#why is this my most popular post as of late
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winksasleeplesseye · 2 years ago
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writing, in theory: fun
writing, in practice: [unintelligible noises] [sobs] [maniacal laughter] [screams]
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restinpeacesensei · 7 months ago
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traditional style 💖
#akoya gero#gero akoya#cute high earth defense club love#binan koukou chikyuu bouei bu love!#boueibu#my art#my akoya wanted to join in the vintage dress-up party too!! \;;w;;/#ognvuhgh i wanted to have this done earlier bc other people were doing art so fast for the new outfits but it got dragged out#it was Mostly done a few days ago and i made final edits and was going to post it just before i rushed out to work#i put it up then i was like '??? wait there's a color blob in the wrong place i thought i fixed that???'#i was down to my last minute and didn't have time to do it so i was like auuuughhgh and took the whole thing down#on the Next day i opened the file again to see what was wrong and the color blob was NOT THERE#so im like ??? why did it suddenly appear again in the png. so i looked and i made an error in naming my files#i accidentally named one of the versions 30 instead of 03 so it sorted into the last place instead of the actual most recent version (07)#so that is the reason i ended up being 1 minute late to work. and the lesson to me is i should not try to post at the absolute last minute#(i say this but if i don't get smth done i can't stop thinking about it. it bothers me constantly to have something almost finished but not#(and then it's difficult for me to focus on other tasks so this is why i feel like i have to just get it done before i switch tasks)#anyway i wasn't totally sure what era the traditional outfits are supposed to be from. im not knowledgeable about fashion actually T.T#i googled 'when were suspenders popular' and ended up just looking at old photos and clothing patterns from the 30s-40s#photos from back then were black-and-white can you believe it.. you have to actually look at drawings and paintings to find color#everyone who left me messages elsewhere: THANK YOU SO MUCH!! \>/////</ i will reply soon!! \;;W;;/
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pepsimaxolotl · 10 months ago
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Has anyone else been struggling with a problem where the top of your dash (follower page not for you or most popular or whatever) is the same few posts by mostly the blogs with the biggest follower counts that you're following :/
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Yeah, you should only create for yourself, but if I'm putting it out there I would like to know that I'm not just endlessly shouting into the void
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always-a-slut-4-ghouls · 6 months ago
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I think someone put the brain of a mouse or maybe a squirrel inside my head at some point because all winter I was like “I crave nuts and seeds” and now that it’s getting warmer and brighter out my brain keeps going “it’s fruit time”
Like, modern transportation has made it possible to move many fruits all over the world (in theory) all the time! But the primal early plesiadapiform part of my brain is like “you must eat what is available this season”
#I was going to go with euarchonta or plesiadapiform brain but I think the early members of both of those groups were from a tropical#ecosystem. if I’m wrong though and either are from more seasonal environments I could change what I used#actually. wait. plesiadapis is from the late Paleocene. yes. but tropical plants have reproductive cycles too#do they generally vary by season or are they just doing it all at their own pace by species#I am from a very cold seasonal climate that gets hot af in summer but is pretty cold for a good five-ish months#not all equally cold#it’s bad for our environment if it doesn’t get cold as balls for a bit every winter#and we didn’t really get that this winter. but that’s not my point!#I mean to say I can’t remember how it works in tropical environments#if the plants just time their reproduction whenever in the year or if there are seasons for most plants at the same time#does that make sense? I’m using the primate-like-mammal. if it’s wrong then whatever#fuck it we ball#maybe I should have gone with a group further back in time but I couldn’t find climate info easily about things that far back and fuzzier#i am not the most familiar with primate evolution. especially early evolution of the group. I’m open to learning more#i just tend to fixate on certain other things like early mammals and horse and cat evolution#paleontology#emma posts#I like juice all year though#one day I want to try many varieties of fruits that I cannot access easily where I live because they can’t be shipped here#or they just aren’t as popular a variety on an industrial scale#maybe one day i will have a big greenhouse and i will be able to grow the banana varieties I want to try#I can see why some plant varieties aren’t grown on a large scale. some of these bitches are SUPPOSED to be able to grow in zone four but#they refuse to work with me! blueberries make sense. the soil here is nowhere near acidic enough and they would need to be in a pot or#whatever. ya know? but some plants just won’t! or I get them and then the weather here which would NORMALLY work is different that season
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yeoldenews · 10 months ago
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A Guide to Historically Accurate Regency-Era Names
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I recently received a message from a historical romance writer asking if I knew any good resources for finding historically accurate Regency-era names for their characters.
Not knowing any off the top of my head, I dug around online a bit and found there really isn’t much out there. The vast majority of search results were Buzzfeed-style listicles which range from accurate-adjacent to really, really, really bad.
I did find a few blog posts with fairly decent name lists, but noticed that even these have very little indication as to each name’s relative popularity as those statistical breakdowns really don't exist.
I began writing up a response with this information, but then I (being a research addict who was currently snowed in after a blizzard) thought hey - if there aren’t any good resources out there why not make one myself?
As I lacked any compiled data to work from, I had to do my own data wrangling on this project. Due to this fact, I limited the scope to what I thought would be the most useful for writers who focus on this era, namely - people of a marriageable age living in the wealthiest areas of London.
So with this in mind - I went through period records and compiled the names of 25,000 couples who were married in the City of Westminster (which includes Mayfair, St. James and Hyde Park) between 1804 to 1821.
So let’s see what all that data tells us…
To begin - I think it’s hard for us in the modern world with our wide and varied abundance of first names to conceive of just how POPULAR popular names of the past were.
If you were to take a modern sample of 25-year-old (born in 1998) American women, the most common name would be Emily with 1.35% of the total population. If you were to add the next four most popular names (Hannah, Samantha, Sarah and Ashley) these top five names would bring you to 5.5% of the total population. (source: Social Security Administration)
If you were to do the same survey in Regency London - the most common name would be Mary with 19.2% of the population. Add the next four most popular names (Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah and Jane) and with just 5 names you would have covered 62% of all women.
To hit 62% of the population in the modern survey it would take the top 400 names.
The top five Regency men’s names (John, William, Thomas, James and George) have nearly identical statistics as the women’s names.
I struggled for the better part of a week with how to present my findings, as a big list in alphabetical order really fails to get across the popularity factor and also isn’t the most tumblr-compatible format. And then my YouTube homepage recommended a random video of someone ranking all the books they’d read last year - and so I present…
The Regency Name Popularity Tier List
The Tiers
S+ - 10% of the population or greater. There is no modern equivalent to this level of popularity. 52% of the population had one of these 7 names.
S - 2-10%. There is still no modern equivalent to this level of popularity. Names in this percentage range in the past have included Mary and William in the 1880s and Jennifer in the late 1970s (topped out at 4%).
A - 1-2%. The top five modern names usually fall in this range. Kids with these names would probably include their last initial in class to avoid confusion. (1998 examples: Emily, Sarah, Ashley, Michael, Christopher, Brandon.)
B - .3-1%. Very common names. Would fall in the top 50 modern names. You would most likely know at least 1 person with these names. (1998 examples: Jessica, Megan, Allison, Justin, Ryan, Eric)
C - .17-.3%. Common names. Would fall in the modern top 100. You would probably know someone with these names, or at least know of them. (1998 examples: Chloe, Grace, Vanessa, Sean, Spencer, Seth)
D - .06-.17%. Less common names. In the modern top 250. You may not personally know someone with these names, but you’re aware of them. (1998 examples: Faith, Cassidy, Summer, Griffin, Dustin, Colby)
E - .02-.06%. Uncommon names. You’re aware these are names, but they are not common. Unusual enough they may be remarked upon. (1998 examples: Calista, Skye, Precious, Fabian, Justice, Lorenzo)
F - .01-.02%. Rare names. You may have heard of these names, but you probably don’t know anyone with one. Extremely unusual, and would likely be remarked upon. (1998 examples: Emerald, Lourdes, Serenity, Dario, Tavian, Adonis)
G - Very rare names. There are only a handful of people with these names in the entire country. You’ve never met anyone with this name.
H - Virtually non-existent. Names that theoretically could have existed in the Regency period (their original source pre-dates the early 19th century) but I found fewer than five (and often no) period examples of them being used in Regency England. (Example names taken from romance novels and online Regency name lists.)
Just to once again reinforce how POPULAR popular names were before we get to the tier lists - statistically, in a ballroom of 100 people in Regency London: 80 would have names from tiers S+/S. An additional 15 people would have names from tiers A/B and C. 4 of the remaining 5 would have names from D/E. Only one would have a name from below tier E.
Women's Names
S+ Mary, Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah      
S - Jane, Mary Ann+, Hannah, Susannah, Margaret, Catherine, Martha, Charlotte, Maria
A - Frances, Harriet, Sophia, Eleanor, Rebecca
B - Alice, Amelia, Bridget~, Caroline, Eliza, Esther, Isabella, Louisa, Lucy, Lydia, Phoebe, Rachel, Susan
C - Ellen, Fanny*, Grace, Henrietta, Hester, Jemima, Matilda, Priscilla
D - Abigail, Agnes, Amy, Augusta, Barbara, Betsy*, Betty*, Cecilia, Christiana, Clarissa, Deborah, Diana, Dinah, Dorothy, Emily, Emma, Georgiana, Helen, Janet^, Joanna, Johanna, Judith, Julia, Kezia, Kitty*, Letitia, Nancy*, Ruth, Winifred>
E - Arabella, Celia, Charity, Clara, Cordelia, Dorcas, Eve, Georgina, Honor, Honora, Jennet^, Jessie*^, Joan, Joyce, Juliana, Juliet, Lavinia, Leah, Margery, Marian, Marianne, Marie, Mercy, Miriam, Naomi, Patience, Penelope, Philadelphia, Phillis, Prudence, Rhoda, Rosanna, Rose, Rosetta, Rosina, Sabina, Selina, Sylvia, Theodosia, Theresa
F - (selected) Alicia, Bethia, Euphemia, Frederica, Helena, Leonora, Mariana, Millicent, Mirah, Olivia, Philippa, Rosamund, Sybella, Tabitha, Temperance, Theophila, Thomasin, Tryphena, Ursula, Virtue, Wilhelmina
G - (selected) Adelaide, Alethia, Angelina, Cassandra, Cherry, Constance, Delilah, Dorinda, Drusilla, Eva, Happy, Jessica, Josephine, Laura, Minerva, Octavia, Parthenia, Theodora, Violet, Zipporah
H - Alberta, Alexandra, Amber, Ashley, Calliope, Calpurnia, Chloe, Cressida, Cynthia, Daisy, Daphne, Elaine, Eloise, Estella, Lilian, Lilias, Francesca, Gabriella, Genevieve, Gwendoline, Hermione, Hyacinth, Inez, Iris, Kathleen, Madeline, Maude, Melody, Portia, Seabright, Seraphina, Sienna, Verity
Men's Names
S+ John, William, Thomas
S - James, George, Joseph, Richard, Robert, Charles, Henry, Edward, Samuel
A - Benjamin, (Mother’s/Grandmother’s maiden name used as first name)#
B - Alexander^, Andrew, Daniel, David>, Edmund, Francis, Frederick, Isaac, Matthew, Michael, Patrick~, Peter, Philip, Stephen, Timothy
C - Abraham, Anthony, Christopher, Hugh>, Jeremiah, Jonathan, Nathaniel, Walter
D - Adam, Arthur, Bartholomew, Cornelius, Dennis, Evan>, Jacob, Job, Josiah, Joshua, Lawrence, Lewis, Luke, Mark, Martin, Moses, Nicholas, Owen>, Paul, Ralph, Simon
E - Aaron, Alfred, Allen, Ambrose, Amos, Archibald, Augustin, Augustus, Barnard, Barney, Bernard, Bryan, Caleb, Christian, Clement, Colin, Duncan^, Ebenezer, Edwin, Emanuel, Felix, Gabriel, Gerard, Gilbert, Giles, Griffith, Harry*, Herbert, Humphrey, Israel, Jabez, Jesse, Joel, Jonas, Lancelot, Matthias, Maurice, Miles, Oliver, Rees, Reuben, Roger, Rowland, Solomon, Theophilus, Valentine, Zachariah
F - (selected) Abel, Barnabus, Benedict, Connor, Elijah, Ernest, Gideon, Godfrey, Gregory, Hector, Horace, Horatio, Isaiah, Jasper, Levi, Marmaduke, Noah, Percival, Shadrach, Vincent
G - (selected) Albion, Darius, Christmas, Cleophas, Enoch, Ethelbert, Gavin, Griffin, Hercules, Hugo, Innocent, Justin, Maximilian, Methuselah, Peregrine, Phineas, Roland, Sebastian, Sylvester, Theodore, Titus, Zephaniah
H - Albinus, Americus, Cassian, Dominic, Eric, Milo, Rollo, Trevor, Tristan, Waldo, Xavier
# Men were sometimes given a family surname (most often their mother's or grandmother's maiden name) as their first name - the most famous example of this being Fitzwilliam Darcy. If you were to combine all surname-based first names as a single 'name' this is where the practice would rank.
*Rank as a given name, not a nickname
+If you count Mary Ann as a separate name from Mary - Mary would remain in S+ even without the Mary Anns included
~Primarily used by people of Irish descent
^Primarily used by people of Scottish descent
>Primarily used by people of Welsh descent
I was going to continue on and write about why Regency-era first names were so uniform, discuss historically accurate surnames, nicknames, and include a little guide to finding 'unique' names that are still historically accurate - but this post is already very, very long, so that will have to wait for a later date.
If anyone has any questions/comments/clarifications in the meantime feel free to message me.
Methodology notes: All data is from marriage records covering six parishes in the City of Westminster between 1804 and 1821. The total sample size was 50,950 individuals.
I chose marriage records rather than births/baptisms as I wanted to focus on individuals who were adults during the Regency era rather than newborns. I think many people make the mistake when researching historical names by using baby name data for the year their story takes place rather than 20 to 30 years prior, and I wanted to avoid that. If you are writing a story that takes place in 1930 you don’t want to research the top names for 1930, you need to be looking at 1910 or earlier if you are naming adult characters.
I combined (for my own sanity) names that are pronounced identically but have minor spelling differences: i.e. the data for Catherine also includes Catharines and Katherines, Susannah includes Susannas, Phoebe includes Phebes, etc.
The compound 'Mother's/Grandmother's maiden name used as first name' designation is an educated guesstimate based on what I recognized as known surnames, as I do not hate myself enough to go through 25,000+ individuals and confirm their mother's maiden names. So if the tally includes any individuals who just happened to be named Fitzroy/Hastings/Townsend/etc. because their parents liked the sound of it and not due to any familial relations - my bad.
I did a small comparative survey of 5,000 individuals in several rural communities in Rutland and Staffordshire (chosen because they had the cleanest data I could find and I was lazy) to see if there were any significant differences between urban and rural naming practices and found the results to be very similar. The most noticeable difference I observed was that the S+ tier names were even MORE popular in rural areas than in London. In Rutland between 1810 and 1820 Elizabeths comprised 21.4% of all brides vs. 15.3% in the London survey. All other S+ names also saw increases of between 1% and 6%. I also observed that the rural communities I surveyed saw a small, but noticeable and fairly consistent, increase in the use of names with Biblical origins.
Sources of the records I used for my survey: 
Ancestry.com. England & Wales Marriages, 1538-1988 [database on-line].
Ancestry.com. Westminster, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935 [database on-line].
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celestie0 · 8 months ago
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gojo satoru x reader | college au [18+]
kickoff ch.9 words you've been wanting to hear
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ᰔ pairing. college au - soccer player! gojo x film major! reader
ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is the most popular guy on your college campus. he's tall, funny, hot, not to mention he's the most talented soccer forward the school has seen in years. but he's also a frat dude, which puts him in a world very different from your own, as he spends most of his nights partying & drinking while you spend most of yours working on your annoying film major assignments. but when he reaches out to you for a favor, you realize that helping him out might have something in it for you too.
ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fem reader, fluff, angst, smut, college au, fraternities, sororities, partying, drinking/alcohol, romance, jealousy, pining, slow burn, opposites to lovers, friends to lovers, she falls first he falls harder, gojo being an idiot, marijuana use, sexism, sexual harassment (verbal only)
ᰔ chapter. 9/x (probably 12)
ᰔ words. 15.6k (WHY DO THEY KEEP GETTING LONGER)
a/n. HELLO MY DEAR KICKOFF READERS IVE MISSED YOU ALL SO MUCH i am soooo sorry for the wait on this one. this chapter felt very vulnerable to write for some reason lmfao, but i really hope it was worth the wait :''') see you at the bottom!! if there are typos or some things don't make sense i'm so sorry i literally gave up on proofreading this i just ended up raw-doggin it and then posting it
nav. masterlist
☾·̩͙꙳ moodboard no.1
♬.*゚playlist
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an additional author's note. hellooo ellie here. there are some additional warnings/tags for this chapter, i added them to the tags above, so if you know you have any sort of triggers, please refer to them before reading! but if you don't have any and don't want to be spoiled ab anything then you can keep reading lol. thank youu <33
--
The restaurant address that Kai sent you was just a ten minute taxi ride away, save for the five minutes you spent trying to evasively maneuver through the hotel lobby in order to avoid running into people you’re not too keen on seeing right now, a list that stacks up to just one person at this moment.
It’s a Korean barbecue place, it’s been ages since you’ve been to one, probably since they’re way too expensive for any sort of outing you could afford these days, but the crisp sizzling sounds of the grills and the savory air has your mouth watering in a way that makes you indifferent to the cost. Anything to get this churning feeling out of your stomach. 
It’s instantly brought to your attention that Hana’s tipsy off of Soju because she’s slid out of the booth the second you emerge to the tablestide, and she’s onto her feet to pull you into a hug. You hug her back.
“I’m ssssoooooooo glad you’re—hic—here,” she says, voice sounding loud near your ear, but her embrace is surprisingly calming to you.
Her face appears flushed when you pull away, and you give her a smile and a kind hold of her elbow. “I’m happy to be here, sorry for coming late, I just decided I wanted to have dinner with you all.”
Minato is pulling on Hana’s arm to get her to sit down, which she finally agrees to, and you glance to the left side of the table where Kai sat, meticulously turning over pieces of meat on the grill. His eyes are on you, and the seat next to him is empty.
“You look nice,” he says, eyes falling to your lap under the table once you’ve taken a seat next to him.
Your eyes fall to your lap as well. “Oh. Thanks. I wasn’t really trying to look any sort of way, though.” Just faded jeans with a few rips & holes you made yourself, way back in high school when that sort of thing was trendy.
“I know,” he says, smirk heard perfectly through his words, “I like that.”
You ignore him, a fleeting thought passing through your head of how annoyingly forward men are to women they’ve met within a day, just something you’ve noticed recently, and then you’re accepting the glass of Soju that Minato’s poured for you. Quick to tip it back, you feel a burn on your tongue that’s just enough to distract.
“Today’s game was pretty interesting,” Minato speaks up, picking up a few pieces off the grill with his chop sticks and placing them on Hana’s plate first before taking some for himself. You find the gesture sweet. “The first half was intense.”
Hana nods enthusiastically, elbows rested on the tabletop as she waves her hands around in the air. “Uh huh, uh huh, the boys kicked the ball like whoosh. Goes all over the place! Can’t get a—hic—can’t get a single shot. No, I mean me, I can’t get a camera shot. Not them, they can get the shots of goals. The goals of shots? Huh.”
“Alright, you’ve had enough,” Minato grumbles as he drags the glass of Soju that she was nursing away from her. 
Kai lets out a laugh beside you, his knee bumping against yours under the table. “I’ve watched so many of these soccer games for this job, and I’ve still got no damn clue what the rules are.”
You blink down at your empty plate for a second before grabbing the silver chopsticks laid neatly on your napkin, and taking some food from the center of the table. “Really? I’ve only been to a couple, and I feel like I get the gist of it.” Maybe it’s because you had a personal interest, though.
Kai lets out a low whistle next to you. “Okay, you’re a smartass then.”
You give him a sidewards glance. “Maybe you’re just dumb?” 
Your own words startle you a bit. Minato lets a laugh out, but under his breath, while Hana does absolutely nothing to conceal hers. Kai’s eyes just widen. You bite down on a carrot stick.
“Hey, hey, hey, y/n,” Hana chirps, tapping at your wrist, “do you know any of the soccer players? Utahime said you doooo.”
You swallow slowly to buy yourself time, but give a preliminary shake of your head before answering, “no, not really.” You catch a whiff of the cologne on your wrist when you lift your glass to your lips.
“Oh,” she sulks her shoulders and then sinks down into the booth again, her head falling onto Minato’s shoulder. The man stiffens a bit and then there’s a content smile playing at his lips. A hint of a smile develops on your face too at the sight when you put two and two together. What an adorable little crush. It makes you feel sick.
Kai pours you some more Soju the second you drink down the last of it in your glass, and you nod to him as a thanks. “Pretty sure most of my photos from the first half are fucked,” he says, dragging the opening of the bottle against the rim of your glass before pulling it away, “didn’t realize until way later that my aperture was way off.”
You bring the glass to your lips, inhaling before taking a sip. You’re about to speak up about that when Minato beats you to it.
“Are you serious?” he asks, disappointed, like they’re suddenly talking business now. “I better see some good shots. Your side was where most of the action took place. Like that through-pass, tight behind the defensive line, from Nanami Kento to Gojo Satoru before he sunk it a couple mins before the half ended.”
You choke a little on your Soju at the mention of Gojo’s name, and then all three of them are looking at you. You wave a hand in front of your face. “Sorry.” 
Kai grumbles something under his breath and then stuffs a piece of pork belly into his mouth. “Yeah, whatever, man. I’m pretty sure I got some good ones. Don’t worry.”
Dinner goes on like that, where you count the number of times Kai thinks that someone saying something funny across the table is an excuse to press his thigh against yours, but at least the cute way that Hana and Minato seem to inch closer to one another all night is enough to put you at some sort of bitter ease. But that unsettling feeling in your stomach from a couple of hours ago still lingers.
The four of you stand outside the restaurant, heels rocking back and forth in the cold as you all take up the last chance to debrief the day, and then Minato’s glancing at his watch.
“Alright, it’s probably time to head back. We can all share a ride to the hotel, it’s cheaper that way,” Minato says. Hana’s clinging to his sleeve.
“Oh, uh, I was going to stay here. There’s a cool camera shop around the corner. I was gonna check it out,” Kai says, pointing over his shoulder before glancing at you. “Wanna come? I saw they’ve got used film cameras.”
You twiddle with the hotel key card in your pocket. It’s cheap plastic, could break easily with just the right amount of pressure. Like your resolve right now. “Sure.”
He smiles at you.
“Alright, well I need to get this one back to her room,” Minato says with a sigh, pointing to Hana, “so I’ll see you all at the next game?”
You and Kai nod at him and then watch as he walks away with Hana on his arm towards the curb, pulling his phone out to call for a ride.
“Where’s this camera shop at?” you ask Kai once the silence between the two of you stretches out a little too long. 
“It really is just around the corner,” he says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jacket. He starts walking down the row of miscellaneous shops and establishments under dim street lighting, and you follow after him before the two of you circle to the adjacent end. A tiny shop in the distance catches your eye. The LED sign above the storefront was blinking sporadically, and read 17th St Camera & Rentals, except half the letters were extinct of any light. Next to it was a 24/7 liquor store.
It’s only when you walk right up to it that you realize the sign dangling behind the glass door that says closed.
“Oh. Bummer,” Kai comments in a flat tone. “I swear it was open before I got to the restaurant.”
You sigh, pulling your phone out to glance at the time. “Yeah, at 8pm? It’s past 10 now.”
He looks at you and taps the camera case still hung at his neck. “That’s fine. I’ve still got a camera to show you, anyways.”
You blink your eyes at him, suddenly feeling a bit exhausted and then glance over your shoulder at the curb of the street to see if Minato & Hana were still there waiting for a ride. You don’t see them anymore. 
A distraction. Wasn’t that what you wanted?
“Yeah, show me.”
Kai seems to know the area better than you, since he walks down the haphazardly lain sheets of concrete across the ground with more confidence than a tourist would. The thought occurs to you that maybe the newsletter photographers have eaten here before during their time in Kyoto.
“What made you start working with the newsletter?” you ask, glancing at him as the two of you walk down further, into what seems like a neighborhood.
He shrugs. “First job I could find out of college. I had a lot of freelance experience, so I’m assuming that’s why they hired me.” He nudges your arm with his elbow. “What about you?”
“I’ve known Utahime for a while. She was impressed with my work.”
“Ahh, connections,” he muses, “smart. That’ll get you far as an artist.”
He suddenly stops walking and peers off to the right, into a darkness that you can’t really make anything out of until you’ve spent a few seconds staring too. He walks in that direction, the loud echoing stomps of his boots on concrete no longer audible once he crosses the threshold onto grass, and you follow behind to what seems like a deserted children’s park. You wish there were more trees in the city. There are a lot here in the countryside, and it makes you homesick for something you’re not even sure of.
A gust of wind brushes through, rattling the set of swings hung on rusty chains. The wood chips underneath your feet feel stale, with no snap to them at all as you follow Kai through the playhouses set up in connected fashion. There are two picnic benches, one looks like it’s been freshly painted with faux effort to improve its image in the line of sight of the street, while the other has red paint peeled back to reveal bronze underneath the moonlight, neglected and tucked behind a few trees. The latter is what he chooses.
He slides into the bench, and he shakes his head when he sees you try to take a seat on the other side before patting at the seat beside him. “It’d be easier for you to take a look at my side.”
He has a point, so you sit next to him instead. Although at this point in the night, you were feigning interest. He zips his camera bag open and you take a better look at the lens. There’s no way it was as cheap as he told you it was.
“There’s no way this was as cheap as you told me it was,” you say.
He laughs, pulling the camera out and handing it to you. “Yeah, maybe the guy cut me a deal since I’ve bought from him before.”
You’re smart enough to put the strap around your neck, even though you’re only holding it a few inches above the table, because a camera like this deserves the care and respect. The material is minimalist and sleek, and it’s heavy in your hands. You click the shutter button, screen coming to life with a few mechanic chirps. “Woah. Is it LCD or OLED?”
“LCD.”
“That’s nice,” you say, “paying for the OLED just seems silly to me.”
“I concur, Canon. Color accuracy is king.”
He shuffles to pull something out of his pocket while you continue to inspect the camera in your hands, and you see him fidget with said thing over the table in the corner of your eye. The flick of something and the light of something makes you turn your head to face him, and he’s pinching the end of a joint to his mouth, lighting the other end.
He gives you a glance when you stare for too long, inhaling from it before pulling it from his mouth. “What?” You can see the smoke leave his mouth in the chill of the air.
“Is that why you chose the secluded bench?”
“I did? Didn’t even notice.”
You blink at him, and he places his elbow on the table to lean closer to you. 
“Do you mind it?” he asks.
“No, not really.”
“Wanna smoke with me?” Two fingers pinching the origin of smoke tilt towards you. “This is my good weed, though, so, I charge by the drag.”
“That’s ridiculous, and no thanks. It doesn’t suit me.”
He lets out a laugh, releasing whatever tension he was building in your space, and the smell of weed is nauseating, but at least it's a new sensation to you.
“You’ve gotta be the only film major on the planet that doesn’t smoke weed. How do you manage?” he asks, the orange flicker of his joint being the only color you can distinctly see under the similarly flickering street lights. 
Your finger traces the rim of the camera lens and is careful to not smudge the glass. “I think I manage just fine.”
“Yeah. With delusion,” he says, coughing, scattering smoke into the air this time instead of a clean blow.
You turn a bit in your seat to face him more, placing the camera down. “You’re extremely blunt.”
His eyebrow raises in amusement and you close your eyes with annoyance at the pun. You brush it off.
“I mean, seriously, I get you’re probably just looking out for me, I guess. I appreciate that. But do you really think my dreams of becoming a filmmaker are that far-fetched?” you ask. There’s a crack to your voice at the end that you didn’t like.
He sighs, setting his wrist down on the table. There’s a long pause where he thinks about what to say. Probably the most you’ve seen him consider what words leave his mouth next. “I was in the same shoes as you, y/n. A couple years ago. I, too, had big dreams of making movies. I was going to apply to film grad school as well, although you’re shooting higher than I was at the time. There’s no way I would’ve gotten into UTokyo’s.” He tilts his head to the side a few times while looking straight off ahead. “I sent scripts in everywhere. To every fucking production company, creative agency, you name it. Never got a callback, not even once. While all my fellow grads were landing decent, respectable jobs.” He brings the joint to his mouth again, but he doesn’t inhale, just bitterly bites it. “I could’ve went on like that, but,” his brow furrows, “I’ve seen my peers torture themselves for years for those dreams of theirs. I swore I wouldn’t be one of them. Because they’re all delusional fucks.” He finally glances at you. “Are you one, too?”
Your shoulders drop a little and your lips purse. “I don’t know yet. It’s too early to say.” 
“It’s never too early to say, if the outcome is all the same,” he tells you. 
You consider his words for a moment. It’s the easy way out. You should consider yourself lucky. Everyone wants a reason, a sign, to turn away from the one thing they’re scared to think about. And here he was, giving that to you on a silver platter.
But if what you wanted was really all that fragile, then it means there’s nothing to show for any of it. For all the effort it took you to get here, and all the effort you’re still willing to give. 
“I’ll keep going until I fail,” you say, “or until I succeed.” It’s not really something you say for him, but for yourself.
He juts his bottom lip out and raises his eyebrows, slowly nodding his head, like he’s impressed by you. But his posture remains lax. “I mean, you’re working this job. You’ve got some sort of plan, at least. It’s not like I’m your parent to tell you what to do and what not to do.” He finally takes another drag, eyebrows pinching together at the same time his fingers pinch close to the burn of his joint to pull it away. “What’s that one saying? You can take a horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink.”
“Wow. You don’t sound a day older than sixty-five.”
He smirks at you. “You’ve got a lot of attitude, Canon. Where does it come from?”
You sink a little in your seat, turning away from him to look down at your hands that were still messing with the features of his camera. “My annoying feelings lately.”
“Feelings about what?”
You consider telling the truth. But you don’t. “My car is in repair and I’m not sure I can afford to pay for the bill, since things keep coming up with it.” It was the thing at the top of your mind at the moment though, for some reason, so partially truthful.
He laughs. “Yeah, cars have a way of doing that when you’re finally getting caught up on bills.”
“At what point does spontaneously picking up random, obscure jobs go from omg I’m so excited to have this opportunity to I just need the money?” you ask.
“You mean you’re not already at that point yet?” he says with a scoff. “Soon, then.”
You sigh.
“Y’know I used to work at this lousy cinema a few miles away from Central,” he tells you, hand tapping the table with a rhythm that makes no sense. “Busted my ass working minimum wage on night shifts because I thought I’d catch a big break in conversation with a director, as if Martin Fucking Scorcese would choose to host his opening night at a random Edwards in Tokyo.” His tapping on the table stops. “Tell me that isn’t pathetic as hell.”
“That’s pathetic as hell.”
“The things you’ll do for money,” he says with a sigh. He sounds detached, like it’s really just a message for you.
You lick your lips, skin feeling dry from the wind that occasionally brushes by, and when you glance at Kai again, there’s a grit to his jaw.
“Should’ve been born as one of those damn college athletes,” he grumbles, sucking in fast through the joint that was close to withering away. “Those fuckers don’t pay tuition.”
The harsh colors of the soccer team’s color-coded practice schedule on your phone are visible when you blink, as well as the exhaustion under Gojo’s eyes in the warm lighting of the hotel lobby earlier tonight. “They work hard.”
He looks at you. “I work hard, too.”
Your shoulders tense. “I’m sure.”
“You work hard as well.” Just to include you.
“Yeah.”
“I mean, you can’t tell me that it’s fair.”
Your mind wanders to some of the people you’ve met on that team, who have been nice to you. You think of Gojo, and the memory of him makes you wish you were with him right now. Despite everything.
“I guess it’s not fair,” is all you say, a tactic to diffuse the conversation, one that you’ve had to use twice with him today. The sound of the swing chains clinking together from the wind in the distance runs a chill down your spine.
You feel heavy in your chest, and you glance at the joint pinched in between Kai’s fingers. He’s not keeping an eye on it, so it’s easy to steal, and you bring it to your lips before sucking in. You instantly let out a few coughs. He’s looking at you with surprise. And you’re still in desperate need of that distraction you’ve been craving.
“How long does it take for it to kick in?” you ask, coughing again and pressing a hand to your chest.
“Super long when you can barely stomach a single drag.”
You try again. He watches you. You swear you feel a buzz this time, and you hand the joint back to him. You feel like you’re having an out-of-body experience.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“Good,” you tell him, “really good.”
“That’s gotta be placebo, Canon.”
“No, really,” you sigh it. Even if it was, maybe your mind was just blessing you with a single moment of reprieve. “I feel…really good,” you say with your head in a haze. “Best I’ve…” you don’t know why you have to blink back tears, “best I’ve felt this whole week.”
Kai’s silent next to you. You look over at him, and he’s got a scrutinizing expression on his face. His eyes are glazed. “You seeing anyone right now, Canon?”
It’s the savory question you know has been on the tip of his tongue. Ignorantly asked, as if you would’ve been sitting here with him right now in the dead of night if the answer was yes. 
“No.”
He’s leaning towards you, and you’re dazed and also sleepy. His face is close now, there’s an urge to giggle, which means there’s no way this is all just placebo, and when his lips dip towards yours, you’re conscious enough to push him away by a weakly fisted hand pressed to his collarbone.
“Oh. I. Um,” you stutter.
“What?” he asks, eyebrow raised, still close to you.
“No. No thanks.” Because it felt wrong. 
He fully pulls away from you, and runs a hand through his hair, a deep sigh leaving him. “Alright.”
You’re breathing faster now, surroundings feeling vague, like you’re in sweltering heat but the air only bites cold.
You stand up suddenly. “I…I want to go back.”
“Go back where?”
“To the hotel. To my room.” You pause. “I mean, by myself. Not with you. We can share a ride, though.”
He stands up too, hands reaching for you, gripping the straps of his camera still hung around your neck and he pulls it off to place it back into the case. You feel like you’ve lost favor with him somehow. “Okay. Sure.” 
“But not with you.” You felt the need to clarify again.
“I get it, Canon. It’s fine.”
“Maybe you just need to fuck him aggressively without mercy.”
“I beg your finest pardon?”
You’re sitting in a booth inside this streetside KFC with Mina sitting across the table, waving a fry around in the air, and with Nobara next to you as she tries to open a packet of ketchup with her teeth. The hangout the three of you have been hyping up all week, just to be sat in the same place you always go to. You were about to take a bite out of your sandwich, but you set it back down on your tray.
Mina points the fry at you and shrugs. “I’m saying. Maybe you’re having such a hard time getting over Gojo because you got so close to fucking him in that bathroom, but you didn’t, and now you’re in, like, this constant state of edging.” She bites down on the fry. “The clit knows what the heart doesn’t.”
“Your theories never fail to amaze me,” you mumble, sinking further into the booth. 
“Perhaps it’ll take the edge off.” Mina sucks through the straw of her Diet coke. Nobara finally succeeds in opening her packet of ketchup.
“I doubt it. Besides, I technically already gave him an invitation to,” you say, fingers rubbing at your eye with a swipe as you wince from the memory, “and he rejected me, so, still swimming in the self hatred from that one.”
Mina hums. “There’s no way he’s not foaming at the mouth for it, y/n. Men never let a meal they were craving go unfinished,” she states, dramatically stabbing a chicken nugget with a fork.
“What kind of pigs do you guys associate yourselves with?” Nobara asks. She’s a lesbian, by the way.
“I raise another question. Why are we talking about this in a public restaurant?” you offer.
“Listen, babes,” Mina continues, like your words fall on deaf ears because she’s got some point to make, “it’ll either poof. Make your feelings go away like the drop of a hat because you find out he’s a bad lay. Or it’ll be so good that you realize you’re never getting over him and you’ll be thinking of his dick instead of your husband’s on your wedding night.”
“We’re. In. A. Public. Restaurant.”
Mina steals a biscuit from your tray. “If it ends up being the first outcome, then the whole thing was my idea. If it’s the second…then just know that Nobara has steered you wrong.”
“Why the hell do you have to drag me into this?” Nobara asks.
You’re about to take a bite from your sandwich again when you’re interrupted by the buzzing of your phone in your purse. You pull it out and glance at the caller ID, then let out a sigh.
“Sorry, I have to take this,” you mumble, slipping out of the booth and towards the restaurant’s exit, pushing the tense door open with a gust of fresh air brushed through you.
“Hello?” It’s the car repair man. “Really? I thought you said it was fixed.” Apparently something else came up. “Okay…how much longer will it be in repair?” Much longer than you had thought. “And how much will it cost?” Much more expensive than you had thought. “I don’t know what to say. I mean, really, I feel as though every time I’m on the line with you all, I have to wait longer to get my car back, and the bill just racks up higher.” They’re trying their best. “I know. Is it necessary to fix in order to drive, though?” State laws require it. “Okay…thanks for the update.” And then you hang up without another word, and with all the frustration in the world.
You head back inside and grumble about your car woes to Mina and Nobara, who try their best to respond with interest.
“Why can’t your insurance cover it?” Mina asks.
“Apparently they can’t claim it’s because of those rocks I drove over,” you sigh, “since it looks like it’s been a problem for longer than that.”
“Can you afford it?” Nobara asks.
“Not really,” you say. “I’ll just have to postpone having my car for a bit.”
You sigh with a glance out the window of this fine dining establishment, into the blue skies just beyond, head drowning out the voices of Mina and Nobara as they continue to grill you about all sorts of questions that you don’t have the energy to answer right now. You had another student loan payment to make once you got home today, and just the thought of it makes your heart drop a little. And you realize you just can’t afford to be picky about your financial situation anymore.
“Thanks for helping me out with this,” you say, footsteps over familiar grassy hills as you head towards the UTokyo’s practice field, your digital Canon EOS hanging from your neck. 
“Sure,” Kai says as he keeps pace next to you, “why the sudden mission, though?”
You’re gazing off straight ahead, a nervous pit in your stomach since it’s been a while since you’ve walked across this landscape towards the field. 
“I just feel like I need to diversify my income somehow,” you sigh, the buzzwords leaving a bitter taste in your mouth as you say them but it was the reality of your situation, “to make ends meet. When you mentioned freelance work during our conversation last week, it made me think it’s time for me to pick that up too.”
Kai hums. “Yeah, it’s a good plan. I’ll try to show you what I know.”
Once you’ve made it to the top of that hill, the one that oversees the field, your eyes instantly scan the field for familiar silhouettes, and your breath catches in your throat when you spot Gojo passively kicking a ball back and forth between one of his teammates for warm-ups.
It’s the second time you’ve seen him since that argument the two of you had in the hotel lobby, the first being at the post-game conference in which you did everything in your power to swiftly avoid him, and you plan on keeping that up. There’s also an urge to run away, but you’re starting to realize that’s not much of an option anymore.
“Honestly, you don’t really need to worry too much about shutter speed with freelance like you do for shooting sports,” Kai is mumbling next to you as he messes with the settings on his camera, the two of you making your way down the hill towards the field, and you’re not really listening because your eyes are on Gojo, who’s yelling something across the field to his teammates with a look of concentration on his face.
“Uh huh, I see,” you say. You see Kai glance at you in his periphery.
“You again!” you hear a familiar harsh voice call out, and you turn on your heel to face Coach Yaga who’s standing a few feet away in his custom UTokyo tracksuit with his arms crossed against his chest. “Why are you on my field?”
You hold your breath for a second. “Hi, Coach Yaga, so sorry, but I’m just here to take some more photos.”
He lets out one of his hmphs, unrelenting. “You’re a distraction. Get off my field.”
“D-Distraction?”
“Coach!” Suddenly, Geto’s in your line of sight as he emerges with a light jog up to your side. “You should really be nicer to our photographers, they give us a lot of publicity for our games. And publicity means funding.”
Coach Yaga narrows his eyes. “I need all my players focused right now. Even during practice.” He gives you a disapproving glance and you’re still confused, but also weirdly angered.
“Excuse me, Coach Yaga, but last time I checked, this field is technically open for all students. And I’m a student,” you say to him, crossing your arms across your chest now. “So, I can be here if I want.”
You have no idea if that’s true at all, but sometimes you’ve just gotta fake it ‘til you make it.
Coach Yaga grumbles something and then waves his hands in the air. “Fine! I’ve no bandwidth to argue about this anymore! Just don’t distract my players.”
You’re shocked that it worked, and Geto nudges you with an elbow to correct your expression so that Coach Yaga doesn’t catch on to the bullshit you just spewed. 
“Are you here to take some photos?” Geto asks, facing you. He’s got his hands on his hips, breathing slightly fast, some of his hair falling onto his forehead. 
“Yeah, I am, just for practice though. I’m here with��” you glance at Kai, who’s standing with his fists shoved into his pockets, “Kai. He’s also with the newsletter.”
There’s a moment where Geto studies the two of you for a second before speaking. “I know,” he says, extending his hand out for Kai to shake, which he does, “I think I’ve seen you around. Not sure if we’ve formally met, but it’s nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, likewise.” Kai’s hand is then shoved back into his pocket.
You feel awkward suddenly, and then quickly say something to Geto about how he should probably get back to practice, which he agrees to, and then you’re standing at the chalk sideline with Kai as he shows you the ins and outs about digital photography.
“Have you tried shooting in burst mode?” he asks, switching the feature on your camera and then handing it back to you. You sling the strap around your neck.
“Hm…” you start, pointing your camera across the expanse of the field to multiple areas. The trees off into the distance, the goal posts, Coach Yaga’s yapping Pomeranian. “Not really…” The grass beneath your feet, the sky above your head, and then blurrily focused before settling on Gojo who stood in the distance straight ahead.
You see through your viewfinder that he’s caught sight of you too, a look of surprise on his face seen only by the level of zoom, and you glance up from the screen to make eye contact with him in reality. He’s fully staring at you, and you can barely see the way his expression relaxes from that one of athletic concentration to something wistful and strange that you’ve had a hard time reading lately.
“Canon? Are you even listening?”
“Huh?” you snap out of it and look at Kai. “Sorry. Could you repeat that?” You quickly glance toward Gojo again, and his line of sight points towards Kai now.
“I was asking if you’ve tried panning before,” he says, reaching for your camera, pulling it towards him, but the strap around your neck means you’re pulled closer to him too. 
“Satoru!” Coach Yaga yells in the distance. “Eyes on the ball!” 
“Just got to set your camera to manual mode first,” Kai mutters, confusion in his voice. “Where the fuck is it?” He’s turning your camera in his hands, which only has you stumbling with another small step towards him, your chest pressed flush to his arm, and he looks down at you for a brief second with a smirk on his face.
You hear the sound of a ball being kicked on the field, followed by the shout of one of the players.
“Ah, here, found it,” Kai says, handing your camera back to you, and just as you’re about to say thanks and you hold your camera up, you’re hit straight in the face by a flying object and fall backwards onto the grass with a painful thud.
What the fuck?
Where are you?
Who are you?
Okay, that’s dramatic, it wasn’t that bad.
There’s shouting in the distance as you hold your head with a groan, eyes shut tight with images of your life flashing behind your eyelids, and when you open your eyes again from where you’re sat up on the grass, you’re surrounded by soccer players.
Gojo’s suddenly in your line of sight, knelt down beside you and he’s holding your shoulders, trying to get you to look at him but you’re still blinking away the stars you’re seeing. “Fuck, y/n, are you okay?” he asks, and you register the concern on his face.
“Dude,” one of his teammates kicks the heel of his cleat, “where the fuck were you looking? It was clear as day I was tryna pass to you.”
Gojo grumbles something to him, his brow furrowed, and he’s lowering his head to try to make eye-level contact with you but you’re still holding your head with a wince.
“Oh shit,” Kai comments, “she’s bleeding.”
You pull your hand from your face to glance down at the wetness that you feel, and bright red color stains the tips of your fingers.
The next thing you register is Gojo picking you up off the hard grassy ground into his arms, and starts carrying you away down the field.
“W-What the hell are you doing?” you ask, his pacing across the grass is fast and you have to wrap your arms around his neck to keep from getting dizzy.
“I’m taking you to the hospital,” he says, voice strained in his throat, and you’ve never seen him look so worried before. 
“The hospital?! Please don’t, I don’t have health insurance right now.” His face is so close and you’re distracted from the pain of your headache.
“You’re bleeding on the face, I’m taking you whether you like it or not,” he grumbles.
You dig your nails into his shoulder through the nylon of his shirt, and he hisses from the pain before stopping in his tracks. “I don’t need to go to the hospital, Satoru, I just need a fucking bandaid.”
“You could have a concussion.”
“A concussion?!” You kick your feet for him to let you down but his grip on you only tightens. “You’re being ridiculous. Let me go, or I’ll bite you.”
He scoffs at that and continues walking forward. “You’re gonna bite me? That’s the most threatening thing you could come up with?”
“I’m being so dead serious, Gojo Satoru. No hospital.”
He grumbles something under his breath at your use of his full government name, and then says “fine” but he’s still walking down the grass until his cleats begin to tap on concrete, and then on what sounds like tile as he carries you into a building a few yards from the field.
He seats you on a cold counter, your hand gripping the faucet of a sink, and you finally take a comprehensive look at your surroundings. light blue, faint scent of chlorine in the air
“Is this…a locker room? The men's locker room?”
He sighs, bending his knees a bit to look at your face closely. You flinch when his hand reaches out, and he pauses, but you relax slightly and then he rubs his thumb over your cheek. You feel the smear of a droplet of blood. “Yes. I need running water.” He turns the faucet of the sink on to run his thumb under.
“For what?” you ask. His thumb is running over your cheek again.
“To take care of this cut.” He disappears behind a tile wall for a moment. You can hear metal clanking, probably of a locker opening and closing, and he re-emerges with a first-aid kit.
You slide your butt across the counter to the edge, about to hop off and make a run for it when he grabs your hips and puts you back into place. “Don’t even think about it,” he grumbles. He leans forward, grips you strongly, and you see that he’s still breathing heavily from practice, strands of hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, and you can practically taste the salt on his neck. 
You press your shin to the front of his thigh, desperate to put some space between the two of you. “I don’t wanna be in here. Men are scary.”
“Well I can’t take you into the women’s locker room,” he says, ripping the packet of an antiseptic wipe open with his teeth, “I’d get registered as a sex offender.”
You attempt at an escape again, and he’s quick to get his hands on you to stop it.
“Quit manhandling me, or I’ll scream,” you threaten through gritted teeth, because you’re still mad at him. For everything.
“Go ahead,” he says, using his knee to spread your legs apart, then finds a place to stand between your thighs to get closer to you. “I’ve got a lot of ways I could shut you up.”
You blink at him, breath catching in your throat, and the expression on his face tells you he’s not interested in dealing with your stubbornness anymore.
“Just hold still,” he grumbles, placing the packet down on your thigh and then stepping off to the side to wash his hands under the sink.
“What exactly happened?” you ask, watching him dry his hands off with a few paper towels. One moment, Kai was trying to explain good digital photography to you, and the next you were dizzy from being knocked back onto the ground.
“You got hit by a soccer ball.”
“I know, but how?” You remember your camera hit your face from the impact too, and now you’re worried about it.
“I…wasn’t paying attention when my teammate passed it,” he admits with a sigh, finding his place in front of you again, the knuckles of his clean hand brushing across your cheek, caressing. Your expression softens slightly. He uses a hand spread across the small of your back to push you forward to him, then he gently passes the wipe over your wound.
“Oh okay so, you failed to protect me from a flying soccer ball.” 
He pulls his hand from you to read the lettering on the back of the packet. “I’m patching you up now, aren’t I?” he says, annoyed. “…oh fuck, I was supposed to go in with water first.”
“So glad to be in such good hands right now.” 
He gives you a pointed look, but you ignore it and turn your torso to see your reflection in the mirror for the first time. You had a small wound on your cheek, right over the bone, with some bleeding and it’s wider than it is deep. But when you look at Gojo again, who’s putting some ointment onto a Q-tip now, the look of guilt and worry on his face makes you feel satisfied for some reason, and you wanted to make it worse.
“Does it hurt?” he asks, brow furrowed, applying the cold gel to your cheek.
“Mhm. A lot.” Not really, no.
“Fuck. I’m sorry,” he sighs, head dipping towards you slightly to get a better look, “can you feel this?”
“Ahh, yeah. Ouch. So much.” Barely.
His other hand is placed flat on the counter next to where you’re sitting, and you allow it when his thumb starts to run soothing circles over your hip.
“Hmm…” you start, wide eyes looking up at him as he seems to lean closer and closer to you with every word that leaves your lips, “I really wonder if it’ll leave a scar.”
He looks tortured. His hand that was maneuvering the Q-tip in his hands drops to the counter now, and he brings his other one to your face, cupping your cheek. His eyes dart from the wound, thumb pressing at the plush of your cheek, and this time, it hurts a little so you wince. His expression is tense, some sort of inner turmoil you could read across his forehead, and then his jaw hardens.
“Who was that guy you were talking to earlier?”
You blink a few, then tilt your head slightly. You feel like you’re on a game show, where there’s four options and only one right answer. New boytoy, gay best friend, fuck buddy, or— “He’s my coworker.”
“That’s it?”
“Mhm.”
“Has he tried anything funny with you?” 
You almost roll your eyes. “No, dad, he hasn’t.”
“Woah. Say that again but make it daddy.”
“Hey just a quick question for you. Where do you get the audacity?”
His bent index finger finds a place under your chin, tilting your head up so you’re forced to look at him. “It’s your fault, really. I can’t help it sometimes,” he says, voice lower now. You’re squirming a little, wanting to push him away but his lips get close to your cheek, brushing near your wound, like he wants to make it all better somehow. “I really am sorry,” he whispers, near your ear. There’s a whimper you have to stifle in your throat. He pulls aways just enough to where he can look into your eyes. “A cut…” he starts, thumb now passing over your bottom lip, “on your pretty face.” He sighs. You shouldn’t, but when he prods, you tuck his thumb under your front teeth and your tongue presses slightly against the padded skin of it. He looks like he’s being driven to insanity, and his other hand has no shame at all in pulling you towards him, to seat you at the edge of the counter, and you miss the texture of his thumb on your tongue when he pulls it from your mouth. But it’s so he can dip his head down to kiss you instead.
Of course the sensation of his lips on yours only lasts for a second, because the universe really fucking hates (or loves?) you, so the loud clanking of a metal water bottle against tile interrupts with harsh reverberation throughout the locker room walls, and he pulls away from you when you jump at the sound.
You both turn your heads towards the origin, located at the curved end of the entryway hall, and one of Gojo’s teammates is standing there with his duffle bag slung around his neck and hanging heavily to his thigh, his water bottle clutched in his hand. He blinks at the two of you.
Oh. It’s the one you kissed at that party a few weeks ago.
“What—…Why is there a—” his teammate starts, panicked, turning his head to double check the sign on the locker room wall as if he’s hallucinating, and when his eyes land on you again, they widen with recognition. His gaze shifts, and his chin tips down at the sight of Gojo’s irritated side eye from where he was still all up in your personal space. “…you know what. Nevermind.”
His teammate’s eyes are on you again, and you give him a shy little wave, just a fluttering of your fingers in the air paired with a small smile, legs swinging back and forth under the counter. He lets out an amused scoff from the entryway, lifting his hand to return the gesture, some cheeky grin on his face as he then scratches the back of his head before turning on his heel to leave the locker room, out of sight. You let out a sigh, hand dropping to your lap, and you don’t need to look at Gojo to tell that he’s staring at you with disbelief.
“What the fuck was that—”
“You,” you interrupt him, finger jabbing at the center of his chest, “have seriously got a lot of fucking nerve,” you hop off the counter, “to not only allow a soccer ball to sock me in the face,” he’s taking a step back with every harsh jab of your finger, “but to also hold me hostage in a mens’ locker room,” his back is pressed up against cold tile wall now while he just looks down at you with wide eyes and something akin to fear, “and then, oh my god, the audacity to kiss me?”
“I—”
“I don’t wanna hear it!” you yell, which shuts him up. “You really are just a fucking player.”
He’s stiff, not wanting to catch a punishment from you right now.
“But it doesn’t matter,” you grumble, still drilling your finger into his ribcage with the intent to cause pain. You didn’t need to be this close, but his body is warm, probably due to the blood pumping from practice, and it feels nice to be pressed up against. “Because I don’t have feelings for you anymore, so just fucking get over yourself.” It was a lie if you’ve ever told one, but you wanted to believe it so much that it could come off as the truth.
His eyes narrow down at you, eyebrows flattening. “You don’t have feelings for me anymore?”
“No, I don’t.”
“I don’t believe you.”
You roll your eyes. “Why? Because you want me to keep suffering?”
He grabs your hips, then makes a motion that is evident of his desire to pull you flush to him, but he stops himself. There’s a moment where he just takes a few deep breaths and looks at you with a hardened expression, then a split second where his eyes fall to that little cut on your cheek, and every single feature of his face softens, and then he lets you go.
You take a small step back, breathing heavily of your own, and you feel the ghost sensation of his fingertips wrapped around your hips. It makes you feel dizzy, and your thoughts are a mess. 
He sighs. “Sorry. For the soccer ball, and this locker room. But I’m not really sorry for kissing you, and if that makes me a jerk, then so be it.”
Your heart is beating fast. “You are a jerk, Satoru,” you say. He doesn’t like you, he doesn’t want you. A mantra played over and over in your head that you’ve started to hear it at night. “A real fucking jerk.” And you leave him standing there in a way that feels like the hundredth time.
2:34pm kaito (work): yo
2:34pm kaito (work): i had my guy look at your camera
2:35pm kaito (work): it’s pretty fucked up
2:37pm you: :( oh okay isee. does he have an estimate for the fix? the lens is okay though right?
2:39pm kaito (work): yeah lens is fine, you should really count your blessings on that. 
2:40pm kaito (work): but nah, fix would be around the same as the cost of it, so you’re better off getting a new one
2:42pm you: i don’t have thousands of yen laying around unfortunately. my car bill has sucked me dry
2:44pm kaito (work): well let me check with him. maybe he can hook you up with a good deal on a used one
2:45pm kaito (work): i got a 50% off on one of my canon cameras i bought from him a few years back. maybe he’s still got some like that
2:46pm you: yes could you check with him please? thanks so much, really
2:48pm kaito (work): sure. although i think the guy that kicked the ball to your face should be paying for your camera replacement
2:51pm you: they were just practicing. it’s their field
2:56pm kaito (work): alright. btw, you free tonight?
You blink at your phone screen from where you were sprawled across your bed. Before you have a chance to type out a response, your phone lights up with a phone call from kaito (work). You accept the call.
“Oh, hi,” you say.
“Hey, are you free tonight?”
“Oh uhh, I was just about to check my schedule.” You shake your head at your inability to come up with an excuse on the spot.
“Okay,” he says on the other line. You hear the sounds of cars honking in the distance. “Well let me know. I just left my camera guy’s shop, and he was telling me about how one of his friends does visuals for a short-film director, and that the director is looking for an assistant.” Kai grumbles something about someone he walked past being rude. “I think the director’s agency is Verve Films, so.”
You sit up in bed, eyes wide at the mention of the name. “Oh, oh wow. That’s insane.”
“Yup,” he says, “anyways, apparently the director is busy as fuck, so he left the hiring process up to my camera guy’s friend. I told him I knew someone that might be interested. Are you?”
You take a deep breath in and out. “Yeah, I am. Most of my experience on my resume lines up with short-film, so I’d be able to—”
“Alright great,” he interrupts, “so we can hold the interview tonight.”
“We?” you ask.
“Well yeah, me, my camera guy, the hiring guy. Maybe go for drinks or something.”
Your brow furrows. “That hardly sounds like an interview.”
Kai sighs. “Well, it’s not an interview for a desk job or something. It’s more of like—well, like building connections. I know you know all about that, since Utahime got you the newsletter job.”
Well, yes. She put a word in for you, which helped get the interview, but you still went against qualified applicants. “I guess.”
“It’ll be like that. Most opportunities you’ll get if you still want to pursue filmmaking are going to be like that,” he tells you, “if it feels informal, it means you’re doing it right. You might not think so now because you’re still in school, where they practically serve opportunities to students on platters, but it’s going to be different in the real world.”
You lay your head back onto the pillow, feeling like you’re receiving a lecture you didn’t ask for, and your first instinct is to pretend that you know better than he does. But when you think about all the stress recently, all of the not knowing, and the unsure, you question if you should start leaning into the advice of the people around you, and start to accept this career path for what it’s known to be. Unruly, unconventional, and a lot of times, unfair. 
“I see. Well, can I think about it? Tonight is too soon, I’d need time to research the director, put a portfolio together, and also do some interview prep,” you say, pulling your phone from your ear to glance at the time.
“Well, tonight’s the only night that works since their team’s shooting abroad for the weekend and they leave tomorrow morning,” he says.
You purse your lips together.
“But also,” Kai says, “it’s the nice thing to do, y’know, since my camera guy is taking the time to look at your camera for free, you could at least help his friend out. By the way, he just texted me, he does have some used Canons available at discount.”
You close your eyes for a second, just trying to process this conversation right now. Kai was speaking too fast, hardly enough time for you to even think.
“So do you want to do the interview tonight?”
“Yes, sure. Okay. Just— just send me the details. I’ll be there,” you say.
“Alright cool, will do.” 
You say bye, and then he hangs up.
A few hours pass by, where you spend some time putting together a flash drive of a couple of your best short films you’ve worked on in the past with other directors, as well as a portfolio of some recently developed film photography. The last thing to do was grab your emergency stash of print outs of your resume, and then you stuff it all into a folder before glancing at the mirror to take in your reflection. It felt extremely weird to show up to a job interview in something as casual as what you were wearing right now, but Kai insisted to not wear anything business. But at least you opted for jeans that don’t have any DIY holes in them.
Your face is glued to the navigation on your phone screen the second you get out of the taxi, and you walk down the bustling nightlife streets of Tokyo to get to this bar that Kai sent you the address of. But just as you’re about to turn the corner to your destination down the bar strip, you bump into someone’s chest due to lack of paying any proper attention.
“Ah— I’m so sorry,” you say, your grip on your phone tightening when you realize it was about to get knocked out of your hand, and then you look up to see a familiar face.
“Oh!” Geto exclaims from where he’s standing right in front of you, “You’re everywhere, y/n. What are you doing here?”
You open your mouth to speak, hesitate for a second, and then continue. “I’m here to…get drinks with some of my friends.”
He gives you a smile. “That’s nice. I am too.” He points over his shoulder to behind him. “Nanami got into his MBA program earlier this week, so, Satoru, Choso and I are buying him a few rounds. Or possibly a million. The plan is to incapacitate him as punishment for giving up on playing in the national league with us.”
You humor him with a laugh. “That’s sweet. Or not? Well anyway, tell him I said congrats.” Your heart starts to beat a little faster, because from the direction Geto came from, it meant Gojo was likely just around the corner somewhere. “Where are you heading to now?”
“We’re bar hopping, and I think I forgot my phone at the last one we went to over there,” he says, pointing across the street. “So I’m going to go look for it.” 
“Oh alright,” you say. “Good luck with that. I’m going to go find my, uh, my friends.”
Geto tilts his head at you and had a slightly more serious expression on his face, glancing at the folder in your hands. “Thanks. And stay safe.” 
You nod at him and then walk past him to round the corner onto the street that had groups of people loitering in front of restaurants, bars and all sorts of establishments as they wait in the cold to get inside or be seated. You recognize the name on one of the signs hanging as the one Kai sent you in his message, and when you’re a few feet away from it, you spot Kai. He’s wearing his typical street photographer wear, with a red flannel over a gray shirt and pants that are possibly a size too big for him, but that’s likely the style he was going for. He’s standing with two other people.
“Hey,” you greet Kai first, who has a pleasant look on his expression before he greets you back and gestures to the two people he was with.
“Yo, this is Junichi, my camera guy,” he says. “Don’t bother shaking his hand, he’s a germaphobe. Gotta keep ‘em clean for the electronics.”
“Oh,” you say. Junichi is a big man, broad shoulders and thick muscles. His neck is almost as thick as his bicep, and he has no hair on his head. His arms are crossed. “It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for taking a look at my camera.”
He nods at you in acknowledgment. “Sure thing. Pretty Boy here says you want to buy one of my used Canons. I don’t refurbish them, so you’d better know how.”
Kai sighs, nudging Junichi a little with a fist. “Relax, dude, we can talk about that later. Also, stop calling me that.”
Your eyes flicker to the right, where another man stood, who you assume was Junichi’s friend and this Verve Films director’s visual effects specialist. He’s similar in stature to Kai, with that casual artist look, and he has a scuffle of facial hair littering his jaw in less of an intentional fashion but rather a five-o-clock shadow fashion. You vaguely register the scent of weed, familiar to the one that lingers in the photo lab on campus after class hours. He reaches his hand out to you first.
“Hi, I’m Ren. I work in visual effects for director Akira Ko at Verve.”
Your eyes widen as you shake his hand.  “That’s amazing. I’ve studied a lot of his contemporary works, I’d love to learn more about his process.”
Ren lets a fast exhale out through his nose. “Yeah, you’ll learn a lot under him.” He pauses to shove his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Most of his assistants always do.”
“We’ve been waiting for too damn long,” Kai interjects before you could ask any questions about the assistant position, and he glances at his watch, “and there’s still a lot of people ahead of us.”
You glance around to the small groups of people gathered in front of this bar on a lively Friday night, eyes jumping from one area to the next, until a familiar silhouette catches your eye.
You see Gojo standing with Nanami and Choso a few strides away, near the lamppost. He’s mostly turned away from you, Nanami nudging his arm annoyed at something he said, and the sound of his laughter in the air makes your heart feel like it’s at stray. Like that was where you were supposed to be right now, not here.
You watch him from the distance as he sighs, shrugging his shoulders up and down slightly before crossing his arms when Choso gestures towards the entrance of the bar, and so he looks in that direction too. He’s frowning slightly and he brushes some of the hair fallen over his forehead away from his eyes, in that boyish way that makes your heart skip a beat, and you know he’s just doing it to see a little bit better, but it makes you want to cry. 
Geto walks up to them and rejoins their little circle, and holds his phone up in the air, and then there’s the melody of their voices bouncing off one another’s again. Geto rests his elbow up onto Gojo’s shoulder, leaning in a bit closer to tell him something, and when Gojo hears it, you see his entire body tense before his wide eyes are searching his surroundings, until those eyes land on you.
Your breath catches, and you hold his eye contact for only a moment before you look away, because it almost felt like too much to bear.
“What’s that folder in your hand?” Ren asks you, and you turn completely to face him so you can’t see Gojo in your periphery at all anymore.
“I just brought some of my work, for your—er, I guess Mr. Ko’s—reference if he’d like to see it after today’s…interview,” you say. “There’s a flashdrive, too.”
Ren has an amused look on his face and he shoves Kai’s shoulder with his palm. “Dude, you didn’t tell her?”
Kai shakes his head. “Tell her what?”
“Ohh, I see how it is,” Ren muses.
“What?” Kai asks, starting to sound annoyed.
Ren tips his chin up slightly to study Kai’s face, and then his look of amusement dissipates into one of understanding. “Nothing.”
“Tell me what?” you prod.
“Just that you didn’t really need to bring all of that with you,” he says. “Sorry for the trouble.”
You shake your head. “It’s fine, but if you could still give it to him—”
“I’m surprised Kai suggested someone when I asked if he knew anyone,” Junichi jumps in, “I’m used to him grumbling on and on about how shit the work is in filmmaking. Would’ve thought he’d convinced you to look the other way by now.”
You blink at the gruff man, then look at Kai, and he’s just staring down at the dirt of his shoes. “Well, we had a conversation about it. But I’m pretty set on what I want to do,” you say.
Kai lets out a scoff. “Yeah, I don’t really know how else to warn you about the shit show you’re in for, but if you want to be in debt to grad school for the next couple decades of your life, then it’s up to you.”
“Hey, jackass, try to be a bit nicer,” Ren speaks up. “She’s got some goals. Big fuckin’ deal.” He turns to you. “Although, he’s got a point sweetheart, school’s not going to get you anywhere in this industry.”
You frown. “A lot of directors I look up to went through graduate schooling. Most, I would say. I don’t understand where this rhetoric is coming from.”
“It’s coming from real people with real experience,” Ren says, and you dislike the way he takes a step closer to you to reiterate his point, “honestly, you should save yourself some time and give up on applying. It’s not worth it.”
“I’ve already put my application together,” you say, brow furrowing slightly, “I’ve asked professors for my references, spent the past four years working on my profile—” 
“But working under a director, I mean really getting to work under one, beats all of that. Which is why you’re here, right?” Ren asks, but it’s not curious, it’s testing.
You feel a sheen of sweat build at your forehead, even in this cold, and you clench your hand into a fist once, twice, thrice. You’re breathing fast, and the three sets of eyes that are staring so scrutinizingly into your soul right now have you faltering, like if they took another step forward, tried to intrude what you thought you knew one more time, you’d fall backwards over the cliff.
Suddenly, a hand wraps around your upper arm, and when you turn your head to the left, you see Gojo standing there.
“Hey,” he says to you, sparing one single sidewards glare towards Kai, who immediately averts the eye contact, before Gojo’s eyes are on you again, “can I talk to you for a second?”
You look at the three men in your circle, who suddenly adopt skittish body postures, and Gojo doesn’t really wait longer than a few seconds before he’s pulling you away from them over towards the edge of the curb towards the street.
“What?” you ask once he lets go of your arm.
“What are you doing here with those guys?” he asks.
“I’m—…why does it matter to you?” you ask.
“It matters to me because of the fucking absurd conversation I just overheard,” he says, “now answer me.”
His tone annoys you, and you cross your arms. “Are you eavesdropping?”
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” he says, taking a step forward to you, “who are those guys, and why are you here with them?”
You blink at him, furrowed brows relaxing slightly as you drop your crossed arms to your side, and you stare straight ahead at the blankness of the white t-shirt he’s wearing, as your mind runs blank to his question. Why were you here with them? Was it because you had no other plans? Was it because the opportunity sounded too good to be true, and you just had to see for yourself? Was it because you’ve been unable to sleep at night from all the stress, the financial worries, the rejection, and you just want to finally feel like you’ve done one good thing for yourself? To feel like you’re at least making one step in the right direction, no matter the cost?
“I’m here for a job interview,” you say to him. Your tone is flat, and you feel numb.
“A job interview?” he asks, with just about as much incredulity you would’ve expected to hear from him at that answer, “At a bar? How does that make any sense?”
“It…” you start, “sounded fine.”
“It sounds shady as fuck.”
“This doesn’t concern you, okay? I’m—…I’m just trying to make my goals work for me, Satoru, and I really don’t expect you to understand.”
“Why wouldn’t I understand?” he asks. There’s confusion in his voice, and maybe even a little bit of hurt.
“Because you can’t even understand how unfair and painful it is for me that you keep—” you have to purse your lips together briefly to fight back the knot in your throat, “…that you keep interfering with my life everywhere I go.”
His expression softens, and he silently stands in front of you for a moment. His eyes dart across your face, and then he reaches out to grab your hand. “Listen, if you still want to get drinks tonight, then just get drinks with us. But don’t hang out with those guys. They’re bad news, especially the dude with the flannel, and I don’t think you’re in a good place right now to see that.”
Your eyes see white fury at that, and you all but snap. Because the irony of this whole situation, is that you’re not in a good place right now because of him. Because of all the pain that he’s put you through, for promising to stay away but then always being near, for saying he doesn’t want you but then acting like he does. 
“You know what I think, Satoru?” you ask through gritted teeth, yanking your hand from his grasp.
He’s looking at you, studying. “What?”
You take a step forward, threateningly, and he takes a step back so that he steps off the curb and onto the road, and you’re at eye-level with him now. “I think that you’re jealous,” you say, eyes glaring daggers into his.
He blinks at you, almost dumbfounded for a moment before he says “what?”
“You’re just fucking jealous that I seem to be moving on after you rejected me, because for some weird reason, you think it’s okay to not want me, and yet not want me to be with anyone else,” you say, practically hissing the words. “You don’t like seeing me with any guys other than you? You don’t want to believe me when I say that I’m over you? You’re not sorry for kissing me? Even after knowing,” you take a pause to breathe, because you feel like you can’t, “even after knowing that I like you,” eyes blinking fast because you don’t want him to see you cry right now, “you know that I like you so fucking much, and that it’s hurtful, and that it’s wrong— and even after all of that, you act the same, and still won’t promise me any commitment of your own.”
He’s looking at you with an expression you can’t read, but you’ve lost all interest in trying to understand it anymore.
“You don’t want me hanging out with them?” you repeat after him, “I’m not listening to that. Because it’s possessive. And it’s wrong.”
At the mention of them, Gojo clenches his jaw. “That has nothing to do with you and me, right now. What they’re trying to convince you of doesn’t make any sense, and it won’t help you achieve your dreams either, y/n.”
“You don’t know anything about my dreams, Satoru,” you say, just to hurt him. But you think about the sincere expression on his face the first time you met him when you told him that you wanted his help with your assignment. You think about the playful nudge of his elbow that night he stayed with you on the curb, and told you that you just had to try to put yourself out there, because you couldn’t accomplish anything without facing your fears. You think about how he’s always the first to like every single one of the slideshows you post of your pictures on Instagram. You think about the adoration in his eyes, reflected off the moonlight through the hotel window, when you told him about a little cottage on the countryside, one you’ve always wanted, and those eyes told you that he was really rooting for you. “You don’t know. Because you—” there’s an echo of words in your head. Someone else’s words, not yours, “Because you’re a college athlete. And—” you let out an exhale, “and you don’t pay tuition.”
His brow furrows. There’s a beat of silence as his confusion settles in. “What?”
“You were born blessed with talent, and you’re popular, and people adore you, and you don’t have to worry about internships, or jumping from job to job just to make something of yourself,” you say, picturing your life in your head along with all the strife, “or about all of the sinking debt, and the worry, and the— and the car repair bills,” you say, almost with a scoff, eyes sheening with tears, like you’re losing your mind, “all of the fucking car repair bills.” Your chest is heaving as you shake your head. “Because you’re set for life as long as you kick a fucking ball.” 
His lips purse together, like he can tell there’s more on your tongue to say, more hurtful words, and he wants to hear you say them. And so you do.
“You’ve never had to suffer or worry about a single thing in your life. So don’t pretend like you understand what I’m trying to do here tonight,” you say, inflection signing off on the end, to tell him that you’re done. 
He stands in front of you, practically motionless except for the slow movement of his chest as he breathes. His expression, tense and hurt, softens slowly, and you see him digging his nails into the skin of his palms through fidgeting clenched fists at his sides. And then he relaxes them, too.
“Does that make you feel better?” he asks.
His question confuses you, and for some reason, regret washes over you. “What?”
“Does thinking of me that way—…does it make you feel better about all of this? Between us?”
You’re breathing fast, eyebrows pinching upwards to look at him, and the defeated expression on his face makes your heart ache. He’s waiting for an answer, and so you give him one. “Yes.”
He glances down at the ground for a moment, then at your collarbone, before meeting your gaze again. “I’m sorry. For everything. And I—” the words catch in his throat briefly, “I’ll try to leave you alone tonight.”
His use of the word try doesn’t escape you, but you give him a furtive nod, and he studies your face for a few moments before he steps back up onto the curb and walks past you. You watch him walk all the way, no longer with that confidence or conviction you’re so used to seeing in him, as he steps back into his circle, to Geto’s side. Geto gives a small glance over his shoulder to look at you with discerning eyes before looking at Gojo again, and then he’s turned away from you. 
Heavy feet drag you back to Kai, Ren, and Junichi, and you feel feverish. They mention something about the table being ready, and you nod. The bar is rustic, with more tables than barspace, and the four of you are seated and then presented with a small food menu. You’re seated next to Kai, Ren is right across from you, and Junichi is to his right. You watch a waitress usher Nanami, Choso, Geto and Gojo to one of the tables as well, two away from yours, and you forcefully blur your vision so you don’t have to catch sight of the expression on Gojo’s face.
“So,” Ren speaks up as his eyes peruse the food menu and Junichi waves the waitress over to order a round of sake, “tell me more about your experience, sweetheart.”
You blink at him, eyes feeling heavy, heart feeling heavy. “I’d prefer it if you called me by my name.”
Ren lets out a coo, and you briefly glance at Kai who’s shaking his head with a sigh. “My bad, y/n. Your experience?”
Your hands play with the folder sitting in your lap. “I started writing screenplays for small-scale directors when I was a freshman, and was greenlit on a couple into my sophomore year. One of the films I worked on, I had directing credits for, and it was nominated for best screenplay at Etoile Film Festival the year following.”
Ren swallows slightly, shifting in his chair and pushing his shoulders back, like he’s trying to establish himself now. Kai is clenching a fist on the surface of the table.
Ren clears his throat before speaking again. “Wow, okay, so you’ve actually got some serious shit going on.” His voice is a faux octave deeper. “What do you know about being a good assistant? Ever worked in customer service? Secretary?”
“Oh, I mean I have worked in customer service, but I wasn’t done sharing about my experience—” you try to say but Junichi cuts you off.
“First round’s on me,” he declares, “for bringing her out here.” He tips his chin to you and then sends Kai a glance.
A waitress brings by a bottle of sake, and Junichi begins pouring drinks into the glasses, then slides them across the table. Kai gives Ren a pointed look. 
“Don’t get too wasted,” Kai says to him as he brings his glass to his lips, “you start running that mouth of yours a little too much when you do.”
Ren grins at him and immediately knocks down the glass Junichi barely finished pouring from him in one go, and the gruff man beside him is grumbling. “Whatever you say.”
Something had been bothering you since you came here. “Wait,” you say, pointing between Kai and Ren, “do you two know each other already? Because,” you turn to look at Kai, “on the phone earlier, you sounded like you didn’t.”
Kai’s eyebrows raise in surprise, as though he’s discovered you have some skill for foresight. You glance at Ren, and he gives Kai a puzzled look.
“Uh, yeah. I’ve known Kai for years,” he says, “we go way back. We went to highschool together.”
Kai shifts a little in his chair. “Sorry. Probably forgot to mention it.”
You glance down at the glass of sake in front of you, and the way it twinkles under the lighting of the bar. You slowly bring it to your mouth, taking a small sip, and the way it coats your tongue is less than pleasing. 
“Can you tell me more about the assistant position?” you ask Ren, who’s emptied out the bottle of sake and waving someone over to order more. He already has a slightly flush to his face.
“Yeah, yeah, will do,” he says, “but first, let me tell you about what I do in visuals.”
Another round of sake is dropped by, and then another, followed by another, as Ren continues to ramble on and on about what he does for work, and how it’s entirely integral to the final piece of the film, although you’ve never really had a terrible level of appreciation for visual effects in short-film craft, since it’s hardly much work. But you wouldn’t say that, you just continue to nurse your one glass of sake as the three men surrounding you knock back more and more, and there’s slurs to their speeches now.
“Sooo, I’m so sorry, sweetheart—I mean y/n, for cuttin’ you off earlier,” he says, “but what was that experience you wanted to talk to me about?” Ren asks from across the table, and his eyes are all traveling over you.
“I…” you start, “well, I started to work with one of my professors last year, she’s a two-time Cannes Film Festival winner, and she let me under her wing for one of her projects last year.”
“Who is she? Oh wait, nevermind, probably wouldn’t have heard of her anyways,” Ren says, but when you fail to laugh, he waves his hand in the air. “Joking, joking. What’s her name?”
“Naoko. Naoko Ogigami.”
“Oh shit. I have heard of her,” Ren says, followed by a shallow hiccup. Junichi shrugs his shoulders, and when you look at Kai, he’s nodding slowly and toying with the rim of his glass with a finger.
“Yes. Well, anyways—” you start up again, before Kai sets his glass of sake down particularly loud.
“This is all bullshit. Really. I told you, filmmaking is a waste of time. Just focus on your photography, and your freelance or whatnot,” Kai says, grit to his jaw, face looking red with possibly something other than just a tipsiness. 
Ren lets out a laugh. “Fuckin’ Kai. What a pessimist. Don’t listen to him, sweetheart,” he says, slurred, and you furrow your brow at him with a glare, “sorry. Don’t listen to him. Trust me, you’ll learn a lot under Mr. Ko. He’s a suuuper nice guy.”
“What’s the compensation?” you ask. It’s a brazen question, one you’d never ask so soon in a formal interview process, but this table was hardly anything formal.
“Real good. Mmm I think like…5200 yen an hour, and then also, you get your foot in the door.”
“Oh,” you sit up a little in your chair. It was higher than most entry-level anything for undergraduates or even new grads. 
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he drawls when he sees you’re more interested. “Good stuff. Kai used to pick these kinds of jobs up, too, back in his college days. I remember. Although, he’s hardly Mr. Ko’s type, so I doubt he’d be any good for this one.”
Your head snaps to Ren again at his words, face tensing. 
“Tell her about what a job like this—hic—entails,” Ren says as he extends his glass out for Junichi to pour him another.
Kai glances at Ren once, and you watch him grind his teeth for a moment, and then there’s a hint of a smirk on his face.
“Oh. Y’know, clerical work. Stuff like printing scripts out,” Kai starts, Junichi filling up his glass and then he raises it into the air to watch the liquid swish around, “grabbing him coffee. Making sure his trailer is stocked.”
“Blowing him in said trailer,” Ren says. It’s something quiet, under his breath with a small laugh, where you could barely hear it across the table. But you heard it nonetheless. And your heart sinks to the core of the earth.
“Excuse me?” you say. The benefit of doubt sitting on your shoulder, watching in disbelief as well.
“He’s joking,” Kai says, quickly, “runnin’ his mouth.”
“Oh fuck off, Kai,” Ren says, throwing his hands up in the air, “don’t act like that’s not why you brought her here.”
Your head slowly turns to Kai, who can’t meet your gaze. Your eyes flicker to Junichi, who looks amused. 
Ren leans over the table, elbows resting on top, to look you straight in the eyes. He’s got a sleazy smile, and you can smell the alcohol on his breath, and he dips his tone down low enough to where you can hardly hear it over the sounds surrounding you in the bar. “That’s how you’ll make it in this industry, sweetheart. Whether you like it or not, you’ll be working under those directors until you make it.”
You stand up so fast that your chair falls behind you, hand raised in the air, and you swiftly slap the man across from you so hard across the cheek that it leaves his skin even more red than the flush from before, and your palm is stinging. 
There’s gasps all around the bar, hushed voices, eyes on you, but you don’t care. There’s not a single thing in the world you care more about right now than the anger swelled in your chest.
Ren holds his cheek, surprised, blinking like a pathetic animal. He almost looks like he’s about to cry, and you let out a scoff at the sight.
You turn to face Kai, whose eyes are wide and he’s staring up at you. Your fists are clenched at your side.
“Is this why you brought me here tonight?” you ask. Your voice is trembling, anxiety at the wake, the white anger spotting your vision. But there’s also pain. So much pain, and you’re just so fed up with all of it. “Because your belittling, condescending words weren’t enough to tear my hopes apart, so you had to humiliate me in front of your friends instead?”
Kai holds his hand up. “Woah, Canon, relax. He was just joking—…” Kai glances at Ren, who’s still holding his cheek and biting down on his lip, and then his gaze hardens. “Y’know what? It’s about fucking time you get this wake-up call, y/n. I’ve been trying to do the nice thing to steer you in the right direction, and the least you could—”
“Steer me in the right fucking direction?!” you’re yelling now, registering the way your voice echoes in the bar. “You know what I think this is all about, Kai?” You grit your teeth, “You’re a sick, stupid, sexist fuck who didn’t have the balls to go after what he wanted. So miserably pathetic that you’ve got no other fucking business than to pull people down to your level.”
Kai pinches his eyebrows together, hand on the table clenching into a fist. 
You lean down closer, an exasperated scoff leaving your lips. “Why don’t you go be his assistant instead? Since I’m sure you’re good at taking it up the ass.”
Kai’s eyes twitch, “you fucking—”
You grab his glass off the table and throw the alcohol into his face, eliciting another round of noises around the bar, and his mouth falls agape in shock before he gets up out of his chair, hand reaching out to grab for you. You close your eyes shut with a flinch to expect pain. Any sort of pain. But you don’t feel anything at all.
When you open your eyes, you see Gojo standing to your left, veins of his arm tense with the tight grip he has on Kai’s forearm, and you can see he’s practically shaking with rage. He steps in front of you, guarding, and you can’t see the expression on his face, but the fear in Kai’s eyes is enough to say it all.
“That’s enough,” he says, the clench of his jaw evident through the strain in his voice, “try to put your hands on her again, and I’ll split your fucking face in half.”
You can see Kai’s breathing pick up from where you’re peering over Gojo’s shoulder, and then Gojo shoves him backwards right as Choso kicks the fallen chair to his feet so he trips over it backwards then hits the ground with a loud and indignant thud.
Gojo’s hovering over Kai, his hands shoved in his pockets as he glares down at him, while Geto and Nanami put space between you and the other two men at your table. You feel a searing flush to your cheeks. You’re breathing fast, the peering eyes all around you are scrutinizing, looking at you with surprise, confusion, shock, and pity. Your mind is racing, and you wonder what your parents would think of all this. What your friends would think of all of this. What the people who support you would think of the fucked up situation you’ve found yourself in, and the humiliation courses so deep through your veins that you just want to run away and hide. The ground could swallow you whole right now, and it still wouldn’t be enough.
You take one step back, then another, before you turn on your heel to rush out the door into the night, and you barely register that it’s raining. You can feel your heart thumping fast in your chest and in your head, that familiar knot in your throat twisting tight as you walk fast down the street and ignore Gojo’s call of your name from behind you.
You don’t want to see anyone right now. You don’t want to be seen by anyone right now. Especially Gojo, of all people, because he was right about everything, and the fact that you had shut him down about it, and the way that you had shut him down about it makes your head numb and your breathing pick up fast.
“y/n,” you hear him call out from behind you, his pace is getting faster and so you’re resorting to longer strides as well, puddles of water splashing under your feet with every step, “just wait—”
“I’m seriously,” you start, and the tears begin to fall, “I’m seriously so, so, so, so, so fucking embarassed right now,” you gasp out the words with no air left in your lungs to breathe as you continue to run away from him, “so please, just leave me alone.”
You can picture it all in your head. Something like I told you so from his lips, because after what you’ve been put through tonight, you just want to assume the worst in people.
But just as you round the corner into an alley, feeling lost with the sight of a dead end, you feel a hand wrap around your arm and then you’re being pulled into an embrace.
Your eyes are blinking with tears streaming, your face buried in a chest that is warm, with a heart beating so fast that it’s keeping time with your own, and the fragrance that surrounds you is so painfully him that it makes you sob even more.
Strong arms wrap around you, pulling you closer, and Gojo rests his chin at the top of your head. “I’m sorry,” he says softly, and you can feel the rumble of his voice, “I just needed to stop you from running.”
Your arms are weakly raised, an outline over his torso but not yet grabbing on, until you hesitantly do. And when you hold onto him, it’s so tight and strong, and you realize that after everything between the two of you, it’s the first time you’ve been wrapped in his arms.
“I feel so stupid,” you start, already hating the words because you want to be stronger right now, but you can’t.
“You’re not stupid,” he quickly corrects you, “those guys are fucking insecure losers. You’re just trying your best. You always have, for as long as I’ve known you, and it’s something you should be proud of yourself for.”
You don’t know what to say to him, you just cling to the damp fabric of his shirt in the rain.  
“Things are going to work out for you, no matter what, because I know you’ve got what it takes and you’re willing to work hard for it,” he says, his chin nuzzling so you’re tucked into him even further, “and if things don’t work out, that’s okay, you’re strong and you’ll always get back up. And I want to be there to help you through everything.”
You pull your face from his chest to stare up at him, droplets of rain falling to your face and making you flinch occasionally. “I’m confused.”
His hand comes up to cup your face, swiping at a tear on your cheek, or maybe it was rain. “I thought that—” he starts, his thumb briefly running over the small cut still healing on your cheek, his brow furrowing, “I thought that I’d be okay with watching your life from afar, through cropped pictures on a screen,” he says, a chill running through you, “but I can’t. It’s killing me. And I’m really sorry that it took me this long to tell you this, but I like you so much and I really want to be with you.”
Your eyes widen at his words, and you don’t know how to feel. You push your face into his chest again. His thumb runs circles at your side through the dampness of your shirt.
“There are a lot of reasons I didn’t feel like I could date you, or show up for you,” he says, “but the pain of not getting to be with you, of not getting to hold you, and just share my life with you is way worse than whatever reasons I kept trying to convince myself of.”
You nod slowly, because there was a part of you deep inside that knew that all along. 
His grip on you relaxes slightly and you take that as a request from him for you to look up at him, so you do. “I know I’ve put you through a lot of pain, and I’m really not a perfect person, but if there’s room in your heart to forgive me, I promise you that I’ll do everything I can to make you feel happy and cared for.”
Your eyes study his face for sincerity. They’re words you’ve been wanting to hear, words you could’ve pictured in your head, but the adoration in his eyes makes you realize you never could’ve imagined the true sweetness of those words when they’re said from him.
You press your cheek to his chest again. You’re not crying anymore. “I’m sorry for what I said to you earlier. About kicking a soccer ball, and having it easy,” you bite down on your lip, because now there’s tears in your eyes again, “I didn’t mean it.” You sniffle a little, “I know you work hard. And it was a really mean thing to say.”
He sighs, holding you flush to himself. His cheek presses against the top of your head. “That’s okay, you don’t have to apologize for that.”
“But I do.”
There was no grudge at all. There was nothing withdrawn from you, nothing taken away as punishment. He just held onto you, exactly as you are, and you felt so safe in every second you spent in his arms.
You look up at him again. His hair is damp, strands clinging to his face in all the places they usually fall over, droplets of rain falling from his fringe onto your face and he does everything he can to wipe them away. “It’s too late,” you tell him, and he immediately knows what you’re referring to.
He just holds you closer. “I know.”
“I don’t have feelings for you anymore,” you say through a sniffle.
He knows you’re lying, and that you say it just out of spite, but he holds your head to his chest. “I know.”
“You’ll have to beg and grovel, and even then, I might not like you ever again,” you say, gripping so tightly onto his shirt for purchase, your voice sounding muffled as you breathe in the scent of him. “That’s your punishment.”
He presses a kiss to the top of your head. A firm press of his lips, lasting as he takes a few deep breaths. And then he kisses the same spot again, staying still in that position as he repeats himself.
“I know.”
--
a/n. phewww thank you for reading, i swear, this chapter felt like a goddamn war to write. my emotions were all over the damn place, i think cause i wrote from a place of bitter experience lol. i dedicate this chap to my lovely friend she’s a film major (she inspired me to create this story) and i srs wouldn’t be able to write kickoff without her 😭💕 dear M♥︎, i thought of you sm while writing this chapter, i can only hope i’ve captured even the slightest bit of the understanding i will always aim to have of you, and that you feel seen. i’m incredibly proud of you, always rooting for you, so often thinking of you, and terribly missing you so much rn (plsssssss visit meee😩💔 ) dedicated w sm love 💕 -bitchasshoe this chapter is also dedicated to anyone who’s going through a hard times n maybe just trying to figure themselves out :”) i am so proud of you, you should be so proud of yourself, there’s still so much to live and learn, and i hope the universe blesses you w everything you’ve ever wanted!! big thank u to my lovely m00t @quinnyundertow she pulled me out of my writers block for this chapter and also beta read a lot of it for me there’s only three chapters left for kickoff (i’m gonna cry just thinking ab it :”)) which doesnt sound like a lot but there’s still a lot i’ve got planned 😭 i’m just noticing that i very poorly planned the second half of this series. chapters 1-6 combined have less words than chapters 7-9 combined 😅✨ sooooo i may increase the chapters from 12 to 14 by splitting them up to make it easier on me, or just stick to the plan and come out with long chapters like the last two. idk. i’ll figure it out. thank u to everyone for reading i love you all dearly 😭💕 i’ll see you in the next one!!
➸ take me to chapter ten!
➸ wrote some kickoff headcanons here
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--
taglist: @who-can-touch-my-boob @therealestpussyeater @lost-resonance @hojoslutoru @foulprincesscycle @luniunia @alekssashka7 @bsdicinindirdim @tsukikourito @getitsatoru @slut-4-gojo @cactisjuice @kissofife @tiredflame132 @cliosunshine @ethereally-lyann @btszn @prince-wyiilder @semra4 @gojosimp26 @drthymby @ninitoru @bbyxxm @fvsm4x @sadmonke @zoinks1010 @bakuhoethotski @horisdope @sykostyles @aquaberrydolphin @colouringfrogssittinginleaves @ri-sa20 @purplehallow11 @mwtsxri @ritsatoru @bxddiebloss @chwesuh-imnida @mo0nforme @viware @still-fking-single @megumisthirdog @gintokhi @karvokr @cierocanteat @imjustaweirdnerd @ronniebird @bloopsstuff @mwtsxri @witchbybirth @tetsuski @fffinskye @gh0ulkz @beabadobeee @mandysfanfics @erencvlt @laviefantasie @sukunamylovexoxo @girlkissersco @itzjuliana @yell0wdreams @1dimas7 @strayedjeno @mo0nforme @yungbloode @sullybrothersmate @oaooaoaoaoa @swagangelllamawolf @banenemilk @inniesblog
(hope i didn't miss anyone thank u all sm!!)
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visenyaism · 3 months ago
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tyrannical king maegor dashboard simulator
🐉queen-visenya--outlives
Dowager Queen Visenya Targaryen has outlived her nephew the King Aenys I Targaryen. Her son King Maegor I Targaryen has returned to the capital to claim his father’s throne.
💫 sevensent Follow
crusty incest king died. FLOP!
💫 sevensent Follow
wait MAEGOR?
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🥔 bowlofbrown
this job fucking sucks. finished my shift and i cant even clock out because i got lost underneath the site.
#dark as shit down here #never working construction again
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💌 maidens-smile Follow
i literally cannot believe how many supporters of m*egor i see on my dashboard every day when he is literally flaying and torturing so many seven-blessed poor fellows just for practicing their religion and saying incest is bad??? he’s literally outside my city waiting to burn us all to death DNI if you support him
🪨 dragonstoner Follow
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🐉 queen-visenya--outlives
Dowager Queen Visenya Targaryen has outlived the High Septon. He previously denounced King Maegor and his wives as “the abomination and his whores,” and passed shortly after Dowager Queen Visenya and King Maegor flew their dragons to the gates of Oldtown and threatened to burn the Starry Sept.
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🪽 maegors-wins Follow
i for one think “the cruel” is a bit unfair given how he has done so much to uplift women’s voices and free us from religious tyranny like. named the first female heir in westerosi history? improving the infrastructure in king’s landing? decentralizing the power of the faith? he literally loves gay people so much he married three of them?
🦓 zorse-deactivated7849
op what does that eleven inch necromantic targaryen dick feel like because if you keep riding that hard I’m pretty sure it’ll rot off
🔮 tyanna
in seven days you will begin to cough
#twelve. btw
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🐉 queen-visenya--outlives
Dowager Queen Visenya Targaryen has outlived her great-nephew Aegon Targaryen, henceforth to be known as “The Uncrowned.” Her son King Maegor I Targaryen has slain him and his dragon Quicksilver over the gods’ eye for trying to usurp his throne.
🌞 ullerihardlyknowher Follow
why is this always how i find out how do you know this before even cravings moste popular
#also what the fuck is going on up there
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🪰 florian-and-jonquil-on-nymerias-ship Follow
guys the oversexualization of king maegor is so problematic and insane considering he’s not only shy and married as a 13 year old but also is literally neurodivergent (has CTE)
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🤲 aegonfort-top
🤲 aegonfort-top
lost my left hand for posting this
#it was kind of hot though
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🗣️ towerstower Follow
was not into targaryen rule at all but if we are going to do it it’s kind of fun that we are being ruled by a super powered animated blood corpse and his circle of freaky bisexual witches and also his mommy instead of like. a normie who also fucks his sister
🫀 imasharpknife Follow
seven hells you people would fuck a k*nslayer if they had valyrian silver hair
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🐦‍⬛ raventooth Follow
during these trying times when our king is accused of depravity and tyrannies abound throughout the land we must remember the most important truth: the brackens are still a people spawned from the lowest of the seven hells
🐎 brackennation
KILL YOURSELF. Lord Gonzo Tully himself AS YOU KNOW literallyyyyyy gave us the right to move the boundary stones over the tributary. but i wouldn’t expect a blackwood to acknowledge basic laws and rights you’re just too busy doing blood sacrifices to your nasty heathen tree god.
🐦‍⬛ raventooth Follow
as soon as i figure out why balerion is overhead rn im coming over to kill you. btw
🐎 brackennation
wait looks like he’s headed towards harrentown
🐦‍⬛ raventooth Follow
oh cool. KILL YOURSELF
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💐 floriansfool36 Follow
hi guys!!! sorry i’m a sennight late posting this, my brother got killed and then one of my other brothers got tortured to death and then my great-aunt died and i ended up having to flee dragonstone for storm’s end and it was kind of scary lol. anyways here’s the update as promised!!!
🌟 maidensgrace Follow
i wish Balerion did get you RPF is literally soooooo problematic. look to your sins op
#daenys the dreamer and nymeria weren’t even alive at the same time????
❤️ lanadelrhaena
i think you did a great job. glad you’re safe xx
💐 floriansfool36 Follow
YOU HAVE INTERNET IN THE KEEP???? HIIIII
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swiftlymurmurs · 5 months ago
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I've seen a lot of people voice disappointment over this Game Changer season finale and while I personally wasn't really bothered by a lot of the criticisms (I thought the Ratfish was an interesting added game mechanic and I never really care who wins or loses so his judgements not aligning with mine made no difference to me) I do think it's very interesting and I've spent some time thinking about why it doesn't work for so many. Some thoughts: Why is this Eric guy even here?
Tim & Eric were a popular tv comedy duo in the late aughts alt comedy scene. Sam and many of the writers at Dropout are sketch comedy nerds who, in 2007, were freshly at the start of their comedy careers, and probably see them and the larger [Adult Swim] environment they were a part of as a huge influence.
Why has it maybe aged poorly?
As far as I know, their popularity came in the early stages of about a decade of quite cynical, surreal comedy that also spawned the "lolrandom" era. While huge and fresh at the time, I think my generation (gen Z, the main viewerbase of Dropout) has grown pretty tired of this style and favours sketch comedy that's more clever, witty, and emotionally open or wholesome. At least, that's a movement Dropout has very much steered into with their roster of comedians and it's what the viewers expect.
The parasocial thing
It's no secret that Dropout actively promotes itself as a tight group of friendly comedians who you are invited to get to know, expect, and love when they show up. They don't abuse parasociality in the way you see, for example, younger audience oriented youtubers shoveling merch do it, but they absolutely make use of it. Most of the moments from this episode I've seen people gush over or post positively about are those where the cast recognize each other's styles, reference their relationships, and just generally make it known how well they know one another. When a total stranger enters the picture in an episode where the cast already have a barrier to their regular banter AND is given so much power over the game, they may look like an outsider or even an enemy to the happy little family people have gotten so attached to. Especially because his role is explicitly that of an antagonist, and the cast are never given a chance to see him and maybe out their love and respect for him as a comedian. In the minds of viewers, he just stays some guy who made mean jokes about their blorbo and then left.
Conclusion
I'm always glad to see this show making big swings, and while most of them have landed, some of them are bound to miss. It's a show that prides itself on trying things the viewers may not yet know they wanted and the second it stops trying, I think it'll be all the worse for it. It's a shame to end the season on such a note, but it's been hit after hit so far, and before we know it we'll be right back into it. I love this show, I love this cast, and I'm excited to see what's next!
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soobibabe · 2 months ago
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espresso kim mingyu
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rewite of one of my most popular oneshots, espresso! pairings: kim mingyu + reader trope: friends to lovers genre ▸ romantic comedy (including smut) wc: warnings: 'unprotected' sex (she's on the pill tho) , oral [m + f receiving], fingering, choking, lots of praise and pet names, creampie, v. squirting. lmk if I miss any.
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[ august 2nd 2023 ]
It’s been so long since you last saw the friend group that just walking in makes you jittery. You've known these guys since high school, all thanks to Mingyu, but university life has kept you too busy to catch up.
You do see Mingyu the most, given that you both attend SNU together, but the rest of the gang has been a rare sight.
When you finally step through the door, your nerves quickly dissolve. The room erupts in cheers as soon as you're spotted, with Soonyoung’s voice ringing out in delight.
“Come hereeee! You’re all grown up now!” His eyes light up as he watches you move towards the circle they’ve formed in the living room. He’s already looking tipsy.
“Soooonieee, I missed you!” You hug him tightly as soon as you’re within reach. Chan’s voice cuts through the celebration. “Yah, quit hogging her!”
“Ignore them both; they’re half a bottle of soju away from full-blown drunkenness,” Dokyeom says with a laugh, pulling you away from their clinging. “Let’s get you settled. What do you want to drink? It doesn’t have to be alcohol if you’re not into that, though we were about to start a drinking game.”
You smile, feeling a wave of nostalgia. “Just water for me, but a drinking game sounds fun. I’d love to join, though you know my tolerance is pretty much nonexistent.”
“That’s fine,” Dokyeom says. “You can just watch, but—”
Before he can finish, Mingyu joins you in the kitchen, cutting in smoothly. “We were thinking of playing truth or dare, or drink. DK suggested it for old times’ sake.”
You don’t notice Minghao entering until his voice calls out your name, making you jump slightly. “I missed you. It’s been so long!” He moves in for an embrace, but Mingyu grabs your wrist and steers you towards the others. “Missed you too, Hao—” Your words are cut short by Mingyu’s brisk pace.
You miss the tense exchange of glances between Minghao and Mingyu, the latter looking determined while Minghao wears a sly smirk.
DK follows into the living room, carrying a tray of shot glasses and bottles. “So, who’s up first?”
The game kicks off with outrageous dares, from posting twerking videos on Instagram (DK’s specialty) to speaking Korean with an American accent for the rest of the game.
When it’s Minghao’s turn, he locks eyes with Mingyu. “I dare you to call the girl you like and confess exactly how you feel.”
The dare hits you like a punch to the gut. Mingyu hesitates for a moment before downing his shot in one go. Since when was he seeing someone?
The game continues with laughter and more dares until Wonwoo finally arrives, fresh from a long day at his internship.
The night has been the most fun you’ve had in years, but Mingyu’s secret lingers in your mind. Why hasn’t he told you about this?
Later, after everyone else has either left or collapsed on the couch, you and Mingyu find yourselves sitting on the porch outside his room. The cool night air and the city’s soft hum create the perfect backdrop.
“Why didn’t you tell me you liked someone?” you ask, trying to sound casual despite the twist in your chest.
Mingyu looks at you, his expression unreadable. “It’s complicated.”
“Complicated how? We’re best friends, Mingyu. You can tell me anything,” you press.
He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “It’s nothing. Really, don’t worry about it.”
Defeated, you decide to drop the topic. “Anyway, it’s late. I should get going—” But before you can finish, Mingyu’s warm hand wraps around your wrist, pulling you back. The touch is unexpected but gentle.
“Don’t go,” Mingyu says, his brown eyes earnest. “It’s past midnight; you shouldn’t be driving alone.”
“It’s okay, Gyu, I’ll be fine.”
He pulls you closer, his grip firm but tender. “Please don’t go.” His plea makes your breath hitch. You’re used to his alcohol-fueled clinginess, but this feels different. Your heart races, and the tension between you makes your cheeks flush.
You grab Mingyu’s leftover soju from the ledge and take a swig. He watches you with a mix of surprise and admiration.
“Mingyu, can I do something stupid?” you ask, feeling the alcohol’s effects loosen your inhibitions.
“Do anything you want, whether it’s with me or something else. Just stay with me,” he replies, his voice low.
You’re not sure if it’s the alcohol or the moment, but you lift your hand to his cheek, standing on tiptoe to meet his gaze. Lost in his eyes, you notice his focus on your lips.
“Can I kiss you?” you ask, as if he could read your mind.
He doesn’t hesitate. With a swift, decisive movement, his lips crash onto yours. You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling away for air, but he immediately follows, chasing your lips with his own.
His hands explore your hips, then waist, until he's grabbed one of your thighs, pulling it up to his frame.
He pulls away, this time you expect him to say that you shouldn't be doing this, but to your surprise... "Need more. I need you, y/n" The whininess in his tone causes you to reject any worry you previously have about 'ruining the friendship'.
"You have me, Gyu". you manage to say, but you're so breathless it comes out sounding like a moan, it ignites something in Mingyu You'd never seen before.
His eyes grow dark in an instant, kissing you again this time leading you into the room with the hold he had on your hips. Strangely, you're the one who feels intoxicated now, mingyu sobering up by the minute.
"Can i touch you, y/n?" he whispers, breaking the kiss.
"Please do" you whisper back. He feels feral. Now you're on the bed, back against the mattress with mingyu hovering above you. He takes off his shirt and you're blushing like a teenager all over again.
You've seen Mingyu shirtless a number of times throughout your friendship. You would always have to look away, afraid he'd notice how flustered he made you. All those times were nothing compared to being this up close.
"Do you like what you see princess?" the way he says nickname has your heart and core fluttering. He holds your hand, presses it against his chest and you feel his heartbeat racing.
"I'm nervous too, its alright. we can stop at any point you don't feel like doing more, okay?" No other guy you've got this far with before paid this much attention to your satisfaction, he's unreal.
"Mingyu, i need you"
"You have me pretty girl, just tell me where"
You start by placing his palm against your cheek, then down to your chest torturously slow following the line that divides the left and right of your torso all the way down to your clothed cunt. "Here." you bat your lashes at him, doe eye on full display.
Mingyu wastes no time, he tugs the waistband of your pants all the way off in one swift motion. "Tell me how bad you want it baby" "Please gyu," you start, but your mind wonders far off anything coherent when you feel his lips graze your supple skin. He bites onto your panties, pulling them down your thighs with his teeth. So slowly, so sensually it almost feels surreal.
Once it's off, all of his attention is on your bare cunt, "dripping for me already and I haven't even touched you yet" "let's take care of that, yeah?" almost immediately, his face is buried in your heat, licking a long strip from your clit to your needy hole until he's back up, attacking your clit.
"Fuck, you taste so good" he practically moans out against your skin, sending vibrations through you.
Not long after the constant cycle of rubbing your clit and eating you like you were his last meal, he pulls off, spitting directly onto your slit and slides his middle and ring finger into you. His face returns to your cunt, repeating everything he did earlier, this time focusing on stimulating your gspot with his fingers.
“Right there! mmh” you whine out, trying to suppress your moans incase one of the guys outside wake up (which they wouldn’t even if you were to scream, because they’re all blacked out drunk).
“Don’t stop, please! fuck, gyu don’t stop” you feel him smirk against you. Your hands scurry the bed for something to hold onto when the pleasure starts to feel like too much. They finally reach to mingyu scalp tangling his hair causing him to moan out.
Without warning, his hands and lips detach from your pussy, earning pained a whimper from you feeling empty.
“Need to be inside you. Like now. i’ll make it up to you. Promise” he leans in, pulling you into another passionate kiss, hands busy with the him of your shirt “Take this off pretty. Wanna feel all of you.”
“Good girl” he hums once you do, kissing you as a reward. “Put me in”
You’d be lying if you said you weren’t intimidated by his size. Not only was he long, but he was blessed in the girth department too.
You reach for him, holding the base of his cock to align it with your entrance. Once you start pushing the tip in, you’re scared you might not be able to handle the rest of him.
“That’s it, keep going you can take it.” he encourages. He glides in easily thanks to his fireplay earlier, but the stretch was alot. “Don’t worry baby i’ll make it fit.”
He gently moves your hand off of his dick where you connected and places his on your hips instead. “It’ll feel good soon, i promise” he whispers.
He slams every inch of himself into you all at once in a sharp motion. “Shh, it’s okay. You’re doing so good for me” his strokes are slow, but hard. Not missing your g-spot once. The pain turns to pleasure faster than you thought.
“You look so pretty like this” you’re unable to respond to the compliment, too consumed in how good he makes you feel.
Your nails graze his back, surely leaving marks. It drives him insane. the thought of you claiming him gets him so worked up his pace quickens, his pelvis snapping against yours.
Mingyu busies himself in your neck, leaving bites thatlll most definitely bruise before tomorrow.“Gyu m’gonna cum” you’re seeing stars.
“let it all go for me princess” that’s all it takes for you to release all over his cock.
His pace is constant, fucking you through your orgasm.
“Shit, that was so hot, good job pretty”
Your pussy clenches on him repeatedly, sending him closer to his edge. “Ass up” you obey as soon as he requests. Once you’re flipped over, he puts a pillow under your stomach ensuring your comfort.
“Took me so well just like i said you would”
In no time, he’s back to his previous pace, thrusting in and out of your soaked cunt. “Has anyone else ever made you feel this good?”
“No! fuck, only you gyu!” you can’t see him, but you can already assume (accurately so) that he’s got a smirk plastered across his face.
As he continues, you feel the coil from earlier build up again.
Mingyu holds your hand, pulling it under your body, between your lower tummy and the pillow, pressing it against the bulge that appears when he strokes all the way into you. “Do you feel me here?”
“Yes, god cumming again” he presses down against the bulge harder, adding more stimulation to your second orgasm.
“Good girl. Me too” he groans.
“Fill me up, gyu” he does exactly that.
“Fuck,” he chucked lowly “you can’t just say stuff like that, it makes me wanna ruin you”
“Then ruin me” you muster out through broken moans from the overstimulation.
Your walls are coated white, flodded with his release.
He still hasn’t pull out of you, not wanting to break contact.
“You mean that?” he says as he collapses onto the bed, pulling you into a warm embrace.
“Nah i was just kidding” of course, you’re only teasing. After this, he can do anything he wants to you.
“Uh huh, will you still be saying that when i ask you to sit on my face once you’re no longer sore?” he bites back at you.
“Shh go to sleep” you attempt to change the topic, aware that you’re playing a losing game.
“No sleeping yet pretty girl. Let’s get you cleaned up” and with that, he scoups you up bridal style, walking you to the bathroom and starts the shower for you two.
“My legs are wobbly because of you”
“Weren’t you just begging me to ruin you?”
“Okay whatever let’s get this over with i’m sleepy “ you sulk.
Mingyu spends most of the time in the shower focused on tending to you even though you reassure him you’re okay to do it on your own.
You’re in his clothes, cuddled up into his large arms. He can’t believe this is really happening. The girl he’s been inlove with since he was a teen is really here, right now, beside him like this.
“are you asleep?” he asks softly.
“depends” you respond playfully, making him roll his eyes.
“i’m really glad… this happened” his tone changes to a whisper, much more serious than earlier.
“Me too. i’d be even more glad if it happened another time?”
“Noted” he giggles, which turns into a yawn.
“goodnight, y/n”
“goodnight, gyu”
His arms wrap around you, pulling you in somehow even closer. You both fall asleep in a matter of minutes. your heart feels so full.
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[ august 3rd 2023 ]
You wake up wrapped in Mingyu's embrace, feeling the gentle rise and fall of his chest syncing with your own. As you shift onto your stomach, you lift your head to take in his sleeping face.
He looks utterly serene, the most angelic sight you've ever seen up close. Without thinking, your hand reaches up to cup his face, tenderly caressing his cheeks.
"I wish we could stay like this all day," you whisper, and his peaceful facade momentarily falters as a smile tugs at his lips.
"You sly little sh—" you begin, but yourwords are cut off as he flips you over, positioning himself on top of you.
"Let's stay like this then," he murmurs, burying his face in your chest, unwilling to let go of the warmth.
"But what about the guys?"
"What time do you think it is, baby?" he chuckles. "They all left, which is why I was already awake."
You glance at the clock on the nightstand. It's already 11 a.m.
"Don't blame me; you're the one who drained the life out of me last night!" You wince internally, regretting your choice of words as you notice him blush, his face hidden against your chest.
"Anyway, I made breakfast for you. Let's head to the kitchen," he says, and you can't help but think that Mingyu just keeps getting more perfect.
You spend the rest of the morning at his place, showering together, brushing your teeth, and lounging around in his clothes while eating and chatting casually. Well, almost casually. Mingyu finds every opportunity to steal kisses—at first, he says it’s to check for something on your lips, then it’s to blow an imaginary eyelash off your cheek. None of it is necessary, but you revel in his affectionate gestures.
Later, Mingyu insists you stay longer, but you have plans with Jiwon, your best friend, that evening. Reluctantly, you agree to leave, making a promise—thanks to Mingyu's persuasive charm—that you'll spend more one-on-one time with him later that week.
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At the mall, Jiwon and you meander through a maze of shops, trying on clothes and chatting about everything under the sun. By the time you both concede to taking a break, your feet are sore, and your energy is depleted. You nestle into a comfy corner of a café, where you order a couple of steaming lattes and pastries, ready to unwind and catch up on life.
Despite your constant communication, there's always a treasure trove of new topics to dive into. Today, though, you’ve been brooding over how to drop some major news, and after much mental wrestling, you decide to take the plunge.
You're not sure how she'd react to the news about mingyu, so you decide to rip the bandage off all at once out of nowhere after hours of contemplation.
Jiwon’s eyes perk up immediately. "HE? YOU? Oh my god, stop! I’m going to pass out! YOU GUYS? Y/N?" Her shock and disbelief are palpable, reflecting your own feelings when you first wrapped your head around it.
You nod, a smile playing at your lips. "Yeah, I was just trying to figure out when and how to tell anyone."
Jiwon leans in, her face a mix of excitement and disbelief. "Well, now that we’re on this topic… how was it? Was he… you know… well-endowed?"
You laugh, feeling a flush of embarrassment mixed with amusement. "To sum it up in one word: heavenly. And yes, he’s definitely… well, impressive."
“Oh my god, this is amazing!” Jiwon’s eyes widen. “Honestly, I kind of saw this coming. He's always looking at you like he’s about to fall over from adoration. And even though you play it cool, it’s clear that you both have this crazy thing for each other but are too scared to admit it—probably because of the whole ‘maintaining the friendship’ thing.”
You cringe at how spot-on she is. “Okay, I won’t argue with your assessment. But you can’t deny that he’s seen me at my best and worst. He’s the best guy friend I’ve ever had, and it would be strange to end things since we share so many mutual friends.”
“Whatever’s meant to happen will happen, Y/N. Just do what feels right. I think that means letting whatever started with Mingyu last night continue.”
“Ugh, I agree. Thanks for being my moral compass, Jiwon. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” In a spontaneous gesture, she grabs your hand.
You expect her to say something sentimental, but instead, she surprises you with her usual boldness.
“Cute. Now let’s go get you some lingerie to celebrate with your boy toy.” Jiwon’s lack of a filter never ceases to amuse you.
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[ august 7th 2023 ]
Mingyu's at your apartment, finally able to hang out together like you decided on the last you met.
You're both on the couch, keeping fair distance whilst you watch 'Crash Landing On You' for the second time with him.
Halfway into the second episode, mingyu slides himself closer to your end of the couch, breaking the invisible barrier between the two of you.
"i miss you" he pouts, seeking your attention.
"i'm right here" you can't help but giggle at how stupidly adorable he looks.
He places a hand on your waist, reeling you closer to him. "I have an idea of something more fun we could do"
"Mhm, and what is that?' you inquire.
"Let me show you" he lifts you like you weigh nothing more than a feather, settling you on his lap allowing you to straddle him.
"Remember what i said about sitting on my face? Can you do that for me pretty girl?" his fingers dance on the elastic of your underwear, waiting for your permission before he goes any further.
"Yes i can, but can i taste you today instead, gyu?" your reply catches his off guard.
"Anything you want baby" the pet name sends shivers down your spine, encouraging you to act upon your urges and pulling him into deep kiss.
You get off of his lap, knees against the hard wooden floor, ridding him of his jeans whilst he tugs his shirt off. He's so fit.
His dick bulges through his calvins, fighting against the fabric. "Look at how hard you make me pretty"
You take his cock out of his boxers, almost salivating at the sight of it. His tip is crimson, begging for relief.
You wrap your hand around his shaft, drawing it closer to your face. You lick a long strip along it, coming back up and stopping at his tip and taking it into your mouth.
Once he's past your lips, he's a groaning mess. "Fuck, you're doing so well, keep going."
You take him in further gagging around him when he's all the way in, stuffing your throat. "Good girl. So good for me, shit"
His hands pull your hair into a loose ponytail, using the light grip to guide you. You bob your head, thrusting him in and out of your mouth at a steady pace.
It doesn't take long for you to find a rhythm, but it's not enough for him. He really just wants to be inside your cunt, so to speed up the process, "Can I fuck your throat baby?" his voice drops a few octaves down, losing himself in pleasure.
You nod in response, and that's all the confirmation he needs to push your head closer to his pelvis. He stands up to angle his dick better, thrusting in and out of your mouth, gradually reaching his climax.
Your eyes are full of tears, mascara running down your face tipping him over the edge. "Can you handle swallowing?" he asks through broken moans making you nod again. He holds you in place, reaching all the way down your throat where he releases his load.
He reaches out to hold your hand, pulling you to your feet, flush against his body into a kiss. "You're unreal".
He sits both of you back onto the couch in your previous position. "Please fuck me" you whimper out, too horny to care about how desperate that must've sounded.
"So bold" he smirks "Well, as my lady wishes"
He works on removing your bottoms while you unbutton the silk pajama shirt you're wearing. When you're finally stripped out of your clothes, he's in awe at the revelation of what you'd been hiding underneath.
"You're gonna be my demise" is the last thing he utters before yanking your panties to the side, lifting you to align your cunt with his cock, and slowly sinking you down on it.
You moan in unison at the feeling of the initial stretch. It feels like he's breaking you in two in the most divine way possible.
"Fuck, y/n nobody else can ever feel you like this."
"I'm yours mingyu, fuck!" you manage to whine out.
He holds your hips to slam you onto his dick. His free hand creeps up to your neck, choking you slightly as he fucks into you. It drives you insane, feeling him all the way inside you near your cervix. At some point, his cock really does kiss your cervix, causing you to sob out from the overwhelming pleasure mixed with that unfamiliar pain.
He doesn't fail to hit the spongy tissue in you even once. He changes position, laying you on your back with his hand still on your throat. Your vision suddenly blurs, a mix of white and stars clouds your mind with your eyes sealing shut.
You're squirting. All over him at that.
"Holyyy fuck," Mingyu groans out. "Y/n, fuck you're gonna make me cum" "Cum-" Youre interrupted by a wave of your orgasm crashing through your body "-in me"
And so he does. This might have been the hottest thing mingyu has ever experienced.
"You're clenching down on me so hard, fuck. oh fuck-" The overstimulation from his relentless thrusts sends you both over the edge.
"The couch" he says followed by an airy laugh, but you couldn't really care less about the mess right now.
"You have officially ruined me" you whisper with a fucked out smile.
"Good." he smiles back. his eyes linger on where you connect, pulling out of you and admiring the sight of his cum dripping out of you. "Fuck, can I take a picture of this?"
"Sure, just dont show it to anyone" his eyes sparkle at your response.
"It's cute that you think i'd share you" he uses two fingers to plunge into your tight, dripping hole and fucks his cum back into you. "so pretty" he pulls his phone out, snapping a picture of the image he's already embedded into his mind.
"Let's go clean you up"
┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊ ┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊
A/N: this is a rewrite of one of my most popular one shots :] i intend to turn this into a series and the first version of it felt a little to scrappy for a chapter one! i hope you enjoy!
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supersoakerfullofblood · 8 months ago
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Point of View: the Biggest Thing You're Missing!
Point of view is one of the most important elements of narrative fiction, especially in our modern writing climate, but you rarely hear it seriously discussed unless you go to school for writing; rarely do help blogs or channels hit on it, and when they do, it's never as in-depth as it should be. This is my intro to POV: what you're probably missing out on right now and why it matters. There are three essential parts of POV that we'll discuss.
Person: This is the easiest part to understand and the part you probably know already. You can write in first person (I/me), second (You), and third person (He/she/they). You might hear people talk about how first person brings the reader closer to the central character, and third person keeps them further away, but this isn't true (and will be talked about in the third part of this post!) You can keep the reader at an intimate or alien distance to a character regardless of which person you write in. The only difference--and this is arguable--is that first person necessitates this intimacy where third person doesn't, but you still can create this intimacy in third person just as easily. In general, third person was the dominant (and really the only) tense until the late 19th century, and first person grew in popularity with the advent of modernism, and nowadays, many children's/YA/NA books are written in first person (though this of course doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't write those genres in the third person). Second person is the bastard child. Don't touch it, even if you think you're clever, for anything the length of a novel. Shorter experimental pieces can use it well, but for anything long, its sounds more like a gimmick than a genuine stylistic choice.
Viewpoint Character: This is a simple idea that's difficult in practice. Ask yourself who is telling your story. This is typically the main character, but it needn't be. Books like The Book Thief, The Great Gatsby, Rebecca, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the Sherlock series are told from the perspective of a side character who isn't of chief importance to the narrative. Your viewpoint character is this side character, the character the reader is seeing the world through, so the main character has to be described through them. This isn't a super popular narrative choice because authors usually like to write from the perspective of their most interesting character, but if you think this choice could fit your story, go for it! You can also swap viewpoint characters throughout a story! A word of warning on that: only change your viewpoint character during a scene/chapter break. Switching mid-scene without alerting the reader (and even when you do alert the reader) will cause confusion. I guarantee it.
Means of Perception; or, the Camera: This part ties the first two together. If you've ever heard people talk about an omniscient, limited, etc. narrator, this is what they mean. This part also includes the level of intimacy the reader has with the viewpoint character: are we in their heads, reading their thoughts, or are we so far away that we can only see their actions? If your story is in a limited means of perception, you only have access to your character's head, eyes, and interpretations, where an omniscient narrator sees through all characters' heads at once. (This doesn't eliminate the viewpoint character--most of your writing will still be in that character's head, but you're allowed to reach into other characters' thoughts when needed. You could also be Virginia Woolf, who does fluidly move through everyone's perspectives without a solid viewpoint character, but I would advise against this unless you really are a master of the craft.) Older novels skew towards third person omniscient narration, where contemporary novels skew towards first person limited. You also have a spectrum of "distant" and "close." If omniscient and limited are a spectrum of where the camera can swivel to, distant and close is a spectrum of how much the camera can zoom in and out. Distant only has access to the physical realities of the world and can come off as cold, and close accesses your character's (or characters', if omniscient) thoughts. Notice how I said narration. Your means of perception dramatically effects how your story can be told! Here's a scene from one of my stories rewritten in third-person distant omniscient. The scene is a high school football game:
“Sometimes,” he said. “Not much anymore.” “It’s not better, then?” She shivered; the wind blew in. “A little.” His tone lifted. “I don’t know if it’ll ever be better, though.” She placed a hand on his arm, stuttered there, and slipped her arm around his waist. “Did it help to be on your own?” He raised an eyebrow. “You were there.” “Yes and no.” “And the guys, the leaders.” “Come on,” she heckled. “Okay, okay.” Carmen sighed. “Yeah, it helped. I don’t think—I don’t know—I’d be me if they’d fixed it all.” She grinned. “And who might you be?” “Oh, you know. Scared, lonely.” He fired them haphazardly, and a bout of laughter possessed him which Piper mirrored. “Impatient.” “And that’s a good thing?” “No.” He sat straight. “Gosh, no. But I don’t want to be like him, either.” He pointed to the field; Devon recovered a fumbled ball. “He’s never been hurt in his life.” She met his eyes, which he pulled away. “You don’t mean that," Piper said. “Maybe not. He’s too confident, though.” The cloth of Carmen's uniform caved and expanded under Piper's fingers.
With distant-omniscient, we only get the bare actions of the scene: the wind blows in, Piper shivers, the cloth rises and falls, Carmen points, etc. But you can tell there's some emotional and romantic tension in the scene, so let's highlight that with a first person limited close POV:
“Sometimes,” he said. “Not much anymore.” “It’s not better, then?” Frost spread up from her legs and filled her as if she were perforated rock, froze and expanded against herself so that any motion would disturb a world far greater than her, would drop needles through the mind’s fabric. A misplaced word would shatter her, shatter him. “A little.” His tone lifted. “I don’t know if it’ll ever be better, though.” She placed a hand on his arm, thought better, and slipped her arm around his waist. “Did it help to be on your own?” He raised an eyebrow. “You were there.” “Yes and no.” “And the guys, the leaders.” “Come on,” she heckled. “Okay, okay.” Carmen sighed. “Yeah, it helped. I don’t think—I don’t know—I’d be me if they’d fixed it all.” She grinned. “And who might you be?” “Oh, you know. Scared, lonely.” He fired them haphazardly, and a bout of laughter possessed him which Piper mirrored. “Impatient.” “And that’s a good thing?” “No.” He sat straight. “Gosh, no. But I don’t want to be like him, either.” He pointed to the field; Devon recovered a fumbled ball. “He’s never been hurt in his life.” “You don’t mean that.” She spoke like a jaded mother, spoke with some level of implied authority, and reminded herself again to stop. “Maybe not. He’s too confident, though.” Piper felt the cloth of his waist cave and expand under her fingers and thought: is this not confidence?
Here, we get into Piper's thoughts and physical sensations: how the frost rises up her, and how this sensation of cold is really her body expressing her nervous fears; how she "thought better" and put her arm around his waist; her thought "is this not confidence?"; and how she reminds herself not to talk like a mother. Since I was writing from the close, limited perspective of a nervous high schooler, I wrote like one. If I was writing from the same perspective but with a child or an older person, I would write like them. If you're writing from those perspectives in distant narration, however, you don't need to write with those tones but with the authorial tone of "the narrator."
This is a lot of info, so let's synthesize this into easy bullet points to remember.
Limited vs. Omniscient. Are you stuck to one character's perspective per scene or many?
Close vs. Distant. Can you read your characters' thoughts or only their external worlds? Remember: if you can read your character's thoughts, you also need to write like you are that character experiencing the story. If child, write like child; if teen, write like teen; etc.
Here's another way to look at it!
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This is a confusing and complex topics, so if you have any questions, hit up my ask box, and I'll answer as best I can. The long and short of it is to understand which POV you're writing from and to ruthlessly stick to it. If you're writing in limited close, under no circumstances should you describe how a character other than your viewpoint character is feeling. Maintaining a solid POV is necessary to keeping the dream in the reader's head. Don't make them stumble by tripping up on POV!
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sjyuns · 1 year ago
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WAY BACK HOME ┆ A SIM JAEYUN ONESHOT
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BREAKING NEWS! the friendly neighbourhood superhero spider-man has been caught trying to swing into a girl’s heart — but why is he failing miserably?! is this the spider-man we all know and love? or has our hero lost his spark?
or in which sim jaeyun asks you, his best friend out, forgetting that he was still in his spider-man suit.
GENRE! best friends to lovers, mutual pining, extremely groundbreaking embarrassing pick up lines, my missed hit at being a comdeian, jaeyun being jaeyun ( ie a hot loser ),
CAUTION! idiots in love, two timing ( but they’re the same person ), kissing, love, mentions of weapons and fighting crime, bad pickup lines, embarrassment for sim jaeyun, both reader and jaeyun are nineteen in this fic
WORDCOUNT! 5100
MIKAELA’S! hey everyone, this is the first ever oneshot i’m posting on my shiny new blog! please feel free to leave feedback through reblogs or asks! hope you enjoy jake embarrassing the soul out of himself🫶 i love sim jaeyun so much ( too much it’s embarrassing tbh ) this is the last of my old drafts, sorry for the spam!
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playlist ⟡ way back home — shaun ⟡ forever only — jaehyun ⟡ pov — ariana grande ⟡ daylight — taylor swift
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i. with great power comes a platter of hot embarrassment
“With great power comes great responsibility,” is what Spider-Man once said in an interview with The Daily Times, the most widely read newspaper company in all of Seoul.
It’s so out of character of Sim Jaeyun that he himself wonders what exactly went through his mind at that given time to blurt out such a philosophical quote — especially when he was having the bad urge to take a piss at that very moment.
But whatever it was: he needs it to return now, because he’s standing in front of you, his best friend, and he thinks that now's the chance; to finally ask you out after saving you.
Unfortunately Sim Jaeyun is out of luck, like he always is with you, because nothing but five utterly embarrassing words come out of his mouth.
“You tingle my spidey senses.”
You choke back a laugh as you stare at the masked superhero, amused at his sudden pick-me-up. “Are you rizzing me up, mister friendly neighbourhood hero?”
It seems like too much thinking has altered the already broken thought process in Sim Jaeyun’s brain, because it is only now that he registers that he’s still in his Spider-Man suit, and you don’t have a single clue that he’s Spider-Man.
“Uh, I mean-” but he’s cut off by the roaring cheer of the gathered public, who have their phones out and recording.
“Don’t back down, Spider-Man,” a citizen calls out, and Jaeyun thinks it’s far too late to back out now, because not only will it crush his ego, you might think Spider-Man isn’t as cool as he seemed to be.
“Would you let me swing into your heart- I mean, could we” he pauses, “could we hang out sometime?”
You smile, and it makes Jaeyun frown slightly under his mask, because he knows that smile — it’s the polite one, the one you use in a slightly uncomfortable situation, as if you didn’t want to embarrass the popular superhero standing in front of you at the moment.
“Sure,” you grin, pearly whites on display, “could I bring my best friend Jaeyun though? He’s a big fan.” It’s him, he thinks, he’s the Jaeyun you’re talking about. And his heart skips a beat at your thoughtful action.
“Okay! Tomorrow, here, five in the evening,” he says in excitement without a second thought. You’ve just agreed to go out on a date with him, and he’s too drunk in love to think about how he’s going to meet you as Spider-Man without telling you his identity.
He shoots a web up and swings after shouting an elated “see you, yn,” in the air. All too caught up in you to realise the three critical mistakes he’d made.
ONE. He never asked for your name as Spider-Man
TWO. There’s no way he could ever go on a date with his suit on in public
THREE. How in the fucking world is he going to a date with you as both Spider-Man and Sim Jaeyun?
Sim Jaeyun spends the whole night twisting and turning in his bed, mind in a flurry as he tries to think of the smartest way to solve these problems.
And it doesn’t help him when his phone pings with a new message from you.
Guess who just bagged us a hang out with Spider-Man tomorrow!
Don’t wear that Spider-Man suit or I swear to god I will not bring you to see him.
He sighs as he presses hard on the power button of his phone, staring blanking at the black screen. Fuck power or responsibility, he thinks, all he wants is his best friend’s heart, is that too much to ask for?
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ii. man up, spidey-boy!
“BREAKING NEWS! Spider-Man spotted trying to swing into a girl’s — who supposedly goes by the name yn, heart. And after failing miserably at the first try, he succeeded on the second. Spidey may be a hero who saves lives, but it seems like he might have to take up what youngster’s call ‘rizz’ classes.”
The wide billboard screen casts a video taken by a bystander as the announcer's voice blared into the main junction of the city.
Jaeyun groans as he hangs his head low, adjusting the baseball cap perched on top of his head to cover his face. Not like anyone knew he was Spider-Man, no, but it was just far too embarrassing for him.
He hears you before he sees you, your voice is illegally sweet as it causes a smile to appear on his face amidst all of the stress. “Jaeyun!” You call, “you’re unusually late,” and Jaeyun groans, blaming it on the lack of sleep he had gotten last night, “Spider-Man isn’t here yet.”
Right, Spider-Man. Jaeyun still hasn’t found a solution to that.
His suit is tucked safely in the bottom of his bag, just in case. But for now, Jaeyun thinks it’s a better decision to disappoint you as Spider-Man instead of as your best friend. Besides, he hasn’t missed a single hang out session with you, and he isn’t ever planning to.
“Do you think he’s actually going to come?” You ask, head tilting in question and eyes soft, and Jaeyun wonders if he actually underestimated how much you liked Spider-Man, misunderstood that seemingly polite smile you gave him yesterday — should he have came as Spider-Man instead?
“Uhm,” he pauses, hesitant to squash your expectations, “how about we go first? I’m sure Spider-Man will swing by, it seems like he likes you a lot.” And even though he was talking about himself, he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy bubbling in him at the thought of another boy liking you.
“Right,” you say, giving him a smile that makes his heart melt, “I guess it’s just us, like it always is.” Your fingers wrap around his, “I like it like this.” You mutter softly, yet in the buzz of the city square, Jaeyun catches the whisper of your voice, a goofy grin plastered on his face.
“Plus, if I ever need, you can be my Spider-Man — whip out that fake suit of yours. You have his physique anyway, and your pick up lines are just as idiotic as his. Maybe even more idiotic.”
Jaeyun lets out a loud laugh, one that’s of melodious dreams, and it causes a few pedestrians to stare but he doesn’t care, not when you’re next to him, asking him to be your very own Spider-Man. And he agrees immediately, all too ready to put on the ‘fake’ red and blue suit just for you.
He’s a little amused that you still believe that he’s a hardcore fan of Spider-Man, because the only time you’ve caught him wearing that very suit was two years ago, when you coincidentally entered his room to see him in a Spider-Man suit without a mask.
And he still remembers your accusations of him being a fanboy, asking him if dressing up as his idol was what he did in his free time. Jaeyun was way too flustered to even explain himself, and letting you know that he was the real Spider-Man never even crossed his mind as he bashfully nodded to your words.
But it wasn’t like you ever laughed at him about it, though you did tease him. You would still buy him different types of Spider-Man merchandise, ranging from Spider-Man socks to a custom Spider-Man mug with the words ‘Spider-Man loves Jaeyun’ in bold red.
With every gift given, came an opportunity to reveal his identity. Yet Sim Jaeyun never seizes it, he refuses to, because he finds it so endearing — the way you have the proudest smile on your face as you give him merchandise of himself that he has never seen before, the way you send him a picture of every single Spider-Man related thing you see on the streets.
“Right,” he nods as he gazes adoringly at you, “forget the real Spider-Man, I’ll swing into your heart.” And the giggle you let out once again makes his knees weak — he thinks the smile plastered on your face is much more genuine than the one he saw yesterday.
And he wants to kiss you so bad, tell you exactly how much he likes you, loves you. This familiar feeling that has settled comfortably at the bottom of his heart and back of his mind for the past four years, has only grown and never dwindled. It was times like this, where he didn’t feel the burden of having to be alert about ongoing crime.
Only with you can he feel like Sim Jaeyun — a lovesick nineteen year old and not Spider-Man, the hero of Seoul.
“Jaeyun, what do you want to do first?” You ask, pulling him through the blaring fun of the amusement park. He hums, following behind your excited figure, letting you choose what you wanted to do. “Oh my god, look it’s a Spider-Man toy.”
You halt in your step and immediately turn towards him, eyes sparkling. “Do you want it Jaeyun? I’ll get it for you. Just so you aren’t too sad that Spider-Man ghosted us today.”
He scoffs, as he examines the booth. It’s a shooting game, and he knows that you suck at shooting. “You sure, love? From what I remember, you aren’t too good at shooting games,” he brings up and you shoot him a sharp glare before pestering him to pay the vendor.
You end up blaming your best friend for jinxing you, “Yun, if you never said that, I could have shot them all down,” you complain, eyes morphing into slits as you pinpoint the blame on him. Jaeyun raises his two hands in innocence, face displaying an expression of shock, “I didn’t even say anything wrong, plus you barely hit one out of five balloons.”
You groan, shushing him in embarrassment, “If you’re such a professional, win it for me then,” you challenge him. Jaeyun shrugs, it’ll be easy — all those years of shooting webs has made him extremely sharp, so he manages to shoot all the five balloons without any effort, snagging the coveted Spider-Man doll.
“You sure you don’t want it, Yun?” you question, “add it to your collection as a fanboy.” He shakes his head, handing you the plush toy, “I won it for you. Plus, I like the ones you gave me more.”
It overwhelms you, the stark sincerity in his voice. And you feel the sudden need to kiss him, not like you’ve never thought of it before (more like you’ve thought about it too much), because Sim Jaeyun with his bright personality and handsome face is far too good to be real.
But you can’t bring yourself to be that direct, so you settle for a kiss on the cheek. A quick movement and a short peck before you let out a loud giggle, walking over to the next booth with a stupid smile plastered on your face, leaving Jaeyun in shock and awe — eyes wide and mouth agape before he bites back a smile.
He thinks it’s too hard to conceal his feelings any longer; that he has to tell you soon, next week, tomorrow, or maybe even now. And he feels the three words, eight letters, at the tip of his tongue.
As always, though, he swallows them back down, throat dry as he stares at you. The fear of rejection far too intense for him to handle.
How ironic, that Sim Jaeyun could fight criminals with equipped daggers that could kill him in one swift motion, yet he could not say three simple words to a girl who has pierced his heart and filled his stomach with butterflies.
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iii. in a sticky predicament
“Now on to our very own Spider-Man’s upcoming love story that seems to be wilting by the looks of it — Spidey, in fact, did not show up to his date with yn, who was seen with another boy at the amusement park. Our very own hero is facing multiple accusations that he may be, like his representative colour, a red flag. However, a minority of fans have brought up a speculation; that the boy we call Spider-Man, might be the very boy accompanying yn yesterday unmasked. That’s all for Spider-Man, here on The Daily News.”
“Don’t you think that’s insane Jaeyun?” you laugh, throwing your head back into the soft pillow on his bed, “they think you’re Spider-Man.”
“Right,” he trails on, arms crossed as he leans on the doorframe, “that’s so impossible.”
His laugh awkward as his fingers find themselves combing through his hair for the nth time. And you turn your head, looking at him with suspicion. Right, that’d be crazy, insane maybe, you think, because Sim Jaeyun was well — him. He’s slightly awkward, likes physics, and hell he’s scared of bugs, so it’ll be mind blowing if he ever was the real Spider-Man.
But impossible, you think, might not be true. And you sit up on the edge of the bed, eyes trained on him. Same physique, similar height, he’s athletic, and he shoots well. Plus, from your ever so short encounter with Spider-Man saving you from getting your wallet stolen, Spider-Man is just as awkward as your best friend.
Could he really be Spider-Man? But he’s a fan of Spider-Man, wouldn’t it be weird if he was such a big fan of himself. Still, you couldn’t rule out the possibility.
“Jump,” you instruct, “hang upside down on the walls.” Jake is shocked, as his heart accelerates in nervousness at the thought of being found out.
“Don’t be weird,” he groans, trying to keep calm, “that’s literally humanly impossible.” His mind racing, finding a way to get out of this sticky situation, because as much as he wants to tell you his identity, the last way he wanted you to find out was through the internet. Also, maybe because you looked slightly angry, with your eyebrows furrowed and hands on your head, and Jaeyun didn’t want you to be mad at him.
You were deep in thought, was that why Spider-Man didn’t show up yesterday — because he is actually Sim Jaeyun, and he couldn’t be there as two different people.
That might be a stretch, but it isn’t an impossible scenario. You tilt your head, quickly grabbing the pillow you were just lying on, throwing it at him, “catch.”
He catches it easily, with one hand even, as his face contorts into an expression of surprise. “Don’t scare me like that, love,” he says. But you’re too flabbergasted at the fast reflexes of your best friend to even comprehend his complaint.
“You could really give Spider-Man a run for his money, you know?” you chuckle, as you tell yourself that no matter how much it might fit, it’s probably just a coincidence, “put on that suit of yours and fight crime.” It was all a coincidence, right?
“What if I’m scared of getting hurt,” he pouts, and you snort. With Sim Jaeyun’s level of cowardice, there’s no way he could ever be out there fighting.
“Then I’ll protect you,” you say, “I’ll be your sidekick, all you have to do is stand there and look pretty.”
He grins, walking over to stand in front of you; hands moving to ruffle your hair. “Okay love, you lead, I’ll follow.”
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iv. tell him to grow a pair
Your newfound popularity brings you more drawbacks than benefits — by that you mean the sudden fury of boys approaching you to ask for your number. It annoys Jaeyun more than it does you, as your best friend flaunts a new irritated look that you’ve rarely seen.
“That’s the sixth fucking boy,” he grumbles, eyes rolling before he glares at the fleeting figure of Lee Heeseung, the boy who just asked you for your number, the boy who Jaeyun lashed out at.
“Be kind, Yun,” you chuckle, amused at your best friend’s sudden grumpiness, “I mean, I’ve never lashed out at any of the girl’s who ask you out.”
“No one has asked me out.” he groans, “are you flaunting right now?”
“Yes I am,” you reply, “don’t worry Jaeyun, you’ll always be my loser.”
He lets out a loud exaggerated sigh as he rolls his eyes, leaning against the locker as he grits his teeth in exasperation.
You wonder why no girl has ever hit Sim Jaeyun up. Granted, he wasn’t the best looking guy back in middle school with his choice of brightly coloured clothes that blinded eyes, but you think that was part of the appeal — how awkwardly adorable he was. Now, with his upgraded fashion style and bubbly personality, it’s a miracle no one has tried their shot at bagging him. Not that you wanted anyone to.
Sim Jaeyun is yours, just as much as you are his.
And he thinks the exact same. Despite what you think, he has had a girl approach him, professing his love only to get turned down by his puppy-like smile and his confession that he liked you.
Though his body exudes jealousy, there's a slight bit of relief at the fact that you turned all six of the boys down, telling them that you had a crush on someone else. He hopes, prays, begs that the person you think about is him. He furiously looks for a sign, because he’s tired of all this, and he needs a sign from you before he can courageously make the first move.
After school, the both of you walk down the buzzing streets with carts of street food lined up along the roadside. Your fingers bunching the fabric of Jaeyun’s shirt as he navigates the both of you through the crowded streets, making a beeline for his favourite churros shop.
“I told you the queue would be long, it’s Friday night,” you whine, mentally counting the number of people in front of you. Fifteen, that’ll take a while. “We should have just ordered in pizza and binge on Netflix shows.”
“Fine, we can eat churros another day,” Jaeyun pouts and you curse yourself for saying that even when you knew he wanted to eat churros.
“It’s fine, we can stay, since we’re already here.” You stop him, pulling him back beside you in the queue, “but you can’t leave to do something else like last time, you have to wait with me.”
The glow on his face coupled with the adorable smile on his lips makes you stare in awe. And you think Sim Jaeyun is so pretty and handsome all at once it’s a crime to look as good as him. His lips, god, they look so kissable and soft, you wish you could kiss them at any given time — now, tomorrow, forever.
But the moment doesn’t last long, as faint screams and shouts travel from a small corner shop down the road. “Thief, there’s a thief on the run.”
You watch as Jaeyun’s eyes widen, body in a sudden scramble, “uhm, I’m gonna go to the toilet for a moment,” he says amidst the whispers of the crowd, “stomach ache, you know.” Running off before you can give him a reply, brushing past people hurriedly into a random narrow street.
You shrug it off again because it isn’t the first time Jaeyun has acted out of character. However, you can’t help but realise it was always when there was crime.
The questions and suspicions floating around your head for the past week resurface as you focus on the narrow street your best friend had disappeared into.
Oh my god.
You blink profusely, pinch yourself, and rub your eyes because this is mind blowing information. You can’t seem to believe an ounce of what your eyes have just seen. Was that Spider-Man who just swung out of the very same alleyway?
Sim Jaeyun is Spider-Man. And your conclusion only seems to solidify as you hear the muffled voice coming out of his masked persona.
“Oops, sorry,” and a careless swing as he tries his best to manoeuvre through the crowd, accidentally knocking over a little girl’s ice cream cone, “I'm sorry, please don’t cry.”
Yup, that’s Jaeyun. His voice now so familiar you hit yourself in the head for not realising sooner. And his utterly helpless tone as he tries to soothe the little girl — you could recognise it from a mile away.
“I’ll get you a new one, I’m sorry,” he shouts as he spins his web and shoots again, lamppost to windows to signboards before effortlessly catching up with the thief; who was now bound to the wall by web.
“Sorry,” he groans for the fourth time in a matter of minutes, “it’s my job — i mean, not that you deserve to get away no, i just-” he rambles and you giggle at his comment. Seems like Sim Jaeyun will never change, even as a superhero or as your best friend.
“I meant to say, justice has been served,” he nods, seemingly proud of his awkward catchphrase that you were sure he stole from the superhero movie you watched with him a few weeks back. “I have to get back now, someone awaits me you know - i mean, no- I’m not supposed to give details of my personal life. I’ll just- stop talking… yeah.”
And you watch again as he swings back down the street. With his identity revealed, you can’t help but look up to Jaeyun even more now — a top student and a superhero? How unfair the world is. How lucky you were to have him as your best friend.
“Hey! Aren’t you yn? Spider-Man, is that your girl?” You shrink, head down as you fix your gaze on the floor immediately, cheeks a rosy red. God, you think, this is a little embarrassing.
You feel his presence before you see his shadow morphing with yours on the floor, “hey yn,” and you look up to see the superhero, who’s panting ever so slightly, stand in front of you in his glory. “Sorry about last week, I was well busy, and I know it isn’t any-”
“It’s fine,” you stop him from blabbering, a toothy grin plastered on your face. And Jaeyun feels proud, maybe him saving someone has put Spider-Man back into your good graces, maybe he has a chance with you as Spider-Man.
“I had fun with my crush at the amusement park. Actually, thank you for the opportunity, I kissed his cheek for the first time and it felt like heaven.”
He pauses, and Jaeyun wants to rip off his mask at the very moment to kiss you. You liked him back, fuck, you actually liked him back.
“Ah,” he says after a while of tense silence, his hands rubbing the nape of his neck, “that’s amazing. So- do you… I mean- so you’re like, in love with him? Wait love might be a little uhm-”
“Yeah, I’m in love with him.”
Time stops as your eyes pierce into his, and he can swear at this moment that you knew exactly who he was. He thinks it’s over, and he can finally ask you to be his — because he’s hellbent on loving you, for the past four years he has been.
“Seems like this crush of yours needs to step up his game, or I might just steal you away,” he remarks lightheartedly, uncaring of the sea of cameras pointing towards the both of you.
“Yeah, it seems like he does. Maybe you should visit him one day, tell him that it’s about time to man up, or I’ll be the one asking for his hand.” You shoot a knowing glance at him, a confident smirk on your face.
Jaeyun chuckles, “right, I’ll be sure to tell him that, wouldn’t want him to lose such a special girl.”
“Thanks Spidey, I wonder what I’d ever do without you,” you laugh, patting his suited shoulder before he once again swings away into the narrow alleyway, only to appear minutes later donned in his usual faded ripped jeans and white shirt, hair tousled and smile wide as he runs back to you.
And he’s before you all again, this time as your best friend and you swoon as his adoring eyes and elated smile. “You okay?” You ask, hand raising to fix his hair.
“I couldn’t be better.”
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v. Batman vs Spider-Man, a battle of the mans
“Spider-Man should now change his name into wing man as he is spotted once again, engaging in conversation with the very same yn from last week. Spider-Man was not only ruthlessly dumped by her, but was also asked to quote on quote visit her crush to ask him to grow a pair. Seems like she is off the market for our poor lonely superhero, who can’t seem to catch anyone except for criminals. That’s all for Spider-Man, here on The Daily News.”
“Seems like you can’t catch a break, huh Yun?” You point out as you switch the television off, “not only defamed into a wing man but also asked to grow a pair.”
And it seems like he really can’t because ever since you confronted him about being Spider-Man, his days have been filled with even more ruthless teasing, and weird questions.
“How do you even piss as Spider-Man?”
“Can I swing from building to building?”
“Can you hang upside down for ten minutes?”
“How do you think you would fare against Batman in a fight?”
But there’s one unasked question still hanging in the air. And Jaeyun really wants to address it, but it seems like you’ve lost your confidence by the way the flesh of your cheeks heats an angry red at any slight hint of him being your crush — or as Jaeyun would like to call himself; your soon to be boyfriend.
“I’ve grown a pair,” he says, shifting towards you, eyes trained on yours, “seems like someone has lost a pair.”
“Have not” you argue, lies — you could barely look at Jaeyun now without a lovesick smile on your face. Neither could you muster up the courage to ask him to be your boyfriend. “And if you ever grew a pair, you would have asked.”
“Ask what?” He teases, face moving closer to yours. He looks too good, godly almost, with his black rimmed glasses perched at the bridge of his nose.
You pout, furrowing your eyebrows as you place a light slap on the middle of his chest. And he lets out a low chuckle, the vibrant sun rays flush through the sheer day curtains of Jaeyun’s room, a natural spotlight glowing on the both of you.
“Fine,” he whispers, and you can feel his breath on your lips, it’s warm and inviting and you feel yourself leaning into him. “Will you be my girlfriend, love?”
You barely nod your head before he attaches his lips on yours. And you think you’re going to be obsessed with Sim Jaeyun — your fingers find their way through his hair and he sighs. It’s like he’s imprinted in your heart and you want to kiss him again and again and again.
Sim Jaeyun with pretty eyes, pretty lips, a pretty face, a pretty being, breaks the kiss only to kiss you again and again as you wish.
“Did I swing into your heart, love?” He smirks as you playfully roll your eyes at his antics. “Are we not going to bring up the time when you fell after showing me your web skills?”
He tackles you down and you giggle, “I can fall from the sky, I can fall from a tree, but the best way to fall is to fall in love with you.” He grins idiotically before racing out the door as you cringe at yet another bad pick up line from him.
“Sim Jaeyun, are you kidding me? I wonder how you even make up quotes like ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ with that mind of yours.”
“What mind? You mean my mind — the place where you always are?”
You groan in fake disgust as you watch your boyfriend (boyfriend!) smile proudly at his idiotic pick up lines. The both of you drinking sunlight as if it’s love — where he’s all yours and you’re all his.
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uncut. confessions i can’t make ( a crumpled confession letter written by a sixteen year old sim jaeyun )
hi dear yn,
i like you. it’s been a while since you took my breath away we first met. this is my first time ever writing a confession so i don’t really know what to say write… i guess it’s like writing physics notes so maybe it wouldn’t be too hard i hope
chapter one part one : what i like about you
i like the way you smile laugh, how your eyes turn into the tiniest of crescents, it makes me proud of the jokes i crack (that physics joke was good was it not). i like the feeling i have around you — it’s warm and fuzzy, natural — talking everyday without any forceful conversation, laughs or attention.
part two : why you should like me
i think you should like me because i like you. i think you should like me because i’m smart! i can help you with physics and maths. i don’t really know what else i can give you but i’ll try my best to make you smile everyday.
will you be my girlfriend? Oh god, this is so weird i actually like you a lot and
(a bunch of scribbling)
forget it. you’ll never like me back.
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dear mister sim jaeyun,
after three hours of fighting for my life, i have finally gotten my hands on the most treasured item of the year, a sixteen year old you’s crumpled confession letter to me. and since you wrote it in a physics notes style like a loser, as your girlfriend i have no choice but to follow you (so that you don’t feel lonely)
one. what i like about you
everything. i like your hair, i like your face. I like the way you say sorry to every single person in the neighbourhood while courageously saving them. i like your pick up lines on some days and how you have the guts to challenge Batman to a fight when i proclaim him as my favourite hero. i like the way you laugh and i like the way you smile. i am especially enchanted by your kicked puppy ways and easily manipulated demeanour where i can always get what i want without question.
two. why you should like me
i’m your girlfriend and you’re my girlfriend. (you are my girlfriend) you should stop staring at me with those eyes, it gives me the ick (i meant that in a ‘whatever you say pretty boy’ kind of way) you should like me because i am the person who likes you the most. (i love you so much)
will i be your girlfriend? obviously i will, i mean who can say no to you.
love you babe,
spider-man’s (your) hot sidekick
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© SJYUNS
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emeraldcity1900 · 7 months ago
Text
the history of animation in a nutshell
Early 1900s: hey what if comic strips could like move?
Late 1910s early 1920s hey what if we mashed this up with live action people?
late 1920s: hey what if this thing had sound?
Early to mid 1930s: hey what if this had people actually talking and also color?
late 1930s: hey you know that super cool movie that one lady animated with paper cut out silhouettes? What if we did that with painted cells? Would people even pay to see that? Never mind it turns out the answer is yes.
1940s: ah shit most of our animators got drafted and/or hate us now cause we weren’t paying them. IT’S PROPAGANDA TIME BABY. Also haha hitler got hit with a mallet and also the most racist depictions of Japanese people ever.
1950s to 1960s : oh what’s this newfangled thing? Television? What if you could air cartoons on it? Oh fuck no I ain’t paying that much to get the charecters to have different backgrounds and for the charecters to like, move fluidly. Also manga and anime are steadily growing more popular.
1970s: (Ralph Bakshi walks into a comics store and finds a furry comic) X rated animated movie? *cue the screams of mothers and their unsuspecting children now being introduced to the revolutionary idea that cartoons don’t equal kids stuff? WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO?
1980s to 1990s: we can have full on animated Broadway musicals? Wait, what do you mean animated movies can count for the Oscar’s? What do you mean now they get their own catagory because the academy still thinks their for babies? Anime and manga are taking off in the west. SWEET JESUS WHAT DRUGS ARE THE JAPANESE ON SHOWING THIS SHIT TO KIDS. But also why is it so fucking good. Maybe some of these aren’t even meant for kids? Wait We can sell toys to kids with cartoons? Wait we can actually put effort into these cartoons on television? The fuck to you mean we can animate in 3D now? What do you mean we can have well animated, well written sitcom shows like the simpsons? What do you mean you can make cartoon charecters say fuck? What drugs are creators at Nickelodeon on? Do I even want to know?
2000s: oh my god, there is this one show that I really like cause it’s really well written and genuinely funny but I can’t talk about it because it’s animated and we all know cartoons are for babies right? Oh look it’s the transformers movie, look how far CGI has evolved so we can make the transformers in a movie.
2010s: holy shit I know these shows are for kids but they’re just well written and have so much meaningful things to say about the world. Wait, it’s cool to like cartoons now? They they have fandoms for this? Fuck yeah I’m in. (Enters one of the most notoriously toxic fandoms of all time) THEY HAVE GAY PEOPLE IN THESE SHOWS NOW? AND COMPLEX EMOTIONAL STORYTELLING? AND ADULT ANIMATED SHOWS CAN BE MORE THAN JUST SITCOMS WITH THE SAME JOKES AND STYLE? WHY IS IT THAT EVERY DISNEY CARTOON SINCE GRAVITY FALLS INCLUDE THINGS THAT GET MORE AND MORE FUCKED UP? WHY DO I FUCKING LOVE IT? WHY THE FUCK DID DISNEY DO THE OWL HOUSE DIRTY LIKE THAT?
2020s: I got this show I wanna pitch but it dosen’t fit into any box that the networks want and also I’m afraid that they’ll just randomly cancel it before I can finish the story I want to tell. Wait, I can just post the pilot on my YouTube channel, see if anybody actually likes this thing I made and just make the show independently? FUCK THE NETWORK! I AM THE NETWORK
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steddieas-shegoes · 2 years ago
Text
A little thing based on this post because it wouldn’t leave my brain:
“I just don’t understand why you won’t try to read it.”
Steve had heard Dustin say this exact sentence hundreds of times at this point.
“I mean, do you know how to read?”
Mike was an asshole. Steve loved him because he was part of the group and he’d been through the same things, but he was such a dick.
“Yes, I know how to read. I just don’t.”
Dustin rolled his eyes.
“If you don’t wanna read nerd shit just say so.”
Steve threw his arms up in frustration.
Steve was a nerd at heart. As a child, he would beg the nanny to take him to the library and the science museum that had real dinosaur fossils. There was something about the peace of exiting his reality and finding a new one among fantasy and history that was indescribable, even to this day.
But as he grew into his looks, he grew out of that phase. At least around others.
And with no nanny around to take him places, he settled for just being the popular guy who hung out with his friends after practice and threw parties at his forever empty house on Saturdays.
But secretly, he still found himself enjoying books late into the night. Never school books, or his grades would’ve been good enough for college, but always incredible novels that took him to other worlds with the most impressively brave people.
And then he lived a nightmare. A few times over. With concussions at every turn.
Now, anytime he tried to read, his head started pounding, his vision got blurry, and ears would start ringing. He stopped trying altogether after Starcourt, but he’d never really let go his love of books.
He occasionally let Robin read to him, but she would get distracted by a plot or character and go on a tangent, leaving Steve confused about what the actual story was. He hated being confused.
“Stevie, you got a minute?”
Eddie had been watching from his spot at the end of the table, where he’d been cleaning up the mess of D&D. He usually made the kids do it, but he’d let them off the hook tonight when they beat the monster and escaped his trap.
Steve and Eddie were friends, definitely. Maybe not close ones, but friends.
Steve had a little crush, definitely. Or a big one. Maybe.
So when Eddie shows him attention, he somewhat shamefully receives it like he’s dying of thirst in a desert.
Robin is the only one who’s noticed so far, but if he keeps acting like a dog being called by his master anytime Eddie talks to him, someone else will comment on it.
“Yeah, what’s up?” Steve asked as he made his way to Eddie.
The kids took this time to talk amongst themselves about the game and what they think will happen next week, and Steve couldn’t have been more grateful.
“You don’t have to tell me, but.” Eddie was tapping his fingers nervously against his leg. “Do you not know how to read?”
“Uh. No I do. I mean I graduated high school. I know it’s hard to believe.”
“Not judging if you can’t, man. I mean, I took three senior years. I’m the last person who can judge.”
“Yeah, but you’re smart. You just didn’t like school,” Steve replied with a pat to his shoulder.
Eddie glanced down at the contact, eyebrow raising and then falling back to normal quickly.
“Just seems like you’d have read something by now to get them off your ass.”
And that’s a really good point. Maybe he should’ve just suffered through a migraine so they’d leave him alone about it.
But migraines left him out for days sometimes, and he couldn’t exactly afford that right now.
“I guess it’s just not worth the migraine.”
He hadn’t meant to actually say it. He didn’t want Eddie to feel bad or for him to try to make him feel better about it or ask questions or talk about the concussion thing.
Actually, did he even know about the concussion thing? Things?
“You get migraines when you try to read?” Then realization hit Eddie hard. “Steve. Do you like reading?”
Something about the way Eddie was looking at him, like he was sad for him but not pitying him, made Steve want to cry.
“I used to, yeah.”
“Everyone out! Your parents are gonna have to come get you! No questions, no explanations, go!” Eddie yelled to the room.
Everyone stared blankly at him before they started protesting, Dustin loudest of all.
“Steve’s my ride!”
“Not anymore. Hitch a ride with Lucas.”
“But Lucas’ mom always squeezes my cheeks and tells me she hopes I never lose my baby fat.”
“She speaks for all of us. Get the hell out of here!”
Steve was actually impressed. Maybe a little turned on? God, he was a disaster.
As everyone cleared out of the room, Eddie patted the seat next to him. When Steve sat down, Eddie scooted his chair so close to him, his knees were touching Steve’s.
“Alright, so you’re gonna tell me about what books you like and what books you want to read and we’re gonna get started.”
Steve blinked at him. “Huh?”
“You have a list I’m sure.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Okay, then we better get started.”
“I mean, I’ve tried. I appreciate it, but even focusing on one page makes my eyes burn and my head hurt.”
“Got that. I’m not asking you to read.”
Sometimes Steve was worried the concussions had actually knocked some screws loose. He wasn’t getting it.
“I’m gonna read to you, Stevie.”
“You don’t have to do that. I’m sure a lot of them will be movies and I can just watch them.”
“It’s not the same. You know it’s not.”
He was right. Steve didn’t have much patience for movies. And sometimes even those gave him migraines if there were a lot of bright lights and explosions.
“Yeah. But still. You don’t have to do that. You might not even like the books.”
“Ah, this isn’t a completely free service, my liege.”
Steve rolled his eyes. “I don’t have extra money to pay you, dude.”
“Not money. I get to pick a book to read to you when we finish the first book you pick.”
“Is it The Hobbit?”
“It is,” Eddie looked so smug.
“Well, that was my first choice,” Steve stared back, equally as smug.
“So, your house is empty.”
“Yep.”
“And I’m assuming you own this book.”
“I do.”
“And it’s getting late.”
Steve looked out the window at the pitch black skies.
“It’s late.”
“So I could stay and read you to sleep.”
“Won’t I miss some of the book?”
“I’ll stop when you’re asleep.”
Steve’s heart was practically begging him to say yes. Eddie reading to him in his bed? Possibly falling asleep together? Maybe even waking up together? It couldn’t be a better proposition. Well. It could.
“Will you stay even if I fall asleep?”
Eddie smirked. “If that’s what you want, sweetheart.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d called Steve that, but it was the first time it felt like he meant it in a non-teasing way.
“Okay.”
So they both changed into some of Steve’s comfy clothes, got into his bed, and Eddie started reading The Hobbit.
Just as he was during D&D and real life, Eddie was animated, providing different voices for different characters and often giving long pauses to let Steve soak in what the words meant.
Steve didn’t even have to ask him to do that. He just did.
Steve fell asleep somewhere between halfway and the end of chapter two, but Eddie stayed.
And they woke up the next day with Steve’s head resting on Eddie’s chest, Eddie’s arms wrapped around him to keep him as close as possible.
They finished the The Hobbit in a week, and because Eddie was now committed to making sure Steve was well-read, they started moving through his list rapidly, falling for each other in new ways every time Eddie turned a page.
Part 2 (Angst)  / Part 2 (Fluffy) /  Part 2 (Explicit)
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hoshigray · 1 year ago
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⋆♱ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 ✮ 𝐨𝐟 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐢-𝐓𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫 ♱⋆ | a JJK series
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𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞: hi hello!! so like, yeah, this is late bc I didn't plan on doing any kinktober stuff since i got shit irl to do. BUT, after some thought and some creative bursts of energy, I figured "ehh why not." So, I'm not setting the dates as life can be unpredictable, but here are the things I'm doing/have done for the month!! Think of this more like a book list than a prompt list tbh
reblogs + comments are appreciated wholeheartedly ⋆♱✮♱⋆ transparent edit made by me + header art by yuto sano + fic dividers by the amazing @cafekitsune!!
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𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝑻𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝑫𝒂𝒓𝒌, 𝑫𝒂𝒓𝒌 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒎...
All the material below contains 18+ content, so minors do not interact.
☠︎ = ficlet/scenario | ♱ = fics
☠︎ 𝐁𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤 (true form! Sukuna x fem/afab! reader)
☠︎ 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 (dom! Nanami x fem/afab! reader)
♱ 𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐇 𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐇[𝐞𝐫]!! (serial killers! Toji + Sukuna x fem! reader)
Next time, look around the area before you say you find a serial killer attractive. Because you’re about to see what mess your words will have you end up in — and your clothes all torn up.
☠︎ 𝐓𝐢𝐞 𝐌𝐞, 𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐌𝐞, 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐌𝐞 (rigger! geto x fem! reader!)
♱ 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐓𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐤 (vampire bf! Choso x fem! reader)
Finding out your boyfriend's a vampire was far from the chill evening you planned with him. But you can't lie, imagining those fangs sinking down on and sucking on your skin....it's kinda hot.
♱ 𝐎𝐥𝐝 𝐓𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐬, 𝐒𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐬 (ex-husband! Toji x fem! reader)
Your ex-husband bringing the kids over for trick-or-treating is one thing; him wanting to spend the night at your place is another. But it's just for the night. There's no way one night can rekindle some old feelings...right?
☠︎ 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭 (Toji x fem! reader)
♱ 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 (Carrie inspired! Gojo x fem/afab! reader)
Taking a loner like you to the prom was, at first, an easy bet for the most popular kid in school. What he didn't expect, however, is to fall madly in love with you — and how that love brings hell on supposedly the best night of senior year...
This is all the stuff for this month. Thanks for stopping by!
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𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝑫𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝑱𝒐𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒄𝒉'𝒔 𝑳𝒂𝒊𝒓?
Would you wish to be tagged? Please lmk in the replies or in my inbox!
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© 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐲2023 ⋆♱✮♱⋆ These tales have been transcribed and written by the original poster (me). Do not steal, edit, copy/plagiarize, or post any of my works on your own accounts, in or out of this app. Please and thank you.
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livingformintyoongi · 7 months ago
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BTS fic recs
I wanted to do this a while ago, but felt like I hadn't read enough, until I checked my likes and got a shock to the face lol. I wanted to give some recommendations of some fics (and a series) that I quite enjoyed reading, plus leave a small review because I feel like it's very underrated to comment on what you like something (people, comment more, I swear it makes a writer feel so much better than a like). There's the occasional spoiler in the reviews, so I recommend you read it carefully or just skip the comment ^^.
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Dawning by @wintaerbaer JJK
summary: He’s never invited into your world during these late night sessions. You always push him away or ignore him. This is new. warnings: heavy depictions of depression and panic attacks, a brief line where taehyung worries oc is s**cidal. I really loved this fic. For a moment I thought it was some kind of two shot or something, but it only has this one part. Still, I felt the author captured the emotions very well. It felt so realistic that even I was worried when Y/N disappeared lol.
Bottle up old love by @wintaerbaer KTH
summary: Jungkook may have broken up with you a year ago, but that's not going to stop him from coming to your rescue when he sees you being cornered by a creep. warnings: language, a short harassment scene at the beginning (nothing too intense), explicit content including: unprotected sex (DO NOT), fingering, praise kink, biting, marking, spanking, cum eating (sort of?), big cawk soft dom jk, cowgirl (yeehaw), creampie, cockwarming. This fic made me remember why I love the exes to lovers trope. I loved seeing Jungkook as a tattoo artist, it's like, I don't know, so him, anyway, I loved it. I just found this account yesterday in the wee hours of the morning and I'm already loving it <3.
Cat-astrophe & Cat-enaries by @dumpywrites MYG
Summary: Your pet cat keeps going to your neighbor’s apartment and it’s a problem.  I fell in love with this Yoongi like you have no idea. When I just read the first part I was so eager to keep reading, seriously, I loved it, it deserves so much love.
Two Days by @dumpywrites JJK
Summary: He just wants you to give him two days. He'll take you on a few dates and you'll decided if you actually like him? Or not? I live for Jungkook being simp of the reader, I feel it's so real lol. This fic made me feel so warm inside, it was too cute to read. It's kind of like my comfort fic.
S'more than friends by @borathae MYG
Warnings: subby!Yoongi, switchy!Reader, consumption of beer, so much awkward tension, jealousy, sex in a tent, mutual masturbation, handjob, fingering, making out aye, Yoongi loves her boobs and she loves his butt it’s a win-win, sex while other people are sleeping, public sex, she has a thing for his hands (but what’s new lmao), fluffy post-orgasm talks because I’m soft. I read it a while ago now, but I remember when I did I felt so soft. This Yoongi is just too cute.
Please don't go by @httpjungkookcom JJK
Summary | Jungkook’s never kept anything from you, ever. Not even the time where he tripped and accidentally kicked your dog, or when he fucked the most popular girl in high school and couldn’t make himself cum (poor guy was embarrassed for weeks), or when he accidentally rubbed all of his acceptance letters in your face without realizing. To put it short, Jungkook is an open book to you. So when he suddenly disappears, there’s a lot to question. Even more to question when he finally gets back and won’t tell you anything, going as far to avoid you. You’re on a mission to figure it out, even if it kills you. Index | Jungkook is so smart, but so stupid at the same time. Jungkook is not sly in the slightest. Kind of angst, fighting, arguing, bickering, etc. Criminal activity, it’s a Spider-Man fic. Injuries and mention of blood. College setting and age, reader and Kook share the same major. Some cute fluffy moments in between all of the action. Aunt Yoon is essentially Aunt May in the Marvel story line.  Spiderkook, is more needed to read this fic? It was the first one I read about this au and I was WONDERED. God, you can't imagine how much I loved it. I thought it was so cute the way Jk approached reader being in his suit….
Accidental roommates by @jjkeverlast JJK
summary: moving apartments is stressful and difficult enough as it is. all the planning and packing and multiple moments of rearranging furniture; all you crave is peace. yet it seemed like peace was far within reach as the owner of the apartment had left out one tiny crucial detail from the ad — a ripped tattooed adonis, coupled, with a tiny baby daughter will come as your roommate. warnings: second hand embarrassment | jungkook's abs | annoying antics | suppressed feelings | both of them are stubborn and petty (it's gets tiring lmfao) | mentions of past relationships | a lot of time stamps | sexual tension | ft. namjoon 👀 | !constant change of perspective between reader and jungkook. I have a tremendous weakness with dilf, no matter who it is, I just love them. I think this was the first one I read by Jungkook. It was so fun and easy to read that the 14.7k words flew by for me.
Silk & Stones by @taegularities KTH
Summary: “Taehyung was a writer… he was a writer indeed.” Kim Taehyung knows his way around words – they cast a spell on your heart and mind, leave you gasping dangerously fast. Until the mystery behind his persona unveils and his touch, along with his words, becomes a vivid memory. warnings: writer + violinist tae 🥺 who’s a gentleman in the 19th century, brief mention of injuries/a mental institution, misunderstandings, heartbreak, secrets, grief, much poetry (and my attempt at writing a poem, pls spot), much disgoosting fluff, flirting and lots of sexual tension; explicit sexual content: 2 sex(y) scenes, fingering on a boat, choking, teasing, begging, praising, soft dom!tae, big dick!tae, tiddie fondling/sucking, some manhandling, dirty talk, they’re just so cute :((, oral (f. and m. receiving), some masturbation, oc is into neck kisses, some biting, fingering, hair pulling, asking for permission :(, multiple orgasms, unprotected sex (it’s the 19th century...), aftercare; there’s quite some angst ok; lmk if i forgot smth !! This was a work of art for me. I felt so immersed in the story, so confused by the time changes and everything surrounding Taehyung, but I loved it, one of the best stories I've read of Taehyung since I joined tumblr.
17 going on 27 by @hansolmates JJK
summary; one second, you’re sobbing at prom because the most popular guy in school dumps you due to your relationship being a little prank to break your heart. the next? you’re a creative editor at Ego, the hottest young adult fashion magazine. as you try to figure out what’s the deal with this sudden time skip into adulthood, you come across relationships and friendships that are made to be cherished and made to be broken. genre/warnings; fluff, crack, future enemies to lovers, teenage and adulthood angst, time skips from high school!au to late twenties!au, 13 going on 30!au, all your romantic movie tropes come to life! a really big mess honestly, various movie and music references, mentions of sex, use of alcohol, everyone give jin and jimin a big ol hug, language, a surprise guest from the queen of england. I love adaptations, especially ones that add their own touch, and the writer did it so well. She made me hate Jungkook, and then love him, and then hate him again, in the end I ended up resenting him, I wanted reader to stay with Jin lol, but I still loved it. Definitely my favorite part was having Jimin as a best friend, I loved watching him take on Jungkook in the car. We all need a friend like him.
Hot Bot by @httpjeon JJK/PJM/KTH/JHS
JJK: You order a sex robot online after getting a coupon for half off. however, there’s something strange about yours. PJM: Fear is primal and causes one to make stupid decisions. KTH: Your parents have a gift for you, however, there’s been a mistake. JHS: As a product tester, you have one of the most sought after temporary positions in Hot Bot Inc. This is a series that has smut, I think the name gives it away. It's rather sad that the writer is on hiatus, but he left the gems of his works open to the public. The series is pretty good, I fell in love with Jungkook (and Yoongi kskjdsksjds). Highly recommended.
The proposal by @hansolmates JJK
summary; Jeon’s the editor-in-chief for Big Hit Publishings, a closet romantic with a penchant for antagonizing his assistant on the reg. When his work visa is in the process of being renewed and he takes a trip to Norway, his eligibility to stay in America is on the line. However Jeon Jungkook doesn’t go without a fight, and in order to save his job he offers you a proposal you can't refuse. genre/warnings; the proposal!au, fake marriage au, enemies to friends(!!!), friends to lovers, bouts of flangst, dry humping, slight blood but not too bad, lang, alcohol, poor jjk discovers he has the ability to feel emotion, poor y/n is in the middle as always. I was looking for an adaptation of this movie for so long that when I found this one I almost cried with emotion. I LOVED the movie and the concept it had, and I was so happy to read this fic that captures that very romcom essence that the movie has. I loved it.
Marshmallows and report cards by @untaemedqueen KTH
Warnings: Impreg Kink, Marking, Cunnilingus, Fingering, Birthday Sex, Spitting, Begging, Praise, Fellatio, Face Fucking, Big Dick!Tae, Multiple Orgasms, Unprotected Sex, Possessive!Tae, Cock Warming, Creampie. I already confessed, this kind of fics get to me. I remember reading it and melting with the ending. I read it a long time ago, so I can't give a longer opinion, but I do remember that I loved it and came out internally squealing after I finished it.
Orange tulips by @kainks JJK
Summary: You’d remember Jungkook with every life you lived. Only he’d never remember you, never recall how your fates were written in the stars since the beginning of time. Genre: Angst. Fluff. Light Smut. The anxiety and helplessness I felt reading this fic are on another level. This scarred me, I read it once and I was never the same person again. It was wonderful, I felt so many things and I was so nervous during the whole reading that I almost didn't even realize when it was over. It is a very enjoyable fic.
What if I love you too much? by @taleasnewastime
Summary: Jungkook. It’s only a name you learn after your son kicks his ball over the fence. Before that you only knew him as the hot new neighbour who mows his lawn topless. And though you have no intention of getting to know him anymore than that, inevitably you do. You don’t necessarily fall, it’s too slow for that, but you definitely develop feelings you don’t intend to feel. Because you know men like him, and you know that whatever you’re feeling, he’s probably not feeling the same. All the same, however hard you try, you can’t help yourself. Warnings: Single mum, small fights, explicit sexual content, oral (f receiving), safe penetrative sex, reader thinks Jungkook is cheating/playing the field, angst, but also fluff, child gets injured (though not seriously), talks of cuts and a small amount of blood. This fic left me feeling bad, it even made me question some future decisions regarding my relationship with my future partner and the necessary communication that must be had in a relationship from the beginning, especially if there is a child in the middle. It was something I really enjoyed reading, and even though I had my internal dilemmas with Jungkook, the drabbles in the story helped me a lot to let go of my grudge (I swear I have nothing personal with him sksjkajskajsj).
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