#this is my last day of a 7 day streak of working every day so suffice to say i could use the comfort 😵‍💫

[this-machine-runs-on-coffee]

1. Probably my clocks, I love them even tho they aren't working rn (one's batteries are dead and the other has to be charged through winding up a thing. I want to take that last one apart and put it back together to learn how it's made)

2. Embarrassing but Freeze Your Brain

3. Passing ones but recently got failing ones. I'm very unfit.

4. My longest streak on an app is probably WhatsApp because I log onto it every day but I don't really use apps that count streaks. I once used Duolingo for a week (three days...) intensely, got bored of it and barely got through another month with minimal xp. I got a shit ton of xp in those few days. I'm not very proud of it.

5. Some of Rick Riordan's I have never read

6. Hades and Artemis

7. Wolf cut of the ones I've had. Idk about other haircuts' names tho, because it they weren't the ones I've had then idk.

8. Cola! Very fizzy sour ones. I love sour things

9. So many books I haven't read yet. It's been two years or more

10. Kinda. I like a lot of food but I will not eat anything other than the food I know I like unless I can back out or know the food I'll be eating but have never eaten has ingredients I like

Thank you so much for tagging me!

Do you like fruit?

What's your favorite food?

What's your favorite book/movie/musical?

Do you have a favorite kind of object? (Clocks for me. I love them. I don't know a lot about them but they are so cool)

Do you like warm or cold lights best?

What's your favourite character from your favourite book/movie/musical?

Have you ever used Duolingo? If yes, what's the highest amount of xp you've gotten in a short time? (I read what you said, @a-fucking-tornado, also consider yourself tagged if you want to answer any of these questions!)

Favorite candy or snack?

Do you prefer the beach or the mountains? Something else if you've never been to either

What's your favorite color?

Open tags!

Ten questions to ask a mutual

Instructions: prev asks ten questions and you answer them, then ask ten new ones and tag ten people to keep the chain going! I’ll go first

What is the weirdest thing you’ve eaten? (For me it’s the time I accidentally drank ants)

do you like purple or green more? (For me it’s a 50/50 I love them both)

what is your favorite two color color combo? (For me it’s purple and gold)

are you a cat or dog person? (Dogs 100%)

what is your favorite painting (Miranda by John William Waterhouse)

Mountains or beaches? (Mountains)

what’s your favorite dessert? (Lemon bars)

are you right or left handed? (Right but I used to be left handed)

salty or sweet? (Sweet)

summer or winter? (Winter)

I’m tagging 11 people but it’s whatever

@wra1th-k1ng

@bladevoyager

@tragedyanddust

@kindred-spirit-93

@urfavgreekmythnerd

@sickneurotic

@ry-diggity

@we-are-but-dead-stars

@thestarryfalls

@tamaruaart

@hermesmoly

[javierduffy]

sillies before work because i missed them terribly

these down here because they’re sooo ugly but i want to post them anyway

[jiniretracha]

~ Y/n is a "nerdy but hot" type of girl whos also rlly smart. The bad boy hyunjin has secret eyes for her. Shes always alone in class and doesnt talk to many ppl so basically shes mysterious ooo. One day hyunjin finally asks her to tutor him and she gets surprised knowing he knows she exists. Hyunjin has hooked up w many other girls but y/n is different as shes not despo like them and thats what attracts him to her. They both meet late night at a cafe and y/n is wearing a black tank top which has her neck and chest exposed and her lacy bra straps can be shown as well. She covered herself w a fuzzy jacket before entering the cafe but eventually took it off whilst tutoring hyunjin. Hyunjin feels lusty looking at y/n being so effortlessly hot and unknowing of it, he also gets turned on by the way she sucks her frappe straw etc. But he controls himself and after their study session ends hyunjin offers to drop her home on his bike and somehow enters her apartment as well where she lives alone and cozy with a good view of the city. They both have a deep convo before it turns into hot late night sleepy smut fr (also unexperienced y/n doing things with the guidance of hyunjin) tysmm

A Shakespeare's Sonnet - Hwang Hyunjin

Pairing: Hwang Hyunjin x fem!reader

Warnings: smut!!, fluff, minho's mean but he's just an overprotective little shit, minsung exes to lovers, slight angst, felix and jeongin being supportive besties

Summary: The one where Hyunjin needs tutoring literature sessions, you are a smart hot student and Minho almost faints.

Word count: 9,3k (i went too far i fear)

PS: This was sent in April, i apologize for being so late ☠️. i've been working on a felix smau so forgive me 😭

MASTERLIST // my Ko-Fi

Hyunjin walked the halls of uni, his lazy walk attracting countless girls who would squeal under their breaths as they watched him pass across them, hoping silently one of them could end up being another notch on his bedpost. 

Hyunjin would be lying if he said he didn’t notice. Or that he didn’t love it. He was never one to take advantage of it, but having that feeling around him, of being wanted, was awesome. 

His friends also loved the attention people always had projected on him. It meant being invited to frat parties every single weekend, the coach calling them to the football team, and obviously, having girls flutter around them 24/7. 

What wasn’t something that was guaranteed by Hyunjin’s popularity, was having good grades. 

Hyunjin didn’t really study much, but he considered himself a smart person, so overall, he was a pretty good student. 

Until literature happened. 

He was so sure he was going to ace it, until a new professor, Mr. Jackson, came to uni and started giving out homework and assignments that were hard as fuck. 

The boy couldn’t believe his bad luck, as every single assignment he handed in, returned with a very angry red mark in the shape of an F. 

It was a Wednesday, when Hyunjin sat by the last seats of literature class, knowing how it was going to go down. 

“Do you think you passed?” Changbin asked Chan. 

Chan only snorted. “No way, man. I actually read the book he gave us last time, like 3 times, and the fucker still gave me an F” he rolled his eyes. 

Hyunjin sighed. “I think I failed as well”

“Yeah, dude, you’ve been failing all of yours. What’s up? You never go on a streak” Jisung says next to him.

He shrugs. “I guess it’s this fucking dude that apparently has a thing against me”

“Nah, I don’t think so” Changbin said. “I mean, he has a thing against you, but I think it’s against all of us”

“Thank you” Hyunjin said with sarcasm.

“Yo, this friday we’re going to Seungmin’s, okay? He already gave me a preview of the place and it’s going to be big” Jisung said excitedly. 

“I don’t think I’m gonna go” Hyunjin said.

His three friends went silent.

“Excuse me?” Changbin asked. 

“Yeah, I’m failing literature way too hard and without a reason. And, I don’t know about you, guys, but I really want to get my degree. And literature won’t stop me from getting that” He told his friends. 

“But mate, it’s literally one party” Changbin said.

“No, it’s one party every week” he told him. “Maybe that’s why I’m failing. Because I’m not trying hard enough”

“Well, it won't be the same without you there, mate, but it’s your call” Chan smiled slightly.

“Thank you!” Hyunjin said with a high pitched voice. 

Mr. Jackson’s unwanted presence walked into the room and Hyunjin sighed in disdain. He wanted earth to swallow him up already. 

“Okay, class, I’m handing you today your assignments from last class. I am… disappointed to say the least” the professor said and Hyunjin inwardly rolled his eyes. “Only two people passed, and that’s Mr. Lee, and Miss Y/L/N. Congratulations” the man smiled at two students who were in front of him. 

Hyunjin frowned. He had to get the number of either of those people to help him pass this fucking subject. 

“Oh, of course Minho passed. Ugh” Jisung faked a gag.

Hyunjin smiled. “What’s the matter?”

“See that guy over there?” he pointed at a guy with slight orange hair going on black, talking to a girl. “That’s my ex”

“Oh God, that’s your ex! Minho goes here? Since when? How did I not notice?”

“Yeah”

“Fuck…”

Jisung frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“I was going to ask him to tutor me, since I suck” 

“No! No, no, no. You won’t ask Minho to help you. No way. Ask Y/N, his friend” Jisung shook his head. 

Hyunjin frowned. “O…kay” he said slowly. “I will. Y/N… I think I know her. Her hair… sounds familiar”

“Yeah, we went to high school together” Jisung replied.

Hyunjin’s eyes widened. “That’s Y/N?” he asked. 

“Yeah” He nodded. 

“I didn’t… I didn’t even know she went here” he said with a confused tone.

“Why do you sound disappointed?”

“I… okay, I used to have a crush on her when we were in like… third year? And, well, apparently she didn’t like me” Hyunjin shook his head.

“You’re lucky I liked you in secondary. You were an ass” 

“Yeah…”

Hyunjin straightened up his position when Mr. Jackson walked towards him and put the paper on his desk. 

“Disappointed in you, Mr. Hwang” Mr. Jackson told him.

When he walked away, Hyunjin turned around. “He always says that” Hyunjin spat. 

Jisung smiled. “I actually got a D this time”

“Yeah, I got an F like always”

Jisung pressed his lips together. “I really think you should consider talking to Y/N to help you” he told him. “She’s a good girl. And she’s super smart”

Hyunjin chewed on his lip. “Okay…”

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.

You put your paper away inside your bag and smiled at your friends. 

“Okay, I am, like, so jealous you guys passed” Jeongin sighed. “I’ve only passed two of his assignments. And this is like the eighth!”

You smiled with a giggle. “It’s only reading and rereading the texts. This one was really tough. I’m lucky I got a C” you said. 

“Yeah, I got a C-” Minho said. 

“Yeah, sorry, why was Jisung staring at us?” Felix asked, nudging his forehead towards him. 

You all turned around and saw Jisung talking to his friend. 

Minho sighed. “I don’t even wanna know, honestly” he shook his head. “I can’t believe he’s still friends with that asshole, my God”

“Who? Hyunjin?” Felix asked.

“Yeah”

“He’s… not that bad” Felix scratched the back of his head sheepishly. 

“Yeah, no. He’s horrible” you sighed. “He was always staring at me with a scowl on his face and being witness of his bully friends back in high school”

“Thank God those fuckers didn’t apply to this one” Jeongin sighed. 

“Yeah. Unfortunately we got the worst. The witnesses” Minho said. “And of course, because the universe couldn’t have conspired enough against me, my ex”

“I still don’t know why you guys broke up” Felix said.

“Yeah, me neither” Jeongin shook his head. 

“I just got tired of the people surrounding him. And the way they influenced him. He was one thing with me and a totally different one when he was with his friends. It was like he was embarrassed of me or something. Like they didn’t know he was gay” Minho explained.

“But they knew” You deadpanned.

“Yeah” Minho nodded. “And cherry on top, he cheated on me”

“He did?” Felix asked.

“Yeah” 

“That’s horrible… well, good riddance, right?” You smiled at him.

Minho forced a smile, “Yeah… good riddance” he chuckled, unsure. 

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.

You grabbed your stuff and quickly pushed it inside your bag as soon as the bell rang. 

“See you next week, class. Don’t forget to bring your assignments” Mr. Jackson said and left. 

“Hey, do you want to go to the coffee shop next to our dorms?” Jeongin asked next to you.

“Y-“

“Hey, Y/N” a masculine voice said behind you. 

You frowned as you turned around, only to find none other than Hwang Hyunjin in front of you.

You arched your eyebrows. “Uh, hello?” you said unsure. 

“Can I- Can I talk to you for a sec?” he asked, fidgeting with his hands.

The man was nervous. 

Strange. 

You turned around and looked at your friends. 

“Call us if you need us, Y/N” Felix politely smiled at Hyunjin and winked at you.

“Yeah, you guys go. I’ll catch up” you nodded. 

“Okay…” Minho said unsure, grabbing Jeongin’s arm and pulling him with the rest. 

You turned around and looked at Hyunjin. “…What’s up?” you asked.

“I- I was just wondering… you know, since you’re basically rocking this subject and well- you and Minho are the only ones who passed the last assignment… I was- just… wondering if you could- I don’t know, tutor me or- or something?” he asked. 

You snorted, unable to help yourself. “I didn’t know you knew my name”

“Yeah, I do. We- we went to high school together” he frowned. “Why?”

“Well, you basically ignored me in high school” you shrugged. “Figured we aren’t as cool as your wolf pack over there” you nudged your head towards his friends. 

Jisung smiled and waved, while Chan and Changbin made a peace sign with a nervous smile. 

Hyunjin sighed. “Yeah- well, I was an asshole in high school”

“I know”

Hyunjin inwardly winced. “So… about tutoring…”

You snorted and grabbed your stuff. “Goodbye, Hyunjin” you said and left the classroom.

Hyunjin stood there, watching you walk away while his friends snorted and laughed. 

“I think this is the first time I’ve seen a girl reject you” Chan laughed while Changbin cackled with his infamous laugh. 

“Ha-ha” Hyunjin said humourlessly. “That wasn’t funny”

“Oh, it was” Jisung laughed. “She literally laughed in your face”

“I’m gonna fail literature and never get my degree. I wanna die” he whined dramatically as he plopped down on the chair. 

Changbin rolled his eyes. “Be persistent mate. Come on. You have that charm and effect on people. Use it”

Hyunjin opened his eyes and looked at Changbin. “You say I should- like- follow her around and-“

“Yeah” Changbin nodded. 

“I never beg” Hyunjin shook his head. 

“Well, mate, you gotta push your ego aside if you wanna pass literature” Chan shrugged. 

Hyunjin nodded. “Yeah, I know. The girl hates me though”

“I wouldn’t blame her” Jisung shook his head. 

“Why’s that?” Changbin said. 

“Well, me and Hyunjin were with the popular group. Who were straight up bullies” Jisung explained. 

“You guys bullied Y/N?” Chan asked, his eyes widened. 

“No!” Hyunjin said loudly. “No, we didn’t. I don’t want to talk about high school. It’s been ages. Let’s just… move on”

“Okay…” Chan said unsure. 

“Well, what are you gonna do, Hyunjin?” Changbin asked. 

Hyunjin sighed and looked at the ceiling. “I think I’m gonna continue asking her”

“Yeah, figured” Jisung nodded.

Hyunjin looked at him with a frown. “Why’s that?”

“Well, you couldn’t stop staring at her ass, for all that matters”

“Hey! I’m not attracted to her, and I’m definitely not sleeping with her” Hyunjin whined. 

“Sure” Jisung nodded with a smirk. “So, about Seungmin’s…”

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.

You opened the door of the café and walked inside with a scowl. 

Minho looked up from their usual table and his eyes softened. “What’s up, Y/N?” he asked you. 

You sat down with a huff and left your bag hanging on the back of the chair. “Nothing. This fucker just asked me to tutor him”

“The audacity” Minho rolled his eyes. 

“Why’s that bad?” Felix asked, sipping on his iced tea. 

“Because he’s literally the guy who made my high school life miserable!” you whined. “My life and Minho’s life”

“Oh, well, maybe he’s- you know- changed” Felix tried. 

“Could be. The guy was staring at you like he was terrified” Jeongin said. “It was laughable”

“Maybe because he knows what he did” Minho added. “Typical bully attitude to get what he wants”

“I don’t know. He looked weird, though” You confessed. “Like he was nervous. He was all fidgety and awkward about it”

Felix hummed and looked down at his beverage. “Don’t worry about it, okay? It will be fine”

“Yeah, thank you, guys” You smiled at your friends.

“Don’t worry, Y/N. You got us” Jeonging winked, poking your cheek with his finger, making you laugh. 

“I know. That’s why I love you guys” you smiled. 

An hour passed and you and your friends were having fun, as Jeongin was telling you about his date last night. 

“And then she laughs in my face, like- fully in front of me and I feel the stink in her breath. She had ordered ravioli with a cream cheese sauce that was showered with garlic” Jeongin said while you all cackled. 

“Oh my God, and what did you do?” You asked. 

“Nothing, I just contained my breath in and nodded at everything she said” Jeongin said. “Near death experience”

“And do you plan on texting her or something?” Minho asked.

“No, I mean, she was really cute but other than her attempted murder, we did not connect in the talking at all” Jeongin shook his head with a frown. “No way” 

“Okay, let’s all look down or look like we’re in a deep conversation” Minho said, suddenly.

“What?” Felix asked, confused.

“Hyunjin just walked in” Minho replied. 

Your eyes widened and Minho grabbed your arm when you were about to turn your head. “No, no, don’t turn around” he said, in front of you. “Okay, so my mother just died and we’re like- mourning or something”

“Good grief” Felix shook his head, biting on a muffin. 

Hyunjin, as soon as he stepped in, started whipping his head around, trying to look for you. He saw the back of your head while you were engrossed in a conversation with your friends. He took a deep breath in and tried to collect all the courage he could muster and walked towards you.

“Oh, no, he’s coming” Felix whispered.

“Act normal” Jeongin said.

“Hey, Y/N” Hyunjin said standing in front of you.

You looked up and blinked. “Hyunjin, what are you doing here?” 

“Man, my mother just died. Could you have some-”

“Minho!” Felix said, slapping his arm. 

Hyunjin looked at them curiously and you huffed. “Don’t mind them. What’s up?”

“I know you said no already, and you probably don’t like me at all but I seriously need your help” Hyunjin pleaded. “You see, I need to pass literature to get my degree. Please, I’ll literally pay you, whatever you want”

You chuckled and you moved your head to the side. “Hyunjin, are you serious right now? You’ve ignored my existence since we’ve met and now, when you need something, you acknowledge me?” you snort at the end. “Sorry, not happening”

Hyunjin let out a whine and out of literally nowhere, the man dropped to his knees.

“Oh my God” Felix mumbled and looked away.

“Y/N… I’m begging you. Please, please, please. I’ll literally clean your dorm, pay for your food, I’ll buy you whatever you want, just please, please tutor me” he asked, giving you puppy eyes.

You looked into his eyes and let out a frustrated sigh.

“Okay…”

“What?” Minho asked, in a high-pitched voice.

“Yeah, what?” Hyunjin asked, surprised as well.

“I’ll tutor you, just please get up. You’re embarrassing me in front of everyone” You said with a grimace.

Hyunjin quickly scrambled to his feet and nodded. “Okay, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Here’s my number” he said, grabbing a pen and scribbling the number into a piece of paper and handing it to you. “Text me. We can meet tomorrow”

“Yeah, okay” you nodded slowly. 

“Thank you, again, Y/N. I really appreciate it a lot. Sorry for bothering” Hyunjin said and quickly walked away.

You looked at him with a frown as he walked out of the café and then turned to look at Minho who was glaring at you. 

“What?” you asked him.

“I’m just gonna ask one simple question. Are you playing stupid? Or were you just born with it?” 

“Oh my God-”

“You just accepted tutoring the devil incarnate, Y/N!” Minho said dramatically.

“Did you see how he was begging on his knees? I don’t want to be as cruel as he was” you argued.

“The guy is the worst, Y/N. Come on” Minho insisted.

“I don’t know, Min. He really needed help” Felix tried. “I think it was sweet of you to give in” 

“Thank you, Lix” you said sincerely. 

“What if he just wants to sleep with you?” Minho asked.

“God, Minho! Hyunjin does not want to sleep with me” you laughed. 

“Yo, why not?” Jeongin asked. “You would make a hot couple”

Minho faked a gag. “Please no”

“You’re into guys, wouldn’t you say he’s hot?” Jeongin asked.

“Yeah, he sure is. But he’s a horrible person so no. I don’t like him” Minho spat, shaking his head in disapproval.

“Okay. Why don’t we all calm down, hm?” Felix asked. “Y/N’s gonna be tutoring Hyunjin and we’re all going to be supportive friends and be there for her if she needs anything”

“Thank you” you mouthed and he winked. 

Minho sighed and looked away. 

“Just trust me. You know I wouldn’t do anything” you told him.

“Y/N, it’s not you I’m worried about. I know you’re not going to do anything. But him? Yeah, I don’t trust him” he said. Felix gave him a look and he let out a breath. “But… I’ll give it the benefit of a doubt”

“Great” Felix clapped. “Everything’s solved. Can we please go back to talking about Jeongin’s horrible date with the garlic breath girl and all?”

“Yeah” you nodded. 

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.

You dropped your bag on the chair next to the door of your room and sighed. 

“Wanna order take out?” Minho asked from the kitchen. 

“Yeah, chinese, please” you called out.

“On it!”

You dropped your body on the bed and felt the purring of one of Minho’s cats next to your head. 

“Hey, Dori” you cooed, brushing your fingers across the cat’s soft fur. “You missed me?” you asked and the kitty purred. “Yeah, you did” 

You grabbed your phone from your jean back pocket and the piece of paper with Hyunjin’s number fell out. 

Sighing, you picked it up and after a while of thinking, you added him into your contacts. 

Y/N: hey, it’s y/n

You texted him and left the phone on the bed, to stare at Dori.

The phone vibrated and you grabbed it.

Hyunjin: oh hiii

You frowned. “A hi with three ‘I’s?” you asked yourself in a whisper. 

Hyunjin: what’s up?

“What’s up? God, we’re just gonna be having tutoring sessions. You don’t wanna know how I’ve been” you harshly whispered to yourself.

You: fine. Do you wanna meet tomorrow at the café me and my friends were having a hangout until you interrupted-

You sighed and pressed the delete button. 

You couldn’t send him that.

You: i’m ok. you wanna meet at the same coffee shop tomorrow after english?

Hyunjin: yeah, i’m okay with it.

You: great. 

You left the phone on the bed and went to help Minho while he put on the plates and silverware on the table.

“Everything okay?” Minho asked.

“Yeah, yeah. I was just texting Hyunjin” you told him. “I told him he could meet at the coffee shop from today”

“The one where he rudely interrupted us?”

“Yeah, the same one” you laughed.

He smiled and then looked down. “I’m sorry if I was harsh with you today” he said quietly.

“Oh, don’t worry, Min. I know you’re just looking out for me” 

“I know. I just… we suffered a lot in high school and- well, I don’t wanna go through that again. Neither of us” he shook his head.

“Aww, are you sweet talking to me?” you cooed.

Minho dropped his soft expression and rolled his eyes. “Man, you ruined the moment. I hate you”

“No, you love me” you said and wrapped your arms around him.

“Get off” Minho said.

“You love me” you said louder.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever” he said. 

The bell rang and he looked at the door. “That’s the take out. Be right back” 

“Go ahead. I love you too”

“Shut up”

You giggled as you made your way back to your room and grabbed your phone. Your heartbeat started beating faster when you saw the notification from Hyunjin.

Hyunjin: see you tomorrow, y/n :)

“Fuck, you stupid heart. Stop doing that!” 

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.

You sighed as you tapped your nails on the wooden table from the café as you waited for Hyunjin. 

He was 10 minutes late and you were so close to grabbing your stuff and fleeting out of there. 

Suddenly, your eyes caught his figure being followed by a girl who was looking at him with a smile while he had a frown on his face. He said something, making the girl’s smile drop and walk away embarrassed. 

You looked down and felt a weird feeling in your stomach.

Hyunjin, with a sigh, sat down on the booth bench. “Hey, I’m so, so sorry Y/N” he said, sounding tired.

You didn’t even have the heart to say something rude to him because he was late. “No worries” you breathed out. “Did something happen?”

“Oh, uh… no, it’s just this-”

“Girl?”

Hyunijn looked at you, wide-eyed and then let out a laugh. “Yeah, kind of”

“You slept with her and she wants more but you don’t want more?” you asked, feeling that curious, annoying thing on your stomach.

Hyunjin shook his head. “No, she’s uh… my ex-girlfriend” he said.

“Oh…”

“Yeah” he nodded. “We broke up a long while ago but- well, I broke up with her but she didn’t take it well”

“How long ago was that?”

“Four months ago”

“Four?” you asked and he nodded. “Fuck, that’s a long time”

“I know” he sighed. 

You chewed on your lip. “Okay, we can start now. I’m sorry I asked, I just- well, you looked kind of bothered” you said.

“No, it’s okay. Y/N, thank you” he said with a little smile.

Those damn butterflies kicked inside your stomach and you inwardly rolled your eyes. You hummed and looked down at your computer. 

“Right! So, the next assignment is to choose a sonnet from Shakespeare and analyze it. That means we’ll have to search, read some and well, choose the one we like the best” you told him.

“Oh God, I hate this already” he said, pressing his forehead against the table.

You giggled. “It’s not that bad. I collected a bunch for you to pick” 

He pulled his head up quickly and smiled. “Really?” 

“Yeah” you nodded.

“You’re the best” he smiled wider. 

Fuck, that’s a pretty smile- FOCUS. “It’s nothing” you scoffed with a little smile too.

“No, really. It’s a lot. Let me see” he said and you pushed your computer towards him.

As he started scrolling through the different sonnets, his eyes couldn’t help but wander towards your face. You were looking out the window while sipping your pink drink with a sense of tranquility, something that was definitely lacking in his life. Hyunjin couldn’t help but feel his heart hammering in his chest as he admired your pretty face. He paid attention to the way you sucked on the straw of your drink and he bit his lip. 

You were so attractive to him and you had no idea. 

How didn’t you see it? How didn’t you notice him staring at you in high-

“You picked one yet?” you asked him, turning your head to face him.

He blinked a couple of times and nodded. “Y-yeah” he lied. “I picked one” 

“Let me see” you said, grabbing the computer. Your eyes lit up and smiled at him, making him feel a flutter in his chest, something he hadn’t felt till now. “Wow, Sonnet 116. Good choice. You are one romantic guy, never thought of that” 

His eyes narrowed, confusedly and then nodded. “Yeah… I guess you didn’t know that about me, huh?” he joked.

Hyunjin was in fact a very romantic guy himself, he loved cliché stuff and, whenever he painted, he tried to symbolize love as much as he could. He would paint red roses very often, thinking they symbolize an act of love, sensualism and mysticism. Hyunjin loved romantic comedies and he always cried with them.

But that was a secret he kept well hidden.

“Well, this one you picked is very beautiful” you said with a smile and he couldn’t help but reciprocate it. “Let Me Not to The Marriage of True Minds is one of his most famous works” 

Hyunjin immediately took out his computer and started typing whatever you said. 

“We can read it together” you said, pushing the computer so he could see it.  

He nodded and you started reading some lines and explaining them to him.

Hyunjin stared at you attentively and tried to focus, he really did. But his stupid brain and heart had teamed up to sabotage this study session, because they were focused on you. You, you, you. Then, his eyes couldn’t help but go down as he took in what you were wearing. 

Fuck, how did he not notice? You were wearing a black top that had a low cut and it gave a good view of your breasts, as your arms pushed them together due to your inclined position on the table. His mind started racing with different dirty thoughts of what he’d do to you if they weren’t in a crowded café. Hyunjin noticed you were wearing a lace black bra and it made him wanna grab-

“He’s basically saying that true love is not changeable, no matter the length of time” you explained, bringing him back to earth.

Hyunjin quickly typed, trying to convince you he was paying attention. 

“He is so certain about his definition of love that, if proven wrong, then he was sure he had never loved anyone” you finished.

“Wow…” Hyunjin said. “That’s… beautiful”

“I know” you giggled. “Well, we have to, basically, do an analysis of it”

“Okay, how do we start?”

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.

Hyunjin pressed the point button on his laptop and sighed. “Fucking finally” he said.

“It wasn’t that bad, you gotta admit that” you smiled.

He had to admit, he did enjoy literature after all. “Yeah, it was actually interesting. Maybe I should’ve asked you for help a long time ago” he confessed.

“Well, that means you would’ve acknowledged my existence, which you didn’t until… yesterday” you said with a shrug.

That’s a lie, Hyunjin thought. “I… I’m sorry” he said and he mentally slapped himself.

“It’s okay. I’m used to it. Really” you said.

He frowned. He didn’t like the sound of that. He was about to open his mouth when you cursed.

“Fuck! Look at the hour, it’s almost eight” you cursed.

Hyunjin looked out the window and noticed how dark it had gotten. “Right, wow. I didn’t even notice” he mumbled as he looked at his phone. 

“Yeah, me neither” you chuckled, putting all your stuff away.

Hyunjin frowned as he didn’t like the fact that this session was over and you’d probably go back to ignoring each other like you did. 

“Hey, uh… do you wanna go back to my place? Like… to hang out” he said.

You arched your eyebrows. “Why?”

“Well, to be honest, I could pay you back with some take out. Whatever you want. My roommate, Chan, is out for the day with his girlfriend so I'm gonna be home alone” Hyunjin explained. 

You leaned your head to the side.  “Are you inviting me because you feel bad for me or because you don’t wanna be alone?” 

None, I just wanna be with you. “Both, I guess?”

You chuckled and looked away. “Hyunjin-”

“Please?” he asked.

You looked at him again and then sighed. “Fine. But we’re ordering chinese”

“Deal” he smiled, satisfied.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.

“She did that?” You asked him as soon as you and him walked inside his dorm.

“Yep. And then she basically threatened Lily, my friend’s girlfriend, to stay away from me because she was jealous” Hyunijn explained.

“Oh my God” you mumbled. “That’s borderline obsessive”

“Yeah, I know” he said, dropping his stuff on the couch, “You can drop your stuff  and sit here, I’ll order take out” Hyunjin whipped his phone out and started clicking on the delivery app.

You did the same and noticed there were a few notifications from your group chat with your friends.

<Besties!!>

Min 🐈: hey, you alive bestie? 

Min 🐈: did you kill hyunjin? I’d be delighted if your answer was yes. I’d even help you bury the body

Innie 💛: min shut up

Min 🐈: what?

Lixie☀️: i think you’re overreacting a little

Min 🐈: i think i’m not

You chuckled and quickly typed your answer back.

You: I’m okay, you guys. calm down!! 

You: i’m at his place.

Innie 💛: excuse me?

Lixie☀️: say what?

Min 🐈: oh my god, I think i’m gonna faint

You: shut up. he invited me and ordered chinese as my payment, i happily accepted bc u know i’d never decline chinese 😀

You sighed. You knew Minho would never approve of this, he’d scold the hell out of you. 

Lixie☀️: okay, take care y/n. 

Innie 💛: pls text us if anything happens!

Min 🐈: yeah that

You: i will, thx! love u guys

“Okay, it’s on its way. Want a drink or something?” Hyunjin brought you back to reality and you quickly turned off your phone.

“Oh, uh… what do you have?” you asked him.

“I have wine… coke, water”

“I could have some wine” you smiled.

“Great” he said and took it out from the cupboards. 

You walked towards the kitchen and sat down on the stools, feeling your hands get sweaty from the nervousness you felt. 

“So… did your friends roast me via text?” Hyunjin asked. You pulled your face back and he chuckled. “I know you were texting them. You looked really stressed out explaining this situation to them”

You sighed and looked away. “Yeah, uh… I think it’s not news that they don’t like you” you chuckled humourlessly.

He nodded. “I don’t think you do either” he said. He hoped that was untrue.

“Well. I had my reasons” you said.

Hyunjin frowned. “Had?”

“Yeah, well, I think you weren’t just as bad as I thought” you confessed.

“Why’s that?”

“Well, you did ignore me in high school” you told him. “And you were friends with the people that made my life a living hell, while you stood there, watching”

He was about to say something but the bell rang. “That must be the delivery guy. Be right back”

He walked away from the kitchen and you put your head in your hands. What were you doing?

Hyunjin came back really fast and he placed the food on the plates, wordlessly, while you just stared.

Great, you ruined the whole mood. 

You started eating and the silence was so loud, you wanted to fleet out the door. 

“I didn’t ignore you” Hyunjin suddenly spoke. 

You looked up and gave him a confused look. “What?”

“I didn’t ignore you. In high school, I mean” he repeated himself. “I was just hanging out with the wrong crowd, and I admit that. I just wanted you to know that I did know you who you were. I didn’t know you attended this uni, though” 

You analyzed his words and expressions. He sounded sincere.

“I… it’s funny, actually. I had a huge crush on you” he said in a small voice.

Now, hold up.

“What?” you asked him with a frown.

“Yeah” he laughed. “You were really cute and just my type. But as I said, I hung out with the wrong crowd and it repelled people like you, fairly. And I wanted to be popular, because it was like a dream and it felt like being powerful but then I understood that it was stupid and there’s literally not a day in which I don’t regret hanging out with those people” 

You blinked a couple of times, trying to figure out if this was a figment of your imagination.

“So, I deeply apologize” Hyunjin said in a small voice. 

You nodded. “Okay… I uh… I did not know that” you chuckled nervously.

“No, you didn’t have to,” he said. “Really, I’m sorry, Y/N. If it… helps or whatever, I did want to defend you when they said those things to you and your friends. I was just too afraid to say anything, honestly”

“Afraid they’d do it to you” you said.

“Yeah, basically”

You hummed and licked your lips, deep in thought. “I had a crush on you too back in high school” you suddenly said.

His eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yeah” you chuckled. “Even if I hated you, I couldn’t… help it” 

“Wow…”

“I never told anyone about this” you chuckled. “Not even Minho”

“Oh God, he hates me so much” he said, making you laugh.

“Yeah, well, you’re friends with Jisung, so…” you said.

He frowned. “What’s up with him anyways?” 

You looked up in surprise. “Jisung cheated on Minho”

He looked really surprised to hear that. “What?” Hyunjin asked in a high pitched voice. “No, that’s not it. I mean, yeah, he accused him of cheating but Jisung didn’t do that”

“Yeah, well, that’s what Minho told me. Back at prom” you told him.

“Okay, that’s weird because Jisung did not attend prom” he said.

Your eyes widened. “What do you mean he didn’t go to prom? He said he found Jisung kissing other guy” you frowned.

“Yeah, no. Jisung’s grandfather had passed away the day before so he had to travel overnight to his hometown” Hyunjin said.

“Oh wow” you mumbled. “Well, then we’ll have to tell them and maybe…”

“Get them together again?” Hyunjin asked, with a little shrug.

“Yeah” you giggled. “You know, as much as Minho talks about hating him and all… I think he’s never really gotten over Jisung. He still keeps the necklace he gifted him and the collar he made for Soonie” 

“Jisung’s never gotten over him either. He likes to gag at the mention of him but he still has that shirt, you know, the one they shared of-”

“Oh my God, from that Cat Café? The one that says-”

“Cat Café Lovers? Yeah, that one” Hyunjin laughed.

You chuckled and looked away. “Gosh, that was peak cringe from them”

“Yeah”

The chatter continued. You talked about everything and anything. It was like you both needed this talk from a long time ago, and you didn’t know it. 

After eating everything and helping him with the dishes, you looked at the clock and gasped.

“Oh shit, it’s eleven. Fuck” you whispered. “I gotta go, I’m sorry”

“Oh…” Hyunjin said, sounding disappointed. “It’s okay, don’t worry”

He walked you to the door and opened it. He leant against the frame and watched you put your bag on your shoulder and look up at him.

“Thank you for the food… and the talk” you smiled.

“No, thank you. I’ll probably get an A from what we did” he chuckled. “You’re very smart and very kind to help me… even after everything I did”

“It’s alright” you nodded. “And you apologized, so, we’re good”

“Yeah…” he said. “I actually lied” he suddenly blurted.

You frowned. “What… did you lie about?” 

He swallowed nervously and looked down at his feet. “I did like you in high school but… I didn’t stop” 

You pulled your face back in utter shock.

Say what?

“I… seeing you the other day. It made me realize I didn’t stop liking you after all” he chuckled nervously. “Yeah, I thought you were really cute back then but, seeing you now, I see you got even more beautiful and it kills me that I did what I did. And I’m sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable by saying this but- well, I just thought I could tell you because-” he started rambling and you felt a rush of confidence to shut him up.

Shut him up by kissing him. Hard.

Your kiss shocked him but he was quick to grab your waist and pull you against his chest. 

You pulled away and smiled at him. “I like you too, Hyunjin. Even if you suck at literature and stare at my tits the whole time I’m explaining a Shakespeare sonnet to you” you told him against his lips and he blushed. 

“Okay, that’s-”

You giggled and pressed your lips against his once again, making him groan. He pushed you inside his dorm again, closing the door with his foot. Your bag dropped to the floor and he put his hands under your legs, hoisting you up in the air, making you wrap your legs around his waist. 

Hyunjin led you to his room and then laid you down on his bed, all while literally devouring your mouth with his tongue deep, stroking yours. 

He pulled away to kiss your neck and you arched your back, mewling and clawing at his clothed back. 

“Hyunjinnie…” you sighed, combing your fingers through his hair.

“Fuck, Y/N” he whispered, biting on your skin. He pulled away and stared at you. “You are so beautiful”

You smiled shyly at him and when he went to kiss your neck again, you stopped him by pulling his hair. 

“What?” he asked, caressing your waist.

“I just uh…”

“You a virgin?” he asked.

“No! No, no. I uh had my fair share of hook ups… but I am not like the most experienced so please-” he silenced you with a kiss, moving his hands under your shirt.

“You-” kiss. “-are perfect-” kiss. “Don’t worry, baby” he whispered and went to kiss you again. 

Hyunjin pressed kisses on your neck down to your stomach, over your shirt until he reached the belt of your jeans. He made quick work of taking off your shoes and your belt. 

You helped him kick your jeans off and he stared at your panties. 

His eyebrow arched, as he looked at your laced black panties. “I wanted to feel sexy” you shrugged innocently. 

He tugged on your legs, making you yelp. “Come here” he growled, kissing your lips as his hands groped your breasts through your shirt. “I’m gonna eat you out until you’re shaking, is that okay?”

You shivered at his tone and his honesty. “I…”

“Has anyone ever done that before?” he asked. You shook your head ‘no’, giving him doe eyes. “What kind of dumb men did you date? Who wouldn’t want to do that?” 

He didn’t even give you time to answer, because he took off your panties quickly and shoved your legs open. 

“Fuck, look at that. You’re so wet, baby” he whispered, smirking at you.

“God, do something, Hyune” you moaned, arching your back.

He chuckled at your desperation and swiped his fingers over your drenched entrance, making you whimper. He dragged those soaked fingers over his tongue and sucked them clean. As soon as he finished, Hyunjin crawled over you and kissed you, inserting his tongue inside your mouth, making your nails dig into his shoulders as you tasted yourself. 

He pulled away and panted as he looked at you. “Do you feel how good you taste?” he asked and didn’t even give you time to answer as he dropped a quick peck on your lips and went down to eat you out. 

Hyunjin’s tongue dragged over your core over and over and all you could do was hold onto the sheets desperately. He inserted his fingers and scissored them as he licked over your sensitive clit in a circle motion. 

Your hands went to his hair and started pulling, making him mewl against your cunt. You pushed his head against your cunt, making his nose press against your clit as his tongue licked over you. 

He had you cum on your tongue two times and then, he pressed a kiss over your pubic bone when he was finished, definitely leaving your legs shaking in pleasure, just like he had promised. He wiped his face with his sleeve and then grabbed the back of his tee, pulling it over his head, letting you admire his toned body.

Your hands immediately brushed over his torso and his abs contracted, feeling the goosebumps run all over his body. He pressed his chest against yours and kissed you again, really soft and sweet. 

“How was that?” he whispered against your lips.

“Fucking mindblowing” you whispered, making him smirk.

“Can I take this off?” he asked, fidgeting with the end of your shirt.

You smirked. “I think you tortured yourself long enough at the café staring at me. Go ahead” you giggle.

He giggled back and pecked your lips and then pressed a kiss to your cleavage. “I couldn’t help it” he murmured and then grabbed the hem of your shirt and pulled it over your head. He stared at your black lacy bra, his hand going under you to grab at the clasp.

You didn’t let him, arching your back at taking it off yourself, exposing your tits to him. 

His hands immediately grabbed them and pushed his face towards them, enveloping one of your nipples inside his mouth and sucking. You arched your back and moaned, gripping his hair tightly with your fingers. He sucked one and then another, then, pushed them together and licked over them.

“Fuck, Hyunjin, I need you to fuck me” you whispered.

“Okay, okay, fuck” he said, giving one of your tits one last suck and then leaned up on his knees, trying to take off his belt as fast as he could. 

You helped him kick off his jeans and saw his erection straining against the fabric of his Calvin Klein’s. It was big already and when he hooked a finger on the hem and pulled them down, your eyes widened. 

His dick slapped against his stomach and his hand went down to stroke himself. 

He knelt on the bed and pushed himself to brace himself over you while looking for a condom. Hyunjin took it out and put it on quickly, and then went back to brush the tip over your entrance, making your nails dig against his forearms. 

One of his big hands gripped your thigh and the other one held his cock to push it inside you. Once he did, you arched your back and he let out a choked moan. 

“Fuck, you’re so fucking tight, Y/N. And so wet, shit” he whispered against your neck and then he kissed the hot, sweaty skin. 

“Fuck, Hyune” you moaned. 

“Yeah, keep chanting my name like that” he whispered, moving his hips as he hit your cervix over and over. 

You let out a little yelp every time he hit that sweet spot and one of his hands went to one of your breasts, brushing over your nipple and pinching it every now and then.

He licked over your ear and pulled on your earlobe. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for this?” he whispered. “So fucking long, baby” 

You put your leg over his shoulder, making him go deeper and pulling a moan from both of you.

His fingers found your clit, and as he rubbed it in a circle motion, it made you get closer and closer towards your orgasm.

You bit at his neck and moaned. “I think I’m gonna come, Hyune”

“Yeah?” he groaned. “Fucking come, then”

Your cunt gripped him tightly, making him groan and thrust even harder. You arched your back against Hyunjn’s chest and came around his length, feeling your vision go white and like you were about to pass out from the amount of pleasure the man on top of you was making you feel.

You barely noticed how he was losing control, as his thrust became sloppier. With a choked moan, he emptied himself inside the condom, his hands gripping the mattress tightly and then with a sigh, he collapsed on top of you, completely spent and satisfied.

Your arms wrapped around him tightly as he panted against your neck. 

“That was-”

“Amazing, fucking amazing” he whispered against your neck. 

You giggled and combed your fingers through his hair, caressing his scalp. 

Hyunjin lifted his head and smiled at you. “You are so pretty”

“Thank you. You are very pretty, too” you said shyly and he blushed. “You blushing?”

He let his head drop against your chest and mumbled, “Shut up”

“You definitely are” you giggled.

“Shut up!”

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.

After he let you use your shower (in which he may or may not have sneaked in and ate you out against the tiles), you changed into one of his shirts and wandered around his room. You saw the canvases that laid on the desk and smiled as you saw the amazing drawings and paintings he did.

“Wow… you did this?”  you asked him over your shoulder.

“Yeah” he said shyly, brushing the towel over his wet hair. “They’re not the greatest-”

“They’re not? I think they’re museum-worthy, are you kidding?” you chuckled. “The way you painted that rose, wow” 

He chuckled and walked over to you, wrapping his arms around you. “I feel so at peace with you, Y/N” he whispered against your neck.

You smiled and put your hands over his arms. “Me too, Hyunjin” you whispered, kissing his skin. “Me too”

“You have practice tomorrow at the studio right?” he asked. 

“Yeah, we have that super difficult R&B choreo” you sighed. 

“Really?” he asked. 

“Yeah”

Hyunjin started thinking about a little something in silence and then spoke up. “Do you want me to change classes?” 

You frowned and looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

“So that we can practice together. Maybe that’s the reason I never saw you here. Because we never got to practice together” 

You let out a little laugh. “You’re crazy, Hyune” 

“Yeah, crazy about you” he said and kissed your cheek with a loud kiss sound. 

You giggled and shook your head. “Oh, fine. Change classes”

“Yay” he whispered. “What do you usually wear for practice?” 

“Leggings…”

“Oh, it’s gonna be amazing, I’m so sure of it. I’m gonna have so much fun” he smirked.

“Hyunjin!”

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.

You and Hyunjin woke up with a loud buzzing noise coming from the night stand. 

Hyunjin from behind you groaned and pressed his face harder against your neck. “What’s that, babe?”

“It’s just my phone, hun” you whispered as you grabbed it and looked at the ID of the call. “Hello, Min?”

“Where are you, bitch?”

“Huh?” you asked, surprised at his tone.

“You don’t come home, then you don’t show up at history, and you’re not here at the cafeteria” Minho said.

Your eyes widened and you sat up, looking at the hour. 10:04.

“Shit!” you yelled. “Hyunjin, we overslept!” you yelled, grabbing at his arm and shaking him.

“Hm?” he asked, confused.

“Hyunjin, wake up! We need to get to my dorm to change and then go to the studio! Come on!” you yelled, jumping off the bed and searching for your clothes frantically. “Where the hell did you throw my socks?” 

Hyunjin took his sweet time sitting up on the bed and stretching his muscles. He scratched his eyes and blinked a couple of times. His head turned to the clock on the nightstand and his eyes widened. 

“Holy shit, it’s 10 AM” he said, and jumped off the bed.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” you yelled back as you ran towards the bathroom to brush your teeth in your bra, jeans and only one sock on your feet.

Hyunjin quickly dressed while you brushed your teeth. He combed his hair with his hands quickly and saw you get out of the bathroom, looking around for your shirt.

“What are you searching for?” he asked you.

“My shirt! I don’t know where you threw it. And my socks” you said, looking everywhere.

“Here, use one of mine” Hyunjin tossed you a shirt. “You look better in them” 

You grabbed it and looked at it. “Thank you” you said in a small, shy voice and quickly pulled it over your frame. “My socks” 

“Oh, here” he said. “I found them” he smiled.

“Thanks”

Hyunjin grabbed his stuff and smiled at you again. “Let’s go?”

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.

You and Hyunjin ran through the hallways, panting.

“To the right!” you yelled and quickly turned with Hyunjin following suit. 

“There you are!” Minho suddenly appeared in front of you just as you turned the corner, with Felix and Jeongin behind him.

“FUCK! Minho!” you yelled. “You scared me!” 

He was staring at you and Hyunjin with a frown. “Okay… please tell me that you are wearing his shirt because he clumsily dropped wine on it and those marks on your neck are just mosquito bites” he said calmly.

Your eyes widened and quickly slapped your hand over your neck, as you looked at Hyunjin with a glare. He just shrugged.

“I think I’m gonna faint” Minho said, grabbing his heart, dramatically.

Felix rolled his eyes and sighed. “Let’s go, guys. We have practice in two minutes” he said with a smile.

You followed them and Hyunjin did too. “I’m gonna ask my professor to… do what I told you, okay?” he asked, grabbing your shoulder.

“Okay” you nodded. 

Hyunjin pressed a kiss to your lips and walked away the other way. You stared at him and then your eyes darted to your friends who were wide-eyed staring at you. 

“No comments, okay?” 

“Oh, no, you come here and tell everything!” Jeongin giggled excitedly.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.

After practice, you sat with your friends at the café, telling them everything.

“It was like I had been wrong about him my whole life” you told them, after you finished. 

“Wow, Y/N, he sounds like he really likes you” Felix smiled.

“He does” you nodded. “Hell, he liked me in high school? I did not expect to hear that” 

“Yeah, no one did” Jeongin shook his head.

You looked at Minho and sighed. “Could you be supportive about this?” you pleaded your friend, pressing your hands together.

“What happened with the I’m not gonna sleep with him, he doesn’t wanna sleep with me thing? You bumped your head against a wall and forgot about it?” Minho asked.

“No, we just had a really good conversation in which he apologized and well… I kissed him” You confessed. 

“Hold up, you kissed him?” Felix asked.

“Yep… oh! I have news about Jisung” you gasped, looking at Minho.

He looked up and his eyes widened. “What? What do you know?” he asked.

You smirked. “It was a misunderstanding, Min” you told him. 

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Of course he’d defend his friend. I mean, what can you expect from him?” he laughed, humourlessly.

“He told me that he didn’t even attend prom” you told him and Minho pulled his face back.

“What?”

“Uh… a little context please?” Jeongin asked.

“So, basically, Minho saw what he thought was Jisung at prom kissing some other dude. They fought, they broke up, the end. But Hyunjin told me that Jisung did not go to prom, his grandfather had died the night prior and he had to rush to his hometown” you told him.

“Wow…” Felix said. “That’s- Minho, what do you think?”

“I think I need to go” he said and grabbed his stuff quickly. “Uh, sorry. Thank you for telling me, I’ll be right back” 

You three watched as Minho left the cafeteria in a rush and then looked at each other.

“You think they’ll get back together?” Jeongin asked.

“I think so” you smiled. “They aren’t over each other. At all” 

Felix smiled. “I can’t believe he has refused to date anyone this past year because he is still hung up on him” 

“Yep. Their relationship was really intense and they loved each other very much” you smiled. “Hell, he still keeps lots of things from him at the dorm. I just pretend I don’t see them but they’re there” 

“Like what?” Jeongin asked.

“You know that necklace Minho always wears?” you asked.

“Yeah, the one with the cat- No!” Felix suddenly gasped.

“Yeah, that one was a gift from Jisung” you giggled. “And then the collar that Soonie has, is a gift from Jisung as well”

“Oh my God” Jeongin said. “He talks a lot about hating him and now I realize he does not hate him at all”

“No” you chuckled. 

“Okay, I’m having a deja vu” Felix sighed.

You frowned and turned around, finding Hyunjin running towards you. You couldn’t help the smile that ran across your face. “Hey!” 

“Hi, good news!” he smiled and sat down on the empty seat where Minho was. “Where’s Minho?” he asked, realizing he wasn’t there anymore.

You and your friends smirked. “He went to search for the love of his life” Jeongin said, arching his eyebrows.

Hyunjin looked confused and you just chuckled. “I’ll tell you later”

“Okay” he nodded. “They let me change classes” he smiled.

“Really?” you gasped. “That’s great!” 

“You’re practicing with us?” Felix asked.

“Yeah!”

“That’s awesome, man” Jeongin smiled.

Hyunjin smiled. “I know, I’ll get to practice with my pretty girl” he said, smirking at you.

You groaned when you felt your friends starting to poke at your sides and make annoying noises at you. “Stop it!” You groaned.

“Y/N’s in love” they started singing. 

Hyunjin could only chuckle and shake his head. 

He felt his phone buzz and he took it out. He read the message on his phone and frowned.

You noticed his expression. “What’s up, hun?” you asked.

“Why is Jisung texting me: Minho just kissed me?”

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.

Two weeks later…

You and Hyunjin sat next to each other and he fiddled with his hands nervously. You put your hand over his fingers and smiled, with a chuckle. 

“Hyunjin, oh my God, calm down! It’s just an assignment” you told him.

“Yeah, I know” he sighed. “It’s just that I need to pass literature or-”

“You won’t get your degree, you told me already, yeah” you giggled. 

Mr. Jackson came over with the assignments and stared at Hyunjin. He gave him a curious look adn then left the paper on his desk with a sigh. 

“Here’s your work, Mr. Hwang. And yours Miss Y/L/N” he said, dropping yours on your table. 

Hyunjin took a look at the paper and gasped. “I got an A!” 

“Me too” you smiled excitedly. “See? I told you you were going to pass”

“I know, but it’s all thanks to you” he said, grabbing your hand and kissing it a couple of times. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without you now”

You looked at him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You won’t have to wonder now” you said and giggled. 

Your eyes darted to the couple in front of you and sighed.

“Ever since they got back, they won’t stop making out, it’s disgusting” you said to him.

“Hell, we are clingy and we don’t go making out like that” Hyunjin said.

Minho pulled away and looked at him. “That’s a lie, Hwang. Yesterday, I got scarred for life finding you naked on top of my best friend”

“Yeah, I got traumatized too” Jisung said next to him.

“Hey, the happy couples at the back!” Mr. Jackson called out. 

“Sorry” you all four said in unison. 

You and Hyunjin turned your head to the side and found Chan and Changbin mocking you, pretend-kissing each other while making faces. Hyunjin threatened to throw his pencil case while you laughed at them. Hyunjin looked down at your smiley face and his heart doubled its size. Maybe literature hadn’t been so bad after all.

Thank you, literature. 

[cosmicpearlz]

my love is mine, all mine (pt 2)

summary: more glimpses of your relationship with jude!

pairing: jude bellingham x reader

a/n: i’m having too much fun writing these scenarios lol

~one~

you rarely ever get into arguments with jude but when it does happen, it’s terrible on everyone’s part. this particular moment was about him not spending enough time with you.

“so you’re saying i can’t hangout with my friends? because that’s what it’s sounding like.”

“jude, that’s not what i’m saying! i’m just saying that it would be nice to have a day with just us. i feel like i’m left on a back burner right now.”

“we do hangout. i mean, i’m here right now but you wanna spend the time arguing!”

“tell me the last time we had a day to ourselves! please enlighten me,” you were beyond frustrated and your head was hurting from all the yelling.

“stop being so fucking clingy. i see you at home every night! we don’t need to be together 24/7.”

you felt your heart throbbing from the pain of hearing those words. is it really such a crime to want quality time with someone you love? between his training sessions and your job, there hasn’t been much alone time.

“okay. my apologies for wanting my boyfriend here with me. i won’t ask again,” you took a step back, looking down to possibly stop the tears. it didn’t work. the more you thought about it, the more it hurt.

jude instantly regretted saying that. he understood completely where you were coming from but the stubbornness in him clouded his judgement.

“baby, i’m-“

“i don’t wanna talk to you jude.”

-

it’s been hours since he last saw you. jude already made the guest room into his bed for the night and found himself restless. he wouldn’t admit it to anyone else but he couldn’t sleep without you near. even if you guys weren’t cuddling, at least his hand could be on you in some way. so he tossed and turned until he had enough.

jude makes his way to the room door, raising his hand to knock when the door swings open. it startles the both of you. leaving you to stare at each other in silence. jude noticed the dry tear streaks that laid on the apple of your cheeks. it made him feel worse.

“you really hurt-“

“i’m sorry bab-“

speaking at the same time wasn’t uncommon for you two, causing the both of you to let out a breathy laugh.

“you can go first honey,” his light whisper fell into the air as if he were too scared to talk any louder.

“jude, you really hurt my feelings earlier. i just wanted to spend time with you and you made it seem like i was asking for a million dollars or something bigger. i didn’t feel heard during our conversation but unfortunately i can’t sleep without you. so i was coming to drag you to bed even though i’m still very mad at you.”

“baby i’m sorry. i’m so sorry for hurting your feelings. i want you to know that i don’t mean it. hell, everyone knows i’m the clingy one! you’re the love of my life and i would spend days mending whatever hurt i caused,” his hands came to rest on your cheeks, fingers softly swiping at the dry tear stains.

“can we go to bed now? i’m exhausted and we can finish talking in the morning,” jude nods in response to you and kisses your nose.

“yeah, let’s go to bed m’love.”

~two~

“hey babe!”

jude looks up from his ipad upon hearing your voice through the phone. he was in germany for match and of course, he asked you to go with him. saying something along the lines of being his good luck charm. you couldn’t originally get the off time from your job.

“i miss you so much.”

“jude, baby you’ve been gone for like two days.”

“and your point is?”

“okay, whatever you say. anyways, i got a package for ya! just open the door.”

the boy failed to realize how close your face was in the camera and how you whispered. you had surprised him by coming to germany, being that your boss changed her mind and let you go. it wasn’t like you asked for off time a lot anyways.

“what?”

“can you open the door baby?”

jude jumps off the bed and practically leaps to the door. swinging it open to find you with a toothy smile. he rushes to hug you, bending down to your hight and pulling you into his arms.

“you said you couldn’t come!”

“surprise! my boss decided to let me take the time off last minute. i found the first flight here.”

“how’d you get to the hotel? i would’ve picked you up.”

“it wouldn’t have been a surprise then.”

he detaches himself from you to grab your bag, then grabbing your hand, walking you inside. you take a seat on the couch that was sitting in the room and smiled as your boyfriend put your bag next to his.

“i can’t believe you’re here.”

“well believe it,” jude sat next to you and began pressing kisses into whatever inch of skin he could get to.

“babe relax,” you say, in between giggles as he continued his work down to your neck. only getting off you when you pushed his shoulder back.

“i just missed you.”

“it’s been two days!”

“so what.”

~three~

you’ve become familiar with jude being your passenger princess. you never minded, it was just nice having someone to drive with. so, you took him on another one of your side quests. thrifting.

“i hope i find something good this time. last time we went, it was a bunch of bullshit.”

“i’m kinda hoping i see something i like,” you gasp into response to him, quickly looking at him and then looking back at the road.

“woah, thee jude bellingham is interested in thrifting?”

“oh come off it.”

“i’m just saying! i literally never heard you say anything like that. just making sure my ears heard correctly,” you give him a teasing smile.

“i will jump into oncoming traffic.”

“no you won’t.”

“i swear i will.”

“i’m calling your bluff.”

the silence in the car became loud as you both tested one another.

“no i won’t.”

“ha! i knew it.”

“whatever, drive faster loser. all the good stuff are gonna be gone.”

~four~

you wake up finding the bed empty. jude’s side is made up, totally not uncommon. you figured he was at training and got out of bed to get something to eat. as you walked to the kitchen, you find your boyfriend with his bare back towards you.

“good morning darling,” he turns his head to face you with a small smile.

“good morning. what’s all this?”

“i wanted to cook for you! training was canceled today because of a family emergency. i was gonna surprise you in bed but of course you had to wake up early.”

“that’s very sweet of you,” you make your way towards him and wrap your arms around his waist. pressing your front into his back, hugging him as tight as you could. you leaned up to kiss the back of his shoulder blade before stepping away.

“let’s spend the day inside.”

“are you sure jude? i know today is my off day but you don’t have to stay in with me.”

“i want to.”

jude plates the food and sits it on the dining room table. you follow close behind and go to grab your chair. instead, jude pulls out your chair for you. pushing you in before pressing a kiss to the top of your head. sitting down next to you, you both began to eat. a comfortable silence fills the room as you both ate. his free hand resting on your thigh, caressing the skin beneath his fingers.

“i love you so much. thank you for this.”

“you shouldn’t have to thank me. i’m your boyfriend, it’s a job of mine to make sure you’re feeling loved at all times.”

“trust me, i feel all the love right now.”

“it still wouldn’t be enough to express how much i truly am in love with you darling.”

“don’t get sappy on me bellingham,” you teased, watching his face attempt to hide a smile.

“oh we wouldn’t want that,” he plays along and kisses your cheek, making you both laugh in the process.

[writingdotcoffee]

The "Alt" NaNoWriMo Challenge

I'm a big fan of NaNoWriMo and the energy the event breathes into the writing community. Hundreds of thousands of people start working on their novels at the same time. Lots of people share their progress and cheer each other on. Several now-famous authors have started their best-selling novels during NaNo over the years.

That said, it's not for everyone. Writing 50,000 words per month is a serious commitment. Doing it alongside school or work is no joke. In fact, most people who sign up don't finish. According to these stats, only 1-2 out of every 10 participants complete the challenge.

I've never joined NaNoWriMo myself. I'm a slow writer, and I know that I would burn out. Instead, I set a different writing-related challenge for myself every November.

In 2018, I started reading one short story every day. It turned into a regular habit, and I ended up reading hundreds of short stories over the following few months.

Last year, I wanted to build a 30-day writing streak. In the end, I wrote for 232 days in a row. 2023 became the most productive year of my writing life by far with over 250,000 words written.

This year, I will be doing something similar, and I want to invite you to come along for the ride.

The Idea of "AltNaNo"

The idea of finishing a novel in a month seems outrageous to most people. That's what makes it so compelling. It's like standing at the foot of a snowcapped mountain with a rope and a couple of ice picks. The challenge itself is inspiring.

The AltNaNo challenge is the exact opposite. The goal is as small as possible on purpose. The focus isn't to achieve this massive feat but to squash all excuses and merely start writing.

You may not be able to write 50,000 words in a month. But almost everyone can find 15 minutes to write every day.

The Challenge

The goal is simple: Write for at least 15 minutes every day in November.

Writing 100 words and calling it a day after 15 minutes is a success.

Spending longer and writing 500 words is a success.

Wrestling with a difficult scene for 15 minutes and writing only a single sentence is a success.

Spending 15 minutes trying to write after a long day and not producing a single word is a success, too.

Be a tortoise. We all know how the story goes.

How to Join

I've set up daily challenges for the first week in Writing Analytics, if you wanted to join us there:

Day 1/30 ✅

Day 2/30 ✅

Day 3/30 ✅

Day 4/30 ✅

Day 5/30 ✅

Day 6/30 ✅

Day 7/30 ✅

I'll be posting daily updates on the blog as well.

PS: If you'd like to learn more about developing a writing habit, check out this free course I launched a few weeks ago.

[elf-callum-human-rayla]

My thoughts on season 7

I loved season 7. I really do! Yet, I can’t help but feel disappointed with what could be the final season of the series.

I feel so disappointed because it had everything I could want and more, it was comfortable. Too comfortable.

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT FOR SEASON 7

Rayla x Callum aka Rayllum

I’ve mentioned before that season six felt like it was straight out of a fanfic and it was magical. I really loved it, because it also worked for the story. It made sense that those things happened, because that’s where they were up to relationship wise. It was the calm before the storm, emphasising all that they had to lose in the coming battle.

Now don’t get me wrong, I squealed at every rayllum moment in season 7. But unlike last season, it didn’t feel like it fit the story. This season was suppose to be intense - it’s a story that has been building up for six seasons - this is the climax. And yet, they spent half the season basically in a domestic blissful ignorance in the Silvergrove.

I can understand some time there. Some of that needed to be in there - they did believe that it was truly over. It made the fact that when they find out that they failed their last mission all the more devastating.

BUT it was too much. And it feels very wrong to say that because I loved it so much. But a lot of that didn’t shouldn’t have fit into the story before the big fight that’s what season six was for.

Snake boi Callum aka dark magic Callum

The trailer suggests, and all the promo, basically suggests this massive struggle between Callum and dark magic. And there is, kinda. But I have two main problems with how it was dealt with.

1. That whole talking to himself scene felt like it was put in just so that they could have something to grab for the trailer. It had some substance, it showed the internal struggle Callum was facing. The fact that even through he found his true north, it doesn’t mean he is completely perfect. But that leads to my next point:

2. There were no real consequences to Callum using dark magic in the end. Sure, he got his white streak. But at the starscraper Kosmos tells Callum, that if he is ever to use dark magic again he would be lost to it. But, he’s not?

It was an intense scene, Callum having no choice but to turn to dark magic if he wants to trap Aaravos forever. But the consequence is dark magic would have a firm grip on his soul - Aaravos would be able to control him. And in the end Aaravos is temporarily defeated and it never actually happens.

This would be completely fine if there was more story coming (I talk about that in the next point) and it could be (fingers crossed). But there’s a chance that it won’t. If the story continues, I can see this becoming a massive problem for them later down the line when Aaravos returns.

But if we were to treat this season as the final season, all of that build up just fizzled away. We won’t get to see the long term consequences of what happened.

Which brings me to the next thing:

There is no real win at the end of the day, but they treat it as one.

There were so many ways they could have defeated, or temporarily defeated Aaravos. In the end it’s only temporary - another 7 years and 19 days until he returns. And we may never get to actually see that.

It was a situation where they won, but they also didn’t, which is a way to end it (see my last point about Merlin). There was a way to trap him (kinda) forever in a coin much like the pearl did I don’t think they were devastated enough that all their work is only a temporary reprieve.

Again, if we knew the story was continuing that would be the perfect way to continue it. They faced him down once, but have only stopped him temporarily and need to work on stopping him once and for all. But there might not be a chance to tell that story. If it just ends there, like that, there is no real resolution after all that build up. I would be incredibly disappointed if that’s where it ended.

It was somehow too fast and too slow

A lot of things felt rushed, there wasn’t enough time to really address every little thing. The beautiful thing about season three is that everything was connected, even when it doesn’t seem like it. Everything lead to the battle at the storm spire, where all of the storyline’s that had been established, had come to some conclusion or another. Even though that wasn’t the end of the series, it could have been left there and still feel like a complete show.

I’m so glad it didn’t end there, but if it did it would’ve been okay. If the series does end with season 7, all those established storylines, all that build up over the seasons don’t get a conclusion. We see that with dark magic Callum, where it was set up to be a big thing just for it not to be.

Next point: Soren should have died (PLEASE put down the pointy sticks and hear me out)

I didn’t want Soren to die, I still don’t want Soren to die. But Soren’s death would be devastating to both sides. It would be in line with his character to take a fatal blow while protecting someone else.

It would’ve really added an edge to the final battle, the heroes facing the reality that they (temporarily) won at a cost. Basically all of the arch dragons die which is something, but it doesn’t feel as personal as a member of their own team dying in the midst of the fight.

Added bonus that it would really send Claudia off the edge. She’s just lost her father, she’s just lost Terry, now she’s lost her brother. It would make more sense why she sides with Aaravos, because she is hurt and is taking it out against the world. Instead she just accepts it and escapes to wait it out for Aaravo’s return - which we might not even get to see.

If Soren didn’t die, something equally as devastating would need to happen.

Sorry for the long post, if you’re still here, hi! Basically what I am saying is that if the show ends here that would be disappointing, not only because it would be over, but because season 7 is not a series finale season. It has been left incomplete. I can see why they wanted to do that, in the hopes that they do get to write more. And I’m sure it’s a terribly tricky balance to write in the hopes of something more but the chance that there won’t be. But they did do it with season 3.

I think a big reason why I feel like this doesn’t work as a season finale is because they are acting as though it’s all over. There’s no sense of the doom that is to come, a whole “we haven’t finished but we won’t give up” kind of ending.

I thought about the ending of Merlin - spoiler alert if you haven’t watched it - it has a completely heartbreaking ending. But it works because the story feels complete. Even though everything didn’t work out, the story was done. Everything was tied up. There was this sense of “we won but we lost” yet the story is complete. AND the added bonus of being able to continue the story with its ending if they so desired.

Despite all of this there are so many things that they did well (angry Ezran and Terry’s realisation being my favs). Don’t get me wrong, I really did love season 7. But it could’ve been better and less fan service.

Thanks for listening to my little all over the place Ted talk. Let’s hope this isn’t the end, cause that would be very disappointing.

[coffee-master]

some little things for Kai in Au??? Like, does he look different? PLEASE DON'T WASTE KAI'S POTENTIAL WITH LONG COLORFUL HAIR (Nya in the movie was supposed to have something like that) 🙏🙏🙏

Will Kai have any subplots to diversify his persona? (which Ninjago didn't do with Nya)

PSLPSLPSL I NEED MORE INFOS ABOUT AU KAI 😭😭😭

Firstly, I'm sorry for keeping you waiting.

Secondly, this is the first time I see the prototype form the ninjago movie and WOW.

Now. I'll tell you about the hair and how it looks.

I needed to draw some of them to explain how it looks, BUT I'M WARNING I CAN'T DRAW? so it's littelary basics..

NOW-

Kai

In the beginning Kai very similar to the canon.

He was short messy hair. He also uses hair gel to make his hair look like his father's, but doesn't go too well with it.

With time passing by with the ninjas, Kai allows himself to experiment with his hair a little.

He doesn't need to work in the field every day, like he used to, so he doesn't need a short too practical hair. Moreoved he has more time to take care of his hair.

Kai growing his hair out and in the beginning of the season 5 he decises to dye a few strands red.

Because One red is his favourite color and Two to show indirectly support towards his sister (because well Nya is the fire ninja and her costume is red)

Kai still uses hair gel, but doesn't try to make his hair look like their father's.

Kai has red highlightd until the end end of the season 6.

The whole Nadakam mess/situation had a big impact on him and Cole, but in the end Kai got more even confidence, because of that.

After that Cole helps Kai dye his hair strands blue and it last to season 7.

AND HERE WE COME TO SEASON 8

I might have depicted it wrong in the drawing, but his hair is generally long..

In season 8 Kai's hair are lighty dyed to blue.

He uses way more gel than before and tries to shape it to some sort of wave. (I wanted to make some sort of mix from the canon, but well Kai's hair are hard to draw.)

They are very long so at home he sometimes puts it in a ponytail or braids it. (I wasn't able to draw) Very rarely, but he does.

Next Nya!!!

Nya

At the beginning her hair look just like in the canon, but there are still some changes.

Nya straightens her hair every day because it is naturally light wavy.

She keeps them also short and Kai cuts them regularly, since always.

It's almost tradition for them.

After Reboot season Nya is very devastated by Zane's death.

She blamed herself to a large extent for contributing to overwork and not performing basic routine activities in her life.. And she often forgot to straighten her hair.. She was a mess.

Her hair then were similar to her mother's.

Nya wasn't a fan of this look. She thought that short hair like hers, looked better as straight.

Nevertheless in the season 4, Jay commented that her hair were pretty. Nya started thinking about growning her hair, but wasn't sure.

She finally made her decision in season 5, after seeing that Kai started changing his hair-style.

In the season 5, when Kai dyed his hair, Nya was impressed and decided to do the same.

So during season 6 both Nya and Kai had had the same red streaks of hair.

NOW SEAOSON 8!

In the season 8 Nya decided to experiment with her hair.

She decided to grow them very long, but also wanted them to be part shaved. (Like on the picture)

She also decided to dye her hair on the sides red.

She stopped using the hair straightener a long time ago.

Fun fuct, Nya has to shave regulary and sometimes Kai or Jay help her with that.

HAHA I'm not the one who just wasted my time analyzing Kaia's hairstyles and styling on Pinterest juzt to do this! NOT AT ALL- (jokes)

I'll try to do my best to give you as much as I can. For now I'm trying to analizę his personality and tramua and how it'll have impact on each season.

For example.. I didn't mentioned it on Tumbrl, but on my work on ao3 "Master of Water" it's lightly mentioned by Kai, that he's afraid of forgetting his parents.

He's afraid because he can't remmeber their voices and barely remember their faces without fotos.

But that's not the sceariest part.

He and Nya lost them at young age.

But Nya (as the younger one, who was basically raised by Kai alone) doesn't recall any memories of their parents.

For her that are just some bunch of people that she hadn't ever meet.

THIS. This is scary for Kai.

He's scared, that one day he'll forget about the people that at dearest to his heart.

That he'll feel/remember nothing like his sister or it'll be just meaningless.

In season 5 Kai in the end overcomes this fear and his fear of water, thinking everything will be alright with his new family.

He starts living water and his power.

BUT THEN WE COME TO THE SEABOUND/CRYSTALISED PART-

Kai forgets about everything for over a year. Friends, paretns, boyfriend, sensei and his dear sister that he promised to protect.

Still as the one with the water Kai, when unexpectedly he remembers his sister, Kai is desperate and scared to come back.

He starts calling everyone he knows in the lantern in hope of saving him. He's scared and desperate. because he's afraid that in a second he'll forget again.

Then when Kai came back to normal everyting is diffrent.

His relationship with his own element is basiclly love-hate. Ups and downs.. In the infinity..

Kai is torn apart in crystalised.

He doesn't have powers and he feels both sad and relifed.

Sad because he can protect his family as good as before, but relived because this power made him forget everything what was the most important to him.

Moreover Kai sometimes feels of, while looking at the sea. As if he were in a trance, which is a side-effect of being one with the water for over a year.

....This guy needs therapy.

Anyway, I wrote myself off a bit..

First | More about AU | Previous | Next

[all-pacas]

META REQUEST: thoughts on what the gang did during their ‘summer vacation’ (not really vacation) between s2 and 3? particularly the fellows but also cuddy and wilson if ya feel up to it

Naturally my first thought was beach episode…

So, House was gone for eight weeks, which actually is a fairly prolonged period; we also don't hear about Foreman making his 82nd power play for the department while he was out, so I think Cuddy did the S6 thing of just shoving the kids into other departments while they waited for House to return. Foreman was definitely in Neurology, not a lot to debate there. Chase almost definitely was in the ICU or the NICU (depending on how soon Cuddy shuffled them around, he actually could have been working in the ICU while House was still recovering, which is… actually kind of insane to think about).

Cameron… is actually kind of interesting, because at this point she's not established to be super into emergency medicine — I'd assume if PPTH has a dedicated immunology department she'd have gone there, but it could be an fun option if she did end up in the ER; it could have been nice set-up for her, like, oh: she really likes this, she's getting her first glimpses of a World Beyond House. Considering she actually sticks with emergency medicine up to the series finale (Chase mentions she's in charge of her Chicago ER in Post Mortem), that could actually make a lot of sense: she's kind of… found her calling, and you could retroactively apply that to S3 in general; Tritter very much kills her last delusions of House as a heroic figure, she's willing to tip-toe in the direction of dating/relationships… she quits in less than a year's time. She found her Calling! What else is she going to self-discover?

S3 is actually a really fun season, because it does give the kids a lot of forward momentum: they're all leaving at the end and the show really seems to set it up. Starting with Finding Judas, Chase goes on one hell of a hot streak diagnostically, solving 2 cases and providing Vital Clues on 2-3 others; Cameron as mentioned is trying new things and pushing herself (and pushing herself past House); Foreman goes through a whole goddamn arc of bonding with young male patients faced with overwhelming odds who keep letting him down, before resigning and trying to escape and failing (we do not talk about the fucking tragedy of Foreman enough). And that two month summer vacation might actually have been interesting, because… it's the first time any of them have been without House, without one another, in 2+ years. The team spends 12+ hours a day together during cases, at least half the week. Even if, say, Chase and Foreman aren't anything resembling best friends, that's a lot of time to be shoved in a room with someone: they probably know every single asinine story from the other's med school experience, spend downtime having deeply boring conversations about TV or "I read this fun fact" or what have you, you know? The team is super closely intertwined, and now they're abruptly… not.

And I don't think they had separation anxiety or anything, but it's kind of interesting, you know? Cameron getting used to the ER, wanting to turn and ask Chase for advice on dealing with critical patients 24/7. Foreman in neurology, among his peers, kind of missing his loser coworkers. All of them with the urge to check over their shoulder for House, having to deal with the ways House's teaching style has molded them. I can picture Foreman surprise diagnosing a neurology patient, House style — he comes in and out of S3 with the He's The New House reputation — and everyone being a little bit surprised and in awe. Or, Cameron really enjoying the hell out of the ER and lowkey bothering everyone because she keeps wanting to be like "omg, there was this kid who sliced his finger off and I --" like they're all like we get it, you're having fun, "no no, okay, but then there was this woman, right?" Or Chase just experiencing no change because he was already the team's dedicated ICU guy, but missing House intensely and feeling weird about it lmao.

Random and specific headcanons I'm making up on the spot:

Cameron tried dating. For a hot second. She met some TB Guy-lite and went for dinner with him and he was a total bore and she hated it, and felt bad about hating it, ghosted him immediately, had a minor crisis about what it all Means, and then. Got bangs.

Chase went surfing. Obviously. He thought about going back to Australia for the first time in X Years and then just. Did not. Slightly guiltily. Went to Mexico instead. He and Cameron got drinks once or twice after work, just as friends/so she could ask him highly specific critical care questions because she is truly hyperfixated on the ER.

Foreman was absolutely thriving. His neurology department peers think he's great and smart and respect him, he managed to do a very cool House-like solve twice, he cannot wait to return to Diagnostics and show everyone how cool he is. He lowkey misses hanging out with Cameron (who he does sometimes hang out with in the cafeteria) and Chase (who he does not), but he downplays it.

[n7punk]

2024 Writing Wrapped

Buckle your asses in because this is a long one (when has it ever been a short one)

Stats:

Fics posted this year: 32 (it honestly feels like way more)

AUs: 25 Canon: 7

Updates (chapters, one-shots, etc): 97 (damn I thought that was higher too lol but that's an average of posting every 3.14 days for the 10 months I wasn't on hiatus and and posting 1.87 times a week if you include my hiatus period, and my goal this year was to hopefully update 1.5-2x a week on average, so that goal was definitely met!)

Total word count: 600,179 (my goal was 600k and I got it in with only a few hours left)

AUs: 400,695 Canon: 41,235

Fandom events: 4! (Big Bang, Sapphic September, AU-ctober, Sheratober)

Novels: 1

Personal projects: 2 (misc)

Writing streak: 730* days

I haven't actually written every day in there, I have a couple of rest days thrown in that I only allow myself if there are extenuating circumstances (power outage, sick, etc) where I give myself a word count of 0 because my counter still picks that up as writing. Having this streak is extremely motivating to me so it's worth the "inaccuracies" to have it force me to write on the days I normally wouldn't because I don't want to break it. Removing the freebie days from this year, they're 6, and going back to 2023 it looks like I had 1 since the streak started, so the "real" count is 723. When I port over my streak to next year I'll use the reduced number so it will be more "accurate". I want to keep those freebies in the single digits every year and I'm happy with that.

Retrospective:

1% of Catradora fics!!

that's how I started the year, posting 'stardust, glitter, and love', which let 'freak occurrence: confluence' become my 117th Catradora fic that took me to 1% of the tag (as of writing this I'm 1.17% even after taking nearly two months off lmao). This was a huge goal of mine I was honestly hoping to hit at the end of last year, but kicking the new year off with it was great too.

In late January/February I was working on EtB(LtF), but I got a little ahead and as I was slowly posting the final chapters, I also joined my first fandom event EVER! and wrote Lightbeam for the Big Bang.

The Big Bang was so fun. I want to shout out karo-lynn again for the absolutely GORGEOUS art that went above and beyond with multiple illustrations. Kitten Catra is soooo cute and the way the glowing effects came out is just 🤩 Getting to do Lightbeam for the Big Bang was really great because it was a "milestone" event for the 4th anniversary and the fic I got to write for it was almost a follow-up to my "milestone" fic because they were the only couple in freak occurrence: confluence that hadn't had their "home universe" fic come out, and Lightbeam was the genesis of a long-standing idea (kinda headcanonish) about Adora being the goddess of Etheria that I had, so thank you so much to Tippenfunkaport for arranging it because the final fic and art means so much to me <3 (and also even if I'm still working my way through them, there were a lot of good other fics that came out of it I loved reading!)

To my memory, February/March was a little slower working on MMaM and SYE, but I went a little crazy with OLIG in April/May and had so much fun on that project. I really, really needed it. I'm not going to get into it, but with stuff that happened in my family... this was honestly one of the scariest years of my life. I was trying to figure out why I have vague negativity associated with the OLIG project and then I remembered what was happening around then and realized it had nothing to do with the project itself and in fact that was the only thing that kept me sane. That's probably why I was having one of my troughs in mid/late-May through July. Everything I picked up after OLIG/the Big Bang I just couldn't spark my interest the same and I was tired, but I eventually settled on Slipstream and slowly wrote that for... ages. But I don't want to make it sound like I was depressed that whole time. March-June were really hard, but the main reason I didn't write much in July was actually because I was having so much fun, because I got to meet up with a bunch of friends IRL for almost two weeks. It was so incredible and ugh, I'm committed to making a meetup happen again because I miss them so much.

I think I finally finished Slipstream in August, and that's when it happened. I saw the Sapphic September prompts. I already did individual retros on Sapphic September and Sheratober/AU-ctober, but needless to say: I went fucking insane. The unhinged era returned. And I had a fucking blast. I do want to do more fandom events in the future, but we'll get to that in the future plans section.

I will say, after those events, I honestly felt a little tapped for solid fic ideas. So like, I have a list of 7 ideas I'm interested in (and 1 WIP I'll try to finish and post in January), but I have no thoughts for an actual plot for those 7, it's literally just a tagline, like "Wedding Crashers AU" and that's it (using What a Beautiful Wedding as an example). So there's something there but plot calling to me. The Catradora whirlwind combined with future plans I'll get into later (I promise I'm not going to keep saying that) motivated me to finally pickup my novels again as my next project after the month was over.

I also did something new this year and wrote fanfics without the intention to publish them at any point. I talked about how I lied to myself I wouldn't do it with SB,WCFM to make me start it but lowkey knew the whole time I was going to. That wasn't the case with these other two. One I knew would be bad and had no interest in making good, and the other was for my OCs. For both I wrote 10k in one day. And it was bad. But it was also good. It felt good and the quality or missing scenes didn't matter since no one but me would ever read them. I'm not going to make this a "habit" but I'm definitely open to doing it again, especially for my OCs lol. And though one day I would love to turn them into published characters, I think there's some kind of conflict of interest issues or something with me posting fic of them on the internet, so they will probably continue to stay just for me, but hey, let's talk about novels!

Novels: Oh My God What The Fuck is NaNo Doing

Alright. So, if you don't know, NaNoWriMo used to be a huge thing for me. I won it 4 years straight 2012-2016, and picked it back up in 2020 when I got into writing again because of Catradora. In 2020 I just did a collection of fanfic for it (SLAS/OTOS/misc), and in 2021 I did my first original novel since 2016 in it. When 2022 came around I was burnt out from writing a whole novel that year already, revising the one from NaNo, and trying and failing to start a third novel that summer, so I didn't do NaNo. And, uh. Well. In 2023 there was no way I was finishing even a fanfic project at 50k with adjusting to my new job, so I ignored it.

And can I say, what the fuck. Shit went down. If you don't know, there are plenty of rundown posts and like a 2 hour video essay on it. It's fucking insane. A lot of people lost the motivation to participate, and thus the motivation to write at all for some of them. Not me. I got these emails throughout the year begging and pleading they've changed and it made me actually consider writing a novel on my own - outside of Nano - for the first time in 2 years. I hit my stride and was feeling really high during Sapphic September and was like you know what I can actually do this, and god knows NaNo is continuing to pull garbage every day to keep that motivation up. Once I knew I was doing the events for October I thought it was perfect to do those two theme months and then take a break for my novel on my own.

I now have a week to finish the last two chapters by the end of the year (my goal) and I swear to god I'm going to do it. I'm at almost 90k (I know, I'll trim it in revisions, y'all know how I am). My Novelember 2024 retro post has more details on how that has been going. I just hit a run of writers block over ONE SCENE, but I'm past it now and hopefully these last two chapters will be fast. That's like 3 days each I should be able to do that.

And then... let's talk about

Future Plans:

For the first part of January, I'm actually going to be working on outlining a second draft for that novel I wrote back in 2021. It's a sister book to this one so I want to get it to a stronger place. I do want to finish and post the one Catradora WIP I have tho (brace yourselves it's very stupid). Once the Femslash February prompts go up, I'll start working on those and posting throughout February. I miiiiiiiighht do the Big Bang again if I have an idea I think will be long enough and "cinematic" enough for art. I know I'm going to be super busy 2025-2026 (doing a training course for work 6 hours a week this spring, probably changing roles in the summer, hopefully going full-time in winter of 2025/2026, definitely moving in 2026 and maybe doing a smaller move in summer 2025, etc) so I'm trying to be realistic about what I have time for while also trying to set myself up to hit my big goals anyway because I'm honestly so scared to go full-time because I worry I won't have any motivation or time to write. After the last year and a half of letting my novels languish I'm really concerned I'll never write them if I'm fighting through the difficulty of a full-time job while disabled too, so I want to set myself up for success with being ready to query by then because if I had an actual agent/book deal I think it would keep me motivated (or at least force me to work on them lol) and I want to get these novel out there, the characters are super important to me and the thought of never trying is horrifying.

My big goals for next year are this:

Participate in Femslash February of course, hopefully for at least 20 prompts, though I'd love to do them all if they're good ones for me (After February, I'll either work on Big Bang fic - which means I won't be posting anything - or I'll go back to revising novels).

Participate in one more writing/fandom event (whether it ends of being the Big Bang or something else like Sheratober).

Update/post fic at least 32 times (usually my goal is 1-2x a week, but I'm probably going to be on hiatus working on novels for a few months, so I'm kind of halving 52 weeks and then adding a bit more to it for this goal, hopefully I actually still end up with a weekly "average" but I don't want to set up myself for disappointment).

Revise my novel from 2022 at least once.

Get one novel to the state where it's ready to query by the fall (probably requiring 2-3 revisions, unsure if it will by my current novel or the 2022 one yet).

That's all I can think of right now, but I do want to end as I always do with my thank you for reading because without y'all I don't think I ever would have gotten the confidence to actually pursue publishing but all your kind comments and messages have really changed my life and helped with my imposter syndrome so much <3 Ignoring the confidence thing, I would not have written as much as I do with the motivation I do without those comments, so thank you so much 💖

[esta-elavaris]

2024 has not been my best writing year – not by a long shot. I’ve been pretty open about that, and not just because I’m very grateful for how patient everybody has been with me due to that fact, especially my longer term readers who were here when I was averaging five chapters of Catch the Wind per month, on top of whatever other fics I was writing at the time. This has been the first year this decade that I haven’t religiously tacked my word counts each and every single day, but honestly? I kind of needed that. No, I definitely needed that – and I’m actually very proud of myself for not punishing myself for it, either.

My best fic output years have, categorically, been the years where I was dealing with the worst crap in my personal life. Fiction was an escape from that, and it was a sorely needed escape. This year, thank god, I just haven’t needed that in the same way. When I moved to Scotland and my life became somewhat stable once again, I did try to dive right into a Milwordy attempt – where the goal is to write one million words over the course of a year, averaging out into roughly 85,000 words per month. I hit the halfway point before I crashed and burned. I hadn’t recovered half as much as I thought I had from everything I’d just been through, and I wasn’t doing too well at acknowledging that what I needed was to slow down for a little bit, rather than diving into the next thing and cursing myself 24/7 for not having yet taken the traditional publishing sphere by storm.

So, I slowed down this year. In the beginning, it wasn’t even much of a conscious choice. At the end of last year I followed up 31 days of 31 one shots by trying to do NaNoWriMo immediately after (and organisation I no longer support in any way, shape, or form), and by the time December drew to a close I was utterly wiped out. I was forced to slow down because I literally could not do anything but that, and then somewhere along the way I managed to embrace it, and I’m so glad I did. I spent this year learning to crochet – finally a new creative outlet that I really enjoy, without having any pressure on myself to achieve amazing things within it – enjoying myself, focusing on myself and my own personal growth, and just actually living my life now that it’s no longer something that just has to be tuned out rather than enjoyed.

Buuuut...now I’m ready to get back into my old ways. Because I do miss my old ways, and there was a time when I was that way because of enjoyment, rather than solely escapism, and I’m ready to get back into that. I miss constantly updating stories, I miss staying up until six or seven in the morning, having already binge-written five thousand words because I just cannot put down whatever I’m working on until it’s finished because I’m that engrossed. I miss it all. But I won’t get back into it without some concerted effort...and allowing my old competitive streak (solely against myself and whatever my word count was yesterday) to dictate my word count for the day. I miss the sense of accomplishment that comes with it, I miss how happy I know it makes my readers, I miss it all – and I love that I am ready to get back into it from a place of enthusiasm, rather than worrying that I have something to prove.

Which bring me to my goal. I do still have Milwordy gnawing at the back of my mind, it’s the one challenge beyond finishing the novel that has completely evaded me so far, but even i know it would be dumb to try to get into that immediately following my lowest ever output year. That means that the goal for 2025 is to have twelve consecutive 50k word months – it’ll take a little effort compared to what I’ve been doing lately, but it’s also completely doable. It’s the perfect happy medium, primarily because it leaves plenty of time for me to enjoy other things, too. Whether I’ll then follow that into a second MIlwordy attempt come 2026 is impossible to say, because I don’t know what my life will look like by then, but we’ll see! I’m also going into it with a brand new set of tech that’ll help me with that, considering that ‘til now I’ve been using tech with completely shot battery life that’s more of a chore to use than anything.

I’ll be documenting the whole process on here, because I do sporadically get asks from people who want to know more about how I approach writing (which is insanely flattering, by the way), but also because it’ll keep me accountable and it’ll keep my mind on the goal if I’m consciously discussing it.

I already have some posts planned discussing the more technical aspects – the tech I use, why and when I use it, different tricks I use to get words on the page each day, along with word count tracking and mining for inspiration, overcoming creative ruts, all that good stuff, which will be peppered in amongst monthly wrap-ups, and it’ll all be done on this blog, using the tag ‘esta’s 2025 600k’, organised in this post right here.

Aaaaand...it’ll be starting a little sooner than I anticipated, because I realised last night that if I stand a chance at managing this next year, December will have to be a warm-up month so that I don’t immediately hate my life come January. I won’t be as strict about hitting 50k in December – I do really want to, but I also want to hit a good happy medium of getting my writing habit back, without ending completely burnt out for the proper first month. Especially because my additional rule is this –

No words can carry over at the end of each month.

I have to write a minimum of fifty thousand words, every single month. That is the point. If I write 70k in January, that does not mean I start February with 20k already done. That’s cheating, and that’s not the point of this. Additional words are a great bonus and I won’t avoid writing them if I get really into whatever I’m working on – if I end 2025 with more than 600k words, great, but the priority is a consistent 50k every single month.

So, keep an eye out if you want to see updates, follow me on IG if you want to see more frequent stuff over there, ready yourselves for more consistent fic updates (finally), and get ready to witness plenty of existential crises as I tackle finally getting this fucking novel finished. I’m so excited for it – I’m so ready for it! Writing always feels like coming home to me, and I’m delighted that I can now approach going back to my old ways from a place of excitement, rather than pressure. 

[megumi-fm]

26th to 30th Apr; doa🚲 complete!!

hi. gah. okay. here's my wrap up for the month

📝 prepped for and completed the last set of internal tests for this degree [2/2] (which I got through after much cribbing and whining and quite literally projecting study topics onto my blorbos 👍 ) 📝 started GRE prep!

🎓 got some gradecard related paperwork done 🎓 spoke to my prof regarding my internship deliverables for uni—report format, certificate requirements, etc etc

📥 I voted! it was the first central elections since I turned to an adult and the whole experience was quite interesting

💻 completed a bunch of tasks for my internship

💻 made like a super extensive flowchart about all the work done at my internship which took me like a total of 20+ hours T-T 💻 finished preparing my Uni Internship presentation! 💻 submitted the presentation to the assistant guide, waiting on her response to make changes atm

🍶 7+ glasses of daily water intake 🎵 svt's new single is out and I've been going insane about it and thus this challenge comes to an end... I had started this off as an 18day daily habit tracker but then it kind of grew out into a challenge for the month. Special thanks to Yumi the loml <3 (@thelastneuron) for starting the Days of April challenge (Yumi idk when you'll see this but i miss you and I hope you've been kicking ass during your hiatus). also massive thanks to Zip (@zipstidbits) for leaving the kindest comments/tags on my post during the past week and to Tanishka (@booksbluegurl) who is literally the sweetest and has been sending in asks and keeping me company during this challenge <3

there's a lot more i wanna yap about in regards to how the month went but I'll leave that under the tags xD goodnight besties <3

month end brainrot

april started off with dips and more dips but by the end of the month it feels like I've caught up. productivity is a wave so as long as I keep riding at it i'll be okay.

also. progress is cumulative. even the seemingly inconsequential completion of daily tasks has lead to an overall improvement through the week. things add up

I spent a lot of time this month (and moreso this past week) feeling dejected that I've been leaving my tracker posts (and my digital planner entries) incomplete... but like. the whole point of trackers and planners (and this studyblr) is to get work done. work is the priority and the tracking is a means to an end. so if im getting work done that is already a win. yeah... i've had to keep reminding myself that

there is no one-tool-fix for tracking and journalling. what works for planning out one task will not work for the other. I need to strop trying to fit all my plans into one formulaic strategy box

on that note. it's time to return to handwritten journaling. digital journalling (notion + YPT + discord + tumblr) was fun while it lasted <3 but my brain needs novelty again so it's time i switch back. I think I finally have an idea for a system that could be sustainable for me... although I say that every time I switch to a new form of tracking. but hey. as long as it helps me get work done for whatever duration of time, it's good enough

using kpop and kdrama references to make notes and study really paid off. ngl I only did it cause I was super desperate but incorporating stuff I couldn't understand with a topic I really like paid off. It also gave me the motivation and momentum to study for much longer than I otherwise would have

last but not least. my water intake has been really good this month! I've also been eating healthy and I've been cooking more my phone usage has also been reduced by a lot. sure none of them have had a perfect streak but i started at zero and it feels like I've levelled up quite a bit. the exercise component has been a bit difficult to maintain given my workload :/ i need to figure out what to do about that...

yep. that's it for now. this month really tired me out, I think im gonna lay off daily challenges for a while. For now I guess I'll stick to my (bi?tri?)weekly tracker posts xD

[sacrifical-lamb-core]

Percabeth, planet au. (Except this is just a draft and is not the final product bc it's messy af and makes no sense)

@auroraofthesun1 @lemonsandsadness @ebony-reine-vibes (thanks for supporting me here it's making me really happy)

So if you've forgotten what which au god represents here u go bc I want everyone to always know and I have the clipboard feature on my phone.

Reminder that even though there are planet NAMES they are not related to the actual Roman gods. Separate thing. Like completely.

Mercury main: sea, stars, mischief

Venus main: sun, leadership, education

Mars: electricity, fire, mechanics

Jupiter: human brain, joy, mischief

Saturn: healing, kindness, flowers

Uranus: anger, war, protection

Neptune: music, beauty/romance, deception

Pluto: home,love, family, death

Perseus Jackson, Son of Mercury-

Raised by Sally Jackson and later Gabe Ugliano, Percy Jackson is the son of one of the most important gods, Mercury. Percys' abilities include general water control as well as more prophetic powers (the average demigod receives 300 prophetic dreams per year is a statistical error, children of Mercury, who's dad is the ruler of divination and the stars, is a statistical error and should not have been counted). As well as this, he also rules over mischief, similar to Jupiter, so those children have more of a mischievous streak.

Percy grew up with his mom and Gabe, and he had to attend school after school due to anger issues, dyslexia and ADHD (everything that affects demigods in pjo also affects demigods here). Tbh percys' backstory is pretty similar to pjo. He receives dremas about the future a lot and is running a small tarot business in every school he goes to. Its not that he really believes in it, but it makes him money and he's...surprisingly good. (Honestly I haven't really worked on his backstory a lot)

Annabeth chase:

Daughter of Venus, the Queen of the gods, meaning Annabeth is even MORE stressed. It also means that Thalia is her sister. Daughter of Fredrick Chase and later Niaomi Chase when her dad remarried, she is the daughter of the leadership goddess. So her powers include enhanced smarts and logic, excelling in the field of academics (with a favourite for architecture, but that's formed by herself, really). She also has light powers and is able to know every single law. All of them, depending on her location (I'm struggling to think of any other leadership ones, if u have any help a sister out?!).

She ran away at age 7, meeting her sister thalia Grace and the child of Jupiter Luke Casteallen (idk HOW u even spell this man's last name). They arrived at Camp. But thalia was HATED by her mother, and vice versa. Thalia was turning annabeth against the gods before Luke even had a chance frfr. Bur annabeth learns to hate her mother, too, partly because of thalia and partly because Venus never actually saved her. But they get to Camp, and instead of thalia being turned into a tree for her insubordination, it's Luke. This is because Venus thinks that if her daughters nearly favourite person, who was also not her child (annabeth, who still had potential to be manipulated) was harmed due to thalias mistake of hating her mom, thalia was follow the gods not to let that happen again. and it does not work. She runs off after a year and often sneaks in to try and get annabeth, who is mostly a vulnerable, lonely child who is in a camp which she was already skeptical about, is left to basically fight for herself and be very much manipulated by her mom. Who does. She manages to convince annabeth that thalia was wrong, that the gods love her and if she does everything her mother says, she can be a minor god one day and be loved by everyone

And it works. After years and years of convincing, she basically grooms her own child into being the perfect godly daughter and leader of the Venus cabin. While also being mean to her half the time. :) After a while, thalai realises that she's basically never going to get her little sister back or at least the one she knew. :)

I hope this wasn't bad :)

[yvesdot]

Well, this is new! I watched the entire VMAs (just about) for the first time ever, and here is my official writeup—less so for Dots (certainly not a public-facing project), more for all my friends I want to gossip with. Here’s everything I’m going to be talking about for the next few days that happened at the VMAs, with helpful links to all the available clips.

Before anything happened, Kendrick released a new song on Instagram. This immediately trended alongside the VMAs for the rest of the night.

*

Chappell Roan snapped at a photographer on the red carpet. It’s still frankly unclear to me what happened—in the video I’ve seen passed around, you hear a voice in the background say “shut the fuck up,” to which Chappell turns and retorts, “you shut the fuck up!” When they apparently protest, she shuts them down, saying, “not me, bitch!” It’s unclear whether the photographer in question was originally talking to her, or to another photographer, and also whether she was accusing him of saying anything to her. I’m not personally invested in finding out more.

*

Eminem opened by performing “Houdini” and “Someone Save Me;” I showed up halfway through with the volume on mute and had no idea why that man was wearing the world’s worst blonde wig. I do think the obvious visual reference to his original VMAs “Slim Shady” performance is genuinely cute. It is unbelievable he still rapped the “If I was to ask for Megan Thee Stallion if she would collab with me / Would I really have a shot at a feat [shot at her feet]?” lines with Megan Thee Stallion hosting.

*

Megan was adorable and an excellent host. She is so funny, so genuine, so easy to watch and so good at balancing being personable and competent. Honestly, she and Chappell gave some very similar energy tonight and it made me wonder if they know each other (I am not very aware of Chappell things—yet!) She was also, naturally, exceptionally well-dressed. The crowd absolutely loved her.

*

Taylor immediately won the “Best Collaboration” award for Fornite with Post Malone, which began a streak of 7 awards won that night, mostly for that one song, despite the fact that her latest album has been one of her worst-received by fans and critics alike. (This is not a comment on whether the songs on the album are good or not, just on the relative success in comparison with her past work and the reception of other projects nominated. It’s surprising.) Her seven awards were the aforementioned Best Collaboration, Song of Summer, Best Pop, Artist of the Year, Best Direction, Best Editing, and Video of the Year at the end of the night. This ties her with Beyonce for most VMAs ever won. She also claims a number of other records, but I am not going to list all that. 

I will tell you that she opened this acceptance speech with “Waking up this morning in New York on September 11th, I’ve just been thinking about what happened 23 years ago; everyone who lost a loved one and everyone that we lost. That is the most important thing about today and everything that happens tonight falls behind that,” and then continued as if this had been a normal thing to say and/or she had not said it.

I’m still frustrated at the timing of her endorsement of Harris coincidentally last night. It feels too obviously set up to quell rising fan anger and ensure every award she won would be “untainted” by people’s criticisms of her.

*

Megan recreated the iconic Britney-with-a-snake look.

*

Sabrina Carpenter performed a lovely medley. She opened singing “Please Please Please” (with the “motherfucker!”) on a swing, descended to a couple of audio clips including the iconic Britney line about Titanic from her “Oops! I Did it Again” music video, performed “Taste” with an astronaut and an alien (she did kiss the femalien, though Britney Spears (!) commented she ought to have kissed a girl), and transitioned into “Espresso” with a few dozen astronaut backup dancers. I loved her outfit and especially the lipstick mark on her thigh (!!?!!), and I have to give her credit for doing this insane performance setup in front of both Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, about whom “Taste” was allegedly written.

*

Katy Perry accepted the previously-announced Video Vanguard Award and performed a medley of tracks—in order, “Dark Horse,” “E.T.,” new track “I’m His, He’s Mine” featuring Doechii, “California Gurls,” “Teenage Dream,” “I Kissed a Girl” (rock version), “Firework,” and “Lifetimes.” You may notice that “Woman’s World” was nowhere on this list. Also, during their performance of “I’m His, He’s Mine,” Katy and Doechii scissored in a possible reference to Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s 2021 Grammys performance of W.A.P., and MTV cut directly to Orlando Bloom in a likely reference to the Britney/Madonna/Christina VMAs kiss where they cut to Justin Timberlake.

In my opinion, it was a great performance from the choice of tracks to the aesthetic(s) to her voice. She clearly still has it! However, people audibly booed when her name was announced and several times as she gave her speech, which, side note, opened with ““I did that all too on the first day of my period, if you can believe it!” It didn’t help that she chose to—well, look, here’s the whole thing, bold by me.

Can you believe it? Thank you so much to MTV for believing in my weirdness from day one and for helping artists extend their worlds beyond a song. There are so many things that have to align to have a long and successful career as an artist. There are no decade-long accidents. (a long, meaningful pause, during which people booed) So I would like to acknowledge a few people: my team who have been with me for over 20 years, direct management, and my label Capitol Records.

Trust me, it takes a village of strong people, a lot of healthy discourse, and a lot of group chats. My parents and my family, the deepest roots I know. We don’t always agree, but what a lesson that those disagreements can still be full of love. Thank you to MySpace, Warped Tour, and all the bygone places where I found a voice, identity, and a community so early on. Thank you to the friends that were there when my Jetta was repossessed. My Katy Cats: You stood by me for a lifetime, and the LGBTQ community who I recognize I would not be here without and who show me that you can be both kind and [bleeped out—”cunt”?]. Thank you to Orlando for keeping me grounded, celebrated, and doing the dishes. And lastly for my Daisy [her daughter], the only flowers I’ll ever need.

I’m excited when I look around music today, and I see all the amazing young artists who are operating with confidence, agency, vulnerability and authenticity. I’ve heard a lot of “Do this, don’t say that, wear less, wear more now. Hey, don’t cut your hair.” One of the biggest reasons I’m standing here right now is I learned how to block out all the noise that every single artist in this industry has to constantly fight against, especially women. I just wanna say with my whole heart, do whatever it takes to stay true to yourself and true to your art. Turn off social media, safeguard your mental health, pause, touch grass. And do what you were born to do just like I was born to do this. 143 comes out September 20. I love you!

I probably don’t need to say it, but I find it incredibly upsetting and disappointing that she would frame the criticism of her, which has centered almost entirely on her working with Dr. Luke, someone whom numerous women have accused of being misogynist and generally abusive, as “noise that women artists have to deal with.”

Also, I don’t have video proof of this, but they played a truly bizarre intro to the award where they called her “the queen of camp” and said “she’s a mother and she IS mother” and I don’t know what to do about that. They did play the world’s briefest audio snippet of “Woman’s World” during that.

*

Chappell Roan performed “Good Luck Babe” and nothing else, which nonetheless seemed to quiet upset fans whose shows were canceled with little notice last week due to the “scheduling conflict” of Chappell deciding to do the VMAs. I wish the mixing had been better; I could barely hear her voice! But the aesthetic was lovely (very Dorian Electra “Man to Man”) and the set was extremely well-used. She definitely seems unused to performing in this more regimented style, but there’s an infinite amount of time for her to either get comfortable with it or adapt it more to her usual performance method of running all over the stage.

*

Tyla won Best Afrobeats for “Water,” obviously. Lil Nas X (presenting the award with Halle) could be heard saying “But we already knew, though, right?” as she approached the stage. She gave the world’s most diplomatic speech which acknowledged that African music is (obviously) more diverse than the label “Afrobeats.”

*

Megan delivered an incredible medley performance: “BOA,” a sample of “Wanna Be,” “B.A.S,” a sample of “RATTLE,” “HISS,” and “MAMUSHI”—with a surprise appearance by featured artist Yuki Chiba, in a cool hat! And may I just say, for all-around stage presence, choreography, vocals, delivery, everything, Megan stole the show 100%. And that’s with all the ridiculous censoring she had to do! If you are not into Megan, you need to be, now. She is the moment.

*

Benson Boone did a flip (1:29) while performing “Beautiful Things,” a song I found myself hearing for the second time ever. It is apparently the song of the summer to many people. That’s cool! I genuinely had never heard it in my life before this week. He’s clearly an exceptionally talented performer, so let’s see where he goes.

*

Sabrina Carpenter won “Song of the Year” for “Espresso” and seemed genuinely shocked, somehow.

*

Halsey did an absolutely gorgeous performance of “Ego,” a song I hadn’t heard before but found myself liking. I should get into Halsey!

*

Camila, the other half (?) of the Camila-Shawn-Sabrina love triangle, with an album which underperformed (especially in comparison to Sabrina’s), faked out the audience (including her ex and his sometime-other-girl!) by pretending to play “June Gloom,” the closer from the standard edition of the album about why he runs back to her if he really likes Sabrina so much, and then cutting the recording off to actually sing “GODSPEED,” the closer off the deluxe version—and the latest single, dropped only last week. Apparently it’s the first track she wrote for this era, after a breakup with an entirely different ex. Point being, I give her a lot of props for just how much that moment rocked.

I suppose as a professional I ought to say all this is only allegedly what the songs are about. But, you know, we know.

*

You know Glorilla rocked the house down. Having seen her in SF, I could tell just how much she’d improved since then, not just in her performing skills generally but in her confidence. You go, Glo.

*

Chappell Roan won “Best New Artist” in a moment everyone saw coming a mile away and read her acceptance speech from her diary. She’s so cute!

*

Video of the Year went to Taylor and she shouted out “my boyfriend, Travis Kelce,” in her speech. This is not news, but people screamed like it was? She also told people to vote. None of this is really important to me but you need to know that I went to r/GaylorSwift again after several months’ abstention as a result of the way people were talking about it. People chanted Taylor’s name. Also, Megan initially opened the little card upside down, which was adorable.

*

Best performances of the night: Katy Perry, Megan Thee Stallion, and Halsey.

Most deserved wins of the night: 

Chappell Roan (Best New Artist)

“Espresso” (Song of the Year)

“Water” (Best Afrobeats)

“Mamushi” (Best Trending Video, though any pick might have been good)

“BOA” (Best Art Direction)

Biggest snubs of the night: 

“Not Like Us” (Song of Summer, “Fortnight”)

“Paparazzi” (VMAs Most Iconic Performance, “Roar” — a case where any other pick would have been better)

Sabrina Carpenter (Artist of the Year, Taylor Swift)

Glorilla & Megan Thee Stallion’s “Wanna Be” (Best Collaboration, “Fortnight”)

Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter (Best Pop, Taylor Swift)

“Too Sweet” (Best Alternative, “Beautiful Things”)

“Von dutch” (Best Cinematography, “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)”)

“Rush” by Troye Sivan and “greedy” by Tate Mcrae (Best Choreography, “Houdini”)

Additionally, “Espresso” was not nominated for Song of Summer (“Please Please Please” was), and Britney’s “Slave 4 U” was not nominated for VMAs Most Iconic Performance.

Here’s the full list of nominations and wins. 

Here’s my compilation of favorite outfits. Katy Perry wore a QR code tramp stamp which led to preorders for her album.

*

Other thoughts:

LISA and Anitta and Rauw Alejandro’s performances were also great! I don’t know that this was the best intro to their songs (my stream was not excellent quality) but I’m glad I stuck around!

Ads for HIV medication and Kamala Harris played throughout the night. There was one ad of Camila’s “I LUV IT” playing while she did insane things and drank Bacardi that almost made me dislike the song.

Charli not being anywhere near this event was criminal. I know she has the Sweat tour to rehearse for (I’m going to see her! AHHHH!!!!) but I really felt her absence. People also expected Taylor and Ariana to perform, and neither of them did—Ariana wasn’t even present! Lady Gaga wasn’t, either, which is a possible reason “Paparazzi” didn’t win Most Iconic VMAs Performance; apparently the VMAs prefer to give awards to artists who are present so they can give a live speech. Meanwhile, they gave Artist of the Year to Taylor Swift for the second year in a row and didn’t air it because she was walking in and out. Make of that what you will.

I successfully predicted the results of 5 awards (Best New Artist: Chappell Roan, Best Afrobeats: Tyla, Best Direction: Fortnight, Best Editing: Fortnight, and Video of the Year: Fortnight). Next year I might just start gambling and put it all on TSwift; it seems an easy victory.

Let me know if you want more of this sort of thing! I've done it for presidential debates in the past, too, though that was Patreon-exclusive. Heck, if I wasn't on hiatus, this might have been, too ^__^

[its-jaytothemee]

Tonight...And Every Night - Chapter 7

Pairing: Astarion x Tav, Halsin x Tav; Astarion and Tav POVs

Word count: 2,000; Chapter 7, Tav POV

Rating: Mature

Read on AO3

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Summary: Tav fails to convince Astarion to reject the Rite of Profane Ascension and refuses to help him complete it. He leaves her and the party, but regrets his choices later. Angsty and fluffy, POVs from both Astarion and Tav.

Tags: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Spawn!Astarion, Angst w/ Happy Ending

Author's Note: This was inspired by my playthrough where I somehow failed all of the persuasion checks for Astarion after the Cazador fight, leaving me obviously devastated. Much longer chapter incoming!

Tav stood completely still, barely breathing. She blinked a few times, worried that this may be an illusion.

“How long have you been there?” She asked, releasing her held breath.

“Long enough.” Astarion paused. “Did you mean what you said?” He asked quietly.

She continued staring at him, saying nothing.

“When you said you could forgive me.” His voice was soft and hopeful.

“That depends on what you say next.”  Her pain seeped into every syllable of her words. She was barely able to get them out before the tears came back into her eyes. Her fingers dug deeper into Halsin’s hand.

“Fair enough.” He took a deep breath before continuing.

“Tav…I’m…” He paused for a moment and let out a large sigh, “I am so sorry. Words alone will never heal the suffering I caused you today. What I said was unforgiveable, even more so because it was you. You didn’t betray me, I betrayed you. I was blinded with my desire for revenge, I don’t know what came over me…I…” He started to stammer, his eyes darting between her and the ground in front of him.

“You were the first person in two hundred years to show me a shred of compassion, and I was grateful. But I never dared to dream that you could love someone like me. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t even believe that love was real. To me, it was just a fairy tale to help everyone sleep better at night, to keep them hopeful. Then…there was you.” He paused, looking down at his hands, still stained with Cazador’s blood. Tav watched him carefully, watching his expressions and listening closely to the tone of his voice.

“I understand if you never want to see me again,” he continued, lifting his head back up to look into her eyes, “but if you’ll give me one last chance, I promise you I will work to be the person you see in me. I…I want to be someone you can be proud of; I want to be someone who deserves you, Tav. I want to learn to live again – with you if you’ll have me. And if I can’t have that, I would happily start over with you from the beginning, as friends, as travelling companions. I cannot fathom the idea of no longer having you in my life. I’d rather live a thousand years having you as an acquaintance than live another day knowing I could never see your face again.”

Her bottom lip was quivering as the tears kept flowing down her cheeks.  She still couldn’t bring herself to move.

“But know this Tav,” he continued, “if you ask it of me, I will leave. I will find my way back into the shadows, and I will not trouble you again. It would be nothing less than what I deserve. I simply could not have lived with myself if I did not tell you how I feel.” The next breath he took was much shakier, and Tav could see that he was crying now.

“I…I love you, Tav. You didn’t take everything from me, you are everything to me.” When he looked back up to her, his soft, red eyes were a silent plea. The tear streaks on his face tinted with dried blood. She desperately searched his face for any signs of deception, but as far as she could tell he just looked terrified.

Suddenly, a memory came creeping back to her, the dark air around her transforming into swirling shadows.

The camp was silent, Tav couldn’t sleep and had decided to check the fires around the perimeter of camp. She didn’t think she would ever get used to the eerie darkness of these shadow cursed lands. A small whimper from somewhere behind her caused her to jump as she adjusted a torch. Grabbing the dagger at her belt, she slowly worked her way toward the sound. To her surprise, the sound was coming from Astarion’s tent. She stowed her dagger, and quietly pushed her way inside.

“Astarion?” She asked gently, reaching her hand out to rest on his back. Her fingers lightly ran across the slightly raised skin that made up the infernal scars on his back. He startled awake at her touch, breathing heavily.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s just me.” She tried to keep her voice as soothing as possible.

Even so, the look on his face was one of pure agony. She gave him a moment to process his surroundings. As his breathing slowed and he seemed to recognize that he wasn’t in any danger, he was finally able to speak.

“Oh, hello darling.” He said, still slightly out of breath. “Is something the matter?”

She looked at him, confused.

“No, everything’s okay, I just heard sounds coming from your tent and came to check on you.” She said, trying to avoid upsetting him further.

“Ah…I see…well…” he leaned back, seemingly trying to gather his thoughts, “as you can see I’m perfectly…fine.” He paused for a long moment before the word ‘fine.’ She watched as his face fell again, and she realized that he was afraid.

Tav tentatively reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. He ever so slightly leaned into her touch. She still wasn’t sure how much intimacy he was comfortable with. She didn’t want to push him, but she was aching to hold him, to let him know he was safe. While lost in her thoughts, Astarion suddenly lunged at her, throwing his arms around her waist and squeezing her tight. She returned the gesture, happily. He cried into her shoulders, taking ragged, gasping breaths. His arms were shaking, he desperately clung to her as if she was the only thing anchoring him to this plane. She softly stroked his back and his hair, doing whatever she could think of to try and calm him.

“You’re…you’re alright.” He sobbed into her shoulder.

“Of course I am, I’ve just been in my tent trying to rest.” She continued to hold him tight against her, still slightly confused.

“It…it was Cazador. He had you…” He took a deep gasping breath. “He made me watch as he carved…you were screaming.”

“I’m alright, my love. It was only a dream...” She held his trembling body close to her until his breathing returned to normal.

 Astarion hardly talked about Cazador. From what little she knew, it was easy to tell that he was a masochistic lunatic. What she didn't realize was that even without being able to control him, he was still able to torture Astarion from afar. He haunted his dreams even while miles away, unable to touch him. She knew he had suffered greatly at his master's hands, but just now realized how truly tormented Astarion's soul was as he held her tightly. He didn’t only fear for his own life, but that of anyone he dared to care about.

It was now that she realized that this was going to take a significant amount of time to heal, and that the healing couldn't truly start until Cazador was dead and gone. He would carry the scars of his torment for the rest of his life, constantly reminding him of that time. A pain stabbed at her chest, suddenly anxious that she couldn’t truly help him, that maybe he was too far gone. What could she possibly offer to offset two hundred years of pure malice? She laid him down next to her on the bedroll and held his head to her chest, still stroking his hair.

“Will you stay?” He managed to croak out between his shallow breaths.

“I’m right here with you. I’ll always be right here with you.” She whispered the promise into his ear. She also made another promise, silently. I’ll help you get through this, my love. You’ll live freely again, I promise.

Tav was suddenly back at their camp, the cool evening air was causing small bumps to rise on her arms. She found herself looking back into Astarion’s pleading eyes and faced with another choice.

Her mind was spinning. She never expected that he would actually come back, but was it enough? She kept her gaze locked on him as she thought through their time together. He had come so far, but still had so much further to go. He had used her and manipulated her for his own gain. But he had also dove in front of arrows for her, he stood up for her when others sought to cross her boundaries even though he couldn’t set any of his own. Despite everything, he still followed her, helped her, and believed in her. She knew that he had never known an ounce of leniency or forgiveness in his long life, yet here he was. Trusting and hoping that she would be the first person to give it to him. He knew all too well that she could crush him right here and now. He knew there was a possibility that she would be the proof he needed that he wasn’t worthy of redemption. He had to know that there was a very good chance she would send him away forever. And he still came back.

Yes, she was angry, she was still hurt, but in that moment, she was also so godsdamned proud of him. She thought back to her silent promise, her worry that she had nothing to offer him. Now what she could see as easily as the familiar lines on his face, was that he needed to feel forgiveness. He needed to know that he wasn’t alone, and if he would allow it, he would never have to be again. Halsin’s words rang in her ears, she didn’t want to think of her kindness as a weakness anymore.

She let go of Halsin’s hand and took small steps forward, slowly closing the gap between her and Astarion. Only a couple of steps away now, she was still not fully convinced that this wasn’t all some elaborate illusion. She hesitantly reached out her hand to touch his cheek, just to prove that it was really Astarion standing in front of her. The familiar feel of his cool, smooth skin greeted her fingers. He turned his face into her hand, closing his eyes. With that, she couldn’t hold back any longer.

Tav grabbed Astarion by his cloak and threw her arms around him, burying her face in his neck. It took him a moment for him to hug her back, almost as if he didn’t believe it was happening. She cried into his neck, digging her hands into his back and his hair, trying to pull him closer. He cradled the back of her head, his other hand wrapped around her waist as far as he could reach, holding her as tightly against him as she could be. He lifted her up off the ground slightly as she clung to him.

“You came back.” She choked out between her sobs.

He pulled away slightly so he could grab her face in his hands.

“Of course I came back, my dear. And I’m here to stay.” He crashed his lips into hers, kissing her deeply. She broke away after a moment and pressed her forehead to his.

“Never scare me like that again.” She whispered.

“Never again.” He promised, as Tav wiped away the tears running down his cheeks. She kissed him again, holding his head in place against hers.

She nestled her face back into his neck and stood there in his arms for a few more moments, drinking in his scent. Tav knew there would be difficult conversations to come. They would have to face their spurned companions and even after all his help, she still wasn’t sure about Halsin’s feelings towards Astarion now. For a moment though, she purged the thoughts from her mind and relaxed into him. She allowed herself to be grateful that he found his way back into her arms, hopefully never to leave again.

[chelseachilly]

king of my heart - pt 7

i'd kiss you as the lights went out swaying as the room burned down i'd hold you as the water rushes in

pairing: reader x ben chilwell summary: disaster strikes at a chelsea away game... warnings: mentions of injury  word count: 2.8k

see my masterlist for previous chapters

As fall comes around and the leaves in London begin to change, you couldn’t be happier. Everything is going well for you - you’re excelling at work, you’re going out more and making new friends, and things with Ben couldn’t be better.

Chelsea’s season starts very strong, and the energy among the club’s players and supporters is electric as they continue their winning streak. You get the privilege of spending most matches cheering him on, whether it be from the stands or your couch.

When he’s not in training and you’re not at work, you two are inseparable. You make the most of the many wins Ben’s had lately - going out to celebrate with his mates most Saturday nights and being too incandescently happy when you wake up next to him on Sunday to care about how hungover you are.

With your lives now so fully intertwined, it just makes it harder when Ben has to go away for international break or an away game you’re unable to attend.

This week, it’s a Tuesday match against Brighton that you can’t make due to work the next morning. You leave work a bit early on Monday so you can spend some time with him before he has to go. Brighton’s only a little over an hour away, but the new manager prefers that they either bus or fly out the night before every match.

“I’m gonna miss you tomorrow, I think you’re my good luck charm,” Ben murmurs into your hair as the two of you snuggle on the couch watching some reality show.

“You don’t need me to win,” you insist, patting his thigh. “That’s all you, baby. And I’ll still be watching on the telly, cheering you on from home.”

“I know, I’ll miss your good luck kisses, though,” Ben smiles, kissing you firmly to accentuate his point.

“Well, you can have a congratulations kiss after you win and get your arse home to me,” you giggle.

You’re not officially living together, but you definitely spend more time at Ben’s than your own place these days. Charlotte is too busy with work and Mason to miss you much, though you still go back to yours to hang out with her whenever the boys are having a lads night.

“In that case, I’ll be home straight after the match. I’m serious - I won’t even shower first.”

You laugh and ruffle his hair.

“Oh, Ben, as much as I love you and want to see you, I wouldn’t subject your teammates to an hour on the bus with you all sweaty and gross.”

He pretends to scoff before leaning in to kiss you again, this time running a hand through your hair in a gentle motion.

You continue to kiss and hold each other a while longer until Ben knows it’s time to go. You offer to drive him to Cobham to catch the bus, but he says he’ll just get an Uber since you’re clearly tired from a long day of work.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night, though realistically, it might be pretty late after press and everything, so don’t wait up,” Ben says, holding your waist as you stand near the door waiting for his car to show up.

“Just wake me when you get home for your congratulatory kiss,” you smile, pecking his lips. “Now, go kick those Seagulls in the nuts and show them the Chelsea way, yeah?”

Ben laughs out loud and squeezes you tighter, shaking his head slightly. “God, I love you.”

“I love you too,” you reply, leaning in to kiss him.

You kiss passionately for a few moments, relishing the feeling of his body heat against yours before you have to be without it for the rest of the night and all of tomorrow.

You’re interrupted by a chime on Ben’s phone, signalling that the Uber is here.

“Okay, baby, good luck,” you say with one last kiss to his lips. “Call me before the match?”

“Of course,” Ben smiles, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Have a good night, sweetheart.”

He cups your face and kisses your forehead before heading out the door, leaving you swooning over your dreamy boyfriend.

Just as you settle back into the couch to continue watching your trashy TV and miss Ben’s arms around you, you glance at your phone to see he’s already texted you.

Ben ❤️ - 5:56PM Miss you already x

You - 5:57PM Clingy much 😉 But I miss you already too tbf xxx

-

The next night, you and Charlotte are sat on Ben’s sofa preparing to watch the match, you pouring a couple cups of tea while she pets Oscar.

“I love when Ben’s away and I get to enjoy his posh house and adorable puppy,” Charlotte says in a cutesy voice, ruffling Oscar’s fur. “But I get the sense you don’t share that sentiment.”

You roll your eyes. “No, of course not. Do you love it when your boyfriend is away?”

“No, but Mase and I aren’t nearly as clingy as you two,” Charlotte teases, making you throw a pillow at her.

“We’re not clingy,” you insist. “We’re happy and in love.”

“Same thing.”

You both settle in for the match with some snacks, ready to watch your boyfriends hopefully cinch another victory.

The first half is relatively uneventful except for one close shot on goal by Brighton that Kepa managed to block. Chelsea is playing a strong defense and retaining possession well, so you’re hopeful a chance will be created soon.

When the second half begins, you’re on the edge of your seat as Chelsea starts strong.

In the 60th minute, Reece passes the ball to Ben, who begins to run quickly toward the midfield looking for a teammate.

Then, out of nowhere, one of the Brighton players attempts to steal the ball and slides right into Ben’s legs, both players collapsing to the ground.

What follows is the worst sound you’ve ever heard in your life.

Ben is rolling on the ground, clutching his knee, screaming in pain.

“A nasty tackle, certain to be a yellow card if not a red, and Chilwell is in obvious agony. Chelsea’s medical team are on their way out to assist…”

The commentary, the fans, Charlotte speaking to you from a few feet away - it all fades away. All you can hear are Ben’s screams, all you can focus on is the screen as they replay the tackle over and over.

“Y/N,” Charlotte says a bit louder, grabbing your hand and snapping you back to reality. “Hey, look at me. He’ll be alright.”

You try to nod, but you can feel tears threatening to spill from your eyes and your heart racing in your chest.

On the screen, Ben is now covering his face with one arm and pounding the grass with the other as the doctors look at his knee and Mason and Azpi attempt to comfort him.

“I…it looks bad,” you breathe, now looking at Charlotte with teary eyes. “He’s not getting up.”

As another minute drags on and the Chelsea doctor motions for a stretcher to be brought out. Watching Ben being loaded onto the stretcher and given a pain reliever to inhale makes you sick to your stomach, tears now steadily streaming down your cheeks as he’s carried off the pitch.

“Char, I-I need to-“

“I know, you need to go to him, babe,” Charlotte says softly, finishing your sentence for you. “It’s gonna be alright. I can drive you.”

You nod, springing into action as you glance at the TV and once again see the playback of Ben’s pained expression. You rush to grab an oversized sweatshirt and your purse, and you text one of Ben’s best mates who you know has a key to come take care of Oscar as you have no idea when you’ll be home.

Within ten minutes, you’re in Charlotte’s little Audi, trying to get out of the London traffic and on the road to Brighton as quickly as possible.

You’ve texted and called Ben a couple times, but to no avail so far. The match is still wrapping up, but you don’t even care who wins at this point. You just need to see him.

A few minutes after the match ends with a goalless draw, you finally get a call from Mason on Charlotte’s phone. She’s driving, so you pick up and put it on speaker.

“Mason, how is he? Are you with him?” you say immediately, skipping any greetings. “We got in the car as soon as he got taken off the pitch, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“I…I’m not sure,” Mason admits, making your heart drop with his nervous tone. “They haven’t let me back to see him yet. He’s with our doctors, I’m not sure if he has to go to the hospital.”

“How bad do you think it is?” you ask, trying to calm your frantic breathing. “Be honest.”

There’s a sigh on the other end that you know can only mean one thing.

“Honestly, Y/N, I haven’t seen him in that much pain before,” Mason says sadly. “We can hope for the best, but…I don’t know. We’ll have to see.”

Your heart is clenching painfully in your chest as you try to the fight the tears, Charlotte glancing over at you supportively as she drives.

“One sec,” Mason says, and you hear muffled voices on the other end. After a moment, he speaks again. “I just spoke with the doctor and they’re taking him to the hospital. She also said he’s been asking for you, he might be a bit delirious from the pain meds. Can I tell him how far out you are?”

You feel another pang in the chest, wishing you had gone to the match tonight so you could’ve at least been there to hold his hand.

“The GPS says 54 minutes, just send us the hospital address,” Charlotte answers, reaching out to squeeze your hand briefly.

“I will, babe,” Mason says to her, and you can hear him in motion. “And Y/N, just try to relax. I’ll let him know you’re coming and stay with him until you get here, alright?”

“Okay,” you respond, your voice a bit quieter now. “Thanks, Mason. I’ll see you soon.”

After hanging up, you turn the radio on quietly - you don’t care what’s playing, you just need something to drown out the sounds of Ben’s cries still ringing in your ears.

Charlotte gets you to the hospital as quickly as possible, and you feel rage in your veins as you pull up to the A&E entrance and see that there are paparazzi stationed outside, probably hoping for a glimpse of Ben leaving.

“Do you want to look for another entrance?” Charlotte offers.

“No, I need to get to him,” you sigh. “It’s fine. They can take my fucking photo if they want, it’s not exactly breaking news that I’m visiting my injured boyfriend-“

“Hey, just take a deep breath,” Charlotte says, grabbing your hand again and squeezing. “Ignore the paps. You go in and I’ll park the car and find you later, okay?”

You nod slowly. “Okay. Thanks, Char.”

You climb out of the car and ignore the flashing lights and many reporters yelling at you, asking you about Ben’s condition. They can all fuck off, frankly. You just need to get to him.

You run up to a reception desk and begin speaking to the nurse there.

“Hello, I’m looking for Benjamin Chilwell, he was just admitted with a knee injury-“

“Do you have proof of relation?” the nurse asks curtly, raising an eyebrow at you.

“No, he’s my boyfriend,” you say, the word sounding a bit silly when it leaves your lips. Of course, any random girl could come in here and claim she’s dating a footballer. “Um, I can show you a photo of us-“

“I’m sorry, miss, but I can only allow family at this time.”

“Please, you don’t understand,” you plead with her. “He’s hurt and I really need to be with him, you can ask any of the Chelsea staff who I am-“

Before you can argue with the nurse any further, your tone growing more and more desperate as you grow more anxious to see him, you see a familiar face come around the corner.

“Hey, she’s with me,” Mason says to the nurse, who clearly knows who he is.

You run over to Mason and he pulls you into a quick hug. He’s wearing his Chelsea joggers and zip-up, and he looks exhausted from playing the full 90 minutes and the stress of Ben’s injury.

“How’s he doing?” you ask quickly, your eyes wide with concern.

Mason just shakes his head. “They think it’s probably his ACL, they just brought him here to rule out any broken bones and stabilize his knee. They’ll have to do an MRI tomorrow back in London.”

You sigh - you suspected an ACL tear, as did just about everyone who saw what happened, but you had foolishly hoped it was something less serious. This could take him out for the rest of the season, possibly even for the Euros, which would devastate him.

“I need to see him.”

Mason nods and leads you down the hallway to a private hospital suite. You see a few Chelsea staff before you see Ben, but when you finally lay eyes on him, your heart splinters even further.

Your boyfriend is laying in the hospital bed, connected to an IV, with his leg elevated and hooked up to some machine. It’s awful seeing him like this, still dressed in his white away kit, his hair still messy and sweaty from the match, his eyes slightly red.

“Y/N,” Ben says, his voice hoarse and his hand reaching out for you.

You waste no time rushing to his side, gently taking his hand in both of yours.

“Hi, sweetheart,” you say softly, looking into his sad eyes with your own watering. “How are you feeling?”

You know what the answer will be, but it’s still hard to watch his face even more, a grimace of pain overtaking him as he shifts just slightly.

“It hurts,” he croaks, leaning into you. “I felt it pop.”

You immediately wrap your arms around him, pulling him close and letting him hide his face in your neck. He grips your sweatshirt with both hands and you can feel his hot tears on your skin as you run your fingers through his hair, trying to provide him with any comfort.

“I know, baby,” you say softly, “it’s alright. I’m here, it’s gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

You wish you felt more certain about that, but based on the looks on the doctors’ faces and the way Ben is trembling in your arms, you can’t help but fear the worst.

When you eventually pull away, still keeping Ben’s hand in yours, you can see that there are significantly fewer people in the room than before. It’s only the two of you, Mason, and the head doctor for Chelsea, who you recognize.

“Alright, Ben, we’re just about wrapped up here,” the doctor says in a gentle voice. “We’ll get you set up with pain meds to get you through the night, and you’re scheduled for an MRI at noon tomorrow. I’ll be there to oversee everything, of course.”

“Thanks,” Ben manages to mumble, leaning into you still.

“I don’t want you in the car for any longer than necessary, so we’ve arranged for the club plane to take you home. It’ll be a quick flight and we’ll get you as comfortable as possible.”

Ben nods and looks up at you, and squeeze his hand in assurance. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got you.

They get him fitted into a big clunky knee brace and help him into a wheelchair to get him to the car and to the airport. You’re there the whole time, holding his hand and talking to him in soothing tones.

“I’ll drive home with Charlotte,” Mason says as you reach the car. “I’ll talk to you in the morning, alright, mate?”

Ben nods, clearly too exhausted for much conversation.

By the time you reach the plane, he’s nearly passing out from the pain medication, but you and the team doctors help him get situated on the bed set up for him. It’s in a separate room from the rest of the jet, giving you two some privacy.

“Try to sleep if you can, we’ll be home soon,” you say softly, sitting on the bed next to him and stroking his hair back from his forehead. “Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?”

He’s already got his leg elevated on some cushions, meds coursing through his veins and some of the best sports medics in the country looking after him, but you’ll do anything you can to alleviate his pain a bit more. You would do anything to take it away.

“No, thanks, love,” Ben mumbles, “thank you for coming.”

“Of course,” you say, smiling a bit sadly and leaning down to kiss his forehead. “Now rest. I’ll wake you when we land.”

more angst on the horizon...i apologize in advance 😔

next chapter 💙

[ros3ybabe]

Update Check In - October 7th thru October 10th, 2023 🎀

I am officially back home from seeing my boyfriend and now I am big sad because I already miss him again. I was not as productive as I thought I would’ve been while with him these last three days but I’m also not mad about my lack of stuff done. I got some quality time with him and I am so happy with that. I did do some things that would count s productivity, such as some Japanese studying and a short amount of homework. I think I’ll use this post as a motivator for some stuff I need to do with a little bit of what I did this weekend.

🩷 What I Accomplished -

Kept up Duolingo daily streak

Kept up Busuu daily streak

Began working in Lesson One in Genki I

Submitted and passed Psyc Quiz for Chapter 7

Began using LingQ for Japanese

Looked into Kanji learning books

so yes, I didn’t accomplish much but again, not mad. I am still happy with what I did accomplish. I also really enjoy the Genki I textbook so far, I’m still trying to figure out a good note taking technique for myself with this textbook but I really like writing down the end of lesson practice exercises. I think I want to get better at reading and writing, and listening, and my goal is to start italki lessons by December/Jaunary. If I don’t start my italki lessons until a bit later tho, I won’t be upset because I know learning Japanese is a long process and something I’ll be working on for a good chunk of my life.

🩷 ToDo Personal Today, Oct 11 -

Wash bed sheets + pillowcases

Wash + put away all laundry (clothes)

Do dishes

Continue to work on Genki I lesson one

Maintain Duolingo streak

Maintain Busuu streak

Use Renshuu

Look for some more affordable Japanese language resources for my IPad

Talk to my boyfriend in video call

Make a shopping list for language tracker/bullet journal (I get paid tomorrow)

Make a schedule/routine for working out (I’m going back to the gym next week!)

🩷 ToDo Academic for Today, October 11 -

Lifecycle nutrition chart for NUTR

Lab 7 Pre Lab for my Anatomy Lab

Discussion 3 for NUTR

Culinary chapter 10 quiz

not much academic stuff on the list for the day but I’m trying to take it a little easier with my school things as I am exhausted from a long day of flying and airports yesterday. However, I am using today as like, a set up day for my upcoming days/week. Productive planning is basically my goal for today with a little bit of actively doing some work. I am excited to start my language tracking bullet journal and plan some stuff for working out as I am planning on going back to the gym next week. I want to start with light cardio for the first week just to get me in the habit of going and then after I’m going to step back into the weight room and start lifting light. My boyfriend got me motivated to work on my mental and physical health a bit better, so I’m definitely excited!

I feel with the exercising, it will help me manage my stress better, which I feel will lead to better mood and better food choices. Exercising alone is enough of a motivator to take my nutrition more seriously. I’m more focused on the mental and emotional health aspect of working out than I am the physical stuff, but I’m excited for all the benefits regardless. I just want to take better care of my health in every aspect, in a way that aligns with my values. Hopefully I will have better posts full of more information and stuff I’ve done during the day once I get all areas in my life back in balance with each other.

that’s all for now! I appreciate all of you who read and comment and send me the most encouraging and supportive messages, you all keep me motivated and inspired to continue being my most authentic self and help me feel comfortable with expressing myself in this community. I am so grateful for everything that goes into this blog and everything it’s done for me and the direction it’s helped me guide my life in! Much love to all of you <3

til next time lovelies 🩷🤍