#sorry guys i looked at the comments in a Life is Strange youtube video

[maxthesillyy]

people who hate chloe piss me off so much. and its mainly because the only reason they hate her is because they won’t even TRY and understand her in the slightest.

[universeinthebox]

Hey again

Shout-out to all the people who liked and commented on my last post. Glad to know that Squeak hasn’t been forgotten. =)

Comments:

winterstraystar said: For Sonic: Thank you for still looking out for his blog, it means a lot. For Squeak: Hope you are going better wherever life has taken you. I hope you live with no regrets 

You’re welcome. I should mention that I’ve done a little writing, and one of my stories is about Squeak. Here it is: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/528407/thanks-for-the-memories

I can’t believe how long it took me to get a fimfiction account. It says something about all the trauma I’ve been through.

There were a lot of us in the Box with mental health struggles of one sort or another. It was really valuable to have that space to talk, and also create! It reminds me of that one Subnormality comic...

pinkusponkus said: Squeak did so much for so many people. I miss him! 

Thank you! We miss him too!

kasamari said: I miss the care and love of the whole team you guys put together. I will keep following this and Squeak’s other spaces in the hopes that I get the chance to tell Squeak that the soldier who left his pregnant wife for training all those years ago is now a proud father of 4, still married to the same amazing woman. I will always be so grateful for the story of Good Night and for the wonderful Ponies in a Box that worked to share so many stories.

CONGRATULATIONS! Hip Hip Hurray! I hope we can all be so fortunate. =)

You didn’t ask for advice, but I’m gonna provide some anyway. My favorite parenting book is Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. Also, conventional school sucks and kids would be much better off at Sudbury Schools: https://www.facebook.com/HudsonValleySudburySchool/videos/10155951019968804/ (The teachers are better off too!) Anyway, give your kids a hug from us. And maybe show them an old PIAB video or two =)

And hopefully, hopefully someday you’ll be able to tell Squeak the news directly. I’m sure he’d be happy for you. =)

warbalist said: I miss writing music for his stuff. 😭

Oh wow, you wrote music for him? (Sorry, I don’t recognize the username!) What did you write?

I miss working with him too. I miss the sheer sense of possibility we had in 2012, in the brony fandom generally and especially with Pony in a Box. I still remember how I was on vacation and Squeak came up with the idea for The Best and within 12 hours it was fully written, recorded and posted on Youtube. Or how about that time the other boxers and me secretly made a short for Squeak’s birthday?

I miss hearing our stuff premiere on Celestia Radio. I miss reading the comments as they came in. I miss the little ARG we did for Wrong Way Backwards. I miss the feeling that anything was possible.

I’m really sad that I didn’t go to BronyCon 2013. A lot of PIAB people were there, and in retrospect that was the best opportunity I ever had to see the boxers in person. But my mom had cancer and I had anxiety mixed with self-hatred and the flight seemed too much of a risk and it didn’t seem fair to mom so in the end I didn’t go. =(

I miss my box friends. Too many of us had IRL problems at the same time, and we gradually scattered to the winds. We’ve still got a discord server but it rarely gets any activity. It’s so sad. =(

Special shout-out to Togpie, who was a vital support to me during some extremely difficult times in my life. I think maybe she burnt out, caring for me all the time. If so, I don’t blame her. She worked really hard to help me when she was already busy with her own problems. I haven’t heard from her in over a year now. I hope she’s ok...

It’s strange how Life is so much grander and deeper than it seems. Do you know what I mean? There is so much meaning and passion and joy and opportunities taken and opportunities missed just in this one little group of people. There are so many things that shaped us, so many traumas that the Box helped us face, and then the Box itself drifted away because we still hadn’t found perfect solutions to Life’s problems.

And here I am, posting this little thing that a handful of people will see. How will it impact you? What’s your story?

A good life is possible, I’m sure. The solutions involve things like Children’s Rights and Sudbury Schools and Democracy and Universal Basic Income. The solutions involve things like ponies and fandoms and community for its own sake. The solutions involve knowing that you matter and your feelings matter, and it’s ok to cry when you’re hurt and it’s ok to get mad at abusive people and systems.

I think of the billionaires of the world and I wonder why they don’t just feed the poor. I’ve had a lot of friends who deserve money, good people tied down by bad circumstances. I’ve given a few thousand myself, trying to figure out how much I can afford considering I still can’t manage a full-time job (on account of my mental health). And I wonder why anyone thinks Elon Musk is a good person, seeing that he has so much money but he refuses to help people.

I think back to a time when guys openly liking ponies would have been impossible, when this fandom would have been impossible, where the formation of Pony in a Box would have been impossible. I wonder how many wonderful memories past generations never got to experience because of their stupid rules, and I’m glad for the progress we’ve made and the hope of more progress to come, and I’m also very sad that more progress hasn’t happened already.

Every so often I google anti-aging medicine (which is a legit field now) because I want to make up for all the time I’ve lost to trauma and abuse.

In the meantime, though, I’m glad we had Pony in a Box. And I’m glad that the fandom still exists. And I hope that the choices I make today will help future generations. Maybe new opportunities will come our way, like the TARDIS fading in from the Vortex.

Thank you, my friends.

Onwards and Upwards --Sonicsuns

[normanbased]

YOU 🫵

(Writing prompt) How do you think Norman Bates would be different if Psycho (1) was set in modern times?

HEY !! sorry I took so long I was quite literally baking a pie 😭🙏 I got carried away talking about headcanons so don’t mind me <3 if you see any typos no you don’t <333

Personality Stuff

I really don’t think all that much about his personality would change. He’s still a shy, reserved, polite guy who yearns for interaction and has a witty sense of humour.

He’s open to conversation but terrified of intimacy, and of course Mother is still breathing down his neck at all times. He’s less afraid of his sexuality, and is pretty content in the idea that he may be attracted to men. It’s a bit easier to come to terms with that when the world isn’t as hateful. After all, it’s California.

He masks pretty poorly if we’re being real, and the overwhelming nature of the modern era probably doesn’t help that. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were more prone to shutting down or struggling with social interactions. Not the most helpful state to be existing in when you have a motel to run.

Plot/Lore Stuff

Most of his life experiences remain the same, aside from some slightly modernised circumstances. For example, there’s no way he could avoid going into the foster care system, but considering I headcanon Sheriff Chambers and his wife being Norman’s foster parents, I’ll just stick with that. Obviously when he turns eighteen he buys the motel and the house back from the county with his inheritance, (which leaves him broke) and after moving back in, Mother begins to manifest in his mind.

He has VHS recordings of news broadcasts about his parents’ deaths that he re-watches over and over sometimes. I think in a strange way he likes being reminded of it, and the pain that comes with it.

He has a phone and an old CRT computer, so he’s certainly seen programs and articles and blog posts about the case — I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s even seen True Crime YouTubers talking about it and trying to psychoanalyse him. bet he even knows about the conspiracy theorists that claim he murdered his parents and that it wasn’t a double suicide after all. He gets morbidly giddy over the fact that he knows they’re right.

When he moves out from the Chambers household, Norman goes right to managing the motel, which goes pretty well considering the old highway has sorta become a tourist destination in and of itself. People wanna relive 1950’s America so the diner, the motel, and a bunch of other spots along the highway actually get a ton of support from visitors as well as the local council to keep tourism high.

Regardless, Norman is still alone and isolated from others most of the time. But he has his computer. The wifi is awful out in the sticks, but the internet kind of becomes a home within a home for Norman. A total escape.

He likes looking up people online - finding their names, their social media, where they work, where they live, and so on. He makes little files on people he really likes. Sometimes he pretends he knows these people in real life and talks about them out loud as if they’re his friends. He’ll even introduce them to Mother to see if she likes them or not, which she almost never does. Hell, maybe he knew Marion Crane long before she ever showed up to the Bates Motel.

Norman is still very sheltered even with access to the internet. I don’t think he’s particularly tech savvy, but he sure does enjoy exploring the depths of the wider net. He’s kind of naive, the sort of person to look up the pyramids on Google Images and just scroll in awe.

He spends most of his time watching taxidermy time-lapses or hunting videos. Sometimes he films his own taxidermy tutorials and occasionally uploads them online. There’s no audio or anything, instead he puts little captions explaining what he’s doing with smiley faces and stuff :o) He gets not a lot of views, but all the comments are usually nice fellers from across the country complimenting his technique and asking where he bought his chemicals.

Unfortunately, he’s also into some really dodgy forums and sites. He has an unhealthy, obsessive curiosity for shock content and gore. It doesn’t arouse him or anything - at least, he doesn’t seem to think it does. He just gets overcome sometimes by a deeply rooted fascination for it.

He likes posting to shock sites, too. He mostly uploads clips and pictures of him poisoning birds or wringing their necks before he stuffs them. He has to kill them anyway, that’s how he rationalises it, so he might as well make posts. He loves reading the responses - whether the comments are negative or not, he revels in it. He doesn’t care if there are trolls or fetishists clogging up the replies, he just wants any attention he can get.

Somewhere deep in his hard drive he has a video of him doing taxidermy on his mother’s corpse. Every now and then he debates posting it to a shock site and getting a metric ton of attention and views, but he never does.

He doesn’t watch pornography, mainly because Mother would have a thing or two to say about it. There’s been one or two times he’s emerged from a fugue state to find hammers next to his CRT, so he doesn’t want to push his luck and lose his only source of true freedom.

Silly Stuff

He’s big on 70’s-80’s fashion. He likes sweater vests and saddle shoes and oversized button-ups. He even has aviators like a proper serial killer, but he wouldn’t find it very funny if you made that joke.

His music tastes can go anywhere from country to classic to punk rock. He likes listening to weird experimental rock music when his mood is low, and pop/classic country when he’s happy :]]

He doesn’t watch a lot of TV, but he used to enjoy watching late-night reruns of old cartoons. When his cable eventually got cut off he didn’t bother renewing it, you can just pirate stuff online anyways.

He doesn’t get memes. Sorry. That stuff is beyond him.

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

bullseye, m | jjk

pairing(s): jungkook x reader

summary: Are you the insufferable, cocky, absolutely-no-good-for-anyone female equivalent of a fuckboy? Maybe. Okay, yeah. But guess who decided to come along and interrupt your conquests? Jeon Jungkook. What now? Complain to your best friend Kim Taehyung all day or fucking do something about it?

warnings: rated M (18+) for language; alcohol consumption; Taehyung getting shitfaced lol; you're a cocky asshole and so is Jungkook, welp; schemes; smut (fem reader, making out / dry humping in public, cowgirl, m-masturbation, edging / orgasm denial, penetrative sex, so much kissing); non-idol!BTS; (secretly pining) fuckboy!Jungkook x bisexual, fuckgirl!reader; ft artist, best friend!Taehyung; mostly reader's POV with a short JK's POV

yes, it's purple-haired Butter JK

--

now playing – 마.피.아. in the morning by itzy

“Are you kidding me? Fucking Jeon Jungkook, again?”

“You need to calm down,” Kim Taehyung said, patting your shoulder and handing you a mojito.

“What I need is a fucking bow and arrow to shoot down this fucking pest!”

“I know you were the archery champion in high school, but that’s still a weird thing to think,” replied that baritone voice, pushing you into a chair so he could sit down as well, observing you violently chugging down the entire mojito in your rage. He seemed highly amused, looking a bit like a young French socialite in a black beret, loose tan dress shirt, and black slacks with black loafers. Gold accents because Kim Taehyung was that bitch. “Never ceases to impress me that you can do that.”

You pulled the glass from your lips, ice and mint clinking. “This is the third girl I’ve been dating that he’s just–” You flapped a hand in the general direction of the crowd at the bar, completely ignoring Taehyung’s comment about your record-breaking skills of draining cocktails. “–unashamedly making out with when clearly I’m right here.”

Taehyung rolled his eyes, far too crass for how drop-dead handsome he was, but it seemed that he didn’t care. “I doubt he knows you’re here or that you’re dating them. And to make it fair on him, you were casually dating them all at once, so technically, no one is at fault here,” he added.

You narrowed your eyes. “I wasn’t–”

Taehyung gave you this look.

The look of ‘shut-up-you-know-I’m-right’.

Being your best friend, he had a right to do that.

“Shouldn’t you be mad at the girl anyway? Being faithful and all that, which, by the way, you are not.”

“Dating is not the same as being in a relationship,” you argued.

“Mmm, so fucking them is not indicative enough that you should be less of a fuckboy.”

“I’m not a fuckboy,” you muttered. “I’m a woman.”

Taehyung raised an eyebrow. “The general term still stands because you’re a class-A asshole.”

You closed your eyes and sucked in a deep breath, trying not to bolt home and buy a bow and arrow online to shoot, not Jeon Jungkook, but Kim Taehyung, because he was testing your last nerve with the truth.

“Again, why are you not mad at them?” Taehyung reoriented the conversation with a sweep of his arm when you opened your eyes, prompting your gaze to shift and witness Jeon Jungkook with his tongue down a pretty girl’s throat. This cheeky bastard was even wearing a leather jacket and white shirt, just like you. The only difference was that you wore a leather miniskirt and he wore black jeans with rips in the thighs, but both of you were wearing heeled black moto-style boots.

“Because he’s the denominator in this equation,” you snapped, smacking your glass on the table.

“Please do not make math references. My brain is not made for that.”

“Fractions? Tae, seriously, are you defective or–”

“Maybe he’s doing it to piss you off.”

“Well, I am pissed off!”

The bar was very loud with music and noise. Your shout was still clearly heard. Neither you or Taehyung seemed to care that people turned to look at you two and shake their heads.

Taehyung shrugged. “Then he succeeded.”

You clicked your tongue. “Why, though? I didn’t do anything to him. He just started popping up stealing my girls. What if I switch back to chasing dick and he takes them too?”

Taehyung snorted. “I doubt it. You’re just continuing on this train because you’re stubborn.”

As usual, he saw right through you.

He raised an elegant hand and tapped his lips. “Maybe he likes you.”

You gave Taehyung the most disbelieving, fiery, indignant look that you had ever produced in your life.

“Or, he doesn’t,” he hastily corrected. “Let’s face it, sometimes I don’t even like you and I would murder for your dumb ass.”

You tapped the melting glass of icy mint onto the tabletop.

Menacingly.

“If you think about it,” Taehyung began tentatively, scooting his chair slightly away from you with your flaming eyes boring holes in the back of Jeon Jungkook’s head. His hair was dark violet now so you could spot him easily, pinning your (not yours, but you know, that was your prey at one point) girl against the back wall of the bar. “He always goes after your target. He wants you to notice something.”

You watched a YouTube video once about making your own bow and arrow. It didn’t seem that difficult, all things considered. Sharpening a long stick with a knife and–

“Stop thinking about murder.”

You jerked your head back to Taehyung and his honey-brown curls framing his amused expression. You glared in response.

“I’ve never interacted with him a day in my life,” you frowned, abandoning your homicidal tendencies for the moment. “What does he want me to notice?”

Taehyung gave you a pained look. You returned with a black stare. Then he sighed and shook his head.

“He’s a fuckboy. You’re the female equivalent of a fuckboy. What do you think he wants?”

“My body count?”

Taehyung slapped his own face, muttering under his breath. “… be part of your body count.”

“Sorry, what?” You raised your voice over the bass. “Can’t hear you over the music.”

He raised his head. “I don’t know. Fight him. See what happens.”

“I’m not gonna win a fistfight.”

Taehyung looked ready to fistfight you.

You stood up, dragging him by the arm. “Come on, wingman. I need another drink. I’ll buy, since you got me the last one.”

Taehyung laughed, loud and full, yanking his arm out of your grip and clapping a hand around your shoulders, pulling you to him so your body knocked into him. You grimaced, now forced to walk side by side with him, not seeing the looks shared between the patrons witnessing you two together.

“Now we’re talking. I wanna get trashed.”

“Cure for a broken heart, am I right?”

“Mine’s shattered,” Taehyung chuckled, rubbing the left side of his chest playfully, but you couldn’t help but notice the hurt in his eyes. It was his idea to go out tonight and assist you with getting laid but, one, you didn’t need assistance and, two, he had recently broken up. It was pretty obvious he just wanted you to buy him drinks and have an excuse to do something.

Which was fine with you, until Jeon Jungkook showed up holding your previous eye candy.

Hmph.

Whatever, you had a Taehyung to nurse back to health with an obscene amount of alcohol.

-

Two hours later, you were standing in the men’s bathroom, holding Taehyung’s beret with one hand and his hair in the other as he vomited loudly into the toilet.

“Sup.”

The guy looked in the stall and then looked at you.

“You’re not supposed to be here…”

You raised an eyebrow. “You wanna hold his hair?”

The guy slunk away at your dismissive tone.

Taehyung tapped your thigh and you patted him on the head soothingly. He flushed and coughed.

"S... sorry," he croaked wetly.

You chuckled. "Wash your mouth, ya nasty."

He got up and you straightened his clothes in an almost maternal fashion.

"Need water, I think..." he winced, stumbling past you to the counter. You followed him to make sure he didn't hurl in the fucking sink.

"I'll be right back. Don't do anything crazy."

"Heh, that’s you," he slurred as he put his hands under the tap to wash up.

You plopped his beret on your head and sauntered out of the men's bathroom, unbothered by the stares and the people trying to catch your eye. It took you no time at all to waltz to the counter and obtain the water, striding back to the men's bathroom with the tall glass.

Only to run into you-know-who.

The girl sputtered your name in surprise as if she hadn't met you in this very bar a couple of weeks ago.

You completely ignored her existence, narrowing your eyes at the smirking face of Jeon Jungkook.

There was no denying his attractiveness. His purple hair was a little messy now, curling around his high cheekbones and large brown eyes. The dim light of the bar cast strange shadows over his chiseled jaw and shapely lips, curved into a devilish grin. He had a mole and red lipstick residue underneath his lower lip.

You had a strong urge to douse him and his leather jacket with your giant glass of water.

Taehyung was the one who found out Jungkook's name for you. You sent him on the mission after the first time this little shit started meddling in your business.

At this moment, you remembered that.

You pointedly looked away, walking past Jungkook, knocking into his arm forcefully and on purpose, annoyed that he seemed pretty strong under that jacket, muscular and lean. Whatever. You had a large bear cub named Kim Taehyung to take care of. You didn't have time to waste on Jeon Jungkook.

"Hey."

You stiffened at the deep, silvery voice. Of course. He had to have a sexy voice too. Bitch.

"You should apologize."

Your eyes flickered to the glass of water. It was pretty cold in your hand. You raised your chin back up, facing towards the bathrooms.

The choice was easy.

You continued waking and raised your free hand to flip Jeon Jungkook the bird, off to deliver the water to your best friend.

Some guy at the urinal screamed as you entered the men's bathroom but you completely ignored him, only focusing on Taehyung, who was gripping the corner of the sink, turning not to pass out, pallid face dripping and looking green.

"Drink this and I'll take you home."

-

"Ugh, thanks for the other day... sorry I wasn't the best wingman... I ended up making you exorcize my demons instead..."

You laughed, jabbing a toothpick in the steaming fried chicken. You and Kim Taehyung again, hanging out in the afternoon at the local chicken spot.

"It's cool. I know you needed it."

Taehyung frowned. "If you knew, why did you play along?"

You shrugged. "You would've done the same for me."

He smiled and popped a piece of crispy chicken in his mouth. "Yeah, if you ever had a serious relationship for once."

You glared. "This is a non-judgment zone. Shut up."

He chuckled. Then he leaned in and you grimaced, catching a whiff of his chicken breath. He was wearing a pinstriped shirt and neglected to button the first two because he was too hot to bother with some stupid buttons. You weren't going to say you could relate, but you were wearing a loose black sweater dress that was bordering on flashing your panties, so, maybe.

"I heard from a little birdie that you had a run-in with the bane of your existence."

You raised an eyebrow. "The tax man?"

Taehyung rolled his eyes. "No, the other one."

Now it was your turn to roll yours. "Oh, right. The Dark Lord."

Taehyung gave you a weird look. "Is that a movie reference or..."

"Harry Potter, ever heard of it?"

"You're such a nerd."

"That's not... anyway, so what?"

He wiggled his eyebrows. "He spoke to you."

You narrowed your eyes. "Where do you get your information?"

He fidgeted. "Uh... a reliable source that chooses to remain anonymous."

Your eyes became slits. "Who."

Taehyung stick his tongue out at you. "The whole point of anonymous is you not knowing!"

"Who are you, fucking Rita Skeeter–"

"Stop with the weird references!"

"For fuck's sake," you hissed, causing a mother sitting at a table near yours to chastise you, covering their kid’s ears. You frowned, lowering your voice. "Alright so what? He opened his mouth; nothing original came out." You jabbed another piece of chicken.

"Well? Feel any tension? Sweet romance? Unbridled fury?" Taehyung piped, greatly interested in your two-second interaction with Jeon Jungkook.

You chewed, huffing. "I had a big kid to take care of. I didn't give a shit."

"Hey, I'm not a kid!" he shot back.

"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, you’re more important to me than poking his pretty eyeballs out of his head, so I didn't even reply."

Taehyung paused, mid-chew. "Really?"

"Yes, I didn't say–"

"No, that I'm important to you."

Taehyung was doing that thing where his big brown eyes went all sparkly and sentimental. It was making you uncomfortable. Bad with feelings and all that. The only reason you tolerated it was because Taehyung had been like this ever since he was that dorky weird kid you defended from bullies in elementary school. A folding chair was involved and you might have watched too many WWE TLC (tables, ladders, chairs) matches as a kid, but hey, those bullies didn’t bother Taehyung ever again, did they?

You got sent to detention for the rest of the year and anger management counseling appointments, but Taehyung remained your friend throughout the whole ordeal and for years to come, tolerating your poor life choices so… worth?

You reached over and shut his open mouth. "Of course, you are, that's why I'm not calling you a disgusting pig for chewing with your mouth open."

"Oi, that's bullying!"

"You bully me all the time," you snorted and the same mom made a noise of distaste that you pretended not to hear. "Like now you keep bringing up the spawn of Satan."

"You're also the spawn of Satan, by the way."

"Yeah, and you're my guardian angel and he ain't got shit, so I’ve already won this war."

Taehyung laughed nervously.

"Er, yes... totally..."

-

Another day, another conquest.

Well, you had to find the prey first, but that wasn’t going to be hard.

“You’re a chronic asshole.”

“Thanks, Tae. You sure you don’t wanna come?”

He rolled his eyes at you as you shrugged on one of his black dress shirts. You checked the tag. Silk. Damn. Kim Taehyung was a fancy bitch. He leaned against the closet doorframe as you fitted your black leather corset-style belt at your waist to cinch it in. You often raided Taehyung’s closet and paired it with your accessories. Did he enjoy your fucking in his clothes? Probably not, but you always returned them cleaned in the proper way, so he couldn’t complain.

He did anyway.

“No, I don’t. Let me sulk.”

“Ah, yes, moody starving artist, I’ll let you be,” you snickered, slinging the waist bag over your shoulder, wearing it across your chest instead of your hips. You lightly punched him in the arm and he pretended to topple over exaggeratedly. “You going to paint today?”

He shrugged. “I think. Dunno what media I want to use.”

“Just use a bunch of different ones. Your mixed media stuff is amazing,” you replied, waltzing out of his bedroom, past his messy studio with a blank canvas balanced on a wooden easel in the center of absolute chaos of paints. You helped him organize them once, but Taehyung often was too in the zone to pay attention to neatness.

“When’s the exhibit? I want to drop by,” you commented, seeing the line of his works safely wrapped up, leaning against the wall.

“Um… next week, Thursday through Sunday,” Taehyung replied sheepishly, cheeks flaring red at the mention of his own art exhibit. He was humble even though he was talented. “I’ll text you the address. Don’t show up looking like a high-paid escort.”

You tucked your feet into your heels and raised an eyebrow.

Silk black men’s shirt worn as a dress, belted at the waist to show off your curves, bare legs out, toned calves standing out due to your sleek black high heels.

“Who, me? Never.”

Taehyung shook his head. “Text me if you need a ride.”

“You got it.”

-

“You have got to be kidding me.”

You tapped your nails on the bar, having already finished your peach mojito.

“Fucking Jeon Jungkook, again?”

You needed to invest in a bow and arrow, like, yesterday.

Shoot right between his pretty eyeballs. Dude even pulled back his long, deep purple hair into a smooth ponytail with wispy strands framing his sculpted face. Was that damn eyeliner and mascara making his eyes look sharper, sexier? Fuck, he even knew how to make himself look even hotter.

Not as hot as you, of course.

“How does he always know where I’m at?” you muttered under your breath, turning away to look at the bartender and order another mojito. Watermelon. It seemed interesting. Fuck it, you were going to focus on drinking rather than the thorn in your side, Jeon Jungkook and his black dress shirt halfway buttoned and his tight-fitting black slacks with sleek oxfords. The bartender slid your glass in front of you, a gradient of pink to transparent with a little sprig of mint on top. It was a pretty drink.

You reached into your waist bag to pay, but the bartender stopped you.

“The gentleman over there paid for you. A gift.”

Oh? Maybe a potential for the night. You shifted your gaze to–

Oh.

“Tell him to fu–”

But the bartender was already off servicing other customers on this busy night.

Shit.

You know what? Fine. He put himself up as the target. He wanted to play this game.

And you never missed a bullseye.

You tilted your head to survey Jeon Jungkook out of the corner of your eye, making his way over to you, bringing your drink close to your lips. He stopped right next to you. The colorful lights of the club made rainbows dance across his lightly tanned skin and his dark lips, curled into a smug smirk.

“Hey.”

You cocked an eyebrow.

Drank.

Mmm, fuck, that was some deliciously smooth rum. The watermelon was a refreshing addition to the mint too. You probably weren’t meant to drink it all at once, but you were glaring at Jungkook who was pointedly watching your throat swallow and it was aggravating you more and more, the entire drink disappearing in record time, leaving nothing but ice and mint.

You smacked the glass down on this table with a hiss.

Jungkook purred your name with that deep, silvery voice of his. His eyes flickered down to your exposed collarbones and then back up to your face.

You clicked your tongue.

Then you turned away from him dismissively, walking past him, knocking into his arm forcefully and on purpose.

But instead of letting it happen, Jungkook shifted his weight and slid to block your path. You stopped, eyes darting up to narrow at that conceited little brat’s face. Now you could smell his cologne, fresh, sensual, a mix of pungent dragon fruit and black coffee.

Hold on.

You inhaled. Yup, no mistaking it.

That was your perfume.

Jungkook grinned as the realization hit you. How did he know what perfume you used?

“The fuck you want?” you growled.

He licked his lips slowly. He ticked his chin, taunting you.

“Finally got you to talk to me,” he purred, chuckling.

Alright, you were past causing actual bodily harm these days – jail being your primary reason – but that didn’t stop you from staring down Jeon Jungkook and his self-satisfied smirk with your signature tapering of your sharp stare.

You just stood there.

Menacingly.

He bit his lower lip, exposing that tiny mole underneath, shivering under your gaze. “Are you mad at me?” he asked, almost innocently, but there was no chance in hell that he was.

You quirked your head, lifting your chin defiantly. “Absolutely fuming,” you replied acidly.

He took a step towards you, closing the distance, so close you could feel his warmth, your breasts brushing against his chest. Now people were whispering around you two, sensing the tension between you and Jungkook. The similar outfits, the same violent energy, the same predatory aura.

As if the fox had confronted the wolf.

“What’s there to be mad about when we play the same game?” Jungkook drawled.

Cocky. The fox was so damn cocky.

“You’re just nibbling on my leftovers,” you countered, stepping forward so you pressed against him, burning body heat to burning body heat. “Which makes you the scavenger.”

Jungkook leaned down, dark brown eyes glittering with amusement.

“Then why so angry?”

His lips ghosted over yours, breathing in your exhale.

“I’m just a pest, right? A mere annoyance in your eventual victory.”

His lashes lowered, arrogant smirk reaching his dark eyes.

“Play your ace. Let’s see if it works,” he purred in the deep, sexy octave of his.

Shut up.

A low snarl rumbled in your chest.

“Shut up, Jeon Jungkook.”

You gripped his belt and yanked him to your body, rolling your crotch into his, your lips colliding with that maddening smirk, alcohol, dragon fruit, black coffee, flint igniting the dry wood, devouring his lips hungrily, his hands sliding up your sides, and his smile.

Triumph.

-

Shit.

-

You couldn’t give two fucks about Jeon Jungkook and he was into it.

Like the impossible enigma, he couldn’t figure you out but he was drawn to you anyway. The whole world was your plaything, and you treated it as such. There was something exciting about you, the thrill too irresistible to avoid when you made your presence known. Always you and that teasing smile, never getting serious, making everyone hesitate to take it farther with you. Who could blame them with your borderline brash attitude and ease of moving from one to the next?

That and your friendship with Kim Taehyung, who was a whole damn tiger next to your wolfish nature.

At first, Jungkook was intrigued.

As time went on, he became frustrated and annoyed.

What gave you the right to ignore him?

You picked up guys far less attractive than he was, not that he was that vain but, seriously, he was right here! Waiting to be caught. He didn’t try to interfere at first. In fact, Jungkook wasn’t even the sleep-around-and-mess-with-feelings kind of guy. But the more he watched you, the more impressed he was, seeing the way you charmed your way into everyone’s hearts, the way you focused on them for that moment, making them feel like they were the most perfect creature on Earth before slinking to the next, leaving them with a pining heart and lost in fantasies of what-ifs.

And, yeah, you were hot.

What was Jungkook going to do?

He could do nothing.

Or he could befriend Kim Taehyung, get under your skin, and make you notice him.

Not a scheme, per se.

Kind of a scheme.

Alright, definitely a scheme.

In Jungkook’s defense, your best friend Taehyung was all for it. Taehyung was the one who came up with all the ideas, informed him of your location, and the names of the girls you were after.

“Give her a taste of her own medicine. She needs a reality check.”

The problem was, Jungkook didn’t really want to let you go now that you were in his arms.

-

“Silly pretty boy.”

You had his chin in your palm, pressing your thumb against Jungkook’s lower lip, opening his hungry mouth to tease him with your tongue, tracing his soft lips and thrusting in, his low moan filling your lungs. His hands on your waist tightened, pulling you closer even through you were already in his lap, murmurs and eyes on you, but neither your nor Jungkook cared, used to this by now.

You were, after all, making out in the club.

The chair scraped against the ground as Jungkook firmly placed your thighs on either side of his, thrusting upwards into your core, letting your feel his rapidly growing hardness with every one of your kisses. Your hair feathered his cheeks and shoulders as your free hand toyed with his ponytail, twirling it in your fingers, smirking into his lips with his gasp from you grinding back down on his crotch, rolling your hips into him.

“Thought I was the bane of your existence?” Jungkook taunted under you, squeezing your ass through the silk and meeting your movements, staring into your eyes with his. So dark, so smokey, so fucking sexy, almost like looking into a mirror, because you too wore similar makeup, maybe a little darker and a little more of a flick to your eyeliner. “Just going to kiss me to shut me up?”

You wouldn’t be surprised if the other clubgoers were eagerly watching now, waiting to see what was going to happen between you and him.

“I don’t need to be on your mouth to shut you up,” you mused, tugging his ponytail back and kissing down his neck, tongue tracing the contours of his muscles, feeling him shudder under your lips and teeth, lightly nipping at his skin. Tracing circles, gentle kisses, relishing in his gasps and his tightened grip on you, letting your breath linger for that extra second, that extra what-if, kissing back up his neck and onto his jawline, murmuring his name sweetly, tip of your tongue curling around his earrings and bouncing them, sighing softly in his ear.

“Can’t claim my leftovers when my leftovers are you, now can you, naughty boy?” you chuckled darkly, pressing your breasts on his hot chest and your clothed pussy on the tip of his stiff length, rutting against it, making him hiss your name.

“I have no intention of being leftovers,” he growled into your ear.

Your eyes flew open as his lips transfixed to the space under your ear, sucking hard, forcing you to squeeze your thighs at the attack on your erogenous zone, sparks of arousal flinching through you, soaking your panties. You gasped, hips bucking into his needily, barely processing his words, his tongue flicking against your throbbing skin, lips and teeth, and then his mouth was moving, traveling up your earlobe, nipping at the curve, your eyelids fluttering, clutching his purple ponytail tightly.

How did he know? Did he ask your previous conquests to spill the information? There was no time to think, his hands traveling up your back, clenching fistfuls of your shirt and digging his nails into your back, your body responding and squirming against him, the quiet whine of his name escaping your lips and drifting right into his ear.

“J… Jungkook…”

He groaned, turning your head forcefully, him kissing you this time, just as ravenous, just as powerful, basically simulating sex in the middle of the fucking club with the way your hips were twisting into his and he was thrusting back against you, breathless, whispering in your mouth so only you could hear his words resonate in your chest.

“Fuck, you’re so hot, you turn me on so fucking easily, I just have to have you,” he murmured, his forehead pressed against yours, capturing your lips again and again. “There’s no way you’re any good for me, but I don’t care, fuck.”

You snickered, eye to eye, trapped in those expanding pupils and his heavy pants. “They say the same about you, Jeon Jungkook.”

You felt him smirk. “Nah, not me. No one calls me the spawn of Satan.”

You raised an eyebrow. “You sure? Because I do.”

Jungkook’s tongue licked your lips, making your shiver in delight. “That was special treatment. Just for you.”

Hold on a second.

Through your hazy buzzed brain, you began to piece the puzzle together. With each part falling into place, the amusement in Jungkook’s eyes grew and grew, seeing you fill in the missing blanks. Your eyes widened and you curled a finger around his ponytail, yanking roughly to pull his grinning face away from yours. You jerked back, but his strong hands held you in place.

Wispy strands of violet framing that devious expression.

“Taehyung,” you breathed, venomous.

Jungkook had the audacity to cock an eyebrow.

“Yep.”

You were going to kill Taehyung. That little shit! Taehyung was no idiot, so he must have planned this somehow. He always telling you to get serious and stop messing around. That’s why Jungkook always knew who you were dating, where you were, and what you were wearing! Did Taehyung recruit Jeon Jungkook to trick you? Fuck! He was dead meat, scheming against you like this!

Jungkook brought you out of your homicidal tendencies with a soft drawl of your name.

“For the record, he was helping me out,” he murmured, pulling you to him, pressing your chest to his. You narrowed your eyes, his hard cock still throbbing against your panties. “I want you.”

He lowered his face, breathing hard.

“Not just like this.”

Your eyes widened.

“I said I’m not going to be leftovers.” Looking deep into your eyes, holding you tightly. “I’m not going to let you throw me away like the rest.” Every inhale making your body rise into his touch, his deep, silvery voice saturated with lust and determination. “I’m going to make you fall in love with me as much as I am in love with you.”

You opened your mouth to retort, but…

Jungkook gave you this look.

The look of ‘you-know-you’ve-already-lost’.

You could sit here and pretend, but you were also grinding back onto his dick right out here in the open, clutching his purple hair and his pretty face. His hard body was tucked snugly in your thighs. That smug little smirk. Shit, shit, shit.

Jeon Jungkook got you and he got you good.

He knew it too, his hands sliding down and grabbing your ass again, rolling his hips into yours.

“Come on. Let’s fuck.”

-

“Oh, fuck, yes, yes, yes!”

Jungkook threw his head back onto his pillows, exposing his straining throat, veins popping out, clutching your hips strongly to rut back against you as you smacked your crotch down onto him, riding him hard and fast, your hands next to his head, his long purple hair a mess even if it was still in the ponytail, sweat glistening on his forehead, moaning loudly with your walls closing in on his hardness. You were too busy fucking the daylights out of him to say anything, but Jungkook had plenty to say, hazy eyes opening and gasping as he viewed your body hovering over him, naked with his hickeys on your neck and breasts, strong thighs flexed on either side of him, his rock-hard cock repeatedly disappearing into your tight, wet hole.

“Fuck, I knew it, I knew you would be so fucking good and so fucking sexy,” he whined, nails digging into your hips and adding more force to your thrusts.

Your clothes and his clothes were all over his bedroom floor.

Your phone was on his nightstand.

Tonight, you sent one text to Kim Taehyung.

I’m gonna buy a bow and arrow and shoot you in the ass.

You screen flashed, indicating Taehyung had replied. One quick flick of your eyes and you smirked.

Oh shit.

Jungkook squeezed your ass, making your return your attention to him.

“Focus on me,” he begged, blown-out pupils. “Only me, please.”

“So needy,” you teased, licking your lips slowly. He groaned under you, mouth opening, his pretty pink tongue lolling out, desperate to be sucked. “If you think you can keep me, you’ll have to last longer than this, Jungkook.”

He swallowed hard at the way you said his name, a mixture of warning and desire.

“P-Please… it’s too good, I-I can’t…”

You redoubled your efforts, roughly slapping your hips into his, enjoying the loud sound and the way your core tightened, constricting him inside you, telling him he couldn’t cum until you did and deliberately holding yourself back, shifting your attention when you felt it rise, denying him over and over, until he was like this, whole body shaking, grasping your ass, sweat on his chest. His right arm, covered in tattoos, looking extra delicious in the moonlight, so fucking perfect with his forearms flexed with tension. You purposefully stared into his brown eyes overtaken with lust, his lips trembling from denying himself his own orgasm.

Jungkook whimpered your name.

On the verge of breaking, helpless at your command.

A sharp throb inside you, wildly turned on by his duality.

You smirked.

“Jungkook.”

You inhaled deeply, sighing in satisfaction with the wave of pleasure, intense shivering pulses running up and down his length, sinking down so he could feel it all, the tight and rough massage of your orgasm taking over, low moan of his name emitting from your throat, and Jungkook followed suit, louder and lewder, eyes rolling back as he shot into the condom with jerking hips, burying the twitching head deep inside you, swelling the latex with thick cum, rocking you back and forth on his length, your juices dripping down and coating the inside of your joined thighs.

“Oh, fuuuuuuuck, so good, s-so fucking good…”

You know what, he was right.

It was so fucking good.

You savored it, the ecstasy that seemed endless and overwhelming, squeezing Jungkook between your thighs and moaning, just something about it, so satisfying and gratifying listening to his wheezing gasps and content whimpers, lowering yourself to his face, and he raised his, your hands sliding under his head, giving him what he wanted, light, maddening, carnal kisses, his cheeks, his chin, his quivering lips, whining your name, pleading with you to play with him more, more, tugging on his ponytail and his hands stroking your breasts, rolling your hard nipples between his index and thumb fingers, shaking at your hissing inhale.

“Hey,” you murmured, clenching him between your legs to get his attention.

Jungkook blinked at you, brown eyes unfocused, panting hard. “Y-Yeah?”

“You should apologize.”

The side of his swollen lips quirked upwards despite his fucked-out state. His deep voice was slightly hoarse. “What for? Tell me and I will.”

You raised an eyebrow. “For your scheming and using my own best friend against me.”

Jungkook smirked slyly.

“I’m sorry.”

He lifted you and made sure he had the condom before he pulled out, still semi-hard. You narrowed your eyes. He sure as hell didn’t sound sorry. Didn’t look sorry either, peeling the condom off and crawling over the bed to toss it in the trash before straightening.

“Sounding insincere there,” you remarked coolly, balancing your chin on the back of your knuckles, elbow on the bed, tapping the air impatiently.

“I mean it,” he purred, reaching for the towel beside the bed and knocking the condoms from his nightstand to the sheets. His right hand wrapped around his glistening length, still covered in lube and his cum, toned hips thrusting into his closed fist, grinning with his lower lip between his teeth as you watched him.

“I’m so, so sorry.”

Slowly jacking himself off as his eyes roamed over your curves, moaning lustfully, lingering on your legs, clutching the towel in his left hand so hard his knuckles were pale, forearms flexed, the slick head of his cock turning purple-red, emerging from between his closed fingers, throbbing as it was choked by his harsh grip.

“Let me make it up to you,” Jungkook shuddered, stroking faster, making wet squelching sounds, his muscular thighs bulging with effort.

Fuck, he was so damn attractive.

You kept an indifferent look on your face, raising your leg, your free hand sliding down, tracing the outside of your already wet opening. Those hungry dark brown orbs immediately fixated on it, moaning imploringly as you dipped your fingers in it, soft squishing noises as you spread open your soaked pussy, slipping a finger in your heat, gently thrusting.

He gasped your name, begging you.

It made you wetter, seeing his want. He knew it too, brutally fisting his cock, hips quivering.

“Stop.”

Jungkook whined despairingly, pulling his hand away, his stiff cock bouncing from the swiftness of the movement, cutting off his own orgasm. He sucked in a shivering breath, tipping his hips up to you so his glossy, hard length twitched.

You shifted, laying back against his pillows, opening your legs.

Smirk on your lips.

“Mmm, fuck, yes, fuck me with that.”

Jungkook smirked back.

It took him no time at all to wipe his hand and crotch off, ripping open another condom and moaning as he rolled it down, the mere contact of the thin encasement stimulating his sensitive skin. He slid up to you, gripping your knees and spreading you even wider, pressing the tip against your drenched heat.

He whispered your name, like sweet smoke.

“Hm?”

Jungkook leaned down, kissing you deeply as he sank into you, drinking in your gasp at the fullness.

“I’m going to make you feel so, so good,” he mumbled into your lips, pecking you softly.

He was about to retreat but your hands snapped up, tangling into his messy violet waves, clutching his ponytail. Jungkook blinked at you, questioning.

“Not too far away,” you said with a playful smile. “I wanna see that handsome face of yours.”

He bit his lower lip, tiny mole and wicked grin revealing themselves.

“Okay.”

He lifted his hips and plunged fully into you, the connection of your hips making a loud, wet smack.

“Fuck, Jungkook…!”

And you could tell from his elated expression and his furious pace that he was ecstatic at your response, chasing it, chasing you, moaning as you caught him between your thighs and wrapped your legs around his waist, gaining some leverage and meeting his thrusts, fingers tightening in his soft hair, fuck, so beautiful, the way the pleasure overtook his handsome features, his hazy dark brown orbs shrouded in lust, his pink lip trembling in his teeth, sharp jaw set, but still maintaining a little bit of that cunning exterior that ensnared you in the first place, unknowingly at the time, the side of his lips ticking up, this cheeky bastard.

Jungkook saw the way you looked at him.

He adjusted the position, hitting deeper, swelling inside you, and, fuck, you couldn’t help it, you smirked too because he was so, so full of himself and so were you, insufferable, troublesome, competitive even now, the obscene smack of his crotch hitting your hips, wet and noisy, the squish of your juices smearing against his inner thighs as you wildly matched his rapid, bruising rhythm, your moans blending together, sweet hot harmony, his bedframe ramming against the wall, and, as usual, neither of you caring, far to occupied with yourselves, pleasure snaking between you, up your spine and into your head, mixing with the light buzz of alcohol, a different kind of euphoria from every other one-night stand, because this was Jeon Jungkook and he wasn’t going to be a one-night stand.

His lower lip popped out of his teeth and he gasped your name.

Longingly, breathlessly.

Was he thinking the same thing?

You lifted yourself a little, your hands molded to his head, whispering intensely against his shaking lips.

“Don’t worry, Jungkook. We have all night and the morning.”

Fuck, he had a brilliant smile.

It was actually doomed for you, but you weren’t mad about it.

Eye contact, and he didn’t waver, thrusting deep into you, low moan pulled from his chest, jolting shudders sliding down his shoulders and then in between you and him, his cock twitching and spilling into the condom again, roughly clamped by your tightness, and you were already there, falling over the edge with a soft cry, straining your neck and pushing his head down to you to collide your lips with his, greedy for his kiss, his taste, his whimpers at your forcefulness.

“Jungkook, ah…”

He said your name in the same tone, delicate and possessive, a bullseye right to the heart.

-

“On one hand, I’m glad you’re finally serious about someone.”

You paid absolutely no attention to the annoyed baritone voice of your best friend.

“On the other hand,” Kim Taehyung gritted out, smacking you in the shoulder blades as you crawled into Jeon Jungkook’s lap, kisses intensifying, a needy whine in his chest, his hands wrapping around your waist. “Really feeling like a third wheel, you two! Stop making out for one goddamn second!”

He threw up his hands as both of you pretended to be deaf.

-

interlude respect drabble — "how much did you see?" popcorn drabble — "who are they?"

part ii threesome, ft kth — got it bad

--

masterpost

[amive2567]

Characters: Tamaki Amjiki x GNReader; Izuku Midoryia x FemReader; Shouto Todoroki x GNReader; Hitoshi Shinsou x GNReader; Katsuki Bakugou x GNReader

Warnings: mention of period, pranks, fluff, swearing, OOC characters (maybe?), suggestive themes in Bakugous part,

Summary: As a famous Herowatcher(Youtuber), you wanted to film a video about how your boyfriend's reaction to your prank.

Words: Tamaki:366 Izuku:532 Shouto:590 Hitoshi:416 Katsuki:528

In the last few weeks, you saw a lot of videos about partners pranking each other. There were different pranks they did, and you decided to pull the fainting prank on your boyfriend.

You both planned to train outside today. To record your prank, you set up a camera in a bush so that Tamaki wouldn't notice it. You felt a bit guilty about that what you were going to do. But still, you wanted to execute your plan. The sun was pretty warm, which gave you the perfect conditions to do this. You were doing jumping jacks but suddenly stopped.

Your prank is starting now. "Are you ok?" asked Tamaki, who noticed your behavior change. You nodded but stumbled to your water bottle. Before you could reach it, you "passed out". "Sunshine?" he froze in his tracks and was paralyzed as you tried not to react to his anxious cry for you. He kneeled beside you. His thumb caressed your cheek, and you felt that his hand was shaking. "Are you ok? Oh, I had to watch out better. If I only had reacted immediately, I am so sorry." his voice was breaking. He took your legs and held them high. He tried to stabilize your circulation. "Please wake up," mumbled Tamaki anxiously.

Now you decided to clear things off. "Darling, it's a prank," you said. "What? Why would you do that?" he asked, confused. "I saw it on the internet and wanted to try it, but I didn't want to scare you." You sat up and hugged him tightly.

After a couple of minutes, you broke away from him. "See, there is the camera." You pointed to the bush. Embarrassed, he hid his face in the crook of your neck.

After the two of you finished the actual training, you edited the video and posted it on Herowatch. In the next few days, the video had a couple of thousands of likes, views, and comments:

SuneaterfanNo.1: God, he was so worried about them. I wish I had such a boyfriend.

User219: I am feeling like a single pringle right now. :(

FanfictionAdict: Because of your videos, my expectations of getting a partner are way too high.

Precisely you tried to adjust the camera on a shelf between a bunch of All Might figures. You hoped he wouldn't notice the camera you put there. Izuku was still working, but he had to be home soon. That was the perfect moment to prepare your prank. You switched patiently between the different apps on your phone until a message popped up.

I am only changing and showering at the agency. After that, I will come home.

Alright, see you soon, love. Oh, could you please bring some chocolate on your way home?

Sure, see you, honey.

See you too.

You laid your phone on the nightstand, patiently waiting for your husband to come home. You feel bad pranking Izuku after his stressful day, saving the lives of probably many children and adults, but special situations needed special measures. It was probably totally worth it to see his reaction to your "horrible cramps". He was such a sweetheart. It would probably give him a heart attack. Well, now, with this thought, you felt a bit worse.

After some time passed, the door opened, and your boyfriend entered your decent flat. Now was your time to show the world that you didn't suck at acting. "I am home." shouted the green-haired pro hero through your flat. "In the living room." You tried to sound like you would be in pain.

Apparently, it was convincing in less than a second Izuku was next to you. "What happened? Where does it hurt?" Sometimes he was too observant for his own good. "My stomach hurts so much." "Oh, can you think of a reason? Did you eat something bad? I will get you a hot water bottle." He rushed to the open kitchen to prepare the hot-water bottle. "I am probably getting my period." You grabbed a pillow and hugged it tightly. "Ahhh." you groaned extra dramatically. "Do you want to take some painkillers?" "Yes, please." He took the hot water bottle out of the microwave. With quick steps, he got back to your side. Gently, he took away the pillow and replaced it with the water bottle. "I get you the painkillers." With those words, he rushed to the bathroom.

"We don't have any painkillers." Shouted Izuku apologetically. "That's fine." "I can buy you some. You shouldn't have to be in pain, honey." He came back to you. "There is no need to." A mischievous smile spread across your face. "How can you smile when you're in pain?" "Because I am not." If you got asked who best embodied a question mark, it would be your husband. "What?" "It was a prank." you laughed. "See, there is the camera." You pointed toward the pile of All Might figures. His shoulders lost the tension, and he hugged you tightly. "I am glad you are alright."

On the same evening, you edited the video and uploaded it on Herowatch. Since you were the wife of the number one hero of Japan, the video went viral.

ASinglePerson: The poor man was so worried. He is such a cutie.

Deku'sgreatestfan: Ahhh, Deku is so great. I love him.

SomeoneYouWillNeverMeet: We need more Y/N x Deku videos. You guys are so cute.

Balancing on a ladder, you tried to mount the camera on the high bookshelf. You hoped Shouto wouldn't notice the camera you put on there. Since he was still working, you could prepare perfectly for your prank, or rather reaction video. The number of times you had already pranked him wasn't high, but every seldom time it was funny to see his reaction.

While waiting for Shouto to come home, you filmed your intro and arranged your new sleeping place on the couch. You waited patiently for him, and when the key in the door turned, you knew it was time to pull out your acting skills. Habitually you would greet him with a hug and a kiss, but today everything had to be like you planned it. "I am home." You needed to pull yourself together that you didn't answer. The silent treatment was the best thing you could think of at the moment. If you started to talk, you would probably tell him the truth. "Y/N?" asked the heterochromatic man again. You heard his tranquil steps coming closer to the living room.

As he entered the room, his eyes immediately locked with yours. His eyes were filled with confusion, seeing you on the couch covered in your blanket that you usually use to sleep. "Are you ok?" You nodded. Now it was getting serious. "Everything is fine. I merely want to sleep on the couch today." "Why?" "I think you can answer that yourself." The poor man had no clue what you were talking about. He knew he did the laundry, helped you with your documents at the agency, and made your food. What had he forgotten?

You pulled the blanket over your body to signal to him that this conversation is over. Without a word, he took out a book from the shelf, and you worried that he saw the camera. He sat down in the armchair next to the couch. The only sound you could hear was the flipping of the pages. At that moment, you loved him even more. He respected your privacy and decisions more than every other person in your life ever did. "I am going to sleep now, have a blessed night." He put a bookmark in the book and put it back on the shelf. You felt strange not to go with him to bed.

As he said, he went to bed, and the flat the two of you lived in was unusually quiet. It was strange laying alone in the dark. You were so used to his presence that you couldn't sleep. Now you regretted not clearing the prank. A ruffling sound in the darkness caught your attention. "Shouto?" you asked into the dark. "Y/N, I am so sorry. Whatever I did, I did it unintentionally. I never wanted to hurt your feelings. I can't sleep without you. Can I sleep next to you?" Quietly Shouto came closer to your unusual sleeping place. "Of course you can. I am so sorry. It was just a prank." You swung the covers aside and ran into his arms. Gladly, the moon lit up the living room so didn't walk into the furniture. "Let us go to bed," you suggested.

The next day, you edited the video and uploaded it. Since you were the lover of the number two hero in Japan, your video blew up.

randomperson: Where can you get a bf like this?

NoName: He is such a sweetheart. I wish I had such a boyfriend.

SingleLikeAPringle: I feel so single with your videos.

It was finally your day off of hero work, so you decided to drag Shinsou to a cat café. That was one of your two intentions. Your second intention was to prank him a bit. Your Foryoupage on TikTok particularly exploded with "What would you do if I go back to my ex." - Pranks. Since you developed a big community on Herowatch, you wanted to make a short video about it too.

Secretly you recorded the two of you entering the cat café. You know how much Hitoshi hated the attention, so you often recorded your videos alone. But not today. Today was the day the whole world can see that Y/N L/N has a boyfriend. Well, not today exactly, because you had to edit the video so that Hitoshi can't be seen properly. Besides, you didn't want him to make him feel uncomfortable. This was just a way to get rid of the creepy people of the internet.

You ordered your drinks, and Hitoshi was already occupied with stroking the first cat. You placed the camera inconspicuously on the floor, so only Hitoshi's legs could be seen. "You know if we broke up, I would go back to my ex." you suddenly said and waited for his reaction. He casually looked up from the cat and nodded. "That's fine. I would also like to go back to my ex." "What..?" you stuttered, trying not to choke on your saliva. A mischievous grin spread across his face. "You heard right. I would go back to my ex." "You're joking." "Maybe. Maybe not." Now he couldn't hold back small laughter.

"Alright, jokes aside. You're practically binge-watching all those "What would you do if I go back to my ex." - Pranks. I know what you were trying to do. We are both aware that we are the exes with whom we get back together." He said calmly. "You retrolled me," you exclaimed loudly. "That's what you get when you mess with me, kitty cat." he winked at you. "Yeah, whatever." you scoffed and petted the cat in your lap.

The next morning, you edited the video, and looking back on yesterday, it was a bit funny.

InternetAdict: He is a smart guy. You are a lucky person.

VoiceKink: His voice is so soothing. Can I get his voice somewhere?

LoveYou: Your videos are so great. We need more of your secret boyfriend. We don't even need to see his face. His voice is enough to make someone go weee.

It was a rare occasion that your boyfriend Katsuki was at home, but today was the day. Because of that, you had to take your chance. Since your boyfriend is the most observant person on this planet. There was no way to hid a camera, so you used your phone instead.

He was currently next to you in the kitchen and cooked dinner for both of you. You often volunteered to help him, but he said your cooking skills were worse than Todorokis, which was something you had never thought. The Bakusquad, and you still believe that he watched too many shows with Gordon Ramsay as a child. He definitely adopted his behavior in the kitchen. Only today, you tried to ignore him, only for the sake of seeing his reaction. You sat on the barstool in front of your kitchen counter and pretended to do something on your cell phone. Even if you were actually only filming. Let the fun begin.

"Oi, babe, pass me the curry." Usually, you would have corrected him about the way he demands things, but now you just ignored him. He turned around and watched you. "Alright, I am getting it myself." You looked so concentrated on your phone that he didn't want to distract you. It went on like this for what felt like hours until Katsuki was done with cooking your food. He put the steaming plate in front of you, then he sat down next to you. You were still on your phone, so Katsuki snatched it out of your hands. "Hey." You exclaimed and immediately covered your mouth with your hands. Great, now the prank was ruined. "Why are you covering your mouth like that. Are you finally gonna talk to me now?" Still, you wanted to last a bit longer, so you kept quiet. "Fine, then not."

The two of you ate in silence till Katsuki had enough. "Alright, dumbass, what's wrong? You usually never shut up, and now your all quiet and stuff. Did somebody hurt you? I'll beat their ass. They're gonna die." he growled. You had to suppress a chuckle. Sometimes he could be so caring. Well, at least in his own individual way. "Then don't talk to me. I didn't want to know it anyway." Now you couldn't stand it any longer. "Why are you laughing, dumbass?" he asked bewildered. "I was just kidding. Everything is fine. Never thought you'd care so much about me." "Yeah, I care about your stupid ass. Now I want an apology. A good one with physical effort, if you know what I mean." He winked, and you got it. The video you wanted to film was long forgotten as you dragged him closer to the bedroom.

In the evening, you found your phone on the counter. Immediately you started to edit this whole thing. You finished late at night and finally got to upload the video on Herowatch.

Tsunderefan123: He is such a tsundere, but a lovely one.

SingleMom: Every time I watch your videos where he is involved, I feel so single.

Adviceseeker: Tell me a secret, how can you get a guy like him?

[angelguk]

→ pu$$y fairy — a jeongguk scenario

member: jeon jungkook

word count: 3.2k

genre: smut + college!au + jeongguk and oc are in a weird fwbs without the friendship part just the benefits except jaykay lowkey has feelings + virginity au

warnings: virgin!oc / blowjob / we talk about dicks for a bit / oc is strange / jaykay is confused / cum swallowing / first times / not really edited / mingyu the meddling best fwend

soundtrack: on the way, jhene aiko + hold on (slowed and reverb), the internet

Jeongguk doesn’t hate Mingyu. He truly doesn’t. He is one of his closest friends after all; he’d held him up after Jeongguk had dumped half a keg down his throat and his legs had promptly collapsed.  He’d also been a successful wingman for when Jeongguk was aiming to add Seolhyun to the list of girls he’d bagged, sent pictures of his organic chemistry notes when Jeongguk had missed more than half of the classes in high school and didn’t laugh at him when he was heart-broken over Sua and borderline depressed. He was a true friend; someone Jeongguk could rely on. It was a simple brother-like relationship that Jeongguk deeply treasured. So no, he could never hate Mingyu – but he could absolutely long to punch that insufferable asshole in the face.

He should have known this was going to go downhill exceptionally fast the moment you stumbled into his room, wide-eyed and nervous in your unsure steps. When his pants had hit the ground, the shock in your eyes was a dead giveaway to how messy this whole arrangement was going to be. The second clear sign was when you jumped out his window because the sight of his bare dick terrified you.

And this was all the result of Mingyu being a meddling shit who didn’t know when to mind his business.

He remembers it with a clarity that makes his shoulders tense, how Mingyu had snuck you into the conversation while twisting a soju bottle in his hands.

“Yo… JK…. You mind if I ask you a question?” He’d said. Jeongguk shrugged, focused on flipping the meat on the grill because he was starving and the prospect of cooked meat was a lot more appealing than feigning interest in a conversation. “Alright…," Mingyu took his silence as a cue to speak. “Have you ever fucked a virgin?”

He should have known then. He really should have known.

“I don’t know. I don’t ask any questions when I’m hard,” Jeongguk had replied, unknowing of the dangerous path this conversation was guiding him down.

“Yeah and most of the time you don’t fuck on an actual bed. I’m not even surprised you don’t ask questions.”

“Hey!” Jeongguk had swung the tongs around. “I ask important ones, like consent and making sure we’ve got a condom around. But virginity? Not my concern.”

“Seems a bit…. Whorish to me.”

“Not whorish. I just have my priorities elsewhere… Like cumming for example.”

Mingyu had sighed as he poured him a shot, the air leaving his lips heavy. “I shouldn’t even be asking you to be honest. You’re a decent guy but your kind of a dickhead when it comes to sex.”

“How does not pondering on virginity make me dickhead? Again, as I said, priorities are elsewhere.”

“Dude you’ve never even tried to have meaningful sex at least once in your life. When was the last time you were actually emotionally invested in the person you were sleeping with? Hmm?”

The answer was Sua and he knew that but Mingyu was decent enough to keep her name out of his mouth, the judging look in his eyes saying enough.

“You know… I don’t do well with the whole emotional thing. I prefer it physical. It’s less messy. But what does this even have to do with virginity?” Jeongguk hated to admit it but he was somewhat interested in where this conversation was going. If only he knew it was leading to a massive train wreck of the one thing, he steered clear from – emotions.

Mingyu had just sighed again, tipping the soju bottle into his shot glass once more. “There’s a girl who I’d like you to meet.”

He’d scoffed, mouth stuffed with a perilla leaf wrap. “You know I don’t do blind dates.”

“It’s not a blind date,” Mingyu had retorted, the glance he threw at his friend’s direction precarious. “She wants you to take her virginity.”

Jeongguk had choked. Of course, he had. Even if sex didn’t mean much to him, taking someone’s first time like that felt very transactional. And Jeongguk wasn’t that big of a dickhead. But then Mingyu had opened his mouth, spewing various details about your life to him that he would rather have not heard over a KBBQ lunch. You were a friend from one of his business lectures, rather eccentric but sweet and funny. You were also a virgin and terrified of approaching men on your own, one of the reasons Mingyu had sprung up this arrangement. Jeongguk wasn’t one to fall into things like this but it was too late. Mingyu was a marketing major for a reason, he knew how to spin words in his favour, convince people into agreeing to things that they normally would not. And that’s how Jeongguk found himself staring at your retreating figure after you’d thrown your body right out his window, landing hard on the lawn of the house he rented with Namjoon and Seokjin. The crazy thing was that you’d gotten up immediately, not showing any sign of a broken bone or injuries, before promptly sprinting down the road to the bus stop. He should have known then. He really should have known. And yet, here he is, pants discarded on the floor of his room and his dick aching from being unrelieved for longer than it’s ever been, while you crouch over him, squinting at his penis like it’s a foreign object that could kill you.

“Could you please stop staring at my penis like that.” He says it out of frustration, but also the way you’re examining his length makes him feel self-conscious in a way he hasn’t felt like in a long time.

“Sorry,” you murmur, not breaking eye contact with his dick. “I’m just… fascinated. It’s rather….” The sentence tapers out and you swallow hard as if it pains you to admit it, “...Ugly.”

Jeongguk decides then and there he hates you.

“I mean... It’s not that it’s ugly!” you swiftly attempt to amend, catching the glare he directs at you. “It’s also big!”

“I know. And you just said it was ugly,” Jeongguk retorts, weighing the options in his head. Either get a poor blowjob from a girl he’s terrified of (but also bizarrely attracted too) or kick you out of his room and finish himself off. The situation sucks either way but it’s better than the last time when you’d leapt out of the window like a gazelle.

“I misspoke,” you say, gently falling onto your knees. You flash him a shy smile, a soft delicate little thing that makes your eyes glitter and Jeongguk instantly picks the first option. “It’s just different to what I expected it to look like.”

He scoffs, swallowing hard on the sudden lump in his throat. “There’s no way you haven’t seen a dick before. You don’t watch porn?”

The grimace you make is enough of an answer. “I have… Not all the time though, it’s too much for me sometimes. Also, it’s weird seeing it in real life and not, like, through a screen.”

“Noted. But still, it’s not that ugly,” Jeongguk murmurs, trying not to compare his penis to the visuals he has in his head. His pride is wounded from that comment he won’t deny it.

“It kinda is,” you reply. Jeongguk flicks your forehead in retaliation. “Ow! Why’d you do that.” There’s that stupid pout in your lips as you glower at him. He despises how his dick twitches at the sudden thought of your pretty mouth wrapped around his length. Despises it even more when you gasp at the slight motion trembling through him. “It moves?!”

“Yeah,” Jeongguk sighs, wondering how on Earth you’re over the age of twenty and still like this. “It does. Also, don’t insult my dick. It’s rude.”

“Sorry again,” you pause as if you’re considering whether what you might utter next is offensive. You open your mouth anyway, unable to comprehend the fact that your words are slowly chipping away at his ego. “It’s kinda scary that it moves.”

“Oh my god, you are the literal worst.” Jeongguk thinks his boner might evaporate. It’s a miracle it’s lasted this long. You’d sauntered into his room around half an hour again and he’d been hard from the get-go. Truly amazing his balls hadn’t shrivelled up yet. “You know you’re about to blow me off right?”

“I know… I’m stupid,” you counter, eyebrows furrowing together like you’re attempting to figure out exactly how Jeongguk’s dick works. It’d be very simple if you just asked him. It’s essentially an up and down motion, some swirls, a lot of wetness. Nothing too difficult. But when you glance up at him, the innocent glaze over your eyes almost hopeless, he can tell it feels the same as defusing a bomb. “I just… Don’t know what to do. Show me?”

And there it is - the foolish little thing that landed Jeongguk here half-naked on the edge of his bed in the first place. Even though you were mildly repulsed by the male autonomy you were still so eager to learn. Something Jeongguk didn’t know he would be into until you posed that question and his balls tightened in a way they have never done before.

“Okay,” he mumbles, hoping you don’t suspect the twitch that runs through his length when you say that. Not like you would, to be fair.

But then you sweep your hair back, lean in fast, no preparation or anything before your breath is brushing against his crotch and Jeongguk nearly screams.

“Woah, woah, woah! I thought you just asked me to show you? What are you doing?” Maybe he scuttles further down the bed, terrified of the rush of heat you send straight to his gut.  

Your eyes flicker upward, bright and ingenuous. “Am I doing it wrong?”

“You’re not -,” Jeongguk sighs breath weighing through the air. “You’re not doing it wrong. I just think... We should go slow right? It’s your first time? Maybe don’t rush into it?”

“I watched a YouTube video and they said to do it like that,” you reply. Jeongguk can’t help but blink at you, brain reeling from attempting to understand your being.

“You watched a - never mind. You’re giving me a headache. And I thought you knew nothing. Porn would have been a better research alternative but to each their own.”

“I did it for preparation! I didn't know it’d be this nerve-wracking in real life. And, I told you, real dicks are gross. She used a dildo.”

“How is a dildo any different to a real dick?” Jeongguk fingers dig into the mattress a little harder when you lean it once more, gingerly resting your head against his knee.

“It’s just different. Less grotesque. And they come in various colours.”

He might just actually scream. “It’s literally made to replicate a penis.”

You sigh, your breath skipping against his skin. The room is suddenly tight, closing in on him and you’re not even really touching him. And then you catch your lip between your teeth, pressing down with a quick thoughtful bite. “I think you’re deflecting right now.”

“I’m not,” he splutters. “Why would I even be deflecting right now?”

“I mean, we’re having a conversation about dildos when your dick is hard and I’m meant to be blowing you. Sounds like deflection doesn’t it?” He hates the way your eyes glitter, bright and captivating as your gaze locks into his.

“Like I said,” Jeongguk retorts, “We should take it slow.”

“Okay then. I’m done talking about dildos unless you have anything else to add?”

“I don’t,” he murmurs, “Okay then, onto giving a blowjob.”

“Onto giving a blowjob,” you reiterate. And then, like a psychopath, you smile. “Where should I start?”

He hates that body is on edge right now, hands trembling even though he hides them by squeezing his bed-sheets tight. “Try giving it a lick first? You can put your hand around the base too - if you want to.”

“Here?” His knees nearly buckle when you wrap your warm palm around his length, grip firm around the base of his cock. But that’s nothing to the gentle lap of your tongue against the side of his cock, a quick little thing and nearly launches him off the bed.

“Oh - uh - yeah, there.” His voice sounds far off and without warning your mouth is against him once more, tongue a sinful little thing that slips along his length, wet and warm and so sneaky he’s unsure of what to respond with apart from an instinctual buck of his hips. It’s easy like this, your tongue pressed against his cock and your hands slowly dragging upwards, placing a perfect pressure along his length that leaves him sighing into the air of his bedroom. Your movements grow more direct, reading the increasing desperation in Jeongguk’s body as he moves closer and closer to you, waiting until you feel sure enough. And then, finally, your mouth sinks onto him.

He nearly whimpers. Nearly. There’s a heat pooling in his gut and ebbs through every muscle and nerve, the coil of his desire springing tighter with each inch that slips down your throat. You take him so well, Jeongguk can’t help but watch in awe, the wideness in your eyes making him harder than he’s ever been in his life. Even with your inexperience, the way you swallow his cock is obscene. It’s an imagery Jeongguk engraves in his memory, purposefully stored because he knows he’ll think about it whenever his desires override his logical thoughts again. You lap him up like you want this, a soft moan echoing from your throat and along his length as you move deeper, mouth plaint to his dick. He forces himself to sit still, give you the time to adjust, lick and taste to your leisure, forcing the impending wave of heat back down into his gut. He holds it there even when you move away, the sound of your wet mouth popping off his dick permeating the air.

And of course, you lick your lips afterwards, a swift swipe of your pink tongue against them, your eyes trained on his.

“Like that?” you ask.

Jeongguk’s going to die. He is. And you’ll be the reason why listed on his death certificate.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, chest tight with want. “Like that.”

You lean back in without question, mouth taking his length like you were made for it and your hand works against the parts of him you can’t reach just yet. His mind wanders as his eyes take in this sight of you, on your knees and mouth open wide just for him. Someday he’d like to see if you could truly take his length, all of it. Down your throat. Hard and fast like his hips wanted to go. But this is more than perfect. How you concentrate on blowing him like you want to see him spill himself down your throat. It’s almost adorable, the earnestness in your gaze every time your eyes flicker upwards as your mouth moves along his cock. He likes this more than he’s willing to admit, the slowness in your pace, how your tongue is shy sometimes when it laves against his tip. It’s a change from what he usually gets - and a welcome one too. A tiny part of him feels like it would be fitting to hold your hand. You’re so pretty too, especially when your lips are on him. He’d like to take care of you, see what your face looked like when his tongue was deep inside of you, know what your taste like as you moan out his name. He doesn’t even register the words as they leave his mouth, head lost in the images colouring his thoughts.

“Taking me so well, baby,” he can’t help the grunt, the pet name natural to him, “So pretty with my cock in your mouth.”

And you hum like you like it - like you like pleasing him, sinking further down until his tip bumps against the back of your throat. The zip down his spine nearly sends him spiralling.

“Baby,” he feels it then, when your eyes shift to meet his, the snap in his gut. “F-fuck, I’m gonna cum. You need to stop right now if you don’t want to down your throat.”

But you don’t, moving faster like the twitch of his dick in your mouth spurs him on, your lips firm as they wrap around him. He doesn’t hold in his moves this time, hips gently moving up to meet your mouth, the tremor running through his bulky thighs nothing but a warning before it hits him hard. A wave of heat, melting through his muscles as his eyes flutter shut, your tongue lapping him right up, no protest as he unravels down your throat. It’s over in an instant but Jeongguk feels like mush, head floating and his bones soft with how hard his back hits the mattress. You pull off his length a second later, letting him feel you swallow all of him first.

“Holy shit.” His mouth is still disconnected from his brain.

There’s a beat of silence, so awkward that Jeongguk shuffles himself back onto his elbows even though his bones feel like giving way. And then your laugh tinkles through the air, a soft gentle thing that makes his heart seize in his chest.

“That… wasn’t so bad,” you say, staring at him with an ease that spikes an urge to press his lips against yours in his heart.

“Oh,” he replies, like an idiot. “You liked it?”

“Well, it didn’t suck… pun intended. Your moans are really loud.”

Jeongguk blushes - he blushes - even after the stupid joke you made.

“Um, yeah. I do, I guess. Sorry, I kind of forgot to show you what to do. But you’re a bit of a natural, to be honest.” He abhors the diffidence in his voice.

“I guessed that,” you retort, the smile on your face hypnotic, “From your really loud moaning.”

“Can you - fuck how do you ruin any intimate moment when it happens?”

“Guess I’m a natural at that too,” you say it with a laugh, and Jeongguk can’t help the smile that tugs against his lips.

“Um,” he tries, fully aware of the front view seat you were getting of his soft dick. He sits up to try and shield it, feeling awfully exposed. “If you’d like… I could return the favour?”

“No, I’m good.” There’s zero hesitation in your voice and you’re up before Jeongguk can think of a decent excuse to keep you in his room. “Maybe another time? I’ll text you. Bye Jeongguk.”

It’s then he regrets not encouraging you to undress earlier, his assumption that this would be the worst blowjob of his life incredibly incorrect. Perhaps if your clothes were scattered around his bedroom he could have found a way to convince you into his sheets while you searched for them. But you’re fully dressed, already bounding out of his door like his dick wasn’t down your throat moments ago. He watches you go with forlornness, mouth dry with words he’s incapable of expressing at this very instance and his heart oddly warm at the sight of your skipping away with a carefreeness he admires. He still hates that you’re leaving, perhaps the only positive of this situation is that you’re using his bedroom door instead of his window.

“Bye,” Jeongguk mumbles into the vacant air. You don’t even catch it, shooting him a quick grin before you’re bounding down the stairs as if this doesn’t even matter to you. A stumble on a stepping stone to something greater. He plucks up his phone, pants still lost somewhere on the floor. Blocking Mingyu for twenty-four hours should be enough of a punishment, right?

mingyu the man [10:21pm]

bro..

you alive?

jaykay [10:26pm]

i focking hate u

u know that right?

mingyu the man [10:31pm]

you dont my g

how was it?

did she jump out the window this time?

jaykay [10:34pm]

worse

mingyu the man [10:37pm]

bro wtf wot she do??

jaykay [10:40pm]

she actually gave me head

mingyu the man [10:45pm]

????

how is that worse dude you’re just as weird as her

jaykay [10:46pm]

ITS WORSE CAUSE I LIKED IT

mingyu the man [10:51pm]

damn....

you like crazy coochie don’t you

jaykay [10:52pm]

WHAT R U EVEN

MAN FUCK

I HATE U

mingyu the man [10:53pm]

lmao u don’t i brought her into your life u lurve me

im best man for the wedding

not jaehyun

u got dat right

jaykay [10:56pm]

i hope you fall into a ditch and die

mingyu the man [10:58pm]

okay big man

you gon see her again tho?

jaykay [10:59pm]

....maybe

idk man im fucked up right now

like???

SHE JUMPED OUT THE WINDOW??

mingyu the man [11:01pm]

and u still invited her over to suck your dick again

crazy coochie got u bad bruh

jaykay [11:06pm]

FUCK U

mingyu the man [11:11pm]

mhmm if thats what u say

i have a class wid her to tomorrow

any messages u want to pass on?

hello?

[mingyu the man is blocked]

hello? jaykayyyyyy

JAYKAY

SEAGULL

damn he got it bad

[lovelivingmydreams]

Paper Flowers: the final count down

Roman and Virgil have a fight as the end of their character’s time on Vine draws nearer every day.

You are giggling as you finish reading a PrincexNemesis fanfic on AO3.

It was a great story about Nemesis, named Marcus/Marcia in the story, was cursed at a young age to switch gender every time the sun passed the horizon. Leading to the poor kid being Marcia by day, the Prince’s bethroted whom he could not stand, and Marcus by night, the Prince’s sworn enemy who he was madly in love with. It was mainly a very funny story and the author left it very vague which gender Nemesis was born with. All they said was that Nemesis would be stuck with the gender they were when the received their first kiss. Which was given to them as Marcus. The tension came from whether Nemesis would be able to avoid getting stuck as Marcia on the wedding day, as he preferred Marcus.

It was very funny, but also surprisingly deep. Or maybe you are reading too much into it.

Just when you pressed ‘post’ on your comment you get an alert.

It’s vine time!

The video opens up and you see Prince pushing of an enemy and stabbing him.

You can hear a cheer and the camera turns to dad. “That’s my boy!” he cheers.

Prince kisses a maidens hand. Once more a shout is heard and you see dad. “Great job buddy!”

Prince polishes his sword, yet another shout. “Just look at you!” dad squeals from the doorway.

Prince looks up exasperated. “Can you not!?” Dad looks sheepishly and slowly glides out of view.

You wipe away a tear as you let your laughter subside. Everyone who’s been to any game or play ever has seen one of those parents.

You’ve seen people on tumblr who have jumped on this ‘the characters all live in the same kingdom’ concept and ran with it. It was a fun world they’d created. Teacher was the Prince’s tutor. Nemesis had several potential backstories, from the son of a nobleman to an orphan servant in the castle. Prince was, obviously, heir to the throne. And dad was either a nanny to the prince and other children in court, or father to the Prince or the nemesis. It made for some fun imagined shenanigans, that was for sure.

You are curious though, what will come next.

...

“No.”

Roman groaned in annoyance. “Anxiety, I don’t need your cooperation to propose a skit idea to Thomas,” he reminded him. He didn’t, he’d never asked before they became friends. But they’d been doing so well on communicating since. What, one might ask, made Roman dismiss Virgil’s input now?

A couple of bad nights, for starters. The fact that they’d been having this argument in front of Patton and Logan for the past half hour, meaning he had to keep up pretenses. And lastly, Virgil was just being difficult on purpose it seemed.

All Roman wanted was to have a nice final skit between their characters before they moved to youtube. There still would be skits involving either of them, but he liked the thought of wrapping up the nemesis story line before starting the story of the prince of creativity and Anxiety on youtube.

Virgil, however, seemed unwilling to even entertain the idea of another Prince vs Nemesis skit entirely. Let alone one to wrap up the semi storyline they’d made.

“Then go ahead and do it. See if I care!” Virgil growled before storming off.

Roman let out a frustrated sigh and dropped in the couch. “Impossible! That man is simply impossible sometimes!” he complained loudly. He was angry with Virgil right now. He wasn’t even going to try to deny that. Virgil could be infuriating sometimes.

And he was going to complain and pout as long as he liked, thank you very much. He was not the unreasonable one in this scenario.

“Kiddo, Anxiety is just like that. You know that he has a tendency to disagree on principle.”

Roman huffed. He knew better. Virgil was not usually difficult for no reason. He was a safety measure of sorts. He made sure they all thought through every decision. Every action.

Often a little too much, but he meant it well.

It was rare that he gave Roman no room to argue. A straight up ‘no’, even before their alliance, was rare. There were arguments, objections, doubts. But ‘no’ was usually with very good reason.

Roman just could not phantom the reason right now though. Which was why he was so angry.

He had learned to manage patience when he could see the source of Virgil’s concern. But now?

“Actually Patton, usually when Anxiety disagrees with us, he has at least some form of reasoning behind it. Be it of an irrational sort. It is not often that he gives no form of motivation behind his outbursts. This would lead me to believe that he has reasons, he just does not wish to discuss them, or maybe even might not wish to acknowledge them to himself.”

Roman listened to Logan making perfect sense, as he tended to do. But he didn’t feel like really thinking about that. He was still upset with Virgil.

“Or maybe he is just in a rude mood,” Roman objected stubbornly.

Logan took in a deep breath. “As much as I dislike figuratively feeding your ego, Roman, I feel like the positive changes in his behavior over the last year might be largely due to you.”

Oh, now this was something Roman was willing to pause his sulking for.

He shot up and looked at Logan expectantly.

Logan looked like he regretted speaking to begin with. Luckily for Roman, Patton had gotten curious.

“What do you mean?” he asked. Roman thought there was a strange sting to Patton’s voice, but he must’ve been mistaken, surely.

“Roman… You have been different ever since you asked for your memories of interactions with Anxiety… What was it that you found in there?”

Oh, no. Damn him and his promises.

Roman shrugged, feigning losing interest. “He saved Thomas and his friend earlier that day, and he didn’t seem to consider that a big deal. So I got curious and looked back and found that most of what he said, like you mentioned could maybe be read as trying to help somehow.”

Roman prayed Logan wouldn’t ask more. Luckily he didn’t.

“I see. I assume that this new information led to you changing your approach to your communication with Anxiety and this led to him being less tense around you.

He let you convince him to interact with us, he made an effort to explain himself and collaborated more on your projects,” Logan deduced.

“Could it be that to Anxiety, the start of that positive change in his life is connected to the skits between your character and his?” he wondered.

Roman’s eyes widened. “What? So me ending that storyline feels like me rejecting him or something?” he asks a little incredulously.

Logan looked up in surprise. “Well… That is a possibility,” he nodded. Why was he so shocked Roman could figure stuff out on his own. He could be empathetic enough for this. He might be the ego but he was not that self-centered. Bonds with others was high on his priority list too.

“The poor kiddo feels like he’s all alone now,” Patton mused sadly.

Roman got up. He was not ready to feel bad for Virgil. Especially when he was being ridiculous. As if Roman would end their friendship like this. Did he think so little of him?

He stormed off to his room and landed himself on his bed.

He wasn’t in the wrong, it was not his job to apologize. He kept repeating that to himself but occasionally he wondered if Virgil was overthinking right now. Thinking that Roman hated him now…

No. He was not in the wrong, he got to be mad if he wanted to. Virgil got to be mad with him when he got lost in a monologue and got all kinds of ideas stuck in Thomas’ head without consulting anyone making Virgil feel like he had to be the bad guy for scaring Thomas away from the ideas he loved too much to let anyone else convince him to adjust them.

He’d swallowed his pride and apologized to Virgil then.

So he was going to be petty and stubborn for as long as…

There was a knock at his door. Roman shot up and walked over to his front door and opened it. There was no one to be seen. When he looked down though, he saw something that took his breath away.

He picked up the paper purple hyacinth and the accompanying note.

“I know you are mad. Please let me explain before you hate me forever? I’ll be waiting.”

Roman let out a sigh. Purple hyacinths represent sorrow and regret. And it must’ve been such a pain to get the paper to bend to his will like this.

Now Roman had to go and meet Virgil. He put the flower in the vase along with the rest of the assemble bouquet and hurriedly opened the door to the field.

“Virgil?” he called out before he even closed it.

The anxious man was pacing through the field, trampling a path in the ground.

Luckily the field fixed itself every time they left.

Virgil looked up and his shoulders relaxed. Clearly he saw Roman’s swift arrival as a good sign.

His anger already fading, Roman added the hyacinths to the field to show he’d gotten his apology gift and accepted it.

“I thought about what I said… Or didn’t say and… Maybe I was just… I didn’t want us to stop making skits together,” he rambled, playing with his hoodie sleeves and pointedly not looking at Roman.

Roman let out a sigh. Logan had been on the right path then.

“Virgil, you really think that I did not enjoy working on those with you?” he asked.

Virgil shrugged.

“Well I did. Therefore I will call upon your aid any chance I get. I actually expect you to assist me quite often in the creation of the sanders sides series and many other projects. I merely wanted to give the fanders a satisfying ending to the adventures of the prince and his nemesis on vine,” he explained calmly.

Virgil nodded. “Yeah… I’m sorry. Really I am. I was pretty rude to you and you did nothing to deserve it,” he said softly, glancing up at Roman nervously.

“You are forgiven, Grim Creeper,” Roman smiled reassuringly.

Then he got an idea. It would let him vent the last bits of frustration and Virgil could maybe work of some angsty energy as well. “If you really feel like you’ll miss the prince and the nemesis that much though…”

And just like that Roman summoned two swords, tossing one to Virgil who caught it in surprise.

“I shall teach you the art of the blade!” he declared.

Virgil rolled his eyes but smirked. “Let me have it Princey,” he challenged.

...

While the two younger sides sparred in the field, the fatherly side was headed to the stairs leading down in search of an anxious sides room. Hoping he’d be let in now.

“Patton?” Logan called.

Patton flinched at being spotted. Though he wasn’t sure why. Was it so bad that he tried to help Anxiety?

“Hya Logan!” Patton greeted sheepishly. “I was going to make sure Anxiety was okay…”

Logan cocked his head. “Patton, I’m obviously no expert, but if my interpretation of his thought process of today was correct, he feels rather vulnerable right now. While that might mean he’s more open to sharing and closeness, it also means he might be in a state of heightened alertness.

If you attempt to approach him now you could very well make things worse with small mistakes.”

Patton bit his lip. Logan was right. Anxiety was not in a right state of mind. If Patton wanted to him to let him in, then it couldn’t happen when he was feeling hurt and alone. No matter how badly Patton wanted to comfort him. Going in now would be for Patton’s sake. Not Anxiety’s.

“We will make our way back to him Patton. Who knows? Maybe Roman’s youtube project lends us a chance to interact with him more frequently,” Logan offered.

Patton nodded. They’d get there. Sooner or later they’d be a happy family.

He just had to be patient and let Anxiety decide when he felt ready to try again.

Intorducing the sides

@vixdoesbadart @vpow @apinkline2715 @tired-yeetling @firegirl156 @soysaucevictim @1nsomniacwriter @moonlightshow00 @naturallyunstablegamer @alias290 @meowthefluffy @frida0043 @angelic-cali @selenechris @theblackveilinreverse

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Do you have any sort of, words of encouragement, for a Greek-American who is struggling to learn Greek? My family is pretty connected to our heritage but I was never taught to speak Greek. I am an adult now, and I know I'm at an incredible disadvantage trying to learn a new language. The most discouraging thing is when I try to pronounce a word with a sound that isn't really in English (like γ) and I KNOW I am not saying it right, but no matter how hard I try I can't pronounce it correctly.

Hello! I'm very sorry for delaying this answer for some days, but as we see here, Zeus was fucked this week 😅

I will pin my answer so you can see it when you return, and the rest will be under the cut.

I believe there are MANY reasons for hope in this situation. Of course it feels very discouraging that you don't know the language already and you might feel left behind in this process. Plus, learning a new language is not an easy thing to learn. But worry not!

You are grown, and that means you can learn a language better and with more consistency and discipline. Have trust in your skills as an adult. What is more, you have grown up around Greek speakers and you will pick up certain things faster.

You are not alone in feeling this way. Most of the world has to learn a second language (and a third, as it's usual for many) and that would be the language most dominant in the wider area. Almost every person in the West who is not an English speaker has to learn English and learn it well, otherwise we feel embarrassed every time we try and form a sentence. For example, we apologize to each other about our accents in English German and French, even though we speak Greek.

Surely there are some differences between your situation and ours, but I mentioned this to show you that most people will be very understanding with accents because they have the same struggle. I mean, I'm not going to make fun of someone for having an accent in Greek when I sound like a demented chicken in German, despite taking years of lessons 😵 I have more confidence in my English but even now that I'm writing to you in this language I have to quadruple-check my sentences and phrasing. The amount of times I apologized in advance for my accent to English speakers is higher than my credit.

I relayed your situation to other Greek speakers and non-English speakers, and ALL agreed the accent is not anything they would pay attention to and told me to write you that you shouldn't feel bad about that. I did that because I knew they would have words of encouragement for you. And it turns out they believe exactly what I'm writing in this answer.

Accents are natural. You cannot expect not to have an accent when you have been speaking a different language all your life. Beating yourself up for having difficulty with the Greek pronunciation is like beating yourself up for something normal like walking or laughing when hearing something funny. You lack practice with the pronunciation due to circumstances beyond your control. You are doing what you can to change that, and every small win is worth celebrating!

I found this post the other day:

The notes? The likes?

And NO disagreements in the comments and reblogs for OP’s statement! Look how many thousands are supportive in this! (And that’s a small fraction of people who understand accents are natural.) And some of the responses:

Sure, some mention they have met native speakers who made it more difficult to feel comfortable with their accent and phrasing. But those people are assholes in general, and not the people you want to surround yourself with. If a relative expresses disgust about your accent remind them you didn’t have any control of how much and how well you were taught Greek when you were a kid, and then tell them that if they are a true friend and relative to you, they should support you in your journey. And even if you had some control and chose not to learn, you are learning now. So they should leave their resentment behind because, honestly, what do they have to lose from you learning the language better??

For the embarrassment you feel for yourself: you wouldn't make fun of a Greek for having trouble with the “r”, "s", “ch”, and possibly the "h" when speaking English, so extend that kindness to yourself when you speak Greek. Not to mention that with enough practice and time you can nail the accent!

Worst case scenario, if the accent never leaves, that's no problem whatsoever. Anyone who thinks badly of you for your accent is probably a PoS and they don't deserve your time. No matter where you are from, if they make you feel bad for having an accent in Greek, block them from your mind forever.

But chances are that (from experience) if anyone laughs with how you said something, I guarantee they are not laughing at you but because of how strange the sound or phrasing was. The person doesn't think badly of you because of this. Making mistakes of any kind when learning a language is very natural and it's something everyone must accept. If you are not willing to make mistakes and expose your language vulnerabilities to people who know the language better, might as well not try improving at all.

If anyone corrects you, they are not doing it out of pity. The majority of Greeks do it because they are very happy you speak the language and want you to be even more fluent. Like, they are doing it as an act of backing you up, they are feeling like they are giving you that extra XP to reach the next level! Others - like me - get that rush of happiness when they get to share their language with others 😁

I remember a guy on Tiktok who was learning Greek and ordered a coffee "without sugar" in a Greek cafe but instead of saying σκέτο ("without") he said σκατά ("shit"). I mean damn that was funny! I remember it weeks after I saw the video of him telling that story and it always cracks me up. Do I still appreciate him the same as before and follow him? Absolutely! He just had an unfortunate - and funny - incident, not something that lessened his integrity as a person.

From tiktok again: An American girl wanted to pronounce γύρος correctly when ordering it, and she was mumbling to herself on camera: “yeero, yeero, yeero!!” When her time to order came she shouted “May I have a gairow? FUUUUCKK FUUCK FUCK I SAID IT WRONG” 🤣

Another example is Athena from the Bachelor 2! She has given some gems throughout the show because she doesn't know the language that well, but everyone still loves her because she spreads positivity and is so cute!! If we, as viewers, disliked her it would be because of her character, not because she doesn't know the language well. And if some of the other girls in the show don’t take her seriously is because she laughs too much and mentions feta too often, not due to her Greek level of literacy. Athena, even when she is hurting someone else’s feelings, is always so genuine and you just can’t be mad at her!

I really can’t stretch enough how people laugh at the mishap, not the person! Please don’t feel discouraged if you ever see a Greek laughing with the pronunciation of an English speaker when it comes to Greek words (which I have done as well) because we never laugh at the speakers. We don’t even know them! We might laugh at one mistake but then instantly want to become this individual’s friends because we think they are amazing (see the three examples I mentioned above, the sugar guy, the gyro girl and Athena). Because that’s the normal thing to do; laugh at fun stuff and not judge people for their small mishaps. (In a casual setting, and not to an uncomfortable degree ofc!)

There are so many things to a person other than their accent and the accent becomes old news really fast. What remains is how the presence of a person makes you feel and if they are a good individual. If an English speaking friend says yatakai instead of γατάκι that opens the way for sooo many jokes! Greeks will laugh, do some YATAKAAIIII screams - ninja style, and then continue being friends with that person!

Greeks makes these mistakes as well... A Greek once said "arrive arrive" (φτάνει φτάνει) instead of "enough" when an English speaker was filling his glass. A Lower English degree caught fire that day 🤣 I have many bad examples of Greeks’ mistakes in English but I can’t remember a lot. But I’ve seen many videos of Greeks mocking themselves for how they sound in English. You can take a look at Tsipras’ (our former prime minister) mistakes on youtube if you are feeling brave 😂 (Ο Τσίπρας μιλάει Αγγλικά)

So, own your possible mistakes, laugh at them and move on because everyone makes them and we better have some good while we are struggling!

(( For the record, we are not making fun of Tsipras because of his accent, but because 1) he doesn’t know γρι English and yet he rarely brought a translator with him in international meetings with world leaders, 2) he could absolutely not hold a conversation with negotiating or discussing 3) he didn’t take steps to improve or fix the situation (like bring a translator). 4) Instead, he chose to torment us all with mind-numbing hours of reading English texts and making other world leaders struggle to explain to him what they meant for the nth time and meetings move at a snail pace.))

Alright, now that I cringed with the memory of Tsipras speaking English, I’ll go though the recommendations for improving the Greek pronunciation.

1) Go to my resources for learning Greek (#learn greek) where I have many videos where you can hear the sounds individually or withing other words very clearly. Easy Greek on youtube has excellent videos about pronunciation!

2) Seek practice as much as possible. Some Greeks switch to English when they hear an English accent to make the conversation smoother for the other person. If Greek speakers insist on talking with you in English tell them that you would wish to speak in Greek. I've seen that people often mirror the accent of the native speaker when they speak to one, so this might work for you as well with hours of practice. If no Greek speakers are available to you now, you can find Greek Americans online – or go to their festivals – and start talking to them.

3) Listen to Greek podcasts, songs and shows. (In my blog you’ll find them at #greek youtuber #podcast #greek tv #greek movie #short film #greek music). You know when you hear a catchy foreign song and then it’s stuck in your head and you say all the words perfectly without even knowing what it means? Well, this helps with pronunciation!

4) If you had Spanish in school or have Spanish friends mimicking the Spanish accent might help you. (Our accents are extremely close! The Spanish are the best at Greek pronunciation, and vice versa!)

5) Find sounds in your native language that sound close to the sounds you want to say in Greek. In German lessons I had trouble with “ch” in certain words because I made it sound like χ and it was horrible. My Greek teacher told me to remember how χ sounds in χήνα (it sounds a bit flatter) and make that sound when I encountered “ch”. It worked actually!

To people who have English as their native language I often suggest they remember the sound of w for γ because, although not used the same in the word, at times they have the same intensity. Γ is pronounced more “to the front” of the mouth, so if you can bring that sound forward in your mouth you’ll be very close, if not accurate, to γ. (But don’t bring it too much forward, sometimes it can sound like a “y”, unless you are saying a word where γ sounds like “y”).

Greeks pronounce σ more closely to “sh” than to “s”, so you also might want to keep that in mind since σ often distinguishes the Greek accent in English for me :p

That’s all! If you have more questions or want to tell me anything else about your experience with learning Greek, feel free to send another ask or a DM!

[writing-fool]

mlqc | let’s hit rewind

What kind of videos would the MLQC guys make if they were YouTubers? I think this is a youtube!au, but to be fair, Kiro probably has a YouTube channel in canon. See it as you will? I won’t really talk about their life outside of YT/internet so you can decide for yourself whether this is an AU or not, and whether they’re a full-time YouTuber or not.

As always, enjoy, and requests are open!

Love,

R.

Warning(s): none

Victor

Victor probably has a cooking channel

scratch that. he absolutely starts as one of those Aesthetic™ cooking channels like Cooking tree, HANSE, Sweet The MI or Nino’s Home.

his channel is called Souvenir because he’s not THAT original you can’t expect everything from a man, people. 

he starts off doing these voiceless cooking videos, but after a voice and face reveal at 2 million followers where he cooks something for his followers as a thanks...well, who wouldn’t want more of that sultry voice and glorious face

currently has about 4 million subscribers

Victor’s channel is kind of comparable to Junskitchen, a rather relaxed, casual atmosphere combined with exquisite, refined cuisine

if he feels like it, he does a voice-over, otherwise he just puts calm jazz, blues or r&b over his cooking

HAS done an ASMR special. low-key dislikes the video because he has to whisper voice-overs but people LOVE it

likes making all kinds of foods, but his channel features quite a lot of sweet foods and desserts because a certain dummy has a sweet tooth

a pretty popular feature during quarantine is Cooking w/ Sou, essentially a live stream where Sou (aka Victor) cooks a whole three-course meal while talking to and instructing his followers

his subscribers notice that he doesn’t really need editing to look clean during cooking because his technique is IMMACULATE

by the end, he’s made a themed dinner for two...which always raises a question mark

is Sou single? does he have a roommate? a girlfriend? a kid? WHAT?

after getting your explicit permission, Victor addresses the situation in one of his recent Q&As

“Why do I always make dinner for two? I have a fiancée, she edits my videos in her spare time. She works as a producer. *you wave your hand over the lens* Dummy.” he breezes over it like it’s no big deal even though he’s a tad nervous about exposing something personal like this

his fans blow up the internet, baffled but not entirely surprised that someone like Sou isn’t a bachelor

of course, some leave hate under the video honestly, people who do this to celebs who start dating are HORRIBLE

most subscribers are super supportive of your relationship and thank you for the editing that makes Souvenir such a well put-together channel...also did he seriously call his fiancée a dummy? such a tsundere!

sometimes, you’ll (well, your hands...we’re keeping a bit of privacy here) even be in the end shot of videos, munching away at the carefully plated food

one day, Sou will be making a video titled Wedding Cake.

Lucien

Lucien’s channel LucidLight is a tad bit all over the place

he’s a man of many talents, and his channel reflects just that

i’m not saying it’s a disorganized channel, because the theme is very much there - the uniform theme in Luci’s content is a cozy background, a cup of tea and a soothing thumbnail

i mean that content-wise, his subscribers don’t really know what they’re going to get next...he has a slightly similar style to the YouTuber simon plant 

his content varies from interesting science theories to poetry reading sessions to ASMR to painting/sketching to cooking and much, much more

he has an heavenly soothing, smooth voice. it’s his trademark since Lucien doesn’t show his face on camera. ever. 

doesn’t have a TON of subs, because his channel is a bit of a niche thing, but I’d say he has 1,2 million subscribers and 400k followers on his added ‘business’ Instagram

he holds a lot of live streams on Instagram/YouTube (i know Moments exists in the game, but that’s more like a Facebook or Twitter kind of app...) and is always shown with just his torso and neck in frame. the lives usually include some poetry reading and generally just having a nice, relaxing chat with his followers. they can last up to 5 hours at once, and YOU know it’s because he doesn’t need sleep like a normal human being, but his fans are still asking questions about his timezone

his subscribers are strangely fascinated by his mysterious, gentle nature and also incredibly obsessed with his large, elegant hands

his ASMR videos are often roleplays of Librarian Lucien or Professor Lucien explaining to people why their rest is important

other times, they include soft affirmations, positive whispers, finger fluttering, hair touching and maybe kissing sounds...

Lucien paints a lot too, although he works primarily with ink and pencil sketches. you’ll find a watercolour or oil painting somewhere, but they’re not his most prominent media

his art videos are usually silent, although he might say something once in a while. there’s always some type of solo instrumental music playing in the background.

he does educational videos about biology and universe theories, but will also have reading sessions about scientific books

not intentionally secretive about your relationship, but he’s not one to mention it either

the first time you appeared on screen was when he was doing another live stream. he’s in his office talking about a play, when you come padding in to bid him goodnight.

“Yes, indeed. Laura’s glass menagerie, as the play suggests, is a symbol of fragility. Laura herself is very frail, but her favourite—”

“Good night, darling.” your soft voice rings through the room. viewers see Lucien’s torso turning a little bit, a hand on his shoulder and a curtain hair appearing from the top of the screen. his hand moves, presumably to cup the person’s cheek, before a soft kiss is heard through the mic. “Sleep tight, my love,” he murmurs.

“Ah. Laura’s favourite glass figurine is the unicorn, which...”

people are in uproar, but Lucien is a strong-willed man who refuses to explicitly announce the nature of his relationship.

his subscribers stop asking after a while, because it really isn’t any of their business, and they now know Lucien’s a taken man

you kind of appear on live streams accidentally a couple more times, but nothing’s really changed about Lucien’s content

the only thing he WILL say, and this is purely to give you credit, is “Ah. The background instrumentals in my art videos are played live. Yes, my lover’s very talented.”

you guys are the mysterious, talented, soft-voiced power couple of YouTube

Gavin

Gavin’s channel probably starts as a joint channel with you, something like Rachel and Jun

it’s relatively obvious from the start that Gavin from Birds&Cops is in a relationship, since you guys have a vlogging-style channel

your channel is filled with gym vlogs, travel vlogs to other countries and a lot of self-defence and sport at home videos. 

you guys also post a lot of funny vlogs talking about your day, going on fun dates, of course food vlogs in restaurants, all that stuff...

you often sit down and talk about your life, and maybe you’ll even do a mukbang during it for someone so fit, Gavin does eat a lot of food. 

Gavin’s channel didn’t blow up right away, because vlogging channels aren’t exactly unique, and he looks like the typical ‘straight boy with a girlfriend’

but he started gaining followers after people noticed how cute and blushy he acts, and how incredibly respectful and caring he is towards you

one of the most popular videos is Boyfriend Does My Makeup and it’s adorable. Gavin’s handling your face with so much care, and comments like “I know what this is, I’ve watched you do it many times.” or “Babe, does it hurt? Should I be more gentle? I’m sorry...my hands are rough.” make everyone SWOON

toxic masculinity left the chat. Gavin loves taking care of you in any way, whether it’s getting pads, chocolate and hot packs during your period or braiding your hair

in those yoga/celebrity fitness routine challenges, subs get to see Gavin in a tight singlet and sweatpants/shorts, and it’s HOLY

you’re very much aware of the attention Gavin receives from female fans, and how lucky you are to have found such a sweet partner

Gavin will usually see this type of comment while scrolling and will turn to you and go “Babe, you know I’m the lucky one here, right?”

anyways, a feature that you do to show fans the extent of Gavin’s sweet personality is Pranking My Boyfriend, where you set up the camera for a harmless prank like pretending to have a nightmare (similar to channels like Farina Jo)

that particular video was so fun to shoot, because it ended up with Gavin softly singing a lullaby to calm you down in his arms

“Baby, wake up. I’m here, you’re safe.” Gavin knows how to deal with panicking people, but he hates this prank afterwards because ‘he didn’t like seeing you in pain’

fans squealed. Birds&Cops gained like 50k subs through that video. the channel’s currently at 999k subscribers

overall, it’s just a really lovely, family-friendly channel

Kiro

Kiro knows his way around the web, alright?

not even just as Key, but he’s had a YouTube channel since the age of 15

his channel, CtrlAltChips is a hit with many people of many, many ages

he streams gaming sessions on Twitch and posts them on his YouTube channel afterwards

other content includes (primarily) covers & original songs, simple talking videos, thrifting & fashion videos, mukbangs and candid dance videos in a studio

think of chloe moriondo, doddleoddle, Victor the Drum Destroyer and Cat Strat

alternatively, for the ARMYs here, think of Jeon Jungkook as a YouTuber

Kiro has about 18 million subscribers, which is A LOT, but he’s been on YouTube for 7 years and he’s made a name for himself as a super likeable and bubbly guy with an angelic voice and killer moves

you’d think he’s just a cute boy when he sings acoustic covers, but his dance moves suggest that he’s not THAT cute

also how does he stay so fit with all those snack mukbangs?

he has a segment named In Our Kloset where he talks about social issues (because our boy uses his platform for good) around the world while customizing (not just pins. we’re talking patches, sewing, painting, embroidery) thrifted clothing to his liking. at the end he holds a little fashion show with his new outfits

after a while, you’ll see many of his outfits in giveaways or on sale for charity. Kiro tries to give back to his fans as much as he can, and how better than by sharing a piece of his unique clothing with them?

a great singer and performer. has held actual concerts before and has an actual music career (author-nim leaves it up to you readers to decide whether this is his idol career or some other musical project)

keeps his private life PRIVATE. he knows how the internet works, and he knows there’s no way he can keep your relationship a secret forever, but he’s not about to expose it to the world because of that reason

keeps tabs on information or rumours regarding you and makes them vanish

he’s simultaneously the most open and the most secretive out of the four boys. his fans know his favourite colour, what type of underwear he wears (trunks. Kiro wears trunks.), his birthday,...

but they know nothing about his past, his location, his close social circle or his family (teeechnically he’s an orphan but ig we’re talking about his mentor here. the blood of the covenant blah blah blah...y’know?). Kiro protects his loved ones fiercely

for someone who’s kept so secret, you’re actually really involved in Kiro’s virtual persona. you’re usually behind the camera during his In Our Kloset videos and are in charge of extra research regarding topics so he doesn’t spread any misinformation 

you also give pointers during filming (of course, these bits are edited out) because Kiro tends to trail off and get distracted when sewing

another way you’re involved is setting up the food during mukbangs. you have a great sense of aesthetics, so all of his videos in general will go through you.

while you like being low-key in Kiro’s life, you don’t want him to feel like he has to protect you from all the hate. 

he doesn’t particularly love keeping you a secret either, and it makes him feel guilty because he doesn’t want you to think he’s ashamed of you. he could never be.

you guys give it a good chat over how you’re going to announce it, and he just ends up making a video titled Miss Chips where the two of you sit down and talk to the camera

“Hello my little chips! Uhm, as you can see, there’s someone sitting next to me today. Maybe you already guessed from the title, but this is...my girlfriend, Miss Chips,” cue the cute jazz hands in your direction, “We’ve been dating for a long, loooong time, right, Miss Chips?”

“I just wanted to share this with you guys, since it felt wrong to keep such an important person in my life private. I hope you’re all kind to her, because I love her dearly, even to the point of giving up my snacks...so it’s serious.”

it really is that serious, hm?

Hope you enjoyed reading! 

[purity-town]

Little late getting to these -- that's fully the fault of a class project I spent all of Monday/Tuesday and most of Wednesday working on -- but I finished my project and wrote up some long replies to these!

(Apologies for any funny formatting -- I'm trying out the beta for the new post editor!)

Absolutely not.

Nope! There are a few people who do know (other guides Andrew's met before, the Dryad, and I'd imagine the Witch Doctor knows something's up even if he doesn't know why), but none of them live in Purity Town proper, and the Dryad and Witch Doctor aren't the kind to participate in rumors or spread what isn't theirs to share. The old man is also aware just because he and Andrew have talked about their curses, but he's 1) not currently in town and 2) not going to share even if he were.

Most folks don't know much about Andrew in general; Becca probably knows the most out of the townsfolk, knowing a little bit about his family and where he's from (he has some pretty specific skills as a hunter that betray this, but he doesn't talk about his exact town of birth), but no specifics and certainly not time periods.

Andrew is good at keeping things quiet; he has to be.

I would actually appreciate if you didn't post to Pinterest -- usually I'm fine with people reposting with credit (several of the things I've posted to my DeviantArt have found their way to Instagram, for example) but Pinterest has something of a reputation for stolen art (things being reposted from another Pinterest post without credit this time, or credit being hard to view for users not logged in or just viewing through Google). So reposting elsewhere is fine (though if you repost to Reddit or Instagram, tag me at u/Ariibees or @Ariibees)! I'd just prefer my works stay off of Pinterest.

The terminology related to The Guide/Andrew/The Guardian/The World’s Core/The WoF is all confusing because on some level, they’re all the same being. Kind of like trying to talk about Jekyll and Hyde -- same guy, different looks/actions, haha.

For all intents and purposes, references to the WoF being the barrier/core/whatever behind or within which the spirits of light and dark are contained is equivalent to saying “these spirits are held trapped by the magic of the Guardian, who when summoned appears as the WoF.” I do break slightly from the official lore in how the WoF/Guardian/thing holding back these spirits works (mostly because I don’t really like the idea that the Hallow is a “temporary guardian” or whatever), but the basic concept of “these are trapped by [thing that makes up the WoF]” remains unchanged.

If “loony cultist” is a reference to something, I’m so sorry, but I’m lost on it. If you’re just talking about the lunatic cultist in a funny way, then yes, they’re in here as a very plot-significant character!

I had to google what meme you were talking about, but it did make me laugh.

Andrew’s most annoyed by the nickname because people do like to call him Guide, and for someone who’s dedicated his whole life to his role, it can get tiring. He doesn’t really *mind* being called Guide -- it’s fine, that’s what he is and as long as people are respectful of his job he’ll take what he can get -- but at the same time, he’d like for people to stop thinking “Aah! Monster!” or “Weird academic know-it-all” and just...treat him like a normal person sometimes. So he fights to be called Andrew. And...Malik comes along and gives him a nickname that he doesn’t like and doesn’t allow others to use, save for maybe a small group of people of which Malik is not a part. So, not cool, man!

People love to overcomplicate explaining shading/lighting, and if you wanted to you could certainly go on and on about reflections of light off the ground and shading colors and all sorts of things, but as I’m writing this at 1 AM I don’t really care to.

If you really want to get into shading, I see nice ones on DeviantArt or Tumblr from time to time, or you can always watch a YouTube video on it. Really, though, just keep at it, think about how the shadows should look and work, and you'll get better at it eventually and pick up new ideas on how it all works. (And this is coming from someone who is new to making comics and actually started as a painter.)

Purity Town’s shading comes down to this: simplicity. As much as I’d love to spend hours and hours redrawing the panels I don’t like and carefully shading every fold of fabric and painting detailed backgrounds, I’m a full-time college student and will be working full-time over the summer -- I don’t have the time. So, I cut corners: I reuse backgrounds or use brushes (see: bricks, trees, clouds) that make certain details easier, and I try not to obsess too much over panels I’m not fully happy with. Shadows go where they feel right, and light on the opposite side.

For shading, this comes down to making things quick and easy. For these last few pages, character shading/lighting has only been five layers. One hard light layer for the bluer soft shadows, one overlay layer for darker soft shadows, one linear burn layer for hard shadows, one soft light layer for soft lighting, and one overlay layer for hard lighting. I’ll often also make use of glow dodge layers for lighting, or change the color balance or add more hard/soft light layers if there’s a very heavy color filter on the scene (such as a celestial event, blood moon, or outdoors at night).

Using all the different layer types is essentially a cheat code to fancier lighting -- don’t want to use flat black? Boom, hard light or overlay or burn will give you colored shadows. Want to make your light brighter? Glow dodge will make it burn your retinas.

Sorry that this isn’t a very comprehensive guide, but in my mind, shading and lighting is really something that you pick up over time and it’s hard to sit down and write a guide for it without making it into a massive essay on art theory that I don't even know proper terminology for because I'm not an art student. Of course with some googling you’ll find *proper* guides for this sort of thing from art majors and the likes, and those can be super helpful and technical! But for Purity Town, I just sort of go with what feels right and what's easy to replicate.

Firstly, I’m happy to hear you’re liking the comic!

Secondly, those buttons are actually there due to the theme! (For those on mobile who can’t see it, I have the theme set to only display on desktop as I prefer the current mobile layout on phone.) I’m using the simple webcomic theme (a quick Google should tell you how to install it for yourself) -- except I’m not actually using it for the webcomic features; rather, it’s a case of “this is the most simple, nice-looking non-default theme I could find.”

The previous/next buttons are added by the theme with the intent that the blog is being used as a typical webcomic website, with nothing but comic pages being posted. However, I post asks and other art here too, and I do so with the intent that people looking at #Terraria or their dashboards in general will see it. So...I use html formatting to make the first/previous/next/last links, along with an index and chapter-by-chapter viewing (using /tagged/chapter##/chrono) so that no matter where you’re coming from, you can still navigate just the pages!

If you want to add just the previous/next buttons, I can’t really help you -- web development is not my area of study in the slightest. But you can check out the theme that they come from and if you want to install only them, you can surely find a tutorial on it somewhere!

(As a side note, the comments section is not from the theme, it’s from a site called Disqus. I don’t expect many people, if anyone, to leave comments, but since I link back to this site a lot and many folks don’t have Tumblr accounts, it’s an option I like to make available.)

Hiya! My hike was pretty nice; it was a short and easy one, but that was quite appreciated as the trail is unmaintained from November to April, and the trail was covered in fallen trees and quite rocky. Still had fun, though!

And for backgrounds, it depends! For indoors scenes (or outdoors scenes with buildings) I don’t tend to use references, outside of looking up things like “which side of a door is the handle on.” I will, however, integrate real-life textures (see: the quilt and rug in Guide’s house, the wood walls on the building in the background of this week’s page), and paint over paintings from the Terraria wiki.

For outdoors scenes, for simple backgrounds (such as foliage-heavy) ones, I typically don’t need references. I like the difference between detailed, lined indoor/man-made object scenes vs. painted, messy outdoor scenes. But for things like mountains, I do sometimes look up references to help with color choices and the likes.

The town’s layout is a bit strange in that depending on the scene, the background could be drastically different. One side of town faces more mountainside, one side faces the orchards/open hillside, and the other two sides face various degrees of open space and more mountainside/forest. References taken on top of mountains are helpful to get an idea of what degree of foliage I should include between the characters and the sky.

Though this is very specific to the town of Purity -- other towns/villages will have significantly different-looking backgrounds, even the foliage-heavy ones.

That said, what's even more helpful than looking at photos is looking at paintings. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is really good for getting an idea of how to draw grasslands and distant mountains, plus Studio Ghibli movies in general!

[ori-flails]

Rewatching Guardian - Episode 07 Part 1/3

Episode List || Episode 06 || Part 2 | Part 3

SPOILERS for upto episode 40, SPOILERS for the novel.

The translation is by AvenueX. Youtube decided to not translate for me today.

A pity, I think the youtube translation had soomething like “a beauty named Shen Wei”. xD

Ah... I am a fool. At the end of the last episode, I mentioned how Shen Wei had a droopy quiff because it was the end of the day. But after Zhao Yunlan came, Shen Wei’s quiff went back to its former glory. xD

I really wonder how it would’ve gone down if Zhao Yunlan hadn’t turned up. Shen Wei could’ve obliterated these two without a sliver of dark energy.

Shen Wei looks too pretty. WAY too pretty.

Everyone isn’t full of suspicion like you, Zhao Yunlan. xD

But okay, Zhao Yunlan’s acting just a tiny bit strange. xD What, you’re worried Shen Wei would realise you were maybe following him for no reason except for your crush on him? And that maybe you did wanna show off just a little bit to him??

He’s just so automatically defensive here.

First of all, I absoulutely failed at getting screenshots for the fighting but just... I implore you to zoom into Zhao Yunlan’s face in the very last screenshot. xD Look at his eyes lmaooo

It’s too funny not to include.

I get that the SID isn’t regular police but even if Zhao Yunlan can’t arrest these two, shouldn’t he still at least hand them over to regular police? They’re muggers. Why is he leaving them here with only a warning?

“Become a consultant for the SID.”  “No.”

Absoulutely zero hesitation. xD Poor Zhao Yunlan’s like “??????”

I guess this is because 1) Shen Wei’s identity would endanger Zhao Yunlan and the other members of the SID. Specially if they aren’t aware of who he is, and also 2) I’m just guessing, but this might be because of alliances or something. SID itself is clearly its own entity at this point under Zhao Yunlan’s leadership. But on paper, it’s under Xingdu Bureau. Hei Pao Shi working for the SID would be like saying, yeah, Hei Pao Shi (at least partially) answers to Xingdu Bureau, which he doesn’t. And also, it ends up looking like the SID, Zhao Yunlan more specifically, has ambiguous loyalty or is being influenced by Dixing. But I’m not sure.

Working for the SID as a consultant would obviously be ideal because it will allow the SID and Hei Pao Shi to work together more closely to do their jobs right, and it would allow Shen Wei to remain close to Zhao Yunlan.

So once it becomes obvious to Shen Wei that Zhao Yunlan and the SID will be exposed to danger regardless of his identity known by them, and that his ‘Professor Shen’ identity it only hindering his efforts to help them out, and once Zhao Yunlan figures out his identity, point (1) becomes meaningless. If point (2) is actually an issue/being considered by Shen Wei, then it would be outweighed by the pros of working for the SID as a consultant. Hence, Shen Wei takes Zhao Yunlan up on the offer later on.

When Shen Wei’s massaging that thing on Zhao Yunlan’s arm, I know that despite whatever that reaction of Zhao Yunlan’s looked like, it’s meant to be a grimace of pain, because that’s what it was when they were rehearsing the lines in a behind-the-scenes video.

But still, it looked like what it looked like. xD And added with the comment about Shen Wei being good with his hands it’s just too much to ignore. ͡°‿ ͡°

Zhao Yunlan’s adorable and he’s such a flirt oh my poor

I have this idea that the OST used in a scene is often from the POV of the character(s) the show wants the audience to pay attention to/sympathise with, if that makes sense.

I’ll have to do a little digging to find the name of the OST used in this part. (Sorry guys, I didn’t find it :/ But it plays at 5:12 - 6:39 in the episode) The OST is very melancholic, life if repressed longing was music or something like that.

The OST is clearly from Shen Wei’s POV because at this point Zhao Yunlan has no reason to be thinking/feeling this way.

Basically the OST was wrecking my heart and soul and I didn’t want to be repetative and say the OST really made this scene for me and gave me all the feels but that’s exactly what happened.

Shen Wei... TT~TT

Also, I’m fairly certain that Shen Wei discretely used his healing powers to partially heal Zhao Yunlan’s arm just enough to get away with it without alerting Zhao Yunlan.

First of all, where the hell was that bedroom even? Just in case, I went back where the cat brothers break into Shen Wei’s home, and yep, no bedroom, no bed. His apartment looks less structured than Zhao Yunlan’s, and looks more like a big room with furnitures than a big space compartmentalized for specific functions.

In that scene, I didn’t see a bed, or even see Zhao Yunlan go into a “room”. Now, this doesn’t mean that Shen Wei’s apartment doesn’t have a bedroom for sure, just could be that we didn’t see it. But we followed Zhao Yunlan’s POV in that scene and the entire time he spent in Shen Wei’s apartment was shown. So if we didn’t see a bed or a bedroom, neither did Zhao Yunlan.

So what’s up with that?

Anyway, my man just dug his own grave and jumped in it lol

Once again with the ominous music though. It stopped me from realizing before just how funny this scene is.

Another example of Zhao Yunlan goofing up in Shen Wei’s presence. xD

And then the stuff he says to try and salvage the situation are also gold because if Zhao Yunlan had been in any state to calmly think about what he was saying, he’d have noticed the window he was talking about faces the opposite direction to the one in his apartment.

Also, I checked and the two apartments are very different even if you remove all the furnitures, so there’s that. Shen Wei wouldn’t know because he hasn’t gone to Zhao Yunlan’s apartment yet. But still.

Slightly unrelated, neither of the two apartments seem to have any washrooms. I didn’t see any doors leading to one anywhere. I also didn’t see a kitchen in Shen Wei’s. He has a balcony where Zhao Yunlan’s apartment has a kitchen. And there goes out collective headcanon about Shen Wei’s beautifully clean kitchen.

Back to Zhao Yunlan’s blunder.

Shen Wei knew it was them to begin with and would’ve probably never mentioned it.

But then Zhao Yunlan the Disaster made such a dumb mistake and then realkized himself. At that point, it was too obvious for Shen Wei to ignore. In fact ignoring it would be more suspicious. Oh my god. xD

And when Zhao Yunlan’s flailing and making further fool of himself, Shen Wei’s sarcastic nod and his smile lmaoooo He seemed so amused xD

On the other hand, Zhao Yunlan looks so uncomfortable xD Poor man’s heart’s probably about to sprint out of his ribcage. He’s so cute istg.

Shen Wei just handing the entire bottle to Zhao Yunlan because he doesn’t need it and can’t heal him himself but can’t leave him be either. Ugh. So extra and so tragic.

Zhao Yunlan just taking it though... That’s not quite the normal response here... is it? Like, shouldn’t there be some protest to taking it at least for the sake of being polite? These two didn’t meet all that long ago and aren’t that close yet as far as Zhao Yunlan’s knows.

Like, politely refuse and buy one of his own later, or try to refuse at least; isn’t that what’s meant to happen here?

Idk. Zhao Yunlan’s response seems odd to me. I can’t tell if he’s just like that or if this is him being uneasy and in a hurry to get out of there after his slip-up.

Shen Wei TTATT

Well, both of their hearts are about to sprint out and away to Cold City now for two completely different reasons.

(Continues in part 2)

[gigi-sinclair]

Like and Subscribe (rated T)

This is entirely for @draculas-gay-daughter, because of this.

Also, the research for this has awakened in me an actual desire to learn to make candles, so thanks for that new quarantine hobby!

It's like, what do they call it, ASMR.

That's what Edward tells himself. Some people find it relaxing to watch strangers pop plastic wrap or flick dry paint brushes or whatever. He happens to find it relaxing to watch Tom Jopson talk about the intricacies of making candles.

He doesn't know how he first landed on “Brighten Your Day With Candles.” Some winding path of Youtube “recommended videos” he wouldn't be able to retrace if he tried, but the moment he found it, Edward was entranced. He watched every one of Tom's ten-to-twenty minute long videos immediately.

Nine months and thirty-four new videos later—Tom took off the weeks of Christmas and New Year's, leaving Edward bereft over the holidays—Edward understands no more about candle making than he did before. Tom, however, is endlessly fascinating.

Edward can't say exactly what it is he finds so alluring. Tom is handsome, with his flopping dark hair and his five o'clock shadow, but Edward sees handsome men all the time. He's clearly very intelligent, but Edward works with some of the biggest minds, not to mention egos, in the country.

There is something else, something which leaves Edward unable to look away. When Tom says, “Adding too much fragrance can, unfortunately, lead to curdling in soy candles” with a look of heart-wrenching empathy in his big eyes, Edward wants to gather him in his arms and give the man a good, solid hug. When he says, “I had news from viewer Jamie in Nova Scotia that they've solved their ongoing issue with wet spots!” Edward wants to kiss him in celebration. And when Tom leans forward, the V-neck of his shirt revealing a patch of dark chest hair, to confide, “Today, we're going to talk about the length of your wick,” Edward offers up a mental apology and reaches for his fly.

Edward thinks his obsession is secret, until one evening his flatmate George says, “Thanks for staying out when I had Emily over the other night.”

“It's fine.” It is in Edward's best interests not to be about when George and his girlfriend get together. There is only so much saccharine sweetness and over-the-top pet names he can handle.

“I really appreciate it. So does she. We wanted to get you a gift.” It's only then Edward notices the bag, printed with pink flowers and the words “It's a Girl!”, in George's hand. “Sorry about the bag,” he adds. “It was the only one I could find.”

Where? Is the question Edward doesn't ask. “That's not necessary, George. Really.”

“Open it!”

Edward tries not to sigh as he opens the gift bag. George's gift-giving history, while admirable in its efforts, is remarkably poor in its execution. The last thing Edward needs is another “Purrrrrfect Friend” mug with a cat’s tail as a handle, or a T-shirt with a Sasquatch on it. It's the thought that counts, he reminds himself, even if that thought is, when it comes to George, quite often incomprehensible.

This gift is just as strange. Edward stares at what appear to be squares of white wax, a roll of string, and several tiny bottles, until George, still smiling, explains, “It was Emily's idea. I told her how you're always watching that candle making channel on Youtube, and she said you're probably dying to give it a go yourself.” He looks at Edward, his expression expectant. “It's great, right?”

“Right.” Edward smiles. “It is. Great. Thanks, mate.”

The next day, Edward buys a pair of headphones.

***

One Wednesday nearly a year after Edward first found him, Tom finishes a talk about gel wax, then leans back on his stool. All of his videos are filmed in the same kitchen, with several little cactus pots on the windowsill and a gleaming sink, spotlessly clean, in the background. Edward wonders if it's Tom's own kitchen. If the rest of the room, or the house or flat, is as tidy as what he shows. If he lives with anybody. No one else is ever on the videos, although that doesn't mean Tom doesn't have a friend or a flatmate or a partner behind the camera.

“I'm really going to miss you,” Tom says, putting the gel candles aside. Edward's heart seizes. “But I won't be making any new videos for the next little while, because I'm going on a book tour!” He holds up the book, also entitled “Brighten Your Day With Candles”, he's been showing for the last few weeks. Edward ordered it the first time he saw it. He feels like he owes Tom at least that much. “I am so excited,” Tom says. He looks it, but Edward has never seen him be anything but sincere. “Unfortunately, it's just in south east England at the moment—sorry Jen in San Luis Obispo, I can't make it out to California this time, although I would love to someday—but I would really like to meet as many of you as possible. My complete schedule is below. See you soon!” He waves. Edward is about to scroll down to the comments, then hesitates.

What would he say if he met Tom in person? That he thinks Tom is the most incredible man he's ever seen? That he's watched every one of Tom's videos multiple times, and still knows nothing about making candles? That he often pictures Tom talking authoritatively about long burn times and multiple layers while Edward blows him? It's disgusting, inappropriate, probably illegal.

With a shake of his head, Edward puts the thought of meeting Tom Jopson entirely out of his mind.

***

At one time, Edward loved his career. That was before the company president died suddenly and his role was taken over by two co-presidents, promoted from within, who have a long history of conflict and have used Edward as a go-between, the miserable child of an unfriendly divorce, for months now.

It saps Edward's energy to the point that he doesn't have the will to look for another job. He just goes to work every day, suffers, and comes home to brighten his day with candles. Until one night, when George meets him at the door.

“Don't take your coat off,” he tells Edward. “We're going out.”

“I really don't feel like...”

“You will. Trust me.” Edward doesn't. They're great friends, but Edward doesn't trust him a bit. The feeling is vindicated when they arrive at the local Waterstone's, and George pushes him inside.

Tom is even more beautiful in person. His stubble looks like it's deliberate rather than the result of a long day, although Edward has always found that very charming in itself. He's wearing a smart white button-up shirt, and the smile he directs at the woman in front of him is so brilliant, Edward feels weak.

“No.” Edward turns to go.

George stops him. “Why not? It's the guy you like, isn't it?”

“It's...I don't...What am I going to say?”

“That you're a big fan? Even though you still haven't used that candle stuff Emily and I got you?” George looks at him pointedly. “Get him to sign your book.”

“I don't have it with...”

George reaches into his satchel and presses “Brighten Your Day With Candles” on him. “Get in the queue,” he says, in that imperious tone he sometimes has. “I'll wait in the café.”

Edward's stomach churns, but he follows George's direction, joining the queue behind a middle-aged woman and her teenage daughter. There are two other people ahead of them. It’s long enough for Edward to regret his entire life up to this point, not long enough to gather the wherewithal to walk away.

When Edward reaches the table, Tom's smile becomes even more brilliant. “You're Edward, right?”

Edward's carefully thought out opening words—“Good work”—disappear. “How did you...”

“Your friend George sent me a message.” Of course he fucking did. Edward is going to kill him. Is actually going to put his hands around his throat and...“He told me you'd be here.”

“Hm.” Edward has no idea what to say. His mind is entirely blank. He searches desperately, a quest which eventually arrives at, “Yes.”

“You like my videos?” Tom holds out his hand. Edward shakes it, then, face burning, realizes Tom was reaching for the book. Edward drops it onto the table. It thunks loudly.

“Yes,” Edward repeats.

“Do you have a favourite type of candle?” Tom opens the book and turns to the title page.  

“Wax ,” Edward replies, because his brain has apparently given up on this situation as entirely unsalvageable.

Tom laughs, as if that was a joke. He scrawls something in the book, then closes it and hands it back to Edward. “Thanks for watching, Edward. I really appreciate a loyal viewer like you.” He holds Edward's gaze as he says it.

Edward swallows around the lump in his throat. Edward has never done well in front of others. If he and Tom were alone, Edward might be able to come up something halfway coherent. Maybe. They're not.

“Thanks,” he says. He could swear Tom throws him a wink as he walks away.

It's that, along with the general humiliation, that leads Edward to duck out of view between Interior Design and Gardening. He opens the book to see what Tom wrote.

The words “For Edward” and a scribble that could be Tom's signature lie across the title page. Beneath that is a series of numbers. It takes Edward a moment longer than he wants to admit to realize it’s a phone number. He's not that lucky, usually. But he's also not this stupid.

His heart still hammering, Edward takes out his phone. I'm not really an idiot, Edward types, then sends the text before he can think twice. He glances at Tom, deep in conversation with a young woman in denim overalls, and goes to murder George.

Two hours later, Edward is sitting on the sofa at home when his phone trills. You don't seem like one. It's too kind. Just like he expected Tom would be. Can I buy you a coffee? Or better yet a drink?

“Who's that?” George asks, without looking up from his laptop. He doesn't need to. His entire body exudes smugness.

“Mind your own business,” Edward says. But, he adds silently, thank God you never do.

***

The rest of Tom's flat is as tidy as the kitchen he shows on his videos. It's also, amazingly, less than half an hour's drive from Edward's place. In addition to that, Tom has a day job at a shop Edward has passed hundreds of times, which he's always derogatorily classified as “candles, crystals and shit” and avoided.

“So if you hadn't been such a snob, darling,” Tom tells him, with a smile and a kiss, “we might have met a long time ago.”

Edward can't deny that. He can, however, deny that it's a good idea for him to join Tom on screen.

“Don't worry.” Tom sets up his phone on its tripod and comes back around the counter. “Just pretend it's not even there.” He kisses Edward again, on the cheek, then turns to the camera. “Welcome back, everyone! We have a very special guest today. This is my gorgeous boyfriend Edward, and we're going to help him make his very first candle!”

Tom posts the video later that evening. Not long afterwards, the comments start appearing. Normally, Edward would avoid them—he knows what Youtube commenters are like, and he never wants to see any criticism of Tom—but this time, he looks. To his surprise, there are several remarks about him. “Edward's so cute!” “OMG ur bf is the sweetest!” And, “That Edward guy really is great. I think you should have him on every episode.” The username beside that one is “PianoMan86” and the picture is the same one George uses on Instagram.

Bloody George. Fortunately, Edward thinks, looking at the slightly lumpy candle he produced with his own two hands, he has the perfect gift for him.

“Edward!” Tom calls, from his room down the hall. “Are you coming?”

Before they met, Edward assumed Tom would be the kind of guy who lights a million candles in the bedroom. In fact, he only ever lights one, but it never fails to have the perfect luminosity and fragrance for the mood.

“Yes.” Edward puts down his phone and hurries to join him. As amazing as he is on Youtube, Tom is unspeakably better offline.  

[sincerelymarinette]

A Recorded Life (31/50) - Miraculous Ladybug

Words: 1960 Chapter Summary: Today is the day of the first song of the Jagged Stone album cover collab! Marinette and the gang are excited, and Jagged has a surprise for them! She finally feels comfortable reading comments again (mostly) and how this collab will work when the album is fully released is explained. Author's Note: This was a lot of fun. I love Uncle Jagged so much. More action next chapter, I promise! Also, I think the story could come to a close pretty soon. I love writing this story, but the main plot could finish up in like the next ten parts or so. I haven't decided yet if that's when I'm finishing it, because I love writing youtube marinette. What do you guys think? I'd love to hear feedback :)

its 11:30 its still sunday ;)

Prev / Next / Masterlist

Lift Up Release with Jagged Stone

---

Friday

"Marinette," The soft, high-pitched voice said. "You need to get up and get ready for school."

"My alarm hasn't gone off yet, Tikki, I've got more time," Marinette mumbled back.

Tikki looked to Plagg, getting no empathy from him. "Marinette," She said. "You've slept through your alarm three times."

Marinette's eyes shot open. "What?" She almost yelled. "How did that happen? I've never slept through them! Turned them off, sure, but never slept through them!" She said.

Tikki shrugged. "I don't know. You and Adrien fell asleep really fast last night, must have been tired from the contest," Tikki said.

Marinette was confused by her statement; then her eyes drifted to the other side of the couch. "Oh yeah," She remembered. "I forgot he was here."

"Clearly," Plagg said. "Kid, get up!" Plagg said as he dropped onto Adrien's head. It was a much different awakening than how Tikki handled it. Adrien wasn't moving, so Marinette stood up and walked over to him.

She put her hand on his shoulder and shook lightly. "Adrien, get up. We have school soon."

Adrien's eyes slowly opened and smiled when he saw Marinette. "W...what? School?" He asked.

"Yeah. We fell asleep watching our movie. My parents probably turned the TV off and just left us alone," She shrugged. "But we have to get ready, or we'll be later, well, later than usual."

Adrien hopped up from the couch once he fully realized what happened. "Oh no," He searched for his phone. "I'm so dead."

"What?" Marinette asked.

Adrien found his phone and swore at himself. "I have eight missed calls from my father, and ten from Nathalie. And a text from Gorilla," Adrien said. "I didn't tell them what was going on; I didn't intend to fall asleep here. God, they probably filed a missing person's report and everything. How did I sleep through all of these? I normally wake up if Plagg breathes too loud," Adrien worried. His mind was moving so fast that he could barely keep up with his thoughts. He put the phone up to his ear to call Nathalie.

Marinette went to her room to grab a change of clothes, giving Adrien some privacy to explain to Nathalie what happened.

"Adrien?" Nathalie answered, sounding worried.

"Hey, I'm okay. I'm so sorry. I was watching a movie with Marinette last night, and we fell asleep. I didn't mean to, I'm sorry for not letting you guys know," Adrien said before she could ask questions.

Nathalie sighed of relief. "You had us so worried, Adrien. We thought something had happened."

"No, I was just with Marinette. I'm sorry, I was just worried about the school thing and being a superhero, and we were talking and lost track of time."

"The school thing?" Nathalie asked. "Didn't your father tell you? He's not pulling you out; he thinks it's better if you stay with your friends and have some freedom. Not that you shouldn't tell us where you are, but enough freedom to have school."

Adrien blinked once to process what she said. "Wait, really?"

---

Marinette and Adrien were...a little late to class. They walked in twenty minutes late and didn't say a word, trying not to cause a distraction.

"Where were you, girl?" Alya whispered.

"I slept through my alarm three times. Tikki had to wake me up," Marinette said.

Alya looked shocked. "You actually slept?"

"The best sleep I've had since the video," Marinette sighed. "Adrien and I fell asleep watching a movie. We must have been exhausted."

"Do you think it was from what the Guardian gave you?" Alya asked.

With a shrug, Marinette pretended to be looking at her book. "Not sure. He said it was supposed to make us more aware, but I slept through my alarm. I was probably just so exhausted from all the not sleeping that my body finally gave up," She said. "Adrien slept through like twenty phone calls."

"That's strange. He never does that," Alya said, and Marinette only replied with another shrug. "Don't tell me you forgot what today is."

Marinette turned her head to look at Alya, confused again. "Come on, girl! Jagged Stone!"

"Oh my god, you're right! His single comes out in a few hours," Marinette said. "And everyone's going to see my artwork. Oh, I'm so nervous," Marinette was going through different stages of emotions. Excitement and nervousness were the two most prominent.

"I'm sure you have nothing to worry about," Alya comforted, and they both went back to looking like they were paying attention.

In the front row, Adrien was still trying to figure out how he slept through all those phone calls. It was one of the best nights of sleep he has ever had, but he couldn't help being confused. He couldn't focus on what the teacher was saying; what changed his father's and Nathalie's minds?

The whole day, while Adrien and Marinette felt much more well-rested, they were distracted. Maybe if they figured out why this was the effect of the cure, it would ease them.

The day zoomed by because of the distractions, and as they were walking out of the school, Adrien and Marinette were telling Alya and Nino about their intense video game battle. Marinette was laughing, but stopped once she saw her name on a sign in front of a car. "Uh, guys?" She pointed at the car.

The door opened quickly. "Marinette!" The familiar voice shouted. "Only an hour until the song and your album art are released! We have to celebrate!" Jagged Stone shouted as he got out of the car. "With all your friends, of course."

Marinette was surprised. "Oh, Jagged, you don't have to-"

"Nonsense! This is a big day for both of us!" He insisted. "Plus, Fang loves ice cream."

Marinette looked at her friends to see if they would agree. "And you can make a video!" Alya suggested. "Get everyone even more excited about this collab by showing our two stars celebrating together. People will be so excited to see us all out together," Alya said.

"Perfect idea!" Jagged Stone pointed at her. "You all in? My treat."

Marinette's friend's all agreed and got into Jagged's limo. Fang sat across from them, next to Jagged, and Penny was making light conversation with the teens. Marinette pulled out her camera. "Do you want me to start now?"

"Go for it," Jagged said, giving her permission.

Marinette turned the camera, so she was in front of it. "Hi! I'm Marinette!" She smiled. "You may be wondering: Marinette, where are you? Well, I am in a limo," She said and started to turn her camera. "With Adrien, Nino, Alya, Penny Rolling, Jagged Stone, and Fang. Everyone say hi!"

All at once, everyone, save for Fang, waved to the camera with big smiles, and Marinette turned the camera back to her. "Today is a very important day. Jagged Stone's single, Lift Up, comes out! It's the first one of our album cover collab, and I'm so excited. I've heard the demos of the song to get inspiration for the cover, and I can't wait to hear the final version. He's even taking us out for ice cream!" Marinette said.

"We have forty-five minutes until it comes out. Why not play it now?" Jagged Stone said.

"Really?" Nino and Alya said at the same time, stoked to hear the song.

Jagged laughed. "She really didn't play the demo for you guys?" He asked. "I assumed she would have for her best friends."

"I would never! I can't make the hype for your music go down if I went around sharing the demo," Marinette defended. "Although, Adrien did hear some of it. He surprised me and walked in while I was working. But he doesn't count."

Jagged grabbed his phone that was already hooked up to his limo. He started the song, as loud as he could make it. It started out slow, but was leading up to the major rockstar that Jagged Stone is. Everyone loved it, a coming of age song about getting back up on your feet after life throws you down.

"That was...glorious," Nino said. "We really got to listen to Jagged Stone's new song...with Jagged Stone!" He said.

Jagged laughed loudly. They had been at the ice cream place for a few minutes now, but listening to the song was much more critical. As they walked into the parlor, Jagged turned to Marinette and her camera. "Do you want to know a secret about the song?"

"Even if she says no," Adrien intervened, "The answer is yes."

Marinette rolled her eyes at Adrien. "I would love to know the secret," She said and pointed the camera at his face.

"It's actually about you," Jagged Stone smiled, making Marinette do a double-take. "I wrote it a while ago, after I found out you were Ladybug and you were going through a rough time. No matter what happened, you always bounced back and were back on your feet. You never gave up," He said.

"Seriously?" She asked, still in shock. "There's no way."

"Way! I'll have to show you the original lyrics with my notes sometime," Jagged said. "Now, let's get some ice cream." Marinette panned the camera to the ice cream shop, showing her friends already getting ice cream and talking amongst themselves. After they all got ice cream, they brought it back to the limo so that Fang could enjoy a treat too, and they continued talking to Jagged and Penny about the album and Marinette's designs. Penny slipped her a bag with a few mockups of how they would look when released hardcopy, and Marinette would definitely be looking at them later.

---

Later that night, in between editing, Marinette took a look at Twitter to see the response to Jagged's song and her design for him.

oh my gosh, Marinette's design for this song fits it so well. I can't wait to see ALL of the covers!!

man yall are really gonna make me buy every version of the album. im gonna go broke because of you.

Lift Up is my new anthem. It's so good. And to know it's based off Marinette is so cool. This new album is going to rock!!

So i'm still a little confused how the covers work- do we really have to buy every album to get all the covers? Like, I'm sure they're gonna be amazing based just of Lift Up alone but like, I don't have enough money to buy twelve albums. Either way, great song!!

im so excited for the album you guys don't even know. when will we have a release date?

I can't wait for the video Marinette and Alya teased on twitter like i am SO HERE for this jagged x marinette collab i love seeing them work together

JAGGED @JaggedStone Awesome feedback on the song and Marinette's design! Thanks all for listening, we are so excited to release the rest of the album. The release date will be out soon!

JAGGED @JaggedStone I noticed some are confused about how the covers will work. There will be a few options. You can buy the album, with just one cover, like normal. Or, you can opt for the deluxe album with two extra songs and all of the covers that you can display or switch out as you please.

JAGGED @JaggedStone We will also be selling merch! Shirts, posters, and maybe some other goodies, with all the covers on it. I've seen some mockups, and it looks incredible. Marinette is still putting final touches on everything, but trust me, you guys are going to love it.

JAGGED @JaggedStone And make sure to follow @MarinetteDC to keep up with her!

---

@lady-of-the-roses-and-lilies @bookishserendipity03 @avatheexceed @gkz10 @coccinellegirl @kat-thatoneweirdo @strawberryblondish @snow-swordswoman @lilgaga98 @evufries

[cherryeol04]

The Firsts

Summary: No one ever told him that living was going to be so difficult. That there would emotions get couldn’t label and distinguish. He’s just a young boy trying to navigate through life and its unexpected ups and downs.

Genre: Humor, Fluff, smut(?)

Pairings: Oc x Felix, Oc x Changbin, Changbin x Oc x Felix

Warnings: poly relationship, angst in some part, excessive fighting about the MCU.

Parts: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17

A/N: This story has a theme of Firsts. First love, first kiss and many other firsts. Each part can be read on their own and are meant to stand as oneshots. It’s basically a collection of oneshots (little snapshots into my Oc’s life. 😁)

It was the weirdest dream that Aiden had ever had and he wasn’t exactly sure why he had it or what it even meant. But it was strange enough that he was waking up at 4am, Felix’s name falling from his lips as the last remnants of sleep escaped him.

The TV in his room was still on -volume low as it cycled through video after video on YouTube - bathing him in a soft blue and white glow that allowed him to look around his room in the slight paralyzed state that he was in. This wasn’t the first time he had dreamt about Felix and it most likely wouldn’t be the last. But it was the first time that someone from outside his friend group had been involved in his dream. Knew about Felix and talked to him.

It was rather strange and Aiden wondered what the hell had actually triggered the weird images and scenarios that had filled his mind. In the most direct way, the dream he had involved Felix being a family friend’s “baby boy”. Whether he was dating the older woman or was just a sugar baby, he couldn’t actually be certain. But what he knew was that his friend acted like he hadn’t know him in the dream. Didn’t want to talk to him and Aiden was pretty sure that dream Felix had been jacking off when he had taken the phone from the family friend. At least, that’s what his mind supplied with soft grunts and barely there acknowledgements coupled with a lot of movement and noise on his end.

And while dreaming of Felix masturbating on the phone for him would have been a nice wet dream, there was just something about knowing that he wasn’t there or interesting enough for Felix that really rubbed him the wrong way - an unsettling emotion washing over him as he finally turned to his left and stared at his phone that laid innocently on his bed.

‘Would it be wrong to text him now?’

The thought raced through his mind faster than he could process the actual time that was blaring at him from the alarm app he had downloaded on his phone.

4:10 am

His hand was reaching for his phone on its own, face scanned and recognized and screen unlocking before he could start talking himself out of it. The downside of having one of the newer phones on the market. He wanted so much to call Felix and express the weird, unsettling feelings he had about this dream, but how was he supposed to explain that he had a dream about Felix jacking off over the phone to a family friend he had never met without sounding like a creep? Their friendship wasn’t a stable or solid one, at least not that he was sure of. They had only hung out a few times outside of the times they had interacted at school and while that been more than enough for Aiden, he highly doubted that it was enough to deem each other worthy of being close friends that could dream about each other.

“Hello?”

Unlike the friendship he had with Changbin.

“I’m fucked.”

“No shit. It’s 4 fucking am. What the hell are you doing calling me?”

“Binnie.” The pathetic whine that left Aiden caught Changbin’s attention and Aiden could tell as he heard the other shifting on his bed, voice sound clearly compared to the groggy greeting he got moments ago.

“What’s wrong?” His voice was soft and Aiden almost melted at the sound. The hardness in Changbin’s voice was barely there and Aiden was so thankful to have the kindness he was getting now because he honestly didn’t know what was going on with him and he needed to be able to talk to someone who would understand his strangeness. Changbin was the perfect person, having put up with Aiden’s strangeness since they were kids.

“I had this dream.” He started in, a soft sigh leaving him as he laid back on his bed. “This family friend of ours was over and she was calling and talking to Felix -“

“The fuck?”

“I know, so weird right?” He asks and sighed. “And I was like ‘I know Felix! I’ll talk to him!’ So while she was busy doing something I took the phone to talk to Felix. But all I got was like grunts and he didn’t acknowledge I was there, even when I called his name.” He paused for a moment, trying to see if Changbin was still awake and paying attention to him. It wouldn’t be the first time the other fell asleep on Aiden while on the phone with him.

“Really? That seems so unFelix like.” His voice was softer, words slightly slurred but he could tell Changbin was trying to keep himself awake.

“I know. But he was moving a lot and I could swear that he was...” he trailed off, cheeks flushing at the thought of what he was about to say. Despite Changbin already knowing about his crush on the Australian, it was still embarrassing to admit he had a semi sexual dream about Felix.

“He was what?”

“Jacking off.”

“E-excuse me, what?!” Changbin sputtered and all evidence of sleepiness disappeared from his voice. “Wait, let me get this straight. You dreamt a family friend - who is clearly older than both of you - was talking to Felix and you wanted to talk to Felix, it he was ignoring you and now he was jacking off on the phone? Which in a weird roundabout way means he was jacking off for that friend. Am I understanding this correctly?” Changbin asked and god was this a time that Aiden hated the fact that Changbin knew him so well. He didn’t even need to connect the dots for Changbin to come to the same conclusion that he had when he first woke up and started thinking about the dream.

“Yeah.” A whisper that was borderline a sob because honestly it sounded so stupid. It was stupid. Why was he like this?

“Jesus Aiden, you are fucked.”

“Thanks.” There was no bite after that comment, though he wished their had been. Changbin’s laughter that filtered through the other end of the phone made his blood boil on slightly - he was mostly just absolutely mortified over his own damn brain.

“Sorry.” Changbin apologized and sighed softly. “Aiden, that’s a weird dream but don’t think too much about it. You’re a young guy with a healthy libido and a crush on a cute guy with the most adorable freckles that -“

“Changbin.”

“You get where I’m going. It’s natural to have dreams about your crush jacking off.” Changbin finished with a chuckle. “I bet that family friend was just your brain’s way of justifying why you were hearing Felix jacking off. You just weren’t ready to think of yourself in that position with him.”

“Changbin, I love you, but you’re crazy. There is absolutely no way Felix would be my baby boy. I’m a 100% uber bottom. I’m not out here trying to be a daddy.” Aiden snorted, joining Changbin in his laughter at the statement.

“You’re not wrong. But you still got those feelings. Or maybe you want him to call you baby boy.” Changbin teases.

“Fuck, more than anything.” Aiden whispered, eyes closing for a moment as he imagined those words falling from Felix’s lips - whispered in that deep honeysuckle voice that sent shivers down his spine anytime he heard it. Which was usually only during music class the music class he shared with Felix when the other had to sing for the teacher or right after playing one of the wind instruments their teacher loved to torture them with - the recorder specifically. Those two words directed at him as he lay beneath Felix, body pliant and willing.

“Good god you need to get laid.”

“I wish but the guy I want to fuck my brains out is barely my friend. Besides, I don’t even think he has sexual thoughts.”

“The majority of people in the world have sexual thoughts, Aiden.”

“Yeah well, we’re teenagers -“

“Teenage pregnancy.”

“Damn it Changbin! I’m trying to make a valid argument over why I can’t have Felix. Be a little supportive will you?” Aiden nearly growled out in frustration. Changbin’s laughter didn’t help the situation and he let out a loud, long growl. “I’m so fucked.” He grunted.

“And not by Felix.” Changbin jabbed.

“I really hate you.”

“Go to sleep lover boy. I’ll see you at school.” Changbin snickered, a yawn following and Aiden couldn’t stop his own yawn from taking over him.

“Mmm, okay. See you later Binnie.” He whispered as he rolled onto his side, getting comfortable on his bed. “Night.” The words came out mumbled as he was already drifting back to sleep, the late night phone call taking away the weird feelings he had. There was a soft hum of acknowledgement that flitted through Aiden’s subconscious and he could have swore he heard a “night, baby” as he finally fell asleep, phone nestled between his head and pillow.

[howfarethestars]

of rollercoasters and love at first sight

summary: thorkyrie roller coaster meet cute au

read on ao3 (and leave a comment if you do ;)

Singles will be paired , the decorative sign next to the line for The Wormhole announced with bright purple letters on a galactic-looking background. Brunnhilde shook her head at the cheesiness, but a smile pulled at her lips. She hadn’t been to the park since she was a little kid, and that little kid inside her was having a field day.

There was a joke to be made about singles being paired, and if she wasn’t one of those singles, she would’ve made it to her partner. But she was alone. Her college buddy Bruce had been the one to invite her to the park, but he wasn’t one for roller coasters. Which left her alone and waiting for an hour while he gorged himself on cotton candy and peanut butter fudge at a jungle-themed candy shop.

She wasn’t complaining, though. The day was nice and warm—not hot. They’d come on a school day, meaning the normal crowd of screaming children and annoyed parents was thin. She looked downright sexy in her outfit—high-waisted black shorts and a white crop top with gold and purple-tinted sunglasses perched on top her double braids. Things were great.

The line moved forward a few steps, which moved her into an awning. The roof was painted neon colors—bright pink and yellow and green and blue. White speckles of stars cast lights over the crowd. Brunnhilde couldn’t help but be a little enamored. It was pretty, very eighties, and fun. This ride was a new one. It hadn’t been around when she’d been a chubby kid riding with her parents. She was excited.

Again, they moved up by about six people. The actual coaster began inside a building designed to look like a spaceship, but eventually broke through to the outdoors halfway through the ride. (According to the YouTube video she’d watched, that was; Brunnhilde never went into something without knowing what to expect.) But that building was at least a dozen people away, so Brunnhilde had a bit more time to wait.

Someone came up behind her, talking a bit too loud on the phone. Brunnhilde snuck a glance over her shoulder, pretending to look for something in the distance as she checked out the man behind her. The man was tall, all biceps and a lean frame. His hair was short and messy, a few short curls framing a handsome face and shockingly blue eyes that were piercing even in the shade of the awning they stood under.

Brunnhilde quickly turned around, her cheeks hot. Singles will be paired, a taunting voice in her head reminded her. She stared hard at the woman in front of her’s back and tried to ignore the man behind her’s conversation and his face and his eyes— oh, his eyes.

“I’m at the roller coaster,” he said, his voice warm and deep, “I’ll come find you later. Promise.”

He must’ve hung up because he went silent after that. Or, he went silent until he tapped on her shoulder, nearly giving her a heart attack. Brunnhilde jumped to face him with wide eyes, her hand flattened against her beating heart.

“Sorry,” he said, laughing a little, “I was just going to ask if you’d ridden this before?”

Brunnhilde forced herself to focus. She cleared her throat, wishing her heart would stop beating so freaking fast . “Uh, no, actually,” she said, shaking her head, “Sorry, but I watched a YouTube video.”

He nodded and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Okay, great. This is going to sound a little strange, but does it go upside down?”

Brunnhilde blinked. “Upside down?” she asked him.

The man bobbed his head. “Yeah,” he admitted a big sheepishly, “I’ll get sick if I go upside down.”

Brunnhilde smiled. So he was hot and cute. That was...problematic. She thought back to the video she’d watched right after Bruce asked her to come a few days before. It was a little fuzzy. She couldn’t remember everything, but she was pretty sure the ride didn’t go upside down.

“Uh, I think you’ll be okay,” she said, “but don’t hold me to it. If you get sick, I don’t want to be sued.”

The man chuckled, then. She liked the way his eyes crinkled around the edges when he did. “I won’t sue you,” he laughed, “On my honor. I’m Thor.”

Brunnhilde nearly laughed at the way he stuck his hand out for her to shake. He did it with such enthusiasm. Still, she slipped her hand in his and shook it firmly. “Brunnhilde. Nice to meet you.”

“So, is this your first time at the park?” Thor asked as the line moved forward.

“I used to come here a lot when I was a kid, but college, and then...normal adult life,” she said, gesturing as if to say I haven’t had time for roller coasters . “But my friend invited me, so here I am.”

“Yeah, me and my brother used to come all the time when we were young, but then…” Thor’s voice dropped off with a crack. He shook his head. “We didn’t come back for a while, I guess. But we’re here now. That’s why I’m alone, actually. My brother hates roller coasters.”

Brunnhilde couldn’t help wondering what had kept Thor and his brother from coming to the park, but it was certainly not her place to ask. She steered the conversation in another direction.

“I’ve heard this ride is pretty intense,” she said lightly, nodding towards the building they were steady growing closer to. “Sure you can handle it?”

Thor laughed. “Of course,” he said, flexing comically, “I’m a manly man. Unafraid. Unflinching. Masculine.”

Brunnhilde clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from sounding like a bloody idiot as a stream of laughter tried to escape her. It was a problem, really, the effect he was having on her. It wasn’t even that funny. Her stomach was doing backflips. Ridiculous, she thought.

“As long as it doesn’t go upside down, right?” she teased, tilting her head at him.

Thor’s cheeks flushed pink. “Right,” he said, folding his arms over his chest. His eyes flitted over to the building, and he nodded towards the line that had moved a section up. “They’re leaving us behind.”

Brunnhilde and Thor jogged to catch up with the line, and they stood on the steps to the building.

“Next time we move, we’ll be on the ride,” he said, lightly punching her arm, “Are you excited?”

Brunnhilde nodded. “Yeah, totally. Are you?”

“Of course,” he said. He smiled without showing his teeth, like an emoji or something. God, he was cute. “Even if I wasn’t, I still have to prove my brother wrong. He told me I wouldn’t make it without vomiting.”

Brunnhilde hummed. “Funny, I told my friend the same thing. Only he listened.”

Thor hummed. “Maybe I should be more like your friend.”

The line shifted again, and Thor practically lit up. “This is it,” he said, beaming. He grabbed the door and held it open for her, sweeping the air with his arm. “Mylady.”

Brunnhilde snorted, but obliged him, bowing dramatically as she walked up the short steps into the building that housed the coaster. Inside was even more outrageously space-themed than outside. The colors were blinding, but gorgeous. Brunnhilde gaped at it, her eyes sparkling with wonder, as she spun in place to see it all. The ceiling was painted a deep blue, with dangling planets hanging down close enough for Brunnhilde to touch. They glowed from the inside out, bathing the waiting crowds in a warm glow.

Brunnhilde looked over her shoulder at Thor, who was looking at the decorations with equal awe. His lips were partly open, and his bright blue eyes were aglow under the lights of the planets and stars around him. He looked ethereal.

Brunnhilde blinked a few times and turned away from him. Butterflies—no, manta rays—were flapping around in her belly. This was ridiculous. She was really falling for this man, whom she just met. This was ridiculous.

“Welcome to the Wormhole ,” a bright voice announced over loudspeakers, “a galactic adventure!”

Thor shook his head as if he were clearing the stars from his eyes. “We’re almost there,” he whispered to Brunnhilde, “You ready?”

Brunnhilde bobbed her head. “As I’ll ever be. Are you?”

Thor shrugged. “I suppose. If I’m being honest, my stomach feels like it’s trying to crawl its way out of my mouth. Is that a medical condition?”

“It might be,” she said, “I’ll have to google that one. Sounds serious though. Are you sure you’re up for this?

“I’m already in line, now,” Thor said, heaving a long sigh, as if he were truly annoyed that he had to ride the roller coaster, “Besides, don’t you need a partner?”

Brunnhilde didn’t know why, but that made the manta rays in her stomach do backflips. Her cheeks flushed with heat. “I guess I do,” she breathed.

“The line moved up,” a man behind them said gruffly. He all but pushed the two of them forward, glaring.

Brunnhilde mumbled an apology and scurried up to meet the end of the line. Thor was frowning slightly, watching the cars speed off into the darkness of the ride. He absentmindedly fiddled with the bracelets on his wrist. A nervous tick, she guessed.

“Hey,” she said gently, placing her hand on his bicep, “You good?”

Thor swallowed thickly. “No, I’m terrified. But I’m going to prove Loki wrong. Even if it kills me.”

Brunnhilde lifted an eyebrow. “Why didn’t Loki come ride, then? Instead of daring you to?”

Thor’s eyes widened as if he hadn’t considered that. He shook his head. “He’s always been able to rile me. I don’t think I’ve ever turned down his dares.”

Brunnhilde just shook her head. “If you throw up on me,” she warned, shaking her finger like some too-strict school teacher, “I’m going to throw up on you. And then we’ll never be able to look each other in the eye again.”

Thor gave her a smile that made her heart beat a little faster. Those blue eyes crinkled around the edges, and the light dusting of freckles on his nose jumped out. “Well, we just met. We could always walk away from the situation and never think about it again.”

He said as if he had no intention of actually doing that. Hope stirred in Brunnhilde’s chest. She was no stranger to guys who just wanted to flirt and go. And she wasn’t above a little playful flirting. But it warmed her heart to think maybe this guy was more than that. Brunnhilde had never been one to believe in love at first sight, but the longer she watched Thor smile like a bloody idiot at her, the more she thought she might’ve been the victim of it.

“Maybe I don’t want to do that,” Brunnhilde said, all in a rush like her brain would’ve stopped her from saying it if she’d waited a second longer.

Thor’s grin widened.

“Seriously, move up !” the same man shouted, throwing his hands in the air.

“Sorry,” they chorused, jogging up to the rest of the line.

Brunnhilde mentally counted the people ahead of them, then gasped and clutched Thor’s forearm. “We’re next,” she said, beaming. She shuffled her feet, her sneakers squeaking against the tile floor.

They mounted the short platform and nodded to the attendant as they climbed into the car. Brunnhilde pulled down the handles over her chest, almost perfectly in sync with Thor. The attendant, a college-aged girl with big curls and freckles on her brown skin, locked each guest into their spots. The locks clicked on she and Thor’s car with finality.

“Alright, you guys know the drill!” the attendant shouted, “Arms and legs inside the cars at all times! And have fun!”

Thor was pale. “Is it too late to get off?” he asked, looking at her with pure terror in his eyes.

Brunnhilde opened her mouth to tell him “no”, but that automated voice from early came on the speakers again. “Takeoff in...3...2…”

And they didn’t hear the one. The roller coaster lurched forward, pressing Brunnhilde flat against the back of her seat. A happy sound bubbled out of her throat. Adrenaline replaced anxiety as bright lights rushed past her head. The ride was just as beautiful on the inside as the outside. The coaster sped through the galaxy, passing constellations and meteorites. She screamed at the top of her lungs, a smile as wide as the Grand Canyon on her face.

When they broke through to the outside, they began their ascent. Brunnhilde glanced over to Thor, who looked better than he had five minutes ago, at least. He looked shaken, yes, but not petrified.

“You good?” she asked, laughing.

Thor nodded. “I guess. It’s not so bad, as long as…”

All the color drained from Thor’s face. His blue eyes fixed on something in the distance. “I thought you said it didn’t go upside down,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Brunnhilde cursed and leaned over to see a set of double loops awaiting them. Guilt rushed through her. “Thor I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

Thor settled back against his seat, like he’d accepted his death and was at peace with it. “It’s fine. It’s my fault for not looking at the thing in the first place.”

The cars crested the top of the incline, and sat there for a moment. Brunnhilde took in the view. It was beautiful.

“Are you going to be okay?” she asked Thor, as the cart slowly slipped down the other side of the hump. Her stomach swirled. In a moment, talking would be impossible.

Thor answered her, but she couldn’t hear it. The ground practically dropped out from under them, shooting the coaster towards the cold cement below. Brunnhilde screeched, and Thor did, too. Only Thor sounded genuinely afraid.

All Brunnhilde could think was, Please don’t throw up.

The ride went quickly, at least for Brunnhilde. Thor had squeezed his eyes shut, and he was clutchin the bars of the ride like a vice. They approached the loops so quickly that she didn’t have time to worry about Thor, but they were through them in 3 seconds flat. The ride was over, then, coming to a screeching halt under a covered building. Their straps came undone automatically, sliding up with a whoosh .

Thor was pale as a sheet, and clearly woozy. Brunnhilde climbed out of her seat and leaned back over to help him. He gripped her wrists tightly, and she had to practically drag him onto the platform. He leaned against her, and she grunted under his weight.

“C’mon,” she said, gently guiding him away from the ride. They weaves through the exiting crowd and right to a bench next to a trash can. Thor collapsed, breathing heavy.

“Are you going to hurl?” Brunnhilde asked, crossing her arms from where she stood, a safe difference away from him. “Because that’s fine, as long I’m standing over here.”

Thor laughed weakly. “I think... ugh , I think I’m okay.”

“Okay, good,” she said, coming back to sit next to him. “You made it through the ride without throwing up, though. You proved your brother wrong.”

Thor nodded. “I did,” he said, smiling. He straightened himself, and exhaled long and slow. “What do you say we find your friend, and find my brother, hm? And hang out?”

Thor didn’t want to leave her as much as she didn’t want to leave him, then, she realized. A grin spread across her face. “Yeah, that’d be great,” she said, nodding. She pushed herself to her feet and held out her hand to help Thor up. “Let’s get you a Sprite.”

Brunnhilde had never believed in love at first sight. It was unrealistic, she’d said, that would never happen to a real person. But the last time she checked, she was very real. Thor was real, too. And as they walked through the theme park, their hands almost subconsciously finding each other, Brunnhilde fell in love.

[thirteen-beaxhes]

Well This is Egg-celent (Tyrus One Shot)

Summary: TJ jokingly left a comment on Cyrus Goodman’s Tweet, and got an unexpected response.

Words: 4248

AO3 LINK IN REBLOG

~~~~~~~~~

“Hope you guys enjoyed this one! I loved the concept and had a blast making it with all my friends. I will see you all again, with another ridiculous to execute idea!” And the screen went black, the boxes of Youtube’s recommended videos popping up.

TJ laughed slightly at the end, using the back of his hoodie sleeve to wipe his nose, ignoring the tears streaming down his face. No stopping them clearly. But he was happy for the short break from his spiralling mind, for the brief respite.

Thank god for Cyrus Goodman’s films and videos, he thought to himself with a sigh, pushing his laptop back onto the bed which he had currently been lying on for two days straight. Amber had been walking in every now and then, desperately trying to get TJ to do something, anything, to try and not have him sink further into his emotions.

That worked about as well as one could imagine.

Drawing a shaky breath, TJ brushed off some of the cookie crumbs on his hoodie, accidentally kicking the empty ice cream carton off the bed. Oh well. He looked around his room to find it resembling the scene of a tornado hitting it. But he just couldn’t get himself to clean it. In that state, the chaos was comforting to him.

He picked up his phone, rubbing his stinging eyes as he opened Instagram. He clicked on the first Story, not even checking the name. He just wanted to let them play, giving some background noise as he just stared blankly at his screen. But, he jerked his head forward as soon as he heard that oh, so familiar voice.

Louis.

TJ gulped, his throat suddenly dry. He held his phone up with both his hands, peering at the screen, looking at the boy who had walked into his life a year ago and had stolen his heart, and who had left nothing but a stain on the carpet when he ran away with its broken pieces 3 days ago. He was at the bowling alley, hugging another boy TJ hadn’t seen before by the shoulders, laughing, his smile radiant. Having the time of his life.

Hoor-fucking-ray.

Tears filled up his eyes, as he immediately exited the stories, slamming his phone down onto the bed. He sniffed, unable to stop  some stray ones from falling, the drops staining his hoodie.

He just hadn’t been good enough for him, that was it, TJ thought to himself, picking up his phone again, very pointedly avoiding Instagram. That’s why he was able to move on so fast. That, and the circumstances of their actual break up.

TJ took a deep breath, opening Twitter to absent-mindedly scroll through his account. He made it a point to stick to his stan account, knowing that it was the only social media where he wasn’t following a certain someone. He let out a small breath every time he came across a meme, just trying to lose himself to the endless scrolling.

A few minutes later, a notification popped up with the tweeting of a bird. TJ narrowed his eyes, scrolling up and letting a small smile come up on his face.

@CyGoodman_ : i’m in an irrationally vengeful and havoc-wreaking mood now

TJ laughed quietly, shaking his head slightly at the tweet. He could just imagine Cyrus standing with a sledgehammer ready to total someone’s car. He focused more on the Cyrus part than the car, but no one needed to know that.

Maybe it was the mood he was in, or maybe TJ was just too tired. But soon enough, he found himself typing out a reply and posting it, before he was able to register what exactly he had just said.

@filmsaregoodman : haha great maybe you can help me egg my idiot ex’s house this weekend then

Why did he say that?! Cyrus was going to think he was so weird!! TJ thought to himself in a panic, taking short breaths as he clicked on the button to delete it, but he stopped himself.

He would never see it, given the flood of replies, he rationalised. Besides, he just saw someone ask him to meet them in an abandoned building with a pickaxe so he definitely didn’t have to worry about being too weird.

TJ just groaned, shutting off his phone and plugging it into his charger as he turned onto his side. He just needed to sleep and focus on trying and actually getting up the next day, he thought as he pulled the sheet over himself.

*

The beeping of his alarm drilled into TJ’s brain, and he groaned as he rolled over onto his back, pinching the bridge of his nose. Who invented the concept of time? TJ just wanted to have a kind word with them.

As he blindly reached for his phone, TJ was also hit with the unimaginable stench of his room, courtesy of him not having showered. He winced at that, making a mental note to go crazy on the deodorant. He opened his phone, clicking on the Twitter app. Nothing extraordinary seemed to have happened, but when TJ looked through his messages, his eyes caught a name and he yelped loudly, falling off his bed in an unceremonious crash.

“TJ!” Amber yelled, running into the room, holding a spatula. She saw TJ breathing heavy on the floor, muttering wildly to himself. She walked up to him and smacked him on the head with the spatula. “What happened?!”

“Why do you have a spatula?!” TJ asked incredulously, rubbing his head.

“Cuz I thought you were being attacked!”

“So a spatula was your best weapon? You were literally in the kitchen! With knives!”

“Well, I’m sorry if I grabbed the first weapon I could find! And we are getting off track!”

“Okay so,” TJ said loudly, before holding up his phone in excitement. “Cyrus Goodman DM’ed me!”

“What?!” Amber yelled excitedly, dropping the spatula on the floor as she jumped next to TJ. “What? How?”

TJ explained the Tweets from the previous night and then held his phone up to her, showing her the message. Amber pulled the phone to her, peering at the message in confusion.

“Hey! This is so weird and may seem stalkerish ahhhh but I saw your reply to my tweet so I wanted to ask: can I have your address?? I swear I won’t send a hitman to your house!” Amber read out, narrowing her eyes in confusion. “Well, that’s strange.”

“I know but, he messaged me!” TJ squealed, but soon he looked at her in confusion. “What do I say? What does he want my address for? Maybe he wants to send something? Oh my god, how do I look?”

Amber laughed, shaking her head as she got up, patting him on the shoulder. “I don’t know bro, you need to figure that out.” With that, she walked out of the room, yelling that she would be back from work late that day.

TJ sighed as Amber left, hiding his head in his hands.

He could draft a message to his favourite creator no problem, right?

Yeah, right.

*

Despite his five hundred mental breakdowns over trying to type a single word to Cyrus Goodman, the next couple days passed relatively normally. Amber finally managed to shove TJ out of bed, forcing him to go to work at the coffee shop where Marty was extremely concerned at his disappearance. Life returned to normal, and if TJ shied away from his phone and social media, and just smiled amicably at guys who tried to hit on him, no one said a word. The messages and tweets slipped out of his mind almost completely.

It was now Friday, and TJ groaned as Amber walked up to him, modelling yet another dress as she prepared for her date that night.

“You sure you’ll be okay at home?” Amber asked, concerned, as she looked at herself in the mirror.

“Yes Amber, I’ll be perfectly fine,” TJ said, laughing slightly.

“Okay,” she said, slightly unsure. But soon, she grabbed her handbag and left, flashing a small smile of nervousness before she left.

After she had gone, TJ slumped into the couch, grabbing the popcorn and ice cream he had abandoned as Amber asked him opinions on all her outfits for her date. He opened Netflix, hugging a pillow as he clicked play on ‘Always be my Maybe’, telling himself he was only watching for Keanu Reeves, not at all because he was lonely and rom-coms were his only shot at romance in his life.

He was more than halfway through the movie, and past the point of being civil as he ate, stuffing popcorn into his mouth as tears rolled down his cheeks. It wasn’t even that the movie was sad, but he was just having one of those movie nights. Suddenly, he heard a knock at the door. Narrowing his eyes, TJ brushed off some popcorn kernels, confused at who could it be. Not Amber, unless her date went bad.

Probably their neighbour about sugar, TJ sighed, as he pushed himself off the couch and rubbed his eyes as he shuffled to the door.

“Sorry mate, no sugar,” TJ said, before looking up and gasping.

Cyrus. Goodman.

What happened next, TJ wasn’t at all proud of. He screamed and slammed the door shut.

What the? How the? Why was Cyrus Goodman at his doorstep? TJ thought wildly, running a hand through his hair. He jerked his head up in shock.

He had just slammed the door on him!

TJ took a deep breath, keeping his eyes squeezed shut as he opened the door, with what he could only assume was a sheepish expression on his face.

“Hey,” Cyrus said softly, and TJ could’ve practically melted on the spot. “I thought for a second I had the wrong house or something,” he said, giving a small laugh that could’ve made angels sing. “Are you, Theo?”

“Y-Yeah,” TJ whispered, finally looking up, but immediately looking back down at his feet because oh my god Cyrus Goodman was standing at his doorstep. “Actually, TJ.”

“What?”

“Call me TJ. I just use Theo on Twitter so people don’t know who I am,” TJ said sheepishly, finally forcing himself to look at Cyrus.

He looked amazing, obviously. He was wearing a navy blue sweatshirt and dark jeans. But TJ furrowed his eyebrows when he looked down, noticing the three toilet paper rolls and three egg cartons tucked under Cyrus’ arm.

“Um, what’s that?” TJ asked, pointing at the questionable supplies. Cyrus looked confused, but looked down at his arm and understood.

“Oh! Yeah, I didn’t wanna bother you with the supplies, so I got them myself!” he said happily, pulling TJ out of the house by the hand. “Come on, we don’t have much time.”

“T-Time? For, for what?” TJ stammered out, unable to concentrate on anything other than the fact that he was practically holding Cyrus’ hand. Cyrus tilted his head to one side.

“To teach your ex a lesson,” Cyrus said simply, with a smile that teased I thought that was obvious.

A wave of realisation hit TJ, and he dropped his jaw open. “I was, I was joking.”

“Well, I’m not. Come on, it’ll make you not cry,” Cyrus said softly, reaching up to wipe away a tear that was on TJ’s cheek with his thumb. His hand lingered by TJ’s face, and god, if that was what it felt like to have your breath taken away, TJ never wanted to breath ever again.

Before he knew it, TJ was slipping on shoes and grabbing the keys out of the cat bowl he and Amber had stolen from their parents’ house when they moved out, shutting the door behind him as he followed Cyrus out the door.

Now that they were outside, walking on the streets, TJ was confronted by the fact that this was real. There he was, walking down the street with someone whose work he had admired for so long, who he may or may not think was breathtaking to look at, and they were walking with him to John’s house, to egg and TP it. Even dreams couldn’t come up with something this wild. But it was real, the chill in the night air, his visible breath in the air, everything was real.

“Let me hold something,” TJ said, trying to grab some of the things from Cyrus, but he moved away.

“No no, let me,” he said with a smile. “Least I could do.”

“Well, you’re doing more than you had to already. It’s all I could do.”

“Still. I wanna do this.”

TJ smiled, shaking his head slightly. He looked ahead, catching glimpses of Cyrus in his peripheral vision every now and then. He could also feel Cyrus looking at him every so often, and that made TJ’s cheeks flush, but if anyone noticed, he’d blame it on the cold.

Finally, after some minutes of silence and of Cyrus looking at him, TJ caved and turned to Cyrus. “What? Did I leave ice cream on my face?” he asked nervously, reaching up to wipe whatever it was away.

“No no,” Cyrus said, raising his eyebrows in amusement. “It’s just, I can’t imagine someone being stupid enough to let someone like you go.”

That comment was enough to turn TJ into a blushing mess, his heart doing the foxtrot in his chest. “I mean, I’m not that great.”

“That’s insane! We’ve exchanged like, 5 sentences, and I know that if you were with me, I’d never let you go.”

TJ choked, disguising it as a cough. What what what, did he say if TJ were with him. Hold the phone, he was dying. Tell Amber that he died as he lived, gay.

Cyrus just laughed quietly, bumping his shoulder with TJ’s. “Sorry, too much?”

“No no! Not at all,” TJ exclaimed, turning to look at him. “I just, no one’s said that before.”

“I can’t believe that,” Cyrus said, and TJ had to keep his eyes trained to the ground, knowing that hiss face was burning up.

They walked down the street in silence for some more time, before Cyrus looked at TJ.

“If you don’t mind telling me, why do you want to egg your ex’s house?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

TJ sighed, looking up at the sky, few stars visible in the sky. Fitting. “We’d been dating for 8 months, but I always felt like I was giving more than he ever was. And then I found out two weeks ago, that he was cheating on me,” he said quietly.

“That’s horrible TJ,” Cyrus said quietly. TJ just scoffed.

“Worst part, I knew that’s the kind of guy he was. And yet, I thought I could be the exception.”

“It’s not your fault,” Cyrus said comfortingly, placing a hand on TJ’s shoulder.

TJ just smiled appreciatively. He looked to his left and stopped, taking a deep breath.

“What is it?” Cyrus asked, stopping beside him.

‘We’re here,” he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

“Well then,” Cyrus said, with a mischievous smile as he set down the cartons and pulled out two eggs. He handed one to TJ and kept one with himself. “On the count of three then.”

TJ smiled nervously up at Cyrus. “One.”

“Two,” Cyrus said with a smile, coming closer to TJ.

And with twin smiles, they looked at each other. “Three.”

*

“That was insane,” TJ said with a smile, running a hand through his hair, but realising too late that there was egg yolk on his fingers. “Ugh!”

Cyrus was laughing, doubled over. TJ looked over, unamused.

“Haha. Thanks Goodman.”

“Hey,” Cyrus said, holding his hands up. “Did it help or not?”

“Actually,” TJ said, looking away thoughtfully. “It did.”

“See? Vengeance tastes sweet.”

“More like tastes like an impending salmonella infestation.”

Cyrus rolled his eyes, shoving TJ in the shoulder. But then, his expression grew softer. “You sure you’re okay?”

And when TJ thought about it, he was surprised to find himself nodding. Cyrus let out a sigh of relief, looking at his watch.

“Well, 2 am is no time to go home but I’ll try my luck,” he said with a tired smile. “I had fun, TJ.” And with that, Cyrus began walking away, but TJ called out to him.

“Hey!” he said, running up slightly to him. “If you want, you can stay over at my place.”

Cyrus raised his eyebrows slightly, and TJ tried to explain himself nervously. “Well, it’s late. And it’s the least I could do after you came all this way.”

“I literally live across town, TJ,” Cyrus said with a giggle. “But okay, I’ll take you up on that offer. Thanks.”

With that, the two of them began walking back to TJ’s house, an unexpected tension in the air. But it wasn’t unwelcome. TJ and Cyrus constantly snuck glances at each other, both looking away as soon as the other caught them, cheeks pink. And it was pure coincidence if they were walking close enough to let their fingers brush against each other with every step.

They crept into the house quietly, TJ putting a finger to his lips.

“My sister is probably back from her date,” he whispered, and Cyrus nodded, and they made their way to TJ’s room, avoiding as many floorboard creaks as they could. When they got to the room, TJ wanted to throttle himself at the mess.

“I’m, I’m sorry about everything,” TJ muttered, trying to clear space. But Cyrus was deep in thought, looking around the room in awe at the posters and pictures, running his fingers along the spines of the books on TJ’s shelf.

“You like reading?” Cyrus asked softly, turning around as he took off his shoes.

TJ nodded. “Mostly history. You?”

“Space and reptiles,” he replied, sitting down beside TJ on the bed.

“Wow. Just two nerds sitting here together, huh?”

“Seems like it.”

There was a silence after that, both unsure of what to say. The soft orange light of the lamp in TJ’s room was making Cyrus’ face look warm and even more gorgeous than normal. TJ let his gaze flick down to Cyrus’ lips, but he pulled his eyes away, reminding himself that he did not need a relationship just then. Cyrus took a deep breath, hiding what looked like disappointment behind a soft smile.

“So, uh, I’ll take the floor?” TJ said, picking up his pillow. But Cyrus shook his head.

“No, I’ll take the floor, you sleep in your bed.”

“It’s fine, Cyrus.”

“No it’s not,” Cyrus said, grabbing TJ’s hand. “Okay, let’s just share the bed.”

TJ glanced at his bed, worried about size. But the atmosphere in the room was making his sleepy, so he just nodded his head, making the bed for the two of them.

Before they got into bed, TJ grabbed Cyrus’ elbow and pulled him to himself, wrapping him in a hug. Cyrus was surprised, but soon slipped his arms around TJ’s waist.

“Thank you for this,” TJ whispered into Cyrus’ ear, before pulling away and climbing into bed, Cyrus following him as his back faced TJ’s.

And when Amber walked into the room the next morning to find her brother sleepily cuddling the famous person who had messaged her brother, she almost screamed in shock, horror and joy. But then, she just smiled, and went to make breakfast.

*

TJ should have known. Some things were just too good to last. Even things like Cyrus Goodman.

Why had he been stupid enough to let himself fall again? Why couldn’t he learn his lesson?

He’d convinced himself Cyrus was different that Cyrus had seen who he was, and he loved him. He had convinced himself that they were meant to meet for a reason, because he was the one.

Well, another thing TJ Kippen was wrong about.

“Teej, please open the door,” Amber pleaded. “I’m worried about you.”

TJ sighed, pausing his loud rock music to open to door to Amber. Amber gasped when she saw his bedraggled appearance, immediately pulling him in for a hug. Even though he had spent the last 4 hours crying, that hug alone made TJ collapse into sobs, sinking to the floor as he pulled Amber down with him.

“I really thought, Amber,” TJ gasped, but Amber shushed his, placing her hand on the back of his head.

“You’ll be okay, I got you,” she whispered back to him, as she held onto TJ. After they pulled away, when TJ’s tears were just a silent stream, she narrowed her eyes. “What did he say?”

TJ just shook his head. “He just said, ‘This isn’t gonna work out. I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s me. I can’t explain.’ Bullshit.”

“That’s a lame excuse,” Amber huffed, pushing a strand of TJ’s hair back.

“I don’t know what to do Amber,” TJ said in a broken voice. “I thought we could make it. But, I shouldn’t trust anyone.”

“I’m so sorry Teej,” Amber said, leaning her head against TJ’s. “Do you want me to make you anything? I can get ice cream from Costco.”

“No,” TJ said, shaking his head and pushing himself off the floor. “I, I need to do something. But I need your help.”

“Okay?” Amber asked, confused.

“Could you get a carton of eggs for me?”

*

“Why are we doing this?” Amber said, hoding the carton of eggs as she and TJ sat in the cab to Cyrus’ apartment. “What, are we gonna egg his front door? Cuz I’m gonna do more than that.”

TJ shook his head, a small smile on his face as he got out of the cab. He took a deep breath and walked into the building, walking up the stairs to Cyrus’ apartment. The lights seemed to be out from downstairs, so he was probably out or asleep.

“Give me the eggs,” TJ said, and Amber handed him the carton, which he set down at the doorstep.

“Wait, what? We aren’t throwing them?” Amber whined, but TJ just looked up at her.

“Can you, give me a minute?” he asked quietly, and Amber nodded, walking down the stairs.

After she was gone, TJ pulled out a carefully penned note from his coat and placed it on the carton, knocking loudly on the door before walking away, squeezing his eyes shut as he left the building.

I couldn’t even find the energy to throw these at you. Because you were the last person I expected I’d need to do that to.

*

TJ called into work sick the next day, a fact Marty didn’t question much. He didn’t need to ask TJ to see that he was going through utter shit at the time. So, some time alone was what he needed. Even though Amber wasn’t completely ready to leave him alone, but TJ pushed her to accept the date her girlfriend had asked her on.

“I’ll be okay, Amber,” he had said, kissing her on the forehead. “Now go get your girl.”

The mood was perfect too, the rain beginning to pour in torrents. TJ curled up in his blanket, watching Love Island on television. At least some people’s love lives were worse than his. TJ was heavily immersed in the drama between the house members, when suddenly, he heard someone knocking on the door.

In this downpour? TJ thought to himself as he walked to the door and opened it. But when he saw who it was, he froze.

“Cyrus, are you crazy?! What are you doing here?” TJ asked in shock, taking in his appearance.

“I, I had to see you,” Cyrus said between pants, taking in deep breaths.

“Did you run here?”

Nodding, Cyrus took a step forward, but stayed outside. “TJ. I’m so, so sorry. I thought I had to protect you, but I, I made a mistake.”

“Don’t,” TJ cut him off, his voice breaking. “Don’t’ do that, Cyrus. I’m trying to move on.”

“Please, TJ,” Cyrus pleaded, grabbing onto TJ’s elbow. “Please just hear me out.”

TJ just sighed, and looked up at Cyrus, nodding.

“I love you, TJ. So, so much. And being with you has been the best thing to happen to me. And when we decided to go public, I was so happy that I could share my happiness with everyone,” Cyrus said with a sad smile. “But, I started seeing messages and posts with people hating on you, and insulting you, and I know you said it didn’t bother you, but I know it did. I could see it in your eyes. I thought if we weren’t together, it would stop, and you’d be okay.”

“Cyrus,” TJ said softly, squeezing his hand. “You don’t need to worry about that. Sure, it’ll take some getting used to, but in the end, I just wanted to be with you.”

“I just wanna be with you too,” Cyrus said softly, reaching up to brush TJ’s cheek with his thumb.

TJ smiled softly, before leaning in to capture Cyrus’ lips in his, tasting the rain without any care. Cyrus wrapped his arms around TJ’s waist as TJ cupped his cheeks. After they pulled away, TJ leaned his forehead against Cyrus’.

“I love you, TJ.”

“I love you too, Cyrus. And I hope you never give me a reason to egg your house.”

 ~~~~~~~~

This is fluff cuz i got peer pressure by @heart-eyes-kippen and @criminalambis​