#like they understand hardships and still persist despite it all Tumblr posts

[hplonesomeart]

He found out he’s not the highest rated anymore….isn’t taking it too well <<

[bloop-bl00p]

Rewriting Sir Pentious justice for the snake boie

Doesn’t anyone find it weird how we’re gonna have the backstory of everyone in later seasons?

Not only do they hardly follow the redemption aspects but they also give us little to nothing about the characters. I can buy that Heaven is corrupt and/or unfair but rather than having Adam throwing curse words and profanities every five seconds, why not show it in elements of the main cast backstory?

Reveal that they were essentially in unjust situations where they had no other choice but sins to survive, the type of stories that’ll make the audience think “Is Heaven fair in its judgment?” then you have the reveal that the system is corrupted. It feels like common sense to me.

Anyway, Sir Pentious wasn’t that much of an asshole in my rewrite, we understand why he acted the way he did but he still fucked up.

Madhav Karmakar was born in 1858. He was an Indian migrant in England who wanted to follow a partnership in engineering. Studying hard and else he worked ten times harder than the other students due to prejudice regarding his origin.

He made his way into a prestigious university and went out with his diploma ready to show off his skill but generally still faced racial discrimination. Throughout his life, Madhav had to do everything in his power to completely suppress anything that tied him to his country, fully adopting British mannerisms and culture, suppressing his accent, and else. At 17, he became an apprentice and started studying Mechanical Engineering, ending officially his studies at 24.

His hardship allowed him to work alongside others to develop steam machines and various ways of transportation. Despite having clearly mastered, and even ameliorated his domain, Madhav still had fewer opportunities compared to his colleagues and was paid less than the other regardless of the amount of work he put in.

What was first jealousy due to the unfairness of his situation quickly became Envy directed at his white counterparts. He started slowly destroying the reputation of his associates mostly by secretly sabotaging their work in various manners, introducing faulty designs, tampering with documentation, sabotaging equipment and tools, and anything really just to make himself feel better.

It lasted for years until one of his sabotages cost him his life. In 1888 at 30 years old, he caused one structure to collapse and the debris fell on him breaking his legs, he died screaming for help under the remains and suffocated because of the dust.

A few years following his arrival in Hell, he used his ingenuity to create steampunk-style machines in order to conquer territory. Problems, most of the lands were already owned by powerful Overlords. Madhav overestimated his inventions a lot so he got his nonexistent ass beaten all the time. He even gained the nickname Sir Pretentious though he still tries and insists on being called by his real surname (nobody does.)

The dude persisted, gaining the reputation of the village fool. Surprisingly for everyone he finally managed to get his hand on a very small portion of a territory… only for it to be snatched away by a punk rookie a week later. It would be easy for any Overlord to step up but they have their own business to take care of and some find it funny to see those two quarrel all the time.

Bit of a fun fact:

→ If I had to redesign him, he’d be fit with a large figure, we’re talking of the man who built this alone…

.. I doubt the egg boys can lift things too heavy considering they are fragile. So yeah, Madhav isn’t a twink.

→ The egg boys aren’t literal eggs just small mechanical robots he built to be his minions, if they were to break they’ll be gears everywhere but he could still rebuild them later. He wishes he could make them a bit smarter.

→ Snakes are very often associated with lies and manipulation and everything related to it. That’s what Madhav has been as a human, an envious liar. But, snakes can also symbolize renewal and rebirth in other cultures, and since he’s gonna be the first redeemed it kinda fits. I don’t know if Viv knew this but shout out to her if she did.

→ Keeping the romance with Cherry, I can appreciate a really good Enemy to Lover but the way it was framed feels like Cherry only got interested when she learned he had two dick, which feels icky and disingenuous.

So, I thought of slowly making their relationship more of a “Are they fighting or flirting” type of thing. That and having Cherry make comments between their fight like “You’re getting better at this!” which flatters Madhav because he never really had recognition for his fighting skills or invention.

He’s still a bit stuck in the old-timey way of courtship, and considering those things could last 3 to 4 years, with him you can expect the slowest slow burn possible. Anyway, he still respects lots of British traditions, being a regular correspondent and sending letters and gifts. I can see him asking to go on a walk or organize Rendez-vous to learn more about Bomb when his rivalry gets more friendly.

→ His obsession with fighting Alastor comes from the fact that he didn't manage to get up the stairs as quickly as the deer did. So he’s envious and seeks to beat Alastor in a battle to prove he’s the superior one, but he loses every time. His last chance is to side with the Vees, but Vox doesn't even bat an eye when he is near. So just imagine how ecstatic he was when Vox proposed to him to be a spy. While the first weeks were fine, he found himself getting attached to the staff more and more. It was a genuine environment where few people actually recognized him as the brilliant engineer he was (I thought he could actually help with the hotel construction since the building is old and all) and they actually called him by his name.

Not siding with Vox will be the first step to his redemption, renouncing to act of his envious feelings and focusing on what he already had rather than seeking to destroy those above him.

→ His lisp gets worse when he’s lying, he obliviously maintains a whole evil British persona in his quest for respect so as he slowly starts to get genius he’ll slowly start to speak with more ease.

→ Regarding how he’ll appear once in Heaven, he’ll be a human. I find it strange that you don't get to get your human appearance once saved. Viv said it herself, the reason why sinners look like that is because their appearance is in correlation with their sins, life, and the ways they die. It’s a way to mock them.

If this dude or girl gets redeemed, they’ll stay on a couch and that’s just sad, imagine you die go to Hell redeem yourself and you're still a furniture. Anyway, Madhav will get his human form back but with hints of his demonic form.

Kinda like Lovesart23 you should go see her videos and rewrite.

[ilikekidsshows]

Usually I like a character with a red flag, that's why my list of favorite characters is mostly villain or dark hero because there's something intriguing about that type of character. For some times I've been wondering why Marinette just turned me off despite having the personality trait that I usually like and reading your responses to your asks just make me realize why.

She just has no interesting background story to back her red flagness. ._.

It just like you said, Naofumi has a reason why he choose to abandoned his heart and compassion. And it's not just Naofumi. Most if not all the fallen hero or villain characters has something, a reason, why they become a villain or fallen hero. Marinette has none.

She's. Just. Being. Spoiled. Rotten.

Even as a hero she also has nothing that make her as interesting character, she's literally a normal girl with a normal life who happen to part time as a hero just because a magical jewel happened to appear on her room.

I've seen people said Adrien has no motivation to be a hero, but I'd say it's Marinette who has none. Because if she has motivation to be a hero then she won't be as passive as she is.

Also, lately I've seen news about some DEI companies hiring that happened overseas and of there's DEI hiring in miraculous, Marinette would definitely be it. Because there's nothing bout her that screamed a hero, she just doesn't has it in her. I mean this is a girl who would wither away in almost every little inconvenience possible, she doesn't have that conviction to be a hero or even protecting anyone. If your hero need external validation for every inconvenience then maybe they're not a hero and shouldn't be one.

---

Exactly. Also, just like a lot of people are saying, Marinette’s descent into villainy could be interesting if that was what the writers were intending to do. If the point was that Marinette’s past of being coddled, excused and validated at every turn has led her to consider others as nothing more than existing for her benefit, that could be interesting in how the story chooses to tackle and resolve that. But that’s very much not what is happening. We’re supposed to side with her or at least be ready to forgive her the instant her lip wobbles and she cries about what a terrible person she is again. We’re supposed to think she’s justified or just stressed out. All of our sympathy should go to her instead of her victims just because she is Marinette, the greatest Ladybug ever.

Shows with villain or fallen hero protagonists acknowledge that what their protagonist is doing is morally wrong, so they put effort into making that protagonist someone you want to root for in other ways. They make the villainy over the top and entertaining, they give the protagonist an understandable reason to act the way they do so that the viewer can get into their head, or they make the opposition of the protagonist even worse and therefore deserving of comeuppance. I very much enjoyed Death Note in my youth while fully realizing Light was a villain protagonist, because the story does all of these things at some point during the manga's run.

Episodes like ‘Derision’, ‘Adoration’ and ‘Confrontation’ make it seem like the writers were, on some level, aware of Marinette’s lack of rootability, but they couldn’t bring themselves to cause her enough hardships to bring her to the level of characters like Naofumi. Chloé traumatized Marinette a year before the show, but in a way that it doesn’t really affect her at all except to excuse the way she acts around Adrien. Chloé and Lila try to frame Marinette for theft but fail immediately. Chloé and Lila mess with everyone’s school forms and something that should be resolved with everyone in class complaining instead requires Marinette to break the law to “expose” Lila and Chloé, but even that was a single-episode plot.

Despite all these efforts, the problem of rootability still persists, however, in that, outside of these two very specific characters, everyone is constantly showering Marinette or Ladybug in adoration. She isn’t entitled to the things she claims she is, like Adrien, and she isn’t enough of an underdog to justify her stepping on others to get to what she wants. But she still does it. She only hangs out with her friends to order them around to help her accomplish her goals and she constantly requires emotional support from the people around her for her nonexistent or self-caused problems while offering none in return.

[alshamswelnahr]

Sanemi's downfall is a blend of his selfless and self-harming nature

the distance sanemi creates between himself and genya isn't strictly about protecting genya, and it isn't by far the only way either, he even contemplates a different way in the light novels but settles on violence nonetheless because in his own eyes he's the one with the dirty hands, he is the jerk -despite his evident gentle and caring nature- the rift between the shinazugawa siblings cannot be simply amended by talking it over because it stems from his self hatred, his own belief that he is unworthy of love, care and closeness, which he rationalizes by the fact that even the strongest of the slayers are still at risk of dying which means in genya's case, who can't use a breathing style and is extremely kind, the chances of that happening are even higher.

His fake cruelty towards his brother unknowingly affirmed genya's insecurity (his weakness), meanwhile reinforcing the horrible image he garnered, it's a self-imposed punishment, doubling down on his pain by not allowing himself to enjoy the remnant of the family he assigned himself protector and provider of and failed.

A role which was also imposed on him; living an impoverished life defined by being the eldest brother of many small hungry scared children with no proper father figure, being the child of a man who inflicted verbal and physical violence on them, who was never dependable. Being the child of a hardworking, protective mother who deserved a pillar that she could lean on at least partially, all this creating a child who wished to be the opposite of his own father and a solace to his family, a child who was never allowed to be one.

To top it all, the fateful night happens and he manages to save no one, he fails them, they all die on his watch after the promise he made them. All, except for genya who becomes the symbol of his failure and dreams, he becomes the last part of his true old self and purpose, he is everything, so if genya perishes then his life is meaningless, so for genya's sake he fights, he braves years of pain and loss because if his little brother lives happily then everything he endured becomes bearable, justifiable even.

All of this weight that sanemi assigns to genya's survival, while understandable, is suffocating. He creates this ideal version of the life he desires for him disregarding his brother's wishes, refusing to adjust the plan or reshape it, he single-handedly carries the blame, all the pain and the burden, ignoring the possibility of genya's capability and desire to share it, meanwhile insisting on breaking his brother's heart to keep him as far away, hurting the both of them in a horrible fashion but in the only fashion he knows and insists suits him.

Sanemi's ways are contrasted by his foil tanjiro who chooses openness, softness and, with nezuko constant encouragement, leaning on others despite his own ups and downs and throughout all the hardships.

To summarize, sanemi punishes himself for his self-perceived fault by isolation and carrying it all on his shoulders thinking that by doing so he's sparing his gentle precious sibling, but instead he punishes him as well, thus he is punished by a narrative which constantly advocates for vulnerability and dependency by taking away genya right from his hands as a last proof that no matter what you do, controlling fate is futile so it is better to accept our mortality and be the kindest versions of ourselves while we can and while it's impossible to keep our loved ones out of danger we can still love them.

So, despite himself sanemi lives and genya and masachika's will persist, after the war when there's no longer a need to slay demons, to use violence or sacrifice himself, sanemi is asked to create his own purpose and happiness freed of the duty he took on since he was young and he is given all the opportunities in the world to live for himself like all his loved ones wanted for him.

[aughby]

Red String Theory

Growing up in a tiny village, you and Yuki Ishikawa were inseparable from an early age. You had many adventures, lots of fun, and dreams that you both shared. Yuki had an unwavering enthusiasm for volleyball, and you were his staunchest ally, showing up to every match to encourage him. Your relationship only got closer as time went on, and you found it impossible to fathom living without Yuki in your life.

Everything changed when a prominent volleyball team scouted Yuki. Even though you knew it was his dream come true, you could not bear the idea of his going. You supported him in following his passion despite the hardship, understanding how important it was to him. Although Yuki had assured you that nothing would change, you two got more and more apart as he moved away and focused more on his profession.

You made an effort to stay in contact, but Yuki's hectic schedule made it challenging. Less calls and fewer visits occurred over time. You saw from a distance as Yuki's volleyball career took off and his name became well-known. Even though you were proud of him, you started to feel lonely and yearning.

You were aware that your feelings for Yuki had grown beyond simple friendship during one of his infrequent trips home. But since you knew that telling him you loved him may make things more difficult for him, you kept it to yourself. You forced yourself to swallow your emotions and remained his loyal friend since you didn't want to be the cause of his distraction or job risk.

The hurt of unspoken love deepened over the years, but you remained distant, prioritizing Yuki's happiness over your own. Ignoring the silent sacrifice you made every day, he kept shining on the volleyball court. And even though it hurt your heart, you continued to live in the background, quietly supporting and loving him as you stood by and watched as he lived the life you had always imagined you two would have together.

Yuki left for his volleyball career years ago, and while you got used to living without him, the pain in your heart never really went away. Yuki unexpectedly contacted you one summer to let you know he was returning home for a brief visit. It had been so long since you'd seen him, and you weren't sure how much had changed between you two, so your excitement was tinged with fear.

Yuki's familiar presence brought back a plethora of memories when he came. That smile of his that made your heart skip a beat was still there. However, there was something unusual about him—a weariness that hadn't before been there, a certain remoteness in his gaze.

For a brief while, it seemed as though nothing had changed as you spent the first few days catching up and remembering the good old days. However, you couldn't deny the persistent sense that something wasn't quite right. Compared to before, Yuki was more reserved and closed off.

You made the decision to take him to your favorite location one evening: a peaceful hill with a view of the town you used to visit as children. Yuki finally broke the stillness as you both sat quietly and enjoyed the sunset.

"Recently, I've been thinking a lot," he said, sounding uncharacteristically serious. "About everything I didn't choose to stay in volleyball."

Your heart skipped a beat. Though you had pictured this conversation in your mind for a long time, you were at a loss for words when it really happened.

"I realize I haven't been around much," he said while lowering his gaze to his hands. And I detest how far away we've become. But there's more than that.

He lingered a moment, and you prepared yourself for whatever came next. Yuki remarked, his voice almost audible above a whisper, "I met someone." "She is truly exceptional, and I believe she could be the one."

The words are as painful as a stomach punch. It seemed like all of the air suddenly left your lungs. Although you were ready for the chance that Yuki had moved on, it hurt more than you could have ever imagined to hear it confirmed.

You forced a smile, trying to cover up your inner distress. With a trembling voice, you managed to answer, "That's great, Yuki." "I'm delighted for you."

Yet Yuki wasn't finished. His eyes eventually met yours as he said, "I've been so confused, though." "You're always on my mind when I think about her. I can't get rid of the thought that maybe leaving me behind meant I missed something.

Your eyes began to brim up with tears, but you blinked them away. You'd been afraid of this moment for a long time, but you were unable to speak your true feelings. After all of his hard work and progress, you could not shatter his happiness.

You whispered, "Yuki, you deserve to be happy." "You made the proper decision by pursuing your aspirations. Now is not the time to let anything stop you.

Glancing at you, Yuki searched your expression for something, perhaps an indication that you shared his feelings. Even though it was killing you on the inside, you persisted. Yuki nodded after a lengthy, heavy silence, acknowledging what you said.

The remainder of his visit flew by as you both pretended that nothing had happened. But you realized that this was goodbye—not just for now, but for the dreams you'd long since silently clung to—as Yuki got ready to head out again.

You realized that this was the way things had to be as you watched him leave. Even if it meant hurting your own heart, you had loved him enough to let him go and live the life he was intended to have. Even though it was awful, you knew that no matter what, you would always value the memories you had—even if they were your last remaining ones.

After Yuki's final visit months earlier, you made an effort to move on by stuffing your emotions deep inside. You talked yourself into believing that it was the best decision to let Yuki leave and that he would be happier following his goals and starting a new life with someone else. However, the emptiness persisted no matter how hard you tried, serving as a continual reminder of what might have been.

You were getting ready for bed one wet evening when your door was suddenly knocked on. You hesitated because it was so late and you weren't expecting anyone. However, you felt compelled to respond to it.

Yuki was standing there when you opened the door, his eyes full of vulnerability and resolve despite being drenched from the rain. You couldn't believe he was there as you just gawked at him in shock.

"Yuki, why are you here?"You questioned, speaking hardly audibly above a whisper.

He simply stared at you as though he was seeing you for the first time in a long time at first, saying nothing. Finally, he spoke, breathing a little shakily.

His voice cracking, he admitted, "I made a mistake." "I believed that playing volleyball with someone else could make me happy. However, without you, none of it would matter.

You felt a wave of shock as your heart hammered in your chest. What are you saying, Yuki?"

He took a step toward her and admitted, "I'm saying that I've been running away." "I left because I was afraid—afraid of my feelings, afraid that if I chose you, I would lose everything. However, being apart from you let me realize that the most important thing has already been lost.

Your eyes began to well up with tears as his words sank in. This was the moment you had dreamed about, yet it felt unreal to be experiencing it now.

You shook your head and replied, "I thought you were happy." "I didn't want to stand in the way of your life and career."

With his damp hair sticking to his face, Yuki shook his head. "I was mistaken to believe that I could live my life apart from you. All I could think about was how much I wished you were there every time I scored a point or glanced out at the crowd. You've always been the one.

Despite the freezing rain, he reached out and softly grasped your hand, his touch warm. "I can't bear to continue living without you. Whether it means quitting volleyball or drastically altering my life, I don't care. To be with you is all I want.”

You were finally unable to contain your tears as the feelings you had been holding inside for so long released. Your voice was stifled with passion as you said, "Yuki, I've always loved you." "But I was afraid to let you down so much."

With a firm grip, as though fearing you would escape, Yuki drew you into his arms. "You're not stopping me," he whispered in your hair. "The only thing that has sustained me during this entire period is you. More than everything, I adore you.”

The years apart melted away from you in that instant as you stood in the doorway and the rain fell all around you. What had happened in the past or the sacrifices you two had made were no longer relevant. It was all that mattered that Yuki was here, selecting you in the same way that you had always selected him.

You could tell that things would be different this time as you stared up into his eyes. You wouldn't let uncertainty or worry to get in the way this time. You would confront any obstacles you encountered together with the knowledge that you would always have each other.

And knowing that the love you had been quietly nurturing for so many years had finally found its way back to you made you feel entire again for the first time in a long time.

[icarustypicalfall]

Commander's last love

part 5 • fic masterlist • main masterlist • ao3

summary: Hold me, tell me it'll pass. I am afraid I'll never know peace.

warnings: mw3 events, inaccuracies, mentions of death, the slow burn is burning fast.(i am lazy)

note: this part is highly based on mw3 events, also might be high timeline inaccuracies. sorry about that.

tags: @unicorngirly1

"Striving for change, yet trapped in a cycle of sameness, a poignant reminder of life's melancholic reality."

Mission [A2626]

Location: [CLASSIFIED]

Time: 07:09:23 - 25/10/2022

When you entered the mess hall that morning, the first thing that struck you was the serenity. No chaos, no shouting, and no proud American man bellowing his national anthem. It was a tranquil scene.

You didn't pay much attention to it. Commander Phillip was most likely still fast asleep, them higher ranks had the luxury of a good night's rest. You sighed, shaking your head with a hint of amusement. Weeks ago, you couldn't stand the man, but now you were dropping formalities and exchanging jokes with him.

It was terrifying, in a way that completely captivated you. The feeling was too powerful to ignore. Not a nagging headache or a throbbing wound. No, it was a heartache. One that gripped you every time your eyes met with the commander's.

From the moment he set foot in the base, you knew he would be trouble. A persistent force, like a charming Hydra. You had let the Hercules swrod down, along your guard. you've lowered the defences and the built up walls, surrendering to his charm.

Perhaps the commander deserved a chance. Every attempt he made to get to know you was proof of his dedication. It was almost laughable how the tables had turned. He had managed to charm his way into your thoughts. You decided to end rapidly your reports then pay him a visit, as you hadn't caught sight of him in quite some time.

Despite all the hardships he had endured, it was the last call that Phillip received that truly shook him. It wasn't just his nervous system playing tricks on him or the stress wreaking havoc on his stomach. It was genuine fear, a past regret that he thought he had buried when he left Las Almas.

Life presents us with limited options. You either patch up your wounds, move on, and forget the past, or you let the wound fester, remaining open and growing larger with time until it consumes you entirely. Phillip's life fell into the second category. It always had and always would, from the moment he entered crying to the moment he'll dying.

He found solace in the brief moments you two shared. But now, all his anguish resurfaced upon receiving new orders from the general. He didn't leave his room, informing his soldiers that they would receive the new orders through Martin.

Phillip lay in his room, reminiscing about the previous night's events. His fury boiled within him as the older man gave him orders with a careless smirk.

"You know what to do, right? If they refuse our deal, you..."

Phillip cut him off, his face a picture of denial.

"General, you mean..."

"Yes, blow up the entire base. It's nothing new, right?"

Heartache struck once again. Forever and always. Peace would forever elude him. His lips trembled as his mind wandered back to you. No, he can't...

"You are paid to follow orders, Graves. I can find someone else to do your job for half the price, with no negotiations. You understand that, don't you?"

Another display of the general's power play. Phillip remained silent, absorbing the words like poison. He knew it would make him sick when the time came. Slowly, it would kill him. He pleaded for a little more time. He couldn't do it. Not again.

Phillip had grown weary of being the villain. All he wanted was to be happy. He understood the sacrifices that came with being in the military, the lives you would lay down to achieve your objectives. But there had to be a limit, right?

He had already lost everything. Family, friends, lovers. TF141 and Los Vaqueros despised him, yet they had once made him feel like he belonged, like they shared a bond. But that bond shattered the night he took over their base. He had deceived his way through life, only to have it all fall apart when he tried to change, to be better.

A knock on the door interrupted his misery, prompting a groan from him.

"Martin, I've told you twice, I'm fine. Can't a person rest in this stupid place?"

You poked your head through the door, eyes narrowed and face concealed by a mask.

Playfully, you uttered:"Now who's base are you calling stupid?"

Phillip jolted upright, his eyes darting around in a frenzy. The evidence of his anguish lingered, temporarily pushed to the recesses of his mind. He managed to muster a forced smirk, but his trembling lips betrayed the falsehood. "Well.. I never thought it would be you, sugar.."

You observed him. He was wrapped in the comfort embrace of a soft blanket, his eyes reflecting a deep crimson, concealing untold torment. Phillip appeared utterly miserable, to put it mildly. He hadn't bothered to shower or leave his bed all day. Sniffing, he averted his gaze, not out of embarrassment, but out of fear that you would see the truth hidden within his eyes.

You spoke up, attempting to break the uncomfortable silence with a touch of amusement. "What's the matter, Phil? Did something get in your eye?"

He chuckled sheepishly, shaking his head. For a brief moment, it seemed as if his face brightened before plunging back into the abyss of melancholy.

Shaking off his thoughts, he refused to spoil this moment. He knew that words had the power to taint this heavenly jiffy. He longed to seize it, to feel its edges softened by weeks of vulnerability and profound conversations. After a moment, he let the words slip, his gaze fixed on you, his blue eyes locked onto yours, imagining that you were looking at him with the same intensity, dressed in white and surrounded by loved ones who'll witness the legacy.

"No, sweetheart... It's just... No... It's complicated..." he trailed off.

You raised an eyebrow, sighing. "Martin was looking for you. He said they wanted to discuss something about a certain 'secret.' What's that all about?"

Phillip choked on his own saliva, staring at you in disbelief. You shouldn't have known about the new orders, and neither should any other member of this base. He responded defensively, his words rushing out. "It's nothing... Why don't you go join your boyfriend, huh?"

The words stung him, but he couldn't help himself. Jealousy and agony had blinded him, unable to bear witness to you and Sky, laughing together over dinner while Phillip watched from a distance, yearning to be the one who brought a smile to your face.

"...Boyfriend?" The uncertainty in your voice left Phillip bewildered.

He raised his hand, pointing at you, then mimicked a fall from the sky to the ground. Confusion filled his voice as he spoke. "You and Sky... You are a thing!"

Silence hung in the air, followed by the most genuine laughter. You wheezed, slapping your knee and giggling uncontrollably. The sweet melody of your laughter was pure, something he had sorely missed. His ears had grown accustomed to screams, gunshots, and explosions, not the gentle giggle or the tune you hummed. Warmth surged through his insides, radiating from his heart and enveloping his mind. Blushing, he looked down.

"Where on earth did you get that idea, Phillip? Sky and I are friends, we've known each other forever!" You paused, wiping away a tear before playfully crouching down. "I never thought you would fall for such gossip."

Oh...

He rubbed his neck, feeling shame wash over his face. You continued to stare at him, your eyes narrowed yet filled with a glimmer of light.

"My mistake, doll... I thought..."

"You thought what, Phil?"

He closed his eyes, your perfume filling his head. The stars got red and the night is blue. He didn't want to say something foolish or scare you. God forbid.

In your presence, he felt as though he was in the company of a gentle creature, a beautiful pearl he never thought he would need in his life. Unfortunately, you were too good for him. You were a sun that would blind him if he stared for too long. God only knew how far he would go, willing to burn in flames just for a glimpse of you.

You were crouched beside him, a few feet apart. You could see the specks of grey in his hair, the blond locks carelessly resting on his forehead.

A surge of courage built up within you. Your eyes met once again, capturing the soft blend of his baby blues and your gentle gaze. You could swear you saw a cry, a helpless wail, hidden within his irisis.

Holding your breath, you reached out your hand as if to soothe his demons. He surrendered, his pupils dilating with an overflowing longing. He leaned into your touch, and you smiled. With tender care, you brushed his hair behind his ear, tracing your hand gently along his face, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath your fingertips.

"What's inside here?" you insisted, cradling the side of his head. He smiled.

"Just stupid things, doll. It's nothing... just stupid things."

You sighed, nodding. You knew he didn't want to talk about it. Perhaps, for the sake of preserving whatever bond you two shared, it was best to let it go.

Phillip closed his eyes, letting out another long sigh. The weight on his shoulders seemed to ease, leaving nothing but a sense of relief behind.

He flinched as the phone rang, abruptly interrupting the silence. He shook his head, motioning for you to stay close. He didn't want to deal with whatever tantrum General Shepard was having. All he wanted was to rest. Answering the call, he carefully chose his words, all the while keeping his gaze fixed on you, wearing the same smile from ages ago. He would tell that old dog where exactly he should put his plans...

"Commander Phillip Graves," a harsh voice spoke, and he frowned. "General Shepard is dead. Killed by Captain John Price. There's no need to proceed with your last mission. Or the one suggested by him." Phil's eyes widened, recognizing the voice as none other than the captain of TF141.

"Oh, and Phil..." John spat out, "Johnny 'Soap' MacTavish is KIA."

The phone slipped from his grasp. Uncertain, you uttered, "Phillip?"

No. Not again.

[the-ninja-legacy-whip]

If all the Ninja's elements represent a core aspect of life, Earth being Stability, Lightning being Creativity, Fire being Persistence and Ice being... idk Power or sum I forgot, Does that make Lloyd Hope? I've always headcanoned that the Golden Weapons sort of tie into the world in a metaphysical sense. Like in one of my stories that I'm writing, the Golden Weapons being separated from Ninjago takes a toll on the world, people lose their creativity and persistence. What I'm asking is would Lloyd being possessed by Morro affect the world in metaphysical way? (Also dear lord does Lloyd still have his Golden essence by that point? Because Morro with that kind of power is horrifying)

this ask took like four different turns snksnksn where do i start

Okay, so in the case of each element representing a different aspect of Life (true), that specific definition, like the definition of life itself, depends on the eye of the individual, and it takes different forms/shapes/meaning depending on circumstance. For example, this is Wu's take on the Core Four:

"Jay is the Blue Ninja, for he is the new Master of Lightning." Jay takes it like he's being knighted; Kai rolls his eyes. "Your element is energetic yet precise, invoking the spark to make miracles happen when we least expect them to. Yours is an element of ingenuity, reflecting a sudden burst of inspiration when we otherwise feel directionless and lost in a storm. After all, thunder cannot roar until the lightning strikes." "Black Ninja is Cole, and the new Master of Earth!" Wu carries on before Jay can get carried away. Cole sighs in relief, head bowed as the staff rests upon him. "Inherited from your mother's family, your element is steady yet malleable, invoking the resistance needed to endure crumbling hardships, yet also the tenacity to use change as a means to overcome. Solid as rock, Earth serves as the foundation for the other elements to build themselves upon. " "White Ninja is Zane, new Master of Ice! Inherited from your grandfather's family, your element is frigid yet pure. Ice can be cold, sharp, and off-putting when we first come into contact with it...but regardless, it invokes a sense of curiosity, and a sense of clarity once we come to better understand. Ice may be ephemeral, just like life, but that is what makes it so beautiful to behold." "Kai…you, Red Ninja, are the new Master of Fire." Wu sets the tip of his staff upon his shoulder. It gives Kai goosebumps. "Inherited from your father, your element is vibrant yet vigilant, and invokes the power to persist despite the circumstances. It fuels the very passion that keeps us all fighting to maintain our lives, and able to provide a beacon of warmth in otherwise dark times."

...and this is Lloyd's:

"If Cole is the foundation, Jay is the inspiration, and Zane is the protection…then you're the spirit. You're the preservation." Lloyd becomes insistent now, smiling as his own eyes begin to gleam. "And that's what you do. You find a way to beat out the odds. You find a way to overcome your problems. And even when you can't, you never stop trying! And that's…more important than anything else. Because that’s what makes everything else matter. You not only determine your own worth…but you help others find theirs too."

(Lloyd also interprets Fire as "Creating Hope")

But Lloyd's element itself, already being so abstract, definitely does not have a set meaning at all. It can be Hope, or it can Suffering. It can be beautiful or ugly, it can be long or short, it can be fulfilling or empty...but it always encompasses every extreme at any time, and once more falls to the beholding individual. Life is what you make of it, after all, and with enough energy, you can do anything~

In my interpretation, the Golden Weapons, while powerful artifacts in the way that they are able to harness the elements, may have shaped Ninjago as we previously knew it, but otherwise wouldn't have a direct physical bearing on the world itself if something were to happen to them (especially since they've been out of play for longer than they HAVE been in-play during the show. World would've ended or humanity would've crashed a loooong time ago)

Now, making an abrupt left-turn into Morro Land, Lloyd being possessed wouldn't have an effect on the world, either. The biggest battle he'd have to fight in that scenario is the one within him (literally).

Also...as far as I can remember, Morro doesn't even use any of Lloyd's power while he's in his body. He strictly sticks to his Wind (which...opens a whole other can of words, but eh). And the main reasons he possessed Lloyd in the first place was because he needed a Spinjitzu Master specifically, not Lloyd's powers (but then, he could've taken ANY of the Ninja's bodies in that case), but he really only picked Lloyd specifically out of spite for him becoming the Green Ninja. So I'd say due to the fact that his soul is still in possession of the Element of Wind, that automatically blocks him from being able to use anyone else's power ignoring DR rules and esp including Lloyd's (as those powers are tied to Lloyd's own soul, and a soul can't really possess another soul, only a body)

And yes, Lloyd does still have the Gold Essence at that point (after several attempts to try and rip it out of him, heyo), but again, Morro's not able to tap into that, either.

[gabrieladman]

Nehemiah Santos Garcia was born on April 12, 2006, in the bustling city of Manila as the youngest member of a family of three siblings. Growing up alongside Knightley Garcia, her sister, and Kramnik Garcia, her oldest brother, Nehemiah was raised by their loving grandmother, Narceli Santos, who served as their guardian, and their aunt, Shane Santos, a figure of strength and leadership within the family. However, Nehemiah's early years were characterized by a sense of shyness, which limited her engagement in outdoor activities. This reserve also subjected her to encounters with bullies, further exacerbating her feelings of timidity and lack of confidence. Despite these challenges, Nehemiah found solace in the company of friends when attending school, where she began to form lasting connections. Her educational journey commenced at Emilio Jacinto Elementary School, followed by Lakan Dula High School, and currently continues at Holy Child Catholic School. Academically, Nehemiah consistently exhibited excellence, securing first honors multiple times throughout grade school and high school, culminating in graduating with honors from grade 11. Her choice of the Humss strand reflects his burgeoning passion for psychology, a field that resonates deeply with her desire to understand human behavior and help others.

Early in life, Nehemiah Santos Garcia experienced a strong sense of the complexity of life and a yearning for the love and devotion of her parents. Deep feelings were aroused by their mother's absence, leading to tears of helplessness at being parted. Throughout her early years, Nehemiah's emotional landscape was shaped by this persistent need for parental love.Nehemiah originally felt comfort in spending time with her extended family in 2021 while residing in Caloocan with relatives, appreciating the chance to establish more meaningful relationships. But the unexpected incident broke the newfound ease, leaving Nehemiah to struggle with a deep sense of abandonment. Their sister, whom Nehemiah had looked to for support, betrayed her, which made them feel even more alone, desolate, and unsure of their role in that setting. Nehemiah was filled with a sense of helplessness and a strong desire to go back to Tondo because of the toxic nature of their current position. When Nehemiah returned home, the painful memories resurfaced, causing previously suppressed emotions to become uncontrollably intense. Nehemiah felt an inexplicable sensation of loneliness and melancholy as a result of the mental upheaval brought on by this betrayal and the desire for approval from family members. This time was a turning point in Nehemiah's life by highlighting the value of family ties and the agony of feeling alone and abandoned. Nehemiah sought solace in the familiar surroundings and warmth of home, but she was also resilient and longed for a loving and caring atmosphere despite all the hardships she faced

Despite these challenges, Nehemiah's resilience shone through. Every academic achievement represented not just personal success but a triumph for her family and friends as well. Finding joy in simple pleasures like sharing meals and laughter with friends, Nehemiah learned the importance of self-care and letting go of negative influences, choosing to prioritize her mental well-being above all. As Nehemiah matures through her education, the aspiration to become a psychologist remains a beacon guiding her path. With a deep understanding of the complexities of human emotions and a desire to positively impact others' lives, Nehemiah looks toward a future where her experiences and empathetic nature will be instrumental in helping those in need. In her pursuit, She still treasures the serenity that may be found in the embrace of family, the friendship of friends, and the quest of knowledge for a better future.

Written by: Rein Calvin Adman

[unoisveimved-un-proffesional]

There really is no outrunning time.

You’ll be given 10 hours, and no matter how much you fit into those 10 hours, no matter how fast you go, no matter how far you run, until those 10 hours are up, you’ll have to keep going, and it’s only those 10 hours you’ll get. You could be the speed of sound, blitzing around every corner, but no matter how fast you go and how much you can do, time is still all the same.

I realize now in my age, that despite everything, all the hardships and shit I trudged through from my birth to now, I never lived longer than I actually did, lived more debatably, but life is only measured in time spent to people, time was all the same, unyielding as always. I thought I was aging quickly, I thought just because I was building things and working for start up companies as a teenager I was, anything to time? That I surpassed my own time? That I was bigger than the time given to me?

Anything can happen, everything will happen, and is going to happen, and there is nothing we can do to push against that, we are all a part of that. The world is chaotic, unpredictable, incalculable really, but time is always the same, never swayed, never changed, and never subject to alteration or reversal. You will never have more time or less time than you have now, time will forever just keep ticking up, and parts of the world will just disappear as it keeps ticking. Time isn’t coming for us, it’s leaving us in the dust from whence we came. Time will leave everything behind, and no matter how fast you are nor how much you can do, time will remain constant, time has the luxury of being existence. Weak Force, Strong Force, Gravity, Electromagnetism, The Dimensions zero to infinity, time exists and persists, not through tangible nature, but by being existence itself. Anything that can happen needs time to happen. It there is a before, an after, and a now, there is time. It is unavoidable, and constant. It is inbetween my cells and lives in my walls. I breathe it in, it pumps my heart, and it will remove the flesh from my bones. Time is not anything, it is only what is. There is no such thing as 5 seconds from now, until those 5 seconds are up. You meet time as it comes to you. It never exists until it forms in the moment, and then ceases to exist again, you meet it again, and again, and again, infinite rows of time since past. You can’t beat it. To beat time is to cease existing, and we usually call that being taken by time, swept away by the sands, so really, is peacing out from all that exists to get away from time really beating it, or just succumbing to its toll?

You never have the time, it’s not yours, it’s not mine, it’s not ours and it’s not the earth’s. Time is a constant shot upward, a shooting star we can only cling to for so long, and no matter how hard we cling, or how fast it moves, and what we see, it’s all the same amount of time. It’s not yours, it’s not mine, it doesn’t belong to any of us. It’s wind the seeps through from behind your back, through the cracks in your skin, and blows through out your body, passing through you like you weren’t even there, and leaving only you to feel and experience everything before it’s gone. The Winds Of Change. Time.

I’m still pretty young really, but I feel old, and naive, youthful and aging I am. I really thought I was special to time, by how not right it always was. Really, time is no different for me than anyone else. No matter how I feel, how I look, what I’ve seen or how smart or dumb I am, it’s always the same amount of time that we have, indifferent to us. f′(x)>0 is time, and the only guarantee is that we’ll watch it continue, and we won’t be around to see it end. No standing ovation, no walking out of the theater, just a fade to black as you disappear and have someone else take your seat, your time may be up, but time itself will go on and on, until, it won’t matter to you.

Yeah, no duh, but, I think I really understand what that means now. I let this idea, this information, blow through me like a breeze through cuts and holes in my skin, and more than I ever have before, really understand what that means now.

[jungkxook]

—make it right. (m)

⟶ pairing: jungkook x reader 

⟶ genre: punk!jungkook / band au / exes-to-lovers au / angst / smut

⟶ words: 11,528

⟶ rating: 18+ 

⟶ summary: you’re wholeheartedly, madly in love with jungkook and yet you shouldn’t be because it’s been almost a year since you broke up with him. worst part of it all is that you know he’s still in love with you too

⟶ warnings: jungkook has a tongue piercing, oral sex because of said tongue piercing (fem!recieving), more tattooed and long haired jungkook to feed my fantasies, angsty pining clingy sex, also just general soft sex, crying sex lol, riding, creampie, slight praise kink themes, unprotected sex

⟶ disclaimer: here’s my one year blog anniversary present inspired by the first ever fic i posted on here! yes this is technically a sequel to melomaniac but not really. sort of like an alternate universe to the alternate universe but you don’t really have to read one or the other to understand the other. so, i hope you enjoy!

⟶ this is part of the melodrama tour series!

You swear you’re over Jungkook.

In fact, you would even go so far as to say you hate him ━ but you know that’s not true. It’s just that it’s much easier to believe that if you tell yourself you hate him enough times, then maybe you’ll find a way to fix your broken heart, and the pain in his absence won’t hurt so bad. 

As it turns out, it hardly works.

Seven months since he had left you to travel the world with his band, basking in promised eternal glory and fame and money, and yet even miles and oceans away from where you stand, he’s all you can think about. There’s a myriad of reasons as to why trying to forget him was an useless endeavour. The hardships of trying to forget a cherished life-long friendship you had grown accustomed to was one of them, and those lingering happy moments you had shared with him as lovers however fleeting they may be was another. But then there was the ever present fact that Jungkook and his band were so quick to rise to fame, their names far exceeding the seemingly cramped and small city you had both reigned from, and suddenly the boy you had known forever, and everything special that makes him, was now being shared to hundreds of millions of adoring fans.

You were certain it was all Jungkook ever wanted, the added attention and the pretty girls fawning over him, because he had always been a casanova in many ways despite always promising you that you were the only one for him even before you had started dating. You had told him it wouldn’t work ━ I trust you as my best friend, you had said in a moment of despair, grasping at straws. I don’t have to worry about you breaking my heart. But I don’t know if I can trust you as my boyfriend ━ far before he and his band had been signed to their record label and paraded around the world, when they were still practicing in rented storage units and friends’ garages and rundown local studios, playing gigs anywhere and everywhere from dingy bars to college campus parties, supporting him every step of the way if only because he was your best friend, and he had been so persistent that it would work, chasing after you even when you tried to push him away. I would treat you right, he had urged so ardently late one drunken night after stumbling back to his apartment. I already practically worship the ground you walk on.

And how could you ━ who had already been so madly in love with him but scared of him breaking your heart, scared of losing him, scared of this happening ━ ever resist him? He made love seem so easy, and maybe that’s because it was when you were with him. But now, he was no longer yours; now, he was the world’s, and you were nothing but a mere hazy fragmented memory in his mind, long forgotten, watching from the side of the stage much like you always had from the very start of it all.

“Hey, isn’t this that band?” Jihyo’s voice bursts through your wandering trail of thoughts.

It takes you a moment to recollect yourself, finding yourself not in the arms of an ex-lover or stuck in a bygone time of months past, but in the cosy and amiable café nearest your campus and frequented by a plethora of your fellow peers. You’re fortunate to find that your other group mates have also become sidetracked, trailing far from the assignment you were all supposed to be working on. Dahyun is perched beside you, chin nestled in the palm of her hand and elbow propped on the table as she scrolls aimlessly through her phone; Jihyo and Taeyong were sat across from you, gossiping fervently about some mutual friend of theirs. You hadn’t known the pair long enough to know much about them or the tragic affair of whoever Mina is for accepting her cheating boyfriend back for the second time, and, likewise, they seem oblivious to your own self-wallowing once you realize what’s caught Jihyo’s sudden attention.

You hear his voice first.

It’s easy to discern, even after all this time and even amongst the muffled chatter and clanking of porcelain and cutlery of those seated around you. The sweet, velvety lull of Jungkook singing throughout the café from the overhead speakers, pretty upbeat melodies and synths mixed with wistful words making up the song he had written for you before he left, before the fame and fans, as a way of telling you how he truly felt about you. It feels like a dream, and maybe that’s because it is, bringing you instantly to another time, and another world. You still remember him showing you the unfinished song for the very first time, curled up next to him in his living room, listening to him serenade you to sleep, humming in places where he hadn’t formed the words yet, strumming along with his acoustic. It was yours and his until he showed the world almost a year ago on their very first show at the Seoul Olympic Stadium in front of thousands of people, as a final desperate act of proclaiming his love for you after a disastrous attempt at a first date that he had begged from you. Just one, he pleaded. To prove it to you that I can be a good boyfriend. And if things don’t work out, we can pretend it never happened and just go back to being us. That’s a promise.

At the time, you had treasured the song. It was beautiful in every way, his love transcending his words and enveloping your heart in pure warmth.

Now, you hate it.

It’s the third time you’ve heard the song that day. Despite avoiding it as best as you could, it seems to find a way to make itself known in your daily life like the nagging nuisance it is. Because fate seemed to enjoy its sadistic behaviour of having the song be one of the main reasons Jungkook and his band had skyrocketed to fame in such a short span of time and, suddenly, Jungkook disappearing from your life meant little when his voice remained as a constant reminder of what could have been, what couldn’t have been, and what fell apart at the already fragile seams. And what was a proclamation of love to you turned into nothing but a fabled tale of lovers. You wonder if people who hear it ever think about where they’ve gone, or who they’ve turned into, or if their love was made to last. You wonder, above all else, if people ever think about it at all.

“Beyond the Scene, right?” Taeyong asks. He seems just as animated to be discussing the song as Jungkook’s voice fades into Jimin’s.

“God, I love this song. It’s so dreamy,” Jihyo lets out a longing sigh as she slumps against her seat. “Y’know, I’m seeing them this Friday. It’s their first time being back in, like, five months.”

“Dude, I’ve been trying to get tickets to see them for months now!” Taeyong gaps incredulously. “How’d you score them?”

“A friend of a friend knows the guy who plays keys,” Jihyo says. “The cute mysterious one.”

“Yoongi, right?”

“Yeah━”

As the pair dive into a passionate discussion about the boys and their first full-length album released under their recently-signed-to label from Columbia Records, you shift uncomfortably in your seat. Dahyun almost immediately straightens up, eyes flickering from the pair to you and back again. You’re both fortunate she’s there, having known your past with Jungkook, and despise it a little more, wondering what her pitying gaze must mean.

“Hey, Dahyun. Y/N.” Taeyong’s voice grabs your attention now. “What do you think of these guys? Didn’t some of them used to go to this school?”

“Yeah, I had a few classes with their drummer.” Dahyun waves her hand airly, swiftly brushing over the fact that she did far more than have a “few classes” with any of the boys but was also one of their closest friends. “I think they’re great━” She glances sideways at you one more time. “Hey, maybe we should get back to the assignment now━”

“I had a class with their lead guitarist, Jungkook, last year,” Jihyo continues, her excitement getting the best of her as Dahyun’s voice drowns out in the foreground.

“No way!” This dubious exclamation comes from Taeyong.

“I tried talking to him once but he totally blew me off,” Jihyo says. “Which is fine, because he’s still hot. If I had known he was gonna be a famous rockstar, I’d have tried asking him out a second time━”

Suddenly, you feel sick.

It’s odd to hear two strangers discuss Jungkook’s life while you’re seated across from them, as if you’re nothing more than an outsider to whoever Jungkook has become now. But you can’t stand it anymore. You’re certain you look insane to them when you push your seat back abruptly, the metal legs screeching against the floor as you stand.

“Whoa, what’s wrong━?” Taeyong starts to ask but you’re gone before he can finish the question, murmuring a half-hearted excuse about how you forgot you needed to be somewhere.

You’ve rounded on your heel and have fled from the café before anyone can try to stop you, with nothing but Jungkook’s mellifluous voice fading in the distance as he croons aloud for you in a time long since passed.

You don’t care. Besides, you’re sure Dahyun will cover for you.

The worst part of it all? The dreadful realization that sinks into your mind, and into your heart, beckons the question: who’s to say you aren’t a stranger now to Jungkook’s life altogether?

“So, what are you trying to say?”

You remember the moment so clearly despite wanting nothing more than to forget it all, and the pain associated with it. Because even from then you knew you would always be in love with Jungkook, but you couldn’t have him. It’s hard to remember whose fault it is this time that caused the sudden fight, though random little arguments had been a frequent occurrence nearing the end of your one year relationship more often than not. You hate blaming it all on him, because you were certain you were at fault too. Maybe a little bit wary at times, a little selfish, wanting him all to yourself. Even though you knew he has an obligation to the world, it still hurt when he started making promises he couldn’t keep, blowing you off for soundchecks, or spontaneous interviews, or record label meetings. More and more you could feel the both of you drifting apart, maybe without even meaning for it to happen.

It was just that Jungkook was destined for a lifetime of greatness, and you were starting to think that meant without you.

You had stopped him late one night after he had stumbled home from his and the band’s nightly studio sessions as they worked through recording their debut album as a signed band. Lately, it seemed as if that was all that Jungkook cared about, and while you knew the band meant the world to him and you would always support him in his endeavour, you couldn’t help but feel lesser in comparison. That, and you hated seeing the boy overwork himself to the point of near exhaustion every night if only because their label was so adamant about having the album finished before the month ended.

“You want to, what? Break up?” Jungkook asked, this time more incredulously and less dumbfounded as he had initially been. He didn’t believe you just yet, but you couldn’t exactly tell what he was thinking anymore at that point.

“I just figured we could use some time apart,” You had suggested awkwardly. “Just a break.”

He had let out a breathless, disbelieving laugh. “Y/N, this is insane.”

You flinched. You remember having to look away, refusing to meet his suddenly sorrowful look. “Is it, Jungkook? I mean… Look at us. We’re falling apart. It was bound to happen eventually. We tried to make it work but maybe we’re on different paths now.”

“But I love you,” Jungkook gasped, exasperated. “Where is this coming from?”

“And I don’t want to have to tie you down for the rest of your life,” You continued on stubbornly, “or make you think you owe me your whole life just because you said you fell in love with me when you were thirteen━”

This seemed to catch Jungkook’s attention. He grew rigid in front of you, a look of wary agony contorting his face. “Is that what this is then? You don’t love me anymore?”

You didn’t respond immediately, instead the dread of the night seemed to finally catch up with you and you had grimaced. You had loved him even then, but the thought of voicing it aloud when you were supposed to be breaking up with him didn’t feel right. The tears began to swell in your throat and blur your vision. Jungkook must have noticed, because he always seems to spot the small things about you that even you miss. Almost instantly, the sour look on his face softened and his gaze turned helpless, with those big puppy-dog eyes that you’ve always been too fond of. He closed the distance between you at once, warm hands grabbing at your own.

“You do.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. He knew you were still in love with him ━ or maybe he’d just been hopeful. “I know you do. So then why are you breaking up with me?” 

He let go of one of your hands to reach up to your face, calloused fingers gentle and soft against your cheek as they brushed away a rogue tear you hadn’t realized had fallen from your lashes. For a moment, you had let yourself get carried away. You leaned into the comforting heat and touch of his palm as he cradled your face.

“Don’t━” You choked out after a moment of silence, hating when your voice splintered into a sob. “Don’t touch me. Please, Jungkook. You’re only going to make this harder.”

His hands sprang away from your face almost at once, as if he had just been burnt by scalding fire. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and pull you into his arms but he had refrained the urge somehow, miraculously. So, instead, he grit his teeth and clenched his hands into fists as his arms fell limp at his sides.

“Then don’t do this. Don’t walk away,” Jungkook pleaded desperately. “I don’t understand. If you love me still, why are you making this harder for yourself?”

“Because what if that’s all we have in common anymore?” You asked wretchedly. “We care about each other. We always will. But you’re focused on the band, and this is my last year of school. Maybe we just need time to focus on ourselves.”

Jungkook blinked once. Twice. His stare was suddenly devoid of any emotion as he gawked at you, but you could tell that he was hurting. It was there in the fluttering of nerves in his jaw; there, in the way his lips pulled taut into a thin line; there, in the way even you could see his eyes begin to shimmer with wet tears that he unabashedly displays without trying to wipe away.

“So that’s it?” he asked. “After everything we’ve been through. You’re just gonna end it, like that? Y/N, come on━”

His hands had found purchase on your waist, and you had lingered for a moment too long; then, fumbling, he tried to grab delicately at your face, probing you to look at him. But you couldn’t. The moment you met his wounded gaze, you shook your head furiously. You had slithered out of his grasp, slipping through the seams of his fingers just like that.

“I━” You paused. “This isn’t some spur of the moment decision, Jungkook. How can you not see it? I’ve felt so alone these past few months. It’s like you’re here but not entirely. Your mind is always somewhere else, always thinking about the band and never about us.”

“What am I supposed to do?” he had asked hotly. “The band is my everything.”

“And what am I?” You asked. The question only mildly offended you, a shot right to your heart. Because if the band was his everything, what were you in comparison? “A distraction until you get everything you want? I can’t keep being that.”

“No!” he protested. “You’re not a distraction. You’re━” He stopped himself short, brows furrowing. “You can’t keep pinning this all on me. You just don’t trust me, do you? You never did. Always thinking I’m with some other girl when I’m not with you━”

“That’s not true,” You admonished.

“Isn’t it?” Jungkook retaliated.

“I don’t want to hear it,” You had said at once. Your tone was final, a decisive ending to your argument with him. “My mind’s already been made up, Jungkook. I don’t think we should see each other again until we sort all this out ━ or, until you sort out whatever your priorities are.”

Jungkook’s stare had hardened, a frown deeply etching into his face. He had straightened up then, perplexed and upset with your standoffish demeanour, as if thinking this surely meant nothing to you. But little did he know this would become one of the hardest decisions you would have to make.

“Fine,” he said rigidly. “If that’s how it is, then I’m gone. You’ll never have to see me again.”

You hadn’t known at the time just how terribly you had messed up ━ neither had Jungkook. He had left before you could stop him, or before either of you could change your minds. Because nothing’s worse than a broken heart, blinded by stubborn and defensive rage. Accusatory fingers and blaming him or you wouldn’t heal the wounds that had already formed, and ending things seemed to only make it worse, months of lonely heartache without Jungkook to further prove just that…

The last time you spoke to Jungkook, you told him you never wanted to see him again ━ or, at least, that seems to be how he interpreted it.

Now, you were standing in the midst of his domain, surrounded by everyone in his public sphere of friends and colleagues and acquaintances, and there was certainly no way of escaping him.

You were starting to think you’re losing mind, because you’d truly have to be insane to have worked up the nerve to agree to go with Dahyun to a party being held celebrating the band’s recent tremendous success and headlining their first world tour. Their manager, Jin, had personally reached out to you and Dahyun, calling you as a means of asking you to attend, though you had given him a timid and dismissive response at first. If it hadn’t been for Dahyun purposely and almost quite literally dragging you out under the premise that “even if you don’t want to see Jungkook, you at least owe it to the boys to go,” you don’t think you’d even be here. But while you didn’t know where you stood with Jungkook anymore, that didn’t mean you weren’t still proud of him or the rest of the boys. It just became harder to bask in their success with them when you had gone from knowing every detail of their lives, of Jungkook’s life, to knowing only what you could hear from gossiping fans around you, or plastered in tabloids, or all over any form of social media.

The party is held at some sort of fancy lavish restaurant, the entire back room rented out by the band’s record label and management, and is filled with dozens of people you don’t know. Fortunately, you and Dahyun aren’t left alone for very long, as an elated Jin and Jimin, the appointed lead singer, bustle their way through the crowd to you almost as soon as you arrive, leaving very little time for you to feel so awkward that you consider running away again. Jimin, in all his spritely and extravagant blue haired disposition, wastes no time in engulfing you both in a comforting hug as if months hadn’t passed since you’ve last seen them.

“Glad you guys could make it!” Jin smiles from over Jimin’s shoulder.

“It’s been forever,” Jimin affirms.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Dahyun says. “I’m surprised you guys didn’t forget about us, considering you’re big rockstars now.”

“Rockstar is a bit of an overstatement.” An effortlessly charming smirk unfurls on Jimin’s face, which seems to immediately dazzle Dahyun. “Besides, we could never forget you. Hey, come with me to find the guys. I think we could all use some time to catch up━”

He places his hand on the small of Dahyun’s back as he guides her away, leaving you with Jin. A moment of silence passes, in which time you can feel the boy’s eyes lingering on you.

“He knows you’re coming tonight, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Jin says carefully, treading over his words lightly. It’s too painfully obvious who he’s talking about, though you’re fortunate he doesn’t bother mentioning Jungkook’s name anyway. “There’s no point in hiding. I think you should talk to him.”

“I━” You trail off uselessly, your voice croaking. Fearing an imminent breakdown, you shake your head. Then, holding your chin a little higher, Jin’s startled to hear you pretend as if he hadn’t said anything. “It really is good to see you guys again. If you’ll excuse me, I think I need a drink.”

And you’re gone once more before he can say anything else. On your lonesome, you find refuge at the bar, though you only order water because you’re certain you won’t be able to stomach anything stronger. You don’t know how long you spend there, blankly staring at a spot on the wall as your mind wanders everywhere and yet nowhere at all until━

“Y/N?”

There it is again. The familiar sound of his voice, only this time it’s much more attainable, closer to your world and not elsewhere so high in the clouds like a hopeful dream. You brace yourself before turning to face him.

This close, Jungkook looks breathtakingly and painfully beautiful.

As always, he’s adorned in all black, the first few buttons of the silky blouse he’s wearing left undone so that it teases the exposed flesh of his collarbones and the rose tattoo that inks his chest, the thorny stems crawling up the side of his neck just below his ear, accompanied by a pair of leather pants. He’s the same as ever. The same imperfect tattoos that decorate his fingers and arms that you’ve always loved, the same ring-clad fingers painted a chipped black, the same hoop accentuating his button nose. His hair is still his natural dark ebony color (something he’s seemed to stick with much more as of late despite dyeing it wild colours throughout his past), only it’s a little longer than you last remembered, and the sides of his head are shaved in the form of an undercut. You’re foolishly surprised to find he still looks the same, but almost a year away from someone can both change nothing and yet everything all at once.

“Jungkook…” You want to say something more, but your words fall short.

It’s hard to tell if he’s angry or upset at seeing you there, but you don’t think he’s either, and you have an inkling of a thought that he purposely sought you out amongst the many faces. Instead, he looks hesitant, apprehensive, as if dreading how you’ll respond to see him. As if you’ll yell at him, push him away. You do neither, fortunately.

Just when the dense silence starts to become almost unbearable, Jungkook clears his throat. “I━ Wow… You look great.”

You blink once, a flustered blush warming your face that you hope he doesn’t notice. “Oh. Thank you. You do, too.”

His eyes flicker over your presence as he nods absentmindedly. Then, he’s offering you a pretty smile, soft and sweet in nature. No malice, or ill-intent. “Um━ How have you been?”

You hate this. You hate the awkward pauses, the prolonged periods of silence. A year ago, even despite knowingly pining for one another, your moments alone with Jungkook were never so terrible. He always found a way to say something cheekily flirtatious even when you were just friends, if only because he knew it would make you blush and giggle because, no matter how many times you would roll your eyes or nudge his sides, he also knew you secretly loved it. All the inside jokes, the milestones shared together, the ardent fleeting touches ━ where did it all go? And while you were both noticeably trying to maintain the peace and pleasantry between one another, it didn’t feel the same. It felt forced, fake. Distracted.

“I’ve been good,” You lie. “How about you? Actually, don’t answer that━” You let out a breathless chuckle. “You’ve clearly been doing amazing. I mean, your album, and your world tour. And tomorrow you’ve got a big day with the hometown show. I heard it sold out in the first ten minutes.”

“Something like that,” Jungkook says modestly. “It’s been kind of crazy. Namjoon says it’s good, but I miss━ I just miss a lot of how it used to be. The slow pace. I dunno. The quick burn up is quick to burn out, right?”

“Maybe,” You admit. “But I think you’ve all got it in you. You’ve worked so hard for this moment. Enjoy it while you’re in it. You deserve it, Jungkook.”

His stare softens as it meets yours. “Thanks.”

Another beat of silence passes. He looks as if he’s warring with himself, as if he’s fighting the urge to say something more, gnawing at his lower lip, brows knitting together.

“Yo, Jeon!” A foreign voice from amongst the crowd beckons aloud abruptly for the boy.

Jungkook glances over his shoulder swiftly in search of the source, then waves his hand as if to motion he’ll be there later. Then, he turns back to you. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. I won’t keep you,” You say. “I know you’re busy.”

“But━” He stops himself, his jaw clamping shut. Changing his mind, he decides to ask hopefully, “Will you be at the show tomorrow?”

“Of course.” The affirmation seems to relieve him, even though it’s a spontaneous decision made by you on the spot. Before this moment, you hadn’t been so sure you could go.

“Promise?”

You can’t help but shake your head, a chuckle slipping past your lips at the innocent boyish question he asks. “Yes, Jungkook.”

His smile widens a little more, however sheepish it may be. “Then can you promise me one more thing?”

“What?” You quirk a brow, intrigued to say the least.

“Will you drop by the hotel we’re staying at tomorrow morning, so I can take you out for a coffee? Just to catch up. It’s been a while,” he says timidly. Then, feeling a little stupid for being so bold, scrambles to explain himself. “And no pressure if you don’t want to. I just thought━”

You can’t possibly say no. Not when it comes to Jungkook, all your past struggles seemingly vanishing without a trace. “I’d like that a lot, Jungkook.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Then he’s positively beaming, his self-indulgent grin making your own heart flutter in your chest. When he leaves your side that night, you find yourself looking forward to the future perhaps a little too optimistically. But how terrible could grabbing coffee with your ex be, if you had survived the first wretched encounter?

So, in the morning when you wake, there’s not a stutter in your step or a wavering flicker of your confidence as you make your way to the Four Seasons hotel Jungkook had told you to from the night before. In fact, a selfish part of you almost thinks that maybe things will start to look up. That maybe you and Jungkook can finally make amends. That maybe you never had a reason to fear Jungkook breaking your heart if he made such an effort to heal it.

The hotel itself is one of the most luxurious ones in Seoul, a considerable contrast from when the boys were slumming it on friends’ couches and in their run-down van touring the country. The room Jungkook tells you to meet him at is one of the hotel’s grand suites, located on the higher levels of the building. But as soon as you reach the landing and have begun making your way towards the designated door, it flings open and a pretty girl comes stumbling out. She’s giggling at something that has just happened inside, her hair a dishevelled mess which she ruffles up in an attempt to fix it. She’s adorned in a pretty little dress, the skirt of which is hiked a little higher up and one strap falling down her shoulder, as she clings her shoes and bag to her chest. She smiles at you on the way past, though she’s too far gone in her own little daze that you wonder if she even notices you at all.

But you certainly notice her, and, all at once, your reverie of him and what could be comes crashing to the ground once more.

Maybe you should have stayed, should have waited for Jungkook to let him explain, but you were too afraid to hear an answer you weren’t looking for. You try desperately not to imagine Jungkook loving someone else. You try not to think about him holding her the same way he held you, his lips finding purchase on some other girl. But by trying to avoid the thought, it beckons the unwarranted memories of how it felt to be loved all over by him once upon a time. You wonder how many girls he’s hooked up with in your time apart, and the overwhelming sense of regret washes over you.

You don’t bother to wait. You know fleeing is the easiest option rather than facing your fear, but you’re far too timid of rejection again. Instead, even before you can approach Jungkook’s hotel room and knock on the door, you turn on your heels and run.

You’re long gone by the time Jungkook comes to the door, prying it open in search of you on a whim. When he doesn’t see you, he glances up and down the hallway but to no avail. Namjoon comes slinking past inside then in his own disoriented haze, having just woken up from moments ago when the girl he had taken back to their room the night before left. Even then, Jungkook had warned the rhythm guitarist against bringing the girl back, pointing out the fact that they had much to do today ahead of their concert. Namjoon had promised it wouldn’t be long, that she would be gone in the morning, and Jungkook was fortunate enough that the suite had two separate bedrooms on the opposite ends of one another so that Jungkook didn’t have to hear whatever it was the pair were doing in the other.

“Did Mina leave?” Namjoon asks through a yawn, digging the heels of his palms into his tired eyes. When Jungkook nods, a sliver of a reminiscent smug grin tugs at Namjoon’s lips. “You missed out, Jungkook.”

The cheeky quip is met with a roll of Jungkook’s eyes. “I’m sure I’ll survive. You know I’m not like that.”

Like that━ As in midnight hook-ups and cheap thrills alike. He tried it once, far ago when you had first broken up with him, on a drunken spur of a moment as a way of healing the anguish in his heart. It hadn’t worked then; he assumed it would never work.

Namjoon seems to understand this immediately. He gives Jungkook a look that the boy doesn’t notice. “Well… is Y/N here yet?”

“No. But I’m sure she’ll be here,” Jungkook grimaces. He hopes. “Something probably came up.”

Namjoon clasps a reassuring hand on Jungkook’s shoulder, humming aloud, “Good luck, dude.”

But you never arrive, even though Jungkook waits for most of the morning, nervous eyes flickering to the door at every commotion outside, running to check only to see room service delivering breakfast or concierge showing guests to their rooms. He has no choice but to give up on the thought of you coming when Jin knocks on their door, prompting the boys to get a start on their day. Interviews and soundcheck await, but how could he possibly go on with his life without knowing what happened to you?

Which is why you stay on his mind for the rest of the day, distracting him in every aspect, mixing up his words when he’s in the midst of his interview, tripping up on stage as the boys set up and begin to rehearse. As the hours wane down to just an hour before the show, the thought of performing in front of thousands of fans starts to make him nervous and he doesn’t know why. He’s done this countless times before, almost nightly during the tour, so what stops him now? Of course he knows the answer, had grown all too accustomed to the feeling the first few months in which the break up had been so recent. It would always be about you.

But just before the show starts, Jungkook is making his way backstage from the greenroom, where the band had been waiting, to the stage. Fiddling with his in-ear piece, he almost doesn’t notice you and Dahyun weaving your way through the roadies and sound tech, being guided by Jin to the pit on the side of the stage where only family and friends are allowed. You don’t see him, and there’s a split moment where he thinks he should just let you go, until he doesn’t.

As he makes his way to you, the tour manager for the band intervenes part way, shouting out to the boy. “Where are you going? We’re on in five, Jungkook!”

“Yeah, I’ll be right back━” He waves the manager off as politely as he can, wasting no time to chase after you. He calls out your name, though it drowns out in the sound of the music being blasted through the speakers of the arena and the screaming fans. “Y/N, wait up!”

He’s relieved when he sees you stop in your tracks, turning to face him as Dahyun and Jin become lost in the chaos of the backstage. He comes to stand just before you, smiling breathlessly at you, unaware of the way your shoulders tense at the sight of him.

“You didn’t show up this morning,” he says as a way of greeting, his voice a curious prob. “What happened?”

You try desperately not to get lost in his big beautiful eyes, laced with such hope. Instead, you fold your arms over your chest, looking away. “Something came up.”

It’s then that Jungkook senses something is wrong. You’re upset with him, though he can’t tell why. Aside from the obvious rift in your relationship that had initially split you two up, you had been so pleasant to see him the night before. But he doesn’t give up just yet. “Well… you’re here now.”

You meet his gaze with your own hardened one. “For the boys.”

A shot right to his heart almost makes Jungkook gasp for air. He flinches, and then his stare softens, and you wish he wouldn’t look at you like that, out of fear that you might just relapse into his arms.

“What’s wrong?” He closes the distance between the two of you. He wants nothing more than to reach out and touch you, but refrains with much difficulty. There’s dozens of things that could be wrong, and he braces himself for your retaliation. “You didn’t want to come, did you?”

When you don’t respond, but also don’t stray from his side, Jungkook hurries to speak again if only to fill the tense silence.

“Look, last night… Maybe it was just me, but last night seemed like things were okay,” he says. “Was I wrong to feel that way?”

“Jungkook…”

“Please, just let me know,” he begs. “Because you’re all I can think about these days, it’s driving me crazy. And I don’t know what’s going on, but the reason I wanted to see you this morning was because I hate how things ended between us, and I wanted to tell you…” He swallows nervously as he trails off uncertainly. “I wanted to tell you that I’m still in love with you. And I can’t get you out of my head. These months away from you made me realize that I━”

Suddenly, you’re shaking your head and he knows you don’t believe him. As soon as the words leave his mouth, he regrets saying it, if only because they seem to enliven you. Now, you push yourself away from the boy. “I’m not doing this right now. You’re not doing this right now.”

As if to further your point, the band’s tour manager can be heard calling out frantically for the boy. “Two minutes, Jungkook!”

But Jungkook is hardly paying attention now, instead solely focused on you. “Please, Y/N━”

“No, you don’t get to say that to me,” You admonish hotly. You can’t bite the words back, no matter how hard you try. “You don’t love me. You think you love me, but you don’t.”

His jaw clenches, and his brows furrow into a frustrated stare. “I do.”

“You don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Stop.” The harsh word makes Jungkook clamp his mouth shut. You shake your head furiously, but you know it’s only to distract yourself so that you don’t let the tears fall. “You’re being selfish, Jungkook. You don’t get to take all of me, love all of me, and leave, only to come back months later and pretend you’re still in love with me. And whatever this━” You gesture vaguely between the two of you, “is, or was, doesn’t exist anymore. We both need to stop pretending otherwise.”

Jungkook winces, eyes tinged with pain. “You don’t mean that.”

You don’t respond. Elsewhere, his tour manager starts to grow impatient, scolding the boy aloud, “Jungkook, we’re gonna be late. Hurry up!”

“Yeah, I’ll be there!” Jungkook calls back, irritated. Maybe he is being selfish. He’s wasting precious time by not leaving, all the hard work that the crew put into tonight’s show, and the fans awaiting his and the band’s arrival. He can still hear the crowd, this time their buzzing voices amalgamating into unanimous chanting muffled by the walls that sounds akin to the band’s name.

“You should go,” You say now. “Don’t wanna disappoint them.”

But he’d throw it all away for you if you told him to. He promised you that even before he had left for tour, before the band had been signed. Had you forgotten? Because he surely hadn’t.

“Y/N…”

“Good luck out there.”

Then, you’re gone before Jungkook can even make a move to stop you ━ but even if he did, what could he do to make you stay? The feat seemed impossible, and you always seem to find a way to slip from his grasp no matter what he does. Only this time he has no choice but to let you go, out of fear of being berated further by his tour manager or angering the boys so much to the point where he gets kicked out of the band.

He makes it on stage in time, the band filing out to take their places one at a time, deafening screams blowing out their in-ear pieces that stand no chance as each member joins the stage. The lights fizzle out until complete darkness cloaks the venue, but Jungkook still looks for you. He finds you in the pit on the side of the stage, Jin and Dahyun standing beside you, and finds it hard to keep his eyes off of you even though you attempt to pretend as if he’s not even there.

After their first adrenaline-filled opening song of the night, Jimin takes to the microphone to greet the crowd who scream back an indiscernible shout as, elsewhere, you notice Jungkook pry himself away from the microphone stand on his side of the stage to wave the rest of the boys over to Hoseok’s drum kit. They murmur amongst themselves briefly, though they go unnoticed by Jimin or the crowd as the lead singer entertains them.

“Seoul! It’s good to be back. We’ve missed you all so much━”

Jimin’s words get cut short when Jungkook, having just parted ways with the rest of his members for their impromptu meeting, beckons the lead singer over, out of range of the microphone. They seem to discuss something just as shortly as Jungkook had talked with the rest of the boys, in which time Jimin nods understandingly, then steps away from the microphone. Then, Jungkook takes to the microphone, the rings on his fingers glistening under the spotlight as he grips the stand.

“I know the night’s only getting started,” Jungkook’s voice wavers as he speaks, “but we’re gonna slow things down for a moment. We hope you don’t mind.”

Intrigued murmurs echo around the crowd, suddenly buzzing with excitement as they watch Jungkook with eager eyes. A few encouraging bellows has Jungkook smiling smally. Jin, on the other hand, looks perplexed.

“What is he doing?” Jin asks no one in particular, a quizzical look on his face. “This isn’t part of their set.”

“I think a lot of you might know this next song,” Jungkook continues, “but I don’t think I’ve ever expressed how much it means to me. This next one, I wrote for a special someone, and it sort of helped us achieve all of this. So, I think it’s time that person knows how much they mean to me.”

Jungkook glances nervously over at the boys standing behind him, each in their own respective spots. Then, sweeping his gaze across the crowd, he finally finds you already staring up at him. His own eyes soften into a look of longing, however hardened by past tribulations and sorrow it may be. As if he’s determined not to lose you again; determined to make it up to you.

“This next one is for Y/N,” he says timidly. He has to turn away from you in the next second, afraid he might just break down before the fans and the boys and you. “I’m sorry I messed up.”

As the boys take their place, with Jimin taking an acoustic and fading back from the limelight, you wonder why. But then you hear it, the familiar beginning chords making up the song you had so wholeheartedly claimed you hated. Only this time they’re gentler, made up of acoustic strums of a guitar, Hoseok’s drums, and Yoongi’s keys, all amalgamating into a pretty song almost unrecognizable.

Then, Jungkook starts singing, and what was once a wistful dreamy song of prospective lovers suddenly turns into a melancholic requiem for you. Some lyrics are changed, present tense turning to the past, and Jungkook sings his way throughout the entirety of the song in contrast to the one that plays all over the radio featuring the other member’s voices. The fans sing along, their voices melding with Jungkook’s into some sort of celestial mellifluous choir, and you’re left no longer wondering if the fans would ever know the meaning behind the song that Jungkook had brought to life. Because now, it wasn’t just Jungkook singing to you; it was the whole world. And yet, paradoxically at the same time, it felt all that much more intimate. As if it were just you and him once again, seated on the couch in his small apartment, listening to the beginnings of what would be their number one selling song.

Above all else, you realize that you don’t seem to hate the song as much you claimed to.

That night, you can’t sleep.

You find yourself leaving the venue earlier than everyone else, even when the boys invite you and Dahyun to join them for celebratory drinks, returning to your home in the hopes of forgetting the night altogether. Instead, you stay up tossing and turning, your mind filled with memories consisting of only Jungkook and his haunting voice singing to you, and for you. But at some point during the night nearing one or two in the morning, just when you give up on the idea of sleep, the sound of incessant knocking at your front door rouses you from your trance.

When you finally answer the door, you’re more than surprised to see that Jungkook stands on the other side of the threshold as if coming to you from a dream. But then you register the fact that he’s a complete mess. Dark circles line his weary eyes, now smudged with that faint hint of charcoal liner he had worn for the concert, hair so messily mused beyond repair, and you notice quickly that he’s crying, fresh tears glazing over his pupils and streaking down his face. It’s startling to see him in such shambles, a complete contrast to how effortlessly charming and confident he usually portrays himself. But though you’ve seen him cry before on various occasions, now is all the more unsettling.

“I━I’m sorry.” It’s the first thing he says, screwing his eyes shut tightly as he shakes his head. He fumbles over his words, slurring them together in his rush to get them out. “I know I’m probably the last person you want to see right now, but I needed to see you.”

“Are you drunk?”

“No, no, I swear━” He pries his eyes open to meet your desolate stare, tears unabashedly falling from his lashes. His voice thins with desperation. “You said we need to stop pretending, but I’m not pretending. I never have been. And if you think ━ if you truly believe ━ that there’s nothing here between us anymore… Tell me. Right here, right now. And I’ll leave you alone forever, you’ll never have to see me again. I just━ I’ve missed you every moment and it kills me.”

You’re silent for a long period, pitying gaze sweeping over him, but he doesn’t care if he looks insane. He just needs you to know how he feels.

“Well, how do you think I felt?” You ask the question carefully, but then the memories come flooding back and the semblance of a scowl forms on your face. “You leave and suddenly everywhere I look I see you. Your song is playing everywhere, you and the guys are everywhere, and I’m reminded every day about how we ended. About how you left me.”

Jungkook blinks. He shakes his head stubbornly, the nerves in the corner of his jaw fluttering as he grits his teeth. “You were the one who said we should take a break.”

“A break!” You snap sternly. “Fuck, Jungkook. I didn’t want you out of my life forever. I wanted you to fight for me.”

“No, don’t put this all on me,” Jungkook pleads helplessly. “I have always fought for you. But the minute things got rough, you bailed. You told me you never wanted to see me again. What the hell was I supposed to do?”

“I was scared!” You try to swallow the tears away that start to form as a lump in your throat but to no avail. “I was, and I still am, so fucking scared of losing you. And you━ It felt like you gave me no choice. Like you were over it. I would have wanted to make things work but you left. You just… You left, and suddenly it was like you were never in my life at all. Seven months, and I get no word from you.”

“I fucked up, okay!” He cries out so suddenly, it silences you at once. He bites at his lip, and straightens up half-heartedly, running a hand through his hair. When he meets your stare this time, he’s zealous yet sincere. “I know that I messed up. I know. And it fucking kills me every single day. I don’t know where it went wrong, but it did, and I know it’s all my fault. When you said we should take a break and I agreed, I was only thinking about you. Because I knew I was disappointing you every day, and I was afraid that was all I would ever do, and you don’t deserve that. I thought it would be better this way, if I was just gone from your life for good. But I can’t forget you.”

“How can I trust you?” You ask. When his pained stare gawks at you, you tilt your chin a little higher. “I came by your hotel room yesterday morning, just like you asked, only to see that girl leaving.”

Jungkook’s gawk turns into a dumbfounded expression. He looks weary as he shakes his head, as if struggling to keep up with the way you accuse him now. He tries not to focus on the fact that you actually came to the hotel, then feels inconsolably terrible when he realizes why he never got to see you. “That girl was Namjoon’s fling. We were sharing the suite, and they were in a whole other room. I didn’t even think about her━”

Your stare droops from him, and he knows he’s struggling to keep you on his side.

“Okay, fine. You want trust? I’ll give it to you,” he says. A newfound sense of confidence seems to possess him, though he approaches the topic with extra caution anyway. “After we broke up, I was crushed. I couldn’t move on from you, and the guys thought I should get drunk, find a random girl to bring back to our hotel one night on tour. And I listened, because I wanted to forget you, but it didn’t work. All I could think about was you. Every time she touched me, every time she kissed me, I could only imagine it was you. And when she left that night, I broke down because I felt like such a fucking idiot. I instantly regretted it. Like, even though you and I weren’t together, I still did something to hurt you by sleeping with that girl. And all it did was hurt me too in the process.”

He pushes himself forward, taking a step over the threshold. Even despite him admitting his wrongs to you, you can’t find it in yourself to hate him. Because, at the end of it all, he’s here at your doorstep, pleading for you to forgive him, but he had already won the moment your eyes had landed on him.

“You’re the reason I am who I am today.” His voice is hoarse when he speaks, almost in a whisper. “That I get to do what I love for a living. But all of it means nothing without you. You saw me at my worst, and my best. And you were the best I ever had, and I ruined it, and the worst part of it all is that there’s nothing I can do to make up for it. But I promise I can make it better ━ I can make it right again ━ if you just give me a chance.”

There’s a short pause filled with poignant silence in which Jungkook thinks you’ll push him away or scream at him. He’s fortunate when you do neither; instead, he hears you whisper faintly.

“Kiss me, Jungkook.”

And it’s more than enough for him. His heart thrums in delight as he wastes no time in reaching out for you. His hands are warm as they come to grasp at your face, holding you delicately; then he’s leaning in to you, drawing you closer and closer until his lips are pressed against yours. It’s unadulterated, but not without feverish passion, noses smushing together in both your eager hastiness to close the distance between the two of you. It doesn’t last long either, though that’s partly because Jungkook can taste your tears mingling on your lips, and can feel your faint smile form against his mouth. Kissing him feels both foreign yet familiar at the same time. You know the feel, the taste, and the sense of comfort that comes with it, but months apart from one another has left it feeling different.

Jungkook’s thumb wipes away at the tears on your face. “Why are you crying?”

It’s a useless question, he knows, but he needs something to fill the silence. He’s relieved when he hears you snicker. “Because I miss you, you idiot. And I’m sorry I’ve been acting like such an idiot. I’ve messed everything up.”

His own shoulders quiver with contented mirth. “It’ll be okay.” As he leans in once more for another kiss, you can feel him murmur against your mouth, “I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“Then make it right,” You say, “right here and now.”

“I’ll do anything for you,” he promises earnestly.

Jungkook understands the underlying yearning in your voice even without having you explain yourself. He knows, if only because he can feel it too. As his hands fall to your waist, fingers digging into your skin, your own arms wrap around his neck and pull him into your apartment. He has you pressed up against the nearest wall within seconds, kissing at your throat, then up to your jawline.

“It’s been so long,” he sighs.

You hum in agreement, though your mind is already spinning, and all you can muster is a weak yet urgent croak of his name. “Jungkook.”

Your fingers thread through his hair, tugging at the roots and he croons with delight. His lips finally meet yours again, only this time he lets his tongue lav at your lower lip. Almost as soon as he does so, you notice something strange. It takes a moment for you to register the small metallic object that grazes your lower lip but when you do, you pull away from the boy.

“What’s wrong?” Jungkook asks in a confused dazed.

“Is that…” You rasp. “Did you get your tongue pierced?”

Suddenly, Jungkook is smirking, one brow shooting up to his hairline in a smug demeanour. He sticks out his tongue for you to see the silver ball poking through and you almost moan at the sight of it as the thought entices you.

“Oh.” Your face warms with a flustered blush. “That’s new.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Always wanted to get it done. Guess I was saving it for the right moment.”

“Right moment, huh?” You scoff as if the implications don’t already have your thighs rubbing together. “Care to explain?”

“I think you’ll find out soon enough.”

You dissolve into a fit of giggles, marvelling at the way Jungkook’s familiar flirtatious bantering can soothe your troubled heart at once. It’s almost as if time hasn’t lapsed between the two of you.

“I’ve missed this,” You sigh. “I’ve missed you, Jungkook.”

You spot him smiling before he’s kissing you again, this time his tongue slipping past your parted lips to meet yours midway. The piercing is strange to adjust to, but you get used to it quickly, humming at the feeling of it against the soft flesh of your tongue. It’s easy to get lost in one another’s lips as you pull and tug at Jungkook, guiding him to your bedroom, nearly tripping and stumbling over one another in the process. He knows the path like the back of his hand, the same way he knows every curve and dimple of your body as his greedy hands explore you. He has you sprawled out beneath him on the bed in a matter of seconds, carelessly shedding each other of your clothes until you’re left naked and he’s without a shirt.

As he’s tugging off the hoodie you’re wearing, he realizes two things abruptly. One: you’re not wearing anything beneath it, your bare body dazzling him at once. And, two: a sudden thought jogs his memory that makes him ponder aloud, “Is this my sweater?”

“Yes,” You admit sheepishly.

He smirks. “Was wondering where it went.”

“You forgot to take it back when…” You don’t finish your sentence. Instead, you tug your fingers at the hair at the nape of his neck, as if scared he’ll leave again. He doesn’t. Instead, he nestles his body between your legs, tonguing patterns on your neck. “I wear it sometimes, especially when I’m missing you. I don’t know… It just━ It still smells like you, even after all this time.”

Jungkook’s heart nearly implodes. He wonders briefly if he’d prefer fucking you without or with the hoodie; but then he’s letting himself time to study your naked body and he deduces he needs to gaze at you in your entirety a little longer.

“Keep talking,” he murmurs. He starts kissing down your body now, starting from your throat to your collarbones, between the valley of your breasts, then your navel. “Tell me more. How badly did you miss me?”

“So badly,” You whimper. Your legs instinctively part to make way for him as he shifts downward, kissing just above your core. A shudder runs down your spine when he kisses the inside of your thigh. “Sometimes I’d put your sweater on and touch myself to the thought of you.”

He grunts against you, teeth softly biting at your flesh. His tongue pokes against your thigh, the metallic piercing a dully cold sensation as he licks upward to your core. He laps at your folds, as if to taste the glistening cum that starts to form.

Your breath audibly hitches in your throat, hips jutting forward to meet his mouth. “I missed your hands, and the way they made me feel. Missed your mouth between my legs. Missed cumming on your tongue, or your fingers.”

Now, you’re starting to understand what he meant by waiting for the right moment to use the piercing to its fullest potential. As he lifts his head higher to tongue at your clit, the piercing makes your head spin. The contrast between his soft tongue and the harsh metal works wonders against you, rubbing you just the right way that has you a moaning mess beneath him within a matter of seconds.

“Fuck━” You cry out, hands twisting in his hair. “My hands never feel the same. You always made me feel so good, Jungkook.”

He hums something in response, the sound reverberating up your spine. He busies himself by replacing his tongue with his finger, rubbing small, controlled circles against your clit as he lowers his mouth to your folds. He teases the piercing against the sensitive flesh before lapping at your insides, burrowing further into you.

“Ooh, Jungkook━”

The noise that eclipses your throat is a piqued sob of delight. The piercing that scratches against your walls has your insides throbbing, body twisting and turning beneath him. You grab at your breasts, fingers pinching at the perked buds as you imagine Jungkook’s hands in replace of yours.

His mouth wraps just right around you and he sucks hard, earning a beautiful moan from you. It doesn’t take long for you to draw closer to your high, sputtering and whimpering at every action he does. Soon he’s burrowing his face even closer against your core, nose nudging against your clit in a way that makes you writhe and squirm. Before he can get carried away (and he certainly could), Jungkook decides to come to a stop which seems to thoroughly surprise and upset you. When you feel his missing warmth between your legs and the sticky wet mess accentuated further by the cool air that hits you, you pout like a child.

“That’s not fair,” you whine.

“Sorry, baby. Need to feel you.” He pulls away from you and crawls over your body once more. He kisses your lips, sloppy and heated, and lets you taste your own succulence on your tongue. “God, I need to feel you so bad.”

You’re just as much startled as you were seconds ago to hear the slight whine in his voice, a sound hot enough to almost push you over the edge.

“I’ve missed you too, just so you know,” he moans, burrowing his face in the crook of your neck. Your fingers continue to scratch delicately at his scalp and he simpers delightfully against you. He ruts his hips eagerly against yours, the bulge in his pants rough against your core. “So fucking much.”

“How much?” Now it’s your turn to ask, your curiosity getting the best of you once you find your voice.

“Every day,” he sighs as he continues to grind his hips into yours. “Get so hard at the thought of you. Your pretty mouth moaning my name. Your hands in my hair, just like this━” You pull a little tighter at the roots of his locks, and he has to stifle his contented moan. “And your body━ Fuck, your body. You take my dick so well, baby.”

“Jungkook,” You mewl impatiently. “Wanna feel you in me.”

“Fuck, okay. Okay━”

He hastens to rid himself of his pants and you help, arms momentarily tangling with one another in your rush. Then he’s kneeling before you, one hand planted firmly on your hip, rings digging roughly against your skin, as his other hand wraps a fist around his hard length, slowly pumping himself. He guides the tip of his leaking cock to your core and pushes himself forward carefully. He easily slips past your folds, coaxed by your slick walls, that he has to pause to give you both time to adjust to the feeling. It’s just as he remembered, though somehow better, and he isn’t so sure how long he’ll last. You don’t know either, marvelling in the way he stretches you open.

“Oh, shit,” he grunts.

He watches as your jaw drops open in a silent gap, your eyes fixed only on his. You grab at his hips, fingers scratching delicately over the laurel tattoos inked there, prompting him to move. He does so in one languid movement, burying deeper and deeper into you until you feel so full and he feels so warm. He fucks into you a little sluggish at first, taking his time and enjoying the way your clenching walls feel around his throbbing cock. It’s a pace so maddening that it soon has the both of you panting, heavy moans filling the space around you. Your own fingers dig into his shoulders, his back, his hips ━ anything to keep a hold on reality as you slowly lose yourself to the pleasure. He reaches for one of your hands, eager to feel you in more ways than one, and laces his digits with yours, pressing your clasped palms above your head. You squeeze tightly, his name falling from your lips in a cry.

“Doing so good,” he mumbles through gritted teeth. “Feel so nice, baby.”

Jungkook grasps at your hips and flips the two of you over. He lands on his back on the soft mattress and you fumble to not break the pace. Firmly planting your hands on his chest, you grind against him, sweat coating your forehead. He watches you with a dark fascination, brows screwed together and jaw clenched as your own cum starts leaking down his length. Not wanting to waste another moment without being beside you, he sits up and shifts you in his lap. Then he pulls you close to him, chest pulled flush against chest to the point where he can feel the rapid beat of your heart against his. You whimper aloud, wrapping your arms tightly around his neck as he guides your hips back and forth on him. There’s little to no space between your gyrating bodies, sweaty skin sticking to one another.

At some point, Jungkook notices you’re crying again, steady tears tangling in your lashes and wetting your face. Despite the way you’re driving him to near euphoria, he brushes your hair out of your face and manages to ask, “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m sorry━ fuck,” You gasp. He can tell you’re genuinely sympathetic for whatever’s making you cry but it’s hard for you to convey it properly when you’re still so consumed by him. “I’m so sorry━ I’m okay. I just━ You feel so good, Jungkook.”

“It’s okay,” he whispers, rubbing tender circles against your waist that contrasts with the fierce burn between your legs. “You’re okay, baby. Doing so well for me, aren’t you? Cum for me, yeah?”

You won’t tell him why you’re crying ━ not yet, at least. But Jungkook thinks he knows why; he can feel it too. The bitter sense of longing and mingling regret for all the time lost. The overwhelming feeling of love of finally being reunited. You continue to roll your hips against his, and he, breathless, rubs his nose faintly against yours, resting his forehead against yours.

It doesn’t take much longer after that for you to come tumbling to you high. He strokes your hair so lovingly as you ride him recklessly, leisure rolls of your hips driving you to your high. When you cum, the feeling completely washes over you and electricity crackles in your veins, warming your entire body. He holds you close to his chest the entire time as you writhe with pleasure, your walls clenching around his cock.

“Fuck, I’m gonna━” His voice splinters off as you busy yourself by sucking a bruise onto the underside of his jaw.

He reaches his high moments later just as you’re beginning to wince at the feeling of oversensitivity. He grunts and groans, spilling his hot seed into you, and then, with his hips slammed against yours, grinds leisurely to ride out your highs.

Then, the room falls silent.

Neither of you move from your warm embrace, with you still perched on his lap, his cock softening inside you as his cum runs down his length and onto your thighs. Your face is hidden in the crook of his neck, and he waits until you’ve both calmed down from your orgasms. You’re running your fingers through his sweaty hair, but he knows you’re still sad. He kisses you all over in the meantime, a few ticklish kisses that make you smile sleepily and a few loving ones that have your heart swelling. Then, he gingerly shifts your head to look at him.

“Why were you crying?” he asks silently.

It takes you a moment to respond. You cling to him tightly when you do and all he can do is cradle you closer to him. “I don’t want this to be some kind of drunken one night stand thing. Like we both needed one last fuck to get over each other, or something."

“You mean more to me than a one night stand,” Jungkook says and it makes you smile smally, a little timidly. 

“That’s good,” You say, “because I’m not over you or us. I want us to work out. I love you too much to lose you again, and I’m scared this might be the last time I’ll ever see you.”

“I’m not letting that happen,” Jungkook shakes his head furiously. “I’d be an absolute idiot to let that happen. You won’t lose me. I’m not going anywhere this time. You’re my priority, Y/N. You always have been. Not the band and definitely not the record label.”

“I’m sure the boys will love to hear that,” You snort to yourself.

“Yeah, well, I’m sure they’ll understand,” Jungkook grins. But you’re only joking, and you know he sort of is too. That’s not to say the band isn’t still important to him, but you take precedent over it. “Without you, I wouldn’t even have the chance to be where I am now.”

You nuzzle your nose against his own, and he steals one sweet kiss from you. 

“Do you really mean all that?”

“With my whole heart.”

And, when he says it, you know he means it. There’s no reason not to trust him.

You’ll both move eventually from one another’s arms, soft touches from Jungkook peeling you off of him and wrapping you in your covers before falling asleep beside you, and waking up in the morning with you in his arms. But, for now, it’s just you and him, a little broken still yet all the more in love.

While you both know healing a broken heart will take time, you’re both prepared for it because you’re both worth it to one another ━ and that’s all either of you really need in the end to make it right.

⟶ All rights reserved to © jungkxook. I do not allow reposting, translating, or any sort of modifying and reuploading of my work. 

⟶ Feedback is always appreciated!

[luvyanfei]

anon said. ooo a new blog! can you do confession headcanons where xiao, childe, and scaramouche react to reader confessing to them and the aftermath of it? thank you!  

a/n. xiao’s is kind of terrible ;; ue ue gomenasai

“i love you, [character’s name].”

SCARAMOUCHE.

huh? is this some kind of a joke? if so, it’s definitely not a good idea to mess with his feelings like this, especially when he also shares the same sentiment. scaramouche is almost impressed by your boldness. not everyone has the nerve to confess their love for a harbinger in front of their own faces, after all. when he’s hit with the realization that you’re serious, he secretly pinches himself to make sure he’s not in a dream.

the sharp pain that comes with his nails making contact with his flesh affirms that this is real. he stifles back a genuine smile, choosing to stay calm despite the bliss he’s currently feeling. “i guess it can’t be helped. hmph, you should be lucky i’m rather fond of you as well, [name].” he says that, but he’s the fortunate one to have successfully stolen your heart before others can claim you for themselves.

unfortunately, his time with you is quite limited due to his affiliation with the fatui, so any fleeting moments are captured in photos from the kamera to look back on. he secretly carries a picture of you while he’s out of town on important missions so that he won’t miss you too badly. he fondly looks at your still, yet smiling face to cheer him up after a tough work while everyone else is asleep. well, almost everyone.  

“hmm, who’s that in your hands, scaramouche?” childe asks, gesturing to the photo the harbinger is admiring fondly. scaramouche rolls his eyes to hide his slight embarrassment and hesitates a bit before he answers.  

“oh them? their name is [name], my... sibling.” childe almost gapes in disbelief as he looks at the blue-haired man in shock. 

“you have a sibling? why didn’t you tell me? they’re so cute!” the 11th harbinger squeals in delight, which honestly irks poor scaramouche. he scoots away to give himself some space as he tucks the picture in his pocket for safe-keeping. 

“you didn’t bother to,” he explains matter-of-factly. “now if you’ll excuse me,” he stands up from his crouched position and dusts himself, “i’m going to take a walk, alone.” 

he wanders through a dark forest and grassy fields, until he finds himself standing on top of a cliff, the moon glowing brightly above. he peers up at the twinkling stars in the sky and imagines you beside him, watching the breathtaking view together. humming an unfamiliar tune to himself, scaramouche muses over the past and replays your confession over and over again. if he could, he would respond differently than he did before. 

‘i love you.’ those three letter words echo in his ears like a melody and he allows himself to smile. 

“i love you too, [name].” 

XIAO.

he automatically perks up an eyebrow in confusion. what? is it just him or did you seriously admitted you love him? xiao stammers for a brief second, no words spilling out from his partially open mouth. what is he supposed to say? “thank you?” “i love you too?” 

when he pulls himself together, xiao shakes his head and frowns. his answer is clear and simple: no. you mortals don’t understand just how dangerous it is to get close with someone like him - a yaksha. drowning in the brink of debt and despair, he doesn’t need you to suffer all the same. the dejected expression on your face pains him to a considerable degree, yet he convinces himself, this is for your own good. 

since then, he avoids you like the plague in hopes that your feelings for him will disperse into flames. you deserve someone better, someone who won’t place you in harm’s way, someone unlike him. out of kindness, you still visit him from time to time while you go and do your daily commissions, but your interaction is heavily tense and an air of discomfort seeps through your gaze. why does his chest hurt as if he was impaled with a knife and so much more when you look at him like that? the thought of breaking down and revealing the truth that he’s also in love with you tempts him eagerly, but his pride and anxiety tides over his desires. 

you, on the other hand, is aware that xiao harbors feelings for you. you discovered this secret of his when you climbed the stairs to the spot on the balcony where he was to surprise him with a greeting, but your ears captured a faint voice in the night breeze and you couldn’t stop yourself from eavesdropping on the little conversation xiao was having with himself. he muttered about “rex lapis”, the fate of liyue, and etc. you were about to leave him to his own devices, but the next words he said stopped you in your tracks. 

“will [name] accept me if i say i love them? probably not, i suppose.” you left before he could spare a glance in your direction and a smile graced your features as you happily walked away. and being the persistent individual that you are, you inquire verr on why he’s acting so cold towards you, desperate to seek the answer you need. “xiao is, as you’re well aware, a yaksha who’s experienced hardships throughout his life, and probably lost loved ones along the way. i’m sure,” she turns to look at the setting sun in melancholy, “he doesn’t want to hurt anyone important to him again.”

you plan ahead of time for the best way to approach him without giving him any chance to escape. unfortunately, this is the only thing you can think of as you place a hand on either side of his head, trapping him between you and the wall. xiao looks at you curiously, devoid of amusement. he crosses his arms and frowns. 

“what are you doing?” your hands twitch and you chew on your bottom lip nervously before you explain yourself.

“i heard from verr why you’ve been giving me the cold shoulder, that you don’t want to hurt anyone important to you, but...” you trail off to blink back the tears threatening to burst. 

“it hurts, when you ignore me like this.” your voice is quiet enough that he needs to step closer to hear you. “it hurts how selfless you are. can’t you be selfish just once? i meant what i said and i’ll say it again. i love you.” 

xiao stammers, at a loss for words, before he starts sniffling and buries himself in your arms, crying out apologies as you stroke the back of his hair and gives a closed-eye smile. “it’s okay, xiao. i’m sorry too, for not realizing how much you’ve been suffering by yourself. you don’t have to carry the burden alone anymore,” you say, looking into his tear-filled eyes, “i will always be here with you, no matter what path you choose to take.” 

“even if that path may eventually hurt you?” he whispers in a cracked voice, fingers curling around your sleeves. you nod. 

“it’s worth the pain as long as i can hold you in my arms, like this.” he chokes out a bitter chuckle and wipes away the glistening tears. 

“i love you too, [name].” 

CHILDE.

the harbinger blinks his cerulean eyes once, then twice, and... you find yourself pulled into his arms, as his lips uplift into a jovial smile. “really? you love me? [name], i had no idea you held such deep admiration for me.” you playfully roll your eyes and chuckle as you wrap your own arms around his body, fondly reciprocating his affection.

he’s the fastest to accept your confession than the other two men. you’d bet he would scamper to where he’s staying at to tell every grain of detail to his adoring relatives. 

he writes letters to his siblings about your daily dates and the progress you two are making in your relationship. they tease him for the most part, but they’re happy that he’s found the love of his life and requests that he bring you along with him on his next visit. childe smiles in relief, content that they accept you already despite never meeting you and he asks you if you’d like to come with him to his home country where you can introduce yourself to his family. without hesitation, you agree instantly, eager to meet the siblings he gushes about. 

snezhnaya is colder than you thought, as you hug yourself to preserve your warmth, even with the layers of clothing wrapped around you. “we’re almost there, [name].” childe notices your trembling and rubs his gloved hands against your back. “sorry, it’s a bit chilly here, but please bear with me.” 

you nod and continue on. when a building enters your field of sight, childe stops and grins shyly at you. “this is the place.” breath materializes in front of you as he gestures for you to head on in. almost immediately are you greeted with a little embrace as a young boy wraps his fingers around your waist and grins up at you. 

“so you’re the one who big brother said he’s in love with? have you kissed before? when is your wedding?” the child bombards you with questions excitedly and a girl has to pull him away from you, tonia, you guess. 

“teucer,” childe scolds gently, a light blush colouring his cheeks, which does not go unnoticed in his siblings’ eyes, unfortunately for him. 

a wedding, huh? seeing the sparkle in your eyes, the laughter in your voice, and the warmth of your touch as you idly chat with his siblings makes him hope, that maybe in the distant future, he’ll brave himself to take the next step to further deepen your relationship, for he wants to be with you always. 

as he tucks away the last sleeping child, childe wanders in to your shared bedroom, surprised you’re still awake. “you really love them a lot, huh childe?” he nods seriously, as you pull him to lie down comfortably into bed. 

“but do you know something else?” his breath tickles your ear as he intertwines his fingers with yours, offering a meek smile. you shake your head and nuzzle closer to him. 

“i love you too, [name].” 

[your-astro-mami]

Placements that indicate wisdom?

Generally planets in the 9th, aspects to Jupiter and Saturn, also Chiron.

Sun in 9th is the one who has lived, learned, gained experience. They are often the people who change a lot when they are older, gain different perspectives, always have an open-mind. Like those older people who are very understanding of the youth and somewhat have a young soul themselves. Similar could be the description for a Sun-Jupiter conjunction.

Moon in the 9th is also something I can associate with a young soul. Someone who despite their experiences has managed to keep a positive outlook and always find the good in everything - they perceive everything as a lesson that has helped them grow. Similar could be the description for Moon-Jupiter conjunction.

Mercury in 9th is pretty similar, but more on a mental level, when it comes to opinions, studies, thoughts. They are very wise people, very open to learning new things, they never seem to stop growing in a way. Venus in 9th could show romantic wisdom, generally the people whose love life is the one to write books about. Similar could be the description for Mercury-Jupiter and Venus-Jupiter.

The square aspects could also indicate wisdom but one who has come with the doubt of one's own beliefs, overcoming self-righteousness , becoming more-open minded.

Sun-Saturn conjunction can show wisdom gained from suffering. Moon-Saturn could show emotional suffering. Mercury-Saturn, mental suffering. Venus-Saturn, romantic suffering.

When I say suffering, I don't mean it directly. It can show that you have faced many hardships, but have managed to overcome them, you have built the strength to go through anything and not give up. These are often the strongest, most persistent people. Perfectionists who have never felt like what they are doing is enough. Possibly the placements that can indicate a very strong, thick-skinned person who has learned a lot from everything they have been through.

The Chiron aspects(conjunction, trine, sextile) could indicate someone who has risen from the dead. The wounded healer, the one who helps others in order to protect them from the pain they have been through themselves. Again, depending on the planet, it could show which part of the person shows these qualities. Oppositions or squares to Chiron don't really fit it, because they manifest very differently.

The 12th House can also show wisdom, but I think it is quite different from the other ones. These people tend to have a very strong intuition and can be good at making decisions, guiding others, despite the lack of experience, they can sense what to do, they seem to know things even if they don't fully understand them, depening on how the planet in the 12th house is aspected. For example, someone with Venus in 12th conjuncting the Moon will have very strong intuition about relationships, they may be vulnerable, but they will be able to sense the people they attract. Someone with Moon in 12th squaring Mars may feel like they have good intuition and knowledge, experience, but are likely to still act on impulses. This is more theoretical.

All in all, wisdom in my opinion can manifest very differently. Sometimes you just sense it (12th House, whether you're wrong or right), sometimes you know from experience (Chiron, Saturn), other times from knowledge and observation (Jupiter).

[whirlybirbs]

can I ask u a personal question? it’s just that I love the way you write about love…how it’s in all of the little things — the banter, the gestures, the affirmations. and I love reading about love, because I’m a hopeless romantic but only for the type of love you showcase so well — safe, warm and homely.

so what I want to ask is, how much of what you write translates to real life? with your personal relationship experience, do you find that writing about love is vastly different to how you experience it in real life? like does having relationship experience enlighten you on how to write love, or does writing still involve a lot of romanticisation?

i love love love writing about love even though I’ve yet to experience it for real myself. and reading your stories truly fills me with so much hope but I’m also trying to stay realistic at the same time…so I would love so much to hear your thoughts on this!! (pls don’t feel pressured to give advice! i’d just love to hear your own observations/thoughts)

i have been stewing over this ask like a little potato in a crockpot all day long.

honestly, i've been writing about love — or even just emotional intimacy — for as long as i can remember. romance as a whole has always made me super insane, verifiably delirious even, which is a funny thing.

it's funny because i firmly believe that every writer leaves a part of themselves behind in their pieces. for me, that was always chasing those exact things you've mentioned above: safe, warm comfort and a feeling that is like home.

without psychoanalyzing myself on main too much, it's safe to say my environment all throughout my life (and currently, still) did not have much of these things at all. physical affection and verbal affirmations are in short supply when you're in a constant state of survival mode. my parents firmly believed "keeping me out of it" which resulted in a lot of isolation as a kid that i still struggle with. my room, and in turn the stories i wove alone, were my escape out of the shittiest nights alive.

i always write what i want when it came to love. the daring adventure, the slow burn, the enemy who saw all my faults and still fell for me — the heroine, and always a love that remained steady and true despite the hardship.

i don't know if i've ever really been in love — at least not the kind i write about. and, to that point, not the kind that i've grown to realize i deserve. further more: the kind i will not settle any less for.

i take things from my past relationships (good or bad or awful or wonderful) — feelings and emotions mostly — that have been ingredients to that love i chase. like i said, those pieces of me as a writer get tossed into my work often.

i think that's the funny thing now, especially as i was crafting these very raw and honorific stories dedicated to love persisting while in my last relationship. there's this line that you walk as an artist when romanticizing a brush of fingertips is a craft – you find yourself thinking is this just how reality is? dull? stagnant? forced? is this your life now, the same saturday morning lived over and over and over and over in a small town? trapped in a flat, bound loop of time?

and then you die?

i don't think it is. i don't think love 'in real life' has to be any different from the romanticization of love in my writing — but i do think growing to a point where you understand you deserve that sort of love is the most important part.

i've been happiest in the moments where i've romanticized my life. when i've given myself the adventurous love that write about.

[atomicwriter]

my teeth in your heart → xiao

00. An Amputated Soul

DESCRIPTION: in liyue, wuwang hill is spoken of as the place where the dead dwell, and there’s a fable that’s oft–repeated among the youth of qingce village. xiao knows this tale, he witnessed it firsthand, and it is as familiar to him as the wind that he coils between his fingers. he does not speak of it much, for who is he to tell it to? all he knows is that the memory is prevalent as the disembodied whispers of karmic debt that call his name.

DISCLAIMER: gender neutral reader. brief mentions of nudity and death. multi-chapter fic.

WORD COUNT: 3k.

It’s a strange sensation.

There’s no pain, just an all-consuming numbness that spreads throughout your entire body. Your fingers flex, although you’re barely able to make sense of their movements. You can only recognize the metronome of your heartbeat as you float wistfully, the blood in your veins roaring so loud that all other sounds fall deaf to your ears. This serenity, a moment free from shouldering the hardships of the world, seems all too foreign for you, although you can’t pinpoint the exact reason why.

Here, you drift in the endless cosmos, wet and thick. You’re untethered, a lone particle with no sense of gravity in the middle of space. Reality seems discombobulated, and life consists of fractured memories that you’re unable to put together, as if you are missing the puzzle pieces necessary to do so. There’s a heavy pounding in your temples, and the tresses of your hair float around your head like wisps of smoke caught in the moonlight.

It’s when you open your eyes that you realize you can’t breathe. You suddenly become aware that you’re submerged underwater, and the previous tranquility is replaced by a fervent hysteria. Curled up in a fetal position, your bones knock together at the joints, trying for a foothold over the slick crossings of the river floor. Withal, your limbs are constricted by the water reeds, rendering you practically immobile, and your feet sink into the slick, black earthsoup. The surface seems far away from your stricken fingers as you desperately flail them in an attempt to stay afloat.

You can feel your heart pulse sporadically in your teeth, and your spine convulses as you choke on the air that you can’t breathe. In a brief moment of clarity, you retract your arms, beginning to uproot the reeds that confine your body to the riverbed. Determination numbs the burning sensation that coruscates throughout your chest, snuffing out the white-hot sensation that begins to gnaw at your lungs. This newfound electricity swallows you whole, surging through your veins like an incinerator that’s sweltering hot and nuclear-powered. Mud billows up in waves from the floor.

You can taste the acrid tang of death as you bite down on your tongue, and you know it’s coming when your periphery turns white. An abrupt coolness rushes in, igniting a formication along your skin. In mere moments, you realize, you will float like the water reeds, nothing more than flesh and bones ready to decay in the currents. It’s unnerving to realize, it’s unnerving to even think about, and you want to push against the exhaustion that barrels onto your body; to strain for the moonlight that dims above. But your limbs grow heavy, your fingers turn bloated and blue, and your head is spinning, spinning, spinning…

A rough hand clamps down on your shoulders and you’re jerked out of the water before the darkness completely takes over your vision.

You break the surface, coughing and spluttering. Your chest heaves violently, sucking in desperate lungfuls of air that you had previously been so cruelly deprived of. The disturbed water sloshes around as you’re pulled onto the surface of a raft, and you collapse to your knees. Spindly fingers anchor themselves against the dried bamboo stakes, unable to let go until you’re steady once again. Your breath releases in sharp heaves, but it’s there, and that’s all that matters.

When the chill finally seeps into your skin, you see everything in pieces: the shadow of a silhouette in the fading moonlight, dark eyes fraught with concern, and frantic hands thrusting a sheet around your trembling body. Panting hard, you find a certain sense of relief when you cut your eyes to the person who stands by your shivering form. The landscape is blurry before you, and a restless energy hums beneath your skin.

“Are you alright?” the man asks you.

You don’t answer him at first. Instead, you swivel your head around as you take in your surroundings. You’re encircled by calm waters, serene despite their previous menace. Ripples lull the boat, and you follow their path to a shore that doesn’t lie too far from where you are now. You can barely make out the bamboo stalks that extend towards the night sky, framed by the gray cliffs that confine the surrounding land within an alcove of shadows.

“Where are we?” you ask him.

“This is Bishui River.”

The name rings with an unknown sense of familiarity, and you repeat it under your breath.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” the man crouches down beside you, “but, what happened to you?”

You wish you could answer him, and when you look down, you notice your hands are shaking. From the frustration of being unable to recall anything or your apparent weakness, you don’t know. It’s like there’s a roadblock in your mind, a screen that reaches from ground to sky that disconnects you from the world around you. Faint sounds plug your ears, memories float across your eyes, and you’re unaware of what you have forgotten. Your past is something hidden, but in this moment you cannot fathom what it might be.

“I don’t know,” you whisper. You ball your hands into fists, knuckles blanching and fingernails digging deep into your palms as you turn to glower at the waters below. A sharp pain lances through your skin, but you don’t release them. All you can do is tell him your name.

“I see,” he hums, and you look towards him, whose cloak reveals a subtle beard of black hair and callous hands - working hands. There are wicker baskets that lie adjacent to his feet, filled with scavenged fish and herbs, carrots and sunsettias. “I stopped using my real name a long time ago. You can just call me Jiangxue.”

Your eyes narrow, but you don’t lose focus. Your nature is to piece this puzzle together: a fisherman out in the dead of night, an unknown land that is strangely familiar, and you, a person composed of seafoam who was pulled to the surface with nothing but a name. You admit that that’s what bewilders you most, but you suck in a breath and push the thought away.

“There’s a village near here. I can take you there if you’d like,” Jiangxue speaks when your silence persists. His eyes glance towards your figure before quickly looking away. A cough catches somewhere between his lungs and his throat. “It consists of amiable folk. You should be able to persuade them into getting you some clothing.”

You look down at his words, and your throat drops to your stomach when you find your bare skin on display. A hypodermic heat rushes to your face, and you wrap the thin sheet tighter around your naked body.

“I … uh … sorry,” you manage to sputter out, bowing your chin down to your chest as if the simple action alone could erase all traces of embarrassment. “I hadn’t realized.”

“It’s no matter,” he affirms, paddling towards the land.

It begins to rain once the raft reaches the shore, and an argentine fluorescence seeps from the sky. The drops plummet from the sky, rapid and ruthless. As you step onto the bank, you find that the mossy ground is damp and sodden, a deep green pigmentation that indicates the fallen rain as a usual occurrence. Jagged stones press uncomfortably into your heels, and you can feel the way the air stills around you.

You don’t understand why these plains seem so disorienting, why the soft susurration of the leaves feel so heavy in your ears. This stupor comes alongside that previous sense of familiarity - an ambient nostalgia for a native land that you yearn to experience once again. There’s an entwining reassurance, distant childhood memories, and the comforts of home. Perhaps one day you will find out why.

When you see the man step off of his raft in an attempt to follow you, you stop him with the shake of your head.

“I’m fine from here on out,” you say before you can even make sense of the words. “I know my way there.”

Skeptical of your proclamation, he raises an eyebrow.

“Dawn will be here soon, you should return to fishing before the world wakes up.”

“You misunderstand,” he says, walking towards you nonetheless. “I do not fish for a living. Neither the process nor the result means much of anything to me.”

“Oh,” you frown. “Is it just a way to pass time, then?”

“Precisely that.” And then he smiles, reaching out his hand and placing it on yours. When he retracts, you find a sunsettia placed into the cocoon of your palm, accompanied by a glowing ornament composed of Varunada Lazurite. There’s a delicate swirl–like design imprinted in the middle of the gem, and your breath catches in your throat when you realize what it is: a Hydro Vision. It must have resurfaced alongside you.

You wish to thank him, but you can not find the voice to do so.

“Safe travels,” Jiangxue says. He turns away, only walking a few steps before he pauses entirely. He opens his mouth, and a look crosses his face then as if he doesn’t know what to say.

“Yes?” you ask of him. “What is it?”

He still doesn’t speak, and you watch as he unclips the cloak from around his waist, slipping it off his arms and rolling it within itself. He hands you the bundle of cloth.

“O-Oh,” you stutter, waving your hands in front of you. “I couldn’t possibly. You have given me far too much.”

“You are cold,” is all he says. “Take it.”

“Really, I don’t-”

“I implore you. Please take it.”

There’s something in his voice then, a plea that is all too unfitting for the composed man before you. Unable to fight against his wishes, you timidly reach forward and remove the article from his grasp.

“There should be no monsters to block your path,” Jiangxue says. “He has made sure of it.”

There is nothing to stop the bewilderment that illustrates your face.

“He?” you question, but the fisherman’s back is turned to you. Befuddled, you do not say anything more, and the quietude encroaches in.

Somewhere in the near distance, a bird squalls — the only sound to penetrate the silence. Jiangxue moves back onto his raft, situating a paddle between the calloused texture of his hands. You don’t wait to watch him leave, instead bowing your head in a display of gratitude before pivoting on your heel and weaving through the clotted bamboo.

When you are certain that you are adequately hidden, the soaked-through sheet that had previously found home on your shoulders falls to the floor. You cinch the cloak that Jiangxue gifted you around your body, and the linen cocoons your body heat comfortably. Pocketing your Vision and the sunsettia, you pluck the sheet from off the ground, and begin to walk forward once more.

It’s not a long trek, that much you can recall, but when you reach the edge of the village, you find that the world has flung itself over and a new sun breaks the horizon. It’s a nectarine-sweet sky, mingling above the mountain that cradles the abundant crop lands within its embrace. You cross the bridge over the terraced fields of crops and wildflowers, inching closer to the livening village. It remains peaceful and quiet all the same, even as its occupants begin to stir.

This isn’t a place that receives many guests, that much you can affirm, despite the boundless beauty the land withholds. The rising sun embraces your skin, silky and warm, and even the rough texture of the stairs beneath your feet seems to hold a fount of comfort within themselves. You can hear the hummingbirds philandering with the flowers, their birdsong coming in lulls and bursts. The aromatic hints of Jueyun Chili and Violetgrass invade upon the atmosphere, inspiring a warmth to pool within your stomach.

It’s when you near the top of the stone path that you can make sense of a hunched figure beneath the strung lanterns, still lit despite the day’s arrival. She paces from side to side, graceful in her steps regardless of the aged lines that sculpt her face, on display due to her gray hair tucked in a low bun. As if sensing your presence, she stops, the green of her dress swiveling with her movements as she pivots on her heel to face you.

“My dear,” she calls, as if she has known you all this time. “Welcome to Qingce Village. Why don’t you take a walk with me?”

The elderly lady nods her head towards the courtyard, and there you can see a conglomeration of buildings that frame the square, constructed of wood and bamboo stalks. Fruit stands are tucked into corners, and a little ways down, a water mill sits adjacent to a bridge, converging with the path that leads further up the mountain. From nearby, the sound of a waterfall marginally emerges above the noises of early morning, and a rush of wistfulness overwhelms your entire being.

“Have you been aware that I would come?” you ask as you step beside her. She leads you towards the bridge.

A small smile sets apart her lips. “You must know we have quite the accumulation of spies here.”

A look of confoundment overtakes your features, and before you can request her to explain any further, a muffled chorus of giggles is heard from behind you. When you turn around, three pairs of eyes stare curiously at your form, and petite hands latch onto the edges of the cart that the children hide behind.

“I was not aware that I’d been under surveillance.”

“Outsiders are rather rare here,” the elderly woman muses, turning her head to where you gaze. “Of course, they still have a lot to learn.”

A sense of amusement flutters within your chest.

“Might I inquire as to why you have come?” she asks you.

The question momentarily startles you, although you reason that it is not unexpected. Attempting to grasp at your thoughts, you press your teeth down onto your lip, and all answers that are brought to mind prove insufficient to her question.

She must notice your inner turmoil, because she provides a reassuring expression before speaking: “It is fine if you do not wish to indulge me. We all have things we wish to keep to ourselves.”

“It’s not that. It’s just … how do I put this?” you reply, taking a grounding breath before voicing further. “There are many memories before this morning that have escaped me, including the answer to your inquiry. Although, I do suppose I hoped that I might be able to acquire some assistance here.”

She seems to contemplate your words, and stops walking just before your feet make contact with the bridge. A middle-aged woman appears in your periphery then, raising her hand in greeting to the lady beside you, the other arm slung over a wicker basket that rests on her hip. She must be preparing for a day's worth of field work, you presume.

“I see. Let us go somewhere more private. We will converse there,” she says. “And perhaps we might find you some more suitable clothes.”

She leads you to a building that rests on a wedge below the peak of the mountain. It’s certainly the largest structure of the village, composed of wooden posts and joists to encircle the open space. A shallow pond borders the front entrance, lotus heads and lily pads peaking above its glassy surface. The inside is completely exposed to the external environment, and from here, you can make out the entirety of the village. Nonetheless, being under a roof grants you a gratifying sense of privacy.

With a fragile hand on the small of your back, the lady leads you to a painted screen wall that rests off–center of the building, framed by wooden beams. It’s a picture of the mountain, you promptly recognize, with streaks of orange and blue that appear to glow in the morning light. She gently encourages you behind it, and you don’t realize that there is a set of garments in her other hand before she’s pushing them into your own.

“There is no one around to see,” she says, as if sensing your hesitation, and leaves you to your own.

Once the woman rounds the corner, you make haste in removing the cloak, slipping on the pants that tighten at your waist. The silk laced fabric flares out to brush at your ankles, and the cerulean trimmed edges barely graze upon the ground. The main portion is a dark umber, much like the short sleeved shirt given to you, with stitched decals of ochre and blue. It takes you longer than you’d like to admit to bind the fastenings down your chest.

There is no mirror nearby, but you are gently pleased by the choice in fabrics. You run your fingers over the material, feeling the ridges, the needlework, and the cotton–like texture. You know you’re in no position to experience such a luxury at the given moment, but you also have no entitlement to brush off such a thing. Your body hums with gratitude, and you step out from behind the wall.

The elderly lady seems to be equally as pleased, as she sends you a tight–lipped smile. From where her hands are clasped behind your back, she motions towards the chairs that circle the center of the building, fringing on the carmine painted engraving of a flower–like design. You take a seat.

“Might I ask your name?” You are the first to speak.

“You may call me Granny Ruoxin,” she muses. “I do apologize if it isn’t too lively around here, but life is pleasant here, and I hope you find a sense of enjoyment within the village.”

You learn forward, eager. “You mean it? I can stay?”

She nods, and it’s like the Universe has bursted into light. “There is plenty of room. You may stay until you are certain of where your journey will take you.”

A glint from the sun sparks your gaze, and you watch as Granny Ruoxin moves to sit beside you. Her movements are leisurely, hands crossed–hatched with scars reaching down to clasp yours in her own, and you dare to wonder of all the ways in which your life is about to unfold.

hello! i hope you enjoyed this. it’s my first time posting something genshin related on tumblr, so feedback is greatly appreciated. <3

additionally, i am considering making a tag list for this story, so if you are interested please message me!!

also! you can read it here on a03!

[emblemxeno]

Hot take but despite some of horrendous female designs and typical anime fanservice antics, the female characters in xbc2 are more varied and well written then 1. in one, a lot of fiora and sharla’s roles revolve around being caring and motherly and their romantic relationships. Abd you can even give it the benefit of no fanservice. Sharla has some pretty revealing outfit options and fiora, despite how we’re told how her body has been replaced and is failing, miraculously her chest in intact to have an outfit with a chest window.

and fiora doesnt really get to do anything cool in story with her cyborg form, it just serves to have her be feeble and add another layer of tragedy. and trust me as someone with chronic pain your body itself turning against you fucking sucks but a lot of those feelings of frustration that accompany it arent really there. she mostly just accepts the hardships. melias character is mostly focused on her family and duty so she does escape some of it but she is still stuck in a love triangle. admittedly its less of a love triangle and more couple plus a side unrequited love and it does avoid a lot of tedious tropes but with everything melia goes through giving her an unrequited love on top of it does seem a bit much?

But yeah i just find the xbc2 ladies have more variety and more…spice ig?

Yeah... yeah. It certainly feel similarly.

Cuz Sharla for instance, has her connection to Colony 6 and her shining moment during that point of the game is meant to show the tragedy that Homs face from the Mechon every day. And Fiora, like you said, has her dealing with conflicting feelings over having a Mechon body and wondering if she's truly "alive". But beyond those things, they don't get much beyond their connection with their love interests.

Sharla gets the worst of it, cuz after the Ether Mine, she drops off in the plot when not talking to Reyn or Melia, and doesn't completely pick back up until you get to Mechonis proper. And it's only to tie up the loose end with Gadolt which, as said before, it hinges only on the relationship angle of her character. In a grand story perspective it's good because it's another deliberate foil to Fiora's situation (like with Mumkhar) but for Sharla herself it doesn't do much for her beyond making her suffer and opening up the way for Reyn.

Fiora gets it slightly better because of her connection to Meyneth and drive to honor her will and memories, something that persists from Mechonis all the way to the end. But that's around... half the time? And the other half is her worrying about her time left with Shulk. Which, don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of their relationship and I honestly think that Fiora's character being a more simple Girl-Next-Door with a Twist makes her work (especially her contrast to Melia) and it's why she remains one of my favorites from XC1. But I very much understand how her relationship with Shulk can take a bit too much prominence in the story. (Speaking of, that one cutscene near the end where everyone has a grand line for the fight ahead and she just says "Shulk!", that never fails to make me laugh, though I am aware of why she says it)

In comparison, like you, I do like the female characters in XC2 more as a whole than in XC1, even with the "fanservice" moments. Mostly because most of them are connected to the grand overarching themes of the story that 2 is trying to tell, and therefore are unable to really "lose relevance/importance" or feel "one note" like Sharla or Fiora would to some people. I would go into it more, but I am Le Tired lol.

[gaycatwizard]

I feel like "bad/flawed characters that are still likeable" are just some of the Best characters and tend to have a bit more emotional staying power, that they're more relatable and more interesting, more memorable. We need more of them, but they're really... hard to do? Not necessarily hard to make, but hard to do well. Because the amount of flaws and Badness (in a moral/philosophical sense, not quality of a character's design and personality) can vary so drastically, along with the amount of redeeming traits and their potency. It can be hard to want to "copy" or mimic the exact ratio from the character that inspired you. Tangent: it's fine to be inspired by one or more works. It's fine to allow it to influence your works. It's hard distinguishing from "I want to do x, but that's basically just rewriting one of my inspirations but with a palette swap" and "this inspires me so I want to use certain elements/themes/ideas/technical aspects of it." That's not the issue here, y'know. But like... I think the sheer variety you can have in Loveable Asshole characters like that, in the ratio of how bad and how good they are, is part of what makes them so interesting, so realistic, so powerful. Like... there are characters who are overall pretty good people, but are rough around the edges in a way that clearly makes them sympathetic and likeable. There are characters who are basically layer upon layer upon layer of mistakes, hatred, and bile with the tiniest nugget of good at the center, that you rarely get a glimpse of, but feel something raw and enthralling because of that. Like... I think Bojack Horseman is a good example, especially because it has a lot of different Likeable Bad People varieties and it does them all really well. Also Bojack Horseman is a good show and, not unlike JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, I want to talk about it at every given opportunity. Bojack himself is a cynical, selfish, destructive, defensive, spiteful, jealous, vain, self-loathing, stubborn piece of shit. He's a bad person and that's... kind of the point of the show. But his entire character, his entire arc that spans the whole of the series, revolves around the diamond buried deep in that rough. He wants to change, but he's so set in his negative ways (and so used to being surrounded by such negativity and toxicity) that he doesn't really know how. Every time he wants to change, he doesn't know how and fails to keep up with his new habits. Every time he's doing well and making progress, some external factor comes in and pushes him violently back down the mountain, back to square one. But he makes an effort, it's very obvious that he doesn't like being this way, that he regrets the things he does, that he feels remorse for the pain he's caused, and he does finally change and improve, things do finally get better for him. His foil (who has such an AMAZING dynamic and relative arc with him I could write a whole essay just on that), Mr. Peanutbutter, is sort of the exact opposite. They have similar careers and positions in the world, but everything goes right for Mr. Peanutbutter. Everyone likes him, everything is handed to him on a silver platter, he's perfect, he's happy, he's attractive, he's popular, he's everything Bojack isn't, and yet somehow he's drawn to Bojack and always wants to try and be his friend. But as Bojack slowly improves over the show and the softer, nicer, Better side of him becomes more and more prominent and common, the negative side of Mr. Peanutbutter slowly gets revealed over the show. He's also selfish and stubborn and stupid and persistent and dangerously disconnected from reality and his interpersonal skills are absolute shit. He puts on that act to make people like him. As the show goes on, it's slowly revealed that he doesn't really pay attention to the wants or needs of others, like, at all. That he only ever really cares about himself and just wants to do and be everything and anything as long as people like him and it makes him happy, regardless of who it hurts. It's amazing. It's in F is

for Family, too. Netflix Adult Animated Sitcoms are very often hit or miss, but these two are absolute homeruns. Frank, the protagonist, of F is for Family is selfish, violent, short-tempered, arrogant, judgmental, ignorant... but he's remorseful and introspective and intelligent and, in a very convoluted and misguided way most of the time, incredibly caring and devoted. He is a piece of shit and he's terrible, and a lot of why he's still likeable, why he's allowed to be so politically incorrect and abusive is due to the setting. Parenting norms were different back then and, now with hindsight, we know that those norms weren't good and you should NEVER hit or yell at or emotionally degrade your kids. The show is a perfect mix of "everyone is a product of their time and environment" and "no matter the time and place, people are people and we have the same thoughts and feelings and struggles," all without glorifying or excusing the terrible actions of the characters with the excuse of the time period or due to being "protagonists" or having redeeming traits. They're human, flawed, some incredibly so, and that's what makes it so good. It's part of why I like F is for Family more than most Adult Animated Family Sitcoms. You've got the typical stupid, selfish, arrogant, etc. Bad Dad and his Housewife, but there's still chemistry. They're still unique, three dimensional characters that clearly love each other and have a reason to still be together despite arguing and hardship. Same with how Frank and Sue treat their kids. They're not great parents, but they're trying to do their best (which isn't always good) and they do clearly love their kids and want the best for them. Their kids are resentful at times and hate their parents for some of the things they do, but they do stick together at the end of the day because there's that underlying realization that none of the mistreatment is done with malicious intent. That doesn't excuse it, but they're all just fucked up and trying to do their best. And they do have sad, relatable characters that are clearly bad people and aren't likeable, despite having sympathetic traits. Like Ginny. Her husband, that she loves dearly, is gay and simply doesn't love her the way she loves him, their marriage is hollow and empty. But she constantly forces her suffering on others, regardless of whether they want to hear it or are emotionally equipped to do so. Attempting to leave the conversation or explain that other people have problems too means, to Ginny, that you're a terrible human being who can't be there for someone in pain or that you're selfish and disgusting and never stop thinking of yourself. She has every right to be upset, but she takes it out on others and manipulates them, and that's not okay, and the show depicts it that way. There are so many options for character arcs with these characters, too. They don't even have to be related to their flaws, they can be entirely external or related to something like relationships or interests. You can show someone working on their flaws, acknowledging that they're not perfect and they might be bad, but that they want to do better and actively try to do so; they don't avoid responsibility or blame others, they own up to it and do their best to improve. Hell, even just coming to the realization that you are responsible for your actions, not anyone else, and that you have to put in effort to change could be that arc. You can have someone get worse, whether an intentional path of bad decisions without regard for others or a failure to understand which decisions are right. Some people have redeeming traits, but still aren't redeemable. Some people don't get better. Some people still get better, but get worse first. There are so many real, relatable options that show the darker, uglier side of life that we so desperately want to experience and perceive (likely due to the cathartic and taboo aspects), and bringing up flaws and shortcomings and anything else in this context can start interesting conversations and challenge

us to think about things we may not have before, or from a new perspective.