#the drawing on the left is from 2015 i think

[deniax18]

Oh wow look another thing I did a month ago

Also surprise!!! It's another redraw

You can tell how old the drawing on the left is by how faded it's gotten

[kaikhou]

one pun ched man. one of the most well known anime in the world. 4th most popular anime on MAL. celebrities and tv shows have referenced it. the memes that have entered the mainstream. oppai shirt. OK panel. what’s with this sassy lost child etc. posts about it used to rack up hundreds of thousands of notes here on tumblr dot edu. the sai genos shipping. literally the original webcomic and manga are still ongoing. and yet the active fandom right now numbers approximately 8 ppl. on ao3 it’s just barely crossed 6000 fics and most of the ones coming out are those crossover fics with 10+ media tagged. the current manga arc is about two characters who were raised in a facility built to turn them into cold blooded assassins and didn’t allow talking to each other but they ended up becoming each other’s only friends anyway and dreamed together of turning the facility into an orphanage instead until one of them killed everyone there except for the other who he poisoned and left for dead then became a hero while the other survived and became a villain and now they have a complicated antagonistic relationship where they bicker and are still perfectly in sync when they fight together and both obviously still care about each other but neither of them acknowledges it. and they’re both hot twinks. yet the ship tag for them on ao3 currently numbers exactly 47 fics. 10 of which are mine. what the hell happened

[xinganhao]

📺 now watching: "our beloved summer" (wonwoo x reader)

part of my svtflix milestone event. warnings: f!reader, angst. more content under the cut. enjoy watching!

jeon wonwoo's latest exhibit, ‘our beloved summer’.

ARTIST'S INTRODUCTION. They say, "The more you try to ignore the past, the more you become trapped in it." Inasmuch as I want to believe that might be untrue, there are days where I still feel like the boy from Changwon. This exhibit is my attempt to reckon with that. While the past can be good, can be bad, sometimes all we need is one beloved summer— and, if you're lucky, the residual joy of that time will last you a lifetime. This is that year from me. | © Jeon Wonwoo (2024)

WHERE DO WE GO WHEN WE YEARN? (2016) Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do

ARTIST'S NOTE. Yearning— especially that of the high school puppy love variation— can be such a liberating feeling. It exists in the shadows, just enough to sustain you through the tedious days, the long hours. But to bring it to light, to see what that yearning looks like in the morning? How do we survive it? How do we see beyond it?

HERE, YOU MIGHT STILL LOVE ME (2023) Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do

ARTIST'S NOTE. You never really know when the last time is going to be the last time. This is the bus stop where the world closed in on me. I can still tell you the plate number of the bus that eventually took you away. 21 경남 1713. I revisited this bus stop and felt like something had been frozen in time. Here, you once loved me. Here, you might still.

HATE TO SEE YOU GO/LOVE TO WATCH YOU LEAVE (2015) Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do

ARTIST'S NOTE. You always were several steps ahead of me. You leave me with my hand outstretched, my fingers reaching,— never quite holding. Never keeping. It was that way when we first met. It's that way, even now.

HOMEBOUND (2020) Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do

ARTIST'S NOTE. There are no colors in this picture, but I'm sure you can imagine it. The brick red walls. The grey asphalt. The sky— an endless blue, cut with strips of white. When I pass this neighborhood, I think of afternoons; the sun beginning to sink, the scratch of school shoes on the street. We survived another day. We can only hope to walk into the next one.

THE LAST GOOD THING (2022) Seoul, Gyeonggi-do

ARTIST'S NOTE. A memento. The only thing I could bear to keep. It's been around enough that I sometimes forget it's even there, and maybe that's why it survived my 'purge'. Something so inherently human about us holding on to sweet nothings, even if the only purpose they have left to serve is to remind.

GOING IN CIRCLES (BACK IN OUR PLACES) (2024) Seoul, Gyeonggi-do

ARTIST'S NOTE. Often, we like to play around with the thought "What would you do if you could turn back time?" If you asked me that some years ago, I might have given a lot of answers about being better, 'changing' things. Now, though, there's only one thing I can think of doing if I were in control of the hands of the clock. I think I would just want to spend one more day, one more minute, with you.

See More »

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER. Born and raised in Changwon, South Gyeongsang, Jeon Wonwoo (전원우) draws inspiration from the rich art heritage of his hometown. He experiments with different mediums but is best known for his work with film and landscape photography. Wonwoo currently resides in Seoul. You can reach him at jeonwwoosnaps@gmail.com.

› scroll through all my work ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧ ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ my masterlist | @xinganhao | all photos courtesy of wonwoo (film_jww). :)

[morganbritton132]

I feel like Steve's non-Upside Down friends definitely have a group chat for all their Steve-based conspiracy theories that's just filled with really off the wall excuses and tidbits that Steve's said - how panicked is the government agent-babysitter about it?

The first-year teachers definitely do, for sure!

The chat was originally called ‘The Steve Harrington Experience’ because every conversation with the man is something else, but they ended up changing it after Kathy pointed out that it made it seem like they all experienced Steve Harrington, ‘Sexually, u know?’

“Yes, Kathy…” Marissa said in an exasperated voice note. She must be driving. “You didn’t need to spell it out. We’re changing it.”  

‘Not saying I’d be opposed 2 the experience,’ Kathy added helpfully in the group chat. ‘U see those trousers he wore yesterday. Not much left to the imagination there.’

‘Thank you, Kathy.’

The group chat was changed to the ‘Support Group for David’s Obsession’ which is just, haha. Funny. David is not obsessed with Steve Harrington. He just isn’t.

Sure, nothing about the man makes any sense.

And yeah, maybe David talks about that fact a little too much. Maybe he has asked the group chat probing questions about Christmas lights. Maybe he even made a dentist appointment with Edward Harrington, DDS just to make sure he wasn’t the Eddie Harrington they knew.

He wasn’t obsessed. He was just due for a cleaning.

The other day in the parking lot after work, Steve asked if David could see the license plate number on the white 2015 Mazda CX-3 that was circling the block. David read the number off for him and Steve wrote it down. He didn’t explain anything.

David texted the group chat about it, ‘Maybe he’s a spy?’

‘Do you think spy organizations sent out a lot of epileptic agents with service animals?’

‘Maybe the epilepsy is a cover.’

Kathy replied, ‘It’s not.’

David kinda hates how he only tunes in to the staff meeting about Career Day when Steve mentions that Erica can’t come. Something about pissing off her constituents by favoring a community in a state she doesn’t represent. Yada, yada, yada, “Dustin’s still coming though.”

“Dustin,” David repeats, feeling the amused way that Marissa is looking at him. He can’t even be bothered by Jordan hiding a smile in her hand. “Your brother is coming to Career Day?”

Steve beams, “Yeah, man. He comes every year.”

Kathy was a second-year teacher that was definitely here during last year’s Career Day. She could have mentioned it. David can’t even fully digest this information when Steve knocks his knuckles against the table and snaps his fingers, “Oh! My ex works for the paper. I’ll see if they can come.”

David somehow gets roped into finalizing the rest of the list of speakers for Career Day (i.e. they need to confirm if Steve’s people are going to be there and Cindy didn’t want to do it). When he stops by Steve’s classroom at the end of the day, he is surprised to find that Steve is not alone.

There’s low music playing from the corner of the room now that the students have gone home and Steve is at his desk grading papers. Eddie is standing at the board, drawing a dragon-like creature with dry-erase markers.

Eddie is humming along to the song on the radio, occasionally brushing his fingers along Steve’s shoulders when he reaches for a new color. It’s a cozy moment and he almost hates to interrupt, but David has leftovers in his fridge that he wants to get home to.

He knocks against the doorframe, “Steve, you have a minute?”

“Yeah, what’s up?” Steve asks, leaning back in his chairs far enough that his head brushes against Eddie’s back. “Babe, you remember David from the cookout?”

“The history teacher,” Eddie hums, distracted by his drawing. He erases a line of red from the fangs with his finger. “Stevie’s saying great things about you, kid.”

“I – wow, that’s – thanks! It means a lot! I, uh. I’m finishing up some things for Cindy and she just needs a confirmation on your people for Career….” David trails off when Steve makes a sound between his teeth like a hiss and gives him a big wide-eyed look. “…Day?”

Steve’s wide-eyed expression forms quickly into an innocent smile when Eddie turns to look at him, “Babe-“

“Career Day?” Eddie asked scandalized, hand to chest. “Career Day is coming up, Steven? I had no idea.”

Steve’s eyes flicker away from Eddie’s over to David’s and he says, “Yes. Yep, they’ll be here with bells on. Henderson and Wheeler. Just them.”

“Wheeler?” Eddie manages to sound even more scandalized. “Stevie, you – you invited Wheeler to Career Day and not your own husband? I have a career!”

“Yes, you do,” Steve says in a voice that’s a little too ‘second grade teacher’ to not be a little bit insulting. “And you’re amazing, and I love you, but they wanted people with career paths that didn’t start so…infamous?”

David starts inching out of the room because as much as he wants to know more about Steve, he doesn’t want to witness an argument he started. He’s almost to the door when Eddie says, “I worked for my success.”

“Yeah, I know,” Steve sighs like he’s remembering something awful. “If only there wasn’t a mob.”

David is out the door when he hears that and he pauses for only a second before pulling out his phone like, ‘what the fuck, guys????’

[cazort]

I want to share a site that I think would make the world a much better place if people used it regularly.

Do you ever see a piece of news, and it's in a source you're unfamiliar with? And you're not sure if you can trust it? Is someone close to you slipping into conspiracy theories and propaganda and you want to draw them out of it, or at least protect others from falling into it too?

This site is a great place to look up news sources:

It was founded in 2015 by Dave Van Zandt and is funded through a mix of donations, advertising, and subscriptions, but the core content of the site is freely viewable by all. The site refuses donations from corporations or other organizations, and has only received small donations ($500 or less).

You can type any news source into it's on-site search. Alternatively you can just use a general web search and add "media bias fact check" on the end and often its page will come up.

What does it have?

A spectrum for political bias (Left, Left-Center, Unbiased, Right-Center, Right, and some sites going off the extremes on either end)

A separate category for Factual Reporting

History and Ownership, including location, of each outlet

A category for press freedom rating in the country in question, i.e. how suppression of the free press could bias the outlet

A brief article of analysis, justifying or explaining the category ratings

Lists of failed fact-checks (if any)

Separate categories for Conspiracy and Pseudoscience

I have found this site to be the single most useful site for looking up the quality and bias of other sources, especially news sources. Check it especially when you see a new source you're unfamiliar with, and share it with others who are unaware of it.

A lot of bad ideas propagate in society through biased media, or propaganda through conspiracy or fake news sites. This site can be a powerful tool to combat the spread of untruths, and also to steer people towards the better publications and sources out there.

[utdrmv-confession-box]

Transcript: i think the fandom was genuinely better before 2020. or at least 2021. maybe i see nostalgia through rose-tinted glasses, but 2015-2019 was the best era of this fandom. people say cringe and free but there’s a difference between unknowing cringe and acknowledged cringe, and the former is just more genuine. more fun, more free. things were better, in my eyes. now there’s useless discourse (there was, of course, discourse then, but now people have wrapped morals into it. you’re not a bad person who wants to abuse people if your favorite character is canon nightmare sans, god), even worse fanon that people have dubbed as canon (dream is not an uwu baby, yes, but going in the entirely different direction and making him a mean smoker is just as fanon and inaccurate, you’re no better, so get off that pedestal), and just the bullying that comes with liking older interpretations.

blueberry is fine. uwu star sanses are fine. slendermansion bad sanses are fine. teddy bear horror is fine. any interpretation is fine. but there’s art left and right of people drawing characters punting those other interpretations whilst the creators themselves continue to make their own interpretations that are the same, if not worse, levels of inaccuracy and mischaracterization. it’s hypocrisy and i don’t doubt that in four or five years this era of the fandom will be mocked and a new, just as wrong interpretation will emerge. i don’t mind this, you can characterize anyone however you want. that’s what makes this fandom great. it’s just the fact that this is combined with the bullying of other interpretations that makes it hypocritical and me upset. not even to touch upon the new fanon of “sans would show no emotion of papyrus died”. in an attempt to move away from one side of the spectrum they went too far to the other, rather than settle upon the perfect balance.

in general i also grieve what will never come back. the style of older popular artists drawing sans, that line weight jakei and superyounma used that pulled the style together, the obsession when dream and nightmare became truly popular, the formation of the star sanses, the overuse of the word ‘senpai~’ when it came to crossmare, the comic dub movies on youtube, or how everyone obsessed over sans and made him overly edgy and emotional. the animation memes, the genuine sans fangirls, not the satire ones. ichika. the othertale animations. early underverse and the silly comics jakei made for it. the terrible wattpad fanfiction. amino. actually, we can leave out amino. i don’t miss amino.

it wasn’t all perfect. if i’m honest, it was a dumpster fire in a lot of ways. but it was my dumpster fire, and what once burned became nice and toasty. the fandom now is great, don’t get me wrong. i love how it’s turned out, i love how characters are no longer white anime boys and how people have begun to acknowledge how certain things are bad, rather than ignoring it. how underrated characters have been getting more attention.

but if i had to pick between the fandom now and the fandom then, i’d pick then in a heartbeat.

[holy-reference-in-a-username]

Hi, random comment but Holy shit your half-transformed Monster Tom with the mouth in his chest is so fucking cool! Also, monsterfucker Tord is so real! Can only imagine Tord's reaction when he saw Tom like half-transformed for the first time.

THANK YOU! im like. super happy with how i draw tom, monster form ABSOLUTELY included. i put like. way too much thought into it lmao but ive always been a fan of unique creature designs so what else is new.

RRRAAH RAMBLINGS UNDER THE CUT

so ive been obsessed with the concept since i figured out what exactly happened during PowerEdd, ~2015. tom was kind of already my favorite but i only got more obsessed now that i could draw him with claws and fangs now.

(lmao old art^ lets all point and laugh)

when i finally got back into eddsworld this most recent time and started thinking about how i'd draw the guys i already knew i wanted tom to be trans, so when i started sketching i drew him with top surgery scars... which kind of looked like teeth... and the canon monster design already has a mouth on its chest/head... it just worked!!

...

ok tangent time- i dont like the canon design very much (the combined head/torso is Very limiting for poses. F!!!) but i also have never really liked the popular fanon of just making monster tom a wolf with horns and a single eye. it always feels so reductive!! do you KNOW how many monsters there are out there who are just "big dog/cat plus one fantastical feature"???? MANY!! so i was pretty determined to find a design i liked (one that was both flexible and fairly unique) before putting it in anything.

...and the partial transformation cliche of just putting accessories on a character is SUPER boring to me. so i wanted something that would be an actual halfway point to a fucked up freaky creature that is only barely humanoid.

ok back on track it took me like fuckin forever to finally get the final ~50% design together. i tried mimicking the merged torsohead of the canon monster and it just left me disappointed. :/

the single blank eye instead of the rest of the face was a god damn GENIUS move i am so proud of it im pretty sure the first time i drew the design was the actual draft sketch for the comic. because fuck making reference sheets!! the design's in your mind, right???

oh! as for the second half of your ask, the first time Tord saw Tom half transformed was right here^^!!

then a couple weeks after that i managed to find a 100% design i liked that still looked like a reasonable end point. at which point i actually made a little ref sheet! BEFORE i used the design in a comic!! it hasnt gotten much use but i still like it :)

i took a much more wyrm-like horizontal approach as opposed to the vertical design of the original, but the arms (connected to top of spine, directly behind head) and legs (close to the bottom, optional) allow it to still match the original's body plan, especially from the front view. then extra legs, big spiky scales, even larger mouth... because who wants just a dog with horns am i right!!

ahaha so basically im incredibly proud of how the design turned out so thank u for liking it :))

[dpr-stay]

Through the years | D.K

Doh Kyungsoo x f1driver!Reader

Warnings: Swears, a lot of crack

WC: 9.1k (ik, kill me now)

Howdy Cowpeople! This one is... hefty. This wasn’t supposed to be as long as it was but when I get in a groove... I think I made it obvious but I just wanted it to be over L O L. This one is pretty niche, but hopefully it can be enjoyed by both sides as it is a driver!reader.

(I didn't edit this, whoops)

2015

“Can you explain this picture?” The reporter asks, hovering in front of you with a phone in hand. The crappy quality is amplified as they have zoomed into the point where the picture is unrecognizable. You squint your eyes to see it and can’t make out quite what they’re trying to show.

“Sorry, w-what is that?” You ask, drawing back and squinting your eyes, resisting the urge to close them from exhaustion. Whoever decided it would be a good idea to do interviews after nearly 100 continuous laps in some barely held together race car with no break was a sadist. No other explanation.

“Oh! It’s a picture of you in a car with a guy.” The reporter said eagerly and shoved the phone your way. You briefly looked at the camera, an unimpressed look on your face, before turning back to the phone and squinting again.

You paused for a minute and drew back, your face still scrunched up, and exhaled.

“Nahhhhhh.” The drew out word left your mouth.

The reporter’s head tilted and they frowned.

“But it is! It’s you in Seoul after the Japanese Grand Prix!” He continued, looking very determined. You plastered a confused expression on your face.

“I’ve never been to Seoul before.” His face dropped and he turned back to his phone, as though trying to rationalize what he was hearing.

“Have you just taken a picture of… two random people in a car? To me it honestly doesn’t even look like anything cause it’s so zoomed in but to each their own.” You finished your words with a shrug.

“No, my source told me that that was 100% you! They said they saw you get in the car at the airport.” He continued on, undeterred by your flat disregard.

“I hate to say it, your contact’s wrong. I’ve never even set foot in the country.” You shrugged before turning to your PR manager who was gesturing for you to leave, with rather forceful movements. That was to clue you in that you were in trouble. With her personally or with the boss man, you didn’t know.

“Lovely to see you again, though.” You smiled and held your hand over. The interviewer tentatively took it and you exchanged good-byes before you turned around and left to go onto more interviews. The glance you exchanged with your PR manager told you that you were lucky you had not been caught out on your multiple lies and you heaved a sigh of relief to yourself.

Being the only female driver in a heavily male dominated sport was incredibly stressful. Add to that the eyes of reporters trying to find you doing anything remotely weird to spin it into a scandal and you had a lot of things to worry about. Especially since you had just started a relationship with a highly coveted Kpop singer which you were determined to keep under wraps.

You both had a bet running with each other. The first person to reveal the relationship would lose. There was no consequence but your pride, something which both of you had a bit too much of.

And so, a game was born. It simultaneously made you more careful of revealing your relationship while also making it a fun game.

This also meant that you had to start constantly lying to reporters to get out of tricky situations. Surely nothing bad could ever come from this.

2016: 

“How does it feel to be a key contender for the championship?” Asked a reporter, directing it to, of course, Lewis Hamilton, who was sat beside Daniel in a panel of drivers. You were sat on the other side of Daniel, the small desk in front of you reaching for miles on either side.

As Lewis gave the carbon copy response that he had given to every interviewer so far, Daniel leaned over to whisper in your ear.

“I’m surprised they haven’t called him out on that yet.” He then reached for his plastic water bottle and took a sip. You considered this for a second before leaning to his side and answered, not turning your face from the crowd of reporters.

“I’m surprised they haven’t called you out on your disgusting trim.” He jolted forward at this unprompted attack on his hair and the choking sound he emanated drew attention from all in the room, all watching him with curious eyes as he tried to regain his breath.

“You alright mate?” Lewis asked, one of his eyebrows arching.

“Y-yeah I’m fine.” Daniel replied, waving his hand, eager to have attention off of his spluttering. It took a while but eventually all the cameras were aimed back at Lewis, so Daniel took the opportunity to elbow you hard in the side, your reaction being to topple off your chair dramatically. Usually one for the dramatics, you’re not sure you’ve ever seen Daniel want the cameras off him so much. 

Hidden behind a small desk, you could only hear the questioning tones calling out your name and see Daniel’s slightly panicked face urging you to get up and back on your chair. With one single hand, you reached for the desk and slowly pulled yourself up.

You released a deep breath as you hauled yourself into your seat and turned to face the crowd of reporters who were looking at you. With a grand hand gesture, you motioned for them to continue with their interviews and turned slightly to Daniel with a smile. He shot you back an exasperated glance before your name was called from the crowd of reporters. You looked towards the reporter and he began speaking.

“So, as you’re the only female on the grid I feel the need to ask, if you could date any of the drivers, who would it be?” The eager face he had contrasted with your entirely unimpressed face. You could hear Daniel begin to start speaking and you could feel the defensive energy emanating from the rest of the drivers on the panel, but before any of them could interrupt with scathing criticism about the misogyny that permeated the question, you replied to the reporter.

“Literally none of them, I’d rather die.” Your response was met with general silence before Daniel started laughing as usual.

“Really? You wouldn’t fancy any of them?” The reporter asked, almost in disbelief.

“No!” You said almost equally in disbelief.

“I’m fine with what I have at home!” You added on after a second.

“Are you saying you’re in a relationship???” The reporter was on the edge of his seat, others shoving their microphones and cameras trying to get a good shot. You dramatically pondered that for a second before replying.

“I wouldn’t say that, I just have other things at home.” You said that and then leaned back, shrugged, and didn’t say anything else into the mic even at the reporters continual uproar as they took in the implications of that statement.

You, luckily, were able to avoid the increasingly weird questions by just not answering and smiling. You weren’t as lucky to miss the smirks thrown your way by the other drivers.

2017:

“It doesn’t count!” You said in disbelief, aiming it at the microphone of your phone.

“Mmm I’d say it counts.” Kyungsoo replied back teasingly, his voice echoing into your AirPods. 

“You can’t go back on your word!! You said it was fine last year!” You were sitting at a table in your company's hospitality, having a conversation with Kyungsoo on the phone, blissfully unaware of the interviews going on outside the building which had a clear view into the small area. 

“Yeah but it’s been two years, one of us has to call it quits soon.” Your face contorted before Kyungsoo quickly amended his statement.

“The bet! The bet! Sorry, that came out the wrong way.” 

You just shook your head, a small smile growing on your lips.

“You bastard, you had me a little worried.” He scoffed in response. He had been speaking quietly into the phone as he was hiding in a closet in the SM building, taking a break from practice to talk to you. A true charmer.

“As if.” He replied shortly, a loud scuffling heard on his side.

“One second.” He said, as a banging sound came through into your headphones.

“Come on Hyung! Get off the phone and come back before someone else finds you!” Kai’s voice could be heard through the door. A pause before the banging started again.

“Also tell her I said hello!” You giggled at the younger man’s words and Kyungsoo’s sigh in response.

“I’ll call you after the race, do your best, I love you.” Kyungsoo muttered into his phone before shouting back to Kai something about respect and to shut up. It just made you laugh more.

“I love you too, practice well and I’ll call you soon.” You finally said in response after the yelling died down.

“Bye.” He said before quickly tacking on another “love you” and then he hung up.

After he hung up you just stared at your screen for a second with a smile you would 100% not call radiant on your face. It was quickly wiped off when your PR manager popped up out of nowhere and started talking about interviews, causing you to switch to English as you stood up and followed him.

However, the interview still captured your little moment and the conversation preluding it. You knew this because, when you went back to your phone after the race, Baekhyun had sent you a picture of your smile through the tinted glass with a smirking emoji as well as a picture of Kyungsoo on the floor in the closet in the dark talking to you on the phone, not to mention the hounding you got at the next press conference.

2018:

You knew it was risky to do a live in your own apartment, especially since you were in a completely different country than where you were claiming you were.

But your PR team wanted you to do it, and you couldn’t exactly tell them no, even if you were currently lying to them about your circumstances. You were a bit worried that something unexplainable might happen like the South Korean national anthem suddenly blaring but what you weren’t worried about was the person who you were living with coming back and interrupting your live.

Kyungsoo was at practice and, while you were ok with him skipping it to talk to you on the phone, you didn’t want him to skip it now, as you had been promised a few days without any interruption if he went to every practice. So he was at practice and you were fulfilling all your expected PR duties for the next couple of days, which included the live.

Regardless of your hesitations, you set up your phone on your coffee table facing the entrance to your home and sat on the couch before turning on the live. Immediately people joined, flooding the chat and making your phone vibrate.

“Uhhh hello everyone.” You awkwardly greeted as you tried to think of things to say. Kyungsoo would be fantastic at this, you couldn’t help but think, always having to do live’s with his members.

“How’s everyone’s days been?” You settled on and watched the responses roll into the chat. You noticed a few drivers had joined your live and even a few of the boys from F2 and F3 were watching, which you thought was pretty nice of them considering it was mainly you rambling for around 30 minutes.

Your manager wanted you to do an hour minimum for the live and the time seemed to stretch for years, you continuously making small talk and occasionally replying to comments. You even snuck in a few jokes for the other drivers before, around the 55 minute mark, a sound came from your end.

You furrowed your eyebrows as you wondered where the noise was coming from, looking around the apartment. Quickly standing up, you looked around the apartment, making a lighthearted joke about ghosts as you nervously tried to find the origin of the sound.

You realised that sound was the wrong key being put in the lock as soon as you registered the sound of the correct key being put in.

As Kyungsoo opened the door, you made the biggest leap you think you have ever made. It would’ve had to have been around 4 meters surely. Somehow you had leapt onto the coffee table, knocking your phone down. Kyungsoo was staring at you weirdly as you violently gestured at him to shush. He raised an eyebrow.

“Are you ok?” He asked, his deep voice sounding as lovely as ever. You took a second, contemplating your options in this circumstance before coming to a logical conclusion.

You started to scream.

“GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!” Kyungsoo’s face shifted to one of confusion as yours was full of desperation.

“YOU CRAZY PSYCHO! GET OUT!!” You continued to yell in perfect English, a contrast from his peaceful question, and gestured for Kyungsoo to close the door, which he did, albeit very confused.

As soon as he closed the door, you maneuvered yourself so that you weren’t facing him and quickly picked up your phone from underneath you.

“Oh my god, what just happened.” You said, showing the camera your roof. You picked up the phone and started fidgeting with it.

“‘Are you ok?’ Yeah I’m fine, I just gotta figure out how to change the locks. I’ll uh.. I’ll get back to you guys. See you later.” You said absentmindedly, as you ended the live.

You paused for a second, sat back on your heels, and sighed, staring up at the roof. The sound of footfalls reached your ears and you didn’t react when Kyungsoo placed a hand on your shoulder.

“I’m not losing this bet.” You mumbled, staring at the ground. An incredulous laugh left him at that as he reached his hand further and brought your face to look at him. A smile that there was no other way to describe but goofy was spread across his face.

“You’re still thinking of that?” He asked and you nodded.

“I take our bet very seriously.” You said before he slightly shook his head, gave you a kiss on the forehead, and moved towards the kitchen.

You picked yourself up and moved to the dining table as he started work in the kitchen. And, as he made a delicious dinner that you both enjoyed, you started to field off your PR team asking who was in your house and ignoring the comments wondering why the guy was speaking Korean in the middle of England.

2019: 

It was approximately ten minutes before you had to be in the car and ready to go, and you were half-way there. You had your fireproofs and race suit on and you were being herded towards your car by a crowd of engineers. Strategies and specifics were being directed at you and you could only nod and act as though you were absorbing what they were saying.

Even after four years on the job some people felt they just couldn’t rely on you. Honestly, they should just let you do your thing, you knew what you were doing. 

No! God, ever since Kyungsoo had joined the military you’d been irritable and quick to anger on the track. Your poor engineers were trying their best to get through to you, likely because they wanted to keep their jobs, but you’d been incredibly closed off since after you got back from the honeymoon. 

Oh yeah, you got married. During a break and right before Kyungsoo was scheduled to start his enlistment, you got married down in a small courthouse with only a few people from either side. You had your family, a few close friends, and a few drivers while Kyungsoo had his family, a few close friends, and the whole of EXO.

It was very emotional and intimate, but that was how you’d describe your relationship so you were very happy with it. You were also extremely happy with the week get-away in the middle of nowhere in New Zealand that followed after, a week of people not recognising both you, farmers markets, and sheep. Lot’s of sheep.

But ever since he’d flown off to do his duty to his country (and shaved his head, no one should look that good with a shaved head) and you’d flown to your next race, you’d been incredibly… angry.

You didn’t know if it had to do with not seeing Kyungsoo for the better part of two years or having that split immediately after the wedding, but what you did know was that it was affecting your racing so you had to snap out of it.

Being dragged back to the present you quickly hopped in the car and performed all of your checks on the steering wheel and adjusted things while people flitted around outside the car, adjusting things and making sure the car was in proper state.

After a quick radio check, the call to start up for the formation lap (you were in P11 after a pretty dodgy qualifying) was relayed and all around you could hear car’s engines coming to life. You glanced at your engineers and snapped down your visor at their nod, starting the car.

Before you pressed the throttle something quickly came to mind. You rapidly gestured for one of your engineers to come close to you, incredibly conscious of all the cars revving around you. The poor engineer almost sprinted to you as you started to fiddle with the zip of your racesuit, the gloves you were wearing prohibiting you from unzipping it.

The engineer's face was comically concerned and he slowly reached forwards before you looked up and grabbed his outreached hand. His face immediately went to one of shock as you made his hand grab the zip and unzip the front part of the suit.

Choosing to ignore the cameras capturing this interaction you continued unzipping it till it lay around your collarbones, hoping the cameras don’t catch any of your naked shoulders. The engineer's face then relaxed as he saw the necklace around your neck and he quickly reached in, almost leaning over the car, to move your necklace around your neck till the latch was in front of him.

He cautiously unlatched the necklace before zipping up your race suit. You immediately relaxed as the pressure around your neck was relieved. Before he could retreat back to the crowd of engineers, you grabbed the hand that wasn’t holding your necklace and slapped it appreciatively with your other hand.

He retreated as you powered up the car and started to move it forwards, letting all the cars that needed to go before go before you started to move. 

Your team radio started up as you were leaving the pit lane.

“You all had us very confused there.” Your race engineer said as you started your cruise around the track. 

“Yeah, sorry I completely forgot about it. But I thought it was better to take it off.” You said, pressing down on the throttle. 

“He better not lose that though. I want that back at the end of the race.” You subtly threatened, suddenly thinking of the rings that were attached to the necklace. You hoped that maybe the cameras hadn’t seen your wedding and engagement rings but you knew there was no chance they hadn’t not captured it. Oh well.

“I don’t know if you’ll get it back by the end of the race.” Your engineer said, her tone almost sarcastic. 

“What’s that mean?” You asked, letting the car cruise.

“You’ll probably be killed by your PR team first.” She said bluntly. So bluntly it made you laugh. 

“I’ve got a race to focus on.” You reminded her, leaving out the part that you had a race to think of an excuse as to why you have two rings attached to a necklace around your neck.

And you did think of an excuse, wearing the necklace proudly during post-race interviews and saying it was a family heirloom that had been passed on to you by your grandma whenever you were questioned about it.

The moment still went viral though, people questioning the relationship between you and the engineer. It went viral enough to that you had to suffer through teasing by Daniel and his accomplice Max Verstappen (you didn’t know how the kid knew you were married but you suspected it had something to do with an annoying Australian) not to mention the shit being talked in the EXO group chat you were in.

I mean seriously, all of those guys are millionaires, does Chen have nothing else to do with his time than bully the wife of his bandmate?

2020: (sorry Alex)

Somehow you got signed to RedBull on a year contract. Not to say you weren’t grateful for the opportunity but you were definitely a bit confused. But anyway, you let bygones be bygones and now you had a 22 year-old dutch nuisance under your wing.

He was a great kid but god, was he traumatized. You were convinced he’d never seen a healthy family dynamic, so you were more than happy to let him see how you and Kyungsoo functioned. Or at least how you functioned when he was not in the military.

You kind of felt like a life coach for the kid, telling him when he was being taken advantage of or when he should continue with something. You’d been woken up plenty of times in the middle of the night by him drunkenly whining into the phone about wanting to go “home”, something neither of you commented on when he woke up on your couch the next day.

So, safe to say, you’d practically adopted a child without the permission of your husband.

This extended to on the track as well, you’d gotten into a few mild disagreements with Jos Verstappen after his cruel comments which often involved you looking at him angrily and him shit-talking you in interviews about you being a woman. You’d often have to refrain from saying that you’d always be more of a man than him, but alas, you didn’t want to get kicked from your seat.

You knew that Max was extremely appreciative of your dynamic, even commenting on it a few times during interviews, saying that he was very happy to have you as a teammate. After that interview you almost felt like you and his lover, Daniel, were able to give him some sort of an idea of what a normal family relationship should look like.

This sentiment was definitely reinforced when a loud knocking on your Monaco apartment door happened in the early afternoon. It was a weekend with no race, so you were soaking in relaxation. You were having a nice bubble bath after having read for the whole morning, so you were hesitant to hop out of the bath. 

The knocking persisted however, and with a sigh, you got out of the bath and wrapped a bathrobe around you before loudly yelling you’d be a minute. You tugged on some sweats which weren’t yours and put your hair in a towel before eventually making your way to the door. 

You might’ve taken more than a minute, but it didn’t matter when you opened the door and were greeted with the image of Max Verstappen on his knees, face pressed into the expensive hallway carpet. What a sight to see, the prodigy and most highly anticipated driver of his time, lying face-first on the floor.

“What the fuck?” You asked, immediately crouching down to his level after a quick glance to see that none of your neighbors had left their apartments to check on the banging (pretentious, self-concerned people). 

You rolled him over, your confusion doubling as you took in the remorseful look etched across the young man's face, almost tripling as you took in the barely concealed tears in his eyes. Your heart ached though and you pulled him up so that he was sitting on his knees.

“I’m so sorry.” He muttered as your face contorted in confusion. What had happened? “Come inside Max.” You said quietly, helping him up from his spot on the floor and leading him inside, locking the door after you both. Leading him to the couch, you left him after putting the throw blanket over his shoulders, and went to make both of you a tea.

You noticed your phone constantly vibrating on your kitchen counter and quickly chucked it on do not disturb, not checking the notifications because you were more concerned with your teary teammate. 

After grabbing the teas you made your way to the couch, setting them down on coasters on the coffee table, before sitting on the edge of the ‘L’ piece of the couch, so you were facing Max. You grabbed his hand from his lap where he had been nervously picking at his nail beds.

“What’s wrong Max?” You asked calmly, bringing his hand to your lap to stop him from hurting himself. He looked up at you, a few tears having rolled down his cheeks. 

Whatever had happened had fucked him up. You didn’t think it was a fight with his dad, he’d sadly become pretty unresponsive to those. You briefly considered him losing his seat but shook that off, he was doing exceptionally well. 

Maybe you’d lost your seat and he was sent to deliver the news. That would make more sense, especially as your phone was blowing up. You hadn’t been performing very well, but you didn’t think they’d drop you from your seat midway through the season, especially during a season as turbulent as this one.

It was the only reason that made sense though, so you prepared yourself for the news that you would be unemployed. Maybe you’d go back to F2 or maybe IndyCar? Or you could just move to South Korea and live there permanently, letting Kyungsoo fulfill his passion for acting and singing while you did a few kart races to occasionally quench your thirst for adrenaline. 

That actually didn’t sound too bad, though you’d definitely have to discuss it with Kyungsoo when he got back from enlistment, which meant around 5 months of unemployment. But hey, you had the money and so did Kyungsoo.

Max snapped you from your thoughts of the future by clearing his throat.

“You don’t know?” He asked, curiously glancing up at you. You furrowed your eyebrows.

“No…” You said, conveying your confusion. “Should I?” 

“Have you checked your phone recently?” Yep, you were definitely getting fired. You should probably start packing now. Maybe Daniel could get his seat back? You shook your head in response to his quiet question.

“I’ve just been reading all morning.” Max nodded, a small ‘ah’ leaving his mouth as he stared at the floor. He reached for his tea, his hand leaving your lap. You narrowed your eyes at that, following his movements as he sipped, a gasp immediately leaving his throat as he burnt it.

You immediately cussed and sprung up from your couch to grab a glass of cold water, running back to the couch and giving it to Max, watching as he gulped down the glass. When he finished he turned back to you and thanked you, before pausing for a second and bursting into another round of tears. You placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re really freaking me out Max. Can you please tell me what’s wrong?” You asked gently, trying to make him catch your eye.

“Promise you won't hate me?” His small voice asked and you internally crumpled at his vulnerable question. Honestly you never thought you’d end up gentle-parenting a teammate like he was a child of yours, especially since you were only like 5 years older than him, but here you were, caring for him like family.

“Yes, I won’t hate you Max.” You repeated as he finally caught your eye. He took a deep breath before starting to speak.

“I was doing an interview for the press and they started asking questions about other drivers and my relationship to them. They then asked about you and I said that I’m really close to you and etcetera.” Ok, seems pretty normal so far. At least you weren’t getting fired, hopefully.

“And they asked if I see you more as a mother figure or a romantic interest.” He said before quickly turning his eyes away. This confused you before you clued in.

“Oh Max.” You said quietly and he turned back to you. “I’m flattered you feel that way but I am married and I am loyal-”

“No, no, no!” He said, louder than he’d ever spoken in the time since he was on the floor. His cheeks had turned bright red as he looked in your eyes.

“No, I didn’t say that I saw you romantically!” He quickly amended and you breathed a sigh of relief, smiling.

“Ok, that’s good! I didn’t want our friendship to be awkward.” You said, looking at him for a response. He just grimaced and averted his gaze. You gestured for him to go on confusedly and he began speaking again.

“And I said more like a mother-figure.” A statement which made you feel positive things you don’t want to address. “Then I may have accidentally said that, even though I haven’t met him, I see your husband as more of a father-figure as well.” He quickly rushed the last part out and you sat, stunned. 

The room went silent while you processed what he told you. Fuuuuckkk. How much trouble were you going to be in? I mean the team knew, but this wasn’t something you could pass off as your grandmother's rings. This was undeniable proof that you had a husband. God press days were going to suck after this unless you could somehow make an excuse.

As time went on he seemed to collapse in on himself, the energy quickly switching to something you didn’t like.

“To be honest I thought you were going to tell me I’d lost my seat.” You said and Max’s head snapped up. “What?” He asked, disbelieving.

“Yeah I know, crazy.” You laughed, dragging out the last word, trying to establish a more relaxed aura in the room.

“No, why haven’t you kicked me out yet?” It was at times like this you really wanted to punch Jos Verstappen in the face. You made an over exaggerated confused face, hoping the fact that that had never gone through your mind was on display in your face.

“Max, why would I do that?” You asked, your voice very quickly becoming soothing.

“Why aren’t you mad at me? You’ve spent years hiding this! You should be yelling at me!” He said, standing up. You tried, in vain, to get him to sit down by gently calling him, but he started pacing.

“I’ve just ruined your chances at revealing this yourself, at ever having another peaceful day in your marriage, and all you can do is make a joke?!” He almost started yelling, clenching his fists. You got fed-up and yelled his name, calling his attention to you.

“You’re in my house as my guest. You will not tell me what to do or how to handle situations. Sit your ass down.” You yelled, your voice incredibly commanding. He followed your instructions and sat smally in front of you.

“Max. It was eventually going to come out. I don’t mind. I’d much rather it come off handedly from you than maliciously leaked by a random instagram page.” You said and he looked up, almost looking close to tears. You frowned before bringing the boy up into a hug. You stayed like that for a few minutes before you had to ask a question.

“You didn’t reveal who he was though, no?” You asked, still in the hug. You felt Max shake his head and you silently fistpumped behind his back. It wasn’t your fault, so it technically didn’t count and you hadn’t lost the bet.

You were right, by the way, press days were soon filled with questions about your mystery husband instead of your racing. But it was fine, you were somehow able to twist it as though you’d made a joke about having a husband and Max took it seriously.

Phew.

2021: (sorry latifi)

“And so today you will be reacting to fan edits of yourselves!” The lady behind the camera finished, prompting you and George to look at eachother. It was early in the season and, even though you’d raced together for a few years, you weren’t exactly close, being that before pre-season meetings, you hadn’t ever talked. At all.

This meant he didn’t know much about your personal life or the whole ‘husband’ thing. Which was fine, you’d tell him in your own time, when you felt your friendship was strong enough. He seemed to be a great kid, though you were determined to not adopt another grown child, especially after the look you got from Kyungsoo when you mentioned the fact you may have ‘accidentally’ had Christmas with Max Verstappen.

But hey, they had finally met during February and it was almost like a Dad saying that his daughter can’t adopt a cat while simultaneously cuddling with the cat. Kyungsoo, against his better judgment, had instantly attached to Max and now you were battling for the position of being his favourite driver. Which you were totally not bitter about (you said your favourite EXO member was Sehun in retaliation and he changed your mind very quickly).

Back to the present, the people behind the camera placed a tablet on the table in front of you. It was open on the photo gallery and you could already see some very flattering videos saved to the device.

“You wanna go first?” You asked, and George nodded before picking up the tablet and scrolling through the photo library. He closed his eyes and landed on one. Loud music immediately began playing from the device, you think ‘London Boy’ by Taylor Swift, and you both watched in varying states of horror as photos and clips of him flashed on the screen.

As the video ended you both accidentally made eye-contact. Now, as an almost 28 year old woman, the simple gesture of looking into your teammate's stricken eyes should not have made burst out laughing as hard as you did. But, god, George’s eyes were expressive. In fairness he also did laugh, though he probably was confused as to why you were laughing so much.

After you caught your breath you could only utter out,

“Your face...” Before peeling back into giggles again. He started laughing again as well before putting the tablet down. In doing so, he accidentally swiped the tablet and the Backstreet Boys started playing, an edit of the 2019 rookies playing as the video.

This chain event caused you to start gasping, the sheer ridiculousness of the videos catching up to you. George only took one look at the tears forming in your eyes before he was also wheezing out harsh breaths from laughing.

It took around 2 minutes for you to look at each other without laughing and, for you both to be able to pick up the tablet without giggling, it took another minute or so. You eventually began scrolling through the tablet, laughing at some and ‘aww’-ing at some of the sad ones. 

Eventually a video came up with the background music to ‘Give it to me’ by Sistar, an edit of you that was hot but had you gasping at the lyrics.

“What?” George looked over to you, curious as to why there was another noise that came out of your mouth than laughing or a strained ‘why?’.

“The audacity!” You said, as the music continued playing.

“What..?” George asked, more confused than previously.

“Do you want to know the lyrics they’ve just edited me to?” You asked, looking over at him, your voice pretending to be offended.

“What?” He said, his tone changing again to have a sort of goading lilt.

“Will I even get married before I turn thirty.” You said with an air of finality, turning to glare at the camera, your jaw dramatically hung open. George gasped mockingly.

“How dare they!” He said sarcastically and you nodded eagerly.

“I know right!” You responded beginning a stereotypical mean girl impression. “How dare they!” After that little fiasco, you both kept scrolling and laughing (a notable example of this being when an edit of George crying came up, him pushing your shoulders as you continued to laugh). 

Eventually the video was being wrapped up and George was preparing to do a sort of sign off when he paused and turned to you.

“I know we aren’t incredibly close…” He started and you prepared for a multitude of questions. You didn’t know him well enough to predict what he might say, so you went over your predisposed answers to questions in your head.

You knew he wouldn’t ask anything uncomfortable, like about your relationship status, or anything really weird, like how many socks do you wash at once. But that left a gaping probability for mildly-weird or mildly-uncomfortable questions. You hoped he wouldn’t ask that, but you were still prepared to be asked if you threw out your receipts or kept them.

“But I didn’t know you knew Korean. How did you learn?” 

Oh. Fuck.

You did not have an answer for that. How the fuck did you not have an answer for that? You definitely should have had an answer for that. Oh wait, you didn’t have an answer because you promised yourself not to tell anyone that you could speak Korean so that you didn’t get that question!

The real, close-friends answer was that Kyungsoo had taught you over a range of years and that you’d taken courses so that you’d be able to talk to his friends and family. However you didn’t have a PR approved answer because you’d never thought that you’d need one. Time to put your problem solving skills to the test. 

“Uhhhhh…” You said, staring confusedly at George, aware of the seconds that had passed while you were internally monologuing. You hoped your expression didn’t convey the level of gob-smacked that you felt but you think it did because George’s face contorted to be one of worry.

“If that’s a sensitive topic or something you don’t have to answer!” He quickly said as though he was trying to fix the situation. You’d later learn the George thought before your video that you were kind of ‘fucking terrifying’ (his words) and that he was scared he’d screwed up by asking you this and one of his ‘hero’s’ (his words) wouldn’t ever want to talk to him again. 

“Nah, nah. It’s ok.” You waved him off, desperately trying to think of something. Oh! You knew exactly what to say.

“Basically I just have this really good friend who is Korean and I asked him to teach me for fun.” You said simply, before realising that wasn’t good enough considering your reaction.

“I was trying to hide how good I’ve gotten to try and surprise him but I guess it’s ok.” You said, a small smile on your face. George relaxed from his tense state and nodded, a small smile playing onto his lips as well.

“Ah that’s cool. Sorry to spoil the surprise.” You waved him off again and he continued the video’s outro.

Another good save, you really oughta be hired to problem-solve. And by problem-solving you mean lying to the media. And George. Poor George. 

2022: (yeah the timelines don’t match, don’t call me out pls)

A loud banging sounded against your hotel door. You groaned, dropping the book onto your chest from where you held it up. Glancing angrily at the door, you rolled out of bed and stomped over to the entrance. You ripped open the door and prepared to start reaming the person on the other side before letting out a high-pitched scream.

You were in Japan for the Suzuka GP. You always didn’t like the Japanese GP because, even though you were incredibly close to Kyungsoo, your schedules never lined up so you could never see him. 

That fact really grinded your gears, but it’s what you get when you try to schedule something with SM Entertainment. A decisive ‘No.’ What a great company. To be honest, was Willaims really any better?

No. No they weren’t. That mere fact infuriated you enough to make you scream. However, it wasn’t the reason you were currently screaming. That was because, standing in your doorway in the middle of the team hotel, was Kai. 

You hadn’t seen him in a few months, you both had busy schedules, so the man appearing on your doorstep was miraculous. You didn’t think of why he was there, or how he got there. You just threw your arms around him and gave him a hug.

“Oh my god!” You screamed, before immediately regretting it and quickly pulling him into your hotel room before someone came out of their rooms and wondered why he was in front of yours.

“Hi!” He said, laughing as he let himself be pushed into your room despite the fact he could pick you up and throw you.

“What are you doing here?” You asked changing your pulling into a hug, squeezing the younger man as though he was your child. You had a serious problem with that, treating men almost your age as children. But Kai was more of a brother than a child, to be quite frank. That distinction just meant that he really really bugged you.

“I have a concert tomorrow and I thought I might just stop in.” He said, a smile on his face. “Though it is only me, sorry.”

“That’s ok!” You said, still in disbelief one of your closest friends was on your doorstep.

“Does Kyungsoo know?” Kai smirked in response to your question. That was answer enough in itself and you slapped Kai on the shoulder.

“You should’ve told him! He might’ve come.” Kai gasped in mock offense.

“What am I not good enough? Would you really prefer your husband that much?” He continued in mock offense and you dead-panned him. He just laughed in response.

“I did have to tell the company I was coming though, and they asked me to film a TikTok with you.” He quickly rushed out and you groaned, staring at the sky. What was up with all of these people wanting you to do TikTok’s?! You had all of your team's PR people constantly chasing you with a camera and now you had Kai asking for a video.

“Fine.” You ground out and Kai grinned, purposely ignoring your annoyance.

“Fantastic!” He said and quickly whipped out his phone, launching into his plans of what to film. Your only artistic input was that he had to cool it on the filters or else you wouldn’t film. 

The video started with the familiar sound of Peaches by Kai and a hand knocking on your hotel door, you opening the door curiously. As the chorus sounded, you recorded Kai dancing in your doorway, incredibly aware of the chance of any of your colleagues walking into the hallway and wondering what the fuck was going on.

The video continued after the chorus, Kai recording you slamming the door in his face with a confused expression. The video then ended with a still image of the both of you doing a heart together with your hands and you let Kai go rampant on the filters, hearts and sparkles flying around on the screen. 

When you watched it back, Kai waiting at your side eagerly to see your reaction, you did your best to hide the laughing fit you had in reaction to the monstrosity. You couldn’t quite hide the gasps that were leaving you though and Kai frowned.

“It’s perfect. I love it.” You said, through your giggles and he smiled.

“I know. It’s fantastic.” You only nodded because you couldn’t trust yourself to talk, a small whine escaping through your lips at the struggle of not laughing.

“Do you want to see the caption?” He asked and you violently nodded your head. 

“Please.” 

“P15 but still P1 EXO-L.” He read out and you just hung your jaw open. “You bastard!” You laughed out. 

“I put it in Korean as well.” Your only response was to hit him, hard, while still laughing and shaking your head.

“Should we run it by your PR team before posting?” Kai asked, taking a serious note. You looked to him and sucked in air through your teeth.

“Nahhhh.” You replied and he shrugged, and clicked post.

“I should probably tell Kyungsoo you were here before he finds out through the internet.” You said, reaching for your phone. Kai nodded vehemently.

One phone call later, an angry Kyungsoo and an apologetic Kai later, the TikTok was making its rounds and your phone was blowing up, your poor PR agent about to have a heart attack.

On that delightful note Kai left your hotel room, farewelled with a minute long hug and a well-wish for his concert, and you were left to phone your PR agent who just screamed into the phone for 10 seconds before actually speaking.

Of course, during the press releases for the rest of the season, you talked about how much of an EXO-L you were and how close of a friend you were to Kai. This didn’t come without dating rumours but, due to one poorly angled camera shot of your disgusted face when a reporter suggested dating to your face, that was shut down pretty quickly. 

Still no one had shipped you with the other EXO members though, so you weren’t even close to losing the bet. (Though you had been asked which EXO member was your favourite, which you responded to with a smirk.)

2023:

It was a good race, you finishing P4 which was a huge improvement since last season. Your team was on top of the moon as were you, smiling from ear to ear. You were currently in the press area, getting asked questions left and right about the car and your performance.

You were adequately responding to each question, sometimes looking questioningly your PR agent when you weren’t sure how to respond. A loud crash sounded through the area that drew the attention of most in the area as a reporters chair fell to the ground. They had jumped up at something on their phone and, like everyone else in the pen, you were wondering what had them so fired up.

Then their eyes darted up and made eye-contact with you. Your internal monologue quickly changed from questioning to a repeated loop of ‘Oh no. Oh no.’ as they advanced your way, moving like a predator stalks their prey. They thrusted their phone under your nose, the shitty little mic attached to it capturing every breath you took and the many cameras in the area capturing your wide eyes.

The reporter addressed you by name before starting to speak.

“Do you know of a man by the name Doh Kyungsoo?” They asked and your world cracked. What on earth had happened? How did they know? All you knew was that it was time for the one acting class your mum had made you take to try and sway you from racing to come to full effect.

“I think he’s from that band Kai’s in, yeah?” You responded after a second of fake pondering. The reporter's eyes narrowed like a hawk.

“You wouldn’t say you were close? Not close enough to get married perhaps?” The reporter asked, clearly trying to stir the pot. Oh my god, was this a prank? How the fuck did they know? How were you supposed to play this off? Would this jeopardize your career?

“Uhhm no…?” You said, incredulously, fixing them a scandalized stare. They sarcastically nodded.

“Oh really? Then what’s this?” They said and shoved their phone closer to your face till you saw a picture of you and Kyungsoo on your wedding day. How did they get this? Had one of your small circle leaked something?

You tried not to let the bewilderment you felt show on your face.

“I’m sorry? Are you trying to pass this off as real? It’s obviously photoshopped! I’m so tired of people trying to fabricate a story of me dating every person I’ve interacted with!” You finally snapped, letting a few years of pent up tension out in this moment. The reporter only continued to smirk.

“Oh really!” They said and you wanted to punch them and their snooty little face. To try and display this, your face fell into one of contempt.

“Is that why this image was posted to Doh Kyungsoo’s official instagram account with the caption ‘Sorry for making you lie to the press for eight years!’?” 

They got you there, dam.

Your jaw dropped open, the corners of your mouth rising at the pure hilarity of this situation.

“Excuse me?” You asked, grabbing the phone off the reporter and tapping back onto the post. They were right, Kyungsoo had posted to his official instagram that exact post. It was a carousel post with pictures taken of when you’d lied to the press about him, from the initial lying about being in Seoul to a picture of your ringed necklace to a picture of you smirking after being asked which EXO member was your favourite.

You couldn’t help but release a laugh, your hand traveling to cover your open mouth. Why did he post this? 

Wait.

This meant you won the bet. Your head shot up to stare at a camera.

“I won the bet.” You said quietly. The reporter snatched their phone back and stared at you confused. 

“What?” They asked and you whipped your head to them, a large smile spreading across your face.

“I won the bet!” You said eagerly, reaching out to grab their shoulders and rock them back and forth.

“I won the bet!!” You ignored how they shook you off, turning to your PR Agent instead and grabbing them and lifting them up. They hurriedly tapped your back as you lifted them, as though signaling you to drop them, but you ignored that and started spinning them around. 

“I actually can’t believe it, oh my god!” You snapped out of it and dropped your PR Agent, immediately running out of the media pen and back to your driver room, pulling your necklace out of your racesuit and pulling your rings off, placing them back on their correct fingers.

You quickly packed everything up, ignoring the ringing of your phone as your team tried to get you to go to more press conferences and briefings, and you got out of there, on the first plane to Seoul you could book.

When you arrived, after a long plane trip filled with excitement and pictures being taken of you, decked out in your team's merchandise as you sat buzzing in your seat, your phone was completely blowing up, messages from everyone in your contact list and more. You turned it off (you’d deal with it later) after calling an uber to your apartment.

You were jittery the whole ride, hoping that, despite the time of night, Kyungsoo was still awake. When you arrived outside your apartment building, you felt all the tension in your body ease, and you looked up to see the light on in your window. You smiled and took your suitcase handle in hand and ventured into the building, greeting the old lady at the desk.

Riding the lift up to your apartment nearly had you pacing and you almost ran down the hallway towards your door, quickly knocking. You felt the reverberations in the floorboards as Kyungsoo walked over to the door and a sense of euphoria filled you at the familiarity.

The door was barely open before you launched yourself at Kyungsoo, his heavenly laughter filled your ears as he caught you. You quickly found yourself in a kiss before pulling back and peppering kisses all over his face, finding his giggles more lovely than his singing.

You both pulled back just to look in eachothers eyes and you smiled simultaneously. 

“I love you.” You muttered, the happiness from the day finally catching up to you.

“I love you too.” He whispered, tilting his head before going in for another kiss. 

“You know.” He began later that night, when you were just lying in bed cuddling together. You turned your head from its position on his chest to look at him, his eyes remaining on the roof.

“I think I won in the end.” You immediately reared your head back, prepared to object at the sheer wrongness of his answer. He anticipated this though and dropped his hand from where it was combing through your hair to your mouth. He also dropped his head as to make eye contact.

“You stuck by me through everything. Even though you had to lie almost every day and had to listen to millions of rumours about me with other people, you still stayed with me. You learned a whole other language just to know people who knew me. Nothing I will ever say will ever put into perspective how much I appreciate what you’ve done for me. The way you’ve loved me will be comparable to nothing other than how much I’ve loved you.” His heartfelt speech made your head vibrate and a few tears left your eyes at his words, him kissing each one away. 

You whined deep in the back of your throat and he released a laugh at your response. 

“You could’ve just said ‘I love you’.” You said quietly.

“That’s true too.” He said, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

ahh it's over! dividers from this post btw, it's 11:59 pm let me sleep.

[punkbeetleart]

Happy 4/13 everyone !!!

This 413 means a lot to me because this year i believe marks 10 whole years since i first started reading homestuck!! As far as i can tell at least, i started homestuck in 2015 and here we are in 2025, im still obsessed with it. First things first lets get the basics out of the way:

Cal, have you done art for 413 this year? Why yes i have !!

[Click for better quality!]

Now im going to ramble and get sappy and sentimental below the read more BP

This! This 'panel' aka screenshot from the Terezi: Remem8er flash is one that has certainly made an impact on me. I think listening to the Homestuck Made This World podcast recently really opened my eyes about why this flash and this panel meant so much to me, Michael described it exactly as I would in terms of how it affected him. You all should listen to that.

I've even redrawn the same screenshot/flash a few times over the years!

I really love redrawing this same panel because not only did the flash mean to much to me to begin with, but i do feel like theres a real sense of progression here. And I will continue to progress and get better, i hope. Even looking at that new drawing now I see things id change. Itll have to wait till next year. But point of that is I have grown with homestuck as a person and in my art, and i will continue to, it has never left me, it has made me who i am.

And i do mean that. I figured out my sexuality, gender, interests, hobbies, and even what i like in a story through homestuck and its characters. Ive made friends because of homestuck, and friends are why i read homestuck in the first place. Shoutout to Bug and all my old vine mutuals lol yall did this to me

But i cant complain. I wouldnt be who i am without the vocabulary, mannerisms, and sense of humor i picked up from this fucked up webcomic.

Im not really sure what else to say. There is more to say, but its sort of just. Feelings. I could explode with feelings about this right now. But instead i leave you with this:

Thanks if you read this sappy shit lol. Thanks if you didnt.

I love you all and happy 4/13.

<3

[thetepes]

Let's go all of it

I'm going to try to keep this general.

Jack/Birdie/SpriteCranbirdie/Alias/DamagedCodA/sansbirdie the dreemur/strawberrix/churro the ferret/undini the jellifoosh/wendy the burrito tyronias/SophiaLuigi7/

Oh, fuck it, just have a doc

Born in Sept of 2004, they were a pretty typical zoomer era edgy kid on the internet that was a part of the animation meme community, not even necessarily a person of note outside of a certain very niche community known for having an ungodly amount of alts, art that will give you a seizure, and admitting to trying to get his ferret to eat him out.

Here's a taste, view discretion and seizure warning.

And inside that niche community was an even more niche community that just fucking hated his ass.

To a comical degree. Like they went way too far with it when he wasn't actually doing anything, but being an annoying kid on the internet and they formed an entire mob about it which was a big part of what drove him to more and more outrageous behavior along with being, well, severely mentally ill and a child of 6. Whatever is wrong with him just didn't get noticed by his family until it was too late.

It's hard to tell when shit really went off the rails because this all happened in a sphere that seems to be made up completely of children and adults with the maturity of children. They were all edgy, toxic, and doing the same shit he was so one moment it's a 12 and 13 year old accusing one or the other of grooming, SAing one another, someone's threatening to kill themselves or someone else, or someone's lying or being accused of lying and there's a big public fight about it, but ultimately it all ends the same way. They make up or forget or get guilted into deleting it or someone's mom finds out and

The proof of whatever happened is gone. All that's left is signs of a scuffle. This is an ongoing constant. It's hard to track what the fuck is going on because these kids all skip around accounts, change names, delete and remake, ect.

With Birdie though a pattern emerged, stuff started not getting deleted. The accusations that were left standing all started looking the same and people started documenting it and following and catching on to what he was up to and I'll be real ya'll you're reading about what is probably the youngest lolcow I've ever seen. Which is a feat. I think this all started when they were 11 or 12 and it has just destroyed them mentally and they can not stop themselves even now as an adult. This isn't some innocent victim, far from it. He is a victim. He now victimizes others. He speed ran the Chris Chan ending for himself. Self harm, abusing everyone around them, threats of suicide, living completely online and making their entire existence not only public, but accessible.

The callouts started around 2015 and by 2016 they were known for being DEEPLY mentally unstable in a sea of mentally unstable children.

Not actually from yesterday, just when it was archived.

I saw people mentioning him being exposed for drawing nsfw of Sleepykinq/Twisted-doctor, then doing the same with Kittydog. Kittydog has also had a drama involving supporting "nomaps" and zoos so Jack was already neck deep in that kind of content. A nomap is something you can google for yourself for a more detailed idea, but basically it's a pedophile that is against contact.

There was a whole thing with him shipping a 12 year old with a 40 something year old and then there was a hack somehow and a bunch of google + chats got leaked. Birdie gets more and more heat for making NSFW content as a minor and the content of that NSFW until youtubers, including Spocter, start making videos on him. If you know who Spoctor is then this will probably be funny to you.

This is one of their alts.

Just looking at any screenshots from him will quickly explain why. He's already off the chains and abusing himself and everyone around him. This is really where the cutting situation comes out and the cutting situation quickly turned into something by far worse when DiCE was dragged out into the public eye.

Which is something that is STILL ongoing

So catching A LOT of heat for, well, gooning to cutting and eating disorders and allegations of grooming kids younger than themselves into all this, Birdie went MIA around 2021 and popped back up with

Which was...just an insane thing to post, really. It's immature and petty to the point of not taking even their own suffering seriously. Dredging up all the old drama, reigniting it, and putting himself back in the spotlight, but I think that was on purpose because it was followed by

I knew something was fucked about this entire situation because of how edited and animated this video was because why the fuck are you going that hard for a video where you're outing your roommate for being a pred?

And it infamously ends with Birdie having animated them both as Panty and Stocking.

The entire this was fucking weird.

And not handled with any tact, maturity, or grace. The victims were a total afterthought. This was entirely about Birdie and how it effected him.

They came out about their roommate Synni grooming a child and how they needed help to move out of their shared apartment. This is probably where if you heard of Birdie, it was from this. These two nightmares of the internet moved in together and when Synni was getting a little too much heat for grooming a minor again-

Please note that again. She'd already been caught doing this before and had pwomised Jack she'd be a good girl and not interact with minors. They've both been caught doing this shit, it's only now they're adults so people are finally going "Hey now, that's not good" which is insane to me. Synni was also openly completely obsessed with Jack at one point which makes me wonder why Jack moved in with her, but Jack ALSO gets obsessed with people so two birds of a demented feather.

They're both two very sick people and I'm trying to keep this general.

I'll probably make a post for Synni later, but anyway,

He raised 11k to move out. A lot of that money went to...interesting places. I don't know how interested you all are on if spending donated money on sex toys and mlp shit and not groceries or anything he claimed to need so moving on,

He got kind of put on the backburner since Synni was the big bad in the situation. Birdie's abuse, now as an adult, of children faded into the background for Synni and JustARobot.

Then shit started leaking.

Friend after friend started coming out on Twitter about Birdie's behavior all topped off by Queen, his most loyal and closest friend, calling him out on Twitter and finally ceasing to defend him.

Then Birdie got caught talking to minors again.

And you know what happened?

Not a fucking thing. He's still talking to minors, he's still getting them to cut. He's still on Twitter, Discord, and Youtube.

Just making memes and doing what they've always done. No change. The internet is feeding this person children like he's a woodchipper.

Again, this is just the main beats. This is all more deep and fucked up than I explained it.

[crownmemes]

Hannibal Sentences, Vol. 4

(Sentences from Hannibal (2013-2015). Adjust phrasing where needed)

"I don't know if I will ever be myself again. I don't know if I've got any self left over."

"They said I might remember what I did, but I don't want to remember."

"You made me chicken soup?"

"You see, I'd call that less of a theory, more of a hypothesis. Theories require evidence."

"I've been yearning for a return to the fundamentals of investigation!"

"This is venturing into the paranoid. I can't allow you to pull anyone else into your delusion."

"You look a little pastey. Perhaps you shouldn't have checked yourself out of the hospital?"

"Do you ever hunt?"

"You can't run from this. It will only get worse."

"Can you hear how paranoid you sound?"

"At a time when other men fear their isolation, yours has become understandable to you. You are alone because you are unique."

"I know who I am, but I'm not so sure I know who you are anymore."

"Are you a killer? You, right now - this man standing in front of me. Is this who you really are?"

"I never feel guilty about eating anything."

"Friendship can sometimes involve a breach of individual separateness."

"You're not my friend. The light from friendship won't reach us for a million years. That's how far away from friendship we are."

"Have you ever helped a patient recover memories?"

"I am not the intelligent psychopath you are looking for."

"I've had to draw a conclusion based on what I've glimpsed through the stitching of the person suit that you wear, and the conclusion that I have drawn is that you are dangerous."

"That may be what he said, but it's not necessarily what he thinks."

"Hello! I love your work!"

"I've heard so much about you that I feel I almost know you."

"Gratitude has a short half-life."

"This killer wrote you a poem. Are you going to let his love go to waste?"

"Psychopathic violence is predominantly goal-oriented - a means to a very particular end."

"Who is he to you that makes you want to risk everything for him?"

"Nothing can be so unnerving for someone strong as being weak."

"You said you just interpret the evidence, so interpret the evidence!"

"Did you really think I was above that sort of thing?"

"We evolved the ability to communicate disappointment to teach those around us good manners."

"Now, I'm going to ask you a few yes or no questions while you still have enough blood coursing through your brain to answer them. Are you ready?"

"You're moving smoothly and slowly, carrying your concentration like a brimming cup."

"There's a common emotion we all recognise and have not yet named: the happy anticipation of being able to feel contempt."

"Who does he have to kill before you open your eyes?"

"It's strange having nightmares. I never used to."

"Cannibalism is an act of dominance."

"I would just like to point out that the word 'sociopath' has not been used by any respected psychiatrist since 1968."

[im4rmy]

☆03: of course i'm into girls!

← 吻 →

Gyeongsang's Orphanage, 2009

"If you don't want to keep your little friend company, you'd better keep that mouth shut," the nanny spat, shoving Chaerin under the covers of her small bed.

The girl clenched her teeth and growled at the woman, who only laughed at the sight of the feistiest child she had ever encountered in her long career as headmistress. She left the sulking girl to stew in her own frustration and exited the room, which housed nineteen other identical beds, flicking off the light as she went. Chaerin waited. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. When she finally heard the steady breathing of her roommates, she slipped out of bed without a sound. She picked the lock on the window and climbed outside, barefoot and dressed in nothing but her thin pajamas. It was summer, but the darkness carried a treacherous chill. Chaerin wasn't afraid of the dark. But Jisung was.

Jisung was thrown into the Reflection Cage on average once a week. He was foul-mouthed and violent, despite being only seven years old. Then again, when you're the smallest in a house full of desperate kids with nothing to lose, you eventually learn to defend yourself. This time, he had punched Choi, the bully who had a crush on Chaerin and constantly grabbed Jisung by the collar just to humiliate him. But in the end, Chaerin only ever spent time with Jisung. So, really, who was the loser?

She crouched beside the grate in the inner courtyard of the building. No light seeped through it, but she knew Jisung was down there. The Reflection Cage was nothing more than a series of underground cells, each furnished with only a pillow and a blanket. No light bulbs. No windows. Just the grates.

"Hey, Ji, you know what? Choi cried," she giggled, hearing the boy sniffle and take a deep breath to calm himself.

Every time he was punished, Chaerin would keep him company until dawn, sneaking back into bed just in time to avoid getting caught. Jisung hated that she did all that for him. He didn't think he deserved it. And she certainly didn't deserve to live with a perpetual cold from spending her nights in the chill. But she always came. And he was always, inexplicably, grateful.

Because he hated being alone. He hated the dark. He hated facing his own overwhelming thoughts and emotions.

And Chaerin was the one person he wasn't afraid of. 

← 吻 →

Gyeongsang's Orphanage, 2015

Jisung glanced at Chaerin, who gave a small nod before slipping out of the chow-hall, careful not to attract the nannies' attention. The boy stood from the table with force, drawing every eye in the room. He had grown. Now, he was taller than Chaerin and most of his peers. He strode toward Choi and his two lackeys, a smirk of anticipation curling his lips.

"Hey, dumbass."

The fifteen-year-old barely had time to look up before Jisung's fist crashed into his face, sending him sprawling. The next moment, Jisung was on him, landing punch after punch. Choi managed to hit back a couple of times before the orphanage's only male caretaker yanked Jisung away, locking his arms behind him as the boy thrashed and spat out a mouthful of blood.

"You're out of your damn mind!" Mrs. Park exclaimed as she stormed over. "You really like the Cage, don't you, Jisung?" she sighed, shaking her head before motioning for the caretaker to take him away.

Jisung started laughing, blood trailing from his nose and lips. He looked deranged—and that was exactly the message he wanted to send. Getting thrown into that hole had become too easy. He needed them to think he was unhinged. That he was a little crazy. And, most of all, he needed to make sure no one missed him once he was gone.

Because Chaerin was already hidden in the Reflection Cage next to his, ready to break them out. Finally.

← 吻 →

Seoul, 2015

"Couldn't you grab the chocolate ones?" Jisung grumbled, biting into the colorful donut.

"Shut up and eat, Ji. I barely got away."

It had been a month and a half since they escaped the orphanage. They had hitched a ride on a train to Daegu, then pickpocketed their way to affording two tickets to Seoul. For the past twenty days, they had survived by begging and stealing. They were barely making it—two thirteen-year-olds on the streets of a metropolis, with winter creeping closer each day. They had no plan. They were hungry and cold. But they had never felt more alive. They ran and played and laughed all day. No rules. No schedules. No limits. Just each other.

And they didn't need anything else.

They were leaning against the window of a music store, where the latest K-pop hits blasted through the speakers. When a viral song from the previous summer started playing, they exchanged grins, tossing their donuts back into the bag and jumping up to dance, singing along to every word.

While the two teenagers blissfully ignored their uncertain future, three older kids watched them from across the street.

"It's definitely them," Jaehyun remarked, eyeing the scene with curiosity.

"They look insane," Mark muttered, tilting his head.

Shaw smirked. "That's exactly what the team needs, don't you think?"

Mark's eyes gleamed, and he grinned. The older girl chuckled, ruffling his hair. That clumsy sixteen-year-old had heart, and everyone knew it. One day, he'd make a great Leader.

"Alright, I'm going," Jaehyun decided, rubbing his hands together before strolling toward the laughing duo.

He approached casually, hands in his pockets. Then, quick as lightning, he grabbed their bag of food and took off running with a taunting laugh. Chaerin shrieked in outrage, and both of them bolted after him, horrified at the thought of going hungry again. They chased him into a dead-end alley.

"Give it back, fucking asshole!" Jisung shouted when the thief finally stopped against the far wall, still smirking.

"Whoa, whoa. Big words for a little kid," a voice snickered behind them.

Jisung spun, immediately pressing his back to Chaerin's, while she kept her eyes locked on the thief. "What do you want?" he growled at the tall guy who had just mocked him.

"Relax, we're not here to hurt you," added a third voice, this one soft and female.

Chaerin turned to her right, where the speaker stood. Jisung did the same. She was tall, with jet-black hair, a beauty that defied the usual flawless Korean standard—but it was impossible to look away from her. Then, Jaehyun let the donuts drop to the ground and grabbed Chaerin by the arms, pulling her close. Jisung snarled and lunged, but Johnny, the tall one, caught him, pinning his arms behind his back. "You're fast, kid, I'll give you that."

Jisung's eyes stayed locked on Chaerin, who struggled against Jaehyun's grip. "Let her go!"

Taejin, watching silently, caught the panic in Jisung's eyes. Chaerin was everything to him—the only thing he had ever had, the only person he had ever loved and who had loved him back. The informations about them denied that they were soulmates. But that didn't change the depth of their bond.

Jisung's gaze darted to Taejin. He must have realized she was the one in charge. Clever kid.

"You're hurting her. I'll go with you. Just let her go."

Taejin raised an eyebrow, then smiled. "Alright. Let's go," she said, nodding to her men.

The two teens locked eyes, a silent promise passing between them—

Then everything went dark as the chloroform-soaked cloths pressed against their faces.

← 吻 →

NCT 127's house, Seoul, 2018

Jisung was locked in the room he shared with five other kids. At that moment, he was alone—only Chenle was asleep on the bunk bed against the opposite wall. He had gone into "hiding" after yelling at Taeyong, his leader—the closest thing to a father he had ever known. Being sixteen, it was normal to feel like the world was against you. But when you blew up in the face of one of the most dangerous criminals in the city, it became a real problem. Taeyong and Taejin were fair leaders, but they were terrifying. They had taken him and Chaerin into their gang, along with a dozen other stray kids who kept trickling in over time. They had been their salvation, their first home, their first real family. But disobeying them wasn't the same as spitting in the face of a nanny at the orphanage. Disrespecting Taeyong or his soulmate meant losing their trust, making them question your worth. That was basically suicide.

The problem with Jisung was that the older members kept drilling into the younger ones' heads that finding your soulmate was essential to surviving this life. Having someone to return to after an operation was what kept you alive.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. Jisung closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Come in," he muttered, careful not to wake Chenle.

Taeyong stepped inside and shut the door behind him. The younger boy tried to steady his nerves—he didn't want another fight, but he also didn't want to back down.

"Can we talk without you yelling at me?" Taeyong asked, sitting beside him on the small bed.

Jisung nodded. "I'm sorry."

Taeyong sighed. "I know."

For a moment, they sat in silence, the only sound the steady breathing of Chenle.

"You know this is for your own good."

"Of course I know," Jisung snapped.

"Then why do you hate this whole soulmate thing so much? I get that you're sixteen and maybe girls aren't really what you're in—"

"Of course I'm into girls!" he interrupted, feeling his face heat up. "That's not—ugh, would it really be so catastrophic if I never found my soulmate?"

"They're a crucial asset to us."

"Then what about Shaw?"

Taeyong shot him a sharp look. "You know that's different. Losing them isn't the same as never having one."

"Doyoung and Yuta are doing just fine without."

"But they're still looking."

"Well, I don't want one."

Taeyong took a deep breath, counting to five before responding. "Is this about Chae?"

Jisung frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You don't want to find your real soulmate because you wish your person was her?" Taeyong asked, studying his expression.

Jisung let out a short laugh. "Chae is my person. But not in that way. I don't think about her like that."

Taeyong smirked, nudging his shoulder. "What way, beanstalk?"

Jisung's ears burned as he let out an awkward chuckle. "I mean—I care about her, she's the most important person in my life, but I don't—uh, I don't think—ugh, you know what I mean. Maybe I had dumb thoughts like that when we were twelve, but they didn't come from the heart, definetely."

Taeyong listened, mildly impressed by the maturity in his words. "Then what's the real issue?"

"I know that for someone like me, with this life, having a soulmate would be an advantage. But I think... thinking you have to find your soulmate at all costs is... really selfish."

"What?"

Jisung looked up. "I don't mean to offend anyone, but—okay, you and Taejin-noona got lucky because you're practically the same person. But how many times have Johnny and Jaehyun come back from missions barely alive and holed up at their soulmates' places, just to be patched up and sent back out? What if I find someone happy, with a nice home, a good family, a good life... What right would I have to drag them into this mess? To force them to be my personal nurse for the rest of their life? What right would I have to keep risking my life every day and leave my soulmate to deal with that pain?"

Taeyong was stunned into silence, staring at him wide-eyed.

"Hey, Ji!" Chae's bright voice interrupted as she burst into the room. "That asshole's minimart just closed for vacation. Wanna go?" she asked excitedly.

Jisung glanced at Taeyong, who still seemed to be processing everything he had just said.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, go," Taeyong allowed, nodding.

Jisung didn't wait for him to change his mind. He jumped up and joined his best friend.

"Enjoy your day, because you're still in trouble for yelling at me," Taeyong called after him.

Sighing, Taeyong turned his gaze to Chenle, who had rolled over to look at him from under the blankets. "Those two are gonna be real trouble, hyung."

← 吻 →

«吻, Wěn» index

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masterlist

[nophunleague]

stare decisis: chapter eleven - indicium

indicium: latin for clue

masterlist

wc: 1202

rafael barba x original female character

Quinn’s bony fingers rap Rafael’s front door authoritatively as she taps her toe impatiently on the tile flooring in his building’s hallway. 

She checks her watch impatiently as her wait reaches a minute then huffs and begins to look at her legal pad again in her apparent downtime. Her ginger hair is pulled back in a french braid but in her haste to get to his apartment, small wisps of warm tendrils have fallen out and in front of her face. She lightly blows a few out of her eye line as raises her hand to knock again when the door swings open. 

“Ms. Brady, it’s awfully late,” her foot is through the threshold before he finishes his sentence. She looks up briefly to orient herself, she’s met with a rich but bare apartment; warm accents and a brown leather couch compliment the amber toned lighting and the walnut coffee table in the living room. 

“Please, by all means, come on in,” he remarks before he slams the door shut and follows her into his abode. 

“Yeah, yeah. No time for that,” her flippant speech flies through the air as she tosses the few case files and her legal pad onto the coffee table and sits down on the floor next to it. 

Mac’s departure last night has given her ample time to dive back into the Claudia Gundy case; “there’s something missing here. Our accessory/witness, Justice Yang, says that Carson called him at 7:45pm asking for a ride, Rudnick says Claudia is maybe dead by then. But there’s not call in the records coming from Carson’s phone at that time. Not to the witness, or anyone else. Now, in their second interview with Rollins and Carisi, the witness says that the call came from Carson but not from his number, so maybe Carson borrowed a phone, you would like to think. But no, the witness says the call came from a payphone. It’s 2015, there’s maybe, what, two payphones left in Manhattan? And none of them are anywhere near where the witness picked Carson up; that of which we have on video. There is a hole in our timeline that will jeopardize a conviction. We need to figure this out,” she continues on by spouting different theories of what they could be missing. 

Barba watches with eyes wide before speaking again, “how did you find out where I live?”

Quinn continues to pull different pieces of discovery from the files, laying them out in some sort of organized fashion “I called Sergeant Benson first, but you know she’s not my biggest fan so then I had to call Carmen - someone who actually halfway likes me.”

“Have you been drinking?” is his next question as he eyes the familiar drop of red liquid on the chest of Quinn’s “Germany” sweatshirt. She stops flipping through her legal pad to make siren-like eye contact with him. 

“It’s a Friday night and I was home. Of course I’ve been drinking, and don’t tell me you haven’t been doing the same. I can smell the scotch from here. But at this very moment, I - no, we, do not have time for your petty I hate Quinn bullshit. You. Need. To. Listen. To. Me,” her words are sharp, they cut through his judgment like a razor sharp blade. His eyes bounce from her to his momentarily abandoned glass of scotch on the kitchen counter and then to her masterfully made mess of evidence. 

“Will you say that all one more time, just a little slower?” She nods slowly and turns back to the coffee table, he stands behind her getting an eagle eye view of the paperwork. As she explains her theory once more, she points to each piece of evidence that supports the theory, working her way through the papertrail of a timeline she had managed to organize. 

As her explanation draws to a close she holds up one piece of evidence up to him, “There are exactly two payphones in Manhattan, one in Times Square and one in Harlem. But Carson was picked up by the witness in Chinatown,” Barba takes the paper from her hand and studies the map intently.

“He could’ve made the call and then taken the subway, this doesn’t destroy the timeline,” her hand flies up again immediately with the suspect’s metro card account and his bank statement. She had been anticipating that argument.

“His metro card was not swiped during the time between the call and being picked up, plus he didn’t pay for another metro card to get to Chinatown,” Barba runs a hand over his chin, his five o’clock shadow rough on his fingertips. 

“He could have jumped the turnstiles,” he ponders.

“And if he did, we could have him on camera, we can look at that on Monday,” she says, she’s tilted her head back to look directly up at him, her braid almost tickling his legs through his slacks - which he still has on for some reason. 

“So if he wasn’t where he said he was, or where he got picked up at the time of the call. . . where the hell was he?” he looks down to meet her eyes, a magnetic and mischievous smirk graces her face, there’s a fire in her eyes as red as her hair. 

“That’s what we’ve got to figure out. And why I brought all of this to you,” she motions to the pile of papers and then pats the floor next to her, “come on, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

They work for another hour or so and by that time they have both resorted to sitting on the couch, sore bottoms and all. They’ve slowed down considerably, sleep’s warm embrace calls to Rafael as he rubs his eyes harshly. Quinn seems to be unphased by the late hour. But they’re in the middle of a big break in the case, sleep is not an option for him. 

“Do you drink scotch,” he offers, her blue eyes look up to meet his, a small smile on her lips.

“Well I started my night off with a great red wine but I guess scotch will do now,” she quips and then her head is back down combing through the case files. 

She thanks him when he returns with the glasses of scotch, she takes the glass into both hands from his singular one, her fingers brush the tips of his, she then pulls the glass to her lips to take a sip. She breathes in slowly as she takes in the taste of the well rounded scotch, eyes closing as she lets it wash over her senses. “This is a good one,” he smiles at her and tells her the brand and year. 

“I’m glad you can appreciate it, not many people do.”

“Well I’m an attorney, so I guess I had to grow into the stereotype,” she shrugs and sets the drink down on the coffee table then begins to flip through the notes she had made in her legal pad again before speaking up one more time, “plus I’m Scottish, so it would be sacrilegious if I didn’t like the water of life.

(a/n: updates might be slow for the next few months, traveling a lot for work at the moment.)

[film-in-my-soul]

Future fic- Steddie?!

I had a lot of fun with this :3

.⋆｡°✩ 2015. The time has come. ✩°｡⋆.

At a few years off from fifty, Steve Harrington thinks he should be well and truly through with feeling anxiety so strong it threatens to take him out at the knees. Demogorgans, demodogs, Vecna, seventh graders... he should be over it. And yet, he's thankful he's sitting because his joints are feeling a bit like jelly, and he's been compulsively twisting the ring on his third finger over and over again, the metal warm under his fingers from how long he's been spinning it.

Realistically, Steve knows he's got nothing to worry about. Nancy's been on top of things since he'd asked for her help six months prior, and Robin's been on the warpath since that morning, arms loaded with coffee boxes from Dunkin' and a gaggle of adults Steve still sees as snotnosed little shit-heads in tow. Everything is going fine.

And yet he's expecting a dozen different things happening that will mess it all up, including but not limited to the Upside Down rearing its ugly head and ripping a portal through the middle of the Byers-Hopper's backyard, a shady government worker descending on the ceremony to say "Actually, there's been a mistake," or even Eddie finally deciding after close to three decades he can do better. All highly unlikely, but they run marathon loops through Steve's brain as he sits, knee jumping up and down, twinging on every third repetition.

It's only mid-afternoon; he's still got an hour before he needs to be downstairs. Each second that drips by, slow as molasses, Steve regrets losing the 'who has to walk down the aisle' coin toss. He's about to make a break for the window, just to get out of the room that Robin had locked him in once he'd started pacing, when the sound of the door knob jiggling catches his attention and draws his eyes.

Steve watches, blinking and a bit dumbfounded, as the lock clicks over twice and the door creeps open at a snail's pace. It makes sense why the motion brings to mind someone sneaking in because they are. Emerging from the other side of the door, Eddie in a half crouch, butter knife still held up to the knob he'd just jimmied open, beams at him. His hair, just as long as it was in 1986 but streaked through with silver-gray, is pulled off his shoulders in an artfully messy bun; he's not wearing his suit jacket or tie, barefoot in his dark red undershirt and black slacks.

He's gorgeous.

He's also in so much fucking trouble.

"Are you crazy?" Steve whisper-yells, leaning forward almost so far he topples off the end of the bed. Eddie winks at him, holds a finger to his lips, and closes the door behind him as he frogsteps forward as quietly as he can, only answering Steve's rhetorical question when he reaches his legs.

"Crazy about you, maybe." He's smirking, hands on Steve's knees to keep himself balanced, obviously pleased with himself. Steve is almost exasperated enough to push him over. Instead, he smiles despite the cheesy line and huffs a fond sigh, eyes closing as his forehead meets Eddie's when he bends to lean against the other man.

"Nancy is going to murder you."

"Only if I get caught."

Steve shakes his head and sits back up, one eyebrow cocked.

"You think she's not going to realize one of the grooms has gone missing?"

Eddie's smirk widens, and Steve wants to kiss him so badly that he aches for it (still, even after all these years).

"Not when she's fighting with Mrs. Byers over how the catering needs to be arranged." He sounds amused at having used an opportunity to sneak away, but Steve winces. Between the two women, it's a toss-up who will win, but if he had to put money on it, it's Joyce all the way.

Steve is brought back into the moment as Eddie reaches forward, teetering just a little in his squat, taking Steve's hand, the same one with the ring that Steve's been playing with.

"It's gonna be weird, replacing this." Eddie traces over the raised surface of the black skull ring he'd placed on Steve's finger back in 1992, a promise they're finally fulfilling roughly twenty-three years later.

"I told you," Steve says, turning his hand to tangle his and Eddie's fingers together, "I don't care if we do it with this or ring pops, just that we do it." And he can admit, having a semi-traditional band in place of the heavy jewelry he's worn for so long will be strange.

The expression that takes over Eddie's face can only be described as gooey, and Steve can't stop himself from dipping back in and pressing his mouth to the corner of Eddie's lips. The kiss doesn't stray away from chaste, mostly because even though Eddie isn't dressed yet, Steve is, and if he has to have Max do up his bowtie again, he's going to die of mortification.

"I promised," Eddie says, soft and low, bringing his free hand up to Steve's jaw, tracing the apple of his cheek with his thumb, "I was gonna do right by you, Harrington."

Steve smiles. He turns his head into Eddie's hand and kisses the curve of his palm.

Then he pushes Eddie away and bites back a smile when he falls right onto his ass with a loud thump that will no doubt be heard from the floor below.

"Then get downstairs and help so you can make me an honest man faster."

Eddie's grin is wicked, even as he stands and rubs at what no doubt will be a bruise.

"You're gonna be kissing that better later." He says, just as a call of "Edward Wayne Munson, you get your sewer-rat ass down here right now!" floats through the floorboards.

"Promise, now go. I don't have a lot of interest in marrying a corpse."

Eddie laughs, ducks back in, steals a kiss, and then, far too spry for his age and shit lungs, races back out of the room. Steve watches him, relaxes back against the bed, and finds that all his previous worries have been stolen, too.

Ficlet Bingo! (Still Squares Left!)

[kuschelkissen-art]

OC time 💕

Recently I've thought about my old old OCs again and felt like doing my traditional 10-year-redesign or something.

Started with Leera, as I knew I didn't want to change too much about her. (Actually didn't really want to change anything about her, so that's why the left drawing still has her old clothes lol).

I wanted to draw her more sturdy, more muscular, but alas, I'll need some more time to practise that. Pose on the right is from @adorkastock (though I butchered it a bit ^^').

Old art and more rambling under cut.

Her first drawing from 2003, and her first actual character sheet from 2008. I'm glad to see some improvement in my drawing 😅.

But it's very obvious from the first drawing that I originally got her into the story as a love interest for Ten... 😬 her character also was a lot more annoying back then.

She looks a bit more sporty on the character sheet already, I dare say.

Her redesign from 2015. She got some melanine and longer hair, and now her clothes don't look like rags anymore, which is an improvement, I'd say.

Her fire is still white like it used to be, because it's ~special~. She still is supposed to be a bit more toned, but I wasn't great at that back then either 😅

So what changed to now? Not a lot, I guess. Slightly changed her clothes and gave her back the dagger(s) she apparently was originally supposed to have.

Also decided to lean more into my idea from back then of making her a "dragon"*, hence the fire breathing (actual red fire now) and gave her some fangs.

*I back then called her/her people "Dragontrainers" because I couldn't think of a nice name and because, well, that's what she did. I still don't really know a better name, though I think the humans might call her kind "Dragonborn" because I like the ring of it. Will have to think of an actual good name, plus an origin, because right now my brain is like "guess they're the descendants of monsterfuckers" and idk if I should go with this lol.

She won't be Ten's love interest anymore, as I have different plans for him, I'm still undecided on whether I want her to date someone else or stay single. We will see what will come of it.

[badgalsasuke]

Naruto Exhibition (Dec 21st, 2014)

The official exhibition website was opened on Decemeber 21st, 2014. Although no longer working, you can check it out on the wayback machine [LINK]. The website was used to post news and information regarding the Naruto exhibition during 2015.

The Naruto Exhibition displayed original drawings and newly drawn color illustrations, as well as a reproduction of the desk in the library in Kishimoto's hometown of Okayama, where he used to conceive his works. There was also a booth that recreates famous scenes from the series in 3D form, and a theater with a 10-meter-wide screen where special videos were shown.

The website contained a message from Kishimoto to the fans that read

I wanted to convey to everyone some kind of "final thoughts" as the author of NARUTO's 15 years, but now that the serialization has ended, I thought that this would no longer be possible. However, with the planning of this NARUTO exhibition, I have been given the chance to convey those "final thoughts" to everyone in the ideal form. Everyone! Could you please walk through those "thoughts" with Naruto one last time?! I think I'll be crying as I walk along, though… For those who say "I don't know much about NARUTO," you don't need to read the comics anymore! If you come to this NARUTO exhibition, you will be able to understand the entire essence of NARUTO! Everyone! I would be so grateful if you would come and see it! I myself will probably go many times, and if you see someone crying at the venue, it might just be me (laughs).

Additionally, it was revealed that visitors of the exhibition would receive a booklet titled "Naruto Exhibition Official Guestbook New Style: Scroll of Wind" (right) and fans who purchased their tickets in advanced would receive a booklet titled "Naruto Exhibition Premium Fanbook New Style: Scroll of Thunder" (left). Each volume included a 19-page stand-alone manga drawn by Kishimoto.

You can read the Scroll of Wind here translated by mangastream (it's basically ch. 700.2) and the Scroll of Thunder here (that's ch. 700.1)