#AND THE FIRST PART FEATURES NO ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS WHATSOEVER

[arnold-layne]

list of banned games? more like list of game recs

[m2ok]

Simon “Ghost” Riley Headcannons

Simon Riley X M!Reader

A/N: the man, the myth, the legend. His time has come and he won’t be spared from my gay agenda.

I’m so sorry y’all, but he would not be easy to get with. I think the only way you’d be able to even attract him was if you were part of the 141 task force.

It would take a very long time to even be his friend. He’s not a very trusting person especially of new people, and he would be wary of you at first. He’d do a thorough background check himself to make sure you wouldn’t comprise the team.

It would start with him trusting you as a teammate, just as he does the other men. Eventually you’d lead up to some light banter with him through comms on missions, dumb little jokes exchanged that neither of you laughed at but still found amusing.

I think it would take legitimate years to get to the point of dating him. He’d be very hesitant about getting into a romantic relationship with you. He’s just been closed off for so long it’s not something he ever put much thought into.

Not gonna lie I think he’d be in denial about his sexuality. I don’t think he would be homophobic because I genuinely think he does not care about that kind of thing, but I think he’d have trouble coming to terms with himself liking other guys.

The beginning would definitely have its issues. I don’t think he would be a cold or uncaring lover, I mean he’d have to care for you very deeply to even entertain a relationship, but he would be terrible with communicating anything.

He doesn’t really understand his own feelings so trying to navigate that and your own would overwhelm him at first. Lots of late night talks about how you should go about this and how to make the relationship work.

When things finally settled down and you fell into a nice rhythm he’d start with the actual romance aspect of your relationship.

Absolutely no pda whatsoever, but alone in one of your rooms? He’d be all over you. He hasn’t felt human touch that was soft and kind and gentle in so long and now that he finally has it he finds it hard to let go.

He likes holding you in his arms, completely engulfing you with himself because he wants to protect you and he knows that if you’re wrapped up in him nothing can harm you.

Since he’s not great at communicating he would talk through his actions. He would make you a cup of tea/coffee in the morning just the way you like it, he’d wash your clothes when he did his own just to help you out a little, bring you water if he noticed you hadn’t had enough that day. Just small, simple things to show you that he loves you.

Please tell him you’re proud of him, that he’s come so far and that he’s a good man. He loves words of affirmation especially from you. He grew up never really getting that so now he subconsciously craves it as an adult. He just wants to know he’s doing a good job.

I don’t think he would outwardly blush or get flustered, but he’d feel it inside like his heart beat would get louder and he’d look away from you.

Showed you his face before he showed the rest of the team. You were probably just lounging around one night, cuddling on the couch with your legs in his lap and his hands on your thighs. Talking about whatever you did that day when he’d reach up and just pull it over.

He was nervous that you didn’t like what you saw since you were quiet for a good number of seconds, and he immediately started preparing himself for you ending the relationship.

So when you reached over and cupped his face like he was made of porcelain he was shocked. Eyes all wide and staring into yours as you took in every feature of his face. The few freckles, the scars, the light stubble, even his little dimples. You were committing all of it to memory.

“You’re so….” You were at a loss for words and that once again terrified him. What if you decided after looking at him long enough that you didn’t like him?

“Pretty. Handsome. The most breathtaking person I’ve ever seen” he’d absolutely melt in your arms. Wouldn’t let you go for the rest of the night.

He’s not a good kisser. I’m so sorry but this man is so out of practice and awkward with it. He’s a quick learner, though, and he’d catch on to what you like quickly and adapt to that.

Loves kissing you. Doesn’t even have to be on the lips, though that’s one of his favorites. Foreheads kisses are also on the top tier list for him especially if you’re shorter than him. It’s just easy access.

If you’re taller than him he’ll grab you by the collar and yank you down to kiss your forehead anyways. Either way it’s getting a lil smooch every hour on the hour.

Before you came along he thought he would just stay in the military until he eventually died, but with you being around he found that he has more to live for now than just his job. He wants to settle down with you eventually, though not anytime soon.

He wants to live in a nice little house with you far away from civilization. I think this man would thrive with a small farm. It would keep him busy everyday and give just a bit more purpose to his life, plus I don’t think he’d do well with no work to do after he leaves the military.

I cant see him being extremely good with woodworking like Price is, but I think he’d be able to do simple things like shelves, maybe a night stand or a small cabinet.

I think if he took up any sort of woodwork it would be whittling. I can see him sitting outside on the porch, in an old beat up wooden rocking chair carving a little animal out of a piece of wood and his favorite pocket knife. The little critters would be all over your house and he’d carve the both of you out of your favorite animals to keep on the table.

All in all I think it would take a very long time to get with him and to fully adjust into a relationship, but once it does he’s just a gentle, loving man.

As always, requests are open.

[shmaroace]

As a fellow aroace, queer films without romance are *fucking hard to find*, but also some of my favourite (for obvious reasons), so here you have the two or three I can think of off the top of my head!

"Te estoy amando locamente": a very recent -as in from last month- Spanish movie about a gay boy discovering the drag scene and getting arrested via the Spanish dictatorship's "social danger" laws. No romance whatsoever, mostly trans characters, centered around his mom's journey into accepting him, and his friends' fight to get the Social Danger laws revoked.

"Pride": a British feel-good comedy about a group of LGBT+ activists who start raising money for a community of Welsh striking miners. There is a very cute established older gay couple, but their relationship is as much the center of the movie as Dai and his wife: it's just there as part of the tapestry of the movie. The main character has a nameless hookup as part of his coming to terms with his sexuality storyline, but there's way more emphasis given to his friendship with his lesbian best friend. A lot of found family, a lot of activism, laughs and tears. Based on a real story (for real, not Hollywood based on a real story).

"United in Anger": a documentary about the history of ACT UP, the famous activist group who fought for the rights of people with AIDS in the 80s. Made by some people who were there, based entirely on interviews to people who were there, it's entirely made available on youtube by the filmmakers. A must-see.

"Aos Nossos Filhos": I guess whether this qualifies as a queer movie is up to you: it's technically a story about motherhood and trauma. A middle aged Brazilian lady who was a political prisoner during the Brazilian dictatorship and now runs a charity for favelas children with AIDS gets told by her lesbian daughter that her and her girlfriend are trying for a baby via assisted reproductive technology; while at the same time a reporter starts interviewing her about his mother, who was the lady's jailmate. Extremely interesting and heartbreaking. The lesbian relationship features relatively heavily though as they try for a baby (also, trigger warning for aces, the very first scene is a very explicit sex scene between the two girls).

"Hedwig and the Angry Inch": an early 2000s off-Broadway musical turned movie about an East German gay boy who gets a gender change operation in order to marry a US soldier and move out of East Germany, and ends up touring the US with a shitty band trailing after a rockstar who stole her (?) songs. Impossible to explain, I'm not doing it justice. It's a very interesting exploration of gender as an identity and a performance, and of romantic love and the myth of the "other half" (in a good way).

"Kinky Boots": I know there's a movie, but I only know the musical. Silly feel-good comedy about a struggling shoe factory owner who gets tangled making heels for drag queens. There's a romance story, but it's between the shoe maker and one of the employees. It's been a long time, so I don't put my hand on the fire for the quality of the musical. It has some nice drag queen dances, though (there's a proshoot).

"Luciérnagas": a gay Iranian fleeing his country ends up stuck in a coastal city in Mexico. While he battles homesickness and the urge to go back to Turkey to his boyfriend (even if it's dangerous), he makes friends with his landlady, a young woman who teaches him Spanish, and a Salvadorian ex-gang member trying to cross the border to the US. I saw it a long time ago so I can't promise there will be no romance whatsoever, but it's clearly not the central conflict.

Well, I ended up with more than two, so I'm going to stop now. Hope you and anon like them!!

odd; it says this ask was sent sept 4 but i didn't see it until now. thanks for the recs! i'm assuming it was in response to this post

[elli-is-beth]

Not So Berry Challenge: Extended Edition

@lilsimsie​ created the original version of this challenge, as I’m sure you all know. I love her content and her challenge, but I really wanted to extend it to include game features and packs that have come out since the original was posted in 2017. So here I give you the thirty-generation Extended Not So Berry Challenge.

Description of the Original Challenge: 

Do you like the rainbow? Do you like the idea of playing with berry Sims but hate berry Sims? Do you want to mess around with aspects of the game you’ve never used before? Boy, do I have the challenge for you!

Welcome to the Not So Berry Legacy Challenge, a ten generation legacy with a focus on bright colors and new experiences. 

Basic Rules:

Each heir must represent the color of the generation (i.e. hair, makeup, clothing), but brightly colored skin is not necessary (these aren’t actually berry Sims, that’s the joke). Of course, this is optional but a big portion of the fun.

The colors of the spouses don’t matter as they aren’t part of the challenge. Unless otherwise stated you can do whatever you please with them. 

Money cheats can be used, but not excessively. Suggestion: use freerealestate for your first home, but no cheats afterward.

You may live wherever you please unless something is specified in the rules of a generation.

Every generation is supposed to complete both the career and aspiration of the heir unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Keep the lifespan on normal.

If you play this challenge and want to share it with us, go ahead and post with #notsoberry so we can see!

My good friend @alwaysimming​ and I kind of created this challenge on accident, but I think it turned out pretty great. We wanted to make something that forced us to play with parts of the game we’ve never explored before. Hopefully you’ll have fun too. You can follow our gameplay on @mintiphresh​ and @lea-fey​ (pronounced “minty fresh” and “leafy”)!

Obviously, I get that thirty generations is a super ambitious challenge. I’m the kind of person who tends to play the Sims 4 the same way over and over again, though, and I wanted something that would push me outside my comfort zone and get me playing with all the aspects of the game that I haven’t explored yet. I hope it can do the same for you!

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The first ten generations of this challenge are the original ones. Generation eleven and onward are my own.

Generation One: Mint

You’re a mischievous scientist that really loves the color mint. You’re career driven but still make time for silly pranks and outings with your closest friends. You love luxury and want the best for yourself and your family.

Traits: Vegetarian, Jealous, Materialistic

Aspiration: Chief of Mischief

Career: Scientist

Rules:

Master scientist career and complete Chief of Mischief aspiration

Master mischief and logic skills

Complete elements collection

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Generation Two: Rose

You had everything you desired as a child but you were always longing for more. As an adult you have a hard time committing to relationships as you’re so focused on your career. If we had a workaholic trait in The Sims 4 you would have it. You have absolutely no parental instincts whatsoever but you still love your child with all your heart.

Traits: Hot Headed, Snob, Romantic

Aspiration: Serial Romantic

Career: Politician

Rules:

Have only one child

Master the politician career and complete Serial Romantic aspiration

Master charisma skill

Leave someone at the alter (an interaction available during a wedding)

Get married for the first time as an elder

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Generation Three: Yellow

Growing up you never had a close relationship with your parents and spent the majority of your time alone in your room obsessing over space. You just really love space. You’ll do whatever it takes to get to Sixam no matter the cost.

Traits: Clumsy, Ambitious, Loner

Aspiration: Nerd Brain

Career: Astronaut

Rules

Master rocket science and handiness skill

Master astronaut career and complete Nerd Brain aspiration

Must build a rocket ship and visit Sixam

Enter the secret lot in Oasis Springs (requiring max handiness)

Never have any close friends or relationships other than grandparent from Generation 1 until the grandparent dies

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Generation Four: Grey

You always felt that you were different. While the rest of your family was busy messing around in the lab, you just wanted to be outside playing basketball. You’re very good at sports and you dream of becoming a professional athlete. To make up for your nonexistent relationship with your parents you want to be there for your own children as much as possible. Oh, and you love to sing.

Traits: Active, Slob, Music Lover

Aspiration: Bodybuilder

Career: Athlete

Rules

Master singing, parenting, and athletic skills

Master athlete career and complete Bodybuilder aspiration

Have three failed relationships before finding spouse, marry a neat Sim

Be good friends with all of your children

Have family movie night with your spouse and children every Sunday

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Generation Five: Plum

You’ve always been good at anything you tried. It’s hard to choose a career, so why not try a few? You work as a doctor for much of your life, but as an adult realize that your true dream is to become a professional dancer. You quit your job and join the entertainer career. Basically: you’re an indecisive oddball.

Traits: Genius, Noncommittal, Dance Machine

Aspiration: Renaissance Sim

Career: Fast Food, Doctor, Entertainer

Rules

Master dance and two other skills of your choosing, achieve at least level eight in six skills

Complete Renaissance Sim aspiration

Get divorced and then later remarried to the same Sim

Must live in at least three different worlds over the course of your life

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Generation Six: Orange

You’re the black sheep of your family (but with orange hair) and you were raised in a hectic household. You’ve always wanted to cause mayhem, but you’re just really bad at being evil. You enjoy breaking into your neighbors’ houses and eating their food. You really love baking and spend the majority of your spare time eating sweets.

Traits: Evil, Self-Assured, Glutton

Aspiration: Public Enemy

Career: Criminal

Rules

Master baking and charisma skills

Master criminal career and complete Public Enemy aspiration

Must live in a ‘needs TLC’ apartment for entire young adult life

Have twins, but only those two children (you may cheat for this)

Insist on being evil (claim to be criminal mastermind) but nobody believes you, not even your own children

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Generation Seven: Pink

You grew up poor and are living paycheck to paycheck working in the business career just as your parents did. You long to write romance novels but are too afraid to quit your steady job to follow your dreams. You’re very practical and you know the chances of making it as a writer are slim, so you stay working at your nine to five. As an adult you finally decide to pursue your dreams. You’re a hopeless romantic, but your unflirty nature makes it nearly impossible to find love.

Traits: Neat, Unflirty, Creative

Aspiration: Best Selling Author

Career: Business

Rules

Complete postcard collection

Master writing and wellness skills

Complete Best Selling Author aspiration

Have a well-maintained garden

Quit day job as an adult to pursue dreams (mid-life crisis much?)

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Generation Eight: Peach

Your parents always taught you to follow your dreams. You’ve always wanted to be a detective. You’ve always wanted to be a comedian. Well dang it, you can do both! Detective by day, comedian by night, you can do anything you set your mind to.

Traits: Foodie, Lazy, Goofball

Aspiration: Joke Star

Career: Detective

Rules

Marry a co-worker

Must play an instrument

Master gourmet cooking and comedy skills

Master detective career

Must live in a different world than the one they were raised

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Generation Nine: Green

You were caught hacking by a major tech company that then offered you a position in their firm. You know Penelope Garcia from Criminal Minds? That’s you. You’re dedicated to your work, but that doesn’t stop you from going out and having a good time. You’re the kind of person that will be at a party at 3am and then at work at 6am.

Traits: Squeamish, Geek, Cheerful

Aspiration: Computer Whiz

Career: Tech Guru

Rules

Master mixology, video gaming, and programming skills

Master tech guru career and complete Computer Whiz aspiration

Must accept every invitation to parties/outings with your friends

Have at least five good friends and five enemies

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Generation Ten: Blue

You have the perfect life. White picket fence, loving spouse, beautiful children. But why do you still want more? You have a one time secret affair and will regret it for the rest of your life. Afterward you pour your soul into raising your children and fixing your marriage. You never admit the affair to anyone and dedicate your life to being the perfect parent.

Traits: Gloomy, Perfectionist, Family Oriented

Aspiration: Super Parent

Career: Critic

Rules

Adopt at least one child

Master the photography, cooking, and parenting skills

Master critic career and complete Super Parent aspiration

Must marry high school sweetheart and stay with them until you die

Have a one time secret affair

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Generation 11: Lavender

Your parents showered you with attention while you were growing up, and it shows in how much you need other people’s attention now. To combat this, you strive for properness in all your interactions with others and are very focused on self-improvement. You choose to pursue a culinary career because of your memories cooking with your parents, but also because you crave the structure it provides—when you’re thinking about food, you’re not thinking about yourself.

Traits: Bookworm, Proper, Self-Absorbed

Aspiration: Master Chef

Career: Culinary

Rules:

Be disliked by at least five sims by the time you die using only arguing interactions

Master culinary career in the chef branch and complete Master Chef aspiration

Master the cooking, gourmet cooking, and baking skills

Make every kind of jam

Marry a Cheerful sim

Always choose parenting interactions that positively affect manners

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Generation 12: Black

With a parent who was so focused on manners and propriety, you always felt stifled growing up. Now that you’re an adult, you’re going out of your way to be exactly the opposite. You eat out of dumpsters, you swipe things from the Landgraabs, you break up relationships just to dump them and move on. Your only goal is to be everything your parent told you not to be, even if that means focusing more on breaking hearts than keeping a steady job.

Traits: Freegan, Kleptomaniac, Insider

Aspiration: Villainous Valentine

Career: Barista, Salaryperson, Politician, Criminal

Rules:

Complete Live Fast aspiration as a teen

Age up to adulthood with the Irresponsible character value trait

Never be married for more than three sim days

Have three children with three different sims

Earn most of your money by stealing

Complete Villainous Valentine aspiration

Woohoo in every type of woohoo location

Master cross-stitch skill (what? Even villains need a hobby)

Change your career at each life stage, starting as a teenager

Live in starter homes and starter apartments your whole life

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Generation 13: Teal

You always knew that your parent’s life choices were rather… questionable, but growing up you learned to ignore that part and just enjoy having your parent and siblings there. Now, that laidback attitude has continued into your adult life, and you want nothing more than to relax on the beach with your friends and family. Too bad you also have to worry about things like bills. At least as a conservationist, you’re still focused on the ocean and beaches you love.

Traits: Cheerful, Child of the Ocean, Family-Oriented

Aspiration: Beach Life

Career: Conservationist

Rules:

Live your entire adult life in Sulani

Master conservationist career in the environmental manager branch and complete Beach Life aspiration

Host a kava party at least once a week and earn gold

Master the parenting, charisma, and fishing skills

Complete the fish, sea shell, and underwater photo collections

Find the Heart of Sulani while scuba diving

Woohoo at the waterfall at least once

Have your spouse die in a tragic accident when you’re an adult and marry a mermaid after you finish grieving

Be good friends with parent, siblings, children, and grandchildren

Earn gold on a family reunion event as an elder

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Generation 14: Brown

With a conservationist for a parent, you were doomed to be environmentally conscious. You’re zealous about recycling and living off the land, and your biggest cause is animal rights. That’s why you moved out to the country to take care of as many animals as you can on your farm, though you still commute into town to run a veterinary clinic. You prefer the company of animals to everyone except your spouse.

Traits: Animal Enthusiast, Recycle Disciple, Hates Children

Aspiration: Country Caretaker

Career: Veterinarian

Rules:

Marry someone who is either a Dog Lover, Cat Lover, or Animal Enthusiast

Have only one child and don’t let your relationship bar go beyond acquaintances until that child is an adult

Have five pets in your household at all times, keep bees, and own at least one chicken, cow, and llama

Feed at least one chicken a golden treat in your lifetime

Adopt at least one stray pet

Own and befriend Patchy the Straw Man

Live your entire adult life in Henford-on-Bagley, and use the Simple Living and Wild Foxes lot challenges

Befriend at least two birds, two rabbits, and two foxes

Master gardening, veterinarian, and pet training skills

Befriend the creature keeper

Complete the village fair ribbons collection

Unlock all business perks for vet clinic and complete Country Caretaker aspiration

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Generation 15: Forest

As a child, you only really got attention from one of your parents. Growing up isolated on a farm with only animals for company, you sometimes struggle to relate to others. Your other parent gave you one thing, though: a love for the environment. Longing to get back to your family’s roots, you move back to Sulani as an adult and throw yourself into saving the environment and digging deep into your culture.

Traits: Maker, Green Fiend, Child of the Islands

Aspiration: Eco Innovator

Career: Civil Designer

Rules:

Earn all badges in Scouts

As a teen, run errands for the Henford-on-Bagley locals every weekend

Live your entire young adult life in Sulani

Only start to have a relationship with your parent as an adult and never become close friends, but be best friends with your other parent

Marry the first person you date, but get divorced before you become an adult

Achieve a green eco footprint in your neighborhood

Master civil designer career in the green technician branch and complete Eco Innovator aspiration

Master fabrication, handiness, and juice fizzing skills

As an adult, meet your soulmate at the romance festival and marry them on the spot

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Generation 16: White

You come from a long line of environmentalists, but you don’t really care about that. Your only real goal in life is to have as many friends as you can, which happens by being nice and approachable. Maybe that means hiding some of your more intellectual or embarrassing hobbies and interests, but who really cares about that? All anyone needs to know about you is you’re the nicest person they’ll ever meet

Traits: Cat Lover, Lactose Intolerant, Outgoing

Aspiration: Friend of the World

Career: Social Media

Rules:

Complete Admired Icon aspiration as a teen

Be crowned prom royalty

Attend Foxbury University with a degree in the sciences, but drop out before you graduate

Own at least two cats over the course of your life

Master social media career and complete Friend of the World aspiration

Become at least a two star celebrity and always have a good reputation

Attain and keep People Person lifestyle

Master video gaming, robotics, and DJ mixing skills, but only practice in the safety of your own home

Build a Servo (robotics)

Have at least two children

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Generation 17: Mustard

Growing up in the spotlight shadow of your parent did NOT help your social skills, that’s for sure. You struggle with the most basic things like introducing yourself to people and getting to know them. Somehow you always seem to embarrass yourself. Maybe that’s why you turned to risk-taking and adventure—the mountain won’t laugh at you when you stumble over your own name.

Traits: Adventurous, Bro, Socially Awkward

Aspiration: Extreme Sports Enthusiast, Mt. Komorebi Sightseer

Career: Freelancer (Programmer)

Rules:

Meet high school best friend/future spouse through chess club

Never accept social invitations and only attend events or festivals with your spouse or a sibling

Have no close friends beyond family and spouse

Master fitness, rock-climbing, skiing, and snowboarding skills

Achieve gold on a mountain climb excursion to the top of Mt. Komorebi

Attain and keep Outdoorsy and Adrenaline Seeker lifestyles until you’re an elder

Complete Extreme Sports Enthusiast AND Mt. Komorebi Sightseer aspirations (can be done at the same time)

Complete the Simmies collection

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Generation 18: Royal Blue

You spent your childhood all over the slopes of Mt. Komorebi, and that love of the outdoors stuck with you. What didn’t stick was your parent’s awkwardness—you were always so frustrated that you couldn’t host parties and have friends over, but now that you’re an adult, there’s no one to stop you. You can party the night away and wake up the next morning for a sunrise hike. Anything’s possible if you just decide to do it all perfectly, right?

Traits: Loves Outdoors, Party Animal, Perfectionist

Aspiration: Outdoor Enthusiast

Career: Gardener

Rules:

Vacation with your family in Granite Falls at least once each as a young adult, adult, and elder

Summon a ghost by telling a ghost story around a campfire

Master gardener career and complete Outdoor Enthusiast aspiration

Master herbalism, gardening, wellness, and at least one extreme sports skill

Complete the insects collection

Visit Sylvan Glade in Willow Creek and the Deep Woods in Granite Falls

Earn gold on a Weenie Roast event

Attain and keep Frequent Traveler lifestyle

Host and earn gold on one event per sim week for your entire adult life

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Generation 19: Scarlet

Used to getting whatever (and acting however) you wanted, adulthood hit you like a vending machine. You were always a bit of a wild child, but as a teen and adult you find yourself lashing out at anyone who doesn’t go along with exactly what you want. Sticking to romantic relationships is difficult, but even though you struggle to articulate it sometimes, your kids mean the world to you.

Traits: Childish, Erratic, Mean

Aspiration: Big Happy Family

Career: Interior Decorator

Rules:

Complete Drama Llama aspiration as a teen

Age up to adulthood with the Uncontrolled Emotions character value trait

Earn gold on a keg party for your young adult birthday

Master painting, comedy, and mischief skills

Master interior decorator career and complete Big Happy Family aspiration

Never intentionally increase your parenting skill except for taking care of babies and toddlers

Get married as a young adult, but get divorced after your children are born and never remarry

Have exactly three children

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Generation 20: Gold

Even though you knew they loved you, with your parent running all over the place your whole childhood you often felt like you only had your siblings to care about you. Watching your parent fail gave you a strong drive to achieve, and your goal in life is to make a name for yourself that gives you a completely new image. Fame is hard to earn, but if anyone can do it, it’s you.

Traits: Dog Lover, Overachiever, Loyal

Aspiration: World-Famous Celebrity

Career: Simfluencer, Style Influencer

Rules:

Complete Goal Oriented aspiration as a teen

Age up to adulthood with the Responsible character value trait

Attend university and graduate with an A in an arts degree

Join a secret society and keep that secret from your whole family

Always have at least one dog

Master media production and entrepreneur skills

Take your whole family out for an outing every weekend

Move to The Pinnacles as an adult and have the Celebrity Home lot trait

Have a butler for the entire time you live in The Pinnacles

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Generation 21: Silver

You never wanted fame, but with a global superstar for a parent, you didn’t have much choice. You’d be very happy if you didn’t have to deal with anyone, honestly. Relationships are too messy. You’d rather just stay tucked away in your studio, painting away by yourself. And when tragedy strikes at home, you seclude yourself even more, nearly cutting yourself off from everyone in your life.

Traits: Neat, Gloomy, Noncommittal

Aspiration: Painter Extraordinaire

Career: Own a retail store

Rules:

Live in a tiny home your entire adult life

Have at least one sim, either a partner or a child, die from a Murphy bed on your lot

Never find a long-term partner

Never have close relationships with your children

Sell your art from your studio to make a living (not by selling it to art galleries or collectors)

Master painting skill

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Generation 22: Magenta

You spent a lot of your childhood doing your own thing while your parent was at the studio, and you found out you’re really great at just about everything you try. Studying different cultures (*ahem* occults) and worlds helped you ignore the fact that you never traveled as a kid. You’re the type of sim who can go from singing to programming to archeology without missing a beat, and that flexibility serves you well in your career as a Secret Agent.

Traits: Unflirty, Overachiever, Proper

Aspiration: Archeology Scholar, Jungle Explorer

Career: Secret Agent

Rules:

Never leave your home world except for school before you’re a young adult

Take your family for “vacations” in Selvadorada (that turn out to be just another work trip, but this time with pretty views)

Thoroughly explore the Belomisia Jungle and its temples

Master archeology, selvadoradian culture, singing, programming, and handiness skills

Master secret agent career and complete Archeology Scholar and Jungle Explorer aspirations (can be done at the same time)

Be friends with at least one werewolf, vampire, alien, and mermaid

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Generation 23: Chocolate

When you were a kid, you always thought it was cool that your parent knew so much about occult sims. You spent your childhood traveling around with your parent while they carried on their secret agent business, and you thought you’d seen everything, but on your young adult birthday, you wander into the wrong part of the world and get stopped by an unfamiliar werewolf. How are you supposed to attain your dream of running a restaurant in this state?

Traits: Glutton, Loyal, Romantic

Aspiration: Werewolf Initiate, Cure-Seeker

Career: Own a restaurant

Rules:

Complete experimental food prints collection

Earn all restaurant perks

Complete Werewolf Initiate and Cure-Seeker aspirations

Explore the Underground

Fall deeply in love while still a werewolf and agonize over whether you should tell your significant other or not

Take the cure before having your heir (though you can have other children before then)

Master cooking and herbalism skills

Always have a full romance and friendship bar with your spouse

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

Generation 24: Ruby

No one ever said you weren’t down for adventure. Well, actually, everyone said that, because you’re incredibly lazy. There’s one thing you’re good at, though, and that’s breaking hearts. OCCULT hearts, to be specific. Growing up with stories of your parent’s time as a werwolf gave you a fascination with occult sims, especially what it’s like to woohoo with them. It’s not bad if they’re not human, right? Just don’t tell your spouse or kids. Not that you care, but they’ll probably leave you, and you really need that income—the military doesn’t pay that much. Your spouse will just think you’re turning over a new leaf when you’re wanting to “adopt” some VERY NORMAL children.

Traits: Art Lover, Lazy, Evil

Aspiration: Grilled Cheese

Career: Military

Rules:

Get married within one sim week of becoming a young adult and have at least one child with your spouse

Have secret affairs with a vampire, an alien, and a werewolf

Have an occult child through at least one of those affairs and keep them in your household

Complete secret Grilled Cheese aspiration and fill your home with paintings of grilled cheese

Master cooking, painting, and charisma skills

Keep the tragic clown painting in your home

Grow a money tree and quit your job while you’re an adult

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

Generation 25: Lemon

As a kid, you loved your younger siblings, but there was something a little off about them. You really struggled to make friends with other kids your age. If you have a computer in front of you and some Voidcritters posters on your wall, though, you’re as happy as you can be. You love video games, and even though you gave up your dream of being a Voidcritters streamer to pursue a more practical job in engineering, you’ll always have a special place in your heart for all things tech. Unfortunately, video games aren’t actual companions—to combat your social anxiety, you strive for inner peace in your free time, hoping that balance inside will alleviate the awkwardness outside.

Traits: Ambitious, Socially Awkward, Good

Aspiration: Inner Peace, Self-Care Specialist, Zen Guru

Career: Video Game Streamer, Engineer

Rules:

Complete the Voidcritter cards collection before becoming an adult

Keep high relationships with your siblings as adults

Master video gaming, programming, and robotics skills

Master video game streamer career as a teen and engineer career as an adult

Complete Inner Peace, Self-Care Specialist, and Zen Guru aspirations

Have an at-home spa and dedicated gaming room

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

Generation 26: Cream

You always felt out of place in your geeky, technophile family. You? You’re more musically gifted. Though your parents don’t really understand you, they let you chase your dreams of being a music teacher, and sometimes that means letting you throw yourself into your work and ignore everyone else. You need a lot of attention and support, but luckily you find a kindred spirit in your music-loving partner. Now, your goal is fame and you’ll do whatever it takes to get there, even if that means going to some *blood-curdling* extremes…

Traits: Music Lover, Creative, High-Maintenance

Aspiration: Musical Genius

Career: Education

Rules:

Complete Creative Genius/Artistic Prodigy aspirations as a child

Master education career and complete Musical Genius aspiration

Marry a sim with either the Music Lover or Creative trait

Start a club focused on musical skills and meet at least once a week

Become at least a three star celebrity

Master violin, piano, pipe organ, guitar, singing, dancing, media production, and DJ mixing skills

Become a vampire after you’ve had at least one child

Spend your new-found free time practicing and writing songs

Reach at least Rank 3 as a vampire

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

Generation 27: Tangerine

Your parent was always too busy for you as a kid, and that’s something you’ll make sure doesn’t happen to your own child. In fact, there are a lot of things you’re never going to put your child through: practically living in music studio, eating quick meals because they don’t have time to cook, feeling alone all the time. You bring your kid with you everywhere. And since you’re always on the go, that really is EVERYWHERE. Ever since you moved to the city, you’ve been in love with its fast-paced, artsy lifestyle. You want the best, you want your child to have the best, and San Myshuno is the place to find it.

Traits: Foodie, Adventurous, Dog Lover

Aspiration: City Native

Career: Freelancer (Fashion Photographer)

Rules:

Move out of your parents’ household as a young adult and live in San Myshuno for entire adult life

Master singing, cooking, parenting, and photography skills

Win a karaoke contest

Get invited to the circus, the opera, and an underground concert

Complete the snow globe and city poster collections

Learn how to make every meal sold by the San Myshuno vendors

Complete the City Native Aspiration

Only have one child

Earn gold on a baby shower, a toddler playdate, and a sleepover event

Drop everything to help your child with every school project they bring home

Keep a full relationship bar with your child, and later with their spouse and your grandchildren

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

Generation 28: Violet

You’ve lived the life people dream about: a parent who was supportive of everything you did, an early start in a notoriously difficult-to-enter career, and so many diverse cultural experiences that you can hardly remember what your own culture is supposed to be. Such a lovely world to be a well-adjusted adult in, but one thing’s missing. Though your parent taught you everything else you need to know for life, their relentless focus on YOU meant they couldn’t model one of the most important things—romantic love. It’s the one thing lacking in your life, and you’ll do anything to find it.

Traits: Cheerful, Genius, Paranoid

Aspiration: Soulmate

Career: Acting

Rules:

Start going to Drama Club as a child

Age up to adulthood with three positive character value traits

Become at least a three star celebrity

Date a fellow celebrity, but break up with them before things get too serious

Use the wishing well to wish for love and accept whatever the consequences are

Earn gold on every type of wedding event

Master the acting career and complete the Soulmate aspiration

Master acting, singing, guitar, violin, and piano skills

Chase away paparazzi every time you see them

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

Generation 29: Sage

If there’s one thing that fame gets you, it’s literally any material item you could possibly want. You grew up in luxury, and you want to keep that standard of living. So even though you prefer more varied and creative hobbies, you pursue a soul-crushing law career. The time spent slaving away over books and reports and courtrooms will all be worth it every night when you come home, curl up on your front porch’s rocking chair, and knit the evening away.

Traits: Materialistic, Loves Outdoors, Maker

Aspiration: Lord/Lady of the Knits

Career: Law

Rules:

Attend university and earn a degree in language and literature

Master the law career and complete the Lord/Lady of the Knits aspiration

Get the sweater curse and watch your first long-term dating relationship go down in flames

Master knitting, gourmet cooking, fishing, and flower arranging skills

Knit matching beanies for your entire family and take a family picture with them on

Take at least one family vacation each as a young adult, adult, and elder

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

Generation 30: Charcoal

You learned one thing from your parents, it’s that money is NOT worth all the time spent working a horribly dull job. Despite your parents’ pleas to “get a real job” and “grow up,” you have your heart set on your childhood dream of exploring the supernatural world and being a paranormal investigator. What a great way to do good, help people, and maybe steal some of their things while you’re there!

Traits: Slob, Geek, Kleptomaniac

Aspiration: Spellcraft and Sorcery, Purveyor of Potions

Career: Freelancer (Paranormal Investigator)

Rules:

Live in a haunted house in Forgotten Hollow for entire adult life

Be friends with at least five ghosts

Master medium, pipe organ, and vampire lore skills

Become a spell caster 

Have just one familiar at a time

Learn to cast all spells and brew all potions

Complete the magical artifacts collection

Complete the Spellcraft and Sorcery and Purveyor of Potions aspirations (can be done at the same time)

Get the Curse of the Night Wraith at some point in your life

Have a baby with Father Winter

Have at least one living cow plant at all times

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

I hope you enjoy this challenge! Definitely don’t feel like you have to do it all in the same order or use all thirty generations. I think I put them in an order that makes sense for story progression, but use this however it would fit your own gameplay best!

Thanks for checking this out! 

- Elizabeth

[yestolerancepro]

Tolerance project Extra Perfect Day' by Lou Reed: the making of rock's most earnest and enduring ballad

Introduction

Hello and welcome to a special blog devoted to a Valentines Day hope your all feeling loved up on this special day.

When we made the Tolerance film one of its key themes was family and relationships and that key theme was shown through the love story between Robert played by David Smith and Julie played by Claire Abbot thank you both for your excellent performances.

So what songs did we use as our romantic themes for the Tolerance film Richard Hellawell the director of our film chose 2 songs to feature in the Tolerance film the first was Perfect day by Lou reed and its the song that this blog will concentrate on.

Perfect Day and the Tolerance film

The Director Richard Hellawell chose the original version of the Lou Reed song Perfect Day originally released in 1972 as part of his classic Transformer album produced by David Bowie and Mark Ronson.

The song is heard twice in the Tolerance film Its first heard in the beginning of the film as Claire Abbot is introduced as Julie A DJ on the radio wishes her a happy birthday, its heard again in the closing credits.

Most of the article you are about to read comes from the Gold music website with extra bits added by me taken from previous blogs where I have written about the song Perfect day most notably Happy Valentines day from the Tolerance Project and Thank you for the Music creating the Tolerance film soundtrack.

Also I would like to thank the writer Justin Lewis as his book Don’t Stop the music helped me out as well

Oh it's such a perfect day, I'm glad I spent it with you."

Lou Reed's low-key, optimistic, and earnest ballad about spending a casual, but perfect day with his partner is arguably his most enduring.

Given the nature of rock 'n' roll artists at the time, and his previous outlandish experimentalism with The Velvet Underground, 'Perfect Day' was a bit of an anomaly for Reed.

Even though 'Perfect Day' in on the surface a tender portrayal of a lovely day out, the song has been opened up to debate about its real meaning still to this day.

Featuring on his David Bowie-produced 1972 album Transformer, 'Perfect Day' is no doubt the first song that springs to mind when people mention Lou Reed.

But who wrote it? What is its real meaning? Has anyone else covered the song? Here's all you need to know about 'Perfect Day'

Who wrote 'Perfect Day'?

Lou Reed wrote the lyrics to 'Perfect Day', the slow, piano-based balled which details a typically amorous day out with his partner.

Drinking sangria in the park, feeding animals in the zoo, cosying up to a movie at the cinema later that night - they're all sweet moments that sounds like the plot to a romantic movie in itself.

Reed penned the lyrics after spending a lovely day together in New York City's Central Park with his then fiancée (and later wife) Bettye Kronstad.

The songs lyrics flit between seemingly simple, conventional devotion to his partner in "Oh, it's such a perfect day, I'm glad I spent it with you," to Reed's true feelings about himself in "You made me forget myself. I thought I was someone else, someone good."

Towards the end of 'Perfect Day', Reed sings - in his sombre, pensive tone in which he sings throughout - the lyrics "You're gonna reap just what you sow," which he repeats on several occasions.

This line alludes to St. Paul's letter to the Galatians 6:7 in the New Testament, which reads: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

Biographer Victor Bockri wrote that the lyrics to 'Perfect Day', whilst romantic and uncomplicated also hint at Reed's own conflicts with his sexuality, heavy drug use, and impenetrable ego.

Was 'Perfect Day' about Lou Reed’s relationship with drug abuse?

Many people in the years since the song's release believe that 'Perfect Day' is not about his partner, but instead about his own love affair with heroin.

Asked by the NME in 1973 about the song's true meaning, Reed replied: "That's a lovely song. A description of a very straightforward affair."

Once the earnest ballad was included on the soundtrack to 1996 film Trainspotting, these questions arose once again as the song's popularity was rejuvenated.

The song's historic misinterpretation meant that Danny Boyle chose 'Perfect Day' to play whilst the film's central character Renton - played by Ewan MacGregor - overdoses on heroin.

In 2000, Reed again suggested that interpretation was "laughable", stating: "No. You're talking to the writer, the person who wrote it. No that's not true. I don't object to that, particularly...whatever you think is perfect."

"But this guy's vision of a perfect day was the girl, sangria in the park, and then you go home; a perfect day, real simple. I meant just what I said."

How did David Bowie come to produce the record?

David Bowie was a huge fan of The Velvet Underground - their visionary songwriting, their relationship to Andy Warhol, and how they occupied the space between rock music and contemporary art.

Regularly covering 'White Light/White Heat' and 'I'm Waiting for the Man' in concerts, Bowie insisted he the band were a major influence on him and how he became Ziggy Stardust.

After befriending Lou Reed in 1971, after a show at London's Royal Festival Hall, the pair immediately hit it off and reportedly started a sexual relationship.

Tony Zanetta, the producer of Bowie's 'Diamond Dogs Tour' in 1974 introduced him to Reed that year and said: "They, I think, got along pretty well."

"Lou was the really smart-alecky, sarcastic New York guy. But I think he and David were pretty cautious of each other. It was almost like the beginning of a romance. They were kind of sizing each other up."

In awe of Lou Reed and his previous work with The Velvet Underground, Bowie wanted to make him a solo star so took on producing duties.

Bowie's guitarist in The Spiders From Mars, Mick Ronson, co-produced, worked as a session musician on the album Transformer, and wrote the accompanying string arrangements.

Klaus Voorman, the life-long friend of The Beatles and frequent John Lennon session player also played bass on Transformer.

Was 'Perfect Day' a success when it was released?

Perfect Day' was not in fact released as a stand-alone single, instead it was the B-Side to the album's biggest hit at the time, 'Walk On The Wild Side'.

Of course, since its inclusion on cult phenomenon Trainspotting in 1996, it helped rejuvenate Lou Reed's mainstream popularity.

Off the back of its renewed success, 'Perfect Day' was picked to be a benefit single for UK charity Children In Need the following year.

In 1997, an illustrious roster of artists contributed to the re-recording, including Tom Jones, Elton John, Bono, Emmylou Harris, opera singer Lesley Garrett, The Lemonheads' Evan Dando, The Pogues' Shane MacGowan, Dr. John, M People's Heather Smalls, Joan Armatrading, and even both Bowie and Reed who were behind the original.

The charity single went to number one in the UK charts for three weeks, and raised over two million pounds for Children In Need.

Heavily promoted on BBC television for over 2 months the single started life as a promo film to Celebrate of the corporation’s diversify of the many artist featured in the song it will provide a first UK number 1 for not only for Lou reed but also Shane McGown Dr John Emmylou Harris Heather Small Brett Anderson and Laurie Anderson no relation  

Has anyone else covered 'Perfect Day'?

Because of its touching sentiment to a casual, intimate day out with a partner, 'Perfect Day' has been interpreted by a handful of artists since its initial release.

The former First Lady of France, Carla Bruni, has covered 'Perfect Day', along with Kirsty MacColl and Evan Dando together, soul legend Al Green has recently offered his spin, and even Susan Boyle has recorded a rendition.

But it was New Romantic pop rockers Duran Duran whose cover appealed to Lou Reed the most, who even admitted their version was better than his, sort of.

Talking about their cover in a later interview, Reed explained: "They'd been very cooperative with me. They sent me the tape and I thought it was great. I don't dislike pop stuff, I love pop stuff, I just don't particularly do it."

"So when I said it's better than mine, it's better than mine as pop. Mine isn't, I guess what you would call you pop. But I thought they really trying to do a nice thing with it from their point of view."

What about about the album Transformer comes from

The Transformer album cover uses a photo taken by Mick Rock at one of Reed's concerts in London. The shot is washed-out with heavy contrast, the result of a printing error. Rock also printed a clear version of the shot, but Reed liked the washed-out version, so that's what they used for the cover, which became a classic image of Reed.

The Transformer Album also rates highly with the Ultimate classic rock website landing in at Number 2 in their list of the best Lou Reed and Velvet Underground albums behind the Velvet Underground album with Nico from 1967 this is what they say about Transformer

Six months after his solo debut, Reed released his masterpiece. With assistance from new pal David Bowie and critical elevation thanks to the Velvet Underground's growing reputation, Transformer reinvented Reed for the glam age while rarely shifting from his base. "Walk on the Wild Side" was his only charting single, a stroll through Reed's beloved New York City. Like on Lou Reed, a handful of unused Velvet Underground songs are here. But it's the sparkling production and great songs – "Vicious," "Perfect Day," "Satellite of Love" – that light the LP. He'd recoil from its success for the rest of his career, as this became one of only two Top 30 albums Reed logged, but Transformer is a steadfast highlight.

Read More: Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground Albums Ranked Worst to Best | https://ultimateclassicrock.com/lou-reed-velvet-underground-albums-ranked/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral

To read a review of the transformer album from the far out magazine click here

Lou Reed - 'Transformer' album review (faroutmagazine.co.uk)

Pictures

Claire Abbot as Julie from the Tolerance film screengrab taken from the video with thanks to Ian Medley

The man himself

Lou Reed with David Bowie

Walk on the Wildside single cover

Children in need single cover

I would love it see what I did there ha ha lol if after reading this blog and you like it to consider giving a donation to the Tolerance project you can do that by clicking on this link thanks

[kitzsah]

Heart Attack Exchange 2023 Letter

General Likes:

Worldbuilding and subject matter expertise! All the worldbuilding. I literally have 100K and counting of Chicago-cited (JSTOR articles and all) worldbuilding on the  historical/political background of the wizarding world for the fic series I'm working on. I also adore small, lived-in details – so if there’s any particular expertise/personal experience that you’ve  always wanted to expound on, consider me a captive audience haha. I’ve literally done method writing for a fic wherein I spent a morning walking around with four feet of yard-stick ruler strapped to my side to get an idea for what carrying a rapier would feel like, so yeah.

Unconventional formats. Seriously, I'm game for whatever you can think of. Textbooks, epistolary, official memorandums, screenshots and text messages, newspaper articles – the world is your oyster here.

Nuanced moral ambiguity and loyalty and duty and responsibility and  obligation and necessary evils. I absolutely adore portrayal of duties conflicting with personal  desire, people having to make hard choices and then live with the consequences,  bone-deep dedication to service, and anything else along those lines.

Character studies. Show me how a character became who they are, show me what facets of their personality emerges in different situations, tell me about how their background impacts how they view the world. Flawed/unreliable narration and close personal biases are absolutely welcome here. Outside perspectives on characters are always fun as well!

Close relationships, romantic, platonic, ambiguous, and otherwise. I absolutely adore close platonic relationships that are no less close or meaningful or devoted for being platonic. I’m talking raze the fields, “Where you go, I go” level of loyalties being my catnip here. And even for romance, show me characters as friends first and how they relate to each other as people, more than the part where they think the other person’s hot.

DNWs:

Porn Without Plot/Plot, What Plot? I'm not entirely opposed to sex, either onscreen or implied, but only if it’s not the only thing happening. You’re writing for someone who’s disinterested in sex (except as a characterization tool) to begin with, so any attempt at smut for its own sake is going to fall flat.

Character bashing. Even the most  objectively fucked up characters are still people, in all their good and evil. One-dimensional character bashing/flanderization will not be appreciated.

Crack. Humor and comedy are fine, crack is not. Life can be absolutely absurd sometimes, so if it’s something that could actually happen and fits the characters, go right ahead. Unhinged crack for its own sake will be less welcome.

Suicide. References/mentions are acceptable, as is a character sacrificing their life for someone else, but...okay, honestly, if you’re planning on writing a fic that features suicide beyond a background mention of “X background character killed themself,” just ask through the Mod to double-check that portion of the plot with me.

Revolutionary Arc - kitsunerei88:

Lina Avery

Lina! My favorite mercenary war-mage who will swear up, down, and sideways that she has Absolutely No Morals Whatsoever, No Sirree. Yet someone gets suckered into fighting a war and overthrowing a government for free because the people she loves (for all she will Fervently Deny It Forever) needed that. Also, her attitude toward her Idiot Not Son is just hilarious.

Give me anything from her adventures with Etienne during the Cold War (up to and including emotional angst after he dies/she gets him killed) to Lina’s....Adventures with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement after the war. She’s so not the person to Lead A Whole Administrative Department yet gets stuck with the job anyway. What is she like at job fairs trying to talk seventeen and eighteen year-old British-born muggleborn and halfblood teenagers into joining the DMLE? (She’s probably as good for recruitment as Top Gun is for the Navy haha, and all those baby aurors probably half-worship at her feet) How much times a week does she threaten to quit her job at James and Sirius? What’s her perspective of the post-war political situation in the new Wizarding England and Wales? How many use of force lawsuits and Memorandums regarding appropriate language and conduct does she inspire?

Mikael Kowalski/Annabelle Crestley

I’m way too fond of these two characters that I literally developed from one-line mentions in RevArc ahaha.

I’ll take any and all romantic fluff/adventures with them! Especially since I suck at romance and everything associated. Fluffy dates, Absolutely Positively Not Pining Letters going back and forth between Moscow and NYC, them going “What the actual fuck” at John’s....Everything during the events of RevArc!

Alliance Trilogy - E. Jade Lomax

Lia/Marie Gabrielle & Marie Gabrielle Andrea & Gabrielle Andrea

I loved the glimpses of Ceren religion that appeared throughout the trilogy, and the way that Gregory fell in love with these people and considered them worth fighting for. And holy fuck that scene of the city guard ripping flowers off a little girl's head because it’s viewed as a symbol of defiance/rebellion/treason. I would just love more everything of this.

Anything about growing up as a persecuted religious minority, where something a small as flowers is viewed with suspicion and having to hide your holiday celebration in cellars, the way the Ceren emphasis on blood is something that Andrea and her brothers (who aren't considered her brothers by Ceren society) chafes at. What was it like for Andrea and countless other Ceren children growing up in this world? And honestly, give me everything on Andrea in general - this orphan girls with brothers that her culture doesn’t recognize as brothers, who had to grow up too fast in a world, and asks herself the question of “What do I want to do with my hands?”

What does it mean to be Ceren, to identify as Ceren, in Neria, a hundred years after unification? Marie and Sebastian are Cerens as well, a different stripe (or at least Sebastian was, and Marie grew to be) of Ceren than Andrea and the rebels that we spend most of the series with, and at the very end of Traitor, there's a Ceren boy who's signed up to join the royal guard. How do all of these characters relate to their identity and religion and culture in similar and different ways? Do any of them identity as Nerian?

Gregory says to Andrea, "It [Neria] is [a country]. The people—the ones who don’t meet in your cellar—they call themselves Nerians. Folk from Birnel and Panet live in the city, and they call it home, too. What are you going to do with them? You’re not the only ones who love this land, not anymore. Whatever Sasha’s great-grandfather did, a hundred years ago, this is how it is now." Is he right? 

Gabrielle, my favorite and most determinedly ambitious twelve year-old. By the end of the book, she's tentatively making inroads with the Ceren resistance, and realized that she can love her father and simultaneously disagree with his policy, and is grappling with issues of privilege and saviorism and what she owes to her country and its people who have been wronged in her family's name and by her family. One of my favorite Gabrielle scenes is at the very end, when she's shocked to learn one of the royal guardsmen is a Ceren and "The guard stared at her, terrified, and Gabrielle leapt to reassure him, stumbling over her words and wringing her hands. There was a horror low in her stomach. What sort of kingdom was hers, that it hurt the very people who took up arms for it? That it hurt any person under its protection? This boy, in her own black and silver, was staring at her with such fear. Rage rose in her, at her forefathers, her father, at Bray and War and men like Doulings. I will be better. I will— Gabrielle took a long breath. I will listen. I will listen. I will learn." What does she get up to after the series ends? What are her stumbles, what are her successes? What is it like for this determined, too-smart kid who's committed to learning to listen?

Lia and Marie! They’re an A+ romance going on in the background, and I Marie’s line of “I didn’t kidnap any tax collectors or set any

government buildings on fire, but only because I didn’t stay in town long enough. If my cousin hadn’t died, if I hadn’t inherited and been sent to Court, I’d still be an angry, barefoot little girl in the backwoods, and I’d have set whole loads of things on fire by now. If I hadn’t met Lia, and you, my little princess. I love you both. But, if things had gone a different way - I hate that I have to live with the knowledge that in a different life I would’ve been slipping oleander into your tea and thinking myself righteous for it.” A character study of Marie and her journey/falling in love with Lia/coming to this realization would be absolutely incredible

The Fixer Series - Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Ivy Kendrick & William Keyes Ivy Kendrick & Adam Keyes

I’ll take everything regarding Ivy’s relationship with the (living) Keyes men here!

William Keyes says, “I never quite figured out how Adam and Ivy met. She was at Georgetown. He went to see her.” That plus William Keyes’ drama-filled line of, “I treated [Ivy] like a daughter, and she put Peter Nolan in office,” plus Adam’s line “Three years ago, you were on speaking terms with my father,” and Ivy’s admission that he taught her a significant amount of what she knows gives me so many questions about the two of them.

What did Tommy tell Ivy about his father? Did Adam introduce her to William Keyes or did he randomly take an interest in a girl from Georgetown and find out that she and Adam knew each other after the fact? How does Ivy feel about working for the man who, in another timeline, might have been her father-in-law? What does/did William Keyes feel about Ivy, from start to finish and everything about how she intersects with his sons? (Seriously, there’s so much packed into the line “Tommy died. I lost both sons.”)

Adam Keyes “must have known that Tommy was seeing someone. And somehow, he found out about [Tess].” What happened there? How much did he know? He visited/met Ivy for the first time (as far as William Keyes knows - which might not be entirely accurate!) when she was twenty and a student at Georgetown and he was home on leave (so he would have been 22/23 at a minimum) and implied/presumably after Tommy died. What was that meeting like? How does Adam feel about Ivy, and the connection to Tommy that she represents? How does he feel about Tess, and Ivy’s decisions regarding her? Ivy is implied to give his opinions about Tess’s upbringing some weight even before he even meets her, given the line of “Three years ago, you were the one who told me to bring [Tess] here.”

Tess Kendrick & Ivy Kendrick Tess Kendrick & William Keyes

Okay, I honestly love Tess and William Keyes’ relationship so much? (His character in general is just intriguing haha). Everything from “No matter what Ivy and my son might have told you, I’m not so heartless as to turn my only grandchild away,” to “[What do you want with Tess?] The same thing I’ve always wanted, dear - an heir.” How does he feel about discovering this grandchild (and legacy) he’s longed for for years? What’s his point of view of their back and forth? Literally I will devour everything about these two.

God, Tess and Ivy and their not-quite mother/daughter yet not exactly sister relationship is absolutely one of the emotional centers of this series. Ivy’s conversation with Tess about how she wanted to be good enough for her not sister, not daughter (but indisputably hers) absolutely kills me. What was it like for Ivy to watch her sister daughter Tess grow up from over a thousand miles away? How did Ivy feel that summer Tess was thirteen and she came to Montana making promises and left away a girl whose heart would be broken and all the stilted phone calls in between? What was going through Ivy’s head when she received that phone call from Tess’ school and she went to the ranch only to be called her mother’s name by her grandfather and every moment when she’s finally living with her sister daughter Tess for the first time? (Seriously, Ivy’s ‘Order what you like from these furniture catalogs on a Saturday evening, they will be delivered here today’ makes me laugh all the time).

Tess Kendrick & Tommy Keyes Tess Kendrick & William Keyes & Theresa Keyes

This would be an AU, but Tess’s line of “I would never know my father. I would never get to meet him, never know if he would have looked at me and seen pieces of himself, if he would have wanted me. If I could have been a daughter he would have loved,” gets me any time. So give me a timeline where Tommy did come home from his tour in Afghanistan! Your choice in terms of how they meet and how this particular cat comes out of the bag and how Adam and Tommy and Ivy relate to each other. This is honestly just me wanting Father-Daughter feels with Tommy and Tess (who’s named after his mother, presumably on his wishes) that the world/fate denied her.

This is also an AU, but William Keyes says in the second book, “I can never forgive Adam for that [denying Theresa Keyes, who Tess is named after, the chance to know her only grandchild]. We could have given you everything you deserved” Which immediately made me imagine a timeline in which the Keyes had, somehow, found out about Tommy’s child. Give me all the chewiness there with a Tess who has grown up either entirely in DC (William Keyes is Wealthy and has All The Lawyers, and would almost certainly skew things in his favor in terms of custody battles) or splitting her time between DC and Montana (this one is probably because Theresa reined her husband in).

(Note: feel free to gloss over the Political Drama And Intrigue haha. Do not feel obligated to figure out High Stakes Plots and assassinations and cover-ups and terrorist organizations and cover identities, I will absolutely adore fics that just focus on, like, the day to day and these tangled and messy relationships. Also, William Keyes’ mansion is supposedly on “the Virginia side of DC,” but in that that description is literally nonsensical geography, I’m pretty sure Barnes meant it to be in Mclean, Virginia (which is the Virginia side of the DC metro area stereotyped as where Rich And Powerful People live). The Maryland equivalent is Potomac.)

Leagues and Legends - E. Jade Lomax:

Jack Farris & George & Liam Jones Beatrix "Bea" Jones/Liam Jones Jack Farris & George

Give me all the Mountain Vigilante stories. How did Jack and George meet for the first time, when did Jack realize the obisidan-eyed girl he told his name to at the tavern because he hadn't known who she was was Cassandra Graves, show me their logistical network and caches set up to smuggle mages to safety, how did Bea root herself in a bakery and meet (and fall in love with) this whistling desert boy and two kids trying to mend the world as best they can, how was Challenge founded and constructed and what was the Northern Rangers' reaction and cooperation with the vigilantes of the mountain?

Lanetia "Laney" Jones & Liam Jones

Liam! He's a worldsinger, a talent that is explicitly noted to be rare and extraordinary in this world, for all that neither Jack or Laney call attention to it as such. "When [Laney] was eight, Liam was twenty and feeling trapped and useless." What made him leave the desert to go wandering? What was it like being able to hear the Elsewhere and whistle up magic? How did he he meet Jack and George for the first time and get into the Vigilante business and fighting the graves? I'd love for something where he doesn't die and Laney meets him and they actually get to have A Conversation because seriously, his departure really did a number on that little girl.

Earth Girl Series - Janet Edwards:

Tellon Blaze

Tellon Blaze and the Chimera Wars! That dude leaves such a long shadow on The Military to the point that even 250 years later, His Original Chair is still held in a place of honor in Military HQ. It's also practically outright stated in the Draco books that the Public Story Of Tellon Blaze and What Actually Happened are two very different narratives/closely held secrets. All of humanity views him as a war hero who was a military cadet visiting Thetis when shit hit the fan and heroically stepped up and was rewarded with laurels and pomp and a clan of the gentes maiores, but Draco talking to his father says that he was actually a civilian tennis-player with zero intentions of a military career when Thetis happened.

What's going on there? His order of "Nuke it to cinders" (and 'Let the stars go dark') is famous a quarter of a millennium later - what was that like, for Tellon Blaze? Anti-chimera detectors are on every military equipment and portal several centuries after the incident, and even the mere rumors of chimeras is enough to throw humanity into a panic, so what exactly went down during the wars (which are always mentioned in the plural)?

On that note, the history/origin of the Honor Child tradition (especially if there’s a connection to Tellon Blaze) would be absolutely fascinating as well. It's mentioned at some point (I think in the Drago books) that that was a tradition that arose during the Chimera Wars due to the sheer number of dead - so what happened there?

Jarra Tell Morrath I/Riak Torrek Jarra Tell Morrath I & Draco Tell Dramis

Jarra the First and Draco were two kids raised in this crazy cult/organization by Cioni's apprentices, who discovered their identities as Tell Clan members pounded on the doors of the Tell Clan Hall demanding entrance. It's implied that these two reacted very differently to their fucked-up upbringing: "My impression was that Draco was always fixated on the past but far too angry to discuss it, while his sister just wanted to focus on living a normal life in future. That seems consistent with what I was told about their clan welcoming ceremony. Draco was still changing his mind about his chosen name an hour before the ceremony, while his sister never once wavered from her decision to be Jarra Tell Morrath."

What happened? Exactly why did Cioni's Apprentice want embryos of the Tell Clan? How did Jarra the First and Draco escape? What was it like assimilating into a very different environment? What's the story of Jarra the First’s military career and her eventual relationship with Bard and Riak?

Gemena Raya Feren & Marack Tell Galad & Jarra Tell Morrath Jarra Tell Morrath & Riak Torrek Gemelle Tell Feren & Jaxon Tell Galad & Jarra Tell Morrath Gemelle Tell Feren & Jaxon Tell Galad

Seriously, Jarra contacting her parents and learning that they wanted a relationship with her only for them to be killed in action weeks later is such a cruel twist of fate. Like, an entirely realistic twist of fate, mind you, because Life Sucks Like That and Jarra’s Life Especially Consists Of Cruel Twists Of Ironic Fate. I get the plot necessity of it, but still, I’ll take all the canon-divergences here.

AU where Jaxon comes to his senses even a few days sooner and Jarra is never handed over to Hospital Earth and grows up with both parents, secure in the knowledge that she’s Loved And Is A Tell Clan Member.

AU where Jarra contacts her clan at fourteen like her friends did. She has no fucking clue why she does it (possibly Isette badgered her into it), she’s entirely doing it to make her friends happy, she fully expects things to go down in flames and figures she might as well get it over it. Except, to her complete shock, her family actually wants her. Her parents come down, there’s probably Much Yelling at Hospital Earth, and teenaged Jarra gets bombarded with all the love. Seriously, re-reading Earth Girl and Jarra’s (justified) bitterness is so painful after the Drago series because you know that her family wanted her so badly and they loved her so fucking much.

AU where Jarra’s parents don’t die during that behavior event in Kappa Sector and they come visit her on Earth while she’s working on the dig sights and all the ensuing emotion fraughtness as she figures out What It Means To Have Parents And Family as an adult.

Riak Torrek’s POV of the Honor Ceremony! Seriously, that dude had, what, a handful of hours’ notice? One minute he’s doing Solar Array Command Shit, the next is that he’s getting a notification that his long-lost granddaughter, who the entire family has thought they’d never find, has been identified. Not only that, he’s immediately tasked with leading a memorial ceremony for said long-lost granddaughter - a memorial ceremony commemorating the honor and sacrifice and service of his deceased wife. I’m honestly impressed that he kept his composure as much as he did during that scene.

I’ll also take all the scenes of Jarra with her siblings. Anything from Jaxon’s Situation Re Fidelis Breach finally being brought up, to just sibling bonding, to the...whatever the fuck Jaxon and Gemelle’s relationship has been like for the last two decades (because Gemelle said in one of the Drago books that she and Jaxon don’t/can’t have a normal sibling relationship as a result of what happened to Jarra all those years ago) and maybe even some of that being mended.

The Dark Artifices - Cassandra Clare:

Julian Blackthorn/Emma Carstairs Julian Blackthorn & Emma Carstairs

I know canon is all about Julian and Emma’s forbidden love story, but I honestly fell in (non-romantic) love with these kids because of their relationship to war and tragedy. Julian’s line of, “I came of age in the Dark War. I was baptized in blood and fire....I killed my own father. You think I won’t kill you son?” made me scream. These kids were twelve when their world fell apart around them and they lost almost everything, when one promise of, “Aren’t we forever?” in a desperate attempt to cling to what little they had left ended up almost ruining their lives. They’re kids who they ran for their lives and grew up in war and knowing (and bearing) the cost of sacrifice and necessity. So for prompts, honestly I’ll adore any one of a hundred moments in the years between the end of the war and the start of the Dark Artifices.

Julian writing to the Clave every year to try to bring his sister home, stepping into Arthur’s shoes and running the Institute, teaching himself how to cook because his family needs him, trudging up the hill with groceries, becoming a father at the age of twelve (seriously, Tavvy is two when everything goes to hell, he literally doesn’t remember any parental figure other than Julian)

Emma, who spends these year honing herself into the sharpest weapon possible until she’s known as the second coming of Jace Herondale even though she says she’s “nothing special” (God, that conversation with her and Cristina), who throws herself into avenging her parents’ death, who needs to be the best Shadowhunter that she can be.

These two kids in general, really, who have lived through war and are five shades of messed up and too young and have their own language and wake up from nightmares and crawl into each other’s beds in an attempt to keep the bad dreams away.

Julian’s POV of waking up in Lady Midnight to discover that Emma had taken his place and is currently lying on the floor in front of the institute, whipped half to death.

Canon-divergence where Emma finds out about Julian running the Institute and the Uncle Arthur situation earlier and she helps him shoulder the burden - because he’s her parabatai and her best friend and how could she do anything less?

Or, for something less heavy, a fluffy slice-of-life (or, well, as fluffy as any canon involving Children And A Society At War, because that’s what Shadowhunters are, even without the whole Morgenstern Situation) canon-divergence AU where Emma and Julian got to remain children a little while longer - playing side-by-side on the beach, bonking each other with wooden swords and making faces at each other. A world where Julian never has to know how bitter Necessity tastes, and Emma never seeps herself in vengeance.

Legally Blonde Musical - Hach/O'Keefe/Benjamin:

Emmett Forrest/Elle Woods 

I have a soft spot for this musical haha, and especially these two. I’ll honestly take anything about these two and their relationship?

Emmett’s perspective on meeting Elle (and, you know, falling in love with her) because his background in terms of socioeconomics has so much potential (”Chip On My Shoulder” is an absolutely amazing song) 

Elle’s POV on realizing that the love she’s traveled all the way to Harvard to find/get back is actually standing right next to her in the form of Emmett.

Emmett’s POV from Legally Blonde to Legally Blonde (Remix) and events that happen in between? How does he feel about Callahan assaulting Elle, what does do, what happens offstage that we don’t see?

(Note: I’ve never actually watched the Broadway/MTV edition. When I think of this musical, I’ll always think of my high school production of it with the fondest of memories, and I will be forever grateful if any small details mentioned match that my high school’s production rather than any of the official version. The only plot significant one is that Legally Blonde (the song) is sung with Emmett and Elle on opposite sides of her dorm room door (I know some productions have it staged so that he and Elle are in the same room) so that she doesn’t hear him go, “What about love?” Others are: Paulette is Black, Enid is Desi, Bruiser is a fluffy white Bolognese rather than a Chihuahua, Emmett has dark blond hair and wears glasses and has a habit of rocking his weight back and forth on his feet)

[aajjks]

The fanclub: Q/A session (1 year anniversary special) PT 01/03

[gif not mine, found it on Pinterest, credits to owner]

note. WOHOOO MOTHERFUCKERS ITS THAT TIME OF THE YEAR AGAIINNNN!!! WHOOOHOO!!!

warnings. INAPPROPRIATE TALK, SEX MENTION, tattoos, alina is DONE., CHAOS!!!

“Ha you guys.. it’s been a year since you started this fanclub for Y/N, our classmate... aren’t you proud?” Alina, the youngest out of the bunch starts the conversation, her tone chirpy, full of enthusiasm as she crosses her leg, sitting on the spinning chair.

Her gaze was set on the the group of boys who stared at her with no interest whatsoever. Alina rose her eyebrow at the group, when suddenly Taehyungs deep voice boomed across the huge club room. “What the fuck jungkook, stop fucking kicking my legs!?” Taehyung was as expected, ignored by the younger male who was now busy chewing on a bubble gum.

Their female fellow watched the scene in front of her with amusement, It was quite the scene, actually. Their leader, Kim Seokjin rolled his eyes at the duo and cleared his throat, finally tearing his gaze away from the two, to look forward at the girl, smiling softly he crossed his arms, beginning to speak.

“Yeah... actually yes. We do feel this weird kind of pride, not going to lie. We were the first one to do so... yeah... it’s definitely something we’re proud of, for sure.” The oldest male is careful with the choice of his words. Trying his best to not sound smug, but the slight smirk on his lips is enough to uncover the truth.

“Yes. I’m so proud, I can’t believe it’s been an year already. It feels like yesterday, we have always loved and adored Y/N so much that we almost didn’t realise that our fanclub turned an year old.” Namjoons dimples are visible on his face, the lad has a smile of satisfaction accompanying his handsome features as he finishes his sentence. Yoongi just nods along and Jimin has a huge smile plastered on his face. “Cool!!!! So you all know why we’re here today.. right?” Alina begins to speak once again.

The boys pass her a knowing look,

the girl smiles softly, a mischievous glint present in her eyes.”Of course you would, it’s your guys’ most favourite session of all time!” Laughing, the bunch just watch her with stoic faces until she finally stops, clearing her throat, Alina begins once again. “Hmm, lets start our q/a session 2021! WOHOOO!”

And before she could start her maniac laughter again, seokjin took the cue. “Okay we’re ready! Start, alina!” As she nods, The club quickly adjust their postures and the faint sound of arguing from Taehyung and Jungkook comes to a halt.

“Okay so, the first question is... oh it’s juicy, are you open to the idea of having a poly relationship with s/o?” Alina, puts the piece of paper down and focuses on the faces of the club members. Their smiles falter a bit when, “NO.” The sound of no comes in a harmony. “what. Bu- Okay Alina, next question!” This time namjoon cuts the girl off her mid sentence, forcing a smile. “Whatever,” picking the paper again, her eyes focus on the question.

“question number two is... oh it’s a cute one!! What's your favorite spot to kiss y/n?” Alina’s cheeks redden a little bit when she finally looks ahead at the boys. “Oh it’s definitely the lips and neck for me” Taehyung speaks almost immediately, a dirty smirk playing on his lips as he answers. “Hmm the cheeks!” Jimin giggles at the thought while speaking. “Y/N has beautiful hands....” namjoon is lost in a daze of his own thoughts, “ahh... well... eyesss?” Yoongi couldn’t help but blush.

“N-Nose? Every part of their body?” Jungkook stuttered so cutely that it made Alina’s heart clench, “actually their pretty forehead.. it’s romantic.” Jins face was illuminated with a lovesick smile. Hoseok takes his time to respond. “hmm… tummy?” He could feel the members gazes on him. Alina smiled in awe.

They were quite the romantics. Lucky you, She thought, picking up the paper again, she cleared her throat. “Okay… third question is…what's your favorite way to spend time with y/n?”

“Actually… you know I like to spend my time staring at Y/N’s face while they tell me- US… about their day or literally hear their melodious voice…” Hoseok answered as all of them nodded in agreement.

“Wow… okay.. if you had the chance to confess your love to y/n how would you do it? (letter, text, speech, gifts)”

“I’d get their whole face tattooed on me… actually I already have… haha…” jungkook giggled. They all turned to look at him in surprise.

Jungkook had already gotten a tattoo of you? Jimin scoffed in jealousy. “Eh whatever… I’d give Y/N lots and lots of gifts… and shower them in kisses!!” “You know alina… I have my dear beloved Y/N’s handwriting tattooed on my back too, do you wanna see?” Jungkook wiggled his eyebrows.

A smirk played on his lips.

“Do you?” Alina felt so jealous of you, but admired how lucky you were. “I-I no… I’m good!” She laughed, it was forced. “Your laugh sucks especially if it’s forced.” Yoongi rolled his eyes.

“I’d confess my love for my sexy Y/N by fucking them hard and raw..” taehyung shrugged.

Alina’s cheeks could burst. Taehyung really had no filter when it came to you. “BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!!”

“You are so disgusting.”

“TRUE!! LEARN TO APPRECIATE THEM IN DIFFERENT WAYS OTHER THAN SEX YOU ASSHOLE!”

Alina didn’t even get a chance to continue as the room roared with argument noises, coming from the one and only. “Oh well.. let me know when y’all get done… it’s time for me to go and stalk eunwoo I’ll be back when it’s break!”

[dropsofletters]

the whisper in the obvious [bbh]

—summary: she hasn’t had enough time in her life to date because of her work. in order to fill the void of romantic intimacy and domesticity, she lurks online for brief videos or recordings to make her feel better. it works for a while, much more when she finds a man who does boyfriend roleplays—blue moon. it’s not like she’ll ever get to know him, right?

baekhyun doesn’t have much luck in romance. whoever he dates end up either cheating on him or turning their dates into the worst date of his life. growing older by the day, without someone by his side and a job that he hates, he creates a patreon account where he pretends to be people’s boyfriends…blue moon, he has called himself. it’s not like someone he knows will look him up, right?

they’re completely wrong, that’s for sure.

—title: the whisper in the obvious —pairing: byun baekhyun x reader —genre: friends who banter to crushes to lovers!au ; anonymous asmrtist!au ; technician!au ; doctor!au ; meet messy!au —type: fluff ; humor ; angst ; suggestive ; slowburn —word count: 18,768 —warnings: mentions of sex (though the act is never shown on the narrative on itself), alcohol, some descriptions of sicknesses and wounds but nothing graphic.

This is downright pathetic.

Aching limbs flail on each side of her body as she lays on her bed, splayed much like a star as her eyes set on the ceiling. Her earbuds let a manly, somewhat lighthearted voice breathe out words in a faceless manner, straight from a monthly subscription to a Patreon account. Had anyone told her that the only way she could ever get the relief of having a relationship when she became an adult was going to be through a man speaking softly into a microphone about how her day was and what she had eaten, giving vague answers whatsoever, she would have probably given them a laugh.

But life is laughing now, because time runs too quickly during the day when she works in the ER, and it has been well over two years since the last time she had any kind of physical touch with a man. Period. Most times, she doesn’t need it—what can be done by a man to her body can be done by herself much easier, but the kind of warmth that comes from a cuddling session after a tiring day and the endless conversations that come with having someone by her side that she wholeheartedly trusts, only to receive a kiss of comfort at the very end, has long died in her routine.

Now, all she has left is the company of some stranger that has a quite wide fanbase for his boyfriend roleplays—pathetic, she wants to call herself once again, but Blue Moon Whispers does the trick. She gets a boyfriend that she doesn’t have to talk to throughout the day, that cares for her like no one will and a plus, of course, that she’s not the only one that spends money on a man doing this for her.

Pathetic. Pathetic. Pathetic.

Yet, she closes her eyes, tries to even out her breaths when Blue Moon speaks into the microphone. “I’ve been thinking about you all day.” He drags the last few words, a sigh following his statement before he chuckles softly. “My job is so boring. I’m really good at it, but…I don’t know, it’s not what anyone would want to do for the rest of their lives.”

She tries not to wonder about his workplace. Maybe, he’s a nine-to-five worker, or with that voice, he could be one of those telephone workers that pick up sex-lines calls in order to please other people. She could imagine it, there’s some mischief in his tone that tells her he’s not just quite as sweet as his voice recordings.

Humming, she tugs her covers up her neck, listening to more of what he says.

“But enough about me, how was work for you?” Terrible. Working as a doctor is far more difficult than studying for it, and she felt like tugging at her eyeballs when being in med school. Constantly being screamed at by specialists and being questioned by family members when she gives a diagnosis is not quite what she imagined, and her blood pressure is up the roof when she has to save someone last minute. Tonight, she had a patient with atherosclerosis have a heart attack and it was quite possibly the most stressful time of the day. The patient is alive, thankfully.

“I see…” Almost as if he has heard her internal rant, Blue Moon responds. “But I’m here to distract you, aren’t I?” His voice drops at that moment, pressing a kiss into the microphone that has a smile appearing on her features. Okay. Pathetic, has she said that already? She feels like a teenager at this point. “What do you want to watch tonight?”

Her voice gets caught in her throat when she thinks of the first show that comes to mind.

“The Rookie, right?”

Wait, how did he know what kind of show she wanted to watch?

Blue Moon was, quite possibly, the only man that had fit her just right…and that comes from someone who pays a stranger on Patreon to get her dose of domesticity. Her past boyfriends, though not many, always felt lacking. Assholes, for the most part, she adores someone who shows their true colors at the very end and they end up being the most rancid shade of poop-colored brown. The sarcasm is ever present, but all her past boyfriends have been close to pieces of shit, if not entirely so.

It’s not a surprise that she did not try again. Her thirties are only getting closer and she can’t bring herself to put her dating profile out there again. It’s scary, downright stupid and she knows that it won’t ever end well.

“Let me cuddle closer to you—”

Someone shouts her name at the top of her lungs in a sing-song tone, and she recognizes the deep voice quite well. Chohee, her friend and next-door neighbor, is the only person to use her spare key for whatever excuse she has inside her head and invite herself inside her apartment as if she pays half the rent. Just as her fingers fiddle to get her earphones out, sitting up on the bed with widened eyes, Chohee opens the door, pushing her long black hair off her shoulder.

“I brought some cheeseburgers—” At the steady rise and fall of her chest and her disheveled hair—in her defense, today’s day of work had been hell—, Chohee stops speaking. “Were you watching porn?”

What is easier in this ungodly situation of adult life, to admit that she’s hearing a man speaking into her ear while pretending to be her boyfriend, or that she is watching something quite relatively normal? “Yeah.” The latter is easier. She doesn’t want Chohee peeping into her stuff.

Chohee purses her thin lips coated in a glimmer of gloss. “Do you want me to leave you to it or…?”

Well, that option was awkward as well. She could’ve denied both. Shit.

“No, it’s fine. I—It’s not…It wasn’t…It wasn’t doing the trick, I guess.” Locking her phone, she pushes it underneath her pillow before patting the spot in front of her. Chohee takes it without much of a question on the tip of her tongue.

“I hate when that happens.” With that, Chohee tugs at her phone, trying to unlock it—and fuck, she really does know the password. “But I’ve been subscribing to OnlyFans accounts instead. There are some really cute guys there—”

Alert. Red alert. She can’t let Chohee look at the most simplistic of intimacy in the form of an online boyfriend, that only lasts a few minutes to an hour with her. “Uh, Chohee, you don’t have to.”

“No, girl, I have to.” Chohee says, splaying the plastic bag of cheeseburgers on the bed just as she’s reaching forward for her. The taller woman ducks back, trying to unlock her phone. “You haven’t been with a man in a while, I need to help you make your alone time as worthy as possible. I think—”

“Chohee, don’t check my phone.”

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I’ve seen dicks. You have definitely seen dicks.” Chohee rolls her eyes just as she takes her phone in between her fingers, but never does she once relent on letting go of it, tugging at it instead. “What’s the problem?”

“I just don’t want you to look at it.”

“But why are you so ashamed? It’s really nothing you should be embarrassed about—”

Between the tugging back and forth, her phone clashes against the flooring, enough to make her widen her eyes when she sees it falling face down. “Shit.” She curses, ignoring the apologies that rake from Chohee’s vocabulary when she lowers herself to pick it up.

The screen is broken and when her thumb presses on the button, the screen lights up in different colors of the rainbow, and she can’t even see the lock-screen.

“Is it broken?”

She scoffs. “Shattered. Broken. Destroyed. What’s another synonym?”

“In my defense,” Chohee says and the chewing that comes soon after tells her that she’s already diving into those cheeseburgers. “You were the one hiding your porn from me. Are you into feet or shit like that?”

She clutches her fists together. “I’m into men eating shit, that’s exactly it.” She replies sarcastically, turning around to watch Chohee staring at her with surprise. A sigh leaves her lips. “I’m kidding, but now I need to get my phone fixed. My patients and other doctors contact me through here.”

Her friend swats her hand in the air. “Baek can fix it.”

Oh, over her dead body.

Byun Baekhyun is Chohee’s best friend, annoyance on legs, too overexcited, the kind of child teachers had a headache for. Baekhyun has been in her life for more than six years, as long as Chohee had been—the man that drunkenly screamed her name at the top of his lungs during her graduation, or the one that almost ran over her foot at his birthday party when he was learning how to drive and didn’t know how to park backwards. Baekhyun, though great, is just the type of person she can’t stand for more than an hour. Let alone for fixing her phone.

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.” Chohee corrects. “You know he wouldn’t ask you for money just to fix your screen.”

“Still,” Something for free sounds excellent at this time where Chohee interrupted my time with my faux boyfriend and also destroyed my phone in the matter of minutes, but I have to deny it. “You know how Baekhyun is. He’ll probably be asking me a bunch of questions—”

“And?”

“I don’t enjoy people prying into my business.”

Chohee smiles at that, pushing her black bangs away from her small face. “He doesn’t do it with a bad heart,” She tells. “Part of me thinks Baekhyun just doesn’t like feeling lonely, so he speaks a lot just to…have attention. It’s the child in him. Let him.”

Somehow, guilt takes over my body. Maybe, I’ve been too harsh judging the man. “…Okay.” I breathe out, standing up and moving towards the bed, laying parallel to Chohee before taking a bite of her cheeseburger. “Tell him I will be at his workplace tomorrow morning. At like eight, I have a shift tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you tell him?”

Waving my phone into the air, I sigh. “Someone decided to break my phone.”

“Right…”

I can already tell it’s going to be a long week.

###  

An engineering degree could only get him so far. Or, if he had completed his time in that engineering program, he may have had his own office by age twenty-eight, or at least, would have had the opportunity for a better salary. Baekhyun had heard it from his mom that he’d regret dropping out of university, but only now does it really become something that he thinks of.

For one, the morning is too dimmed to let the turquoise on his chemise shine brightly—he has to wear the same uniform every single day, tucked inside his jeans, accompanied by a dangling presentation card on his neck. The picture comes from when he was twenty-three, when he started working here, but he has been a technician ever since.

When he opted for this job, he thought he’d be like the others. Spend one year or two here, then flee away for something better. That didn’t happen, and with each portion of his life slipping away from his fingertips, he’s left to find other ways to meet ends as he mirrors himself on the oldest phone technician at his work place.

Suhyuk, above his fifties, working here for more than ten years. His wife divorced him just because he had not moved on with his life, and his children buy Samsung just not to have him fixing their iPhones.

Not even Suhyuk is here at such an early morning. Had it not been for Chohee’s constant texts, he would’ve probably gotten to work a bit later.

Yet, someone is already waiting for him. Chohee’s neighbor, his friend-that-doesn’t-really-want-to-be-friends-with-him, seated on the sidewalk, with her back leaning against the glassed door of his workplace.

“You’re here early.”

She scoffs, standing up when he extends his hand forward. She is not exactly his type, but his eyes rake down her body for a fraction of a second longer than usual. She’s not wearing scrubs, that’s new. “No, you’re here late.” Her fingers point at the watch under her dark denim jacket. “We said seven thirty. It’s eight thirteen.”

Baekhyun runs his fingers through his black hair, playing with the keys dangling from his elegant and long fingers before starting to open the door. “Who is awake at seven thirty?”

“Everyone who has a job, douchebag.” There it is. The name. Baekhyun can practically count with his fingers the number of insults people have thrown at him—all in different occasions and under different circumstances, but the only one he doesn’t feel particularly offended by is the ones she tells him. Douchebag, she had started to call him on his twenty-fifth birthday, when she had eavesdropped on his conversation with Chanyeol about Scarlett Johansson’s tit—

“I don’t get it. Why do you keep calling me a douchebag?” Baekhyun questions, opening the glassed doors and letting his finger twirl against the switch until all the white lights across his workplace brighten the white, spotless place.

She moves behind him, following after his steps and responding with what he can judge as a smile on her tone. “You’re just one.”

“You’ve been calling me that for years,” He says. “And just because I said Scarlett Johansson has nice tits. I didn’t even say tits, I said breasts. I was a whole nerd about it and you called me a douche—”

She chuckles at his words, the melody somewhat foreign. Serious has taken over every portion of her life, and he thinks it has been years since the last time he has seen her actually grin with happiness. He gets behind the counter, taking the phone that she lends him before looking at the screen.

Cracked as cracked can be.

This screams Chohee.

“I know what you said, and it wasn’t breasts.”

Baekhyun looks up, fixing the rounded glasses on the bridge of his nose. “I know what I said.”

“I’ve read enough textbooks to have photographic and audible memory. You said,” She clears her throat then, making her voice a bit higher than her usual tone. That’s not his voice, he thinks to himself. “If I had to convert to a religion, it’d be Scarlett Johansson’s boobs. Can’t believe Ryan Reynolds dated her and I didn’t.”

Taking a small screwdriver between his hands, a smile takes over his features. Yeah, so he was drunk and he may have said that, but— “I said boobs.”

“Breasts, boobs, tits, fat with nipples, it’s all very douchey, if you ask me.”

“I was just saying something that I’m sure a lot of people think.” Baekhyun shrugs his shoulders, his frame looking slimmer on the oversized chemise. Definitely not very fitting for him. “Look me in the eye and tell me she doesn’t have nice boobs.”

“She does.”

“Well, then?” Baekhyun puts the screen to the side, kneeling down to search through his utensils. “It’s not cool that you don’t call me by my name.”

“It just rolls off easier. Douchebag.” She elongates the words then, leaning her elbows against the counter as she tries to connect her gaze to Baekhyun’s. The man stands up then, just as she continues with her train of thought. “As if Scarlett would have dated you over Ryan Reynolds.”

Baekhyun widens his eyes. “You don’t know that!”

“Of course, I know!” She replies. “Ryan Reynolds could break you in half with just one hand and you still think that she’d pick you?”

“I happen to have a nice body, too…you…”

“You’re trying to look for an insult?” With cheeks tinted red, he looks down at her phone, trying to work through the broken screen before his body jolts at the sound of her voice. “You can call me ‘bitch’ if you’d like.”

Wait. Pause.

Baekhyun squints his eyes, a strand of his hair curling against his forehead when he looks at her. “The real question is…do I want to die today?”

“Come on, I call you a douchebag, it’s only fair if you call me a bitch.”

Baekhyun shakes his head, returning to his work. “You’d kill me, and I’m not sure I want to anger someone who knows the human body better than anyone else.”

Truth is, Baekhyun has always thought of her as an ideal when it comes to success. Never giving up, even when her career will never let her stop studying. God, he can’t imagine how difficult it is to read as much as she does.

“If I wanted to kill you, I would’ve done so by now.” The somberness of her voice does nothing to him. He has heard that before, as wicked as it sounds. “Come on, call me a bitch.”

“I won’t—”

“Just once. I don’t want to feel bad.”

“I—”

“Baekhyun, this is the only and last time I’ll ask. If not, I’ll start calling you a bitch myself.”

“Okay, bitch, calm down.” He finalizes, laughter following his statement when he sees her lips parting in surprise. “You told me to say it!”

“That came out a little too naturally—”

Baekhyun squares his shoulders then, ready to throw a joke her way only to see her more annoyed. His specialty. “Maybe, I’ve had one girl or two asking me to call her that.”

She rolls her eyes at his words. “And then you wonder why I call you a douchebag.” She adds. “I can’t imagine one single woman who would like to date you.”

He can imagine a few, but that’s not something she knows about. Baekhyun has always prided himself on one thing—on his voice and his way of getting someone to like him. Only that it comes with a downside: he doesn’t know how to pick the right women. So, more often than not, his dates ended up in disasters, relationships tangled in cheating and of course, how to forget? The day he decided to create his own ASMR Patreon channel for boyfriend roleplays just because he needed some money, only to end up with over thirteen thousand faux partners.

These days, people have wanted him to venture more into a world of rated recordings…and truth be told, his mind wanders. Part of him thinks it would be easier, perhaps more profitable for him, and no one would even look at him or notice who he was. Another part of him feels far too embarrassed. Sure, one thing was recording himself, another thing was publishing it.

“…That’s because you have bad tastes.” Baekhyun conquers, using his screwdriver again before pressing his long index finger to the turn-on button. “I think we’re done with your phone…”

“Bitch.”

“Huh?”

“You were about to say my name.”

“I won’t call you a bitch.” A smirk appears on his soft, delicate face then, merging his features until the screen lights up in between them. The phone is working. “I think you like it a bit too much, huh?”

Maybe, there are some portions of life worth remembering and there is a reason why he is still a phone technician, because he gets to see her otherwise serious expression turn into a laugh when she shakes her head.

“I’d rather be dead than have me in your bed, Baekhyun.” She takes her phone in between her hands, opening her purse just then. “How much is it?”

By the time she is out the glassed doors, blending in her darkened colors with the light, blurring sky, Baekhyun realizes one thing…

She didn’t call him a douchebag. Maybe, it slipped her mind or perhaps, she was nervous when she spat out her last few lines.

Yet, it’s true. He could never imagine the two of them being together.

###

“I’ve officially found the girl who’s going to be in your Patreon with you.”

The Manager Complex, write it in psychology books or Baekhyun may sell it to psychologist in order to get some money, but the concept exists within Chanyeol. Once he had catched a glimpse of Baekhyun’s microphone set-ups and he had to explain the point of his Patreon to his friend, there was no going back. With an agenda on the side of his elongated body, and a professional look on his face, Chanyeol has taken it upon himself to ‘plan out’ his channel…and sure, he’s thankful, but it somehow makes him feel as if he’s a product.

Chanyeol takes a seat across from him on their usual diner. Pink tiles, black and white walls and red tables do make the place justice, but what keeps them there is the fried chicken and pancakes. To die for, and much more if they accompany it with some vanilla ice cream after.

“You have?” Baekhyun asks. He’s not entirely sure if he’s sold to the idea of recording himself with someone else, pretending to be a couple. After all, he’s meant to be the listener’s boyfriend, not with someone else, but more people have joined asking him to be accompanied for heavier subjects on his recordings and truthfully…he wants to expand his horizons a little bit, or he’s, at least, thinking about it. “You can’t just find someone you think is hot and not tell them I plan on recording our voices—”

“She’s more skilled than you, dumbass.” Chanyeol ties his brown hair behind his back, opening his almost-empty agenda before sighing. “I’ve set you up on a date to see where things head and whatnot, but she’s another ASMRtist…and she has done rated recordings, so I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

Oh. So, this is real.

Shit, he thinks it could be easy, but when he really ponders about it…there is this tinge of awkwardness and shyness that overtakes him. Sure, it would make his channel grow and hence, give him more money to spend at the end of the day, but he has to take a swig of beer to push down the bitter taste.

It feels void. People like him for pretending he is the nicest boyfriend in the world, borderline fake at times, but at the end of the day, they only want him to either give comfort or fulfill fantasies. None of them will understand him or want to be with him for who he is, or how he is. Loud-spoken, extroverted, sometimes pensive, mischievous with tinges of cheeky.

“Do I have to?”

Chanyeol looks up from his agenda then, playing with the edge of a piece of paper before shaking his head. “Record yourself? No, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, Baekhyun.” He closes the agenda in one go, his frown becoming more profound by the second. “But I do recommend you to go out on a date with her. She’s different from what you normally go for…and she’s cute. There’s nothing wrong with having fun with someone normal every once in a while.”

Looking around the diner, he spares a smile towards Chanyeol. “Okay, I will go out on a date with her.” With how busy he has been with the growth of his Patreon and his real job on top of that, he hasn’t quite gone out much…and that leaves him to take Chanyeol’s opportunity. If he thinks they are a match, then it must be true, right?

“You’re going to love her.”

“If you say so.”

“Cheers for you getting some after a while.” Chanyeol pushes his bottle of beer forward, only to have Baekhyun chuckling.

“Can’t promise that, but cheers!”

###

A thumping headache follows after every sigh that leaves her lips. Somehow, the isopropyl alcohol-scented emergency room does nothing to purify the utmost tiredness inside her body. Instead, she’s left sulking for the number of hours still left in her nightshift. It’s twelve at night and she, still, has to wait until three in the morning arrives to be able to go back home.

She hears a bag of food plopping against the counter, enough for her to lift her eyes ever-so-slowly. Seriously, she thinks she is half-asleep at this point, unaware if she is dreaming or wide awake. Seeing Jaebeom in front of her may be a dream; the second-year dermatology doctor smiling down at her. While he’s radiant, with his long brown hair cascading down his face and reaching his earlobes, wearing the typical white robe and his baby blue scrubs underneath, she has settled for her burgundy scrubs. The ones she wears every single day.

Truth is, everyone is talking about Lim Jaebeom these days. Even the nurses, for fuck’s sake. He manages to send a smile every few days, enough to have everyone going back to their jobs with hope dangling from their every movement, but the rest of the time, his mysterious persona and magnetism is what keeps everyone at the edges of their seats.

Including her. Of course, she’s included. Be damned the day someone decided to put a mole on his eyelid and not expect everyone to fall in love with it when he smiles.

The scent of sliced vegetables, soy sauce and noodles fill the air, enough to make her lick her lips. “Oh, you’re eating here?” She’s about to move away from the counter, make some space for him to splay his meal and sit down, when Jaebeom shakes his head, the waves of his hair moving with it.

“We are eating here. I don’t think I’ve seen you sit down since the morning.” Jaebeom starts to get the containers of Chinese food out of their confines, quirking one of his defined eyebrows in the process. He’s tranquil, he always seems to have his life put together. The envy. “You have a twenty-four-hour nightshift?”

“Oh God, no.” She groans at the idea. She already has had enough of those the past month. “I’m here until three. Or, until Dr. Jones decides to arrive.”

Jaebeom hisses at the sound of her voice. “So, until four.”

It’s common knowledge that Dr. Jones forgets to not turn off his alarm. “Thanks, Jaebeom, exactly what I needed.”

Though, he does bring her something she needed, giving her a pair of chopsticks and dragging a plastic chair towards her, just as he sits down. “I’ll wait here until then, if you need to.”

Dermatologists normally don’t have nightshifts. They’re only there if there needs to be some kind of abstraction of sorts. “You don’t have to. Besides, you shouldn’t be here on the first place.” She tells, looking over at his seated position, long legs extended in front of him, wide shoulders making her retreat her vision and glare back at his eyes instead. Concentration is key when dealing with a man like him. “Did you forget something or do you just enjoy to eat surrounded by emergency patients?”

Jaebeom slurps on his noodles, a few spots of soy sauce sprinkling against his lips. “Seventy-three old patient with a black head on her back the size of my index finger. I had to take it out because Dr. Kim is out for her wedding.” The specialist and the doctor in charge of the residency only now had the time to get married, in the middle of July, for fuck’s sake. “It was awesome.”

The gruesome smile on his face has her grinning back at him, aware of not showing her teeth just in case they are filled with vegetables and noodles. “You have some pictures?”

“You can bet I do.”

Jaebeom pushes his seat closer to her, until his robe is caressing the barely covered skin of her shoulder, pushing his phone towards her face to showcase an old, wrinkly back with a black head being extracted. “She said she got it because she couldn’t reach for her back for the last twenty years and did not wash there.”

“Typical.” Trailing her gaze away from his phone, she nudges his side. “Did it hurt?”

“Not that I know of.” Jaebeom replies, looking down at his food when he puts his locked phone face down on his thigh. “Rumor has it I have good hands.”

There is not a single ounce of mischief on his face, not until a longer second of silence finally settles on him when she tries her hardest not to look down at his hand and think of what he is even trying to say.

“Oh, fuck.” Jaebeom chuckles at his own words, borderline cackling when he shakes his head. “I didn’t mean it like that. I sounded like such a creep.”

“You didn’t.” She replies, trying to conceal the heat on her face. God, she really needs to get her mind out of the gutter. This is her coworker, a fellow doctor— “I happen to have heard that about you.”

Jaebeom tilts his head to the side, half-laughing at her words, as if amused. “You have heard things about me?”

Truth is… “Who hasn’t?”

Jaebeom pulls at some of the noodles with his chopsticks, pensive for a second before plopping them inside his mouth. Not before saying: “What have you heard about me?”

“Half of the hospital is in love with you.” She replies, as easy as possible. The least she can do is let him know that he really does look at good as he thinks he does. “Don’t even get me started on the nurses. I think they have a cult by now. They have started to care about their skincare routines because you told them to. And because they want to look young enough to be by your side.” Most of the nurses at the hospital are over their forties…but who knows? Jaebeom might be into that.

“Really?” He questions, looking down at his food. “I thought they were just being nice.”

“They were,” She accepts. “But they’re doing it because they kind of want to be your MILF’s.”

His nose scrunches up. “That’s a no.”

She shrugs her shoulders. “You never know, Dr. Lim.” She jokes around, only to have Jaebeom expanding his hands in the air, waving them along with the shakes of his head.

“I know one thing and that is that I don’t want those women anywhere near me in that way.”

Attentive of his speech, she hums. “Then, I’ll keep them away from you. I can save lives, what’s one more going to do?”

Jaebeom’s smile tightens at that, resting one hand over her forearm as she chews on her food. “I’ll have to pay you in some way.”

“Oh, no, no—”

“Let me take you back home.”

“You’re not losing hours of sleep just to take me home.”

She had not realized Jaebeom had finished his meal until he placed the empty container back on its plastic bag. “I’ll lose hours of sleep if I let you go home alone at three AM, you know?”

“You sure?” She asks, aware of the shyness in her tone as Jaebeom nods.

“I’ll be your little helper for the next of the shift.”

Somehow, that doesn’t sound so bad.

How can it sound bad when she has practically ogled at the man and swooned at his antics for as long as he has been working here? Perhaps, one year and seven months, even more…

###

He’s a creature of the night, in the way he blends perfectly well with the dark sky, almost colored like the Americano she craves to drink, with his tiredness completely noticeable but still, one with the crickets around him, making a symphony for him. His car is parked in front of her apartment complex, one much better than what she would have imagined—chic, not simplistic at all, coming from his hard work that will only pay off more with the passage of time.

The wind blows on his hair as she pulls her bag over her shoulder, desiring nothing more than to touch her bed, close her eyes and doze off to a world of dreams, white noise and no responsibilities at all. “Jaebeom, thank you so much for everything.” She breathes out into the air, voice lonesome in her approach, unaware of how tired she sounds. “You’re an angel sent straight from heaven.”

“Some say hell, but I’ll take it.” Jaebeom replies quickly, smiling at her with his gums before placing a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Get inside before it gets too cold.”

“Okay, I will.” She starts to walk towards the door, jotting down the password before looking over her shoulder. “I want to wait until you drive off, though.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You never know, Jaebeom. You could get into an accident. We’re doctors. We know this happens out of the blue—”

“You can always text me to check if I’m alright.” Lacking his robe, Jaebeom rests his hands on the pockets of his scrubs before sighing. “And if you really want to make sure if I’m doing alright, you can check up on me physically on Saturday. I’m free and my friend just opened a Thai restaurant downtown, so…we could meet there.”

She knows better than to think a one-on-one situation means a date. This could be colleagues having dinner together, just to check up on each other, but Jaebeom is not the type to go out alone with anyone. Not that she knows of, and gossip runs around the hospital far faster than stretcher-bearers should. If Jaebeom had been with one of the interns, the students or a doctor, either no one knew about it or he hadn’t, really.

“Ah…it sounds great.” She opens the door wider, slipping inside. After this, she doesn’t think she’ll have enough balls to wait for him to drive off. “You’ll text me the details and we’ll meet there?”

Jaebeom scoffs at her words. “I’ll pick you up.”

“Are you my chauffeur or what?”

“I’d consider myself your date for Saturday, but who knows?” Jaebeom waltzes towards the car, making her hide behind the door as a chuckle leaves her lips. “Maybe, I should ask one of the nurses.”

“Don’t you dare.” She threatens, lingering with a comedic tone.

“Oh, why?”

“You already asked me.” She replies. “And you have a date on Saturday with me.”

“Atta girl.” Jaebeom finalizes, opening the door of his car just as he waves his hand in the air. “See you at work.”

“See you. Good night.”

“Good night.”

Once she closes the door and walks up the set of stairs, she lets herself close her eyes tightly and squeal.

The Lim Jaebeom had just asked her out on a date. That has to be a golden badge after her drought period. Just as she moves through the stairs, she starts to think through outfits, ideas of conversations, anything that could make her first date in a while worth it, but the thoughts inside her head grow less fond of the silence when someone’s voice pierces through the air once she gets to her floor.

Spread in front of her apartment door, seated there, is Byun Baekhyun. The douchebag in all his glory. His hair is done a mess, he rests his cheek on his knees and he’s calling out her name as his eyes widen. Finally, he straightens his back, standing up in the matter of seconds.

Too polished for a simplistic night, he seems to be, with a white button down tucked inside a pair of lightweight jeans. “Why are you here so late?”

She huffs at his words, grabbing her keys with sloth-like movements before moving towards her door. “Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that? Why are you here so late and at my doorstep?”

“I need somewhere to stay.” Baekhyun’s voice sounds somewhat pouty and when she looks over her shoulder, ready to glare at the man with the rounded glasses and messy hair, she sees that he is actually jutting his bottom lip out. And is that panic on his face?

“Ask Chohee.” The reply is simple, tugging at her doorknob before the white door welcomes her apartment. Just as she slips inside, she hears Baekhyun pushing the door before she could close it at his face, but not inviting himself inside fully.

“Please.” He begs, his face far too close as his eyes twinkle with a tinge of sadness. “Chohee is asleep, like a normal person.”

“Ask Chanyeol.”

“He has a girl over.”

She rolls her eyes. “Of course, he does,” She mumbles, grabbing her doorframe with her free hand. It’s too fucking late after a nightshift to be dealing with Baekhyun’s dramatics. “Do what The Douchebag would to. Trademark copyrighted and all. Ask to join in and become part of a threesome. Chanyeol is a nice-looking dude and he’s blonde now. Fuckable enough.”

Baekhyun scrunches up his nose at the idea, shaking his head as a shiver goes up his body. “I’d rather have my dick sliced in twenty little bits.”

She raises her eyebrows. Okay, time to play. “I can do that. Medically speaking, if you need me to slice your dick—”

Baekhyun’s shoulders fall then, resting his forehead forward until it almost touches her shoulder. “Okay…” He raises his head then, speaking far too fast for her to comprehend. Typical of him. “Chanyeol set me up on a date and I was dumb enough to ask her to have dinner at my place but she is batshit crazy and she brought wedding magazines over and I didn’t have the heart to kick her out, so I told her I was going to go buy something and I ran away from there.”

Wait.

She tries not to laugh, but the irony of the situation has her tugging at the sleeve of his shirt, pushing him inside when a smile of relief takes over his dulcet face.

“So, you left a complete stranger inside your house?” She asks, plopping her bag down on the floor and moving towards the kitchen to wash her hands. Baekhyun follows suit after taking off his shoes.

“Chanyeol knows her,” He says, as if it’s rocket science. “Besides, I was hoping she’d just go in the morning.”

She hums, rubbing the soap more into her skin. “What time did you tell her you were going to buy something?”

“At nine…”

She gasps at that, looking over her shoulder to see Baekhyun seated by her kitchen counter. “You have been here for six hours?!”

“I didn’t know where else to go!”

Baekhyun may be the life of the party, a socialite through and through, but he can count his friends with the palm of his hand. She knows that. “She’s going to be there tomorrow.”

Baekhyun groans, covering his face. “How do you know that?”

“You’ve given her reasons to be angry, Baekhyun, and she was attached to you already. Now, she’s going to question the root of your relationship and become even more attached because she’ll want to fix what you destroyed and—”

“Oh my God…” Baekhyun trails his voice at that moment, running his fingers through his black locks. “When am I going to have a normal person as a date?”

Cackling, she pats her hands on a towel. The next step is having Baekhyun sleep on the couch, take a quick shower and be off to sleep. “When you become an average person, Baekhyun. You’re just too Broadway for your own good.” She says. “You’ve seen American Psycho? Now welcome Korean Douchebag.”

Though, she still moves towards the living room, opening one of the drawers in her coffee table to grab the blanket she keeps there, just in case. “Says the person that is home at three in the morning.”

Sighing, she remembers the awful nights of working. “I was working since the morning. I had a nightshift, but not a complete one.”

“And you came here all on your own?” Baekhyun must know about her lack of vehicle, because he immediately rests one hand on her shoulder, making her turn around once she has stood up. “That’s dangerous. No one should be out at this hour of the night.”

That reminds her, she should text Jaebeom to see if he’s gotten home safely. “Someone gave me a drive home.”

“Someone?” Baekhyun questions, grabbing the blanket when she tosses it at him.

“Uh-huh.”

“…A guy?”

“Yes, and I’ve got a date with him on Saturday.” She wants to shut out all questions that he may have, pointing towards her couch with an open hand. “You can sleep there until I wake up in the morning. I can’t promise breakfast or a comfier place because you definitely won’t share a bed with me, but it’s warm, at least.” She pauses. “I’ll take a shower and I’m off to sleep—”

“Wait!” Baekhyun says, a sigh ripping from her throat when she turns around to look at him.

“Yes, Baekhyun?”

Standing there, he looks a bit heartbroken, like a puppy after being stepped on or an old man bathed in rain after a car passed by him. Truth be told, Baekhyun is one of the unluckiest lovers she has ever met…and she’s one of them, for all she knows.

“And do you trust him?” He questions, pressing the blanket to his chest. “Doctors are trouble. I mean, Dr. House? Trouble. Derek Shepherd? Trouble. The guy who created Frankenstein? Definitely trouble.”

It seems like someone is worried that she may end up falling for someone who breaks her heart. “Listen, if you mention Dr. House and Derek Shepherd in the same sentence and comparing them to my date, you’re only further enticing me because they’re hot characters.” She shrugs her shoulders, only relaxing when she sees Baekhyun worried expression. “…But yes, I do trust him. I’ve known him for like, two years. He’s caring and serious and sweet. That’s all I have ever wanted on a guy.”

Apart from lack of headaches. She needs the type of love that doesn’t fall into boredom but that doesn’t have unnecessary drama.

“Okay, just…be careful, okay?” Baekhyun asks, and she nods, watching as the man plops down on the couch. “And thank you for not kicking me out.”

Little does he know that she would have never done such thing. “You’re welcome, douche.” She says, turning off the lights after saying her goodbyes with a last: “Sleep tight.”

Though, the light of her phone accompanies her when she types down on her phone:

To: Lim Jaebeom.

Text me when you get home.

Thank you for everything.

If I don’t respond it’s because I have fallen asleep.

And she doesn’t get an answer, at least, not one that she recalls.

###

Nine thirty in the morning and Baekhyun is ready to take off.

Though, his lips remain pursed in concentration, rummaging through her refrigerator for the umpteenth time only to come up with nothing. Seems like she hasn’t done the groceries and hence, he has nothing to prepare for breakfast. Still pretty much knocked out on her bed, Baekhyun doesn’t have the heart to wake her up and take her out for breakfast. Until another time, it may be.

Leaving a note on the coffee table about his whereabouts, he puts on his shoes, extending his arms over his chest once he opens the door to her apartment and closes it behind him. One thought crosses his head at that moment—apart from the quite clear hollow spot in his stomach that begs for food—and it is that he, probably, still has someone in his apartment. A stranger that wants to marry him, and sure, people in his Patreon must feel that same way, or some of them might, but Minjung is a whole another level…

Just as he’s about to take off, the door next to her apartment opens, welcoming the sight of a barefaced Chohee, with her hair high up on her head and a surprised expression on her face.

“Oh, I thought you were—” Just as Chohee is about to say her name, she stops herself. “What are you doing at her place?”

Baekhyun goes over to where Chohee is, resting his hands on the depths of his pockets. “My date decided to plan our wedding ahead and I grew scared, so I left her there and crashed at her place because you were probably asleep.”

“I was,” Chohee rubs her brown eyes then, pointing towards her place. “But I got up early to practice my tarot readings before breakfast.” Baekhyun knows where this is going, and he’s not quite sure he is against it. After all, he doesn’t know what awaits him at his place once he arrives. “Do you want to be my subject? I promise hot cakes and a lot of insight in whatever you want.”

Baekhyun snorts out a laugh. “If you can give me some hindsight on my love life, I promise I’ll be the first one to subscribe to your YouTube channel.”

With one hand placed on her hip, jutted out, Chohee exudes all airs of confidence. “Oh, honey, I can read you like a book.”

Chohee goes all out with decorations. Dreamcatchers in pink, walls a cryptic white, decorations in shades of the most gorgeous pastel colors. There is a pattern and a scheme here, organized to have her tarot space in the living room, with a shelf behind her containing endless stacks of tarot cards packages. Baekhyun is midway through his bite of his honey-coated hot cake when he watches her hands working on shuffling the cards.

“Spirits, what can Baekhyun expect from his romantic life?” Baekhyun can’t help but gape at the choices of words. He will never get used to the word ‘spirits’ whenever Chohee reads him. It’s freaky how she—almost always—gets something right and talks to these invisible creatures. Ghosts? Who knows? “What is Baekhyun’s love story—?” Three cards plop out at that moment, two reversed, one on its original position. Chohee tilts her head to the side, as if deep in thought. “Okay. Spirits, give me two more cards. We need to know Baekhyun’s—” Two more cards come out.

Baekhyun stops munching on the hot cakes, chuckling at Chohee’s expression. “That bad?”

“Horrid.” She explains, fixing the cards into their position. “From what I can see, you’ve met your match already. One of the many soulmates life gives us…” Chohee’s voice trails, as if rearranging her thoughts. “But dude, you fucked it up big time. I get the sense of speech being the source of your match’s disappearance, though not completely, but those feelings train took off long ago. Maybe, you were too silent and unapproachable or too loud and open. I think the latter.” She plays with another card deck, placing it underneath the first line of cards. “There will be a period of separation, but I’m not sure if it will be prolonged. I get an immense sense of indifference? I don’t know, Baekhyun, like she doesn’t care that you’re not together.”

That’s weird. Baekhyun would have never thought of going back to one of his exes. Too much of a hassle. “Is it one of my exes?”

Chohee shakes her head. “No, I think it’s someone you took for granted.”

“I never do that.” Pride swells his chest when he leans back on his chair, legs parted in the process. “I know when to take chances.”

“Not this time. You either get on the ride or it’s taking off without you, Baek.” She rearranges her cards then, clearing her throat.

Curiousness overtakes him. He can’t be the only person in this world who won’t find love, or that has to go back to one of his choices that don’t seem all too factual at this time. He spits out her name, as if it was the second word he learned growing up, and that’s enough to have Chohee frowning.

“I mean, it could be…”

“Not that.” Baekhyun shakes his head. Sure, when they first met, he had initially thought she was one of the greatest looking women he had seen, and he had taken his shot at the time, only to go completely ignored…but that was long ago, and he doesn’t think something would ensue between the two either way. From her part, at least. “What do you see in her reading?”

“Ooh,” Chohee perks up at that, shuffling the cards once again. “Spirits, what do you see in the love story of the second unluckiest person I know in what love consists of?”

Five cards come out almost immediately, taking him by surprise. “Wait, wow—”

“She also lost a match in the past. In her case, it seems like it was ignorance that took part on it.” Her long nail splay on top of one card, he can’t quite recognize it, but Chohee seems interested. “But someone else has come along. Perhaps tired from the eccentricity of past lovers, she wants tranquility…but I see a portion of miscommunication in this partner, too.” She hums in the process, but Baekhyun is long lost in his thoughts. How in the flying fuck is it that the mysterious doctor is the love of her life? Or, at least, one of her soulmates? Sure, she doesn’t believe in tarot, but Baekhyun does…and it’s almost impossible that someone he didn’t even know about is going to be part of her life for longer than intended. “Maybe Jaebeom really is the right choice for now.”

“Jaebeom?”

“The cutest dermatologist I have ever seen. He’s sexy and chic and he has this stare, ugh.” Baekhyun bites his tongue, not wanting to say anything about the fact that there are going out on a date and that, in hindsight, if his stare is enough to have Chohee rolling her eyes back, it may not come as a surprise that she starts dating him, for real.

Why does that bother him?

“And why do you think it’s him?”

Rearranging her cards, Chohee shrugs. “She has a tiny crush on him. Too sly to ever be noticed, but she likes him. She doesn’t do anything to get his attention, though, a complete waste.”

Baekhyun takes one last bite of his hot cakes, rubbing his hands against his pants before standing up. Truth be told, maybe he should stop being a complete douchebag—as she calls him—and take matters on his own hands. Minjung may have been trying to point out to something wonderful and while pushing people away, perhaps speaking too much for his own liking, he has lost the opportunity of living through romance. Hell, the only person he thought he could be sharing his solitude with now has a date and a possible love affair right at the corner.

“Thanks for the food and the existential crisis,” Resting a kiss on top of her head, Baekhyun sighs. “Bye, Chohee.”

The next thing he needs to do is apologize to Minjung.

### 

A ding of her phone accompanies her in the silent Saturday night. The swoosh of the wind against the windows of her apartment makes them creak thanks to their oldness, a reminder to bring a thicker coat with herself to her date, but her phone takes away her attention. Perhaps, Jaebeom wants to change plans, or he’s asking if she is ready for their date.

Lo and behold, she’s wrong about both options. A notification from Patreon takes over her screen when she presses down on it, a written post by Blue Moon taking most of her attention. She hasn’t had enough time to check up on his posts, or replay the ones that she had enjoyed the most. Turns out, life continues to move on its axis and if she does get this date to go somewhere profitable and good, she may not need of Blue Moon anymore.

Her eyes read over the post, surprised to see an emoticon at the end. He always uses those, even when his voice borders the depths of comfort when he speaks. However, her heart picks up at the idea that he is plastering on the post. A collab is coming soon, including a famous rated ASMRtist, and she can’t help but let her eyebrows raise.

Luck exists in some people, inherent to their souls, and though she doesn’t know Blue Moon personally, has not raked her pupils up and down his physique in order to judge him as her type or not, she’s sure she’d like him. Enchanting, somewhat funny, mischievous. Boredom is not part of his vocabulary, and he sounds extremely sweet in the process.

And now, she’ll have to hear her faux, online boyfriend roleplay guy get it on with another girl.

She gets out of the application before she can think any further about it. At the most part, she can just skip it. Someone like Blue Moon obviously gets a lot of people to like him, just from his personality alone, so she has no say in this. She either supports or she doesn’t. Besides, she has more important things to take care of, like Dr. Lim, for example.

To: Jaebeom.

I’m ready.

You can pick me up whenever.

Bring a coat. I think it’s going to be cold tonight.

From: Jaebeom.

I’ll be there in fifteen.

To: Jaebeom.

K. Drive safe.

With the passage of time, and the texts they have shared—as well as meals exchanged between the other—, that contact name will be shortened, perhaps sweeter with time, and that’s the natural movement of things. Who knows? Maybe, she won’t need Blue Moon anymore. She doesn’t seem to do so right now, and it’s probably for the best.

### 

Pieces of heaven sprinkle on his gleaming pupils, holding cups of ice cream on both their hands as they walk up the set of stairs that lead to her apartment. Cladded from head to toe in black, Jaebeom sports an elongated coat on top of a skin-tight sweater and jeans to match. What brightens him up is his smile, the tinges of sunshine in his speech and the pensive look on his face as she speaks to him.

“It’s funny how whenever we see each other, there’s always food involved.” She tells him, spooning the last few bits of her ice cream before plopping them inside her mouth. Jaebeom’s eyes trail down there, licking his own as he takes the empty cup from her hand to stack it up with his own, finished even before they got to her place.

“You reach the heart from the stomach.” Jaebeom instructs, only to have her chuckling in the process.

“Anatomy by Lim Jaebeom, and wronged, at that.” Her reply has a wide smile taking over his features, his eyes turning into half-moons when he nudges her side, grabbing her forearm before she could lose her balance.

“You’re such a perfectionist.” But truth be told, Jaebeom may just be trying to reach her heart through her stomach, just like he says. Two more stairs and they are in her hallway, the man following after her as she speaks.

“No, but seriously, thank you for picking such a good restaurant. I didn’t know your friend could cook so well.”

“Nah, he just owns it. He can’t cook for the life of him, he just has good tastebuds.” Jaebeom replies, just as she’s rummaging through her purse to get her keys out. “We could go there again.”

“Whenever you want. I’m down.” Her voice comes out softer than intended when she gets her keys between her hands, turning around to point at her door. “You want coffee to wash down the ice cream?”

Jaebeom runs his hands through his hair, his slim arms sadly covered by his layers of clothing. “Coffee at this hour?”

“We’re doctors. I think we’ve all had coffee at this hour.”

“True.” Jaebeom replies, giving one step forward before interlocking his hands together in front of him. “But I think I have something in mind that could keep you awake, since you’re so sleepy and bored during this date.”

Oh no, that’s what her words meant. She can practically hear Chohee smacking her in the head for being so goddamned stupid. Of course, drinking coffee means that she wants a caffeine intake, hence she isn’t feeling as energized. God, she should have offered tea—

“That’s not what I meant.” Jaebeom takes one final step towards her, wrapping his arms and hands around her waist to bring her closer, his taut abdomen flushed against hers, chest to chest as he looks down at her features.

He chuckles, his chest shaking with her own. “I know that’s not what you meant…” His fingers hook a strand of her hair behind her ear, his thumb caressing her jaw, her cheek, before settling on her bottom lip. “I’m just looking for an excuse to kiss you.”

Two years. Two years since the last time she had kissed a man, and even then, her last date’s kissing skills were not the best. Her heart picks up at the idea of touch, craving it because it’s him. The man she likes, or whom she feels attracted to.

“Search no more.” She whispers, resting her hands on each side of his face before pushing herself forward.

Fireworks are not there. They don’t explode right at her face, but tranquility is what she has always looked for. Chilled, relaxed, that’s more of what the kiss is like. Jaebeom takes his precious time to let the finger that was caressing her bottom lip trail down to her neck, grazing the column of her neck before deepening the kiss. Pressed to her door, she grabs him by the front of his shirt, bawling the fabric in between her fingers before she feels a small tug of his teeth against her lips.

He doesn’t take risks. He keeps it simple, sexy, classic. There is not a lot of playfulness, neither does it feel like it has a deeper connection. It is what it is, and that’s about it.

But why does it disappoint her, to certain extent?

He doesn’t say anything. Does not pull away to whisper sweet nothings against her lips, to compliment her or say how much he waited for this. Instead, he keeps kissing, his thigh in between hers, his breath fanning against her skin softly when she runs her fingers through his hair. A raptured moan never makes it out his lips, it rests on the back of his throat and he pushes it down. Bummer.

He pulls away, chest heaving, heart thumping softly while hers is rushing a mile per minute, until he dives in again, her left hand coming behind her to twist the key with as much expertise as she can to get the two of them inside when suddenly, her phone rings.

It’s not a ping. Not a text, but a full-on ring.

Jaebeom pulls away the slightest, stopping his hands on her waist when he says: “Do you want to pick it up?” His voice is hoarse, and even then, it doesn’t reach the depths of her soul. The most she does is make her crave for him, but it doesn’t get past physical need.

“Not really.”

Jaebeom chuckles, scattering kisses along her neck, making her giggle to herself. “Why not?”

“I’m busy.”

“Doing what?”

“I’m not doing anything yet.” The connotations of her voice are clear.

“So, let’s change that.”

When Jaebeom continues kissing her, she expects the phone to stop ringing, but just as the call is over, the contact starts calling again and that is enough to have Jaebeom pulling away again, bloodshot lips swollen from their make-out session, though shortly lived.

“It must be an emergency.” He whispers, and she hums in the process, opening her bag to take her phone out and read the contact’s name.

If someone had seen the devil while being in heaven, this would have been their expression. The one she sports when she sees that, out of all people, Byun Baekhyun is calling her.

He’s the devil. Jaebeom is an angel.

And she’s about to kill him to see if he’ll stay in hell or not.

“What do you want, Baekhyun?” Her voice comes out sharp as she speaks on the phone, sparing one glance towards Jaebeom, but the man is on his phone instead. He doesn’t seem to mind that she’s talking to another man while on their date. He just can’t be this chilled out, right?

Baekhyun has never sounded so serious, but he does at that moment. “I’m in the ER but I won’t get checked if it’s not with you.”

Her heart picks up for whole different reasons, straightening her back as she imagines all the horrible possibilities that could encounter Baekhyun in the emergency room. Her workplace. “Wait, why? Why are you in the ER? Is everything okay?”

“Would I be calling if everything was okay?” Baekhyun whispers for one second, awfully close to a voice she has heard, but she can’t quite pinpoint it when she is already strutting down the hallway, followed by Jaebeom calling her name and trailing after her step. “I broke something.”

“You broke something? Be more specific, douchebag.” Though, she fears what he could have broken. Was he in an accident of sorts?

“My fingers, I think. I’m not sure. I don’t want anyone to see me if it’s not you.” He hisses in the process. “It really hurts and I know you are in your date, but I think I’m about to die.”

Well, there goes the date to welcome Baekhyun’s dramatics. She doesn’t know why she entertains him, or why she is worrying so much. “I’ll be there in a few. Just…stay still and don’t scream or cry or anything like that.”

“Okay—”

She cuts off the call before Baekhyun could continue, running down the set of stairs as Jaebeom repeats her name.

“What happened?”

“One of my closest friends is in the ER and he’s stubborn, so he wants me to check up on him.” She looks over her shoulder at that moment, though briefly, an apology in her voice. “Jaebeom, I know this is not what you expected out of your date, but could you drop me off at the ER?”

A sigh rips from his throat, dangling his car keys in between his hands before humming. “Sure, let’s go, workaholic.”

When down the set of stairs, she presses a short kiss to his lips. No spark, but favorable in feeling. “Thanks, Beom.”

A new contact name arises.

###

Never had she expected to be in this position, holding a folder with Baekhyun’s information as she drags the blue curtains of his small consultation room open. Jaebeom trails right behind her, pulling the curtains closed when Baekhyun lifts his gaze, half-laying on the bed as if his entire body was writhing in pain and it wasn’t only his fingers.

Truth be told, worry overtook her with his call and on the way here. Calling him ‘one of her closest friends’ to Jaebeom had been quite the surprise, too. Never had she thought of Baekhyun in that light—he has always been the one that would never grow up out of the group, but now it seems to be completely different. Maybe, he’s that one leech she won’t ever be able to take away, or she actually enjoys having him suck up blood every once in a while. Metaphorically speaking, he’s just fun to be around.

“Okay, tell me the story and show me your fingers.”

Baekhyun is still looking at Jaebeom, scrutinizing each portion of him with squinted eyes. “Shouldn’t the consultation be private or do my fingers need a dermatologist?” Truth be told, she doesn’t think they do. When Baekhyun extends his left hand, she touches his index and middle finger, barely grazes them in their elongated yet reddened glory, and he hisses in the process.

Jaebeom places one hand on her back. “I think I’ll see myself off.”

She looks over her shoulder, shaking her head. “No, we can continue the date after if you want to.”

“I’m tired and I’m not sure if I want to be working at this hour.” Jaebeom finalizes, ready to finish the date, before he rests a kiss on the crown of her head, bowing his head towards Baekhyun. “Hope you get better, man.”

“Yeah, I sure hope I do.” Baekhyun is never this sharp with his words, but as it seems, he’s not in a good mood. When she tries to flex his fingers, they do. They’re not broken, that’s for sure, every portion of his phalanges feel as though they are in place.

“What happened to you, Baekhyun?” A rosy tone takes over his features when she asks that question, sitting up when a small whine leaves his lips as she continues to bend his fingers, testing their movements.

“You don’t want to know.”

“I’m a doctor now, of course, I need to know.” She tells him, pulling away and opening the folder to check through his information. “And for the embarrassment you pulled me through by both telling everyone in this ER that you wouldn’t consult yourself if it wasn’t with me and ruining my date, I need to know.”

As she’s checking the X Rays, she sees Baekhyun’s fingers, perfectly put in place, definitely not broken. It may be a strain or a tendinitis, it depends on what he was doing. “It’s embarrassing…”

“Could’ve been your dick that was hurting. That would have been embarrassing.” She tells him, trying to ease into his mind before sighing deeply, putting the X Rays down and looking into his eyes. Baekhyun looks like he had gotten ready in a hassle, gray sweatpants and a black t-shirt covering his body. Slippers, too. “Baekhyun, I won’t judge you. I really won’t. I’ve seen worse things. I can promise you this is nothing.”

Baekhyun looks over to the side, fixing his glasses on the bridge of his nose before clearing his throat. “I was with the date I talked to you about…Minjung…” He trails his voice, and she already knows where this is going. This is definitely a sex emergency. “And I don’t know, well, I do know. I was using my fingers…” Baekhyun covers his face, and she tries to stifle her laughter. Oh, she definitely knows where this is going. “Don’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing.” Though, a small chuckle follows after her statement, enough to sneak a smile away from Baekhyun.

“You sound like you’re laughing.”

“That’s just my voice.”

“You never laugh, what are you talking about?”

“Just tell me what happened.”

Baekhyun winces when he pushes his hands onto his face a little too harshly, left to look up at the ceiling as splotches of red and pink come up from his neck towards his face. Beet red. “It was supposed to be just me fingering her but…uh, she was a little too harsh and she wanted to ride my fingers, and I guess she jumped too hard and broke them.” He closes his eyes tightly, pursing his lips just at the same time that cackles leave her own. “Tell me they’re not broken. I don’t want to have broken fingers, please, it hurts a lot.”

“They’re not broken, douchebag.” There it is. The perfect title, but this time around, the douchebag was the one being played. She takes a pen from the table next to the stretcher. Clicking on it, she starts to write down the diagnosis. “I think you strained a ligament, that’s all. None of your bones are out of place and I don’t feel any substantial difference on your muscles. You can still bend your fingers and they are not particularly swollen. I’ll give you some medicine for that and I need you to ice it for as much as you can. Exercise them, too.” Though, she stops herself at that moment. “Just no fingering, okay? Keep those fingers for yourself.”

“Stop laughing.” He differentiates every word with a punctuation, and she smiles up at him.

“Why are you still seeing her, though?” She slides the prescription towards him, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear when she looks at him. “You said she was too pushy and you didn’t like it. I’m sure you can get other women to finger.”

“I said stop it!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop.” She rests his folder on his thigh, getting closer to him to speak in a softer manner. This is her patient and she can’t out what he had told her as so. “Baekhyun, really, stop seeing her—”

“I’m not telling you to stop seeing Dr. Fancy Eyes over there.” Baekhyun juts his chin towards the curtain. “Maybe, I just gave Minjung another chance because everyone has someone and I want to have someone, too.”

Handsome comes short for what she thought Baekhyun was when they met each other. She was twenty at the time, in Chohee’s birthday party, trying t stifle her laughter when he made a fool of himself in front of her. He was drunk, clearly, dancing and swinging his hips in the air as he spoke to her in the most typical of manners. They were younger then, and while she had grown—become more somber and serious with the day, Baekhyun still kept that lively personality of his, matched with some sprinkles of weightiness here and there. She can always count on him for a good stifled laugh.

“Okay, valid. You can keep seeing her if you want to.” She tells him, pointing at his hand with her pen. “But just take care of that, okay?”

She’s about to send him off when Baekhyun reaches for her forearm with his non-injured hand. When she turns around, Baekhyun’s face is serious, void of any of his usual jokester manners.

“Are you sure you’re into him?”

That question is unexpected coming from Baekhyun. At this age, she knows what she wants, but she isn’t sure if Jaebeom ticks off all the squares in her bucket list. “He’s nice. The spark is there.” She lies through her teeth. “He’s a doctor, so he’ll understand me better than anyone else…I think he’s great. And hot.”

Baekhyun nods in the process before sighing. “Haven’t you heard that you shouldn’t date doctors?”

“I have.” She says. “Mostly from you, for some reason, but I’d still do it.”

“Just look at Lee Jinki’s character in Descendants of the Sun—”

“Baekhyun, you give some examples that just make me want to date a doctor more.”

The man gets off the stretcher, standing in front of her before whispering: “He just looks like more of a douchebag than I am. I’m just protecting you.”

That voice. It sounds oddly like Blue Moon when he lowers his voice the slightest, and for some reason, she cringes at the thought. Yeah right, as if she could daydream and go to sleep to the sound of Baekhyun’s voice—

“He’s a nice guy.”

“He looks like he asks for blowjobs on the first date.”

“That’s up to me to decide.” Swinging her hips from side to side, she opens the curtains, only to hear Baekhyun scoffing from his spot.

“Please, not with him. He’s not the kind of person I imagine you with—”

“If you could get your crazy fingers inside someone and interrupt my date to save you, I can do as I please.” Playing around with Baekhyun is funnier than expected, much more when his face falls at those words, turning around to look at him. “Now, give me the keys of your car to drive us to a pharmacy to buy everything we need and then, we’ll stay at my place just so I can check up on you.”

Baekhyun tosses his keys towards her, trusting her with his car completely, and she can’t help but smile. The only man she thought she’d have over tonight was Jaebeom, but turns out that the one who stayed home was Baekhyun.

How ironic life is.

###  

Three weeks have passed since the last time she saw Baekhyun and she can say one thing…

Life is a little bit more boring without the man.

It’s funny how the complexity of their friendship is misunderstood, even by herself. When he’s there, she likes to annoy him—and he sure does back—, but when he’s gone, she misses him. Sure, she will never say it out loud, but she finds herself smiling at the thought of jokes that Baekhyun had let out in the air between them. Hence why she rushes towards Chohee’s apartment when seeing his car parked in front of her apartment complex.

She really needs to get a car for herself, she thinks on the way there. Stop procrastinating and become a full-on adult instead of taking the bus every time, but the thought washes away from her brain by the time she knocks on the door and it’s opened by Baekhyun himself.

As always, he’s wearing glasses, vision ruined as it can get, with his black hair messily falling over his forehead. This time around, he’s sporting a rose gold sweater to frame his nicely shaped hips, masculine and defined, just like his thighs. And just when she catches herself looking at his legs, she pushes her gaze to go up. A smirk is already plastered on his face.

“Look who’s here.” He says, opening the door wider for her to enter, but she shrugs her shoulders while passing by him.

“Look who is here,” She repeats, sparing him a glance over her shoulder when he closes the door. “Chohee better get some insecticide for all the cockroaches hanging around in her apartment. All the freaking time.”

Baekhyun crosses his arms over his chest, and since when has Baekhyun sported such a nice body? “You said cockroaches. I’m one cockroach, meaning that we’re a little family over here. And you’re in her apartment, too. So, shame is on you, you called yourself an insect.”

“Don’t get smart on me, douchebag—”

Chohee merges from the kitchen, holding a tray filled with cups of tea. “Don’t tell me you’re starting with your arguments this early on.” Right behind her, her bleached blonde boyfriend emerges. Haesol is a biology teacher, much different from what one would imagine from him, with thick glasses and oversized clothes, in love with someone who believes in everything spiritual but nothing physical. Couples have to be totally different in order to be together, at times. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were here, let me brew you another cup of tea.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” She waves her hand towards Haesol. “Haesol, you’re alive!”

“Questionable. Depends on what reality you’re living.”

“Or if we’re living at all.” Continuing with his train of thought, she splays herself next to Baekhyun, who has taken a seat in front of the coffee table with the tray of tea in between his hands. “Sorry I invited myself inside. I was missing you guys.”

Haesol properly sits on the couch, while Chohee excuses herself to go look for some cookies. “It’s okay. You help me accompany Chohee when I’m not here, after all.” In somewhat of a long-distance relationship, she doesn’t know how Haesol and Chohee do it. He lives two hours away, but given to his job, he can’t always drive back here.

“I’m the one that checks up on her.” Baekhyun instructs, taking a sip of his tea after giving Haesol his own cup. “She is never here. She says the incense makes her have allergies.”

“It’s too strong!” I reply, nudging his side before I see him holding his cup with his injured hands. “How are your fingers doing?”

“Great.” Baekhyun replies, a glimmer of blush appearing on his cheeks. “They’ve healed and I haven’t strained them any further.”

“Good.”

“Wait, you know what happened to Baekhyun’s fingers?!” Chohee peeks her head from the kitchen, her bangs falling across her eyes until she moves them away. “He hasn’t told anyone.”

The beam that appears on her features is almost unable to be stopped. Truth be told, she’s not entirely sure if she supports the baggage that comes with Minjung as Baekhyun dates her, but that moment of his life will always be funny to her.

“I do.”

“Don’t you dare tell her.” Baekhyun nudges her side, the scent of him taking over her, musky and mellow. Not too strong for her sensitive nose.

“Why can’t we know?” Haesol asks from his spot, as tranquil as ever, just as Chohee takes the seat beside him. A pillow for her, the kind of tranquil love she has ever wanted, with how he places his arm behind her neck for her to lay on.

She spares one look at Baekhyun. Bright. Shining. Explosive. He’s all the emotions at once, some that she can’t even comprehend and she doesn’t mean to find them out.

“I was his doctor, so I can’t really tell you.” She grabs his hand then, bringing his injured fingers up to her lips and planting a soft kiss on them. “I’d die before compromising these two fingers. You won’t ever get the secret out of me.”

The smile that appears on his face is compliant, wrapping his fingers around hers and giving a small tug before pulling away. “You heard her.”

Chohee sighs deeply, munching on her cookie before shaking her head. “Guys, keep fighting. I don’t think I can stand you two being real, normal friends.”

But maybe, the warmth that spreads on her stomach says otherwise. Being Baekhyun’s friend is not half bad when he looks at her from the corner of his eyes that way, as if his trust on her is never-ending.

###

The pressure of a new relationship’s happy ending is the worst nightmare to ever exist, much more when it feels nonexistent. The covers of Jaebeom’s mattress curl on each side of her face when she is laid down on it, her jacket long thrown on the floor, but what’s important here is the lack of movement. Even when Jaebeom does his best to enthrall her in a kiss, to wrap her up in his engulfing warmth when hovering over her, with his taste becoming one with her own, lemon chap-stick a memory that has long engraved in her brain…they’re stuck in the same position. In the same ‘we are but we aren’t’ dilemma that she is tired of living.

This would have been precious for her when she was younger. With his fingertips scalding the skin of her waist as he tries to pull her shirt away from her body. Boring, it longs to be, with the way attraction keeps them as just that. Just two people who find the other appealing for their bodies, but nothing else…and she doesn’t want that. The only thing she aches for in a partner is having a friend who listens to her but can also make her feel endlessly loved. And vice versa, of course.

Just as a sweet whisper of her name rests on her ear, giving her promises of what may come tonight, her mind goes back to the person she would wish to have hovering above her right now. Making her laugh, perhaps annoying her to bits, but still keeping that handsome face of his intact. Fogged-up glasses, certain fingertips and a lightweight persona. Though Jaebeom does an incredible job at bringing the moon down to this bed with his seriousness and overall concentration, it doesn’t feel like love.

It doesn’t get her going.

Maybe, she just needs a bit more time, needs to feel more of him or let herself be kissed by him, but then again, Byun Baekhyun comes and fucks it all when appearing inside her head. In just at this moment, and she doesn’t understand why. She captures Jaebeom by the cheeks, lowering him down to her mouth to enrapture him in a kiss, but it doesn’t matter how many times she shakes her head or tries to melt her tongue with his, Baekhyun still glimmers as a memory of the unknown inside her head.

What is he doing here?

Her mind must have taken up his name, caressed it in between thoughts and daydreams, because by the time Jaebeom’s hand is on her thigh, lifting it up to hook it around his waist, she breathes out anything but his name.

“Baekhyun—”

Wait.

What?

Her eyes widen, much more at the time that Jaebeom leans back on his thighs. A scoff leaves his lips when he lifts his eyebrows, an awkward smile taking over his features. “Baekhyun?”

“Jaebeom, I’m so sorry—” She tries to spit out, reaching for his shoulder just at the same time that Jaebeom stands up.

“That’s your friend, right?” He asks, earning a nod from head. She doesn’t know why she’s thinking of Baekhyun in such a light lately—the last time that she had thoughts like these about him was when they first met. It’s horrid to see one of her closest friends in such a manner when she’s about to get it on with whom she thought could be the other half of her next relationship. He runs his fingers through his hair, sighing. “Any valid reason why you just called me his name?”

Pushing her shirt up her body once again, she shrugs. “I didn’t mean it. It just happened—”

“You’re thinking about him.” Jaebeom reads her thoughts far too easily. Perhaps, she had let him see the biggest glimpse of it. “And if he’s the one that you want, I can’t do this.” He lifts his eyes to the dark ceiling, the navy walls blending with his dark attire.

What? One thing is coincidentally thinking about Baekhyun. Another thing is wanting him.

“I don’t want Baekhyun. He’s like a friend to me. Just friends.”

“Yeah, so why does he stay at your place whenever he has an issue?” Shit. Maybe, that does sound a bit wrong. As it turns out, Jaebeom doesn’t out his anger, remaining stoic as he speaks. “And why is he the one person you always talk about when you think of something funny? Why is it that you just said his name as we were on my bed—?”

Speechless, she licks her lips, standing up from the bed and taking her jacket in between her hand. “Because maybe, I’m just confused.” She replies, clearing her throat when she stands in front of him. Beauty grazes him, but he doesn’t feel like the man that will cause her butterflies for the rest of her life. “It doesn’t…it doesn’t feel like love with you, Jaebeom and I think that’s not really what you want, so it’s better if we leave it like this. I can’t…I thought I wanted tranquility, but I don’t want deafening silence, either.”

Jaebeom crosses his arms across his chest, looking over to the side, jaw pronounced in a sharp line. “Maybe, you’re comparing me to someone else.” He says. “Not to misunderstand me, I get you…it’s up to you to choose what you want in a man and if it’s me who you want, but…it’s difficult not to believe there is something else with Baekhyun.”

Shaking her head, she huffs. “We’re just friends. I tell you, I don’t know why he was inside my head—”

“You were thinking of another man as I kissed you, that has to be enough of an answer for you.”

It can’t be. Denial creeps up on her when she laughs, taking her purse in between her fingers and tossing it over her shoulder. “Think what you will. I think it’s better if I leave.”

Jaebeom nods, pushing his lips together just as she presses a kiss to his cheek. The touch is barely there, soft in comparison to the kisses they shared. “It was great having you, even for a moment.” He tells her, and she hums.

“Shortest moment of my life.” She replies. “But a good one, indeed.”

By the time she is out the apartment complex, her skin is bitten by the harsh wind, left in a part of the city much too far away from her home. She starts walking on wobbling legs, cursing the moment she decided to wear stylized heels to make her thighs look better, only to end up ruining it by calling Baekhyun’s name. Sure, it was clear that things with Jaebeom weren’t going anywhere, lukewarm, pointless and based in attraction only, but what was Baekhyun doing inside her head while she was getting it on.

Or almost, consequently.

The first person she decides to call is Chohee, but she’s staying at Haesol’s place for the weekend. She keeps walking, rummaging through her contact list, getting hold of some of her friends and getting denied equally. Sure, it’s Sunday, but most people should be home by now—

The letter ‘B’ surprises her then, and perhaps it’s the obsession of not wanting to continue walking and create blisters on her feet, but she calls him. Dials Baekhyun’s phone without a single ounce of guilt within her body, because it’s Baekhyun, he probably won’t answer—

“Douchebag on line, what can I help you with?”

“Mhm, things with Jaebeom are over…” She tries to avoid telling unnecessary details, tugging her pink coat closer to her chest. “And I’m in the middle of the street, away from home, cold and hungry. So, if you’re available…could you come pick me up? I can call a taxi if you’d like.”

“That asshole.” He breathes out, not knowing the complete story and how, in retrospect, she is the asshole in this story. “Don’t you dare call a taxi. Is there any store around?”

Her eyes scan the street before landing on a convenience store. Opened twenty-four hours. “Yes, a convenience store.”

“Good, stay there and tell me the address. I’ll be there in no time.”

###

He can’t physically understand it. Not a single braincell inside Baekhyun’s brain can’t begin to comprehend why someone would simply end a date with her when she looks good enough to break hearts.

Wrapped up tightly in a blanket, she brings the mug of hot chocolate he had prepared for her up to her lips, staring towards the screen as a new episode of The Rookie takes her attention away from him. Truth be told, Baekhyun was in the middle of a recording when she had called—thus, she wouldn’t know Sundays at night are the times he uses to record—, but he couldn’t bear to imagine how Dr. Lim, Dr. Fancy Eyes, Lim Jaebeom, could even think of finishing a date with the one woman that did not even blink at the sight of him.

Well, there are a handful that can’t stand him…but still, Baekhyun doesn’t know what Jaebeom was thinking.

“What happened—?”

Shame takes over her features when she munches on one of the small marshmallows that accidentally slip through her lips. A glare later and the few seconds of silence that follow after, he knows the answer she has repeated endless times since she has gotten here. “I won’t tell.”

With that, Baekhyun plops himself down harsher on the couch, crossing his arms over his chest just after fixing the glasses on the bridge of his nose. Sure, she may look like a daydream on his brown couch and blend perfectly well with the warmth of his home, but that doesn’t give her the benefit to do what she pleases in his house. “It’s just kind of stupid that I picked you up, drove you all the way here, made you hot chocolate, let you thirst over Tim on the screen and you don’t even dare tell me what happened between you and Dr. Douchebag.”

She quirks an eyebrow at that, sighing in the process. “I am Dr. Douchebag. Not him.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I get to be an ass sometimes, Baek.”

“Yes, but only to me.” He looks at her from the corner of his eyes, spreading both his hands behind his neck as he sighs through his nose. “You don’t have to tell me, you know.” His voice lowers, the same tone he uses when he is in the solitude of his home and records himself, trying to make others happy. Pathetic, ain’t it? “…But it’d be nice to know. The least I want is for you to suffer like I have,” He stops himself for a moment, giving her half a smile, no teeth. “And it sucks, to trust someone and have it once again not be the person you want or deserve, but you’re so beautiful inside and out that I truly think it’s his loss.”

Sure, he could tell anyone that she’s gorgeous. Plenty of times had he talked to Chanyeol about how adorable her smile was and how she could have him at her mercy with one twinkle of her eyes, but that’s not something he had told her since that night when they were twenty and he was a little bit tipsy.

She swears he was drunk, but he wasn’t. Vivid enough for him to tell the truth.

“It’s not his loss.” Her voice whispers, husky from lack of use. “Jaebeom is just…too tranquil. It’s good, but it’s not what I want. We can’t let relationships flow all the time. Sometimes, we have to take reigns. I need to stop wanting tranquil, voiceless, silent…because a love that is silent is a love that is not truly felt.” She scoffs at that moment, taking another sip of her drink. “I wish I was like you.”

His palm rests on her forehead, as if testing her fever. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what did you do with my friend?”

Finally, he steals a smile out of her, dizzy in the way she looks at him from below her eyelashes. “You have always been so honest about the people you like or love. Who you want to have sex with, who you want to date, who you’d marry…you always say it all and you let them know. You’ve gotten your heart broken, but you always cut ties first.” That way, he knows exactly just how wrong she is. Baekhyun has told everyone what he thinks, but not to her. He has never told her just how in love he is with the memories they have shared. In which he has made a fool of himself but still managed to get a smile out of the most serious woman he knows. “The first time I cut ties with someone is because I feel nothing for him.”

“You felt nothing for Jaebeom?”

“Obvious attraction, but who doesn’t?” She shrugs. “Look me in the eye and tell me the man doesn’t have the most gorgeous eyes you have seen.”

Those would be hers, but Baekhyun shakes his head. “Sorry. Got lost from the moment you told me you felt nothing for Jaebeom because those are the best news I’ve heard the past century.”

A chuckle leaves her lips. “Why?”

“He’s flavorless.”

“Totally not.”

“Totally yes.” Baekhyun corrects, playing around with the remote, given that they are not catching up on the episode anyways. “I always imagined you with someone better.”

“Yeah? I always imagined you with a hot ass girl with anime tits.”

“A-Men.” Baekhyun parts the word in two syllables, lifting his hands in the air as if to pray for it just to steal laughter away from her. “You take me as a boobs man only, right?”

“Scarlett Johansson told me so.”

“I look at other things apart from boobs.” Baekhyun says, shrugging in the process. “Even if they are not there, I can like someone.”

“Like what?” She asks, turning on her side and taking another sip of her drink. Cream gathers on her upper lip, and he takes the edge of the blanket to pass it over it to clean it up.

“Intelligence. Rationality. Profoundness. I want a woman who looks like she could never rule the world but has everyone under the sole of her feet. Including me, of course.” Baekhyun’s face is far closer to hers than intended, licking his lips when he looks into her eyes. “I want a woman who laughs at what I say but also knows that I’m more than just a joke on legs.”

Her eyes trail all over his features, before saying: “Those who don’t notice it, don’t know you.” She claims. “You’re far sweeter than you let yourself be known for.”

“Because I talk about tits and I make the magic leave?”

“Kind of.” She replies, a chuckle in her tone. “…And because you don’t realize just how great you are, so you go for whatever woman you think matches you. And you’re wrong. You only deserve the best.”

Heated up to the core of his heart, Baekhyun sighs. “Are you sure you’re not running a fever?”

“I might check. I’m giving compliments to the biggest douchebag I know.” She takes the last sip of her drink before smiling. “Or maybe, I just took your spot and I’m the biggest bitch now.”

Baekhyun pats her head, shaking his own in the process. “Say it. The baddest bitch.”

“I prefer to be the cutest bitch.”

“The most intelligent bitch I know.” Baekhyun replies, pushing himself away when a second too long of silence settles between the two. His hands end up on his waist, extending and flexing his back in order to ease his muscles. “Finish watching the episode while I go prepare the guest’s room for you tonight.”

And with that, he tries to control the beating of his heart. He knows better than to go back to some stupid, childish crush.

### 

Turns out that romance is complicated. It either speaks in screamed words or unintelligible whispers, but it’s never going to be any easier. She thought, for once, that going with the flow would bring her happiness and now, she can’t even face Jaebeom without feeling guilt creeping up on her, as well as embarrassment. They are colleagues, after all, and maybe, making out with him for hours to no end leaves little room for her not to think about it happening…but the worst part of it all is when romance starts to go crazy, randomizes a person and then, it settles them inside her heart.

Never would she have thought that she’d think of Baekhyun in such a light that she’d find herself smiling at the thought of him, texting him with more frequency and spending more and more time with him. Never would she have thought that there would come a day that she goes to sleep so fulfilled with the life she has, even when they are nothing, that she would not need Blue Moon—who, coincidentally, sounds a lot like Baekhyun, and maybe, that’s why she was so into him—. She doesn’t need someone to lull her to sleep, because she’s tired of the complete days she’s having. With friends, with work and most importantly, with peace for the decisions she has taken in life.

So, it comes easily to her to hover over that button, staring at nights spent with someone whom she doesn’t really know…and she doesn’t want to listen to anymore. After all, the romantic thoughts inside her head are taken by Byun Baekhyun, and she still has to fix that, because that definitely won’t go anywhere…so, it’s better to start by something easier.

Are you sure you want to cancel your subscription to Blue Moon’s channel?

Accept.

###

Within a month, she already feels like she’s losing her mind.

Why the fuck did she start crushing on Baekhyun?

The tones of the city remain as gray as ever, polished by concrete and the movement of people in monochromatic clothes, but in between what she knows—what she has grown accustomed to, there is some light. Seated by the glassed windows of the small café Chohee likes to frequent once Haesol is around town is this one man that beams with happiness, eyes twinkling behind his glasses. His back hunches in relaxation, toying with the straw on his cup of coffee. She knows it probably has too much caffeine and sugar for his slim, toned body, but there is nothing that ever stops Baekhyun from getting the same order. In between brown woodened tables with red tablecloths, he shines the most, sporting his favorite yellow hoodie, one to match his best friend’s bleached blonde hair.

Haesol finally manages to find his phone, patting his hand against the pocket of his red cardigan until Chohee cuts through the air, interrupting whatever he was meaning to say.

“Not so bad looking when you stop calling him a douchebag, isn’t he?”

Those words take her off guard, putting her hands up her chest as if to protect her heart. Chohee is gleaming, holding onto her boyfriend’s arm as they stand on the other side of the street, covering the sidewalk with their bodies. She shakes her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do.” Chohee confirms. “…You’ve accidentally reignited the old flame Baekhyun and you had the first night you met at my birthday party and now you realize that all that banter throughout the years was undying sexual tension?”

“Banter does not equal sexual tension,” She reports, lifting her index finger in the air. “That’s a wronged conceptualization of romance aiming to make people believe that love can only be fueled if there are arguments.”

“…You two don’t really argue.” Chohee shrugs her shoulders, pushing her long hair behind them. “You just play argue. You like calling him a ‘douchebag’ because it gives you a reaction and a reason not to fall for him. You’ve done it for years because you’re attracted to Baekhyun and it’s easier to believe that opposites don’t attract.”

Haesol tugs at his girlfriend’s arm, pulling her with him to cross the street. She follows right after the couple. “Honey, I don’t think you should be psychoanalyzing the situation. They’re both adults and she should know how to act up on her crush.”

Huh, for someone who is so quiet he can barely be heard, Haesol has some bite to his tongue.

“I am not crushing on Baekhyun.”

Chohee looks over her shoulder once they are at the entrance of the café. “Right,” She drags her voice, sarcasm dripping from every tone. “Because you’re in love with him.”

“Chohee, let it go.” Haesol reasons, opening the door to the café just as she scoffs.

“I am not in love with him. He’s a douchebag. He’d leave me with whoever has a bigger cup size than me, wouldn’t he?”

She knows he’s wrong. Baekhyun is not as stupid as she has tried to paint him out to be.

Which is why she tugs at the collar of her coral blouse upon seeing him waving his hand at her, dragging himself on his seat to make space for her. The way his hair, disheveled as always, curls against his forehead has her wanting to run her fingers through it, calm him down after a stressful day in a job she knows he doesn’t want, but before she could give him a smile—awkward, albeit—, Chanyeol captures his attention by showing him his phone and his grin practically erases off his face.

Weird.

By the time she gets closer to the duo, she gets a glimpse of their conversation. “Chanyeol, I won’t go out on a date ever again—”

“I’m not telling you to go out on a date with Minjung, but we need to find someone with a good fanbase to make some roleplay recordings with.”

The world stops for a few seconds. Actually, it feels like years have passed by right in front of her eyes when she realizes just what Chanyeol has freed into the world. It can’t be possible that the recurrent thought of how alike Blue Moon and Baekhyun sounded could be true. After all, Baekhyun wouldn’t be able to record himself and do boyfriend roleplays just because he feels like it. It shouldn’t—

Everyone has seated on the table, but she stays upright, finally returning to her senses when she awkwardly laughs. “Roleplay recordings?”

Baekhyun hums in the process, giving a small nod as his ears tinge in red. “Well, I need a bit more money and I started a Patreon account, where I do boyfriend roleplays. People want me to expand to rated stuff, but I don’t know, I’m iffy about it.” That’s the moment she lets her guard fall entirely. He doesn’t know it, but embarrassment takes all over her body. All this time, her mind had connected with the same man in different occasions, enough to have her shaking her head when she gives one step back. “Hey, it’s not that big of a deal. Do you find it weird?”

“You were Blue Moon?” Her voice comes out in a whisper, suddenly unaware of the people around her, when Baekhyun’s eyes widen by being caught, opening his mouth and closing it subsequently, babbling to find his voice.

“I—I was…” He says. “We—Were you a subscriber?”

“Oh my God,” She gasps to herself, placing her hands on top of her face to cover her eyes. “Oh God, I just did not subscribe to your Patreon without absolutely having no idea for months.”

Baekhyun chuckles awkwardly, lifting his hand to rub the nape of his neck. “I think you did.”

“I have to get out of here.” Aware of her embarrassment, she moves towards the door, hearing Baekhyun’s footsteps trailing after her.

“Wait, no. It’s okay! I just—It’s flattering!”

“For you, definitely not for me.” She replies, turning around just as she opens the door to the café, sparing him a glance before groaning deeply. “Shit, how couldn’t I notice that the similarities were there?”

“I guess you didn’t really think I would go for a job like that.” Baekhyun gives a gummy smile, biting his bottom lip soon after. “Can we just talk about this—?”

“Sorry, Baek.” Shaking her head, she clears her throat soon after. “I don’t think I’m ready to talk about this right now.”

With that, she closes the door behind her, perhaps choosing to ignore all opportunity she has had with Baekhyun, but what is she supposed to do? Admit the crush that she grew both on a faceless man speaking sweet nothings into her ear and her friend? It’s too much turmoil for just one afternoon.

###

Another card ends up under her boot when she steps inside her apartment. The thirteenth one since the last time she saw Baekhyun, coming daily for thirteen days straight. She’ll give it to him, the man is smart enough to keep her on the edge with these cards, but each and every single time, she folds them over and places them in her coffee table’s cabinet, there for her to read once she doesn’t feel like the world is falling on top of her.

It’s horrid. Awkward. Awful in a lot of ways. She can’t look at him in the eye and suddenly tell him that his voice was the one that calmed her down in so many nights but that past that, his personality was the one that captured her whole, made her dream of him and think him into her life as a memory she never wants to get rid of. For fuck’s sake, she lost the opportunity of having something with Lim Jaebeom just because she was absolutely head over heels for Baekhyun.

Her friend.

The douchebag.

When, all along, she has been the douchebag in everyone’s life.

Just when she closes her door behind her, she hears a thud and a whine following soon after. That timbre of voice makes her turn around, sparing a glance towards the door before peeping through the peephole. Much to her lack of delight—though, some relief washes over her—Baekhyun is standing by the door, wearing that terrible turquoise chemise that he uses for work and somehow, not angered that she has probably bruised his face when he holds the bridge of his nose between his index and thumb.

“Ouch!” He hisses, pulling his fingers away and sighing in relief when there is no blood. “You know, I know the ER is the best place to find you, but I’m not sure I want to break or strain any other part of my body.”

A smile appears on her face, though she tries to push it down, resting her forehead against the door as if that manages to make her get closer to him. “Baekhyun, what are you doing here?”

“Getting injured, apparently.” Baekhyun huffs out in annoyance, letting go of his nose to splay his hand on top of the door. She swears she hears his palm softly hitting the surface. “…I kept pushing notes under your door for the past thirteen days and I thought you were ignoring them, but you didn’t even read them on the first place.”

She’s not the best of people, what can she say? But it’s stupid to believe Baekhyun would ever feel anything back for her. They are total opposites, and he has already spoken about what he wants in life to her. He wants someone serious, intelligent, put-together. She’s a mess of misconceptions and unspoken words.

“I don’t want to get attached, Baekhyun.” She says, turning around to look towards the rest of her apartment, with her back leaning against the door. “I subscribed to Blue Moon because I wanted to feel less lonely. Well, I subscribed to you…and I spent months wishing I had someone like him, and then, I questioned why I wanted someone like you. Why, when being with Jaebeom, I could only think of you and only pushed him away by comparing him to how much flavor and spice and humor you brought into my life…” Her voice becomes distant, heat flaring around her face when she clears her throat. “And I painted a sky for me when I didn’t even know if you wanted to be a star in it. I suddenly realized just how stupid I was for thinking I had a chance, with Blue Moon or with you.”

Baekhyun stays silent for a few seconds, trying to twist the doorknob to no avail. “You really haven’t read the notes, have you?”

She sighs. “You don’t know how embarrassing it is to be in my position. I like you, Baekhyun. Fuck, if I want to be with someone, it’s with you and it’s pathetic—”

“Check the goddamned notes.” He says, calling out her name soon after. “If there’s someone who knows perfectly well how pathetic you feel, it’s me and truthfully, there’s no reason to.”

“You’re just saying it because you’re my friend.”

“No, I’m saying it as me. As Baekhyun. As the guy who sent you those notes.”

Her hands grab the pieces of paper in between her fingers, scrunching up her nose as she unfolds them. “What even are they, Baekhyun?”

“They are the thirteen times I didn’t tell you how much I liked you. From the moment I met you to now,” The more she reads through the letters, she sees glimpses of his mind through the years. From age twenty to now, Baekhyun had a whirlwind of emotions, never quite knowing what was a joke and what was meant to be much more. “And you always said I was a douchebag, not because of what I said about Scarlett Johansson, but because of what I said the night we met because you thought I was drunk but fuck no, I had never felt more sober in my life.” Baekhyun breathes out, just at the same time that she skims through the letters, getting in the information. In the past years, Baekhyun has liked her several times, getting over it only to move on to something else, but he always comes back to the same spot. “I meant every word and I mean it now. Don’t be embarrassed for liking me when I’m the stupid guy who has liked you for so long—”

She opens the door then, not caring if she’s a mess or the notes splay on the floor when her fingers caress the skin of his waist to bring him closer. Baekhyun feels like home, not too tranquil but rapid instead, a lake trying to move her off her boat as he grabs her by the back of the neck with one hand, digging his fingers on her hips to keep her closer. She molds into him as if made for each other, and maybe, they were, but she had always been too stupid to notice that there was more to Baekhyun than what he said.

In his silence, his whispers, his nothingness…that’s where he shined the most. When the jokes died down and all there was left of him was his sweet personality, though imperceptible at times, that was when she loved him the most.

When she pulls away, he leans in for a few more kisses, stealing a chuckle away from her when he continues to do so. “Did you just kiss me?”

“I guess I did.” She smiles, wrapping her arms around his neck to hug him tightly. “Shit, Baekhyun, you weren’t supposed to wait this long to tell me you liked me. We could have had our happy ending so long ago—”

With a movement of his legs, he swings the two of them side to side. “Well, it’s difficult to tell someone could like you back when they always call you a douche.”

“Sorry.” She pulls her face away, capturing his soft, thin lips in between her own before humming in delight. “But I’m not telling you go now, douchebag.”

He shrugs. “It’s never too late to start.”

###

The collar of his sweater fell off one shoulder, collarbones peaking out as he brought the same glass of champagne he had been drinking from up to his lips. Chohee dragged him along the masses of people in her party, wearing a tiara out of all things, as she spat out whatever nonsense she had inside her head of finding Baekhyun’s perfect match. Running a hand through his disheveled hair, he played along. It was not like he’d really find love in a place like this.

Though, when he saw her, dressed from head to toe in black, standing by a corner as she talked to Chohee’s new affair, Haesol, he thought he saw a glimpse of heaven. One of those angels that no one dared talk about because of their power, with a smile barely playing on her face, too difficult to get out, as she batted her eyelashes as softly as possible with every word she heard from Haesol. Her concentration was immaculate, unlike him, a little bit tipsy with flushed cheeks.

Chohee called out her name, one that he thought he would never forget, with her hand resting on Baekhyun’s shoulder. “…This is the guy I had been talking to you about, Baekhyun. We went to high school together and he’s been my sidekick ever since.” Chohee explained, and the woman was kind enough to extend her hand, stealing a breath away from him and settling a challenge on the top of his head when seeing her. He wanted to have her, but it was almost impossible—he knew this from just one glance. Difficult as difficult could get.

“Hi, nice to meet you. Chohee hasn’t stopped talking about you.”

“Well, I hadn’t heard about you but I wished I did.” Baekhyun spoke, taking a sip of his drink when he shook her hand with his. Soft, strikes of electricity going up his arm when they touched. “Nice to meet you, too. I’m Baekhyun, or your future husband. Whatever you want me to be.”

A laugh ripped from her throat then, continued by a wheeze, as she moved her hand away from him. “Okay, douchebag, that was smooth, but good luck with that. I’m not much of a dater.”

Baekhyun shrugged then, as if knowing something more. “Give me time, I’ll make it happen.”

And he did.

[yasume]

Adore you

Requested @officialhangezoe

Timeskip Kenma Kozume + Fem! Reader

warnings: fluff, fluff, fluff, and the pain I have because Kenma isn’t real. Probably ooc but I hope you enjoy this :)

In which Kenma’s fans begged him for a couples’ stream for Q&As. The reader ends up making Kenma laugh and smile which shocks the viewers <3

You rarely made an appearance on Kenma’s streams/videos. Not that he was ashamed of you, it was actually the opposite.

He adores you.

Kenma just preferred to keep his private and social life separated. He also didn’t want to make your relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend to feel like a business relationship.

Fans would beg for your appearance, wanting to see more of the woman who claimed Kenma’s heart.

It didn’t sound like a bad idea whatsoever, it’ll be nice to have you in his stream. Not only can he spend quality time with you, he can enjoy the things that make him happy.

With Kenma’s following moving onto 10 million, he can thank his fans by having you right beside him. After all, if it wasn’t for you and the fans, he doesn’t know what else he could’ve done.

KODZUKEN live! Q&A featuring Y/n :)

“Hey guys, I’m here with Y/n, my girlfriend (hello) and to celebrate our milestone of 10 million we’ll be having a Q&A. So you can ask more questions about Y/n, me, or the both of us that you want to know. This is a thank you for all the support you’ve given me and I’m grateful for that.

Instantly the chat started blowing up, they just had so much to ask about your relationship and how you’ve been. Questions were pretty easy to answer like:

“How long have you been dating?”

With a smile, you answered the question “We’ve actually been dating for almost 4 years now. It’s crazy how time went by so fast.”

That cracked a smile on Kenma’s face, and his fans noticed and were happy at the sight of that.

“Who confessed to the other one first?”

Kenma responded this time, lying his hand onto yours. “Y/n actually confessed first, she wrote me a love letter and it was pretty cute.”

“I actually still have it too.”

A blush instantly appeared on your face, of course you knew that Kenma can be blunt sometimes. Although it’s just some stuff he says that catches you off guard. Internally you were screaming because soft Kenma soft Kenma soft Kenma <3

As each questions get answered, the fans couldn’t help but notice how touchy he is with you. It started off with small smiles then hand touches. There was no doubt how much he truly adored you.

Hours into the stream, coming to a close, here was Kenma lying his head onto your shoulder as you read the questions and comments.

“Koduzken, what does Y/n do that makes you fall in love all over again?”

Sitting up straight, Kenma fiddled with his hands looking at the ground. Oh how this felt like highschool all over again, but he had to do it. For you, and his fans waiting.

“When Y/n always checks in on me after a stream, saying “Are you okay?” Or “Here’s some snacks” and just waits for me after streams, I can’t help but fall in love with her repeatedly. It’s the thought that she would always be here for me that warms my heart.”

As he progressed in speaking, your eyes were widening, tears were forming as you turned around to face him.

Kenma slowly opened up his arms for you as you moved closer to him. Wrapping you in his arms.

“Normally I wouldn’t do this on streams, but, I love you Y/n.”

“I love you too.”

Parting away from the hug, the both of you watched as the comments flood with praises and other things regarding the romantic scene.

Everything was great, Kenma couldn’t help but feel happy that someone like you was here with him all this long.

“Thank you all once again for being here on today’s stream. I’ll see you next time.”

[therealvinelle]

Vinelle (and muffin since I know they'll see this too~!), I don't know if you guys have made a post ranking the Twilight books and why (including Bree and L&D if applicable) but I'd love to hear your opinions! (also if you could rank the Twi movies from least worst to most worst and why that'd be awesome too! 030 hi key love your rants on the movies and would love to hear y'alls thoughts more on them)-Sw

You’ve caught us out, anon.

And thanks to you, we spent last night watching Breaking Dawn Part 2 so we could rank it. @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin hadn’t seen it at all, while I half-remembered it from years ago. A terrible time was had because that movie was unwatchably bad.

Since this ask was sent jointly, our answer was co-written.

So, without further ado, movies first:

1. Twilight

This is a bad movie, but it’s recognizably a movie. The scenes are connected, there are things it did well, and we could tell you what the plot is. The awkwardness, for instance, is very well done. The weaknesses are glaring, the main one being that the film never sells us on the characters of Bella and Edward, nor on their relationship, relying instead on the audience knowing they’re in love because- well, they’re in love.

Diving deeper into Edward and Bella, there’s an understandable explanation for this. Edward of the books is terrifying, and I don’t think there’s a translation to screen that could have kept the romantic atmosphere surrounding him that we see from Bella’s point of view.

Bella can listen to Edward eating Biology and how he explains that it means how much he loves her and not blink. An actual audience hearing that dialogue will have second thoughts.

Right out of the gate, Twilight has a very difficult task: Salvage Edward Cullen while still producing a somewhat recognizable character who will take the same actions (or near the same actions) that Edward Cullen did in the book.

In the effort to make Edward palatable but save some of his original character he loses his more terrifying lines (as well as his hilarious ego) but becomes weird, awkward, and vaguely creepy. Edward Cullen of the films is that weird, friendless guy in your high school who you feel kind of bad for but don’t want to eat lunch with.

Bella faces a similar transformation. Bella’s insecurity is completely removed (or else the screenwriters somehow failed to notice it). As a result, we get this strange antisocial girl who is too cool for school because she’s a stuck up bitch.

Between Edward, this creepy guy who sits next to her in Biology, and Bella, this girl who enters school too good for everyone else, we see no reason why they would ever be interested in one another.

In an attempt to make these characters likeable they made them both unlikeable and boring. The film series as a whole never recovers from this (indeed, the quest to make Edward look good keeps leading to stranger and stranger places). 

It also forgets to explain why the Cullens live among humans, they’re attending high school… because. It’s a movie that explained to us all those terrible 2010 era memes and “still a better love story than Twilight”. And frankly, those memes were great, better than the movie. Case in point.

Everything is weirdly blue, which is atmospheric but also makes everything and everyone washed out. Everyone is super pale, so you have Mike looking just as vampire-y as Edward. However, it’s recognizably a movie. It introduces the characters, recognizes that the audience needs to be informed of things that are important to the plot, and most scenes are in some way connected to the plot. This is more than can be said for the other films, which is why it lands the top slot.

2. Eclipse

Eclipse earns its second place by process of elimination. The remaining three were worse. Eclipse also features Edward being cuckolded mercilessly, which is hilarious. Oh, and Victoria playing Riley, that was another beautiful scene.

Apart from that it’s just a deeply boring, borderline unwatchable movie.

Special shoutouts go to:

The opening scene of Riley getting turned, a ridiculous and poorly executed scene that served no purpose for the movie whatsoever.

Rosalie dropping her backstory without any context, Bella walks up to her and Rosalie launches into this horrific story for no particular reason. Both her and Jasper’s backstories could have been cut, as they served no purpose to the story and felt really thrown in there.

The many, many redundant scenes. The Victoria chase that ends with the Cullens and Quileutes squabbling could have been cut entirely. So too could the Seattle subplot with the newborns and Bree.

It’s a movie that isn’t about anything in particular, so it throws subplot spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. It dutifully regurgitates the Jacob/Bella/Edward love triangle while also trying to convey that Bella’s about to lose her mortality, while also trying to introduce suspense and excitement with the newborns. It fails to execute either of these, and it also fails to tie them together.

3. New Moon

The movie that wanted to skip itself.

This movie had two jobs, show that Bella is depressed when Edward leaves and convince the audience of Bella and Jacob’s strong friendship. And apart the rotating shots and the occasional Stewart voiceover, the former becomes one of those “just stay with us on this one, guys” failures, and the second is failed on every level. Jake and Bella are much closer at the beginning of this movie than they were in canon, and a montage of Bella hanging out with her buddy is just that, it’s a montage of Bella hanging out with her buddy. It speaks volumes that Stewart’s voiceover has to remind us she’s depressed and Jacob is helping her heal, because there’s no indicator on screen that this is happening.

This, in turn, makes Bella/Jake as weak and unconvincing as Bella/Edward was in the previous movie. We just have to take on faith that these people are important to each other because that’s what we’re told.

There’s also the wolves, who are completely butchered. In the books, there’s this great mystery with bears in the woods, there’s Bella wondering why Laurent ran off, there’s build-up, then when we find out what’s actually been happening it’s a satisfying explanation, all the pieces come together really nicely. This is not the case in the movie. Meeting the pack is just weird in this context, because we never wondered who they were. Bella is randomly invited to breakfast, we meet Emily with the scarred face who won’t ever have a line again, and that’s it, these characters don’t become important to the movie in any way. It’s a pointless scene that could have been cut, much like so many other scenes in these movies.

Apart from that, the Volturi scene from the books is butchered so I hardly recognize it, and Alice, Carlisle, and Edward’s characters are assassinated to an impressive degree considering they were barely in the movie.

It was hard to watch.

It lands third place because somehow, Breaking Dawn was worse.

4. Breaking Dawn Part Two

I’ll just list the positives: the intro was very pretty and promised a better movie. It was also long, which we appreciated because it took away from the movie’s runtime. (This is not at all an exaggeration, a lot of the time watching all five movies was spent looking at the remaining runtime and groaning.) The Tommy Wiseau sex scene in the sex cabin was uncomfortable, but the fact that it would have fit perfectly in The Room made it funny. The Romanians were genuinely, unironically, great, because of all of Carlisle’s trashy friends, these were the only ones the movie didn’t try to convince us weren’t trashy.

This movie ranks above Breaking Dawn Part One because of the things listed above.

Apart from that, something all of these movies, but especially the last four, suffer from is that they don’t have plots so much as they have a check list of things to put in the movie before they can call it a wrap. This movie is the worst offender of that, and it’s made worse by the film’s expectation that the people are fans who already know what’s happening, and therefore don’t need anything explained. I’ll explain what we mean by that.

We get Bella waking up a vampire, and absolutely nothing is explained. If you don’t know what happened in the last movie then fuck you. Bella then goes hunting, we get the hiker, we get the mountain lion, she goes back to meet Renesmée, finds out Jake imprinted on her daughter, we get the sex cabin, the handwrestling with Emmett. The Charlie problem is introduced (poorly), only to be solved a scene later with emotional payoff that had absolutely no buildup. All of these things, and the rest of the movie as well for that matter, feels like we’re just crossing items off a list.

Since the audience is expected to already know the story, the story only bothers to explain about half of what’s happening, if half. Who’s the lady living with Charlie? If you don’t know, don’t worry because it’s not important anyway. When did Kate and Garrett fall in love? If you don’t care, that's understandable, because they’ve barely interacted in the movie. Who are the Amazonian women? Do they have names? Don’t worry about it. Did Alistair actually leave, if so did that have an impact? Well, Bella stared at a window for a few seconds.

Every so often the characters will start quoting the books, and it’ll be completely out of place because these movies veered off course long ago. Carlisle references his great friendship with Aro, a friendship that was only briefly mentioned at the beginning of the second movie. Aro randomly starts talking about how scary human technology is.

All of these scenes feel like Marcus is telling the story, he’s just listing events waiting for the story to be over, and forgets a lot of pertinent details because he doesn’t care enough to remember them. There’s no effort to tie these scenes together, no effort to build up to anything.

There’s also one significant failure, and this is a failure shared by all five films, but it affects the plot (I use the term “plot” loosely) of this movie which is why it gets a special shoutout here. Vampires in these movies look human. The fact that Bella has to ask Edward is Gianna the secretary is human says it all, because in the books you know instantly, there’s not even a question. This makes the Charlie subplot ridiculous, because Bella looks and acts the same as ever. She had a trashy makeover, maybe, but she’s still Bella. Watching her get human acting classes after we watched her act perfectly human is just silly. Now, we’re all for suspension of belief, but this movie just pencil drew a moustache on her and the audience is supposed to go “My god, Bella, I didn’t recognize you!”

We then get to the atrocious fight scene, which was somehow worse than I remembered. It was also oddly long for a giant fake out. This scene took significant run time and it turns out to have 0 effect on the plot. And when we get back to the real world, the tonal shift is extreme. You can’t go from Jane being choked, dragged across the snow and face eaten by a wolf to her standing around chilling. We could have skipped it entirely, just had Alice touch Aro’s hand, and he goes “Ah, I see, cheerio.”

The end credits were pretty funny, “here are these random characters with bit parts in previous movies, isn’t this nostalgic?”. Nice try, movie. The fact this came after an extended clip show of the great romance of Edward and Bella, through blurry montage images that failed to be convincing in their original films let alone this one, just made it even more hilarious. Hope you didn’t completely ruin the director’s career, though honestly you should a bit.

5. Breaking Dawn Part One

As you can probably tell by the above entries, the fact that this is the worst one is really saying something. All the movies were hard to watch, but this one required pure strength of will to power through.

The big issue is that Breaking Dawn shouldn’t have been split in the first place. However, it was, and that meant that we got a movie that was almost entirely filler. (Followed, somehow, by a movie that was also largely filler.)

We get everybody preparing for the wedding. What do Mike and Jessica think of Bella and Edward getting married? What’s that, you don’t care? Well, now you know anyway. We get the full wedding, as in the whole fucking thing, including the afterparty. We get Bella and Edward traveling to their island, and there’s filler in the filler where they go clubbing in Rio. We then get every minute detail of the wedding night followed by every minute detail of the honeymoon.

There’s fanservice, and then there’s this. This was live action fanfiction.

NOTHING that in any way is relevant to the story happens, the closest we get is Irina looking stoned. Too bad the Denali’ refusal to help out in Eclipse was cut from the last movie, in fact I’m not sure they were mentioned at all previously in these movies (I think maybe Edward had a one-line reference in Twilight?) so this means nothing to people who haven’t read the books.

We then get to the pregnancy arc, which could have been Rosemary’s Baby but is instead as outrageously boring as the first half of the movie was. The director must have realized as much, because he gives us Jacob’s alpha plot that should have been cut from the movie (yes, I know it was in the books, but the thing about adaptations is that things have to go. For the record, I think Meyer should have cut it too). That subplot was straight out of an anime, by the way. Jacob claiming his ancestral rights as alpha while listing off his titles and the soaring music, was… every shounen anime, ever. Complete with the shitty voice acting.

It was a soul-crushingly boring movie.

-

Something that screws over the last four movies is that they were made to feed the fangirls, and generate revenue because the producers knew the fans were coming to watch the books they liked come to life, so they just had to throw scenes from the books and into the movies and let the magic happen. This is a terrible way to adapt something.

Special shoutout too to having to watch Taylor Lautner run around shirtless in four out of five movies. That was very uncomfortable and none of us needed that in our lives, Lautner included.

Super special shoutout to the fact that we disagree with nearly all the casting.

And this isn’t the post for that, but all of the characters were butchered. Some more than others, and some more insidiously than others. It’s the big things, like Carlisle’s character being turned on its head since he thinks all vampires are damned, exactly the opposite of what he thinks in the books, and the little things, like Jasper and Bella being buddies who bicker fondly in New Moon. 

Then the books:

1. Midnight Sun

HANDS DOWN. This is easily our favorite thing to come out of the entire Twilight franchise.

Edward is every kind of crazy at the same time, all the time, and it makes every single sentence packed with delirious entertainment. Reading this book is having a stroke, a psychotic episode, and watching five different true crime shows all at once. We adore every letter of it. (That’s no exaggeration, we even laughed about Edward capitalizing “Son” when Carlisle refers to him as “son” in conversation.)

The book was more than we’d dared to hope for, one of those rare books that makes you go “This was written just for me.”

2. Twilight

The one that started it all.

Vampires are wonderfully creepy. Things like Bella staring at Carlisle acting like the mundane town doctor shortly after learning just how old he is, Alice explaining how vampires kill all, and the uncanny valley perfection of the Cullens all add to the otherness of these vampires, and the general atmosphere of the book.

The love story is convincing. Edward seen through the eyes of Bella is wonderful, the red flags are there but if it weren’t for the books that followed we wouldn’t have decried the ship the way we do.

3. Eclipse

Breaking Dawn is the more interesting book, but Eclipse has less things we outright don’t like. We get to know all the characters better, Edward and Bella are their usual beautiful selves, and it’s overall peak Twilight.

4. Breaking Dawn

Would have ranked much higher, we like what it did. Without it we wouldn’t be in this fandom now, as it brought so much amazing content. The baby plot is fine by us, Carlisle’s friends are great, the Volturi confrontation is a beautiful, if bleak culmination of preventable events. There’s a lot of great stuff in this book.

Unfortunately, and there’s just no diplomatic way to put this, so I’ll just come out with it: there’s too much Jacob.

He no longer had a reason to be in the story, given the way Eclipse ended he had every reason not to be in it. In spite of that we get an entire third of the book from his point of view, and then damned if he’s not shoehorned into the last third as well. He added absolutely nothing to the story, he was just there taking up space and being possessive of a toddler. His POV section was tough to get through, and his presence in book three was just painful. He should have been cut.

5. New Moon

This was the book we had to power through. There are some very good things in it, most notably the Volturi scene, but the Muffin and I enjoy Twilight for the vampires, and that makes Laurent and Hallucination!Edward the highlights of the part of the book where Edward is gone.

There’s also the fact that Jacob isn’t a very compelling character. He has to carry the book now that the Cullens aren’t doing it, and he simply isn’t up for it.

-

Yes, we’re aware that these books are ranked according to how much Jacob is in them. We don’t even hate him, not at all, it’s just that he’s boring.

(That being said, the books at their worst are better than the movies at their best. Jacob narrating his perfect playdate with Renesmée would still be preferable to… I’m trying to think of a good scene from the movies. Hm, nevermind.)

As for The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner and Life and Death, only I have read Bree Tanner and I don’t remember it well enough to give a proper assessment. I was bored with the OCs, though, bored to tears, throughout that book I was itching for Victoria and the Cullens. We have not read Life and Death, but we’re offended by its existence so it ranks bottom.

[clotpolesonly]

I've seen your advice to ace people so I thought I'd try asking a question since I have no one who can help me with this... I'm ace but my boyfriend is allo and we're trying to find a solution that makes both of us happy. It just seems impossible! He'd never want to force me into anything but feels like an important part is missing from our relationship. I can see myself accepting sex from time to time but not liking it, ever... I think. Do you have any advice for a couple in our situation? Thank you so much!

hey!! first of all, ace hug

next, there are plenty of ace-allo relationships out there that work out just fine! there's a world of precedent for it, so don't feel like the way ahead is impossible because it's not. it can be tricky, though, and sometimes it simply doesn't work.

you are under no obligation whatsoever to provide your partner with sex if you're not comfortable with it. that's just an important thing to keep in mind at all times. your comfort and your boundaries are important, and they should be important to both you and your partner. your boyfriend sounds like he's acknowledged that much and doesn't want to push the matter, which is a good sign, at least.

another thing to keep in mind is that sex is not a requirement for a romantic relationship, and romantic relationships that don't include sex are not, in any way, inherently missing something. that much is a fact. however, it is up to each individual person to decide what they want out of their relationships. if sex is important to the individual, then it may be that they aren't fulfilled by a relationship that doesn't feature it, and that's a personal decision that they are entitled to make, as long as they're not judgmental or express entitlement toward their potential partner for not providing it.

has your boyfriend expressed why he feels like something is missing? why does he feel like sex is an important part of a romantic relationship? is that a feeling that he's examined or interrogated? it's not a bad thing if the answer turns out to be that he just enjoys sex a lot and wants it to be included, but it doesn't hurt to look at feelings like that more closely and see if there's anything underneath it. the message that we're fed, societally, is very sex-heavy and the idea of a romantic relationship without can feel pretty foreign and weird to us all.

for example, if he feels like intimacy, even physical intimacy, is what's missing, then there are other ways to achieve that. sex may be the most obvious way, but things like cuddling, massages, shared baths, grooming, etc can provide a similar function.

so it's something to think about -- what, exactly, is missing, and other ways to include it in the relationship.

and it sounds like you've already started thinking about where exactly your own boundaries lie and what compromises you might be able to make. keep in mind, again, that you're under no obligation. please, please, don't feel like you need to offer up things that you're not comfortable with to keep your boyfriend on the hook. very little is worth that.

that being said, if there's compromise that you are comfortable making, that's not a bad thing either. you wouldn't be any less ace if you didn't mind having sex sometimes because your partner enjoyed it. there are plenty of aces who have sex for that reason, both ones who also enjoy it and ones who are pretty meh about the whole thing (the post equating sex to doing laundry comes to mind 😂 not particularly exciting, bit of a chore, but not bad, lol). enthusiastic consent is preached for good reason, but it's honestly up to you what level of enthusiasm is required.

you and your boyfriend can discuss your boundaries in more detail, if that's something you'd be okay with, to find things that the both of you enjoy (or at least are willing to do and that won't cause you distress). there's a lot of grey area between no sexual contact at all and penetrative sex, and there may be somewhere in the middle that you could meet.

but, as always, if you aren't comfortable with it, prioritize that feeling. communication, as they say, is key. keep talking with your boyfriend and make sure that you're both transparent about what you're feeling -- this is an easy situation for feelings to get swallowed up and buried, because you both sound like you care about each other and want to respect each other and make each other happy, but pleasing each other can't come at the price of sacrificing your own comfort. the both of you have to decide together what amount you're each willing and able to compromise.

it might take a little finagling, but it's absolutely possible, so take heart!! and if it turns out there isn't a comfortable middle ground for you to reach, know that it is not any sort of personal failing. sometimes there's just a fundamental incompatibility that, while unfortunate, is not anybody's fault.

i hope your talks go well and you work something out ❤❤❤ feel free to come chat with me again and update me on the situation -- my inbox is always open!

[shinidamachu]

yo asking someone to make a wish so half of their heritage is gone forever is fridge horror-level wtfness (thnx TV Tropes).

of course RT and Sunrise chose not to focus on it, and in mythology people do give up divinity or humanity for romantic reasons, but specifically in Inuyasha it was like ‘despite your demon half you can still live a good life’ as if he has some disease 🤨

like I get in history people have had to hide their heritage to survive war and avoid being shipped off to their death or lose their rights, but to ask someone to permanently discard half their heritage and presumably hide their origins until death is tragic as fuuuuuuuuuuu

It's not even that they chose not to focus on it, is that they deliberately portrayed it as this grand romantic gesture from Inuyasha’s part and for a part of the audience, it truly was. But then again, this backfired for people like me, because it only served to proof how desperate Inuyasha really was to fit in.

Poor guy was literally planning on using the jewel to become a full demon just the day before. Then, at Kikyo’s request, he agreed on doing the exact opposite with little to no deliberation other than “what will be made of you, Kikyo?” I can only assume he was afraid her feelings were conditional. That if he had said no, she would have called it quits.

Imagine the same situation, but this time Inuyasha has a support system to lean on. Prejudice against half demons are still a thing, however he has his parents, his friends, a place to belong. Would he still have said yes in order to live with Kikyo? I honestly doubt it.

You see, Inuyasha hates being human. Not in the sense of saying he hates it, but liking it in secret. He actively hates it. And I can’t stress enough that we don’t actually understand how rightfully entitled he is to hate it.

We know how a human body feels like, we’re used to have a human body. Inuyasha is only human once a month. The majority of time he is a half demon. That’s what he is used to. Even worse: put yourself in his shoes. If you were to lose half your strength, half your sight, half your hearing and speed every single New Moon, you'd curse that night too. 

Not to mention the sheer vulnerability of being emotionally and physically exposed, of not being able to protect yourself or the ones you care about and becoming a "burden” when he takes pride of being the (un)official guardian of the group. No wonder he felt so hopeless he made a point out of staying up all night. And this is what Kikyo was asking him to feel like every single day for the rest of his existence so their life together could be easier, with the aditional quicker of forever losing the features that marked him as his father’s son. You know, the man who died saving him and his mother.

Every single character that got close enough to find out about his night of weakness quickly became aware of how much he despises it. Now, we don’t know the exact duration of Inuyasha and Kikyo’s relationship, but here are our options: Kikyo didn’t know about the New Moon and that Inuyasha hated turning into human or she did know and decided to go for it anyway.

Considering that the latter option is straight up awful, I’ll just assume she simply didn’t know. What does this say about their relationship? If they were an item for a considerable period of time, how come she didn’t know about such a fundamental thing about him? Especially when people who weren’t even his love interest were aware of that fact pretty early on? What was it worth all that time together if they didn’t use it to have meaningful interactions and get to know one another? If Inuyasha was keeping secrets from her and if she wasn’t interested in learning them?

On the other hand, if their relationship was indeed short lived, that could justify the lack of knowledge, but a different issue raises: if they didn’t have time to collect basic information about each other, how am I supposed to believe in their love? How am I supposed to view the decision to erase his demonic side and live together as anything other than reckless, impulsive and thoughtless? How am I not supposed to see it as mutual convenience, a mean to an end? How am I not supposed to think they are acting out of lonileness and desire to fit in? How am I not supposed to think that if literally anyone else had given them the same options they would have taken it? 

A New Moon would have happened in at least one month, tops. That’s not love. That’s a thirty days affair. It could have grown into love, if given the chance, but the pairing seemed more interested in the life they ideolized for themselves than in each other.

I don’t think Kikyo meant it as an ultimatum or that she was disgusted by his demonic attributes. She wouldn’t have approached or kissed him as a half demon otherwise. But I think it’s hard to deny that she wasn’t necessarily fond of them either, since she jumped at the opportunity to get rid of them first chance she got, with no remorse whatsoever. As if it was a bonus. This allowed with the fact that the prejudice against half demons is an allegory for racism and that she used from false equivalence to make the point that both her and Inuyasha were in the same situation puts her in a bad light.

Inuyasha was isolated by people because of his heritage, something he couldn’t change without resorting to intrusive, traumatizing and permanent magic, which Kikyo herself suggested he did. Kikyo isolated herself. People loved her because of her status and she was a privileged woman in comparison. She could have dropped everything since she was unhappy living like that, but she spontaneously chose her duty and powers over love and an ordinary life. And as much as I disagree with her choices, I can at least respect and understand them. What I can’t do is feel sympathy for her when the consequences of said choices catch up with her.

The narrative doesn’t give this problem much focus, it treats it in a much more subtle way. For instance: the jewel only being destroyed by the right wish, paints wishing for Inuyasha to become human as wrong and selfish, with the potential to be catastrophic.

That being said, Inuyasha didn’t hate being a half demon, on the contrary. What he hated was being ostracized over it, so he decided to take matters on his own hands and, when he was free to choose between using the jewel to become a full demon or a human, he went the full demon route because he knew living as human would made him miserable. But the desire of being a full demon was a facade. What he so very clearly wanted, all along, was to be accepted the way he was. That’s why he had no trouble letting go of that goal to pursue the exact  opposite: there was no attachment to it. Full demon or human, he longed for a place to belong. If Kikyo was offering that to him, of course he would have taken it, even if becoming human was far from being the first choice.

Compare that with Inuyasha finally giving up from becoming a full demon, realizing he didn’t have to change at all, that he had a place to belong and people who loved him not despite of what he was but because of it, that he could be accepted as a half demon. Compare that with Inuyasha ending up with the girl that always encouraged him to be himself, with being comfortable enough around her to follow his instincts and embracing his canine mannerisms rather than shutting them down, which he didn’t quite did with Kikyo... The message is clear:

Kikyo should never, in any circumstance, have asked that of him. The implications of it were really bad and on paper it was a win-win situation for her because getting rid of the jewel to become an ordinary woman was something she already wanted. He was the one with the short end of the stick, sacrificing everything without the same level of compromising from her part.

And Inuyasha should never, in any circumstance, have accepted this deal. As his love interest, Kikyo should have been the very first persond advocating for him not to change. If the feelings they had for each other truly were love, then she should be the one helping him getting to terms with himself while he does the same for her, not legitimizing the absurd idea that a part of his essence was less worthy of existing than the other, that he should have be the one to change in order to fit in, rather than the people who oppressed him.

Thematically, even if subtle, the narrative did a decent job out of showing the audience how fucked up the whole thing actually was. What it failed to do was making Inuyasha and the others realizing how wrong it was and holding Kikyo accountable for her actions by making them talk about it.

Because God forbid Kikyo gets vocally told she was wrong (even though she often is) and God forbid Takahashi give Inukik the tiniest bit of substance and relationship development.

[love-little-lotte]

Ranking the Bridgerton Books

I know I should write this in my book blog, but frankly, I have no idea how to make another section for it, and I'm too lazy to research. So, I'm writing here. Please bear with me.

Recently, I read the Bridgerton books by Julia Quinn. You might be familiar with the first book since it was adapted into a popular Netflix series by Shonda Rhimes. I binge-watched it back in December, and I have to say... not a fan. I guess I just find it too cheesy and annoying. Plus, the actors who portrayed Daphne and Simon had no romantic chemistry whatsoever.

But I'm not here to talk about the TV show. I'm here to talk about the novels! This is actually not my first time reading the books. Well, not exactly. I've read six out of the eight novels when I was in high school, I believe. I found the books when I was in high school as it was in the library (please don't ask me why my high school library has smutty novels in it, I have no idea who's in charge - they had Fifty Shades of Grey for a week but they eventually removed it from the catalog when they learned what's it about, but I digress). As a fifteen-year-old girl, the series hooked me.

If you're not familiar with the books or the Netflix series, here's a short synopsis: Set in the Regency era, the Bridgertons are one of the most influential families of the ton. The books follow the love stories of the eight Bridgerton siblings, alphabetically named Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory, and Hyacinth.

I didn't read it in chronological order back then, though. I just borrowed any available Bridgerton book in the library if there's one. You might think I was too young to read a romantic novel like that, but I guess I was mature enough to understand it.

Rereading it now that I'm twenty-two (cue Taylor Swift!), my heart's not in the same place. I was more skeptical with the writing, the story, and, most especially, the characters. But, really, I'm not that heartless, so I will cut the author some slack. Quinn wrote this at a different time for a different audience. It's not that long ago, but you'd be surprised how fast things change.

However, even though I have major criticisms, I cannot stop reading them. There's something about the novels that put me in a chokehold. Despite everything, I was able to enjoy it overall. This series is the definition of "guilty pleasure."

Anyway, here's my ranking of the Bridgerton books! I only read the eight main ones, which means I didn't include novellas of any kind. Also, as a fair warning, I might discuss spoilers and whatnot, so please beware. And do keep in mind that I'm writing my opinion, so if you don't agree, well... tough. I'd like to hear your comments, though, if you have any.

#8 - An Offer From A Gentleman (Book 3)

Honestly, this was probably one of my favorite Bridgerton books when I was younger. A Cinderella retelling? Come on! As someone who loves fairytales and forbidden romances, this was supposed to be heaven. However... it was not.

Benedict may be my least favorite Bridgerton brother. No, scratch that - he is my least favorite Bridgerton out of all of them. He's whiny and creepy and I was plainly annoyed with how he keeps asking Sophie to be his mistress in the novel. This was not the gentleman I imagined when I was younger. I might have liked him more in the first few parts, but as the story progressed, he became too childish and obsessive. Sophie, on the other hand, was all right. She's definitely one of my favorite Bridgerton heroines. She was tough but kind in her own way. I wish she had a better partner than Benedict, but I guess they suit each other in the end.

I just detest the climax and the ending of this book. It was too comical - and not in a hilarious way. I guess the same could be said for the entire novel. This was so, so different from the rest, to be honest.

Overall Rating: 3/10

#7 - On The Way To The Wedding (Book 8)

Fun fact: this is the first Bridgerton novel I read. And even then, I wasn't a huge fan of it. Just like An Offer From A Gentleman, the climax was a bit silly but more in a soap opera level than comical.

The biggest factor why I didn't like this was the characters. They were all so bland. Especially our hero and heroine. Gregory is the least featured Bridgerton in the novel, so I don't really know what to make of him at the beginning of the novel. In his book, I learned that he was a good guy - and that's all. Maybe he's too young and naive when it comes to romance (which is endearing, I have to admit), but he has no interesting personality whatsoever. Lucy, the heroine in this novel, was the same. She was described as pragmatic and sensible, which perfectly sums her up. Also, she's a great friend to Hermione (whose last name is Watson, by the way, and you can't tell me otherwise that this isn't a Harry Potter reference - Hermione Granger and Emma Watson? If that's not a reference, well, that's a very crazy coincidence, but I digress again). Gregory and Lucy's story was average - not bad, not good, just so incredibly dull.

The fun parts started way too early. It was difficult to find intrigue in the middle and end bits. The second main conflict, which happened near the end of the book, was truthfully not that good and was just obviously a ploy to keep things longer. You'd think that the Bridgerton novels would end the series with a bang. Alas, it did not.

Overall Rating: 4/10

#6 - To Sir Phillip, With Love (Book 5)

Eloise finally gets her turn in her own love story. She used to be one of my favorite Bridgertons, but when she got her own story, she was reduced into a plain girl. Gone was the feisty and outspoken Eloise we knew from the previous books.

Maybe it's because she's paired up with one of the most insufferable Bridgerton heroes, Sir Phillip. Just an inch away from Benedict, Sir Phillip maybe my next least favorite character. And it annoys me so much that Eloise gets to fall in love with someone like him.

It actually started pretty well. Before the events in the book started, Eloise and Phillip had already been corresponding for a year through letters. Phillip was on the lookout for - not a wife - but a mother for his two unruly children, and he thought Eloise was perfect for the role. He's a terrible father, but the book tries to convince us that it's not his fault because he had a bad upbringing by his own father (a recurring theme in the Bridgerton books - four heroes are plagued with different daddy issues). Eloise tried her best to turn things around, and of course, she eventually did, but I just really hate Phillip's initial intentions for seeking out a wife. He gets better in the end, sure, but I still really don't like him. At least the book wasn't short of excitement, else it would've been rated a bit lower.

Obviously, my favorite part in this book was when the Bridgerton brothers stormed into Phillip's house. He got what he deserved, truly.

Overall Rating: 4/10

#5 - The Duke and I (Book 1)

Now, this is the most well-known story in the Bridgerton literary universe, thanks to the Netflix series. I know I've said that I wasn't a fan of the series, but really, the Netflix writers and producers deserve all the gold in the world because they managed to transform this novel into something exciting.

Daphne and Simon had their moments, that's for sure, but as a couple, they were just so... meh. I liked their relationship at the start when they were still pretending to be courting. But as soon as they got married, everything interesting about the two of them sizzled out. And please don't get me started with how Daphne "took advantage" of drunk Simon. Thank God the show fixed that.

Despite my mixed feelings, this was a decent start to the Bridgerton books. There's really nothing majorly wrong about this novel (except for the aforementioned "taking advantage.") It laid out the future characters well. Lady Whistledown was also great. Thinking about her made me miss her because she wasn't featured in the later novels (you'll soon find out why).

Overall Rating: 5/10

#4 - It's In His Kiss (Book 7)

Since Eloise was stripped away from her feistiness when she got her own love story, I was obviously worried for Hyacinth. Thankfully, she didn't change! She was still the same tactless girl in the previous books. And for that, she gets to be my champion as my favorite Bridgerton.

This is the first time I've read this book, and oh, I'm surprised with how exciting it was. Hyacinth's hero, Gareth, perfectly suited her. Gareth was able to tame her impulsiveness, while also proving to be a good romantic partner for her. I loved that he could match her intellectually, too. It was never a bore whenever they have one of their silly banters. Lady Danbury was also featured more in this novel. She's one of my favorite side characters. As Gareth's grandmother, she was determined to bring him and Hyacinth together.

Maybe the only criticism I have in this novel is Gareth's issues with his father. I find it really weird that most of the heroes' problems are with their fathers. It just seemed lazy writing, in my opinion. But oh well, Gareth was interesting in his own way and that's perfectly fine.

Overall Rating: 6/10

#3 - Romancing Mister Bridgerton (Book 4)

I have a feeling that this is Quinn's favorite Bridgerton book. In this book, it's Colin's turn to find love. Colin is featured in several of his siblings' stories - in fact, in almost all of the books, he had an important role to play.

I love Colin and Penelope's story. Long before this book, they already knew each other. Penelope was Eloise's best friend, and she's almost always in the Bridgerton household. Colin has been forced by his mother for God knows how long to dance with Penelope every time there's a party. But it was only now that they became closer. Unbeknownst to Colin, Penelope had been in love with him for half her life, even though he didn't particularly care for her. Penelope speaks for all of us who know about unrequited love all too well.

Furthermore, this is the novel where they finally reveal who was behind the Lady Whistledown column. Yes, viewers of the Netflix series who are not familiar with the books. This is the part - and not in the first book! I'm so mad that they revealed Penelope as Lady Whistledown in the first season of the series, when in fact it's much later than that.

However, that's also one of the lowest points of this novel for me. Lady Whistledown's identity reveal was a bit anti-climactic. A little bit laughable, even. Also, also, also: I hated Colin's reaction to Penelope's secret. He didn't have to be angry and jealous of her, but ah well, whatever makes for conflict. Nevertheless, I love both Colin and Penelope because they had so much character and depth. Quinn was certainly biased when she wrote this.

Overall Rating: 8/10

#2 - The Viscount Who Loved Me (Book 2)

Remember earlier when I said that I cannot stop reading the books because even though I knew it wasn't that good, it was still highly enjoyable? Well, I'm really talking more about this book, to be specific. I think I've read it in less than 24 hours because of how much I love it. And yes, Anthony and Kate had their obvious flaws, but oh God, they were so perfect together. I can't help but imagine Jonathan Bailey from the Netflix series as Anthony when I was reading it. I swoon, all the time.

This used to be my favorite Bridgerton novel, but that's only because I haven't read my new favorite until recently. Anthony and Kate's story was just oh-so good and intimate and romantic. Kate's also my favorite heroine in the entire Bridgerton literary universe. She was headstrong and loving. She's unafraid to put the happiness of her family first.

In so many ways, Anthony was the same. He assumed the role of Viscount Bridgerton when he was only eighteen when his father unexpectedly died. Since then, he overlooks the family's estates and well-being. Yes, this is one of those "daddy issues" stories I mentioned earlier, but this one was kind of done tastefully. He didn't wish to fall in love but everything changed when he encountered Kate. He didn't mean to be attracted to her, but here we are.

Anthony and Kate had so much understanding between them. I agree Anthony was a bit of a dick when Kate asked if they could have one week to get to know each other before consummating the marriage (worse things have been said by Benedict and Phillip, though), but in the end, I can't deny that I truly love them together.

Overall Rating: 8/10

#1 - When He Was Wicked (Book 6)

*blushing furiously* So what if I put the smuttiest and steamiest novel as my top choice?! What about it? Oh, but really, though, I can't stop reading this. Francesca is one of the least known Bridgertons in the books, just like Gregory. I didn't know anything about her, except that she's quieter than most of her siblings. It was also first mentioned in Romancing Mister Bridgerton that she had already married but was sadly widowed after two years.

Michael was Francesca's late husband's cousin and best friend, which makes him her best friend, too. He has been secretly in love with Francesca since the first moment he laid eyes on her but was unable to pursue her because she's with his cousin John. In addition, I'd like to say that Michael is my favorite hero in the Bridgerton books. He's very charming and wicked, and really, my knees buckle at the thought of him.

Long after John passed away, Francesca and Michael reunited. Francesca was looking for a new husband because she desperately wants a family, while Michael... well, Michael was still in love with her. There was undeniable passion and intimacy between them, and it was hard to stay away from each other. I seriously have a thing for men secretly pining over women they love. That's got to be one of my favorite tropes.

However, the book itself was a bit longer than necessary. While I understand Francesca's hesitations in marrying Michael, it could've been shortened because it felt draggy by the end. Her constant changing of minds was a bit annoying, and yeah, it was probably a ploy to lengthen the novel.

Additionally, I was a bit skeptical at first of how they're going to treat their relationship, especially since Francesca was truly in love with her first husband. But it was done so nicely. Francesca and Michael never forget about John, even in the end. I loved what John's mother said to Michael in a letter at the end, "Thank you, Michael, for letting my son love her first."

I guess I love their story more than the other couples because both were already mature and experienced. Just like everyone else in this romantic series, Francesca and Michael belonged together. The entirety of Chapter 19 is proof of that.

Overall Rating: 9/10

***

Overall, the Bridgerton books are quite entertaining, despite being a cheesy and sappy series. I admit that I feel quite lonely and bored now that I've finished all eight of them. Ah well, there's always the possibility of rereading them!

[human-hetalia-imagines]

☆ Rules & Information ☆

This is a blog dedicated to doing imagines surrounding my original human au. Here’s a description for each character's place in the au and rules for requests — I’ll be adding more characters as I get more comfortable writing for them.

*I did change the names of some characters so that they would reflect the countries they come from

*Also: this shit long, so strap in and get ready

☆Rules for Imagines☆

I’ll do imagines, or a bullet point list of up to 6 characters at one time, or a written scenario for up to 3 characters

I’ll also do nyos and genderbends of each character (ngl, I simp after nyo!America), their placement in the au won't change.

I include South Italy and Prussia in the axis, and Canada in the Allies

I’ll write fluff, smut, angst, and everything in between

I absolutely won’t write: incest, explicit sexual assault or excessive gore

The only time I will do romantic/sexual imagines for the characters who canonically have the physical appearance of people under 18 is if you explicitly state that you want them aged up, or if the reader is also underage. If you request adult x minor, I will discard your ask & invert your rib cage.

☆Rules for Matchups☆ 

Before submitting, check if they’re open or not, they won’t always be due to not wanting my page cluttered with them

When requesting, include personality, interests, dislikes, any pets you have, fun facts about yourself, and possibly clothing style

Don’t bother to include physical features as those will not be taken into account when pairing you up with someone

Include whether you want the matchup to be romantic, platonic, or one of each

☆Character Au Placements☆

North America

America | Alfred Jones, age 19

A young man that's cheerful and strong, with a strong sense of justice. He often can't read situations and has a habit of ruining the mood, whatever mood that may be. While he’s usually labeled as “incompetent”, he’s attending college (or university, depending where you’re from) to obtain a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering. He plays as the pitcher on his college’s baseball team, able to throw a devastating fastball. He lives in a two bedroom apartment with his twin brother, Matthew. He had a crush on Amelia Earhart when he was younger, and it’s something that Matthew teases him about on a weekly basis. 

Canada | Matthew Williams, age 19

On the surface, he's an easygoing, softhearted and gentle young man, around his twin brother and close friends, however, he can be quite sassy, nearly bordering on rude on occasion. He's in his first year of college for a degree in statistics. For the college, he plays as the Center on the hockey team, where he lets out steam on his opponents. He has a pure white rag-doll cat named Kumajirou that follows him around his and Alfred's apartment. He curses regularly in french. 

United Kingdom 

England | Arthur Kirkland, age 23

He's either a quick-witted, sarcastic and stubborn man, or the paragon of a perfect gentleman. He enjoys reading, writing (although he doesn’t show anyone his stories), and embroidering. He’s gotten so skillful at it, that he has a well-traversed Etsy shop. He’s currently in his last year of getting his Postsecondary Education degree and a minor in linguistics. When he was a teenager, he was a delinquent, going to loud concerts, fighting, dyeing his hair wild colors, and smoking. While he says he’s over it, he still keeps various CDs of OK Go and The Rolling Stones, as well as band t-shirts. It’s something that his 3 older brothers refuse to let go of.

Baltic

Estonia | Eduard von Bock, Age 19

He's a graduated honors student who has avoided many problems with wit. Usually in front of people he acts calm, logical, and businessman-like, but in private he’s actually pretty chill, albeit a bit quiet. He’s awesome with technology, and works part-time at his college as an IT advisor while he studies to get his Quality Control & Safety Technologies degree.

Latvia | Raivis Galante, age 15

He’s a boy who has been through quite a bit, making him an introvert, easily intimidated, and kind of a crybaby. He’s in his first year of high school, but due to him having an anxiety disorder, he does it digitally. The only problem is that he strives to have friends who are close to him and care for him unconditionally. He secretly likes to read cutesy romance novels from the young adult section.

Lithuania | Toris Laurinaitis, age 19

He's a patient, shy, and gentle person who has the ability to become pretty serious when he needs to be. He works as a librarian assistant while he decides between a degree in social work or education. He, unfortunately, usually over-thinks his decisions too much, causing him to have anxiety attacks. When he’s not working, he’s typically just dragged around by his close friend, Feliks, but he has a good time nonetheless.

Nordic

Denmark | Mathias Køhler, age, 19

He’s a genuine sweetheart who often accidentally always yells. While he is kind, he’s also a bit thick-headed, although he always has the best of intentions. He considers himself to be very close to his friends, especially to Lukas, although the other man’s opinion on the matter is about the opposite. He attends college for a master’s degree in, surprisingly enough, Business Administration. When he isn’t studying, he enjoys clinging to his friends and drinking. He has the habit of playing online video games with Alfred and Gilbert for way too long at a given time. He also gets oddly competitive over his degree with Tino. 

Finland | Tino Väinämöinen, Aged 20

He's a gentle, cheery young man with a tendency to like the more simplistic things in life. He seems very mature, yet can be childlike. He loves relaxing in saunas, especially with his close friends. He has a small Maltese pup named Hanatamago who attends dog shows. When he’s not attending dog shows, he does online college for a masters in Medical Assisting. 

Iceland | Emil Steilsson, age 17

He’s a mysterious boy with a cool exterior and a hot interior, being a bit easy to provoke with teasing. His older half-brother often insists that he was ‘born in his emo phase’. He taught his pet puffin (geniously named Mr. Puffin) a lot of profanity in Icelandic, Norwegian, and English. He attends high school, which he is absolutely over. On a side note, even though Lukas is his half-brother, he often refuses to have any connection to him whatsoever in public. 

Norway | Lukas Bondevik , age 18

He is, like his half-brother, very introverted. However, he is considerably more cold to strangers, but to his close friends, he can (sometimes) be very sweet. He just recently finished highschool, but intends on going straight into college for an Applied Data Science degree. He practices Modern Paganism, or Wicca, as his religion. 

Sweden | Berwald Oxenstierna, Aged 21

He’s a guy with an intimidating air who doesn’t talk much. On the inside he’s playful, but it doesn’t show at all and he just seems intimidating. He works as a carpenter after he went to a trade high school, a job that he greatly enjoys. Other than that, he likes decorative arts and being a part of debates on his free time. While he can create furniture out of wood scraps without any blueprints, he can’t put together IKEA furniture to save his life. 

Eastern Europe

Belarus | Natalia Arlovskaya, age 19

While she can be extremely possessive over her older brother and sister, she means well. She openly looks up to both of them, as they are the only two people in her life that have remained constants. She lives with both of them in a house and works part-time at her sister’s flower shop. She’s also a part-time online student with a pursuit of a criminology degree.

Russia | Ivan Braginski, age 21

He has the simplicity of a country bumpkin, an easy-going personality, and the cruelty of a child, all mixed together. Coupled with his personality traits and the fact that he’s well over 6 feet tall, he constantly (and accidentally) gives off an intimidating air. He attends college for a Avionics Technology bachelor's degree. Deep down, he’s incredibly passionate about ballet, more specifically Russian ballet, his favorite being Don Quixote, with Sleeping Beauty as a close second.

Ukraine | Katyusha Braginskaya, age 24

Ivan and Natalia’s older sister who always recklessly gets dragged into their messes. She's an absolute sweetheart who strives to make the people around her happy, even at her own expense. She can be very emotional. She owns a flower shop where she let’s her younger siblings work part-time while they go to school.

Central Europe

Germany | Ludwig Beilschmidt, age 20

He's a young man with an overly serious personality and a pessimistic nature. He's very by-the-book and has a pet peeve for a lack of cleanliness. He attends college for mechanical engineering and dorms with Feliciano and Kiku. His older brother, Gilbert, regularly breaks in and hangs out with them. His hobbies are reading, making sweets and taking walks with his dogs (that live with Gilbert). He’s in a garage band with the three aforementioned guys. He does, however, want to be a soldier like the other members in his family. Unfortunately, due to an injury to his leg that he sustained as a kid, he can’t. 

Hungary | Elizabeta Héderváry, age 26

She’s a sweet, reliable woman with a bit of a boyish streak. For a career, she works doing maintenance on a farm that belongs to a close friend, Basch (Switzerland). In her free time, she likes riding horses, going hiking and practicing instruments, one of which is the tekerőlant. She has a young child, Julian (Kugelmugel), from a previous relationship with her ex fiance, Roderich (Austria). Thankfully, things are civil between the two.

Liechtenstein | Lili Zwingli, age 15

She’s the darling, adoptive younger sister of Basch (Switzerland). She has a big heart and helps out on her brother’s farm wherever she can, and because she spends so much time on the farm, she’s gotten decently close to Elizabeta. She enjoys feeding, brushing, and cuddling her two angora rabbits on her free time, as well as knitting. Sometimes she’ll submit her bunnies to be participants in rabbit shows (Cocoa has 1 and Cinna-bun has 3).

Poland | Feliks Łukasiewicz, age 19

He has a fierce anxiety towards strangers, and upon a first meeting, he'll act very shy. Once he gets used to someone, he'll act goofy and a bit childish, clinging onto his closest friends. He attends college for a degree in fashion design and marketing. He is also very opinionated. He often drags his friends to Francis’ patisserie for cute aesthetic pictures. 

Prussia | Gilbert Beilschmidt, age 24

He comes off as rude, loud and self-centered, but he’s actually incredibly sweet and loyal almost to a fault. He’s catholic and takes his religion seriously to the point of keeping a cross necklace with him nearly all the time. While he wanted to join the army like the rest of his family, his albinism keeps him from being able to. Because of this, many members of the family see him as the Family Disappointment™, causing a strain between him and them. Unrelated, but when Ludwig lived with him, he caught Gilbert trying to play all three parts of Suite en trio, Op. 59: I. Serenade by himself with all three instruments at 2 in the morning.

Switzerland | Basch Zwingli, age 25

He’s an intimidating man with a soft heart. He owns a farm that has been in his family for generations, and it’s a job that he’s greatly proud of and fiercely protective over. He has technically adopted Lili as a daughter, but they both view each other as siblings. Regardless, Francis has still referred to him as a DILF before. He doesn’t understand what it means, and Elizabeta has assured him that he doesn't want to. On a more pure note, he enjoys attending rabbit shows whenever there’s any in the area, and has encouraged Lili to participate in them with hers.

Africa

Seychelles | Veronique Bonnefoy, age 17

She’s a southern country girl with a big heart. She's a bit sloppy and has the tendency to laze around when the weather gets warmer. She often laments over her being lonely to her friends, especially to Alfred and Matthew. She enjoys cooking, singing, and dancing. She takes after her brother figure (technically adoptive father), Francis, being a bit of a romantic herself. She’s in her senior year of high school, and is excited to be done with it. Once she ate pizza rolls in front of Francis and he almost cried. 

Asia

China | Yao Wang, age 19

He’s a (mostly) easy-going person, if not a bit of a hermit. He works as a waiter currently, but attends several courses in hopes of getting his food-handlers permit to, one day, open his own authentic Chinese food restaurant. He lives with his 5 other siblings, all of which jokingly refer to him as “grandpa” due to how often he complains about back pain and makes acupuncture appointments every 2 weeks. When his 6th sibling, Kiku, moved out for college, he was pretty salty. In his free time, he mostly plays Mahjong the practices the Érhù. He’s unabashedly likes and collects cute things such as small charms and plushies.

Japan | Kiku Honda, age 19

While, at first glance, he seems quiet and serious, he can actually be quite goofy and irresponsible with his money, buying anime memorabilia and American comic books. It’s something that one of his roommates, Ludwig, lectures him about quite a bit. His other roommate, Feliciano, sees nothing wrong with it. He attends college for a degree in animation. He enjoys messing with machines and drawing.

South Korea | Im Yong Soo, age 16

He’s a hyperactive young man with strong aspirations when it comes to schooling. He shows the upmost respect to strangers and his elders alike, but when he’s around friends and immediate family he tends to be more loud and silly. He’s currently knee deep in the K-pop wave sweeping the world and practices idol dances on tiktok. 

Taiwan | Mei Xiao, age 18

She is a strong-willed, fashionable young woman, but she's also said to have become more of a nervous type in recent times, unable to stop worrying. She has the tendency to be a bit smart-mouthed with a somewhat quick temper. Other than that, she has a sweet and cheerful disposition. She lives with all of her siblings (China, Japan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Korea, and Thailand) and works as a hostess as a restaurant while she takes a break from schooling. 

Mediterranean

France | Francis Bonnefoy, age 24

He's someone who does things at his own pace and has an abundance of affectionate expressions for friends, family, and strangers alike. He owns his own patisserie which has become increasingly popular as a spot for dates and hipsters to eat cute, artfully made sweets and drink aesthetically pleasing coffees and teas. He loves culture and the arts, as well as paintings and clothing.

North Italy | Feliciano Vargas, age 20

He's a cheerful guy who can be a little bit of a crybaby. While he relies on his friends a lot, he deeply cares for them. He's attending college for a fine arts degree where he shares a dorm room with Ludwig and Kiku. He enjoys painting, singing and designing clothes. Also, while only a few people know this, he can play both acoustic and electric guitar. He’s in a garage band with Ludwig, Kiku, and Gilbert

South Italy | Lovino Vargas, age 22

He constantly starts arguments and fights, however he’s also a bit of a coward. He has the ability to be hardworking, but often doesn’t out of laziness. While he’ll never admit it, he’s quite the hopeless romantic, striving to find someone who will love him despite his flaws. He’s in college to obtain a bachelor's in agricultural studies with a minor in history, but absolutely refused to share a dorm with his younger brother, who he often teases about choosing to get a ‘useless art degree.’ He enjoys gardening, dancing, and playing the acoustic guitar in his free time. He also likes sketching, but due to feeling insecure, he never shows people his work, or even tells them that he does it.

Spain | Antonio Fernandez Carriedo, age 24

While he can be oblivious and even insensitive, he’s a generally friendly person with a cheerful deposition. He works as a bartender in a decently popular bar in the downtown of his city that’s within walking distance of his house. When he’s not working, he enjoys playing the flamenco guitar and practicing dancing. Since he’s very sociable, before work, he typically stops by Francis’ pastry shop to talk to him as he closes up.

Also, did you know that, in canon, Feliciano can play electric guitar and Ludwig can play the drums?? What I’m saying is: punk garage band w/ Kiku on vocals. Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.  

[perseusjackson-jasongrace]

His Blood Runs Gold I

Percy is a God: Part I

Masterlist for the next part and more of my stuff

Y’all already know what this is!!!!!!!! But if you don’t then click this to find out. And i hope you enjoy Percy as a god cause i definitely do ;) *shivers*

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

We were warm and shivering,

and young and ancient,

and alive.

-We Were Liars, E. Lockhart

Time is non-existent anymore. Percy should be twenty this year but now that he has ichor flowing through his veins, he can be 102 or 5. He has done things Homer would write epic poems about. If he were around at the dawn of time Ovid would have happily dedicated the Metamorphoses to him. But today Percy Jackson has been a god for three years and he has never felt more mortal in his life.

“Percy my boy, what are you doing here?”

“Hello Father, Camp Half-Blood is throwing a campfire in my honour and I thought it’d be rude not to show my face.”

“Very noble of you son. I remember back in my day the Greeks–“

Percy zoned out, tired of hearing how people bowed down to all these stuffy Olympians. The camp threw a celebration every year on the day he got immortalized and in return he reinforced the borders and blessed every demigod before they leave at the end of summer. He doesn’t know if he’s doing a good job, he doesn’t even know if what he does is making a difference, but he doesn’t know how else to give back to the camp and the people that saved his life again and again; who loved him and fought next to him and oh gods followed him into battle.

He’s never had the chance to talk to Chiron, who’s always busy with this demi-god and that satyr, and this nymph. He barely gets the chance to talk to all his old friends– between the new campers wanting to hear his stories and the general chaos of end of summer camp-life. He thanked the powers that be–what a jarring thought that he was one of those powers now– that he managed to find days in-between to see Annabeth and Grover.

He smiled to himself as he remembered the last time he saw Annabeth. She had been moving into her own apartment to start her third year at the University of New Rome. To his unsurprised delight she had chosen archaeology as her major but somehow slipped Latin and Ancient Histories into her schedule. He had helped carry bags and bags filled with books up to her room and they spent the day setting her up and making sure everything was in its place before she started the year.

Their relationship had progressed so softly, so slowly, Percy sometimes felt like he had imagined the year they had as a romantic couple. After he became a god they managed to go on a few dates, some interrupted by hothead immortals and revengeful monsters, and some blissfully alone. But once Annabeth started university and Percy was called again and again to help with this problem and that, it became a hassle to set up dates and figure out when to meet. They didn’t grow apart, so much as grow between. And although he missed the softness of Annabeth, he had gained a friend who knew him more deeply than any being alive– he was eternally grateful for that, and he couldn’t hate what they lost out on.

“Son, are you listening?” Poseidon pulled him from his thoughts.

“Yes father, it really was a great time for you. I have to go now, but Iris message if you need me.” And without waiting for a reply Percy strode out of Olympus and into the streets below.

He considered snagging a car but decided against it, since you couldn’t very well drive into Camp Half-Blood. Instead he walked into the ocean and let the current take him all the way to Long-Island, till he could smell the strawberries on the ocean wind and hear the echoes of camp games and reedpipes.

He stepped onto the beach, loving the soft sinking impressions he made in the sand. After his blood turned gold he realized he could walk on the sand and make no footprints whatsoever. The idea scared him so much he sunk under water and cried for three hours. How could he leave nothing behind? How could he have no imprint? It was Tyson, riding on his rainbow hippocampi who found him and showed him how to balance his weight; showed him how to step into the sand and not on it. When his footprints reappeared once more, he hugged his brother so hard if Tyson weren’t a cyclops his ribs might have cracked.

So Percy walked up the beach and through the strawberry fields, taking the time to breathe in the forest air, the fruit breezes, and ah the smell of chaos.

“JACKSON!” Connor Stoll yelled.

And with that single announcement Percy was home.

The day was spent in good spirits: racing with various campers up the wall and avoiding every deadly thing it spat at you– even if he couldn’t really die; then eating in the dining hall and getting to travel between tables without getting glares from various houses or Chiron; laughing as all the food turned blue just for him.

When it was time Percy walked with some of his friends; Clarisse who grew to be a steady, if raging fire, by his side, and Connor Stoll who is now the oldest of the Hermes kids since Travis left for college, and of course Will who above everyone reserves the right to make sure his friends were protected.

In a moment of vulnerability, he broke down on Percy’s immortal shoulder and wept. I don’t want to bury anymore of my friends Percy. I don’t want to be tending to them as they die in my infirmary. I can’t do it anymore. For him, Percy double, sometimes in moments of obsessiveness, triple checked his border defenses.

Now the little group walks around the perimeter of the camp and talks softly and contentedly as Percy knocks against the shimmering force, leaking power into the hollow spots.

“How is everyone at camp?” He asked.

“Fine, nothing has changed much. Ever since the Giant War it feels as if everything has calmed down to a lull. I’m wary it’s the eye before the storm but gods-dammit we deserve a break.” Connor answered.

Percy hid the rage of that truth but let the ache of those words settle in his bones. He simply nodded at Connor and turned to Clarisse.

“Are there any new campers who need to be protected?”

“Only a few, a lot have moved to New Rome over the last years.” There was a bitter edge to her words, caused by the sting of loss.

“You cannot blame them for wanting a life that is not concentrated to three months of safety.”

“I know,” Her nostrils flared, she kicked the rock in front of her. “I know. It just sucks that there’s so few of us now.”

“Maybe we can see about hosting annual games at each camp over the summer?” He suggested, careful to not step where the cracks spidered underneath him– even if the labyrinth had collapsed there was still the chance something tunneled beneath.

“I think that’s a great idea.” Will piped up, “Maybe then I can convince Nico to stay for more than one week.” He rolled his eyes, but the glimmer of happiness in them gave away his annoyed pretense.

“I will talk to the Praetors over there and let you know.”

“Thank you, Percy.”

They turned to face him.

He stared at them for a moment, studying their faces. Even now, all these years later it was jarring to see the signs of growth in their make-ups. He couldn’t say aging, they were barely hitting their twenties, gods Will was still a teenager, albeit not for much longer; but it was weird to watch as they grew up, watch as time changed their features, changed them.

Clarisse, who used to be a spitfire of rage and fierce protectiveness was now, more a well-kept hearth. She was still full of flame, but it was contained, and her fierce was warm instead of scorching.

And Connor, who had been attached to his brother at the hip, was all grown up. Travis was three years into a degree and Connor, although a prospective honours student, had forfeited college until he could figure out what he wanted to do. He was the sole head of the Hermes cabin, but somehow, he kept up the mischief as if the two were still together. The shenanigans are some of Percy’s favourites to hear around the campfire.

And Will, who is dating Nico di Angelo. The two were often running between the camps, though Nico more than the child of Apollo. It was Will, Percy thought, who brought the camp together, more than anyone. And Will, who in the process had lost the most. For him, Percy would continue to be here every year, would continue to help if they called when they were in trouble. Because he too was tired of seeing his friends die. Tired of seeing his friends mourn.

“It’s almost time for me to go but I wanted to say,” He fought to choke back the rising wave of emotions, “I wanted to say thank you. For keeping my home safe. And thank you for being my friends.”

Their hug lasted many moments, ribbons of friendship passing between them. And when Percy walked back into the sea, he was glad no-one could tell the difference between tears and ocean.

Friends, the word echoed in his head. So few and far between since he became a God. It was not that people feared him, they just became… wary. They fell into that space in-between, where one wrong move could plunge them into fear. When he first turned divine, he counted on his fingers how many friends he had, and if he didn’t have enough digits, he deemed it a good day. Now he can count with aching clarity all the people who loved him, and still have fingers to spare.

Annabeth asked him once if he regretted taking up Zeus’ offer, if he regretted turning his red blood gold.

He hadn’t answered her till three weeks later, over a three am phone call.

I don’t regret it, he had said, because I know I can help this way. I know I can protect my family and friends better this way. And when the phone had gone dark, he had whispered into the void of his room– an alcove of coral far, far, far underwater– I don’t regret it, but I’m so lonely. The tears at that admission did not stop flowing for many hours.

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How are you feeling?? Cause i got 6K words for this fic and i don’t see myself stopping any time soon. Give me your thoughts young ones!!!!

[amerie-wadia]

a figment of my worst intentions

what really happened during kiara’s kook year that made kie establish the strict no pogue-on-pogue macking rule (inspired by betty by taylor swift) → read on ao3.

but if i showed up at your party

would you have me? would you want me?

would you tell me to go fuck myself

or lead me to the garden?

in the garden, would you trust me

if i told you it was just a summer fling?

i’m only seventeen, i don’t know anything

but i know i miss you. 

Kie had been working up the courage to tell Sarah for months—she had been working up the courage to tell anybody, somebody for years. For her whole life.

It was never the right time and it never seemed to be the right person either.

For a while, Kie wasn’t sure. Nobody in the world had ever talked to her about what it actually meant to be anything other than straight. ‘You just know’ didn’t really cut it either. Because she didn’t ‘just know’ what any of it meant. Sure, girls had always been beautiful, but just because she thought girls were beautiful didn’t mean she was sexually or romantically attracted to them.

“She’s so cute,” her mom would comment as she looked over Kie’s shoulder at her Instagram feed.

“Yeah, she is cute,” Kie would respond half-heartedly because obviously her friends were cute but her mom also shouldn’t be commenting on girls’ bodies. Kie was trying to teach her to put less of a focus on her looks, but it never seemed to work. And sure, her friend was cute, but her mom thought so too and that had to mean something.

“She’s so hot,” Sarah said one day as they lay sprawled across the couches in Sarah’s bonus room. Megan Fox was hot, everybody thought so. It wasn’t weird to think she was hot and Sarah seemed to agree too.

And Kie thought girls were beautiful. So many girls.

She never really thought about what it would be like to kiss them or touch them and she never thought about having sex with them.

Granted, she didn’t think much of sex at all. Sarah talked about it all the time, but Kie didn’t get the big deal was.

One night, after Sarah had been going on and on about how her new boyfriend was really good at going down on her, Kie decided to look it up, as she’d been too embarrassed in the moment to ask Sarah what she meant by it. One Google search lead to another and Kie was scrolling through a porn site. The thought of it alone was enough to make Kie want to hide under her covers forever and never face another living soul. It felt dirty and wrong and every instinct told her that this was exploiting women and she needed to close the tab. But she scrolled because the article she’d read had been weird and she had never heard of some of the words and body parts that supposedly she had. So she scrolled a little farther.

And dicks were gross. Like abominably gross. They looked wrinkly and slimy and the thought of letting one touch her, letting one come near her mouth, made her feel stiff and scared and small. How did anybody want to touch those? Maybe with the right guy it would be different…

But nothing about the women grossed her out. The images were hot and Kie knew she was supposed to react that way to them. Thinking the women weren’t gross didn’t mean she thought they were hot either. It just wasn’t grossed because she had looked at herself a million times naked or in the mirror when she got out of the shower. There was nothing shocking or revolutionary about seeing naked women. It was a little hot, though.

Finally, she clicked on a video and instantly wanted to scream when the intro music blared through her bedroom. She turned the volume all the way down and paused the video for a moment just in case one of her parents came knocking at her door. Nobody came. She hit play.

She scrolled through the video, not quite ready to actually watch it yet, until it came to the part she had searched for. The guy doing that was much less scary and much sexier. She understood the appeal of that. Maybe having sex wasn’t as scary and gross as it had always seemed. Until he stopped doing that and started pounding into the girl. Nothing about it turned her on whatsoever. But the video barely showed anything but an entirely too zoomed in image of the grossest action

Kie had ever seen in her life. She closed the video and decided that was enough for the night.

The next time Sarah talked to Kie about sex it made both more and less sense. Sarah seemed to think that all of it was hot, not just the part where the guy went down on her. She told Kie that she had never done the other part—the real part—but that she had always been excited about it. Kie didn’t know how to say she had never felt excited about that, but quickly the conversation moved back to their history homework and that was that.

Kie had so many more questions but she wasn’t ready to ask.

Freshman health class was an absolute joke. The district had a strict abstinence-only policy and her health teacher gave them a quick sex run down where she mentioned the word condom only once but STD and unwanted pregnancy like ten times each. Kie was more confused when she left than when she had gone into class that day. Sarah hadn’t been paying any attention to the presentation and then proceeded to heavily make fun of it during lunch. Kie laughed along with her jokes, even though some of them she didn’t quite understand.

In typical North Carolina fashion, there was LGBT sex education—let alone straight sex education.

Not that Kie was inherently curious about what it meant to have sex with girls. But it should at least be offered. There had to be some secret lesbian or bisexual girls in her grade who were just dying to know what they were supposed to do.

Kie didn’t understand a lot of sexual attraction, wondered sometimes if she was just young or immature or weird. She wondered for quite some time if maybe she was asexual. Occasionally though, she got a really strong urge to touch herself and it made her question it even more. She didn’t understand what any of the sexualities actually meant and what they entailed.

The only thing that made sense was that she was nowhere near ready to have sex with anybody yet.

Her first kiss came too soon, sooner than she wanted or was ready for. It was weird and fast and when his lips left hers the space between her lips and her nose felt slimy and sticky. She touched her lips for a moment, thinking there had to be a trail of spit leftover from his own but when she pulled her fingers away there was nothing. He was grinning across the circle of people but Kie felt trapped under all their stares and shoved the empty beer bottle in Sarah’s direction.

Sarah was absolutely giddy and Kie wished she had never told her friend that she’d never actually kissed anybody before.

The guy was in her Biology class and he had always been such an asshole. She never in a million years would’ve kissed him if it wasn’t for Sarah.

“It’ll be fun, I promise. And even if the kiss is bad you get it over with and then when you actually meet somebody you want to kiss you’ll know what to do.”

It had made sense when Sarah explained it that way and begrudgingly Kie sat crisscross applesauce beside Sarah on the shag carpet floor. Luckily, the bottle didn’t ever land on Kie a second time. Sarah had fun and when the game was over she had found herself a new beau. Kie decided it would be best not to remind Sarah that she was still technically in a relationship.

Sarah wanted to stay past curfew so she could talk to the guy so Kiara had to call home and convince her parents that she was already over at Sarah’s house. Sarah did a good impression of Rose from the quiet solitude of the bathroom and Kie’s mom seemed to buy it. They stayed way too late, late enough that there were only a few people left and things were getting awkward. Rafe had to come pick them up since neither Sarah nor Kie could drive yet. That was even more awkward.

Kie filled them each a glass of water from the kitchen and managed to make it upstairs to Sarah’s room with about two-thirds of the water still in the cups. Sarah had two sips and then spilled the rest on the hardwood floor. Kie drank her entire glass and then pulled off her jeans and tossed them in a ball on the floor. Sarah was still in her party dress but had crawled into her bedsheets as if she didn’t care. Kiara took of Sarah’s wedges and threw them down by her jeans.

She borrowed a pair of Sarah’s pajama shorts and then crawled into the bed beside Sarah.

“What did you think of Topper?” Sarah asked in a slurred mumble of letters that Kie needed a moment to piece together.

“He was okay,” she said quietly, tying her hair into a bun on the top of her head, wishing she had her bonnet and also her retainer at home. She was still drunk enough that neither mattered all that much in the moment.

“I think I could fall in love with him, really Kie,” Sarah hummed. Kie didn’t know how to respond to that because Sarah was dating Chris and Topper was kind of a dick. Not kind of, he was a total dick.

“Was the kiss really that good?” Kie asked because it was the nicest thing she could think to say. Sarah turned, shoving her hands under the side of her face and looking across the bed at Kie.

“It was the best kiss of my life. I mean, the things he can do with his tongue,” she squealed. Kie shushed her gently so Sarah wouldn’t wake her dad and Rose in the next room. Sarah just laughed as a flush rolled across her cheeks and she bit down her bottom lip. She was looking past Kie as if she could see Topper standing in the doorway behind her. “He’s so hot.”

“I guess.”

“Come on, Kie. Don’t act like you can’t see it.”

Kie really didn’t see it. Sure, Topper was the only boy in their grade who had abs—which he never shut up about—but Kie didn’t get the big appeal with abs. There were other and better features that were way hotter than abs. Eyes, for a start, held so much emotion and were beautiful. Hair was hot too, when it was styled right. Arms and hands were even hot sometimes. But abs just looked like Legos and Kie had never cared much about them.

“He’s okay.”

“Name somebody hotter,” Sarah challenged, smirking like she had stumped Kie.

“I don’t know,” Kie mulled, nobody in their class was all that hot.

“Seriously, you have to like somebody,” Sarah whined, and then in a much softer tone, “you never talk to me about boys. Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I trust you. You’re my best friend.”

“Then tell me what boys you think are cute.”

Sarah was really close and her cheeks were flushed and she was grinning and—oh. Oh, fuck.

Kie wondered for the first time in her entire life what would happen if she just leaned in and pressed her lips against somebody else. She only let herself wonder for a moment. It was stupid. It didn’t mean anything. She wasn’t sexually attracted to Sarah, she just wanted to know what it would be like to kiss her. Not kiss, just touch Sarah’s lips with her own. To just lean in and see what happens.

“The guys in our class are so stupid and half of them don’t even wash their hands when they go to the bathroom.”

“Kie,” Sarah whined, giggling in her drunken state, “They don’t really have to wash their hands anyway. It’s not like they have to wipe.”

“They have to hold it in their hands, Sarah.”

“But like, not the pee part.”

“Ew,” Kie squirmed, laughing herself as Sarah erupted into a fit of giggles.

“They wash their hands when they shit.”

“Not all of them,” Kie argued, knowing for a fact that she had seen one of the boys come out of the bathroom with a mysterious brown tint on his fingertips. “Trust me.”

“Whatever, Kie. I know you like somebody and I’m gonna find out who it is. Just you wait,” she trailed off as a yawn overtook her. Her eye lids fluttered and suddenly she was scooting closer to Kie and rested her head in the space between Kie’s collar bones and her head. Sarah was warm against her exposed skin and pieces of his hair tickled the bottom of Kie’s chin.

Something in Kie’s stomach tingled. Something lower than her stomach tingled.

It didn’t mean anything. Kie was just lonely and the touch surprised her. It was nothing.

Kie thought maybe she should reach out and wrap an arm around Sarah or something. Sarah seemed content and Kie thought it might also make the entire thing feel too intimate and weird. She didn’t want to give Sarah the wrong idea. Sarah pressed a kiss to her cheek and then rolled back over to her side of the bed.

“What about Zach?” Sarah asked as she tugged the sheets back up around her.

“He’s gross,” Kie answered because Zach truly was gross and often wolf-whistled at girls in the hallway.

“Damon?”

“He farts all the time.”

“Okay, what about Eddie? Eddie is like the nicest guy ever, tell me you don’t think he’s cute.”

“I don’t think he’s cute.”

“God, Kie!” Sarah exclaimed, pulling the pillow from underneath her head and slamming it against Kie. Kie laughed because it was easier than continuing the conversation. “I’m gonna figure it out.”

“Go ahead.”

Kie tried her best not to think about the few seconds when she pictured leaning in. She would erase it from her memory or wash it down through her system with the alcohol and pee out its memory in the morning. It was a one-time thing and there was nothing to dwell on or over think about it. And, she hadn’t actually kissed Sarah or really even thought about kissing. She just wondered if Sarah would lean in at all or if she would pull away. A science experiment, really.

Until it wasn’t a one-time thing.

Until she thought about what it would actually feel like to kiss Sarah.

Until she thought about the parts of her body that tingled when Sarah curled up beside her.

Until Sarah would run up to her in school and sling an arm around her shoulder or hold her hand as they walked down the hall to class or played with her hair when she was bored in class and didn’t want to listen to the lecture.

And Kie started to realize that it absolutely was not nothing.

And that it wasn’t just Sarah. Sure, it was mostly Sarah. But it wasn’t just Sarah.

It was girls. It was girls at school and at the grocery store and at the Wreck and online and everywhere she went there was so many beautiful girls. And it wasn’t nothing at all.

Kie decided it was okay for her to admit out loud—out loud in her mind not with her words—that she liked girls. That she didn’t like boys at all, not even a little bit, but that she liked girls. She watched lesbian porn and didn’t looked away or skip through. She let herself think about girls in bed at night or in the shower. She never let herself think of Sarah because she couldn’t make it weird.

She really didn’t want to make it weird.

Which was hard because Sarah was a very touchy person and a very flirty person. With everybody, not just guys or her latest boyfriend. Sarah was always touching her or telling her how cute she looked and sometimes when Kie did something stupid Sarah would laugh and then cup Kie’s cheek and tell her how sweet she was. It felt like flirting and Kie had to repeat like a mantra over and over and over again that Sarah didn’t know what she was doing.

Kie was desperate to say this new—not so new—revelation out loud. Telling it to her parents felt way to formal. Telling it to anybody but Sarah felt like a betrayal.

But saying it out loud meant she could never take it back.

And what if she wasn’t actually a lesbian? What if she just didn’t understand what she was feeling and she had confused finding girls beautiful with being a lesbian? What if she finally kissed a girl and it felt awful? What if she went through the trouble of telling the entire world she was a lesbian to find out she was straight all along. She could be straight…

But Sarah wouldn’t judge her, probably not. It was probably going to make things weird between them, Sarah probably wouldn’t be so handsy with her anymore. But then she would stop pestering Kie about finding a boyfriend and they could talk about girls and guys together.

Everything was going to be okay, all she needed to do was find the right time and she would tell Sarah.

The right time, Kie decided, was going to be after Sarah’s birthday that way if things did get weird it wouldn’t ruin Sarah’s special day.

But then everything did go weird and suddenly Sarah was posting a snapchat story of a birthday party that Kie definitely hadn’t been invited to and the entire world came crumbling down.  

The first thing Kie did was make a mental list in her head of every time she had ever been drunk. She could remember all of it—had never been drunk enough to actually forget things or blackout—and she had never come on to Sarah or mentioned her feelings for girls. No conversations, so brush of her lips on Sarah’s forehead. She didn’t think it was obvious. Sarah had never acted like Kie freaked her out at all.

Sarah and Kie were best friends.

But Sarah’s snapchat story had birthday balloons and they were drinking champagne and Sarah drank a shot from Topper’s belly button and Kie had never been invited.

Sarah hadn’t fucking invited her.

As the walls shattered and the floorboards beneath her feet sunk into the sand, Kie let her fury consume her and she dialed three little numbers before she could even think twice. She knew Sarah’s address by heart and the call was quick.

Kie never understood what went wrong. She never did anything, she retraced her steps and mulled over every word. Sarah hadn’t even acted weird, didn’t distance herself from Kie leading up to the party of anything.

“You bitch,” Sarah had cried the next day in school when she marched right up to Kie. “You called the fucking cops on me?!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kie said with a stone-cold façade, shoving past Sarah because the thought of Sarah actually being mad at Kie right now was enough to make her blood boil.

How dare Sarah not invite Kie to her birthday party. How dare Sarah feel entitled to anger.

They didn’t say another word to each other and Sarah avoided Kie like the plague. Kie was angry, even more angry than she was sad for a while. And then she was all sad and completely lonely and found herself hanging out with Pope, JJ, and John B because there was nobody else and she couldn’t handle having feelings for another one of her friends ever again.

“If I’m going to be part of the Pogues,” she announced one night after JJ had suggest they formally invite Kiara into their stupid ‘HMS Pogue’ club that apparently revolved around fishing and surfing, “then we have to make something clear.”

“What’s that?” Pope asked, taking a sip of his beer and flicking JJ’s hand away when JJ tried to tilt the can so it spilled all over Pope’s face.

“Absolutely no Pogue-on-Pogue macking.”

JJ pretended to fall over so his back crashed into Pope and he threw a hand dramatically over his forehead as if he was in true distress.

“Break my heart, Kiara, why don’t you.”

“Shut up, JJ. I think we can do that,” Pope agreed, even though she ended up putting JJ in a head lock. He smiled at Kie though and she knew he would at least be respectful of it.

“That’s fine by me,” John B agreed too.

“Dealio,” JJ whined as he tugged at Pope’s grip until the other let him free.

“I’m serious.”

“We hear ya.”

Everything was good for a long time. The guys flirted with her here and there but never anything serious and nobody ever bothered her. And then John B kissed her and that was weird. Kie had never thought of him that way. She loved the guy, he was one of her best friends, but he was far from her type and luckily, he seemed content with just being friends.

And then she started dating Sarah and the first thing Sarah said to Kie was that she was a ‘shit talking bitch’ and Kie wanted to bury John B in the sand and let high tide have its way with him because how dare he defend Sarah fucking Cameron right in front of her?

And how fucking dare the Pogues trap her on a boat with Sarah fucking Cameron?

“I mean, really,” Kie asked softly, hesitantly, when the weed had subsided her anger and the darkness concealed her fears. It seemed like the only time and space in the universe where it was safe to ask about that night. “What did I do?”

Sarah was quiet for a moment, eyes red and wide but Kie could tell she was still sober enough to think properly. Sarah sighed and looked away for a moment.

“You liked me.”

Shit. Fuck. Maybe she had let it slip or maybe she had been a lot more obvious than she thought or—

Sarah kept talking and Kie realized Sarah didn’t mean ‘like’ as in romantically but ‘like’ as in platonically. It was confusing as hell but it was a lot easier of a conversation so Kie went with it.

She was still mad but she admitted to Sarah that she had called the cops when they were laying side by side in bed that night. Sarah laughed and called her a bitch, but in the flirty and carefree way Sarah had when they had once been friends. Kie decided that maybe they could be friends, but she had to stop thinking of Sarah when she was in bed at night or in the shower. She could never in a million years lean in or even think about leaning in.

So when Pope got high for the first time and told Kie he was in love with her, she went with it. Not at first. It wasn’t what she wanted and she wasn’t going to pretend to love somebody she didn’t. Especially when that somebody was Pope—the kindest, most thoughtful, wonderful boy in the world who actually washed his hands when he went to the bathroom and held in his farts like a gentleman. Pope was the absolute last person in the world she would ever want to hurt.

But he was also safe. She loved Pope, so maybe one day she could learn how to be in love with Pope. When he kissed her there weren’t sparks but it wasn’t gross and it didn’t make her feel small and stupid.

She knew it was a mistake. She knew it was selfish. But she did it anyway. She clung to Pope when she heard the news that Sarah and John B had drowned. He held her tight and cried against her neck and kissed her forehead. She held on to his shoulders and shut her eyes and wished it was Sarah who was holding her instead.