#ive seen a couple people wear them but not often and its been a while since the last time

[wall-eye]

Another person asked why I wear a mask at work and I literally don't know what they're expecting me to say. I wear a mask so I don't get sick. That's literally it, that's what I say, and they always just react with a "oh ok".

[anthraxplus]

the cultural phenomenon of barbenheimer has taken over my mind

i did barbenheimer with a friend yesterday and it really got me thinking.

first off - it was so weird having my local theatre be so busy. it's usually the theatre you can bet on being able to sneak anything into, and while we still definitely did sneak in a buttload of snacks, they had people actively waiting in the wings as ticket checkers. so it kinda sucked that we couldn't just do the whole thing for free. but that's a bit beside the point. the theatre was the busiest ive seen it in nearly 10 years. and i'm not gonna lie, seeing a "cultural event" happen in front of me was more jarring for that reason. and as the day went on, that image in my head stuck with me. the image that all these people showed up to watch barbie and oppenheimer.

we saw oppenheimer first, in a nearly empty theatre. we sorta did this by design - we started at 10am and picked oppenheimer first because less people would choose to be that insane. i was high and trying to get myself into an impartial mindset (even though i didn't think i would end up liking it). and i think all i should really say about oppenheimer is that it's 3 nearly endless hours that doesnt give anyone any time to breathe and ends up saying a bunch of confusing, disappointing, and outright false things. seriously, the amount of times the movie brushes off the fucking truth of the situation is absolutely disgusting. obligatory linking of shaun's video on hiroshima and nagasaki. i think everyone in the movie should be forced to answer why theyre proud of making 3 hour bland ass shit boring nuclear bomb apologia. this isn't even getting into how the famous oppenheimer quote is introduced by a manic pixie dream girl (who in reality was a stanford graduate and psychiatrist, neither of which i believe are ever touched on or expanded in the film) who hops off his dick mid-fuck, walks over to a bookshelf, picks the bhagavad gita off the shelf, opens it to the exact page and verse of the famous quote, asks him to read, and slides back on his dick between "now i am become death" and "destroyer of worlds." this movie released to critical acclaim. some are calling it a masterpiece.

after some burritos for lunch, my friend and i went to barbie. this was a packed theatre and mostly everyone was wearing pink. the red in my hair has faded to a pink, so i felt like i was part of something. kinda. anyway. some little kids were loud in the front but it wasnt much of an issue. i kept thinking of them whenever the movie would say something about the struggle to find identity in a world that hates you no matter what you do. did those little children listen to margot robbie say that she doesnt have a vagina? did they parse that? it was a great movie, if a bit scattershot. it shouldve been longer, if only to fully flesh out a couple ideas and help the movie feel a little less cramped. but they would never make a 2.5 (let alone 3) hour barbie movie that talks about not just what it means to be a woman, but what it means to be human in a world that is so often contradictory hostile and praising of you. what happens when the Other we defined ourselves by isn't static? do we become different as well in relation to them? do we stay the same? do we do both? what are women supposed to do in the world when everything they do is wrong but they're never allowed to stop doing anything? how do men develop their own identity when they are so often raised into mindsets where their individuality is replaced by similarly contradictory standards and a definition that only exists in relation to women? what did ken mean when he said he had "all the genitals?" barbie is far from perfect, but it manages to ask more honest and thought provoking questions (and offers its own interesting answers) about the nature of reality than oppenheimer does.

i'm struck by the dichotomy on display here. barbie may be the more financially successful of the two films, but it is not treated the same critically. for all barbie says, it seems to get overlooked for its (still impressive) design and acting. its metacommentary is mentioned but never discussed. its "witty meta humor" is listed as a huge selling point. oppenheimer, in contrast, is a vain and shallow film that says nothing and looks somewhat cool doing it. i wonder if there are any parallels here.

i worry for what this means for movies. a nearly empty theatre for a self-important movie that lists itself as its reason for existing is treated as if it says anything at all, and a packed theatre for a movie with a script similarly packed with commentary on our very state of being gets boiled down to "cute sets and witty banter." what did the audience members take from their barbenheimer experience? my area is not very progressive, and in my experience not very invested in growth of any kind. when america ferrera delivers one of the many theses of barbie in a tear-inducing frustrated monologue on how she's never seen as good enough no matter what she does, did the audience members feel seen? did they feel understood? or did they want her to stop talking so they could go back to looking at the cool barbie dream houses? when oppenheimer breezes through the discussion of which innocent cities to burn in an unholy fire with all the tact and deliberation a group of friends has when deciding where to have lunch, did the audience feel slighted? disgusted? or did they just want to see einstein on screen again like he's an iron man cameo?

i dont know where we go from here. it feels like a tipping point for what we want from movies, and i'm not sure audiences learned anything from the past 10 to 15 years of set-ups, tie-ins, and spin-offs. i want to believe something will come of the fact that so many people are seeing barbie. maybe, hopefully, something in it sticks with people and inspires some sort of change. just the smallest amount of evolution. right now i too feel like barbie when she sits in a park and looks around at everything the human experience has to offer, and starts crying from both joy and sorrow. a woman who is so often seen as disposable and empty understands the human condition in a way she cant express, and is overwhelmed by the crushing beauty and fragility it all rests upon. she is a human before she knows she is. she doesnt know who she is, but she knows she still Is. existence is confusing and no one knows what to do about it, and the least we could do is support each other as we figure out who we've always been. i hope this is what sticks with people instead of some half-audible dialogue about how hiroshima and nagasaki were justified. time will tell, though.

[parkminijiminie]

This is gonna be a very long ask (sorry about that) but there were three different things that I wanted to talk about.

1. I really dislike when cishet jikookers try to assign heterosexual standards to whatever potential romantic-sexual relationship Jimin and Jungkook could have/ have had. I dont know if you are queer or not, but many queer people tend to have more *situationships* than meet-like-become bfs/gfs-love-marry relationships. When you add the layer of them being celebrities since they were teenagers I think that would only decrease the likelihood of their relationship ever being like an average heterosexual relationship. I will also add as a disclaimer that I am a queer woman and cannot speak directly on how mlm relationships develop. Having said that, my thoughts on what their dynamic is/was (if it really has been sexual or romantic) are that it was probably a combination of experimentation, convenience, and chemistry, and less serious than the average expectation of male-female relationships. During the 2017-2019 years where most of us seem to think there was undebiably smth going on between them beyond a friendship or brotherly bond, they had a lot of proximity and very busy schedules. Ironically, the two times where Jungkook has had dating rumors (with evidence) have been during times where they are not in close proximity and have different schedules (i.e., the break they took in the fall of 2019 and early this year when Jimin was extremely busy while Jungkook was not.) I am not trying to diminish their bond by saying it was purely out of convenience. Its possible for love to come out of that convenience, but what I am saying is that that type of dynamic also might have left them wondering if there was every anything more out there for them. Similar to the whole ch2 situation, when we remove the whole enlistment thing out of the equation, its probable that some of them wanted to try something different but that didnt mean they didnt like being in the group.

2. Tomdaya. Why tf am I bringing Tomdaya up? lol

Back during the shooting and promotion of the 1st Spiderman movie there were a lot of rumors of whether Tom and Z were together. Most of the gen public wasnt keeping tabs on that but Zendaya fans were quick to realize that he would often fly out to see her but they were very secretive about what they then referred to as their “friendship”. Sometime after, there were pap pics of Tom with a woman that clearly did not look platonic so her fans immediately realized that they either broke up or were never a thing in the first place, only friends. After that, they both went on to have semi-public relationships with other people. Then, a few years later they get papped kissing and are officially a couple. At that point, most people werent even aware that there were some sus things early on in their *friendship* and just assumed that they just got together much later after they met. I don’t want to over explain it, but Im hoping some of the parallels Im trying to draw are clear.

3. Finally, I am really curious about who that anon thinks Jimin might be dating. Right now the only sus thing Ive seen that could be interpreted as a “thing” is his friendship with Lee Saeon. Not only is he the only person Jimin has been spotten out with casually, but it also looks like he wears a lot of Jimins clothes. He was even spotted with Jimin AND JK a few years ago. He starred in a BL and did say that he was strictly an ally, but he would not be the first or last closeted queer person to call themselves an ally lol. Despite Jimin spending so much time with him he has never brought him up and always talks about his friends in plural even though its always the two of them alone (except for that one time with jikook in i think 2021). Im sure he has other friends so its interesting to see why its only ever the two of them going out. Him and Eunwoo have also been kinda sus sometimes but its been a hot minute since we’ve seen anything from them lol.

I do agree on your point about queer relationships. Personally, Ive been in a heterosexual one for years, but I know from friends and family that comparing heterosexual relations to queer ones isn't very fair. The challenges , expectations and risks when you're queer are completely different and the way to acceptance and a steady relationship , especially in a country which doesn't support you, is a very different than what straight people go through.

On this topic, I find something Jimin once said very interesting. He said he used to think he was just living life and having fun but it didn't turn out that way and had to accept some things and come to terms with them (not an exact quote). Many people, including myself, thought he meant coming to terms with his sexuality (for the record, I believe he's shown us clearly he is queer, possibly bi).

That being said, I believe in your theory about his and JKs relationship. Given their age, profession and country, if there ever had been something between them, I doubt it had been linear and straightforward, as some would like to imagine. Them being young, busy, and constantly together with one being bi and other (probably) at least bi-curious is not something to be dismissed. I genuinely don't think that if they had something more than friendship, it was superficial, but it most likely was complicated.

I see Saeon's name being brought up a lot when talking about a potential partner for Jimin. I don't want to speculate much about someone who said they're heterosexual, but it's not impossible for them to share something more. At least the physical stuff he has mostly gotten out of the way already 😁

Does someone know when him and JM became close?

[theparanormalperiodical]

Top 10 Controversial Horror Films That Are Famous For All The Wrong Reasons *gags* *cries*

At the beating heart of horror is offence.

From that undeniable sense of something not being quite right, to the CGI-blood-spurtin’-adrenaline-fuelled scenes that leave us shaking in our boots, horror pivots on the knife edge of controversy.

It’s used to drive plots. It’s used to drive hype. And at the end of the month, it drives studio executives to the bank.

Horror films can be traumatic enough. But there are some films that bear the cross of controversy more than others. There are some films that have been branded as so damaging to their potential viewers that merely circulating copies of the film is illegal.

And yet their infamy has forged cult viewership. What was once shielded from us has now become ‘must see’.

Today we are going to be counting down horror’s most controversial films and what made them quite so topical.

*I’m going to star the ones that you can actually watch without getting traumatised. Some are controversial not because of their content but because some religious or political groups disagreed with them*

#10 - The Blair Witch Project (1999)*

Let’s ease in with a classic - a classic you can watch without sleeping with the light on.

In this found-footage flick we see a team of film students as they explore a local urban legend. But what they find leads them to unknown and ungodly territory.

The problem with this film is that it was marketed as a true story. No, not based on a true story, a true story. Yep, they claimed what we were seeing was real, found footage of some teens going mad as they forage deeper into mysterious woods.

IMBd went so far as to report that the actors were dead. Then, the movie studio super-charged their efforts to confirm to the public that not only was this film 100% real, the three main actors were still missing. The parents of the actors then started receiving sympathy cards.

There’s even a mocked up website that perpetuates these claims. 

#9 - Night Of The Living Dead (1968)*

Time for another not-too-disturbing film.

This is the original zombie apocalypse film saw a group of Americans attempt to survive an incoming attack of the undead while trapped in a rural farmhouse.

But the Motion Picture Association of America wasn’t too happy about it. The film rating system was yet to be in place, allowing children to also show up for an afternoon screening and be greeted by a 97 minute montage of extreme violence.

“The kids in the audience were stunned. There was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying”

#8 - Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

In this psychological film, we watch a random crime spree take place at the hands of a couple serial killers. Loosely based on real murderers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole, its controversial reputation was founded on the gore ‘n’ guts screened in the movie.

Whilst it didn’t receive much attention from the public, various classification boards across the world ensured new versions edited with certain scenes - often involving sexual assault and necrophilia - removed for viewers.

In 2003, the BBFC (the UK classification board) finally allowed the uncut version to be released and Australia followed suit in 2005.

#7 - I Spit On Your Grave (1978)

It’s the original rape-revenge flick. And it managed to piss everyone off.

Originally titled Day of the Woman, it tells the story of a fiction writer who exacts revenge on a group of four men who gang rape her.

Despite its pro-women claim-to-fame, the 30 minute rape scene begs to differ. Furious debate surrounds its feminist label as a film that forces the audience to endure rape from a female perspective and long-winded violence against men (something which is often reserved for women in horror). Regardless, the graphic violence earned it a steady ban in Ireland, Norway, Iceland, and West Germany.

#6 - Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)*

You don’t get many controversial Christmas films. They typically stick to a cookie-cutter plot ‘n’ purpose every holiday season. But there are no strong women who need to rediscover the meaning of Christmas here.

Instead, we see a child traumatised by seeing his parents murdered on Christmas Eve go on a seasonal rampage as an adult.

A week after its release in the early 80s, it was pulled from theatres due to backlash. Marketing was focused on a Santa Claus killer with adverts often airing during family-friendly TV programmes and meant numerous children developed a phobia of Father Christmas. Large crowds protested cinemas with one notable protest involving angry families singing carols at the Interboro Quad Theater in The Bronx.

It was only in 2009 - 25 years after its original release - that a DVD of the film was first made available for purchase in the UK.

#5 - Psycho (1960)*

This legendary film follows the disappearance of a young woman after her encounter with a strange man called Norman Bates, one of horror’s most iconic figures. The controversy that would engulf this fim lay not in the violent attack on an innocent woman or even the disturbing content of the film.

Oh, no. It was because of what the leading lady was wearing.

In the opening scene of the film, we see Janet Leigh wearing nothing but a bra.

*gasp*

This racy attire was emblazoned across promotional material, meeting Hitchcock’s high standards of creating controversy around the movie. There was a no late admission policy for movie theaters, and the posters told viewers “Do not reveal the surprises!” to maintain a mysterious aura around the plot twist.

#4 - The Human Centipede (2009) (all of ‘em)

I’ve watched a lot of horror films, in case you couldn’t tell.

I’m used to watching a scary movie, shaking off the anxiety, and moving on with my life. But there are some that stayed with me. I only watched the trailer for the first movie, and it legitimately traumatised me. It gave me quite a severe, sudden bout of a depression for a solid month when I was 13.

Throughout horror’s goriest franchise, we see an evil doctor and amateur mad scientist attempt to sow several people together into a centipede-like chain from mouth to anus.

*retches*

At the heart of promoting the franchise was controversy. Tom Six, the director, forced a narrative that claimed from the first film that this was "100% medically accurate". He even alleged a Dutch doctor helped inspire the film, confirming that with an IV drip, this was entirely possible.

Although it didn’t receive furore that amounted to serious censorship or long-term banning, it was infamous for having its viewers vomiting in the cinema aisles.

The second film, however, was subject to much more severe controversy and could not legally be supplied in the UK until 2011 due to its heavy focus on sexual abuse, more graphic violence than the original film, and it’s pretty vile depiction of a murderer that was intellectually disabled.

Audiences were used to the graphic nature of the franchise by the third and final release. As the least-controversial and least-enjoyable film according to critics, it barely made a dent in the horror community.

Good riddance, I guess?

#3 - Faces Of Death (1978)

I’m not sure I’d recommend this one per se - but I will give it credit for being an interesting project.

This documentary-style film is a montage of footage of people dying in different ways. As a result of its very graphic and very real content, it was banned and censored in many countries. Only in 2003 was it released on DVD in the UK after a scene was cut featuring dogs fighting and a monkey being beaten to death.

Germany, Australia, and New Zealand followed suit, reversing their bans and releasing edited versions.

However, 7 years after its release, the media revamped its interest in the film after a maths teacher showed it to his class at a Californian high school. Two of his students claimed they were so traumatised they received a costly settlement to reimburse their emotional distress. Things took a darker turn a year later, when a 14 year old bludgeoned a classmate to death with a baseball bat; he claimed he wanted to see what it would be like to actually kill someone after watching Faces of Death.

#2 - Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

This Italian film’s title alone hints towards two frightening things: flesh-eating humans and genocide. In this found-footage movie we see an anthropologist lead a rescue team into the Amazon rainforest to find a group of filmmakers that went missing.

The rampant graphic content including sexual assault and animal cruelty showcased in the film (7 animals were killed during filming in some pretty horrific ways) led to it being banned in 50 countries.

Some also alleged that a handful of deaths seen in the film were real, as were the missing film crew. In fact, the actors portraying the documentarians signed contracts that stopped them appearing in motion pictures for an entire year to maintain the illusion of reality.

And only 10 days after its premiere, the director was charged with obscenity and the film confiscated. All copies were to be turned over to the authorities. There are currently a range of versions that have been edited to varying degrees and are allowed for circulation.

#1 - A Serbian Film (2010)

No.

Nope.

Don’t do it. Don’t watch this film.

A Serbian Film follows a retired porn star who agrees to feature in an “art film” for some cash. Little does he know this film will include rape, incest, pedophilia, necrophilia…

Just don’t watch it.

It is still banned in South Korea, New Zealand, Australia. It is supposedly a parody of politically correct films made in Serbia that are funded by foreign groups and allegedly speaks openly about post-war society and the struggle for survival.

*shakes head*

Off to have a 3 hour shower, brb.

If you, uhhh, liked this post please like and reblog.

And if you want to hear more about horror and the supernatural every week hit follow!

[rat-father]

Part 7! this one is shorter then the others and not the best, Ive been feeling very tired all day so my mind isn't there 100%

Here is Cub forgetting their place and getting too curious roaming around

Tagging; @skunkandgrenade @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @alliecat5594

-- tw;; it as pronoun, pet whump/captivity, gagged & restrained --

Cub wanted nothing more then to be with master 24/7. It always wanted to go everywhere with him. It was allowed to stay at his feet when he worked from home, but if he went out the pet was forced to stay inside and it hated it.

Today was one of those days.

Master left the house only an hour ago but it was already missing him. Secretly it was still a bit anxious he would disappear again, but it didn’t want to tell anyone.

It didn’t know what else to do so it decided to wander around the mansion. There were lots of rooms it hadn’t seen yet and it was curious as to what was in them. The maid was too busy with household stuff to come along with it, so it was left to explore alone.

The first room it wanted to see was one upstairs, opposite of its own room. The doors were big with gold engravings. There was text on one of the doors but it couldn’t read.

It slowly opened the doors and could instantly feel the change in temperature, it was much warmer inside. The pet stepped inside towards what seemed like a gigantic bathtub of sorts. The thing even had a small ladder on one side.

Why would a bathtub need a ladder? It shook its head in confusion and left, the warmth was starting to make it feel dizzy.

It moved on to a room downstairs master called the ‘basement’. He goes in it quite often, but always tells pet to wait outside. It was curious to see what was in it despite it not being allowed in, if it just didn’t touch anything then master wouldn’t find out anyway. The door was locked but the key was hanging right next to it on a little hook. Doesn’t make much sense to lock it if the key is so easy to get.

It unlocked the door to see a couple stairs going down. Hesitantly it walked down, freezing in place when it heard muffled noises. The room was very dark and it had to feel around for a light switch.

Once it found one it turned the lights on, immediately regretting it as it came face to face with another person. It yelped and jumped back in surprise. Out of all the things it was expecting to find, a tied up and gagged human wasn’t on the list.

Their hands were tied above their head keeping them in place, even so they seemed to try and reach out to the pet for help.

Cub rubbed its eyes, hoping it was hallucinating but when it opened its eyes again the person was still there. It understood now why it wasn’t allowed down here, and ignoring their muffled cries for help, it turned off the lights and rushed back upstairs. It quickly locked the door again and put the key back in its place.

What it saw reminded it of itself when it was still in the facility. It hated it, it didn’t want to think about it. It had a good life now, with the best master and without pain.

A part of it wanted to go back down and help them, but it knew master was keeping them for a reason. Master always had good reasons to do things! It wasn’t going to defy its master.

Now that it saw that it felt really unsure of what to do next. Should it just continue exploring? What if it found more people like that?

It decided to go back to its room and wait for master to return. Master would make it feel better again and forget about what it saw. It was sure of it.

The warmth of the covers it was curled up under made it tired, and it eventually dozed off while waiting.

Slowly it woke up to someone stroking its hair, it leaned into the touch by instinct. It took it a couple minutes to fully wake up, only then seeing its master sitting next to it.

“Did ya miss me pet?” He asked.

”Yes master.”

“Lexi told me you looked through some of the rooms. Did ya have fun?”

Its heart stopped at those words. Master would be mad if he found out it went in the basement, but it couldn’t lie, it wasn’t allowed to.

“It..it found scary man in the basement..”

“The basement? Ya went down there?”

“Yes, it is sorry master. It was bad.”

Master sighed and shook his head.

“Did you touch him?”

“No master, it left as soon as it saw him.”

He was silent for a moment, then got up and left the room. It didn’t know what to expect next, maybe he was getting something to punish it with?

Confused it waited in its room for master to return. He surely would be back soon, it had already been a bad pet, it didn’t want to be worse by leaving without permission.

It was right, 2 hours later he returned to its room, only looking a bit different. He wasn’t wearing his hoodie anymore, only his tank top, and there was sweat on his forehead. It assumed he did a work out, it saw him do it before. But there were also specks of red on his hands.

“Is.. is master mad at pet?”

“Not mad, just disappointed. But I’m glad ya told me the truth. Next time ya go somewhere you’re not allowed to I will punish you.”

”Yes master, it won’t do it again.” Dumb pet. Dumb pet being bad.

It was extra silent that night during dinner. Even though master said he wasn’t mad it still felt like he was. It was its own fault he was mad at it and it knew.

Bad pets are unwanted pets. It had to be a good pet.

Cub helped do the dishes and made sure everything was clean, to proof it was good, that it wasn’t useless. It had to make master love it again.

The days after it was always on its best behaviour. Always helping and making sure it didn’t make any mistakes. Master praised it too! It wanted to be perfect for master. It had to be perfect for master.

It completely forgot about the person it saw, they didn’t matter, only master did!

[callmeelle22]

Blue Dream II

Paring: Iris West x Barry Allen

Rating: E

Chapter Word Count: 6, 097

Summary: A series of sporadic dates between Iris and Barry turn into something more, a story in its own making.

Chapter I: Primetime

Chapter II: It's Cool; Summary: His response is to tilt his head to the side and gaze down at her, eyes tracing the length of her legs and the curve of her hips and the dip of her waist. He lingers on her cleavage and this time, when he meets her eyes, she feels it, the sensation like she’s been put on simmer, like he’s warming her slowly, easing her into her own combustion, sparking like the lyrics to this song, and then you, came to save the day and I must say, you may have done some more. (Read below or on AO3 linked on the chapter title.)

Chapter III: Anything

Chapter IV: Comfortable

Chapter V: The Way

Chapter VI: Can't Take My Eyes Off of You

Chapter VII: I'm in Love with You

Chapter VIII: Blue Dream

It's Cool

My escape from everything

Please say you'll be my nothing

And I will give you everything

Man, you are really something else

On Friday nights, Iris spends time alone. She lives in a relatively small apartment near Central City U’s campus where she makes peanuts as a teaching assistant while she completes her journalism master’s. Her weeks are long and arduous, what with attending her own classes and all but teaching the ones she assists. Her evenings are often spent eating turkey sandwiches with one hand and completing assignments with the other. And when those are done, she logs into her blog, What a Life You’ve Lived, and types up the stories people send to her. That part doesn’t make her tired; no, she likes being able to tell others’ stories, likes that they trust a woman they’ve never seen to tell their lives in a way that they might not ever see.

But it’s still why, on Friday nights, she pours herself an overfull glass of wine, fills a pipe bowl with some of the marijuana she gets from the dispensary by Linda’s place, and orders Thai food while she watches something from her Netflix or Hulu queue or sometimes she listens to music. She’s already showered, wearing a pair of green silk shorts and a matching tank top, pretty cream piping along the top of the tank and the hem of the shorts—she doesn't always dress like this when she’s home alone; she just likes the feeling of the silk on her skin when she’s high—and her hair is already wrapped and tied with her scarf when the doorbell rings. She frowns at the door because she’s only just ordered her pad Thai noodles and those spring rolls she likes, and there’s no way the delivery is there yet because she always sets the order for when she’s sufficiently intoxicated.

She figures that it could be her brother Wally or even Linda because they’ve both been known to drop by without calling. A touch annoyed, she goes to the door and swings it open, ready to go off for interrupting what they know is her self-care night. But then she’s stopped short, the music still playing in the background—you caught me at an awful time; see i just lost my smile—because it’s him.

Iris’s liquor-soaked memories don’t do him much justice because there he is, live and solid. He is tall, even taller than she’d thought as she stands in her bare feet. He’s lean, the dark jeans hanging off his hips and his plain gray shirt showing off the corded muscles in his arms. There’s a tattoo sleeve on his right forearm, a complicated bouquet of flowers that doesn't take away from the masculine energy he exudes standing at her door, his hands stuffed in his pockets. She can tell now that his hair is brown and a little bit messy, as if he constantly runs his hands through it. She does a quick scan of the rest of him: dark moles dotting the skin of his throat, thin pink mouth, the hint of a 5 o’clock shadow covering the cut of his jaw. It’s still his eyes, though, that gets her. It’s not only the color of them—somehow blue with hints of moss and gold or maybe they’re like moss with hints of gold and gray—but it’s the way he’s looking at her too. Like they're always searching, and that is what you helped me find; hadn't seen it in a while, looking for what she won't reveal.

She knows that her night set only just covers the swell of her ass and dips down in her cleavage. She knows that she’s scrubbed head to toe in her rosewater body butter. But he, he looks at her like he knows it too. Like he sees all of the tawny brown skin she’s not showing, like he’s seeing something, something more than the wide set of her full mouth and the whiskey chocolate of her eyes.

“Hey,” he speaks, and there’s nothing particularly memorable about his voice, but the tone of it is low, and it sends an involuntary shiver through her.

“I know this is weird,” he continues, “and you can definitely tell me to leave. But I didn’t have your number or even your name, and I’ve been thinking about you all week and…” He tapers off, and Iris lets her eyes travel up the length of him once more.

“Wanna come in?”

She doesn’t know what possesses her to ask—okay, maybe that bit about thinking of her all week helped—but when he nods, a smile easing on his face, her heart starts doing that seizing thing again.

She steps aside to let him in.

He sees the shoes she’d worn to work sitting by the door so he toes off his own sneakers beside them and Iris has to stop herself from acknowledging what they look like next to hers. Instead, she watches as he takes a look around. She’s proud of what she’s been able to do with a consignment shop and limited funds. The focal point is an overstuffed sofa in a light gray and its matching armchair; a multicolored rug with bold hints of sage and orange lies under the dark circular coffee table which is the same color as the bookshelf against her wall, the six shelves teeming with books, as well as the TV stand. She’s got some early artwork by a few Black local artists on her wall, a couple of her favorite quotes printed and framed next to them.

The room feels smaller with him in it. While Iris is no nun, it’s been months since a man other than her brother or dad has been in her home and it feels...strange. The air seems denser somehow, heavy—heavy with the cloud of tension that hovers around them, heavy with the knowledge that the print of this man is still one that she can feel in her body when she falls asleep at night.

She notes that his eyes track the grinder and pipe in plain view on her coffee table and when she faces him again, his eyebrow is lifted.

“Do you partake?” she wonders.

He shrugs. “Sometimes.”

“Will you tonight?”

His response is to tilt his head to the side and gaze down at her, eyes tracing the length of her legs and the curve of her hips and the dip of her waist. He lingers on her cleavage and this time, when he meets her eyes, she feels it, the sensation like she’s been put on simmer, like he’s warming her slowly, easing her into her own combustion, sparking like the lyrics to this song, and then you, came to save the day and I must say, you may have done some more.

He licks his lips. “Yes.”

He tells her his name is Bartholomew Allen.

First, she goes into the kitchen to grab another of the long-stemmed wine glass that the professor she works for had given her as a housewarming gift. Then she eases down onto the sofa before she spreads her arm in an invitation for him to sit too. She pours from the bottle of wine and hands him the glass; he takes it from her, fingers grazing hers where they’re cupped around the bowl.

“My name is Bartholomew Allen,” he says, sort of abruptly.

She blinks over at him, a corner of her mouth lifting. “Your parents named you Bartholomew?”

“It’s a family name,” he adds, and though there’s no hint of embarrassment in his voice when he says it, Iris sees the way his cheeks flush red.

It makes her smile. All she has are the hazy images of him in her head: the way he’d boldly walked up to ask her to dance, how the kisses he’d pressed into her skin had been sure and all-encompassing. There had been no blush to his cheeks that first night when he’d been whispering into her ear; though Iris does recall how the rest of him had turned this same lovely shade of red, like a tinge of wine under his skin, when she had grabbed his ass to push him deeper into her.

In any case, Iris hadn’t thought of him like this, blushing at something as simple as his name and this dichotomy endears him to her.

“But you can call me Barry,” he says after taking a sip of his wine, almost like an afterthought.

“Well, Barry,” she says, “I’m Iris West.”

He looks at her over the rim of his glass. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Iris.”

It’s atypical of her, she knows, inviting this man back into her house like this. Her police captain father would warn her that this is the way that women die. Wally would tsk at her with only slight disapproval, more specifically concerned with the fact that she hadn’t bothered to learn his name before she’d let him climb into her bed. It isn’t a habit of hers, one-night stands (or two nights, she supposes, after tonight) with pale-skinned men from clubs she rarely frequents. But that day, last Saturday, she had gotten an email from the professor of her Feature Writing course with harsh feedback on one of her assignments, and Wally, only in his junior year of undergrad, had canceled their dinner, and she hadn’t updated her blog in what felt like weeks and…

And she’s been in such a space of discontent lately, with the rigid monotony of her days, the school and work and school and work, and she has spent more time than she realizes alone. Her best (and really, her only) friend is in the stages of a building relationship and her dad is too. She’s got people, she does, but they seem so tangential these days. So on Saturday, she’d put on a dress that had shown too much of her brown skin and shoes that had given her more legs than most men know what to do with. And she’d walked down along the aptly named Bar Street, past the uh, I won't love a ho, after we fuck she can't get near me, only bitch I give a conversation to is Siri and the so when are you gonna tell her, that we did that too? until she’d come to the door of something sultrier calling out to her, as seductive and enticing as a siren, and she had answered.

Then, somewhere between her third tequila and her ninth or tenth song, hope that's cool; ‘cause i'm really not trying to, impose but I suppose that, i'm supposed to be here, with you, Barry had come to dance with her, with the long line of his body following her rhythm and the pleasing smell of the lemongrass on his clothes and—for the first time in longer than she cares to admit—Iris had begun to feel.

It explains why she let him come home with her a week ago. It explains why he’s in her apartment now.

“Iris?” She hears Barry call her name, and by the look on his face, she knows it isn’t the first time he’s tried to get her attention. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she nods. “Sorry about that. I space out sometimes.” She points towards her table. “Shall we?”

He looks at her a little unsure, as if he wants to say more, but he eventually just nods in agreement. “Sure.”

She leans forward and grabs the grinder. The first time she smoked weed, she’d been a freshman in college. As cliche as it sounds, she’d had a roommate from Colorado who’d brought a stash with her and had offered a hit to Iris once at a house party. She’d liked it immediately, had liked how her brain had cleared, as if someone had wiped away all the writing on a chalkboard, erasing the mounting pressure of being the first university college kid in her family, of being the example for her brother who was ten times smarter and twice as reckless; had liked how much lighter her body had felt, as if she was floating, lying upon a cloud or somewhere even lighter, even higher.

She’s not a heavy smoker, the practice delegated to her Friday night routine and only in the couple years since it’s become legal recreationally in Central City. Still, she can’t help but feel a little nervous right now as Barry watches her pull the small canister towards her and open it. She makes quick work of pinching out a couple nuggets of the blue city diesel she prefers and grinding it up before packing the bowl of the pipe. It’s a pretty thing, made of glass in a dark green with blue and orange swirls. There is the flick of the lighter, and Iris brings the pipe to her lips and inhales.

She can all but feel the smoke flowing through her body, unbending her spine and relaxing her legs, curling in her lungs and moving to her head, making the thoughts there—the stress of classes, the constant sting of loneliness, and even the simmering tension she feels with Barry next to her—start to scatter until they’re no longer noticeable.

She passes the pipe over to Barry, who takes it from her gingerly, the tips of his long fingers brushing her again. She shivers, but she doesn’t acknowledge it, instead leaning back onto the couch, her legs crossed in the seat, as she watches him. He flicks the lighter a couple of times before it lights, and then he fires at the weed and takes a hit. His skin shades the faintest hint of pink and then he pulls the pipe away from his mouth and coughs, a deep cough that waters his eyes.

“You okay?” she questions. He nods as he passes it back. They do this, back and forth, until Barry breathes the smoke in easier and Iris falls even deeper into the couch. That’s when the doorbell rings.

“It’s the food,” she says and Barry is on his feet before she can even make sense of it. “Wait, I have money,” she tries, standing, because this is a mom-and-pop sort of pace and they still do their own delivery instead of going through the more expensive, albeit convenient, routes.

By the time Iris has grabbed her wallet from her purse, Barry is grabbing food and saying “Thanks, man” to Tony, the tall bearded college student who normally delivers it to her.

“Oh what’s up, Iris?” he says to her when she peeks around Barry’s shoulder.

“Hi, Tony. Do I owe you the same?”

“Oh, your boy already got it.” He smiles, a dimple winking at her in his bronze skin. “Y’all have a good night,” he adds and then he winks at her for real before disappearing back downstairs. She backs up to let Barry in the door.

“Barry, you didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to. I’m crashing your night and I’m smoking your weed. It’s the least I can do.”

Iris hums, looking up at him. He’s sort of pretty, she thinks absently, with his eyes like gems and his pink mouth, his expression soft and earnest.

“Come on.”

Iris always orders way too much food, usually with the intent to eat off the leftovers for a couple of meals. It’s a spread, with walnut shrimp, a green/ginger salad, pad thai, Bangkok chicken, and several Thai spring rolls, so it's definitely enough to share. She inhales several forkfuls of noodles while Barry attacks the Bangkok chicken. They eat in relative silence, the music still playing in the background, with eyes are sad, i smile, i think you'll find, you need me just like i need you, yeah; but it's cool, we ain't gotta be nothing, it's true, i'd actually prefer it, yeah; it's on you, it's on you, it's on you.

It’s when they’re done eating, when Iris has placed the containers in the refrigerator and they’re both snuggled deeper into the couch, wine glasses close by, that their night really begins. Iris has packed another bowl and takes another hit. And with a lungful of smoke, she asks,

“What sort of music do you like to listen to when you smoke?”

“I don’t think that I smoke enough to know.”

She hands him the bowl and grabs the remote to the smart tv, pulling up the playlist she’d made for nights like this. It gets longer every couple of days, songs that catch her fancy, songs with beats that sing as much as the artists, songs that seep in like the weed does, running through her like the blood in her vein does. The song plays—and i'm not even gonna front, at first i was just tryna fuck, but you have got me so in love, so deep in love, so please be love—and Iris closes her eyes, savoring the mellow sound of the music.

She takes pulls from her wine glass as Barry smokes and then the actions reverse. They take turns, back and forth, until Iris feels her lids drop, sees the slight haze that covers everything in her sight. Barry is sitting at the other end of the chair, but Iris swears that she can feel him, feel the solid heat of him, feel the touch of him like prickles on her skin. When she gazes over at him, positioning herself so that her back is against the arm of the chair and her painted toes just miss Barry’s thighs, she finds that he’s looking at her again.

“What?” she asks.

He shakes his head, indicating nothing, and the movement is slow, stilted. But then he asks,

“How do you feel, about my showing up here?”

She shrugs. “Surprised,” she tells him. “That you wanted to come; that you remembered where I lived.”

Barry chuckles, a low, gentle sound. “I only remembered because of the wreath, the sunflowers.”

She doesn’t add this, though a surprise, is not one she dislikes. She likes his company, even if she can’t name why.

“Barry,” she calls, to grab his attention again, and the way he tilts his head in acknowledgment makes her think more intently on the words of this song—and I'm not even gonna lie, i wouldn't mind if we just lie, together 'til the end of time, if that is fine with you, it's fine with me—and she shakes her head at the thought.

“Hmm?” he hums, eyes never wavering.

“What made you come here tonight?”

She’s sufficiently high now. She’d been careful not to overstuff herself with food and both the wine and diesel have done their job. She feels both languid and like she’s soaring, all at once. The music helps and she’s waiting in anticipation as she waits for his answer.

It’s slow coming, his answer. Before he responds, he touches gingerly at her bare ankles, fingers skimming along the bones of one and then the other. His fingers are warm and Iris feels the light callouses there, shocked at the sensation of the roughened skin on hers, how the touch sends sparks up the lines of her legs. He brings one of her feet up on his lap, and it seems so small in his hands. He presses his thumb into her instep, glides it down to the heel, and back up. Iris lets out a moan, the sound inaudible over the music—definitely love, definitive love—but the tiny uplift of the corner of his mouth suggests he’d heard it, and he grabs her other foot and repeats the action. Then he says,

“I wanted to know if it was as good as my memory.”

He trails his fingers up her left calf, still kneading her right foot. “I kept thinking of you,” he tells her, “about the taste of your mouth and the grip of your slick, and I had to know if I was only drunk and making it up.”

It’s the sensations that make her respond the way she does. It’s the easy purr of keyboards she hears behind Jhene’s dulcet voice; it’s his touch, how it seems to reverberate through her entire body; it the smell of him, of the room: the fainting smell of the smoke and the rosewater butter on her own skin and what she imagines it’ll smell like mixed with the scent of him that she remembers, the notes citrusy and bright.

“Me too,” she tells him. “I woke up on Sunday and I could still feel you. You were gone and much of you was a memory, but the feel of you was still there and…”

(and I wanted you to still be here, wanted to make a lasting memory, a real one, that would keep me warm when school and wavering friendships couldn’t)

But she doesn’t say any of that. Barry has all but mentioned he’s come over to sleep with her again and she can admit that the thought does have immense appeal, even if it���s not the only thing she thinks she wants from him.

She leans up and moves her ankle out of his grasp; he raises an eyebrow at the loss of contact, but then she widens her legs and reaches for him, grabbing at his shirt to pull him on top of her. He comes willingly, hovering above her, holding himself up with one arm on the top of the couch. All Iris can think about is the weight of him on top of her, how guarded it makes her feel, how secure.

“Is this okay?” he asks, voice quiet against the strain of the music from the television set, though she’d been the one to pull him in. He presses his body down, and her legs part automatically, craving him there again. She can tell that he’s high, in the red of his eyes and in the slow ways he’s talking, weighing every word before he lets it out.

“Yes,” she responds, just as quietly.

This seems like a moment here, one Iris can’t make sense of, not knowing what he’s here for. But he’s looking at her like she’s something, like he sees her, and it’s, it’s electrifying.

So when he leans down and kisses her, she leans up and gives it back, letting his mouth work her over. Barry is a good kisser. He starts out easy, slow, just his mouth moving against hers. His lips are soft and he tastes like wine and, somehow, the sex she knows they’re about to have, and the thought makes her close her eyes as she gives herself over to him. He licks at the seam of her lips, bites down her bottom one, and then licks at her again, demanding entry. She opens for him, eyes fluttering closed as he takes full control of her mouth. He sucks on her tongue, and then her lip again, and then he’s back to working her over with his mouth, the kiss wet and sloppy, increasingly erotic.

He is hard between her warm thighs, the solid long length of him, and she has to touch him. She rubs her hands down his back, over his cotton t-shirt, and then up under, along his spine. He shivers on top of her but doesn’t stop kissing her. She keeps one hand running up and down his back, loving the feel of him beneath her palm, and she fingers along his torso with the other, light touches that make his belly clench, that make his hips flex into her. He hums into her mouth, a sound more like a low growl, and it vibrates through her body, moving until it pulses between her legs. She moans in response, and it is that that breaks the kiss. Barry pulls back to look at her, and she likes that he looks a little bit wrecked. He stares down at her, drinking her in, and she knows what he must see: her thighs parted, with the hem of her silk shorts riding high; one strap of her top hanging off her shoulder, her breasts heaving as she tries to catch her breath; her full lips puffy and likely red from his bites; her eyes wide and blown, the dark of her pupils slowly overtaking the brown of her irises. Even her scarf has half-fallen off, and she should care that her hair will be unmanageable tomorrow. But when Barry tilts his head with a question, she lets him take it off and toss it onto her coffee table, and then he leans up, eyes never straying from hers.

“Barry?” she calls but pauses at the look in his eyes.

He fingers at the bottom of her top. “Take it off,” he tells her.

She responds to the slight command in his tone, clenching her stomach muscles as she leans up just enough to pull her tank over her head. He’s kneeling between her legs now, looking down at her breasts sitting heavy on her chest, nipples puckered under his gaze. He hasn’t even touched her yet, and she’s ready. It doesn’t make sense, how responsive she is to him, but she is, even when he’s just there staring.

“Barry?” she calls again, and she thrusts her hips, infinitesimally. It makes him look away from where he’s trying to memorize the weight of her breasts, the smooth tawny brown color of them, the darker areolas, and even darker nipples.

“What are you doing?” she asks, when he doesn’t respond to her.

“Looking at you,” is his too calm answer.

She nods, but huffs out a little breath in annoyance. “Okay, but can you…” fuck me, is the obvious response, but it doesn’t come out as that; instead, it’s another thrust of her hips, her constantly swelling sex rubbing his hard thigh. Barry licks his lips and looks down at her.

“Can I what, Iris?”

“You know,” she says, and squeezes him with her thighs.

“Hmmm,” Barry murmurs. “I don’t know that I do.”

This time, she catches his gaze, noting the glassy look of his eyes, the color grayer in this light. Iris wants to moan at the sight of him.

“Don’t play with me, Barry,” she grumbles, hoping that if she imbues a touch of menace to her words, he’d go ahead and put her out of her misery.

“No?” He lifts an eyebrow. “You don’t want me to play with you, Iris?”

She can’t answer, because then he’s reaching down and parting her thighs wider, enough that Barry can slide the wide leg of one side of her shorts over and expose her pussy to him. She clenches when the air hits her, and then again when Barry slides the tip of his middle finger down the middle of her slit.

She moans, her breath catching at the end of it when she looks down to watch his pale digit disappear inside of her. He dips in and out and in again, and Iris can’t stop watching it. She’s already wet, and his finger is glistening.

“You sure you don’t want me to play with you, Iris?” he asks her, dipping his finger all the way to the knuckle. He brings it back out, and then begins to rub her own wet over her lips. Down the side of her vulva, up the other side. Parting her lips with just that one finger. Sliding in again to gather more of her slick and start his trek over again.

Beneath him, Iris is...a mess. The one finger isn’t enough; she’s too wet for it and she keeps closing around nothing. But her breathing is only growing more labored and she can't. stop. watching. It should be embarrassing; her shorts are soaked through and Barry is still fully clothed, but she can’t be. The look of his long, rough-tipped fingers playing in the pink of her pussy so wholly arousing that she literally thinks that she can come like this.

“No, I,” she tells him, panting. She licks her lips, tries again. “This is…”

“This is what, Iris?” he asks, his cadence still heavy, and honestly, how the fuck does him just saying her name get her off like this. “Use your words, baby.”

“Fuck,” Iris moans.

Barry has the gall to smile. “That’s one.”

“Fuck you,” she moans again.

“Yeah?” Barry questions and he leans down, pulling his dirty little finger out of her and wrapping that same wet hand—wait, how is his whole hand wet—around her waist. He hovers over her, lips just a breath away from hers. “You ready for me to fuck you now?”

She huffs out a surprised laugh. “God, you’re a little bit of a dick.”

“And you’re ready for it now, aren’t you?”

She gives up on trying to be coy. “Yes,” she nods.

Barry has to stand to get out of his clothes, and Iris tries not to whimper at the loss. He pulls his shirt over his head, and Iris sees that his sleeve of flowers extends to his shoulders. He pulls his pants and boxers down, slipping out of his socks too, grabbing his wallet to pull a condom out before tossing it back down on top of his clothes. She watches as he rips open the wrapper and pulls the latex out, pinching its tip and sliding the condom down his length. He’s long and swollen, thicker, maybe, than she remembers, and she finds herself enamored as she watches him touch himself, fingers caressing the thick head and down his shaft.

“Take those off,” he tells her and she didn’t even realize she still has her shorts on. She peels them off, tossing them to the side, and then Barry is between her legs again. He grips her thighs and spreads them, one knee digging into the sofa close to her chest, the other planted high up on his hip.

He rubs himself along her once, making sure she’s still ready for him, and with a hand gripping her waist, he slides into her. She can feel herself opening for him, stretching to make room for him. He pulls out, just to the tip, and then he pushes back in, deeper, harder, and Iris gasps out a long “oohhh.” He rocks up into her, long strokes, slow strokes, like he’s got all the time in the world. She hears herself, she hears them, the wet sound of her pussy taking him in.

“Listen to you,” Barry whispers as he reaches down and thumbs at her clit. “You’re so wet, baby. God,” he groans. “Do you always get like this?” He fucks into her harder, still maddeningly slow, but fuck if it doesn’t make her swell a little more, gush a little more. “Or is it us? Is it me that gets you like this? Dripping out of that pretty little pussy like this?”

“Fuck, Barry, shit.”

He leans down again, until his chest is brushing her. The action plants him deeper, and he fucks into her, steady, persistent. He’s so close that Iris doesn’t know what to do with herself. He’s holding on to her waist, pinning her down on the sofa, and his pelvis brushes her clit with every downward stroke.

“Bar-Barryyyyyy.” Iris throws her head back, eyes clenched tight as she comes with a low, drawn-out moan, her hips bucking frantically as she squeezes wetly around Barry.

He pulls out of her and starts to move the sofa cushions from the back of the chair. It gives them more room and Barry sits down until he’s half laid out, back against the arm of the chair and legs spread on either side of her, one bracing on the floor.

“Lay on your stomach,” he tells her, “and then push your legs under mine.”

She does as he says, still a little sluggish from her unexpected orgasm. This move puts her ass in the air, and Barry grabs at her hips to bring her back to him. She looks back as he’s lining himself up with her again, and then he’s bringing her down on him, opening her up for him again. They both moan at the contact this time, Iris still sensitive from moments before. But he seems even harder now, even deeper when Iris leans forward to grab onto the other end of the couch. He guides her for a stroke, two, three, until she catches onto his rhythm, and begins to fuck herself back on him. He’s so deep she figures she could feel him hitting the bottom of his stomach if she focused hard enough. She bounces on him, keeping up his slow pace, and he gives her a hard squeeze around the waist for her efforts.

“That’s it, Iris,” he murmurs. “Ride me slow just like that.”

She’s always liked dirty talk; there’s something fully stimulating about a man making it known that he’s enjoying being with you. But this, this is different, and Iris can barely stand how much she’s turned on by him talking to her like this.

“You feel so good, Barry,” she tells him.

“Yeah?” He juts up into her, faltering a rhythm, making her fall even deeper into the sofa, making him fall even deeper into her. “Tell me what it feels like.”

She licks her lips, swallows. She’s never…

“It’s just me and you,” he says, sensing her hesitation. He stills her hips and straightens his torso, bringing her up as much as she can. He turns her head so that he can see her eyes. He moves away the hair that’s fallen into her face and gives her a quick peck on the mouth. “It’s just us, okay?”

She nods, and moves back into the comfortable position, back to grinding down on his dick, squeezing around his dick.

“Shit, Iris, that’s it.”

“You feel good,” she tells him again, firmly. “You’re so thick, so hard, I can’t even…” She falls forward again, and Barry gives her one hard slap down her ass cheek. “Barry!”

He soothes the sting with the palm of his hand, rubbing in small circles.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so wet in my life,” she confesses, softly, truthfully. And that must have been what Barry was waiting for. He takes over, holding her hips in a death grip and he pounds into her. The slap-slap of his skin on hers is loud, the squelch of her wet, profane. She can feel her belly tighten again, the tell-tale sign that her orgasm is imminent. Barry’s is too, she can tell. His movements are more erratic, slow and then fast and then slow again until reaches out and presses a thumb to her puckered hole peeking back at him. That’s the end for them both. Iris screams out, her back arching deeply, just as Barry stills and empties into the condom, his dick throbbing against her walls as he does. She falls face forward into the sofa, still sitting on Barry, trying to catch her breath. It’s only then that she notices the music still playing from the television—infinite love, yeah; i've been wrong before, but this time I am for sure; it's you; something you did made me feel it deep in my core—and she asks for Alexa to turn the television off.

That throws the room into stark silence, except for the sound of their heavy breathing. She doesn’t know how long they lie there, but Iris thinks she could be almost asleep when Barry shifts up and out of her. She knows that she’s likely gonna have to deep clean the sofa tomorrow.

“Iris,” Barry calls moments later, and she turns her head to the side to see him standing beside her, his soft sex sitting on his thigh. He must have thrown the condom away already.

“Hmmm.”

He chuckles. “Come on, baby, let’s get you cleaned up and we can go to sleep.”

She nods slowly, and sits up, letting him take her hand to lead her into the bathroom. She tries, though she can’t say how much she succeeds, at telling herself that this, that this is nothing.

And it's cool

Think that we're up to something

But it's on you, it's on you, it's on you

It's on you, it's on you, it's on you

It's on you, it's on you, it's on you

It's on you, 'cause I'm cool with nothing, yeah

'Cause even nothing is something

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2020

You know, when I finished my latest list and realised every decade had the same pattern and that we were slowly going towards a series of great years for pop, I didn’t realise how good that year would be.

What’s at the top? Am I boringly predictable because I already said I loved that song all the way back in January 2020? Let’s find out.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will probably be stuff in French somewhere on this post. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

So. Uh. How was your 2020?

Mine was actually surprisingly good, considering. I’m lucky enough to have a job that I can partially do from home, and I was extremely paranoid from the get-go and nobody got sick under this roof so far. Turns out I’m even better at my job from home and I got permission to work from home one day per week even after the health crisis is over! My first name was also finally officially approved and I can’t tell you how happy I feel about that. I almost feel bad to have had such a good year considering the circumstances. I feel like an asshole just because I’m happy, haha.

The only frustrating part was that I was supposed to see Hatari in concert in Paris in early April which, as you can guess, was cancelled. I’m not too mad about it though, since their tour was called “Europe will crumble” and the message saying the tour was cancelled started with “since Europe is actually crumbling due to Covid-19″ and that’s hysterical.

Good or interesting albums that came out in 2020 now, let’s see.

Nightwish released Human/Nature, which was a huge letdown compared to their previous album, but I will relisten to it at some point to make sure I wasn’t just in a bad mood that day.

The Birthday Massacre released Diamonds, which might be their weakest album since their debut, but contained some real gems (I listened to The Last Goodbye on a loop, it floored me. Flashback and Enter are also very good).

The 1975 released Notes On A Conditional Form, and let’s be real, it’s a f█cking mess. You could cut half the tracks and end up with an excellent album, but as it is it’s like, yes, a collection of notes ; however there’s some truely excellent shit on it (see unelligible songs).

Thanks to a friend on a discord server I was exposed to Dorian Electra’s music and I haven’t been quite the same ever since. I’m so happy to be alive to see other enbies making such great music with an insanely good aesthetic surrounding it and asking so many interesting questions about gender. Also the arc the ‘gentleman’ character goes through over the course of the entire tracklist of the 2020 My Agenda album is absolutely hilarious, don’t @ me.

I also discovered 100 Gecs this year. Why are most of you guys saying it’s unlistenable garbage. It’s just as abrasive and over the top as industrial music is, but with none of the edginess or drama. I love it. What the hell. But yeah Tree of Clues was released this year. Good.

Speaking of industrial, in March 2020 Nine Inch Nails were like “hey remember when we released Ghosts I-IV a decade ago entirely for free and how amazing that was? Well we’re all in lockdown and bored as hell so here’s Ghosts V-VI and it’s also free. Enjoy” and I f█cking died instantly. And it’s even better than I-IV. What the hell was that year

Jonsi released Shiver. It’s strange and highly experimental. I’m pretty sure it’s a good thing I was into hyperpop this year, otherwise going from his previous material straight to this album would have been brutal.

Yadda yadda yadda After Hours by the Weeknd good yadda yadda.

I’ve joked about that already but if you had told me in 2019 that 2020 would have fires, a pandemic, riots, monoliths appearing and disappearing, and also a super good Machine Gun Kelly album, guess which part I would have found the most ridiculous. But yeah uh. Tickets to my Downfall good

So uh this year I tried to listen to some hyperpop and liked it a lot, and I also dipped my toes timidly into screamo and listened to Svalbard, who released When I Die this year, and the entire album was a very beautiful, very intricately decorated punch to the face. It sounds like God Is An Astronaut except with a shit ton of yelling. I love it. Open Wound is my favorite track on it.

But no, despite all of this, my album of the year was from a band I had never even heard about before that year, called Spanish Love Songs. The album is titled Brave Faces Everyone and it’s line after line after line of extremely relatable generational angst but yelled with complete sincerity and it’s so propulsive and energetic you can’t help but feel both exhausted and ready to fight the entire universe. I don’t know how it works, but it’s incredible. The entire album is wonderfully brutal, so it’s kind of difficult to pick my favorite songs on it, but Beachfront Property and the title track stand out.

Unelligible songs, now, and there’s, uh, quite a few of them too so I’m also gonna use bullet points. Good lord this post is gonna be long.

First, let me say I have literally no idea why Midnight Sky by Miley Cyrus wasn’t a bigger hit. It’s not on the year-end US top 100 and it feels extremely wrong. Would have made it to #4 on this list otherwise.

I still entertain the vague hope that stuff from Machine Gun Kelly will chart higher in 2021 but I doubt it will happen so I might as well tackle it now and say that Bloody Valentine and especially Forget Me Too are both excellent and that it’s a shame radios aren’t playing them more often.

Heaven by the late Avicii featuring Coldplay should have charted in 2019 and still didn’t chart in 2020 and that’s a real shame.

If the world was a bit less unfair, Lovesick Girls by Blackpink would have been a hit rather than the awful Ice Cream.

One day I will stop complaining about my bafflement concerning the lack of mainstream pop charts success of The 1975. Today is not that day. I just love how they keep making songs about extremely awkward relationships full of weird details, and I haven’t grown tired of that yet. So yeah If You’re Too Shy is about a guy who’s crush is asking him to get naked on Skype in his hotel room and he’s, uh, not too sure about that idea.

And Me & You Together is about a guy who never finds the right moment to tell his best friend he’s in love with her, and he manages to do so at the end and it’s cute as hell. My fave part is “I'm sorry that I'm kinda queer / It's not as weird as it appears / It's 'cause my body doesn't stop me (Stop me) / Oh, it's okay, lots of people think I'm gay / But we're friends, so it's cool, why would it not be?”. Relatable as f█ck.

And now for an international hit that should have been bigger in the US and/or in my country but wasn’t: Head & Heart by Joel Corry and MNEK.

I’ve heard Nos Célébrations by Indochine extremely often on French radio for months now so I was very surprised to see that it didn’t crack the local year-end list. What happened.

I can finally hear the appeal of Bring Me The Horizon. It took me ages. And also Death Stranding. The song Ludens isn’t in the game per say, but it’s among the ones you can pick to broadcast briefly when people drive by your constructions, and long story short it's been living rent-free in my head for months now.

Phew.

It’s time for a round of Honorable Mentions for elligible songs, containing a couple of guilty pleasures, which is saying something considering the kind of shit I put on some of my previous lists.

Ne Reviens Pas (Gradur et Heuss l’Enfoiré) - Heuss is a French artist that kept baffling me while making my lists for the previous years, and I was like “??? ok, that’s it then, I guess I’m getting too old to get what teenagers find funny”. This one worked for me, though. And the music video doesn’t hurt. Really dumb and really fun.

Adore You (Harry Styles) - Perfectly good little pop song, very pleasant to listen to, never outstayed its welcome for me.

Mood (24kGoldn) - This doesn’t sound like a very good relationship, my dude, but that’s still a super pleasant song.

WAP (Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion) - This song is absolutely hilarious and I will hear no argument from any of you.

Control (Zoe Wees) - Was clearly a hit here. Should have been even bigger though. What a powerful but comfy voice. If I had better taste it would be on the list.

Hot Girl Bummer (Blackbear) - I. Uh. Listen. I keep saying I have bad taste and nobody believes me. Do you believe me now. But yeah. “F█ck you, and you, and you~, I hate your friends and they hate me too” is gonna pop in my head every single time someone is being a jerk anywhere near me now. It’s been happening all year already. Someone trashed my documents at work? Someone isn’t wearing a mask in public? That guy has filled his car with rolls of toilet paper? Brain goes “F█ck you, and you, and you~”. Every. Single. Time.

Come & Go (Juice WRLD & Marshmello ) - Damn, that’s a pretty good little song. I’ve seen plenty of people saying it’s ruined by the drop, but may I remind you I’m the person who loves Blue by Eiffel 65 with all my heart. If the song was ramping up consistently until the end instead of ending like that, it would have made the list, definitely.

And now, the actual list. This one actually feels pretty solid, I genuinely like everything on it, there’s no filler here for once.

10 - The Box (Roddy Rich)

US: #3 / FR: #23

Now this is a weird case, because for the longest time I couldn’t figure out why this song was so popular and I was completely neutral about it. Then, one morning in September, my mental jukebox (which always, always puts a song on a loop in my head when I wake up) decided to play it. And I was like oh wow?? I never noticed the atmosphere in that song before? It’s so great. And that hook too. Let’s listen to it.

So yeah, I don’t know what happened. It just clicked one day and everything fell into place, I guess.

9 - Alane (Wes & Robin Shulz)

US: Not on the list / FR: #93

Come on. You can’t do a remake of one of my previous #1 songs and let it chart in 2020. That’s cheating. Even with this subpar drop, I have to put it on the list, now.

I’ve already said my piece about the original, so I’m just going to send you back to my 1997 list.

8 - Kings and Queens (Ava Max)

US: Not on the list / FR: #76

[BBC documentary voice] After Lady Gaga decided to make piano balads and left her musical niche vacant, Ava Max quickly took her place as the top predator pop diva. Even after Lady Gaga was re-introduced to her natural habitat in 2020, she still hasn’t fully recovered in Europe, where Ava Max still reigns supreme on the charts -

(tldr I think it’s hilarious that this isn’t on the US Billboard while Lady Gaga isn’t on the French year-end top 100)

7 - Roses (Saint Jhn & Imanbek)

US: #19 / FR: #3

What an earworm. It doesn’t even bother trying to have an intro or an outro, so it loops almost perfectly. It’s like entering a party that started long before you arrived, and it will go on long after you leave it to go back home. Kind of hypnotic in a way.

And yes, my mental jukebox was very fond of using it to wake me up this year, so this is another song that’s here almost solely because of that.

6 - Physical (Dua Lipa)

US: Not on the list / FR: #69 (hehehe)

“Hey I’m not that old” says the guy who’s definitely a sucker for this kind of retro throwback that was so popular this year. Oh well.

I don’t have anything interesting to say about this one, though. Apart from the fact that everyone seems to have a different fave song on that album. Guess that’s quality for you.

5 - Rain on Me (Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande)

US: #48 / FR: Not on the list

That is far from being Lady Gaga’s best song, but it was a joy to listen to everytime it was on the radio anyway. Also Ariana Grande has surprisingly good chemistry with Gaga! This year was full of strange duets mostly made for commercial reasons, and this one isn’t an exception, but unlike a lot of them, it really, really works.

4 - Dynamite (BTS)

US: #38 / FR: Not on the list

I’m still not 100% sold on k-pop even if a ton of it sounds super good, but come on. Even if some bits of this song (especially the beginning of the second chorus) sound a bit like they were made on autopilot, it still sounds just as happy and fun several months after I first heard it and I never got tired of it. That’s quality. You hear it and you can’t help but tap your feet and smile.

Actually, I’m sure there’s people somewhere that don’t smile when they hear this song. And they must be avoided at all costs.

3 - Godzilla (Eminem ft Juice WRLD)

US: #62 / FR: Not on the list

What are you doing so high on this list, old man. Why are you still here in the year 2020. I thought we left you in the previous decade. Who gave you the right.

I’m gonna tell you who did, and it’s actually Juice WRLD. Because that chorus is incredible, and like a lot of people I’m pissed off because the guy died super young and this shit shouldn’t happen to anybody. No, his early material wasn’t great, but I’m sorry I’m gonna say it again: have you heard this damn chorus? It’s suspenseful and dark, it’s got this lowkey menacing quality, it’s an earworm and a half, and it’s more convincing in like six lines than Eminem’s own flexing is in the entire song.

The beat is extremely good as well, and the flow, obviously, impressive. The weakest link is Eminem’s writing, which is as usual full of puns and weird wordplay, except here a lot of it isn’t great, and that last ultra fast part at the end is technically impressive but it also drives the song up a cliff and stops it dead in its tracks once it’s over. But frankly the lines fly by so fast it’s difficult to be too annoyed by them.

Can I sincerely put this extremely flawed song so high on my list? A better question would be “did I spend hours trying to learn how to sing this shit without choking on my own spit?”. The answer is yes. To both.

2 - Heartless (The Weeknd)

US: #28 / FR: Not on the list

I’ve said it on my 2015 and 2016 lists already, but just for the record I’ll say it again: it took me ages to like The Weeknd, mostly because I found most of his songs fairly boring, or disliked the lyrics, or both. Also I never really liked the general vibe of his “sexy” songs like The Hills, they felt dark but in an unpleasant creepy way. Felt like miserable hedonism, if that makes sense.

So, because I’m a person with extremely consistent and logical tastes, here’s the exact same shit he was making before, except that this time I absolutely adore it.

What is he doing differently that makes the whole After Hours album click for me whereas almost all of his previous material failed to do so? Is it the energy? Is it the reverb? Is it the fact that the narrator sounds properly unhinged and, frankly, scared to be spiralling out of control? Why are the colors so beautiful yet full of anxiety? Why is that bridge so fantastic? How can you make your voice look like a glowstick in the dark?

I give up. I have no clue. At least I’m done talking about-

Oh.

1 - Blinding Lights (The Weeknd)

US: #1 / FR: #1 (listen sometimes something’s just that good, ok)

Surprise. Or not.

Wow, look at that, Johannes has put this year’s number one pop song at number one on their personal playlist. The audacity. The edge. What a hot take.

I discovered that song when it first came out at the end of 2019 and I adored it instantly. And I was so scared it wouldn’t be a hit. Which means I’m a f█cking dumbass considering it ended up breaking all sorts of records in 2020. But what can I say, overplay can be a blessing when you love a song that much.

Like every single song I put at number one on one of my lists, I will draw this one at some point and you will understand how incredibly satisfying it is to listen to a song called Blinding Lights, talking about city lights looking blurry when you’re driving at night, while looking itself like a bunch of blurry city lights passing by super fast. Perfect in every way.

Also it sounds exactly like A-ha, and that never hurts.

See you next year! Pretty sure it will be even better music-wise.

[ener-chi]

Much has happened today. 

Soo first off... in regards to my last journal post, I’ve made some progress. I had my suspicions, and they’ve been confirmed; the white-haired lady that was in that starry-place is actually someone that I work with. She’s a Fae... and she’s “kind of” related to Prince. It’s complicated; but we started working together not too long ago. I guess this is why.

I went back to the realm, and C showed me a bunch of different things. They weren’t visions, per say... I wasn’t viewing them, but rather experiencing them. Normally, I see things like I’m watching from an outside perspective looking in, but this time I was directly experiencing it. It was... insane honestly, I’m still not sure what to make of it. Here are my notes:

She told me to "Stop thinking. Just do."

That was the theme of this session. It was told to me over and over and over… and… it worked.

I went through the gates… and then was kind of sucked into darkness… I didn't know what to expect… Then I felt her grab on to my hand… And we were walking towards some light… like reaching the end of a tunnel…

We come out… and into a wonderful forest grove… it was so green… it was like… mid-morning… quiet… a little bit of rustling of leaves…

We walked along some natural-made path… and then we rounded a bend, and came to a circular clearing, with a tree stump in the middle… and I immediately starting crying… in real life too…

I immediately recognized this place… I've been here before… it's that tree… that makes me cry… and I'm not sure why…

I sat at it's base and wept…

Then I pulled myself together and asked C why she brought me here. She told me to not think, but to feel.

So I did. I felt… a strong connection to the tree. I felt myself in it. And then I had a vision.

A violent, violent storm. A wind like nothing I've never seen before, whipping through the forest. I see the tree; this time, in it's full form. It's tall, it's magnificent. I feel it's pride, and splendor.

A crack of lightning shoots down… strikes the tree… it doesn't ignite it… but that, with the fierce winds… the tree cracks… and falls over…

I feel its' shock… and then it's pain… and then its' sadness… it had so much pride in its' form and power and influence… and it was splintered…

I wept with this tree… as I returned to the grove… I comforted it… even though it's not in its' full form… it's influence on this place is still mighty… it is still the protector of this place…

At this point we leave…

I have another experience…

We go through another tunnel… and I come out in a bustling city…

The noises of cars and the busy city life fill the air… I'm walking along the side-walk… at first… I found it odd that there were no people around… or walking on the sidewalk… and then I realize that there are, actually… but they are just translucent…

I continue walking… I come to an intersection with a red light, and wait…

At this point, I had to kind of… get a right feel for what happens next. I have to go through it a couple of times, with C repeating to me to "Not think. Just do."

So the light turns green and the walk sign appears. I start to cross the street, and a truck whizzes by. I dodge it, heart pumping, and then another car comes behind me and hits me…

The next thing I know I’m lying on my back on the street, mangled… I see people surrounding me… I hear sirens… I black out…

Also, at this point I notice that I'm not actually "me." I'm a… young man, maybe early to mid twenties… black hair, taller and more slender than I am. A different person.

ANYWAYS

I have a foggy, flickering memory of me, in a hospital gurney… I'm being rushed by a couple different staff… I look up and see one of the worried faces… they look down and see me… they adjust the mask on my face… reach down… and blackness again…

I wake up in a hospital bed. My legs are up in those sling thingies. I'm pretty bandaged up… but all I really feel is… foggy… it takes a minute for me to process where I am…

A nurse is at my side, and I'm shortly joined by a doctor. He walks in and asks how I'm doing. I ask him what happened. He asks me what I remember about the accident… I tell him that I remember being hit… but the rest of the details are blurry. He says that I have multiple fractures, as well as some other internal injuries. He says that I'm lucky to be alive. I ask him about recovery. He says that I'll probably be in the hospital for a couple of weeks… but as for the recovery, probably at least 6 months at home. He then says to ring a nurse if I need anything; he'll be back later. He leaves, and so does the nurse.

Then a woman enters the room. Tall, long, curly black hair. I recognize her, and a warm feeling of love fills me.

She joins me at my side. Tells me that she's glad to see me. She says that I must be hungry, and offers me a drink. I gently drink from a straw; it's some kind of juice, kind of tastes like mango and something else. Man it was delicious!

I ask her who she is; I have some sort of connection with her, but I'm not sure who. (This is me - Zach - not knowing who she is). "Oh sweetheart," she says, kissing me on the forehead. "I'm your mother."

We talk for a little while longer, and then she leaves. I feel nauseous and dizzy… I throw up, and then ring a nurse, who rushes in. She quickly starts cleaning me up, and reaches down and adjusts the pain meds on my IV… things go black again… anddd it's over

I ask C what the point of that one was. She said that I'm starting to "see" things. That is the point. That I begin to see and to experience. I guess that's okay.

At this point I ended up ending the session because I had school stuff to do, but I went back later:

I entered the scene, and found myself walking briskly down a school hallway. I looked down at myself… I was wearing a fancy school uniform… my (what I would consider) fancy watch showed that I was late. I walked faster, eventually breaking into a run, turning and going upstairs before entering a classroom.

The teacher was calling roll… my name was called just as I walked in. I got some chuckles and snickers as I did. She just looked up at me with some kind of glance, then continued. She then asked everyone to pull out their books for the lesson.

After class, as everyone was filing out, she stopped me with her meterstick and asked me to stay for a moment.

She asked me why I was running late so often. It's been happening too often… and if it continues, there's going to have to be disciplinary consequences.

I looked down, bashfully…

"Sorry, Ms… I just… on the way to school, I pass by a lady and her two kids… they always appear to be starving… so I give them my lunch. That's why I’m late"

The teacher looks at me in surprise… then suspiciously… "That's very noble of you… if the story is true… but I guess now that I think of it, I haven't seen you bring or eat lunch for a couple of weeks now."

"Yeah… but I don't mind. I can just eat when I get home from school."

She smiles.

"Well… I suppose if this is the reason, then it's acceptable for you to be running late a few times. But perhaps there is another way that you can help those people; a growing boy needs his lunch, after all."

"Yes, Ms. Thanks Ms."

I run off… scene ends…

There was more, the notes are kind of incoherent lol. Very interesting! Things kind of took a big turn for me spiritually; honestly I’m not surprised lol but I never expected stuff like this to happen. I’m very curious and excited, and I will continue working with it.

That’s it for now. I hope that everyone has a great night!

Blessings!

[purplesurveys]

941

ACH

Do you listen to anything by Bach? I’ve probably encountered some of his material since I like looking for classical musical playlists to listen to on Spotify, but I’m nowhere near being a devoted fan or anything like that.

ASH

Do you like ash trees? I’m not attached to any kind of tree, really – but I know I have nothing against this kind, haha.

Do you have the ashes of a family member or a pet? No. The only ashes I’ve gotten to encounter are my grandpa’s, but we’ve since placed them in our local ossuary so that he can rest in peace.

How often do you feel like you want to bash your head against a wall? Before September, quite seldom. But with this month being so turbulent, chaotic, and nothing like I expected it to be, seldom has turned into every day.

Has anyone ever thrown you a big birthday bash? Sure. I had a big party when I was 7 and I also had a nice slew of celebrations when I turned 18. But if you mean a surprise birthday bash then no, no one has thrown one for me.

Do you know anyone who is brash? I do, but fortunately I haven’t had to work with her for a while now. I certainly often felt annoyed when I used to have to.

Do you typically carry cash or a credit/debit card? OMG Y’ALL I finally opened my own bank account last Friday I’ve never felt so grown-up until now haha. My dad helped me set up my first card, which is a debit card. :)

Have you ever crashed someone else’s party before? No, that sounds so annoying omg. I’d never want to be known as a gatecrasher. I know I’d be pissed if someone showed up to any of my parties uninvited.

Have you ever been involved in a car crash? Yes but fortunately they’ve all been super mild ones. One of my biggest fears is getting involved in a car crash where things would be out of my control and becoming seriously injured, like if a drunk driver crashed into me or if a 12-wheeler loses its brakes and slams into my car or something. I think I’d live in resentment for the rest of my life if that sort of thing happened to me and still ended up alive.

Do you use Door Dash? I didn’t know what this is so I had to look it up, and even though we don’t have Door Dash we do have several apps that do exactly the same services.

How often do you use a dash in your writing? I like using them in more casual contexts like survey entries, personal essays, feature articles, etc. I avoid dashes in academic writing since dashes are not really the most formal of punctuation marks.

Last place you made a mad dash to? The car repair shop that my dad asked me to meet him at because his situation was a little urgent at the time.

Do you make it a habit to flash people? Oh wow, no I don’t. That’s one of the last things anyone can expect from me. I like wearing revealing or skin-tight articles of clothing, but that doesn’t mean I like giving absolutely everything away lol

Do you prefer flash or no flash on a camera? No flash, always. I hate the effect that flash does and I never go for it, unless I’m in an area where lighting is poor.

Is the Flash one of your favorite superheroes? No. I’m not very big on superheroes to begin with.

Do you use the phrase “I’ll be back in a flash”? Not really. I find myself using “I’ll be super quick” more, or using ‘jiffy’ instead of flash.

Have you ever had a gash in your head before? Anywhere else on your body? I sported a gash near my eyebrow once because of some cousin who tried to blind me by hurling a glass jar towards my left eye and just narrowly missing my actual eyeball. Now there’s a scar in its place. Currently, I have multiple gashes on my arms and legs because Cooper.

Do you like hash browns? They’re okay, but I can’t have them all the time because I find them way too greasy for my enjoyment.

Do you do hash? No.

How often do you use hash tags? Almost never, unless I’m fighting for a political cause like BLM or calling for free mass testing. Hashtags got real lame real quick when they started getting popular around 7-8 years ago.

Do you have long eyelashes? Yes, it’s my favorite feature of mine and I get compliments on them fairly often.

How often do you lash out at others? For what reasons? Not often, but when I do it’s almost always because I’m already buckling under immense pressure and probably have nowhere to release my stress onto. I don’t turn it into an automatic mechanism though, because I don’t want to make others feel like shit for things they didn’t do.

Do you like mashed potatoes? I enjoy them but they’re not really my favorite dish. I can do 4-5 spoonfuls of them before getting over them haha, like I can never seem to finish a serving of it.

Do you typically gnash your teeth together? No I HATEEEE the sensation and the sound that it makes. My sister grinds her teeth in her sleep and it drives me nuts whenever we’re on a family trip and we share a room.

Do you know someone who speaks balderdash? Sure.

What color is the backsplash of your kitchen? White.

Have you ever had any rashes before? What kinds? Yes. Back in high school I used to occasionally get a random itchy area on my leg and whenever I’d scratch it, it would turn into an ugly patch of rashes. I never figured what the condition was but I’m just glad it’s never happened again.

Do you typically make rash decisions? Sometimes. I really tend to impulsive. The last one I made was swapping a full-time job opportunity for an internship with much lesser pay. Even I was surprised by how quick I jumped into the latter, but I like the nature of the work of the internship SO MUCH MORE, and I dunno if I’ll be happy with what I would be doing in the full-time gig. Plus, internships here are never even paid ones, so the fact that they even offered to give me an allowance per day just goes to show how good the company I’m interning for is.

Have you ever worn a sash before? I probably have but I don’t remember what for anymore.

Do you often find that your personality clashes with others’ around you? Yes, but I’m also good at adjusting to all kinds of personalities so I’m not too bothered by the clashes.

Whose tires would you like to slash? Any racist’s tires, really.

Who would you like to smash with? No one at the moment.

What was the last thing you smashed out of anger? I don’t really tend to be violent when I’m angry. The last angry thing I did was to throw my head against a pillow, but that’s it.

Do you have a secret stash of something hidden anywhere? Nopes.

How often do you take out the trash? My parents prefer to do it so they don’t really ask us to.

Has anyone ever told you that you look like trash? Other than myself, no.

Do you like to splash in the pool, the bathtub, or in puddles? I wouldn’t call it my favorite thing to do; I hate the mess that it makes, ha.

Have you ever thrashed violently before? What was the cause? Yeah. I probably embarrassed my grandma for life when I did so, but it was when I had to be confined to the hospital and they needed to insert the IV thing on me. It sent me into the worst panic attack I’ve ever gotten and I ended up thrashing a lot and several people had to hold me down so that the nurse could stick the thing into my wrist.

Do you own and use an eyelash curler? No. Those make me cringe so bad...I hate how they get so close to the eyeball. Kate brought her makeup kit to school everyday and she always made me try to learn how to curl my own lashes, but it just made me feel so nauseated lol

Have you ever experienced backlash from others? A few times before.

Have you ever had whiplash before? Never.

ATH

Do you prefer a shower or a bath? Shower. Much more efficient. Baths are relaxing, but I don’t like how I end up bathing in what’s pretty much dirty water.

Have you ever given another person or an animal a bath before? I’ve only given Kimi a bath. I let my dad bathe Cooper since he’s too much of a handful for now, plus I think it’s fair if we bathe one dog each haha.

How good are you at math? I can answer advanced algebra, statistics, and geometry questions if you give me enough time to review and get reacquainted with the formulas, but I’m perfectly alright with no longer revisiting trigonometry and calculus for the rest of my life.

Do you feel like your life is on the right path? Career-wise it definitely is; I’m happy with the direction it’s going right now. Everything else seems so turbulent at the moment and I can’t say I’m happy.

Are there any bike paths or footpaths in your area? We have sidewalks, if they count.

Have you ever gone on the warpath before? Not really. I do get very angry with certain people if I think they’ve been behaving badly, but I rarely get confrontational.

Is there a birdbath in your yard? No, those aren’t common here at all. I’ve only seen those in cartoons, I think.

Have you ever had a footbath before? Nopes.

What’s the last thing you’ve had to deal with the aftermath of? I can think of one thing but it’s still pretty triggering so I don’t feel like bringing it up at the moment.

Have you ever witnessed a bloodbath? Thankfully I haven’t. I get so queasy when I see blood though; it’s so much better off this way because I wouldn’t be able to deal with one at all.

Are you a sociopath or a psychopath? Do you know anyone who might be? No lol. I don’t think I know of anyone who could possibly be either. I wouldn’t want to associate myself with one in the first place.

Who’s the last person that you faced the wrath of? Myself.

AMP

Do you have an instrument that you plug into an amp? Nope, I own 0 instruments.

When’s the last time you felt amped up? What was the reason? Thursday morning when I parked in front of the office I was gonna have my job interview in. I needed to hype myself up to feel confident so I spent a couple of minutes in the car pumping my chest and screaming and shit, lol

Have you ever gone to day camp or overnight sleepaway camp? No. My mom wouldn’t have allowed me as a kid.

When’s the last time you felt like a champ? It’s been a while. I haven’t exactly felt like I’ve been winning in anything.

Last time it was damp where you lived? This afternoon. It was really humid for a good few hours and then it ended up raining.

Weirdest place you’ve ever had a cramp? My index finger whenever I’d try to use chopsticks; and my toes when I hiked in Sagada. The toe cramps were so bizarre I was actually laughing-crying the whole time the tour guide was treating me; my dad was taking photos of me too loooooool

Do you refer to your grandfather as “Gramps”? No. I call both of them Lolo, which is our local version of Grandpa.

Have you ever worn a headlamp before? No, I’ve never really had to.

Do you have a ramp anywhere in your house? I don’t think so, no.

Has anyone ever called you “scamp” before? No.

How many lamps are in the room you’re in? How many are actually turned on? There is one lamp, and it is currently turned on.

Do you stamp your feet when you are angry? It doesn’t tend to be a behavior of mine, no.

Last time you used a postage stamp? Not sure...grade school, probably? I never used those a lot.

Are there streetlamps on your street? What time do they turn on? Yep. I don’t keep track of their schedule but a safe guess would be either 6 or 6:30 PM.

Last place/area that you wanted to revamp? My room.

Do you know anyone who is a tramp? No.

Have you seen Lady and the Tramp before? Not the full movie but I’ve seen a lot of excerpts from watching Magic English as a kid.

Do you know anyone with a “tramp stamp”? I don’t think so.

AWK/AULK/ALK

Is the squawk of certain birds annoying? Which ones? I’ve never found any of them annoying, but maybe that’s also because there aren’t a lot of different birds flying around where I live.

Do you prefer hawks or falcons? And…why? I don’t have a preference; I’ve never encountered either.

Has anyone ever watched you like a hawk before? That sounds a little creepy and I wouldn’t want to know if anyone has.

What was the last thing you used caulk on?   I’m almost positive I’ve never handled that, haha.

[a-zebra-is-a-striped-horse]

[lnane]

I’m gonna be super annoying and ask for the questions in increments of 5 (as in 5,10,15,20 etc) haha please don’t hate me

youre not annoying! i like doing this. i could never hate you, youre too cool <3

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?

“yes”

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?

i dont think ive ever actually played the air guitar. i dont play air instruments, like at all. at most i drum on things

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

honestly it doesnt really matter much. on one hand i like attention, and performing and such. but on the other i also like taking photos of people and things, and being helpful and stuff.

for the sake of the question id say in front

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

my greatest weakness is probably my instinct to isolate myself from everyone else and refusal to depend on others for help. i always want to be indepentant and i dont know how to ask for help, let alone how to not feel like a bother while doing so. so i often end up just sitting alone not certain what to do.

my greatest strenght is probably that im very funny and sexy as fuck and that i try to treat people with kindness no matter where i go B)

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

talking on the phone, easily. both tire me but video chatting can be extremely exhausting. idk why theres a difference. either way after i always end up zoning out and not being able to pay much attention or distracted and just being silent in general after a while, especially if theres several people on call.

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

wall.

air or bed

35: To you, what is the meaning of life?

have fun. do anything that makes you feel fullfilled and happy while causing as little harm to others. the goal of your life should be to, at the end of it, be able to look back and genuinely say “i lived a good life. i am happy with this”. regrets and pain will exist in it, but as long as it has been good for you, overall, you have suceeded.

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

i dont have a drivers license for a car, but ive had a license for mopeds and tractors since i was 15 (which is when you can get em here in sweden).

ive not really crashed (which is surprising considering how often i basically slept on the moped), but before i got my license and the first time i sat on a moped i drove into a ditch. ive also fallen over a couple times when trying to park.

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?

i have no idea. i think i would say that one time when i was like. 6? 7? something like that and fell from my bed when jumping around playing and hit my forehead on one of the pole things on the bedframe, which was square. still have a visible scar from it.

50: Do you believe in magic?

idk. i want to, but theres also nothing proving its real. im sorta agnostic about it. it can be real and ive just not seen it yet, or its not real. either way, im not gonna know for certain until i see it myself.

55: Love or lust?

i want love, but i think i lust more

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

oh yes. perfume bottles, pride flags, paint, books, a giftbag, letters, needles, paper, a big dragon eraser, probably way more but im not gonna search my entire room for it

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.

oh geez i suck at and hate this kinda thing. im gonna skip this one :)

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

i dont think i am what i ideally want out of a friend, but i do think i am the kind of person that i could get along with and be friends with. we would never talk outside of like, physical meetings tho.

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

4778

80: What size shoes do you wear?

42-43 depending on the shoe i think (keep in mind i am swedish we use a different system from yall americans and yall brits)

85: What’s the last song you listened to?

i am currently, as of im writing this question, listening to Alone by The Mowgli’s

by the time ive finished answering to all the questions im listening to Moscow by Autoheart (its such a good song i had to add it)

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?

try to shoo them out probably. they gotta stink and i dont want their dirt in my room, its enough with mine and the dogs

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

ive answered this one already but ill answer it again! finland. wanna give archie a hug and maybe a kiss on the cheek if theyll let me

[insertdisc5]

Yet Another Zelda Roleswap (the masterpost)

✨what's this AU?

Check THIS POST I DID that started it all and also the AU’s tag

✨in this au, the previous legends about the triforce are the same, aka “zeldas are princesses links are heroes and ganon/ganondorf is always the same guy and the big bad”! BUT THIS TIME DESTINY DID AN OOPSIE and ganondorf forgot all about his previous lives while link is the one who remembers them all!!! zelda just wants to travel and read cool legends and didnt expect to be part of one

✨ZELDA STUFF

-trans girl, found the name zelda in very very very old royal records

-she's like 16 or something

-seventh heir to the throne who wants to prove herself, so she goes on an adventure to save the world!!!!

-adventurous and impulsive and naive

-main weapon is bows, she also knows magic and sheikah techniques

-has six siblings who dont really pay attention to her. shes probably the youngest

-her point of view is very black and white at first

-even when she gets in the middle of link and ganon’s story she still doesn’t believe she is The Zelda of legend

-how could she she’s just a zelda, one among many, just a kid playing at being a princess

-(she IS the zelda)

-she gets a bird AND a white horse!!!!

-if she sees a weird cave she WILL go into it 

-would probably eat moss if dared

✨LINK STUFF

-genderfluid, uses he/they

-hes in his early twenties

-a man zelda meets during her travels, who seems to know a lot about old legends

-he can see koroks and fairies, who can’t be seen by most people

-gets all his past lives' memories after he gets the master sword, over a period of a day or two

-maybe link does remember his past deaths along with his past lives, but past deaths are maybe more muted…. less like he experienced them and more like someone told him about it. still fucks him up tho

-i feel like he’d be pretty nice and sleepy all the time, until you mention something that has to do with his memories (aka, ganondorf, but also like “oh ive heard some hero in the legends went back to being a kid to save the world or whatever) and he’d get this super serious, focused look… something like that, little things that would make zelda go :^?

-he just really wants to kill ganondorf ya dig

-SO MANY BOSS FORMS probably one per main title (kinda like xant’s battle in TP) (strongest/hardest to fight is majora’s mask link), and final form is definitely some twisted looking fierce deity

-as for his past selves he has all of their memories and its kind of… they’re not him, he’s him, they’re just memories that he has, but when he is very very stressed its “memories become actual personalities for a sec” time. 99% of the time its just him and then ganondorf is there and its like WILL EVERYONE SHUT UP IM TRYING TO MAKE A MURDER HERE

-he’s not controlled by malice or anything because it would feel like a deus ex machina to me

-in the end he doesnt die and he gets redemption because he didnt hurt anyone he just tried to kill ganondorf a few times hes good, and also zelda is his friend and an heir to the throne he’s got immunity. poor guy just needs help processing all those lives and needs a cabin in the woods with some fairies!!!

-re: his past lives, oot link SUPER HATES ganondorf while ww link is more sympathetic. links who havent fought ganondorf are ambivalent about him

-endgame ship is either with ganondorf OR beedle. beedle is the secret ending

-will eat moss

✨GANONDORF STUFF

-he's in his twenties i promise he just has resting old man face

-zelda’s old childhood friend

-doesn’t remember anything about his past lives

-gerudo king, very serious but fairly well loved

-lets not talk about malice it either doesnt exist/this ganondorf doesnt have any/this ganondorf knows how to control it. either way its not gonna affect the story

-”what are you wearing today king” “oh, just whatever” (its not whatever he spent hours finding the day’s outfit)

-found out about his past lives while reading a very very very old book, probably read it and stayed in his room for a week and then promised himself to never ever ever turn out like that

-genuinely a good person

-would never eat moss

✨RELATIONSHIPS STUFF

-zelda and ganondorf actually knew each other as kids! Both being royalty and all. legends do talk about a hero a princess a beast or whatever but don’t use link or ganondorf’s names since it’s been so long- it takes zelda and ganondorf both finding old, old books on their own to be like “AH OOPS”!!! Ganondorf learns about his past lives much earlier than zelda, who finds out during her adventures, and she goes from seeing ganondorf as a dear friend to being like “…but what if he’s really bad though”

they’re old childhood friends, you know, the kind that were best friends before and then grew up and saw each other less often (different kingdoms and all) so they kinda grew apart, and then zelda starting her quest made them reconnect again! Ganondorf is a little older than zelda so he always saw her more as his little sister who just jumps into mud because she totally saw a sword there i promise, and zelda sees ganondorf as her cool older brother who actually pays attention to her, unlike her actual siblings

-when link and zelda meet, zelda’s like “weird dude but probably harmless” and link is like “weird girl but probably harmless” and then she’s like “oh my name is zelda” and link goes “ah just likeWAIT” and he kinda observes her to… gauge her abilities? My Zeldas Were Better kinda thing. i guess during their final battle he’s like “you’re really a zelda, after all” and its bittersweet

the second zelda figures out link is also part of those legends she goes full hero worship mode, which makes link’s fall from grace… really… hard on her. ive been admiring you and wanting to be a hero like you all this time, turns out you’re not a hero and also Not Okay

-re ganondorf and link, after everything that happened uuuh

human brain: it probably takes them both a long while to get used to each other, given that one was almost killed by the other and the other has vivid memories of having their world(s) destroyed by the one, but after a while they probably bond over their shared uuuuh memories i guess. link visits gerudo city once in a while and they catch up and become friends and

lizard brain: after 100k words they DATE

no i wont write how it happens you will NOT make me embarrass myself in front of everyone because i earnestly wrote about how link visits ganondorf every time he’s in gerudo country and at first link just passes by to give ganondorf news about how zelda is faring as queen and news about the world, and as time goes and years go by  they start talking about their lives and struggles and just taking walks across the desert together and having sand seal races and everyone in ganondorf’s court is like “so when’s that little voe coming back” and ganondorf is like “i neither know nor care that its been three months since his last visit” and everyone’s like (smirk) “okay” and when has he even started to look forward to link’s visits anyway how did this happen and then link comes back and smiles gently and shows ganondorf this cool rock he found that looks like ganondorf’s face and ganondorf is smitten

takes them both Y E A R S to realize their feelings and then date tho. slow burn or bust

✨WORLD STUFF

-takes place in a time where the games’ adventures are only known as legends where they didnt even write down ganondorf’s and link’s names

-now that im thinking about it it wouldnt happen like THOUSANDS OF YEARS after any game because then ganon and link wouldnt be that worried about their destiny??? so maybe like 100-200 years after a game??? and the ppl writing down the legends were just terrible bookkeepers who couldnt even think write down link and ganon’s name

-(smash voice) EVERYONE IS HERE!!!!!!!! tingle and agitha the bug princess and sidon and especially groose who is uuuuum zelda’s rival who is totally not in love with her

-i think in botw its implied koroks are only seen by people like link and zelda??? so id say only people with uuuuh magical power??? can see them???? so koroks are just doin their thing, playing pranks, helping people without them knowing, and, in the case of makar, playing romantic music around couples

[zephyr-94]

barista!jaemin

inspired by the one and only, puff live!

a/n: this is my first ever fic omg pls spare me with my low writing skills cause ive literally never done this fjskdjdhjdks okay i just love na jaemin periodt. (after writing: ITS VERY JUMPY AND LENGTHY I DIDNT PLAN TO MAKE IT LIKE THIS DJSKJSJSS)

so like your aunt owns a cafe which is in the middle of the city

and you live a lil outside just cause you know, school n shit

you visit her so often cause its a small cafe and it calms you down whenyou need a short break from everything

its weird thats its in the middle of the city but its still calming right?

well okay so like you know those small streets down the neighbourhoods?

the ones you dont really go unless you are rlly feeling adventurous n shit, your aunt’s cafe is in one of those streets

okay longass context down

and at school, you are in a photography club,,, or technically you just learn photography from your teacher after school but its not a whole club extravaganza

just cause your school kinda demands an extra curricular after the first year

but it feels really suffocating to be forced to do smth as a group/with people you arent as familiar with,,,,

so you “signed up” for the smallest club: [photography theory]

it was about time you start doing your hobby-ish thing at school and the tutor was cool with you being practically the only student in the club lmao so everything was going well but

youve never rlly done anything big yourself and your school friends havent pushed you to do smth either

so you were kind of looking to at least take part in one out-of-class project initiated by students maybe

and theres this big school newspaper club/writers’ club,,,, and you find out that they are like !! photographers & stories wanted !!

and you ?? at first but apparently its a project where like students get to submit their fav pic & write a mini article about “your place of comfort”

cause the topic of the month is mental health/dealing with stress and the newspaper club wants a students’ view on it, instead of just “meditation” as a topic

then you just have that cafe in your mind like,,, how you would love to shoot the street light shining into the cafe from afar and how calm that place makes you feel,,,

basically you just love your auntie’s cafe lmao

so then you go on about maybe joining it,,, but then you be indecisive cause youve never actually taken a photo professionally you just have a prolonging passion for it,,,

and your teacher is like “y/n idk why you are contemplating no ones gonna judge you just try smth new, go take the chance if you are feeling like it”

we love a supportive johnny, oh yes your english teacher is your photography “club” tutor,,, self proclaimed club

actually there have been many opportunities in the past with taking photos for projects like this one but you just stayed away cause it didnt “motivate” you to take photos for it

so johnny’s words kinda pushed your back n you felt like this was the right thing :))

so then you visit your auntie on the weekends asking maybe if you can take pics & ask her a couple questions about this place

and shes like ofc!! wanna see how you capture this place :))

so then you do this whole process and you submit the article & photos,,,,,

which ends up getting a whole page???

and you are like wh a t

newspaper club: oh you submitted many such pretty pictures & your comment felt very genuine

and you :)) but damn a whole page,,,, you is a lil anxious djskdjdh now the entire schools now going to know you

johnny the hype man teacher: see i told you it was going to turn out nice

and then kaboom, your article lowkey blows up lmao

your auntie is calling you up like “y/n!! so many customers came today!! and a lot of them are wearing the same uniform as you, they must be the students from your school!!”

and shes so happy so you are happy af

but then you remember like,,,, shes never had a part timer,,,,,

and she continues to manage the place by herself after it gets popular among the students,,,,

?? auntie,,, you never take a break ??

shes like maybe ill think about hiring someone?? and you are like, that would be good for you :)) i will be less worried about your health!!

whoop guess who got hired

and after youve had that^ conv, you had constant classes n group projects n shit so you literally had no time,,,

two weeks later, kinda highkey stressed

you decide to go make a quick visit to auntie before going to the library to study

and you peek,,, to see not your auntie,,,,

but a boy?? 

just standing behind the counter,,, no auntie to be seen but a beautiful boy???

before the opening hours,,,, he?? must be the part timer,,,

and once he notices you by the door,

he just smiles at you,,, so brightly,,,,

wow youve never seen such a pretty face,,,

you actually like forget to open the door you are just staring from outside the cafe,,,,

and he just waves,,, and you snap back to reality like oh shit did i just stare at someone for a solid minute

welp that was embarrassing djkdjdfj

he opens the door for you and goes “hey you must be y/n :))”

“the only person who comes before 9am, thats you isnt it?”

and you just ?¿ confusion??¿

“auntie told me about it :)) hi, nice to meet you, im jaemin!!”

you are still confused but you just shake hands next to the counter,,,

and as you take a seat

jaemin just makes a smol run to the other side and hes like

“you came just in time, i want you to try my latte!!”

jaemin serves a cup of latte with a leaf art

this boy just served a latte first thing after shaking hands i-

you take a sip from the cup

and you are like,,, so auntie hired an experienced boy,,,,

“its really good,,,” it has the same comforting taste you always love

and jaemin just has the biggest smile :)))) you know his smile where the ends just curl in, yes that one

him beaming like that just makes you giggly inside,,,,

you ask him “so uh um im guessing you are the part timer??”

“yes!! i didnt introduce myself properly did i! i started working here two weeks ago :))

ive been coming here for quite a while now so im happy i got the chance!!”

and you ?¿ “ive never seen you here??” you are the most frequent customer youve gotta have seen him before fjsksj

hes like “oh um i always came at 9pm on a friday, after everyone leaves and the whole neighbourhood gets quiet”

you just :o

and come to think of it, you’ve never visited here on a friday night,, cause you know, friday evening is your im not doing anything tonight kinda me time lmao

inside you are kinda happy that someone who knows this place got hired like its a special place to you so

tbh you were kinda anxious even though you trust your aunt,,,,,

and jaemin hurriedly goes “oh and also auntie is taking a break today, shes out to the market so im gonna take over until she returns in the afternoon”

djskdj auntie why didnt she tell you lmao

“im sorry if you needed anything specific from her,,, you should stay for a while until she comes back maybe?”

and you are like,,, “oh that would be great,,, but unfortunately i have to go to the library,,,,”

jaemin: ): he pout

“im so glad you came today tho!! i wanted to see you :) auntie has told so many thing about you”

“wait,, what has she told you,, omg”

apparently shes told jaemin

a) reason why this cafe recently became a popular hideout cafe for students because you wrote a school article bout it

b) that you do photography

c) and that this cafe is your break time so you never study here and auntie loves listening to you talk about school n what not

and then you are like !!

“wait so then you dont go to our school ,,,um are you also a student?”

and you panic a little cause i mean you just met him but you literally know nothing and you mightve assumed things fjsksj

and jaemin tells you “ah yes i go to a hospitality school downtown” “ohh”

and from there he just starts talking about his school and what he studies

he asks you about school but jaemin is extra excited about his hospitality course hes all !! :))!!

and you are so hooked on jaemin talking about his school you forget an hour passes by,,,,

[time to open the cafe]

then the customers start coming in

and you are like “oh sorry ive just bothered you during the preparation time,,,,, it was nice meeting you!! gotta go now :))”

and you rush out cause all you planned to do was give your auntie a little visit

also you dont want to bother jaemin cause its hes gonna handle the place alone for a couple hours

you wave a smol see you soon and

jaemin just does a little chuckle,, and hes like waving so widely fjsksj does he know other people can see him

and thats how your first day with jaemin went

later that day you return home thinking like,,, did you just get so excited to converse with someone who you juSt met,,,

na jaemin’s power

and jaemin on the other hand, is thinking about how beautiful you looked today

just that short while but it made him so happy

hes thinking about you all week uwu

so next week you visit again, expecting to see your auntie

and maybe also that gleaming boy

peeking through before the opening hours

the moment jaemin realises you hes like “y/n!!” what a shining boy

and aunties like “oh y/n right you met him last week when i was out right”

that morning you just talk to auntie about what shes been missing on after you went on a busy week

mind that jaemin is literally just listening to you & auntie talk

and he enjoys it cause you talk so comfortably in front of her :))

you decide to stay the whole day to give yourself a break

which meant you moved to your usual spot by the window

and auntie serving you (free) vanilla latte

you take out your camera and just start adjusting the lenses, trying to find the right frame

customers come and go so you dont get to talk to jaemin a lot that day

but its not like you came here for him,,,, right?¿??¿??

while you were thinking all that

jaemin was asking about you all day like

“so y/n’s favourite is vanilla?”

“does y/n prefer a latte over cappuccino?”

“i want to serve y/n something,,,, what would be the best??”

auntie: how many times did he mention y/n today omg

and as auntie answers

jaemin is thinking like

i wanna see y/n smile

and the entire day your auntie is like !!he :)))))

lmao same auntie same

so when the peak hours finish she goes

“i can take care of everything now, go talk to y/n”

and jaemin just smiles brighter than ever

so when he comes around, you startle

but it puts a smile on your face

because hes brought your favourite cake and just a smiling jaemin in front of you uwu

you both get to know more about each other like

how theres this two boys named chenle & jisung in the preparatory course whom he adores to death

or like

theres this jeno boy whose jokes suck jeno i love you

with a bonus of

you talking about how johnny’s english class is nothing but a comedian’s lesson

so that day went great

and now that you are comfortable

you visit the cafe to talk with jaemin more

even when you have a chill no stress week

it just makes you feel lighter by coming to the cafe now

and your auntie is hella happy that you two are getting along so well

it continues for weeks

just you and jaemin talking from time to time when the peak hours are over or before the cafe opens

you became best pals basically

he encouraged you to join more school projects cause hes sure your photography is worth the chance

you giving him daily support when he feels like he isnt doing the best for his course

sometimes when your aunt had to leave for a couple hours near closing time

you two just stayed there talking for a couple hours giving comfort to each other

late night lattes and cakes

also one time you got so excited from the bestest grades you got you might have hugged him without thinking oops

and one day, jaemin’s friend renjun is there when you come after school

and hes like “hi uh dont mind me im just here a bit because jaemin has to go somewhere after this and i dont want him to be late”

so you just,,, chill as jaemin kinda rushes

and when he goes to the storage room, you just see renjun getting along with the auntie lmao

auntie: “so i got offered this contract with the new type of beans? and idk if i should take it because that would mean i have to go out of the city,,,,”

renjun: “for how long?”

auntie: “two weeks maybe”

renjun: “oh thats fine, dont worry about it. jaemin can take over that. next two weeks right? his mandatory work experience ends this week”

so thats how renjun signed jaemin up to work alone for auntie without his consent

and aunties like “y/n!! it would be so much for just jaemin, you should help him :) your break starts next week right?”

so you also got signed up to this thing

fast forward to first day of break

aka the first time you “work” there

you are nervous and jaemin can feel it

“dont worry y/n, ill do all the talking and coffee, you just have to serve & clean!!”

so you try to calm down a bit

not to mention that you are also nervous cause its only jaemin and you in the room

but then he sees you fumbling with tying the apron and

jaemin says “here, give it, ill do it for you” while smiling a little

and from the back he wraps the apron around your waist,,,

and hes so close to you,,, your heart is fluttering

okay heart stop beating so fast pls thank you

and little do you know,,, jaemin is flushing a bit behind your back,,,

you are both the cutest mess

and you break the silence with a smol

“thanks :))”

trying to contain yourself from screaming

adapting to the serving side & keeping youself busy

you dont realise jaemin is literally admiring you the entire time as you get used to the job,,,,

here and then you forget how close you might be standing next to jaemin,,,

you kinda also realise how rEALLY attractive he looks serving everyone with a huge smile 24/7

and the way some customers are obviously attracted to him,,,,

but what you dont know is he is literally taking this chance to highkey flirt with you lmao

waves (sometimes winks) across the room

causally hovers over you when you cant find/reach smth

beaming the biggest smile every minute he gets to himself

and at first you panicked like ?!????

cause was this jaemin boy holding back for a whole month

is this his nature yes

but it makes you so happy to see him smiling all the time beside you

so jaemin yes its working

you gotta admit tho his flirty-ish behaviour grew on you this entire week djskjssj

a week of giggly smiles uwu

but the week after was unexpectedly the busiest of the busiest

you two forgot national holidays collided with the weekends and for some, it was a week off,,,,,,

so the week rushes by so quickly compared to the last one

it kind saved you tho cause your heart cant take more of that flirty behaviour

and finally,

the peak days are over,,,

and you realise its been a while since the cafe was just you,,,, and well jaemin but just no customers

the silence with faint sounds of cups cluttering,,,, you missed it

so then you go sit on the high chair

just admiring jaemin organise the shelves

he starts to prepare a new cup of coffee then realises you smiling at him “were you in awe at how effortless i look right now??”

you chuckle at his remark,,,

(needless to say that your are chuckling to hide how your heart is melting at his smirky smile)

so you twirl a bit shyly,, and avert the gaze to the familiar wood of the counter

asking him “do you remember the day we first saw each other, me sitting here and you serving the latte?”

“ofc, its the day i met an angel”

oh so confidently na jaemin really just said that

you quickly look up at him like !!!?!???!

and thats how he earned a first kiss (or rather a peck) from you

leaning over the counter and pecking you, a whole blushy mess

then comes a clink by the door

you juMp,,,,,,,

oof the customer may or may not have seen you two

you both rush around flushed like a tomato lmao

spending the rest of the day like nothing happened oops

and after the day ends, you two close the cafe

as you starting walking you are caught off guard when

jaemin just takes your hand,,,

“look y/n!! the stars are so pretty!!”

and starts swinging your arm like a tall child,,,

your heart is skippingnsjsjsjs

then at the corner, jaemin turns around and goes

“this is actually the place i first saw you”

and you ??¿?¿¿

“i saw you taking the photo of this night light shining into the cafe”

still hand in hand, jaemin steps a little closer

and takes his free hand to cup your face, kissing you,,,,

you smile into him as he kisses so softly, thinking

maybe the day i took that photo was a friday night

and melting into the kiss, you really think you are dreaming,,,,,

under the lights you once wished capturing a sparkling moment with the cafe in the back

its now you and jaemin in the frame,,,,

the boy who had you forgetting to breathe a month ago

whos now serving your favourite latte with a bonus of pecks on the cheek,,,,, (maybe on the lips if theres no one watching)

anyways

jaemin brings light to your life and you have never been this happy until you met him uwu

and it goes both ways, jaemin cant live without you now,,,, you are the best thing thats ever happened to him

(thank the heavens & your auntie)

oh and also johnny for pushing you to submit that article lmao plus huang renjun for that involuntary sign up

[tfw-no-tennis]

continuted hxh thotz

we watched more so i continue my ramblings 

so we finished the trick tower stuff and started on the stuff on the island where theyre all hunting each other....wow finally some hunting in hunter x hunter 

can i just say....fuck hisoka i hate that guyyyy oh my goddddd hes the worst. i just feel incandescent rage whenever hes on screen vhbjdshfjhbsd smarmy horny clown bitch. looooord. he invokes a similar emotion to part 1 dio tbh....like i lose my domestication when i see both those bitches 

oh god that part where hisoka had just spent like hours de-hornifying himself or w/e and he looks all crusty and dehydrated and then he spots that old guy who looks kinda ghibli and he just goes AFTER ghibli man....like hisoka literally had one of those wack ass super detailed faces and just started screaming and running at that guy...like man i wouldve died instantly on the spot. jesus 

gon remains best best perfect baby boy. every time he does something so cute and pure that my heart starts palpating, i get even more nervous for the shit hes gonna go thru someday 

gon and killua are literally soooo precious theyre just two lil boys!!! two lads!!! lad boys! augh i love how much theyre vibing all the time...like on the boat to the island when theyre like refusing to tell each other who their target is and then they both start laughing and then show each other....so precious

honestly im really enjoying how they dont really have a rivalry (yet?) - theyre not like ‘yes we are friends but we’re also COMPETING! so we cant be That nice to each other bc that wouldnt be fair! or w/e you know that typical shounen stuff. i only enjoy that sometimes and im glad its not a thing rn, and if it does become like that later i probs wont mind bc i feel like itd be done well 

so ruth and i caught on to the fact that that weird guy with the pins stuck all over himself was illuminati or w/e his name is (illumi? illumini? i forget already) but HOLY FUCK we both thought he was wearing a mask....god i wish that were the case, that face transformation shit was the WORST. sir why can you do that 

also when hisoka just watched this and was like ‘i always like seeing you do that’ or whatever god gross nasty i hate them

my take on the little we’ve seen of hisoka and illumitations relationship: theyre like the catty mean girls-types but Super Fucking Weird. idk if theyre gay togther (probably) but theyd be the epitome of a ‘is this allowed? [gestures at All That]’ couple. i had more thoughts on them but i forgt 

i find it funny that they havent shown killua like at all during this island hunting thing hvbhsdhfbjdk he probably has like 10 randos badges already. i feel like he would give gon a badge or 2 if gon needed them but that doesnt seem to be the case 

when hisoka spotted leorio and kurapika and went after them i was like [guy yelling NOOOOOOOOOOO meme] freal 

thank goodness kurapika could recognize that they would Fucking Die trying to fight hisoka, and bargained w/him instead. also seeing the flashback of leorio trying to fight hisoka was so funny. my man WHAT! were you thinking 

this is probably the stage that tonpa is getting out on and can i just say thank god i hate that guy. good riddance 

that sniper lady looked cool and im bummed illuminty took her out offscreen :( i also thought the black guy with the beehive stick thing was gonna do more but guess not

i find it funny that so many characters have these loud character designs but end up not having a lot of screentime...i feel like ive been conditioned by one piece to see an eye-catching character and mentally prepare to see a wholeass backstory lol

also. illunikn is clearly a huge freak which is probably why hisoka is willing to work w/him, but his design is weirdly cute sometimes (when hes not doing absolutely freaky shit, which....admittedly isnt often)

like the part where he transforms into his True Cat Man Form and then, without changing expression, digs a giant hole with his bare hands (with the body language of a feral person) and then gets into it to nap.....like.....bro. 

also ik illiminini is killuas brother (i think brother?) and wow that family has some strong Cat genes 

i find it interesting that hisoka has been working with illiimini this whole time, hisoka strikes me as a solo type of guy who would be all like ‘teamwork is beneath me’ and only have minions (a la dio, espec p1 dio) but he seems to have a fairly even relationship w/illuimian which is wild. i rlly wonder if thatll last or if hisoka is gonna like, murder/abandon ilubimi later bc he ‘gets in hisokas way’ or st 

i like that kurapika and leorio teamed up....married

i generally really like how the relationships between the main characters are handled, its sweet how theyre just like....generally nice to each other and stuff lol 

also oh my god i forgot that last time i hadnt seen the end of trick tower i need to talk abt that 

KILLUA MY BOY OH MY GOD....ive been waiting for this ngl. ily smug murderous catboy

i love so much how killua casually kills this ~*~scary guy~*~ and everyones like :0 but gon is just like yep thats killua! hes from a family of assassins! like the way he says it so casually and kinda cheery aw i love him. he doesnt even care that killua can murder people in 2 seconds flat, he thinks killua is AWESOME 

and oh my god i love how hard killua is trying like, all the time. he is trying his HARDEST to be AS COOL AS POSSIBLE for gon and thats adorable. its working too gon clearly thinks killua is SUPER cool 

the eternally hilarious part where kurapika asked what killuas secret tactic are re: ripping that guys heart out, and killua is just like ‘uh i just ripped it out. yknow...as one does..’ and kurapika is like wow im glad this murder catboy is on our side.. 

the psychology stuff in the trick tower was interesting as hell (catch me brushing off my psych minor like, oh yeah i know abt this stuff lol)...i like the stuff abt leorio getting discouraged/disgruntled when the majority ended up being against him a lot bc thats true!! thats how it works!! it leads to learned helplessness and stuff like that...also that animation of kurapika and leorio playing cards to explain the tough candle choice was sooo cute 

i really loved the solution to the final majority rule things....ingeniously following the rules while still managing to circumvent them in ways...love it

also gon is so perfect have i mentioned that already

im so curious whos gonna pass the hunter exam, i legit have no idea and i would find it so funny if gon becomes a hunter in the first goddamn arc hjhbdfhsdjbgk as ruth said, itd kinda be like luffy becoming pirate king in like chapter 70

i mean tbf if i had to guess id say gon passes, simply bc i cant see the story taking the time to have him do the hunter exam again in a year. also his motivation is to become a hunter in order to see what its all about bc of his dad - not JUST to become a hunter 

gons fishing rod is so cute. perfect item for a perfect boy 

his training was adorable. hes a smart lad! formidable baby 

the blooderflies were so cool and OH MY GOD how could i forget the part where gon had two blooderflies with little leashes on and had the leashes tied to one of his fingers....OOOUGHHHHGBSJFHSJBFUHEJKSDD bro my heart literally palpated like it does when my cat does something rlly cute, gon is seriously That cute and pure and good

every time hisoka is anywhere near gon i just wanna call the FBI on that clowns ass oh y god. pls leave ladboy alone....

anyways i love the main characters (HISOKA DONT INTERACT) and i cant wait to see what happens next. i might have more thoughts but coherency is not one of my strengths so bye

[today-we-will-survive]

meet me in the tree house

Moodboard made by @snowflakeu25

BTS au-imagine

Yoongi x Reader Y/N

fluff, romance

Word Count: 3.5K

A/N: This was a request from @snowflakeu25 💜

Three knocks on his studio door.

A gruff voice, muffled by the walls enters your ears and you twist the knob and push into the room with your hip since your other hand is preoccupied carrying a shallow box of takeout containers. A boy sits in a computer chair facing a mountain of recording equipment. Speakers jut from the two corners of the ceiling. Three large monitors sit atop the mountain, an expanse of panels, keyboards, knobs and sliders filling the valley below. At the sound of you entering the room, he turns around, his mouth twitching into a quick smirk before his eyes fall to the food in your hands.

“Hey,” you say.

“Hey,” Yoongi replies spinning around fully to face the coffee table as you set the box down on its surface.

“Working hard?” you ask and take a seat on the leather couch that sits adjacent to him.

Yoongi stretches, arching his back and raising his arms in the air with a groan. “Always,” he says. “Chinese?”

“You know it.”

The two of you are quiet for a while as you work at getting all of the take out containers open and onto the coffee table. Then you pass him a pair of chopsticks before taking your own pair and grabbing the closest container. You’ve watched Yoongi become a big time producer, his songs winning award after award. You’ve seen him on tv, standing on stages, making speeches, wearing designer clothes and being adored by people that don’t know him.

Yet every Wednesday, you come to Bighit, the security guard giving you a smile and a nod of recognition and you take the elevator up to the fourth floor, carrying take out, walk down that hallway lined with albums that have gone gold and platinum before reaching the studio. And there you find him, in his baggy sweats and baggy shirt, sometimes a beanie to keep his hair out of his eyes and he’d turn and greet you with that same tired smile. He’s never treated you different. He’s never let the fame get to him. Probably because he knows how far of a fall it would be back to the bottom where he started if he were to let it all go to his head.

You moved to the city not long after Yoongi got the job at Bighit. The two of you have been best friends since you were in fourth grade, when he moved into the house next door to yours. He had a tree house in his backyard that you had been eying for a while and when his mom had forced him to come over and ask you to play, you’d been ecstatic to finally be able to see the inside of it. It was as cool as you’d thought it would be, and that was where you’d spend a lot of late nights during the summer.

As you got older, the tree house transformed from a playhouse to a safe house. If your parents were fighting or lashing out at you, you’d send a quick text to him asking him to meet you there. And by the time you climbed up the rope ladder, the hatch would already be open and Yoongi would be waiting for you, his ears open to listen or his arms open to hold you, whichever you needed. Usually, it was both.

Once he moved away after college, there wasn’t much left for you in your small town, so you followed him, getting a job in the city and hanging out whenever he was free. Which wasn’t as often lately.

“So what have you been working on?” you ask before shoving a piece of orange chicken into your mouth.

Yoongi perks up, swallowing his mouthful of food before spinning to face his desk again. “Tell me what you think of this. Then with a couple clicks of his mouse and a press of a button on one of his keyboards, the room fills with music.

You close your eyes so you’re not distracted by anything and listen to the steady rhythm as it builds. After a few measures, Yoongi’s familiar voice starts in, delivering the deep lyrics he’s become so well-known for. You can feel the smile spreading your mouth as you listen, your head automatically bobbing to the beat. You’re really enjoying the song when suddenly it cuts off and you open your eyes to find Yoongi looking at you, his hand poised on his keyboard. You frown.

“What did you stop it for?”

“I just wanted to give you a sneak peek. You can’t hear the whole song until the mixtape is done.”

“Mixtape?” you ask as your smile returns.

Yoongi smiles back and looks down at his hands shyly. “By the way, I’m making a mixtape.

You let out an excited squeal, reaching out to hit his arm over and over, his smile growing bigger with every hit. “Are you serious?” you finally ask when he’s rolled out of your reach. “You’ve been wanting to do a mixtape forever!”

“Yeah,” he chuckles and scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah, I’ve finally gotten some time to work on it so I’ve been kind of messing around, writing some stuff.”

You pick up the container of pork fried rice, poking at it as you shake your head. “I’m really excited for you, Yoongi. It’s going to be amazing.”

“I hope.”

“It will be,” you say. “You’re crazy talented.”

Just then you feel your phone vibrate in your back pocket and when you reach for it and look at the screen, you can’t help but smile. The room is silent as you type a response to the message you received.

“Who has the audacity to interrupt our Wednesday night dinner?” Yoongi asks jokingly as he wheels back over and swipes a container off of the coffee table.

You send the message and set your phone onto the table before taking another bite of rice. “Just a guy I’ve been talking to,” you say. “Sorry.”

Yoongi blinks, obviously caught off guard by your response. “Oh, no, it’s okay. I didn’t know you were talking to someone.”

“Yeah,” you say with a shy smile. “I met him at a party last weekend and, I don’t know. We got to talking and now we’ve been texting each other a bit.”

Yoonig lets out a grunt, suddenly very interested in the container he’s holding.

“I don’t know,” you say again. “I think I’m finally in a place to start wanting to date again…you know, after everything that happened with—”

“Y/N,” Yoongi says cutting you off. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about him. I’m glad you’re able to move on now. I’m happy for you.”

You tilt your head as you study your best friend. His words sound genuine but the sentiment doesn’t seem to reach his eyes. “Thanks,” you utter. You hear your phone vibrate against the coffee table and you watch as Yoongi’s gaze falls to it for a split second before focusing back on poking his chopstick into his food.

*

*

Y/N: So Chinese again tonight or something different?

Yoongi: Ive got a lot of work to do tonight. I dont think I can hang out.

Y/N: Oh ok. See u next week then?

Yoongi: Sure.

*

*

Y/N: Hey, did u want to go out tonight instead of me bringing something? Theres a new ramen place I wanted to try.

Yoongi: cant hang out tonight. Busy.

Y/N: …ok. Next week then? I miss u.

Yoongi: Sure.

*

*

Y/N: ok. Im kidnapping u tmrrw night. I kno u dont rlly like going anywhere on Wednesday nights since u hav to work but we havnt hung out in like 3 weeks and I want to take u to see this new horror movie with me. And I kno that telling u Im kidnapping u kind of negates the whole “kidnapping” thing but I kno u dont like surprises.

Yoongi: cant.

Y/N:…really?

Yoongi: Sorry. I have to work.

Y/N: man…ur working a lot lately, arnt u?

Yoongi: its my job, Y/N. Maybe next week.

Y/N: Next week Im going to be back home to visit some family.

Yoongi: oh ok.

Y/N: Whatever, Yoongi. If u dont want to hang out anymor, just say it.

Y/N: Or dont. Whatever.

*

*

Yoongi: hey

Yoongi: Y/N

Yoongi: I know ur mad at me but please respond.

Yoongi: Y/N I was just being an idiot.

Yoongi: Y/N

Yoongi: Please talk to me.

Yoongi: look, I kno ur reading my texts and I kno u probably wont respond but if u end up seeing this, please meet me in the tree house in like twenty minutes. Alright? Thats where Ill be. I need to talk to u.

*

“The tree house?” you utter as you re-read his last text. As in the one at his parent’s house? The one that’s over an hour away from the city the two of you live in now?

You’re at a family dinner at the moment but you’ve all already eaten and now your parents are just talking to your aunt and uncle and though you’re a bit reluctant to actually meet up with Yoongi (since you’re still pretty pissed at him for ditching you for the past three weeks) he’s the perfect excuse for you to duck out early. And you do just that, saying goodnight to your extended family before telling your parents that you have to run but you’ll see them back at home later. Then you head out before anyone can argue.

It’s about a thirty minute drive from the restaurant back to your house. You can’t even bring yourself to pretend to feel bad for making him wait those ten extra minutes wondering if you’re even going to show up. It serves him right. The two of you have been best friends for as long as you can remember and have been doing Wednesday night dinner together ever since he got the job at Bighit. After all this, he decides he’s too busy to hang out? He’s never been too busy. Has the fame finally gotten to his head?

A terrible thought occurs to you as you pull into the driveway at your childhood home. What if he wants to meet you to break things off? To tell you that he doesn’t have time for friends anymore. That you shouldn’t come around anymore because it’s interfering with his work. That he’s outgrown you.

With an angry jerk of the stick shift, you jam your car into park and turn off the engine, yanking the key out. You can already feel yourself getting worked up as you slam the door and stomp across the yard to Yoongi’s house. When you get through the gate and enter the backyard, your eyes trail up to the tree house where it resides in the tall maple in the middle of the lawn. The sun is almost all the way set and the sky is already turning a medium shade of blue. It’s getting dark fast and you can see golden light filtering out of the windows in the tree house. He’s there. Good.

You take a deep breath then make your way up the rope ladder. This was a lot easier when you were younger, and smaller, and you can’t help but wonder how much longer this rope will even hold. With that thought, you scurry up the last few rungs, hoping the whole time that it won’t snap on you. Then, when you poke your head up through the hole, your eyes fall on Yoongi.

He’s laying on his back, hands on his stomach and his eyes fixed on the ceiling. At the sound of your arrival, he turns his head, his gaze locking with yours.

He sits up quickly. “I thought you weren’t going to come.”

You back away from the hole in the floor until your spine rests against the wall. “I wasn’t going to but it was an excuse to duck out of dinner early.” You cross your arms. “What are you even doing here, Yoongi?”

Your best friend gets to his feet. “I wanted to talk to you about…everything.”

“Well?”

Yoongi sighs, bringing up a hand to scratch behind his ear. A nervous tick you’ve always thought was a bit endearing. “I guess I just got kind of…jealous.”

Um…

You stand there against the wall blinking for several seconds, not really sure if you heard him right. “Jealous,” you finally say. Yoongi nods. Your brow furrows and you let out a humorless laugh. “I’m sorry, Mr. Big-shot producer, what the heck would you be jealous of?”

As if on cue, your phone chimes in your pocket and Yoongi’s eyes fall to the outline of it against your thigh. You’ve still been talking to that other guy from several weeks ago and now it kind of dawns on you, just what Yoongi is jealous of. The two of you lock eyes again.

“Yoongi…”

The apples of his cheeks dust a light pink, contrasting against his pale mint hair and he shifts on his feet. “No, it’s stupid. I shouldn’t have been like that. Not when I’ve never even told you how I feel. I just wanted you to meet me here so I could tell you that I’m sorry and I want to keep doing our Wednesday night thing and you can text that guy all you want. And I know you don’t need my permission but I’m just letting you know that I won’t be a jerk about this. And I won’t start acting all weird. Date him. Marry him. I’ll still be your best friend as long as you want me to be. And if you don’t, I understand that too because what kind of person freezes their best friend out over another guy? You’re more important to me than that and…Y/N?”

His words finally trail off when he looks up and realizes you’ve been standing there gaping at him the whole time. Your heart is in your stomach and your breaths have become shallow. Are you having a panic attack? Here? In Yoongi’s tree house? In front of Yoongi?

“Y/N?” he asks again.

“What did you say?” you utter.

“What?”

“What did you say?” you ask louder. “Just now. What did you say?”

Yoongi fumbles with his hands for a second, running his fingers through his hair and switching his weight to his other foot again. “Uh…that you’re my best friend?”

“Before that.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Before that.”

“I was being stupid?”

“After that.”

Yoongi bites his bottom lip, the pink in his cheeks becoming darker. “…that I haven’t told you how I feel?”

“Yeah,” you say. “How do you feel, Yoongi?”

“I feel like…” he takes a tentative step toward you, keeping his eyes locked on yours even as the blush spreads down to his neck. “…like I’ve been in love with my best friend for the past five years.” He takes another step toward you. The tree house isn’t very big so even after just these two steps, there’s only about a foot of space between you now. “How do you feel, Y/N?” he asks, his voice much lower than it was before. You peer up at him, heat creeping up your own neck to settle on your cheeks.

“I…uh…I—” your phone chimes in your pocket again and Yoongi sucks in a sharp breath. “Give me two seconds,” you whisper then pull your phone out of your pocket with trembling fingers and check the screen. Yoongi leans in a bit to peek too. “It’s my mom,” you say and you hear him chuckle under his breath. “She wants to know if I want them to pick up ice cream on their way back.”

“Do you?” he asks leaning in more, his dark eyes now drilling into yours. You’d back up if you could but you’re already pressed against the wall.

“Do I what?” you ask him.

He hesitates for just a moment, a smile quirking the corner of his mouth. “Want ice cream?”

You both know that’s not the question he’s really asking and for a split second, your eyes dart down to his lips. You pull your own into your mouth as you try to conjure up the words. You’re already a flustered mess with this boy so close to you, looking at you the way he is, his body heat radiating across the small space between you.

“Of course I want ice cream. I frikin’ love ice cream.”

The tension in the small space seems to burst as Yoongi falls forward, his head landing on your shoulder and laughter bubbling up out of him. You can’t help but laugh too as you feel his shoulders shake against yours and then he’s wrapping his arms around your waist to keep either of you from tumbling to the floor. The room is filled with your giggling and tears have sprung to your eyes and finally, once the muscles in both of your stomachs are good and sore, he lifts his head back up.

The laughter dies down as the two of you lock eyes again. You watch with bated breath as he reaches up to brush the hair back from your forehead, his fingers sliding down the side of your face and lingering on your jaw. “Can I kiss you, Y/N?” he utters.

You don’t even hesitate to nod before he closes the small gap, his lips moulding to yours along with the rest of his body. His one hand tightens on your waist and the other slides to the back of your neck and then he’s tilting his head to kiss you deeper. Of course, then your phone chimes AGAIN causing him to jump back with a small gasp.

“Sorry,” you mumble, your head swimming as you look down at your phone still in your hand. You look back up at Yoongi again. “Flavor?”

Yoongi stands there breathing hard for a second, staring at you as he processes your question. His tongue flicks out of his mouth for just a second. “Chocolate,” he finally says breathlessly.

You type the word as fast as you can, getting frustrated when you keep screwing up, before hitting send and dropping your phone onto the rug. Then you reach out to grasp Yoongi by the shoulders, pulling him to you once again.

*

*

“Just listen to this one,” Yoongi says as he pulls you back down into his lap.

The computer chair creaks under the weight of the two of you and you grip the arms to keep from toppling over. “Yoongi, I have to go. I have to get up early for work tomorrow.”

“Just this last one,” he says and slides the headphones back onto your ears. You’ve tried taking them off for the last five songs but every time you do, he wants you to listen to just one more. This is the last one, I promise.

“Yoongi, you’re really making me seem like a jerk of a girlfriend that doesn’t want to listen to your music.”

“But you do want to listen to my music, right?”

You smile and reach up to touch your palm to his cheek. “Of course, I do,” you say. Yoongi’s mouth lifts into a gummy smile as he nuzzles your hand. “You know I’m your biggest fan.”

“I know,” he says with a contented sigh.

He’s too perfect for his own good. So talented and so soft lately. Yoongi has always been more on the reserved side. Never cold but a bit closed off, even to you. But ever since the two of you talked—if you can even call it that—in the tree house, everything has changed. He’s revealed a different side of himself to you. A softer side. A happier side. You can hear it in his music, too. How happy he’s become.

“Alright,” you say. “Just one more.”

Yoongi claps excitedly before pressing a button on his keyboard and then settling back in under you, wrapping his arms around your waist and resting his cheek against your arm. He loves watching your expression as you listen to his music. Loves seeing how it affects you, loves seeing the uncensored reaction. He knows you’ll always be honest with him, because you want him to give his best. Besides his colleagues, you’re the only one who’s opinion he trusts.

As you listen, Yoongi starts playing with your fingers, pressing the pads of his own against yours so you mirror his movements, and then when he glances at the screen and sees that the song is almost over, he slides his fingers through the gaps between yours and locks your hand in his. You knew he wouldn’t let you go after this song.

You shake your head until the headphones slip from your ears. “Yoongi,” you say.

“Just one more,” he says quickly and releases one of your hands to pull the headphones back up.

[bedlamgames]

Q&A #103

Today we have the Twine conversion, lesbian training mantras, social lube, a bunch of random stuff from the discord, and a whole lot more. 

[Anonymous said]: I'm really curious what the tally means for your twine conversion posts. Can't seem to figure out what its suppose to represent progress wise...

- Answered this last Q&A. Because of you asking I’ve now also added the explanation to what it’s about to every stream post so I hope that helped with understanding what’s going on with that.

[Anonymous said]: Suggestion: For races that start with a random corruption (ie: Succubi), have an option in full custom to spend points to either narrow what that corruption is (to be one of the four types, for example) or to outright pick one (for a much higher cost).

- That’s a good idea. Being able to pick specifically I think would be too much. There are ALOT of corruptions so that would mean many many menus to be able to select everything. Being able to pick one of the four types seems fair to me as something to spend points on in Full Custom. Added it to my notes. 

[Anonymous said]: Have a succubus slaver who used to be a lamia. On level up, she had the option to get the Fleet trait, which I thought was off-limits for Lamia due to their body shape. I think it's a bug?

- Good spot and should be fixed as of the last update. 

[Anonymous said]: Noticed a bug with No Haven 0.903: If you select a human (or once-human) for your character, and then quick restart, your next character will keep the human's Racial aspect Social Lube. On the topic of that Racial, it says " includes one human, and three other different races/subtypes gain an additional Success" Does that mean one human and three non-humans, or one human and three slavers each of a different race from each other?

-Took me awhile to work this out as going from human to human seemed fine. However you’re right that those with a heritage like demi-angels or succubi will incorrectly keep the previous racial. 

The second so as long as you have at least one human you can get the buff by say having a northerner, noble, wastelander, and convent. 

[Anonymous said]: hi bud, xfto/x421 here, its been a long time i guess. wanted to ask about the status of the no haven/twine conversation. i joined your picardo lately but couldnt post some reports since you dont allow guest-posts. well anyway, the report is about something ridiculous i have found after some restarts, the chosen main charakter (lamia) starts as male with the hard carry aspect(immense shaft) and different description than the ones the perks would give. 1/2

another question, feels like i asked something similiar in the past, how about the integration of different artpacks/access to older pics, or deletion of those that never get used? i guess that would requiere some more access to the game than you allow atm. maybe with twine? do you have a roadmap on tfgames or somewhere for the future of no haven? i know there are some more races you want to implement and improve some systems, but thats it, hope you are doing well in these times. 2/2

I do an update on the patreon every two weeks which is linked on the twitter. You do not need to be a patron to read these and is the best way to stay informed about what I’ve been up to. That includes the status of the conversion. To quickly sum it up;

It's at a stage where all the RAGS to Twine code conversion is basically done. What I need to do now is translate all that work into something playable and there's currently big logic issues with a bunch of the conditions and passages. So what I'm currently doing is trying to tidy up the visual look of the code with a bunch of idents with the theory that will make finding the errors easier.

Alas it’s not me disallowing guest posts... Picarto had some massive stonking issues and so they locked things down hard due to that preventing guests from chatting. I suggest a throwaway email site to get around that.

I don’t think there’s any art in the game file that’s not used as I try to keep on top of deleting the old ones. Not really down for doing art packs of the old ones as due to that not being my art so I see them as placeholder only until they can be replaced by commissions. 

I probably do need to do some kind of roadmap sometime. I’m less keen as it’s kind of a dirty word these days as due to the miss-use of them by others it’s got some bad connontations, but I’m also aware the alternative which is me randomly mentioning stuff on discord/picarto streams leaves the vast majority of my audience in the dark which is also really not ideal.

[Anonymous said]: [no haven 0.903] [Crit no longer grants Bimboborn] okay, but how do I get bimboborn now?

- It’s a corruption. Specifically Blessings of Perversion. 

[Anonymous said]: With the change to training where hypnotic slavers can fully embed the relevant mantras for blowjob, bimbo, and sissy training, could we also get that for lesbian training?

- Yes that’s the plan when I do the third part of lesbian training. Got a set of commissions planned just got to sort the funding and work out who I’m getting to do it. 

[Anonymous said]: hey bud, x421 here, again, might be already fixed because thats from no haven .903, but i recently had the witch queen super rare quest, you might want to proof read the quest and results, there are a few typos. i really did enjoy the writing nonetheless, just a quick question about that quest, as far as i understood this one, you only change your odds of the final result depending on how good you do on your way to the final, but the reward in the end only depends on the final result? 1/2

2/2 it just dawned on me that its been a while since you made an Q&A post so i guess i ll go and lurk on the tfgames forum in the next days, just one last question: i asked early in development about camp upgrades and you were not that convinced about that stuff, i understand you want the slaver camp as some bandit camp and not some castle/bastion or whatever, but since you added camp upgrades, maybe add proximity to a certain region? or something to spend supplies and gold in a 13month+ run?

- Hah! Okay will give it another read through.That’s correct yes. There’s also rewards on the way if you Critical those parts. 

There is a new gold sink coming soon in an upcoming update. I’ve also got plans for more camp upgrades coming later. 

[From the Patreon]: I'm that guy you replied to about the patch notes in Q&A 101. Solid updates. Bugs in the outfit system has driven me nuts since like, 2015, has it been that long already? I think it has. I like collecting them and something always blows up. This time, I ended up with a slaver wearing both the ooze outfit and ponygirl outfit. So there's that. Also I was disappointed the new Quicker then You'd Like wasn't interactive. Solid in any case though, thanks!

- I'll get them all one day I swear! Don't suppose you remember the chain of events that led to that? New QAYL was a patron requested one with the idea of having a big pay off for playing submissive which often involves playing sub-optimally.

[From the Patreon]: 1-ive been noticing when you choose to repick choices for an slave training assignment the slave gets added to the list of choices 2-also just how rare is the post-slave princess city assignment, cause i can never seem to get it even after selling multiple slave princesses 3-another thing is that the nightly puppet-leader stat is almost impossible to get again(either that or i have bedwarmers incapable of usurping me even thought i my current stats mean i couldnt win against even the subbiest slave)

- Will check 3 as you've not been the only person to mention that. 2 I know exists for sure as other people have definitely got it. Should be no rarer than any other rare City assignment, and thanks for the spot on 1.

[From the Discord]: Top 3 Animes of the 2010 to 2020

Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica the series was staggeringly good. Just redefined what anime could be to me. Film is a... well it was a thing. A beautiful thing with an ending which I still quite know how to feel about. 

Shirobako. It’s about creativity, craft, and about how people can come together to make something. It might not be something good, but dangit it’s been made and that’s worthwhile. It’s also from personal experience by miles the most accurate depiction of working in an office I’ve ever seen.

Oh man this is very very hard deciding on the third so pick one of the following and I could probably make a strong case for it. 

Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon, Darling in the FranXX (yes really, yes even the ending), Lupin III: Part 5, Kill la Kill, Monster Musume, Flip Flappers, Demi-chan wa Kataritai, Zombieland Saga, or Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai.

Also while I was taking the question to mean series both Your Name and Promare are absolutely phenonemal films. 

[From the Discord]: Best recent Eurovision Act

Lena. Always Lena. 

[From the Discord]: What's the agricultural technological level of No Haven like 

It’s not hit industrialization yet. What makes the difference is and allows cities like Aversol and even bigger to exist is that the organization of the human empire is far better than it has any right to be for the other levels of development being able to keep an incredibly complex supply chain constantly flowing even if on the ground level it barely seems to be moving at all. There are also some much, much larger farms both on the Great Plains and further to the north compared to the much more isolated single/couple of households ones that your slavers raid. 

[From the Discord]: What have been some of your all-time favourite assignments, both in terms of working on them and how they turned out?

Love When Week’s End Comes for a recent one. Writing all the results in colour commentary (and all the variations for weather, events and outcomes) was a real challenge and I do like how it came out. 

Witch-Queen and Arisin’ for being the first times I tried to go for a different, more potentially disturbing/freaky mood, and I’m pleased with the results. 

Sable Masquerade as I really like the ‘bad end’ I came up with. Actually I like the whole thing as while the pitch from the patron obviously helped, a lot of it was inspired by a random superhero bondage party picture I saw on HF, which I decided to run with, and had a bunch of fun exploring. 

[From the Discord]: Weirdest bug and most difficult bug

The one that resulted in a male wisp riding a griffon was a fun one. 

Most difficult has to be the clothing management which as a previous question suggests I’ve still not entirely solved. 

[From the Discord]: If No Haven was an MMO, what race/class would you play?

Kreen rogue mainly as I really like the edit I did for the portrait which MidnightonMars later translated into a commission. 

If not definitely a lamia. 

[From the Discord]: Knowing what you do now about the design of the game, are there any game mechanics you wish you'd have implemented differently?

Clothing management. So very much clothing management. I’ve redone it entirely twice now, and it’s still not where I want it to be. 

[From the Discord]: What was your inspiration for creating the setting of No Haven?  Has the direction the game has gone varied from your initial idea? If so what has been the biggest change?

- It started off with adapting the chan game Deeper Dungeons which was basically a certain popular mmo with nothing different about it outside of it being porn along with some possibly unwise options of personal abuse. I first changed it by ditching gnomes for neko which to my mind was a clear upgrade. There even used to be an examine refference in the RAGS version to suggest they’d been in the region of the dungeons before being driven out.

Then it was a gradual process of adding with the occasional subtractions to get it closer to a more Warhammer feeling setting which has always been a major love of mine when I was still doing Whorelock’s in RAGS.

With No Haven it was a case of building on what I’ve done there and expanding upon that with the race lore and assignment descriptions. Biggest was probably when I did the favoured/unfavoured stuff and added a ton of extra backstory to various races to justify the choices made there. 

[jamlally]

Skating on thin ice

This was written for the 25 days of Christmas Challenge that is hosted by  @panicfob .  The Day 7 Challenge prompt was Ice Skating

Warnings: Fluff and hints of a relationship 

Pairing:  OFC x Tony Stark

Summary: Old fashioned methods help Tony make things special for Belle

Warm hands with long dexterous fingers wrapped around Belle’s wrists guiding her forwards.  It didn’t matter how much she had faith that the hands holding  hers wouldn’t lead her into trouble, it was still unnerving to not be able to see where she was going.

“Come on Snowflake, not much further” She could hear the amusement in Tony’s voice and tried to let herself relax a little.  “I promise you are perfectly safe”. 

Belle could feel a light wind blowing on her face,  and she was glad that Tony had made her put her hat and scarf on before they left.  She tried focusing on her other sense and knew that they were outside of the compound, and they were walking on the grass but other than that she couldn’t tell much else about what was happening.

Tony couldn’t keep his eyes off of Belle’s face,  even with her eyes covered he could tell that she was nervous about what was happening and where they were going.  Her bottom lip spent more time between her teeth than was usual and her hands had a slight tremor to them, He was sure that she would like his surprise, but he didn’t want to scare her.  This woman had come to mean more to him than he had ever expected.

When he had woken up on the couch Belle curled up against him, he had a moment of utter blind panic.  They were covered in a blanket which meant that someone had seen them, and Belle could read more into this than he wanted and then……. He took a second to think it through.  

Who had seen them, well that was was enough to work out - he could just ask FRIDAY so that left him with what would happen when Belle woke up.  The worst case scenario - she ran away screaming and didn’t speak to him again.  Well she would have to speak to him when they were mission planning, and executing.  Ok so out of work she wouldn’t speak to him , he could work around that right?  

Ok so if she got scared he could back off, but last night she had seemed really happy to be physically close with him, but it could have been the drink talking.  She was shy though so maybe the drink let her say what she was really felling.    His gut told him that the best thing to do was to run, to not take the chance, his heart said just to wait and see.  

Before he could decide either way Belle snuggled in a little closer to him, her arms tightening slightly as she seemed to soak in his presence and his heart won out over his head.  He had laid there enjoying the moment until Belle had stirred. He felt her freeze obviously realizing the position that they were in.  Tony had tightened his grip slightly and she had relaxed.  They had taken their time getting up and having coffee together and writing down her cocktail recipe before separating to go on about their days, neither quite loosing the smile they had been wearing. 

He wanted to do things for Belle that let her know just how special she was to him, but everything that he come up with just felt wrong.  Belle wasn’t a girl who was comfortable with grand gestures, which was unfortunate as he was really good at those, so he needed to find other ways to express himself.

HE enjoyed sitting with her and sharing a morning coffee while he read through what ever turned up in his inbox and she started looking through her own set of tasks.  When he was with her his brain became more quiet and he often found he could sort through his ideas a little more clearly as long as those ideas didn’t have anything to do with showing Belle a little fo what he felt.

At the height of his frustration he had been stomping around his lab in a foul mood when Bucky had appeared needed his arm to be assessed.  Tony had been glad of the distraction even if his mood didn’t improved

“What’s bugging you Stark.  You seem even less pleasant than usual”

He had glared back at the soldier - annoyed mostly at himself

“OK so you’re old and people had less stuff when you were last walking around - right?”

Bucky had nodded, unsure as to where this was going “So what kind of gifts did you get people, to show them that they mattered?”  

“Like when people were courting ?”

“No not when you were courting.  Jesus!” He pushed back on the stool rolling back and looking up at the ceiling  “Just when you want to make sure they know that you were thinking of them, and you were glad that were there”

Bucky rubbed his flesh hadn’t over his mouth using It to hide his smile.  It sure seemed like he was talking about courting based on what Bucky remember.  As much as he was desperate to say that Tony so rarely asked for input that he didn’t want to put him off so he restrained himself

“Well it’s been a while but usually you would try and do something nice for them, maybe take your gal somewhere that she had wanted to go to, perhaps to a movie.  We wrote letters too”

Tony rolled himself back towards Bucky picking up a screwdriver and adjusting the plates a little further.  “Interesting, well there you go - the arm should be good to go.  I’ll schedule FRIDAY to run diagnostics over the next few days and if there is anything off then there are a couple of other things we can try”. He dismissed the older man his mind already plotting his next steps.

Belle had laughed when she had found a hand written note slid under her apartment door asking her to be ready to be collected in 2 mornings time, dressed for the outdoors. She had tried to catch up with Tony to ask him about what he had planned but he managed to avoid her, always heading off somewhere else, with a smile and a wave and now she found herself blindfolded and still non the wiser of what was happening,

Concentrating Belle realized that she could hear what sounded like voices, one of them sounded like Thor.  Belle started to slow, why would the others be out here? She trusted Tony but she didn’t want to look like an idiot.

“Its Ok Belle, I promise I knew that they would be here” Tony tried to reassure her.  “Just a little further Belle”

Letting go of a shuddering breath she nodded her agreement and stepped forward enough to be able to feel a little of the heat radiating from the man she was putting her faith in.

A few minutes later he pulled her to a stop, moving behind her to start to free the blindfold.  She felt the knot loosen but Tony held it in place as he learnt in closer to her ear “I need you to know that the time I have with you is important to me, I enjoy it - a lot and I want to you to understand that I need you to be happy”. The hair on her neck stood up as his warm breath passed over it, his words sinking in

“I have a past Snowflake, it’s out there for everyone to see, but I am trying to do better. I’m going misstep and get it wrong, but I hope today is right” The blindfold dropped and Belle blinked allowing her eyes to get used to the light and then let out a gasp quickly followed by a giggle.

“It is unclear to me why it is that this…thing is fun Lady Belle.  Blades are to be used by a warrior to defeat his enemy, not to propel ones self across the ground”

Belle couldn’t help but smile at the Asguardians reaction to the current activity.  He was making his way across an ice rink, arms flailing and a frown of concentration on his face. 

She looked over her shoulder at Tony who was currently rolling his eyes.  Natasha and Bucky were skating as a pair smooth and graceful while Bruce, Steve and Sam were stood off to the side. Bruce seemed to be attempting to explaining something that involved the ice skate being upside down.  What ever it was Sam looked confused and Steve kept shaking his head.

“Well mostly because it’s fun Point Break.  You said that you wanted to try some fun winter activities and this is one of them” 

“I have been to places where there is ice and it was not a positive experience. This seems like something that my brother would do simply to have people laugh at me” the scowl on Thor’s face said it all.

“Yes well,  I am not scared you understand, it just doesn’t seem like this is a wise plan.  I am happy to try this skating but it is not clear to me quite how this is actually fun”

Watching her face Tony allowed himself to relax a little “So this was an acceptable choice then?”

“Tony - this is - its beyond anything that I cold have dreamt.  Ive always wanted to try skating!” Belle reached up to squeeze his forearm her smile bright and shining.  

“Well then I say we should get you into some boots and then you can hit the ice”

Hitting the ice seemed to be what fate quite literally had in stock for Belle as it turned out that ice skating was harder than she had anticipated. Tony watched as she wobbled and fell but still pulled herself back up, smile firmly in place.  Eventually Steve took pity on her and smoothly skated over, helping her up and giving her pointers.

Eventually Belle managed to make half a circuit under her own steam without windmilling arms and her cry of triumph made Tony laugh out loud

“Tony look I’m getting the hang of it!”

“You certainly seem to be more vertical than you have been up until now Snowflake’ He called back

“Come on out and join us” she beckoned him forward but Tony just shook his head

“Sorry Snowflake but all that ice isn’t my idea of a good time,  I’ve got to keep these “ he wiggled his fingers “In good working order”

“Come on Tony, its fun” Steve skated over stepping onto the rubber surround to the ruins before dropping his voice “You did this for her right ? So got spend time with her.  She doesn’t  care if you’re not the nest, she just wants to share the experience with you”

Tony rubbed the back of his neck - there was a good chance that Steve was right, it did seem to be an annoying habit of his.  Perhaps he should have put a little more thought into a plan that didn’t require him to fall on his ass.  

The boots felt uncomfortable and he waddled a but when he walked to the ice rink, but no matter how ridiculous he felt the smile he got from Belle made it all worth while.  

“Ok so Capsicle - gimme the lowdown.  How do we make this shit work?”

A couple of close encounters with the ice later he  was pretty sure that he was never ice skating again, but he did seem able to keep his feet under him a little more and was able to make his way over to Belle who was currently hanging onto the barrier and talking to Wanda.  

“Alright Snowflake I think I got this, how about you take me for a whirl”. Tony wiggled his eyebrows and help out his hand

“I’ll see you later Wanda” Belle pushed away and wobbled over to Tony grabbing his hand. They made their way on a lap of the rink, laughing and teasing each other as they went.  Wanda smiled as Tony’s arms started to windmill and sent a small burst of energy to prop him up and avoid the spill.

Belle had taken her gloves off so that she could hold Tony’s hand more closely.  She loved the feeling of the calluses on his fingers when they brushed against her skin, it made her heart beet a little faster and gave her the urge to curl into him and feel the rest of his body against her.  

Tony pulled them to a halt at the far end of the rink “Thank you for getting me out here.  I think I would have missed out if you hadn’t talked me into it”

“I think it was Steve who talked you into it, but there is no one else that I would rather have experience this with”. Resting against the side Belle turned a little so she faced him a little more, reaching out for his other hand “The fact you put all this effort into this, and that we shared it with the other.  It’s one for the books.  It seems that all my best days come courtesy of you”

Tony leant forward, resting his forehead against Belle’s. “I just want for you to be happy Belle. I want to see that smile of yours, I want to know that I helped keep it there.  If that means that we slip about on frozen water so be it.  I can’t think of many things I wouldn’t do for you Belle”. 

Their noses brushed against one another and Belle breathed in deeply, the warm smell of his cologne filled her nose. The feelings that she had when she was close to Tony weren’t something that she  focused on, perhaps he only wanted to look out for her as a sister, but she didn’t think that was what was happening here.  There was a chance that her next move would blow her life out the water, but she had spent so long not experiencing things that for once she wanted to be the one to make a move.  

Pulling against Tonys’ hand she slid him a little closer before leaning in a little on pressing her lips against his.  She felt his hands tighten around her own and then he was kissing her back.  His lips were warm and he moved them slowly against her own keeping her close and Belle felt like she was flying.

Tony was the first to pull back, he let go of her hand and brushed the back of his fingers down her cheek, his eyes warm and pupils slightly blown.  “You know I’m pretty sure I would be ok falling on my ass another dozen or so times if I got another of those kisses” 

Belle blushed but leaned her head a little against his fingers “I wouldn’t want you to get any more bruised, maybe the next time we try it off the ice”. Tony laughed and started to pull them over to the exit using the barrier

“So how about we say we are done with this and go and get something warm to drink, and maybe see whether it feels different when we’re to freezing to death” 

“What ever you want Tony” Belle couldn’t help but agree.  

Stepping off the ice the couple turned at the sound of a loud crash and found Thor lying sprawled on his back in the middle of the rink “Odin’s balls Stark.  This has to be some kind of trick, there is no way someone can find this process fun.  If you told me that this was some kind of torture then I would be more inclined to believe you”

Belles laugh joined Tony’s as they watched the annoyed King attempt and fail to get to his feet, It eventually took Bucky and Steve to get him up and over towards the exit. Her arm wrapped around Tony’s waist while his was draped over her shoulder.  Her head was relaxed against him and she reviled in the kisses he placed on her head eventually looking up to softly peck his lips again.