#this is just a screenshot I’m sure somebody has a better picture somewhere

[cannondestiel]

OMG MISHA

I love this so much

UPDATE: HE TAGGED JENSEN IM ☠️

[neoheros]

how would haikyuu boys handle falling in love feat. kuroo + akaashi + tsukishima !!

kuroo tetsuro

being in a relationship with him is just a pretty chill experience tbh

i feel like kuroo wouldn’t really date anyone he’s not close to on a comfortable level

people be like: omfg he looks like a player tho

he’s literally not ???? like y’all telling me this man doesn’t look like the idea of having to interact with people he doesn’t know repulses him ? bye

he’s not ignorant, he just isn’t the type to get out there unless necessary yk?

he’s got a good friend group and he’s totally satisfied with that !!!!!!

so when he was 100% sure that he saw you as somebody he’d want to be more than friends with he was just like :0

kuroo at 5:37 am, thinking of that one time you handed him a bottle of water first: oh— oh shit

he doesn’t act on it first though because y’all have been friends for so long and what if you don’t like him back ???

he didn’t wanna ruin the thing he had with you because you were literally the only one who tolerated him sending tiktoks at 4 am in the morning

kuroo: omfg have you seen this one yet

you: bro it’s almost 5 am are you on crack

but eventually he got tired of just staring at you and admiring you from afar and having to make up some excuse when you catch him cause he just really likes looking at you :(

you: bro stop staring at me

kuroo: no, your face bothers me

you: due to personal reasons i will make you pass away ❤️

so one day he just decides to shoot his shot yk?

if you reject him that’s fine, he’ll just have to send numerous tiktoks to wash away the awkwardness afterwards

like he’ll be upset about it because holy crap he flat out adores you at this point but he’s also got a sense of boundaries and will totally respect your decision

BUT !!!! when you told him you liked him too he just 🥺👉👈

this man had the goofiest grin on his face for weeks on end and his heart is all over the place because all the things he imagined in his head to do with you is finally gonna come true !!!

don’t be fooled though !! nothing will change from your friendship !!! you’re still both really chill with each other except now y’all can hug and kiss and !!!!!

kuroo: don’t i look kinda good in this picture though

you: not really, let me take a better one

kuroo: stop taking me out of frame

in retrospect, it’s really fun to be in a relationship like the one you two have because there’s not much things to disagree on and the dynamic you both have just go so well !!!

there’s also not a lot of new things to do or be uncomfortable about because y’all have already done everything as best friends !!!!!!! it’s 🥺

you, seeing kuroo staring at you: what’re you looking at me for

kuroo, unnerved: you’re so pretty

you, caught off guard: it’s my time to pass away now i see 😌

you two joke around a lot but that doesn’t mean you two take whatever you say to heart

somewhere along the line, this made kuroo a bit worried on how you took his intentions though

he knew you were cool with messing with him but sometimes he wonders if what he says ever gets to you

so one night while the two of you are eating frozen yogurt in his car, you in his hoodie and just straight up vibing to the tiktoks that played as background music

he looks up, spoon in his mouth, “you know that i love you, right?”

“you’re so cheesy,” you tell him, laughing while you scroll up to the next video on the fyp

he leans back in his seat, eyeing you under the single yellow light of the car

you, barely looking up from your phone: i love you too though

akaashi keiji

being in a relationship with akaashi is quite literally the most gratifying thing

he’s 97% of your wise decision making and you’re very much thankful for that

when he first met you he honestly didn’t know what to think

his first impression of you? an indecisive impulsive mess

his second impression of you? a very cute indecisive impulsive mess

there’s not a single doubt that he was crushing on you H A R D

he doesn’t pay attention to it though because he knew how crushes often worked and most of the time they didn’t really work out

but the more he looked at you or stared at you from afar with a silly grin that he doesn’t even realize, everyone around him notices just how silent you make him

leave it up to the fukurodani volleyball club to be the best matchmakers in the world

so one night while akaashi was chilling in bed he gets a text from bokuto telling him about an impromptu team hang out sesh

akaashi: it’s 7 pm ..?

you, in the group chat: theres never a wrong time for milk tea !!!!!

when you sent that everyone else in the chat was just so frickin ecstatic because now that you’ve confirmed you were going, it’s obvious that akaashi was now too

he arrived like 2 minutes early from the designated time and the way it wasn’t at all shocking when no one else arrived except for you

akaashi: well they totally bailed :/

you: hey at least now we have a list of people to take revenge on when the purge strikes

it’s okay though because the two of you make most of the night anyways !!

you never thought sitting outside of a 7/11 at 7 pm on a friday could be fun but as you sat there with boba tea and a ramen cup with one of your closest friends next to you, you were just !!!! so frickin soft

akaashi on the other hand didn’t feel anything but utter nervousness the whole time

it was so cold under the night sky and you were so close to him, he’s praying that you take the redness on his cheeks from the weather and not from the rapid racing of his heart

bokuto texting him: bro i swear to god if you’re not taking this chance to shoot your shot i’m >:(

he’s so nervous because it actually was an ideal time to tell you how much he liked you

plus he’s pretty sure that you were eventually gonna notice just how often he glanced at you whenever you came to their practices or in general

so he’s like fine then !!! he’s gonna do this tonight and if you reject him then he’s just gonna have to deal !!!!

akaashi, anxious: hey i really li—

you, cutting him off: i like you a lot and i’m pretty sure bokuto did this on purpose because he knows and i’m sorry if it wasted your time !!!!

akaashi, less anxious: oh

HE !! DOES NOT HESITATE !!! TO REASSURE YOU !!

he just smiles softly and tucks your hand in his and tells you he’d like to walk you home that night

after that something just changed between the two of you

suddenly he’s walking you home everyday with little forehead kisses before he leaves

going grocery shopping with him when you run out of food at home because he’s the only one who knows about your secret snack stash

akaashi: you don’t need that much yakult

you: ? don’t be alarmed but i think we just found the reason of our first fight

whenever you go out with him to shop for anything at all, he always has to be the person in front when you walk because he’s the one pushing the cart with his left hand while his right is tightly interlocked with yours

you just stray behind him, pointing out all the things you’d like and he’s the one who decides if it’s worth to buy because you’re absolutely sure that you’d be dead broke if you were left alone

akaashi: this hoodie looks cute, do you wanna try it out

you, recalling the four sweatshirts you haven’t returned to him: nah i have enough

sometimes you’d get in the cart whenever the grocery store you’re in is mega big and he’s just gonna have the most unbothered face as people eye him because he’s pushing a fucking cart with a person in it

you’d get worried though thinking that you’re too heavy for him to push around so you insist to get off but he just doesn’t let you because you were so cute and 😤

akaashi is just so frickin soft when it comes to you like most of the time when someone idly mentions your name a smile immediately comes up to his face and he doesn’t even realize it

he also almost always wake up to numerous snaps of you at 3 in the morning just doing the most random things

he goes through them with such a silly grin and has to fight the urge to screenshot all of them cause u were so FRICKEN cute

akaashi, looking at a photo of you with tears down your face from 4 am: that’s my baby 👉👈

everyone around y’all are just on the fence about the two of you dating since neither of you really cleared what was going on ???

you were scared to call him your boyfriend because there was never really a discussion about it and you didn’t want to come off as assuming

but one afternoon right before he left when he dropped you off at your house, he just stopped and looked at you and you were so confused

akaashi, taking off his sweatshirt and giving it to you: the news said it gets cold tonight

you, on the verge of tears: oh 🥺

tsukishima kei

he’s a salty little shit who complains 24/7 and that’s about as canon as it gets

BUT but !!! if there’s anything tsukishima is good at and i mean anything !!! it’s being observant and keen on the people around him !!! ESP TO YOU !!!

at first you were always just kinda there ?

like he noticed your presence cause you shared classes with him and you were also at his practices a lot cause you and kiyoko would walk home together

so he knew of you but didn’t really know know you, yk?

but then one day yamaguchi came to him introducing you because apparently he’s the only one left on the team who hasn’t met you and it may or may not be because you were low key scared of him

it’s all good though cause once you two shook hands and talked he became more open to actually including you in his life

you guys made out to be good friends considering that you balanced out his snarky attitude with your even worse comebacks

like they weren’t really all that clever but it’s annoying enough to get him to shut up when you want him to

everyone on the team was super surprised at the fact that you were able to talk to tsukishima like that but also they were like: “please don’t ever stop???”

so you became from someone he barely realized was there to always looking for you first when he enters a room

yamaguchi: you know some people would call that having a crush 😗

and he’s all confused cause he knew that the possibility of him getting through high school without having a crush was very slim but jesus christ a crush on YOU??

tsukki, internally: god has favorites and it is not me 💔

but when he gets over the idea that it’s completely revolting to like you like that he realizes something click and suddenly it wasn’t an annoying idea to see you romantically

so in full tsukishima style he asks you out and was pretty surprised when you said yes but you weren’t cause he wasn’t even mildly subtle at hiding his intentions

you: does this mean you won’t be mean to me anymore 🥺

tsukki: no but that’s a nice try ❤️

even when the two of you started dating, he didn’t really want anything to change cause he liked the dynamic he had with you

he was very relieved that you weren’t easily offended and you didn’t really get on his nerves a lot

you guys were hot heads but you also respected each other 🥺

something you quickly became accustomed to after dating though is being codependent when it came to sleeping

you’re usually always over at each other’s houses and his mom is totally over the moon at the fact that his son found someone like you

so every afternoon after school you two are at either houses and just chilling and vibing because school do be very tiring tho

most of the time naps happen and even if it is super hot outside and you’re on the verge of a heat stroke, you just can’t get comfortable unless you’re touching him yk?

tsukishima’s probably the same since he really likes it when his leg is over yours or when his arm is touching your arm

you, under a blanket against tsukki’s back in extremely warm weather: it’s hot

tsukki, sweating: yeah

you: so anyways

he didn’t even realize how much he’s used to you being there when he falls asleep that at night when he actually needs to rest and you’re not anywhere near him he just can’t ???

tsukishima, snapping you a picture of him with tired eyes at 2 in the morning: you ruined my life

you, just as tired, quickly replying: uno reverse card bitch

so it’s 2 am and neither of you can fall asleep and it’s just an entire frenzy of tiring yourselves out

the two of you end up facetiming and just talking endlessly about random thoughts and perspectives on people

his voice is 100% groggy and every 2 minutes he’s yawning but he really likes it when he’s talking to you because it’s always better when it’s you in the mix

he’s telling you all about how he thinks dinosaurs are super cool and fantastic that when he realizes you’ve fallen asleep he’s just like 🥺

he stares at the screen for a while, suddenly regretting that he wasn’t there to make sure you were comfortable

he’s got the softest smile on and he doesn’t even care that he’s staring at you while you’re asleep cause you just looked so peaceful and warm and sweet

tsukki: that’s my baby 🥺

he feels another yawn come up and he ends the call, hoping that the tone won’t wake you up when he does

at this point he’s also on the verge of falling asleep and he’s very glad that he talked to you because you always knew how to get him out of things like this

tsukki, texting you: thanks for falling asleep on me SNAKE

tsukki: love you, gn <3

[hayjeon]

Tips on creating fun fanfic headers!

i had so much fun writing the fanfic writing tips yesterday and i got a few more questions about header-making, and so i decided to make one more of these! i hope these tips help somebody out there! hope you enjoy :) 

p.s. these tips won’t require any hard editing skills or photoshop skills, nor any expensive tablets/apps! 

typically i spend around ~5-10 min creating one header, and that’s either after i think of/finish a fic. i have so much fun doing it and sharing it with you that i figured i’d share how i do it! 

why headers? 

as I talked about in my fic tips, one of the most eye-catching things about fics are headers. when i’m scrolling through a rec page, my home page, a tag, or even someone’s masterlist, i’m immediately drawn to well-made headers. that’s what captures my attention, and then i’m more drawn in by the content. so, you can say that headers is your own version of an ad for your own fic, or an extension of it (like the cover of a novel!) 

if you were writing your own book, imagine how much time you’d spend figuring out what you wanted your cover to look like. i try to have as much fun and invest as much time making my own headers because it’s just the cherry on top to my finished product :) 

disclaimer: BUT HEADERS ARE NOT NECESSARY/DO OR DIE! if you don’t feel like you want to do this, then keep writing! its ok! this is just a suggestion. i’ve seen plenty of well-written fics without headers at all, so don’t beat yourself up over not having one/not wanting to do one. this is truly just a fun, extra kind of thing, and only keep reading if you want to learn how i do it! :) 

tips for people who don’t want to make headers: if you still want something to make your fic stand out, use gifs! i use them in my drabbles a lot! this will at least give ur fic a lil boost! 

how to find pictures

I typically use unsplash, which is a free website in which photographers upload their HQ pics for free use. the pics are really high quality, typically stock photos, and don’t have any logos on them like other ones on google. unfortunately, you won’t find any pics of the members or anything, but you’ll find beautiful stock photos of typical scenes like “ocean scene” or “desert scene.” I found the stock photo for cut me open (shown below) on that site by just looking up “medical” or “doctor”. 

i used to use google a lot and just use keywords like “desert scene HQ” and edit the search settings to deliver HQ pics, and a minimum # of pixels, but unplash is definitely better in terms of quality, more aesthetic photos, and no logos/watermarks. 

on some occasions, i will screenshot some scenes of youtube videos, turning up the quality to 1080p or 4k and zooming in so that the pixelation is as crisp as possible, and then editing it later to look good (which i’ll explain in a second!) 

the above photo was a scene from the specific characters from the drama, “100 Days My Prince” that I screenshotted from a youtube video that TvN uploaded, recapping the drama. I cropped it just right so that their faces were left out, which i’ll also mention soon! 

things to look for when picking pictures: 

you want the picture to reflect a specific motif/theme from your fic! if its a moody fic, then try to find a moody scene that you can edit with filters/lighting to look even moodier; or if the characters’ jobs are a big portion of the fic (like cut me open/doctor theme) try to look for stock photos with that shown very clearly!

make sure its high quality: tumblr really dumbs down the quality of the photo when uploading it, so try your best to find something with a lot of pixels in it so that when you start editing, you don’t sacrifice too much of the quality already

try to look for something simple/clean: a picture with too much subject (ie. people in the background, or too much detail) may end up taking away from the main point of your header, which is your title. so find pics without too much clutter! 

try to make sure its landscape: which will help during editing to save some of the quality better. 

editing your pictures

now that you have a specific photo you want to use, now its time to edit! I use VSCO CAM (free app) and my own apple photos cropping tool for faster crops. 

crop/adjust: if your picture is too large/wide, crop it to at least a 16:9 ratio. i’d say aim for skinnier if you can, so that you don’t take up too much space (especially if you’re planning to add headers to your masterlist). also crop out any faces, any clutter, any unnecessary details, so you have a nice, clean slate to work on when adding text. 

contrast/sharpen/clarity/white balance/etc.: i’m not gonna give you a lesson on photography, but i’ll tell you I learned like 80% of everything that i know just by fiddling with it on VSCO! So just try it out and play with the app, see what you can make of it. i’d say a rule of thumb to follow is that you want happier fics with a brighter tone, and moodier/angsty fics with a darker tone so that it can reflect the nature of the fic further, without saying anything! 

if you wanna be extra af like me, then go a step further and photoshop your pics. this one is a good example; when i screenshotted this scene from another youtube video for my fic One Year My Love part 2, i was specifically looking for a scene that would showcase the ornate/regal details of their clothing/environment in contrast to part 1′s modest clothing/scene (the first header in this post). 

i found this scene, but actually, this scene portrays the Crown Prince and the Princess, not y/n. So, the actors weren’t smiling at all! They were actually frowning at eachother in this scene, to portray the tension between the two characters and their marriage. 

So, I took the extra step, adjusting the pic with VSCO so that their shoulders/chins were at the same level, cropped off their faces up until their lips, and then used the adobe photoshop free app to photoshop their lips to be SMILING at eachother!!!! subtle, but important! 

call me crazy for taking that much time but i’m so proud of how it turned out and i loved every second of making this one. that way, this scene makes it portray the happy ending for Jungkook and y/n! 

adding text to your header

you can use any app out there, but i really like Font Candy! I actually ended up buying the 2$ version of this and never regretted it, but you can actually find a lot of their basic fonts on the free version; I tend to use the fonts: OSTRICH SANS, BEBAS, TREND, and INTRO the most! these are pretty clean-looking, block letters that look good whenever i put them as my titles. 

I love this app too cause you can easily control the spacing between letters to make them take up more space, add shadows, or even make them contrast their background using the overlay feature; like this one i made for wildest dreams (see how the text changes depending on what part of the photo its on? amazing! it’s literally with a click of a button!!)

And i’ll always add “written by HAYJEON” or “by HAYEJON”, space it out, and add it somewhere underneath as my own branding.

orrrrrr 

if you want to be more creative, you can even go a step further and use whatever you have on hand to enhance whatever you’re trying to portray. 

for this one, i ended up finding this amazing photo on unsplash and i thought it would do a create job of portraying the “movie-set” quality of what wildest dreams is going to be about. this stock photo had someone else’s names on it, so i used my ipad, and used instagram to just erase the existing writing with the color of the background, and then wrote in my own title and url with my own handwriting/apple pen!!! 

i thought this was pretty cool because it’s like wildest dreams is its own movie/has its own movie set, which, once it’s out, you guys will see that it’s supposed to be! 

saving/uploading

this is pretty easy/obvious, but i figured i’d mention it. all the apps i mentioned are available on the appstore, and they will save directly to your photos. after doing that, i’ll just upload them into a special folder i have on my google drive so that when i’m finished writing a fic on tumblr using my laptop, i can easily download the photos without sacrificing quality. easy! 

and that way, i can save them forever; even if i have to delete them from my computer, i can always redownload them! 

side note: making text separators

i just recently started doing this, but ever since tumblr took down their text separators, i’ve just been cropping the bottom like 5-10 pixels of the header to use as my text separators! (with my laptop)

i saw some other writer doing it and thought that it looked better than what i had used previously (a cropped photo of a random line i found on google); i found that doing this tied my fics together a little better and just looked better aesthetically; 

so there it is! hope you enjoyed! :) i would love to see what other tips you guys have been using, feel free to send me an ask or reply to this post; and if you end up using any of my tips, please let me know! I love to hear from you guys all the time <3 

lots of love, especially during these times, 

hay <3 

[woildismyerster]

Can you write anything with davey? I love how you characterize him!

Y/N:  i need a favor

Davey:  Sure, what’s up?

Y/N:  you just agreed.  no backing out now

Davey:  Y/N.

Y/N:  meet me behind the school

Y/N:  bring a box

“Davey is my best friend,” you cooed into your arms.  “If you like me, you’ll like him by proxy.  Probably.  Hopefully.”

To say that liking you was the same as liking Davey was a stretch, but Davey was winsome.  He would be fine as long as he didn’t do anything stupid.

“And there he is,” you said, grinning at him while he approached.  His eyes were already on what you were holding.  “The life of the party.  The VIP.  The man of the—”

“That’s a cat,” Davey said, voice going up at the end as though it was a question.

“Well spotted.”

“It looks dead,” he said, nothing questioning about it.

“It isn’t.”

It did look it, though.  The kitten was small, patchy, and buzzing with flies.  If it hadn’t been walking when you found it, you probably would have assumed the same thing.  It had settled into your arms without too much of a fuss, which was probably a universal sign that this was supposed to be the Salem to your Sabrina Spellman.

Davey looked at you, then at the box.  “You can’t seriously want to keep that thing.”

You balked.  “Somebody has to take care of it.  Why not me?”

“Because your parents don’t want ‘anymore living things’ in their house,” he pointed out.  “Because you have nowhere to hide a cat, especially if it needs special care.”

“You already agreed to help,” you said with a grin.  “No take-backs.”

“You’re the devil.”

“Irrelevant.”

He groaned.  “My parents will kill me.”

“Suitable.  A life for a life.”  You held the cat out to him, hoping that maybe there was a scrap of empathy in him somewhere.  “C’mon, Davey.  The cat needs help.  I’ll do all the work; I just need a place for him to stay.”

“You can’t do all the work,” Davey said, “when it’s at my house.”

“I’ll come over all the time,” you said eagerly.  “So much you’ll get tired of me.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said, a strange look on his face.  Maybe it was suspicion.  Maybe he was just thinking it through, imagining how he’d have to change his schedule to fit this in.  “I could never get tired of you.”

“Please?”

“I don’t even like cats,” he said, defeated.  He held out the box so you could settle the kitten in.

“You don’t have to like cats—just the one,” you said, scooping up the box and setting off toward Davey’s apartment.

Davey:  If I touch him, I’ll probably get a horrible disease and die.

Y/N:  dont touch him then

Davey:  This is all on you.

“I feel like a mom,” you crooned.

“The mom of a gremlin, maybe,” Davey said.  He’d locked the cat in a cage, both for his own sake and the cat’s.  He’d read online that the cat needed a chance to get used to it’s surroundings, so he’d been trying to help it chill out in private.  “Or like the queen that gave birth to the Minotaur.”

“Don’t talk about your son that way.”

He snorted.  “Believe me, I’d remember fathering this beast.”

You winked at him, and he went a little pink.

“Not like that, you cretin.”  He sat on the floor with you in front of the cage, crossing his legs.  “We could always give him to a shelter, you know.  To people who know what they’re doing.”

“We’ll take him to the vet tomorrow, and we’ll know what we’re doing after that.”

He sighed.  “You want to keep him.”

“Of course I do.  He’s perfect.”

“He has fleas.”

“He has feelings too, Dave, so watch your mouth.”  You bumped your shoulder against his to soften the words, and he bumped back.  “I want him.  There’s no good reason; I just do.  Please help.”

“Sure, sure.  You know I will,” he sighed.

You grinned, laying your head against his shoulder.  “Isn’t our son beautiful?”

“If you say so, dear,” he said.  After a second, he laid his cheek against your head.  Even through your hair, you could feel how warm his skin was.  Maybe it was just warm in the room.

You weren’t sure there had ever been so many people in Davey’s room before, but cats were a siren call that no rational human could ignore.  None of your friends were rational—aside from Davey, perhaps, but even he had succumbed.

“We took him to the vet,” he told anybody within earshot.  “They gave us a food plan, and he has roundworm—”

“You’re killing the magic, Dave,” Jack said.  “Don’t.”

It had taken a few days for the kitten to get comfortable in his new home, and even longer to reach a point where he didn’t lose his mind around new people.  Your squad had been hankering to see him for ages, but Davey had been adamant about keeping the stressors to a minimum.

“I dunno, guys,” Elmer said.  “I just watched The Haunting of Hill House, and you saw what happened to the kittens they took in—”

“We aren’t kids,” you said.  “Between Davey and I, we can keep one cat alive.  The vet mapped it all out.”

“There are probably other scary movies with bad cats,” Race said.  He grinned, running his fingers along the length of the cat’s head.  “Look out, Davey, the end of days is near.”

“The Black Cat, by Edgar Allan Poe,” Romeo said.

“Lucifer,” Albert said.  “‘Cinderella’ didn’t play around.”

“Mrs. Norris,” Crutchie said.  He hadn’t stopped smiling since he first saw the cat, and the cat seemed to like Crutchie just as much.  No surprise there.

“Or,” you cut in, shooting a sidelong glance at an exhausted Davey, “this cat is gonna be like Crookshanks.  That’d be pretty cool.”

“Not gonna lie, Y/N,” Davey whispered later.  “This is harder than I expected.”

You grimaced.  You’d trust Davey with a cat before anybody else, but you’d never intended to inconvenience him.  “I can ask somebody else to hang onto him, if you want.”

“No,” Davey said hurriedly.  “No, it’s fine, I’ve got it.  I just hadn’t realized how much that would take, before.”

“I could come over more,” you offered.  “Bribe you with snacks.”

He smiled, shooting a look at the shoelace the kitten was chewing.  “That would be nice.”

You grinned back, warming up to the idea.  It was always nice coming to Davey’s house.  There was always good food, and anyplace with Davey obviously had good company.  “You really will get tired of me, now.”

“Impossible,” he said.

Cat NAME POLL RESULTS:

Muffin Man - 2 votes

Name him Davey so we can replace Davey Jacobs with a better model - 8 votes

Jean Ralphio - 4 votes

Dat Ho - 7 votes

Wilson (Jesus, guys, a normal name) - 1 votes

Tom Hanks - 2 votes

“We aren’t naming the cat ‘Davey,’” Davey the Human said.

“That attitude is exactly why we wanted to get rid of you in the first place,” Race said.

“Use the second place name.”

You grinned.  “You know, I thought that ‘Dat Ho’ had a nice ring to it.”

Davey’s glare was withering.  “I should stop hanging out with you guys.  How hard could it possibly be to pick a nice name?  I’m even willing to use a pun at this point.”

Davey the Cat walked across Race’s backpack, claws scritching against the fabric.  He slipped, hit the floor, and proceeded to act as though nothing had happened.

“He even looks a little like you,” you said.  “Fitting to share a name, isn’t it?”

Race threw an arm over Davey’s shoulders.  “It’s a compliment.  Bask in it.”

Les sometimes sent you pictures of Davey with the cat.  They would read together, or Davey would stay up two hours later than usual because he didn’t dare wake the cat up by standing.

You took a screenshot every single time.  After a while, you started setting them as lockscreens on your phone.  You had no good explanation when people asked about it.

“Y/N?”  Davey rubbed his thumb over his lip while he looked at the chess board.  “Are you going to the fridge?”

“Yeah.”

“If you get some cheese, you can give a little to the cat.”

You grinned.  “You give him cheese?”

“Davey the Cat loves cheese,” he said, shrugging.  “Might as well let him treat himself.”

“You’ve gone soft,” you said.  The cat was sitting on the table, looking at that game board with as much interest as Davey was.  Seeing it made you feel a little soft, too.

“I still don’t like cats,” he said.

“Just the one, huh?”

Davey said nothing.  He rubbed the cat’s head, and the cat leaned into the touch.

You showed Jack and Race a picture of Davey with the cat, waiting for their faces to light up.  They smiled, but didn’t seem as taken with it as you were.

“I was surprised when Davey took the cat,” Jack commented on the way to class.  “He’s so whipped.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whipped,” Race said, dragging out the word.  “You know, when somebody does absolutely anything their lover says.  Davey’d jump off a cliff if you smiled at him while you asked him to.  Actually, letting the cat in his house is probably crazier than that.”

“Davey isn’t whipped,” you said.  “He’s just nice.”

“So’s Crutchie, and he would have at least asked his parents before saying yes.”

“Jack, Davey is your best friend.  You know that he doesn’t do anything if he doesn’t think it’s a good idea,” you said.

“Of course it seemed like a good idea.  You told him you’d hang out with him more if he did what you asked.”

You cringed.  “I didn’t say it like that.  He wanted the cat.”

“Davey didn’t want the cat,” Jack snorted.

“He literally told you that he doesn’t like cats,” Race said.  “You need to listen better.”

You scowled at them.  “Davey wouldn’t have taken Davey the Cat in if he didn’t sort of want him, a little bit.”

“He didn’t want the cat,” Jack said, as though you would only understand him if he spoke slowly.  “He just wanted to make you happy.”

“I call BS.”

Jack put his hands on your shoulders.  “Listen to me.  Davey thinks you’re great, and wants to make all of your dreams come true, yada yada yada.  You needed help with the cat.  He could help with the cat.  That’s all there is to it.”

“Please,” you said.  “This is Davey we’re talking about.”

“Exactly.  Why would Davey do something if he didn’t want to?  Because what you wanted mattered more than what he wanted.  It isn’t rocket science.”

It sure felt like rocket science.  Actually, rocket science would probably have made more sense.

So, maybe had taken in a cat because you asked him to.  That wasn’t so crazy, right?

It was a little crazy.

The real problem, the big thing that plagued your mind for days, was the guilt.  You should never have asked him in the first place.  When he hadn’t seemed interested, you should have backed off.  Here he was, stuck with a cat, because he maybe sort of probably would have done anything to make you happy.

You called Jack one night, hoping that talking about it without seeing him might make it easier to ask questions.

“Has he ever told you that he liked me?”

“No,” Jack said immediately.  “Davey’s not really like that, you know.  He’s not really chatty, and he really doesn’t tell people things if he doesn’t want everybody knowing them.”

You knew that, of course.  “What makes you think that he did this because he’s whipped, then?”

“Y/N, don’t be an idiot.  You have eyes.  You know how he is.  If he didn’t want the cat, it was for you.  If he had you come over to help, it was because he wanted you over.  He can take care of a cat on his own.  He likes you.”

You hugged your pillow.  “Okay.”

Jack yawned.  “Is that it?  Can I go to bed?”

“One more question.  Why did I ask Davey to take the cat in the first place?  I knew that Davey didn’t really like cats.”

“Don’t get mad at me for saying so,” Jack said, “but we all assumed that it was because you like Davey back.”

“Oh.”

“Looks, it’s just—it’s always the two of you.  It always has been.  I’m not saying that you guys can’t be regular friends, but I’m not sure that either of you would be good at that.  Not with each other.”

“Davey,” you said.

“Y/N.”  He carefully peeled his string cheese to each strip was around the same size.  

“You don’t have to keep Davey the Cat anymore,” you said.  “Crutchie offered to take him on.”

Davey blinked at you, surprised.  His hands dropped a little, his snack forgotten.  “Oh.”

“You didn’t want him,” you said.

“I know.”

“Now things can go back to normal.”  You didn’t want Davey to be unhappy because he thought it was better for you.  You weren’t sure what to think of Davey liking you—or the possibility (certainty) that you liked him back—but you could try to make life easier for him, at the very least.  “You can have evenings to yourself again, now that I won’t be coming around.”

“Oh,” Davey repeated.  There was no emotion on his face at all.

You grinned, a little too large to be real.  “You were probably getting tired of me, after all.”

“I wasn’t,” he croaked.  The emotion was there now, and you wished you’d talked to him before talking to Crutchie.  “I really wasn’t.”

“You’ll be happier once everything is back the way it was,” you tried.

“I’m not sure that’s true.”

You winced.  “Look, I know that this was all for me.  You don’t have to do this anymore.”

He went a little pink.  “That’s ridiculous.”

“I talked to Jack—”

“Never listen to Jack.  He’s had too much paint water to drink to be sane”

You half smiled.  “Maybe, but he knows you pretty well.”

“No,” Davey said.

“Yes.”

“Maybe.”

“So,” you continued, “I’m going to make this right.”

“I want the cat,” Davey said forcefully.

“What?”

“I want the cat.  I like the way my life is, now.  I like Davey the Cat.  I like having you over.  I like that I’m your lockscreen, and I like coparenting, and I like—”

You kissed him, and everything else was far away.  Sure, you were conscious of everything happening around you.  You heard his food hit the floor.  You heard cars honking outside, and the light tapping of rain against the window.  You were aware of many things, but none of them mattered as much as Davey’s hands going to your waist, or the sharp inhale right before he started kissing you back.

“I, ah, really like coparenting with you,” you said after pulling back.

Davey smiled, baffled.  “Okay.”

“I’ll tell Crutchie that you’ve changed your mind about the cat.”

“Okay,” he said again.  His hands were still on your sides.  “What—why’d you—”

“I’m just not tired of you yet,” you said.

Davey was grinning, still confused but incredibly happy.  “I’m so confused right now.”

You kissed him again.  That would illuminate some things.

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[just-come-baek]

Wedding Fever 3

Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader

Themes: smut (rly soon) | a shitload of fluff | a pinch of angst | wedding!au | friends to lovers!au | fake dating!au | SLOWBURN

Word count: 7.7k

Summary: Baekhyun is the best man, and I am the maid of honor at our friends’ wedding. Although should we be excited about our friends getting married, we seem to complain a lot more every time we meet for another preparation. Maybe it’s a bit fanciful of me to think that, but I hope, somewhere between choosing flowers and venting about the reception prep, he’ll like me just as I like him.

A/N I thought abut this story and there should be 2 more parts. Sorry for not updating this sooner

previous part | masterlist | next part

The weekend arrived way too soon for my liking; I hadn’t had enough time to brace myself for meeting Baekhyun’s parents; however, knowing me, regardless of how many days I’d have to repeat the pep talk I was giving myself at least twice every four hours, it wouldn’t suffice. I was a nervous wreck, and if I was going to stress for another day, I’d definitely go bald.

With accordance to a text Baekhyun had sent me, he was going to pick me up within thirty minutes, leaving me too little time to get dressed, do my makeup and pack my suitcase. And despite the stress he had put me in; I carefully chose an elegant outfit consisting of sky-blue button down, a pair of high-waisted white jeans and a pair of shiny oxfords. As for makeup, I opted for a gentle touch; light brushes of blush and soft colors of eyeshadow perfectly matched my matte red lipstick.

Knock! Knock!

Upon hearing someone knock, I turned my head toward the doors, quickly dashing to open them. It must’ve been Baekhyun on the other side, and since I hadn’t seen him in a while, I smiled at the silly thought. Maybe it was lame of me, but I actually missed him. And though I would love to meet with him under different circumstances, I was not to complain.

The moment I swung the doors open, I saw him in his perfect form. His hair was neatly combed, a matching sky blue shirt around his broad shoulders and chest, light brown trousers loosely hugging his legs. He almost looked like a casual version of me, and it took a lot of self-restraint not to throw myself in his arms and kiss his breath away.

“What the hell are you wearing?” Baekhyun asked as he glanced at me from head to toe.

“What’s wrong with my outfit?” I questioned, looking down at myself, not sure which part of it Baekhyun didn’t like. It seemed classy, so what was his problem?

“Nothing’s wrong about it, you look great.” Baekhyun started, still eyeing me up and down. “But we’re going to a casual barbeque party, and not a job interview. Haven’t you got anything less… official?”

“You really think so? I don’t want to disappoint your parents,” I genuinely said, as I wasn’t convinced about changing out of my attire. Maybe it was a bit solemn, but I was to make my first impression, and I wanted it to be prodigious.

“They’re gonna love you regardless of what you’re going to wear,” Baekhyun spoke confidently, not even doubting my ability to make his parents fond of me.

“How can you be so calm? I’ve been a bundle of nerves the entire week,” I admitted, and Baekhyun chuckled boyishly, effortlessly making my heart pound as if I had a mini-heart attack. “I can’t be the only one freaking out.”

“I just know there’s nothing to be afraid of,” Baekhyun stated casually, as I waited for elaboration. “Almost two years ago, my brother introduced his girlfriend, and it wasn’t a big deal, so why should our situation be any different?”

“Hmm… I don’t know… maybe because we’re faking it?” I concluded, having another mini-panic attack. “Your mother must be one of these women with a lie detector in her eyes, we’re gonna get caught. I know it,” and there it was, full mode of an anxiety attack.

“Relax,” Baekhyun calmly commanded, as he placed his hands on my shoulders, making me look into his eyes as if it was to soothe me. Quite contrary to his intentions, his deep tranquil gaze put me in the even more nervous state. “It’s going to be fine; it’s just a barbeque, not an interrogation. No one will find out.”

“Right,” I answered, though I wasn’t entirely convinced.

“Okay, so get changed, you don’t want to be late, do you?” Baekhyun challenged, and I shook my head. Arriving late wouldn’t be the best first impression, and I must’ve not let that happen. “Put something more casual.”

“Ugh, fine,” I replied, though much unwillingly. “Just wait here,” I said before I locked myself in my bedroom, throwing everything out of my closet, seeking anything remotely less formal. It wasn’t as easy as Baekhyun made it out to be, but when he saw me in the same shirt, a pair of shorts and trainers, he approved it despite it being only slightly different.

“Please tell me you packed only casual clothes,” Baekhyun spoke, as I rolled my tiny suitcase out of my bedroom.

“Only T-shirts and sweatpants,” I retorted, and Baekhyun nodded, happy that I wasn’t so stressed anymore.

“Okay, we should go now. Otherwise, we’re seriously going to be late.”

  ***

  “Who are you texting so passionately? You’ve been on your phone the entire ride,” Baekhyun asked, somewhat fed up with the lack of the conversation. The radio was on the whole time, and he tapped his fingers against the steering wheel in the rhythm, but it still didn’t make up for my uninterested hums whenever he asked me something. “Are you seeing anybody?” he added, and I perked up my head when I registered what he said.

“What?” I looked at him, perplexed. He thought I was dating? How ridiculous! At the moment, it wasn’t possible; I was still hooked up on him. “No, I’m not dating anyone.”

“Then who are you texting with that big smile?”

“Jiwoo,” I answered shortly, locking my phone, letting her spam my inbox. “We’re going shopping for her wedding dress on Tuesday, and right now, she’s looking them up online.”

“Oh… well… I thought we were sick and tired of the wedding. What has changed?” Baekhyun spoke, sounding very much disappointed and deceived. I mean… we had never been particularly ecstatic about the whole thing, but now my attitude did a 180. Admittedly, picking the wedding dress was the second best thing about being Jiwoo’s bridesmaid. (First thing was obviously getting to see Baekhyun.)

“Nothing has changed,” I quickly answered, not wanting him to think that I was pretending to be fed up with Jiwoo’s shenanigans regarding her wedding. Multiple times, she or Hongbin had made me regret agreeing to become the bridesmaid, but planning the purchase of her wedding dress – it was an entirely different thing. “TLC has brainwashed me, and I think I’ll enjoy helping her pick her dress even if she ignores my opinion. You can’t blame me for being a girl, girls love shopping for clothes.”

“If you put it that way…” Baekhyun nodded his head, now understanding my point of view. “Then I can only hope you two have fun.”

“Thanks,” I replied casually, quickly unlocking my phone, eager to check out more screenshots Jiwoo had sent me. Just like I expected, during my short conversation with Baekhyun, Jiwoo had managed to forward over twenty pictures of gorgeous gowns.

“Have you ever thought about what you’re going to tell your mother about me? You know… how we met, when we started dating, and other stuff like that?” I asked, though my eyes were trained on the screen, zooming in and out the pictures, studying the tiniest details.

“Not really,” Baekhyun answered, and I hummed, trying not to show any disappointment; I had been stressing out for the entirety of the week, whereas he hadn’t given any fucks about it. “I mean… I thought about it, but I haven’t come with anything substantial. Have you?”

“Actually, I assumed you would have everything figured out by the time you come to pick me up,” I confessed, though not confidently. “But I guess we can act normal as much as it’s possible, and when somebody asks a question about our ‘relationship’ one of us has to make something up, and the latter must play along. What do you think?”

 “Yeah, let’s do that,” Baekhyun agreed, and I smiled, contended that he liked my idea. “What about skinship? My mother is a devil, and she pays a lot of attention to it. She’s going to sense that something’s off if we leave space for Jesus between us.”

“Seriously?” I asked, quite surprised that Baekhyun’s mother didn’t mind her son being all touchy-feely with his girlfriend right in front of her. Better yet, she preferred seeing her son passionate and demonstrative. “It’s okay,” I spoke, and Baekhyun tore his gaze away from the road to look at me, astounded. “What? It’s not that we’re going to fuck on the dinner table halfway through the meal, so it should be okay.”

“Really? I didn’t expect you to be so cool about it.” Baekhyun replied, but when he realized my exasperated glare, he wished he had bitten his tongue. For him, I must’ve looked angry, but in reality, I was just mildly insulted with no intentions of correcting him. I needed him to elaborate on why he thought I wouldn’t be cool about him touching me.

“And why is that?” I teased, trying my best to sound serious.

“It’s nothing,” Baekhyun said, attempting to dismiss the topic.

“Please, do tell,” I urged him, expecting to hear something I already know. “I’m really curious; why do you think I wouldn’t be cool about it?”

“You won’t let it go, will you?” Baekhyun asked, and I firmly nodded my head. I was stubborn just like Baekhyun, and I wouldn’t stop pestering him until he told me what he meant. “I mean… not in a bad sense… but I have never seen you affectionate with a man… well… at least not in front of me… so I just assumed you must be very private and… well… not so fond of public display of affection.”

“Hmm… so in your opinion, I’m a prude,” I concluded, and Baekhyun chuckled nervously, definitely not enjoying our conversation. “Wow, a prude! Thank you so much.”

“I didn’t mean it in a bad sense,” Baekhyun defended himself, and I remained silent, curious what else he could say to make the situation even worse. “And I’ve never called you a prude, all I said was that whenever you date you probably don’t make out in front of everyone, making all single people feel even more miserable.”

“Well… you’re right, I don’t do that,” I agreed, remembering how many times Jiwoo and Hongbin had made out in front of us. (Way too many to keep track of it.) “I’m not a prude, though.”

“That’s good, prude people are boring.”

  ***

  “Are you ready?” Baekhyun asked when he pulled over in front of his parents’ house.

Waiting for my response, Baekhyun turned off the engine and looked at me.

“Turn the car around,” I spoke, certain that I wasn’t ready to face his parents. Not now, pretending his girlfriend, probably still not ready even if we were dating for real. “I’m calling it off, I can’t do it,” I blabbered, knowing another mini-anxiety attack was to kick in.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Baekhyun whispered, as he held my hand, thinking it would calm me down. “Relax, we’ve come so far, we can’t bail now,” he spoke, but I shook my head, denying his every word. It wasn’t right for his family. It wasn’t right for me, either. I had agreed to it impulsively because of my attraction, and now, I was about to make a fool out of myself. I should have known better not to act on my feelings. “Besides, the hardest part is already passed us,” he added, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t do it.

“Baekhyun, I can’t,” I spoke, my voice weak. “They don’t deserve being lied to. We’re going to get caught, and when that happens, they’re going to hate me.” I blathered, starting to suffocate in the car. Although I rarely get stressed, Baekhyun’s precarious request was to make me faint out of fuss. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Calm down,” Baekhyun cooed, tucking my hair behind my ear. “Everything’s alright, we can do this,” he added, and I looked at him, seeking serenity and assurance in his eyes. Regardless of how many doubts I had, Baekhyun seemed confident that we could get through this. “Just trust me; I wouldn’t bring you here if I didn’t think we could make it.”

“I trust you,” I replied, and when I was to grace him with a reassuring smile, I jumped in my seat when someone knocked on the car’s window. Perplexed, I turned to see a cute elderly couple smiling at Baekhyun.

“Don’t worry about anything. See? They already love you,” Baekhyun mentioned, and I smiled at him nervously knowing it’s too late to butt out. “Come on, it’s show time.”

Baekhyun got out of the car, and I hesitantly followed suit.

“What took you so long? Everybody’s starving, but your dad didn’t want to start without you,” Baekhyun’s mother said as she embraced her son tightly as if he just returned from war.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Baekhyun nonchalantly spoke, smiling at me. “We came earlier than you told us to,” he candidly said as he stretched his arm to lace our fingers, wanting to introduce me.

“Is she your girlfriend?” Baekhyun’s dad asked, genuinely happy that his son was finally seeing someone. Proudly, Baekhyun nodded his head, and then his dad smiled at me, shaking hands with me.

“At last you brought someone!” His mother cheered, as she pushed Baekhyun aside to give me a robust hug, almost crushing my bones. “Your father and I thought you would never introduce any girl to us, but thankfully we were wrong.”

“Gee, thanks,” Baekhyun chimed in, staring at his mother clung onto my tensed body. “You also thought I’d drop from college, and then what happened?” Baekhyun sarcastically asked as he tried to disguise his discomfort and offense.

“We were proud of you then, and we’re proud of you now,” Baekhyun’s father defended them, as he looked at him and then at me, probably thinking how great of a couple we made. Too bad it was only a charade because no matter how compatible we seemed to other people, Baekhyun would never think about actually asking me out.

“How come I don’t believe you?” Baekhyun teasingly questioned, as he sneaked his arm behind my back, resting his hand on my hip. He had warned me about skinship, and when he showcased it in front of his parents, my cheeks flushed. In their opinion, he was being adorable and possessive, but I knew his affection was artificial and meaningless.

“Because you’re an ungrateful son,” Baekhyun’s mother jested, and I giggled at their interaction. I wished I had this kind of connection with my parents. “But we love you regardless, so why don’t we just go to the garden. Your brother is already preparing the grill, so we should supervise him before he and his girlfriend eat the whole food.”

“What do you say? Should we join them or just unpack first?” Baekhyun turned to me, looking down at me fondly. The way his eyes drill holes in mine could only one thing – he wanted me to stall the barbeque as if striving to discuss something.

“Let’s eat! I’m starving,” I replied enthusiastically, going against Baekhyun’s wishes. There was no point in discussing anything, but I was making my first impression, and I didn’t want them to think I was so shy I’d hide behind Baekhyun the entire gathering.

Displeased, Baekhyun squeezed my hand tighter, gritting through his teeth. “Sure, let’s eat first, your stomach was growling the entire ride,” he joked, and I jabbed him lightly, making their parents giggle at our playful contact.

When they led us further inside, I met the rest of Baekhyun’s family which included his brother with his girlfriend, two aunts with their husbands on Baekhyun’s father’s side and one uncle on his mother’s side.

At first, I was a bit intimidated and overwhelmed by their questioning but having drunk a bottle of chilled beer helped me keep my stress level in check. I was the newest member of their family, so their curiosity was understandable. Thankfully, just when the food was being served, Baekhyun’s brother announced that he and his girlfriend moved in together, and that revelation ultimately outshined my relationship with Baekhyun.

During the barbeque, Baekhyun was an absolute sweetheart; he cut the meat for me, he went inside for another beer when I finished one, he even wiped my elbow when I accidentally dirtied it with some ketchup. He was caring and thoughtful; his current behavior was even better than in my wildest daydreams.

“So… when have you started dating?” Baekhyun’s brother, Baekbeom, asked, fed up with the interrogation. Yes, he and his girlfriend of two years decided to live together, but on the other hand, his baby brother brought a girlfriend for the very first time.

Unsure, I looked at up Baekhyun, urging him to answer the question. We were in this together, but we were here because of him, so it only made sense for him to start replying. He would break the ice, and I’d follow suit, making our love story more natural.

“Not that long time ago,” Baekhyun started, as he put his bottle of beer on the wooden table. “As you might’ve heard, I’m Hongbin’s best man, and she’s Jiwoo’s maid of honor. And sometime between looking up perfect wedding locations and picking wedding invites I realized how difficult it’s going to be her friend, so I asked her out.” Baekhyun lied so confidently, I’d believe him if I didn’t know the truth. It was a cute story, and I wished it was true, although I knew it would never happen.

“Did she agree?” Baekbeom’s girlfriend, Mihyun, asked, engrossed by the story which was only a figment of Baekhyun’s imagination.

“Of course, she agreed!” Baekhyun spoke in a slightly louder voice as if he was offended by Mihyun’s inquiry. “Do you think we would be here together if she said no?”

“If he didn’t ask me out back then, I’d probably be the one to do it,” I interjected, making the whole table chuckle. Neither of it was true, so I assumed it wouldn’t hurt to boost his ego, especially when he was playfully bullied by his closest family members.

“Oh, I like that,” Baekhyun’s mother spoke, nodding her head, smiling at me. “Girls must be strong and independent these days. I like her, Baekhyun. You chose well.”

“Obviously,” Baekhyun agreed, leaning forward to peck my cheek. “I always choose what’s best,” he added, squeezing my hand. “So… is there any dessert? I’m craving your legendary cheesecake.” Baekhyun spoke excitedly, smoothly dodging an incoming series of questions.

“Of course,” Baekhyun’s dad hollered, as he rubbed his palms together, craving the mentioned cheesecake probably even more. “I’ll get it, honey,” he added, pecking his wife’s lips in the cutest of ways.

“Your parents are adorable,” I leaned and whispered into Baekhyun’s ear, and he giggled.

“What are you two lovebirds conspiring?” One of Baekhyun’s aunts asked, and Baekhyun sent her one of his brightest smiles.

“They probably can’t wait to be left alone,” Baekbeom commented, smirking at us. “They must still be in their honeymoon phase. Probably going at it like rabbits,” he added mischievously, getting jabbed by his girlfriend. “What? Am I wrong?” He inquired, and his mother shook her head disapprovingly, as she was more interested in the romantic part of our relationship. Frankly, I couldn’t blame her; I wouldn’t be keen on knowing all the details of my children’s sex life, either.

“Baekbeom, stop it,” Mrs. Byun scolded her elder son before she looked at Baekhyun. “Not in front of my cheesecake,” she jested when her husband walked out of the house with the dessert. “So… changing the subject, where did my son take you on a first date?”

“Hmm?” I hummed, buying myself some time, not wanting to blurt the first blatant lie which came to my stupid mind. “My first date with Baekhyun? Oh, he took me to the bowling alley. I had no idea what I was doing since it was my first time bowling, but he promised to teach me, and then he kicked my butt, although he said he wouldn’t.”

“I’m not even surprised,” Baekbeom spoke matter-of-factly, smirking playfully.

“That’s my son,” Mr. Byun interjected, earning a jab from his wife. “What? I didn’t say I approve of that. All I mean is that I’d do the same thing,” he added mischievously, leaning forward to plant a soft kiss on Mrs. Byun temple. “You love me anyway.”

“How have I dealt with such a brat like you so many years?”

“Like I said. You. Love. Me.” Mr. Byun articulated every word carefully, so the message would get through her thick head. Apparently, Baekhyun had taken stubbornness after his mother, whereas the playfulness after his father.

“Not in front of my bacon,” Baekhyun shouted, as he put a slice of grilled bacon into his mouth, disgusted by his parents’ affection. For someone who enjoyed public display of endearment, she surely didn’t mind demonstrating it, either.

“Don’t give me that attitude,” Mrs. Byun scolded Baekhyun, as she reached for the knife to cut her bakery masterpiece. “Would you like the first piece?” She asked me with a large piece of cake on a paper plate, and although I was already full, I couldn’t say no.

“Speaking of bacon,” started Baekbeom, “it was Baekhyun’s nickname in primary school. He was a bit chubby, and other kids kept calling him that. Has Baekhyun ever mentioned that?” Baekbeom asked, and I chuckled, wondering how cute he must’ve looked when he was a child. I probably wouldn’t be able to handle his cuteness.

“And who started calling me that?” Baekhyun looked at his older brother deadly as if he was ready to attack if he embarrassed him any further. “You; it was your fault I was bullied.”

“I don’t think he has,” I muttered, smiling warmly at Baekhyun. Of course, I didn’t know anything about his school years. We barely talked about current affairs, let alone our past experiences. Once or twice we had held a serious conversation, but it had never been of sorts. “But I bet he was the cutest boy in his class.”

“Oh, you’re right, honey,” Mrs. Byun agreed with me, promising to show me all of the family photos, and though I hated going through my old pictures, I’d gladly sneak a peek at Baekhyun’s. I believed that Mr. Byun had taken a few cringy ones for moments like this one.

“Don’t even think about it,” Baekhyun warned me, raising his finger as if I were a child. “No one’s seeing these pictures, especially not you,” he added, and I pouted, disappointed that I meant so little to him that he didn’t want to share the tiniest bit of his childhood memories with me. It felt like a punch in the face, and it hurt.

“How are Hongbin and Jiwoo doing?” Baekhyun’s father asked, trying to change the subject as he noticed my disappointment. My acting wasn’t as convincing as I thought it was, I concluded. Mr. Byun could see through my façade too quickly; I had to be more aware of my reactions.  I couldn’t let him fathom what was going on between his son and me.

“Fine, then forget that you’ll ever see mine,” I whined, trying my best to disguise my failure with playfulness before anyone else could grasp the situation.

Baekhyun, amused by my retort, only stuck out his tongue, and I elbowed him slightly.

“They’re busy with preparations. We barely managed to escape from their crazy demands,” Baekhyun explained truthfully, glad that we dismissed the ticklish topic. “We have our hands full with all the nuisance, but Hongbin and Jiwoo have at least twice as much work to do.”

“But Hongbin’s like our third son.” Mrs. Byun announced, feeling slightly sad because of his absence. “Besides, we haven’t even seen his fiancée. How could he not introduce her to us?” She wondered, as she cut the rest of the cheesecake, and distributed it among the other guests.

“I let him know that you miss him. He’ll be ecstatic to come here,” Baekhyun snickered, and his mother glared at him, not pleased with his tone. “He’ll pop up here in a heartbeat.”

“Or we can always visit you sometime, hoping Hongbin would be around. As you said, he’s super busy. It would be too much of a hassle for him to drive all the way here,” Mr. Byun reasoned, and everyone except for Baekhyun and me loved the idea. If his parents paid Baekhyun a visit, we would have to continue the charade. Maybe Baekhyun played his role perfectly, but with each minute into the act, I knew I’d fall for him more, and when the time of break-up would come, my heart was to wilt.

“Of course, that would be lovely,” Baekhyun said, but I knew he didn’t mind his words; he was panicking just like me. It was supposed to be a one-time thing. Well… maybe we’d have to perform at Hongbin’s wedding, but then the newlyweds would have all the attention. “Just let me know, so I can prepare the bedding for you.”

OK, I didn’t sign up for this, but I agreed to help him out, and it was a low blow to back out now. I’ve already fed them with lies; I might’ve as well conducted it to an inevitable end.

Shorty after the forced invitation, everyone focused on Baekbeom and his work. Or more precisely, on the work trip to Thailand where he’s going next week.

“Can I have a bite?” Baekhyun asked, pointing his fork at my plate with half-eaten cheesecake. Mrs. Byun had made a delicious dessert, but I was already full of all the meat that Baekhyun had put on my plate, and I just couldn’t finish it.

“Sure,” I replied happily, pushing my plate closer to Baekhyun. Excitedly, Baekhyun licked his lips, as he stared at the cheesecake, digging his fork in it, taking the largest bite I have ever seen. “Seriously?” I asked, a bit too loud, obtaining a lot of unnecessary attention.

With his mouth full, Baekhyun tried to defend himself, but I had no idea what he was trying to say. But seriously; if he wanted to devour the rest of my dessert, he just had to ask. I’d give him anything he would ask me to.

“They’re adorable, aren’t they?” Mrs. Byun cooed when Baekhyun was stuffing his mouth with the remaining of my dessert, while I was trying to steal the plate back.

“Sharing is caring,” Baekhyun whined, still chewing. This guy was incredible – how the hell have I fallen for this one when so many other men were available? I just stared at him; he was chewing with his mouth open the food he shamelessly stole.

God, I really adore him.

“It gets a bit cold, don’t you think?” Mr. Byun asked his wife, who immediately understood what he meant by that.

“Why don’t you take your luggage to your room, and then show her around the neighborhood? The night is delightful; you two should take a stroll.” Mrs. Byun said, and though she tried to force another romantic gesture out of him, I was thankful for that because we could stop pretending for a while.

“Should we do that?” Baekhyun inquired, looking at me with his sparkly eyes. Did he really expect me to take down that offer? Quickly, I nodded, and Baekhyun rose from his seat, stretching his arm to take my hand and help me stand up.

Afraid that his mother could be spying on us, Baekhyun refused to let me carry my own baggage. I wasn’t going to oppose his offer, though. My suitcase was rather heavy, and if Baekhyun was willing to help, even though only to keep up the appearances, I was thankful.

After a lot of complaining and cursing, we reached Baekhyun’s room. It wasn’t anything special; a simple bed with a yoga mat placed next to it, a desk with old notebooks, a bookcase with dozens of comic books, and a wardrobe.

“Do you want a blanket or a hoodie?” Baekhyun asked as he placed our luggage beside the desk. “It may be a lot colder in an hour.”

“There’s no need; I’ve brought a sweater. Wait for a second,” I replied, as I opened my suitcase, and threw everything on the floor, seeking for that particular piece of clothing. “OK, I’m ready, we can go now.”

The moment we assumed we were a decent distance away from his family, we could finally relax. Taking deep breaths, we strolled down the pavement side by side. They couldn’t hear us conspire, and it was calming to talk to him without anyone just waiting for me to make a mistake and completely blow my cover.

“For one second I thought your father caught me,” I told, relieved that in the end, Mr. Byun didn’t confront us about our little act.

“My dad? No way! He’s like the most oblivious person I know,” Baekhyun retorted, and I bit my tongue before I told Baekhyun I couldn’t agree with him. If anything, he still had no idea about my feelings, so this title should belong to him.

“Yes way!” I shouted, laughing. “He gave me that you won’t fool me look.”

“Don’t worry about him. He’s harmless. But on the other hand, there’s my mother. I can bet that by the time we get back, she’ll have our wedding all planned out. Seriously, she’s annoying beyond human’s endurance.” Baekhyun warned me, and I laughed, hoping he was exaggerating. She couldn’t be that bad. Or could she? “She’s probably interrogating my brother, demanding grandkids.”

“She can’t be that bad,” I said, hoping I was right. I knew her for a couple of hours, and she seemed to be lovely. “Let’s not worry in advance, though. We did a pretty good job, didn’t we?” I sighed in relief, smiling because we survived the barbeque without getting caught red-handed. “So, why don’t you want me to see your baby photos?”

“Well… I didn’t think you’d be interested,” Baekhyun answered honestly, looking down at his shoes. “I was a chubby kid, and these photos are hideous. I’d burn them if I could; trust me,” he explained, and now, I seriously wanted to have a peek. It couldn’t be that bad.

“I highly doubt that,” I chimed in, wondering how Baekhyun looked when he was little. Even with some fat, he must’ve been the most adorable kid in the entire school. “Any other interesting secrets you have there?”

“I’m not giving secrets for free, you know…”

“Oh, ask away. I have nothing to hide,” I said confidently, but then that one college memory flashed in the back of my mind, and I felt sick. I hadn’t told it anyone; only Jiwoo knew about it, and I wondered if confiding to Baekhyun the truth would help me close that chapter once and for all.

“You look like you want to say something,” Baekhyun remarked, as he read my expression.

“I guess I do, but it’ll totally ruin the mood,” I tried to joke, but Baekhyun seemed oddly solemn and mature. It was out of his typical silly character, right now, he looked as if he was ready to hold me in his arms if I burst out in tears.

“I don’t mind; we’re friends and friends are out there for each other for the better or worse,” Baekhyun said, and I smiled warmly at the fact that he actually stated that I could rely on him. We barely hung out, yet he proved to be a better friend than I had expected him to be. “And if you need another incentive then fine, you’re allowed to look through my childhood photos,” Baekhyun added, and I barely managed to keep my cool.

Baekhyun was silly and playful, but when needed he was very supportive and considerate. And besides his marvelous inside, he was incredibly good-looking on the outside. He was a walking perfection, and I almost teared up when he held my hand reassuringly.

“My deepest secret? Let me think.” I sighed, trying to voice my thoughts coolly. It had been almost two years ago, and I didn’t want to seem pathetic and petty in front of him.

OK, men up for the fuck’s sake! You’re a grown-up woman! Say it quickly! Don’t run around the bush. Just tell him that at the drop of a hat! It’s no big deal. I preached to myself, looking at my shoes nervously. Finally, I gathered the courage to recount that nightmare.

“I’m all ears,” Baekhyun added, swinging our locked hands back and forth. The atmosphere was serene; the warm wind blew gently, his eyes were trained on the path ahead, my heart was pounding next to him.

“I’ve never told this anyone,” I started, looking everywhere but Baekhyun’s side. I wouldn’t finish my confession if he looked me in the eyes. “During my sophomore year, I was dating this guy named Jungkook. Things were going smoothly between us, and I was slowly falling in love with him. But apparently, I didn’t mean to him as much as he meant to me.” I said, and Baekhyun remained quiet, drawing circles with his thumb on my hand.

“One time, there was a party; he wanted to go, but I was snowed under my notes because I had an exam the next day. Jungkook went alone, and I stayed in my room studying. But shortly before midnight, I ditched because I knew I wasn’t going to learn anything. And when I finally found him, he was in a room nailing another chick.”

Jungkook was my first serious boyfriend, and it hurt like a bitch.

“And here comes the best. The cherry on the top of a fucking cake; this girl he cheated me on with was Jiwoo.” I confessed, and Baekhyun stopped dead in his track, yanking me gently, forcing me to look him in the eye. His grip tightened, but I didn’t dare to meet his gaze.

“Before Jiwoo met Hongbin, she was a completely different person. She was a seducer, living for attention. It was foolish of me to expect her not to chase after him.” I explained harshly. “But on the bright side, she helped me get rid of him before I seriously fell for him. He wasn’t worthy of me if he couldn’t resist her.”

“How can you still be friends with her after what she did to you?” Baekhyun asked as he couldn’t completely comprehend the situation.

“I gave her a second chance, and she promised to change. Shortly after that incident, she met Hongbin, and she truly changed.” I answered honestly, even if Baekhyun thought I was an idiot for not cutting her out of my life. I’d kept her around, but I didn’t forget what she had done. (And probably never will.) Jiwoo was to start anew with Hongbin and never fail my trust again. I believed in her.

“Wow.”

“Yeah, but it’s in the past. I’ve moved on,” I lied, hoping Baekhyun wouldn’t realize it. It happened years ago, but I was still petrified at the thought of introducing my new boyfriend to her, afraid of such history repeat itself. She was in a serious relationship with Hongbin, but it was stronger than me to picture her hands on my man. “Can we go back now? It gets cold, and I really want to go through your family photos.”

  ***

  With our hands still interlocked we reached the house; by the time we arrived, everything was cleaned, and all the guests moved the party inside.

Despite my sad confession, Baekhyun had changed the topic, and when we were standing on the porch, I was laughing so hard my stomach was beginning to hurt.

“Are you ready?” Baekhyun asked, being willing to give me a few more minutes before we would have to get back into the act. It was considerate of him, and I gladly agreed to hang out for a little longer. My chances of spending some quality time with him were limited, so I was determined to make the best of it.

“I may be seeing things, but I think I just saw your mother peeking through the curtains,” I leaned and whispered into Baekhyun’s ear. We were absent for quite a while, and she might’ve been worried or just curious about our interaction when we were alone.

“Really?” Baekhyun mused, giggling. “Do you think we should give her a show she wants so much?” he asked, and I cocked my eyebrow at him, wondering if he was thinking the same. Did he seriously want to make out in front of his mother? There was nothing I wanted more, but was it okay to use the situation like that? I wanted him to kiss me because he wanted to, not because he had to prove something.

“Let’s do this,” I encouraged him, sliding my hands into the back pockets of his trousers.

Gently, Baekhyun brushed some stray hair off my face. His eyes searched mine, and I’d melt unless his hands kept me in place. Licking his lips, he leaned forward, and our lips locked in a delicate kiss. After a few seconds, he started to move, and I mirrored his actions and pace.

His lips were soft, and his kisses were perfect. Maybe it was embarrassing, but I was already turned on, and ready to take the fun to another level or two.

“Wow,” I said in wonder when he pulled away to take a breath. His lips were addicting, and I had to have another taste, so I urgently pulled him against me. Due to my clumsiness, I stumbled backwards, Baekhyun’s chest pressed tightly against me, and now, I was squeezed between him and the porch’s railing with no chance of escaping.

He was so close to me, with his hands on my hips, kissing my breath away. I could stay in this moment forever; his mouth on mine, gently nipping my bottom lip, urging me to let him deepen the kiss.

“Baekhyun,” I murmured, and he took his chance and pushed his tongue into my mouth. He kissed me as if wanted to do that for an extremely long time, but I had to remind myself he was solely doing it to keep up the appearances. Baekhyun was trying to convince his family that he belonged with me, and if I didn’t know the context of our kiss, he’d have fooled me too.

When kissing Baekhyun, it was ridiculously easy to forget the surrounding and get lost in the romantic sensation. One of us moaned at some point, and though I wasn’t sure who, I had a feeling it was me since I was kissing him for real, pouring all of my emotion in it.

It was probably my first and last chance to do so, and I couldn’t waste such a lifetime opportunity. Some people wouldn’t be able to look at their soul mate, yet I got to kiss mine, and it was another reason to stop considering myself the unluckiest person on Earth. I got to experience it, and I was going to cherish every second of this memory.

“It was…” Baekhyun started, as he pulled away. His hands were still holding the back of my head, and he was staring into my eyes. It was too much for me; I had to look away in embarrassment. A little bit caught off guard, Baekhyun cleared his throat and said, “I think she bought it. She shouldn’t cause any more trouble.”

“Yeah, that’s good,” I said awkwardly, looking at him scratch the back of his head in chagrin. “I’d hate to get caught,” I added, smiling as the warmth gradually cool down. Baekhyun’s plain words were like a bucket of ice-cold water poured on my boiling heart; only the smoke of disappointment hung in the air.

“Let’s get inside,” Baekhyun mentioned, as he led me inside. It was a bit disheartening to watch him being so casual; as if we hadn’t just made out. He didn’t dwell on what kind of emotions he made me feel, and thinking about it pained me physically.

  ***

  When we got inside his parents’ house, everyone either returned home or was getting ready to sleep. Baekhyun and I weren’t that much different; we lied about being exhausted, and easily sneaked into his room.

Once sheltered behind the doors, I lay down on Baekhyun’s old bed, while Baekhyun looked for his pajamas, which consisted of an old T-shirt and sweatpants. Quietly, he left the room to change, and when he came back in his sleepwear, he was still ridiculously attractive.

Now, I was confident I had a problem, and this problem had a name, and he hung around quite often. With each passing minute, my infatuation grew stronger; by the day of Jiwoo’s wedding, my heart would burst out of the unrequited feelings.

When around him, for the first time in my life, I felt alive. And now, having tasted the heaven, I assumed it was about time to learn how to live without him. This short journey helped me realize how it would feel to be with him, and because he had no feelings for me, I should stop lying to myself and look for someone who could love me back.

At some point, I felt stronger and more mature.

“What are you thinking about?” Baekhyun asked, sitting beside me on his bed. “Your eyebrows crease as if you’re in pain,” he added, and I tried to relax. Baekhyun was beginning to suspect something, and I couldn’t let him find out, and expose myself to the mortification that would follow my shameful confession.

“I was thinking about how much work we still have regarding Jiwoo’s wedding,” I lied, and Baekhyun understood my evident displeasure. It was probably the last chance to relax before we would get snowed under another shitload of planning.

“Well… you’re right.” Baekhyun agreed with a deep sigh. “You can go change, the bathroom is the second door on the left,” he instructed, and I got off the bed to look for my pajamas in the pile of my stuff next to my empty suitcase.

“Ummm… Baekhyun? Do you think I could borrow one of your shirts? Because you rushed me back then, I forgot to pack my pajamas.”

“Are you seriously going to blame me for it?” Baekhyun asked, trying to refrain from laughing. “Wow,” he added, as he stood up and walked to his wardrobe. “Here.” Baekhyun handed me an oversized T-shirt and a pair of old sweatpants.

When I came back, changed and with brushed teeth, Baekhyun was one the yoga mat, trying to find a comfortable position in which he could survive the night. Watching him gingerly, I strutted to the bed and hid under the covers.

“This is absurd,” Baekhyun groaned, and I watched him wiggle from beneath the duvet. “I think I’ll take the couch in the living room.” He announced as he picked up the pillow.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said before he left the room. “Just sleep next to me. It’s not like we’ve never shared a bed before.” I reasoned, and Baekhyun looked at me, thinking about his decision. True, we had slept together a few times before. Also true, the bed is smaller with each time. “Just come here already. Unless you want your mother to think that we’re fighting.”

“God no, just scoot over.”

  ***

  When I woke up, Baekhyun was gone. Nonetheless, I could feel his presence; his scent lingered in the air, his stuff was scattered all over the floor, and his phone buzzed every ten seconds when he got a text message.

It was 9 o’clock.

Not bothering to change into my clothes, I walked downstairs. Baekhyun’s father was in the living room watching the news, while Mrs. Byun was making a mess in the kitchen, preparing the breakfast.

“Oh, you’re awake.” She said when I entered the kitchen, “Baekhyun’s out for fresh rolls.” Mrs. Byun answered my question which I was about to ask. “How did you sleep tonight?” She looked at me as if she knew that I shared the bed with Baekhyun, but decided not to mention that fact.

“Like a log, actually,” I said, sighing, as I remembered how Baekhyun was hugging me when I woke up in the middle of the night. Our limbs were tangled, and he held me close. It was incredibly comfortable, and it broke my heart a little to know it would never happen again.

“Do you want some coffee?” Mrs. Byun asked as the kettle started to whistle. I nodded, and although I offered her my help, she firmly refused. According to her, I was a guest, and she couldn’t bother me with housework despite my need to impress her. “Baekhyun’s so happy with you.” She stated, catching me off guard with her statement. “Maybe, he doesn’t love you as much you love him yet, but give him some time, he’s getting there.”

“You really think so?” I asked, trying not to sound pathetically hopeful. She was his mother, but she was fooled by our acting. She didn’t know the truth, and she was misreading the situation. He only seemed infatuated because we made it look like it. And no matter how poignant it was of me, I still wished she was right.

“Of course!” Mrs. Byun said confidently, and I sent her a feeble smile. “I know my son, and I know when he’s happy. When he came downstairs earlier, he was radiating. What did you do at night? I didn’t hear a thing!”

“We didn’t do anything!” I protested, and she laughed loudly at my embarrassment and timidity. “Really!”

“If that’s true, then you must mean to him much more than I assumed.”

“Oh.”

[butcanijustnot]

Taste Of The Light - A Young Justice FanFic  Prologue

Author: Crystalline / @butcanIjustnot

Fandom: Young Justice x OCs 

Part number: Prologue of a seventeen-part story... Yeah, I know.

Tagging: @idontgiveaflyinggrayson69 - I’m not sure how good this is but I mean it’s something so here you go.

Summary: This chapter explains the universe around the new OC characters. It’s basically just backstory. Pretty boring but the next chapter makes up for it, I promise. Also, this fic takes place between season 1 and season 2 of the show, as shown by the timestamps in the chapters. 

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings: Light swearing towards the end, but apart from that nothing really. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Watchtower.

7.15pm. 1st October 2011.

“I hope this is important, Red Tornado,” Batman said in his signature stony voice as he entered the watchtower’s control room, greeting his colleague with about as much warmth as he could muster this late at night. “I was in the middle of a very important dinner.” He added, strategically leaving out the fact that the ‘important dinner’ was with Alfred, Barbara, and Dick. Unimportant.

“I apologize, Batman.” Red tornado answered in his robotic voice, his gaze never leaving the large screens which were filled with various pages and files. “but I do believe that this is important, though I need you to confirm my suspicion. Come and take a look at this.” He said, beckoning Batman forwards towards the computers.

“You will recall, a few months ago, we apprehended a man attempting to hack the Justice League servers and steal top secret information, such as secret identities and weapon plans, to sell to third parties. He goes by the name TechTalk online, but his civilian identity is Shane Carter” Red Tornado explained, pulling up a mugshot of a blond man. He had huge black circles under her eyes, and a listless frown as he held up the name-plate. “He was a robotics and engineering prodigy. He first got media attention when he built a fully functioning android at age nine for a primary school science fair. By the time he was fourteen, he had graduated high school and had a full scholarship to Gotham International University, but he got bored with the schoolwork. Problems arose when he began to use his abilities only for hacking government systems and creating weaponized robots.” Numerous newspaper articles flashed on the screen of Shane Carter receiving awards and scholarships. The articles quickly turned bitter, however, as Shane’s creations got more and more dangerous.

A picture flew up next to Shane’s mugshot, of a pair of grey-white animatronics. They were human in shape but every part of their anatomy screamed ‘evil robot’, from the sleek and plastic-like white exterior to the silver guns replacing their right hands. Each robot had large bundles of silver and red wires showing through the cracks where two plastic limbs attached to one another. They had no facial expressions, no noses or ears or hair of any description, only huge red eyes that glowed in their sockets and metal jaws with serrated teeth. They were truly horrible, nightmarish creatures.

Batman looked at his robotic friend, suddenly extremely glad that he was a much friendlier looking animatronic, confused. “I know about TechTalk, Red Tornado, and he hasn’t done anything of interest in months. Why are you bringing this up now?” He asked, staring into the listless eyes of Shane’s mugshot.

“Due to being a non-violent offender, Shane was released with little more than a slap on the wrist and mild community service, but not before the league bugged all his electronic equipment with software to monitor what he is doing. You told me when we began doing this to notify you if anything that could be potentially dangerous showed up on any of his messages or programs.” He responded in his robotic voice. Batman nodded slowly as the screens cleared of other materials and Red Tornado opened a batch file labeled ‘records of TechTalk messages.’

“I think I found something that fits that description,” Tornado added as the file opened, showing screenshots of his messages. “These messages are from 11 o’clock yesterday. They transpire between TechTalk and a mysterious W.”

New plan. You want in? ~W

Depends on the plan. Your last idea was… less than fantastic… ~TechTalk

What are you talking about, TT? It was a great plan. ~W

I’m sorry, but covering the Gotham City Bank in cotton candy is not a villainous scheme. It’s a 6-year-old’s wish upon a unicorn, or whatever. ~TechTalk

Excuse U, that plan was amazing and totally would have worked if I could have gotten my hands on 200 metric tonnes of sugar. ~W

Whatever, no, this plan is better. ~W

Fine, explain your idea. ~TechTalk

I’m going to create an anti-justice league, compiled of the children of famous villains. It’ll be like the Young Justice league, but evil. It’ll be amazing, trust me. I’ve already got my eyes on a couple of Arkham babies. If I can get those three to fall under my command, everyone and everything else will fall into place. ~W

That’s actually… not a terrible plan. Good job. ~TechTalk

Try not to sound so surprised next time…. ~W

I’m going to need some backup to get this plan rolling. I’ll send you the details later. ~W

KK ~TechTalk

The messages were cryptic, with huge gaps that left unanswered questions, but one thing was abundantly clear. Someone was plotting to create a supervillain army, and the Justice League couldn’t let that happen.

“Who’s W?” Batman asked, furrowing his brow as the messages on the screen looped and replayed again. “I’ve never heard of him before.”

“Nobody has. Nobody going by the name ‘W’ is on the Justice League database, nor any of the others we are linked too.” Red tornado hummed. “These messages were only found a day or so ago, and though I have tried multiple times to trace the ID of the sender, they reroute the signal and shoot it somewhere digitally randomized and reset constantly.” He finished, looking over at the vacant and slightly confused expression of his colleague. He let out a robotic sigh. “They send me on a wild goose chase.” He explained. “As such, we have no idea who they are or where they are. We really only know there plan, and some would argue that that is not enough.” Red Tornado said, side-eying his colleague unsubtly. 

“If the Arkham inmates do have children…” Batman thought aloud, his words trailing off but the thought behind them sticking clear in his head. If the Arkham inmates have children, those kids would probably be around Dick’s age… and they would probably have an axe to grind against him and all heroes…

“We’ll keep investigating this,” Batman stated after a brief period of thoughtful silence. “It has the potential to be a big problem…” He said, already forming a plan in his head. 

“Or it could be nothing at all. We don’t even know if these children are real, there’s no record of any of them anywhere. I know, I’ve checked. Is this really the best use of Justice league time, protecting against a threat that quite possibly does not exist?” Red Tornado asked Batman, simply trying to raise another point. Batman was quiet for a moment, silently weighing all his options.

“So we will work out if these children are real, and then go from there. Come on, let’s not waste time.” Batman said, nodding as he spoke. He turned away from the screen and beckoned his robotic friend to follow him as he exited. “See if you can contact Diana and the rest of the league. I think that her Lasso is going to come in handy.“

“Where are we going?“ Tornado asked, following Batman to the Zeta-Tube.

Batman smirked, punching a code into the Zeta-Tubes. “The official meeting-place of the Batman fan-club,“ He said, entering the area code for Arkham Asylum.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Selina glared at the Batman, twisting her fingers in the handcuffs to unsheathe and recoil her claws. Her torso shifted uncomfortably under the weight of Wonder Woman’s lasso. 

Batman huffed and finally broke the silence. “Selina, I need to know if you have any children.” He asked her.

“Why do you care all of a sudden?” Selina said, cocking an eyebrow at him, confused. 

Batman closed his eyes and shook his head. He should have known that trying to talk to Selina was a bad idea, he should have let Dinah do it like she offered, but he was here now and he was going to get the information he needed out of her. “We have reason to believe that if any of the villains in Arkham have children, they could be at risk. We don’t know the details yet, but we do know that somebody is planning to take advantage of them. If that's true, we need to get to these children before anyone else has the chance too.” He said, attempting to explain as best he could.

Selina looked at him for a second, as if she was trying to discern if he was telling the truth. Finally, she spoke, “Yes, I do.” She stated, avoiding his eyes and looking down at her clawed hands. The lasso glowed bright gold and then dulled again, signaling that she was telling the truth. “A daughter. Looked like me. Ears, tail, claws, the whole ordeal. Don’t bother asking me where she is now, I don’t know.” Selina explained quickly.

After a moment of awkward silence, Batman asked her a simple question. “Is it…”

“No.” She quickly cut him off before he could finish.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Red Tornado looked across the table with hollow, lifeless eyes. “Do you have children?” He asked in his deadpanned voice.

“The fuck are you on?” Scarecrow growled, clearly confused. “I want some.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Harley, I need to know if you have children,” Dinah asked the loopy-eyed girl sitting across the table. She looked at Harley with what could only be described as a soft glare. Dinah couldn’t deny that has a soft spot for this crazy girl. She saw goodness in Harley, even if nobody else could.

“Watcha asking for?” Harley asked, cocking her head to one side. “You looking for a new mommy buddy to help with Connor?” She gasped suddenly, jumping in her seat. “Can I see pictures?!?” She squealed.

“HARLEY!“ Dinah screeched, pushing her back into her seat. “Harley, please, listen to me. People, children, could be in danger, and we need to help make sure that they are safe. The only way that we can do that right now is for you to answer that question, and answer it truthfully.” 

The room was stone silent for far longer than Dinah was comfortable with before finally Harley spoke up. 

“Yeah. I got kids.“ She said, her voice surprisingly listless as she stared down at the table. The lasso glowed bright and then dulled, showcasing her truth. 

“Kids?“ Dinah asked her, reaching across the table to take one of Harley’s hands in her own. Harley looked up at her and gave a soft smile and small nod. 

“Yeah, Kids. I had twins years ago, two beautiful boys. Adrian and William, They were the lights of my life.“

“Are they Joker’s?“ Dinah asked. 

Slowly, Harley nodded again. “Yeah. Don’t tell him, though, he doesn’t know yet. I’ve never known how to tell him, so I just... didn’t. I didn’t know how he would react.“ Harley said, shrugging her shoulders. 

Dinah paused for a second, letting Harley catch her breath before continuing.  “Do you know where they are?“ 

She shook her head “I left them with my sister, maybe twelve or so years ago, but I haven’t heard from her in a while, oh god, at least a year, so I don’t know if they are still there.“

“We’ll try to find them, Harley. We’ll make sure they’re okay.“ Dinah said soothingly, smiling softly in an attempt to comfort her friend. It was quiet for a minute, before Dinah smirked playfully at Harley, cocking her head to one side. 

“Do you really want to see pictures?“ She asked. 

Of course, Harley perked right up almost immediately. “God yes!!!“ She squealed, clapping her hands together as Dinah pulled her phone out of her back pocket.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Do you have any children?“ Diana asked the man across from her with her classic stony tone.

“What the hell do you think, princess?“ Mr. Frost snarled at her, sure to accentuate her phony title. 

Had he not been wearing a fishbowl on his head, Diana would have slapped him. Hard.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Poison Ivy,“ Hal said, really wishing that he had stayed in bed instead of answering the justice league communicator. 

“Green Lantern. The worst green thing on earth.” Poison Ivy said, sneering at the man.

Usually, Hal would find that funny, but his sleep-deprived ass wasn’t interested in making small talk today. “I’m not saying you sleep around, but If you tell me you have kids I won’t be surprised.“

“Charming.“

Hal waited for a second before gesturing for her to continue. “So do you?“

“Yes.“ She said simply as if she had nothing to hide and nothing to prove. The golden lasso confirmed her words as true.  There was an awkward pause between the two of them before Hal spoke. 

“I feel like that was too easy...“ He mumbled, before shaking his head and standing up. “But whatever, I don’t question the magic rope. I’m going to bed. Goodbye, Plantgirl.” He said, leaving the room with a rather insulted Ivy in his wake. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“They’re real...“ Batman said, pacing the length of the waiting room of Arkham Asylum as he thought. Diana sat in a seat to one side, twisting her lasso in one hand, listening to his rambling and nodding along. “These people have children. Real children.“ He added. 

“What are we going to do about this?“ Diana asked him. “We all have jobs, lives and Justice league problems of our own. We can’t afford to follow this rabbit hole for weeks or months, especially if we have no solid leads other than “They exist.”“ She pointed out.

Batman rubbed his hand over his masked face, sighing deeply. “You’re right.” He said, more to himself than to her. “But what else are we going to do? We can’t just wait around for this to become a huge problem.”

Diana stood up and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I have another idea if you’re interested.” She said. “Have you thought about giving it to the Young Justice team, at least for now? They could work on it and try to break the case from another perspective. A teenager perspective. Those kids are much smarter than you’re willing to admit, they might be able to help.“ She said simply. 

Batman thought for a second, before shaking his head. “That’s... A good idea.” He said. “I’ll talk to Robin about it tomorrow and discuss with the extended team as soon as possible.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of this, Bruce,” Diana said, staring across the room at the wall with an aura of distance. “After all, how much trouble can four kids cause?“ She asked. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m sorry about this guys, but I had to remove the links because tumblr is throwing a little bit of a tantrum in regards to links and NSFW content at the moment. As a result, me and many other creators are walking on eggshells until tumblr takes a fucking chill pill. As such there aren’t any links on this fic, but if you liked this and you want to see the rest of it, DM me and I’ll send you all the links to all the chapters I’ve written. Thanks guys and sorry again!

[xseedgames]

Zwei: The Arges Adventure - Localization Blog #1

AAAAAAHHHHH IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING.

I’ve been working on this game for the better part of a year now, but have been unable to say anything about it for PR reasons – namely, that it wasn’t in a showable state, and we didn’t want to confuse prospective players by having two Zwei games announced but unreleased at the same time. Which is totally reasonable, but AAAAAAAHHHH I’VE BEEN WANTING TO TALK ABOUT THIS GAME SO BADLY YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

…Ahem. First off, I guess I should bring you all up to speed, in case you missed the announcement. Falcom’s 2001 PC classic Zwei!! is coming to the Western world via Steam, GOG, and The Humble Store in early 2018, under the name Zwei: The Arges Adventure. Why the name change? Well, because we already released its 2008 sequel, Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection (which was originally called Zwei II: Sky-High Great Adventure in Japan).

That’s right. Localization work wrapped on the sequel first, and now we’re finishing things up with the original.

What are we thinking?!, you must be asking yourselves. Why would we release the sequel first, then go back and release the original? Why wouldn’t we release the original game first? And since we’ve already released the more modern second entry in the series from seven years later, can this earlier effort really hold its own by comparison? 

Well, that’s why I’m so excited. Because Zwei: The Arges Adventure is good. REALLY good. In fact, I dare say it’s my favorite translation I’ve ever worked on to date – yes, even topping Return to PopoloCrois and Corpse Party. And if you’re at all familiar with me (this is Tom, BTW), that statement alone should tell you that Zwei: AA is something special, since PopoloCrois and Corpse Party are… shall we say, perennial favorites of mine. To put it very lightly.

So, yeah. Let’s address those hypothetical questions, shall we?

Why would we release the sequel before the original? Well, two reasons. One, because we can – these games each tell standalone stories, set on different floating continents with different casts of characters. Zwei: AA’s two protagonists, Pipiro and Pokkle, do make a few cameo appearances in Zwei: II, but this is done almost purely for the sake of fanservice (the literal kind, not the naughty kind). When all is said and done, these two games are completely standalone, taking place in the same world but telling very different stories with very different characters and a very different feel. Think of it kind of like the Ys series, but even more episodic (since, Ys Origin aside, Ys has the Adol-as-protagonist connection from one game to the next, whereas Zwei doesn’t even have that!).

The other reason is because of the nature of Zwei: AA’s code. The Japanese version of this game utilized DirectX 5, was formatted strictly for 4:3 resolution with no widescreen options whatsoever, offered a lovely FPS selection of 30 or 15 (seriously!), counted on players to play it with mouse and keyboard over gamepad (it supported gamepads, but… barely), and contained no fewer than six unlockable Windows desktop apps that were loosely tied to yet completely separate from the main game.

This is one of them. And that first screenshot at the beginning of this blog entry is another.

In other words… this is the kind of adaptive coding project that’s been known to give lesser programmers heart attacks. Getting a game like this to even run on a modern Windows machine at all – much less run WELL – was decidedly not a task for the meek. In fact, it’s because of the way this game is coded that we ultimately decided to translate the game in-house rather than working with any fan-translators as we did for Zwei: II, as no two programmers would handle this text the same way – and trying to convert a fan-translated script to a format that would work for us would’ve taken almost as long as translating the game from scratch.

So, yeah. Getting Zwei: II out first was pretty much just done because… erm… it was ready first. And it was always GOING to be ready first. Even with a lengthy QA process and a couple minor delays, it still inevitably got finished long before its predecessor was ready to make its debut.

Fortunately, we hired a veteran programmer to work with us on Zwei: AA… but you’ll never guess who! It wasn’t Sara, since she was busy getting Zwei: II ready at the time (and a fine job she did of it, with one of our smoothest PC launches ever!). But this wasn’t our first time working with the guy we worked with on this project, either. It was, however, our first time working with him to modernize someone else’s game – and he really did perform some miracles for us (and put up with my many, many demands for quality-of-life improvements and feature additions, to boot!).

The man in question? Matt Fielding, of Magnetic Realms. A.k.a. the guy who brought you the game Exile’s End. 

Pictured: Exile’s End. Which is also an awesome game you should play!

And thanks to his technical wizardry, you guys are going to have an astoundingly up-to-date version of Zwei!! on your hands at launch. We’re talking more than just widescreen support here – there’s full in-game integration of the Pet Monitor and other desktop apps, new control functionality for more natural gamepad support across the board, inclusion of the arranged soundtrack from the Japan-only PSP version of the game, additional art and text content not present in any previous version of the game, and much, much more (to be detailed in future blog entries!).

Moving on to the second question I asked, with Zwei: II already out, can Zwei: AA hold its own by comparison?

I think you know what my answer’s going to be, on that one. Zwei: The Arges Adventure is a freaking awesome game with a lot to offer, and differs from its own successor in enough key areas that it can very easily hold its own any day of the week. Hell, you might even like it better than Zwei: II – it’s certainly a very close call for me, but I’d say Zwei: AA gets the slight edge! 

Sure, they’re both dungeon-crawling action RPGs at their core, and they both use food to level-up, even sharing the same food exchange system to discourage grinding. And the two-character party (plus one pet), with one character taking the role of physical attacker while the other slings spells, takes center stage in both titles as well. Plus, both games are set on floating continents in the same world.

That’s a lot of similarities, but they’re all relatively superficial. You could say Zwei: AA is like the 2D answer to Zwei: II’s 3D world, but that would be discounting its snarkier and more tongue-in-cheek storyline (yes, even more than Zwei: II’s!), or the gorgeous and ludicrously colorful hand-drawn backgrounds, or the two games’ very different approaches to pets (you only get one pet in Zwei: AA as opposed to the veritable army of pets featured in Zwei: II, but that one dog or cat [or other?] has significantly more personality and gameplay involvement than its many Zwei: II counterparts), or the huge variety of minigames on offer (all of which have been adapted to play from within the game itself, despite formerly existing only as desktop apps)… and that’s just scratching the surface. In short, although the two games use the same basic template, they represent two very different approaches to game design within the confines of that template.

For me as Zwei: AA’s translator, though, I can’t help but laser-focus right on the game’s dialogue. Protagonist duo Pipiro and Pokkle are without a doubt the best pair to write that somebody like me could ever ask for. Pokkle constantly cracks bad puns (and I do mean constantly!), wears a tail for funsies, and is always hitting on women twice his age.

And Pipiro just has absolutely no filter whatsoever, and is full of so much snark that she’s fit to burst.

Practically every line out of these two is an absolute gem – and that’s to say nothing of the many quirky NPCs surrounding them over the course of their rather lengthy quest (such as the endlessly self-delusional “libertine fatass” that’s funding your adventure, and his extremely no-nonsense maid who gave him that nickname).

I… really can’t stress enough how much fun it was to write for these characters, and how inspired I was to come up with the perfect phrasing for every line. I’m extremely appreciative that we chose to translate the game in-house, as it gave me an opportunity to work much more deeply with this script than I ever could’ve if we’d only been tasked with editing it. As time went on, I found myself revising my work on a daily basis, making small tweaks here and there as new bits of wordplay or better puns popped into my head (much to Matt’s chagrin, I’m sure!). The end result is something that I can stand behind as a faithful interpretation of the game’s mood and intent – an attempt to convey the same degree of lighthearted fun and irreverence present in every line of the Japanese script, but formatted to sound more natural in English, accounting for context, tone, atmosphere, and individual character quirks rather than just hammering out a word-for-word translation.

I’ve never laughed so hard while playing a JRPG before, and I truly hope that when you guys play this one in English, you’ll find its English interpretation just as hilarious as I found its original Japanese to be. That would mean I succeeded at what I set out to do, and would bring me great joy and pride as a localizer!

And please do keep an eye on this Tumblr, as I fully intend to give lots more info about Zwei: The Arges Adventure (and more screenshots showing off lines I’m particularly proud of) in the weeks to come!

Until then, I hope you’re all continuing to enjoy Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection, and… well, I’mma go back to testin’ Zwei: The Arges Adventure now, ‘cause I want this game to be downright perfect when it’s released! And with translation and editing 100% complete, and coding probably somewhere in the 70-80% done range, that release date will be here before you know it…

[maiji]

Process and wip images for A House That Holds Long Limbs

You can read the pages for part 1 here (full complete version will be linked from YYH North Bound master post whenever it’s done.)

Every so often I get questions about how I work, and I also enjoy reading about how other creators make things, so perhaps this might be interesting and useful to somebody out there too. I’ve talked about my process before but never really documented and shared it WHILE working on a project, so here you can see some of my thinking and decision-making (and poor habits lol) a bit more immediately, alongside screenshots, photos and scans.

Very long, everything is below the cut, and apologies to people on mobile and anywhere else this goofs up.

One question I get a lot is “do you start with words or pictures when creating a comic?” I jump between both a lot. That said, I tend to lean more heavily on words when documenting ideas in the early stages of a project. This is because, for me:

Words pack a lot of punch in conveying detail quickly. They work better when I need to quickly communicate something extremely specific to future me. I’m a sloppy drawer, so my sketches tend to make future me squint and go, “What the hell was this supposed to be?!”

A great deal of my thinking and planning is done during crowded commutes. It’s more convenient to jot notes on my phone than to whip out my sketchbook and a pen.

(For a while I thought it’d be awesome to have some sort of app where I can type notes AND have an accompanying thumbnail sketch, and be able to drag them around or break them out into more or fewer pages. At one point years ago I thought about creating a custom app... but ultimately too lazy/busy and my current process works well enough. If anyone wants to take this idea and run with it, please feel free to do so and just let me know about it so I can try it haha.)

I usually start with a few lines summarizing the gist of the idea, enough that’s recognizable and I don’t forget the important things to build off from. From there, I start point-form outlining the stuff that needs to happen, structuring them into key scenes/parts. These scenes are not always fleshed out in order - I just add to them whenever I have ideas for that part. 

Long Limbs, for example, had a progression like this:

Overall story idea: “horror story with rokurokubi, key plot point(s) happens, the end.” (There was a bit more detail than this, obviously, but we’re avoiding spoilers here.)

Initial description for Part 1 of the story: “Hokushin lured to go to somewhere. Separated from Raizen. HOW??????”

After letting it simmer for while, a solution: “Hokushin annoyed at Raizen. Opportunity for him to get away and go do his own thing.”

Gradually more detail: “Stranger invites him to go to this place to look into something/maybe has a paid job that needs to be done and Raizen is busy goofing off or whatever.”

Problem. I couldn’t resolve this chain of thought to my satisfaction. What kind of task/job can someone convince Hokushin to do on his own when he doesn’t know this person/it seems questionable? And how long will the conversation need to run to establish this as believable?

This was starting to get convoluted and I was getting annoyed because it was turning into a burden in being able to continue the story AND IT WASN’T EVEN THAT IMPORTANT. I decided to abandon this path of thinking, and left the entire story for a while.

Much later (like months?), I had an idea: “Mysterious person drops something, piques Hokushin’s curiosity.” Aha! Hokushin’s own initiative. Simple and plausible enough. HOORAY NO MORE THINKING. LET’S DRAW.

Then I realized, oh shoot, I need to figure out who this mysterious person is and what they dropped. More time passes. And so on… in between I’m always working on other things, so there’s no real creator’s block - at some point I start thinking about this comic again, and ideas work themselves out to some decent level of satisfaction and link together. Thanks subconscious!

Eventually, enough key scenes are fleshed out that I feel confident enough to turn this into a real thing. At present, for example, not all scenes in Long Limbs are totally worked out, but I’ve got enough that I ran ahead with Part 1.

Screenshot of the Google Docs notes/script for Part 1: 

This is a close-to-final version. The === on top is just to separate this from notes on other stories or ideas. This is the beginning of the document, but this document actually includes many other notes and stories for North Bound. I delete them as I finish and post the pages. Every so often I wonder if I should bother keeping them, but they’ve been refined throughout the process and usually don’t bear much resemblance to the original jotted notes anymore. Long Limbs was originally planned to be a later story in North Bound, but I got especially excited about it and fleshed it out further than the others. When I reviewed the earlier stories, I didn’t think there’d be a big continuity or reader experience issue if this was finished and posted first. So I moved the messy notes for this story to the top of the document. 

The page breakdown for the script is done by me generally picturing in my head how I might want the scene to go and how much action I might be able to fit on the page for good effect. I’ll sometimes start paginating without thumbnails, and sometimes will do both side by side (thumbnail and update pagination in tandem).

As you might imagine, pagination frequently changes. For example, you’ll see the script above is 9 pages instead of 10.

The original script for this section was broken up into maybe 4-6 pages, with 5-7 being more condensed.

When I started thumbnailing, I found it felt too cluttered and moved too fast.

So I stretched out the part of Hokushin and the mystery girl exchanging glances, and added pages to be able to create a (hopefully) more cinematic feel and really focus on the reason they catch each other’s eye - the bandages on their necks.

I then went back to the Google Doc and updated the script to line it up better.

I was also tweaking the dialogue at the same time and didn’t want to forget any key phrasing I liked. Dialogue is another thing I get really hung up over, often changing words up to the last second. (Sometimes this is because I messed up the size of the speech bubble, if I’m lettering on the computer...)

Thumbnails:

Pretty close to the final in this case - mainly because the sequence is pretty simple and straightforward and not many people are involved. I keep my thumbnails very crappy and rough so that I don’t get upset later when I can’t redraw something as good as the thumbnail. Bottom right was a quick attempt at designing the mystery girl.

Once I think the thumbnails are good enough - translation: I get impatient and just want to start drawing - I proceed to pencils for the actual page.

Throughout all this, I’m repeatedly reviewing script and thumbnail and playing sequences out in my head and then trying to figure out how to better direct the “camera” and the action. I may go back to the script and the thumbnails even as I’m finetuning the actual page if I encounter issues. You can see in both the script and the thumbnails that there are still deviations in the dialogue and the art from the final. Here are a few examples:

Page 3: The panels were originally 1) the setting, 2) Hokushin with his arms folded, 3) Raizen laughing, 4) we see that Hokushin is watching Raizen. After reviewing the thumbnail, I felt it’d be a better setup to flow into the scene if I switched panels 2 and 3. That’s closer to how you’d experience it in real life, or how it might be directed in a shot sequence: you enter an area/place, you hear the sound of some guy’s loud laughter filling the air, then the camera zooms up to the annoyed expression of this one particular dude and you see he’s staring at the laughing guy. Moving from bigger ambience to smaller details around the room.

Page 7: The girl was originally turning in the other direction (hard to tell because I redrew it right on top of the original sketch lol). However, this meant all the directional action would be pointing to the right - Hokushin is facing the right, and when he leaves the bar he’s angling towards the right side of the page. Facing the direction that readers will read in gives a sense of driving the action forward, while facing the opposite direction provides a bit of a mental stop. (This is something from Scott McCloud that always stuck with me.) So, I flipped the girl around.

Page 8: Script has Hokushin going “What’s this?”. When thumbnailing, I thought, “obviously it’s self-evident he’s wondering what this is when he picks it up”. It added nothing to the panel, and the speech or thought bubble would have interrupted the smooth action of him picking up the paper. So, axed.

The damn friggin’ bar and gambling: You’ll see the script mention this, and at one point I actually had the guy standing across from Raizen saying “Is this guy drunk?” I’m actually not sure if they’re in a bar or if Raizen is drinking, but neither were important to the actual story because I just needed Raizen and Hokushin to be in a place where Raizen could hang out with humans and be stupid. So I dropped these details. This is mainly because I ran into historical research problems about bars and alcohol during the Kamakura period (more on that near the end of this post), and this was the only way to stop myself from getting hung up on trying to make it “perfect” and “correct” and just get it done. 

Drawing the actual pages. This part is fun!

Inking the actual pages. THIS PART IS NOT FUN :( 

I don’t have very steady hands and I get very anxious about messing things up, so inking always takes me the longest. (I also get distracted easily, e.g., ink two lines and then surf tumblr for ten minutes lol). I’ve improved a lot since I started drawing comics much more frequently a couple years ago, and my choice of tools and style has helped a lot (I lean to variable lines and sketchy style, which is more forgiving than, say, a very precise art style with fixed-width pens) but I still get nervous at this stage.

I’m very lazy so I usually stick with one tool for inking. For Long Limbs I tried to effort more and actually used three. Right to left: Sailor fude de mannen for panel borders and text, Muji pen for artwork (0.4 because that was the only size available at the store when I went to get my refill), Pentel pocket brush for filling in blacks. I refill the fude de mannen and the pocket brush with fountain pen inks.

I usually ink panel borders first, then speech bubbles, then everything else. I hop all over the place and pages are generally in varying stages of completion. I also sometimes add in some more text lines because it seems like a good idea at the time - Hokushin’s complaint on page 3 about how he should have left Raizen when he got into a fight with a fish-seller in a previous story, for example. Sometimes these work, sometimes I regret it later and edit it on the computer.

Cover thumbnails and pencil sketch:

The one in the page thumbnails was the original idea, but then I thought, “seems kinda cliched. Can I get a more interesting angle where he’s not looking straight at the viewer?” (OK, his eyes are covered, but you know what I mean.) I quickly tried a few other angles and compositions, didn’t like them and ended up going with pretty much the original idea, but more zoomed in.

In the thumbnails, you can see all my little x’s indicating “ehhhh I don’t like this”. I wanted something with a particular mood/atmosphere especially with all the hands and arms, and I was conflicted between zooming out (for more environment and more arms, and the focus on the “long limbs” part of the title) or having a tighter, more close up shot. Ultimately I think the latter works better as it conveys a sense of claustrophobia, and it’s more intimate which supports the idea of psychological horror. ALSO IT’S SEXY (maybe???). The end.

Other random thoughts:

I took a lot of heart/inspiration/motivation from Togashi’s last few volumes of Yu Yu Hakusho to keep the backgrounds as lazy - I mean sparse - as possible and also speech bubbles over plain backgrounds lmao. I think it takes a lot of confidence (or maybe laziness) to be so minimalist and restrained, and it’s an impressive and economical way of working. I was always impressed that when reading those pages of his for the first time, the lack of detail never really bothered me - you had everything you needed for your brain to comfortably fill in the gaps and complete the sense of narrative and story progression, and there are still visual flourishes when the situation calls for it. So I’m trying to bring a bit of that tighter philosophy in.

Research. I struggle a LOT with not getting bogged down by details, especially when it’s something “just” for fun or “just” a fancomic. I have very lovely and helpful friends and family who every so often patiently allow me to whine and bounce things off of them, help me look things up, and/or tell me when I’m getting myopic about stuff. For all the North Bound comics, finding quick and useful historical references for the time period has been a challenge. There’s a ton about aristocracy and warriors but very little about the ordinary/common people, not surprisingly. I frequently question my instincts about what makes sense because I tend to automatically draw on similar/equivalent Chinese culture (there was certainly lots of cross-over, but not always appropriate/relevant) or Edo period references (wrong time frame! Too far in the future). I often end up losing a ton of time trying to find something with roundabout searches, and then give up and look at other comics I have close enough to the time period. And then referencing those and compounding whatever historical errors they have in them. (e.g., “Well if it was good enough for Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix it’s good enough for this rando fancomic!”) I just would like historical/subject matter experts to know I did try...

[benditlikebedford]

Halsey && Matty

Okay, so this is going to be long so I’m going to put it under a read more BUT I just want to say that I don’t have sources for most of this because it’s from Halsey’s old tumblr that she deleted and other stuff (screenshots, pictures, etc.) I’ve had saved on my computer for agessss so I don’t remember where I originally got them. But also a lot of this stuff, like the lyric analysis, just came from my own brain and the fact that I’ve seen way too many interviews of the 1975.

SO first things first. Halsey and Matty were friends with benefits (NOT dating... just friends that hooked up a lot) for ?? a period of time. I’m not sure when it started or when it ended but I’m thinking it ended around 2014 based on when they stopped appearing in pictures together.

Halsey has written three songs that I am 100% certain are about Matty, and there’s two others that I think MIGHT be about him but I’m not certain.

Generally speaking, Halsey has said in interviews that Matty was a huge influence on her writing and even helped write some of her songs.

So the first song, and most damning one, is Colors.

“Your little brother never tells you but he loves you so. You said your mother only smiled on her TV show.”

This is obviously about Louis (Matty’s younger brother) who’s lowkey a shithead but I love him so much and Matty’s mum (aka my mum that I WORSHIP) Denise. Denise has had depression and she’s also on a soap so that’s where those lines come from.

“You’re only happy when your sorry head is filled with dope. I hope you make it to the day you’re 28 years old.”

I’m sure you know by now that Matty loves weed. But this was also written long before ILIWYS era so we all know that during that last stretch of touring Matty was just very unhealthy and unhappy and tired. (And I’m so glad that’s no longer the case.) The second part is because he was 25/26ish at the time and loads of famous people die of suicide/drug overdose at/before age 28. Matty gave her a slight dig on twitter on his 28th birthday which I made a post about here lol.

((Less obvious, more of an assumption, but I think the “tearing through the pages and the ink” has to do with the fact that matty’s always on that damn typewriter and typewriters can be very wasteful since if you mess up you have to start completely over hence the tearing through the pages and ink.))

“Everything was grey, his hair, his smoke his dreams and now he’s so devoid of colour he don’t know what it means.”

After the beloved undercut/side shave from circa Girls MV, Matty’s hair actually grew back in grey so that’s that part. His smoke, oh gee, does Matty smoke? I don’t think he does? (lol) And also I’m pretty sure the so devoid of colour thing is about the fact that Halsey was with Matty around the time that everything they did was in black and white.

“You were a vision in the morning when the light came through. I know I’ve only felt religion when I’ve lied with you.”

Later in this post I’m going to talk about the poems that she wrote about Matty on her old tumblr and she LOVES to talk about waking up in the morning with him. Like. LOVES to talk about that. Also y’all should know Matty is always calling sex the closest thing to religion he’s ever felt. (Also? Grammar question, does anyone know the answer? Is it supposed to be lied or laid? I think it’s supposed to be laid.)

“You’ll never be forgiven until your boys are too.”

Matty is extremely reliant on the boys (George, Adam, Ross) he can’t really do anything without them sort of thing here.

Okay now let’s talk about Strange Love. My analysis for this one isn’t as intense as Colors don’t worry haha.  

Basically this entire song is about media being fascinated with Matty and how he’s a literal sex god. The whole “Everybody wants to know if we fucked on the bathroom sink, how your hands felt in my hair, etc. etc.” is about people wanting to know about their relationship as he gets more famous.

The most interesting part about this song though is the “We wrote a story in the fog on the window that night, but the ending is the same every damn time.” 

Matty, for whatever reason, has a fascination with writing in fog. You see in in both The Sound and in the Somebody Else music videos. 

I couldn’t find a gif of the part where Matty writes the rectangle on the car window in Somebody Else but he does it there too. 

Halsey also talks about his fog writing obsession in one of her poems aka THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING EVER WRITTEN and we’ll talk about that later don’t worry it’s coming. 

The part about “the ending is the same every damn time” is how Halsey wanted their hook ups to end with something more, with a real relationship, but they never did. 

So the last one I want to go into detail about is EXTREMELY important and that’s Is There Somewhere. 

YALL THE WHOLE ROOM 93 EP IS ABOUT MATTY OKAY

So in the Room 93 Commentary Halsey talks about how the whole album is about a couple (her and Matty) in a hotel room “sharing a moment”. She says that “Is there somewhere you can meet me” was the text message frequently exchanged between her and the person the song is about (Matty) and how basically they always ended up meeting in a hotel room. Some other interview (don’t remember which one sorry guys) she says basically the same thing about the texts BUT she adds a super damning detail about how the texts were exchanged when “this person” (Matty) and her were both on tour and if they ever overlapped they’d send that text. 

As for the song itself, it’s just... so obviously about Matty. Some very telling details are “dancing in your tube socks” and the part about his crooked teeth.

NOW THIS PART IS VERY IMPORTANT LIKE !!! PAY ATTENTION 

“And I try to refrain but you're stuck in my brain and all I do is cry and complain because second's not the same.“

So right now you’re probably like ?? Halsey was a sidechick ?? Matty was cheating on someone??

NO (okay at least that’s not MY OPINION. Some people think he was cheating on Gemma with Halsey but I don’t have enough proof for that, and considering how crushed Matty was when he broke up with Gemma I really don’t think he would’ve cheated on her. Also I don’t think the timeline adds up (again, based on my research) I think Halsey came after Gemma, sort of as a placeholder for the loneliness he felt. WHICH i’ll talk about later.)

I think Halsey is referring to the fact that she’s second to the 1975. This period of Matty’s life right after the self titled came out and they started working on ILIWYS was HUGE for the band. More likely than not, he was putting most of his time and energy into the band and he wanted to focus on that more than on having a serious relationship. Halsey obviously wanted a serious relationship. 

OKAY SO THIS IS WHERE WE GET INTO THE TUMBLR STUFF NOW

Basically Halsey gave herself away big time because she posted this picture on her tumblr and captioned it “93″. Girl. 

BUT IT ONLY GETS BETTER FROM HERE. Halsey wrote SO MUCH poetry about him. Way too much for me to put all in this post but like, just for reference here’s two:

This one talks about how much she loves waking up with him in the morning (told yall). and obviously those DAMN CURLS. 

and yeah this is also about him lmao matty damn that boy

As for THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING EVER WRITTEn okay get ready because its a lot its super long but

I lost one here I must’ve deleted it accidentally a long time ago but I don’t know where to find it again :( 

EDIT;; HERE’S THE WHOLE THING 

okay so

There’s a ton of religious metaphors, which is obviously such a Matty thing I mean, come on. She also mentions his black jeans, his staple back in the day, his socks are mentioned again, as is the whole window fog deal. She talks about drugs, sex, him being a fucking nerd with the way he talks AND the most interesting like “we fight about where the chord change should go” which is about him helping her write music, which she talked about on her tumblr as well (again, the tumblr is deleted and I don’t have a screenshot of that but I remember it) something like “Matty influenced so much of my writing”. 

Okay, so the last thing we’re going to talk about now is something I haven’t ever seen anyone else mention but it’s just ?? so obvious to me ??

She’s American (in my educated opinion, this is all guessing) is about Halsey.

So, let’s start with one of the very first lines “Synthetic apparitions of not being lonely”

Y’all come on. This is about one-night stands. It’s something made up (synthetic) that only lasts for a short amount of time (apparition) and they make you feel less lonely, only for one night. Pretty sure this is about Halsey and their “is there somewhere” meetings. ALSO THIS IS WHY I don’t think Matty was dating Gemma at the time because he was LONELY whenever he was with Halsey. Also she said somewhere, I think in the same place where she mentioned Matty influencing her writing that they met up, while they were both on tour, to get rid of loneliness just for the night. (but the way she said it was so much more poetic than me lol)

EDIT;; this is what i was talking about with “simply a friend to fill a king sized bed”

The whole chorus is about how she doesn't see how there’s any issue with their relationship and is focusing on all the superficial aspects (them being socially relevant, his teeth). You can see this in real life as Halsey is at events constantly and the 1975 rarely are. 

"She calls on the phone like the old days expecting the world.”

I’m 90% sure this is about Halsey hitting Matty with a “Is there somewhere you can meet me text.” within the last like two-three and he has to be like “We don’t do this anymore.” 

Also, as far as I’M aware, Matty was never in a relationship (I.E. hooking up more than once) with someone that was American other than Halsey. Gemma was British and Taylor Swift DIDN’T HAPPEN GUYS. 

Also New Americana was her most popular song at the time that ILIWYS was being written so. 

THERE YOU GO GUYS. I think that’s everything I’ve got BUT if I think of anything else I’ll make some edits or post something about it. I want to know what you guys think, if you have any thoughts or opinions or anything you want to add so slide into those dm’s or that inbox anytime and I’d love to chat (about this or anything else tbh!)

xoxo valarie

[mst3kproject]

524: Twelve to the Moon

There are 50's sci-fi movies with wonderful titles like The Monster that Challenged the World and IT! The Terror from Beyond Space. I poke fun at how irrelevant or misleading some of them are, but I actually love them: there's nothing better to entice me to see a silly movie than a deliriously hyperbolic title!  Then there's this film, Twelve to the Moon, which is about twelve people going to the moon.  No points for the title guy.

Despite that, I rather like Twelve to the Moon.  It's not my favourite of the MST3K Moon movies – that would be Moon Zero Two – but it's a hell of a lot less annoying than either Rocketship XM or Project Moon Base.  There's some earnest effort that seems to have gone into this film, even when the effects budget was not equal to the filmmakers' ambitions.  The result is not a good movie but it is a functional one, and in the land of MST3K fodder that ain't half bad.

So let's start with the stuff that works.  There's a few places where Twelve to the Moon really did get something right, or at least, where its heart was clearly in the right place even if the follow-through didn't work out.  For one thing, they don't spend half the movie hanging around in space talking about stuff.  They have to dodge a meteor shower, but I'm pretty sure that was mandated by the Space Movie Union rules in the 50's.  Other than that, there is some flight time with dialogue, but unlike the pointless bullshit that consumed significant parts of Fire Maidens of Outer Space and almost all of Rocketship XM, in Twelve to the Moon this actually sets up some honest-to-gosh plot points.

We get a brief sketch of some of the characters, of their attitude towards the trip and their area of expertise.  We meet the animals they're bringing with them, and see the technology that makes the trip possible – some of this, like the sonic shower and the invention of the screenshot, is filler, but some, like the mentions of nuclear power and foreshadowing of Heinrich's heart attack, is important.  It's actually kind of neat that they included some irrelevancies, since it means we don't know which parts will turn out to be vital later.  And we get a setup of the film's main human conflict, Heinrich's distancing from his father's war crimes and what it means for his relationship with his protege David.

The movie also makes quite an earnest attempt to portray people who are different getting along for the sake of the common good.  The characters clearly disagree about a lot of things but when fights break out they're usually quieted pretty quickly.  Somebody put at least a little thought into where each member of the crew came from and how that would be reflected in their personalities, though the results are not especially nuanced.  Furthermore, even when they argue the characters mostly treat each other with respect. The women are allowed to be useful instead of just being there so the men will have girls to kiss.  The black guy is not treated badly on account of either his race or his faith.  Twelve to the Moon really, really wants to be progressive and whatever you think of the result there's certainly less of the Unfortunate Implications that plagued Women of the Prehistoric Planet.

The surface of the Moon as presented in this movie is actually pretty cool.  The backdrops are suitably craggy and desolate, and the black and white film actually adds to the effectiveness of it.  Even when we get stuff like the geysers, the quicksand, and the corals, that enrage Tom Servo by clearly not belonging on the moon, they look pretty neat.  This is obviously where the production spent most of its money and I have to say, good call.  If you’re only going to show us one really cool thing in your trip-to-the-moon movie, best make sure that’s the moon itself!

A related good decision was how the movie never actually shows us the Moon People.  Anything they could have put together on their budget would have been disappointing at best and laughable at worst. By keeping the Moon People off-camera, they are made an ominous presence in the movie, unknowable, unpredictable, and with powers we cannot comprehend.  This is far scarier than people in silly 'moon men' costumes would have been!

Finally, to my grateful astonishment, the movie does not have a love triangle in it!  With ten men and two women on the Lunar Eagle, they could easily have gone that way, but they didn't! Hideko has no love interest at all, and so little time is spent on the romance between the two physicians that when they pull off their helmets and kiss it comes as a complete surprise.  Instead, the movie derives its human drama from the differing political views of the characters.  It's still kind of beside the point of the main 'moon adventure' plot but it's not nearly so tired and cliché as the romantic angle would have been.

Of course, a lot went wrong in this movie, too.  For starters, there are far too many characters.  We simply don't have time to get to know the entire cast: there are too many names and faces to remember, and while we do get an outline of each person, we get no more than that.  Some of the irrelevant stuff that added colour to the first half of the film could have been cut to make room for setting up Dr. Martel's dislike of Americans, or at least to give a brief setup to the romance.  The cast could have been cut down by half, while the film told the same story in a much tighter and more engaging fashion.

Then there are the effects.  I mentioned that the movie spent most of its effects budget on the moonscapes. This means there was not much left for anything else and... yeah. You can tell.  Whether we're watching model spacecraft on sticks, or the cast getting bombarded by cartoon meteors, or the kleig lights intruding into the top of a shot, you can certainly see the cheapness on the screen. The worst moment of all is when we see two men who are supposed to be flying a smaller rocket ship, sitting in front of a blank wall with the shot framed to crop out an instrument panel that does not actually exist.

Perhaps the lack of budget is why they went with the 'invisible force field helmet' thing... maybe they couldn't afford twelve custom-made glass or plastic face plates, plus extras in case of breakage.  Or maybe they worried that reflections on the material would make it hard to see the actors' faces and tell who was who. Either way, they probably would have done better to just pretend there were helmets there, rather than draw attention to their absence – though actor Richard Weber delivers the line with admirable conviction.

A lack of budget is the studio's fault, not the film-makers', but where the movie really stops making sense is when the Moon People decide to make actual contact with the human crew.  They do this by transmitting a series of symbols that pop up on the Lunar Eagle's computer, and which more than anything else remind me of the 'hieroglyphics' supposedly found on the Roswell UFO wreckage.  I don't know if this was intentional on the part of the film-makers... Roswell was mostly forgotten after it happened and didn't become big news until conspiracy types started looking into it in 1978.  What's really weird about the symbols is not what might have inspired them, but the fact that Hideko can translate them.

What?  The picture-writing we're shown doesn't look anything like Japanese, or any other logographic language I can think of.  Just because Hideko can read one type of pictogram doesn't mean she can necessarily read others – I can read the Roman and Greek alphabets, but that sure as hell wouldn’t help me with Sanskrit or Inuktitut!  Is this one of those things where the aliens came to Earth thousands of years ago and left their language behind, and Hideko just happens to have studied it? Because that would be awfully convenient.

The other possibility that occurs is that the aliens deliberately chose to communicate in a language they knew their guests would understand... but if that's the case, it seems more likely that they would have just done it in one of the languages spoken by their two captives, which would give them a choice of Turkish, Swedish, or English.  The Moon People clearly understand at least one of those languages, since they mention that the hostages “say they are in love”, so why bother with the pictograms at all?

The later actions of the Moon People don't really make any sense, either.  'Leave the cats and go home' seems like a fairly reasonable request (given the option of two cats or twelve humans, I know which I would choose to keep), but then they freeze the Earth so that the Lunar Eagle cannot land.  A later communication makes it sound like this was a test of the crew's willingness to support each other and sacrifice themselves to the greater good of humanity, but was it really necessary to freeze the planet in order to do that?  They'd surely already seen that these squabbling primates worked together well enough to get themselves to the moon, and tried to save their colleagues who were in danger.  It really just seems like the Moon People want to make the point that they can snuff humanity's candle out any time they like... which doesn't make them seem that much more peaceful or enlightened than us, honestly.

So yeah, there's a lot of stuff that sucks here, too, and between that and the good bits the movie balances out somewhere in the vicinity of 'tragically mediocre'.  Despite all that, I really do kind of like this one.  Twelve to the Moon wants to be not just an entertaining movie but an important one, one with an optimistic vision of the future and a message for all mankind.  It fails, but it fails in such ways that I really would like to give it points for trying.

Except for the title guy.  He didn't try at all.

[saladbroth]

(Not) Ready To Be Found (Just Yet)

My contribution to the second day of @seungchuchuweek Clothing and fashion, selfies, holidays and festivals, Boyfriend does my make up challenge

"It all starts with a picture that Phichit posts on Instagram of his dark skinned hand intertwined with a paler one and his left foot next to another person’s right one."

Seung-Gil Lee, biology student and average person is the new boyfriend of YouTube fashion icon and blogger Phichit Chulanont. They start to present their relationship online with casual mentions and pictures and the ultimate reveal almost breaks the internet.

It all starts with a picture that Phichit posts on Instagram of his dark skinned hand intertwined with a paler one and his left foot next to another person’s right one. The caption says: Taking a walk with the boyfriend <3. His followers go crazy, his post reaches a new record of likes in the shortest amount of time and everyone is screaming in the comments. The speculation on who fashion and make-up icon Phichit+chu’s boyfriend is starts and Seung-Gil gets a bit nervous watching its popularity rise. He is hunched over his biology textbooks and stares at his phone. The app is open and he isn’t sure wether he should like the picture.

He’s sure that it wouldn’t even stand out with the hundred thousands of likes, but he wouldn’t want to risk being outet as Phichit’s boyfriend. Of course, Phichit himself wouldn’t mind, but Seung-Gil knows that he is having a hard time with the media after his video on himself being transgender. So Seung-Gil doesn’t like the picture but instead procrastinates doing his homework and watches the hysteria unfolding. He’d agreed with Phichit on uploading the photo but somehow he hadn’t expected it to blow up quite this big. He’s gnawing on his nails and knows he’ll be scolded by Phichit later on. He doesn’t care, he’s too busy being nervous and living out his social anxiety.

His phone screen changes from the post to Phichit calling. Seung-Gil picks up immediately.

“Hey babe, you okay?” is the first thing Phichit asks, his voice soft and caring. Seung-Gil feels better immediately.

“Yeah. Well, no, I’m a bit anxious at the moment but I’ll be okay,” he says. Phichit is silent for a second then speaks up again:

“Do you want me to take it down?”

“No, your fans will have thousands of screenshots anyways so it wouldn’t vanish of the internet,” Seung-Gil says and the delighted “okay” from the other side of the line makes him smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah? I have to film a new video,” Phichit says softly. “Yes. I’ll see you, have fun. I still need to study a bit,” Seung-Gil answers. “Okay, don’t overdo it, love you.” Seung-Gil can hear Phichit rustling in the background while saying goodbye. “I won’t, probably. Love you too.” he answers and ends the call.

He lets his head drop onto his textbook, and he can’t stop smiling. He’s still amazed by the fact that he is actually in a relationship with Phichit Chulanont, internationally famous Youtuber and crush of a lot of non-straight guys. Also, his boyfriend. Famous, sparkly, lovely and happy Phichit is the boyfriend of bland, unknown, grumpy and studious Seung-Gil Lee. For almost five months now, and he still can’t quite grasp the concept of it.

They had met in a coffee shop (as cliché as it sounds) and while Seung-Gil had recognized Phichit he hadn’t made a move to talk to him because of his Social Anxiety. Phichit however had found interest in him, for whichever reasons and started up a conversation which had lasted for hours. They’d agreed to see each other again and after that again and again and again and somewhere along the lines they had started falling. Once again, it had been Phichit to make the first move, nervously asking Seung-Gil out on a date which they’d had and a few weeks and dates later they’d started their relationship. The last months had been some of the best he’s had in life and both Seung-Gil and Phichit where now comfortable enough with each other that they started making their relationship public. Slightly, at last.

Of course all of their friends and family knew, but considering the fact that Phichit lived in the public eye it was important for him to keep his fans updated as well. And Seung-Gil was fine with that, even though a bit nervous about it so they had agreed on taking it slowly. They were trying to keep their dates out of the public as well, so Phichit wouldn’t be recognized and Seung-Gil wouldn’t immediately be swarmed by fans and reporters or something along the lines. They are still figuring some stuff out between themselves after all. Still, Seung-Gil thinks it’s time to slowly make it public and so he looks at the post once again before finally getting too his biology studies.

+

After having a fit for about a week, the Phichit+chu – community, wildly regarded and known as Chuchutrain  (Phichit has a weekly laughing fit because of the name) has calmed down. There had been speculations on who the boyfriend was, but they had no clue. Phichit loves it. The next step is a moment in a collaboration of Phichit and Leo from Lion de la Igaysia. They are sitting on Phichit’s couch playing truth or dare with viewer’s questions.  At the end of the video the probably most anticipated question is asked: “Phichit, can you please tell us something about your boyfriend?”  it’s read out by Leo who then grins smugly and throws himself in the mountain of cushions behind his back. “Well, Phichit, can you?” he inquires while wiggling his eyebrows. Phichit blushes a bit, then grins. “Why, of course I can, dearest,” he starts off, smile spreading wide “he is the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. And he is really intelligent and sweet, though it doesn’t seem like it when you meet him. And he has a great dog and honestly the best natural growing eyebrows ever. Oh! His voice is really nice as well and he has beautiful eyes!” Phichit starts rambling, stops himself and blushes some more. Then he laughs. “Let’s just say he is amazing,” he says and smiles sweetly before the video cuts to the end cart.

Needles to say that the internet is in hysteric fits once again. Seung-Gil is at Phichit’s flat when latter uploads the video and when he sees it, he can’t do anything but stare at it over and over again. He is lying on the floor on top of one of Phichit’s soft carpet while his boyfriend takes a shower. Seung-Gil doesn’t bother getting up or moving a lot he just replays the moment until he can hear Phichit shuffle around his room. Then he starts reading the comments which basically consist of screaming and more screaming. “What are you doing on the rug? I have other furniture that is perfectly fine, you know?” Phichit says from behind him. “It’s soft,” Seung-Gil says. There is bit more shuffling and then Phichit plops down next to him with pillows and a blanket. He is wearing a baby blue oversized jumper with his hair still wet. His eyes flit to Seung-Gil’s phone screen and a tint of red appears on his cheeks.

“So you’ve seen it?” “Yeah.” “And, what do you think? Too much?” “No. It’s… I don’t know. Very sweet- uhm. I don’t know how to deal with it actually,” Seung-Gil confesses. Phichit giggles. “You like it, then?” he asks and settles his chin on a grey-yellow striped pillow. He hasn’t got any make up on at the moment, which doesn’t affect his beauty. Seung-Gil hums in approval.

“You’re going to be overwhelmed with questions about me though. Again,” Seung-Gil says. He starts fumbling with a loose thread in the carpet. “I don’t care. I love you.” Phichit says and giggles again when Seung-Gil choke son his own spit. He’s just not used to the amount of affection yet. Phichit notices, smiles, gives Seung-Gil a short kiss on the cheek and then gets the blanket which he throws over them both. Then he launches into a story about Yuri Plisetsky throwing a hissy fit once again because his landlord hadn’t allowed him to get a sixth cat. Seung-Gil gets sleepy listening and nuzzles into his boyfriend before falling asleep. Phichit does, too and they wake up with aching backs but don’t care.

+

It’s a month after the video, that they drop the next bit. Phichit’s followers are trying hard to find out who the man dating their idol is and for once Phichit is happy that Seung-Gil hasn’t really got a big presence in the media. He would almost be impossible to find amongst his followers and since Phichit follows some of his fans regularly  it won’t be remarkable that he follows Seung-Gil.

This hint, again, is placed in a video of Phichit’s. He’s doing a haul of his new bought clothes, as per popular demand, and somewhere in the middle of it he throws a shirt behind himself onto his bed, before sitting in silence for a few seconds. “Babe?” he calls and fixes his look on somebody behind his camera. “What is it?” another male voice answers from somewhere in Pichit’s flat. It belongs to Seung-Gil of course, but none of Phichit’s fans know that. “Can you bring me some water please? I’m talking so much right now, my throat’s getting dry,” he  says dramatically. “You talk less than sometimes with your friends and don’t complain about your throat.” Seung-Gil calls back, even though the clinkering of glasses can be heard. A few seconds later a pale hand hands Phichit a glass of water. The fingernails are painted in a dark red shade and Phichit grabs the hand.

“Doesn’t he have flawless nails?” he asks the camera and Seung-Gil snorts. “Yes, because you painted them,” he says and leaves after Phichit presses a fast kiss to his knuckles. “Thank you for the water, babe.” Phichit calls and takes a sip. “You’re welcome!” Seung-Gil answers and then the video is continued without further interruption.

In Phichit’s fanbase a new stage of analysing begins, as Seung-Gil realizes a few days later while innocently scrolling through Tumblr. It’s a bit ridiculous, really how hung up people are on getting to know him. Well, at least not directly him because they don’t know the person they’re searching for is him, but still. He doesn’t understand why they need to know him, why they aren’t just content on knowing Phichit is in a happy relationship. He also sees some discourse, since some people apparently shipped Phichit with Yuuri and were upset that Phichit had somebody else in a relationship. As if the marriage of Viktor and Yuuri wasn’t something to keep them from shipping in the first place. The fans don’t have a clue though, they’re just guessing wildly into thin air without proof for anything. It’s amusing to Seung-Gil and later in the evening, when he and Phichit have dinner together they look through the theories and laugh together. Seung-Gil realizes once again how in love he is.

+

Another post on Phichit’s Instagram blows up in a few minutes once again. It’s a picture of Phichit in the snow that’s freshly fallen outside, with his back to the camera, next to him is Seung-Gil’s back, and he’s got his arm slung around the smaller one’s waist, while they lean into each other. The caption says: I still can’t believe how lucky I am to have you. It’s been seven and a half months but it feels longer. Love u <3

People scream and cry about having strokes underneath the post and Phichit cackles delightedly while reading them all. He can be cruel at times, Seung-Gil realizes then, while his boyfriend leans into him, shoulders shaking with laughter. “Why are you this happy about them being hysterical?” he asks softly. Phicht turns and smiles brightly at him. “I just think it’s funny how much the react. Don’t you think it’s a bit over the top?” he says and goes back to scrolling through the comments. “I know the Katsuki-Nikiforovs ans Yuri Plisetsky, nobody will ever be more over the top than them,” Seung-Gil deadpans. “True. Still though, they should chill a bit.” Seung-Gil hums in agreement and then ducks his face into Phichit’s hair. It’s still surprising him sometimes how much he likes the body contact between them. But he enjoys it to the fullest.

+

The big reveal, as Phichit took to calling it, is a “My boyfriend does my makeup” video. It’s posted a year after the first mention of Phichit being in a relationship, almost one and a half years after they’ve gotten together. In the meantime they were mentions of The- Chu – Boyfriend as Seung-Gil was officially titled by  Leo, in multiple other YouTuber’s videos, pictures of his eyes with makeup on had been posted on Instagram, there were shots of Seung-Gil’s body with Phichit’s new clothing line on them, without taking his face into the frame and gradually the hysteria had lessened after each post. This would change soon enough, because currently, Seung-Gil and Phichit are seated in their now shared apartment in front of a camera, with makeup on the ground before them. Phichit grins and kind of waves at the audience, dressed in a red button up with cut off sleeves and shorts. Seung-Gil has been dressed by Phichit as well and therefore he is wearing a dark green shirt with white geometrical patterns on it and black jeans. He has makeup on already, that Phichit put on him and even he admits that it looks kind of good on him.

“Heyo there, my dears! So, the long awaited reveal is here! This is my wonderful boyfriend, Seung-Gil. He will be putting makeup on me today.” Phichit says excitedly and wraps one arm around Seung-Gils shoulder. “Hi.” latter says, awkwardly and then looks at Phichit as if asking for help. The Thai grins and pecks Seung-Gil on his right temple. “While he does that we’ll try to answer some of you guys questions, I mean you’ve basically been bombarding me ever since I said that Seung-Gil and me were a thing, so I hope I’ll be able to satisfy your needs a tiny bit,” he then continues and the video cuts to him pulling up his phone and Seung-Gil putting foundation on the back of his left hand.

“Okay, so the question that was asked the most i: “Who is you mysterious boyfriend?”. That kinda reminds of the good old times when Chris just started wearing his wedding ring without any explanation and everybody was guessing who his husband might be,” Phichit reads out. Seung-Gil takes up a sponge and lightly dips it into the foundation. “Please don’t talk right now, I need to put it on you.” he says and leans towards his boyfriends face. “Well, back then I didn’t know any of you guys and I wasn’t really keeping up with the YouTube scene so I cannot say something from personal experience.” he then continues while tapping the sponge all over Phichit’s face to spread the foundation out on it. “Though it seems comparable to what happened during last year with your fans,” he directs to Phichit who hums in agreement. When Seung-Gil is satisfied with the foundation he puts away the sponge and, after giving Phichit a brief smile, picks up the concealer.  

“So, a lot of you wanted to know how we got to know each other? Well, I saw Seung-Gil in a coffee shop one morning and he looked very pretty, but also very tired and grumpy so I decided to chat him up and brighten his day a little and here we are now.” Phichit says while Seung-Gil busies himself with applying and blending the concealer in. It’s just needed beneath his eyes to cover up the bags “Also I was really attracted to his eyebrows,” Phichit adds. It earns him am muttered “furry” from Seung-Gil which leads to them both giggling stupidly. Seung-Gil continues with putting contour on Phichit’s face and blending it while latter tries to answer the question on how they realized they were in love with each other, just to be continuously shushed by his boyfriend.

“Babe, stop talking now, you’re ruining everything otherwise. Also, I can talk about it,” he proposed. “What am I ruining? I thought I was your everything?” Phichit gasps and dramatically clasps a hand over his heart. “You’re ruining my sanity.” Seung-Gil says and they stare at each other for a few seconds before breaking into giggles again. “Anyway. Phichit, please do stay still. I think I realized I’d fallen in love with him, like really in love was after we’d gotten together actually. He had just introduced me to all of his friends and we were sitting in Viktor and Yuuri’s apartment I think and I was just watching him talk. I realized it because he had spent all evening trying to make me feel comfortable and not left out and then he was leaning against me and smiled and I just knew.” he narrates and promptly blushes the moment he is done talking.

“Aw, man that’s so sweet!” Phichit coos and hugs Seung-Gil. “I realized  I was in love with him the first time he got really into telling a story about his dog and was just all  smiling and enthusiastic and his eyes were shimmering and I was hit by his beauty like it was a train and somehow I think that was the moment.” he then says and Seung-Gil blushes again. Phichit kisses him on the nose. “You can continue putting makeup on me now,” he says. “Thank you, it’s such an honour to be ordered to do so.” Seung-Gil remarks, flatly and starts looking through the makeup littered on the floor.

To be honest he doesn’t really know what he’s doing and just tries to remember what Phichit did with him all the times he put makeup on Seung-Gil. Somehow he makes it work though, kind of. The video is filled with banter and inside jokes and they answer a few questions, like how Seung-Gils studies are going (good), how comfortable they are with each other (a lot), how their characters developed in the past year (Seung-Gil loosened up and grew more confident, Phichit’s sometimes occurring self-depreciation got better, they developed a new kind of trust in each other) and their shared plans for the future (unclear). After finishing by putting a bit of highlighter on Phichit’s cheekbones Seung-Gil leans back and takes a look at his creation. It’s not as bad as he expected it to be. Sure, the eyeliner is drawn on shakily and Phichit’s eyebrows don’t look as good as they do normally and he may have used too much highlighter, but he’s happy with the result. He hands Phichit a mirror and watches his boyfriend examine himself in it. “You know, I kind of expected it to be worse. We can work with that! I’m gonna make you a makeup artist!” Phichit exclaims happily and grins at Seung-Gil with matte violet coloured lips. Seung-Gil really wants to kiss him, so he does. (Phichit cuts it out of the video in the end)

Phichit makes a surprised noise but immediately slides his hands into Seung-Gil’s hair and kisses back. They don’t really make out just kiss for a bit before pulling apart. “There goes your lipstick,” Seung-Gil says and Phichit laughs. “I don’t care, I think you did very good.”

They end the video soon afterwards, and in the evening Seung-Gil watches Phichit editing while Naree, his dog is comfortably draped over his own feet and they watch some kind of show. He doesn’t pay attention to it. It’s all focused on Phichit who looks up at him occasionally and then smiles softly.

When the video is uploaded Tumblr doesn’t work anymore for about an hour

[ventingoutmyass]

9.10.18

Ten days will mark two years since I took my life back. Two years since I made the decision to end my pain.

I've talked many times about the toxic relationship I was in in 2015-2016. But I've never told the story.

Let's go back to March of 2015. I met this girl in my first hour class of my junior year. Across from me sat this jaw-dropping, beautiful girl. Long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, 5 feet of sass and charisma and personality. She was a preppy, popular girl with boys all over her. And yet, she took notice of me. I was awkward and quiet and didnt quite know how to dress or wear my hair. We starting talking and for about a month, things were great. I had started my first relationship and I was so excited.

In April, just like in every high school, prom was on everyone's mind. For some reason, I had decided that I didnt want to go to my junior prom. A couple days after telling her this, she was asked to the dance, in the class we shared, by a boy who was a friend of ours. I watched in horror as he played out this huge show and asked her. And I watched her say yes. My heart was breaking and I was physically shaking and I kept telling myself, "it's okay, hes a nice guy, he will treat her well". For the next three days I had this feeling like I had been punched in the chest, I couldn't breath right and it physically hurt. It was the first time I experienced emotional pain physically, and the first time that pain continued the next morning. And the morning after that. Two days later, she told me she wanted to just be friends. Until this point in my life, it was the worst pain I've felt in one single moment. The next morning was the first time I smoked a cigarette. A price I'm paying to this day.

I decided to go to prom after that. Even if I couldn't be her date, I could at least spend a few minutes with her. The three of us actually ended up going sort of as a group, so I spent almost the entire night with her. We didnt get the dance to the song we wanted to, but I spent the night at her house that night. It was purely sweet and innocent, I cant tell you how happy I was to sleep next to her, to cuddle her, to wake up next to her and eat breakfast the next morning together with her family. I had the first taste of what a relationship was. I call this point in our relationship, the first peak.

Summer break came and I was excited at the opportunity to see her all day long some days if we wanted. To spend days together and eat meals and create memories. Although she lived three streets over from me, a five minute walk, I didnt see her until school started again.

In fact, I didnt see her again until the fourth day back. You see, when I talk about this relationship, I tell people that we lived very close, we were practically neighbors, but it was a long distance relationship. We rarely saw eachother besides the first two months and the last three. We never saw eachother, but we texted and used snapchat every minute of everyday to talk to eachother. I saw her for the first time in almost three months. It shouldn't been happy and we should've been excited but, it was more awkward than anything. We shared a small hug and a hello and went about our days. I still have the screenshot somewhere of the message she sent me that afternoon about how she wanted to cry and jump in my arms but just... didn't. I think that set the mood for the rest of the relationship.

Between that August and Jaunary 2016, it was a constant cycle of fighting followed by a few days of silence and making up and fighting a couple days later. It was non-stop for about five months. So on Febraury 1st, we decided to take a break. We agreed to take a little time apart and come back together in a few months. In February we each went on a date with someone else, and while I lost interest in the person I was talking to, she didn't.

The exact date was January 26th, this was the day I first noticed I was having suicidal thoughts.

In late March we began talking again. She told me she had a new boyfriend, but not much more than that. While I knew his name, I had never met him or even known what he looked like. As our relationship started back up, her boyfriend became sort of the elephant in the room. He was very much there, but rarely talked about.

This girl was very insecure, especially about her sexuality. She wanted to keep me a secret, because she was in the closet. Which dont get me wrong, that's perfectly fine! She refused to put a label on our relationship and never once said the word "girlfriend". She never made an effort to see me and whenever I made a suggestion to see her she made excuses, she never posted about me on any social media even as a friend. But as soon as this boy was in her life, she was all about him. They saw eachother all the time, met each others family, posted pictures hanging out and kissing every week. And whenever she had a complaint about him, she came to me.

The entire time she told me that he was a beard, for show, to say "I'm not gay, look at my boyfriend!" And for some reason, my depressed ass decided it was easier to believe it than to lose the girl I had fallen head over heels in love with. So I stayed. I stayed, and i suffered because of it.

They went to prom together by senior year, I had a single, 30 second interaction with her the entire night. I told her goodnight as I was leaving and she asked for a picture with me. So she handed her phone to her date, and he took a picture of us. She kissed me on the cheek, and I walked away, following my friends to an afterparty where I hoped to get so drunk that I would forget the night. We never found that party... So instead I got high in my driveway and sat at home crying while my friends were asleep on the floor around me. This prom night might've been just as painful as the last, but I didnt have her in my arms at the end of the night.

The following summer was... interesting? She finally came around to making sure to see me, since I wouldn't be at school the next year. In July of 2016 she told me about a four-day job she had to dogsit for a family friend. So behind her family's back, (who hated me by this point for "corrupting their daughter" and "ruining the relationship she has with this nice boy") she invited me to come with her while she visited the empty house for a few hours a day. These four days were by far the happiest we'd been the entire relationship. We kissed for the first time and we were intimate and it was honestly amazing and I had felt truly happy for the first time in over six months. The next few weeks were full of love and happiness, this was the true peak of the relationship. Her family started to warm up to me and I was invited to family parties and we were spending more quality time together than ever before. I thought it was genuinely getting better, that it was just going up from there. But there was one problem, she still had a boyfriend. The same story continued as I continued to suffer in silence at the idea that he was only for show, that she was just using him to make her family and friends happy. That she plans to break up with him and the right time hasn't come up, for months.

That story came to a halt on September 20th, 2016. She revealed to me the lie she had kept for an unknown time, possibly the entire time, that she was serious about her relationship with him. She told me "We are doing well, we aren't fighting, I'm going to stay with him". I can't say that I was heartbroken. By this point, I was in such constant pain, it felt like any other moment. The thing that possibly saved me, was that four days prior, I felt better. I continued to feel better for four days in a row. So I said enough was enough. Of course, I gave her a piece of my mind, and I left.

That was the day I began my recovery. In September of 2016, I was a walking body without a person inside of it. I was nothing of a person I once was. And I saw an opportunity. Since I have to rebuild and recover and became a person again, I decided I didn't want to be the person I was before. I didn't want to be the person I hated so much that I nearly killed myself over. I recreated a new person to be proud of. And who I rebuilt is who I am today. And while I still live everyday with the trauma that those days left me, I wake up every single morning, grateful for the person I am and the life I have and the strength I was able to gather from my support system and the rubble of who I once was. I am thankful everyday to live this life and to be surrounded by people who genuinely love me and care for me.

Without this relationship, I wouldn't be who I am. Not even close. I was torn down to nothing and I was able to create the person I always wanted to be. I learned my lessons and I learned to appreciate and I know how I deserve to be treated. I'm able to carry these lessons on for the rest of my life and to relationships for my future. And I have lots of poems to show my success

This tragic story had a happy ending.

💚💚

I'm on the road to recovery and I'm finally going the right direction

-508 September 18, 2016

I found a home away from home in your arms only to find out that sweet escape was nothing but a cage

-518 October 15, 2016

Sometimes I still miss you. Not even exactly you, but the idea of what we had. I miss always having somebody right at my fingertips, somebody who made me feel whole.

-523 October 29, 2016

In three months I've hit rock bottom and climbed myself to the highest point I could reach

-531 November 22, 2016

I'm still struggling not to think about her every minute of the day

-539 January 6, 2017

Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it

-550 April 5, 2017

All I want, is to feel nothing next time I see you

-556 April 20, 2017

It's okay if I'm not your favorite chapter you have written, but I hope you sometimes smile when you flip back to the pages I was still apart of

-569 August 12, 2017

I am in love with life and it's potentials

-574 October 17, 2017

Now that I know what it means to be dead, I can start living again

-579 November 5, 2017

Remember when you wanted what you currently have

-590 December 23, 2017

There's a person who once knew everything about me that there was to know, but who I was then has been burned alive. And I am thankful with every breath that I take, that the one who burned me, will never meet who I am today

-597 January 26, 2018

There will always be a reason why you meet people. Either you need them to change your life or you’re the one that will change theirs

-602 March 17, 2018

This may be a sad chapter, but you are not a sad story

-624 June 28, 2018

You haven't been through all that just to give up now

-627 July 14, 2018

I'm warming my hands on the bridges I've burnt

-633 July 30, 2018

The bravest thing she ever did was to stay alive each day

-634 July 30, 2018

We are always in recovery

-638 September 3, 2018

There's more to life than spending every day wishing you were dead

-641 September 3, 2018

❤❤

[ktdhami]

TEXTS | late 08/2017

HOLLAND

the amount of vodka soaked gummy bears i just ate is disgusting also hi how are you?

KEATON

it's 10am and you're already drunk off vodka candy wow Holland you didn't even offer to share I'm with the guys right now trying to get a few songs together how are you? besides drunk

HOLLAND

the world took my best friend from me he's too famous and now demands for me to only eat alcoholic candy with him send me soundclips so I can sell them on the black market i'm not drunk! just happy and painting

KEATON

you make it sound like I died lol no can do on the soundclipS it's super secret music we're working on what are you painting

HOLLAND

you did die. you are dead to my soul that doesn't get to see you everyday SEND THEM. I will make millions. I thought that said why and i was lik e- uh, Keats, I haven't painted in like weeks just a portrait someone asked me to do

KEATON

when did you become so needy nope. you're going to have to wait like everyone else sweetcheeks I'm surprised you didn't have us stop every single time you saw something you wanted to paint. you should send me a photo when you're done.

HOLLAND

it's your fault. I don't really think that waiting is my thing I took lots of pictures for that very reason. Including ones of you but we'll see where I end up.I should be done by the end of the night - like 3 am 

KEATON

how is being needy /my/ fault? you're going to have to make it your thing you know i don't release music early and if you really want to listen to it then you're going to have fly out here I don't like that winky face...are there photos I don't know about.  3am is 1am my time, I'll be up. Send my a photo

HOLLAND

you made me this way - your neediness rubbed off on me. nah, i'm good with it not being my thing. SEND ME. buy me a ticket and i'm there. pretty sure you're aware of most of them. we'll see. blackmailllllllll. if i'm not too drunk, sure.

KEATON

that's fake news. I'm not needy. my answer isn't going to change Holls we are just recording demos, trying to finalize lyrics and get a sound for each song how rich do you think I am? you wouldn't dare, I thought we were friends. take it easy on the alcholic candies

HOLLAND

your face is fake news. but i'm so cute and like reallllllly good at giving you blow jobs you're richer than the 15.73 in my checking account friends? HA my art is better whn i'm drunk

KEATON

i can't believe you just texted me that and you laugh the friends comment fine, friendship canceled

HOLLAND

RIP KEATON AND HOLLAND, BFFL

KEATON

so dramatic

HOLLAND

the headstone reads "he wouldn't send her tunes, she wouldn't send him nudes"

KEATON

you know you're not the only girl I can gets nudes from if you're that desperate for money, just ask me for some

HOLLAND

i'm 300% certain you could get nudes from any girl out there and that's terrifying. tbh, I just want to listen to your new stuff. not sell it

KEATON

Mhm "listen" to my music, sure do you miss me that much already?

HOLLAND

what is that supposed to mean????? missed you the second you left, not gonna lie about it

KEATON

missed me? or missed how I made you felt

HOLLAND

if you're referencing sex, yes to all of it

KEATON

yes I'm talking about sex maybe that road trip was a bad idea now you can't live without me

HOLLAND

MARRY ME KEATON

KEATON

maybe you should lay off the vodka gummies

HOLLAND

you need to get used to that - your fans are gonna start screaming that soon#famoose

KEATON

they already do but thousands of screaming fans are easy to ignore

HOLLAND

one screaming best friend is just annoying

KEATON

who said you were best friend?

HOLLAND

OUCH okay, killer, does somebody need a snickers?

KEATON

friends? HA  <-- you sent that you're the one that indicated we were friends werent*

HOLLAND

best friends and friends are separate things

KEATON

you're only saying we're best friends because I go down you on* you

HOLLAND

I called you my best friend before you ever did that but my god, do that every time

KEATON

mhm, what if I don't?

HOLLAND

i'll post this picture of you from high school I might do that anyway look how skinny you were  - little boy

KEATON

are you saying I'm fat that picture is probably someone on the internet already

HOLLAND

no, you're ten times sexier now trust me. true. i'm sure i have one of your dick pics somewhere

KEATON

you wouldn't

HOLLAND

oh I wouldn't?

KEATON

you would if you wanted me out of your life

HOLLAND

who says I don't? you underestimate how good your head is, honestly.

KEATON

remind me to not send you dick pics from here on out

HOLLAND

keatonnnnn. I won't send you tit pics then

KEATON

again, I can get those from anyone

HOLLAND

mmmmk write a song about it

KEATON

song about dick and tit pics I don't think that'll go over well

HOLLAND

not your scene - leave that to future or childish gambino

KEATON

they can make a great song about nudes their music has a better vibe for it

HOLLAND

tbh, you should write a song about gemma which i'm sure you already have

KEATON

you know I already have you said she brags about being the inspiration to my songs

HOLLAND

that doesn't mean they're actually about her ~ but thanks for verifying. SCREENSHOTTING FOR GEMMA

KEATON

you don't know what songs are about her and you never will

HOLLAND

when we get married, it's gonna be in the prenup xo that you have to tell me.

KEATON

again with this marriage thing I don't have to tell you shit

HOLLAND

then i'll never show you any of my paintings ever again two way street, my man

KEATON

you gonna lock them in a vault? your place is full of paintings and I'm still waiting for a few pieces to put in my LA home

HOLLAND

I'm gonna lock you in a vault, ugh.  and well maybe i'll send you some if you tell me what you want.

KEATON

don't know why that made me think you're trying to make me your sex slave surprise me you picked a good piece to leave at my place in New York

HOLLAND

because you think i'm creepy as shit. which I am. i'll send you something this week.

KEATON

so you would make me some sort of sex slave I better remember not to suggest handcuffs ever wouldn't want to make it easier for you to lock me up good, I look foward to seeing what you send me

HOLLAND

oooh. handcuffs. next time you're in town, we're doing it. I think you miss me and my art and how much it makes you want to write music.

KEATON

kinky I like it yeah cuz I'm dying without you here nothing in my life makes me want to write music more

HOLLAND

LOOK AT YOU PRETENDING I MATTER. so happy.

KEATON

I only pretend so you'll continue giving me head

HOLLAND

you don't have to like me for me to give you head if you hate me, it might be better

KEATON

I was just making sure you like me enough to give me head what do I have to do to make you hate me? I wanna test this theory I have that hate/angry sex is better

HOLLAND

see that's the problem - I don't get very mad but i'm sure you could mention something in bed that would ignite that in me

KEATON

I think I might know what to say

HOLLAND

hm?

KEATON

I'm not telling, because then you'll be prepared for it

HOLLAND

Well, I guess i can try to be patient but patience isn't something i'm very gooooood at

KEATON

I might not even say it the next time we fuck you're just going to have to keep coming back

HOLLAND

that's dirty af you're being mean to me just because you can

KEATON

is it making you want me more?

HOLLAND

it's 300% making me wet but you're not here - so like what's the point of that?

KEATON

turn on some of my tunes take a break from painting pleasure yourself and pretend I'm there

HOLLAND

'turn on some of my tunes' you slut.

KEATON

you said you touch yourself to my music I'm just trying to help

HOLLAND

i'm just being an asshole :P I'm sure I'll be just fine - i'll channel it into my art

KEATON

you are being an asshole you ruined the mood I should get back to focusing on these songs the guys are getting annoyed

HOLLAND

no come back I can tell you all about what i'm doing to myself all about how badly i wish you were here with your cock in my mouth but if you want to get back to the boys...

KEATON

I thought you were going back to your art

HOLLAND

not a chance.

KEATON

Did you put my music on?

HOLLAND

who says it wasn't already on?

KEATON

I'm just trying to paint the picture I wish we didn't book this damn studio for the entire day

HOLLAND

your music is filling my ears, i'm wearing a loose, white button up with black lace panties.... why? so you could call me and hear me moan your name?

KEATON

Yeah, video call actually That way both your hands are free and I can see what you're doing Fuck

HOLLAND

I can take a little video for you, keats just for your eyes, no one else's

KEATON

don't tempt me like that holls

HOLLAND

*video file pops up on his phone* you can watch that later

KEATON

that was fast i wanna watch it now

HOLLAND

i haven't gotten off yet, but there's a little taste for you

KEATON

I wanna see the whole the show...

HOLLAND

you'll have to wait until next time you see me

KEATON

tease

HOLLAND

that’s me~

KEATON

don't touch yourself until I can call you unless you're going to send me more videos or even a photo or two

HOLLAND

you’re so greedy. Telling me what to do all the way from California.

KEATON

I thought you liked getting bossed around

HOLLAND

looks like you remember something about me

KEATON

I remember a lot a things  like the way quiver when I kiss certain parts of your body and the way you say my name when you can't handle it anymore

HOLLAND

there he is. How about the way I taste? Do you remember that?

KEATON

of course are you imagining me tasting you now? how my tongue made you feel

HOLLAND

I was shaking for you. I’m shaking for you again now.

KEATON

nuh uh uh I told you not to touch yourself not yet

HOLLAND

but I need it. You know I’m not very patient.

KEATON

you should learn to be patient you don't know when you'll see me next