#i might delete this simply because it's so poorly worded | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

raibebe · 4 years ago

Text

Of needles and seduction

Genre: Fluff and smut Words: 15.2k Prompt: Johnny tattoo shop AU featuring best friends Yangyang and Jaemin Warnings: contains smut, Daddy-kink, size-kink, mentions of mirror-sex

A/N: This is very self-indulgent, I’m sorry. While I do have piercings myself, I know next to nothing about tattoos, so I’m sorry if anything is inaccurate. Also I don’t advise what some characters in this are doing for yourself. Just a quick special thanks to @burtonized who has listened to me ramble about this story and Johnny and helped me write this by giving me ideas and support. Thank you darling! This fic is a beast, I have never written anything this long,it’s insane. If smut isn’t for you, you can stop reading after the phone call and still have a pretty decent story. If you feel like, you’ve seen this post before, you might have. I deleted the original one because tumblr decided to delete it from the tags.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” You asked for what you felt was the tenth time in the past five minutes. “It’s going to be fine. The shop is clean and sanitary,” your friend Yangyang groaned while running his hands through his messy, blonde hair. It was getting way too long, hanging low into his eyes. “I’m just saying that this doesn’t seem like a safe place,” you mumbled but followed your hyper friend through a more than dubious looking side street of Itaewon. “Jaemin got his piercings done in the same shop and those healed just fine, stop being a baby,” the blonde said while rolling his eyes. He quickly checked his phone for the address of the (probably illegal) piercing and tattoo shop and took a sharp turn into an even shadier looking street. “I still don’t get while you need me to come with you when you want to get your nipples pierced for god knows what of a stupid reason.” “It’s easy,” Yangyang grinned at you, “Ten said I wouldn’t dare to do it. And I’m going to prove him wrong and you’re going to document the progress.” “Do you ever listen to yourself talk? You’re literally paying someone to stab you into your nipples to shove a piece of metal through it just to prove a point.” “It’s just one nipple though.” “How does that make it any better, Yangyang?” You deadpanned. Your friend groaned again. “I knew I should have taken Guanheng with me. He would have been supportive.” “He would also be supportive of getting ‘I love Tacos’ tattooed on your ass.” “He would,” Yangyang agreed with an exaggerated dreamy look on his face. “What a madlad.”

You sighed but couldn’t help smiling at his antics. You had befriended the hyper exchange student when you had been assigned to be partners for a group project for your mandarin class. Yangyang had only taken the class for extra credit and easy good grades while you were struggling like crazy and had seriously questioned all your life choices that had let to you taking the class. (But mostly you regretted listening to Renjun who had convinced you it would be an easy class.) The group project turned out to be rather easy when you had a native speaker as your partner and you had become fond of the younger student, staying in touch with him and helping him find his way around the big campus. If you had known that he was a package deal with a bunch of other equally hyper and questionably crazy exchange students, you might have thought a little longer about keeping in touch after the project was over. But who were you kidding, the other boys and Yangyang were incredibly dear to you and if Kun had his regular morning coffee, the others weren’t even that chaotic.

“That’s it,” Yangyang suddenly exclaimed, pointing at a small beat up looking wooden door that looked like it was ready to fall out of the doorway any second. But a little green neon sign that hang next to it flashed the word “open” onto the street indicating that a shop must be hiding behind it. Your arguably best friend quickly grabbed your hand as if he had been sensing that you were about to complain again and dragged you into the shop. A little bell jingled quietly when Yangyang closed the door behind you two. You took a deep breath to calm your nerves (hell you weren’t even the one to get stabbed with a needle) and took a look around the small room. It was small and poorly lit and every free space on the walls was plastered with drawings and photos of both freshly done and healed tattoos. You had to admit that whoever had done those had done a good job, they looked really neat. You guessed that at least two artists must be working in the shop. A good portion of the art were very neat black and white works (some looking freakishly realistic) while others were very vibrant and artistic.

With a confident bounce in his step, Yangyang went up to the counter to a man with wild bubblegum pink hair wearing a black tank top that showed off the ink on his arms and torso, all kept in black except for a deep red rose on the side of his neck. His eyes were lined with dark eyeliner, making them seem like dark bottomless orbs, and they were fixed to the screen of a laptop that was covered in stickers that were a wild mixture of cute characters and various rock and hip-hop bands. “And what brings you here?” The man asked with a surprisingly deep voice, turning his head towards your friend. “A friend of mine told me I could get pierced here,” Yangyang spoke, his hands fumbling with the loose threads of his sweater. “And if that was the case, what would you want to get pierced?” “My nipple.” At that the other man raised one of his perfectly arched eyebrows. “People usually start off with getting an earring or something.” “Go hard or go home,” Yangyang grinned, making the other man snort. “If you have 70.000 Won in cash, I can look if one of the piercers is free.” When your friend got out his worn wallet and put a couple of bills onto the counter, the other man smiled for the first time. It didn’t quite fit his whole dark punk aesthetic but you couldn’t deny that he was really good looking.

“Don’t run away now kiddo, I’ll see if someone is free,” he grinned, “I’m Taeyong by the way.” When he disappeared behind a curtain made out of pearls into the back, Yangyang turned towards you with the biggest smile on his face. “I told you it was going to be fine.” You just hummed nonchalantly, still not entirely supportive of the whole idea. “One of the guys is ready in a bit,” Taeyong said when he came back to the main room. “Are you getting anything?” He asked, looking at you. “Oh no, she’s a scaredy-cat, just here for moral support and to document that I actually did it,” your friend answered for you. Your face immediately heated up under the intense gaze of the pink haired tattoo artist. “Too bad,” he just shrugged. “So technically you need to sign stuff for legal issues and whatnot. But since this place doesn’t exactly exist on records, we’re skipping that part. You’re not on drugs or any meds, right?” “I’m not,” Yangyang shook his head, making his hair flop back into his face. “Any issues with fainting or other medical conditions?” “Nope.” “Great. Had a good meal before coming here?” “I had breakfast,” Yangyang shrugged. “You had a slice of cold pizza from yesterday,” you groaned. “That I ate in the morning, therefore it’s breakfast,” he argued. “Well in that case,” Taeyong interrupted your bickering and threw a granola bar into Yangyang’s hands, “Eat that and let your girlfriend treat you to some proper food afterwards.” Before the blonde could deny anything, you had already opened your mouth to tell the other man that in fact you weren’t dating.

“Sure, sorry for assuming,” he shrugged and sat back behind the counter, taking out an iPad and began drawing something, probably a tattoo design. “Nervous yet?” You asked Yangyang who was uncharacteristically quiet while munching on the granola bar. “Shit, I’m really doing this,” he replied, exhaling shakily. “You don’t actually have to, Yangyang,” you tried to comfort him. “And let Ten just get away like that? No way. I am doing this. I’m not his little baby Yangyang anymore,” he said like the stubborn child he was. You could just sigh and roll your eyes at him. “He might have just been joking, you know?” “One does not simply challenge Liu Yangyang like that and not expect consequences.” “Kun is going to actually flip and pop a vein,” you tried to reason with your friend for a last time. Kun was doing a lot of coordination work for the exchange students with a Chinese background and had taken on almost a fatherly role for the younger students that hadn’t been in Korea for long. And even though Ten wasn’t even that much younger than Kun, he almost lost his otherwise calm composure when the Thai boy had announced that he successfully had pierced his ear by himself yet again after he had convinced a poor med student to smuggle some equipment for him. And from there the situation had somehow escalated into Ten daring Yangyang to get a nipple piercing. “Well he can’t do anything about it once it’s done. We’ll just make sure he’s with someone who can call an ambulance if he ends up having an aneurism.”

“Someone still wants their nipple pierced?” A new voice interrupted your conversation and a tall man with dark inky hair came into the room, making the pearls of the curtain clink against each other. One side of his head was shaved while the longer hair on the other side framed his handsome face beautifully. He was wearing a loose black T-shirt paired with ripped jeans with almost as many holes as there was fabric that hugged his long legs perfectly, showing that he had also ink on his legs. From his lobe dangled a little silver chain and of course his arms were covered in intricate designs, one arm strictly black ink while the other sported some colorful pieces as well. In the center of his plush lower lip sat a black ring and just beneath his left eye two little silver balls were reflecting the low light. You couldn’t deny that the man looked absolutely stunning despite his unusual appearance.

“Yes, me,” Yangyang eagerly answered the man’s question and walked towards him, tugging you with him. “Too bad,” the piercer grinned cheekily and winked in your direction, making your heart flutter in your chest and heat rise to your face, before he extended a big hand to shake Yangyang’s much smaller one. “I’m Johnny,” he introduced himself before leading you both into a smaller room in the back with a simple black padded bench in the middle of the room and a desk tucked into a corner. The walls were plastered with art and photos like the main room, showing that Johnny apparently was able to pull off a bunch of different tattoo styles. He seemed to have a thing for florals and roses though. The only free space was taken up by a full body mirror at the opposite wall. Johnny sat down on the little stool that was standing by the desk and motioned for Yangyang to sit on the bench while you sat down in the only other chair in the room, made of worn looking black leather.

“Let me see your chest before we start this whole thing,” Johnny spoke to your friend after he had grabbed a pair of silver framed glasses that sat low on his elegant nose and slipped on a fresh pair of black gloves. With only slightly trembling hands, Yangyang pulled his sweater over his head, keeping his hands buried in the fabric. “Looks good to me. Left or right one?” “Ehrm, I haven’t really thought about it,” he confessed. Johnny chuckled. “Spontaneous decision to get your nipple pierced?” “He does it to prove a point to a friend,” you supplied before Yangyang had the chance to answer. “Seems like a valid reason,” the tattoo artist grinned, “You play guitar or anything where the strap could irritate the new piercing?” “Just the violin,” Yangyang supplied, demonstrating how he would hold his instrument. “Then I’d suggest we go for the left one,” Johnny concluded, grabbing a bunch of stuff he needed. “Is it going to hurt badly?” “No idea, mine aren’t pierced.” “The first one is fine,” another voice chimed into the conversation and a pink mess of hair appeared in the doorway. “My client is there and Jaehyun isn’t back from his break yet, have an open ear for the door.” Johnny just hummed but it seemed enough to satisfy Taeyong who disappeared just as quickly as he had appeared.

“You ready?” Johnny asked one last time. Yangyang took a deep but shaky breath and nodded. “You better film this so Ten knows it’s real,” he said, holding out his phone towards you. Rolling your eyes, you got up from your actually really comfortable chair and took the phone from your best friend’s hands while Johnny disinfected Yangyang’s nipple and drew two little circles where the bar would go through it before grabbing a small mirror to show him. “Let’s do this,” your best friend nodded and you pressed record. “It’ll be quick,” Johnny promised, disinfecting one last time before he grabbed a pair of tongs to hold the nipple in place and freed a needle from a foil package. “I’ll count to three and then I’ll start, alright?” “A-Alright.” “Last time to chicken out.” “No, I’m doing this,” Yangyang gritted out, closing his eyes. After that everything happened really fast: Johnny counted to three and steadily pushed the needle through Yangyang’s nipple, who bit his lip hard. He then let the needle dangle from the nipple while freeing a little barbell from another foil package to insert it through the canal he just had made. “And that’s it,” he announced when he secured the little balls on either side of the barbell. You ended the recording when Yangyang left out the breath he had been holding in. “Now no sports, especially no swimming or sexual activities for a while. Clean it well and don’t worry if it gets sore, that’s normal. It can take a while to heal, so be patient and don’t let it get infected. You can get a smaller barbell or a ring once it’s healed. Just come back to get it changed to be safe.” “Fuck I really did that,” Yangyang cursed and looked down to his chest, “I think I need a minute before I can get up.”

“Take your time, I don’t have any clients for another half an hour,” Johnny reassured him, putting the used materials into the trash. “Just please don’t vomit all over the floor or hit your head while fainting.” “That has happened before?” You asked, eyes wide. “Not on me but it’s not unheard of. You sure you don’t want anything?” he asked, turning towards you. His silver framed glasses had slid down his nose a little and you couldn’t deny that the man looked really hot, looking at you from beneath his lashes. “She’s too scared,” Yangyang teased. He couldn’t feel too bad if he still could do that then. “Too bad, I think you would really suit a little conch or something,” the piercer motioned around his own ear to indicate what piercing he meant. “A conch?” You asked, turning towards the mirror to try to imagine it. “Wait let me show you.” Johnny quickly got up to search through the drawers of his desk before he pulled out a little box with a bunch of jewelry, grabbing a small hoop. He stood behind you in front of the mirror. “Hold still for me,” he breathed and bend down to push your hair behind your ear before he carefully put the fake piercing in place. For a moment you could swear that time had stopped. You felt his breath fanning over your skin gently and could smell the intoxicating smell of his cologne. You were so close to each other, you were sure that if you turned your head, your noses would brush against each other. But before you could do anything stupid, Johnny pulled back and gently turned your head so you could see the little silver ring. “I think I could put an even smaller one if you wanted,” he said, watching you through the mirror with an intense gaze from his dark eyes. “I’ve never thought about getting a piercing,” you admitted shyly. While you did get your lobes pierced when you were a child, you never thought of it much. “It looks good. Not so much like daddy’s good girl anymore,” the piercer grinned. You almost choked on air when the words left his plush lips, feeling the heat rush to your cheeks.

“How much?” “For you I’ll do it for free, darling,” he grinned, running a hand through his thick dark hair, making his muscles shift beneath his inked skin. While your brain was still short-circuiting from the nickname, Yangyang seemed to be back to 100%, destroying whatever the atmosphere between you and the tattoo artist just was. “Are you really going to say no to a free piercing, dude?” You could just groan and roll your eyes at your best friend. “Stop calling me dude, Yangyang.” “Only if you get that piercing.” “That’s blackmailing.” “Just do it, it won’t even hurt right?” “It’s just a bit of pressure,” Johnny assured you, his lips curled into a smile. “I can always take it out if I don’t end up liking it,” you thought out aloud. “The beauty of temporary body modifications,” Johnny sighed before he stepped in front of you to take the fake piercing off again. With his face so close to yours again, your eyes traveled over the little silver balls beneath his left eye, over his elegant nose down to the black ring in his lower lip and you briefly wondered what it would feel like to kiss him. “So what will it be?” You looked over to your best friend who had put his hoodie back on and nodded his head enthusiastically, making his fluffy hair flop into his eyes. He really needed a haircut.

“Alright, let’s do this,” you decided. “That’s what I like to hear,” Johnny grinned and moved to get his stuff ready. “Need me to hold your hand?” Yangyang grinned when you took his place on the bench. “I wouldn’t want to contaminate you with girl germs,” you teased, sticking your tongue out at him. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind some girl germs if they’re coming from such a pretty girl,” Johnny cut in when he rolled back over on his stool, his glasses pushed back up his nose again. You couldn’t even fight the heat that crept onto your face at his words, he sure could feel it radiating off your cheeks from where his gloved hands were touching your skin. “I’ll do it where I placed the fake one, just with a smaller ring, alright?” He spoke softly when he disinfected your ear. You could just nod, anxiety taking over, making your heart race and skin prickle. When you heard the plastic bag that held the sterile needle rip, you pressed your eyes shut and balled your hands to fists. “Take a deep breath for me, doll,” Johnny mumbled, gently caressing your skin where he had grabbed your face to stabilize you. “In and out.” You shakily did as he asked you, his low voice comforting and calming your anxiety a lot. “Now you breathe in and let me count to three, then you gently release that breath. Can you do that for me, darling?” “Yeah,” you breathed, eyes still closed so you missed the soft smile on Johnny’s face. “Alright, deep breath in. One, two, three,” the pain of the needle piercing through your skin made you clench your fists harder, “And breathe out.” You tried your best to release the breath evenly until the pressure of the needle was just a low thudding. “You’re doing great, darling,” the handsome piercer reassured you, “I’ll just push the ring through and we’re all done here. Take another breath for me.” This time the feeling wasn’t as painful, just a really uncomfortable feeling of pressure. “All done, pretty,” Johnny concluded, clicking the ring closed. “Open your eyes.”

When you did open your eyes again, he held the little hand mirror from before in his still gloved hands so you could see the little ring that sat against your ear now. The skin was a bright red and you could feel your pulse throb around the metal but it actually fit the shape of your ear really nicely. “Thank you,” you smiled at Johnny. “It’s been a pleasure,” he winked before gathering the used needle and tissues to throw them away. “Take good care of it and try to not sleep on that side for a couple of nights and it will be healed in no time.” “Let’s go home, big baby,” Yangyang chirped in, already on his feet to leave the room. “I’m starving.” “There’s a good ramen shop a little up the street, not too expensive either,” Johnny recommended.

“Thanks for the piercings, man,” your best friend thanked the artist when he took you back to the main room. “No big deal,” Johnny shrugged and sat down where Taeyong had sat before, putting his long legs up on the counter. “Well, have a nice day, maybe we’ll come back for more some time,” Yangyang grinned, opening the door to leave the shop. “Oh I’m sure you will,” the artist replied, locking eyes with you before winking. “Take good care of that piercing, doll. You know where you have to come to if you want more.” You nodded shyly before bowing to the man. “Thank you, Johnny.” “I’ll see you again,” it wasn’t a question. Somehow you and him both knew that this wouldn’t be the last time you would step into the shady tattoo shop.

The next time that you found yourself in the shady streets of Itaewon came faster than you had thought. This time you were accompanying Jaemin to his tattoo appointment after Jeno had ditched him because he had to take over a shift at the cat café he worked at. (That poor boy had to take antihistamines before every shift because of his allergies but couldn’t resist the charm of the kittens.) “You’re a lifesaver seriously,” the hyper boy repeated while jumping up and down excitedly, “Sitting still for hours on end is really so boring if you have no one to talk to.” “Can’t you talk to your artist?” You asked confused. “He threatened to stab me with the tattoo gun the last time when I was trying to talk to him while he worked,” Jaemin pouted. You could only imagine how irritating Jaemin and his moods could be to someone who wasn’t used to him. Ever since he had decided that he wanted to commit to what he had dubbed a soft punk look, he had been going to the shop somewhat regularly to start a collection of tattoos and piercings. It had started a year ago when he first had dyed his hair to a light blue color. Shortly after that he had first gotten his ears and then his nose pierced. The two lip rings in his lower lip were his newest addition as far as piercings went. The tattoos came a little later. After much consideration he had made the decision to start a floral piece on his arm, the center would be a hummingbird, all with black ink for now.

After a little bit of Instagram stalking you had easily identified the intricate flowers that adored Jaemin’s upper arm as Johnny’s work and the thought of seeing the handsome tattoo artist again had made your heart beat faster in your chest. Not that Jaemin needed to know that you weren’t coming with him for his sake but rather because of your desire to see the dark haired flirty man again. You had been thinking about his dark eyes behind his silver framed glasses and how he scrunched his eyebrows when he was concentrating a lot for the last weeks. (Not that you had replayed the video of him piercing Yangyang an unhealthy amount of times or anything…) Every time you took care of your new piercing it reminded you of how his fingers felt on your skin and how his deep voice had gently guided you through everything. Not to forget how easily the pet names had rolled from his lips. And oh god his lips… His Instagram account featured a good amount of pictures of himself both casual and while working and the way his plush lips would curl into a confident smirk did things to your heart. His latest update had been the actual death of yours though. It had shown the new tattoo he had gotten recently: It was an intricate eagle that spread over his muscled chest, the feathers of the wings blending seamlessly into the other art covering his strong shoulders and biceps. Did you already mention that he was freaking shirtless in the picture? And that he was hiding a seriously ripped body beneath the wide T-Shirt he wore the last time you were at the shop? So to say that your thoughts had started to spiral after seeing that post was a little understated.

You still felt a little uneasy when you followed Jaemin through the backstreets of Itaewon but when the shabby door with the neon green ‘open’ sign came in sight, you felt the feeling disappear, only for it to be replaced with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Jaemin grinned widely when he pushed the door open and his good mood was always infectious, a smile creeping on your lips. This time a new man sat at the counter, lazily rocking back and forth on the chair with his phone in his hand. His hair was dark and hung into his eyes and he wore a dark, long sleeved hoodie, so you couldn’t see if he had as many tattoos as his colleagues but if the tattoos on his hands and neck were any indication, he must be pretty covered as well. You recognized the rose on the back of his hand from one of Johnny’s Instagram posts. When the man looked up, you saw that he didn’t only have tattoos but piercings as well: In his lower lip sat two rings right next to each other, a ring dangled from his nose and two little silver balls sat in the hollows of his dimples that showed when he smiled at Jaemin. “Back for more?” He asked with a deep, rumbling voice and got up to greet Jaemin properly, bumping their shoulders together. “Got an appointment with Johnny for my sleeve,” the blue haired boy replied. “I see the snake bites healed well.” “Done by the best piercer of the shop.” “You know it,” the man laughed, throwing an arm around Jaemin. “Brought your girlfriend?” “I’m just a friend,” you quickly corrected the piercer. (Why couldn’t you just platonically join a friend for his tattoo session?) “Alright, just a friend, I’m Jaehyun. Johnny should be ready by now. You know the way?” Jaemin nodded and pulled you with him to Johnny’s room.

When Jaemin pulled the curtain to the room open, you weren’t prepared for what you were seeing: Johnny was standing in front of the full length mirror with his black button up shirt unbuttoned, applying cream to his still tender looking eagle tattoo on his chest, making his beautiful sunkissed skin glisten. “You’re early, Jaem,” he spoke. “Jaehyun said you were already ready,” the blue haired boy shrugged and plopped down onto the black bench. “Oh you brought company,” Johnny turned around when he spotted you and grinned, “I knew you’d come back, doll. How’s your piercing healing?” You had to summon all your strength to rip your eyes from Johnny’s strong and glistening chest to meet his dark eyes. “It’s fine as far as I know, doesn’t hurt anymore,” you stumbled across your words. Couldn’t he just button his shirt back up? “Let me see.” Before you could protest he had made two big steps and was right in front of you, the intoxicating smell of his perfume filling your senses. He gently tucked your hair back to have a look at the piercing and you swore you could feel electricity buzz beneath your skin where he had touched you. “You took great care of it, darling. Not regretting it yet?” “No, I like it.” I like you. The words had laid on your tongue but you managed to swallow them back down.

“Stop flirting with her, I’m the one paying for your attention,” Jaemin whined from where he was sitting. You of course immediately felt all your blood rush to your head but Johnny just chuckled. “I haven’t seen any cash yet, boy.” The tattoo artist gave you a last wink before turning towards his actual client, buttoning his shirt back up but leaving the last two buttons unbuttoned, letting the head of the eagle just barely poke out. Taking a deep breath you sat down in the worn leather chair while Jaemin handed Johnny a bunch of bills that the taller quickly counted. “Alright, I’m all yours for the next five hours or so,” he grinned, “You saw the drafts I sent you?” Jaemin nodded while he took off his jacket and rolled up the sleeve of his T-Shirt to expose the ink on his arm. It was already beautiful even though it wasn’t even halfway done. The hummingbird was still missing its shading and he hung in the air for now, the flowers and leaves stopping above its head. “Yeah, I’m still not sure about the color though. Can’t we just do more flowers instead?” “Sure but the inner arm and near the elbow is going to hurt like a bitch. So it’s either that or you let me color that hummingbird.” Jaemin groaned dramatically, turning his arm to look into the mirror. “He does look weird just half-finished like that.” “So color it is?” Johnny asked while rolling up the sleeves of his shirt a bit, exposing his own tattoos: A snake like dragon curled around his entire right arm, kept in all black ink. “I really liked that green-blue watercolor thing you sent,” Jaemin supplied when he turned to lie down. “Right, then I’ll do some flowers directly surrounding the bird and color that thing.” He snapped his black gloves on and turned to prepare his machine and the colors.

“Come closer with that stupid chair,” Jaemin whined, making grabby hands at you. After Johnny nodded, you pushed the chair closer with great effort. “Are you going to whine for the whole time?” You groaned but smiled fondly at your friend. “Most likely,” Johnny answered instead of Jaemin and rolled over on his little stool, his silver framed glasses back on his nose and a pen between his lips. “I’ll freehand a bunch of flowers first to make sure they fit around that little guy nicely.” “And I thought you liked putting others in pain,” Jaemin joked when Johnny adjusted a little lamp and began to draw flower after flower. It was really fascinating how quick his hand drew delicate petals and leaves, filling up the space around the hummingbird. “Oh if I put others in pain, they usually like it,” he grinned, his voice dropping an octave. You almost choked on plain air and had to try to mask it as coughing but if the way Johnny’s eyes twinkled was any indication, he had seen right through it and dared to be smug about it. “Wow my third appointment and we’re already talking about kinks?” “Sorry Jaem, not interested,” the artist laughed, “I’m more into cute girls.” He leaned back to examine his drawing, throwing you another quick wink. You barely held in a squeak. He really wasn’t even trying to be subtle about his flirting anymore. “Ready for the big gun?” “Oh dick jokes now, nice,” Jaemin chuckled while you were sure your head was about to explode from how much blood was collecting in there. You covered your hot cheeks with your hands in a hopeless attempt to cool them. “Oh look Johnny, she’s getting shy already.” “I haven’t even started yet, baby.” That was it. This man was going to be the death of you. You really didn’t need to know what it sounded like when he spoke those words that were dripping with honey. “Why did I agree to come with you?” You groaned, hiding your face in your hands. “Because you missed me”, Johnny said at the same time as Jaemin said: “Because you’re a good friend.”

After a beat of silence in which Johnny arranged his actual tattoo gun and Jaemin stared at you while his smile grew bigger and bigger, he asked: “Now which one is it?” “I’m not answering that,” you mumbled from beneath your fingers. “No answer is an answer as well,” Jaemin singsang but luckily the low buzzing of the tattoo machine saved you from any further embarrassment… For now… “Now hold still or I’ll actually stab you,” Johnny warned before he dipped the needle into black ink and began to trace the lines he had just drawn on with a fine needle. “Yessir,” Jaemin joked, wiggling his eyebrows.

Johnny was unusually quiet while he worked, completely tuning out the chatter of you and Jaemin about shitty professors and assignments. You were absolutely fascinated by the confidence he radiated while dragging the needle over his client’s skin. He went back and forth between two different tattoo guns and rubbed Jaemin’s skin every now and then to get rid of excess ink. Soon Jaemin’s whole upper arm was decorated with delicate flowers and leaves and Johnny leaned back to both take a deep breath while stretching his back and to look at his work. “Let’s take a break before I do the color,” he proposed, wiping down the skin. “It looks great,” you complimented his work, taking a picture for Jaemin so he could see it himself. “Damn that pain really pays off,” your friend grinned, zooming in and out of the picture before posting it to his Instagram. “Does it hurt badly?” “You get used to it,” he shrugged, not taking his eyes from his feed, “It’s more like someone continuously scratching you.” “I can show you if you want,” Johnny chimed in from where he was cleaning his tattoo gun from the black ink. “I don’t think I’m spontaneous enough for a sudden tattoo.” “Not even if I offer it for free again?” He laughed. “I’m not mentally prepared for that,” you tried to reason. “I can still show you how it feels though. Without ink.” You shyly nodded and held out your arm for him that he quickly wiped down with disinfectant when he was done putting a fresh needle into the gun. “Just don’t flinch, darling,” he softly spoke before the buzzing of his tattoo gun filled the silence. You expected it to hurt a lot more when the needle touched your skin but it really wasn’t that bad. It was an odd kind of pain you couldn’t really describe. “It’s not that bad,” you told him, looking into his beautiful brown eyes behind his glasses. “It hurts more when it’s directly on the bone or at a more tender area,” Johnny explained and turned the gun off again, bending down to look at the slightly reddened skin of your arm before chucking the used needle into the nearby trashcan. “Let’s patch that up real quick, just treat it like any other scratch.” You nodded and let the handsome man put a band-aid over it. But before you could pull your arm back again, he leaned down to press a kiss on the cloth “For a good and quick healing,” he breathed and grinned smugly when you quickly turned your head away to hide your heated face.

“When you’re done flirting, will you finally put some color into me?” Jaemin interrupted, grinning widely. “That’s what she said,” you mumbled under your breath, making Johnny chuckle. “All you need to do is ask, darling.” Before you could even wrap your mind around what the tattoo artist had just implied, he had already rolled back over to your blue haired friend to take a look at the hummingbird. “Alright let’s do this,” he grinned before wiping down the skin once more. The buzzing of a new machine filled the room and Jaemin scrunched his eyes shut when the needle dipped in turquoise ink met his skin. “This is nasty,” he complained. “Don’t be a baby,” Johnny murmured, dragging the needle over your friend’s skin that accepted the ink quickly. “You want to hold my hand?” You giggled. What you didn’t expect was for Jaemin to actually reach out to you with his unoccupied arm, making a grabby hand. “Jeno always holds my hand,” he whined. “You’re such a big baby, Nana,” you sighed but still laced your fingers together, yelping loudly when Jaemin squeezed down hard. “You said it didn’t even hurt, you big liar,” you squeezed out between gritted teeth. “You’re not the one getting stabbed,” Jaemin argued, “That shit hurts different than the black.” “It’s a different needle,” Johnny explained, “People usually say it hurts less than outlines though.” “It’s not more or less, it’s just different.” “Well it’s going to hurt more if you keep seizing up like that, relax.” “You’re one to fucking talk,” Jaemin sounded upset. “Don’t curse at me for giving you a pretty tattoo,” Johnny just said, dipping his needle into the little pot that held the color again. “Talk him through it,” the artist said to you, looking up from behind his glasses that had slipped down his nose again.

“Hey, remember that time when Donghyuck was so drunk he wanted to jump from the roof into the pool at that frat house?” You quickly said, the silly story coming to mind first. The memory made Jaemin giggle. “Jeno and Mark had so much trouble holding him back once he managed to climb out of the window,” the blue haired boy chuckled. “They were lucky they didn’t fall off.” “That would have made for an even better story though,” Jaemin laughed. “They could have hurt themselves,” you said, scandalized, “You’re hanging out with Renjun too much.” Jaemin didn’t answer, instead he just hummed and wiggled his dark eyebrows.

“Did you ever go to college?” You asked Johnny out of curiosity even though Jaemin had said that the artist preferred to keep quiet and concentrate on his work. “Do I look like I went?” He just laughed, cocking one of his stupidly perfect eyebrows at you when he looked up. “Well, I didn’t want to assume,” you shied away under his gaze. “I dropped out of high school to learn tattooing,” Johnny shared while painting Jaemin’s skin as blue as his hair, “I wasn’t good in school anyways. So art school or something wasn’t an option either. Not that I would have had any money for that.” “What made you want to pick up tattooing then?” You asked curiously. “Art usually is very temporarily and if you make a mistake, you can just erase it or paint over it with another color. Not so much with tattoos. I like that. It’s immortal as long as you don’t start shooting lasers at it.” “I’ve never thought about it like that,” you confessed. Tattooing had never seemed like art to you but that was exactly what it was. Just not on a canvas but under your skin. “Thinking about getting one now?” Jaemin teased, squeezing your hand that he still held. “I haven’t even told my parents about the piercing,” you scoffed, “They would disown me.” “Well too bad, I know a pretty good tattoo artist,” he joked and poked his tongue out. “Do you now?” Johnny asked, a grin on his lips, wiping down Jaemin’s arm before going in with a lighter color. “Yeah, he works in this shady ass shop in Itaewon and I am pretty sure you can buy drugs there as well.” “Those are not for sale,” the artist chuckled when he saw your scandalized expression. “It’s just anesthetics for certain piercing procedures, calm down doll.” “So sadly, it turns out you can’t buy drugs at their shop but it still looks shady and I’m pretty sure they’re paying part of the mafia so the police won’t come to investigate.” “I know nothing of transactions of this sort,” Johnny commented before you could get an actual heart attack. Illegally tattooing and piercing was one thing but mingling with the mafia was a whole other thing. “Anyways, he does pretty cool tattoos and pierces as well,” Jaemin continued, a grin on his lips, “Also talking male to male here, he’s pretty ripped.” At that Johnny started grinning as well. “Wanna know his name?” Jaemin asked you when Johnny turned to clean his needle and you just rolled your eyes but nodded, wondering what he was getting out of all of this. “It’s Jaehyun.” “Excuse me?” Johnny exclaimed with wide eyes when both you and your blue haired friend started laughed at his stupid joke. “This kid,” he mumbled and shook his head before putting the needle back to Jaemin’s skin who seemed to have forgotten to whine about the pain.

The rest of the appointment was spend with you and Jaemin chatting about this and that and a short video call from a red eyed Jeno who had finished his shift at the cat café and wanted to apologize and promised to buy you two dinner after you were done. “I think that’s all I can do for today,” Johnny said after he had stared at the little hummingbird for a while, “Your skin took the color well but if I do any more, I’ll stress the skin too much. I can go in another time if I need to fix anything.” Jaemin nodded, sitting up so he could inspect the colorful hummingbird in the mirror. “Wow that looks sick,” he commented, his eyes going wide, “Totally worth the pain.” “That’s what I wanna hear,” the artist grinned, grabbing some paper towels to rub the tattoo down once more. “Let me snap a picture to post.”

After both men had taken about 20 photos each, Johnny quickly wrapped Jaemin’s arm in plastic wrap, reminding him how to take care of it. “Text me for the next session, I think we could fit some pretty roses at the bottom. Maybe add a dash of color here and there or other animals,” the artist smiled, slipping the glasses off his nose, gently placing them on the table. “I’ll think about it but first I gotta slave away behind the bar to make more money,” Jaemin sighed, shrugging his jacket back on. “And you darling?” Johnny asked, putting on his confident smile again. “When will I see you again?” You just stared at him, at a loss for an answer. Did he really want to see you again? But before you could even open your mouth, Jaemin had already pulled your phone from your grasp, unlocked it and shoved it towards Johnny. “Put your number in already,” he sighed and rolled his eyes dramatically. Laughing, Johnny did as your friend had said. “Very smooth, Jaem.” “I- I guess I’ll text you,” you stuttered when Johnny gave your phone back, your fingers tingling where his touched yours. “I’ll be waiting, darling,” he winked, raking a hand through his inky strands. “Alright, time to leave, before you start drooling,” Jaemin destroyed the intense atmosphere and grabbed your arm to pull you back to the main room and out of the parlor, leaving a laughing Johnny behind in his room.

“I wasn’t even drooling, what the fuck Jaemin,” you argued when you were outside, your phone clutched to your chest. “Stop complaining, I got you his number, you should be thankful,” he just grinned, absolutely shameless, tugging you along through the little street. “I will not thank you for embarrassing me in front of him,” you pouted, unlocking your phone to confirm that Johnny had indeed put his number into the contacts with a little black heart behind his name.

“Is it too early to text him?” You asked when you and Jaemin sat in the subway on the way to his and Jeno’s dorm to take him up on his offer for food. Your friend just laughed at you, making an elderly man scowl at the two of you, who shook his head in disapproval. Well, Jaemin’s visuals didn’t help him when he acted like this in public. But as long as he didn’t care, you wouldn’t care either. “Text him after we’ve eaten,” he advised you. “Then you don’t seem as desperate as you are,” he added, which earned him a punch to his not tattooed arm.

All through dinner, Jaemin retold every embarrassing moment that happened at the tattoo parlor, making Jeno laugh so hard that he almost choked on his rice. You really needed to find new friends. These ones were just harassing you at this point. (Aside from the fact that Jaemin had indeed managed to get you Johnny’s number, you’d thank him later when he couldn’t make fun at you.)

Later that night, you laid in bed in your own dorm room, staring at the screen of your phone. Your fingers were hovering over the keyboard but you really couldn’t think of what you should text Johnny. You didn’t want to seem weird. With how confident he was, he probably did this a lot and you were too proud to make a fool of yourself. Groaning you tossed and turned in your bed for a while, still staring at the empty chat box that by now must be mocking you for your cowardice. Sighing you typed out another short message to immediately delete it again. Should you just send him a simple ‘Hi’ or ask him if he had eaten? How the rest of his day went? In moments like this you whished you were more confident in yourself.

The sound of an incoming message suddenly filled the room and made you jerk. When you saw Johnny’s name on the screen, your heart first stopped for a second before it started beating about three times as fast as it should. How did that happen? With shaking hands you unlocked the phone to see that you in fact didn’t delete the last message but accidentally send it. Luckily it wasn’t as embarrassing as it could have been and Johnny had just answered that he was glad that you had finally texted him. Before you could think of an answer he sent another text asking you why you were still awake this late when he expected you to be a ‘good girl’. You could practically hear his smirk and you couldn’t fight the heat that rose to your cheeks. You replied that you were already in bed and were about to sleep if he was concerned about your sleep pattern that honestly wasn’t the greatest ever since the semester had started. ‘Oh, sexting already’ he replied, making you shriek in embarrassment. Was this what your message had looked like? ‘You alone?’ He asked and with a furiously beating heart you answered with a simple yes.

A couple of seconds went by with no answer from him which definitely didn’t lower your anxiety before the loud sound of your ringtone tore through the silence, Johnny’s name on the display. You quickly answered it to not wake up anyone on your floor, pressing it tightly to your ear. “Hello?” “Good evening, miss,” you heard the rumble of Johnny’s voice, “Missed me already?” “You’re the one who called,” you argued, making the man on the other end of the line giggle. “That is true.” “Why did you call?” You asked curiously, shifting to lie down on your back, staring at the ceiling. “Just wanted some company. My last client just left and I’m cleaning up the shop for today, the others already left,” he explained. “Jaehyun and Taeyong?” “Yeah those two guys,” he sighed and you heard him rummaging in the background. “Is it just you three at the shop?” “Yeah, it was just me and Taeyong at first but Jaehyun is an incredibly quick learner once he had found someone who was willing to teach him a thing or two. So he quickly joined the two of us.” You just hummed, your fingers playing with your hair, unsure of what to say. It was somehow easier to talk to him like this when you couldn’t see his eyes twinkle in mischief or his lips curling up in that confident smirk. Like this he was just a boy who wanted company and not an insanely handsome, heavily tattooed man who flirted shamelessly. “Do you usually work this late?” You asked to fill the silence and out of curiosity as well. If the shop wasn’t legal there sure weren’t any laws regulating how long the artists were supposed to work. “I don’t,” Johnny laughed, “But thank you for your concern. I was just tattooing a friend for free after my last paying client left because he was in the area.” “You do that a lot? Offering up your services for free?” “Just for friends and special people, doll,” he chuckled, “Why? Are you considering getting inked after all?”

Well were you? You didn’t even know at this point. Whenever you had thought of tattoos you had only ever thought about big bold and very black lines, of skulls, names of exes on your skin forever and warped pictures of people’s faces. But never of delicate flowers, bright colors and intricate designs. Johnny had made it obvious that it was art that he was doing and that it wasn’t just some technical procedure to get color beneath your skin. “I- I don’t know,” you confessed, “I never thought much about tattoos until Jaemin started getting them.” “I thought so,” the artist chuckled, “But I bet I could design a pretty piece that would compliment you nicely.” “I don’t think I’m the type for it though,” you argued, thinking about the amount of ink on Johnny’s body and you hadn’t even seen half of it. (Not that you planned on doing so but you were curious to know if there was more hiding beneath his clothes.) “It doesn’t have to be an obvious one. Just something only you know about.” That really got you thinking. His tattoos were really delicate and you had seen that he could write in really pretty cursive. “I don’t want to pressure you into anything, darling. But if you ever want one, you know who to ask.”

“Yeah, thank you Johnny,” you murmured, lost in thought about how you would look like with multiple tattoos. “I like the way you say my name.” “You- what?” You stuttered when he caught you off guard like that, making him laugh. “You’re cute,” he said once he had calmed down. “Stop pouting,” he added when you weren’t answering. “How did you know I was?” Johnny chuckled again. “I just knew.” “Thank you for keeping me company,” he said when you hadn’t said anything in a while. “It’s alright. I like talking to you,” you confessed. You could hear a door closing and his deep chuckle on the other end of the line. “You probably hear that a lot…” you murmured, embarrassed at how the words had slipped past your lips. “I actually don’t,” Johnny said, “I appreciate the words, darling. I’m all done cleaning up now, thank you for keeping me company.” “It’s fine, no need to thank me.” “You should go sleep now, it’s already late. Sweet dreams, doll. Maybe I’ll even visit you.” “Goodnight, Johnny,” you squeaked. The last thing you heard before he ended the call was another chuckle and a hushed goodbye. Smiling widely you turned your face into your pillow to muffle the scream you let out. How could this man make your heart beat faster like that with just a few simple words? And why did this short phone call make you so happy? Sighing, you put your phone to your nightstand and cuddled tightly into your blanket, the thought of Johnny’s smooth voice guiding you to sleep where he indeed did visit you.

After that initial phone call, Johnny called you more and more often. Sometimes when he was on his lunch break and his colleagues were still working, sometimes later at night when your head was spinning from studying and he was cleaning up the shop. You two talked about your days, you complained about professors, deadlines and assignments and he told you about tattooing and his sometimes crazy clients. And every now and then Johnny would bring up his offer to tattoo you. Which made your thoughts spiral every single time. In class you would scroll through Johnny’s Instagram account, imagining what some of the intricate, more feminine designs would look like on your skin. After much consideration you definitely ruled out anything big or colorful. But something small wouldn’t hurt, right? Well it would, you would be giving him permission to stab you with an automated needle a bunch of times which in itself sounded really scary. But Jaemin’s tattoo looked nice. And after his skin had peeled, the hummingbird truly looked absolutely incredible and you couldn’t wait for him to visit the shop again to keep working on the sleeve.

So in a whim of bravery and with the help of the little glass of wine you had drank you told Johnny that he should tattoo you. “Are you for real?” He asked. “I am,” you giggled, “I’ve thought about it a lot the past weeks.” “I am honored, darling. What will it be?” “Something small and no colors please,” you told him. “That’s all you’re asking for?” “Yeah, I… I like the simple black stuff you do,” you stuttered, suddenly really nervous and unsure if this was actually a good idea. “I’ll design something that’ll match you perfectly,” Johnny promised, sounding very eager. You could hear some rummaging on his end of the line. “I could fit you in Friday evening after my last client. It won’t be too late and I need some time to come up with a design that’s worthy of being in your body.” You swallowed dryly. If you said yes, you couldn’t back out anymore. You would be getting inked. Secretly. Without telling anyone. Not to mention illegally. In a reasonably shady shop that was owned by the most gorgeous man you had ever met. Taking a deep breath, you nodded before you realized that he couldn’t see that. “I’ll be there,” you promised. “I’m looking forward to it, doll,” Johnny said before he wished you sweet dreams just like every time when he called you late at night.

The neon light in front of the door to the shop was already shut off when you arrived the next Friday late in the evening but the door gave away when you pushed it open with trembling hands after taking a deep breath. “I thought you weren’t going to come, darling, you left me waiting,” Johnny greeted you, jumping down from the counter he had sat on. He was wearing a simple black t-shirt with a little white rose design over his heart that fit him perfectly. His hair was elegantly swept back, exposing the freshly shaved part on the side. “I’m sorry,” you mumbled, fumbling with the sleeves of your hoodie. “Don’t be nervous, I’ll take good care of you,” he promised, quickly locking the front door before taking you to his room where he motioned for you to sit on the bench. “Do you trust me?” He asked, tipping your head up so you would look into his dark eyes. “I- I think I do,” you stuttered. “I won’t tell you what you’re getting,” Johnny grinned and your eyes widened in shock. “You will like it and it’s not that big.” “I’m not sure, Johnny,” you voiced your concerns but he just pressed his index finger to your lips before you could say any more. Your breath hitched and he could definitely feel your shaky exhale against his finger. “You said you trust me, doll.” Taking another shaky breath, you nodded and a smile spread over his plush lips. “I need you to take off your shirt and lie down on your left side,” he spoke, his voice casual but you could feel something shift in the air between you. At a loss for words you just nodded again and did as Johnny asked when he turned around to gather his stuff.

“Take a couple of deep breaths for me, darling,” he instructed you when he rolled over on his little stool, his glasses sitting low on his nose and his hands already gloved. “It’s going on your ribs,” he told you so you wouldn’t flinch when he quickly dragged a razor over the area before disinfecting it. “I’ll draw a quick sketch first. I don’t want to mess it up when it’s going on your beautiful skin.” You felt the tip of his pen meet your skin in a gentle stroke, tickling your skin so you had to giggle. “Don’t make me mess this up, baby,” Johnny scolded, playfully slapping your back. “It tickles,” you pouted. “I’m trying to be gentle with you,” he said and you could hear the smile in his voice. While he was sketching, you closed your eyes, trying to figure out what he was drawing. But all you could figure out was that it was something rather small which calmed your nerves a bit.

“All done,” the tattoo artist announced after a while and quickly pulled his little side table with his tattoo gun and ink closer. When the low buzzing noise filled the air, you pressed your eyes shut even tighter, balling your hands into fists. Technically you knew it wouldn’t hurt badly, Johnny had shown you before. But you were still getting stabbed a bunch of times and fuck, you were really doing this. Letting this man put something on your body that was going to be there forever and you didn’t even know what it was going to be. “Relax, darling. I’ll be as gentle as I can be,” he promised, running a hand up and down your back. “It’s going to be on me forever,” you said. “It is. Your own personal piece of art on your body. Just for you to have.” That was a beautiful way to see it, you thought. It’s not just some pigment stabbed into your skin but art. Something unique no one else had. And Johnny would be painting it on just you for you and you alone. “Okay, let’s do this,” you breathed. “That’s my good girl,” Johnny praised and the words made your stomach twist with a feeling you didn’t want to further explore.

The pain was bearable. It was weird at first and the ribs sure hurt more than it had on your arm and the bones somehow seemed to amplify the buzzing, making it travel through your body. You had to grit your teeth when Johnny went over what seemed to be the middle part of the tattoo, where he grazed the skin in quick successions. “That hurts.” “I know, baby. But you’re almost done. You’re doing so well for me,” he soothed and gave you a small break to breathe before he went back in.

“All done, darling,” Johnny announced a little later, turning off his machine and rubbing the tattoo down with a wet paper towel. “Can I see it now?” You asked. “In a bit, keep your eyes closed,” he spoke softly and took your hands in his now ungloved ones to first guide you into a sitting position and then off the bench and over to what you assumed to be the mirror. He turned you so your side was facing the glass and put one of his big hands on your waist. It felt hot on your exposed skin and made goosebumps break out on your skin. “Open your eyes, doll.” You did and looked directly into his dark chocolate brown eyes behind his glasses. “I’m too scared to look now, is that silly?” You asked, losing yourself in his eyes and leaning towards his body that just seemed to radiate heat. “It’s beautiful, just like you,” he assured you, squeezing your waist reassuringly. After taking a deep breath, you tore your gaze away from him and turned to look at yourself in the mirror where a delicate, black chrysanthemum was awaiting you on the skin over your ribs. It indeed looked beautiful, absolutely stunning. It was small but looked so delicate and realistic and fit well with the curves of your body. “It’s stunning,” you whispered.

“Thank you, Johnny.” “No need to thank me, darling,” he chuckled and when your eyes met again, his were dark and almost hungry. “But I think I should reward you for being so good while I tattooed you.” Before you could ask what kind of reward he was talking about, he had already connected your lips in a passionate kiss and pulled your body flush against his. You couldn’t help but sigh now that you finally knew what the metal of his lip piercing felt like against your lips. Johnny was a good kisser and you were boneless in his strong grip not long after he had slipped his tongue past your lips after you had moaned into the kiss when he had started to push you backwards to the bench again, hoisting you back up. “Let me make up for the pain I’ve caused you,” he breathed against your swollen lips when you broke apart to breathe. “Just keep kissing me like that,” you demanded, burying your hands in his soft black locks to kiss him again. He chuckled and let you dominate the kiss for a while, toying with the black ring in his lip and exploring his mouth. Meanwhile Johnny’s hands started to wander from their place on your waist down to grope at your ass, pulling you forward against him, so you could feel his growing erection between your legs which made a spark of arousal shoot through you.

“Let me make you feel good, baby,” he breathed heavily while kissing down your neck, gently taking the skin between his teeth. “Please Johnny,” you begged, feeling the arousal simmer low in your stomach. Grinning he pulled back and raked his dark eyes over your figure before making quick work of your belt and sliding your jeans along with your panties from your legs, only shortly struggling with your shoes. “It’s not Johnny now, baby,” he rasped when he kneeled down in front of you, pulling you towards him roughly, so your glistening core was exposed to him. “It’s Daddy,” he added before licking a broad stripe through your folds and flicking his tongue at your clit. You could just mewl and throw your head back in pleasure. You didn’t know that this would be such a turn on for you. “Say it, baby,” Johnny demanded, lazily dragging his tongue over your sensitive bundle of nerves. “Please Daddy,” you whimpered and you could feel his low groan vibrating against your core. He wasted no time to attach his plush lips to your clit, gently sucking and grazing his teeth over the little nub, making you mewl and shiver in pleasure. He definitely knew what he was doing, altering between stimulating your clit to the point where it almost became too much before he focused on dragging his tongue through your folds, gently prodding against your entrance before it gave away. When Johnny moaned you could feel it travel straight through you, making your head swim with pleasure. Looking down to the man kneeling in front of you, you were met with his dark eyes, staring straight up into yours. Moaning, you threaded your fingers into his soft hair and pressed his face closer to your core, not even taking the chance that he could move back. “Feels so good, Daddy,” you moaned when he spread your labia with his fingers so his tongue could dive deeper into you, stimulating your velvety walls. When he hummed it send sweet vibrations through your core and you could feel your orgasm approach almost embarrassingly fast. “Mmmh, so close Daddy.” “You wanna cum, baby?” He rasped, his hot breath fanning over your clit that he was lazily rubbing with two fingers. You bit your lip and met his dark eyes, nodding furiously. “Then beg for it, doll. I could stay here for hours,” Johnny spoke before he turned his head to mouth at your thigh, gently biting and sucking at the sensitive skin until it bruised under his ministrations. “I would just keep you right on the edge for hours until you’re a shaking mess for me, begging for release.” His lips split into a wicked grin when he saw how his dirty words affected you and he slowed his fingers on your clit until it was just enough to keep you stimulated but not enough to make the knot in your stomach snap. “Please Daddy,” you whimpered. “Please what baby?” He rested his head on your thigh, looking up at you from innocent eyes as if he wasn’t driving you insane with just his fingers. “What is it beautiful?” He repeated the question, replacing his fingers with his tongue. “You wanna cum?” “Yes please,” you whined, grinding your hips against his tongue to get more friction. “Well if you ask so nicely…” Johnny immediately slipped two fingers inside you with almost no resistance from how ridiculously wet you were and began pumping them in and out of your core fast, crooking them to search for your sweet spot. “Come on baby,” he growled, locking eyes with you again when he closed his lips around your clit. Almost screaming his name, you came hard when his fingers finally found your sweet spot, rubbing at it mercilessly to help you ride out your orgasm. Your thighs were shaking and you fell back onto the bench, the leather sticking to your back where you just laid for a while, your head spinning, breathing heavily.

“You look gorgeous like that,” Johnny complimented you, when he got back up from the floor, raking his clean hand through the mess that was his hair before he shamelessly took his fingers that were covered in your essence into his mouth, sucking them clean. Through half lidded eyes you could see the way he was still straining against the fabric of his jeans and the sight made your mouth water. “You’re still hard,” you said breathless. “I am,” he said matter of factly. You wordlessly let your thighs fall open for him, exposing your core to him. “Oh baby,” Johnny cursed, pressing the heel of his palm against his bulge, “As much as I want to fuck you right now, you still have a fresh tattoo, doll.” “Please, Johnny, I want it,” you begged. “Shh, baby,” he soothed you rubbing a hand over your thigh, “Let me dress that tattoo and then I’ll take you upstairs to fuck you on an actual bed like you deserve.” You nodded, amazed by his amount of self-control.

Johnny worked quickly and efficiently: Cleaning your tattoo one last time before putting some ointment on it to keep it moisturized. At last he gently taped down a small sheet of plastic foil to keep it safe. “All done, beautiful,” he spoke before pecking your lips, “You still want to come upstairs with me?” “Yes Daddy,” you answered and you swore you could see his eyes darken just from the word alone. “Hold on tightly,” he ordered before scooping you up into his arms, holding you up by your thighs. Squealing you quickly wrapped your arms and legs around him, holding on tightly. “I’ll get your clothes before we open up tomorrow,” he mumbled when he carried you through the back door of the shop that lead to a dusty staircase. You pressed your body closer to his, nuzzling your face into his neck where the smell of his cologne was the strongest, to have some of his warmth seep into your skin when you started to shiver from the cold air. Lazily you let your lips travel over his skin, sucking a mark next to a splash of ink.

Johnny quickly grabbed the keys to his apartment’s door from atop of the doorframe (not really safe) and unlocked his door while holding you up with just one of his arms, the display of strength making your head spin. With quick steps he crossed the way to his bed and gently laid you down on the soft sheets, immediately crawling on top of you, crowding you against the mattress. “I knew you would look good in my bed,” he rasped, kissing your neck while his hands made quick work of the bra that you were still wearing for some reason. “You’re gorgeous, doll,” he breathed after he had sat up on his knees, looking down at you with dark eyes, his big hands roaming your body. Feeling shy under all the attention and compliments he was giving you, you tried to hide your face behind your fingers but he wasn’t having any of it, quickly grabbing your wrists in one hand to pin them above your head. “Don’t hide from me baby. Daddy wants to see how much you’re enjoying yourself.” You could just nod, trying to force down the whimper that almost spilled past your lips, he hadn’t even done much yet and you were already feeling arousal pulse through your veins. “I couldn’t hear your answer,” Johnny teased, gently grabbing one of your boobs to massage the soft flesh. “Yes, Daddy.” “That’s my good girl,” he grinned, releasing your wrists to slip his T-Shirt over his head, revealing his strong chest where the eagle majestically spread its wings and the hard lines of his abs. “Like what you see?” He asked smugly, climbing off the bed to unbuckle his belt and slip his jeans off his narrow hips, revealing strong, muscled thighs. One of them was covered with the face of a growling panther while the other was decorated with a colorful koifish tattoo that disappeared beneath the fabric of his dark boxers that were doing very little to hide a prominent bulge. “Let me,” you breathed and crawled over to hook your thumbs into the waistband. But before you pulled them down, you pressed a couple of kisses to the cherry blossom branch tattoo that seemed to stretch from his back over his hipbone and further down, mingling with the koi tattoo further down. With every centimeter of skin you exposed, more ink from the blossoms became visible and you kissed every single one of the delicate flowers. When his length finally sprang free, you had to swallow dryly: His cock was huge and hung heavy between his legs. Licking your lips you looked up to him, to find him grinning down at you. “Go to town, baby.”

He didn’t need to tell you twice, you were itching to feel his heavy weight on your tongue. You pressed a sweet kiss to his tip before placing a hand at the base only to find him surprisingly soft as you experimentally pumped your hand once. “It takes a while for it to get fully hard,” he groaned when you moved your hand up and down his shaft a couple of times, feeling it pulse beneath your fingers. Damn if he wasn’t even fully hard, how big would he be if he was? Holding him at the base, you licked a broad stripe up the whole length before you swiped your tongue around the pink head, pulling another groan from Johnny’s lips. Taking a deep breath, you finally took him in your mouth and hollowed your cheeks, tasting his skin. The weight on your tongue felt just right and you couldn’t help but moan as you slowly started to take more and more of him until you felt him hit the back of your throat. Shit, you were barely able to fit half of his length in your mouth like this. “You’re so big,” you moaned when you pulled off of him with a wet pop, spreading your saliva down the shaft with both of your hands. Johnny just hummed and grabbed a handful of your hair to shove your mouth back onto his dick. He cursed when the velvety heat surrounded him again and gently began to thrust in and out your mouth. “Fuck you look so good with my cock in your mouth,” he breathed heavily. You could only moan where your lips were stretched around his length and hollow your cheeks when he pulled out, the grip he had on your hair keeping you in place while he snapped his hips. “Shit baby,” Johnny cursed when he pulled out, panting while he rested the head of his cock on your outstretched tongue. “I could cum like this.” You whined pathetically, looking up at him with pleading eyes. He chuckled and gently slapped his cock against your lips, smearing them with precum. “But you don’t want that, don’t you, baby? You want my cock inside you? Stretching you out?” “Yes Daddy, please. I need it so bad,” you blabbered, not even knowing where those words were coming from but you seemed to have said the right thing with how Johnny’s dick twitched in his hand.

“Then get on your hands and knees for me, baby. Ass up.” It was almost comically how fast you complied, baring yourself to him. “Such a good girl,” he praised, grabbing your asscheeks to knead and pull them apart. “Beautiful.” “Please Daddy,” you begged him, arching your back further. “Patience baby,” he chuckled. A frustrated groan got stuck in your throat and turned into a drawn out whine when he pushed two of his fingers inside you, pumping them quickly and curling them to find your sweet spot again. Soon two fingers became three and he had reduced you to a moaning mess with how he abused your sweet spot once he had found it again. “You think you’re ready for my cock, baby?” “Yes. Oh god, yes please,” you begged while shamelessly grinding back on his fingers that he had stilled inside of you. “Spread your cheeks for me,” he ordered while quickly grabbing a condom from his bedside table and rolling it onto his cock. Balancing your weight on your knees and shoulders, you reached around yourself to pull your asscheeks apart so Johnny could see your core clenching around nothing. “You’re such a good girl for me,” he rasped, running his palm along the curve of your body while lazily thrusting his cock through your folds, making it glisten with your essence. Finally you could feel him nudging at your entrance with the thick head of his cock. “You want it, baby?” “Yes please Daddy,” you gasped, trying hard to be good and not grind back against him. “You’re such a good girl for me,” he chuckled, “And good girls get what they want if they ask so politely.” With that he finally sank into you in one agonizingly slow thrust until you could feel his hip bones press against your skin. You had to screw your eyes shut and bite your lip to suppress a whimper. You had never felt so full before.

“Fuck baby, you’re so tight,” Johnny groaned, grabbing you by the dip of your waist with his big hands, grinding you on his cock. “I’m so full, Daddy,” you gasped when he slowly pulled out until only the head of his cock was inside you before he languidly thrust back in. “Yeah? You like that? Being stuffed full of my cock?” You could only moan and nod where your head was pressed into the sheets. His cock was so big that it seemed to press against every good spot that was inside you, setting your nerve endings on fire, the pain from being stretched like that only adding to your pleasure. “You‘re sucking me right back in baby,” he cursed and gripped your waist harder, pulling you back on his cock as he picked up the pace, low groans falling from his lips. Your moans got progressively louder and louder the faster Johnny snapped his hips. “Hands behind your back, baby,” he ordered panting and immediately grabbed both your wrists in his hands to use them as leverage so he could fuck into you faster, the change of angle and pace making you moan his name. Your head was swimming with pleasure and you could only moan and mewl beneath him, imagining how he would bite his lip while watching his dick disappear inside you over and over again, stretching out the delicate skin of your sex. “God baby, your ass looks amazing,” Johnny groaned, praise after praise falling from his lips that reduced you to a moaning mess.

With one particularly hard thrust he buried himself to the hilt inside you and draped his body over yours, his hot breath fanning over your face when he spoke, a deep rumble in his chest while grinding his dick right against your sweet spot that had you seeing colors behind your closed eyes. “Wanna see you bounce on my dick, doll. Can you do that for me?” Taking a deep breath, you nodded. Your ability to form coherent sentences had left you as soon as he had begun to fuck you in earnest. “You’re such a good girl,” he purred and gently pulled out, making you whimper from the loss. You felt the bed dip next to you and when you opened your eyes, you were met with Johnny’s pleased smirk as he leaned against the headboard of the bed, his cock resting against his hip, too heavy to properly stand up and you couldn’t stop another whimper. “Come on baby, I know you want it,” he grinned, crooking a finger in a ‘come closer’ motion. Dragging your limbs from beneath you with great effort, you climbed onto his lap, immediately claiming his lips in a messy kiss. You buried your hands in his stupidly perfect hair to mess it up and tug at the inky strands, causing Johnny to moan into the kiss. “Hmm, my baby is feisty,” he chuckled when he broke the kiss, the pupils of his dark eyes blown so wide that they seemed almost black. “But you promised me to ride my dick,” he reminded you. “And I’m gonna,” you slurred, reaching between your bodies to grab his cock, giving it a couple of strokes. “But turn around for me baby. Wanna see how much my fat cock is going to stretch you out,” he rasped, playfully biting your lips. “But I want to see you too,” you complained. “Oh you can,” he grinned and pointed over your shoulder. You reluctantly turned around before you saw what he meant. Right across from the bed was a big mirror and you gasped because of how fucked out you already looked. A couple of tears had rolled down your cheeks and messed up your makeup and your lipstick was smeared around your lips.

You carefully grabbed Johnny’s cock again and held it steady so you could sink down on him, watching yourself in the mirror until you sat snug on his lap and had to close your eyes because the feeling was so overwhelming. He felt even bigger like that. “You okay, baby?” He asked, grabbing your hips tightly to help you swivel them on his cock, making it press into your walls just how you liked it. “How does your cock feel even bigger like this?” You gasped as you leaned forward and slowly started to ride him at first to get used to his size and figure out the best angle for you. Your legs shook with the effort to keep your rhythm but the look Johnny had on his face, his eyes glued to where you two were connected, made it worth it. Suddenly a wicked grin spread on his lips and he snapped his hips up when you lowered yourself again, tearing loud moans from both of you. “Fuck, do that again,” you demanded when you raised your hips again. “What’s the magic word?” Johnny teased, holding you up so you wouldn’t drop down again. “Please, Daddy.” Groaning he started to snap his hips up every time you ground down on him, making your skin slap together with an obscene noise.

God you wanted to die on his dick. “Do you now?” Johnny laughed. Shit did you say that out loud? “Want to feel how deep it goes inside you?” He rasped, wrapping his strong arms around your waist. You went lax in his hold and mewled helplessly. Who knew that a little display of strength and a big dick were such turn ons for you that your brain was reduced to mush. Grinning he carefully pulled you up and against his chest and draped your legs over his after he had planted his feet firmly onto the mattress. “Watch, baby,” he ordered as he lifted you off of him until only the tip was barely inside you anymore before letting you drop down again. You mewled and thrashed in his hold, the feeling just on the edge of too much. Feeling him deep inside you was one thing but actually seeing it was a whole other thing and it messed with your head. Curiously you pressed your hand down on your lower stomach when Johnny had started to piston his hips up into you instead of dropping you down onto his cock every time and you swore you could feel him move inside you. A drawn out curse left your lips and you threw your head back onto his shoulder.

With the way he was snapping his hips up you could feel your orgasm approach at lightning speed and you were so far gone that you shamelessly reached between your legs to stimulate your clit. “Fuck baby, you’re so hot like this,” Johnny groaned, grinding his dick inside you as you quickly rubbed your clit, toeing right on the edge. “Please Daddy,” you cried out, not sure what you were even begging for. “You gonna cum on my cock?” He rasped, snapping his hips harshly, “Wrapped around my big cock stretching you out like this?” You nodded your head furiously, your eyes screwed shut. You were so close that you could already feel your toes curling. “Show me baby. Show Daddy how good his cock makes you feel.” That’s what pushed you over the edge, the way he was panting in your ear, his voice strained from how he was drilling into you. The coil in your stomach snapped and you almost screamed his name, your body curling inwards and thighs shivering as your orgasm washed over you, making a bunch of colors explode behind your lids. In the back of your mind you registered Johnny’s curses and how he was grinding his cock inside you to help you ride out your orgasm. “Such a good girl,” he praised when your body went lax on top of him, your chest heaving with heavy breaths. You briefly wondered if you had ever cum this hard and you couldn’t think of any other time. “Thank you Daddy,” you panted, turning your face to press a messy kiss to his plush lips that were bitten raw. He chuckled lowly when you whimpered when his still hard cock shifted when you tried to turn around.

“Will you let me fuck you for a little longer, baby?” He asked, running a hand through your sweaty hair. Instead of answering him, you lifted yourself off his dick to turn around on his lap, capturing his lips again. “Want you to ruin me,” you whispered between kisses, “Want you to ruin me for any other men. Want to only remember how you feel inside of me.” Johnny growled deep in his chest before he pushed you down onto the bed, hungrily licking into your mouth. “You’re the one who is ruining me,” he panted, rising to his knees. He quickly grabbed your legs and threw them over his shoulders before he sank into you again with a low groan. This time he didn’t waste any time with building up the pace and immediately snapped his hips harshly, chasing his own orgasm. “You’re taking me so well, baby,” he panted, folding your thighs to your chest so he could push into you even deeper, making you see stars with how he was nailing your sweet spot with the new angle. And even though you had just cum, you felt another orgasm build inside your stomach. A row of curses left Johnny’s lips when he could watch his dick slide in and out of you again and he gripped your thighs so hard you were sure you’d have bruises there tomorrow. But that was something you’d worry about later, right now your world was only made up of the handsome man with his huge cock that was currently rearranging your guts with how vigorously he was snapping his hips, making your skin slap together with lewd sounds.

“I’m gonna cum baby,” Johnny grunted, his hips losing their rhythm. “On me,” you managed to choke out, still lost in your own pleasure. Another groan left his bitten lips before he quickly pulled out and ripped the condom off, jerking his cock with quick strokes, his eyes fixed to yours. All it took was a couple of jerks before he threw his head back and you could see his abdominal muscles contract before the first burst of white hot cum spurted from his dick and covered your chest and stomach. With parted lips he stroked himself through his orgasm, milking rope after rope from his cock until he hissed with overstimulation. “Fuck,” he cursed before giggling when he saw the mess he had made of you, his cum dripping from your boobs and running down your stomach. He cursed again before claiming your lips. “You want to cum one last time, baby?” “Please Daddy,” you whined, spreading your legs further for him. “My good girl,” he sighed, sinking two fingers into your heat, quickly crooking them to stimulate your sweet spot while his thumb was putting sweet pressure on your clit, making you thrash beneath him. “You look so good covered in my cum,” he rasped before he kissed you harshly to swallow your moans and cries of pleasure. You desperately held on to his shoulders, breaking the kiss when your head was spinning from the lack of oxygen. While speeding up his fingers, Johnny began sucking bruises low on your neck and over the soft skin of your cleavage. “Shit, I’m gonna-“ you didn’t get to finish your sentence because right that moment he had sucked one of your nipples into his mouth which was just enough to send you over the edge for a third time that night, your lips parted in a silent scream of his name and your thighs shaking and closing around the handsome man kneeling between them. “That’s my good girl,” he praised breathily and gently rocked his fingers to help you ride out your orgasm before he pulled them out, instead winding his strong arms around your body, holding you to his inked chest.

For a while he just held you close, not caring that his cum was now also stuck to his chest. “Fuck that was a lot,” you chuckled, burying your face in the crook of his neck, inhaling his calming scent. “Not what you thought would happen when you get a free tattoo?” Johnny softly spoke, carding his hand through your messy hair. “Not at all.” Another question was burning inside your head but you were too scared to ask it. You didn’t want to push him and ruin the mood. “I should clean you up and see if that tattoo is still okay. Then we can cuddle, alright?” The tattoo artist said before he detangled your bodies from one another to get up from the bed. He looked around on the floor for a cloth and you could finally see where the cherry blossoms on his hip were coming from. A big samurai was stretched over half his back, surrounded by the pinkish blossoms. It seemed like it wasn’t a complete piece yet, the samurai staring at the still untouched skin of Johnny’s left shoulderblade. “Your back tattoo is really pretty,” you mumbled to fill the silence while Johnny was wiping his chest clean before he gently did the same to you, taking extra caution when looking at your still fresh tattoo. “Thank you,” he smiled, pressing a kiss to your forehead, the metal of his piercing feeling warm on your skin, “We should change that foil real quick.” You just nodded and let him do his work, exhaustion settling into your bones.

“Do you do this with all your clients?” Shit. You hadn’t meant to ask that, the question had just slipped your lips and you could feel Johnny freeze where he was dressing your tattoo again before he secured the last piece of tape. He sighed and slipped beneath the covers, pulling you against his chest, so you could listen to his heartbeat. “Not all of them,” he answered eventually, “I haven’t slept with a client in a while. It happens sometimes but usually I don’t think much about it.” “And now you do?” He just hummed nonchalantly, playing with your hair. “They usually don’t come back after I fuck them.” He paused, holding his breath. “Will you come back?” Your heart started to race and you could feel a bright smile spreading over your lips. “For more free tattoos and piercings?” “Oh, yeah, I guess,” he sounded so deflated, the confident tattoo artist suddenly gone. “You idiot,” you giggled, pillowing your head on his sternum so he could see the smile on your lips, “I like you Johnny. I’ll come back if you want me to.” Now he was also smiling, his features softening. “Don’t make jokes like that, my heart is fragile,” he joked, wrapping you up in his strong arms.

“Which one was your first one?” You asked him when the silence between you stretched while you traced the scales of the dragon that wound around his arm. “My first tattoo?” Johnny shifted around for a while before he showed you his other arm that had all kinds of different designs on it, some in bright colors, some strictly black. “That little guy over here,” he said with a smile on his lips and pointed to a little sunflower at the bend of his elbow, “To remind me to always look at the sun, at the bright side of life.” “It’s cute,” you breathed, touching the yellow petals. “And then it went downhill from there,” he chuckled, “It’s addicting.” “Let’s hope I can stay abstinent.” “What a shame, I’d love to cover you in my art,” Johnny confessed, tilting your face up so he could claim your lips in a kiss. “Maybe one or two more,” you breathed in between kisses, making him chuckle against your lips.

#kafenetwork #johnny #seo youngho #johnny suh #nct #johnny smut #johnny fluff #nct smut #johnny imagines #johnny scenarios #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct fic #johnny fic #johnny fanfic

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0junemeatcleaver0 · 3 years ago

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The Young And The Feckless: A Post I Never Thought I’d Make.

INTRODUCTION

The back half of that title might sound a bit dramatic, I know. But as someone who has viewed call out posts as something the kids do, finding myself putting so much effort into writing one when I have gray hair and a mortgage feels...pretty weird. So let me (briefly) explain.

@saint-molochaii (or as I’ll be referring to him in the remainder of this post, SM) first pinged my radar when I saw a post of his appear in the Vampire Chronicles tag here on Tumblr back in autumn. I was aware of him in a vague way—I had seen his gifs being reblogged here and there, but I had not until this point seen any personal posts from him, nor had I interacted with him on a one on one basis.

I won’t get into the specifics of this post as it has apparently since been deleted and as you can see, I have done my damnedest to back up everything I’m about to say with direct links. But what I will say about this post for context’s sake is that it rubbed me the wrong way, to say the least.

The post pertained to him attempting to be an ally in fighting racism in fandom (the VC fandom specifically), but it was fairly obvious to me by the tone of the post that he was going about it very poorly.

I didn’t feel like going to his blog to sift through for details and context, so I just rolled my eyes and kept scrolling. I could not have predicted that months later, I would be scrolling back through to March on his blog to try to gain context after he threw a shit fit that I did interact with (more on that later).

That interaction stuck in my craw for reasons I’ll get into later in this post. But the thing that stuck with me the most was the realization that the more I put off talking about the points he brought up in that post, the bigger my hypocrisy was becoming. In other words, I was mad at him for doing allyship wrong, and then refused to do the hard work of pointing out how and what went wrong with all that. That’s on me, that’s my bad.

Which brings us to the most important question of this section of the post: Who is this post for?

The first section of this post Bad Allyship: A Timeline of Events is for the fandom at large! It’s become apparent to me (for reasons that will become obvious over the course of this post) that people are currently nervous to talk about race in the VC Tumblr fandom space. And I get it, it can be tricky knowing how to speak about racism–how to talk to other white people about it as an ally. The first section will include resources and a primer on what not to do, using SM as an example. Because fuck having interesting, nuanced discussions about race in fiction being shut down by a performitive activist.

The second section of this post But Molochaii...You Know How This Looks, Right? are all the questions I still have for SM. Which won’t be answered, just as my initial question to him remains. But I’m a curious cat, so I’ll ask those questions anyway. While this bit of the post will be directed at him specifically, feel free to read it yourself or skip it as you see fit.

You may be wondering why the first section isn’t directed specifically toward SM, when I obviously think that he’s still got a lot to learn. That is because I do not think that SM is acting in good faith. You can feel free to disagree, but I think reading through both sections of this post will clue you into why that’s my feeling on the whole situation.

NOTE: This is absolutely not some call to action to go harass SM for being a bad faith actor within fandom while weaponizing allyship when facing even the most tepid pushback. This is simply someone entering a fandom, realizing there is a problem, and stating what the problem is. My advice would ultimately be to ignore him and block him if you feel you must. If you read all this and find yourself thirsting for the sight of some internet weirdo getting dunked on, I am sure he’ll show up in my askbox as an anon, at which point I will dunk on him as hard as I see fit to thus slaking that thirst. I’ll even come up with a tag for it. These types tend to react in the exact same ways when called out and well. Anon is still on. So. I can’t wait for him to prove me wrong </sarcasm>

And if you’d like a TL;DR version of what exactly happened to kick all this off, this now deactivated user summed it up perfectly back in September:

Bad Allyship: A Timeline of Events

When it comes to how to talk about racism as an ally, the guide we’ll be using for simplicity’s sake is dosomething.org’s “How White People Can Talk to Each Other About Disrupting Racism”. It’s a great, concise read and I would highly recommend it to any white person who claims the title ally and wishes to do the difficult work of anti-racist activism.

For a clear view of what being an ally actually means, we will be using The Guide to Allyship. https://guidetoallyship.com/

I highly recommend clicking through to read both of these links in their entirety, but for the sake of brevity (this is already such a long post), I will be posting the bits I’ll be pulling from the most here.

From dosomething.org:

Prepare For The Conversation

Understand why white people should have conversations with one another

Think about why you want to have this conversation.

Choose who you want to talk to and how

Establish goals for the conversation

Set expectations for yourself and your conversation partner

Also from dosomething.org:

Have The Conversation

DO start the conversation from a place of curiosity and care

DO lead with “I” statements

DO ask open ended questions

DON’T end the conversation at the first sign of discomfort

DO stay on topic

DON’T think you have to do this alone (IE: bring resources)

DO consider taking a pause and returning to the conversation at a different time if you feel like the conversation is moving more towards conflict and away from conversation.

From guidetoallyship.com:

To Be An Ally Is To...

Take on the struggle as your own

Transfer the benefits of your privilege to those who lack it

Amplify voices of the oppressed before your own

Acknowledge that even though you feel pain, the conversation is not about you

Stand up, even when you feel scared

Own your mistakes and de-center yourself

Understand that your education is up to you and no one else

Now, onto the bit where we learn by example. I present to you a case study in what not to do:

MAY 25

Amid rumors of a black man potentially being cast as Louis, SM makes a rather milquetoast, standard post to the fandom at large about not being racist about this decision.

The post itself is...fine. The tone isn’t overly condescending. He seemed to have a goal (getting out ahead of any racist shit that might be said about this decision). Not a bad post, but also nothing to write home about.

The only comment he gets that isn’t just immediate agreement is the following:

The reason I point out the fact that this is the only comment he got on this post that wasn’t just 100% agreeing with everything he said will become clear. Don’t worry.

AUGUST 25

SM admits to having already blocked all the racists on Tumblr and thus has not seen any racist activity on Tumblr where the VC fandom is concerned. Though he does say he’s still been seeing it on Facebook.

This appears to simply be a rant post, which is fair enough. The important part, though, is the admittance to blocking anyone he viewed to be racist on Tumblr.

I can’t know which point from our resources are behind his decision to block (was it “stand up, even when you feel scared” or “don’t end the conversation at the first sign of discomfort”?) I can’t possibly know what his reasoning was, just that claiming allyship only to block every person you think is racist on a platform is...a choice.

More tellingly, in an answer to an anon, he cops to being (direct quote) “incredibly bad at having limits”. We’ll get back to that later.

AUGUST 26

SM makes a fandom-wide appeal to any BIPOC fans to give him any hints on what to do as an ally about all the racism he’s seen in fandom, while alluding to having hateful anon messages in his askbox.

Understand that your education is up to you and no one else.

While I already had these resources bookmarked, they are not difficult to find on Google at all. 30 whole seconds at most. Anti-racist work looks just the same in fandom as out of it. The mechanics are the same. He could have asked Google this question instead of asking fans of color.

Moreover:

“Somewhere in the notes to the casting post, someone mentioned that blocking people isn’t helpful bc it only removes the issue from our (white people’s) end, not for existing in general, & that interaction & reporting was a better choice. I agree to an extent, except I’m not sure what arguing with people on tumblr accomplishes, the block button is open for anyone to use so?”

Notice that not only does he disregard the very good point this unnamed user brought up in the notes of the post he mentions, he also implies here that the only way he can envision having anti-racist conversations is in the form of arguments. Start the conversation from a place of curiosity and care. (Also lol-ing forever at ‘the block button is open for anyone to use’. #NotAllBlockButtons)

Sofipitch responds to tell him that it’s cool to just delete and block and all that.

SM agrees and shows just how unaware he is re: allyship work and his place in it.

In this reply he uses the word conversation once and it’s in quotations as though he thinks actually trying to understand why another white person might hold a racist belief so he can see how best to inform them of their ignorance is somehow beneath him and not...how allies are supposed to help dismantle racism?

SEPTEMBER 1

SM reblogs a post by I-Want-My-IWTV. IWMI answered an anon where they spoke about the rumors of black!Louis possibly being a brothel owner. It was a fairly nuanced post about all the possible pros and cons of that decision from a writing and representation perspective. Outside of that, it was a wholly unremarkable post.

SM’s whole problem with this post seemed to be that there’s a real racism problem in the VC fandom internet-wide, though it’s hard to tell because he never specifies on what platforms he’s having these difficulties speaking to other white people about this. (Remember: He admitted back in mid-August that he’s blocked everyone he thinks is racist here on Tumblr. So it would be safe to assume that he’s not speaking about here on Tumblr.)

Here we start to see the breakdown in communication really ramp up.

Part of the problem I think is that we’re all going to have our own definitions of ‘fandom’, as well as having limits to exactly how many platforms we use to participate in fandom.

I’ll use myself as an example. I only count people as being a part of fandom if they produce or interact with fanworks and/or participate in discussion about the work with other fans (headcanons and metas being an example of this). I also only have Tumblr as a personal social media account. This is the only place I interact with the fandom.

You may have a different definition. Perhaps to you, fandom is anyone who enjoys a piece of media to spend money on it and actively keeps up with news about the IP. And maybe you are active in fandom on all social media platforms.

All of that is fine. There’s no wrong way to do fandom outside of just straight up being an asshole.

But the breakdown in communication is directly tied to the fact that SM seems to have skipped over steps 3-5 of Preparing For The Conversation as outlined by dosomething.org.

3) Choose who you want to talk to and how. He blocked all the (to his estimation) racists in the fandom on Tumblr. So we can assume that the people he’s seen being racist in the internet-wide VC fandom have been on other platforms. But then he continuously comes to Tumblr to fight the racism? That he’s not seeing because he already blocked all the racists on here? Who is he talking to? And why? Which brings us to:

4) Establish goals for the conversation. If he doesn’t know who exactly he’s addressing (or is addressing no one in specific) then it is impossible for this conversation to have a goal. If the person he wanted to speak to from point #3 was IWMI, then I’m still unclear on what his intended goal might have been. One could assume that he wanted the people of Tumblr to collectively break down camp and make the trek over to Facebook to fight the people of the page. But he never made that clear. He acted as though he was the only one capable of seeing the key to stopping the evil racist fans and then just...didn’t elaborate on what that was.

5) Set expectations for yourself and your conversation partner. See the above point. I can’t know what his expectations were in making this post, but they clearly weren’t met. But again, that’s on him and his lack of planning, elaboration, and know-how.

The problem with this is while IWMI’s post did make mention of the wider VC fandom/audience, they also didn’t make any denials about whether or not there actually are malicious actors in the fandom.

Reading IWMI’s response as someone who wasn’t involved in this discussion at the time has led me to believe that what IWMI was saying is that it’s difficult to know the true intentions behind bringing up displeasure with Louis’s casting. Which is true. That’s why steps one and three of Having The Conversation from dosomething.org are: Start the conversation from a place of curiosity and care and ask open ended questions. Which IWMI came closer to doing in this post than SM did in any of his posts or responses that I’ve seen.

SEPTEMBER 14

SM makes his first of a series of “I’m stepping away from fandom” posts.

He states in this post that he doesn’t care if people say he’s just crying white male tears. Which is fortunate because that’s what he then goes on to do and I could imagine that caring that people are pointing out where you’re messing up would be terribly distracting while you’re trying to make anti-racist work all about yourself as a white man.

I’m being a bit uncharitable there, I know. But the whole post is him making anti-racist work all about how doing it has effected him as a white man.

To be an ally is to acknowledge that even though you feel pain, the conversation is not about you.

SEPTEMBER 18

SM makes a post further elaborating on his experiences being the only white man in fandom willing to fight the good fight.

I include this post to touch on two points contained therein.

“A lot of white people are afraid to talk about racial issues & that’s why this shit keeps happening.” (First line of the first paragraph of that post). From what I’ve seen through my research the reason white folks in the Tumblr VC fandom were beginning to become afraid of discussing race (and racism in Anne’s work and racism in fandom or the implications inherent in narrative choices the showrunners were rumored to be making) was that he was insinuating anyone who didn’t agree with his thoughts on the choices the showrunners were making were all covert racists. He actively made this stuff difficult to talk about. Which is not the role of an ally.

“I don’t necessarily have a concrete example of what ‘talking about it’ means.” Clearly. You see, here he admits to not knowing how to actively be an anti-racist ally. He knows discussions need to happen, but not what the mechanics of that could possibly be. This is not someone who needs to be doing this work. This is someone who is in the very early stages of his anti-racist work, which is fine! We all have to start somewhere! But this is someone who seems to have skipped most of the learning stage and has gone right into the more hands-on activism when he is absolutely unprepared to do so. Whether he realizes it or not, he’s admitted that fact within this single sentence, not to mention how he’s gone about discussing racism in the fandom.

SEPTEMBER 28

Sm writes an empty apology to unknown persons.

In this post, he apologizes for “some of the things I said / did” during this “bullying issue”. He makes allusions to wrongdoings on his part, but mentions no specifics. As you’ll come to see later in this post, this apology appears to be ultimately empty, as it’s clear that he’s learned very little from the experiences he’s had doing this work.

He also admits to having his PTSD triggered during all of this. Which again demonstrates how unprepared for confronting racism he is. There is nothing wrong with admitting when you are not in the mental space to take on potentially being yelled at by vitriolic people. But that is also a possibility you need to be prepared for if you want to not only call yourself an ally, but also act as one.

Furthermore, reading this post feels like playing bad apology bingo. For more on how to properly apologize: https://guidetoallyship.com/#apologies

And because it is once again relevant: To be an ally is to acknowledge that even though you feel pain, the conversation is not about you.

NOVEMBER 28

SM calls two people running a fan event “horrendous racists” and claims they’re both responsible for sending him and his friends anon hate.

He offers no proof to back up either of these claims. While it’s hard to prove a negative (that these people didn’t send him hate), most posts of this ilk that I’ve seen on Tumblr have something in the way of evidence. Again, he offers none.

Although there’s some interesting circumstantial evidence that implies he himself has sent people he’s disagreed with anon hate. More on that directly below.

OCTOBER 1

SM claims there were doxxing threats made to him.

NOTE: While talking about this here, I am going to leave out the name of the person he accused. I’ve spoken with her in the DMs and to hear her tell it, SM and his little friends really went out of their way to harass her. Obviously, I don’t want to rope her back into this any more than is necessary after the shit they put her through. And so for this section, I will be calling her User and the equally ambiguous “she”.

The claim of doxxing was, in fact, bullshit.

Here’s how it went down, according to User: User was getting harassed and noticed via her statcounter that someone from Clearwater FL was showing up on her blog again and again.

So she made a post that simply said, “Clearwater, FL” and tagged it “statcounter” and “stop stalking me”.

From there, SM made the above post about how someone (meaning User) was threatening to doxx him.

In response to this buffoonery, User wrote this post and pinned it to her profile:

Please note that while she edited out his IP address, I edited out her tumblr url. In her post (which is still up), her url is visible on this statcounter.

SM has made it public knowledge that he lives in Florida. And while he might not be comfortable with people knowing the exact city he’s doing his stalking from...it’s his fault I was able to put this together? User didn’t need to tell me this was him. I knew it before I asked her about it. She confirmed it, yes. But the only reason I arrived at that conclusion was I saw he lives in FL, I saw him publicly saying he was being doxxed while putting together my timeline (I didn’t see this as it was happening), and then me remembering having seen the above post from the person he stalked previous to all this research.

Plus like...she’s one of the “horrendous racists” he’s supposedly had blocked since August at the earliest, November at the latest. Why is he still visiting her blog this much? This one, imo, is on him.

But either way you slice it, he accidentally copped to this being him being spoken about. And as you might imagine, stalking isn’t a part of the anti-racist ally protocol. Obviously.

Thus ends the “doxxing” saga.

And so now we get to the catalyst for this whole post.

Because here’s where I actually enter the picture and can speak to things I have first hand knowledge of.

DECEMBER 12

Christopher Rice makes a post on his mother’s Facebook page letting everyone know that Anne had died from complications from a stroke.

It didn’t take long for this news to spread to Tumblr. And from that second forward, the Anne Rice tag was flooded with posts from people (presumably) outside of the fandom making jokes about now being able to write fanfic. Something that was obviously upsetting to fans of her work, myself included, I’ll admit.

Of note: I saw a total of two posts in the tag that weren’t either fans mourning or people making fic jokes. One was someone bringing up how Anne once stood up for a romance writer’s right to write a “Holocaust survivor falls for a Nazi” novel and this tweet.

December 19

SM makes this openly antagonistic post.

There’s quite a bit to unpack there, but I’ll try to make it brief as this post is already monstrously long and I already addressed this post in my response (more in a second).

“I’m not saying you have to think & feel like I do. I’m not going to invade your space & tell you you’re wrong if we disagree. I’m using my own space only & that’s it.”

Except he didn't though. He posted this to the Anne Rice tag. A public space. This defense only holds water if he left it untagged for just him and his followers to see.

But I think that was part of his plan. Because no one can be stupid enough to post something so openly vitriolic to a tag where fans are sharing stories of grief and their conflicted feelings about Anne as a person and creator and expect something like this post to not cause a stir.

"It’s just been extremely weird watching people practically tearing their hair out over a rich stranger who died of old age during a pandemic, acting like it’s the greatest tragedy of all time.

We all die, I don’t know what to tell you there, & dying of old age is a luxury most of us don’t get, especially since covid has been on the scene. She died the way that most rich, white people die. Rich & isolated from the real world, with a lot of people on the internet ready to weirdly give up their own life defending them too."

His emphasis, not mine.

This isn’t a gripe with Anne. This is directed at people who are actively in grief. Which is already a complicated emotion but becomes more difficult to navigate when your feelings are conflicted about the person you’re grieving.

This is an intentionally malicious post. It’s clear he’s pissed and he’s acting out on it.

Again, this is not how an ally acts. Allyship requires maintaining a level head. Remember: Do consider taking a pause and returning to the conversation at a different time if you feel like the conversation is moving more towards conflict and away from conversation.

It was clear to me from reading the above chunk of text that this was not a good faith post. I skimmed the rest. None of it was news to me. And surprise surprise, reading a refresher course on different problematic shit Anne had done wasn’t enough to magically make the grief of losing one of my favorite authors evaporate. Weird, how that works.

And so I made the following response.

Was it minorly bitchy? Sure. But the points I made still stand to this day.

And my question remains unanswered. I still don’t know who that post was for.

Well, I do. It was for himself and the benefit of his ego. But I didn’t expect him to cop to that. So.

Oh well.

Later that same day, SM makes this post about how he is taking a break from Tumblr and how we’re all terrible, etc etc. Second verse, same as the first. This is, indeed, the song that never ends.

This was his response to me, I’m pretty sure. Hard to know when he refuses to call people out by name or (heaven forbid!) speak to them directly. But the reason I’m fairly certain this was about me was that I was the only one in the notes that was even slightly confrontational towards him. And even still, I wasn’t even that harsh. I didn’t call him any names, I didn’t try to claim that his points were in bad faith (I didn’t know him. I still don’t, I just know what he’s posted to tunglr dot hell). All I did was ask the question, who is this post for exactly? And instead of providing an answer, he folded like a lawn chair in a hurricane, and implied that the people who interacted with his posts in a way that didn’t absolutely lick his hole lacked the ability to experience emotions.

“Nobody here knows half the shit that’s been done to me because of speaking up about this bc I have chosen to not focus on it.”

surejan.gif

The post is all manipulation, but not even good manipulation which proves that practice doesn’t always make perfect.

And that’s pretty much the end of this saga (for now—I’m sure he’ll have some sort of reaction to this post probably). But to put a neat little bow on the learning portion of our call out post, let me pull one more excerpt from this last post of his:

“I asked for help from people who I thought were involved here to make this feel like a community for everyone & I found out that’s actually not many people’s interest at all.”

Imagine for a moment that you have a roommate. You’re sitting on the couch and your roommate is in the kitchen. Roomie calls your name and asks for your help. You walk into the kitchen. “I need help!” Roomie reiterates, standing in the middle of the room with their hands at their sides. “Okay, with what?” “Help.” “Yes, with what?” “I need it.” You stare at your roommate. Your roommate stares at you. The fridge fan whines. A moth throws itself uselessly against the bare bulb above you. “H el p .. .” Your roommate gurgles. The sun explodes, end scene.

The point is, sure. He asked for help. But he was never clear what he needed help with, other than the vague goal of “fighting racism in fandom”. He had no game plan. He didn’t tell anyone what platforms were the worst for it. He didn’t name names. He didn’t do anything of any use. When you’re the one who feels comfortable being the first to make the rallying cry, you better point in a direction in which to lead the charge.

The only time he was at all specific with any of this was when he said he was getting hate anons. Anyone who has been on the internet for more than 20 minutes knows it’s not worth fighting with anons. Plus...they’re anonymous? How were any of us supposed to know who they were? How are we meant to fight what are essentially ghosts??

And thus concludes the bit where we all talk about allyship in a relatively calm, levelheaded way. Now we move on to our final chapter:

But Molochaii...You Know How This Looks, Right?

Hey, man. I wanna say “welcome to your tape” but I’m still alive when I’m sure you wish I weren’t. It’s fine, we can move past the inconvenient fact that I’m both speaking to you and respirating.

When you’re ready, take my arm and we’ll take a little stroll down memory lane together while I ask you questions Ghost of Tumblr Posts Past style. A little late for the reference, but I move in my own time.

You remember that time you rambled for way too long about how bad you feel for Tom Cruise for being a Scientologist? And before you say, “He’s in a cult! Do you have any idea—” Yeah, actually. I do. My family (myself included) was in a cult. I do know. Do you know who doesn’t have a bad time in cults? The people who benefit from how the cult operates. Tom’s doing just fine in Scientology. With that out of the way, I have more questions: Where was this level of nuance and sensitivity for Anne? Do you think only having sympathy for terrible people you’re a fan of and no sympathy for terrible people you’re not a fan of is hypocritical? Yes or no. Do you think you’ll be sad when Tom dies? Do you think it’ll hurt your feelings to see people celebrating his death while you’re mourning it? Say yes or lie to me and yourself. Do you think this black and white (no pun intended) thinking helps or hinders your attempts at allyship?

Hey, Molochaii. You remember when someone very calmly laid out their point of view and you moved the goal posts and then shut the conversation down? Did you read the resources I linked at the top of this post? Do I need to repeat myself again? Do you see where you fucked up, or is your ego blocking your view?

Hey, Mol—can I call you Mol? You remember when a WOC replied to a post of yours and you refused to engage in any meaningful way with her? How you didn’t reblog her response as a way of “amplifying oppressed voices before your own”?

Hey, Chii Chii—can I call you Chii Chii? You remember when instead of interacting in a meaningful way with that WOC, you screenshotted and then cropped a very good point from her response to you, and then tried to use that as some sort of slam dunk but instead of a ball it was your point and instead of a hoop it was a toilet? You remember how you implied that she was lying about her race? Do you think that denying that there is a difference between ignorance and hatefulness is helpful to your allyship work? Do you think you know better about racism than a WOC?

Hey, Moldavia. Do you have a moment to read this quote from guidetoallyship.com? ”Lack of self-awareness is not a trait of an ally. You’ll be complicit in the oppression of those you intend to help. If you choose not to understand this, but label yourself an ‘ally’, you’re essentially a wolf in sheep’s clothing. You’ll find ways to infiltrate vulnerable communities and wield far more power than someone who is outwardly ‘-ist’ or ‘-ic’ because you’re ‘trusted’.” Do you have time to take this quote to heart, or are you too full of yourself to create space for it?

Hey, Molotov cocktail. You remember how in a post where you bemoaned the fact that you weren’t getting enough attention, you admitted to the fact that you’re as petty as a 12 year old? Do you think this admission makes me or anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together likely to believe that you’re the type of person who people can easily disagree with without you throwing a hissy fit before trying to make yourself the victim in every situation? You remember how you copped to being “incredibly bad at having limits”? Do you see how these two things make it very easy to believe that you’d be the type of person to harass people via anon hate?

Hey, Mollycoddled Man Child. You remember when you were still so upset with other people in this fandom getting more attention than you that you felt the need to make TWO posts about it in one day a couple weeks after the post above?

You remember how you did that at the end of July, right before your supposed crusade against racism in fandom really started to ramp up in August?

Do you see how that looks? Do you know that it’s not a good look? Are you happy now? Do you plan on stopping anytime soon?

Oh and for your trouble:

#anne rice #the vampire chronicles #vampire chronicles #tvc

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jackassbroadcast · 3 years ago

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Hello im a Tommy enthusiast who watched that one stream where he monologued to foolish for like hafe an hour bc i heard it was a cool stream or wtv to realize how much amazing character moments it had that barly anyone in this damn fandom is talking about so ill fucking do it

(Only after finishing this i realized i wrote 1.7k words LOL OOPS)

If u dont know what in talking about its this stream (apologies for linking a clips channel the actual vod on foolish's channel is deleted by now)

Also heads up /rp /dsmp every time i refer to someone here by name is their character unless stated otherwise bc writing c! Before every name Is tiring LOL

Also // suicidal idealization , death mentions

The conversation starts off with foolish and tommy mining for Wilbur, and foolish questions how simply mining will solve the problem to which Tommy reponds with "they dont get solved, do they? It just ends uo with some madman screaming 'Hes solved it!' And now look at him." And how he wants to "prevent the problem before it goes outta hand" something that clearly references Wilbur and his destruction of lmanburg, which paired with him collecting stone for Wilbur as the way to stop said problems he believes if he does anything he can for Wilbur and support him by his side enough this time around, that he wont do anything like thay again, which as im writing this makes be realize by doing that we learn hes blaming himself for what happened to Wilbur in November 16th and pogtopia and a whole, by not being enough for Wilbur in his mind.

The conversation continues, foolish off hand asks why would tommy want to stop Wilbur? Weren't they friends at some point? To which tommy leads foolish to lmanburg and tells him the story of the nation (how it was him and Wilbur's nation, how they made it to espace dream's iron fist and how they held an election "which puts your life on the line, which is good- if you're confident but- perhaps we were too confident", how they lost)

Tommy: "You know the phrase: 'treat other how you wanna be treated', foolish? People dont ever listen to it. Wilbur- he decided he wanted to be treated poorly so he treated everyone around him poorly "

This Tommy quote, to me at least, so so amazingly strong in conveying how understanding he is? To the world around him. Like-

I have not seen one person bring this quote up, and yet its (at least to me) shows such growth and understanding in Tommy i saw little to nothing like it in other streams. It shows he understands, he knew Wilbur didnt change just because, he knows he was struggling, that he thought everyone around him were againt him, were going to abandon him the first chance theyll get- and he thought he deserved it. So he, as a last way to defend himself against that, hurt them first, abandoned them first, so theyll see how much of a 'bad' person he was and take him out- and tommy saw right through that, possibly understanding it more after exile.

This next qoute was talked about much more but i still wanna bring it up

Foolish: "Do you believe in second chances?"

Tommy: "Oh, no I don't really believe that its not really a thing for me foolish its just that-" *sigh* "- i believe everyone has a little bit of good in then and this is not about giving him a second chance or a third chance- its not about *chances* foolish. Its about not giving up on the poeple you care about. "

Which. I mean. I dont know how healthy that mindset is, but comign from Tommy it makes so much sense.

Techno, tubbo, eret, sapnap. These are all people Tommy used to be extremely close to, had either a war or had been betrayed by them, and yet still found it in his heart that he still cares for them, with all of these, they did horrendous things, that hurt tommy physically and mentally, while also not being once or twice, but a contentious thing, but while tommy is to this day still effected by their actions he still found it in himself to forgive, because he knows he fucked up too, a lot, and he knoes they learned from their mistakes just as he had (except c!techno FUCKKK c!techno mf doesnt learn SHITTT) and he knows, when the time comes he knows hed want the people he hurt to forgive him too. (And he wants Wilbur to do the same)

Next qoute i will cut to a couple parts because its really so good and full of character i had to bro

Foolish: "Do you consider yourself to be the good guy or the bad guy?"

Tommy: "It really depends who you ask, isn't it? Yknow? If you asked dream he'd say im *his little toy that he plays with* you know? It doesnt.."

This part really stunned me when i first heard it because, and correct me If im wrong, but i dont think tommy ever acknowledged how dream sees him, and how right he has his viewpoint too. Just the fact tommy is so *painfully* aware of how dream doesnt even see him as a person anymore but just a toy to mess around with for a while than just throw it away when it get too boring really hurt me. Someone give this kid a hug

(Continued) Tommy: "...foolish, honestly? I used to consider myself 'the good guy', you know? The fuckin'- second in command! But these past- these past like six months or so, foolish, everything got so much harder than it was before. Because before it was just us vs bad guys, it was all so clear! But- its not been 'clear' for so long, right? It wasn't; 'these are the bad guys! These are the good guys!' Now it's : 'he's doing this and it makes him a bit worse-' i mean, it all got so complicated, so- i don't know. Depends who you ask."

He says this, in response to foolish asking if hes a good guy- but its awfully similar to if Wilbur asked him if they were the bad guys. Because foolish just asked about him, and yet in his answer tommy made sure to keep using the words "us, he's, guys" as if hes not really talking about himself, as if hes explaining how Wilbur was wrong. Which he was. Also something interesting ive noticed, he says "the last 6 months or so", which indicated that with Wilbur he knew better to follow his word and leadership- with Wilbur he was always on the right side but when he lost him he felt much more lost alone, and couldn't trust himself enough to be on the "right side" .

Foolish: "I dont know, it all seems strange because just from, you know- hearing from others and, you know, learing a little bit, its seems like you've been the hero, you've been the villain, the conqueror, the savior, and, even now, i have no idea what you exactly are."

Tommy: "that's up to you to decide, isn't it? Im just- *uh* i dont know. These days, foolish, I'm a little weaker than i used to be"

Foolish couldn't be more right with what he said, another example of this we see where a character acknowledges tommy never sticks to one thing us Charlie when calling him "tommy fron nowhere" which shows more how he cant stick to one thing, during the course of him on the server he had been friends and enemy with nearly everyone, been on pretty much all sides, and while never really intentionally, being in the center of conflict. When foolish says he doesnt know who tommy is anymroe at this point and all Tommy says in return is that "hes a little weaker than he used to be" does to show he misses who he used to be, with lmanburg, with Wilbur, when he knew who he was, now he doesn't know who he is anymore, but still so desperately want to be more demonstrated by the lines coming rigth after that one:

(Continued) Tommy: "..I'm not- I'm now who i want to be, but-"

Foolish: "Being honest with you, Tommy, that's the same case for me as well."

Tommy: "...heres the thing, foolish, unlike you i dont really have a choice. I have to try and be who i want to be, because if i dont, very bad things are gonna happen in this server. And now that Wilbur's back i can't- quite frankly *no one* can risk that. So i dont really have a choice."

Tommy want's to change- he wants to be better than he is now, to be closer to who he used to be, no matter how impossible that might be, but he also sees it as an immediate thing, he wants to change now, or asap, which is why hes collecting stone for Wilbur in the first place- old him would've done that with ease just because Wilbur asked and he wants to have that back so badly, asap. The way he talked about this reminded me of when he tried getting over his trauma stream before he went in the prison to kill dream: he knew he wasnt the best but he tried getting over that asap to go kill dream asap. He didnt wanna take the long road of years of healing and instead thought he could get over it just like that, and that experience clearly didnt teach him anything because now hes trying to slide back to the relationship he and Wilbur used to have and ignoring the drastic changes they both had plus the bad moments that were the reason they feel out in the first place, or maybe he knows, but at this point, after everything that happened to him and the server, he doesnt care anymore? He knows hes not the same he was and he'll never be the same, because thats not how it works, but his mentor, president, big brother is back after so long tommy felt so lost and alone he thinks maybe, this time around, with Wilbur, he could try and be better again.

#mcyt #dream smp #dsmp #dreamsmp #tommyinnit #mcyt foolish #dsmp foolish #dsmp tommy #analysis #character analysis #tommyinnit analysis #dsmp analysis #analysis post #long post #long

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coconutstars · 4 years ago

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Walking Away Part III

Part I part II

Pairing: Stiles + reader Summary: After having ignored all his calls, reader finally decides to hear Stiles out. The inspiration for this fic came from Wilson1128

A/N: MERRY CHRISTMAS Y’ALL AND THANK YOU FOR THE WONDERFUL RESPONSE! I’m literally a living crying emoji right now <3. I’ve finally finished part 3. This part was supposed to involve smut but I’ve decided to post that separately incase there’s anybody out there that, you know, wants to end this story here. A little angsty, a little fluffy. Each to their own, am I right? So, to clarify, THE SMUTTY MAKE-UP SCENE WILL BE IN A SEPARATE NSFW PART.4. That is, if y’all are even interested in that?? Let me know.

_____________________________________________________

There was no escape. You needed your books and there was no way that was going to happen without Stiles seeing you. Partly because the hallway was practically empty but mainly because he was leaned up against your locker, head ducked down, anxiously clenching and unclenching his fists. You hadn’t properly looked at him since the night you walked away from him. You’d avoid his gaze in the hallway, advert your eyes whenever he walked into a room and looked in any direction but his during your shared classes. But you were looking at him now. Really looking and it struck you how vulnerable he seemed. Almost defeated. A part of you wanted to reach out and comfort him. Pull him close, bury your face in the familiar curve of his neck and whisper that everything was okay.

But everything wasn’t okay. And Stiles wasn’t yours to comfort anymore.

Reluctantly you made your way over to your locker. As soon as he saw you, Stiles straightened up.

“Y/N” He sounded shocked, almost like he was surprised to see you. “What are you doing here?” you asked flatly, folding your arms over your chest. For a moment your eyes met, and a wave of emotions started seeping into your system. Hurt, longing, anger, comfort. You quickly fixed your eyes on a random mark on the wall. “I’ve tried to call you” he said in a low but clear tone. You shifted your bag from one shoulder to the other. “I know” “yeah, course...” his voice trailed off as he started drumming his fingers against his pants. That was usually a sign that he was trying to restrain himself from doing something he may end up regretting.

“Yeah, it’s just...” he began, really trying to hold it in but ultimately failing “when someone calls like… a thousand times, they probably have something important to say, you know?” There was so much frustration, despair and anxiousness in his voice you were genuinely taken aback. “Perhaps.” you said after a moment of silence. “but they might not deserve to be heard out”. Your tone was a lot harsher than you’d intended. Stiles looked wounded but nodded his head, it was a fair shot, and he knew it. “All I’m asking for is a chance Y/N.”

You thought for a moment. He’d tried to contact you so many times through texts, calls and notes you’d lost count. Ignoring him was hard. A part of you really missed him and it hurt like hell every time you had to delete a message or ignore yet another call. Perhaps if you talked to him, he would stop. All contact would end, and you could both move on. It’d be good for you. You’d eventually heal and meet someone new. Someone who could love you as much as you loved them. At least that’s what you tried to tell yourself. In reality you knew getting over Stiles would be impossible. You’d given him a piece of your heart and it would always be his, regardless if he wanted it or not.

Stiles was waiting for you to reply. You let out a sigh, already convinced you were making a huge mistake. “Fine, come over at eight”

Stiles showed up at 7.54. Although, you had a feeling he’d arrived on your street even earlier. Most likely parked somewhere out of sight, tapping the steering wheel restlessly as he waited for the digits on his watch to change.

He was wearing the dark red flannel he knew you loved, and his hands were stuffed into the pockets of his dark jeans. “Hey” he said simply as you opened the door. You nodded in response and moved over to let him in before leading him up the stairs and into your room. You were standing across from each other, you with folded arms by the window and Stiles with his hands still stuck in his pockets by the door.

“What do you want Stiles?” He took a step forward. “I want to apologize”. His honey-colored eyes were looking right at you, his gaze so intense you had to shift yours. “Okay” you replied shortly with a shrug, you were trying your best to sound unaffected but, on the inside, you were dying. It had just hit you that this could be the last time the two of you spoke to each other. You needed to wrap this up quickly or you’d start bawling your eyes out in front of him and that was not an option. “Anything else? If not, I really have some homework to do” You snapped, feeling the familiar ache in your chest. He took another step closer. “I know you heard about what happened with Lydia at the party and-” You heart rate skyrocketed. There was no way in hell you were about to listen to him talking about hooking up with Lydia. You’d quite frankly rather stuff your ears with gravel and superglue them shut. “Yupp, Awesome. Good for you.” You interrupted, already on your way to usher him out of your room. “I wish you a both lifetime of happiness, thanks for stopping by” you rambled in distress, grabbing ahold of the handle. He placed his hands on your arms and spun you around. “Y/N shut up!” he said loudly in your face.

You silenced in sheer surprise. “Nothing happened between Lydia and me! Nothing!” Like a deflated balloon, you let out a breath and looked up at Stiles, the panic now turning into confusion. “She kissed me and for a moment, yeah, I kissed her back-” You opened your mouth to say something but closed it again just as quickly. You weren’t sure what was happening right now. Your state of emotion had shifted way to quickly for your thoughts and mind to adjust. “-But nothing happened” Your brows knitted in confusion. How could he say nothing happened if he clearly just admitted to kissing her back? You wondered if this was some kind of poorly thought up method to soften the blow of being dumped. “That doesn’t make sense” you said with a headshake. “Stiles, you don’t have to have explain. I get it. You want to be with Lydia.” It really killed you to admit the last part. You couldn’t believe you’d actually managed to get the words out. You’d barely been able to think it, so to actually say it? You had a feeling you’d pay for it later though. You’d probably end up under the covers ugly crying until your head hurt and your skin burned from all the salty tears spilling from your eyes. “Can you please just go now?” your voice was barely a whisper.

Stiles ignored your request and shook his head in frustration. “I don’t want her Y/N. I don’t want Lydia.” This time when you looked up at him your eyes were narrowed in skepticism. What was this? What was he trying to do? “I don’t want Lydia because I want you” he clarified. Your mind still refused to understand what was going on. “No, Stiles. You chose her, you chose Lydia” His face twisted in frustration, his hands gesturing to emphasize his words. “Uh. No. You might not remember this, but you left me. I didn’t choose because there was no choice to make!” He practically yelled the last sentence. “you literally just told me I loved Lydia and broke up with me” You broke out into a laugh that lacked even the slightest trace of humor. Your emotional range now consisted solely of annoyed and angry. “So, you’re honestly going to tell me that you didn’t want to reply to that text?” Stiles practically exploded. “No! I didn’t and if you hadn’t been ignoring me for the past 100 years you would’ve known that” “I’ve been ignoring you” you hissed through clenched teeth. “because you CHOSE LYDIA”

Stiles shook his head in annoyance and turned around as if to talk to an invisible audience. “Nice, awesome. I see we’re really getting somewhere in this conversation” He took a deep breath before turning back to you. “No” he said, his tone and gestures slow and clear as if he were talking to a child. “I do not want Lydia because I want you. I love you Y/N Y/L/N” This time it was your turn to look away. You were literally screaming inside. This was all you’d wanted to hear since the two of you broke up. A part of you wanted to throw yourself into his arms and kiss him until your lips hurt. But a part of you was scared. The pain you’d felt lately was something you never ever wanted to feel again. Despite if he’d meant it or not, Stiles had hurt you. He’d hidden the text from you. He kissed Lydia, and even if he insisted it’d meant nothing it still happened. And it could happen again You thought about what he just said. I love you. You knew you loved him without a shadow of a doubt, but did he really feel the same? “Are you so sure about that?” you whispered, your anger being replaced with insecurity.

Stiles closed the distance between you, his gaze practically boring into you. Letting out a breath through your nose, you reluctantly lifted your eyes to meet his. His gaze flickered down to your lips before turning back to your eyes. “yeah, I’d say so” His voice was soft and raspy, like honey spiced scotch. You loved his voice. Always had. But there was something special about this particular tone. It was so smooth it automatically sent a warm tingle down your spine. His brow lifted slightly, his face only inches from yours.

“So, are we done fighting?”

Grabbing a handful of his shirt you pulled him to you, your lips grazing his.

“You tell me Stilinski”

His arms wrapped around your waist, a grin curling his lips before hungrily crashing against yours.

“Hell yeah”

Taglist: @maggiecc @lola-bunny-00 @classyunknownlover

#Stiles #stiles stilinski #stiles fanfiction #stiles stilinski fanfiction #stiles stilinksi x reader #stiles stilinksi imagine #stiles imagine #stiles x y/n #stiles x you #stiles x reader #teen wolf imagine #teen wolf #imagine stiles

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jetaime-jespere · 4 years ago

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Prompt #36/129

#36: I don’t know who I am without you / #129. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you.

It isn’t the first time Aaron comes to see her with flowers in hand, and it doesn’t make visiting her grave any easier, or any less painful.

Flowers became a thing early on, starting with their first date several months before. Aaron had been anxious in the hours leading up to it - distracted all day, letting his eyes linger on her a few seconds too long here and there. It’s clear something was up. He assumed Dave must have overheard him confirming with Jessica about picking Jack up from his playdate, and that he’ll pick him up from her place around nine. All day he’d dodged the carefully timed stares, a few subtle winks whenever Emily’s back was turned.

“Got a date?” Dave asked casually on their way out, much later that afternoon, keeping his eyes forward as the elevator doors closed. But he’d smiled, which suggests he definitely overheard, and has all but figured out why Aaron is leaving so uncharacteristically early.

Aaron plays dumb, scrambling for an excuse for his early departure, and manages something out about a friend being in town. Dave had simply laughed. “Emily likes flowers,” he’d said as Aaron held his briefcase with a slightly sweaty hand. “I hope you picked some out.”

The quirk of an eyebrow, and the amusement hidden in the subtle contours of Aaron’s face all but give him away, the exact reason now known. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dave.” It’s an attempt in vain.

“But you do, and before you even ask how, just know I have my ways.”

Aaron had never been happier to see elevator doors open. What he doesn’t tell Dave is that he’s had flowers figured out already, for a few days now.

He remembers that night - their first date - like it was yesterday; it’s never fully dissipated from his mind. She’d been wearing blue - cerulean, to be specific - and she blushed ever so slightly when he handed her the bouquet of Dahlias and told her she looked beautiful.

Their reservation (at a Tapas bar close to the National Mall) had mysteriously gotten deleted, leaving them without a table only after they arrived at the restaurant. Emily had laughed despite Aaron’s visible frustration, taking the whole thing in stride as she tucked her hand in his arm. Instead, they ended up walking around the Monuments and eating street tacos from a food truck wrapped in heavy coats. Despite the cold, it was light, fun, and as he dropped her off in front of her building, he’d kissed her - brief, but full, his lips on hers a promise of a second date sooner rather than later.

There was indeed a second date; this one to an antique bookstore in Alexandria followed by coffee on a chilly Sunday morning. The threat of snow later that afternoon hadn’t deterred them. Aaron brings her flowers again - lilies - and she’d held them to her nose for the briefest of seconds as the blush rose to her cheeks once more. The second date was three weeks after the first, thanks to a barrage of cases that seemed to multiply, one right after the other, at a relentless rate with little time for anything else, let alone any semblance of a personal life. And yet, they picked up right where they left off, the same easy banter and familiarity that comes with years of knowing someone as well as they do. He kisses her again, this time bringing a hand to her hair and another around her back, pulling her in close. It’s not even a question if there will be a third date when they pull away, breathless.

Their third date was Valentine’s Day, and she’d come to his place for the first time in over a year, since the days after Foyet threatened to rip his family apart. Aaron bought roses - two dozen red ones - as cliché as it was, handing them to her when she’d arrived. She’d beamed as she shook the light dusting of snowflakes off her shoulders, apologizing for her lateness, murmuring that the flowers were beautiful. He’d planned on making her dinner but instead he’d taken her to bed, leaving their clothes scattered across the living room floor. Emily was beautiful beneath him; her long legs wrapped around his waist as he’d learned her, taking his time finding all the places that made her moan. Her fingers tangled in his hair when he’d kissed his way down the flat planes of her stomach and between her legs, her hands gripped his shoulders as he thrusted into her, she’d lowered herself down to press her chest against his, his arms wrapped around her as she rode him to completion with his own finish coming in the seconds after her own.

Aaron also ruined their dinner during their preoccupation - overcooked the steak and burnt the potatoes to a blackened crisp, rendering it all inedible. With a sheet wrapped around her chest, Emily had reached for her phone and ordered pizza, which they ate in bed straight out of the box. “The best Valentine’s Day I’ve ever had,” she’d whispered in his ear much later, her lips smoothing down his jaw as she pushed him onto his back, a devious grin on her face. Hours later, he repeated her words right back to her, pressing kisses to her lips.

It all fell apart shortly after that.

Date number four was cruelly ripped right out of their hands as Emily slipped away, literally and figuratively, the threat of Ian Doyle becoming a reality. She’d withdrawn, becoming distant and even secretive, slipping into briefings late and sneaking clandestine glances at her phone throughout the day. Aaron had been oblivious to the truth (she hid that from all of them), but he knew something was direly wrong.

Two weeks after she cancelled their fourth date with a heaviness in her voice that culminated over the last few weeks, he heard the name Lauren Reynolds for the first time. And about ten days after that, he signed the paperwork that essentially rendered Emily Prentiss dead.

So now, Aaron always brings her flowers. It feels wrong not to, because he always has. This time he brings Irises; Emily likes those. She told him that once, back when he hung on every word she said, his brain absorbing every last detail of her to commit to memory. Now those memories come back and haunt him like a curse. The car door slams but he doesn’t hear it, and he adjusts the hood of his jacket and tucks his keys into his pocket. He keeps his head down, grateful for the soft rain that falls in the summer wind like a whisper as he maneuvers through the gate, stepping over the neat landscaping. Every step he takes brings him closer to her yet she’s never been further away from him, and he finally releases the breath he’s been holding when he sits down next to her headstone.

“Hi,” Aaron says softly, fumbling with the stems in his hands as he sets them down beside the ones he’d brought the other day, brushing his fingers over the cold marble headstone. “I miss you, you know. I’m sorry it’s been a few days. It was a hell of a week.” Being here is a familiar ritual, one that brings him an unexplainable bit of comfort and yet a profound sense of grief. It’s been four months since they buried an empty casket into the ground as she convalesced in the hospital. Four months since he explained to Jack with as much patience as he could muster that Emily had to go away for awhile, possibly forever, and calmly answered his son’s questions even as his own heart was shattering into pieces.

Aaron supposes it feels mildly silly, talking to someone who isn’t even there, spiritually or whatever, because what most don’t know is she’s not even dead.

She may as well be. Those were her words, not his. It’s what she said in the days after Boston, still too weak to travel but awake and fully cognizant, the impending reality looming in the distance. Aaron had sat at her side, as close as he could get without physically climbing into the bed with her, his hand a fixture in hers for the better part of the two weeks she’d spent there.

“These nurses are like drill sergeants,” Emily had groaned one afternoon after she’d taken a few laps around the floor, pushing a walker with Aaron hovering at her side, a protective hand on her back. It took nearly all of her energy; her eyelids had fluttered within minutes of returning to her bed.

“They’re supposed to help you get better, you know.” And while he can’t help but feel proud of her for how far she’s come, her returning strength is a reminder that soon enough she’ll vanish from their lives, unceremoniously, as if she never existed at all.

Her grave is the only place he feels close to her, as if she, wherever she is, might be there in some way too. It’s where Aaron talks to her, tells her the mundane things about life - the life that has seemingly paused since she left- anecdotes about Jack’s soccer team, Dave’s new car, every now and then he’ll mention a case. Sometimes it’s a haze of confusion, asking the questions he most likely will never get answers to, his voice breaking at the most simple, yet complicated of them all. Why? How?

Other days, it’s grief that courses through his veins and clouds his heart, like a vice grip around his windpipe that makes every intake of breath more painful than the last. They all feel her absence; a numbness has enveloped them all in the last couple of weeks especially. But he bears the pain of knowing the truth and being responsible for the secret they’ve held to keep her safe. Today is one of those days.

“I wish I could be angry with you,” he says, never taking his eyes off the headstone. “For what you put us through.” He’s tried that. Anger never lasts long, because Aaron sees her face in his mind, full of poorly concealed fear as he and JJ had passed over the dossier of new identities into her hands, signifying the beginning of the end.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you,” Aaron chokes through the mounting thickness in his throat. “It’s not the same without you. Nothing is.” His face is wet, and it’s not because of the rain. Most of his visits end this way, and he takes the long way back home to pull himself together. “We miss you. I miss you.”

It’s getting harder to breathe, harder to conceal the sobs that are coming like the stormcloud in the distance, and he buries his face in his hands to cry because there’s nothing left he can do. “I don’t know who I am without you, Emily.”

There’s a rustling in the trees behind him sometime later. If he closes his eyes he can almost hear her footsteps behind him, sure and steady. Aaron can’t bring himself to turn around because she won’t be there - she’s already gone.

“I love you,” he whispers, knowing he should have said it a long time ago.

#hotchniss #aaron hotchner x emily prentiss #aaron x emily #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #this is an angsty one #prompts #I made myself sad but really it was the wine talking

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libermachinae · 3 years ago

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For the directors cut meme, I would love to hear anything at all about chapter 5 of We Forget the Names Not Written Down. (That preface by Rewind, btw, has stuck with me so much, gosh.)

Thank youuu ;u; I was really hoping someone would ask about that one. Under the cut because *spoilers*. (here's a link to the fic in case anyone hasn't checked it out yet)

Okay, so, to start with, the name: "Preface" is the last chapter of the fic, as a final nod to the fact that the fic really doesn't conform to a linear sense of time. Even the chapter itself is spread across different time periods: the dedication was a collaboration between Rewind and Prowl, the Forward was written by Prowl after Rewind's death, the Preface was written while Chromedome was still alive, and the chapter as a whole is being read at some point in the future, after The Complete History has been published. My purpose there was to pull the audience into the story: there is no present but that of the person reading it. Each section represents a crystalized version of who its author/s was/were when they wrote it, and then these disparate moments link up to form a single cohesive text.

The other reason I put "Preface" at the end of the fic is because it is an end, for both Rewind and Prowl. For Rewind, it's the last chance he has to "write" (and I'll go more into that in a bit) and say exactly what he's thinking. It's the last opportunity he has with his own voice, and he uses it to say goodbye to the world and wish it well with a future he won't get to see. And for Prowl, it's the last step he takes before sending the manuscript, anonymously, to the publisher. They're his last words, too, before he disappears to the unnamed planet mentioned in the fic's summary. "Preface" is a series of goodbyes.

The other structural thing I would want to mention in this chapter is authorship. The definition of an author is a theme that I was exploring throughout the fic, and chapter 5 is where Rewind has a chance to address it head on by talking about the assistance he's receiving from Chromedome.

Now I’m a writer, and even that’s in only the barest sense of the word. I can get most of the important words down, but I need Chromedome to connect the dots for me.

The idea that Rewind is the author of The Complete History is never brought into question, because I personally think it's more interesting to consider how this then affects our definition of authorship. Delta's Malady has started to degrade his ability to generate and interpret language. It's not necessarily deleting words, but it's becoming more effort than it's worth for Rewind to come up with every single one. Before Chromedome's work, I imagine these two sentences read more like this:

Writer barely. I important words, Chromedome connect.

It's possible to understand Rewind's intention, but there is a lot of space that needs to be filled to make it read correctly. If someone other than Chromedome (like, for example, Prowl) were to take a stab at interpreting it, they might come up with the following:

I barely write. I generate important words, and Chromedome makes the connections.

By changing "writer" to a verb, the focus of the first sentence shifts from being about Rewind's identity and onto a task he struggles to perform. The latter instance could also be interpreted as Rewind simply not writing often, rather than his ability to do so being poor. The focus is further shifted from Rewind's perspective by going from "the important words," which imply personal stakes, to "important words," which is a more general sense.

The point I'm trying to make with all this is that even if all Chromedome is doing is connecting the dots, it still matters a lot and affects how Rewind's final goodbye will be read. Even if Chromedome knows Rewind better than anyone else, the fact that he participates this way at all impacts the way readers interact with the text. Rewind is still considered the author, but authorship doesn't guarantee that he intended everything exactly as it was written.

Which, to be fair, is true for everyone. I'm constantly using words that don't quite fit but are close enough to replace the ones I want but can't remember. Reading itself is an interpretive act; it's impossible to write something that will be interpreted the same way by everyone. But I'm getting super off track now oops :P

Within the Preface itself, I knew I had to talk about Functionist Cybertron (or, as Rewind calls it, Cybertron) because the fic would have been incomplete without it. Not only is Rewind dying because of it, but it's his creation as much as the manuscript is: just as complicated, but still important. He feels a sense of responsibility to it, the same way he feels a responsibility to finish The Complete History, so it can be passed down to future generations. Another ending represented in "Preface": the transition of one generation of Cybertronians to the next. The two Cybertronians cited in chapter 2 were an MTO and a spark forged within Trypticon, neither of who were present for the start of the war. The galaxy is trying to heal from the effects of the Great War, and that means moving on from the people who helped start it (even if only tangentially, as in Rewind's case).

After spending a few paragraphs talking about that Cybertron, though, Rewind intentionally switches back to talking about his Cybertron and the war he was part of. As with the text as a whole, it's a final act of rebellion, Rewind fighting for control over his narrative even as it's drawing to a close. The important note here is that it's out of a sense of responsibility, not of pride.

It is not a proud story. I don’t think anyone walked away from it without some amount of shame, despair, or rage. But it is ours, for as long as there are Cybertronians left to remember it.

Rewind is trying to take ownership of something he has little claim to, because someone has to and he's in a position to do so. It's this same reasoning that Prowl struggles to articulate in his letter to Bumblebee in chapter 4. Both of them see something that must be done and decide that they're going to do it.

And the thing is, they do it poorly.

Rewind can't write on his own. His databanks are being corrupted by Delta's Malady (in chapter 1, Prowl concludes the corruption is so widespread Rewind is no longer capable of making meaningful contributions to the text) and he struggles even to find the way to his memories, if they still exist at all. And Prowl is a terrible editor. There is only one section that he writes without any prior input from Chromedome, and he struggles so much that he ends up reusing Chromedome's wording anyway, to the detriment of the text. Neither is in an ideal position to perform the task they set out to do, but they choose to do it anyway. Because someone needs to.

The last paragraph was kind of where I figured out what I wanted this fic to be and how I was going to get it there.

Because that’s all any of us end up becoming: the words and the stories we leave behind. I spent my whole life trying to capture as many as possible, even as I watched so many fall through the cracks. So, a final dedication: to those who exist in echoes. Though we forget the names not written down, they form the spaces between every word, every letter. It was their collective story that I aimed to tell, and if I’m left with any regret, it’s that I still failed to catch them all.

To be completely, entirely transparent: in regards to the title, I was trying to pull a "Without Love." It starts off by saying that we lose the things we don't intentionally record, and then finally Rewind reveals that actually, they've been there all along. Prowl's name only appears once in the fic, as the last word of chapter 4, where I meant to imply that it had been deleted before he sent his letter to Bumblebee (not sure if that idea actually got across). Prowl's is the name not written down, but he's everywhere in the fic, constantly influencing both the text and the story of its creation. Though I still consider Rewind the sole author of The Complete History, in the context of the story, he and Prowl are partners, working to create something that will outlast them both.

#can you tell i've been eager to talk about this one #ask #towardsmorning

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drmazel · 4 years ago

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do not fucking reblog I swear to god.

I'll just say this once bc it's on my mind and fuck it, I'll delete it later if it bothers me that much. I don't know if anyone has ever noticed my complete lack of sharing ace pride or positivity posts. that's very deliberate. and maybe people would cry aphobia about it or whatever but here's the thing: I'm asexual and Ive known this for hmmmm about seven or eight years now. and at first I was super into the positivity and shit but as time went on and I got deeper into the community on this free webbed site I just saw hostility and toxicity and homo/lesbo/biphobia and racism and sexism and I had to separate myself from it because I saw myself at the very beginning of going down that path. my first and pretty much only exposure to the idea of asexuality was through tumblr and I may never truly let go of the label because the truth is it does feel like a good fit. it's not an issue with the identity itself, obviously. it's an issue of the people that promote and defend it in literally the worst possible ways.

I have a questioning mind that refuses to accept "that's the way things are/should be" flat out. I could not try to dig deeper and figure out why people in the vocal ace community say what they say without getting attacked for it because clearly I was a bigoted asshole for not accepting that they're (we're) uwu valid. I never got the chance to try. and obviously not everyone is damaging and toxic, but the thing is? I almost exclusively see what I believe to be toxic rhetoric spread around with little questioning or criticism. which completely removes my own opportunity to learn how actually it's not toxic rhetoric, at worst maybe misplaced or poorly worded, but not harmful. possibly because anyone who might have the mind to do so (without being equally toxic or damaging, I am talking about people with true good intentions) is often viciously attacked. I don't care if it's a defense mechanism. my opinion and subsequently this post are a defense mechanism right the fuck back.

so yeah. I cut myself completely off and it's probably going to be like that for as long as I have the brain rot I currently have to remain active on this site. I'll never demean asexuality because, like I said, that's me! I'm asexual! but I am constantly critical of the community that embarrasses and damages my own image of myself in the alleged interest of representing me. my own pride has been brutally murdered and so I really can't share similar pride shit because it just gives me a memory that makes me feel sick to my stomach if I think about it too hard.

I wonder how many people out there are like me. ashamed of being asexual not for the experience itself, but for the vocal community at large that diminishes our pride and self-validation through hostility towards the people we are supposed to be standing in solidarity with. we couldn't make our own space without being attacked. we cannot include ourselves because by simply having any kind of discussion in pursuit of actually trying to understand our own lives and experiences and community, we are violently pushed away.

idk. this probably doesn't make sense and maybe I am actually alone in feeling like this and maybe this whole mindset makes me a bad person. I can't find out because I am being discouraged to learn. makes me a little sad but. for a few years now I've been getting by by just not acknowledging that aspect of my life. excluded and silenced by a community that tries to represent me, but only represents some idea of me that doesn't exist because they believe my actual self threatens their impression of my existence.

(and you know to tie it all up with a reminder since this was lengthy, don't reblog this. hopefully it's clear enough that I've possibly been mildly traumatized by how the vocal tumblr ace community handles people that criticize them, even if it's from someone that's supposed to be one of their own.)

#this will almost certainly get deleted later #if this bothers you feel free to unfollow idk and tbh idc #just maybe do a nice long think about why youre bothered by an ace person talking about the shame of their identity #because of the way the community at large handles itself #and take BIG notes about how i really tried to be clear that this is about the community at large and not about individuals

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fandom-necromancer · 4 years ago

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Love you no matter what

This was prompted by an amazing anon! I hope you enjoy! As I am not trans myself, please tell me if anything I wrote in here is offensive or incorrect and I will change/delete it!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 (Warnings: body disphoria, coming out, trans character written by a non-trans person)

Gavin sat at the kitchen table, the old lamp from the kitchen the only source of light illuminating her. She let the lighter spin in her hand, a motion already engraved in muscle memory to her. It helped her think, but by now her thoughts were spinning around in circles for hours already. With every spin of the lighter, a new problem joined the others and the more time Gavin spent mulling it over, the more frustrating it became. She clenched her teeth and stopped the lighter to set it aside. She hated waiting. She had woken up with the determination to finally tell him. But since then doubts had risen up. Should she really tell him? She felt worse with every single day that she kept up the pretence and she simply couldn’t take it anymore. But how would Nines take it? Gavin loved the bot and was sure he wouldn’t react poorly. But she couldn’t know. She couldn’t know…

Her thoughts were stopped by keys unlocking the front door. She didn’t look up and continued staring at the table. She wasn’t ready. She was short of fleeing to her room, but it was already too late, and Nines had entered the hallway. Gavin sighed and looked up forcing a smile. She would never be ready if she was honest with herself. But she couldn’t continue like this and if Nines had a problem with his identity, then Gavin needed to know. It was the one rule of her that she would never disregard: It was either her or Nines and Gavin would always be the one that came first in that equation.

‘Hey, Gavin! What are you doing up this late, darling?’ The android threw her a smile and hung up his jacket before walking towards her and hugging her. Gavin leaned into the embrace, suddenly thinking this could be their last. She felt how her body began shaking and immediately Nines tensed. ‘Gavin? What is wrong? Did something happen?’ Nines took a step back and held her by the shoulders, looking into Gavin’s eyes that were filled with tears. ‘I think we should talk...’, Gavin sniffed, hating herself for showing her weakness already when they hadn’t even begun yet. ‘Of course’, Nines said, worry deep in his voice. ‘Whatever you want to speak about, I will listen. I’m here for you. I love your everything, Gavin, and I will do anything for you.’

‘That’s the problem’, Gavin said. ‘You love my everything. But what you think is “my everything” is a lie.’ ‘I don’t understand’, Nines mumbled. ‘Please, explain it to me.’ ‘I am not who you think I am, who everything thinks I am. I don’t feel comfortable with it and I can’t stand it anymore. You… You are the first one I am telling this. I… I’m not a man.’ Nines frowned. ‘What else are you then?’ ‘I… I’m a woman.’ Now the word had been spoken. She had told Nines and now judgement was to come down on her. Would he laugh? Would he declare her insane? Would he demand her to come to her senses and be himself again? Surely now the jokes would begin. But Nines just staid silent and looked at the table contemplating. ‘Please don’t laugh!’, Gavin blurted out. ‘Please, anything but that. I- I know this might sound ridiculous, I mean, I have a dick and my body is male and everyone thinks I’m the typical tough guy, but I am not trying to be manly, this is just who I am. I- I can understand this changes things but please, if you ever loved me, keep your thoughts to yourself and don’t laugh. I… I love you still. And I couldn’t lie to you anymore. I’m phcking tired of lying constantly and if I can’t be who I am outside then at least at home I want to. It already feels terrible, I at least need a safe place to rest and if you can’t give that to me, then I need to find a new one. I just… The way they look at me and joke around and call me by this… I’m not a he, goddamnit. And I don’t want to be referred as that. It’s easy, right? And I don’t want to be called Gavin, I… I am not a man! It should be easy for you to do at least that, right? B-But if you can’t, that’s fine. We can go separate ways and…’ Gavin knew she was rambling and her sentences made no sense at all, but now that the floodgates were open, the words just flowed out and so did the tears. She rested her face in her hands and let the sobs shake her.

‘I don’t want to lose you, Nines. I still love you. But I love myself, too and I can’t live in misery anymore. If you don’t understand the why and how, I hope you at least understand that. I’m… I’m sorry.’

Silence fell over them and stayed undisturbed except for Gavin’s ugly sobs and sniffs. She heard Nines breathing activate and could only imagine his deep red LED. He must be furious about this man in front of him being this illogical and weird and how he suddenly wanted to be a woman. He had to be angry about being betrayed. About marrying a man who suddenly lost his senses and was misguided in his identity. At this point Gavin hoped the android would just stand up and march out of the house, because every other possibility she didn’t even want to think about. She flinched as the chair underneath Nines creaked and recoiled as the android’s fingertips brushed along her forearms. But when she looked up in panic, she was met with a soft smile and a blue LED.

Nines took her arms gently and brushed along them until he had her hands in his, carefully squeezing them. ‘Thank you for telling me’, he said. ‘I can only imagine how hard this must be for you.’ ‘You are not angry?’, Gavin asked in disbelief. ‘G- My love, why should I if you just showed me the epitome of trust. I am honoured you trust me enough to make this confession and I can’t be anything but happy to be dear enough to you that you took the risk of telling me.’ ‘And you… Does this change what we-‘ ‘No. No, G- Shit. No, darling it won’t change anything. I will need to make some adjustments in my databanks, that’s all.’ ‘That’s… all? I… okay.’ She wiped away her tears with her sleeves and stared at the table. She had expected a lot of reactions, but never anything going this smoothly…

‘How about Gwen?’, Nines asked out of nowhere, puling Gavin from his thoughts. ‘Excuse me?’ ‘I mean… Unless you want to keep Gavin as your name. But according to my research people tend to change their name.’ ‘Oh, I-‘ Gavin shrugged, smiling to herself as it settled in she had made a fuzz over nothing as it seemed. ‘I didn’t really think about it yet. Thought of Giovanna for some time to keep the G, but… Gwen is nice.’ She shook her head, now grinning and Nines smiled back at her, his thumbs brushing rhythmically over the back of her hands. ‘I’ll call you any name you want’, he whispered gently. ‘But I will enter Gwen for now if you’re alright with that.’ ‘I am’, Gwen nodded and turned her hands up to hold Nines’. ‘And thank you for accepting me.’

‘Gwen, I love you no matter what. I am an android. I am only male because some designer decided it for me. Gender isn’t something that’s really important to an android, or at least not to me. I love you, not your gender. Your body is just an extension of you. Not that I don’t love your body, but I- Your gender matters to me only as much as it does to you. And if you say you are a woman you are. It is your identity after all and who can know that better than yourself? You don’t have to worry about me, Gwen, I will support you no matter what and I love you as much as a machine can do.’ Gwen pulled her hands out of Nines’ and stood up only to walk over and sit down on his lap. She snaked her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply. ‘Thank you so much’, she whispered into his ear. ‘That’s more than anyone ever gave me.’ ‘And still less than you deserve, my love.’

#detroit become human #dbh #Reed900 #Gavin Reed #trans!Gavin Reed #mtf Gavin Reed #Gwen Reed #RK900 #I'm too fucking sappy at the moment #Needed some supportive Nines in my life and I'm not the only one I guess #I hope this is okay

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suzyundertale · 5 years ago

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tumblr user suzyundertale makes a post about Suzy from Undertale

Suzy masterpost, because people need to pay more attention to Suzy. This is not a theory post, but more of a collection of information on what we currently know about the Undertale character Suzy. Of course, due to the nature of Suzy as a very mysterious character, there will be slight speculation, but hopefully it’s clear what is canon and what isn’t.

Section One: The Beginning

When Undertale first released, there was very little that we knew of the character “Suzy”. Even less than what we know now, which is impressive. The only connection we had to her was word of mouth from an NPC with no name, but known in the files simply as “clamgirl”, found in Waterfall if your “Fun” value is between 80 and 89.

When you first talk to her, she says the following:

* I'm visiting Waterfall from the city. * Synchronicity...? * My neighbor's daughter looks about your age. * Her name is "Suzy." * I feel like you two should be friends. * You have... * A neighbor's blessing!!!

(”Suzy” here is written in yellow text.)

Talking to her a second time:

* Not knowing where I live is no issue. * Fate finds a way.

And, finally, talking to her post-pacifist:

* So you never became friends with my neighbor's daughter. * Don't despair. * This world has infinite opportunities. * But there's a limit to the things you can do. * Accepting this is healthy. * Take my neighbor's blessing! * And consider this blessing for anything you like!

(She has more dialogue, but this is all that you really need to know.)

Section Two: The Patch

In January of 2016, a couple weeks after Toby made (and subsequently deleted) a tweet about he wanted to “start something else” in 2016, a something which we now know to be Deltarune, Undertale received its first major update - version 1.01.

Here’s the relevant information.

Toby made two very, very minor changes to Clamgirl’s post-pacifist dialogue. Here is the new dialogue, with changes bolded:

* So you never met my neighbor's daughter. * Don't despair. * This world has infinite opportunities. * But there's a limit to the things you can do today. * Accepting this is healthy. * Take my neighbor's blessing! * And consider this blessing for anything you like!

He changed “became friends with” to “met” - emphasizing the fact that Suzy is not a character you can meet in Undertale.

He also added the word “today”, to emphasize the fact that this does not mean Frisk will never be able to meet Suzy.

This wasn’t the only Suzy-related thing in the version 1.01 patch, however. The patch added a well-known line of dialogue to the lab behind Sans and Papyrus’ house. Normally, when you examine a certain drawer in the lab, you get this dialogue:

* (There's a photo album inside the drawer.) * (There are photos of Sans with a lot of people you don't recognize.) * (He looks happy.)

However, from version 1.01 onward, if you examine this drawer after having spoken to Clamgirl, you will get this dialogue instead:

* (There's a photo album inside the drawer.) * (There are photos of... Huh?) * (A card is sticking out from the back flap of the binder.) * (It's a poorly drawn picture of three smiling people.) * (Written on it...) * "don't forget."

Again, I’d like to emphasize that this dialogue only appears if you’ve spoken to Clamgirl, if you know who Suzy is. In this way, the phrase “Don’t forget” is intrinsically linked to Suzy.

So, from all of this, we can gather a few things about this mysterious “Suzy” character.

She is a girl around Frisk’s age.

She lives in the capital.

She has at least one parent (who happens to be Clamgirl’s neighbor.)

Frisk is, apparently, fated to meet her.

Despite this, it is impossible to meet Suzy in Undertale.

Sans’ photo album will have a card reading “don’t forget” only if you know who Suzy is.

Section Three: Fast Approaching

Did you think that was the only Undertale update that added cryptic Suzy-related dialogue?? Guess again!

Fast-forward to September 2018. Undertale has just been released on Nintendo Switch! Almost immediately, it is discovered that the Switch version added this:

youtube

(excuse me posting my own video, but it’s really the best one on youtube...(side note; i’m not sure if she’s actually supposed to reappear when you exit and re-enter the room, that might be a side effect of me poorly emulating the game))

Anyway, this is what happens post-pacifist in the Switch version if your fun value is exactly 81. If it’s 82-89, Clamgirl has her regular dialogue from v1.01.

The Switch version of Undertale came out September (15 in Japan, 18 everywhere else) 2018 - A month and a half before the release of Chapter 1 of Deltarune. In hindsight, it’s obviously foreshadowing - but when you think about it, foreshadowing what?

A month later, we play Deltarune, and meet a brand new character named Susie. Not Suzy. (More on that distinction in a bit.) If that’s the case, why did Clamgirl claim that we were going to meet Suzy very soon?

Well, the answer is that we don’t know.

It’s important to consider what Clamgirl says from an in-universe standpoint. It’s easy to take this line as Clamgirl talking directly to us, the player, since she’s clearly hinting towards Deltarune - but in actuality, in the game, in-universe, she’s talking to Frisk. She’s telling Frisk that they’re going to meet Suzy very soon. It’s possible that, when it comes down to it, what Clamgirl said might not apply to us at all.

Section Four: Deltarune

In October 2018, Toby Fox not only released an entire demo for an entire new video game, but a video game with a major character named Susie. Not Suzy, but Susie???? What’s going on?

Since Deltarune seems to have an alternate universe thing going on, some people believe that Susie is simply the Deltarune universe’s version of Suzy. This is definitely a possibility, but there is also reason to believe that this may not be the case.

Deltarune also introduces a new character named Catti, who is Catty’s little sister. Like Suzy and Susie, their names are pronounced the same, but spelled slightly differently. This could be hinting at the difference between the two.

As it stands, however, we currently do not know the relation between Suzy and Susie, or if any even exists.

In any case, it is likely that Suzy will be a major part of the story of Deltarune, as the main theme of the game is called “Don’t Forget”.

Bonus: A Comment From Toby

To my knowledge, the only time that Toby has ever publicly spoken about Suzy is in this tweet, since deleted (not specifically, but because Toby wiped all his tweets before a certain date), from nine days after Undertale’s release:

Unfortunately, since we’ve lost the context, it’s difficult to know who exactly “yellow kid” refers to here. The tweet was most likely in response to speculation regarding Suzy’s identity. Since Suzy’s name is written in yellow when Clamgirl speaks about her, some people assumed that Suzy may be associated with the color yellow. “Yellow kid” could be referring to Monster Kid, Frisk, or the yellow human soul. (I’ve heard people say before that this tweet is specifically in response to people speculating about Monster Kid being Suzy, but I don’t know how true that is. If anyone has any proof of this claim, let me know!)

Conclusion

Generally, when you’re writing an analysis of a character, you’re able to say more than three facts about them. There is very little we can say about Suzy, however, without delving into pure baseless speculation. Hell, we know more about Gaster, who is generally regarded as the mysterious Undertale character.

It’s very likely that we will learn more about Suzy in the future, but right now, we don’t have much to go on. However, that also means we’re free to speculate pretty much anything we want. Essentially, until proven otherwise, Suzy is whoever you want her to be..!

#ut #undertale #deltarune #analysis #suzyposting #thats a tag now.#since my suzy tag is um. shitposts

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ziracona · 4 years ago

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hoh I'm really sorry friend but you got Talbot's backstory kinda muddled. Some things you stated that he did, he didn't actually do for the reasons you stated. He didn't experiment on killers just for fun -- he ran from them. they hunted him. he experimented on them to find a dosage right for himself. he also didn't experiment on an animal for fun. it was dead. Vigo apparently talked about escaping and it had to do with serum. Its why he injected himself after tests. He wanted a way out.

I’m going to answer this in two parts since it’s stated in two. First, friend, I am going to have to operate on the assumption that you have very very strong feelings about Talbot and assume everything said against him is pretty much the same after a glance or something like it, because I never once said he experiments on the killers for fun. I said the Entity I think lets Talbot experiment on other killers now that he is one too as “punishment for them and fun research times for Talbot,” not that Talbot experiments on them for fun. I think he does enjoy doing his scientific research, but that aside, the above is just a description of the Entity’s reasoning in letting him do that/its POV. I certainly never said he does it ‘just for fun’. In fact, I explicitly stated his motivation for becoming a killer was to attempt to protect himself. I have to assume you didn’t really read my post at all, or perhaps got it confused with another. I know my shit. I read up. Though it is true I say ‘animals’ when, while he canonically experiments on both rats and crows, only the one rat happened for sure before he moved on to the Trapper. Although, that’s kind of worse... Again though, I never once said he did any of this for fun. I know he injected people to see what the serum would do, in a very reckless and poorly thought attempt to escape the realm. I explicitly mention this. Perhaps you are confused because I describe him as torturing people, and he’s not just doing pain for fun--this is because torture is not limited to only pain inflicted on someone out of cruelty or a desire to manipulate them. The dictionary definition of the verb, to torture, is “To cause intense suffering. To torment”. And he absolutely tortures killers, survivors, and reanimated realm animals alike as a means to his own ends. Also, the Entity has not erased all his memories--I know the archives has some memory deterioration lore added, but much of what he did to others happened well before any of that began, and explicitly some of his own addons mention things he explicitly remembers. The Entity did of course leave him to suffer in the void, with is a form of torture, and used the medical affects of blight itself to help manipulate him. Unfortunately, being hurt yourself doesn’t excuse you from the responsibility of what horrors you inflict on other people.

For part two, I am sure my answer is coming off as a bit abrasive. I appreciate the apology, but yes, it is rather rude. Even without the lack of attention to detail. Let me try to say this more fairly though, because I don’t know you at all, and in all likelihood, you’re a very nice and decent person who doesn’t mean anything by this, and simply has deep feelings about this character. Also, this isn’t all directed just at you, but to some degree at everybody who has sent me one of these in the past, or will in the future, which I am very tired of. I am going to quit answering most of them from here on.

First of all, I understand feeling deeply about a character or topic. I understand being frustrated or even hurt when you see opinions that distress you, or seem unjust compared to what you believe. That’s natural, and even sweet. And I am all for talking about how you feel and think and why, and leaving that in the tags so other people might hear what you have to say. Even for messaging people to see if they want to have a discussion with you. It’s endearing when people love things and want to fight for them. I only describe Talbot as more interesting than many of the others, because I was not asked specifically about my sympathy level, and it doesn’t factor high in importance to me where he is concerned, but you’re not wrong that Talbot is more sympathetic--or, at least, depending on interpretation, much more capable of being written sympathetic while adhering to canon--than many of the other killers. That said, he’s also--completely in line with canon--interpretable as pretty monstrous. I don’t think I necessarily paint him heavily either direction. Simply I personally feel fairly little sympathy for someone who commits the kinds of dehumanizing acts of scientific research torture on war prisoners without a second thought, ignores the consequences of his actions, and so quickly casts his humanity aside when in tribulation. He devolves from someone who could have changed and been good, to a man who is a horrific monster and cares only for him self, with no lines he will not cross (his own words, and pre-killer even). And to some people, that is tragic. To me, I feel little kinship for the man he was before, and am simply disappointed in him for failing so easily and completely. I can see why someone might interpret his character quite differently, but my take is just as valid in line with canon, and it’s mine.

I don’t mind people telling me their thoughts, and I don’t mind reading takes in the tags. And again, I very much understand the desire to stand up for something you care about if you feel it is wronged. But that’s not really what you’ve done here, messaging me on anonymous. To the best of my knowledge, I have never even interacted with you before. You didn’t open a discussion with me; you talked down to me, and you decided to argue with me about a topic I did not invite anyone into debate with myself. I am not an opinion blog, or a discussion blog. I am a personal blog. But still, you were discontent to not go into my space and try to scold me about my own opinions as a stranger. And you did all of it on anonymous, where there is no tag attaching anything you said even to your online persona, and no way for me to even be assured of you seeing an answer, or entering any dialogue with me. Which means that the goal, subconsciously probably since I know nothing at all about you and have no reason at all to think you’re anything but a decent person who is a bit carried away today with love for Talbot Grimes, but still the goal, was never to have a dialogue with me in the hopes maybe I would see and like your reasoning and we could talk about something we both have an interest in. It was that you felt so entitled to dictate someone you don’t know’s opinion about something they disagree with you on, that you felt compelled to leave a missive instructing me to correct my wrongs in my inbox.

Which, well, is rude.

This is probably a bit more, uh, ‘icy’? Than is totally necessary. I really am not angry at all; I understand you probably had no real ill will towards me doing this. I just have this happen a lot, and I am tired of it, so I want an easy frame of reference to link back to for why I find this behavior rude and cowardly and an unasked for nuisance--badly intentioned consciously or not. I truly am sorry if this makes you feel bad or distressed to read, especially if you’re a younger fan. I truly am not mad at you--and I do not at all think or mean to imply you are a bad person. Everybody is occasionally thoughtless. It’s not remotely representative of character. But please don’t keep doing this to people who aren’t interested in a debate. And if you believe in something enough you want to take the discussion to someone else, sign your name to it. If you feel enough conviction to make something someone else’s problem, make it your problem for real too. I’m truly not mad though, and wish you the best.

(and my ‘if you are annoyed by this or any of my other personal opinions and desperately want me to read your thoughts on anon about that’ requirements below the cut)

It’s literally not worth my time to read anon hate or people upset I don’t like a serial killer, so if you for some wild incomprehensible reason really feel a need to see me read that and answer to you instead of just delete and/or block without a look, then either leave my $5 on my Kofi, or get used to knowing I didn’t even read it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I have to actually get paid to not file that shit under ‘I’m not paid enough to deal with this’.

#ask #anonymous #dead by daylight #talbot grimes #the blight #again Anon I know this might read very abrasive to you. Legit the only emotion I am feeling is mild annoyance #You're not a bad person for mildly annoying me and please don't feel too bad or dwell on this if u even #read it & care. Just. Please don't keep doing this to people #Anonymous

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whitesparrows97 · 5 years ago

Text

Stuck With You

Pairing: Park Jimin x Reader

Genre: Neighbour AU

Summary: Unfortunately, you can’t choose your neighbors. If you could, you would have exchanged the neighbor above you a long time ago. If on top of that, you suddenly get stuck with him in a confined space, Friday night could only get better.

Warnings: Angst, panic attacks, mentions of claustrophobia and agoraphobia

Word Count: 4.3K

(gif by: btsofficial on giphy.com)

Your gaze glided up to the ceiling and you could not suppress the annoyed sigh. A few seconds earlier you had flinched again at the loud noise above you. With a click of your tongue you pulled the sleeve of your sweater over your fingertips and wiped up the small puddle of tea that you had spilled on the desk in surprise.

Every day it was the same. You didn’t know what your neighbour was doing above you in his apartment, but sometimes you had the feeling that a herd of elephants was testing how high they could jump, only to come back down loudly on the floor.

The thought wasn’t even that far-fetched. You couldn’t imagine that a single person could be that loud. But you were proven wrong day in, day out.

Bang!

There it was again. What on earth was he doing on a Thursday at just before midnight? If he was at least loud at normal hours, it wouldn’t bother you half as much. You were out most of the time anyway, but when you came home in the evening, you just wanted to have your peace.

Peace and quiet you haven’t had for about half a year, because at that time the nice older lady had moved out to move into assisted living. Her replacement was a young man, with whom you had already had to deal with several times.

Most of the time your encounters consisted of you going upstairs after a few hours of being annoyed and knocking on his door to complain. At first you had tried the nice way. He probably didn’t know how poorly soundproofed the walls in this house were and he didn’t realize that you could hear everything he was doing in his apartment.

You remembered that he had apologized directly and had been really surprised. On the way back down to your apartment you had even thought that you might ask him for a date. To be honest, you were surprised how handsome he had been when he opened the door.

That euphoria had lasted until the very next evening. It was like you’d never been up there. For a moment you even wondered if you’d imagined talking to him. But you didn’t see the point of trying to have another conversation with him not even twenty-four hours later. At that time, you still had the hope that he would at least respect the rest periods. Now you laughed at your own naivety.

He had not even told you what was so important that he had to do it half the night. Actually you didn’t care either, but at some point you started to make up your own explanation. You hoped very much that you were wrong and that there was neither a serial killer living above you who buried his bodies in the walls nor a fanatic who had to move his furniture around every night. Nor the herd of elephants your neighbor only let out of their cages at night.

Although, of the three, the fanatical furniture lover was your preferred choice…

You did not understand how some people were so inconsiderate and apparently assumed to be alone in this world. At some point you had stopped counting how many times you had been up there and had given up. If he still didn’t understand it on the fifth, sixth, seventh time, he wouldn’t suddenly show insight on the eighth time.

But he had always been very nice, you had to give him credit for that. Yet you were just annoyed by him. Your gaze glided to the small display in the corner of your monitor and you had to sigh.

12:10. And probably still no peace in sight. No sooner had this thought shot into your head than it rumbled over you again. Oh, maybe your neighbor had a problem with a poltergeist, too.

You shook your head once briefly to dispel this thought and tried to clear your mind. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Deep breath in and out. Inhale, exhale–

Bang!

That’s enough. Enough was enough. You got up from your desk and put on your old sneakers, which you could just slip into without opening your shoelaces. Before you left the apartment, you took a quick look in the big mirror in the hall. Not particularly charming, but presentable. After all, you had already made yourself ready for bed and only wanted to watch one episode of your favourite TV show.

With tired steps you trudged the few steps to the floor above you and came to a halt at the door of your favourite neighbour. You knocked, and while you waited, you wondered if he could guess that you were at his door every time. Did you perhaps have a special way of knocking at the door by which he recognized you? Or was it simply because you were probably the only one in the house who complained to him about the noise?

A few seconds later you were still standing in front of a closed door, staring at the yellowed white of the wood. Funny, that was new, that he completely ignored you now. You tried knocking again and when nothing happened again after a short wait, you rang the bell. You breathed a sigh of relief when a moment later you heard footsteps in the apartment and the key turning in the lock.

„Hey,” you greeted your neighbour, who already nodded at you, although you had hardly said anything.

“Let me guess, I was too loud again?” he said with a little smile and leaned against the door with one arm.

You just gave him back a small and quick smile.

“Okay, I’ll keep it down,” he placated you. Apparently, he saw that you weren’t in a joking mood today. “I promise, Y/N,” he added and gave you a big smile. Automatically your gaze glided to his eyes, which became cute little crescents when he laughed.

You deleted the word cute directly from your vocabulary if it was related to your neighbour. That your heart made a little jump when he said your name, you also ignored skillfully.

“Then please stick with it, Jimin,” you told him. “It’s during the week and already after midnight. I have to get up early in the morning and I can’t sleep with all that noise.”

The smile on the young man’s face disappeared as quickly as it had come. “Okay, got it,” he said and nodded. You nodded goodbye to him once more and went back to your apartment. You knew that this silence would last ten, maybe twenty minutes at most. Maybe enough time to fall asleep if you gave up the episode of your series.

When you fell into your bed a little later and it was still quiet, you were a little surprised, but you drifted off to sleep so quickly that you didn’t have time to worry about it.

The next morning you were more relaxed than you’d been in a long time. You didn’t know why, but you weren’t complaining. On the contrary, the day at your part-time job in the café went by so fast this time and when you went home you even had a lot of energy left. Despite the double shift your boss had put you on because Nathalie cancelled at the last minute. But you weren’t complaining about that either. You could use the extra money.

On the way home you got something to eat because you knew that you wouldn’t feel like cooking despite all that energy. You were looking forward to make yourself comfortable on your little couch and to end the evening with a nice movie and a glass of wine.

With a slight jump in your walk you covered the last few meters to your apartment building and unlocked the door. Just a few more steps and you would be home and finally start your weekend. The elevator doors opened with a soft ‘ping’ and you stepped into the small room. With your free hand you pressed the button on floor 11, while the other hand clasped the two handles of the thin plastic bag tighter for fear of dropping the food so close to your destination.

The doors were about to slide shut again before a voice shouted “Wait!” from the hallway.

Quickly you pressed the button that made the doors slide open again and Jimin dashed into the elevator. He was a little out of breath when he thanked you. He leaned over to you and pressed the button on floor 12, and you couldn’t help but notice his stunning scent. God, how could anyone smell that good after such a long day?

But who knows, maybe he freshly got out of the shower and just took out the trash or something? That would at least explain why he could afford to be up so late.

Silently you stood next to each other while the elevator doors closed again and the elevator started moving. You didn’t know if you should say anything, and if so, what exactly. But what you could say for sure was that it was getting stuffier and stuffier in the small square room and the atmosphere became increasingly uncomfortable as the elevator went up.

Jimin cleared his throat next to you. “I’m really sorry I’m always so loud,” he apologized and your head shot in his direction in surprise. It was not the first time you saw Jimin in the hallway, but that he apologized so seriously was new.

“No problem, I know you’re not doing it on purpose,” you dismissed his apology with a gesture of your hand. But did you actually know that? You knew he was obviously sorry, or at least he claimed to be. However, that didn’t change the fact that he was still loud.

“I’m dancing,” blurted it out of him, and he looked at you with big eyes. “You can probably hear me practicing my choreography,” he continued as you looked at him questioningly. “I listen to the music mostly through Bluetooth headphones so I don’t disturb you with it and I try to be really quiet. But a lot of dance steps require a lot of energy–”

His explanation was abruptly interrupted when the elevator suddenly came to a halt with a loud crunch. You looked at the display above the buttons indicating the floor, but the red numbers only showed two letters: ER. Error. Great.

“Probably just a brief malfunction,” Jimin said after a short silence. “But perhaps we should still press the emergency button?”

You nodded and pressed the button with the yellow bell. Three seconds, as the instruction on the sign below explained. A loud ringing was heard, which only stopped when you removed your finger. A short crackling sound came from the loudspeaker, then only static was heard.

“Is that normal?” you asked, looking over your shoulder at Jimin.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, I’ve never been stuck in an elevator before.” He also tried to press the button, but even with him, the loudspeaker only crunched and cracked and apparently no connection to the technician was made. “But I’m sure people will realize soon that the elevator doesn’t work.”

“I hope so,” you replied, sinking to the dirty ground. The fact that right in front of your feet was a dried-up puddle of indefinable liquid and a crumpled handkerchief was lying there, was of little interest to you at that moment. Your heart was racing and you felt the nausea rising inside you.

“Hey, are you okay?” Jimin asked anxiously and knelt down in front of you.

You wiped your sweaty hands on your jeans and nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.” That your voice sounded flat and thin, you hardly noticed. Your attention was on the silver walls of the elevator, which framed you from all sides. The glaring LED light blinded you and you squinted your eyes as you looked back down to the floor.

Jimin also sat down on the floor and leaned his back against the elevator wall next to you, so that you sat at right angles to each other. You had your legs pulled up and there wouldn’t even be enough room if you stretched them out like Jimin. In fact, the elevator was just big enough for him to stretch them out at all. His feet took up the full width of the elevator and already hit the opposite side.

“There’s nothing better to do on a Friday night,” Jimin joked, trying to lighten the mood a bit. “Were you planning on going out tonight to party or meet some friends?”

You were irritated by all his questions and his talk. You didn’t know why, but it made you even more nervous and overwhelmed you. “No,” you therefore answered succinctly, hoping that this would have settled the matter for Jimin.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to. “So you prefer to spend Friday nights in the comfort of your own home? Interesting,” he continued, raising one eyebrow. You didn’t even look at him, but smoothed the plastic on the handles, which were a little wrinkled from carrying and from the weight of the contents. It was as if you had tunnel vision, there was only the white of the plastic on the black of your jeans. Everything else you had blanked out.

“Did I do anything to you?” Jimin’s voice brought you back to the present. You winced and looked up. Jimin looked at you with a mixture of anger and insecurity. “I know I’m loud a lot, but I’ve apologized every time and explained to you why. I really try to be considerate and I have even accepted the fact that I am no longer the best in my class, because I can no longer practice as much. I don’t expect you to like me, but I thought we were both mature enough that we could talk neutrally. At least now that we’re both stuck in an elevator together.”

Jimin had finished his short tirade and you could only stare at him in confusion. “What?” you asked, dumbfounded. You felt like all your synapses in your head were just reconnecting. You didn’t know how to talk or form words or even whole sentences. You didn’t know how to breathe or how to swallow. The oppressive feeling in your chest was getting stronger and stronger and you felt like your heart was about to collapse as fast as it was beating.

“Are you really all right, Y/N? You’re really pale,” you heard Jimin’s voice, but it sounded far away. As if Jimin was no longer in the elevator and as if he had left you here alone. Alone with the fear of never leaving this square hell of metal again.

You felt warm hands on yours, and you flinched again. “Calm down, Y/N. It’s all right,” he spoke to you in a soft voice, but you still kept your eyes closed. You knew that if you opened them now the tears would just pour out of them.

Instead, you shook your head. It wouldn’t be all right if you were locked up here for hours, maybe even days. It felt like the air in the small room was getting even stickier and your breathing accelerated in an attempt to pump more oxygen into your lungs.

You felt a hand on your cheek trying to lift your head a little bit, but you felt like you were frozen, every muscle in your body tensed to the utmost.

“Y/N, please look at me,” you heard Jimin say and in all the confusion of thoughts and feelings, you felt his warm breath on your face. “Yes, just like that. I am here,” he said and only now did you realize that you had followed his request and opened your eyes.

Immediately the tears made their way down your cheeks and your upper body was shaken by sobs. “Shh,” Jimin tried to calm you down and gently stroked your cheeks to catch the tears.

“I-I have the f-feeling… t-to suffocate,” you somehow managed to get out and you were glad you had managed to explain your fear to Jimin. As calmly as he dealt with the whole situation, he didn’t seem to understand the seriousness of the situation, that you were really suffocating.

“Try to concentrate on your breathing,” he said, his hands still holding your face.

“I c-can’t,” you pushed out, squinting your eyes again.

“Yes, you can,” Jimin disagreed with you. “You’re breathing too much oxygen and hyperventilating. Here,” he explained to you and suddenly a hand was gone from your face. A moment later you felt it on your stomach. “You feel my hand, right?” You nodded. “Very good, now try to push it forward with your breathing.”

You exhaled once more before trying to push his hand forward the next time you inhaled. “Perfect, just like that,” he praised you and you continued to concentrate on his hand, which was lying on your stomach with a slight pressure. You repeated this a few times until you noticed how the haze seemed to lift from your head. Your heartbeat had also calmed down again.

Jimin kept his hand on your belly and as you opened your eyes carefully, you realized what position you and Jimin were in. He knelt right beside you while one hand gently stroked your cheek. His face was not even a hand’s length away from you and you could even see the slight stubble of his beard on his chin.

As your gaze fell back up, you took care not to stop at his full, pink lips, which he had opened slightly and which only invited you to press your lips onto them.

Wherever the oxygen had gone, your brain had apparently received too little of it. You cleared your throat once and turned your head to the side while you felt the heat rise to your cheeks.

“Are you feeling better?” Jimin asked, releasing his hand from your cheek, and as you nodded, the hand on your belly also left its place. To your surprise, however, Jimin didn’t back off, but sat down right next to you so that your shoulders touched.

He reached out a hand to you and you were overwhelmed for a moment and didn’t know what to do with it. Jimin did not hesitate and took your free hand with his and interlocked your fingers. Only now did you notice that your other hand was still clutching the handles of the plastic bag. You loosened the grip a little bit and your fingers ached slightly.

“I used to have panic attacks a lot,” Jimin said softly and you looked up at him. His gaze was directed at something in front of him, as if he was remembering that time. “Unfortunately, most of the time, I had no one to help me get through them.”

“I’m sorry,” you replied, squeezing his hand tenderly once. You could hardly express in words how grateful you were that Jimin had been with you and helped you. And also that he gave you so much support now. It was good to feel him beside you, to hold his hand.

He looked at you, and for a moment, everything was quiet. Only the buzzing of the LED lamps and the noise of the loudspeaker could be heard. Then he smiled at you. It was the smile you liked so much on him and it seemed as if there was only you. At least in that one moment.

“I’m glad I’m stuck here with you,” he confessed, eliciting a little laugh from you.

“I’m sure of it,” you returned ironically. “Who wouldn’t want to be stuck in a confined space with someone who immediately panics and starts crying?” You snorted. “And with someone who always gets upset at you because you’re too loud.”

Jimin nudged you with his shoulder. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You have a good right for silence and I’ll stick to the rest periods from now on,” he promised you, “I also saw an advertising from a small rehearsal room near here and from the free times, that would fit perfectly.”

You raised your eyebrows in surprise. “Really? But you don’t have to do that, Jimin. I don’t want you out late at night, and a rehearsal space like this must be super expensive…” You didn’t want to say it, but you felt guilty. Sure, you often get upset with him when he was loud and you could barely concentrate. But that didn’t make him a bad person. His reactions and actions in the last few minutes had proven the opposite.

Jimin dismissed your concerns with a wave of his hand. “The rehearsal space would actually be paid for by my university, and it’s not that much. I would only have it from late at night to early in the morning and I’m sure it would be empty otherwise. Not all dancers are so crazy and practice at night after they’ve practiced all day.” He threw you a quick smile. “And the room’s just down the street, so it doesn’t really get any more perfect than that.”

You gave a short, satisfied ‘Hm’ of yourself and pondered over your thoughts for a moment. “Thank you, Jimin,” you said, then looked up at him again. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been here.”

Jimin paused to think before answering, “You probably would have passed out and then woken up again at some point.”

“Thanks for the honest answer,” you laughed, then you punched him in the chest with your intertwined hands. “But this was the better alternative.”

“Absolutely,” he agreed with you and looked you in the eye again. Damn, it was like his lips were magnetic, the way your eyes were drawn to them. His eyes were such a dark brown that they almost blended with his pupils. Your eyes glided over his delicate nose and finally reached his full lips.

The lips on which a little grin now spread. You looked up again and there was a mischievous sparkle in his eyes, too. You rolled your eyes and looked to the side again. You had hoped not to have been too obvious and to catch just a glimpse. Of course, Jimin had noticed it right away. How could he not, when you were sitting inches apart?

You were surprised when you felt a hand on your cheek that turned your head back in his direction. You looked at Jimin curiously, but then you saw his gaze wandering down as well, lying on your lips. The unspoken question was in the air and you answered it by leaning forward and pressing your lips against his.

His full lips received you and immediately a feeling of warmth spread within you. “Do you want to keep clutching the bag,” Jimin muttered into the kiss, and you both had to laugh.

“Sorry,” you said, released the handles and ran your fingers through his soft hair instead. His tongue ran tenderly over your lips and you willingly opened them. Jimin did not hesitate and explored your mouth with his tongue while he tried to pull you closer with his hand. You were more or less almost lying on top of him, your hands still clasped together while the others explored each other’s bodies.

“God,” Jimin sighed as you took a short breath, “I’ve dreamed of this moment since the first time you stood at my door.”

“Is that why you were always so loud?” you returned with a grin, and Jimin returned it.

“You’ve seen right through me,” he said playfully. “By the way, in movies they always show that a kiss can also help you when hyperventilating.”

You raised one eyebrow skeptically. “You had the chance to test it earlier,” you gave back just as playfully and threw your leg over his legs so that you sat on his lap. “Do you think there are cameras installed here?”

“As if, have you looked at the building?” Jimin laughed. “The elevator doesn’t work, so I don’t think the landlord cares about cameras.”

“Good to know,” you whispered and pressed your lips demandingly on his again. A second later you both flinched when suddenly a loud noise filled the elevator. It took a moment before you identified the source. Your heads turned to the small loudspeaker from which the static noise could no longer be heard, but instead a dial tone, like a telephone.

A moment later, a friendly sounding female voice made its way to you in the elevator. “You have dialed the emergency number. Unfortunately we have only now been put through to you. What elevator are you in?”

Jimin had regained his composure more quickly and explained to the woman which street and which building you were in. She collected all the data she needed and promised to send a technician as soon as possible.

“How long will that take?” Jimin asked.

The woman on the other end of the line was quiet for a moment, as if she was sorry to deliver the message. “It will take at least an hour for the technician to get to you. On top of that, there’s the time it takes them to see exactly what’s wrong with the elevator so they can let you out. But it shouldn’t take longer than two hours,” she explained.

“Okay, great, thanks a lot,” Jimin said goodbye, and shortly after that, a crackling sound could be heard before the old familiar static noise took over again.

Your eyes fell on Jimin, who grinned at you. “What?” you asked and could not help smiling.

“Then we’ll have at least an hour to ourselves,” he said, and wrapped his arms around you to pull you closer and press his lips back onto yours.

Hi! I hope you enjoyed this little short story! To be honest, I’m finding it very hard to find anything good in my stories right now. I know that I’m a very self-critical person, but at the moment it’s getting a bit out of hand. So if you wonder why I publish so few new stories - that’s the reason (the same is true for chapter 17 of A Thousand Springs). Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed the story and have a nice rest of the week! ♥️

#bts x reader #bts x you #jimin x you #bts imagine #jimin x reader #bts fanfic #bts

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