#(which also caused a shift in art style have you noticed)

[takenbypeter]

Hello! Per your most recent announcement I have a Bob x Reader request🙂‍↕️(Pls) The reader has a sonic scream like Black Canary & is an expert in diff martial arts. She also wears the same costume (the bodysuit, leather jacket & fishnet tights)🙈So ofc Bob finds her very attractive and gets nervous around her but she’s oblivious bc she thinks he’s like that in general with everyone. Bob also thinks he doesn’t have a chance bc he sees how close her & Bucky are but they’ve been friends for years since she’s an OG Avenger & sided with Steve during the Sokovia accords. Then we have Yelena trying to encourage Bob to make a move and Bucky trying to get the reader to see the obvious signs that Bob likes her. A little chaos but fluff in the end lol. Thank you!

Push To Start

Bob Reynolds x reader

Words: 2757

A/N: This might not be as chaotic as you wanted but yayyy first Bob fic! I have a few WIP but feel free to request again. Thanks for requesting and I love Black Canary that’s one of my girls!!!

“Hut!” Your voice bounced off the walls, while your blow landed with a thud as it came in contact with a heavy metal arm. 

You heard a gasp from across the room creating a bit of a distraction. Taking the millisecond Bucky grabbed your legs knocking you down in the process. You strained, trying to escape but bit but he pinned you down. 

From your position on the floor you could see the man behind the gasp. Bob. He was seated on his usual bench when you and Bucky spared. His face was decorated with a look of fret. 

Bucky didn’t have to follow your eyes to know who you were looking at. “Your fanboy is being a bit annoying don’t you think?”

You frowned pulling Bucky closer then tumbling around, switching positions so you’ve got him held to the mat now. 

“He’s not my fanboy, he’s here to learn about fighting styles.”

You glanced up again, noticing Bob's worry was now replaced with an expression of awe. 

Bucky escaped from your hold pretty easily and soon enough you two were both on your feet again. The next moments were filled with both parties obtaining hits, back and forth until Bucky wrapped you in a headlock, his arm tightening as you struggled. 

“Right, which is why he’s only in this room when you’re in this room. Or the fact that he’s been here for weeks and weeks and never once touched this mat.”

You lifted your top lip, snarling at his words. “He’s a visual learner, so what?” You squeaked out before using a small amount of your sonic scream. The screech, though not directed at Bucky, irritated his ears enough that it caused him to let go and fall to his knees. Once he landed, you grabbed him and tossed him over your shoulder. He landed but was on his way up again, quick.  

“Yeah sure that’s it,” he said, pushing the sweat off of his forehead. 

You were done with this conversation. Kicking it into high gear, you charged at the man and landed strike after strike until you finally knocked him down and right as he hit the ground. The timer went off. 

The tension in your body lightened as your arms dropped to your side while Bucky lay on the floor, both were exhausted. 

Bob stood up clapping at your victory and turning to him you gave a bow before waving as if you had just won a pageant. 

“Amazing,” he complimented, “really awesome,” and you grinned at him, “thank you, thank you.”

Behind you, you heard Bucky shifting around on the mat, “don’t worry about me, I’m fine. The mat is pretty comfy.”

You laughed a bit before heading towards Bob on the bench who handed you your towel and water bottle once you were close enough, “thanks.”

“No problem.”

“I’m gonna go get changed I’ll be right out.”

“And I’ll just get my own water,” you heard Bucky mumble under his breath while he head to the door. You rolled your eyes at his comment carrying on with your task at hand.

Bob waited patiently outside the changing room. It wasn’t a long wait, in fact it was quicker than usual and soon you came back out in your suit. 

Bob’s eyes blinked harshly, trying his best not to look down like a creep and check you out. He’s seen you in the suit multiple times, but god you made those fish-tights look good. 

At his silence plus the awkwardness you were beginning to feel, you grabbed the bottom of your leather jacket and turned your upper half to the side, showing the fit off. 

“How do I look?” You joked.

And little did you two know that while you asked Yelena quietly had made her appearance at the end of the hallway. Instead of approaching she watched seeing how Bob Reynolds would play this out. 

Bob wasn’t sure if his jaw was open or closed but all he knew was he had to pull himself together. “You look amazing…stunning—perfect—well you always look perfect.”

“Relax,” you placed a hand on his shoulder trying to calm his ramblings. And while you thought this was a relaxing gesture all it did was make Bob more aware of the fact that you were there. “I was joking.”

He squeezed his eyes shut as a silly smile took over his lips, “right.”

You shared a smile before he realized what you in your suit could only mean. “You’re going on a mission?”

“Yeah Valentina messaged me while I was changing. So Bucky and I are heading out soon.”

“You and Bucky? Why do they always pair you two together?” 

You shrugged, “I don’t know, probably cause we work well together. Our fighting styles complete each other,” you kidded, batting your eyelashes while Bob forced a laughing sound to come out of his mouth. 

“Okay well, don’t be gone too long,” he snapped his fingers, with them landing in a finger gun position, (something he immediately regretted after doing,) “I’ll be waiting right here.”

You tried your hardest not to laugh at the outdated hand gesture, while he continued on, “well not right here—I mean I’ll be in the building, waiting— but I’m not like just waiting if for you, I’ll be doing other things. Because waiting like a stalker is weird so yeah.”

That did it. You let out the laughter, it echoing down the hallway while you waved him off, and started walking, “bye Bob, I’ll see you later.”

Bob watched as you retreated unable to take his eyes off of you. He tried his most not to gawk at your figure but like he said, you looked good. And then finally you were gone. 

He let out a sigh realizing he was once again alone. But he wasn’t as alone as he thought. 

“Very smooth.”

“Ah!” Bob backed away from the voice, leaping from the blonde who stood right beside him her eyes also to where Bob was last peering at. 

“Geez, you act like you’ve seen a ghost.“

His body relaxed at Yelena’s words recognizing that he was in a fact safe, but his mind was still alert. 

“So I’m tired of this riff raff, will they won’t they? Ask her out already—ooh what’s the plan? I don’t want to help but I just want to be there to see how you manage this one.”

“Wh—what are you talking about?” It wasn’t out of nervousness that he stuttered in fact he was trying his hardest to plead innocence. 

“Oh don’t do that. Don’t play that game. You like her, it’s obvious so let’s just put our big boy pants on and ask her out now, okay? Okay.”

Bob opened his mouth to protest but just closed it accepting the fact that he couldn’t argue with Yelena. She was one of the few who could easily read him. 

“Okay yes I like her but there is no plan. Plus she has this whole thing for Bucky so that’s that.”

Yelena let out a snort, “her?” She pointed to where your figure was last seen, “and Bucky? That’s hilarious. You’re funnier than you realize.” She smacked his arm laughing out loud while she did so, but her laughter subsided once she realized he wasn’t joining in with her. 

“You’re serious? Oh she does not like him.”

“Why else would they be together all the time? They spar together, keep tabs on each other. Bucky keeps his distance from everybody else except from her. I don’t blame the guy, I just know I can’t beat him.”

Yelena’s jaw dropped, “wow you really are…” what she wanted to say was an idiot but she didn’t want to beat the guy further down a hole he was already putting himself in. 

“Look, they're not a thing. They’re just close. They’ve known each other for years and years. She was on Captain America’s side with Bucky when the whole internal avengers war thing happened. So yeah they’re close but they’ve never once dated, or kissed, nothing. Don’t you think they would’ve done something by now if they were interested in each other.”

Bob was silent because in a way, Yelena was right. Years and years, and not once has one made a move on the other. 

“So again I’ll ask, what’s the plan?”

Bob was quiet again, this new information plus his own information rattling inside his head. 

But ultimately he expressed, “there is no plan. If she doesn’t like a guy as great as Bucky, then what chance do I even have?” He shrugged, turning his back not wanting to talk further on the subject so he just walked away. 

Yelena hated getting sucked into this mushy gushy situation. But she stood there nodding and pressing her lips together watching his back get smaller and smaller as his distance from her grew. 

“Okay, guess it’s up to me. Again,” she said after he was gone and out of ear shot. 

A few hours had passed and as usual the mission had been successful. Sure there were some bumps in the road and you had to come to Bucky’s aid twice but who was really counting anyways. Oh wait, you were. 

You groaned as you stretched your back inside the jet, waiting for the ride back to come to its end.

“How much do you want to bet your new puppy dog is waiting for you at the front door?”

You frowned at Bucky knowing exactly who he was referring to. “Don’t call him that. He just admires us, that's all.”

“Us? More like you.”

“Us.”

“Right cause he cheers for me when I win at sparring.”

“I can’t help it that he thinks I’m cooler than you. I mean have you seen my powers? Anyone would think that.”

Bucky shook his head, a smile prevalent on his face. “He gets nervous around you.”

“He gets nervous around everyone,” you argue. 

“Not really. Not anymore. He’s still only like that with you.”

“Bucky enough,” was your response invoking Bucky to give the biggest eye roll you’ve ever seen him do. 

But despite your firm stand on the whole situation, you couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed when Bob wasn’t waiting for you at the door like Bucky had mentioned earlier. Pushing the feeling off you turned to Buck, “I’m gonna take a shower. I’ll see you later,” you said heading off towards your quarters while Bucky headed towards the kitchen. 

Great, now that Bucky stirred the thought that was hidden in the back of your head, you couldn’t get it out. Bob didn’t like you. Why would he? I mean why wouldn’t he, but he treated you the same way he had when you first met. He was just naturally that way…right?

Great now you were thinking weird thoughts. Well not weird but what if Bob did actually have feelings for you how would that even work? It would be so complicated. But he is sweet. And kind. And he reminded you of about half of the fictional crushes you used to have. Great you shook your head grabbing your towel, Bucky was ruining your life throwing these thoughts into your brain. 

Staring at yourself in the mirror you said with a firm and convincing voice, “he doesn’t like me.” And with that you hopped in the shower, and began washing the sweat and stink fork the day away. 

After your shower you ended up taking a nap, which is exactly what you needed to let your body heal a bit. Hours passed and as soon as you were up, you went into the kitchen and ran into Bucky. 

“There you are,” he said, catching your attention as you grabbed a green apple from the open fruit dish on the kitchen counter. 

“Bob was looking for you in the sparring room.”

“In the sparring room?”

“Yeah. Said something about wanting you to teach him or something.”

You suppressed your face from spreading into a wide beam and while you were still tired from the earlier mission, sparring with Bob? Now this, you were wide awake for. 

Taking your leave you left Bucky heading towards said location. 

And keeping your excitement in check you made your way and entered the room. Stepping inside and taking a peek around you easily realized, nobody was in here. 

Turning around you were about to go question the man who led you on this wild Bob chase when the door opened and there stood Bob. 

He looked surprised to see you like he hadn’t been expecting you. 

“Hi.” He said standing in the doorway, his hand still on the handle. 

“Hi?” No words were spoken and honestly you were positive Bucky just set you up. 

“I was told you wanted to learn about sparring?”

Bob smiled, a bit of laughter leaving his lips as he looked away. “I mean I do want to learn but Yelena told me there was a surprise in here for me, so here I am.”

“That’s weird, why woul—“ your question got interrupted as Bob’s body stumbled. As it lunged forward the door behind him slammed shut before a locking sound was heard. 

Yelena came into view on the glass window and gave a little wave with her signature closed lip smile before leaving your sight. 

You turned back to Bob who suddenly didn’t look as lost as you. 

“What is going on?” You asked, confusion just increasing with every action that was just taken. 

Bob who suddenly was putting pieces together let out an, “oh,” sound before explaining. 

“I think I know what this is about.” Without giving himself a second thought he let out, “she’s trying to set us up.”

“Set us up?”

He shakes his head while looking down, (a habit you noticed that he tended to do). 

“Yeah, for some reason she thinks you like me and I like you. So she set up this whole not so elaborate plan—Which is crazy,” he laughed a bit too enthusiastically. “I mean you and me? Wild, right?”

You joined in, with his strange and forced laughter. In all honesty, you felt weird about your thoughts from earlier, mainly because this only proved your original theory that he didn’t like you but also, were you disappointed that he said that?

“I mean you? Like me? Can you imagine?” He continued burying himself deeper and deeper into this word hole, “I mean can you imagine me even asking you out, like what would you even say if I did?” He said the words with the same joking tone, yet it was an odd question to ask. 

You let out a little chuckle copying him, “I don’t know. But, can you imagine us even actually dating? Would that be weird?”

He nodded, “weird.”

“So weird.”

The laughter died and suddenly you two were sharing an odd expression, one that looked as if you both were trying to decode something that just happened. As if each were trying to understand the underlying message that was being said. 

“Would it be so weird?” He asked, trying to see if you two were on the same page. 

“No, I was exaggerating, it wouldn't be so weird,” you emphasized, narrowing your eyes at the man whose tense expression finally relaxed. 

“Then would it be weird if I asked you to dinner…with me?”

He wasn’t laughing anymore, now he was serious. And so were you. “No it wouldn’t. Would it be weird if I said yes?”

Bob smiled a bit and your lips followed the direction of his. 

“It wouldn’t.”

“…so if let’s say tomorrow night at seven, we meet up in the lobby downstairs and have ourselves a not so weird date, how would that sound?”

“Not so weird,” he said.  

You laughed as he backed up, slightly proud of himself for making that laugh come out from your mouth. 

Wanting to leave on a good note he walked backwards towards the door,

“Alright, so I will see you later,” turning around he reached for the handle and yanked. The door shifted a bit in place but ultimately remained shut. He turned around a goofy look taking over now, “right, we’re locked in here.”

You nodded laughing at the dumb circumstance. “How long do you think till she comes and gets us?”

“Probably an hour.”

You nodded again and looked at the side trying to figure out what to do with the remaining time. Until eventually throwing out an idea. 

“Wanna spar?”

[twilightofthesandwiches]

After all these years, ‘I Remember You’ is still one of the great highlights of Adventure Time Storytelling. And not just in the basic ‘what???? Silly children’s cartoon does something SAD??? HOLY SHIT MIND BLOWN’ way. But with the execution of that Something Sad. How it manages to pack so many Complex Emotions into just 11-minutes of television. And especially the way it utilizes the basic Adventure Time format for that purpose.

So Adventure Time is a Board-based show. Each episode has an outline pitched and written down by the writer’s room, and then this outline goes to a team of (usually) two Storyboard Artists who develop that simple outline into a full story. And with the show’s art-style deliberately eschewing staying perfectly ‘on-model’ in favor of having the animators take direct reference from how the different storyboarders draw the characters

And the show being generally extremely versatile in terms of themes and tone - AT has allowed a lot of their Storyboarders to really express themselves and their unique artistic vision as part of the Big Collaborative Narrative that is Adventure Time. 

Now, the Boarders who worked on ‘I Remember You’ are Cole Sanchez and Rebecca Sugar. These two were a Storyboarding Duo from the start of S4 and until Sugar left the AT Crew during S5, and they always struck me as a curious combination. I think really from all of the individual boarders working on AT during that time, these two really are the closest to having like… Totally Opposite Artistic Sensibilities as boarders. 

With Sugar favoring a style that is very loose and sketchy and also very rounded. Focusing on expressions and subtle body language and lighting. And being famous for going deep in depth into Big Moments of Emotional Catharsis

And Sanchez having a very clear art style that emphasizes strong silhouettes and clear lines that suggest flatness. Focusing more on major poses and the character’s positions in the space. And having just a really great eye for AT’s brand of silly humor.

Like, I almost kinda suspect these two were paired together so they can each cover for the other’s “weakspots” in writing ‘Adventure Time’. 

And there were a few episodes that did some really interesting stuff with this very contrasting pair - ‘Jake the Dog’ is another example. Giving most of the Farmworld scenes to Sugar and most of the Time Room scenes to Sanchez both plays to their personal strengths as storyboarders and helps to emphasize the strong emotional contrast between these two scenarios. 

And ‘I Remember You’ is actually kinda unique among Adventure Time episodes cause… Most episodes will have the two boarders alternate between working on the episode throughout it. Like you’d have Boarder A draw a bit and then Boarder B and then Boarder A again… But “I Remember You” is divided between Sanchez and Sugar… basically perfectly in the middle.

So the entirety of the first half of the episode was boarded by Sanchez

Until Ice King pushes Marceline and then leaves the room in shame.

And then, Sugar takes over.

And, like, even if you don’t know anything about the Behind the Scenes of Adventure Time or who Cole Sanchez and Rebecca Sugar even are - the Shift is noticeable. The shift in tone, in narrative focus, in the subtleties in which the characters are drawn. 

The entire first half of the episode has this thin veneer of just being a Silly Goofy Ice King Episode. Sanchez’s talent for Adventure Time’s brand of comedy is on full display… but there is also this underlying feeling that Something is Happening just under the surface. And these hints of the Big Emotions of ‘IRY’ expressed via Sanchez’s kinda goofy style really create this balance between putting the audience into a false sense of security that this is just a Very Normal Episode about two characters hanging out and the Tension constantly brewing in the subtext. 

And then it all comes to a blow.

And then the Shift happens. And now we are in Sugar’s court.

And this subtle shift in the artstyle and storytelling also coincide with Marceline finally openly expressing her feelings and the Reveal of Simon and Marcy's shared past. The episode changes focus from Ice King's silly antics to Marceline's feelings. Everything changes, everything in the first part of the episode gets recontextualized and... even on the most basic level, the episode is now Noticeably Different.

I would almost say that Sanchez’s half of the episode has Ice King define the tone, while Sugar’s half of the episode has Marceline define the tone. But more than anything it’s the catharsis. The reveal and release of those emotions that were building up so expertly through the Sanchez half of the episode. All of the Sugar-boarded scenes in this episode are really heartbreaking on their own, just through the tragedy of the story and Sugar’s expert knowledge of howto convey emotion in the visual medium - but it’s so enchanted by what came before it.

“I Remember You” is truly a great testament to how ‘Adventure Time’ could use every aspect of its medium to tell a great story in such a short time.

[adorerinn]

HIII I LOVE UR MATCHUPS AND IS totally normal about them and would love one too pls, and I'd like to be 🎏 anon!

I'm a girl and l'd love a LONGGG romantic matchup with a guy please

A brief desc of what I look like: I'm 167 cm, l've got long brown hair w new bangs which I love. I have some semblance of siren eyes which unfortunately scare some ppl off ://, therefore I’d prefer someone on the taller side please 🫶🏼

Personality: I'm the most versatile person I know, a true ambivert I believe. love quiet time but also feed off of energy when I'm around people and is totally okay with just sitting in silence with my friends. I'm attentive to my people and my giving love language is gift-giving, acts of service and quality time. I'm very aware of a lot of things happening around me, especially myself. I notice things most don't see like how my friends walk in different shoes (literally) or how they shift their body when they're uncomfortable. But this awareness also makes me feel bad sometimes when I notice something's up and I do nothing cause it gets so tiring, and then i feel guilty afterwards and think about what I should've done to help when literally no one had either.

I'm an ENFP and l'd love to be paired with a char of a suitable mbti. I'm confident, a little too much sometimes but mostly as a joke, about my looks and values in life. I also LOVEE deeptalks, depth in conversation is what i live for!!

I'm an artist and I love to draw and want to become an art director when I'm older cus l'm also a businesswoman at heart (gotta get that bag yk)

I'm also a huge fashion kid, as in whatever funky piece of clothing i see, i style and wear. I mix it up a lot so anything with squiggly fabric or ruffles and skirts as tops, you get the gist.

Ideal type:

I'm not super sure i can encapsulate a "type", but I'm not into gruff types (like iwa l'm so sorry), a little mean yes but not gruff yk. I'd love someone with a sense of humor and one that can match my energy, both calm and otherwise. I need someone attentive towards me as

much as i am to others. And someone wealthy please, i love giving gifts to people and showering them with support and affection and sometimes i just feel like it's one sided (apart from my family I receive gifts like i do others with only 3 friends :/). It might be a little selfish i know but i just need to feel loved like that i guess? And someone willing to ride all the scary rollercoasters with me (adrenaline junkie)

Appearance-wise, l'm into more feminine faces, my max for masculine is like chris evans , but i think all asian faces have a touch of femininity in them so i have practically no rejects in terms of characters. No facial hair tho, I'm super icked out by that, and body types are also versatile. My fav char is tsukki and he's built like a pencil but i love bo's body type too :))

Dream date: I'D LOVE A DANCE DATE, not professionally but like dancing tgt to pop classics from the early 2000s is a dream, literally anywhere (a club, the living room etc)

I hope i got everything, sry if it's long i love to ramble looking forward to a reply, thanks so much 😋😋

I match you with Suna Rintaro!

✧ Suna would definitely be a perfect match for you!

✧ you could for sure have a long and romantic relationship with him (I just feel like once he's found that special person he sticks with them no matter what)

✧ loves your ambieverted personality even if he's a bit more on the introverted side

✧ likes being able to spend some quiet time maybe put on some music while he's at it (I just KNOW he has a good playlist for every occasion)

✧ always keeps any gift you give him. he will probably just have the all scattered around somewhere in his room but he does appreciate them a lot

✧ likes being able to spend time with you even if you aren't doing anything or just sitting in silence. he just appreciates your presence

✧ definitely notices how you notice the tiniest things and thinks it's cool especially since he's the same way. you both would probably whisper to each other and just point out the smallest things ever

✧ always reassures you that it's okay and that you don't have to always help out people even if you noticed it

✧ likes how you can be confident even if it's just as a joke he thinks it's cool you can be confident even if it's not real. he just appreciates it and prefers people to be confident instead of just always being shy or something like that

✧ would for sure have late night talks about the most random things which will eventually lead to deeper conversations but he all for them

✧ he probably watches you draw and if you were to give him a drawing he would most likely have one of your drawings folded up in his wallet or some random jacket pocket

✧ likes how you have a dream to be an art director. he likes it when people have a goal set in mind instead of just going with the flow

✧ adores your fashion sense. he just thinks it's cool to have such a unique fashion taste. would also probably want you to choose some of his outfits if he can't decide what to wear

✧ most definitely has a sense of humor. (I feel like he has brainrot humor IT'S TRUE BC I SAID SO)

✧ would be able to match energy (he's probably still a kid at heart I just know it)

✧ of course most of them time he is very calm and attentive. he would probably notice when you're feeling even a little bit down and would try to cheer you up as best as he can

✧ would definitely buy you small gifts that he sees in shops and gets them just because they reminded him of you

✧ LOVES going on roller coasters and will go on whatever ride you choose. he just likes the thrill of rides

✧ would like to just mess around and dance to stupid music. he would enjoy to dance in the living room (he probably wouldn't wanna go to clubs just because he tries to act all nonchalant)

✧ overall I think Suna Rinatro would be the perfect match for you and you both would get along great

hi anon!! I hope you enjoyed your match up feel free to request again!

[cornix-the-void-crow]

Your RHD owned by the Vees AU has caught my attention. I like it A LOT. It’s very 👀👀👀, and I’m dying to know more.

I saw you write stuff in the tags on some of the posts about wanting to know if anyone was interested in hearing more details/infodumping/etc. and, me. I am. I’m very interested. Please do tell whenever you have time. <3

Oh my gosh! I have so much stuff to tell!

One of those stuff is actually what happens with demonic contractors and contractees.

Demonic forms seem to be influenced in part by sins that each particular sinner has committed or vices they indulged in. Those sins have effect on the powers demons have, it's like a flavouring to their soul. In cases of more powerful demons, this flavour of sin is more present, more noticeable. The addictions become harder to resist indulging in, especially if they don't hurt the demon. Yet. With new souls, contractors actually receive not just the power boost, but also the good chunk of that sin flavouring, which is more intense the more powerful the soul they acquired. So, for example, if one was to win some hypothetical gambling overlord's soul, this lucky lucky demon may become more likely to take on risks with odd not exactly in one's favour. And because that is a gambling overlord we are talking about, the intensity of what is essentially a long-effect curse made it just a matter of time before the gamble did not play out in that demons favour.

Then, if one was to get an overlord-killer's soul with strong flavour mix of old time aesthetic and cannibalism, with some additions of spite and disrespect of status quo... well, aren't Velvette's tastes lean more savoury recently? And started wearing more accessoriesin art deco style?

On other end of the leash, contractees are left with more dulled version of their sin flavour. It's not the only thing that's muted, in a lot of cases natural vibrancy of more powerful demons gets dimmed once they are under contract. Some colours in their appearance may even shift the hues to certain degree. For example, did you know that in his half full demonic form Angel's eyes are less reddish hue than in his normal form? And his normal form's eye colour is actually relatively closer to pinkish red of Valentino's smoke, which is similar colour to Val's eyes? That's not even counting Vox's assistant, who almost casually cosplays resident TV objecthead.

The exchange is obviously not fair, but this is Hell we are talking about. At least there is hope that one's sin would be the one to break their contractor's back and cause their undoing. Though, some people may claim that having their sin no longer clouding their judgement is actually a benefit of being under a contract. But typically soul contracts are not actually made in contractees interest

[reallypleasanttree]

A short snippet for Spooky Season Inspired by this comic/Tweet/Tumblr post additions.

A knock on the door announces another unwelcome visitor. Serena drops the garlic she was cutting into the wood counter. Turning around, she notes the appearance of the man standing outside. He was dark brown hair with brown eyes. She really needed to get a sign that read “No Solicitors”, but most people ignored that kind of shit. She groans lightly and walks to the front door. She opens it and the man starts speaking.

“Hello, I am here to meet with the Witch of Dark Light,” He begins as he nervously glances behind her into her kitchen. “I was hoping to have a beauty potion. I want to get rid of the hook part of my nose- make it more button-like  and make my eyes narrower.” 

The black haired woman holds up her hand to him signaling for him to stop. “Sorry, Witch, I didn’t mean to get ahead of myself.” He looks down at the ground. 

“I am not the Witch of Dark Light. I know my home looks like it would hold a witch, but it’s a style choice called gothic. It is supposed to look dark and mysterious with an air of whimsy. As much as I would love to be a witch, I am a human. The witch you are looking for is across the street,” Serena points towards the small cabin directly across from her place.

Her home was made out of the trunk of an old oak tree. The wood was darkened to a dark grey her front door was black. The two windows facing outside were covered in soot and cobwebs. She worked as a chef for the small restaurant at the center of town two miles down the road. She experimented with recipes, not potions. 

“Also, if you want a beauty potion, you should know it does not last but three hours. If you mean to impress a woman or man with your looks you should learn to accept what you perceive as flaws.” She finished, staring blankly at him. His eyes were wide set, but he had a soft and friendly gaze. His nose was barely hooked. If he had not pointed it out she would have never noticed it. 

The man shifted nervously on his feet and fiddled with his thumbs before muttering, “Thank you, ma’am.” He turns and heads directly to her neighbor’s house. She shuts the door behind him without saying goodbye. She needed to remind Devin to get a sign for his shop. 

Her neighbor, Devin, was the Witch of Dark Light. He enjoyed the oxymoron and laughed every time a customer told him they thought Serena was the witch. Devin’s home was a stark contrast to her own. Where her tree trunk was grey, his cabin was a light chestnut color with flower boxes outside the crystal clear windows. The flowers changed season to season. Serena would help him start the seedlings and plant them into the ground. He was her best friend and worst enemy in a sense. He was the antithesis of who she was, but everything she wanted to be. 

Serena’s parents had been witches, but they had a human daughter. Her siblings, Elliot and Sola, were witches as well. Her mother told her she had her own magic in cooking and taught Serena everything she knew to brew broth, stock, soup, and other delicacies. The magic of cooking brought the family closer together as a whole, it was how Serena expressed her adoration and love for her parents and siblings. 

Elliot would often tease her that she did not need to practice the dark arts when she was able to make bread raise with yeast. When she was younger she tried to recreate the potions her father made or whispered spells her mom cast, but nothing ever happened. She was not able to make a sleeping draft or cause a gentle breeze, which were some of the first things you learned as a witch. She accepted her human status, but still caught herself wishing to be a magic user. 

She returned to her garlic. Serena crushed it under her blade and added it to the pot over the fire. She was making a stew to share with Devin later tonight. They shared meals most nights if Devin did not have a customer over staying their welcome. Serena would enter his cabin and his customers would flee. Her appearance was unsettling to most. She had long black hair, white chemise under a black kirtle, and leather boots. Serena used a powder to lighten her face and black kohl to outline her dark, almost black eyes. It was an aesthetic that pleased her. 

Another rap on her door made her irritated. She was used to getting five to ten people a day knocking on her door and having to redirect them to her neighbor, but this was the eleventh today in a span of three hours. Serena needed to make a sign. 

She stirred the pot and hit the ladle on the side before placing it back on her countertop. She marched to the door and flung it open, not giving the person a chance to speak. 

“I am in the middle of cooking right now and I cannot deal with any more interruptions,” Serena started. The maiden standing in front of her was wearing a soft blue gown, embellished with navy blue flowers over the bodice and sleeves. She was slender, but her face was heart shaped. Shoulder length reddish blonde hair was feathered out to the side. Her eyes were ice blue complementing the dress she wear. 

“I actually came over here to find love,” The maiden began. Serena bristled, another fucking customer looking for a love potion. There was no such thing in existence.

“The witch is actually over there,” She sighed and pointed to Devin’s house again. “He does not do love potions because he believes in consent between two or more people. Not only that, but love potions don’t actually exist. The ‘love’ potions only make you more confident and maybe influence the way others perceive you.” 

She gestured to the maiden in question. “You are quite beautiful as I am sure you know, so I don’t know what man would not like you.” The lady blushes before looking at Serena with her soft gaze.

“T-thank you,” Her voice was timid and sheepish. “I actually know he’s the witch. You see he’s my cousin and I am visiting for the week. I’m from End’s Land by the coast. He sent me over here because I-” She paused, briefly staring at her white slippers before looking back at Serena. Her face reddened. 

“I heard a lot about you and I like you.” The maiden’s pitch rose. Serena opened her mouth trying to speak, but nothing came out. I like you, hung in her mind like a blaring sign. She felt her own face heat up, embarrassed. 

“Sorry, I should just go back. This was stupid, I’m sorry,” The lady began to turn, holding onto her silk skirts. Serena reached out for her hand, stopping her. 

“I -um, I’m not good with others. I’m sorry,” Serena heard herself say. “Not many people want to get to know me, so I had to process what you said.” The lady tightened her grip on Serena’s hand. 

“Do you want to come in for some coffee or tea? Maybe water if you don’t like those,” Serena suggested. 

“I’d love to,” The maiden smiled widely as Serena pulled her over the threshold of her front door. Behind the maiden, Serena noticed Devin with his wild golden hair and goofy smile. He was giving her two thumb’s up and raising his eyebrows suggestively. Serena hated him for being so obnoxious, but found herself smiling at the woman before her. 

“My name is Geneviève by the way,” The maiden said as Serena shut the door behind them. 

[fanelectricboogieloo]

Lancebolt a Nomadic Dwarf fortress

ok currently in my DF50 Nomad (traveling through the world using dfhack to manipulate the fort site’s global min/max x/y coords) style experience I decided to send a bunch of Dwarves into the caverns to travel through them.

long effort post down below

uhh it ended up with the starting group getting mauled,

leaving them behind (taking the wagon and just literally leaving them behind) for a couple of human monster slayers and trekking it on the surface scooping visitors who wanted to explore the caverns,

traveled deep into the hilltop to start seeing the mounds (the dirt hole homes the dwarves live in) and decided to settle into testing if I could recruit the non-historical figure having citizens of the hilltop to my fort. Then uhh during the experiment to see if I could get more citizens I ended up gathering migrants and visitors from the treetops for a bit due to the original embark’s nanofort size and the trees growing lil to closely to the edge of the map causing visitors to show up in the tree branches.

while everything was a bit chill 3 invasions hit one of them being some necromancer showing up to reanimate some horse and dip.  the zombie horse mostly fended off the human invasion army of 2 people while the goblin one went in to ask for a parley which also ended with them murdering the goblin snatchers that came along after I accepted the parley which may have broken the process of giving them stuff. any way the experiment proved that hist figs are required for friendly units to even petition otherwise you just get a bunch of friendly faces that just stand there. the invasions depleted the population of 50+ back down to 12 which led to me slow marching the group out of the hilltop after causing so many bodies many being the citizens dying from the zombie horse assault... oh yeah during all that I ended up picking up an undead elf who shown up during the goblin siege, and I sent a werebeast goblin off to conquer some site which may or may not spark one of the invaders, the werebeast goblin had never return so it’s consider a boon. during the trek out of the hilltop I spotted a tunnel system and decided to go back to the cavern fort trek plan again with a bit more folks(the number jump up to 30) and a bit more wiser on building a bunker for the dwarves to live in so they don’t get jump while waiting for the map to shift to the next location.

art depicting what usually the small hole in the wall that stores a wagon.

the road arc of this session was interesting as I notice some interesting things on my travels like a burning pile of webs which led to learning that the roads intersect the gem cluster map events by paving a road through the gem cluster box and causing the game to activate the event on map load. I learn of this being the case when I spotted a demon in the middle of the road

this cavy humanoid made of coral fought and killed a giant bat and was really interested in the crammed pack of people behind a sealed door. so after some thinking I botched a plan to just dig away and just unload the map when the group double back and assault the cavy coral beast, the undead elf from earlier pop the cavy’s head off their body with a pickaxe. 

so after that event I was starting to feel like I should find the next settlement to probably end the run, and realize the tunnels like placing zigzag roads for going diagonal which mostly for my nomad setup means I’m burning seasons to make a right or left turn for 2 spaces. after a while of following the tunnel roads I got a sudden death by old age and it was one of my human civilians dying at uhh 87? with the remaining humans being around 44, 50ish and 61. this being a wake-up call to see how far I am on the world map I stop and pop open the embark menu and charted down the trek path I took.

so at this point I decided to just jump off the tunnels and just continue going west(still in the caverns) in hopes of finding a fort to hang out in.

during the off-road journey to the west I found a pack of ant people chilling, feeling hospitable I setup a mini tavern to rest and had the citizens entertain the group.

... I forgot about the caged vampire dwarf stored in the wagon... uhh so weird side-story I think the vampire dwarf got founded when I notice their name was different when I was trying to nickname them.

So Shem got persecuted by some religious baroness that pretty much been hated for their crusade which made me feel like Shem should get revenge... also only found out about Shem identity when they assisted in defending the fort during the invasion which is how I pinpointed which dwarf Shem was. So with a lil powers of dfhackery I summoned the baroness to the fort which I convict them to a crime they didn’t commit... as well as convicting Shem to a crime they confessed and had both of them lock up in cages, this was done during the hilltop arc and both of them were stored in the wagon ever since. the baroness later waste away from Dehydration while the vampire still alive just probably extremely thirsty. Any way this experience of playing somewhat vanilla dwarves... in an extremely entity modded world with Elephant-people having access to dragons and giant whales and other creatures.  Is pretty fun and has been scratching that adv mode itch I been getting since DF50 started with out it. though nomad style does give a refreshing different feel to DF that reminds me of the old advfort days. as eventful this fort is it also like the side fort to the one with a bunch of elephant people and a giraffe person.

[nctsworld]

skateboard love

✩‌ yangyang x reader | skater boy!yangyang | college au | fluff | 2.2k

SUMMARY | yangyang tries to get you to skateboard for the first time and in doing so, you’re taken back to when you first met him. // for @notnctu​’s beginning collab! WARNINGS | slight injury (reader trips over a curb), one swear word, kissing RATING | teen+ TAGLIST | @infnteen​

“I can’t do this,” you mutter, shaking your head in defeat.

The ocean waves clamour nearby as you stare down at the skateboard and concrete pavement beneath your sneakers in frustration.

The weight of your helmet and the wrist guards are blatant in your every movement. Sure, it’s a little embarrassing at your age, but it’d be best to rather be safe than sorry.

Thankfully, they’ve been coming in handy during the times you almost fell and slipped off of your boyfriend’s skateboard. It may have been his idea to try to learn, but you weren’t opposed to it, thinking it’d be easy.

They say things are easier said than done, and now you’re forced to admit skateboarding definitely falls under that list.

“Yes, you can,” Yangyang softly says. Beside you, he gives your hand a gentle squeeze, causing you to peer into his gleaming eyes and bright smile.

Despite the recentness of your relationship, your boyfriend’s patience and encouragement feels like routine, like he’s been by your side for your entire life. His words don’t fall on deaf ears; you parrot his smile and muster a small nod, albeit glancing away shyly.

“Just think about all the times you’ve watched me skate past the library and copy what I did.”

Petulantly, you stick your tongue out. “It wasn’t that often.”

Disbelief reflects back at you in the form of an eyebrow raise.

“Really?”

“Really!”

Around mid-September, in the most modern, glass-structured library on campus, you found a studying area that was perfect for you.

Main floor, nearby the entrance doors for an easy exit when class was about to roll around. A high stool chair that was cushioned comfortably for endless hours of equal parts studying and procrastination. Plugs and desk space galore.

Above all, it was perfect because you had the picturesque view of the boy who always skated every other day around 11:50am towards his next class across the wide stoned boulevard in front of the library.

You noticed him the first few times when you initially sat upstairs. Even from afar and above, your interest was piqued over how coolly he skated past all the students. There were only so many students who biked to their next class, and even less who skateboarded.

And after you decided to sit downstairs for once to finally steal a closer glimpse of him, you were completely smitten upon capturing his handsome features.

Thus, your heart constantly raced in anticipation when 11:50am hit, as students scattered all across campus during this transition period. 

With a thumb tucked in his pocket and headphones over his ears to boot, the mystery skater boy often slid past around 11:55am, making your mind wonder where his former class was and where he was going. Was he in Engineering? Arts? Business?

The latter option didn’t seem likely since his style didn’t echo the stereotypical look of the faculty. Dark coloured hoodies and sweaters, bomber jackets, and skinny jeans were his usual choice of fashion, alongside the occasional baseball cap. And on the days he wore his cap backwards, he was truly in his skater element.

No matter, you always swooned with your chin perched atop your fist or resting inside your palm as he passed by. The brief sighting of him easily became the highlight of your day.

You would be lying if you said you didn’t try to look for him in your classes, but to no avail. You had to live with the fact that you’d only get to know him in passing as he skated on by the library.

When the mere hoodies and sweaters were exchanged for heavier, thicker jackets and coats, he still continued to traverse across campus via his unsurprising mode of transportation. You especially admired his dedication on the days filled with rain and wind, wishing there was some way for you to ease his trips to his next class.

All throughout the couple of months, he was consistent in attending that one class.

Except one day.

It was a Friday, about a week or two near finals season. The weather was quite chilly now, but snow wouldn’t be an issue until after winter break and well into the next semester, so there wasn’t any reason for him to not use his skateboard still.

Maybe he was sick at home, you thought. Pouting, you tried not to dwell over the stranger because that’s all what he was. 

Someone you didn’t know, someone you only watched from afar. Someone that filled your daydreams, pondering what he’d be like and what’d you two could talk about... but nevertheless a stranger.

Oddly enough, about an hour past noon, someone dragged you out of your thoughts momentarily as they unusually sat nearby your spot. 

The unspoken library etiquette was to sit as far away from others for more personal space, especially in the area where you frequented. You tried your best to ignore the shuffling of the person placing their laptop and books onto the elongated wall-length table, feigning laser-focus on your notes.  

But a few moments later, you heard a whisper coming from their direction.

“Is this your favourite spot in the library?”

“Hm?” you hummed, dragging your headphones down to your shoulders as you swivelled towards the seated stranger. Air seized in your lungs and your eyebrows shot up.

The gorgeous skater boy glowed with rosy cheeks from the cold air outside, paired with his stunning smile. You realized this was the first time you’ve ever seen him smile—preciously, by the way, with his teeth on full display—and your heart stirred like crazy.

A beat stretched out. Your jaw hung in shock and you blinked blankly. Guess you solved the mystery as to where he was today.

He beamed more intensely at your awe struck and continued to whisper, “I always see you sitting here when I get to my next class.”

“Uhm,” your jaw snapped up, prior to your dry gulp. “What?”

“Yeah,” his deep chuckling tickled your ear. God, of course a smooth voice matched a face like that. “you stare out the window so cutely whenever I pass by the library.”

A record scratched, then you rewound the moment in your head. Not only did he knew you existed but...

Did he just called you cute?

Catching on with awareness over his own words, the skater boy pouted to one side. His cheek jutted out adorably and red seemed to crawl over them, progressing over to the tips of his ears too.

Light giggling from both parties filled the space, with you tucking your hair behind your ear and him tugging on the ends of his sweater paws.

“So, are you skipping class?” you asked, tilting your head curiously.

“Yeah,” he replied, gesturing towards his busy study set-up ahead of him. It was a similar scene to yours—notes layered and layered upon each other, a laptop which displayed more notes, and a few textbooks were open too. “When you need to skip a class to study for another class...”

You nodded sympathetically, pointing a finger to your organized mess to imply the same. “Finals season.”

He nodded as well in unity and you two exchanged another round of smiles.

“I’m Yangyang.”

With that, introductions were made and bits of information were shared. Your hunch was right—he was in Engineering, but he also had some elective labs that were being held in the Science side of campus. Made sense why he had to navigate across campus from one end to the other.

Before the conversation began to get carried away, he issued a small apology. “Sorry, I really shouldn’t be interrupting your studying. I’ll leave you be.”

Admittedly, it caught you off guard. You wanted to pipe up about how he wasn’t interrupting, that you wanted to dive into getting to know him more. You’ve seen him practically almost every day for the last couple of months and you didn’t want to let this chance slip through your fingers.   

Yet, at the same time, you begrudgingly knew he was right. You had to study for your upcoming in-class final, so you held your thoughts back and unwillingly turned back to your responsibility at hand. 

It was difficult to study with skater boy being in the same vicinity as you—practically an arm’s length away from you—but you eventually tampered down your jitters and honed your attention.

Hours passed. Neither of you really shifted much besides the casual stretching or the much needed break to the bathroom.

Darkness loomed in the winter sky and out of the corner of your eye, you noticed him writing, which he hadn’t done during the time he’d been there.

And then, after an ear-piercing slow rip of paper that echoed in the library, he slid that piece of paper in your direction with one simple question that ignited the spark for the beginning of you and him—

I know we just met, but do you want to go out sometime?

“’Cause if I recall...” Yangyang continues, breaking you away from your bout of reminiscing. He absentmindedly tucks away some loose strands of hair sticking out of your helmet. “You watched me at least since the beginning of last semester—”

“Nu-uh,” you cut in, lying in a childish tone.

“Yuh-huh,” he rebuttals.

Under the warm afternoon sunlight, you two begin to have a staring contest, squinting and playfully seething at one another. When your boyfriend squints harder with a ruffle of his nose, you follow suit. Eventually, you give in with a sigh.

“Okay, fine. Even if I did watch you a lot, it doesn’t mean I can just absorb your skateboarding skills through memory.”

Cockiness fades over his joking exterior as he flashes you a shit-eating grin. “It’s cause you were too busy focusing on my handsome face.”

Becoming second nature for you by now as he’s often like this, you roll your eyes and lightly punch him in the arm, but... he isn’t wrong.

And from your lack of an articulate response, Yangyang knows he’s right.

Sparing you from injuring your pride further, he swings the conversation back to what you were doing here in the first place. 

A hand of his steadies you by the bottom of your back. “Balancing feels weird, I know, but you’ll get the hang of it. Let’s try again.”

Releasing a lengthy exhale, your head bounces fervently in hopes that false confidence and your boyfriend’s support can morph into a successful skateboard run.

The careful push he gives you is ample enough to have you ride down the street by yourself. Your body wavers side by side and you fear that you’ll teeter to a stop like all the other times, but somehow, your foot swipes across the pavement, carrying you further down the street.

It’s not fast by any means, but as you persistently execute it, you gain traction and see yourself finally riding without any issues.  

“Yangyang, I got it. I got it!” you shriek as you quickly glance back towards him.

He radiates in response and gets lost in you, equally proud that you finally found your balance and basking in how stunning you look as you coast down the beach side street.

However, his trance breaks when he sees you’re about to hit the edge of a street curb.

“Babe, watch ou—”

The scene happens fast. You’re suddenly laying on a patchy part of the grass, with the skateboard by your feet. Yangyang bolts to you, hunching down as he daintily tugs you to sit upward.

“You okay?” he pants nervously.

At first, you nod without a thought since the helmet and wrist guards have saved you from any potential major injuries. 

However, your boyfriend’s eyes widen when out of nowhere, you draw in air between clenched teeth. Your butt feels as if it’s on fire, since it was actually the body part that mostly broke your fall.  

He suggests to sit here for a while to let the pain dissipate, reassuring you’ll be fine from his own past experiences. 

As you rest awkwardly beside him on the grass, placing weight on your hip rather than your rear end, he aids you in ridding of your safety gear. Once they’re off, he kisses your hand tenderly.

“Maybe we should leave the skateboarding to me, for now,” he mumbles softly into your skin, leaving another kiss upon your hand.

You mope in agreement. “Maybe so...”

Caressed in his arms, you link eyes with him. Your eyes flutter to a close while he delicately eases you into him by the back of your neck.

The intense pressing of his lips against yours feels heavenly, almost entirely sedating your mild pain. He kisses you deeper, disregarding everyone and everything in proximity. You reciprocate it all back eagerly, cupping his cheek and gripping onto his strong frame as you do so.

Peeling away breathlessly, you tip your forehead against his. “Should we go back to the library and have me watch you longingly from our old spot?”

Yangyang hurriedly shakes his head.

“Nope. Never again,” he replies, his thumb stroking your cheek. “If you’re watching me skateboard, you’ll be doing it by my side from now on, beautiful.”

A chuckle trickles from you. You’re about to retort back, but your one and only skater boy diverts your train of thought, dragging you in for another long, blissful kiss. 

[xxoxobree]

Okay, first of all, I want to say that I'm not going to be aggressive about the opinions and headcanons of others in any way, nor am I going to forbid you to support someone's opinion, but I just want to explain where this kind of opinion came from, what might be true with it, what some fans and the authors of the film wanted to convey, and what you, as the author, might not have understood about it.

Okay 🙃

And, secondly, I will be incredibly happy if my child Miles G. has the opportunity to eat 100% healthy and nutritious food, but I also have to look at the official information and why the above information may be true, yes, but only partially.

I never said anything about healthy and nutritious food cause that food is expensive. That doesn’t mean he’s not eating and he’s starving throughout the day.

So, we know unacceptably little about Miles G., and even what we do know was literally plucked with all our efforts from art books, spontaneous phrases of directors, test animations and concept art. So, all I'm saying is that this is more of an assumption based on analyzes and words of people close to the production of the film, rather than a one hundred percent fact.

Yupp!

But one of the things that we know with a 99% probability is the bad financial situation of the Morales family on Earth 42. There were many hints of this in the movie, both verbal and/or clearly shown (look at how Aaron still brings the Morales family money even though Rio works incredibly hard, and how she says she'll take extra shifts to "pay" Aaron back, to the point where he literally has to coax her with the words "we're family") and visually less noticeable details. The older and dusty furniture in the 42 Miles' room, the exterior style of black oiled, sloppy lines, the way 42Rio doesn't have (or no longer wears) any earrings or other gold jewelry, while 1610 Rio wears it almost always, even at work.

We don’t know nothing, Rio could be making enough money to support her and Miles they could be making ends meet and if you really from the struggle yk what I mean. Jeff is dead, Aaron could just be looking out for Miles and Rio by giving them money just to give it to them🤷🏽‍♀️ save it for a rainy day. If Miles wants or needs something she can use the money ect. Taking up extra shift to pay him back doesn’t mean she’s not able to financially take care of her and her child, she could be making enough to do that but not enough to do that and pay back Aaron. He could have older furniture blah blah doesn’t mean they’re food insecure. They’re in a rougher world Why would Rio wear jewelry to get it snatched or robbed ? 👀 y’all don’t be knowing nothing bout the hood fr like I said, y’all are very suburban.

If what the film says isn't enough for you, you can see other official sources saying the same thing, such as this interview with one of the directors, which I recommend to watch for anyone interested in the character of Miles G., wherehe says directly that we "can think of him (Miles G.) as our Miles, who grew up without a father in the crack era in poverty" (paraphrased)

Living in Poverty doesn’t mean you’re starving and you have a food insecurity. (what my whole argument is about btw not about them not being as financially strong as 1610.) they’re just not able to afford some where else to live. You’re validating my point that y’all know nothing about lower income areas and think everyone there is starving and dirt poor. In a clip we also see that Miles G attends Brooklyn Visions too where he is through the week they’re not letting his starve there 👀 and that really should be the end of the argument.

Usually, it was a bit different: more about the difference in eating habits, compared to 1610 Miles and the amount of food, not the complete lack of it.

Bringing up the amount of food is the same thing, y’all are saying he doesn’t eat enough cause of the “finances and his living situation.”

And if this post had been about complete famine, I wouldn't be writing all this now, I absolutely agree, it's an exaggeration. But are you actually saying that a child from a poor family and a child from a normal good (in a money terms) family (e.g. 1610 Miles) eat exactly the same?

I’m not saying that they eat the exact same but that doesn’t mean that he’s not getting enough food to where he’s hungry or if his stomach growls he’s not able to find something. 1610’s dinner could be a 5$ burger and 42’s could be a $2 tuna sandwich it’s different food with different prices but they’re fed 🤷🏽‍♀️. And that’s my whole argument HES FED‼️ HES NOT STARVING.

"Rio wouldn't let Miles starve" Yeah? (Just like she would never let Miles grow a toxic boyfriend as some people write in fanfiction here, lol) But didn't you say above about any food issues? Just like some of the commenters below this post. I'm sure both Aaron and Rio are trying very hard to give 42 Miles everything they can, but there's a difference between "letting him starve" as you saying and "they both eat less than they need or would like because of money problems and are doing everything they can to fix it", which is what I personally and most people whose headcanons I've seen prefer.

Rio could be the best parent in the world to Miles and teach him good he’s still an individual and can make his own decisions so that’s irrelevant in this case 🙃🙃. Again living in a lower income areas or having less money than others doesn’t mean you’re hungry or eating less. Slaves were literally given scraps and made the best meals. Y’all be watching too much tv like I said.

"Aaron helps them". Again, if you take it out of context, it's absolutely correct, because that's what we saw in the movie - Aaron brings Rio a small but still a wad of money. But here again, you forget how little information we have: We don't know how often Aaron is able to bring money to Rio, or how often she is willing to accept it (because, again, she clearly didn't want to accept it as a gift in that scene and promised to return it, which suggests that she is a little uncomfortable and ashamed to take money from her son's uncle), we don't know how much money and in what denominations was in that wad, where Aaron is getting the money from, and when exactly did the 42 Moralese family start having money problems to start doing this.

Rio not having a lot of money doesn’t equal to Her and Miles not having enough to eat 🙃. Aaron giving Rio money doesn’t mean she’s not able to handle her bills ect. Them living in a lower income area doesn’t mean they don’t have what they need.

If you want to hear my opinion on the latter (because everything else is just a blank letter without an answer and this is not the post where I will poke blind guesses) - I think it did not start immediately after Jefferson's death. Rather, it began to slowly and imperceptibly slip away as the villains began to take over the city and people's salary decreased. That's why Miles has the fancy stuff, that's why they're having such a hard time with all this, and that may also be the reason why he has these Nikes you're talking about - once upon a time, once upon a time, they had the money for it, just like the 1610 Morales family.

Or as hood people do they saved for it 🤷🏽‍♀️ and that’s how he got his shoes a gift from his mom she had extra money.

"He has Nikes" Reason. Give me a reason, justify it, tell me your theories, I'm begging you. There are so many options as to where he got them from. Maybe (look at the previous text) they bought them before the situation started to deteriorate, maybe it was an early birthday present from an uncle, for example. There is even a chance that they are not original (okay, a small but also an option) or stolen (although I do not like this one). Or maybe it's just an easter egg on their similarity from designers, which does not have such a basis behind it, who knows.

Why would Miles have brand new fucking Nikes on his feet if they’re starving? Why would Aaron buy Miles some expensive ass shoes if they’re hungry ? They live in a rough neighborhood, ain’t no one giving out Nikes , he ain’t find them no where. They could be a gift like I said or maybe they’re from before his dad died that can be true.

So, Miles G is not starving. But does he get less food than he should? Very possible. He doesn't just look "skinnier than our Miles" or anything, He looks skinnier than any teenager his age should look. Aren't some people here shouting about his "small waist" completely forgetting that the child is 15, and then completely not thinking about the reason for that?

Miles being skinny is a character design 1610 is also very thin despite “living better” and the spider bite. Being skinny doesn’t mean he’s not getting enough to eat. I’m skinny and I eat I’m not starving.

didn't talk about the argument about racism, because I don't have a special right to do so. I have no connection to culture, norms, and even my skin color does not allow me to speak on this topic. I'll just say that I haven't watched any series or movie similar to the ones you described, and I also didn't relate to the color of the character's skin in my text in any way. But if there is someone who can and has the right to advise me on this topic and point out exactly where I am wrong - you're welcome, I'll be very glad.

If you cannot speak to the racism and whatever else I said why would you reblog my post and speak on it. The argument that the idea Miles is starving and not getting enough to eat is RACISM‼️‼️ PERIOD POINT BLANK‼️ it’s racist asf and it’s a stereotype that black people are lesser than and cannot provide for themselves especially in America where black people have been oppressed for so long and have a hard time climbing up the ladder to do better for themselves because of what??? RACISM!!!!! YALL ARE SAYING THAT MILES AND RIO DONT HAVE ENOUGH TO EAT BECAUSE OF THEIR LIVING SITUATION AND THAT IS RACIST!!!! Stop watching fucking tv and be fr. I can speak on shit and see it for what it is cause I’m BLACK AND IM FROM THE HOOD AND IK PEOPLE IN THE HOOD. Everyone in lower income areas are not starving .

Another opinion cause I’m tired of seeing it.

WTF! Are y’all talking bout Miles G starves and doesn’t get enough food 👀 not being very wealthy and living in the hood doesn’t equal food insecurity. Rio would NEVER! Aaron would NEVER!! Let Miles starve. Rio literally gave Miles/Aaron a grocery list 😑. I’m tired of seeing that shit 🙄🙄. Miles literally has fucking Nikes on his feet and he’s starving ? Oh okay!

Update: it be you bitches who never stepped foot in an urban area in your life, who only know what tv & movies brainwashes y’all to believe about BLACK‼️‼️ people and lower income areas. Suburban racist ass yt people

[snarkywrites]

August Horoscopes: Lion’s Roar

August is going to be a potent time for Fire and Fixed signs. Once again, we will experience the Fixed square energy since the Sun and New Moon will be in Leo. However, it will be a month with some smoother moments with many planets forming a stellium in Virgo, making us all more motivated to work and achieve success. The New Moon in Leo on the 8th will allow us to dream big, even if Saturn’s opposition adds some conflict. Venus enters Libra on the 16th, bringing magic since Venus is at home in this sign. With The Full Moon in Aquarius on the 22nd, we will be reevaluating lessons from earlier this year as the themes from Saturn are intensified with this second Aquarius Moon. Virgo season begins on the same day as well, pushing us to move ahead and prioritize our routines. And things cool off with Mercury going from exalted Virgo to Libra on the 30th. Our communication patterns will be more focused on partnerships and diplomacy. This month has a lot of things to offer and lots of opportunities for new beginnings. It’s all about how brave we feel to step out of our comfort zone.

Aries – As a Fire sign, the New Moon in Leo on the 8th will be a good time to initiate new beginnings that are going to fill you with much inspiration. Your romantic life could see a boost after this transit, or you might just be more concerned with expounding on your creative talents. Another exciting moment that will fuel your love life is Venus entering the sign of Libra on the 16th. Get ready to feel good about yourself and let others know it. You are radiant, confident, and ready to put yourself out there and find an emotional connection. On the 19th, Uranus will be retrograde, and this will initiate a period of instability with the Fixed planets squaring off until next year. If you have neglected finances, this is your sign to get them in tip top shape. Uranus can cause some shocks, but there could be blessings along the way if you are patient and not impulsive. On the 22nd, the Full Moon will be once again in Aquarius, finishing off this powerful transit from the previous Full Moon in July. A period to redo, to learn and to evaluate where you need to grow. You will focus on your friendships and social connections. Once again, you will see people for who they truly are. Rejoice! The Sun enters Virgo on the 22nd as well and we are in for a treat as this transit is going to get you up and ready to think more about yourself and how to show some care and devotion to you. Finally, Mercury enters Libra on the 30th, your communication style will be less chaotic and more subtle. A good period to express your love to someone or through art.

Taurus – The New Moon in Leo on the 8th is going to be a game changer. This transit is going to open many opportunities and ignite changes for you. Set your sights big now because you will accomplish a lot. A defining transit for you is Mercury’s ingress in the sign of Virgo on the 11th. You are going to be a lot more entertaining to be around with since you will be in a playful mood for the next several weeks. Venus, your ruler is entering the sign of Libra on the 16th, a good time to get in tip top shape with your goals, health and dreams. This is also a good time to analyze your routines and make some positive changes that will help you for the next several months. Uranus is currently in your sign and will go retrograde on the 19th. You have seen how the Saturn and Uranus square has transformed you this year. Go within and see how much you have grown and how much stronger you have become. The Full Moon in Aquarius on the 22nd touches on similar themes that the Uranus transit will bring. It is a period of your evolution, and it will feel unbearable at times but you are slowly becoming powerful in your own right. The Sun will join Mercury in the sign of Virgo on the 22nd, this is going to be a positive transit, adding more balance to the challenging transits, so use this opportunity to have fun and enjoy yourself.

Gemini – You will be grabbing the spotlight with the New Moon in Leo transit on the 8th of August and Mercury entering the sign of Virgo on the 11th. A period where you can shine and impress those in positions of power. During this month, you are very intellectually stimulated and everyone will take notice. Venus enters Libra on the 16th and this transit makes a positive trine to your sign, bringing those confidence levels through the roof for the next several weeks. On the 19th, Uranus will surprise us even more once it goes retrograde. This is a transit that will function like a spring cleaning, a good opportunity to clear out negative mindsets and let the positive vibes in. We will be repeating the lessons from the last Full Moon in Aquarius on the 22nd. We will prepare ourselves for round two. Here you are pushed to make some uncomfortable decisions, but it will be worth it in the long run. The Sun also enters the sign of Virgo on the same day, putting you once again at the top and everyone will be taking notice for the next month. You are also going to shine at home. Mercury closes the month by entering the sign of Libra on the 30th. It is going to be a fruitful transit, boosting your confidence once again and allowing you to meet new people.

Cancer – Leo season is going to bring abundance and luck beginning with the New Moon in Leo on the 8th. A good opportunity to make financial goals. On the 11th, Mercury enters Virgo, and you are going to be more social during this transit as friends invite you to have fun and the same energy will be repeated later in the month when the Sun enters Virgo on the 22nd. With the Venus in Libra transit beginning on the 16th, you will see the dynamics at home and work beginning to shift. This is your opportunity to bring balance and you will be successful. During this period, you’ll be able to make peace with those who continue to make war with you. But you’ll be victorious if you choose the diplomatic route. You are going to set your sights on home improvement and redecorating as Venus brings out your artistry. Uranus goes retrograde beginning on the 19th. You could see some turbulence in your friendship circles as you decide to end some connections. This is your time to reflect and see how you can grow from the knowledge you gain through this transit. On the 22nd, the Full Moon returns to continue themes from last month’s transit. Overall, this time around it should be easier than last month since Jupiter will be in the same sign, bringing you hope and healing energy to deal with these Saturnian transits. Set your sights to impress and outshine everyone when Mercury enters Libra on the 30th. You will have the ability to win everyone over and make great allies.

Leo – A New Moon transit in your sign is going to be magnificent for you since this is all about opening doors and making dreams more of a reality for the next six months. Mercury enters Virgo on the 11th, adding a dose of excitement since this transit can get you more focused on saving and building. Venus will enter the sign of Libra on the 16th, creating opportunities to meet and spend time with friends and family. On the 19th, Uranus will go retrograde, and it will impact your career. Expect some changes happening during this time, but do not make spontaneous decisions. While Uranus might bring the storm, the best way to handle is by being patient and learning. The Full Moon in Aquarius on the 22nd, sparks up everyone’s world once more and you are going to feel this energy in your relationships. The year has allowed you to grow and understand how your friendships are evolving as well as your romantic relationships. With the Sun entering Virgo on the same day, you are going to be more understanding and focused on treating yourself. Mercury will enter Libra on the 30th and this can bring a nice calming and relaxing period for you since you will be a lot more comfortable communicating and reaching out to others.

Virgo – Mercury is entering your sign beginning on the 11th and this is going to be a fun transit for you since Venus and Mars are already in Virgo. The New Moon in Leo will be on the 8th, and it will represent a closing of cycles for you and new beginnings since this is happening in the darkest corners of your chart. You will gladly welcome the Venus in Libra transit on the 16th, which can bring you luck and confidence with finances. On the 19th, you will welcome the Uranus Retrograde transit since it will be all about pursuing things you are interested in and learning more. Uranus brings excitement, so you might even contemplate learning new things to keep you entertained. If you are a creative, you might branch out and consider applying new technology or software for your projects. On the 22nd, the Full Moon will return to the sign of Aquarius and the Sun enters Virgo. Again, the focus with these two transits will give you a boost of confidence that is going to transform your work ethic and shift your dreams to greater things. Mercury closes the month, entering the sign of Libra and here you are going to consider the wonderful things you have accomplished and will learn to see your worth.

Libra – The New Moon in Leo on the 8th will change your perspective on romantic endeavors, adding a little more optimism when potential partners appear. Mercury will be entering the sign of Virgo on the 11th, and this is going to allow you get back to focus and clear your mind before Mercury enters your sign. During this period, you’ll be more reserved, and others will take notice. Use this time to recharge your batteries through resting. On the 16th, Venus enters Libra, and it will be a potent transit for your sign. Venus is happy in Libra, and you will be radiant. Uranus will go retrograde starting on the 19th, use this time for reflection and healing. The Full Moon in Aquarius returns once again on the 22nd and it will be a time for resolving some of the questions from the last cycle. Relationships become top priority now and you are going to feel more confident when it comes to your romantic life. On the 22nd, the Sun enters Virgo, initiating a period of more reflection, meditation, and spiritual awakening. This transit gets you ready for the next month when your season begins. Mercury will enter your sign on the 30th, a good time to get focused on the self and your needs. Act and shift your priorities to meet your goals and dreams.

Scorpio – The climb to the top is going to be interesting for you with the New Moon in Leo on the 8th. This is your time, the moment you have been working for and this transit will influence you for the next six months as you see some powerful changes in career, home and/or school. Mercury enters Virgo on the 11th, making this a good time to open those social calendars. Venus enters Libra on the 16th, which is a good transit for you if you have felt restless. Take a break, relax, and have fun reading a book or focusing on art. Uranus will be retrograde on the 19th and here you will experience some changes in your relationships that can either strengthen or reshape them. The Full Moon in Aquarius on the 22nd sets the tone for the next six months. Now that you have learned what the first half of the year has brought to the table, you will use this wisdom to plan and get ahead. The Sun in Virgo on the 22nd is going to allow you to be more confident and step out and shine. The month ends on the 30th with Mercury in Libra, offering a good opportunity to meditate, journal and release any hurts you have held inside.

Sagittarius – Get ready for the month of August as this fire energy begins to get you back on track. Your focus will be on philosophy and higher thinking with this New Moon in Leo on the 8th. It is a good opportunity to begin a new course or even consider going back to school if you want to pursue a new major. Venus enters Libra on the 16th, and this is a good opportunity to meet up with friends and reconnect if you haven’t seen them in a while. Uranus will be retrograde beginning on the 19th, so try and prepare for some upheaval regarding your day-to-day routines and work. As always, being patient is more favorable than acting impulsively with Uranus transits. The Full Moon in Aquarius on the 22nd and the Sun entering Virgo on the same day will be highlights for you. Career will see a positive boost with the Sun’s entry in this Earth sign. This is your chance to speak, to become more confident with what you have to say and claiming the spotlight will not be an issue. Once Mercury enters Libra on the 30th, you are going to feel more in command and optimistic.

Capricorn – During the month of August your relationship energy will be transforming thanks to the New Moon in Leo on the 8th. The perfect time to connect with your partner on a deeper level and discuss anything that could strengthen the bonds. Mercury will be making a favorable aspect to your sign once it enters Virgo on the 11th. This is a good transit to plan and make powerful moves to get you organized and prepared for what’s to come. A transit that will have you on your toes is the Venus in Libra transit because it will be at the highest point of your chart, bringing you luck and success in career and home for the weeks. You are on a roll, Capricorn, so keep doing you. On August 19th, the Uranus Retrograde might make others cower in fear but you are prepared especially with the trine Uranus is making to your sign. This is going to add excitement in your romantic life. Either a partner might surprise you with some adventure on the way or if you are single, you might meet someone unexpectedly. The Full Moon in Aquarius on the 22nd will give us all a chance to look back into topics in July and make some much needed adjustments. In your case, finances come to the forefront and there could be some huge investments on the horizon. Think things carefully before committing. The Sun enters Virgo on the same day, adding more of the hard-working element you welcome. It is a good time to seek a mentor if you feel conflicted or confused and learn how to craft your path to success for the months of September and October. Your vision is big and a teacher or your boss can set you on the right course with Mercury entering Libra on the 30th adding on to these themes as you consider more planning to get to the top.

Aquarius – Fixed signs will appreciate that the planets are slowly moving out of Leo and into Virgo. The month opens with a New Moon in Leo on the 8th, and you will be welcoming this transit since it brings the focus to your relationships. It can be a good time to meet people and those who are single will have great opportunities to enter relationships. On the 11th, Mercury enters Virgo and on the 30th, Mercury shifts into Libra. Both Mercury transits are going to bring some highs and lows since they will each come in contact with Uranus and Saturn. While you undergo the lessons of Mercury, it will start with a psychological reflection on your part and end up with a more spiritual connection once it is in Libra. Uranus adds more frustration to your sign once it is retrograde on the 19th, you are going to have see some changes at work and/or school, so the key here is being balanced and not trying to take control. Be patient and not hasty. The Full Moon in your sign will be on the 22nd and it is a repeat of the last one from July. Saturn is in your sign pushing you to mature and evolve. These transits will highlight the same themes. The Sun will be in Virgo on the 22nd and you are going to experience great wisdom and understanding from this transit as you will dive once more into introspection. The month ends on a positive note as Mercury moves into Libra, an enlightening and powerful transit.

Pisces – A glorious month for you since many of these transits will be highlighting your relationship house. It begins with the New Moon in Leo on the 8th, a reminder to get your priorities straight, especially if you have been slacking off. On the 11th, Mercury enters the sign of Virgo, joining Venus and Mars there. You are going to be more willing to meet people that can help you. If you are single, you have opportunities to start a potential romance. Venus enters Libra on the 16th, and this is a time of reflection and prioritizing yourself. Venus has you introspective and analytical, so use this opportunity to understand your needs and wants. Uranus will be retrograde on the 19th, sparking a period of transition when it comes to your communication style. This could add anxiety at first, but you will ease into is since Uranus will continue to make a positive sextile to your sign. Take it easy if you feel overwhelmed. On the 22nd, the Full Moon in Aquarius makes your dreams more powerful. It is a transit that will make you want to reflect and find comforts at home. The Sun enters Virgo on the 22nd, adding more of that relationship energy in your life. More analyzing here and if you have felt any confusion, you will feel awakened as you’ll have more confidence to decide on who is worthy and who isn’t.

[writing-on-the-wahl]

Okay, this one’s been done already by other blogs and I understand that not every writer wants to do the same prompt as another so if you’re not comfortable with this then absolutely stay in your comfy zone. I just think it’s fun to see different interpretations

But basically, Civilian is unknowingly dating Villain (as in, Civilian doesn’t know that villain is a criminal), and Villain is introduced to Civilian’s brother, Hero. Hero is terrified that Villain is going to hurt Civilian the entire time, but Villain just keeps on showing lots of sweet affection to Civilian (Hero and Villain recognize each other but Civilian is clueless of both their “jobs”). It’s up to you whether or not Villain actually loves Civilian or is just taunting/threatening Hero :)

Wow that was long my bad

Sorry this took me like twelve years to get to... @glowing-alpaca it won’t let me tag you... idk why🤷🏽‍♀️

Ok yes I’ve seen a few of these, so I took the general principle and made it Civilian’s POV eehehehe

hope you enjoy:)

*special thanks to @im-a-wonderling and @watercolorfreckles for the beta reads and all your amazing help on this one!!*

———————————————

Civilian shifted from foot to foot, rubbing her left wrist as she tried to focus on the conversation swirling around her. Her limbs felt lead-heavy and numb, deadweights that she wasn’t sure what to do with.

She clasped her hands together in front of her, then let them hang by her sides. Then clasped them in front of her again.

Her breathing felt loud in her ears, and a few of the patrons glanced in her direction. Could they hear her breathing?

Her eyes darted to the entrance for the hundredth time. Her brother was late. Hero had promised to be here early—he knew how she felt about crowds. And since he was the one who insisted her first art show be public, he’d reassured her he’d stay by her side the whole time.

The show had started over an hour ago.

“Well, Civilian?”

Her eyes snapped away from the door and back to the circle of patrons around her. Her stomach sloshed cold. They were all looking at her, their stares burning holes.

“Sorry? What was that?” Her stomach continued to twist and writhe. Now they all knew she’d been distracted.

Did they think she was ignoring them? Had she been rude?

She’d only glanced at the door for a moment…

An older man shook his head as his companion repeated her question about her choice to use different mediums to portray the same image.

She answered the best she could, gesturing to the wall beside her, which was filled with a dozen paintings and drawings of the cityscape—some created with ink, other with oil, acrylic, watercolor, or charcoal—she’d used them all.

She rubbed her wrist again as she tried to explain how she’d used the different mediums.

A few in the circle nodded their heads, but her heart was pounding and doubt nagged at her as she spoke. Was she talking too much? Not enough? Was what she was saying stupid?

She stumbled over her words, unease crawling beneath her skin.

She looked down, unable to complete her thought.

“I think it’s a marvelous technique.”

Hero looked up sharply as the deep voice continued, covering the awkward pause she’d created.

“...to get to look at a wall full of paintings, all capturing the same image but each conveying a different mood or emotion.”

Her rescuer was sharply dressed: his dark hair carefully styled, his suit perfectly tailored, and his gold watch designer. Combined with his confident posture, his appearance practically screamed “lawyer,” same as her brother. But while Hero was a public defense attorney, crusading against a flawed system, the man in front of her was probably what Hero would call a ‘leech,’ a rich defense lawyer catering to the criminal elite.

And while Civilian sympathized with Hero’s cause, she also had enough experience as a starving artist to appreciate the luxury of not having to worry about how much money she had to spend at the grocery store.

Plus, he’d been so kind to save her; how bad could he be?

Her rescuer was still speaking, his smooth words and confident tone confirming his profession.

“... the kind of art that needs to be seen and studied to be appreciated.”

At his hint, the crowd began to drift towards the gallery walls.

Her rescuer met her gaze through the crowd, and she offered him a small smile of gratitude as the people around her shifted away.

She turned towards the wall of cityscape paintings, breathing a sigh of relief before stopping to analyze one of the city in the rain. She eyed the brushstrokes, mentally smoothing a line here, adding a shadow there. She shook her head and turned away. Now was not the time.

But her rather abrupt turn sent her careening into a wall-like something that wasn’t a wall, but a certain tall lawyer in a thousand-dollar Armani suit. She jerked back, horrified at her lack of grace, but tripped on her blasted heels. Hands at her waist stopped her fall, long fingers tightening around her as she regained her balance. When she was finally steady, his hands slid away.

“Thanks.” Civilian forced herself to look up into the face of the man who had now rescued her twice, rather than looking around like she wanted to to check who else had noticed her embarrassing almost-fall.

He was smiling warmly, and for the first time all night, her heart wasn’t pounding at the thought of speaking with a stranger.

“I’m sorry for running into you.” She felt breathless, but it must have been from her almost-fall.

He waved her off. “I shouldn’t have been standing so close. I just wanted to compliment the way you’ve captured my favorite view of the city.” He gestured to the painting she’d just been critiquing.

“I painted it at the top of the—“

“Capitol building, yes I go there often.”

“Because you work there often?” Civilian flushed as she spoke across him, but her heart steadied as he didn’t seem to mind. His smile widened, and he leaned closer.

“What gave me away?” His voice was deep, and he looked at her as though they were sharing a secret.

Her cheeks grew warmer, and she looked away, heart racing for an entirely different reason.

“My brother is a lawyer, so I usually can just tell. He was supposed to be here actually…” a frown came to her face as she remembered her brother’s promise.

She shook herself out of her reverie. Her rescuer was looking at her warmly.

“I’m sorry! You rescued me back there, and I don’t even know your name…” She looked at him expectantly, and he offered a bright smile that made her stomach flutter.

“I’m Villain. Pleased to meet you.” His voice was practically a purr, sending tingles across her skin as he took her hand, gently raising it to his lips. She looked down as her cheeks heated at the old fashioned gesture.

“I’m Civilian,” she said as he released her hand, returning his bright smile with a shy one of her own. “Although you probably already knew that since my name is on the program...”

He nodded. “I have to say, I’m quite impressed by your—”

“Civilian!”

A blur in a tan suit darted around Villain and grabbed her arm, pulling her back.

“Hero, what?—” Her brother was a mess. His suit was wrinkled, tie coming undone, hair mussed.

He continued to pull her back, eyes on Villain. “Civilian I need to talk to you—it’s urgent!”

She glanced back at Villain as Hero tugged her away.

“Sorry!” She mouthed.

He just shook his head, an amused smile on his face, before mouthing something that looked suspiciously like, “I’ll see you later.”

Her heart warmed, and she was still grinning when Hero pulled her around the corner and flipped her around to face him.

“What are you—”

“Do you have any idea who that is?” Hero’s fingers gripped her shoulders. “What he is?”

“He said his name was Villain? And so what that he’s a lawyer, Hero. I don’t get why you are freaking out!”

Hero’s hands shook her shoulders. “He’s not just a lawyer, he—”

Civilian wrenched free and shoved Hero’s chest. “He what? Actually helped me? When YOU failed to show up like you promised.” Her last words slid into a growl.

Hero had the decency to look ashamed for a brief moment before his face hardened. He lifted a hand, gesturing with one arm back towards where they’d left Villain. “His people are the reason that I’m late!”

Anger sparked in her chest, and she rolled her eyes. “Sure,” she scoffed, “blame some random lawyer for your broken promise. That’s a pitiful excuse, Hero, even for you.”

She shoved past him, heading back into the gallery.

“Wait, Sis!” He grabbed her arm. She shook him off and stalked away.

But when she returned to the main room, Villain was gone.

[centrally-unplanned]

Artstyle-As-Arc Starring FLCL’s Mamimi

You know those anime where characters just, ya know, *talk* at each other about their internal feelings, in static shot/reverse shot? They just spell out their ~arc~ for like twelve episodes right to the audience, as if character development is defined by words per minute? It's a hallmark of lazy & cheap shows (either on money or effort), where the ideas could be communicated visually - its animation after all - but that takes work so eh, two talking heads is pretty much the same thing right? Pro tip: it's not.

Every time this storytelling approach comes up in animation I think back to FLCL as the ur-example of visuals-first character development, and specifically to Mamimi, the show’s orphaned third wheel. I wasn’t sure how solid this point was going to be before I rewatched it recently with this in mind, but sure enough this is 98% true: Mamimi has a full arc and never says a single word of dialogue directly about her own internal struggles. Every up and down (let's be honest, mainly downs) is communicated visually or through the inference from organic conversations with others, and this tertiary protagonist in 6 episodes gets a far richer story than most for the trouble. 

What makes FLCL so good at this? There is a lot to it, such as the use of symbols and tone shifts, but one of the FLCL standout traits is how it changes its art style all over the place even in the middle of episodes as part of its free-wheeling directorial approach. I have definitely heard these shifts described as random, but it doesn’t take much to realize that isn’t the case. How the art style is used to communicate emotion is sometimes extremely blatant, like when government agent Amarao goes from Officer in Charge barking orders:

To a vain approval-mongering simp desperate to look hot for his ex in the space of a single smash cut:

How going from Shonen to South Park captures those two moods, once you know the point of the scene character-wise, really doesn’t need elucidation - though maybe it did if you were a Japanese audience member in the year 2000, who almost certainly had no damn clue what South Park was...but that is its own tangent.

Those kinds of style transitions, however, are the low-hanging fruit of the show - Mamimi does not get almost any such scenes. In fact that is the point of her character, being buffeted around by the zany insanity of FLCL’s world, but never quite being a part of it. For her, the shifts are much more subtle, occurring in how she is drawn and lit. Meet “base” Mamimi:

A (very well drawn) anime girl, note the general lack of nose, large-but-not-too-large eyes, and linework in the hair to indicate depth. This shot is how you first meet Mamimi, and it's of course neutral in tone - it's how the main character Naota sees her.

Here is another base Mamimi, angry this time, ‘cause she is adorable:

But Mamimi doesn’t stay neutral for long - she is a bit of a trainwreck, a 17 year old girl unloved and abandoned by everyone, except perhaps our 12 year old Naota who she unconsciously manipulates out of desperation. Unable to save herself she places her hope in other people/robots/occasionally pyromania to do it for her, and as the show progresses her arc is to lose all those false hopes and have nothing left. In *those* moments of realization, Mamimi looks like this:

Of course her mood is different, full thousand-yard-stare, but they hit that mood by expanding her eye size horizontally, so you instinctively notice the expansion and focus in on their lifelessness that now dominates her face. Her hair is also stringier, giving the scene more realism but also her hair less life (it is wet in this scene, but ‘base’ Mamimi with wet hair doesn’t have the same style at all). The biggest shift is of course in the lighting - going from “solid tone” shading to more gradients on the background and on the cigarette light. These elements add to the realism of the tone, without making Mamimi’s face any more realistic or less blank - which is intentional, as ‘blank’ is a pretty good descriptor of her current state of mind. She is barely a person at this point. Of course a stringy-haired girl smoking a cigarette off-center-frame (depressed!Mamimi is very often off-center-frame) is *also* telling us she is dead inside, but it isn’t just that - it is that in partnership with the way she is drawn. Throwing a cigarette on base Mamimi doesn’t hit the same way.

So that is Mamimi at her mid-point, and things get worse for her before they get better. She isn’t the main character, however, so her own resolution happens on the sidelines of Naota’s - and she only gets one quick scene to do it. Naota is someone Mamimi liked but never respected, for many reasons but relevant here is that Naota, like Mamimi, could never be honest about who he really was and what he really wanted and instead put on false airs. As Naota finally is honest about his own feelings, and accepts the often-negative consequences of that honesty as a price worth paying, Mamimi - rejected by or disappointed in every outside force she put her trust into to hide from her own feelings - sees his internal courage and realizes that she has that too. And that is communicated the audience entirely via this scene:

Part of how it is communicated is her action, as she is taking a photo of Naota at his own moment of self-actualization as part of a motif where Mamimi would photograph objects and others as a way of creating distance from them to reinforce her outsider-looking-in status and how she could never really *see* Naota as an independent person due to how she manipulated him and also ~reasons but now she *does* see him as a person and through that sees her own weaknesses and strengths that their arcs mutually reflected and so is essentially photographing her aspirational self and...whew, okay, deep breaths. If you've seen FLCL you know all that of course, but how that motif is made to hit emotionally is again achieved through character design shifts that don’t require such context. 

Mamimi has a nose! Look at that thing, anime characters don’t get noses, what is this? Also note the eyes - even in the second expression, when she relaxes her face, her irises take up way less of the total eye frame, and the eyes have more roundness overall. Her hair on the other hand has a good deal less detail, no full strands but instead just suggestive lines that hint at volume, and a general reduction in the boldness of the outlines. (And of course she is center-frame, for a directorial touch). All this adds together to dramatically enhance the realism of the point-of-focus, the face, while pulling details away from other areas to guide the eye. That realism makes Mamimi way more human; it strips away that anime-esque “distance” one can have from characters that lets you more easily accept slapstick hijinks or awesome-but-anatomically-questionable movement. This is now a person, because Mamimi is now a person. She realizes she does have inside her what it takes to be better, that she isn’t broken. She has a nose god dammit, she can do anything!

That scene is the last time she appears in the show - we learn from Naota over narration that she left town to be a photographer, so you get some concrete detail around the arc resolution, but all the emotion is contained in the frames. For me it's special when shows communicate emotion on every level available to them simultaneously; multi-medium messaging is what makes animation (and film writ-large) unique. 

 And there are a lot of shows out there that in my opinion could maybe rewatch media like FLCL and take some damn notes before they start storyboarding...

[jungxk]

just one (viii)

summary: the only guy on campus who’s track record trumped that of your best friend’s - park jimin - was jeon jungkook. not that that was a problem…until he set his sights on you.

notes: first of all i wanna thank the people who supported me and encouraged me through one of the worst writers blocks of my life. all the messages and comments are the reason why i finally managed to post this. special thanks to @whippedforkook for helping me with the monstrous tagging process as well as giving me so much praise. and also @lonelyending for cheering me on for a literal YEAR bc thats how long i cried over this fic! this story is so special to me. we’re in the home stretch now x

warnings: mentions of illegal drug use and distribution, swearing, brief smut.

genre: drama, romance, humour, college!au

wordcount: 8k

tagging: @cutechim @benz-biarritz @gyukult @bangulin @eatersanonymous @alyssa1926 @skivv1es @a-sucker-for-them-sappy-shit @moonights @jeymuffins @juuneaux @catsukiii @andreaisaac @whatheydontunderstand @sreveles @noruls619 @henryharios @just-a-fuxked-up-kid @befriendswithj @btsbesharam @poemsandpunani @taelha @misosoup-forthesoul @jikooksmut @heart-eyedmf @the-piano-woman @angrysunshine @chaoticpaperfanhoagie @jsungshine @ci-yen @faby-montana @shinypeanutsportshero @jooniestrivia @alucards-s @cynamyngirl @jiminie-angel @myskoova @jkshoneybuns @smokintae @remmykinsff @majinbuwu @jangx2manboongx2 @potatodogs @seul-queen @alpharyth @blenxxxg @plsky @th-singularity @bapbaptothetop @hermiones-enchantment @stomachfilledwithbutterflies @euphorora @supachloe94 @jiminxjimout @ggukkieland @just-another-fic-recs-blog @jalexad​

part i // part ii // part iii // part iv // part v // part vi // part vii // part viii // part ix // part x

x

4 years ago

x

jimin hated yugyeom.

well, maybe hate was a strong word. he just didn't like talking to him, being around him, hearing his name or interacting with him on any level, social or otherwise. he really tried though, since he was one of jungkook's closest friends and still respectfully referred to him as hyung above all else. and if anything, jimin would always have a soft spot for jungkook, the kid he used to coddle when his own brother wasn't around. but having said that, there wasn't really much basis for not liking yugyeom. it was just a gut feeling jimin couldn't explain, a very subtle callousness about him only jimin could pick up on. for the most part he was just like very other mild mannered boy by day and party animal by night, but jimin still ducks when he sees him enter the library.

"fuck," he hisses under his breath, scooping up his laptop to stride behind a book shelf for good measure. because sometimes, contrary to popular belief, jimin wanted to be alone. he didn't want to make small talk or listen to someone tell him about how well they scored on their last paper or complain about their annoying girlfriend. sometimes jimin wanted to have no thoughts and listen to fleetwood mac as per his human rights. which is why he shoves into the first private study room he sees.

and not an empty one at that. there's a girl inside, sitting cross-legged in her chair at a desk with an array of dried up paint tubes and brushes surrounding open sketchbooks. you don't look annoyed or even that phased, just amused as you give him a once over before going back to painting. "on the run from solji?"

jimin blinks, back still pressed against the door. "huh?" he regards you properly. "i'm sorry, have we met before?"

"not really," you admit with a sheepish smile, which is when jimin suddenly realises that you're...attractive. "solji is in my stats class. you hooked up with her last week at some party and she told me about it."

"oh," jimin takes in your plethora of art supplies. "you don't look like a stem student."

there's a glimmer of something in your eyes, and though you hide it well jimin knows he's struck a nerve. "yeah, i get that a lot."

"it's not solji by the way," jimin clarifies. for some reason. "that i'm hiding from. just a bellend i don't have the energy for right now."

you smile. "it's fine. you don't owe me your life story."

"i do when i'm about to impose on your...study time," jimin peers through the window in the door, wincing when yugyeom enters the hallway. "what would it take for you to let me stay in here for a while?"

you pause for a second. "honestly? just be quiet and leave me alone. is that okay?"

jimin perks up, a weight leaving his chest. "perfect, actually."

x

x

x

[jungkook 11:42pm]: why does it say wings on it

[jungkook 11:42pm] where is it flying

[you: 11:43pm] ffs kook

[you: 11:44pm] im still on the toilet can u just hurry up

[you 11:44pm] grab some tampons too pls

[jungkook 11:46pm] fine what size pussy do u wear

[you 11:46pm] i hate u

[jungkook 11:53pm] ???? ? ? well? ????

[you 11:54pm] REGULAR 

jungkook giggles at his phone, already having left the women's sanitary aisle to grab some chocolate. months later and teasing you was still bundles of fun. he knew for a fact that you were sat there with that angry pout on your face, nose crinkled. he had never bought anything like this before, but jungkook had enough brain cells to know that chocolate was another necessity for that time of the month. after grabbing a large hazelnut bar, he pauses beside the oreos before grabbing a packet of those too. just for good measure. he strides to the self checkout - because even he wasn't man enough for the cashier yet - nearly dropping his array of sanitary products and confectionary when somebody calls out his name from behind the queue.

"kook!" the voice is unmistakably yugyeom's, confirmed by the hand that clamps jungkook over the shoulder and swivels him round before he could think about hiding his socially compromising shopping items. it takes a second for yugyeom to notice, doing a double take at the pads atop his small tower of goods. he holds back a laugh, balancing a bottle of gin in one hand while he waves back at some friends to continue. they were clearly making their pit stop before a night out, probably pre's if they still start as late as jungkook remembers. with his hair styled and expensive cologne lingering, jungkook almost forgets he probably looks unrecognisable in his sweats and cotton-fresh hoodie. friday nights weren't for cuddling. still, yugyeom's smile is welcoming and familiar. "got the munchies? and maybe also a uterus?"

"shut up," jungkook grumbles, averting his eyes. he shifts to his other foot uncomfortably. "my friend just needed a favour, that's all."

"uh huh," yugyeom gives him a teasing look. "is this friend the reason why i barely saw you at jin's the other week?"

jungkook blinks back at him. "wait, you were at that party? i had no idea!" a boyish smile breaks over his face. "why didn't you call me? i haven't seen you since-"

"minseok-hyung's new years eve party," yugyeom throws his head back with a laugh. "remember how we ended up on a boat after the ball dropped and-"

"spent all of new years day detained by the coast guard!" jungkook finishes with a mischievous cackle of his own, nearly dropping the tampons in the process. "fuck, that was so much fun! we need to meet up again, i haven't been out with the guys in so long."

"well no wonder," he quips a brow at jungkook's shopping again. "word got out you're a family man but i didn't believe it. until now, that is."

jungkook's smile falls. "what do you mean?"

yugyeom looks at him for a second, confused by jungkook's surprise. yugyeom was never quite as diplomatic as namjoon or yoongi, to put it lightly. and definitely nowhere near as accomodating as jimin. which is why his next words make jungkook's back stiffen. "bro, look at yourself. you got dairy milk in one hand and tampax in the other. on a friday night. the next time i see you i wouldn't be shocked if you had a baby buggy and a mortgage." still, yugyeom throws him an apologetic look. like a mouse caught in a trap. "face it, kook. you're old news."

"what? that's not true," his brows furrow unhappily. "i don't know what you're talking about. it's not like she's my..."

he can't say the word, but it hangs between them like a dead weight.

"yeah, right," the condescending look on yugyeom's face was starting to agitate him. "you totally blanked us at jin's after she showed up. not even just jin's..." he thinks twice about holding his tongue, but as always, decides against it. "i don't know you, jungkook. whoever this new jungkook is. it's been months. you used to hit us up and be independent and spontaneous and wild and now you're just...someone's boyfriend.

"stop fucking saying that," jungkook snaps, all visible signs of friendliness gone.

"why?" a beat. "do you even use a wrap with her anymore?"

jungkook splutters, heat rushing to his ears and hands in a stinging combination of anger and embarrassment. "how is that any of your business? the fuck are you asking me something like that, as if you-"

"thought so," yugyeom looks away from him with a sigh. if anything, yugyeom knew never to overstay his welcome but that clearly backfired tonight. "whatever, jungkook," he looks over his shoulder at him. "guess you're the last one to find out you're officially married."

"you're ridiculous," jungkook scoffs. "all this over condoms? grow up, yugyeom."

"only couples do it raw," yugyeom turns away from him, alcohol in tow as he waves a hand over his shoulder to join his friends like jungkook was nothing but a lost cause. "you would remember that if you still had game."

jungkook stands there, dumbfounded while the group of boys exit the store noisily but he can't hear a thing. the siren that had been itching the back of his mind all this time was suddenly there at full force, right between his eyes. the glaring truth that yugyeom might be right makes his knees buckle. all those rules jungkook once had, all those measures he kept in place to protect his liberty, to prevent this very occurence - where were they? what happened to them? as the sweet and accommodating counterpart to jimin, why had you never complied? though, the blame wasn't on your hands alone. he got complacent, comfortable. lenient. and now without even realising he was here, a scene from a romcom in the middle of the night, with nothing to say for himself but fuck. the realisations wouldn't stop racing, one after another on the conveyer belt of his anxiety.

the photos on his phone; mostly you. time spent, usually with you. the portfolio for his latest photography module also had some resemblance to your interests. charcoal pencils, night drives, orchids. like the ones you always drew on any scrap of paper lying around. now that he thinks about it, he's seen nothing but your orchids for months. and not just that - you wore his clothes sometimes too. his bathroom had your toothbrush, contraceptive pills and coconut shampoo. his closest friends, his hyungs...not one of them was devoid of affection for you. he wasn't even confident that if the choice was presented, they would still pick him over you.

by the time jungkook finishes paying and practically sprints to his truck in a daze, he can hardly keep himself from shaking. he palms the wheel compulsively, he could feel the sweat in his sideburns, hoodie suddenly suffocating him. it smelled of you.

and then, like a final curtain call: was he just your latest fixer-upper project? some good girl wet dream to play out in the wake of your emotionally traumatic past? a slap in the face to seokjin, maybe, and nothing more? when you were done, when he was out of your system, when you knew his taste by heart and had nothing new left to try - would you stay? did you even know how to?

did he?

jungkook starts the engine. he drives to your door, drops your bag of snacks and pads on the porch, and texts you before leaving. he does not go inside.

x

x

x

"you sure you'll be okay with just the boys?"

you scoff at seulgi when she pins you with a worrying look, taking some of her clothes out of her bag to re-fold them just so you had something to do with your hands. jisoo had already left for the long weekend with her family, so there was no one there to fill up the empty space between your awakward reply. you didn't know how to tell the girls that jungkook hadn't contacted you in nearly a month. and even though he was a notable flight risk from the beginning, you couldn't help but feel like there was hostility there. every now and again he'd at least send a nude or have a quick phone call when he was drunk or high at three in the morning, but you hadn't heard a peep from him. you couldn't stand the idea of someone you cared about harbouring comtempt for you, but the fear of reaching out and somehow making the situation worse outweighed it tenfold. 

you look up to see seulgi still staring at you with concern. "of course i'll be fine! they're boys, not piranhas."

"at least piranhas contribute our ecosystem. boys just cause problems for the hell of it," seulgi lays a hand on the crown of your head like a berating big sister, swivelling you to look at her in your fit of giggles. the urge to nestle you under blankets like a baby bird made her chest heave, and you could tell. "i'm serious. if jimin tries anything, call me immediately okay?"

"jimin?" you snort. "out of a room full of delinquents, my ex, and taehyung, you're worried about jimin of all people?"

seulgi wrinkles her nose. "god, when you say it like that its like i'm throwing you to the dogs." she pauses. "something's up with jimin. i don't know what it is, but he's...off."

you tilt your head innocently, remembering the brief interaction you had with hobi at seokjin's party. you had been so caught up in jungkook - or lack thereof - you hadn't thought to press him about it afterwards. in truth, jimin remained as...jimin as ever. if he was acting differently you certainly couldn't tell. "you think so?"

"mmm," she leans on the lip of the open suitcase thoughtfully. "but maybe with jungkook there, he'll behave himself."

you gulp, fiddling with his watch on your wrist anxiously. "maybe."

x

x

x

you nearly yelp when you feel a big hand swivel around your waist, bucking into the kitchen counter reflexively. jungkook always did this before rubbing his boner against your ass, but the light scent of citrus and short squeeze lets you know immediately that its taehyung. hoseok, jimin, namjoon and yoongi were still in the living room playing video games, giving taehyung the perfect opening to intercept you. namjoon and yoongi had insisted that you come over to their place after finding out you'd be alone for the weekend, and you had completely refused before taehyung's coaxing. and of course, jimin's persuasive nudging. even though you felt safe and relaxed here, it felt wrong to be in jungkook's friends' place without him. almost like a breaching of an unspoken boundary.

and clearly, taehyung picked up on your discomfort by the way he stared at you so softly. his back was to the sink, his sillhouette particularly long and lean this evening. "you need to lighten up, princess. you keep looking over your shoulder so much it's making me nervous!"

your visibly droop with a sigh. "i'm sorry tae. i've had a lot on my mind lately, and..."

he claps his hands on your shoulders, teeth peeking through his grin. "you're not doing anything illegal by being here without jungkook."

you wince at his name. "have you always been able to read my mind like this?"

"absolutely," taehyung's brown eyes look so rich up close. "you're allowed to have friends that are also his friends, because - and try to stick with me on this - relationships between people are allowed to be independant from the primary circles they met in. mind boggling concept, i know."

you wack him on the chest until he laughs. "stop making fun of my anxious thought processes! its called mental illness, sherlock! i can't help it!"

his nose scrunches cutely, enjoying your first fiery outburst of the day. "whatever. i call it not getting laid for a month and losing critical thinking abilities from it."

you gape at him indignantly while taehyung roars with laughter. "you're such a dickhead," you hiss through gritted teeth, yanking his hair and jabbing your fingers in his sides the way you would with jimin during a tickle fight. "whores have feelings too, taehyung! whores have feelings too!"

you both fall about with laughter, knocking over half the snacks on the counter in the process which only makes the pair of you laugh even more. it's such childish chaos trying to clean up the mess on the tiny kitchen floor that neither of you notice the front door open, or the gust of metaphorical and literal wind that follows. watching taehyung trying to salvage a bag of broken crisps is just so funny that the presence of an another voice in the living room goes unregistered, as do the footsteps leading up the hallway to the kitchen, so you have no time to brace yourself or properly pull yourself together with you see-

"...jungkook."

yours and taehyung's heads snap to the doorway. jungkook stands there with almost complete lack of emotion on his face to the pair of you kneeling in crumbs and napkins. there's a brief pause where the tension in your eye contact alone was so strong that it felt wrong to breathe. but it is shortlived. jungkook tiptoes over you like spilled milk, reaching for a glass of water. you and taehyung lock eyes while the tap runs in the awkward silence. "hey. you okay?"

"um," you're not sure whether to stand up, hug him, look at him, or even face him. "yeah! yeah, i'm fine."

he nods politely. "hyung?"

even taehyung looks visibly uncomfortable. "i'm good."

"cool. see you later," he says, downing the glass impressively fast before leaving the room just as fast as he entered it.

you and taehyung stare at each other again, not understanding why you both feel like kids caught eating cake before dinner. you could feel the sweat pricking at your back from the realisation. jungkook had no idea you'd be here, and given that interaction he'd probably want to leave now. there was always the inkling woven between his radio silence that he was done with you, but you never let yourself take it seriously out of logic. because how could months of passion and tenderness and honesty be undone so irrevocably like that? it didn't make sense. you hadn't changed. you were the same girl he hit on relentlessly and chased against all odds. so what was different now?

"____," taehyung calls your name gently, and it's only then you realise you're already up and trailing after jungkook into the living room. when you walk in he's already putting his shoes on to leave again, barely making eye contact with you while he chats absently to his hyungs so he can look busy. the four boys on the large sofa can only reply wearily, eyes darting between the pair of you like a firework was about to blow to soon. and it was.

you could feel it in your throat, under your breast bone, bubbling up your stomach. "wait, jungkook. um...h-how have you been? i haven't heard from you in-"

"i've been good," he keeps tying and re-tying his laces without looking up. "super busy. you know how it is."

his curtness makes you flinch. this same time last month jungkook used to kiss you senseless before he had both feet in the door. he'd ring the doorbell incessantly like a child and greet you with the biggest, toothiest grin you had ever seen. he'd make fun of your bed head and squeeze your cheeks until you'd snap at him. and now when he looked at you he hated every second of it. your mother had the same look. your eyes start to burn involuntarily. "yeah, i do. how is uni? your final project is due soon, right? what theme did you pick in the end?"

"the one i told you about," he stands up abruptly. "sorry, noona. something came up. i'll see you arou-"

"something came up?" you step closer to him. "something came up the second you saw my face? or did you really just trek all the way to your hyungs' place for a glass of water, jungkook?"

jungkook stiffens, but is determined not to lose face. and it's difficult to do under your big, accusatory eyes and jimin's death stare at his back. the whole room was waiting for his response, so he just shoves his hands in his pockets resolutely. "i needed to see yoongi hyung, but i can come another time."

you fold your arms. "well it's clearly important, and you're here now. so don't let me stop you."

"but you will stop me," jungkook snaps. "that's the problem."

"kook-ah," yoongi warns quietly, but he took one look at your face and knew the damage was done. jimin was already standing up, circling around the back of the sofa towards you. the red lights were all there; your watery eyes, your trembling hands. every breath you took looked difficult for you to complete and only jimin noticed.

"what are you talking about?" you squint. it takes you a second to understand; yoongi's guilty expression, jungkook's indifference. "oh, you're fucking kidding me." your resolve breaks for a second turning away only to glare back at jungkook with so much fire you can hardly stand it. "you're selling again? are you insane, jungkook?"

"see," jungkook's eyes are stony. "i knew you'd get this way."

"what other way am i supposed to get?" his lack of response only infuriates you more. it felt disrespectful. "jungkook, you're not a kid anymore. if you get caught with drugs the consequences are serious! forget the potential jail time, you could get kicked out of university, it would go on your record forever and-"

"stop talking to me like i'm a kid!"

"then stop acting like one!" you hate raising your voice, but it keeps climbing without your approval. "did you think about this for even five minutes? this isn't like just going to juvie like before and being done with it jungkook. your hyungs can't bail you out of everything."

"this is a lot of talk for someone who lapped up those fancy paints without a second thought," jungkook says darkly. his eyes aren't like you remember, his face solemn and near unrecognisable. "or did you think that getting that kind of money overnight is only something that's possible through daddy's credit card?"

dread blooms like a garden inside you. "that's...that's how you bought the paint set?"

"welcome to the real world," he quips. "as if selling overpriced weed to a bunch of pick-me-freshmans is considered a crime against humanity to anyone but you."

"you think that's why i'm yelling at you right now?" your voice was growing hoarse, desperate. "you think that's the problem i have with you being literal drug dealer, jungkook?"

he hates it. the sweltering silence, the judgmental eyes digging into his back, the slow realisation that the tears in your eyes were not at him but for him. jungkook's ears ring enough to make him sway on the spot if his feet weren't planted so firmly on the dingy carpet, this metaphorical ground. he couldn't shake the feeling that his lifestyle was only an issue now because of you, how he never felt a shred of guilt about any of this shit until he met you. and if there was anything that jungkook never responded well to, it was pity. and he could feel it from every person in the room, all people that that once cherished and coddled him until you came along. he swallows, throat dry from the way he couldn't look at you knowing what he was going to say next.

"you're embarrassing yourself, noona. you're not my girlfriend and you never were, so stop acting like it."

cotton. it's very faint, under the layers of conflicting cologne and beer and smoke, but jungkook still smelled of cotton while he spat acid. nobody could speak, even though jungkook never raised his voice let alone a hand to you, it still hit like a slap in the face. it sunk into the walls, your clothes, suddenly every hair on your body felt heavy with it. dirty. the shame came first, the humiliation next. and then the sorrow, the dread, and finally the defeat. you knew the stages well by now, and they were cycling through you like clockwork. how foolish you were, to make the same mistake again. nobody dared to move, everyone but jungkook staring at you in denial and horror. they couldn't believe their eyes when you nod steadily, bowing your head to the floor.

jimin is already slotting himself between you, his jaw tight. "that's enough, kook. just leave already."

"no," you stop him, unnervingly resigned. that single word cuts through all six men with ease. "he's right." you step around jimin, closing the space between you and jungkook. for a brief moment he wonders if you'll actually hit him, but somehow watching you unclasp his watch from your wrist and drop it on the coffee table in front of him is far worse. the sound seems to ring like church bells, definitive and umistakable. "you're right, i'm not your girlfriend. you win jungkook."

they all watch you leave in dismay, listen to the door closing softly behind you. within a second jimin sprints after you, calling your name, leaving everyone else dumbfounded. jungkook's stare could bore a hole into the abandoned watch on the table, still ticking away like nothing changed. like his eyes weren't burning, lightheaded at the realisation that he would never wear a watch again let alone the one he put on you.

x

x

x

to an outsider, you looked like you were coping well considering you just got dumped in front of all your friends. but jimin knew that face. your stony eyes, lips pulled thin as if to seal inside the collapse of a monument. you took the tea he offered, and then his arms, your face finding his chest with ease. muscle memory. his torso was a tad shorter than jungkook's, his heart closer to your mouth as if the steady thumps were asking for a kiss of acknowledgement. every time you close your eyes you could see jungkooks face, hard and unforgiving and nothing like the man you trusted all this time. but it wasn't a new expression; you parents looked at you similarly the last time you saw them. it was the look of someone who had no regrets cutting all ties. and now, jungkook was behind them in a lost list of people who chose to be strangers over loving you.

jimin sighs when you cry into his chest, brushing the back of your head gently. he had been ready for this for months, but he still hated to see you this way. again. it made his bones itch, his skin crawl uncomfortably every time you weeped. the only time he considered violence was when you were crying. but he knew what to do, laying down across the sofa so you could curl up into a ball next him, head on his bicep and face smushed into the crook of his shoulder. you used to cry like this for hours and hours, his arm familiar with the prickle of pins and needles. but it was the only place you felt safe. tucked into jimin's side is where you would always belong, and that truth was more glaringly obvious than ever now.

"lets get something to eat," he offers eventually, hand craddling the crown of your head like a child. jimin's other hand on your hip is warm and heavy when he pats you soothingly. in your episodes, you responded well to touch. "what about thai food?"

"not hungry," you grumble against him.

"we could make something together?" he peers down at your lack of response. "come on, babe. you gotta eat something. you didn't even have breakfast-"

"why am i so stupid?" you whisper, a fresh bout of tears welling up.

jimin rubs your thigh. "it's not your fault."

"yes it is. jungkook gave me plenty of red flags, and i ignored all of them-"

"oh, i meant you being stupid."

you scoff. "cheers."

"what?" jimin cocks a brow when you lift your head to look up at him. he wets his lips and you follow the swipe of his tongue thoughtlessly, distracted enough by his touch and proximity that you take a second to digest his words. "it's not like any of this exactly came as a surprise. you ignored me, remember? wanted to flex your big girl pants."

you pull away from him and sit up, forcibly shutting out the daze that jimin routinely puts you under. "what's wrong with you? can't you be polite and wait for a couple hours before laying into me like a normal person? jesus, jimin."

"so let me get this straight," jimin sits up, watching your back as you sit away from him. "you're mad because i'm not telling you what you want to hear?"

"no," you say, head shaking. "i'm not mad. i'm upset because i came here to be comforted by my friend and you're just making me feel worse."

"what do you want me to say, ____? that i had high hopes from the start?" jimin pushes his hair back, brows now at a sharp incline from frustration. "i told you starting something with jungkook was trouble but you didn't listen. why should i feed your victim complex when all i've done is try to help you?"

"victim complex?" you repeat, standing up slowly. the sudden steadiness of your voice causes jimin to panic.

"not like that. don't take it like that, it's just," he's suddenly before you, his warm hands palming up your arms warmly. "i didn't wanna see you get like this and it happened anyway, is all i'm saying." he sighs when your scowl doesn't let up. "if hobi hyung hadn't have given up so easy, then maybe…maybe this would never have happened. maybe if i had been harsher with him then you would have-"

"what are you talking about?" you ask quietly, searching jimin's face. "give up so easy? what's that supposed to mean?"

he looks away, hands slipping off you. "it's nothing."

"jimin."

he struggles to look at you, tongue in cheek. his lips purse for a moment, pink like roses. he's wearing that navy jumper you like. "look, it's not a big deal. he wasn't supposed to fuck you or anything, just take you out for a while. get your mind off kookie, show you a nice time."

your blood runs cold. "what?"

jimin's expression softens. "it's not as bad as it sounds-"

"really?" your voice is sharp, sharper than he's ever heard it. you recoil as if you had been struck for the second time today. "because it sounds like you asked some guy to keep me occupied like i'm a fucking dog. all because you can't stand the idea of me being within a meter of jungkook-"

he steps in, but you step back. "you know that's not true, _."

"don't i?" you scoff, covering your face in disbelief. "jimin, you've been hellbent against me even looking at the guy since day fucking one."

"because i didn't want you to get hurt!" jimin counters, eyes downcast. "i know, okay? i know how much of a dick it makes me sound, but its not like it hurt you when you had no idea! hoseok broke it off before you even knew about it so why-"

"because it's worse," you turn away from him. "you tried to control me. choose what's best for me because you think you know better than i do. sound familiar?"

his jaw sets, and it's like you can hear the twine snap in his head, the percussion of his heartbeat above yours even though he doesn't close the space between you. jimin stares at you for a long minute before drawing in a thin breath. "fine," he steps in, and you can't look away. "you want me to say it? fine. i'll say it."

suddenly the air is lace thin around you as you stare at him, waiting. jimin looks off somewhere else, somewhere you can't reach. "don't tell me you haven't thought about it, because i know you have. if i have you must have too. and lately its all i can think about - being with you, holding you, being the one who gets to touch you. and yeah, maybe it took having to see you with jungkook for me to realise how much i want all that, i put my hands up. but you have no idea what's it like to watch the person you love most get toyed around with by a time bomb like that. i've seen jungkook go through girls like underwear and i love him, god i love him, but even the idea of you being one of those wasted girls sitting outside a party crying over his sorry ass makes my fucking ears ring."

"j-jimin…" you whisper, but you have nothing to say. your hands shake.

"you deserve more than that, ____. you deserve more than waiting around for booty calls or living up to what the next guy wants. from jungkook, hoseok, anyone. you deserve someone's devotion and yeah, maybe all this time i've been too much of a pussy to give it. maybe all this time i was tiptoeing around my feelings for you because i knew if i admitted to myself that i loved you - if i admitted i was just like every other guy - i'd actually set the bar for something other than disappointment. id actually have to step up, and i didn't know if i could do it. i still don't. but if it has to be someone…it should be me."

suddenly he's holding your hands, calming the tremble that rattles them. his words bunch up together in your ears, the meaning lost amidst your awe. "jimin….jimin what are you saying? where is all this coming from, i don't...i don't understand wh-"

"i'm saying," he cups your face. "choose me." he pulls you in. so, so close. "choose me, not jungkook. not anyone else. me."

and there's a part of you that has already caved. that's already kissing him, melting into his arms like you've wanted to for so, so long. you're falling back onto the couch with him in a fit of giggles, curling back into his chest to hide your watery eyes, asking him why the fuck he took so long. you chat together between teasing kisses, pour your hearts out, maybe cry a little. later you would make tea and order pad thai and watch the office all night and fall asleep together in the living room well past dawn and then-

you close your eyes. "i can't."

"you can," jimin says, so passionately you shudder. his brown eyes are teaming with too much determination and ardour for his own good, and you both know it. its difficult to grapple with how huge a risk he's taking, because jimin never takes risks. it made the whole situation seem dire. "you know you can, ____. it's us. there's no one like us."

you don't know how you're not crying yet. you only have jimin to hold onto, hands balled in his shirt without knowing if you're about to push him away or pull him in forever. "maybe back then. maybe if you'd have said all this before," you feel empty, the beat of your pulse suddenly strong in your fingertips. "but it doesn't matter anymore."

he shakes his head in denial, his determination palpable. "of course it does-"

"i'm in love with him," you say. to jimin. to yourself. to the world, finally. "i'm in love with jungkook." holding jimin's stare isn't as difficult as you thought it'd be. "you know if you'd have done all this a few months ago…if you'd have just...i was always yours without question, jimin. and you knew it." it's his turn to bristle under the strain of your voice. "jungkook isn't perfect. i'll be the first one to admit that. he's made me cry, he fucks up, he makes mistakes. but he's never lied to me. he never made decisions for me. he never passed judgement on what i should or shouldn't do with my life. something that i never thought i wouldn't able to say about you, too."

there's a brief moment where everything stops. neither of you can believe what you just said. jimin watches you, frozen in his place as you take your bag, eyes glittering with tears when he calls for you. suddenly he's the time bomb he feared becoming, the panic in his eyes lighting them up like fire crackers. for the first time in his life, he stumbles over his words, and then his feet when you reach for the door, all composure lost. he was unravelling like a tapestry in front of you, never to be repaired, and he could feel it. "____. ____, please," jimin chokes, his cheeks blotchy. "i wanted to protect you, i was just trying to help. don't go. please don't go. i was trying to help you."

"no. you were trying to have me." you say, closing the door behind you.

x

x

x

you have no idea what time it is when you hear the bell ring incessantly.

it had been hours since you'd returned home from jimin's, but there was no way for you to keep track when your only priority was just keeping yourself afloat. you turned your phone off, drew the curtains, and resolved to alternate between sitting in seulgi and jisoo's rooms until they came back. you didn't know what else to do. when you weren't crying you were hyperventilating, and when that stopped the absence of emotion was so powerful you could barely keep your eyes open. you were exhausted but could not sleep. starving but could not eat. it was a miracle you even made it down the stairs, using what little strength you had to yank it open without even thinking about who could be on the other side in the middle of the fucking night. but at this point, you would gladly take a serial killer over jimin or jungkook.

"taehyung," you breathe when you take in his face, relieved. you must look like absolute shit because he scans your face and winces. 

"jimin told me," he says, the apology in his voice and expression was almost painful to register. "he told me everything. ____, i'm so sorry. i should have told you about the hoseok thing, i just thought it would be worse coming from me, and then i tried to force jimin into confessing but then he didn't because he's jimin, and now-"

"you're only allowed to come inside if you stop apologising," you say weakly, voice haggered from the hours of crying.

taehyung's pouty expression almost makes you smile with how cute he looks, gingerly stepping over the threshhold. "i really am sorry though."

"for what," you say monotonously, closing the door behind him while he takes off his shoes. "my inexplicably terrible taste in men? my uncanny ability to get manipulated by literally anyone who shows me a scrap of affection? or my absolutey shredded-to-shit attachment style thats barely intact let alone functioning healthily? after hoppping between the first two for a few hours i'd personally go for the latter. but whatever."

"please shut up," taehyung sighs, bringing you into his arms before you could have a second thought about it. "you need to amp up the misandry in this context. a lot of this had nothing to do with you and everything to do jimin and jungkook."

you're too tired to open your eyes, snuggling into the softness of taehyung's chest. you’re too exhausted to argue. "where did you learn the word misandry? have you been reading?"

"yeah," you can hear his big, pleased grin. "i know you and the girls have been calling me a himbo behind my back."

"affectionately," you add, peering up at him. he wipes the wetness off your cheeks, moving upstairs to your room with your hand in his. he fetches you a glass of water before putting you into bed like he's paid to do it. taehyung was the cuddliest person you had ever met, but you had rarely seen him dote on anyone. "girls love himbos. it's a compliment."

"not all girls," he mutters when he returns from the bathroom with a glass of water. "drink this, would you? you look so dry it's making me itchy."

you do as he says with a roll of your eyes. "what do you mean?" you finish your water with a big gulp. "jisoo loves dumb guys, what are you talking about?"

taehyung looks away from you, bottom lip rolling up under his teeth so fast you barely catch it. he pulls up your desk chair next to your bed, thinking long and hard before meeting your eyes again. "i don't mean jisoo."

you don't understand at first, but after staring at his face for a long minute your stomach drops. "don't. don't you fucking dare," another beat of silence. you rip the covers off you to scamble to your knees, grab your pillow and hurl it at taehyung's head. "taehyung, please don't tell me that the one remaining, healthy relationship i have with a man has also been shot to shit because i swear to god i'm gonna-"

"it's not a big deal," he says firmly, and he really does mean it. taehyung catches your wrists when you lunge at him, effectively ending your outburst before it can begin. he keeps hold of them while he stares into your eyes, watching the way they fill up with a fresh bout of tears. "i've had a crush on you for a while, so what? it's not anyone's business but mine so don't worry about it."

you try not to scream at him. "how long?"

"...since the start." he shrugs. "it's not like i could have done anything anyway. with jimin around. he’d never have it."

"but...! but..." you splutter, the highlight reel of your friendship suddenly marred before your eyes. "but you let me talk to you about boys! you gave me advice with hobi and jimin and jungkook and...! you encouraged jimin to confess to me. and the whole thing with jisoo?"

he wets his lips guiltily. "jisoo is a nice girl. i like her, but...not like you. i've always liked you."

you shake your head in horror, your face crumpling. bile rose in your throat. "so all of that...playing with my friend like that. was just to get to me?"

"listen to me," taehyung says firmly, gripping your wrists to make you look at him again. he's so close you can feel the warmth of his breath on yours, and you never realised how large taehyung's torso was compared to yours before. he could have smothered you, but he didn't. in all senses. "the way jimin and jungkook handled their feelings is on them, just like how this is on me. it doesn't matter if i'm fucking you or not, you're my friend and i'll always want people to do right by you. and that includes me."

there was nothing else to say, so taehyung wordlessly wipes your face again and fetches you more water before retreating to sleep on the couch downstairs. all the while you sat there in your bed, confused and bewildered and thoughtful. the same bed jungkook fucked you on. the same bed jimin held you in. out of all the men in your life, taehyung was the only one who treated his feelings for you with reverence. there wasn't one interaction you could think of where he made his feelings clear, where he even hinted towards wanting something more. if he hadn't have said anything tonight, in the wake of one of the most emotionally tumultuous days of your life, you would still be in the dark about it all. and that was the scariest part. you didn't know anyone else who hadn't let their feelings for you effect how they treated you. so ultimately, it was possible.

and jimin and jungkook chose not to do that. but taehyung did.

taehyung did.

when you finally pad downstairs after hours of ruminating, jisoo's bedroom door is wide open. and that's who you should be thinking about now - your friend and sister jisoo - as the sky begins to lighten with the signs of morning. you hadn't slept for over twenty four hours, you were hungry and thirsty, delirious from the whirlwind of losing the two most important men in your life in one day. but still, you are drawn to taehyung. taehyung, who never asked anything of you. taehyung, who was as silent as he was selfless this whole time. taehyung who routinely put what he wanted aside in favour of what was best for you. taehyung, who protected you without needing credit or recognition for it. taehyung, taehyung, taehyung, taehyung, taehyung-

"taehyung," you whisper scraping your nails through his hair. his eyes fluttered open, twisting his head to face you as you hovered above him. he could barely see you in the darkness. "taehyung, wake up."

"what is it?" he croaks, sitting up with half-lidded eyes and a yawn. he doesn't know how to read the expression on your face. he swings his legs off the sofa in a sitting position, wearing nothing but his boxers and tee, visibly alarmed. "what happened? are you okay?"

you take his face in your hands and kiss him. 

taehyung stiffens against you, breath drawn thin. you pull away to gauge his expression, desperately searching his eyes in the darkness. for discomfort, disapproval, anything negative at all. the absolute ardour you find instead could knock you down if taehyung didn't reach for your neck, kissing you again. you whine at the feel of his tongue, having no idea where such sudden and intense arousal was coming from. when you pull away with shaky limbs, you climb onto his thick thighs so he can feel your wetness through his boxers. taehyung grunts at the sensation, and again when you kiss him passionately and without abandon. the sweet girl every guy he knew was agonising over, suddenly in his lap. he's barely had his tongue down your throat for ten minutes and you're already rocking into him, his erection betraying his resolve.

it's better than he dreamed. 

"taehyung," you gasp, palming him now. he groans when he pulls away to look at your mouth, glistening with his saliva when you take his hand and guide it down to your arousal. "please."

[wolferine]

Forgiven

Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Summary: One-shot sequel to my “Unforgivable” series. After being paralyzed in an accident, Natasha reunites with her lover who caused the accident in the first place.

Warnings: Mentions of torture, language

Word count: 2300

Tags: @yeetus-thyself @phoenixofash @yeeterthekeeper @alessiapn @diaryoflife @norwaynatasharomanoff @lovelyy-moonlight @nightingalxx @supersourlemon13

AN: This one’s for you, @allhailthelesbian! :)

You do not have to read the previous story to follow this one!

Something shifts in your arms and you instinctively tighten them, feeling a tickle of hair across your nose.

“Y/N,” Natasha whispers, “You squeeze me any harder and I’m gonna choke to death.”

“Huh?” You loosen your arms and open your eyes, finding your red-haired, green-eyed beauty staring back at you.

“Good morning,” she says.

“Good morning.” You close your eyes again and press your foreheads together.

“Ready for a workout?” she asks.

You chuckle. “It’s been a while since I’ve done one of those.”

She traces her finger over your bicep. While you’ve lost some weight in the past few months, you’ve still got some wiry strength, but you know you have some catching up to do. 

“Really? I couldn’t tell,” she says. “But my legs don’t even work and I’m not using that as an excuse.”

“Okay, okay,” you sigh. “Five more minutes?”

“Fine. Only because I need your help getting to the bathroom, anyway.”

“Oh.” Your eyes fly back open. Although Natasha’s been living with her condition for more than six months, it’s still your first week back with her and sometimes you forget her needs are different than before you left. “I can just get up now—” you start.

“It’s fine,” she says, pushing you back onto the bed as you try to sit up.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Ask me again in five minutes.” She snuggles closer to you and her breath is hot against your collarbone. You close your eyes again and feel her touch the starburst of a scar on your cheek from where her bullet had struck your face.

“I’m sorry for hurting you,” she whispered.

“Hmm?”

“When I fired my gun, I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” she says. “I just wanted to distract you. But then my bullet bounced off the pole and hit you in the face.”

“It’s okay,” you reply, knowing you’ve done far worse to her. A minor blemish was nothing compared to losing control of your legs.

Ten minutes later, Natasha announces she needs to use the bathroom. You sit up without being told twice and pick her up bridal-style, carrying her into the bathroom. Tony had made some modifications, such as adding handlebars near the toilet and inside the shower and lowering the medicine cabinet for easier access.

“Can you bring my wheelchair in? So you don’t have to keep carrying me back and forth,” Natasha asks as you help situate her on the toilet.

“I don’t mind,” you say.

“But I do,” she says.

Without argument, you move her wheelchair from the bedroom to the bathroom. “Holler if you need me,” you say, closing the door and going to change into a tank top and shorts. When you’re done, you hear water running in the sink and can’t help asking, “Everything okay in there?”

“Uh-huh! Jus’ brushin’ my teef!”

“Okay! Take your time.” You don’t want to be overbearing but you want to be ready to help when she needs it. Tony had talked to you about how independent she was; she insisted on learning how to do everything for herself, not liking the help of caregivers or nurses. 

Obviously, she was more comfortable asking you for help than a stranger, but you knew her well enough to know that she hated showing any signs of vulnerability, even if she really needed help.

Natasha rolls out of the bathroom and you trade spots with her, using the toilet and brushing your teeth. When you come out, she’s by the closet with her back towards you. She has on a workout shirt and struggles to pull a pair of shorts up her legs.

“Do you need some help?” you ask. Tony had told you to always ask first instead of jumping right in.

“Yes, please.” Natasha sighs. The shorts are hooked around her feet. “It’s…It’s a little hard for me to reach sometimes.”

“That’s okay.” You kneel and shimmy the shorts over her knees. 

“Can you pick me up so I can pull them on?” she asks.

“Sure.” You wrap your arms under hers and gently lift her high enough for her to pull the shorts up to her hips.

“Thanks.” You set her back down and help her put her shoes on. “All ready?”

“Let’s go.”

You go down to the Avengers’ state-of-the-art gym, containing every single piece of workout equipment you’re humanly aware of. There are weights up to the ton and a 12-foot deep Olympic-sized swimming pool.

“What did you have in mind today?” you ask as you walk next Natasha. She rolls suspiciously close to the swimming pool and you wish you could squeeze yourself on the other side of her to make sure she doesn’t fall in.

“Leg day,” she says.

“Huh?”

“Kidding!” Natasha laughs when suddenly, her wheelchair catches on the end of a loose pool noodle someone had left out and she launches from her wheelchair into the pool. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, you would’ve cried from laughter, but instead your heart drops to your feet and you jump into action—literally.

“Nat!” you scream, diving in headfirst. Underwater, you open your eyes, letting the chlorine burn into them, and see the blurry shape of Natasha bobbing up to the surface. You swim towards her and when lift your head to take a breath, you find her howling in laughter.

“What are you laughing at?” you ask, coughing up a mouthful of water.

“I’ve been swimming every day since the accident, babe,” she says, doing a much better job of treading water than you. And she doesn’t even have use of her legs. “I’m not going to drown.”

“Well, I might.” Your head dips under and you swallow a mouthful of water. Natasha wraps her hand around your arm and yanks you up.

“Seriously?” she asks.

“Haven’t…swam…in a while,” you choke.

“So, you thought you could jump in and save me when you can barely save yourself?” Natasha shakes her head, but admires your blinding love for her. She drags you over to the wall and grabs the pool noodle. “Use this.” 

You bend the noodle under your arms, grateful for the moment of rest.

“Okay, let’s go do a few laps now!” She paddles away before you can protest. Grudgingly, you kick after her.

***********************************************************************

An hour later, you’re so exhausted you can barely walk and you’re tempted to ask Natasha if she’ll let you sit on her lap while you go back up to your room.

“Shower together?” Natasha asks, and there’s a hint of shyness in her voice.

“Sure.” You’ve already seen there’s plenty of room for the both of you. First, you get Natasha settled into her shower chair before you turn around and take your dripping workout clothes off.

It’s the first time she’s seen you naked since you left. Her eyes trace over the visible bones of your ribs and the scars crisscrossing your back. There’s a burn in the shape of a triangle on the back of your left shoulder, where Hammer had tried to brand you with his logo. Because he didn’t see you as a person, but his property.

Natasha knows that although she’s had a difficult past six months, you had been in your own hell.

You turn towards her and see the sadness in her eyes. “What’s wrong?” you ask.

She doesn’t say anything and offers her hand, pulling you into the shower. You turn on the water, removing the showerhead from the wall to spray over the both of you. There is nothing sexual in any of your actions as you help each other shampoo your hairs and wash your bodies. However, the closeness is still intimate and comforting.

Afterwards, you both dry off and get dressed, going into the kitchen for breakfast. Falling back into a routine with your girlfriend—even after six months—is the easiest thing you ever did. But even though it’s almost like you never left, things aren’t exactly the same, and you want to make up for the lost time as much as you can.

***********************************************************************

When lunchtime rolls around, Natasha suggests taking you to your favorite diner. You haven’t driven a car in six months, so you’re a little nervous when you go down to the garage, until Natasha insists that she’ll drive instead. She takes you over to her black Corvette Stingray, which never fails to make you whistle.

You help her into the driver’s seat, noticing the specialized hand control Tony installed so she could work the pedals with a hand lever. You make a mental note to thank him again for being so generous in caring for your girlfriend in your absence. When you sit in the passenger seat, it feels just like old times.

“Don’t crash,” you tease.

“Oh, please,” Natasha scoffs. “I can’t even use my legs and I’m still a better driver than you.” 

“Ouch.”

You watch as she expertly maneuvers the steering wheel with her left hand while her right hand pushes and pulls on the handle for the brake and gas pedal.

“You look so badass,” you say.

She looks at you and smiles. “I know.”

“I think I’ll just have you drive me around from now on.” You close your eyes and relax in the seat.

When you arrive at the diner’s parking lot, Natasha skips over the blue handicapped stalls and parks across from them.

“You don’t want to park there?” you ask, pointing to an empty blue stall.

She shakes her head. “Maybe someone else needs it more than me,” she says. “After all, they don’t have you to carry them around.” She tries to make a joke out of it, but you can tell she’s a little embarrassed. It’s also the reason she’s so hesitant to drive her Corvette around: most people who see it assume she’s a jackass trying to take advantage of a handicapped spot.

She’s had people scratch her doors and leave ugly notes on the windshield. One time, before she even had the chance to get out of the car, a group of people had gathered at her door to cuss her out. Their red faces of embarrassment and stuttered apologies when Tony helped her into her wheelchair was something she would never forget.

You get her wheelchair out of the trunk and set it next to her door, helping her into it. Inside the restaurant, the waitress removes one of the chairs at your table so Natasha can sit next to you. You don’t even bother looking at the menu, knowing exactly what you want.

You end up finishing all of your food and Natasha’s leftovers, and she can only laugh at your appetite.

“Hammer didn’t you feed you enough?” she teases.

“I’m pretty sure the stuff he gave me can’t even be counted as food,” you respond.

“Before we go home, I want to take you somewhere special,” she says as you leave the restaurant. “I visit it once a week.”

“Let’s do it.”

She drives you to a high school. But since it’s the weekend, the parking lot is empty except for a few cars. Natasha takes you inside. As you go down the hall with her, she grabs onto your hand.

“You don’t need both hands to roll?” you joke.

“I just like being close to you,” she says. Her wheelchair is at the perfect height that you don’t have to strain your shoulder lower to hold her hand. She directs you into a classroom, and when you step inside, you see some people already there. 

They’re all in wheelchairs.

You suddenly feel angry at Natasha for bringing you here. Was she trying to make you feel even more guilty for what you had done to her? These people were all going through their own pain, and here you were having caused that exact same pain to your own lover.

“Hey, everyone,” Natasha says with a confidence in her voice you haven’t heard yet. “This is my partner I’ve told you all about, Y/N.”

“Hi, Y/N!” they chorus. You cringe, wondering how much of yourself Natasha told them. Some of them are like her, paralyzed from the waist down, while others move their wheelchairs around by blowing into tubes or pressing a remote hanging from their necks.

You move out to the hallway and Natasha follows you.

“Why did you bring me here?” you whisper, your stomach churning. You feel like you’ve intruded on something private, something you don’t have the right to be a part of. “What were you thinking—” 

“Please stay,” she begs. “They’re all my friends, and some of them bring their partners along, too. It’s not an exclusive club or anything. We tell stories and learn how to get through things together.

“My condition changed everything for me, but it’s also a change for you. I want to make sure you get the support you need. Because there’s not just two of us in this relationship anymore,” she continues, and you raise your eyebrow. “It’s me, you, and my condition.

“I don’t want you to feel like I’m your burden or you’re my caregiver. I’m still the same as I always was. I can’t do everything myself and I might need your help. It’s just a different kind of help than before.”

You kneel and cup her face. “I love you, Nat. I’ll be here for you, whenever and whatever you need,” you promise.

She leans forward to kiss you. “I know.”

And with that kiss, you feel her forgiveness wash over you, cleansing you of the guilt and trauma of what you did. She had already forgiven you, a long time ago. You couldn’t continue to be so hard on yourself if you wanted the relationship to work. 

You know it won’t be an easy journey, and it’s only the beginning, but with Natasha by your side again, you feel completely unstoppable.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

AN: I was definitely nervous writing this as I have little experience working with people with paralysis, so I did some research and hope I did it justice! If there’s anything out of place, please let me know. :)

Join my taglist for future stories here! Thanks for reading, and until next time…

[jenonctcity]

Art Of Innocence

The Virgin Series – Huang Renjun

Part of ‘The Virgin Diaries’ Series

Virgin!Au, University!Au, Bestfriend-Lovers!Au

Genre: Fluff, Smut, Angst.

Warnings: Explicit Sex, Very brief mentions of drug and alcohol, Loss of virginity. 

Word Count: 11.8k

Summary: Art and gaming. That’s all Renjun found himself doing. Of course he spent time with his friends, but he had to be dragged away from his games console or easel first. Renjun had been brought up around art, his mother being an artist and his father being a drama teacher. So it wasn’t a shock to anyone when he decided to study art at university. His quiet, shy, nerdy nature meant that he didn’t get much attention when walking around campus, which is just how he liked it. You however, had found him on your first day of university and had stuck to him like glue. He pretended as if you didn’t mean that much to him, but you and him both knew he would be lost without you. Only, you didn’t know he was a virgin. So after you found out about the pact from one of the other boys, you couldn’t wait to intercept his gaming session and quiz him on his innocence. You couldn’t help it, but you suddenly saw him in a different light, one that had your fingers tingling and stomach flipping. The same way Renjun had felt looking at you since the first day he’d met you.

---

Meeting Renjun had been noteworthy. It isn’t every day that you find yourself a best friend upon your first meeting with someone, but with Renjun it had come very naturally. It had started when you’d tripped over the tiniest stick in existence, which you still have no idea how you did that, and had fallen straight into Renjun. It was very cliché, which is the exact reason you picked him to be your new best friend. He had been more than surprised when a beautiful girl he’d never met before flew into his arms and had face planted straight into his chest. After he’d gotten over his initial shock and had straightened you up onto your feet, he’d accepted the bumble of apologies that came flying out of your mouth and was ready to move on with his life. What he didn’t expect was for you to notice the Moomin keyring on his backpack and to spark up a conversation about it that seemed like it went on forever, with you repeating yourself and him just listening. Before he knew it, the two of you had walked around campus twice and he’d found out that your name is (Y/N) and you have a tendency to ramble on about random crap. But he liked to listen to your random crap, and he could see the beautiful friendship blossoming before his eyes.

So you and Renjun soon became close. You learnt his class schedule and forced him to learn yours, so that it was easier for the two of you to spend time together. At first, you had a feeling Renjun wasn’t overly keen on being your friend, but after a little while you just realised he had an attitude where he pretended he didn’t care about anything, since he would start waiting outside of your classroom for you to finish when you hadn’t even made plans with him. With Renjun, came his best friends. Jaemin, Jeno, and Donghyuck. You got on really well with them, but you only saw them when you went over to their shared apartment to see Renjun, or if they invited you to go to the classic American style diner down the road from their apartment. You also learnt a lot about his past. He was born in China but after his father got a job in Korea, they moved over when Renjun was eleven and they’d been there ever since. When you’d heard that his mother was a freelance artist and his father was a drama teacher, it made sense to you. Renjun was studying art and had a natural talent you can only assume was passed onto him from his parents.

You couldn’t even count the amount of times on both of your hands that Renjun had drawn you little pictures of random things. He was very generous with his art and even though you’d never asked him or expected him to draw or paint you anything, he loved to surprise you with a small painting of flowers or a sketch he’d done of you based purely off of his memory of your details and features. His art was hugely impressive, his people skills on the other hand, not so much. He was quiet, and he kept to himself, only spending time with you, or the boys. The more you got to know Renjun, the more you were surprised that he even let you cling to him like you did, but you never once thought that it could be because he formed a crush on you. From the moment that Renjun had laid eyes on you when you bumped into him, he had felt his heart jump on a rocket ship and take flight. He was so smitten for you, but he didn’t want you to notice, so he hid it well and preferred to show his affection towards you in subtle ways, like paying for your lunch, walking you back to your dorm, or drawing you a silly picture of a worm. Even after a year and a half of Renjun feeling that way, you however, had never really thought of Renjun in any other way other than platonic. Of course you thought he was beautiful; he was one of the most beautiful males you’d ever laid eyes on. He had deep brown eyes that sparkled in the sunlight, a cute little nose and a smile that made you want to pinch his cheeks and coo at him. Which the one time you did, his cheeks went so red that he whined for about half an hour that he was embarrassed.

You were more than happy that the apartment the boys lived in wasn’t too far from campus, it was only a ten minute walk if you picked up the pace and you could stop off at the convenience store on the way to buy snacks. Also it meant that you didn’t have to be in the cold January air for long, which was a bonus. With your backpack now heavier from the soda and snacks you bought, you knocked on their apartment door and waited patiently, rocking backwards and forwards on your feet. The door swung open and a smiley Donghyuck appeared behind the door.

“Hey (Y/N).” He opened the door wide enough for you to step in. You smiled back and quickly took your shoes off in the entrance.

“Hey Hyuck.” You neatly arranged your shoes by the door and pulled off your backpack and winter coat, hanging it up on the coat rack before shuffling through to the living room. As per usual, Renjun was nowhere in sight, but Jeno and Jaemin were sat on the sofas with their laptops on their laps with the tv showing old episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants. They both glanced up when you entered and smiled, Jaemin looking overly smug as he looked at you.

“Well hello (Y/N).” The Jaemin spoke had your eyebrows raising in question at his tone. It sounded like he knew something you didn’t and knowing Jaemin, it sent a shiver down your spine.

“Hello Jaemin…is Renjun in his room?”

“Yep.” You quickly rushed to Renjun’s bedroom, not bothering to knock on the door because you knew he wouldn’t hear you knock anyway. Upon entering you saw Renjun in his typical position. Sat in his gaming chair at his desk, playing some random game on his desktop with his gigantic headphones covering half of his head. “Hey Renjun!” You chirped, throwing yourself on his bed. He completely ignored you, too invested in his game to even notice that you’d entered his room. His eyes were glued to the screen and his mouth was popped open in his concentration. “Renjun…Renjun!” You raised your voice until eventually he turned his head, giving you a nod and a brief greeting as he moved his attention back to his game. “Seriously?” You sighed and rolled your eyes. “I’ll be in the living room.” You grumbled and walked out of his room, leaving the door open and making your way back to the living room.

“Hey, guess what.” Jaemin turned his attention to you as you entered the room again and sat yourself down in between him and Jeno.

“What?” You laid your head back against the sofa and tilted it towards Jaemin, getting relaxed and preparing yourself for the dumb thing he was probably about to say.

“So you know how Renjun is a virgin-”

“WHAT?!” You shot up, sitting bolt upright with a look that was a mix of shock and amusement on your face. Jaemin and Jeno both flinched at your loud voice, looking shocked themselves. Donghyuck let out a snigger across the room where he was sitting on his phone. “I mean I had a feeling he was a virgin, but he never told me! He always avoided the topic of girls whenever I brought it up.”

“Oh…anyway now you know,” Jaemin scratched the back of his head awkwardly, as if he’d just let out a big secret that he shouldn’t have. “So we have this little pact going, and since you’re a female and super close to Renjun, I thought you could help him out.” He grinned widely at you, closing his laptop and shifting all of his attention to you.

“I don’t like where this is going…” You narrowed your eyes in suspicion at him, having heard stories about Jaemin’s little schemes that didn’t end up going well and have caused plenty of stories you’re sure that the boys will be telling their grandchildren one day.

“It isn’t bad, don’t worry.” Jeno leaned over and mumbled to you. You let out a small sigh of relief but still held a little bit of suspense inside of you as you watch Jaemin.

“The pact is, we all have to lose our virginities before the end of the year-”

“You’re all virgins?” You titled your head in curiosity, actually quite shocked hearing that these four handsome boys were all virgins still. It was a big surprise to you that Donghyuck was a virgin, as you knew him to have the party boy reputation, and a party where everyone is making decisions under the influence of alcohol and other non-legal substances is an easy opportunity to lose your virginity.

“Yeah, anyway,” Jaemin shook his hand to try and grab your attention back to him as you looked around at the nodding boys. “Like I said, we have to lose our virginities before the end of 2020. You know Renjun really well and we all know how much of an introverted nerd he is-”

“That’s a bit harsh.” You interrupted Jaemin yet again, causing him to narrow his eyes at you. You sunk your head into your neck slightly and giggled. “Sorry, carry on.”

“Anyway,” He out a lot of emphasis on the word, giving you a wide-eyed look that almost dared you to interrupt him one more time. “He’s going to need a bit of help. He’s the only one we’re worried about finding someone to do the dirty with. So this is where you come in!” He patted your thigh and gave you a big, closed mouth grin. “You need to help him get his dick wet.” You felt a bit sad for Renjun. It made you sad that his best friends didn’t have confidence in his ability to get some, because you knew that if Renjun really put his mind to something, he could easily pull it off. Just because Renjun hadn’t had sex yet, doesn’t mean he’s incapable of it. And no, you’d never seen him flirt with anyone, or even lay eyes on another female, or…even show interest in another female…but that doesn’t mean he will struggle to fuck someone.

“He won’t need my help! The school year started two days ago and we’re less than a month into the new year, he has loads of time, there’s no rush.” You shrugged, sticking up for him as he wasn’t there to defend his own honour.

“Yeah we’re just saying that he might need a little…push in the right direction!” Jaemin was clearly only trying to help, so you didn’t get mad at him. Instead you rolled your eyes and patted Jaemin’s thigh.

“Let me handle it.” You pushed yourself up from the sofa and went back to Renjun’s room, rolling your eyes once more when you saw him sat in the exact same position as he was when you’d left the room. Instead of letting him ignore you though, you shut the door behind you, and marched up behind him. “Oi.” You lifted his headphones off of his head despite the little whine he let out. “I heard a little rumour about you Renjunnie.” You whispered in his ear, causing him to visibly shudder. He furrowed his eyebrows and turned off his game, spinning his chair around to face you as you perched on the end of his bed.

“A rumour? About what?” He tilted his head like a curious puppy, his knee bouncing which you had noticed he did as a little habit. One of the things you found endearing about Renjun was that he had a lot of little nervous habits. One of them was he fidgeted a lot, especially when the room was quiet but there was a lot of people surrounding him. Another one of his little habits was biting his nails, which you had reprimanded him for plenty of times, often by smacking his hand away from his face and giving him a glare.

“I heard from someone that you did some dirty dirty things at the new years party.” You winked at him, wondering if he would fall for your little story. You didn’t think it would be fun just to straight up tell him you knew about the pact and his very much still intact innocence, so instead you did what any best friend would do and wind him about it.

“Who said that?!” He frowned quickly, confusion settling over his features. He was wearing an oversized hoodie with matching sweatpants, and he looked far too cute and cosy to have a frown on his face. He slouched further into his seat and spread his legs out further, his habit of manspreading to the max still just as bad as it always was.

“A little birdie told me.” You smirked, putting your elbow on your thigh and leaning your head against your hand. You were trying really hard not to laugh, but Renjun hadn’t noticed that you were just teasing him yet. “Did you fuck someone again?” You titled your head, feigning innocence as his eyes squinted and he looked even more confused than before.

“Again? What on earth are you bumbling on about?” His cheeks were starting to pink up and that’s when you knew you had him where you wanted him.

“Well you’ve fucked someone before, haven’t you? So that would mean if you did it at the party then it would have been again! You following me?” You finished talking with a little giggle, biting your bottom lip to stop yourself from bursting out into full laughter.

“I-I…no I haven’t fucked anyone before. Whoever told you that was lying a-…no one told you a rumour, did they?” He raised an eyebrow as he caught onto your lie. He really did know you too well and he could see that you were holding in laughter. “You just wanted me to admit that I’m a virgin!” He stood up quickly and you gasped, knowing exactly what he was about to do. You quickly pushed yourself up the bed to try and escape from him.

“No Renjun I’m sorry no don’t tickle meeeee!” It was too late though, before you’d even finished your sentence, he had cornered you against the headboard of his single bed and had his hands digging into your sides.

“This is what you deserve!” He laughed, not bothered at all about being a virgin, so it didn’t bother him that you tried to amuse yourself with it. If it made you smile, Renjun would do take all the embarrassment in the world.

“Stooooooop!” You squealed, trying your hardest to push him away from you. He laughed with you, eventually relenting and removing his hands from you. He slapped your knee and sat beside you.

“That’s what you get for virgin shaming me.” He sniggered, bumping his shoulder into yours and crossing his arms in his lap. You didn’t notice the way he looked at you with a slight longing in his dark eyes. He yearned for your company; he was just too shy to tell you that all he wanted was for you to be cuddled up in his arms in times like this. He was too afraid to be rejected by you, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep the friendship alive; his awkwardness would play too much of a part and he wouldn’t be able to act like he normally did around you.

“I think it’s cute that you’re an innocent little bean!” You wrapped your arms around his shoulders from beside him and smiled up at him. “I bet you’ll be right kinky little fucker.” You sniggered, noticing how his cheeks went a dark red as he blushed. But he laughed with you despite his mouth popping open in shock. “Spank me daddy.” He gave you a gentle shove and flopped back on his bed, trying desperately to direct his thoughts in another direction at your vulgar saying. He didn’t have a daddy kink, well not that he knew of, but hearing you say something to erotic made his stomach spark up a fire he couldn’t control. He squeezed his eyes shut, taking a deep breath and letting out a sigh.

“Gross.” Was all he mumbled, throwing his arms over his face to hide his embarrassment. You looked down at Renjun and felt a strange feeling you’d never felt when you’d looked at him before. Of course you found him attractive, but you’d never found yourself attracted to him before. So why were you suddenly having thoughts about what he would look like with shirt off as you looked down at the soft, embarrassed boy. Luckily, he had his eyes shut and his arms over his face, so he couldn’t see your eyes trailing up and down his body.

“So, Jaemin told me about the pact you have with them. Who are you planning on seducing?” He gently removed his arms and popped open an eye to look at you, not missing the way you wiggled your eyebrows at him suggestively.

“I haven’t even thought about it yet.” He shrugged, slowly pushing himself to sit up. You glanced around his room, your eyes trailing over the PlayStation and Xbox connected to his desktop monitor that you’d seen hundreds of times, before moving to the easel in the corner of his room that had an unfinished painting of what you assumed was supposed to be abstract art, as you couldn’t make out what the hell he was painting. His room was super cramped from how much he’d crammed into the small space, but it was cosy, and you’d fallen asleep squished up against him on his single bed plenty of times when he was gaming and you were bored. You loved being in his room.

“Leave it with me big boy.” You winked, patting his thigh, and ignoring the strange feeling you got in your stomach and the small amount of contact.

 ---

“Okay, so I know you’ve probably been anticipating this all week, but I have finally finished my list of ways that you can dip your dick into some vagina okay?” Your uncouth way of speaking had Renjun cringing and lowering his head slightly as he sat opposite you in the Chinese restaurant. Even though you said it quietly, he still went bright red at the thought of someone around hearing you and he nearly choked on his chicken. It was also the way that you had brought it up at the first moment of silence between you two since you’d sat down in the restaurant. You’d previously been talking about how you thought apple music was far superior to spotify, and then after the conversation on that topic was over, you’d swooped straight in with the kill.

“I know you won’t shut up until you tell me, so go for it.” He didn’t voice it, but he hoped that you would be subtle with whatever you had concocted in your own time. You put down your chopsticks to grab your phone out of your bag, quickly opening up your notes and clearing your throat.

“Option number one, go to a party with Donghyuck and find a lovely sober lady to take home.” You had a small nagging feeling in your stomach that was telling you he hoped you said no to all of the things on your list, and you couldn’t tell why you felt that way. He wrinkled up his nose and shook his head quickly.

“I don’t do parties; New Year’s Eve was a one off because it was the turn of the year and Jeno told me if I didn’t go then he’d throw all of my boxers off of the roof.” He said that with a serious look on his face, while you let out a quick laugh at the thought of Jeno doing that to his boxers.

“Okay…that doesn’t sound like something Jen would do though?” You titled your head in curiosity. Jaemin? Of course he would threaten to do that. Donghyuck? Also highly likely. Jeno? Nope. That doesn’t sound like something mellow, go with the flow, and responsible Jeno would do.

“He was already drunk off of wine.” Renjun shrugged, taking a sip of his water, and helping himself to the noodles between you both that you were sharing.

“Oh, wine drunk, okay that makes sense.” You nodded in understanding of Jeno’s actions now, placing your phone on the table so that you could go back to eating. You shoved some rice into your mouth and then read out the next option.

“Option number two, I can set you up with that gamer girl in my class. She’s a bit…out there! But that can be a good thing you know; she’ll probably tie you up and ride you over the rainbow.” You smiled at him as if the more you smiled at him, the more likely it would be for him to say yes. Sometimes you couldn’t help the words that tumbled out off your mouth, and after you heard them in your head after they’d been verbally spoken, you cringed. This was one of those moments. Especially when Renjun paused his chewing and gave you a look that was a mix of confusion and being grossed out. “I’ll take that as a no.” You cleared your throat and deleted option number one and two from your phone.

“How many options are there?” He moved his attention back to his food, leaning forward slightly as he shovelled more food into his mouth in an attempt to avoid commenting on your options.

“Four.”

“It took you an entire week and you only came up with four?!” His eyes flicked back to you in surprise.

“I forgot until this morning all right.” You mumbled and rolled your eyes at your own forgetfulness. “Moving on. Number three, you sign up to tinder.” The thought of Renjun signing up to tinder made you want to laugh but puke at the same time. Laugh because the poor boy had no idea how to flirt, and you could see him as the cringey boy who sent a strange pick up line or commented on something in one of the girl’s pictures. Puke because you didn’t want him to go on a date with some random girl you probably didn’t know. Again, confusion swirled around your head, because you’d never felt like that before, mainly because you’d never had any thoughts of Renjun dating since it wasn’t anything he’d ever done since you’d been his friend. Knocking that thought out of your head you cleared watched his face as he turned his nose up to option number three.

“Nope.” Shaking his head and drinking his water again, he wasn’t prepared for your fourth option.

“Fine! Final option, you make a decent amount from selling your work online, right? Hire a hooker!” He choked on his water at how nonchalantly you spoke those words, coughing and trying to catch his breath without causing other people to look over at you both. “Woah you okay buddy?” You giggled nervously and widened your eyes slightly. “Have a sip of water!” You pushed your own cup towards him and watched as his face went completely red.

“You’re insane.” He grunts out with a groggy sounding throat when his coughing fit had finished, quickly sipping at the water from your cup. “I’m not doing that.”

“Well then have fun finding someone to lose your purity too Mr I’m too good for (Y/N)’s ideas.” You folded your arms over your chest and shrugged, faking offense that he didn’t like any of your ideas. “Don’t say I didn’t try to help.”

“Your ideas sucked.” His words came out in a blunt way, which is what you should have expected since Renjun had never been shy about telling you things the way he saw them.

“Whatever, the only other option I can think of is to just fuck me and get it over with.” You pouted, sulking that he didn’t like your admittedly awful ideas. You did it again, you opened your mouth without thinking and even you were shocked at your own suggestion. Your eyes slowly widened as you thought it through in your head. You didn’t know if you even wanted to go there with Renjun, sleeping with someone is a big step for anyone, especially when they’re your best friend, but there was a small burst of butterflies setting off in your stomach at the thought of it. Renjun looked as if his brain was short circuiting, and his mouth opened and closed as he tried to form the right words to reply to you with. A strange awkward cloud settled over the table, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to take the offer back.

“No, I couldn’t.” He shook his head, gulping as he put the water back on the table, letting his eyes wonder everywhere but at you, causing him to miss the way you visibly deflated at his rejection. He didn’t want to just fuck you, no matter how much he longed to have you writhing underneath him, naked and basking in the glory of his affection. He wanted to hold your hand, give you soft, tender kisses that proved how much you had his heart. He wanted to make love to you and wake up the next morning with the certainty that you were his, and the only person who felt your love was him. So no, he couldn’t just fuck you and get it over with. You looked down at your plate, awkwardly pursing your lips as you wallowed in self pity at Renjun’s rejection. Did he not find you attractive? Did he not like you enough to do that? Did he simply not want to ruin your friendship? You didn’t know, and you were too busy feeling sorry for yourself that you didn’t bother asking.

“Okay cool.” You shrugged, sitting opposite him with a sad look on your face for the rest of the meal, even though it didn’t last long as Renjun hurried to pay the bill, despite your whining that you were going to pay. You both left and instead of going back to Renjun’s apartment like you had originally planned, you told him you were tired and promptly walked in the opposite direction to go back to your dorm on campus.

Renjun groaned as he watched you walk away, feeling bad about the way he had just shot you down without even offering you an explanation for why he didn’t want to have sex with you. But he didn’t have it in him just yet to tell you how he really felt for you, too scared that it would either scare you off, or cause you to feel awkward because you didn’t feel the same way as him. Either way, he knew he was screwed.

---

After a week of punishing Renjun for hurting your feelings, you finally decided it was time to relieve him of your absence. You weren’t so harsh as to completely ignore him, but your texts had been vague, and you had simply told him that you were busy whenever he asked you to hang out. You had a feeling that he knew you were upset, because he didn’t wait outside of your class on a Wednesday afternoon like he did every week, and you knew Renjun well enough to know it was because he was giving you your space. He knew you’d go to him when you were ready. Which is the exact reason you were stood in his doorway, staring at his side profile because as per usual, he hadn’t noticed your arrival, too engrossed in playing call of duty on his Xbox with his headset on. Jeno had let you into the apartment with a kind smile, telling you that Renjun had been whining about missing you all week. You were thankful that Jeno went behind Renjun’s back to tell you that, because it was just more confirmation for you that he did in fact like you and wasn’t just using you as someone to hang out with. You did feel silly for feeling that way, but in the moment of being hurt, you couldn’t help but let your mind drift over to the negative side of thoughts.

You approached him without warning, not noticing as his eyes flicked up to look at you in completely surprise at your sudden appearance. He quickly remembered that he was in the middle of a war and went back to looking at his screen, trying not to make it obvious that his heart was pounding so hard in his chest that he was sure it was visible. You swung one of your legs over his, putting your hands on his shoulders and struggling to sit yourself down. He let go of his controller with one hand and helped you onto his lap, his breath held from how close you were as you snuggled your head into his neck, wrapping your arms around his body and his gaming chair. He wrapped his arms around you, holding his controller behind your back and playing the game over your shoulder. This was the first time that you had wiggled your way into his hold when he was playing his games on his gaming chair, so he was beyond surprised, but elated at how warm you felt cuddled up to him. He held you tightly whilst shooting at random people’s characters on the game, completely silent instead of swearing when his own character was shot.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” He mumbled, trying to pretend like it hadn’t affected him. But your absence had his heart yearning for you even more. You just hummed in confirmation at his statement, your hot breath against his neck almost making him sweat from how nervous he was getting at having you where he wanted you. Ever since you’d stumbled into his life, he had wanted to hold you like this whilst he played his video games, loving how it gave you attention and kept you close, whilst he still got to play his games. As you clung onto Renjun, you came to a realisation that you could happily get used to this. It felt strange. You’d never had feelings like this towards him, but as he held you in his arms you came to realise that you were starting to get feelings for him. You knew that it was dangerous. Everyone always says to never fall in love with your best friend, but sometimes you don’t even realise that you’re falling down that slippery slope until you’re already in the deep end.

You heard Renjun put his controller down on the desk behind you before removing his headset, your heart starting to pound as he placed both of his hands underneath your thighs. You gripped onto him tighter as he stood up from his chair with you in his hold. You buried your face into his neck more, smiling to yourself because you assumed he was going to put you on the bed so that you could talk about things. You desperately wanted to ask him why he said he couldn’t fuck you, but at the same time you were scared that you’d hear something you didn’t want to hear, something that would put out the fire of feelings inside your stomach like a bucket of ice cold water. Maybe if things went right you could tell him that you were starting to develop feelings for him, so that the two of you could get control of this situation quickly before anyone got hurt. You also knew that if you stayed quiet about your growing feelings for Renjun and he went and fucked someone else, then you’d be gutted.

Renjun placed you on the edge of his bed and then let go of your thighs, he tried to pull away, but you had a tight grip on him. He moved his hands up and pried your arms away from around his shoulders. He smiled at you softly, reaching out a hand and ruffling your hair before sitting himself back down in his gaming chair. He put his headset back on and picked his controller back up, taking a deep breath to try and steady his heart from how quick it had been pounding when he was touching you. He gulped, fidgeting around in his chair and turning it away from you slightly so that you couldn’t see him as well.

You narrowed your eyes at him, gulping down the pang of hurt you felt at him removing you from his lap and just dumping you on his bed. Not only that, he then went back to playing his game and ignoring you. No boy that liked you in the way you liked them would do that, you thought, quickly standing up and marching out of his bedroom with a scowl on your face. You didn’t even bother to say goodbye to Jeno as you rushed past him, not wanting him to see the tears that were flooding your vision. You weren’t hurt at the realisation that he might not like you in anyway other than platonic, you were hurt that he just brushed you aside and acted as if his games meant more to him than his best friend.

As soon as you got home you muted all his contact on all of your social medias so that you wouldn’t see if he messaged you or not, and then you laid on your bed and sulked, wishing you had an Xbox so you could go on call of duty and kill his character as a way of getting back at him. It was petty, but it was an oddly satisfying way of getting back at him in your mind.

---

It had been another week. You weren’t sure why you were leaving it a week each time before you gave in and let Renjun have his chance of redemption, but it felt like a good amount of time for you to calm down about what had happened. You had cleared your head, focusing on your studying instead of dwelling on your feelings for Renjun, which had stupidly grown over the week. You cursed the first person to claim that distance makes the heart grow fonder, because now you knew first-hand that that statement was correct. You hadn’t read any of the messages you’d received off of Renjun. Not only had he texted you, but he’d sent you snapchats, facebook messaged you, and even came over to your dorm to try and get your attention. When you hadn’t answered the door, he’d slipped a piece of paper underneath your door. It was a cartoon drawing of himself with a speech bubble saying ‘I miss you, I’m sorry for whatever I did’, which annoyed you even more despite how cute it was, because he clearly couldn’t see what he’d done wrong. But you just ignored all of his efforts, wanting him to realise that he had hurt your feelings and you weren’t prepared to just let it go this time. He didn’t get to throw you aside and choose his games over you. Best friend or not, that was super rude in your eyes.

You blamed this stupid pact that the boys had. If they’d never made the pact, then you wouldn’t have been dragged into helping him lose his virginity, then you would have never realised your feelings for him, and things would be how they used to be. But still, things could have ended worse if you hadn’t realised your feelings until after he’d given his innocence away to someone else. Anyway that you looked at it, you just felt like you were stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Renjun had yet to notice you, yet again, as you stood in his doorway with a determined look in your eyes. You knew what you were about to do was stupid. Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid. Yet you knew it would get you the answers that you need to clear your head, and hopefully it would make Renjun realise that you deserved his attention more than his stupid games consoles.

You quickly walked over to him after carefully shutting his door. He didn’t notice you until you were climbing into his lap, his body flinching from how startled he was to suddenly have someone climbing on him. He gulped, just letting you climb onto him, not needing to help you as you moved his limbs around until you were perched in his lap, staring at his face with a slightly worried look on your face. You had all of his attention, his arms tightly around you with both of his hands gripping the controller of his playstation behind your back. All he could hear was the sound of war going on through his headset, because his eyes were now on your eyes, watching them as they scanned his own face. You reached up and slipped his headset from his ears, placing them on his desk before grabbing his face in your palms. He gulped, his lips parting as he tried to find some words, but even a simple hello wouldn’t come out of his mouth. He wasn’t sure where he stood with you. The last thing he knew he was in your bad books, but here you are, sat on his lap with has face in your grip.

His eyes widened when your lips planted themselves on his own. His controller fell out of his hands and tumbled to the floor with a clatter, but he placed his hands on your hips slowly and let his eyes flutter shut. His heart was pounding as he realised that the girl he was head over heels for was kissing him. You had a tight hold on Renjun’s face so that he couldn’t feel your hands shaking, but not tight enough that he couldn’t pull away if he wanted to. Your lips moved slowly against his, and to your relief, he moved his lips in time with yours. The kiss wasn’t perfect, but after you found your rhythm with each other, your lips slotted together like puzzle pieces. You pulled away slightly, your lips now resting less than a centimetre away from his as you tried to steady your breathing. Renjun opened his eyes a slither and stared at your lips, gulping in nervousness before placing a lingering kiss to them once more. Your heart almost burst. That small kiss from Renjun had more of an impact on you than the big kiss you had planted on his lips, because he had initiated that kiss, which meant he wanted to kiss you.

“I’m sorry for whatever I did.” He whispered, his thumbs stroking against the material of your hoodie, his touch feeling warm even through the thick fabric. You sighed and pulled your head further away, opening your eyes and looking him in the eyes.

“You can’t even see what you did wrong Renjun, how can you be sorry?” You slowly let your hands trail from his face to rest lightly on his shoulders. He looked taken aback, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to think of the right words to say to you.

“Because whatever I did hurt your feelings…what did I do?” He tilted his head slightly, his eyebrows furrowing as he tried to rack his brain for the part where he went wrong. His cute expression had your heart soaring, and you were finding it really hard to be mad at him. You were feeling a bit more at ease though, as Renjun had accepted your kiss and had kissed you on his own accord, which in your head must mean that he has some kind of feelings for you.

“We were cuddling, and then you just tossed me aside on your bed and went back to your games, you even turned your back towards me…that hurt my feelings Renjun…you were more interested in your stupid games than you were about me.” You felt slightly silly saying it, especially since your bottom lip naturally pouted itself out like you were a sulking child, but you were glad you got the opportunity to express your feelings to him so that hopefully the two of you could clear the air.

You didn’t miss the way that Renjun’s face went bright red in less than ten seconds, his eyes momentarily widening before he groaned, letting his head roll back as he stared at the ceiling. You raised an eyebrow in confusion at his reaction to your words. He huffed a laugh that turned into a whine, and he raised his head up again, his fluffy brown hair flopping back on his forehead perfectly in place. His face was still burning red and his grip on your hips tightened. “I…oh fuck this is embarrassing…”

“What is?” You titled your head at him, noticing how his adams apple bobbed as he gulped in embarrassment.

“I didn’t remove you from my lap because I wanted to play the games instead of cuddle you. I put you on the bed because you were making…” He took another deep breath and then quickly exhaled and carried on. “You were making me hard, and I didn’t want you to notice. So I moved you and then turned away so you couldn’t see my crotch.” He hands slowly trailed down to your lower back, his fingers lifting up the hem of your hoodie so that his hands were pressed against the warmth of your bare skin. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings; I just didn’t want you to know that I got hard from you sitting on my lap whilst I was playing my games. It was really hot, and I like you a lot, so I panicked and…yeah.” He cut off his own rambling to look at you which he had previously been avoiding as he was explaining his motives to you. Your mouth popped open in complete and utter shock. Of all the reasons why Renjun had done what he’d done you’d made in your head, that was not on the list.

“Y-you like me?” You stuttered out, gulping yourself to get rid of the small lump of emotion forming in your throat. He smiled timidly, nodding his head to confirm your question. “I like you too…oh my god…this is crazy but like…in a good way!” You were struggling to find words, so you simply leaned in and kissed him again, wanting to feel his soft lips on your again. He returned the kiss, basking in the feeling of finally having your warm lips slotted between his own, a fuzzy feeling that felt natural blossoming inside of his chest. The kiss confirmed to you that you did have strong feelings towards your best friend, and you were thankful that you did, because you loved everything about Renjun. Even if he was addicted to gaming and was clearly bad at expressing his feelings. You’d only known about your feelings for him for about two weeks, but they’d been there a lot longer than that, sitting at the back of your heart and waiting for the perfect time to attack you. You wondered when Renjun had come to terms with the fact he had feelings for you. But asking him meant that you’d have to pull your lips away from his, which was out of the question for you. Renjun stopped kissing you, but didn’t drag his lips away far, letting them linger against yours, brushing them with yours as if he couldn’t quite believe that they were there.

“You’ve had sex before, haven’t you?” His voice was barely audible, and you smiled against his lips, placing a very tender peck to his glistening, pouted lips. It hadn’t taken Renjun long to start getting hard, his bulge brushing against your crotch as you shuffled closer to him on his lap, a gasp caught in your throat as you answered him.

“Twice.” You whispered back, your stomach erupting in butterflies as you rocked your hips on him, confirming your suspicions that he did in fact have a hard on. Renjun gulped, his cheeks flaring up as he thought his next words over a few times.

“Wanna make it a third?” Your mouth popped open and you stared at him, completely gobsmacked. Renjun bit his bottom lip, his stomach turning as he thought that maybe he’d said the wrong thing. He thought he’d blown it with you before he even got a chance to really start it. Until you let out a laugh through your open mouth, your eyebrows still raised.

“Huang Renjun! That was so smooth! I’m so proud of you.” You leaned in, licking into his mouth and cupping his face in your hands. He held back the sigh of relief he wanted to let out, instead breathing out of his nose slowly and standing up quickly with you in his grasp, much like he had done the week before. But instead of dumping you on the bed and just going back to his games, instead he threw you down onto his bed and crawled over you, settling his body down on yours gently and bringing his lips back to yours. You were beyond shock at the surprise confidence that was suddenly rushing through Renjun. The normally shy, quiet, and reluctant boy was taking complete control of the situation despite the fact he’d never done this before. You felt pride, and you’d be sure to give him a reward for his courage later on.

You gripped at the back of his t-shirt, bunching the cotton in your hands as you trailed your hands up his back, your lips still locked with his even as you got the shirt to the back of his neck. He pulled away, sitting up on his knees to pull his shirt over his head and tossing it aside. You bit your bottom lip as you trailed your hands down his chest to his abdomen, your eyes following your hands as you admired his body. You had no idea how he managed to stay so fit considering all he did was play games, do art, and eat junk food, but he had an impressive body. You let your fingers fiddle with the buttons on his jeans as you lick your lips, moving your eyes back up his body and seeing that his eyes were locked on your face, his bottom lip stuck between his teeth.

“You’re so beautiful.” He whispered, leaning down and kissing your cheek gently. “I’ve wanted this for a long time.” You noticed his adams apple bob as he gulped, and then all of a sudden he just completely froze, his eyes still as he looked down at you.

“Renjun…?” You sat up in concern, taking his face in your palms and stroking your thumbs against his hot cheeks. “Are you alright?” You pecked his parted lips slowly, letting your lips linger as your thumbs worked small circles on his smooth skin. He cleared his throat, snapping out of his daze and nodding his head.

“Y-yeah, I’m fine I just…what if I’m no good?” His voice was small, and his hands came to rest on your hips. You smiled, holding in your giggle as you dipped your head down to kiss at his throat, swirling your tongue around the spot that you then attached your lips to.

“No ones a porn star on their first attempt, and you know that I won’t judge you anyway.” He seemed to relaxed under your touch and then his hands pushed against you, forcing you to lay back down on the bed.

“Tell me what to do.” He whispered, his cheeks a vibrant red as he stared down at you waiting for instructions. You bit your bottom lip, knowing you had him completely under your thumb, but you didn’t want to push him too far and ruin it for him.

“How about I give you some options and you pick whichever one you want to do?” He nodded quickly in agreement, a small smirk playing on his lips that were a light red from how much you’d kissed them. “Hang on.” You sat up again and pulled your sweater over your head, throwing it on the floor with Renjun’s t-shirt and trying not to smirk at how wide his eyes went when his eyes zoned in on your bra. “You can touch them.” He didn’t need anymore prompting, his hands quickly trailing from your hips to your breast, his hands cupping them and giving them a small squeeze.

“Wow…” He whispered in awe, licking his lips, and bumping his bulge against your crotch to try and get some friction to his growing cock.

“Okay so these are the options, first of all, do you want to do foreplay or just jump straight in?” You didn’t know if he could last until the actual fucking if you did foreplay, but you really hoped he said he wanted the foreplay.

“I want to do foreplay…can I eat you out…please?” You raised your eyebrows as he had clearly picked which foreplay he wanted before you even managed to give him his options.

“Since you asked so nicely.” You bit your bottom lip, watching his every move as he shuffled down the bed, laying on his stomach with his legs hanging off the end of the bed. You leaned forward and unclipped your bra, pulling it from your chest and playfully throwing it onto Renjun’s head. He paused as he laughed softly, your bra covering his vision momentarily until he threw it on the floor. His tongue ran over his lips when he saw your boobs for the first time.

“Wow.” He whispered in awe, shuffling back up the bed and hovering over your body. “Can I?” He swallowed the saliva that had pooled in his mouth from his mouth watering at the sight of your chest.

“You haven’t got to ask for anything Renjun, if you want to do something, do it.” He made eye contact with you, a small smile playing on his lips as he nodded in understanding. His tongue poked out and flicked over your left nipple, his eyes closing briefly as he swirled the wet appendage around the hard nub, covering it with a thin coat of his spit. His lips encased your nipple, sucking it until his mouth like it was going to give him something in return. Your breath left your lungs at the spark that rushed through your body, his tongue still working on your nipple even as he sucked. He reached up and pinched your right nipple gently with his hand, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger before flicking it quickly. You knew he’d seen this in porn, otherwise he wouldn’t have done it with such confidence. Even though porn wasn’t the best educational way to learn how to fuck, you thanked it in this moment, because it was really paying off. You ran your hands through his hair, gripping it tightly and pushing his head south softly, trying to hint that you want him to use his tongue where you needed it the most.

He seemed reluctant to let go of your nipple, but he did in the end, releasing it with a pop and licking down your stomach, pressing kisses along the way until he came to the waistband of your leggings. He glanced up at you with questioning eyes, you nodded as encouragement and then felt his fingers slowly peel the waistband down your legs. “Fuck.” He mumbled upon seeing your blue lace panties. He had the picture engraved forever in his brain and he knew later on he would have a good attempt at drawing what he’d seen. But the drawings would be for his eyes only, and maybe yours depending on how well they resembled you.

You didn’t want to rush him so just watched as he pulled your leggings off of your legs, pulling your socks off with them and placing a soft kiss to your left ankle. He swooped down after tenderly placing your legs over his shoulders, getting himself comfortable on the bed with his face in front of your spread legs. He leaned in, dragging his tongue from your hole to your clit over the top of your panties. His eyes flicked up at you, watching as you took in a sharp inhale of breath, your own eyes locked on him with your mouth parted. He slowly rubbed you over your panties with two of his fingers, his bottom lip tucked between his teeth as he concentrated hard, also slightly in disbelief that he was doing this to you of all people.

“Take them off.” You breathed out, feeling like the material was suffocating you in your want, your need. He wasted no time in complying to your demand, tugging them down your legs and leaving them to lay beside him on the bed. His eyes widened at how your pussy was glistening with slick, and a sense of pride washed over him because he knew that he caused it.

“Shit.” He mumbled, not thinking about his actions before diving his tongue in between your folds, lapping at you like you were a melting ice cream in the summer heat. “Oh fuck.” Your head flopped backwards onto his pillow as he messily ate you out, his tongue travelling up and down, round and round, visiting your clit before meandering back down to dip inside of your leaking hole. “Use your fingers.” Your back arched when he cautiously slid his middle finger inside of you, his hips subconsciously grinding into the bed to release some of the pressure on his hard cock.

“Like this?” He pumped it in and out of you, his tongue pushing against your sensitive clit at the same time.

“Yes! Fuck another!” You didn’t realise how loud you were being, but Renjun wasn’t about to tell you, his pride in what he was doing clouding his mind to the point where he didn’t care who heard. He slid his ring finger in beside his middle finger, sitting up on his knees and leaning down to connect his lips to yours, his tongue clashing against yours in a heated kiss as his fingers pumped in and out of you. He moved to lay beside you, your feet planted on the bed and his lips now on your neck as he worked magic with his fingers. If you weren’t so lost in the feeling his was bringing down on you, you would question whether or not he was really a virgin, because he was making you feel so good with truly little instruction. “Jun stop, I’m gonna cum if you don’t.” You grabbed his wrist, your chest rising and falling fast as you tried to catch your breath and steady the rhythm of your heart. He halted his actions and leaned in, pecking your lips quickly.

“Was it good?” He shyly asked, a small smirk tugging at the corners of his lips as he withdrew his fingers from you, examining the juices coating his fingers and palm, a small bead dribbling down his wrist. You nodded, not being able to speak properly just yet as you tried to will your orgasm back into its hiding spot. “You’re so wet.” He whispered in surprise, his eyes then going back down to your face. “Can I fuck you now?” He was beyond horny, the pressure in his crotch area almost hurting as he used his fingers to pop open the button on his jeans, sliding down the zipper and diving his wet hand inside his boxers to squeeze at his erection.

“Please…wait don’t you want me to suck you off?” You felt bad at not giving what you’d received, but Renjun sat up on his knees again, positioning himself between your legs.

“If you touch my dick I will cum, and I want to cum inside of you.” He quickly rose from the bed, turning his back from you as he went to his desk, opening up a drawer and pulling out a silver packet. He pulled his jeans and boxers down in one swift motion, his back still turned away from you so you didn’t get to see his cock yet. He rolled the condom on his length, taking a deep breath to try and compose himself as he pumped himself a few times. He then turned around, trying not to cower underneath your sultry gaze that soon fell from his face to his cock. You knew he was nervous, and he was still your best friend, so you winked at him.

“Nice cock.” You spread your legs wider as a silent invite for him.

“Thanks.” He chuckled, his face beet red and his hair looking like a bird’s nest from how your fingers had ruffled through it. He clambered onto the bed, moving so that he was hovering over you with his left hand planted on the bed next to your neck. He used his right hand to grip at his shaft. “I love you.” He whispered, leaning down and placing a kiss so sweet to your lips that you almost melted through his bed. You heart felt like it was swelling up in your chest as you wrapped your arms around his neck, keeping his lips close to yours.

“Love you too Renjunnie.” You whispered back; your words mumbled into his lips as he guided his cock inside of you slowly. He paused halfway, taking a deep breath, and then exhaling through his nose to try and compose himself. Once he was fully inside of you he leaned down and tucked head into the crook of your neck, laying gentle butterfly kisses to your skin, breathing in your scent and waiting for you both to adjust.

After a minute he gently pulled his hips back, then pushed them against you again, his cock sliding in and out of you in a steady but gradual rhythm. He groaned into your neck, feeling an unimaginable amount of pleasure buried in your warm, wet walls. He’d jerked off a lot of times throughout his years, but that felt like nothing compared to how you felt around him. His cock felt so snug inside of you, like you were made to fit him inside. You panted, closing your eyes and wrapping your legs around him, your hands moving from his neck to grip at his hair once again, tugging it softly to cope with the pleasure you felt every time his cock would push back into you.

His hips sped up, the sound of skin slapping against skin resonating around the room as you started to lose control of your vocal chords, your mouth spilling moans as you bucked your hips up into his, looking for more even if what he was giving you was more than enough. “(Y/N), fuck baby girl.” He moaned loudly, pushing up onto his arms so he was staring down at you, his eyes boring into yours as his hips moved at a different angle, hitting a new spot inside of you that had your eyes almost rolling into the back of your head. “I can’t hold on much longer.” You were happy he was admitting it so that you didn’t hold back on your own orgasm, wanting to cum around his pulsating cock inside of you. The dirty thought had your back arching, your hands moving from his body to grip at the sheets of his bed, looking for something to squeeze as the pressure you felt building up inside of you was so astronomical you felt like you were going to burst. His thrusts became sloppy as his peak came closer, sitting back on his heels more and gripping at your hips tightly.

“Renjun harder!” You squealed, your thighs quivering and toes curling as he delivered three hard thrusts that had you moaning out loudly, your orgasm crashing into you like a wave of lava consuming your body. You were actually surprised that he’d managed to make you cum before he did, considering he was the virgin and you knew it was rare for you to climax so fast. There was just something about Renjun that had your nerves on fire, your body reacting to him like nothing you’d ever felt before. He stilled completely, his fingers digging into you so hard you were certain they’d leave little sore spots where fingertip shaped bruises would arise. He stomach flexed as he came into the condom, the feeling of your walls squeezing his cock being enough to force him over the edge. He grinded his hips into you a few more times, slowly as he head fell back onto his shoulders, his hair sticking to his forehead and his mouth parted as he tried to regain his regular breathing.

“Fuuuuck.” He groaned, slowly coming back to live on your world again and looking down at you with lazy, half closed eyes. He had a dopey smile on his face that told you he was still on cloud nine, and then reluctantly he pulled out of you, flopping onto his back beside you on the small bed, your shoulders pressed firmly against his. You had recovered from your orgasm, watching him as his eyes slowly closed and struggled to reopen.

“Hey,” You whispered, rolling onto your side and leaning up on one of your arms. “We need to clean up.” You placed a gentle peck on his still parted lips. He groaned, giving his head a small shake. You rolled your eyes and sat up, letting him get away with being lazy since he’d just lost his virginity, but next time you weren’t going to let him get away with it. “Fine.” You slowly stood up, wobbling slightly on your legs and having to grip onto his bedside table for stability for a moment. You grabbed some tissues and wiped yourself off your own mess, discarding of them before grabbing more tissues and wiping Renjun clean of any mess, also removing the condom and throwing it into his waste bin. By the time you’d finished cleaning the two of you up, you noticed that Renjun was completely dead to the world, his chest moving slowly as he slept. You rolled your eyes and giggled, pulling a blanket over the top of his naked body, and kissing his forehead affectionately. You pulled on your bra and panties, throwing on the biggest t-shirt of Renjun’s that you could find in his wardrobe before leaving the room quietly, shutting the door gently to not disturb him.

You walked out into the living room, on your way to the kitchen to get yourself a drink when you came across the wide eyed, shocked, yet oddly smug faces of three boys, staring directly at you. You froze, a guilty smile on your face because you completely forgot that Renjun shared the apartment with his best friends. You also thought about how you must have looked, your hair a mess and your skin still slightly glistening from the sweat you’d accumulated from fucking Renjun.

“Hi…” You broke the silence, slowly shuffling towards the kitchen but keeping your eyes on them. It was Jaemin who spoke up first.

“You know, when I said you needed to help him get his dick wet, I didn’t mean for you to be the one who wet it…” Jeno slapped Jaemin on the shoulder for that remark, but you sniggered and bit your bottom lip, your cheeks heating up as you realised that they must have heard most, if not all of what you’d done.

“You should have been more specific Jaems.” You shrugged, walking off to the kitchen and leaving them to talk amongst themselves.

---

“What’s bothering you Renjun?” You’d been sat with him at the local diner, a bowl of nachos in between you both but Renjun had hardly touched them, instead fiddling with a napkin, and avoiding your gaze. Renjun glanced up and gave you a small smile, picking up the milkshake that you were both sharing and taking a sip of it through the straw. You’d spent the night with Renjun, sleeping on his chest on his small bed and cuddling him all night. You felt like you were living on a magical cloud and no one could bring you down. You’d also spent the morning with him, and he’d been strangely quiet, just cuddling with you on his bed and watching Netflix until your stomach rumbled and he dressed you in some of his clothes and marched you down to the diner.

“Nothing is.” He shrugged but you knew he was lying, his eyes still avoiding your own. You knew him too well though, so you knew that something was definitely playing on his mind.

“Is it because we fucked last night?” Renjun nearly choked on the nacho that he’d put in his mouth as an attempt to distract you from thinking something was wrong with him. You smirked, seeing that you’d got it right on the mark. “Do you regret it?” You gently rubbed your foot against his own as you sat opposite him in the booth.

“No!” His eyes widened as he hurried to reassure you that he didn’t regret what happened. “Babe no, I loved it, it was amazing…I just…” He trailed off, taking a deep breath, and running a hand through his hair nervously.

“What is it?” You gave him a smile of encouragement, hoping he wasn’t about to tell you that he didn’t want to do it again.

“You give me a funny feeling in my stomach.” He looked down at the milkshake glass in his hands, trailing his fingers up and down the condensation as his cheeks turned red. You felt your own cheeks start to burn at his confession, and you laughed awkwardly.

“That could just be the milkshake.” You mumbled, shoving a nacho in your mouth, and watching him intently.

“I’m being serious. You give me this feeling that I’ve never felt before and I’m fairly sure that it’s the feeling people get when they look at someone they love.” His words had your heart pounding, and suddenly you had no appetite. You knew what the feeling was, because you felt it whenever you looked at Renjun, whenever he smiled, or said something really smart that went straight over your head.

“I feel the same way.” You reached across the table and took his hand in your own, gently rubbing your thumb against the back of his hand.

“Do you…oh god this is so awkward, and I’ve never done this before but…do you want to be with me? As my girlfriend?” He looked nervous, as if you were going to shot him down like a pigeon in the sky. You broke out into a big smile and giggled in your own nervousness.

“I would love to be your girlfriend.” You squeezed his hand, trying to stop yourself from squealing from how giddy you felt in that moment. Your best friend was also your boyfriend, and from that moment you would start a new chapter in your relationship with Renjun.

Later on that evening Renjun had convinced you to let him draw you. You felt silly, and you knew for a fact you’d find it hard to stay still the whole time considering he wanted to draw your whole body. But since he asked so nicely, and had begged about sixty times in an hour, you eventually stripped off completely naked, and laid on his bed for him. You laid on your side with your head resting on his pillow, your right arm tucked under the pillow as you faced him. He was sat in his gaming chair, his glasses perched on his nose and his sketchpad in his lap. He kept poking his tongue out in concentration and would tell you off every time you moved.

“So, I know you spoke to the boys earlier on when I was in the shower,” You smiled at him, trying your hardest not to move as to not get scolded by him again. “Did they say anything about us?” Renjun looked up over his sketch pad and cleared his throat, giving you an awkward laugh and nod.

“Of course they did. First off, they congratulated me for losing my virginity first, they also said they were super shocked, which I’m not gonna lie, kind of offended about that.” He laughed, which told you he was only joking, and he hadn’t actually taken any offence to their words. “Then they said that they’re happy for me that I have finally asked you out and yeah that’s pretty much it.” You bit your bottom lip, smirking as you looked at Renjun, his eyes trained on his art and not looking at you as he worked on a certain part.

“Renjun…” You called out, parting your legs and trailing your left hand down your body, cupping your heat and rubbing your fingers over yourself slowly. He looked up and then looked back at his art, realising what he’d just seen and quickly looking back up against to take a second look.

“Holy…” He trailed off, gulping as he watched you rub yourself, your bottom lip between your teeth. “I know you’re trying to seduce me so that we can fuck but…I haven’t drawn your lower half yet and I would really love to draw you exactly as you are now. So don’t move!” His face was red, but he looked like an excited puppy. You groaned, you eyes rolling and you cursed yourself for having an artist as a boyfriend, because now he was finally in a sexual relationship, he could unlock a whole new level to his art that he’d never been able to before.

“Haung Renjun, you better fuck me so good after you’re finished drawing or I will rip it up.” Your threat left a wide grin on his face, and you knew this was going to be an incredibly fun chapter in your life.

Hello! I hope you enjoyed the first instalment of The Virgin Diaries! I didn’t proofread the smut scene so sorry if there’s any grammar or spelling errors there, maybe one day I’ll go back and proofread it but don’t hold your breath. Let me know what you think and if you’re excited for Jeno’s part (he’s next). Love you!

[oopey-doopey]

Started reading your fiction the other day (because like you I too gave been consumed by the silly little puppet man) and I just gotta say... 1, loving it. It pulls at my heartstrings in just the right way. However 2, I keep envisioning your Addisons looking like mine (that don't even have set names yet. I'm waiting on some polls)

I know the shouldn't look like mine (or not exactly. All of us are just interpreting the same 4 sprites anyway so like...) but like, rn I'm reading chapter 7 and I keep on seeing Audi looking like Cache/Survey (the two names being considered for my orange Addison). I know he shouldn't, however its driving me insane. So my question is, do you have any drawings or your Addisons? Maybe just some detailled descriptions? All I know is they have fur/fluff. The main thing with this is the clothing/hair. Cache/Survey has like, a bit more of a feminine look (even though they use all pronouns) and has a headband and wears like a vest like think over her dark shirt.

Idk. This is probably really silly but thought I'd ask. Anyways, back to reading.

I do sorta…It’s just vague outlines I did for body shapes and tid bits if they were humans but the body shape still applies to the ads, tho they would have the typical ad nose. Then art of Audi by @genderqueer-spamton which is pretty accurate on clothing range (still before bodies/other features are determined) (Link) (link)

In general I see both Audi and Banner as somewhat androgynous in physical appearance, style wise Banner dressing in a more neutral and academic way and neutral overall while Audi is more rustic/retro and experimental shifting between masc and femme (mostly masc tho). Surv dresses like ur typical gym bro and like casual dude, think jeans or sweats and a shirt that could be styled to meet as uniform requirements. Vidie looks more feminine physically and dresses up but it fluxes between something strictly masculine or feminine, very much street wear and Y2K stuff, with a bit of punk thrown in. Spam’s just casual kinda like Surv but with a hint of 90s flare. I never really think to describe their outfits cause I imagine they change day to day as I picture their uniforms aren’t their only outfits.

Hair and stuff I suppose it would be in the general shape of the ads hair/ head shapes in game. Banner has more curly hair, a weird mix of a bob and a curly/bouncy wolf cut, some how professional. Surv is tricky in that it’s course but shaped like in canon, I can’t really decide or describe how I see it but it fits. Vidie has a high pony tail and has wavier/thicker hair, blunt or wispy bangs when it’s not down/specifically styled. In that case she goes for curtains. Audi has corset hair he accessorizes with clips and beads and wraps or hats or whatever. Generally it just keeps its hair looking nice but it’s a day by day case. Spam has his signature weird pompadour mullet that he does very little with, it’s just naturally easy to keep neat. Thick hair but in a helmet way. Hair types usually match to the way their fur lays/feels on their body.

As for stuff on the ads as a species in general i guess the fur works in the way where the volume varies for ads but it never like super long just dense. It fades a bit around their hands which are just skin/palm textured. It also feels more staticy to lightener than soft but biologically it’s supposed to appeal to some cute/comfort thing in customers so they buy more (think seeing a fluffy dog ig). It sorta goes flat on their faces/necks or stop/stocks at the chest like chest hair to make a clear distinction of neck/face to body, hence hair vs fur. I do think they have tails but that part ain’t too important cause I don’t really write about their asses in this fic atleast and they aren’t made noticeable usually due to my ad’s cultural. They don’t have irises or the whites just pupils so they are very sensitive to sudden shifts in light.

Also don’t feel silly! I love hearing peoples interpretations of my ads, especially since it’s based around how I solely write their personalities. Even if it doesn’t match up it’s fun to hear! Also happy reading!!!

[jingusflorpus]

One Piece's Subtle but Fantastic Touches

There are a lot of minor touches Oda puts into his artwork in One Piece that kinda go unnoticed by a lot of people, but I think really help sell the atmosphere and genuine nature of the story that he's trying to tell.

1: Oda Never Draws a Character's Mouth Closed when they're Speaking.

No matter what the context or who the character is, if a character is speaking out loud, their mouth is open. As I said, it's a minor touch, but it makes the characters feel much more emotive in the way they speak and act, which is extremely important in a series like this, where expressions are so commonly exaggerated to sell as much emotion as possible.

Oda even subverts this fact to better sell certain instances across the series as well.

Here, we can see Nami yelling her threats at Ulti, but something feels... off. Nami seems to be yelling here, but her mouth isn't open? How strange. For a series like One Piece where people are ALWAYS expressive, why would Oda make this scene feel so awkward? What gives?

Zounds, it was Usopp! Nami wasn't speaking at all!

This joke lands so well because of Oda's constant and ubiquitous use of open mouths for speech. The fact that Nami's mouth isn't open serves to make that scene feel a bit stilted, to let the reader know something is off. That way, when the joke lands here it feels like a natural progression from one panel to the next. Neutral >> Confusion >> Comedy.

2: Oda Always Redraws Panels // Oda's Use of Character POV in Flashbacks

One thing I don't think a lot of people realize when reading this series is that Oda always redraws any panel that he wishes to reuse.

While other comic authors might just copy paste old panels that they wish to remind the reader of, as far as I am aware there is not a single instance in this series of Oda ever doing such a thing. He always redraws them.

While part of it is simply because Oda has stated that he feels reusing panels like that would be lazy, I also really appreciate that it helps to keep the reader engaged in the story due to the slight changes in the art that redrawing panels would require. There have been many times where I personally was taken out of a story a bit because I noticed a reused panel that caused me to be reminded that I'm reading a book, not being immersed in a story. Especially when an author's art style has changed between the current part of the story, and the part of the story they're pulling the old panels from. It can be quite jarring to suddenly be in a completely different art style for a panel or two in the middle of the comic.

Listen, I love Jujutsu Kaisen, it's my second favourite shonen series behind One Piece, but going from Akutami's current artstyle all the way back to his signifinicantly less clean and refined JJK 0 artstyle for this copy-paste flashback is so jarring that I can hardly take it seriously.

But that's not all!! It's not enough that Oda always redraws flashback panels, he makes sure to redraw them from the perspective of the person who is having the flashback. Take a look at the example up there. In the original panel, Tashigi is looking off to the side. But in the second panel, as Zoro is recalling the scene, Tashigi is staring forwards. Because in the original scene, she's talking to Zoro himself. Oda sets the flashback from Zoro's point of view for the sake of immersion, like we're really recalling the scene through his eyes.

Another, less subtle example:

Y'know I didn't really need to include those last three panels for the purposes of this but they're adorable and I love them

In that first page, Luffy has dropped Tama behind him. She's staring at Luffy's back as he decks Holdem in the face. A chapter later, as Tama is recalling the scene, we once again see the scene repeated, but this time the the perspective has shifted to Luffy's back. To Tama's perspective. That was how she saw Luffy in that moment, so that's how we see it too. It's such a good technique to help you stay immersed and feel like you're really experiencing what these characters are experiencing, as they experience it. There are several more examples of this throughout the series, and it's definitely something to watch out for! It's one of my favourite little details.

There are a lot of other little things that I could gush over and make this post like 3 times as long, like how Luffy has 0 thought bubbles in the entire series in order to showcase his personality, but these are just some of my favourites. They're barely even noticeable when you're just reading through the series, but they make the experience so much more enjoyable and immersive.