#the first fic made me emotional bc it's like he Doesn't know someone is going to love him so so much. but this one is like. she doesnt know

[youssefguedira]

happy still saturday everyone. had more feelings (companion to this)

Rating: General

Summary:

Nicolò is born when Lucia is thirteen years old.

-

Or, Nicolò di Genova, through his older sister's eyes.

[actual-changeling]

i love all the UST to RST arcadia fics but i look at them and see the most uncomfortable situation ever.

mulder is having fun playing house and it's kinda cute, but scully? if we go with this being their first case back on the x files (and i'll always go with that) they have solved exactly none of their issues.

the "you're making this personal" is a month old at MOST, and scully probably has to struggle with the thought that the only reason mulder is her 'full-time' partner again is because diana ditched him.

(which is funny in a dark and painful way)

after weeks upon weeks of mulder basically being a rude stranger that no longer trusts her—someone she can no longer rely on—he just, what, expects her to bounce back and pretend none of it ever happened? 'cause that's what they usually do?

but this was not usual. this was mulder taking his love confession and twisting it into a knife to repeatedly stab her with. "your science saved me and made me a whole person" yeah great! love that. would be a shame to use it against her a few weeks/months later.

"your science is wrong" after she more or less repeated his speech and the strong implication that he no longer abides by what he told her.

"you've given me no reason here [not to trust diana]" after she did what she always does—giving him the facts. if i start talking about the "you're making this personal" line we will be here for an hour so i won't. we all know it's there and what kinda damage it did.

all that and more. refusing to trust her. ditching her. walking away from her. and, knowing them, they did not come together and talk it out.

so we have scully stuck undercover as his wife in a freaky murderous suburban community and mulder is getting his ya yas out doing what he does.

he touches her and she immediately shrugs him off, steps away from him, and she looks at him with raised hands and a glare that says "back off". early season 5 scully would be having the time of her life but by now she very much hates it.

whenever mulder initiates something personal, she plays along just enough to keep them as a team going but is visibly uncomfortable. we know what it looks like when she's happy and relaxed in his presence and this ain't it.

and these are from the BEGINNING of the episode. it doesn't get any better. it's work and she is treating it as such, she won't risk a case because of her own emotional situation.

mulder is. trying to get them back on track. i can give him that much. but as we see in monday and agua mala, he is STILL keeping shit from her (not giving her an explanation in monday, for example) and comfortable ditching her.

personally, i don't think arcadia is the turning point in their relationship that a lot of fics write it as. doing so is perfectly fine, don't get me wrong, i love reading them.

i just don't see any major progress between one son and arcadia that indicates they actually talked about some shit. playing house with mulder is about the last thing scully wants to do at that point, and yet she does it without complaint.

arcadia, to me, is mostly about two things: mulder being forced to acknowledge that they can't just ignore it & he screwed up and scully (very very slowly) beginning to rediscover how to be comfortable around mulder again. i don't think his frequent jokes are particularly helpful, they don't lighten the mood, they make it worse, if anything.

somewhere between arcadia and alpha, and then alpha and trevor, they readjust, and while cc never showed us (bc he is a fucking coward) i am 100% certain they actually managed to talk.

in trevor, there is none of the tension we see in arcadia. they're comfortable joking and flirting as usual, he does his lovesick puppy impression when she talks about spontaneous human combustion. they're them again.

not perfectly so, that takes them longer with the whole biogenesis thing disrupting their balance again, but we have the baseball date and that episode in general (thank u david for ur service).

anyway this got away from me, but my point is that scully should be allowed to need longer to trust mulder again after how horribly he treated her. she's allowed to hold a grudge and be upset, angry, sad, whatever she wants.

let that woman scream a little, she desperately needs it.

[theo-raeken-appreciation]

got any theo fic recs?

of course!!! let me pull up my faves, linking them under the cut cause it might get long (also some fics are nsfw some aren't i didnt tag them all bc by the time i realized i had been through so many already)

Theo Raeken Centric (sometimes gen/sometimes w/pairings)

Why are Werewolves Always Teens? by Everlasting_mediocrity 

Crossover. In which Tony Stark is Theo Raeken’s biological father and they’re going to have to do some growing about it. Thiam. Ongoing.

i lost my heart under the bridge by infernal_gay_mess

"The Doctors said, years later, that Theo had taught them that true evil came from corrupting something truly good. What they didn’t tell him was that the best way to make someone into a monster was to convince them they already were one." Angst & Tragedy

blood is running deep, some things never sleep by likelightninginabottle 

Aka theo raeken’s mid-season six hot girl summer. Introspective. Thiam. 

a rose that won’t bloom by wormhusk

not theo centric, but a cute fic about stiles-scott-theo as kids and theo being scott’s first crush. thiam. 

pyrrhic victory of knowing yourself by painting_ethereal

a two part series of stolen memories, theo joining the mccall pack, leaving, and choosing to come back

even in the darkest places, flowers grow by strawberxi (Tupipsie)

a theo raeken-centric fic where he grapples with his sister's birthday, and the implication that he doesn't have to do everything alone. Thiam

On Theo Raeken and Manipulation by wormhusk

Theo Raeken Did Nothing Wrong 2k23. Not A Fic/Pure Meta

Thiam

Secondary Drowning by marrowbite(wingfooted)

in which theo is a selkie. 

hey i think he likes you (but honey, i do too) by fallingforboys

in which liam is oblivious and wants to help theo get a boyfriend. 

Im not ready to die yet, should i pray? (i’m wasting time, haunted by the ghost of you) by petitommo

the one where theo leaves for Florida. out of necessity, not choice. voicemails, missing liam, waiting–and going home. 

tell me no more secrets, i’ll tell you no more lies by likelightninginabottle

“You were attacked. It was self defense.” Theo. “Okay, but what if it wasn’t.” Liam

when oblivion is calling out your name, you always take it further than i ever can by likelightninginabottle

In which Liam is terribly high and completely smitten, Theo is allergic to emotions and totally whipped, Mason has the patience of a saint, and everybody wins, except for Stiles

when you crave someone (to be there at dawn) by likelightninginabottle

(In which, for once, Liam and Theo aren't oblivious, even if the pack very much is.) Post-Monroe, Pack in College, Thiam Being Shameless

burning bright red till the end (now you’ll be missing from the photographs by likelightninginabottle

MCD, Angst

You Missed, Dumbass by Sailorscout7

(OR 2 times Liam trying to kiss Theo ended in disaster and 1 time it mostly didn't)

a fire without a spark by lexisaurus

Liam asks are you alright? it never occurs to Theo that Liam could be asking him, too.

Commemoration, Cauterized by Ty_Winn_Roa

Meeting his parents for the first time in a decade is terrible enough without having to do it all over again. And again. And again. But Theo's never done anything halfheartedly.

Hunting Hearts by l_t_m

“My heart is missing.” Liam blinked. Theo’s way of saying ‘hello’ wasn’t encouraging.

no angels in this bleeding heart town by fallingforboys

“Please don’t make me do this,” Liam says, pleads. His jaw clenches and he squares his shoulders. Theo’s claws flick out.

Happiness is (where you are) by crier_emperor

in which theo gets a home and a hug. Angst. Getting together.

pride before a fall, wolves will keep you warm by likelightninginabottle

Liam comes out of the closet, in more ways than one. Or rather: his friends break him out. Cute, fluffy, and funny

look at the wonderful mess we made, we pick ourselves undone by likelightninginabottle

In which the supernatural does not exist. But Beacon Hills still went through a war, of which this is the aftermath. Liam and Theo pine for each other, but Liam thinks he cannot have Theo and so he dates other people. And yes. They are roommates. Mutual Pining, Jealousy, Misunderstandings.

your slightest look easily will unclose me by likelightninginabottle

Liam thinks about the people who left and how he is almost alright without them. Post-Canon.

just steps across the tower bridge by eneiryu

Guilt, injury, angst–Theo’s body is failing, and he’s hiding it from Liam. Happy Ending.

Use and abuse me ‘til I’m gone by THENINTH09

5 times Liam makes Theo bleed and the one time (two times) he doesn’t.

don’t you hear me howling, babe? by THENINTH09

Theo and Liam in Theo’s truck, after Gabe and the hospital. NSFW

Iron and Copper by TheOceanIsMyInkwell

Or: A witch grants Theo's wish to turn human for a day and be loved for who he is. Liam shows him just what that wish might look like.

drove him underground by justt_ppeachy

Liam and Theo, but they are Orpheus & Eurydice retold. It always ends the same.

so cruelly you kissed me by wormhusk

A series of two one-shots, one with liam realizing his feelings for theo and the second on theo

this love is difficult, but it’s real by wormhusk

a two part series of oneshots with thiam secretly dating, liam telling the pack, it not going well, and the aftermath

all sunny days are on by wormhusk

Remember the hunger games au? This is an alice in borderland au. A lot of people will die but not thiam. incomplete

the smell of smoke would hang around this long by wormhusk

theo quits smoking 

and in ever crowd, it's you i'm looking for by fallingforboys

in which theo is unfortunately very attractive and needs a fake boyfriend at a party--and oh look, liam is right there

Thiam Fics That Are Part of This One Orphaned Series So I Have Put Them Together 

this is why they shouldn’t kill off the main guy by wormhusk

 a first-kiss fic with theo angst and liam bullying theo into staying with him instead of his truck

and i remember thinking by wormhusk

a fic exploring the theo train track theory AKA where they talk about a past suicide attempt

Oh i love it and i hate it at the same time

Established Thiam, Theo gets his wisdom teeth removed.

256,000

The one where Liam calculates how many times Theo died down in Hell and has a panic attack.

cut it out then restart by wormhusk

Theo has a bad day and gives into old habits. Angst. Self-harm

argumentative antithetical dream girl 

it’s a pwp but I'm including it because it's the same ‘verse

i just wanna stay in that lavender haze by wormhusk

thiam get high and and play the 36 questions that lead to love and then have sex about it

and i wouldn’t marry me either

Liam has a plan to propose to his boyfriend. Theo thinks Liam is acting cagey

fighting in only your army

The skinwalkers want Theo back. No one reacts well.

are there still beautiful things

a witch’s curse makes Liam hate the one he loves most–his fiance. Angst.

i know my pain is such an imposition 

the boys finally get to go on their honeymoon. so of course it goes wrong.

long live the look on your face by wormhusk

Theo and Liam go to build-a-bear

he was sunshine i was midnight rain by wormhusk

Liam does a 30-day love challenge

Sceo

Shall I sleep within your bed by voices_in_my_head

In which Theo wasn't expecting to be rescued

fake my heart by LuthienKenobi

In which Theo is captured and a femme fatale all in one

gonna make you a believer by queerebrum

in which the battle is over, the Anuk Ite defeated, and Scott McCall can finally see things clearly–things like how he has been pretending he is not in love with Theo Raeken

Expelliaramus! by tabbytabbytabby

Gryffindor Scott and Slytherin Theo are secretly dating.

Sons of Monsters and Monster Sons by TheOceanIsMyInkwell

“i think,” theo says slowly, “my father tried to kill me when i was seven.” Sceo+Thiam, bc Theo is terribly in love with them both. Child Abuse Mention, as well as Mentions of sexual assault done to Theo by his Father. Theo did NOT have a happy loving childhood.

Unbreakable Heaven by tabbytabbytabby

Theo thinks he and Scott are FWBs while Scott thinks they are dating. Theo starts pulling away once he realizes he has feelings for Scott. Scott wonders what he did to make his boyfriend distant.

our hands dirtied by the other’s desire; i will declare my love with a slaughter by clementinecalls

When they lay in the grass and stare at the stars, Scott runs his thumb over Theo’s wrist. Feeling his pulse steady under his touch. He thinks about the sun in comparison to Theo. He thinks about how he was Icarus and he loved Theo just as he loved the sun — too close, too much.

Homeless Theo/Theo + Pack

Too Afraid to Follow Through by dangerouscoffeetheorist

for your melissa & theo needs, and theo being forced to join the pack against his will. 

wither under the iridescent glow of the sun, moon, and stars by fallingforboys

Theo digs the bullets out himself, using them to cauterize the wounds, and the air around him becomes hot and a little sticky with the smell of his flesh burning, but he ignores it.

He ignores it and saves himself, because that’s all he knows how to do. He saves himself because he knows that no one else would bother trying. (He’s wrong.) Thiam but mostly pack focused

Heart coming up my throat, think I’m getting worse at breathing by Multifandom_damnnation 

Jordan Parrish & Theo. Thiam

murphy’s golden rule: whoever has the gold makes the law by game_ender

Coach Finstock & Theo. In which Theo gets adopted by the Coach. Thiam

Vanlife Style! by onyxthroughtheages

In which Alec and Theo are bffs, Theo was raised in the sewers and so learns about TikTok scandals and instafame through Google, and mentions Liam in almost every TikTok he ever makes.

built a ship in the morning but the hull’s worn through by eneiryu

in which theo makes a deal with the pack: after Monroe, he gets to walk away. Thiam

waves on the ocean for the wavering kind by eneiryu

a two parter series. part one is where Theo leaves Beacon Hills with exactly the same things he came into it with: his truck, a duffel bag full of clothes, and the permanent taste of blood and grave dirt in his mouth. part two is argent’s pov. thiam

Fics That Deserve a Category of Their Own

You only feel one emotion at a time by likelightninginabottle

Theo doesn't feel pain. It makes him reckless. The pack doesn't notice, until they do. Incomplete. Pack Dynamics. Thiam. Theo’s Past, Theo’s Present, and Hopefully, Theo’s Future.

Take my heart (and put it somewhere safe) by not_carrying_on

​​The one where Theo reluctantly helps the pack capture Monroe, deals with the aftermath of his upbringing with the Dread Doctors, saves the lives of not so few people (despite the will to deny it until his dying breath), practically adopts Alec and pulls his head out of his ass.

[jeonqkooks]

our beloved summer (05) | jjk

You made a vow to hate Jeon Jungkook ever since he packed up and left you without a single explanation, but when he shows up at your door after years of radio silence, it turns out that maybe your resolve isn't as strong as you thought.

pairing: producer!jungkook x songwriter!reader

genre/warnings: exes au, fluff, angst, eventual smut, drinking, swearing, crying, Sad Boy JK Hours ??, valentino!yoongi bc that should be a whole warning 🥵 even though he's there and not really there for literally 2 seconds lol

rating: PG-15

word count: 9.5k

note: this is the most stressed out i've ever been while trying to post a fic 💀 argh anyway, 2 obs updates in one month ?? is this even real life !! consider this a (lunar) new year's present from me to everyone who celebrates it and also to everyone who doesn't !! idk i'm bad at notes and i'm delirious so that's it 😗

series masterpost / main playlist ; interactive playlist ; moodboards ; taglist

— as always, i’d appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, and please drop a like and/or reblog if you enjoy reading ♡

Hey, I feel like if we gave it one night You'd hate me less and make it alright Just wish that we could fight now I'd hold you on the comedown

Rockland - Gracie Abrams

One thing about you, is that you don’t do well with change.

After you moved out of the first apartment you got as an adult, you constantly went back to your old neighborhood even though it wasn’t close to your new place. You kept walking those familiar streets, kept shopping at the stores where the workers knew your name. At night, you still pictured yourself living there, with all of your furniture and clothes and decorations that you’ve already emptied from those old bones. Then, you imagined what the new tenant was like, if they could feel the lingering love you had for that apartment. You wondered if they were putting the coffee table you left behind to good use, or if they thought that it looked out of place among all of their belongings and had already thrown it away.

Jimin called you weird for that, but he didn’t know that you always leave a piece of yourself everywhere you go. The biggest pieces, you think, are hidden somewhere in a closet in your childhood bedroom where your mother still lives, and in the tiny space of your dorm room where you spent most of your college years.

It took you more than half a year to finally start considering your new apartment home. 

Because you hate change. Change is scary. Change is walking into a pitch-black tunnel with no flashlight, not knowing what awaits you in the darkness and not knowing if you’ll make it to the other side.

That isn’t to say that change is inherently bad. You’ve experienced good changes before. Arguably, Jungkook was a good change when he went from someone you couldn’t tolerate, to the love of your life back then. You were happy with him, so blissfully happy that for a while, you forgot what it was like to experience any other emotion.

Yoongi has always been your friend. It didn’t take you two very long to become well acquainted with one another and from there, develop a good friendship. You have never thought of him as anything other than a friend. Even when he was your boss, he still felt more like a friend.

As you sit next to him in a bar too empty for your liking – but seems right for a Tuesday night – you feel a palpable shift between the two of you.

When your phone vibrates with a notification, you glance at it only to exhale annoyedly – unclear whether this frustration is directed toward yourself, or the person blowing up your mobile; maybe it’s both. That’s the nth message that Jungkook has sent you in the last couple of hours, and you don’t need to read it to know that it’s probably another iteration of the same apology. How many different ways are there to say “Hey, I’m sorry for fucking the receptionist and then having the balls to tell you that you’re the unprofessional one when you didn’t even do anything.” Apparently a lot, because the texts just keep coming.  

“Jungkook again?” Yoongi asks from beside you. Fuck. You’ve mostly been silently moping since he brought you here, too enmeshed in your own web of muddled thoughts that you forgot he’s someone you need to make amends with too. 

You give him a nod but still continue to stare at the drink in front of you, trying to disentangle your Yoongi thoughts from your Jungkook ones. 

Taking a sip of your drink, your face manages to keep a grimace at bay as the liquid ambushes your tastebuds. You don’t like whiskey, but you need something to hate more than yourself tonight. When you set the glass down, the alcohol sloshes around like a compact sea of your own amber-colored miseries.

“I’m sorry,” you say finally. “This is unfair to you. I don’t know what came over me. I just want you to know that this isn’t me responding to…” To your confession.

“If you’re about to say what I think you’re about to say, then I have to stop you right now.”

“Yoongi…”

“I’m not saying that you can’t turn me down, although I hope you don’t do that,” he chuckles. “I’m just saying that whatever you do, whether you give me a chance or reject me, I want you to decide after you’ve really thought about it, about me.”

You can’t say no to that; it’s only fair. Yoongi knows what he deserves. You haven’t looked at him in any other way, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t. Didn’t you say it yourself, that maybe you should start putting yourself out there? Well, here is someone coming to you before you even have to look anywhere. You may not have expected Yoongi, but then, you didn’t expect Jungkook either.

Yoongi could be the good change you need.

Nevertheless, you want to tell him you’re sorry for the other night. It should be fairly simple, but the words have a hard time dislodging themselves from your throat.

“I’m sorry about what I said that night at dinner… and what I did…”

Yoongi props an elbow on the bar top and leans forward to rest his chin in the palm of his hand, his eyes glimmering with mischief. “Remind me what it is that you did again?”

“Come on, I’m serious.” You are grateful that he’s trying to keep it light, though.

“I’m serious too. I seem to have forgotten.”

“Yoongi…”

“Yes, Y/N?”

You sigh, shutting your eyes momentarily. Recalling the moment makes you flush with embarrassment, bringing a splash of color to your cheeks which Yoongi always seems to enjoy.

In a quiet voice, you say, “I’m sorry for throwing salt at you…”

“You threw salt at me!” He tips his head back, laughing freely. The bartender spares you two a glance at the sudden disruption. “You shouldn’t go around throwing salt at people!”

“Stop laughing! I’m trying to apologize.” You punch his arm out of habit and for a second there, you forget that your relationship with Yoongi isn’t the same anymore. Changed forever.

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop. Jeez, why are you so violent?” He rubs the spot where you hit him, muttering under his breath something about him bruising like a peach. “Apology accepted. No hard feelings.”

“Okay, good. But I still want you to know that if you were expecting anything from tonight…”

Yoongi ruffles your hair with a scoff. “I’m not that dense. Of course I’m not expecting anything.” When you peer at him with curious and unsure eyes, he continues, “Y/N, earlier you looked like you wanted to set the place on fire and Jungkook looked like he was about to shit himself. Tonight, I’m just a friend who’s here for you if you want to vent. We’re just two buddies having a drink, that’s all.”

He makes it sound so simple, while your brain is already going haywire.

Despite yourself, you chuckle at his words. You tell him how much you appreciate it, though you don’t really tell him anything about what happened this afternoon, just that Jungkook said some stuff that pissed you off. You can’t tell him exactly what Jungkook did to anger you without alluding to the confession for which Yoongi is letting you off the hook for now.

“Do you wanna come with me tomorrow?” Yoongi asks.

“Come with you where?”

“I have a shoot with Valentino in the morning.”

“You have a photoshoot not even 12 hours from now and you’re here drinking? Aren’t you gonna wake up puffy or something?”

“Yeah, my manager would kill me if she knows what I’m doing,” he replies casually, like his manager has a telepathic connection with him and she can sense him mocking her over a drink. When people see Agust D, they tend to only see the icy exterior that he dons. That tough, maybe even callous, image has sustained him in the entertainment industry for years. For many, Agust D seems intimidating and unapproachable. That’s how you felt when you first met him too. But after a while, you got to see Min Yoongi, and Min Yoongi is nothing if not warm and tender-hearted, even if he’s a little shit sometimes. At least, that’s what he has always been like to you. “She thinks I’m getting my beauty sleep right now.”

You lightly snort at that, telling him, “Yeah, you need it.”

When you start to yawn, Yoongi calls a driver to drop you off at your place. The ride is mostly silent, because you’re tired and because you’re not sure what to say to Yoongi in the presence of a stranger taking you home. The car pulls up to your building soon enough, and before you can step out and tell him goodnight, he offers to walk you up. He takes the elevator with you to your floor, how gallant but unnecessary. When you reach your door, you wonder whether you should invite him in for a glass of water or something. If this was a week – or even just a couple of days – earlier, you would’ve had no reason to hesitate.  He doesn’t ask if he can come in but instead takes one of your hands.

“I see you’ve been giving yourself some TLC. They’re a lot better now,” he comments, smoothing his thumb over your skin. You’ve been diligent with your hand care routine since he gave you that lotion. It feels nice, and it smells amazing. Besides, your hands were starting to hurt anyway.

Silence descends upon the two of you as you become aware of Yoongi touching you, and the weight of the answer you’ve yet to give him. He must feel you stiffen, because he lets you go and smiles.

“Relax, princess. Get some sleep, you’re the one who needs it. I said I’ll let you think about it, didn’t I? Stop stressing so much.” His index finger taps your cheek playfully, so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. The wink that he tacks on makes you roll your eyes. You watch Yoongi make his way to the elevator, step in and press the button for the ground floor. He maintains eye contact with you as he waits for the doors to shut, and you don’t think you’ve really noticed before how Yoongi carries himself with such confidence and poise even when he’s off-camera. That’s just the kind of person he is and it’s… kind of attractive.

You can’t even fish around in your bag for your keys, you just stand there because he keeps your gaze trained on him. His eyes are alluring even under the shitty lighting of your building’s elevator. Before the lift closes, his voice carries over from the metal box to your door, and you don’t know if it’s the echo of his low timbre in the empty hallway that makes you shiver, or if it’s just Yoongi.

“I’ve waited this long, what’s a little more time?”

One week. This is a record for you and Taehyung.

You’re still baffled by his attitude that night, and no one has cleared anything up for you. He was right, but that doesn’t mean you were wrong. You stand by your initial reaction. Could anyone really blame you for that? In your defense, who the fuck could believe that a worldclass megastar has romantic feelings for them? Not to mention that the person whom the megastar in question has feelings for is you! You, the pathetic girl who can’t seem to get over her ex. Yoongi had to sit through a whole hour of you drunkenly crying over Jungkook, for fuck’s sake!

That really wasn’t your best moment, but it’s not like you even remember it anyway.

Your phone buzzes to life with Jimin’s face taking over the whole screen – a photo of your hand squishing his full cheeks until his lips jut out. “Hey Minnie,” you greet him once you’ve swiped to accept the call.

“Y/N,” he says, sounding out of breath. “Where are you?”

“I’m at home. Where are you? Are you doing pull-ups again? You know you practically hyperventilate when you do more than 3.”

“Shut up, I’m at dance practice. But listen, have you talked to Tae yet?”

You purse your lips at the mention of his name. “No. We’re supposed to go grocery shopping tomorrow like we always do, but I guess that won’t be happening.”

Jimin hums, like he’s in thought. He doesn’t speak again until his breathing has calmed. “Well, can you go to his place right now?”

“Why?”

“He’s sick and I’m kind of worried about him. He hasn’t answered my messages.”

You frown. “Tae’s sick?”

“Yeah, he must’ve caught a cold the other day. Could you go over there and check on him? I would go but I can’t leave for another few hours.”

You agree to go, because of course you would. Even if you’re stubborn and hot-headed, no amount of pettiness could make you ignore your friends especially when they’re unwell and need somebody. Especially when it’s Taehyung who’s been there for you so many times.

You stay on the call with Jimin for another ten whole minutes even after you have said you would go, because he keeps droning on and on about how shitty Taehyung looked yesterday.

Before you go to your best friend’s apartment, you stop by your regular diner to pick up some comfort food for him, and the pharmacy for some medicine. During the rest of the drive there, you start getting a little worried. When Taehyung takes care of a sick you or Jimin, he practically goes into full mama bear mode, making sure that you’re as comfortable as humanly possible and not leaving your side until you’re a functional human being again. But when it comes to his own wellbeing, Taehyung doesn’t seem to be that concerned. It’s not that he neglects his health, but you wish that he would show himself the same kindness that he shows you.

It feels weird to use the spare key that you have to his place, considering that you aren’t really on speaking terms. In hindsight, it feels so childish. How old are you to still be pulling the silent treatment on each other? 

You ring the doorbell and wait a couple minutes until you hear Taehyung shuffling to get the door from the other side. When it swings open, he tenses up a bit, not expecting to see you at all. His hair is damp; he must’ve just gotten out of the shower. Taehyung doesn’t look as bad as Jimin described though. Just some dark circles under his eyes.

You raise a hand and wave. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he parrots somewhat awkwardly. It’s understandable; neither of you thought you’d be the one to break the ice. “What are you doing here?”

Bringing your other hand up, you show him the bag you’re holding. “Brought you soup and cold meds. Jimin said you’re sick.”

His brows knit together in confusion. “Thanks…” he says slowly, “but I’m not sick?”

“But Jimin said you caught a cold and you’ve been wheezing like a dying fisherman and–” You purse your lips, catching onto what’s really happening here. “He tricked me, didn’t he?”

Park Jimin…

Taehyung tuts under his breath, shaking his head at the ground. “Mhmm.”

“He could go into acting. He sounded really worried on the phone, like you were on the verge of death.”

“No, yeah, he really could,” Taehyung agrees. “Jimin is bizarrely good at lying sometimes. We should be worried about that.”

You laugh, and that makes him feel like the air is relaxed enough for him to laugh too. It only lasts a few seconds before you’re left staring at each other again. You hate it. You really, really hate it.

You thought that the universe sent you a sign, gave you a reason to come over and make nice with your best friend. Turns out that “the universe” is really just Park Jimin and his scheming tongue. But you’re already here, and you have to talk to him eventually. Jimin might have lied, but you would’ve just waited for Taehyung to reach out first to offer an olive branch anyway.

“Well, can I come in?” you ask. It’s weird that you even have to ask.

“Of course,” he says absentmindedly, stepping to one side to let you in. He takes the bag from your hand and brings it to the kitchen while you kick off your shoes and change into the pair of fuzzy bear slippers that he keeps for you here.

You want to tell him what happened as much as you hate admitting that you were wrong.

“Have you eaten?” you ask, a sad attempt at delaying what will inevitably come.

“No,” comes his simple reply.

“Should we eat? I bought enough for two people.”

“But I’m not sick.”

“You don’t have to be sick to eat chicken noodle soup.”

Taehyung looks at you like the thought has genuinely never crossed his mind. “Interesting… Okay, then.”

You put on an episode of your favorite show while he heats up the food. When you both sit down to eat, it’s mostly silent while the TV continues to play. The most you and Taehyung thing that you exchange in these 30 minutes is him saying soup tastes like shit when you’re not actually sick, and you telling him to stop being such a hater. When you both finish, Taehyung rinses the bowls and puts them in his dishwasher. 

Before you came over, you thought you would only be making him eat, take his meds, and sit there for a bit while he sleeps. If you had known this would happen, you would’ve prepared yourself for it.

But then again, you were tricked into coming.

Ugh. Just do it. You are so freaking dramatic.

“Well,” you start, keeping your voice light and trying not to stand around like you’re out of place in his apartment, “you were right.”

“About what?” Taehyung asks, wiping his hands on a towel. 

“About Yoongi and… all that.”

“Oh.” His expression is one you aren’t too familiar with. There’s surprise – yes, that you’re making peace with him – in the way his brows slightly lift, but there’s something else too. Something odd that you can’t quite put a finger on, and it makes you slightly uneasy because you don’t like it when you can’t read Taehyung. 

He’s pretty quick to mask it, and it makes you even more conscious that there’s something he isn’t telling you. Of course, this feeling is miniscule, practically a seed compared to the blooming garden of nerves that the events of these past few days have dumped upon you, so you can’t categorize it as a high-level priority to nitpick. You need to deal with your main concerns first, aka what to do about Yoongi and Jungkook, both individually and together, and then you can begin to inspect what’s going on with Taehyung.

It all sounds so easy in theory.

Taehyung goes to the couch and you wordlessly follow. You sit down when he pats the spot next to him – your spot. “How did you come to that conclusion?” he asks. “You know I don’t get to hear you tell me I’m right very often.”

Because you aren’t right very often, is what you almost say. It’s light and playful, and you both know it would diffuse the leftover tension, but you chuck the words aside in favor of something more serious. There isn’t that much to catch him up on, but there is a lot to unpack from the few things that did transpire over the last few days.

You give him a recap of what happened with Yoongi and subsequently what happened with Jungkook. Those are the two things weighing the most on your mind. You haven’t really processed anything; blame it on Yoongi for telling you that you have time to think things through.

One thing you love about Taehyung is that he doesn’t tell you what to do, but rather helps you sort things out on your own. Come to think of it, these conversations often take place on his couch. He’s like your own personal therapist at this point.

“Can you give me a hug?” You probably can’t ask a licensed therapist to do this, though.

He softens even more with a smile. Opening his arms, he says, “C’mere.”

You shuffle over to sink into his embrace. You sigh as you practically melt in his hold. Taehyung is a little bony, but hugging him feels exactly like hugging a giant teddy bear. He’s soft, and always knows how to hold you just tight enough, how to stroke your hair the way you like, how to be just the comforting presence you need amidst a whirlwind of anxious thoughts. And he smells like jasmine, though that might be because you keep deliberately gifting him colognes with scents that you like.

With your chin perched on his shoulder, you feel yourself start to relax, walls coming down if only briefly.

“You okay?” Taehyung asks after a moment.

You’re suddenly aware that you’re crying. You don’t know how it started, but now that the waterworks have begun, it seems like there’s no stopping. “No,” you sniffle. “Can I just…”

You feel him exhale. “Of course.”

Taehyung is one of the few people – oh who are you kidding? He might be the only one – whom you feel comfortable enough around to let yourself cry to your heart’s content. 

You’ve been feeling it for days now, even before all that shit happened. Every cell in your body is constantly vibrating, with anxiety, with guilt, with a heaviness that sinks into your bones. You’re shaking even when your hands are perfectly still. People, memories, thoughts you keep only to yourself – they all phase through you, not giving you a single moment to catch your breath.

When it rains, it pours.

Everything is weighing you down like someone has tied you to an anchor and pushed you into the unrelenting, unforgiving water. Grief is an ocean and you don’t know how to swim. Your job, your friends, the unbridled mess that you call a love life… Everything is changing and you’re the same. You’re different, but somehow still the same. Deep down, you’re still that scared little girl who doesn’t know what to make of the world. Your knees are bleeding but your mother is telling you not to cry. Why can’t you cry when you’re hurting? Every minute feels like a lifetime but every day feels like it’s going by in two seconds. Things are moving so fast. Things are moving too slow. You can’t remember the last time you actually cried. Really cried. Bawled. Sobbed. Let out all the dirt until you can see your roots again. Until you originate back to being a blank canvas. Sometimes it feels like that’s the only way that can help you see things more clearly. Your vision might blur for a while but afterward, it’ll have washed everything away. At least a little bit. So you can get your footing again.

You miss clarity, or the illusion that you have any control over your life. You miss looking out the window and have something to look forward to, even on overcast days where the sun can’t be bothered to bring you light. You miss hearing your heart beat a melody that doesn’t ache, doesn’t rattle you to the core. Pieces of you have been held together by nothing but tape and glue for the longest time. Eventually, they’ll deteriorate, and you’ll go back to being skin and bones always on the verge of falling apart.

Some of your best writing was never meant for anybody to hear. The best lines that you’ve scribbled down are diary entries disguised as music, as poetry. They’re results of your lowest and weakest moments, it just happens that there was a journal lying around and you thought that if you had to keep all that sadness inside for a second longer, you would burst. Those immortalized lines represent your heartbreak, your self-hatred, your sorrow and your grief. They come from a lifetime of unshed tears, from the burden of having a heart that feels too much but is always silenced. Words are your escape when time rushes through you like a child skipping stones. Everything hurts all the time but no one knows and you don’t bother explaining to anyone how you wish you could be a different person living a different life because it seems like the universe has made a mistake with this one. How it feels like a divine power has miscalculated and misread your false stoicism as resilience. Just because a person carries it well doesn’t mean they have to carry it at all. 

Sometimes you like to muse that if anyone could catch a glimpse of what it’s like inside, they’d think, Wow. How are you holding all of that weight? How are you so silent through it all? How do you live with an ache so allconsuming that I can hardly see you underneath it?

It’s the only way you know how to express yourself. But even then, when you’re screaming and burning, you’re still quiet. Those words are your heart on paper, raw and bleeding all over the place, covered in a million cracks that no one can see or even pay enough attention to notice. They’re there whether anybody likes it or not. They’re right there, red ink staining white pages, begging in a voice small like a child asking for love. Please see me. I’m here. Nobody taught me how to swim. Please see me.

But nobody does. They walk past you every day. They sit with you, smile at you and laugh with you. They leave you. They stay. They break your heart. Even when they love you, nobody sees you.

You love Taehyung, but you don’t think he understands. He knows you better than almost everyone in this world and he tries to help you in any way he can, but at the end of the day, maybe this isn’t something that a person can understand even if they want to. It’s worse, to realize that perhaps it isn’t because people don’t care enough to see it, but that no matter how hard they try, they can’t.

The only person who has ever come the closest is Jungkook, with his big doe eyes that always see through you and see into you. Sometimes, you think there might be parts of you that he could see but you still don’t. He knew things about yourself that you never want anybody to find out, and he loved you anyway. He went the lengths that nobody ever did because they all gave up after a while. Someone once told you that you felt like a fortress wall impossible to climb, that nobody had the time, the patience to wait for you. In other words, you weren’t worth it. Not worthless, just not worth the effort it would take to break down your walls.

But Jungkook showed up and tried, every day. The one person that you never saw coming. You might have resisted at first, but then you became his biggest supporter. You were rooting for him to know you, how fucked up is that? You were right there. He was so close.

And then he stopped.

You suppose that’s what makes everything awful now – to know that you should let go of him when he’s the only person who ever came that close.

You don’t know how long Taehyung has had to sit here, comforting you like this, but at one point, your stomach starts growling and you feel your best friend trying to hold back a giggle. Jungkook might have mastered the art of loving you, but Taehyung is an expert at comforting you.

“Shut up.” You wipe away the dampness on your cheeks with the back of your hand and push Taehyung off. “Crying makes me hungry.”

“Should I order us fried chicken then?”

“And soju. Get some soju too.”

Jimin is a strategic trickster. There was no dance practice. He just ran around his apartment ten times until his breathing turned ragged, which if you ask anyone, was completely unnecessary. He’s very extra, but at least it was effective.

After he got off the phone with you, Jimin immediately went to your shared phone tracker app – today was one of those times where it proves to be the most useful. He stared at the little circle with a silly photo of you as it moved from your address to Taehyung’s with a couple pit stops along the way. Jimin giggled to himself when he saw your circle meet Taehyung’s, because at that point you two must have realized already that you’d been swindled. Of course, there was always a chance of you leaving the moment you figured out you had come all that way for no reason at all, but when Jimin saw after a couple of hours that the two circles are still next to each other, he knew that you and Taehyung made up already.

Jimin sends a message to your group chat, a simple hello but Taehyung knows what he’s trying to get at. The text thread shared by the three of you lights up with a selfie of you and Taehyung each holding a chicken drumstick and wearing a content smile. In the background, there are some soju bottles, a box of chicken and some fries.

Jimin doesn’t question why your eyes look a little puffier than usual. He just replies with a smiley emoji and a thumbs up. The triumph of his mini victory almost makes him forget that there’s someone else in his home.

Jungkook peeks over Jimin’s shoulder to peek at his phone, curious to see what’s making his friend so delighted. When he sees you and Taehyung on Jimin’s screen, he sinks again, heart sitting in the pit of his stomach. The words you told him just the day before ring loud in his ears, as if they haven’t been stuck on his mind, playing on a loop. 

You’re such a fucking hypocrite.

You weren’t wrong, but man, did that feel like a punch in the gut.

He goes to sit across from Jimin, taking note of every single sound that notifies his friend of a new message. For the first time, he feels like an outsider, like he’s intruding on a private moment.

“I fucked up,” Jungkook admits quietly, cracking open a can of beer and taking a long sip. It makes Jimin look up and put away his phone. “With Y/N,” Jungkook clarifies.

“Yeah, I’ve been informed. That was the stupidest thing you’ve done in a while.”

“In a while? When was the last time I did something stupid?”

Jimin doesn’t even have to think about it. He answers right away, “When you left her.”

Jungkook hums, unclear whether the noise is meant in agreement or just in acknowledgment. His tongue darts out to swipe across his dry lips before he breathes out. “I don’t know what to do. She hasn’t replied to any of my texts. I feel like a fucking asshole.”

“From what I’ve been told, you were a fucking asshole,” Jimin says lightly, his words emphasized with a chuckle like he finds Jungkook’s predicament so funny. “I can’t believe you would say that shit about Yoongi to her right after he confessed.”

Cue a pregnant pause, and a pair of doe eyes staring right into Jimin’s skull, unable to decipher if what he’s hearing is a joke or not.

“Yoongi– what?”

Jimin slaps himself internally. Shit. It slipped, he swears. “Nothing,” he sighs, but he knows it wouldn’t be dropped so easily.

“No. Not nothing,” Jungkook sits up straight and puts his chilled beer down on the table, missing the coaster entirely just to piss off his friend. “The fuck do you mean Yoongi confessed? Confessed what?”

Jimin sighs with pursed lips. “What else? What do you think he confessed to?”

Jungkook gulps, and blinks a few times. When? Why? Was that the reason you looked so distraught yesterday before all that shit went down between you and him? Who confesses to someone in a freaking break room?

Then Jungkook remembers that you and Yoongi went out for drinks last night. What did he say? What did you say? His stomach churns at the thought of something… happening between the two of you.

Jimin takes in his friend’s dumbfounded expression. “Why are you shocked?” he asks. “I thought you expected something like this. Isn’t it why you spewed all that crap about Yoongi flirting with her?”

“Fuck, I don’t know! It feels like the guy is out to get me for some goddamn reason. I thought he was just playing with Y/N to piss me off!”

Jimin shakes his head, looking thoughtful. “Yoongi wouldn’t do that to her.”

“How would you know?”

“Because when they first worked together, from the things that she told us, the stuff that Yoongi would do for her, Taehyung and I thought he liked her back then too,” Jimin says. “This has nothing to do with you.”

It sucks. It fucking sucks.

“Should I go over there?” Jungkook asks, a newfound sense of urgency in his voice that borderlines panic. He’s acting like this fact that Jimin just dumped upon him is unraveling just as this conversation is taking place, but in reality, he’s one of the last people to know. 

“And tell her what? If you’ve said sorry a million times and she hasn’t responded, then saying it one more time won’t change anything.”

“What am I supposed to do when I see her tomorrow?”

“Nothing? Are you incapable of leaving things alone? If she wants to ignore you, let her ignore you. If she wants to yell at you, let her yell at you. If she wants nothing to do with you, let her do that too. Why do you keep making things worse for yourself?”

Jungkook runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “So your solution is for me to just let her hate me?”

Jimin levels him with a look, which just annoys him even more. “You had no problem with that before.”

“If you’re not gonna help me, should I ask Taehyung then?”

“Don’t go to Tae about this.”

“Why not?”

“Just don’t,” Jimin snaps, and it makes Jungkook falter for a few seconds before the petulance in him clouds his better judgment.

“Why? He’s her best friend. They’re practically joined at the hip. He’s gotta be able to help me with this.”

“You really want to go to Taehyung for advice on how to suck up to your ex-girlfriend? He’s the most protective of her. What makes you think he would be willing to help you?”

“He’s my friend too, isn’t he? Shouldn’t he want to help all of us be civil with each other?”

“Yeah, he’s your friend. I’m your friend and Y/N’s too. And you’re right, all of us should get along, but we shouldn’t be put in a situation where we’d have to try. You did that to us and nothing is going to be the same again. I don’t even know why you did it. You kept your mouth shut for years no matter how hard me and Taehyung tried to get it out of you. Now you suddenly can’t make peace with the consequences of your actions? Now you want us to help you win over the person you fucked over, who is also our closest friend? I don’t get you, JK. I’m starting to regret not letting Taehyung punch you back then.”

Jungkook stares at his friend. Is this shock that he’s feeling? He still remembers that night, because he doesn’t forget a lot of things. He can’t forget it. He had never seen Taehyung – who is usually so calm and cordial – get that angry before. His friend, who is a saint of a man, felt so much rage toward Jungkook that Jimin had to physically hold him back.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Jimin asks. “You’re not used to me not being on your side all the time?”

He knows that. The only person who seems to be on Jungkook’s side is himself, and sometimes he isn’t sure if this is even true at all. What you told him at the dance studio’s opening party, what Jimin is telling him now, and even the things that Taehyung shouted at him a couple of years back – it’s all true. He knows these things already, but it feels different to hear them from other people. You’re all right; nobody is overreacting. To an outsider, it might come across as harsh, but to anyone who knows anything, it’s rightfully deserved.

Nevertheless, Jungkook admits quietly, “Actually, yeah.”

Jimin sighs, because he knows that his friend has no malicious intent toward you or toward anyone. Jimin knows that Jungkook doesn’t mean to hurt you, any more than he already has. Jungkook is even more crazed now that Yoongi is somehow a factor in all of this. It’s the insecurities bubbling at the surface. He’s panicking and he can’t even see straight. This is just his own stupid take on fight or flight. It was flight for a while, and now apparently it’s not. Jimin doesn’t really understand it, but he gets that this is his friend’s way of dealing with shit. “I tried, man. I did. But it’s really, really hard to have your back on this.”

Jungkook is well aware of it too – that to leave you alone is probably the best thing he can do at this point. Everything he says or does seems to backfire; instead of pulling you closer, all he manages to do is push you further away and make you hate him more than you already do. 

But in a way, isn’t that a good thing? Better to have you hate him than be indifferent toward him. After all, there’s a thin line between love and hate. You yourself blurred this line long ago. You can do it again, can’t you?

Jungkook sits there for a while longer to finish his beer, even though he doesn’t have anything else to say. It’s clear what Jimin’s stance on this is, and no matter what he says, it’s unlikely that anyone will help him try and get back in your good graces. 

Before he leaves, Jimin says something that makes him nauseous. Makes him want to fucking cry and kick something and speed over to your apartment just so you could reassure Jungkook that he’s still the one you hate the most. That all of your feelings, whether they’re good or bad, are still reserved for him and only him.

It isn’t what his best friend should tell him, but it’s what a good friend would say. It's not about Jungkook, it's not about Jimin or Taehyung or anyone else. It's about you, who has been hurt the most here.

“If she wants to choose Yoongi, let her do that too.”

[10:48] Yoongi: Attachment: 2 Images.

[10:49] Yoongi: got yelled at for showing up puffy yesterday

You tap on the notifications and the photos pop up within seconds. It’s Yoongi at his Valentino shoot probably. He never used to send you stuff like this, nor asked you to come watch him at his photoshoots. Why would he? 

You zoom in on his face to inspect if he really was puffy, but you can’t really tell. Maybe if you were a makeup artist with a sharper eye, you would see it. But under your regular-person gaze, everything seemed fine. Yoongi looked handsome in the pictures.

[10:55] You: you don’t look puffy to me

[10:57] Yoongi: so how do i look to you? ;)

[10:58] You: the fits look good

[11:01] Yoongi: i wasn’t asking about the fits

[11:05] You: and i’m telling you the fits look good anyway

[11:07] Yoongi: what about the model?

[11:10] You: are you fishing for compliments?

[11:11] Yoongi: what if i am?

[11:14] You: the model looks Not Puffy

[11:16] Yoongi: you’re no fun ;(

You consider your next reply for a moment. It doesn’t seem like that big a deal. You want to send it. It seems innocent enough, and it’s the truth. A simple praise can’t hurt, right?

Your fingertips tingle just typing the words out. You’re suddenly so jittery for some reason as your thumb hovers over the arrow symbol that would whoosh away your message. It's a good kind of jittery. You might even say that you’re excited.

[11:22] You: the model looks good too

You put your phone face-down on the table, not even checking when it vibrates with Yoongi’s response to your latest text. It’s so weird that you’re feeling like this, maybe because it’s been so long since someone has shown an actual interest in you? Or is it because it’s Yoongi? If it were anyone else, would you still react the same?

It’s weird, but not necessarily weird in a bad way. You just aren’t used to it, or it’s been such a long time that you forgot what it feels like to be… wanted? You don’t think about it often but it’s true, you’ve missed the thrill of being chased.

“So… word on the street is you have a secret song.”

Seokjin’s voice makes you glance up, wondering who he could be talking to when the only people in the room beside him are you and Jungkook – whom you haven’t spoken a word to all morning despite him glancing not-so-subtly at you every two seconds. When you got here this morning, there was already a chai latte on the table with your name on it. The order was too specific for it to be Seokjin, but you didn’t say anything.

“The street?” you ponder for a moment, knowing exactly who the culprit is. “Is that what Yoongi calls himself these days? He’s been here for what? A couple weeks? And he’s already blabbed to you.”

“So it’s true?” Seokjin leans back in his chair, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Yoongi said it’s real good. Top shelf kinda stuff. And you know he never says things like that.”

It’s not a song, or at least that isn’t what you would call it. Maybe more like an essay composed of sentences that go together like misfit puzzle pieces. You don’t think you would ever rework it and pitch it to anyone because it’s yours and it’s personal. You would never tell anyone about it, and Yoongi wouldn’t have come to know about its existence if he hadn’t stumbled across it in your journal by accident.

“Don’t listen to Yoongi,” you say. “At this point, I feel like you should know that Yoongi tends to exaggerate sometimes.”

“He never seems to be exaggerating when it comes to you,” Seokjin muses. You almost blush, thinking about what else Yoongi could’ve told Seokjin. He doesn’t notice the split second in which your cheeks redden just the slightest, or he doesn’t mind it enough to comment. “What’s the title?”

You shrug, saying nothing.

“You can’t even tell me the title? Damn, Y/N. Are you the CIA?”

“I’m not telling you because there is no title. There’s not even a song, just something I go back to sometimes. It’s mostly just word vomit. I promise you, it’s nothing.”

“Tell that to Yoongi. He told me whoever’s gonna get that song is one hell of a lucky bastard.”

Again, what is it with the praise? You know working with Yoongi and being associated with his last album gave your career a boost, but you weren’t aware that he was talking about you with other people. Maybe he only does it with Seokjin because they’re close, but still, it makes you itch with curiosity.

“By any chance are you gonna give it to… me?” Seokjin asks, and seems to immediately hear how flawed it sounds. You stare at him blankly, trying to bite back an amused smile, and even Jungkook turns his head to look too. Seokjin’s ears turn red in an instant. “Okay, that came out kinda wrong. I’m really, really sorry. But you know what I mean.”

You continue to stare at him until his face is so flushed, you swear he’s like a tomato that’s about to burst. You can see why Yoongi likes to tease people this way. “Okay, boss,” you acquiesce with a laugh, relieving Seokjin of the fear that he genuinely offended you. “If the song ever gets to see the light of day, I’ll make sure to ask you to lend your voice.”

“Ah, so you admit it’s a song.” He grins brightly at your empty promise, making you roll your eyes half-heartedly. He goes back to his normal shade in a minute, no longer ridiculously red like a cartoon character. “What’s it about?”

You ponder his question silently, missing the way Jungkook takes this moment to glance at you. When you look up again, he’s already averting his gaze.

What is it about? That’s a question that you yourself have never really considered. It’s about everything and it’s about nothing. It’s love, it’s loss, it’s the infinite in-between. You give Seokjin an answer that won’t satisfy him, but it’s the truth.

“I haven’t figured it out yet. I’ll let you know when I do.”

He tuts at you, like he was expecting the obscurity from you anyway. “You’re really not beating the CIA allegations,” he says.

You flip him the bird, which only compels him to stick out his tongue and make a face at you. Then, he diverts his attention to the person who hasn’t contributed anything this whole time.

“JK, why are you so quiet today? We’re not gonna eat you.”

Jungkook mutters something to Seokjin that you don’t quite catch because the words come out of his mouth like an inarticulate mess, which is so unlike him. He sounds jumpy, like he’s too nervous to speak in front of you. Seokjin’s eyes land on you again as he mouths a confused What?

You just shrug, and Seokjin has to take Jungkook’s weird response as him having an off day. The man checks his phone, lets out a quiet whine, then addresses the both of you. “I have a shoot this afternoon so you two will have to hold down the fort, by the way.”

You come back from your solo lunch date to an empty studio.

Well, almost empty. There’s something new that wasn’t there before.

Another chai latte waiting for you equates to another apology hoping to be acknowledged. The paper cup is still hot when your hand reaches out to touch it. You sink into your chair with a sigh. You could laugh at yourself for feeling so nostalgic at the sight of a beverage in the middle of a workday.

Jungkook walks in about 15 minutes later, and the air turns suffocating at his arrival. He feels it too, you know he does. 

You chew on your bottom lip until it starts to hurt, bite down on it until it almost bleeds.

“Jungkook,” you say, catching his attention. It looks like he didn’t expect you to initiate any conversation. It’s not like you want to, but you have to. You keep having to do this, because he just wouldn’t listen. “Stop buying me drinks.”

It translates to: Stop saying sorry. Stop trying to make things right. Stop doing things you think would make me happy. Stop making me have the same argument with you over and over again.

“Because you wouldn’t hear me out,” he says, and proceeds to repeat the one thing that you’re sick of hearing from him. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing,” you verbalize it. “If it’s not about work, I don’t think it’s necessary for me to hear it, Jungkook. I don’t want to hear it.”

“You do need to hear it. Because I can’t function properly until you know how sorry I am.”

“Well, that sounds like a you problem.”

“Y/N.”

“What?”

“Hear me out,” he says, sounding a little firmer now but you still catch the crack in his voice. “Please.”

Jungkook must take the way you hesitate to shut down him as reluctant permission for him to keep going, because he stands up and moves to a spot closer to you. Not close enough that he could reach out and touch you, but enough for you to see the tiny mole under his bottom lip and how it quivers when he looks at you.

Fuck. You’re letting him win again.

“Okay, fine. Talk then. I’m listening. You’re sorry, right? You keep saying you’re sorry for everything, but what exactly is everything? What are you even sorry about? Are you sorry about annoying me right now, or are you sorry about being a prick the other day, or are you sorry about leaving me five years ago? When did you become this pathetic, Jungkook?”

“W–what?”

“When did you become so pathetic?” you repeat. “If you had to come back, couldn’t you come back as someone better? Someone who’s sure of himself and has a good life, not this… person who has to grovel at my feet for forgiveness. Even when you were at your lowest, you weren’t like this. I don’t even know who this Jungkook is. What happened to you?”

If you think that you saw him at his lowest, then you’re wrong. He didn’t hit rock bottom until he’d left you and had to live with what he chose to do. 

“You’re right. I am pathetic,” Jungkook agrees, dropping his gaze to the floor like he’s ashamed. “But fuck, I’m trying to be worthy of you.”

It’s a truth that he doesn’t want to face, doesn’t want to admit how very real it is until you’ve just said it and it fucking guts him. He knows his friends pity him sometimes, even if they don’t want to view him as someone to be pitied. No matter how much of a front he puts up, he knows that Jimin and Taehyung see right through him. They won’t say it to his face, and for that Jungkook has gotten away with avoiding this fact for so long. But to hear it from you, to watch you spell it out for him, it hurts.

He wants to mention Yoongi, but he doesn’t know how to phrase it in a way that wouldn’t immediately aggravate you. After all, bringing up Yoongi is what got him into this mess, isn’t it?

Regardless, he wants to ask you a question that he already knows the answer to. What does Yoongi have that he doesn’t? The answer is: A lot of things. Yoongi has a lot of things that Jungkook doesn’t, one of them being the self-assurance to not run away when it comes to you and what you deserve.

He wants to ask, but he doesn’t, because he’s scared it might drive you right into Yoongi’s arms and Jungkook can’t compete with a man like that.

He can barely keep up even with just himself in the running.

There’s a big question mark that pops up in your head, along with a slight sting in your eyes that you blink away. You’ve never seen Jungkook like this before. This whole time, was it not only you who was miserable?

He looks so small that it breaks your heart. For once, you aren’t sad for yourself but you’re sad for him. It never occurred to you that he could’ve been lonely too, having to keep all of this inside because you know he didn’t share it with anyone else. You catch a glimpse of him again, like you did when you were making ramen together in your kitchen while a storm was raging outside. In a lot of ways, Jungkook is still that kid stuck in an adult’s body, lost and scared and loved you. It feels like you could’ve seen him in the same ocean while you were just trying to keep your head above water.

The sight of him, so vulnerable and astray, placates you. Your resolve crumbles, but not like it was ever that strong to begin with. You suppose you could see why he was being a jerk to you. Even though it doesn’t justify what he said, you understand just a little bit where he was coming from. You find yourself forgiving him for some of it. It’s part of letting things go, right?

But no matter how much you want to reach out and comfort him, you know you shouldn’t. What are you supposed to do in a situation like this? You’re confused and it feels like you two have been going around in a circle, looking for a solution that doesn’t seem to exist.

Coexisting doesn’t work. Telling him to leave things alone doesn’t work. What else can you do?

Why do you have to resolve a problem that isn’t even yours? Jungkook says he’s trying, but his efforts keep making your life harder and harder. You practically blew up in his face, then apologized for being harsh even though you were fully aware that you had nothing to be sorry for. You called him a hypocrite and now you’re ready to cave just because he’s on the verge of shedding a few tears. This constant back and forth between your anger and your reluctance to see that anger through is possibly the thing that’s hindering you.

You can’t – and shouldn’t – accommodate him anymore. You have to put your foot down, no matter how difficult it is with the lingering ghost of your past love.

Because you’re always weak when it comes to Jungkook.

Because you’re still holding onto something.

Because Jungkook will always be the first person that you have ever loved, and those four years meant a lot to you even if they didn’t to him. Maybe it’s even fair to say that you might never truly get over it, and that doesn’t have to be such a terrible thing. Maybe he was never the person you thought he was, or maybe you never meant as much to him as he did to you. Somehow, that’s okay. It’s manageable because it’s routine at this point. You’ve internalized it. The years have taught you that sometimes, things get shitty just because they can and you just have to deal with it.

The intrinsic pain of the human experience. C’est la vie.

What a world this is.

Is it bad that you’re thinking about Yoongi in a moment like this?

Yoongi could be your future, if you’d let him.

You should let him. Maybe this is your answer right here. 

“Jungkook, let’s stop.” He looks at you with crestfallen eyes, but you have to keep going. The only way out is through. “Let’s stop. You want me to listen to you, but you haven’t been listening to me. I don’t have the strength to keep this up anymore, and I have told you that repeatedly but you wouldn’t listen. Jungkook, move on.”

You pretend not to notice how his lip trembles even more. “What if I don’t want to move on?”

This feels like a conversation that should’ve happened ages ago. Five years ago, you should’ve screamed at him, cried with him, held each other as you both fell apart. He stripped you of that right and gave you no say at all.

“You’re being awfully selfish,” you tell him, but in your head, you’re already thinking about what his words actually mean. 

“Have you completely written me off then? Is there nothing at all that I can do? Because I would do anything if you asked. You know that.”

Your throat is so dry that it feels like you’re swallowing sand. You dig everything back up again until you find the memory of that day hidden at the very bottom.

It’s terrible. He’s making you relive it again.

“I remember calling for you and you didn’t even look back,” you say, but your voice breaks toward the end. “I can’t trust you anymore.”

Jungkook just stares at you then, and for the longest time, neither of you say anything. This is the first time that you two have addressed the problem, properly addressed it instead of half-heartedly sweeping it under the rug like you tried to do. 

You breathe in, he breathes out. You hate the way you feel, and you resent the way he looks like he’s breaking down just as badly. There are tears in those eyes, tears that Jungkook doesn’t let spill because he defiantly wipes them away with the back of his hand after a moment. 

When he speaks next, you want the world to end.

“Then I’ll earn your trust back. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I will.”

— all rights reserved © jeonqkooks. reposting, translating and/or modifying is not permitted by any means. [posted january 21, 2023]

[kiwibongos]

im writing Something for a little fic and i was putting stuff in my notes for later on and it really just made me realize like how fucked up hajime is after all the Horrors. like, emotionally. him rediscovering emotions entirely. (maybe someone has talked abt this before, i just wanna store this here)

because when he's less of a hollow shell, all there is is grief and guilt in his brain. but then as time goes on, he slowly rediscovers what it means to be human, and learns these feelings again one by one. and it has to be such an agonizing process too ? and when they do happen, theyre all extremely overwhelming, out of the blue, and most likely even caused by really small things. my dude will eat a stale piece of bread or even smell expired dairy products, suddenly relearn disgust and feel ABSOLUTELY nauseous and just hurl over lmaoo

but for as for more serious topics, like properly feeling anger again, it'd be ticked off by little shit, bc he doesn't wanna lose control like that cause the frustration doubles. it'd get bad when he makes a mistake too. he'd freak the hell out, because izuru was the embodiment of perfection, of every talent cultivated into one single brain, so he *cant* mess up, but its too much for him to handle cause he's so used to being under that obligation and expectation, but now that he's losing his stability over all that, when he messes up just *slightly*, he feels ashamed and tries to fix it as fast as possible, whether or not its a big deal. itd definitely be really hard to get out of the mindset that, even though hes not izuru anymore, he has to be perfect. to him, he has to stay that way. cause if he fails at all, then he can't protect his friends anymore. does that make sense. the pressure would be literally crushing

also shock/surprise/excitement. everything was predictable and boring to him as izuru, so obviously all of that is still a huge issue that still lingers within him after the simulation, so he'd probably overcome that first and be caught off guard a lot bc, well, he's learning to be hajime again, he's not *exactly* the op superhuman genius anymore (in my head at least. cause when two minds practically mash together weirdly it creates a horrible hit-or-miss concoction lol) so even basic things become brand new to him, and hes fascinated and curious by everyone and everything. not like hes never seen it before, but its like hes experiencing it for the first time, even if its just mundane tasks in life, new methods and alternatives to things, etc. he's generally a very observant guy, and would also pick up on little traits and habits from all his friends. i have the feeling people would rub off on him extremely easily

love, serenity and happiness itself would be extremely hard to tackle and learn, or even notice? i think of so many scenarios of how this could happen. cause like sure he can feel joy, he can be glad, proud, relieved, and smile because his friends are there. but he's still yet to experience what happiness truly is, what it means to him, and it's not something he can do alone. so it just takes a while for that big boom to happen. perhaps its up to interpretation how it happens, go for it idc i have alot of scenarios stirring up in my brain, but overall, i think him actually bursting with happiness and feeling genuine peace within himself, and realize hes grateful for the life he has, and the future he got to choose, would probably be caused in the process of moving to jabberwock island. just seeing all his friends on the boat and knowing they've made it this far, and theyre going to be starting a new life on this island, and that theyre safe, would be enough to just like hit him. like Ough. and thats when he actually consciously realizes that he's happy, when every other waking moment, there's been some kind of empty pit in his stomach eating at him for so long

on top of all of this, he cant really control his emotions very well, either. thats also another massive con to all of it, and a downside of relearning these things because of how strongly they came swinging back. its alot to handle. even if theres so much knowledge packed in his brain, one little thing like that could be enough to make him bluescreen. so he ends up just going on autopilot or stuffing all of it away, just to make the bad stuff stop. (it becomes a very unhealthy habit that bites him in the ass later. everyone is mad at him for not taking care of himself. hajime is then swaddled into a blanket with a kiss on the forehead)

anyway theres probably more to add and id get into the nitty gritty of specific shit but i had to impulsively dump this here so might as well put up the basics. makes me so excited to work on this fic more, even if its in a more somber, different context, i just love to think about hajime and how he works through his emotions and picking up his old traits. yknow, being himself. but at the same time he isn't doing it alone. let my boy be happy. let him find himself again and move on from izuru

[fandomlovingfreak]

By The Cliffs (Ch 5/?)

Paul Lahote x Female Reader

Wattpad I AO3 I Twilight Masterlist

Rating: T+

Word Count: 1348

Summary: It was supposed to be a vacation.

A time to relax after Graduate School and unwind the pent-up tension I'd built up in the years of juggling school and work. Finally, I'd have the chance to breathe. Craving the serenity of mother nature's caress, I'd chosen Forks, a four-hour drive from the University, based on the stories I'd heard from Washington locals I'd known in school. With its endless trees and rainy weather, it seemed a perfect sleepy dream spot.

In retrospect, my belief that it was solely my decision to visit and not the Universe's mystic call pulling me there was mortal ignorance. But who besides a creature possessing the gift of predestination could have anticipated what awaited me by the cliffs?

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of Meyer's Characters. This work is not created for profit or financial compensation, and is a transformative fair use work in accordance with Section 107 of the United States Cop1yright Act.

Notes: Paul's POV!! He's got some abandonment issues that will probably be more obvious in his POV's then in other characters (at least so far lol)

Warnings: This fic is about Imprinting. Warning if that's not your cup of tea. There is some swearing (bc it's my love language) and angst. Some abandonment issues but lowkey Paul doesn't even understand his feelings either so it's vague-ish.

Enjoy!

I know I'm not actually angry with her as I watch her retreat back into the house. Truthfully, I was mad at myself. That first impression was a shit show, making it abundantly clear that I had a lot of work ahead of myself if I wanted (y/n) to welcome the imprint.

It's not like she could know that I could hear her entire conversation with Sam and Emily before I walked into the house due to my heightened hearing, but hearing her call me Mr. Hothead had sent a spike of hurt through my body. Even if it was fair-- especially after watching someone spiral out of control like I had. 

My piss-poor explanation-- our conversation, if you could call it that-- made me all too aware that her anger was also fair. Just because I could admit all of this didn't mean her rejection didn't sting.

You couldn't pry this information from me, but I had pictured a fantasy where I'd meet this so-called soulmate by whatever chance. Nowhere in that sick romantic fantasy had I expected this outcome. I guess I'd expected whoever she was to feel that instant connection and know we were fated to be in each other's lives. Reality had kicked my ass enough times. You'd think I should have anticipated the opposite.

A sympathetic hand lands on my shoulder, squeezing slightly. I don't need to turn to know it's Sam's hand on my shoulder.

"Give her some space. There's no use in continuing to argue. It'll only drive her further away."

I want to knock his hand off and tell him to go fuck himself... but he's right. I wish I could say he doesn't understand this rejection, but I know out of everyone here, Sam understands everything I'm going through perfectly. Emily wasn't the type to yell, but she'd wanted nothing to do with him initially. I'd felt and heard that memory a thousand times in the past years as his thoughts had unintentionally been shared around the pack.

"Okay." The single word comes out in a huff under my breath. 

"Maybe you should run it off," Sam suggests, "One of us will talk to her,

talk her through it... better, and then you can come back and try again later."

The idea of Sam or any others explaining these... almost intimate details

with (y/n) reignites the stinging pain inside me. It should be me. It's our bond. 

Rationally, I knew we couldn't find common ground with the heightened emotion that raged between us. Still, I desperately wanted her to understand I wasn't forcing her to do or be anything because of the imprint. I needed to give Sam or someone else to explain the things I fumbled through before... letting her know that the imprint wasn't something that held her to me, but honestly, the opposite. It was me who needed her.

Releasing a breath, I hadn't realized I was holding in, I nod, "You're right. I'll go." It was probably good to get away from the current environment. The breather-- the distance-- away from the pack would help me find my composure.

The first step towards the tree line stung, like there was a rubber band between me and her, and every step away pulled the rubber unnaturally... too tight. I force myself to continue until I'm out of view, mentally blocking out the screaming in my head, begging me to run back to her.

Stashing my shorts under a fallen tree, I phase, breaking into a spring down the familiar path. Though I'm still fighting myself mentally, I try to enjoy the run and surrender to my wolf instincts. 

Run. Fast. Hard.

Her face pops into my head, crystal clear, like she's standing right before me, and my claws dig into the dirt, my lungs burning as I stop dead in my tracks. Panting hard, I let my mind wander across the details of her face. We'd spent only minutes in each other's company, yet I could recall the smallest details like I'd known her for decades. Like I had had the chance to study her intimately.

My feet move on their own, propelling myself through the forest toward home as the imprint bond offers me more possible scenes from the future. She's smiling, her hand reaching for mine, our fingers entwining lazily as she laughs. (y/n) looking at me from the passenger side of the car, singing to something I can't hear. She's reaching for me, our lips meeting as she initiates a kiss.

These possibilities, moments where she smiles at me and laughs with me, wants to kiss me, bring me hope. I can fix this.

Phasing back, I make my way into the house. Dad's in the kitchen, drying dishes.

"Paul?" He calls, wiping his hands on the kitchen towel before leaning on the counter to watch me, "What are you doing here?" 

"Showering," I smile, close-mouthed at him, trying to make my escape towards the bathroom.

"Showering? It's only," he looks down at his watch, "Four. Don't you have patrol tonight?" 

I pause, "I have a good reason."

Dad raises his brows in interest, "And that is?"

"I'm-- going to see a girl." It's not really a lie; it's not really the truth.

"Sam's letting you blow off patrol for a girl?" He doesn't look like he believes a word of it. Or at least, he doesn't entirely "Doesn't really sound like Sam."

I shrug, "Kinda has to. I… imprinted."

The gears turn in Dad's head momentarily as the words catch up with him, "Well, I'll be damned. Are you bringing her over soon? I'd like to meet my

future daughter-in-law." I know he's ragging, but it still makes me

anxious. Bringing (y/n) here would not happen for a while, especially if he

insisted on making that type of joke. After today's events, I'd walk on eggshells around her regarding this sort of humor.

"Not anytime soon. Gotta convince her to talk to me without it ending it an

argument."

"Ah--" Dad crosses his arms over his chest, looking delighted for whatever reason, "She's not local, is she?"

I scoff. As if that matters. An imprint is an imprint no matter their

background, "Nope. The wolf thing really-- freaked her out." The image of her running back into Emily's house screaming about wolves flashes through my memory. 

"Understandable. It's not every day you encounter shapeshifters." 

The understatement of the century.

"Listen, I'll talk about it later, okay?" I move to make my escape, "I want to drive her back to her car—"

"Why doesn't she have her car?" Dad interrupts.

"I'll explain later!" I turn, making my way down the hall before he can ask any questions.

Shutting the bathroom door behind me, I turn the small shower on before stripping down. Standing under the ice-cold spray immediately relieves some of the tension in my shoulders. I exhale, my body seeming to deflate further. Finally, my head starts to clear ever so slightly, and I can begin to rack my brain for the words I must say to (y/n). Without being pushy, I need to explain the imprint in a way that balances out the power. It was obvious by her words and reactions that she felt I was trapping her, leaving her with no choice but to be with me. I can see how alarming that would be; a stranger coming on to you strongly would freak me out, too.

Driving that point across was important. The other part I needed to make right was her perception of me. I was so much more than anger. And I could be so much for her if she only asked.

If I could get her to see beyond her concept of 'Paul', the asshole who screamed at the guys who saved her and then argued with her when he was supposed to explain imprinting, I would be golden.

Recovering my image wasn't impossible. I'd just have to be more patient with my imprint. If I could be patient for anyone, it would be (y/n).

Thanks for reading! I appreciate all of you who have read this fic, liked- reblogged- commented- sent an ask! You are AWESOME!

[anarchy-and-piglins]

just hopping off "first fic i read from you" here, mine was "I Will Come Around When the Time for Sleep Is Through". it made such an impact on me, physically changed my brain chemistry, like wow. idk how many times i've reread it but MAN i love the premise and the writing and the everything so so so much. it's bby techno but also angst and the scene where tommy and phil go to the graves and the lines "theyre not dead but theyre still gone" and "phil would have told him how tired he was of losing everything that mattered" !!! living RENT FREE IN MY HEAD i tell you. RENT FREE.

i just. i love explorations of grief and like, how do you mourn someone who's technically still there but not really? how much of someone consists of memories & experiences, if those are wiped away are they really who they were before? and the characterization of how self-sacrificial techno is bc he seems to feel like he's the same in every lifetime (but he also doesn't deal with the emotional aftermath) but for phil, not so much bc he's the one who has to grieve by himself every time while also raising a toddler who's kind-of-maybe-used-to-be his best friend. ALSO the way phil's lived centuries and techno's never made it past 25 which speaks to so much loss, and how phil wishes techno would choose himself for once but idk if he would ever tell him that, you know? and even if so, if techno would actually ever choose himself because hes so undyingly loyal to the people he loves.

anyways. yeah.

i didn't have an ao3 account back then, i saved fics in my browser bookmarks like a maniac and i checked them every day. i remember VIVIDLY being so excited whenever i found an update for this one. now i stay updated via email notifs, which i gotta say, takes a lot less time. long story short <3333

Ah, this brings back some memories. How weird it feels to know I wrote that fic a good 3 years ago now. That's how long I've been obsessed with Techno... I have mixed feelings towards my old fics (I have mixed feelings towards all of my own writing lol, every artist is their own worst critic I guess) but there are some parts of that fic I really do still like a lot, the handling of grief is one of them. I'm glad it resonated with you so much, Anon. I think writing something that sticks with a person even years after they read it is every author's big dream, so I'm very honoured <3

[running-with-the-feels]

i’d love to hear some of your subscorp headcanons that haven’t made it into your fics 🫶 (love your work btw)

thank you so much!

The list might include headcanons that are in the fics as well, just bc I can't remember what all I've included

Hanzo is a cuddler, if he is in bed with another person he will end up wrapped around them like an octopus. Kuai Liang on the other hand isn't used to touching people so whenever Hanzo wraps around him he ends up just lying there, buffering.

Sparring is one of their favorite ways to flirt, partly bc they're the only ones who can give each other a real challenge and partly bc they like seeing each other all sweaty and shirtless and whatnot.

Their first date was probably a mission, not bc they'd planned that but bc they got the mission as they were leaving for their date and didn't want to waste the opportunity.

Similarly, Hanzo was probably the one that said it first (as often as I write otherwise) as he is, somehow, the more emotionally mature one between the two and Kuai Liang would not admit to an emotion if his life depended on it.

It probably happened either during or after a near death experience as well, as Hanzo's self loathing would probs make him keep it a secret.

Once they say it tho they go from allies to practically married in zero seconds flat, it's just instant.

I also think that if Kuai Liang ever. managed to track down his home from before he and Bi-Han were taken by the Lin Kuei and get some of the heirlooms and keepsakes (parents' wedding rings, photo albums, etc) he'd give Hanzo one of the rings and wear the other.

He also would not tell Hanzo where he got the ring, so Hanzo would find out from Bi-Han and probs have to go lie down for a minute while he processed that.

They are attached at the hip too, like thank god they have trustworthy ppl as their seconds in command bc they spend every other day at each other's temple. They can't be apart for more than a few hours or they get irritable.

There's a betting pool amongst the Special Forces about when they're going to get together. Takeda has considerable money on the outcome and keeps trying to nudge things into his favor.

Neither Hanzo nor Kuai Liang is aware of the betting pool.

For all that Hanzo is the more hotheaded one, Kuai Liang is actually the one more down with violence. Like someone insults Hanzo and Kuai Liang is Immediately in Attack Mode.

Hanzo is incredibly tactile too, like he needs to be touching Kuai Liang at all times. It took a while to get used to it, but now Kuai Liang jsut melts into the contact every time

NSFW Territory

Kuai Liang has a praise kink, he likes to know that he's done a good job and really enjoys it when he can make Hanzo moan.

Kuai Liang also likes to be the one in control more often then not, which Hanzo is thrilled about bc it means he doesn't have to think for the next couple of hours.

They both like biting and leaving marks but while Hanzo is happy to stop at a pretty big hickey, Kuai Liang wants to draw blood. Kuai Liang is somewhat embarrassed about that but Hanzo is Delighted.

They both have a quite frankly ridiculous amount of stamina and after a close call they'll sometimes just lock themselves in their room for a full day and just not come out.

Both of their powers do occasionally come out during sex, but while Kuai Liang enjoys that and uses it to his advantage, Hanzo is just worried he'll end up burning their house down so he tries to avoid it by keeping things under control.

Kuai Liang likes to see how far he can push that control and whether or not he can break it (spoiler alert, he can)

I think that's everything, but let me know if you want more and I'm sure I can think of some

[khaleesiofalicante]

hi! i need to get something off my chest, like in shadowhunter world both tv and books, books is my favourite not because i hate tv characters (bc teh emotional vulnerability was very well done there- i literally it was so hard to wait for my school to get over so i could watch the show) but bc books is the original stuff which i fell in love with for teh first time, also why though all teh series are really good in shadow world but tmi holds a special place in my heart (no matter how imperfect it is in certain places) which i think also translates into my love for book!malec more than show!malec. (the height difference bugs me so much in show bc its not the right one, alec loves being shorter than magnus, but i love matt sorry harry but matt is yeeahhh...) idk why i have never been able to attach myself to show malec fics as much to book!malec fics. I think the only long show!malec fic i read was yours that you made about detective alec and lawyer magnus, but that was bc i love your writing and stories (i love the book!malec and mavid ones more sorry !! but i cant david is an original character but i love him so much, sry got sidetracked) tbh i also felt that the next malec fic would be show malec bc i cant (even tho i have read the lmlt i think it was named.. one of teh first long fics you wrote which had asmodeus and alec relation) imagine book alec having a relationship with asmodeus which is even remotely decent. but show malec have always been more softer and more communicative about their vulnerabilities. (which makes me realize now, i also love the intensity of book!malec more, huh)

Anyways i dont know why i blabbered, but i see so many posts about it but i am sorry show malec but book malec is it for me. or more like every book character esp jace and clary is it for me than show clace too. (i think it was also because of the actors though jace's actor did an amazing job in the later seasons.) But i can't wait for your new malec fic, i am ready to gobble up anything you put out there srsly, like i trust you are gonna make it worth it (like i never thought i would like the rwrb fic so much as i do rn, bc like in my hea di have already read teh book and i know what happens but yeah i should have known!)

Also have you ever thought of making a show and book crossover fic? i think you made one maybe i dont remember but like would you ever consider working in that world again?

No, I think this is fair. You're allowed to have a preference. I like book malec better too - simply because there is more to their characters and I usually prefer book versions anyway.

Regarding the fic, first things first, you can imagine them however you want! I know for a fact not everyone who read TLND imagined Alec as Sebastian Stan (I will stand by this casting!!). But it's how I, as the writer, imagined it. My castings are simply for me - to be very honest. I pick faces and people who help me visualize my characters better. But that does not mean you have to do it too. I'm sure people on ao3 who read my fics but don't follow me tumblr have no idea about any of these castings. So, yeah. You can imagine them however you want.

I also want to note, since I got another ask about this as well, that the casting I choose doesn't really affect the personality and behavior of the characters. It's the other way around really. Sure in the show Alec doesn't have blue eyes and Magnus is shorter, but those (among a few other differences) are completely irrelevant to this fic. If someone is put off by Magnus being shorter (in my fic, I mean) then that's their problem. It's such a mundane detail (for me) and I'm not going to be mentioning the colour of their eyes and their height every five seconds. This fic is rather different so I doubt it'd be mentioned at all (considering it's alec pov too - if you notice he is the kind of character where i don't write a lot of descriptions for the people he interacts with because Alec doesn't care about that a lot)

But yeah. It really shouldn't matter. At least I hope not <3

[hime-bee]

(since i know you also have a mega breeding kink, here's some arknights men who i think would have breeding kinks large enough to fucking repopulate the entirety of terra,,)

silverash (wow how original) has such a massive breeding kink that it's not even funny. and he's entirely unashamed about it, huskily cooing at how lovely and adorable you'd be with your tummy all swollen, even when he's balls deep in you and pushing you well into your nth orgasm. each drag of his cock along your walls serves a purpose, acting as a way to remind you that he's the only one who'll ever be able to see you come undone, as well as the only one who can possibly knock you up. and with each load he fucks into you, soothing away your broken sobs from the overstimulation, he's getting pretty successful.

it wasn't młynar's intention to get hooked on the very risky thrill of knocking someone up, much less a woman much younger than him. but the way your cunt hungrily swallows up his dick aaallll the way down to the base and the loud moans you make when the tip keeps bullying its way against your cervix leaves him little room to deny the fact that he gets off on the risk. and, well, the fact that you keep trapping him in leglocks and forcing him to spill everything inside is also a factor. (also did you know that horse pp actually flares during mating to ensure the semen stays inside and the chances of the mare popping out a baby are increased?? hope that fact stays with you the next time you think of the honse uncle >:3c)

despite his well-disciplined and down-to-earth personality, even chong yue isn't immune to the thought of encasing your much smaller body underneath his and filling your pussy with his seed until it takes. plus, given his draconic roots, being endowed with two wonderfully sized lengths gives him all sorts of advantages, especially when you're babbling nonsense as he stretches you wider than you ever thought possible. doesn't really help that ling and nian are eager to become aunties, pestering their dearest brother and you at every opportunity they can get.

lee was nowhere near lowkey when it came to his breeding kink, and he's made it nothing short of becoming your problem. gifted with a lung's hemipenes and kept tucked safely within a cozy little vent, he takes every opportunity to fill you to the brim with the promise of making you into a mother. and of course, he played the 'senior citizen' card the first few times he refused to pull out, claiming that he's getting too old to remember (lies) or asking you to "go easy on this old man~" (lies 2x) but can you really blame him? it's not every day he gets lucky with someone as cute and eye-catching as you. plus, those kiddos of his certainly wouldn't mind another addition to their little group.

that charming smile of his did absolutely nothing to prepare you for the depravity that tequila hid behind it. having practically sweet-talked his way into your bed, tequila made short work of ensuring that you'd never look at another man but him. his need to knock you up stemmed from his canine instincts and his need to monopolize you, because all those stewing emotions he's kept buried certainly aren't doing his mentality any good. not that he'd care, especially when he's sunken his teeth into your shoulder as he unceremoniously pushes his knot into you with a lewd pop! and starts filling your pussy to the brim with plenty of his release until it finally takes.

(hope you enjoyed some lil thirsts for these goobers, bc i want all of them to mating press the shit outta me mostly młynar. i would've have added more but its like 4 am as im writing and im very eepy. but hopefully this made ur brain go brrrrrr ♡(੭´͈ ᐜ `͈)੭)

Lati, you didn't have to call me out like that-- 😭😭 You're 100% right tho, I really do and I'm so predictable LMAO

Which is prolly why most of the guys you listed, I've either written, or have a draft planned for 😭 (RIP to my Lee and Tequila fics that haven't seen the light of day smdh). ANYWAY. Continue to cook, chef!! 😩💦💦💦 I wonder what kinda situation the Doctor would have on their hands if more than two Operators were trying to breed em 🤔 Personally, I think they should take turns trying-

(Also, God bless you for providing me and my followers with these scrumptious little meals, it's so nice reading these from you, Lati 😭💞 Especially when all I can really do is read rn-) AND I WILL BE SAVING THESE TOO LOL

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

As I wait for my beta to get back to me...

Okay I've never had a beta before and I love him but I'll never have a beta again bc i'm IMPATIENT but anyway I messed around with the sourceless incorrect quotes generator and I'm dying over here so. have these ig

including some things with peter as spider bc guess what! they'll also interact. yes i have three fucking fics planned

----

Jean: Where did you get that tomato soup? Peter: It’s actually a bowl of ketchup I just microwaved.

Peter: What goes up but never comes down? Jean: The amount of stress you're bringing me.

Jean, shooing Peter away: Can you go be depressed over there? You’re bumming out my whole area.

Peter: Ah, Hello again. We really need to stop meeting like this. Jean: Maybe we would, if you would sTOP ILLEGALLY ENTERING MY FUCKING CRIME SCENES!!!

Peter: So I can either do something dumb that could very well get me injured or I can listen to Jean and not do the thing, Peter: Well there’s a clear right answer here. Peter: *proceeds to throw five packs of mentos into a barrel full of diet coke*

Jean: So I have made the decision to trust you. Spider: A horrible decision, really.

Peter: I'm tired. Jean: You slept for three hours last night! Why are you surprised?! Peter: I'm not surprised. I just wanted to complain about it.

Jean: They don’t make them like me no more. I’m the last of my kind. Peter: Thank god.

Spider: And then they ran into my knife. They ran into my knife ten times. Jean: You mean you stabbed them? Spider: They ran into my knife.

Jean: Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Peter: Why start now?

Peter: I love hearing Jean shouting at someone else. It makes such a nice change.

Peter, getting a full nap with a warm blanket for the first time in literal years (i WILL make it happen): You know I think my life has value. Jean: Who are you and what have you done with Peter?!

Jean: You use humor to deflect your trauma. Spider: Awww, thanks- Jean: That’s not a good thing. Spider: All I’m hearing is that you think I’m funny.

Jean, to Peter: All right, let’s tell each other a secret about ourselves. I’m going to go first– I hate you.

Jean: Why are you on fire? Spider: This is just how my day is going.

Jean: I'll offer you some friendly advice- Peter: I don't want your advice. Jean: Well, then consider it unfriendly advice, dipshit.

Jean: I've met a lot of pricks in my time, but you, Parker, are a fucking cactus.

Jean: That’s illegal, right? Peter: Why do you care? Are you a fucking cop? Jean: Kinda- Peter: Just shut the fuck up.

Jean: I should've left you on that street corner where you were standing. Peter: But ya' didn't!

Jean: Don’t go picking a fight with me. I could make your life difficult. Peter, sarcastically: Wow. I wonder what it’d be like to have a difficult life.

Kidnapper: We have your child Jean: I don’t have a child? Kidnapper: Then who just told us to fuck off and that he doesn't have time for more stupid problems? Jean: Oh god, you have Peter

Jean: Who hurt you? Peter: *snorting* What, do you want a list? Jean: ...Yes, actually.

Spider: Something’s off. Jean: Maybe you’ve finally developed human emotions and feel bad for hurting people. Spider: No, but that’s funny.

Jean: Peter, no. Peter: Peter, yes.

Peter/Spider: Treat spiders the way you want to be treated. Jean: Killed without hesitation.

[that second part would work for either tho ngl but i can't NOT have pete say the first line]

Peter: I'm bored, any suggestions? Jean: Sleeping is nice. Peter: I acknowledge your suggestion, and I’m deciding to ignore it.

Spider: It’s nice to be wanted, you know? Jean: Not by the law!

Jean: I never tell people off the bat that I'm gay. I wait. I wait until they say some homophobic shit and then I laugh and am like "you know I'm gay right?" and watch the look of terror on their face. Peter: Peter: I like you.

[Jean if he was not living in the 30s were being gay could get him fired and killed :D]

Jean: You have an impressive pain tolerance. Peter: Thanks, it's the trauma.

Jean: Where have you been all day? Peter: Oh, just dealing with things way beyond my maturity level.

Peter: Jean, I sense hostility. Jean: Good, because I hate you.

Spider being an edgy bastard: I could kill you if I wanted. Jean: Yeah? So could any other human being. So could a dog. So could a dedicated duck. You aren't special.

Jean: You're alive. Peter: No need to sound so disappointed.

Peter: You read my diary? Jean: At first I did not know it was your diary. I thought it was a very sad handwritten book.

Jean: I can't imagine what Peter is planning. But I can tell you two things. We won't like it and it won't be legal.

Jean: Ayo, what the FUCK is this?!? Spider, sitting down, surrounded by corpses: I won Mafia, that’s what.

Jean: What are you doing here? Peter: I could ask you the same question. Jean: I work here. This is my crime scene. Peter: I should probably ask you a different question.

Jean: You saved me! Why? Spider: People would think I murdered you if I didn't.

Jean: Can you pass the salt? Peter: Can you pass away? Jean: Too much salt.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

i'm cry laughing some people on twitter are now saying "izzy bashing" needs to be tagged in fics. how did these people ever survive watching this show where izzy is the CANON ANTAGONIST i'll never know

benefit of the doubt but i think most of them have gotten to this point gradually. when they first watched the show they were not attached to izzy the way they are now. i know for a lot of people it was blorbo at first sight with izzy but i've also seen izzy enjoyers say they didn't like him at first, and then fandom made them care about him.

like i'm pretty sure for a lot of ppl it started off with isolating themselves from ppl who made posts that they didnt like, like ppl who criticized ofmd for being based on two real people with direct connections to actual real-world slave trade (which is an incredibly valid thing to criticize abt ofmd).

another one that i think funneled a lot of fans towards being so delusionally attached to izzy was people pointing out or complaining about the disproportionate amount of fan content for izzy compared to prominent characters of color—which is a consistent issue in fandom no matter what the media, and is also a very easy one for people to be uncomfortable with whenever they see it get pointed out. people venting that "fans care too much abt this white man" often make fans who care abt that white man very defensive right off the bat, and then rather than engage with why they feel defensive or question if maybe their enjoyment of this character is fueled by implicit bias (which it might not be, to be clear! im not saying—and i have never said—that everyone who enjoyes izzy likes him for racist reasons), they stop listening to the conversation abt white favoritism and continue blorboposting as much as they want. it's incredibly easy for fans to brush off this convo as "just starting drama" and avoid the topic altogether because "fandom is for fun!" and they dont want to think abt difficult topics like racism and implicit bias, they just want to enjoy their blorbos in peace.

so they kept narrowing the takes they were seeing until they were in an echo chamber that kept moving more and more towards complete woobification of izzy hands. these people are now looking at the show entirely through izzy's pov, making posts abt how sad it is that none of the other characters are ever nice to him, how frustrating the show is from his perspective, how it feels to be deeply in love with someone who doesn't love you back. they've stared at gifs of con's micro-expressions and read angsty fanfiction and looked at endless izzy fanart and their entire ofmd fandom experience revolves around empathizing with this one character even tho the show itself continually makes him the butt of the joke.

at this point, telling these people to rewatch the show doesn't even matter. they've spent so much time over-analyzing every single one of izzy's scenes to the point where the emotional responses they get from these scenes are not the emotional responses anyone would have watching the show for the first time. they've warped the entire first season to fit their version of the show and are forgetting how often the show itself bashes izzy.

and the icing on the cake is the trolling. there's like, one or two people on here who go around sending anon hate and leaving nasty comments on instagram posts and harassing people on twitter for... like, i would say "for liking izzy" or even "for saying positive things about izzy" but like. i've gotten these messages, and the most sympathetic i've ever been to izzy was the post i made like "maybe he's mean bc he has chronic IBS. i'd actually understand him more if that were the case." so when i get these messages it's easier for me to just laugh them off bc it's so obviously just someone trying to make me upset, but people who do care about izzy (a lot of them being the same people who avoided engaging with the "why does fandom care so much abt white characters" convo) get these absolutely horrible messages about how they deserve to get hate crimed and they should kill themselves. and these fans who didn't want to even see vaguely negative posts abt izzy bc they just want to enjoy fandom in peace are now like "im targeted for just liking a character!"

so that's how we get to people saying that "izzy bashing" needs to be tagged. never mind that their definition of "bashing" almost certainly includes things that are not bashing but are just things that contradict the way they headcannnon him.

[carniferous]

hi hi making my ur inbox debut to ask for 61 and 62 about one-act play pretty please <33

omg hello <333 i welcome messages in my inbox thank u

61. In [insert fic], what’s your favorite scene that you wrote?

it's barty's soliloquy! i enjoyed writing it so so much and honestly i'm normally apprehensive about writing scenes focused on characters who i have not written before but barty was just super enjoyable to write... i genuinely felt like i cracked the rosekiller dynamic when i wrote this line lmao:

I remember thinking he was the most beautiful thing in the world. Then he hugged me and got blood all over my clothes.

62. In [insert fic], is there a deleted scene/idea you wish you could have included?  Why did it get cut?

so funny enough! barty's soliloquy was actually originally going to be a scene where evan and barty talk to each other while standing over the body of the first person evan ever murdered. which i think is so slay but ultimately i felt like writing it like that wouldn't have conveyed the emotions i was going for overall. the scene is meant to convey barty's grief and also his... understanding (?) of his relationship with evan. they'd been sleeping together since they were sixteen but what barty remembers when he considers whether or not they were in love is when evan hugged him after brutally murdering someone. barty doesn't know if they were in love but he DOES know that they were supposed to die together. the real heart of his grief is that he didn't get to die with evan (and i intentionally left the circumstances of evan's death pretty vague).

ultimately i think if i'd written it as a scene i would've lost the crucial context of barty reflecting on it After evan has died. barty as a teen was very much "yeah evan and i are going to live and die together" and that was a Fact to him so. i feel like it creates a little more irony that barty looks back on a time when he thought that but he's now living without evan... teehee. i guess this makes this not smth i wish COULD have made it into the fic bc i changed it for a reason but. whatever

[firebirdsdaughter]

Aaaaahhhh…

… Was reading a (very good!) fic, and the author pointed out that it's Very Interesting that Kubo used Byakuya and Renji to explain Sasakibe's backstory, and I was like… Oh my gods.

Bc a) I love the whole 'I will be your right arm and do what you cannot' thing and b) I was just thinking about how I think that does apply to Byakuya and Renji.

Now it says in my contract I can't put too much stake in Tite 'I never thought we'd make it to the Soul Society' Kubo using too much deep literary symbolism/association, plus this is shonen, where said symbolism/association isn't a main priority (which is fine, BLEACH was my first manga/anime and I still love it in it's silly 2000s nonsense).

But to me… That is so them? It's a point of interest to me that Byakuya ever approved Renji as his Assistant Captain. Like. Surely that's a position that the Captain in question has to approve, since they'll be relying on each other so much. And you can't tell me Kuchiki Rules Lawyer Byakuya didn't do due diligence w/ the candidates. So why Renji to begin w/? Neither manga nor anime ever explains, and it's not relevant to the actual story. Renji bc the plot demanded it. But I also kinda like the idea of Byakuya intentionally picking someone who's a little more brash and aggressive than he allows himself to be. Someone who's more reliant on brute force and forging forward. Although it doesn't ultimately get explored much bc of the nature of the genre and the era it was written in, it comes across as Byakuya choosing someone who can be the things, have the reactions and emotions he feels he must withhold from himself. He's rigid and stoic and stingy about praise, while Renji seems to be pretty friendly with the squad and even has a subordinate that looks up to him. Like Byakuya know he's chilly and he needs someone more passionate and expressive to balance him out.

Which also makes the blood war arc events very interesting to me; unlike the other Captains, Byakuya has an Assistant who has bankai. He could, and by some theories should have had Renji use his bankai to test the enemy. He's the superior officer, technically stronger. From certain povs, it might have made more sense to risk the Assistant Captain's powers. But instead, he does it himself, and even after his bankai is stolen, he keeps insisting Renji stay back and learn from his fight (I do love the little aside in the manga where he tells Renji he's probably not smart enough to test the enemy and Renji grumbles but agrees w/ him, bc it felt so humanising and just… kinda brother-y for both of them). And even while horribly injured, he drags himself back to his feet when As Nodt starts attacking Renji. Now, it's probably also or the sake of the Soul Society itself. It makes sense, esp since they both have bankai, for one of them to stay back. But the fact that he has Renji do so, effectively sacrifices himself from the get-go, is so interesting to me.

And, of course, the very end of that fight clearly establishes how much Renji has come to mean to him. They could have just made him ask about Rukia, as so many of his appearances are primarily focused on her (sigh shonen), but instead, he apologises to both of them, and then the first thing he asks Ichigo is if they're both alive (non sequitur but if they hadn't been I thoroughly think Ichigo would have lied to him to spare him the knowledge, and also I'm a little lukewarm about Ichigo but I loved that moment).

It convinces me that while there was definitely logic/strategy in it, he was also trying to do his best to protect his Lieutenant, esp after shit truly hits the fan.

But to cycle back around to… What ever my point might have been, whether it's intentional or not, I think the fact that it's Renji and Byakuya used to tell us this story of the eternally loyal Assistant, that Byakuya clearly thinks very highly of Sasakibe's loyalty and duty. That it comes right at the start of that arc where the above happens. That Renji and Byakuya are… Aside from Shunsui and Nanao, I think the only Captain and Assistant pair that last the whole story? Oh, and Soi-Fon and her Assistant. And Hitsugaya and Rangiku! That they are one of four out of thirteen pairs that remain unchanged by the end.

I could go into a lot more (finding out the Captain you thought was kind and compassionate is a monster, while your emotionally challenged, expressionless jackass of a new Captain is a genuinely honourable and noble person), but that would get even more nonsensical. The short version is, I definitely think that whole philosophy, that image of the Assistant becoming the indispensable right hand that balances out the Captain, fills in for the things they lack or can't do for whatever reason, is really well displayed by these two, esp compared w/ some of the other dynamics we see (Momo and Izuru's blind devotion to their initial Captains, Yachiru being more moral support/after fight recovery, whatever the hell is the deal w/ Oomeda). Like Renji was his hot headed younger brother he was mentoring long before he and Rukia actually became a thing.

They're not the only ones, of course, Hitsugaya and Rangiku sync very well, so did Isane and Unohana. Kenpachi and Yachiru work, and Ikkaku stands a high chance of fulfilling the same role (albeit they should probably keep Yumichika on hand just in case). And tbh it didn't register w/ me the first time (I think partially bc I was a little overwhelmed by all the Things going on), but when someone else pointed it out… I'm like. Yeah. I think that means something.

[lesbianwyllravengard]

Hell yeah i got some recs!! Most of mine are going to be more Hank and Connor or Reed900 centric, so keep that in mind.

From it's Own Wreck by Jivvin is my current favorite! It's a ghost au based on the film Just Like Heaven (2005) and it's full of gorgeous writing and has lots of great moments in it. I can't recommend it enough. It is incomplete, but the author regularly updates and it's a few chapters away from being finished.

Deviating and Solving Crime with 100% Human Detective Connor by CaptainKenway. Exactly what it says. You're solving crime with a 100% human detective, nothing else. Nothing suspicious about him. 0_0 It has some good angst and funny moments, and i really enjoyed reading it.

Detroit 07 by Rhinozilla is INCREDIBLE! It's a 38 part series (i know, im stilling working through it) and it's got so much angst, found family, comfort, crack shenanigans, and just as much plot as there is silly oneshots. It's got some OCs in it that are amazing and fit so well into the story, and it does deviate a little bit from the norm (different name for Nines for example, and no reed900) but it's still really good. Since there are so many parts to it and two of the parts are over 400k each, here are some of the smaller oneshots that can be read easily by themselves:

Color Wheel: Connor sustains minor damage to the hardware controlling his appearance. Everybody in the bullpen is united with one singular mission: do not let Connor know that his hair keeps changing colors.

The Breathing Graveyard: The DPD sends Connor to talk down a volatile deviant that's holed up in a trailer near the android scrapyard. It doesn't go the way any of them expect.

Bubbles: Connor gets stuck watching a lost little girl while they wait for her parents to come pick her up at the station.

And then i'd recommend Chapter 51 of Camaraderie if you're up for a wholesome father-son moment.

Through Your Veins by AceEmerson: Nines gets hurt and Gavin takes him back to his apartment to patch them up. There is also an android cat, first kiss, and TENSION

Secret by sv962: Role-reversal Reed900, first kiss. Tis very good. Semi-short at less than 5k and you want a good little role reversal, i recommend it.

The unexpected benefits of having a therapist terminator by texs_sins: Undeviated Nines decides to become Gavin's therapist to help improve their work partnership. 'Surely exposing himself to human emotions won't make a difference, after all nothing has ever made him deviate, right?' it's a fantastic fic and i love their take on Machine Nines and Deviated Nines. (fair warning because it's not listed in the tags, there's a little bit of smut in the last chapter, but easily skippable if you aren't up for it)

Beautifully Unique and Strange by cliffhanging: autistic Connor oneshot because we need more autistic Connor fics

Only Skin Deep by the AsexualofSpades: pre-relationship Reed900, where Nines tries to hide as much of his androidness in response to his anti-android partner five times and the one time he doesn't. It has a nice follow up fic too and i recommend it!

i think that's a fair amount to stop at, oh my god. And thanks again for your recs!! I'm gonna get reading to them tonight!! <3<3<3

Ahhh hell yes! Thank you so much!!

I have read the texs_sins fic (and most of theirs) but I'd definitely reread them bc I love them a lot so thank you for reminding me!

I am ALWAYS DOWN for more father son content with Hank and Connor, thank you SO much. It's so hard for me to find any these days.

Detroit 07... Almost sounds like a kind of Brooklyn 99 AU? In which case idk if I should read it just yet because I am also writing a dbh brooklyn 99 AU and I don't want to accidentally steal ideas or be influenced by someone else, but maybe after I post my own work I'll check it out! (two cakes!)

These all sound super fun thank you for the recommendations!! <333

[notbooper]

Hehe here's some ramblings ab my weird Groundhog Day Price au thing :) this is kinda me laying out a timeline of everything and whatever else comes to mind

Heads up: I don't think I'll ever turn this into one long cohesive fic, it'll probably just be little ficlets and then long ramble-y bits like this

Read my first post regarding this au or else you'll be lost bc I explain a lot of things from my intro that I don't exactly plan to put into in depth writing.

Intro

Cw: I love Price so much so I put him through hell <3, temporary character death, depictioms of death n violence and bodily harm, non canon timeline bc oops and fuck canon (just a bit), this is not written like a fic like the first part, so it's just me rambling, also formatting is terrible ik I'm so sorry I just needed to get this out of my system, Ghoap content

Not edited bc lazy

So uh timeline is funky bc I forgor ab canon and consistency and also despite the fact I've played both 2019 and mw2 multiple times I'm still dumb. N e way:

I assume that the boys aren't familiar with each other at the beginning of mw2 but price knows all of them bc he hand picked them. I assume that they haven't worked w each other b4 those events but we're throwing that out the window here bc I forgot :)

So they had one very brief mission together before the events of mw2, the one described in my little intro blurb, nothing too serious or long, not enough time for team bonding, simply something I made up for expository ab the whole Groundhog Day thing.

Also ok explaining background Ghoap w my fucky timeline bc I totally forgor I wrote some implied Ghoap:

I dug my own grave by saying I wanted to set my blurb b4 mw2 and make that mission quick and they don't even get any time to like bond properly, but we can make this work ok? Ok. I don’t see Ghost as a self sacrificing person despite the fact that he's military and it kinda comes w the job and his status as definitely dead and shit and just his kinda general disposition. I can see it if he's v close w someone but otherwise it usually isn't "practical" bc of how useful he knows he is. In this scenario though ima say that Ghost had been heavily injured in the heli wreck and knew that he wasn’t gonna get too far. Once the heli crashed, he had been the closest to Gaz and had tried to pull him out, for the sole purpose of during the time before he could tell how fond Prive was of him, and because Ghost cares deeply for Price he made an effort to rescue Gaz, that doesn't work obviously and he ends up terribly injured. Later on, once they start taking heavy fire and closer to his death Ghost realizes that he's not going to make it too far and decides that when there needs to be a sacrifice, bc he knows there will, he'll go down.

Cut to Ghost sees that Soap's ab to get fucked up and takes the shot 4 him. Soap's reaction, unlike Ghost's reasoning, is based in vague Ghoap. Soap comes to the conclusion, b4 they even get out of the heli, that the Lieutenant does not like him. Fine, he's clashed w/ COs b4, nothing new. He was hoping that since they were gonna be on this same tiny team that maybe the could be friendly but he supposed not. So imagine his shock when the man who seemed to despise him sacrifices himself for Soap. He's touched, truly, especially bc that Soap will never know that Ghost's real reasoning. That Soap believes in that moment that maybe that Ghost didn't hate him and maybe kinda really liked him but didn't show it. He beliebes that if THE Ghost sacraficed himself for Soap, that he must feel that Soap was a valuable member of the team, maybe moreso than him. That Soap is also in the middle of watching his entire team get wiped out and realizing that it's now him and Price against what feels like an entire army so his extreme emotional reaction to Ghost's death is also in part from that.

There, intro Ghoap explained :)

Explanation of how this Groundhog Day shit works btw:

The first time it happens is in my little intro blurb thing. Price will go through an event where any one or more of the 141 dies, and then he will be sort of sent back in time to varying amounts of time before the events happen so that he can prevent their deaths. Price can't control it obviously. How Price discerns that these aren't weird premonitions and actually events that he lived through is that he always gets sent back with some scars from whatever shit show happened. Like for example in my blurb he would come back with his palms all scarred up from the broken glass he grabbed from the window soap got tackled out of at the end. It's a weird mechanic ik but shhhhh it's for angst purposes. It's there as a sort of reminder for Price for all the times he's "failed" his boys bc I FUCKING LOVE ANGST n e way,

Then the events of mw2 happen ofc. There are different points throughout in which I will kill the boys so here's that death list:

Gaz- something to do with the helicopter bit, obviously, like he gets no breaks, idc if you get tired of how many heli deaths I give this man, I like it. I think everyone gets one death during mw2 events

Side note: one thing I feel like I'm having a hard time balancing is making this compelling by "killing" off the boys and traumatizing Price, and also not making the boys look more incompetent if that makes sense? Like I had three deaths drafted up for Gaz but felt it was too much?

Kate: 110% dies at one point during the whole hostage thing. Gives an extra oof to John's whole apology bit to her afterwards (ome of my fav interactions in the game tbh)

Ghost: this fucker is proving the hardest to brainstorm for tbh. Like if anyone, for any of these parts at all, wants to put in any ideas feel free to, but I just feel like the others have NDEs that I can use as deaths, but honestly I feel like Ghost is I don't want to say better than the others but there's not really a point in mw2 in which I feel like I could take inspo for a death? So ig tldr: TBD but maybe none at all and when the timeline expands to after current canon I give him smtg big to give my boy some attention?

Soap: alone, obviously. This one is more complex then the others. They're all gonna be situations in which John can do something, whether directly or indirectly to change the outcome. I think for alone John cycles through that loop for a bit, not being able to make contact with anyone in Las almas and he gets lucky that after a few cycles we get canon alone events. This will def be it's own little chapter fic drabble thing bc I have so much to say ab this and how it affects Price

Bonus soap thought: I also wanted to do Graves tank fight purely bc that's the part I had the most trouble with in my first playthrough of the game. I had to repeat that section an ungodly amt of time and shaped me into the avid Graves hater I am today. I'm digressing but n e way I decided against the tank bit bc alone was just so much more yummier in my head.

---------------------------------------------------

N e way that's my sort of ramblings for now, small bits and pieces will be on the way, probably