#still obsessed with the way the artist drew her. i knew they were a good choice

[seaofserene]

twirls hair... kicks feet... thinking about her.

[pancake404]

The Prototype Squad

I wanted to make my version of the role the Bigger Bodies/Smiling Critters were in specifically on the Prototype side. So here is the Prototype Squad and some head canons I have with them. They all are totally hinged and sane.

Catnap: Catnap is the obvious one as he always was on the Prototype’s side but I think out of an ironic twist, Catnap is the most sane out of them all. He is also the unofficial leader of the squad despite Catnap’s insistence to continue to focus the leadership role on the Prototype. He often uses his red smoke and insanely sharp claws to hunt down as well as stalking.

Some extra head canons include that Catnap is often the one hunting and does try to take care of the followers. He still does prefer being by himself.

Craftycorn: She focuses a lot more on perfection and her artwork given the obsession she has with the color red after the hour of joy. She pretty creative both in an artistic way and hunting way as she thinks of ideas to eliminate heretics. She does enjoy making paintings of the Prototype to show to Catnap which he always appreciates. Her weapon of choice is a knife which she finds easier to obtain and use the color red.

She died when Pickypiggy managed to sneak up on her while she was painting, they fought but Pickypiggy ended her up victorious with the first sneak attack.

Pickypiggy: Out of them all, she is the least devoted to the Prototype as she mainly joined because Catnap offered the deal of being fed. She’s sort of a danger to the other followers as she would constantly think of hunting and eating them as well as hogging food for herself only which is something Catnap…isn’t fond of. Despite this, she is loyal to Catnap’s orders as he is the one giving her food unless Pickypiggy manages to hunt down other toys herself. Her weapon of choice is a cleaver which she uses as she doesn’t possess any sort of claws. It also helps hacking away at other toys.

Picky died after killing Crafty when Catnap figured enough was enough and labeled Picky as a heretic for now killing other followers and keeping food away for herself while others starved.

Bobby Bearhug: She is similar to Picky as she’s more devoted to Catnap than the Prototype but she didn’t prove herself to be a harm to other followers and still aided the Prototype so Catnap didn’t care much. She mostly acts out of fear of being alone from trauma of being in an isolated space where she couldn’t hear or speak. As shown, she has a bit of an obsession over him. Her way of killing is brutal but interesting. She’s good with words and psychological manipulation so she is able to spin others’ words around, labeling them as heretics for Catnap to kill but she is still physically strong being able to break bones or strangle others.

Catnap is unsure if Bobby is dead or not as one day she was there and the other…she wasn’t. He even asked the Prototype if he knew but the Prototype surprisingly didn’t know either. There are sometimes rumors that the Prototype did know but just neglected to tell Catnap for whatever reason. The line, “Now you won’t ever leave” is original and not part of the cutouts or anywhere in the game. I figured it would be fitting ending line for her to say.

All members of the Prototype Squad are clever and dangerous in their own ways and I might make actual Bigger Body Versions for the other three. For now I drew them sort of like the Reborn! Au where the biggest bodies get reincarnated into the cartoon universe.

Fun fact: I was considering adding Hoppy into the group but so far, the squad alright being a group of four.

[katyspersonal]

3, 18, 24, 29, 32 for Mico :3

(Asks from this ( x ) meme)

3) What first drew you to this character?

Like I said, my first introduction to Micolash was his theme song, paired with a concept art image of him since it was on Youtube. And I already was instantly captivated! My initial impression was that for some reason he was a helpless puppet, and I wanted to know of what exactly! So I've caught up on his lore.... and was sorely disappointed, because back then Fromsoft barely giving information was a novelty for me XD Still, I appreciated the madness, and the mystery. I was really impressed as he felt like someone on much higher level of knowledge, in NO way I felt like he was "silly" or "a joke" x)

18) Do you prefer to see this character suffer or know peace? Angst or comfort? Both?

Both! Imagining him laugh genuinely, not in madness, is one of my most comforting fantasies... ;-; I love seeing him peaceful, happy and, of course, loved! At the same time, I enjoy depictions of him recollecting his humanity only to collapse in tears and horror. Reflecting on how far everything has gone, on the people he had lost (usually Rom), on having lost himself..

24) Do you ever dream about this character? If so, describe a dream you once had about them.

This is... a heavy question. Micolash used to frequent my dreams. There is a whole saga about it, in a way, ahaha! I think my very first dream about him truly bound us. I dreamed about being Rom (even before I knew or created anything about her), walking on the water surface of the lake but it had water lilies, and seeing Micolash's back turned as he was praying. I tried to reach out to him and call him, but got absolutely ignored, then I looked down in the water and realised that although "I" perceived myself as a girl, I in reality became a spider. Realisation made me wake up, strangely with extreme nausea and thirst, even if I was not sick or poisoned.

But there were many other dreams a while later after that one. In this order: he invaded my average nightmare about my stepdad saying 'she is ours now' to him; him pulling me down into the sea to drown; him deceiving me with "loving me back" whereas he was hypnotising me to follow into apparently a trap (sort of an attic full of dust, books and mirrors) and I woke up when I snapped out of trance; the dream where he kept tormenting me by putting me through death by Frenzy over and over yet I kept respawning and unable to change my situation, and once I found a Sedative that was my only chance to get out of the 'loop' I've given it to a mother whose child kept suffering the same fate. When he saw it, he spared me and teleported me into a bed to have a rest... while he was very, very harshly scolding me for being "too obsessive" and weirding HIM out, that I was too much for HIM, and that he'd never love me and I was nobody for him?

And the last one in this 'line' was when I was little again, in my room, in the time where a very particular trauma happened to me. Except, it was full of the same fog as Nightmare of Mensis, and Micolash was there, offering to undo it...? Unfortunately, it didn't happen, but I appreciated the offer. Ironic that THE nightmare man would offer to stop my nightmares (or rather, take control over them, as "lesser evil"). And, of course, don't forget semi-regular Micolaurence dreams!

29) Do you get defensive about this character? If yes, then why?

I DO! And sometimes not for a good reason. It is like an instinct! xD Like, at times I am unable to take the joke about him being "just silly unwashed unhinged failure wet cat" fsdhfhds I am dead serious, I actually sometimes pout and want to write a long essay on how WELL AKTUALY he is very complicated and deep and messed up character! This is why other simps don't like talking to me anymore fhshdfshfs

The most defensive I've ever gotten about him was when an anon complimented an artist that (deliberately) prettified Micolash because they liked "aesthetic" or whatever. Anon praised the artist for "fixing" the "ugly" character, without exaggeration, and for making him "actually attractive" :/ But you've been there with me, you've gotten mad at that anon with me, you remember. Saying that someone made the non-conventionally attractive character aKtUaLLy lOoK GuD by replacing him with idealised version true to one's own preferences in appearance.. You know how Gehrman haters say that 'Doll is prettyfied idealised version of Maria crafted to his tastes that in no way reflects Maria's actual vibe'? I think as hard as I cringed at that moment, but in the end, I am able to understand how Gehrman haters feel when gamerbros simp for Doll!

So yeah, after realising that I have this problem of getting too defensive over integrity of my favs, including appearance, I have to restrain myself and rationalise. For example, 'maybe he used to look much prettier and healthier in Byrgenwerth times!' is reasonable! I just... won that trait in 'unlikeable' autistic fan traits lottery. You know, that one. That, if left unattended, will surely one day make the fan completely alone. As anyone is scared of telling them anything in fear of being "corrected". With only the characters they so-much-cherished to keep them company now. What a sad fate. I am sure there will be a better use for it one day than acting as though fictional characters have human rights sighhhhh....

32) If you could make this character a meal, what would you make them?

Well, look at this man, he never eats anything anymore because he's too focused on his research, so ANY meal would be good for him x) But greenish skin tone instantly makes me think of iron deficiency, so I would offer him chickpea spinach curry!

Thank you for asking!!

[akocomyk]

A foreword

My life as a writer started with me being a campus journalist. Half of my college life was devoted to my editorship in the official student publication.

I became the Editor-in-Chief during my senior year. This had been my dream ever since I joined the organization, backed by my frustration for not becoming one when I was in high school.

I was very dedicated in my work as the EIC. Actually, I was already very dedicated even before I held the highest position. I was strict and harsh, and I was always honest in making criticisms even if it would hurt people’s feelings. I acted that way because I wanted to achieve the best output we could while also being a good leader and example to my fellow journalists.

Because of that, some of our members feared me, some adored me, some literally had a crush on me, and some just saw me as the big brother they could always rely onto.

Being a Multimedia Arts student, I kinda had this dual life where I was a designer/artist by day and a writer by night—I'm not even mentioning the other extra curricular stuff I did.

Theoretically speaking, I could make the entire newspaper on my own. That never happened though, but I still did a lot more than what any editor was mandated to do. I wrote articles, made layouts, created various designs, drew comics and illustrations, etc.

This prompted some members to joke that when I graduate, the work that I did all on my own would have to be done by five people.

I had been so attached to that organization and all its people—I think they had also grown attached to me—that the thought of me leaving when I graduate was just so bittersweet—with more inclination on the bitter and sad side.

Like it or not, whoever my successor would be would have very large shoes to fill—and I didn't even believe in that saying. I just said, "Go make shoes of your own. You don't have to fill mine 'coz I'll take my shoes with me."

So... when the thought loomed, this question arose: Who will be the next editor-in-chief?

Sir Geon, our school paper adviser who was also the student council adviser, wanted to stick to tradition—that was to pick the EIC from the pool of members who would be in their senior year by the following academic year.

There were only two members on that pool: Myra and Bambi. Seeing their performance in the last three years, I didn't think they deserved the position. They only came to the office when needed or when they needed something. Not to mention, they weren't particularly exceptional writers either. How are you gonna edit the articles when you're not fully equipped with the right skills?

So we go the batch of members following these two. There were a lot of them, and I personally thought any of them were more deserving to be the next EIC. Four were quite promising:

Julie was the magnificent sports writer who could easily rise above everyone if she wanted.

Reg was that correspondent who always blessed the office with her presence. She did tasks whenever asked and she was eager to learn and improve—and she did.

Sha's strengths were in poetry. She had a lot to improve on when it came to other forms of writing, and her reputation was marred by the bad relationship that she had with her then boyfriend who was also in the school paper.

Mary was hungry to become an EIC, to the point that it felt like she idolized me and wanted to replicate the things I did. Though she was a good writer—save for some grammatical errors here and there—and was also eager to learn many things, she was eaten up by her own obsession.

Sir Geon wasn't completely blind—he knew Myra and Bambi had shortcomings. However, if he had to pick from one from the next four, it's obvious he only had his eyes on Sha.

To air my frustrations, I decided to make the Game of 13 Characters right after I finished with my multimedia research portfolio—hence the similar art style. I made it a guessing game so that the members would be more enticed to read and participate.

Other than the few mentioned above, I also included other notable people.

Dudi was an active member who was interested in photography and writing strong opinions. He's actually way older than I am and had been in college for many years, but still called me "Kuya" like everyone else. He's a good person, and he usually knew the right thing to do—but couldn't seem to do them.

Maia was our Associate Editor, second to me in leadership. She's also a great artist and writer, however she's not always present. Nevertheless, she still contributed when she could.

Graggy was a cartoonist and illustrator. He was a decent artist but he didn't have the guts to explore out of his comfort zone and do more than what he could already do.

Filbert was another talented writer and avid learner, but he was consumed by his relationship issues and the complexities of his life.

DJ was an enthusiastic photojournalist. Sometimes he's always there, sometimes you couldn't count on him. Lance, also a photographer, was the opposite of DJ. Another aspiring one was Blue but I couldn't figure out what his real purpose was for joining.

Then we had the juniors. Abby, Laudi, Eman were first year multimedia arts students that had very promising futures in their course and in the school paper. Add Jeracel to the mix who was an excellent writer.

Then we had the other juniors who were also very promising writers, but were sadly missing when called: Gelli, RR, Gianne, and Jewelle.

And... there they are.

I wrote this for the benefit of the people who are not familiar with us. I wanted you guys to somehow still experience the "guessing game" that I intended it to be.

So… as I post each story, one character a day, I hope you’ll try to guess who was who, same as how my friends did almost exactly nine years ago. Remember, one character can represent up to five people—I will indicate the number in some way.

The stories and issues here no longer matter now. Everyone, including me, already have different lives. I don't even have the slightest idea how some of them are doing because we've never had a conversation in years or I haven't seen any update from them on their social media.

Anyway, enjoy reading!

[knoxnoox]

My hair is longer now

This year has been the hardest

It has been good

I feel new

I miss S

Last time we saw each other it was for one hour

That was 7 months ago, in Mexico

Before that it was a year, in a writing class

It was a coincidence

He didn't come back after the second class

I read in front of everyone something I wrote only to him

Just to let him know how much I missed him

He didn't come back

He didn't

I miss him everyday

Before that, it was three years ago

In San Francisco

He holded me all night

He was nice to me, not very usual of him

He hold me tight and told me he cared about me

I didn't see him or talked to him for a long time

She doesn't allow it after finding naked photos of me in his camera

It's complicated

We spent 2 months together in California

We had separated tents but we always ended up sleeping together

We never had sex there

We almost kissed once

I miss him so much

I just wish I could spend one night with him

Just talking

We could really talk for hours

And hours

About pretty much everything

We used to live together as friends

But sometimes we fucked

It was terrible

He was in love with her so he fucked me careless

Just fucking because he was horny

Or because he wanted me to be her

I always cried when he fell asleep

We used to sleep together almost every night

Until one day I got my new mattress and started sleeping in my room

My ex died of an epileptic seizure

S is also epileptic

I was traumatized that he slept alone

So I checked on him a few times every night to see if he was breathing

My ex died because he was sleeping alone

He choked with his tongue

I loved him very much

The day that he died I was telling S about him

I never talked about him 

I almost saw him two days before

I didn't talk or heard from him in seven years

It still hurt

He was my first real love

We loved each other very much

It was beautiful

Until it wasn't

I don’t want S to die

Please don't die

I miss him, we were good friends

We had our own misfit group

With sorcery and dark music

We drew and took acid

We made videos

We played backgammon

I always lost

There was a pandemic

We did not care

We were dark

But we had a lot of fun

We laughed a lot

We drank wine

And beer

We had a pirate flag in the living room

We were going to build a red room upstairs

I gave him a guitar

We had a beautiful home

It was a home

An artist's home

We had a home

I left because he lied to me once

He went to visit her

When he came back me and my things were gone

I left because I was scared

I left because I didn't think he would ever love me

Like he loves her

I regret it sometimes

Maybe I should've stayed

He begged me to stay for many hours

I didn't stay

All my things were back at my mom's

I started dating his best friend

Something he always wanted me to do

So I did

I didn't want to be alone

It didnt work out, I think he likes men

Also he's not S

Neither is my other ex

My recent ex

He's S nemesis

He is also her ex

I knew all along who he was

I was curious

I got way to close

I moved in with him

I thought I loved him

I asked him babies

That's the exact moment I got sick

I thought that was love

I thought that was safety

I thought he was my family

He found out that I used to be in love with S

He went crazy

He never let me forget

He got drunk and reminded me how wicked I was

I believed it

He terrorized me and didn't let me leave his house

We lived in the middle of nowhere

I managed to leave once he was sleeping passed out drunk

But he went to get me and pulled me back

My mom was scared

I thought that was love

Nobody loved me for a long time

He loved me

He was obsessed with me

He was waiting outside my house for 12 hours

I ended up going back

He made me eat mushrooms once

And terrorized me while tripping

He called me a whore and a nymphomaniac

He started breaking my stuff and yelling that he was insane

I was scared but I managed to keep calm

I never pray

I prayed that he fell asleep

He did

Although he never slept

He took pills for that

He's an addict

He went crazy at night

He went in my computer once and found a letter I wrote to S one year before

I never sent it

It was a love letter

He also found a hate letter I wrote to him

Thats how he called it

It was not really a hate letter

It was neutral

He went mad

I thought he was going to kill me or kill himself

I never loved him

I was scared

He's no good

He doesn't sleep

That makes you crazy

The day I managed to leave after several fail attempts

He took my keys

There was a gun in the house

I was scared

I kicked him in the stomach

And took back my keys

I yelled to him that I hated him

I said goodbye to the dog with a big hug

I loved him, he was my guardian

My friend

I ran

I ran for my life and never looked back

That was the time I touched rock bottom

I think in a parallel reality he killed me and then he killed himself

I dont miss him

I never loved him

I'm in Israel now

I look much better

I've done a lot of work

I dont ever want to be in a scary situation

When I arrived I was so skinny my sister almost cried

I was weak and I was sad

I got sick

Chronic pain

For months I felt that nobody could ever feel this amount of pain and not die

Everyday I felt pain

In my womanhood

In my womb

All over my body

I said goodbye to the old me

And crossed the whole world to find some peace

I'm further away from S now

I'm closer to myself

And my sister

And my father

I saw S before I came

For one hour

I told him about his nemesis

I think he was worried about me

He told me I looked skinny

My hair was very short

I had black bags under my eyes

I felt I was going to die

I didn't want to spend the only hour we had by telling him how sad and weak I felt

Another failed relationship

This time I almost died

I'm here now

I'm much better

I gained weight

I have color in my cheeks

I feel happy

I almost don't feel pain anymore

I live alone in a gallery studio

I call it the tree house

It's my safe place

I live close to the beach

I walk dogs

I cook

I babysit

I sell bone broth

I get by

I do ceramics

I carve wood

I'm in a poetry reading circle

I'm running a film club

I feel inspired everyday

I'm an artist

It's great

I talked to my father after 12 years

I needed him

I needed my dad

He's good to me

He gave my a bike

I love my bike

He's really trying

We had a therapy session together

I've been in therapy for 9 months

It has really helped me

I feel new

I'm healing

I haven't kissed anyone in 8 months

I'm not ready

I haven't totally healed yet

I still have pain sometimes

I'm scared of sex

I feel awkward

I'm a misfit

I have friends

Good friends

Finally

I'm healing

Everything around me looks better

I'm not sure I miss S

I think is a ghost pain

Like when people loose a limb

I dont know him anymore

It's been a lifetime

I'm a different person now

I miss what we used to be

Whatever that was

But that doesn't exist anymore

I'm trapped in time

In that car

In one moment

I don't want to miss him anymore

I really want to move on

Meet someone new

Kiss new lips

Be held by new arms

I think we will always be in each other's hearts

It should stay there

In our hearts

And I need to move on

My hair is longer now

I almost don't feel sad anymore

I love dogs

I'm healing

Nox

[ragingbookdragon]

You Light The Spark In My Bonfire Heart

Kyle Rayner x Batbro One-Shot

Word Count: 2.7K Warnings: Explicit Language

Author's Note: I HAVEN'T HAD ANY WIFI ALL DAY BUT NOW I DO AND this is my new obsession and pair and you can tear it from my cold dead hands. Enjoy! -Thorne

**********************************************************************

Kyle had an easy morning routine: get up, eat breakfast, brush teeth, workout, shower, drink protein shake, and draw. It was simple and effective, and helped him maintain a sense of normalcy that he didn’t always have when he was up in space. He typically started out with sketching small things, mostly faces and limbs from memory, the occasional suit redesign, then he’d get into the bigger works, drawing comic panels and the commissions he had. And while Kyle loved to be up in space, to be a Green Lantern, drawing felt like coming home to him, like it was the natural state. That being said, he didn’t love being interrupted when he was in the middle of something important—it was bad for the groove.

***

As the second round of knocking sounded on his door, Kyle grunted and stood from his desk, padding through the hallway to his front door; he flicked the lock and pulled open the door, surprise etching across his face when he saw the eldest Wayne leaning against the door frame—rather cockily, Kyle added, because the soldier’s arm was propped on the frame, the other stuck in the side-pocket of his dark tactical bomber jacket.

“Good morning, Kyle,” he greeted with a smirk. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

The Lantern blinked, shaking his head. “Uh, no, you’re not, (Y/N).” he looked at him. “What are you doing here?”

(Y/N) shrugged. “Had some business to take care of for my dad, and since I was in the area, I figured I’d drop by and see if you wanted to get some lunch with me.”

Kyle took a moment to lean out the doorway slightly, looking down the stretched hallway. “How’d you know where I live?”

“Please, a magician never reveals his secrets,” he deflected coolly, gazing at Kyle. “What do you say? Wanna get some lunch? I know a really good sports bar that serves great food.”

He looked back at (Y/N) and smiled. “Yeah. Let me go get dressed.”

The soldier merely winked in return and with fumbling hands, Kyle managed to shut the door before his cheeks burst into flames, hurrying back to his bedroom to pull together an outfit that would impress the man.

***

Kyle almost dropped to his knees when he saw the car parked outside his apartment building, and (Y/N) knew it too, because he chirped, “Gorgeous, isn’t she?”

He nodded dumbly. “Is this a McLaren 720S?”

“Mhm.” He opened the doors and slid into the driver’s seat, looking through the passenger door. “Coming?”

“Am I ever,” Kyle breathed, climbing into the seat, immediately running his hands along the dashboard and seat. “I’m in love.”

“Wait till you hear her purr,” (Y/N) said, closing the doors, and pushing the ignition. The sports car roared to life and he grinned at the way Kyle’s face melted. “Yeah, she’s a beauty.” He put the car in drive and looked through the side mirror, then pulled out onto the street.

“Is this one of your dad’s cars?”

“Nah, I bought this for myself a couple months ago.” He pulled the sunglasses from his t-shirt and put them on. “This and an Audi TT.”

Kyle huffed a laugh. “Jesus, you billionaires live it up, don’t you?”

(Y/N) smiled. “Hey, I live life in the fast lane. Might as well drive in it too.” He pushed a button on the touch screen and music filtered through the speakers, and Kyle’s face pinched in confusion. “What?”

“This isn’t—James Blunt isn’t the music I figured you’d play.”

“What’d you think I’d be listening too? Rock?” he chuckled, turning the volume down a bit. “Don’t get me wrong, I listen to all kinds of rock music, but I figured you’d want something easy rather than head-bang your brains out rock.” (Y/N) stopped at a red light and glanced over. “You can look through the artists on my phone if you want.”

Kyle shook his head, relaxing into the seat as the melody flowed through him. “No, I like this artist.” The soldier merely smiled in return, pressing the gas pedal again, and Kyle suddenly remembered something. “Speaking of artist, I saw the canvas in your bedroom the other day. Do you draw?”

(Y/N) hummed. “Not like you. It’s more of a pastime than a lifestyle.”

“You’re good at it. You’re painting your family in their suits. Details and designs included.” The artist regarded him with impression. “That takes skill.”

“I’d like to think I just have a steady hand and a lot of patience for stressful tasks.” (Y/N) turned the wheel, coming up behind a line of cars. “It’s an easy way for me to relax and mentally run through past events.”

“Like what?” Kyle questioned curiously.

(Y/N)’s eyes narrowed, but not in a loathing way, more of a thoughtful one. “Missions, conversations, things I could’ve done differently, things I will do differently.” He shrugged again. “Painting for me is just a time when I think about everything and nothing.”

“Well, you’re great at it, (Y/N).”

He snorted. “It’s just a bunch of paintings of my family and friends and military shit.”

Kyle blinked and leaned over. “Wait, is that painting in the den—”

“The one of the F-18 Super Hornet?”

“Yeah. You painted that?”

(Y/N) nodded. “Yep. I got Hal Jordan to take me up in one a few years ago and decided to commemorate the trip.”

“Wow,” the Lantern breathed. “I stared at that canvas for at least an hour the first time I saw it. I was just so blown away by how amazing it was.” He chuckled and shook his head. “And to find out, you drew it and not some world-famous painter.”

“Hey, I could be world famous if I wanted.” (Y/N) shot back, turning onto a less busy backstreet. “I just choose to retain my talents for family and friends.”

“Because of your job?”

“That too.” He agreed. “My squad and I take careful precautions to avoid our faces being seen during any missions for the safety of our families.” His face turned as solemn as his voice. “We do what we do to make the world safer. To keep our families and friends safe. It’s imperative that we’re not seen.”

Kyle cocked a brow. “But you’re Bruce Wayne’s son?”

“I am,” he nodded. “But I’m not as…out as the rest of my siblings. You’d be able to recognize them from press photos, but me not so much.” (Y/N) pulled into a parking spot outside the bar. “People only recognize me when they see the name on the credit cards. And I prefer to keep it that way.” A goofy smile crossed his lips. “The high life isn’t for me.”

“Says the man that drives a 710 horsepower sports car.” Kyle shot back with a grin of his own and (Y/N) stuck his tongue out as he turned the car off and opened the doors.

“Okay, I’m not actively in the high life but that doesn’t mean I don’t like luxury.” He closed the car doors and opened the front door to the bar for Kyle. “After you.”

“Thank you.” He replied, and walked inside, only stopping to turn and ask, “Do you want to sit at the bar or a table?”

(Y/N) tipped his head to the side. “I’m down with both, but I like the bar more.”

“Bar it is,” Kyle said and slid into one of the chairs, (Y/N) the other, and an older man wandered over.

“Well, I’ll be damned, is that (Y/N) Wayne I see?”

He turned, expression morphing into joy as he reached out and shook the older man’s hand. “Jack, it’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you son. How’ve you been?”

“Ah, you know me, sir. Nothin’ changing but the weather.”

Jack snorted. “And the desert where you dig sand outta your ass.”

(Y/N) chuckled. “Damn straight.” He looked at Kyle. “Kyle, I’d like you to meet Jack Dagher. He’s an old CO of mine.”

Kyle shook the man’s hand. “Pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“It’s all mine,” Jack replied. “It’s been a while since (Y/N) brought anybody here.”

At that, Kyle turned to the soldier who was busy looking anywhere but his face. “Is that so?”

“Oh yeah. Sonovabitch doesn’t bring his dates here unless he really likes ‘em.”

(Y/N) coughed, glaring at the man. “Alright, we get it. Aren’t you supposed to be taking orders?”

Jack gave him a smug look in return. “What can I get you boys to drink?”

“I’ll take a beer,” Kyle said, and Jack rolled his eyes.

“No shit, kid. What kind?”

(Y/N) snickered as Kyle flushed. “Uh, a Heineken.”

Jack sighed. “And he had such potential. (Y/N)?”

“Gimme a strawberry daiquiri then water after.”

“Still ordering fruity drinks, huh?”

“Hey, they get you drunk faster than horse piss does, you old fart.” He shot back and the old man chuckled.

“Touché.” He slapped the bar. “I’ll bring those to you with an order of chili fries.”

“Thanks Jack,” (Y/N) smiled, watching the man walk off before turning to Kyle who was watching one of the baseball games. “You like sports?”

He tipped his head side to side. “I don’t not like them. I was never a sporty kid in school, but I like watching them.” He looked at the solider. “What were you like in school? Jock or prep?”

“Probably a bit of both,” he answered. “I played sports and had the highest grades.” Shrugging, he added, “And being a Wayne boosted me into the top tier of schools, so, there’s that. To be honest, I think all of us Wayne kids were and are a mixture of every stereotypical category.”

“I can see that,” Kyle laughed. “Especially with Jason and Dick.”

“Shit, I was talking about Timmy.” (Y/N) said. “That kid’s a grade A nerd.”

“He is, isn’t he?”

The two of them laughed and a woman placed their drinks in front of them, both giving their thanks as they took sips.

“Can I ask you something, (Y/N)?”

“My muscles are one hundred percent real. Especially my abs. Which you’re allowed to feel on in envy if you want.”

Kyle snorted into his beer, wiping his mouth. “No!” a few more chuckles passed his lips as he wiped the bar. “Are you…you know…?”

“A Leo?” (Y/N) offered with a smile, but his eyes told Kyle he knew exactly what the Lantern was asking, and he said, “I like the liquor, but I don’t care what label it has on it.”

The other man smiled. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“But if you want the technical term, I am pansexual.” He regarded Kyle a moment. “You?”

“Bisexual.”

His lips pulled in an impressed fashion. “Pretty fly for a bi guy.”

Kyle gaped at him for a moment, then shoved (Y/N) in the side as he buried his face in his arms and laughed. “You’re so stupid.”

“Ah thank you,” he grinned. “I get it from my old man.”

“You,” he cut himself off with a cackle. “do not get that from him.”

“Look, you know the big man in the suit. You don’t know the complete goober we live with,” (Y/N) chuckled, smiling at the waitress who placed menus in front of them; he picked his up and flipped through it.

“What do you recommend?”

“Hmm…anything with bacon on it.” He showed the menu. “If you like salads, get the steak and blue cheese one, it’s fantastic. Or if you’re more into tacos, they’ve got these awesome shrimp carnitas with chili peppers.”

Kyle’s brows furrowed as he looked the menu over. “What are you gonna get?”

“My usual. Tomahawk steak with garlic butter and mashed potatoes.” (Y/N) groaned and rested his head back. “I haven’t had a good steak in months, and I can just taste it already.”

“So, you’re a meat and potatoes kind of man?”

He grinned, keeping his eyes closed. “Unlike the cup noodle and Hawaiian roll man beside me.”

“Ouch. Hit me where it hurts.”

“C’mon Kyle, hit me with your best shot.”

“Better watch it, (Y/N),” he grinned. “You might be the next notch in my pencil case.”

“You’re such a nerd.”

***

“Holy crap,” Kyle breathed, hands resting lightly on his stomach. “I’m stuffed.”

(Y/N) moaned. “Stick a fork in me. I’m done.”

“Done?” their waitress laughed. “You haven’t even finished your desserts yet!”

“Oh God, don’t make me,” the Lantern whined. “I’ll explode.” He looked over. “(Y/N), take one for the team.”

“Pass,” he replied. “I think I’ve gained ten pounds just looking at the rest of the cheesecake.”

The woman laughed. “I’ll wrap the leftovers for you boys.” She wandered off, leaving them alone, and a blaring ringtone filled the space between.

(Y/N) jumped a little, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Do you mind if I get this really quick?”

Kyle shook his head. “Go ahead.”

He slid his thumb along the bottom and rested the phone on the bar. “This is Wayne.”

Captain! Finally. I’ve been texting you all afternoon.

“I know,” he snorted. “I’ve been ignoring it.”

Yeah well, the longer you ignore me the slower it takes for the radar dish to get replaced.

“What are you talking about?” (Y/N) asked. “I thought you’d procured one.”

I did. Then the buyer told me I wasn’t registered for official military hardware.

He frowned. “That’s odd. You did contact Thomas, right?”

Yeah. Beady eyed looking motherfucker who serves on the George Washington, right?

“That’s him.” (Y/N) hummed. “Tell you what, I’ll call him later this evening and get it all sorted out, yeah?”

Sounds good. Hey, did you take that guy out yet? Your little brother won’t stop texting me about some twinkie you’re into.”

(Y/N) froze as he felt Kyle’s eyes drilling into the side of his head and he stuttered, “Uh, Nadeen, now’s not the best time.”

What do you mean best—oh…ohhhhhh. I, uh, I gotta go, Captain.

“Yep. Bye.” He locked the phone and shoved it back into his pocket, refusing to meet Kyle’s eyes. “So…you catch the baseball game?”

“Which one of your brother’s thinks I’m a twink?” Kyle asked. “Wait, don’t tell me. It’s Jason, isn’t it?” he grunted in his throat, deadpanning, “I can’t believe my best friend thinks I’m a twink.”

“It’s Dick, actually.” (Y/N) grinned, turning to face him and he reached over, pinching Kyle’s cheek. “It’s just ‘cause you’re so cute and perky.”

The Lantern merely glared at him, griping, “I’m not as strong as you, put I can punch pretty hard.”

“Ooo, those are fighting words,” he shot back with a smirk, letting Kyle go. “Careful, I’m ticklish.”

“I feel like I’m talking to Hal.”

(Y/N) whined, all but collapsing onto Kyle who started snickering. “I’ve just been murdered.” He buried his face in Kyle’s shoulder. “Can’t believe I was just compared to Highball. The world must be coming to an end.”

“Oh, come on, you big baby. You’re not dying.”

“I am!” he turned his head, gazing at Kyle. “You’ll have to carry me to safety.”

“I don’t think I’m strong enough to carry you.”

“Are you calling me fat?”

“I did not say that.”

“You did, but in more words.”

“Alright, now I’m talking to Guy.”

“THAT’S SO MUCH WORSE!”

***

He leaned against the door frame as Kyle unlocked his front door and pushed it open, turning to look at him. “I had a lot of fun today, (Y/N).” he murmured. “Thanks.”

Winking, he replied, “I’m glad you did. I’d like to do it again soon if you want.”

Kyle nodded. “I’d like that.”

They stared at each other for a few moments and (Y/N) smiled, patting the door frame. “Well, I’d better be heading out. Have to get home in time for dinner.” He paused, giving the man a warm look. “Thanks for having lunch with me, Kyle.”

He’d not gotten two feet from the door when Kyle’s hand wrapped around his wrist. “Wait.” He turned and the Lantern leaned forward, pressing his lips to (Y/N)’s cheek. “Be careful on your way back.”

“I will,” he murmured, watching Kyle wave and disappear into his apartment, the door shutting behind him.

[blueprint-han]

desert rose — yang jeongin.

↪ “ Because love and a red rose could never be truly hid. ”

— “ You’d have never thought that one incident would’ve enlightened you of how much in love you were with your childhood best friend, but it turns out to be more of a problem when you’re threatened with a life-ending disease with no cure whatsoever. Or so you thought. ”

pairing: jeongin x reader

genre: hanahaki au; fluff, angst with a happy ending.

⇥ warnings: hanahaki disease, mentions of blood (not very graphic but enough that it’s tagged), lots of angst, also in this world the hanahaki surgery isn’t discovered yet, because it’s a fairly recent discovery, also y/n’s dad is nowhere mentioned in this fic idk take it as you like but i imagined him to pass away when y/n was 12 for some reason :((, please do not read if you triggered by topics of death or blood or disease! These themes will be prevalent though not in super explicit detail, they are still there. If I missed a warning, let me know. <3

word count: 11.09 K

type: long one-shot.

⇥ disclaimer: this fiction does not represent the activities of the real Yang Jeongin, nor is associated with JYPE in any form. Events are pure fiction. ♡

part of: the @bystay​ skznta event, written for @stayndays​ !!

song: inspired from Desert Rose by Lolo Zouaï <3 No relation to the fic but it did inspire the ~vibes~.

↯ note: I’m gonna be honest this tired me out so much that I’m glad I finished it, it took me longer than I expected and it got longer than I expected, but nonetheless, here you go shayna! Hi!! It’s me! Your secret santa! Sorry I couldn’t send you that many asks because my uni is a bitch™, and I wish I could’ve made this better, but I guess this will have to do for now. I hope you like it, and I loved being your santa! 🥺 I hope we can interact more in the future, and this isn’t edited so pls go easy on me （＞人＜；）eiury2y4er okay happy reading! <3 love you shayna! <3 I wish I could give this more editing time :( but... i hope u still like it!  ⇥ dawn.☀️

Jeongin’s eyes are really pretty.

The first time you'd made this miniscule observation was during your summer vacation road trip when the sun shined a tad bit overly bright, and Jeongin’s umbrella had a hole in it. The exact details of how it ended up torn don’t matter, but the way Jeongin’s eyes seemed to shimmer in the harsh noon sun almost made it seem worth it.

You remember it clearly — He’d smiled brightly when his eyes met yours, eyes crinkling into tiny little half-moons before his expression turned neutral. At that moment, you were lost into the abyss that was his midnight black orbs. They seemed to hold glimmering stars in them, ones that outshone the specks of white in the night sky.

Looking back, you didn’t think of it much, opting to shake your head off it’s daze before running to where Jeongin stood, throwing a bottle of water into his backpack and laughing at some corny jokes the rest of the group cracked.

Jeongin was a friend — a good friend. In fact, you could call him your best friend, though it had never been verbalized. You couldn’t remember exactly when or how you’d gotten closer to him — it just happened, like everything important in this world did. Like how Jeongin says “It was fate, Y/N, fate” in that old-man-philosopher voice to get you to laugh (Of course it would never work, but you’d still laugh, because anything to see him give you that bright, toothy grin and that little scrunch of his nose in acknowledgement).

The memory of how it all started  is as clear as the sky, as pure as the pigment of a rose.

“Don’t stray too far away, alright? Meet me back here in two hours.” The instructor screams, and all the students chime in with a collective “Yes, ma’am!”. 

 “Good, now go collect your flowers.”

A flower-picking expedition isn’t a common event in a school field trip, at least in your school. You’re more used to the normal visits to the ice cream factory, or the butterfly park (which, to be fair, had some pretty flowers, if only you could pick them) or another affiliated school. Nevertheless, you don’t complain, because the prospect of your school giving you a chance to collect all the pretty flowers you could spot here had you on top of the clouds.

You’re allowed to go alone or in groups of two, and of course, Jeongin has you by the arm the moment your teacher had screamed “Disperse!” at the top of her lungs (P.E teachers had a thing for screaming, apparently). Ignoring the teasing glances the other boys made towards the both of you, you set sail on your path, scanning all the bushes for any wild and unique flowers you could find.

“Oh look, there’s one!” You pointed out after a good four-minute-walk, almost stumbling in your one-inch-too-tight-shoes and ignoring Jeongin’s giggle at your antics. You beckoned him over to where you were standing and he obliged, tucking his sweater paws into his pockets before walking over to where you were staring at the pretty flower.

So, flowers. They’d always fascinated you. You’d developed said fascination ever since you were six. Something about the sheer way the petals were arranged, the various ranges of coloring — vivid, gradient, muted — the beauty of something so delicate and intricate always drew you in. You found yourself examining a flower for hours, and surprisingly, you never grew tired of it. They’d helped you through a lot when you felt particularly down, too. Perfect distraction — snuggling against Jeongin’s arm and playing with the flower he’d always pick out for every visit, surrounded by calming; almost numbing silence along with the sound of his steady breathing, maybe sometimes his heartbeat too when he’d get overly affectionate. Flowers in a way, in every way, were your escape. You loved them. 

“Hmmm.” Jeongin hummed over the sounds of the leaves susurrating and rustling on the ground, the wind enveloping you like a cold, yet oddly comfortable blanket. He fixed his round glasses over his nose, quickly flipping through his encyclopedia. No one really questioned him as to why he carried it wherever he went — but just like you, he had a vivid fascination for flowers too. It was something the both of you fit like a glove on, and you were beyond grateful to meet someone who could click with you so well.

“This is wolfsbane, we can’t pick it.” He said, shaking his head. “It’s poisonous, the whole plant is.”

“Oh…” You pouted, staring at the flower once more. You took in the sight of lush, violet petals, the way they wrapped around the centre and had almost no smell.

“Hey.” He touched your hand worriedly. “You didn’t touch them, right?”

“No, I didn’t. I know better than to touch plants without knowing what they are.”

“Good.” There you could see it again. That lovely, bright smile, one more of relief this time. When you looked into his eyes, you seemed lost — you could capture every flutter of his lashes against his cheeks, count every lustrous star that was laid in his eyes. “That’s good, the poison can be absorbed easily through your skin.”

“Yeah.” You let yourself smile at him, hands dropping down to fiddle with the hem of your frock. 

“Come on, I wanna get some shots for my book. Plus some flowers.” Pulling at your hand, he led you amidst the varying degrees of green and the damp smell of grass for a good distance, before halting in front of a bush. You knew what he’s referencing to by ‘shots’. The camera that hangs around his back, ready to immortalize the memory into his SD card, or rather make a polaroid (or a painting, if he’s being artistic) and tape it to his notebook along with the pressed flower.

“Look!”

Trip a step back, and you yelp at the sudden intrusion to your pace, pouting at Jeongin before looking in the direction he had his eyes fixated on. “Roses.” You giggle, kneeling in front of the bush and hissing when you feel the damp coldness of the grassy floor seep into your knees. “They’re pretty.” 

You can barely hear the sound of students walking past you — the moment seems almost captivating — nothing heard, nothing felt except the whirring of the wind, and the fresh smell of various plants mixed together, it carries.

This part of the garden seems particularly shady and cool, and some of the roses haven’t bloomed yet. A few rosebuds, a few half-bloomed roses, and two fully bloomed, deep red roses, sitting nicely against the green foliage.

Jeongin kneels before you, and you turn to smile at him, chortling at the way his glasses are about to fall over his nose again. You ruffle his black hair gently before fixing the glasses up his nose. 

“You might wanna get a chain attached to that thing. You know those strings that go around your neck and to your glasses to hold them in place?”

Jeongin chuckles. “It’s alright. I don’t like my glasses anyways.”

“Whyyy…?” You whine, poking his arm playfully before directing your focus back on the rose. “You look so adorable with them.”

Your friend feels a smile tug at his lips, leaning in to pinch your cheeks lightly. “You’re adorable.” He says, before focusing on the rose, (thankfully) oblivious to the way your cheeks feel warm after his action.

“Here, let me pick them out and then we can press them into our journals.” Yes. The both of you have matching journals, owing to your near obsession with flowers. You oft share them with each other and get fascinated by how the other views the flower, how they delicately craft words into how the little gift of nature meant to them. It’s a heartwarming tradition — one of the main reasons you follow it till date. 

Jeongin pulls out a pair of scissors from his satchel, and albeit with a lot of force (and the adorable nose scrunch™, manages to cut off a decent amount of stem with the fully bloomed flower, carefully bringing it to his nose to smell it before doing the same to the other one. And all the while, you silently watch.

“Here, this one is more fresh.” It’s so surprising how he can just say that by looking at the flower. Then again, you know him better than anyone, so it’s not surprising at all. He looks at you with dreamy, fluttering eyes and that precious smile on his face, his hair falling perfectly on his forehead. You want to reach out and fix the stray hairs back into position, but you hold back, swallowing the lump in your throat when you look into his pretty, pretty eyes. Trying your damnedest to not get mesmerized, lost in them once again.

It doesn’t seem like a very, very special moment. And to you at that time, it wasn’t special. You simply ignored the heat that crept up your face at his silent gesture, nodding sporadically and ignoring the way you tensed up more when your fingers touched, barely.

Your heart suddenly thumped against your chest with renewed vigour, and you could tell Jeongin was close to noticing it too. 

“T-thank you, that's very sweet.” Fixing the frills of your frock, you smooth them over before looking further and deeper into the garden.

“Lend me a hand, please.”

You once again, ignore the way your heart flutters at his statement, silently extending your hand and covering up your sudden emotion with a smile. His hand feels soft, warm in your hold, fingertips slightly rough from when he used to play the violin. You like it, though.

“Here.” He places the rose carefully in your palm, making sure no thorns prick the delicate skin of your palm, and you can’t help but smile at the tiny reassurance. A nod of approval and you tuck the flower away neatly into your satchel, almost like a valuable present he’d given you, oblivious to the way Jeongin’s eyes twinkled at your action, his smile beaming.

My god, who would’ve known this flower could’ve brought you so, so much trouble?

It had started simple, almost unnoticeable. Just little glances towards Jeongin when he’d come over to watch a movie, getting lost in the way his hair looked exceptionally soft to touch, silently drifting off into space as you admired him from the backseat during class — sure, you were supposed to be focusing on the lesson and taking notes, but something about the way the rim of Jeongin’s sunglasses caught the sunlight and created a lens flare effect was breathtaking to watch.

That, combined with his beauty, his personality. It was too much, too much to handle.

You found yourself waiting to get a glimpse of him, even a tiny glance of his smile would be enough to make your day — to make your heart flutter. 

He was pretty.

You suppose it’s because being Jeongin’s best friend meant you already knew about the kind and empathetic man he was — but for the love of god, you could not stop your heart from fluttering when you heard his name, let alone looked at him and his mind-numbingly pretty smile, his dazzling eyes that always seemed to keep you off the ground.

Oh my, was this love?

You didn’t believe it. You didn’t agree, couldn’t accept that this was love. Maybe it was just your way of showing appreciation for him, for everything he’d done for you? Yes. That was probably it. 

Love wasn’t something you’d experienced — how could you jump to the conclusion? 

But you couldn’t pin the feeling you were feeling to another word — though you were desperate. The way your heart beat faster around him, the way you started noticing all the tiny details that made you fall for him even more, and for what? Just because he happened to give you a fresher, more lusciously colored rose after choosing them on his own? 

Jeongin had noticed it too — it was hard not to when you’d start fiddling with your thumbs, twirling your hair, and the way heat would rush to your face when he did as little as smile at you — you’d fallen for him — and while he was ever-the-oblivious to realise the implications of your actions, he did know that something was wrong.

“Y/N, are you alright?” Jeongin asks rather dully, seeming kind of worried about your current state. You’re resting your head against his lap, but Jeongin can feel the warmth of your cheek through the thin material of his shorts — and not the regular kind. The kind of heat one would radiate when they’d either been overly flustered. Or possibly a fever.

He rests a single palm against your cheek and your eyes flutter shut, and there it is again. The butterflies in your stomach, the fuzzies in your head, and the tingling that shot up to your fingertips. “Are you sick? Is that why you’re oddly quiet today? You haven’t said or eaten anything.”

“Ah, no, I’m alright.” You try to hide the dizziness in your voice, snuggling in his hold before fluttering your eyes close. Thankfully, Jeongin doesn’t question it. 

“Alright, we won’t talk about it if you don’t want to.” Even though you aren’t facing him right now, you can feel him smile in melancholy. 

“Hey Y/N?” 

“Yes?”

“You know I’m here for you, right?”

Oh, you knew.

Sometimes you wish you didn’t — maybe that would’ve prevented it from ending this way.

It’s such a common scenario — in movies, in books, in media. Two best friends falling in love with each other, confessing their love in the warm and intimate setting of the night sky, over gentle touches and lingering kisses. You’ve always had an attachment to those kinds of movies or books — because for you, that kind of love was special in it’s own way.

Those little ways the lead characters had of showing each other their undying love, those subtle acts were so special, so special in their own way. Those books had shown you how heartwarming, how vulnerable yet rigid, strong that relationship could be. It was such a pretty world to explore, to fantasize. You kind of felt that you and Jeongin were the protagonists of those books, those movies.

Except, you had no happy ending.

The books failed to show how painful it was to swallow, to digest the fact that you could be nothing more than friends. Sure, there had been some moments where the main leads would be sad, but it was nothing compared to this, this suffocation in your chest that slowly built up, day by day, minute by minute, second by second.

It was hard.

The first prick in your chest hadn’t been entirely painful. It was barely noticeable even. Simply a tiny jolt of pain when you bent forward to grab your books from your locker. It had only been a slight jab, like when you’d accidentally poke yourself in the rib with the edge of your hardcover diary while picking it up. Nothing too hard.

Then came the slight feeling of breathlessness. You found yourself unable to run a full round in P.E (when you could easily do so beforehand), having to stop in between to catch your breath. You figured it could’ve been your dust allergy because the P.E room wasn’t cleaned that often, so it made sense. Somewhat. Still sceptical, but nonetheless, you covered up your random outbursts of coughs with any and every excuse you could find when your parents questioned you about it.

It was hard, but you figured it was just a matter of winter passing by, and soon you’d be alright.

Would you, though? You couldn’t bring yourself to accept that there was in fact something wrong happening to you, pushing behind that feeling of paranoia every time with a smile on your face and a hold of your breath, wishing for the pain to ebb away.

Who would’ve thought that a sudden infatuation would have led to your demise?

Jeongin can hear the noises.

Those loud, dragged out wisps of air that you borderline struggle to take in and expel out, Jeongin can hear them.

He can feel your struggle. It’s not easy for him to look at you like this, curled up into a ball and ignoring the rampant burn in your chest. The movie isn’t even the main focus right now. Jeongin has something to say, and he’s had enough of watching you struggle. He’s rather here to persuade you to go to the fucking doctor, and get some sort of diagnosis instead of beating around the bush.

Strange. Jeongin feels oddly affectionate today, when usually you’re the one to initiate such gestures. All he wants to do is pull you into his arms and rock you back and forth until you fall asleep, because you seriously seem like you need it.

“Y/N,” he calls, watching you lift your head up from where it’s rested against your knees. You don’t reply, because right now, your throat seems like a barren desert and all you can seem to let out is a croak.

Jeongin sighs and rolls his eyes as if in deep thought, turning on the couch to face you before touching the tops of your cheeks with his hands — they seem overly feverous. 

“What’s going on?” He asks sternly.

“What d-do you mean?” You manage to get out, feeling your chest hurt more and more with each syllable that leaves past your lips in a croaked voice. It felt like someone was repeatedly stabbing your chest with the sharp edge of the knife, the burn in your throat and lungs getting too much to handle. You can’t even tear your focus from the fiery sensation to revel in the feeling of Jeongin’s soft palms cupping your cheeks.

“Y/N, you’ve been acting weird ever since the expedition.” Worry is laced throughout his tone, mixed in with a dash of sorrow to give rise to the most heartbreaking sound you’ve ever heard. Though you know otherwise, it almost seems as though Jeongin is disappointed in you.

“You’ve been getting more and more sick—” he raises a hand to stop you from contradicting his statement. You only look at him with mellow eyes, knowing that what he says is right. You’ve been ignoring your health for too long. 

You can’t help it, either. While you have an inkling of what might’ve happened, you’re too stubborn to accept it, let along your unrequited love for your best friend, who seems ever-the-oblivious.

“—and you can’t tell me it’s the winter allergy, love. I know you more than that to believe it.”

Shaking your head in dismay, you turn around to get up. You can’t be having this conversation right now, not with the faintest taste of blood lingering at the edge of your throat — you can’t be showing yourself like this in front of him — broken down, vulnerable, confused of your own feelings, having no idea of what you should be doing.

Your mother had pointed it out too, at this point. They suggested going to the doctor, and you outright refused. You didn’t want your suspicion to come to life. It couldn’t- it couldn’t be this way-

“Y/N!”

Jeongin grabs your hands to stop you in your position and turns you around.

And that’s a wrong move.

Your whole chest tightens, and the thorns that stab against your chest has never been more painful. You cry out loudly, only causing them to dig deeper into your skin and almost bleed. Jeongin’s eyes widen in shock at your sudden, unexpected reaction and only tightens his grasp on your hands.

Which again, is a very wrong move, because the following bouts of coughs that take over you shake you up from the core. Jeongin feels blanked out looking at how much you’re suffering right now, so much that he doesn’t feel the wet, yet light flutter on the back of his hand.

When Jeongin snaps back in from his momentary daze, he’s borderline horrified.

He’s convinced, completely certain that there’s nothing more terrifying, heartbreaking, scarring — he could go on and on — than what he just saw. He can almost feel his heart break into a million tiny shards, but he knows that it’s nowhere equivalent to the pain you’re going through.

Well, looks like your suspicion did come to life.

Because what Jeongin sees is, gah, he feels horrified. There’s blood dripping down your lip, staining the skin below garnet red. Your eyes are tinted pinkish-red too, most likely from the exertion that came along with the horrendous amount of coughs that took over you.

Red, red everywhere. Jeongin had previously thought of red as one of the most beautiful, and most interesting colors ever — a symbolism of love, nothing but the pure love he felt towards you.

But now, all he could think of was how much he was tormented by the mere sight of the color.

When his eyes, still blown wide in shock, trail down to his lap, the mere sight of what’s littered on it leaves him in tears.

Red petals, everywhere. All over the back of his hands, all over your lap, all over his lap.

Jeongin could probably spend ages, ages sobbing and whimpering about the sheer pain the sight in front of him brought. It tormented him beyond imagination. This should be a dream — Jeongin wants to wake up any second now, anywhere, in your lap, in his own bed, just anything to save his heart from seeing you this way.

Yet when you cough again, the pain in his heart tells otherwise.

“Y/N!” He chokes out a cry, and from there, he acts quick. He could cry about this later — he needs to find you some help, and now. 

You feel numb. As numb as you possibly can when you see the tears in Jeongin’s eyes, though your sight is clouded by your own tears. You’re numb to the blood dripping down your chin and pooling in your lap, you’re numb to the feeling of those bloody petals littered all over the couch. 

“We need to get you to the hospital, quick.” He gets up, wiping his eyes that are surprisingly, surprisingly overflowing with tears. You barely feel the handkerchief quickly wiping against your mouth, causing you to snap from your trance and look at him. The numbness doesn’t fade yet.

You doubt it ever will.

You’re not sure that the events after the incident go super quickly or as slow as a snail, and you’re not in any state to care about it either. Jeongin had called your mother when he drove you to the hospital — albeit over the sound of your repetitive and raucous coughs — and now your mom’s standing next to him outside, nervously prancing back and forth as he waits for the doctors to come out.

The hospital corridor is moderately lit — perfect setting for Jeongin’s mood right now. There’s no sound except for the occasional encounter when a nurse or doctor happens to walk past them. The hanahaki treatment section of the hospital isn’t the most crowded place — surprisingly enough, the doctors had immediately known what had happened to you.

Your mother can’t bring herself to thank Jeongin for dragging you to the hospital — she’s too paranoid. Your daughter coughing up blood and — Jeongin hadn’t mentioned it to her — flower petals over a movie night isn't the best news you’d want to receive when her friend calls you; so Jeongin understands why your mother is overly quiet.

He doesn’t try to reassure her either. It’s hard to do so when she’s gonna find out her daughter houses a wedding bouquet in her chest — and Jeongin isn’t that oblivious to not know what’s going on, especially standing in the hanahaki department of the clinic. His mother, not so much. All she can do is silently sob and mutter prayers repeatedly, hoping her daughter would be alright. Jeongin feels his heart break more when he sees your mom like this, and he knows he’s not gonna last at this rate, when he’s allowed to enter your room.

At this point, he can’t get past his own brain screaming a million different things at the same time, none of them coherent enough to make sense. He’s a mess right now — red eyes puffy and swollen, hair completely disheveled and half of his sweatshirt hanging out of where it was  neatly tucked in.

Two hands at his heart, and that’s when he notices the red rose petal stuck to the back of his hand, probably from when you’d coughed all over it. It’s fairly large in size — Jeongin examines it, in a slightly successful attempt at trying to distract from the feeling of anxiety that builds up inside bit by bit. It’s a deep, dark red color, exactly like the rose he’d given you that day, at the trip.

The boy sighs to himself before pulling the petal off his hand, eyes widening when the blood underneath it tints the skin it runs across. 

That’s when a lump forms in his throat, but he isn’t given time to cry, because soon enough, the sound of a door opening clicks through his ears, and Jeongin’s head snaps up.

He can see you from where he’s standing, and his whole world freezes in front of his eyes.

The flowers inside your chest had grown moderately large — that’s what the doctor said, at least. You’d been hiding your disease for two months, and it wasn’t until the end that Jeongin caught on — you’d been too stubborn to accept your fate. Maybe this was how it was supposed to end, after all. 

You couldn’t accept it then, but you did now. Did it seriously make a difference?

Jeongin had seen your scan, and what he saw would’ve truly been pretty, if not for the fact that these flowers could be the cause for your imminent death. The roses had almost fully bloomed — and the thorns were pricklier than ever. Jeongin could almost feel them stab against his skin, and he didn’t even have the disease. It was confusing — things were too confusing right now.

You couldn’t speak much, the painkillers you were on were making you drowsy and causing you to quickly fall asleep. Even if you weren’t asleep, it wouldn’t have made a difference.

Numbness ran through your veins. You couldn’t bring yourself to feel anything after what had happened.

Jeongin and your mother hadn’t spoken to you after the doctor had shown them your scan, and they preferred to not break the news to you either, figuring that you were pretty shaken up from the incident already.

The doctor said he could give you two weeks before the flowers filled your lungs completely and blocked your throat.

And Jeongin is devastated.

When the effect of your painkillers wear off and you open your eyes, you feel a soft sensation brushing against your thumb, slowly turning to look at your best friend — tears streaked all over his face, eyes ridden with dark circles and red and puffy, his voice sounded nasal as he silently cried, eyesight focused on the floor.

“J-Jeongin…?” You mumble past your oxygen mask, surprisingly not noticing it’s presence until right now,

He perks up at the painful call, lifting his head to gaze into your eyes. He looks worse than you look right now, if you’re to be honest. You doubt he’s even brushed his teeth or had breakfast. The hospital room is pretty dim just like the exterior, but the sunlight coming from the open window is enough to light up the whole room, enough to at least see your friend’s features clearly.

“You’re awake.” he says as a matter-of-fact and you nod, gently taking off the contraption placed against your nose. Jeongin flinches like he wants to stop you. But then freezes when you try to slowly get up.

Turns out that’s a wrong move, because you can soon feel the thorns of the garden you have in your lungs prick against your skin, making you gasp and shriek in agony. Jeongin jerks up and places a hand on your back, and the other across your stomach — and gently maneuvers you into an awkward but comfortable position, before lifting the top of the bed into a reclining position before laying you down onto it.

“Careful, love.”

Your chest tightens at the actions once again, yet you try not to cough like you did the last time. Surprisingly biting on your tongue works to rid the feeling of suffocation, or at least distracts from it.

“Where’s m-mom?”

“She went to pick up some of your essentials, plus a few clothes.”

“D-did she eat? Did you eat?”

Jeongin smiles at your concern. It’s something he’s found endearing about you — how you always seem to put others first, even though you’re in a worse situation. Though the habit isn’t healthy, Jeongin can’t seem to get over how thoughtful one would have to be to act that way all the time. You’re so innocent, so kind — you’re one of a kind, at least for him.

“What?” You chuckle, noticing Jeongin’s lingering stare on you.

Your friend only beams, taking your hand in his once again. “I forced her to eat something because of her medication, so you don’t have to worry. I ate along with her too, though the canteen’s food doesn’t taste that well.” 

A soft giggle leaves your lips and quickly morphs into a set of coughs, more petals fluttering all over your lap and hands. When Jeongin stands up to call a doctor, you lift a hand to stop him, gesturing for him to sit down.

It isn’t as intense as the first time, but there’s still a tiny bit of blood dripping from the corner of your mouth, which Jeongin quickly goes to wipe off with his thumb. You flinch at the warm touch, sighing to yourself before dropping your gaze to your lap.

“So…” You start. “What did the doctor say?”

“What?”

Jeongin seems visibly tense at your question, kind of like he was dreading it. Which he was. He knows enough about this to know that patients usually don’t like knowing, and in fact can be traumatised by knowing that their apparent death would be in two weeks.

Jeongin in fact has no idea how he’s so calm. He should be sobbing, trashing, looking for a way to hold you back. He shouldn’t be so calm.

He figures he’s just accepted fate. He’s relishing what could be his last moments with you.

You don’t reply, and Jeongin knows he’ll have to make something up.

“They said it’s just a regular allerg-”

“Jeongin.”

The boy freezes.

“Don’t lie to me.” Your voice is laid with so much pain, Jeongin wants to reach out and crush every problem you have into his fist. He wants all your sorrow and worry to dissolve, and right now, he just feels helpless. He feels powerless.

“How many days do I have left?” You ask, sniffling before wiping your tears away. “Just tell me already, Jeongin-”

Jeongin’s grip tightens against your hand as he whispers — “Two weeks.” 

The words are only let out as a soft mumble, as though Jeongin himself is questioning the statement the doctors put forth. Really, in two weeks? Would you really be gone? Would he seriously never see more of your smiles, your loving gaze, those times when you’d get overly shy of his compliments, those times when you’d silently smile at him from afar?

Was this the end?

“Two weeks.” You repeat. Your voice honestly sounds like a croaking frog, but you can’t bring yourself to care. 

“Hey Y/N…?” Jeongin hesitantly calls.

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?” He puts his other hand on yours. “Two questions, actually.”

“Mhm?”

“This disease you have… hana-”

“Hanahaki.”

“Yeah, that.” A hand runs against the back of his neck and he continues. “Be honest, did you know that- that you had this disease before I found out?”

“Jeongin…” You’re about to shake your head, but then you remember the deadline. The deadline by which, you’re no longer going to be here, no longer going to be able to cuddle Jeongin during movie dates, no longer be able to even look at him from afar, or close for that matter. In other words, you didn’t want to end your days with him based on a lie.

Therefore you sigh, breathing out a ‘yes’ as your shoulders droop down.

You can hear Jeongin’s shaky sigh too.

“W-why?” He clenches your hand tightly, sadness mixing in with what you can only call disappointment. “How could you be so selfish?”

It's too late to take back those words now.

“Wh-what?” You raise your eyebrows, feeling scared at his sudden question. “Jeongin, I wanted to be sure-”

Oh who are you kidding? Jeongin and you both know that you’d hidden it because you didn’t want to accept it. It’s too late to change that now.

And Jeongin seems to know that too.

“Don’t- Y/N.” His breath morphs into sharp inhales, as though he’s downright angry at your actions — you know he has every reason to be — still, it doesn’t ease the pain in your heart. Or maybe that’s just the flowers.

“Do you think this is a joke?” His sobs grow louder in fervour, and you feel yourself break at the sight. The room is so, so quiet that you can hear his faint mumbles. You can hear the cries his heart screams in agony, letting you go is painful for him. The thought, rather the sound, only makes the plant in your heart grow further.

“Y/N- did you not think of your mother? Of me? Did you not think of what would have happened if you left us? You think it’s gonna be easy on the both of us? On everyone?” His gaze stern and his voice stable, you don’t get affected by his words, but you do understand what he means — and maybe wish that you could’ve reversed your actions.

“How could you, Y/N?” He gets up from where he’s seated beside your hospital bed. “How could you think that this would be the most appropriate action?”

Jeongin knows he’s angry. Jeongin knows you’re going through a lot. But he’s too.

He’s not angry at you, not at himself, but fate. He’s mad that this is your fate, that you have to go away so soon. He’s mad that he can’t do anything to help you, in any manner.

You don’t say a word, which only causes Jeongin to sigh — disappointedly, again — and walk to where his coat is hung against the edge of his bed, picking it off and pulling it over him in a hurry. Every cell in you wants to scream at him, apologize for what you did, but your voice feels small, almost like you can’t force it out of your throat.

He goes towards the door that leads to the corridor, stopping for a second before turning to look at you.

“Are you gonna tell me, at least, who this person is?”

“W-what?” Things are too confusing right now.

“Hanahaki comes with unrequited love, Y/N. Are you gonna tell me who didn’t return your love?”

“You didn’t” You want to say. But then again, you stay quiet, not being able to handle the intensity of the moment.

Jeongin wants for two seconds, then sighs and shakes his head. “Whatever, I guess.”

And then he leaves.

In the next week, your health goes down drastically. More of petals expelled out of your lungs, more blood dripping from between your lips, more of your mother’s horrified expression as she runs away from the room while the doctors tend to your coughs. More sobs from your mother when she thinks you’re asleep, more melancholic smiles when you’re awake.

But you feel so empty.

Every piece of you feels like it’s being ripped apart. You can’t even sit up without someone’s help, of such intensity is the pain. The pain of knowing that your love would never be returned. 

The pain of knowing that you hurt the person you loved truly.

You were put on your oxygen mask 24/7, and instructed to not take it off whatsoever. Your medication stopped taking it’s usual effect, and if anyone saw you the way you were outside the current circumstances, they’d have assumed that you haven't slept for 8 days and were going to crumble into the earth any second.

“Honey?”

You gasp at the sudden intrusion to your thoughts, turning around to see your mother, sitting next to you and holding your hand with her own. You hum as a response, clearly unable to respond more than a mere mumble.

“Did you and Jeongin fight?”

A pang of guilt floods through your nerves at the mention of your friend’s name. He’d come to visit you only once in the past week. Perhaps even he couldn’t handle the fact that your death certificate was ready to be signed soon, and was trying to not be tormented by the fact. Or perhaps he was just angry.

“W-why?” You croak.

“I convinced him to come stay here while I go pick up a fresh change of clothes, but it took me quite a bit of arguing.”

You feel sad for her. She’s clearly paranoid — you can hear it in her voice, the shake lingers throughout. Yet she holds it in, trying not to let you worry about it.

You don’t answer her question. The last thing you need is for her to get mad at you too, though you doubt it. Your mom has never been the kind to yell at you for anything — provided, you’ve never given her a reason either.

“Do you think he’s mad because I didn’t tell him about the person who didn’t return m-my l-lo-ve…?” your throat goes dry towards the end and your mother quickly hands you a glass of water. You chug it down and sigh in relief, breath still short.

“Is that person him?” Your mother questions with her gentle, soothing voice one that can make you relax on the first listen. There’s no use lying to her, you figure. She knows you too well to do that, plus, like you said, you couldn’t bring yourself to end your days with her on a lie.

“Yeah…”

“Oh sweetheart,” She brushes some of your hair off your face, sitting down again before drumming her fingers against the back of your hand gently. “I don’t think he could be mad at you.”

“But he is. Didn’t y-you see? He didn’t bother to meet me as much after our argument. He’c c-clearly mad.”

“Hmmm,” Your mother ponders. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t?”

“Nope. I have known him for a while, dear. He’s been with you for more than five years. Maybe he’s having trouble taking this in? Just like…” Your mother stops after that, but you know the completion.

Just like her.

“I’m sorry, mom.”

You simply don’t get it. You should be scared. You should be sad and devastated that your end was going to come soon.  You should be thrashing around and crying and wailing in despair — you just don’t have  the energy to even bother about your end. It’s depressing, but you know there’s no way you could avoid the inevitable, or get your lover to return your love.

Love wasn’t supposed to be something forced, it had to happen naturally. And if Jeongin didn’t develop it naturally, you just had to learn to live with it. Or not.

“Don’t be, darling. Everyone deserves to love, just like how they deserve it back. I wish it could’ve ended differently.”

“It’s alright mom. He loves me too… just not on the way I love him.”

You sniffle as a single tear runs down your chin, though you and your mom aren’t given enough time to speak more when you hear a familiar voice at the door. 

“Hey Mrs. L/N.” Jeongin says, shrugging off his half snow-covered coat before hanging it onto the bedside. Did he seriously walk in the snow? All the way here?

“Hello, Jeongin dear.” Your mother stands up, picking her coat before moving to fish the car keys from her purse. “Thank you for watching over Y/N while I’m gone, darling.”

“It’s no problem, Mrs. L/N.”

“Oh, so formal.” Your mom chuckles, though in her despaired state. “Y/N, you get some sleep, it’s about midnight dear.” She leans over to kiss your forehead while Jeongin excuses himself to the washroom, and you nod. 

“Good night mom.”

“Good night, and don’t worry about him. He’ll talk to you eventually.”

Oh, how reassuring. “Mhm.” You smile, closing your eyes to drift into slumber before Jeongin returns, because the last thing you need right now is to feel sad and cry over how you’d hurt him.

By the time the sound of the door clicking resounds through the space, you’re already asleep.

 It’s way past midnight. Jeongin shouldn’t be up. 

Somehow, he still finds himself seated next to your bed, staring fondly at your calm features as you finally get the rest you’ve needed for the past few days. 

Oh, he wouldn’t be able to compare your sheer beauty to even that of the moon; even when you’re in such a fragile and vulnerable state. Your eyelashes are still and unmoving where they sit against your skin, your breath is calm and slightly wavering as you struggle to breathe slightly. 

His hand slips into your own gently, and his heart melts when you shift, tightening your grasp on his warm skin before falling into a slumber again.

Why was he mad in the first place? Jeongin feels dumb for acting so quickly on his emotions, especially when you’re in a bad place at the moment. He wants to wake you up and apologize, but he can’t, because you’re sound asleep — and that’s a good thing, since seep comes so scarcely to you these days.

Then, a single tear falls from his eyes. His thoughts traverse to the dream he had the previous night — you, cold, dead in his arms. Him, sobbing, trying to wake you up but you’re really gone. He can’t even hear your mother’s cries from behind him, because he’s devastated to know that you’ve left him. The dream had woken him up in a cold sweat — it was then he realised that he’d committed a mistake, and agreed to come visit you, because you had about 5 days left.

His thoughts then traverse to the conversation you had with your mother, while he was standing outside in the cold hospital corridor, curiously listening.

“Is that person him?” “Yeah…”

When he heard those words, countess, infinite thoughts crashed at his head; all at once. Nothing made any sense. The reality of the situation was dawning on him too quickly, and Jeongin was having a hard time processing it. 

You loved him? He was the person who didn’t return your love?

“Why didn’t you tell me, Y/N?” He mumbles in confusion — so much confusion, so much hurt — he wanted time to just stop for awhile and give him a fair chance to analyze the situation.

But, once all the initial thoughts were out of the way, only one question remained:

Was he the reason you were going to die?

Jeongin felt like a murderer — like he’d just stabbed you in cold blood. He knows it is’t like that — just like you’d said, love should come natural. So why did Jeongin feel so bad? WHy did he feel like he was the one at fault?

A fond smile crosses his lips when he remembers the book where you keep all your flowers safely. Who would have thought your fondness for flowers would morph into the reason for your demise?

Quiet, hushed in the midnight wind, Jeongin gently brings out the rose he’d picked from his satchel. It’s almost relieving to see a rose in it’s true glory, without scattered petals or blood covering the flower. A part of him grows sad that you won’t be able to gush over flowers together anymore, he won’t be able to see your smile anymore. It hurts him. It stabs his heart over and over again, and Jeongin is pained — almost like he’s being put to death slowly — he wants the pain to end, but only suffers and suffers.

The stem has already been cut and the thorns have been thrown out. Jeongin leans over to tuck the flower behind your ear, fingers brushing against the almost cold skin at the back of your ear before letting another tear slip from his eye, running down his cheek and falling on your palm.

A strange, oh-so-strange feeling creeps up on him. It’s like… a fluttering in his heart? Jeongin can’t quite place it — heck, he doesn’t try to make sense of it. There are more important things to look at, right now. He suddenly has the urge to pull you into his arms and gently murmur sweet words into your ear — seems odd for a situation like this, but oh well, feelings are feelings.

He pats your hand gently and smiles, before moving to sleep on the smaller bed in front of your own. Not allowed to go far, though, because your grip on his hands tighten almost immediately, and Jeongin tightens to look into your eyes, sparkly and slightly droopy from the intrusion of sleep.

“Y/N, go to-”

“Stay.” You mumble, feeling your voice choke as the petals threaten to spill out for what seems like the millionth time. Yet, you manage to spill out another, “Please?”

Jeongin feels like he’s about to cry. Your expression is so, so hopeful, he can’t bring himself to deny. He wouldn’t in the first place, because who was he to deny what could be his friend’s last wish?

A sob bubbles up his throat, but he swallows it down, smiling with melancholy before following your weak pull on his hand, genty climbing on your bed before slotting himself between you and the steel grill that prevented patients from falling down. He gently tucks his hand under you and pulls you close to himself, tensing up for a second when you wrap an arm around his own, gently rubbing on it before drifting off to sleep. You want to cherish this moment — this could be the last time before you could never see him again. Fuck your medication for making you so drowsy. Or not, because you were certain you would start crying, and that would certainly not end well.

The whole room falls silent for two seconds, and you fall asleep almost immediately. 

And then, Jeongin releases all his tears, and everything comes crashing down on him. He breaks apart.

The world was too cruel to you. He was cruel to you. He can’t believe that in less than a week, you’d be gone. Gone from earth. Flowers had lost all their beauty for him, the moment he saw you coughing them up on that couch during movie night.

He wanted to do anything. He wanted any small sign to show that you would stay with him. He was in so much pain, he couldn’t accept your fate. He wanted to grab your hand and pull you to himself, keep you close, he couldn’t let go, he couldn’t give you up, he couldn’t —

“I love you.” You mumble unconsciously in your sleep, and Jeongin loses it then and there. His throat feels dry as tears flow and flow and don’t cease no matter what. His body shakes like a sobbing child, but thankfully you’re knocked out from the effect of your medication. He hasn’t cried this hard in a while, guess there’s a first time for everything. The three words pierce his heart, and they suddenly hold more meaning than anything — Jeongin wants to hear those words on a loop; he feels strangely ecstatic when you say them.

And so, with a shaky voice and a sorrowful tone, Jeongin replies after pressing a kiss to your forehead — “I-I love you, t-too.”

His eyes flutter shut and he basks in your arms just one last time, holding you close to himself as he finally, finally finds himself at peace, next to you.

When your mother finds you both snuggled up and asleep together, a smile crosses her lips. A hopeful smile.

“Are you ready for your scan, Y/N?”

You feel oddly light today — one would say it’s because your body was close to shutting down completely, but your throat felt a bit, a tiny bit clearer and less barren than a fucking desert. Nevertheless, the scan does make you nervous. This would make clear how long the flowers would take to reach your throat — the doctor’s estimation was about three days, which seemed way too short for Jeongin.

Oh, how embarrassing it was when the nurses, all giggly and mushy-eyed, found you snuggled with Jeongin like a teddy bear at the early hours of the morning, waking you and Jeongin up and only cracking up more at your bewildered expressions when you find yourself tangled with each other.

Before the scan, Jeongin had held your hand softly, leaning down to press another kiss to your forehead. You’d shyly smiled, nodding before letting the nurse drag you to the scanning room.

The details of the scan itself aren’t important, it went pretty well — as decent as a scan could possibly go. You’re able to cooperate with your nurses pretty feasibly, you feel the sudden urge to get out of your wheelchair and try walking. Sure, you can still feel the choked feeling in your throat and the burn in your lungs, but somehow, it’s just a tiny bit lesser than usual. Maybe it’s because your painkillers are working more effectively. Maybe.

Jeongin’s waiting for you outside when you’re led out of the room, and he smiles when he sees you.

You don’t even remember what you’d said the previous night. All you remember was passing out while Jeongin was in the washroom, and then waking up to him cuddled up, warm and snug next to you. His features were clear and calm as the ocean on a sunny day, a small smile on his lips, as though he was dreaming about something happy. You hope he did, because that boy deserves the happiness.

“You seem energetic today.” Jeongin says, taking note of your perky demeanour, that only causes you to giggle slightly. 

Sure, you don’t remember the happenings of last night, but he does — and he’d promised himself to cherish every last second. Because in the end, it’s all he can do — for leading you to this state, for getting mad at you and wasting precious time in which he could’ve stayed with you. He’d promised to not let you live your last moment sad and desolated.

“I feel light, for some reason.” You mumble with a broken voice as Jeongin takes the wheelchair from the nurse, listening to what she has to say before bowing and nodding, leading you back to your room.

“What did she say?” You ask, fiddling with your thumbs.

“She said your scan results would come in an hour.” 

“Oh… alright.”

For some reason, you’re too joyous today, after the little surprise you got as soon as your eyes opened. You can’t seem to bother about the end— you want to live in this moment, right now.

When you come back to the room, Jeongin lifts you up bridal style, causing you to gasp before placing you down onto the bed. The nurse waiting there quickly fixes your IV and helps you sit into a comfortable position (though it’s hard when thorns keep pricking at your ribs) before bowing to the both of you, and leaving.

Your mother has once again left to go fix up the house, leaving you in the trust of your best friend. You aren’t complaining though, especially when Jeongin sits down beside your bed, taking your hand in his before playing with your nimble fingers — just like always.

He looks gorgeous today. After a lot of nagging from your mother, he’d used the hospital bathroom to wash his face and comb his hair neatly, and you’re happy about that because he looks fresher and happier than ever. You want him to be smiling and happy, even when you leave, because… did you need a reason? You just wanted him to be happy and content with his life.

The thought invokes an angsty feeling of melancholy, but you brush it away, trying to focus on Jeongin and the silence that drops on the both of you like a warm blanket. You smile softly at him, gently letting go of his hand before tucking a few strands of his hair behind his ear, almost melting when Jeongin’s eyes flutter close.

“Hey Jeongin?” You call, grabbing his hand once again and interlacing the fingers together.

“Yeah?”

“When I… leave,” You notice the twitch in his expression, but nonetheless, continue. “Will you bring me flowers every week?” 

You remember the red rose you’d found tucked behind your ear when you woke up — it had dried up a bit, but nonetheless, it was one of the prettiest objects you’d ever seen — even though there was a whole bouquet of them spewing out your mouth every two seconds.

“I will.” Jeongin sniffles. The thought of having to visit your grave every week to bring you flowers is immensely saddening, but Jeongin agrees anyways. He agrees, for you.

It’s the least he can do.

It’s funny how you say “leave”, like you’re going to your hometown for a month-long vacation and not actually like you’re going to be buried any time soon. Jeongin thinks it’s because you don’t want him to get too sad over his loss — a stupid thing to wish — Jeongin knows this loss is going to affect him in more ways than one.

“Jeongin, d-don’t cry…” You cup his cheek, gently brushing your thumb against his cheek and wiping away the tears that fall, one by one. Jeongin shakes his head, placing his palm on your hand and smiling at you.

“Can you do me another favor?”

“As many as you’d like Y/N.” He says. He’ll do anything you want — it’s your last wish after all.

“Bury me with my flower journal, please?” It may seem like a weird claim to bury oneself with a dusty old book, but Jeongin understands the significance — you want to hold onto those memories you made with him while writing it together, while picking flowers together and all those happy moments you exchanged.

Jeongin tries not to let his voice break again. “I will.”

You beam at his acceptance. Jeongin feels the slight thump of his heart against his chest, and a warm feeling envelopes him from inside. He’s suddenly overcome with an urge to press delicate kisses on your eyelids, though he tries to shoo it away, because it isn’t the main point of focus right now.

But soon your mother walks in, and it’s all small talk and deep conversations with her at the same time. You have breakfast, persuade (more like force) Jeongin to scarf down his meal and giggle about some random jokes thrown here and there, until the doctor comes in. Both Jeongin and your mother stand up, bowing and wishing good morning while you do too. Wish, not stand up. You’re basically tied to the bed at this point.

“Mrs L/N, I’d have had a word with you in private, but I think Miss Y/N needs to hear this too.” 

“What is it, doctor?”

You furrow your eyebrows in confusion and Jeongin’s grip on your hand tightens, thumb rubbing over your skin to soothe your obvious tension. The doctor slides the transparent, firm sheet off it’s envelope before letting the sunlight hit the back of it, in order to enable a clearer viewing.

“This is… the most unusual case I’ve ever seen, but —” He points to a junction on the scan. “The flowers have actually reduced in amount, and they've separated from the windpipe by a whole two inches. See?” He points at the edges of the lungs and at the windpipe, but you understand what he means. The flowers are there, no doubt, but it’s almost like — a whole stem of them just disappeared into thin air.

Of course this could’ve been because you coughed them up, but the coughed up flowers go instantly, or so you’ve heard. There’s confusion written on all of your faces right now.

“Is that why I was feeling lighter and easier to breathe today? Because the flowers withered off and gave more space for air?” You ask in your low voice, and your doctor nods.

“Seems like it. Do you have your previous scan?” Your mother hands it to him quickly after a great deal of fishing out of her purse.

He places the earlier scan behind the newer one, and suddenly, you can see what he means. It’s almost like they shrunk — you don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but nonetheless, you’re happy you can breathe a bit more.

“What does this mean, though?” Jeongin asks, bewildered at the strange news. The room is so quiet and the tension is thick enough to cut with a knife, and you can see both your mother and Jeongin waiting for the doctor’s words.

“It means that we’ll take another scan tomorrow, a deeper one. And check if the flowers are actually collecting somewhere else, or just disappearing. And if they are disappearing…” He trails off, and you giggle when Jeongin and your mother lean forward in anticipation, though curious yourself.

“She’ll be home by Christmas. Or even earlier, if the recovery speed is fast.”

“Y-You mean… I can be cured?” Your voice shakes with hope, and the doctor smiles sweetly at you, before nodding.

“Yes dear, you’ll be the first patient who’s walked out of this place cured from hanahaki.”

At that moment, it almost feels like every flower inside your chest wilts out — you feel so light, so ecstatic. You’re over the clouds at the news, and don’t even hear your mother’s cries of thankfulness before the doctor heads out.

“Y/N!” Jeongin exclaims, ignoring the fluttering feeling in his heart and the burn in his cheeks when he cups your own. “You’re gonna come home!”

You shake with soft sobs, and smile at Jeongin.

“I’m gonna come home.” Provided the scan tomorrow showed a positive result, but you don’t bother to mention that part.

And the next day, when your scan results come back, a huge smile adorns your face, and your mother is in tears. Happy tears.

The sunshine is overly bright today, leaving you squinting for sight, especially when you’re seated in a garden out in the open, book in one hand and the other one resting against the cool, moist grass. The air holds a musky forest scent, and you revel in the feeling of the shivers the cold air that cuts through skin brings.

The park is relatively empty for the morning — you’re glad it is, because it brings on a sense of calmness that you seem to like. The surroundings are just perfect — you don’t want anyone to disrupt your mood right now.

So yeah. The story ends that way. You recover, bit by bit, though it takes a whole bunch of time. There were times when you still had to cough out those petals, but you couldn’t be happier — it felt as though you were spitting out those vicious thorns that had tormented and threatened your life. The doctors had no idea how you’d managed to recover — but this was an interesting case to put into their portfolio, so they weren’t complaining.

And oh, you had Jeongin to help you through all of it, of course. 

It had taken you two weeks to be discharged from the hospital and be able to finally walk again, but when you did it — you felt like a whole new person, in a whole new world. Sure, you had to hold onto your mother or Jeongin wherever you went for the first week or so — it was almost like your legs had turned jelly.

When you returned home, Jeongin insisted that he take you to the garden every day, and when you complained that you couldn’t walk, he’d lifted you into his arms (bridal style, again) and carried you all the way there, and then given you a piggyback ride you all the way back home.

Eventually, you ended up telling him the truth — that the unrequited love that caused everything was because of how you’d fallen for him. You figured he deserved it, especially when he’d stuck with you the whole time without any hesitation and helped you whenever he could — he was truly one of the nicest, kindest people you’d ever met.

Of course, you were surprised when Jeongin only smiled and told you that he knew what you were talking about, and then proceeded to narrate how he’d overheard you in the hospital. Giggles left his lips when you gave him that meme-worthy look, making him shake his head before slinging and arm over his shoulder.

Surprisingly, that night ended just like the books — lovey-dovey confessions exchanged in the warm and intimate setting of the night sky, over shy smiles and lingering kisses. The both of you finally gave in to each other.

Huh, so maybe you were wrong about them — books — after all.

So when, your love was returned in the end, every flower in your chest had finally disappeared, and you couldn’t have been happier.

“You know when I brought you here I wanted you to help me pick flowers and not read a book?”

You laugh at the voice that comes from behind, closing the book shut before placing it on the side while Jeongin takes a seat beside you, hissing at the slight coldness of the grass. Ah, what a romantic scenario — green and colorful flowers as far as the eye could see, a book that you’ve been trying to finish but have never been able to because your boyfriend keeps interrupting you with his random outbursts of affection, and said person sitting right next to you.

“Well, you keep interrupting me all the time!” You chuckle, sliding a hand behind his shoulder before pulling him down to lie on your lap, and Jeongin complies. A sigh of content leaves his lips when he feels your fingers comb through his hair to rid them of any tangles — Jeongin feels stupid to not realise how much he loves you. It feels nice to call you his, feels nice to be able to say I love you, in all of it’s true meaning.

“What, I can’t cuddle my girlfriend now? Come on,” He takes your other hand in his, turning onto his back to look up at you before pressing his lips to the back of your hand. You feel the heat creep up your cheeks when he calls you his girlfriend, still not being able to take it in without growing immensely shy.

“You crybaby, fine. I’ll read the book later only because I love you and you give exceptionally nice cuddles.”

“Hmm, good.” He mumbles sleepily, eyes fluttering shut in calmness when he feels your fingers brush away any stray locks of hair that may get into his eyes. The reaction to your touch is so immediate these days, Jeongin thinks it’s a part of his routine now. Spend at least an hour admiring you in all of your happy, healthy glory.

Meanwhile, you’re sitting there, admiring his features in silence. His hair has grown longer now — Jeongin refuses to cut it no matter your endless verbalizations of how his original haircut looked better — and a small part of you has grown fond of this look too. His warm skin, and his sparkly eyes when he looks up at you, the bright, loving smile that he displays before getting out of your lap, kissing you on your lips to break you out of your focus.

The action only makes you more shy, and Jeongin laughs, cooing at your behavior before standing up, dusting his clothes off the dirt and extending his hand for you.

“Lend me a hand, will you?”

The line seems vaguely familiar and you’re overcome with a sense of deja vu, but nonetheless, you give him your hand, standing up before picking up your satchel and handing him his own.

“Now are you gonna pick a rose for me or do I have to do it myself again?” Jeongin raises an eyebrow and smirks, and you frown, slapping his arm before walking off to check all the flowers in their bushes.

“Hey, wait for me! Y/N!”

When he reaches you, he slides a hand into your own, interlacing the fingers before looking at you lovingly.

“I love you.” You both say at the same time, giggling at each other soon after — perhaps at how well you knew each other to time the confession so well.

So, this is how it ends. While you do think that things could’ve been handled differently, you’re glad that everything went the way it went, because in the end, you’d found him, he’d found you, you’d discovered your feelings together. You loved each other.

Because love and a red rose could never be truly hid.

but what if she had never recovered?

taglist: @inkidz​ @stayverse​ @districtninewriters​ @kpopscape​ @skzwritersclub​ + @sunoo-luvs​ @sleepylixie​ @rae-blogging​ @happiestgirlontheeastcoast @guerillrah​ @p2q3r4​ @baby-innie​ (Please send me an ask if you’d like to be added to my taglist!) *oh holy lord pls let this show up in the tags*

[mshomestyle]

could you write some headcanons for hawks and dabi (seperate) with an artist s/o who draws them a lot? i feel like their reactions would be really cute👉👈

Sure!

Requests are still closed BTW.

An Artist Reader that Draws her S/O a lot [Head Canons]:

Hawks [Keigo Takami]:

-Hawks is always just so picture perfect.

-He effortlessly looks amazing so you never have to wait for the right moment or ask him to pose. He just does his thing, and you draw him as you please.

-Since you know he wouldn’t mind, you have no problem doing it right in his view.

-Keigo knows you’re an artist. He knows you love to draw, so he doesn’t make the connection that you’re drawing him at first, especially since you never have to ask him to move or change position since he’s so photogenic.

-It’s only one day when he’s joking around with you that he asked, “Oh, are you drawing me? Do you need me to pose for you~?”

-”Nah, you look good in any position,” you waved your hand absentmindedly as you continued your picture. Hawks raised an eyebrow before walking over to where you were to see that you were, in fact, drawing him. He was rather surprised since he didn’t think you actually would.

-”Wait, wait, you really are drawing me?” he asked. You nodded, still paying attention to your current task.

-”Yep, I draw you all the time.” Now, for a man who was used to modeling and having his picture taken, Hawks could just hardly believe this. His face flushed up as he looked down at you continuing your work.

-There’s just something so special about you drawing him. Something that absolutely causes his heart to melt and feel as if you really do love him. You’re an artists after all. You can draw anything, and yet you chose to draw him.

-Before you knew it, you feel warm arms circle around you in a tight hug, which nearly caused you to mess up. “Keigo!” you scolded before looking up to see the happy look on Hawks’s face. He kissed your lips softly before leaving tickling kisses all over your face and neck.

-”You’re too cute, baby, I love you~.”

-Now, if Hawks notices you drawing him, he will decide to stay still, letting you finish your work.

-He feels his heart swell up every time he notices you looking his way with your sketch pad and preferred drawing tool in hand.

-It really does make him feel loved.

Dabi:

-Dabi noticed pretty soon that you liked to draw him. Mostly because he ended up finding your sketch book and couldn’t resist looking inside of it.

-He wouldn’t admit this to anyone, but Dabi was surprised to see so many pictures of himself. Considering how his life was, it really got to him that someone would care and be so interested in him.

-At first he tried to rationalize it to fit with his existing biases. He thought things like ‘Maybe she’s just interested in drawing burn wounds’ or ‘maybe she’s just being sneaky’.

-But seeing the way that you drew him is what let him know that you do it out of pure admiration and love. You drew him when he’s looking his happiest, his most natural, and relaxed.

-Dabi also wouldn’t admit to anyone that it’s something that made him happy.

-The next time you draw him, studying him while you’re in the same room, Dabi decides to comment on it, hoping to tease you. “Drawing me again? Man, you’re obsessed.” You merely shrug and say,

-”Only a guy like you could make a woman like me obsessed,” as you continue to work on your picture. Dabi raises an eyebrow, but he knows he can’t be surprised by your sweet yet cunning response.

-He chose to be with you for a reason.

-Overall, though, Dabi does not mind you drawing him. And something that he won’t admit to anyone nor himself, if that if he were to suspect you drawing someone else, he might become a bit jealous.

-He doesn’t want you ever drawing someone the same way that you draw him.

-Dabi does, however, encourage you to draw unflattering and funny pictures of the other members of the League of Villains.

[suituuup]

pieces - chapter eighteen

Five years ago, Chloe dropped off the face of the Earth. Beca sees her again in the most unexpected place.

ao3 link

*

Chloe couldn’t remember a time where she’d been happier. Just over a year ago, she found herself on the verge of giving up by letting the drugs and the emotional abuse consume her whole, and now… she felt at peace. 

Fulfilled. Brave. Loved. 

Beca and Marleigh were her whole world, and Chloe still had a hard time truly believing that this was her life, now. 

“The itsy bitsy spider, went up the water spout,” Chloe sang as her pointer and middle fingers walked up Marleigh’s stomach. “Down came the rain and whoop!” Her fingers disappeared. “Washed the spider out!” 

Marleigh giggled, her laughter Chloe’s new favorite sound. She was completely obsessed with her daughter and the new things she discovered every single day. Marleigh now slept through the nights and was otherwise a very chill baby, who loved cubes, ladyfingers, rolling over, and listening to Beca or Chloe sing. 

Chloe gasped when she heard the door open. “Who’s that?? Is that Auntie Beca?” 

Beca soon rounded the corner, grinning as she slung her messenger bag over her shoulder. “Hi! You’re still up!”

Marleigh cooed and flailed her arms towards Beca, who lifted her from the bed and held her close. Chloe had witnessed plenty of moments like these between the two, but they never failed to make her heart swell. 

“I was waiting until you got home to put her to bed,” Chloe murmured with a smile, knowing how much Beca loved to take part in Marleigh’s bedtime routine. “I already changed her diaper, if you wanna sing her to sleep?” 

Beca nodded, and Chloe stood up, pressing a few kisses to her daughter’s chubby cheek. 

“Goodnight, my love,” she murmured. 

While Beca put her down, Chloe changed for bed. Ever since they got together, Chloe had been sleeping in Beca’s room. They hadn’t gone much further than making-out so far, and Beca proved to be incredibly patient while Chloe found her footing again when it came to intimacy. 

Beca flopped down face first on the bed when she came back ten minutes later, drawing a giggle from Chloe as she slipped under the sheets. “You alright there?” 

Beca’s groan was muffled by the comforter. “M’tired. Picky artists suck.” 

Chloe smiled in sympathy as she reached out to knead Beca’s shoulder. “At least tomorrow is Saturday? You get to sleep in.” 

Beca rolled her head to the side. “Yeah.” She propped herself up on her elbows and craned her neck to brush a kiss to Chloe’s lips. “Hello.” 

“Hi there,” Chloe breathed out, giggling softly. She dipped back in for a longer kiss, and Beca hummed as she shifted to her side, her hand falling to Chloe’s hip. 

Their slow, exploratory liplock soon turned into something heavier, tongues dancing together and hands roaming under clothing. 

“Wanna slow down?” Beca asked as she laid on top of her, panting slightly.

Chloe shook her head and tugged her down into another hungry kiss. Her hips rolled against Beca’s, and Beca groaned against her mouth, her hand slipping under Chloe’s shirt to run up her side. 

Chloe wasn’t ready for her arousal to be chased away by a wave of panic. She tensed under Beca’s touch, memories she thought she’d gotten rid of flashing behind her eyes, and was pushing Beca away in the next beat.

“Sorry,” she whispered when she realized what she’d done. Embarrassment coated her cheeks with red, and she avoided Beca’s gaze as she sat up. “I’m sorry.” 

“Hey, no,” Beca murmured as she sat back on her heels. “It’s okay. You don’t need to apologize.” 

Chloe scratched at her forehead as she drew her knees to her chest. She could feel the craving for some coke rise within her, to make her forget about those nights. She pressed her palms to her eyes. “Fuck.” 

“Do you… wanna talk?” Beca asked after a few beats of silence. 

Chloe opened her eyes to find twin twinkles of worry staring back at her. She glanced back down to the comforter. “I think… I think I’m dragging some trauma from-- from the stuff that would happen at the club. With--with the customers.” 

Beca nodded slowly, reaching out to slide her hand into Chloe’s and squeezing. Chloe drew in a shaky inhale.

“I… I got used to my body being used in various ways, but never for my own pleasure,” she explained, looking down at their joined hands. “It was just pure sex, whatever the customer wanted me to do to them. Sometimes it was too rough, but I couldn’t say anything because I really needed the money,” she whispered, a sense of shame gripping her insides.

“And I think… that I blocked it all out at some point. It felt like my body didn’t belong to me anymore, and now…” She blinked back the tears pricking in her eyes. “I’m having a hard time reconnecting with it.” She thought it wouldn’t be a problem, as she had taken care of herself when her pregnancy hormones went wild, but being intimate with someone else was a lot different. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she said, eventually looking back up. “I do. It’s just... a me thing.”

Beca blinked back her own tears. “What I want the most is for things to feel good for you when we do take that step,” she murmured. “And if you need more time to get to that letting go point, then we’ll wait. And if you never reach it, then that’s okay, too. I don’t… need sex to be happy, you know? I’m already happier than I ever thought I’d be, thanks to you and MJ.” 

“You really mean that?” Chloe asked, quietly. “About the sex part?”

Beca nodded. “I do. I promise.” 

Chloe hoped she would feel comfortable having sex again at some point, but it felt incredibly reassuring to know Beca wouldn’t leave if she never did. 

“Thank you,” Chloe murmured, not surprised but still in awe of Beca’s love and patience for her. “I really don’t deserve you.” 

Beca smiled. “That’s weird, I was telling myself the same thing about you earlier today.” 

Chloe’s cheeks warmed, and her heart swelled in her chest. “I love you.” 

“I love you too, Chlo.” 

*

Spring warmed to summer. 

With Marleigh growing more and more curious about the world around her, they spent a lot of time outside, whenever the temperatures were bearable. Marleigh was obsessed with dogs, squealing every time she saw one and crawling after it in hopes of catching up before Chloe or Beca would snatch her back. 

She was already showing a mischievous side, and Chloe knew her toddler years were bound to be interesting. 

“Do you ever see yourself living elsewhere?” Chloe found herself asking one afternoon at the park. 

They laid on the blanket in the shade of a large oak tree, Marleigh having fallen asleep between them. The eight-month-old could sleep anywhere as long as she had her lovey. 

Beca glanced at her. “Elsewhere than New York, you mean? Or like, another country?” 

“Other than New York. Like, somewhere where we could have a garden, and maybe a dog. And where we don’t have to drive over an hour to find a forest.” 

Beca smiled as she folded an arm under her head. “I like the sound of that. I have the label to manage, but a lot of stuff can be done from home. So maybe somewhere within a two-hour drive from here so I can come down twice a week?” 

Chloe nodded. “Maybe after I’m done with college?” 

She was going back to vet school in a few months to get her vet tech training, and that would take her a year to complete before she could apply to jobs. 

“Sounds like a good plan, babe,” Beca said. “We could start looking in the new year?” 

Excitement swirled in Chloe’s stomach over the knowledge that Beca was on board, and she beamed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Beca murmured. “Maybe somewhere around Poughkeepsie or Beacon? With four bedrooms and space to make an office or a studio?” 

“Four bedrooms?” Chloe asked, cocking an eyebrow as an amused smile tickled the corners of her lips. “How many kids do you see us having, exactly?” 

Beca chuckled. “Maybe three? If you want to, I mean. I’m also perfectly happy with our family as it is now.” 

Chloe’s heart felt fit to burst over Beca’s words. “I think three is a good number.”

They headed home around six and had dinner, then gave Marleigh a bath and read her a story before bedtime. Chloe stepped into the kitchen a bit after, where Beca was washing the dishes. 

She wrapped her arms around her waist, pressing a few kisses along the side of her neck. “Come to bed?” 

They hadn’t had sex since their talk but continued to explore through make-out sessions that gradually got more intense. Beca was incredible, always in sync with Chloe’s feelings and regularly checking that she was okay. Chloe could feel herself getting more and more comfortable with the idea of taking that step, and she was thinking she was ready to give it a try tonight. 

Beca hummed. “I’ll be right there.” 

Chloe was lying atop the covers when Beca rounded the corner, and she set her book aside, raising a curious eyebrow when Beca remained in the doorway, gazing at her with a look Chloe couldn’t identify. “What?” 

“You’re beautiful,” she murmured. 

Chloe felt her face warm-up, and she rolled her eyes softly. “Get over here, weirdo.” 

Beca laughed and stepped closer, climbing onto the mattress and crawling over Chloe. “Is that what you meant by here?” 

“Yes,” Chloe breathed out as she looped her arms around Beca’s neck and craned hers to brush her smiling lips against Beca’s. She bent her knees and wrapped her legs around Beca’s waist, a thrill of pleasure coursing through her as Beca’s hips met hers in a gentle roll. 

Chloe took the lead and deepened the kiss, skimming her tongue over Beca’s bottom lip. A moan spilled into the liplock as Beca answered with equal enthusiasm, one hand drifting down to rub her outer thigh. 

“I want this,” Chloe breathed out after a while, her lips kiss-swollen and her eyes darkened with lust. 

Beca kissed her softly. “Are you sure?” 

Chloe’s head bobbed up and down in a near desperate nod. “Yes.” 

“We can stop at any time,” Beca murmured. “Promise me you’ll say it if you’ve changed your mind?” 

Chloe reached up to cradle her cheek. “I promise.” She sat up and whipped her top over her head. Her body was different; she still had some lingering baby weight, but she considered herself too thin before the pregnancy, and she liked how she looked now. 

“Jesus,” Beca rasped as she took in the sight before her. 

Chloe couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at her the way Beca was doing now, with so much love and desire it made her breathing hitch. 

Beca leaned in, re-attaching their lips together as her hand roamed up and down Chloe’s side in a featherlight touch, enticing goosebumps in its wake. Beca’s lips then traveled along the edge of Chloe’s jaw and down her neck in hot, open-mouthed kisses. A moan spilled past Chloe’s parted lips when she latched onto her pulse point, and her back arched off the bed, searching for some kind of relief where she needed it the most. 

Beca continued to explore, kissing her way down Chloe’s chest, towards her breasts. While her palm wrapped around the right one, she swirled her tongue around Chloe’s left nipple, drawing a gasp from Chloe. 

“Too sensitive?” Beca asked, lifting her head. 

“No, no,” Chloe assured her. “It’s-- it feels really good.” 

Smiling, Beca dipped back in and spent the next minute focused on her left breast until she noticed Chloe squirming underneath her. “Okay?” 

“Yeah, I just-- I might come if you keep going like that.” 

Beca puffed out a breath, her cheeks turning redder. “Can I touch you?” 

“Yeah,” Chloe said, then pushed a kiss to Beca’s lips, her whimper swallowed by Beca as she slipped her hand between Chloe’s legs and cupped her. Chloe broke the kiss to take a sharp inhale as Beca moved her fingers in a light stroking motion. 

“Okay?” She asked as she rested her forehead against Chloe’s. 

“Yes,” Chloe breathed, raking her teeth over her bottom lip. Her hips tilted towards the contact, seeking more pressure. Chloe stilled Beca’s hand after a handful of seconds and sat up to shimmy her underwear down her legs. “Better.” 

Beca smiled and placed her hand to its initial position, a moan surfacing from her throat as she felt Chloe’s slickness. “Can I-- I wanna taste you.” 

At a loss for words, Chloe could only nod, her breath growing shallow at Beca’s request. She watched as Beca slithered down, leaving kisses in her wake until she settled on her stomach between Chloe’s legs. She kissed her way along Chloe’s inner thigh, slowly but surely reaching her destination. 

“Oh,” Chloe let out at that first exploratory lap through her folds, propping herself on her elbows to get a better view. One set of fingers gripped a fistful of the sheets while the other tangled through Beca’s hair. A gasp followed soon after, any ounce of apprehension left in her dissipating. “Baby.” 

The groan Beca emitted against her sent a zap of pleasure down Chloe’s spine. Her fingers tightened around the sheets as Beca alternated between lapping at her and stimulating her clit with licks and flicks. Beca clearly knew what she was doing, using the right tempo and pressure to draw out Chloe’s pleasure and not bring her to that climax too quickly. 

Mewls and whimpers echoed against the walls as the coil grew tighter and tighter with each ticking minute. Chloe’s elbows gave out at some point as her body started shaking with her incoming orgasm. 

She knew it was going to hit her like a freight train, yet was taken aback by its power as she released a throaty cry. Her body spasmed with each wave of intense pleasure as she let herself go, Beca’s name tumbling past her lips in a sweet prayer. 

“Oh my god,” she breathed as she basked in the lingering haziness following her climax, attempting to regulate her breathing. 

Beca made her way back up, capturing Chloe’s lips in a deep kiss before flopping onto her side. “Are you okay?” She asked, running her fingertips along Chloe’s side.

Chloe hummed, smiling. “Mmm. Okay is definitely an understatement,” she murmured as she chased Beca’s lips for another kiss. Once she had regained feeling in all four limbs, Chloe rolled on top of her. “Your turn.”

Chloe wasn’t sure at what time they fell asleep, wrapped up around each other as they basked into their newfound connection. There was one thing she knew for sure, however, and it was that the future had never looked so bright. 

[gladerwolfstarkimagines]

Imagine being the outgoing social daughter of Bumi and developing a friendship with Huan Beifong. Huan develops feelings for you but doesn’t know how to handle that so uses art to express himself...which Wei and Wing share with you, exposing Huan’s secret.  

Part 2 here

Part three here

You had come along on the avatar’s trip to find airbenders mainly because you and your father were now airbenders too thank to harmonic convergences but also because you longed to see more of the world and this seemed like the perfect excuse. You were obsessed with Zafou for many reasons but the art and culture was the main reason. Growing up in the fire nation, where your mother was from, there was not much of that. All art work was usually portraits or statues of royal family members and there were no dances just for fun or non-formal occasions. But in Zafou everywhere you looked there was individuality or creativity. Through their dancing to their method of bending, everything about Zafou was beautiful to you. When you first saw Huan it was while he was working on a sculpture. He got annoyed when Bolin couldn’t tell what the sculpture was but you hardly even heard their argument. “it’s not a banana. I was inspired by harmonic convergence, it represents the dawning of a new age..obviously” Huan glared before frowning as he noticed you. You’d stepped closer to look at the sculpture and were now right beside him gazing at his work “wow this is amazing” you grinned “you do all of this just using your bending?” you asked positively beaming. Huan looked at you, confused why you were smiling so brightly at him. “Erm yes...” he nodded. “That’s so cool” you told him “that must take a lot of precision and skill!”. “...well yes it does” Huan agreed and you smiled at him. Huan looked away from your intense eyes, blushing slightly and walked away. You stared at his pieces of art in awe not noticing his discomfort at all. 

Huan was the first artist you’d ever met and you were very intrigured by him so you found your way back to Huan’s work area later that same day. He didn’t hear you as you walked towards him but when you got close enough to see his face you saw he was wrapped up in thought and paused. You didn’t want to disrupt him, you understood not to stop an artist in their flow (something your dad always told you when he was in the middle of one of his stories) so paused. You’d wait for him to stop and them greet him. You hopped up onto a statue you could use as a bench and waited.

Huan’s POV 

When Huan did see you, your red airbender uniform catching his eye, he jumped not knowing how long you’d been there watching him. He stared at you trying to think of a reason why you’d be here when you noticed he’d seen you and waved happily. “Hi Huan” you called and he frowned “erm hi, what are you doing there....”. Your smile didn’t fade at all “I was just watching you work, I hope you don’t mind I’ve just never seen an artist work before! Can i sit in on your session?”. Huan didn’t blush easily but he felt his cheeks heat up and his throat go dry. “Erm sure, just keep quiet okay? I need to concentrate”. You nodded obediently “you won’t even know i’m here” you smiled but Huan doubted that.  

Huan could tell you were an airbender because hours later you were still sat as still as a mouse watching him contently and it drove him crazy. Huan couldn’t focus, his mind kept wandering back to you and he could swear he could literally feel your gaze on him. Huan didn’t get why you were here?  Everytime he glanced back there you looked happy and interested, you’d smile at him and he’d blush. Embarassed Huan decided he wouldn’t look at you anymore but his mind was still on you. Had Wei and Wing put you up to this? There was no reason you were this interested in art to sit on an uncomfortable metal statue for hours watching him achieve nothing. Frustrated Huan sighed “nothing’s coming to be today I am done for the day”. You hopped off your perch “that’s okay i’m sure you’ll get it tomorrow”. Huan stared at you confused at your niceness and just sighed tired of trying to figure you out. “Can i come back tomorrow?” you asked shyly and Huan couldn’t bring himself to tell you no, you seemed like one of those people too sweet for even Huan to disappoint. “I guess” he shrugged and you grinned “thanks Huan” and bounded away. Huan sighed watching you, he figured you were just intruged by the loner Beifong, you’d soon realise he was nothing special and grow bored of him.

Huan was proved wrong, everyday you’d appear in Huan’s work space and watch him quietly. Even though your visits were now regular it didn’t mean Huan coped better, if anything he got worse. His work progress dwindled but he had to admit there was something comforting about your optimistic presence. Huan found he was thinking about you more in these sessions than his own work and had given up trying to stop thoughts of you popping up in his head and just let them be. Recently Huan was wondering if you were uncomfortable sat on the metal beam you’d chosen as a seat. It wasn’t really a seat and must be cold and hard but you never complained or fidgeted. Huan wondered if he should make it into a bench and got annoyed at himself for focusing on that instead of his art work. He tried turning his attention back to his work but couldn’t get his worry for you out of his head so just sighed turning around "y/n stand up". You bounded up and looked at Huan trustingly. Huan didn’t especially like talking to you, it made him blush and feel stupid because he always stuttered or muddled up his words so he just pulled you away from the statue. He started to bent the metal and could feel you watching right behind him which made sweat roll down his forehead. It took a while and the silence as you waited made Huan uncomfortable but finally he was finished and nodded to you "there now you can sit more comfortably". You looked from Huan to the bench and smiled "a bench...you made a bench for me". Huan blushed "i just thought...". "That’s so kind thank you" you smiled placing a hand on his arm. Huan tensed as you touched him but didn’t pull away. "I’ll let you get back to work" you smiled and walked away to your new bench happily

1 week later

You spent more and more time with Huan, not only in his outside work space but also in his inside studio and had even minorly assisted Huan with one of his projects. Huan had come to class you as a friend, well maybe not a friend but he liked your presence and although he didn’t speak to you lots he’d come to speak with you more than he did his family. You were just an easy person to talk to and Huan was growing in his confidence with you when it was all yanked away when the avatar left Zafou and you had to go too. When Huan heard the news you’d be leaving he told himself this was good, now he’d be able to get back to his projects, which he’d fallen far behind on and finally focus. But when you left Huan felt weird. Being in his studio now felt lonely without you, the empty bench in the yard felt so daunting and large without you on it and he couldn’t help but picture you sat there and wish you were there. All this annoyed Huan and he decided he needed to get it out, to get the image of you out of his head and onto something solid. Maybe then he’d stop thinking about you so much. So he locked himself away for three weeks and worked on a painting of you just as he remembered in what was becoming his most fond memory, you sat in the garden of his work space watching him. Huan worked tirelessly night and day to make it fitting and corrected any small imperfection mercilessly. When Huan finally finished at 5am on the third week of his project he was utterly exhuasted and promptly collapsed into sleep right there on the floor. The painting he’d created of you finished proudly in the centre of his studio.  

Huan woke up to voices and knew there were intruders in his studio. He peered through the darkness and saw it was his twin brothers as expected. “Ow” Huan cried when one of them stood on his hand. “Ow there you are” Wei said “why’s it so dark in here...”. Wing reached the curtain and tugged it open giving Huan the urge to hiss at how bright it was. “He lives” Wei cried. “Yeah but he looks pretty rough” Wing smirked before his eyes drifted across the room and Huan realised he hadn’t covered your painting. “Ow what’s this...” Wing called crossing the room and Huan tried to grab him but failed. Wing dodged his brother and stood infront of the painting “Wei come here” he said after a few seconds of staring. “No stop it” Huan cried getting onto his feet but his brothers had already seen it. Wei whistled at the size of the painting but them paused “wait is that...y/n?”. “Oh my god it is” Wing cried as Huan tried to cover it up finally reaching them. “You painted her! did she ask you to do this?”. “No she doesn’t know” Huan muttered getting the cover over but Wing just tugged it away. “Is it a gift for her?”. “No it was just...something I did” Huan sighed and Wei and Wing smirked locking eyes. “No...no” Huan started but his brothers ignored him. “Awww you’ve got it bad brother” Wing smirked grabbing Huan. “I don’t have anything” Huan snapped trying to get out of his stronger brother’s grip but Wei grabbed his other arm trapping him. “Yes you do, look at how you drew her, you drew her like an angel, the light on her face like that...”. “No I didn’t...that’s just how she looks”. “You realise you just implied she’s an angel right?” Wei asked “and yet you claim you don’t totally fancy her”. “I do not! Y/n’s just a friend...maybe not even that” he snapped yanking his arm out of their grip “now get out of my studio!”. “Ow my god there’s more” Wei cried seeing the canvases behind the painting and Wing laughed “i don’t think he just likes y/n...”. “They were my first drafts!” Huan cried “that’s all! I was going to do one more focused on her face but that’s hard when she’s not here so i did a more landscape version”. “Yeah sure” Wing smirked “how about we show y/n these and see what she thinks?”. “No, no way!” Huan cried putting himself between his brothers and the paintings. Huan didn’t totally know how he felt about you, although he had his suspicions, but he knew his brothers telling you terrified him. The twins went to argue and Huan’s anger peaked “You will never tell a soul about the painting or else! Now get out!” he yelled. “Fine geesh” Wei smirked “we know when we’re not wanted, come on Wing”. 

Wei and Wing’s POV

Wei pulled Wing out of the room and Wing turned to him “we’re not seriously keeping this quiet right?”. “No we’re going to get the painting to y/n, our brother needs some help admitting he likes her and what better thing to prompt him to confess that y/n herself?”.

Your POV  

“Y/n!” you heard someone call you and came out of your room to find your father and uncle Tenzin dragging a large package into the house. Given the size of the package a crowd had gathered and you joined them. “Woah what is this?” you asked and your father huffed “well don’t you know it’s addressed to you”. “Me?” you cried “but i didn’t order anything”. “It says your name very clearly” Tenzin said reading the label “maybe it’s a gift?”. “A gift that size” Asami whistled and Bolin nodded “open it y/n! open it! open it!”. Your cousins joined in the chant and you nodded “okay, okay” and stepped forwards. “Erm Korra a little help?” you asked and she nooded. She slit the box with metal bending and the box opened with small foam balls falling everywhere. “This is the best gift ever” Meelo cried and Tenzin frowned “Meelo that’s not the gift....Meelo don’t eat that!”. You laughed as Tenzin yanked the plastic from Meelo’s mouth when Korra gasped “y/n it’s....it’s”. Your aunt Kya got to the box next and she had a similar reaction “it’s beautiful” she gasped “y/n who did this?”. “Did what?” you asked and Korra turned to your father “Bumi hold the box while I pull it out. It took Tenzin, Bumi, Kya and Korra to get it out but when they did you all went silent. It was one of the most beautiful things you’d ever seen. The painting showed a young woman sat on a metal bench surrounded by flowers and trees. The sun was setting making the colour of all the plants stand out against her red clothes. The girl seemed to be mid laugh and looked beautiful. “Wow” you gasped as Asami smiled “you look beautiiful”. “What do you mean?” you asked and she frowned “y/n thats you!”. “No it’s not me...” you frowned before realising the red clothes were your air bending uniform. “Who sent this?” Bolin asked as you stepped closer to the painting. The scenery looked familair...and the metal bench... “Huan” Korra said suddenly “that’s his name there in the corner signed isn’t it?”. Tenzin nodded “yes, he is more talented than I thought”. “Huan did this?” you asked before smiling “he knew I liked art so he made me a painting”. “It’s beautiful” Jinora smiled “it’s probably one of the only pieces of art featuring an airbender in centuries and I’ve never seen one this beautiful before”. “You’re probably right Jinora” Tenzin nodded “airbender rarely comissioned paintings or had much use for fine arts so this is quite special, did you know about this y/n?”. “No” you smiled “he must’ve been working on it for ages without telling me, I have to go thank him, uncle Tenzin can i borrow Oogie?”. Tenzin looked to Bumi who just stared at him and so nodded “yes...”. You thanked him rushing out of the door in the blink of an eye. 

Bumi’s POV

“Now that is a nice piece of art” Bumi smiled exmaining the painting as Tenzin appeared beside him. “Yes...Huan must really like y/n”. “Well who doesn’t like my daughter? She’s amazing” Bumi said smiling proudly. Tenzin coughed not sure why his brother was so relaxed about this. “yes, but aren’t you concerned?” Tenzin asked but Bumi just shrugged. “Why would I be concerned?”. “Well Huan has taken it upon himself to do this beautiful painting of your daughter and she see’s it and runs off to travel three hours in this weather to tell him how much she likes it”. Bumi nodded still not getting what Tenzin meant and Tenzin sighed “aren’t you worried that this large gesture is a show of Huan’s intentions for y/n?”. When Bumi continued to frown Tenzin rolled his eyes “that he’s possibly in love with her”. Bumi physically jumped “no he can’t be, this doesnt mean that, my y/n’s still a kid, she’s still my baby girl”. “I mean her and Huan did become pretty close” Bolin nodded and Bumi glared “you take that back”, “And look how he drew her” Mako nodded “she’s the most beautiful girl i’ve seen in any painting”. Bumi glared “are you interested in my daughter too huh police boy?”. “No, i just meant look at how he sees her, I think Tenzin’s right”. “Ow no, i’ve let my daughter run off to her boyfriend unsupervised” Bumi cried “I need to stop her before I loose her forever” and he ran out the door. 

Your POV    

You arrived at Zafou cold and tired but still so excited to see Huan. You hoped he wouldn’t mind you showing up so abruptly and made your way to his inside studio figuring he’d be in there given the weather. It started snowing an hour into your journey and hadn’t stopped since. When you got to Huan’s studio however the lights were off and the door locked so you sighed not sure where to try next, you had no idea where his bedroom was. You were wandering around trying to find the main house when two figures appeared. “Y/n?” Wei and Wing called and you grinned relieved to see them. “Hey guys it’s so good to see you! I’m lost can you help me find Huan?”. “Why?” Wing smirked “did something come in the mail?”. You grinned “you guys knew?”. Wei nodded “Huan showed it us, it was beautiful wasn’t it?”. You nodded “It was amazing, that’s why I came, to thank him for it, nobodies ever given me such a beautiful present before”. Wing smiled “yeah well it would be Huan”. You frowned as Wing an Wei exchanged looks “why because he’s an artist?”. “No, we meant if anyone would give you a gift like that of course it’d be Huan”. Your frown deepened “it would...why?”. Wei sighed “now look y/n we don’t usually get involved in stuff like this but seeing as our older brother is useless at stuff like this we’ll tell you okay?”. You nodded not sure what you were expecting them to say but it wasn’t what came next. “Huan likes you...a lot....like a lot of a lot”. You paused “he does? but...no, we’re just friends”. Wing smirked “maybe to you but to Huan? He liked you y/n, he sulked for ages after you left”. “No...I mean i wasn’t even sure Huan actually liked me until I saw the painting, we’re just friends I’m sure”. “Y/n didn’t you notice how he painted you, how much attention to detail he paid to you, you don’t do that for any friend”. “well maybe not...”. “And we’ve seen him with you” Wei told you “y/n he’s never show an interest in any girls...and he’s had interest from pleanty of pretty ones before but he never even paid attention to them, let alone made them a 4 foot masterpiece”. You blushed “you really think your brother likes me?”. Wing smirked “we know so because he does that same blush when we mention your name to him”. You blushed even more and Wei smirked “the light in Huan’s room has just switched on, my guess is he’s in there”. You looked at the illuminated window and suddenly felt nervous to see him. “You think I should...talk to him about this?”. “Yes” Wing and Wei answered automatically and you paused “i don’t know maybe he doesn’t actually...” making Wei sigh and look to Wing.  “Huan!!!” they both yelled. You jumped and hit them both lightly “why did you do that! Now he’s gonna...”., “Y/n?” a familiar voice called and you spun to see Huan’s head poking out of his window. “Hi” you smiled “I just came to thank you for the painting and i bumped into Wing and Wei”. “painting...Wing and Wei?” Huan asked and it all clicked and he glared at his brothers. “You little...” he started when Wing and Wei smriked “aren’t you going to invite y/n in Huan? She flew all this way just to see you”. You and Huan both blushed but Huan looked at you “you did? that’s like four hours and it’s almost winter”. You shrugged “it was only three and i wanted to see you in person”. Those words made Huan feel dizzy and he smiled without realising it “well come inside you must be freezing”. You hurried inside and Huan glared at Wing and Wei “I will pay you back for this” but they just winked and walked away. You reached Huan’s room and huddled in front of the fire. Huan resisted the urge to wrap a blanket around you and tried not to stare at you. You’d never been in Huan’s room before and broke the silence after looking around “your room’s lovely” you smiled and Huan felt pleased. “You think so?”. You nodded admiring the many books and instruments dotted around “but I knew it would be”. “How?”. “Well i mean you’re an artist and well dressed, you have an eye for colours and stuff so i guess i assumed you’d be good at decorating too”. Huan blushed but smirked “you know that’s not how art works right?”. “I know” you nodded blushing and Huan was confused why, you’d never acted nervous around him before but now you did....was it the painting? Had he creeped you out? “What did you think of the painting?” Huan asked bravely and your face soon broke into a smile again “I love it!”. “Yeah?” Huan asked acting like those words didn’t make his stomach do backflips “you do?”. You nodded “it was so beautiful, all the delicate brush strokes and merge of colours, I was so pleased you based it on me”. “It wasn’t based on you it was you” Huan said confused and you blushed again “I mean but it can’t be...I don’t look like that, the girl you based on me was...well more beautiful than any human i’ve ever seen”. Huan frowned, it had taken Wei and Wing a second to realise it was you too. “I apologise” Huan frowned “I must not be as good a painter as I thought”. “Are you kidding you’re amazing” you cried and Huan shook your compliment away. “You’re not the first person to struggle placing the girl as you, I do not understand though, to me that is how you look”. Huan seemed to realise what he’d said after he said it and saw your reaction in slow motion. You gasped slightly, your lips parted as you stared at him and what he’d just said. You met his eyes and then both looked away rapidly.  Huan was blushing and kicked himself for saying that. “Do you really see me like that?” you asked and Huan nodded “yes”. “so it’s true” you said softly “what Wei and Wing said”. Huan frowned “wait what?”. You jumped and Huan regretted talking so loudly, “i’m sorry” he said lowering his voice “what did Wei and Wing say to you?”. You blushed and Huan swallowed this could not be good. "They said you...were fond of me". Huan’s tanned skin turned red and you paused unsure if that was a good or bad reaction but carried on now you’d started "that you liked me". Huan didn’t reply so you sighed "do you Huan?". Huan fiddled with his metal bracelet before nodding "yes". He looked at you waiting for your response and saw you frown. His heart sank, when he realised you weren’t looking at him but to the door where you could hear raised voices. "Dad?" you asked when the door was thrown open and Bumi appeared. "Ow y/n!" he smiled seeing you before he spotted Huan "you!" he all but gasped. "Get away from my daughter you tatooed dyed haired ruffian” Bumi yelled and you stared eyes wide “dad!”. Huan didn’t seem concerned though he just watched your father calmly. “Sir I am not inappropriately near your daughter and I don’t have a tattoo” when Bumi cut him off punching him in the stomach. “Put them up” he cried “we will fight for my daughter’s honour!”. “Dad!” you cried pushing him away from Huan with airbending. You rushed to Huan who was doubled over “Huan are you okay?” you asked putting an arm around him and he nodded “he just winded me that’s all”. You spun on your father a face like thunder “outside now!”. Huan watched amazed as your father hung his head in shame and obeyed.

After strong words with your father you sent him away to wait by Oogie for you and returned to Huan. You knocked nervously and opened it when you heard Huan call back. He was sat down and you scanned him for any signs he was hurt. “I’m sorry about that” you frowned “are you okay? He didn’t hit you too hard did he?”. Huan blushed embarassed and shook his head “i’m fine”. Your father just beat him up, there was no way even if you did like him before that you liked him now. "My father always has amazing timing" you frowned "Huan i’m sorry...i never got to reply to you". "It’s okay" Huan shrugged but you shook your head "no it’s not but hopefully i can take you out on a date to make up for it?". Huan paused and looked up at you "what?". "Well if you wanted to..." you blushed "i like you too". Huan stood up and honestly you expected a smile, maybe a laugh, perhaps ever a hug or kiss but you didn’t expect Huan to disagree with you. "No you don’t" he said simply. You paused "i’m sorry what?". "Girls like you don’t talk to people like me and if they do they certainly don’t want to date us". You frowned "what do you mean girls like me?". "All pretty and confident and nice..." he sighed "why would you like me i’m nothing like you?". "Maybe that’s why?" You shrugged “opposites attract and all that?”. Huan shook his head "no you date boys like Wing and Wei not me". "Says who?" You asked "i don’t want to go on a date with your brothers...no offence they’re lovely but well you're different..:.”. “Because I’m an artist?” Huan asked “is that it? You’ve never met one before you’re probably just impressed with that!”. "Why are you trying to convince me i don’t like you?" you asked and Huan rolled his eyes "because its better that way, it’s easier you realise it now rather than later down the road..it would certainly be a lot kinder on me". “But I...what do you think I’m going to do? Get bored or something? Change my mind?”. Huan went quiet and you knew that was it, Huan didn’t think you really liked him, he thought this was a phase. "Why don’t you believe me?” you asked confused and Huan sighed angrily “because why would I? Why would I believe someone like you would like me?”. “Because you’re an amazing guy with tons of good qualities” you shot back and Huan laughed “sureee I can’t think of a single thing you like about me other than me being an artist”. “I could name tons of things!” you cried and Huan raised his eyebrow “ow yeah?”. “Yeah” you cried and took a deep breath. Angrily, you faced Huan fully and listed whatever came to mind. “I like how your hair looks and the dyed green bit especially. I like how sure of yourself and your art you are. I liked how your face clouds when you’re working and how you scrunch up your nose when you’re concentrating especially hard! I like how you speak your mind and don’t try and be polite! I like how you can also be really sweet and thoughtful. I like how you’re like nobody i’ve ever met before and not because you’re an artist or a Beifong but because there’s nobody else like you Huan...”. You would’ve carried on but Huan was embarassed and overcome with emotion so just did what he body told him to do. Huan cupped your face and cut you off as he kissed you. You gasped in shock at the sensation and the realisation that Huan was kissing you sunk in but rushed to kiss him back none the less. Huan seemed to lose confidence really quickly and his eyes snapped open and he let go of you just as you were getting into it. “sorry I...” he started but you cut him off “no don’t apologise” you smiled grabbing his hand “I liked that...I like you Huan”. Huan blushed and he couldn’t help smile. You grinned to see Huan finally believed you and how he was holding onto your hand a blush on his cheeks. “So that date?” you asked and Huan nodded “i’d like that a lot”. “You would?” you asked and Huan nodded “I know a great place we can go if you want to see more of Zafou, we could go this weekend if you wanted”. “That sounds amazing” you grinned and Huan blushed “great”. You smiled and just stared at each other before both going red. I should probably go" you blushed "but i’ll be back in 3 days for our date?". Huan still couldn’t believe that sentance but nodded "yes, 3 days". You blushed staring at him and Huan froze, did you expect him to kiss you again or something? He barely had enough confidence the first time he didn’t think he could do it a second time. But was he supposed to initiate something now you were leaving? As you started leaning towards him Huan panicked even more unsure what to do when you kissed him but you just hugged him. "Thank you again for the painting it’s the nicest present anyones ever given me" you told him. Huan blushed and hugged you tighter "it’s no problem". You smiled pulling away and looked at him “I have to go...my dad”. Huan nodded leading you to the door “of course, thanks for coming all this way”. “I’m glad I did” you smirked and Huan nodded “I am too”. You eyes lit up and you grinned “bye Huan” you smiled softly ghosting his hand with your own before walking away. Huan stared after you until you’d gone and then collapsed against his door frame. He couldn’t remember being this excited about a social event in years and still couldn’t belive this had just happened. He actually wouldn’t mind thanking Wei and Wing for this, they deserved it. 

---

So this is supppppper long and maybe odd considering how little screen time Huan got in Lok but idk what happened!! I got major Huan feels suddenly and started writing and this appeared and now i’m low key in love with Huan. Ow well, thats another Beifong to add to the list

[carryonmywaywardcaptain]

Everything’s a Seger Song

CarryOnCap’s Masterlist

Summary: On a night out at the bar, you try to convince Dean to do karaoke. He ends up putting on a performance you never would have imagined.

Warnings: FLUFF (Karaoke, but without the drunken shenanigans. Sorry, friends!); wingman Sammy :)

A/N: Apparently I have an obsession with drunk Winchester shenanigans and karaoke? Stay tuned because I’m seriously considering making a masterlist for such fics. lol 

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Y/N, I’m not gonna freaking--”

“Please, Dean?” you cut him off and pressed your hands together, begging him to give karaoke a shot. “I promise it’s so much more fun than it looks. And you’re the one who wanted a night out with me and Sammy--karaoke in front of a bunch of drunk strangers is a non-negotiable right of passage.”

Dean cocked an eyebrow and shook his head as he looked at Sam.

“She’s got a point,” he agreed, pushing himself up from his stool. “Be right back. Anybody need another?”

You and Dean each raised a hand, turning your attention back to one another as Sam disappeared into the crowd.

“I don’t sing,” Dean said, tipping his head back to finish off the rest of his beer.

“You don’t have to be good,” you tried again. “It’s just for fun! And the fact that it’s in front of strangers means you’ll never see any of them again.”

“Well, I’m not drunk enough for that.”

“I can fix that,” you grinned.

"Still not happening, sweetheart.”

Sam was back at the table in no time at all, wordlessly taking a seat as he looked between the two of you. 

“Dude, what the hell?” Dean waved his arms and motioned at the empty space in front of his brother.

“What?” Sam asked.

“I thought you were going to get more drinks.”

“Oh, right. Plans changed,” he smirked, taking a drink as he peeked at you over his bottle.

“What the hell does that mean?” Dean asked.

Sam ignored him, turning his attention to the stage when the audience began applauding an older gentleman who had just finished a very off-key performance of Fly Me to the Moon. The three of you joined in on the applause, even though you’d tuned him out before he even made it through the first chorus. 

Another man appeared onstage and glanced at his a clipboard before addressing the bar. “Alright, looks like next up we have a, uh...Dean Winchester doing Bob Seger’s ‘Living Inside My Heart.’“

The crowd cheered and Dean’s face went pale as Sam doubled over laughing. Dean grimaced, slouching in his seat while adamantly refusing to go up to the mic.

“Dean Winchester? You still out there somewhere?” The man called again.

“He’s over here!” Sam yelled, standing and pointing at Dean. 

When he made no attempts to move, the crowd began chanting “Get up there” and you couldn’t help but join in.

“Sammy, I’m gonna kill you,” he groaned, finally rising from his seat.

“Hey, man--you said everything’s a Seger song to you. Now here’s a real test for that. I think you’ll thank me for the song choice later.”

Dean shook his head, keeping his eyes on the floor as he slowly trudged toward the stage. He climbed the steps, staring out at the crowd with a timid, forced smile. In all the time you’d known him, you’d never seen Dean so nervous.

Wrapping one hand around the stand, he carefully adjusted microphone so that it was level with his mouth. The sound of a piano and a periodic drumbeat filled the speakers. After several seconds, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and began to sing.

When the sun came up this morning

And she smiled her smile for me

I felt it for the first time

Something deep inside of me

Unable to help your gaping reaction, you whipped your head toward Sam with wide eyes. Instead of the same shocked expression you wore, his wide grin told you that he was well aware of his brother’s talent. 

Of all the times you and the boys had cranked the volume and sung along in the car, you’d never had any idea that Dean could sing like this. His voice was deep, rich, and bluesy-- captivating everyone in the room with his heartfelt rendition.

So you can take your midnight ramblin' boys

And you can keep your winding roads

She's livin' inside my heart now

Livin' inside

As he surveyed the crowd, you could visibly see him growing more comfortable with each lyric he belted out. 

A table of people who appeared to be college-age raised their glasses, swaying back and forth and bobbing their heads with the beat. They had clearly had a lot to drink, but that didn’t change how deeply his performance was affecting them. How the entire audience seemed to revere every note.

When his green eyes met yours, something in his gaze made it impossible for you to look away.

Oh there's an easiness about her

There's a softness in her way

But she gets me through the hard times

We get closer everyday

I know I'll never be alone now boys

Cause even if I'm far away

She's livin' inside my heart now

Livin' inside

Yeah

The words stirred butterflies in your stomach. 

You and Dean had always flirted with one another, having some unspoken bond that was much deeper than friendship. Both of you knew it, but neither had acted on it for fear of how things might change between you. 

But there was something undeniably intimate about the way he was looking at you as he sang. Something that made you feel like each lyric served as a sincere admission from him. 

And I don't know what I did to deserve her

But I'll tell you this my friend

I'm never gonna lose her

Never gonna lose her

Cause every night...

You felt the crowd’s eyes on you as they began to pick up on the exchange between you and Dean, but you didn’t care. Swallowing the lump in your throat, you choked back the emotions swelling inside of you.

As his song drew to a close and he delivered the last few lines, everyone in the bar rose to their feet to give him a standing ovation. You and Sam cheered the loudest, earning a bright smile from him that was vastly different from the apprehensive expression he wore when he began.

“So...you signed Dean up?” you asked Sam slowly.

“Yep.”

“And you knew he could sing...like that?”

“Sure did.”

You pursed your lips and stole a glance at Dean, who had walked off the stage and was slowly making his way through the bar. You watched as he shook hands and thanked each person who approached him before you turned to Sam with one last question.

“And the song?”

“That was on purpose too.” He grinned at you and winked before nodding toward his brother. “Now go get that Travelin’ Man.”

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[sepublic]

Happy Birthday to The Owl House!

           Honestly, I’m… REALLY shocked to think back on how it’s been a year? It’s been a full, actual year, since that first episode?

           I remember when The Owl House was first announced around early 2018. Something about it, the premise, the characters from that one poster we got; It really drew me in, and I kept track of the show’s progress in eager anticipation. Whenever Dana released art of Luz, Eda, and King, I was ecstatic- And when the show was delayed to 2020, I was dismayed.

           Then we got our teaser trailer; The opening them, the end credits, even a little sneak peek! I remember speculating a lot about Luz and all of the other new characters we were introduced to, such as Willow, Amity, and Gus- And then we got more and more trailers in the days leading up to the show. I wondered about Luz’s home back on Earth and where her family was, I listened intently to the Hooty and the Parliament music video, finding an almost melancholic, weirdly nostalgic (despite having never watched the show yet) vibe to it- Whilst also avoiding looking at the screen and seeing all of the various clips it offered, because I wanted to be surprised! It was two years of anticipation, two years of wait for this show- I’d never looked forward to a series before like this, last I can recall… So having this content FINALLY come out, seeing these characters in animation, hearing their wonderful voices! My soul was vibing, it was time, it was coming after all this time…!

          Eventually I finished Infinity Train Book 2, the same day that The Owl House premiered… I was blindsided when I woke up to the first episode’s release online, in full- I was already planning to wait until later to watch it on television, so having it permanently accessible from the internet was such a pleasant surprise! And the show… The show, man- That premiere caught me off-guard with how much I enjoyed it! I knew I was looking forward to this show, but still…! It blew away my expectations, and even now, has continued to; It was like my personal investment and attention had paid off so patiently well! I even got a DisneyNOW subscription so I could watch each new episode ASAP, the day it premiered, hours before it aired on television!

           I remember scouring Tumblr before the show officially premiered, and there was understandably very little- A few pieces of fanart here or there. And when the show DID premiere, for a while there wasn’t really much of a fandom- There was barely anyone, in fact! But I can remember a few notable blogs who have been around since the beginning… Me, I got invested into this show. I found myself really enjoying Lumity as a ship, especially since I resonated with both characters in it; Luz was such a ball of sunshine that brightened my day, and Amity really spoke to me with her more introverted, top-scoring personality. When the show hit its mid-season hiatus, I remember not handling it too well, as I got impatient and frantic in my speculations- I wanted so badly to learn more about these characters, see what happened- Get a look at Emperor Belos (then known as Bellows by the fandom), etc.

          I wrote my Bile Coven piece in preparation for Halloween, even got to know a mutual or two over shared theorizing! I kept track of Dana’s updates, and even had people come to my blog, of all places, to send asks! It was and still has been such an engaging part of fandom for me… I recall impatiently waiting for the Owl Pellet shorts and freaking out over them- And when Adventures in the Elements leaked early? I LOST MY MIND, I remember postponing something I was supposed to go to, just so I could watch the episode- And it was so good! Then I started wondering and hoping the rest of Season 1 would come out, and well- It took a while…

          And when Season 1B’s trailer came out, I was all over it; Scouring every possible frame, freaking out over the Grom screenshot, and appreciating the influx of new fans! It was amazing to watch The Owl House go from a relatively minor and obscure fandom, to becoming so much more mainstream and populous! I got into Rebecca Rose’s channel, I began writing more meta and posts about the show, as well as little recaps for each new episode. I feel like my blog really took off from here, as I got to interact with more and more people who shared this mutual love of The Owl House, and I was so ecstatic to see more content and buzz about it!

           My mind was solely focused on The Owl House, it was one of my huge hyperfixations, even moreso than during Season 1A’s run- I remember being anxious about Enchanting Grom Fright, wondering if we’d get queerbaited… But NO, Amity was in love with Luz! She canonically had a crush on her, a girl in love with another girl- And I loved it because Lumity was a special comfort ship of mine! Then Amity was confirmed lesbian… It was amazing! And I found myself SO invested, so inspired by the show and its characters, and all of the little allusions to things, the foreshadowing, the moments here or there that made so much more sense after a new episode.

           This show inspired me creatively- It got me to write some of my personal favorite fanfics, and I was and still am so touched by whatever feedback I get from them! The Owl House really got me to write, to obsess over characters and analyze them, to look at motifs, to think about worldbuilding… It’s been such an artistically enriching experience, both the show and the fandom! I remember despairing so terribly when Agony of a Witch came out, the genuine betrayal I had when Lilith revealed the truth- Because I’d been legitimately endeared to her character beforehand, even formed a sort of ‘trust’ in a sense… And like many others, I agonizingly anticipated the season finale, the much-needed emotional reconciliation!

           I remember how the episode titles were revealed, bit by bit, and how I and others speculated on what they’d spell out! I remember when the fandom obsessed over the Witch’s Apprentice game and its relics, for clues and new lore after each episode, the little hints here or there! I was freaked out by characters like Belos, who lived up to my hopes and expectations- First being alluded to by name, then his amazing appearance… And then his voice and mannerisms and everything about him! And when the Season Finale came out…

           Well, there was relief. But there was a bittersweet emptiness- That it was over! The first season was over! There was a celebratory triumph, of course- We finally wrapped up the first, major arc of the show, the first batch of episodes that had been worked upon, the whole thing now unveiled and appreciated! But I was a little dismayed because a part of me KNEW a hiatus much longer than the previous one was ahead of me, and I did not handle the mid-season hiatus well. Of course, then Dana had her Reddit AMA, and the charity livestream; Both of which NOURISHED me creatively, and have helped to fill out the wait! To carry out my momentum, to not flounder about in hiatus; I invested myself into more meta, into various posts, etc. I read fanfiction that genuinely floored me, obsessed over fanart, etc.

           I supported the show’s release on Disney Plus, ecstatic to get this kind of ready access. I revisited past episodes and characters, looking at them in a new light, appreciating things; Like Luz’s relationship with fantasy… King’s surprising development, all of Eda’s little hints and clues. There’s been an emotional catharsis with these characters for me- And I genuinely feel like I’ve been a lot happier lately because of this show! I’ve met so many other blogs and gotten to know them, seen their ideas and displayed mine as we appreciated one another… I even remember doing another blog’s fanart prompt prior to the show’s release, in preparation!

           I feel like The Owl House has genuinely given me a new appreciation for meta, for fandom and analysis… For headcanons, for writing my own stories and contributing my own ideas and speculations, etc.! It’s contributed SO much joy to me as a hyperfixation, and rapidly risen through my blog as my most frequent tag! And even as I explore other fandoms and hyperfixations, both then and now, especially to pass on this crippling hiatus… This show holds a VERY special place in my heart for me. It’s really made me feel for these characters, the love and sadness, the excitement and sense of comfort… Its love and emotions, angst and found family, lore and speculation, it hits so hard to me in a way that other media hasn’t!

           It’s provided representation- Such as canonically queer characters, or protagonists who speak so well to the neurodivergent experience for many people! I’ve had delight in seeing people suggest Amity as autistic, when before Season 1B, I lowkey headcanoned and saw her as such- So seeing more evidence for this resonated deeply in my heart! I remember all of the discussion about King as a character, the confusion and talk about whether or not he WAS a King of Demons, when that first announcement in 2018 had made a similar claim… I looked forward to Eda and Lilith’s relationship, speculated on who cursed Eda, and remembered when I’d considered the Blights as a potential culprit! I remember thinking about Hooty, wondering what his deal is- And thinking then and now about that Owl Deity mural in the Owl House! Watching Luz’s development as a character and as a witch, seeing her become more proficient with magic until it finally pays off with her squaring up against Belos, and wounding him- I’d never felt so proud of a character and their progress before!

           There’s still so many more questions and mystery, lore… as well as just genuine character interactions, to look forward to! I think The Owl House is one of my favorite shows of all time… It’s deeply touched me as a person and creator, and I genuinely strive to create something even close to this one day. This show has inspired me, made me laugh and cry, compelled me to creatively make content; It’s introduced me to a wider fandom that I genuinely feel like a part of, had me meet other mutuals… It really is something special to me. And while I am eager for Season 2, I also want to appreciate what Dana Terrace and her crew have already established. I love this show’s art style and animation, the designs and overall weirdness of its characters- I love speculating and thinking about them, getting more and more details, and so forth.

           If it’s for a better product, I’m fine waiting for Season 2. And honestly, I love what we already have, and I’ve done a lot with so many people. I’ve even looked over supplementary materials and stuff posted by the crew or news articles, in my need for content… And I love every bit of update, art, and/or acknowledgement of the show’s hiatus, and Season 2’s development! There’s so much to look forward to… And there’s so much that I’ve enjoyed, after plenty of anticipation!

           Thank you @danaterrace, and everyone who worked on this- For everything. It really is crazy to reflect on this entire year, to realize it’s been a full year since that first episode, since that first premiere that lit up my world like Luz’s light spells; And it feels like such a milestone that we’ve reached! I look forward to what comes next, and I also intend to keep appreciating and cherishing what we’ve already gotten. Here’s to this show’s second year, people- It’s been such a journey to look back on and remember each step, each phase, each particular moment and stage… And I can only imagine what will come next! This show has SUCH a special place in my heart, and has made me feel in so many ways I haven’t before!

           Happy Birthday, The Owl House! You’ve earned it!

[recurring-polynya]

Tokusatsu Au where Rukia plays the lead actress in a superhero action show. Renji plays one of the villains and they are The most popular ship in the fandom. Bonus points if Orihime plays the main villain and loves every second of it.

This was the very first prompt I got, and I fell in love. Unfortunately, aside from a brief period of being grotesquely fascinated with Power Rangers as teen, I know almost nothing about tokusatsu. I did as much research as I could and I attempted to watch an episode of Kamen Rider, but my eyes glazed over halfway through. Anyway, please forgive my inaccuracies, I wrote this with my heart.

ao3 | ff.net

🏍    ⚡   🎬

“Uh, looks like we’re almost out of time,” the panel moderator for “High-Spirited Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe!: A Sneak Peak at Season 5” declared, “but would you be willing to take just a few audience questions?”

Head Screenwriter Kurosaki Ichigo glanced at Leading Actress Kuchiki Rukia out of the corner of his eye, and she gave a tiny nod.

“Yeah, sure!” he replied.

There was already a young woman waiting at the microphone, practically vibrating with anxiety. She was wearing a t-shirt that had ZabiTo4Ever!! handwritten in marker on it. Rukia knew, deep down in her bones, what the question was going to be.

“Hi, yes, hello, big fan of your work! My question is: are Tomoe and Zabimaru going to kiss this season?”

“No,” Rukia started to say.

“As you probably know,” Ichigo said loudly on top of her, “the show holds close to the core plot points of Kuna-sensei’s manga, although, because of her minimalist style, we do expand a lot of the dialogue and filler scenes. She has said in several interviews that High-Spirited Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe! is not a romance manga, so the odds of Tomoe and Zabimaru ever kissing on screen are very, very low.”

The young woman stared at Ichigo grumpily. “Does this also count Zabimaru’s secret college student identity, Satonako Takeru?”

Ichigo stared back at her. “Yes. It does.”

The next question came from a person wearing a full suit of HellKnight’s plasma armor made out of overlapping plates of cardboard. Rukia was kind of impressed by it. She wondered if he could sit down.

“Hi, Kurosaki-sensei, I am a huge fan of your work,” a voice emanated from deep within the cardboard. “I was wondering if you are influenced at all by fanworks, and if Episode 73: Pride is on the Line!: The Bake Sale Must Go On! was based in any way on the classic fanfiction, ‘Tell Me All Your Best Lies’? It’s the top story by kudos in the ZabiTo tag, which I might point out is the most popular shipping category on AO3.”

Ichigo cleared his throat gently. “I am contractually not allowed to read fanfiction, although I do enjoy fanart! There are some incredibly talented artists in the fandom, although for some reason, no one ever wants to draw pictures of Lead Screenwriters.”

“I’ll draw you, sleeping on the set like you always do,” Rukia offered, and that got a pretty big laugh. Rukia’s Tumblr of behind-the-scenes doodle comics was beloved among the fandom.

The next question was from a nonbinary person wearing a big poufy skirt and a hairstyle that would make their make-up and hair guru, Yumichika, sit up and take notice. “Hi, this is a question for Kuchiki-san! If the show is going to roughly keep pace with the manga, as it has done up until now, you should be shooting the storyline where Tomoe and Queen Bloodbuzz switch bodies later this year. I was wondering if you could comment on how you feel about filming that storyline?”

Finally! A good one! “Yes!” Rukia nodded eagerly. “I don’t usually like to speak for my fellow cast members, but Orihime and I are beyond excited about playing each other. We’ve been studying each other’s mannerisms and practicing already! Does anyone want to hear my Queen Bloodbuzz cackle?” She wagged her eyebrows as the audience cheered. “Here goes-- bwaHaHaHaHAHAHAHAAHAAAHAAAAAAAA!”

“Bonechilling,” Ichigo commented dryly as the audience erupted.

“Amazing, Kuchiki-san!” the moderator exclaimed. “I think there is time for one more, but this will be the last question!”

A tall girl in a full set of High-Spirited Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe motorcycle leathers stepped to the microphone. She was holding a notebook. “Hello!” she warbled. “In a 2020 interview with the Psychics and Sidekicks podcast, Abarai Renji was asked about his opinion on ZabiTo as a ship, and he replied,” she consulted her notebook, “‘Tomoe is such a cool lady and talented Battle Clairvoyant, and she always follows her heart and stays true to herself. I think that Zabimaru can’t help but be impressed with her, even though they’re enemies, and I always try to roll that into our on-screen interactions.’ I know that in the past you’ve refused to comment on the ship, but I was wondering if you had any thoughts on, y’know, his thoughts?”

“Well, he’s correct, of course, Tomoe is very cool and admirable,” Rukia replied, which drew a few laughs, although it seemed like the audience was leaning forward in anticipation of her answer. “Like I said, I don’t like to speak for other cast members. I’ll be doing a big cast panel with Abarai and Inoue and Matsumoto and Ukitake tomorrow afternoon, and I hope you all can make it! See you then!”

The moderator thanked them enthusiastically, and then Ichigo and Rukia slipped out the back guest entrance.

“Evasive as always, Kuchiki,” Ichigo teased.

“Whatever,” Rukia sniffed. “The higher ups say we’re not supposed to comment on stuff like that, and I was not commenting. By the way, how many secret fanfic accounts are you up to? Four?”

“It’s only three!” Ichigo paused. “I wrote that fanfic the guy brought up.”

“Of course you did,” Rukia sighed. “I do blame you personally for the popularity of the damn ship.”

“Me? Blame Kuna for making up two such sexy, emotionally constipated dumbasses!” Ichigo defended.

“Also, it’s not Ichigo’s fault that you and Abarai have insane chemistry.”

Rukia spun around, grinning. “Orihime!”

Rukia’s two co-stars, Inoue Orihime and Abarai Renji, the portrayers of Tomoe’s demonic archnemeses, stood in the hallway behind them.

“We sat in on your panel!” Orihime beamed. “You two were brilliant!”

“Don’t worry,” Renji added. “We were incognito.”

“Incognito” was relative, Rukia supposed, when you were at Tokyo’s biggest tokusatsu

convention.

Orihime was wearing a Zabimaru outfit so detailed that she probably could have won a prize down at the cosplay hall. She had the gravity-defying ponytail, the eyeliner, the insane widow's peak (complete with forehead tatts), the fangs, the motorcycle boots. The paper mache snake skull helmet was a little lopsided, but it was charming. She had her top zipped a little higher than canon, but that was forgivable, too.

Renji had taken the opposite tack of looking as much like a normal person-- or at least a normal Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe superfan-- as possible. Relaxed fit jeans and an oversized hoodie de-emphasized his ultra-fit physique. He was wearing a t-shirt with a very dramatic rendering of Orihime that said “Queen Bloodbuzz can step on me!” and a ball cap with the logo of Seireitei University, the fictional college Tomoe and Takeru attended.

“You think you’re in disguise,” Rukia pointed out, “but there are thousands of teen girls in this place with entire Tumblrs dedicated to your stupid face when you’re out of costume.”

Renji cocked an eyebrow at her. “You underestimate me, Rukia. I have bought… new sunglasses.” With a flourish, he whipped out a pair of the dorkiest wayfarers she’d ever seen, and flipped them onto his face. “I’ve disappeared! Who am I? Where am I?”

“You look really great, Orihime,” Ichigo said, his cheeks coloring a little bit. “Did you get Uryuu or Yumichika to help you with that costume?” In his continuing theme of doing things he wasn’t supposed to, Ichigo had finally started dating Orihime on the downlow around the time they finished up filming last season. It had done absolutely nothing for how shy he still got around her. They were, in Rukia’s opinion, cute as hell.

“Oh, no, that would be cheating!” Orihime replied, wagging a finger at him. “Well…maybe I did cheat, just a tiny bit. Renji helped me make the helmet and he held up references for me while I was painting on the tattoos.”

“Only the forehead ones,” Renji quickly added.

“He wouldn’t even offer feedback on my booby tattoos!” Orihime frowned. She leaned forward. “Rukia, how do they look?”

Ichigo turned even redder.

“Perfect, as in all you do!” Rukia replied loftily.

“What’s everyone got coming up next?” Renji asked. “I was thinking of slipping out and trying to pick up some real coffee.”

“I’m judging a villainess-themed cosplay competition,” Orihime chirped. “But I’m dying for a blueberry caramel iced latte. Renji, my henchman, pleeeeease!”

“Of course, my liege,” Renji replied in his Zabimaru voice.

It’s not like it had been a hard decision to accept the role of the motorcycle-riding, badass heroine of one of the most popular manga of the last decade, but it had turned out to be one of the best decisions of Rukia’s life. not just her career. Aside from a few of the money-obsessed executives, she liked nearly everyone in the cast and crew, but the fact that the fact that the ruthless, homicidal, literally Hell-spawned villains of the show were played by the two sweetest marshmallow people she had ever met just took the cake. Renji and Orihime had already known each other from some voicework they had done previously, and their excitement at working together on a live-action project had infected the entire cast from the start. Rukia wasn’t sure, but she strongly suspected that Renji was the one who had hyped Orihime up to ask Ichigo out.

“I have a writers’ workshop I’m moderating this afternoon, and I wanted to review the writing samples people sent in,” Ichigo said, scratching the back of his head. “I’d love to stop by that cosplay contest, though, at least for a few minutes.”

“You’ll be needing caffeine, too, then, eh?” Renji offered. “Hot, black, and in the largest cup they make, as usual?”

“Ugh, you’re the best,” Ichigo groaned. “You wanna power-up this season? Costume update? You know what? Maybe I’ll just have you defeat Tomoe once and for all, no one likes her anyway.”

“C’mon, you know I’m the world’s number one Tomoe simp, don’t do that!” Renji laughed.

Rukia rolled her eyes. “I’m free and I could use some fresh air. Besides, it’s going to take all your dumb muscles just to carry Kurosaki’s vat of coffee back here.”

“Cool!” Renji proclaimed. “We’ll be back soon!”

“Thanks, Renjiiiii!” Orihime waved.

“You need to stop off and put on a disguise?” Renji asked.

“No point in it, I always get recognized,” Rukia sighed, pulling her sunglasses out of her purse anyway.

“Here,” Renji said, plunking his hat on her head. “Maybe this will help.”

“Thanks,” Rukia replied, and then did a double take. “Whaaaaaat is on your head?”

“Shut up!” Renji laughed. He usually shaved his head when they were filming, because it made it easier to deal with the make-up and wigs, but since they were between seasons, he’d grown his hair out into a short, tousled mop of reddish-brown waves. He looked, for the lack of a better word, dreamy. “I shot a movie over the summer, and they wanted me to look softer.”

Rukia looked at him over the top of her sunglasses. “You didn’t tell me you were doing a movie!”

“Oh, it was just a little indy romcom thing. I wasn’t sure it was gonna pan out, I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.”

“You were in a romcom? You’re kidding me!” They ducked out of a side door of the convention center into the bright sunshine.

“Yeah, it’s about a guy who goes to the gym to try to get ripped to impress a girl, and makes friends with me, this nice, already ripped dude who gives him lifting tips and encourages him a bunch. By the end of the movie, it turns out we have crushes on each other.”

“Oh, no, that sounds really cute, actually!”

“It was written by a woman who graduated from one of Ichigo’s writing workshops. The script was really snappy and Ichigo thought having someone like me as the gym guy would give it just a bit of campy cachet. You know what a good sense he’s got for stuff like that.”

“That was cool of you to go out on a limb a little,” Rukia replied.

Renji rubbed the back of his neck. “I’d been wanting to try something like that for a while, actually.”

Rukia blinked. “You aren’t… you aren’t thinking of leaving the show, are you?”

“Huh? No. No! No, the show means the world to me, I would never. But… it’s not gonna run forever, y’know?”

“I would have guessed you’d want to be a big action star or something!” Rukia said, throwing a few air punches. “That’s my dream!”

Renji stuffed his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. “Yeah, that’s what I thought I wanted when I first got into acting. I’d read the Tomoe manga, and I thought playing Zabimaru would be a good jumping-off point, besides just being a cool character overall.”

“Is that… not true?” Rukia frowned.

“Oh, I mean, I guess so! I didn’t really know about the fandom, though and… to be honest, I’m kinda into the idea that there are all these fans who think I’m complex and redeemable?”

Rukia regarded him out of the corner of her eye. “They just want to fix you.”

“Maybe! Ichigo made me read this one fanfic that was eight thousand words of the reader getting sick and Zabimaru making them soup? And feeding them the soup? I still haven’t decided how I feel about it.”

“How does he have time to find these things? Does he even sleep?”

“Anyway, it doesn’t hurt to be well-rounded and it was fun. I’m still mostly an action guy, but I wouldn’t mind doin’ something with a romantic subplot. A period drama or something like that. I look pretty good in hakama, you know.”

“I bet you do,” Rukia laughed. She squinted at him, but his expression was unreadable behind the shades. Renji didn’t have the classic leading man looks, not like her ridiculously famous older brother, but she could definitely see him as the best friend, the B-plot romance, with his cute, messy hair and that big doofy grin.

“By the way, I’m sorry you had to field that question about me spilling my romantic sensibilities on that podcast.”

Rukia laughed. “You didn’t even answer the question, either! These people are relentless!”

Renji stopped at a street corner and peered down the various possible directions they could go. “Which way feels like it might have a coffee shop?”

“You didn’t have one in mind before we left? I thought you knew where we were going!”

“Nah, I just like to go out and see what there is.”

“I can look up a map,” Rukia said, reaching in her bag for her phone.

“Let’s just go this way,” Renji said, stepping out into the street in the direction that had the WALK light. Rukia sighed and had to scramble to catch up with him.

“So, what do you think about it?”

“Huh?” Rukia asked. “Think about what?”

“Our ship. ZabiTo.”

“I can’t believe you just said that word out loud. And you know we’re not supposed to give our opinion on it!”

“Aw, c’mon, we’re not supposed to give public statements on our opinions. I don’t think there’s any harm in talking between ourselves. We’re in disguise, even.”

“‘Disguise’,” Rukia sniffed.

“You don’t like it, I can tell.”

“He’s a bad guy! Everyone always talks about chemistry, and that may be true, but I just don’t think that Tomoe could ever get over his acts of violence and cruelty.”

“Queen Bloodbuzz is cruel. Zabimaru is not cruel.”

“Okay, that’s fair, but still. He’s kidnapped just about all of Tomoe’s friends and or turned them into monsters at one time or another. He’s always setting Karakura Town on fire or flooding it with magic lizard goo. He ruined the sports festival.”

“Maybe the sports festival deserved to be ruined,” Renji muttered under his breath.

“Okay, you’ve got a point on that one,” Rukia admitted.

“It’s really clear though, that he’s got some agenda beyond just simping for Queen Bloodbuzz--”

“The simping for Queen Bloodbuzz is the most relatable thing about him, to be honest.”

“Granted. But, what if he’s got a good reason for everything he does, actually? What if he’s doing all of this against his own moral code as a means of infiltrating Hell itself and getting himself into a position of trust so that he can bring down the Lords of Hell from the inside?”

Rukia slipped her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose. “Does Kuna give you Zabimaru spoilers?” The reclusive creator High-Spirited Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe! was only barely involved with the television show, but she did privately meet with each of the cast members about once a year. Most of Rukia’s meetings consisted of Kuna giving her constructive criticism on her battle poses.

“No, mostly we practice sneering,” Renji replied. “But I gotta play the guy, so I gotta think about this, you know, what motivates him? I mean, you’re probably right, it would never work out. But unlike Tomoe, whose principles would call for her to ignore any attraction she has to him, Zabimaru has the freedom to pine for her, perhaps because his love is futile and he doesn’t think he deserves it anyway.”

“That’s kinda dark, dude,” Rukia frowned.

“Yes, well, that is the kind of character acting that netted me the 2019 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Best Villain Award, Foreign Language Category.”

“That’s literally what’s going through your head when you’re shouting that if I can’t make some sick motorcycle jump, you’ll turn all my friends into stuffed animal versions of themselves?”

“No, of course not! At those times I’m thinking about how much I love my job. OH! and what is that I see!” Renji struck an extremely Zabimaru pose. “A MISTER DONUT!”

“My hero!” Rukia exclaimed, unable to resist an opportunity to shout dramatically. “I’m sorry I doubted you!”

“I think we should get some donuts, too. Orihime loves donuts,” Renji declared.

“Oh, for sure,” Rukia agreed. She was thoughtful for a moment. It would be easy to move on to a different subject, the subject being donuts, but she wasn’t happy with leaving the last conversation hanging. “Look, Renji, just because I don’t like the dumb ship, you know that’s not a reflection on you, right?”

“Huh?” Renji replied. “You mean you don’t mind if I like it?”

“Well… I mean, I don’t, I guess, but what I really meant was, er… we joke a lot, but Tomoe and Zabimaru are just parts, y’know? Just because I don’t think Zabimaru isn’t good boyfriend material doesn’t mean I…” Rukia trailed off, suddenly realizing what she was saying. “Um. What I mean is. You’re very nice and probably one of my favorite people I’ve ever worked with and if someone I knew wanted to ask you out, I would definitely encourage them to, A+ guy, I’d say, probably would make a great boyfriend.”

Renji pushed his sunglasses up onto his forehead and regarded her for a long moment. “For the record, Kuchiki, I think that both you and Tomoe would make excellent girlfriend material.” While Rukia stood there and gaped like a fish, he turned and pushed open the door to the coffee shop. “Ichigo likes crullers and Orihime always wants the most colorful thing they’ve got. Do you know what you want?”

“I need to think about it,” Rukia squeaked. She wasn’t talking about donuts.

🏍    ⚡   🎬 

Bonus: Here are my notes from when I was making up the show. I hope this wasn’t too confusing!

High-Spirited Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe!

based on a manga by reclusive mangaka Kuna Mashiro

Head Screenwriter: Kurosaki Ichigo

🌟 Starring: 🌟

Kuchiki Rukia as Yukimura Tomoe, a spunky college student who can see ghosts and fights demons from Hell! She rides a motorcycle!

Inoue Orihime as Queen Bloodbuzz, a Lady of Hell, who seeks to gather energy from the Living Realm so that she can become the Supreme Ruler of Hell. Very aesthetic. Much bees.

Abarai Renji as Zabimaru, Queen Bloodbuzz’s ruthless henchman. He leads a double life as fierce-looking, but gentle-hearted college student Satonaka Takeru! What is his long game??

[tillidontneedfantasy]

A Track-by-Track Breakdown of Taylor Swift’s 8th Studio Album: ‘folklore’

Taylor Swift’s 8th studio album, folklore, starts off with the lie, “I’m on some new shit.” Perhaps to someone who hasn’t been paying attention this would seem to be true. But to those listening, folklore is the essence of her skill and success throughout her entire career stripped down for all to see, but more refined, enhanced, and impressive than ever.

Even prior to her pop-world domination with 1989 (2014), Taylor’s storytelling ability has always been her most compelling strength as a writer. In 2010, she released her third album, Speak Now, penned fully solo to prove to the cynics that she does, in fact, write her own music. And it’s damn good. Widely considered her best song, “All Too Well” from Red (2012) is a five and a half minute epic about love had and lost, all in walks through autumn trees, almost running red lights, dancing round the kitchen, and a scarf reminiscent of innocence, unreturned.  

Yet her pop prowess over the last six years perhaps leads to her storytelling being overlooked to those more focused on the music. There is a particular genius in writing a successful pop song, let alone three successful pop albums, that still has hard-hitting lyrics underneath the synth. Take the excellent “Cruel Summer” from Lover (2019) for example. The song is just under 3 minutes, and the production is so enthralling and infectious that it can take such a hold on you, you might miss the tale being told along with it about a fraught summer relationship that was actually just the beginning of her own love story.

But without the pop production, her stories on folklore demand attention. Swept up by a strong wave of creativity and inspiration, Swift secretly wrote and produced this album in around three months with Aaron Dessner of The National, one of Swift’s favorite bands, and long-time collaborator and friend Jack Antonoff. A surprise album is a new endeavor for Swift, as she generally spends months meticulously planning an album rollout. It is refreshing, and as a dedicated, long-time fan of Taylor, it is thrilling. Due to the album cover where she is standing in the woods, and the genre of the album itself, there have been think pieces regarding the “man in the woods” trope and what it means that Taylor seems to be embodying it. As a result of over-exposure, people are unable to stop focusing on her image and the way she presents herself. It’s understandable, as she is a very smart and deliberate businesswoman, and clearly cares about how she is perceived. But with this album, it is clear that none of that was at play. We are in the middle of a pandemic. Her mother has been battling cancer for years. Isolate a creative person in a dangerous world and they will dream up an escape. She understands more than ever how precious each moment is, and does not want to waste another one. The woods being the landscape for the photo-shoot is most likely attributed to the fact that it is the safest place to have one under these circumstances. She’s not pretending she removed herself from society and became enlightened, she didn’t dabble into a more alternative sound to prove anything; she is just sharing stories she wants to tell that she is proud of, and nothing more.

Of course the music of the album is important, but the lyrics are the heart of it all, and I wanted to focus on them. Upon its release, Taylor explained in a foreword that the album was a mixture of personal and fictional accounts. The beauty of stories is that once they are shared, they never live one single life; each person who consumes a story interprets it uniquely, and the story becomes a multiverse, with different meanings and outcomes than what initially drove the pen to the paper. As explained by Swift in a YouTube comment prior to the album’s release, three songs on the album are all one story, which she has dubbed “the teenage love triangle.” The three points of the triangle are “cardigan,” “august,” and “betty.” But if someone had not seen her say that, they might not have figured it out. Maybe they’d interpret each song as their own story, and connect it to their own. Taylor knows this. It is why she loves storytelling and is why she is so good at it. The album itself is a mirror ball, shimmering with every version of the stories being told, reflecting a bit of each person who listens. These are my interpretations, but they can mean whatever you make of them. 

1. the 1 The melody of this song helps set the scene; picture yourself skipping rocks on a lake, reminiscing on the one that got away. “the 1” is about learning to assimilate into a life without them, resentfully accepting that they might be moving on, too. She ruminates on what went wrong and what could have been. In a very Swift fashion, she puts the blame on herself when she sings, “in my defense, I have none / for digging up the grave another time.” Perhaps this song is fictional, perhaps it’s a revisit of a past feeling or relationship, but its relatability makes it feel real and present. She searches for explanations, restraining herself from asking, “if one thing had been different, would everything be different today?” But it’s good she didn’t ask, because she’d never find the answer, anyway. Best lyric: “We never painted by the numbers, baby, but we were making it count / You know the greatest loves of all time are over now.”

2. cardigan (teenage love triangle, part 1: betty’s perspective) “When you are young they assume you know nothing,” Swift sings in her smooth low-register on this Lana del Rey-esque single. “But I knew everything when I was young,” she asserts. They say wisdom comes with age, but there is wisdom lost, too, of what it felt like to be young; but she has held onto it. In this track, the narrator (Betty) is looking back on her relationship with someone she once loved (James, as name-dropped in “betty” later on in the album). Her insight on his character was always spot on; she knew he’d try to kiss it better, change the ending, miss her once the thrill expired and come back, begging for her forgiveness in her front porch light. As soon as she was feeling forgotten, he made her feel wanted, his favorite. The ending in question is unclear, whether she granted him her forgiveness or not. But what is clear is Taylor’s understanding of the pull of young love, the intensity, the immortalization of all the smallest of details, the longing to be someone’s favorite. It’s why we look back on it so often, read stories and watch films about it, even as we grow old. It’s the cardigan we put back on when we want to be Peter Pan and remember what it was like to fly with Wendy. Best lyric: “You drew stars around my scars / but now I’m bleeding.”

3. the last great american dynasty The story of Rebekah Harkness and her destruction of the last great American dynasty, Standard Oil, is documented in this track, as each verse covers a different part of Rebekah’s life, going from a middle class divorcee to one of the wealthiest women in America by marrying into an empire. Swift paints Rebekah as an outcast, the Rhode Island town blaming her for her husband’s heart giving out. Rebekah used her inherited fortune on her ballet company, throwing lavish parties with her friends who went by the “Bitch Pack,” playing cards with Dali (Yes, as in Salvador Dali. It’s not clear if they actually played cards together, but her ashes were placed in an urn designed by him), and feuding with her neighbors. Then, fifty years later, Taylor Swift bought that very house and ruined the neighborhood all over again, bringing with her the triumphant return of champagne pool parties and women with madness, their men and bad habits. It’s a note on how women will be blamed for tarnishing what is sacred to men rather than celebrated, specifically when its related to wealth and power. They will call them mad, shameless, loud. But just like Rebekah, Taylor learned to pay them no mind, and just have a marvelous time. It is also interesting to note that Rebekah went by Betty. Perhaps Taylor felt inspired by and connected to her and gave her a whole backstory, and thus the birth of “the teenage love triangle,” or maybe it’s just a coincidence; but that’s the fun of it all. Either way, this track is a standout showcase of how Swift has truly mastered her craft as a songwriter. Best lyric: “Holiday House sat quietly on that beach / free of women with madness, their men and bad habits / and then it was bought by me.”

4. exile ft. Bon Iver You know that feeling when your parents are fighting and it’s upsetting you but you can’t help but listen? That’s kind of what listening to this song feels like. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon co-wrote the track, and he lends his gorgeous vocals to play a man who has been exiled by his ex who has moved on with someone else while he desperately tries to understand where it all went wrong. The bridge is particularly poignant, both proclaiming, “you didn’t even hear me out,” while talking over each other. He thinks he was expected to read her mind, but she is adamant that she gave him plenty of warning signs. Miscommunication is one of the most common downfalls of a relationship, and the emotion in Swift’s and Vernon’s voices really draws you into the argument with them, transporting you back into your own exile from people you once called home. Best lyric: “I couldn’t turn things around / (You never turned things around) / ‘cause you never gave a warning sign / (I gave so many signs.)”

5. my tears ricochet Taylor describes this song in the foreword as “an embittered tormentor showing up to the funeral of his fallen object of obsession.” If you know enough, you can put the pieces together that the tormentor is Scott Borchetta, the head of Big Machine Records, and the funeral is of their professional and personal relationship. Taylor was the first artist ever signed to Big Machine. Borchetta and Swift had to trust each other in their partnership for it to be a success, and oh, how it was. But prior to Lover’s release, Taylor announced that she would be signing to Republic Records as her contract with Big Machine had ended and Republic offered her the opportunity to own all of her masters moving forward and negotiate on Spotify shares for all their artists. It all could have ended amicably there, but then Scott Borchetta sold all of Big Machine, along with Taylor’s masters from every album prior, to Scooter Braun. Braun manages some of the biggest stars out there, and had previously managed Kanye West. Taylor publicly spoke out about this purchase, stating that she was not made aware of this before the announcement, and how much of a betrayal it was considering she had cried to Scott before about Scooter’s mistreatment of her. Taylor has continued to be vocal about this, and so she sings, “I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace.” There is a lot to unpack in this song, but the main takeaway is that this betrayal hurts him just as much if not more than it hurts her, because his career was built on her achievements. He buried her while decorated in her success, becoming what he swore he wouldn’t, erasing the good times for greed, all just to be haunted with regret for pushing her out and stealing her lullabies. The pain is palpable, and it is notable that this is song is placed at track 5, the spot generally reserved for the most vulnerable on the album; it shows that there are different types of heartbreak that can shatter you just as much as those from romance. Best lyric: “If I’m dead to you, why are you at the wake? / Cursing my name, wishing I stayed.”

6. mirrorball On Lover’s “The Archer,” Taylor expresses her anxiety over people seeing through her act, her own grief at seeing through it herself, wondering if her lover does and whether he would stay with her regardless. “mirrorball” is about the act, one of the more obviously confessional songs on the album. She talks about how a mirror ball can illuminate all the different versions of a person, while also reflecting the light to fit in with the scene. Taylor’s critical self-awareness is heart wrenching, and it’s clear that the anxiety that surrounds the public perception of her is still prevalent. She describes herself as a member of a circus, still on the tightrope and the trapeze even after everyone else has packed up and left, doing anything she can to keep the public’s attention. It hurts to hear the desperation in her voice, but there’s hope in the song, too. She is speaking to someone (we can assume her long-term boyfriend, Joe Alwyn) and thanking them for not being like “the regulars, the masquerade revelers drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten.” In 2016, the height of Taylor’s fame and subsequently her farthest fall from grace, all the people who pretended to be her friends and attended all her parties celebrated her (temporary) demise, continuing to dance over her broken pieces on the floor. But he stayed by her side as she put herself back together. And so now, when no one is around, she’ll shine just for him, standing even taller than she does for the circus. Best lyric: “I’m still a believer, but I don’t know why / I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try / I’m still on that trapeze, I’m still trying everything / to keep you looking at me.”

7. seven Her voice gentle and haunting, Taylor recalls the freedom and innocence of her childhood in Pennsylvania. She asks to be remembered for how she was, swinging over the creek, before she learned civility when she would scream anytime she wanted, then letting out a very pretty one. She sings to her old friend soothingly about taking them away from their haunted house that their father is always shouting in, where they feel the need to hide in a closet, perhaps literally, or figuratively, or both. They can move into Taylor’s house instead, or maybe just to India, just be sure to pack their dolls and a sweater and then they’ll hit the road. She can no longer recall her friend’s face, but the love she had for them still lives in her heart, and she wants it to live forever through story. Just in the way that folklore itself blends reality and fiction, but the truth within it passes on, so will the purity of that love and friendship. Best lyric: “Please picture me in the weeds / before I learned civility / I used to scream ferociously / any time I wanted.”

8. august (teenage love triangle, part 2: the other girl’s perspective) If you had to assign the feeling of longing to a song, it’d be “august.” It’s when you’re teetering at the edge with someone, unsure of where you stand with them, clinging to anything they give you and doing anything just to raise your chances, “living for the hope of it all.” August, the last month of summer, its heat causing it to slip away the fastest in a haze before reality hits. This track is a display of how sometimes losing something you never had causes an even deeper ache than losing something that was yours, and Jack Antonoff’s signature production intensifies the emotion even more. It’s the story of shattered hope, and the longing for the days where it could still fuel you. Best lyric: “To live for the hope of it all / cancel plans just in case you’d call.”

9. this is me trying “this is me trying” is like a drive through a tunnel at night, hearing your loudest anxieties and insecurities echo all around you, caving in. The track is another apt insight into Swift’s struggles with her self-image, with the pressure she puts on herself, so much so that she sometimes pushes herself too close to the edge, her fears luring her out of the tunnel and down, down, down into her own cage, stunting her own growth and keeping those who care out of reach. She tells us how she was “so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere.” Every action has an equal, opposite reaction, meaning that she was pushing herself so hard, she rolled back to where she started, and now has to reset. This could be referring to the period between the end of the 1989 era and the release of reputation (2017), or a different time in her life, or just a general sentiment. It doesn’t really matter, though, because no one’s growth is a neat, straight line; growth is jagged. Just like any of us, Taylor will always have to face new obstacles, new pitfalls, new reasons to get back up. She sounds most vulnerable as she cries, “at least I’m trying,” and you feel comforted knowing someone so beautiful and successful has to push herself to try, too, and yet that motivates you more to try yourself. Best lyric: “They told me all of my cages were mental / so I got wasted, like all my potential.”

10. illicit affairs A quiet, slow-build testament of the passion, the tragedy, the secrecy, the inimitability of a romance that shouldn’t exist, “illicit affairs” demonstrates how you can ruin yourself for someone from just one moment of possibility or truth, quite like the narrator of “august” does for the hope of it all. An illicit affair can be many different things: infidelity, forbidden love, a love that can never be fully realized, a relationship that is inherently wrong but electrifying all the same. It’s a reminder of what so many of us would do just to see new colors, to learn a new language, even if the one moment of enlightenment destroys us forever. We might lose the iridescent glow but we don’t forget it; we carry it with us, but must be careful to remember its blinding effect, to remember how fatal the fall is from the dwindling, mercurial high. Best lyric: “Tell your friends you’re out for a run / you’ll be flushed when you return.”

11. invisible string Clearly the most outright autobiographical track, “invisible string” is the plucky pick-me-up needed. The song is like sunshine, as Swift endearingly links all the little connections between her and her boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, since before they even met. She compares the green grass at the Nashville park she’d sit at in hopes of a meet-cute to the teal of his yogurt shop uniform shirt, and gives a nod to her smash hit “Bad Blood” from 1989 with the delightful line “bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to LA.” She reasons these coincidences as a fateful, invisible, golden string tying them together since the beginning, always destined to meet at the knot in the middle. She thanks time for healing her, (a callback to “Fifteen” from Fearless [2008]), fighting through hell to make it to heaven, transforming her from an axe grinder to a gift giver for her ex’s baby (the ex in question, Joe Jonas, and his wife Sophie Turner, happened to have their first daughter two days before this album’s release). As she has on her previous two albums, she uses the color gold to illustrate how prized their love is to one another. It’s sweet to know in all the gloom that the string has not been severed, and the trees are still golden somewhere. Best lyric: “Cold was the steel of my axe to grind for the boys who broke my heart / now I send their babies presents.”

12. mad woman Throughout her entire career, Taylor Swift has defiantly defended female rage, all the way back from throwing a chair off a platform on her Fearless Tour during the impassioned “Forever & Always,” to her patient, vengeful reliance on karma in reputation’s lead single, “Look What You Made Me Do,” to her most recent tackling of the matter on Lover’s last and final single, “The Man,” where she explores society’s acceptance and encouragement of angry men yet disdain for angry women. “The Man” is catchy and upbeat, and a fun thought experiment into how Swift’s career would be perceived if she was a man, something that is even more interesting to think about now as she releases an album in a genre heavily dominated and lauded by males. But on “mad woman,” she further explores the creation and perception of female rage, though masked under a smooth, haunting piano melody, her vocals subdued, taunting. In the album foreword, she describes the inspiration behind this song as “a misfit widow getting gleeful revenge on the town that cast her out.” This could be the continuation of Rebekah “Betty” Harkness’s story at her Holiday House in Watch Hill, RI, and how she further alienated herself from the rest of the neighborhood as they cast stones at her for the collapse of the last great American dynasty. (Or perhaps Daenerys Targaryen’s descent as the Mad Queen played a part in the song’s inspiration, as Swift has spoken of her love for Game of Thrones and her character specifically.) Taylor herself could also represent the widow, her music and masters as her love lost, and the men behind the crime as the “town that cast her out.” In the first verse she sings, “What do you sing on your drive home? / Do you see my face in the neighbor’s lawn? / Does she smile, or does she mouth ‘fuck you forever’?” It’s the first f-bomb of Taylor’s career (though a much more playful one will come two tracks later in “betty”) and it speaks volume. Taylor has received a lot of condemnation for expressing her anger at their transaction, for calling out their greed for what it is. Some view Swift’s stance on the ordeal as petty and trivial; they see the men as orchestrating a good business deal, and Swift as the girl throwing a tantrum. Ask any woman, and they can tell you about a time a man told them they were crazy for being justifiably angry; it only makes us angrier. “No one likes a mad woman,” Taylor states, “You made her like that.” Swift underscores that here, how they will poke and poke the bear but then blame it for attacking, as if they had never provoked it at all, and how dare it defend itself. Just as they blamed Rebekah for her husband’s heart giving out, they somehow manage to blame Swift for not being allowed to purchase the rights to her own work. And yes, she’s mad, but the song is measured and controlled; she’s used to her anger now, and knows just how to wield it. Best lyric: “Women like hunting witches, too / doing your dirtiest work for you / It’s obvious that wanting me dead has really brought you two together.”

13. epiphany This is another track Swift provided some background on, stating it was inspired by her “grandfather, Dean, landing at Guadalcanal in 1942” during WWII. The first verse paints this image, while the second verse depicts a different kind of war, happening right now, fought by doctors and nurses. She speaks of holding hands through plastic, and the escape folklore has granted you suddenly lifts. Watching someone’s daughter, or mother, or anyone suffer at the hands of the COVID-19 pandemic, just as watching a soldier bleed out, helpless, is too much to speak about. As she points out, they don’t teach you about that vicarious trauma in med school. We are living in a tireless world with barely any time time to rest our eyes, but too much going on while we’re awake to make sense of any of it. “epiphany” is a cinematic prayer, pleading for some quiet in order to find an answer in all the noise. We’re still waiting for that glimpse of relief. Best lyric: “Only twenty minutes to sleep / but you dream of some epiphany / Just one single glimpse of relief / to make some sense of what you’ve seen.”

14. betty (teenage love triangle, part 3: james’s perspective) It makes sense that a song reminiscent of Fearless would exemplify some of the best story-telling on folklore. The final puzzle piece of the teen love triangle, “betty” is a song sung by Swift from the perspective of the character of her own creation, James, attempting to win back his true love, Betty, who he slighted in some way. He proclaims that the worst thing he ever did is what he did to her, without explicitly stating it. Though the infamous deed is unclear, here’s the information we collect from this song: James saw Betty dancing with another boy at a school dance, one day when he was walking home another girl (from “august”) picked him up and he ended up spending his summer with her yet still loved Betty, and though he ended things with his fling and wanted to reconcile with Betty, he had returned to school to see she switched her homeroom (James assumes, after saying he won’t make assumptions. Classic men). So in order to make it up to her, he shows up at her party with the risk of being told to go fuck himself (the second and charming “fuck” on the album! Which is repeated!). Upon his arrival, there is a glorious key change (ala “Love Story”) and all the pieces fall into place for the listener; we realize Betty is the girl singing in “cardigan” as he lists the things he misses about her since the thrill expired, like the way she looks standing in her cardigan, and kissing in his car. He’s 17 and doesn’t know anything, but she knew everything when she was young, and she knew he’d come back. The way I see their story conclude is that she led him to the garden and trusted him, but as they grew older they grew apart, but the love she had for him never faded completely. Listening to this song is like being back in high school, whether you were the person who did someone wrong or the person so willing to forgive in the name of young love, or Inez, the school gossip, you’re right there with them. The other great thing about this song is that it is sung to a girl, and though it is set up so we understand it is most likely from a boy’s perspective, it doesn’t have to be. It’s really great that girls in the LGBTQ community can have a song in Taylor’s voice to fully connect to without changing the pronouns or names (even James, which is unisex and is one of the names of the daughters of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, Taylor’s close friends, mentioned in this song). That is the beauty of folklore: the infinite ways a story can be told, perceived, retold from a different perspective, and told again. Maybe you’ll hear it from Inez. Best lyric: “But if I just showed up at your party / would you have me? Would you want me? / Would you tell me to go fuck myself, or lead me to the garden?”

15. peace One of the most beautifully solemn songs of her career, “peace” echoes the same fears explored in “Dancing With Our Hands Tied” from reputation; will the person she loves be able to weather the ever-present storm that comes with the life of a superstar, but also dwells within herself? Will holding him as the water rushes in be enough? Will giving him her wild, a child, her sunshine, her best, be a fair consolation? Presumably another confessional track and about Alwyn, Swift puts him up on a pedestal, praising his integrity and his dare to dream. She proclaims that she would die for him in secret, just as she told him she’d be on her tallest tip toes, spinning in her highest heels, shining just for him in “mirrorball.” She highlights some of the greatest gifts of love, such as comfortable silence and chosen family. She knows what they have is special, but she also knows the value of peace, the ultimate nirvana, and does not want to deprive him of that. It is so deeply relatable- to me, at least- to feel like you can give someone so much of yourself but know it still may never be enough, and to fear either losing them or robbing them of something better. But looking at what they have together, maybe peace is overrated. Or maybe, she’s looking for peace in the wrong places. The calm is in the eye of the storm, and sometimes, there’s nothing more freeing than throwing away the umbrella and soaking in the rain. Best lyric: “I never had the courage of my convictions / as long as danger is near / and it’s just around the corner, darling / ‘cause it lives in me / no, I could never give you peace.”

16. hoax The truest enigma of the album, the closer, “hoax” is a devastatingly dark ballad about the uncertainty, or perhaps incredulity, of someone’s love for you, a love that is your lifeline. The lyrics are ambiguous, which gives way to a plethora of interpretations. Perhaps she is speaking about a hypothetical situation that has yet to happen (and hopefully doesn’t) in which someone she loves and trusts betrays her. Maybe she is talking about a relationship, real (hopefully not) or fictional, in which despite the torment it brings her she holds onto it for dear life. I’m most inclined to believe that the song represents her difficulty in accepting that someone is willing to love her through such dark periods, that their love must actually be a hoax, but she chooses to believe in it anyway and uses it as the motivation to rebuild her kingdom, to rise from the ashes on her barren land. And even through the downs that come at some point in every relationship, she can still see the beauty in it all. Yes, their love is golden, but waves of blue will crash down around any partnership, because life does not exist without them. So even when things are as blue as can be, she’s at least grateful it’s with him. Best lyric: “Don’t want no other shade of blue but you / no other sadness in the world would do.”

Although we still have yet to hear the deluxe track, “the lakes,” as a fan of Taylor for almost 12 years, it feels so obvious that this is her strongest work yet. The storytelling I fell in love with on Fearless as a teenager (which, much like folklore, was highly inspired by imaginary situations and real emotions) is even sharper now as we have both grown into adults. The music on this album might not be everyone’s speed, and that’s okay. But it allowed Taylor to dip back into what made Fearless such a success: using pieces of her own truth and the whims of her imagination to develop a multi-faceted narrative that becomes universal. During her Tiny Desk concert, before performing “Death By A Thousand Cuts” from Lover, Swift explained the anxiety she felt around the possibility of stunted creativity when people would ask her what she would write about once she was happy. Taylor has released an abundance of beautiful, fun, complex love songs since the start of her relationship almost four years ago now. But “Death By A Thousand Cuts,” which is a fan favorite, helped her prove to herself that she can still write a killer breakup song while being in a happy, fulfilling relationship; the song was the last track written for Lover and was inspired by the film Something Great on Netflix. And so it makes perfect sense that Taylor used folklore to continue exploring this new avenue for songwriting. All of her discography and all of her life experiences have culminated to the folklore moment: as all the best artists do, she will never stop finding inspiration in hidden corners of this dark, mystical, wondrous universe, and falling in love with new ways to share those wonders. And that love will be passed on.

DISCLAIMER - REVIEWER’S BIAS: I love Taylor Swift more than any person in my life, yes including my parents, they are aware and have accepted this fact long ago ❤️

[bqstqnbruin]

Give your heart a break

I did in fact scream about how much I hate and love the Bruins while in the middle of Kohl’s today, so there’s that. I also wore my Harvard hockey shirt again and another person asked me if I played for the team so next time someone asks I’m just saying yes.

This was requested ages ago (because y’all know I’m the worst when it comes to doing things in a timely manner), so I hope the anon who requested this likes it!

This was also inspired by Give Your Heart A Break by Demi Lovato!

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You were on stage, loving the rush that every performance came with despite how tired you were. Now almost done with your second tour, you couldn’t believe this was your life. Your favorite song that you sang during this tour wasn’t even one of your own; Give Your Heart a Break was the only cover you performed. Every lyric seemed to mirror your relationship, despite being released before you were a teenager.

“Alright, we’re going to change things up a bit, and switch over to a song written by one of my favorite artists: Miss Demi Lovato. I hope you guys like it,” you say as the violin melody that provided the beat started to play, drawing out the sound of the crowd as you got lost in the song.

The day I first met you, you told me you’ll never fall in love. 

Singing the song takes you back to that night at the bar, out with your friends in your hometown. Your friend, Rebecca insisted you go out to this particular bar when she found out the Vancouver Canucks were going to be there seeing as she was slightly too obsessed with the group of men. You weren’t too invested the reason why you were going there, you just wanted to go out with your friends before leaving for what was going to be a way too long, three month tour around North America, your first one ever. 

“To Y/N and her tour!” Bex leads your friends toasting the first round, “let’s hope it’s successful so that when she comes back she can pay for our drinks!”

You roll your eyes, everyone agreeing as you sarcastically say, “Very funny.” They continue to banter, Bex with her eye on the hockey players sitting at the table across from yours. She was purposefully being loud enough for them to hear her say she knew someone going on tour, but that could mean a lot of things when you think about it. It was enough to catch the attention of some of them, causing them to look over and see what the commotion was about. But you weren’t too interested in anything. Leaving within the next week meant you had to focus on nothing besides your career. 

Your friends kept talking about how excited they were for you, but you weren’t paying attention. Only one of the guys at the other table had caught your eye: you weren’t sure if it was because he looked tired and like he didn’t really want to be there, sort of like you, or because of something else, but there was something that drew you to him. Apparently you caught his eye, too, since the two of you spent about five minutes doing what your friend would probably refer to as ‘eye fucking,’ even though you really hated that term. She would think that you were both mentally undressing each other, both of you fully aware of what was going on. 

You get up to get yourself another drink, praying that he would follow you to the bar. If he did, you would talk to him. But, no, you couldn’t start anything. Who the hell starts something and then leaves for three months? It’s not like you were the type of person who did a hookup, either, but who knows? No, wait. You were overthinking things, like normal. How the hell do you even know what he wants? You don’t unless he tells you. He had to follow you to the bar first. 

You order your drink, your back turned towards your friends and the Canucks. “Put it on my tab,” you hear from behind you as you’re about to hand the bartender your card. You turn around, seeing the tired boy standing behind you, trying to weasel his way next to you. “Quinn,” he introduces himself, “I hope you don’t mind. If you don’t want it I’ll just drink it and have you pay for another one.” 

You laugh at how nervous he sounds, introducing yourself and telling him it was fine that he was buying the drink for you. “My friends said next time I’m home, drinks are on me, so might as well save up while I can.” 

“You have that tour coming up, right?” he asks, you shocked that he would even know that before remembering how loud Bex was. Hockey players didn’t strike you as the type of guys to listen to your music, but then again, you remember Rebecca saying this team was watching Gossip Girl together, so anything was possible. “Sorry, I kinda listen to your music. What’s it called, the By the Book Tour?” 

You groan at hearing someone say the name out loud. “I really actually love that you listen to my music but it is so important to me that you know I did not come up with that name.” 

He laughs, starting a conversation about your music, his hockey, everything else in between. The conversation somehow managed to get really deep really fast. “Wait, but you have all those songs about being in love and the perfect guy and all that stuff.”

“Well, yeah, since I’m still new in the industry I have to write what sells and ‘build a fan base’ as my manager says before I can start writing what I really feel,” you say, rolling your eyes, “And I think I was in love and falling out of love when I wrote those songs, but I don’t know what real love is. You don’t know what it is until you actually experience it.” 

“So you don’t think you’ve been in love before?” he asks.

“No. Have you?”

He stops for a minute, trying to think before shaking his head, “Nope. I don’t think I ever will be.”

You look at him, shocked that he would even admit something like that to someone he just met. “Really? Never? You don’t think there’s someone out there for you that you could fall in love with?”

“Nah. Who’s got the time? I mean, traveling for most of the year for hockey? How can I? You’ve got to understand: you’re about to be traveling for three straight months and then who knows what comes next. How can you even find time for love?” 

“I don’t know,” you shrug, thinking about it seriously for the first time, “I think that,” you pause, trying to find the words, “I think that everyone is destined for love, regardless of how they get there. People who don’t want it might just be afraid of the pain that would come with losing it.” 

He looks at you, eyebrows raised, not like he’s shocked but impressed, instead. “I can tell you write your own songs,” he takes a long sip of his drink, finishing off the glass, “That was pretty poetic.” 

----------

You look out at the crowd, knowing exactly where they were sitting. He had the biggest smile on his face, the other guys, surprisingly, looking like they were enjoying themselves, too. 

Now here we are, so close, yet so far. Haven’t I passed the test? When will you realize: baby, I’m not like the rest?

After a month on tour, one of your shows happened to be in the same town that the Canucks were playing that night, so Quinn had suggested you meet up after your show and his game for drinks. It seemed that a lot of your upcoming tour dates and his away games matched up, some sort of weird but welcome coincidence. 

“Hey, Quinn!” you say as soon as you see him, practically jumping up from the table where you were waiting for him. You two had been talking nonstop since the night you met, but his words always haunted you, changing the flutter in your heart when his name popped up to absolute heartbreak: he doesn’t think he’ll ever be in love. Especially when you were sure you were falling in love with him. 

“Hey, how was the show?” he says, wrapping you in a tight hug. Even after just playing a game, he smelt so good.

“It was fine, not one of my best, but hey, the fans seemed to love it. As long as they’re happy, I’m happy,” you say. The trust was, you were already exhausted. Before every show, it seemed like, you were doing nonstop conferences, photoshoots, other promos like meet and greets, having your manager talk to you about your set list as if it weren’t the same each night, rehearsal, sound checks, costume, wardrobe, and so much more. You weren’t sure you had more than five hours of sleep in the last three days. You weren’t exactly sure how you were going to keep up. 

“You’re exhausted already?” he asks, as if he were reading your mind. You look at him, confused how he could have known that. “Even under the makeup you’re still wearing from tonight, I can see the bags under your eyes. Look, they’re the same as mine,” he says, laughing, pointing to his eyes. 

“I just, I knew it was going to be hard, but wow, I never thought it would be like this,” you admit, laughing at how that sounds. Something worth it is never easy, so why should this be any different. 

“But you love it, so who cares?” he asks.

“Very true.” The two of you sit there in silence for a moment, surprised it wasn’t as awkward as you expected it to be. “Can I ask you something?”

“Always.”

“Are you afraid of love?” you ask, bluntly. But after that night you met, you had to know. It had been swirling around in your head the time. The more you talked to him, the more you swear you could see yourself falling in love with him if you could spend time with him, like you were right now, but was it worth falling in love with someone who didn’t love you back? 

He looks slightly shocked at the question, but you could tell it was something he had thought about before. “Well, I wouldn’t say afraid. I just don’t think right now it’s worth it. I mean, before I moved to Vancouver, girls would say they liked me because they thought I was going to be a professional athlete. So I would end up falling for them, then when I wasn’t in the NHL fast enough for their liking, they would dump me, and I’d be left just, standing there,” he says, not making eye contact with you. You can see his face getting red, obviously getting a little upset but trying to hold it in. “I mean, I don’t have time, you’re the only girl I talk to at this point who isn’t dating one of the other guys and isn’t my mom.” 

You don’t know why, but hearing that from him made you want to cry. Unable to look at him, you bite the inside of your cheek to keep yourself from doing that, pushing the food on your plate around with your fork. You were right there, constantly flirting with each other while you were on the phone, anytime Quinn was with the guys you could hear them teasing him about how excited he got when your name popped up on his phone, or when your songs came on the radio. Your band knew that when you were alone, you were probably talking to Quinn, getting to the point where they had some sort of code word to talk about you and him. 

You thought he liked you. You were so close to getting him, and you thought that’s what he wanted. If he asked you out on a real date right then, not just two friends getting together, you would say yes with no hesitation. When is he going to understand that you aren’t those girls from his home who would dump him when he wasn’t doing what you wanted him to with hockey? Who does something like that anyway? 

-------

You felt like you were staring at him the entire time you were singing, knowing that he couldn’t take his eyes off you either. 

On Sunday you went home alone, there were tears in your eyes. I call your cell phone, my love, but you did not reply.

Another night on tour, another night where your schedule lined up with the Canucks away games. You had no idea where you were at this point, you just knew you were exhausted, leaving in the morning for the next city and planning on sleeping on the bus the entire time, praying there was no reason for anyone to bother you when you arrived in the next city Sunday night. After the show, Quinn had invited you out again, the guys celebrating some big win that you didn’t know the significance of. You really didn’t care that much, especially since it was something that made him happy, so you went along and met him anyway, despite the fact that your veins had more coffee and energy drinks coursing through them than they did actual blood. You were getting there after the guys were, trying to find their table. The bar was crowded enough as it was, trying to find them taking way too long.

“Where’s that singer girl?” one of them asked. You still didn’t know his teammates well enough by name to know who said it, all you could tell was that he was blonde.

“She should be on here by now,” Quinn says, checking his phone to see if you had sent him anything. He had no idea you were a few feet away.

“Look at Huggy bear, already whipped by a girl he won’t close on,” another one teases.

“Ok, first of all, I am not whipped. She’s my friend. Second off, we will not talk about her like that, regardless of if she’s coming here right now or not,” you hear Quinn trying to defend you, even though the boys kept teasing him about you. Whatever, part of your career was criticism, this was just part of it.

You finally make your way through the people to get to the table, Quinn’s eyes lighting up when he sees you. You had to admit, you melted a little seeing him, despite him just putting you in the friendzone, him not knowing that you heard that. But were you really ready to sit with his friends knowing that they were teasing him about you? 

“I thought you weren’t coming,” Quinn whispers into your ear, pulling you in for a hug and sending chills down your spine. 

“And miss seeing you again? Please, I’m always up for seeing a friend,” you say. You swear he flinched when you said friend, but he said it first in your defense. You could already tell this night was going to end badly somehow, and none of you wanted to find out how.

He leads you over to the table of guys, none of them seeming to notice that you and Quinn had returned. The entire night was pretty much spent with Quinn pretty much ignoring you and only paying attention to the guys. They acted like you weren’t even there.

“I’m going to go get another drink,” you say, annoyed at Quinn, motioning to the empty bottle sitting in front of you.

Quinn nods, getting up with you “I’ll come with you.” You feel his hand on the small of your back, leading you from behind through the crowd to the bar. You couldn’t help your heart beating faster at this touch, something so intimate even though it probably meant nothing to him. The two of you sit down, you obviously bothered by the way the night was going. “Hey, I’m sorry for the guys,” Quinn apologizes, studying your face, “Are you ok?”

“No,” you admit. “You’ve been ignoring me the entire night. What’s the matter with you?” 

He bites his lip, looking back and forth between you and the guys while he tries to figure out what to say. “The guys think I’m falling in love with you so they tease me about it.”

You stare at him for a moment. Could the guys be right? Could Quinn actually have the same feelings about you that you did for him? “Well are you?” you ask, knowing that it was the alcohol in your system.

“Am I what?”

“Are you falling in love with me?”

“No.”

“Oh,” is all you can let out, looking down at the drink the bartender had given you. You didn’t want to drink it. Honestly, you just wanted to throw it in his face and storm out. You couldn’t believe he was doing this to you. You look up at him, his face red, him not able to make eye contact with you. He was lying. You know he was.

“I can’t,” he says, his voice small and wavering like he was about to cry.

“That’s bullshit and you know it. You can, too, fall in love, because you know what? I’m falling in love with you, and my schedule is just as busy as yours. So stop being afraid of letting people in because you don’t want to get hurt. All that does is hurt the people around you who are trying to care for you.” You sit there for a second, waiting for his response. When he doesn’t say anything, you get up and leave, before he can see you crying.

You take out your phone, trying to dial Bex as you make your way back to the hotel you were staying in. “Hey, babe, what’s up? It’s late.”

“I hate him,” you sob into your phone, knowing it wasn’t true. “He was so close to telling me he loved me, and he just looked at me and said he won’t.”

“Whoa, whoa, back up. What do you mean?” she says. You recount the night to her, Quinn not paying attention to you and then pretty much breaking your heart right there. “Ugh. what a bitch. He should be lucky to love you.”

You can’t help but smile, even though you were still upset about what had happened. You hear your phone beeping. Taking a look at the incoming call, you decline it, “He’s trying to call me.”

“Nope. Don’t answer.”

“Not gonna. Not for a while.” 

-------

You open your eyes, not even realizing that you had them closed. For a moment, it seemed like you were just singing to him, no one else around you even though you knew the venue was full.

When your lips are on my lips, and our hearts beat as one, but you slip out of my fingertips every time you run.

“So how does it feel knowing that this is the last night of your first full tour,” Bex says on the other end of the phone. The last night was in Vancouver, meaning that all of your friends who said goodbye to you three months ago finally got to see you again, and go out and celebrate with you again. 

“I’m so ready to sleep in my own bed, I’m fucking exhausted,” you tell her, sitting in the dressing room and looking at yourself in the mirror. You still had three more hours before you were supposed to take the stage, but you could already hear the audience going crazy. It felt so surreal, traveling around America and performing in front of thousands of people every night. You had never in your wildest dreams thought you would actually be doing this.

Your thoughts and reminiscing are interrupted by a knock on your door. “Hey, Bex. I gotta go, I’ll see you tonight? You have the passes ready to see me right after the show?”

“Yep, love ya, you’re gonna kill it. See ya,” she says, hanging up.

“Come in!” you call, not getting up from your seat. You were sure it was your manager, who always insisted that you stay in your seat instead of ‘tiring yourself and using energy to get the door.’ The door opens, seeing him in the reflection of your mirror. Practically jumping out of your chair, you run over to him, having not seen him since that night you left crying. “What are you doing here?”

The two of you had been talking again, but it took a while for you to be able to get comfortable with him again. Being told that someone refuses to fall in love with you is heartbreaking, especially when you were in love with them. But at this point, all you had to do was focus on the tour and repress your feelings, and you were doing pretty well until you saw him in your doorway.

“Something I should have done a long time ago,” Quinn says, his hands snaking their way around your waist. His lips crash to yours, you stunned by what was going on before relaxing into it. Your fingers tangle in his hair, tugging the soft strands when his grip tightens around your waist, pulling you closer to him. Your mind went blank, still unable to process that he was actually here.

He finally pulls away, your foreheads resting against each other, both of you with smiles on your face. “I don’t understand?” you say. He said he couldn’t love you. You talked all the time about how you weren’t really the ‘hook-up types.’ So why did he just kiss you? Why was he here before your show?

“I’m sorry,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut, “I don’t want the pain of losing someone, so I close myself off. You are everything to me. I don’t think I let myself fall in love because I never found someone who I could see myself being with until I met you.”

“You’re not going to run away this time, are you?”

“No.”

Another knock at your door startles you before you can say or do anything else. Your manager pokes their head in, “We need you for the pre-show warm-ups?” they ask, as if you were able to say no. “Are you staying here or finding a seat?” they motion to Quinn.

“Finding a seat,” he says, running his hand through his hair. 

“I’ll see you after?” you say to him, giving him another quick kiss before running out to get ready for the final show of the tour.

-----

You finish the song, the crowd cheering. You find Quinn and the boys sitting in their seats. You go through the rest of the show, still not able to pry your eyes away from Quinn. The second you saw him sitting the crowd, you nearly started crying; he had said he wasn’t going to be able to see you on this tour because of his hockey season. So not only did he technically lie, he surprised you and took all the guys to see you perform, too. 

After the show, you can hear the guys coming back to see you through the closed door of your dressing room. Opening it before they can knock, you nearly knock Quinn over, jumping into his arms and kissing him right in front of the guys.

“Who woulda thought that Q here would have actually landed a girl?” Brock asks.

“Hey, it was bound to happen at some point, look at the child,” Jake adds, “Even if it was with someone who sings about love all the time,” he teases you.

“I make just as much money as you do and all you do is chase a small rubber thing over a slippery surface. At least I create music people listen to while most of your fans just yell at you to shoot the puck,” you shoot back, the guys laughing.

“Come on, give her a break,” Quinn finally adds, “I mean look at her, how could I not love her?” he asks, the guys groaning at how mushy he was as as you plant a kiss on his cheek. 

[taglegend]

Tag Fact #3 -  I’ve come to realize I’ve always been a fan artist more than I thought. so here is a timeline of influences that shaped my childhood to now. from nostalgic times, to sad changes, to great loss, to strange rises to fame and phases, to stepping stones and finally a laughing place. all the things that make up your favorite fan artist Tag.

1. Rayman (bumped into this in the year of 1999) was actually the first fandom (with crossovers) I bumped into when I was 9. although the internet wasn’t available at the time it was still fun to dwell in home amusements. I remember the storylines and the OC’s I made but they’re kind of embarrassing and it’s probably a good thing there was no internet. I’ve done fanart and comic crossovers of Rayman with Calvin and Hobbs and Nights Into Dreams, spinoffs of Sonic the Hedgehog OC’s, Yoshi with Pikachu, and the Pokemon/Digimon craze with OC’s and other Nintendo comic shorts. but the drawings and comics are long gone and disappeared in the garage in a backpack due to suspecting my sister’s dad accidentally throwing them away. years later towards the year 2018 (now 28), we decided to move to North Carolina and it was my chance to find them again. unfortunately the backpack was gone just like I suspected (my main stuff), but for some reason I found my Pokemon/Digimon fanart, a good batch of Super Mario drawings (vaguely remember doing these), my sister’s drawings and some other neighborhood kids’ drawings in a dirty box. I was partially happy I found something at least but it was the backpack I wanted the most. sometimes I regret not looking for the backpack (’cause I was too busy being a kid) but it’s alright, noone needs to see that shit anyway, ha ha. anyways, I recall being a fan of Rayman from 1999 ‘til 2002.

2. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle (bumped into this in the year of 2003) my second fandom I bumped into when I was 12 going on 13. at the time, my sister and I both liked the Sonic The Hedgehog Franchise based on the Battle remake and ended up making our own secret fanart club that consisted of only us two members. she liked Sonic (and that was her boyfriend, ha ha) and I liked Knuckles (and he was my boyfriend, ha ha) and we were crazy in love about Shadow’s backstory. we listened to the game’s soundtracks as we drew fanart and comics after school and man, those were good times. however, as we grew older towards the year of 2005, we ended up having separate rooms and I believe it played a part in disconnecting on the same interest. then one day, I asked her why she wasn’t into Sonic anymore and she replied, “Because I grew up.” I was sad after that and slowly observed that she was influenced by the emo culture and the new friends she’s made. I was the only member of our little club for a little longer...but eventually I moved on too. I still have some surviving fanart we did together but it doesn’t mean shit anymore since she turned out to be an abusive mother from the last I’ve heard of her. 

3. Gorillaz (bumped into this in the year of 2006). as the Sonic years were at its end, I first heard the song “Feel Good Inc” on Music Choice and seeing the first image of them as displayed on this post (except the fan-made background doesn’t count since I can’t find the original artwork). this was my third fandom and later had proper access to the internet to the website I still currently use called DeviantArt. at first I liked 2D but eventually fell for Murdoc and developed a spiritual connection towards the character as obviously seen in my old fanart and rare photos of my devotion shrines on Valentine’s Day and his birthday every year. for the longest time since being a permanent fan from 2006-2017 (11 1/2 years) I had no knowledge that it was a political propaganda band and other realizations I don’t want to talk about. I only followed them because it was a cartoon and not the bullshit behind the musical project. the world I’ve built and support for them for all those 11 1/2 years shattered the fuck out of me and I just wanted to be left alone to find myself again, somehow. activity stopped on all my profiles, the flow of fanart stopped since I now cringe from the fan service and felt I was used for my talent. I didn’t want to be reminded of it all so I took down all my Gorillaz fanart and archived them for old followers’ nostalgia but also in the hopes they’ll be forgotten in my timeline. I ceased to exist in the fandom for huge personal reasons but it’s best to not say why. I know for sure that the fandom wonders what happened but it’s none of their business. THE END.

4. Waluigi (although I knew he’s been around since 2000 during childhood, I took deep interest once I revisited the character again in the year of December 2013). as silly as this sounds, when I revisited him again, the character was so bizarre that I ended up staying up 3 nights and 3 days in a row just looking all over the internet on everything about him and the questionable “hush-hush” absence of a backstory. despite there being no backstory he slowly gained a cult following and in many ways it’s a good thing. however, since the early 2010′s tension has been building up between Nintendo and its fans about him starring in a main game but everyone hasn’t fully gotten it in their heads that it’s not gonna happen. as long as Nintendo is in control of that, the fandom will not win, I’m sorry to say. on the other hand, if it’s going to be this way, then that’s what fanart and comic projects are for. as for me, I am doing my very best to get my comic project “Waluigi Land” going. again, I apologize if it’s taking very long to get Chapter 2 going if you’ve been keeping track but aha moments need to develop before I start permanent drawing (since concepts, character design and storyline needed improvement badly). as of right now I am still a Waluigi fan and I will not quit on him.

5. Turbo from Wreck-It-Ralph (although it debuted in 2012, I watched the movie two years later into the year 2014). for some bizarro reason, I had an unhealthy obsession with this character to the point where I dressed up as him for Halloween 2014. only 2 fanarts of him and the Turbo Twins exist on my profiles, mainly because my mind was more focused on just ‘thinking about him’ or ‘being him’ rather than drawing physical drawings. luckily, this supposed alleged fandom didn’t last long a little after Halloween so I chalk it up as a very short phase. to this day I don’t know what has gotten over me about him. the only thing I can think of now is that I think it’s because the character had yellow eyes and teeth but I don’t know. now that I think of it, that little fucker was ugly as hell and I STILL don’t know what had gotten over me. one day, my brother mentioned what that was about, and I said to him, “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

6. Undertale (although it debuted in 2015, I later took interest in it in 2016). It was all about Sans and Papyrus. I couldn’t get enough of the skeleton bros. eventually Toriel and Mettaton EX became my favorites but it took a long time to draw more of all 4 of them because I had other important things to do in my life plus I was still waiting for the next Gorillaz album to revive my imaginative juices (or so I thought). I really want to have this as one of my frequent fandoms but I just don’t have time for it anymore. it’s still in the back of my head to want to draw them but at this point I still have other better interests to be in. and besides, I’m lazy just like Sans.

7. Cuphead (June 28th, 2017 was the official day I called quits on the British-based band Gorillaz due to the bullshit behind it. since that date I was lost, had no inspiration to look forward to and no cartoon guy to make me smile...but lo and behold of the same year, I took an interest in playing the game Cuphead and man...that shit was a frightening exaggerated metaphor for being on that one drug (forgot the name though) and having sex at the same time but man that was the best fun I’ve had in years. I mean, it’s like, enemies are just so happy to murder you and that scared the shit outta me. and the facial exaggeration?....I think I should stop, ha ha. anyways, the Moldenhauers saved my ass from spiraling down, they have no clue. anyways, eventually I became a permanent fan of their work so to ease the hurt and erase my past from the G-fandom I had to re-wire my brain into a different cartoon category that’s a rather more American, so anything Toon related like Roger Rabbit, Felix the Cat or another favorite that’s a western-based cartoon makes me feel better, especially my new man .......King Dice <3 <3<3<3. however, there was something about this new fandom category I still didn’t quite understand until the date March 14th, 2020. I finally understood what it was but I feel I shouldn’t bring it up. anyways, Cuphead and anything western or rubber hose is my last stop in inspiration for the remaining years of my life. many say never say never but I believe I’ve found my laughing place and that’s all that matters.