#ignoring my current projects

[amethystwrytes]

-If I Had Asked-

Pairing: Jungkook x genderless reader

Genre: Romantic. Hurt. Comfort. Fluff. Exes to lovers. Oneshot.

Summary: Jungkook wants to catch up at a mutual friends birthday party.

Warnings: Language. Alcohol consumption and marijuana use.

Inspired by this prompt.

WC: 1.5K

Jungkook weaves in and out of the throng of people in the small apartment. Seokjin had insisted on a small party, but as usual he’d gotten carried away and vastly overestimated the capacity of his flat.

Jungkook can pretend to be outgoing, a crowd lover, if the occasion calls for it, but in truth he feels like his skin is crawling every time he brushes up against a stranger. Normally he would’ve left after wishing his elder a happy birthday and leaving his present, a compilation book of Marvels 100 best comics, on the counter.

However, he has it on good authority that Seokjin invited you here tonight, and that you’d said yes.

Jungkook hasn’t seen you since you packed your shit and left his apartment over a year ago. You hadn’t been the least bit unserious when you told him you were done, you really had been. It took Jungkook a long time to realize that he probably should’ve gone after you. Too long. By the time it had occurred to him, six months had passed, you were seeing someone else, and his window had closed.

He was immature with you, and maybe a year doesn’t make anyone wiser, but he’s learned a lot since then. Like how prioritizing everything over you because he just assumed you’d always be around was his biggest mistake.

His third circle of Jins apartment has him wondering if Namjoon had been wrong - you actually had no plans to come. Then he hears it. He would know your laugh in any universe. If he were in a coma he’d still hear it. It makes his heart ache.

You’re out on the terrace. A vodka cranberry, that’s probably more cranberry than anything, in one hand, a joint in the other. You’re chatting with Jimin, probably catching up, but like an invisible string is tethered, you turn your head and make eye contact with Jungkook through the glass. He see's you tense up for just a second, then you turn back to Jimin, looking like you're about to make a quick exit.

He can't have that.

Jungkook shimmies through the crowd and slides through the door. Jimin notices the change in the very air out on the terrace.

"Jungkook, long time no see," he says, trying to keep it light and charming, but the thick cloud of awkward is expanding by the second.

You look over the terrace out into the darkness, taking a long drag off the joint and blowing it into the air.

"Yeah," Jungkook shrugs, "I've been working a lot, not really had the energy for hanging out."

"For sure," Jimin nods. Then silence ensues. The noise from the party, lulled by the closed terrace door buzzes and beckons. "I'm going to go find Seokjin, see how drunk he is," Jimin jokes and the two of you offer up some forced laughter.

"Here," you say, handing him the joint, "I think I'm good."

Jimin takes it, offers it briefly to Jungkook who shakes his head no, then places it between his lips before retreating indoors like the terrace is on fire.

"Hi," Jungkook finally says.

"Hey there," you reply.

"Why is this so uncomfortable?" he laughs, taking the spot beside you to look out into the night. City lights dot the horizon like blinking stars and he focuses on one that seems to flash on and off every couple of seconds.

"I don't know," you finally answer, "I think these things are always awkward."

"What things?"

"Seeing your ex at a party for the first time since splitting," you clarify. "Though you'd think a years time would've papered over some of those cracks."

"I'm sorry," Jungkook offers, the list of things he owes you an apology for is too long though, "Sorry for letting a year go by without speaking."

"It's fine," you say flatly. "How have you been? Seeing anyone?" you mentally slap yourself for adding that last bit. That opens up a whole conversation that you'd rather not have.

"I've been fine, I guess. Kind of just going through the motions of life, really. Neutral I suppose is the best way to describe it," he says, "and no. I was seeing someone for a bit, but...I don't know. It just fizzled out as quick as it started."

"That's too bad," you say, though you don't sound the least bit interested. You take another sip of your drink and you wish you'd asked Jin for an extra shot of vodka now.

"How's Taehyung? I didn't see him tonight," Jungkook wonders, waits for your answer with bated breath.

"He uh..." you chuckle dryly looking into your cup, "He's in Japan. Took a promotion in the company but had to relocate. He asked me to go...but..."

"You didn't?" Jungkook finishes. "Why not?"

"You know how ill my grandma is," you smile sadly, "I didn't think it was a good idea to leave."

"Are they not taking good care of her at the assisted living place?"

"They are," you nod, "but still."

"So, did you guys like, break up? Or are you doing the long distance thing?" he presses.

"Is this why you came out here? To ask me if I'm still seeing Taehyung?" you wonder, not bothering to hide the confusion or irritation.

Jungkook shakes his head, "I came out here to just talk, ___. That's what I'm doing."

You sigh. "No. We're not doing the long distance thing. We decided it would be better if we ended it, well, he decided," you laugh bitterly. "Though to be fair I think it was less of a 'hard versus easy’ issue, and more of a 'he wanted to be able to fuck whomever he wanted without having to feel guilty for it' issue."

"I'm sorry," Jungkook offers genuinely.

"Why?" you snap your head over to him, "I figured you'd be pleased with that outcome. After all I basically did the same thing to you."

"You didn't dump me so you could fuck other people without feeling guilty," he reminds you, then after a long pause adds, "Right?"

You laugh. "No, that's not why I broke up with you."

"You weren't happy," he says.

"I felt like I was your parent, you treated me like someone who was supposed to cater to your every need and like my job, my dreams were second to yours. That made me unhappy. That wasn't very fair."

"No, it wasn't. I acted like that because that's what I thought a grown up relationship was, that's what I wanted it to be."

"That's unhealthy," you tell him.

"I know," he nods, "and you told me that then as well."

"You never seemed to hear me," you recall. "That's why I left."

"I know," he nods, "You weren't the villain, but I made you into one for a long time. I've always been taken care of, with my family, with my friends - I'm always the one taken care of, and it took me a long time to grow out of that. To realize that a relationship is partnership, you hear people say it all the time but it's easy to gloss over what that really means. I should've realized then, I should've heard you, but instead I just acted stupid, clueless."

"Thank you. That means a lot," you say, trying to fend off the tears.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"If I had asked, would you have stayed?" he looks at you, faces his whole body toward you so you do the same.

You think about it for a moment then shrug, "You didn't ask Jungkook. So I guess we'll never know."

You finish off your drink and turn the empty plastic cup over in your hand. "I need to go throw this away. I should really get going anyway."

He stands there defeated and nods.

"It was good seeing you Jungkook," you lay your hand on his shoulder, "Take care of yourself."

He stands there, listens as you slide the glass door, the dulled party buzzes to life, then lulls back out again, signaling you've made it inside and left him out on the terrace alone.

"Wait!" he yells, turning on his heels and pulling the heavy door. "___! Wait!"

You stop and turn towards his voice, along with the entire room. Everyone goes silent as they all look between the two of you.

"I'm asking now," he says, disregarding the audience.

You stare at him, skin hot from the gazes around the room. You rake your hand through your hair, letting it fall like a curtain around your face.

Jungkook crosses the room, eliminating the open stage that your interaction has turned into. He walks you back into a hallway that leads to Jins bedroom and bath. He backs you all the way up to the wall, his tattooed arms caging you in, shielding you from the onlookers who slowly, but surely, turn back into their own conversations.

"Are you drunk?" you ask.

"What?"

"Are you drunk?" you repeat, breathlessly.

"No," he shakes his head, "I had a coke, I have to be at work in the morning."

You nod. Your hands find purchase on his forearms and you uncage yourself, your fingertips sliding down his arm, tracing over your favorite, familiar ink, then intertwine with his.

You look up into his dark brown eyes, and smile, "Then drive me home."

[14dayswithyou]

💖 Day 3.5 is now available! 💖

For the last couple of months, only Server Boosters had access to the 3.5 update... Buuuuut now it's available for everyone to play in the 14DWY Discord — and soon itch.io once I'm happy with the QA and state of the game — so please don't feel pressured to join unless you want to!!

The full devlog + even more screenshots are under the cut ^^

What's been added to the 3.5 version?

📺 Streamer Mode!

I've been told that it's difficult to stream and monetise age-restricted videos on YouTube and Twitch, so I added an option to remove the sexual content and strong language used in the demo.

Now y'all can invite Ren into your bed for cuddles without putting your streamer career on the line /silly /lh

This won't affect the 18+ rating or dark themes/elements of the game, however! Although Streamer Mode will prevent you from seeing any "gruesome" CGs in the future, most of the core elements of the game will still be tied to the choices and decisions you make. So you won't miss out on the overall experience by using streamer mode!!

⚙️ Custom Pronouns!

It only took me one entire year to get around to it, but you can finally choose your own preferred pronouns (or use a set of pronouns instead)... At the cost of being able to change them mid-game ^^;

Since the original pronoun screen wouldn't update until a new scene was displayed, I temporarily disabled the feature. But once I find a workaround, I'll bring it back!

💗 Choose how others perceive you!

You can now choose how the cast and narration perceive you! Originally, the narration was kept strictly gender-neutral (outside of pronouns and genitalia picked by the player), but this will soon change in future updates.

For more clarity: you don't get to choose the words specifically, but you can choose between masculine, feminine, and androgynous terms!

📋 Separate top and bottom genitalia!

You can now choose your tatas and pps separately! >:3

Alongside that, you can also choose your preferred body type!

I removed the "both" genitalia option because a few players still assumed it was an obscure version of "intersex". That wasn't my intention and I don't want to mislead anyone, so I took it out for now ^^;

I also didn't want to include a screenshot of the new genitalia choices in action (because it's NSFW), so y'all get the same character menu screen for the nth time instead lmao

📱 Relationship Screen Overhaul!

You can now change your own status for more immersion, and long-term Server Boosters will eventually be able to submit and use their own icon within the game as well!

Stalking finding your friends has now become easier by using "Buddy Maps"; a new app that allows you to see the location of all the cast members!

I want to offer players more incentive to check the relationship screen since they tend to miss the status updates, so hopefully this might help ;v;

It also says it "updates every few hours" so folks don't go overboard and check every 5 seconds to see where Ren is gdsghf (also keep in mind that he's a hacker lol)

🖤 Additional Scenes Update!

Day 2 received a brand new CG!!!!! Originally, I planned on only adding a few CGs sporadically throughout the game, but it didn't feel right to leave Day 2 so... empty... so I added a brand new CG to (hopefully) make things feel more balanced and natural!

If you decline Teo's offer on Day 3, Leon will now call and try to convince you to reconsider. However, players are still allowed to decline, and if they do, they'll reach a dead end.

After listening to feedback on itch, I changed some of the dialogue during Days 1-3 to make it seem more consistent! They're only small changes though, so it's honestly not worth looking for sdgjssga

🎶 Updated BGM and SFX!

I wanted to try out a different style of music to see if it fits the vibe of 14DWY more! The BGM features more acoustics to suit the "beachy" theme of Corland Bay, though I made a conscious effort to include piano elements as well to stay true to the original!!

I figured it'd be better to give players a live example before I make a poll (to see if they prefer the change or not) and publish it to Itch.

Some new SFX have also been added, though it's very minimal and honestly not that noticeable.

How to download and play the update?

(warning: clicking on the following links will open Discord!!) To download the Day 3.5 update, simply join the 14DWY Discord server, verify your age, and visit the "14dwy-updates" channel!

Alternatively, you can also wait until the update is publicly released on Itch to play it as well!! (It normally gets released shortly after a round of QA testing/getting feedback from the server, though I may release it earlier if I feel like it hehe ^^)

Enjoy!!

[rustingcat]

My yearly redraw!

Can you believe it's been two years already?

Thank you everyone who shared and interacted with my art. Your love and support inspire me to create and improve every day♥️

[chrometheraptor]

hrhgrhrhtjtvrjrhr everybody go read project hail mary Right Now

[tass3l]

heartbreaking! this man got attached to a character who is doomed no matter what

[typheus]

Whatever power outages aside. Here's the back panel on the mint chocolate chip cardigan so far!

[moonchild-in-blue]

I haven't really done much art for tumblr (at all) lately, cus life, but! Here's a lil something I've been working on (it's a Xmas gift) 💙

(also peep that lil January calendar painting 👀 i did mini squares for each month for myself, because I need to have a physical one always, and they each have their own colour 🥺)

[amplexadversary]

Man, there's a lot of very pretty neopets site art and a lot of very nice fanart out there that makes me really nostalgic,

But god damn am I glad I stopped playing.

That game had so much shit that was hard to get and a ton of pointless mechanics when I left,

And that was before the whole fucking conversion drama, and annoying monetization, and oh god that economy, and a ton of art added that was just really poorly done, and I could go on.

I'm much happier being on a pet site* that only really has the three recurring pillars of drama and is very forgiving about gameplay and avoiding FOMO and such.

*yeah it's technically a distinct but related category of site but it scratches the same itch and I'm making a point damn it.

[bittersweetblasphemy]

look. i'm not a messy person. it's just that i leave my active projects out so i can work on them incrementally over time. crocheting is a long process, and glue and paint take time to dry when i'm sculpting.

it also just so happens that i have a minimum of 5 projects going on at a time

[boundariesoverthrown]

finally handed in the assignment i spent more than three entire days on and also stayed up until 6am on one of those days which happened to be, the day before christmas eve so i could. not go insane about it during my break which actually ??? worked out in the long run ??????

[mutalune]

me when people hate on aos trek:

[fellow-fandom-fruitifier]

Can I talk abt how much I luv the idea that 6EM is just scared shitless of SWK? Like that’s sounds horrible, and I worded that so wrong, but just hear me out. Imagine that 6EM didn’t just attack SWK out of anger/revenge (even if that was a main motivator, it’s also, like, the only reasons he targeted MK) but also out of fear. Fight or flight kind of thing.

& it’s only after he & SWK r making up/agreeing 2 not fight that he realizes this. Bcz the thing is, now that fight is no longer on the table, he instinctively goes 2 flight. & it’s not like a BAM realization, it’s more of a steady build up to an “oh”.

Like instead of the world suddenly bursting into technicolor and making sense, it’s more like color had been bleeding in for so long and he’s only just now truly identified/acknowledged it. He, on some level, knew it was there, so he’s not exactly taken aback.

& it’s almost worse like that, like a game slowly building up for a jumpscare, putting you @ the edge of ur seat, only for nothing to happen. So now you just have this sludgy buzz of emotion sitting uncomfortably in your gut w/ no way out.

May b the 1st sign was just 6EM’s struggle to not taunt/insult SWK. Like, sure, they both struggled w/ that bcz they’ve been doing it so long it’s just habitual. But 6EM is so “flip-floppy” abt it, 1 day he’s a-okay, not picking a single fight. The next SWK stands just a lil 2 close & 6EM is spitting the most hurtful shit w/ out even meaning 2.

May b the 2nd was that the more 6EM improved w/ not insulting SWK, the worse he got w/ flinching. The more he had to sit farther from SWK, the less he allowed SWK anywhere near his blind side. Every held back insult only made him more restless, but not in the angry “being forced to hold ur tongue” way.

(Ofc there’s tons of little things here & there, small signs that, by themselves, don’t mean anything, but 2gether mean sm.)

I think that the final sign wouldn’t b anything big, it wouldn’t be some dramatic pent up explosion, it would a small innocuous thing. May b MK just mentions his fear of spiders, how creepy they r, how just the knowledge 1 might b near him makes him restless. & may b 6EM will think sum like “same”, & may b that small thought will connect the discomfort he’s feeling 2 fear, the discomfort he always feels around SWK.

There’s no big bang, nowhere to put his emotions. It’s just being forced to acknowledge a persistent aching wound. And that’s almost worse.

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

ok yeah now seems like a good time for me to get sloshed off my ass ans watch slasher movies

[cryptidm0ths]

I need to reread all of the himeru stories <- guy thats already got a reading list a mile long and also is currently slightly over worked

[myrabbitistrying2killme]

Art based hobby stress is so funny actually. “Why are you crying” “I HAVE TO COMPLETE A SELF IMPOSED DEADLINE FOR A CREATIVE PROJECT I REALLY WANT TO DOOOOOOOO”

[amplexadversary]

I should make a Dr. Temperance Brennan fandragon on Flight Rising.