#nonetheless he was a very cool wizard

[chiropteracupola]

dreams 1-4: school stress

dream 5: wizard named leonard uses animated mannequins to do cat-burglar crime and robin-hood-esque vigilante justice

[weirdmarioenemies]

SURPRISE! Did you think the day would come when we would cover Love Live on this blog? I didn't!

Yohane the Parhelion: Blaze in the Deepblue is the Metroidvania-style game based on the fantasy spin-off of Love Live Sunshine, but you probably don't care about that! Statistically speaking, our target audience is Bogleech readers who are deeply revolted by anime girls!

So why bring up? Why bring it up? The answer is 🐠 FUNNY FISH! It's Funny Fish Friday!

Since this game is set in an underwater temple, the enemies this game are all based on sea creatures, and that's cool! Again, statistically speaking, you probably think sea creatures are cool. I really liked seeing the variety of enemies when playing through this game, so I thought it'd be fun if I could share them with an audience of people who otherwise wouldn't care! None of the enemies really have names, as far as I'm aware of. But I'll do my Rubesty...?

Our first guy we encounter in the game is the sort of guy who emerges from the ground like the Zombies from Castlevania, and wow! A good first impression I think. It is sort of a squid mantle, if the mantle was also a cloak for a spooky sort of wizard! The way it doesn't really have a 'face' in the hood and the eye is below really makes it seem like a weird mimic creature. Cool!

They also get a tough lategame variant which looks like a mix between a flapjack and a vampire squid. You don't often see flapjacks be designed as scary!

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Next is Barnacles! A whole clump of them, like a cake. They shoot Energy Balls at you. Is this what Barnacles can do if they combine their powers...? The top actually opens up, and it looks a lot like a sea urchin's mouth! So maybe it is some sort of naked urchin creature covered in barnacles? Game Theory!

There are also barnacles with Ice Powers. Like real life!

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Let's give it up for Garden Eel!!!!

What a fine Garden Eel it is! Complete with the sort of grumpy face, and with the addition of two little arms that make it look like it's praying or maybe a bit shy. But it is mean! It also spits energy balls at you, then hides in the hole so you can't hit it. How very sneaky!

SO sneaky, in fact, that these eels have mastered the art of ninjutsu! The ninja eel shows up for a split second in one single room, before smoke bombing away. You'd have to use a time freeze power to get him, but I never got around to doing that. I don't have any beef with a ninja eel! I respect him and his training!

Did someone say CTENOPHORE? I hope you did, or my hearing has really gotten worse. This thing is a grade A ctenophore, only with a ring of Scary Teeth! A little scary to think of a ctenophore who could Bite you, but nonetheless this deserves a :ctenopog:!

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Let's not forget Fish Vortex! Fish Vortex was the first guy to make me go 'wow, this game's enemies really are awesome!' So of course I had to put him at the top of the post! He is my selling point! I am selling all these enemies to you. For 4.99 a pop!

Anyway. This design is just so funny and cool at the same time. A swirling school of fish that leads into an endless dark abyss, and in the middle, a big eyeball. Also covered in fish. It shoots fish at you! Yay!

There is also a pink variant - it shoots fish that give you the Solitude status effect, which basically just makes Yohane too depressed to summon her friends. Meaning? They are Depression Fish! Maybe she just becomes so jealous of the unity and teamwork of these sardines. She's me like just for real! ^_^

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isopot :)

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This slug is an umbrella. That is ridiculous! Ridiculously EPIC! It does the opposite of shield you from rain, which is create rain, that kills you. But I would still want one as an umbrella.

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When I first saw this thing, I thought it was some strange round Echimoderm I had never heard of. But upon further inspection (I actually asked Mod Chikako shh), it is obviously like a Brittle Star, with each arm folded round to form a wheel! How creative and fun! It even has a bunch of eyes like a starfish!

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Last but not least- sushi! There are sushi guys and they are cute. They don't really do much and are typically found in their own rooms, so I'm not sure what the point of them is. But finding a funny walking sushi should be a reward in of itself, I guess! Look at their funny rice feet! Or the one with the roe eyes!

I happened to use fire magic on one of them and this happened. Oopsies...

Now I am sure you are saying, thank you for showing me all these funny enemies. But are there any cool bosses? Of course there are, me! What's a Metroidvania without cool bosses? So I shall show you my favorites without delay!

First is this freak (affectionate)! It is a sort of amalgamation of lots of different animals and I think it just looks plain cool! Two squid mantles combined into one, a bit of a sea angel shape, bug legs and of course a great big eyeball!

If it is not freaky enough for you, let it be known that the bug legs turn into big green skeleton hands, and it also keeps getting pinker, and it grows new eyes and then extra horns grow out of those eyes. If THAT is not freaky enough for you then I am sorry but I cannot do anything about that.

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Now, how about a sampling of this Freaken Thang? It honestly doesn't seem that sea-creature themed, but it uses seashells so I guess it counts!

What is really neat is that this boss has two different forms, upside down and rightside up! When it is upside down it looks a bit like a Magolor type creature. And of course, I really like the flame thing in the middle as well, that really feels like a Kirby enemy or something! Like a wisp made of plasma!

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Fans of Anomalocaris won't be disappointed by this one! It's a big Anomalocaris tank and boy is it cool! There's something for everyone here, whether you're an Anomalocaris purist or you've always wanted to see it turn into a sort of futuristic beast with a screen mouth that shoots lasers! It really is the future, zura...

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After covering all these wacky creatures, I'm going to have to end it off with the final boss! What could the big bad, the ultimate boss of all these sea monsters even be, I wonder? Well, it's...

...a coelecanth. Just a big coelacanth! It is big and blue! And really, does it need to be anything else? It is such an honor to make the biggest ultimate boss a coelacanth. It is even pretty cute!! Think he's smiling! 😊

Uh oh! Is it still cute? I guess so. My first thought seeing this was of course the world-renowned tongue eating isopod, so I really hope it was an intentional reference! It probably just wants to shake hands. Still, a pretty simplistic design for our final boss, right?

Buu buu! Its true form actually looks like this! Actually, it's kind of doing too much. Like let's tone it down a little?

So!! We beat the mega ultra coelacanth, and now we can find out what his motivation is! And it is... that he is the memories of the people of the past or something. And they all didn't want to be forgotten, so they turned into fish monsters! But we forgive them!

It doesn't really matter. All the girlies gather around and sing him a song. Look how happy he is! I forgot I was talking about a Love Live game until now, actually. All's well that ends well, the end, et cetera! Hit it, Yohane! [imagine this is like the end of a kids movie where all the Love Live girls are having a dance party and there is a shot of the big coelacanth in jail and he's tapping his mouth fingers along to the beat]

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

I could say that ASOIAF is a very medieval lit story at heart and you’d be like, “well no shit Sherlock, tell me something I don’t know 🙄”.

And I’d say: “Ok bet. ASOIAF’s medieval core is best exemplified through Jon Snow and Bran Stark, two distinct yet mirrored iterations of one hero-knight whose origins can be traced to Percival and his magical quest. Both are Percival (and both are potentially the grail king) but one is as close a 1:1 copy as we can get (Jon) and the other is the Percival archetype completely flipped over its head before it even begins (Bran). Jon, by the author’s own admission, is the fantasy hero in the most traditional sense. He’s Percival who was inspired by the knights and left his mother’s castle to chase after chivalric glory (Jon III AGoT), only to find out that he has a massive misunderstanding of the knight’s purpose and honor (ACOK/ASOS arcs). No one told him of the ethical dilemmas involved with being a knight. No one told him that he could meet the fair maiden and either be completely incapable of helping her (Gilly) or help her, leave her, and be burdened by her death (Ygritte). No one told him how hard it would be to have his entire world view upended and upon going back to his fellow knights and saying ‘hey friends maybe we should all re-evaluate the system in which we operate and how it might be causing us to betray the vows we swore’ he’d be met with disdain. No one told him that, like Percival, he might look back to his mother’s home and see what has become of it (and his sister whom he left) and upon making the decision to go back to it he dies before he can even get his foot out of the gate. Percival made it back home and Jon might too, but where Percival still had his mother’s shirt to remind him of his boyhood Jon had to kill the boy because the fate of the world depended on it. Jon stumbles and rises, only to stumble again. But nonetheless, he gets to be a knight. But on the other hand, there’s poor Bran! He doesn’t even get to fail at being a knight in the first place because that storyline was fucking taken from him before he could realize his dream of leaving his mother’s home. Jon at least got his call to action. Bran’s dazzling dream of knighthood doesn’t even get off the ground (quite literally). He climbs, falls immediately, and once his eyes are awakened he realizes that he is now incapable of being Percival as he’d wish to be. There’s no battling evil knights. There’s no saving fair maidens. But then he’s visited by a wizened old man who’s like ‘hey Percival, you can never be a knight but I’ll teach you how to be a mighty wizard!’ And that would be cool and all….BUT BRAN WANTS TO BE A KNIGHT GODDAMNIT! When he auditioned for the medieval lit play, he picked up the Percival/Arthur script. Yet that’s not what he ultimately got when the cast list finally got out. Because who the fuck switched it out his hero-knight script for the Merlin one??! So now he has to try and figure out how to be a knight who’s actually a wizard, and it fucking sucks y’all.”

[shiningshenanigans]

Thoughts on Loki S2E3!

Henceforth and forevermore, Loki and Mobius shall be known as “The Wizard Gentleman and His Butler”

This whole episode had such an interesting vibe. I loved the way they utilized the film/storytelling styles of the time period, with all the melodramatic acting and ragtime score. But, it was also just so different, it took me out of the story at times. I really like it when the show feels grand and ethereal and sci-fi-ish. Still feel like we’re missing some of that this season, but the tonal shifts were a cool storytelling tool nonetheless.

We don’t talk about Mobius and Ravonna enough. Their relationship fascinates me. I love how patient he is with her, how much he genuinely wants her back on his side. The parallels between them and Loki/Sylvie seem very intentional this season. (Ps. I may or may not have a theory that they were married on the timeline, and one or both of their nexus events involved Ravonna leaving him for a Kang Variant. Has anyone theorized about this before and I’m just completely late to the game, or…? Guess we’ll find out soon enough?)

I don’t know how much more of Loki and Sylvie fighting I can take. 😭They’re struggling! They need each other! They both think the other doesn’t care about them anymore and they can’t get a moment to talk about it because the universe is melting! Please, Marvel, just LET THEM REST!!! 😭😭😭

All that said, I am SO👏PROUD👏of my girl Sylvie for starting to recognize that her bloodlust is killing her from the inside out. This is exactly the kind of growth I want for her. Her heartbroken expression when she realizes that killing Timely would make her just like He Who Remains, choosing who lives and who dies for the sake of the greater good… *chefs kiss* Sophia Di Martino knocked that WHOLE PERFORMANCE out of the park. 

Also, as much as I want her and Loki to just hug and make up, I do kind of love the fact that he’s giving her the space she needs to come to these conclusions on her own. He’s been where she is (felt what she feels, etc.). He knows that no amount of persuasion on his part is going to get through to her right now, so he’s letting her figure it out while he works behind the scenes to protect her new life. He’ll be there when she’s ready to take those next steps towards reconciliation (and he better have 10,000 snuggly tablecloths ready because sweet girl needs to be cuddled. A LOT).       

Watching Miss Minutes shift from one dated style of animation to another filled my little animator heart with so much glee. And yes, that whole scene of her coming on to Timely was delightfully terrifying. 

Poor Victor Timely did not ask for any of this when he woke up this morning. Give that man a break.

Ravonna is… awful. I’ve always disliked her. But honestly, hearing her monologue about how often she put the TVA before her own happiness, how it stole her humanity from her… I’m kind of invested in her growth now. Like, I’m starting to want redemption for her, too. Huh.    

Literally everyone in this show is on the same side. They’re all just disagreeing about what the proper course of action is. My guy Mobius’s words are really impacting me right now: “We’ve all lost our way… but someone’s got to keep track of the big picture here.” If that doesn’t ring true of our world, then I don’t know what does.

[samueldays]

A friend recommended Deadworld Isekai to me the other day. To damn it with faint praise: it was good enough that I finished reading all three volumes, and the author has a solid grasp of spelling and grammar.

It has the usual LitRPG problem of re-reifying abstractions to produce weird round-trip-translation nonsense that has become the heart of the LitRPG genre, one of the most finely polished turds in the world.

The thing that stood out to me as the most 'fixable' problem, though, was the fake suspense and the fake threat. Oh no, the protagonist is in over his head, however will he survive? Oh no, the protagonist is on the verge of death, what asspull deus ex machina is going to save him now?

The cast is too small and the premise too specialized for there to be a serious threat of replacing Matt as protagonist, and once you've introduced CRPG Healing you can't threaten injury short of death, so I roll my eyes at every new danger, confident he'll be perfectly fine (and powered up!) a chapter later.

I want to contrast this with Lord of the Rings, which looms over the wider fantasy genre so much that it gets taken for granted, and I sometimes see people thinking of it in terms of the popular cliches that were copied the most. But I feel it's pretty good about threatening Frodo, and that's less copied.

At some point in The Return of the King, the reader has seen Gandalf die and Boromir die and the Fellowship broken, and then parts of the Fellowship met new cool people, and then those cool people started dying too, with Theoden bravely dead on the battlefield and Denethor horribly dead in attempted murder-suicide.

It starts to look like Frodo might die, IMO, it's genuinely plausible that Tolkien will kill off another major character at this point. The deaths are mounting, Frodo's psyche is fraying, and the savvy reader sees Sam is right there to take over if Frodo dies. The main protagonist will probably still survive because that's how stories go, but it's not all that obvious.

It looks like death when Frodo is stung by giant spider and carried off by orcs, but it's much less of a deus ex machina to hear that the spider was using paralytic venom to save a meal for later. Frodo isn't getting a sudden powerup or new ally, it's just a spider being a spider.

With no magic healing, several magic items lost, and Frodo increasingly traumatized, the quest gets closer to Mount Doom. Here Frodo puts on the Ring, which is not how these stories normally go! No heroic last-minute surge of willpower. Frodo is sick and tired, looks at the Ring of Power, and decides that in fact, he would like Power for himself.

Gollum bites Frodo's finger off, falls into the lava, and the Ring is destroyed nonetheless. Tolkien again makes it look like Frodo might really die in the resulting volcanic eruption, now that his importance to the story is over and the Ring is destroyed and the rest looks like cleanup from the army marching on Mordor in the other plot thread.

But the book isn't over yet. If you're reading Lord of the Rings in print, you can feel there's another hundred pages left to go at this point. Frodo is saved, Aragorn is crowned, our heroes are victorious, there's celebrations and marriages and vacations and songs.

Then Frodo heads home at long, long last and finds Saruman got there first and started polluting the Shire.

The last surprise is that Saruman dies really fast. The rest of the book is appendices. What, you expected a hundred pages of Frodo fighting the Shire Wizard War? Nope, we're done here! Also Frodo has to leave, Sam takes over at the very last. It's a good series of plot twists, without being a plot swerve.

[invinciblerodent]

What is Iona’s relationship with Gale? Does she have any particular thoughts or feelings about him?

Oh, thank you for asking! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

(this is kind of a misleading shot lol, but I don't have many of the two of them)

The TL; DR of it would be that by the endgame they're quite close friends (he more or less takes over her role as "leader" once she and Astarion disappear after the Brain's defeat), but I think there are always going to be at least a few things on which they don't quite see eye to eye- they're very different people, with very different approaches to magic, ambition, love, and life in general.

I haven't unpicked all the threads there yet, but I know the key point of connection and clash between them would both be magic, as it often is for wizards and sorcerers.

Iona is very new to actually using her gift of it (and comes from a background that not only didn't let her hone it, but actively forced her to try and ignore it for decades), she isn't familiar with its particulars, its ins and outs- but due to her inborn connection to the Weave, to her draconic blood, not only do her talents develop in leaps and bounds once she accesses them (to the level they should be at at her age, and then they plateau), she also feels it in a way far different from the way Gale describes it.

Wizardry is a symphony, a melody, strings to pluck in order or a sculpture to shape with careful touch, but sorcery... is something far more intrinsic, more visceral than that. It's blood, it's power, it's a living thing that thrums within her body and beats against her ribs like a heart twin to her own, yearning to be used. It's not a part of her like the Orb, or Karlach's engine- it's rather as much a part of her as Gale's ambition, or Astarion's hunger (which is an early conversation I have them having, lol). A sorcerer is not something she does, but something she is.

I think early on, he looks at her like any academic would at a savant (she's crude, yet talented- powerful but in need of shaping), while she looks at him like a fish would at a diver (a guest who belongs, but a guest nonetheless in an environment that is native to her).

Anyway, that difference in understanding kind of causes a bit of friendly tension early on, but that's sort of just an undercurrent to the understanding and respect that is otherwise present between them. (She values his knowledge, he admires her raw power, they help each other out, it's cool lol.)

Long story short I think they pretty much only figure each other out in his Last Night Alive scene- until then, she didn't quite see all that fear in him, while he maybe didn't quite see her wisdom. And sure, it's not like either of them was going out of their way to show it, but that scene is where the masks finally get put down.

I don't recall the exact lines I gave her to say in that scene (or where I wrote them lol), but it was something like "It's easy enough to forget sometimes just how young you are, Gale. I may not have the perspective of centuries in this life yet, but to experience eternity is the boon and burden of us fey folk. The lives of humans... They're already barely a flash in the pan, a plume of smoke. Don't be so eager to throw away something so fragile, yet so precious."

........... Anyway, they then proceed to have a lengthy, and uncomfortably deep conversation about life, death, and religion, and that sort of alters their relationship from a covert, yet friendly almost-rivalry, to a genuine friendship.

in another life, they could have been a very annoying couple who like, get divorced around five years in due to their irreconcilable differences. her kind of broken doesn't jive with his kind of broken, lol.

[curls101]

Tav Questions - Ralxire Edition

LIST

Listen, this is just for me lol. This is Ralxire Xarmus, he's a Teef Necromancer and an absolute greasy nightmare who I ADORE

Why did you pick the race you did for your Tav?

I am trying to play at least one character of each race in BG3 to see all the custom stuff. I'd tried to make a few Teefs and none of them were really clicking. Ralxire was my latest attempt and I adore him even though I have a LOT of teefs with red skin and black hair. He could be my first DnD character's burnout cousin. But I don't care he's perfect

Why did you pick the class you did for your Tav?

I was DYING to play a Necromancer in this game. I really love the idea of it being the "bad" or "evil" wizard, especially on a good aligned character? I think it's a class that says a lot about the character straight away. Dedicating your life to decay and undeath is not something you do if you're not profoundly weird in a lot of ways

What is your character’s moral alignment?

Probably Chaotic Neutral. He's been growing more towards Chaotic Good into act 3, but if you're romancing 'Star, you're never really getting onto the Good line of the chart.

How did you choose your Tav’s name, if you gave them a unique one?

I thought it sounded like a stage magician! I wanted a lot of harsh sounds (in actual DnD he'd be a feral tiefling, so I wanted something with a demonic twinge), but ultimately he picked his own name and picked something a kid would think was cool. I wanted it to feel like a name a ye olde snake oil salesman would use. Hense: Ralxire Xarmus

What are your character’s strongest and weakest stats (strength, charisma, etc)? 

Strongest is INT 20. Weakest is either CHA or STR (from my memory)

 What is your Tav’s origin story? 

I'll try to keep this *so* short

Street kid in Baldurs Gate. Orphan. The whole deal. Met his "sister" Oriana (made by @ms-scholars-gown-bnoc ) and joined a gang. Kept that up untill they were teens, when Oriana was "rescued" by a noble family who gave her a proper home. A little sad, Ralxire stayed - throwing himself further into his self taught wizardry - stealing what arcane supplies he needed. Established himself as a necromancer for hire. Then Oriana came back. Decided the toff life wasn't for her. So they went back to their old ways then.... Mindflayers.

That's as short as I can physically get it without going super into Ralxire's terrible dating decisions

 What was the most significant moment in your Tav’s origin story? 

Oriana leaving. Ralxire has a real protective streak and her leaving left him alone for the first time?? Ever??? It made him have to establish himself and he did that TERRIBLY. That's how he managed to become a greaseball asshole, and unfortunately also a very good necromancer. It isn't significant for good reasons, but significant nonetheless.

 What deity, if any, does your character worship? 

He respects Mystra from a distance, but you're not going to catch him saying grace.

What is your Tav’s biggest priority or goal?

It's gone through some revisions. Since the ship, it's been to restore his old powers and retrieve his old spellbook. That's a constant. Unfortunately, he's also started doing this insane thing called "caring for people"? Crazy. He'll do anything for Astarion - even want him to be better than he is. Hell, he'll become better than HE is for 'Star. Or Oriana.

He's trying, okay?

If your Tav didn’t become an adventurer, what else would they be doing?

NECROMANCY :D

What is your Tav’s most used weapon or spell? 

In canon, it's probably Animate Dead or Necrotic touch. In practice, I think it's actually Haste, because I'm a filthy support wizard and I cannot be stopped

What is your Tav’s favorite school of magic/weapon type?

You got one guess.

How does your Tav fight in a combat situation?

More in the mix than your average wizard! He's not formally trained and a little scrappy - a solid handful of his spells are extensions of his claws. He'll be in the mix, throwing out what he can while concentrating on some support spell that makes Oriana into an absolute monster. Paladins, man....

 Does your Tav know any other languages besides Common? 

Infernal, Abyssal and probably a handful of the Primordials? Contrary to the way he acts and behaves, he is actually smart

 If your Tav could/does multiclass, what other class would they choose?

I feel Sorcerer is cheating somehow.... But I truly cannot imagine him multiclassing. Being a wizard is so much of who he is? His life would be a lot more convienient if he was a sorcerer tbh.

Which of the companions does your Tav trust most?

 He does trust Astarion. He does. But also it's gotta be Halsin. There's no world it isn't Halsin. Either that or La'zel, because she's always gunna have Oriana's best interests at heart.

Which of the companions does your Tav distrust most?

In truth, this was ALL of the companions in Act 1. Ralxire doens't trust easy. I'm going to cheat my way out of this by saying Jahira and Minsc, just because they're newest.

 Who is your Tav’s biggest rival?

Mystic Carrion. Well, he's the biggest FINANCIAL competition. They run the same grift. The true answer is probably Cazador, for obvious Astarion reasons

 Who is your Tav romancing, if anyone?

Astarion. Also Halsin, when they're feeling spicy. But 'Star is the love of his damn life, because he has terrible taste and I love that for them

If you’re romancing anyone, why did your Tav fall for them? And why did that character fall for your Tav?

Not even joking: They're both as bad as each other

Astarion obviously moved on Ralxire for manipulation reasons. I'm not going to give Mr No Wisdom the credit of thinking he saw through that. But there's something to nefarious company. Ralxire is a little more cutthroat than his sister. He's had a bad time since she left. So it's nice to feel his defensive impulses (and frequent fits of just sarcastic and mean comments) are appreciated by someone. They would often be at the back of the group, muttering, judging and getting up to crime. They weren't good like everyone else. The rest was inevitable

 If you’re romancing anyone, who fell first and who fell harder?

Oh, Ralxire. This is the stuff that makes me insane, actually. So Ralxire's not a complete idiot. He knows his taste is bad. He knows guys like 'Star don't stick around. So he falls early - but he has NO illusions about it ever being reciprocated. He sees it as a flaw in himself - that deep down, under all the nastyness, he's still so so loving and caring, despite his best efforts. He doesn't expect 'Star to feel anything at all. He's waiting for him to move on.

Fortunately, Astarion falls like a meteor when he does.

 How does your Tav act around their crush?

Completely normal. See above. He's just a taaaad more protective in ways that will likely go unnoticed by most

 What is your Tav’s favorite moment they’ve had with their lover?

When Astarion told him he wanted their relationship to be real. When he levelled with him about the realities of his attractions. Because it was such a sigh of relief for him. He didn't have to pretend to care less - to pretend he was happy with only having sex. Astarions issues with intimacy were something they could work through - and 'Star wanted to work through it WITH him. As a team. It was the best.

 What is your Tav attracted to? What are their turn-ons and turn-offs? 

Terrible men is his type. If a man is transparently bad for him, Ralxire is all about it. But there has to be some kernel of goodness or they don't get to sleep over.

 Does your Tav have any biases against other classes or races? 

Of course, traditional Sorcerer vs Wizard beef must be observed. Especially because Oriana is part Sorc. Sibling rivalry is no joke.

 What is the most prominent color in your Tav’s color scheme?

Red and Black the whole way down. Sometimes I'll throw in some blue for contrast

 What is their sense of humor like?

Driest sarcasm in the west. The kind where you think they're not joking, just being an asshole out of nowhere. When he's around family, he is partial to a dad joke but he wouldn't be caught dead making one

 What is your Tav’s guilty pleasure?

I think in reality, Ralxire would indulge in every vice availble to man, but he wouldn't be guilty about it. I think he reads nonfiction for fun. I think he uses the mending cantrip to fix his friend's clothes while they're asleep. I think he really likes fancy food and deserts. That's the stuff he'd feel guilty about.

 How easily offended are they? How do they act when offended?

My man has a temper and takes most things as a direct insult to his pride. He has an ego that could eclipse the sun. There's a lot of snarling and exhaling smoke through the nose. There's a lot of saying the first insult that comes to mind. There's a lot of just blurting out the most hurtful shit you can think of as a reflex.

He's... not great at keeping friends. He's working on it.

 How does your Tav react when someone insults their friend/partner?

TIME FOR VIOLENCEEE

As I've said, Ralxire is BIG TIME protective. He's normally chill letting everyone else handle things, but if someone starts squaring up or targeting Oriana or 'Star? Violence.

 How does your Tav dress for different occasions, like very fancy situations?

Ah, Ralxire's nightmare. He's a street rat - he's never been anywhere remotely fancy. If Astarion doesn't dress him, he'd wear the tackiest, most Look I Have Money getup he could steal. Ralxire is not blessed with drip

 How did your Tav get their scars, if they have any?

Oh boy. Ralxire does have facial scarring. Yes, he did it himself. Yes, it was a choice that he then tatted over AND grew facial hair. His lower jaw is a disaster

 What is your Tav’s relationship with their family?

Blood family is nonexistant. Oriana is his closest thing. They've had...bumps. But Ralxire doesn't really care about that. He defends what he has

 What is your Tav’s opinion on nobility and authority?

No respectable lower city kid LIKES either. Ralxire is no exception. Sorry, Wyll

 How does your Tav react to wearing the Wavemother’s robe? How do they react to their partner wearing it?

I can't remember if this is how we discovered Ralxire has an incredible ass BUT HE REALLY DOES. He'd be down - Ralxire has absolutely no body shame at all. He wears a harness to relax. There's a naked statue of him at camp. He doesn't wear underwear. He's nasty as hell and everyone else has to deal with it.

'Star or Halsin wearing it would go exactly the way you think it would.

 What is your Tav’s favorite type of environment? Like in a tavern, a library, out in the wilderness, underground, etc.

Lower City favoured terrain. Taverns, dirty sewer hideouts, nasty waterfront warehouses. Places that aren't too nice make him feel....out of place. Halsin is helping with that, on the nature front. Though, a necromancer is only ever going to be so comfortable in nature

 What would your Tav’s Zodiac sign be?

My brain said Scorpio reflexively, but unfortunately I think he's inherited my Aries sun / Taurus moon combo.

 What is their favorite season?

Autumn. Cool. Everything is dying. It's in his colour pallet. What more could you want?

 Where in the world does your Tav want to visit the most?

I think he'd do a big city tour. Waterdeep, Neverwinter.... I think he'd seek out cool magic places. He does love Baldur's Gate secretly though

 What is the biggest mistake your Tav ever made?

Looking into Litchdom because "it's what Necromancers do"

 What animal best represents your Tav?

Impulse said Rat and I think that's maybe correct? A giant rat. The biggest rat you've ever seen.

 What flower/tree/plant best represents your Tav?

It's too easy to say Corpse Flower? I do think it's apt, actually. Massive for seemingly no reason. Smells bad. Obsessed with dead and decaying things. Looks like a massive dick

 What does your Tav smell like? 

Embalming fluid, probably.

 What song best represents your Tav?

Bonus for Ralxire x Astarion from my playlist for them

 What would be your Tav’s favorite music genre?

There is no world in which Ralxire would not have the worst drum and bass you've ever heard blaring 24/7 irl

 What role would your Tav play in a highschool AU? (nerd, jock, bully, goth, etc)

Dropout/Burnout with bonus He's Secretly Smart trope

 What is the most important item your Tav has?

His spellbook. Really, any book he gets his hands on. But his old and new spellbooks really contrast who he was with who he is now. Like, sure, his old one has Finger of Death in it. But now he has buffing spells! That he casts on other people! He learned spells to help others! Groundbreaking territory

 Where does your Tav feel most at home?

Lower City waterfront. The area of Baldur's Gate with all the monsters in it

 What is your Tav’s philosophy on life?

It would be something like "We're all getting fucked so we might as well enjoy it". He's got that optimistic pessimism going on

 Does your Tav think more with their heart or their brain?

He'd love it if it was his Brain. It would improve his life. Unfortunately he is only ever guided by his heart, his ego or his dick.

 What does your Tav want in their future? (domestic bliss, more adventure, a family, etc)

There was a time where he wanted to be immortal. Now, he mostly wants to give Astarion the best damn life he can until he's gone.

 What is your Tav’s worst fear?

The loss of what little he has - mostly his family

 Is your Tav easily tricked or deceived?

Not necissarily - but he is EASILY swayed by flattery.

 If your Tav was granted a single wish, what would it be?

More wishes. The wish spell in his spellbook. Some loophole bullshit like that

 How does your Tav feel about keeping secrets, both their own and others?

Sure, why not? You've got your reasons and I've got mine.

 How would your Tav react to a love confession?

If it was unrecipricated, it would be the best day of his life. He'd be so happy because he's been given a gift. If reciptrocated, see above answer about Star

 What are your Tav’s biggest insecurities?

Ralxire is more insecurity than man. He is insecure about how much he cares, primarily. Again, he's all ego. A lot of work goes into preserving that

 What decision would your party have to make in order for Tav to consider splitting off from the group?

Honestly, I think the fact I couldn't think of anything is telling. But he does have a soft spot for his fellow teefs. I think if they'd murdered the tiefling refugees, he'd have quitely slipped away the night after

 What is your Tav’s favorite food?

Anything insanely filling. Curries. Stews. That sort of thing. Most of his diet is unfortunately alcohol though

 How generous is your Tav, especially to those they don’t know?

Almost 0%. Maybe a little if you catch him being sentimental

 If an evil character told your Tav that they wanted to change and help them, would they believe it?

Not on your life. Ralxire mistrusts the nicest people on earth

 What meme describes your Tav the best?

I've somehow forgotten every meme ever made by mankind. Maybe....

What does your Tav want to be remembered by?

Outside of existing fondly in the memories of the people he loves, I don't think Ralxire cares much about being remembered.

 What Tarot Card best represents your Tav?

The Chariot (reversed) or The King of Wands (reversed)

 What would be your Tav’s major in college?

I actually answered this here

but tldr Ralxire would be working towards a PHD in Biology or Pathology

 Does your Tav consider themselves a hero, villain, victim or something else?

I think he would rather obstain. Though a bit like 'Star, there's something really funny about considering him a hero even a little bit

 How good is your Tav at giving advice? How good are they at following it themselves?

Good and terrible respectively

 How does your Tav get along with each party member?

Gale - > Inherent Wizard Rivalry is a big barrier here Wyll - > Too good to be true, for Ralxire. He's coming around Lazell - > She loves his sister and that's enough for him Astarion - > See any other answer. Loves more than anything Halsin - > The only grounding force he's ever had and he needed it SO MUCH. Adores sharing him with 'Star. Adores their strange, haphazard relationship. Adores how much he's not his usual type. Karlach - > Banter buds Shadowheart - > They hated each other for no clear reason, but now they bully each other with some affection in it

 What are your Tav’s other hobbies?

He will read anything at all - but likes Philosophy because it's structured arguing.

 (Free Spot: Ask any question you’d like!)

Ralxire's favourite way to end a day is to cuddle the shit out of Astarion while he reads aloud. 'Star gets to listen to his voice rumble and 'Xire gets to play with his hair. Astarion pretends to fall asleep, then Ralxire bundles them both up. Perfection

[cinset]

hello!! i’m happy to see a new mhyk writing blog c: may i request something fluffy/romantic (headcanons or a fic whichever you prefer!) for rutile with a gn reader? sorry this is too general anything would be fine i just want to kees her so bad hehe thank you and i hope you have a great day!! 💗

✎⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

SO SORRY FOR THE WAIT!! decided to go with headcanons for this one. Sorry there are only 10 :( I loove rutile and I hope i did him justice nonetheless.

switching between she/her and he/him for rutile! hope that’s ok!

✎⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

Rutile’s content to do pretty much anything with you! As a Southern Wizard, he’s happy just to be in your presence. He’s a good story teller and enjoys just chatting.

Rutile teaching you how to do calligraphy & guiding your hand. Being patient and gently correcting your mistakes. He’s a good teacher, after all!

Rutile taking you to her mana area, a flower garden, and weaving flower crowns together with you:)

All of his gifts to you are handmade! He always puts in loads of effort and it shows. Nothing makes Rutile happier than seeing you happy after receiving something from her:) Or… sometimes when she returns from missions she’ll bring you something from nature that reminds her of you. Like a bouquet or a cool rock. Gotta love a person who brings you cool rocks.

Adding on, I think he’d make you a pair earrings:) now you match!

Surprisingly strong! She’ll pick you up without hesitation.

You’re his muse! When he’s out of drawing ideas, his mind goes straight to you. Much of his sketchbook is filled with little doodles of you:) Sometimes he’ll have you pose for him and he just. Mindlessly compliments you as he draws or paints. He can’t help it!

She’ll bring you tea and snacks when you’re working. She’s very supportive of your endeavors.

Forehead kisses & back hugs :3

Knows all the best spots in Southern country! Takes you to cute cafes and beautiful outdoor areas.

✎⋆.ೃ

[justsomerandomfanfic]

Fanfic Friday - 2/17/23

(More fics may be added in time)

What A Surprise - Wade Wilson X GN Reader (Winner of the poll) - Requested; Reader normally doesn't wear their glasses much, prefering contacts, but after misplacing them, they have to use their glasses. Wade's never seen them with their glasses before, and is pleasently surprised when he gets back from kicking some baddie butt.

Mascot - Sirius Black X Female Reader (Modern AU); Reader plays the mascot for the high school football team. After a game, Reader takes off the mascot mask. Sirius Black, the Wide Receiver of the team; The Wolverine Wizards, is surprised when he sees you after the game. "I didn't realize you were a girl," He spoke up. "Or pretty."

Burning Flame (Part 2 of Just A Kiss) Johnny Storm X Female Reader - Requested; Going to the lab the next day after the Reader's kiss with Johnny was stressful. She didn't know if her kiss with Johnny was a one-time thing or if that had meant they were a thing. At the lab, Reader tries and question Johnny, but work kind of gets in the way.

Frost Castle (Part 2 of Superstar Fame) Steve Harrington X Female (Celebrity) Reader - Requested; Steve and the Reader go to Frost Castle, a small diner the next town over. The date is going well until the Reader is recognized and the paparazzi ruins your date.

Endless Love - Faramir X GN Reader - Requested; Reader is of noble blood, their mother sent them straight off to marry Boromir, but the Reader had no want to marry the man. Once at Gondor, the Reader runs into Faramir, and it's love at first sight. Though the Reader is betrothed to Boromir, the Reader sneaks off to meet Faramir. But what happens when Faramir and the Reader get caught?

Manic Monday - Wade Wilson X GN Reader - Requested; Reader loves helping and taking care of people, especially at work. But after weeks of working, staying overtime, and even working some weekends... Wade wants the Reader to take a nice deserved break. And he will get them to take a break, even if it kills him.

Monsters vs Aliens - Scott Lang X Daughter Reader - Requested; Being the oldest daughter of Ant-Man was fun, to say the least. He was a cool dad, sort of weird, and a bit cringy at times, but Reader loved him nonetheless. But, one day at school, before a big test, the Reader begins to grow, and grow, and grow...

Stars - Faramir X GN Reader - Requested; Reader had been friends with Faramir since they were both very little. They would do everything together, play together, eat together, and even prank Denethor's guards together. But Faramir has a secret... He is in love with his best friend, and te Reader is too oblivious to see it.

Requests Are Open

[miraakulous-cloud-district]

For the in character ask meme if you're still doing it 🥺 For my dear Ravonna: What is your favorite place in all of Skyrim? Also, do you want to marry me?

My dear, of course I'm still doing it! It's such a joy to get asks like these and let Ravvy talk!

Link to the ask game.

And now I'm passing the mic to Ravonna 🤣

🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮

I love these little things you guys call emoji! Look, a tiny fire spell! 🔥🔥

Worry not! The other question was about where I would go in all of Tamriel! So this one's different!

Soooooo favourite place in Skyrim. I like Winterhold for the College of mages! Although, I must say that I kind of disappointed me? It's not as spectacular as the Mages Guild in Vivec or Saldrith Mora, but it is still nice, nonetheless! Pretty much the only place in Skyrim where people won't judge me for being a mage or giving weird looks to my wizard robes.

Another place that I like, aesthetically speaking is Markarth. However, I spent very little time in there, and when I did, I woke up in the temple of Dibella with the priestesses scolding me, someone got stabbed at the market and a guy tried to convince me to enter a haunted house, but alas, me and the fellowship were too busy getting the fuck out of there. I hope the guy exorcised that house or whatever.

My, my, my, you flatter me so! I'd love that! We'd have a nice wedding party with lots of mead! However, we cannot do it in a temple of Mara. I'm pretty sure she hates me. I kind of... sort of got fake married twice and once to a hagraven while drunk. Now every time I pass by a statue I kind of get this gag reflex? Weird. Not cool. But maybe Sanguine can help us? He gave me his staff, after all. I think he likes me! Hold on, Lucien's telling me Miraak is crying. I'm probably gonna have to check on him. Says something about breaking his heart? I have no idea why? It's probably a prank or something. But before I go, I must say that your comments always make me smile! Thank you so much for reading about my adventures and bad decisions! 🔮🍻🍺🍹🍸🍷🍾🍾🥃🥂✨️🎶🪘🕯🏅🏆🎁🎊🧿🪄🪄🎯🎮🎼🎵🎙🎤

[just-another-colin-kinnie]

Oh yeah I should probably explain Prince Walnut, Wizard Sr, and what they both have to do as Almond’s dads

this is surprisingly longer than the last one so bare with me

So after Prince Walnut ran away from the Macadamian kingdom at 8, he was found wandering the forest and grew up to become the police chief of wherever he ended up. He chased Roguefort’s mom (my bf made her, can’t tell you much), but grew lonely as SHIT. All he had was jewel thief chasing fr. So he baked. Sonora Almond was real !!! He was good for about 5 years before he noticed Sonora being so so lonely ….. so he decided he was gonna bake again and give his little cookie a sibling to play with 💪 but this time, he didn’t have what he needed. He thought Sonora would be enough so he gave away his cookie cutter like a dummy.

So he went to a witch. Everyone knew of a nice witch at the time who helped cookies bake when they didn’t have the right ingredients, so that’s where he was headed. He was right, of course, Marigold the witch was very nice and helped him bake the little cookie of his dreams. She DID cut it a little weird but still got it done regardless. She put it in the oven and headed off to do something.

By the time the cookie was done and the bell rang, a witch came back to get it out for him. PW wasn’t too concerned with the witch. What he was concerned about was the fact that… his baby came out a dough blob. No facial features, a weird crease in the middle, just a blob in the vague shape of a cookie. He held his new baby in the blanket he brought for it, distraught, but caring for it nonetheless. But it immediately began acting strange… it made sounds, he could hear it, but they sounded muffled??

His blob wiggled vigorously until the crease down the middle opened and revealed… two! Two cookies! They were baked stuck together and wailed when they split apart. Guess Marigold accidentally used the cookie cutter on a fold of the dough. He felt VAST relief, and actually got more excited than he was before. Two two two!!!

But then he felt like… he was going up rather slowly? Nooo, can’t be right. He finally got out of his baby centered world and realized the witch, who was definitely NOT Marigold, picked him up by grabbing his torso and was going slowly so he didn’t notice at all. He tied the blanket on his sword, very much concealed to look like a staff (it was a gift from Prunus and disguised so Macadamia didn’t get mad at him for giving her kid a sword).

He gently yet hurriedly used this to lie his babies down on the counter and dropped his sword down to their side once he successfully did it. Very not long after… the witch ate him. Leaving his poor twins alone on the counter, crying in a blanket.

Thank goodness, before the mean witch could consume them too, an ally of her’s left his hut (Cookies very much lived in the witch’s hut in peace at the time) to investigate a crying noise that was disturbing his work.

Wizard Cookie Sr. Simply known as Wizard or Cool Whip Cookie back then.

Of course, he hurried once he realized there were small children left alone on the ground and asked the witch present what happened. Double of course, the witch claimed ignorance and said she was coming to investigate the crying too, which he believed since she was his friend, why would she lie about poor freshly baked cookies on the counter?

He took the babies back inside his hut and it was there he had officially claimed guardianship of them. He dubbed them (California) Almond Cookie and Marcona Almond Cookie.

He raised them to the best of his abilities until their 20s, where he grew anxious that they would leave him soon, and decided to bake himself.

Wizard Cookie, or Ice Cream Cookie as he knew him.

Tragedy struck only two weeks after he baked his new child. The Great Witch Hut Escape.

Cookies who lived in the Witch’s but found out on mass that the mean witch ATE cookies, when a young cookie named Dozer had been eaten and the whole plain cookie tribe saw and all fled simultaneously, no longer feeling safe, with other tribes following suite. Many were eaten during the ruckus.

Unfortunately including Wizard Cookie Sr.

All his children survived but his twins were rushed to a healer’s ward down below, having suffered severe injuries after falling out the window of the hut and being discovered by a very young Almond Milk Cookie, just barely 5 and without any other family… weird…

Almond and Marcona were unable to claim Wizard. Wizard was found in their abandoned family home. Marcona was out cold and Almond was greatly dosed up on healing magic, so he was unable to catch that that was his new brother, so he was sent off to an orphanage.

Almond Milk was not separated from them though. She was able to claim Almond was her dad and that she knew him.

That ends both tales of Prince Pedro Walnut and Wizard Cookie Sr. though… for now.

[1kook]

disney+ & bust

this is part of my netflix & chill collection !

summary; There’s a pounding on your door a little past noon, so hard and rough, that you almost think it’s the police finally coming to catch you for all your years of illegally pirating Phineas and Ferb. It’s not. It’s just a really drunk boyfriend wailing for your forgiveness at the door.  warnings; arguments, feelings of insecurity, bit of asshole jk, smut in the forms of degradation, dumbification, choking, fingering, spit kink, self punishment, unprotected but [ passionate ] sex, jk losing his cool, return of mean jk, he is actually an emotional mess in this one wtf miscellaneous; ANGST, anniversaries, the L word😳, app developer kook, rip ‘pretty girl’ </3, we all become phineas and ferb stans word count; 13k !!

notes; me: *writes couple who’s whole arc is being silly* y’all: MAKE THEM SUFFER GIVE US ANGST!! u ask I deliver so now we all suffer 😐 ngl it was hard writing this fic n u might notice there’s some parts that seem weird n that’s bc this was TWO fics w diff wording but I ended up mixing them bc I’m insane. still had a lot of fun! felt like I challenged myself!! not proofread bc when I say we suffer we SUFFER

please let me know what you think!!! a simple ask goes a long way <3

previous part: kissanime & foreplay

Approximately one week after The Bullet Bestie’s rise to prominence, Jungkook grows annoyed with it as his weirdly competitive nature rears its ugly head the more and more orgasms that little vibrator coaxes out of you. It turns on a weird switch in him, something slightly stuck up and snooty that he’ll never admit to out loud but is there nonetheless. By the following Friday, The Bullet Bestie is nestled deep in your garbage can and Jungkook’s back to pleasuring you with his tongue and fingers alone.

He had those moments in him, the ones where he liked to think he was better than any and everyone else, and occasionally they manifested against inanimate objects like a bullet vibrator.

Despite his polite and generally soft exterior, you catch glimpses of that cocky spirit more than anyone else. Over the past year, you’ve come to realize that Jungkook’s personality was like a coin that had been left out in the sun too long. He had this sweet and reserved nature you saw most times, a kindhearted boyfriend who adored you almost as much as you adored him. He was your angel whom you knew had a heart of gold, even if you were slowly bringing out his more childish tendencies. You knew him like the back of your hand, knew what his mom’s favorite color was and how he liked to stack the plates in his cabinet according to size and make. It was a side that was rusted from years of being out in the sun, basking in its adoring warmth, and you loved every inch about it.

And still, there was this other side to him you rarely saw. This cocky asshole who hid beneath the soft smiles and careful hands, making his appearance only through sly smirks and a tongue prodding against the inside of his cheek. He was a braggart, a man who knew his greatness yielded for no one and wanted that fact shoved down everyone’s faces. This Jungkook, this other side that never saw the light of day, was like the Hyde to his Jekyll. An unexpected, almost mean side to him that only dared make his appearance when his exhilaration was at an all-time high. Like when he was fucking you into another dimension, or kicking your ass in Mario Kart, or like now, when he was receiving an award at an annual tech ceremony.

On the eve of your one year anniversary, Jungkook’s company invites him to an awards ceremony for other web and app developers like him. It’s a grand event, filled with all the biggest nerds in the developing industry here to present the baby nerds with awards. Jungkook lies somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, both a seasoned player and a rookie all at once. He spends the night tolling you around in a floor-length gown and fangirling over all the “legends” in the room.

You know next to none of these people and none of their accomplishments but still pretend you respect them to hell and back. By the end of the main dinner, you’re sympathizing with Barbie’s ever-smiling features because your cheeks feel sore.

Towards the end of the night, Jungkook wins that random award— okay, who were you fooling? He wins the Platinum Mobile Standard of Excellence Award, recognizing him for all the hard work you’ve seen him put in this past year. It’s probably the highest recognition he can receive at this point in his career. It was an esteemed award that was bestowed upon only the most innovative developer of the year among tech companies, something Jungkook had briefly mentioned he always wanted. It’s basically the equivalent of placing first place in his field, but given Jungkook’s competitive industry and his young age, you think it’s like telling all these old Facebook lords to suck his big fat cock. (But that was your job when you got home.)

He gives a short little thank you speech, promising to work hard and own up to this title. The people around you are swooning, obviously endeared with his soft puppy dog features and melodic voice. They don’t know him like you do, don’t know that uppity twist to his grin like you do. It doesn’t slip off his face even when he steps down off the stage, arms wide open as he comes barreling towards you. Even with you in his arms, the congratulations that are thrown from every direction ring loudly in his ears and swell that ego of his.

The night goes like that for the most part, Jungkook’s acquaintances approaching him every few minutes to rain down their praises. He goes a little crazy at the open bar after a while, shoving the gold trophy into your arms as his beloved work seniors whisk him off for drinks. You don’t mind because you resigned yourself to a night of playing Jungkook’s perfectly perfect partner anyway, watching him politely mingling with his coworkers. Despite his earlier success, you know he won’t brag about it verbally. No, he’ll wait until the two of you get home—your place or his—and remind you how amazing he is with a quick snap of his hips.

As you said, he’ll never boast aloud.

However, that doesn’t mean you won’t.

“That’s my boyfriend,” you explain to the seventh person that greets you that night, excitedly pointing to where said boyfriend was slowly losing all sense of self by the bar. You don’t know anyone here beside Jungkook, and you’re pretty sure no one in their hammered minds is going to remember who you are anyway, so a little gloating never hurt anyone. “He won the ‘I’m Better Than Everyone Else’ award tonight,” you emphasize to the tipsy woman beside you who only laughs at your exaggeration. You assume she’s like you, accompanying one of the many developers here, because as soon as you finish boasting about Jungkook she moves to brag about someone too.

Truth be told, you spend the whole night re-analyzing the Zootopia movie you saw on Disney+ the other night in your head. So if the little fox fellow didn’t control himself would the city have fallen to ruins? Why was the useless sheep girl so evil and bitter? Why was there an unreal amount of romantic tension between the fox and the rabbit? Whatever, you’ll have to rewatch it some other night, and with your new Disney+ account, you could watch it anywhere you wanted to.

Now, you had never bothered to purchase a Disney+ subscription or even tried to swindle Jungkook for his password before. As far as you know, Disney+ was filled with old tv shows from your childhood, sitcoms that made you laugh when you were ten. There’s nothing wrong with that, but personally, you were a firm believer that that which was perfect should not be touched once finished; in other words, you were utterly terrified you’d rewatch an old episode of The Wizards of Waverly Place, only to find out the same joke you’ve been regurgitating for the past ten years doesn’t actually go that way.

However, the harsh reality was that Disney+ was good for a few things. Ugh, you hate when giant corporations provide decent services. Aside from Zootopia, you’ve watched about every animated media on there as well, all of which you replay in your mind as Jungkook has the time of his life with these nerds, knocking back champagne glass after champagne glass.

Anyway, the night ends a little past midnight, and Jungkook who is buzzed on alcohol and high on exhilaration ends up calling an Uber for the two of you. Your apartment— the new one he had not only helped you hunt for but also helped you move into, greatly cutting the cost of movers out with those glistening biceps and thick thighs —is still going through her rebellious phase where the potted plants are trying to take over, courtesy of Kim Namjoon. So for now, there’s a potted plant in an awkward corner that both of you stub your toe against on your way to your bedroom.

You’re thinking Jungkook is going to go to town tonight, given the fact he’s on Cloud 9 and has had his ego stroked by a bunch of dudes for the past couple hours. Maybe you guys can try out the hot role-playing scenario you saw on GirlsWay a few weeks ago, or the handcuffs you impulsively bought from Amazon one Monday night. Or maybe, and this one really makes you flutter, he’ll let you fully take the reins for once.

All those lewd fantasies end up being for naught because just as you shimmy out of your gown (with the help of his hands, of course) and turn to climb him like a tree, he’s on the other side of the room getting your makeup remover out for you. And also talking. A lot. And way more than usual.

“Did you see him, babe?” he sighs, dare you to say, dreamily, handing you the cotton pads as he begins pulling a million pins out of your hair. Slowly and with a lot of confusion, you pull your fake lashes off and begin cleaning your face. “He was amazing.”

“Uh-huh,” you say, having absolutely no idea who ‘he’ is or why Jungkook is so in love with him and not you at this very moment. “But so were you,” you add. Perfect. Stroke his ego and then stroke his cock.

Jungkook sputters at your praise. He’s carefully placing your hairpins on your thigh, cheeks flaming red every time he leans over you. “Was I?” he murmurs, voice sweet in that cute little way it always gets when he’s downed one too many shots of whiskey, enough to be buzzed but not enough to be wasted.

You turn and the pins clatter to the floor and across the bedsheets. “Yes,” you confirm, ignoring his sad huff at the mess you’ve made. Instead, you grab him by the collar of that pink button-up he taunted you with all night. “You were fucking incredible and I think incredible men deserve to have their dick sucked.”

Jungkook laughs at your vulgar statement, holding you gently by the hips as you climb into his lap. “Is that so?” The soft, shy persona is gone now, replaced by the gentle stirring beneath his dress pants. You nod hurriedly, plopping down on his lap and running your hands through his styled hair.

“Yes,” you confirm, kissing the corner of his mouth. “Luckily for you, I know this nymphomaniac who would gladly gobble up your cock at your every command.”

He snorts just as you push him into his back, nose adorably scrunched up. “First of all, you know I hate that word,” he chuckles, finally gracing you with a sweet peck that only makes you want him to fuck you into the fifth dimension. “Secondly, please don’t ever say you’ll gobble my cock up ever again.”

Something inside of you squeals with excitement as he rolls the two of you over, firm body pressing down on yours. “Oh, baby,” you groan, lazily throwing a leg over his hip. Jungkook grins and then decides to entertain you for a few minutes with a sloppy kiss.

You say a few minutes because just as things are heating up, he pulls away. He smiles apologetically. “As much as I’d love to be here with you, I actually have an early morning tomorrow.”

You frown at the sudden change in events. “Huh? They’re gonna make you work the morning after a Gatsby party?” you gasp, sitting up as he gets off of you. With every step he takes away from the bed your heart breaks a little more. “They can’t do that— that’s illegal!”

From the doorway he levels you with a comically raised brow. “No, it’s not.”

You scamper after him down the hall, watch the muscles in his back flex as he pulls his suit jacket on. “You can’t work on our anniversary— that’s illegal!” you offer instead.

He stops at your front door, feet squeezed back into his shoes. “Baby, it’s not,” he rolls his eyes, leaning down to peck your forehead. “It was either I work in the morning or work at night,” he explains, giving your messy hair a soothing caress. He’s looking at you with those eyes, the ones that make your heart lodge itself into your throat and make life a tightrope experience. There’s a devastatingly lovesick part of you that wants this moment, this kind face, to be engraved into your mind for the rest of your life. You want this to be the first and last thought you have and nothing else: just Jungkook’s adoring gaze on you for the rest of time.

The moment ends too soon when he flutters one last peck against your lips. “I’ll be done in the afternoon, okay?”

You pout. “Okay, your place?” you huff, making sure to get one last octopus squeeze around his waist. He nods. “Promise you won’t be late?”

The corners of his gaze soften. “You know I won’t,” he smiles, leaning down to bump your noses together playfully. “Can’t stay away from my pretty girl too long. Besides, I have a gift for you tomorrow.”

It’s with that sentiment and a hammering heart that you let him go. With Jungkook gone, there’s really nothing for you to do now. You took the next two days off in preparation for your anniversary sex, so you don’t have to head to sleep early like usual.

With nothing else planned, you decide on rewatching that Zootopia movie that had plagued you all night, ready to dissect every plot hole to hell and back. You don’t think Jungkook’s seen this movie yet so you add it to your long list of animated movies you’re forcing him to watch.

Part of you is actually really surprised Jungkook left. Well, kinda sorta, very, but not really. Jungkook was a good boy, that much was obvious. He took his job seriously, and if his job wanted him to come in at the asscrack of dawn, then he’d come in before the sun even rose. He was a goody-two-shoes, but even so, you were occasionally able to bring out that darker side in him.

Jungkook working, like actually working in an office setting, was pretty rare though. The dude had a chill job that let him stay home most of the time, and essentially clock in whenever he wanted. Every now and then you were able to convince him to stay, tucking him beneath your body or the covers, depending on the night, and refusing to let him go the morning after.

Once he had eaten you out until the wee hours of the day, ravenous between your thighs, and then went to work the next morning like he hadn’t broken you. Another time you had persuaded him into watching every season of the 2017 DuckTales reboot through the night. When the alarm had rung in the middle of the season finale, he had simply gotten into your shower and gone off to work.

So maybe you were a little confident in your skills, and Jungkook slipping between your fingers tonight was a huge bummer. But there was no use crying over spilled milk, you tell yourself, flinging your bra off somewhere in the corner as you snuggle back into your sheets. You’re ready to tear this Zootopia movie apart, scene by scene.

Even though your apartment is a little cold, you’re comforted by the fact Jungkook will be here to keep you warm all day tomorrow.

All men do is lie.

Despite his promise to come home early the next day, Jungkook ends up lying. The meeting he had been in all morning— the same one that had stopped you from getting bent like a pretzel the night before —drags on well past noon. Then, Kim Namjoon, AKA Jungkook’s favorite senpai in the entire world, catches wind of Jungkook’s success last night and absolutely has to take him out to lunch to celebrate.

You scoff, glaring down at your phone and the impulsive messages you’d sent out an hour ago when Jungkook had first texted you telling you he would be late.

You whirl around to stomp off in the direction of his living room, where all of yours and Jungkook’s favorite foods were growing colder by the minute. You had spent the longest time carefully laying them out, making sure the fried chicken was closer than the pizza but not closer than the breadsticks. Truthfully it’s a nightmare. There are about eight stomach aches worth of food sitting on his coffee table, the greasy stench makes you gag and will certainly stick to your hair for weeks, but none of that mattered because it was all for your beau.

Your very late beau who was making you grow more and more agitated with each minute that passed. Ugh! How inconsiderate of him to test your patience on a day like this. You didn’t want to be upset with him, but this was your first, real milestone as a couple with him. You had wanted to spend the whole day cuddled up, maybe finally tell him how much he really meant to you— definitely not waking up alone with eyeliner crusted eyes and an aching heart.

Deciding you’re being a little too dramatic, you head into the bedroom to calm down. This was fine, you tell yourself, carefully laying out the damn near harlotrous lingerie you had yet to put on. Jungkook would come over soon and everything would be A-okay.

Except for the part it’s actually F-not okay because soon it’s nearing sunset and the food has gone cold so you’ve stocked it into the fridge, and the pretty sheer bra has a wonky wire that’s two seconds away from piercing through your heart, but that doesn’t even matter because Jungkook being late for your all-day anniversary celebration has already ripped it to shreds anyway.  

You plop down on the couch in defeat, impulsively opening up the Disney+ app to cry through another episode of Phineas and Ferb. You’ve abandoned the satin robe that came with the lingerie in favor of donning a big t-shirt that smells like him and makes your heart hurt even more. The setting sun paints the living room in muted oranges, the chirping of birds outside the soundtrack to your lonely day.

You end up watching some other cartoon on Disney+, avoiding the Marvel section because you had promised Jungkook he could be there when you lost your Marvel virginity. Well, at least one of you was good at keeping promises, you think bitterly. For a second, you think about randomly watching one of the infamous MCU films out of order just to spite him. But then you think of that soft puppy gaze and how disappointed he’d be in you.

Whatever! It wouldn’t ever match up to the way you felt now.

Anyway, you circle back. When you’re five episodes into Phineas and Ferb you hear the doorknob rattle.

You sit up just as the door swings open, visible from your spot on the couch. He meets your gaze almost immediately, big doe eyes caught in the act. What act? You’re not really sure. In fact, you don’t even know what you’re looking at when he walks in because he’s drowning in shopping bags. His lips twist into a grin. “Honey, I’m home,” he says playfully.

You don’t laugh.

Jungkook frowns, dumping all his bags down at the entrance before waddling over towards you. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asks, coming to stand before you and cupping your face in his hands. He’s towering over you, so tall and gorgeous but for the first time, you’re not dazed by his beauty.

“Kook, you said you’d be back hours ago,” you say slowly, avoiding his gaze. You try to keep the frustration out of your voice, but you’ve had hours to dwell on it now, and those annoying cartoon characters, though charming at first, had only served to multiply your annoyance.  

Jungkook blinks, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “I mean… yeah. But I got you presents?” he beams, glancing back at the mountainous pile he made by the door. You look over too. There are some luxury bags squeezed in between other shops you like, the occasional jewelers' logo on the side.

You stand with a sigh, sauntering off into the kitchen with him on your tail. “I don’t want presents,” you mumble, reaching to pour yourself a glass of water. You’re briefly aware of how childish you must seem. Jungkook hovers behind you.

“What? Yes, you do,” he says. “You had an entire wishlist on my Amazon of things you wanted.” It’s his turn to level you with an unreadable expression, slowly crossing his arms over his chest.

Your frown only deepens as you turn to match his stance against the counter. While it may be true that you did indeed have an entire list of impulsive items on his Amazon, that didn’t necessarily mean you wanted them all. Sometimes you just wanted to stare longingly at a pair of satin gloves without actually buying them. You don’t know how to explain this much to him. “They’re not…” you stop with another deep breath. “Forget it. Thank you for the presents.”

Now it’s Jungkook’s turn to question you. “What,” he says in an unimpressed tone, padding over to you before you can escape back into the living room to watch the entire princess movie collection on Disney+. “No, tell me what’s wrong.”

For some reason, that’s exactly what you don’t want to hear. “Jungkook,” you say flatly, narrowing your eyes at him. “You come home six hours after you said you would without telling me why, and normally I wouldn’t care, but today was supposed to be a special day for us.”

Jungkook reels at your bluntness. “Babe, I was out getting stuff for you. I know it’s our anniversary— that’s why I wanted to treat you,” he responds, oddly condescendingly like you’re a child who doesn’t understand what exactly he was doing.

You brush his hands away from your shoulders. “Yeah,” you huff. “Now I know that. But I spent all day waiting for you,” you stress, chest puffing as you grow more and more agitated by his inability to understand you. God, can he let you go now? At least a bunch of animated, geometrically drawn cartoons won’t question you like this and make you feel as childish as he was.

When he doesn’t say anything else you stomp back into the living room, snatching up your phone from its forgotten spot against the couch. “I’m going to bed.”

At that Jungkook seems to kickstart back to life. “What? ___, it’s barely six,” he says as he follows after you into your bedroom. You ignore him, shuffling beneath the covers. In all actuality, you’re going to bed to mope and watch more animated family shows, maybe cry under the guise of the plot just being so sad. Jungkook sits beside you just as you click back on to finish off your episode. “Baby, I don’t get it,” he sighs. “You’re always talking about how much you want this or that, and I go out and get you it all but now you’re mad?”

You bite down on your lip, eyes lasered in on the pictures moving before you. “Jungkook, just forget it.”

“No,” he says, more sternly than he’s ever been with you before. “If there’s a problem, tell me.” There’s a heavy pause, and then he says, “don’t make me waste my time guessing what’s wrong, okay?” 

“Waste your time?” you scoff, sitting up with pinched brows that you find match his. “I’m not trying to waste anyone’s time— in fact, that’s hot coming from you, Jungkook.”

He rolls his eyes. “What are you even saying? You’re mad because I took a little long getting presents, for you, might I add,” he huffs, plopping down on the edge of the mattress beside your knee. “You’re always saying you want this and that, but you can’t handle me going out to get those things? Do you hear how weird you sound?”

You whip the covers off of you. “Me talking about things doesn’t always mean I want them,” you defend.

Jungkook snorts. “Yes, it does,” he says. “Anytime you ramble about stuff for minutes like a little kid it’s because you want me to buy it for you.”

You blink. “Like a little kid?” you repeat, stunned by his comparison. Granted, you always knew you were the more childish of the two, but you never thought that would equate Jungkook thinking of you as a child. Something red and nasty flares in your chest. “Well sorry,” you spit, crossing your arms over your chest defensively, “sorry we all can’t be perfectly mature golden boys who would never see the light of day if I constantly wasn’t dragging them out.” You know it’s a somewhat low blow, especially because Jungkook’s told you before how his introverted tendencies were a sensitive issue growing up, but you can’t help it.

Jungkook groans, dropping his head into his hands. “Baby, don’t do this now,” he warns, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Stop acting like this.”

“Like how?” you spit, “like a kid?” Jungkook says nothing, leveling you with a blank stare from the corner of his eye. You roll your eyes, phone falling off your lap. Another episode of Phineas and Ferb had started, the corny opening tune filling the space between the two of you. “At least now I know what you think of me,” you mutter over the guitar riff.

“Oh my god,” Jungkook blurts, sitting up wildly. “Of course I’m gonna think of you as a stupid little kid, look at you,” he seethes, gesturing at the phone beside you. You flinch. “All you do is watch kids shows and whine whenever I wanna watch anything normal adults watch. You complain every single day about the most normal things, like your job? Why should I fucking care that you’re working a dead-end office job in a field you didn’t even study for— that’s not my problem, __!” he snaps, eyes narrowed into little slits. “I just won an award last night,” he says suddenly, voice back to its regular volume. “I’m at the height of my career and I’m only going up, but I can’t even enjoy that because I have to come home and cater to you,” he finishes, a loud scoff punctuating the final word.

You had never imagined Jungkook finally bragging about himself would be at your expense.

A beat of silence passes, the angry glint in his eyes quickly fading away the longer you don’t say anything. You sniff once, turning your head idly to the side where Phineas and Ferb is still blaring loudly from your phone speaker. Picking up the device, you throw it across the room where it hits his closet door with a terrifying bang the breaks the silence.

The sound snaps Jungkook out of whatever shock he’d been in. “Baby…” he says slowly, carefully, like you’re a caged animal that’s just escaped the zoo.

“I’m going home,” you say, also a little too calmly. You saunter over towards his closet where your shattered phone screen glares up at you as you yank a pair of sweats off a hanger. Jungkook is still frozen on the edge of the bed, watching you with wide eyes as you move about the room.

It’s when you’re in the hallway leading downstairs that Jungkook finally snaps out of his daze, scampering behind you as you descend the stairs. “Baby,” he rushes out, loudly bounding down after you, “___, wait,” he gasps, catching you by the kitchen counter collecting your keys. “I-I didn't mean that,” he rushes out, eyes wide and frantic as they flicker over your expression. “I don’t think that—I don’t, baby, please, just… let me explain, please.”

“Jungkook, let go of me,” you respond, shaking your wrist in an attempt to release yourself. He’s not even holding you tightly— he never would—but the sound of your heart pounding in your ears makes your movements jerky and erratic. “I wanna go home.”

“No,” he chokes, cornering you against the counter. “No, baby, please just listen to me, I-I—“

“You what, Jungkook?” you snap, placing a hand on his chest and forcefully pushing him away. He lets you, stepping back with a wobbly bottom lip. “You need to tell me how you’re too good for me? How much I hold you down because I wasn’t lucky enough to get a job like yours straight out of college?” He says nothing, swallowing roughly as you jab a finger into his chest. “Well let me tell you something,” you snarl, chest heaving, “I may be childish and a huge complainer, but I’m not stupid enough to let someone walk all over me like this.”

With that, you make your great escape. Truthfully, you don’t want him to see the tears in your eyes as you yank his door open, stomping down his steps and in the direction of the nearest bus stop. The door opens right after you tug it shut, painting your shadow across the sidewalk. There’s the scrambled sound of house slippers against the concrete that follows you down. “Go the fuck back inside,” you snap without missing a beat.

Sensing your obvious anger, he pauses before he can reach you. “Text me when you get home?” he calls out quietly.

“No,” you respond.

You would never admit to anyone that you spend the entire night eating a tub of mint chocolate ice cream. It’s disgusting and makes you gag, but it’s the only one you have in your apartment. And of course, it was brought over by none other than Jeon Jungkook himself a few days ago. Even when you’re trying to comfort yourself over how mean he was, on your anniversary night no less, you’re plagued by thoughts of him everywhere.

As much as you want to brush his words off, put on that cool girl exterior you’ve maintained since high school, there’s something different about this situation. You guess it’s impossible to brush off such hateful words when they come from someone you love and adore so much.

Were you too childish? You had always believed that side of you was what made your relationship with Jungkook so perfect. The two of you meshed well because of your differences, like yin and yang. So how had he been able to so easily deconstruct every inch of that balance in a matter of a few seconds? Was this perfect reality all in your head this whole time?

You want to tell yourself it was just a heat of the moment outburst from Jungkook, give him the benefit of the doubt because he’s never snapped at you like this before. Of course you’ve fought a couple of times in the past year, but neither of you had ever stooped as low as you did yesterday. Furthermore, the insecure part of your brain says he obviously felt this somewhere in his heart to bring it up at all. What he had said to you wasn’t something someone could make up on the spot.

You don’t text him when you get home, partly to spite him, but mainly because you had left your phone at his place anyway. You know he tried calling you last night because the call log is synced up to your laptop. He called on and off for about thirty minutes before he probably found your phone in his room. Whatever, he can mope in his regret for all you care

—is what you wanna say, but the longer he goes without showing himself to you the more your insecurities and hurt fester. Was this it? Was this the end of what was probably the best year of your life? It’s too painful to think about, to even consider the possibility that Jungkook might have gained a new insight last night and decided, hey, maybe this is for the best after all.

You drown yourself in an ungodly amount of sugar for breakfast, your laptop blaring yet another episode of Phineas and Ferb on the dining table. Muscle memory has you making Jungkook’s favorite pancakes before you can stop yourself, and by the time you do realize, you’ve resigned yourself to the blueberry smell anyway.

There’s a pounding on your door a little past noon, so hard and rough, that you almost think it’s the police finally coming to catch you for all your years of illegally pirating Phineas and Ferb.

It’s not.

It’s just a really drunk boyfriend wailing for your forgiveness at the door. You open the door with a fright, jumping back when he slumps forward and almost crashes face-first into the floor. “You didn’t call,” Jungkook cries, leaning a little too much of his weight onto you when you reach out to steady him.

The thundering of your heart slows upon registering it’s him. “Kook?” you frown, nose pinched at the ungodly stench of alcohol wafting off his clothes. “Have you been drinking?” you ask even though the answer is staring you right in the face (and in the nose).

He groans, staggering deeper into your arms. You blindly push the door shut behind him, resigning yourself to this new situation while your pancakes grow cold in the other room. “Baaaby,” he slurs, letting you guide him into the living space. He’s unceremoniously dumped onto the couch, half-opened eyes gazing up at you. “Let me,” a hiccup, “explain.”

You won’t lie. There’s a very obvious sense of discomfort sitting in your chest, torn between two paths that you don’t wish to choose between. His skin is warm and flushed like he’s just walked all the way here in this morning sun. You step over to the window that faces down onto the street below. There’s no sign of his car; you would have killed him if he ever tried to drive in this state.

“Did you walk here?” you ask instead, deciding there’s no need for one singular path, not when you can walk straight down the middle, both cleaning him and grilling him at the same time.

Jungkook’s response is delayed, head lolling from side to side as you help him out of his sweater. His skin is sweaty beneath, scorching to the touch. “Uh-huh,” he groans. Jesus, you sort of assumed but him confirming it really set things into perspective.

By no means did you and Jungkook live on opposite ends of the earth. On a good day, a drive from your place to his took about ten minutes. But walking? Easily an hour. Had he walked all the way from his place, drunk on top of that?

You brush his hair away from his face, his eyes fluttering shut at your touch. His lips are pouty yet chapped, dehydrated from the sun and the alcohol he reeks of. “Sit up for me,” you instruct, scampering off to your room for chapstick and water.

“Anything for you,” Jungkook wheezes, throat probably dryer than a desert. When you return, he’s two seconds from face planting into the coffee table and breaking that pretty face of his. You catch him with a hand on his shoulder, keeping him balanced. “Tell me what to do,” he chokes out, voice hoarse.

“Just need you to drink some water,” you say, pressing a cup against his lips. He drinks it, but a drop still dribbles down his chin.

“No,” he groans, catching your wrist in his hand when you reach up to apply some chapstick on him. “Tell me what to do,” he stresses, “to fix this. Fix us.”

His words make you pause, the tube of chapstick hovering over his plush lips. “You don’t have to do anything,” you respond quietly, trying to finish the application so you can pull away.

Jungkook doesn’t let you go. You try to look away, but there’s something about him that looks off. Maybe it’s the raw skin under his eyes, red and swollen. Or the sad droop to those same eyes that hold you captive. Or maybe it’s the subtle tremble in his hands, the fingers that hold tightly to your wrist, not to keep you there but to ground himself. “I don’t wanna lose you,” he rasps out, shakily bringing your hand to his mouth, where he presses one airy kiss to your knuckles. “Tell me ho-how to fix this and I’ll do it,” he pleads, a vulnerable look in his eyes.

Unable to withstand the sheer amount of agony on his expression, you look away. “___, please,” he chokes out, stumbling off the couch in his drunk and desperate haze until he’s kneeling in front of you. “I can’t… I can’t,” he sniffles, tears clouding those pretty eyes you’ve come to love so much. “I don’t know who I am without you.”

You clench your jaw. “You’re Jeon Jungkook,” you murmur, slipping your hand out of his hold to run through his hair. It’s knotted and a little too greasy, two things Jungkook would usually never allow. “This year’s Platinum Mobile Standard of Excellence Award recipient,” you remind him, trailing your thumb across his cheekbone when he turns to look up at you with those big Bambi eyes. “Sweet and shy, but you love being rowdy with your friends. You love movies and TV and organizing your shirts according to fabric type. You work harder than anyone I know and never complain. You date me, even though I’m a huge child,” you smile sadly.

“No!” he jumps, turning that frantic stare back into you. “Y-You’re not— it’s not,” he stammers, words still slurring together. “I’m a liar,” he cries, resting his forehead on your knees. His shoulders shake. “I don’t deserve you,” he weeps quietly. You place a hand on his shoulder. “Y-Y-You make my life so much better, ___, so colorful and fun. I-I wish I knew you in high school,” he admits, “maybe I wouldn’t have been so emotionally constipated now.”

“You’re not,” you reassure him softly.

He disagrees. “You bring out the best,” he hiccups, “the best in me.” Your heart skips in your chest. “I-I love you, you know that?”

You sputter, eyes wide at his sudden confession. “I… love you so much, y’know? I think about you ev-every night, ___,” he rambles, eyes dreamily gazing off into some miscellaneous spot on the wall behind you. “I can’t get you out of my head. Like you're a song, o-on repeat but it’s not annoying because it’s my favorite song, and I could listen to it for the rest of my life, y’know? My favorite song, I know all the words b-because it’s all I think about! I love... My love… I love you so much.”

“Kook,” you rush out, cheeks flaming as you try to pull him away from where he’s slumped over your legs. His passionate speech has you abuzz, body tingling everywhere until you feel overwhelmed, head spinning like you’re on a rollercoaster. “Let’s get you to bed.”

He nods sleepily, seemingly coming down from whatever alcohol induced rampage has allowed him to walk for an hour straight in this searing heat just to confess to you. “Y-You don’t have to say it back,” he continues to stutter as you guide him through the living room on wobbly legs. “I just-I just— can I?” he babbles. “Can I love you, ___?”

You pass through the kitchen space, where whatever you were watching on Disney+ is blaring loudly. It distracts Jungkook for about two seconds before his attention returns to you. When you don’t answer, he presses on. “Is that okay?” he asks, whirling around to face you, catching your shoulders in his hands. He towers over you by the entrance to your bedroom, dark curls tickling your forehead. His eyes are dark and glazed over, both in tears and an emotion so raw and unfiltered it squeezes around your chest until you can’t breathe. “Is it okay for me to love you?” he murmurs softly, knocking his nose against yours.

Your cheeks blaze. “Yes, th-that’s fine, Kook,” you blubber, placing a hand over his chest, where his heart is also hammering away. “Just need you to go rest now, okay?”

He nods sleepily, nudging your nose with his one last time, like a soft almost-kiss, before letting you push him into the room. “Yes, yes,” he breathes, his body finally crashing from his adrenaline spike. He flops down onto the bed unceremoniously, dark waves fanning across your pillows. You try to wiggle him out of his shirt, but it only gets about halfway up his chest before he blindly reaches for the covers. His legs stick out awkwardly, clad in the sweatpants you’ve come to associate with him.

When he’s all swaddled up in your blanket he finally goes limp, tiny snores leaving his lips as he dozes away from reality. You sigh, pressing a palm to his forehead. He’s still warm and clammy, but at this point, there’s nothing you can do but wait for him to sober up.

With a final kiss to his forehead, you leave the room, closing the door behind you before sliding against the wooden surface. There’s a trapped bird in your chest, wildly flapping its wings in an effort to get out, and it’s all stupid Jungkook’s fault in the next room. Stupid Jungkook who demolished and remodeled your heart all in less than twenty-four hours. It doesn’t calm down, even when you rush off into the kitchen for a glass of water, or when you try to immerse yourself in some other show on Disney+. It stays beating against your ribs and your chest until you’re forcing yourself to sit down on the couch and process.

He wakes up a little before dinner. You hear him from the living room, where you’re flicking through the options on Disney+ for the nth time that day. You’ve seen the first fifteen minutes of about twenty different series and movies by now, always growing antsy and abandoning them early on. The only reason you know he’s awake is because the shower turns on for a few minutes, and then his bare feet are heard padding across the hallway back into your room.

By the time he resurfaces in the living room, you’ve resigned yourself to just more Phineas and Ferb, nonchalantly watching the silly cartoon. (Except you’re anything but nonchalant, and your heartbeat rings in your ears.)

Jungkook hovers by the door, clad in a pair of shorts he’s left here before, and a t-shirt you stole from him. “Hey,” he says quietly, lingering by the doorframe. You nod back in response. “Can I watch with you?” Again, another nod.  

Slinking over to the couch, he’s rather careful as he sits down, leaving a few inches of space between the two of you. You don’t even think he can see the screen of your laptop until he murmurs, “he’s my favorite character,” when Perry the Platypus appears on the screen.

You hum. “Thought you didn’t like these kids shows?” you ask. You don’t mean it to sound as petty and backhanded as it comes out, but that’s really no one's fault but his own.

Jungkook’s breathing tightens beside you. “No,” he admits, “I don’t. Only watch them because I know you like them.” You contemplate pausing the episode and engaging in a real conversation with him, but at this point, you’re very tired from the events of the last day. Jungkook doesn’t press either, just shuffles more comfortably beside you.

You get about five minutes in, quiet chuckles shared between the two of you, before he strikes. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he says, so hushed you almost don’t hear it. His hand is resting in the space between you, pinky brushing against yours. “About… being late. And the presents.”

You inspire slowly. “That wasn't even the problem, silly,” you brush off. From your peripheral, you see Jungkook’s slow nod. “I didn’t want any presents,” you mention, “I just wanted you.” You look away from the screen immediately after, pretending like the spot on the ceiling is actually really interesting.

The two of you fall into silence, the animated characters on your screen rapidly chattering away. “Oh,” Jungkook says after a moment.

You roll your eyes. They’re moist but you don’t want him to see. “Yeah, oh,” you parrot back softly, relaxing into the couch again. “Did you eat the food I left out?”

Jungkook shuffles beside you, the soft lull of the speakers soon being cut as he reaches over to pause Phineas and Ferb. A couple of seconds pass and then he’s leaning into you, head resting on your shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes again, placing a palm over the hand he had been teasing for the past few minutes. “I thought I knew what I was doing but I was wrong.”

His voice is so soft and sincere, it makes your chest ache. You try to burrow your face against your opposite shoulder, try to hide the stray tear that escapes out of the corner of your eye. “It’s fine,” you brush off, voice choked off and hoarse.

Jungkook leans up, pecks your cheek so tenderly it makes you go mushy. “No, it’s not fine. I acted like a know-it-all and said something way out of line,” he murmurs, raising his head to look at you. His hand feels warm over yours. It’s the touch you craved all day and yesterday, the warm feel of his body against yours. You’re embarrassed at how easily you melt into it. “You’re the best thing that has happened to me in a long time,” he tells you, holding your hand close to his chest. “I had no right to say those things to you.”

You sniffle, resting your head against his shoulder now. His heart beats loud enough for you to hear. “Was it true?” you mumble. “Do you really think of me like that?”

He shakes his head, his soft breaths fanning across your forehead. “No, never,” he answers. “I think you’re incredible. My brain was just trying to justify my dumb anger.”

You nod, even if you don’t believe it just yet. But that was a conversation for later, you suppose, sometime in the future when you aren’t on the verge of tears and threatening to crumble apart at the simplest word that leaves his mouth.

“I should have come home like you wanted, thought about my words before saying them,” he says, snuggling closer to you. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop,” you sniffle, covering your face with your free hand as he presses a kiss to the vein that runs over the back of the hand he’s holding captive. “Now it just sounds like I'm just being inconsiderate of your gifts and a crybaby.”

Jungkook kisses your temple softly, gently. “Don’t think about the gifts,” he says. “Just tell me what you wanted to do, doll.”

His voice calms you, has you like putty in his arms. “Watch movies,” you mumble, toying with a thread on your couch cushion. “Be with you.”

He hums. “Then we’ll do that,” he says, reaching for your laptop again. The screen nearly blinds you when it flickers back to life before you, Jungkook’s low breaths against your ear making it near impossible for you to process the titles on the screen. “You liked Disney+?”

Belatedly, you nod. “I like the animated movies,” you admit quietly, the anxieties of before slowly melting away, even more so when he slides his arm around you, pulling you close against his chest.

Unlike other times where he’ll critique the hell out of such childish films, Jungkook says nothing as he starts up the Zootopia movie instead, the same one you had wanted to show him before, right from the beginning. “That bunny looks like you,” you murmur when Judy Hopps first appears on the screen.

Jungkook snorts. “You say that about every cartoon bunny.”

You turn your head to glance at him over your shoulder. He meets your gaze with a small smile you return. “It’s because you’re so cute,” you say softly, lips twisting playfully when his cheeks grow scarlet.

He knocks his forehead against yours, eyes fluttering shut. “Not cute, just lucky,” he chuckles. “Lucky enough to have you.” Your heart turns over in your chest, threatening to burst out of your rib cage at his words. You try to turn in his arms. Before you can say the words that have been sitting on the tip of your tongue for months now, he’s beating you to it once again. “I love you,” he confesses in a hushed whisper, no alcoholic influence. 

Something inside of you blossoms, eyes wide as he chastely kisses you. He pulls away without you ever reacting, too caught up in surprise to kiss him back properly. He stays close, curls tickling your forehead as he leans over you. ��You don’t have to say it back, I just wanted you to know. I love you,” he says again, long lashes blinking down at you. “So much. It makes me feel like a stupid teenager again, going to the mall to buy a gift for my crush.” He laughs sheepishly, reaching down to tangle your fingers together. “Is that okay?” he asks quietly, pressing a kiss to your knuckles.

It mirrors the confession he’d given you that morning, those slurred words and teary eyes. It had been difficult to pinpoint the legitimacy of it before, the meaning scrambled by his hazy mind. But with him staring at you like this now, like you single-handedly plucked the stars from the sky to put them in those sparkly eyes of his, it makes something inside you ache.

Still, you choke on your own spit. “I-Is it okay for you to love me?” you sputter incredulously, realizing the oddity of the same question he’d thrown at you earlier. But now, you’re both sober and you can really tear apart that sentence. Jungkook nods a little too seriously for your liking. “Are you crazy?” He blinks in confusion, brows pulling together as you slowly but surely lose the last bits of your sanity. “You’re an idiot, Jeon Jungkook,” you huff, “a stupidly handsome, rich, walking dream, idiot who goes out with stupid girls like me.”

“Not stupid,” he murmurs, closing in on you again as he finally understands the truth behind your masked insults. He smells minty and like his favorite body wash of yours.

“No,” you deny. “You’re actually, like, insane. You have a bachelor pad, make enough money to sustain an entire litter of kittens, look and talk like every teenage girl’s dream boyfriend— but you mess it all up by dating evil, conniving hoes like me who lose their shit over Disney cartoons.” He says nothing, watching you with an amused grin as you talk over yourself, basically regurgitating his statement from yesterday except it kinda seems plausible now that you’re over it. “It’s stupid. No, you’re stupid. No— I’m stupid.”

Jungkook chuckles, kissing the corner of your mouth gently. “Done?” he says, a dimple appearing on his cheek. You could kiss it away, but you need him to know the amount of stupidity in this room was astronomically high. “You’re not stupid, baby,” he says. You level him with a look. “Well. You have your moments.”

“Moments?” you repeat, standing up in a hurry that has him flopping down beside you. Your laptop is lost somewhere on the cushions, the voices faded as they grow farther away. “I am so stupid. I called Namjoon a whore for taking you out for lunch!” you cry. “I am the stupidest person in the world.”

Jungkook cackles, standing up beside you. “Yes, yes, you’re my stupid girl,” he teases, tapping the pout on your lips playfully. “So stupid she slanders herself instead of just telling me she loves me too.” He bumps your noses together, dark eyes staring at you almost daringly after his claim.

You fold soon enough. “I love you,” you mumble, “even if I’m too stupid to say it.”

He rewards your confession with a kiss, pulling you into his arms soon after. He sighs, almost wistfully. “Whatever shall I do with my very stupid girl?”

After exactly three minutes of feeling safe and loved in his arms, he abandons the living room in favor of leading you back to your room, where he pushes you down against your mattress. You cling to him, leaving him positioned over you at an angle. His chest presses against yours, arm curled around the back of your head. “Gotta get up, baby,” he laughs.

You shake your head, caging him in your arms. “Nuh-uh,” you murmur, legs wiggling when he places a hand on your hip.

Jungkook chuckles, pressing a kiss against the side of your ear. “Your movie is still playing in the other room,” he reminds you, thumb drawing soothing circles on your hip. You don’t release him, his mindless touch only encouraging you to keep him close. “Babe?”

You say nothing, relishing in the comfort of Jungkook’s presence. His hair smells good and feels even softer against the side of your face. The cotton shirt he found is crumpled beneath your fists, dark blue pattern wrinkling. Finally coming to terms with his new home, Jungkook eventually relaxes into your hold with a sigh.

“Alright,” he hums, patting your hip as he repositions himself more comfortably. “I get it. My pretty girl must’ve missed me, huh?” You nod, soaking in every detail about him in this moment. Jungkook shifts, the hand on your hip suddenly falling over your thigh instead. “Or should I say my stupid girl?” he purrs, hand slipping between your thighs. “My stupid, little girl?”

A gasp catches in your throat when he runs his fingers over the front of your panties. Your legs kick out wildly at the sudden touch, toes curling at the hands you dreamt about all day and night. “Oh,” you pant, each brush of his fingers feeling better than the last.

“What?” he says, mouthing against the side of your neck. His tongue feels warm, but the trails of saliva he leaves have you shivering. “Too dumb to speak?” he scoffs, biting down against a particular spot on your neck. You whimper, unsure if it’s because of his hands or his mouth.

“N-No,” you try to sneer back, fingernails digging into his skin through his shirt. His hands are getting braver now, the pad of his pointer finger dancing over your engorged clit. The sheer material of your panties certainly doesn’t help, each touch feeling like it’s being magnified three times over. And if it felt this good with underwear, you can’t even begin to imagine how it’d feel without.

You don’t have to ponder for long, because soon after Jungkook is slipping his hand beneath your waistband, touching your sensitive pussy head-on. “Kook.”

He uses your momentary vulnerability to ease himself from your hold, finally recoiling enough to smother your mouth with his. You moan in surprise, thighs quivering as he gets to work circling your hardened bud sans your panties. Jungkook isn’t the least bit kind as he kisses you ruthlessly, likes he’s trying to compensate for something with his movements. When he finally pulls away it’s with an obnoxious pop and cherry red lips. He huffs, glancing down to see where he’s got his fingers pleasuring you.

Your thighs are squirming back and forth, closing around his hand every few seconds. Jungkook snorts. “Huh, look at that,” he mutters, trailing down until his fingers are gliding over your quickly sopping folds. “Stupid girl is good for something.”

Your cheeks burn. “Kook, I’m not—“

Jungkook levels you with an unimpressed glare. “Not what? Not stupid? But I could’ve sworn you just spent the last few minutes saying you were,” he drones meanly, landing one light slap against your cunt that makes your hips buck.

You bite down a whimper. “I was just…” you trail off, eyes rolling back when he teases one finger against your opening.

“Kidding?” he supplies. “Well, I wasn’t.” Your heart stutters in your chest, eyes growing wide as he finally pushes himself off of you, propping himself up with an elbow beside your head. His gaze is dark and unrecognizable. “I think you’re so fucking stupid, doll,” he sneers. “And what are you gonna do about it?”

You should have seen this moment coming, the manifestation of that shiny side of the coin finally reaching its full potential.

While Jungkook wasn’t exactly shy about his interests, he certainly wasn’t tripping over himself to tell you every new kinky thing he wanted to try. You sort of guessed he had some interest in this sort of play a few weeks ago when you watched the Barbie movie at his place. A lot of that night had branded itself into your three am wet dreams, but there was one particular moment that stood out to you. That was you, on your knees, with him condescendingly patting your head. Or just last week, you vaguely remember the term slipping through his lips as he pleasured you with The Bullet Bestie.

The thing about Jungkook was that, until last night, he would have never admitted, or so much as even thought, that he was better than you. That was fine because you would say it enough for the both of you anyway. Did you think Jungkook was amazing, an absolute diamond among these measly rocks? Absolutely. (Were you slightly biased because you were his girlfriend? Skip.) However, you also had this insane evil villain complex that made you want to brag about everything you possibly could, especially if that meant bragging about your boyfriend.

Realistically speaking, he was better than you, that much you could look past yesterday’s anger to admit, and not even in a stuck-up, conceited way; he had a really good job, an architecturally amazing house, and a hot girlfriend. Meanwhile, you had a mediocre job, an okay apartment, and an insanely sexy Calvin Klein boyfriend, half of which he had pointed out yesterday. Regardless of how powerful that third factor was, he still outnumbered you three to one.

Sue you, Jungkook was amazing. Anyone could see that! Except, maybe, himself.

And if the only time Jungkook would openly brag about his greatness or establish how much better than you he was, was in a post-fight, sex-induced setting, then you were more than happy to be his punching bag. So long as it was on your terms, and not as a result of his weirdly bottled up feelings.

(Yeah, you would have a long talk about that tomorrow.)

But for now, you pout up at him, clamping your thighs shut purposefully. “You’re stupid too,” you defend, “stupid and mean.”

Something in his expression changes. Suddenly, he’s moving at superhuman speed as he snatches his hand out from where you had previously trapped him between your legs, yanking you up by the front of your shirt. “Mean?” he mocks. “Isn’t that what you always wanted?” You shiver, fingers wrapping around the wrist that holds your sweater. “Wanted me to be mean and push you around like a little rag doll?”

Jungkook looks at you for another two seconds, before he���s slowly pulling away from you, leaning back on his knees. His tongue is pressing against the inside of his cheek, jaw tightening from the movement. “Baby,” he says so quietly it instills a prickle of fear in you, tainted with delicious excitement.

“Yeah?” you whisper, sitting up tentatively as you watch him, He was a bit frightening, like a wild animal about to devour you whole.

Jungkook rolls his neck, the joints in his spine cracking as he begins tugging off his shirt. You salivate at the sight, too focused on the sinewy muscles of his body to catch the dark gaze he levels your way. He throws it off to the side, his sleeve of tattoos that wraps around his bicep and begins to crawl down his chest wonderfully unobstructed now. “Eyes up here,” he says and you quickly meet his gaze. He leans forward, muscled arms coming to cage you against the headboard. “Stupid little sluts don’t have the room to make such comments,” he rasps out, unamused expression adorning his normally soft features. “Don’t you think so?”

“I-I don’t know,” you stammer, leaning away as he comes closer and closer, eventually just turning your head to the side to avoid that emotionless look. It’s the wrong move, and Jungkook lets you know as much by forcefully digging his fingers into your cheeks and turning your face back around to meet his gaze.

A hand grabs beneath your knee, tugging harshly until you’re flopping down onto your back with a squeal. You settle with his knee pressed hotly against your core. Jungkook stays towering over you. “Dumb little girls who make me watch cartoons,” he spits, tracing a hand over your chest, molding your breasts beneath his hands roughly enough to make you gasp. “And watch little animal movies on Disney+. Aren’t they just so stupid?”

“So stupid,” you concede, subtly shifting your hips for some desperately needed friction. Jungkook snorts, finally granting you your wish with one rough slide of his thigh against your core.

“I agree,” he says, and surprises you with a hand around your throat as he leans in to properly grind his thigh into you. “All they’re good for is being dumb little sluts with good pussy,” he murmurs darkly, thumb pressing into the side of your neck forcefully. “Sometimes, they don’t even do anything,” Jungkook continues, his other hand on your hip hauling you higher up his thigh. You mewl, soaked panties rubbing roughly against your folds. You miss the soft swirl of his thumb, the gentle prod of his fingers. Even so, you can’t deny this change in Jungkook is doing something to you, riling up a part of you that you hadn’t known existed. Maybe it’s the horniness from yesterday that was left unfulfilled, the one year anniversary sex that was put on pause. “Just lay there and take it, too fucked out and dumb to say anything.”

His fingers loosen for the briefest of seconds and you gasp for breath. “That’s terrible,” you whimper, rolling your hips up into his thigh, so close to his swollen cock.

Jungkook chuckles without an ounce of humor, pressing your foreheads together as he helps grind you to completion. “Isn’t it? I think that stupid little girl is cute though.”

“I’m sorry,” you blurt, vision spotting as he tightens his hand back around your throat. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you moan, stomach tight from all the stimulation.

Jungkook hums, slowing you down with a tight grip on your waist. “Hm, what are you sorry for?” he croons, pink lips pulling into an evil smile. “You said you weren’t that stupid girl, __.”

You shake your head, trying to roll your hips up again but he’s holding you too tightly now, rendering you immobile beneath him. “I am,” you choke out shamefully, grabbing at the hand on your hip in a feeble attempt to remove it. “I am a stupid little girl.”

Jungkook smirks, leaning down to slot his mouth over yours. “That’s right,” he murmurs, “nothing but a dumb little slut.”

You shiver, opening your mouth when he slides his tongue against your bottom lip. He’s not the slightest bit nice, and more messy than usual. He pulls away with a bite to your lower lip, meeting your trembling gaze with that same unrecognizable glint in his eyes. “Come on, dummy, keep up,” he snarks before devouring you again. You try to, you really do, but he’s moving like an animal today, despite his slow and drunken movements from that morning. So you end up with his saliva dripping down your throat, clinging to the corners of your lips as he begins slowly grinding you against his thigh again. He flashes you a wicked smile, pearly teeth on display for you as he glances down at your messy appearance.

“Are you gonna touch me?” you ask, lower lip trembling at the thought after your desperate rutting. Jungkook purses his lips together in thought.

“Mmm,” he hums. “Don’t know yet.”

You whine. “Jungkook, please,” you whimper, wrapping your legs around his waist. “I need you.”

Jungkook chuckles, running his hand up your waist and taking your shirt with him. He slips his fingers beneath your bra, pushing the wire over your chest as he mouths at your neck. “Cute,” he says. “Can’t do it yourself?”

You tremble, chest arching into him as he rolls your nipple between his fingers. “I-I can,” you gasp. “Just feels better with you.”

Jungkook follows your statement with a nip against your skin, tongue soothing over it right after. “Why? Because I do everything better than you? Even make you cum better than you?”

Your cheeks heat up at his blatant ego rearing its head, hands carding through the hair at the nape of his neck. You say nothing, and that only eggs Jungkook on. “Come onnn,” he teases, finally, finally rolling his hips down onto your core. You squeak, head falling back against the pillows as you’re granted the one thing you’d been chasing. “Say it.”

“Say what?” you ask, voice wobbly as he continues to slowly rut against you, the front of his shorts pressing against the soaked crotch area of your panties. “Oh, oh, Jungkook,” you whine.

Suddenly he bites down harshly, teeth digging painfully into your skin. You yelp in surprise, pussy throbbing at the pain that shoots throughout your body. Jungkook pulls away and doesn’t bother soothing over it as he leans up to capture your jaw this time. “Say you’re a stupid little slut who can’t do anything without me,” he purrs, kisses too soft for the words he says.

Your mind blanks, torn between the humiliating phrase he wants you to say and properly checking him in his place. In the end, it’s with a twisted need to please him that you’re repeating the words back to him. “I-I’m a stupid slut,” you whimper, fingers digging into his shoulder blades as he continues pushing you right along the edge. The rope pulled tightly in your core is slowly being pulled apart, threads hanging on for dear life. “Can’t... can't do anything without...”

“Without who?” he asks, reaching down and untying the front of his shorts. “Can’t do anything without who, baby?”

“Without you, without you,” you cry, bucking your hips up against his, the combined movements of both your bodies making you shake like a leaf. “Ah, K-Kook,” you wail, hips stuttering as your orgasm finally swallows you up. Your panties quickly grow wet and icky from your own arousal that pools between your thighs. Jungkook lets you writhe beneath him as you chase your high, mouth sucking a pretty blossom against your jaw.

You know better than to expect the night to end here, especially after seeing the glint that had been in his eyes as he watched you unravel.

He leans close, let’s his nose brush against yours as you catch your breath. “So perfect for me,” he groans, slotting his lips against yours. You can barely keep up with him, languidly going along with his hot tongue. “Perfect, perfect girl,” he murmurs, a stark change from the less than friendly adjectives he used just moments before. “Tell me you love me?” he says softly.

You nod, mind fuzzy as you wrap your arms around his neck. “Love you,” you exhale, letting your fingers knot in his hair. Your proclamation does something to him, makes him grind the front of his cotton shorts hard against you. For someone that was often rough and brutal with you in bed, he sure was sensitive to the mushiest of things.

“Don’t deserve you,” he huffs, hot breath fanning across your skin. He switches gears fairly quickly. “Tell me you hate me,” he begs hoarsely, rutting against your soiled panties. “Tell me I’m a piece of shit and you could do better without me,” he pleads, voice too airy to be another one of his usual sex-induced thoughts.

You shake your head, pressing a kiss to his cheek as he rolls his hips. “It’s not true,” you whisper, “I love you more than you’ll ever understand.”

Jungkook groans, suddenly winding back and tearing your ruined panties down your legs. You gasp in surprise, letting him haul you about in his blind, self-inflicted rage. “Stupid, stupid,” he huffs, though at this point you can’t tell who it’s directed at. With your underwear out of the way, he wastes no time plunging his fingers back into your cunt, bypassing the tight ring of muscle around it without any of his usual care. “You should hate me,” he snarls, lips pressed against your ear.

You moan, back arching at the sudden pleasure that blossoms between your thighs. “I-I don’t,” you gasp, toes curling.

Jungkook groans, the sound traveling down your spine and straight into your pussy. “Stupid girl,” he huffs, slipping an arm around you to pull you so close until you can’t breathe, chests lined up together. His skin is warm to the touch, scorching almost. “Fuck,” he groans, curling his fingers inside of you. You whimper and moan, incapable of staying still beneath him as he tortures you with a thumb to your clit. “Tell me you hate me,” he seethes again.

Despite the fog that’s settled over your mind, you still manage a resolute shake of your head. “N-no,” you cry, digging your nails into his back. They run dark red lines over his skin, making him hiss at the sting.

Whatever punishment he’s trying to put himself through is falling through with your refusal to admit such a thing. It aggravates him even more, your adamant stance on loving him so, and he’s retracting his fingers before you can cum again. “Please,” he chokes, face tucked into your neck. He’s sloppy with his movements; as he pulls his shorts down and kicks them away, he nearly suffocates you with his weight. “I don’t deserve you, ___, please.”

“I love you,” you whimper for lack of explanation. Jungkook leans back, that same madman gaze in his glossy eyes. He’s looking at you in disbelief almost, pouty lips puckered and swollen. Your hands slip from around him, falling on either side of your head.

Like a cobra he strikes, collecting your wrists in one hand he pins above your head. The sudden movement has him leaning in close, lips brushing over yours. His lashes are coated in a wetness he refuses to acknowledge, looking at you like you drive him insane. “If you ever try to leave me,” he whispers, jerky breath fanning over your skin, “I’ll lose my mind.”

He loves you so much it aches.

“I won’t,” you whimper, feeling your own eyes well up with an emotion that consumes every inch of your being. “I’ll never leave you, you stupid, stupid boy.”

A faint smile crosses his features at your words, lips quirking to the side. You relish in it for all of two seconds before he’s ramming his cock into you, your sensitive walls spawning around him. You sob loudly, eyes rolling back into your head. Your legs instinctively hook themselves around his waist, digging into the base of his spine as he rolls his hips into you.

You feel full and complete like he belongs there in this moment and every moment after this. It makes your heart constrict painfully. Jungkook’s soft groans follow your more unraveled noises, the vulgar slapping of skin on skin the underlying melody to it all. “Ffffuck,” he spits, greedily swallowing your moans up. You whine, arms bucking in an effort to hold him close. But he’s determined in his act of restraining you, long fingers tightening around your wrists until they hurt. “I warned you, didn’t I?” he huffs, snapping his hips into you.

Your walls clench around his hard cock, the drag as he exits sending shivers throughout your body. Jungkook’s body towers over you, glistening in sweat as he nails you into your mattress. “Remember what I said?” he asks, voice but a shuddery exhale. You shake your head numbly, overwhelmed by the rough drag across your walls. “All those months ago, when you first came over,” he adds. The hand on your hip abandons its post to cup you beneath the jaw, palm pressing sinfully against your throat enough to block the tiniest of airflow. “I’ll fuck you and keep you forever,” he murmurs, voice deeper than the pits of hell. He licks a fat stripe over your cheek like you’re nothing but a sweet for him to devour. “Do you remember that, pretty girl?”

You nod jerkily, hips arching up into him when he thrusts into you again. It’s a memory that replays in your mind every so often, your first night with the man you had planned to humiliate over a mere misunderstanding, now your boyfriend of one year. “Want that,” you gasp, tears blurring your vision when he begins picking up the pace. “Wanna be y-your pretty girl forever.”

Jungkook groans, kissing the corner of your mouth. His thighs are some magnificent beings, keeping his pace consistent even as he loses himself in his overwhelming need to kiss you. “Always,” he manages, soft lips pressed against yours. “I won’t ever let you leave.”

A shriek tears itself from your lips as he picks up that harsh piston, releasing your jaw to hold both wrists above your head. It makes his curls dangle in front of his eyes, covering that beautiful dark gaze. It makes his thin little necklace swing back and forth too, though it’s too small to actually touch your face. The rhythmic swing has you hypnotized, just like everything else about Jungkook.

With the length of his hair, you’re left staring at his lips, pulled taut between his pearly white teeth. The word from before sits heavy in your chest, begs to drip from the tip of your tongue. But he’s moving too fast and too hard, scrambling your thoughts until all you can think about is the cock plunging into your heat. His name falls from your mouth like mindless blubber instead, arms thrashing as your second orgasm swallows you up. It sends you crashing, body spasming as the sheer euphoria waves over you slowly and then all at once.

“Perfect,” he grunts, leaning down to slot his mouth against yours, “my perfect girl.” Your cum makes the sound of his hips erotic, the loud squelching following your panting. Still sensitive from your high, your body unconsciously tightens around him, keeps his cock from fully leaving. It brings a soft whine out of Jungkook, one he tries to muffle against the side of your face.

“Inside,” you whimper, even though your body feels like jelly beneath him. “Cum inside, Kook, please,” you beg.

It only takes a few more thrusts into your leaking hole for him to finally reach paradise, hips stuttering when that first shot of pleasure hits him. “Fuck, fuck,” he growls, wildly snapping his hips into your achy cunt. You moan, feeling just about brainless at the overstimulation. His cum leaves you full, almost makes your belly bulge from it. When he’s done he doesn’t bother pulling away, simply slumping into your limp form. His cock, though quickly softening, serves as a plug for the cum threatening to spill out of you.

There’s a muted noise coming from the other room, the faint sound of the mail slipping through your letterbox, the quiet chattering of the street outside. And of course, the loud blaring of your laptop playing the Phineas and Ferb theme song. Jungkook registers it at about the same time as you, a soft chuckle leaving his lips.

He pushes off of you soon after, leaning on his palms over you. He’s got that molten look on his eyes, the heat of a thousand suns burning behind those irises as he looks at you. Like he can’t get enough, even though he’s just about taken everything there is to take. “Love you,” he murmurs quietly.

A drop of sweat rolls over his forehead, clinging to the end of his eyebrow. You reach up and brush it away, let your hand trail down his face to cup his cheek. Immediately he leans into the touch, eyes falling half shut. “Love you more,” you respond.

“Impossible,” he scoffs.

Soon after you’re both stumbling out of bed, clothes haphazardly shrugged back on as you drift through the living room. There’s a thin, hot pink package sitting at the door, just having slipped through the letterbox; the stark Sexuality Unleashed logo is printed on the visible side, so you have to wonder what Doyeon could have possibly ordered this time that could be so thin. The laptop is awkwardly sandwiched next to a throw pillow, barely open a crack. Jungkook retrieves it, sets it on his lap as you scamper over to the couch.

“More Phineas and Ferb?” he asks quietly. He hates it, you know he does. And still, he wants to watch it with you.

You nod. “Please.”

He isn’t so concerned with the plot as you, clicking some random episode to start. You snuggle into his side, quietly singing along to the opening. After a moment, Jungkook speaks again. “Phineas and Flirt?” he offers cheekily.

You roll your eyes. “That might’ve been your worst one yet,” you sigh, trying to drown out his indignant huff by focusing on the screen.

“I don’t exactly see you coming up with these,” he points out, obviously feeling wronged.

Without missing a beat you say, “Disney+ and bust.”

epilogue

commercial break one ; the resolution

Copyright © 2020, 1kook on tumblr. absolutely NO reposts allowed.

[iwannawritelots]

Pride🤎

Originally written June 2022

Masterlist Pride 2022 Masterlist

Genre: fluff

Ship(s): Solomon X MC

(genderless MC)

Trigger/content warnings: brief mention of MC’s mortality, talk of not everywhere being queer friendly

Headcanons/notes from the author: This is written with MC not specified as queer or cishet. The dateables are all canonically queer since MC is gender neutral in game (and frankly they’re all queer coded anyways) so if you’re not a queer reader it can be read as taking the character to pride as an ally❤️

Brief Blurb: Solomon and MC are at a pride event together.

A soft smile graced Solomon’s face as he laid against your chest and played with your fingers. The music thrumming into your bodies relaxed him, and he hummed with it. You carefully threaded your spare fingers through his hair, wondering what he was thinking but afraid to break the atmosphere by asking. “Dove.”

“Yes, Sol?”

“I’m so happy.” He paused, unsure if he wanted to elaborate or not. “I’m so happy that pride can happen, even if it’s only in a few places.”

You stopped your ministrations for a moment, then resumed playing with his hair. “Me too.”

The two of you went quiet again, and you allowed your eyes to wander over his form. He barely ever wore anything revealing, but with you and Asmodeus’ help, he was able to keep cool while mostly obscuring his pact marks. The combination of clothes was not within his usual attire, but he pulled off fishnet leggings and opera gloves nonetheless. “You know…” he spoke slowly, wanting to be able to back out if he wished. “If someone told me that I’d be sitting in a park at pride with the love of my life, and not have to hide my true self, maybe thirty years ago… I would have laughed.”

You smiled and pressed a kiss to his hair. “It’s a welcome change, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” he agreed. “I just… wish it could be like this everywhere.”

“Someday,” you muttered, “it will be.”

“True.” Solomon snuggled closer into you, his pride flag that was serving as a blanket shaped itself with his legs. “You know… we are very powerful.”

You giggled. “No, you are very powerful. I am your apprentice.”

“You have pacts with the seven lords of hell,” he mumbled. “You are on the same level as me, if not higher.” He glanced at your face, then fixed his attention on your hand in both of his. “Maybe with our influence, it could happen faster.”

“Well, we’d have to influence progress for every just cause, then.”

“I would have no qualms about that.” Solomon interlaced his fingers with yours, then kissed the back of your hand and held it to his chest. “Most wizards are sick of me anyway. I doubt that the magic part of the human world would stop if I focused on other matters.”

You didn’t have the heart to mention your mortality. “Let’s put a pin in it, then.”

“Agreed.” Solomon gave your hand a squeeze. “I love you.”

You squeezed back. “I love you, too.”

Reblog divider story divider

[lxngbottom]

Mute | N.L.

in which the reader doesn’t talk, and neville tries to change that.

warnings: bullying, swearing, mentions of mental illness/anxiety, some angst (let me know if there are more!)

word count: 2,298

thank you for all of the love on my last two one shots!! it means so much ty ty okay now enjoy

—

“trauma, maybe? my dad’s friend who’s a muggle doctor said that trauma can completely change a person.”

there the three boys were again, sitting at the gryffindor table in the great hall, trying to understand the girl who would always sit ways away from everyone else.

“maybe she’s just really shy!” dean quickly replied, shooting down seamus’s suggestion. seamus shrugged, and took a large gulp of his morning pumpkin juice.

“no! longbottom is “shy”, but y/n? i haven’t heard her say one single thing since second year.”

neville listened in on his friend’s conversation, only letting his eyes leave them when he went to take quick glances at the girl of the hour.

y/n was to put it into simple terms... mute. it was very difficult to hear her utter a single vowel, let along a whole statement. everyone at hogwarts knew that she was not just quiet or shy, but completely silent. people wondered how one person could go without speaking for so long. she was a bit jittery, seemingly nervous all the time. if someone shot a single look at her and she noticed, she would look away without even giving the person a chance to smile or wave.

weirdly, she had always been this way. since the first day of first year, she kept to herself, not even attempting on taking the chance of getting to know someone who might become a life long friend. it really got under people’s skin when they asked her a question, and she just simply wouldn’t respond. so, this caused for students to completely avoid her. it seemed that it was a collective agreement among the school that no one should even try speaking to her. and that was because, again, they would never get a reply.

out of these students, neville longbottom seemed to be the most intrigued. he would never forget the first time he heard her speak. it was one day in third year, of course neville was clumsily making his way down the hallway. as he did so, he didn’t notice that y/n was walking straight for him. and of course, she didn’t notice him either until they both crashed into each other’s bodies. neville fell back onto the ground, letting a small huff escape from his lips. surrounding students cackled at the two as they continued walking. when he looked up, he saw the panic in her eyes and the way she quickly reached down to get her books.

“uh—merlin... sorry about that...” he stuttered, reaching down as well to help her. she glanced at him, but quickly looked away when he noticed. of course, she stayed silent. “are you alright?”

she nodded her head, and stood up with the books in her hand. “yeah. thanks.” and with that, she rushed away from him, not even giving him a chance to say one more word.

he would never forget it. the way her voice was so soft and fragile. he had honestly wished he could hear it more.

admittedly, neville felt bad for her. every time he looked at her, something nagged at him about the girl. every time she got called out in class to answer a question, he would panic for her as her face would drop.

she looked so lonely. she would sit in the back of the class always. he had seen her in the library quite often, just reading, sitting all alone at a table. he hated that she seemed so alone.

he wanted to change that.

—

the day was quiet. only the sounds of birds outside and the wind blowing through the trees on the castle grounds. saturdays were always the perfect days for going to the library, studying, or just to read a good book. that was y/n’s plans consisted of most of the time.

y/n made her way through the large halls, waving discreetly to the paintings on the wall. it seemed as if the lively pictures were the only people that ever respected her, told her hello as she walked by.

her fingers were tightly grasped around two books, as she was planning on returning both of them. her face didn’t show it, but she was quite excited to find two more books to add to her reading list. reading had always been considered an easy escape to y/n. pages filled with so many words, but told so many different stories. stories about love, heartbreak, dragons, princesses, noble wizards, y/n enjoyed all of it.

as she daydreamed about her next book, she hadn’t noticed the small group of students exchanging glances and laughing as they saw her approaching. before she knew it, her books were being slapped out of her hand, and hit the ground with a loud noise.

she looked up finally and saw draco malfoy standing right in front of her, hands in his pockets, chuckling with all of his friends from his choice of action against her.

“you gotta be quicker than that, mute!” he teased, and y/n bent down to grab the two books. when she stood up and met eyes with him again, he shook his head at her. “can’t think of a good comeback? or are you just too scared to say anything?”

she held the books tight to her chest, trembling from malfoy’s presence.

“thought so. see you around, mute.” he spat her way, but not forgetting to bump into her figure as he walked away, his friends following behind him.

y/n sighed, and turned around to make sure they were completely gone.

she started her journey once again, making her way to her sanctuary that people called the library.

when she arrived, she returned her books to madam prince silently, and this didn’t shock the librarian whatsoever. she was used to y/n coming in, checking out countless books, and checking them out and returning them muted.

as y/n skimmed the aisles, she came to the conclusion that she would once again read one of her favorite books. she had read it about seven times, but she could never get over how beautifully written it was. it was truly the best thing she had ever laid her eyes on, and she knew she would probably read it once more after this time around.

but when she went over the familiar bookshelf, the book in question wasn’t in the place it always was. she furrowed her eyes brows, and checked the rest of the shelves near just to make sure it hadn’t been misplaced. but of course, it was no where to be found.

malfoy had provided her with a sour experience already that day, and now she couldn’t even check out her favorite book? she already knew where this day was going, and she frowned in disappointment at the thought.

y/n had settled on some other fantasy novel that seemed to acquire to her taste. she checked it out, and made her way to the back of the library. she always went where it was secluded, almost no one else but her present. but little did she know, behind all the shelves she was walking by, someone followed her.

she finally found a small table to sit down at, and she did so with relief. it always made her so nervous to think that she might have to actually sit with other people one day. but luckily, that day wasn’t today. or so she thought.

because as a few minutes went by, and her eyes were glued to the book pages in front of her, she heard a chair being pushed. she looked up, and met eyes with neville longbottom. he shot her a small smile before speaking,

“can i sit here? it’s okay if not, everywhere else just feels a bit stuffy.”

she stared at his features for a moment, thinking back to the day when she bumped into him in the hallway. she gave him a single nod, and luckily, he didn’t miss it.

as he sat down in front of her, she gulped heavily. she hated being around others, even in a peaceful place such as a library.

a few minutes went by, the silence filling in the gap between the two. neville would glance at her a few times over his book, and she seemingly seemed lost in her own world. but at some point, she finally did look away from the words on the pages. she looked at the book he was “reading”, and noticed the familiar cover. if she hadn’t caught herself, she would’ve let out an audible gasp.

he had her book.

she seemed to be staring for too long, because neville looked at her.

“have you read this before?” he suddenly asked, snapping her back into reality. “it’s actually pretty good. i’m not big on fantasy, but this isn’t too bad.”

yeah, it’s an amazing book. she knew that very well.

but of course, she didn’t express that into words for neville. she only snapped her eyes back to her book, and neville frowned a bit.

did he say something wrong? he thought for sure that this was her favorite book. i mean, he had seen her with it more times than he could keep track of, so he could only assume.

“what’s that you’re reading? is it good?”

she looked up at him through hooded eyes, still not budging.

“well, anyways... i’m more of a herbology book lover. i love learning new things about plants. i think it’s really cool...”

y/n felt herself becoming confused, and almost bothered. she knew who neville was, but couldn’t understand why he was attempting to spark a conversation with her.

“i noticed that you like to read,” he mentioned, and y/n finally looked at him fully. “i mean—i see you here a lot, and you’re always reading from what i can tell. what’s your favorite genre?”

as neville attempted to get the girl to speak, he closed his book without looking. he realized that was a mistake when the heavy book closed onto his finger, and he let out a loud yelp.

as much as y/n tried, she couldn’t hold in the small giggle that fell from her lips. she covered her mouth in an attempt to hide it, but neville’s ears caught it.

“oh, you think my suffering is funny, huh?” neville joked, smiling out of triumph. she hadn’t spoke, but she laughed. and neville swore it was the most angelic thing he had ever heard.

she shook her head at his question, her cheeks turning a dark red from embarrassment. she had hoped he was okay, but nonetheless, it was funny.

the whole time they were in the library, neville rambled on about random things. he had brought up his interests in plants, making sure not to over explain his love for them. he talked about books, and random things that had happened to him and his friends during his time at hogwarts. he was making it his number one goal to get her to talk at least once.

but as darkness began to fall, and as curfew approached quicker and quicker by the minute, he hadn’t succeeded. he was quite shy at the fact that he had just sat in the library all day rambling to someone who never even spoke back. she had seemed to be listening, which took him by surprise. he had never had someone to listen to him as he spoke, let along not interrupt him in a conversation.

as much as she hated to admit it, y/n had a good time herself. she loved the way neville talked, how he explained things so deeply and with so much detail. he never seemed to miss a beat in a conversation, even if it was practically with himself. it made her realize that she wish she had the strength to speak. she wished she could respond to his questions without feeling her stomach churning.

the two left the library, their bags draped over their shoulders as they walked. y/n still had two books clutched into her hand, as she has checked out a random herbology book before leaving. neville smiled when she did so, feeling giddy inside that he had managed to spark an interest in her.

“that book is really good! it’s all about water plants! which are really cool, by the way. you should read up on gillyweed! it’s this really cool plant that—“ when he went to ramble on once more, he stopped himself. “never mind. i think i’ve talked a bit too much, today. wouldn’t you agree?”

for some reason, y/n wanted him to keep talking. it filled the silence that she considered her serenity, and she enjoyed every last word he spoke.

“well... i think this is where we part ways. do you need me to walk you back?” he asked, secretly hoping that she would say yes. but, she shook her head no. he was greatly dissatisfied, but, he tried his best to understand.

“oh, okay. well... goodnight, y/n. maybe we can hang out in the library some other time.”

he smiled at her, not expecting a word, but only catching a glimpse at the red that rose to the tips of her ears.

neville began to walk away, feeling a bit defeated.

suddenly, something that neville never wouldn’t expected:

“goodnight.”

he stopped in his place, and turned around. she covered her mouth with her books, but neville could tell that she was smiling. he couldn’t believe that the word had left her mouth.

“goodnight, y/n.” he repeated, and she shot him a smile before walking in the other direction. a genuine smile. the first one he had ever seen besides from her giggling.

he wanted to hear that voice, and those giggles more than she could ever have guessed.

[malibix]

Fizzy Cider || One-Shot | Hisirdoux Casperan x plantonic!Reader

Summary: It’s probably not the best idea to leave your fellow wizard roommate alone to their potions. You never know what they could be doing to your apartment - nevermind whatever they’re brewing.

Word Count: 1167

Warnings: None!

Taglist: @furblrwurblr​ @moppetwithamanbun​ @tales-of-hisirdoux​ @yagirlcheesely​ @alovesongshewrote​​

Douxie could hear the clinking of glass all the way from the downstairs level of the bookstore. 

"What on earth are they doing up there-"

He peered slightly up at the balcony level and to where the bookstore led to his apartment, as if he'd be able to see what was going on up there from where he stood. A customer found their way into GDT Arcane Books, but just as Douxie turned to ask how he could be of service, there was a shattering of glass from upstairs followed by an "Oh. Well that's not good-" From his roommate. 

He glanced upwards worriedly, only to see a fog rolling out from under the apartment door. "Uhm, if you'll excuse me for.. just a minute." He told the customer, before racing up the stairs. The customer must have also taken note of the concern on the wizard's face and the cloud slowly spreading across the floor and over the balcony. She took one look at the whole thing as Douxie disappeared up the stairs and slowly backed out of the bookstore. 

Douxie knocked on the door to the apartment lightly, calling into the foggy mist, "Hey (Y/n)- you alright up here, love?"

Their voice responded to him from somewhere within the apartment, "Oh yeah! It's good! I'm good. It's good. Don't worry, it's not toxic. It's mostly dry ice. Mostly."

There was a shuffling, followed by a, "Come in, come in!"

The wizard was only mildly afraid of what he'd open the door to, but nonetheless, he wouldn't believe that they hadn't blown themself up without seeing for himself. He conjured up an orb of light to give him a better field of vision through the mist as he tried to find his roommate. 

"In the kitchen!" They called as they saw his blue magic light up the room from the door. 

"What did we say about potions during working hours-" Archie had made his way up from the bookstore as well to see what all the fuss was about. 

"You saiiiiid... not to do it?" He could hear them laughing softly from wherever they were. 

"I only say that because of how they, how do I say, turn out sometimes. Not that I don't love whatever you conjure up- what exactly is it that you're conjuring up?"

"Oh well you see," their voice was suddenly much closer than it had been moments ago, an arm emerged from the mist to grab a hold of Douxie's sweater to lead him to their workspace.

"I was going to try making some of those.. what are they? The never ending flavor things from Willy wonka? Yeah those. But, BUT, then I wanted to carbonate some apple cider and thought it would be cool to put some dry ice cubes in,"

"For some, ya'know, extra flare!"

They gestured some vague jazz hands at the last word, but it was hard to make out from all the fog, though it had begun to clear. 

"Ahuh... yes I see that. But darling, exactly how much dry ice did you use...?"

"Okay so fun story."

"Okay, listening, waiting for the fun part to kick in."

They elbowed him gently and the two of them let out a chuckle. 

"I know dry ice never does," they gestured around at the clouded apartment, vaguely hoping no cops outside saw this and thought you were running some illegal operation in here, "this. But, I'll get to that, hold on."

"I started with two little cubes and it made the cider bubble and ya'know, fog over like a little potion - it was really cool - but then I thought, HEY, if this is what dry ice does by itself, then what would magic do to it???"

"I'm guessing it does this."

"Bingo!"

Douxie tried to cover up his amused laugh with a sigh of disappointment, only to fail miserably.

"Isn't it  c o o l???"

"Yes (Y/n), it's very cool. I'm glad you're having a fun ti- why are you putting your potion ingredients in the fridge-"

The apartment had begun to clear up just enough for him to make out their figure carrying all their little glass bottles over to the fridge. 

"To be faiiiiir, these aren't my potion ingredients. It's just the fizzy cider in little bottles!"

"Now those, over there," They pointed to the area next to the toaster, "are my potion ingredients."

(Y/n) sounded so pleased with themself and Douxie couldn't help but smile, despite his apartment being filled with a cloud of dry ice. It was clearing up, for sure, but that wasn't the point.  

"Which also to be fair, are going in the fridge once I find space for these ones." They jingled the little bottles in their hand to emphasize them going into the fridge. 

"(Y/n) what did I say about needing to put your potion ingredients in the fridge?"

"That it's better to pickle the tadpole tails so they'll last longer outside of refrigeration in the event that our fridge breaks down?"

"I- no. The other thing."

"C'mon Doux! They're on my side of the fridge! And they're small too, not taking up too much space."

"No (Y/n)- your spices don't need to be refrigerated-"

"Ohhhh yes yes, that part. But listen, they're not your average mortal spices! They're magically enchanted spices!" They made ghost noises as if to somehow get the point across. "So, they need to be kept cooooold." They paused for a moment, blinking at him while he peered back in amusement. "Anyways, want some of the fizzy cider????"

Douxie sighed in defeat, rubbing his temples from the whole ordeal.

It wasn't dealing with them that was the problem, the problem was that it wasn't even noon yet.

And this was the second time this week.

It was tuesday.

He didn't actually even have that much of a problem with the potion ingredients in the fridge. It just bothered him to open it only to be greeted with dozens of little jars filled with spices and dried herbs that didn't need to be in there. 

They just didn't need to be refrigerated.

It bothered him that they weren't supposed to be in there, and yet, there they were, plain as day. He sighed again before taking you up on your offer of fizzy cider.

"Sure, might as well try the cause of all this."

Luckily enough by now the fog had cleared enough for him to be able to see again without thinking something was vaguely wrong with his eyes. 

(Y/n) chuckled while pouring him a glass and putting a very small little cube of dry ice in it before passing it over. Then they poured themself a glass, not having tried it yet since they couldn't find where the cups were in all that mess.

"Cheers!"

Douxie laughed softly as he clinked his glass with (Y/n)’s, glad to see that they were at least enjoying this whole ordeal.

[curetapwater]

Shadow for the bingo meme?

Skdhshshs love himmm

For a lot of reasons. Like on a surface level he's just really cool!! His design is awesome, both badass yet adorable at the same time! Imo he neither feels out of place in super serious nor lighthearted settings.

On a deeper level, I adore the themes of his arc regarding healing from trauma, breaking free from cycles of toxicity, and actively choosing to make the world a better place despite it all. I have a particular thing for characters who were specifically created for certain purposes, only for them to explore personhood outside of just being a tool. It's why a lot of my favorite stories feature some form of destiny as a heavy theme. Shadow has that going for him multiple times over!! With various people and factions effectively pulling him in all directions and him ultimately deciding to follow his own path.

I also think his power set is so cool! He can wield weapons, he's basically a wizard with all those Chaos powers, he's got a set of space-age rollerblades!!!!!! I am staunchly of the belief that he doesn't NEED the air shoes to go as fast as Sonic, he just wears them because they're cool. He looked at a motorcycle and said "I can figure this out" and he was right. One time he like. Rode on an eagle or something and it didn't feel out-of-character. I'm pretty sure he flipped a truck with his non-dominant hand once.

And yet he's so vulnerable!! He's just a kid and all this is happening to him!!!!!! I mean, that's true of 90% of Sonic characters lol but I mean Shadow tries So Hard to make you forget he's ultimately a child who's working on himself. A super cool, super-powered child but a child nonetheless. I've heard people say his current English VA sounds like a "tryhard" but imo that's part of his appeal. Honestly I adore Shadow's specific flavor of "I'm trying so hard to be cold but my giant gooey heart keeps seeping through."

I remember when I was really little and I'd watch my older relatives play Sonic Adventure 2, and at first when I saw Shadow I legitimately couldn't categorize him into "good guy" or "bad guy." (I also couldn't follow the story because I was a toddler lol) His design and boss battles with Sonic told me "bad guy" but his flashbacks with Maria and the way he patted the Chao's heads muddled the waters for me. So I also appreciate him being a gateway into more complex ways of viewing characters.

With all of this that we've been given, he's a very interesting character to see pieces of oneself in. For one example that's close to me, it's basically canon that he's mentally ill (in SA2 he displays PTSD symptoms and in his title game there are pathways where he expresses symptoms of depression) and also has a lot of external trauma happen to his brain (multiple cases of brainwashing/memory altering/mind control plus blunt force trauma so bad it gave him amnesia) that makes it hard for him to distinguish what's real. So as a neurodivergent person it delights me to see this character honestly, legitimately struggle with not only everything placed upon his shoulders but his own brain chemistry on top of it. He doesn't always make the best choices (to say the least) but in the end he makes a conscious effort to do right by the world and I think that's incredibly inspiring. His character song Never Turn Back lays out this facet of his character perfectly.

I put a halfway cross on "didn't get enough screentime" because in the 2000s he got a lot of attention but in the 2010s not so much. It seems that might be changing soon and I sure hope it does!!!

I put another one on "got done dirty by the fans" because I feel it's less so fans and more other people that make Shadow out to be a far less compelling character than he really is. I also don't appreciate how he's used as an avenue to bash goth and emo teens who are just trying to enjoy themselves. "Lol who are you, Shadow the EDGEhog" like is that an insult to be compared to such an awesome character???

I put a cross over "I'd be scared of them irl" but that only applies to those times he went oopsie daisy and tried to destroy humanity. Otherwise I'd actually feel very safe in his presence. I'd give him a cookie and trade anime recommendations with him.