#i struggle to put thoughts into meaningful sentences if it makes sense

[thetriangletattoo]

.

[markrosewater]

Elegance

Here’s my original article for Elegance.

 This is a topic I’ve wanted to write about for a long time.  Ironically, the words needed to explain the concept kept the column from being elegant. So I did what all artists do.  I found a way to say a lot in a little space.

 Enjoy,

 Mark Rosewater

 [NOTE: EACH OF THE ABOVE FIFTY WORDS IS HYPERLINKED.  BELOW IS THE FIFTY HYPER LINKS.  THE HEADERS SHOULDN’T BE ON THE LINKED PAGE.  I’M JUST INCLUDING THEM SO YOU KNOW WHAT EACH LINK IS.]

 ELEGANCE

 Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary has five definitions for elegance:

 • refined grace or dignified propriety

• tasteful richness of design or ornamentation

• dignified, gracefulness or restrained beauty of style

• scientific precision, neatness and simplicity

• something that is elegant

 The common elements appear to be dignity, simplicity, and taste.

 THIS

 Elegance requires thinking, but it also requires feeling.  Elegant prose is judged by how it makes the reader feel. It needs to generate a sense of calm that puts the reader at ease.  Everything in your writing should feel as if it was carefully positioned to create the proper effect.

 IS

 Pound for pound, the writer’s greatest writing tool is the verb.  Nouns add substance and adjectives add flourish, but it’s the verb that drives the sentence.  Choose a strong, descriptive verb and the sentence has flair and purpose. Choose a weak one and the sentence lacks any sense of drama.

 A

 Here’s a little game to test an elegance relevant skill (based on an old game called Inklings).  Randomly choose a noun.  Try to convey that noun to the other players using the least number of letters possible. You’ll be surprised how much you can communicate in just a few letters.

 TOPIC

 One of the greatest stumbling blocks to elegance is the inability to choose a single focus.  Elegance requires simplicity.  Simplicity requires a single purpose of thought.  This means that elegance starts before you write a single word.  A good sculptor must know his image before he picks up his chisel.

 I’VE

 One of the common misconceptions of elegance is that it requires a writer to be fancy. Elegance though is more about familiarity than formality. You shouldn’t be afraid of friendlier language such as slang or contractions, assuming that such language adds an element of ease rather than one of laziness.

 WANTED

 An important element of elegance is a sense of passion.  Brevity does not mean pulling away emotionally from words, but rather the opposite.  When you find yourself limited to fewer words, you must pack each individual word with extra emotional punch.  You are not reducing your message, simply your messenger.

 TO

 A good tool in understanding elegance is studying poetry.  Poetry is the most concise of all written art forms.  It strives to maximize impact while minimizing expression.  Each word carries the burden of evoking some essence of the poet’s message. If it cannot carry its own weight, it is excised.

WRITE

 To be an elegant writer, you have to become a student of prose.  You have to study the mechanics of language to understand how it can be shaped.  Once you have learned how to transfer the feeling in your head into meaningful words, you are on the path to elegance.

 ABOUT

 Be careful not to fall in love with ambiguity.  While intoxicating in its beauty, it is the enemy of elegance. Remember, the goal is not to make the reader struggle for comprehension.  Rather it is to lead them to the obvious conclusion. Elegance should be used to illuminate, not confuse.

 FOR

 Elegant prose requires connecting with your reader.  To do this, you have to understand who that reader is.  Nothing should come before this task.  It needs to be done before writing can begin. I like to compare this to planning a trip.  Maps are useless until you know your destination.

 A

 Another major key to elegance is the understanding of the importance of the tiniest detail.  Just as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, a piece of prose is only as tight as its messiest detail. A good writer doesn’t stop at the nouns, verbs and adjectives.

 LONG

 Don’t confuse elegance with brevity.  Elegant things are short not because they have to be but because the difficulty to craft an elegant piece of prose combined with the limitations of time forces writers to be brief.  Elegant novels, for example, do exist, but they are few and far between.

 TIME

 To quote Roman orator (and letter writer) Marcus T. Cicero, “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”  

 Simplicity takes more time not less.  Anyone can get a point across with ten thousand words.  But a true artist can do it in ten (or possibly fifty).  

 IRONICALLY

 Irony is a potent tool for commentary.  Its genius lies in the fact that it comments not on what is, but rather on what isn’t.  Like all good humor, irony makes you laugh.  But like the best type of humor, it also makes you think.  It’s both funny and funny.

 THE

 Elegance in writing is about more than words. Equally important is how the words are woven together. Tempo, pacing, rhythm – these are the tools that set the mood for the piece.  Try reading aloud your text.  The natural beat of language is more suited for the ear than the eye.

 WORDS

 To realize the power of words, you must first understand how they work. Art is expressive; words are connotative.  That is, words draw their power from their ability to extract different ideas from different people.  A circle is a circle, but the concept of “scary” varies from person to person.

 NEEDED

 Elegance is not the result of any one attribute.  It is the combination of numerous factors coming together in harmony. This is why it’s such a hard skill to master.  Most people can pat their head or rub their tummy.  But put them together and it’s not quite so easy.

 TO

 An elegant piece of prose needs to hit the reader at a gut level.  Often they won’t know exactly why they like it, but they will recognize that something about the piece moves them.  There are many types of writing where subtlety is lost.  Elegant writing isn’t one of them.

 EXPLAIN

 There are many ways for you to explain an idea.  The most elegant one though is not through definition but by example. By connecting your idea to one already known by the reader, you’re leaving the work of teaching to someone in the past.  Education is hard.  Comparison is easy.

 THE

 If writing is like building a house, the structure is like the foundation. Its design will dictate how the house is built.  If it’s faulty, no amount of fancy brickwork will undo the damage.  So take the time to ensure your structure is building the kind of prose you want.

 CONCEPT

 Never underestimate the power of a concept.  An important part of elegance is condensing big ideas into little words. This is far from an easy task.  It often takes a genius an entire lifetime to create a truly innovative concept.  So take advantage of all their hard work and inspiration.  

 KEPT

 A common barrier to elegance is the belief that only one way will work. Often a writer is unable to abandon a beloved piece of prose even when evidence demonstrates otherwise.  If something doesn’t add to the larger sense of the piece, you have to learn to let it go.

 THE

 Readers notice things at a minute level far beyond their mind’s ability to interpret. This means that although they may not consciously notice many of your tiny details, they will do so unconsciously. Aesthetics teach us that it’s this unconscious structure that will determine whether or not it feels “right”.

 COLUMN

 All communicators, whether through speaking or print, need to find a voice. A voice provides familiarity and it teaches the listener or reader how to more quickly absorb the information. Elegance is all about the conservation of ideas.  Having a pre-learned voice to guide you is a very valuable tool.

 FROM

 I’ve spent some time talking about understanding your reader.  But there is one more person who is even more important to understand – yourself. Writing is about sharing your ideas with others.  If you haven’t spent the time to figure out what you think, how can you possibly communicate it?

 BEING

 “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

 Or so the saying goes.  What the cliché forgets to mention is how many words a single word is worth.  For example, take the word “being”. To capture the essence of what “being” represents is tens of thousands of words if not more.

 ELEGANT

 What is the value of being elegant? Why should you care? Elegance adds aesthetics. It evokes poetry.  It grants beauty.  Elegant prose draws the reader closer because it gives them something to not just learn but to admire.  Good prose stimulates the head, but elegant prose resonates in the heart.

 SO

 Who, what, where, when, how - all important questions.  But for a writer they pale next to why.  If you don’t understand the reasoning beneath the surface, the other details are irrelevant.  The act of elegance is cementing the why.  It’s taking the purpose and engraining it into the piece.

 I

 Elegance is a very personal thing.  If something doesn’t resonate with you, there’s no way for it to resonate with your reader.  Writing is an art, not a science.  There is no rulebook for how things must be done.  If your instincts are telling you that something isn’t working, listen.

 DID

 An important tool in your toolbox is time. Elegance cannot be rushed.  Mental ruts only get deeper the harder you focus on them.  Make sure to work time into your schedule so you are able to walk away from your writing. An hour next week is worth a day today.  

 WHAT

 Don’t let attention to detail pull you away from having a larger sense of what you’re writing.  Take this column as an example.  While I spent a lot of time fine tuning each entry I never lost sight of the effect they created when all the entries were put together.

 ALL

 Elegance requires taking a holistic view of writing.  Every word, every sentence, every paragraph is a piece in a larger puzzle. It’s not enough to understand the impact of a single element. You must understand how any two elements interact if you want to understand the potency of your text.

 ARTISTS

 Elegance and art are very intertwined.  Both seek to achieve a similar goal: to illuminate and inspire with a conservation of expression.  If you’re trying to be elegant, I think it helps to think of yourself as an artist. The instinct for the latter mirrors the needs of the former.

 DO

 An important part of any writing is understanding the feeling you’re trying to evoke.  And then realizing what mechanic tools you have available to evoke that feeling. Diction, verb tense, sentence length, alliteration, word flow, phonetic juxtaposition – each of these will control the mood and tone of your piece.

 I

 A writer’s life is the ultimate fodder.  Don’t be ashamed to plumb your own experiences.  You understand them deeper and more personally than anyone else.  No painter would refuse to use his finest paints. And, as a bonus, by using your own experiences, you will become better educated about yourself.

 FOUND

 Don’t forget that the act of revealing is also an act of exploration.  Don’t be afraid if you learn more than the reader you’re trying to educate.  Writing is not an exact science.  (Or even an exact art.)  Often you will find that the road to salvation has a fork.

 A

 Your future is paved with your past.  If you want to learn how to grow as a writer, you need to look back at what you’ve written. With time and a detached eye, your will find your mistakes become clearer.  Remember that it’s failure, not success, that bests drives education.

 WAY

 The problem with looking for a single solution is that you’ll never find more than one.  And the first one isn’t always the best.  But if you’re open to the possibility that every problem has an infinite number of answers, you’ll have the freedom of choosing the solution you want.  

 TO

 Sentences are filled with freeloaders.  Because writers seem to love overwriting. (I include myself in this camp.)  Make sure to create time for the editor side of you to prune unnecessary words.  If a word can be excised without any harm to the sentence, it has no right being there.

 SAY

 I’m spending my time today talking about elegance in prose, but most of what I’m saying is applicable in speech.  The key difference is that prose has less defining attributes like appearance or tone.  The key to elegant speech is making people focus on the words rather than everything else.

 A

 It’s ironic that something designed to be so simple can be so complex.  But that, my faithful readers, is the joy (and mystery) of elegance. Like an onion, elegance has numerous layers that reveal themselves as you slowly peel them away.  Oh yeah, and it can sometimes make you cry.

 LOT

 An interesting exercise is to look at each word you’re using and think about how much content is loaded in that word.  Then explore what other words exist that fulfill the same role but with added content.  Once you’ve found the word you can’t best, move onto the next word.

 IN

 A good way to get better at understanding elegance is to look for it in every day life. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised where and how often you find it.  Study each example carefully and try to see if you can put your finger on what makes it work.  

 A

 Writing is a shared endeavor.  No one owns the words.  If someone uses a technique that works, there’s no shame in borrowing it.  Like science, writing creates technology that’s brought back to the group to spur further advancements.  Elegance is hard enough to accomplish without refusing to use the toolbox.

 LITTLE

 How big should a piece of text be if you want it to be elegant?  The answer is as big as it needs to be – and not a word more. Just think of it as playing the game Jenga. Keep pulling words out of your prose until it collapses.  

 SPACE

 One of the most important lessons in art is learning the value of negative space, the idea that the eyes are equally drawn to what isn’t there.  Prose has a very similar quality.  When writing pay careful attention to what you aren’t saying. Often it will speak the loudest volume.

 ENJOY

 For some reason people tend to equate dignity with seriousness.  And as such they come to the false conclusion that elegance has no room for humor.  Ironic as humor is one of the most elegant of styles.  A good joke is no longer than is necessary to do its job.

 MARK

 As is always true when I head off the beaten path, I am curious to hear your feedback.  What did you think of this article?  Was it entertaining?  Was it educational? Did you actually read all fifty links?  And if not, why not?

 Tell me.  Inquiring mind wants to know.

 ROSEWATER

 I couldn’t end this week’s column without my trademark closing.  I mean, how inelegant would that be?

 Join me next week when  I go from being a letter man to a Letterman.

 Until then, may you learn to appreciate now just the “what” but the “how” and “why”.

 Mark Rosewater

[bakersimmer]

Sims 4 Flower Garden Legacy

This legacy is inspired by flowers and the meanings attributed to them. I used the interpretations from two books I found on my mother's bookshelf.

These are more like guidelines and thoughts on how to make your different generations more interesting, especially if you are like me, and you need goals and challenges to stay engaged.  I didn't have time to playtest all the generations, but I know it's possible to push your sims to the limit without cheating. 

First things first

TS4 is easy enough to play without cheating

Different generations are linked to different expansions

Objectives are not in chronological order

To add more excitement, try out different mods

There are no assigned traits, but some traits would make your sims life easier. Follow your gut on this

There are no assigned colors. Again, follow your gut

English is not my first language, so please ignore any grammar mistakes 🙃 unless I wrote complete gibberish and you don't understand a single word in a sentence, then let me know

G1 Azalea

Azalea symbolizes friendship, family, joy, and tradition. With the right amount of sunlight and water, this low-maintenance plant will bring an abundance of color and beauty to your life. 

You have a gentle and nurturing personality, with a talent for caring for others and creating a warm, welcoming environment. You prioritize spending time with loved ones and creating meaningful connections with others in your community. You find joy in the beauty of nature and have a passion for gardening and spending time in the kitchen. 

Aspiration: Big Happy Family

Have at least three kids

Develop the highest possible skill level in cooking, baking, gardening, flower arranging, and parenting

Have some kind of social event with family and friends every Saturday (dinner, bbq, etc.)

Grow at least 10 different types of flowers in your garden (As of May 2023, there are 24 flowers in the game) 

Use only low to mid-range furniture and appliances. Never replace anything, fix it yourself

To make money, you can only sell what you have grown or made yourself (vegetables, flower arrangements, preserves, cakes)

G2 Hollyhock

Hollyhock symbolizes ambition, abundance, resilience, and determination. With little care, this tall and sturdy flower will bring vibrance to your garden. 

You always felt like you had to compete for the attention. You are highly ambitious, striving to achieve your goals and exceed expectations. While putting a lot of emphasis on your education and career, you neglect your close relationships. You struggle to express your feelings and connect with others on an emotional level. Despite all this, you are a loyal and supportive partner who does everything to show your feelings in a more practical way. 

Aspiration: Academic -> Fabulously Wealthy

Complete the first aspiration and move to the next one

Get the best possible grades in elementary school, high school, and university

Have a career in business. You aim for the top

Marry the first sim you have a romantic relationship with

You are the breadwinner. The spouse quits their job after marriage and never works again

Don't spend much time with your child/children

Your home has medium and high price items. When something breaks, you always replace it with a new one

Pass the family money to the next heir

G3 Hydrangea

Hydrangea symbolizes vanity, arrogance, and desire. With little care, hydrangea brings elegance to your garden with its large and showy blooms. 

You are highly creative and have a refined sense of style. Being in front of the cameras feels natural to you. You are self-centred and tend to prioritize your needs and desires above those of others. Thanks to your skills and fame, you accumulate a large amount of wealth.

Aspiration: World-Famous Celebrity

Develop the highest possible skill level in charisma, comedy, and acting

Go to a club/restaurant at least twice a week

Have one Meet and Greet in every season

Use mean interactions often

Change your hair color at least 3 times in your life

Hire a butler

In old age, an unexpected wave of generosity hits you, and you donate all your wealth

G4 Yarrow

Yarrow symbolizes strength, courage, overcoming and recovery. This flower will grow even on the poorest soil and doesn't require any care to thrive. 

You grew up in luxury and wealth, but now you have nothing. Despite the obstacles, you are determined to provide for yourself because you want a stable and secure life. It is very important for you that your children are equipped with the necessary skills to be independent and successful by the time they move out.

Aspiration: Renaissance Sim -> Super Parent

Complete the first aspiration and move to the next one

Start with 0 money and a tent

In addition to work, dumpster dive to find valuables that you can sell (Don't sell collectibles or paintings/music/books for extra cash)

Attend different skill classes

Choose medicine as the last career and work in that field until retirement

Fall in love with a patient and end up marrying them

All your kids must gain a Top-Notch-Toddler trait

Always help your children with homework/school projects

All your kids must gain at least one positive character value trait

G5 Gardenia

Gardenia symbolizes sensuality, passion, and secret love. This sweet and intoxicating flower requires a little bit more attention from its grower. 

You have a magnetic personality and natural charm. You are a hopeless romantic who tends to get caught in the passion and excitement of new relationships. You avoid long-term commitment because you fear that the daily routine will kill the excitement and passion. For that one special person, you are willing to take a chance on love despite your fears. 

Aspiration: Serial Romantic -> Soulmate

Complete the first aspiration and move to the next one

Have a childhood friend who later becomes your soulmate

Work in Public Relations (Social Media career)

Get married at least 3 times

Woohoo in 10 different locations (As of May 2023, there are 23 locations/ways on the list)

No kids until adulthood

Reconnect with your childhood friend and settle down with them

G6 Protea

Protea symbolizes dreams, exploration, courage, and resilience. This plant needs a lot of space and sun to grow. It should not be planted deeper than the surface level of the soil. 

You have a strong sense of wanderlust and a need for adventures. You love new experiences and cherish old memories. For you, a job is just a means to an end. 

Complete two adventure/location-based aspirations

Develop the highest possible skill level in fitness, photography, programming, and logic

Work as a freelance programmer

Complete the postcard collection

Move repeatedly and live in at least 3 different worlds

Settle down in one of the desert/warm climate worlds (Oasis Springs, StrangerVille, Sulani, Del Sol Valley, or Tartosa)

Go on a family vacation in every season

G7 Snapdragon

Snapdragons symbolize passion, deception, denial, duality, and strength. This eye-catching, mostly warm-colored flower spices up your garden. 

You are a master of deception, leading a double life. At first glance, you appear ordinary or even mundane, but looks are deceiving. Beneath your boring surface lurks something more sinister. Your purpose in life is to make others' lives a living hell because seeing them suffer is your favorite pastime. You are very passionate about your hobbies...maybe even a little fanatical.

Aspiration: Chief of Mischief

Develop the highest possible skill level in mischief, singing, piano

Fight with 5 different Sims

Become a Triple Agent (Secret Agent Career)

All your kids have to play one musical instrument at the highest possible skill level before they become young adults

All your kids have to have one negative character value trait

G8 Daffodil

Daffodil symbolizes new beginnings, rebirth, truth, and creativity. Daffodils love sunlight and well-drained soil. Therefore, the best growing place for this flower is an open and raised flowerbed.

You are a detail-oriented individual driven by a deep desire to uncover the truth. While searching for the truth, you stumble on a secret that will profoundly challenge your worldviews. You are loved and supported by your community, who admires your dedication. 

Aspiration: StrangerVille Mystery & Friend of the World

Work as a journalist

Be a member of at least two clubs and host club meetings every week

Solve StrangerVille Mystery

Get married to a sim who helped you defeat the Mother Plant

Host at least 8 different types of social events in your lifetime (As of May 2023, game has 25 different social events)

All your kids have to complete the Social Butterfly aspiration

G9 Rudbeckia

Rudbeckia symbolizes justice, fairness, motivation, and optimism. Rudbeckia is a hardy flower that loves evenly moist soil but can also survive drought and scorching sun. 

You are a highly principled individual deeply committed to upholding justice and protecting others. You are willing to make great sacrifices to ensure that justice is served. After work, you enjoy creative pursuits which allow you to unwind from the stresses of your work. You desire balance and harmony in your home life. 

Aspiration: Painter Extraordinaire

Develop the highest possible skill level in wellness, painting, knitting, and cross-stitching

Work as a detective

Have a romantic relationship with one of the suspects but break it off eventually

Own a house with a large and luscious backyard where you spend most of your free time

Be strict with your kids, and never miss an opportunity to discipline them

All your kids have to earn the Emotional Control trait

G10 Lavender

Lavender symbolizes spirituality, intuition, devotion, and growth. Lavender needs a lot of light and warmth. Although this flower looks hardy, it's highly receptive to changes in the soil. 

You are fascinated by the concept of magical and mystical, so you spend a lot of your time exploring spiritual practices and rituals to connect with this hidden world. You are determined to connect with and become part of the supernatural world. You have a soothing energy that puts others at ease.

Aspiration: Choose a vampire, spellcaster, or a werewolf aspiration

Develop the highest level of Medium skill

Work as a paranormal investigator

Become a friend with a vampire, spellcaster, or a werewolf

Become a vampire, spellcaster, or a werewolf

[anashins]

The Art of Distraction

Title: The Art of Distraction

Pairing: Taeyong x You

Genre: romance, schoollife, smut

Warnings: protected sex, cunnilingus, blowjob, lots of teasing and cursing

Word Count: 5.304

Summary: You have to study for your upcoming math exam, but your boyfriend is bored and has something else in mind instead of letting you pass it.

________

“I’m bored.”

“You wanted to come over, Taeyong, so look for something that will keep you entertained, because I won’t be done anytime soon over here.”

For days, you had been studying for an upcoming exam in the worst subject ever: math.

Ever since the third year of middle school, you started to dislike it, and it hadn’t even taken you a year more from then on to declare it as the subject you were the worst at.

Even now in high school, your liking for math had never increased. Your teacher with his high expectations didn’t make it easier either, and just the mere thought of the upcoming exam on the next day made your stomach turn upside down in fear.

Sometimes, you thought you actually understood the topic when it was being explained on the board, but as soon as the numbers and letters changed, everything didn’t make any sense anymore to you. The questions the teacher asked made you even more confused along with the exercises he gave the students to solve at home. You always wondered why your classmates to your left and right had such an easy time solving everything, whereas you ourself didn’t even understand the question.

You settled with the thought of being a hopeless case, but you were still panicking about how you’d ever pass this exam.

It was the most important, the final one in school. There was no way you could fail it, and you had actually studied more than ever before for a subject. It had been days since you had last left the house, and you only went downstairs to eat dinner and talk with your parents about some things which should distract you, but it certainly didn’t help.

Your mind was a big blur of numbers and letters. You got the feeling that, the more you studied, the more you forgot and the more you made yourself go crazy.

Now, staring at the combinations of different numbers and letters again, you didn’t even get the meaning of the question which was written above the exercise. You ruffled your hair and let out an annoying, frustrating sigh.

What value did you need to search for? How did you even calculate this? What did all of the things you had written in your notebook even mean? It was like everything was slowly being erased from your mind the longer you stared at it.

You shifted in your seat, unable to find a proper, comfortable position which didn’t increase your mood at all. The sound of the pencil rolling over the paper had stopped a long while ago, and since then you had been doing nothing other than staring blankly at the sheet in front of you, not paying attention to the exercise anymore. It was like you just stared at the paper, your thoughts drifting to nowhere.

It was loud music blasting through the room, interrupting the pleasant silence which made you flinch and pulled you out of your thoughts. You almost let your pencil fall, feeling your heart pumping heavily against your chest.

“Taeyong!” you yelled in annoyance and turned around to see your boyfriend playing around with his phone.

He flashed an apologetic look in your direction. “I’m sorry, so sorry! I just stumbled over this funny tik tok video, but the volume was on, wait...”

With a few hand movements, he managed to turn off the volume, the music being broken by silence again.

You shot an angry glare at Taeyong who just shrugged with a grin on his face which was way too sweet to let you be mad at him any longer. Turning around in your seat, you hovered over your papers again, tapping with your pencil against the edge of your desk, the rhythmic noise giving you a little reassurance.

*Klonk*

“Taeyong!”

Once again, you turned around and found him kneeling in front of your nightstand. He had just knocked over the picture frame which showed both of you and now, he put it back on its place, wiping over the glass to make sure that nothing was broken.

He moved his head aside and smiled shyly. “I’m sorry! It was an accident…”

“Can you just… sit down and do nothing for the next few hours? It’s getting on my nerves!”

The glance you gave him was reflecting pure annoyance and anger now. Without even paying any attention to him, you got back to your math sheets, hearing Taeyong placing himself on the bed, rustling the sheets as he laid down.

It was silent again and you inhaled deeply, trying to concentrate yourself. You held the pencil convulsively in your hand, wanting to write something down, but your mind was somehow blocked.

Not by letters and numbers though, but by something immerse and black in your thoughts, preventing you from doing anything productive now. But you needed to, the exam was important, you needed to…

“Am I really getting on your nerves?”

It was Taeyong’s arms slowly wrapping around your shoulders and pulling you into an embrace from behind which broke your thoughts once more. His cheek brushed over your ear, and you could feel his warm breath on your skin as he repeated,

“Am I really that annoying?”

He kissed your earlobe, his hair tickling your neck as he pulled the skin between his lips, slowly nibbling on it.

You didn’t know that you had been holding your breath until you exhaled deeply. This was your sensitive spot. Your very, very sensitive spot. And he knew. You gritted your teeth and just answered,

“Yes, you are!”

But it came out more like a gasp than the strong and commanding answer you actually had in mind.

His kisses went further to your neck, trailing down to your shoulders. He kissed every spot he passed, and it was until he reached the collar of your shirt that you realized you had actually rolled your head back to give him space to go on.

“Doesn’t seem like you’re annoyed by my presence at all,” he whispered, and you could actually see his smug grin in front of your eyes.

That little shit.

Taeyong’s embrace around your shoulders loosened and you breathed out, expecting him to finally back off and go back to whatever he was doing and leaving you alone - but you were absolutely wrong.

Taeyong’s hands wandered down to the hem of your shirt, and it was when he fiddled with the first button that you gasped once again. Slightly dumbfounded, you lowered your head, looking down at your cleavage which was being revealed inch for inch with every button he opened.

Taeyong chuckled beside you and followed your gaze. When you turned your head aside, you could see him smirking.

“Taeyong, that’s…”

You held your breath as he slid his hands down your upper body from behind, parting your shirt to reveal the white lace bra you were wearing. The moment you wanted to open your mouth again, this time to protest in your strongest volume, he had his hands already in your underwear, cupping your breasts as his lips attacked the side of your neck again.

“Oh god,” you breathed, feeling him squeeze your breasts and massaging them as the straps slowly slipped down your shoulders to give his hands more freedom.

You hadn’t let go of the pencil in your fingers until now. Your grip tightened more like you just wanted to hold onto something to get support as Taeyong’s thumbs brushed over each of your peaks, flicking over them and tweaking them between his fingers.

Your legs closed automatically and your body arched, craving for more. He sucked on and nibbled on your neck, teasing your skin with gentle bites and kisses.

“So… I’m really annoying, aren’t I?”

Fuck. His voice sounded meaningful as though he was up to something, and seconds later, one of his hands slid out of your cup just to run towards your navel. He was making his way to the focused area very slowly, teasing you with his skin on yours and causing you to get goosebumps on your stomach. You stared at his hand passing your navel and moving further downwards, the tip of his fingers finding a way under the hem of your pleated skirt.

“No!” you yelled and freed yourself from Taeyong’s embrace.

Your body was heated up from his touches and you still struggled with breathing as you pushed your boyfriend away. You felt him letting go of you by himself and took a deep breath.

Staring at your notebook, you pulled up the straps of your bra and fiddled with the buttons to close your shirt, but with your trembling fingers, it was not easy work. This was not the right time. You had this exam tomorrow and couldn’t be distracted - there were so many things you still needed to learn, there…

“Taeyong!” you scolded again, totally shocked as he shrugged your legs off, spreading them wide apart in front of him.

When you looked down, you found him kneeling in front of you, looking up to you as he licked over his upper lip sinfully.

For a moment, you stared at each other – he, with a lustful gaze and you, with a feared one because you knew, he wouldn’t stop once he began. You shook your head, trying to close your thighs, but Taeyong held them apart with his strong hands so that you’d never have a chance.

“Yongie,” you begged, “Yongie please, I need to learn, I need to…”

You struggled in his grip, but the longer you tried, the more you were assured that this would have a different ending than you had imagined.

“You need a distraction,” he ended your sentence and flipped your skirt back to lower his head on your right thigh.

The pencil fell out of your hand when he licked over the sensitive skin on your inner thigh. He left a wet path as he licked a line, massaging either side of your thighs with his hands to relax and tease you at the same time. Regardless of how much you fought against it, you leaned back in your seat and your hips even bucked against his head, wanting more.

Taeyong hooked your legs over his shoulders so that your swollen sex was open to his upcoming attack, covered only by a single thin layer of panties. His lips were being pressed against your left thigh, kissing forward and approaching your wetness which was hiding behind the fabric.

The closer his kisses came, the shorter your breath got until you stopped for a second when his lips reached the waistband of your panties next to your entrance. Taeyong let his tongue glide along the band, partly along your skin, causing you to bear down a moan by covering your mouth with your hand.

You didn’t want to give in yet. You kept your gaze at your math sheets, but no matter how much you tried to concentrate, Taeyong was quite a dangerous and good distraction. You thought it would help to make him stop if you pretended not to be bothered at all, but on the other hand… that boy was so good.

His hands moved up and down your thighs, his palms brushing over your skin which got intensely hot due to his work. With his index finger, he hooked on the waistband and put the thin layer aside, clamping it with two fingers and revealing your wet folds as he stared at your core lustfully.

“Taeyong!”

It was a scream, replaced by a gasp as he placed his tongue flat on your wetness, applying pressure before he licked up. Finally, after you had tried to resist so hard, you moaned. It was a rather quiet moan, because you still refused to give in to the fullest, but Taeyong knew that it wouldn’t take him much effort anymore to get you where he wanted you. Smug as fuck, he smirked against your skin and placed a kiss on your nub, making your hips jerked-knife off the seat.

“For someone who doesn’t want this, you’re already really wet,” he teased and licked up the juices dripping out of you.

“Shut up!” you returned, but your voice faded away in a moan when Taeyong dipped his tongue into your entrance. “Oh god!”

You closed your eyes and circled your legs around his upper body, bringing him closer to you, because obviously, the tip of his tongue was by far not enough.

Taeyong chuckled and hummed against your skin, causing the vibrations to turn you on even more. You brought both of your hands up to cover your mouth fully and bite down your loud moans like that.

For your boyfriend, it was an amusing view, because he knew you had finally given in. Whimpers escaped your lips as he licked over your entrance again, sliding his tongue along your folds like he was tasting some kind of candy, letting out a delicious groan. He stopped at your nub and you knew, when he began to play on it now, you were totally screwed.

“Ohhh!” you moaned as his tongue flicked over your clit, bucking your hips against him, wanting more and more.

Screw math, screw the exam, screw studying. Just for now.

Taeyong sucked on your clit and rolled it in between his lips. He let you grab his hair as your arousal caused your core to pulse against him. Taking a large breath, he allowed the scent of excitement to wash over his body and he found it exhilarating as it infiltrated his system.

His tongue trailed from your clit down to your folds before he plunged it deep into you again. All along the way, you cried out, shifted in your seat and bucked your hips to meet his licks, tangling your fingers in his hair and scratching his head. Forgotten were the numbers and letters you had studied before. Everything in front of you went black as you closed your eyes to give in to the fullest of pleasures.

Taeyong’s left fingers suddenly dipped into your centre, causing you to jump at this sudden movement. You wiggled in your seat, trying to get him deeper into you and as smug as he was, he just grinned and pushed into you with one hard thrust.

“Ahhhh!”, you screamed, one hand clasping his neck and the other one holding onto the edge of your seat just to look for support in case you’d pass out soon.

Each thrust coming from Taeyong’s slender hand made you jerk in pleasure, struggling with wanting to stop now and continuing until you’d probably swoon.

Whatever Taeyong was doing down there, it made you become a mess. Cries and whimpers fell from your lips, somehow mixing together to noises you didn’t even know you were able to make.

His approving groans sent vibrations to the region around your clit, making the pleasure in your groin just build up faster. Your hips bucked up and down, wanting him to go faster as the knot in your lower stomach grew bigger and bigger, just begging to be released, to explode.

“Hmm, are you feeling good?” you heard him saying. “Much better than math isn’t it?”

“Tae-… Yongie, oh god…”

Screw math. You were gasping for air, crying out his name over and over again. The pleasant feeling pooled up inside of you and you knew that, when he’d go faster, you’d be finally released.

“Faster?”

Taeyong knew that as well. He rolled his tongue over the sensitive bundle of nerves, flicked and sucked on it harder while the tip of his fingers pumped in and out of you. He nudged your clit, pressing his lips against it to intensify the coiling feeling in the pit of your stomach by doubling his speed. He hummed in pleasure, sending vibrations throughout your body as you felt your orgasm nearing.

“Are you going to sum?”

Shit. You loved when Taeyong dirty talked. It was always such a turn on. You could practically see him smirking down there.

“Ohhh, Yongie...”

You threw your head back, anticipating the release. Your thighs tensed around his neck and he felt your walls begin to flutter around his fingers. A little more. Just a little more.

But then he stopped the motions coming from his fingers and lips as sudden as he had attacked you. You whined, suddenly feeling so unfulfilled and empty. The feeling of not getting the chance to release yourself while your orgasm was right around the corner was almost ripping you apart. Tears fell from your eyes and you half-screamed his name, partly in annoyance and partly because you were begging him to continue.

You watched Taeyong, who was still kneeling in between your legs, pulling out his fingers fully just to lead them to his mouth. His gaze pierced through your eyes as you watched him parting them slightly, a sticky substance sticking on them.

He flashed a smirk at you before taking them into his mouth and sucking it gently. Your face flushed instantly when he pulled it out, showing you that he had sucked all your juices off.

“You taste good,” he said as he got up and you looked at him in disbelief. “Too bad I’m just an annoyance.”

Taeyong sighed dramatically, yet playfully, and walked towards your bed. You shifted in your seat, still confused over the fact why the hell he had just stopped and didn’t continue. It was surely not the first time that this little fuck was teasing you like hell, but never had he been that cruel to stop right before you were about to cum.

“And too bad you want me to sit down and do absolutely nothing the next few hours.”

You stared at him seating himself onto the mattress, still feeling heated up and so turned on.

“It’s a little hot in here, isn’t it?”

As much as Taeyong wanted to hide his grin, he just couldn’t. That little shit was playing with you, and you knew that, from the moment you had let him in between your legs, you had already lost.

You clutched onto the lower hem of your skirt, feeling your core still dripping when Taeyong pulled his shirt over his head and laid back down on the bed, practically presenting himself on a silver tray. He was offering himself to you, and it was only a question of time until you were going to attack him back. He crossed his arms behind his head and watched you struggling with your priorities with much amusement.

Your instincts told you just to jump at him, but your mind told you to calm the fuck down and concentrate on your studies again. Math wasn’t done with you and neither was the exam which would be in around 12 hours. You should have never allowed Taeyong to come over. Never. But on the other hand… that boy, lying half naked in front of you, was your super hot boyfriend, wanting to pleasure you in every way possible.

Fuck everything.

With your head lowered, you stood up, causing Taeyong to raise his brows in surprise. With one fluid motion, you opened the two upper buttons on your shirt and let the clothing slide down your shoulders, draping around your ankles as it fell on the floor. Taeyong watched you in amazement with sparkling eyes.

Quickly, your skirt followed, gliding down your hips to fall onto your feet as well. You took a step forward to get out of the pile of clothes and flashed a deathful glare at Taeyong who had a half-smirk around his mouth.

You walked towards him and he sat up to welcome you with open arms, “If I’m going to fail this exam, you’re so doomed.”

He just laughed and wrapped his arms around your body, pulling you into an embrace and placing you on his lap.

Taeyong attacked you in an open-mouthed kiss, bringing your bum just a little closer so that you were sitting right on his crotch. He lifted his hips, brushing against your core and with that, the familiar feeling from before started to rise once again. You let out a light moan against your boyfriend’s lips as you hooked your arms around his neck.

“Hmm… I think a distraction is everything you need right now.”

He bucked his hips once again, making you cry out his name when your hips started to move and rub against the bulge in his jeans. Just a few layers were separating you two and neither one of you could wait until they were fully gone.

With your legs on either side of Taeyong, you slid up and down his crotch in a grinding motion, now causing him to whimper instead of you.

“Lay down!” you commanded and Taeyong tilted his head in confusion before you put your hands on his chest and pushed him back into the pillows.

Moving backwards a bit, you opened the button and unzipped his pants. Hooking under the waistband, you flapped his boxers and his erection sprang out, slapping against his stomach. Once again, you wondered how he was able to keep it in his jeans for that long.

“My turn now,” you said and licked over your lips.

Taeyong watched you in excitement and anticipation as you bent down and opened your mouth, letting his swollen length pass your lips.

He threw his head back and sighed in relief of finally being taken in, covering half of his face with his arm he had just placed on his forehead. You swallowed further, letting him slide in slowly while his other hand clenched the sheets to his left.

When you reached your limit, not being able to continue anymore, you popped him in and out of your mouth while either of your hands were embracing the base of his cock. He was pulsing against your palms, the blood running through this body part with a high pace like never before.

With a slurping sound, you let go of him and wiped your mouth, giving Taeyong a teasing look.

“Shiiiit!” he groaned with a husky, deep voice and you could swear that it was the sexiest sound you had heard in a long time.

“Hmm, I’ve barely even started, Yongie,” you said and giggled.

You put your tongue on the base where your hands were, letting it slide all the way up to the tip, leaving a wet path with your saliva. Massaging his balls experimentally with your fingers, you made him shift his hips in anticipation, hearing him inhaling deeply just to let out a long-lasting moan which sounded like music in your ears.

You flicked your tongue over his tip, tasting the precum dripping from it. Dipping your tongue into the crease, Taeyong groaned again, this time louder and impatient. It was until then, when he began to swear as you bobbed your head up and down the upper half of his cock, making him nearing his pleasure. Now opening your mouth, you took him in all at once until you reached your limits.

“Fuck!” he cursed, tangling his fingers in your hair and scratching your head.

His pants mixed with groans, turning him into a mess under your touches like he had just done with you before.

You continued bobbing your head up and down his length, taking him to the furthest you could and letting him slide out of your mouth just to take him in again. The pace was rather slow, but it had its effect.

Taeyong was so, so close. You intensified his feeling by massaging the area around his base, then letting your hands help you by gliding up and down the lower part of his cock. You then stopped at the head to suck with your lips on the tip, nudging it with your tongue before letting it pass your wet lips once again.

He was twitching in your mouth in anticipation for the upcoming release, and it was right before he was reaching his climax when you let go and sat up, wiping your tongue over your lips.

“We’re getting a little bitchy over here,” Taeyong panted as he saw you stopping and crawling back to pull on the waistband of both, his boxers and jeans.

“Tit for tat,” you just answered, and within a blink of an eye, your boyfriend had already grabbed your waist on either side and flipped you over so that you laid underneath him. “Oh, we’re getting a little impatient over here, aren’t we?”

Taeyong just let out a laugh when he got on his knees and hovered over you, reaching under your back to open your bra with one fluid motion. You arched your body to make it easier for him to remove the clothing. He placed himself on top of you and lowered his head to take one of your nipples in his mouth.

His tongue moved over your nub in circular movements while his other hand grabbed at your breasts to massage them intensely with his fingers. He took your peak between his teeth, sucking on it roughly and making you gasp, partly in slight pain and partly in excitement as he gently bit into it.

“God, Taeyong!” you screamed, digging your fingers in the back of his neck while he kissed down to your navel. “Just…”

You didn’t even need to speak it out. He sat up and put both of your legs over his shoulder to slide off your soaked panties. You could still feel your core pulsing from the things he had one before and it probably only got worse now that he was so near, but still not in you.

Taeyong peeled off his jeans and boxers, getting entangled with the clothes in eagerness. When he was finally freed and completely naked in front of you, he reached over to your nightstand, grabbing one of the condoms out of the package. You reached out your hand to grab it and before Taeyong could even realize, you hooked your legs around his waist and made him turn around, pushing him back onto the mattress so that you were sitting on top of him again.

Flashing a triumphant smile at him, you put the silver pack between your teeth and opened it. Like an expert, you rolled the rubber down his length.

“Shitshitshit.”

Taeyong had every right to curse. He loved it when you were riding him. It was rare, because he was a kind of a very dominant guy, but when it was your turn, you always managed to give him the best ride ever.

You crawled closer to his crotch and by grabbing on his length, you directed him at your entrance. The tip poked into you, and although you planned to tease him a little more, you couldn’t continue to do so. Not when pleasure and release were so tangible. Your eyes fluttered in bliss as you threw your head back, letting your lips part in satisfaction the further his cock slid into you. Feeling him inch for inch, you bit your lip in excitement and exhaled in relief.

You placed your hands on his chest and started to move your hips in circular motions, gyrating against Taeyong’s hips. You could hear him groan and feel his length twitching in your core, anticipating more.

He grabbed on your waist and followed your movements, thrusting upwards when you started to raise and lower your hips on his cock. You clenched your muscles and glided up and down his member, increasing your pace with every movement you made. Your pants, moans and groans filled the room from the first time you had led him into you.

Probably neither of you exactly knew what you were doing anymore by now. All you could do was give in to the pleasure, being led by the coiling feeling building up in your groin once again. It was fun on top, but it was exhausting as well. Usually, Taeyong would…

“Out of breath yet?” he asked as he sat up, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear before he kissed you with his mouth slightly open.

His tongue glided into your mouth for a deep kiss, but not one of the sort where it was all sloppy and wet, but one of the sort where it was all passionate and hot. Bringing your legs around his waist, you hooked your ankles and let yourself be placed onto the mattress without him pulling out.

“I can’t anymore,” you breathed, running your fingers over his chest before grabbing onto his shoulders. “Yongie, please, I—“

“I know, I know.” He kissed you once again, and it was the moment he started to thrust when you threw your head back, angling your hips against his.

“Ohh… Oh god…”

Your nails dug deeper into his skin and he lowered his head to look you in the eyes intensely, the tip of his nose slightly touching yours. Sweat was glistening on his forehead, wetting the tip of his hair.

It was over with slow and tender motions now. Taeyong reached out for the headboard and held onto it as he increased his pace. He practically slammed into you mercilessly and roughly, making you scream endlessly this time.

“Taeyong!” You clenched your eyes shut, just feeling him hitting the right spot in the right angle over and over again. “Fast... please faster!”

The bed creaked loudly under you, and you were glad that your parents weren’t home now.

“Shit,” Taeyong panted, keeping his thrusts quick and steady. “God, you feel so good…” He went faster and faster. “I love you,” he exclaimed suddenly, “I love you so fucking much.”

Just in the moment you wanted to return something, the orgasm ripped through you. You let out a high pitched scream, experiencing a climax as powerful and mind-blowing as always with Taeyong.

He felt your walls tightening around his length, your thighs tensing and closing around his waist even stronger. The orgasm shot spasms through your body, making you hold onto your boyfriend even more desperate when you lolled your head back as no more sound wanted to come out of your mouth anymore, your body arching against his.

Feeling himself getting close too, he cupped your face and kissed you passionately. You could tell from the pace of his pants that he was so close to his release as well, and it was only seconds later, after a few more thrusts, that he finally came too. His body shook as he let out a deep groan, falling on top of you with a long moan.

You both breathed heavily from exhaustion, and Taeyong pulled you into an embrace immediately after, placing your head on his chest and holding you tightly like he never wanted to let you go ever again.

“Screw math,” he then said and you could feel him smile as he placed a tender kiss on your forehead.

“Screw math,” you repeated and pulled the blanket over the both of you.

Yet, there was still something you hadn’t said back when Taeyong exclaimed it in release.

“I love you, too.” And with a smirk, you imitated, “So fucking much.”

In embarrassment, he got up and flipped you over again, wrestling with you on the bed as relieved laughter filled the room.

Forgotten was math and the upcoming exam. You probably wouldn’t have gotten anything in your head anymore anyway. And Perhaps, a little distraction to free your mind and clear your thoughts was more helpful than studying until you went crazy.

And your boyfriend was probably the best solution to every question anyways. There was no way you would fail the exam anymore.

[wordsnstuff]

Guide to Writing Mystery Thrillers

Patreon || Ko-Fi || Masterlist || Work In Progress

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Horror vs. Thriller: Fear vs. Suspense

The main difference between thrillers and horror is the effect it has on the reader. Yes, both genres are meant to “scare” the reader, but with a thriller, the ending is less predictable. It’s about the building tension that comes with the unknown. The writer’s goal is to unsettle the reader, make the fear of the unknown be the main aspect and make their heart rate rise steadily over the course of the plot. Horror is repeatedly scaring the reader, though the tension is lesser because a horror story is one of inevitable doom. It’s not so much about if, but rather when and how. Thriller is about that sweet, slow dribble of ice water down the reader’s back, while horror is splashing them repeatedly in creative and shocking ways. 

Balancing the Tension

With the tension being the most important element in a thriller, you must balance this carefully and you can do so by utilizing the mystery aspect. You can build the tension with events and the steady state of unknowing, but you can also use the mystery to relieve or ramp up the suspense. Mysteries introduce time-sensitivity into the plot, as well as identifiable risk and payoff, but it also preserves that feeling of unpredictability. You need to be careful to keep the tension thick enough that the plot twist is surprising, but not unexpected. Readers should expect a dramatic shift in the trajectory, but they should be completely shocked at what it actually is. 

Suspension of Disbelief

Mysteries and thrillers do not have the luxury that thriller does of a reader coming in with their sense of what is and isn’t “realistic” being thrown out the window. Readers of the mystery thriller genre expect an air of credibility and when their predictions and deductions are thwarted for something completely illogical, it isn’t a pleasant surprise. The suspension of disbelief comes in the details that may or may not be stretched for fictional purposes, but the meat of the story, the mystery and all the steps within, do not have that wiggle room. Exercise deep, critical thought when developing the plot development and the characters themselves because the reader is paying attention. 

Choose the Right Antagonist

Antagonists in mystery thrillers are a great opportunity for creative freedom. Yes, readers expect the antagonist to surprise them or be clever, but your job isn’t to fool the reader, it’s to impress them with how cleverly you masked or built up the reveal of the antagonist; the result of their sleuthing. You don’t always have to choose some minor, seemingly insignificant character to be the antagonist at the end. There’s so many roads you can choose, such as making the protagonist the murderer, a family member the thief, the romantic partner the deceiver, etc. Don’t try to avoid cliches in this part of the plot, because it’s impossible. Every possible ending has been done in some way or another. Try to be original in the way you reveal them and be clever about developing the antagonist to have as much impact on the reader as possible. 

Meaningful Death

Death isn’t as rampant in thrillers as in other suspenseful genres, but it’s still important to note that all death should have a purpose and a consequence. It should always serve the plot, and it should always have an observable effect on the characters. Killing characters (especially main characters) to build suspense or stakes doesn’t work and it reads as lazy. Keep the purpose and consequence in mind, and be open to death and where it takes the story. 

Common Struggles

~ How do you create a good mystery thriller plot?... It depends on what you like about the genre. If you prefer to have the majority of the story surround the actual mystery and the development of its nuance, then focus the plot around that and sprinkle the suspense throughout. If you want the mystery to be the catalyst for a bigger, more complicated emotional conflict, then structure accordingly. It’s really about what you want to say and how you would want to hear it. 

~ How do you balance a subtle build up without making the twist look like it came out of nowhere?... Action and reaction. Every twist and turn should be traceable to a series of identifiable events throughout the previous chapters. Your readers should be able to see the breadcrumbs when they read the story a second time. That’s how you know the subtlety works, rather than dropping two or three breadcrumbs throughout 16 chapters and then drop the whole remaining loaf in chapter 17. 

~ How do you create a spooky, thrilling atmosphere?... Writing style. It’s all about writing style, I promise. Utilize some of the staples, like shorter sentences leading up to an explosive moment, visceral vocabulary about something seemingly mundane, etc. Over-describing things to have that “this normal thing doesn’t seem so harmless anymore” or under-describing things that the reader would assume requires more focus. Either turn up the volume or turn it way down. These little aspects in the vocabulary and structure you use add up and work wonders for tension and suspense. Also:

A Guide To Tension & Suspense

How To Perfect The Tone

~ How can I make the reader like the villain, despite their actions?... I have a couple resources for this, which you may find helpful:

Writing Good Villains

Creating Villains

Villains with good intentions

Other Resources

How To Write A Good Plot Twist

How To Foreshadow

Flipping Character Traits On Their Head

Plot Structures

Calculating Emotional Reactions

Keeping Characters Realistic

Tips On Writing About Mental Illness

Character Who’s Smarter Than You

Making Characters Unpredictable

How To Engage The Reader

Including More People of Color In Your Story

“Male characters are more relatable”

Writing Good Villains

Creating Villains

Showing Vulnerability Without Death

Character Driven vs. Plot Driven Stories

Resources For Crime/Mystery/Thriller Writers

Tips on Writing Pyschological Thrillers

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1900-1939

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1940-1969

Historically Accurate Dialogue

Creepy Ex-Girlfriend

Tips on Introducing Backstory

Writing Other Eras

Resources For Writing The Mafia

Guide to Story Researching

Commentary on Social Issues In Writing

Resources For Writing Sketchy Topics

On Writing About Sensitive Topics

Avoiding The Romanticization of Mental Illness

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Masterlist | WIP Blog

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[galacticlamps]

writing asks!! 22, 26, 30? o:

22 - What is it about watching the same two idiots falling in love over and over again?

I couldn’t figure out a short way of answering this. It’s under the cut.

26 - What would you describe as OOC?

Something that doesn’t earn its keep. I think I can be convinced a lot of things make sense in context if a text is persuasive enough, but when it introduces/implies character traits that either conflict with things that were established before it, or are new but big enough to then become conspicuous by their absence in earlier appearances of that character, without sufficiently addressing the discrepancy with a good, believable reason for the change/omission, then I put it down to being OOC. And of course, the burden of proof is proportional to the size of the thing in question.

((Because of that, the feeling also applies to canon stuff in lengthy series like Doctor Who or Star Trek, especially when it feels like a failure of a particular writer to capture existing characters well, rather than an intentional decision or a plot twist to take them in a different direction. So the question of “does it feel earned?” and even “does it feel like you at least tried to earn it, and knew you had to earn something, whether or not I think you succeeded?” are probably what determine my feelings there.))

In fanfic & other written mediums though, even more often than interpretations of a character I struggle to make sense of, the thing I most often find myself considering OOC is dialogue. Maybe that’s just because dialogue is even less often explained than actions - only rarely will narration elaborate upon why a character chose to describe something in a certain way, so there’s less of an opportunity for those justifications I seem to judge by - but for some reason, OOC actions make me think “What are you, Writer, making [character] do???” and OOC dialogue makes me go “Well that’s not even [character] then, is it?”

I think I’d feel this way anyway, spending as much of my time as I do around plays where what’s said & how it’s said is such a large part of a script, but let’s face it - one of the characters I most frequently write & read fic for speaks what ranges from a dialect to an accent depending on who’s writing him, and phrasing/word choice with him never doesn’t feel significant. I know it’s certainly something I spend a lot of time thinking about when I write Jamie - whether he’d use a Scots word/expression or not depending on the context of the scene, who he’s talking to, how he’s feeling at the moment, hell, even the words directly surrounding it & what sounds like it’d flow more naturally, given all those other factors, in that exact sentence - and I’m sure many of those choices I make are too small to read as being meaningful most of the time, without even getting into whether or not someone else would agree with my judgement. But I still wind up doing that every time I write him (admittedly, more in the edit than the first draft) not because I think I’ve got such a mastery of language or even because I believe everyone that reads it is running through it with such a fine-toothed comb, but because hard-to-swallow dialogue is just one of those things that pricks up my ears and takes me out of a story quicker than any other way in which characters could be OOC.

30 - Describe a fic that almost happened, but then it didn't.

To be honest, I don’t actually have any fics that I consider abandoned - partially bc I’m quite content working on a wip for a long time before committing to finishing it one day, and partially because even when I am sure that’s my goal, I’m aware of how slow I can be - so even if I haven’t made any progress on a particular story in months, that isn’t enough for me to think of it as officially “not happening” anymore. The closest I can do is describe a fic that I thought was much closer to completion than it turned out to be, over a year ago:

At its inception, it was a one-shot told from the Doctor’s perspective, in which Circumstances have forced Jamie to admit his feelings for the first time in a very unideal situation, and he’s especially upset about this because he swears he was planning on telling him soon, he just really wanted to go about it correctly. Pretty standard fanfic fair, shouldn’t be too hard.

The thing was, I wanted there to be some irony in that this confession happens only a number of days after the Doctor came to terms with his own feelings, decided they were unrequited, and promised himself never to tell Jamie about them - and I wanted the audience to be aware of that the whole time, to’ve seen him make that decision before Jamie’s confession even began. So I knew that meant I needed a prelude set in the recent past, plus the plot details that would give sufficient context to the Original Scene - all the dialogue of which, start to finish, and even a little of the narration, didn’t even come to 2k. I already knew what all the explanations were, I wasn’t blocked or anything, but when it came to turning them from Facts I Knew About The Fic into actual storytelling, they were way longer than I was happy with. Which I know isn’t evil in itself - if I wasn’t okay with writing things that turned out to be longer than I originally thought, there’d be even less on my Ao3 page - but in my head this was very much meant to be a fic about those 2k words, and now it felt like the stuff that was supposed to just be there to support it was instead completely overpowering it, maybe even drowning it out, and that I didn’t like, so I stepped away from it.

I still work on it every so often, but I haven’t figured out what my goal should be - to keep it under 5k at any cost, or to turn it into a multi-chapter adventure-style story even if that means the focus isn’t what I want it to be on anymore. I do quite like both that original 2k and the context in my head that makes it make sense, so I’m still convinced I’ll get it on its feet somehow, eventually - but the two options are so different from each other that I have to make a firm decision before anything I do can be considered “progress” so it’s the most-stalled WIP I have at the moment.

Writing Asks!

Back to ‘why these two idiots over & over again?’

I’m not sure if this question is supposed to be about the appeal of fanfic in general or not, but being me, I’m just gonna make it about Two/Jamie. Which I think is fitting not only because it’s 90% of what I talk about here but also because even though I’ve been in fandom since high school, and shipped lots of things and had plenty of opinions, and even written fic before, I never had anything I’d call an OTP before them. So without getting into what I love about them either as individuals or a ship, I think they have a very specific appeal to me as a fanfic pairing - partially because their relationship sits right at a sweetspot between fleshed out and undefined in their source material, and partially because of what that source material does & doesn’t leave me wanting, and a certain level of inexhaustibly they also share with other characters from that era of the show.

We’ve talked before about how infrequently they make announcements about what they mean to one another, how most of the time it’s demonstrated in their behavior rather than declarations about being best friends, and I know I’ve also mentioned that I don’t think said behavior would change all that drastically before & after starting a romantic relationship. Their actions are consistent and make up a significant part of their relationship, and yet there are some pretty basic questions they still leave unanswered from a shipping perspective. They have good, instant chemistry, which could easily rush things along - but they also have believable reasons for stalling both recognizing and acting upon their feelings - they both come from cultures that would frown upon a relationship between them for various reasons, on top of the typical Friends-to-Lovers conundrums of ‘Are my feelings a betrayal of our friendship?’ and ‘Even if they aren’t, is confessing them worth risking our current relationship?’ And since it’s so hard to pinpoint how or when they’d get together, the relationship could be in basically any stage of development at just about any point in their continuity. Personally, I could see them acting upon their feelings for the first time in Season 4 or 6 (or even 6b) with pretty much equal likelihood, and I don’t believe there’s any kind of fandom consensus on the timing either, even though so many people are happy to refer to them as married.

And that’s great for the whole ‘same two idiots falling in love over and over again’ thing for a couple reasons - on the one hand, it obviously offers a ton of variety since you can read or write about it happening in so many different ways, and with different supporting characters, situations, and levels of personal history involved leading up to it, and still accept that’s how it goes as long as the story’s executed well - but it also means there’s no part of canon that’s like, The Gay Part - the whole thing is. Sure, there are episodes with more Good Bits than others, and the first few stories when they’re both newer to each other & also sharing the screen with two other main characters are the ones that feature them interacting the least - but generally speaking, any time you’re watching them, you’re watching the relationship you like, there’s no waiting for it to get good or develop into the version of it that’s shippable, because it’s so beautifully consistent across their era.

And that’s the other thing I find uniquely appealing about them & why derivative, transformative, interpretive works suit them so well - I think a real strength of their relationship (not even as a couple but as an element in a narrative) is its very stability, which is tightly connected to the kind of story it originated in: a long-form serialized episodic scifi tv show where the plots are driven by mystery & adventure, to which the consistency of the main characters’ relationship provides a comparatively solid foundation & contrast. In short, they’re characters that thrive best on being plunked down into various scenarios the audience can watch them weather, and they’re people we can get very attached to without ever having focused on too too hard on, in the source material. And that already makes them a goldmine for fanfic potential, but there’s another element in there that I think is harder for me to explain.

Initially I wrote an even longer-winded explanation for this bit & got really pretentious citing different dramaturgical approaches & everything, but basically, it boils down to this: I have never wanted their source material to be more about their relationship - not simply because canonicizing it might limit the otherwise limitless possibilities for imagining how that relationship came to be - but because I think something fundamental would have to change (be lost!) in these characters that I know and love if they existed on a show where inter-personal drama and romance were major elements of the plot & narrative.

And because of that, when I look at works of fanfiction (or even EU materials, which in this respect really are the same thing) that aim to ask ‘what if,’ explain things canon doesn’t, or further explore things canon incorporates but hasn’t exhausted, I never feel like it’s a consolation prize or some kind of second-best to what could’ve/should’ve been onscreen, because I think those are the spaces where an exploration of their relationship really belongs - not as a sideline, but as a more natural habitat where they can freely thrive. For different characters originating in a different work, fanfic might mainly serve to speculate about what could happen next or even to correct something disappointing that canon failed to do - and while Two/Jamie can do stories like that too, they aren’t bound by it. If you’re going to fic for those reasons primarily or even exclusively, I think there’s a chance of finding the “fic to end all fics,” and feeling like the box has been ticked and the need met and then some of the motivation & appeal would go with it.

But with the Second Doctor & co, even setting homophobia and eras and the realm of possibility totally aside for a moment, I don’t have some fantasy about a Drama- Romance- Genre show about the evolution of their relationship or anything else I turn to fanfic for - I love that their relationship primarily exists as the status quo in a show of a different genre, and that the times when it’s put under the magnifying glass are only rare moments on tv (like being one of several plotpoints in Evil), or EU stories that exist specifically to let audiences spend more time in the company of characters no longer current, or Fanfic that purposely defies genre to make a scifi serial briefly into a character piece or a romance instead, either because it’s telling the story of an event that’s truly different from Life As Usual, or just because it’s looking at that routine from a different angle. I like that you have to look at the story from an angle distinct to the one from which the tv show is told to see the other facets of what is conceivably there. No, their source material was never about the Doctor & Jamie being in love - but since they are, you can choose to make it a story about that if you watch it with 3d glasses on - if you engage with it in a space that zeros in on the personal, the mundane, the things happening when the main adventure is not.

For me, the medium & genre combo that produced these guys means that I never actually wish something would or did happen onscreen - all I ever want is the ability to believe it could be part of their story anyway, and as a derivative work, fanfic very much offers that, so “watching the same two idiots fall in love over and over again” doesn’t get old, because that’s an end unto itself, and specifically the only end I want when it comes to these particular characters.

[tea-and-la]

So I saw a post earlier...

(I’m gonna paraphrase because I don’t want to tag OP or argue), that basically went like, “If M/ai is toxic and unsupportive as a partner, why do y’all (read: zutara fans) think shipping her with Ty Lee could work?” 

Where do I start? 

First of all, I’m a Zutara shipper and a Mai stan (mostly in a fanon sense because a lot of her characterization unfortunately got shunted by Bryke into revolving around Zuko.) But even in canon, I love the potential that this badass, goth knife girl had. And I can empathize with the extent that her childhood trauma caused her to repress her emotions.

As SO many Zutara fans have said already, it’s the relationship (not the characters themselves) that's unhealthy. As in, it isn’t beneficial for either M/ai or Zuko. I love BOTH characters, but I don’t think it’s what either of them needed in terms of partners for several reasons; Most significantly because of their struggles with emoting and communicating. Also, the phrasing of that original post neglects to take into account that people act differently with different people. You can be toxic in one person’s life and not in another’s (again, not implying that M/ai is toxic.) 

I don’t want to spend this whole meta talking about Ma/iko because I want to talk about my fav sapphics, but I do want to contrast the first scenes where we see them interact (in terms of M/ai’s response.) 

Starting with The Awakening, M/ai and Zuko are a newly established couple (after three years apart and without any on-screen acknowledgment of what has changed.) This scene has been analyzed to death over the past few days so I won’t get into it.

But this is the first time Ty Lee and M/ai are reunited:

 M/ai, who usually has a stoic expression, almost looks sad in this scene. And then she says this: 

I thought you ran off and joined the circus? You said it was your calling.

One could infer many things from that line. That M/ai and Ty Lee talked about their future plans at some point in the past. That it was important enough for M/ai to remember. And that M/ai’s conflicted expression means she realizes that seeing Ty Lee again meant she had to leave a place that was special to her (the circus.)  Then Ty Lee responds: 

Well Azula called a little louder! 

Even though she says it in a cheerful voice, it’s almost an unspoken understanding between them that she didn’t have a choice. I think this is part of the reason M/ai agrees to join, so that Ty Lee doesn’t have to be alone. 

Also, M/ai is pretty perceptive towards Ty Lee, which makes sense because they are canonically close. In The Chase episode, Ty Lee is trying to find the word to describe Appa’s fur. Azula walks off and ignores her, but M/ai was listening and gave her the word she was looking for. Ty Lee gets SO happy that she jump-hugs M/ai, and M/ai’s face goes soft. It’s a small moment, but we know that Ty Lee struggles with getting attention since she grew up with identical sisters. Having someone like M/ai as a partner, someone who listens, complements her well. 

And don’t even get me started on THIS scene. The emotion on M/ai’s face is truly powerful. M/ai being put first by someone; this girl who values loyalty and yet, was not expecting it. And then, both of them being fully prepared to die in each other’s arms. Arguably one of the most meaningful moments for M/ai. 

And finally, MaiLee already have really strong communication and emotional vulnerability. In the Smoke and Shadows comic, Ty Lee opens up about her fears now that Azula is out of prison (something she could’ve told Suki or any of the other Kyoshi warriors instead), and M/ai finishes her sentence because that same feeling resonates in her as well. Because of their shared experience. It’s a moment of vulnerability for them both. 

 M/ai breaks up with Zuko (in the comics) because she felt he closed off any emotional conversations about his worries. In my opinion, this isn’t something that would exist within MaiLee dynamic. And perhaps Ty Lee’s emotional openness could encourage M/ai to become more comfortable with expressing her own emotions and finding things she likes (rather than hates) about the world.

[bipercabeth]

“Something’s wrong, I can tell” for percabeth 💖🔪

(in which we ignore the fact that hoo exists)

Annabeth’s alarm clock blinks 5:00 PM on her bedside table, the bright red casting a glow over her dark dorm room. Her blinds are drawn back, but uselessly so. The sun hides behind rain clouds that drown the city in their gloom. And so the turn of spring is more limp than victory march, or maybe it just walks to a cadence Annabeth can’t hear. The moment her feet hit the floor this morning, it felt like she was stepping out of time. 

The darkness presses in heavily on Annabeth, like maybe it’s her fault the sun rose wrong today. The girl with a plan for everything can’t even rouse herself out of bed. Afternoon collapses into early evening, and the weight of the lost day pins Annabeth below her comforter. Alone in a twin bed, the way it way built to be. Even after nearly a decade of sleeping in a cabin with all her siblings, that’s all Annabeth has ever really been: alone, the way she was built to be. 

Sneakers scuff the carpeted hallway, stopping when they reach Annabeth’s door. A key scrapes the lock without a knock, which is how she knows it’s Percy on the other side. 

Light from the hallway follows him in, and both of them blink as their eyes adjust. Annabeth is blind for a moment, able only to focus on Percy’s silhouette. Even in the lowlight, she can see the way concern softens his brow and stiffens his hands. 

“Baby...” he says, a nickname that has become a common occurrence in their seven months of dating. This is the first time it has failed to warm Annabeth’s chest. “What’s wrong?” 

Annabeth tries—she really does—to sit up and wipe the tear tracks from her cheeks, but her nose is snotty and half her hair falls out of its scrunchie from being upright for the first time all day. Her voice cracks when she says, “M’fine.” 

Percy just crosses the room and turns on her desk lamp, giving the place a soft yellow glow. He looks like the sun sweeping away the shadows of a dim day. With gentle hands, he undoes Annabeth’s scrunchie and coaxes her curls into a bun that will hold in the wake of her wallowing. Annabeth leans her head back into his stomach to look at him upside down, at which point he holds her cheeks and breaks her with a gentle, “Something’s wrong, I can tell.” 

She just gapes at him uselessly, because isn’t the lack of words the very core of this pain? All the power of Athena’s wisdom, Daedalus’s laptop, and Annabeth’s own mind, and she cannot string together a sentence about Luke Castellan that rings true. 

He was a hero. Naive. 

He was a monster. Calloused. 

He loved me. 

Well, aside from that, which is the only thing she knows to be true. 

Percy senses the tectonic shift within Annabeth and holds her tight, laying her back on the mattress and tucking himself in behind her. His arms wrap around her like he can prevent the earthquake, but all that tension can only do one thing: snap. 

Luke loved her. It’s the one thing she knows. None of it makes sense if he never loved her. She has to make it make sense. 

Most days her brain buries the ache. Annabeth is a runner; she is good at lacing up her shoes and hitting the road, but her feet cannot carry her far enough. She is the house she’s running away from. Luke’s influence is a painful design that fuels self-hatred and frustration, but the bones were good. At its core, the house was built with love, the kind you want to share with family. Before her fearlessness and fire were her own, they were his. Luke was the first person to put a weapon in her hand, and Annabeth is nothing if not a warrior. He made her to be the exact thing she needed to be to survive him.

Seven months after his death, and sometimes a day goes by where Annabeth doesn’t think about it. Some days are too full of Percy’s sunshine smile for the sky to dream of dimming. Other days—ones she keeps to herself—the thought of Luke shines in the rose-tinted lens of nostalgia. And then there are days like today where she is rendered immobile by the mere memory of him.

Closure is a sick and twisted joke. Luke’s love for Annabeth saved his soul and the world, just the way she wanted. All the pain and suffering of the past four years was worth it. She was right to believe in him. So why does the burden still burn into her shoulders? 

Percy presses his lips to the back of Annabeth’s neck, drawing her back to the present. His arm rests underneath her neck and wraps around her shoulders while the other falls over and around her torso, linking their fingers over her heart. He’s grown considerably since the summer, a fact that bothers Annabeth until moments like this where the width of his shoulders eclipses her own. It almost fools her into thinking he can protect her from this. 

“Easy.” His voice is low, whispered into her neck. “You’re okay. Just breathe with me, alright? I’ve got you.” 

Each swell of Percy’s chest coaches Annabeth through her own. Inhale. Hold. Feel his hands squeeze each second. Exhale. Listen to him whisper affirmations like prayers into her skin. Repeat. 

It takes a while, but Annabeth’s heart slows.

Percy’s voice resonates again her back. “What happened?”

This, she thinks, is the hardest part. Annabeth doesn’t have an empathy link like Percy and Grover, nor does she have someone with shared experience to speak to. In her struggle with Luke, she is truly alone.

“It’s not fair,” she manages, breath hitching.

“What isn’t?”

“That he—“ A stray tear leaks onto her pillow. Percy’s lips linger on her shoulder, patient and steady and everything Luke couldn’t be. Annabeth sobs, a mortifying sound, and she’s glad Percy can’t see her face as she presses it into her cold pillowcase. The stain of fallen tears waits for her, inviting her back into old pain. “That he loved me. It’s not fair that he loved me.”

Though he tries to hide it, Percy’s body goes rigid. They have fought about this on Annabeth’s rose-tinted days or whenever someone brings up Luke’s legacy, be it as hero, pawn, or monster. Part of Percy will always be the twelve year old boy who was betrayed by Luke, and part of Annabeth will always be the seven year old girl who found a family with him.

“Love isn’t always enough,” Percy says, and she can hear the tension in his jaw. Bless him though, he tries for her. “It’s not your fault he couldn’t do a single damn thing about it.”

He pulls her into his chest and lays his head on her shoulder, keeping her from falling off the bed while her body shakes. She withers at the realization that she can’t offer him anything in return, not even a promise that she’ll take his words to heart.

Luke did something about it: he died. He became the hero Annabeth saw in him after years of struggling, and then he left her again.

But he kept his promise. 

Annabeth’s chest aches as it always does when she thinks about Luke, it just runs a bit deeper today. It was in his nature to cut to the bone. 

“I just don’t want to feel like this anymore.” She sounds every bit the small, bitter runaway. 

The cold of the pillow is replaced by Percy wiping away her tears and dabbing at her nose with the sleeve of his hoodie. “What can I do? Tell me how to help.” 

“Just stay with me.” She leans into his palm, kisses his wrist. “Hold me a little longer.” 

“As long as you need,” Percy promises, dropping kisses along the line of her neck, her jaw, her cheek. “But I need you to look at me.” 

They untangle their limbs for Annabeth to flop onto Percy’s chest. His arms wrap back around her, this time firm around her waist while his free hand slides to her neck, his thumb under her jaw to hold her gaze. His eyes blaze with the fierce love she is still learning to accept, the one that burns to protect. 

“I love you so much,” he says, his voice aching as though it almost hurts. “And if I could take this away, I would. You don’t deserve it. I know we don’t... That he...” Percy frowns, then tightens his grip on her. “I know I don’t get it. I know. But I’m still here, you know? I don’t want you to be alone. Ever.” 

The gears in Annabeth’s brain take a moment process, and her response comes out in a breathless, “I love you.” The phrase is warm, as it always is, like the sun shining through the rain on her window. Loving Percy turns the light on in every room she enters. The rest of her words fall short, though they’re honest. “I don’t know what to say.” 

Percy’s thumb swipes across her cheek. “Me neither. We’ll figure it out together, yeah?” 

She throws herself into the crook of his neck, knocking the air from his lungs. He just softens and holds the back of her head while tracing circles on her hoodie—steady, sweet, supporting. He holds her tight and kisses her temple with the same tenderness she presses into his collarbone: a small attempt at reciprocity, but a meaningful one nonetheless. They’re trying, which is all they can do. 

[pollenat]

ITZY and 5 ways to say I love you

YEJI

Her hands resting on the sides of your head. Fingers caress, rub and play with where face meets hairline. Though Yeji’s small smile is one of soft feelings, you think the feelings inside your stomach possess none of her delicacy. They’re violent, twisting your insides, because the woman in front of you is way too much for your poor heart. And though your own touch isn’t telling, you’re worried she will learn it from a stray line on your skin. Why else would she be taking in the sight of your face with so much attention?

The feeling of being alone in the world, save it for Yeji’s warmth by your side. The night sky is dotted with stars, the forest is overflowing with leaves, animals are singing their evening ballad. You should’ve left a while ago, but lying in a field, just a few meters away from the forest’s edge, doesn’t feel half bad. And you’re here with Yeji, her embracing arm a pleasant reminder she’ll protect you if she has to. After all, it was her idea to stay back so late to enjoy the privacy and the sight of a clean sky.

Everyday objects you find in the pockets of your clothes. They may consist of tissues, old packs of gum, hair ties, or anything, really. What makes them so special, is the fact that each has a memory attached. A memory of Yeji. Whether she’s borrowed a jacket and forgot her lip balm, or lost a ring while hiding her hand in a pocket of your coat. Even the tissue she’s made a comment about – everything has her invisible name attached.

An abandoned teacup. It’s empty, lying on a coffee table filled with junk food. Plastic packages and crumbs mix into disgusting mess. TV plays in the background, characters of some teen movie have just started an unpopular musical number. A foot lies on your thigh. Its owner puts a chip in her mouth, eyes taking in the choreography. You couldn’t be any less interested in cliché songs about the power of friendship, but your better half? She’s that one hobby you can never see yourself giving up on. Yeji trashes in her place, doing her best to escape your tickling fingers, meanwhile laughing like a maniac.

The fact she’s never mad. Just disappointed. Her eyes, instead of endearment, offer you that damned sadness – a pointy arrow at your head, saying it’s all your fault for causing her gloom. If it wasn’t for your presence in her life, none of this would have ever happened. How dare you exist next to her when all you personify is the wrong? How dare you stab and claw at her heart when you were meant to heal and embrace it? And then the allusion that if you had tried, the things would have been better. But you never try, right? You’re the villain, right?

LIA

Face hidden in your neck. Arms tight around your body. Feet tucked in the space between yours. Soft noises of content. Hair basically pushed against your mouth. Despite the overwhelming presence, you feel happy. Your face hides in her hair. Arms lock on her back. You sigh from the very same sense of content. The hair on your tongue doesn’t annoy you. If anything, it brings another reason of enjoyment - the familiar smell of Jisoo’s favorite cosmetics.

Sudden grip on your hand. A look back at her pale face and uncertain eyes that scan your closest surroundings. With the night above and most people asleep, streets feel sinister. The individuals that are out and about bring a sense of danger, like they’re all mad from bloodlust. Like they all have only the devil’s doing in mind. Keeping the thoughts to yourself, you put out a brave front of indifference. If it’s what it takes to bring Jisoo a sense of comfort, you’ll make it a show to be remembered. Maybe even you will be fooled into peace.

A little kiss. Fingertips locked on your chin. Wide smile she adds as a bonus. And just like that, a moment later, she’s gone. You’re watching her back distancing itself from you with a little spring to Jisoo’s step. Are you the reason, or just an effect? Only when she stops and turns around do you realize, that you’re supposed to be accompanying her. But that’s Jisoo to you – so show-stopping you could forget to breathe even with throat tight and itchy. She doesn’t laugh, just smiles, as if she was aware that she, in fact, is the effect.

Hiding beneath a rainbow colored umbrella, with Jisoo stuck close to your side. You promised her a walk, but sneaky rain clouds have decided to make their surprise entrance. The weather forecast was so sure in their predictions of a sunny weather… Never again will you so blindly trust technology. Irritation clear on your face, you take a look to the side at Jisoo. Her head is leaning against your shoulder. Green and yellow clash on her features. Despite the uncomfortable sight of dark locks glued to her cheeks, she’s smiling. You’re not sure what is there to be happy about, but no comment breaks the rhythm of rain.

Read glaring at you from under your last message. It’s been like that for a while now. Every message read, but none answered. The silence is maddening, causing you anger, but no matter how much you want to do something, the compliance from your inner self never comes. Because in reality, Jisoo’s silence hurts as much as it angers. Why are you the only one trying to save a drowning ship? Why does she care so little about the pain her passiveness causes? Why is everything about it so unfair to you only?

RYUJIN

The suddenness of fingers hooking at the edge of your trousers. Their pulling has you turning around in confusion, stopping mid-sentence. Ryujin’s gaze is dark and meaningful. You’re worried she may not be feeling well, but observing her, you notice doubtful gazes she passes a person you were talking to. Nobody to be scared of, not when Ryujin’s herself. But even the warmest of stares you have reserved for her only aren’t enough to calm the storm brewing behind beautiful features.

A word idiot pressing itself at your lips. Of course, in the most lovable tone possible. Even if Ryujin’s “special” jokes are super unfunny and you’re cringing inside, you’re still enjoying them, or rather her own amusement. Does that make sense? Not really. But in the face of romance, logic is a rarity. Watching her as she laughs at herself, you’re reminded of a cold bath during a hot day – awakening, pleasant, somehow wrong, but also so right. Thanks to Ryujin, you can focus on things other than everyday struggles, even if the result has your face twisting in disgust.

Train jumps in its trails, shaking every passenger awake, including you. For a moment, you’re uncertain – what is this place you’re sitting in? A robotic voice announces next station. It’s an obscure name for a village, you don’t remember from the timetable. Have you missed your stop? Terrified, you attempt to sit up straight, but another head weighs you down. Ryujin is somehow still asleep, her cheek resting on your forehead, her hand carelessly abandoned on your lap. Even a loud conversation between two women sitting behind you doesn’t awaken her. And though your neck hurts, you stay in place so she can rest better.

A knock on a doorframe. A break in a train of thoughts. A look up from your phone at Ryujin’s awaiting silhouette. Her small pout is a picture of tiredness only your attention can cure, or at least so she thinks. Questions are answered with shakes of her head, a smile earns a smile in return. Before long, she climbs your lap and pushes you back to lie on bed. Like a pet missing their everyday companion, Ryujin sinks into your embrace. She’s a plush sensation to lean on and trust with your unconscious self. That is, if you manage to fall asleep with her weight crushing your lungs.

Either ignoring you, or staring with ridicule. Ryujin cannot decide on one, maybe because she’s just as conflicted when it comes to feelings. To detest, or to miss? She said the things were over, but how come you’re still in each other’s presence so often? It’s as if you were celestial bodies gravitating towards one another, unable to go alone, because all there is to your being is her. It may sound dramatic, but watching her back, with heart open and bleeding, you feel useless in your existence. You don’t know the now without Ryujin in it, and you don’t want to. So despite all the hurt, you still await her return to your side.

CHAERYEONG

A shy smile that causes you the feeling of warmth inside. A little embarrassed by your own body’s reaction, you try to laugh it off. But Chaeryeong doesn’t know what caused you so much fun. Her hands embrace you from behind, questions are fired as she tries to join your fun. Self-conscious smile looks like a blinking lightbulb. Avoiding her expectant stare, you play with the fingers locked on your abdomen, warmth now not only inside, but also outside.

An evening you spend lying on your back. There’s no motivation to get up and be productive. It’s funny. If anything, your heart’s understanding of productivity is watching Chaeryeong’s asleep profile. Hot air blows at a loose strand of hair, raising it into the air, only for the lock to fall back in its place. You could correct it, yes, but one of your hands is under Chaeryeong, while she weakly grips the other one. Pulling your limbs free would mean the possibility of waking her up. The result? Guilt, because you’d ruin a bubble-like moment that you should’ve taken the most out of. So you decide - the world can wait.

Cold autumnal wind blowing at your cheeks. Ice cold fingers warming themselves up in thin pockets to no use. Ache in your frozen toes, no amount of steps can melt. Finally, pharmacy’s door open. Chaeryeong’s return makes you shift attention to her winning smile. All the happiness because of a lip balm. She doesn’t waste time unpacking it to then spread gloss over her lips. You don’t know why you’re watching the interaction so closely, but it’s a distraction from the cold. She notices, giggles and – huh? – kisses you. To share the lip balm, apparently. Because it’s so cold, apparently. Because she cares about your well-being, clearly.

A snarky remark you can’t help, but laugh at. To others it may sound a little insulting, but you actually have to applaud her for a good one. Sarcastic, but funny – Chaeryeong’s unsure bite on a lower lip widens into a proud smile. She couldn’t help herself and you don’t mind. Still, maybe one day you’ll attack her the same way. Strike with sarcasm she’ll have to laugh at. In the end, all’s fair in love and war. Chaeryeong should see the revenge coming. Once you come up with a genius remark, that is.

Frustrating no’s she won’t stop using against you. As if they weren’t already driving you insane, she adds strong shakes of her head. There’s a no to every word, sigh, groan and wild gesture. Then there’s her posture – closed in on herself, making her appear smaller than she really is, so your resolve may weaken. In a way, it’s a gun pointing at you, forcing into compliance. Hidden behind a mask your knees may feel weak for, but a gun.

YUNA

Freezing in place when the world disappears from your sight. Warm palms cover your eyes, their touch comfortable and delicate. Their owner rests her head on your shoulder. She smells of freshness, best described by the (one would think) unexpected word home. You’re not scared. Surprised, but all fine. Yuna’s laughter joins yours when you take her palms into your own hands. Together, they slide down to rest on your sides.

A sudden look of bewilderment you’re given by friends when you laugh for no obvious reason. They’re not aware you haven’t been listening to them for the past few minutes, too taken by Yuna’s playful faces from across the table. You try to cover the laughter with a fake cough, but nobody’s fooled. They have so many questions to ask, meanwhile Yuna is acting oblivious to the entire scene, avoiding both your gaze and speaking up. Just she waits for the right moment, you’ll have your revenge.

How small she always attempts to be next to you. Doesn’t matter whether you stand higher, or lower than Yuna – she needs to be the one embraced, looked at, appreciated. If you’re not living thanks to her bright shine, who else could be your Sun? If your orbit doesn’t surround her, what’s the point of seeing one another? If gravitation doesn’t pull you towards her, how can she be sure you’re a planet made for her? Yuna needs to be both told and shown that she matters to you, and in case she notices the attention isn’t enough, she’ll be sure to remind you that she is the Sun to your Earth.

Her wild gestures as she attempts explaining her favorite things. Yuna’s arms flail in the air. At one point she’s pointing to her right, at another she has hands clasped on her left. Her eyes widen and close, to prove just how serious the case is. It’s amusing, but you don’t dare a laugh. Not when she’s so eager to share a part of her life with you. Not when she rolls her eyes at some silly thing that’s bothering her so much. Yuna’s hard work is adorable, but admitting aloud how heart-melting instead of heart-clutching she is would create a rift in the moment of happiness, so you let the little lie live.

The distance. As if terrified you may stab her, Yuna stays away. She won’t look you in the eye, answer a simple yes or no question, or even react to your words. As if you were a mare she shouldn’t look at. As if just a glance in your direction could hurt her. In your eyes, Yuna’s childish choice of action is despicable. So much that you don’t even attempt burying the hatchet. To every single act of avoidance, you respond with indifference. Every dejected sigh on her part meets a roll of your eyes. It’s an ongoing war that has no sense for it, other than destruction.

➛ pollenat’s list of headcanons

➛ pollenat’s list of shorts

➛ pollenat’s list of scenarios

[lovelivingmydreams]

What is a happy ending?

So someone (looks sternly at @rondoel) thought giving me insight in a certain OC of theirs and making me feel things is an okay thing to do. That I won't proceed to write a heartbreaking epilogue to my two part Virgil king story. This one not as long. But still. Enjoy:

What is a happy ending?

"Why happily ever after?" King wondered aloud as He studied their latest piece of art.

No one had ever answered that question for Him. Not in a meaningful way at least. And it never truly stopped bothering Him.

"Your majesty?" Anxiety asked carefully. Probably not sure if he had been meant to hear. King wasn't so sure Himself.

Oh well. He might as well finish the thought. Something interesting might come from it.

"Happily ever after. It's so... boring. Why does everyone like it so much?" He had wondered so often...

Anxiety shrugged. "Princey loved that crap. He hated it when I called out the flaws, though he could be just as bad with plot holes.

It's not realistic at all and... well boring is one word for it." His tone and face could almost be mistaken for dismissive, but King could swear He spotted fondness in the upturn of Anxiety's mouth and a slight wistfulness in the shine of his eyes.

King however was more interested in this more nuanced perspective on the story trope. Answers at last?

Anxiety noticed his king desired for him to elaborate and immediately started fidgeting as he tried to find the words to express his thoughts sufficiently.

"I suppose... everyone thinks that's what they want?" His nerves turn the sentence into a question. "When they are little it's an easy goal. You find the one who'll make you whole, or defeat the villain, or both. And then nothing ever bothers you again.

It's not how life works though... and growing up... I think everyone still has a part of them that wants to hold on to things being that... simple..." Anxiety trailed off and looked up at king curiously. His face strangely focused as if he was looking for an answer himself.

"Simple?" King urged wanting to hear more. Anxiety was so close to making sense. So close to bringing about that wonderful feeling when curiosity was sated. A story complete at last.

"Um... yeah... I mean even I feel a little... I don’t know... it feels right?

When you do the right thing, even when it's hard and you get the stuff you want anyway. And when people who hurt you don’t win. You want the world to work like that. If not for you then at least for the servant girl, who just wanted a night off, or the waitress who just wanted to buy her father's dream restaurant. Hard work, kindness, patience... they should be rewarded right?" Anxiety explained. Sounding frustrated. "And..." he let out a resigned sigh before straightening up and continued more decidedly. "Since the world doesn't work that way... why not escape somewhere where it does?" It was passionate. Perhaps in defense of Roman's favorite thing in the world. Then that fight and righteous defiance fell away in favor of a nostalgic fondness. "Thomas did it all the time growing up," Anxiety sighed before returning his attention to the painting that had prompted the question. A Father's Day movie night.

Hugs and snacks and movies with happily ever afters galore. All of Morality's favorite things.

King had to admit it had... stung to discover that Morality had taken up the role He'd given him even after he betrayed everything that title stood for.

Had he ever felt even the slightest bit conflicted when hearing Roman calling him 'Padre'?

Or was it supposed to be fine, since he thought Roman was the only half of Him who felt attached to him that way?

Had it truly never occurred to him that while he took in the confused Roman, he left behind a disoriented and heartbroken Remus who didn't understand why daddy was ignoring him.

What had he done wrong?

Why did he never get bedtime stories or hugs from dad? Why was he shoved away, scolded, ignored?

Why was he not allowed to play in the imagination with his brother?

The last thought had plagued both halves for years.

Even Roman who had stopped admitting to it to please Morality felt conflicted during story times and hugs to this day.

Telling Thomas that he didn't want anything to do with his brother had hurt more than the bump on his head...

But all of that was in the past. They were gone and their unresolved issues were a waste of His time. He had berated, tormented, Anxiety over this. He would not fall victim to such sentimentalities Himself.

"I see... escapism then?" He muttered, trying to get back on topic and not to show the... somewhat emotional turn His thoughts had taken.

Like His halves, His 'Padre' was gone. He probably never existed in the first place.

And Morality would pay for that betrayal and the way he abandoned Remus and how he made Roman fight to earn his love, only to abandon him as well. His suffering had only just begun.

Not because it still mattered. But... any excuse to justify and fuel His wrath even a little bit more was good enough for Him.

He'd probably avenge slights against his minister simply to feign kinship and watch the traitors squirm under his rule just a bit more. Not that he needed a reason to do anything. But justified rage was so much more satisfying to set loose. Because the targets would feel, deep down, they brought this upon themselves.

"Yeah... there's enough crappy stuff going on in the world right? Thomas... wants to use his talents to make people smile. And while that's cheesy, it's also... well it's him," Anxiety shrugged. King hummed in agreement as He framed the picture and put it away. He'd barely paid attention honestly. The answer was satisfactory. But there was a new question on His mind. As He mused over His minister's attachments to His enemies and how to sever them He recalled something intriguing about his recent behavior.

Anxiety had been pulling away from Morality. Why? What had caused a crack in 'the bestest most dynamicest duoest duo'?

And was this something he could use to forge an allegiance. Or to hurt Morality as deeply as He'd been hurt. Or, ideally, both?

King smirked to Himself as He laid a gentle hand on Anxiety's shoulder. He asked about a drawing of the young side and Thomas. He was pleased to note that His minister no longer shrank away every time He moved in his general direction. He might not be comfortable with His touch yet, but he was getting used to it. Something that would surely get to the others who still tiptoed around Anxiety's boundaries.

Maybe, at some point, he could be made to truly see things His way. To see the traitors for the villains they were. Just the thought of the chaos that this realization would unleash... It would be magnificent.

Morality had forgotten something important about 'happily ever after's.

Bad guys don’t get them. And the victor is always the hero.

It was only right that King reminded him of the shadow side of his favourite ending.

By making him live it.

Virgil knew that it was a bad thing that he found himself enjoying talking about his memories to the king and watching them turn into pretty cool paintings.

He was Anxiety, this was definitely a crisis. He can't relax now, not around the reason of said crisis... but if he doesn't relax a little his thoughts might do something really bad. And if he doesn't do whatever the king wants, then the king might do something bad.

So he had to balance on this weird edge of anxious, but cool with it.

The others were counting on him. To stay safe, to keep it together, to keep King distracted, to find a way to get him to lay off a little...

"Worthless." And... the thing is back.

"Dude, seriously, not now!" He snapped at his... shadow.

King just looked on intrigued. Great. Now the shadow had King's attention.

"Failure," it hissed. Right... King is not his biggest problem right now.

So far the shadow had only been mildly annoying even quiet for the most part. But clearly anxious thoughts made it remember it could be a pain in the behind. And worst thing is it got to Virgil even more because it laid out his true fears for King to see and use against him.

"You... you are just... you're just a thought. You can't hurt me." Virgil insisted.

Thomas could deal with his irrational fits. Surely he could manage this thing, right?

"Monsssster," the shadow hissed. No he didn't think that anymore!

"Guardian!" Virgil bit back. Patton said so, Logan said so, Roman said so, Thomas said so... why cant he just believe them?

He found himself struggling to breath again. The thoughts... they were real now... what if they could hurt him...? Can he die? What would happen to Thomas?

"Begone!" Virgil snapped out of his near attack at the sudden outburst from King.

What...?

He looked up just in time to see a flash of metal and shadow's dissolving figure.

"It'll reform later," King muttered as he sheeted his sword.

"It became too bothersome. You should not let your creations have power over you young one. You are their master, don't forget that," he instructed calmly, not looking at him.

Did he just...?

"Return to your business now, I find that I am in need of a break," he then declared as he walked away, still not looking back.

"But..." he came to a halt. "Should you wish to finish our gallery... I might be willing to indulge your presence later."

Virgil didn't quiet know what to do, so he bowed, just in case the king could see it somehow. "Y-yes my king. Thank you," he stammered hurriedly.

When he looked up, the king was gone.

And Virgil ran. He needed to find Lo and Pat before the shadows returned.

His thoughts were a confused mess... he hadn't imagined that right?

King had really stepped in to save him instead of letting Virgil's punishment, gift, curse, whatever run its course...

And then he left it up to Virgil to decide if and when they'd finish up.

There was probably some messed up reason behind it... but still.

Virgil wasn't stupid though. Even if saving him had been a purely noble impulse, King hadn't undone his 'gift' to make sure it wouldn't happen again. Telling him to put his foot down with 'his own creations' didn't really count.

King still messed up real bad and would have to do something pretty impressive to make up for all of that.

And Virgil was pretty sure that it wasn't just his pessimism talking when he thought that the king was no where close to wanting to make nice with any of them.

Or not for the right reasons anyway.

He shook his head. He can worry about all that later. Right now he has to find the others. Before King runs into one of them.

Virgil's trip down memory lane might've been deemed 'entertaining' or whatever, but he hadn't be around for whatever had happened to make the king be out for blood in the first place.

He didn't want to find out what King's idea of 'having fun' was when it came to Pat, Lo or even Janus. Whatever they did, it was still his duty to protect Thomas. Physically, socially, mentally and emotionally. Whether he wanted him to or not.

And not even King was going to stop him from fulfilling his purpose.

@antiredhuman you wanted to be tagged if I wrote more for this au so here you go! Hope you like it!

[thetomorrowshow]

Slower Than Words Ch. 20

First  -  Previous  -  Next

Been a busy week! I’ll let you know if I need to slow down updates! So how about we visit Virgil, see what’s up with him?

cw: a n g s t, panic attack

~

Virgil couldn't move. Roman had helped him into bed, then sat in the room for a while, trying to talk to him. When Virgil didn't respond, he eventually left, stating that he would be back later.

His world was crashing down around him.

Could he believe that just yesterday, he'd smiled? He'd laughed? Now it was all background noise, mindless buzzing that felt totally inconsequential. There was only one thing that mattered now. Patton.

Therapy had been rough, and Virgil had expected it to be. What he hadn't expected was to go over every meaningful interaction he had with Patton. The doctor had said she was “doing some tests”, so Virgil struggled to keep himself together as he talked about the one person he missed most in the world.

Then, she'd had the audacity—she'd dared to—

Virgil took a deep breath, blood boiling as he remembered that it was she who encouraged these breathing exercises. What if he didn't want to calm down? He deserved to feel, remember, Patton needed him to—

Virgil's legs started quaking, but he paid it no mind. He could not be wrong, admitting he was wrong would be abandoning Patton, he couldn't do that, he wasn't dead, he wasn't gone, he'd always been there and always would.

His breathing quickened, coming in short, shallow breaths. His entire body was shaking, and Virgil nearly puked when he realized he could smell rubbing alcohol. He hadn't had a flashback all week, he'd been doing so well!

As if summoned, there were gentle fingers on his wrist. Calm, the fingers traced. It's okay. I'm here.

“Patton,” Virgil croaked. “I—I knew it, you're here, you're here, I knew it—”

V breathe slow. Safe.

Virgil got his breathing under control after a dozen rounds of exercises. His legs were still quivering, but he knew where he was. He was in his room, in Roman's house, and he was going to be okay, and Patton—

Virgil choked.

His own hand gripped his wrist. His own hand was tracing soothing words.

“She was right,” Virgil whispered. His mind frantically grasped at straws, trying to explain what had just happened, as Virgil felt an overwhelming amount of despair.

“Virgil, you talk a lot about Patton. In every instance you told me about, however, you never hear him. You can't see him. Based on your time alone at the beginning of your imprisonment, it seems unlikely that they would suddenly decide to move you into a room with another person.”

Virgil's body had been completely out of energy, lax and unable to move, but now he was stiff as a board, locked in place. It couldn't be. It couldn't.

“We haven't been able to find out what that book was, based on your description of it.”

No. No no no no no.

“And I've seen you trace words onto yourself, in times when you need comfort. An interesting coping habit, one that might appear when a person is locked in a room with no outside stimulation.”

Virgil sobbed, full on weeping as his body couldn't move. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real.

And that was exactly the problem, wasn't it?

“Virgil, I think Patton may have been a hallucination that your brain fabricated in order to keep you comfort during the year that you were alone. I may be wrong, but everything you've told me about Patton points to it. Virgil, can you be absolutely certain that Patton was real?”

He'd said yes, he'd said that there was no other option. He'd stormed out of the office five minutes later. He'd refused to talk to Roman in the car. He'd gone straight to his room and curled up on top of his blankets.

Patton had to be real, didn't he? He couldn't have made up a person so complex, so loving, so wonderful. And, more realistically, he couldn't have created something so solid it had washed his clothes on days he felt too ill. Unless he'd imagined it. Anything was possible if it came from his head, wasn't it?

One part of him was screaming, begging him to not abandon his best friend. The other part of him was mourning the loss of Patton. Virgil wasn't sure what to do, torn this way. He had to be real. He was real—but was he? Where was the evidence?

The world was crumbling. Virgil choked on his tears, crying for Patton, crying for himself, crying for the loss he'd just suffered. Patton wasn't real, Patton had to be real, Patton couldn't be real.

Roman knocked on the door, asking cautiously if Virgil wanted to come down for dinner. Virgil pretended to not hear him, feigned sleep when Roman opened the door to look in. He buried his eyes in his pillow as he heard the door quietly shut, then Roman's footsteps retreating. He was alone, isolated, and the one person he'd truly loved had probably never even existed.

What was Virgil supposed to do?

-

“Dude, what does it say?”

A long silence. Virgil groaned. Apparently he'd gotten an email as well as a letter, but Roman had insisted on reading it to him. Screen-readers were 'too impersonal' now. It wasn't like he was going to get his information any other way.

“Virgil, I . . . I'm sorry.”

Virgil's heart dropped. Roman sounded lost for words, his voice cracking in the middle of the sentence. There was no way whatever the letter said was good news.

“You . . . you got in!”

In a shot of adrenaline, Virgil smacked him. Probably on the arm.

“Ow! That was my face, you heathen!”

Oops.

“Roman! Don't—why—” Virgil could barely speak. He'd gotten in? He was certain he wouldn't get in the first time, let alone twice . He got in!

“It's my job, as your adopted older brother!” Roman said, the false hurt completely gone from his tone. “I have to bully you a bit! You should've seen the look on your face, it was priceless!”

Virgil frowned, his heart still racing. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it a bit. “I'm . . . older than you?”

“Doesn't matter! I am, by proxy, older!”

Virgil snorted. “That makes no sense, dude.”

“Doesn't have to!” Roman proclaimed. Virgil could practically see him doing some dramatic arm thing. “I'm the older brother, and therefore, I don't have to make sense!”

Virgil tilted his head back in an approximation of rolling his eyes. According to Roman, it looked pretty creepy when he actually rolled his eyes, and it stung a little. Still, he would probably roll his eyes once he was around people who weren't Roman's parents.

He was really going back.

He sniffed, his nose burning. It had been so, so long. Had the campus changed? Would he be in a different dorm? Would he and Roman still share, since they were in different grades now?

He knew everything about their accessibility and whatever, about how they would accommodate disabled people. The school had actually reached out to him, informing him that he could finish his degree no problem, they had four or five visually impaired students already and could easily make it possible for him to continue his education. Virgil had been in contact with various foundations in order to work things out with his university, and he'd gotten a few scholarships—not to mention, the handful of scholarships he'd already had had gladly reinstated themselves. In fact, Virgil had pretty much already known that he'd be going back. There'd been very little room to doubt, as his therapist had told him several times.

This was real, though. Right there, in Roman's hands, was proof. He was allowed back, and would see teachers and classmates he hadn't seen in over a year. He was starting spring semester, which was still a few months away—Roman, despite his protests, had also put off starting his junior year until spring semester.

“Virge? Are . . . you okay?”

Virgil sniffed again, wiping his cheek to find a few tears there. “Yeah, I'm fine,” he said, with an attempt at a laugh. “I just . . . didn't think this would ever happen, y'know?”

Roman also laughed, albeit much more nervously. “With the way admissions was basically begging you to come back? Of course it happened!”

Neither of them acknowledged what Virgil really meant.

“So, packing?” Roman said, after several seconds of silence. “I know it's a while away, but is there anything specific you want to bring?”

With a pang, Virgil thought back to his hand-stitched hoodie. Hopefully it was bringing Patton as much comfort as it had always brought him. He'd had it for years, made it in Home Ec in high school. Until recently, he'd never been without it. It was bittersweet, in a way. Sure, it was gone, but it was with Patton. Like . . . like a piece of his heart would always be with Patton.

Virgil shook himself. That's stupid. And cheesy, he told himself. Grow up. Move on. He doesn't exist.

There was an ASL club on campus, one that Virgil planned on becoming a part of. Roman wanted to as well, making up something about having always wanted to learn sign, but Virgil knew it was just protectiveness. Virgil was pretty sure Roman had been about to rearrange his entire schedule so that they could have the same classes, despite the fact that Roman was a year ahead and in a different program of study. After a long evening of Virgil sitting in his room anxiously while Roman talked to his parents in the living room downstairs, Roman had come to the conclusion that it was best for him to continue with his intended major. Virgil was relieved—he was a grown adult, after all. He didn't really want someone trailing after him everywhere, insisting on helping him with every little thing.

Did he?

“Am I ready for this?” he wondered aloud. Roman gripped his shoulder tightly.

“I think so.” The words were soft, but no less powerful than Roman's usual loud tone. “You're so strong, Virgil. You're the strongest person I know.”

Virgil couldn't help but cringe. He knew someone much stronger. Whether that person was real or not was up for debate.

His most recent therapy sessions had involved a lot of tears, but Virgil had agreed to acknowledge that Patton might not exist. In turn, the doctor agreed to not make a formal assessment on Patton for the time being. It was still devastating, of course. It was still as if his entire world was falling apart. But Virgil was finding it easier to smile, more natural to joke with Roman.

He was healing.

Did he want to heal?

Yes, of course Virgil wanted to heal. He wanted to move on. He wanted to lead a normal life, without hurt and flashbacks and hallucinations.

But not without Patton.

There was a fork in the road approaching, Virgil was sure of it. He was going to have to choose between waiting for, hoping for Patton, and moving on. He wasn't sure what would happen when he reached that point.

But it scared him that he would have to make that decision alone.

~

Taglist (let me know if you want to be added/removed): @enragedbees @gotta-love-alejandra @bunny222 @basiic-emo @patt0n-sanders @rosiepupper @fangirlgeekandfreak @dn-fan21 @that2000skid @remy-the-lemon-berry @itsadastraperaspera @xionbean @sanderssides-angst @hell-yea-we-gay-tonight @maybedefinitely404 @broken-pencils @thewhimsicallibrarytech @doomllily @hereissananxiousmess @judyismydog  @arodynamic-enby @at-that-one-nerd @therapysides

[makeste]

I was originally going to send this message declaring my undying love for your metas and chapter reviews aND THEN - AND THEN MAKESTE - I READ THE ANSWER WHERE YOU SAID YOU WERE ARO AND THAT MAKES ME SOOOOO HAPPY. I'm aroace and it is SO FRUSTRATING to want to consume platonic or familial interaction between people and CONSTANTLY only get romantic or sexual. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING YOU CONTRIBUTE

woooo up top! solidarity lol.

for me it’s like... I don’t know if “frustrating” is the word I would use, but I do wish there was more gen out there. and that’s also something I’ve felt awkward about wanting in the past, because my early fandom years took place in a time where slash was much less of an everyday commonplace thing than it is now, and liking it was still a fairly controversial thing. the internet was a much more openly homophobic place than it is now. like, picture the purity police of modern day tumblr, but if they attacked any kind of non-heterosexual relationship as being sick and perverted and wrong. that was pretty much the general vibe. this was before AO3, and people who wrote slash often didn’t post it on ff.net and only posted it to their own private blogs and/or locked and moderated communities instead just so they wouldn’t be harassed. and there was absolutely no canon representation out there at all, or next to none. it was very much a “[rolls eyes] oh the yaoi fangirls are at it again” sort of thing where non-cishet relationships in fiction and fanfiction were at best not taken seriously at all, and at worst were treated with outright scorn and disgust.

and so like, with this being a common attitude at the time, I felt guilty for not always wanting to read slash myself. like, I don’t mind reading about romantic relationships at all, but for me there also has to be some other kind of element in play as well, or else it’s just not going to click for me. if a fic is just romance, just a lot of pining and slow burn stuff without anything else really going on in the plot, I just get bored and disinterested. I almost want to use the word tired, even though I’m not sure that makes much sense. I just can’t connect to the emotions, and so I disengage pretty quickly. and so I tend to steer clear of time-honored fandom staples like coffee shop AUs or And They Were Roommates, just because for me there’s rarely anything there for me to latch onto. I like angst, but I can’t relate to “so and so doesn’t feel the same way about me”, or “I want to be with them so bad but I don’t know how to confess”, or “they’re with someone else and it hurts like crazy every time I see them and know we can’t be together”, because none of those are emotions that I have ever personally felt, and I just can’t make myself feel them. what I can relate to are things like “this person makes me feel safe”, or “I feel a strong connection to this person”, or “I trust this person more than anyone else” because those feelings aren’t exclusively romantic in nature. I can relate to closeness and caring and love and affection and trust, but what I can’t relate to is the feeling of having a single person occupy all of your thoughts all the time, and very badly wanting to be the most important thing in their life as well, and feeling incomplete otherwise.

but anyway I spiraled away from the point I was trying to get to, which is that for a long time I actually felt guilty about feeling this way. because even though it’s rare to find fanworks where gen/platonic relationships are at the center, actual canon is chock full of said relationships. and so it’s like, what right do I even have to complain when I get to read all the time about so and so being friends, but the people who actually want them to be in a relationship in the actual canon so rarely get to see that actually happen. because that much has not changed in the past 20 years, even though society has become far more accepting of LGBTQ+ relationships. most canons are still far more likely to tease a non-hetero ship -- on purpose, even, hence why queerbaiting is a thing -- than actually commit to it. and so I often feel like I have no right to voice my desire for more genfic, because genfic has never faced the same kind of scrutiny as slashfic. gen has always been acceptable, and there is plenty of canon representation of platonic and non-romantic relationships, and so it’s not something I have any business whining about.

and even now I feel fairly uncomfortable voicing this lol. I write almost exclusively genfic myself, and up until very recently, I’ve always defined gen in my head as being just a lack of romantic or sexual content, rather than being its own distinct category. I think that’s one of the reasons it took me so long to realize I was aro (that, and I’d honestly never even come across the term until just a few years ago). for me, my lack of interest in romantic affection always felt more like a lack of identity rather than an identity in and of itself. I always felt like I was missing something. and for a very long time it never occurred to me that this might be a permanent thing; I just figured, okay, I just haven’t had this feeling yet. it just hasn’t happened for me yet. but eventually it would, and I just hadn’t met the right person, or whatever. but it was never anything I particularly wanted, and I never felt like I was missing out on anything by not having it. I never felt any kind of longing for it or felt incomplete without it. I was actually perfectly content!

but because society treats romantic orientation as the norm and places such a huge emphasis on it, I still had the uncomfortable feeling in the back of my head that if I never fell in love with someone and never wound up having a relationship with someone, my life would somehow be less meaningful and whole. like, we’re raised to think that romantic love is basically the pinnacle of the human experience, the purest and truest emotion that anyone can feel. and at the same time, there’s this idea that a life without that kind of love is just sad and unfulfilling and tragic. and so for a very long time my experience with my own aromanticism was characterized by me thinking of it as a lack of something that everyone else said was very important. and it took a long time to realize that that wasn’t the case, and that it was a valid orientation all its own and not just a matter of me being deficient in some way. and that was actually such a relief to finally come to terms with. I can be whole and complete on my own and still have a rich and fulfilling human experience even if I never experience romantic love, and that’s fine. I’m not missing anything. I’m not wrong for feeling like I’m not missing anything. it’s fine to be content with just me as I am. like, holy shit. and that was such a weight off my shoulders to finally get that.

I once wrote a fic which I was and still am very proud of. it was a genfic, and it had a really intricate plot with a big twist at the very end. and there was a ton of emotion in it, and it got very intense at times, because these were two characters who cared a lot about each other and would literally die for each other if they had to, and I’d put them in a situation where that possibility was very much looming over their heads at every turn. and I really put everything I had into trying to convey that kind of bond as strongly as possible. like I poured a ton of my heart and soul into that fic. and the responses were almost universally positive and kind and made me really happy.

there was one response though, that still sticks with me to this day. it was by and large very positive, just like the others. but it ended with a single sentence that, at the time, kind of just lowkey gutted me. Not gonna lie though, would have loved some slash in there.

like, that just cut me. way more than this person actually intended, I think. I’m pretty sure they just meant it as an offhanded comment, not even a concrit or anything. just “haha would have loved it if they’d kissed though lol.” but it stung. because this was something I’d put every ounce of emotion that I could conjure up into. and even though it wasn’t mean to be hurtful in any way, to me that comment read as “this is still missing something.” because there was no romance, the fic was incomplete. the characters’ feelings were incomplete. even though I’d struggled so much to convey all of these complex emotions which to me were so real and powerful, and even though the comment even acknowledged that I had by and large done so effectively, to me the single takeaway that stuck was that the feelings were less meaningful because there was no romance.

and that felt like a failing on my part. I even apologized for it. and here we are, ten years later, and that comment still pops up in my head any time I feel the urge to talk about a popular ship which I support but which I also enjoy as just a friendship. “just” a friendship. I still feel guilt over that. I still feel this urge to overexplain that I’m not trying to invalidate the actual romantic ship. I worry that I’d be perceived as ungrateful and/or a bad ally if I ever just came out and said “I wish there was more gen” like you were able to say so freely, anon. I worry about people getting offended if I were to say “I headcanon so and so as being aroace” because it might be viewed as an attack on their ships, or as latent homophobia, or something. like I have this paranoid fear that people might take it as me being puritanical and all “oh no, icky sex” or whatever, and so I end up just never bringing it up at all.

and that’s the thing about aromanticism, though; it’s so easy to just never talk about it at all, because for so many people it is just defined as a lack of something, rather than a something all on its own. it’s so easy for it to be something you just never bring up, and which just kind of quietly exists as the boring, bland, inoffensive yet uninteresting lack of a relationship; the default blank slate that most everyone is dying to fill in as soon as possible, except for you. and I’ve gone on thinking about it that way myself for so long that I’m still struggling now to sort out how to embrace it as an actual identity. it’s something I still have a lot of work to do on I guess.

anyway! so that all got very long and rambling and personal, far more so than I intended; clearly I have a lot of pent up thoughts and feelings about this lol. I guess I probably could stand to talk about it more, since the evidence would indicate that I clearly want to. but eh, baby steps. but anyways you are super valid anon and thank you so much for the love and comments. <3

[dotsayers]

20 Questions: Writer’s Edition

tagged by the beloved @myrmidryad 

this is a LONG one so here’s a cut to avoid do you love the colour of the sky syndrome

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

101 after a recent purge... no one may know about my Past

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

329004! used to be about 350k but again... purge

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

on ao3 i’ve written for (chronologically) doctor who, skyfall, discworld, les mis, star trek, lord peter wimsey, marvel (various), in the flesh, red vs blue, roosterteeth rpf, check please, hockey rpf, star wars, daredevil, rivers of london, dishonored, emmerdale, dirk gently, holby city, hot fuzz, kj charles, guardian, the covert captain, taskmaster rpf, good omens, ghosts, roswell new mexico, leverage, schitt’s creek, the magicians, 9-1-1, it chapter two, the magnus archives, the old guard, the mandalorian, the ritual, the locked tomb

way back on the pit of voles i wrote for twilight, harry potter, hetalia and xmen first class. and on the newsround chatrooms i wrote exclusively harry potter fic about my oc neville and luna’s daughter

as you can tell i am not prone to staying in one fandom writing wise, i tend to end up with one complete fic and seven abandoned wips concealed deep in my google drive

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

finally see what it means to be living (captain marvel, carol/maria, i really hit the zeitgeist with this one i think i was something like the fifth fic in the ship tag)

do whatever you think (the magnus archives, this series is actually #2-7, then #8 #9 and #11 for me so i’m going to cheat a bit)

standing in a world of my own (daredevil, matt/foggy/karen, another zeitgeist hit! really miss writing for daredevil actually... it’s a perennial fave)

a winding road that stretches towards the truth (iron man, tony/rhodey, i STILL don’t know when this got so many kudos. i swear i looked away when it was at 100 and suddenly it ended up here)

where the long shadows grow (star trek aos, kirk prime/spock prime, thank god some people are checking the prime kirkspock tag is all i’m saying!)

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

i don’t really Do angsty endings... possibly a blanket of stars just because i ended it on something of a cliffhanger and then completely zoned out of rnm for long enough that i forgot where i was going with it. there was definitely the intention of fixing things but then i just... did not do that. and now the show is on s3 and i’m over a season behind! life comes at you fast

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

where the long shadows grow, because it reunited kirk prime and spock prime and they DESERVE TO BE HAPPYYYY. i’m a complete sucker for presumed dead/back from the dead stories, actually, so on a similar theme i have two (TWO) daredevil fics which follow the trope, one about ray coming back post-s2 (might never be normal again) and one about foggy and matt reuniting post-endgame (in the corner, taking up space). this is the only time i will ever acknowledge endgame ever again

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

i do write crossovers! in fact i am often roundly mocked by my friends for the increasingly esoteric nature of my crossovers. way back in secondary i wrote a twilight/labyrinth crossover where angela was sarah and jareth’s daughter  because i had a massive crush on a girl who liked both twilight and labyrinth. however, since that has been comprehensively scrubbed from the internet, i think my craziest crossover is probably part three of ‘traced upon the skies’, already an esoteric crossover of rivers of london and hot fuzz, when i added in a crossover with the horror movie ‘the ritual’ just because i wanted rafe spall’s character to be happy 

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

EXTREMELY rarely and only with extreme embarrassment. i will not be any more specific than that

9. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i used to really struggle with doing this, to the point that i had over 300 comments just. lingering in my inbox unanswered. so i decided to give those up and just commit to answering them from then on, which has been working fairly well for about a year and a half now. i love getting comments but i get overwhelmed really easily and struggle with replying in a way which feels meaningful without getting in my head about it! 

10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

yes lmao it was for a harry potter fic on ff.net where harry got sorted into hufflepuff instead of gryffindor. it wasn’t a very good fic but i think the fact it was clearly written by an 11 year old should have scared off at least some of the less flattering comments.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i don’t... think so? i don’t know how i’d find out to be honest, my vanity googling is rarely very effective

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! as bronze may be much beautified (skyfall, mallory/bond) got translated into chinese, i was extremely pleased. i think it’s mandarin but the ao3 page for the translation doesn’t say and my mandarin is.................. extremely poor

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

also yes! me and jess little-smartass have written a lot together, although only our star trek/les mis series has been published, more’s the pity. we spent a lot of les mis fandom time workshopping aus and we were always extremely correct about all of it, imo

14. What’s your all time favourite ship to write for?

oh god. i think probably kirk/spock, although there’s some recency bias to that since i reread space manhattans recently and was reminded of my love for them. i really like writing jon/martin but i’ve mostly done that from outsider pov which is a bit different to writing shipfic, i think. joe/nicky from tog was also something i really liked writing but i struggle with plotting longer fic with them

15. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

i recently went through my abandoned fic folder so i actually have a few options for this. the obvious choice would be ‘any of the hockey ones’ but i did delete most of those just for my sanity. more recently i started writing a vaguely smutty pre-the thing mac/fuchs fic for alex @milkdrinker5000 which i really WANT to finish but am struggling with. most obscure answer (even beyond the thing) and most likely to remain unfinished is the insanely in depth post-tog booker/copley fic i had planned out back in about october. i wrote a good 6-7k of that one and then i realised it was going to be, like, difficult, and decided if i was going to put that much work into something it may as well be the novel im meant to be writing

16. What are your writing strengths?

once a friend told me i had an excellent facility for dialogue and ive thought about it every time i write ever since. i love writing dialogue and i think i’m good at knowing what sounds ic and what is right out. 

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

one of the things i struggled with for a really long time, and honestly still have trouble with, is depicting action in words. once i wrote a hockey fic which featured multiple hockey games and i spent probably four times as much effort editing those to make sense and be interesting that i’ve ever done on a talkier scene.

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i’ve done it but only when i knew more or less what i was talking about - i did italian at school so i felt confident using it for nicky in something particular and real. i try not to italicise when i drop in words from other languages, which is what i usually do when i’m using a language i haven’t studied in depth (for example, joe’s use of arabic in some of my fic), and to only use words which i’ve heard used by native speakers in that context. i think if you don’t feel confident using another language, generally speaking, you shouldn’t do it. and for god’s sake don’t use google translate for a full sentence

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

harry potter on the newsround chatboards. ariana lovegood-longbottom my sweet child

20. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

this used to be an easy question because hands down the fic i was proudest of on posting it was i’ll be seeing you. i spent a year and a half on research and writing! but these days i do cringe a little at my hockey fic, and i think i’m prouder of some of my shorter works. let’s do a curveball and say layer on layer, down on down, which is my favourite of my rnm fics and the one i like most from a narrative voice perspective. getting michael right was stressful and i’m still proud i got it down for a TIME LOOP FIC, my absolute favourite trope

tagging @little-smartass and @leescoresbies just in case they want to try this

[dovechim]

a remedy for mondays 03 (m)

01 | 02 | 03

➾ 8k words

➾ summary: all you wanted was just one day off work. but for that to happen, you need to invent a plausible reason. and then somehow, somewhere along the way, things get out of hand, and now people think you’re having a baby with your co-worker Park Jimin after a one-night stand. confused? join the club.

tl,dr: the part where things start unraveling until they fall apart completely.

➾ warnings: romantic sex, unprotected sex, creampie, cum eating, slight dom jimin, shit really hits the fan in this one 

➾ a/n: well well well... look who’s back :”) I struggled for months on where to take this, had a breakthrough in the last couple of days and speed wrote this. inspiration is unpredictable! here’s to the first update of 2020, and more to come!

“Is that all you’re having?” Granny asks with a frown as you finish your second bowl of rice after much cajoling from her. “You need to eat more for the baby! Jimin puppy, go get more from the kitchen.”

You stop Jimin with a meaningful frown. All weekend Granny has been feeding you so well that you feel like you’ve already gained weight. If you’re not careful, you’ll be returning to work with a food baby at this rate.

“Oh Granny, no, we’re already late. We need to catch the train back or else we’ll get back too late today,” Jimin grabs your hand in his as he rises from the table, prompting you to follow his lead. “We should get going now. Our stuff’s already by the doorway.”

Granny only lets you go by making Jimin promise to buy you something else to eat at the train station. Just as Jimin’s mother and father are offering to drive you back home themselves, Granny comes bustling toward the front door in a hurry.

“_____ dear, you forgot this!” Granny is holding a small pink pouch that you recognise as your own, containing all your sanitary pads and tampons that you keep with you at all times as a matter of habit.

Your heart skips a beat because you remember that you most definitely didn’t zip it up this morning, and Granny might have gotten a peek into its contents. You scan Granny’s face for any sign of suspicion or even accusation. If you really are pregnant, then you wouldn’t be carrying around sanitary products like this. Could Granny have already caught on that this is entirely a scam?

But the kind old woman merely smiles as she pats your hand warmly.

“You have to come back soon. It was so nice to have you here with us,” is all she says as she envelopes you into a hug. “I’ll send you some food I made later on in the week. You take care of yourself now.”

Strangely enough, Granny doesn’t mention the baby like you thought she would, but before you can think too much about it, Jimin’s father ushers the both of you into his car, and just like that, the weekend spent with Jimin’s family is over.

*

When you walk into office on Monday morning to find your desk significantly smaller, it’s not because the Monday blues are playing tricks on you. Your things have been shifted to a makeshift desk half the size of your original one, files and papers strewn haphazardly across its surface.

You look around for an explanation, but everyone has their heads down; typing, clicking and scrolling away. No one looks up for a second, not even when you clear your throat. You sort through the mess to find your laptop under it. Previously with your larger desktop screen to work with while poring over spreadsheets and word documents, you already experienced some eye strain, but now with only your laptop, it’s definitely going to get much worse.

Finally, you decide to approach Jung Hoseok, who is part of the Office Facilities Management team.

“Hey, um… Hoseok? What happened to my desk? Was there a reorganisation that I wasn’t informed of?” Your voice is hesitant and small amidst the austere silence of the office.

The bespectacled man takes his time finishing his email before he turns around. His desk is cluttered with all sorts of paraphernalia, from anime figurines to a mini fan and an assortment of snacks. It makes his regular sized table look tiny, not a single inch of bare space can be seen on it. When he finally faces you, he has a bored look on his face.

“Wh- oh. Your table? We had to make some space for some new joiners next month,” he says as he clicks open the floor plan that details everyone’s seating arrangement. He doesn’t let you look at it for long, though, and as cluttered as it is, you only manage to get a fleeting glimpse before he closes the document again. “A few other people’s desks have been shifted too. Count yourself lucky that you’re still in the same spot.”

“But I need more space. For my files, and I need my desktop screen too,” you try in vain to protest, but you can already see Hoseok’s attention drifting away.

“We figured since you’d be going on maternity leave soon, that it made the most sense to shift your desk…” Hoseok glances back at you, his eyes falling very briefly to your still normal sized belly. For a moment, you can see a flicker of curiosity pass over his features, but then it disappears.

And there’s nothing you can really say about that. You can’t say that this entire thing is a ruse that you made up just to get some time off for a concert. When they say life always finds a way, they were damn right. Life always finds a way to bite you in the ass.

Now your desk is the same size as an intern’s. It might sound stupid to anyone else but having a desk in the office is like having a place to call your own. Where you can put up all your decorations, pictures of you and your friends, cards and notes from your friends that helps to make the day a little better.

But you can’t have any of that now, because your new, smaller desk also means that you don’t have a partition on which to put all the decorations anymore. You swallow back the nausea that suddenly rises in your throat. Your new desk is only a few seats away from your previous one, so if you look over, you can still see Jimin’s head over the partition. He seems to sense that you are looking in his direction, as his eyes peek over the partition and meet yours. You don’t have to see the rest of his face to know that he is currently pouting on your behalf.

You try to ignore how cramped your workspace is and sit down to check your emails, throwing yourself into your work. Your back is facing the aisle, and when people walk up and down, you can feel their curious glances on your back.

Nevertheless, the weekend spent with Jimin’s family has reenergised you somewhat, and you’re able to work for two hours without getting distracted or feeling tired. In the middle of the morning, you suddenly hear a commotion from one of the other teams.

“Oh my god, this year’s bonus is great!! Thank you!!” The Finance team’s newest joiner, Kim Soo-Jung, squeals as she hugs her phone to her chest. “It’s the most I’ve ever had!”

“You all deserve your performance bonus,” the leader of the Finance team, Min Yoonji, says with a proud smile. “You’ve been the best team so far. It’s just an incentive!”

Upon hearing their conversation, you pick up your phone to log in and check your pay slip in a hurry, wondering just how much of a performance bonus you’ll get. Thinking back to all the late nights you spent, weekends burnt and lunches wasted at work, you begin to feel optimistic for the first time in a long while.

But when you scroll down to see the number at the bottom of the page, it remains the same as usual. No increments. No bonus at all. You check that you have the correct month’s payslip loaded, and there’s no mistake.

All around you, people are checking their payslips with excitement on their faces, huddling around with their teams and comparing amounts.

Jeongguk leaps out of his chair, fists raised to the ceiling as he grins uncontrollably. “Yes!!! Best day ever!!!”

“You got a bonus too?” You can’t help but question, seeing as he seems to be the most relaxed one out of your team when it comes to work. He goes home on time every day, takes a long lunch every day, and probably doesn’t even know what overtime is. If even Jeon Jeongguk can get a bonus and you can’t…

“Yeah, didn’t you get one?” He says nonchalantly.

“I did,” you mumble as you turn back to your computer, putting away your phone and ending the conversation in a hurry in case he asks how much bonus you got.

The rest of the morning passes in a slight blur as you try to distract yourself from the burning unfairness of the whole situation. When your stomach reminds you that it’s time for lunch, you glance up to see Jimin walking towards your table with a smile.

“Lunch?” He asks, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose.

You blink out of a slight daze, realising that you were lost in your thoughts for the past few minutes. Your eyes focus back on the email pulled up on your screen, reading the title hastily.

FREE HEALTH CHECKUP FOR ALL STAFF

“Did you see this email?” You ask, and Jimin places one hand on your desk, leaning in so that his chin hovers directly above your head. The whole proximity of his body is giving you butterflies as he casually drops a kiss on the top of your head before replying.

“Yeah, I did. Wanna sign up for the same day together?”

“You sure you wanna go for it?” You can’t help but have a weird feeling about this as you scroll through the email, reading through all the details. It’s a free health checkup for all staff provided through a mobile health clinic, for selected days and times only.

“Yeah, why not?” Jimin shrugs as he straightens up again. “It’s free. Health checkups like this would normally cost a bomb.”

“I’m afraid they might… you know. Find out about this,” you voice lowers to a whisper towards the end of your sentence, but from the way your gaze drops to your middle, Jimin’s face dawns with recognition.

“Baby, healthcare professionals are obligated to maintain individual privacy. They can’t divulge anything about your health to anyone,” Jimin reassures in a whisper, bending down beside you so that you can look at him more comfortably, stroking your hand in your lap.

You’re still new to this public display of affection, but luckily, the office is pretty empty since everyone has left for lunch. You’re not entirely convinced about this health checkup thing, but then again, it could just be your paranoia from all the bad things that have already occurred this morning. After all, you firmly believe that bad things happen in threes. And right now, you’re on strike two. 

Taking a deep breath, you smile at him, pushing away any other thoughts. “You’re right. This is perfectly fine. Which slot should we go for?”

A few clicks later, you close your laptop and reach for your wallet, taking Jimin’s hand as you walk out of office with a few of your colleagues’ admiring gazes on your backs.

*

“Deep breath please… one, two, three… and out…”

You can feel the cold metal of the stethoscope through your thin blouse as the doctor listens to your breathing. While he does this, you’re left staring at the medical information that you filled out on the form at the beginning of the session, your heart rate speeding up when it comes to the question:

Are you currently pregnant, or expecting? Yes/ No

Your hands start to sweat, and the doctor seems to notice. Dr Cha Eun Woo withdraws the stethoscope and places it back around his neck.

“Is everything going okay for you? You seem a little stressed. Problems at work?” He smiles jovially as he records something down on his clipboard.

“Um… yeah, kind of. The usual stress, you know,” you gesture vaguely, wanting this entire thing to be over as soon as possible. You add in a laugh for good measure.

Dr Cha makes an understanding noise in the back of his throat as he reaches for your medical form, scanning through it briefly. “Let’s see… no health problems, you’re exercising often, you don’t smoke, only the occasional drink here and there. Sexual history is… active, but you’re not pregnant, nor planning to become in the near future, am I right?”

You visibly tense up at his question, and the lack of a response causes him to look up at you.

“Did I say something wrong?” His smile turns into a concerned frown. “I apologise if I made you feel uncomfortable. It’s just the standard questions that we ask all who come in for a checkup.”

You shake your head and attempt to unclench your fists. Jimin is right. This is a medical healthcare professional who is just doing his job. He isn’t asking you because he wants to report you to the company or anything.

“No, definitely not pregnant,” you answer him confidently, conveniently leaving out the answer to the second part of his question.

But Dr Cha seems satisfied, and he reaches to unwrap the blood pressure cuff from your arm. “Alright then. I guess we’re done here. I’ll just let the nurse take a blood sample from you, and we’ll have the results sent to you over text message in about a week or so.”

You were just about to get up from your seat, but you freeze in your tracks. “Bl-blood sample?”

“To check your cholesterol levels, blood count, and generally things that we can’t detect through a physical check-up alone. Is there… is there a problem?”

You almost say that you’re scared of needles, but then how childish would that sound?

Dr Cha is still looking at you expectantly, and there’s really no good reason for you to refuse. So you paste on a smile and let the nurse draw some blood from the crook of your elbow, and then you are out of the mobile health clinic.

As you come down the stairs of the van, Jimin is waiting outside for you, having had his turn just before. You stumble a little on the last step, and he rushes forward to catch you.

“Are you okay?” Jimin’s grasp around you is tight as he sets you down carefully on the ground, pulling back to examine your face.

“I’m fine, just got a little excited for it to be over,” you squeeze his arm lightly, overly aware of your colleagues waiting in the vicinity of the mobile health clinic. Of one pair of eyes in particular, as she walks up to the two of you.

“You should really be more careful, ______! Especially in your condition,” Jihyo from Communications tsks as she appraises the both of you with admiration in her eyes. “Isn’t it great that we have this though? I’m sure having an extra health check wouldn’t hurt for the baby!”

Her probing eyes then travel down to your midriff, and you can see that she is just bursting with curiosity. Before she gets the chance to ask any more questions, however, Jimin puts an arm around you and gives her a polite smile.

“Thank you for your concern, but we should be getting back to work now,” Jimin gives her a small bow. “I hope your health check-up goes well. See you back in the office.”

He turns you around and you are all too glad to follow, leaving the whispers and curious glances behind.

*

“_____? Could I have a quick minute please?” Kim Namjoon from HR smiles pleasantly, as you look up to find him at your desk.

You save the spreadsheet you’d been working on and give him a nod, getting up to follow him to one of the meeting rooms. On the way in, you make eye contact with Jimin, seeing his curious head pop up from behind his partition.

“How’s everything been going for you lately?” Kim Namjoon smiles stiffly as he sits down, lacing his fingers together. “Pregnancy going okay?”

“Um…” You hesitantly take a seat across him, wondering what this could be about. It definitely isn’t one of those ‘how-are-you’ conversations between two colleagues. The very fact that Kim Namjoon is part of HR makes you wary.  

He’s still waiting for an answer though, so you give him a weak smile and nod.

“Thanks for your concern… was that all you wanted to ask me today?”

Kim Namjoon looks down for a second, the expression on his face wavering, before he clears his throat. “Actually, no. There is one more thing. It’s about the medical check-up we did last week.”

At the mention of the medical check-up, your heart begins racing, and you consciously force yourself to breathe.

“We received some information from one of the employees about your medical check-up. While having their medical check-up, they happened to see the medical form that you filled up, and the information that they came across seems to be indicating that you are not otherwise pregnant.”

Strike. Three.

The room suddenly feels like all the air has been sucked out of it. It’s hard to breathe, let alone form a conscious thought.

Kim Namjoon continues, “as you may realise, even though this concerns your private medical information, because there is a rumour that you are engaging in fraud, we are required for audit purposes to investigate this. But I wanted to give you a chance to come clean about it before we request a court order for your medical information to be released to the company officially. I trust that you understand that it would be labourious for all parties involved to go through a lawsuit like that.”

The seconds drag out, and you realise that he is waiting for your response. Your eyes dart around the room, and it occurs to you that you are trapped. There is no way to escape, no way to get out of this situation unscathed.

The jig is up, your secret is out.

“But I… the doctor…” you are tripping over your own words in an attempt to make a coherent argument against him. Something that will explain away everything.

“Give it up, Ms ______. You aren’t really pregnant, are you? You should be further along by now, but you clearly aren’t. Are you aware that you are committing fraud?” Kim Namjoon stands up and leans over the table, his stern eyes fixed on you.

“My medical records should not have been exposed like that,” you argue back, suddenly finding courage from somewhere within you. You’re not going down without a fight. “Anything that I discuss with my doctor is private and confidential. That doctor is in the wrong in the first place for just leaving my information out in the open!”

Kim Namjoon sighs deeply and massages his temples. He sits down with a heavy thud, remaining silent for a moment.

“Fine. I guess we’re doing it the difficult way then.” He pushes his chair back slightly and crosses his legs. “Let’s just say that we received a report that you may be committing fraud. In the name of the law, we are authorised to access your medical records, for investigation purposes. If you really have nothing to hide, you would have no problem letting us see those records, wouldn’t you?”

This asshole is just backing you into a corner. There are a thousand reasons why you might want to keep your medical records private, but he’s using it to accuse you of fraud.

Which you technically are committing, but still…

“Do you really want to drag this to court?” He asks quietly, mistaking your silence for fear instead of anger. “If we do that, then everyone in the company will know that you committed fraud. Your reputation will be ruined. It’ll be on your permanent record. No company will ever employ you after that, you realise?”

He leans forward again, his stare intense as his mouth sets in a firm line. “But if you just admit that you aren’t really pregnant now, and that you made it all up, we won’t have to go there. We can settle this between you and the company, reach an agreement through negotiation. It’s a win-win arrangement for both of us.”

Wait a minute. Is he really…

“Think about it for a second. Do you really want everyone to know about this?”

Well, if he puts it like that… then…

You find it hard to talk past the lump in your throat. “I…”

“All you have to say is: ‘I faked my pregnancy’. That’s all, Ms _______,” Kim Namjoon cajoles. “It’s really that simple.”

Even though you know he is manipulating you, backing you into a corner and giving you a choice between a rock and a hard place… there’s just no other way out of it. Finally, your shoulders deflate and you sink back against the chair in defeat.

“I faked my pregnancy. I’m not pregnant at all.” Your voice is smaller than it has ever been. In all your years working at this company, you don’t think any other moment will ever top this one in terms of humiliation.

“Thank you, Ms _______. You may go now. I will be in touch with you regarding the next steps.” Kim Namjoon smiles, a pointy, satisfied little smile as he stands up to show you the door. Just as you are gathering your composure and getting ready to step outside again, he hits you with another blow. “I think you should take the rest of the week off.”

“The- rest of the week?” You turn to him in surprise. “Am I… is this a suspension?”

“You could think of it as one, yes.” He clears his throat and pushes his glasses to sit higher up on his nose. “We need some time to discuss the appropriate disciplinary measures. Meanwhile, you should enjoy your time off. It was the whole reason why you invented this story, isn’t it?”

The nerve of him. You can’t even hit him, because now he has opened the door and the rest of the office would bear witness to you trying to murder Kim Namjoon. All you can do is smile tightly at him, try to keep the tears from being too obvious as you walk to your workstation, hastily pack up your things, and leave with your tail in between your legs.

*

“Everyone is talking about me at work, aren’t they?” You pace back and forth in the kitchen, wringing your hands as Jimin prepares dinner at your stove. “They will all know by now. Fucking Park Jihyo. She would have told everyone the second she left that clinic.”

“People aren’t talking about you,” Jimin says calmly, stirring the simmering beef stew.

“And I only just found out now?” Your voice rises in hysteria, hands tangled in your hair as you groan in frustration. “I’ve been walking around like a clown for the past week. They must have had a good laugh about me. I can only imagine the things they’re saying about me now-“

“______, no one has said anything about this-“

“And don’t even get me started on that fucker Kim Namjoon,” you grab the radish sitting on the counter, just because you need something to wave around for emphasis. “He practically manipulated me into making a confession. I’m pretty sure that’s called blackmailing, especially when he doesn’t even have concrete proof. You know, I should have sued that piece of sh-“

“Hey, try this piece of carrot. Is it soft enough for you?” Jimin turns to you with a ladle, expression totally calm, and it only infuriates you even more. His reaction to all of this is entirely unprecedented. You expected him to spring to your defence and storm into the office and beat that fucker to a pulp.

“How are you so calm about this?” You demand, pushing his arm away from you. “Do you not understand the gravity of the situation right now?”

“I do, and I’m anything but calm, trust me,” Jimin sighs as he puts the ladle back into the pot. “But if I freak out too, then there won’t be anyone to help you get through this. You need to stay strong to get through this. And to do that, you need to eat. You’re stressing yourself out and it’s taking a toll on you.”

He insistently offers the piece of carrot to you again, and you reluctantly open your mouth. The carrot is soft and savoury, the taste of gravy melting on your tongue. Jimin raises an eyebrow, watching you chew.

“It’s good,” you say reluctantly, feeling your aggravation slowly calm down as Jimin smiles serenely.

It’s only then that you realise how long it has been since you last ate. After leaving early, all you did was searching the internet for various HR policies, doctor-patient confidentiality laws, and even job sites. A wave of fatigue washes over you as you slowly sink into a chair, feeling lightheaded.

“You need to eat,” Jimin says again, plating up the stew in a bowl and serving rice to go with it. “You’re going to worry yourself sick at this rate.”

He sits down opposite you, hair ruffled from the long day at work, and top buttons on his white dress shirt undone. His glasses are perched on his nose, and they fog up adorably when he leans forward to take a whiff of the stew. He picks up his spoon, looking up at you with an expectant gaze, and you follow suit.

Satisfied, Jimin begins to dig in ravenously, but all you can do is watch. Your shoulders feel heavy, the nausea is back again, and the last thing you want to do is eat.

“Jimin… I can’t,” you say, setting your spoon down. But your voice is no longer angry. “I can’t stop thinking, what’s going to happen now? Am I going to lose my job? Will they sue me? I can’t- I can’t afford to lose this job, the economy is really bad now, and- “

The anxiety has you at a breaking point, and you are nearly in tears.

“Just look at me, okay?” Jimin abandons his food in favour of holding your hand. “Nothing is for sure yet. We don’t know anything. And until we hear from them, there’s no point in thinking about it. Worrying about it now means that you suffer twice. And no matter what, I’ll be by your side. Okay?”

When you don’t say anything, it prompts Jimin to get out of his seat and get on his knees beside your chair, turning you around to face him. When he sees that his words aren’t getting through to you at all, he scrambles around for something else to say. Anything that would make things better.

“What can I do? What do you need?” Jimin can only see your pain as you close your eyes, trying in vain not to cry, again. “Tell me what I need to do to make things better.”

For a moment, you can’t think of anything. But amidst all the racing possibilities of you losing your job, getting sued, and possibly never finding another job again, you just want one thing.

“I just want to stop thinking. All these what ifs… I just want them to go away,” your vision becomes blurry with tears.

“I can do that,” Jimin stands and brushes a strand of hair away from your face. He pauses for a moment so that you can see how plush his lips look, the way his lidded eyes are focused only on you, before all you know is the feeling of his lips on yours. “Just focus on me.”

He breaks the kiss a little sooner than you would have liked, only to kiss your forehead, and you stretch out your arms to him. You cling to him like a koala as he continues to kiss down your neck, swirling his tongue against your skin and wetting it with his saliva, sucking bruises into your skin as he does so. He blindly walks the two of you into the bedroom, setting you down gently before he continues to kiss down your body, pushing your shirt up so that he can see your bare breasts.

“You’re so beautiful, always so pretty for me,” he says as he cups both breasts in his hands, flicking at your nipples. This elicits a whine from you. “I love how you’re so sensitive when I play with your nipples just like this. Even better when I suckle on them.”

He wraps his plump lips around your right nipple and starts to suck, and it feels as if you’ve never had another man treat your breasts with such reverence before. Park Jimin is suckling from you as if it’s the last meal he’ll ever get, switching sides to ensure that both breasts receive equal attention.

“And I love this waist, just the perfect size for me to wrap my arms around,” Jimin drags his tongue down to your belly button, kissing and sucking your skin. “Even better to hold on to when I fuck your pretty little pussy.”

“Jimin, I-“

“I’m getting there, sweetheart. Just let me take care of you.” He smiles against your skin as he kisses lower and lower, till he is at the hem of your shorts. He pulls it down in one motion, and your thighs fall open almost immediately, desperate for his attention.

“I love the sounds you make when I eat you out. How are you this wet when I haven’t even touched you here yet?” Jimin makes it a point to let you know just how wet you are by sliding two fingers through your core, then pulling them apart to show you the strings between his two fingers. “You want me to eat your pussy?”

“Yes, fuck, I want you to eat me out,” your thighs are quivering in his grasp, and he needs no further prompting.

He starts with a flat lick against your clit, feeling you gasp and sob above him. Then he dips down for a taste of your core, alternating between licking and sucking to make sure he gets every drop of your sweetness. Two fingers spread your lips to open you up even more for him.

“That’s it, baby, look at me. Just focus on me,” he directs your attention to him, holding eye contact as he starts to eat you out again, plump lips against your pussy as he devours every inch of you. The tension in your belly heightens, and it’s all you can do to keep your eyes on him. It’s sinful to watch him eating you out like this, between your legs like a man starved. The only thoughts in your mind right now are of Park Jimin, and nothing else.

“I’m so close, please,” you plead with him. “Fingers. I need you to-“

“Shhh, I got you,” Jimin switches his attention on your clit while he buries two fingers in your cunt, and the burn feels good. “Shit, that’s tight, baby. How are you gonna take my cock?”

“Make it fit,” you widen your thighs and grind on his fingers, almost riding his tongue in the process.

“You bet I will,” he says with a dark look that sends butterflies fluttering in your stomach, and then the rest of his efforts are dedicated to sending you over the edge. The combination of his tongue on your clit and his fingers expertly reaching your sweet spot effectively snaps the knot in your lower belly, and you clench around him with a moan, hips rising off the bed.

Jimin does not let up on your clit, he helps you to ride out your orgasm as you pant and gasp, until your legs feel boneless and the aftershocks are making them twitch.

“There we go, it’s okay… you did so well,” Jimin withdraws his fingers and sucks on them, stroking your inner thigh with his other hand. “You always look pretty when you cum.”

You close your thighs for a moment to catch your breath, feeling his soothing touch still reminding you that he’s always by your side. You know that you are far from satisfied, though, and a few seconds later, you open your eyes and sit up, glancing at the tell-tale bulge in his pants.

“Can I ride you?” You ask directly, and if Jimin is taken aback, he doesn’t show it.

“Shit, it would be my pleasure,” Jimin is all too glad to push his dress pants down, lying down with his thick thighs spread. With your help, he gets rid of his boxer briefs, and you immediately seize his cock, pumping it a few times and feeling your mouth water. When you lower your mouth towards it, he reprimands you with a tap on your ass.

“What did you ask for?” He raises an eyebrow, and though you are dying to taste him on your tongue, you can tell that he is one of his dominant moods, and it would be best not to cross him right now. “I want to see you bouncing on my cock. Now.”

You line him up with your entrance, feeling his precum make things even wetter than they already are. Jimin has his hands on your hips, not being able to resist grabbing handfuls of your ass as you lower yourself down on him. He enjoys the cute little grimace you always make when he enters you for the first time, always needing a while to get used to his girth no matter how many times you fuck.

He mostly lets you set the pace but applies a subtle pressure with his hands to guide you down on his cock. Once you reach the base, he rewards you with a kiss to the forehead before lying back down again.

“Shit, you take my cock so fucking well,” he says with pride, leaning back as he watches you start to grind your hips. Your pace gets faster very quickly, and soon you are bouncing on him sinfully, giving him the front row seat of his life.

Your cheeks are flushed, breasts bouncing as you fuck yourself on him, desperate little whines escaping your throat as you try to get him as deep as possible.

“Tell me how much you love my cock,” he demands, hands around your waist to guide your movements.

“I- I fucking love it,” you say immediately, knowing all too well his need for validation. “I love your cock so much- it feels so fucking good. Oh god, fuck, I can’t-“

“Just keep riding, baby, you can do it,” Jimin starts to thrust up into you at the same time, sensing your dipping energy levels. “My baby always does so well on my cock.”

But the previous orgasm has sucked everything out of you. You can feel it so close, but yet so far at the same time. You need this release so badly, but it’s just not enough.

“Look at me, eyes on me baby,” Jimin commands your attention, making you open your eyes as he sits up, his hand on your chin. “Just focus on me. I got you, I promise.”

And you know he’s not just referring to this moment alone.

He flips the both of you over, your hands are pinned to the bed by your head as he maintains eye contact with you, taking over and fucking into your pussy with incredible stamina and speed. He brings both of your hands above your head and secures them down with one hand, and the other slides down to rub your clit.

You can feel every inch of his cock as he pounds you into the mattress, so deep that it feels like it might even hit your womb. Jimin draws back a little so that he can wrap his hands tenderly around your waist, subconsciously stroking your lower belly gently as he fucks into you. Your legs are wrapped tight around his waist because you don’t ever want this to stop. Letting go of all control, surrendering every thought, every worry to him so that he can take care of you like this, that’s what makes everything better.

“Can you cum for me? Wanna feel you, one more time,” his voice his soft now, any edge of dominance gone now as he pushes your legs back. “Cum around me before I fill your sweet pussy.”

“Yes, please, I want you to cum inside,” you wrap your arms around him, wanting to please him so badly. His fingers on your clit are pinching and stroking as he fucks deep into your cunt, and with a shout, you are spasming around him, ecstasy singing through your veins as you let the feeling of his cock filling you full of his cum wash away any other thoughts. The feeling of his cock pulsing as your walls become sticky and warm, his gentle thrusts as he milks his orgasm for all its worth, till the last spurt of cum deep inside your pussy where it belongs.

“Oh shit, that’s my baby, taking all my cum like a good girl,” Jimin kisses your forehead fondly, pulling out of you carefully to admire his handiwork. You would tease him for his cum obsession, except that it’s grown on you too. Spreading your lips with two fingers, you clench your muscles to push out his cum, and you can feel it slowly dripping down to your entrance, until it seeps out in a thick stream.

“Fuck, looks good enough to eat,” Jimin licks his lips as he glances at you, before diving down to catch the cum on his tongue before it can hit the bedsheets under you. And he cleans your sore and swollen pussy up gently, lapping his own cum with every lick.

“Jimin…” your whine makes him stop, giving you a final kiss on the inside of your thigh. “Come to bed. I’m tired.”

Jimin can get carried away sometimes, especially when it comes to eating you out, or tasting himself on you. But at your reminder, he leaves his position between your legs and snuggles beside you, giving a cute little grin before he claps twice, and then the lights are out.

And you sink into the best sleep you’ve had in ages.

*

But good things never last, and when you next wake up, the bed is cold and empty.

Jimin must have left for work already. A single glance at the clock tells you that it is past 10am, and you sit up slowly, feeling the ache from last night. The bed is cold, the room is empty as you make the lonely tread to the bathroom. But a last-minute wave of nausea quickens your steps, and soon you are kneeling at the porcelain altar.

When you finish, wiping the back of your mouth with your hand, you are lightheaded and can barely think. Everything feels like a blur, but you didn’t even drink last night, haven’t been since you and Jimin agreed that you would let fate take its course when it comes to putting a bun in your oven.

The very thought of it makes you retch again. It’s the entire reason why you’re home and not at work in the first place, and you can’t stop feeling like a fucking fool about all this. Flushing the toilet, you force yourself onto your feet, make some attempt at washing up.

The doorbell rings, and the unprecedented visitor catches you off-guard. But it’s just the delivery man with a hefty package, and he when he sees your sick complexion and raccoon eyes, he offers to come inside and set it down on your kitchen counter.

When he leaves, you tear the box open, curious because you don’t remember ordering anything from Amazon. God, you really hope this isn’t the result of one of your drunken online shopping sessions. If you’re about to lose your job, you really don’t need another hefty bill on your shoulders.

But it’s not anything from Amazon. It’s Granny’s side dishes, from the delicious cucumber kimchi you fell in love with during your visit, to the savoury japchae that makes your mouth water as soon as you smell the sesame fragrance. There’s even a note with instructions telling you how to store everything and how to heat it up when you want to eat it. 

You don’t deserve this. Don’t deserve Granny’s kindness, when all you’re doing is just scamming her and giving her the false hope of a grandchild. Tears are brimming, and you push the box away, unable to deal with your lies at this moment. 

You head to your desk and sit down.

Because you can’t stop yourself, you click on your email- both personal and work. The first thing you see in your work email makes your nausea threaten to blur your vision.

From: Kim Namjoon (HR)

Cc: All Departments

NOTICE FOR IMMEDIATE DISMISSAL

Dear ______,

I am writing with regard to your disciplinary action regarding your act of fraud. After much discussion, we have decided that the transgression you have committed against this company have been deemed unforgivable. As a result, we have no choice but to request your immediate dismissal.

As for your one-month notice, we have decided that the monetary cost that your fraud has incurred has surpassed any compensation that you might be entitled to.  

Your termination is effective immediately.

We thank you for your service thus far.

Best regards,

Kim Namjoon

That piece of-

He cc’ed the entire company. Even though he very clearly said you could work something out with them. It was a lie all along, he never had the intention of this being a win-win arrangement. You stare at the last line of the email with growing derisiveness. Thank you for your service? What kind of bullshit-

The nausea rises up in your throat again, and you have to run to make it to the bathroom. It’s not a nice feeling to be dry heaving when you have absolutely nothing in your system, but the whole act of it takes more out of you than you realised. This is it. This is your lowest point; nothing could ever surpass it.

Your phone is ringing somewhere in your bedroom, and right now the distance between the bathroom and your bed seems insurmountable. It’s probably Jimin. God, how badly you want this to be him, so you drag yourself on all fours until your hands are scrabbling in the mess of blankets to find your phone.

But when you pick up, it’s not Jimin’s honeyed voice that greets you. It’s a cold, sterile, clinical one.

“Ms _______?”

Thrown off guard, you confirm your identity to the stranger. Your heart leaps in your chest as you think that it might be someone from the company, calling to tell you that there’s been a mistake.

It’s due time for a lucky break in your life, right?

But no chance.

“I’m calling with your blood test results from the mobile health clinic about a week or so ago.”

The health check-up that effectively ended your life? Alright.

“Um, okay. What about it?”

“Miss, did you know that you are currently pregnant?”

The world screeches to a stop. But the train of bad news crashes on.

“You indicated on your form that you weren’t pregnant. But your blood test results indicate that you are about two, nearly three weeks along now. Is this a concern that you might need to come in for?”

The white of the tiles in your bedroom suddenly look too bright. The room is spinning, and everything is moving too fast for you to catch up.

“Hello? Miss? Are you still there?”

The ringing tone of another incoming call interrupts her, and Jimin’s picture lights up on your screen.

“I… I have to go.” You press the end call button before staring at Jimin’s bright, happy smile on your phone.

The irony of the situation is the story of your life. It’s just a little too late. It’s always a little too late.

"He-hello? Jimin?”

“Baby! Are you okay? You didn’t pick up, and I was worried-” 

You can’t sit here at your desk anymore, with the email just mocking you, the reminder of your fraud hanging in the balance. So you press the phone to your ear and get up, pacing to the kitchen. But then you see Granny’s side dishes waiting on the table, and you feel even sicker. 

“How bad is it right now?” You get straight to the point.

Judging from the way he stutters, you know he is trying to scrape together a lie. And then it suddenly hits you. You involved him in this mess, and all this while you’ve only been thinking about yourself. While you were busy freaking out yesterday and needing him to calm you down, you neglected to be there for him at all. You didn’t even think if HR would have their own consequences for him.

Because you swear if Kim Namjoon touches a hair on Park Jimin’s head, you’ll kill him. 

He is saying something about some announcement made this morning that didn’t mention you specifically. You stop him before he can sweat any further about how to soften the blow.

“Jimin, listen to me. Did they- did they do anything to you?” 

“Me?” Jimin sounds taken aback for a moment. “Why would they-? No! I’m fine. Listen, baby. I thought of a way you can get out of this. We’ll just tell them it was a miscarriage. That’ll explain why you’re not pregnant, but you technically were before, so it’s not a lie, and-” 

Even in times like this, all Park Jimin can think about is you. He is selfless, and you don’t deserve him either. He sounds so hopeful about this, as if he believes it will really work. But most of all, you are reminded of how happy he looked that night at his parent’s house, when you and him decided that you would commit to having a baby together. How happy he would be if he knew that you were really...

 “-or if you want me to say it for you, I will. I’ll just set up a meeting with Kim Namjoon, and you don’t even have to come in. I just wanted to run this by you first, and-“

“No!” The knee jerk response results in you yelling over the phone. You can’t let him drag himself further into your mess any longer, you refuse to implicate him any further. But your desperation makes your voice come out harsher than you intended to, and the words just slip out. “Jimin- just… stay out of my shit, alright? You’ve done enough. I need to handle this alone.” 

There is a stunned silence over the end of the line. “We need to… we need to end this. This whole relationship is a fraud, anyway, now everyone knows and… you better go. Before they find out you’re talking to me.” You wince even as you say the words, knowing that they are not in the slightest bit true. But you need to do this, you need to separate yourself from him before the selflessness of his heart gets him into trouble trying to clean up a mess that isn’t even his. 

“I… yeah. I think I should go too.” His voice is nothing like the soft, warm kindness that you have come to associate with Park Jimin. It is cold, formal and it feels like ice shoots straight through your heart as you listen to him say the next words. “Uh, good luck with everything, then.”

And then the line goes dead. 

[russian-romanova]

enough said

title: enough said

pairing: jack kline

word count:  2K

warnings: adult language, me shaking my head at my life decisions as i write ‘lucifer was stunned’ and thinking about how normal people don’t write sentences like this.

notes: so, i had to repost this one because the text got deleted after i tried to edit a piece on my phone. guess i won’t be doing that again!

request: “Jack is dating the brother’s sister and only cas knew until sam and dean see them kiss and freak out? or lucifer as an actually good father giving jack advice on asking sam and dean’s sister on a date?”

summary: unsure of who to tell about his feelings for y/n, jack goes to his father for some advice. basically it’s a cheesy pile of wonderful shit :)

+   +   +

“Hey, can you pass me that book?” 

Jack looked up, met with your outstretched hand. You were focused down on the lore book in front of you, eyes gliding over words and pictures. You looked tired, Jack noted, but not in a way that made you look bad or anything. It just… was. “Which one?” 

You glanced up, meeting Jack’s eyes briefly before looking down at the pile in front of you. “That one,” You pointed. “The gold and green one.” The Nephilim scanned the books closest to him before picking up what he assumed was the book you were talking about. “Thank you,” You smiled at him as he passed it to you, your hands brushing. 

Jack’s gaze remained up as yours fell back to the lore, distracted by the thoughts rushing through your head. The small smile he always wore grew a little bigger as he watched you concentrate, eyes flicking between picture and paragraph, comparing previous knowledge with new information and storing that in your head. 

You turned the book from a page about vampires to a page about changelings. Jack didn’t really understand why he wanted to look at you for so long. He didn’t feel this way about Sam or Dean, despite being family and Jack looking up them. Of course, there were somethings he loved watching the brothers do, like when Dean fixed a part on the impala or when Sam got so into telling a story that he would act it out. But with you, Jack would watch you stare at a wall. 

He didn’t think he could tell Sam or Dean. Dean would probably laugh, and Sam would give him some sugar-coated explanation of the feeling, which was nice at times, but not when he wanted to get to the bottom of it so badly. Castiel would give him a version with condescending undertones, which was a word Jack wasn’t too familiar with yet but certainly had experience with the feeling.  

His mind searched for options as your head looked up at him. Without realizing why Jack looked back down the lore he was looking through as so to avoid eye contact with you. He didn’t understand why he acted the way he did around you, and he knew that he needed a professional opinion.

So of course, Jack excused himself and turned to google. 

Deciding what to search was hard. He had to words to put his feelings into, so he ended up searching ‘who do i talk to about a girl’ and clicking the magnifying glass. ‘How to talk to girls: 15 no bullshit tips’, read the first one, which was clearly not what Jack needed. He knew how to talk to girls, that was just dumb. It was just like talking to men, only Dean said you were supposed to be even nicer to women. 

The second and third, ‘How to Talk to a Girl: 9 tips to Get Her HOOKED’ and ‘34 Topics To Talk About With A Girl You Like’ weren’t much more helpful, either. By the time he was on page twelve of the google results, a half-hour had passed and Jack was no closer to finding out who to talk to about his unknown feelings.

From behind him, a familiar voice spoke up. “Whatcha lookin’ at, sport?” Jack didn’t even have to turn around to know that it was Lucifer, nor was he surprised by his popping up anymore.

Jack turned around. Perhaps the answer to his question had been in front of him this whole time. He closed his laptop. “Can I… talk to you about something?”

Lucifer was stunned for a moment but quickly regained himself. “Yeah, spill.” 

After examining the floor and gathering his thoughts, Jack began to speak. “I… Whenever I’m around Y/N I feel… strange.” 

“Like… barf strange or good strange?”

“Good strange. Really good strange. It’s like I’m…” Jack struggled for a moment. “It’s like I can’t breathe, but in a good way. I really want to look at her always, and whenever I’m around her I feel happy.” 

The words registered and Lucifer smiled. “Ooh, sounds like Jack’s got a little crush. I should have seen like goo-goo eyes from a mile away.” 

“None of those words made sense,” Jack answered honestly. 

“Right. Okay,” Lucifer sat down on the side of Jack’s bed, and he realized he felt more like a lecturing father than he probably ever would again. “So when you want to spend a lot of time with someone and just want to look at them and whatnot, usually it’s because you really like them. More than you like a friend, or more than you like Sam and Dean.” He furrowed his eyebrows, unsure of how to continue. 

Jack thought this over. “What about… what about the feeling? Is there a word?” 

Oh, that kid loved his words. “Yes, um,” Lucifer hesitated for a second. “Love.”

“Love? But I know what love is.” 

“Yeah, yeah, but this is a different love. Trust me, kid, alright? This is like, Han Solo and Leia, not Luke and Leia.” A Star Wars reference. Jack could understand that, right? 

The Nephilim thankfully nodded. “Okay.” 

There was a moment of silence before Lucifer spoke up. “So, are you gonna tell her?”

Jack was silent.

“Do you want my opinion? Just go for it. Tell her how you feel, or maybe don’t. Girls like it when you make the first move.” Lucifer shifted. “Just lean in and kiss her. You do know how to kiss, right?”

Jack hesitated. “I’ve… seen kissing.” 

“Good enough,” Lucifer stood up, walking over to Jack. “Just trust your gut. She already likes you, I’m 100% about that. Be confident, be you, and go get ‘em.” 

Jack nodded, frankly surprised. He didn’t think he would ever get this from Lucifer, especially not so sincerely. “Thank you,” The Nephilim offered genuinely, and Lucifer felt his heart swell at the words. He never really cared much for being a father, but then there would be moments like this that made it suddenly worth it. 

So Jack returned to find you still reading. You had added coffee and an empty plate to your stack of nearby items, so cluttered Jack wasn’t sure how you could even get to the books. “Hey, Jack,” You looked up and smiled, and Jack felt the feeling in his stomach return. “Where’ve you been?”

“In my room,” Jack answered, smiling. Thankfully, all you gave was a strange look before returning to your book. After considering his options for a moment, Jack decided to sit next to you rather than across from you. 

And then the need to stare returned and Jack felt his face grow warm. Your eyes moved slower now, taking in information that was entirely new and trying your hardest to remember it. You were concentrating, he knew because he recognized the look on your face. He had seen it a hundred times before, but it was evidently much lighter than before because you looked up to meet his gaze.

“What?” You chuckled, your own face blushing a little. 

Nerves took over Jack’s stomach, but he pushed through them and kept looking at you. Lucifer’s advice echoed in his ears, and he felt himself moving before he realized it. 

Gracefully and curiously, Jack leaned in towards you. Without having to even think, you met him halfway, your lips touching as if you had done it a million times before. It was short and sweet, but not at all awkward as you thought it might have been. 

You pulled yourself away to find Jack smiling even wider than you were. He was beaming like you had never seen him before. It was freeing and refreshing, and you almost felt like hugging him out of joy. 

“What the hell just happened?” A man’s voice came from out of your vision, and you jerked your head around to see Dean, holding two grocery bags and looking flabbergasted, and Sam, smiling and looking smug.

“Dean! Hello,” Jack began, holding his hand up in a wave. 

“Um, we can explain-” You interrupted, stumbling over your words and trying to speak above Jack’s voice. 

Sam chuckled a little. “You don’t have to explain. It took you two long enough.” 

You blinked once, twice, then looked to Dean. “Wait, really?”

Dean hesitated, still looking a little like he had walked in on his grandmother changing. “Yeah. Just- just keep it PG, okay?” 

Jack gave Dean a strange look. “Like… the movies?” 

“Yeah, no, we’re not gross,” You answered Dean quickly, waving your hands in denial.  “Also, we have basic human decency.” 

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Congrats, kids.” He muttered in remaining confusion, raised a grocery bag to toast the two of you, and walked through the room to the kitchen.

“How’d either of you get up the guts?” Sam asked, crossing his arms. 

Jack smiled. “I asked my father.”

Sam hesitated. “You asked… Lucifer for dating advice?” 

“Yes.” Jack nodded a little. “I wasn’t sure what to think at first, but I guess he was right.” 

“I guess.” You shrugged. 

Sam looked between the two of you, smiling a little. “Okay. I’ll let you two get back to it.” This was something rare in the hunting life, something pure and meaningful. He never really had that, and he was beyond happy that the two of you had a shot at something like that, something normal. But now Jack and you did, and Sam was glad to know it was a chance going to the right people. 

[xiaomoxu]

Xu Mo - Painting Gallery Date (Translation) Part 1 and 2

SPOILER ALERT!!

This date from CN server which hasn't been released on EN server yet. Might contains some spoiler.

Brace yourself for angst moment from Lucien (as usual)☹

I'm doing this translation for personal reason, so I'm sorry if there's some mistranslation. Kindly tell me if you found some :) feel free to read it~ ^^

I used Lucien CN name on it, Xu Mo.

Read prologue part here

PART 1

I looked at the sketchbook on the door that I hung up by myself.

The paper stays on the page where I lost the puzzle, the missing part is just like my current mood, empty

Several days have passed, Xu Mo still did not reply.

MC: Is he still busy

Just when I was about to enter the house, my cell phone rang suddenly.

Seeing the name on the screen, after two seconds of shock, I quickly answered the phone.

MC: Xu Mo!

Xu Mo: Yes, It's me.

Different from this tone before, this time his voice has a familiar temperature.

Xu Mo: MC, how are you recently?

MC: I....

"Very good" That two words choked in my throats, unable to tell.

There was an inaudible sigh on the other end of the phone.

Xu Mo: It seems that we are the same now.

Xu Mo: Sorry, my research has entered a new stage recently. I spend most of the time in the laboratory and don't look at my mobile phone often, so I can't reply to your message in time.

Xu Mo: The results of this research, is related to the fate of many people.

Xu Mo: Therefore, even if there are many difficulties, I will still finish it.

He paused, then said as if talking to himself

Xu Mo: Moreover, I also want to give myself a chance.

His voice is very soft, but it makes me feel a little uneasy

After a short silence, Xu Mo returned to his usual tone

Xu Mo: Have you found those pieces of puzzles?

Hearing what he said, I was a little surprised.

MC: So you saw it.

Xu Mo: I will not miss everything you recorded, but I haven't had time to reply.

Xu Mo: Sure enough, as I expected, some anxious little fool began to think again.

I was busted and my face turned red involuntarily

MC: Xu Mo, do you have time on the weekend

Xu Mo: Yes?

MC: The puzzle is still not found. I think if you are free, can you accompany me to buy a new one? It's not very far from here,

I know that my excuses are very bad, but I only have one thought at the moment... I want to see him.

There is a sound of even breathing. He seems to be hesitating

Not wanting to burdened him, I quickly tried to change the subject.

MC: What are you doing?

As soon as the voice fell, a chuckle came from over there.

Xu Mo: I'm nodding (?) Dozing off. 我在點頭.*

(* I'm not pretty sure with the translation so I put the original text)

PART 2

On Saturday afternoon, I came to the agreed place early

The weather today is surprisingly good. The sun is transparent and bright, and the air is full of colors, which warms the heart.

It was obviously not the first time I met Xu Mo in private, but I still felt a sense of tension.

MC: So many people...

Looking at the pedestrians coming and going, I couldn't help but feel a little worried in my heart. Should I call to confirm my location, in case he can't find me.

Xu Mo: Don't worry.

Xu Mo: Even in the crowd, I can see you at a glance.

I turned back subconsciously.

The breeze blew, and the leaves trembled in the wind. Golden light Use gentle brushstrokes to outline the slender and tall outline like a sketch.

As if he had a mind reading technique, he pointed out my worries as soon as he spoke.

Xu Mo: Sorry, I am late. Have you waited a long time?

His brows are slightly furrowed, his face is full of guilt.

MC: No, I just arrived.

I smiled at him and said with some guilty conscience. In fact, I

have been waiting for about half an hour.

I looked at Xu Mo quietly from the corner of the light, raising my hand to sort out his hair unnaturally.

He was wearing a white shirt, a dark gray tie around his neck, and a document bag in his hand. He had apparently just pulled out of work.

The thought that he hurried over before he had time to rest, I couldn't help but blame myself.

There was a heavy sigh from above.

Xu Mo: It seems that you are still mad at me.

MC: What?

I raised my head and looked at him for unknown reasons.

Xu Mo: Since when did you start hiding things from me?*

(*this is the edited translation)

The leaves trembled in the breeze. I looked at his Xu Mo eyes, which were full of emotions that I could not understand.

I faintly feel that Xu Mo today is unfavorable in peace.

Xu Mo: Don’t you want to buy puzzles? Let’s go.

The familiar smile returned to his face, as if it was just my illusion

MC: I don’t want to buy it anymore.. It’s just a few puzzle pieces, so I don’t need to buy another one.

MC: It's rare that we are all free. Compared with this, I want to do other things with you.

Xu Mo's eyes narrowed slightly as he watched me, and my heartbeat, which was so easy to calm down, became chaotic again.

After thinking for a moment, he asked softly.

Xu Mo: Would you like to go to a place with me?

Without thinking too much, I nodded and agreed.

MC: Okay.

A smile appeared at the corner of Xu Mo's eyes.

Xu Mo: There are so many people here, be careful not to get lost.

He got closer, trying to hold me.

I couldn't help but step back, avoiding the hand he extended to me.

A hint of surprise flashed across his face. After reacting, I also felt a little flustered at my actions.

MC: I didn't mean to avoid it, I just....

It's just that the palm of my hand is sweating a little, so I don't want you to notice it.

A simple sentence, but I can't say it, like a fishbone stuck in my throat, a dilemma.

Xu Mo: Okay, I know.

Xu Mo slowly lowered his stiff hand in the air, and he nodded slightly, with a clear look.

Xu Mo: It's getting late, let's go quickly.

After speaking, he turned around without looking at me again.

The wind rustled the leaves, and it was clear that winter was over, but I felt a little bit of chill.

Seeing Xu Mo's back getting further and further away, I had to hurry up to keep up.

I keep blaming myself in my heart, and I have accumulated a lot of words when I realized it, but I don't know where to start.

For some reason, a bunch of withered platycodons suddenly appeared before my eyes.

The flowers are in season and will wither afterwards.

Will people's feelings become indifferent because of long-term absence?

Just when I lowered my head and thought, my left shoulder was suddenly hit hard.

I raised my head and realized that the familiar figure had disappeared from my vision.

MC: Xu Mo...

The faint sound was like a pebble in the noisy street and fell into the vast sea without a single echo.

MC: Xu Moー

I clenched my fists and shouted loudly.

The passers-by slowed down and looked at me curiously, but quickly resumed their pace.

I stood before the crossroad and stopped.

The sound of whistle, footsteps, and noise gradually disappeared. All the passing scenery and crowds were blurred in outline, and only the sound of my own heartbeat was infinitely amplified.

For some reason, a vague picture flashed in my mind. It was a little girl sitting under the camphor tree. The voice soft said to me...

Little girl: I also know that this elder brother will not come back after he leaves.

Suddenly, I felt flustered for no apparent reason, and subconsciously looked for him everywhere.

Xu Mo: MC.

I looked for the voice and turned back-

Xu Mo: I am here. (CG Karma included here)

The noisy city streets, like a weaving crowd, bustling, I can only hear my heartbeat like thunder.

Through the haze, through the sea of ​​people, my eyes meet that pair of eyes that have been searching for a long time.

Without the slightest hesitation, Xu Mo locked his eyes firmly on me.

Maybe it's like what he said, even if there are crowds, he can find me at a glance.

Everything around us suddenly slowed down, just like a framed lens in a movie. In our eyes, we only have each other.

MC: ...

No matter how flustered, restless, anxious, or even fearful before.

As long as you meet the eyes of the person in front of you, the heart that is wandering in the air and helpless can instantly settle down.

The spring sun shines softly through the gaps of the leaves, layer by layer, passing through hesitation and depression, and blooming freely beside those who are struggling to pursue it.

The sadness and sorrow that I have experienced have become worthwhile, and the thoughts that have been carefully hidden are finally conveyed.

The longing that I have always had but cannot express is pouring out at this moment, and it has become the most transparent thought and the most meaningful collection.

Everything is wonderful and incredible.

>> Proceed to next part