#my very first idea about him was a little different

[keferon]

Eh okay so. My brain is absolutely cooked so you will probably just have to ignore the linguistic fuckups

Jazz and Prowl learning to communicate because language barrier is a thing >:D

Previous part

Jazz sometimes thinks that somewhere along his career path he lost the bar separating normal from...well...everything else.

After all he's seen, heard about, and done, he's not sure exactly how to measure what's weird and what's normal. He has..the general idea.

His own. And it's so convoluted and fucked up that he'd rather jump into a volcano than try to explain it to anyone else. Jazz thinks the little colorful aliens around him are weird as hell. He thinks they sound weird, he thinks they look weird, and he thinks he must be going crazy.

And then this big black and white robot catches his eye and Jazz's first thought is not "what the fuck??"

His first thought is

"Thank God! Someone's normal!"

Whoever this guy is, he sounds like he knows what he's doing. And most importantly, he looks just like Jazz. Well, not exactly. But close enough. After all, Jazz knows that his organization wasn't the only mech maker on the entire planet. Other countries were making Mechs too, and Jazz hadn't seen even half of them.

But he can recognize a giant robot when he sees one, okay?

The thought that another mech could be an alien doesn't even enter his mind.

So used to the constant presence of huge piloted robots around him, he looks at this one and clings to its appearance as something familiar and easily explainable. His brain says, we know how this works. There's a robot and inside the robot there's another person. It's the way it's always been. The sky is blue, the grass is green and the robots are human-piloted. It's that simple.

The guy takes him to the far corner of the room and says something. Jazz…doesn't understand..

The mech's face contorts in a surprisingly believable display of concentration. How...who built this robot? How could they make it frown?

He hears something else being said to him but again can't understand a word. Why won't this pilot get out of the mech to talk to him? Jazz doesn't have his communication frequency but surely they could at least shake hands. There must be some reason. Maybe something wrong with the air? Is it dangerous to be outside? This guy should know better, he's been here longer than Jazz, it seems.

(Damn it, whose idea was it to make a mech with a face, it's so distracting)

He rushes to activate the external speakers, because he and this guy obviously speak different languages, but it never hurts to try, right?

"So uh, I don't think you can understand English?"

Mech frowns again, trying to pick up on something familiar in a language that's apparently new to him. But finds nothing. Jazz lowers his horns sadly.

Oh well. Fuck. As if being stuck in an unknown place with unknown creatures wasn't enough, he can't even talk to anyone! How is he supposed to get out of here? Which way should he even go?

The mech waves his hand to get his attention and then pulls out a tablet and a stylus from..where ?

Jazz somehow manages to overlook the fact that the tablet is made to fit the mech's size. His head is still feels a bit…off..after that portal thingie.

"Charades it is then."

____________________

An hour and a half later, Jazz finds himself staring intensely at the screen in front of him with a surprisingly neatly drawn chart on it.

"So uh. Motion."

The other guy nods and starts drawing a walking mech. Then something that looks like a very unusual car. Then a submarine. Jazz gets a little lost looking at how skillful he is with the stylus.

Honestly, he's a good artist!

The guy points to the sketch of a walking mech and says

" Motion."

Then points to the drawing of a car driving and the columns of the chart.

"Motion-rotation" he points to the car again.

That must mean "driving" huh? Jazz nods understandingly.

Mech moves his finger to the submarine.

"Motion-Water."

Ah, it must mean swimming. Jazz nods once more, feeling like a wind-up dummy repeating the same motion a dozen times.

The mech makes a quiet humming noise and then points to the chart

"Motion. Sky."

And then gives Jazz the stylus?

Uh, what is he... Oh, he wants Jazz to figure out what it means.

"Motion" and "sky," right?

Jazz takes the stylus? Pencil? Thingie.. and very carefully draws out a crooked scribble of something only remotely resembling an airplane. The mech arches an eyebrow and looks like he wants to laugh.

Jazz shrugs awkwardly and tries to add windows to the airplane, but ends up making it look more like a severely fucked up caterpillar.

Mech snorts.

Jazz kicks him in the leg.

The airplane begs for a merciful death.

Jazz didn't really expect to get into a language class but he has to admit that whatever language he's learning now is a surprisingly easy one. It only took the other dude half an hour to show him the basic concept and from there it became a game of associations.

There were simple definitions. Like size, quantity, speed, emotion and so on.

There were signs that automatically turned the whole sentence into a question or a statement.

There were modifiers that Jazz defined in his head as positive and negative.

Positive speed - fast.

Positive size - large.

Positive direction - forward.

Positive time - future.

There were also basic words for senses, emotions and whatnot, also with modifiers.

Mouth-positive - to speak

Brain-positive - to think, but negative-brain-do-positive - to learn.

Huh.

And it's so neatly organized that Jazz wondered if this language was designed specifically to be easy to learn.

Let's see....

Mouth - positive, effort - negative.

"Easy to speak."

The guy nods contentedly and starts talking back, while pointing to the appropriate columns of the chart to make it easier for Jazz to understand.

"Creation-positive. Purpose. Person-negative-knowledge. memory-positive-effort-negative."

Jazz frowns, concentrating on his finger.

Oh. Created. For those who don't know it. Easy to learn.

He was right. The whole thing is waaaay too awkward to write poetry but learning it is a delight.

Jazz leans over the chart.

All right, well, let's see.

“Name. You. Question?”

The other guy smiles and pokes at the chart

"Me.Motion-sound-negative.Negative-eyes-positive-someone."

Walk quietly. searching?… Sneaking?

Oh, it's not "to sneak" it's "to prowl"

"Prowl" nods affirmatively. Jazz smiles at him and looks at the chart again. Okay. How to say “music”?..

“word-knowledge-negative.”

He stops to make a gesture with his hands, as if playing an invisible piano while humming a tune.

Prowl nods

“Sound-positive-positive-hearing.”

Jazz chuckles

“A whole two positives eh? Okay then. Uh. You don't look like you listen to jazz....so..”

“Me. Name. Sound-positive-positive-listening.”

Prowl raises his eyebrows. (Jazz is jealous, he wishes he had eyebrows too.)

“You're a musician?"

Jazz quickly shakes his head while simultaneously muting the outside speakers to a barely audible level and turning on one of the songs on his playlist.

Prowl twitches in surprise when he hears the melody.

Jazz waits for the intro to finish playing and then points to himself

“Creation-negative..uh..Sound-positive-positive-hearing. Jazz. This...”

He pats himself lightly on the chest.

"..is me. Jazz."

Prowl straightens up slightly

“Oh, you're not a musician, you're the music.”

Jazz nods cheerfully

“Yes yes!”

“Jaaz?”

“No no. Jazz.”

“Ah. Jazz?”

“That's right.”

Prowl draws a portal on the screen.

“You teleported here. What happened?”

Jazz hangs back, trying to construct an answer in his head. Good thing Prowl seems to have infinite patience

“So, I uh. What was 'fight'? Movement-pain-positive? I fought these things...”

He takes the tablet from Prowl and draws a crooked blot with a bunch of tentacles on it. Then thinks for a bit and adds big teeth and a lot of eyes. He's not really sure how to draw those eyes properly, so he just scatters them randomly around the monster area.

Prowl doesn't seem to be that amused by Jazz's drawings anymore, in fact, he suddenly becomes very somber.

“Quintessons.”

He pokes at the monster

“Name-Quintessons. Number-question.”

How many?

Jazz scratches the back of his head

“So uh...a lot?....number-positive-positive-positive-positive-positi...you get the idea.”

To be convincing, he dramatically spreads his arms out to the sides depicting something very large.

Prowl looks alarmed.

And unconvinced.

“How did you survive?”

Jazz laughs pretentiously

“Ask them how they survived.”

Prowl makes the “you can't be serious” face. Jazz isn't quite sure what exactly is confusing him. Mechs are designed to kill Quintessons, aren't they? Judging by his movements, this pilot must be damn good at controlling his mech, and that kind of guys usually fight on the front lines.

He decides to put that thought aside for later. There are more important things right now, like...oh shit, where is he even going??

Jazz leans over the chart again

“Uh. Right. Question-we-move-up-place” Man, how to specify... “Knowledge-negative?”

Prowl, linguistic gods bless him, understands him and starts gesturing over the chart in response

Okay. Ah. I-move-up. Planet-creation-positive.

'I'm heading home' or 'my home planet'.”

Jazz instantly perks up.

“Oh that's great, I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to go there too.”

Prowl is speaking in a language he's unfamiliar with, so he's definitely from another country, but hey, who cares as long as it's on Earth, right? He just needs to get there and he'll find his own way from there.

He watches the space debris flicker by outside the window. Even the stars are unfamiliar, Jazz can't find any constellations he knows.

One of the little purple creatures says something and Prowl steps aside to chat with them. Jazz leans back and settles into a more or less stable position. Then does the same thing, but with his real, human body. Hell, his head still feels really fucking weird after that teleportation.

He opens the comm channel and just listens to the static for a couple minutes in the faint hope that the engineering department will find a way to contact him.

Nothing.

He sighs.

“1061 on the com. In case there's any way you can hear me...ah shit. You guys won't believe what happened...”

[jihyoruri]

❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ 𓍢 COULD’VE BEEN aeri uchinaga x reader

❚ ❚ 𓍢 JIHYORURI 106 FM | jihyoruri 106 FM catalog for today brought to you by your very own jihyoruri! new music by aeri uchinaga will follow up next ; idol!au, oc group, fluff, angst, yearning

❝I ain’t just just your friend, no, what’s the point of lying? tryna sell a story ain’t nobody buyin’ look me in my eyes don’t feel nice?❞

❝I could’ve been him, more than your friend❞

now playing : could’ve been by aeri uchinaga 1:35 ━━○───── 3:47 ⇄ ◃◃ ⅠⅠ ▹▹ ↻ ılıılıılıılıılıılı ᴠᴏʟᴜᴍᴇ : ▮▮▮▮▮▮▯▯▯

when aeri first met yn during her trainee days, she was just the annoying younger girl who always stuck by yizhuo's side.

aeri had only exchanged a few words with her here and there, but honestly, she tried her best to avoid yn altogether. she was immature, and had complete unfiltered qualities. aeri couldn’t wrap her head around, especially in someone aspiring to become an idol.

but aeri couldn’t deny it, yn had this strange way of standing out. even if she annoyed her, aeri often caught herself watching yn interact with others, finding a surprising amount of entertainment in the chaos she brought with her everywhere she went.

she kind of missed the chaos yn used to bring, the way she managed to turn everyone's day upside down with that relentless energy.

that was until about two years after aespa’s debut.

aeri was lounging on the couch, half-watching a movie on the tv, when she heard the front door open. she didn’t even need to glance up to know it was yizhuo, her footsteps were unmistakable. but what stopped her cold was the voice that followed.

her head snapped up, the tv forgotten. eyebrows furrowing, she stared as the person walking in beside yizhuo came into view. they looked so familiar yet so... different.

confident, polished, and undeniably good looking. it took her a second to connect the dots, but when she did, her breath hitched.

yn.

“wha…” she trailed off.

“look who I found!” yizhuo exclaimed with a wide grin as she wrapped an arm around yn’s shoulders. “our yn! she’s still a trainee at sm.”

aeri’s gaze immediately locked onto yn, who gave her that crooked smile she always used to give to her during training.

“yn…” aeri said, sitting up a little straighter. “you look…” she trailed off, her face heating up as yn raised a brow, clearly waiting for aeri to finish.

“sorry, I forgot what I was gonna say,” aeri quickly covered, waving it off. “whoa, dude, I haven’t seen you in so long! and you’re still a trainee? how’s that going?”

“it’s been good,” yn replied smoothly, her voice carrying a more confident tone than aeri remembered. “I’m supposed to debut next year, so you guys can look forward to that.”

yizhuo squealed with excitement while aeri’s eyes widened in surprise. “congratulations! that’s awesome. I remember you were really into songwriting are you working on stuff for the group?”

yn opened her mouth to answer, but yizhuo cut in enthusiastically. “she is! she was just talking about songwriting on the way here, and I told her you’ve been struggling a bit with your own songs. you guys should totally help each other!”

trainee aeri would’ve run for the hills if someone had told her she'd end up working in a studio alone with yn. the thought of spending hours with the loud, unfiltered girl who once wreaked havoc during practice sessions would have been unbearable.

but now?

“that’s a cool idea.”

aeri glanced at yn, who was leaning casually against the desk, her eyes fixed on aeri with quiet patience as she waited for her answer.

this wasn’t the same yn she remembered. there was something calmer about her now, more refined, though the spark in her eyes remained.

“that’s a cool idea,” aeri finally said, her voice steady.

and that’s how it all started.

and it only took four prominent moments for everything to shift completely.

the first session was awkward, to say the least. aeri sat stiffly in the chair, headphones on, scrolling through their tracklist. yn was unusually quiet, sitting across from her and tapping a pen against her notebook. finally , she broke the silence.

“so, uh… how do you usually start these?” yn asked, tilting her head.

aeri sighed, pulling off her headphones. “I don’t know. sometimes I just hum random stuff and see if it sticks.”

“huh,” yn said, her lips curving into a smile. “sounds messy. I like it.”

aeri rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the faint smile tugging at her lips. “what about you? got any lyrics hidden in that notebook of yours?”

yn hesitated before flipping open the notebook, revealing a page covered in scribbles. “It’s kinda rough,” she admitted, handing it over.

aeri read through it, her eyebrows raising. “by rough, do you mean really good?.”

“really?” yn’s eyes lit up, and for a moment, aeri felt a pang in her chest. It was the first time she noticed how sincere yn’s smile could be.

after a couple sessions , the awkwardness had melted away, replaced by easy banter. as they worked on a melody, yn suddenly asked, “do you think I’ll be a good idol?”

aeri paused, looking up from the keyboard. “why would you even ask that?”

yn shrugged, spinning her chair in slow circles. “I don’t know. I’ve always felt like I’m… too much. too loud. too all over the place.”

“that’s ridiculous,” aeri said firmly. “you’re passionate, and you care. and honestly? you’ve grown a lot since we were trainees. I think you’ll be amazing.”

yn’s spinning stopped, and she looked at aeri with an intensity that made her heart skip a beat. “thanks,” she said softly.

the room felt heavier during their later sessions. yn would lean in close to adjust something on the screen, and aeri could feel her breath against her skin. they worked late into the night, and the air between them felt charged.

“this is turning out pretty good,” yn said one night, sitting back and listening to their latest track.

“yeah,” aeri murmured, her eyes focused on the screen but her mind elsewhere. yn’s voice had gotten deeper, more confident, and it lingered in aeri thoughts long after their sessions ended.

yn stretched, her shirt riding up slightly, and aeri quickly averted her gaze, her face heating up.

“you okay?” yn asked, her tone teasing but her eyes curious.

“fine,” aeri said quickly, fumbling with her notes

this session was unknowingly their last one and it was filled unspoken emotions. they had just finished writing the bridge of a song , and the energy between them was undeniable.

yn leaned closer, her voice low. “you know… I don’t think I’ve ever felt this comfortable with anyone before.”

aeri’s breath caught as yn’s eyes flickered to her lips. she knew what was coming and felt her heart hammering in her chest.

but as yn moved closer, aeri panicked. “don’t,” she whispered, her voice trembling.

yn froze, confusion flashing in her eyes. “what’s wrong?”

“you’re still young, yn,” aeri said, standing up abruptly. “you’re yizhuo’s friend. and with your debut next year… this could never work.”

yn’s expression shifted to one of hurt, but she nodded slowly. “if that’s how you feel…”

“It is,” aeri said, though the crack in her voice betrayed her.

“okay, cool.” yn replied she look down at her phone and saw the time, it was pretty late, she gathered her things and left not without muttering a quick bye.

aeri sat back down, her hands trembling and that’s when she got the feeling that this was their last session.

she couldn’t believe how far they’d come or how much she was already starting to miss her.

but it was for the best, for both her and yn.

aeri and yn hadn’t talked since that night. yizhuo asked a few times what had happened, but aeri always brushed it off, saying yn was getting closer to her debut and was too busy.

but that wasn’t true.

yn had always made time for her.

if there was one thing aeri knew she would always regret, it was that night. months had passed almost a year and she couldn’t shake the hollow feeling that came with it. sometimes, it felt like she was forgetting yn entirely, her voice, her laugh, the way her presence could fill a room.

that was until one early summer morning.

utopia.

that was the groups name.

aeri curled up in her bed, the glow of her phone screen illuminating her face as she replayed the music video over and over again. yn looked so good.

the internet was already going wild over the group. they were a surprise debut, sm had dropped hints here and there, there was even an instagram account with the groups name that had little secret promotions but no one had pieced it together.

now, utopia was all anyone could talk about and it’s only been a couple hours since they debuted and it was clear they were destined for massive success.

aeri felt a bittersweet ache in her chest as she watched. she was proud, so proud, that yn had finally debuted with three other girls who seemed to care about her deeply. but there was also a selfish part of her that couldn’t ignore the sting of jealousy.

the whole world knew yn now. they’d see her the way aeri did, cherish her the way she always had. and aeri wasn’t sure how to handle that.

this was awkward.

aeri and jimin stood across from yn and sooyoung, utopia’s leader. aeri recognized sooyoung immediately, she was a former member of loona, someone aeri had always respected from afar.

one of utopia’s managers stepped in after the brief greetings. “okay, yn, you’ll be teaching aeri the choreography, and sooyoung, you’ll work with karina. we need to move quickly since there’s an interview right after this, so let’s keep it efficient.”

aeri shifted on her feet, stealing a glance at yn, who was already watching her with an unreadable expression. this was going to be interesting.

jimin had already walked over to sooyoung, eager to learn her small part of the dance, leaving aeri standing there, unsure of what to do next.

yn squinted at her for a moment, as if sizing her up, before she walked closer, her steps confident. “let’s start.” she said, her tone calm but direct.

aeri felt a flutter in her chest at the proximity, but she quickly shook it off. “right. let’s get to it,” she replied, trying to sound casual, though her nerves were starting to show.

yn didn’t say anything more, just motioned for aeri to stand in the center of the room. “okay, watch closely.”

as yn demonstrated the first few steps, aeri couldn’t help but notice how fluid and natural her movements were. there was no hesitation, no self doubt. just pure confidence.

aeri tried to focus, but the heat in her chest was hard to ignore, she doesn’t know how ended up learning the dance properly but she thankfully followed yn’s moves smoothly.

after the four of them finished filming the dance challenge, yn and sooyoung’s managers were already ushering the girls out of the room, leaving aeri and jimin to gather their things.

jimin glanced at aeri,“so, that’s her?”

aeri froze for a moment before looking at jimin. “huh?”

“the girl.”

“yeah, that’s her.”

“she’s cute.”

"she is," aeri sighed, the words slipping out before she could stop them. seeing yn again stirred up emotions she’d been burying for months, feelings she thought she’d finally gotten under control.

but now, with yn so close yet so out of reach, it felt impossible to keep pretending. aeri wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep this up.

aeri hadn’t been wrong when she said utopia was destined for success. in just a few months, the group was everywhere, on billboards, variety shows, and music charts. it felt impossible to avoid them.

impossible to avoid yn.

it was overwhelming. every time she saw yn, every time they crossed paths or exchanged even the smallest interaction, the feelings aeri had been desperately trying to bury came rushing back, stronger than ever. no matter how hard she tried to push them away, they always found their way back to her.

she kept her expression neutral as she watched the four juniors deliver their thank you speech. glancing around, she noticed the way all the other groups were looking at them, faces full of awe, especially when yn stepped up to the mic.

just seeing yn on that big stage, accepting a well earned award, made aeri’s heart ache. soon, countless idols would approach yn to congratulate her, offer their praise and admiration.

and she wouldn’t be one of them.

but she had to be.

she couldn’t keep going on like this.

the show was over before aeri even realized it, her mind racing as she slipped away from her group, ignoring their confused looks.

she wandered through the backstage hallways, her heart pounding as she searched for any sign of yn. it took a while, but eventually, she found them, utopia standing in front of their dressing room, proudly chatting as they waited for their manager to unlock the door.

aeri’s eyes landed on yn, who was wrapped in april’s arms, laughing softly as they waited. for a moment, she just stood there, unsure of what to do. finally, she cleared her throat, the sound breaking through their conversation.

all four girls turned to look at her, their expressions shifting to polite surprise as they bowed immediately.

“hi, I actually just wanted to talk to yn,” aeri said, her voice awkward as the door to the dressing room swung open.

april unwrapped her arms from around yn and stepped inside, offering aeri a small smile. aihan followed without sparing a glance, while sooyoung lingered for a moment. she gave aeri a look that sent chills down her spine before disappearing into the room.

the door closed and yn turned to fully look aeri in the eyes, “hey…”

“hi, I just wanted to say congratulations, on everything, utopia is so successful, I’m so happy for you.”

“hi,” aeri began, her voice a little shaky. “I just wanted to say congratulations on everything. utopia is so successful. I’m... I’m so happy for you.”

"thank you," yn said softly, her tone calm. "is that it?"

"no, actually," aeri replied, letting out a nervous sigh. "yn, I’m sorry about—"

"it’s okay," yn interrupted, her voice even but firm. "I can’t force you to like me. I completely misread the situation, and... you’re right."

"what?" aeri’s voice cracked, the weight of yn’s words hitting her like a punch to the chest.

"you’re right," yn continued, her gaze steady but distant. "I’m younger, I’m just starting my career, and it’s off to a good start. I shouldn’t have even thought we could’ve been something. that was my mistake."

"no, I—" aeri tried to protest, but yn wasn’t finished.

"it’s okay," yn said again, though her voice wavered at the edges, betraying a crack in her composure. "let’s just not talk about it anymore and be cool. we’re cool, right?"

the slight break in yn’s voice at the end nearly broke aeri completely, but she swallowed hard, trying to steady herself. "I... yeah. we’re cool

"good." yn offered her that classic crooked smile, one that used to make aeri’s heart race, before she turned and opened the door to the dressing room. "thanks. see you around."

the door shut softly behind her, leaving aeri alone in the hallway.

aeri stood there for a moment, the lump in her throat growing heavier by the second.

this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

[watchmegetobsessed]

UNMATCHED II.

A/N: soooo you guys were just as horny for a part 2 to this story as i was so here we are, giving in to the temptation. disclaimer, i know their behavior is giving red flag energy but lets just put that aside for the sake of the story now lol

WORD COUNT: 3.8k

WARNING: sexual content, age gap, student-professor relationship

SUMMARY: Harry has been trying his best to forget what happened with Y/N, he is set on never making the same mistake, but it seems like fate has different plans for him.

PART 1 | MASTERLIST | SUPPORT ME!

That skirt. That goddamned skirt. That’s gonna be the death of Harry. 

And also the fact that she went back to that asshole. 

Sitting in the busy school cafeteria Harry has zoned out of the conversation at the table a long time ago, precisely when he saw Y/N stroll in wearing that short skirt with that dickhead she should have ditched already or better, she shouldn’t have even dated him in the first place. But now they are moving in the line with their group of friends and he has his hand on her waist and it keeps inching lower, just a few more inches and his hand could be slipping under her skir–

“Harry? Hello?” 

Stella catches his attention and he is forced to move his focus back to his colleagues at the table. 

“Huh? Sorry, what did you say?” He clears his throat and keeps his eyes on his half-eaten sandwich in front of him. 

“What’s up with you? You haven’t been your usual self lately.”

“Just… tired. I’m behind with my research and have a bunch of papers to grade before winter break.”

“The joys of being a teacher,” Stella chuckles. “Don’t worry, it’ll get better with time.”

“Really?”

“No,” she smirks at him. “But you’ll care less.”

She soon returns to the conversation at the table and Harry finds himself looking for Y/N again. There’s no trace of her in the line, but he is quick to spot her at a table across the dining hall, sitting beside Dickhead who has an arm around her neck, keeping her close as he wants everyone to know that they are together.

And it irks Harry way more than it probably should. 

It’s been a little over a week since Stella’s Christmas party and also that very heated and very wrong kiss he shared with Y/N. That weekend was like hell, he kept beating himself over and over about it, cursing himself out for being so stupid and reckless. He still has no idea what came over him that let him make out with a student, but he knew one thing for sure: it couldn’t happen again. 

So when Y/N walked into the classroom before his first lecture early on monday he didn’t even let her speak before he got to the point. 

“It shouldn’t have happened. I’m so sorry for it, but I can’t undo it now. I suggest let’s pretend nothing happened, it’s for the absolute best. No one can know about it and it will never happen again.”

She seemed taken aback by his outburst, but after a bit of hesitation she nodded.

“Okay. Nothing happened. It must have been the wine.”

“Yes,” he agreed right away. “We both drank more than we should have and made a mistake.”

She flinched at his last word, but didn’t protest, only nodded, holding her textbooks tighter to her chest. She looked so sad, even disappointed that Harry almost wanted to take back what he just said, but he knew he couldn’t. 

“Are you… okay?” he dared to ask, but when she looked at him again, her eyes told nothing. 

“I’m fine. I’ll see you in class, professor.”

And she was out of the classroom before he could say another word. In class she sat in the back and not even once did she look at him. He knows, because he kept looking at her. 

He’s been trying his best to get her out of his head, but with not much luck. Not when all he can think about is how soft her lips felt against his, how insanely good she tasted mixed with the coldness of the night, how amazingly she fit into his palm, the curve of her neck, back, waist and hips… and how badly he wants to experience it again even though it’s the worst possible idea. 

Harry thinks he is going insane. Genuinely. 

He’s been burying himself into work, but his focus has been all over the place, so it’s been more like a waste of time. He is one of the last ones in the building today as well. Most professors left a long time ago, but the lights in Harry’s tiny office are still on as he is hunched over a stack of papers. When he has to read over the same line for the twentieth time he drops his pen with a tired groan and leans back in his chair. He takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes roughly, until he is practically seeing stars. 

“Fuck,” he huffs, staring at the papers that are still waiting to be graded. Checking the time on his phone he is surprised to see that it’s already past seven.

He stands from his chair and steps to the window. The campus looks quiet at this time, only a few students are walking towards the dorm that’s next to the literature department’s building. It’s a wednesday night, the semester ends next week so some lucky students who have no more exams left in the year have already left for the holidays. Harry will be going home right before Christmas, he plans to use those few days of the break to work on his research in peace. 

From his window he sees part of the parking lot next to the dorm, it’s quite dark there, he almost doesn’t notice the figures sitting in the car closest to him, but a few heartbeats later realization hits him.

It’s Y/N and the dickhead. 

They are pretty far, but Harry can tell that they are in a heated fight, judging from how Y/N is gesticulating. Obviously he can’t hear them, but if he had to guess he would say she is shouting, from what he can see. 

For a moment he tells him to just ignore the scene, it’s none of anyone else’s business, let alone his. But when he sees the asshole slap his hands against the wheel several times, making Y/N jump, Harry is moving before he could second guess his actions. 

He practically sprints down that stairs, already trying to figure out how he’ll interject without appearing like a creep, but he forgets all his plans when he is marching towards the parking lot and sees the scene unfold from up close. 

At some point they must have gotten out of the car, because Harry catches the dickhead getting back into the driving seat, Y/N is crying and tries to stop him from shutting the door, but he swings it with such force that she stumbles forward, holding onto the handle. When Harry sees her almost fall to the asphalt he starts running, just as the car comes to life and he drives away so fast, he almost runs over Y/N’s feet. 

“Fuck you, Charlie! Fuck you!” She screams after the car, tears streaming down her cheeks. 

“Hey, hey, hey!” Harry rushes over to her, grabs her by her shoulders and turns her away from the direction of the car. “Hey, what happened?”

She is gasping for air from the crying as she wraps her arms around her, those beautiful eyes that are usually filled with curiosity are now full of confusion and hurt. 

“Y/N, look at me,” he begs and she hiccups a few times before she finally looks him in the eyes. 

“H-Harry?”

He ignores how good it feels to hear her call him by his first name again and tries to focus on the situation.

“Yeah. Let’s get inside, okay? It’s freezing cold.”

She nods and lets him steer her towards the building and up to his office. By the time she sits in the old armchair in the corner of his office she has stopped sobbing, but her expression looks just as miserable as before. 

“I’ll make you a tea. Do you like tea?” he asks, stepping over to the tiny side table where he keeps his kettle and tiny tea collection with two mugs. She nods and he is quick to turn on the kettle. He grabs a chamomile filter and drops it into one of the mugs and while the water boils he hands her a box of tissues that she accepts with a quietly murmured thank you. 

When the tea is done he hands her the mug and sits in his chair, unsure what to say. He definitely did not plan to have her in his office anytime soon and definitely not like this. 

“Go on, lecture me about being with him,” she says at last, staring into the mug in her hands. 

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“But you’d be right.” She looks up at him, eyes still red from the crying. 

“Why did you go back to him?” he softly asks, not wanting to make her feel even worse. 

“I don’t know,” she shrugs, looking away again. “He could be convincing, I guess.”

“Hope you won’t believe him after this.”

“No,” she chuckles bitterly before taking a sip from the tea, leaning back in the armchair. “Not even the sex will convince me to go back to him.”

Harry’s muscles jump at her words. Not because he is such a prude, but because instantly he is thinking about sex… and her… and his body reacts involuntarily. Clearing his throat he crosses his legs and looks anywhere but at her.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” she chuckles softly, but she doesn’t seem sorry at all. 

“No, I… um…” Harry has no idea what to say. This feels like such an impossible situation, he is definitely walking on eggshells here and the fact that he is semi-hard does not help his case. 

While he is looking for the right words she places her mug to his desk and crosses her legs, a curious look playing in her eyes as she is looking at him. She appears calm and confident suddenly, like she wasn’t sobbing ten minutes ago. 

“I lied,” she then speaks up.

“About what?”

“I know why I went back to him.”

“Oh. Okay, why did you?”

She holds his gaze for one… two… three seconds before her lips part, then she hesitates for one more moment before answering. 

“Because I couldn’t go to you.”

A shiver runs down his spine at her words, his body is betraying him already, but he hangs onto the last bit of his rationality.

“Y/N, don’t.”

“Don’t what? Don’t tell the truth?”

“We agreed that we are not talking about it again.”

“I’m not talking about that night. I’m talking about how badly I’ve been wanting you, but knowing I can’t have you I went back to Charlie even though I knew I shouldn’t have.” 

“Y/N…” His mouth is dry and he feels ridiculously hot even though the heating hasn’t been working too well lately in his office. He is clawing at the arms of his chair, trying to keep the remains of his cool, though it feels like he is hanging on a thread.

“I won’t do anything about it, don’t worry. And I won’t bring it up again.” She sounds different this time, the confidence has turned into what feels like disappointment and it lurches something in Harry’s gut. 

Standing she smoothes her clothes before looking at Harry, a tiny sliver of expectancy glistening in her eyes. 

“Thanks for the tea. I better get going.”

She is already moving towards the door when Harry jumps to his feet, entirely lost about what to think, do or say. He strides after her and just when she is about to reach for the knob, he grabs her other hand, stopping her mid action. 

But he has no idea why he just did that. His rationality is screaming at him, but with each passing moment he spends holding her hand, the noise gets farther and farther away until it’s lost somewhere in the back of his mind. 

Slowly, she turns her head, eyes taking in the sight of their touching hands before her gaze meets his. He instantly stumbles back, letting go of her like she was on fire, but she doesn’t seem surprised. Instead, she turns around and just stands there, with a calm, but determined look on her face. 

“Careful professor,” she then speaks up. “I might take your actions as a hint.”

“A hint…” he breathes out, almost mesmerized with her, he is convinced she’s put a spell on him, because he can’t move or think straight, he just keeps staring at her.

“Yes, a hint,” she nods shortly. “That you want me just as much as I want you.”

He swallows down a moan that almost slips through his lips at her words. His whole body is burning for her, palms sweating and itching to touch her and he can almost taste her on his tongue again, desperate to pick up from where they left off not long ago. 

The tiniest smirk tugs on the corners of her mouth when she sees just how much he is struggling and she takes it as her queue to push her luck just a bit further. She takes a step closer to him, but still leaves some space between them, wanting him to close those last inches. 

“You know you can have me.” She cocks her head to the side, blinking up at him innocently. “Right here, on your desk or in that armchair. I want to be your good girl and take whatever you give me.”

“Stop it,” he manages to breathe out, but all his strength is gone, it sounds more like a plea rather than an order. 

“What if I don’t?” she sassily questions. “Will you punish me?”

Harry whimpers. They both know he is close to breaking and she is not stepping down now and she’s determined to push him over the edge. Slowly she reaches up, drags a finger across her lips before moving then down, tugging at her shirt at her chest, revealing more of the exposed skin there, then she starts playing with the top button, all while keeping her eyes focused on him. He sucks on his breath, his gaze keeps switching between her eyes and what her fingers are doing. 

Then it pops open, revealing the delicious swell of her breasts and a bit of the lacy bra as well and he knows he is gone. 

“Close the curtain,” he simply orders and a sudden rush of excitement washes over her as she quickly moves across the room, drawing the curtains on the window and turning around she is expecting him to be in the same spot, but to her surprise he is right there and before she could say a word, his lips crash down on hers with such force she would have fallen back if he didn’t already have an arm around her waist. 

His other hand is quick to find its way to her throat first, then to her jaw, angling her head perfectly so he can devour her. 

He spins them around and she gasps when her ass meets the edge of his desk, still kissing her he pushes forward, blindly tossing everything on the desk aside to make room, something clatters as it falls to the ground but neither of them cares to even look. His hands are on the back of her legs and he helps her up until she is sitting on top of the desk. 

She eagerly opens her thighs and circles her legs around his hips, pulling him closer and when she feels just how hard he already is, pushing against her clothed center, she can’t help but moan at the sensation. 

“It’s a one time thing,” he pants when her fingers start to work on his shirt and his hands find the button of her jeans. 

“Sure,” she breathes out smiling.

“Just to get it out of our system.”

“Of course,” she nods eagerly, and a moment later she is tugging his shirt off his shoulders. 

Buttons come undone, clothes are thrown across the room and soon enough all of his focus is on her naked chest, his hands exploring the tender, heated skin before his head dips down and his mouth meets her hardened nipples. 

“Oh fuck,” she moans, head falling back as she has an arm around his shoulders, the other one planted behind her on the desk. All while his hands are tugging down her jeans, finally giving him the chance to touch her inner thighs, exploring the warmth and softness he’s been fantasizing about for so long. 

He gently bites on one of her nipples, making her back arch, burying his face between her breasts before he leans back to get rid of her jeans. She has a moment to admire his naked torso, all the tattoos he’s been hiding under his clothes, his pants are hanging around his knees and his erection is throbbing through the fabric of his underwear. She can’t help but smile at the sight, it’s surely one she’ll remember forever.

When her jeans are discarded on the floor he plants his hands on her thighs and pushes them wide open, revealing her drenched panties. He brings his thumb over the wet fabric, lazily drags it over her clit, making her tremble under his touch. Then keeping eye contact with her he pulls his chair under him, sits down and rolls closer so his face is perfectly lined up with her. With his eyes still locked on hers, he leans forward, moves her panties to the side and places a sloppy, open mouthed kiss to her throbbing clit, making her moan so loud, he digs his fingers into her thighs pulling back. 

“You need to be quiet,” he warns her and she just eagerly nods, watching him take her underwear off completely and go back to where he was a moment ago. 

Harry drinks up her taste, he licks, kisses and sucks on the right spots, making her see stars as her orgasm is building up. When she feels two of his fingers slip into her she grabs a handful of his hair, tugging on it. 

But right when she is about to tip over the edge he pulls back, leaving her in a heaving mess. Reaching into one of his drawers he grabs a condom and standing up he watches her lying on his desk, chest rapidly rising and falling while he rolls the condom on. 

To his surprise, she gets up and jumps off the desk, taking the initiative by pushing him down back into the chair and straddling his lap. His hands are quick to move to her ass as his cock wedges between her drenched folds. He hisses when she starts rolling her hips, making them both even more feral for what’s about to come. 

She leans forward and kisses him, her hand reaching down between them until it finds his cock. She gives him a few lazy strokes to which he hums lowly into her mouth. Then she stops her kisses, lips still brushing against his, eyes meeting again as she lifts herself up just enough to angle him underneath her and then slowly she eases down, letting him enter her inch by inch until she is filled entirely. She gasps at the feeling of her walls stretching around him and they both stop for a few moments, just savoring how perfectly they fit together. 

She plants both her hands to the base of his neck, kisses him again and starts moving her hips. 

“Fuck, Y/N, you feel so good,” he groans, locking his arms around her, fingers digging into her naked back and side as she starts to slowly pick up her pace, bouncing on him. 

When he starts thrusting upwards, meeting her movements, her head rolls back from how deep she feels him inside her, his tip reaching the perfect spot. 

“Yes, right there!” she gasps as he buries his head in her neck, kissing and sucking on the soft skin while keeping his rhythm. “I’m so close,” she breathes out, her hands raking through his messy hair. 

Wanting even more friction she adjusts herself and then starts moving faster and rougher, aching for the release. She looks down, her eyes meet his gaze and she just knows he is as close as she is. 

“Harry,” she moans and hearing his name fall from her lips is what pushes him over the edge.

Grunting, his thrusts get rougher and fall out of their fast pace, he pushes into her over and over again as he fills the condom and watching him fall apart helps her let go as well. He feels her walls tighten around him while he is still riding out the afterwaves of his own orgasm, her mouth hangs open, nails digging into his shoulders so harshly they surely leave marks. 

Then they both slowly come off their high and she leans forward, capturing his lips in a much softer kiss than the ones they’ve shared just minutes ago. He gladly returns, their lips melt together and his fingers gently roam her naked back while he is still inside her. 

They’re quiet when she moves off him and grabs a few tissues to clean herself up while he discards the condom. The clothes are picked up from the floor one by one and a sense of unsureness settles between them as they both get dressed. 

She was the only thing on his mind just five minutes ago, but now that the sex haze is gone, his thoughts start racing. What did he do? What will happen now? This shouldn’t have happened but still, he wants to do it again and again and again. 

As if she knew he was panicking inside, she steps to him, takes his face in her hands and pulls him into a long, passionate kiss that instantly makes him forget about everything else. 

“Don’t overthink it,” she whispers against his lips. “We’re adults.”

“I’m your teacher,” he hums.

“The semester is almost over. Grade my last paper and we’re done,” she simply says with very little care about his current status. But he is not that sold on it just yet, hesitation and worry is all over his face. “Did you not want it?”

“You know how much I wanted it,” he admits defeatedly. 

“Great. I wanted it too. And I want it again. So I’ll come by tomorrow again. You’ll bend me over that desk after I had your cock in my mouth, then tell me what grade I’m getting for the semester and we do it again after that.”

He is already feeling himself getting hard again. Deep down he knows he should say no, but he has no will left to fight with himself anymore. So all he does is nod and then kiss her. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, professor.” She grabs her coat from the floor and then walks out of his office like nothing happened. 

Harry falls into his chair and assesses the mess on and around his desk, staring at the spot where she was sitting not long ago. He knows he is making his biggest mistake ever, but sinning has never felt this good.

And right now he is willing to take this risk.

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed and buy me a coffee if you want to support me!

[white--moon]

He doesn't understand what Ichigo sees when he looks at him that makes him think so highly of Shiro. They clearly see something different. He sort of shrugs when Ichigo asks that clarifying question. He snorts when Ichigo says he could have been a kingpin. "That's 'cause my lane is very lucrative." His brows furrow slightly at the mention of his backstabbing crew. They're probably right; Shiro probably could take this further, make it bigger. But, "They clearly don't know where this all started. I've turned this into a pretty big operation in just a few years." Sure, the foundation was already there for him when he ended up stepping into Yhwach's place, but instead of running it into the ground or getting killed like all of Yhwach's business partners thought would happen, he's build on that foundation and outpaced said partners. And maybe offed a couple of the ones he didn't like. He wonders if Ichigo knows that. He wonders if Ichigo realizes Shiro never left behind his secondary function of body-maker and body-hider. So he's not a kingpin on the mainland, but so far those mainland kingpins haven't tried to step into his territory and there might be a reason for that. Or maybe he's just gotten lucky so far.

He has no trouble remembering the night Ichigo's talking about, nor the exact look on Ichigo's face after their scuffle, trying to mask his fear with hate and anger. He smirks. "It was a good look on you." He'd seen plenty of scared, angry people, but there was always something different about Ichigo. Ichigo saying he'd still like him even if he was washed up and no longer able to hold his own is weirdly touching. It feels a little like acceptance, like Ichigo can still like him and find him attractive despite the drugs. And he knows Ichigo's disappointed he's using again. That disappointment is a big source of shame for Shiro. But he snorts. "I can still fight just fine. I might go a little overboard sometimes, but I'm a lot more in control of my habits than I was the first time around."

The idea of having Ichigo mention something to Grimmjow only sounds like a good idea in the very first half second it enters his brain. After even a tiny bit of thought, it sounds like a disaster. "Maybe not, but I doubt you're gonna do any better on my behalf. He's probably gonna come for my head. What're you gonna do about that?"

The sweatshirt Ichigo grabs looks cozy and his very first thought is that he might borrow it, before he shoves the idea of being able to swap clothing with Ichigo at will out of his head. They're not partners anymore. He doesn't just have free access to whatever he wants. He nods, "Of course. It's in the back corner. You gotta get a key from the kid at the counter."

His brows go up slightly in a dry, unimpressed expression. What a helpful answer. But Ichigo does go on to explain better. He doesn't quite know what to think or how to respond. "You think too highly of me. What would I even do to the city?" He hadn't realized he wasn't ambitious, but he supposes he's not. He never really thought much about it, but just assumed it was normal. "I assumed you liked me because I was formidable." He can't picture Ichigo even noticing someone who isn't formidable in some way. He scoffs, "No."

That's fair. "Yeah, I get it." He's a little short while he says it because he doesn't want to get into it. He's had an emotional rollercoaster already today and he's pretty sick of it. He doesn't want to sit here and hear about how Ichigo and Grimmjow think he's a horrible person. He really should just drop by, but he always kind of wonders if he's going to get shanked and if he'd try very hard to avoid it. It would all depend on Grimmjow's mood and his own mood. He shrugs. "Whatever. I can figure something out. You don't have to."

He pushes a few hangers aside to look at something in a color that caught his eye but doesn't pull it off the rack. Mostly he trails behind Ichigo, enjoying the chance to do something so mundane with him. He pulls out the most revealing thing he comes upon -more price tag and bow tie than cloth- and casually adds it to Ichigo's pile, mostly because he thinks it's funny but he definitely wouldn't mind seeing Ichigo wear next to nothing.

[lizardho]

When I came out, I was SO scared I was gonna get disowned. I wrote a letter to my parents, sent it to their emails, put a physical copy on the counter, and left the house for a few hours to give them time. In that time I tried coffee for the first time, which was a dreadful idea, and got all jittery. I kept waiting for a text or something but nothing happened.

After a few hours, I didn’t hear back from them so I went home. My parents were home and had stacked a bunch of groceries on top of the letter without opening it. They said “hi” and I said “hi” and went down stairs to the basement. I held my dog and panicked about what to do. My sister, who knew that I had written them a letter of great importance, told me they hadn’t read it yet. She also told me she could ask them to do so. I consented to this and stayed in the basement. A few minutes later my dad knocked on the door and poked his soft smooth little nerd head in and said “hey buddy” and I started crying so hard I almost vomited. He came over and gave me a BIG hug and said that it was gonna be OK, he was OK with this, he knew it must have been hard but he was here for me. He told me he and my mom had already talked years before they had me about how if they had to pick between their faith and their child they’d pick their child. It was a very sweet moment. I came out to my mom later that evening and we were both bawling the whole time.

The day after I came out to my parents, I came out to my brother @inbabylontheywept at a Mexican restaurant and he took it like a champ. That evening my mom took me for a walk and looked almost angry - she said she wanted to make sure that I didn’t use being a woman as an excuse to not go to grad school. I told her I wouldn’t and she instantly looked relieved and happier.

My dad, on the other hand, seemed to struggle with it. He kept asking me if I had a boyfriend, and I told him I did not. He kept asking me if I wanted to go clothes shopping with him and I did not. He kept asking me if I would let him go to some of my shows, and I had NO idea what he was talking about.

Finally, 6 months after coming out, of awkward misgendering and questions that didn’t make sense from my dad, he excitedly pokes his soft smooth little nerd head into my bedroom again and says “I found a movie about Your People.” My people. I was absolutely bewildered, but he was so excited and I knew he had been trying SO hard so I watched it with him. It was The Birdcage, and it was amazing. It also was revelatory in that I finally realized why my initially-supportive father seemed to be having such a hard time with my pronouns and stuff - he didn’t know what the difference between trans and doing drag was. After the movie he again asked if I would invite him to one of my shows, and I said, “Hey dad, you know how about half the world is women?” And he said “yeah,” and I said “Well, see, I’m on that half now. I’m not doing drag.” And it was like a switch flipped in his brain. He was like “omg that’s so easy? I was so confused about what to call you when?”

Anyway, my parents are charming and my family has been so kind and patient with me, I like sharing the stories of my little wins with them.

[bonefall]

if you're stretching for shadowclan cats to use:

antpelt is mistakenly listed as from shadowclan in battles of the clans, and the wiki had him as a different character for a while. he also has an unnamed apprentice

shredtail is also mistakenly listed in shadowclan during bramblestar's storm

I am absolutely at the point where I'm willing to make absolutely ABSURD stretches. I'm affectionately calling all the extra cats I'm scrounging up from writer mistakes and background scenes "ShadowClan's Glitch Warriors." Thank you so much for pointing these three out, they're going in the list.

Suddenly, I was struck with an absolutely hilarious idea. Partner wanted something fun to draw but still has read absolutely nothing about Warriors, so I pitched;

"I will tell you nothing about these characters or who they are except their names. Draw a Shredtail, an Antpelt, and Antpelt's apprentice. TOTAL freedom over the designs here."

First they drew this lmao,

"This is a joke," they clarified

"NO I LOVE IT," I said, "KEEP GOING"

So we got Dollar Tree Shredtail, Great Value Antpelt, and the best thing I've ever seen in my life. Once they put these designs down, we talked personality and differentiators from the canon counterparts while they colored and refined them;

I loved the bushy gaster tail so much that I swore on the spot I was going to work it upwards into a whole bloodline, including the very obscure background warrior in AVOS, Wasptail. So even though they're mentor and apprentice in BOTC, I've decided these two will also be related. Probably siblings, or auncle/nespring.

The little black one is based off an Admiral Butterfly (it was my idea to make the little spots on their chest look like medals), so the name seems clear to me. Admiralpaw. Xey'll be meewa unless another gender works better; and I'm planning for xem to go out during a bloody battle against The Kin in true admiral style.

(funfact; admiral butterflies are extremely territorial. Males fight each other for control of a plant to attract females to.)

Warrior name is still undecided, though. Open to suggestions, leaning towards Admiralflight or Admiralflower.

Not-Antpelt I'm having name troubles with. I REALLY wanted to name them Majorheart, after a major ant, to keep the "military ranking + bug" pun that Addy's got... but it seems that none of the ants in this area would have a major caste. B'awww.

In the meanwhile, Antspot works fine. Alatefang or Dronepelt could work, too. Feel free to shout out suggestions, this guy's name and gender aren't set in stone.

Lastly, here's Diet Shreddy. Girl now <3

She is 100% going to be killed during The Battle of the True Eclipse, keeping consistent with the mistake in Bramblestar's Storm where Blackstar mournfully calls out the name of a Dark Forest warrior. I'm also undecided on if the actual Shredtail himself dies during that battle in BB, it might just be her.

In any case, she's probably going to be a TPB girl. If she's born during Brokenstar's time, she's one of the younger ShadowClan cats to take part in the WindClan Massacre. Might even be an early apprentice at the time, in a similar situation to Badgerfang (though in BB this was a one-time thing). If not during Brokenstar, then sometime during Nightstar's brief reign.

Right now she has no family, she's in my "reserves" at the side to use as a patch between generations. Her name is probably going to be either Tattertail or Shredclaw, given as an Honor Title after the Battle of BloodClan.

So she had a previous warrior name as well. She seems like the kind of troublemaker who would have the prefix Sike-- a small stream that dries up in summer. Sikestripe, if her name was given by Nightstar, or Sikestrike, if it was given by Tigerstar. Maybe it was one and then the other, in a sign of disrespect to his predecessor's lie.

[urlocaldesertdweller]

Hi hi !!!

Hope you’re doing well. Being loving your writing lately. 💞 keep up the amazing work !!

If you’re taking any requests. Could I please ask for a part 2 for Sentinel x Racer reader. I really liked the idea. Especially how you wrote it from an almost canon perspective of how it started from him just being irked that we were as popular as him lol 😂 It’d be cool to see how you continue the idea with maybe even Orion and D-16 in there.

Of course there’s no rush or pressure. Take care and I hope you keep doing what you love.

-anon

Tf1! Sentinel Prime x Cybertronain racer! Reader

THANK YOUUU!!<333333 for the compliments and ideas of my older stuff!!

(sentinel being possessive, daresay yandere, manipulation i think?)

As we know and knew, Sentinel loves to think of himself much higher than most other bots in comparison. He is a Prime after all!

However you became an exception.

An exception that would be way more special to Sentinel than he’d like to admit.

Although we know he likes to do subtle touches in public. He prefers to keep the relationship outside of business, he claims it just makes things messy for both of you. Considering you are both still highly beloved icons.

Another part of him is to protect you, when an enemy of sorts would use someone close to him to get him in a weak spot but he’ll rather die than admit he is afraid butttttt.

The media in public is so entertaining to the two of you when they talk about this “odd friendship” between The Sentinel Prime and Iacon’s best racer. A good chuckle can be shared when they describe it as nearly a mentor and trainee thing going on.

Going back to the difference of him in public and in more private quarters.

Of course the high and mighty Prime ego never falters. Its mainly the affection from touches and words coming from his lips.

The transition can be overall sudden at the very least. From being the very casual friendly Prime façade he uses for nearly everyone below him, to him sweet talking you. At times it almost feels like Sentinel is trying to drag you away from post race interviews just so he can lay his servos on you.

He almost seems pent up at times. Desperate is a word he hates but it makes things so much more interesting! Although he feels rather dominant in this odd relationship, you know some of his own weaknesses.

Whenever he leaves to “fight and fend off the quintessons, and retrieve the Matrix of Leadership” you found a very consistent pattern of him being nearly weak in the knees for you when he returns.

Tried of keeping this act up for all of Iacon. All he wants to do is rest in your arms, seeing you, hearing you, feeling you. And there you’ll sit awaiting for him, for him to rest his helm on your lap. (Totally thinking about the Jayce and Mel pose from Arcane season 2, episode 1)

Needless to say you have a very special and deep connection, where Sentinel can get to a level of weakness to you and only you. You cant help but find some power within that.

At times you can toy with him, denying your sweet love and affection. When he’s tired hell whine and beg, which is very rare. When he’s not? He’ll only tolerate so much before he’ll take you in his servos himself. Reminding you who has the power in this relationship.

When he is present in Iacon he’ll try to attend everything that you are involved in, races, trainings, interviews, meetings, speeches. Though he’ll be very supportive of your racing career, he doesn’t want the public to see a pattern.

But his support can go a little too far..

At times he still intentionally rigged a race or two just to see his lover win yet another race. From adding sudden obstacles that trigger just for the other competitors, to allowing short cuts just for you<3

If you eventually catch him he’ll try very hard to appear that he never did such a thing! From the innocent optics and gentle calm voice. He loves watching you get feisty at times. It’s what made you so interesting to him.

Speaking of your racing career, of course you have tons of fans. Dare to say you have nearly an equal amount of fans compared to Sentinel! It was one of the other reasons Sentinel wanted you.

Of course some of these fans were none other than Orion Pax and D-16. A pair of miners that get excited just like that rest when you are available to have one on one times with your fans!

Somehow through Orion’s tricky trouble making and dragging D-16 through it all. They seemingly managed to see you last minute out of breath and nearly caught by other bots, Darkwing.

You couldn’t help it! They were so charming that you stopped Darkwing from getting rid of them. To which he stomps off grumbling “miners.” under hist breath.

Orion was extremely thankful that you were even kinder in person! And D-16 was in shock from the whole entire thing alone. With each a firm and warm handshake, they both admired the action of being touched by the best Iacon racer ever.

Their compliments and praise seemed to be never ending. Even after to tried to make room for causal conversation. You couldn’t help but feel a bit of flirt from Orion? Honestly it didn’t get to you though, you are nearly always flirted by your fans. Which for along time you knew how to not let it easily get to you.

Orion and D were an adorable pair, their wonderful personalities made you smile and laugh. In fact the whole deal made you stay overtime, but it was worth it to the very end.

By the time you return to your shared private quarters with Sentinel he looks less than amused.

Turns out Darkwing snitched on you, told Sentinel that some “cog-less miners” were keeping you on overtime with your schedule one on one times with the common bots of Iacon.

Sentinel looked of a mix of emotions to say less.

But you knew right then and there it was less about the cog-less miners and more about the flirting. Since Sentinel was already pretty possessive alone with the relationship between you and your fans.

You’d try to make light of it, saying it was only just some quick praise with two fans. Then Sentinel would take your wrist in his servos tightly and pull you close.

Sentinel would scold you, as he wraps his other servo around your frame enclosing you within a cage of him.

He says this is only for him to “protect” you. Though you are perfectly capable of protecting yourself. And no more one on one times unless he is there to watch you closely.

His once tight servos lets go to cradle your fave plate lovingly. He stand to guide you to your shared resting quarters. His servos forever attached somewhere on to you, like a leash you never knew you wore.

[elanorpam]

points at SQQ/SY i want him to go nuts. as a treat. let him crumble just a little over the stress of his fate and the stress of survival

#and the stress of having a lack of autonomy over a handful of his decisions. starry craves angst and she craves a very specific SQQ angst

#he was a number 1 hater back in the day and lbr being a hater takes energyyyy. ive heard that this man was the BIGGEST hater i wanna

#see him rip a man to shreds with nothing but his tongue and a voice that could cut marble clean in half. skin a man alive sqq you deserve i

#mortal kombat voice FINISH HIM

#i love without-a-cure but unfortunately i dont think SQQ would be able to have WAC and also survive in the abyss.

#the succubi nest that adopted him tried seducing him at first. it didn't work. but he did somehow charm them with his cringefail ways

#so now they have a brand new mortal big/little brother to dote on. SQQ is frankly delighted to learn all about succubi culture that doesnt

#revolve around sex. he makes quite a few friends/allies in the abyss because of his pure fascination and unbiased desire to learn about

#demonic culture and all the different niches and nuances of it across species. he's still going insane tho. like that's not stopping.

#there's a single LBH pov chapter in the fic and its frankly so unhinged it was fantastic. he's so possessive. he straight up goes:

#'oh SQQ isnt gonna be the next peak lord. he's ascending to heaven with me when i do :)' when Sha Hualing (also peak lord) told him that he

#couldn't keep his disciple in the bamboo house all the time. what was SQQ gonna do when LBH ascends and he becomes the new peak lord?

#gosh that first chapter is rotating around in my mind so bad. LBH was SO unwell. like losing his actual shit over SQQ near the edge.

#i so want to write a oneshot abt this where SQQ is also in hysterics (albeit over slightly diff reasons) and tells LBH on his knees:

#'this disciple deeply apologizes to his shizun. for he will not be ascending to the heavens with him.' right before he falls into the abyss

#this au being disciple SY is for shits and giggles but i can also see it happening for regular SQQ bc 'fuck it im a dead man either way'

#frothing at the mouth at this idea also being a SY-is-SJ au too. for the extra angst of SQQ trying to bear the weight of multiple lives on

#his shoulders and trying to figure out what is real and what isn't and if he's meant to suffer in all of his lives no matter what he does.

#not once in his life has he ever been free to do what he likes has he? self-hatred to the max. he's going mad. poor boy :]

mmmmmm read a disciple shen yuan/shizun luo binghe fanfic about two days ago where the first chapter was the Immortal Conference arc, and SQQ was the one who had to be pushed into the abyss (he was still the villain) except Luo Binghe was refusing and was like, lowkey losing his mind about SQQ being so close to the edge. SQQ ended up having to be the one to fall in himself because of the system's punishment system. The rest of the fic is leading up to that moment. But like, MMM i've been obsessively thinking about that first chapter for DAYS ever since.

now i've been in svsss for a grand total of *checks watch* a week. but god obsessed with that. I want to write/read a fic where disciple SQQ goes a little nuts down there. Like keep all of the things that make SQQ, SQQ, but just. Throw in a little bit more trauma in there. A little bit of a mental break. Let him go a little nuts as a treat. Just a tad unhinged. I wanna see him go, just a little, "god fuck it, i've tried so hard to change this shitty story's outcome and it feels like everything i've done has been for nothing. I'm going to die in this world no matter what I do, I've been doomed from the start, so might as well die the way I want to." and he just, breaks a little! Under all the stress.

He still retains the traits that makes shen yuan, shen yuan, like his overwhelming kindness. But he's just! yk. A little less patient. Paranoid. Jumpy. Colder. A little more aloof and closed off. A little more Shen Jiu. He's no asshole child abuser, but he was a Number One Hater in his past life and he's leaning into that old habit a little more now.

(On a totally coincidental not-at-all related note, there's not enough SJ-and-SY-are-the-same-people fics out there that i've found. This is totally unrelated...)

The Endless Abyss turns the mind into an over-sharpened blade, and SQQ is both fascinated and perhaps a little excited to explore a place that doesn't have a lot of info on it in the mortal realm, but still terrified out of his mind. And he's no Luo Binghe, he doesn't have the sheer brute strength and power to just bulldoze his way through, so he has to be a lot more sneaky and cunning if he wants to survive.

The fic itself role-swapped LBH and SQQ so that SQQ was the half-demon (which lowkey fucks) and LBH the human, but I'm equally-if-not-more obsessed with the idea that LBH remains the half-heavenly demon and SQQ the human. If only because I keep thinking about SQQ befriending some demons (particularly and specifically a group of succubi) and they grow very attached to this Human Cultivator so through magic plot stuff they create some kind of seal/illusion/talisman that makes SQQ appear as a demon because a human cultivator in the endless abyss may as well be the equivalent of putting a giant neon target on your back.

And iirc Shen Jiu was taught demonic cultivation by that one guy(?? i've only been here a week so im not caught up in ALL of the lore yet) so that could totally happen here.

(On the other end of the realms, poor Shizun Luo Binghe is just. losing his fucking mind over losing his most precious and beloved disciple. About .5 seconds from burning down the peaks himself. somebody sedate him.)

The Endless Abyss sucks and SQQ is having a really terrible time and can feel himself going lowkey mad, but also holy shit look at all this WORLD-BUILDING. look at all this flora and fauna, and oh if he had the equipment for it he'd be writing all of this down. ALL OF IT. He was kinda-sorta-already planning on never leaving the Abyss as some sort of fucked up self-exile and self-preservation thing, but now he might? actually just?? never leave if he can help it, like he lowkey likes it down here.

anyways the next time anyone ever sees SQQ again he's got hair so long its almost touching the ground and he's either in rags and half-feral or he's been completely dolled up by his adoptive succubi sisters and still about three seconds from biting anyone who tries to touch him. (he's also lowkey trying to book it back down to the abyss even if he has desperately missed all of his friends and shizun)

[rin-solo]

I love. LOVE. Get In the Water

It's one of the objectively best songs in the musical; I will die on this hill.

Poseidon was always, despite being pretty much the main antagonist of EPIC, a really underdeveloped character in my opinion. He just needed a little more nuance and the fact that one (+ kind of one more) song managed to add so much to his characterization pretty much exclusively through subtext and implications is incredibly impressive writing. Because it did!

At the start he's yet again playing games with Odysseus, the way he did in Ruthlessness. In both songs he could kill him easily at any point, yet he chooses not to for the sake of playing games. In Ruthlessness, this becomes his own hubris as it leads to Odysseus escaping.

If you listen closely, at the start of GITW he already sounds slightly different. He's still trying to keep up this "God of Ruthlessness" front that he's so proud of, but he's no longer more or less carefree the way he was in Ruthlessness. He's been obsessing over this feud for ten years, and even if he would never admit it, it's actually clear just from his voice that he really is tired of it too. Not in the sense of it emotionally draining him the way it probably does Odysseus, but in the sense that it's a bother, a loose end in his life, a book that he finally wants to slam shut.

But he still has a reputation to uphold, and he still cannot close this book until Odysseus is dead, so he keeps up the game. Instead of just killing him, he's taunting him to kill himself. He might associate the idea of just striking him down with a sort of loss, like then he'd have to his hands dirty. Then he's rambling about killing his people, his family. He's provoking Odysseus on purpose, likely trying to get him to snap back, to hate him and fear him the way that Poseidon would think any mortal who has consumed this much of his time should. In his eyes, Odysseus deserves nothing less than to curse him with his last breath as his "darkest moment", the god who became the bane of his life.

And Odysseus replies, of all things, with ... sympathy.

Honestly, I don't blame Poseidon for being speechless for three full seconds. He literally just threatened to gauge Telemachus' eyes out the way Odysseus did with Polyphemus, and this absolute madlad of a man replies with an acknowledgement that he (might have) caused Poseidon pain too.

Now, I don't really think Poseidon was particularly hurt over Polyphemus' loss or hurting in any way in that moment. But just the fact that Odysseus acknowledges that he might be hurting too is probably something Poseidon hasn't heard in ... who knows how long? His family is the Olympians. I don't think I have to say more.

It's actually more of a genuine apology than Odysseus' explanation in Ruthlessness ... Now he doesn't say "sorry" because he's still not sorry for hurting Polyphemus, since he still needed to do that in order to escape. But he expresses regret over the pain he caused in a more genuine way than ever.

I am convinced that Poseidon is utterly unfamiliar with sympathy or mercy. He's lived by his "Ruthlessness is mercy" motto for centuries, and he doesn't know anything else. No one would try to teach him something different. The other gods all live by this logic, even if he's the most vocal about it considering he seems to have made it his whole personality. Mortals wouldn't dare to question Poseidon in the first place. And barely anyone would be willing to treat someone with kindness who is in turn treating everyone around them with ruthlessness.

It's very likely that Poseidon hasn't encountered anyone like this until Odysseus. Ruthlessness is simply how he treats people, and also how he expects to be treated back. The fact that Odysseus doesn't, the fact that instead of hating or fearing or cursing him he acknowledges that they have both hurt each other and that it doesn't lead anywhere to still pursue vengeance must have triggered Poseidon in an unprecedented way.

To him, this was probably the most outrageous thing Odysseus could have said in that moment. And it throws him off so much that he is genuinely speechless, and then simply replies, "I can't." ... his most genuine-sounding line in the whole musical.

I cannot stress enough how much it threw me off to hear this line; in the best way imaginable, it doesn't sound like Poseidon. It sounds almost vulnerable. Almost human. Because he is genuinely at a loss so much that he forgets to put up his "wrathful god" facade for just one second. Standing ovation to Steven Rodriguez for his whole performance, but especially this part.

And then Odysseus goes all out, to say something even more outrageous: "Maybe you could learn to forgive?"

... Which is when Poseidon snaps.

Kind of understandable, honestly. There's this mortal whom he has likely fantasized about seeing pleading, hate-filled, and terrified, cowering before him, for ten years now ... telling him that he ought to learn something. Even hijacking his own motif and his instrument in order to turn it on its head, "defile" it if you will.

This f*cking mortal pr*ck took his own "Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves" catchphrase and turned it into forgiveness ... Of course, Poseidon is no longer hesitating, of course he is no longer concerned with getting his hands dirty or not. He yells "DIE!" and unleashes his ultimate move (which is really overkill for simply killing a mortal if you think about it) ... But he does it anyway because this time he genuinely means it.

This simple exchange (my favorite moment in the whole musical, actually) tells us so much about both of these characters that it makes me want to skitter and squeal in excitement.

Here is Odysseus—the very same one whom Poseidon specifically tried to teach ruthlessness—becoming the first person in a long time to offer him sympathy despite how Poseidon himself showed him nothing but ruthlessness. And then one song later, here is Odysseus showing him the consequences of not accepting said sympathy.

Six Hundred Strike and what Odysseus does to Poseidon would've not hit the same, in my opinion, if he hadn't made this offer, if he hadn't given Poseidon this way out, even if no one watching genuinely expected it to work (probably not even Odysseus himself.)

Six Hundred Strike is not Odysseus exacting vengeance. If GITW proved anything about Odysseus it's that he does not want vengeance. He wants all of the hatred and pain to be over, to the point where he is willing to let go of, and I am inclined to say forgive, Poseidon for what he's done to him. Six Hundred Strike is simply Odysseus teaching him this lesson that Poseidon couldn't have learned in any other way, because he has proven in GITW that he genuinely does not speak any language besides that of ruthlessness.

It's just the perfect representation of how Odysseus has now finally learned the balance between mercy and ruthlessness, which seems to be the core theme of the musical: Both have their time and place, one simply has to be willing to act in both ways and know when to use either. No one extreme is the solution. I am genuinely exhilarated that Odysseus finally seemed to have figured out that it's been both all along.

[08melancholie]

Humor me for a moment

What do you think each gang members favorite shows would be if they were from this century? Like modern shows and stuff?

OOOH this is very interesting, and I got a few in mind :)

some are more accurate maybe, some had to be mustered up to be filled in since I had no ideas D:

the guys:

Dutch — Hear me out; fashion shows. This man is first in line for the TV remote when theres a Victoria's Secret runway on one of the channels. That, or those "Wear or Tear" shows. He becomes a true fashionista.

Arthur — I feel, same with Charles, he'd be into watching Bear Grylls surviving in the wild. I don't know how to explain this one tbh, it just sounds right to me.

John — I really struggled with this one, honestly. I could NOT think of one thing he would watch. Anyhow, Abigail doesn't let him watch too much of it, but he'll also tune in when theres a football match OR, even better; baseball. I feel like he's a baseball type guy.

Javier — Another hear me out; Spanish cooking shows. This I have literally no explanation for, it came to me and I instantly said 'oh, YES' aloud. So, I'm sticking with it.

Micah — Would be big into sport channels, football and especially big on ice hockey. Let's be honest, he's literally a dad on Sunday afternoons but like, every day of the week, my little couch potato. His main thing would be ice hockey and I stand firm by that.

Lenny — Just a hunch here, but I think Lenny would like crime shows. Whether it's something like Criminal Minds or actual criminal cases and how they were solved, he'd be very much interested in that.

Sean — LOVES to watch people wrestle. He's either laughing about someone getting their shit handed to them or screaming at the TV for one of the people to punch harder.

Bill — Dog shows!! He loves those dog competitions where people train their dogs to run around and complete the courses, always cheers a certain dog on like it's his own and like he's getting the prize money.

Hosea — Chess competitions. I also don't know how to explain this one much, but I feel like he'd enjoy learning to play/to get better at chess through watching others play it, making little notes on a paper.

Strauss — Gotta be those old people Bingo channels with like, live games. He tried making his own bingo cards and literally nobody wanted to play with him because they said it was boring—and that he did it all wrong :( Otherwise peepaw loves that stuff.

Josiah — He loves watching "[Country]'s Got Talent", any country really. As soon as he sees a magician come up, he instantly locks in to see if he knows the trick that person is trying to do, and he especially loves the dangerous stunt compilations on Youtube. Rewatches them on a daily.

Reverend — Mostly online church services and those live broadcasts of it. If not that, which he does daily imo, it'll be some drug documentary. (struggled with this one D:)

Charles — National Geographic Documentaries; do I need say more? It's how he mostly learns about wildlife, if you don't count books. That, or I feel like he'd enjoy watching Bear Grylls surviving in the wilderness.

Jack — Honorable mention for Jack, the Kratt Brothers.

the girlies:

Sadie — She's also into crime shows, and especially true crime. You can't watch it with her because she loves to comment on EVERYTHING happening in the show, stuff like calling the killers bastards and finding what the clues the police find mean before the people in the show do sometimes.

Tilly — I was unsure of this at first, but I feel like she'd enjoy either cooking or gardening shows, but I'm more leaning to the latter. Likes to learn about all the different plants, sometimes writes information down in case she wants to plant something herself.

Mary-Beth — You know she'd be big into drama series and all the different reality TV shows. I swear, she'd literally LOVE Croatian drama shows and series so much, on the edge of her seat the entire time, literally. That, or she loves cheesy romances, of course.

Karen — I don't know if you guys have this, but we have a show which roughly translates to "Marriage at first", where two people get married at first sight. You can say yes or no at the altar after you see them for the first time, and the show leads you through the upcoming two-three weeks before the wedding. She'd love that, would be judging the wedding dresses the women pick the entire time.

Molly — Watches sickly sweet romcoms to heal her poor, broken heart. Good for her. :(

Abigail — Watches whatever Jack wants to watch mostly, but if she's got free time to watch something herself, she'll mostly use drama shows as background noise. Somehow, I feel like she isn't big on watching TV, so like myself basically.

Susan — She reminds me so much of my grandma that I have to say Turkish drama shows. My grandma has to be in bed by 8pm sharp with her shows, and that is exactly how I see Susan😭

Thank you for this lovely ask, I had fun with it <3

[walnut-tries-too-hard]

Session 6 double up info dump

Ok, so I'm obsessed with this idea. So it's time to share all of my thoughts on this headcannon.

There was a lot of panic, naturally. For one second, they're humans. The next, they're all knew hybrids.

Grian

-Grian had no idea that people's hybrid traits would be affected by the wild card.

-He knew that the animals would all be swapped but, when everything died, Skizz and Scar started freaking the fuck out because Grian all of a sudden didn't have wings.

-There were they dots, and then boom. He's a creeper like Doc.

-How Doc never exploded was an absolute mystery. Just the stress of Skizz and Scar alone nearly made him explode.

Renchanting

-Ren didn't immediately notice that he wasn't a dog. It was after Martyn started to freak tf out that he realized his hearing was VERY different. And he didn't have a tail.

-That was a fairly easy adjustment aside from this new strange instinct to fly??

-For Martyn, he suddenly had to keep himself very chill, lest he burn down their base. Again.

-Everytime Ren was a different hybrid he changed up his full title. Rather than Rendog; there was Renmoth, Rensheep/Renram, Renbird...ect.

-Those are actually all the differnent versions of Ren I went through trying to draw him.

-Martyn spent a lot of time with Tango trying to figure out how to handle the fire.

General/misc.

-Scott went from creaking, to human, to siren. Lovely whiplash. No flashbacks to limited life, what do you mean?

-Tango was struggling the whole session. He was already cold in the overworld but that was helped with jackets and all that. Now he was physically cold and he didn't know how to fix it. Why were overworlders so cold?!

-All of the lifers were used to being red with their typical hybrid traits. The red lives were a little more out of control than usual.

-Many people, such as Tango had to get used to not having a tail. His balance wasn't as bad as say...Impulse. He's a big guy, who'd depending on his tail far more than he thought.

-The very first change up Cleo got was being a dog. I guess you could say...DoggyCleo? (I'll see my way out). Scott jumped at the image of them as a human, as is. As a dog like Ren? Yeah, that was a surprise.

-Joel was just chilling then there was a poof around him and his ogre traits were gone. Not like he noticed. His wolves were dead.

-It was the same case for Bdubs. He was more focused on his horse. three dots and then it felt wrong to be in the sun. It even hurt a little bit. It took Joel looking over to realize he was looking at a phantom hybrid.

-People were willing to help each other to understand being a certain type of hybrid, like I said with Tango helping Martyn, and Scar definitely giving helpful advice to Joel.

-Sheep Ren at some point got stuck with goat Scar and bull Bdubs. They couldn't help from bonking into each other. Explained Zed, Beef, and Doc.

I'm obsessed with this idea, if you can't believe it.

Feel free to leave questions or request about this

[ryin-silverfish]

Sorry for the very late reply: I stayed off Tumblr for like, a month or so. But this is a long reblog with a lot of interesting points I wanna respond to.

Honestly, the most common form of JCT doesn't stem from A Chinese Odyssey. It's inspired by the webnovel that's kinda a fanfiction to said movie, Biography of Wukong.

The predecessor to BMW, Asura Online, takes a lot more inspiration from the webnovel than its spiritual successor, and even tho BMW isn't trying to be a direct continuation of AO, I would argue that some of its themes and worldbuilding still slipped into BMW.

You mentioned not seeing JCT in the game according to my definition, and I feel like it's a matter of exposure. For someone who has Chinese as their first language, they are gonna to be 1) exposed to a shit ton of JTTW media, and 2) see a lot of interpretation about the novel proliferate that an English audience is completely unaware of.

BMW is not the most extreme or common form of JCT, but the general ideas are still recognizable. Like, just because it doesn't make all the gods evil, or all the yaoguais innocent victims, doesn't change the fact that the main narrative is still one of Oppressive, Conspiring Pantheon vs. Oppressed Yaoguais.

(Example: the lore entries' implication about Lingji and the Yellow Wind storyline is that Lingji is creating the weird stone Buddha heads and the Fuban yaoguai to 1) collect Lingyun, the "soul" equivalent, and 2) artificially create a threat so that he can rescue the Flowing Sands kingdom from it and convert them to Buddhism.)

(Instead, the Yellow Wind Demon became the rescuer and the kingdom started worshipping rats, which was why its people were all turned into rats.)

(Or, the most obvious one: the Western Heaven's genocide of the Yakshas in the Bull King family backstory.)

(As for Erlang: why do you think you find him inside a painting, which, according to the lore entries, is implied to be the result of him asking Maitreya for refuge from the Celestial Realm?)

And it's made even more jarring by the fact that the game wants to create a facsimile of the original novel through quoting its poetry and imitating the vernacular novel dialogue style, and make allusions to SWK's role as the Mind Monkey, without realizing how it conflicts with the Biography of Wukong-style interpretation.

You mention the lore entries, and that's actually my favorite part! Both the Ming-print style illustrations, and their simulation of the Zhiguai short story style.

But, again, there is a dissonance. The funny and strange Zhiguai-style entries are noticeably different in tone compared to the "main storyline" entries about major characters and backgrounds, which is written like modern short stories instead of a classical Chinese text translated into Mandarin.

And my problem is not that the adaptation is different, that it may want to change the allegory or reinterpret the themes for a modern audience.

It's the feeling that they want to have it both ways——be faithful to the novel (or at least create a facsimile of faithfulness), yet also stick to the Bio of Wukong style popular reading that proliferates in modern JTTW media for mass appeal.

And to me, the dissonance in the two narratives weakened the thematic coherence. Frankly, if it sticks to one or the other, I wouldn't have been writing these critiques: if it's a proper exploration of the original novel's allegorical themes, I'd be praising and loving it, and if it's JCT thorough and thorough, I'm just going to be like "Yeah, not for me" and leave it at that.

But it's this mixture of things I love and things that frustrate me that drives me to write and get down to the bottom of those conflicting feelings, which has little to do with JTTWR's original posts and his attitude towards adaptations.

Lastly: I'm very much coming from the perspective of a native speaker complaining about Chinese JTTW media and popular interpretations. My own opinions are not mainstream in the Chinese JTTW fandom either——JCT is so popular precisely bc it has mass appeal.

Just a thing to keep in mind.

I'm a Theravada Buddhist. I saw many people interpreting the story and meaning behind Black Myth Wukong, differently. But I hope the devs team didn't intend to insult Buddha Dhamma by recreating this new story and distort the meaning of Buddhahood or Enlightenment itself..

I don't know if they intended to insult Buddhism, but I can say that their presentation of Buddhism in the game is disrespectful.

@ryin-silverfish recently posted a wonderful essay on what's known as the "JTTW Conspiracy Theory," which is a method of interpreting the story by twisting details, making the heavenly hierarchy look evil. The game follows this method. I recommend that you read the essay:

I unknowingly ran into the JTTW Conspiracy Theory a couple of years ago. A Chinese article claimed that the Buddha lies in the novel. This is my rebuttal.

[misspelledwordswizard]

I would love to see the chain react to reader from the atla universe or just one that uses bending in the same way? Just using bending unconsciously and freaking them all out because of it.

I love Atla, I loved writing this! I didn't know what kind of bending you were expecting, so I did waterbending, I hope you like it.

A notice about orders; I'm doing them in order, so if yours takes a little longer, it's probably because I'm working on others, but they'll all be done! And I'm very happy with them too, don't worry about it, you can send them, I'm loving your ideas.

It was a hot sunny day, so much so that Chain mutually agreed to take a break to go into the nearby river. It was a calm river with a small waterfall that made a pleasant noise in the environment. Wild and Wind were the first to jump in, excited as children, well, at least one of them was one. I couldn’t have been happier. You could say that the water is my territory, so on a day like this, being in cold water was paradise for me. 

Little by little, the others started to enter the river too. It was easy for them, they could just take off their tunics and equipment and get in, while I had to temporarily separate from the group to change and put on a bathing suit, but that was okay, it didn’t take long. Soon I was also entering the river to enjoy the sunny day. 

The cold water touched my body bringing a welcome feeling of relief, cooling my hot and sweaty skin, but this moment of peace was short-lived after I felt a wave of water hit me directly in the face, followed by the sound of childish laughter. That brat.  I imitated his attitude, pushing water with my hands towards him, hitting him with everything and stopping his laughter. The sailor still had the audacity to better himself with indignation, as if he hadn’t been the first to start. I could hear the others laughing in the background too, but they didn’t have the courage to get involved in this. Now it was war. 

Soon the area of the river where we were became a mess of water being splashed in all directions incessantly. Until I could feel a particularly strong attack coming from Wind, and instinctively wanted to retaliate even more. The movements so natural to me happened without me even being able to think about it, soon a small wave, but bigger than any I could generate with my bare hands, appeared next to me and went towards the Sailor, strong enough to make him stay underwater for a few seconds, raising his head in surprise and confusion right after. 

— Aha, I won! – I exclaimed excitedly, but my excitement died when I saw the lack of reaction not only from the sailor, but from all the boys. – What happened? Was I too harsh? 

— How did you do that?! – Wind was the first to speak, coming towards me excitedly. Only then did I understand my mistake. 

— Yeah, was that some kind of magic? – Wars asked, intrigued. 

— I’ve never heard of magic like that. – Hyrule replied, looking curious and suspicious at the same time. 

— Well, that’s because it’s not magic. – I replied, creating even more doubts in everyone, who remained silent waiting for me to continue. – You know, you may not know much about the place I come from, but there’s no magic there. On the other hand, there are people there who can have some control over one of the elements of nature, using specific movements. We’re called benders. 

Even when I tried to explain, they seemed terribly confused and incredulous.  Of course, they already knew I came from a different kind of world, and had somehow ended up here through a strange portal, but I’ve avoided talking about my home to them, precisely because I thought it might be too much for them to take in. Just as it has been for me. 

— So, you can simply control the elements of nature? – The Champion questioned, not very confident about it. 

— Not all of them, and we call it bending. There are four main types of bending, water, fire, earth and air. People who have this ability can only bend one of the four, with the exception of the Avatar. – I can’t tell if throwing all this information out was useful or just made the situation worse. 

— That’s cool! – Wind exclaimed. – Show me more, that’s really cool! 

— Well, that’s definitely interesting, could you demonstrate more of that? – Time asked, and I could tell he wanted to analyze it better. 

— Yeah, what do you normally use it for? – Twilight was the next to ask. 

— Well, waterbending can be used as a medicinal method, and each bending can be used for various everyday things, and for fighting. 

— You mean you could have used it to fight this whole time and you just chose not to?! – Legend seemed indignant at that. 

— Well... I already imagined it would be difficult to explain about this.  – I replied, while using my bending again as they had asked me to, making a large ball of water float over the river. 

— Cool. – Wild said. – Now that we know and you can use it, I’m sure it can be very useful. 

— Yeah, you said it has medicinal properties? That would be really good. – The Traveler questioned, receiving a positive answer from me. 

— Guys, you’re forgetting the main thing! – Wind said, getting everyone’s attention. – Have you thought about the games we can play with this? 

Everyone snorted at the boy’s childish answer, when we expected something a little more important than that. I was afraid to talk about it with them, but they ended up being much more understanding than I imagined. That’s good. 

— But I must admit that I’m very curious about this too. Can you show me other things you can do? You said there are four main bends, does that mean there are other smaller bends? – Sky asked excitedly, and everyone seemed as curious as he was about the subject. 

— Hey, this would be really useful for forging swords, can you help me next time I work on the Champion’s sword? – The blacksmith was the next to ask, which created a gap for a flood of different questions. 

— Can you close wounds? 

— What exactly would an “avatar” be? 

— How does earthbending work? 

— Can I be considered an airbender? 

— How do movements influence this? 

Soon, I was surrounded by curious blondes and being drowned in their curious questions. I think we’re going to spend a good amount of time on this subject. 

[cheshiresense]

Oh my God, you mentioned wanting to write a thing about when Starrk finally let's his reiatsu out, and honestly, I've been thinking about that so much!!! Like here is Starrk, who has been keeping his reiatsu down to around average, who sleeps all the time, so doesn't stand out, who stands beside Ichigo, Ichigo who crazy stands out, also Starrk who joins the 4th, the 4th who everyone else considers to be weaklings!! You imagine the look on everyone's face the first time he let's lose!?! Maybe some bullying goes too far, and Starrk, who nobody thinks much of, just smacks them down hard!!! And everyone is like WTF lol 😆

sorry, I just love the idea of when people realize that Starrk is actually strong like Ichigo!! So 😁 funny!! Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts about this. I love reading them.

Lol yes it's one of those scenes that you see happen in so many different ways and all of them would be fun. I'm undecided on how I want to do it Officially so I'm putting it off (or maybe I'll just write several of them lmao).

I imagine it would have to be very serious bullying for Starrk to take that much action, cuz like he really isn't the sort to step in for every little thing. If it happens to someone he considers one of his, he might note it down and then quietly go and prevent it from happening again from behind the scenes, but in real time, he'd rather diffuse the situation or leave it to the "victim" to handle it and only step in if it looks like they really can't, and even stepping in would just be a sharp word or two to run the bully off. He's not a straightforward bleeding heart the way Ichigo is, cuz the hit-the-problem-so-it's-no-longer-a-problem method is def Ichigo's go-to strategy, he would absolutely smack the shit out of someone bullying Asuka or Rangiku in front of him and be done with it right then and there, prob flaring his reiatsu without even meaning to cuz his control's a lot better these days but it's also kind of 0 to 50, well-hidden or flashing neon sign, no in-between unless he really concentrates 😂 It's another reason Starrk would have little reason of his own to act, cuz like Ichigo would absolutely beat him to it.

For me, I could prob imagine him unleashing his reiatsu/revealing his strength if someone's about to die and the threat is big enough that he actually has to flex. He's just not someone who'd easily show what he can do, and hiding it from the likes of Aizen and the Quincy wouldn't even be his top reason. It's more like lingering PTSD--his strength doesn't bother him anymore now that he's had years of proven control under his belt, and he's even needed every last bit of his power over the past decade of war, but subconsciously, he's still not 100% comfortable with just letting anyone feel it, even tho he has enough control now that it wouldn't hurt them unless he wants it to because what if? So like, his first instinct will always be to keep it locked down, and for minor stuff (altho minor is relative for him I guess lolol), pulling out that much power is def a last resort.

Again, it contrasts what Ichigo would do. Ichigo's just used to overkill. Like even before he got his powers, he learned that an overwhelming show of strength would solve most of his gangster-related problems very easily, plus he lived in a household where Isshin only backed off from kicking him into a wall or something by kicking first or kicking back. And then after he got his powers, it's not even really his fault that he internalized a "might is right" kind of mindset /points at the entire fucking SS invasion arc and honestly every arc after that/. And also he spent his first years of Shinigami-ing running around with an unsealed Zanpakutou and zero reiatsu control, being in a constant state of Shikai is natural for him, and (moving into this AU's headcanon territory) it took him several months into the Quincy War before he finally learned to seal it away and actually have other ways of fighting that isn't just flinging Getsuga Tenshous around. He uses Bankai the way other people use hand-to-hand combat or Kidou spells, so even now, his first instinct is to just hit the problem hard enough so that it won't get back up to do more harm, and for him, that applies to everything from schoolyard bullying to fighting monster-gods. And on top of all that, his actions are largely driven by emotion. More than anything else, his first reflex is to protect, and that often leads to him throwing way more power at a threat than he actually needs to. He knows how to be more subtle these days, but it's not his preferred method and def not a reflex either the way it is with Starrk.

Of course, Starrk also understands "might is right" just by dint of being a Hollow, but he's basically spent a thousand years as someone too strong for anyone to fuck with just by existing, so he doesn't have the same kind of exposure to physical conflict that Ichigo grew up with that would make violence his first instinct.

Aanndd omg this ran away from me lmao sorry, you get a speedrun analysis on Starrk and Ichigo instead 😅

TLDR I'm still not sure of any exact scenarios that would force Starrk to show his hand, I don't want to wait until a Sternritter shows up or a final showdown vs. Aizen happens because that would take forever before we get there (I mean I could just jump right in there since this isn't a whole fic, but in-universe-timeline-wise, I'd prefer it happening earlier), but it's difficult for me to imagine that something in everyday life or even just a Hollow extermination mission would be enough to make him reveal even a bit of what he can really do.

Case in point, if you remember that mission in SP canon where Shunsui brings Ichigo and Rangiku along on a mission into the Rukongai to gain experience, and Ichigo sees a Hollow about to attack Shinji who hadn't spotted it yet, but he also didn't want to leave Rangiku unprotected, he went straight for unsealing his Zanpakutou and basically hand-delivering a shopping list of unusual or downright unique abilities to Aizen via Gin. In this AU, if Starrk goes along, he would never do such a thing, and in fact, he'd stop Ichigo and just fire a damn Byakurai or something across the clearing and kill it that way. Even if Ichigo doesn't have the finesse to pull off a low-numbered Kidou spell on the fly, he could've chosen a higher-numbered one and that would've still revealed far less to Aizen than unsealing his Zanpakutou would. But again, subtlety isn't his strong suit. He now at least has the presence of mind to think about the consequence of leaping into the fray without thought, it would leave Rangiku wide open, but his first instinct is still to use overwhelming strength to protect the people he cares about.

In contrast, Starrk may be a soft touch compared to basically every other Hollow and quite a few Shinigami, but he has the maturity and just the general personality to go for the strategic option. He has a far more tactical mind, implied even in canon to rival Shunsui in that department, so rushing in just isn't in his nature.

The only other way imo is if someone just... asks. Reikaku (reiatsu-sensing) is a thing Shinigami learn. In canon people can sense exactly who's coming just by their reiatsu (if they know them), not just if they're a Shinigami or a Hollow or even a Human, but it doesn't really expand on how. So I imagine you have to have a good feel for the person's reiatsu, it's the same as my age headcanon for reiatsu, not only can someone halfway decent at sensing reiatsu be able to get an idea of the other person's age, they would also be able to recognize and associate that reiatsu signature with that person since everybody's is different, but obviously they would have to be exposed to it a few times to learn it. Starrk's reiatsu is very unique so once or twice would be enough, and I can see a situation where the kids might ask to feel it for that reason, or a mission might require the team leader to ask, etc. etc. So yeah, that's all I got.

[thunder-wolf64]

Ugh okay I'm about to get very not silly.

Content warning for: Sexual Assult, Body image issues, self harm, probably some depression.

Hmm. I want to talk about this incase I can give strength to anyone else. I know my problems are not as bad as others, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt and it's not valid.

Ive mentioned my fear of small children, I've mentioned really not liking a family friend (to a point that being forced to stay in a cabin with them made me feel so bad I dug my nails into my skin and scarred my arm and hand)

This all partly relates to one incident many years ago. I dont remember how old I was? Must have been earlier middle school?

The family friends I'm referring to have a son. He's a lot younger than me. He's neurodivergent in some way, he doesn't have the best idea of social anything.

I was staying at the family friends' cabin, my family and theirs. There was a guest cabin. I had just taken a shower to clean off the lake water. I was standing in the guest cabin looking at myself in the mirror by the beds, brushing my hair. I had major body image issues with good ol' puberty. I hated how I looked and i felt shameful when my shirt clung to my chest extra tight. I knew I would dry off more, and it would be less form fitting. I thought i could just stay in the guest cabin until then.

Then all the little kids, the boy and my two sisters, burst in, chasing each other around as kids do. I was still brushing my hair.

Something immature boys find funny is the word "boobs" he laughed at me and kept repeating the word. I adjusted my shirt as best I could I wanted to tell him off, but I was scared I would get in trouble if I made him upset.

I went back to looking in the mirror and brushing my hair. He ran past, giving my boob a poke as he sprinted out the door, my sisters in tow. That was it. That is what the warning was for. A touch. Over in a second.

I was panicked, I didn't know what to do. I sat on the bed for awhile, crying and thinking of what to do. It felt like forever. And as embarrassing as it is to say... at that time in my mind I felt as if it was my fault, as if I had a sign pointing to me saying "touch me". And with that in mind, I calmed myself down, told myself i wouldn't say anything, and walked back to the main cabin.

And when I walked in, it was tense. The boy was getting a talking to from his mother, and mine walked over to me.

She asked me if i was okay.

I said I was fine, confused. Thinking its not like he shoved me, punched me, hurt my physically. My mind did not corelate the emotional anguish rushing though my head as I felt even more shame that people knew. that they had told on themselves somehow.

I was not okay, i am still not okay. And it really sucks. I can't blame everything on one incident. But oh man can I corelate a lot of my problems with that incident.

Tight clothes made me feel like scum. Ive only ever worn sports bras that leave me with terrible chest pain. I still cant stand a tight fitting shirt, a v-neck. I can't stand my feminine traits. Because that's what got me into the mess in the first place.

Something so small can mess you up so much. And I'm sick of not acknowledging it. Everyone has forgotten or said nothing. And I feel like I'm going crazy.

So if you made it this far, your struggles are valid. Your feelings are valid. No matter what happend, everyone takes things differently.

And i don't know if I'll can call this sexual assault, but it feels like it was, and that's what should matter.

Everyone stay safe

[estellesdoll]

Hii can you do a Matt Sturniolo imagine where like the reader (us) is Eminem’s daughter and they like meet at an event and are like super into each other but they Matt doesn’t find out we’re eminems daughter until a little bit later. Please and thank you <3

∿ 𝜗 𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝜚 ﹐

𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚: At an event, Y/n, Eminem’s daughter, meets Matt while picking a drink. They connect easily, and when Matt learns who she is, he treats her like anyone else. By the end of the night, there's a spark between them, hinting at something special.

𝒓𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒅 : yes

𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈: older!matt x fem!reader | Eminem's daughter

𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔: fluff, mentions of alcohol consumption

𝒘. 𝒄.: 3.1k

𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒔: I hope you like it! 🎀🤍 It's my first request, and I'm pretty nervous! SEND ME MORE REQUESTS, AND IF YOU WANT TO BE ADDED TO THE TAGLIST, LEAVE A COMMENT ON THE POST:

౨ৎ𝒕𝒂𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 | ౨ৎ𝒏𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒈𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 |

| ౨ৎ𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 | ౨ৎ𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒕

The event was in full swing, a sea of people gathered in the extravagant venue. The lights flickered in sync with the beats of the music, and the air was thick with excitement. But, as always, you tried your best to stay in the background, away from the spotlight that seemed to follow you wherever you went. After all, being Eminem's daughter wasn’t always as glamorous as people made it out to be. Tonight was no exception, your goal was to enjoy the night without drawing too much attention.

You bit your lip as you read over the menu for what felt like the tenth time. A Tommy’s Margarita? A Negroni? You had no idea what the difference was between them, and the last thing you wanted was to look completely out of place by ordering something that tasted awful. You loved a good drink, but you weren’t exactly a cocktail expert. You shifted on your feet, trying to decide, and that’s when you heard a voice next to you.

“Having trouble deciding?” he asked, his voice light and friendly, with a hint of curiosity.

You blinked, trying to shake the feeling that you knew him from somewhere. Maybe a friend of a friend? Or just someone you’d seen in passing? You didn’t know, but his face definitely wasn’t unfamiliar. Maybe you had seen him in a video or an Instagram post? He had that vibe, someone you might come across on a popular account. You couldn’t quite place it, but there was something about him that felt so familiar.

“Yeah,” you admitted with a small laugh. “I’m a little lost here. I was thinking of getting a Tommy’s Margarita or a Negroni, but I don’t even know what the difference is.”

He glanced at the menu, his smile not fading. “Ah, well, the Tommy’s Margarita’s actually a pretty straightforward drink. It’s just tequila, lime juice, and agave. No triple sec like a regular margarita. It’s refreshing—tart, but not too sweet.”

You nodded slowly, trying to absorb the information. “So, it’s like a cleaner version of a regular one?”

“Exactly,” he said, his eyes twinkling as he spoke. “It’s pretty smooth, too, so it’s a good choice if you’re looking for something light and easy to sip on.”

You felt a little more confident now, but your attention still wavered between the drinks on the menu. “And the Negroni? What’s that one like?”

He chuckled softly, as though amused by the contrast in choices you were considering. “A Negroni is, uh... definitely more of an acquired taste,” he explained, his voice gentle and patient. “It’s gin, vermouth rosso, and Campari. It’s very bitter—herbal, strong. Not something I’d recommend if you want something refreshing.”

You wrinkled your nose at the thought of something so bitter. “Yeah, I think I’ll pass on that one. Not feeling the bitter vibe tonight.”

He laughed, a warm, easy sound. “Smart move. The last thing you want is to be stuck with something you can’t even enjoy. You want something light, right?”

You nodded, relieved that he was guiding you through the options without any judgment. You were starting to feel more at ease in this conversation, even though you couldn’t quite shake the nagging feeling that you knew him from somewhere.

“Well, in that case,” he continued, his gaze still on the menu, “the Tommy’s Margarita is definitely your best bet. It’s the kind of drink that goes down easy and doesn’t make you regret your choices later.”

You chuckled, appreciating the reassurance. “Okay, I’ll go with that. One Tommy’s Margarita, please,” you said, feeling like you could actually get through the night without too much embarrassment.

He grinned, clearly pleased with your choice. “Good pick. You won’t regret it.”

As the bartender started preparing your drink, you turned to face him again, feeling like the conversation had flowed so easily. There was something about him that made you feel comfortable, as if talking to him was just... natural. Still, you couldn’t help but wonder where you knew him from.

The more you thought about it, the more his face seemed familiar. Maybe you’d seen him on social media, or in a video—he had that type of presence that made you feel like you’d come across him online before. It was like a faint memory that was just out of reach.

“So, are you new to cocktails, or just trying something different tonight?” he asked casually, his voice relaxed.

You laughed, feeling the lightness of the moment. “I’m more of a wine or beer person. But, you know, fancy night and all that. Figured I should try something new.”

He nodded in understanding. “I get it. Sometimes the fancy drinks aren’t just about the taste. They’re about the experience, right?”

“Exactly!” you said, warming to the conversation. “It’s like, why not try something new while we’re here?”

“Right,” he agreed, his voice softening. “Life’s too short to play it safe all the time. Gotta make the night memorable.”

You smiled, feeling a little more connected to him. There was something about the way he spoke—so laid-back, so easy to talk to—that made the whole event feel less overwhelming. Maybe you had made the right choice coming here tonight after all.

“Plus,” he added with a teasing grin, “if the drink ends up being terrible, we can just blame it on the drink and call it a learning experience.”

You laughed, and the bartender slid your Tommy’s Margarita toward you. You picked it up, raising your glass toward him. “Well, I’ll just blame you if it doesn’t taste good.”

Matt raised his own drink, his eyes locking with yours as he smiled. “You can blame me all you want. I’ll take the hit.”

You both clinked glasses, and you took a sip of your drink. It was perfect—tart, refreshing, exactly what you needed. You smiled at Matt over the rim of your glass, feeling a little lighter now that you’d figured out what to drink.

“This is really good,” you said, your smile genuine.

He grinned, pleased with your reaction. “Told you. You made the right choice.”

For a moment, you just stood there, both sipping your drinks and enjoying the quiet comfort of each other’s company. The event felt a little less like a formal gathering and more like just two people getting to know each other.

"So, are you always this good at making cocktail recommendations?" you teased, a small smile curling at your lips. "Or is this just a one-time thing?"

Matt chuckled, his eyes lighting up as they met yours. "I’m just a guy who knows his drinks. But I think I’m also pretty good at reading the room," he said with a playful glint in his eye.

You raised an eyebrow, intrigued by the confidence in his voice. "Oh really?" you asked, leaning in slightly, just enough to make the space between you feel charged. "And what does that say about me?"

He took a small step closer, his gaze never leaving yours. "It says you’re someone who appreciates a good recommendation—and someone who knows how to enjoy themselves when they’re out," he said, his voice lowering slightly, as if the words were meant only for you.

You smiled, the compliment making your pulse quicken a bit. There was an undeniable energy between you two now, something that made the rest of the world blur out of focus for a moment. "I like the sound of that," you murmured, feeling a little bolder now that the conversation was leaning into something more intimate.

Matt’s lips curved into a grin, his gaze softening just a touch. "Good, because I’m just getting started," he replied, his tone warm, yet there was a challenge in it, like he was daring you to keep up.

Your heart fluttered, the playful back-and-forth making everything feel more thrilling. The connection between you was undeniable now, and you could tell he was just as drawn to you as you were to him. The night felt suddenly filled with possibilities, and the conversation was only just beginning.

"So, what’s next?" you asked, your voice soft but curious, wondering where this would lead.

Matt leaned in just slightly, his voice quieter. "Whatever you’re up for. I’m all about keeping things interesting."

You couldn’t help but smile, the tension between you two building with every passing moment. The night had just begun, but you already felt like it was turning into something unforgettable.

As the conversation continued, the easy chemistry between you two only grew. You felt yourself relaxing, laughing more easily with him. There was something so natural about the way he spoke, like he was genuinely interested in getting to know you for who you were—not just as someone famous, but as you.

He leaned in a little closer, his eyes locking with yours as he asked, “So, you never told me your name…”

You hesitated for a moment, feeling the subtle shift in the air. "It’s Y/n," you replied, your voice soft, not fully sure what kind of reaction he might have. "But, um, I guess you could say... it’s a bit of a... family name."

Matt furrowed his brow, a playful grin tugging at his lips. “Family name? What’s that supposed to mean?” His curiosity was clear, though there was no judgment in his voice.

You smiled, looking down at your drink for a second before meeting his gaze again. "Well... my dad’s kind of a big deal," you said, your words casual but laced with a hint of hesitation. "You might’ve heard of him... Eminem?"

Matt blinked, processing the information. The realization slowly dawned on him, and his expression shifted from playful curiosity to something more awed. "Wait, Eminem’s daughter?" He leaned back slightly, eyes widening. "No way."

You couldn’t help but laugh at the surprise in his voice. "Yeah, I know, kind of a shocker, right?" You shrugged, trying to downplay it, feeling the familiar discomfort of being tied to that name, though it wasn’t the first time someone had made that connection.

But Matt’s surprise wasn’t off-putting. He didn’t seem impressed in the way people usually were when they found out who your dad was. He seemed genuinely... intrigued, and something in his expression softened as he continued, “I never would’ve guessed. Honestly, I don’t even know why I didn’t put it together sooner.”

You smiled, appreciating his reaction more than you expected. "I like to keep things low-key," you said. "It’s just easier that way."

He nodded, looking thoughtful. “I get that. It must be tough sometimes, though, right? Having everyone always know who you are...”

You shrugged. “It’s not that bad, really. I’ve always kind of just... been me. The whole fame thing is something I never really got used to.”

Matt’s eyes softened, his voice quieting. “I like that about you. You’re not trying to be anyone you’re not.”

There was something in the way he said it, so honest, that made your chest warm. His sincerity was refreshing, and it made you feel even more at ease with him.

"So, um..." Matt began, his smile returning. "That’s pretty cool, though. I’m not gonna lie, I was kinda shocked when you said your name earlier, but you’re nothing like what I expected."

You raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Oh? And what did you expect?”

Matt chuckled, a bit of shyness creeping into his demeanor now that the mystery was out. "I don’t know, maybe someone who’d be all about the spotlight? You’re just... normal. And honestly, it’s kinda nice."

You smiled at his honesty, feeling your heart flutter a little. “Yeah, well, sometimes I’d rather just enjoy the night like anyone else. No cameras, no interviews... just a drink and a good conversation.”

“Exactly,” Matt said, his voice almost conspiratorial. “And it feels like that’s what we’re having right now.”

The way he said it made your pulse quicken. He wasn’t treating you like you were some celebrity—he was just treating you like someone he was genuinely getting to know, and that felt... nice. More than nice, actually.

"So," you said, leaning in a little, your voice soft, “what do you think about the rest of the night? You up for a bit of an adventure?”

His smile widened, and you could see the same spark in his eyes that you felt. “You know what? I think I’m up for whatever comes next... especially if it means more time with you.”

The air between you two crackled with potential, and for the first time in a while, you felt like you weren’t just the daughter of a famous rapper—you were just Y/n, having a fun night with someone who was clearly drawn to you, not the persona attached to your name.

As the night stretched on, you two continued to talk, laugh, and enjoy each other's company, both of you discovering more about the other in the most genuine way possible. By the time the event started to wind down, you realized how much you were looking forward to what might come next.

And for the first time in a while, you didn’t feel like Eminem’s daughter, just a girl who had met someone she couldn’t wait to see again.

As the event began winding down, the crowd starting to thin out, you found yourself not wanting to leave just yet. There was something about Matt that kept you there, drawn to him in a way that felt effortless. His presence was comforting, like a quiet anchor in a world that could sometimes feel overwhelming.

The music was quieter now, the lights dimmer, but you barely noticed any of that. Your focus was entirely on him, the way he smiled when he caught your gaze, the way his hand rested just a little too close to yours on the bar.

“So,” Matt said, leaning closer, his voice soft, “I’m really glad we talked tonight. I know we’ve only just met, but it feels like... I don’t know, like it’s been longer, you know?”

You smiled, your heart skipping a beat at how sincere he sounded. “I feel the same way,” you admitted, voice barely above a whisper. “It’s like everything just clicked, like we’re... meant to be having this conversation right now.”

Matt’s gaze softened, and he smiled at you with such warmth that your chest fluttered. There was something undeniably sweet about how easy it was to talk to him, how comfortable he made you feel despite the weight of who you were. He didn’t treat you like you were someone special just because of your last name. He treated you like you were... you. And that felt like a breath of fresh air.

“You know,” Matt said, his hand moving just a little closer to yours, “I’ve really enjoyed spending time with you. I can’t remember the last time I met someone who made me feel this... easy.”

You reached for your drink, your fingers brushing against his hand by accident, but the small touch made your heart race. “Yeah,” you said softly, “it’s rare to find someone who just gets it, isn’t it?”

Matt smiled, his thumb brushing lightly against your hand as if to reassure you. “Yeah, it is. But I’m glad I found that someone tonight.”

Your breath caught in your throat at the way he looked at you, the warmth in his gaze sending a flutter through your chest. He didn’t need to say anything more for you to understand what he meant. The connection between you two was undeniable, growing with every passing moment.

“Matt,” you said softly, your voice barely above a whisper, “this... it feels really nice, just being here with you. I didn’t expect to feel like this tonight.”

Matt's eyes softened even more, and you could see the shift in his expression—a kind of vulnerability that made your heart ache in the best way possible. He leaned a little closer, his voice gentle. “I didn’t expect to feel this way either, but I’m glad it’s happening.”

Your heart skipped a beat at the sincerity in his voice. You felt your pulse quicken, and before you knew it, you were leaning in just a little, drawn to him in a way that felt almost magnetic. The tension between you two was palpable now, the air thick with the anticipation of something that could be even more than this easy conversation.

“You know,” Matt murmured, his voice low and warm, “I can’t stop thinking about how beautiful you are, Y/n. Not just because of who you are, but because of how you carry yourself. You’re... real. And I like that.”

You felt your cheeks flush, your heart swelling with the warmth of his words. “You’re making me blush,” you whispered, but there was a playful smile on your lips.

Matt chuckled softly, his hand brushing against yours once more, his fingers intertwining with yours. It was a simple touch, but it felt like everything in that moment. “I’m glad I could make you smile,” he said, his voice so sweet, it made your chest ache with affection.

You looked into his eyes, the connection between you two feeling more real with each passing second. "I like this," you whispered, your voice steady but soft. "I like us."

Matt’s expression softened, his thumb gently brushing over the back of your hand as he smiled at you, a little shy, but genuine. "Me too, Y/n. Me too."

For a long moment, you just looked at each other, the world around you fading into the background. There was no pressure, no expectations—just two people sharing a moment that felt... perfect. The warmth in your chest and the soft smile on Matt’s face told you that this was only the beginning of something good. Something that felt right.

And as the night drew to a close, neither of you seemed eager to part ways. It wasn’t just the drinks or the event that made this night special. It was the connection that had formed between you both, something sweet and real that you couldn’t deny.

"Maybe we can continue this... sometime?" Matt asked, his voice low, filled with anticipation. "Like a real date?"

You smiled, the flutter in your chest growing. "I’d like that," you whispered back, your heart racing a little faster at the thought.

Matt grinned, a warm, sincere smile that made your heart skip a beat. "Good. Because I think I’ve already decided—I’m not letting you go that easily."

And with that, you both knew that tonight wasn’t just a fleeting moment. It was the start of something new, something sweet, and perhaps even the beginning of something more.

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@estellesdoll

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