influence and because the same people who ‘helped’ Zuko didn’t think she deserved it too.

So from what I’ve seen while rewatching the series....

Zuko never needed redeeming. Zuko needed help.

And he didn’t get it. 

[wifekasa]

hello! i really enjoy ur content and i read that ur requests are open, so is it okay if i can request something where levi and the reader had an argument, and the rest of the scouts are very aware of it because of the very cold and scary aura coming from them, and so the squad tries various ways to set them up so they can make up with another? thank you!!😁

a/n: ahh first of all thank you! second off, i love this idea omg 🙏 also the reader is another captain!!

levi x reader

“don’t die on me.”

cw: swearing, one kiss scene, mentions of death (barely)

The scouts immediately knew something was wrong when you entered the dining area. It was like there was a dark aura floating around your body that caused everyone within a 4 foot vicinity of you to scatter away like startled birds. Your eyebrows were furrowed and your back was hunched. You stalked into the room and sank down beside Hange who seemed rather unfazed by your cold attitude.

“Oi. Y/N. What’s up with the murderous look in your eye? I think you made the scouts shit themselves.” They chuckled, biting into their bread and looking at you with a hint of amusement twinkling in their eyes.

You lip twitched downward as you scoffed, “Ask shorty.”

Hange made a noise of surprise that you ignored, turning back to your food. You were not in the mood to be pestered. Picking at your food with distain, you tuned out the rest of the room. Due to this, you missed the short raven-haired man walking into the room with the same cold presence that you were amitting. You felt his eyes burning holes into your head but refused to look up, you didn’t wanna give that bastard the time of day.

Levi scoffed when you ignored him, grabbing his plate and settling down at the opposite end of your table. Hange nearly rolled their eyes at the pettiness the two of you were displaying.

Clearing their throat, the titan enthusiast spoke up, “Trouble in paradise?”

“Shut up.” You both countered in sync, still refusing to acknowledge eachother.

The two of you were too stubborn to admit that you were wrong. Maybe neither of you were in the wrong but after the shouting match that took place last night, you didn’t feel like immediately making amends. You had tried to express to Levi how scared you were that he was going to die on one of these missions, however your tone was quite harsh and Levi misread it. He took it as you not having faith in his abilities which was a punch to the gut for the stubborn Captain. He in return, argued that you were running the same risk on missions and since you weren’t nearly as strong as him, you had an even higher risk of getting hurt. Frustrated that he insulted your abilities and didn’t see your point, you stormed out of his office, slamming the door behind you.

The two of you hadn’t spoken since the blowup last night and it was now mid-afternoon the next day. You were in charge of training the scouts this afternoon and due to the anger boiling up inside of you, you put them through a particularly rigorous training course. All of them were clutching their sides and panting heavily when you finally dismissed them.

“Is it just me or does Captain Y/N seem a little harsh today?” Connie spoke up as he downed a glass of water.

“Yeah, that training course kicked my ass. I think they had a fight with Levi, I heard some of the soldiers talking about it.” Jean replied.

Sasha was quiet for a minute before she finally spoke up, “I have an idea!” She exclaimed with a mischievous glint in her eye.

“That’s not good.” Armin commented quietly.

Later that night, Sasha had cornered you and told you there was scary noises coming from a broom closet and had asked for help checking it out. You reluctantly agreed, only because it was getting late and you wanted to get to bed. The two of you went to the closet, footsteps echoing across the quiet halls.

Entering the small room, you spoke, “Hmm. Sasha there’s nothing in here, are you sure-.” You got cut off due to the door being slammed in your face and locked shut.

Jiggling the handle aggressively, you yelled, “Sasha Braus I swear to god, if you don’t let me out of here it’s no bread for a week!”

Sasha gulped but stayed strong, hoping Armin was on his way with Levi. Ten minutes later, Armin showed up... without Levi. Sasha’s eyes nearly popped out of her head, “Armin, where the hell is Levi?!”

Armin scratched the back of his neck, “He wouldn’t come. Said I should ‘get some balls and go look at the noise by myself’.”

Sasha sheepishly opened the door to a very angry Captain, crying as you yelled and told her she wasn’t getting bread for a week. You’d almost felt bad if it weren’t for the fact that several spiders decided to crawl up your leg while you were trapped inside the miserable closest.

The next day, you were in an even worse mood because of the broom closet accident. So, the scouts went back to planning the reunion of their two grumpy captains.

The new plan consisted of getting the two of you within ten feet of each other, which proved difficult. Eren and Jean would both ask for combat training from the two of you and hoped that maybe being close to each other would spark a conversation between you two.

However, the plan backfired when seeing eachother made the two of you even angrier so you both fought the boys aggressively which resulted in Jean and Eren laying on their asses as the two of you stalked off in seperate directions.

You were quite grumpy at this point, snapping at the smallest things and taking things out on the wrong people. You knew it was wrong but you couldn’t help it; it felt like everyone was trying to piss you off.

By now, Hange had grown tired of you and Levi’s negative energy and the beat-up scouts. So finally, they decided to step in.

They found you in your office working on paperwork and quickly grabbed your hand, rudely dragging you away from your work.

“What the hell Hange!” You exclaimed, trying to turn back to your work but Hange had a suprisingly strong grip.

“Sorry! But I need to show you this thing I’ve been working on. It’s urgent!” They explained as they pulled you through the halls. They stopped in front of a random room, opening the door and shoving you in.

“Oi, four eyes, where is the ‘urgent thing’ you needed to show me?” You gasped as you realized Levi was in the room that Hange had just thrown you into.

Levi’s eyes widened when he noticed you in the room and he started shaking his head, “Don’t you dare Hange-.”

SLAM.

Hange locked the door, leaving the two of you sitting alone in your tension. The silence was heavy as you avoided eye contact, plotting the many ways you could get back at the scientist for this later. You were so caught up in your own thoughts you didn’t even realize Levi was staring at you till he spoke up.

“Do you ever plan to let us talk this out or are you just gonna be an angry brat for the rest of your life?” His tone was cold.

Your eyes snapped up to meet his grey ones, searching them for any emotion but you were met with nothing, his walls were up. “What is there to talk about? You made it clear how you feel.”

“How I feel?” He questioned.

“That I’m not strong enough for you. Maybe I’m not humanity’s strongest but I’m talented and that deserves to be recognized. I’m not gonna let you shit on my talent just because I hurt your ego. Which by the way, I don’t even know why you thought I was attacking your skills. I just want you to be safe and I don’t know why you can’t just- MHPM.” Your rant was cut off midway by the feeling of warm lips against yours.

You froze for a moment before returning the kiss, running your hands up into his hair and opening your mouth to deepen the kiss. Levi’s hands snaked around you waist, pulling you tight against his chest. This continued for a few more seconds before you pulled away, cheeks flushed and lips swollen.

Levi spoke up, “I know you’re a talented soldier, it’s something I really respect about you. I shouldn’t have phrased it the way I did, I just... I don’t want to lose you. So, I want you to be the best because then, my chances of loosing you are less.” You looked at him in shock.

His grey eyes showed love and ... fear. The fear of loosing you like he’d lost so many. Your chest tightened at the sight. Tears pricked in your eyes as you pulled him into another hug.

“You don’t have to worry about me, okay? I’m gonna fight with everything I got to make sure I come home to you. You just make sure you do the same, don’t go dying on me.” Your speech was slightly muffled by his shirt but he nodded nonetheless.

“Yay! The lovebirds finally made up! Good! I was worried you were gonna kill the scouts.” Hange laughed from the other side of the now opened door.

a/n: this ain’t the greatest but i wrote it at midnight so yk 😐👋

[fireflyinsummer]

An Amalgamation Waltz 1839. |01|

> pairing: min yoongi x reader

> genre: FallenAngel!AU

> words: 23k

> warnings: hints of smut (heavy make out), a scene of harassment (nothing explicit), violence. possible heresy. forgive me. a third party’s unrequited feelings for OC. don’t know if i did this right, it’s 3 am right now.

> summary: When it comes to the both of you, a lifetime is not enough. And when it comes to you, there’s really no lines he wouldn’t be willing to cross. Even on the brink of a war that could destroy the world as we know it, you’re everything.

  “ (...) ‘Would you be able to love someone as tainted as him?’ he asked wistfully.

  You lifted your upper body, compelling him to a sitting position as well.

   ‘I’ve never had to,’ you pecked his lips chastely, even though he still kept his eyes trained on the grass underneath you.”

a/n: my love for Paradise Lost gave birth to this. i really like this one :) gonna be posting the second (and last) part soon! no need to say that PL was just an inspiration, this isn’t exactly based on the poem. 

                                               “(…) Here at least

We shall be free, the almighty hath not built

Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

Here we may reign secure, and in my choice

To reign is worth ambition though in hell:

Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.”

     The sudden thud on the wooden surface of the table made you jolt and close the book, heart rate increasing considerably.

  “Y/N.” His voice was deep, dragging your name through his teeth to evince his annoyance. The bustling café was already at its peak hours and you didn’t even notice the time as it passed you by.

  “Yes, Taehyung?” You ogled your grumpy friend, his noisy arrival being due to the study material he tossed in front of you.

  “You said you’d help me with English lit. I was waiting for you at the library for about an hour and your phone is off.” As you remembered why you were even in the café in the first place, you threw him a guilty look. He pouted. “Hey, what does that Milton guy have that I don’t? And the fancy words don’t count.” You giggled.

  “John Milton has nothing on you, Tae. He’d probably need my help to get through this semester as well.” The joke seemed to almost let you in his good graces again, but you knew he still needed the bribery. “I’ll buy you your favorite if you forgive me.” You could tell he was fighting back a smile upon hearing your offer, his mood suddenly uplifted.

  “Okay. But don’t think I’ll let you off the hook that easily.”

  “I wouldn’t dare. Wait here.” You went to the balcony to pay the check and get his frappuccino to go. Taehyung was a sweet guy who liked sweet things, and that also applied to his coffee. His sweet tooth earned him a nickname from you – Marzipan. Waiting for the bartender to finish your order, you looked over where your best friend was digging through your copy of Paradise Lost without much enthusiasm.

   You had moved in next door to his house about fifteen years ago, and you two instantly initiated a solid friendship. As much as you could say about three-year-olds. Despite him being one of your favorite people in the whole world, the both of you were into totally different things. He went to parties, you enjoyed some lone quality time. He played all sorts of sports, you preferred to stick to your writing and, sometimes, the piano. You were still working on the latter. But even though you seemed to be totally opposites, he still got you like no one else could. He was the person you told all your secrets to, not that you had that many anyway, and you liked to think – no, you were sure of it – he felt the same way about you.

  “Here’s your overly-sweet drink, Marzipan. I don’t even know if you can still call it coffee,” you scowled.

  “Don’t diss my frappuccino, it’s the sole reason of my forgiveness.”

  “Yeah, right. So, you wanna get going? I’m sure you have a lot of thoughts on that book already.”

  “It was very average so far, if I do say so myself. I don’t know why you like it so much,” he teased you.

  “Well, that’s what the private lessons are for. So I can teach you good taste.” You pushed the door open and immediately shivered as you felt a cold gush of air. It was snowing.

  “Here, take my coat. Why don’t you ever wear decent clothes in the winter? I swear to God, I don’t know how you never caught something serious, like pneumonia or whatever,” he scolded.

  “You don’t have to. We’re near home anyway,” you tried to reassure him, but he was, as usual, outwardly ignoring it. “Really, Tae, it’s no big deal. Let’s go.” He was ready to fight you on this one, but you were already walking away. He took a few hurried steps to catch up.

  After a ten-minute walk, daylight was almost completely gone, lit lampposts following its wake. You both hit the front door rug with your feet several times before getting inside, your mom was a bit freaky when it came to cleaning.

  “Mom, Tae’s here!” You shouted from the living room, guessing she was in the kitchen. “We’re going upstairs for a bit! School work!”

  “Okay, honey! Tell him that dinner will be ready soon!” She responded.

  “I love you, Ms. D’Angelis!” He shot back. Yes, you had an italian background. When she heard his voice, she made sure to come out and greet him.

  “Love you, too, honey”, she pecked his forehead and he beamed. They liked each other way too much for their own good. “And you,” she pointed in your direction, “give mamma a kiss.”

  You sighed before attending to her request. It was in your best interest not to fight it. “Okay, enough of this. We’ll be upstairs if you need us.”

  “Have fun, kids.” You sure would. Taehyung might beg to differ.

  The rest of the night was somewhat peaceful. You had helped Taehyung as much as you could before your mother called you out to eat, claiming that you shouldn’t starve the boy and then make him eat a cold meal. He couldn’t agree fast enough. For the most part, that was your life. Uncomplicated and comfortable, which was plenty for an eighteen year old. When you went to bed after practicing the piano for a little while, you were completely unaware of the pair of pitch black eyes that observed you through the window. But he was fully aware of you.

  ||\\

                                                                    [Fear of the Water, by SYML]

  You knew it was a dream. From the moment your brain processed the heavenly sight that unrevealed before your eyes, you knew. It was breaking dawn, the soft orange light kissing the ocean like a long lost lover. You were at the end of a cliff, but couldn’t find it in yourself to be afraid. You looked down at the waves that broke into the rocks almost violently, the salty breeze somewhat comforting. You loved the sea.

  Taking a few deep breaths, you barely noticed the crack. The sound came from somewhere behind you, but you didn’t want to look away from the view, neither did you want to wake up. When you heard it again, you recognized footsteps. You turned around lazily, curious as to whom it would be the visitor of your reverie. When you fixed your eyes on him, though, you stopped breathing for a moment and your heart surely skipped a beat. He was a stranger in a number of ways, for he was seemed truly unworldly. Maybe ethereal was the word you were looking for. His violet eyes were scrutinizing you from head to toe. Beautiful. His hair was dark as it fell like a silky curtain on his forehead. Not a single flaw on his skin or his body, but none of that was as breathtaking as what lied on his back. Great, large white wings, so beautifully outstretched that you felt unworthy of looking at them.

  You opened your mouth a few times, but nothing would come out. Probably for the best, you didn’t want to make a fool of yourself in front of what was probably your mind’s greatest creation. How you could come up with him was beyond you. You wanted to ask his name before it all ended and you had to go back to real life, back to average. You wanted to touch his face, his wings, see for yourself if they felt as they looked. You wished you never woke up. As he took a step closer, you took your own back, startled at the sudden movement. Before you realized your mistake, it was too late. You had lost your balance. You knew it would be over soon. Taking one last look at the stranger, you saw as he stretched one arm to reach you, but to no avail. Too soon, the wind was ricocheting your skin and you were falling.

  You woke up with a loud gasp as you searched for air, finding it oddly rarefied. When you registered the annoyingly high pitch of your alarm, you whined. Real life was the last thing you wanted to face right now, but if you told your mother that you’d stay in bed daydreaming about a figment of your imagination, she would personally retrieve you from the bed and toss you into the shower. Made sense.

  Getting ready as quickly as you could manage, you felt excited for no obvious reason. Maybe it was the afterglow of the dream, but now you were eager to get out of the house, as if you wanted to find him. Which was insane, because you knew he did not exist. Come to think about him now, it was getting harder by the minute to remember his face. You panicked.

  Running towards your desk and grabbing a pencil and your notebook, you tried to recreate him on paper, which was a lost battle from the start. Even if you were some doodling genius – you were definitely not – you would never be able to do him justice. You doubted anyone who had ever stepped on this planet, past or present, ever would. It was not the kind of beauty that could be explained or demonstrated, but rather felt. He wasn’t just inhumanely pretty, wings and all. There was something about him that you couldn’t quite pinpoint. It may sound cheesy and totally deranged, but you felt whole in those few shared moments, like you knew him your entire life. Your mind didn’t recognize him, but your body did.

  Groaning at the piece of paper and throwing the pencil at your baby-blue wall in annoyance, you gave up. It was pointless, his features were already escaping your mind. You didn’t know why you were so hung up on a dream, honestly. Seeing that you were a little riled up, you decided to let it go and just finish getting ready for class. You could see through the window that Taehyung was already waiting for you.  

    ||\\

 “So, how did it go?”

  He pouted before answering. “It went alright.” Lies, he was a big fat liar.

  “C’mon, Marzipan, be honest with me for a second.”

  The nickname finally broke him down. “Fine, I hated it. I remember you telling me about every important detail of the subject yesterday, but I couldn’t put it on paper. Plus, why the fuck does he have to elaborate the questions so much? Most of the time I didn’t even understand what was being asked. Literature sucks,” he whined indignantly. You could tell it was taking a toll on him.

  “Don’t worry too much about it, okay? I will help you. We’ll both graduate this year, yeah?” you reached his hand on a reassuring squeeze.

  “If you say so.”

  “I do.”

  “Then sure. But you have to take me seriously, Y/N,” he warned you. “No more losing track of time in coffee shops.”

  “Hey, I bought you a frappuccino, that incident should be six feet under by now,” you accused and he mumbled a grumpy response.

  The both of you spent half of the morning taking the lit test. You thought you did fine, though the questions really were a little bit tricky. Walking side by side with Taehyung, you didn’t notice him at first. But once you realized there were no seats available right next to each other, your eyes eventually landed on his.

  “We can’t sit together through this class, we’re too late,” Tae grumbled, trying to get your attention back to himself, but to no avail. “Y/N? Hey!” He flicked your forehead and you yelped.

  “Did you just… flick me?” you seethed.

  “I wouldn’t have had to if you weren’t lusting over the new guy. Who is he, by the way?” If you acknowledged the hint of jealously in his tone, you didn’t show it.

  “I was not lusting over anybody,” you huffed.

  “If you say so.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “Grumpy. Is it because I caught you?” You just snarled and took a seat at the front row, while he chuckled and chose the one in the back.

  To be honest, you were lusting a little. Those eyes seemed oddly familiar, though you couldn’t quite put a finger on why. The rest of the day passed by smoothly; you were able to sit with Taehyung for the remaining classes you had together and even helped him a bit with some homework. After a while, your new classmate was nowhere near your mind, despite that funny feeling you got every time you looked at him. Maybe it was because he was stunningly handsome. Who knows? You never cared much about those things, but you were only human.

  On your way home with Taehyung, you felt eyes burning on your back. You turned around and found him staring, expression unfathomable. He wore a black lather jacket, jeans and a black shirt, his dark hair beautifully disheveled. He gave you a wanton grin and you scoffed. Well, you knew his type, and it unnerved you to death.

  Preppy playboy. Nothing more, nothing less.

  He cut off the eye contact abruptly, heading towards a grey motorcycle. No shit, huh? You almost laughed at the predictability. You weren’t exactly into bikes, but that looked expensive. And it suited him perfectly.

  “Holy-… do you see that? That’s a Triumph fucking Rocket,” Taehyung gasped, shaking your elbow lightly. “A 2500cc engine capacity Triumph Rocket. Man, his parents must be loaded. That’s not a high schooler’s bike,” he said, almost dreamy. Yeah, you saw that coming from a mile away.

  “You talking about the new guy?” You asked nonchalantly, turning your head as you resumed walking.  

  “Don’t even try to pretend you weren’t ogling just now,” he accused.

  “You’re obsessed with our new-found bad boy. Maybe you should date him, Tae,” a snicker left your lips at his appalled expression.

  “Shut up,” he pushed your shoulder. “I’m just curious.”

  “As in bi-curious?”

  “Okay, that’s it, I’m leaving you behind,” he grumbled as he fastened his pace. You chuckled, trying to catch up with his long legs.

  When you arrived home, you noticed an attempt of a drawing on top of your bed. It looked like a poorly doodled angel. First things first: though it definitely looked like something made by your hands, you didn’t have any recollection of it, let alone of leaving it on display like that. You looked around, searching for something, but nothing else seemed out of place. Trying to shrug the uneasiness off, you picked some clothes off the wardrobe and went for a warm bath.

    ||\\

  It was a Saturday afternoon, so you planned to do the usual: hit the library and grab some coffee on your way home. Taehyung had promised to watch a movie with you this weekend, but a surprise party to one of his friends came up. He’d invited you to tag along, more out of habit than anything else. Your answer was always the same when he asked you to spend time with his peers; you weren’t even remotely fond of them. They had maybe one functioning braincell and a whole lot of conceit. Not your crowd at all.

  “Mom, I’m leaving. Do you need me to get you anything?” You said, already on your way to the front door.

  She was sprawled on the couch, gazing attentively at the TV.  “No, honey, thank you. Are you going out with Tae?”

  “Nope, something came up, we rescheduled. I won’t be long.”

  “Okay, then. Be careful!”

  “Will do!”, you shouted from the outside.

  It was closing time when the sweet old lady had to gently kick you out. You weren’t surprised when you found out your phone was dead; you probably had a billion calls from your mother and, if she was desperate enough, maybe even Taehyung. Letting out a sigh, you grabbed your stuff quickly and waved goodbye to the librarian as you made your way out the door, grumbling to yourself about not being able to pick up some coffee now.

  The air was hazy and cold, you couldn’t see more than ten feet ahead, and the streets were oddly empty. You tightened your coat around your body and quickened your pace, not willing to spend more time outside than you needed to. Seeing that all the stores were closed, you realized that Martha (the librarian) probably let you outstay your welcome a little bit. You cursed at the freezing night and your cheap coat. Taehyung was right, you should buy warmer clothes.

  Lost in thoughts, you were stupid enough to miss the drunken noises coming from the end of the street. There was a group of three men coming your way and they all seemed to have ingested an unhealthy amount of booze, laughing loudly and pushing each other playfully. You felt cold sweat fall down your spine but just tried to ignore it, hoping that you’d be able to pass them by without being noticed.

  “Y/N?” His voice was dragged, and he was tumbling around the words. It was only then you realized they were from your school, the boy in the middle being Jimmy, Taehyung’s drink buddy.

  “Hi”, you tried to stay as far away as possible, but the one with the fashionably boring rectangular glasses didn’t let you, hooking his arm around your neck. He reeked of cigarettes and whiskey.

  “C’monnn-“ he hiccupped, “don’t you wanna par-tay with-“ another one, “-us?”

  You repressed the urge to gag as your pulse quickened.

  “Not really. I have to go,” you almost managed to untangle his disgusting arm from you, but he kept it in place, holding you tighter. “Let go of me.”

  You were annoyed. And scared to death, to be honest. These boys didn’t exactly live by a moral code, and the four of you were alone in the middle of nowhere. You didn’t trust them.

  “Aww, don’t be shy, princess. You’re always so… boring. Makes me curious about what you’ve got going on under all… that.” The last one, Ian, made his way towards you, snickering menacingly. He wasn’t as drunk as the other two, and if you could give a hunch, you’d say he knew exactly was he was doing. That scared you even more. Feeling the brick-wall hit your back, you realized you were cornered, a curse escaping your dry lips.

  “Look, I really have to g-“ he cut you off by pressing his body into yours, making you lose your breath for all the wrong reasons. “What the fuck, man?! Let go of me!” You were visibly growing desperate as you tried to punch his face and his chest, but that only earned you a chuckle from him as he held both your wrists with one hand.

  “Feisty. I like it.” You almost puked right then and there, the bile stuck in your throat making you scowl. He let his filthy fingers slide down your sides, until he could grope your ass.

  Your stomach sank, heart drumming against your ribcage as you held back a whimper.

Okay, think.

  Taehyung had taught you the basics about self defense a thousand moons ago. And yet, you realize that it was nothing like the real thing. You balled your clammy fingers tightly, knuckles white as you scanned every corner of your brain to try and find a way out.

  “Tae will kill you if you touch me,” your voice trembled. You couldn’t help it.

  He laughed whole-heartedly. As if the mere thought was actually funny to him.

  “He wouldn’t dare, sweetheart. Besides, I think he actually wouldn’t mind sharing his bitch with us for the night,” he stated. “He’s not using it anyways,” he punctuated with a roll of his hips and, this time, as you felt the pathetic bulge inside his pants, you couldn’t hold back a tiny sob. Because fuck, this was it. There was no way you could take down three grown men on your own.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” The voice was low and steady. It made your skin crawl. You snapped your head and looked at the dark haired man standing behind the boys. Ian lazily turned around, still keeping your wrists wrapped tight in his hand.

  “None of your business, newbie. Now get out of my sight before I lose my patience.”

  When he chuckled, it was different from Ian’s. It was darker, rougher, and concealed a vicious ferocity that you knew was there. You knew because, as he disregarded your aggressor and looked you in the eyes, you almost feared for them.

  “Ian, dude, let it go.” Jimmy instantly sobered up and tried to avoid any confrontation. To think he spent time with your best friend but would let Ian harass you without saying a word was disgusting. “Come on, your old man will kill you if you get in trouble again.” So that was his main concern. Still looking out for his shitty, abusive friend. Men’s sorority really is misogyny.

  “You should listen to your friend. Believe me, you won’t survive me when I get my hands on you,” he stated matter-of-factly. You felt the sincerity in your bones. And so did Ian and his stupid cavalry. “Leave.”

  Ian sighed, but relented. You felt a hot wave of relief as he disconnected his body from yours, leaning on the wall for balance as your legs wabbled.

  “You better watch out,” he spits.

  “Y/N, I... I’m really sorry,” Jimmy said as he scooped his friends and dragged them away from you. “You too, Min. He’s just drunk. We would’ve stopped him if it got too far.”

  He’s lying. You can tell.

  “Get the fuck out of my sight,” he growls, his composure faltering for a minute. As they stray out of view, he turns his gaze to you.

  “Care to tell me what the hell are you doing walking alone in the middle of the night?”

  He’s angry.

  You scoffed, adjusting your coat around your shoulders and straightening your back.

  “Thank you for the help, but I’m too old for a babysitter,” you say. “Besides, I don’t even know you.”

  He looks at you and, as if trying to regain some sense and control a fit of rage, he closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose before exhaling a long puff of air.

  “Alright. My name is Yoongi,” he takes you by surprise as he snatches your wrist in an iron grip, “And I'm fucking walking you home.”

  As he drags you across the street, you want to yell at him. You want to tell him to fuck off, you preppy bastard. But you don’t.

  Because the truth is, you’re so fucking grateful. God knows what would’ve happened if it wasn’t for him. As he calms down, he drops your hand and slows his pace, allowing you to catch up without having to make an effort. You want to talk, but you choose to stay quiet.

   Now that you weren’t so skittish anymore, it finally dawned you how the snow was beautifully spread throughout the streets, the trees, the buildings. Everything that was cool, cold, blue, held some fascination to you. Summer was never really your season – it had always been winter. To be able to curl up on your couch with a warm blanket and a hot cup of coffee, it was heavenly. You always thought that, if you could see the world through a color palette, it would be in different shades of blue.

  The snow was not the only thing that you were entranced by, though. Yoongi was, from what you saw so far, much like winter to you. Harsh when needed, cool, but also peaceful and comforting. He didn’t urge you to talk about the incident; he didn’t urge you to talk at all. His mannerisms caught your attention from time to time – how he constantly ran his long fingers through his hair, how his eyes seemed to flutter shut lazily a few times in a row, or how he carried himself so elegantly that it almost made you jealous. He looked terribly familiar, too.

  “Why are you staring?” His bluntness caught you off guard, but still couldn’t disturb the peacefulness of the moment.

  “Just curious.” It was true. “Apart from the motorcycle and the superhero complex, I don’t know much about you.”

  “Well, there’s not much to know.”

  You hummed in response. “What are you doing here, then?” You ask, and his feet come to a halt.    

  “What is this, an interrogation?”

  You scoff, and you both start walking again. “Just trying to make conversation. Besides, I’m actually curious,” you ponder. “People don’t move into this town very often,” you kick the snow under your feet. He sighs.

  “I’m here with my… brother,” he hesitated before continuing, “he’s my guardian, sort of. We used to move a lot. Work thing.” He couldn’t hold back a grimace, but it disappeared in a second. You wanted to ask about his parents, but felt like you’d be crossing a line, so you kept your curiosity to yourself. “Now you tell me,” he said.

  “Tell you what?”

  “About yourself. Your family. Whatever you want to.”

  “Um, let me see. I live with my mom. We moved from Italy when I was about three years old. My dad… my dad stayed.” You didn’t want to get into it, and he immediately noticed, just nodding for you to continue. “She’s been taking care of me by herself since then.”

  He hummed in understanding, sparing you a few glances that you couldn’t quite decipher.

  Before you knew, your house was already in sight. You wished you lived farther, just so you could keep that strange interaction on for a little longer.

  “Well, this is me,” you announced. Lying about your address had crossed your mind somewhere along the way.

  “Sorry if I was a jerk,” he surprised you by saying. You mouth opens and closes a few times before you say anything.

  “It’s okay, I guess. I was pretty riled up, too.”

  He nodded. “See you Monday, then?” His voice was deep and silky.

  “Yeah. Hey, I… I’m glad you showed up when you did.”

  “I am, too,” there was a dark undertone in his voice. “Good night, Y/N,” he surprised you by leading his right hand to the top of your head and lightly messing your hair before walking away. You stood still for a minute, until your mother opened the door.

  “Y/N?! Darling, why did you take so long? I was so worried!”

  “Um… Sorry, mom. I ran into a friend and my phone was off.”

  “Well, you should’ve at least borrowed your friend’s phone to let me know, things aren’t like they used to be around these parts anymore, it’s getting pretty danger-“

   She kept talking as she let you in, but you couldn’t concentrate. That night, you dreamt of him.

   ||\\                            

 “(…) Farewell happy fields

Where joy for ever dwells: hail horrors, hail

Infernal world, and thou profoundest hell

Receive thy new possessor: one who brings

A mind not to be changed by place or time.

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

     You didn’t think of yourself as an early riser, but when Monday morning came, you woke up before the alarm – and seemed almost delighted to do so. To be honest, you really tried to ignore the eagerness to see him again, but to no avail. The day before was thoroughly torturous, flashes of the short period of time you spent together coming back to haunt you now and then. At some point, you were so annoyed that you just lied on the bed and attempted to blast your eardrums off by listening to some crappy rock band at full volume. It didn’t work, obviously, and now you probably had hearing damage. The cons and cons of obsession.

  At this exact moment, for the first time in your entire friendship, you were banging on Taehyung’s door first. Because you just couldn’t wait a minute longer.

  “Damn it, woman, was is it with you today?” The sound of his voice was muffled. That, or you were going deaf, there was no way to tell for sure.

  “You’re going to make us late, Marzipan!” At that, he opened his bedroom door slightly, just enough so you could peek at his disheveled hair and sleepy face.

  “It’s dick o’clock in the morning, we have at least forty minutes until we leave,” his voice was rugged and he had an aggrieved look plastered on his pouty face.

  “I brought you coffee,” you smiled at him while raising the thermal cup.

  “Stop the madness and go wait for me downstairs, Gilmore girl,” he grunted. “Dad probably misses you, the poor old man. Keep him company, will ya?”

  “Don’t be silly, Mrs. Kim need his sleep in the morning.”

  “Then shut up and don’t wake him,” he grunted, closing the door shut, but it took him just a second to reopen it. “Wait, if dad’s asleep, how did you get in?”

  “I, uh… Might or might not know that you keep a spare key inside the porcelain elf’s hat,” your lips tugged upwards sheepishly.

  “Of course you do, you little imp. I’ll be down in a sec,” he grumbled and shut the door again.

  Taehyung had asked you a couple of times why you were so anxious to get to school that morning, but you just brushed it off with an excuse that you knew he wouldn’t buy. There were several reasons as to why you wanted to keep things to yourself for now. Mainly, it was because you were afraid that he’d be furious enough to break Ian’s face in front of everybody once you told him the whole story. Not that you felt any sympathy, but rather that you didn’t want Tae to get in trouble. You’d tell him as soon as you could, though. You didn’t care for the idea of him being friends – or whatever they were – with Jimmy.

  As soon as you stepped into school ground, you discreetly searched for his motorcycle in the parking lot. It wasn’t there. You tried not to let the disappointment show on your face, but you couldn’t help it. He didn’t come today. Who cares? As much as you wanted to force some sense into your stubborn brain, you were still hoping he’d show up, even if you didn’t talk to each other. You just wanted to see him, is all. Great time to start acting like a stupid teenager, Y/N. Kudos.

  You were in the middle of a pretty heated argument with yourself as you entered the classroom. Taehyung picked a desk in the middle, as he usually did when the both of you were able to sit next to each other. You were almost putting your stuff down at his side when something caught your attention. There. You felt a girlish jolt of excitement when you saw Yoongi sitting at the last row. His silky black hair was damped, probably from the shower, and he was wearing a black, long sleeved shirt, v cut. You were about to divert your eyes, but then he stared right at your face and calmy removed his bag from the chair next to his. He smirked, as if defying you to take a seat. Annoying little piece of-

  “Tae, do you mind if I sit somewhere else today?”

  “What?” He looked at you, confused. “Where do you want us to…” Your eyes flashed to the end of the room and he followed your gaze. “What? Why would you-”

  “Do you mind?”

  “Uh… No?”

  “Okay, great. See you soon.” You knew Taehyung was confused, so you should probably be thinking of what to tell him when this class was over. But for now, you just carried yourself to the empty spot in the back. Yoongi was looking at you with an amused expression, hiding his little smile behind his intertwined hands. You wanted to wash that smug off his face so bad. You took a seat and his scent assaulted you, warm and musky. Almost irresistible. You saw Taehyung from across the room gazing at the both of you with an inscrutable countenance.

  “Is your boyfriend mad that you sat with me today?” He audaciously asked.

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “I see. Must be hard, then,” he looked almost sympathetic.

  “What?” Your face contorted into confusion.

  “Nevermind. Tell me how was your Sunday,” he said while opening his notebook and doodling something you couldn’t decipher yet.

  “So we’re friends now?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Shouldn’t you ask me first?” You lifted your brow.

  “You’re bossy today.”

  You were about to give him a proper answer when the teacher barged in, almost breathless. As the class began, focusing on Hess’s Law was your main priority, it really was. But you couldn’t help the tingle crawling up your skin every time he unintentionally bumped his arm into yours, because he was still drawing, keeping his head down since Mrs. Edwards started talking. Still, you couldn’t move. No. Focus. You held onto the edge of your desk with one hand, knuckles white, as you kept the other taking notes on the subject.

  “Relax,” he softly whispered, not taking his eyes away from his notebook. You immediately loosened the tight grip of your left hand.

  “I’m relaxed,” you lied, imitating his tone. He chuckled, lifting his head to show you the most beautiful gummy smile. God, why was he so distractingly handsome? His soft, pale skin, his cat-like eyes. His hands, Lord, you wouldn’t even dwell on his hands. Everything about him was appealing, alluring. His voice, his smell, his gaze. He was devilish.  

  All of a sudden, he ripped off the page he was working on. You tried not to get even more distracted, keeping your eyes on the board, until he touched your arm with his hand. You tensed. “Here, keep this if you want to,” he said, passing the folded paper to you. Curiosity washed over your face and you were about to unfold it, but he stopped you. “I don’t think you should open it now.”

  “Why? Is it, like, an erotic sketch?” You could tell you broke his demeanor a little, he seemed both shocked and amused.

  “I wonder if that kind of thought crosses your brain very often. You’re filthy, Y/N,” he smirked. You almost choked at his tone and his words. He was teasing you, and you refused to go down without a fight.

  “Well, I don’t exactly know you, do I? You could be a perv.” He bit back a chuckle.

  “I’m an honorable man. You’ll see.”

  “Will I, now?”

  “Yes. We’re friends now, aren’t we?”

  “You haven’t convinced me yet.”

  “Challenge accepted.” The two of you stared at each other for a few seconds, then the bell rang. He grabbed his stuff and got up, then tilted his head and asked, “Do you want a ride… friend?”

  “I thought you didn’t ride here today.” Confusion stained his expression before he realized the meaning behind your words. You could see the enlightenment in his face and suddenly banging your head on a wall wasn’t all too bad. He was too cocky for his own good, and now you’ve just made it worse. Way to go.

  “I parked on a different spot,” he responded.

  “Yeah, sure. Uh, anyways… Thanks for the offer, but I’m going home with Tae.”

  “Suit yourself.” Before walking away, he turned around and said, “I’ll save you a seat tomorrow, Y/N.” Before you could elaborate an answer, he was already out the door, and Taehyung was in front of you with that ‘what-the-actual-fuck’ face he made every time he was caught off guard.

  “I’ll explain on the way home,” you sighed.

        ||\\

  You were both in the safety of your bedroom when you told Taehyung everything. From how Ian tried to do God knows what with you, to why he wasn’t able to. Pure luck. It was pure luck that Yoongi happened to be passing by, and it was pure luck that he’d bothered to check what was going on. You told him Jimmy was there. You saw the guilt and rage clawing their way to his chest, and there it was; the reason you were wary to tell him in the first place. Taehyung was explosive, a force of nature when he let himself indulge.

  “I’ll kill him. Why did you hide that from me?” Even though he was trying his best to hold back, you could still tell how furious he truly was. “Answer me, Y/N, I’m not fucking around here,” he didn’t mean for it to sound like a scold, but it still did.

  “I knew you’d be mad,” you retorted.

  “Of course I’d be fucking mad. I don’t think you understand just how mad I am.”

  “I know. Tae, really, nothing serious happened. It’s not worthy getting yourself in trouble for it.”

  “How can you even say that?” he barked.

  “Promise me you’ll let it go,” you asked softly.

  He looked like he’d just heard the worst profanity fall from your lips. “I don-“

  “Promise, Tae,” you were using your serious voice now, the one you used to tell him that no, it was not okay for him to mess with your books back when you were kids. You took it to the heart too often. He stared at you for a moment or two before sighing.

  “Okay,” he grudgingly said. “If that’s what you want.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you,” he said after a moment.

  “It’s not your fault. Really, it’s not.”

  “I know. I’m just… sorry,” he let his head rest on your lap. You hummed and stroke his hair for a while. These little moments of utter understanding and peace was one of the reasons he was your best friend. The person you could rely on, always. And he could always rely on you, too.

||\\

   A few weeks passed you by in the blink of an eye. After the infamous events of that night, you and Yoongi grew closer each day. Not that it was always easy, he was infuriating at times; you had to be sharp to keep up with the incessant bickering. But, for what it’s worth, you were able to gather that he was much more than just a little shit, even though he tried to deny it. 

   And you suppose that’s one of the reasons to why your stomach flutters and your heart skips a couple of beats when he gets too close. 

   Probably a month too late, you come across that piece of paper Yoongi had mysteriously given you the first morning you sat together.  You took it in your hands with a gasp and carefully unfolded it, taking a sharp intake of breath at the drawing. It was a pair of eyes – your eyes, perfectly detailed by strong, yet delicate, traces. It was beautiful and left no room for doubts as to whose they were. The cocky bastard was actually pretty talented, you had to give him that. Before you had much time to think about it, your phone rang. You hesitated a moment before picking up, the number was unknown.

  “Hello?”

  “Did you like it?” The voice on the other line was coarse and drawn, and you recognized it immediately.

  “How did you get my number?” You asked while laying yourself on the bed, staring at the ceiling. 

   He had become a constant whenever you were at school or at the library. Nothing beyond that. The call was a pleasent surprise.

  “I have my ways. Will you answer at least one of my questions anytime soon?” There was a hint of a boyish amusement in his tone, and that instantly made you lighter. You liked him better in a good mood.

  “You don’t answer any of mine, so why should I bother?” You shrugged, even though he couldn’t see you.

  “That’s hardly fair. What do you want to know, George?”

  You scoffed at the nickname. “First things first. I want to know how you got my number.”

  “It’s not so hard to get privileged information on the students’ personal data if you’re charming enough. Ms. Parker has a soft spot for me.” Of course. You should’ve seen it coming.

  “You’re shameless,” you scolded half-heartedly, taking a plushie in your hands and squeezing it.

  “It’s one of my many qualities. So, can you answer me now?”

  “Hmm… I might’ve liked it,” you stated, referring to the book he’d recommended. “But you’re already a pretty conceited man, so I should probably spare you the details.”

  He was silent for a while, and you almost mention the drawing you found in your backpack. But then, he’s talking again. “So you think I’m pretty, huh?”

 “Are you… Have you-“ you stammered in astonishment and he chuckled. “Do you actually select the words you want to hear?” you asked and he hummed.

  “Where are you?”

  “Home,” you answered without much thought.

  “I’ll pick you up in ten. Be ready.”

  “Wait, what?” You jolted out of the bed, dropping the plushie on the floor. “You can’t just… decide that. What if I’m busy?”

  “You’re not.”

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  “But you do,” He sounded almost confused. And he was right, you did want to. Somewhere deep inside your brain there was a voice saying that you should’ve objected at least a little bit more. But, against your better judgement, you kept quiet, and soon enough your silence gave you away. “I’m hanging up now. See you soon, George.” You meant to talk back to him, but he’d already ended the call. That, arrogant, insolent, contemptuous jer-

  Before finishing that thought, you remembered you didn’t have much time. So you took a five minute shower, put on a little mascara and went out of the bathroom to find something to wear. There wasn’t enough time to go wild, so you just went for your favorite pair of mom jeans and tucked a burgundy sweater in. After brushing your hair and your teeth, you were ready.

  As soon as you were done, you heard a horn and rushed to the window. There he was, in all his glory, hips resting against his stupidly cool Triumph Rocket. Black boots, black jeans, black long-neck shirt and his usual leather jacket. Wonder what his favorite color might be, you scoffed. He shot you a smirk that made you hold your breath for a moment. It now occurred to you that you had no idea as to where he was taking you. Also, was it a date? A friend thing? Shit. You should’ve said no. You sighed. It was too late now.

  Before running downstairs, you sprayed a little bit of perfume on the nape of your neck and your wrists. Chloé, your signature scent.

  “I’m going out for a bit.”

  She was sitting by the window with a hot beverage on her hands and a book on her lap. Like mother, like daughter.

  “Last time you said that…”

  “I know,” you cut her off gently. “But I have class tomorrow. I promise I won’t be long.”

  “Is your phone charged, young lady?”

  “Yep, it is.”

  “Then call me if anything happens, alright?”

  “Sure thing. Bye, mom,” you gave her a brief peck on the forehead and rushed out the door.

  He was waiting for you at the porch, even more breathtaking now that you could see him up close. His musky scent was stronger and his pale skin was glowing. He was drinking you in with mysteriously piercing eyes.

  “Come,” he said, taking you by the hand.

  “Where are we going anyway?” you asked. As the both of you approached his motorcycle, you were trying your best not to trip.

  “You’ll see.” He took a helmet off a compartment that you didn’t know to exist and cupped your face to hold you still before he put it on you.

  “Is this like a Hitchcock movie? Will you take me just far enough so I can meet my fate by the end of the night?” A hint of dread crossed his features, but he composed himself soon enough.

  “Do you believe in fate, Y/N?” He asked, fixing the straps under your chin, his fingers setting your skin aflame.

  “I don’t know,” you couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, but his countenance urged you to provide a proper answer. “Faith is just not my strong suit, I guess,” you mumbled.

  Yoongi pondered about what you said for a moment. “Hold that thought, yeah?” Then he climbed the vehicle. “Hop on,” he started the engine. You were now too aware of the fact that you had never ‘hopped on’ one of those. “Don’t worry, I’m a really good driver,” he tugged his lips upwards.

  “I just… I’ve never done this.”

  “What, ride a motorcycle?” He asked and you nodded. “Trust me. I wouldn’t let anything happen,” he reassured you.

  I know. So you climbed the damn thing and held tight onto his waist, almost comforted by his warmth. He felt the sensitive skin on his back crawl at the contact. Especially between his shoulder blades.

||\\

     You spent the entire ride with your eyes closed. If you had any doubt that Yoongi was a mad man, those god-knows-how-many minutes on the back of his motorcycle had erased them completely. He was going fast. You could feel the wind ricocheting your face relentlessly, and every time he had to make a turn, your stomach fluttered. Sometimes, he turned his head just a little bit, as if checking if you were at least breathing, but you would grit your teeth and snap at him to look ahead, tightening your grip. You could feel him chuckle, his whole upper body being assaulted by small tremors.

  But when you finally arrived at your destination, it was all worth it.

  “Do you like it?” Expectation washed all over his ethereal features.

  “Do I… like it? It’s amazing,” your eyes sparkled with wonder and astonishment at the sight of the ocean. You were at a relatively high spot, like a small cliff, and you could smell the delicious salty breeze that you adored so much. But what truly amazed you, what really took your breath away, was the electric blue lights sparkling all over the wave crests. “Bioluminescence! How did you find this place? Can we go down?” You asked with the biggest smile, a childish excitement seeping through your tone. He giggled, the most magnificent, angelic sound you had ever heard.

  “I’d rather if we didn’t. I don’t want you to meet your fate at those slippery rocks, it wouldn’t be very Hitchcock-y,” he joked. You felt a bit disappointed but chose to let it go. The night, the sea, the sky; it was all too beautiful for you to allow yourself to be petty.

  He took a few steps ahead and sat closer to the edge, wind whisking his hair and making his catlike eyes narrow. You followed suit, sitting in lotus by his side. You both took a minute to appreciate the sight, falling into a comfortable silence, that was soon broken by his husky voice.

  “I come here a lot when I need to remind myself of who I am. Of where I’m from,” he said, still looking at the waters below, eyebrows furrowed. “I never thought of bringing anyone else here before.”

  “So why did you?” Your voice was small, whispered.

  “I don’t know. I guess…” he stopped for a moment. “I possibly just wanted to make sure you were okay. And I don’t know any place else that feels more like home to me. Perhaps I also wanted to share it with you.” Then he turned his gaze to you, eyes reflecting the moonlight. He was divine, bewitching. Especially now, when he seemed to be opening up to you for the first time. You felt your heartbeat speed up at his confession.

  “Thank you,” you said softly, diverting your gaze to the waves. “I can understand why you’re so fond of this place. It’s blissful, feels like heaven.”

   He humms, fixing his gaze on the crashing waves above you.

  “Y/N.” He was surveying your face now, as if trying to read you. Expectant. 

  “Yes?”

  “Do you believe in heaven?” His voice is a whisper and, for a moment, you wonder if you’d heard him correctly. 

  That was probably the last question you’d expected from him, it took you completely by surprise. You inhaled deeply, searching for the right words, but ended up blurting what first came to mind.

  “For all I know, heaven is here. Hell, too. I want to be better, yes, for the people I love. I want to be better for whoever needs me to be, because I know how tough this can get. If there’s an afterlife… at least I’ll know that I tried to be good for the right reasons. So yeah, let’s say I don’t dwell on it. Whatever happens, happens.”

   By the time you finished talking, there was something sparkling deep inside his onyx eyes that you couldn’t recognize.

  “That’s sort of refreshing,” and there it was again. The sheepish gummy smile you adored so much, so utterly genuine and divine you thought you’d die.

  “What about you?”

  “Yes. Heaven, Hell, the whole ordeal. Except for God.”

  “But… How would it be possible for all those things to exist without God?”

  “That is not what I said,” he let out a humorless little chuckle. “Let it suffice that God is… I believe, much too real. Just not how humankind paint him to be. I believe God exists; I just don’t believe in him. Not anymore.” His tone was raw and melancholic. You ached with the need to console him, because he seemed adrift; and that bothered you more than it should.

  Without realizing, your face had gotten closer to his, and suddenly he was all over the place. All you could see, smell, hear, it was all him. He must have known, because then he traced your features lightly with his long, graceful fingers. You thought that was it. That was heaven.  

  You closed your eyes so you could savor every second of it, heartbeat going wild and butterflies assaulting your stomach. He lifted his other hand, and now he was cupping your face gingerly, like you were made of glass. Every touch ignited something foreign and glorious inside of you.

  He shifted, moving closer, and his scent hit you, unyielding, but you didn’t dare to open your eyes. When his lips finally brushed against yours, it was enough to set something off, and your hands made their way to his neck on their own as you let out a shaky breath. You pressed yourself harder and sucked on his bottom lip, before caressing it with the tip of your tongue, earning a groan from him.

   Well, shit.

  He took the hair in the nape your neck in a dainty – yet firm – fistful, asking permission with his tongue to deepen the kiss. There was no denying him, you could never. His taste, God, you could spend eternity tasting every single bit of him. When he licked past your teeth, you moaned, and it was so utterly pleasing, sinful, that he felt compelled to go harder, mercilessly swirling his tongue inside your mouth. There was no room to breathe, the neediness for one another unbending.

  You don’t know how much time you spent in that haze of mind-numbing desire, but neither of you dared to stop. Until your phone rang.

  You jerked away, pupils blown wide from the intensity of the moment, skin flushed. You were both panting, eyes trained on each other, searching, scrutinizing, waiting for a reaction. His reddened, glistening lips were parted slightly and he seemed displeased to cut the moment short. Even so, he managed to talk.

  “You should probably get that,” he gusted, trying to catch his breath.  You couldn’t find it in yourself to do anything but nod.

  You took the device out of your back pocket and checked the ID caller, brows furrowing. He mirrored your expression.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s a girl from school. We have history class together. That’s… odd,” you said. You and Sarah have never had a real conversation, one that didn’t involve Napoleon or Julien Sorel. You just had her number saved because of a paper you had to do together a while ago. “Hello?”

  “Y/N? Thank God,” she sounded truly relieved. “Look, I’m sorry to bother you but… We’re at the school’s gym and-“ she let out a loud gasp, and only then you noticed the noise in the background, an uproar of voices and… Did you did hear a punch?

  “Sarah? What is it?”

  “Tae’s here. Y/N, you should come…”

  Your blood ran cold.

  “What? Is he okay? Sarah, tell me what’s going on. Now,” you blurted, already standing, missing the way Yoongi’s face contorted in confusion and concern.

  “We tried to stop them, we really did, I-“

  “Sarah,” you grunted.

  “Okay, yeah. Him and Ian are at each other’s throats right now, it’s pretty bad. Y/N, I don’t think it’ll be long before someone calls the cops. I just thought I’d let you know, ‘cause-“

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” you cut her off, and then hang up.

  You were a lot of things at that moment, but mostly worried and angry. You had told him not to, you had told him to let it go, and he went behind your back. You heart rate was through the roof, adrenaline rushing through your veins. But this time, it wasn’t out of passion.

  “Y/N,” Yoongi had a wary look on his face. “Tell me.”

  “Can you take me back? Tae’s in trouble.”

  ||\\

  He hadn’t meant to. He really hadn’t meant to break his promise, but he knew it was bound to be broken the minute he made it. The idea of someone else touching you was torturous enough, but to think of them doing it without your consent actually drove him crazy with rage. Those unbidden images of you scared, asking that piece of shit to stop, only for him to hold you tighter, closer, wrapping his filthy hands around you… it wouldn’t stop coming to him, even though he’d tried his hardest to restrain them. It had haunted him ever since you told him. He felt sick. He hated himself for not being there for you, with you. Like the disgraceful best friend he was, he’d canceled movie night to get wasted. Ugly feelings, even the ones he didn’t care to admit, pierced their sharp claws at his chest. Guilt, exasperation, jealously.

  He’d tried to suppress the bitterness from watching you with the new guy, he tried to be just glad that he was there and hold out against it, because if he wasn’t… The point is: he really tried. But the way you looked at him made Taehyung’s stomach sink. He’d never seen it before, and he craved it like a man in the desert did a single drop of water. He wanted to be on the receiving end of that gaze more than anything.

  He’d go mad if he stayed inside, so he went out for a jog. Your mother had told him you weren’t home, and he figured you’d be at the coffee shop near school. What a big surprise it was when he found Ian next to a blue SUV that was parked near the gymnasium. He choked out a chuckle; it was just too tempting. Rage boiled trough his veins, and at that moment he knew he couldn’t hold back. He couldn’t not break that scumbag in half, even if that meant he’d be going against your wishes.

  So he did. Every punch, given or taken, satisfied him little by little. Because he also deserved to be punished, he thought.

 ||\\

    “What was that shit that you pulled? After I explicitly told you to stay out of it! Why now?”

  Taehyung had a bloody nose, a deep cut just above his eyebrow and some pretty ugly purple spots all over his upper body, staining his previously pristine skin. When you and Yoongi had arrived at school, you discovered he’d been taken. By a police officer, nonetheless.

  You’d been so mad. But now that he was in front of you, all screwed up in torn clothes, the speech you had prepared escaped your mind. You just couldn’t understand his impulsiveness, and the fact that he was in a tiny, smelly cell because of you was infuriating.

  “We both knew it was bound to happen eventually, so I figured rather sooner than later,” he answered nonchalantly.

  “Taehyung,” you said through gritted teeth

  “What, Y/N?!” He snapped. “You wanted me to let him get away with it?”

  “Yes! Yes, I literally told you that that’s what I wanted!”

  “Well, too bad,” he darkly said. He knew he was in the wrong here. But he was just too riled up to think straight.

  “Okay,” you said, taking a sharp intake of breath while running your fingers through your hair, “Okay, let’s be practical about this. Your dad is coming, right? We can talk about it at home.”

  “Fine,” he said, avoiding your eyes.

  “Fine,” you, too, knew how to be petty. “I’ve got to go outside for a minute. Behave,” your gaze flashed to an officer for a second, but quickly made its way back to Taehyung. When you realized he wouldn’t give you an answer, you just sighed and carried yourself out the door.

  As soon as you stepped out of the threshold, you saw Yoongi leaning on his motorcycle, arms crossed and head hanging from his shoulders. You didn’t know what tonight had meant. You wanted to at least try to figure out if he felt the same as you did, but you had bigger problems. And to be honest, you’d rather sleep on it. It was all too intense and hazy.

  “Hey,” you said, walking slowly towards him. He lifted his head and offered a tiny smile.

  “Your boyfriend really hates my guts, doesn’t he?”

  “He’s not-“ you cut yourself off when you realized he was just messing with you again. Of course he is, he stuck his tongue down your throat just an hour ago. “Anyways. I guess Tae will be out in a couple of hours, but I have to stay here and wait for Mr. Kim. Thank you for… tonight.”

  He nodded. “No problem, George. I’ll call y-“

  Suddenly, his eyebrows knitted together and his whole body tensed as he straightened himself. If you ever told anyone about this, you’d probably be admitted in a mental facility. But you swore that, for an instant, his eyes changed colors, going from pitch black to a deep violet. It happened in a heartbeat, and then he wasn’t looking at you anymore, but at something past your shoulder. You felt a chill run down your spine as you turned around to see what caught his attention.

  A tall, broad-shouldered man was walking towards you. As his lean figure got closer, the tension grew almost palpable, and you could see from afar he had a small smile plastered on his plump lips. But it wasn’t comforting at all. Instead, it was vile, almost sadistic. Your head snapped to Yoongi again, and you saw how he didn’t move a muscle, fists closed tight and jaw clenched. That made you panic a little.

  “Yoongi, what-“

  “Y/N, go inside,” his voice was hoarse and restrained, like he hadn’t talked in weeks.

  No, you wanted to say. That man, whoever he was, screamed bad news. He walked like a predator, and you felt like his prey. Though your self-preservation instincts were going wild with every step he took, something stronger made you want to stay. You knew he wasn’t here for you, but for him. And that sparked a need to protect him that you didn’t know to exist, nor where it came from. However, you just kept quiet and waited for the man to catch up, not missing the murderous aura emitted from Yoongi.

  At last, he stood in front of you, reddish hair and twisted smirk still on his face. You could see him clearly now, and he was beautiful. The kind of beauty you’ve only seen once.

  “Has anyone actually pressed charges this time, little brother?” His voice was deceivingly soft.

   Brother?

  “How did you find me?” Yoongi asked with an icy voice that almost made you shudder.

  “Is that how you greet your elders? Father would not be pleased.”

  “Well, you’re one to talk, aren’t you?”

  “People are still hung up on that, I see,” the man chuckled. “Yoongi-ah,” he said, his feet taking him closer at a slower pace. Yoongi kept his ground, knuckles white from his balled-up fists, while you instinctively took a step back. That’s when they both seemed to acknowledge your presence. Yoongi’s eyes bulged slightly, his pale skin becoming ever paler, while the other wore an unreadable expression on his face.

  “I told you to go inside,” he almost growled, taking your wrist in an iron grip and pulling you to stand behind his back. You didn’t understand. You didn’t understand any of it. Why did he seem so threatened by his own blood? The man was scary, sure, but was he actually dangerous? Your head was spinning, so you held onto his jacket to keep yourself vertical.

  “Were you not planning on introducing me to your friend, baby brother? That’s just rude, you know how much I love meeting new people.”

  “I’d advise you to be careful now, Jin.” The threat in Yoongi’s low voice was noticeable even to you, but Jin didn’t seem to mind. On the contrary, he relished on it. His little brother didn’t get all protective over just anyone, and the fact that he didn’t want the eldest to know about you pointed straight to a weak spot. One which he intended to take full advantage of.

  “Easy, Prince, no need to get riled up,” Jin chuckled again, lifting both hands in a sign of peace. “What do you take me for?”

  “Neither of us can deny your nature, can we, brother? It’s the reason why we’re here in the first place.”

  “It’s true. Have you told her your name yet? Since you appear very comfortable sharing such details in front of her.”

  “What are you doing here? I thought I had made myself clear the last time we saw each other,” Yoongi changed the subject, hoping you wouldn’t pay much attention to his question.

  Jin’s face turned serious for the first time before he spoke. “They approached me, Yoongi-ah. It would seem that they need their Flam-“

  “Quit it!” Yonngi growled. “Hold your tongue, I don’t want to hear any of it. You need to go.”

  “Not until I have delivered my message.” The well-proportioned man stood his ground.

  Yoongi took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He could not have this kind of conversation in front of you – in front of anyone, for that matter. Jin was breaking the rules; an old habit of his. “Then I need you to wait for me at home. I suppose you already know where I live, don’t you? I’ll meet you there soon.”

  “Alright then. Y/N, it was splendid meeting you. I do hope I get to see you again soon.”

  Yoongi scowled as he watched Jin turn on his heels and disappear in the night. For all he knew, Jin would never get this close to you ever again. He was caught off guard today. He then turned around, black orbs scrutinizing you for a reaction.    

  There were many things going through your mind at that exact moment. Too many questions, he could tell. You looked at him in a grimace of confusion and horror.

  “How did he know my name?” That was the first thing that popped into your mind. You hadn’t said your name, neither did Yoongi. “And who’s ‘they’? And did he really just call you prince? Is that a pet name or something?” You blurted out, sensing you wouldn’t have too much time to elaborate the questions the way you wanted to.

  He looked into your eyes, face contorted in what you could only describe as a desperate hesitation, brows furrowed and lips pressed into a fine line. He was pondering his options. You knew that because, when he made up his mind, you could clearly see the taint of resolution.

  “I can’t answer your questions,” he muttered.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m really sorry, Y/N. Please, just forget about this. All of it.”

  “What are you talking about?” you were on the brink of losing it at this point. First Taehyung, and now this. He wasn’t making any sense. But his eyes spoke to you in ways he couldn’t. Only then, you understood. “No,” you said with a resolution of your own. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Listen, it’s okay if you don’t want to tell me right away, whatever it is, just don-“

  “Y/N.”

  “Yes?!”

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Why?”

  “Listen to me just this once,” he groaned, stepping into your personal space. He twisted your hair in one hand, holding your face securely to his. When he rested his forehead on yours, your eyes gave into his wishes, closing on their own. “I’ll be gone for a little while, George,” your breath hitched, but you didn’t interrupt him. He gave you a light peck on the mouth, lips soft and moist, breath hot on your face. “I have to settle some things straight. Be good for me while I’m gone, yeah? Don’t do anything stupid,” he frowned.

  “Will you come back?” your voice almost cracked, ‘cause you weren’t so sure of his answer. You felt foolish. You’ve only known him for a short period of time, after all. But the intensity of your feelings, though you couldn’t discern them clearly yet, scared you.

  This felt horribly like goodbye – it was, at least for now – and you hated it.

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Yes,” you answered straight away.

  “Alright,” he nodded. “Then I will.”

  You didn’t dare open your eyes when he stepped away from you after one last chaste peck on your lips, nor when you heard him start the engine of his Triumph. But when you felt a warm hand on your shoulder, you jolted slightly and your eyes fluttered open.  

  “Let’s get you inside, kid” Mr. Kim said softly, brushing away a lonesome tear from your cheek. “Then you can help me scold my boy for making us come all the way to the police station on a school day, how does that sound?” he tried to uplift your spirit, and you offered him a half-hearted smile.

   ||\\

                                                       “Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;

And in the lowest deep a lower deep

Still threatening to devour me opens wide,

To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.

Oh then at last relent: is there no place

Left for repentance, none for pardon left?”

     It’d been four weeks since the last time you saw him. A whole month since he’d disappeared completely. At first, you waited anxiously for him to reappear out of nowhere. For him to just slide into the classroom, like he’d done the first time. But as time passed by and the third week came, you grew worried. He didn’t get specific about how much time it would take for him to do whatever it was, but you imagined it would be one, maybe two weeks. But now, a month later, you were beginning to wonder if he’d even come back at all. If something had happened, if he was okay…

  No. He promised.

  You’d rather not dwell on the possibility of something going wrong – hell, you didn’t even know what he was doing or what was that strange conversation he had with his deviant brother in front of the police station. You had a few theories, though. Not that you’d ever utter them out loud.

  Number one: mafia. Maybe not The Godfather sort of thing, since that seemed pretty outdated, but rather… Scarface, perhaps? So you had come up with the idea of Jin being a druglord; nothing more, nothing less. It made sense, to be honest.

  Number two: well, number two wasn’t exactly clear on your mind, but had something to do with super rich parents and an insane heritage. He could be the prince of an empire, right? You didn’t know anything about his family, except that his brother was blood-curdling.

  You just wished to keep your head in the right place until he explained the situation to you. If he explained, that is. Sighing, you tried to contain your derailed thoughts and get back to the real world, where Taehyung needed you to pay attention to Mamma Mia! for the nth time.

  “Alright, that’s it. You didn’t even sing along during S.O.S and that’s where I draw the line,” he said, taking the remote from your hand and pausing the movie. It was a cozy night and you were both plopped on the couch wearing socks and sweatpants.

  “When have I ever sang along during S.O.S, Tae?”

  “I remember it vividly, we were eleven. But that’s not the point,” he retorted. You bit your lip and kept your eyes trained on the frozen screen of the TV, already sensing where this was going. “You’ve been like this for a while now.”

  “Like what?” you pushed, trying to feign innocence. You were not in the mood for this right now. You just wanted to stare unseeingly at the TV and have some private time with your own thoughts until the movie was over.

  He sighed. “Look, I can only guess what’s going on,” he scowled, but tried to compose his features into a serene mask before speaking again. “But I need you to not be in your own head for a minute.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. I want to help,” he said, taking your hand in his. The touch was warm and familiar.

  “I know, Marzipan,” another sigh. You took your hand from his carefully and got up. “I’m going to the store, you want something?”

  “What, now? Y/N-“

  “I just-, I need coffee and snacks if we’re pulling this off. If you want me to keep my eyes opened during Moulin Rouge, that is,” you pointed out matter-of-factly

  Taehyung shifted in his seat, face contorted in confusion, wariness and a hint of hurt. “Do you want me to go with you? It’s late.”

  “No, it’s fine. You can stay and plan ahead, I’m sure we’re not stopping at the next one.”

  He watched you silently while you fumbled for your keys. When you found them, he muttered: “Don’t be too long.”

  “I won’t.”

  As soon as you crossed the threshold, the cold air of the night hit your skin, making you shiver slightly. You closed the door and hid your hands in the pockets of your sweater, bringing it closer to your body in a poor attempt to keep the warmth from escaping.

  Walking towards the convenience store located a couple of blocks from your house, you let yourself get lost in headspace again. You knew you weren’t being fair to Taehyung. As much as you wanted to talk about this situation with him, you couldn’t. It felt like betraying someone who hadn’t even put their trust in you to begin with. Yes, it was unfair, and maybe you were being a shitty friend every time he tried to have a serious conversation about the subject and you brushed him off with an excuse, like getting coffee in the middle of the night.

  You sighed, not really willing to wallow in guilt tonight, and just tried to focus on your immediate task. One step after the other, then one more, and you could already see the lights of a tiny single shop, the only one opened this late at night. It belonged to Mr. Newton, a sweet old baker who treated you kindly every time he was filling up for his cashier.

  You entered the store and heard the little bell announce your arrival. Much to your surprise, Mr. Newton was working there that night. As he saw your expression of detachment, he frowned. So you tried to arrange your features in a polite smile before speaking.

  “Hello, Mr. Newton.”

  “Y/N, child, why are you wandering alone when it’s already this late?” he asked softly, though clearly concerned for your safety.

  “Don’t worry, sir,” you answered, walking towards the cooler where they kept the iced coffee and taking two in one hand, as you went for the chips next. “Tae and I needed a little snack. Movie night.”

  He nodded and you placed the items on the counter for him to scan.

  “Well, then. Tell that kid to come by whenever he can. My wife wants to send some essential oils for Mr. Kim’s aromatherapy sessions,” just as he’d said it, he got a bit closer to you, as if the next words to come out of his mouth were a secret. “Truth is, she misses him. The boy is the only one who can stand her cooking.”

  Despite being moody, you chuckled wholeheartedly. No one could be indifferent to Taehyung’s charms, it seemed.

  “Yes, sir, I’ll tell him.”

  As you went through your wallet to pay the old man, you heard the little bell once again. Mr. Newton greeted the new client, but you were too engrossed in finding the right bills to snap your head in the newcomer’s direction. However, the inquisitive sound that left the old man caused you to steal a glimpse, catching auburn hair and broad shoulders in their wake. You stood still for a moment, trying to recall why those locks seemed so familiar. Until it hit you.

  “Jin?” you breathed, not loud enough for anyone in the store to actually hear you. Just as you muttered his name, he closed the door and turned left, disappearing from your sight. You gasped. “Keep the change, Mr. Newton!” you said – audibly, this time – leaving a ten dollar bill on the counter and grabbing your stuff as gracefully as you could muster, rushing to the door like your life depended on it.

  “No running in the store, kid!” he tried to scold you, but could already feel the cool breeze as you opened the door and looked around, expecting to find his brother. Only this time around you weren’t scared, no. You wanted answers, heart beating fast at the possibility of hearing from Yoongi, maybe even seeing him… Okay, no, not the time for this, first things first.

  When you realized he was nowhere to be found, you ran. Left. He went left. You passed by a few houses and almost tripped on a stray cat, turning your head to the side to check on it and apologizing profusely as you picked up your pace again. A few blocks later, you were already out of breath. You came to a halt and put both hands on your knees, gasping and feeling your lungs burn.

  Trying to ease your labored breathing, you realized that you were probably going crazy. A halfhearted chuckle escaped your parted lips. You were disappointed, even if actually meeting the redhead meant trouble. Trying not to let frustration and melancholy get the best of you, you decided to just let it go and head back home. Even if it was Jin, he probably wouldn’t tell you anything anyway.

 ||\\

    The snow under your feet was slippery as you got out of the library, leather backpack and navy-blue beanie on. You held a large cappuccino on one hand, careful not to spill it as you dodged passers-by and umbrellas every now and then. The streets were a little crowded that afternoon, and you were dying to get home and relish on Mrs. D’Angelis’ famous chicken noodle soup. Maybe she’d even grant you a warm glass of wine if you asked properly. You tried to occupy your mind with ordinary, day-to-day thoughts, trying to ignore the flutter on the pit pf your stomach.

  During that entire week, you were constantly under the impression that something was off. When you were going to school with Taehyung, or grocery shopping for your mother, there was always that tingling feeling on the nape of your neck that told you that someone was watching. Then you’d turn around and nothing. No one was ever there. The uneasiness was uncomfortable, but you didn’t feel endangered, just really jittery. And your motto was: no better medicine for anxiety than tons of caffeine.

  “Mom, I’m home!” you crooned, taking your coat off and discarding the empty thermal cup.

  “In the kitchen, honey!”

  The smell was splendid. You took a deep breath, already yearning for the hot meal, and kissed your mother on the cheek while she stirred… something.

  “Uh, smells nice,” you praised, making your way to the fridge for a glass of water. “I’m shocked Tae hasn’t come knocking on our door yet. Maybe his flair is broken because of the flu.”

  “Is Taehyungie sick, honey? Why didn’t you tell me?” she almost whined.

  “It’s nothing, just a bit of phlegm. But I’ll take some of these,” you pointed to the pots, “for him and his dad later.”

  “You really should. Now go upstairs and change before dinner.”

  You mumbled a response and climbed the stairs to put on some good old band t-shirt and sweatpants. You didn’t notice the broad-shouldered frame behind the door, and as soon as you closed it behind you, you felt a cold hand covering your mouth, while the other held you in place by the waist. Your whole body tensed, eyes bulged and breath hitched. Fuck. You were prepared to let out a loud scream, but his whispered voice stopped you.

  “It’s me, it’s me,” he shushed you. As a reflex, your muscles relaxed. “Gonna take my hand off your mouth now, George,” he informed, slowly moving his hand from your face.

  Of course it was him. His smell was all over the place, his touch still left little electric jolts on your skin. You snapped your head and turned around to face him. You realized your memories could never do him justice. He was so heartbreakingly handsome, you could cry. Pale skin, shiny disheveled raven hair. You noticed the circles under his eyes were darker and he seemed exhausted. Regardless, when your eyes fell on his lips, your body reacted before your mind could.

  Your hands made their way to the nape of his neck, caressing and gently pulling his hair. At the same time, you clasped your lips together on a desperate kiss. His surprise didn’t stop him from matching your frenzy, grunting as he sucked your upper lip and asked permission with his tongue, one that you promptly granted. Henceforth, your tongues performed an erotic, lewd dance as they fought for dominance, swirling and exploring each other’s mouths.

  Only when the back of your knees touched the bed did you realize he was moving you towards it. He broke the kiss for a moment to mercilessly throw you on the soft duvet, and you let out a surprised moan when he immediately covered your body with his, mouth returning to yours. A primal need surged from within you when you felt one of his hands roaming at your side lustfully, gabbing tight on your ribcage, your waist, your hip. He hoisted your leg and you hooked it around him, holding back a loud moan when he pressed his erection to your groin. You could feel your panties drenching from the sudden contact, a new wave of desire making your core ache.

  “Y/N-“ he tried to speak through heavy breathing, his lips never leaving yours long enough for him to finish a sentence. “Baby,” he groaned, obviously trying to say something, but you weren’t ready yet. You rocked your hips against him, earning another lecherous noise from his rosy lips as he closed his eyes shut.

  You used that moment of weakness to knock him to his side, climbing on top of him as you clamped your thighs harder on his hips. His eyes went dark at the sight, a devilish smirk tainting his beautiful features. You didn’t give him time to say anything, taking his lips on another bruising kiss. His hands on your ass, squeezing and groping, and you felt him throb inside his pants. You moaned, a gush of wetness coming out as you clenched around nothing. You couldn’t form coherent thoughts anymore, pressing yourself harder against his bulge as you rolled your hips, searching blindly and desperately for a sweet release that was already so close…

  “Hold it, baby.” His voice was stern, and he pinned both your wrists on your back, his hands seeming incredibly big when closed around them. He was sitting now, hot, labored breath hitting your lips, heightening your senses and sending shivers down your spine. You crumbled under his dominant demeanor, feeling an inconceivable need to obey, and instantly stood still. It surprised him as much as it did you, and you saw a smug grin plaster itself on his face. “That’s it. Be good for me so I don’t lose my mind.”

  You let out a breath you didn’t know to be holding and weakly nodded, mind still clouded with want. He let go of your wrists and gently pecked your lips, sitting you down on the bed instead of his lap. Father knows he would be physically uncapable of having a proper train of thought if he didn’t.

  “So… I guess we have a lot to discuss first, don’t we?” his smile was sheepish now, hands going through his hair in a nervous tick.

  “Yes,” you breathed out. “What happened? I was so worried, Yoongi, you have no idea. I didn’t even know where you were or what the hell you were up to, I-“ you took a moment in order to stabilize your voice. You knew you were affected by his sudden absence, you just didn’t know how much until now that he was actually in front of you. “I don’t even know what the worst case scenario could be, but I bet my thoughts came pretty close,” you chuckled humorlessly.

  “I’m sorry, I never meant to worry you. If I knew I’d be gone for that long, I would’ve told you before I left. I missed you so much,” he confessed, voice lower than before, and rested his forehead on your own.

  “Tell me. Please, I need to know,” your brows furrowed.

  “I met my brothers,” he paused, waiting for a reaction that never came. It’s not that you were not surprised by the information that he had other siblings, you just wanted him to finish it before you spoke. “Jin aside, I spent… years apart from my family. You could say that we didn’t leave things on the best of terms when I left father’s, so it was a surprise for me when I learned that they wanted to talk. Notwithstanding that it’s out of need, not love.” His heavenly features contorted in hurt and resentment, and you felt you own heart clench. You gave him an eskimo kiss as a sign of reassurance and he smiled timidly. “They offered to take me back. It’s… certainly a grand gesture for the likes of us,” he shook his head slightly and knitted his brows.

  “Isn’t that a good thing? Don’t you miss them?” you didn’t know why your voice was so small.

  “Not anymore, no.” His gaze was intense and made your heart beat impossibly faster. “I do miss them. They used to be my whole existence, the reason for every breath of mine. But now… now everything’s changed.”

  “What’s changed?”

  “You.”

  Your breath hitched. If it was anyone else, if it was any other situation, you’d laugh at the cheesy line. But this was him, and that, too, changed everything. That one word was enough to unleash butterflies in your stomach, enough of them to knock you breathless. The truth behind his statement carried a heavy meaning, one that you yearned for and that made you giddy. His onyx orbs were wary, and you wondered if he was blind to the utter relief plastered on your face. It was selfish, but you couldn’t help it. Not when it came to him.

  “H-How come?”

  He chuckled. “Don’t get bashful on me now, George, I’m pretty sure you understand.”

  You tried to scowl, but the grin was insistent on your lips. “Alright, let’s put a pin on that. You still haven’t told me everything. What did your brothers want?”

  “Y/N, there are certain things about me and my family that I cannot tell you. It wouldn’t be safe.”

  “You don’t trust me?” you were mainly curious, but a hint of hurt could be heard, too.

  “That’s not it. It just wouldn’t be safe for you.”

  “Is your family involved in something… illegal? Is that why?”

  “Not illegal, no,” he chuckled.

  “Then I don’t understand.”

  “I know. But please, George, don’t be stubborn about this one. All I’m asking for is a leap of faith,” his eyes were pleading as they bore into yours. Was he aware that he could probably convince you that the sky was neon green if he looked at you like that?

  “It’s a big leap,” you mumbled.

  “I know. Just trust that I have good reasons,” he smiled softly.

  You sighed. “Fine, Romeo, keep your secrets. Just tell me if you get too deep into whatever it is that the Min’s are hiding. I care about your safety just as much as you care about mine.” You forced the heat back, secretly hoping that it did not reach your face in time for you to actually blush.

  “Doubt it,” he grinned. “Dinner is ready, Mrs. D’Angelis will be coming for you soon. I should get going.”

  Your face paled as you rushed to the wardrobe, retrieving some clean clothes from your drawer. “Wait,” you stopped on your tracks in the middle of the room, glaring at Yoongi through narrowed eyes. “How do you know that?”

  “I have my ways,” he shrugged, then tugged his lips upwards on a daring smirk. “It’s a secret.”

  “If you keep giving me clues I might just figure it out. Go on.”

  He chuckled and stood up from the bed, walking languidly in your direction. He touched your nose with the tip of his index finger, tracing it’s way all up to your forehead, then coming down to your jaw, where he grabbed firmly. His lips were smooth and slightly damped as they softly touched yours in a chaste kiss. A ragged sigh of pure bliss escaped you, and you tried to fight the haziness.

  “Bye, George,” he was still lingering when he spoke. As he broke the contact and turned to the window, you woke up from the trance.

  “Stay,” you breathed out. He looked at you with a hint of confusion. “I-I mean, you can stay if you want. I can bring you some of mom’s soup and we can eat it here. But you don’t have to, if you’re bus-“

  “Okay,” he deadpanned.

  “Okay. Yeah, uhm… I’ll go change in the bathroom, you can make yourself comfortable.”

  “Already am,” he said as he threw himself on the bed, bouncing a little. His countenance was amused and he eyed you intently, toying with the elephant plushie.

  “Of course you are,” you snorted, carrying yourself to the bathroom.

  That night, you both relished on your mother’s cooking while watching some old movie about Cole Porter on your laptop. You were sure that it wasn’t his cup of tea, but he payed attention to it nonetheless. After you were done, you offered to take the dishes downstairs, since your mother would probably have a stroke if she knew there was a boy in your room. You stopped by Taehyung’s to check on him and offer his favorite hot meal, but it didn’t take more than five minutes. You were on a hurry, and he knew better than to question it.

  Back upstairs, you and Yoongi curled up under the covers and tried to find something interesting enough to watch for what seemed to be ages, your head resting on his chest and his hands holding you securely by the waist. It wasn’t long until you fell asleep, and only then did he leave, pecking your forehead gently before jumping out the window.

  ||\\

  “Get in.”

  “No,” you tried to end the discussion then and there. As expected, you failed.

  “Y/N, you can’t go back on pinky promise. You should’ve thought this through.” His goal was to sound stern, but in reality you could see the hint of a pout on his lips. “It’s my birthday.” Okay, there it was. That was definitely a pout.

  “No,” you closed your eyes shut and facepalmed – for good measure. “Don’t give me those eyes, I’m not looking,” the sound was muffled by your hands.

  He wrapped his incredibly large fingers around your wrists and whined: “Come on, we’re already here. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “Why on earth would you say that?” you instantly took your hands from your face and shot him a glare. He had the nerve to chuckle.

  “You can’t possibly expect me to do this alone.”

  “You can’t possibly expect me to do this at all,” you retorted, kicking the snow piled up near the curb, shunning away from his puppy dog eyes.

  “You promised you would! I’ll do it, Marzipan. If you win this round, I’ll get a tattoo with you as a birthday present,” his voice was high pitched.

  You snorted. “I was out of it, mental faculties completely fried. Drunk on power and merlot. Plus, I’m pretty sure you cheated, you could never beat me at Mario Kart,” you grumbled.

  “I did not cheat,” he was outraged. “I’m a lawful man, I abide by the rules, and they are clear: a bet is a bet.”

  You honestly have no idea why you let him talk you into this. Perhaps because you’ve been feeling guilty lately, and therefore didn’t have the heart to turn him down when he broke into your room to collect his victory this morning. It’s a good present, right? To get tattoos with your best friend? He had been trying to convince you since three birthdays ago. You hoped it would be enough to ease a bit of the weight on your chest.

  Truth is, you had been spending too much time with Yoongi these past few weeks. After what happened when he showed his face again, it became routine that he came by almost every night when your mom fell asleep. You’d talk, watch movies, kiss… But what you enjoyed the most were those moments where you curled up in his embrace, face buried in the crook of his neck, and neither of you would say a word. You’ve always appreciated peaceful silence, but those moments were so much more. You felt truly connected to him, in a way you’d never felt with anyone else. Like you were both pieces of the same puzzle, cheesy lines aside.

  Or when he would be the one to rest his head on your chest, blinking lazily as you twisted his silky, raven locks in your fingers. Perhaps those were truly your favorites, as you felt the incontrollable urge – need – to be protective of him, to never let anything disturb his serene, almost childlike countenance, so bare before you in the night’s veil. Before the sun came up and brought back the little wrinkle between his eyebrows.

  During the day, you often returned to his safe haven – one that ultimately became yours, too. The waves breaking against the rocks, the salty breeze, the deep blue of the ocean, you had gotten acquainted to it all in a heartbeat. On occasion, you’d bring warm, fuzzy blankets, hot cocoa and books, spending an entire afternoon on your own personal eden.

  You never meant for any of it to get in the way of your friendship with Taehyung, but counterbalancing proved to be harder than you first thought. Although you may have gotten too caught up, inevitably distancing yourself a bit, you were now eager to make it up to him. He was like family, after all. So here you were.

  “Fine, have it your way. But I’m telling mom that you put me up to this,” you threatened. The snow under your boots making a crunchy noise while you crossed the street to get to the tattoo parlor.

  “She won’t believe you. I’m a saint. I’m her Taehyungie.” He was beaming.

  As soon as you got in, you saw a man sitting behind the counter. He was buff, and you’d bet that pretty much his whole body was covered in piercings and tattoos – mostly about dragons and snakes. Looks aside, his voice was warm and welcoming when he greeted you.

  “Welcome, kids. My name is Eli, how may I help you today?”

  All the drawings and pictures on the walls seemed to have detained Taehyung’s attention, so you plastered a polite smile on your face before answering.

  “Hi. My friend over here came to get a tattoo,” you pointed at the boy beside you and he scowled.

  “We both did,” he smiled at the receptionist.

  “Alright. You have to sign a couple of forms before we get into details. You’re both legal, right?” the receptionist asked and you nodded. “Peach. Just a second,” he turned his attention to the computer in front of him, taking a couple of papers from the printer soon after. He handled you each a consent form. Before you signed yours, you exchanged a look with Taehyung, almost having a whole conversation – bickering – with him through knowing looks.

  “Here you go,” Taehyung handed the papers to Eli.

  “Cool. Do you guys have something in mind? We have a few drafts you can check out. But if you already know what you want, Hyunjin can draw it when you get inside. Don’t worry, he’s good.”

  “I have something in mind,” Taehyung offered a bright boxy smile. “I guess I’ll just explain it to him, then.”

  “Great,” Eli turned his eyes to you, realizing that you definitely had not made up your mind just yet. “If that’s the case, I’ll let him know that you’re going in,” he said to Taehyung, who nodded in response. When the buffy man went to the back, he glared at you through narrowed eyes.

  “I’ll come back with permanent ink on my skin. You better not chicken out by the time I’m done,” he threatened.

  “Hope you don’t regret it within the year,” you taunted.

  “I won’t,” he snorted.

  Eli returned a second later, excusing himself to lead Taehyung to the tattoo artist. In the meantime, you picked a binder that was resting on top of the counter to take a look at the drawings he’d mentioned, hoping to find something you’d actually like – or at least an inspiration. Most of them were very intricate, and although they were beautiful, you wanted something simple. Less is more when you’re tainting your skin for life because of a bet.

  You were turning the pages with such disinterest that you almost missed it. It seemed unfinished, just a sketch, and you couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason as to why it caught your attention in the first place. It was a dragon intertwined in a circle, it’s countenance exuding fierceness and strength. Inside the circle, however, was just an unembellished arrangement of lines, one that was strangely familiar and alluring. 9-7-1-12-6, if you think about a clock.

  “Oh, I see you’ve found Lee’s work. What do you think?” Eli pulled you out of your headspace.

  “Uhm… Yeah, he’s great. His drawings are pretty authentic.”

  “Uh huh, he’s been working on those for a while now. So, do you have any idea what you’re gonna get yet?”

  “Not really. I mean, I liked this one,” you pointed to the page you were previously analyzing. “Do you know if it means anything in particular?”

  “Yes! Actually, it does, but I can’t really remember what. I think it’s a sigil, though. You know, one of those thingies people believe to be magical.”

  “Mhm.” You really didn’t know why you felt the need to purge those next words, but you were saying them before you could stop yourself. “This is it.”

  “What? You’re gonna tattoo that?” Without even knowing what it means?

  “Yes. I liked the dragon.”

  ||\\

  His lips were soft against your collarbone, leaving a trail of goosebumps on their wake when he moved them lazily to your jawline, wet little kisses making you squirm and sigh. His index finger was tracing patterns on your bare thigh, caressing and examining as if he’d never done it before, as if you were a made of glass. The sun had graced you with its appearance for the first time in weeks, and you wanted to enjoy the good weather as much as possible, so you had convinced Yoongi to lay on the grass by your side.

  “Tired of Miss Brontë already, love?” his velvety voice evinced his amusement.

  “Can’t read. You’re distracting me.”

  He chuckled lightly, delivering small puffs of air on the crook of your neck, and raised his head just enough to look at you, blocking the sunlight and making it possible for you open your eyes. Before he’d made his mission to disturb your concentration, you were reading for him, like people do with kids before they go to bed. It became a thing after the first time you did it, and now he picked a different book every week or so. When you’d asked about it, he just shrugged and declared that ‘It’s just nice. I like hearing you.’ This week, it was Wuthering Heights.

  “Continue, please,” he adjured, laying his head on your chest as a demonstration of good will. You grabbed the book you’d previously set aside and opened it, leaving one hand free to play with his locks.

  “That, however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my imagination, is actually the least, for what is not connected with her to me? and what does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor, but her features are shaped on the flags. In every cloud, in every tree—filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day, I am surrounded with her image. The most ordinary faces of men and women—my own features—mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her.”

  His eyes were no longer closed, he was gazing at you.

  “Do you pity him?” he suddenly asked.

  “Heathcliff? I don’t.”

  He nodded slowly. “So, you think there’s no redemption, then?”

  “Not for him. He lived and died as an antagonist. Some might think his cruelty is just an expression of his frustrated love for Catherine, or that he conceals at least some virtue, a romantic heart. They expect him to be anything but what he constantly proves to be, they expect misunderstood heroes. But he himself acknowledges his sadistic nature.”

  He stood still, seeming to be lost in thoughts while tracing invisible patterns on your shoulder and refusing to meet your eyes.

  “Would you be able to love someone as tainted as him?” he asked wistfully.

  You lifted your upper body, compelling him to a sitting position as well.

  “I’ve never had to,” you pecked his lips chastely, even though he still kept his eyes trained on the grass underneath you. “Hey,” you dig your nails gently on the nape of his neck, asking for his attention. When he raised his head, the wrinkle between his eyebrows was there again. It worried you that, since he’s been back, it’s been a constant feature of his. Every now and then, his face twisted into an inscrutable grimace. “You understand, don’t you?”

  A half-hearted nod was your response, and he built up the mask to conceal his discomfort once again.

  “Enough vitamin D for you? I can’t stand the heat,” he grumbled.

  “Yeah,” you chuckled, pressing your lips to his forehead and standing up, stretching a helping hand. “Where do you want to go?”

  “My place.”

  Which was code for: Your mom is home and I want to pass out on my bed nuzzling you.

  “Whatever you want, grandpa.”

  “Be a brat and I’ll hit the throttle,” he threatened, positioning himself on top of his Triumph. Sometimes he took full advantage of just how dreadful you found his two-wheeled vehicle. And it always worked. You snorted, climbing on the back seat and wrapping your arms around him. “Hold tight, George.” His warning was delivered with amusement, but you knew better than to take it lightly.

  The fifteen-minute trip went as smoothly as it could, and even though you’d made sure to keep your eyes closed, you still felt dizzy and light-headed when he parked into the old building’s garage. He sensed your distress and got off the motorcycle slowly, careful when untangling you’re your arms from his waist and never completely breaking physical contact.

  “Open your eyes,” he murmured, one hand on the small of your back and the other placed on your hip. You took a deep breath and your eyelids tentatively fluttered. His lips brushed your right cheek as he effortlessly lifted you and put you down on the floor, covering the entirety of your hand with his and making a beeline for the elevator.  

  Yoongi’s apartment was on the fourth floor, which happened to be the last one – the building was a small, fading-yellow rectangle in the middle of a quiet neighborhood. In a way, it suited him. Secluded and discreet. Perfect for a misanthrope such as himself, given that you’d never even bumped into one of his neighbors – and you’d been visiting quite regularly. On another note, however, it was uncannily unpretentious for someone like him.

  He stopped for a moment on the front door, fumbling for the keys in his pocket. As soon as he opened it, you made your way to the couch, crashing with a sigh, face buried in the cushion. A minute had passed before he plopped on top of you, compelling a puff of air out of your lungs. You grumbled something about manslaughter, but the sound was muffled. He ignored you, making himself comfortable by nuzzling your neck and taking off his shoes using only his feet. You chuckled, making an effort to turn on your back so you could catch a breath.

  “Sleepy?” you asked, running your fingers through his hair. He hummed a response, content with your ministrations. “I, uh… have something to show you.”

  He raised his head from your throat, eyeing you curiously. “What is it?”

  “Bedroom,” you commanded.

  “Oh, I see,” he taunted, but stood up nonetheless. You rolled your eyes.

  You guided him to his room and closed the door behind you. He leisurely sat on the bed, waiting cautiously for you to proceed. You sucked in a deep breath, growing doubtful under his gaze. Pushing all insecurities aside, you unzipped your shorts.

  “Y/N, what are you doing?” he warned in a low-pitched, deep voice, orbs darkening considerably. You dismissed it, tiptoeing closer to him. He straightened his back and raised his eyes to meet yours, searching for any indication of what you intended to do. You pushed the waistband down, letting the piece of clothing pool on the floor, but he didn’t flinch, attention still focused on your features. When you hooked one finger on the hem of your white panties, he quickly snatched your wrist on a tight grip, brows knitting together. “I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with, baby. You know that, right?”

  Your chest swelled with warmth and affection. After the night he came back, things heated up a couple of times. Once he’d realized how tense and anxious you got at first, he began to hold back, withstanding your advances. You never verbalized anything, but he had a hunch, and pressuring you was definitely not on his to-do list. He was being respectful and caring, and although you shouldn’t accept nothing less, it made you feel safe. He made you feel safe, always.

  “Let me show you,” you murmured, a soft smile blooming on your face. He seemed puzzled, but ended up nodding warily. When you moved your finger, slightly pushing the fabric down to expose your hip, he finally had the guts to jeopardize his restraint and look down. You didn’t know what you expected his reaction to be, but that certainly wasn’t it.

  His breath hitched and he paled, eyes almost bulging out of their sockets. He didn’t move a single muscle, whole body tensing up. It was as if he couldn’t fully comprehend the sight before him, like he couldn’t believe. He composed himself soon enough, but you could still see the glint of shock in his eyes. It didn’t make any sense.

  “When did you get that?” his voice came out flat and a few octaves lower than usual.

  “A couple of weeks ago,” you frowned. The tattoo that marked your hip was now almost fully healed. You were doubtful in the beginning, but now you kind of grew fond of it. “What’s wrong?”

  “Do you know…” he cleared his throat, fingers twitching. “Do you know what it means?”

  “Not exactly,” you confessed sheepishly. “The tattoo artist said it was a religious symbol and… Truth be told, I’m not even sure why I did this. Just felt right,” you mumbled, realizing then that you probably sounded a tad out of it. You held your lip between your teeth, unsettled.

  “Yes. It’s the sigil of one of the seven archangels, love. It’s… Michael’s… sigil,” his jaw clenched, but his tone was now softer. “It’s used to invoke strength and protection. The ancients believed that, if you will it enough, he will be able to hear your prayers and, perhaps, be of assistance,” he laid his hand flat on your skin, stroking the symbol with his thumb, oblivious to the little jolts of electricity the simple gesture sent through your body. An unfamiliar mixture of dejection, despair and awe flashed through his onyx eyes, and you wondered what it was that he wasn’t telling you that could’ve possibly elicited such reaction.  

  “How do you know all that?” you wanted him to focus on something other than whatever it was that poisoned his thoughts.

  “Father taught me,” he shrugged.

  It’d been a while since he last mentioned his family. But you knew he was thinking about them whenever you saw the accentuated wrinkle every time he furrowed his brows, or when his muscles felt so tense to the touch that he was akin to marble against your skin. He was worried, he had been for a while now. And it scared you. You needed to know.

  “Yoongi…” the uncertainty that laced your tone made him squeeze your flesh encouragingly. “Where is he? Your dad.”

  “Home,” he stated tersely.

  “I know, but… Where is home? And what about your brothers? I know you said you don’t speak to them anymore, you just never explained why.”

  “We’ve already talked about this. They’re home, too. Y/N, just forget it,” he shook his head, avoiding your gaze.

  “Why do you build this wall between us every time? It’s frustrating. I can help-“

  “You can’t,” he deadpanned, breaking off any contact when he got up, making his way to the door. His demeanor screamed for you to back off, that he had no interest in continuing the conversation. But you were done being left in the dark.

  “Why is it so hard for you to trust me, huh?”

  “I already told you that it’s not a trust issue,” he raised his voice. “Why can’t you accept that I don’t want you to get caught up in the middle of my mess?”

  “Well, I am caught up in the middle of your mess!” you roared. “You were gone for an entire month and have been on edge ever since you got back. Something’s going on, I’m not stupid.”

  “Jesus Christ, Y/N,” a deep growl escaped his throat. “It’s none of your business, if we’re being honest here. They’re my problems, I’m the only one who can fix them – hell, not even that.”

  “If you could stop being such a jerk for a second, you’d realize that they became my problems, too, as soon as I fell in love with you. But you’re so far up your own ass that we can’t even discuss things without yelling at each other,” you spit the words. “Do you know what it’s like for me to watch you struggle like you’ve got the whole world on your shoulders? Especially when my hands are tied,” you stepped closer to his figure, heart hammering on your chest after your little speech. It was nothing but a whisper when you said, “You’re not alone, you idiot.”

  His whole expression softened, and you could recognize a faint smile on his velvety lips. Taking a deep breath, he closed the distance between the both of you and let his hand rest on the column of your neck.

  “I am an idiot,” he nodded, visibly calmer. “And you’re stubborn, you know that?”

  “Might have heard something about it,” you grumbled.

  He hummed. “Forgive me. Could you?”

  “Maybe. Will you… I mean, I just wish you’d open up a little. I’m scared, Yoongi,” you confessed.

  “Me, too.”

  “I know. That’s why.”

  He shook his head and lowered it until his skin touched yours. “I’m scared of your reaction, baby. I don’t know if you’ll want me once you discover the truth,” he murmured, more to himself than to you.

  “I’d say you’re safe. Unless your family is trying to coerce you into becoming a real life Michael Corleone. You didn’t shoot anyone in the head, did you?”

  He chuckled wholeheartedly and took a step back to maintain eye contact and mock you properly. “That’s your theory? That I’m a mobster?”

  You looked down sheepishly, before answering nonchalantly in a small voice, “One of them.” He couldn’t help himself, even though his hand was pressed tight against his mouth and his eyes were glistening with unshed tears of amusement. He tittered.

  “May I know the others?”

  “No,” you glared.

  “Oh, George, what if I ask nicely? What if I say please?”

  “Not even then.”

  “How about pretty please?” You shook your head, trying to pass through him to get to the kitchen, but he encircled his arms around you from behind before you could grasp the knob. “And what if I tell you that I am, too?” he breathed in the shell of your ear and you held your breath for a second. You didn’t need him to vocalize what you already knew, but you felt butterflies fluttering anyways. Still, you kept your ground, suddenly very conscious of the fact that your shorts were still pooled on the floor near the bed.

  “Closer, goodfella. But not enou-“

  The loud bangs on the front door cut you midsentence. You felt Yoongi’s body stiffen before something that sounded terribly similar to a low growl broke out of his throat.

  “Get dressed and stay here,” he ordered, authoritative. He didn’t spare you a glance before exiting the bedroom, and you felt a dreadful feeling claw up your insides, piercing your gut and making you nauseous. Pulse thrumming viciously under your skin, you fetched your shorts and wiggled it up, fastening the belt with shaky hands. Stop overreacting, you told yourself over and over, growing more anxious by the second. You couldn’t understand why, to be honest.

  Taking deep breaths, you forced your fidgety fingers to stay still as you fell limp on the soft mattress, eyes closed. Your mind wandered to the safe haven: cotton clouds and baby blue sky, the smell of the grass, the books scattered around you and him. For a minute, you could truly take the edge off. Until you heard the noise of glass shattering on the wall.

  Getting off the bed as fast as you could, your head spun. You opened the door quietly, careful not to expose the presence of another person in the house, and made a beeline to the kitchen. While you looked franticly for something that could be useful as a weapon, you tried to stay attentive to the sounds. They were muffled, but you could discern at least two voices, apart from Yoongi’s.

  Alright. Great.

  As any sane person who’s watched more than a few movies would do, you went for the most obvious choice. Knives. Better safe than sorry.

  Almost counting your steps, you tiptoed your way to the living room. The voices were not very loud, but you could easily understand what was being said now that you were closer.

  “It’s imperative that you return with us now,” a dulcet, almost high-pitched voice uttered softly. “I am sure you are aware of your responsibilities. It’s time.”

  You stayed hidden behind the icy-white wall that separated the two rooms, gripping the hilt of the knife so tightly that your knuckles turned white. Maybe you shouldn’t be eavesdropping, that was clearly a family matter. Maybe you should lock yourself in Yoongi’s bedroom and do as he said. But the truth was that you were far too curious – and now far too enchanted by the childlike voice – to stop yourself from prying.

  “I believe you have already forgotten about the current state of affairs, then? Father exempted me from my duties as soon as he banished me from the Gates and sent me to exile,” Yoongi spit. You could see it clearly in your head as he ran his fingers through his hair in annoyance. He sounded… different. You didn’t have the courage to tilt your head and steal a glance, afraid they’d catch the motion.

  “Father warned you about the consequences of your stubbornness, Michael, but you were very much unyielding in your misconceptions,” the second person said, gruffy and curt.

  “It is not a misconception to care for our own flesh and blood.”

  Wait. Michael? Had he been listening to your conversation earlier? If the man wasn’t so deadly serious and the air so dense, you would’ve laughed – although you felt that it was probably not the right time to let out a full-throated  guffaw to mask an anxiety attack.

  “Our own flesh and blood abused his role as a persecutor and bent the rules for his own selfish purposes. Azrael is fortunate if Father ever forgives him, albeit we both know he will. Brother, I know you hold the highest regards for truth and justice, but it was not your place to question an order.”

  You could hear the crude man pacing around the room as he spoke. Hoping to stay unnoticed, you sneaked a peek. The first person you landed eyes on was not at all taller than you, and you supposed that was the first man you’d heard. His hair was silvery, almost platinum blonde, styled in a way that evinced his beautiful forehead. The way he carried himself was elegant and graceful, like a ballerina, and his appearance suited his youthful voice perfectly. The second figure to catch your eye, though, was the complete opposite. Tall, lustrous olive skin and brown hair, he was intimidating at first glance. His steps were heavy on the floor, nearly clumsy.

  “Perhaps there lies the problem. We are never to question, even whilst we deem fit. Azrael is the embodiment of corruption and amorality; it’s consensual, we are well aware. No matter how devious, he is needed. Casting one of the Seven out ought to never be an option. Be that as it may… There are only five of us within the Gates now. Was I supposed to receive graciously the task of exiling our own brother?”

  You were growing considerably annoyed by their choice of words. Why the hell would they be talking like your great-grandparents? All cells in your body were telling you that it was supposed to be cringey, but in reality it was nothing but alluring. Charming. And that’s where all the annoyance came from.

  “It is unwise to go against His instructions. Are you a rebel at heart, Prince?” The man stopped his pacing to let the words tumble out of his mouth, venomous. You could tell by Yoongi’s countenance that he was about to lose his composure, and in a way you were yet to see. His body were trembling slightly in fury, and his lips were compressed together in a well-defined line. You were astounded, however, by his eyes. In that moment, you couldn’t move even if you intended to. They were tinted in a deep violet, just like you had seen before at Jin’s encounter, except that, this time, they hadn’t gone back to black.

  “This has nothing to do with the Rebellion, Raph-“

  “Then why disobey? Do you plan to defy Father as well? It would be entertaining to watch you fight your antithesis for the throne of the underworld,” he chuckled.

  It all happened in an instant, but for you it felt like slow motion. Yoongi was convulsing within himself, as if attempting to refrain a great deal of energy from breaking free. Once you saw blood oozing from his closed fists, you knew it was a lost battle. But never, ever, could you have foreseen what came next, what kind of energy – power – exactly he was trying to repress. For a very brief moment, everything stood still. If you had been able to avert your eyes from him, you’d see the silvery-hair figure shudder. You’d see the faint smirk on the lips of the man who caused Yoongi’s outburst, even though he was, deep down, a tad terrified. But you did not have time, nor will-power, to pay attention to anyone but him, ablaze amethysts shooting daggers at the man before them.

  Then everything came crashing down. Your beliefs, the world as you knew it, it was all taken away ruthless and abruptly once you saw white feathers rip through black shirt. You gasped audibly, falling to the floor with a dull thud as the knife clinked at your feet. None of them noticed, too entranced by the interaction that unrevealed itself. Yoongi got to his prey at an unhuman speed, grabbing him by the throat and caging him against the door. The horrid sound was enough to make you wince through your stupor, and, if it were anybody else, their skull would have cracked. The man, however, only clenched his jaw to suppress a whimper.

  “How dare you speak ill of your Leader like this?” as his voice went down a few octaves, Yoongi’s hold tightened visibly. The man-child seemed as ready to meddle as he would ever be, though still too frightened to actually move. “How dare you, brother, mention the Chief of the Heavenlies in the same breath as his nemesis? Mere one hundred and fifty years, Raphael, and you already built the temerity of being impertinent towards me? Or have you simply forgotten who I am?” his wings were whooshing, as if he was preparing to – quite literally – take flight at any given moment. They were stupendous, bigger than he himself, and so snowy-white, so untainted. Truly immaculate, contrasting with his raven hair.

  His angelic features, albeit glorious, could never outstand the magisterial way to which he spoke, imposing authority. Like he was born for it. Everything about him in that moment urged you to bow before his feet, and you weren’t even the one holding his darkened glare. It was entirely alien to you, a facet of him you could barely conceive, let alone process. Raphael undoubtedly recoiled at his words, but tried to conceal it.

  “Then show me. Do your title justice and lead us to victory, as I know there is no wrath nor passion greater than yours. Not for a moment have I forgotten who you are, Flaming Warrior, but you certainly have.” Raphael spoke, and it fell to the ears like a prayer.

  As Yoongi’s wings retracted once again, you breathed what seemed to be the first intake of air in hours. He slackened his grip on Raphael’s throat, who then bent over in a fit of coughing. The boyish man’s shoulders visibly relaxed, and he let out a sigh. Of course, the little truce was bound to be broken the minute one of them laid eyes on you. It happened to be the blonde.

  “Michael, there is a human on your floor,” he whispered, resembling a kid more than ever with his eyes wide open. “Why is there a human on your floor?” he snapped his head, shooting the question directly to Yoongi’s face, and you saw his body stiffen. “Oh, Father! She’s heard our names! Brother…”

  “Silent,” his voice was gruff, and he turned to scrutinize your figure. You weren’t sure of how you looked from the view of an outsider, but you felt… Shock, maybe? Fright? You didn’t know who and what was in front of you, and all you could think was how come his eyes are pitch black now?

  “Yoongi, we violated the law,” the man you now identified as Raphael said.

  “Namjoon,” his eyes never left you as he spoke, “take our brother home and certify yourself that he does not mention today’s events within the Gates.”

  “B-But the protocol-“

  “Does not apply to her, Jimin-ah,” Yoongi cut him off, “If you still need me to fight by your side, that is.”

   He seemed appalled by the perspective of that being an option. “Needless to say, brother, of course we do!”

  “That means I am in charge, then. So, at your superior’s orders, will you be able to keep this to yourself?” Yoongi craned his neck to glance at them through his peripheral vision.

  “If it is what you want, brother,” he mumbled, averting his gaze to the floor in respect.

  “Well, that being the case, I fear we might have to end this dreadful visit already. Notify our soldiers that I am to be expected soon.”

  “Yes, sir,” Raphael responded with a worried frown tainting his beautiful face. He touched the cherubic-like man on the shoulder and they both left the apartment.

  Yoongi’s feet were glued to the floor, the same spot he’d been standing since landing eyes on you. Your breathing was labored and hitched; your throat so dry that it felt like sandpaper. He took a little step forward, slowly stretching one hand in your direction. You let out a low whimper, recoiling until you were almost balled up, knees pressed tight against your chest. He immediately withdrew his arm and flinched.

  “I told you to stay in the bedroom.” His voice was flat, it wasn’t a scold.

  “W-What- What the hell just-“ a sob broke through your throat, and only then did you notice hot tears striking your cheeks. “Y-Yoongi,” you weren’t sure of what to say, let alone if you were actually able to choke a whole sentence out.

  “Are you afraid?”

  Yes.

  Fuck, yes.

  Were you afraid of him, though? Granted, his whole countenance while exerting power over someone else sent chills through down your spine. But that was not the man standing before you now, no.

  “Who are you?” you asked, trying too hard to keep a clear head.

  He straightened his back. “My true name is Michael,” he muttered.

  “You know that’s not what I asked,” you objected.

  “Yes,” he sighed, “I know. Can you keep an open mind?”

  “An open mind?” you scoffed. “I’m here, aren’t I? After seeing a pair of wings growing out of your shoulder blades.”

  “You are,” he chuckled humorlessly. He then walked tentatively in your direction, sitting on the floor as well when he deemed close enough. “I’m one of the Seven.”

  Your face twisted in confusion. Your brain was trying to deny what your subconscious already knew. “Go on.”

  “My brothers and I… we are one of Father’s first creations. Have you ever heard of the seven archangels, George?”

  “Yeah,” your voice was nearly inaudible.

  “It’s easier for you to understand, then. We are responsible for maintaining harmony in Heaven. That, occasionally, includes keeping things in order between the Gates and Earth,” he paused, searching for anything in your face that would require him to stop. “I am… let’s say, of great importance to keep the balance between our worlds, including the nether regions. You might have already gathered that I’m their leader, so to speak. I am in charge of all heavenly troupes, every single one of Father’s soldiers is under my command, as well as I am under His. In times of war, I am indispensable. That’s why they call me Warrior Prince; amongst other things.”

  “So it’s… all real?” your voice almost cracked. “Hell, heaven… God?”

  “Pretty much, yeah.”

  “Then why are you here?” you murmured under your breath and his expression darkened.

  “Immortality can make you petty. Do you remember meeting Azrael? I guess you know him as Jin. Azrael is… unique. Known as the Persecutor, he was the first reaper to ever exist – created before I was, even. He harvests human souls in due time and delivers them to a realm that suits them best. Paradise, Purgatory or Hell. My brother can be misunderstood very easily; his job has brought to the surface a sadistic persona. We all deal with evil from time to time, it was born in our home, but… Azrael is death, it’s a heavy burden to carry. Infinite lifetimes dealing with the worst sentiments a human can ever experience is bound to leave some scars. He can be mischievous and quite a pain in the ass, to be honest,” he huffed, “but his loyalty is admirable. So, when he made an egocentric mistake, Father reunited us all to discuss the best course of action. Much like a trial, if you will. The point is: they banished him to live amongst his… victims for a certain period of time. I could never agree to that, I believe every single one of the Seven serves a purpose, we are all needed to maintain natural balance.”

  “So you rebelled?”

  “No,” he scowled. “I’m not a rebel, I’m… a nonconformist.”

  “It’s the same thing.”

  “Not for us, it’s not.”

  “Okay. Then what happened?”

  “It’s a long story, if you want me to explain it correctly.”

  “I do. And you’re everlasting, so I bet we have some time to spare.”

  “Right,” he snorted. “My people is a bit traumatized when it comes to defiance, you probably know why.”

  “Because of the devil, right?”

  “Lucifer deeply despises all of his nicknames. But yeah, he’s the reason. A very long time ago, Father decided to expand our family. My brothers and I were content, but when He presented the idea of more… more of us, more love, we agreed on the spot. See, He was never, ever, the tyrant your kind makes him to be. Until Lucifer, that is. He was… exquisite, my brother. From his birth, each and every angel to exist used to say that Father got inspired by me when creating him, but in a very distinctive way. As much as possible, we were the flip side of each other, although extremely similar still, if that makes sense. With time, our bond grew stronger; we became inseparable. Almost everything we did was in each other’s company: from training in the fields to reading manuscripts under the sunlight. My brothers and I didn’t have much to worry about, it was a very peaceful existence. We had not come to know sin yet.

   Needless to say, it did not last. Because we were oddly alike and yet so different, comparisons were nearly inevitable. I didn’t mind them back then, so I thought he would never take it to the heart either. I was wrong. Lucifer distanced himself slowly but surely, and with each passing day, he tried harder to triumph over me in a childish competition, one that existed strictly in his head. He’d become resentful, and his animosity soon spread like wildfire towards the others, too. None of us were able to comprehend a feeling we had never experienced ourselves, so it took us years to make sense of the situation. By the time we did… I guess it was already too late.

   When Father created your kind, the hierarchy became even more apparent: only us, the archangels, were allowed to interact with humans – even so, only to a certain degree and always serving a purpose. Father wished your… species to stay untouched by our graces. Masterpieces, as long as kept apart, he had said. You see, your people got it terribly wrong. Lucifer was never jealous of humans – in fact, he holds deep contempt for them. He was jealous of us, of me, because my new responsibilities evinced that we had different roles on the chain of command. If rancor was his first sin, fury came to be the second. He endeavored to make a point of how unfair it was of Father to ‘play favorites’ and provide the Seven with greater might. My brother was a very shrewd, intelligent being, but his envy made him blind to a lot of things.

  Lucifer used the following years to spread his beliefs right under our noses, and therefore was able to gather a herd of angels who succumbed to blatant lies just as much as he did. That was the beginning of the rebellion. His ability to lead was remarkable, but he could never be a true leader – not that he intended to, anyway. The reason is pretty obvious: my brother did not care the least about those under his directions, they were means to an end. His main goal was to dethrone the Seven, and for that he forged a deadly weapon: the flaming sword. The uprising initiated a war that none of us were ready for, not even him. For seven days, we fought. For seven days, we continuously killed our own. I suppose you already know the end to that story.”

   You were so fascinated by his narrative that you’d already forgotten the reason he brought up the subject.

  “I think so,” you said. “The real thing is actually so… different from everything I’ve ever heard.”

  “I know. Tales never accomplish the whole truth.”

  “But what does that have to do with the reason you’re here?”

  “Like I said, my kind does not tolerate defiance after everything that happened. When Azrael was sentenced, I didn’t exactly make an effort to hide how I felt about it. They didn’t take it very well, so if you ask any of them why I was exiled, they’ll say it was for disobedience. When, in fact, it was because I reminded them too much of him,” he sighed, and you both fall into a pregnant pause. “How are you taking this?”

  “I’m not sure. I guess I just didn’t have enough time to process yet.”

  “I know,” he twisted a strand of your hair in his slender index finger.

  All of a sudden, a realization fell heavy on your heart.

  “Is your time up?”

  His brows knitted themselves together. “My time?”

  “Yeah. You said you’d stay here… for a predetermined amount of time. Is that why they came to get you?”

  “No, George,” he let out a puff of air from his nose, “that’s not why they came for me.”

  “Then why?”

  “Think about it. Why would they need their General for?”

  You shook your head, trying to make sense of what he was telling you. Oh.

  “You said you were indispensable in times of…” your whisper faded to an end.

  “War,” he completed.

    ||\\

                                                                                                                                  “While they adore me on the throne of hell,

With diadem and sceptre high advanced

The lower still I fall, only supreme

In misery; such joy ambition finds.

But say I could repent and could obtain

By act of grace my former state; how soon

Would height recall high thoughts, how soon unsay

What feigned submission swore: ease would recant

Vows made in pain, as violent and void

For never can true reconcilement grow

Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep:

Which would lead me to a worse relapse

And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear

Short intermission bought with double smart.”

      There was a thin layer of snow covering the streets once again. The friction between the tires and the asphalt was barely there, and if the circumstances were different, that would be your main concern. The wind howled as you cut through it like bullets, and you tightened your embrace around his waist, somehow enjoying the numbing air of a cold late-afternoon. Eyes wide opened this time. When he finally parked in front of the porch, you quickly hopped down and took the helmet off, placing it in the seat you had previously taken. Before you could say or do anything, Yoongi seized your wrist with a leather-gloved hand.

  “I’m positively opposed to this,” he blurted in a last attempt to change your mind.

  “I know.” You tried to free yourself from his iron grasp, but to no avail. It was getting easier to read his features, and you could tell he was still unsure. But you were not. “Yoongi, it’s my call.”

  “Don’t I have a say in it?”

  “Ultimately… no.”

  “Want you to be safe, that’s all. Let us be reasonable about this, why don’t you?”

  “I thought you understood better than anyone that I don’t get to be reasonable about this,” you sighed with impatience. “Please, I—”

  “Okay,” he loosened his grip. “I’ll wait here.”

  “Okay.”

  The light was off in the living room, your mother wasn’t home yet. You told yourself that it was better this way. Making a beeline to the stairs, you went over the little list in your head once again before entering your bedroom.

  Set of clothes, toothbrush, toothpaste, laptop… What else?

  You looked around, the baby-blue walls somehow mocking you, an excruciating reminder of simpler times. Memories of your childhood swirled inside your mind. All the times you and Taehyung would play hide and seek, the squeals he’d let out whenever you caught him off guard, how he was certainly faster than you, but would let you win a childish race every now and then. The familiar scent of caramel and coffee roaming around the house in the wee small hours of the morning after movie nights, your mom’s chocolate chip pancakes for lunch on Sundays. It all felt like a lifetime ago.

  Hauling your backpack across your shoulder, you had a weird feeling that that was it. That was goodbye. Although Yoongi had promised you’d be back safe and sound in a couple of days, you knew things could go wrong. It was a pondered decision; you were aware of the risks, he’d made sure of it. Still, leaving his side when there was a real possibility that he might not get out alive was just… not conceivable. Logically, you understood that, if things went south, you would not be able to do much. You did not care much for logic these days, anyway.

                                     [Cheers Darlin’, by Damien Rice]

  Stepping out of the room and shutting the door as quietly as possible—for no apparent reason—you hopped downstairs two steps at a time, making sure to avoid staring at other parts of the house that could trigger another episode of nostalgia. Too focused on the task of trying not to focus, you missed the six feet tall barricade blocking the entrance to the living room, crashing into it face-first. If it wasn’t for the unrelenting grip keeping you in place, you would’ve certainly hit the floor.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the flat baritone voice resonated throughout the empty space.  

  Of course. You closed your eyes tightly, taking a deep breath before even contemplating lifting your head to make eye contact.

  “Do you need something?” in a poor attempt to shield yourself, you parroted his dead intonation.

  “Do I need something,” he hummed. Then he chuckled, fists clenching around your forearms. “Are you leaving?” he spat. “What about your mom, huh?”

  “It’s just a couple of days. I’ll call her.”

  By the scowl plastered on his face, your dismissive attitude hadn’t worked the way you planned it to. You had to do this quick, like ripping off a bandage. If anyone could give you a run for your money in this situation, that would be Taehyung. You knew he’d try to persuade you into staying, so you couldn’t risk it. For both your sakes.

  “I see,” he remarked. “Were you planning to tell me you’re running off with your boyfriend or you’d just leave me to figure it out on my own?”

  His venomous words burned out of his mouth at lightning speed, tainting his tongue with a pungent aftertaste.

  “You know I would never do something like that,” the hurt that laced your voice was evident, but, maybe for the first time, it didn’t make him feel half as bad as it should.

  “Do I?” he scoffed. “For the past few months, it feels like you’ve already left. Wouldn’t make much of a difference if you actually did, I guess.”

  That did it. You felt tears well up in your eyes, but you were determined to not let them fall.

  “Okay, I’m not doing this,” you whispered, not trusting your voice enough to speak properly, and pulled your arms out of his grasp roughly. You darted for the closed front door, feeling sick to your stomach at the thought of spending another minute inside the house. He clutched your shirt tightly, as if it was a lifeboat.

  “Wait,” his fists clenched tighter. You could sense him getting closer, but you didn’t have the guts to turn around and face him just yet. He buried his face on your right shoulder, holding your hip now, nails bound to leave little crescent moons on your skin. “M’sorry,” he mumbled. “I hate this.”

  Your heart ached. You hated it, too. Pushing Taehyung away was never your intention, but you finally came to understand all the times Yoongi had kept a safe distance before. To keep you safe. You couldn’t risk it, not with Marzipan.

  “It’s fine, Tae.”

  “It’s not,” he shook his head, brushing his nose on the fabric of your blouse. Inhaling deeply, he moved to the nape of your neck. You shuddered. “None of this is fine,” a peck on the bare skin of your neck, and your entire body tensed.

  “Taehyung…” you warned.

  “Don’t,” he begged, turning you around. You were adamant on avoiding his gaze, so your eyes kept darting between your feet and your hands. “Don’t go.”

  While he rested his forehead on yours, one hand on your cheek and the other thumbing your collarbone, you knew what was about to happen. You knew, and, still, you couldn’t bring yourself to stop him. You knew, but it was Taehyung, your best friend. Marzipan, the little boy from the house next door. Boxy smile, disheveled hair, sweet-toothed Taehyung. How wrong could it be? You were saying goodbye to a part of your own soul. How wrong could it be?

  When his lips touched yours, soft and ravenous, you really wanted it to feel right. But the answer to your previous question was: too wrong. You loved him, yes. But he wasn’t him. Didn’t taste the same, didn’t feel the same. His movements weren’t slow yet demanding, his hand wasn’t drawing invisible patterns on your lower back, his smell wasn’t musky enough. It just didn’t feel right.

  “Tae,” you tried to end the kiss, but he led his mouth back to yours like in a trance, nibling on your lower lip. “Taehyung, stop!”

  By the end of it, you were both panting. It dawned you how big of a mistake you had just made, and guilt made you nauseous. Neither of them deserved what you’d just done, neither of them deserved to have their hearts broken because you were such a fuck up.

  “I-I’m so sorry, Tae,” your voice cracked. He was about to answer, but you didn’t want to hear it. You couldn’t breathe, your skin was on fire and there was a big, nasty lump in your throat. You bolted out the door, only to be met with Yoongi’s inquiring gaze. It seemed to have broken a damn, and heavy tears tumbled down your cheeks. He rushed to meet you halfway, brushing the tears away as soon as his hands reached your face.

  “Hey,” he shushed you. “What happened, baby?”

  “Can we go home, please?”

 The crease between his furrowed eyebrows deepened, but still, he chose not to pry any further.

  “Of course, love. Of course we can,” he softly muttered, although still hesitant to take his hands off you.

  You climbed onto the familiar grey motorcycle and hid your damped cheeks on his jacket. The beast rumbled, gaining speed as you cut through the air. The ghost of Taehyung’s lips on yours haunting you the entire way back.

[lesbianrobin]

What do you think are the good and bad aspects of each season of ST?

ok 1. thank u for this question omg and 2. this answer may or may not be a mess, but either way it’s long (almost 7k words lmao) bc i’m insane, which is why it’s under a cut. it’s still by no means an exhaustive list but these are the things that just kinda came to mind.

also i realize you asked “good and bad” and i wrote this whole post as “strengths and weaknesses” which um. is not Exactly what you asked. but close enough <3 i also ended up including a lot of au ideas ksjdckmn bc like i personally hate when people say a certain plot or whatever was bad without suggesting anything that could have improved it yknow so whenever possible i tried to provide Some idea for fixing the issues i had with the show!!

season 1

strengths (this is probably gonna be the longest section but that’s because a lot of these strengths also apply to s2/s3 by default)

nostalgia and authenticity

this one’s pretty simple, but i think that season one did a good job of blending classic eighties media homages (such as the many many e.t./el parallels) with explicit pop culture references (such as mike’s yoda impression, mentions of the x-men, etc) to create a show that’s essentially dripping in early eighties nostalgia without it feeling too forced. before st, i think the most popular depiction of the eighties in mainstream media was that overly exaggerated neon scrunchie aesthetic from the mid to late eighties, and it was usually done in a comedic sense first and foremost. st took a different approach, instead focusing on the early eighties, a time that’s often ignored in favor of going either Full Seventies or Full Eighties, and i think that this choice likely resonated with adults who lived through the eighties and hadn’t yet seen something that felt quite so accurate to their own adolescence. a lot of young people who watched st were totally unfamiliar with this period of time, unfamiliar with books/movies like “stand by me” that st borrows from heavily, and i think st lent more seriousness to the eighties than most young people had experienced so far, and this was refreshing and interesting!

the use of dnd in the show is also quite genius in a way i’m not sure i can articulate?? it isn’t something Everyone would have played at the time, but it’s something that existed within a different context back in the eighties than it does today, and it really lent a sort of authenticity to the naming of the show’s sci-fi elements. like, of course these kids would name parallel dimensions and monsters and superpowers after these similar things in their favorite game! it just feels so real and it grounds st in our reality moreso than you might expect from the typical sci-fi or horror universe.

utilization of existing tropes

almost every single character in st clearly originates from some popular trope. the plot itself is riddled with classic eighties movie tropes. almost every single element of stranger things can be clearly traced back to some iconic eighties film or just to, like, overused horror/sci-fi/mystery/coming-of-age movie tropes in general. this might sound like a bad thing, but it really works in st’s favor! starting off with familiar tropes gives st the ability to easily create a lot of complexity and make a big impact by selectively deviating from those familiar, comfortable tropes!! while el’s whole plot, hopper’s character, etc, are all examples of this in action, i think the steve/nancy/jonathan plot is the greatest example. even from the start, the fact that good girl barb dies while nancy is off having sex with her asshole boyfriend is an incredibly thorough inversion of the most well-known horror movie trope in the book. how often do girls in horror movies have sex for the first time, walk home alone in the dark of night, and live to tell the tale? nancy and jonathan’s dynamic at first glance is a sort of classic “good girl meets boy from the wrong side of the tracks, discovers he’s actually got a heart of gold” thing, but instead of following this well-trodden path, st diverged. nancy is brash, impulsive, and at times downright insensitive. jonathan is angry, bitter, and actually a bit of a creep at first. while they have the capacity to emotionally connect and support one another, they can also bring out each other’s darker side, which is not what we’ve come to expect from that initial tropey dynamic.

in addition, steve, the popular rich asshole boyfriend, is actually... a human being! unlike the cartoonishly evil jocks that we’ve come to expect (especially from eighties movies), steve has complexity. despite his initial immaturity and selfishness, he’s also kind to barb, he backs off when nancy says no, he’s gentle and sweet when they sleep together, his first big Dick Move of the season is in defense of nancy, he realizes the error of his ways after the fight and does what he can to fix it, he’s worried about nancy when he sees that she’s hurt at jonathan’s house, and to top it all off, he ends up saving both nancy and jonathan’s lives when he could have just walked away, and the three of them all work together to fight the demogorgon. like... steve began as the most stereotypical character of all time, and by the end of the season, he had one of the most compelling and unique arcs among the whole cast!

finally, at the very end of the season, instead of dumping steve for jonathan as expected, nancy ends up getting back together with steve, and they’re both on friendly terms with jonathan. i realize that i just kinda. summarized s1. but my POINT is that i don’t think the dynamics between the monster hunting trio would be nearly as fun and interesting had the characters of nancy, steve, and jonathan not been set up to follow certain paths that we already had charted in our own heads. like, within the first couple episodes of s1, it’s pretty obvious that nancy and steve are gonna break up, nancy will get with jonathan, and steve will either die or go full evil or just never be seen again. like, duh! you’ve seen this story a million times! you know that’s how it’s gonna go! so, when the story DOESN’T go that way, the impact of each character’s arc and the relationship dynamics become stronger due to their unexpected complexity and authenticity. 

distinct plotlines separated by age group

this one’s rather obvious, but the way that the adults in s1 were essentially in a conspiracy thriller while the teens were in a horror flick and the kids were in a sci fi power-of-friendship story and all three converged at the end... wow. brilliant showstopping etc. not only was it just really well done and unique, it also gave stranger things near-universal appeal. like, there’s genuinely something for pretty much everyone in season one!

casting

obviously this applies to every season sorta by default, but when i think about what made season one So successful, i always think about the cast, and not just winona ryder. yes, she’s absolutely amazing in the show and it’s very doubtful that st would be as big as it is today without her name being attached to it from the start!! however, i think the greatest determining factor in st’s success is the casting of the kids, particularly millie bobby brown. like... el is just absolutely incredible. she’s amazing. this has all been said many times before so i won’t harp on it, but millie and the other kids are all So talented and charismatic and i think their casting has been instrumental to the show’s success.

strong visuals

the way that multicolored christmas lights which have been around for decades are now kinda like. a Stranger Things thing. jesus christ. those lights are probably the biggest stroke of stylistic genius on the show.

atmosphere and setting

this is probably like. the least important one here for me sdjncdsc because i think s2 and s3 both had like Even Better atmospheres and shit but s1 was good too and it laid the groundwork!! i know a lot of people would have preferred st be set somewhere more Spooky with lots of fog or giant forests or whatnot, and while i do enjoy thinking about alternate st settings and how they might alter the vibe, i think hawkins indiana was a good choice. as the duffers have said, placing stranger things in a fictional town allows them more flexibility than if they’d gone with their original plan of using montauk, new york. besides that, i think the plainness and like... flatness... of small-town indiana just Works. like, the fact that hawkins is never really scary on the surface is a big part of the horror in the lab’s actions and their impact. hawkins isn’t somewhere that people just disappear all the time. it isn’t somewhere known for strange occurrences (prior to s1, that is). it isn’t somewhere shrouded in mist and secrecy. hawkins on its surface seems like the sort of place with no secrets and nothing to fear, and that’s the point! the lab is out in the open! it’s right there! everything is so close to the surface, yet so far out of the public eye, and i think that really works.

the byers family’s whole deal (specifically the joyce/jonathan dynamic)

this is going here bc i miss it so bad in s2 and s3. i’m not one of those people who believe The Byers Are The Whole Point of the show, because st is and always has been an ensemble, and el, hopper, and the wheelers are just as instrumental to the plot as the byers, but ANYWAY, i do think the byers were one of the most interesting aspects of s1. joyce’s difficulties with supporting her sons as a poor and (implied mentally ill) single mother, jonathan’s stress as a result of having to earn money, care for his brother, and keep the house in order when his mother is unable to do so, and the resulting tension between them when will’s disappearance and supposed “death” brings the situation to a tipping point? holy shit! it’s so good! that argument after they see will’s “body” is just incredible and gut-wrenching. their relationship feels so real and messy and i think it’s just... good. also winona ryder REALLY acted her heart out and she carried a lot of s1 which i think people often forget to mention so i’m saying it here.

weaknesses

pacing/timing

ok so pacing is probably going to go in each season’s weaknesses, to be honest, because i think they all had a blend of some good and some bad pacing. good pacing is invisible pacing, though, so i probably won’t be putting it in any of the strengths sections and will only be focusing on it in the weaknesses. i’m also probably not going to talk about weird day/night cycle things, just because i don’t want to get nitpicky on timelines because that would require going back and rewatching things to double check timing which i don’t wanna do at the moment lmao. anyway, when i think of bad pacing in season one, i primarily think of two things: nancy’s little trip into the upside down and subsequent sleepover with jonathan, and the sort of staggered nature of the climax in the final episode. the latter is simple so i’ll explain it first: while i understand that each group’s respective climax is like part of a chain reaction and that’s why each big moment happens separately and at different times, i think that st is strongest when the whole group is together, and i think that makes the stakes feel higher too, so i’m not In Love with the way s1 separated everyone and gave each group their own climax. 

okay, now on to the nancy/upside down thing! idk if i’ve ever talked about it before, but i think the worst decision made in s1 by far is the inclusion of nancy’s brief trip into the upside down, wherein she dives headfirst into another dimension with absolutely no backup, watches the demogorgon chow down, freaks out and runs around for a minute, and then leaves. like... what the fuck? even putting aside what an idiotic decision this was (because i do think nancy’s tendency to rush into things headfirst is an intentional and consistent character trait), it just kind of destroys any remaining suspense surrounding the demogorgon and the upside down, and it accomplishes basically nothing besides scaring nancy enough to have jonathan sleep over, which is lame. i will break it down.

like, first of all, nancy just getting to waltz in and out of the upside down and get a good, long look at the demogorgon makes the entire thing far less mysterious, and by extension far less scary. like... before this scene, we the audience haven’t got a good look at the demogorgon. we’ve seen its silhouette briefly and we’ve seen a blurry picture of it, but nothing more, and i think that is far more effective at building fear than this jaunt nancy goes on which gives us a full view of the thing and makes it into less of a horrifying nightmare and into more of a humanoid animal. like, maybe this is just me, but i found the demogorgon far less intimidating after that scene than before. it also lets nancy and jonathan know For Sure that they’re right without providing any crucial information that they need to fight the demogorgon (aka it’s unnecessary to the plot), which removes a very compelling story element (the faith nancy and jonathan need to have in order to keep going against a vague and poorly understood enemy, the doubt they might have about each other and their own sanity, the possibility that they might be wrong, the trust they need to have in each other) a bit earlier in the plot than i believe is ideal. at the end of episode 5, nancy goes into the upside down and jonathan doesn’t know where she is and it’s intense!!! you’re thinking like, oh fuck, not only is nancy missing and fighting for her life now too, jonathan might be implicated in her disappearance!! some people already think he’s the one who killed will and people know that he took creepy pictures of barb and nancy before they both disappeared, maybe this is gonna cause some serious problems for him!! maybe nancy will find will in the upside down and she’ll help him survive!! fuck, maybe she’ll actually die!! this is huge!! and then episode 6 starts and they’re immediately like oh nevermind jonathan found the tree and got nancy out and she’s fine. my point with all of this is that nancy entering the upside down could have done A Lot in the grand scheme of the plot, but all it did was just... get jonathan to sleep over so he and nancy could have some awkward romance moments and steve could see them together and pick a fight. which could have honestly happened at Any point while nancy and jonathan were working together to hunt down the demogorgon, without ruining the demogorgon’s and the upside down’s mystique. so yeah <3

weird behavior and dumbass decisions that make no sense (aka the whole camera thing)

gonna go off about the teen plot again sorry but: why was nancy so unbothered and quick to forgive jonathan for taking those pictures? girl what the fuck are you doing? why wasn’t that a bigger deal? why was jonathan’s motivation for doing it so weak and why did they just kind of forget about the whole thing? why did nancy TRACK HIM DOWN AT THE FUNERAL HOME while he was PICKING OUT HIS BABY BROTHER’S CASKET to be like hey can you tell me what’s in this creepshot you took? it’s insane. it’s so insane. i mean i think the funeral home thing is hilarious and i don’t mind it being in the show necessarily but like my point here is that i think a lot of character decisions in s1 just kind of.. happened because they Needed to happen for the plot. like, they wrote this plot that required jonathan to be secretly taking pictures of the party and required him and nancy to work together after seeing something odd in the pictures, but they didn’t like... really consider what that event would mean for their characterization and relationship. the whole thing was sort of just dropped with minimal discussion and i think it did both nancy and jonathan’s characters a disservice and was really mishandled.

lighting and saturation/color grading

i am literally begging horror/sci-fi shows to let me see shit. i GET IT okay i understand that when you’re doing cgi effects it helps to keep the lights down and i’m not mad at any of the lighting in the demogorgon/upside down scenes!! i’m really not i think the demogorgon scenes in s1 all look sick!! but like... dude. the colors. where are they. why does everyone look like a vampire. i know blah blah this was probably an intentional stylistic choice intended to mimic film at the time blah blah but dude a lot of old movies are very colorful!! please just let people have color in their faces so everyone doesn’t look like a sheet of paper!!! also i’m white and not a professional lighting designer so yknow grain of salt but i think lucas was kinda poorly served by the lighting sometimes in s1. not Hugely so, not to the degree that i’ve seen poc be poorly served by lighting in other shows, but there were some times where it felt kinda like the lighting setup was just not designed with darker skin in mind. 

horror

i just personally don’t find s1 very scary like... ever. i don’t think they were really Trying to be extremely scary yknow so i’m not counting this as a big deal, but i do think that each season has improved on the horror aspects. i think s1′s horror lies more in the mystery and the unknown than in what’s seen onscreen, and as i’ve said already, i think s1 kind of fumbled that suspense ball.

season 2

strengths

the possession plot

i’ll warn u rn this whole s2 strengths section is probably gonna be really short bc idk like. how much there is to really say i feel like it’s all so self-explanatory skjncmn. anyway yeah the possession plot!! eerie as fuck, and noah OWNED. so did winona tbh and finn and sean etc but like. noah. wow! i think the possession plot helped the show maintain a good amount of tension and suspense throughout the season, and a lot of scenes with possessed!will are flatout disturbing to watch. in a good way. i think the mindflayer and will’s possession were far more genuinely frightening than s1′s demogorgon, and it provided a new layer of depth and intrigue to the antagonist besides just “bad monster want eat people.”

tone and aesthetics

halloween season... literally halloween season. halloween season. that is all.

actually i will elaborate a bit and just say that i think s2 did a good job of having the sort of foreboding vibe that s1 was often going for, but without the annoying darkness and desaturation. so points for that.

also st2 is like one of the best Autumn pieces of media ever like it just. like steve and dustin on those train tracks with the fallen leaves all around them.... god. god the vibes are unparalleled. all of the halloween stuff also really contributes to the nostalgia st runs on yknow it makes you think about childhood and trick-or-treating and you kind of get transported like damn... i remember going to the rich neighborhoods to score the good candy..... idk i just think the whole thing is incredibly effective. 

“babysitter” steve

by sending nancy and jonathan off together, the show created a problem: what to do with steve? this problem pushed them to create the unconventional and unexpected duo of steve and dustin, and the world is so much brighter for it. seriously though we all know steve and dustin are great i don’t need to argue that point. all i’ll add is that i think allowing steve to grow in this way, serving as a mentor figure and becoming genuine friends with someone so unexpected, really took the originality of his character to the next level. no longer content just to defy his archetype, in s2 steve begins branching out in ways that never would have been considered in s1, creating an incredibly complex and interesting person from the sort of character that most shows would have simply written out or killed off for convenience’s sake. and it works and steve and dustin are such a joy to watch and i love them. <3

the lucas/max plot

so first of all max mayfield is the most perfect baby girl on god’s green earth and idk what i would do without her but anyway. i think lumax is the best romantic relationship in the show and not just because they’re the only ones with like an age-appropriate approach to the whole thing. it’s also because their relationship accomplishes more than just putting the two of them in a relationship!! lucas and max spending time together motivates billy to do his evil shit, providing more conflict in the narrative, and it also helps establish max as part of the group in a relatively natural way while giving both her and lucas a great subplot. lucas (and dustin) has a crush on the new girl, they start spending some time together, and lucas ends up needing to decide whether he’ll keep the secret of the upside down and lose her, or risk both of their lives by telling her the truth. that’s a pretty big, character-defining decision that he gets to make!! max has to choose whether to trust this boy she barely knows and endanger herself, or to walk away and stay safe, yet another great character-defining choice that also contributes to the sense we get as an audience of max as somebody who’s incredibly lonely and desperate for love and connection. this post is way too long already and i have a ton more to say so i’ll stop now but yeah i think lumax really Works in the show without ever distracting or detracting from the overall plot and narrative in the way that some other ships (coughjancycough) often do.

balance between the normal and abnormal

s2 i think did a pretty solid job of melding daily life with more fantastical sci-fi horror elements. i enjoyed seeing so much of the kids at school in the first few episodes!! you really get a strong sense of where they’re at in life, what their daily lives are like, and you get a sort of gradual shift into madness that makes everything feel more grounded than i think it would if they had just leapt straight into the horror shit, yknow? 

the el and hopper dynamic

go back and rewatch s2 and tell me that’s not one of the most moving portrayals of parenthood and trauma and growing up that you’ve ever seen. you can’t. or well you can but i won’t listen. i really can’t imagine stranger things without el and hopper’s relationship, and it’s my absolute favorite part of s2. their whole dynamic is so beautiful and complex, and gives them each amazing personal arcs in addition! the black hole scene is literally one of the show’s greatest moments of all time. any given scene between the two of them in s2 is just guaranteed to be heartwarming as well as heartbreaking, and i think that makes for an incredible show.

weaknesses

flashbacks

okay this applies to Every season they All have too many flashbacks but in s2 specifically... please stop showing me shit from season one. i watched it. i know what happened. you don’t need to spoon feed everything to me!! flashbacks can be a really helpful way of delivering information to an audience, but st has a bad habit of not only being kinda demeaning in how often they flash back to shit that the audience already knows, but they also have a bad habit of using flashbacks almost as a crutch to avoid having to deliver information subtly and naturally. 

you know i gotta say it... the lost sister

this is so sad. the lost sister really is like a great concept for an st episode, and i’m not mad about the idea of st taking a break from the normal action to focus on one story for a full episode, but the execution of it was just dreadful. kali and her crew feel very over-the-top and stereotypical, and its placement in the season totally kills the tension and excitement that was built in “the spy.” 

i think the lost sister honestly could have gone over far better, even with the stereotypical fake-feeling gang kali has, if they had just swapped it with “the spy” like... ok, the end of episode five has el setting off to find kali and will collapsing on the ground seizing. right? imagine if, instead of immediately following will to the lab, we’d followed el. we don’t know what’s happening with will, but it’s a very simple cliffhanger that leaves us on edge without making us feel cheated by the show cutting away. we follow el on her little journey, everything happens much the same as canon, and then at the end, el sees hopper in scrubs. she sees mike, screaming, sees that they’re both in danger. holy shit!!! what the fuck!!! what’s happened since we left will seizing on the ground??? we feel el’s fear and confusion. she decides to go home. and then... boom. “the lost sister” is over. now, we rewind, right back to will seizing on the ground, and “the spy” commences. we learn how they got into the danger that el saw in the end of “the lost sister,” and we sit on the edge of our seats all through “the spy” and “the mind flayer,” KNOWING that el is on her way back to save them but not knowing when she’ll arrive!! idk i don’t think that would have necessarily saved lost sister but i think it may have alleviated some of the issues that i and many others have with it, timing-wise.

the nancy/jonathan sidequest

once again, the idea of nancy going off on her own little mission to find justice for barb after s1 is like. amazing. genuinely i love that plot for her and i can’t imagine anything better for her to have focused on in s2. unfortunately though i think her and jonathan’s little trip to see murray was just kind of... lame. the whole thing just felt like an excuse to get the two of them alone together, yknow? which is fine i guess people contrive all sorts of situations to get characters alone together for romance reasons but in this case i think it just really doesn’t work for me because of what it’s juxtaposed with. like, will is POSSESSED, and jonathan is just off on a mini road trip and sleeping with his bestie, and jonathan never seems to communicate to joyce/will that he left town, and joyce never like... thinks to tell him that will is like sick and fucked up and they’re looking at him in the lab??? like it’s so weird i know joyce always forgets about jonathan when shit’s happening with will but jfc you’d think at some point in that like... 72-ish-hour period where jonathan was out of town she would have thought about him. like at least once. maybe i’m forgetting something and she mentioned him sometime and i missed it but even still, i hate the juxtaposition of nancy and jonathan just like cheers-ing at murray’s place and sleeping together and whatnot while everyone else is dealing with possession or trying to hunt down dart yknow? it feels really boring in comparison and i think it could have been done far better. like it was SO insanely easy for them to get into the lab and get an admission of guilt and escape with it!! i think it might have been a lot more engaging if maybe someone from the lab tailed them to murray’s place and they had to like lose the tail and race to get the recording out to as many news outlets as possible before they got caught, or something like that. the tension in their plotline is completely resolved in episode four!! episodes five and six are just them screwing around and addressing envelopes. while there were a lot of strong ideas in this plotline (i really enjoy nancy going out of her way to get justice, and the fact that they have to water down the story to make it believable), i just think the focus on nancy and jonathan getting together hindered it a lot without adding a ton to the plot or their individual characters.

season 3

strengths

starcourt mall as a setting

while i don’t think the mall was utilized quite to its full potential (something i could make a separate post about if anyone’s interested), i do think that starcourt was a genius addition to the series. i’ve said this before, but building a new mall is a literal Perfect in-universe justification for a significant leap forward in fashion and aesthetics, and it provides a great location for characters to just... be characters. idk how else to articulate this i just think that the mall is a great setting to let people interact with each other and to bring people together who may not have been otherwise (i.e. scoops troop). not to mention how sick it was to see the mall get wrecked toward the end kdjncdkm like they were able to do so much more with the mall in terms of like The Finale than they could with just the byers house or the cabin or the school or even the lab. i love all the back tunnels they run through it’s such a fun like acknowledgement of how this glitzy eighties mall is just a real place where employees get shipments and take out the trash and shit idk it’s all about the perfect facade and what’s hidden what’s underneath what’s hiding in plain sight etc etc i’m just saying words now. anyway. 

willingness to experiment and go against expectations

gay robin. neon aesthetics. giant fucking meat monster. i know some people hate both the neon and the meat monster but i personally think they were kind of amazing and like. yknow regardless of personal tastes i think it’s impossible to deny that s3 had a lot of incredible visuals, and they’re all visuals that just wouldn’t have been possible if the show were too afraid to stray from its s1 aesthetic. robin being canonically gay (and her resulting friendship with steve) and the season’s striking visuals are two things that most everyone (besides like homophobes skjncdknm) can agree were great, right? and they were both departures from where the show began and what we all expected!! so yeah i think while some of the experimentation in s3 wasn’t ideal it was also that experimentation that allowed for some of the season’s strongest elements to come about.

the hospital sequence (and the season’s action/horror scenes in general)

this one is fairly self-explanatory. while they may have underutilized the “body snatching” element of the season, the hospital sequence with nancy and jonathan fighting off their possessed bosses did an amazing job of building tension and creating a genuine sense of really intense and personal danger.

in general i think that s3 melded action and horror rather well, particularly in the sauna test, the hospital, and when the mindflayer busts through the roof of hop’s cabin. horror can come from many things, and in this case, st elicited horror largely from the feeling of helplessness, and it was really effective for me personally. i think it worked better for me than s1′s brand of horror because it doesn’t rely so much on a lack of knowledge or a sense of suspense that inevitable disappears upon a second viewing.

the body horror we got in s3 was also really fun! that’s it i just think all the blood and guts and slime were fun and i would like more of them. once again, the impacts of body horror are less dependent upon the viewer being in the dark or unsure as to what’s happening, and as such i think it tends to be a little more effective at eliciting reaction in the long term.

timing and mechanics of the battle of starcourt/finale

i think the battle of starcourt is just fucking awesome, and beyond that personal opinion, i think it’s the most high-stakes and intense finale of all three seasons, and this is for two main reasons! 1. el is out of commission, and 2. (almost) everyone is in the same cental location. this means that (almost) everyone is in danger all at once, and they are all working together at the same time to fight the same threat. s1/s2 have their groups more fragmented for the finales, and while i understand why in each case and i wouldn’t call either season’s finale necessarily weak, i do think the centralized nature of the s3 finale just Works on another level. in s1 and s2, large segments of the cast are already perfectly safe by the time el dispatches the primary threat. in s3, however, everybody save for dustin and erica is still in danger up until the last moment, and el is seemingly (you can def debate how much power she still had in her when she peeked into billy’s mind and whether the memory broke the mindflayer’s hold on him or if she was actually controlling him to some degree) completely vulnerable. this increases the tension and raises the stakes, making the finale a real crescendo to fortissimo as opposed to a series of little mezzo forte moments. i hope everyone reading this knows music idk how else to phrase that my brain is stupid.

emphasis on friendship and adolescence (but in a different way than s1/2)

this is definitely a controversial one but i think that s3 really did like... show a side of friendship that had been more or less unexplored thus far in the show. el and max were amazing, and i think it’s really nice that we got an opportunity to see the kids have some growing pains as well as see them support each other through Normal Adolescent Stuff like boyfriends and breakups instead of just like. death and trauma. this is maybe just a personal preference, but i think it can be really enlightening and provide a lot of depth when you get to see how characters respond to normal everyday conflict and not just how they respond to giant world-ending conflict!! letting el use her powers for goofy teenage shit like spying on boys and messing with mean girls at the mall is not only fun for her and the audience, but it also really emphasizes just how much those powers are a part of el, making it that much more devastating when she loses them at the end of the season. 

weaknesses

tonal dissonance

so this is like. obvious. but it must still be said! i won’t go on and on about it since we all know this so i’ll try to like talk about it from an angle people don’t usually? anyway. it seems to me like they were maybe a little worried about s3 being too dark. while the choice to really lean into humor was definitely driven by the sorts of eighties teen films from which s3 drew inspiration (like fast times at ridgemont high), i think it was also done in an attempt to alleviate the more troubling implications of some events in the season, particularly the russian bunker plot. like, yeah, st can be incredibly dark, but if they’d played the whole “children being stuck inside of a foreign military base, tied up, tortured, and drugged” thing completely straight without the humorous elements that exist in canon, it had the potential to be like... disturbing on a new level. steve and robin don’t have powers like el yknow their kidnapping/torture doesn’t have any sci-fi elements to sorta soften the blow. they’re just innocent teenagers being brutalized and traumatized by grown men. so anyway yeah i think maybe the writers were concerned about this storyline coming off as too dark and they wanted it to be a little more whimsical but they ended up pushing way too hard in that direction and creating extreme dissonance at times. this goes for joyce/hopper/murray/alexei too, but to a lesser extent. i think the ridiculousness in that group felt a lot more like... realistic. but still. 

newspaper plot

once again i feel like i don’t even need to say this skjdncmn we all know it was insane how the show basically ended up delivering the message “while misogyny is a serious problem poverty and classism are not” and i’ve said it on this blog a million times so i don’t need to repeat myself. i’ll focus on another weak point of this plot: the fact that it completely separates nancy and jonathan from everyone else. once again, the show’s preoccupation with j/ancy held them back! like... can you imagine a version of s3 where nancy and jonathan both worked in the mall? i have a lot of ideas about this possible au and like how the plot could play out differently if they worked in the mall but first of all it’s just more realistic, second of all it further utilizes the mall as a central setting, and third of all, it would bring everyone together. as it is in canon, nancy and jonathan were unnecessarily isolated from the rest of the group, and this isolation was detrimental to both of their characters. like, they only ever get to interact with each other! if they’d gotten summer jobs in the mall, they could have had more interactions with the kids/steve/robin, and they absolutely still could have had a similar argument! maybe in this case, nancy notices the rat thing (or something else odd) herself when taking out the trash behind the mall, and she wants jonathan to ditch work with her to check it out bc she thinks it may be related to the lab. jonathan doesn’t want to ditch work because he needs his job, nancy argues that they’re working shitty mall jobs anyway and who cares if they get fired, and we get more or less the same thing as s3 without the cartoonishly over-the-top misogyny. i mean honestly i think the rat shit could have been cut entirely it didn’t rly... accomplish much of anything. in my opinion. like imagine s3 without the rat plot you literally would not be missing anything except it would be more surprising when the dudes melted into goo at the hospital. so yeah i think it would have been better if nancy and jonathan had jobs at the mall, weren’t isolated from everybody else, and were maybe absorbed into the party’s plot or the scoops troop’s plot from very early on, allowing them to interact with more characters and have a less... dumb.... plot. like god splitting up nancy and jonathan between the party/scoops troop would have been So Much better i just. sdkjcnksdmn anyway yeah.

briefness of group reunion/separation of groups

remember in s2 at the beginning of “the gate,” where mike and hopper had a confrontation and max and el met for the first time and el hugged everyone and steve and nancy had their sad little moment together outside... where’s that energy? obviously the s2 reunion wasn’t that long either, but it made space for some significant emotional moments to take place. s3′s reunion had some hopper/el/mike resolution, but besides that... there was nothing, really. i just think that the whole group getting together in s3 was SO exciting and powerful the way they did it (with both the scoops troop and the adults having their own Big Moment reconnecting with team griswold family), but the emotional potential was more or less squandered. 

i also think in s3 at times they were really stretching to keep everybody separated even though it made no sense. and like... in s1 the separation worked bc nobody else knew that (x group) was experiencing weird shit too, and beyond that, each group (as i mentioned in the s1 section) was sort of operating within their own genre and bringing something unique to the season. they’ve stopped doing that though! now, the groups aren’t separate bc each plot is tonally/structurally different, the groups are just separate bc... they need to be, because it’s a big ensemble cast and you can’t just have them all be together for a whole season or it would be way too difficult to coordinate things and keep the show dynamic. all this is to say that i’m excited for s4 because the location differences make it so there’s a Reason for each plot to be separate at the beginning, and i think that’ll work better.

general ridiculousness

i dont mean like i think it’s bad that they made jokes this is just me lumping in all the dumb shit like hopper not worrying about el and not wanting to check on the kids, him and joyce bickering long after they both know they and their children are in danger, max seemingly forgetting that billy is a racist abuser, etc etc. i think many of these are just a symptom of the show 1. trying desperately to keep the groups split up a certain way even though it may not make any sense, and 2. trying to fit into a certain genre/trope mold when their actual characters are more complex than the tropes they’re imitating. this is so fucking long already i am not gonna elaborate further rn but i trust u all know what i mean.

soooo... yeah, that’s about all! i mean it’s not all there are definitely many more things i could talk about and i know i focused sorta disproportionately on the teens which is my bad :/ but i’m done for now. thank you for asking, and apologies for the delay in responding!! i’m sure some people reading (if anyone read this far) will disagree with some of what i’ve said and that’s alright like i’m not The Authority on st or anything i’m just trying to talk about like my own thoughts yknow? so yeah luv u all i hope someone enjoyed reading this!!

[aj28gaming]

Danganronpa messing up Nagito's character cuz apparently even they believe headcanons

Is it just me or is Danganronpa making Nagito worse?

Like at the start we have a socially intelligent and intuitive paranoid kid who hates despair and gets forced into a killing game that is filled with everything he hates and fears

So he clings desperately to hope as a coping mechanism to deal with everything

And then in the anime, we get a social outcast (for some reason even though people would've loved his hope talks like they did back in chapter 1 since no killing game happens and he is just speaking normally)

who bombs a school (forget his paranoia apparently) and nonchalantly allows himself to get out of the island and accidentally kill 40+ soldiers (again, ignoring his paranoia of his destructive luck cycle apparently)

And then in Danganronpa 2.5 we get a socially inept, clingy hope addict who apparently doesn't have boundaries?

(We seriously ignoring how much he pushes people away back in SDR2, is afraid of having friends due to his luck cycle, respects boundaries to the max, and how socially intelligent he is and his crazy empathy to know people's hopes and despairs?)

(And no even Mikan's motivations he understood, he knew she killed for despair because she literally killed for Junko, Mikan just says he doesn't understand because she doesn't count is as killing for despair, she counts it as killing for love)

And some of the fans defend this and says Nagito is hated or is supposed to have no boundaries because of his social ineptness or inability to properly socialize

Okay

WHEN?

WHEN HAS HE IN SUPER DANGANRONPA 2 ACTUALLY SUCKED AT SOCIALIZING OR WAS SOCIALLY INEPT OR OUT OF TOUCH?

NOT THE ANIME OR SPINOFFS, I AM TALKING ABOUT THE ACTUAL SECOND GAME WHERE HE FIRST SHOWED HIS FACE

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOW GONNA BASE ALMOST ALL OF MY POINTS ON HOW NAGITO IS AND ACTS DURING SDR2 AND THAT INCLUDES HIS FREE TIME EVENTS AND ISLAND MODE

NOT THE ANIME OR DANGANRONPA 2.5, JUST DANGANRONPA 2 GOODBYE DESPAIR

Bruh, the guy is hated sure, but boy was he awesome at being a people-person and gathering people during chapter 1

He encouraged everyone with his hope talks and Hajime even kept simping for the guy because of his positivity

And due to the guy's CRAZY HIGH EMPATHY AND UNDERSTANDING, he is able to understand the hopes and despairs of almost every freaking character

He knew Teruteru wanted to continue the culinary legacy and help his mom, that's his hope

He knew Imposter would want to protect everyone no matter what, that's his hope

He knew Mikan killed for Despair, that despair being Junko Enoshima

He knew Fuyuhiko's hope is Peko and that both of them care about each other very much

He knew how similar he and Hajime are and how they are both bystanders and lovers of Hope, for Hajime that Hope being Hope's Peak academy itself and/or having talent

The guy is crazy with how well he knows people, and he is definitely not socially inept at all

He respects boundaries, is able to read the room and the only time he seems socially inept is when he is either trying to purposefully annoy someone to get a reaction or when he is too obsessed with his ideas with hope

The guy is obsessed with hope, yes, but he is not socially inept

That is seriously downgrading how much empathy he has and how much understanding he has for every character

And Nagito does have empathy, the reason why it seems like he doesn't is because he treats the dead people like stepping stones for hope

He does have empathy tho, and too much that it takes a toll on his mental health whenever he sees dead bodies, so he clings to hope in order to cope and tries to pretend that it's okay if people die because there is always hope

(basically, deniability at it's finest)

It's not that the guy doesn't care, it's that he does a little too much

Which is why he laughs, laughing for him doesn't mean he is happy, it means he is surprised (he says this in island mode)

And seeing that his greatest fears are seeing people die constantly because of his luck cycle, wouldn't be surprised that he laughs like crazy in a literal killing game

And laughing out of stress or fear isn't unheard of, I mean there is also a thing called nervous laughter

And jesus christ, CAN PEOPLE STOP TRYING TO USE FRONTOTEMPORAL DEMENTIA SYMPTOMS TO EXPLAIN HIM?

What I mean is, yes he has dementia or is at least diagnosed with it

And I believe that he probably does actually have dementia (not saying he could've lied tho but he could've still been misdiagnosed)

But that doesn't mean he has all of the symptoms

I don't think we can confirm if he does or doesn't have dementia because he might just not have all of the symptoms

But I do know that using the symptoms to explain his character isn't a good idea especially since it usually undermines who he actually is

Like, let me explain

Behavior and/or dramatic personality changes, such as swearing, stealing, increased interest in sex, or a deterioration in personal hygiene habits

- No, and no not even when the killing game started. Yeah sure he laughs now, but that's no different from how he is normally since laughing for him is what he does when he gets surprised or stressed. He doesn't change much in the killing game, he still believes in hope and everyone else, still respects boundaries, still have crazy high intellect and empathy, still pushes people away

Socially inappropriate, impulsive, or repetitive behaviors

- not really, again the guy is a freaking gentleman even during the killing game. He respects boundaries, reprimands Teruteru for sexual assault during chapter 1, pushes people away and distances himself from others, isn't at all impulsive (usually quite the opposite really), and is usually planning and tries to remain calm and composed throughout the killing game (struggling tho cuz yeah killing game)

Impaired judgment

- here, I kinda disagree. I wouldn't say that Nagito is entirely in the right with everything he does, but I understand his views. The guy knows that no one is truly a bad person in the killing game because everyone was forced into it. He knows that even the blackened escapes and everyone dies, it isn't fully a bad thing because that means someone escapes and goes back home to their loved ones while the killing game ends

If a blackened succeeds, the despair would be of course everyone else dying and the blackened going through a lot of trauma, but the hope would be the end of the killing game and the blackened going home or to their loved ones or to their goal in life or whatever

If the blackened dies, the despair would obviously be the blackened dying and the killing game still continuing, while the hope would be everyone else still alive

Nagito isn't exactly wrong in wanting to help the blackened as well, of course, Nagito would want him himself to be the victim so another person gets a chance at escape and no one else would be the victim

Sadly for Nagito, that time never comes

Nagito doesn't want others to be killed, he wants to sacrifice himself instead as the victim instead of everyone else

Apathy

- .....big no. Nonononono. The dude is anything but apathetic.

"Apathy is a lack of feeling, emotion, interest, or concern about something."

Seriously, being a dude who is constantly supportive of everyone and their hopes in life and how passionate this dude gets about hope and despair, and the fact that he is the most stressed 24/7 about something bad happening due to his luck, this guy is seriously anything but apathetic

Lack of empathy

- No. If the guy truly lack empathy he wouldn't need to use Hope desperately as a coping mechanism, wouldn't care about the ultimates and their hopes and despairs, wouldn't constantly be thinking about helping the ultimates and overcoming despair, wouldn't be the most stressed out of everyone, and definitely wouldn't be in love with Hajime or even act the way he did in chapter 1

Decreased self-awareness

- You don't actually understand why you act the way you do.

A good indicator that you lack self-awareness deals with how well you understand your emotions, actions, and behavior. People who lack self-awareness often feel constantly off-kilter, anxious, or angry.

This is not Nagito at all. The guy understands his emotions and behaviors which is why he is able to do the things he does and is able to conduct plans based on how much he understands his own self and capabilities. The guy is actually the most self-aware out of everyone, he knows about how people don't understand him and constantly misunderstand him and his intentions, he is aware constantly of his inability sometimes to properly explain his goals to people.

The guy has a lot of self-awareness and isn't afraid to take responsibility for his actions. Actually, it's because of how self-aware he is of his own self and his destructive luck cycle that he constantly blames himself for anything bad that happens.

The guy is seriously self-aware as hell and it's scary sometimes

Loss of interest in normal daily activities

- Nope, he hasn't shown any sign of apathy towards anything and is usually pretty hyped about doing daily activities. He is paranoid though on the daily because he fears for what his luck cycle might do

Emotional withdrawal from others

- Emotional withdrawal involves bottling up your emotions. It involves cutting out the people who could help us, because we're so used to rejection that we've learned to anticipate it. Because we've learned to disconnect from others, we develop other unhealthy coping mechanisms

Emotional withdrawal is defined as pulling back emotionally or physically by bottling up your feelings or disconnecting from others. Emotional withdrawal can be far more complex at times. It is comparable to a breakup, in every way but physical.

Kind of? Yes, he pushes people away, but he is still willing to spend time with people, especially Hajime, when they really insist. He politely pushes people away, but he isn't opposed to hanging out with people either though it is sometimes rare

Loss of energy and motivation

- .... I already said it before, the guy is full of motivation and energy and passion that it is scary sometimes

Inability to use or understand language; this may include difficulty naming objects, expressing words, or understanding the meanings of words

-.....WHY IS THIS HERE? THE GUY IN THE JAPANESE DUB CONSTANTLY FLEXES HIS DAMN ENGLISH VOCABULARY DESPITE IT BEING A JAPANESE DUB

AND THE FUCKING ENGLISH WORDS HE USES ARE FANCY AND HIGH LEVEL AS FUCK THAT I FEEL SMART JUST READING THEM

Hesitation when speaking

- Definite no, the guy isn't afraid to voice his own opinions and never hesitates and can get very vocal about the things he is passionate about

Less frequent speech

- Again, definite hell no. I wouldn't be surprised if his voice lines are longer than the voice lines of everyone else combined

Distractibility

- Nope. The guy is focused on his goals constantly. No matter what he does, you can always be sure that it is for a certain goal. He pisses of Fuyuhiko? It was to get a reaction from him to confirm his suspicions about the true culprit. He lied about the rope? It was to see how Mikan would react and how the trial would go to confirm his suspicions about Mikan being the culprit?

The guy is focused like a damn soldier

Trouble planning and organizing

-.....do I seriously need to explain? This is Nagito we are talking about

Frequent mood changes

- Not really. He usually acts or reacts a certain way because something happened like someone died or something. He is actually pretty normal with how he acts and reacts and doesn't really change his mood rapidly that much

Agitation

- Yes and no? Sure the guy gets paranoid 24/7, but is still somewhat more chill than agitated to an extent. He is easy going and is just paranoid about what his luck would do, he is vigilant but not necessarily agitated

Increasing dependence

- No. The guy is independent to a fault and only relies on others when his plans call for it. He also usually does things of his own accord and rarely with a partner unless he really needs to or his goal is to help that person specifically, which knowing him is a usual thing

Unwillingness to talk

- Again, no. The guy talks a lot and while he pushes others away, he wouldn't turn down a conversation if the other person wanted one

Lack of inhibition or lack of social tact

- Again, no. The guy is a gentleman and respects boundaries and definitely gets stressed especially in the killing game. The guy is also paranoid 24/7 on a normal day due to his luck cycle

Obsessive or repetitive behavior, such as compulsively shaving or collecting items

- No? Sure he clings to hope but that is more of a coping mechanism. If he isn't in a stressful situation like a killing game he doesn't get that obsessive as much about hope since he doesn't need to desperately cling to it as a coping mechanism

Unusual verbal, physical or sexual behavior

- No? He isn't at all like this. It isn't unusual to panic or use a coping mechanism desperately when in a situation like a killing game, and he doesn't do anything unusual like this when it's a normal day. Sure the guy gets paranoid, but that's it

Weight gain due to dramatic overeating

- No? Actually, I don't really know how much weight he gains to be honest so idk

My main point here is, yes there is a chance Nagito does actually have dementia, but using the symptoms as a way to explain his character undermines who he actually is and can cause a lot of misunderstandings of his character

Especially since I remember being told that they only added in dementia to his character backstory a little late during his character development and creation

It isn't a good idea to use his symptoms because it usually gets his character wrong and sometimes makes them excuse a lot of the things he has done

The guy is self-aware, isn't socially inept, is a gentleman, and socially intelligent as hell

And I really hate how even Danganronpa itself seems to forget that

It's like they forgot who Nagito is, to begin with