#once again designs are still in the works they will change a lot

[salem-s]

SUNRISES, PENALTIES, AND LOSING SLEEP OVER YOU ── RAFE CAMERON ONE SHOT

── SYNOPSIS when Rafe can't sleep, he ends up at the soccer field to get some practice in. however, he can't seem to stop his sunrise practices when he discovers the pretty girl who reads on the bleachers is there every morning. ── WARNINGS language, so much fluff??? ── WORD COUNT 5.6k. ── NOTES consists of jock!rafe and nerd-ish!reader, college au, mainly rafe pov. ── SONG OF THE CHAPTER everything is embarrassing by sky ferreira

Rafe contradicts himself this time -- he actually doesn't mind being up before the sun if that means some more practice...and some peace and quiet.

Surprisingly, he's quite the night owl, fighting the plague that puts him to sleep by distracting himself with literally anything he can get his hands on, even if that meant school work that's been pushed off for the last minute. He can go all night at a bar and he's the only one out of his friends to be able to actually pull all nighters on their designated movie night.  

While this has severely skewed his sleeping schedule, Rafe prefers to get things done while the rest of the world around him is asleep, you know, for some alone time.

Sure, Rafe's a pretty social guy: he enjoys time with friends and his teammates and classmates, and he definitely jumps at the chance to spend time with them whenever he can. It's a pretty rare occurrence where he isn't with someone or talking to someone, because he's a light converser and easy to fall in stride with. He's the stranger that people often fall in love with and never see again, perhaps it's the handsomely boyish smile or his ability to talk to a brick wall. 

And yet, there's moments like right now where some alone time is needed. 

Once again, Rafe's been up for nearly a day now, the sun just peaking over the horizon behind him, signaling the start of a lot of people's days (and the end of his, since it's Saturday and he'll need to recharge before going out tonight). The sleep simply...doesn't come to him.

Not easily, anyway.

After nights out with his friends (or when they go to bed), Rafe normally tinkers with things in his room, building trinkets from scratch or blueprinting random designs because he's bored, which he doesn't normally admit to people. His ability to draw was something his father always told him to push down deep, to ignore and focus on the money-driven careers of the world: business, science, all that crap.

Well, his father isn't here. And even if he was, Rafe wouldn't really care, anyway.

Sleep doesn't come very naturally to him during the night, which is highly unusual considering he has no insomnia or trouble sleeping. He just doesn't get tired. Usually the sunrise shining through his window signals him to try and sleep. 

He doesn't recall the last time he's really looked at a sunrise, this time being exceptional with colors portraying burning passion and dragon fruit, and the dirty-blond hums to himself, halting his movements to stop and enjoy it for a second.

The soccer ball planted on the ground by his foot is still as Rafe's balance. He holds himself together to take a deep breath in and observe the world around him.

Sure, he's never up this early but, goddamn, it really is pretty.

Hues of pink, orange, purple emerge in sight, getting lighter by the second and changing into something more tranquil. He's at ease. There's something more content and comforting about sunrises than sunsets, and while he cannot put his finger on the exact reason, he deems this a fact. 

Rafe mentally notes to do some sunrise workouts more often. 

At his university, he's on the club soccer team, which isn't the big leagues but it keeps him and shape and the competition isn't nearly as stressful, which he likes. Rafe enjoys the sport to have fun, and while he does care about winning and beating these other lame schools, at the end of the day it's just putting a ball through a net and spending time with his teammates, so he never holds a grudge if his team loses.

He's spent so many years fighting for love, fighting for affection, fighting for meaningless trophies to impress his father that in the end he just...realized it is what it is. Once Rafe learned the implication of life will happen anyway regardless of how certain things go, his outlook on competition changed.

Anger subsided into contention, rage simmered into acceptance, and fear contorted to nonchalance.

Rafe learned a long time ago that, no matter how athletic he may play or how many As he may earn, nothing will ever satisfy his father's insatiability for perfection.

That lifted a considerably heavy weight off his shoulders, once he started living to please himself rather than everybody else.

Of course, he still plays with heart and the frustration of the game naturally spurs during heated moments. But the implications of self pressure are no longer there, and Rafe has found incredible solace with his teammates.

They usually go out after games to celebrate, win or loss, anyway.

Rafe can't really argue with that.

The reason Rafe's alone now is because 1. all of his friends are sleeping and 2. he didn't get drunk enough to pass out.

He had a couple shots early in the night, but curse his heavy weight intake for making it hard to get drunk. So now he's here at the practice field at the ungodly hours of the morning - because he's bored and doesn't want to sleep just yet, and he doesn't have to worry about any classes, just about his plans tonight. 

Besides, his skills could always use some tidying up. 

Rafe goes back to his workout routine after his admiration for the sky, the sun rising behind him mindlessly while he dribbles the ball up and down the field to practice his precision, working on mind trick tricks in terms of scoring (Rafe is a forward, no way could he play defense).

Sweat glistens his forehead as the coolness of the night gradually dissipates, and he doesn't know how long he's been on this field, maybe a few hours? Days? At this point, someone could've told him he's been here for a year and he'd probably take their word for it.

But Rafe, after shooting the ball and missing, notices someone sitting on the bleachers with a book.

You.

A very pretty girl, who now has the book in your lap and is instead watching him.

Rafe just shrugs and gives a welcoming wave with a smile that you definitely can't see, but instead of waving back, you instead close the book with such gentleness and sit up to speak.

"Isn't the ball supposed to go in the net?"

Rafe recoils.

What?

He bites back a laugh because at this ungodly hour, everything is funny no matter what. He decides to ignore the hot raspiness of your voice and pushes it to the back of his mind, because he'll want to think about that later.

Despite his internal turmoil, Rafe plants his hands on his hips and cocks his head to the side. "I don't suppose you could do better?"

You chuckle sweetly, even Rafe can hear that from the distance and thinks it's faint music to his ears. "No, I can't. Have fun playing kickball, though."

Rafe simply stands there, blinking with a dumbfounded expression and a hint of a grin, taking a moment to soak in the faint image of you, a beautiful stranger, who goes back to reading your book. Shamelessly, he continues staring at you, as he can can make out how your silhouette is swallowed by a crimson hoodie looking comfortable enough to make Rafe yawn.

Fuck, now he's tired.

It doesn't take long for Rafe to pack up his things after doing some last work-downs and begin walking off the field (and of course the exit gate is right by the bleachers). The sun is now risen, just barely, and he can already feel the heat coming to bite him in the ass. He's never been a fan of the heat, especially at the start of the school year where it's basically sweltering summer.

Besides, he's been yawning for the past few minutes and his movements are more sluggish than they were before, so he takes this as a hint to finally get some rest.

You look up from your book and notice the alarmingly attractive soccer player leaving. Going against your normal tendency to hide and avoid talking to people you don't know, you can't help but feel inclined to smile when the stranger perks up and makes eye contact with you. The wild thumping of your heart only augments when you notice how pretty his eyes are, a bright blue despite the exhaustion behind them.

Rafe sends you a boyish smile and a nod, almost as if he's known you forever and bidding you a familiar farewell.

Once he gets closer, he notices your coffee sitting idly beside you, ice melting as the sun starts beating down on it. He also notices how pretty you really are, much prettier up close.

"Do you always read at the ass crack of dawn or what?" Rafe decides to pipe up, making his tone lighthearted so you don't think any different.

You huff out a laugh. "I've been here every morning since the semester started, and I'm just seeing you for the first time, why?"

Despite the certainty of your tone, Rafe doesn't ignore the sheepish look that immediately creeps on your face, trying to act cordial but he can tell by the way you're wringing your fingers together, you're somewhat skeptical of him. He decides to spare you and not to comment on the nerves, because he also feels heat in his face (he's gonna blame the workout, not the hot stranger talking to him). 

"Late night, couldn't sleep, and I was bored so I thought I'd shoot around until I got tired."

"Wait a minute," you say, your tone suddenly serious and your expression indulgent, "you haven't slept yet?"

Rafe shrugs nonchalantly, not taking into consideration that other people have normal sleeping schedules, finally meeting someone who does.

"Nah, this is normal for me. I'm surprised you're up...willingly...that's honestly terrifying and I'm scared of you," he jokes and spins the soccer ball on the tip of his ring finger. 

You widen your eyes and let out a low whistle, the look of shock coating your features. "Not sure if I should be fearing you instead. I can't tell if you're a god or just fucking stupid."

This makes Rafe bark out a laugh, one that he doesn't expect to come out, but the fact that this beautiful, fragile, and relaxed stranger just dropped the f-bomb nonchalantly is somehow fucking hilarious to Rafe...or perhaps it's the lack of sleep that makes his perception of things much more different and jagged.

Either way, he doesn't care, because the smile on your face is something Rafe's mind is never, ever going to forget. 

"Probably the latter, unfortunately," Rafe admits in that cheery self-deprecating tone that everyone takes normally. "Well, sunny, I'll leave you to it."

Then he pauses for a second, biting his tongue to refrain from saying something too forward.

"I'll hopefully see you around?"

Your blush intensifies (at the nickname or his confidence, you don't know), and neither speak on it. "Yeah, that'd be nice. See ya, kickball."

Before Rafe can defend his sport, you open your book back up and pick up where you left off, lounging back and crossing your legs to get more comfortable as Rafe splutters and huffs out a response that you seemingly ignore.

Your small smirk of victory makes Rafe want to either punch it off or kiss it off. Please don't ask him which one he prefers. 

Rafe's been at the soccer field almost every morning now for the past week. 

He figures that he'll sleep during the day on the weekends and in between his classes during the week, setting a multitude of alarms and not getting the amount of sleep he wishes to. His sister, Sarah, hassles him because she wants to meet this stranger who's been taking up all of Rafe's free time, finally happy that her brother is 'seeing someone' who isn't a complete jerk.

His best friend, Kelce, begs Rafe to introduce them or at least tell them a name, and have even tried to sneak out of his apartment with Rafe to spy on them (to which Rafe immediately shut down). But Rafe likes the idea of keeping you all to himself, just for a little bit.

Sure, his sleep schedule is even more messed up, but seeing the beautiful stranger every morning is such a goddamned bonus.

Oh, and it's no longer stranger. He learns your name the third time you see him.

Rafe learns that you're majoring in graphic design but that you have a serious love towards history and art, and immediately shy-ed away when he asked you to draw something, anything, on the spot.

And Rafe thinks it's so attractive that you're calm, collected, and easily embarrassed. You're shy, no matter how much you try to hide it. But you've been getting more and more comfortable with him every morning and he counts that as a huge step in his book. The books you read every morning are nonfiction pieces for your classes, and bring a sketch book a couple times a week as a substitute when you don't feel like indulging in history at the ass crack of dawn. 

He's been practicing soccer every morning now and his teammates comment on his change in precision and dribbling, and all Rafe can do is shrug and bitch about how he's the best on the team and can't help his natural talent (which his friends are used to hearing, and immediately humble him).

Well, little do they know you're the entire reason for that, and Rafe teeters between telling you that or keeping that to himself. 

The only downside to all of this is that Rafe's sleep schedule is...no longer. 

He stays up during the night, partying, sketching, whatever, and then makes his way to the field around five-am to practice and wait for you to get there (to make it look like he's already been practicing), and sometimes he doesn't even practice but instead waits on the bleachers for you if he has a game that day, not wanting to push it.

But then Rafe stays with you well into the morning, time that he usually spends sleeping is spent talking and chatting ears off.

Pathetically, he doesn't want to miss a day with you, yet he's really fucking tired.

Maybe you'll understand? Or you won't, and Rafe will have to go back into a panic to figure out if you're actually into him or not. 

Rafe genuinely thinks he's dumb, because you'll graze his hand against his or subtly compliment him, and he doesn't know how to respond, and will just carry on normally because he doesn't want to assume anything is going on.

Because if there's nothing happening between you, then Rafe doesn't want to be embarrassed for thinking that way.

Rafe needs verbal confirmation if you're into him, because these subtle ways of being touchy and flirty are very confusing to a dumb person.

A.K.A., him.

The realization that you're horrifically down bad for Rafe Cameron hits you at approximately 3:22am on a random Sunday, a week after you meet.

You'd gone to bed around eleven, trying to get some early shut eye before your Renaissance history exam tomorrow. The prep had you cozied up in the library all day, forcing yourself to reiterate the material to no end until you were seeing your handwriting in your head when you shut your eyes.

That's usually your tale-telling sign to know when to wrap it up.

But the effort to get plenty of rest proves fruitless in its attempt due to the giant fucking spider you see a foot away from your face.

Panic rises in your chest.

After all, you often wake up naturally during the night at least once to turn over or stretch your legs and sometimes think you see something, like the hoodie on the back of your chair that looks like a person or the piece of string on your floor that emulates a snake. In the moment, you try to convince yourself that it's one of those pranks your brain likes to play on you.

When it moves, however, that's when you scream.

You fliiiiiing off the bed, landing harshly on the tile with a thud, probably dragging half of your bedspread with you as you fumble for the lamp switch on your dresser.

The light makes it worse, because it proves your suspicions as you stare at the biggest spider you've ever seen on the wall, inches from your pillow.

Of course, you panic.

Heart racing, you freeze in your spot as you can't seem to take your eyes off of it, scared that it'll disappear into your sheets or behind your bed if you move or look away for a fraction of a moment. It's a standoff, you realize, and it doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

And there's no way you're getting near it.

Your fingers shake as you reach for your phone on the dresser, not once taking your eyes off the creature. Once it's in your hand, you pause and suck in a breath.

What the fuck is your phone gonna do?

Think, you repeat in your head. Breathe. Call Laney.

Your thumb ghosts over your best friend's contact, but your heart sinks when you catch a glimpse of the time.

Christ, it's the middle of the night. No one is awake at this hour.

You groan, eyes flickering between your phone and the spider that stays still on your wall, probably thinking of its plan to kill you, or whatever arachnids normally plot.

Trembling in place, you run through your options.

A. You could attempt to throw something at it, but that would only work if you had a guaranteed throwing accuracy, which you do not have. This will probably result in you missing entirely, and the spider vanishing in your sheets to never be seen again. Nope.

B. You could attempt to call Laney or your RA for some roadside assistance, but you know that Laney of all people, who once shrieked and ran from a wasp (it was really a fly), would really be of no help. And your RA often slept through a lot of concerning events, as in multiple fire alarms, a cat fight right outside his door, and, once, a literal firecracker. Nope.

C. You could grab your lighter and attempt to light it on fire. Given the circumstances, you're also guessing that's a fat nope.

D. There's a-

Your endless spiraling comes to a halt when you get a text, a fucking text, none other than from Rafe Cameron. At three in the morning.

Rafe: hey! someone make a greg and rowley edit to fake plastic trees. got me fucked up lowkey. heres the link. lets debrief about it later.

A moment passes and you blink hastily at the message, wondering if your eyes are playing tricks on you or if he, truly, is awake right now casually looking at god knows what. You re-read it once, twice, double checking the time stamp he sent it, mere minutes ago, and your chest pains in embarrassment at what you're about to do.

Your gaze darts from the text to the spider and back to the text.

God, your options are thin.

Before you can talk yourself out of it, you're pressing on his contact, hitting the call button.

It rings once. "Please don't tell me I woke you up from that stupid text."

"No, um." You bite your lip as you eye the spider. "Uh, are you busy right now?"

"Besides talking to you? Nothing, pretty. Isn't it past your bedtime?"

You hate how your cheeks burn at his nonchalance, but are thankful he can't see you right now, even though he might at some point in the nearby future.

"What's wrong?" Rafe's tone morphs from teasing into what sounds like concern.

"It's stupid," you whisper, swallowing your pride. "But, uh, there's a giant spider in my room, I'm not kidding the size of my palm. I'm just, like, kinda freaking out?"

There's shuffling on the other end, a grunt, then a thud.

"Ow," Rafe grumbles and it sounds far away, as if you aren't meant to have heard it. "What dorm are you in?"

Your heart flips. "Shaffer. But Rafe, you really don't-"

"Room number?"

"509. But-"

"Nah," he interrupts nonchalantly, as if he won't entertain the thought of not helping you. "I'll be there in five. Talk to me, what'd you do today?"

Rafe arrives in three minutes.

Creeping to the door without taking your eyes off the spider, you open it to reveal Rafe Cameron, clad in sweatpants and a ridiculous graphic t-shirt (that looks like it's inside out), hair disheveled and sticking in every direction, holding his phone to his ear where you're still connected on the call. His green sneakers are untied. His smile is bright.

You try not to stare. You really try. Especially since you're supposed to be keeping an eye on the problem to begin with, but it's hard to resist when he looks so disgustingly endearing.

Eager, even, to help you out.

"Good to know it hasn't eaten you yet," Rafe jests, hanging up the call and putting his phone in his pocket.

You swallow the lump in your throat and step aside to let him in. "You really didn't have to-"

He places a cool palm over your mouth, startling you into shutting up.

Blinking stupidly up at him, all your senses are inhibited when you realize how close he is, how you can smell his cologne and see how bright his blue eyes really are.

"None of that." Rafe grins at your wide eyes. "Now, where is it?"

It's almost annoying how fearless he is.

While you're huddled in the opposite corner of the room, hugging yourself through your thin pajamas, Rafe simply scans the scene in front of him: the array of sheets and blankets hazardously scattered on your floor, the spider on the wall, your hand-sized penguin plushie that Laney got you as a joke. He can't help but cheekily smile to himself, getting a glimpse of you through the items you have, the photos you have hanging up, delaying the arachnid trapping for a moment to be selfish.

You catch him staring at a photo on your wall under your miscellaneous posters, and clear your throat.

Rafe snaps his head back to you, as if forgetting why he's here. "Right, sorry, pretty."

You reel as you watch him. Looking around for items he can use for the entrapment, Rafe settles on a discarded empty coffee cup from your trash can, kneeling forward on your bed and holding the cup underneath the spider.

The thump of your heart only gets louder as you see him nudge it with his own bare hand into the cup.

Once the spider is in it, he simply puts his palm over the top, covering it with not so much a second thought.

Rafe stands normally, tilting his head with puzzlement when he turns around to face you, wide eyed and, frankly, a little horrified.

"What?"

"Wh- You-" You splutter. "You touched it."

All he does it shrug, as if it literally means nothing. "No biggie. You have any ops on this floor? I can set him down so he crawls into their room instead."

After you escort him (from a distance) to relocate the spider outside, Rafe only deems it polite to walk you back to your room. On the way back in, he catches a glimpse of himself in the window and winces at his appearance, so the whole walk back he's been subtly trying to flatten down his unruly hair. You stifle a laugh each time he brings his hand up to mess with it more, undoubtedly making it worse.

By the time you get back to your door, it's worse than before. But he's never looked better, in your opinion.

"Um, thank you," you say sheepishly, toying with the strings of your pajama pants. "I know it's late. Or early. Whatever you wanna call it."

Rafe's smile couldn't be bigger. "I was up anyway."

You frown. "I don't think that's very good for you. You know, not sleeping."

Your tone reeks of concern, frankly a little embarrassing to express such distress for his well-being despite knowing him for only a week now.

But he barely seems fazed by it, instead shrugging. "Maybe. But then I wouldn't have answered your call, hm?"

The amused gleam in Rafe's eyes make your head fuzzy.

"I guess," you mumble. "I'll get you a coffee for your...troubles."

Rafe laughs boyishly, leaning against your doorframe as if he has all the time in the world to talk to you. "No need, pretty. I'm a certified arachnid relocator. I'm putting this shit on my resume. You honestly did me a favor," he rambles. "Needed a new job to put on there, anyway."

You can't help but roll your eyes, not really understanding how he has the energy to quip with you right now.

"Right, put it under your specialty in kickball," you tease, fighting a smile when you see his brows raise. "Will you please try and get some rest?"

"Depends," he hums, tilting his head to the side in contemplation. "Will you be at the field tomorrow?"

Ignoring the way your heart leaps, you shake your head. "Can't. All the more reason to catch up on sleep, no?"

"Are you asking me to?"

"Begging, really."

Rafe then nods, but not without trying - and failing - to suppress a stupidly large grin. "Alright, fine. For you? Anything?"

When you finally convince him to go back to his room (only the building next door), you can't help but lie awake in your spider-free bedroom, staring at the dark ceiling as your mind replays the last thirty minutes over and over.

Yeah. You're already in deep.

Rafe's been meeting you for a few weeks now, ever since the spider incident, almost every morning to talk and hang out.

A couple days a week you'll get coffee before classes to keep Rafe stable, and he discovers that you two always have something to talk about, and if there's silence it's always comfortable and natural. You often watch the sunrise in silence when it first awakens, and then carry on your normal routines when the beauty is over. 

It's so stupidly endearing to him that you let him share your moment with him.

Safe to say he's horrendously down bad...despite his overwhelming fatigue.

This morning has been exceptional rough for Rafe, because around three in the morning while he had been bored tinkering with things in his room, he suddenly remembered a paper that needs to be written before his noon class.

Of course, it's the middle of the night. He knows you're definitely asleep and there's no way he'd wake you up for something like this.

Naturally, Rafe spirals into a messy panic, standing in the middle of his room for a few moments debating on writing the paper here in his dorm or just taking all his things to the bleachers and doing it there while waiting for you. He does have a couple hours to spare, but Rafe doesn't think when he grabs his backpack, laptop, and book and runs out of his dorm.

The darkness of the night has never bothered him, not while the moon shines above him and illuminates his path. It's one of the reasons he loves nightfall so much, is because of the beauty of the moon and the light that it reflects on the earth. He wishes he could see the craters more clearly so he can soak in all of her beauty, but tonight he's in too much of a rush and panic to really think about the deep ideas of the moon.

When Rafe gets to the bleachers, he immediately opens his laptop and starts writing, whipping his book out so that he can reference quotes and cite pages while he lazily goes off his shitty outline he wrote a few nights ago about the premise of his paper. The words he hastily types come out as lethargic unpleasantries, and he really, really tries to focus to make it good, but his head keeps lulling forward and his fingers shake from fatigue.

He doesn't even care. He's a STEM student anyway, so literature isn't really at the top of his list of things to care about.

But god forbid he misses a morning with you.

So he lounges back on the bleachers, ferociously typing away everything he can and scraps together every piece of knowledge he has about the book.

And that's exactly how you find Rafe a few hours later: head tipped back with his legs stretched out, laptop discarded beside him with a black screen, light snores emitting from his mouth and his hair disheveled in every sort of direction.

And you think you're gonna melt at the sight. 

Rafe is startled awake by a loud squawking by his ear, and yelps quietly while he shoos away the crow on the fence and tries to remember where he is and what he was doing. He sees the sun...the soccer field...holy shit, where are-?

You, sitting next to him with his laptop in your lap, waiting patiently for him to wake up. You try (and fail) to suppress a grin as you notice how disheveled he is right now, who's trying to piece together what he had been doing before he passed out.

"Good morning," you greet warmly. "Sleep well?"

"What time is it?" Rafe immediately asks, mind fuzzy from the short amount of sleep. "I have class at-"

"Noon," you interrupt calmly, trying to ignore how stupidly attractive his morning voice sounds, "I was planning on waking you up in an hour or so in order for you to have enough time to get there, but your professor emailed you and the rest of your class to tell you that class was cancelled for a family emergency. So I wasn't going to wake you at all, but that crow had other plans for you. Sorry."

Rafe sits up and rubs his eyes, cracking his back and stretching from the uncomfortable position, still foggy as he looks at your pretty and yawns. "I need to...I need to finish a paper. It's about-"

"Frankenstein?" you interrupt again, looking very prideful. "Don't worry, I've read the book before so I finished it for you. I also re-wrote everything you wrote because...well...it wasn't making sense. I mean, no offense or anything. I kinda submitted it already since it was still due at noon, so..."

Letting out a breath of relief, Rafe slouches and utterly destroys his posture as he regains his ability to think coherently.

His mind catches up to the situation. You found him asleep, finished his essay for him, and waited for him to wake up so you wouldn't disturb him?

Yup. Yeah, it's official, he's smitten with you.

"I don't know how to thank you," murmurs Rafe, unknowing of what to even say, scratching the back of his neck as he peers over at you.

You simply shrug, handing the laptop and book back to Rafe (of course while grazing your fingertips together, hopefully intentionally).

"Think of it as..." You rack your brain for words. "...Me returning the favor. You know, for the spider."

His mind is mush.

All he can think about is you not thinking twice to help him out, despite his idiocy and consistently scrappy appearance. Somehow, somehow, he hasn't driven you away yet. Just when he thinks he's fucked something up, you come back.

"That was- I wanted to do that for you."

Once again, you shrug. "And I wanted to do this for you."

Rafe blinks stupidly at you, unable to form a coherent thought. What ends up coming out of his mouth is, "You wrote a paper."

"Yeah."

"For me."

"Well, I couldn't submit the garbage you came up with. No offense, or anything, but I think you confused Frankenstein with Frankenweenie."

"That's a common mistake."

You manage to crack a smile. "Is it?"

Rafe decides it's one of the prettiest things he's ever seen. "Mhm."

But, of course, he has to ruin the moment by yawning so horrendously audacious that he nearly groans in self inflicted embarrassment.

"Sorry," he winces when he comes down from it, rubbing the side of his face in exhaustion. "That's my body's involuntary response to when a pretty girl writes my papers for me."

You roll your eyes to push away your shyness, to ignore the heat flushing your cheeks.

"You really should get some rest."

Rafe yawns again. ""M not tired."

Despite the dark circles under his eyes, Rafe looks perfectly content on these bleachers, leaning back onto the row above and lounging brazenly. His head is lulled in your direction, looking up at you with those pretty blues and a half lipped smirk that seems to be permanently etched on his face whenever he's with you.

You wring the ends of your shirt, nervously biting your lip under his intense gaze.

And you're speaking before he can call you pretty again.

"Well, how about this. After you get some sleep, we can...we can get dinner? We can even do take out, or I can try and chef something up in the communal kitchen, or something..."

His mouth drops open.

You trail off, unsure of what to make of his flabbergasted expression. Is he...Is this not what you thought it was?

But Rafe is over the moon, unable to get that stupid shocked look off his face as he realizes holy shit he thinks you're asking him out? and he can't find the energy to move, he's frozen, relaying the thought over and over in his head that you, of all people, are into him.

Are you? Or is this some sort of friend-quality time thing that's going over Rafe's head because, contrary to popular belief, he's very smart when it comes to blueprints and designs and sometimes mathematics, but also very dumb when it comes to pretty girls.

Is this a direct invitation on a date or not? His tired brain doesn't know how to think strai-

"I'll take that as a no...?"

Rafe blinks his way out of his thoughts at the sound of your voice again, and he finally finds the words and mumbles out a curse word as he notices the confused guise on your pretty face.

He immediately widens his eyes.

"No, no, no-"

Your brows raise.

Rafe recoils. "Yes! Well, I mean yes, yes, I'll get dinner with you. Sorry, I just...Yes, I'd love to." 

You find it in yourself to laugh, and subtly let out a breath you've been holding for all that time Rafe had been yelling at himself in his head, debating the context of the invitation.

Blinking blearily, Rafe shakes his head, trying to figure out if he's still sleeping and he's dreaming, or if this is actually happening to him. But with the intensity of his rapid heartbeat and the way you look so vividly real and present, he deems that this is in fact not a dream, and this is happily real life.

"Good, because I don't know what I'd do if you said no," you joke, twiddling your thumbs out of nerves and letting out a low chuckle. "Probably never talk to you again."

Rafe waves you off with a proud look on his face, a wide grin, saying your name with such a saccharine tone that it makes your brain go fuzzy.

"Oh please, like I'd even think of blowing off my very own essay-writer. I may be stupid, but I am not an idiot."

This makes you laugh with that stupidly adorable smile that you can't seem to fight off that well, and Rafe takes in how beautiful you are, with your perfect grin and bright eyes that remind him of the the lightness in his chest when he finds something funny, or how your sweet voice smoothes over the ridges and hills of his heart and fills in the gaps affectionately.

(Which is painful for Rafe to endure because he loves it so much).

"You are pretty stupid," you admit quietly, timidly. "You're stupid for losing sleep over me."

Rafe closes his agape mouth at the fact that he's been caught. "Well it's worth it." Then softer, "You're worth it."

You roll your eyes and stand up, Rafe watching you do so. "You shouldn't have to accommodate your entire schedule for me. Honestly, you should go home now and sleep," you suggest earnestly, because all you want is for him to be at his best.

"Only if you'll come with."

Your heart skips a beat and you find yourself rolling your eyes once again, but this time feeling heat creep up on your neck no matter how hard you try to fight it.

It's always something about the way Rafe flirts with you so effortlessly, and how you can tell he means it. 

"Fine," you agree gently, saying it as if it was a bad thing (although your suppressed grin gives that away), "c'mon, you stupid idiot."

So, Rafe gets his things together and leaves the signature bleachers with you, this time finding the gall to slip his hand into yours, gingerly squeezing.

All this time, he wondered what it'd be like to hold your hand, and safe to say it's even better than his preconceived expectations.

© salem-s please do not copy or replicate work unless given permission.

notes some fluff for these hard times. hope you enjoyed!

[festerjesterr]

you can tell which one was my first try at Dr. Harvey

[morninkim]

Series Outline

Rise of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is a character design series/AU that aims to reimagine MMPR as an animated action/comedy series in the vein of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Justice League Action and Steven Universe, while combining elements of several incarnations of the team and larger Power Rangers lore.

The story is split into three "seasons" that would consist of short episodic adventures and longer, more story driven episodes that push forward an overarching plot. Each season would feature a different antagonist and grow the threat with each one as the Power Rangers get used to and grow into their role as superheroes.

Details all under the read more if you're interested!!

Season 1

Season 1 would feature Goldar, Squatt and Baboo as main antagonists, following themes of new friendships and the coming together of the team. The Rangers start the story mostly as strangers, but would become a close-knit group of friends by the end, willing to put their lives on the line for each other.

Introduced early on as supporting characters would be Grace and Tommy Oliver, a mother and her daughter. The two of them would serve as an in with the NASADA associated science team at Promethea Base and the non-Ranger civilians in Angel Grove.

The culmination of this development and personal focus episodes for each Ranger would be the summoning of their respective Power Weapon, ending the season with a fight against the newly released dark spirit of Rita Repulsa, who then takes possession of the team's friend Tommy Oliver, leading into Season 2.

Season 2

Season 2 would see the introduction of Zordon and focus on the Rangers' struggle against Rita as she uses Tommy's body to enact her evil, eventually claiming the missing Green Power Coin to become a Dark Green Ranger and wreak havoc with the Dragonzord.

During this, Zordon would pass on the story of his original chosen team, how he forged the Power Coins from a Zeo Crystal, as well as knowledge of the Zords.

The theme of this season would be maintaining bonds and being there for your friends when they need you, culminating in the Rangers being able to summon their Zords and combine into the Megazord to defeat the Dragonzord. A ground battle would then see them free Tommy from Rita's possession by appealing to her directly, allowing Tommy to break it and exorcise Rita from her body.

Rita's spirit would then use what little remaining power she had gathered to resurrect Lord Zedd. As a "reward", Zedd steals her essence to sustain himself, absorbing her and all knowledge of the Rangers she had attained from being in Tommy's body.

Having discovered the Rangers' identities toward the climax, as well as Tommy's new identity as the Green Ranger, Grace would resign from her position at NASADA. However, she would still pay visits to the now ruined and cordoned off Promethea Base to work on a project she'd managed to keep hidden...

Season 3

Season 3 would then pick up a few months later and start with a short mini-arc where the Rangers are joined by the Masked Rider from Edenoi, Prince Dex. His darker attitude and angsty brooding catches everyone's attention and admiration, but Tommy develops a sense of inferiority for a time, feeling replaced by the "cooler" new guy. Her friends are able to pull her out of it again by assuring her that she won't and can't be replaced, and they love her the way she is.

The second half of the Season would then see the Rangers' personal lives messed with from the shadows by Lord Zedd, who takes the form of a shadow influencing Angel Grove as he grows in strength. Their insecurities preyed on and their bonds tested, the Rangers will have to trust each other more than they've ever had to before to defeat the Evil Empire once and for all.

In the midst of this, it would be revealed that Zedd and Zordon are brothers. In a sense. Two halves of a single being, the Morphin Master, who was split in two when he came into contact with a powerful Zeo Crystal that had shattered. The same Crystal that Zordon forged the Power Coins from, while a seventh shard was laid into Zedd's staff. Zordon, a White Light representing Free Will, Creation and Light, chose to allow heroes to choose their own destinies and do good on their own terms, splitting his light spectrum into six colors to empower them. Zedd, a Dark Specter representing Control, Destruction and Darkness, controlled and pulled the strings behind those who would seek to do harm across the Universe, his followers establishing the Empire of Evil.

For a time following Dex's departure, the Rangers would be aided by a mysterious Phantom Ranger in some battles. This ally would be revealed to be Grace, using a self-made morpher she'd engineered from recovered alien tech to keep her daughter safe, putting her "leave the world saving to those who are actually qualified" in practice. Zedd, seizing the opportunity when presented, wrests the Phantom Morpher from Grace's grip and uses it to regain his physical body.

A final battle would see the Rangers combining the full spectrum of their powers to harness the Light as a team of White Rangers to destroy Zedd for good.

An epilogue would then see Zack, Jason and Trini graduate from Angel Grove High and moving on to College. Tommy, Billy and Kimberly recruit freshmen Adam, Rocky and Aisha as the new members of the team and continue the fight against evil as the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Unplaced Story Arcs (little plots that would happen, but might not have a definitive place just yet, mix of funny bits and more character-driven bits)

Kim's parents get divorced, Trini supporting her and helping her through it with her own experience with her parents' separation. The girls go on a short trip to stay with Trini's dad for the weekend so Kim can get away from everything for a bit. She neglects to tell her parents and they naturally get super worried. Ends with Kim's parents assuring her that their separation doesn't change the fact that they love her. Kim and Trini are besties.

A loose Footloose parody episode where dancing is banned at AGHS, where Zack tries to get it unbanned by directly approaching Principal Caplan as the Black Ranger (which fails because he starts to unmorph in the middle of it, since he's trying to use his powers for personal gain) - eventually it's unbanned when the Rangers defeat Pumpkin Rapper at the school's Halloween Party by following Zack's lead and using Hip Hop Kido.

Tommy joins the Football team, but feels insecure and doesn't perform as well as she knows she can because she feels self conscious indulging in "masculine" interests as a trans girl. Zack assures her that she's not less of a girl for doing "guy" stuff and confides in her that he's a trans guy, he just hasn't been open about it since starting High School. The two of them wear trans flag colored face paint during a major game to support each other. And they win!

Jason somehow gets it in his head that Trini likes him (dumb teen stuff, maybe he reads a thing about girls laughing at your jokes when they like you and Trini laughs at him a little bit after so he goes OH she must like me :) ) and decides to ask her on dates because he thinks it'll make her happy, since she's been kinda gloomy lately. Wacky shenanigans happen where Trini thinks that he likes her and goes along with it so she doesn't hurt his feelings. Ends in Jason being the second person ever that Trini comes out as gay too, with the rest of the team following shortly after. Immediately they take the opportunity to tease her about her crush on Richie.

Tommy and Kim struggle to go on dates, always getting interrupted by Power Ranger business. For a second they consider just not dating until they've saved the world, but the others talk them out of it. Ends in them having a movie date where Tommy sets up a projector in the Command Center, but they do end up having to watch it with Zordon and Alpha.

Billy and Trini bonding episode!! Smart kids!! They realise that they're both struggling with classes the other does really well at and decide to help each other out, while Trini also helps Billy be more confident at fighting. Probably happens early on.

Jason and Zack give Billy the rundown on public High School, helping him get used to the whole deal and try to get him involved in some extra-curriculars. Funny bits where he's not good at Football, he's not good at Gymnastics (despite Kim's best efforts), he's good at Chess Club (but no one else is), he's too good at Shop, etc, etc. He ends up joining all the clubs the others are in, even if he isn't good at the activity, because they're his friends and he likes being around them regardless of what they do.

[feyburner]

I ??? woke up at 3am with this scene fully written in my mind palace and quickly jotted it down in the Notes app

*

Clark’s shaking his head before he realizes he’s doing it, and feels a twinge of embarrassment at his own bad manners when Bruce stops mid-word to look at him, brows raised.

“No?” he says.

“No,” Clark says, again without thinking, and again with the reflexive urge to apologize. Somewhere his mother is tutting without knowing why. But he doesn’t apologize, because he’s already saying, “No, it can’t—it can’t be that.”

“Okay,” Bruce says slowly. “Can you elaborate?”

He is, honestly, having trouble taking his eyes off the screen. The mockup design of his new suit is there, dark and sleek, ridged like tactical gear. The blue is like the last shade of evening before you can’t call it evening anymore, the color of nine PM in Kansas in July, so exact there’s a strong chance Bruce color-picked it from a photo. The yellow accents are the cool fluorescent yellow-green of lightning bugs. The red is dark as arterial blood. Every aspect of the suit has been updated—the colors deeper, the angles sharper, the S extending to the corners of its frame—but Bruce has done it without changing the fundamentals. It’s immediately recognizable as the Superman suit, just… well, a little cooler, maybe. A little more of the times. Even the tailoring is modernized. The neckline. The shape of the boots. Where the belt hits at the waist. Clark can tell just by looking that Bruce has not only spent a lot of time on this in general, he’s spent a lot of time designing it specifically with Clark in mind, Clark’s needs and preferences and the small discomforts of his current suit, things he might have mentioned offhand after a mission but never with the assumption that Bruce was listening or filing it away. No doubt the next slides of this presentation will detail all the hidden features of the new suit, and they’ll all be incredibly thoughtful if not slightly overkill, and Bruce will pretend his sole motive here was practicality and risk reduction and respond to any thanks with a curt nod.

And Clark wants to thank him. He will. It’s just.

“It can’t be… cool,” he says, inane. Bruce is watching him with that steady look that used to feel clinical, piercing, and now mostly reads as attentive. “It can’t be—like yours. Tactical, military-grade.”

“Lightyears beyond, actually.”

“It has to—Ma said once, a kid should be able to draw it with crayons. You know? I can’t look like a weapon. I have to—I want to look like a friend.”

He can feel himself flushing. It’s rare that he speaks like this, and rarer still that he does so while being stared at intently. Bruce may think of himself as the darkness, but his gaze is a spotlight: unwavering and revealing and more a little sweat-inducing, for one reason or another.

“Sometimes, when I show up, people laugh,” Clark says. “If it’s somewhere out of the way, where they haven’t seen me before. I show up and I look like a festival performer. It’ll be the worst day of their lives, and they’ve got no reason to trust my face, but when they see what I’m wearing—it goes from ‘Who are you?’ to ‘Who is this guy?’ And that’s a good thing.”

“Hard to be afraid of a man dressed in primary colors,” Bruce says, almost to himself.

“Exactly.”

“I see. Thank you,” he says, “for explaining.”

Clark tries not to show how surprised he is to hear that. Judging by the crook of Bruce’s mouth, his success is negligible. “Of course. Sorry I didn’t—I mean, thank you, obviously, for going to such trouble. I didn’t mean to come in here and—I really do appreciate it, I can tell you put a lot of work in—”

Bruce’s eyes cut away. “No. No need. I didn’t ask, before I…. It was only a first draft. If you’re amenable, I’ll incorporate your feedback into the second one.”

“Oh! Yeah. Yes, of course, but you really don’t have to—”

“If you have any further notes, I would like to hear them.”

There’s something determined in the lines of his face. Clark has the sense that this moment is important, that it’s a turning point, even if he’s not sure why. It feels like striking out into a sea of ice, a blank white expanse under which something precious and vital is hidden, has been hidden all along, just waiting for him to find it. To want to.

“Sure,” he says. He looks back at the suit and swallows, and knows Bruce will see the flicker of his throat and take some meaning from it, and wishes he knew what the meaning was. Or maybe Bruce won’t notice or read into it at all. Maybe Clark needs to calm down, in fact. “Um. I don’t want to assume, but does it… do things?”

“It does things,” Bruce confirms, after the barest pause. “Let me show you the next slide.”

[art]

Creator Spotlight: @mimimar

Hi! I’m Michelle (Mimimar), an illustrator born and raised in Venezuela, currently based in Italy. I enjoy making colorful illustrations that reflect the things I love: fairy tales, fantasy, tenderness and queer (especially sapphic) stories. Occasionally, I also make paper dolls, comics and animatics. I have a lot of interest in book illustration and I’m currently developing my own stories that I hope to share as an author-illustrator someday!

Check out our interview with Michelle below!

Did you originally have a background in art? If not, how did you start?

I always enjoyed drawing when I was a kid, but it only became a hobby that I did almost every day when I was around 11. At first I only used traditional mediums, but I decided to make a serious effort to learn how to draw digitally when I was 15, and once I got the hang of it I never stopped!

I didn’t go to art school so all of my learning was done through studying the tutorials and resources that other artists generously share on the internet and lots of practice / trial and error.

How do you want to evolve as a creator?

I want to do many things but what I want to do the most right now is work on books! I want to make art for other authors’ stories and also my own stories as an author-illustrator. I want to grow as a storyteller and create art and stories that will really resonate with people emotionally. I’m always striving to improve my skills as well.

I also really love dolls, so working on doll box art or as a doll designer is something I would love to do someday. I actually have been designing paper dolls on my Patreon for the past few months, it’s been a fun project that is still ongoing right now!

What is one habit you find yourself doing a lot as an artist?

Probably using a lot of purple! It’s my favorite color so I find myself using it a lot. If I can find a way to sneak a little bit of purple into an illustration or a character design then I will.

Congratulations on finishing your Ivy Comic! Did the outcome turn out like how you expected or were there some unexpected bumps along the way?

Thank you! It’s a project that I worked on very slowly in between other art because I wanted to really take my time with every spread and make each of them a fully detailed illustration. I thumbnailed the full comic before starting but I kept changing the sketch for the final spread until the very end! Overall I’m really proud of the end result. I sprinkled a lot of hidden details in every page that I hope some of the readers will notice. For example: the meanings of the flowers in each page represent what the characters are feeling in that moment, and the colors of their wardrobe become gradually lighter as the story progresses to represent their emotions, as well as the changing of seasons.

We’ve noticed that you have created some amazing cover art for TGCF. Is there another series you would like to do something similar with? 

That was another passion project that took some time to complete. Initially, I didn’t intend for them to be specifically covers, it was just a series of illustrations based on the 5 books/main arcs of TGCF. But since they were well-received and I had people telling me they wish they could use them as covers for their books, I decided to rework them into dust jackets for the english translation of TGCF!

I haven’t thought of any other specific series but I love doing cover art so maybe I’ll do something similar again in the future!

What’s your favorite part of your style? Why?

I’ve heard from other people that there’s a delicate quality to my art, this is something that I like a lot! I like pretty things, fairytales and vibrant colors. I think all of these things probably reflect in the art I make as well.

If there is one thing you want your audience to remember about your work, what would it be?

I hope that they remember how it made them feel. Feelings and colors are the two things I give priority to in my work. Most of the time I like depicting tenderness, softness and emotional intimacy. If that could reach the viewer and stay with them it would make me very happy. 

I make a lot of art with queer (mainly sapphic) themes because they’re the kind of stories I personally like and want to see more of, so whenever people tell me that my art has helped them in their journey to discover and accept themselves, or that they see themselves and their partner in my art, it is always extremely meaningful to me. When art that I made to give myself comfort can provide comfort for others, no matter how small, it reminds me once again that despite any hardships art is genuinely worth pursuing.

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

So many artists! To name a few:  I love @sakizo’s amazing eye for fashion and detail,  @paneeps’ gorgeous style and striking colors,  the sweetness of @bevsi’s art,  @vickisigh’s pretty colors and concepts,  @idledee’s warm and heartfelt art,  @littlestpersimmon’s dreamy wonderful art,  and @loish has been an inspiration for as long as I can remember.

Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing, Michelle! Be sure to check out their Tumblr blog over at @mimimar.

[sl003]

SESE's Fic Recs (ATEEZ)

Hi and welcome to my ATEEZ fic rec! This is basically a collection of my favourite ATEEZ fics (duh) and I really recommend reading them if you haven't already! This List will get updated from time to time when i have new fics that i can put on here.

Warning: As i will write my opinion/thoughts under some of the fics, they might contain some spoilers for them!

The pictures aren't mine, so all credits go to the rightful owners!

My all-time-favourites are marked with a: ♡

With that being said, a giant thank you to all the incredibly skilled and talented writers that came up with these amazing works of art <3

Have fun reading!

PS: If any of the links don't work or are wrong, please tell me, i'll fix it as fast as possible!

btw: you can find the second part here:

SESE's Fic Recs Part 2

KIM HONGJOONG

I'm The One - @sorryimananti-romantic (24k)

prince!hj x translator!r

♡ The Nightfury - @bvidzsoo (22.2k)

pirate!hj x pirate!r - enemies to lovers (kind of?)

I can barely describe how much i love this! I just love the dynamic between the reader and hongjoong in this one. You can really feel the hatred and attraction they feel for each other. I reread this regularly since this is a plot that i've never read in this way before.

Ghost Of Christmas Past - @stayteezdreams (4.5k)

kinda romeo & juliet au (forbidden love trope) / "exes" to lovers

This started off so intense that it immediately pulled me in and had me hooked! I'm a sucker for the "forbidden love" trope and this was such an amazing approach.

Your Fan - @hwaightme (2 parts)

Part 1 / Part 2

idol!hj x fashion designer!r

Hongjoong with a fashion designer s/o just made so much sense! And he was so whipped for her it's adorable, definitely recommend!

Familiar Stranger - @yourlocaljonghoe (24.2k)

best friends to lovers / divorced au

♡ Your Gentle Hands - @yourlocaljonghoe (37.6k - 2 parts)

dressmaker!hj x married!r (plays in the 1800s)

This was also so incredible to read. The way the writer wrote hongjoong's personality and his behaviour/dnyamic with the reader was so delicate, i loved it! There were quite a dew sudden and unexpected plot-twists/changes that really surprised me and had me hooked.

♡ The Parent Trap - @yundeob (18.1k)

exes to lovers / parents au

I also reread this one every once in a while, I just really love the chemistry between the reader and hongjoong, especially as the story progresses! Definitely one of my favourites!

Million Dollar Man - @holybibly (9.2k)

This is nearly 9k words of pure filth, but it's the best filth i've read in my whole life. the way he treats her and talks to her makes me melt. this is so divine, i love it! (and the appearance of seonghwa at the end, wow)

PARK SEONGHWA

The Way I Am - @frenchkisstheabyss (1.6k)

fiancé!sh x make-up artist!r

This was so precious! The way Hwa got so insecure and scared made me tear up, this is so sweet, definitely worth a read! Also a regular reread of mine :)

Best Friend's Mother - @hwashotcheeto (series - 10 parts)

(discontinued) mommy!sh x wy's best friend!r

Bodyguard - @baekhvuns (37.8k)

bodyguard!sh / forbidden love

Let's Not Fall In Love, Again - @baekhvuns (39k)

failing marriage / time travel au

JEONG YUNHO

Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy - @yunhoszn (12.25k)

+ Horses Are Still Overrated (Sequel - 2k)

cowboy!yh x city girl!r

The Trace Of You - @bvidzsoo (25.1k)

psychiatrist!yh x patient!r

Thousand Miles, Just To Get You Back - @bvidzsoo (28.7k)

victor!yh & r / hunger games au

Memoir - @baekhvuns (16k)

mafia au / amnesia au

KANG YEOSANG

There's a lot, I think it's obvious he's my bias... sorry not sorry

Cosmos - @pirateprincessblog (17.7k)

dystopian/space au

Stay - @sorryimananti-romantic (18.6k)

archer!ys x princess!r

Married In Vegas - @starrysvn (10k)

ex friends to lovers / forbidden love (kind of)

♡ Operation: Passenger Princess - @sungbeam (9.5k)

college au / frat boy!ys

Again, something i reread on the regular. The chemistry between them is obvious right from the beginning and it's just such a sweet fic. It gets angsty for a short minute but it goes right back to fluffy, which i love!

Speak Now - @edenesth (11.6k)

best friends to lovers / hanahaki disease au

♡ Richboy!Seonghwa Series - @ateezmakemeweep (30 parts)

+ Richboy!Yeosang Series (Spin-Off/Sequel - 6 parts)

private school au (?) / love triangle / enemies to lovers

I'm actually not a big fan of love triangles, but this was amazing, especially since it doesn't stay a classic love triangle for toooo long. I actually went into the richboy!sh series with wanting to read something with seonghwa (obviously), but this fic made me root for yeosang so damn fast that i actually loved the way it turned out in the end and then the small sequel series just topped it off so well!

Untitled - @ateezmakemeweep (18k)

badboy!ys x r / enemies to lovers (kinda)

Transcendent - @biaswreckingfics (9.5k)

soulmate au / best friend's boyfriend

♡ Entropy - @in-san-ity (21.3k)

mafia au / hacker!ys / found family (kinda)

This has to be my all time favourite fic. I put off from reading it very long (i remember the first time i started reading it something put me off, idk what anymore tbh) but when I saw it on nearly every fic rec post i saw, i decided to give it another shot and i fell in love. The dynamic between yeosang and the reader with sol is so precious to me and there were just certain things in the wording that made it even better. If you haven't read this, please do it!

Untitled - @ateezmakemeweep (10k)

skaterboy!ys x ballerina!r / enemies to lovers

Not too much to say about this except it got me right in the feels, it's so sad but also so sweet and wholesome!

Siren - @sorryimananti-romantic (27.8k)

siren!ys x siren hunter!r

CHOI SAN

Crimson - @hwaslayer (21.8k)

san x stripper!r

Ceilings - @yoongiseesawmp3 (3 parts)

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

single mom!r to not so single mom!r / exes to lovers

♡ Sunrise - @sorryimananti-romantic (29k)

soldier!san x soldier!r / military special forces au

This is also one of my favourites of all time! The tension and chemistry between these two is out of this world. The way they both (especially the reader) try to suppress their feelings for each other before they finally snap *chefs kiss*.

♡ Leave The Window Open - @sungbeam (3.7k)

strangers to lovers / neighbours / byeol playing matchmaker

This is soooo cute. It's such a cute idea, especially with incorporating byeol into it, this makes me feel so soft! Regular reread of mine

Face Down - @latte-fairytaekwoon (5.5k)

abusive relationsip / "saviour" san

Infinity - @seung-hwa (4.3k)

soulmate au / reincarnation au

♡ From Saturn To Mars - @lividstar (24.2k)

stargazing / star-crossed lovers

Dear god, when i tell you this made me cry... I've read this like 2-3 times now and i was crying my eyes out each and every time i read it. It's written so beautiful yet so tragic. It already starts off quite sad but it just gets progressively worse (in the best way possible). if you feel like you need to have a good cry, read this. Or read it anyway, cause it's incredible

Back To You - @ateezmakemeweep (12 parts)

badboy!san / college au

Broken - @ateezmakemeweep (2 parts)

Part 1 / Part 2

abusive relationship / "saviour" san

Your Worst Mistake - @bvidzsoo (25.7k)

hunger games au / stylist!san x tribute/victor! reader

SONG MINGI

Steamroller - @fallinforgyu (10k)

best friends to lovers au

Am I Just A Bet To You? - @hannie-roses (24.9k)

enemies to lovers au / you were just a bet au

Preying On You Tonight - @bvidzsoo (29k)

enemies to lovers au / werewolf!mgx vampire!r

Your Fan - @hwaightme (2 parts)

Part 1 / Part 2

idol!mg x rapper!r

They're both so whipped for each other, i love it!

Untitled - @ateezmakemeweep (12k)

werewolf au / mates au

JUNG WOOYOUNG

Water - @yuyusboyfriend (6.7k)

bff's brother!wy x ftm!r

Right Here - @0097linersb (2 parts)

Part 1 / Part 2

best friends to lovers

Midnight Kisses - @mingigoo (5 parts)

single mom au / bff to lovers / dead ex!seonghwa / new flame!san

♡ Place In Me - @starrysvn (17k)

exes to lovers / chef au

I blame this fic for kickstarting my sudden obsession for old parisian apartments, but in the best way possible. This is so beautiful and i really like the chef trope with wooyoung

CHOI JONGHO

♡ Cyberpunk - @sorryimananti-romantic (23.7k)

droid!jh x programmer!r / exes to lovers (kinda)

This is also one of my favourites, i've never seen a trope like this before and i love it! Definitely need to reread this one!

Oh Shit, Are We In Love? - @mingigoo (15.8k)

best friends to lovers

Second Chance At Love - @xomakara (7.1k)

dad!jh x nanny turned mom!r

POLY/MULTIPLE

♡ Opposites Attract Universe - @beenbaanbuun

poly!addams!matz x reader

I'm a sucker for poly!matz and the way these two are portrayed here makes me melt. they just worship their darling so much, just wow. And also with in inclusion of the other members (yeosang as a werewolf/guard dog, san as a butler, jongho as a ghost etc.). Every single fic/drabble etc that takes place in this universe is worth reading!

Three Hearts As One - @cybrsan (2k)

poly!woosan x reader / zombie apocalypse au

Again, one of the things that just made me cry. This is so beautiful but so damn sad and tragic. It's really short but it manages to make me tear up each time.

Beefcake Raccoon - @songmingisthighs (6.5k)

Concrete Bear - @bro-atz (account no longer available)

Manwhich - @skteezcursed (7.7k)

kinda poly!jongsang x reader (mainly jongho x reader)

Outlaw - @staytinyville (49 parts - ongoing)

poly!ot8 x reader / outlaw au

i never thought i'd read a ot8!poly fic but here we are. I decided to give it a shot since i was eating up all the outlaw/wild west/lore au fics with ateez. i'm glad i decided to read this cause it's really amazing, i love the relationship the reader has with each of the members, and one of my favourite parts has to be that every member has a different nickname for her. When i started realizing this i was eating it up and anxiously waiting for the next nickname to appear (i was especially waiting for hongjoongs, and when i tell you i melted when he called her princess for the first time)

Django - @last-words-ofashootingstar (5.5k)

poly!woosan x reader / bouncy au / hint at poly!ot8

It's You - @holybibly (2 parts)

Part 1 / Part 2

poly!woosan x reader

funnily enough, i don't even read this for the spicier parts (which are also *chefs kiss*), i just genuinely love the chemistry and dynamic between those three because they're just so comfortable and shameless around each other, this is really something i need in my life.

[makeupbychio]

THE suit // logan howlett x fem!mutant!reader

Summary: Now that you are officially part of the x-men team you need a suit. After the help from Hank and Charles to make the suit you kept the final result as a secret to Logan until he saw you in your first mission in THE suit. More than one time you needed more than one suit, not just because Logan will rip off a lot of them, but for other reasons. 

Warnings: Jealous Logan and being a little bit of a brat, Hank and Charles cameo, insecurity towards your body and powers, use of your powers (ecokinesis), Logan being the best protective and comforting boyfriend, mentions of smut, suggestive language, mentions of pregnancy.

Words: 1.9k 

A/N: So thanks for the anon for the request!! Once again, a reminder that english is not my first language. I put angst, fluff and mentions of smut so I hope you like this. Also, reminder that this is a safe place for all body sizes so that's why I don’t mention specifics measurements for the suit. ALSO, you can read this with my previous Logan fic TRAINING SEASON, this is them days after you are officially an x-men. Enjoy, love y’all!! <3. 

italics = past. 

— — —

“Hold on, wait. Hank is going to do your suit?” Logan stopped the conversation. You two at the cafeteria grabbing a late night snack. You took the pause to give a bite to your apple. 

“What about it? The Professor told me Hank did all of them” you answered him without any worry in your mind and didn't  understand why he had that frowning look on his face.

”I think Storm should be in charge since your powers are related to nature too”. Logan suggested, trying not to be an asshole. You understand where this was going when he sighed. 

“But Lo, the Professor designed the suits, Hank is just going to sew it and for that he needs to take the correct measurements” you refreshed Logan’s mind, like if it wasn’t obvious that a suit was not going to sew it itself. 

So after that Logan just stopped insisting about it. He trusted Hank of course but something was itching his brain. If he knew you already had an appointment with Hank last week to take the first measurement and the Professor explaining to you how he designed it for you and your powers. 

“So, Y/N. If you didn’t know, Hank came up with the idea to make the suits bulletproof and for your powers we needed to incorporate more resistance to heat changes in case your whole body is on fire or ice. So we needed to play with all of the opposite and different scenarios of the element you were going to manipulate or become, please try it on”. Charles explained to you the work behind your suit. You just nodded, but the Professor can read your mind and know your excitement when you ran to change your clothes and came back with the suit on.

“So you can basically turn into stone one moment and then disappear like air, so we create something that can resist that range of changes, and also of course something to be comfortable for you”. Hank added, proud of the technology he put in the suit while you looked at yourself in the mirror. “You can try it and test what I’m talking about”. 

So you did it, always careful not to hurt them. They were so happy with the final results and you couldn’t thank them enough and can’t wait any longer to wear it. 

“See you next week, Y/N”. The Professor reminded you about the final meeting to correct some details. 

So after that late snack, you both went to bed and before your appointment with Hank, Logan just stopped by his office and greeted him with a casual smile. 

“Logan, how can I help you? Y/N is not here” Hank thought he was there to be with you once you tried on your suit. 

“Don’t worry, she’s still in bed sleeping in our room” Logan gave a cocky smile and highlighted the ‘our’. “Actually I’m here to help YOU. In case you needed help with her suit, just to let you know that I made you a list of her measurements” Logan handed him a piece of paper with the different sizes of the clothes you have. He really thought that was going to work. “You’re welcome, so you don’t have to take the measurements yourself” He smiles proud of himself. 

Hank laughed and didn’t want to ruin Logan’s intention. He just thanked him, if Logan knew the suit was ready in the lab for you to try it and make the last changes. 

“Oh! I almost forgot” Logan turned to Hank before leaving his office. “She’s the smartest person I know, don’t get offended so I’m pretty sure she’s going to give you some ideas for the suit” he made a pause imagining you giving instructions to Hank. “And her favorite color is purple” Logan finally leaves the room without letting Hank answer. Heading himself to the dining room proud of his work. 

Hours later, you went directly to the lab where Hank and the Professor told you to meet. “Okay Y/N so tell us how you feel it, if you want to change something” Hank looked at you looking in the mirror. 

It was really comfortable even when it was really tight to your body. You felt so much confidence, you saw the x mark on it, that wasn’t on the suit the last meeting you had. Also it made justice to your figure and your beautiful curves. 

“Thanks again, it fits perfectly. But Hank I just wanted to ask you if it’s possible if you could add something to the suit…” Hank is paying attention to you. “If there could be like- I don’t know- something for you guys to know which element I’m manipulating or about to, so you don’t get yourself hurt out there during a mission” you asked him nervously because they are the experts.

”Mmmhh, it’s a really good idea but the enemy can use that information too against us to advance an attack” Hank really liked the idea but they had a surprise for you. 

“So dear, we also wanted for you to try this suit too” the Professor went to reach the suit he was talking about. Hiding it inside a box that was wrapped like a gift. 

“Guys, what is this?” you were in total awe when you opened the box. They know how easily you get emotional. Tears are already forming in your eyes. 

“We wanted for you to have your own suit, something that will be just for YOU…” Hank started explaining. “All of us have something that characterizes ourselves and our powers, so someone told us your favorite color is purple and it contrasts perfectly the green that represents your powers…” Hanks kept talking because you went speechless. “I know it sounds cliché to add green for your ecokinesis, if you don’t like it we can change it” he suggested.

You just ran to hug them because it was perfect. “So for your ideas you gave us, we design this…” the Professor handed you another box, but this time smaller. You opened it so fast. “We created these gloves for the changes of elements. So you can use it in the field or on a daily basis” you tried on them immediately and it blew your mind the technology it has, how it’s connected to you to change the colors related to the element, it sparkles so that makes them AMAZING.

“The gloves are more for the missions, because with the suit you hold your powers in case you are not conscious. Also the gloves help you to give your attack a precise target. We’ll learn more about both items while training” Hank explained. 

So when you first wore the x-men suit, you were so nervous about the mission, about everything so you changed clothes in your room. Thinking if this was a good idea. Literally everyone was waiting for you to step into the plane. 

“I’m going” Storm was about to go and search for you when you stepped into the ship. “There you are! K’ let’s go” Storm yelled at Scott to go.

Logan almost fainted, his claws making an appearance without previous warning. He quickly put them back, he was so excited he couldn’t resist to stay close to you. His flirting helped you to stop your nerves. “Sugar, you look amazing…” he gave you a kiss on your check, sitting next to you on the ship. He came closer to your face, whispering “I hope they made like a hundred suits because as soon as we're back in the mansion I’m going to rip it off. God, I can’t wait” You tried to hide the redness of your face, you warned him to behave. 

“Logan, I’m pretty sure the Professor can read your mind, I don’t want to be kicked out of the missions. Or give us separated missions. Do you want me to be paired with Scott instead?” you asked him with a teasing smile. 

“I’m sorry, love. But did you see yourself in the mirror before coming?” Logan really insisted but not too much. “Don’t worry, you’re going to kick asses today and I’ll protect you till the end of times” 

Like I said before, Logan after that would take any opportunity to join you for fittings. Especially if something is different. Logan would be there next to you when you are not comfortable with your body. If you are not comfortable with your powers every time you discover something new about them. After years, he will always be there for you, sitting in front of you looking at you with awe and comforting you even when you’re were not feeling it. 

The only time you skipped a mission was when your suit was not crossing your figure. You tried on your x-men suit and your own suit they made you and it was not stretching enough. The team was on a rush so they let you stay at the mansion. 

Logan asked you when they were back about what happened and you just told him you were feeling under the weather. The Professor already knew the real reason. You distracted Logan enough for you to go to Hank's office. 

“Hi, Hank. Can I ask you something?” you stepped into the room worried. Hank welcomed you worried about your absence in the last mission. “I had a problem with the suit, actually both suits. Is it possible for the fabric to be even more stretchable?” you asked him. 

Next day, after telling Logan the truth about you expecting and how suddenly a big bump you had appeared. That time he almost fainted too. So both of you were in the lab, the Professor and Hank giving you the congratulations when Hank was taking notes of your new measurements for your suits.

“Be careful there, big boy” Logan growled at Hank when he put the measuring tape around your belly. Logan was so protective over you and now your baby. You laughed at him telling not to worry, Logan looking at you with charming eyes while you rub your belly looking at yourself in the mirror. So this was really happening, starting a family.

Hank explained to you your new suits, which were going to be more comfortable for you considering the bump was going to grow even more. But the only thing Logan could think about is to protect you even more out there in the field. 

“Lo, look at me. I can do this” you hold his face when back in the room he told you to reject some missions that were too dangerous just to be cautious. He was scared that if you got injured really bad in your state. He was not going to stop you from going to the missions, because he knows you are one of the strongest and with a single snap you can beat your enemy but he can’t help himself from worrying. “And if I’m not feeling good or at my best to fight I’ll stay here”. you kissed him to calm him down. 

“I know, mama. You are the baddest out there. They could never beat you even if they tried” Logan kissed you back and kneeled to kiss your belly. “I wonder which powers our baby is going to inherit”. Next time Logan went to Hank’s office was to ask for a tiny x-men suit to surprise you. Hank couldn’t say no to Logan because he found a really cute gesture from him even when he had a lot of work left to do. 

[wonupatootie]

윤정한 // Yoon Jeonghan Fic Recsᡣ𐭩 Part II

Where are you my happiness 내 행복 전부 여기 있네 널 찾아서 너무 좋아~

Main Recs Masterlist

➣Part I // Part II

MINORS DNI!!!!!!!

Please like and reblog the fics to show the creators love and support~

“To Live Again” by @viastro

Gn!reader || time travel au, childhood friends to lovers, slowburn, angst, some fluff, some humour || W.C: 38.8k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･it’s been years since your last milestone birthday; a time when everything still felt right in the world with youth and ambition. now that you’re older and times have changed, would you dare take a chance to save someone else in the past at the cost of your own future?

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✮

“Paris” by @amourcheol [absolute legend!!]

Fem!reader || old hollywood au, exes to lovers, angst, fluff, smut || W.C: 50k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･disgraced by hollywood for the last time, you, a once superstar-turned-alcoholic, escape to the city of love to seek sanctuary from the ruthless tabloids. your sanctuary comes in the form of film noir superstar yoon jeonghan, the enigmatic man who taught you the art of acting, lust and love before your fame. when he asks to meet you once, just like old times, you cannot refuse. what is meant to be a simple date turns into a path of passion, pain and everything that comes with fooling around with your ex in the jazz-filled corners of paris. 

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✮

“LMLY” by @trustmypoison

Fem!reader || wedding au, best friends to strangers to lovers, fluff, angst, smut || W.C: 45k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･Choi Y/N hasn’t seen her long lost best friend Yoon Jeonghan in four years and doesn’t even recognize him at first when paramedics roll him into the OR after a motorcycle accident during her shift. She kind of expects to go back to being total strangers as soon as he’s discharged, but Seungcheol has other plans in mind for them when he asks them to be Best Man and Maid of Honor for his wedding. 

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✮

“I Think We Married in Vegas” by @sungjinhos

Friends to lovers, comedy, angst, smut || W.C: 28.2k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･You and Jeonghan have always been friends, and friends go on a trip together, right? And somehow friends always end up marrying in Las Vegas right? And somehow friends become roommates as well right? That all seems very normal when Yoon Jeonghan has a weird addiction to doing the dumbest things ever just for shock value.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✮

“Love Café” by @chocosvt

Fem!reader || romance, angst, fluff, smut || W.C: 17.6k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･while you’ve spent the last few months pretending the love café doesn’t exist, you realize you need its services now more than ever. this brings you face to face with jeonghan, the son of a luxury fashion designer who’s got money to burn. your exchanges are strictly business. until they’re not. 

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✮

“Hate is a Strong Word” by @veethefreeelf

Fem!reader || coworkers au, enemies to fuck buddies, smut || W.C: 15k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･You were living out your dream working in an ideal company with great colleagues and friends, except one. Yoon Jeonghan has been your nemesis from the moment the both of you stepped into this company. Sometimes you wonder if you’re living your dream or stuck in a nightmare.

⤷“Love is a Strong Word” (Part 2 of Hate is a strong word)

Fem!reader || coworkers to lovers, angst, smut || W.C: 15k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･It’s been a year since you moved away to a new branch. If you’re being honest, things haven’t been great. Being away from all you know and all you wanted has made you realize a lot of things and made you wish you had done things differently. Maybe moving back would be better for you. 

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✮

“How Many Times Does it Take to Get Smarter?” by @veethefreeelf

Fem!reader || Best friends to fwb, smut || Parts: 2 || Total W.C: 20.3k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･Jeonghan and you start a fwb relationship after years of being best friends. He only has two rules: no feelings and no kissing. Who’s going to break the rules first?

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✮

“Water” by @onlymingyus

Fem!reader || smut, angst, romance, angst, comedy || W.C: 19k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･being friends with benefits with jeonghan has never been what you thought it would but taking a trip to Paris with him and the rest of your friends while expecting to keep it a secret…that’s something completely different.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✮

“To You” by @simpxxstan

Fem!reader || friends to lovers, fluff, slight angst, smut || W.C: 16.2k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･jeonghan loves to play cupid. he's thoroughly successful at it as well. you know it's just his incredible luck, and you can't wait for him to trip and fall. even if you'll be the first one to stop him from falling.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✮

“(Tryna Do) What Lovers Do” by @vitaminkyeom

Fem!reader || college au, fake dating, friends to lovers, humour, fluff || W.C: 15k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･When you had roped Jeonghan into your idea of being a ‘pretend’ couple, you did not expect the lie to grow this big. What was supposed to be a one day thing soon became a rather frequent occurrence. And the gravity of the situation did not really hit you until your parents were requesting an audience with your new ‘boyfriend’. Will the two of you be able to keep your act till then? Or, in which, you keep promising yourself that this would be the last day you pretend to have feelings for Yoon Jeonghan.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✮

“Holidate” by @onlymingyus

Afab!reader || fake boyfriend au, smut, angst, fluff || W.C: 13k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･It's only for a week, he's doing you a favor, and he's your fake boyfriend. Why do you have to keep reminding yourself of that?

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✮

“Playboy” by @starlightxsvt

Fem!reader || sugar daddy au, strangers to lovers, smut, pwp, angst, some fluff || W.C: 18.8k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･you try to steal from him. things take a turn when he catches you on the act. seemingly for the better at first but then for the worse when you catch feelings for him.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✮

“Every Summertime” by @lovelyhan

Afab!reader || 70s au, pining, smut, angst || W.C: 16.1k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･you're not really interested in the record shop downtown. but people aren't oblivious to the way you keep trying to get into the owner's pants—not even the owner himself.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✮

“Bound to You” by @onlymingyus

Fem!reader || supernatural au, soulmate au, smut, angst || W.C: 12.9k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･There is a little magic in everyone but there is something about you that makes Jeonghan curious about more than just your name.

Please let me know if the links have any problems~

[mikeystrawberry]

Today is Dungeons & Daddies’s 5th Anniversary!

I haven’t been listening for nearly that long but the podcast and all its characters means a lot to me. Happy Anniversary!!!

Throwing the cropped sections under the cut because there’s a lot of stuff going on and I know Tumblr likes to throw half the pixel quality out the window. And also so I can ramble a bit about this piece!!!

This piece has been months in the making, possibly an entire year. And by that I mean I’ve had a sketch of the comp scribbled on my whiteboard for ages because I wanted to save this specifically for 5th anni art. Now onto design stuff!

(First off a random thought: I really love how the garlic knot came out, I kind of want it as an enamel pin.)

I knew I wanted to make this a stained glass piece since the beginning, but I was also going to add flowers at one point but quickly dropped the idea. It felt like too much and I also didn’t want to fuss over flower language assignments for everyone. I was also going to add Doodler tentacles, but also dropped that idea pretty early. Kind of on accident, right at the end, I figured out how to make it even more stained glass-like but taking a duplicated lineart underneath the regular layer and turning the brightness all the way down, then setting it to overlay and adding a guassian blur. It’s very subtle but it adds that tiny bit of depth that makes it look more real. As for shading on the lineart/gold, I tried adding more highlight on the characters who died but once I evened everything out it wasn’t as noticeable anymore so I’m throwing that thought here so the attempt at least known lol.

The order of characters only changed a little bit from my original comp, I flipped the Wilsons and the Oaks so the rainbow could work. As for the anchors, specifically in season 2, I lined them up to the teens since the season 1 anchors lined up with each dad:

Tony —> Scary: his death was the beginning of Scary’s betrayal arc and also Willy killed him.

Guitar Pick —> Taylor: it’s not really aligned with Taylor at all, but the anchor was with Glenn so I put it next to his blunt.

Scroll —> Normal: was only because it was the last left to give him, but there’s the whole scene of him and Hermie in the Green Room so it still works!

Garlic Knot —> Link: one of two that he broke, but the more significant of the two with him telling Grant he never wants to see him again.

Small notes on the season 1 anchors: I put the layer of mold in the overnight oats but you can’t really tell with the overlay. And to make the supper bowl more interesting I added the fantasy sodas mix they dumped into it. The lure of actually drawn before so I just traced my own art lol.

As for the other smaller triangles, it took me a bit to figure out what I wanted to put there. I didn’t even think of adding the vehicles until two days ago but I’m so glad I did. I don’t really have my own take on the mascot version of the Doodler (yet?) so I borrowed the design from one of the stickers in their merch shop. Teeny was terrifying as just a front facing head so I made him cute again.

In the outer circles, I put what I felt was the most significant quotes for each family. I really wanted to use “It’s okay to be angry, it’s not okay to be cruel�� but it was just a little too long.

That’s all I can think of! If you read all the way through, thank you for indulging me in my excitement to gush over this piece.

[mochatsin]

School Play

There’s another school play in which you act as the main lead because Simeon thought you’d be perfect for the role, there’s no need to cast anyone else (much to Asmo’s dismay). He’s seen your performances before, and you’re one of the easiest actors to work with compared to the brothers that constantly got their lines wrong during rehearsals. Simeon can get frustrated, and it seems that the brothers feel the same way, if not terrified of the angel’s sudden change in attitude as soon as he plays the director. You’re just relieved he’s not that way towards you.

Of course, who wouldn’t want to see a play written by Christopher Peugeot himself. The theme was a thrilling love story wherein the hero would have to go through a long journey to rescue the one they love, which was you. They would meet so many characters that would either support the hero or become an obstacle on his way to defeat the cruel lord that locked you up. 

You’re the main love interest, and you sat on the side watching as everyone else in the room debated and fought each other on why they should have the main lead role, why they should be the hero who would rescue you. Seeing as how the atmosphere in the room is starting to have murderous intent, Simeon finally thought of a solution that would be fair to everyone. Draw lots. 

That’s how you ended up with Solomon as your hero, and Barbatos acting as the main villain and the rest playing a support role. They either help Solomon with the journey or act as one of Barbatos’ minions to try to stop him from his advances. Everyone could only blame their luck, though to say that Solomon was happy about his part is an understatement. Meanwhile, Barbatos does adore the parts where he keeps you all to himself, however he does not enjoy the scene where he had to terrorize a town since Diavolo’s character, a commoner (which he loves to play), is one of the victims that the hero finds which eventually sets the tone of the play to move forward. It takes a lot for Barbatos not to run to his master’s side while he was acting out his death.

Solomon is always ready to rehearse his scenes with you, and when it’s about lines talking about you, Simeon is impressed at how quickly he can memorize them. But then again, if they’re all about how much he adores you then it’s not difficult to remember at all. Lucifer and the others hate playing supporting characters where they have to hear about how much Solomon loves you. It’s bad enough they had to play the role of helping him, but there are several minutes of dialogue with his character telling them how important you are to him and how he needs to find you quickly! It took several practice rehearsals for Mammon to say his lines without sounding so forced or annoyed at him when his role is to literally help Solomon through the journey. 

Levi is quite happy with his role as the costume designer because there’s no way his envy wouldn’t flare up if he had to stand there and listen to that. That would’ve flooded the stage if he lost all control, so he decides to use headphones and blast music when it’s Solomon’s scene and only take it off once it’s you.

Satan would play the role of the narrator, and while he normally enjoys the part he got, it’s quite irritating that he has to tell the love story between you two, even if it’s merely a work of fiction. His claws threatened to tear holes into the script, but he kept himself calm and collected. They decided to put a leather cover binding to avoid that happening, and Satan actually likes how his own personal script looks like a book now. 

Lucifer is questioning why Simeon would write such a piece, given how most lines are so sickening and romantic. The angel wanted to tell a tale of lovers that could overcome everything, though he omits the fact that he really did have you in mind when he was writing this. Maybe he projected a little too much of his feelings, but the play still had more elements regardless that a lot of the audience would be able to enjoy. The action, the drama, and the tension that could keep everyone at the edge of their seats. 

What Simeon did not expect is for the brother’s self control to snap. Maybe he should’ve thought about that when he wrote down that kiss scene. It’s a page he kept between you and Solomon, as he knew that rehearsals would’ve been a disaster if they knew how the story would actually end. Of course he did ask for your permission, if this is something you’re comfortable with and he would rewrite the part if he needed. You don’t mind, and you understand why this was kept private. 

So when the day of the play came, everything was going smoothly. At least according to Simeon’s high standards.

Solomon and Barbatos really do seem to play the perfect role. A good villain doesn't need to yell, it comes with the composure they bring in the story that sometimes people wonder if Barbatos is really acting. The fight scenes were also phenomenal whenever Solomon would use some sort of imagery magic to make it more realistic, sparkes and effects flying in the air as they fought until Barbatos eventually fled, claiming defeat but he will be back for you one day. 

What the brothers thought was a successful play became something they dreaded when you and Solomon continued the scene. These were lines they’ve never heard before, and it doesn’t take a genius to guess where this was heading. Satan is furiously flipping through the script trying to see where this was coming from, but this part was hidden from the Avatars on purpose. 

“Oh how I longed to hold you like this in my arms.” Solomon says as he pulls you in an embrace that lingered longer than the brothers would like while they watched from backstage. 

“Did you truly miss me that much?” You say, meant to be a half tease to the hero as you returned the hug. It’s a romantic reunion that the audience has been waiting for. 

“More than you could ever think.” Solomon sounds so convincing. He says his lines as if you two were truly apart for so long, that there’s disbelief in his voice like this was all a dream and he would wake up to find that his journey is not over, that you were still locked away. But he has you in his arms, and that’s all he needs to ground himself. “Each time I see the crescent moon, I’m reminded of the smile that graced your lips. It pains me whenever I turn to my side and realize that you’re weren’t with me.”

Solomon brushes the hair away from your face before cupping your cheek, looking at you so lovingly that you feel your heart skip a beat, almost forgetting that you’re acting out a scene. But to the sorcerer, he doesn’t need to act. “Tell me, will you grace me with those lips?” He asks, and that’s the cue for you to slowly lean forward to seal the deal. 

“HOLD IT!” 

Both if you freeze before turning back to see Mammon pointing the sword prop at Solomon. The sorcerer is confused, and perhaps a little irritated that his moment with you was ruined. It would’ve been a perfect way to end the play. “What are you doing?” Solomon asks with furrowed brows. 

“That’s my line! Get ya grimy hands off em!” Mammon growled, taking a few steps forward. 

“You’re not even supposed to be part of this narrative.” Solomon reminds the demon, warning him for ruining the scene. 

“You claim that as so,” Satan says as he appears by his brother’s side in a puff of green flames, looking quite pissed. “How dare you rewrite the ending to your liking, and then use the Narrative as your shield. You should be ashamed of yourself, filthy thief.” the demon hissed as he threw the script he fashioned into a book  across the stage. The brothers fully believed they were deceived with the script, and that Solomon had something to do with it.

The audience are now all captivated at the scene unfolding before their eyes as they watched the Narrator throw the book across. Perhaps the book told the whole scene, and that Solomon actually rewrote the ending according to his will since they assumed that script was an actual prop to keep the story going. “Was the hero actually manipulating the whole scene?” “What a crazy twist!” “Wait, so who's the real lover?” “Were they tricked to think that Solomon was the real love interest?!”. Whispers rang in the air as they were all made to believe this was still part of the play

That might be the only way for them to salvage what could’ve been a successful performance: to keep acting. Solomon reluctantly lets go of you before standing up to face the two demons. “I can’t believe you all would cause a scene, after all we’ve been through. After all they’ve been through.” Solomon says as he gestures to you, who is just as confused as the crowd. 

“Ah, so you acknowledge our efforts and yet you get to keep them for yourself?” Belphie steps in on the other side of the stage, with Beel following behind him. “Kinda greedy isn’t it? Even greedier than him.” Belphie says while pointing at Mammon. That somehow got the audience to laugh. 

“That’s pretty selfish too, and that’s coming from me!” Asmo finally chimes in, holding onto his tulle costume while he stomps into the stage. He wouldn’t let his brothers steal all the spotlight, and there was also no way he was going to let Solomon just kiss you like that on the stage. If it were him instead, you both would be the talk of the week! “Honestly dear, that’s quite a big low. Even for someone like you.” 

Simeon is just thankful that Lucifer and Levi didn’t even chime in on this monstrous mess of a show, he has their pride and anxiety (respectively) to thank for. Despite the sudden improv show, it seems that it captured the audience’s attention… just not in the way that he hoped.

Solomon is now putting you behind him with a magic spell flaring by the palm of his hand. Nothing harmful, just something that’s more flashy than anything. The other demons are closing in on you both, trying to make up lines on why you should choose them. Of course, a fight breaks out and everyone in the audience cheered for whoever they were rooting for to win while you stayed behind and watched the chaos unfold. 

It took one wrong spell after another for the boys to lay on the ground, groaning after Satan and Solomon’s stun lock spell collided into something bigger that it affected everyone in the stage except you since you stayed behind. You wondered what you could say or do to salvage this as the audience is watching intently on what happens next. 

Thankfully, Lucifer finally steps on the stage, calm and collected as ever while he tries to avoid the groaning actors. He played as one of the Barbatos’ henchmen that Solomon defeated, so seeing his reappearance was definitely a shock to the crowd. You prayed that Lucifer has a plan on getting you out of this mess without ruining the play you all worked so hard for. Luckily, Simeon told him a few lines that could salvage the play and save you from the embarrassment.

He grabs your hand and kisses the back of it, a small smirk appearing on his face before he continues. “I’m here to collect you, under my master’s orders. It seems that he was right, that none of these heroes were ever deserving of your heart.” Lucifer says while he stares at his idiotic brothers with discontent, managing to stay in character just like you hoped. “Luckily, we don’t need to rely on cheap tricks and underhanded tactics.” 

Solomon groans, rubbing his eyes profusely but his vision won’t focus yet due to the spell. “Don’t listen to them…” He says, desperately trying to reach out to you. Lucifer only lets out a low chuckle as he watches how pathetic the hero has become.

“Come with us, and we’ll be sure to prove them wrong.” His line is full of confidence with a slight mischief, and the crowd cheers as the lights go dark and the curtains drop, signaling the end of the play. 

What should’ve ended in a happy love story became some sort of twist. People now assume the hero might’ve manipulated the scene which they find amusing if the good guy of the story was not who they pictured to be, and the villains may actually have a shot of winning your heart. It’s the talk of the school, and people are praising Simeon for writing such a crazy plot twist, which he finds a little frustrating since it’s the only part he didn’t actually plan. He’s not sure if he wants to thank the brother’s recklessness or not. 

Even after Simeon explained the hidden parts that were reserved just for you and Solomon since he expected something like this could happen at the rehearsals, he never really anticipated that they would jump in the scene like that on the actual performance itself. Now he has to write another play in the future as many expressed their wish to see what happens between you and the dark lord Barbatos. 

Needless to say, many of the brothers were strung upside down by their feet after the show.

[maskedcrawford]

Permanently Yours

G-Dragon x Reader

Summary: You surprise Jiyong with a tattoo that only makes him more obsessed with you.

Warnings: Pure fluff

A/N: Anon, feel free to let me know if this wasn't what you wanted! I hope you enjoy this sweet story, it was so fun to write!

Requests are OPEN

You walk out of the tattoo parlor with the fresh ink on your skin, examining the art work. You had gotten a few tattoos before after hearing how Ji raved about them. But he knew about those, and they were special to you but this one was going to be special for both of you.

You look at the artwork of a dragon once more in the mirror when you got home. A dragon with the date of your relationship stamped above it. A lot of people told you it was risky to get it because what if you and GD break up? It’s kinda permanent, but you loved the man so much you wanted to put some kind of claim on your body that you were his, even though everyone knew.

“Babe? You here?” you hear him call out. You carefully slide your shirt over your body again to hide the artwork. You had a photoshoot tomorrow for Vogue and wanted to surprise him there with it.

“Hey, jagiya,” he smiles as he see’s you walk out of your shared room. He jogs over to you and wraps his arms around your back, right where the fresh wound is still healing. It’s not like it was a small tattoo, it spanned the space of your back almost completely. He notices you wince before he goes in to give you a hug.

“What? Did I hurt you? Are you ok?” he goes to move around you like he wants to inspect you but you take his hands in yours and bring him back in front of you.

“I’m sore, from a work out today, is all.” You smile as you lie right through your teeth and give him the usual welcome home kiss. You wake up the next morning carefully making sure to clean and moisturize your new art piece. Ji-yong loved art in general and you were sure the masterpiece on your back would get his attention.

“Babe we have to go, I’ll be late,” you giggle as Jiyong fusses with a button on his shirt.

“Here,” you say as she drops his hand like a frustrated child.

“Now you look perfect,” you kiss his nose and he once again places his hand on your back putting unwanted pressure.

“Oh, shit,” he quickly removes his hand, “It’s ok.” You have to practically restrain yourself to not scratch at it.

At the studio you’re getting dressed and Ji is waiting patiently. You fill the photographer in on the plan of how you want to unveil the surprise back piece. He nods in approval, as long as he can use it for the shoot which you oblige.

You take the first few shots, moving in different poses and you notice the look of pride on Ji-yong’s face as you do.

“All right, lets get her changed,” a costume designer shouts and you can barely contain your excitement. Ji-yong sits on his phone on a nearby bench.

“So you can get his reaction right?” you whisper to the photographer who assures you it’ll look great. You walk back to the set with a large towel covering your back. They get you set up and you take a deep breath.

“Ji-yong,” you call over your shoulder. He looks like clearly lost in his phone.

“Come here,” you motion for him. He walks over to you looking concerned.

“We’re gonna have you stand here,” the photographer positions him where he needs to be to be in the shot.

“What, I’m not,”

“Just hold still,” the man says, “3.. 2.. 1.. drop the towel,” he says and you let the towel drape off your back and you turn your head to look over at your boyfriend.

His eyes are wide and his mouth slightly open. He walks up to you, getting a closer look at the dragon.

“What did, babe,” is all he can say before you let out a giggle.

“You like,” you question with the biggest smile on your face.

“I fucking love it! Holy shit that’s so sexy!” He keeps his hands above the tattoo so you don’t have to wash it again.

“This is why you’re back hurt yesterday?” he says partly questioning and partly knowing. You nod your head, pulling your bottom lip between your teeth. He goes around to your front and gives you the biggest kiss. You finish the photo shoot for the day and all your boyfriend can talk about is the tattoo.

“I’m glad you like it, Oppa.” He looks at you like a prized possession. As soon as it’s healed he can’t keep his hands off it, constantly dragging his finger tips across it, and you, as much as he can.

“Its just, you’re really mine now,” he breathes after again staring at it.

“I was yours beforehand.”

“Yeah, but now it’s permanent, no removing me from your life. Not completely.” He smirks.

“I mean, tattoo removal has come a long way,” you tease. He looks genuinely offended for a moment.

“Don’t even joke about that. Now everyone that see’s this knows your mine and that’s how it’s going to stay,” he cups your cheeks giving you a sweet kiss. You smile against his lips happy that he loves the artwork.

When the magazine comes out he practically frames the cover. It’s a picture of you looking over your shoulder with the tattoo clearly visible.

“Right above the bed!” he shouts and you laugh at his child like enthusiasm.

“OH man, and this one needs its own frame,” he starts tearing out all the pictures from the magazine.”

“Babe, I wanted to read those!” you chuckle.

“Here, I got two. One to read and or take with me on the road, and this one is to hang up in our room, proudly displayed. We need something for the living room,” he pauses, “Oh, we’ll do our own little shoot at home,” he wiggles his brows as he gets his camera. You take multiple pictures as he makes sure to capture you in the best positions and lighting, he can, even taking you outside and to shops snapping pictures.

“Babe, I think we have enough,” you say as you sip on the warm beverage in your hand with a heartwarming smile.

“Just one more, hold the cup to your lips, yeah like that,” he takes one last picture and smiles proud of himself.

“Perfect.” Once your home he starts mapping out the areas of where he wants to place the pictures and you can’t help but love how artistic and excited he is.  

“I’m glad you find it so appealing, nae sarang.” You whisper as you put your arms around his waist and hug him from the back.

If you enjoyed and want to support me, buy me a coffee

“A work of art must be treasured. And you my dear, are more priceless than the Mona Lisa,” he compliments with a sweet, deep kiss before turning back to the walls to map out where he wants each picture.

[dokries]

sunshine

pairing: yoon jeonghan x gender neutral reader

genre: fluff, established relationship

word count: 1.1k

warnings: mentions of bruising (reader gets hurt), passing mention of alcohol (no one drinks), a kiss on the forehead, jeonghan gets called a loser lovingly, pet names (babe/baby, sunshine)

author note: this was requested by an anon! thank you so much for requesting once again, and i’m sorry that my work isn’t exactly what you asked for. i still hope you enjoy this though <3 lots of love!!

masterlist

you probably should’ve taken up jeonghan’s offer when he texted you earlier, asking if you wanted to be dropped off before he went to a group dinner with his friends.

of course, you had said no, assuming that it would be the normal amount of traffic when leaving work. to your luck, it turned out the elevators stopped working right before it was time for you to go home and you risked going down the stairwell with everyone else—no one wanted to be stuck in the plain office building any longer, that’s for sure.

however, that also meant that there were some people rushing and elbowing others aside, despite it being…you know, a somewhat steep stairwell that was already crammed with others walking down it. sadly, you were one of the victims of a particularly brutal shover and pushed towards the railing and the cold metal had dug into your body multiple times, which is exactly why your legs ache as you sit down onto the couch slowly.

you take a peek at the back of your forearm and sigh seeing the small red marks leading up to the hem of your shirt sleeve.

you contemplate changing into a shirt with longer sleeves so you don’t worry your boyfriend but decide against it, knowing that he won’t be back for a while; when it’s the whole group of thirteen, they usually stop around one am at the earliest.

you grab an ice pack from the kitchen before stumbling back to the comfortable couch once more with a sigh, turning on the tv to a random channel as you wince at the feeling of the pack touching your tender skin. you keep treating your new bruises gently, with most of your attention on the screen in front of you—it turns out you put on a random reality show and there is drama that’s way too interesting to not watch.

it’s a little after eleven pm when the door unlocks and jeonghan lets himself in, carding a finger through his long hair before he places his motorcycle helmet and keys down, his lip ring glinting in the dimly lit room—he didn’t get to drink anyway since some of the guys had to cancel, and went bowling instead with mingyu and seokmin.

he hums the song that kept playing at the bowling alley as he looks up at you with a mischievous grin. “hey, babe.”

“hey, jeonghan!” you chirp, your voice unusually high as you hurriedly hide the ice pack behind you.

he raises an eyebrow at your cheerfulness this late at night but doesn’t press it, not yet noticing your bruises—that are on full display, even though they are starting to look better—as he goes to hang his leather jacket on the hanger specially designated for it.

your boyfriend turns and walks over to where you’re sitting, placing a small kiss on your forehead as he slumps down on the couch beside you, dangerously close to the biggest bruise you have.

jeonghan smirks at the way the two women on the screen argue with each other. “wow, over a man? he doesn’t even seem to be all that.”

you nod and he smiles, leaning his head against your shoulder as the guy cuts in, taking one woman’s side.

as jeonghan nuzzles his face into your arm, getting bored of what’s on the tv, his lip ring digs into one of the red spots you had gotten earlier and he can feel the way you tense. he frowns at your furrowed brows before looking down at your arm and sighing, his face freezing. “what’s this?”

when you don’t answer, he sighs. “what happened.” he phrases it like a statement instead of a question and you roll your eyes, already knowing he would be like this.

“hannie, nothing happened, i promise,” you say and jeonghan stares at you until you begrudgingly continue. “fine, fine. the elevators stopped working so i went down the stairs when work ended and people kept pushing me off to the side ‘cause they were in a rush. that’s all.”

your boyfriend scoffs, looking out at the window before back at you, his eyes hard. “are you serious? that’s not nothing at all.”

he grabs your hands gently, making sure he doesn’t touch any sore spots and speaks softly. “i’m sorry you had to go through that, baby. next time, i’ll make sure to just pick you up and not ask in case there are jerks like that again. in fact, i’ll be dropping you off and picking you up until the stupid elevators get fixed. i’m not about to take any risks when it comes to you.”

“this really isn’t helping your ‘bad boy’ agenda, you know that, right?” you smile teasingly, squeezing your boyfriend’s hand.

jeonghan looks at you in confusion. “what do you mean by that?”

you smirk. “come on, hannie. you have the whole package: a motorcycle, your leather jackets—even your lip ring!” you pause, sighing. “all my coworkers talk about how you seem so brooding and like a lone wolf. it’s like they think you’re the coolest person ever when really, you’re just a loser.”

“hey, i’m not a loser!” jeonghan scoffs before reaching for the ice pack behind you and putting it to the bruises he can see.

“what?” he says when you raise an eyebrow and look down at the pack in his hands. “oh, this? i knew it was behind your back since earlier. you’re not very good at hiding things.”

you roll your eyes before leaning on his shoulder. “see what i mean? loser.”

jeonghan’s eyes soften as he looks at your big grin next to his face and places a kiss on your knuckle. “there’s my sunshine.”

“hey, that’s part of the ‘bad boy’ agenda too!” you chuckle, moving away from him slightly to hit his arm lightly. “besides, i told you not to call me that, it’s so cringey!”

“what, sunshine? i’ll never stop calling you that because it’s true.” your boyfriend sticks his tongue out at you before smirking when you roll your eyes again.

jeonghan then pauses before winking, his head making its way onto your shoulder once more with a content sigh. “either way, i need to make sure i keep up my reputation with your coworkers, am i right?”

[if-underourskins]

What's under your skin? What sets you apart? ...Is it why you're hunted?

Being hunted isn't for the weak.

You've been on the run for the majority of your life, though it seems to only get more and more frequent as you age. You're a shapeshifter, whose bones, muscles and skin twist and stretch to transform, and it's why you've been looking over your shoulder all this time.

You've had to leave your family behind when you discovered you were a shapeshifter, sent to live with your aunt – but even then you'd lost her, forced to flee when Officers from the Agency of Public Safety and Threat Containment (PSTC) came knocking on your door.

They hunted your kind, and though you weren't sure what they'd do to you once captured, the rumours of holding cells and collars doesn't make you eager to find out. They're who you've been running from all this time, the one who caused no place to be truly safe, and is the reason why you're alone.

That is, till you end up in the town of Arden Grove and meet other shapeshifters like yourself. Do you trust them? Will they stay? Or would you end up alone once again?

Play as female, male, non-binary, transmasc, transfem and more; and gay, straight, bi, aro or ace.

Customise your appearance, pronouns, name, etc.

Befriend, romance or maybe antagonise the characters you meet.

Play as a shapeshifter and choose from 5 animal forms (deer, bear, eagle, wildcat and fox) which will impact your life.

Make decisions as to how to survive in a world where the government is against you.

Victoria Beaumont (she/her) *not for transmasc or male MCs

Quiet on her feet, you'd never see her coming till she was next to you, signature grin on those painted red lips of hers. You swear those pale green eyes of hers glow in the dark, reminiscent of her animal form, a leopard,'s.

Victoria is 23, with long blonde hair and pale green eyes. You can find her wearing a lot of leopard print funnily enough, and she seems to prefer clothing reminiscent of the 2000s.

Blaine Lastor (she/her; he/him)

Blaine is not a trusting person, not in a world where shapeshifters are hunted down. She/ He has been cautious from the start, watching her/ his words around you, standing in corners and quietly observing.

Blaine is 23, and M!Blaine has a buzz cut while F!Blaine has braids. No matter what gender Blaine is however, she/ he has warm brown eyes. Blaine doesn't really care about clothing, mostly picking whatever is comfortable and available. She/ He wears a lot of compression shirts, though.

Elexis Xu (徐雅莉) (he/they)

Quiet and introverted, you can find Elexis in corners of rooms, watching people quietly and dreaming up his next art piece. He seems friendly enough, taking a curiosity to you, and you've even made him laugh. Still, it feels like he isn't as open as he seems.

Elexis is 22, and has long white hair and brown eyes. His white hair changes from season, like his coat as an arctic fox, with new black hair growing from underneath. He likes to wear loose and comfortable clothing, though his favourites are sweaters and baggy pants.

Seraph Windsor (she/her; they/them; he/him)

Seraphina/ Seraph/ Seraphin is the definition of an enigma. Popping next to you mid-gala and leaving you with more questions than answers, their smile and deposition is one of the most memorable things about them. Victoria however, warns you to stay away from them, but the real question is, can you?

Seraph is 24 and has curly brown hair and amber eyes. F!Seraph keeps her hair long, preferring to keep it in a half-up, half-down updo; while both Agender!Seraph and M!Seraph leaves it as it is (left down and short, respectively). Seraph is often wearing some sort of expensive clothing, whether it is a branded one, or made personally by fashion designers themselves, and it reflects their unique tastes.

Brooks Sinclair (he/him)

Shapeshifters and PSTC Officers do not mix... though Brooks seem to be one of the exceptions. You have no choice but to work with him, if only to stay free, and he seems just as reluctant to work with you. Still, can you really trust such a high-ranking Officer?

Brooks is 21 and has tousled brown hair and blue eyes, ones that remind you of the sea. He seems to dress casually out of uniform, and you have to say, his style isn't all that bad.

special route: a poly route between f! or agender!seraph x victoria x mc

Please head the trigger warnings stated below and in the IF itself. The list is non-exhausive and you are welcome to send an ask for me to add to the list. Player discretion is advised.

As of Prologue and Chapter 1 (or what is written so far),

Cursing

Dead bodies

Violence

Possible body horror

Morally questionable behaviour *the list will grow as i write

| demo (not out yet)

| patreon (not out yet)

[xesnox]

(Post fall) Ancient builder x Illager toxic old man yaoi when

WIP, was planning on doing a ref for every human race but a mutual of mine practically begged me to post these two on their own so you’re probably gonna see this image again. Colors are not yet where I want them to be so I’ll definitely go over it a few more times.

I’d like to take this moment to point out that the way you summon allays in legends, where you play as an ancient builder, is pretty similar to the way evokers summon vexes.

Design / AU rant below cut, as always.

This one’s a little worse written than usual, I’m just rambling.

I practically have an infinite amount of Ancient builder designs because I draw them differently with every piece depending on how I’m feeling, but for this design I got more genuinely speculative and turned on my pattern recognition.

Steve and Alex are canonically 6’2, both of them, and all undead mobs seem to be the same height, if not taller than they are, so I made them average around 6’5. To add to that, all undead builder mobs either don’t have eyes or have solid coloured glowing ones, so I went with the latter.

Minecraft isn’t a stranger to making lifeforms appearances change drastically depending on circumstance, this render is of an Ancient builder post wither attack, around ancient city time, which meant I could adopt the idea the devs mentioned about villagers/illagers, of human skin turning desaturated if they stay out of the sun for long enough, which, if the single generation of Illagers already show signs of I bet the god knows how many decade long underground escapades of the builders probably hit ‘em hard with that trait.

I also for the longest time for some reason forgot cosmetics were very likely a thing, so they’ve got some protection spells and luck enchantments tattooed, both of them do. Doesn’t work very well, as one can probably guess. But they’re superstitious so it felt in character enough.

For the post wither attack Ancient builders I also tend to think of them as more frail, not only because they had no access to their former overworld food supplies and had to rely on the little stuff that did grow in complete lack of sunlight underground, which definitely wasn’t a lot, but also because beyond the military force that did seem to remain from the nether war (ancient city structure name: Barracks, disk 5 marching.) they definitely were no longer strong enough to properly defend themselves against the wither or the warden/mourner on their own accord.

And because they were cowards and skedaddled when the overworld was in danger AND got beat up by the piglin despite being the main kingdom in power which I just find really funny. So think tall and boney but hiding it under a lot of clothing layers to still appear strong. Definitely can’t put on armor anymore though, that back would snap like a twig.

When it comes to the robes I used some of my older armor template designs for reference, made them black and blue to fit the most well known ancient builder sprite as well as vaguely match the one of the evoker. Because, oh well, you caught me, I do believe the cargo cult theory. Got my own interpretation but I’ll leave it at that till the next bestiary entry.

I generally want the villagers to look more varied, and human, while the builders, both neo and ancient, look more unsettling, as if they’re clearly a person, but something just looks, or moves wrong. They’re too symmetrical. Too far removed from what once was flawed but sincerely their own.

A lot of villager beauty standards are inspired by medieval-renaissance era Europe, like for an example having a larger visible forehead and appearing more boxy in shape being seen as more visually appealing, I think despite the illagers trying to subvert that they do still live in a society, so having grown accustomed to it as children they probably still at-least somehow adhere to the beauty standards they know, whether consciously or not.

They perform similar experiments on themselves as the builders, they’re just ever so slightly worse at it, as they haven’t been doing it for as long, so it leaves marks like scarring or visible stitching, though I believe they wear these with pride.

There’s gonna be a dedicated post about them at some point, as I said so I don’t know how much of my design I want to pick apart for now, but I’ll just leave it at that for now.

Here’s some alternative versions.

[ot3]

have u read the homestuck epilogues? what do u think of them if u have? and do u have thoughts on june egbert

when the epilogues originally dropped, i read candy but i did not go on to read meat because the experience of being a homestuck fan at the release of the epilogues was a pretty miserable and i saw no reason to prolong it.

i did not categorically hate everything the epilogues were attempting to do but i think they are fundamentally and irredeemably flawed for one extremely big reason: you can not release something as the official continuation of a work while also insisting it is not a piece of the canon. it felt like they wanted to have their cake and eat it too in a way that completely undermined the entire work. they released it with faux-ao3 tagging/styling, but weren't brave enough to actually release is on ao3. it had to be elevated Above fanwork, but if you got too upset about it they could always just point out 'well we said it wasn't canon' to deflect legitimate criticism. plain and simple, it all felt like cowardice. release something intentionally designed to provoke and antagonize a dedicated fanbase and then retreat to twitter to complain about how nobody can understand and appreciate REAL, SERIOUS, QUEER ADULT CHARACTER WRITING. but like. real, serious queer adult character writing still needs to be good and I'm not sure the homestuck epilogues Were that. having characters you know to be 100% fictional and are now being written by a brand new set of people pretty much look at the camera and say "if you think my character writing is OOC it's only because you don't respect my interiority as a human being" rang extremely fucking hollow to me.

i think it should be obvious to anyone who has been following me for any amount of time that i don't want or need sanitized and saccharine character writing to be pleased and my issue was not that the epilogues were dark, it was that they felt confused and contrived.

being a homestuck fan took up all of the formative years of my life, without exaggeration. it was the main thing i was into from ages 14-21 and has been incomparably important to me. so it's next to impossible for me to separate my feelings about my epilogues from what it felt like to be a homestuck fan during the absolute clusterfuck of these things dropping, especially since i haven't revisited them since. one event in particular that really soured me was an official homestuck team member who i was decently good friends with asking me to delete tweets i made criticizing some aspects of the epilogues. i found to be an extremely unprofessional to do as someone who is on the payroll of an IP speaking to a fan of that work, regardless of whatever terms we may have been on. additionally, i found the way she + the epilogues writers responded to criticism of the epilogues from the pretty significant demographic of teen fans on twitter to be at best condescending and at worst actively cruel.

it felt like a bunch of people who wrote shock fiction about a beloved cast of characters - something they were fully within their right to do, to be clear - but then could not handle the extremely predictable reception to it. my eventual homestuck reread is penciled in for 2029 and if i can bring myself to [re]read the epilogues at that time, im going to. we will see how my feelings change then

as for june egbert: love her, but this is once again soured by the way post-mspa era homestuck treats the concept of canonicity. john egbert is my number one favorite fictional character of all time. if you tell me "great news, she's a girl now" i am in fact overjoyed by that. i think its something that adds a lot of texture to the character. but i don't like people treating it like it's canon when it just simply isn't. i don't think you get points for portraying a transfem character until you have actually... portrayed a transfem character. i do not keep up with hs2 for reasons that are probably pretty obvious so i'm not sure if anything has changed, but to the best of my knowledge june egbert is not yet canonical there either. it's very frustrating.

but you see what i mean about canonicity: ignore the fact that we haven't discussed june egbert's gender in a single actual piece of fiction. the toblerone says she's real so she is! ignore the fact that the homestuck epilogues are official works that were on the shelves at barnes and fucking noble, they're "beyond canon" because weve put AO3 headers on. it feels like lategame homestuck treats canonicity like a switch it can flip completely independent of the works they are making, in whatever way is convenient for them. if the HS2 team (shoutout to floral, one of the best to ever do it and nobody deserves to be writing homestuck more than them) ever does get around to making june egbert canon, i will be standing by to pop bottles.

[totally-not-agirl]

LI react to you being pregnant:

Eden - you bring home a pregnancy test from one of your trips into town. Eden just grunts because he doesn’t trust it, but you see the little spark in his eye. Instead, he makes you cum in his garden, and when certain flowers blossom, he knows you’re pregnant - and even the sex. He holds your stomach and kisses you for a long time. He also doesn’t let you leave for weeks, until you convince him you’re not going to break. Once you hit six months, good luck getting out of his sight.

Sydney the Faithful - falls to his knees and praises the powers above, touching you like a holy relic. Once he’s done crying and kissing your wrists and stomach, he rushes to tell Jordan. There’s a special ceremony at the temple to bless your pregnancy. He worships you with his mouth for hours.

Sydney the Corrupt - laughs delightedly and spins you around. researches child psychology like he’s about to get a degree. Really reflects on his religious trauma because he wants your child to be happy. Thinks every new stage of your pregnancy is more divine than anything from the Temple.

Kylar - immediately fucks you again in celebration. He also puts trackers in all of your closers. As a bonus, he can go fetch your favorite outfits if they get stolen. One night you wake up with a sting in your neck; you think he put a tracker inside of you as well.

Avery - you’ve never seen him look so…worried. You’re terrified he won’t be happy, and he doesn’t exactly celebrate. However, you begin receiving regular expensive gifts, the best prenatal vitamins, the sexiest lingerie, replaced as you get bigger. Eventually he moves you into a luxury apartment and gets you a doctor - not Harper. The nursery is beautiful but you get no say in it.

Robin - kisses you all over, and immediately starts working on finances. You’ll surely have to move out of the orphanage— but maybe Bailey will allow you to leave when he knows. Maybe he’ll even agree to lower payments when you’re not taking up space; it’s highly doubtful he’ll let you go completely debt free. He works extra hard to make enough money to spoil you every now and then, while still saving for your needs, and your child’s future.

Harper - Harper is a little too happy. He’s done plenty of research on pregnancy - practically inevitable in this town - and he has whole regimens he’s designed for expectant mothers. But he asks you a lot of questions each time the pills change, writing down your answers with eager eyes. You’re weighed and measure daily. You seem to lactate unusually early in your pregnancy, but Harper is only all too happy to help with that…

Whitney - Kind of panics, honestly. Gets very territorial over you and beats up a lot of strangers on your behalf, getting arrested a few times. Begrudgingly lets you bandage him up. Eventually you’re able to convince him you do more good outside of the pillory than inside, and he shapes up. He is obsessed with showing you off, especially the bigger your belly gets. Plus, more space to write insults and his name on his little slut!

Great Hawk - will share nesting time equally with you. Constant preening. The most beautiful lullabies in the world. And constant gifts. You have to remind him often to bring food.

Black Wolf - the whole pack is excited. You’re not leaving the cave until you’ve given birth to their litter. Maybe not even after that. The scent of a bred mate sends them into a fury, so your holes and hands are going to be busy — but only the Alpha can breed you.