#i would really like to know if the crab is a reference to something... i got all the others

[likha-academe]

Guys listen to me pls Splatoon x Marauders. I know it is such a niche combo, but the clogs in my brain is working. Ok so Splatoon, Splatoon is a shooting game. Something got into me to make the Marauders in it. Don't mind their hair colors, because it's always random.. Yes Sirius got his one earring on his right ear, yes Remus got his scar in his eyebrow but got hidden by his hair..., and I know Remus and Peter has the same hair style-- I gotta work with the limited hairstyles. Sorry can't do anything with Peter's body in splatoon, so he's not chubby here :"(

Ok weapons! What I wanted all to talk about. For their team comp, I made Sirius and James as the main damage duo, while Remus and Peter as back lines.

Ok so I gave James a Splash-o-matic, a DPS weapon-- front line. Literally one of the best weapon to use. It is a meta weapon with its weapon and kit being aggressive, Burst bomb and Crab tank. Burst bomb being literally making damage as soon you throw it, Crab tank special being used as both front and back line. Splatana, 52. gal, Nzap, or the Splattershot itelf is my go to weapons for James. Just something fast and front damage weapon. I think of him as a fast kind of player, so I gave him something lightweight. Add on I think Splat Dualies is a good pick also for him. The weapon just really had that flare coolness into it.

Sirius is also a DPS. I gave him a Splatana Stamper, still a lightweight weapon with a bit of heaviness to it. I also think of him of someone fast. His weapon kit is pretty aggressive too, with Burst bomb and a Zipcaster, to go to places in a short minute of time. I can also give him Dynamo Roller purely of aesthetic hehe because it reminds me of his motorbike. He will probably have his fun with Sloshing Machine too. So is Dapple Dualies Nouveau, much shorter range but fast and annonying with its Torpedo, and its Reefslider being a reference to the Akira slide with its motorbike slide animation. Blaster is also a good pick, for it being a chaotic weapon. Dualie Squelchers is also a honorable mention.

Remus for me is definitely more a back line, usually in the back of the group. So I gave him a sniper weapon. Snipewriter 5H. Which I didn't notice when picked the weapon, the weapon is a pencil, you can think of him with his intensive studying heh. The kit is a Sprinkler for farming for its special, Tacticooler. That gives buff for teammates. I think he would enjoy more of a heavy and long range weapon to use, even though the main weapon I chose is more into lightweight but it is still long range. E-liter 4k is one of those, heavy and long range sniper. Explosher and Heavy/Hydra/Heavy edit Splatling is also a good pick of him. Weapons that are good to annoy enemies with.

Peter would probably choose Tenta Brella, something to hide behind. The kit, Squid beacon to get back fast into the game as soon you respawn and Inc Vac to suck damage thrown. But, Peter is also the one who is the sneakiest of them all. Carbon Roller is also a good pick. Carbon Roller partnered with Ninja squid ability is the most popular way to use it (In Splatoon there is two ways of movement walking and swimming, having Ninja Squid makes you almost invisible swimming around, so it is good for sneaking enemies). He looks up to James a lot, so he probably tries some of James uses, dualies for example, Glooga dualies more specifically. I think he will also try Slosher, Luna Blaster, Undercover brella.

Peter is a secret agent from Kamabo Co., I was think first of him joining DJ Octavio, but he has good side on him so I didn't.

For me I feel like Sirius and James are ranked battle freaks. They would always drag Remus and Peter. Remus and Peter are more casual players. They also get dragged to Salmon Run by the two.

Added them more personalities through their Splashtags(banner) Sirius being a Toni Kensa cloth brand fan, Peter being a Tableturf game fan-- a card game to equal to him liking chess games, Remus being a big fan of Splatoon musics, and I just have feeling James a big fan of Salmon Run.

so if I throughly put them in the knowledge of they are inklings and octolings(the beings called in Splatoon) If I follow what some witches think of muggles-- bellow them. In Splatoon, Inklings are seen as the better species, for octolings live underground for they lose the war against inklings. Then I can put James, Sirius, and Peter as inklings. While, Remus as an octoling, but it won't make sense because he's a half. So by purely of aesthetics I made Remus, James, and Peter as inklings, while Sirius as octoling.

If I follow the Splatoon's story, it is not possible for Remus to turn into werewolf. So as exchange, he is sanitized. From were they are sanitized, all people who get sanitized is mostly tricked into it. So from here I think I can still follow of Remus getting forced into turning one. Being brainwashed, they forget their own identity.

For canon design of Marauders, this is the closes i can get into their hair styles.

[clumsypuppy]

fuck it. plaguesona

[sprinklenoodles]

Finally read through all of the novelisations and Oh, God is there some Stobotnik content at times. I mean, sure, they removed some too or changed some lines- Stone gives Robotnik a different latte than in the first movie- but then there’s also this line in return.

‘Stone said in a clipped tone so beautiful it was almost mechanical.’

Like, I know it’s technically just about how Robotnik loves mechanical things but also, he called Stone’s voice beautiful. And then moments later there’s ‘Even his deadpan yes-man could not compare to the beauty of his botniks.’

Even. Which means he comes close. And once again, beauty is used. This is from Robotnik’s POV too. After that there really isn’t a lot, but then in the novelisation we immediately- well, almost immediately- get this.

‘came a voice that Robotnik had been belittling in his dreams for months.’ That voice is Agent Stone’s voice. Robotnik has been dreaming of the guys for months in the book. Like, that’s not a very straight thing to do. Then again, the whole ‘Agent Stone’ stone was kinda not straight too…

Then when they meet and Knuckles crushes Stone hands, he says that Stone falling to his knees was ‘an appropriate position, considering his place in the hierarchy’. That also just… sounds kinda gay to me. If u just focus on that first part of the sentence…

And tbh, there really isn’t a lot of Stone and Robotnik in the rest of the book. There are some little parts and Robotnik calling Stone ‘a fine, robust meal for his new body’ which also raises my gaydar, but nothing big. Mostly cuz there just isn’t a lot of scenes with them.

There seems to be a bit more in the third book tho. Stone immediately gets referred to as the guy who ‘follows Robotnik around like a lost puppy.’ And then when they enter the Crab, Robotnik asks if he came back from the store… something that just sounded very marry coupled like to me lol.

But they really just look to be closer here. Robotnik refers to Stone as his attendant and not inferior like he did in the previous books and soon after this follows one of my fav bits from the book. ‘Stone looked nervously around the room. Having such a dedicated manservant had many advantages, but their paralysing fear of disappointing you was not one of them. Robotnik would have to remember to smack that fear out of him when they were alone later.’

That just sounds… so ungodly gay to me. I’m not even joking- it really just does. There are a few more things too that I really want to cover, but unfortunately, I do need sleep, so that’ll have to come another time…

[yuurei20]

Dialogue Comparison: Playfulland (Chapter 1)

Proofreading by the wonderful @/aoi-hitomi-50 ♡

Original Ace: Tch. You don't want to treat your cute underclassman to something~?

EN Ace: Tch. C'mon, can't you do somethin' nice for your plucky underclassman?

(It’s not uncommon for the word “cute” to be removed from dialogue on EN.)

Original Fellow: My name is Fellow Honest. This here is my protégé Gidel.

EN Fellow: I am Ernesto Foulworth. And this here's my bosom buddy, Gino.

Original Fellow: Those who are close to me even call me things like 'Honest John'.

EN Fellow: Some of my closest friends have taken to calling me Honest Ernesto!

Original Jack: Hey, Fellow-san clearly seems older than us, and you're suddenly calling him without honorifics?

EN Jack: Whoa, hey. Mr. Foulworth's clearly way older than us. You can't just go around calling him by his first name.

(It’s fun to track the creative solutions EN creates for when characters make “yobisute” comments! Also seen in Harveston with Idia and Sebek.)

Original Kalim: They're all colorful and shiny, so pretty~.

EN Kalim: They're all colorful and sparkly!

(EN also removed the word “beautiful/pretty” from multiple places in Kalim’s dialogue in the Cloudcalling event.)

Original Ace: ...the Housewarden is going to give me the scolding of a lifetime.

EN Ace: ...the headmage would be royally ticked.

(“Housewarden” is consistently changed to “headmage” in Epel’s dialogue, so it’s difficult to tell if this is a mistake or an intentional change.)

Original Ortho: I'm always telling my brother 'Go to class!' too, so skipping might not be good.

EN Ortho: My brother always says I should go to class, I don't think skipping would be a good idea.

(Possibly subject pronoun confusion on EN? Which sometimes happens! More here)

Original Floyd: Yeah, you know~ Usually you're a shore crab, but today you're like a spider crab.

EN Floyd: Y'know, it's true! You're normally a mitten crab, but today you're more like a fiddler crab.

The Japanese word for “spider crab” literally means “long-legged crab” in Japanese, which led to this comment from Ace in the original game:

Original Ace: What's with that comparison... I don't really get it, but if you mean my legs look long, I guess I don't mind~♪

EN Ace: Those analogies make no sense… but I guess if you're saying I look like a dapper musician, I'll take it.

(It’s not unusual for references to characters having long legs to be removed from EN, also seen in Book 5, Book 6 and a vignette.)

[dramaticallytotal]

TDWT Headcanons Pt. 7

Part 1 Last Part

• Leshawna, Cody, Noah, Harold, Sierra, Gwen, Ezekiel, and Duncan have allergies. Leshawna with pineapples, Cody with so many freaking bugs and goat saliva, Noah is allergic to bees, wasps, pollen, and dust. Harold has many but most notably crab apples and gummy slugs. Sierra is a little allergic to soy. Gwen is allergic to eucalyptus. Finally, Ezekiel has a slight allergy to peanuts. It's not bad, but he really hates it because he likes the taste of peanuts.

• Noah has so much blackmail on Chris it's not even funny. Mainly, it's embarrassing blackmail because the man has a bad habit of texting Noah his 3 am. thoughts, and they are all so freaking stupid.

One of his favorites was "Do you think Chef would love me if I was worm?"

Followed by

"Do you think he'd love me more if I could cook?"

Then

"Would he love me if I was a cooking worm like that stupid animated rat?"

• New Labels!! We all know everyone gets a label, so I'm either giving them new ones or tweaking their old ones or leaving them the same. We shall go alphabetically.

- Alejandro: The Arch Villain. It's simple and to the point!

- Blaineley: The Gossip Queen. I feel like she should have gotten one despite not being in the season that long.

- Bridgette: The Surfing Hostess. A mix of her original ones, plus acknowledging her being co-host of Aftermath

- Cody: The Geeky Drama Bro. A reference to his band The Drama Brothers mixed with his original label.

- Courtney: The Intimidating Overachiever. I just wanted to make it longer XD

- DJ: The Teddy Bear. Why mess with perfection?

- Duncan: The JD. Chris thought it was a clever musical reference, plus it stands for Juvenile Delinquent.

- Eva: The Powerhouse Stunt Girl. Noah made him change it to something positive with the power of blackmail.✨️

- Gwen: Living Goth Girl. Look... Noah was sleeping deprived, and one of the interns was blasting, Living Dead Girl and his half asleep brain thought it was hilarious. Chris's fully awake brain agreed.

- Harold: Uber Geek Bro. Mix of other labels plus his band name.

- Heather: The Queen Bee. Why mess with perfection x 2.

- Izzy: Izz-sane Actress. Chris could not help himself and gave her a pun. Noah made him put the actress.

- Leshawna: The Reality Queen. A nod to her and Tyler's run of reality TV shows. Despite what Blaineley said, it wasn't Leshawna's desperate grab for her former fame. All the shows asked her to guest star, and she did great.

- Lindsay: Her Hotness. A callback to her Admiral Lindsay Her Hotness role. Noah knows it was a fan favorite character arch. Thus, he added it.

- Noah: The High IQ. Why mess with perfection x 3, plus, Noah thinks it will help people underestimate him again.

- Owen: Big O. Chris and Noah just went with Izzy's nickname for Owen.

- Sierra: Obsessive Uber-Fan. It fits, and it makes the cast just believe she is a super fan, and then they meet her and are like "ooooh...you were not kidding about the Obsessive part."

- Trent: Loverboy. Short. Sweet. To the point XD

-----

Bonus:

- Chef: The Chef-of-all-trades. Because he does basically everything and Noah thought it was funny.

- Chris: The Host With The Most. Chris wanted to keep his classic label. (Noah calls him The Host With The Most Issues in his head.)

• When they were making the labels, Noah had to resort to spraying Chris with a spray bottle if he accidentally said something that would be seen as offensive. This morphed into Noah spraying him if he was being a diva, difficult, or just plain dumb.

• Noah immediately clocked Alejandro as too good to be true the moment they were in the craft services tent after being "rescued" by Chris and Chef. How? Because Noah was immediately attracted to him and Noah had bad taste in guys (or so his sisters say). Also, because, hello???? He auditioned to be on a show called Total Drama Dirtbags.

• Also also, Noah seems to attract ...eccentric types of people, and Alejandro chose to sit next to him on the bus. Well, in the seats across from him, seeing as he was sitting with Eva, and she chose the window seat. And he actually talked to him. To Noah, that was a big clue.

• When Noah and Blaineley get introduced to the merge people they each have to sing their own song. Blaineley, of course, songs her song Blaine-rific. Noah sings a parody of the song Roxie from Chicago with worked around lyrics, but he's hoping to spite the producers, and hopes they have to pay royalties or something for his song.

• Blaineley is pissed when she watches Noah's song because he got a costume that resembles Roxie's in the movie version somewhat, and some of the male interns even joined in as his background dancers and singer. He hoped Noelle was freaking proud because he performed the hell out of that song!

• Alejandro is definitely not jealous of all the boys pretending (they better be pretending) to fawn over Noah

• It's another instance of Alejandro being stunned by Noah, then he sees him in the wedding dress and blushes so hard.

• Bridgette and Noah are pretty good friends. They weirdly enough bonded over recipes since Bridgette is vegan, and Noah being Tamil eats a lot of vegan dishes whenever his mother cooks.

• Owen, Leshawna, Noah, Gwen, Alejandro, Courtney, Dj, and Tyler can all cook really damn good. Owen picked it up when he was trying diets, and he has actually lost some weight cooking for himself and his family. He's really proud. (So is Team E-Scope.) Leshawna because her aunties taught her and the senior volunteers at the shelters she helps at taught her too. DJ because of his Momma, of course. Gwen because she wanted to help her mom out, and sometimes, her mom was just so tired after working. Noah because his family sees cooking as a bonding experience. Alejandro learned so he could impress more people, but also his Nana wanted him to be self-reliant. Courtney because she didn't want to have to rely on others when she could do it herself. Tyler is a surprise, but he found out he could cook well when he started cooking for Lindsay for dates.

• Harold burned water once.

• Izzy isn't allowed in the kitchen. She likes to experiment too much.

• In Rapa Nui, when Chris was wearing the super short shorts, all the contestants there screamed in horror, and some even threw themselves to the floor. Noah slammed his face into the closest surface, which happened to be a very chiseled chest. Alejandro hid his face in Noah's hair.

• Chris was not amused at everyone's dramatics.

• I need you all to know that the Rapa Nui challenge isn't even a challenge because they couldn't close the rock fast enough, and Noah got picked up by the condor and taken to the nest. Which means he got his eggs all in the nest at once. Which means he automatically won.

• Chris comes up with a last-minute second challenge that whoever saves Noah gets immunity as well. (Someone save his son!)

• Noah is just trying not to freak out as the giant condor preens his hair like he's one of her chicks.

Next Part

[rassicas]

Hey Rassicas, what do you think America is like in the world of splatoon? Like how do you think the land mass is split by countries and what parts of the land is/isn’t underwater?

Well there's the best answer we have to what is and isn't underwater. I don't have much in the way of headcanons for how society would look like there or what the political borders are since we know Nothing, and anything anyone could say would be baseless. There has been very few implied mentions of north america though...

In the art of splatoon 2, in the concept art for bisk, there are mentions of california...well actually this is a bit of a mistranslation

The location mentioned is "Kanifornia". kani=crab. Crabifornia? lol There's also a pun in here lost about him going to the club because he's a crab. japanese transliteration of the english words "crab" and "club" are both クラブkurabu. This is just concept art, but i headcanon Kanifornia is a real place that's in about the same spot as real world california, and a lot of the people there are crabs lol

on page 215 of Haikara Walker, there is also this...

"These cartridges are ones that have been released in a region different from Inkadia. Although the shape of the cartridges are different, it seems that the contents itself are not. The difference in culture can really be felt in the place where the label features the pixel art"

these boxes are a clear reference to the style of boxes of the US releases of NES and SNES....it could also be PAL in there too. some europe releases use something closer to US box art, but from the snes cartridge shape, definitely based on US at least. Anyway I want to believe that the region shown is truly in the splatoon world's north america and not just another part of japan like the splatlands are. And just like in real life US and JP, there's some different cultural sensibilities between inkadia and the region of splatoon world's north america.

[angellesword]

BAGGAGE | JJK (03)

Summary: Drowning in debt and blood, Jeon Jungkook knows he's better off alone, lest he brings people down with him.

But one drunken night changes everything.

In a blink of an eye, Jungkook found himself drowning not only in debt and blood, but also in dirty diapers and judgmental stares from you, a.k.a his long-lost love and the guardian of the son he didn't even know existed.

Genre and warnings: best friends to lovers, co-parenting, idiots in love, slow burn—really slow burn, mutual pining, angst, fluff, implied smut, kissing, minor character death, slight getting back together, drama, OC cusses excessively so watch out

Pairing: dad! Jungkook x adoptive mom!Reader

Word Count: 2.1k

←Previous Chapter (02) | Next Chapter (04) →

****

Eight Years Ago; 2015

There was a small food cart on the outskirts of Incheon where two best friends frequent.

“Oi, shithead. You’ve been fucking staring at your food for twenty-two minutes already. What the fuck is wrong with you? ”

Jungkook whined, complaining about how creepy it was that his best friend knew how long he looked at his food and how you spit out three profanities in one sentence.

“Shut up.” your face turned red, embarrassed that your habit of knowing the exact time was showing. You developed this meticulousness back when you were writing your thesis paper. Time was precious. Thanks fuck you were done with it.

You graduated today. You and Jungkook were currently eating noodles to celebrate. Your best friend initially demanded that you cook his favorite crab spring roll, but your hands were tied. The graduation ceremony took forever to finish; your professors and friends even pulled you to celebrate after.

You were not a killjoy, but you didn’t want to end this day without seeing your best friend, so you quietly ditched the party and sought Jungkook’s company instead.

“You really came to see me. What a good girl you are.” Jungkook cooed when he saw you waiting at his doorstep. “ Here, your graduation gift.”

“HA!?” You were dumbfounded upon seeing his present. “You got me a choker?!”

“Of course! You are so busy these days. I got you a collar so you wouldn’t forget who you belong to.” Jungkook said in jest to conceal his selfishness. He wished you could spend more time with him, not just fleeting moments like eating spicy noodles in a small food cart, which he didn’t even like.

“Why the fuck did you order it if you don’t like spicy noodles!?” A vein popped into your head.

Jungkook groaned, “You know how much I hate upsetting a pretty lady.”

The ‘pretty lady’ Jungkook was referring to was an old lady called Louisa, the owner of the ADA--the food cart. This place was near your high school alma mater. You and Jungkook still went here despite graduating high school many years ago.

Jungkook usually ordered the shop’s best-seller crab spring rolls, which inspired you to make your version of said food. You remembered begging Louisa to teach you how to make it, but the lady couldn’t just give away her family’s recipe. She taught you the basics, and that was where you started until you got Jungkook’s approval.

Content with your version, Jungkook no longer ordered spring rolls whenever you two ate at ADA. He preferred their crab noodles, but only spicy foods were left now since you arrived late. Jungkook refused to change stalls because he adored Louisa.

“You’re really something.” You bought a can of milk for Jungkook to counter the spiciness of his noodles.

Jungkook pinched your cheeks in appreciation. He was happy that he managed to take a few bites and ignore the old man across the street who was singing out of tune.

Natsume was what the old man called himself. He had been doing his business across ADA for a long time. The only reason he wasn’t shooed away was that his performance wasn’t a song at all. He was making up random tunes while expressing what the ‘future’ of some people would be like.

In short, he was a fortune teller, and all his ‘predictions’ apparently came true.

Jungkook didn’t dare believe him. He got particularly annoyed at Natsume when he predicted his future and yours. He sang, “Fall out, fall out, you two will have a fallout. One so nasty it will break your hearts, with no hopes of returning ~.”

Jungkook still cringed every time he remembered that. He looked at you, ready to ridicule the fortune teller in front of you.

Who would have thought this was the start of the fortune teller’s prediction coming true? You shouldn’t have opened your mouth, but you did, saying, “Jungkook, what are your plans for the future?”

You were influenced by the main topic at the graduation party earlier. Everyone you knew was planning their future. You feared Jungkook wasn’t doing the same—that he wouldn’t belong.

“Haven’t I told you already? Jimin-hyung and I are committed to our business.”

Your jaw automatically ticked upon hearing Jimin’s name. You never really hated anyone, but Jimin might be the exception. Jimin was why Jungkook dropped out of university. He coaxed Jungkook into emptying his bank account for Bighit, their Business Process Outsourcing venture.

Now Jungkook was broke, only relying on his small interest in Port Mafia.

“How about school? Don’t you plan on going—”

“No.” Jungkook ruthlessly cut you off. The move didn’t deter you from speaking your mind, though.

“Why not? You only need to finish two semesters to graduate. It’s a pity you’re settling with just this.”

“Just what?” Jungkook raised his brow, irritation flaring up. He had a hunch of what you were implying.

Sure enough, you swallowed hard to cover your nervousness. “With this…I mean…dropouts are…” You struggled to find the right words to say.

Jungkook huffed, supplying the words for you. “…are what? Stupid? Lazy? Unambitious? Or a waste of time?”

“Oi, don’t put words into my mouth.” You hissed, getting pissed off too.

“But that’s what you wanted to say, right? You think lowly of me. You’re just like the rest of them.”

Jungkook heard all kinds of snide remarks when he dropped out of university. His adviser even called him a lost cause— that he would never be successful if he didn’t finish school.

  Bullshit.

Jungkook felt acid crawling up to his throat. “People like you think you’re above everyone just cause you have a degree, right? Arrogant.”

You lost your composure because of how hurtful he was being.

“So what if I’m arrogant!?” You dropped your chopsticks, no longer in the mood to eat. “I’ve earned a degree. I’m finished with my commitment, unlike you, who quit and only settled with faking smiles and licking the butt holes of people richer than you!”

“You--!” Jungkook clenched his fist. He always knew his best friend had a sharp mouth. You said things that made sense, but damn, they hurt. This wasn’t the first time you said something biting, but it was the first time you had hurt Jungkook’s feelings.

It was too late when you realized what you had said. Jungkook’s eyes were already red. You knew Jungkook hated fake pleasantries and wooing greedy businessmen, yet you used those things as a weapon to hurt him.

Truly a low blow.

“Screw you.” Jungkook spat before storming off.

Feeling defeated, you didn’t run after him, deciding to just go home alone and leave Jungkook to cool off.

But the following day, you found yourself standing in front of Jungkook’s apartment. The thing about you was you couldn’t bear fighting for real with your best friend. Bickering with him was fine, but you’d rather die than really hurt Jungkook.

You rang the doorbell. It was early in the morning. 4am. Every second that passed knowing you and Jungkook were not okay was like a stab in your heart.

Surely, Jungkook had calmed down. If he hadn’t, you would accept any kind of punishment. You just wanted to see him.

“Come on.” You pressed the doorbell once again. It never took Jungkook two rings to open the door for you, so you seriously considered breaking in.

But to your delight, the door swung open before you could do something stupid.

“What is it?” Stone cold voice hit you on the face.

A lot. You wanted to convey many things, such as apologizing and saying Jungkook had misunderstood your point. However, looking at your best friend’s still angry face left you no choice but to lower your eyes. Your heart felt like it was pricked by thousands of needles.

You knew you were in the wrong. You could only raise the paper bag you were holding.

“I made crab spring rolls. Do you want them?”

“What makes you think I want them?” Jungkook crossed his arms, which caused you to swallow hard.

You bit your lip too, looking at Jungkook despite your guilt. “You’re right, you might not want them anymore, but I can only bring this hoping you’d accept my apology and also...also to—”

You weren’t planning to bring this up while still outside Jungkook’s home, but you couldn’t bear to look at his angry face anymore.

You voiced out your trump card. Your last resort. “—to ask you if you’re willing to guide me on investing at Bighit?”

As expected, Jungkook was shocked. His lips parted wide. “Why? You don’t mind licking butt holes with me?”

“Oh, for Fuck’s sake!” You pushed the paper bag into Jungkook’s chest. “I was wrong, okay? I’m an arrogant devil. ”

You craned your neck, purposely showing off the choker adorning your neck.

Fire danced in Jungkook’s eyes. He lowered the paper bag to cover the bulge in his sweatpants.

Fucking hell, you’re so hot. Jungkook scolded himself, forced to contour his expression to neutral.

“Then what are you waiting for? Come in.”

Needless to say, you left Jungkook’s apartment feeling grateful that you had a choker to cover some obvious bite marks.

Present, 2023:

“Pwetty lady! Spring yoll! Bin-bin! Want!” A certain someone was banging the top of ADA’s table, almost as if he couldn’t wait for even one more second.

“Hey, kiddo. You already ate seven pieces.” You folded your arms across your chest, your brows furrowing at the small child sitting before you.

The said the child pouted his lips, his eyes losing their sparks.

Jungkook’s sparkling eyes were still vivid in your mind, probably because you had just finished reminiscing about what had happened five years ago. As a result, you couldn’t help but associate this kid with your former best friend.

You always thought that Jungkook’s eyes could replace the stars. It was your weakness. Those eyes made you want to dig your heart out and give it to Jungkook for free. The universe knew about this, so why must you suffer it the second time?

Why did Soobin, the kid in front of you, have to have the same sparkly eyes as Jungkook?

“Spring roll! Want!” They even had the same favorite food.

You scoffed. Like father like son, huh?

“A brat dares to make demands when he can’t pronounce the words right? Spring yoll, my ass.” You mocked the kid.

Soobin ignored you. He continued banging on the table.

“Spring yoll! Bin-bin! Want! Spring yoll!”

“Okay, fine. I’ll buy you more. Just you wait, young master.” You playfully rolled your eyes, giving in to the request of your adoptive son.

“Is it that good?” You took one piece of spring roll. It had been many years since you last tasted this. Back then, you’d rather have Jungkook eat them all.

“Good! Very good!” Soobin stuffed another piece inside his mouth, clearly enjoying it.

The kid was right. The crab spring roll was delicious. It tasted the same way it did five years ago. You unconsciously gripped your phone, fixing your gaze on the screen as if waiting for a New Year’s miracle.

But it never came.

Last night, you met up with Jungkook, hoping to talk to him. Unexpectedly, Jungkook was drunk.

Now that he was sober, you thought he would call.

What wishful thinking.

“But nothing’s changed.” You thought to yourself as you looked around the place. ADA was still open for business; its famous spring rolls were still loved by many. Even Natsume was still singing across the street. The only difference was that you couldn’t hear the old man singing.

ADA expanded its business. They now had alfresco dining. You chose to eat inside the restaurant, afraid Soobin would catch a cold.

Everything stayed the same except for people. Back then, you went to ADA with your best friend. Years later, you went to ADA with your former best friend’s kid.

You could only swallow the bitterness down your stomach.

“Full! Wanna go home! Sleep!” Soobin said after eating the last piece of spring roll.

You hummed, “We’ll go home in a while. Count one to one hundred first.”

Soobin threw dirty looks at you as if to say, “This young master doesn’t know how to count!” You laughed a little. Of course, he couldn’t count up to a hundred yet. He was still so young.

So young.

But someone had already missed a few years of Soobin’s life.

You looked at your phone again.

Still no call.

“Alright, Bin-bin. Let’s go home.”

At last, you and your son left the food shop. As you two walked out, the horrible singing voice of the fortune teller reached your ears.

His lyrics were as nasty as before. Soobin covered his ears in annoyance, asking you to walk faster as he didn’t want to hear Natsume sing:

ring, ring, ring

the phone rings

the boy saw black

and the girl saw red

ring, ring, ring

the phone rings

how cruel it is

to have you waiting

for someone who can’t

 even

breathe.

****

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A/N: comments motivate me to write. leave some if you can ~~ ❤️

[dilatorywriting]

I feel we are all super mean to the reader with Siren Vil??? Are they actually stupid or is it just that they can’t understand what’s going on? Which is kinda valid considering their situation?

I mean it has to be hard for them, right? Not only do they have trouble communicating with THEIR world since they are almost 100% deaf, but then you have the extreme cultural differences of trying to communicate with someone who exists in what is basically from a completely DIFFERENT world (part of your world reference anyone?).

I just feel like, while they may not be a genius or anything, it’s kind of mean to be expecting them to know what’s going on when they have so much working against them. We’re calling them stupid for not understanding that the necklace was a courting gift and that the siren would come back for them… why would they think that?

They could tell the necklace meant more to the siren than they thought it should have and it made the siren more friendly, but why would that equate to what is basically marriage and never leaving them behind? And the reader knows the siren wants to get back to his pod really badly. While they became friends and got attached, that wouldn’t mean he would come back to help the reader. Of course the reader is going to see a ship and try to get off of where they were marooned.

As dumb as the reader CAN be sometimes (like when they took a bite of the cooked crab without removing its shell 🤦‍♀️) I really don’t think they’re THAT stupid. They’re just… on the level of someone who was probably an uneducated kid when they snuck aboard a pirate ship and never looked back and now they’re an adult. You mentioned in one chapter I believe that Riddle taught them to read I think? Or something?

I LOVE this story, don’t get me wrong. At all. Ever. I adore it.

The fact that I’m even here hanging out on the author’s blog shows how much I love it - and your other writing. I guess it’s just been getting to me a little how we all seem to slam Siren Vil’s reader so much. Maybe I’m just making mountains out of molehills. Maybe you’re just being sarcastic and I’m missing the cues because I’m neurodivergent and I do that sometimes. If so I’m sorry.

To end on a good note, I’m really happy you’re back and are doing better. I know how much brains can suck. If your demons are too mean to you, just send Reaper Rook after them. He’ll take care of them for you, I’m sure of it! 💚🖤

I think it’s mostly said out of love, like how when you pick up a cat to give it cuddles and call it a stinky lil garbage gremlin even though you would die for that creature. The Reader in this is someone I try to write as having inconsistent levels of intelligence. Great planner, great at setting goals and reaching them, but TERRIBLE emotional intelligence all around. Not just in Siren Language. Just overall is blind to a lot going on around them. And yes, the added layer of communication difficulties certainly don’t help, but this is a reader I fully see as one who even *if* they had super sight, hearing, and intellect would still be missing the point of things simply because they’re stubborn in their perception and lock onto that One Thing rather than being willing to see the bigger picture. Even when the evidence is staring them right in the face. Which is why we lovingly call them a big ol doofus.

[osaemu]

WHEN YOU GO OUT ON A DATE — BSD MEN ✧ feat. osamu dazai, nakahara chuuya

details: bsd men x reader headcanons. no warnings but i reference the french president in chuuya's part,,,?

a/n: i wanna go on a date with dazai and chuuya too!

✧・OSAMU DAZAI

"are we even allowed to be down here?" you breathe, following dazai through a dark alley littered with stray cats. "where are we even going?"

dazai pauses for a moment, looking back over his shoulder at you and smiling. "you ask too many questions, darling." he nods toward what looks like the end of the alley and beckons you with one of his hands. "we're almost there, c'mon."

you scrunch up your nose suspiciously but don't object, accepting the hand he offers and letting dazai lead you onward. "you really won't tell me where we're going?"

"you'll see soon enough."

after another minute of walking, the two of you exit the shady alley and the setting sun greets you, reddish-orange rays of light illuminating dazai's grinning face.

stretched out in front of you is the ocean, blue ripples turned red from the sunset. it's been a long time since you've seen the beach, and it's been even longer since you've been on it.

"told you," dazai says endearingly as he wraps his arm around your waist and pulls you close to him. the salty sea air flirts with dazai, making his hair flutter in the breeze. the sun touches the horizon behind him, basking the two of you in colors you can't put a name to.

dazai smiles at your silence, warm eyes barely sparing a glance at the view. he's focused on you, your awestruck expression, and how you fit perfectly between his arm and his chest.

he dips his head, pressing his lips to the side of your face and suppressing a laugh. "nothing you wanna say to me?" 

no response.

"really darling, a thank you would be ni—"

you cut him off with a kiss, savoring the way his eyes widen with surprise. a little hm? slips from his lips before he's wrapping his other arm around you, pulling you impossibly closer and smiling against your lips. 

you pull away after a few seconds, a sheepish smile on your tingling lips. "thanks, daza—"

it's his turn to interrupt you with a kiss, and this time he doesn't let you pull away. 

✧・NAKAHARA CHUUYA

"chuuya, this is all in french," you groan, gesturing to the menu and glaring at him. "how am i supposed to know what i'm ordering if i can't understa—"

"shut up," chuuya mutters from across the table, gray eyes studying the menu intently. "i'm craving lobster, d'you want to share?"

"really? lobster?"

chuuya eyes you critically over the menu, raising an eyebrow. "you have a better idea?"

you scoff, crossing your arms and leaning back into the chair. "how about something that isn't a glorified crab?"

"you did not just—"

you mostly tune out his long explanation of the difference between a crab and lobster, instead taking the time to observe the restaurant around you. 

it has an elegant atmosphere — candlelit chandeliers, vintage wine racks, soft violin music — perfect for a night out with your sophisticated boyfriend.

but of course, everything had to be in french. you don't even know how chuuya knows french — although, since he has to go overseas a lot, you should have expected it.

"chuuya, what does any of this mean?" you huff, turning your menu around and gesturing vaguely. 

he grins, taking off his hat and resting it on the inner corner of the table. "you're pointing at escargot."

"which is?"

"ah, i believe they're cooked snails."

you blink, turning the menu back around and ignoring chuuya's smug grin. "erm, i think i'll just order based off of the pictures."

the waiter comes right as you continue studying the menu, greeting the two of you in french and mostly chatting with chuuya.

surprisingly, chuuya's accent is on point — when you look back up, you half expected to see emmanuel macron in his place.

chuuya and the waiter continue chatting, and after a minute or two the waiter nods his head and leaves.

"what'd you order?" you ask, setting down your menu and looking at chuuya curiously. "i hope you didn't order the snails...."

chuuya laughs, shaking his head and beckoning you to come and sit next to him. "just some wine to start us off. c'mere, i'll teach you some french. then you can order for yourself, yeah?"

a/n: umm i wrote that in twenty minutes + chuuya's part was very self-indulgent bc me personally i don't like snails 💯💯

reblogs very appreciated!

[snowball-doie]

✮⋆˙ 𝐨𝐟𝐟 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐬, 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟕 ˙⋆✮

| pairing: johnny x manager!oc

| warnings: 18+ MDNI. Mentions of sexual acts/sex. Mentions of unsolicited sexual content distributed between minors.

On Aurora’s “hermit crab days,” as Johnny liked to refer to them, they still found things to do together. Though lockdown had been over for quite a while, so Johnny and Aurora hardly had any time to play games anymore to the same extent that they used to, gaming dates were far easier to organize than anything else because it didn’t require traveling to see each other, figuring out how they could possibly go out in public together without getting caught, and so on. Even when Aurora would get trapped at work late at night, Johnny would manage to convince her to take a break for an hour or so just to open up Call of Duty, Valorant, or Overwatch— And like the old days of lockdown when they were just friends still, when Aurora was too busy to play with Johnny, she would at least sit in a call with him and have his stream up on a second monitor to watch him fumble his way through solo games too because she was absolutely hopeless at those, so she got the benefit of consuming the story without having to suffer through the boss fights on her own. Sometimes she’d go over to his place in the afternoons and they’d play Mario Kart, or they’d sit on the couch with their laptops or phones while completing their Genshin dailies.

Her stomach aches were nowhere to be found on those days. Yuta had become accustomed to teasing Aurora about said stomach aches because he liked to tell her that it wasn’t a stomach ache, it was butterflies, which meant that she really, really liked him. Every time he said that, she hit his arm. Still, Yuta and Ten had been right in the past about many things regarding her and Johnny, so even though she’d never let Yuta know she was beginning to believe him, she was indeed starting to refer to her stomach aches as butterflies, which had changed her whole way of thinking about dates with Johnny. She was no longer scared. In fact, she looked forward to them. No matter what they were doing, even if it was a hermit crab day, Aurora didn’t dread the surprises or the secrecy anymore, she anticipated them in order to get through her long days of wrangling grown men who seemed to make it their mission to make her job hard.

“I gotta shower, John, I’ll be back,” Aurora warned, turning off her laptop camera in their Discord call.

Johnny was almost done with his dailies, but it was nearly two in the morning, so she decided to set aside her work and entertaining Johnny so that she could get ready for bed finally. They both stayed in the call. Even though her computer was on her bed in her room, the camera off, the microphone muted while she stood in her shower with the door closed— Just in case— Johnny didn’t end the call or turn off his screen because he wanted there to be something for Aurora to come back to while getting changed, drying her hair, and settling into bed for the night.

While in the shower, Aurora’s thoughts drifted to where they normally did those days: Johnny. Those stomach butterflies of hers came about whenever she thought about him. His long hair, his plump lips, his cute smile that made it look like he had whiskers— She switched thoughts suddenly to another smile she’d fallen in love with recently: Haneul. They’d been texted nearly every day. Both of them were far too busy to ever meet up in person like they promised they would, but there was plenty of time for them to text back and forth about seemingly mundane things for an idol and a company manager. Haneul’s groupmates had finally convinced him to take off his necklace during schedules because fans were becoming suspicious. He tried to argue with them that the necklace could mean anything! It could be from his mom, or his brother, or just something he bought for himself! But the fact of the matter was that most of the conversations happening online surrounding their group name had floated towards theories based on the origin of his necklace, and a lot of fans were suspecting that it was from a girlfriend. That thought entertained Aurora. Knowing Haneul as well as she did now, there was no way that man was as straight as a pencil, but the fans didn’t know that. So Haneul took off his necklace. Standing in the shower with conditioner dripping down her back, Aurora asked herself how she would feel if someone made her take off her bracelet the boys gifted her. Shitty. That was the answer… She would feel shitty. She didn’t have many things from Johnny yet, but she counted the bracelet as being from him, and it would have shattered her heart if she was forced to take it off.

Come to think of it… What gifts had they given each other?

The mugs.

The fucking mugs they made on their first date all those months ago! She never got the mug he made her, even after all that drama he caused at the table when she wanted to see it but he kept hiding it from her! Did it break in the kiln? Was Johnny too embarrassed to give it to her? What the fuck?

She shut off the water the second she was done brewing in her shower, then she raced to dry herself off— Really, she only did a half-job of it before she scurried back into her bedroom with her wet feet sticking to the tile floor. Her dad yelled at her once as a kid for being on the phone with a boy after a shower… She argued back then that he couldn’t see her, so what was the harm? But ever since then, she had this weird habit because of her dad where she didn’t unmute her microphone until she was fully dressed; and by then, Aurora had calmed down about the whole mug situation, ironically enough. She wasn’t that focused on the Discord stream anymore. Her thoughts had shifted once more to Haneul and when she would be able to meet up with him for lunch soon to talk about his necklace issue, hoping that she could convince him to keep it on despite what his friends were telling him.

Johnny had switched to playing League of Legends while Aurora watched from the comfort of her own bed where she was half asleep with her cheek squished against her pillow that was keeping her hands warm as she tucked them underneath it. He was in the middle of his rank up game when the clock hit 3AM exactly. He really, really needed that rank up because he wanted to play with Haechan and Jisung soon, but they were too high of a rank to currently play with him. Unfortunately, Aurora’s sleepy mind happened to remind her of something in the middle of his game. Something she still eagerly wanted to know about.

“J?”

He replied with a quiet, “Hmmm?”

“Do you remember our first date?”

“Of course, baby— Can you, uh… Can you just give me another five minutes, then we can chat? I promise.”

“Yeah, no worries. I just wanted to know what happened to the mugs we made for each other.”

Suddenly Johnny started losing his fight and in his panic, he died, resetting him to spawn while his team continued to lose their fights too. Aurora knew better— As a gamer, she understood the intensity that came with needing to win that last team fight because the pressure of needing to rank up was heavy… It was cruel for her to tease him like that. However, while she heard him trying not to hit his keyboard against his desk, she prepared herself to log onto his account after he would fall asleep so that she could rank him up instead as an apology for messing with him. The rank up wasn’t necessarily deserved, but he desperately wanted it.

“That’s, uh… That’s a good point, baby…” He let out a heavy sigh as the word “DEFEAT” flashed across the screen.

So the following morning, Aurora was at work bright and early in the morning like usual, completely unaware of the fact that Johnny had set his alarm early too so that he could race to the office to meet her before anyone else would arrive. She didn’t know that he set a million reminders to bring the mug for her. She didn’t witness him embarrassing himself running out of his apartment because he knew that he still wasn’t early enough to beat Aurora to the office, or how he ran through the parking garage and security while carefully holding the gift box so that the mug wouldn’t smash up inside.

The way he slid on the heels of his shoes and caught himself on her doorway was straight out of a cartoon. He was panting so hard that his abs stretched out the fabric of his t-shirt. He looked so dazed that Aurora thought the building was burning down or something like that, because he’d caught her so off guard by making such a sudden scene that her stomach somersaulted out of her body.

“I got it,” he said through a gasp for air. “Fuck, why is your office so far from everything?”

“Why’re you panting like a pug on a walk?”

“It’s too early in the morning to sprint.”

“That’s your fault, stupid.”

Johnny picked himself upright and smiled at her. “I brought it.” He showed off the gift box. “Just for you. Totally on time, I promise, not a day late!”

As he fully entered Aurora’s office, Johnny closed the door and waited until he heard it latch shut to approach her desk, simply standing in front of it instead of electing to sit.

He admitted that he honestly meant to give it to her at the lookout on, like, their third date, but he got a little distracted when they kissed… Aurora figured that was a fair excuse. Then he continued to spew the rest of his confessions about how he had actually been using the mug she made for him pretty much every day since receiving it, and he loved it, which was why he simply couldn’t believe that he forgot about the bright pink gift box sitting on his kitchen counter that entire time. Finally, while scratching the back of his neck awkwardly, he said that she wasn’t sure if he should stay to see her reaction or not, which made her worried about what the mug’s design actually was. Did he do something so embarrassing that he couldn’t bear the idea of standing in front of her? Whatever the reason, if he was going to forget her gift after so long, she was going to torture him a bit for it, even after ruining his rank up game only a couple of hours ago.

“Stay,” she quietly insisted, already tearing off the wrapping paper.

Johnny gulped.

What could the design possibly have been to warrant such a reaction? Did he go the silly route and just write in big, black letters: “WORLD’S BEST MANAGER” or something similar? Did he draw a dick? A middle finger? Aurora was aware of his sense of humor, but the tone of their first date and Johnny's motivations surrounding keeping the design a secret for so long didn’t strike her as something so vulgar.

When she finally got the box open and tossed out all the tissue paper that was stuffed inside to protect the mug, Aurora paused. It wasn’t inappropriate at all. In fact, it was devastatingly adorable. As she remembered from their first date months ago, it was a pale pink that matched the aesthetic of her apartment— Which he hadn’t known at the time, but it wasn’t like she hid that pink was her favorite color in other aspects of her life, like her clothes and accessories and office supplies. She carefully took the mug out of the box to inspect it closer. Painted in white on the side were two doves facing each other and connected by an olive branch they held in their mouths.

“I always loved that Aphrodite crop top you used to wear all the time, and I haven’t seen you in it in a while, and I’m not quite sure what happened to it, so…” He gestured to the cup like it was supposed to replace that shirt of hers. “And I know how important Aphrodite’s doves are to you, and the color pink is perfect for you—”

“You mumble when you’re nervous.”

He chuckled, his cheeks glowing red. “You do, too…”

The reason for the missing pink Aphrodite crop top was because it didn’t fit anymore. As embarrassing as that was. Since moving to Seoul, the stress of her job, the late nights at the office which included piles of 7-11 snacks dropped off by assistants, and really just the change in diet had changed Aurora’s body even more than when she lived in Japan. It was something she was working on. She despised the fact that she looked the way she did all the while she was dating someone whose torso looked like the fucking Statue of David. It was a damn shame too because she loved that shirt too.

“They remind me of your tattoo,” Aurora shyly admitted.

She was referencing the swallow on his shoulder, similar to Taeyong's. His hand drifted down from his back to his shoulder which he gripped as he chuckled softly.

“I was a tad inspired.”

Aurora blushed. “I love it. Thank you.”

As she stood and walked around the table, Johnny dropped his hands to his side just in time to grab her hips and pull her in for a gentle kiss. She smirked against his lips. It was the first time they’d been intimate at the office before… Usually they only glanced at each other or maybe brushed hands, but they’d never kissed at work before. It was kind of nice. It couldn’t be a constant thing because of the fact that she was his manager and all, but… being alone in her office, running her fingers through his hair, giggling as his hands squeezed her hips felt nice.

“Oneesan—”

The door suddenly flung open just as the thought of their privacy brought a smile to Johnny's face. Yuta stood there, frozen, his eyes unblinking, his jaw on the ground, the rest of him unsure of what to do.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding,” Johnny mumbled against her lips. He pulled away. “I’ll see you later.” He quickly pecked her cheek then turned to glare at Yuta before he snuck through the exit.

Yuta watched Johnny walk through the maze of cubicles and into the elevator before he cautiously entered Aurora’s office, closing the door behind him, not daring to ask about what he just walked in on. Aurora also gave him a glare when sitting back down at her desk.

“Better make it good,” she warned Yuta.

He eyed the mug that she placed neatly at her desk amongst other decor she had, like gachapon miniatures Yuta got her in Japan and a framed picture of her with the boys after their first ever concert together. However, Yuta didn’t say anything. He just stood there, glancing between the gift box she was stuffing in her trash can and the door that Johnny had just rushed out of. He looked worried that Johnny would circle back soon. Maybe with a crowbar. Probably with a crowbar.

Yuta cleared his throat. “I’ll, uh, I’ll see you at practice.”

“Yeah.”

As she expected of him, Yuta made a run for it out of her office.

When she was done with being interrupted during her work hours prior to the boys’ practice schedules, she returned to her scheduling and emailing with her lips still tingling after Johnny kissed her. Or she kissed him. Whatever it was. And when the hour passed for the start of their rehearsal, Aurora decided to stretch her legs and visit them, so she grabbed her new mug that she took to the employee break room where she made a cup of strawberry tea— Of course it had to be a pink colored tea in a pink colored mug— then she headed to the practice room floor. She opened the door to find them behaving themselves for once. Though, when Johnny noticed the door swing open, he glanced over like he was expecting her, and when he saw that it was indeed her, he smiled, and when he saw the mug in her hands as she blew away the steam, he chuckled. She shook her head at him to say that he needed to focus on the choreo and not her.

“Pink tea?” he teased during a water break. He fell on his ass brutally hard beside her before chugging his water.

“Are you surprised?”

Johnny stole her laptop away from her so that she could focus on him and not the spreadsheet that was giving her a headache. “No, I’m just happy because that was its intended purpose.”

“Pink tea, not coffee?”

“I know you hate the company’s coffee, don’t lie to me.”

Aurora stole her computer back. “That’s what you think. I prefer the coffee you buy for me elsewhere.”

Beside her, his hand twitched and moved in her direction like he was about to squeeze her thigh until he remembered that they were in front of everyone, not just the boys, so it wasn’t appropriate whatsoever to flirt with her the way he was, let alone touch her the way he wanted.

“I owe you a good cup of coffee,” Johnny suddenly said. He patted his own legs instead to prompt himself to stand back up.

She craned her neck back to smile at him as he told her that they’d go out for lunch together. Little did he know, she was going to be busy and so was he, therefore lunch wouldn’t be happening, but there was no time to tell him that before he jogged back to his spot in the choreography formation.

That night, Aurora was struck by insomnia once again. She wanted to blame all those late nights playing games with Johnny, but it couldn’t have been his fault when she was forcing her to stay up too just to get some work done. Before him, she was staying up all the same. Things didn’t change, just the purpose.

When it got to be around three in the morning, Aurora knew that she absolutely should have been asleep. Going to bed in the morning and waking up only hours later wasn’t healthy for her. She was sick of it. But every time she tried to put her laptop away and roll over in bed so that her face was shoved in her pillow, she became restless and would just pull her laptop out all over again. Why couldn’t she just sleep? Maybe it really was Johnny's fault.

Speaking of which, she was embarrassed by the fact that she was actually dreaming about him when trying to go to sleep for the millionth time, but her saving face was her phone buzzing on her bedside table, giving her an excuse to wake up. She opened her eyes just long enough to see it was a Discord message. It was Johnny. Of course it was Johnny.

Why’re you still awake? he asked her.

She typed back, I could ask you the same thing.

But I asked first.

I’m working.

He reacted with a surprised emoji then an emoji that appeared to show that he was neither shocked nor impressed. Aurora rolled her eyes.

Can I help you? she asked snarkily.

For a minute, Johnny's activity showed that he was typing something but he never sent it, so the activity disappeared for about thirty seconds until it suddenly reappeared briefly before he responded, Come over.

Aurora laughed out loud, alone in her bedroom, wearing her oversized pajamas with no undergarments, her hair was a mess from tossing and turning in bed an hour prior, she wasn’t wearing any make up— And he wanted her to come over at three in the morning? She hit him with a laughing emoji.

I’m serious. No funny business, I promise. I just want to see you. He sent another text after that, We can walk to work together tomorrow.

Aurora pulled the same shit on him, typing up a response that she didn’t like, so she erased it before thinking of something else to say that she also didn’t like. Part of her wanted to tell him straight up: Fuck off. Another part of her wanted to tell him that she would be over in twenty minutes if he paid for the cab. Then yet another part of her wanted to invite him over to her house instead since he had a car and it would give her time to make herself look semi presentable. Why was he even awake at the same ungodly hour that she was stupidly doing work at? She thought idols were supposed to get their beauty sleep, so what on Earth was keeping him awake, and why did he bother to think of texting her. Like, yeah, they were dating, but how did he open Discord and tell her, Come over, like it was the most basic thing in the world?

Aurora settled on something just as snarky as the Fuck off vibe she wanted to throw at him: You wish.

Within an instant of hitting send, Aurora’s phone started buzzing with a FaceTime call from Johnny which she was hesitant to answer given the time of night and the fact that he had invited her over, even though he promised that it was just to talk. He was still a guy. And there was still that lingering thought of the type of guy rumors made him out to be, so she worried about what waited for her on the other side of that call.

I swear, Johnny Suh, if you’re jerking off rn, I’ll kill you, she texted him with her phone still ringing.

Who do you think I am?

Aurora bit her lip. In a matter of seconds, the call would automatically hang up if she didn’t make a decision; and what if he really wasn’t being weird and just wanted to talk? What kind of girlfriend did that make her if she was going to ignore her boyfriend’s call? Shit. Fine. Fuck. She hit accept and closed Discord so that FaceTime could be her sole focus.

“Who do I have to hit?” he immediately interrogated her with a frown on his face. He was shirtless, but knowing Johnny after years of tours and late night practices, he was just shirtless because that was how he slept every night.

“What?”

“Who… do I… have to hit?”

“You repeating it does not make you make any sense suddenly.”

Johnny rolled his eyes and shifted up to recline his back against his headboard. Aurora took notice of his tattoo on his shoulder… “Which guy randomly called you in the middle of the night with his dick out to make you think I’d ever do that to you.” Aurora laughed at him though she didn’t reply properly. Johnny squinted suspiciously. “Wait, I was joking… But… Who?”

“Some idiot I knew in school.”

“In college?”

“No.”

“High school?”

“Nope.”

Johnny paused. “No, you’re pulling my leg.” But when Aurora didn’t jump to explain herself or give him reprieve, Johnny gulped. “Someone did that in middle school?”

“Ding, ding, ding, you’re a winner!”

“Jesus, Aurora.”

“Are you still glad you called?”

He smiled at her lightly while shaking his head to jostle his hair a bit so that it settled in his face a bit. “I’m always glad to see you, even if you’re stubborn. Speaking of which, will you just come over?”

Why was he so insistent about it? It was already so late, was it even worth it anymore? She’d get there, they’d have to immediately fall asleep, then wake up only a few hours later to get to work. Johnny was lucky because he didn’t have to be there as early as Aurora needed to be, yet she knew that he’d force himself to go along with her anyhow to be supportive.

“Neither of us can sleep, so what’s the issue?”

Aurora just stared at her phone while thinking about it. He was right. She couldn’t sleep no matter what she did, and he was still awake for whatever reason, so… Fuck it. She kept her pajamas on after telling him that she was using his account to get a taxi to drive her to his place, to which he grinned and told her that he was eagerly waiting for her.

However, when Aurora did reach Johnny's apartment and she rang the doorbell, it took forever for him to come to the door. So much for waiting up for her. Honestly, if he took any longer than she would’ve assumed he had fallen asleep during her trip over, so she was ready to get back in the taxi to go home.

“Hi, baby,” he welcomed the second the door was open. She giggled at him. “What?” His face fell, and she tickled the corner of her lips to indicate that he needed to wipe off the toothpaste on his face. “Shit—” He used his thumb to get rid of it before he smiled at her again. “I was brushing my teeth. I was trying to finish getting ready for bed before you showed up, but—”

“Wait, I’m confused, ‘cause you were already in bed when you called. It’s four in the morning, J.”

“No, no, baby, I was just bed rotting, not actually trying to sleep.”

She rolled her eyes at him.

As he took her hand, Aurora entered his apartment and even closed the door behind herself like she lived there. It seemed casual and normal that she wasn’t even bothered by him being shirtless. And Johnny didn’t seem to mind that Aurora helped herself to taking off her shoes or wandering into the kitchen to steal a water bottle from his fridge.

“Just wait a few minutes while I finish up my skincare for the night.”

Aurora screwed the cap back on the bottle. “Can I help?”

The question hit before she could hold her tongue or Johnny could put together what she said. He gawked at her. That was a sure way to overstep in their relationship and her welcome into his home— What the fuck was she thinking? She wanted to slap herself.

“Yeah.”

Aurora’s eyes flicked to him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Taking her hand in his again, Johnny slowly led Aurora to the bathroom where all of his skincare products were scattered around the entire countertop. Aurora’s eyes scanned the scene. How did he have so much— Where did he even start in the first place? Where was she supposed to start? Obviously Korea was known for skincare, which idols stocked up on all the time to maintain their clear, unageing skin; However, that was never Aurora’s thing. Before or after moving to Korea. She didn’t know what everything was used for or how it was to be used in the first place. She didn’t know if something was meant to be washed off or stay on her face.

“I’ll help you, don’t worry,” he eased her mind. “Come here.”

Aurora watched silently as Johnny sat on the edge of the tub then grabbed the first bottle on the left. Nothing seemed to bother Johnny. Having his girlfriend in his bathroom with him while he was shirtless and in the midst of getting himself unready from the day— Aurora honestly couldn’t remember a time when any of the boys were ever uncomfortable being around her without makeup on and looking their best. That was likely her fault. From the start she had established a good relationship with the group as their manager and friend, nothing else, until Johnny came along to change the definition of their own relationship, however everything else remained the same. None of them minded Aurora seeing their pimples, acne scars, eye-bags, etc. Yet she understood that things were indeed different the second she and Johnny became more than friends. The late nights with limited clothes meant something else. The casualness meant something else. The comfortability meant something entirely different than it used to. What was a symbol of being good friends had turned into what Aurora would define as “domestic.” That was new to her. The idea of being so close with another person who decided that she was perfect to be his partner that they could do simple things like doing each other’s nighttime routine… It wasn’t odd, just new.

“Okay, this one, you just get a little bit on your fingers— Not a lot. It goes a long way. And you massage it into my undereyes and cheekbones. It helps with the discoloration from being tired.”

“That’s a thing? I thought people just put those stupid stickers on their eyebags while they sleep.”

Johnny chuckled. “That comes at the end, once everything else is dry.” He took her hands and carefully squeezed the smallest dollop of serum onto her fingers. “Come on.”

She bit her lip to hold her breath as she concentrated on spreading it between all of her fingertips on both hands. Johnny relaxed slightly, tilted his head up, and closed his eyes. Aurora stared at him for a second. He wasn’t looking at her, so he couldn’t catch her and make fun of her for admiring how undeniably perfect he was, as annoying as it was to Aurora. He was perfect. She was… Well, she was whatever she was.

“I’ll fall asleep at this rate,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, yeah, shut it.”

Aurora’s hands were shaking when she made contact with his under-eyes. The coldness and suddenness of it all made Johnny jolt slightly, but once she started slowly massaging— Very slow and gentle because she was testing the waters of what would hurt him or ruin the whole process of his skincare in the first place— Johnny relaxed and sighed quietly to himself. The serum was surprisingly quick to dry. It made contact with Johnny's skin, and as it drew out thin beneath her fingers, it left his skin silky smooth. It was impossible to visibly tell if she’d put anything on at all afterwards.

Johnny reopened his eyes. “You didn’t blind me, good job.” He snickered and put the first bottle back, quickly replacing it with the next one in the line up. “This one just goes all over. Face, eyelids, ears, neck. Go wild.”

“What’s it do?”

“Moisturize or some shit. I don’t know, they basically all do the same thing. Doyoung tells me they’re good for me, I ignore him, he buys them for me, then he calls every night for a month to make sure I’m actually using his gifts until it becomes part of my routine and he doesn’t feel the need to baby me anymore about it.”

Aurora snickered. That sounded like Doyoung, worrying after his members, specifically Johnny.

“Do you need to take your earrings out?” she checked as she stole the bottle and began squeezing a good amount onto her palm.

Johnny shook his head.

“I’m not taking the blame if they get ripped out.”

“Ow…” He shivered at the thought. “Just be gentle, baby.”

Be gentle, he warned her. Was she not usually? She could be annoying, sure, but so could he. One would argue that she was far more gentle than the giant of a boyfriend sitting in front of her— His big feet stomping everywhere, his long arms and legs swinging all over the place wherever he went, his loud chewing that he’d learned from living with boys for so long, and all the times he squeezed different parts of Aurora because he couldn’t get enough of her. Be gentle. Alright, fine.

With his eyes still closed again, Johnny ended up wrapping his arms around Aurora’s waist in order to trap her, preventing her from drifting too far from him. Be gentle. Her palms carefully caressed his cheeks to spread the majority of the moisturizer onto the largest surface area of his face before she would switch to using her fingers. Only… she hesitated. Her palms against his cheeks and her fingers teasing his sideburns made her think about all the times he had held her like that before he kissed her. She wanted to know what that was like.

So she kissed him.

Gently, her lips pressed against his, and though Johnny was taken aback, he smiled and invited it by kissing her back slightly. Aurora suddenly understood the appeal of holding his face so intimately. It was about control. She could navigate which way she wanted their heads to tilt when they opened their mouths to kiss with their tongues, and she could hold him back so that she could be in charge. Though the kiss itself didn’t last long, Johnny chased her lips when she pulled away until he knew for certain that she wouldn’t return to him, so he continued to sit obediently with his eyes screwed shut and her wet hands on his face. Then she was able to proceed as planned.

Aurora took her time spreading the moisturizer around. She didn’t want to get any of it in his hair, so she carefully navigated her way around his hairline. She wiped her thumbs over his thick, bushy brown eyebrows. If she ever thought about applying that amount of moisturizer to her own face, she imagined that it would sting after putting it on and around her eyelids, yet Johnny instructed her to, so she went for it, making sure his eyes felt soft until she moved on to his big nose. Johnny smiled as her fingers ran down the bridge.

“Kiss me again,” he quietly begged.

“Not yet. Close your mouth.”

Johnny pursed his lips together right before she ran her moisturized fingertips over his philtrum that she was oddly infatuated with. That little skintag of his around his septum convinced her. She removed her touch long enough to kiss him again— Briefly and gently, but still, he got what he asked for.

When Johnny ended up tugging on her waist, Aurora surprised him by slowly sitting on his thighs— and no further up— while putting moisturizer on his neck. His breath hitched. Suddenly he didn’t dare to move a single muscle or utter a word. It was easier to apply everything when sitting on his lap because of the lower and closer angle… An angle which included Aurora’s lips hovering so close to Johnny's that she was grateful they’d both brushed their teeth for the night.

“Wh-What’s next…” she croaked.

Johnny shook his head. “I don’t need to do the rest of it tonight. Doyoung can yell at me about it tomorrow if he wants.”

“Okay, then you’re done… I think…”

Aurora patted his shoulders then tried to convince herself that it was finally time to get off of him, yet neither of them moved. He looked awfully handsome so late at night, bare faced, his hair an unruly mess, and his tattoos on full display while he tried to not make it obvious that he was flexing to impress her. Aurora couldn’t hold herself back any longer. She leaned in to kiss him, and the second they made contact, Johnny followed her lead by kissing her back. His tight grip on her hips kept them both balanced as they swayed in the midst of fighting for dominance in their kiss, Johnny trying to lean up some to use his height against her, but she was winning because of her position above him. Aurora moaned in his mouth and was about to grind against him when Johnny was the first to pull away for air.

“I promised no funny business, remember?”

“You’re too much of a gentleman.” She leaned in again but he dodged.

He chuckled lightly. “My mom would be proud, then.” He wiped her lips gently with his thumb. “Besides, I gotta make sure I have a better reputation than those assholes you knew growing up.”

“You’ve already surpassed all expectations.”

“That’s good to know.”

Because Johnny seemed inclined to not go further with Aurora, she started to shuffle off his lap.

Suddenly, his grip on her hips tightened to keep her still as he caught her attention with a quick, “Wait, Rora—”

So she waited. Still turned slightly, staring at the wall, silence ringing in the air, Aurora replayed that moment in her head. Had she misheard him? Had he just choked on air during the first syllable of her name? No. No, she heard him right, and he said what he said; yet he didn’t say anything and she didn’t protest.

“‘Rora?’”

He paused after immediately realizing what he had done. “Sorry—”

“I like that.” She looked at him again with a shy blush.

“I didn’t mean—”

“No one’s ever called me that before.” She ran her fingers through his hair then grabbed onto the strands. “Say it again.”

He let out a quiet breath, something eerily similar to a moan though not quite there. Quite delicately, he whispered into her mouth, “Rora,” before capturing her bottom lip between both of his, and he was quick to stop himself too with, “we shouldn’t.”

“You’re a tease,” she mumbled.

“I know… I’m sorry…”

There was finally wiggle room to slide off his lap, this time being given permission by Johnny who released her, so she helped him up to his feet too— A sudden reminder of how much taller he really was than her.

“Put on a damn shirt or I’m sleeping on the couch.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Aurora waited on Johnny's bed while he tossed on a white shirt, which really didn’t do much because it was practically see-through and his pecs were no better than boobs at that point. It was already going on five in the morning. Work would need Aurora in the office within the next three hours, Johnny two hours after that. The thought of sleep at that point seemed ridiculous, but Johnny seemed exhausted as he smoothly slid into bed, his arms wrapping around Aurora and his lips finding comfort pressed right against her cheek.

“The shirt didn’t help.”

Johnny's chest vibrated against her as he laughed. “I could say the same to you sometimes… It was hard to focus at work today… and the day before that… and the day—”

“I get it.”

He kissed her cheek again. “Just enjoy the shirt and try to get some rest, baby.”

“I have to get up soon.”

“Take a nap.”

It was a foreign-ish feeling for Aurora. She had cuddled with plenty of people in the past, yet it somehow felt different with Johnny while knowing that they were actively in a romantic relationship, compared to the times with Yuta or Ten who were simply her friends. Having Johnny's body pressed against hers… His breath hot on her ear… She was suddenly extremely aware of how one of his arms was acting as a pillow beneath her cheek while the other rested on top of her hip. They touched all the time! Why was she suddenly being such a weirdo about it? Maybe because she was in the same bed that he had other women in plenty of times before her— Aurora was a self-concious person, obviously, she would never pretend otherwise, but the fact that she was in Johnny's bed, cuddling with him, wasn’t the reason, not after she’d done it plenty of times before. Maybe it was because he blue-balled her despite obviously wanting to fuck her as much as she wanted to fuck him… Eventually… Soon, most likely.

“Can you tell me about them?”

Johnny raised a brow. “About who?”

“The other girls you’ve been with.”

He chortled, thinking that she was joking until he noticed that she wasn’t laughing, so he cleared his throat awkwardly while cracking his neck in order to have an excuse to not look at her. “Why?”

“‘Cause I’m curious… You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to; It was just a thought I had.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“No more than you being my first real boyfriend.” She also shifted so hide her face more because she was growing hot with embarrassment too.

Johnny was silent for a moment. Aurora took that time to second guess herself and dread the fact that she had asked at all because he was clearly uncomfortable, and she already knew why, because he had a reputation before she joined SM and he fell head over heels for her— According to Ten, at least. But then something happened. Johnny comforted Aurora by slowly rubbing her back with one of his big hands. Aurora tensed. When they cuddled, Johnny usually touched her in some way like that, but not while they were talking and trying to stay awake, it was usually when they were both half awake and he was trying to lull them both to sleep.

“My first kiss was in sixth grade at my first ever party with girls. We were stupid, playing spin the bottle with a Coke bottle because we couldn’t get alcohol, and when it was my turn, it landed on the girl my best friend liked. I really didn’t want to kiss her ‘cause of that… I tried to come up with every excuse not to, but everyone teased me ‘cause it was obvious that it was my first kiss, so they were calling me a pussy and all that bullshit, so I just went for it.”

“How’d your friend react?”

“The girl I kissed spun next and landed on him, so I don’t think he cared.”

Aurora chuckled.

“In high school, I had a emo combover—”

“Oh, I know, I’ve seen the pictures.”

Johnny pinched her hip lightly to tease her for teasing him. “For whatever reason, all the girls in my class thought I was hot… I don’t know why… I was too tall, way too awkward, had the famous ugly haircut, was riddled with acne everywhere. I still don’t get it.”

“It’s the abs.”

“I didn’t have those back then.”

“It’s the dad humor, I guess.”

Johnny pinched her again. “My humor’s not that bad.” Aurora looked up at him blankly. “Okay, fine, maybe it was the dad jokes— Are you going to let me tell my story or what?”

“Fine, fine, go ahead.”

He nodded. “My first girlfriend was the same girl I had my first kiss with—”

“No! What about your friend!”

“He moved.”

“What about loyalty!” She was obviously teasing him still, so Johnny leaned in to kiss her, leaving her silent and reeling over the feeling of his smooth lips against hers for only a moment and how she wished it would have lasted longer.

“She was my first everything. First kiss, first girlfriend, first blowie—”

“Never call it that again.”

“When she was sick of my dad jokes or whatever, she dumped me and immediately started going out with another guy. So I tried to play her game, and I asked out another girl, who said no, but her sister said yes. After that, I moved to Korea… I dated two non-celebrities, one celebrity—”

“Who?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“That’s not fair.”

Johnny shrugged. “I respect her privacy.” That was fair, so Aurora let it go, settling comfortably once more to let Johnny continue. “A lot of the other girls weren’t really… girlfriends… They were girls who thought I was hot and cool because I’m an idol, so we just had fun whenever I was free. I hooked up with a model once in Paris, that was cool.” He winced when Aurora slapped his chest lightly. “And then you came along. End of story.”

“Did you get with anyone after meeting me?”

He squinted. “That feels like a trick question meant to trap me.”

“It’s not, I promise.”

He bit his lip, staring down at her, waiting to see if it was actually safe to answer that question. Aurora really hadn’t meant for it to be a trap! It only occurred to her because Ten said that Johnny didn’t mess around after meeting her, so she wanted to hear directly from the source whether that was true or not— Even if he had been with someone else, Aurora wouldn’t have cared because it wasn’t like they were actually together back then, so he wasn’t required to be celibate or whatever! Aurora would actually think he was insane if he in fact didn’t get with anyone because of her.

“Last time we were in Paris,” Johnny finally surrendered, “I met up with the model again… Doyoung thought I was a little pathetic because I’d told him I had a crush on you but was too much of a pussy to do anything about it, so I tried to just… ignore my feelings by getting with someone else. We got a little drunk and she kissed me, but I just. I don’t know, I couldn’t do it. I let her sleep on the bed and I took the couch, and after that, I realized I either had to man up and ask you out or I’d never be able to get with anyone else ever again.”

Aurora stared at him, baffled. Johnny stared back at her, sincere.

“You’re such a liar,” she told him.

“What? Why?”

“There’s no way you let a model sleep in your bed, alone, because you were drooling over me, your manager, who was probably sprawled out on my hotel bed, hair everywhere, snoring, drooling on my pillow, the sheets not even on the bed—”

“You’re painting quite an image for me, darling,” he whispered, inching closer again, his lips hovering over hers. “What’d I tell you about always comparing yourself to other people, huh?”

“I think it’s valid when you’ve fucked runway models.”

He rolled his eyes before letting them fall shut as they both leaned in to kiss each other. Johnny's hand was still sprawled on her back, giving him plenty of opportunity to press slightly in order to bring her closer to him, meanwhile she was tangling her legs with his under the covers, their feet fighting the same way their tongues were for dominance.

“Nope, nope.” His hand released her back. Aurora slumped in the opposite direction from Johnny with a pout on her face. “Gentleman, remember?”

“I feel like you’re just being a tease on purpose at this point.”

“Blame the shirt.”

“Oh, I am.”

“Can you nap now?”

“Maybe, baby. I’ll try.”

His eyes were the first to shut in order to force himself to sleep. How in the fuck he managed to actually start snoring not even two minutes later was completely beyond Aurora. She wished she had that ability. It was like a damn superpower. Maybe that meant her Kryptonite was her insomnia, which Johnny didn’t seem inflicted with… Fucking Superman. The downside to him was that his snoring only got louder the longer he slept, and Aurora giggled quietly, using her hand to stifle it so that she wouldn’t wake him.

From what Aurora’d heard about herself over the years, it seemed like she had also inherited from her father the obnoxious habit of snoring and talking in her sleep. She wasn’t sure if it was true anymore. Yuta, Taeyong, and Ten never brought it up; The last time anyone had mentioned it was in college when she went on a weekend trip with a friend who teased her for always snoring and taking up so much space on the bed. If that were still indeed true then she certainly couldn’t judge Johnny a single bit— Not that she ever wanted to in the first place… He was too handsome and precious to judge.

She sighed quietly to herself and brushed his long hair out of his resting eyes.

“Either I did something incredibly good in my last life to deserve you or you did something tremendously horrible to deserve the likes of me,” she whispered. Johnny didn’t stir. Still smiling, her eyes fell shut slowly in the hopes that she would be able to sleep even with Johnny snoring in her ear. “Either way, I win.”

taglist: @tiredlittlevirgo , @henderysposts , @trash-number-one , @mystverse ,

@vrak-co , @sxmnc , @nctdreamchaser

[saltynsassy31]

hello, tis i the crab from the archive comment hfoiwjfiow anyway its been a few days but i finally got around to it!!!!!!!! yes!!! i would so love to hear your thoughts

Oh my god, I saw your ask right before I went to bed and completely forgot to answer when I woke up XD

Before I go off, context to the audiance: This lovely person is the writer for this AMAZING fanfic called "Reforged" on ao3. It's basically the scene where Rodimus goes to talk and apologise to Drift right before they have to fight the D.J.D. but it expands upon it, making them have a longer conversation over it and getting a deeper look on Drift's thoughts as well as - in my opinion - more sincere apology on Rodimus' end. And I tell you all to go read it because I have made it my personal canon, when I talk bout this scene, I want everyone to know that this is what happened in my head, this is what I'll be referring to and will most likely be present in future aus XD and I promised to go on a rant about it, so here I am.

Ahem, anyway

On to my feelings about this whole thing

I already described pretty much how much I LOVE this fic, but I thought to give it a reread and make more proper notes because it deserves it.

Although I am far from reaching this point of the comics (for those unaware, I have FINALLY started to read MTMTE with my friends. The call lasted for 3 and a half and we only reached till #5... yeah, so progress is slow), I have read some scattered pages and random issue I found myself more interested in reading and was too impatient for until we got there (like the Swearth arc. Though I have also read the Sunder arc for fanfic reasons), and other random issues to give me context for certain fics.

Least to say, I am vaguely familiar with the events. Would like to mention I also read the Wiki a lot, even for stuff I hadn't yet read. So I like to think I am not as uninformed when it comes to MTMTE.

All this to say, I end up being kind of nitpicky when it comes to fanfic. If things start to feel OOC, it easily turns me off. Not that I don't still indulge in the content, but it can be really hard, and there are only very specific circunstances where it might actually be a plus.

Rodimus is a character I care deeply for, for many reasons. And - in my opinion - he is a character that gets very easily misinterpreted. He's either far too villinised, or he is to woobified. There is definitly a hard balance to maintain. He's had his faults (far too many), but sometimes (even in canon) his growth is largely ignored. And I also feel as if his relationship with Drift also gets very mixed up and equally as misunderstood as Rodimus himself (and also Drift, but I'm focusing on Rodimus here lol, the complaints are similar anyway).

Though, in fics, it feels the opposite sometimes. However, my main issue also comes in the way that there is so much canon material to play with, so much of his actual issues that get overlooked in favour of HCs that never even happaned. Not that I hate them, or criticising them, because I enjoy them too. I'm just saying, it be cool to have more of both XD.

And that's what this fic delivers!!

Even though we are seeing things through Drift's point of view, we still get a good insight of what might be going on with Rodimus internally. My favourite part has honestly got to be the part where Drift goes "He’s different—this year apart has changed him, and Drift will never know the full extent of it. The others think he talks a load of crap when he brings up auras, but to him they’re real. Rodimus’ is dull. It can’t just be the impending doom of the D.J.D. This dullness lingers, clinging to Rodimus like it’s been growing for a long time. Rodimus’ guilt is a palpable miasma that hangs in the air between them."

Because, as I've read some issues past Drift's absence, there really is a lot he'll never truly understand. I'm struggling a bit to put it into words, but that start really hit me and it still sticks with me, and it's something we do get to see follow Rodimus for a long time. Call it consequences for his own actions, but I think it's not as simple as that.

But it was also great to see Drift stand up for himself and set bounderies, and it really showing how important their friendship are to each other. It really wasn't healthy, but that didn't mean it had to be the end of things, they just had to set healthy bounderies, which Drift did. They were just so scared of losing one another, they pushed things further than they should have.

And it's something I think plenty of us went through. Scared to say anything that could upset the other, or - more selfishly - let it be because it was easier to have things follow your way if you just didn't say anything. Scared that doing anything else would break what you have.

They needed that moment apart to reflect and grow, and it shows how much they have.

There are a lot of "should haves" for Drift, he definetly enabled Rodimus' bad behaviour, but what matters really is that they can grow from it now.

And honestly, dude, I would love to see more fics from you with these guys. You absolutely blew it off the park with this fic, you wrote them amazingly and I still think bout it daily. 10/10 recommend.

[eoieopda]

GET TO KNOW ME 🧍🏻‍♀️

i was tagged by my shrimpie @sailorsoons

WHAT'S THE ORIGIN OF YOUR BLOG TITLE?

it’s the romanization of one of my favorite korean words (esp. of those that don’t directly translate to english)! i think it fits — i experience a lot of things that are almost too absurd to believe.

FAVORITE FANDOMS?

at this point, i exist solely in the k-pop sphere. if i have to get specific, i’ll say that i have the most fun (and witness the least drama) in svt/caratblr.

MORE UNDER THE CUT

OTP(s)/SHIPNAME?

i’m not a shipper shipper, but my fave dynamics are soonhoon (svt), yoonjin (bts), and topaz (ateez).

FAVORITE COLOR?

i’m mostly a monochromatic bitch, so my primary/basic answer is black. i do fuck heavily with teal and really earthy colors, though.

FAVORITE GAME?

fallout 4, skyrim, cyberpunk 2077, and any pokemon game are all tied for first. honorable mention: spiritfarer.

SONG STUCK IN YOUR HEAD?

it’s not a song, but the audio that is truly LOOPING in my head is sabres’ goalie, ukko-pekka luukkonen, saying his own name, lmao. beyond that, it’s nausea by jeff rosenstock.

WEIRDEST HABIT/TRAIT?

i’m not sure which is my “weirdest”, but i often do this thing where i subconsciously make extremely old/niche pop culture references while drunk — when the thing i’m quoting/referencing isn’t something i’ve seen, heard, or thought about in 10+ years. (it’s a metaphor, @jihopesjoint)

HOBBIES?

writing, gaming, watching hockey + soccer, playing bass, yearning, watching gose, knitting, and running (when it’s not snowy/shitty, which is rare where i live).

IF YOU WORK, WHAT IS YOUR PROFESSION?

i’m an attorney. specifically, i prosecute (exclusively) cases of child abuse and neglect.

IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB YOU WISH, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

i’d choose my current job in any timeline, but if i couldn’t, i’d want to be a mortician + funeral director. i think i’m incapable of doing things that aren’t morbid and heavy (??). alternatively, i want to travel around in a van and seek out ghosts, scooby-doo style.

SOMETHING YOU'RE GOOD AT?

if we’re talking “practical” skills, crafting/delivering/winning arguments, lol. i’m otherwise really good at figuring out plot points/twists really early and ruining the fun/suspense for myself (ask @jihopesjoint and @sailorsoons 💀)

SOMETHING YOU'RE BAD AT?

is “having a body” a sufficient answer? executive function in general, maintaining any semblance of a work/life balance, avoiding burnout, and commitment 😌

SOMETHING YOU LOVE?

my cats, the gays in my phone, and kwon hoshi 💕

SOMETHING YOU COULD TALK ABOUT FOR HOURS OFF THE CUFF?

^ anything up there

SOMETHING YOU HATE?

if i keep this really simple: birds. they scare the shit out of me.

SOMETHING YOU COLLECT?

this is embarrassing, but whenever i finish a legal pad, i keep the lil cardboard husk. i have a giant stack of them on the bookshelf in my office. it reminds me of how much i’ve accomplished, even when it doesn’t feel like i have.

SOMETHING YOU FORGET?

everything, all the time. my short- and long-term memory are both hazy as fuck because of my adhd, fibro fog, insomnia, and c-ptsd. absolutely nothing sticks for long in this swiss cheese brain of mine, lmao.

WHAT'S YOUR LOVE LANGUAGE?

physical touch and acts of service.

FAVORITE MOVIE/SHOW?

movie: the princess bride but also maybe inglorious basterds show: the devil judge

FAVORITE FOOD?

i feel like i’ll let several people down if i don’t say crab rangoon 💀 tbh, i don’t super care about food, but i do super care about diet dr. pepper.

FAVORITE ANIMAL?

raccoons!

ARE YOU MUSICAL?

yep! both of my parents are musicians/vocalists/music teachers, so it’s a “thing” in my family that you play multiple instruments, etc.

WHAT WERE YOU LIKE AS A CHILD?

honestly….. just the less-evolved version of my current self. i’ve always been extroverted, outgoing, chaotically friendly, etc.

FAVORITE SUBJECT AT SCHOOL?

sociology, history, and languages!

LEAST FAVORITE SUBJECT?

math. i’ve never been good at it, and it’s always made me feel stupid.

WHAT'S YOUR BEST CHARACTER TRAIT?

my capacity to care about many, many things very, very deeply.

WHAT'S YOUR WORST CHARACTER TRAIT?

that ^; my self-worth is handcuffed to my (own perception of my) productivity + very fucked-up/unattainable self-imposed standard of what is “good enough; and i have a habit of intellectualizing my feelings instead of actually allowing myself to feel them.

IF YOU COULD CHANGE ANY DETAIL OF YOUR DAY RIGHT NOW, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

i would make myself be adequately hydrated. could i still change that? yes. will i? ehhhhhhhh….

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL IN TIME, WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO MEET?

maybe my birth mom? idk.

REC YOUR FAVE FANFICS (SPREAD THE LOVE):

the iron ring by @sailoryooons, a word from our sponsors by @100vern, a series not yet finished/posted by @daechwitatamic, don’t sweat it by @miraclewoozi (i miss u) + anything else tagged here.

TAG OTHERS TO COMPLETE (NO PRESSURE): @miniseokminnies @seungkw1 @cherrrywon + anyone who wants to do this and hasn’t yet!

[chocokayke]

Here's Alkaloid for my Splatoon/Enstars AU! All weapons are referring to their Splatoon 3 kits, because that's what I'm most familiar with. I wanna give a shout out to @mdkm444 for making this fanart that inspired this whole AU in the first place. : )

More info on each character below the cut.⬇️

Hiiro

I'm giving him the highest honor I could bestow on a character... My main.

I think Splatana Deco fits him, and how he sees himself at the beginning. It's a very mobile weapon and aggro with a supportive kit. He can easily strife with opponents to draw fire from his teammates, while also setting up beacons, and setting of tentamissles to displace enemies.

The idea is that he mostly sees himself as his brother's "shield" at the beginning, and I feel like having a weapon that supports and takes fire suits that role.

As he grows and gets more comfortable with his place in Alkaloid, he would pick up more aggressive weapons. I just really like the idea of him with dualies. I think he has a lot of fun zipping around with dodge rolls. : )

He runs a lot of Quick Respawn abilities.

I think his backstory would stay mostly the same, actually.

Aira

He's 100% that guy who draws hearts in the enemy base.

He strikes me as the type of person who would play weapons that are meta without fully understanding WHY they're so good.

He started out playing vanilla Splash-o-matic, but he sucks so bad at Crab Tank. Mayoi thought something more mobile would suit Aira, so he recommended Inkbrush and Carbon Roller to him.

Hiyori wears his eye makeup the same way. This is a very important piece of Aira lore.

Mayoi

Mayoi has the biggest change to his backstory out of Alkaloid. He was originally an Octarian Soldier under DJ Octavio.

He was there for the Splat1 final boss and the Calamari Inkantation. He is NOT Agent 8, to be clear. He escaped after Marina, but before Agent 8. He wasn't in the subway. (But the idea of him in the subway is very fun, and that might be something to explore in an AU of this AU.)

He's a huge Squid Sisters fan.

He first escaped to Inkopolis, but it was too overwhelming for him, and he ended up traveling a lot before settling down in ES.

He plays a lot of weapons, and at knows a lot about the weapons he doesn't play. He's extremely skilled and knowledgeable. He's a fantastic coach, and everyone wants them to coach their teams! (Help him.)

Unfortunately, he is still Mayoi and still has severe anxiety! Despite how skilled he is, he's too scared to play alone and is pretty low ranked. That's why he got his status as an "underachiever."

Generally plays a lot of long ranged weapons to stay as far away from the action as he can. Snipewriter is his main, but E-Liter deserves an honorable mention.

Any closer ranged weapons he plays are more supportive than aggressive. This bad boy can pop out so many Inkstorms and Tacticoolers.

I probably should have added Hydra Splatling to his list instead of Heavy Edit tbh? But, eh, he can play both.

I think Snipewriter fits his main really well due to the fact that it has super long range, paints well, and has a supportive kit. At the time I'm writing this, it's also the best competitive weapon in Splatoon 3.

Tatsumi

His backstory is also similar to his canon one.

His leg got damaged and wouldn't repair itself when he respawned, so he had to get it removed it let it regrow naturally. Squids can do that, don't worry about it. : )

The guy who makes sure your base is 100% inked during Turf War.

Me and my friend both agreed it is extremely funny for Tatsumi to run around with his beginner weapon going like ^_^: so that's what he mains.

Then my other friend recommended me what they call "noob trap" weapons, which is mostly short ranged shooters (Sploosh and Aerospray) so I immediately added those to the list. I feel like they suit Tatsumi, and kind of mirror how inept he is with technology in canon.

Despite that, he's actually quite skilled! He does pretty well with short ranged shooters and has fun playing with them. They're his go to choice, but he's experienced in a lot of different weapon classes.

Anyway, you know how the Sunken Scrolls in Splatoon 3 introduced Squid Jesus--

[hervygervy]

Speaking of Chaos Kin, IIRC there's really not much elaborated on it apart from Idols, it's Japanese name being "Messenger of Chaos" and the note that "Chaos was the void where everything was created, including the primordial gods"

I don't know what you're gonna do with this information but I'm taking it as a sign that the Chaos Kin is simply a leftover from the beginning of everything

You know what, thank you for bringing this up to me because I did a little research and made an utterly fascinating discovery. A breakthrough, if you will. I think so, anyway.

Before that, yes, the Japanese name for the Chaos Kin is 混沌の使い (konton no tsukai) or "messenger/envoy/emissary of chaos" or however you'd like to put it. I would really like to know the logic behind the name change because both have pretty different implications. "Kin" inherently means "related to" which gives the impression that this creature is some kind of manifestation of chaos, while "messenger" effectively infers that this creature is an agent or bringer of chaos. Basically, 使い (tsukai) inherently implies that it's some kind of subordinate to chaos rather than being chaos itself.

As for chaos being the void from which everything was created... that's an idea from Greek mythology. The creation story goes that before Uranus and Gaea, there was just primordial chaos, from which everything kinda just came into being. Your idea is a fun one, but personally I wish people would recognize the fact that Kid Icarus isn't an adaptation of Greek mythology, nor is it trying to be. The creator of the original game, Toru Osawa, just so happened to have a vague interest in Greek mythology, and wanted his game to just be full of things he personally thought was cool (it was his first time ever making a game after all). Thus, all it does is take the general aesthetic of Greek myth as depicted in pop culture and takes some names of random figures and monsters. I mean, they literally took a skull with crab legs and called it "Ganymede" (spelled "Ganewmede" in game), so I would really not take any references to Greek mythology with any semblance of seriousness. This is probably just me, but I'm just really tired of people trying to emphasize the whole Greek mythology references thing because in reality, Kid Icarus is about as true to Greek mythology as Marvel's Thor is to Norse mythology. If you want something more faithful, I'd suggest trying some other game.

Anyway, originally I wanted to address your query on what the Chaos Kin is... and then I'll get to my epic discovery. Promise. In both the English and Japanese versions of the discussion about the Chaos Kin in the ground section of chapter 20, Viridi nor any other character seem to have any idea what it is other than that it lives in another dimension, eats souls, and has some terrifying powers. But, there's an interesting tidbit of information reserved for the Japanese version of the flight section of chapter 21. Remember the part of the level where some duplicates of the Chaos Kin show up? More below because this is becoming a bit lengthy...

Yeah, so this moment just seems to be a showcase of how the Chaos Kin's ability to create monsters is so great that it can even manifest lookalikes, right? Another piece of dialogue seems to support the idea that these are mere clones:

"Real deal" would imply that there's an original and a whole bunch of phonies, wouldn't it? Well the Japanese version describes them as possibly being just other specimens of the same kind of creature!

I'll translate:

Viridi: We're getting close to the Messenger of Chaos. But...

Pit: But?

Viridi: There seems to be a lot of lookalikes.

Pit: Wahh! That's too gross!!

Viridi: Is the Messenger of Chaos replicating itself? No, these are simply the same type of creature.

Pit: If such atrocious creatures are being mass produced, that would be unbearable!

Curious, huh? Oh, and because of this, of course the moment when the target Chaos Kin shows up has different dialogue:

This one's short. I'll translate anyway:

Viridi: Over there!

Pit: Full speed ahead!

Anyway, so I thought that was all there was to it. That I would leave you here today with only the information that the Chaos Kin might be its own whole thriving species. But ohoho... I found something crazy. Something wild. You brought up the idols, yes? So I actually haven't progressed that far in my Japanese copy of the game and thus don't have access to a lot of the idols. But for funsies, I decided to look them up. Shout out to the random YouTube account that uploaded a video compilation of all the idols in the year of our Lord 2023.

The English idol description for the Chaos Kin reads as follows:

"An evil being whose strange power may even surpass that of the gods. It is mindless, only possessing the desire to cause disorder and disaster. Long sealed in the Lunar Sanctum, the Chaos Kin is suddenly free to spread anarchy."

But the Japanese description:

「魂をフックに引っかけ支配する狡猾な邪神。神をも下す恐ろしい力を持っていたため静寂のアロンの月の神殿に封じられていた。文字通り混沌を好み、裏切りや争いなどを起こす。意志らしい意志は感じられない。支配された魂はむさぼり食われる運命。」

I would italicize this one too but italicized Japanese hurts my eyes, I won't lie. I'll italicize the translation!

"A crafty evil god that snares and controls souls with a hook. Because it held frightening power that would bring down even the gods, it was sealed in Arlon the Silent’s Moon Temple. It literally likes chaos and brings about betrayal and strife. It doesn’t seem to have anything like a will. Controlled souls are fated to be greedily wolfed down."

Just a reminder, "Arlon the Serene" is called "Arlon the Silent," and the "Lunar Sanctum" is called the "Moon Temple."

But did you see that?? The Chaos Kin is described as a 邪神 (jashin) or "evil god." You might remember this word from when we talked about it before... it's the same word used to describe Pandora! Regardless, what's important is that, apparently, the Chaos Kin is a whole deity! And there are multiple of the same species! Lovely!!

Out of sheer curiosity, I tried looking up the Japanese trophy description for the Chaos Kin in Super Smash Bros for 3DS, but it seems nobody on this planet has ever bothered to transcribe the Japanese text for them anywhere, and there is one lone video compilation of them in poop fart quality. I can barely read anything. I was able to make out one thing, and that's that it's described as a 生命体 (seimeitai) or "life form" which... honestly makes me question things more. Is this thing a deity or not? But at the same time, this is also just a Smash Bros trophy description that I can barely freakin' read. Smash Bros isn't really a source of canon, as I've already discussed in a previous post. Gotta get your info from the horse's mouth and all that.

So!! I'm going to conclude that the Chaos Kin is a 邪神, or "evil god," as written in its idol description. Absolutely wild. This information will rotate in my mind like a rotisserie chicken. This has so many implications. And there are many of them. Wow. Looks like we both learned something!

[murdercide626]

Thoughts on the Sonic 3 trailer:

First of all, HOLY S***!! This trailer was frikkin amazing!! :D

Shadow looks so badass, and just from the three lines we hear from him in the trailer I can tell Keanu is gonna be great in the movie!

I'm also glad to see that they won't be shying away from the darker elements of Shadow's origin.This movie is definitely gonna make me cry I know it...

Also, Eggman finally has his chubby gut! lol

Speaking of, it seems that Eggman and Stone aren't the ones to awaken Shadow as they seem unaware of the situation until Sonic goes to them asking for help. I can see why they changed it because if Eggman was teaming up with Shadow, like in SA2, it would probably feel a bit too similar to the plot of the second movie, with Eggman's partnership with Knuckles. So it's interesting that it seems that Shadow could be working alone in this version of the story. Actually, that brings up another aspect...

WTF!! GERALD IS STILL ALIVE???

This is definitely an interesting turn, and it brings up so many questions! The most obvious question is HOW?? Well, some people think that Gerald might have been changed to being Eggman's father rather than grandfather to justify him still being around. But maybe he is still Eggman's grandfather but he was in suspended animation for all these years, like Shadow. Or maybe he's a ghost or hallucination? Or maybe it's time travel, who knows! XD Eggman called him "pappap" which could mean either father or grandfather, depending on who you ask.

So, if that really is Gerald "in the saggy flesh" could that mean that he's actively manipulating Shadow into destroying the world, or is he going to be somehow instrumental in stopping him? I'm really interested to see what direction they go with this!

Also, it looks like the Ark has been changed up and is significantly smaller. I wonder if this shot is showing it going up to space?

And in this shot that appears to show Tails flying from the Ark, you can see some sort of attachments on the front that resemble Eggman's, or rather Gerald's, mustache.

I love this Japanese Chuck E. Cheese-like place called the "Chao Garden". lol

Also, hello Shadow 2005 game reference!

Eggman actually getting to hug Gerald is something I never expected to see, but damn is it wholesome! ^^

Omg, this drawing Sonic made!! My heart!

And I really dig Eggman's new mobile base that resembles a giant crab! lol

Nice Akira reference!

Anyway, I'm starting to ramble, so I'll just end this by saying that I am so effing excited for this movie! Just a few more months! I can't frikkin wait to see it! :D

And this time I'm gonna try to avoid any more trailers or spoilers, but we'll see how that goes... lol

[asteriastarr]

ok here is me making up a request on the spot

uh oh heheheheee

ok, so my vision is...

another deuce x shapeshifter reader (already dating) and its after school in the courtyard place thingey (where abbey and heath played football (kwim?)

and the whole group is just kinda sitting and watching some monsteres play around with heath and abbey while deuce and y/n either just sit and watch or one of them is up playing but getting teased for watching the other (idk if you get that or not but oh well XD)

just another cute funny fluffy thing

A/n: Uh so I dunno shit about sports so I just shoved Y/n as watching while Deuce is playing because I cannot for the life of me write sports of any kind... I kinda made this like a part two to the other one but not really but yk. (Also for the two sitting with Y/n I just picked the two who seemed the least athletic)... for the record, those of you who read my wattpad you may find some small references to the fanfic, anyways enjoy- hope this is what you had in mind and sorry for how long it took :)

POV: Shapshifter!reader and the group watching Deuce play sport.

Y/n, Frankie and Draculaura sat watching their friends play some kind of sports game… or more Frankie and Draculaura were watching their friends, Y/n however- couldn’t seem to tear her eyes off of a certain gorgon.

“Hellooo, earth to Y/n-” Draculaura hummed, waving a pink hand in front of the shapeshifter's face.

When Y/n merely moved her head to the side so she could continue watching, Draculaura snapped her fingers in the girl's ear.

“Huh? What?”  The shapeshifter asked, shooting up, as if she’d been broken out of a trance.

Draculaura released a small laugh.

“You are so smitten Y/n.” Draculaura giggled.

“No, I’m not!” Y/n exclaimed.

“Oh yeah? Then why are you staring at Deuce like that?” Draculaura asked smirking.

“Well, he is my boyfriend, forgive me for paying closer attention to him than say… uh- Frankie.” Y/n defended.

“Uh- Y/n- I’m right next to you… have been the entire time you’ve been here.” Frankie spoke up causing Y/n to blush in embarrassment.

“Well- How did you even know I was staring at Deuce?” Y/n asked.

“Your hands went all scaley… they usually do when you’re staring at Deuce… sometimes your hair goes all snake-like.” Draculaura shrugged.

“Oh.”

“On a separate note… didn’t you have detention today?” Draculaura asked raising a brow.

“Uh- Um- Maybe?” She spluttered causing Draculaura to roll her eyes.

“You mean you did, but snuck out so you could watch your boyfriend.” Draculaura deduced.

“You’re making me out to be boy crazy or something Draculaura, I actually snuck out to hang out with you guys.” Y/n defended.

“And Deuce.”

“Oh, shut up already.” Y/n scoffed, not realising that Deuce was looking in her direction, stopping his running around to watch her talk to Draculaura and subsequently being hit in the head with the foot they had been playing with.

“Aw, Deuce were you staring at your girlfriend?” Heath teased causing Deuce to punch him in the arm.

“Shut up dude.” He scoffed before glancing back at Y/n.

“So how did you even get out of detention?” Draculaura asked.

“Oh uh- You know that uh- Mercy girl? I paid her twenty dollars to put sleeping medication in Mr Komos’s drink.” Y/n shrugged.

“Y/n you’ll be in so much trouble when he wakes up!” Draculaura gasped.

“Oh please, that won’t be for hours.”

As if right on cue, Mr Komos stormed out of the school building.

“Y/n! You are supposed to be in detention.” Mr Komos hissed when he reached the group.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes you are- I’m the one who gave you the detention!”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Y/n. Go back to detention.” Mr Komos ordered.

“You know, I’m starting to think you’re only giving me detention because I’m a shapeshifter.” Y/n stated.

“I am.”

“That is so offensive.” Y/n deadpanned.

“It’s because you keep imitating teachers.”

“Me? I would never!” Y/n gasped.

“Y/n-”

“You’ll never catch me alive!” Y/n exclaimed, turning into a hermit crab to pinch his legs before returning to her normal form and running into the woods.

“Y/n! Why does this always happen?”