#the others abilities get to be seen in their au counterparts at least

[arolesbianism]

Sigh. Why must you have died Aris, now I have to actually think abt what your abilities are instead of just sweeping it under the rug and calling it good enough

[yoru-no-seiiki]

YANDERE ! EREN JAEGER X READER HEADCANNONS

TW/CW: mdni, yandere themes, masturbation.

Have some headcannons while I wait for my henna to dry/watch the first season with my cousin.

I wish there were more who wrote for Canon! Eren. Like don’t get me wrong, Modern AU Eren is hot but I mean, fuckboys can be seen everywhere.

But Canon! Eren is batshit insane and that’s exactly what I love about him. I wish they at least add that to his modern counterpart instead of making him a basic bad boy but I mean if that’s what they’re into 🤷‍♂️

Anyways Exhibit A of why Eren in all eras is my fave AOT character:

Like I said, he’s batshit insane.

He has directly killed 2 people by the age of nine, and assisted in killing the third. Although this is out of self defense it still can’t be denied HOW HE TReateD THE SECOND DUDE HOLY SHIT- THE AMOUNT OF TIMES HE STABBED HIM.

Normal kids would just be terrified, maybe be even fight blinding and/or cry, probably even run tf away. But ya boi brought a knife and even deceived the person at the door.

EXHIBIT B:

He’d be a great yandere.

Let’s say that we age up our cast and make 18 the minimum age of enlistment (making him 21 around the attack of Trost).

Trainee Eren has the will of fucking steel. He’ll do whatever it takes to wipe out titan-kind, to make the cruel world he lived in finally know true peace.

To be with you in that new world he’ll build.

You were one of his fellow trainees. Someone who unconditionally believed and supported his desire to see the outside world. You didn’t treat him like a child as Mikasa did, and you weren’t so oddly distant when it came to his help and presence like Armin.

At first it started as a crush. An infatuation towards your looks and kind demeanor which morphed into a twisted sense of love.

You were the only one that understood him, that resonated with his wavelength.

He definitely frequently masturbated to your image. Stress was a known issue amongst trainees and soldiers alike. Many drank to rid themselves of such a problem. But to him just the thought of you two becoming one gave him relief and pleasure that any form of alcohol could never give. In the aftermath of the Trost incident, when faced with your unconscious, battered body he pulls a Shinji and jerks one off. Covering you with his release.

You think you’ll leave his mind once he gets busy with being a titan-shifter and the future of Eldia and such but nope.

Eren only has you and the new world he promised in his heart, body and soul. And that’ll never change.

EXHIBIT C:

Eren believes in freedom first and foremost.

So none of that kidnapping. At least in earlier years. He just wants you to be happy and safe. He’s more of the type to hurt others for your sake rather than be abusive and take away your rights.

Eren in later seasons has the capacity to keep you isolated, and that he will.

Like in other (unfortunately rare) fics of him, he keeps you in a farm land with a bunch of loyalists. If reader is afab! or has the ability to bear a child (for those with abo ocs or something idk) he’ll tell them that you are bearing his child and the future inheritor of his powers.

Otherwise he’ll come up with other excuses like having you as a tactician or war-hero they have to pay respects to.

He’ll give you as much freedom as he can provide while keeping you away from danger.

Though one might argue that his version of freedom for you is just an illusion.

[yanderes-galore]

Oh, there's still time. I was worried that i'd lose the requesting time. For this batch, i only have one.

I wonder what Glamrock Freddy would be like in Fluffy AU. Honestly, he probably wouldn't be that different from his game counterpart, he might even have a similar role in protecting his caretaker when the outbreak happens and trying to get them out of the facility.

But imagine how devastated he would feel when he sees Roxy, Monty and Chica. Not only did his friends die, but they also returned as monsters. Monsters that don't even remember their friendship. The animals he sang with before were now trying to kill him. Imagine how much more clingy that would make Freddy to the reader, the only one he has left.

Now, the stomach hatch can be tricky. Has he always had this? Was it a mistake in his design, but not too big to make the scientists consider Freddy a failure because he still had his personality? Or does this happen after he, unfortunately, died and was resurrected?

Anyway, I can see Freddy and the reader being pushed to the limit by one of the undead and Freddy, having no choice, decides that to keep the reader safe he may have to force them into the stomach hatch until the danger is far away, despite how disgusting that is. He will do his best to not keep the reader inside him for too long. Accidentally killing his last friend would make him finally lose his sanity, don't you think?

Sure! Here's what I got from what you gave me :)

Yandere! Fluffy AU! Glamrock Freddy Concept

Pairing: Platonic/Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Manipulation, Gore, Grotesque descriptions, Blood, Violence, Kidnapping mentioned/implied, Clingy behavior, Trauma, Death, Stomach hatch scene is... disturbing as usual, Not for the faint of heart, Forced companionship.

You are right when you say he wouldn't change much from normal.

Glamrock Freddy's creation started with the rest of the Glamrock line.

He was created alongside Chica, Bonnie, Monty, and Roxy.

For the most part he was normal, no odd stomach hatch in sight.

The others were normal too.

He has you as his caretaker and is caring towards you.

The orange bear is talkative and friendly towards you, all smiles and hugs.

To explain the stomach hatch could be two things.

He gets it during the outbreak in the facility after being attacked in the stomach.

He is then revived due to an infection and given the stomach hatch adaptation.

It's that or he had complications in his creation, leading to Afton doing surgery that gave him the stomach hatch adaptation.

Personally I just never thought of the hatch idea until others brought it up.

So his original design didn't have it.

I'm not going to go too much into how he was before the facility failed.

He's his usual personality and always sticks close to his caretaker.

I say this because I feel the story gets more interesting after the fall of the Afton Facility.

Glamrock Freddy would definitely take a similar role to how his original version did.

Instead of guiding Gregory out of the Pizzaplex, he's guiding his caretaker out of the facility.

Trying to, at least.

Freddy doesn't want his caretaker to endure anymore of these horrors.

All the lights… the blood… that's not the worst part, either.

Freddy has no doubt seen his friends die and become monsters at this point.

First it was Bonnie, then it was Chica… then Monty… then Roxy….

They didn't come out of it okay unlike him.

Freddy is the least injured and feral out of all the Glamrocks.

Due to seeing all of this there's no doubt he's going to be more attached to his caretaker.

They want to leave this place… he wants to come with them and help them.

You really are all he has left.

The others keep trying to bite and claw him.

Even with the stomach hatch… he just isn't damaged enough to them, is he?

Plus… they want to hurt his dear caretaker!

Such a thing simply won't do….

Freddy no doubt wants to utilize his new stomach hatch ability but saves it for emergencies. 

The idea of using it makes even him a bit nauseous, let alone you.

Your journey mirrors that of Security Breach a bit.

You look around the facility for ways of escape, Freddy following close behind.

You get used to picking up keys and cards off dead coworkers and exploring areas.

Most of the time you're running from decaying beasts.

For the most part you try to be sneaky but Freddy also lets you know he doesn't mind getting a bit violent to protect you.

While Freddy hates using the stomach flap (?) he gains he no doubt still considers it.

Freddy knows you won't last long if he doesn't push himself.

Imagine the betrayal you feel when you're both backed into a corner.

You're prepared to give in when Freddy suddenly scoops you up and shoves you deep into his… oh no.

The feeling… disgusting.

You're covered in blood, the feeling is oddly warm and squishy, and Freddy is running.

He knows you hate it but he swears it's to keep you safe.

When it's safe… he'll let you out.

But really… When is it safe?

Maybe he should… just keep you in there.

You tickle when you push against him!

Meanwhile you're clawing at him like a scared animal, scared to scream due to the thought of blood seeping into your mouth.

You only feel slight relief when Freddy drops you out.

You slide onto the already dirty floor with a wet plap, covered in blood and possible goo.

Safe to say you're way more traumatized than you were before.

That's if he even decides to let you out.

Now I feel maybe you two could successfully escape with one another.

That would mean both Golden Freddy and Glamrock Freddy escaped with their caretakers.

Golden Freddy had an easier escape… but still.

Even if you both escape you probably want nothing to do with Freddy.

The bear is attached to you and is happy he kept you safe!

He's clingy and affectionate, claiming he's so excited to live a new life with you!

Yet you dread what'll happen if you stick around him any longer…

You even feel ill when you think of the stomach hatch he holds.

Perhaps you should just… stitch that up.

Good luck trying to abandon Glamrock Freddy once you escape, too.

He won't let you go so easily.

Especially when he has a new way to contain you.

[mischievouslittlecreature]

Hi, Laur!

I'm here to send you an ask to know about modern!Lucy. What can you tell me about her? Does she have a job? Is she studying? How does she meet/met Tommy?

Ohhhh my god, Flor, has this ask arrived at the perfect time because Modern!Lucy has been eating away at my brain lately!

I don't have the entirety of the details ironed out regarding some things (and there's some things I gotta be 🤐 about because spoilers) but what I can tell you is that she is an absolute bisexual disaster (even more so than her Love Me Where I'm Most Ruined counterpart). Her family is mostly still around and will have more significant roles, though her relationship with some of them *cough her father and Elliot, cough* is strained to say the least.

She's still Tommy's assistant, on top of which she runs poker games for the company (have you ever seen Molly's Game? She's got some similar vibes to Jessica Chastain's character in that). She went to college and studied languages and originally at one point had thoughts of becoming a translator.

Imma have to keep my lips sealed for now as to how she meets Tommy, but what I will say is that they become fast best friends and while it takes them longer than their counterparts from the other series to get together, they have a similar 'old married couple who can casually read each other's minds' vibe even before they start officially dating.

It's gonna be a softer, happier story than the main series. There will certainly be angst and drama--Grace, Lizzie, Matthew Sutton, and Tommy's Chronic Ability to be a Disaster in All Relationships being the main culprits--but these versions of Tommy and Lucy will be generally happier and more content with life. I feel like I owe it to them after the absolutely torture I'm about to start putting them through in Love Me Where I'm Most Ruined.

Thank you so very much for expressing such interest, Flor! I'm really excited about this AU and while it'll probably be a little while until I have anything written for it, it makes me smile to know that you're interested! 😄🖤

[lunarsands]

ALSMP Fanfic: Mirror Tenfold, Beyond the Wall - Ch 3

Characters: Scott Major, MythicalSausage, Shubble, PearlescentMoon; featuring the return of vampire!Scott but in an alternate way, and actual!angel!Sausage but cursed; with special guests Sparrow and Rusty the Copper Golem

Tags: Canon divergent, AU, crossover between two Afterlife universes, and New Life SMP thrown in for good measure

WARNINGS: Blood, Violence, Injury, consensual blood drinking, PTSD, mentions of death

Summary: The Mysterious Force that keeps picking people up and depositing them into alternate universes comes for Myth and Smajor this time, and plunks them down near a new set of counterparts -- well, new to Smajor. Myth has met this other version of himself once before, in a place called Sanctuary. At least now there's someone with ten times the number of powers to keep Smajor in check, right?

The vampire returns but he’s not going to want a taste of this type of angel blood.

Follows after the events of Thou, O Kings, Fair Be You All - Part Eight of the Soul Liminality Series | Part Four of the Reality Entanglement Series

(Also available on Ao3!)

[ Chapter One ] [ Chapter Two ]

---

Chapter Three

Sausage howled as he wrenched away. Myth went stock-still, continuing to hold the sword out but eyes wide as it registered to him what had just happened. He hadn’t even seen Sausage appear. The superhero clutched his arm as ichor began to seep between his fingers. “Yow!! What is that sword made of?!”

Still stunned, Myth stammered, “It – It’s because of your angel powers.”

Shubble ran over, Smajor’s face still held in one hand, but she removed the other long enough to shove Myth. “What did you do that for?! We never said anything about killing Scott!”

The cursed angel stumbled, but regained his balance and scowled back at her. She glowered in return; he put his arms down, signaling he wasn’t about to challenge her new appearance and revealed ability.

Smajor took the opportunity to flex his own night-granted strength and yanked at Shubble’s hand until he could get a glimpse of Sausage before she covered his eyes again; her hand landed above his mouth this time, so it was easier for him to say, “Him, too?! What in the Nether is going on here?! What, is this world connected to that limbo dimension, or something?! Why does everyone have extra powers? And why is everyone always luckier than us?!”

Scott dusted himself off as he joined the group. “I wouldn’t call this lucky. Or, maybe…” He turned to Sausage and lifted the superhero’s hand away from his injury, then placed his own hand over it. There were a few seconds where their breath was visible in the air, then Scott let go and stepped back. The wound had been effectively cauterized by his frost ability. “…Maybe I should feel lucky that Sausage here usually pulls his punches and isn’t really out to stake me through the heart.”

He then turned to Myth. “You would have, though. I could sense it.” He glanced to where the cursed angel’s sword was now lowered in uncertainty. Then he gave a sigh that seemed exaggerated, and he shrugged. “But it looks like the good guys won this time. I guess there’s only one thing left to do to continue protecting the world. Right, Sausage?”

He met the eyes of the rival he had just helped heal. Sausage gave a nod, then Scott snapped his gaze back to Myth.

The cursed angel felt his body be rendered immobile again, with tunnel vision causing him to be drawn into that unwavering gaze. Scott then began to duck down, going invisible but holding his stare in place this time. He wasn't fleeing. Myth attempted to shift his eyes in order to see how Sausage and Shubble were reacting, but… they hadn't moved. And not in the immobilized way that he was. They were waiting for something…

The attack came from the opposite side of where he had last seen Scott – a punch that numbed his wrist and made him lose his grip on his sword. Scott was visible afterward as he caught it when it dropped. He winced at the sting from the hilt. "Sausage!" he called out, then tossed the sword–

Genuinely tossed it, not thrown as if he had intended to strike the superhero with it–

Sausage fielded the catch with a wince of his own, then his eyes began to glitter from blue to white to an even paler blue, and back to white, continuing to do so as he brought up his other hand to pinch the edge of the blade with all five fingers.

The red sheen went dull, then flakes of brown and ashen black rained down off of it. It fully crumbled starting at the point on downward until the pommel disintegrated in Sausage's hand. His eyes then returned to normal. He gave a full-bodied shiver, then wiped his hand off on his hip. "And that takes care of that! Sheesh! You were going too far! Not every 'Scott' in the multiverse is like yours! Mygod."

Scott released Myth from his stare and calmly walked backward to stand next to Sausage – yet keeping watch on Myth just in case, holding out the possibility of being immobilized a third time.

Meanwhile, Smajor tugged at Shubble's hand again. "So, what was that about? Can't you at least tell me what's going on if you won't let me see for myself?"

Scott was the one to reply, "That was me having heard and seen enough to know you two are the greater danger around here. Tell me, fledgling, what were your actual plans if I managed to take down this unstoppable force of vengeance standing before us? We just unarmed him, but I can tell by his eyes that he's weighing his options."

Myth flared his wings, only to fold them all in tightly, then he sat down on the ground, placing his hands flat at the end of his thighs to show he had no intention of doing what Scott was implying. "You know your angel lore. Superhero over there didn't seem to consider that when he butted in the first time I met him."

Scott smiled sardonically. "It has been an interest of mine to study the machinations of the celestial realms, particularly angels. Your type is rare, but infamous. You're holding back, too. But maybe that's just a Sausage-esque trait."

Myth squeezed his knees. "I'm going to pretend I have no idea what you're talking about. Look, we had no say in coming here. All I wanted was to find him and drag him back home. You were the one foolish enough to turn him."

Scott shrugged. "I admit I was curious to see what might happen. Would this world make him exactly like me? Or would there be a different effect? It doesn't work on anyone like us or on the villagers. At first it seemed like it could be fun to see if Sausage wouldn't be able to tell us apart. But your version was obviously weaker."

"Hey!" Smajor protested. "You could have told me what these two were like!"

Scott uttered a brief chuckle. "Sorry. I thought it in my best interest to keep that information to myself."

Myth shifted to stand up, but when Scott's gaze instantly fell right back onto him – demeanor changing from calm to stern – the cursed angel resumed sitting. "Could I bother you lot to douse him in holy water, tie him up, and blindfold him to keep him from escaping? I know a way to get home – or at least a way to leave this dimension and put us where we won't be a threat to you anymore."

Sausage spoke up, "Oh, yeah, that Ancient City portal that you mentioned!"

"Yes," Myth said flatly, "Astute of you to remember."

Now it was Smajor’s turn to chuckle. "Oh, yes, let's do that again! I'll just follow our original path of destruction and find the way out! And you'll have to deal with finding me all over again, because we got separated when we entered last time, too!"

Myth scoffed. "Except I know exactly where the exit is, and can fly high enough to get there faster. I'll destroy all of the portals before you can reach them."

Smajor replied slyly, "But you would be dooming anyone from other worlds who stumbled in to be stuck there with us. That would be incredibly cruel of you, if what you really only want is to lock away you and me. But hey! That would give me plenty of enrichment, now that I have powers again!"

Myth scowled and mentally sank into himself for a moment, his gaze sliding to the side as he tried to think of a retort.

"So…" Shubble posited, "Does that mean we should go around destroying those Ancient City portals, so no one here accidentally enters one?"

"Maybe,” Sausage suggested, “We could just put up signs. Because destroying them all, um, is going to take a while, heh."

"Oh, definitely," Shubble agreed. "And I know where one city is, but there is a lot of Deep Dark out there. And what if someone with sculkborn powers decides to live in one of them? What if they don't want the, uh, ambience of the portal ruined? It would be pretty rude to do that– Ow! Hey!"

She abruptly yanked her hand away from Smajor’s face, because he had just driven his bottom fangs into the underside of her palm. He quickly contorted himself to get a proper bite on her other arm, causing her to loosen her hold. He slipped free, spitting – or coughing – out puffs of dark smoke as he started to run. Myth jumped to his feet and spread his wings to leap after him.

There was a crackle from overhead. Sausage raised one hand, but it wasn't lightning that hit the ground at Smajor’s feet – it was a concentrated funnel of holy fire, glowing nearly as bright as the lightning would have, but with slivers of white flame coming off of it.

Smajor cried out in sheer terror. He fell to his knees and hunched over, covering his head with his hands. They could hear him whimpering as Sausage dismissed the holy fire. While Myth went to retrieve Smajor, Sausage turned to Shubble. “Are you alright??”

Shubble rubbed her hand. “Yeah. All he got was a mouthful of shadowstuff. I mean, it hurt, but he wasn’t going to be able to do lasting damage.”

Sausage smiled at her, then gazed pensively toward where Myth was hauling Smajor back to the group. The defeated vampire kept his head lowered and seemed to walk along with an air of resignation.

A sound like the reversed shattering of glass caught everyone’s attention. Across the open space from where they stood, a rectangular portal with a frame made of crying obsidian appeared, its interior obscured by teal and turquoise swirls – or possibly flames. To either side of the portal were two multi-headed sunflowers, with each individual flower being a different color in the range of yellow, orange, or red.

"Huh," Sausage declared, "It looks like… you've got some help in getting home, without involving limbo dimensions."

"Seems so," Myth replied tersely. “Judging by that color, we’re heading back into our own sculk-infested depths. Fine by me.” He pulled Smajor along as he strode unwavering toward the portal.

Smajor uttered a disappointed whine. “Not by me. I don’t want to see you half-covered in a sculk infection again. You’re horrifying enough to look at already. Also, you might as well let me walk on my own. I know when I’ve lost. Again. I’ll be a good little prisoner and go ahead of you.”

“How about the same time?” Myth insisted, keeping Smajor right next to him as he stopped in front of the portal. He narrowed his eyes at the sunflowers, a bitter frown forming on his face. He spared a glance at the trio who still stood where he had left them. “Thank you for the help. I’d say you owe me a cursed sword, but I hope we never meet again.”

“Good bye!” Shubble called. “Good luck with your dark and brooding world-protecting!”

“Goodbye!” Sausage echoed, just as cheerful. “Sorry about the sword, but hopefully you’ll find a better way to be a guardian!” He waved, smiling broadly – then, as the two turned to face the inside of the portal, he zipped over in a blink and pushed them in.

As the teleport magic wrapped around their forms, he hauled around to the side and gave a mighty punch to a section of the frame, breaking the portal. He continued to pummel it; the ground trembled from the reverberation of the force being unleashed, until the frame was reduced to rubble.

The sunflowers had taken a few hits from flying debris but still stood. Sausage gave them a weary smile and a nod of thanks, then dusted off his hands as he walked back over to his friends.

Scott let out a relieved sigh, while Shubble grumbled, “You could have left something for me to shulk smash.” Then she sighed, too. “Well, that was intense! Hey, so—” She turned to Scott. “You called him unstoppable, but he seemed chill after you guys got rid of his sword. You made it sound like he still had a weapon.”

“If he had wanted to,” Scott explained, “He could have made quick work of all three of us by using that stuff on his wings. He can change the chemical properties of it – from harmless, if not icky, to corrosive. Even your invulnerability and Sausage’s durability wouldn’t prevent damage, but especially when applied to a weapon.”

“Oh yeah,” Sausage remarked, “He did melt through that guy’s magic bracer in the other world where I met him!”

Scott raised an eyebrow in interest. “I haven’t heard about this. I’d invite you in to tell me more, but, well. Vampire things have been going on. Maybe your place would be better.”

“Maybe neutral ground,” Shubble countered, her tone distrustful. “You sided with us this time, but how do we know you’re not just trying to lull us into a false sense of security, or something?!”

Sausage lightly squeezed her arm – the one that hadn’t been bitten. “Take it easy, Shub. I think we all got a lesson from this in villainy gone too far. But maybe we should chat right here – we can sit on the porch. It’s a long story, so you can hop inside if the sun starts to come up.” He tilted his head at Scott to acknowledge his weakness. “I don’t think there’s a comfortable spot in Heaven’s Reach for you to sleep away the day. No coffins laying around.”

“Fair point.” Scott’s confident demeanor slipped into awkwardness. “Look, Sausage… I know I got carried away at the beginning by taking your wings, and I’ve been an unashamed menace plenty of times, but I’ve never actually killed anyone, like those two. The villagers were fine after they recovered from a few bites, right? And, well…” He trailed off, not quite ready to say what else was on his mind.

Sausage put his hands on his hips. “Heh. I was wondering why you didn’t use your stare on Myth for long. Probably would have brought up some memories, huh?”

“Yeah…” Scott admitted. “He was also a lot more intimidating than you, though, even when you were in full angel-mode.” He softly cleared his throat. “Anyway, I think to reach a truce, I should say… Well, every hero needs a villain, so I thought I would give you one, just to go along with the fun you seemed to be having by fashioning yourself into a superhero.” He gave a genuine smile, his fangs withdrawn into regular, flat teeth. “I might consider switching to favor a different power so I can join your team for a while. We have a lot of Deep Dark to investigate, after all. One of my other powers might work better for that.”

Sausage grinned at him, then put out a hand to grasp Scott’s in comradery. Shubble shrank back to her usual size and added a smaller, shadowy hand over theirs.

~*~

Myth instinctively spread his wings out behind him as he felt a strange jolt go through the magic-infused air. Something had happened to change the teleportation. His next impulse was to grab Smajor with a tighter hold, but in the next instant he felt the other be torn away from his grasp. Myth swore and tried to peer through the swirling teal flames to try to spot him.

He had to squeeze his eyes shut a moment later as the flames changed to bright yellow. He could feel them growing hotter, as if they had changed into regular fire. As they licked at his feathers, he heard the sound of ichor sizzling. He relaxed his face while keeping his eyes closed. This is it. This is the fires of hell claiming me at last.

He was at peace with that. He held his arms out at his sides in surrender, allowing the fire to consume him. Whatever Smajor’s fate was did not concern him any longer. It was time to answer for his obsession with revenge.

When the sound of sizzling stopped it was replaced with the sound of a completed teleport. Myth peeked one eye open, then gawked. He was looking out through purple swirls at a taiga forest. He hastily stepped forward so he wouldn’t be snatched away again – to truly be dumped in the Deep Dark, but when he looked over his shoulder, he saw a regular Nether portal. He then stared, dumbfounded, for another reason. He had only one pair of wings now, and they were orange. A quick pat around the back of his head to check for his smaller upper wings to be sure ended up revealing that he now had longer hair.

Much longer hair. He pulled several strands forward and saw an orange ombre cascade to it, to where it was fiery-red at the tips. He looked around his body and found a smattering of small yellow-orange feathers here and there – some on his chest poking past the torn trim of his surcoat, a few laying against his elbows. He touched his face; the horizontal scars were still there, but their ridges felt less obtrusive. So, he hadn’t been completely remade, just… reborn.

Reborn through fire.

For a moment he pondered this turn of events and what it might mean for what he now was, if he was no longer a cursed angel – which should have been the end of the line.

Well, if a new world could grant Smajor abilities again regardless of the method, a new one could change him, too.

That meant he had best start finding out where he was, and who had built all of the things he could see nestled among the trees. He glanced up and carefully turned around to take in the complexity of the copper sphere that housed the Nether portal. When he looked at the rest of his surroundings afterward, the main feature in common seemed to be windmills. He caught the sound of clanking coming from one of the buildings. There was active machinery somewhere.

This was definitely someone’s home, and was still in use.

Myth spread his wings and gave a test flap. It felt a little strange to have only one pair, but the wingspan at least felt familiar. He launched off the copper sphere and flew in a small circuit to take in the lay of the land.

Motion by the door of what was likely the main house caught his eye. He cautiously glided down to perhaps find out more about this interesting new place.

At first Myth went on guard when he saw white hair, but the person’s tanned skin and even movements spoke against this being Smajor. They wore some type of short brown jacket with a furred collar over what might have been a jumpsuit, and had practical boots. They looked startled as he landed a meter away.

Which was a reasonable reaction.

“H–Hi there?” the person stammered. They squinted at him. “S–Sausage? Is that you? Uh – oh! Um, sorry for wandering into your house, you’ve been gone a while and I needed a couple of supplies for a project I’m trying to finish right away. I was short a few things and figured I could pay you back – you know, replace what I borrowed before you got back, or just give it to you when you returned.”

Myth decided to feign ignorance, and tried to make his voice sound less gruff. “Who is ‘Sausage’? I just got here. I kind of rose from the ashes of my previous life and I’m still getting my bearings.”

The person blinked at him. “Interesting. That might explain where he went… I didn’t know hybrids had a chance of losing memories between lives. …That’s something to add to my notes. Um, sooo, I’m Sparrow, and Sausage was a ghast mage who built up all the steam-powered machinery around here. I’m dabbling in building machines, too, and I knew he had plenty of resources stocked up, so I came to borrow some.”

Myth now attempted a curious tone as well as a little humor. “Is it borrowing if you’re using it for parts of something? I can’t imagine you would give back those specific pieces.”

Sparrow shot him an amused smile. “How very literal of you. By the way, do you mind if I ask what you are? Aside from very orange, which is a nice color.”

“I think… a phoenix. It really did feel like I was being reborn inside some flames. Can I ask what your powers are?”

“Oh, I don’t currently have any! I’m just a human who happened upon this place when my airplane cra—when I landed here due to running low on fuel. My plane is fine, I can take off again any time, really, I’m just very interested in exploring the land of the hybrids.” Sparrow then grinned. “I’m hoping to find a way to become like you hybrids somehow. I have some ideas.”

Myth grimaced internally, unable to avoid being reminded of Smajor. “Be careful what you wish for. You wouldn’t want powers that make things, well, unpleasant.”

“I’m taking the scientific approach, and also studying all the hybrids I meet, so I think I’ll have an idea about the potential dangers ahead. Maybe you and I could even talk more another time – if you happen to remember more stuff.”

“We could,” Myth replied, feeling a little guarded again. “I might, um… I might hang around here for a while, have a look at those machines you mentioned so that I can learn more, too. And if that Sausage guy shows up, I could talk with him, and… find out why we apparently look alike.”

Sparrow gave a sympathetic look. “Yeah, I hope you figure that out. If you do see him, tell him Sparrow said hi! Maybe I’ll look a bit different next time I see him, as well.”

“Take care,” Myth replied, somewhat hoping he sounded sincere. “And… try to be careful.” He watched Sparrow walk down to a small open-sided building with a pillar in the center that was topped by what looked like a purple enderpearl. Sparrow put their hand on the pillar, then disappeared in a flurry of particles.

“Huh. Some kind of local teleport device,” Myth reasoned out loud. He would take a closer look at it later. For now, he ventured into the house. A tidy kitchen that was absent of life greeted him, along with the sound of clanking from upstairs.

A slightly quieter, equally rhythmic clanking came around the corner, and a small copper construct with a bobbing antenna on top of its head looked up at him. A slightly-resonating robotic voice declared, "What’s wrong with you?!"

Myth took a step back. "Excuse me? You can… talk?"

"That’s an odd thing to say."

"Oh, you probably think I'm that Sausage guy, too."

"Are you sure about this?"

Myth stared down at the copper construct. "But you said something was ‘wrong’ with me, so I thought that meant you mistook me for him. Do you… have some kind of sensors, or instincts, for dangers like iron golems? I suppose that could make you a copper golem."

"That's an odd thing to say."

"Oh. You're broken. I guess that was bound to happen with your owner missing."

"What did you say?"

Myth sighed. "I don't know anything about machines, so I can't even offer to try to fix you. Look, if you can actually understand me, I'm going to lay low here until the guy who belongs here shows up so I can have a chat with him, and avoid mistaken identities. If you're in enough working order, maybe you can help me figure out what all the stuff around here is. I just… want to see if I can manage to live a normal life. Because, somehow, I've been given a third chance to try again."

The little copper golem's antenna bobbed up and down, then it said, "Are you sure about this?"

There was enough of a change in its tone for Myth to realize it hadn't been speaking like a broken record the entire time. "...Yes, I'm sure."

"Okay."

~*~

Over the next two weeks Myth managed to settle into his new surroundings. He found some new, if still somewhat ragged clothes that could withstand the little bursts of healing flames that he occasionally emitted. He studied the equipment in the buildings, slowly learning how everything worked by tinkering around and following notes left by the previous occupant. This also led him to find out the copper golem was named Rusty.

All of it helped take his mind off the fact that other visitors continued to assume he was the Sausage they knew – which he went along with by taking personality cues from the other versions of himself that he had met in the other worlds – and the fact that he had yet to have a run-in with that Sausage… or the other person who should have arrived here through the mystery portal.

He hadn’t gone down to the Deep Dark to look for an Ancient City portal yet; he was too weary to wonder if Smajor had escaped that way and was possibly now terrorizing a different world. Perhaps that meant Myth had completely failed his duty, but thinking about it only led to him zoning out, even while holding a wrench about to adjust something on one of the machines.

Rusty broke him out of it by wandering up and inquiring quietly, “What’s wrong with you?”

Myth blinked and looked down at him sadly. “Just thinking about my previous lives. I made some… choices that could have been handled differently. I can’t go back and change them now.”

“Okay.”

“Except I don’t know if I would have done things differently. I didn’t see the point in acting any different. That was the fate I was handed, what was I supposed to do about it?”

“That’s an odd thing to say.”

“Yes, well, it was all very complicated and I think probably beyond what you can process.”

“Okay.”

“I’m sure you don’t have any concepts of destiny rattling around in that metallic head of yours. I would tell you about it, but I should stop thinking about it, anyway.”

“Yes.”

Myth uttered a humorless chuckle. “You’re right. Let’s get back to fixing the input on this thing and get that windmill working faster.”

.

A little later on in the day he went out for a fly around as a habitual patrol to check everything before he took the evening off from tinkering. He spotted something unusual beside the barn and glided down to look closer. There was now a line of mycelium beside the barn wall, peppered with red and brown mushrooms, one of which had already grown taller than the rest. He was puzzling over how it had gotten there when he heard a noise from around the corner – where the mycelium seemed to be leading to.

It sounded like someone trying to stifle a laugh. Myth bolted around the corner, his feathers bristling and small flickers of flame jumping off his body. It was a chillingly familiar laugh, but maybe it wasn’t the person that the dread in his heart was assuming it to be. It could just be this world’s—

The hair was white and eyes red, although a darker shade than he had last seen. A red mushroom cap was atop their head, and they wore the trappings of someone who could be a practitioner of nature magic, right down to the flower-bedecked mossy shawl and the satchel at their hip where a multitude of mushrooms could be seen threatening to spill out.

But Myth recognized what lurked within those eyes, and the smug twist to the smile revealed they knew exactly who he was. His voice dropped to its former gruffness. “So, you did make it through, too.”

“Sure did,” Smajor replied in a sprightly tone. “But please, relax. I’m immune to fire, anyway. And I’m peaceful now! Because whenever I attack anything, Gaia or whoever takes my mana away as punishment, which could kill me if I lose enough of it, and I really like these powers! I’ve become one with nature again! Or at least with mushrooms.”

Myth narrowed his eyes. “If you try to throw spores at me, I can still incinerate those. Do you want to relive the time when I was a blazeborn?”

Smajor flicked his hand up and down in a shooing motion. “No, no. Honestly, I would have stayed far away from you, knowing your disposition. I only came here to talk, because we have a mutual problem.”

Myth folded his arms over his chest. “And that would be?”

“People keep mistaking me for this world’s Scott, saying they haven’t seen him in a while, and they’re happy to see ‘I’m’ okay. Well, aside from the mushroom presents I’ve left them, but that’s all in good fun! Aren’t my babies cute?” He leaned over to pat one of the small red mushrooms on the tip of its cap, causing it to abruptly grow taller. He grinned at the effect, then continued, “I’ve played along, because it’s been nice to not have anyone breathing down my neck. But I started to wonder: where did he go? And, if you also ended up here, where did your double go? Maybe we need to solve this little mystery – before anyone finds out we’re imposters.”

Myth stared at him, his brow slowly furrowing into a scowl. “No.” He turned and started to walk away.

“Hey – wait!” Smajor refrained from grabbing his arm, but hurried after him. “You’ve seen what happens when we’re at odds with our doubles – you had to have noticed that overpowered hero pushed us into the portal. Maybe we can avoid things like that this time?”

Myth kept walking. “I want nothing to do with you anymore. You’re not luring me away from the first scrap of peace I’ve had since meeting you.”

“I swear that’s not what I’m trying to do! What about this: everyone has been saying their Scott was a – a teleporter, or something, but still accepted me right away, as if it was normal that I don’t have the same hair or eye color as the last time they saw him. Has that happened to you? Did anyone mention Sausage was something else when they first saw you?”

Myth stopped short, the question hitting home as it made him recall how Sparrow had said they knew a ghast mage version. “Yes. Doesn’t change my mind. Go. Away.” He resumed walking.

“Hey, I’m trying to look out for you, too! Give me a chance! If you don’t want to trust me one hundred percent, fine, but I can’t exactly tell anyone about this, and—”

“—And you can’t fight off the hostile mobs because you’ll lose your mana or whatever. So, you need me to do the fighting.”

Smajor was now the one to abruptly halt. “U-Uh, I mean, yes I need a hand with possible danger, but the plan is to do some careful investigating first and try to track them down without rushing into—”

“’Track them down,’ huh?” Myth glanced back at him with an accusing glare.

“You know what I mean!”

“Yes. I know exactly what you mean. Get lost.”

“Come on! I like this new life, too! Give me a chance,” Smajor pleaded again.

“Maybe go find them by yourself, and do something that could be considered worth redeeming you for once. If you and both of them come back alive, maybe I’ll think about giving that chance. If they are the only ones to come back, at least I can finally rest easy. You never know what the temperament of either of them will be. Maybe they don’t like mushrooms.” Myth smirked.

Smajor scowled back at him, yet within his eyes was a… hurt look. “Fine, then. I’ll do it alone. I’ll prove it to you that… that I really am tired of all the death. I let the thought of having powers again go to my head in the last world. I’ve learned my lesson this time. I swear.”

“Swear on what? Your hundred-and-five lives? Your brief second life as a vampire? This new one? ON MINE?” Myth glowered at him, then crossed his arms again. “I’ll believe it when I see it. If you had gotten ten powers at once in the last one, you would have decimated me the instant you had a chance. We can pretend to be a part of this world all we want, but we’re both still the same on the inside. Now, I’ll only say it one more time: GO. AWAY.” He spun on his heel with finality to walk off.

Smajor clenched his fists, then yelled after him, “It–It’s your fault, you know! M-Maybe I wouldn’t have been so hungry to get powers again if you hadn’t completely taken mine away!”

Myth flared his wings wide, small bursts of flame shooting off of them. Despite his proclaimed immunity, Smajor cowered and backed up. Myth glared at him over his shoulder.

Smajor found his nerve again. “Y-You don’t know what it’s like! Waking up one day and feeling nothing. No unique energy in your veins or any connections to the natural world dancing through your brain!”

“But I do know,” Myth growled, pivoting to face him and stomping toward him, looming tall, making Smajor retreat a few more steps. “That’s how I felt, after months of you draining my blood, locked away from the open sky and light of day. You get what you give. Don’t you dare try to convince me to sympathize with you now!”

Smajor averted his eyes for a moment, then rustled up a scowl. “Well, you don’t know what it’s like to start out life as a tiny, delicate bug, and then suddenly become stronger than you’ve ever felt before, and able to do more than you could have dreamed of in your tiny little life! It was intoxicating!”

“So, you’re saying the power went to your head the first time, too? And you decided to lord that power over me? I had no quarrel with you as a mothling!”

“You… were a light I couldn’t ignore,” Smajor grumbled. “And then you were a beacon of brightness disrupting the glorious darkness, and I was driven to blot that out.”

“You made a choice,” Myth snapped. “And now so am I.”

“Do you at least have any clues that you’ve found? I’ve got a possible lead, but anything would—”

“NO.” Myth emitted spits of flame again. “Get off my land, or else I swear—”

 A new, cheerful voice piped up, “Having a little argument, are you, boys?”

Myth twisted around with a shocked expression as he recognized the voice. He hadn’t heard it in such a very, very long time. Only Smajor heard his weak whisper of, “P-Pearl?”

They both then looked down incredulously at the chipper figure resembling a copper golem who approached them. “Hey, Scott! Hey, Sausage! Sparrow said something about you losing your memory of being a ghast. How are you feeling now? Anything come back to you yet? I might have something that could jog your memory.”

“I – um – no,” Myth stammered. His fury had been defused by her arrival. “We were, uh, just disagreeing on a matter of memories, actually. Scott was about to leave anyway, so… Um… W-We can talk if you want, Pearl.”

“Oh, perfect!” she exclaimed. “See you around, mushroom man! And don’t go putting any more mycelium close to my wheat field! I need that for mud bricks.”

Smajor sketched a bow. “Oh, I’ve placed down all that I needed to get my boost when I visit! If it happens to spread, it isn’t my doing! Must be Gaia’s will! Bye for now!”

Myth couldn’t help himself from throwing one last annoyed look in Smajor’s wake, but it softened to reluctance as he looked down at Pearl. “So, uh, what do you have to show me?”

“Is there a flat wall around here without any vines on it? I’ve got a photo to show you.”

“Photo…?” Myth peered around at the nearby buildings, then simply moved closer to the barn and reached up to pull some of the greenery off to make room. “Is… that enough space?”

“You silly sausage. You didn’t need to ruin your lovely decorations.”

Myth glanced at the cluster of vines and blossoms in his hands, then said absently, “They’ll… grow back.”

“All right. Now, let me see if I can get this to display properly.” Pearl hopped upward a few times, trying to stick a picture frame onto the wall. “Gosh. I keep forgetting how difficult it can be to do things when everyone else has built things so tall. Give me a hand?”

Myth hesitated, then lifted her and held her up to where she could reach a higher spot on the wall. The frame stuck in place as she intended, then she took something else from pocketspace and whacked it onto the frame, where it spread to fill four times the space of the frame itself. Myth stepped back and carefully put Pearl down.

“There! See! It’s us, from when you were a ghast mage! Look at your bland umbrella! You always had to go running from the rain, because ghasts aren’t waterproof. I don’t do well in water, either, so we both stayed away from it. I think I heard phoenixes can stand water better, so if you haven’t been in the rain since changing, it wouldn’t have brought up that memory.”

Myth gazed at the version of him from this world. The ghast mage wasn’t quite smiling, but there was something about the photo that conveyed the sense he was happy to have Pearl beside him. “I’m… sorry, Pearl. It’s… It’s not reminding me of anything. I… don’t remember when this was.”

Pearl patted his leg. “It’s okay, buddy. We’ll sort out what happened to you in time. It’s just nice to have you back.”

“Y-Yeah…” Myth’s voice broke. “Th-Thanks, Pearl. I’m – um – I’m going to get back to a thing I was working on. Need to, uh, have a mining session, too. Sparrow borrowed some stuff from me and hasn’t paid me back yet, so I’m just going to get more myself.”

“Do you want me to come along? I’ve got great radar for finding ores!”

“Maybe next time. I need to think about some things Sm-mushroom,” he quickly amended, then forced out an awkward laugh. “Sorry, that’s all he makes me think of now. Things Scott said, so I won’t be very conversational.”

“Okay. Well, holler if you need me! And grab me some copper while you’re mining. I can always use more!” She scurried off, leaving the photo behind.

“I’ll see what I can find. Bye, Pearl,” he called after her, then whispered, “Someday I’ll see you again, Pearl. I’m sorry if I let you down…”

~End~

---

[Post-A/N: Will Smajor find the supposedly-missing original Scott and Sausage of the New Life world? Will Myth change his mind and help him? And what will they do if the truth is revealed, exposing them for who they really are? … I don’t know yet, I only thought of these questions as I wrote the ending :D I’ll leave this open-ended for now, since ideas keep coming up when I’m working on other WIPs!]

---

[Post-Post A/N: An anon on tumblr asked what Myth’s Pearl would think of his descent into becoming cursed, and I had to ponder the answer since the full “goddess and her favored angel” dynamic was more like a cameo in Witherrise and hadn’t been a big part of the story until the Soul Liminality 2 version came along. So, here’s a tiny glimpse into his current feelings about that!]

[heebsjeebs]

I've decided it's time for more library AU talk. This time, Kuya.

Kuya differs in a major way from his original counterpart because yokai are not a thing in this universe, and as such, he's not a yokai. But he is an immortal, or at least, someone you'd need to kill if you really wanted him gone; old age is never gonna get him.

He also can shapeshift. This covers the necessity for fox aesthetics.

As someone who has been around for a really long time, Kuya needs to be careful as to when he shows himself and how he presents himself. While I'm keeping most racial backgrounds for the characters vague, Kuya is very obviously Asian in a western country were immigrants are highly unusual (I will get into geopolitics later, I promise.) With most of the villagers knowing not much of the world beyond the nearest town, they often have a hard time differentiating between people of a different ethnicity. This means that Kuya can visit every couple years for a few weeks or months at a time, under a new name and with different hair, and pretend he hasn't been around since the town's parish was first built. If he needs to visit sooner that it's safe, he does so in fox form, but this limits his ability to interact with the villagers.

Kuya keeps his past a mystery, but he makes it very clear that he was a frequent visitor of the library. He is aware that there is something afoot in the nearby area and that it has been the case for at least two centuries (or three librarians ago.) He does not speak about the reasons that led him to pursue immortality, but he has no issue admitting that he has seen things and he wishes to see more. It seems to have awakened vague hunger for something within him. It's not a desire for power. It's not a passion for life, nor a pursuit of knowledge. He's like a tree grows for no reason other than the conditions being right and it not being dead yet.

During a tour through the village at night, he sees a light coming from a window in the library, and goes to investigate. Upon seeing Yakumo, he gets a feeling that they are similar, but not quite the same. He's pleased at the idea of the library returned to its previous splendor (he never pieced together all it's secrets or read all the material available) but isn't willing to lift too many fingers to help. He starts by returning the books he "borrowed" and keeping an ear on the grapevine.

When it comes to skills, he speaks a variety of languages from the East, which makes him pretty much the only reliable translator for those. He is aware of there being other versions of himself in different realities (keeping in line with canon Kuya having an unusually strong link with other Kuyas) but this is merely a footnote/quirk for the character. His shapeshifting is limited to fox form, demi-human fox, and weird fox orb. I will go into more details why that is in my next post when I talk about Garu and Karu.

All in all, there isn't much about Kuya's past that I can talk about. According to himself, his involvement in certain things runs rather deep, and he knows more than most. It makes him feel good about himself to tease the others with the promise of knowledge he's unwilling to part with.

[sugaxjpg]

ghosts just wanna have fun; m

⤷  When Jungkook discovered that he could communicate with dead people, the last thing he expected was that they would be there to give him romantic advice.

✓ Couple: Jungkook x Reader | Psychic!AU & MedSchool!AU

✓ Filed under: fluff, crack (so many ghost puns), light smut (and jungkook being a nervous virgin) 

✓ Words: 20,062

Author’s Note: In which Jungkook is able to see spirits, but it’s just Taehyung and Yoongi giving him dating tips because he sucks at talking to girls. Hope you guys like it, because it has been on my WIPS for over a year and a half and I can’t believe it’s finally out there... emotional, really.

Also, huge thanks to @storytaeme​, who proof-read this mess like a champ. 

 There aren’t many embarrassing situations that can overcome the fact that Jeon Jungkook found out about his psychic abilities as he was about to lose his virginity. 

To say the least, that hadn’t been the most pleasant of scenarios to open the pathway to the afterlife. Really, there was no casual way that he could justify the scream that broke from his lips, or the dramatic spin he took as he turned around on the bed — which, ultimately, had him falling into the small space between the nightstand and the wall, with his legs up in the air, and his butthole fully exposed for both planes of existence to see. 

Still, that hadn’t been the worst part. If those two pallid silhouettes had merely disappeared once he had seen them, it wouldn’t have been as traumatic — perhaps Jungkook could have found a semi-believable excuse about what he had witnessed — but no. Not only did the ghosts remain there, with their arms crossed before their achromatic clothes and eyebrows slightly raised in expectation, they continued their conversation as if nothing had happened. 

“Oh, he was definitely going to put it in the wrong hole,” the shorter of the two murmured, clearly entertained at the idea. 

The other scoffed. “What if he did?” he threw back. “Maybe he likes that, we can’t judge.”

Truth was that, one way or another, Jungkook couldn’t even figure out what he liked — he didn’t even get the chance. He was gone from his (ex) girlfriend’s place before his brain could even attempt to construct a plausible explanation, even less to digest what had preceded that unfortunate revelation. Now, the wrong hole would forever be a source of trauma for him. 

And the problems didn’t exactly stop there. Ever since his cherry-popping session was interrupted, Jungkook hadn’t been able to move further than the first base, thinking that he would embarrass himself all over again or, worse, be frightened by a random demon passing by. Also, the constant mockery of his ghostly counterparts certainly didn’t help his concentration. 

The worst part? Helping Jungkook was kind of their whole point. And they couldn’t even do that right. 

Taehyung and Yoongi were their names — they told him right after the first night he saw them. Jungkook didn’t know what had happened in the afterlife that they had been punished with such a horrendous mission and, frankly, at that point, he was too afraid to ask. 

“But I don’t need your help,” Jungkook had said after one particularly bad date, dramatically throwing himself onto his bed. The furniture creaked under his weight and he wondered if it would snap before his mind did. “I just want you to leave me alone or, I don’t know, help me with something else — something useful.”

The two ghosts were by his desk, looking at his class notes and, at that comment, Yoongi raised his eyebrows. “Useful? Like what?” He asked. 

“I don’t know, solving crimes or something,” Jungkook mumbled, turning around so he would face the wall. God, he just needed two seconds alone. 

Behind him, Taehyung laughed. “You don’t even know how to open a bra, and you're out there thinking of reopening cold cases? Give me a break.” 

“Ouch,” Jungkook whispered. Maybe another time, it would’ve hurt his pride a bit more. That night, however, he was too tired to care. “For your information, I do know how to open a bra. You two just started whispering and it distracted me.” 

“We were whispering to you the instructions on how to open a bra,” Yoongi responded. “Would you need those if you knew what you were doing? No.” 

Jungkook sighed. “I just—”

“This conversation is done, we went over this already.” Yoongi interrupted. “You need us, whether you want it or not. You’re painfully bad at romance, Jungkook, even worse at initiating sex. I’ve never seen something like that before.” 

At that, Jungkook rolled on the bed and faced them. There was only one light in his bedroom that was on — the table lamp — and its clear orange shade passed through them both in an odd mixture of contours and lines. “Maybe if I could do it myself, without you two buzzing around the place, it wouldn’t be so bad,” he responded, aggressive. 

“Calm down. You were already bad enough when we arrived,” Taehyung told him, leaning over to see all the scattered pages on his desk. He frowned once he saw something he couldn’t quite understand, and quickly turned away from it. “Nothing changed much.” 

“Right!” Jungkook sat up on the bed. “Isn’t that enough of a sign for you two to stop trying to help me, then?” 

“No,” Yoongi said calmly. “That’s a sign that we have to try harder. And so do you.” 

He sneered. “I absolutely don’t.” 

“Yes, you absolutely do,” he said. “You know what? Grab your phone and get yourself a date with that girl you like from physiology class. Two weeks from now.” 

There was a second of silence as Jungkook’s mind struggled to piece the idea together. He wasn’t even sure about who Yoongi was referring to, there were a lot of girls in his class. “What? Why?” 

“Just trust us. She’s into you,” Yoongi spoke. 

Taehyung nodded in agreement. “It’ll work out.” 

Jungkook scoffed. “When does it, really?” 

“This time, it will,” Taehyung said. “Really. Do it.” 

“Fine.” He breathed out, reaching for his phone. “What girl?” 

Yoongi looked him up and down. “You know what girl.” 

With a deep breath, Jungkook scrolled over his contact list, struggling to find someone that he would have even the slightest chance with. Truth was, he has no fucking clue of which one of the hundred and fifty people in his class would even look in his direction, much less go on a date with him. 

“You do know… right?” Taehyung asked, clearly worried. “We can’t really give you names, but you… know, right?” 

“What? Oh, yeah, yeah! Sure I do!” Jungkook laughed nervously, clicking on a random name and opening a chat. “Here, I’m sending her a text right now. No reason to worry… no reason at all.” 

“Good,” Yoongi said, distracted. “Now, if you need us, we’ll be watching Gone Girl with your neighbors. We already missed the start of the movie, and I’m pissed off as it is.”

Taehyung nodded. “Amazing movie,” he said. Jungkook pressed send and prayed for the best. “We should have more movie nights over here.” 

 Yoongi said something in agreement and, in a second, they were already gone. Jungkook was left alone in his bedroom, with the light of his lamp casting over his features the desperation that he was feeling inside. 

“This better work,” he mumbled to himself. “You two better not be trying to embarass me.”

_____________

And then, two weeks later, Yoongi and Taehyung were laughing at him as his last failed attempt at romance got up from her chair and basically ran away from him.

Yoongi leaned back against the chair, his ankles crossed over the large table. If someone else could see him then, he surely would have received a few complaints about keeping the mall under semi-sanitary conditions. “Jungkook, I’ll tell you something,” he started, clearly amused. “You’re so bad at romance that I wish I was alive just so I could punch some reason into you.”

Taehyung, who had stayed mostly quiet during the painfully awkward interaction, walked beside Jungkook and chuckled at his distress. Still, he was focused on the other ghost, and the implication of his speech. “That amount of violence is the exact reason why you’re no longer alive, Yoongi,” he pointed out, then turned to Jungkook before he could smirk at the reprehension. “But really, that was awful. If I weren’t spiritually tied to you, I would’ve given up by now. You’re hopeless.”

“Completely out of it,” Yoongi added. “Do you even know how women work?” 

Jungkook rolled his eyes, and reached for his phone: there was no way he would enter a discussion with those invisible pricks in a public situation without something to mask it. Not that it would have been the first time.  

Yoongi materialized on the seat next to Jungkook, his head leaning against his hand. The boy was already used to those sudden changes of position, but that didn’t mean that he liked it. In fact, after Taehyung had appeared next to him during a particularly bad time — in which the incognito tab had already been opened, and a bottle of lotion already waited for him — he could never erase the intense panic of such experiences. 

But of course, Yoongi knew that, and he used his discomfort for his own entertainment. “You can’t ignore us, kiddo,” he said slowly, clearly amused. “And you can’t ignore the fact that you’ll die alone, surrounded by cats, if you don’t start listening to what we have to say. We have been tied to you for a reason.”

“And the reason,” Taehyung added, “is to make you stop cockblocking yourself.” 

With a subdued groan, Jungkook pressed his phone against his ear — an old trick that allowed for him to have a conversation without being seen as clinically insane by passersby. “You two are the reason why this date went downhill,” he told them. “You told me to say all the wrong things. You two set this up knowing I’d fail.” 

“Oh, no.” Taehyung shook his head in disagreement. “The words were right. Your delivery was awful.” 

“Western-movie-awful,” Yoongi added. “And if you want to change that, you have to trust us.” 

“Trust you? Where has that taken me?” Jungkook questioned, irritated. “You’re the reason why I lost my first girlfriend and haven’t had another one ever since.” 

Yoongi chuckled. “The girl from the first night? She never talked to you again after that, did she?” He asked, but, of course, he already knew the answer. “Damn, that was cringe-worthy. Butt in the air and everything.”

“No need to remind me, I was there.” Jungkook clenched his jaw, trying to control his demeanor. It wasn’t fair that there was not much that he could do to make the two men shut up — since they were, quite literally, already dead, he didn’t have many threats to utter. “And whose fault was that?” 

“Technically, yours.” Taehyung shrugged. “We didn’t present ourselves to you, you just saw us all of a sudden. We were just as surprised.”

“Besides, you were the one that had the B.F.,” Yoongi added. 

Jungkook raised one eyebrow. “B.F.?”

“Bitch fit,” Taehyung elucidated. “He watched White Chicks with your neighbors last night, don’t worry about it.” 

Jungkook groaned, pressing his hand against his face. Of course — the cherry on top would be outdated pop references, as expected. Yoongi had always been quite fond of the classic ‘with great power comes great responsibility’, and Jungkook thought that the overuse of that quote would be the ultmost reason for his insanity. Nevertheless, he came to understand that it was nothing compared to movies like White Chicks or even Legally Blonde. He would rather hear Uncle Ben’s famous line a billion times over before Yoongi accused him of having a B.F. once more. 

He took a deep breath and tried to focus on the environment around him. The murmurs and disembodied conversations around the mall had morphed into the sound of irritating insects, and he felt as if the earth could just open up and eat him alive. He probably committed a terrible crime in a past life to be stuck with Tweedledee and Tweedledum like that. 

“Anyways,” Jungkook stressed, “it didn’t seem like the two of you were surprised that I could see you. You just kept… talking about me. And my ass.”

Taehyung chuckled. “You were the one with the ass up in the air.” He vanished, then materialized in the seat in front of Jungkook. “What were we supposed to do? Ignore it?” 

“It was an easy target,” Yoongi spoke, then seemed to realize the words that had left his mouth. “Wait, I didn’t mean the double interpretation.” 

“Why can’t the two of you just fucking help me for once?” Jungkook asked aggressively. In a nearby table, one old man raised his eyes from his vegan burger and stared the boy up and down in disapproval. Jungkook lowered his voice and switched his phone to the other ear. “This is unbearable. You two are only making it worse.” 

With a gesture that Jungkook knew all too well, Taehyung used his thumb to point over his shoulder, towards the path that his failed date had followed. “That one wasn’t good enough for you,” he said nonchalantly. “We can tell. We know stuff.” 

“Then why did you set this up in the first place?” He asked, exasperated. 

“As DJ Khaled says, you played yourself,” Yoongi cited. One more reference and Jungkook would be the one joining the world of the dead. “It’s not our fault that you get nervous and can’t deliver the lines right. When have the two of us ever failed?”

“When you died,” he spoke back. “Or did you forget the stupid mistake you made?”

Yoongi hesitated. As much as he tried to play it cool, he wasn’t the smartest one around. In fact, his tragically premature death was all the evidence Jungkook needed to make his point clear. 

During his living days, Yoongi was pretty invested in rock climbing. On a beautiful summer afternoon, just as the sun was setting over the green-bathed hills, one of his friends dared him to bungee jump from the same cliff they had just climbed, and were standing on. Of course, the man agreed promptly, saying that he wouldn’t back out from such a mundane task; stating repeatedly that the fall wouldn’t be so high up anyway. But that wasn’t the turning point: Min Yoongi, in all his adventurousness, quickly decided that his local shop was too expensive and that he would create his own bungee jump cord instead. 

According to him, making the cord proved itself to be quite an easy task. He had gotten some help from his local adrenaline addicts and the final product was a very good copy of the factory-made ones. He measured the cliff twice just to be certain, compared it to the rope, and made sure to test the sustentation and elasticity as many times as he could. 

Still, Yoongi had overlooked an imperative detail: he shouldn’t use a cord that was the same height as the cliff he was jumping from. 

Needless to say, he only realized his mistake once he was already dead. 

Yoongi scoffed at the memory, ignoring his hurt pride. He swore he could still feel his back hurting when he thought about that. “That isn’t the point,” he said. He often did that: changed the subject once he realized he couldn’t leave with the upper hand. “The point is that you keep delivering lines like you’re a bad boy in a South American novela, then expect us to perform a miracle on you.” 

Jungkook frowned, lowering his head. “That’s actually so wrong.” 

But the problem was: Yoongi was right, and Jungkook knew it. In fact, that had been the exact reason why his date had left him that night — the boy had misunderstood Taehyung’s advice to play off as a mysterious man, and instead projected his image somewhere between a psychopath and a person that had only K-dramas as a basis of how human interactions were supposed to work. Jungkook missed his attempts at romance the entire time, but the breaking point was when Yoongi told him to act as a bad influence because, according to him, girls dig a good bad boy. 

Once again, Yoongi wasn’t the brightest mind when it came to risk-taking. That was why he was more dead than Jungkook’s bedroom. 

Jungkook, however, did not realize his own errors until it was too late. He had chuckled at his date’s embarrassment, using his opening to delicately place her hair behind her ear. “I’m going to tell you something,” he started, voice swift and placid as a river. With his eyebrows raised and his lips vaguely forming a pout, he looked like an off-brand version of Handsome Squidward. “I’m not really a good influence, and surely not the kind of guy you’d like to get with. So why don’t you do me a favor and follow the simple orders I give you, uh?”

Her eyes had widened in a mixture of second-hand embarrassment and fear. From the corner of his eyes, Jungkook saw her reaching for her purse over the table. “No, thank you,” she was quick to say. “I don’t think this will work, sorry. I’ll see you around college.” 

And that’s how they ended at that point. The point they always seemed to end up in. 

“I think I need a break from all of this,” Jungkook said, closing his eyes for a moment of peace. “I have a huge test next week and I couldn’t even study for it because of all the preparation for this stupid date. Can you two just take a step back? Just for a little while. Romance can’t be all that I think about.”

As he opened his eyes, he saw Taehyung staring at him. He couldn’t really read his expression. 

And, without an answer, the two of them vanished. 

_________________

If someone asked Jungkook why the hell he thought going to medical school was a good idea, he’d simply say that, at the time, it made sense. After all, he had thought, he’d be some sort of super-doctor, since he had an exclusive VIP pass to the afterlife — just imagine how many people he would be able to help just by asking a friendly ghost what was wrong with a patient. It would be a game-changer. He could even find the cure of cancer if he tried hard enough. 

But of course, he quickly realized that he should’ve thought further about his decision. Maybe being a detective would have made much more sense — it would have been a lot cheaper, that’s for sure, and he wouldn’t have to sit through almost twelve hours of classes every single day for a diploma that seemed to be too far away for him to care. 

That particular class, however, wasn’t the worst one out there. 

It was Tuesday, and Tuesday meant Pathology. Jungkook loved that class because the professor hated teaching it, so the students had to sit in silence for about three hours trying to read the textbook by themselves. The professor said he would be there to answer any questions, but he was mostly scrolling through his phone and interrupting students every time they tried to ask him something — “That’s in the textbook, just keep reading.”  

Most of his classmates absolutely despised that subject, but Jungkook thought it was wonderful: he often learned better by himself anyways, and the lack of conversation during class brought him some sense of peace. Besides, Yoongi and Taehyung hated sitting in that quiet room for too long, so they mostly left after ten or twenty minutes of trying — and failing — to strike up a conversation with Jungkook. It was the perfect day.

Well, most days it was. 

Just as he was about to move forward to the next topic — Adrenal Insufficiency and Addison’s Disease — , the boy felt something poking his bicep and he was quick to turn to his side. Instantly, he recognized your expectant gaze and something fluttered inside his stomach. 

“Hey, Jungkook,” you whispered, leaning over your desk, “is tomorrow afternoon still up? I really need help in cardiac physiology. I kind of suck.”

He hummed in agreement, fighting against the nervousness that crept up on him. Jungkook’s palms started to sweat just by looking at you, he really was one step away from reverting back to his pre-teen days. “For sure. I’ll be at yours at five,” he managed to get out. 

“Thank you so much,” you said, then moved back against your seat. “I owe you one.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled. If it had been anyone else, Jungkook would’ve had a stroke by then — after all, he wasn’t always invited to a girl’s place so easily. That’s someone that I have absolutely no chance with, he thought. So friendzoning himself made everything much easier. “Are you sure you don’t want to meet up at the library?” 

“I can’t really concentrate there,” you answered. “But if you prefer, we could go.” 

“No, no.” He shook his head. “Your place is fine.” 

You smiled again, and Jungkook thought that maybe being shot wouldn’t hurt so much. “Thanks. See you at five.” 

Jungkook nodded and turned around, facing his laptop. Just as he was about to restart typing his notes, he saw a known reflection at the corner of his computer. Oh, God, have mercy.

Yoongi’s reflection smirked from the back row. “Oh, man, she’s so into you.”

 Jungkook shook his head in denial, eyes still glued to the PDF file in front of him. If anything, his classmates would have just guessed he was finding that subject more difficult than usual and, quite frankly, no one could judge him. 

“No?” Yoongi raised one eyebrow, reappearing by his side with his hand supporting his cheek. Jungkook didn’t even need to look at him to know that he was just looooving the discomfort that grew inside his limbs. “I know those things, kiddo. It’s my job.”

From the front seat, Taehyung hummed in agreement. He had his arm placed over the chair, and seemed to find that entire situation a bit boring — maybe because he had seen it countless times before. “She definitely wants to get some of that,” he said. “We are proud of you, son.” 

With a subdued sigh, Jungkook scribbled some aggressive words at the corner of his notebook, and showed it to the man by his side. “Look at this, Taehyung, he’s trying to convince us that they’re just friends,” Yoongi mocked, crossing his arms. “That’s cute. Just because you’re that oblivious, it doesn’t mean that we are.”

“Jungkook, we’ve been watching the two of you talk the entire semester,” Taehyung added. “Besides, Yoongi made me follow her around once. She’s definitely into you. In unholy ways.”

Yoongi nodded once again. “She wants to be your boo.”

“Was that a fucking ghost pun?” Taehyung’s nose cringed up in disgust, and Jungkook had to fight back the reflex of laughing at his reaction. “Awful.”

“At least I’m not the one who ghostwrote Jungkook’s ethics essay.” Yoongi threw back. “Yeah, and that was another pun. You’ve got no spirit.” 

“You know what? Now I know why Jungkook can’t stand us anymore.” Taehyung smirked and, then and there, Jungkook knew exactly what was coming. “He can see right through us.”

The other ghost nodded. “Yeah, we’ve reached a dead end.” 

Jungkook groaned in exasperation, hiding his face behind his hands. “This is torture.”

Next to him, you chuckled. “Come on, pathology isn’t even that bad. You’re good at this.” 

“I know, I’m just tired.” He turned around to look at you, uttering the same excuse he had been using this entire semester. Not that it was an uncommon one, especially in the fifth circle of hell that was medical school. “I think I need to splash some cold water on my face. Wake myself up.”

You hesitated, staring at him as he stood up.  Jungkook looked strangely pale, like he was about to throw up all over the classroom. “Is everything okay?”

Fantastic! My bachelor ghosts are just making me have a nervous breakdown. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” He said, almost stumbling over your chair. Some of your pens fell down, but Jungkook couldn’t even bring himself to get them. He’d probably just knock everything else over in the process, and he wasn’t even sure that he could stand back up after. “Shit— Sorry. I’ll be right back.”

Behind him, Yoongi chuckled. “Spook-tacular skills, as always.”

_____________

The sound of running water was all that entered Jungkook’s mind for a moment, his face feeling the coldness of the liquid as he splashed himself once, twice, trying to clear his thoughts. In the end, it was mostly in vain: his class was ruined, his notes were left unfinished, and he couldn’t get a second of tranquility anymore — not even in Pathology. If he weren’t canonized after his death, he would file a complaint for sure. 

Abruptly, he closed off the faucet and the water stopped running. There was a heavenly instant of quietness, in which Jungkook followed the crystalline droplets falling from his hair to the sink, before Yoongi’s voice echoed behind him. “How you doin’, champ?” 

Jungkook sighed and raised his head, looking at his ghost counterpart through the dirty mirror. “Is the bathroom empty?” he asked calmly. 

“Hm? Yeah,” Yoongi said. “The ghost is clear.”

Just like that, his serenity was gone. “Yoongi, can you fucking stop? Your puns stopped being funny after the third attempt,” Jungkook asked, exasperated. He pulled some paper towels, and got even angrier at the way they fell apart in his hands. Good to know his college money was being used wisely. “Jesus. Where is Taehyung?”

“You know he hates toilet paper,” Yoongi told him. “Reminds him of his death.”

Jungkook considered the compelling idea of banging his head against the bathroom wall until he, himself, was part of the world of the dead. As he recalled very well, Taehyung had been a victim of Final-Destination-levels of misfortune: just because he had forgotten to take toilet paper to his camping trip, the boy had been forced to use nearby leaves. Those, as he would soon come to understand, caused an awful allergy on his lower lands, and the punctual bleeding was a sufficient opening for opportunistic diseases. The culprit? Some super strange bacteria that floated around the river. He was dead less than twenty hours after he came back home from septic shock.  

Taehyung had endured, quite frankly, one shitty death. And, yes, Yoongi had made that joke a few too many times before. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Jungkook realized. “What did I tell you two about chit-chatting with me in large public places? Especially my classes? I have to pay attention. And I have a test in two days, I need to be all here, and not thinking about other people.” 

Yoongi giggled — almost childishly so — at the other’s anguished attitude. His teeth, a pallid shade of white, could barely be seen against the olive-green tiles that covered the bathroom walls. “You weren’t paying attention to the processes of intestinal inflammation, that’s for sure,” he teased, forcing himself to hold back his jokes a bit. 

“I wasn’t even studying that chapter,” Jungkook mumbled. 

Even Yoongi, who had a dense personality for such a diaphanous soul, could tell that the student was not in the mood for mockery. “Man, why are you so stuck-up? Taehyung and I are ghosts, but you’re the one with the dead sense of humor.”

Jungkook realized he needed a moment to think before he started yelling at nothing in a public bathroom. He really hoped the other stalls were empty, but he couldn’t be bothered to check. 

“This isn’t about the puns. You two just don’t respect my privacy,” Jungkook said. This time, he was able to pull some good paper towels and proceeded to dry his face. “This has been going on for too long. Why don’t you two just vanish for some time?”

“Wish I could, kiddo, but I’ve got hours to clock,” Yoongi finally admitted. From the mirror, he could see the frown of confusion that was cast over Jungkook’s features. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m only following rules. Talk to the big guy upstairs if you want to complain.”

He threw the paper on the trash and shook his head in confusion. “I just don’t see the point of any of this.” 

“You don’t have to.” Yoongi took a step closer. He often looked so unbothered — the two of them, actually — that Jungkook caught himself wondering which certainties they held, notions that would most likely be given after death. “Just do what we tell you to do.”

“That has only embarrassed me so far,” he said, turning around. “I don’t think I have it in me to trust in you two one more time. It has gotten me nowhere. Or, rather, nowhere good.”  

Yoongi sighed. “Alright, let’s do it like this, then: You go and help Y/N with her cardio whatever stuff, and Taehyung and I just watch. We promise to shut up, unless you’re doing something seriously embarrassing. Other than that, absolute silence.”

Jungkook narrowed his eyes. “You promise you two won’t tell me what to say?”

“Promise.” Yoongi nodded. He looked very sincere. “We won’t talk to you.” 

“I can live with that, yeah,” Jungkook agreed, leaning against the bathroom sink. “Sounds good.”

“Perfect.” He smiled. “Trust me, Jungkook. I only made one mistake in my life.”

Jungkook smirked. “And it killed you.”

“Not the point.” He raised one finger, clearly annoyed, then pointed it at Jungkook. “You’ll do great. It’s not like you’re gonna tell her about us or something.” 

He laughed. “Yeah, that’d be awful.” 

________________

But that was, ultimately, what he did.

To be fair, it was never Jungkook’s intention. He was completely sure that it would ruin not only his friendship with you, as it would also ruin his reputation, both as a student and as a future physician. Come on, how would he even explain that? How could he tell anyone that he not only saw two obnoxious ghosts, but that they were there to give him romantic (and sometimes sexual) advice? That’s insanity. 

Spoiler: he didn’t explain it very well. 

In the cosmic perspective, however, it was kind of Yoongi’s fault too. He had the problem of giving away too much sometimes, especially when he was alone and free from Taehyung’s scrutiny. And it was that extra bit of information that catalyzed the explosion that would become Jungkook’s confession. 

For some reason or another, Taehyung hadn’t joined the two of them that day, as Jungkook crossed the campus towards your place. For the first time in a long time, their conversation — which was, again, masked by Jungkook pretending to be on the phone — was actually quite pleasant. Yoongi had told him a bit more about his life back in the day and explained that he was studying to become a lawyer when he died. 

“I was thinking of dropping out anyways,” he said. “I just picked a random thing to study because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And, well, I kind of did drop off. Just not from the course.” 

Jungkook could not help but laugh at the absurdness of it all. Sad coincidences aside, it was unusual for Yoongi to make jokes about his death. Taehyung was much more open about it, but Yoongi seemed to be very bitter because of the way and the time he passed. But of course, who was Jungkook to judge? 

“You know,” Yoongi started after a moment of quietude. “Taehyung and I were pretty surprised that day at the mall.”

Jungkook frowned. “Hm? Why is that?” 

The other man chuckled. “Honestly? Because you’re dumber than we thought.”

Seems like pleasant times didn’t last much between the two of them. “We’ve established that I can’t talk to girls, Yoongi, I know.” Jungkook really wanted to change the subject. 

“No, not that,” he denied. “Let’s go back a little. Remember what we told you in your bedroom that night? To get the physiology girl.”

Jungkook nodded. “Yeah, what about it?”

Yoongi laughed, amazed that Jungkook still didn’t get it. “You called the wrong one, idiot,” he explained. 

“What?” Jungkook paused in his tracks and, in a mindless reflex, forgot he was supposed to be talking on the phone, and looked directly at Yoongi, lowering the device away from his ear. “There is a right one?” 

“Hey, pay attention to your surroundings.” Yoongi pointed at a couple that also stopped, confused at the man’s actions. Jungkook cleared his throat, trying to regain some composure after that minor instant of public humiliation, and placed the phone back against his ear. “Let’s keep walking.”

With his heart beating insanely fast against his chest, Jungkook did as he was told. His mind was flooded with fragmented thoughts, working around words that seemed so simple, yet held so much.

“Yes, there is a right one — and you’re going towards her right now.” Yoongi responded, placing his ghostly hands inside his ghostly pockets. Jungkook never noticed that he still used the clothes that he had on when he died, but Yoongi wouldn’t be the first one to mention. “So don’t make a fool out of yourself. Not this time.” 

Jungkook swallowed dry, feeling as panic started to climb up his lower limbs, weighing down on his muscles. His throat was dry as a desert and forming sentences proved to be a far more difficult task than he had anticipated. The air around campus had suddenly become hot for an autumn day, unable to enter his lungs with ease. He really was two steps away from a full-blown anxiety attack. 

Yoongi frowned. “You good?” 

Jungkook licked his lips, only half aware of his actions. “Y-Yeah,” he struggled to get out. “Just kind of a bomb that you just dropped on me, that’s all.” 

Yoongi nodded, uninterested. “Yeah. Get over it. It’s not a huge deal.” 

Only, it was. For Jungkook, at least. What if you two were… you know? Meant to be? Like the soulmates kind of thing; star-crossed lovers. Like in the “we got married after two months of dating and we are still together after sixty years” kind of insane love? That was a lot to process, a lot to think about, especially when he was having like three different crises at once. It was a recipe for a disaster. 

Jungkook really was dumb when it came to anything besides his textbooks, but not for jumping into those conclusions. Frankly, most people would’ve been a bit overwhelmed by that. 

No, his problem would reside on his next thought: If you two were meant to be, you would understand if, for some reason, he had to tell you about his ghosts, right? 

Right?

_______________

To be fair with Yoongi, he did keep his promise. The two didn’t interrupt your conversation once, even if sometimes the moment begged for it, and Jungkook was two words away from ruining everything. Strangely enough, things seemed to work themselves out — the horrible jokes that Jungkook uttered seemed to suit your sense of humor; the shy and nervous demeanor that plagued his dates slowly melted away. It was good — in fact, it was the best talk he’s had with someone in a long, long time. 

The issue was that, as much as the two of them didn’t talk directly to Jungkook, they still talked. 

“What was that thing that she said, you know, to her friends?” Yoongi mumbled, his words coming out as a vague connection of syllables being formed at the corner of his mouth. He had his arms crossed, and his legs pushed up on the couch. “You told me that.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung took a moment to think. He had one of his hands buried deep inside the pockets of his white pants, and the other on the back of the couch. The two of them watched the conversation that unfolded above your living room table, the two of you trying to make sense of a subject that seemed to change every five minutes. “It was like ‘homeboy can like, get it’... or something.” 

Yoongi nodded, satisfied. “Nice.” 

Jungkook cleared his throat, trying to ignore that comment. It wasn’t news that you were interested in him — that had been the only thing Yoongi and Taehyung had told him for the past few hours, but it was very, very awkward to know those specific details. He was sure he wouldn’t like you to know the private conversations that he had with his friends, even less about the things he thought about when he was alone. There was something extremely violating about that, but, no matter how hard he tried to convince them, the two ghosts didn’t seem to care enough to stop. 

The giggle that came from across the table ruptured his thoughts. “Why are you blushing?” You asked.

“I’m… uh…” he struggled, suddenly feeling the heat that emanated from his cheeks. Wonderful. Even when he was just thinking about something, he still managed to make a fool of himself. “Just… thinking about some embarrassing things I did in third grade. The usual.” 

“Yeah, I’ve been there.” You smiled, reaching for the textbook across the table, and flipping through the pages. “I ruined this entire science project once. It was something about the pollination of flowers, but I missed that class. Ended up coming back to a lot of roses around the classroom, and decided to take a few of them home to my mom.”

“Oh no.” 

“Yep,” you nodded, looking back at him. Jungkook thought that he had lost himself in your eyes for a moment, a depth so engulfing that he couldn’t find the right words once he stared at it. He had never noticed how beautiful you were — or, rather, he had, but he had never stopped to think about it — and, now, it seemed as if that was the only thing that he could focus on. “Everyone in class was super pissed, the teacher even tried to suspend me.”

He shook his head, trying to imagine a mini-you justifying your flower thievery in front of the principal. “That’s insane, actually.”

“Kind of.” You shrugged, looking back at the book. You weren’t sure what you were searching for anymore, so you decided to close it. You two had been studying for almost four hours straight, you didn’t think that your brain could handle any more of that. “They didn’t really believe me when I told them it was a mistake. Guess no one even noticed my absence the day before, which is… somehow… even worse, now that I think about it.” 

A giggle reverberated in your throat as you dove into those forgotten memories, and Jungkook followed you. 

“Don’t laugh at child me, that’s so cruel.” You smiled. 

“I’m not.” He shook his head. “I just thought you were cute. Still are, you never really stopped being cute, I mean. You’re actually really pretty now, like a woman—” 

“I got it.” You placed your hands over his, and the shock of your skin against his seemed to spread throughout his entire body. He didn’t know if that was a soulmate thing of if he was just really horny. Probably a bit of both. “Don’t worry about it. You’re pretty cute too. Like a man.”  

“Thanks.” Jungkook itched the back of his neck, trying to find the right words to build his sentence. Panic began bubbling at the bottom of his stomach, sinking its teeth into his flesh as his words left his throat. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something.” 

It was the right time now: the studying was over, the conversation was flowing, you had told him that you thought he was cute — like a man. Now, he just needed to ask you out. Just that. That’s it. Three words. He had practiced: Wanna go out? That’s it. So casual. So playboy-esque. He could do it. No pressure. If you were the one, he didn’t have much to get wrong. 

But, oh my god, what if he got everything wrong? I mean, how many stories are out there of couples who were destined for each other, but something happened and it pulled them apart forever? The wrong time, the wrong place — the wrong words. Jungkook wasn’t psychologically prepared to ruin something so huge with a moment so small. He needed to calm down and focus. Just get the words out. Everything would sort itself out after that. He had faith. 

“What is it?” You asked. 

Jungkook cleared his throat, his eyes still glued to the touch of your hand against his. Outside, birds were chirping, unaware of the absolute shitstorm that was about to ensue. “So…” he started, “I was thinking that maybe I could— I mean, you — I mean we could...”

You tilted your head to the side, confused. “Sorry, what was that?” 

He blinked once, twice, fighting against the wave of sheer terror that had taken over his brain, whitening out his thoughts. He had the sentence ready, but he had forgotten how to form it. “I’m just trying… I’m just trying here to just…” He swallowed dryly. “I was just wondering if you would like to… I mean, if it’s not a problem—”

From the other side of the room, Yoongi groaned. “Just do it! You’re making eternity so much longer.”

And that’s when it happened. 

Jungkook turned around and yelled: “You told me you wouldn’t talk, you asshole!”

The entire room froze. A horrible moment of bewildered reticence followed as  the realization crashed upon him like a gigantic wave. He couldn’t have just yelled at nothing in front of you, like an absolute madman, could he? 

Your eyes widened and you pulled your hand away from his. The lack of warmth was like a dagger being thrown directly into his heart. “Excuse me?”

Yep. He totally did that. 

“Not you!” He was quick to turn around — maybe a bit too quick, too intensely. Even with nervousness clouding his vision, Jungkook could still see the shadow of fear and confusion mingling amongst your features. He had ruined everything, and that was all that he could think about. “I’m just... personalizing my anxiety...”

“Are you... alright?” You spoke slowly, measuring his actions. Jungkook had changed from cute-nervous to absolutely-unhinged-nervous; eyes widened and jaw clenched; hands gripping the wooden chair like his life depended on it. Maybe that study session was a mistake. Maybe you should’ve just googled an online class, like your best friend told you to. “It looks like you’ve seen a ghost.” 

Taehyung chuckled. “That’s pretty funny.” 

And, if the situation wasn’t already bad enough, Jungkook started to convince himself that perhaps it would be a good idea to come clean with you about his psychic abilities — maybe that was actually the only way that he could get out of that mess. If you were his soulmate, you’d understand. It’d all be okay. Yeah, maybe you’d be seriously creeped out for like the first twenty minutes, just like he had been, but eventually you’d understand what had happened. You two would laugh about it later, maybe when you were sixty, on your rocking chairs somewhere, staring lovingly at a cornfield. 

Was he losing it? Probably. But he didn’t have the right amount of mental clarity to fully think about the consequences of his actions in that moment. 

“I… did,” Jungkook spoke sluggishly, barely comprehending the trail of words that dripped from his tongue. His voice was much calmer, but he could still feel like his entire body was engulfed by flames. “I did... see a ghost. Two actually.” 

You frowned. This afternoon couldn’t possibly get any worse. “What are you talking about?” 

“Jungkook, don’t you dare,” Yoongi warned, but his voice seemed to come from miles away. 

Slowly, as if he wasn’t really aware of his own body moving, Jungkook adjusted his position on the chair, looking down at the sea of handwritten notes in front of him. He wished that human interaction was as easy as the types of pulmonary volumes, or perhaps the changes of oxygen inside the hemoglobin. That he knew. That he could deal with.

“Ok so, have you ever watched The Emperor’s New Groove?”

You blinked twice, puzzled. “What?”

“The Disney movie,” he clarified, looking up at you. 

You shook your head, measuring how long it would take for you to bolt out of the door and run away from your own apartment. Maybe you could get out and then call someone for help. You wished you had already taken Psychiatry. “I know what that is, Jungkook, but I just don’t understand where you’re getting at.”

“Maybe it’s in the TV series that came after the movie, I don’t know, but Kronk has these two little beings on his shoulders, a devil and an angel.” He cleared his throat, and looked back at the sheets of paper. It was so hard to stare at you now, when just seconds before, it had been so easy. “I kinda have the same thing, only, they’re dead people. You know, ghosts. And they’re not on my shoulders — that’d be pretty awful, actually.” 

Taehyung mumbled from across the room, “I really don’t think this is a good idea, Jungkook.” 

“You’re making no sense right now,” you said, worried about the effect that your words could have on him. “I think… I think it would be better if you left.” 

“I can see dead people, okay?” Jungkook interrupted, exasperated. You had to understand. You were the right girl from physiology class, you had to understand. 

“Okay, Sixth Sense.” You laughed nervously. Bad time for a joke, you thought, but the boy barely seemed to process it. “Listen, I can tell you’re not doing very well right now, so you should probably leave, maybe clear your head a bit. You already helped me a lot—”

“No, I don’t need that. My head is clear—”

“You know, there is a very good mental health clinic in campus, I’ve gone there already, and I think—” 

“No! I don’t need mental health, it’s true!” Jungkook stood up, walking towards the couch, where the two dead men sat. There was an unspoken contest in the room to see who could be more flabbergasted at the boy’s actions, and you and Yoongi were in a close tie. “I can prove it.” 

You almost choked on air. “You what?” 

Jungkook pointed at nothing. “They’re here right now, I can prove it to you.”

Discombobulated, you shook your head one more time. Maybe if you did that enough, your chaotic thoughts would just fall out of your ears, and everything would be much clearer. Maybe that was a prank, maybe that was a full-blown psychotic breakdown. You just didn’t really know what to do from there. “Jungkook, I don’t think—” 

“Come on, just show yourself to her!” He yelled into the air, more specifically at your white couch. You just wanted to study cardiology, how did it end up like this? “Give me a sign, I don’t know.”

Yoongi chuckled, completely amazed by the way Jungkook continuously broke the Dumb Records that he had previously set himself. No bonus in heaven would be worth dealing with Mr. Smooth Brain over there. He should’ve gone for the orphans instead. “I cannot believe you right now.” He stood up from the couch and sighed, utterly defeated. Maybe he could just get it over with, and then The Big Man Upstairs would show him a bit of mercy. “But I guess now there isn’t much to lose. I’m only doing this because at least it would make this situation a bit better.” 

“How?” Taehyung asked. 

“There’s a slight improvement between psychotic crisis and psychic abilities,” Yoongi responded. He walked towards the window, rolled his eyes at the pathetic presentation of supernatural phenomena, and pulled on the white curtains of your living room. “Here. Boo! Paranormal activity.” 

“Did you see that?” Jungkook asked, excited. 

However, instead of meeting a surprised gaze, he only saw panic and preoccupation swimming inside your eyes. “The curtain moving? Yeah. That was the wind, Jungkook.” You stood up from the chair, measuring your chances at escaping. He was getting more and more erratic, and you didn’t know where the situation could escalate to next. “You’re seriously freaking me out right now. You’re being really aggressive about this.” 

“Yoongi, you’re worse than the spirits in Ghost Hunters,” Taehyung groaned, reappearing next to your living room table. “You have to be bold, that’s what I always say. Make a statement.”

Taehyung’s statement, of course, had been the biggest slap against a lamp that Jungkook had ever witnessed in his life. The ghosts had once told him that it took them a huge amount of concentrated energy to do something as little as move a napkin, so there was no way that Taehyung wouldn’t be exhausted after making that heavy piece of furniture fly against the wall, shattering into a million little pieces with a loud noise. 

“What the fuck?” Jungkook asked. “That was so dangerous! She could’ve gotten hurt.”

He shrugged. “You asked.” 

“What the fuck was that?” You yelled, taking your hands to your face. Was that shared hysteria? What did you just see? Maybe you were the one who needed fresh air and a shrink visit. “You’re pranking me, right? You have like a nylon string wrapped around your hands or something.”

Jungkook moved his head in denial, raising his hands up in a sigh of defeat. “I swear to God, it’s true.” 

“I don’t… I don’t believe you,” you said, clearly terrified. Not at the idea of ghosts, Jungkook realized, but of him. That date surely couldn’t have gone any better. 

Yoongi sighed and materialized behind Jungkook. Lost causes, Yoongi was surrounded by lost causes. “If you really want her to believe you, tell her we can say some stuff about her, but it’ll probably freak her out.”

“They are saying that they can convince you by saying some stuff about you.” Jungkook swallowed dry. Something inside him was screaming for him to just shut the fuck up and leave your building. If there was something he learned by being with the two undead pricks, is that they could always make a situation worse. 

But desperate times require desperate measures. 

You adjusted your posture. Trepidation was still very present in your face, but there was also a small spark of interest swimming somewhere inside your eyes. “I seriously doubt that.” 

“I can show you,” he said. “Just… don’t freak out.”

“Fine.” You licked your lips in anticipation. “The name of my first pet.”

“Is this a password verification?” Yoongi groaned. He just wanted to watch Twitches later that day, but Jungkook just had to start a seance in someone else’s room. Again: the orphans would never. “Fine. It was Mr. Green, a tortoise she killed by leaving to dry in the asphalt.” 

“It was a tortoise, Mr. Green. You left it on the asphalt and it died,” Jugkook repeated without hesitation. 

You blinked twice, taking in the answer. “This is so fucking weird. How did you know that?”

“Yoongi told me.” Jungkook pointed over his shoulder, where Yoongi stared you down. Just by looking in that direction, you felt a shiver run down your spine. You were losing it. “He’s, you know, one of the ghosts.” 

“I’ve never been so exhausted in my life.” You placed one hand against the chair, leaning against it. There was no use to keep that conversation going, and you both knew it — and yet, just like a politician lying, it just didn’t stop. “But you could’ve asked anyone that.”

It was Jungkook’s turn to become completely lost. “Why would I ask such a specific question? I don’t even know your friends.” 

Behind him, he heard another loud groan. “I’m so done with this.” Yoongi placed his hand on his shoulder. “Let me talk, Jungkook.” 

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” He asked.

Yoongi snorted. “We are all out of good ideas. But I think this is the best chance you’ve got.”

“Who are you talking to?” You almost yelled. 

Jungkook looked back at you and, for some reason, the preoccupation in his eyes scared you even further. “Okay, this is going to be really weird, alright? But it’s not gonna be me talking.”

“What?” 

“It’s like… a kind of possession,” he explained, gesticulating a bit more than socially acceptable. “It’s like… uh… One of them is going to use my mouth for a bit. Talk through me.” 

You laughed, and there was a high-pitched sort of timbre to it. That might as well happen. “Sure, of course. What else? Exorcism live?” You asked. 

“Just give me the permission,” Yoongi commanded. 

Jungkook took in a deep breath, and clenched his hands into fists. He hated that part. “Fine,” he consented. 

Gradually, the muscles around his mouth and throat grew numb, as if Jungkook had entered a dream, and his body was responding in autopilot. There was an awful pressure on his shoulders and a ringing in his ears as Yoongi accommodated himself around his body, reaching for control. That was the closest he would ever feel to being a ventriloquist’s puppet, and it was as bad as it could be. 

Yoongi spoke through him with ease: “You told your friends last week that you didn’t care if Jungkook was a shy virgin who played minecraft because he was exactly your type. You also said that your average score in physiology is ninety-seven percent and you didn’t need any help. You just needed an excuse to stay with him. Happy?” 

Jungkook inhaled sharply as the pressure on his body subsided, the numb sensation around his neck growing thinner by the second. “So violating,” he complained. 

“How did you know that?” Your voice shook him back to reality. Both of you were reaching new levels of terror every minute. “Are you stalking me?”

That back and forth was starting to get exhausting. “That wasn’t me. That was Yoongi,” he tried once again. He was starting to think that the whole thing had been a bad idea. 

“Well, fuck you, Yoongi,” you spat. 

Yoongi scoffed. “Fuck you too, princess. Maybe you really don’t deserve this man.”

“I’m not saying that,” Jungkook whispered to him, then turned back to look at you. He wanted to hug you and magically erase your memories for that afternoon, but, in reality, he couldn’t even move his legs without feeling like he could fall face-down on the floor. He really, really, really hated possession. “I’m just… I’m sorry about that.” 

“About what, Danny Phantom?” You asked, throwing your hands up in an exasperated gesture. And there it was: from panic to complete fury. That was all that you two needed at that moment. “About making me scared shitless, or about exposing me like this?” 

He suspired. “Do you at least believe in me now?” 

“Does it look like I believe in you, Jungkook?” You practically screamed. Truth was: neither of you knew that for sure. “I’m a woman of science, you can’t expect me to believe that—”

Taehyung groaned, walking closer to Jungkook. It must’ve been a world record how quickly everyone in that room got angry. “Let me talk,” he requested. 

Jungkook sighed, defeated. How much worse could it possibly get? “Go ahead,” he said.

There it was again: the feeling of being under anesthesia, the weight of an entire other being pressed down against his shoulders. Good times. “Yesterday,” he started, “you masturbated to the thought of Jungkook, but you forgot to recharge your vibrator so you had to use your fingers and you complained the entire time. Explain that, science woman.”

Another deep gasp, and Jungkook was folding over, finding balance on his knees. He really felt like he couldn’t even think straight anymore, his mind covered by a thick fog. 

You didn’t seem to be in a much different situation either. “I’m… gonna pass out.” 

“That was so unnecessary, Taehyung,” Jungkook whispered. His mouth was terribly dry, and his hands were shaking. “You guys really don’t know your limits.” 

“Taehyung? Who the fuck is that?” You screamed. 

Taehyung crossed his arms. “Hey, at least she believes you now.”

“He’s the other ghost. The one with no sense of boundaries.” Jungkook stared at Taehyung, clearly pissed off. Maybe his voice would’ve come out a bit more forceful if he didn’t get thrown around by sadistic spirits. “I’m sorry about that.” 

You shook your head, dumbfounded. “I need you to leave now. And take your ghosts with you.” You leaned over the table, and grabbed his notes, shoving them into a messy pile. Not that you were super worried about the integrity of the paper at a time like that. “This has really crossed like... every line.” 

Jungkook licked his lips, trying to find the right words to say. Someway, he managed to get his legs firm enough so he could start walking in your direction. “Please, I didn’t mean to—” 

You shoved the pile of notes into his backpack, and then the backpack into his hands. Before he could react, you grabbed him by the arm, guiding him towards the exit. “Thanks for helping me, Jungkook.” The door opened with a forceful pull, and you shoved him into the hall. “Never speak to me again. Bye.” 

The bang of the door slamming shut was horribly loud, reverberating inside Jungkook’s chest for a moment longer. Now that the possession daze was starting to move away from his body, the boy could feel the traces of panic crawling inside him. 

Jungkook dropped his backpack to the ground, and started knocking on your door. “Y/N, please!” He called. “I’m so sorry about everything. You have to believe me!” 

Your yell came muffled from the other side of the door. “Go away!” you screamed. “Or I’m calling the cops!”

Defeated, he closed his eyes and placed his forehead against the wood. Now that the situation had already climaxed, the absurdity of it all was starting to become much more palpable. 

How could Jungkook be so stupid? How could he think that you would act normally as you were exposed to the supernatural world? Especially in such distressing, violating ways. Even if you were his meant-to-be, his forever person, it would be ridiculous to believe that anyone would take all  in that with ease. He really outdid himself that time. 

“Let her be, you two can talk another time,”  Yoongi spoke, leaning against the wall. It was possible to see all the places that the pain was starting to crack through his semi-translucent form. “Good attempt, though. I’d give you a star for trying.” 

“This is not funny,” Jungkook mumbled, moving away from the door so you couldn’t hear him. The artificial lights above his head were sharp, buzzing mockingly. “You two keep saying that you’re here to help me, but you keep making stuff like this happen. If she really did like me, you just ruined everything.”

Yoongi raised one eyebrow. “Why do you care so much about that one?”

Jungkook glanced at him. “You told me she’s the one.”

He frowned, crossing his arms. “I told you she was the right girl from physiology class, not that you two were going to die holding hands or something,” Yoongi told him. “You filled the blanks yourself.”

“That’s why we don’t give away all those details,” Taehyung scolded Yoongi, looking at him up and down. Jungkook had never seen him so irritated before — at least not about serious things. “You know we could get in real big trouble if someone heard about that. Which, correct me if I’m wrong, it’s kind of the entire deal of heaven to know about stuff.” 

“I know, I know,” Yoongi groaned, disregarding his preoccupations. Maybe Taehyung didn’t understand his galaxy-brain plan yet, but he was sure that the heavens would. Or at least he hoped so. “But I think there’s something else that we need to focus on. Jungkook wouldn’t care this much about the other girls he dated, even if it was meant to be.” 

“Why are you two talking like I’m not here?” Jungkook asked, annoyed. 

“Why are you talking to yourself like you’re not in a corridor of an apartment building?” Yoongi threw back. Without a second of hesitation, Jungkook picked up his backpack and turned on his heels, walking down the hall, completely done with them. “Hey, come back. Just tell me what’s the fuzz with this one.” 

He didn’t look back. “Aren’t you two supposed to know? All-knowing and shit.” 

“We want to hear it from you,” Yoongi pressed on. 

Jungkook opened the heavy door to the stairwell, allowing for it to hit behind him. Taehyung and Yoongi passed right through it, of course, and kept following him as he quickly moved down the concrete steps. “Y/N is my friend.”

Yoongi hummed. “Go on.”

“Isn’t that enough for a justification? What else do you want from me?” He inquired, aggressive. The sound of his steps echoed like drums through the expansion of the staircase, and he hoped that no one else had been listening to his apparent monologue. “I don’t wanna ruin this friendship by talking about her masturbation techniques, I don’t know if that makes the situation super unique.” 

Taehyung clicked his tongue. “You have other friends.” 

“I care for her, alright?” Jungkook turned around abruptly, making the two ghosts stop in their tracks. Taehyung had almost lost his balance, but it wasn’t as if that could have any serious consequences for him. 

Jungkook sighed, trying to control the anger that had built up so rapidly, and continued speaking. “I care for her more than other friends. Fuck, is that what you two wanted to hear? Besides, it’s not like I know anyone better than her.  I didn’t even think I had a chance with someone like that until you told me. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s like… super hot when she’s mad—”

“Oh, would you look at that.” Yoongi grinned, satisfied. “Jungkook’s whipped.”

“What?” His eyes widened. “I’m not.”

“Why are you so red?” Taehyung asked.

Jungkook covered his face, feeling the heat of his checks emanating against his palms. “I’m not!”

“Okay, okay, calm down, tiger,” Yoongi raised his hands in a silent request for forgiveness.  They were still a few steps above Jungkook, and the whole scene looked like something straight out of the Book of Revelation. “This is a good thing, we actually thought it would never happen. It’s not like you’ve been this introspective in what… five years? More even.” 

He narrowed his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Yoongi sighed, and looked at Taehyung for confirmation. The other ghost nodded in a silent agreement, and Yoongi started to speak. “Listen, we’re here to help you, but we didn’t say everything,” he admitted. “We couldn’t, really, otherwise it wouldn’t be so... organic.”

“What?” 

“Jungkook, you were desperate to lose your virginity,” Yoongi explained. “You still are, in a way. And that’s not a good thing, because you’ll get the first thing that moves and you’ll try to stick your dick in it.”

Taehyung chuckled drily, looking at a fixed point. “Which is not a good idea, believe me,” he spoke in a mumble, and Jungkook could not help but think that his advice came from personal experience. That, of course, was a story for other, less sober times. 

“Is that why the two of you always interrupt me?” He asked, a bit offended. “Because those girls weren’t right for me? Like this is a purity cult or something?” 

“Eh.” Yoongi did a so-so gesture with his hand. “Kind of. Not really. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you actually feel something for this girl, something beyond the thoughts that come from your lower head.”

“And she feels something for you too, even after that trainwreck that we just witnessed in there,” Taehyung added patiently. “Which will help us a lot in the long run.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.” Jungkook crossed his arms, stubborn. He really could look and sound like a child throwing a tantrum when he wanted to. “I still don’t get it. It wasn’t your place to tell me who I could or couldn’t be with, it’s not as if you guys are—” 

“Jungkook, that’s enough,” Taehyung interrupted him. “You don’t think it makes sense? Stop and think for once in your life.” 

He narrowed his eyes. “What did you say?” 

Taehyung glanced at him. “Listen, we just saved you from months of wrong dates and wrong nights. We pushed away people who didn’t really care about you, who just wanted you to use you, or who would end up cheating on you anyways. Not everyone gets this privilege,” he said, completely done with that victim mentality. “So, for once in your life, be grateful. Be grateful for the bad dates,  the embarrassment, the times that it didn’t work out. And, look, we are sorry for the way they had to go down, it wasn’t as funny as it seemed from our perspective. But if you didn’t have those bad dates, you’d have very, very bad months following them. So you’re welcome.” 

“And all those bad dates lead you to the right person,” Yoongi completed, watching as Jungkook’s expression withered into shame. He was staring to get it — they could almost see the hamster in his brain start running. “Now, listen, we don’t know if this is the for-life situation, that’s not the kind of information we have, alright? Do I look like a seraphin to you? No. But does it matter?  No. Most relationships aren’t the for-life thing anyways, but they are here to teach you something. And if the afterlife thought that there was something good for you here, who are we to judge?” 

“Yeah,” Taehyung agreed. “Now, can you  please forget about all those past people and just focus on her? Maybe shut the fuck up while you do that? I get that you wanted to get your dick wet, but there’s a time and a place for that.” 

The boy sighed, and leaned against the red handrails. It took Jungkook a few seconds to speak out. “I feel like I’ve just been lectured by my parents,” he admitted. 

Taehyung relaxed his shoulders. “Good,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to slap some sense into you for months now, but I didn’t really have the permission.” 

“Feel better?” Jungkook asked.

He nodded. “Much better.”

“I’m happy for you,” he said. Jungkook ran one hand through his dark hair, pushing back the strands that had fallen over his eyes. “And about Y/N… There’s no way she’ll ever talk to me after this mess. I ruined everything.”

Taehyung nodded. “You pretty much did, yeah.” 

“You took the worst case scenario and managed to make it even more horrible,” Yoongi said. “It’s pretty impressive, actually.” 

“Thanks, that’s great.” Jungkook chuckled, humorless. He could always count on them for emotional support. “But, I mean… What do I do now? I mean, is there anything that we could do to save this?” 

“Worry not, my child,” Yoongi smirked, crossing his arms. “Taehyung and I are masters of seduction, and we’re here to help you. Just trust us.” 

“And before you say something,” Taehyung interrupted, raising one finger. “You never had the right girl before, so we weren’t really trying. I think we can find some real solid ground here.” 

Jungkook breathed out, and looked down at the grey stairs. Yeah, it’s not like he wasn’t at the bottom of the well already. “Fine. One last chance,” he agreed, looking back at the ghosts. “Just tell me what I have to do.”

______________

Much to Jungkook’s delight, he didn’t need to muster up the courage to talk to you, because you did that first. 

For the first time in their lives (and deaths), Yoongi and Taehyung actually did something right. Jungkook didn’t really know the details of their plan, all that he knew was that they would find a way to “make you see what you were missing” so that you would “come crawling back to him”. Which didn’t sound threatening at all.

 Countless possibilities crossed Jungkook’s head — horror movie hauntings, Taehyung invading your dreams with claws for fingers, Yoongi with a wet wig crawling out of your TV — but, in the end, no matter how much he insisted, the two of them just wouldn’t say a word. Apparently, there was a lot going on backstage that Jungkook had no idea about, so he should just “take it easy” and wait for the sequence of events to unravel. Amazing. Now he knew how the characters in Final Destination felt. 

“Just be patient, young one,” Taehyung had told him, thrown over his couch like a Victorian monarch. “All you need to know is that she will be back. Everything else it’s just… details.” 

And, two weeks after the dormitory incident, you did. 

There was a muffled thud as you placed your large books over the wooden table, and sat down across from him. The silence of the library didn’t allow for Jungkook to foresee your arrival, and to meet your gaze so suddenly was enough for his face to burn up in shame, his heart drumming against his ribcage. His sympathetic system really needed to quit with that bullshit before he collapsed. 

“Hey,” you mumbled, seeming just as uncomfortable as he was. “Can we talk? You know what about.”

The boy swallowed dry, and leaned a bit forward. “Y-Yeah, sure,” he whispered back. “I’m really sorry, Y/N, I don’t know why I thought—”

“For how long?” you sliced his sentence short, making his lips fall shut. 

Jungkook raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What?”

You cleared your throat, and shuffled on your seat. As much as the library was practically empty, neither of you felt courageous enough to use your usual voice tone — especially when dealing with that subject. “How long have you been able to, you know, see them?”

Jungkook took a second to respond, licking his dry lips and looking at the line of bookshelves as if seeking for the right thing to say. He felt awkward enough just interacting with someone from the opposite sex, but talking about the ghosts he saw? Hell, that bordered on a panic attack. Especially after the circus show that was that past study session. “Almost two years now, I think,” he finally answered. “But they told me they’ve been around for a bit longer. I just couldn’t see it.” 

You shook your head in concordance, even if the information was everything but easy to understand. “That’s crazy,” you spoke. “I don’t know how you deal with it.” 

Jungkook let out a dry chuckle. “Not very well, as you can probably tell.” 

 “I don’t think I can judge you. I didn’t precisely react well either.” You swallowed dry, wide eyes flickering on the world behind Jungkook. “Are we alone now?”

As much as he already knew the answer, he looked around just to check. “Surprisingly, yeah,” Jungkook responded, slightly suspicious. Yoongi and Taehyung were always looking over his shoulder and throwing him into messy situations, he couldn’t tell why they weren’t there when, quite frankly, it was their perfect shot at humiliation. Maybe they really were doing their jobs for once. “I don’t know why they’re not here. That’s weird.”

You shrugged as if to say that you wouldn’t know either. “What are their names again?”

“Yoongi and Taehyung,” he answered, then waited another second to see if he could feel their presence. Nothing again. That was really strange — they often responded upon being called. “Listen, Y/N, I hate what we went through. They had no right to say those things. I’m used to the privacy issues, since I have been with them for a while. But you aren’t, and I can only imagine how weird you felt hearing all that. I’m really, really sorry.”

You pressed your lips together which, Jungkook guessed, was a failed attempt to suppress the rubor that exploded across your cheeks. He couldn’t blame you, though, for there were limits that were crossed. “I’m over it if you are,” was what you forced yourself to say. 

“I am,” he lied. None of you were particularly good at not telling the truth, and that was pretty obvious. But ignoring it was a start. 

“Good, okay.” You cleared your throat, placing the palms of your hands against the pile of books. “Sorry for lying about needing help in physiology, and all that. I just needed an excuse to spend more time with you, as you know now. I guess it’s obvious that I kinda have a huge crush on you.”

“It’s fine.” Jungkook laughed, extremely relieved to notice that your last sentence was in present tense. “I kinda have a huge crush on you too.” 

Honestly, even if it wasn’t for life, he’d have to give you props for still liking a guy that had had a borderline psychotic breakdown in your apartment, talked about your pet tortoise, and your masturbation technique, and still had the nerve to expose you to the supernatural world. It was a lot. Good on you for taking it like a champ. 

“And,” he continued, “sorry for using my ghosts to expose your secrets. I just needed to find a way for you to believe me, and I had no idea about what they were going to say. I was pretty much in a frenzied state, I wasn’t thinking straight. It won’t happen again.” 

“Apologies accepted.” You smiled, relieved. You were really beautiful, Jungkook thought in a breathless instant. He could look at you all day. “You know, it’s going to take me some time to get used to all that. I mean, I’m still not a hundred percent sure I believe in everything, but, I… My lamp flew across the room, and you told me things that you simply couldn’t know about. So, if it’s a prank, it’s a really good one.”

“I know how it is.” He nodded in agreement. “It was really difficult for me at first, too. I understand if you’d rather just stay away from me from now on.” 

You sighed, looking down at your books —  the two mammoth-sized volumes of Harrison’s Internal Medicine staring at you in mockery. “Weird thing is: I don’t really want to.” You crossed your arms and leaned back against the chair. Was that the sound of angels singing? Jungkook couldn’t tell. “I’d love to spend more time with you. Alone, if possible. And that counts both planes of existence.” 

“Sounds fair, I’d love that.” Jungkook smiled. As he met your eyes, he was filled with a  warm, rose-colored courage that he had never felt before. “Actually, I was wondering if, you know… you wanna do something? With me? Alone, of course. No ghosts. One of these days, I don’t know. If you’re not busy—”

You raised your eyebrows, interested. “You’re asking me out?”

He sighed, shoulders falling in defeat. “Trying, yeah. You can see I’m not the best at that either.”

Your smile grew a little. “That’s a big yes.”

“Really?” Jungkook stared at you like a lost puppy, his mind going completely blank for a second or two. The hamster in his brain was now somersaulting through his body, landing on his stomach and hitting him with a wave of nausea. “Wow, thanks. I don’t really have an idea of what we could do, though. Didn’t think I’d get that far.”

There was an instant of quietude as you thought for a moment, the space between the two of you permeated by the vague sounds of pages turning. “Movies?” You asked. 

“Sounds great.” Jungkook smiled openly, his shoulders falling in alleviation. He didn’t know what Taehyung and Yoongi had done, but he was beyond thankful for it. Seemed like their sacrifices weren’t in vain, after all. “The film majors are doing this 2000’s marathon this week. I think this Saturday it’ll be either Mean Girls or 17 Again.”

“I’m in,” you spoke excitedly. “I’ll be there, just text me the details.”

Jungkook almost swallowed his own tongue as he watched you stand up, presenting him with a gorgeous view of thighs beneath the level of your skirt. “Great!” He exclaimed a bit too loud, his voice a bit too high-pitched, awakening his inner thirteen-year-old. He cleared his throat, lowering his voice another octave. “I mean, yeah, great. Thank you for… saying yes.”

“Thank you for asking.” You placed your hair behind your shoulder, and leaned in to pick up the heavy pile of books. All nine kilos of Internal Medicine. 

“See you there,” he said. 

You smiled. “See you, Kookie.” 

Jungkook watched you walk away as if he was floating in a fever dream, completely unable to believe what had just unfolded. Did he seriously manage to get a date with you? Of all people? He must’ve been hallucinating. Maybe he ended up falling down the stairwell and died, perhaps that was his heaven, and he would— 

Behind him, Taehyung sneered. “Kookie? You’re getting softer than your dick.” 

Jungkook turned around so brusquely that the chair tilted back and, if it wasn’t for him holding down to the corner of the table, he would’ve fallen to the ground. “You two were there all along?” He whispered-screamed. Before he could land a sermon on them, though, he met the devilish smirk that was plastered all over Yoongi’s features. Oh no. No. The movies. “No, Yoongi, I know what you’re thinki—”

“Get in, loser, we’re going to the movies.” 

_________________

Saturday rolled around and, with it, came your much anticipated movie date. Jungkook had spent the previous night tossing and turning on his bed, completely monopolized by anxiety, thinking about every possible apocalyptic scenario that could go down. What if he tried to take a slip of his drink, but ended up blinding himself with the straw? Maybe he would step on the wrong chord and set the entire college on fire. Or maybe he would trip, fall down on a poor girl, and kill her on the spot. That would be awful, you would never talk to him again after any of that — the imaginary disappointment in your face was like a punch in the gut. 

Was he being ridiculous? Obviously. Did that stop his pre-date panic? Obviously not. 

Still, with the might of a thousand warriors, Jungkook managed to drag himself to your date, his knees almost giving out beneath him when he saw you — he didn’t believe you would actually come, for some of him still thought it was all a sadistic heaven prank. Somehow, he blurted out a compliment about how good you looked while he was having a heart attack, and almost lost his consciousness when you smiled at him. 

Yep, it would be a difficult night. 

The movie marathon consisted of three 2000’s movies, and the two of you managed to arrive right before Mean Girls started, fumbling on your seats as the rest of the room grew quiet. The makeshift classroom didn’t look like a movie theater in the slightest, but it wasn’t as if you were expecting that in the first place — it was nothing more than an agglomeration of chairs and desks, combined with a few puff chairs and old couches scattered around. Much to your delight, you and Jungkook managed to grab one of those couches before another couple returned to their seats, and he could see that his ghost buddies had already found their own place on the empty chairs behind the two of you. 

Surprise! None of the catastrophic scenarios in his mind actually came true. In fact, he had a great time with you, laughing at your jokes and sometimes flat-out stealing Yoongi’s commentary just to make you chuckle, which granted him a few mumbled complaints coming from the back row. 

“Jungkook is so superior, don’t you think, Taehyung?” Yoongi mocked, and Jungkook was sure that he would be kicking his seat if he could. “So smart. So great. But can’t even figure out his own jokes. Has to steal them from a poor dead man. You’re a grave robber.” 

Taehyung chuckled. “Hey, you’re helping him, at least. That’s our whole point here.”

“Grave robber!” he repeated, more aggressively this time. “I can’t believe you’d ruin Mean Girls for me like this. Not even hell would be so cruel.” 

“How dare you say that about hell? If I get in trouble because you can’t keep your mouth shut, Yoongi, I swear to God—”

“Now you’re saying God’s name in vain, you heretic! That’s so much worse!” 

Jungkook had to bite back a laugh as the two continued bickering behind him, only half aware of the scene in which Regina George glued her own picture on the burn book. He didn’t know when exactly he had done it — he had been so on edge the entire night that it was almost as if his own brain was instantly deleting his memories, but he had managed to curl one arm around your shoulders, pulling you closer to him. He was sure that you could hear the frantic heartbeat of his heart against his chest, but he didn’t mind. He didn’t think he could even get that far. 

But he did, and even reached beyond that. 

Once the screen faded to black and the credits started appearing, there was a resounding wave of claps in the room, cheering for the absolute cultural reset that was that movie. One of the students moved to the front of the room, explaining that they would take a ten minutes break, then would return with She’s All That. Apparently, 1999 was close enough to the 2000’s for it to be picked as well. 

“Do you wanna stay and watch it?” He asked, fighting every muscle in his body not to smell your hair. He knew that it would be super creepy, yeah, but your head was right there and it smelled so good. 

You removed your body from his chest, looking up at him. “I would love to, but I have to wake up early tomorrow to study,” you said. “Big test on Monday.” 

“Sure, yeah.” Jungkook nodded, slightly let down. To be honest, he had completely forgotten that information until that point. Seems like he would have a lot to catch up on during the next day. “I’ll walk you to your dorm.” 

You thanked him with a smile, and you two got moving. 

The walk back to your place wasn’t exactly awkward, but it could have also been a lot better. The two of you talked about the movie animatedly, the subject that you had to study — an awful amount of gastric pathology to memorize — and, eventually, landed on your weirdest experiences during hospital rounds. You were in the middle of telling him how two toddlers (twins) managed to puke on you at the same time, and how you thought that was a sign of a telepathic connection between the two, when he felt the back of his hand brush against yours, and everything around him turned into static. Suddenly, it was all that he could think about. 

Jungkook had already spent the entire date with questions flying around his head. When was the right time to pull you close? Could he hold your hand, or would that be too bold? Could you smell how sweaty he was? Or maybe his deodorant was too strong? If he ran away, trained to be an astronaut, and joined the Mars colonization mission, would he be able to avoid embarrassing himself again? 

And, more importantly: would it be weird to kiss you goodnight? 

Considering the fact that he had no clue how to read your body language, and that almost all of his romantic experience came from bad sitcoms and Twilight marathons with Yoongi, Jungkook didn’t judge himself suited to answer that last question. He didn’t know if he should hold your hand, he didn’t know if you were just being polite or if you actually had a good time. Again and again, his anxiety got the best of him. He should really get back to seeing his campus counselor. 

“So… we’re here,” you said, holding your hands in front of your body. You had stopped at the entrance of your block, and Jungkook took that as a sign that you didn’t want him to go all the way back to your apartment. Fair enough. “Thank you for tonight, I had a lot of fun. We should do this again sometimes.” 

“For sure, yeah.” Jungkook nodded, somewhat relieved that you asked for that. At least that was a clear sign that you didn’t completely hate him. “That would be great.” 

You agreed and looked down at your shoes. The darkness of the night enveloped the two of you, only half of your features illuminated by the dim yellow shine of the nearest light post. Jungkook almost fainted when you stared into his eyes, with a faint blush painting your cheeks, and questioned, “So, you’re not gonna kiss me?” 

Windows’ blue screen. Please, hold.

 “I… I, uh—” Jungkook’s mouth felt as if he had just swallowed an entire desert, his brain fighting to keep his voice steady. Your eyes, so focused and expectant, felt like daggers against his chest. “I didn’t know if you wanted to,” he finally admitted. 

Your shoulders fell as a tender smile curled up on your roseate lips. Jungkook thought you were the most beautiful thing he had ever had the pleasure of seeing. “I do,” you told him gently. His heart almost leaped out of his throat. “Do you want to?” 

And that was the easiest question that he would ever answer. “Yeah,” Jungkook said. 

You smiled. “Perfect.” 

The boy barely had time to react before your hand was curling around the fabric of his shirt, and you pulled him towards you in a playful tug. Jungkook’s eyes stayed comically widened for a second after your lips met, but, soon enough, he allowed himself to melt into your embrace, his nervous hands landing on your waist, and his mind instantly calming down. 

He kissed you slowly, carefully, almost afraid that, at the faintest of movements, reality would shatter and he would lose that moment forever. Of course, it didn’t, and he stayed on that instant a bit longer before, at last, he pulled away, slightly breathless. 

“I should’ve done that sooner,” he confessed. 

You tilted your head at him, fingers playing with his hair. “It happened at the right time,” you said. “Some things can’t be rushed. Especially the good ones.” 

Just like that, he understood what Taehyung and Yoongi had been saying all those years. No matter how cliche it was, there was some truth to the saying that ‘what is supposed to happen, will’. And, the better that something is, the more work it will require. 

But, as he kissed you again, Jungkook realized that it was all worth it in the end.

____________

The following months by your side were so amazing that Jungkook constantly brought back his theory that “maybe he was actually dead, and that was heaven.” And, if it was, he would make sure to shake God’s hand himself because, holy fuck, was he one lucky man. 

Okay, maybe the first few weeks together were a bit painfully cringe-worthy, but he was really trying to pretend as if they didn’t happen. Jungkook didn’t really get the memo, and he had to slowly figure out how to behave romantically with you. He got it wrong the first few times — kissing you at the worst possible moment, or sending you a huge bouquet of roses during your microbiology exam — but, eventually, you guided him towards more neutral grounds. Then everything went smoothly. 

Surprisingly, even the undead duo calmed down for a while. Yoongi and Taehyung were still around, since they had no other option, but were much quieter now, only making punctual remarks when Jungkook made a fool out of himself. Hell, they even left the room when things started getting more serious between the two of you, instead of giving Cosmopolitan-worthy advice, and that was a huge improvement. 

But, of course, it wouldn’t be Jungkook’s life if there wasn’t a huge joke waiting just around the corner. Soon enough, another issue would present itself. 

It came in the form of a warm mumble against his lips, and the vague — yet deliciously noticeable — rolling of your hips against his own. “Jungkook,” you called, breathless after a long make-out session. The two of you were on his couch, with you sitting on his lap, straddling him. “I want you.” 

He froze. What else would he do? Jungkook was a panicked virgin. He knew that your intimate times would happen eventually — and he really wanted them to — but he didn’t expect that his mind would completely malfunction once he got so close, with his erection growing inside his pants and the softness of your breasts pressing against his torso. It was just a lot, alright? 

And, lost amidst the tempestuous sea of his sudden despair, all that he could utter back was, “Are… Are you sure you want to do this right now?” 

“Yeah.” You placed a strand of hair behind your ear. Jungkook thought that he could faint on the spot. It was actually a pretty common sensation with him. “You don’t want it?”

“No — I mean yeah! Yeah, I want it.” He choked on his words, looking down in embarrassment, only to meet the contour of your thighs. His youth leader had been right all along: temptation was everywhere. “I’m just… I’ve never done anything before.” 

“Hey, it’s okay,” you tried to calm him down, placing your hands on his shoulders. The heat of your palms seemed to have some effect on the chaotic emotions that boiled inside him, for his muscles relaxed considerably under your touch. “I won’t pressure you, okay? If you want to take more time, it’s completely fine.” 

“No, it’s not like that. I don’t feel pressured.” He shook his head, then looked up at you. You could almost feel the conflict inside his gaze, the mixture of anticipation and fear that you knew all too well. “I want you, Y/N, I really do. I’m just nervous.”

“It’s fine,” you repeated. “We don’t have to do anything now, and we can start slo—”

But he couldn’t listen to the end of your phrase, because a familiar voice damn near hollered from the other side of the room. “Taehyung, come in here! Quick!” Yoongi yelled, signaling through the door like he was controlling the air traffic. “He’s getting some! Jungkook’s about to get his cherry popped the fuck off!” 

You tilted your head to the side, staring him down with preoccupation. “Jungkook? Are you okay?”

“The fuck! There is no fucking way!” Taehyung’s voice got louder as he yelled, signaling his growing proximity. “Call NASA right now!”

Jungkook sighed, throwing his head against the couch. Goodbye erection, and goodbye any chance of having sex that day. “Yoongi and Taehyung just showed up,” he mumbled bitterly. 

You lowered your gaze and took a deep breath, then removed yourself from his lap. Jungkook hated the lack of heat, and he swore he would have drop-kicked the two if they weren’t in a different dimension. The certainty of death was all that he needed to know that he would get his revenge some day. “Of course they did,” you complained, fixing your clothes. “I love being cockblocked by cockless ghosts. Again.”

“Hey!” Taehyung sounded actually offended. 

Jungkook turned around harshly, his voice bitter. “Can the two of you just fuck off? This is not the time.” 

“So you two can fuck?” Yoongi grinned, then looked at Taehyung. “We should, actually.”

“Jungkook… this is too weird now.” You raised your hands in a silent bargain for it all to stop. You could deal with a few psychic sessions every once in a while, but being a voyeurism victim for ghosts wouldn’t be the way you wanted to spend your afternoon. “Let’s do this another time, okay? I should get going anyways. Big day at the hospital tomorrow.” 

He took one of his hands to his face, massaging his temple. You got up from the couch, reaching for your backpack. “Yeah, okay.” The boy pouted, and you leaned in to give him a quick peck on the lips. Disappointing end for a night, to say the least. “Good luck tomorrow. Text me if you get an interesting case!”  

“Thanks! I will.” You threw your backpack strap over your shoulder and started walking towards the exit. Jungkook couldn’t blame you for just wanting to leave that place as soon as possible, he was sure that the discomfort was much worse for you. “Bye, Jungkook! I’ll let you know when I get to my place.”

He opened his mouth to thank you, but you were already out the door. The lock clicked shut, and the silence became thick, mocking him. Even if he already had an actual girlfriend, Jungkook still found himself being left behind by someone that would never want to see him again — dick semi-hard and morale shattered on the ground. Seems like he always found himself back in that position. 

Taehyung materialized on the couch next to him, hugging his knees. He was staring at the closed door, somewhat expecting that you would come back, but knowing very well that you wouldn’t do so. “Okay, I accept that it was our fault,” he said, oscillating his gaze towards Jungkook. “Sorry, man. We are like, super invested in this. There’s almost nothing interesting going on in the afterlife and this is, like, better than any TV show airing right now.” 

Jungkook rolled his eyes, utterly exhausted at the mess that had become his life. He was done giving them sermons: it had basically turned into the world’s worst pastime and gave little to no results. “You know what? Just promise me you’re not going to show up next time.” He stared both of them down. “I don’t wanna be watched, that’s just weird. And I know that Y/N isn’t happy about that either.” 

Yoongi shrugged. “Some people like it.” 

“Yeah, I’m not one of those people,” he told him. “Guys, please. I know you two are as excited as I am about this, and I appreciate your... support, but I think this is something I need to do alone. In peace. Not being watched by spirits. That’s isn’t too much to ask.”  

“He’s right, you know?” Taehyung said, looking back at Yoongi. “We should stay in our lane for now.” 

The other ghost looked down at his feet, which basically morphed into the carpet beneath them. For the first time in two long years, he actually seemed like he was rethinking his actions. “Yeah, sorry,” Yoongi responded. “We got carried away. We’ll leave next time. Maybe try something when your neighbors are having a movie night.” 

Jungkook’s shoulders fell in alleviation.  Maybe not everything was doomed. “Thank you,” he spoke, then nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I’ll probably do that. When is the next one?” 

Taehyung looked at Yoongi, then back at him. “What are the chances that you’re gonna get your virgin shit together by tomorrow night?”  

___________

Slim to none, actually, but he had managed to (kind of) do it. Focus on the “kind of.”

Jungkook had spent the previous night doing in-depth research about sexual intercourse,  and basing his actions in real-life situations. That meant that he stayed up until four in the morning watching porn. Not masturbating. Just watching it very closely and trying to learn what to do — like an actual serial killer. 

“Do you think that this is… a good idea?” Taehyung spoke from the other side of his room, preoccupation plastered all over his face. The whole porn-science was funny for the first twenty minutes, and then it just ended up being terrifying. “You know that people don’t actually have sex like that, right? It’s all exaggerated.” 

“Quiet!” Jungkook raised his finger after a particularly loud moan echoed, his eyes red and glued to the computer screen. The white light from his device was awfully sharp, bathing his figure and making his image border on demonic. It really wasn’t a good look. “I’m researching. I need to know what to do.” 

“You look and sound like a maniac.” Taehyung walked closer to the bed, measuring his movements. After he died, he thought that he would never be afraid of any other living thing — but Jungkook had just proved him wrong. Against his best judgement, he took a peek at the screen. “No! Oh my— That’s not natural. That’s so wrong. You should know, you studied anatomy.” 

“I’m not gonna do this tomorrow,” Jungkook mumbled, closing the video. Taehyung recoiled back to the darkness of the room like a vampire that had just been touched by the sun. “The plot was interesting.” 

“You’re not even hard, man,” he said, pointing at Jungkook’s trousers. “This is like, really weird. You should stop before you have some problem getting it up tomorrow.” 

“What are you trying to say?” He narrowed his eyes, paranoid. “That wouldn’t happen. I know what I can do.”  

“You’re the medical student, take a look,” Taehyung insisted. “There’s research about that, pornography affects young men and women a lot and— Actually, what the fuck am I talking about? This is crazy. I should’ve left with Yoongi.” 

“Wait, I just—” Jungkook closed his computer with a sigh. His hair was disheveled and his gaze was unfocused. It really was the oddest night in Taehyung’s life/death. “I just don’t know what to do tomorrow. I’m about to have an anxiety attack. It’s like the third one tonight.” 

Taehyung pressed his lips together, the discomfort inside him being replaced by a warm sense of understanding. “Man, she knows you don’t have experience. She isn’t expecting a porn star performance, or whatever the fuck you were just watching.” He pointed to the computer, which was now neglected amongst the sea of blankets. “By the way, I’m a changed spirit. I hate you for making me see that.” 

Jungkook would have laughed at his distress if he wasn’t too tired to do that. “Technically, you decided to look at it yourself,” he corrected. “But, yeah, I know she’s not expecting anything great. But I don’t wanna make a fool out of myself, you know? Not like it’s a rare occasion or anything.” 

Taehyung shrugged. Being alive made everything seem so much more important than it actually was, he thought. “Lay back and let her take the lead, then.” 

Jungkook furrowed his brow, his eyes widening at the idea. Of course! That was the big  galaxy brain moment he needed all along. “Are you serious? It’s that simple?” He asked, hopeful. 

Taehyung chuckled. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.” 

Yeah. It was that simple. Who would’ve thought that those see-through idiots actually would have something intelligent to say? 

Really, it was a time of miracles in Jungkook’s life. The following day, the planets aligned and, for the first time ever since puberty, everything went right for him: the class ended a bit early, his neighbors decided to watch two movies instead of one, and his place was perfectly devoid of any paranormal activity by the time you wandered into it. 

He didn’t tell you that he had planned that entire thing before it happened — he thought it would be super strange to schedule his virginity loss out loud — and he was glad to see that everything evolved naturally. One hour and forty minutes after you arrived, you two were already at the same point that you had left the day before — only, this time, you two actually managed to get to his bed.

“They’re not here, are they? You’re sure?” You asked in between kisses for what should’ve been the fifth time. 

“No, I asked them to leave earlier.” Jungkook’s hands pressed down on your hips, the sensation of your center rolling against his erection eliciting a sigh from him. Ha! Fuck Taehyung and his soft dick curse. “I actually… Before we do anything, I actually wanted to know if you could, you know, help me a little.” 

You hummed, taking your face away from his. Jungkook watched as you licked your lips, your eyes dazed, and leaned in to place another kiss against his mouth. “In what way?” You asked. 

“Just... show me what to do,” he said. “What you like, if I’m doing something wrong… everything.” 

With a soft smile, you agreed, arms curling around his shoulders. “Of course,” you told him. “It’ll be my pleasure.” 

That being said, you dove back to his lips, feeling as he both simultaneously relaxed and tensed up under your touches. Jungkook had evolved a lot in those past few months, you realized, since the early-dating version of him wouldn’t find himself in that position without turning into a stuttering, blushing mess beneath you. It was kind of cute, but you’d never say that out loud. 

You felt his hands trailing up your back, underneath your clothes, his palms dwelling in the softness of your skin for a moment before, in a courageous movement, he decided to pull your shirt up. There was a short separation of your mouths as the piece of clothing slid up your arms, and collapsed against the floor in a puddle of cotton. 

Jungkook sighed once he felt the lace of your bra against his hands; the softness of your breasts was something that he continuously daydreamed about. Now, without the barrier of your clothes, all that he needed was to remove that last constriction and he would be— 

“Oh well…” He chuckled nervously, fumbling with your bra. “Sorry, I don’t know how to open this.”

You smiled at the embarrassment that danced around his features. “Relax, okay?” You said, moving your hands to your back and taking care of that problem yourself. You’d teach him about the magic of unclasping bras another time. “It’s fine.”

But Jungkook didn’t have time to think about an answer, for soon your bra was meeting your shirt on the floor. His reaction would’ve been the same if you just moved over and came back with a baby dinosaur in your hands — his eyes widening in amazement as he took in the image of your nude breasts, a small whimper perishing in his throat as he slithered his hands upward, cupping them. 

Your breath stopped for a moment when he leaned in, reluctant, and enveloped one of your nipples with his warm mouth, his tongue delicately coming out to trace circles on your sensitive flesh. Jungkook groaned at the sensation, his cock becoming unbearably hard against his pants, and tilted your body over so he could be on top of you. 

You curled up against the sheets, sighing in delight as the boy continued to work on your breasts, kissing and sucking lightly, taking his time. Every time you looked down, you could see that Jungkook was having almost as much fun as you, the small moans that dripped from his tongue vibrating inside your chest. 

“Does it feel good?” He raised his gaze towards you, expectant. “Am I doing a good job?” 

“Yes, very good.” Your hands curled around the roots of his hair. The action was gentle, but Jungkook shuddered under the sensation — every small movement proved itself to be a lot for him to handle. “You’re doing amazing. Is there something that you want to do, Kookie?” 

The boy licked his lips, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed hard. Part of him (probably the sleep deprived one) still didn’t believe that you two were actually doing that — that it wasn’t just a figment of his horny imagination. No, it was real. You were right there in front of him, beautiful and devastating, caressing his hair as you waited for an answer. 

“I… I want to make you feel good,” he said, wide-eyed and hesitant. His dick felt painfully hard being so constructed by his pants and, suddenly, he became aware of how clothed he still was. No wonder it was so hot. “Just tell me what you want me to do.” 

Your lips curled up at his adorableness, one of your hands meeting his wrist. Patiently, you guided it down, and placed it on the hem of your pants. “Can you touch me?” You questioned. “I can tell you what I like.” 

“Oh, please,” he almost pleaded, his hand already fumbling to open your pants. Much to his delight, those were a lot easier than your bra, and they were soon sliding down your legs with ease. 

He took a moment to take in your form, eyes traveling up from your legs, to your hips, then all the way back to your breasts. As Jungkook met your gaze, he allowed for a suspire of relief to depart from his mouth, shoulders relaxing. “I’m so lucky,” he spoke, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

The smile that you presented him looked brighter than all of the stars above. “Come here,” you called, leaning against your elbows. “Give me a kiss.” 

Obedient, Jungkook did as you requested, a grunt escaping his chest once you pulled him into a sloppy kiss, nails brushing lightly against the skin of his neck. He had goosebumps at the sensation, his hand moving by its own will, navigating down your stomach and towards your heat. 

His fingers hovered, insecure, over the hem of your panties for a moment. Still, at the sound of his name being spoken against the kiss, he was overtaken by an ephemeral spark of courage. Soon, your panties were on the floor too. 

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” Jungkook whined at the contact, his fingers dwelling just above your entrance. Inside his pants, his cock twitched at the sensation, his lower body already tingling with excitement. He didn’t know how he would manage not to cum in his pants, but he would have to find a way. “What do I do now?” 

“Now...” you said, leaning your head against the pillow. “Move up and find my clit. Make all those hours of anatomy worth it,” you joked. 

Jungkook nodded, but anatomy was much more difficult when he wasn’t actually looking at a certain part of the body — he was much more interested in watching your expression. Embarrassed, he did as you requested, trailing his wet fingers up until you told him to stop. “Right there,” you said, sighing once you felt his hand pressing down on it, starting to trace small circular patterns. “That’s it, baby, great job.” 

His heart leaped at the compliment, and his actions became firmer. Jungkook thought he would go insane when he heard you whimper and cry out at the sensation, your hips bucking up against his hand ever so slightly. “You’re so hot,” he breathlessly confessed, his words coming in a hot puff of air against your neck. His digits slowly trailed down, towards your entrance, and he paused. “Can I?” 

“Yeah,” you agreed. 

Jungkook swallowed hard, adventuring one finger inside you. At the sensation of your walls clenching around him, he moaned, biting his lip. “God, you’re so tight,” he told you, adding a second finger. You raised your hips at the contact, hands curling on his hair. “I can’t wait to feel you around my cock.” 

His mouth came back to your breasts, sucking and licking your flesh. Jungkook was a mess, you realized — pressing down his hard member against your thigh, whining against your skin as his fingers curled inside you, sinking into your wetness. God, you weren’t made of steel. “I want it,” you told him, and he didn’t understand your words for a moment. “I want to feel you, Jungkook.” 

And he didn’t need anything else. The boy moved away from your body and pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it on the floor alongside the rest of your clothes. It was no time for hesitation— he didn’t know how much of his precious alone time he had left. “Condoms.” He pointed at his nightstand. “Top drawer.” 

You turned around on the bed, reaching for the furniture as the boy unbuckled his belt and clumsily removed his pants. The mattress bounced beneath you as Jungkook tossed himself around, finding a way to lose his balance as he threw his pants on the ground. Much to his relief, you weren’t paying much attention to it. 

He was already panting — in a mixture of excitement and his pathetic effort to remove his pants — by the time that you gave him the condom. “Do you put it on, or do you want me to?” You asked. 

Jungkook had trained on enough bananas to know that he could do it, but he wasn’t gonna let the chance to have you touching him down there pass. “You do it, please.” 

You nodded, sitting next to his expectant figure. Jungkook’s chest rose and fell in anticipation, his muscles glistening with the small droplets of sweat that decorated his caramel skin.  His cock was hard and heavy against the fabric of his grey underwear, practically calling for your care. 

Attentively, you watched as his abdomen tensed up at the feeling of one of your hands pressing down against his clothed erection, delicately moving towards his crown. A gasp tumbled from his lips as you rolled your thumb against it, noticing the wetness that had already accumulated beneath your hand, and he rolled his hips against the pressure. Really, Jungkook was too precious. 

“Please, don’t tease,” he begged, eyes following your every move. His cock throbbed in your hands, needy. “I don’t think I can hold it much longer.” 

With a hum of agreement, you moved your hand away from his erection, and pulled his underwear down gently. Jungkook whimpered at the fiction, and the way his cock was freed from its constraints, bouncing back against his abdomen. The smallest of touches was more than enough for him to lose himself. 

“Shhh, it’s fine,” you calmed him down, slowly (too slowly) rolling the condom on him. His hands clenched into fists next to him, grabbing handfuls of the white sheets. Okay, maybe you were being a bit mean. “Just tell me what you want.” 

Jungkook closed his eyes for a moment, holding back a cry of frustration. “Ride me, please,” his words came out in a plea, his expression so permeated by need that you thought that he could cry if you teased him any further. God, everything was so perfect about him — the glistening in his onyx irises, the reddening of his lips as he bit down on them, trying to fight back a whimper as you placed yourself over him. “I— I need to feel you. I’m going crazy.” 

There was no need for more convincing — again, you weren’t made of steel. 

You sighed as you sank down on his member, one of your hands finding support against his pecs, as the other curled around his cock, guiding him inside you. Jungkook closed his eyes and threw his head against the alabaster pillow, his flower-like lips opening to cry out at the sensation. “Oh fuck,” he cursed. “Oh, baby, that’s so good.” 

Seeing him like that, so submissive, so deliciously responsive to your faintest of touches, was, at the very least, extremely erotic. You loved to see the way he flinched and whined at the sensation of your walls clenching around him, his hands unsure of where they should be on your body. Awfully slow, you rose your hips from him, almost letting him slip out, before you shifted your weight back down, watching as Jungkook moaned out your name. 

God, he was really about to fall apart. 

Slowly, you began setting a pace, moving up and down on his cock. It was a lot slower than Jungkook expected, but it was just the right speed to make him appreciate every sensation of your body wrapping his own. 

“Feels good?” you asked, a bit breathless. The sensation of him filling you up was even better than you had anticipated, and, combined with his shameless exclamations of pleasure, you didn’t think that you’d last much longer either. 

Before he could answer, a tremulous sigh ruptured upon his mouth, reverberating just behind his teeth. Jungkook took another second to find his words, inhaling sharply. “So good,” he spoke, and you almost whined out at the lust that ornamented his voice. “Can you move faster? Please?” 

Maybe in different times, you’d take your time to provoke him a bit more. At that point, though, you’d do anything he wanted you to. “Yeah,” you agreed, doing as requested. The sound of your wetness and the slapping of skin against skin was lewd, filling the room alongside Jungkook’s voice. “Like this?”  

“Fuck, yeah, like this,” he cried out, closing his eyes in absolute euphoria. He could feel the movement of your asscheeks against his palms, the sensation enough to drive him insane. Jungkook was already amazed at the fact that he didn’t embarrass himself with premature ejaculation the second that you removed his underwear — but it didn’t mean that he didn’t get close to it. The second his hands squeezed your ass, he was positive he would end the game a bit earlier than the two of you would like. “It— it feels so good. Please, don’t stop.” 

With a moan, you threw your body forward, placing kisses on the curvature of his neck, a sensation that quickly sent shivers down his skin. The new angle made his cock hit even deeper inside you, causing for you both to melt in pleasure. “You feel so good,” you told him, nails digging against his flesh. The knot in your stomach was all too familiar, and you knew that you wouldn’t take much longer. “I love having you inside me.” 

“Oh, yeah, that’s good.” He mumbled, only half aware of the words leaving his lips. Jungkook’s eyes were dazed and unfocused, looking at nowhere in particular, his fingertips digging in your flesh. “You’re… you’re getting tighter.” 

“Y-Yeah,” you agreed, voice coming out in a moan. “I’m close.” 

He swallowed hard. “I can help,” he said. 

Before you could ask what he was trying to do, Jungkook moved his hand back to your center, two of his fingers playing with your clit. You gasped at the sensation, eyes closing as you kept riding him, rolling your hips, feeling as he reached for every part of you. It was all becoming too much, the pleasure that decorated his features, the  delicious friction of his body against yours, the frail moans that dropped from his tongue like honey. He was just too much. 

With a faint call of his name — a melody that would be stuck in his head forever —, you finally crossed the threshold of your orgasm, and came around him; morphing into a trembling and moaning mess. Jungkook watched, in absolute awe, as your face was monopolized by bliss, your teeth sinking down on your bottom lip and your eyes rolling back. 

He removed his hand from your heat, placing it on your waist. Using every final ounce of energy in your body, you continued riding him. Through parted lids, you noticed that his thighs were starting to shake, signaling that he, too, was close. “Baby,” the boy called out, his fingers digging to the sides of your hips. Jungkook was both trying to guide your movements, and hold himself back to reality. It was a beautiful view — the way his expression lingered somewhere between delight and distress; his hips mindlessly trusting up against yours. “I think I’m gonna cum.” 

You breathed out through your nose, trying to ignore the pleasure that, now, was turning into sensitivity. It felt good, in a way, but you were more focused on his relief at that point. “It’s okay, Kookie,” you told him, “you can let go.”

He had been so polite the entire time, with his “please” and “thank you’s. So, of course, when you told him that it was okay for him to cum, he did just as you requested. 

Jungkook came with gasping breaths and a trembling, high-pitched moan, holding on to you as he thrusted his last sloppy advances towards your core. His hands, weak, fell on the bed besides him, clenching the sheets; eyelashes fluttering down as he dwelled on the afterglow of his pleasure. You could stay there forever, looking at the pink shade that colored his cheeks; the beautiful mess that his black hair had turned into; or the tears of relief that accumulated at the corner of his eyes. 

But everything has to end, even the most beautiful ones. 

His tongue came out to wet his lips, and his eyes, still hooded, met yours. Not even the biggest minds in the renaissance could’ve thought of an image so perfect, so ethereal. “You’re so amazing,” he praised. “That was… amazing.” 

You smiled and leaned in to place a soft kiss against his lips. His member slipped out of you at the action, and his arms curled around your waist, keeping you in place. “You did pretty well,” you mumbled as you lazily curled up against his chest. Jungkook’s body was a delicious source of heat, and you could really get used to that. “I see a bright future ahead of you.”

He hummed, caressing your hair. Jungkook could finally smell it without being creepy, so that was a big victory for him. “You did most of the work,” he said. 

“That’s not an issue.” You nuzzled his neck, pleasantly feeling as goosebumps spread throughout his body. Always so responsive. “I’ll let you take the lead next time, if that sounds good to you.”

Jungkook chuckled. “That’d be great, yeah,” he agreed. Part of him thought about using a few tricks he learned during his late-night research, but he wasn’t super sure that it would be a good idea. Maybe he should keep that card up his sleeve for a bit longer in case he needed to surprise you later. “Do you want to spend the night? It’s kind of late to go back to your place now.”

The words fell from his tongue with ease, surprising the boy for an instant. He noticed that he was much more comfortable in your presence, like the pieces of the puzzle had finally fallen into place. Not because of the sex itself, he realized, but because of the vulnerability and intimacy that came with it. It happened just as it was supposed to. 

 “I’d love to.” You smiled, and placed a kiss against his neck. “But I’m going to kick you out if you start snoring.” 

“Out of my own place?” He asked. 

You sighed, voice filled by traces of your upcoming slumber. “Don’t you test me,” you spoke, wrapping your arms around him. “Medical school is killing me, I need some sleep. And I will get it no matter the price.” 

Jungkook laughed at your tired words, one of his hands caressing your head in infinite delicacy. As he held to your body, curling so perfectly against his own, he knew that everything would be okay. And maybe he needed a good night of sleep too. 

A few minutes later, as he started to feel the sensation of his consciousness slowly drifting away to the land of dreams, a bittersweet sentiment overtook his chest. There was an instant, even if ephemeral, in which Jungkook believed he would never see Yoongi and Taehyung again — after all, the two had already concluded their mission: Jungkook got the girl and there was nothing else left for them to do. In between two consecutive breaths, he felt both relief and solitude. Silence wasn’t as welcoming once he realized no voice could break it. 

Though, his melodramatic moment was short-lived. Behind him, a known timbre cheered for him:

“I’m so proud, I feel like a soccer mom.”

[tema-makes-art-sometimes]

                          Once Upon a Time there was a Little Dream.

    No One Knows Who Dreamed it...

                                                                It was such a Little Dream.

This made the little dream think...

     “I dont want to disappear, how can I make people to dream me?”

The little dream thought, and at last had an idea.

       “I will make people come to me, and they will make my world.”

----

I may or may not have made an Alice Human Sacrifice AU. This is a strong contender for a blog for it to be 100% honest with you-- lemme know what ya think. Please click on it Tumblr ATE IT. >:(

AU Notes Below the Cut:

General Notes

It’s a world within a cursed book based on Alice in Wonderland, each of the Alice’s exist alongside one another, and while others can die when in the world, and the denizens of the world can die, the Alice’s cannot, at least not permanently. For reasons unknown they regenerate from any attempts to kill them. Each of the Alice's are said to be based on a Fairy tale character from the real world. And it is said that any who find and open the book will be transported to this Land of Alice called ELESIA. All Current Alice's are listed below.

Red Spade

Name: Alman Nation: England Fairy tale Counterpart: Red Riding Hood Powers: “Feral” - He’s able to turn into a wolf, and has the associated strengths of a wolf in and out of his wolf form. Notes: - He has an issue with blood-lust and craves conflict, which makes him dangerous. - He’s currently an outlaw wanted by the King for multiple crimes, mostly attacking people in the woods. - He actually hunts normally for money to sell the furs, he’s obviously very good at it. Relations: Diamond: Feels like the man taunts him being on just the edge of the woods. Club: Complicated. (He’s got a crush.) Hearts: Doesn’t like them, they romp around in his woods too much while able to easily escape him.

Blue Diamond

Name: Marine Nation: Canada Fairy tale Counterpart: Sleeping Beauty Powers: “Siren” - He's able to put people into a sleep like trance when they hear him sing. When in this trance they will do anything he requests.  Notes: - He loves to sing, with and without using his power. - He loves fruit teas and coffee. And he’s always snacking. - His garden outside the castle was a gift from the King. - His crown of flowers is almost never seen removed. Relations: Spade: He finds him and his path through the woods rather bothersome, but there isn’t much he can do about it than keep him away. Club: He looks up to the King for reasons he doesn’t fully understand. Hearts: He’s very very gay for the both of them, and the three spend a lot of time together.

Green Club

Name: King Varis Nation: France Fairytale Counterpart: Ice Queen Powers: “Freeze” - He’s able to freeze things in his vicinity solid. Notes: - His powers are tied to his emotions, which can cause uh- emotional problems for him. He tends to bottle his feelings in order to keep his powers under control, the problem is they eventually explode and he'll freeze everything around him solid. - He's a well liked ruler, but he's also kind of terrifying. - Eternally paranoid about being back-stabbed for reasons he has no context for. Relations: Spade: He finds the man an odd figure, and wish he would just let himself get captured. Diamond: His baby, his pride and joy, he doesn’t know why, but he knew the moment he met Diamond that he was almost like a son. Hearts: They make him nervous because of how popular they are. 

Yellow Hearts

Name: Labera Nation: Romano Fairy tale Counterpart: Gretel Powers: Beckon - The power to summon anything, to himself or to any location if he has been there. He can also summon people to places, including himself, which functions as a teleporting ability.  Notes: - He’s known for being very quippy and witty, he always has something to say and he will make sure he says it. - He likes to pull things out of no where for visual gags and general convenience. - They are rarely seen apart, even if you think they are alone, they probably aren't. Relations: Spade: He loves to tease and bother Spade and any and all opportunity. Diamond: He loves and adores Diamonds very much, it’s very gay. Club: He’s a little nervous around the King, so he’s not seen near him alone. Heart: The warmth in his heart, the joy in his soul. He can’t think of a world where they were separated.

Name: Zir Nation: Germany Fairy tale Counterpart: Hansel Powers: “Command” - The power of heightened physical and mental abilities. He's incredibly smart and also has a psychic-like allure that draws people's attention to him. He's able to convince people to do things for him by just looking at them and giving them a command.  Notes: - He has a slight rivalry with the King because of his ability to sway even his most loyal followers, though he has no interest in such things. - He comes across as quiet and disinterested sometimes, but he usually isn’t even close. - They are rarely seen apart, even if you think they are alone, they probably aren't.  Relations: Spade: He finds him very bothersome and not scary in the slightest. He doesn’t mind his wolf form as much though... Diamond: One of the two loves of his life, he adores them both. Club: He finds the King very nice, but gets confused at how their interactions often turn sour, not realizing that the King finds him intimidating. Heart: The love of his life, they’re bount at the hip and he’d never ask for it any other way.

[rayveewrites]

Ray Hijacks the Team ZIT Ghostbuster AU Again

So @shadeswift99 made a few posts a while ago about a Team ZIT(S) ghostbuster AU, And then I may or may not have hijacked the post to add in ideas for most of the other hermits because why not.

Now, back then I was spitballing ideas and making them up on the spot, which is admittedly my usual writing process, but hey.

That said, I've had more time to think about it, and then last night I blacked out for a few hours and came to with a Google Doc filled with short bios for all of the hermits and a handful of hermit-adjacents. Now, this rapidly turned into an urban fantasy AU in my hands, but hey. It's fun.

This is in alphabetical order, with alternate personas (EX, Helsknight, Beetlejhost) beneath their original counterparts when applicable:

Bdubs

Lives in an old mansion in the woods alongside Doc for reasons known only to them. Bdubs works as an interior designer, with a side gig as a freelance hairdresser. His eyes are unnaturally large, similar to Keralis’, and he is at least partially a plant. Completely feral and frequently gets in trouble for having knives on him at all times. He and Cleo have a thing called Knife Club which makes everyone else nervous. Nobody messes with Knife Club. It’s not worth it. Sunbathes frequently.

Beef

Is a perfectly normal human being. He works as a butcher with a side gig as a graphic designer specializing in album covers and spends his free time playing pokemon and dragging Etho along to social events. He was the first person to spot the cryptid, and the first person who Etho approached of his own accord.

Biffa

Is a ghost possessing a robotic shell. Biffa is from the future. While initially his main goal was to get back home to his own time, Biffa has since made friends and settled down into a new life running a cafe specializing in a wide range of teas. He’s quite content with this, and has actually found himself far happier than he was in his own time. While his nature means he can see, hear and touch ghosts, his body was built specifically for a disembodied soul to be in the driver’s seat, and he doesn’t want to risk another taking control. Also, he has more important things to do than have fistfights with ghosts.

Cleo

Is a ghost possessing her own dead corpse. Her nature allows her to see, hear and touch ghosts. Can and will fistfight spirits. She works as a teacher, so she’s usually busy, but occasionally in really nasty situations the Beetlejhost will drag her in to break a ghost’s legs. Does sculpture in her free time, and is actually really good. The only one who can wrangle Beetle to any real capacity, and she’s learned to keep him on a fairly short leash. Housemates with Joe, and Keralis also pops in pretty frequently. Has Knife Club with Bdubs. Has an enchanted flower crown that prevents her from decaying further; a gift from Beetle. Recently started learning magic in the form of necromancy and illusions. Has an ongoing ‘feud’ with Zloy, in which she temporarily traps his soul in random inanimate objects every now and then.

Cub

A bit of a ‘mad scientist’ archetype, Cub’s experiments are not exactly the most ethical, though they’re at least more professional than Doc’s. Responsible for the creation of Jevin. Cub gets possessed stupidly easily- sometimes willingly- and can usually handle it himself but sometimes has to call for help. Has a magical method of communication with Scar for exactly this reason. Has a day job as co-owner of a business called ConCorp, which he started with Scar. Has probably broken the Geneva Convention.

Doc

Was presumably human at one point. Now an abomination. Repeated experiments on himself have resulted in a massively changed facial and foot structure, a body covered in mottled green scales, claws, and goat horns. He lost half his face in one of his experiments, and constructed a new cybernetic one. He lost his right arm fighting God. Killed said god and would do it again. Lives in a mansion in the woods with Bdubs, though nobody’s really sure why. Owns a casino because of course he does. Also a living crime against fashion, because the man refuses to wear anything other than his tattered lab coat, torn jeans, and crocs.

Ely

Runs the local radio station. Nobody’s ever seen him in person, and nobody knows where he gets people’s voice clips for his remixes. Probably a cryptid. Maybe a ghost. Seems pretty chill, despite the blatant invasions of privacy.

Etho

Is a cryptid. Lives out in the woods in an abomination that can barely be called a house. Has never been seen in anything other than full Kakashi cosplay. Tends to keep to himself, but occasionally lets Beef drag him along to social events, often with Doc and Bdubs. Nobody really knows what his deal is. Probably not human. Probably.

False

Used to be part of an illegal underground cage fighting ring, until she earned enough to buy her way out. Having grown up in said ring, she struggles to adjust to normal life, but living in a town where the barista is a robot and the local tailor has wings makes it easier. She now has a job as security at Doc’s casino, alongside Iskall.

Grian

Is either an angel or a demigod, but nobody knows which. Has wings. Is both a tailor and an architect. A complete gremlin who has elaborate masks of various birds and will wear them to commit crimes. Eats seeds. Messes with everyone else’s plants. Lives in Jungle Wood Flats. Volunteers at the local theatre.

Hypno

Has three eyes, but hides the third one under a bandanna at all times. Can see ghosts with it. Had problems with sections of plumbing randomly getting clogged and also making very weird noises, and eventually called Team ZIT when the plumbers couldn’t find the source. Was prepared for ghosts, but wound up with a slime creature instead. Works in a $2 store for some reason.

Impulse

Is fully human. The most sensible member of Team ZIT (which admittedly isn’t saying much), Impulse has a day job as a freelancer building custom PCs and fixing broken tech. Agreed to the whole ghostbusting deal because he was bored, mostly. Was the first one to meet Skizz face-to-face, and is the one to own that particular place outright. Gets possessed every now and then, usually by larger spirits. Used to run solely on caffeine and chronic anxiety until Zedaph started getting on his case about his sleep schedule. Now he runs on less caffeine, more sleep, and the same amount of chronic anxiety.

Iskall

Was part of a cloning experiment to create the ultimate hitman, and was the only known one to both survive and escape before the whole thing was shut down by the authorities. Their eye and arm were replaced with cybernetics in order to increase their already enhanced abilities, and they were chased by said authorities, eventually winding up on Mumbo’s doorstep and becoming Mumbo’s problem. Now works as security at Doc’s casino, alongside False. Lives at Jungle Wood flats. Occasionally volunteers at the local theatre. Does bonsai as a hobby.

Jevin

Is the slime creature in the pipes. Hypno lets him live with him under the condition he stops blocking the plumbing and making weird noises at 3 AM (Jevin still blocks the plumbing and makes weird noises at 3 AM, just not as much as he was). Has taught himself to take a humanoid shape, and likes having fingers. Sleeps in the bathtub because he can. Was created from a vat of chemicals in a secret lab underneath the house, which used to be owned by Cub. Doesn’t really talk to the man in question that much, but will occasionally refer to Cub as his father for the sole reason of watching him go through eight existential crises in three minutes. Has a glock.

Joe

Head librarian at the local public library, and has read a lot of books on Supernatural Things. Is a veritable fountain of exposition if you can figure out what he’s saying or have Cleo along with you to threaten the integrity of his shins. Has never been seen in the same place as the Beetlejhost. Are they the same person? Are they entirely separate beings? Is there a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde-type situation going on? Who knows!

Beetlejhost

Literally nobody really knows what his deal is. Nobody. Team ZIT ran into him on a call that they expected to be a false alarm and then he decided to follow them home. Spends most of his time being a minor nuisance in the most bizarre ways possible. Is implied to be responsible for the Ever Given getting lodged in the Suez Canal, but never confirmed. When he’s not bothering Team ZIT or getting them out of tight spots, he’s usually pestering Cleo, the only one who can keep him in line. It’s not really known if he and Cleo have a history or if they’re just Like That.

Keralis

Is a ghost haunting an architecture firm, and is mostly bound to the building, though he can travel to other buildings the firm has built, which is, uh, most of them. Initially only able to do small things- mostly writing notes or drawing diagrams- he eventually meets the Beetlejhost when the latter follows Mumbo to work one day for shits and giggles (he wanted to see how long he could mess with Mumbo before the man noticed. As it turned out, about a week, and by the end it was Iskall who noticed). After a couple of days in which Beetle teaches Keralis Ghost Things™, he scares half the office when he finally manifests for the first time. Has unnaturally large eyes and nicknames for most of the workers. Has no idea how he died or what his unfinished business might be. Very knowledgeable about architecture, and his input is usually very much appreciated.

Mumbo

Is a perfectly normal human being who does IT at Keralis’ architecture firm. Lives at Jungle Wood flats and spends most of his free time tinkering with tech and trying to keep Grian and Iskall out of trouble, which is a losing battle. Has a large, beating golden heart in his flat. He’s not really sure what its deal is, but if he feeds it apples it produces enough power for the entire building. Oh, and if he forgets to feed it for an extended period of time it starts draining his bank account. It’s really weird.

Pixlriffs

Was a perfectly normal human being until he died protecting a certain Russian zombie and became a perfectly normal ghost. Was a reporter in life and is a reporter in death. Runs a blog alongside Zloy about the local goings-on, supernatural or not. The blog’s the type where unless you live in/near the town you most likely won’t stumble across it, but they do have a small following of outsiders who assume the blog’s just a work of fiction. His unfinished business is to prevent Zloy from doing anything particularly stupid, a constant battle. Is able to go more places than Zloy due to being incorporeal, but respects people’s privacy. He’s bound to Zloy to a certain degree, not being able to go beyond a certain range of his friend. The range is pretty big, though, and he has plenty freedom of movement.

Python

Had a run-in with the fae as a kid, in which he accidentally pissed one off. In retribution, the faerie challenged him to answer a riddle or he’d be turned into a snake. Python’s answer was partially correct, so the faerie only transformed him partially. Python is fairly chill, though he strongly dislikes the cold and starts hissing if anyone disturbs him during Sun Time™. Sometimes Bdubs, being partially flora, joins Python for Sun Time™. He’s not venomous, because, you know...python. Also, he has a mildly disturbing habit of strangling rats and mice and then eating them whole, but he can’t help it and just tries not to do so when he has company.

Ren

Is a werewolf. He’s pretty chill regardless of form, though it’s only been recently he’s been comfortable enough leaving his ears and tail visible. He works as a lumberjack. One time Pixl introduced him to Monty Python’s Lumberjack Song and it quickly became his favourite thing. He spends most of his free time volunteering at the local theatre because Ren is absolutely a theatre kid and nobody can convince me otherwise. Gets possessed every now and then. Lives in Jungle Wood flats.

Scar

Works as a landscape developer. Gets possessed absurdly easily, though not quite as frequently as Cub. Has a magical method of communication with him. Technically co-owns ConCorp, but isn’t as involved. His cat, Jellie, is very obviously an eldritch abomination in feline form and he is comedically unaware of this. Lives in Jungle Wood Flats with Grian, Iskall, Mumbo, Stress, and Ren.

Skizz

Is the ghost haunting Team ZIT’s office. He was murdered by someone he’d thought was a friend who was trying to use his place to hide from the cops, and he’s stuck around, haunting the building. His unfinished business is to make sure nobody else uses the building for anyone shady, but the ghost rumours tended to chase most people off. Eventually he gets used to having Team ZIT around, and when Tango admits he doesn’t really have anywhere to go one day, Skizz eventually makes the decision to finally unlock the still-furnished upper floor for him. He’s bound to the building, but Impulse learns that carrying Skizz’s old vest with them allows him to leave. After that, Skizz sometimes accompanies them on missions and occasionally just hanging out. He’s usually more helpful than the Beetlejhost is.

Stress

Is a witch. Stress lives in Jungle Wood Flats and works as a doctor who specializes in supernaturally caused injuries- Team ZIT are some of her best customers. She also sells magic potions of various kinds, and has a side gig as a florist. She’s 90% of the Jungle inhabitants’ impulse control. Also has cryokinesis.

Tango

The Team ZIT member with a car. He gets possessed with frankly ridiculous frequency, but claims not to believe in ghosts for a long time (and keeps up the bit for even longer). Has developed various signals to indicate when he’s being possessed again. The strongest one, a rather nasty demon Cleo and the Beetlejhost had to team up on, left him with his glowing red eyes. He didn’t really have anywhere to go before Impulse bought the office, and tended to sleep on the couch or in his car until Skizz decided to let him into the upper floor, where he now lives alongside Zedaph and Impulse.

TFC

A now-retired ghostbuster, TFC calls in Team ZIT one night when he finds himself in over his head against a ghost with a grudge. He winds up becoming a bit of a mentor figure to the trio, usually coaching them over the phone if they’re not sure how to deal with one of the stranger spirits. Lost his leg years ago in a fight with a poltergeist that could have gone better, and now has a robotic prosthetic made by Doc.

Wels

While Team ZIT was out investigating some rumour or another in the woods, they came across a large stone box. Following video game logic, I guess, they then decided opening this large stone box sounded like a fun idea. Well, Tango and Zedaph did. Impulse was a bit more hesitant. The box actually held a medieval knight who’d been put in an enchanted sleep for centuries by his demonic doppelgänger, and was very much not prepared for modern life. Team ZIT took him to Xisuma, who happened to live closest, and Wels is currently helping out on the farm and trying to adjust to life in the 21st century. He can understand and speak modern English just fine because magic. Volunteers at the local theatre quite a lot.

Hels

Is Wels’ doppelgänger. Technically a minor demon. Won a fight with Wels and sealed him away for centuries as a result. A recurring problem. His real motivation is that he really desperately doesn’t want to go back to Hell, but he’s too proud to admit it. Lives in the woods with EX, who’s basically his only friend, though the weirdo with the brown cardigan keeps pestering him about his backstory and feelings for some reason. Has minor pyrokinesis.

XB

Like Biffa, XB is also a ghost from the future, though it seems to be a different timeline than Biffa’s. His unfinished business is preventing the apocalypse, but he has no idea how to do that, no idea if he’s in the right timeline, and is pretty sure he’s gone back a lot farther than he probably should’ve. Also, there’s the whole paradox issue, where if he prevents the apocalypse he never has a reason to go back and prevent the apocalypse, so he doesn’t prevent the apocalypse, so he has to go back and- he tries not to think about it too much. He mostly just hangs out in an abandoned house on the edge of town and vibes.

Xisuma

Is a beekeeper. Nobody’s ever seen his face; when he’s not in his beekeeping outfit, he’s either wearing a helmet, or (more recently) an extremely lifelike and detailed animal mask (is it a mask?). Actually a shapeshifting alien, he crashed down to Earth after a scuffle with his evil clone and was stranded because Earth doesn’t have the right tools or resources to repair a spaceship. These days he’s actually found he’s happier tending to his bees, selling honey, and helping his friends out, and probably wouldn’t leave Earth even if he could. It’s a simpler life, but a pleasant one. He bonds with Biffa over a shared love of tea and being stranded in a technologically inferior world and finding a home.

Evil Xisuma

Is Xisuma’s clone. Feels that if everyone’s going to call him ‘Evil’ he may as well own it. Shot his original’s spaceship down in a scuffle but wound up being brought down with him. Currently hides in the woods. Generally more of a minor nuisance than an actual danger. Used to spend his free time bothering X but has gotten put off by Wels, who has a problem when it comes to evil clones. His friends consist of Hels, who is a terrible role model, and Zedaph, who’s trying to help him work through his problems behind everyone’s backs. Can summon lightning because he deserves it.

Zedaph

Is the reason Team ZIT is ghostbusting in the first place. He’s a sheep shearer by trade, but that’s a fairly seasonal thing and ghostbusting is more fun anyway. Has somehow never been possessed, and claims it’s because he’s always standing next to Tango. He makes sure the other two gets enough sleep Because we all know they can’t be trusted to do it. Probably has some sort of really bizarre and situational magical powers he is thoroughly unaware of. Qualified to be a licensed therapist. Made friends with Evil X at one point, somehow.

Zloy

Like Cleo, he’s a ghost possessing a corpse. Unlike Cleo, there’s a good chance it’s not his corpse. Eh, it’s not like anyone else was using it. Runs a blog with Pixl, because why not. Was already a zombie when he met Pixl, who was still alive at the time. His body is a bit more decayed than Cleo’s, but it’s fine. His goggles are enchanted with the same preservation spell; it’s not really ever explained where he got them from. Has no regard for privacy but is fortunately unable to turn invisible or phase through walls due to inhabiting a physical body. Both can theoretically physically fight ghosts and has enough time to physically fight ghosts, meaning he would be a valuable ally if he could be bothered. Lives in a graveyard. Has an ongoing ‘feud’ with Cleo, in which he puts jabs at her on the blog. Once spent a week as a (very sarcastic) floating potato.

Hermiton

Is the name of the place they all live in/near. Located in an ambiguous location in an ambiguous country, Hermiton is technically large enough to be considered a city but has Town VibesTM. Supernatural going-ons are a fairly normal part of life, and a good number of inhabitants aren’t humans. Despite this, the wider world seems mostly ignorant of the existence of ghosts, magic, etc. I’m not too sure about geography, but it’s surrounded by forest in most directions and in a warm enough climate to not have snow in the winter (so Python doesn’t, you know, freeze to death). Most people don’t tend to bat an eyelid at strange-looking people walking down the street or serving them at the store; they’re used to it by now. There are several theories as to why Hermiton specifically has so much going on when it comes to the supernatural- ley lines, secretly the resting place of some long-forgotten god, et cetera- but it’s actually more of a case of ‘people who have supernatural traits hear rumours of a place where a lot of people have supernatural traits and go there in search of answers/a place to belong’. This doesn’t exactly explain where all the ghosts came from, but hey. Nothing’s perfect.

[whipped-for-kpop-fics]

Pup

You can find the Halloween request post  here :3

Thank you for the request @namjin-fangirling-again​, I hope you like it, even if it’s not particularly cracky but it’s still funny(at least in my eyes)   Request; “  werewolf. Jungkook. Make it extra fluffy and crack ”

Jeon Jeongguk x reader Genre; Fluff and humour. Werewolf au Warnings; Adult language and topics . JK’s dick is mentioned multiple times because i have no self control Word count; 1.5k

Summary; Every full moon you lock Jeongguk in a cell ready for his animal side to take over his mind and body.  But little does he know that he’s not the big bad wolf he thinks he is.

---

The full moon; the lifeforce and also the bane of every werewolf. 

Even though werewolves have been able to switch between wolf and human form at will for centuries now, the full moon still reigns over their bodies and forces them to be in wolf form. In the city, it's a nuisance but nothing terribly bad, most city wolves tend to simply spend the moon hours in their homes watching TV or sleeping it off. Those in the country have it easier; most meet in groups to run and play, take advantage of their wolves natural abilities. But there's a select handful of werewolves that are still affected by the moon like their ancestors; these unfortunate souls lose all grasp on their humanity the moment the full moon makes an appearance and are only aware of themselves again once the sun rises the following morning.

Jeon Jeongguk is one of those poor unfortunate souls and you are the only one that has seen him during these hours in a long time.

"Can't you just leave me here this time?" He complained as you chained the cell he was inside shut. Despite what Hollywood says; werewolves cannot break through thick metal chains during moon hours, they've never been able to either. Though there was that one time Jeongguk snapped his steering wheel a couple of months ago in the midst of a traffic jam leading up to moon hours. But that was purely a mix of stress at the thought of potentially being caught outside once he lost his humanity and his big ol' veiny arms thanks to his daily gym sessions. (We won't go into how hot you found his strength at that moment because that's another story entirely with a different rating and subject matter).

"I'm not leaving you here all night alone." You scoffed settling in your usual beanbag opposite the barred door of his cell and pulling the blanket at your feet around you. "You're lucky you don't feel the cold as much, it's fucking freezing in here."

"You say that every month." He chuckled laying down on the futon with one bare arm behind his head.

"It's the truth. We pay all that money for this room and they can't even install a heating system? We've been robbed, Guk."

"Whatever you say, babe."

You just hummed through your pout and took a few moments to take in his naked muscled form on display for your eyes and your eyes only - it was actually so that he didn't wreck his clothes when the shift happened but you liked to pretend it was all for your viewing pleasure. "How you feeling?"

"Fine, got a while left yet." That had you perking up in your seat. Sensing your movement, Jeongguk looked over at you unimpressed. "No."

"What? I didn't say anything!"

"Every single month you complain about being cold and then ask me to warm you up." He deadpanned.

"As you should, you're my boyfriend." You huffed dramatically.

"We're not having sex this close to moon hours,"

"But..." The look he gave you made you slouch sulkily into your blanket. "It would be fine."

"I'm not risking it. If my timing is off and the moon rises while you're in here... I don't want to even think about what I'd do to you. I love you too much to risk your safety just to get my dick wet."

"I've never felt unsafe around you during moon hours."

"You've never been around me during moon hours without these bars between us." At least, that's what he thought.

*

You didn't need a window to know when the full moon was beginning to make its appearance, all you needed was Jeongguk's groan of displeasure and you knew.

You straightened up from slouching against the wall playing on your phone to peer over at where Jeongguk was curled up with his arms bracketing his head. As much as you knew he wasn't in any pain during the transformation, you knew he hated every second of it. For the first few minutes, he always without fail tried to fight the change and grasped at his humanity in his mind but it never worked. His animal counterpart always rose up, taking over his mind first before too ruling his body.

The change from beginning to end never took more than five minutes; once his wolf was in charge the physical changes happened almost in a blink of an eye.

"Jungoo!" You cooed flinging the blanket off of your body to crawl over and unlock the gate. A pair of amber eyes peered at you, unfocused at first due to the change but in moments recognition set in and you had a lapful of wolf. Well, lapful is a bit generous honestly.

At any other time, Jeongguk's wolf was a fully grown majestic creature with sleek deep brown verging on black fur. But during moon hours Jeongguk's wolf was...well...a puppy. A tiny little ball of fluffy chocolate brown and you were the only one that knew about it.

"Hey puppy," Your hands rubbed over the little wriggling form on your thighs, scratching and rubbing his tiny body while he yipped and panted excitedly at the attention. "Hm, what shall we do today?" He barked at you, an almost squeak of a sound that had you cackling. If Jeongguk knew what happened to him during moon hours he would never look you in the eye again, he'd be so embarrassed of the fact his most instinctual form was a baby, an adorable little wolf pup that never left your side even to eat. Though to be honest, pretty much all of your friends knew that he loved to be babied and looked after, especially by you and would always choose you over anyone else even before you started dating. So it wouldn't surprise anyone to find out but he sure as hell would never live it down.

Just like all other full moons since the first one with Jeongguk three years ago, you spent the whole time playing and cuddling with his ickle wolfie, and moon hours are the only time that phrase isn't a euphemism- he had begged you to stop calling his dick 'ickle wolfie' multiple times but you always refused.

Before you knew it, your alarm was going off telling you that the sun was due to rise at any moment. "Better get back in there, Jungoo." You sighed wiping the pizza crumbs off of his muzzle. He looked up at you and whined sensing what was coming. "I'll miss you too, little one but we'll be able to play again together before you know it." He made vaguely distressed crying sounds the whole time you carried him into the cell and placed him gently onto the futon. He tried to clamber back into your arms but you quickly backed away after pressing a kiss to his fluffy little head. "Stay still, Guk will never let me come with him again if he wakes outside of the cell." The pup watched you back out of the cell and lock the door before he ran over to the bars and yipped at you.

Jeongguk woke like he did every sunrise after moon hours, curled up against the bars with your hand stroking through his hair. He made a sort of grunting sound signalling he was back to his normal self and earned a hair ruffle in return that had him swatting your hand away. While he reorientated himself you got up and removed the lock and chain from the door to return it to its home on the wall.

A sudden exhale left his lungs when you plopped down onto his naked lap and cuddled up to his chest.

"Did you feed me pizza again?" He questioned after figuring out what the taste lingering on his tongue was.

"Puppy loves pizza."

"You love pizza." He chuckled finally wrapping his arms around your waist to hold you tight.

"And you love me which means puppy loves me therefore by default, puppy loves pizza."

"Really wish you'd stop calling my wolf a puppy."

"The cutest puppy ever."

"Whatever you say, babe." Jeongguk laughed and pressed a kiss to your head so you straightened up instead of leaning on his shoulder.

"So, I'm still cold." You grinned mischievously while wiggling your eyebrows suggestively at him.

"You feel pretty warm to me." He teased, sliding his hands underneath the t-shirt and hoody on your torso to touch the warm skin of your waist.

"I'd like to be a lot warmer. And naked. And attached to you by our genitals." Jeongguk burst into laughter at your wording, something beyond fond and loving in his eyes as he admired your serious expression.

"You say the weirdest shit, sweetheart."

"Hm, I do but it works for you. I can feel ickle wolfie rising his head to play!" You sniggered wiggling on his lap.

"Pavlovian response to sunrise after moon hours. You've trained me to be ready for sex. You never should've taken that psychology course with Joon-hyung."

"Shut up and get me naked, wolf boy."

"Whatever you want, I live only to please you, my love!" Was his dramatic and very sarcastic response even if he was already lifting you up as he got to his knees ready to throw you onto the futon and give you exactly what you wanted.

[chnqin]

My Epic MDZS/The Untamed Daemon AU

I’m sure other people have already done Daemon AUs, but this idea wouldn’t leave me alone. I have been working on this for like three weeks now.

I just wrote down my first instinctive thought for most characters, and then researched* further into subspecies etc. What I found for a lot of the animals made me agree with my first opinion even more, although all of these are obviously just my own opinions. I also decided to stick to non-mythological animals. (some characters have been given a lot more consideration than others, I’m sorry)

Wei Wuxian: beech marten Beech martens are quick and clever. The are nocturnal, omnivores, and skilled swimmers. They move through paths made by larger animals such as hares in the snow. {further notes under read more}

Lan Wangji: white hare More solitary animals. They have an association with the moon, which I tend to associate LWJ with. {f/n}

Jiang Cheng: osprey Aquatic birds; good hunters. {f/n}

Lan Xichen: white stag {f/n}

Jiang Yanli: asian black bear {explained in detail under the read more}

Jin Zixuan: lion Ngl it’s probably because the Persian pokemon reminds me of him

Jin Guangyao: domestic cat {f/n}

Nie Huiasang: pangolin {f/n}

Nie Mingju: wolf {f/n}

Wen Qing: Chinese sparrowhawk {f/n}

Wen Ning: black Formosan mountain dog (tuguo) {f/n}

Lan Sizhui: Xiasi Quan dog or red panda or badger {f/n}

Jin Ling: lion {f/n}

Lan Jingi: monkey They’re respected animals but also have a mischievous side

Ouyen Zihzen: capybara No, they’re not native to China, but this is what I imagined him as and I couldn’t get it out of my head or find a perfect substitute

Xiao Xinchen: swan He just gives me major swan vibes, possibly something to do with Swan Lake (as do some Lans but they’re not graceful in the same way or tragic in the same way)

Song Lan: oriental hobby falcon or black horse He struck me as some sort of raptor, but I also liked a horse for him 

Luo Qingyang/Mianmian: lynx

Lan Qiren: sheep Symbolise filial piety. Also follow other people without question (*cough* the Lan Sect elders)

Jiang Fengiman: otter Spends a lot of time around the water, just what popped into my head

Yu Ziyuan: snake Because Zidian

The Jiang Sect favour animals who live near or on the water, some even possessing daemons which are fully aquatic, and thus are unable to leave Lotus Pier

The Lan Sect usually have herbivore animals for daemons and favour swift, elegant animals.

The Jins tend towards lions and panthers, but also flashy, rich birds like pheasants and peacocks (which makes WWX’s nickname for JZX even more funny).

The Nies often have pack or herd animals. Wolves and mountain lions are very common, but also a lot of horned animals like oxen, mountain goats and sheep (bighorn sheep and ibex are common), and also wild boar.

The Wens were typically birds of prey (the Dire Owl becomes Wen Chao’s daemon) or mountain cats.

The Yus often have daemons which take reptile form. Wildcats also common.  I quite like the idea that the Yus are a sect which has cultivated the ability to separate themselves from their daemons.

~Further notes on why I picked these animals, Daemon settling, angsty AUs of my AU, and research disclaimer under the cut~

Story & Research Notes:

(I’m going with the idea that trauma can make a daemon settle into a particular form)

WWX A marten was the first thing to come to mind for WWX, I have no idea why, but the more I thought about it the more I liked it. They’re really inquisitive, playful, and cute, but are also predators and will fuck you up if necessary.  A crow was another obvious choice because they’re curious and inventive, but with a bit of a dark connotation. However, in my version at least (I’m not great on His Dark Materials canon), Daemons usually settle in the early teens, and at that point WWX really didn’t have as much darkness in him as he develops later. 

I think WWX was one of those people whose daemon changed with every thought and feeling of his, whose daemon changed so rapidly and so repeatedly that people would complain of motion sickness watching it. His daemon’s most common forms were a martin, a magpie, an otter (which drove Madam Yu nuts), and (after JYL’s settled) very occasionally a bear.

When WWX comes back most people don’t realise anything is wrong because Mo Xuanyu always hid his daemon (I think it was probably something like a field mouse although how funny would it be if Little Apple was actually his daemon and WWX unknowingly inherited her along with the body), so they just think his has settled into something too big to hide now. However, his beech martin is the other reason Lan Wangji knows who Wei Wuxian is (WWX’s daemon hides from Jiang Cheng at Dafan Mountain, so JC only suspects it’s WWX). (Angsty AU further down)

LWJ I know that arctic hares aren’t native to China, but I want you to pretend that something like that does exist because I need lwj to have a white hare daemon. They are also bigger than other hares and cuter (they look slightly less cursed than some hares do). I’m imagining a lot of the daemons being slightly bigger than their real-life animal counterparts would be, so imagine the ears coming up to a normal person’s hip-height when the daemon is sitting. Rabbits can also apparently symbolise hope, and that suits someone who is known to go where the chaos is, bringing hope and light in the darkness. 

As a child, LWJ’s daemon was expressive in a way he never could be. It liked to take snow leopard form a lot, which was seen as excessively violent to the Lan sect, who preferred non-carnivorous animals, and often snarled at people. His daemon always took snow leopard form when visiting his mother so it could curl up with her tiger daemon. 

LWJ’s daemon settled exceptionally early, shortly after his mother’s death, into an acceptable hare form. Lan Xichen always wondered if LWJ himself made his daemon settle, if she was not supposed to have been a snow leopard all along, and so always looks upon LWJ’s daemon with a bit of sadness because he feels like it was LWJ stifling - almost killing off - a part of his personality (spoiler: it was) in order to fit into the Lan sect.

(More on that in an angsty AU below)

JC Ngl, I wanted to make Jiang Cheng a goose because they’re always angry but I didn’t. Jiang Cheng shifted mostly between a hunting dog and a mouse as a child, both of which infuriated Yu Ziyuan (honestly what she wanted her children’s daemons to be even I don’t know). Jiang Cheng’s daemon settled very late (another thing his mother wasn’t happy with). In fact, it didn’t settle till the attack on Lotus Pier and the death of his parents, when it took the shape of an osprey (because he wanted to be able to fly away and pretend none of it ever happened). 

Even more angsty: One Chinese poem has the Osprey as a symbol of marital harmony and fidelity. Upon seeing his parents death, finally united in a way they hadn’t been in life, JC’s constant wish for his parents to love each other (and, by extension, him) physically manifests itself in his daemon.

JYL I know what you’re thinking. Why the hell did you give Jiang Yanli a bear of all people. Well I’ll tell you. For two reasons: one, because I can do what I want, and two, because I would say one of JYL’s most central characteristics is her wish to look after people. She’s not physically strong in the way most other cultivators are, however, and she’s always having to keep the peace at home - and so I can see her daemon becoming a physical manifestation of that need to protect (bears are known to be protective, particularly mothers), and a physical example of her inner strength which is so often overlooked.

Yanli shifted between a dove, a crane, and a maritime striped squirrel for most of her childhood. She favoured the squirrel and dove (incredibly mild animals) over the crane, which disappointed Madam Yu.  It’s one of the reasons Jin Zixuan never saw her as a potential match, her daemon too small and docile to match his almost constant lion daemon.

When Jiang Yanli was around fourteen Madam Yu took things with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng too far one day, and Yanli saw it. Her daemon suddenly shifted into a bear, a form it had never taken up to that point, and jumped on Yu Ziyuan’s snake daemon. WWX and JC always remembered Yanli standing in the doorway, her expression placid while her huge bear daemon growled with absolute fury and menace. Everyone expected Yanli’s daemon to go back to its usual squirrel or dove form, but it never did. It remained a bear, and remained the biggest daemon of pretty much anyone in any of the sects.

I had already picked a crane as one of JYL’s potential daemons because of its connection to water and positive symbolism in China. Upon further (hopefully accurate) research, I saw that cranes depicted with lotuses in Chinese art symbolise purity and longevity, and I liked making her daemon a bear even more, because her daemon took that form to protect WWX and JC - years after her death, they both wondered if, had her daemon had taken crane form, maybe she wouldn’t have died. From what I found, “crane” is also a homophone for 合 hé “peace, harmony”, which is a quality Jiang Yanli had much of, and tried to inspire in others.

LXC I think its LXC’s hairpiece which always makes me think of deer antlers (even though it’s a dragon?), so that’s probably why I immediately thought of a stag for him. But stags are also very noble and refined looking animals which don’t tend towards violence, but also have horns for a reason. Obviously, like with LWJ, it’s a white stag because aesthetique. Upon further research, I discovered a (hopefully correct) source which says 鹿 lù (deer) is a homonym with 璐 lù (precious jade), and the character for deer is used within the character 丽 lì ‘beautiful; elegant’ - both fit LXC very well.

JGY Cats are sneaky little fuckers (I say this with love). The ultimate predator in small unassuming form. Many of the main Jin family have big cat daemons so this is kind of another smack in the face for JGY - so close to being a real part of the Jin family, but still kept apart from them - and something people like to bring up along with his mother. However, many Jins are also birds (including JGS), and cats prey on birds.

NHS I thought a fox was a bit on the nose. Also I like the way pangolin’s just drop and curl up in defence - it’s a viable form of protection, but to the outside appears cowardly. However, their scales are sharp and can cut predators who come after them. Also I didn’t want him to fit into any of his sect’s typical animals. Also also imagine how cute it would look being carried around everywhere by NHS because it’s too lazy to walk, absolutely adorable.

NMJ A wolf was what immediately came to mind for Nie Mingjue. Wolves are apparently sometimes associated with greed, self-interest, and lechery, but I think the pack elements and the carnivore/hunting nature of the wolf really suits NMJ and the Nie clan in general, so I decided to overlook that aspect (although I did briefly consider making JGS a wolf, but I like them as animals too much in real life to do that to them and also he doesn’t have a soul, so he doesn’t get a daemon).

WQ I always saw Wen Qing as some sort of hawk, I just think it suits her very well. The Chinese sparrowhawk is quite small and very beautiful. It has white, red and grey colours. They are good hunters and swift flyers. 

WN I knew I wanted Wen Ning to be some sort of dog because he’s very loyal, and also (angsty) when the Jins call the Wens dogs I wanted that to hurt even more. He’s very unusual for a Wen, none of the main sect have dog daemons - it is very much a thing that is specific to their branch of the Wen family. The mountain dog I picked for him is an endangered breed, which I also felt fitted WN well. From what I found, dogs symbolise watchful wisdom, honesty, and loyalty, which all fit Wen Ning. 

This was all perfect till I remembered WWX’s all-consuming fear of dogs. I decided to get round this by cheating and saying that for some reason daemons are different and he’s not scared of them (because they represent a part of someone’s soul, rather than being a real animal? I guess?? Please do not look too hard at this delicately constructed card tower) 

Angsty version: when Wen Ning becomes a fierce corpse he loses his daemon, another reason people are unsettled by him and another thing WWX feels guilty about.

LSZ I think Lan Sizhui was the hardest to pick. I couldn’t decide which way to go: should he follow a “Lan approved” daemon pattern; should he have a bird like Wen Qing and a lot of other Wens? Then I saw the Xiasi Quan and it’s white and fluffy and cute but it was also a hunting and a guard dog, which seemed right for him. And I liked that it gave LSZ and WN this one very tangible connection. It is also endangered.  However, I also liked a red panda and a badger for Lan Sizhui too. I really couldn’t decide between the three. I like them all, why is he the hardest to choose for? (I’m still not 100% happy with this, let me know if you have any alternative suggestions)

Again, please suspend your disbelief at the fact that WWX’s child has a dog daemon and he’s fine with this (it would have looked so cute as a little puppy running around the Burial Mounds though).

When he was younger his daemon liked to take on the forms of those closest to him. So you’d often see a bby marten running after WWX’s daemon, a tiny bird perched with Wen Qing’s sparrow-hawk, a puppy following Wen Ning’s dog around, and a tiny bby rabbit in Cloud Recesses. As he got older it shifted between the dog, a red panda, and a badger. (maybe I’ll just say his hasn’t settled yet and that’s why I can’t decide)

JL Jin Ling definitely also had a daemon which shifted because of a) his loved ones and b) his mood, and he hated it. As if his own explosive temper didn’t give him away enough, his daemon always showed his exact feelings. When he wanted nothing more than his mother to be there it would be a bear. When he was feeling defensive about his parents it would turn into a lion (this happens when he and WWX first meet and any time people talk about his parents’ deaths). When he was younger his daemon spent a lot of time as a cat and a bird, although different types to what his uncles had. 

Jin Ling’s daemon still hasn’t settled when WWX is resurrected, and he is absolutely mortified the one time it decides to turn into a beech marten like WWX’s. Eventually it will settle into a lion, and WWX will pretend to be grumpy that it didn’t choose a bear instead.

Angsty AUs:

Daemons are linked to golden cores Jiang Cheng loses his daemon along with his core. When Wei Wuxian’s core is removed it’s more like when daemons and humans are separated in the books. His daemon stays with him, but can move about freely - this is part of what causes WWX to rapidly destabilise, not just resentful energy. Jiang Cheng always feels weirdly aware of WWX’s daemon after that but doesn’t know why. WWX’s daemon is technically connected to JC too, and also finds this weird. JC also can’t work out why his daemon never came back with his golden core, and that loss is part of why he’s so angry and isolated.

The effect of trauma on Daemons Another angsty au is based on the idea that, if trauma can make your daemon settle early, then trauma can also make it change.

When Wei Wuxian is thrown into the Burial Mounds, he wishes so hard to be able to fly that his beech marten turns into a crow (because I do love a crow for him too). I kind of like the idea that after the Burial Mounds WWX’s daemon almost un-settles itself, and can change between a marten and a crow. This really freaks people out and is another reason people say he’s dangerous.

Similarly, after Wei Ying’s death and the Lan sect’s punishment, Lan Wangji wakes up to find his daemon has shifted from its hare to snow leopard form. In his soul, LWJ feels like if he had been less passive and actually stood with WWX then his soulmate would still be alive. His daemon changes from a more passive hare to the more aggressive snow leopard.

He’s criticised by the elders for it, but they shut up when his daemon flattens theirs, while LWJ’s face remains an impassive mask but his eyes promise murder. WWX is really sad when he comes back to see LWJ’s hare gone and blames himself for causing LWJ so much trauma his daemon changed. (personally if I were writing a Daemon AU this is what I would have happen, because I love LWJ with a snow leopard daemon - they symbolise bravery and martial ferocity, while rabbits are virtue and gentleness, and I feel like these two both accurately represent the two sides of LWJ. I really feel like LWJ has a huge shift in himself after WWX’s death which would be represented in his daemon. It also is, in a way, a return of a core part of himself which was lost after his mother’s death)

Sword/Instrument substitute Mixing Daemons with sword sprits - the animal becomes a physical representation of the spiritual tool. Some people could therefore have more than one daemon (for example, LWJ could have Bichen - his rabbit sword daemon - and Wangji - his snow leopard guqin daemon)

Angsty version: WWX actually does die in the burial mounds and Suibian, his beech martin, dies/changes into Chenqing, a raven/crow.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.  .·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. 

If you are reading this you have made it to the end of this post, well done.

 I wanted to make it shorter but I had too many ideas and wanted to explain my reasoning for my choices and decided just to put it all in one post rather than lots of little ones.

*Disclaimer: I know only the smallest amount of Chinese, and have taken all my information about imagery, word meanings, and homophones etc from web-sources, and so it is very possible I have made mistakes. Though I have, to the best of my abilities, attempted to check on the cultural/artistic meaning, if any, that certain animals have in Chinese culture, the internet lies and I can’t get any decent books on it atm as the libraries are closed, so I’m really sorry if there are errors and I hope people will forgive any mistakes or blunders I might have made. 

[yanderes-galore]

I would like to request general headcanons for Erix and Bakarne (separate of course) during their times at the facility.

Their behavior in the facility is mostly pre-yandere. They really get bad out of it.

This also doesn't 100% revolve around any Darlings, mostly just them.

Y'know, lore purposes-

What do I call this? It isn't really general Yandere HCs as they were rather tame in the facility. Also you made it sound like you just wanted to know how they lived there, so I went with that?

I guess I can call it, Facility Arc! Erix + Barkarne?

I'm making this too complicated, lol, I'll get into it now. Have your chimera lore! I just kind of threw down thoughts like I do for all of my OCs

Art for headers done by @nny-girl2

Mentions Caretaker AU, but this is not the Caretaker AU

Yandere! Erix + Bakarne Behavior/Lore

Facility Arc

Possible Trigger Warnings: Violent behavior, Murder, Self doubt, Manipulation.

- Overall, In this time period Erix and Bakarne are rather calm.

- That can both be because they're naive, or souped up on medications to keep them docile.

- They were born twins by combining DNA of a few animals.

- In both you can note Cow, Deer, Cat, Bat, and Human as the most prominent ones.

- They were the perfect prototypes. Despite having the drawback of not being able to breed.

- The fact the two lived was a miracle enough.

- Or it could be a curse....

- To study both hybrids separately, they were settled on opposite parts of the facility.

- This allowed both to develop their own traits.

Erix

- Erix is the more solitary and cautious.

- Erix is also an observer.

- He likes to watch people, figure out what they're thinking.

- He's clever and able to outsmart others easily.

- These traits were noticed when he was young and were seen as sinister.

- Something that could jeopardize the experiment.

- This leads to Erix receiving the medication he'd be taking during experimentation.

- A concoction of drugs that weakened his strength enough to be bearable, while blocking such aggressive thoughts.

- This left him disoriented for the longest time.

- The medication that suppressed his brain slowed down when he matured into a more adult stage.

- Now, Erix is calmer.

- That does not mean he enjoys humans, however.

- Experiment after experiment, medication after medication, pain that seared into his mind.

- This place was disgusting.

- A hell that birthed him for the intent to cause harm...at least that's what he thought.

- Why else would they do this, other than to play God.

- They must all be foul.

- All humans must be like this. To want power and the ability to cause mass amounts of destruction.

- He eventually gets knowledge of the world outside, either from passing assistants or other means. (In the Caretaker AU, it was by his Darling.)

- This fuel of knowledge made him forget his act.

- They bred a monster, he'll show them a monster.

- He goes from docile to violent quickly once he gets the chance and is prepared.

- Blood and death is left in his wake.

- The liquid coats his skin, he thinks nothing of it.

- He's nothing but an animal free of his chains.

- His goal now only consists of the sweet taste freedom, nothing more.

- Until he meets you, at least.

Bakarne

- Bakarne used to just be a female version of Erix.

- Which meant she would have the same personality as her counterpart.

- But over time is shaped into something of her own.

- She's much less violent, to many comes off as the sweetest thing.

- She's much more extrovert than Erix, including compliant with tests.

- Medication is not needed in her youth for behavior as she never rebelled, but strength suppressors were given.

- This allowed the chimera much more freedom.

- This does not mean Bakarne is ignorant of her surroundings, however.

- She knows what they're trying to groom her into being.

- A creature made for murder.

- But unlike her brother she doesn't accept such role of rage.

- She knows she'll have to leave soon before they notice her deviation.

- Yet, she's such an obedient creature.

- This is her home... but also her prison.

- She's much more hesitant to leave through violence.

- Then experiments got harsher.

- They backed her up into a corner like an animal, took her strength medication away to try and encourage her to be more violent.

- It seems they got what they wanted when Bakarne accidentally caused bloodshed.

- Now she knows she can't escape what she truly is.

- A monster created for their pleasure...

- There is not rage, only fear and sadness.

- She then flees, knowing the truth of the facility's intent and what she had become.

- She thinks lowly of herself and goes into hiding.

- Maybe when she meets you things will be better.

- Or she'll slip further into the role of monster....

[btssunnyboy]

— Double Life - Song Mingi

Was finding out his secret, worth all of the terror it came with?

Words Count - 2,115

Warning - Gang!Au, home invasion.

BTS , NCT , ATEEZ , request are open!

__________________________________________

Leading a double life was never as easy as the millions of movies made it seem. Clashing of the two worlds was bound to happen at some point, but he never would have thought it would clash in the way it did. Both of his contrasting worlds meeting in the middle, and those involved immediately became surrounded by new founds of threats. And that was the last thing he ever wanted for his boys, and most importantly you. You were a special gem that he was desperate to keep hidden away from his cruel other world, so that it would not diminish your beautiful shine. He’s seen what this harsh world can do to people like you , innocent and pure people. All of the misery, heartbreak and betrayals that he goes through on a daily basis, is something he never wanted to drop onto you at all. So to keep his harsh world separate from his romantic world, he decided that being two faced was easier.

Keeping these two worlds separate was easier said then done. He noticed how certain events were starting to overlap, he noticed how his boys were starting too take note of the how his abilities were starting to dwindle, you were starting to notice how his ‘usual’ personality was slowly slipping away. Revealing something that you had never seen before. The usual bubbly, and sweet Mingi was being replaced by a counterpart that was cold and off putting. You hated seeing him like this, it was like a new person had embedded themselves within him, taking over everything in his body. It was terrifying to say the least, but still you proceeded like nothing was bothering you. Like everything was fine and dandy, when in reality you knew there was a bigger secret at hand, you just had to figure out what it was.

You first started noticing just how secretive he could be when you saw him out and about one day. His eyes trained on a target sitting on a nearby park bench. Her long hair framing her face, and her beautiful coat hung loosely around her shoulders. Those perfect hands settling themselves around his biceps and dread filled your body like no other. He was loyal, he always was, yet some part of you held that memory of that women for days. Holding that guilt and dread almost to keep yourself anchored, because maybe you were overreacting, and if you were then all the bad feelings would have been for nothing.

“I’m going to ask you a question,” You started as you turned his chair around to face. His eyebrows raised slightly, as he reached for your hands. Before his fingertips could brush up against yours, you removed your hands away slightly. A sheet of sweat of starting to coat your body, and you didn’t know how longer you could handle it. “You love...you love me, right?”

His hands immediately reached out and interwoven themselves with yours. Pulling your body as close as humanly possible, to the point that you were basically straddling his lap. “I love you so much, it’s suffocating.”

You could feel tears swell in your eyes as you thought back on all of the memories. The secret meeting with the new women, the sudden change in personality, it was all driving you crazy. You thought he trusted you, you thought he cared about you enough to say everything that’s going on in his life. But right now you truly felt like you don’t know the man you’ve come to love. Your hands retracted themselves from his, and cupped his cheeks. “If you love me that much, does that mean you’ll be honest with him.”

Without hesitation he nodded his head, making sure you saw. His warm hands cupping your cold ones, as he waited for you to say anything. Those once cold eyes of his turning soft at the mere sad expression that threatened to cross your features. The moment he spoke you could feel the uneasiness in his voice. “Of course, I’m always honest with you.”

You breathed out a shaky breath, as you tried to keep yourself calm at this moment. Even after he said that, you wanted to believe it was all true. Believe that when he looked into your eyes that he was telling the truth. But you notice how uneasy his voice was, the way his hand subtle shook at the word honest, almost as if it was a curse. And hearing that word would make everything around him crumble down, into mere beaten up rocks. When in reality that’s what would happen, telling you the honest truth would make everything fall apart at the seems.

“You say that, but I still don’t believe it. I’m sorry.” You mumbled as you tried to pull yourself away. With no luck as Mingi wrapped his arms tightly around your waist, making sure you were secure within his grasp. Because right now this was right, it felt right, and he wanted to make sure he remember all the curves on your body just in case this was the last time you let him touch you like this. Those gentle hands have caused harm to many bad people, but he’d never do that to you. “Mingi if you want me to stay, you have to tell me the truth. I mean it, all of the truth.”

“Baby, I - “ He tried, key word tried, to start of his confession. But you didn’t like it already, because it seemed fabricated. It seemed like a rehearsed script that he was beginning to read off. You shook your head in disappointment, because you should have seen it coming. All the signs were there, yet you chose to believe that things could be different for the two of you. But it’s obvious that wasn’t the case.

“You have two options, Mingi, either you tell me why your personality changed all the sudden, or why I’m seeing you meet up with random people all of the sudden. Because if you don’t...if you don’t tell me, we’re done.” You demanded as you stared straight into his eyes. Answers were going to be given one way or another, you loved the man, but you didn’t love the lies. And if this came to an end, then it was just going to end.

“Okay, I promise what I’m about to say will explain all of that, but once you open this door there is no going back.”

“If it means I get to stay with you, I’m ready for anything.”

__________________________________________

He was right when he said once you open that door there is no going back. Because at that moment his opposite worlds collided. And things were never the same for the two of you. When he introduced his team mates you found out that his skills involved weapons, and manipulation and then dots started to connect themselves. His personality changing to meet the targets, or the way he was always on edge at the slightest sound. After all this you realized just how much he cared for you, by keeping this secret. Keeping this secret helped you lead a normal life, and it allowed you to avoid the gang violence all together.

But at last good things never last when it’s involved with the other world. The moment you entered those headquarters, and met the other family he had that consisted of, HongJoong, Seonghwa, Yunho, Yeosang,San,Wooyoung and Jongho. All of these men had traits that made them extremely deadly, but they surprisingly welcome you with open arms at the mere sight of how infatuated Mingi was. When you learned about them, that’s when things took a deadly turn. The word got around that the notorious gang ATEEZ welcomed someone new into their close knit group, people started to hatch plans. They knew a newbie wouldn’t understand much about the world, so they thought if they could get to you, then they’d learn all the secrets about them.

You knew that being in this world would come with consequences, but you never pictured this. Being home alone for once, while Mingi worked on a new mission, but right now you could feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up. As a warning for what’s coming. Because shadows were moving around the front yard, the security cameras were picking up multiple movements around the house all together. The number of people outside was unknown, as you tried to move in silence through the house. All the lights were already off, but the tv was shinning bright, giving away exactly where you were

Panic was starting to set in when you noticed just how close they were to the front door. Their hands were starting to yank the doorknob violently. You rushed to grab your phone, and race up the stairs. “Mingi! Someone’s here.”

The connection was spotty, and he felt his stomach drop. It’s never done that before, and he’s worried about what’s happening on the other end of the phone call. He motion towards the others, before he retracted himself away to console you. “Baby! Stay calm, and say that again.”

“There’s someone here, and I’m worried they know about you.” You panicked even more when you heard the sounds of shattering glass, and multiple deep voice. “Mingi, they are in the house.”

He turned around faster than the speed of light. Sprinting towards his car in sheer panic that you were going to get hurt. All of the others soon followed suit as they raced to their own vehicle, wanting to be there as backup if the situation was really that bad. Oh boy, it seemed like it worse then bad, you could hear scraping against the walls as they each got closer. Their loud shoes sliding against the wood floors, as they taunted you loudly. It was echoing off the walls, and pounding in your skull. It was making your heart race rapidly, and you were scared they could hear it, and find out where you’re hiding.

The dark bathroom was terrifying, because your eyes were playing tricks on you. Making it appear as if shadow figures were getting closer and closer each time you blinked. If help didn’t arrive soon you felt like this was going to be the end of you. Those heavy, pounding footsteps getting closer and closer, as the scraping against the wall got louder and louder. You plugged your ears up tightly, and buried your head within your knees that were pulled up to your chest. For a brief moment the sound was drowned out by your fingers, and the slight ringing that echoed in your head. It was a distraction you needed desperately, to block out the horrible event that is taking place in your home.

You didn’t noticed for a while how everything stood still, too still to be exact. The stillness that comes with complete and utter chaos, and that was not what you wanted. Right now you wanted Mingi, and only Mingi, to burst through that door and hold you so tight that you could barley breath. But right now all you have is someone violently shaking the bathroom door knob with all their might. The voice on the other side was muffled from your fingers, and panic. Everything was going to come to end eventually, it just had to.

“Y/n, baby, it’s me I swear.”

That honey like voice that you’d recognize anywhere, was now on the other side of that wooden door. Waiting for his love to open it and embrace him, most importantly he wanted to make sure that you are okay. You needed to be okay, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if you weren’t. The door swung open swiftly, and your body fell flat into his arms. They wrapped themselves around you within a second, as you buried your tear streaked face into his shoulders. As a sob raked through your body.

“I’m so sorry, y/n, but no one is going to hurt you ever again I promise.”

You wished that sentence would have provided you with comfort. But you kept thinking about how this could happen again. If more people find out that you two are together, they could do worse stuff then this. They could hurt you to get leverage on him and the rest of the boys. And it terrified you to think about that, as if every second of every day your life was in danger. Maybe it was best his double life stayed as it was before. Because you don’t know if he’s worth all of this panic.

[ampersand301]

Explanation Of The Otherworlds

A Brief but detailed explanation of the different types of other worlds and realities that the Powers of Silent Hill can and do manifest. under the cut for length (not canon per-say just an interpretation for AU and reference purposes)

Surface World

-not much different than the regular world, looks about normal at first. Things kind of shift and change at points, things can appear or disappear, but usually there's no real danger. Nobody will notice unless they're being targeted and will likely shift back into the regular world w/o noticing 

Ex. Room 302, SAH in general, Silent Hill Woods 

Fog world

-heavy fog surrounds everything and everywhere, places are blocked off, roads are out or missing, monsters will appear in mostly small numbers around the out and inside of buildings. All regular people seem to have disappeared, everything is in disrepair/has been abandoned. Anyone here is being targeted. Fog world only seems to appear in Silent Hill. Time does not change.

Ex. Daytime in Old Silent Hill, the shopping district, South Vale, Lakeview hotel, Shepherds Glen

Rain World 

Bizarre mix of Fog and Night worlds as it's Both of them but also neither. Constantly raining but nothing ever floods, time switches randomly and flips to the night version on a whim, rain is harder at night and monsters are more aggressive. Only seen by select few people ever, unknown if just a version of the Fog world or it's Own separate world 

Ex. Hillside, Pearl Creek, Port District

Night world

-very similar to fog world but without the actual fog, pitch black everywhere, no moon stars etc. Monsters will appear in greater numbers and be more aggressive, some will have a more otherworld esq appearance. More of the otherworld will seep into the night world (rusted bars, endless pits, etc) only people targeted by the fog world come here, they will almost never run into other people at all and not even if they are also targets. Not exclusive to silent hill but unlikely elsewhere 

Ex. South Vale (post hospital), Room 302 (post hospital world) 

Dreamscape/ Dream World 

Series of connected but disjointed sections or worlds triggered by falling asleep in a surface or fog world or by ending a portal made with the halo of the sun. These worlds are interpretations or jumbled versions of real places and/or events much like a dream. Monsters here tend to be frequent. There are locations that appear that are not real and simply manifest (it's Possible they come from nowhere or the otherworld or somewhere more subconscious.) This is a place targets of Silent Hill manifest into reality. People here are either targets or have a direct connection to a target, and the locations can come from said targets or their connections. Dreamscapes are often connected to other dreamscapes directly. Despite coming from the powers of Silent Hill, it doesn't have to manifest in the town itself.

Ex. Forest, Subway, Water Prison, Building, Hospital, Apartment worlds (real locations altered in the dreamscape) Spiral Staircase, The Truth, Heart Of 302 (locations not real that appear in the dreamscape from unknown sources.) 

Otherworld 

A place manifested in the dark underbelly of the subconscious, taking negative emotions and protecting them into reality around targets by the powers of Silent Hill. When the target's emotions are at their lowest, the otherworld is the strongest. Often multiple targets are needed to sustain an otherworld unless the targets are particularly powerful (I.e. have or once had latent psychic abilities or particularly painful lives) monsters in the otherworld are frequent and violent and often manifest worse and worse monsters as time goes on or in places more traumatic for a particular target. The world degrades the longer one stays in the otherworld and things deteriorate faster the more upset a target becomes, chunks of the world are always missing because the otherworld is not a complete copy of the real world but rather a recreation of a traumatic interpretation of the world or an event. Otherworld transitions are often triggered by upsetting or traumatic events or situations or monster attacks. Otherworlds also often look very different to different people. If there is only one source/target other people caught up in the otherworld will see it mostly how the target sees it, but in the case of multiple targets seeing the other targets otherworld they will often interpret it differently and may be unable to see certain things from the other targets Otherworlds. Otherworlds are not exclusive to the town of Silent Hill, but are at their strongest the closer they are to the town (unless the target has abilities to project more negative emotions out thus "feeding" the power more efficiently and making it stronger) the otherworld may be very complicated and based on real locations or it may be fast and loud and disjointed and seem to come from the recesses of a person's mind making up locations that don't really exist. The otherworld requires a lot of power to continue to exist so if the target's emotional state stabilizes, they feel a genuine good emotion, or their emotions just aren't enough to continue to power it the otherworld may transition back to a fog world or similar.  

Ex. Otherworld Alchemilla/Lakeside Amusement park, (otherworld version of real location) Labyrinth (otherworld created location to torment target) Other Mall (otherworld seeping into a location outside of Silent Hill), Otherworld Shepherds Glenn, Otherworld Sanitarium, Otherworld Devils Pitstop etc etc

Nowhere 

-only manifested with extreme amounts or power and mental distress by the target. Lowest and worst layer of silent hill powers, nothing is here, locations barely resemble their real world counterparts if at all, very few tiny chunks of the world even exist and mostly contained to platforms suspended on nothing. Monsters here are very powerful and some are even god-like in appearance and ability. Nowhere is extremely unstable because of the amount of power and trauma needed to sustain it, nowhere will disintegrate fast, and if one is not near an exit made by the target who manifested it, they will be sucked into nowhere and cease to exist. Those knowledgeable on the otherworlds often doubt the existence of nowhere because of how difficult it is to manifest and sustain, it has only seemed to exist at all once. 

Transitioning:

Moving through each of these worlds is not as simple as going from the least bad to the worst. All of these transitions depend on someone first getting to either the Surface World or Fog world (possibly rain world) without noticing, only then can they descend into an Otherworld, Night world or Dreamscape. (aside from a few outliers of people with extraordinary powers, no one goes from the real world to an Otherworld directly, the people with these powers are stated to exist and seem to use unknown methods to transition via mirrors or spells). Once in an otherworld a target will remain there as long as the town has enough energy to sustain it or until the target dies. This is often true of the Night world and may be true of Nowhere as well. The Dreamscape tends to be more stable and thus harder to escape but is also more rare overall having been only reported once. Getting back to the real world from any of these worlds is a monumental task and no one has been able to reliably do it and document this.

[rubyneo]

ladied bug...

When I started shipping them: when i originally started watching rwby in like 2014 BDNSNDNDND but then the online community was very very hostile to anyone who wasnt shipping wr + bb and then they got VERY hostile to anyone not shipping bb for a long time. so i tricked myself into like bb SBNRNENDND. and then in the hiatus between v6 and v7 (so like 2019)

My thoughts: LISTEN...i think crwby rly missed an opportunity to make blake's beast counterparts be such obvious foils AND the missed opportunity of "beauty's beast is little red who is the wolf. little red's wolf is beauty who is also the beast". its about the DUALITY of GIRL and MONSTER yknow.

What makes me happy about them: everything. but especially the fact that blake sees herself in ruby and ruby's optimism and ability to keep going even though she has gone through hell is what encourages blake to keep going and regain a little bit of light in her darkness. like ruby and blake r really out here with light/dark symbolism huh...the moon in the night, the light in the shadows, double moon symbolism,

What makes me sad about them: that they rly never got a chance? like the set up was THERE and it went NOWHERE

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: "ooooo look at how DOMINANT and COOL blake is and how DUMB and CHILDISH ruby is!!" even though ruby is out here being the knight to blake's runaway prince 🙄🙄🙄

Things I look for in fanfic: working on weapons together, infodumping (ruby about weapons and blake about books), just being together. i also enjoy some good battle couple fics and high fantasy aus for them 😳😳

My wishlist: blake being a teeny bit overprotective of ruby next volume. like man she failed to save yang and then just as she thought her desperate play to save ruby worked she LET GO OF HER!!!!!! also. okay here me out. neo is aware that blake fell WITH ruby...she would have seen it...so what im saying is neo tries disguising herself as blake but ruby is able to see through it BECAUSE their relationship is built on a mutual trust and near silent understanding of one another. they know each other. so i think ruby should be able to see through neo's disguise.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: im fine with blake ending up with yang but i want ruby and neo to share a little kiss at least once. i also like lancaster.

My happily ever after for them: they get together post-canon and adopt a ton of kids and ruby becomes a teacher and blake takes over the white fang and they have sunday brunches with ghira and kali

[loosesodamarble]

Other characters in the World Swap?

So at first, the Pillar-Captain roleswap was just a thought experiment for switching Breath Style and Magic. But thinking on it some more, I personally believe swapping universes for more characters yields some interesting ideas.

Now I’m not going to swap every character, from Black Clover at least. For one, Demon Slayer’s cast is significantly smaller than Black Clover’s. I can feasibly swap over most of the characters. As for Black Clover characters, mostly the miscellaneous mages, I’ll probably reassign them to the Pillar-turned-Captains’ squads.

The thing with swapping the characters and their worlds, I don’t think a one-to-one roleswap works. Instead, this is just me trying to find a place for the characters in the world/narrative they’re entering while still retaining elements of their original stories. Sometimes this means making some weird leaps in logic to fill certain roles/plot points.

Moving on!

Black Clover to Demon Slayer Asta: Asta is the protagonist so he will fill Tanjirou’s role. He has loved ones killed by a demon and the last remaining one becomes a demon. Here’s the twist. Since he has no magic in Black Clover, in a Demon Slayer AU, he’d be unable to use breaths. Instead, he is like Genya, able to consume demon flesh for supernatural abilities. I imagine he’d try to train under a cultivator, multiple even, but with no talent in breaths, he’d just have to train up his body. Until Yami finds him, takes a liking to his spirit, and trains him until they discover the demon eating ability. Yuno: I’d personally put Yuno in the role of Nezuko, but with major differences. He’s a descendant of the Breath of the Sun user so he’s the one getting the inherited memories and, as a demon, he’d figure out not just his Blood Demon Art (probably a cutting wind) but he’d also learn Breath of the Sun. He’d become the demon who can walk in the sun. Noelle: So in this AU, the Silva family consistently fills the role of the Water Pillar. Acier was the Water Pillar but died at the hands of an Upper Moon in order to protect baby Noelle. Here, she’s not directly blamed for Acier’s death but her siblings still kind of wish that the mighty Acier lived instead of the seemingly useless Noelle. She wants to be a demon slayer to make up for Acier’s death but try as she might, she just can’t get a grasp on Breath of Water. She eventually develops Breath of the Sea, stronger and a little wilder but it still flows and let her dance across the battlefield the way her mother did. Leopold: He’s the successor for the position of Flame Pillar. It’s kind of weird that Fuegoleon and Mereoleona are both Pillars at the same time but it’s that fact that makes Leopold worry about his ability to live up to the legacy of his siblings. Mimosa and Kirsch: Mimosa is similar to Aoi; trained in swordsmanship but, instead of being too scared to fight, she prefers being a healer. She runs this AU’s equivalent of the Butterfly Mansion a.k.a. the Demon Slayer Corps’ main hospital. As for Kirsch, he’d be a Breath of Flower user, probably not Charlotte’s successor but a surprisingly competent demon slayer still. Nebra and Solid: Two prospective successors of Nozel for the position of Water Pillar. Maybe Nebra will switch to Breath of Mist but I think the idea of the younger Silva siblings competing to be Nozel’s successor is an interesting concept. Licht and Patry: Yoriichi and Michikatsu. Part of the first generation of Breath Users. Licht used Breath of the Sun. Patry Breath of the Moon. And this means Patry becomes an Upper Moon. With the devils and devil-possessed, he might end up being Upper Moon 3 while still maintaining the same story significance as Kokushibou. Although, given his troubled past, he might also have Akaza elements mixed in which suits the third rank. Nacht and Morgen: Oh yeah, I’m bringing these two in. Both are alive and well. Of course... It’s not that simple. One of them is a demon slayer and Blake’s successor. The other has been turned into a demon. But who is the slayer and who is the demon? Nacht is the Black Bulls vice captain so that could mean he’s the slayer but he’s also a devil possessed so that might mean he’s the demon. Other members of the Black Bulls: Lightning round. Nacht would be Yami’s successor. Finral, Vanessa, Grey, Gordon, Henry, Charmy and Secre would be kakushi; not actively fighters but directly serving under Yami. Magna, Luck, Gauche, and Zora would be active demon slayers. Devils and Devil-possessed: The devils and their hosts would stand in for Muzan and the upper ranks of the Twelve Demon Moons. Lucifero seems best fit for Muzan. I definitely want the Dark Triad to be among the Upper Ranks because they have such gloriously evil personalities that it’d be a shame to put them in the lower ranks.

..........

Demon Slayer to Black Clover Tanjirou: This may sound weird, but I’m not giving Tanjirou the Anti-Magic swords. Instead, he’s going to be like a mix of Yuno and Charmy. Yuno, in the sense that he’s secretly got major significance in the world. Charmy, in the fact that he’s going to have dual affinity. Normally, he uses Water Magic. But he’s got elf/dwarf/something blood in him too which allows him to use Light/Sun Magic. He’d be in Giyuu’s Cobalt Ocean squad. Nezuko: Like her brother, a character with a secret significance and dual affinity for magic. She’ll also be a friendly rival to her brother. They’ll both be Magic Knights, in different squads, and encourage each other’s growth. Her magic affinities would be Fire and Light/Sun Magic. Since she becomes a demon in canon, she’d be one of the elf-possessed mages. Zenitsu: A Lightning Magic user and in Tengen’s Amber Songbird squad. He’s still going to fight when he’s asleep because that’s too iconic to not use. He trained under Jigorou, a former captain, alongside Kaigaku (who would become elf-possessed later on). I guess Zenitsu and Kaigaku would be the Finral and Langris of this AU. Inosuke: He’s getting Beast Magic, no questions asked. He’d still be raised by in the wilderness by wild animals but he could be found and taken into a family in the Forsaken Realm. He’d try to get into Gyoumei’s squad because it’s the strongest squad. Whether or not he actually gets in is still up in the air. As for what happened to Kotoha in this AU... Genya: He’s getting the Anti-Magic swords. Kind of. Instead, the swords absorb magic for later use. It will look like the swords dispel magic when, in reality, they’re absorbing the spells which can then be unleashed later. Genya would be under Gyoumei’s wing, though not as an official squad member. Kind of like how Gyoumei took Genya as a student but refused to make him a successor because he couldn’t use breaths. Kanao and Kanae: Kanae and Kanao both use Flower Magic. Kanae is alive but retired from the Magic Knights at a shockingly young age due to being cursed by a devil. Shinobu and Kanao are working on that. I don’t think Kanao would be the vice captain of the Wisteria Butterflies, but she’d be a top contender for that position. Sabito: He lives in the this AU and would be the vice captain of the Cobalt Ocean! I’ve seen a couple AUs where Sabito uses Ice Breathing and decided that I would have him use Ice Magic since that’d help differentiate him from Giyuu’s Clover Kingdom counterpart! Tamayo and Yushirou: They’re commoners who research forbidden magic, curses, and the like. Tamayo may or may not know the history of Genya’s magic-absorbing swords. Would become elf-possessed later on. Yoriichi and Michikatsu: The Licht and Patry in this AU. I mean, Yoriichi's quiet and calm persona reminds me of the empty shell that Licht was before his soul was full reawakened. Butterfly Mansion girls: Aoi, Kiyo, Sumi, and Naho would be in the Wisteria Butterfly Squad but strictly as healers with their magic. Senjurou and Shinjurou: Senjurou would have Fire Magic like Kyou and their father. But he’d be too weak to pass the Magic Knight Exam. Shinjurou is still a washed up drunk, but probably for a different reason. He probably learned the fact that humans will never match up to the naturally gifted elves in terms of magic and goes “why do humans bother to use magic when we’ll never be as strong as the elves?” Muzan and Demon Moons: They become the Spade Kingdom’s Dark Triad and Dark Disciples. Douma is a member of the Dark Triad and the one who cursed Kanae and killed Kotoha.