#i want to like these and both have made choices that i really do like

[nochepsicodelica]

♡ ʕ˶´• ᴥ •`˶ʔ ♡

"Toji, do you love me?" You ask, as if he isn't curled up with you, his head resting on your shoulder so that he can see the stupid videos that pop up on your feed.

"Why would you even ask me that?" He mutters, tilting his head up to look at you.

"You're taking forever to respond. Oh... my heart," you say, your voice forcefully strained while clutching your chest as if you're pained.

"Don't start--"

"It's crumblingggg," you cry out, dramatically. "Oh god, it hurts so much, Toji! How could you? Is this how it feels to have love taken away? I should go outside and tie myself to a pole and see if there are any takers. Maybe, someone will actually want me and give me a warm, safe, and loving home." You give him a hopeful smile. "Yeah... that sounds nice and peaceful."

"Uh-huh, sure. Too bad you're not going anywhere. You get me and our warm, safe, and loving home." You huff, childishly, at that, to which Toji grins. "You know I love your dramatic ass. You keep asking if we can get a dog, but you're basically like if a husky turned human."

You gasp at that, playfully offended, and stare at him in disbelief. "I'll be waiting for your apology," you say, putting your hood on and turning your back to him.

"Baby, come on," he pleads, chuckling. "Come on. You're not mad at me."

"I am. I'm furious," you say, monotonously. "You shouldn't even look at me right now. I'm ferocious," you add, trying not to laugh at your own word choice.

"Yeah? You're a scary thing, right now, 'cause I made you mad?"

"Mhm," you hum, in response, and continue to scroll and watch videos without him.

"Hmm..." He leans over and snatches your phone out of your hands, tossing it towards the end of the bed. You feel helpless as he smoothly pulls your hood off, flips you onto your back, and straddles you. Your arms are pinned beside your head, by his enormous paws. You've been somewhat manhandled into surrender and all you can do is laugh as you look up at him.

"This is your ferociousness?" Toji asks, with a dumb grin on his face when you simply nod and press your lips together, to do a horrible job of stifling your amusement. "I'm so strong and brave, huh?" Again, you nod, unable to contain the giggles that spill out. "What if I... I don't know..." he murmurs, leaning down, closer to you. "Just gave you a little..."

The distance between your lips is closed off by Toji's lips pressing against yours—a slow, savored kiss, that makes your hands go limp beside you. He is utterly disarming, even against your faux grumpiness.

He hums something low against your lips when your laughter begins to bubble up once again. "Mm... You were never mad at me, were you?" Toji asks.

"And if I was?" You say, a gleam of mischief in your eyes and a sly smirk on your face.

"I'll kiss you, again. Is that really what you want?" He says, as if it's a threat.

"You know it. Kiss me, sugar lips," you say, amusedly.

"Why are you like this?" He mutters, rolling off of you and positioning himself beside you on the bed.

"Fine, gravel lips. Rock salt lips, sandpaper lips—is that what you want me to call you instead?" You ask, turning over to face him.

He slings an arm over your waist and pulls you in close. The scent of his body wash smells warmer as it mingles with his body heat. It's relaxing, fitting for the lazy day you've both indulged in. "You don't mean it," he responds, smugly. "I was sugar lips before you decided you wanted to hurt my feelings."

"Whatever," you mutter, rolling your eyes.

"Love you, sassy baby," he says, teasingly. "Don't ever doubt it. Now, where were you going with that question?"

"Well, it was going to be built up to me asking you if you have a Valentine, but then you crapped all over it. Now, it's not cute and it stinks. My plan reeks of failure."

"There's my dramatic girl," Toji utters under his breath, a chuckle rumbling in his chest. "Why don't you try again?" He says, smiling with amusement. "I'll even play along, alright?"

You sigh, as if it's going to take forever to pick up from where you left off, but nonetheless prepare to retry.

"Okay, fine," you start off, a soft sigh leaving your lips. "You love me, Toji?" You ask once more, already trying not to laugh at the focus he holds on you, like he's answering a survey.

"You know I do," he responds.

"Okay. Are you busy on the fourteenth of February?"

"Not that I know of."

"Are you interested in doing something that day?"

"Yeah, you, but go on," he says, smoothly.

"Toji," you chide, with a giggle. "Be serious."

"Fine, fine. Uh, yeah. I am," he answers. "Gotta treat my baby real nice, don't I?" He says, with a smirk.

You press your lips together, and compose yourself before asking the next question. "Do you have a Valentine?"

He tilts his head and deadpans, as if you're playing some sort of joke on him. "Ma."

"Just answer the question, Toji," you whisper, like you're breaking out of the questionnaire you made for him. "Do you have a Valentine?" You repeat, in your normal voice.

"Yeah, I got a Valentine," Toji says, his eyes trailing down your face, to your lips and back up to meet your eyes, again. His hand slides under your sweater and grabs ahold of your bare waist. He loves the layer of goosebumps that rises on your skin when he touches you. You're just so reactive to him. "She's basically an actress with how dramatic she is. It cracks me up, 'cause it's like talking to one of those screaming huskies she's always showing me on her phone." He grins, ready for you to go off, again. "Look at her, look at her. She's about to do it, right now," he says, lowly, his eyes glued to your squinted ones.

"Hmph. If you want me gone, just say so. Here I am, trying to ask you out on a date for Valentine's Day. Trying to show you all my love and affection and... and ugh—you don't care about my effort. You don't care about how romantic I am. So, you know what you're getting instead of wined and dined?"

"What's that, mama?" Toji asks, attempting to stay serious through your little dramatic fit.

"A big pile of nothing. No chocolates, not even a rose. And then at night, i'm gonna make a pillow wall between us, so you can't touch me. I had a gooood surprise for you, too, but you won't get it, until... uhh... I haven't decided, but it won't be on Valentine's Day," you assure.

"Baby," Toji coos, smirking at the light grumpiness in your features.

"No," you grumble, with a huff.

"Pretty baby. My pretty, pretty Valentine," he murmurs, the corners of his lips curling when he sees your facade crumbling. "Oh," he utters, with a soft, barely audible gasp. "Look at that little smile. It's getting bigger... and bigger... and-"

"Stop!" You cry out, through a laugh. Toji takes that as an invitation to pull you in even closer. To see your sunshine-like smile up close and hear more of those uncontrollable giggles as he tries to kiss you.

"Don't turn away from my sugar lips. Kiss 'em," he instructs, reaching for your jaw. With ease, he makes you face him again, soft laughter still spilling past your lips. "Be nice," he says, his voice a low purr. "You're my good girl, right? You'll let me kiss you?"

You sigh, defeated, and stop resisting his affection. "Yeah," you mumble, a confirmation for both statements.

"You're an angel," he murmurs, before connecting your lips once again. You feel his thumb stroking your side, causing your heart to race and goosebumps to surface on your skin all over again. They spread even more when his hand travels towards your back, his fingertips running up and down your spine.

His kisses are soft and slow, yet, still manage to bring heat to your cheeks. You know that if breathing wasn't necessary, he would spend hours on just kissing you, nonstop. Kissing until your lips feel raw and miserably bruised—tender to the touch. Until just the act of him leaning in for a mere peck, has you putting your hands up to his chest to stop him before he gets to your lips, again.

With a soft, final smack of your brushing lips, Toji breaks the kiss. "Say," he drawls, a sly smirk forming on his lips, "do you have a Valentine, sweetness?"

You hum, like you're thinking thoroughly about the question. "No, unfortunately," you respond, wiping the smirk off his face in an instant.

"Baby, you have to answer the question honestly," he whispers, mimicking the way you did before. You crack a grin and nod, compliantly. "So... you got a Valentine, doll?" He repeats, in his normal voice.

"No, I haven't been asked," you respond.

Toji scoffs. "Really?"

"Yeah, you said to answer honestly. I asked you to be my Valentine, but you haven't asked me."

"You asked if I have a Valentine," he corrects. "See, you're not being entirely honest with me," he says, shaking his head and clicking his tongue in disbelief.

"Will you be my Valentine, Toji?" You ask, trying incredibly hard to stay serious, though your lips are quivering, giving away the laughter you're suppressing.

"Yeah, i'll be your Valentine, pretty. Will you be my Valentine?" He asks, in return.

"Yes, i'll be your Valentine," you answer.

"Great. And those plans you made for Valentine's Day... are we still on for that?"

You laugh. He looks like he's genuinely hoping you were joking about shutting it all down.

"Of course we are, baby. The plans were never cancelled. I didn't think you actually believed me."

"You're cold for that, ma. Ice cold," Toji grumbles, earning a chime of your laughter. His hand comes out from under your sweater and travels lower and lower until he's able to grab the back of your thigh and lift your leg over his hip. "Let me warm you up."

[wonderjanga]

The Voices

When Billy first started out as a hero, he didn’t really know he was doing. So when a bunch of voices in his head started telling him what to do he just followed their instructions.

Hercules: “Right hook.”

Marvel: *throws a right hook at the villain*

Hercules: “Left hook.”

Marvel: *does that*

Hercules: “Throw a nasty ass haymaker.”

Marvel: “What’s a haymaker?”

Hercules: “Just throw really hard punch.”

Marvel: *punches the monster through two buildings*

Hercules: “Okay… not that hard, but I do love the effort!”

or

Zeus: “Call his mother a not nice word.”

Marvel: “Your mother is a not nice word.”

Villain: *confusion*

Zeus: “Billy, you were supposed to say a not nice word, not the actual words not nice word.”

Marvel: “Huh…?”

Zeus: *shaking his head in disappointment* “Never mind.”

or

Marvel: *knocked out a villain and is waiting for the cops to arrive*

Mercury: “Billy, you know what’d be really funny?” *pauses for dramatic effect* “Step on him.”

Atlas: “Mercury, he’s not actually going to do that-”

Marvel: *slowly raises foot*

Atlas: “HEY- HEY! BILLY STOP-”

Mercury: “DO IT!”

In case you couldn’t tell by that last one, the gods started taking advantage of Billy’s “sure why not” attitude towards anything they tell him. This caused them to be divided or this at least caused a portion of them to want to reign the others in so Billy will either make his own choices or at least not make the bad choices some Gods suggest.

Achilles: “Billy, kill it.”

Solomon: “No, Billy, it’s just a spider. Just scoop it up and put it far away.”

Achilles: “Solomon, the spider is 30 FEET BIG.”

Solomon: “It’s still a spider and all life is sacred.”

Achilles: “It’s poisonous, Solomon.”

Solomon: *definitely rolled his eyes* “Yes, and we know of your aversion to poisons-”

Achilles: “I have a good reason for it!”

Solomon: “-but in the end it’s still a spider. A living thing-”

Billy saw the spiders eyes look at him, and he didn’t even hear the rest of the argument before he screamed and shot lightning at it till the point of it exploding. He was then made to stand in total silence, covered in spider innards while listening to a baby cry in the distance.

It was after that he remembered he had free will and I was like “oh, wait, why am I listening to these guys again?” And just started doing his own thing.

And yes, the heroes that met Billy when he was first starting out all thought he was both bipolar and extremely unstable.

[studyinglogic]

[Continued from above]

Mistake 1: Asymmetrical Studying

Assuming you don't just want to do a single activity in a language, or are learning a language like ASL, a language requires 4 parts to be studied: Speaking, Listening, Writing, Reading. While these have overlap, you can't learn speaking from reading, or even learn speaking from just listening. One of my first Chinese teachers told me how he would listen to the textbook dialogues while he was biking to classes and it helped him. I took this information, thought "Yeah that's an idea, but sounds boring" and now regret not taking his advice nearly every day.

I think a lot of us find methods we enjoy to study (mine was reading) and assume that if we just do that method more ™ it will eventually help us in other areas (sometimes it does, but that's only sometimes). Find a method that works for you for each area of study, even better find more than one method since we use these skills in a variety of manners! I can understand a TV program pretty well since I have a lot of context clues and body language to fill in any gaps of understanding, but taking a phone call is much harder—the audio is rougher, there's no body language to read, and since most Chinese programs have hard coded subtitles, no subtitles to fall back on either. If I were to compare the number of hours I spent reading in Chinese to (actively) training my listening? Probably a ratio of 100 to 1. When I started to learn Korean, the first thing I did was find a variety of listening resources for my level.

Fix: Find a variety of study methods that challenge all aspects of the language in different ways.

A variety of methods will help you develop a more well-rounded level of mastery, and probably help you keep from getting bored. Which is important because...

Mistake 2: Inconsistent Studying

If there is one positive to a language app, it is the pressure it puts on keeping a streak. Making studying a part of your everyday routine is the best thing you can do. I benefited a lot from taking a college language course since I had a dedicated time to study and practice Chinese 5 days out of the week (and homework usually filled the other two). Memorization is a huge part of language learning, and stopping and starting is terrible for memorization. When I was in elementary school, we had Spanish maybe a couple times a month. Looking back, it seems like it was the first class to be cut if we needed to catch up on a more important course. Needless to say, I can't even speak Spanish at an elementary level.

However, I'm sure many people reading this don't have the time to do ultra-immersion 4-hour study sessions every day either. Find what days during the week you have time to focus on learning new vocab and grammar, and use the rest of the week to review. This can be done on your commute to school/work, while you do the dishes, or as a part of your morning/evening routine. Making this as realistic as possible will help you actually succeed in making this a habit. (Check this out for how to set realistic study goals)

Fix: Study regularly (ideally daily) by setting realistic goals. Avoid "binge" studying since remembering requires consistent repetition to be most effective.

Mistake 3: Resource Choice

This is really composed of two mistakes, but I have a good example that will cover them both.

First, finding resources that are at or slightly above your level is the most important thing. Easy resources will not challenge you enough and difficult resources will overwhelm you. The ideal is n+1, with n as what you know plus 1 new thing.

Second, getting distracted by fancy, new technology. Newer isn't always better, and there are often advantages that are lost when we've made technological developments. I often found myself wanting to try out new browser extensions or organizational methods and honestly I would've benefitted from just using that time to study. (Also, you're probably reading this because of my DL post so I don't think it has to be said that AI resources suck.)

A good example of this was my time using Clozemaster. I had actually recommended it when I first started using it since I thought the foundation was really solid. However, after long term use, I found that it just wasn't a good fit. The sentences were often too simple or too long and strange for memorization at higher levels or were too difficult at lower levels. I think that taking my textbook's example sentences from dialogues into something like Anki would've been a far better use of my time (and money) as they were already designed to be at that n+1 level.

Fix: "Vet" your resources—make sure they will actually help you. If something is working for you, then keep using it! You don't always have to upgrade to the newest tool/method.

Mistake 3.5: Classrooms and Textbooks

A .5 since it's not my mistake, but an addendum of caution. I think there is a significant part of the language learning community that views textbooks and classroom learning as the worst possible resource. They are "boring", "outdated", and "ineffective" (ironically one of the most interesting modern language learning methods, ALG, is only done in a classroom setting). Classrooms and textbooks bring back memories of being surrounded by mostly uninterested classmates, minimal priority, and a focus on grades rather than personal achievement (imagine the difference between a class of middle schoolers who were forced to choose a foreign language vs. adult learners who self-selected!) People have used these exact methods, or even "cruder" methods, to successfully learn a language. It all comes down to what works best for you. I specifically recommend textbooks for learning grammar and the plentiful number of dialogues and written passages that can function great as graded readers and listening resources. (Also the distinction made between "a youtube lesson on a grammatical principle" which is totally cool, and "a passage in a grammar textbook" is more one of tone and audio/written than efficacy).

Classrooms can be really great for speaking practice since they can be a lot less intimidating speaking to someone who is also learning while receiving corrections. Speech can be awkward to train on your own (not impossible if you're good at just talking aloud to yourself!), and classrooms can work nicely for this. Homework and class schedules also have built in accountability!

Fix: Explore resources available to you and try to think holistically about your approach. CI+Traditional Methods is my go to "Learning Cocktail"

Mistake 4: Yes, Immersion, But...

I realized this relatively quickly while learning Chinese, but immersion at a level much higher than your current level will do very little for you. What is sometimes left out of those "Just watch anime to learn Japanese" discussions is that you first need to have a chance at understanding what is being said. Choosing materials that are much higher than your level will not teach you the language. It doesn't matter how many times someone at HSK 1 hears “他是甘露之惠，我并无此水可还”, they will not get very far. Actual deduction and learning comes from having enough familiar components to be able to make deductions—something different than guessing. An HSK 1 learner, never having heard the word 老虎 will be able to understand "tiger" if someone says “这是我的老虎” while standing next to a tiger. This is not to say you can never try something more difficult—things should be challenging—but if you can't make heads or tails of what's being said, then it's time to find something a bit easier. If mistake 2 is about the type of method, this is about the level. If you wouldn't give a kindergartener The Great Gatsby to learn how to read, why would you watch Full Metal Alchemist to start learning a language?

Side note: Interesting video here on the Comprehensible Input hypothesis and how it relates to neurodivergence.

Fix: Immerse yourself in appropriate content for your level. It's called comprehensible input for a reason.

Mistake 5: On Translation

I work as a translator, so do you really think I'm going to say translation is all bad? Of course not. It's a separate skill that can be added on to the basic skills, but is really only required if you are A. someone who is an intermediary between two languages (say you have to translate for a spouse or family member) or B. It is your job/hobby. In the context of sitting down and learning, it can be harmful. I think my brain often goes to translation too often because that's how I used to learn. Trying to unlearn that is difficult because, well, what do people even mean when they say "don't translate"? They mean when someone says "thank you", you should not go to your primary language and translate "you're welcome" from that. You should train yourself to go to your target language first when you hear the word for "thank you". A very literally translated "thank you" in Chinese "谢谢你" can come off as cold and sarcastic. I don't tell my friends that, I say "谢啦～". Direct translation can take away the difference in culture, grammar, and politeness in a language. If there is a reason you sound awkward while writing and speaking, it's probably because you're imposing your primary language on your target language.

Fix: Try as hard as you can to not work from your primary language into the target language, but to work from the structures, set phrases, and grammar within the target language that you know first.

Mistake 6: The Secret Language Learners Don't Want You To Know...

...is that there is no one easy method. You are not going to learn French while you sleep, or master Korean by doing this one easy trick. Learning a language requires work and dedication, the people that succeed are those that push through the boredom of repetition and failure. The "I learned X in 1 year/month/week/day!" crowd is hiding large asterisks, be it their actual level, the assistance and free time available to them, "well actually I had already studied this for 4 years", or just straight-up lying. Our own journeys in our native tongue were not easy, they required years and years of constant immersion and instruction. While we are now older and wiser people that can make quick connections, we are also burdened with things like "jobs", "house work", "school work", and the digital black hole that is "social media" that take up our time and energy. Everything above is to help make this journey a little bit easier, quicker, and painless, but it will never be magic.

I find that language learning has a lot in common with the fitness community. People will talk about the workout that changed their life and how no other one will do the same—and it really can be the truth that it changed their life and that they feel it is the ultimate way. The real workout that will change your life is the one you're most consistent with, that you enjoy the most. Language learning is just trying to find the brain exercise that you can be the most consistent with.

Fix: Save your energy looking for shortcuts, and do the work, fail, and come back for more. If someone tells you that you can become fluent in a ridiculously short amount of time, they are selling you a fantasy (and likely a product). You get out what you put in.

For those that made it to the end, here are some of my "universal resources":

Refold Method: I don't agree with their actual method 100%, but they've collected a lot of great resources for learning languages. I've found their Chinese and Korean discords to also be really helpful and provided even more resources than what's given in their starter guides.

Language Reactor: Very useful, and have recently added podcasts as a material! The free version is honestly all you need.

Anki: If I do not mention it, the people with 4+ year streaks with a 5K word deck will not let me forget it. It can be used on desktop or on your phone as an app. If you need a replacement for a language learning app, this is one of them. Justin Sung has a lot of great info on how to best utilize Anki (as does Refold). It's not my favorite, but it could be yours!

LingQ: "But I thought you said language apps are bad!" In isolation, yes. Sorry for the clickbait. This one is pretty good, and more interested in immersing you in the language than selling a subscription to allow you to freeze your streak so the number goes up.

Grammar Textbooks: For self-taught learning, these are going to be the best resource since it's focused on the hardest part of the language, and only that. If you're tired of seeing group work activities, look for a textbook that is just on grammar (Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar is my rec for Chinese, and A Guide to Japanese Grammar by Tae Kim is the most common/enthusiastic rec I've heard for Japanese).

Shadowing: Simply repeat what you hear. Matt vs Japan talks about his setup here for optimized shadowing (which you can probably build for a lot cheaper now), but it can also just be you watching a video and pausing to repeat after each sentence or near simultaneously if you're able.

Youtube: Be it "Short Story for Beginners", "How to use X", "250 Essential Phrases", or a GRWM in your target language, Youtube is the best. Sometimes you have to dig to find what works for you, but I imagine there is something for everyone at every level. (Pro tip: People upload textbook audio dialogues often, you don't even have to buy the textbook to be able to learn from it!)

A Friend: Be it a fellow learner, or someone who has already mastered the language, it is easier when you have someone, not only to speak to, but to remind you why you're doing this. I write far more in Chinese because I have friends I can text in Chinese.

Pen and Paper: Study after study, writing on paper continues to be the best method for memorization. Typing or using a pen and tablet still can't compare to traditional methods.

The Replies (Probably): Lots of people were happy to give alternatives for specific languages in the replies of my DL post. The community here is pretty active, so if this post blows up at least 20% of what the last one did, you might be able to find some great stuff in the replies and reblogs.

I wish you all the best~

Language Apps Suck, Now What?: A Guide to Actually Becoming "Fluent"

The much requested sequel to my DL post that was promised almost a year ago.

I'm going to address all of the techniques that have helped me in my language learning journeys. Since 95% of these came from the fact that in a past language learning mistake, they are titled as my mistakes (and how I would/did things differently going forward). For those that read to the bottom there is a "best universal resources" list.

Disclaimers:

"Fluency" is hard to define and everyone has their own goals. So for the purpose of this post, "fluency" will be defined as "your personal mastery target of the language".

If you just want to pick up a bit of a language to not sound like a total foreigner on vacation or just exchange a few words in a friend's native language, feel free to ignore what doesn't apply, but maybe something here could help make it a little easier.

This is based on my own personal experience and (some) research.

Mistake 1: Asymmetrical Studying

Assuming you don't just want to do a single activity in a language, or are learning a language like ASL, a language requires 4 parts to be studied: Speaking, Listening, Writing, Reading. While these have overlap, you can't learn speaking from reading, or even learn speaking from just listening. One of my first Chinese teachers told me how he would listen to the textbook dialogues while he was biking to classes and it helped him. I took this information, thought "Yeah that's an idea, but sounds boring" and now regret not taking his advice nearly every day.

I think a lot of us find methods we enjoy to study (mine was reading) and assume that if we just do that method more ™ it will eventually help us in other areas (sometimes it does, but that's only sometimes). Find a method that works for you for each area of study, even better find more than one method since we use these skills in a variety of manners! I can understand a TV program pretty well since I have a lot of context clues and body language to fill in any gaps of understanding, but taking a phone call is much harder—the audio is rougher, there's no body language to read, and since most Chinese programs have hard coded subtitles, no subtitles to fall back on either. If I were to compare the number of hours I spent reading in Chinese to (actively) training my listening? Probably a ratio of 100 to 1. When I started to learn Korean, the first thing I did was find a variety of listening resources for my level.

Fix: Find a variety of study methods that challenge all aspects of the language in different ways.

A variety of methods will help you develop a more well-rounded level of mastery, and probably help you keep from getting bored. Which is important because...

Mistake 2: Inconsistent Studying

If there is one positive to a language app, it is the pressure it puts on keeping a streak. Making studying a part of your everyday routine is the best thing you can do. I benefited a lot from taking a college language course since I had a dedicated time to study and practice Chinese 5 days out of the week (and homework usually filled the other two). Memorization is a huge part of language learning, and stopping and starting is terrible for memorization. When I was in elementary school, we had Spanish maybe a couple times a month. Looking back, it seems like it was the first class to be cut if we needed to catch up on a more important course. Needless to say, I can't even speak Spanish at an elementary level.

However, I'm sure many people reading this don't have the time to do ultra-immersion 4-hour study sessions every day either. Find what days during the week you have time to focus on learning new vocab and grammar, and use the rest of the week to review. This can be done on your commute to school/work, while you do the dishes, or as a part of your morning/evening routine. Making this as realistic as possible will help you actually succeed in making this a habit. (Check this out for how to set realistic study goals)

Fix: Study regularly (ideally daily) by setting realistic goals. Avoid "binge" studying since remembering requires consistent repetition to be most effective.

Mistake 3: Resource Choice

This is really composed of two mistakes, but I have a good example that will cover them both.

First, finding resources that are at or slightly above your level is the most important thing. Easy resources will not challenge you enough and difficult resources will overwhelm you. The ideal is n+1, with n as what you know plus 1 new thing.

Second, getting distracted by fancy, new technology. Newer isn't always better, and there are often advantages that are lost when we've made technological developments. I often found myself wanting to try out new browser extensions or organizational methods and honestly I would've benefitted from just using that time to study. (Also, you're probably reading this because of my DL post so I don't think it has to be said that AI resources suck.)

A good example of this was my time using Clozemaster. I had actually recommended it when I first started using it since I thought the foundation was really solid. However, after long term use, I found that it just wasn't a good fit. The sentences were often too simple or too long and strange for memorization at higher levels or were too difficult at lower levels. I think that taking my textbook's example sentences from dialogues into something like Anki would've been a far better use of my time (and money) as they were already designed to be at that n+1 level.

Fix: "Vet" your resources—make sure they will actually help you. If something is working for you, then keep using it! You don't always have to upgrade to the newest tool/method.

Mistake 3.5: Classrooms and Textbooks

A .5 since it's not my mistake, but an addendum of caution. I think there is a significant part of the language learning community that views textbooks and classroom learning as the worst possible resource. They are "boring", "outdated", and "ineffective" (ironically one of the most interesting modern language learning methods, ALG, is only done in a classroom setting). Classrooms and textbooks bring back memories of being surrounded by mostly uninterested classmates, minimal priority, and a focus on grades rather than personal achievement (imagine the difference between a class of middle schoolers who were forced to choose a foreign language vs. adult learners who self-selected!) People have used these exact methods, or even "cruder" methods, to successfully learn a language. It all comes down to what works best for you. I specifically recommend textbooks for learning grammar and the plentiful number of dialogues and written passages that can function great as graded readers and listening resources. (Also the distinction made between "a youtube lesson on a grammatical principle" which is totally cool, and "a passage in a grammar textbook" is more one of tone and audio/written than efficacy).

Classrooms can be really great for speaking practice since they can be a lot less intimidating speaking to someone who is also learning while receiving corrections. Speech can be awkward to train on your own (not impossible if you're good at just talking aloud to yourself!), and classrooms can work nicely for this. Homework and class schedules also have built in accountability!

Fix: Explore resources available to you and try to think holistically about your approach. CI+Traditional Methods is my go to "Learning Cocktail"

Mistake 4: Yes, Immersion, But...

I realized this relatively quickly while learning Chinese, but immersion at a level much higher than your current level will do very little for you. What is sometimes left out of those "Just watch anime to learn Japanese" discussions is that you first need to have a chance at understanding what is being said. Choosing materials that are much higher than your level will not teach you the language. It doesn't matter how many times someone at HSK 1 hears “他是甘露之惠，我并无此水可还”, they will not get very far. Actual deduction and learning comes from having enough familiar components to be able to make deductions—something different than guessing. An HSK 1 learner, never having heard the word 老虎 will be able to understand "tiger" if someone says “这是我的老虎” while standing next to a tiger. This is not to say you can never try something more difficult—things should be challenging—but if you can't make heads or tails of what's being said, then it's time to find something a bit easier. If mistake 2 is about the type of method, this is about the level. If you wouldn't give a kindergartener The Great Gatsby to learn how to read, why would you watch Full Metal Alchemist to start learning a language?

Side note: Interesting video here on the Comprehensible Input hypothesis and how it relates to neurodivergence.

Fix: Immerse yourself in appropriate content for your level. It's called comprehensible input for a reason.

Mistake 5: On Translation

I work as a translator, so do you really think I'm going to say translation is all bad? Of course not. It's a separate skill that can be added on to the basic skills, but is really only required if you are A. someone who is an intermediary between two languages (say you have to translate for a spouse or family member) or B. It is your job/hobby. In the context of sitting down and learning, it can be harmful. I think my brain often goes to translation too often because that's how I used to learn. Trying to unlearn that is difficult because, well, what do people even mean when they say "don't translate"? They mean when someone says "thank you", you should not go to your primary language and translate "you're welcome" from that. You should train yourself to go to your target language first when you hear the word for "thank you". A very literally translated "thank you" in Chinese "谢谢你" can come off as cold and sarcastic. I don't tell my friends that, I say "谢啦～". Direct translation can take away the difference in culture, grammar, and politeness in a language. If there is a reason you sound awkward while writing and speaking, it's probably because you're imposing your primary language on your target language.

Fix: Try as hard as you can to not work from your primary language into the target language, but to work from the structures, set phrases, and grammar within the target language that you know first.

Mistake 6: The Secret Language Learners Don't Want You To Know...

...is that there is no one easy method. You are not going to learn French while you sleep, or master Korean by doing this one easy trick. Learning a language requires work and dedication, the people that succeed are those that push through the boredom of repetition and failure. The "I learned X in 1 year/month/week/day!" crowd is hiding large asterisks, be it their actual level, the assistance and free time available to them, "well actually I had already studied this for 4 years", or just straight-up lying. Our own journeys in our native tongue were not easy, they required years and years of constant immersion and instruction. While we are now older and wiser people that can make quick connections, we are also burdened with things like "jobs", "house work", "school work", and the digital black hole that is "social media" that take up our time and energy. Everything above is to help make this journey a little bit easier, quicker, and painless, but it will never be magic.

I find that language learning has a lot in common with the fitness community. People will talk about the workout that changed their life and how no other one will do the same—and it really can be the truth that it changed their life and that they feel it is the ultimate way. The real workout that will change your life is the one you're most consistent with, that you enjoy the most. Language learning is just trying to find the brain exercise that you can be the most consistent with.

Fix: Save your energy looking for shortcuts, and do the work, fail, and come back for more. If someone tells you that you can become fluent in a ridiculously short amount of time, they are selling you a fantasy (and likely a product). You get out what you put in.

For those that made it to the end, here are some of my "universal resources":

Refold Method: I don't agree with their actual method 100%, but they've collected a lot of great resources for learning languages. I've found their Chinese and Korean discords to also be really helpful and provided even more resources than what's given in their starter guides.

Language Reactor: Very useful, and have recently added podcasts as a material! The free version is honestly all you need.

Anki: If I do not mention it, the people with 4+ year streaks with a 5K word deck will not let me forget it. It can be used on desktop or on your phone as an app. If you need a replacement for a language learning app, this is one of them. Justin Sung has a lot of great info on how to best utilize Anki (as does Refold). It's not my favorite, but it could be yours!

LingQ: "But I thought you said language apps are bad!" In isolation, yes. Sorry for the clickbait. This one is pretty good, and more interested in immersing you in the language than selling a subscription to allow you to freeze your streak so the number goes up.

Grammar Textbooks: For self-taught learning, these are going to be the best resource since it's focused on the hardest part of the language, and only that. If you're tired of seeing group work activities, look for a textbook that is just on grammar (Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar is my rec for Chinese, and A Guide to Japanese Grammar by Tae Kim is the most common/enthusiastic rec I've heard for Japanese).

Shadowing: Simply repeat what you hear. Matt vs Japan talks about his setup here for optimized shadowing (which you can probably build for a lot cheaper now), but it can also just be you watching a video and pausing to repeat after each sentence or near simultaneously if you're able.

Youtube: Be it "Short Story for Beginners", "How to use X", "250 Essential Phrases", or a GRWM in your target language, Youtube is the best. Sometimes you have to dig to find what works for you, but I imagine there is something for everyone at every level. (Pro tip: People upload textbook audio dialogues often, you don't even have to buy the textbook to be able to learn from it!)

A Friend: Be it a fellow learner, or someone who has already mastered the language, it is easier when you have someone, not only to speak to, but to remind you why you're doing this. I write far more in Chinese because I have friends I can text in Chinese.

Pen and Paper: Study after study, writing on paper continues to be the best method for memorization. Typing or using a pen and tablet still can't compare to traditional methods.

The Replies (Probably): Lots of people were happy to give alternatives for specific languages in the replies of my DL post. The community here is pretty active, so if this post blows up at least 20% of what the last one did, you might be able to find some great stuff in the replies and reblogs.

I wish you all the best~

[literatureloverx]

Celebrating Valentine’s Day with BSD men

BSD men x reader, I did not use pronouns for the reader, but in some cases, it is subtly implied to be female, though not overtly so.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

He would gift you—very much in line with what Asagiri confirmed—an entire country. Be prepared to manage political affairs because you will be the president and owner of your favourite nation. Congratulations!

Expect a lavish candlelit dinner, accompanied by classical music and an exquisite orchestra.

You can also look forward to many other gifts—he is never one to hold back. Your shared bedroom will likely be filled with presents, each meticulously crafted and designed just for you. The sheer intricacy and depth of his knowledge about you will leave you breathless.

The night will conclude with a magnificent fireworks display.

You made the right choice by choosing to live in isolation with him, basking in the luxury he provides—not that your answer would have made a difference if you had said no.

Dazai Osamu

We all know that Dazai—the Dazai—is, unsurprisingly, utterly broke and survives off the money of his fellow ADA members, such as Atsushi and Kunikida. (We love a pest.🩵)

He isn’t the overtly romantic type, but that doesn’t mean his love is any less intense.

He will likely buy you a bouquet of roses with Kunikida’s money and give Atsushi his best puppy-dog eyes to help him get you a pair of matching rings.

But then comes the truly unexpected part—he takes you stargazing in the freezing cold, having put in all the effort to create a soft, cosy space for you both to lie on, complete with extra blankets and pillows.

And when it starts snowing? You are going home, of course—not that he didn’t account for this. He has another present waiting for you there—one he actually bought himself, which is precisely why he had no money left for anything else.

He is a pervert. That is all I am going to say.

Nakahara Chuuya

Another man with refined tastes and a big, considerate, loving heart for his darling. He would spend weeks—if not months—thinking about the perfect way to celebrate this day with you, determined to make it unforgettable.

Chuuya pays attention—he really does, because he cares that much. Though he is not the best with subtleties, he does his best to take mental notes on everything you like and dislike, everything you want and do not want.

So, expect gifts that are carefully chosen, each one making it clear just how much he notices about you.

The evening will likely begin with him presenting you with a luxuriously crafted dress from a high-end designer—one he specifically picked for you. He wants you to wear it because he is taking you somewhere special, and of course, you will, with the brightest smile on your face.

You will dine at an exclusive restaurant, sharing exquisite wine and food together.

And knowing Chuuya, he will not stop at just one gift. Throughout the night, he will keep surprising you, giving you something new every half hour—because spoiling you is just second nature to him.

Nikolai Gogol

Haha, you silly thing. You actually think Valentine’s Day is romantic? That ridiculous day where Homo sapiens willingly cage themselves—not even in their own perception of love, but in the artificial fantasy constructed by capitalism?

Just joking. If you find it romantic, then of course, he does too. Or at least, he pretends to. Watching your reactions to his “gifts” is far too entertaining. He might as well play along and turn this whole romance thing into one of his little games.

Expect the most outrageous surprises—perhaps he will take you on a helicopter ride, only to reveal that he has written I love you on the ground below… using meticulously arranged corpses. A heartfelt, handcrafted message just for you.

Or maybe he will gift you something else grotesque—something that reminds him of you or symbolises your love in his own twisted way.

Oh, and expect plenty of Valentine’s Day quizzes.

Akutagawa Ryuunosuke

Now, here is someone who has no idea what to do with himself on Valentine’s Day.

To him, it is pointless. Why should this day be any different from the others? And why are you looking at him like that? The expectation in your gaze makes him feel cornered.

But Akutagawa hates being behind on anything. So, despite thinking this whole thing is ridiculous (such a tsundere), he still makes an effort. He prepares something for you—a small but meaningful gift, something that proves he has thought about you, about this day, and has put effort into making you happy.

And once it is over, he lets out a relieved sigh.

Yet, later that night, when he recalls the joy on your face upon receiving his gift, he feels something warm and unfamiliar flicker inside him. He refuses to acknowledge it—but deep down, he knows.

[hcverns]

Risks Taken

pairing: yoon jeonghan x fem!reader, minghao is mentioned

word count: 9.4k

warnings: mentions of drinking, cursing, some spice (making out)

genre: angst, fluff (basically angsty stuff with a happy ending), best friends to lovers.

synopsis: in the midst of enjoying his blissful saturday night with you and a romance movie, his world suddenly stopped spinning when you mentioned another guy's name.

a/n: hi oh my god i'm so nervous. this is literally my first fanfic i've ever written. i wrote this for my best friend and i asked her permission to post it on tumblr and she said yes so here i am :) i apologize for the typos and grammar mistakes or any mistake at all, really. likes, replies and reblogs would be much appreciated. much love <3

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

It was Saturday night. The TV was on in your living room. A rom-com movie was playing on the screen. What was the title, he wasn’t sure. But it was quite entertaining. He had underestimated your choice of movie at first, but you had begged him so nicely with those puppy eyes that always made him weak in the knees. Who could blame him for giving in to his best friend’s request?

So here you two were. Relaxing on the couch while watching a movie. There were a bunch of snacks on the coffee table in front of you. You were sitting side by side, both your feet resting on top of the coffee table without a single care with just the right amount of distance separating the two of you. Just a perfect Saturday night.

Jeonghan stretched his arm to reach for a bag of gummy bears on the table, only to find none of it.

“What the— Hey, did you finish all the gummy bears?” He asked you who were sitting beside him on the couch but his question was responded by silence.

He sighed and shook his head slightly. He turned his gaze to you only to notice that your eyes were focused on the TV screen. Instead of calling you out for finishing the gummy bears, he looked at your features in silence. A small smile appeared on his lips unintentionally. He noticed your hair had gotten longer. It almost reached your shoulders.

He remembered the time when you had cut your hair short. Like short, short. Masculine type of short hair. You’d been so excited to show him. He couldn’t, wouldn’t ever forget the happiness in your eyes when you facetimed him to proudly show him your brand new look. And it really surprised him with how beautiful you looked with that hair. Your excitement and confidence really added into it. He was happy to witness you being brave enough to look different, to look bold, to express yourself just like you had wanted to.

He snapped back to reality when you squealed like a schoolgirl.

“Han, they’re gonna kiss. They’re gonna kiss!” You said in excitement.

Jeonghan furrowed his eyebrows slightly. “What?”

“They’re gonna freaking kiss! You heard me.” You repeated yourself without turning your gaze in the slightest bit.

“How do you know?”

“How could I not? I’ve watched this befo— AAHH! They kiss! See?” You turned your head to him with the biggest smile on your face.

Jeonghan had to fight the urge to say “so fucking adorable” out loud at the sight of his best friend’s smiley face. Instead, he decided to ask you, “You’ve watched this movie before?”

You simply nodded.

“And you’re watching it again?”

You nodded your head again.

He sighed. “Why?”

You jerked your head back in confusion. “What do you mean 'why?'”

“You’ve watched this movie before. Why are you watching it again? What’s the point of watching the same movie twice?”

You rolled your eyes at his question. To you, it sounded so dumb. “Han, have you watched this movie before?”

Jeonghan shook his head.

“That’s why I chose this movie for our movie night. This movie is so good I couldn’t help but share the experience of watching this masterpiece with you. You should’ve thanked me, you know?”

Jeonghan chuckled a little. You really knew how to respond to literally anything. But he really needed to know why you were willing to watch the same movie more than once, so he questioned you again, “Yeah, but why are you willing to watch it again?”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “Oh boy. Just be quiet, yeah? You’ve watched ‘The Glory’ more than once as well, remember? And it’s a series. A goddamn series!” You laughed sarcastically.

He laughed as well. You got a point. He remembered when he had finished watching ‘The Glory’ for the first time and he couldn’t help but watch the said series again for the second time the very next day.

“You’re silent now, huh?” Your lips formed into a smirk.

“Shut up.” He brushed you off. The trace of his smile was still visible on his lips.

“Anyway, (Y/N), since you were very focused on two people kissing on the screen, let me ask you again. Did you finish all the gummy bears?” He raised his eyebrow.

“That… I did, yeah.” You admitted that it made Jeonghan groan.

“Well, you know what, I think I still have some in the cabinet. I’ll grab ‘em for you.” You quickly added when Jeonghan started to groan. He really did want some gummy bears, it seemed.

A smile quickly appeared on his face. “Wait, really? Don’t worry about it. I’ll do it myself. You keep going with your ‘Lovely Rosie.’” Jeonghan got up from the couch and made his way to your kitchen.

“It’s 'Love, Rosie' you jerk!” You yelled from the living room that made him laugh.

Jeonghan opened one of the hanging cabinets’ doors where you usually kept your snacks. He didn’t have to guess which one because he had been in your place many, many times.

Ever since you had started being best friends, which was roughly six years ago, you had this one night in a week, usually on Saturday night, where you just chilled and watched movies together. Of course it didn’t happen literally once in a week because, as responsible adults, you two sometimes were busy with something. But still, it was a tradition for you.

Jeonghan finally found two large bags of gummy bears in the cabinet. He smiled brightly as he held them with his right hand. He immediately walked himself back to the living room. He was so ready to plop himself on the couch before he took a quick look at you, who apparently were focused on your phone, rather than the TV screen, with a big smile on your face.

Jeonghan furrowed his brows. ‘Why is she ignoring the movie without even pausing it and why is she smiling so damn big now while staring at her phone?’ He wondered inwardly.

He slowly sat himself down on the couch. His best friend’s attention was still on her phone. He noticed your fingers typing something, seemingly.

He waited for a few seconds (which felt like hours) for you to turn your attention to him. Or the TV screen. Or the freaking gummy bears in his hand. Anything but your phone. He got a bad, bad feeling.

His curiosity piqued. He couldn’t help but ask you about it. “You’re texting someone?”

“Yup.” You answered with just one word. But this one word was enough to make Jeonghan’s heart sting a little.

“Oh.” That was all he said. He didn’t want to seem nosy so he didn’t push you to tell him who you were  texting. But not gonna lie, there was a slight pang of hurt in his chest. ‘Who are you texting? Why are you smiling so bright right now?’ He questioned again.

He tried to ease his own worry by forcing himself to think positively. ‘That could be her mom. But who on earth texts their mom with a smile like that??’ The attempt to clear the fog on his brain failed miserably.

“Who?” The word just slipped out of his mouth because apparently he ran out of his self control.

You didn’t answer him immediately and that almost drove him insane.

After a few seconds of you smiling and typing and him resisting the urge to just snatch your phone himself (which again, felt like fucking hours to him), you put your phone down on the couch beside your thigh.

You looked at him, still with a smile on your face. If it were under different circumstances, he would smile back at you. Why wouldn’t he? Your smile was his favorite thing ever after all.

Instead of smiling like he usually did, he raised his eyebrow as a sign that he was waiting for an explanation.

“Sorry, sorry. What was it again?” you innocently asked him to repeat his question.

Without wasting a millisecond, he uttered what was on his curious mind. “Who were you texting?”

Your facial expression turned shy. Exactly like someone who was thinking of their crush. And the pain in his chest increased.

“It’s just… someone.”

“Someone who?” He responded quickly. Demanding for a real and clear answer.

“Was it a guy?” He hoped you couldn’t notice the jealousy in his tone.

And what he hoped for was exactly what happened, but at what cost? You were completely oblivious of his jealousy. A shy smile made an appearance on your pretty face and it was enough to confirm Jeonghan’s bad feeling.

You took a deep breath before answering him. “So, his name is Minghao…”

Jeonghan swore he could feel his heart stop for a second. You mentioning the guy’s name that you had been texting with felt like a stab to his heart. No, that can’t be. He refused to believe it. He really wanted to pull his own hair in frustration but he chose to stay silent as you continued talking about this Minghao guy.

“He’s a barista in Franky n Co, the coffee shop I work in.” Your face got slightly red as you were talking about Minghao to your best friend.

Jeonghan was using all his power to keep a straight face. He even tried to smile a little as a way to make you believe that he wasn’t jealous at all. “Are you guys dating or something?”

Your eyes widened in surprise. “N-no. We’re not dating. At least not yet, I hope.” A shy smile appeared again on your face at the end of your sentence.

“So… you like him?”

“Well, yeah. Let’s just say that me and Minghao are in a… what’s it called? Talking stage? Yeah. We’re currently in a talking stage.” You smiled widely as you explained to him what this Minghao guy was to you and it made his blood fucking boiling.

“So he likes you too?” The smile on his face right now was the fakest smile in the whole damn universe. In his mind, he was clenching his fists very tightly to the point that his fingernails hurt the palm of his hands.

Your smile faltered as you were reminded of the uncertainty of Minghao’s feelings for you. “Uh, I’m not sure. I mean, we’ve gone on two dates and they went pretty well. But he hasn’t told me whether he likes me or not and vice versa.”

When he felt his heart was stabbed earlier, this time it felt like the knife had been twisted and made the pain tenfold. ‘Dates. They had gone on two dates. Two fucking dates.’ Jeonghan was on the brink of insanity.

“You two have gone on dates? Tell me about it.” He was scared for a second that you would catch up on the sarcasm that lingered on his words.

You didn’t, though. Jeonghan didn’t know he should be grateful or hateful at your unawareness. Your eyes got excited as you were going to tell him about your dates with Minghao.

“First, it was a movie date. We went to the cinema after we finished our shift. And the second one was three days ago. It was an ice cream date..? I mean, we just went to an ice cream shop after work and we talked about several topics while eating ice cream. And he held my hand all the way home.”

Your voice was so dreamy. It sounded so sweet. If only you were talking about him in that manner rather than Minghao. He didn’t need to hear all those details. He wanted to throw up. He felt sick to his stomach. ‘That coffee maker even had a chance to hold her hand? All the way home??’

Jeonghan didn’t know what this Minghao guy looked like. He didn’t know his personality as well but he really, really wanted to punch him in the face right now.

“That sounds so cute. A movie date and an ice cream date? How adorable.” His words were completely opposite of what was truly on his mind.

“Right! Do you think he likes me back?” you asked him a question that sounds so ridiculous to him. But all he did was shrug his shoulders slightly.

“He could.”

“Yeah? You think so?” you asked him again with eyes full of hope.

‘Hell fucking no.’ That was what he wanted to say. But he wasn’t stupid enough to let that happen. He didn’t want to ruin your mood like that. So he just nodded instead.

Then, the unexpected happened. Something that made Jeonghan’s heart skip a beat. Something that made his jealousy and rage calm down even though only a bit. You squealed and threw yourself at him and wrapped your arms around his shoulders.

The hug was short, he couldn't help but long for it again when you let go.

“Thank you for convincing me that there’s a possibility of Minghao liking me back. You’re the best, Han!”

Then it came back again. The jealousy and anger. Your smallest words and acts could really put him on a wild roller coaster ride.

Jeonghan swore he didn’t mean it. He just lost control over his movement. He couldn’t think straight so he let his heart take the lead this time.

As a response to you thanking him, he rolled his eyes and scoffed.

And when he heard your small gasp, he knew he fucked up.

“What was that for?” you asked in disbelief.

Jeonghan played dumb by asking you back, “What was what for?”

“Why did you roll your eyes and scoff like that, Han?” He could hear the slight sadness in your tone.

Fuck.

Fuck. Fucking hell. Should he say it? There’s no use in hiding it anymore, right?

He was fighting a battle in his own head now. He sat in silence as his brain was working really hard to decide what his response should be.

“Yoon Jeonghan.”

He quickly looked at you when you called him by his full name like that. He couldn’t take it anymore. He wanted to leave your place, got in his car and drove himself to the highway at the speed of a hundred miles an hour while ignoring the red lights.

“What did you even see in him, anyway?” His heart took full control of his mouth now. He really did say the exact thing on his mind without a filter.

“Excuse me?”

Offended. Disbelief. Bewilderment. Confusion. A hint of anger. Jeonghan could see those emotions mixed into one on your face.

“You heard me right.” He didn’t back down. No lame excuses such as “Sorry, I was possessed by an unknown spirit that’s why I was spewing bullshit.” or “Oh, I was just reciting a line from a movie.” Nothing.

“What the fuck?”

He had it coming. He knew you would respond harshly. Those three words were enough to make the pain on his chest more intense. He didn’t say anything in return. He just looked down at the carpet beneath his feet in embarrassment and jealousy. The gummy bears he had taken earlier were long forgotten, just like the movie.

“Han, explain!” you raised your voice just a little at your best friend’s silence.

You snapped. So he did too.

“I don’t like the fact that you like that guy, whatever his name is, okay?”

If he thought that his heart was taking full control of the way he acted and spoke, he was wrong. His head was also taking control. His heart and his head were equally in chaos and clouded by jealousy. So he was sure that the words he just said to you were justified.

And he lied, by the way. He knew exactly the name of that guy.

Meanwhile, you felt like a punch had landed straight on your chest. Your brain couldn’t process the words that came out of Jeonghan’s mouth just now. You didn’t even know how to feel. Of course, you were confused as hell. But other than that, you weren't even sure. Should you feel sad? Angry? What?

“B-but why?”

The way you stuttered was almost enough for his heart to soften and to make him apologize to you immediately. Right, almost. Not entirely, no. Jealousy was still consuming his heart and head.

Jeonghan got a brief and sudden flashback to when his little heart finally had gotten the courage to admit to himself that he indeed had more-than-friends feelings for you.

✧༝┉˚*❋ ❋*˚┉༝✧

It was roughly one and a half years ago. He still remembered the way he had cursed in the darkness of his room, under the warmth of his blanket. He had been in shambles. His brain had short-circuited. He was confused, sad, even angry at himself. He wanted to be angry at you too for being such an absolute flawless human being and had the audacity to effortlessly play with his heartstrings like that.

The thing is, he had never been friendzoned. Never. But he had enough information about it. A complete glossary from A to Z regarding things that were related to the said situation and none of them had a positive connotation. All thanks to his friends. Joshua drank himself to sleep for two weeks straight and Seungcheol had lost several kilos of body mass because of fucking friendzone.

And most importantly, they vented their sadness and frustration to Jeonghan.

Despite laying on his soft bed with a soft pillow under his head, he felt very uncomfortable. He wanted to rest his mind in a peaceful slumber but he just couldn’t. After a few tossing and turning, he heard his phone vibrate on the nightstand.

With a weak hand, he reached for his device and found out who texted him that late.

It was you.

thank you so much for today hannie!! im no longer sad now. in fact this gotta be the best birthday ever with my best friend ever who gave me the best present ever!! goodnite :D

“Fuck.” He cursed under his breath. Best friend. He groaned onto the pillow as his brain was recalling the recent event that happened earlier that day. Your  twenty-fourth birthday.

As someone who lived far away from family, you didn’t have the privilege to have your birthday celebrated at home with your parents, siblings and pet cat. You also didn’t have that many friends in the city you currently lived in so your birthday was less lively than the ones you had before you moved out.

You weren't exactly sulky or sour but Jeonghan could see right through his best friend. It was your birthday and he wanted you to have the time of your life. Of course he already prepared a gift for you. A Hogwarts themed lego set which you eyed on when you two were window shopping two weeks ago. But he wanted to do more. He wanted to make your  birthday as joyful as the ones you had in your hometown.

So he asked you to go to a beach. It was spontaneous, really. He didn’t plan it beforehand but he knew a small and beautiful beach just thirty minutes drive from the city called Azure Cove.

He remembered the way your whole face lit up when he brought up the idea of going to Azure Cove as a way to celebrate your birthday. He also could never forget the way you glowed when both of you arrived at the said location. That was the happiest of you he had ever witnessed and he felt some kind of pride for being the reason behind it.

As you were enjoying the rich color of sunset on the beach, Jeonghan went back to his car and took out the Lego set he had bought for you.

And it was the moment that made Jeonghan couldn’t fall asleep that night. The way you hugged him so tightly, your eyes slightly glistened with tears and a tender kiss on his cheek. The kiss. The goddamn kiss that made a switch in his brain flip. The kiss that made him realize that he, indeed, had feelings for his best friend for God knows how long.

He looked back at the text you had sent him. The words ‘best friend’ you put right there made him slightly bitter. Well, you weren't wrong, but Jeonghan wasn’t ready for the cursed ending he would receive for being in love with you. A friend-fucking-zone.

✧༝┉˚*❋ ❋*˚┉༝✧

Back to the current situation.

The flashback got Jeonghan a little bit dizzy. He knew he was going to be friendzoned the moment he’d realized he had feelings for you. But to be honest, he had a sliver of hope that one day, you would see him as more than a friend. People might ask, what made him have such a hope? Jeonghan didn’t know either. A blind optimism? Delusion? Anyway, a hope is a hope.

“I just… I don’t like the fact that you’re seeing that person, you know? A barista? Come on. You can do better than that.”

Jeonghan knew it was a dick move to say something classist like that. He was an accountant and everyone including him knew he earned way more than that Minghao guy. If Jeonghan was in his right state of mind, he would never say anything like that. But he was too angry, too jealous and even too sad. So, again, for him, it was justified.

You never once thought Jeonghan would say something with a classist undertone like he just did now. Your jaw dropped in surprise. You had no idea what to say. Your brain just stopped working because this whole situation was way too unexpected to happen. “What the hell did you just say?”

He scoffed. Oh, this was so not him. “Someone like you should be with someone who, I don’t know, better than that Minghao dude.”

Enough with the speechlessness. You felt like you were being degraded. Although Jeonghan’s degrading words weren’t really for you, still, it was your taste in men that got targeted. With rage in your voice, you talked back, “Yeah? Like who? And what do you mean by someone like Minghao?”

“Like me!”

Uh oh. That was it. His emotions got the best of him. He uttered those words with a raised voice. He often dreamed about confessing to his best friend about his undying love. But not this way. Never this way. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He silently cursed his inability to stay calm and keep things cool. He wanted to beat himself up especially after he saw the shocked look on your face.

You were speechless for the nth time tonight and all thanks to Jeonghan. The soft spoken Jeonghan would never attack you multiple times in one go. When you had been angry just a few seconds ago, you were now confused as fuck. You couldn’t wrap your head around the words he just said. What the hell was that? What did he mean by someone like him? Why would he say that?

“Han, a-are you drunk right now? Did you drink something–”

“I’m not fucking drunk, (Y/N)! I’m sober, okay?” Your words were cut short by Jeonghan’s interruption. That irritated him a lot. Assuming him to be drunk? You must be joking.

“Then why did you–”

“Because I have feelings for you, damn it!"

There. The truth was out now in the open. Lingering in the air of the safe haven in the form of your living room, which currently no longer seemed safe for Jeonghan. Despite the voices of the actors conversing in the movie on the TV screen, Jeonghan could hear his heart beat faster than normal. He could also hear the gears in your head work to process the sudden piece of information he had dropped.

Jeonghan didn’t know how long the silence lasted. It felt like an eternity. He currently had two moods now. He either wanted to bury himself deep into the ground or he wanted to burst into tears.

When you finally moved your lips to say something, Jeonghan felt the urge to throw up. He completely had no idea of what was to come. But in a situation like this, he was sure everyone’s brain was programmed to automatically think about the worst case scenario. And what was the worst case scenario in his head now? You rejecting him in cold blood, telling him that you already had your eye on that coffee maker.

“Y-You’re joking, right?” You finally said.

It pissed him off, truly. Was him having feelings for you that shocking to hear? Hadn’t you seen the signs he had tried to show for the past several months? Well, he was completely aware that he had never said it directly that he was in love with you. But hadn’t you realized he had done so many things for you that he would never do to his other friends?

“Of course I’m not. I’m dead serious, (Y/N)!” He said in frustration. Jeonghan was not backing down. The truth was out. Might as well pour his entire heart out to you after holding it in for so long.

You could feel your heart beat so fast. You had never thought that you would be in such a situation. You didn’t know what to say. Your usual talkative self was in a hibernate mode. Your brain stopped working.

“But… why?” You muttered. You needed more information about whatever the hell was happening now so that you could start to think properly.

Jeonghan, getting even more frustrated now, ran his hands through his hair roughly. Why’d you had to ask him that? Couldn’t you just… reject him right at that moment so that the storm of hurt would pass quickly?

“Why what, huh? Why what, (Y/N)? Why am I in love with you? Jesus Christ, have you looked at you? You’re literally perfect. You have bewitched me with your perfection and I have been very willing to be bewitched by you. It’s a blessing for me to get to love someone like you. You make me happy. You make me feel things I hadn’t felt for so long. I love you, (Y/N). I love loving you.” Jeonghan confessed it all almost in one breath.

Seeing your best friend ramble about how much he loved you wasn’t on your bingo card. You had asked Jeonghan to give you a reason why he loved you and there you got it. Still, you found this entire situation confusing as hell. You still lost your ability to think. The only thing you felt right now was, somehow, guilt.

“Jeonghan…” you said his name oh-so-gently. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know…”

Your apology somehow sounded way worse than he had imagined. It was worse than being rejected in cold blood. Like, why were you sorry? Jeonghan hated it when people pitied him. Especially you.

He gave you a bitter chuckle. “Of course you didn’t. How could you? I never told you anything about it. Don’t be sorry, please. Nothing to be sorry about. I don’t want you to feel guilty. I don’t want your pity. But damn it. It hurts. It hurts a lot. I love you so much but you don’t love me. Not the way I want to be loved.”

When you didn’t say anything, Jeonghan seized the opportunity to say more. He just wanted to let it all out. Friendship gone, be damned. He had crossed a line that could never be uncrossed anyway.

“You didn’t see it, did you? When I did all those things for you. Things I have never done for my other friends because, well, I don’t really see you as my friend. At least in my imagination.” Jeonghan uttered while looking straight into your orbs.

Then, he averted his gaze downwards towards the beige carpet. “And now you went on dates with this… Minghao dude who I have no idea about at all. I don’t know what he looks like. He must be drop dead gorgeous, huh? I bet I can never hold a candle to him. What a lucky bastard. He’s able to brag about going on dates with someone like you. I don’t know who this Minghao guy is but I despise him already. I’m so sorry, (Y/N). I know you think I’m going insane right now. Hell, I probably am. I’m sure I look like a madman but I meant what I said, (Y/N). Every single goddamn word. I meant it.”

You could only look at Jeonghan as he crashed out. All the words he said started to get into your head. You allowed yourself to receive those pieces of information, no matter how absurd your mind made them to be.

You also allowed yourself to dive deep into the memories you had shared with Jeonghan. The moments. The events. All those things where Jeonghan’s actions had clearly shown that he cared for you more than you knew. When he had biked to your place during the rain because his car had broken down. You had experienced immense period pain and you hadn’t been able to stand on your own. So, Jeonghan and his bicycle had made their way to your apartment with a heat pack, chocolate bars and your other favorite snacks.

Despite the discomfort of his soaking wet clothes and the freezing temperature, he had given you the biggest smile when you opened the door. You, being an emotional person that you were, had cried on sight.

That was one of the prime examples of how loud his actions spoke. Even louder than words. You cursed yourself inwardly at how dumb, blind and stupid you had been. All along you had wished for Prince Charming to sweep you off your feet someday, not realizing that your very own best friend had done above and beyond for you under your nose. You couldn’t be more blind than this.

“Please, princess, say something.” Jeonghan pleaded in desperation. The silence was killing him in the most torturous way. He had never deemed himself as someone who couldn’t control his emotions especially when he had an audience in front of him but now was a special case. His vision blurred with tears and he didn’t even hide it from you. This was probably the most vulnerable he had ever been. He had bared his heart and soul in front of you, after all.

You inhaled shakily, readying yourself to say something after being quiet for what seemed like ages.

“Y-You’ve done so much for me…” You looked down and whispered. You couldn’t bring yourself to look at your teary-eyed best friend. “...and I was so blind, wasn’t I?”

The hint of self loathe in your voice didn’t escape Jeonghan’s attention. No. No, no, no. Despite his anger and frustration, his heart softened immediately. He could never watch you blame yourself for anything at all. Ever.

“No, please. It’s not your fault. It’s never your fault. It’s me, alright? It’s all me. I’ve had deep, deep feelings for you but I never said a single thing. I-I’m sorry for my outburst earlier. You didn’t deserve it.” Jeonghan swallowed hard. The lump in his throat almost made him unable to speak.

“W-Why? Why didn’t you say anything? I could’ve been more considerate of how I talked about… things.” Your voice was just above a whisper. Your head was a mess now. You felt guilty and confused at the same time.

Jeonghan wanted to cup your face to comfort you like he had done many times before but he wasn’t sure that you would feel disgusted or not. So, he settled by just grabbing your hand and stroking it with his thumb.

“Hey, it’s alright. Not your fault, okay? And I wouldn’t want you to be considerate of some bullshit and make you stop acting as your usual, comfortable self when you’re around me. I want you to always have your guard completely down when you’re with me.” Jeonghan comforted you while he was supposed to be the one who needed to be comforted.

Your eyes glistened with tears that threatened to fall. “But I hurt you. I’ve hurt you for so long and I didn’t even realize it. I hurt you just now because I selfishly flaunted my dates with Minghao at you like an idiot. I-I should’ve known–”

Jeonghan interrupted you quickly. He couldn’t let you blame yourself any further. He tightened his grip around your hand but it wasn’t too tight to hurt.

“It’s alright. You’re not in the wrong. Yes, I’ve been hurt but that’s just simply inevitable. You didn’t intentionally hurt me.”

Your dam broke. The tears you had tried to hold back were finally free falling now. You leaned closer to Jeonghan, seeking for more comfort and warmth in his arms like you had done a million times before whenever you felt horrible.

Jeonghan’s heart beat a thousand miles per hour. He hadn’t expected you to still want to be this close to him after his confession. Jeonghan pushed all his thoughts away and he wrapped his lean but muscular arms around your body. He stroked the silky strands on the back of your head and let you cry onto his chest. He didn’t mind your tears and snot ruining his shirt. He just wanted to be close to you as much as you wanted to be close to him.

All the overwhelming emotions that you contained were pouring out in the form of your tears. You were sniffling and sobbing on Jeonghan’s shirt, trying to get rid of all the guilt and confusion as Jeonghan kept whispering words of comfort to you.

After you felt like you finally had enough crying, you leaned your head back from Jeonghan’s chest and looked up at him. As beautiful as you were when you cried, the sight was still heartbreaking for Jeonghan because somehow he was the one who caused this. Your eyes were red and puffy and your nose was red as well. Jeonghan slowly reached for your face with his trembling, delicate fingers and started wiping the rest of your tears. You closed your eyes and leaned into his touch which caused his breath to hitch. The gesture was beyond intimate.

“I’m sorry for ruining your shirt.” That was the first thing you said after spending your time crying. A bit unexpected, it made Jeonghan chuckle lightly. “That’s alright. No need to worry. I have laundry detergent and a washing machine that works just fine. But… how are you feeling now? Better?” He asked while still looking down at you.

You sniffled again, trying to suck in the snot in your nostrils that had been bothering you. “In a way, yeah. But it’s funny, you know? You’re the one who is hurt and I’m the one who hurt you yet here you are, comforting me while I’m weeping like a loser.” A humorless laugh followed your words.

Jeonghan gave you a tender stare. For him, no matter the reason, if he ever saw you cry, the first thing he needed to do was to comfort you. Reciprocated or not, he would always put you first.

“You know that I could never see you cry, right? Never, ever. Well, unless when we’re watching sad movies.” Jeonghan said with a small smile, trying to lighten up the situation a little. You smiled back at him. Despite your puffy eyes, your smile still looked as pretty as ever.

For a moment, you spent your time like that in silence, staring into each other’s face. It was so intimate. Jeonghan was sure that they were actually the only couple of friends who had ever done this. He got lost easily in your beautiful eyes.

Jeonghan decided to break the silence after some time. Maybe it was just his deluded mind taking control but he believed that the ball was in his court now.

“I need to ask you something, okay? If you’re not comfortable answering, you’re free not to. No pressure, alright?” He said softly, trying not to scare you off. You nodded your head, signalling him to ask you what he wanted to ask.

Jeonghan took a deep breath, bracing himself to ask this dangerous question. “Have you ever… thought about us?” He asked as carefully as possible.

You tilted your head to the side. A gesture you always did whenever you were confused. “Like… romantically?” Your voice was filled with vulnerability.

Jeonghan was so grateful that you could catch up really quickly so he didn’t need to elaborate. His eyes lit up as he nodded, confirming your question. “Yeah, romantically. Have you ever thought about us in that way?” He tried to be as calm as possible but the surge of hope in his voice betrayed him.

Your face turned a bit sad at the confirmation. You bit your lower lip and chewed on the skin there. You didn’t quite know what to say. Never once in your life you had thought of having to face such a question.

Jeonghan picked up your uncertainty and trepidation immediately. Years of being friends with you had made it easy for him to recognize the slightest change in your facial expression.

He stroked your hair lovingly. “It’s alright. No need to be afraid. I’m a big guy, remember? I can handle rejection.” He put on a brave face and a small smile to convince you that he was fine while he was clearly not. Even though he had told you that it was okay if you didn’t want to answer, not gonna lie, he needed to hear what was in your mind. He knew the rejection would hurt him for years but he would rather have that than being kept in the dark for God knows how long.

He kept stroking your hair, trying to make you as relaxed and safe as possible, to show you that you had no reason to be afraid in front of him and you could always be honest whenever you were around him.

You swallowed the lump in your throat before finally speaking up. “I-I don’t know… I’ve thought about it a couple of times.” You said weakly, still with a hint of anxiety.

Jeonghan’s heart skipped a few beats after hearing your words. Like, what do you mean you had thought about them romantically a couple of times? What? HUH?

He had to fight the urge to halt any kind of movements that could ruin the moment. He almost curled his fingers into fists but he couldn’t do that, could he? Absolutely not. Unless he wanted to cause you pain by gripping your hair tightly in his fist. Nope. He wouldn’t do that. He would rather be tied down to a train track with a train approaching than hurting you.

Jeonghan had a really hard time finding his own voice. He tried to speak but no words came out. It was too overwhelming for him. He hadn’t expected this to happen. He had expected you to say “why would I think about us that way?” or something along the line. A big, massive, grand rejection. But, no. This wasn’t a rejection, was it? Nothing had prepared him for this.

Before Jeonghan could say a word, you beat him to it. “But every time I thought about it, it always left me feeling afraid.”

Well, that was another blow Jeonghan had never expected. So the idea of you two being romantically involved scared you. Why on earth? He no longer stroked your hair now. His hands were still around your body but he made no movement.

“And why is that, beautiful? What are you so afraid of? Tell me, please. It’s okay.” Jeonghan finally spoke with a strained voice. He desperately needed to know the reason.

You started to tear up again. You looked down to avoid his eyes. You didn’t want him to see you cry again. You sniffled before you tried to explain to him.

“Because, H-Han, I’m scared of losing you. You’re my safe place. My solace. My comfort. I could act like my very own self unapologetically whenever I’m around you. Y-You’re too precious to me. I don’t want to risk losing you.”

Although he didn’t know what that meant, he had one thing on his mind: he needed to put you at ease. He needed you to know that he wasn’t going anywhere at all. So, he pressed a gentle kiss on your forehead. His lips lingered there for a second too long but you didn’t mind it. You breathed shakily as you felt his lips touching your skin. You didn’t pull away a single inch and clutched his shirt in your fists before closing your eyes.

Jeonghan pulled away so that he could look at you. The sight of you having your eyes closed was heartwarming and heart wrenching at the same time.

“Sweetheart…” He called you with a lovely term of endearment and it made you open your eyes. He let his fingers stroke the side of your face with such tenderness. “Why’d you even think that you would lose me? I won’t go anywhere. I promise.”

You shook your head before burying your face onto his shirt. His shirt was still wet because of your tears earlier and you feared that you would ruin it even more now.

Jeonghan tightened his embrace around you.

“I-If we were like that a-and shit didn’t work out… like any other relationships out there, we would end up as strangers and I don’t want that. I don’t want to live in a world without you in it. I’m scared, Han…” Your voice was muffled and Jeonghan could feel your tears on his chest through the fabric of his shirt. “I’m so scared…” you whispered weakly.

The revelation hit him like a truck. So that was the reason. Jeonghan hated to admit it but you definitely got a point. No couple had eternity guaranteed for them. Many couples broke up. Many married couples got a divorce. It was a flawed world they lived in, after all.

But, still, call him delusional or whatever, he still wanted to taste the sweetness of loving and being loved by you properly. As lovers. He wasn’t ready to give that up yet. Especially knowing that the line had been crossed anyway after he confessed his feelings to you earlier.

Jeonghan loosened his embrace around you a little.

“Sweetheart, look at me, please. I need you to look at me. Can you do that? Please?” He begged with such gentleness.

You sniffled a couple times before detaching your face from his chest and looking up to him. Your eyes and nose were red again but still, you looked like an angel in his eyes.

He wiped the rest of the tears on your face with his fingers. “Thank you so much for telling me about your fears, princess. I know that wasn’t easy. Thank you.” He gave the top of your head a short loving kiss before leaning back to look at you again.

“I understand where you’re coming from, really. You’re precious to me too. I would rather die than lose you. But… don’t you think it’s worth the risk?”

You opened your mouth to protest but he interrupted you. He hated interrupting you especially in moments like this but he needed you to hear him out first.

“Please, sweetheart, listen to me first, yeah? I know that there are many couples out there that don't get their happy endings. Their relationships lead them to heartbreak. I get it. I understand. But the love that I have for you… it’s massive, sweetheart. And I’m ready to love you a lot more, if you let me. We could create something so beautiful together, don’t you think?”

His words were true and nothing but the truth. He had so much love to give for you. He was trying so hard not to break down in front of you. Slowly, he took both of your hands in his and brought them to his lips. He pressed gentle kisses on your knuckles, a sign to show you that he meant every word he had said, that he was absolutely devoted to you.

With your hands still in his, he continued. “I would do everything in my power to keep you happy. I would never hurt you, ever. I would never let us fall apart. If you let me, princess. Just say the word and I promise I will prove it to you.”

You felt your heart flutter. You should’ve known that your best friend was capable of loving this immensely. Even without the promise, you should’ve known that Jeonghan would go above and beyond for you. The things he had done for you throughout your precious friendship had proven enough. You just had been too blind and too afraid to acknowledge it all. But still, your fears were still there.

“B-But what if we fought? What if we argued and we broke up? What if I hurt you?” you argued weakly.

Jeonghan chuckled lightly. It seemed like you needed more convincing to finally let go of your fears, to be brave to take a step forward.

“Every couple has their own ups and downs, love. Arguments and fights are inevitable. But we could always communicate. We could always tolerate each other. I’m ready to tolerate all of our differences. And if you hurt me, I’m sure you’re able to apologize and learn from it, aren’t you? Same thing goes for me. Besides, we already have a pretty strong foundation, don’t we? We’ve been friends, well, best friends for six years. The only arguments we’ve made were probably when you insisted on having a night out and I preferred to stay in. Or when I forgot to buy your favorite ice cream that one time.”  Jeonghan stroked your face lovingly with a smile on his face, offering you peace and comfort. “I promise you, there’s nothing we can’t handle.”

And with that, your doubts started to go away. You thought back to the days when you had argued over small things. Nothing intolerable. you couldn’t speak any words against him because he had made a perfect point. Maybe it was time for you to finally be brave and let go of your fears. Maybe it was time for you to completely trust him and create something unimaginably beautiful together. you gave him a vulnerable smile.

Jeonghan’s smile widened. “That’s the beautiful smile that I love so much.”

You could feel your face get warmer. You moved your hands and wrapped your arms around his neck loosely.

“I wanna learn how to love you as much as you love me, Han.”

Jeonghan had never been happier. This was the start of a new story he was about to write together with you.

“And I’ll teach you how. I’ll gladly give you all the time you need. Even if it takes forever.”

He searched for any doubt in your eyes and he found none. So, he softly touched your chin. His thumb was playful enough to trace your bottom lip. “You’re so beautiful, do you know that?” He took his courage to lean his face closer to yours.

Your heart was now beating a hundred miles an hour. Were you really about to kiss your best friend? But the idea of that didn’t sound bad at all. If anything, you were anticipating it.

When you didn’t pull away, Jeonghan inched his face closer. Before his lips landed on yours, he saw you close your eyes. Jeonghan smiled at the sight and he finally got rid of the distance.

Soft was an understatement when he felt your lips against his. He rested his lips there, not moving in the slightest. He was giving you a chance to pull away.

Two seconds had passed and you didn’t show any sign of resistance. So, he saw it as an opportunity to move his lips and you immediately followed his movement. The kiss was hesitant and careful but sweet nonetheless.

Despite the tentativeness, the kiss was better than he had ever imagined before. He had fantasized kissing you on the mouth countless times for years. Never once in his wildest dreams had he ever thought he would get to this very moment.

Because it was your first kiss with each other, Jeonghan didn’t want to cross the line. So, he slowly pulled away. But oh, boy, he needed to think twice about not crossing the line because the sight of you, with your eyes still closed, chasing his lips with your slightly parted ones was more than enough to cause a surge of desire coursing through his veins. He cursed inwardly before crashing his lips on yours again. Self control be damned.

This time, the kiss was more passionate and more urgent. As if Jeonghan was in the middle of a desert and you were an oasis. He moved his lips against yours in a sensual, intimate and lustful dance. It had you surprised for a split second but you were quick to give back the same amount of passion into the kiss.

Sensing that you actually wanted it as much as he did, he tried to deepen the kiss by licking your bottom lip, asking for an entrance. You moaned into the kiss and Jeonghan swallowed your needy sound with greed. He drank up your noises and it caused him to let out a low groan.

You parted your lips slightly, giving him access to explore your mouth. Jeonghan wasted no time sliding his tongue into the velvet walls of your mouth. Their tongues met, tasting and exploring each other. The sweetness of your wet muscles made him dizzy with need. He groaned as he deepened the kiss even more.

His hands were wandering from your waist to your hips. He let his fingers fiddle with the hem of your shirt before he boldly slid them under it, caressing your bare skin. You let out a gasp at the contact and it almost made Jeonghan growl.

He let his hands roam around freely on your torso as his kisses strayed away from your mouth to your chin and down to your neck. You couldn’t do anything besides letting him use your skin as his personal playground.

Jeonghan eventually pushed you gently to lay on the couch as he positioned himself on top of you, between your legs. You were a moaning and whimpering mess under him. Your needy noises made him want you even more. His lips kept exploring your neck, trying to find one spot that would make you go insane.

His lips weren’t the only thing that was working overtime. He also licked and nipped your throat. Enough to make you jolt with pleasure but not enough to leave a mark.

“You taste so good, sweetheart. I can do this all day.” Jeonghan whispered hoarsely against your neck. His breath was warm on your skin. You couldn’t speak properly because your brain had short-circuited the moment your lips had met.

Your fingers started tugging on his locks. The simple act made him moan. The feeling of your hands pulling his hair was making him go crazy.

“Mmh, H-Han… please– aah!” you arched your back and cried out when he nipped your collarbone.

Bingo. Jeonghan finally found that one spot that made you see stars. He paid extra attention to that one particular area by kissing, licking, nipping and lightly sucking on it.

Jeonghan chuckled at your inability to form a coherent sentence. “You like that, princess?” He gently bit your skin. “Right here, yeah? This one, sweetheart?”

You could only moan and whimper at the sensuality of his words and the way his mouth pleasured you. You weren't thinking when you bucked your hips against his. That was the moment when Jeonghan realized that he was as hard as rock.

He pulled his lips away from your collarbone and looked down on you, making you whine in protest.

“W-Why… Why’d you stop?” you asked as you were breathing heavily. Your heart was still beating so fast.

Jeonghan was panting as well. He was trying to regulate his breathing. He had to close his eyes because the sight of you so pretty under his body was downright sinful. Slowly, he sat back up on the couch and you followed suit.

“Princess… let’s stop, yeah? We can’t… We can’t keep going on. At least not yet. Not right now.” He said once his breath had started to steady.

“H-Huh? Why? Did I do bad–”

Jeonghan quickly shook his head to interrupt you because it was actually the opposite. You were too good and Jeonghan almost couldn’t resist to just take you and claim you.

He cupped your face in his palms, gently stroking your cheeks. “No, sweetheart. Of course not. You did so good. Too good. And that’s the problem.”

You tilted your head slightly to the side. “Why is it a problem?”

Jeonghan chuckled lightly. You were so adorable. “It’s a problem because I want to be a gentleman and take you out on a date first, okay? I don’t want to act purely on my urges like a wild animal. You deserve better than that, love.”

Your face lit up when the word ‘date’ reached your ears. “Yeah? You wanna take me out on a date?”

He nodded his head at your excitement. He wrapped his arms around your body in a loving embrace. “Of course I do, sweetheart. How does tomorrow sound? A nice and warm Sunday would be a good day for us to go on a date, wouldn’t it?”

You snuggled against him. “That would be so good. The sooner the better.” You were smiling from ear to ear.

“The sooner the better, indeed. So, tell me, what do you have in mind? Do you want something fancy or casual as our first date?” He asked as he tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear.

Your lips curled in a cheeky smile. “Don’t you know the answer already? Come on, we’ve been attached to the hip for years now.”

Jeonghan let out a laugh at your teasing. “You cheeky little thing. Alright. Casual, it is. How about… going to the beach, hm? We could lay on a blanket, under the sun. Maybe we could eat some pizzas as well.”

Your eyes turned starry when he mentioned the beach. That couldn’t be any better. “Which beach, Han?” you knew he would say the correct answer but you asked him anyway.

He smiled at you before bringing your hand to his lips and kissed your knuckles. He looked into your eyes and said, “Azure Cove.”

Your smile widened and you gave his lips a short but sweet kiss. Jeonghan’s heart skipped a couple of beats when you did that. He could never get used to this. Any physical contact with you might cause him a small heart attack.

“You and me at Azure Cove with a box of pizza and a bottle of vodka. Sounds like the perfect first date for me.” You gleamed as you rested your head on his shoulder.

Jeonghan stroked your hair tenderly “It’s a deal, then, yeah? I’ll pick you up tomorrow at ten o’clock. I’ll bring your favorite bottle of vodka with me and we’ll go to Azure Cove.”

“I can’t wait.” You said as you snuggled closer against his body, seeking more warmth.

Both of you spent a few minutes in a comfortable silence with ‘Love, Rosie’ still playing on the TV while cuddling each other on the couch. Then, Jeonghan decided to break the silence.

“You know… I might have something to ask from you.” He said with a hint of distaste and mischief.

You turned your head to look at his face. “What is it?”

Jeonghan’s lips formed a handsome smirk. “Ditch that Minghao guy.”

You bursted out laughing and it made him laugh as well. “Oh my God, Han, I completely forgot about his existence the moment you said you like me. Trust me, he’s the least of your concern right now. I got my eye on you and only you.”

Jeonghan had never ever been happier.

[nabi-unveiled]

Hagiwara isn't off the hook.

He shares responsibility in the state of his and Kaori's relationship, and I'm not talking about the cheating.

Put down your pitchfork. Just hear me out.

I adore Hagiwara. He cheated. I don't care. I have mentally added him onto my list of "good boys". I will make a special category just for him.

I'm also not making excuses for Kaori. She must own up that she kept Hagiwara on a string while knowing it was hurting him.

However, their relationship was doomed to fail. They need different things. Kaori needs a relationship where sex isn't expected, and Hagiwara needs a relationship where he can be fully open and honest with his feelings and desires. Frankly, he needs something deeper than Kaori can offer, and I'm not talking about sex.

But the relationship shouldn't have lasted this long, and that's on BOTH of them. It's perfectly okay that Kaori doesn't want sex. It's perfectly okay that Hagiwara does want sex (and intimacy). The problem is that neither of them communicate about it.

Before we go further, there are some points that need to be established. Also note - the symbols are EVERYTHING to me.

1 - Kaori/Hagiwara's relationship is NOT the same as Fujisawa/Sei's.

Their relationships share similarities, but they are NOT the same.

Sei's relationship with Fujisawa developed as a trauma response to a violent car crash. It has carried violent undertones the entire time.

The symbols convey that Fujisawa has methodically trapped Sei in this relationship.

But Kaori and Hagiwara's relationship? It starts with a romantic meet-cute. It was warm. It had saturated colors.

Their relationship does not have a violent undertone. It has an undertone of passivity and complacency. Of note, Hagiwara didn't initiate anything in this relationship. He's waited on Kaori's lead.

The door is open. Hagiwara could leave at any point.

These two relationships also do not have the same power dynamic. Kaori DOES control many aspects of the relationship. However, Kaori has control of the relationship because Hagiwara lets her. Fujisawa has control over his relationship with Sei because Fujisawa demands it. There is a difference.

In fact, the show actually has already acknowledged that there are different types of "controlling". The coworker's relationship isn't painted as unhealthy. Some of us may see it as unhealthy, but the show doesn't give ANY indication of that itself in sound or symbols.

2 - I am in the camp that thinks Kaori DOES like or care about Hagiwara.

Not because I believe her words, but because I believe in the symbols. Kaori made Hagiwara rice.

The rice that represents home and affection? Kaori made it. It's just her version had a sour plum in the middle.

And when she offered it, Hagiwara willingly chose to eat it. He knew the plum was there, and he ate it anyways.

In this week's episode, Kaori explains herself, and she's in black. This is not a typical color for her. She may be smiling, but she is mourning.

We could discuss in length about whether emotional abuse is in play here or if it's just an unhealthy relationship. That's not really the point of this post. Either way, we know that Kaori was finally being honest and vulnerable.

WE SAW HER FEET.

Feet shots happens when our character's true feelings and motivations are exposed. Sei has beautiful heels (desires) but his toenail is broken (😭 Just like his Sim card, but I can't go there right now). Both Kaori and Hagiwara have feet shots too. No broken toenails. In this case, Kaori's feet stop moving. Unlike Fujisawa whose body moves on it's own, her body won't move. We haven't seen Fujisawa's feet.

Kaori can't make herself take action to deal with the situation with Hagiwara. Her choices are selfish, and they hurt Hagiwara. However, I actually think that's very realistic and very human. In unhealthy relationships (and even healthy ones), we can often hurt the people we care about. It's not easy leaving an established relationship. Especially, one that you want. We're not all as altruistic as Hagiwara.

But Hagiwara isn't off the hook.

He shares responsibility in the relationship lasting until this point.

Sei admits his relationship has problems.

But Hagiwara? He denies that they have a problem at first. He's choosing to ignore reality. A conversation with Sei later shows it too.

He wants to believe they've been honest with each other.

Even though he's not verbalizing his actual thoughts to Kaori. For those that don't remember, he has an entire sequence in his head at the BBQ with their friends of what he wants to say. But he doesn't say it. He's not being open and honest with Kaori.

He's also hiding what he truly desires. Kaori didn't say he couldn't drink the sweet coffee. She said it was unhealthy. Sei said it was unhealthy too. He drank it around Sei anyways.

He even bought it FOR Sei even though Sei thought it was too sweet. Hagiwara initiates with Sei.

It's actually been shown that Kaori doesn't care what Hagiwara eats. He's allowed to eat whatever he wants. Kaori isn't telling Hagiwara to go to sleep or eat the yogurt.

She controls sex (and maybe their social agenda). However, unlike Fujisawa, Kaori doesn't keep tight control on Hagiwara as a person.

Unlike Sei, Hagiwara isn't isolated. There's no traumatic backstory. He's more self-confident than Sei. Unlike Sei, he talks about the things he CAN do rather than things he can't. For example, in episode 1, he mentions that "he's good" at organizing parties.

Unlike Sei, he's not trapped in a locked room.

His affection might have been contained and hidden. I think he wonders whether Kaori has things she has to keep inside, because he knows there are things that he keeps inside. But...

He's not trapped. He's stuck. There's a difference.

Hagiwara didn't forget his ID. He didn't forget who he was. He lost his ID, because he's losing confidence in his relationship.

But he's still walking around this building freely. Apparently, he's been walking free without that ID for months. And when he gets a new ID? He chooses to put it back in the case that Kaori gave him.

He wanted to change his picture, but he hadn't taken the steps to do so. He could've changed the situation by being frank with Kaori at any point. Just like Kaori, he avoided. He has chosen to stay.

He chose not to call Kaori out. He doesn't like making people uncomfortable. His nature is to prioritize the other person. Unlike Kaori, his avoidance is inherently unselfish. But it got him stuck. I'm someone who was actively taught to avoid confrontation and to always think of others first. This hits hard.

Kaori was too selfish, but Hagiwara wasn't selfish enough. Being a little bit selfish is a good thing.

He chose NOT to talk about sex with her. He's not comfortable bringing it up with her, because he's not open with her.

Kaori doesn't communicate about sex, because she's afraid that not wanting sex makes her a bad woman. She's surrounded by heteronormativity after all. As @babyangelsky points out, this is what society treating libido as swamp does to you.

Hagiwara doesn't communicate about sex, because he's afraid prioritizing sex makes him a bad man. After all, wouldn't breaking up with his girlfriend just because of sex make him a bad person? Isn't his desire just making the river murky with swamp water? Stupid swamp. He doesn't realize sex is not the real issue. In the end, he has chosen to stay in this relationship even though he's unhappy.

It's why I had positive thoughts about the breakup scene. A lot could be said about Kaori forcing Hagiwara to be the one to breakup, but I was actually glad that Hagiwara said it. It was on both of them that the relationship lasted this long. Neither of them had been willing to speak up about what wasn't working. They both stayed stuck.

Hagiwara is finally speaking his mind. He calls Kaori out.

Hagiwara is no longer being passive. He's asserting control.

Hagiwara is no longer hiding what he wants. He's being open.

Hagiwara is now taking action to change the picture on his ID.

Previous posts about Hagiwara:

The Desire to Be A Good Man

I also have two additional posts about Hagiwara in my drafts. I'll try to get them posted this weekend.

[adhdduckie]

candy grams. g.w. x reader

my masterlist

music choice; dandelions by ruth b

word count: 2.7 k

pt 2 soon

synopsis;

you've been in love with george for almost as long as you've known him.

that makes 6 years. and for the last 5, you've been in love with him.

valentines' day is around the corner. and you think it's a great idea to send him a candy gram anonymously. a/n - no valentines this year so i thought id finally lock in and give some of yall a treat! hope u enjoy + pls interact!

George Weasley is one of your favourite people ever. He's sweet, funny and kind when he wants to be. So, many girls you know have a crush on him. So do you. It's kind of a pain, most of the time. He's your best friend, you're so integrated into his family, the burrow is your second home. Molly loves you, and so does the rest of the family.

George and Fred are both large parts of your daily life. You're one of the only people who are able to tell them apart. They look exactly the same, but you're able to tell a difference. You're not even entirely sure how you know, but you just know.

Classes with the two are entertaining, you sitting between the two on a bench, stifled giggles can be heard throughout the classroom, and are a constant in every class you have with the twins. You're closest with George, having become friends in first year when you were placed next to him in potions after snape had enough of the twins sitting together.

Although it wasn't till second year before you realised you cared about george beyond a friend should. A constant figure in your mind, and a constant figure in your life, he invaded every moment of your life.

it wasn't like he did it on purpose. he was just everywhere you turned. In the hallways, laughing with fred while they made fun of Ron, next to you in classes, sitting across from you in the great hall at feeding times, and during the holidays when he'd send you constant letters on updates of things he and his brother made in their room. You were invited over a lot, but obviously you had to spend some time with your family before you went over to the burrow.

You had lived with these feelings for years, not many knew. Fred didn't, so George didn't. Hermione seemed to be the only one that knew, and it was only because of her intelligence was she able to figure out. 5th year was honestly the worst. Your O.W.Ls were coming around, and you had the stupid pink toad umbridge for a teacher. she was a pain in the ass, constantly punishing students for practically no reason.

Because McGonagall understood how everyone was in low spirits, she introduced the muggle idea of candy grams. There were some students who found them stupid since they derived from muggles, but you wanted to try it. So, on the fourteenth of february, you bought one. Sent it to George. left it anonymous, because you just wanted him to know someone out there liked him.

you regretted sending that damn candy gram not even 20 minutes later, the moment he came bounding into the common room with a pesky grin on his face, yelling out your name.

"what?" you said as you looked up from your book.

he shoved the paper under your nose, effectively poking you in the eyes with the corner of the paper. "look! someone sent me a candy gram." he grinned at you.

"congrats?" you say, trying to keep your cool, hoping that he couldn't tell that you were the one that wrote it. You didn't want to lose his friendship. It really meant too much to you, and you'd probably rather die than lose him.

"do you not get the significance of this moment?" he clutched his chest dramatically.

"i refuse to believe someone actually has a crush on you. You're such a menace to society." you tell him, rolling your eyes, trying to keep yourself together and not end up screaming and running away.

There's a knowing glint in his eyes that you don't seem to notice, but he doesn't respond or comment on anything. He shoves the note under your nose again, forcing you to read it.

"Dearest George,

I hope this note finds you well. I couldn't keep these feelings hidden any longer, but I must remain anonymous for now. Over the years, I've cherished our friendship more than words can express. But it's evolved into something deeper, something I can't deny.

You've become the light of my life, and I can't help but feel a love that goes beyond friendship. If one day, you discover who I am and feel the same way, I'll be waiting, ready to take a chance for us.

Until then, I remain in secrecy.

sincerely and with love,

a secret admirer"

he reads out by heart, as if he's memorised the entire thing already. you gape at him, not knowing what you're actually supposed to say right now. nothing has prepared you for this moment.

"well?" he demands, plopping his weight down on the cushion next to you.

"well what?" you ask him, slightly flushed from having a love note you've written read out to you by the person you like.

"what do you think? who do you think it is?" he questions you, bombarding you with several questions when you're still trying to process what possessed you to send him the candy gram in the first place.

"man, i don't know." you tell him, shrugging, turning back to your book, trying to move the topic on.

"oh come on y/n! help me out here! I'm your best friend..." he whines, dropping his head in your lap. It's a common habit of his, invading your personal space, but let's be honest, you don't mind in the slightest.

"what do you want me to do?" you sigh. He always has a way of making you crumble. He beams instantly, Sitting upright again, almost head butting you and giving you a lovely little concussion.

"help me find out who it is!" he responds with a cheeky grin.

"why, george? are you going to make fun of them or something?" you sigh tiredly, really wanting him to give up on this, but you know how he is. once he starts, it's hard to get him to stop.

"because, what if she's hot?" he wiggles his eyebrows at you, and you can't help but crack a smile at his simplicity.

"just because she might be hot? What if she's super ugly? What will you do then?" You tease him, but you do want to know what he's going to do when he finds out it was you, and crushes his hopes of it being Angelina Johnson.

"I know she's pretty." he responds in retaliation.

"how do you know?" you challenge, raising your eyebrow at him as you question your own sanity for liking someone like him.

"It's a gut feeling." he shrugs his shoulders, before standing up from the couch, offering you his hand to pull you up. you set your book down with a sad sigh, accepting his hand as he pulls you up. His hand envelops yours easily, as if they fit together, and his hands are a nice kind of warm, warm enough to make you feel happy, but not warm enough to make you clammy and sweaty. the perfect balance.

he's a lot stronger than you give him credit for, and he pulls you up easily, till you're standing almost chest to chest, well more like head to chest, since he's so much taller than you. If you looked up at him, you would be close enough to kiss. His smell envelopes you, a rich smell of freshly upturned grass and the smell of smoke and a Christmas fire.

you clear your throat abruptly, and the pair of you spring apart. you're avoiding eye contact with george, but if you looked at him you would see how the tips of his ears are red enough to match the colour of his hair.

You get a strange look from the other people in the common room, and fred, who's been close enough to hear the entire conversation, grins at what he's just realised.

He lets out a light chuckle, and you turn to look at him, raising your eyebrow. He shrugs and grins. George's deliberately avoiding eye contact, looking everywhere but you. Fred laughs louder, to the point where he needs to lean on the edge of a couch to prevent himself from falling over.

George pauses, looks at you, before he grins. "You can start helping me tomorrow." He says, before bouncing away, out of the portrait hole. Fred laughs even louder. You turn to him again, before frowning.

"what?" you ask him. It sets him off again, he only stops laughing when he starts coughing.

Fred holds up his finger, and you wait till he regains his composure. He takes another look at you before it sets him off again. You groan.

"I think i know who sent my dear brother the candy gram." He says, wiping a tear away from his eye with his index.

"oh yeah? who?" you ask. Your heart's thumping in your ears, but you're trying your best to seem calm and collected.

a smile stretches across his face, and he looks like he's planning something. "oh, my dear y/n. I do indeed. It seems the girl and i are quite close." he purrs, pulling you close into a hug. You sigh, wrapping your arms around fred.

"please don't tell him." you whisper, hiding your face into his chest. he smiles. He's viewed you as a little sister since the beginning, and he's glad you feel the same way for his brother as his brother does for you.

"i wouldn't dream of it. Unless.....?" he starts, but drifts off, not finishing the sentence.

"fred!" you whine, irritated.

"okay, okay." he laughs, pulling back from the hug, resting his hands on your shoulder, staring deep into your eyes. suddenly he goes serious, the smile dropping off his face quick.

"but seriously. If you never tell him, i'll do it eventually. You can't stay secret admirer forever, and i'm most likely going to die of frustration just watching you two." He finishes. Stepping back, plopping down onto the couch

"i shouldn't have done it fred! i don't know what i was thinking." you groan, hiding your face in his shoulder, plopping down next to him.

"well i think it was a good idea." fred says, throwing an arm carelessly across your shoulder. you groan in response, closing your eyes with a sigh.

the next couple of days are strange, to say the least. George actively seeks you out more than usual, the only topic he speaks of is his secret admirer. It's quite strange, having the object of your affections constantly speak of a romantic gesture you made toward them without them knowing. It's nice, but quite scary, to say the least.

there's the constant fear of being discovered, and when discovered, you're afraid that george is going to be disappointed that you were the one that sent it to him and not Angelina Johnson.

but whatever, you need to act as inconspicuous as possible, right? fred certainly isn't helping, constantly giggling to himself whenever the topic is brought up, while george flashes him a questioning side eye.

one day after potions lesson during lunch, you and george remain behind in the classrooms, cleaning up as a form of punishment from professor snape.

you're kneeling on the floor, cleaning up a spill from some third years. without magic. if it wasn't obvious that snape hated you beforehand, it is now.

you don't even remember what exactly it was that you did, but here you are anyway. george, who somehow got the easier task, is just sitting on a chair as he scrubs at some of the tables in the room.

"this is all your fault, george." you blame, rubbing at the persistent stain on the floor.

"how? you were the one giggling too loudly." george throws back at you. very maturely, you throw the rag you're using at his face. he blocks it, instead of hitting his face, it hits his arm with a wet 'thwump'.

'hey!" he complains at you, throwing it back at you. you duck out of the way, and it hits the wall behind you with another wet sound.

you turn to stare at where it went, and you look back at him, before you burst out into giggles together.

suddenly, you hear the sounds of footsteps, and knowing snape, you stumble to get the rag and go back the stain, rubbing at it with the best of your ability.

you hear the sound of the door groaning on its hinges as it slams open, revealing a disgruntled and angry prof snape.

“i thought. i heard laughter.” he drawls in his cold and distatched tone, the corner of his mouth turning down in distaste.

“no, professor. we wouldn’t dare. Perhaps it was Peeves running through.” you answer, in your best imitation of a innocent student, and professor turns his eyes onto you, glaring at you with distaste.

“i’d hope not. if i hear another peep out of you both, it’s 50 points from gryffindor. each.” he teels you, before swishing around in his ridiculous cape and exiting through the door.

you both turn to each other slowly, before doubling over in silent laughter, clutching your stomach insanely.

once you’ve both managed to contain yourselves, you get back to the work you’re supposed to doing, letting the silence pass between you comfortably.

you hear a little sigh leave george’s mouth, and you turn to look at him, noticing that he’s already looking at you.

“what?” you ask him, raising your brow at him.

he flushes a red that makes his freckles stand out, and you wish so desperately to count them all at some point.

you will manage to do that at some point if you’re lucky..you’ll probably have to disguise it as some kind of friendly activity…

he avoids your eye contact and he sighs, before looking back up at you for a second, before he asks, “are you sure you don’t know who wrote the candy gram?”

your heart stutters in your chest, a little part of you feeling an intense need to run as fast and as far as possible.

“yeah. sorry, george. I promise I asked around.” you so blatantly lie, and he just kind of stares at you, and he doesn’t look impressed at all. you swear his left eye twitches a little.

after a beat of you avoiding as much eye contact with him as possible, by looking somewhere else, anywhere else from him, because he honestly scares you a little and honestly any thing to do with your emotions so obviously displayed is quite terrifying.

another moment passes by you, and you try to turn your attention back to the stain you’re scrubbing at. you begin to stand up, about to go get some more soap to make sure the stain really does get out, when you hear george call your name.

‘….you do realise I can recognise your handwriting, right? we’ve been friends for ages.” he tells you, and your head whips to him so fast, you get whiplash.

“what?” you respond, ever the poet.

“your handwriting. I know you sent me the candy gram.” he mutters, standing up to match you, stalking forwards with his eyes set on you. “why are you lying?” he asks you, stopping right in front of you.

you can’t respond. you’re frozen, mouth wide open as you gape at him. he’s very close to you now, and you feel your heart thumping in your chest. “i don’t know what you’re talking about.” you lie, walking sideways as he follows you, while you try to face the door to escape.

“i know, for sure, that it was you who sent it to me.” He asserts again, following you, not to closely as to make you uncomfortable, as he is ever the kindest soul you will ever know.

you know that you are not ready to have this conversation right now, so you feign that someone is calling your name, and make a run for it. “oh. is that someone calling me? oh yes it is. Yes I’m coming!”

george tries to stop you, by putting an arm out to block you, but you duck under, sprinting out the door as quick as you can.

you’re swearing as you run, and you hear him call out your name, once, twice and then silence.

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

a/n -> this has been in my drafts for much more than a year so im glad i finally got it out... pt 2 soon!!!

pls pls pls pls interact and comment i love reading comments

[lydiasfalling]

SWEET CREATURE !

percy jackson x aphrodite! reader

➸✧˖*°࿐ taglist : open!

˗ˋˏ warnings : use of y/n, nothing else really ˎˊ-

‧₊˚✧ lydia’s yap fest ! ✧˚₊‧

happy valentine’s day everyone! hope you guys enjoy this. could possibly make this a series if it’s liked enough. love ya!!!

walking around camp half blood at this time of year seemed to mock you. the fellow aphrodite’s kids seemed to be focused on finding a valentine. now, dot get it twisted. you wanted a valentine. bad. the only problem with this was, well, your intense and completely obvious crush on percy jackson. something about his confidence and charismatic aura drew you in and ruined you for anyone and everyone else.

there was another problem with this. percy jackson happened to be your best friend. you had tried everything to get these feelings to go away. dating other camp members, having different flings, setting percy up with other people, and tartarus, you even had people give you love potions. nothing worked. it was getting unbearable for everyone surrounding the two of you. in particular, annabeth and grover seemed the most annoyed.

the pair had also tried to help you guys understand how perfect you two would be together. however, you and him both refused any sort of insinuation of romance. it’s not that you didn’t want to be with him. quite the opposite, actually. you just didn’t see the point of wasting your friendship by risking him not feeling the same way. keeping him close as a friend was better than loosing him.

infact, you had encouraged him to ask another camp member out. this led you to your current predicament, watching him as he walked with kailey ( a girl from cabin five ). this had been his choice—he insisted she was ‘interesting enough’. you could see by the look on his face that he didn’t truly enjoy her company all that much.

“ya know, this could all be avoided if you just told him how you feel.” annabeth said from next to you, throwing a pointed look in your direction. you chose to ignore the sarcastic tone of her voice as she spoke.

“how i feel? i feel like he’s my best friend and i can’t jeopardize that. they look to be having fun.” the second sentence came out as if you were trying to convince yourself as well.

as if the universe wanted to mock you more, percy and kailey made their way over to you. annabeth looked at you, praying that you noticed the bored look on percy’s face. you gave her a look as to say ‘stop it’ before turning to shoot a smile in the direction of the approaching pair. kailey seemed to have a permanent scowl on her face while percy’s expression shifted upon seeing you. his uninterested features changed to those of contentment when your smile entered his vision.

“hey, y/n!” percy’s pace increased the closer he got to you, leaving kailey slightly behind him.

“hey, perce. kailey.” you nodded in her direction, warranting an eye-roll from the girl. “what’re you guys up to?”

“just, ya know. walking around. sat at the dock for a little bit.” percy responded. him and kailey stood an unusual distance away from eachother.

“percy, im gonna go. come fine me when you’re done with. . . this.” kailey rolled her eyes for what seemed like tenth time in the short period that she stood there. she brushed his arm slightly before turning and walking away.

“well isn’t she just a ray of sunshine.” annabeth snorted, laughing slightly.

percy agreed quickly, “she’s. . . something. that’s for sure.” he rubbed the back of his neck.

“not feeling it?” you asked. he shook his head no, moving to sit next to you. his arm quickly fell over your shoulders.

this made annabeth abruptly stand up. “well, as much as i would love so stay and chat, i have shit to do. see you two later?”

“mhm. later!” percy said.

“bye, annie!” you added. as the girl walked away, you turned in percy’s direction. “is she really that terrible?” you asked.

“she’s . . . okay, i guess. not really my type.” his arm fell from your shoulders, hand moving to hold your own instead. this was something percy had developed on the numerous quests you two had gone on together. his need for physical closeness was something that many found annoying, but you found endearing.

“oh yeah? and what might your type be classified as?” you laughed.

“oh, ya know. i like a girl who’s smart, kind, funny, caring. all the usual things. i also like a girl who sets me up on dates with other people because she doesn’t realize i’m hopelessly in love with her. that’s my ideal woman.” he shrugged as if it were nothing.

your jaw had officially found the floor. “i—i’m sorry. . . what?” you were sure you had heard him wrong.

“you know what i said, y/n.” percy’s face turned serious as he turned his entire boy towards you.

“do i? because it sounds a lot like a confession.” you tried to lighten the situation, laughing slightly before halting.

“y/n, you’re making this extremely hard for me.” percy’s face had begun to turn a shade of crimson.

“how so?” you kept a serious face, struggling not to crack a smile.

“y/n. . . i’m completely and utterly in love with you. the way you laugh, the way you smile, the way you laugh again because, dam, i love that sound, the way you twirl the strand of hair by your ear when you’re nervous, the way you stick your tongue out slightly when you’re focused. i love the way that you talk about your niche interests and the way that you always put up with my bullshit. i love how deeply you care about everyone, even the people who don’t deserve it. i love the contentment in your eyes when we’re sitting at the beach. i love you because you’re you, and that’s the best person you can be.” percy didn’t once break eye contact through his speech.

it was official. this was the first time in your like that you had been rendered completely speechless. your palms became sweaty and your heart was racing. being a child of aphrodite normally meant you reacted better to love situations. this didn’t help you much now, though. instead, the only thing you could think of doing in that moment was leaning forward to connect your lips.

it wasn’t beautiful or a ‘sparks fly’ moment. it was quick and chaste, you moving away as quickly as you moved forward. once you pulled away, you looked percy in the eyes. his expression had shifted from one of fear to hunger. his hand came up, finding the back of your neck and pulling you into him again. his lips were warm and soft against yours. he tasted of sea salt and blue pancakes, a combination that only percy jackson could pull off. his free hand found it way to your waist, pulling you closer to him.

once the two of you could no longer breathe, you both pulled away at a slow pace. he kept his forehead against yours.

“gods, i have been waiting a millennia to do that.” percy laughed, kissing your cheek. his head moved from yours to the crook of your neck.

“me too, perseus.” your hand reached up, lacing itself into his hair.

“fucking finally! gods, i was starting to loose hope!” grover said, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.

“me too, honestly.” percy spoke, lifting his head to look at grover.

“you too?” you asked, confused.

“y/n, you’re literally the only person who didn’t know about percy’s massive crush.” grover explained.

you averted your gaze towards percy, who shrugged in confirmation. your face heated up. safe to say that you had managed to find yourself a valentine, though kailey from cabin five wasn’t too happy.

my masterlist

taglist : @lydiascabinsix @cowboylikemac @laufeysvalentine @raysmayhem-72

[iamhereinthebg]

Heya Anon!

Tbh I don't really know, Akane is a character who has been dealing with a thousand death flags leading to nothing since his most serious appareance in the manga. And this new timeline is not an exception.

Especially since we know that Kako and Mirai gave him 'You have to try to stay alive' rule as one of his duties

Implying that it is dangerous to altern the past and be the Clock Keeper of the Present, that they have to stay alive to make sure everything goes according to plan.

It also ties to my theory that Akane is the first human clock keeper of the present; Because after all if Kako and Mirai have been asleep since they changed the past in this new timeline, they couldn't have chosen anyone during 1968 and the current events in the manga (2015).

Akane is the only person who is directly coming from a different timeline even compared to Nene and Teru who just remember the stuff from the previous one, being on a time limit before their memories are erased. Akane brought along with him the fact that he is a clock keepers and mystery n°1, something he couldn't be in this new timeline in the first place since both of them don't exist.

But I digress.

Akane has been a little bit different since they came back from the boundary closest to the far shore. It's not that surprising with how much the previous arc must have taken a toll on him. Understanding that Aoi wanted to die, losing her, being impaled, having Teru confirming that he will lose years of his lifespan by turning back human too soon, being beaten up twice by number 6, etc...

Akane is like Kou and Nene on this point, a character who wants to do a lot, but is always a step behind when it comes to supernaturals. And like the other two, it is starting to show in his attitude.

Akane has been shown more unsure of his choices and of his opinions when it's something that never posed him a problem before. He is more scared of Teru (when he knows the exorcist by now) and of being hurt in general,. Something he hasn't showed as much before, liking and enjoying life of course, but never being afraid to be in the first line even if it meant being hurt; Now he acts like he is truly scared of dying.

And he lets things involving Aoi not being his first priority. Refusing to listen to Natsuhiko plan to even try to heal her. Akane has always been showed to be really proactive anyways, that's one of his main character trait. So seeing that he is putting something for a later date and it involves Aoi can be seen as a little bit strange. Akane still loves her deeply and all but he seems to have other plans now, which we learn later in the clock keeper arc. He is not even looking at her directly, having an air of melancholy when he announces he will heal her but not now

That's more of a stretch now, but I think it's pretty safe to assume that Akane has known since a long time what it meant to be the clock keeper of the present, that they had the power to change the timeline. But nothing special has been happening to make the clock keepers take this drastic decision, especially since we know that nothing has been ever changed since the Yugi Twins 4th birthday at least. Which is why he probably never thought about it before. But now that he knows the school mysteries are more important, not just dangerous supernaturals but are protecting the land, and that Hanako has been destroying the yorishiros (which to me, seem to be the seals to keep away the God from the pit/the God Sumire was supposed to marry) he seems to be more aware of this duty in general.

Or if he was made aware of it recently anyways, it's something that the clock keepers must have brought up before the fall festival, being something that even someone as 'Carpe Diem, it is what it is' Aoi Akane may not be able to entirely ignore.

He has been forced A LOT in his role lately too and he clearly doesn't really like it, even if he is good at it.

He finally say 'we' when talking about the clock keepers, and consider even himself as the biggest threat of the school. He doesn't know what to think directly of the supernaturals or seven mysteries now. Knowing that they have an important role to fulfill but still not trusting them at all, knowing of their dangerous tendencies to hurt humans. He can't even look Teru in the eyes when he asks him if the clock keepers are planning to change the timeline over and over again. His feelings for the clock keepers being clearly a difficult case for him to tackle down even if he pretends it's not.

I always said this kinda as a joke, that Akane had the role of a Chosen One but went 'fck no' with it. But I think that it really is this kind of stuff now. Like for Nene who is 'the Kannagi' of the current time and get to make choices and stuff she doesn't want to do. Akane is the same with his role as the clock keeper of the present. Because no matter what he says, he kinda has accepted this fate now, preferring to know what is happening (since he realizes how ignorant he was in the "to the far shore" arc), and having a way to be able to change things. Sacrifying his chance to be 'a normal student'.

But he is not happy with any of it, being the one on the front row to endure all of the supernaturals choices, even knowing that if they don't change back the timeline, he will be the last one to remember. And as said previously, he is now a part of it! He is of course still more human than supernatural but he still acknowledges his role way more than before. Akane hates the way supernaturals work and now what he is doing? Being one of the reason the world is in this state. Of course it's taking a toll on him.

Of course, he doesn't accept everything right away, like Aoi's engagement, it's at first played for jokes but even then, it's understandable with how far their relationship evolved in the previous timeline. He is now thrown into the role of 'the childhood friend who never stood a chance in the first place'. I do think he has a right to be a little bit upset

But after understanding that technically, it's not that much of a big deals in the current events of everything else, since at first most people seems okay, he goes right away to do what the clock keepers asked him to do. Even going to go ask for Teru's help when he knows how much he destroyed his trust.

To finish this long stuff, I think the real big ''death flags' for what is happening right now is of course the fact that he got cursed by the red house (which is a supernatural who has already tried to fool him in the og timeline btw) .

And that there is a chance, like said earlier, that there is only one Akane like him for now, and that he could get stuck here or at least not coming back entirely as the Aoi Akane we knew in the manga (a chance for him to become a full supernatural for example, to be forever now the clock keeper of the present) But for this tbh we don't know a lot it's really more speculation because we know nothing of what could happen to him particulary.

My fav 'suspicious af thing he said' for now in the new timeline is this.

The official translation goes " .. And will love my whole life to the day I die and even beyond that."

When he starts the manga with this.

With the same belief than Hanako that 'death is the end' and now he is considering the After Death, with everything he saw of course, but specifically for him in this case.

Bonus: a thing that is apparently confirmed to be a lie, or he can bend the rules, but he didn't say this in front of Teru and Nene the first time.

And something that I truly think he doesn't know anything about too (my brain truly think Kako and Mirai choose him, and I have some delulu proofs but I digress) Akane do not know sht about the clock keepers and especially doesn't see when people show clear interest in him

[angels-read-fanfiction-too]

Some very quick Eltingville valentines headcannons ^^!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bill Dickey:

He did NOT know it was valentines day

The type of guy to complain about how it was made up by company's to make money or some other joyless crap

If he did get you something, it would probably be simple and related to something you both like so he could borrow it lol

Gets kinda defensive and embarrassed if you try to pull anything lovey dovey on him but if you give him something important to him and something that shows you care about him and his interests, he will be very touched!

After that gift, he isn't very physically affectionate but he does just generally stand and sit much closer to you

Probably brags about whatever you get for him to his friends, rubbing the fact that he has a partner and they don't in their faces

I imagine he gives you some money for you to spend yourself since it was so last minute and didn't want to get you a bad valentines present so just figured this was easier

Pete Dinuzio:

He sets up a little movie night!

He doesn't fully get the appeal of valentines but he knows he's gotta put in some kind of effort

Lots and lots of chocolate and snacks for you two to share! If you can stomach the movie he chooses

He might let you choose the movie this time but only with the promise that he gets to next time

Definitely tried to pull some FREAKY shit...

Just thinks it's natural for couples to do that kind of thing on valentines and that you two should too

I don't know how but i get he still kinda stinks after a shower, i don't know how to describe it but i could never imagine him smelling anything but bad

You can decide if you want that stuff to happen but it will definitely start with a steamy make out session to an insanely gory scene in a disgusting horror movie

Josh Levy:

I can imagine him asking his mum on what clothes he should get you; something simple like a cardigan or a top or some pyjamas

Invites you over and asks his parents to leave (which they don't do) so he's kinda pissy when you get there

You both have some dinner together that his mum made and he probably gets forced to wear something slightly less slobbish. Nothing fancy, just maybe something that doesn't reek and has something other than a geeky reference on it

He still has that dune t-shirt underneath his jumper and immediately gets back into that after dinner

I can imagine Bill as Greedo318 trying to bother him on his night with you since he previously mentioned to the club that he'd be going on a date

It's your choice wether you want to try to talk him out of fighting back against Bill's very clear rage bait but either way, you'll have to calm him down after lolol ^^

He truly appreciates having you around and having someone to truly understand him away from the mocking the club gives him and he tells you that on that night <3

Jerry Stokes:

Also forgot lol ^^

Rushed to the shops on the day to get some flowers but there was only kinda shitty wilted ones so he had to make do

He didn't really clean himself up much but probably did a once over to check if he was looking particularly grimy and did a small wash if he was

He rings your doorbell and gives you the flowers when you answer, happy but also nervous since he almost forgot valentines with his first partner!

"Beedee beedee beedee! Happy Valentines, buck!"

He gives you a kiss on the cheek and comes in to hang out with you

You both do pretty mundane everyday things and it's just very comfortable ^^

You two might do some doodles of your dnd characters kissing or writing a little story about how they could meet lolol!

Probably pretty bad at kissing but he does kiss you so points for confidence!

You two are like always touching in some way through out the night; holding hands, kissing, hugging, sitting right next to each other so your legs are touching etc

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sorry this was so short but happy valentines everyone!

[luckypunklemonade]

| (Yeah Yeah Yeah)

[NSFW MDNI 18+; established relationship; oral (m receiving); 1k words] Boyfriend! Stiles Stilinski realizes how helpful you can be, and not just in research.

This work belongs to me, luckypunklemonade (Minte_Condition on AO3). I do not give anyone permission to distribute or share my work without consent.

Stiles is the type of guy to harp on his potential. He always had big plans and dreams, especially when you started dating. He was going to be the best boyfriend with all the time in the world for you. You were a little more realistic—understanding, really. It was cute how he maintained that goal so far into the relationship, so far into his life getting more and more chaotic. Yes, he knew that it wasn’t always gonna be perfect and that he’d have to prioritize other things every once in a while, but it was so easy to let that go when you let him at you so easily. Every time he felt your muscles un-tense like you were melting into him while he kissed wherever he could croon his head, he slid right back into being overzealous. In his mind, there was still so much to accomplish and he wanted to do it right then, immediately. He wasn’t in a rush, per se, just a little over-enthusiastic. You had to slow him down sometimes. His kisses got to be so rushed it was almost negligent and his hands hovered in the air aimlessly because he couldn’t decide where to put them. Of course, on your body was the top choice, but where?

You really screwed up in showing him that he didn’t have to rush, that he could have you whenever he needed you. You were dating. There wasn’t a time limit or cap on how much affection he could show his girlfriend. He got stressed out and thought that, surely, he’d never be able to compromise time for research and time for you. You said, awfully directly, that he could do both.

“Y’know, sex is a stress reliever.”

Stiles actually hadn’t thought about that. It had the potential to be very advantageous. He was calling you all the time. Late, early, whatever. Asking if you were busy and if you could come over and help him clear his head. You eventually put a limit on him. It can’t be every day, you said. Only a few times a week, but it always seemed to work. Thinking of you alone for a bit, seeing only you, losing focus of everything, and letting loose for a little. Stiles would call you, asking if you could stop by, trying and failing to act like it wouldn’t disappoint him a little if you couldn’t. Once you had shown up at his door, he pulled you up to his room with a clingy grip around your waist. He wasn’t eager to get it over, but he rushed himself into tugging your shirt off. He just got so worked up when you touched him, and he didn’t have to beg because he one thousand percent would. You gently scratched his scalp, and you talked him up to it and back down again. You knew how to help him relax. You made sure it was on a healthy basis, sure, but he looked so happy when he saw you wore a pretty bra for him.

After settling you into his arms for a little rest, maybe a nap, Stiles seemed to be on a much different level of ready. Inspired, organized. Sort of mirroring your sense of preparedness that you felt comfortable with. You had joked that you were rubbing off on him, literally. He was happier, sleeping better, remembering to eat. Hell, you saw him drinking water. Actual water, not just the leftover ice that had melted in a drink, a cup of water designated for drinking. Of course, this behavior came with more rewards. Not just sex. You weren’t animals, even if it felt like it. He’s hormonal and can’t believe he has access to you in the ways you let him.

Sometimes, he’s surpassed his limit for the week. Staring up at you, braving his murder board with your notes in hand and your hair up out of the way. You’ve got his shirt on, and underneath, where he can barely see them, you’re wearing his stormtrooper boxers. The nerdy ones that you slowly pulled off for him, lowering yourself to your knees. He thought he’d pass out, so he sat on the edge of his bed while you got a little more comfortable. You said something about not being able to afford condoms between the two of you and these little study aids, so you needed to experiment with other ways to help him focus. He was embarrassed at first when you revealed the pattern of his boxers. You laughed, and he turned his head away. But you weren’t making fun of him. You actually thought it was cute. He found the rhythm again when you said nerds were hot and slid your hand underneath the trademarked waistband.

Truly, it was embarrassing for you, too. You loved how smart he was, how sweet and funny he was, but there was something alongside all those innocently attractive qualities that made you want him to fuck you stupid. He’s lean and a little scrawny, but preseason lacrosse conditioning and the years of lacrosse behind that built muscle. His eyes, his surprised smile when he found out how far you’d let him go, but his happy trail was something that had always driven you crazy. That was sort of your inspiration that night. Seeing him stretch, the trail peeking out from under his shirt, cut off by his sweatpants. Physically, it was one of your top five favorite things about him. You remember when you first told him that, asking if you could do something about that. He literally whimpered when you pressed your tongue below his navel, kissing while he tried to get some unnecessary words out. Stuttering over every other syllable, he eventually gave up to admire the view of you damn near staring at his v-line, hyper-fixated. He brushed his fingers through your hair. Another thing you loved: his hands. In your hair, holding his hand, tracing his palm, playing with his fingers, putting them in your mouth, when he makes his own use of them for you, of course. Stiles brushed your hair through his fingers away from your forehead so that he could see your eyes, focused on your own hands all over him. He felt a little awkward, but with you so fixated, what was the point?

True, he hadn’t really called you for this, at least not this time. You had come over to help, just to help with research. And this wasn’t for focus or relaxation. You wanted to try something new, something he couldn’t get himself over his head in. You told him to just sit down and look pretty. He listened. He sort of didn’t know what to do with his hands. They ended up midair, hovering over your head, frozen and awkward, until you flattened your tongue on the underside of his cock, and they dropped limply to his sides. As quickly as they fell, they regained their energy and gripped his blankets. You made a sound around that had him mixing up moans with breaths and stuttering your name all at once.

The next day, you both had finally actually gotten to work. Stiles’s clothes seemed to find their way into your hands, onto your body. Of course, they were comfortable, but it was that little bit more that made you feel closer to him. Trying to define a symbol, Stiles tripped over himself to get you the books you needed, to get to the computer, to hand you your notebook. He ran his hands along your waist, no doubt reminiscing on how he had you twisting in pleasure. It was strange. He was attentive to you but laser-focused on the material, like when the doctors finally hit the sweet spot dosage of Adderall for his hyper mind. You got a lot done, too. Both of you seemed to reach a perfect equilibrium that had you making calls to spread the successful research. Bedtime was undetermined until Stiles looped his arm around your waist and pulled you into bed with him, pressing his lips to the back of your neck and leaving them there. You wouldn’t realize until morning that Stiles had put his hand underneath the waistband of the stormtrooper boxers of his you were wearing, palm flat against your lower stomach.

[11queensupreme11]

I have funny scenarios

Imagine Percy children having a babysitter like when Percy leaving for like vacation and the yanderes are too busy oh boy the por babysitter

And also salut to Proteus for staying sane for this long by take caring all posy children PERIOD ✨😤

here's a list of babysitters of who percy and the yans would trust to watch over their babies while they're gone doing whatever 🥺

anuby's list:

ra. percy insisted on this and anubis threw a whole tantrum before she soothed him with kisses 😅

isis. anubis' pick. she's his mom (well stepmom really) and he loves her and trusts her to take care of their kids! plus, she's always been his go-to when it came to kebi too!

sécy's list:

lugh and that's it 💀 cú chulainn finds his dad cringy and obnoxious but he's literally the only one he trusts because of how many fucking enemies he's made 😭 he makes an extra demand for his dad to make sure his daughters stay INSIDE the palace and to keep watch over them 24/7 💀💀💀💀

posy's list:

proteus 💀 just him. not even his MOM is number 1 lmaooooo

rhea! this is percy's choice for obvious reasons. poseidon didn't want this because he's 99.99% sure his mom won't give them back 😭

adamas. also percy's choice. poseidon vehemently refuses, but percy INSISTED because uncle adamas is the best 😤

hestia. also percy's choice! poseidon was actually okay with this

poki's list:

thor! percy had to make him PROMISE not to fight her kids though just cuz he wanted to test out their strength. they're her babies! they've never even held a weapon!

odin! only below thor cuz he has his duties and isn't always available.

hel! loki's daughter and percy's stepdaughter. hel is very responsible unlike her father (lmao) so ofc both loki and percy trusts her!

beelcy's list:

so uh..... beel's friends are all dead LMAO 💀 so he literally just entrusts his flies to watch over them. they're his slaves after all, so he knows they'll get the job done and inform him INSTANTLY should something happen. plus, he can see through their eyes so that's a huge plus

percades' list:

rhea ofc! hades 10000% trusts his mother to be an excellent babysitter, she's the titaness of motherhood after all!

hestia! another good and gentle soul that both percy and hades trust

adamas! again, both hades and percy agree to him as well so this was an easy pick

cerberus 😂 more of a last resort tbh since he can't really.... speak.... but he's a good boy!

perpollo's list:

artemis!!!!! that's his big sister and she's a protector of childen too!

leto! ofc apollo would trust his mom 🥺

heracles!!!!!! he's the kids' favorite uncle tbh lol

ares! he may be the god of war, but he IS a decent dude lmao. definitely enjoys having the perpollo kids around

aaaand here's percy's own list, it consists of gods AND humans lmao:

adam

adamas

prometheus

mnemosyne

brunhilde

rhea

hestia

tesla

jack

proteus (only for posy kids tho)

heracles

shiva

buddha

sun wukong

ra

NO:

zeus

zeus

zeus

qin shi huang

and zeus

[arsquare]

Happy Valentine's Day!

This is my Heishin Exchange piece (event hosted by @heishinvalentineexchange2025) for oreganocactus on Ao3! The prompt I used was: "heishin yuri would be awesome…i love explorations of how gender would affect how characters behave/change so that would be cool :)"

Thoughts and process under the cut!

And also an NSFW sketch at the very bottom btw. as a treat for clicking on the readmore

So originally I had wanted to do a comic retelling the Murdered Diplomat Case Except They're Both Girls This Time AKA Heiji's debut case, but I got about 8 pages into the storyboards before I realized it would be impossible within the exchange's time frame. The Murdered Diplomat case is really really long, even if I cut everything about the case out LMAO... here's what I had if anyone is curious!

It was already sprawling by my standards here. We're on page 8 and Heiji has nary shown her face in the Mouri Detective Agency (also boy Kazuha is there? The part with the details of the case was supposed to be sort of timelapsed through a bunch of texts Kazuha sent Heiji because he was worried about where she was) So in my desperation I tried redoing it from page 7 to be more concise:

This was the point where I was officially like yeah this is not happening this is going to take one william pages at this rate and I just am not going to have the time to do that!! So I scrapped it and started working on the final product you see up there.

(BTW IT'S REAL!! about 80-90% of the comic actually exists in the real world!! I actually drew and inked it physically this time!)

I had really WANTED to retell the Murdered Diplomat Case because I would have been able to totally recontextualize Heiji and Shinichi's relationship, because I do think it would have been kind of different.

For one, I think Heiji's adoration of Shinichi would have had a more desperate quality to it. Between the two of them, Shinichi is definitely the more self-assured one of the two. With her laissez-faire parents who just does whatever they want, I'm sure they would have been fine with letting Shinichi pursue her detective dreams (though I'm sure Yukiko's even more sad about Shinichi not being a child actress </3 whatever though who cares about that), and so she's more confident that it's something she can be.

Heiji on the other hand comes from a more traditional family. I think her parents would highly disapprove of her detective pursuits, and as a result she becomes a more rebellious child-- but one who harbors a deep insecurity about whether she's doing the right thing or not, even if she knows she wants it.

When Shinichi vanishes off the radar, it's more than just a person that Heiji's developed an intense parasocial relationship with going off the grid, it's an entire nail in the coffin of the idea that being a female high school detective is something that's possible at all. That's why she's so desperate to find Shinichi-- she needs assurance that this hiatus that Shinichi is taking is not because society or the world put her into her place and made her quit doing this, but because of... something else. It has to be something else.

This I think would really bleed into how Heiji ends up treating Conan. In canon Heiji's super dismissive of Conan, initially only treating his as a nuisance on the crime scene before he figures out that he's Shinichi, despite the fact he no doubt was in those shoes a decade ago. But because of the continual pushback from her parents, the officers on the scene, and friends (cough boy kazuha), the struggle of being treated like she isn't supposed to be there on the crime scene is much fresher in her mind. She sees herself in Conan much more than he does in canon.

So I guess all I'm saying is that I think Heiji would have been nicer to Conan in my retelling LOLLL

As for what's going on in the comic I actually posted... well, you know, this wasn't my first choice precisely because I don't think it's necessarily gendered as much? Like, I can see this playing out if they were both still guys as well, maybe even more. After all, girls in general are more able to be physically affectionate with each other while suffering fewer consequences.

At the same time though I think Shinichi has an intense "not like other girls" thing going on. This whole thing is actually a subset of my genderbend universe where the whole teenage cast gets swapped and actually it was originally me just wanting girl Shinichi to comfort boy Ran (but badly because she's lowkey kinda autistic and not great at that...) as his parents got divorced LMAOOO. But anyways it would mean that Shinichi's closest friends are... Sonoko and Ran? Who are both guys...

So I think she would intentionally distance herself from that physical affection girls are able to have. She feels like if she indulges in that, then everyone else will take her less seriously and think "oh she's just a girl after all" and all the negative connotations of not being as capable or as smart as she actually is. In my head, she associates physical affection with being manhandled as a kid.

Another thing I kind of waffled on was... what should Heiji and Shinichi call each other? And maybe it's a bit of a weird choice for them to still refer to each other by last name but like. Hear me out.

I think to refer to each other by their last names is a token of respect, especially from Heiji to Shinichi. He keeps slipping up in canon and accidentally calling him Kudo, and while I do agree that part of it is him being careless and possibly inconsiderate to some degree, I also think... he really wants to call him Kudo? Like, this is someone he deeply respects. He wants to be professional equals to him more than he wants to be friends at the start, but never was able to actually GET that kind of relationship due to contrived circumstances of Shinichi getting shrunk. He can't call Conan "Edogawa", that's weird as fuck, so he has to wait until Conan's back to being Shinichi to even begin calling him "Kudo" for real. I think he'd really relish it, as a long-time-coming kind of thing, and I don't think it's any different as girls. In fact I'd argue it's even more intense because of that.

These two characters are both in such an intense hurry to grow up. Hell, Shinichi even dislikes it in canon when his mother calls him Shin-chan, and I think it's because he feels like this diminishes his self-perception as a "grown person". All the more since they're girls: I think this type of affectionate, diminutive name-calling would have been used against them to try to coax them away from crime scenes they wanted to be at. Like, "Oh, come on~ You're just a little girl, you shouldn't be here, Hei-chan~", something like that.

I think this is sort of an implicitly understood undercurrent that lies between them. If we have nobody else in the world who respects us we at least have each other. So when Heiji tries to push their relationship a bit, tries to become more than just friends, Shinichi sees this as a betrayal in some ways. Even if she rationally knows that Heiji isn't trying to belittle her, she can't help but conflate her recent experiences as a little girl again with how Heiji treats her now in the comic.

This whole thing could have been avoided if Heiji was more straightforward about her intentions btw but of course see above careless and possibly inconsiderate PLUS he's also kind of a tsundere character like everyone in detco when it comes to the person he likes so. inevitable... </3

Anyways thank you for reading all of this nonsense. Originally this comic was going to be longer and like, (this is a grossly incompetent summary,) they'd have a yuri makeout session in the Kudo Mansion Study. But we can't have good things in this world because there's not enough time so I only have this to show for :(((

I hope everyone likes it 👍️

[lunaatthezoo]

You have made me yours | Azriel's wedding vows

Read Elain's vows here.

Elain,

If only I could show you all the ways you've saved me.

I loved you from the first moment you looked at me with nothing but quiet curiosity in your stunning eyes. You looked at me and saw me. Not a monster, not a spy, not a torturer, not a bastard, not a warrior. You saw straight into my core, Elain, and you never looked away. I loved you then and I love you now, and I will love you every day for the rest of my immortal existence because there is no one but you now.

When you asked me if I could truly fly, I knew I would never find rest again until I took you in my arms and showed you the song of the wind. I saw your eyes light, and I saw you yearn for the wind as I do. I wondered if you, as myself, had no true home in the world but the wind. And a miniscule piece of me, buried so deep down I thought it was lost, wondered if we could be each other’s homes in that brief moment you looked into my eyes. 

I thought the fates had damned me to fall in love with someone who was both a mortal and who was promised to another. And then I thought the fates had damned me once more when the Cauldron promised you to another. That infinitesimal speck of hope I had felt when you looked in my eyes withered. 

But you showed me, time and time again, how to find hope in the darkness. 

And now here we are together after all these years. Somehow you’ve become as much mine as the shadows are. And I yours. I would say I don’t know how it happened, but I do. It was you- all you. Your courage and your strength are what brought us here. As you always have, as you always will, you surprised me. You showed me- you showed us all- that strength does not need to be loud. Strength does not need to be bloody. You showed us that strength can be quiet, and subtle, and delicate, and soft. A strength born from courage, rather than force.

You used your rare, extraordinary strength and courage to show us all that we can define ourselves by our choices, rather than what fate has dealt us. You did something none of us has ever been strong or brave enough to do: you defied the fates when you chose this. When you chose us. And you will always be stronger than me, braver than me, as you speak your truth amongst a world of lies, defying every expectation that has ever been thrust upon you with your delicate, lovely grace. 

That delicate, lovely grace, your quiet courage, your soft, unending strength- they have all saved me from the darkness like a lullaby saves a child’s sleep from nightmares. The exquisite way you move through the world is my absolution from a life of violence and hatred.

When I met you, my hands were covered in scars and blood. Now, they are also covered in you. And that has changed everything within me. 

Your touch, your truth, your love, your light, have breathed new life into me. I don't think I knew what it was to be alive before you, not really. I have lived a long, long life in the darkness. Far beyond my father’s keep. A life so long and so dark I would have welcomed its end. I would have felt only relief. But now, against all odds, I want to live. Because of you. For you. With you. 

You shine your light on everyone so graciously, so generously, without expecting anything in return. Everything you touch becomes infinitely more beautiful, more worthy, more alive. And the fact that I am included in that has saved me- unchained me- in every way possible. 

Your presence is like the sun rising over a dewy field of wildflowers at the break of dawn, beckoning me to lay down amongst the blooms and become lost to the world. Promising me that I will be okay, against all odds. Gifting me with hope. Gifting me with a warmth and light that I seldom felt but often craved as a child, that I never thought I would deserve or have. You are what I always needed and could never find or ask for. But here you are.

Your touch is my salvation.

Your gaze is my home. 

Your arms are my sanctuary.

Your heart is my afterlife.

There is nothing without you. 

So if the stars and the Mother are listening, my love, I want them to hear my promises. To write them into eternity in the spaces between galaxies.

My beautiful, strong, kindhearted Elain,

I will protect you with every fiber of my being, with every last drop of strength I possess. I would shed my own and others’ blood a thousand times over before letting any harm come to you. Though you have shown time and time again that you can protect yourself and the lives of those you love, you have my blade and shield regardless. They are yours until the end of my days.

I will care for you in every way someone can be cared for. Your heart. Your spirit. Your desires. I will make it all possible for you, Elain. Nothing is too small or too large. Ask for it all, my love. I will find a way to give it to you. 

I will take you in my arms and fly you to the most beautiful corners of every realm. While no beauty in any reality could compare to you yourself, I will take you to them just to watch your eyes as you look upon them. For you have taught me how to find beauty in every corner. When I offered you my hand all that time ago, and you deemed my scars beautiful, you changed me. And it changes me a little bit more every time I get to see the world through your eyes. So I will fly you to those places, to watch your presence transform them into something impossibly more beautiful. To revel in you, reveling in their beauty. 

I will support you in every dream, in every adventure, in every new leaf you turn. There is no version of you I could not love with everything that I am. There is no path you could take that I wouldn't follow you down. Choosing this you means choosing every you, in every world, in every lifetime. 

I will sit in the garden and drink tea with you until we are withered and hunched with age. Until new borders have been drawn and new planets named. Until new history books have been written and new legends have been penned. 

You have given me something to hold beyond desperate hopes. You have given me something to wield beyond violence. You have planted wildflowers in the darkest spaces of me- the spaces that held my deepest shames, my heaviest fears. 

When I felt those flowers breaking through the dark stain within me, letting sun into those cracks for the first time in centuries, I knew. I knew your love and your devotion and your never-fading beauty of heart and mind and body had saved me. 

Thank you for loving me. Thank you for choosing me. Thank you for saving me. I will spend the rest of my days loving and choosing and- gods help anyone who tries to touch you- saving you in return. 

So let it be written in the spaces between galaxies. I will be yours until my body has returned to the earth and I am nothing but ashes feeding the wildflowers. Beyond then. Even when not a soul traveling the realms remembers either of our names, I will be yours. Even when the sun swallows the planet, I will be yours. 

For you have made me yours, eternally.

Read Elain's vows here.

Read on Ao3.

[kxtsukixoxo]

“sit on my lap” for denkiiii ^_^

authors note - nothing. i have nothing to say.

here’s the valentine’s day event, there’s still prompts available!! ⊹. warnings - nsfw content

“there’s….no space” you muttered as you peeked into the backseat of katsuki’s car, you guys clearly didn’t think this through, squeezing four people in the back really wasn’t going to work out, sero squeezed himself inbetween the door and mina, and a bunch of luggage in the middle, with denki on the other end of the huge wall. eijiro sighed in the front seat as katsuki shook his head, “js make it work will ya?” 

denki looked at you shyly, what was he supposed to do? and the fact he had the fattest crush on you didn’t help one bit. you were supposed to squeeze yourself next to him, your soft sweet skin touching his, giving him a clear view of your cleavage from your low-cut top, the thought of it made him all hot and bothered. 

denki had no idea when his mouth decided to pry open and spit out the words, “sit on my lap” but oh god did he regret it. you were left with no other choice than to sit on denki kaminari’s lap. 

“i’m sorry if i’m hurting you” you turned your head away, avoiding eye contact, 

“n-no you’re not!!” that was the least of denki’s worries right now, he was trying so hard not to focus on how perfect your tits sat, your pudgy thighs peaking out from underneath the skirt you chose to wear today, resting ontop of him, the feral need to grab them and squeeze the life out of them, knead them like dough, oh you were driving so mad. 

“bathroom break!! get the fuck out and refresh your stank asses!” katsuki screamed as he got out of the car himself, eijiro followed suite, sero yawning behind him, mina yawned getting up aswell. 

just as you were about to get up, you felt denki grip onto your hand “stay-“ you were confused, worried, what’s up with him? denki’s breath fanned against your ear as he pulled you closer, his hands rested on your thighs “tell me if you want me to stop” the cool air leaving his mouth, sent shivers down your spine. denki’s fingers reached underneath your skirt, palming your clothed cunt, his fingers teased your slit through your underwear as you covered your mouth in an attempt to bottle any noise that left your lips. 

“we’re back!!!” mina squealed, “we need to get back on the road, we still have another five hours  left” 

denki’s fingers didn’t leave from where they were, instead he continued, the luggage obstructing anyone from seeing the erotic sight, right before their eyes. your head fell back as denki’s fingers slipped past your underwear, running his finger up your slit, collecting your sticky slick with just two fingers, shoving it back into you as he teased your entrance with just the tip of his fingers, your hands travelled underneath your skirt to remove your underwear, denki’s curiosity grew, finally figuring out what you were doing as he watched you stuff your mouth with your slick coated panties, denki worked his fingers slowly into you, your muffled moans drowned by the music mina had playing loudly, everybody was oblivious. 

denki pumped his fingers inside you as you shuffled slowly, about to come undone. the giant surfboard infront of you and denki, obstructing katsuki and eijiros of the both of you in the backseat, “hey you two alright there?” eijiro asked, curious about the shuffling, “yeah!! all good!! (y/n)’s just adjusting!!” denki forced out, “haha, alright!” eijiro gave him a cheery smile, one that he couldn’t see of course. 

 you gripped onto eijiros arm, nailing digging into his skin as you tried not to rock your hips, denki finger-fucked you through your orgasm, his arm

wrapped around your waist, restraining too much movement out of you. pulling his fingers out, licking your fingers clean, his eyes never leaving yours. 

“we’re here!!” 

[zaundads]

Ultimate Zaundads Quote guides

All the important Zaundads Quotes

I was reading this post on iconic couple quotes and I realized that this is kinda hard for Zaundads considering they have like two scenes where they actually talk to each other. So it's hard not to do "well, just everything". Still, here are all the best ones, highlightes for my faves.

"I trusted you. And you betrayed me."

"I'll show you what you really are."

"I hated you, but you kept my respect."

"I hated you for what you'd done. But as time passed, so did my hate. "

"What I did to you… I've never forgiven myself."

"Greatest thing we can do in life is find the power to forgive."

"What's the point if we can't raise an ankle biter or two?"

"We shared a vision, Vander. A dream of freedom. Not just for the Lanes, but the whole of the underground, united as one. The nation of Zaun. Do you even remember?"

"I had no choice." - "Perhaps. But now you do. Shimmer. We have the power. We can finally realize our dream,"

"Silco. Let her go. This is between you and me." - "You had your chance."

"You'd die for the cause, but you won't fight for one? "

"I knew you still had it in you."

"Ever wonder what it's like to drown? Story of opposites. There's peace in water. Like it's holdin' you, whisperin' in low tones to let it in. And every problem in the world will fade away. But then there's this thing… …in your head, and it's raging. Lighting every nerve with madness. To fight. To survive. And all the while, this question lingers before you: "Have you had enough?" It's funny. You could pass a lifetime without ever facing a choice like that. But it changes you forever. For that, I thank you… old friend."

"Oh, it all makes sense now, brother."

"A thousand times I've imagined this moment. Never like this. All we ever wanted."

"You hear that, Bozo 2? We made it. We're done. Oh, you're sadly mistaken. I'm Bozo 1."

"I've looked everywhere, but… it's clear you don't wanna be found. God, I'm shit at this. I'm sorry. When she died, I lost my head. I told myself what I did to you was for the greater good, that you deserved it. But the dirt was on both our hands. Anyway, you know where to find me. Blisters and bedrock. V."

"If he found this, everything might have been different."

Bonus "indirect quotes"

"Benzo, stay back. […] Wait!" (Vander not wanting Benzo to attack Silco)

"We had nothing. You know what bore us through those times? Loyalty. Brothers and sisters back-to-back against whatever the world threw at us. Now I'm forced to share the air with parasites like you, who leach off their legacies."

"Tonight a harebrained scheme these two bozos cooked up to turn a dank crack in the earth into a thriving, healthy community became a reality."

"So there's a chance for us yet." (Silco to Vander in 2x07)

Merchant: "This is vile." Vander: "You'll learn to love it." (Vander about Zaunite tobacco)

"There's worse things than enforcers out there." (Vander about ?? Silco? Other Zaunite criminals? )

"Fear haunts us all, child." (Silco about ?? The dreams he has about Vander drowning him?)

"Betrayal, that pain that feels like it'll eat you from the inside out,"

"You two are gonna figure this Zaun thing out. I don't care if you have to carve it out of the bedrock, covered in blisters. You're not allowed to fail anymore."

"Nearly forgot. I ran into an old friend of yours. He had some stories. You weren't always the peacekeeper, were you? - Yeah, well, you can't escape the past. Right?"" (Marcus and Vander about Silco)

"You told me a million times. [...] Blah, blah, blah [...]" (Jinx complaining about just how often Silco talks about Vander)

"Silco thinks he made Jinx, with all his rants and his hard-won lessons. "Excise your doubts, Jinx." "Be what they fear, Jinx." Like everything was the same as when Vander left him."

Did I forget any? What is your ultimate Silco and Vander quote?

Bonus:

Full dialogue of selected scenes under the cut:

Silco and Vander in 1x03: S: It's a little crude, I'll admit. The base violence necessary for change. But we both know topside won't listen to anything else. V: Even with your monsters, you won't win a war against Piltover. S: I don't have to. I just need to scare them. They won't dare set foot in the underground again. V: You'll get people killed. For what? Pride? S: For respect. Opportunity. Everything they've denied us. V: You had my respect. The Lanes' respect, but that… that was never enough for you. S: We shared a vision, Vander. A dream of freedom. Not just for the Lanes, but the whole of the underground, united as one. The nation of Zaun. Do you even remember? I trusted you. And you betrayed me. V: What I did to you… I've never forgiven myself. You were my brother. S: No, you still don't understand. Can you imagine what it's like? When your blood mixes with the filth and the river toxins eat through your nerves. Oh, I hated you for what you'd done. But as time passed, so did my hate. And I was left with an understanding. The only way to defeat a superior enemy is to stop at nothing. To become what they fear. I hated you, but you kept my respect. Until you made peace with them. Played lapdog after everything we suffered. V: I had no choice. S: Perhaps. But now you do. Shimmer. We have the power. We can finally realize our dream, brother. V: Look at what you've done. Benzo. These kids. In fighting topside, you'd sacrifice everything that we are. It's not the way. Can't you see that? kill me if you have to, but please spare the Lanes. S: You'd die for the cause, but you won't fight for one? V: I'm just… not that man anymore. S: I'll show you what you really are.

Jinx and Silco 1x05:

S: I almost drowned in these waters. J: You told me a million times. S:Vander wasn't the man you thought he was. J: Right, he was like a brother to you, and he turned his back and blah, blah, blah. Did I miss anything? S: I've got a new one for you. That day, I let a weak man die. And another was reborn. Betrayal, that pain that feels like it'll eat you from the inside out, can either break you or forge you into something greater. You need to let Powder die. So the fear of pain will no longer control you. You're strong now. Just like you were always meant to be. Jinx is perfect.

Silco vs Chembarons 1x07: Have you forgotten where we came from? The mines they had us in? Air so thick it clogged your throat. Stuck in your eyes. But I pulled you all up from the depths. Offered you a taste of topside. And fresh air. I gave you life. Purpose. But you've grown fat and complacent. Too much time in the sun. We came from a world where there was never enough to go around, Finn. That is why we fight. Do you remember?

Silco vs Finn 2x09: S: I'm busy. F: When you took Vander out of play, I thought, "Now here's a man who understands what it takes to run an enterprise." The attitude, the instinct, the eye. The whole package, you were. Always two steps ahead. But time's lapped you, old man. S: You're with him, are you? F: You screwed up, Silco. S: You're too young to remember what the undercity was before it became an "enterprise".We had nothing. You know what bore us through those times? Loyalty. Brothers and sisters back-to-back against whatever the world threw at us. Now I'm forced to share the air with parasites like you, who leach off their legacies. F: Today's the day you die, Silco. S: That's a risk I've known all my life. But I still believe in loyalty.

Silco at the Vander statue: S: A thousand times I've imagined this moment. Never like this. All we ever wanted. The boy didn't even haggle. And what do I lose but problems? Oh, it all makes sense now, brother. Is there anything so undoing as a daughter?