#I will be posting more though it will just be paced with less meme-y posts

[gamergirlshelby]

I made memes again.

I'm very proud of them.

some context for each image and oc credits under read more:

These explanations won't be super in depth but I do think a bit of context is needed.

Image One:

Boni Mizumi (@flowersinorbs)

Tano Hoshizawa (@zedthebuggy)

The idea behind this one is Tano is one of the tallest students in 1-Y and the only one I can see accidently hitting the top of the door frame, with Boni being the shortest student in class 1-Y for comparison.

Image Two:

Yori Hayashi (@beetroot-bot)

Yori's quirk relies on her getting injured, so whenever she gets out of the nurse's office she is ready to sustain more injuries, saying the funny office quote (even though the context is COMPLETELY different to my knowledge)

Image Three:

Tokiya Iori (@skiduffle)

Tokiya's quirk actually requires a lot of math since he needs to keep track of all of the different variables that the stacking side effect of his quirk relies on. Because of this, Tokiya helps out some of his classmates with their math work as a bit of a tutor.

Image Four: Makoto Shiba (@dantelionwishes)

Jiro Yukimura (@zer0-10)

Taishiro Watanabe (@tai-watanabe-class-1x)

Aito Takao (@korissideblog)

Ayume Hikkido (@onibony)

Evan Satoru (@no1-horror-hero)

Ikuto Maekawa (@the-heartbeat-hero)

Tokiya Iori (@skiduffle)

Kurumi Yamashita (@nightseeye)

Doku Kisa (@dokukisa)

This one was very much "who would do this?" and "who would enable this?" even though I'm not super sure how in character that is for some of the characters. I also tried to keep it even between the two classes as well.

[watchmegetobsessed]

Celebrity crush - Tom Holland

just a little something i thought about today!

word count: 3.1k

masterlist

“So this is how it’s gonna go. We’ll give you two options to choose from, you’ll say who you would rather choose to be your man, we’ll keep him and you’ll get a new face on the other side. Clear?” Ellen explains the game of ‘Who’d you rather’ to you as you nervously sit in the comfortable armchair. You shoot the audience a nervous look nodding your head.

“Sounds cool,” you clear your throat bracing yourself to whatever is about to come.

“Great, let’s see our first candidates!” she announces and you turn to the huge screen behind you when two faces appear next to each other. “We have Liam Hemsworth and Ansel Elgort. Who do you choose?”

“Um, tough start, I’ll go with Liam,” you say nodding to yourself. You’re satisfied with your choice.

“Alright next up we have Liam and…” Ansel’s face disappears and it’s replaced by a photo of Dylan Minnette.” Liam and Dylan!”

“Dylan is a cute guy, but I think I’ll stick with Liam.”

“Okay, Liam stays. Let’s see the next one,” Ellen nods and Dylan’s face is now replaced by Harry Styles. “Oh my! Harry or Liam?”

“Oh definitely Harry,” you say before you could even stop yourself from talking and the audience laughs, but totally agrees with your choice. “Just look at him! And I think you purposely used a picture where he has long hair. That was iconic.”

“He really did have all the looks,” Ellen agrees. “Okay, so we have lost Liam, now we are rolling with Harry. Let’s see the next contestant.”

As the picture changes on the screen your answer comes faster than you could even think about who you want to choose.

“Tom!” you snap immediately as Tom Holland’s photo appears on the big screen and the audience starts clapping at your fast response.

It’s been an open secret in your team that your absolute number one celebrity crush is none other than Spider-Man himself. You’ve seen all of his movies numerous times and on your latest birthday your friends even put a shirtless photo of him to your cake. You obviously didn’t post that one, but it did take a better place in your heart than the other, plain one.

“That was… pretty fast,” Ellen smirks at you and you can feel your cheeks growing warm at how unfiltered you were.

“I’m just a big fan of his,” you tell her, but your face gives you away.

“Who isn’t? Okay, let’s see the next one. Tom or Nick Jonas?”

“Tom,” you say without even giving Nick a second thought.

“Seems like we are picking up the pace of the game. Alright, Tom or… Zac Efron?”

“Tom.”

Ellen laughs at your eagerness to keep Tom, but she keeps going for two more rounds where you keep choosing Tom over Cole Sprouse and Taron Egerton, until his photo finally moves over to the middle as the winner.

“So I guess we have a winner over here. You didn’t seem to be willing to even look at anyone after Tom.”

“I told you, I’m a big fan of his,” you tell her with a shy, but flirty smile as you fix your designer dress and cross your legs.

“Have you—Have you ever met him?”

“Unfortunately not yet, but I’m hoping our paths will eventually cross. I’m a Spidey fan, seen all the movies and he is definitely my favorite so far.”

“What would you tell him if he was here now?”

You are quick to turn around and check he is not creeping his way up to you right now. You can never know what Ellen has in store for you, she is the queen of surprises when it comes to her show.

“He is not here, don’t worry,” she laughs as you sit back with a relieved sigh.

“I had to make sure,” you chuckle. “Anyway, my message to him is that if he ever wants to come and see my show, I can get him a free backstage pass,” you say and then flirtatiously wink at the nearest camera as the audience starts cheering.

“Tom, I hope you’re watching this and you are gonna take the next step. Y/N is waiting for you!” Ellen smirks before moving on with the second part of your interview.

Few days after the taping the interview finally airs and the internet goes crazy over your crush on Tom Holland. Your fans even make memes and montages of the two of you, some of them make you laugh hard when you are scrolling through your feed on your rehearsal.

To be honest, you thought it would be the end of the story, you quickly moved on since you had a sold out show next Saturday and you were in and out of rehearsals in the upcoming days, not even paying a second thought to what went down at the interview.

Saturday afternoon you are sitting at makeup when Rita, your manager walks in with the widest grin on her face you’ve ever seen.

“What’s gotten you so happy?”

“Guess who I just gave three passes to?”

You think to yourself, but don’t really have a valid guess. Unfortunately, Rita doesn’t want to give out the information that easily.

“Okay, if you can’t guess you’ll have to see it yourself. Pay extra attention to the VIP sector on the right tonight,” she hints before walking out.

“Rita! You can’t just not tell me!” you shout after her, but she is gone.

She successfully made you go crazy over who is going to be in the audience tonight, but also made sure no one gives you the info before the start, so you have to see it during the show.

“I fucking hate you,” you growl at her as you stand behind the stage, getting ready to start. The intro is already playing and the hairstylist is finishing up your hair one last time.

“Make sure to put extra effort into the Harder choreo today,” Rita winks at you and you scoff at her. Harder is one of your steamiest songs, and the dance you perform on stage is definitely a hot one where you truly feel like a badass woman in your tight, revealing costume.

The show starts off great, the crowd is going crazy and you are grateful to be with your fans tonight, but your eyes keep wandering over to the side where you are supposed to see the mysterious guest, but the lights are too bright for you to see anything other than pitch black. All lights are dimmed when Harder comes on and the red lights give just the perfect heated atmosphere the song needs. You’re wearing your skintight bodysuit and knee high boots, hair let down as you do your sexy dance with your female dancers in the back. In the middle of the song you go over to the right side where you are supposed to do a short routine on a chair, one of your favorite parts in the whole show. Singing the lines you sit down to the chair that was already waiting for you and just as you open your knees wide your eyes meet a familiar gaze and you almost forget to sing.

Tom Holland is standing in the VIP section with his pass hanging from his neck, he has his two brothers with him, but you pay little attention to them as you keep performing with your eyes glued to his handsome face.

Taking Rita’s advice you make sure the rest of the choreography is as sexy and heated as possible and you occasionally keep glancing in Tom’s direction who seems to be enjoying the show. It gives you the boost to bring the best out of yourself, he is smirking with amusement in his eyes and you catch him say something to his brothers from time to time who just nod in agreement. You’d die to know what his words were, but you can only hope he’ll come backstage after the show and you can ask him yourself.

By the end of the concert you are bursting from energy and this show will definitely be in your top ten for the rest of your life. You’re panting but grinning widely as you run off the stage and do a quick group hug with your dancers, something you never miss after every show as an appreciation and celebration of the good work you just did.

As you head to your dressing room you spot your manager who has a devilish smile on her face and you almost start lashing out on her, but then none other than Tom Holland shows up coming from the arena. You stop in your way as your eyes meet, eyebrows running up on your forehead when you see the big bouquet of flowers in his hands. He gifts you with a soft, shy smile, the one you’ve seen so many times on the big screen, but it’s a thousand times sweeter in real life.

“Hey!” he greets you waving in your way, as if you haven’t seen him. You don’t see anyone else in the room, to be quite honest.

“Hi! I… didn’t know you were coming tonight,” you admit tugging your hair behind your ear and you wish you felt less sweaty and smelly. You can only hope it’s not as bad as you think.

“I took your invitation serious,” he chuckles making you smile.

“I honestly didn’t think you’d ever see that, sorry if it was… too silly or something,” you tell him with a nervous laugh. It wasn’t in your plans to face him so fast after you admitted to the whole world that you have a fat crush on him.

“Well, it was hard not to see it when literally everyone was tagging me in posts about it.” He then realizes the flowers are still in his hands and steps closer. “Oh, I brought these for you. I hope it’s not too big of a cliché, but I wanted to give you something after the show.”

“That’s so sweet, thank you!” you tell him completely touched by the gesture as he hands you the beautiful bouquet. “Did you like the show?” you innocently ask, his look imprinted in your mind as he watched you in awe from the audience.

“It was fantastic! Really, mind-blowing. All the dancing and everything, I didn’t even know where to look.”

“Well, I saw you looking at me pretty often,” you flirt and hope you’re not being too bold. But there’s no way you are wasting this chance with Tom Fucking Holland, your all-time favorite Spider-Man and #ManCrushMonday. Though you haven’t posted about the latter, but you definitely thought about it before.

His cheeks turn red as he laughs nervously, scratching the back of his neck.

“Well, it was hard not to look when you were so breathtaking, to be honest.”

You can’t stop yourself from smiling like a teenage girl at the compliment. Even an idiot could feel that there is in fact something between the two of you and you truly hope he is feeling the same and it’s not just your crush talking from you.

“Hey, you guys should take a picture together,” Harry suggests and you suddenly feel ashamed you haven’t even acknowledged the twins’ presence.

“Oh, yeah, sure! But you guys should come too!” you tell him, but Tom is quick to differ.

“No!” he protests and you give him a surprised look before he corrects himself. “I mean—Let’s take one alone and then with the boys.”

“Okay,” you smile, and judging from the laugh his brothers try to hide you know his reasoning behind it. “I’m sorry if I’m sweaty and all,” you apologize as he stands next to you, curling an arm around your waist while you do the same and hold the flowers with your other arm.

“I think I’m just as sweaty after that show you just put out,” he admits and you can’t hold you laughter back.

Harry takes a few shots of the two of you before he and Sam joins you and a crew member takes a few group photos.

“Well, thank you for coming, I’m glad we got to finally meet,” you tell them, thinking about how you don’t want to part your ways so soon, but you have to start getting ready to leave.

“Me too, it was something to remember forever,” he admits with that same shy smile. “Hey, so I heard the big news that you’ll be performing at the Oscars!”

“Yes, it’s unbelievable! I’m so nervous just thinking about it!” you admit. It’s kind of an understatement, you’ve been practically shitting yourself ever since Rita broke the news for you that you’d be one of the performers at literally one of the biggest events all year.

“Congrats and… I guess we’ll meet in a week then.” The smile on his lips lets you know he is counting on seeing you on another occasion and you are happy he is on the same page as you.

“I guess,” you nod chuckling.

“Would it be too straight forward if I asked for your number maybe? Just to make sure we will meet that night.”

“Strictly for that reason,” you nod with a playful smirk as he hands you his phone and you type your number in quickly.

“I can’t wait to see you again,” he tells you as you hug goodbye to all three of the boys.

“Same here,” you nod before turning around and heading back to your dressing room.

 ***

 The Oscars is just as nerve-wrecking as exciting it is for you. It’s you first time doing such a huge performance and you definitely don’t want to be remembered for giving the worst show of all times. You smile your way through the red carpet even though you could break down in tears any minute. You’ve never felt this nervous before and you don’t like the effect it has on your mindset.

Sitting in your dressing room you are getting ready since your performance is just twenty minutes away. Your glam and outfit is completely done, but you just don’t feel the same in your thoughts.

From a sudden idea you send a text to Tom. It’s been an entire week since the show he attended and he texted you before you could even get back to your dressing room and you’ve been going back and forth ever since. He even FaceTimed you one night and you had a two hours long conversation about the most random things. Tom is easy to talk to and this is exactly how you imagined him. Your crush on him has just grown since you met him in real life. In this moment you feel like he is the person you want to talk to, but you doubt he even has his phone on him.

For your biggest surprise a reply arrives just seconds later.

“I’m on my way to you.”

It takes you a few moments to process that he indeed just left his seat at the Oscars to come and calm your nerves. Just about two minutes later there’s a soft knock on the door and after you call out, Tom appears in his perfectly fitted suit, looking better than ever and for a split second you forget everything and just think about how damn good he looks in a suit. When you return to reality panic sets back in and Tom can see it all in your eyes.

“Hey! Why are you so upset?” he gently asks as he steps closer to you taking your hands in his.

“I’m just so fucking nervous, what if I mess it up?”

“You won’t.”

“How do you know?” you whine, already seeing the worst things happen to you out there.

“I just know. I know, because you are literally the best. No one else deserves more to be here than you, alright? They asked you for a reason.”

“I’m just so scared something goes wrong,” you sigh, head hanging low, but he is quick to lift your chin up and make you look in his eyes.

“Everything will be alright. And if something do happen… I’ll just jump up to the table and pull my pants down so everyone will look at me and forget about what you messed up,” he tells you in an attempt to make you laugh and it works.

“That would be pretty funny.”

“Yeah? Do you want me to do it anyway?” he asks chuckling.

“No, keep your pants up,” you tell him shaking your head.

The door opens and an assistant pops his head inside.

“Y/N, we need to go, you are starting in five.” You nod your head and turn back to Tom.

“Can you come with me?” you ask him.

“Of course! Do you want me to stay at the side and wait for you?” You nod again, still feeling a little lost, but way better than before Tom arrived. “Alright. Let’s go then,” he smiles at you and the two of you walk out hand in hand.

He walks you all the way to the stage where you get your mic and earpiece, telling you encouraging words all along, calming your nerves as if it was his magical power.

“You got this,” he tells you, squeezing your hand one last time before you head out to the stage.

He was right, you got this. The song you performed was an excellent choice and the audience seemed to love the visuals and the dance. You get a standing ovation at the end and you almost start crying right there. You rush off the stage and immediately spot Tom still standing at the same spot you left him, his eyes and smile filled with pride and glory and your legs are just pushing your forward until you are in his arms, holding him tight, squeezing him happily as you squeal joyfully.

You lean back and your eyes move down to his lips the same time his gaze travels down to yours. In just a heartbeat you lean forward and your lips meet in a sweet, victorious kiss you’ve been waiting for so long. You melt into his lips, fingers tangled in his perfectly made hair as his palms lay flat on your bare back where the dress is not covering your shivering skin.

It takes quite some time for the two of you to let go of each other, one of you always goes in for just one more kiss as the backstage is rushing around you, people are running wildly to get everything in place when the show returns after the commercial break. Yet you just stand there with Tom, completely lost in each other.

“I think…” he starts quietly, a smirk hiding in his lips, “I think we owe Ellen a thank you,” he says making you laugh.

“Definitely,” you nod before pressing your lips back to his.

-

general/forever taglist for Tom Holland

i do separate taglists for different people, but not for different works of mine! if you ask to be on my Tom taglist, you’ll be tagged in all of my Tom fics!

@zaahidahhh​ @shawn-youth​  @wildflower-cth​ @imaginashawnns​ @haute-shawn  @learning-howto-be-myselfx3​ @cutepenguin1​ @madatmendes @harrysleftchelseaboot​ @sunflower6why​

if you’d like to be taken off or added to the list, please let me know!

[onetwosevensquad]

In Which Everything Goes Horribly Wrong

Jaemin x reader

Summary: your best friend gets a girlfriend that goes south very quickly

Warnings: mentions of bullying? Bad writing

Rose: I wrote this just because I was craving some College Bf! Jaemin. Be warned that this is hardly proofread, more or less just lightly skimmed. Also yes I know that there are no links for my Masterlist on my newer posts. My computer pooped out on me but we’re gonna look at it tomorrow. You can find links in most of my earlier posts though. Anyway, enjoy!

Main Masterlist

———

Five. That’s how many customers you’ve served on this extremely slow day. You work at your the coffee shop on campus to get some pocket money as college was already expensive enough. Also you got to work with Jeno which was always a joy. You and Jeno have been friends since sophomore year of high school along with Jaemin. And it just happened that you all ended up in college together.

While you and Jeno are close, nothing compares to you and Jaemin. The two of you have been attached at the hip since fourth grade. Ever since you got your juice stolen and Jaemin offered you his, you have been completely inseparable. And over the years you have developed feelings for your best friend. A cliche, I know. But you couldn’t help it with his sweet smile and flirtatious ways.

“Hey guys!” You heard from the door. It was none other than Jaemin himself just coming back from class. He had his signature smile plastered on his face like always. He sat at the counter right in front of you and launched into a story from class.

“Oh and Jia asked me out!” What. Oh no. This isn’t happening. You could feel your heart being pulled down in your chest. You could only hear Jeno congratulating him as you began to zone out. But as soon as your state of shock started it ended with Jaemin snapping his fingers in your face.

“Earth to Y/n. Did you hear anything I said?” Oh you heard it all too well. What do you say? Hey congratulations, best friend and long time crush. You go have fun while my heart shatters over here. C’est la vie, go have fun.

“Yea Jae, that’s great,” you said, mustering up your best smile. He seemed to buy it and immediately went back to talking to Jeno about the date and Jia. You didn’t know Jia. Just that she was some girl in Jaemin’s class you, by description, was very pretty.

No, this wasn’t the end of the world, though it sure felt it. There would be other guys and, who knows, maybe this Jia thing won’t work out. But you couldn’t help the sting in your chest when you saw how Jaemin’s eyes lit up when he talked about this stupid date.

Once yours and Jeno’s shift was over, you walked back to the dorms sandwiched in between your two friends. You all climbed the never ending stairs, you staying mostly silent. You didn’t have much to say after the bombshell dropped earlier. The boys stopped when they got to your door and said their goodbyes. You watched as the two disappeared down the hallway before entering your room.

Once in, you flopped on your bed, wanting nothing more than to be swallowed by your sheets. You didn’t know why this was affecting you so much. I mean you were a big girl and Jeamin was just a dumb boy. A dumb boy who you’ve been harboring feelings for since middle school. Maybe you were just scared that this was going to change everything.

As you got ready for bed, you couldn’t help but think that today was only Monday. Surely the rest of the week would be better.

———

When Jaemin and Jeno finally got to their room they got ready to go to sleep and procrastinate their homework. Jaemin couldn’t help but think about you though. He noticed how you were acting strange after he told you about the date. Was it really affecting you that much? No. No way. Why would you be affected by wether or not he was going on a date?

In all honesty, Jaemin would rather be on a date with you then Jia. But he didn’t think you like him back as you’ve always made the line between friends and something else very distinct. That didn’t stop Jaemin from being flirty with you. He was flirty with other girls, but it was so much different with you.

He figured that this date would be a good way to get over these feelings. You obviously didn’t reciprocate so why bother continuously pinning. He got so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice Jeno calling him until, finally, Jeno got his attention by throwing a sock at him.

“Dude, you were thinking so hard that I could smell smoke,” Jeno remarked. Jaemin mock laughed and threw the dirty sock back at Jeno. “What were you thinking about?”

“Y/n,” Jaemin said climbing into bed. He could hear Jeno chuckle and say something along the lines of “what else”. He just rolled his eyes and continued. “She seemed off after I said I was going on a date. Any idea why?”

“Nope,” Jeno said. Actually he had an idea. He knew exactly why you were so off put. He noticed it too in the coffee shop. He knew about your long thing crush on Jaemin. He also knew about Jaemin’s giant crush on you. But he was sworn to secrecy by both of you. However, he couldn’t wrap his head around how neither of you have figured it out yet while the rest of the group has. None of them were going to interfere though, surprisingly enough, just for the drama of it.

Jaemin went to bed that night, his dreams haunted by your disappointed face.

———

The rest of the week was, in fact, not better. Two of your professors assigned papers due next week, and two others had massive tests coming up. Jaemin also went on that date and wouldn’t shut up about. And it didn’t help that the rest of your friends were being huge pests. Namely, Haechan.

“Y/n you should tell him!” He whisper yelled in the dinning hall. Haechan was a friend added to your group in high school along with Renjun, who was also with you in the dinning hall. “This could be your last chance!”

“Your being dramatic,” Renjun quipped from besides Haechan. He just ignored Renjun and kept going on about how you’ll never know until you try. He only stopped once Jaemin sat in the chair next to you and Jeno next to him.

“Hey so I was thinking,” Jaemin started only to be interrupted by Renjun saying “uh oh.” He got a chip thrown at him by Jaemin. “Anyway, I was thinking that we have a little get together. At our dorm. So that that I can introduce you all to Jia.”

Oh no. Here we go. He wants to introduce this girl to his four best friends. That’s how you know things are going to get serious. But, wanting to be a good sport as well as not wanting to give yourself away, you agreed.

“Yea that could be fun,” you said feigning cheerfulness. That shocked everyone, including Jaemin. The others agreed still eyeing you to see if you were joking or not. Jaemin didn’t know why it was weird to see you agreeing. He was so sure that you liked him. Maybe he was wrong.

“Alright then,” Jaemin said. “Tomorrow then?” Tomorrow was Saturday. And given that none of you had to work it was the perfect days. All of you agreed to go over to Jeamin and Jeno’s dorm tomorrow at 7 for movies and meeting the girl. Soon you all started splitting off to go to your next classes.

As you and Jeno walked side by side, you could tell he wanted to say something. You knew what he was going to ask. Are you ok? No. You were not. But we’re you going to say that? No. You were not.

“Hey, are you-“

“Don’t,” you cut Jeno off before he could get his last word out. He just sighed in defeat and kept up with your fast pace on this silent walk.

———

7 o’clock came a lot sooner than you thought. You found yourself sitting on the floor of Jaemin and Jeno’s room, looking at memes on Jeno’s phone. Haechan was there too, as well as Renjun. Everyone was chill except Jaemin. He didn’t know why he was so stressed about everyone meeting Jia. Or maybe it was just that you were so chill about it.

“Dude sit down. You’re making me dizzy with your pacing,” Haechan said from Jaemin’s bed. Before he could sit down, there was a knock at the door. Jaemin quickly opened it and smiled when he saw Jia on the other side. However, he couldn’t help the dread that filled him. He pushed those feelings away and pulled Jia into the room. He introduced her to everyone and so far, she seemed nice enough.

Movie night was well on its way when you felt yourself get sleepy. You had noticed how Jia was practically on top of Jaemin throughout the whole night. The jealousy that bubbles up inside you was not a good feeling. You were lucky that Jeno was there though, as he had an arm casually wrapped around you and let you lay your head on his shoulder.

This didn’t go unnoticed by Jaemin. And he couldn’t help the jealousy that welled up inside of him.

———

While slightly painful for you, movie night was still enjoyable. It was now Monday and the sting of Jaemin being in a relationship was now depleting. You’ve come to terms with it because as long as he’s happy, your happy.

With it being Monday, you and Jeno were working your shift at the coffee shop. It was almost over when a new customer came in. Jia. Great.

“Hey y/n! I didn’t know you worked here!” She said with a little too much cheerfulness in her voice. There was no getting out of this one as Jeno was in the back taking stock.

“Yep,” was all you could muster. ”What can I get you?” As she rattled off her order you couldn’t help but notice how familiar she seemed. Like a distant familiar but none the less. As you were making her drink she started talking to you.

“Hey you know what? You seem so familiar to me,” she said. Oh so she noticed it too? Is that a good or a bad thing. “What high school did you go too?”

You told her and she shook her head. Then she asked about your middle school and her face lit up. This slightly worried you. Not only was middle school when you developed you crush but it was also a dark time in your life.

“Yes! Now I remember!” Jia said getting a little too excited. “We used to pick on you cause you only had like two friends and were kind of a nerd!” Oh for the love of everything. This was that Jia. The girl that tormented you all though out middle school until she finally moved away. How in the world did Jaemin end up with her?

“Here you go,” you mumbled handing Jia her drink. You mumbled something else about having to help in the back and ran off towards that way.

Before you got to the back, you ran right into Jeno. He had the most serious look on his face ever. That honestly scared you more then the realization earlier.

“So Jia huh?” He said looking slightly annoyed. So he heard. Great. You tried to brush him off but to now avail. “I’m telling Jaemin.”

“No!” You said a little to loud. “No please don’t Jeno. He’s happy with her. And if he’s happy so am I.”

“But you’re not happy and neither is he!” He said. Wait, what? “That’s it. We knew we said that we weren’t going to get involved but I’ve had enough. I’m tired of twiddling my thumbs!” Jeno said talking to know one in particular.

He went to the back and told you to get man the register for the rest of the day. What on earth is her talking about twiddling his thumbs?

———

When you got to your dorm, Jeno grabbed you and started walking towards his own. You kept asking what was going on but he just kept going.

He opened his door and when you entered, you saw Jaemin, Haechan, and Renjun all sitting inside. They seemed alarmed when Jeno pushed you inside.

“What the hell is going on Lee Jeno?!” You yelled at him. You didn’t take to kindly to being manhandled by your friend.

“Tell them what happened,” he said gesturing to the three others in the room. You just rolled your eyes mumbling how in wasn’t a big deal. You could feel panic welling up inside you. You didn’t want to ruin Jaemin’s relationship.

“Y/n what happened?” The man himself asked. Jeamin was extremely worried. He had been since Jeno sent a text to the boy’s group chat say they needed to have a talk. Seeing that everything was ok physically at least calmed him a little. But when you continued to stay silent he looked to Jeno for answers.

“Jia bullied Y/n all throughout middle school. She never told us, though,” Jeno said, sighing. Jaemin froze. Why didn’t you ever tell him? Why didn’t you say anything when they started dating. The other two in the room seemed shocked.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Jaemin whispered. He felt hurt. Did you not trust him?

“You are making a way bigger deal out of this than it really is, guys. It was only two years and then she moved,” you defended. “I honestly didn’t recognize her until we talking in the store. And I didn’t want Jeno to say anything because you’re happy with her.”

Jaemin just stared at you, wide eyed. Not a big deal? Two years? Happy with her? He was confused.

“You should have said something in middle school,” was all he could say. He sounded almost disappointed. Right when you were about to say something there was a knock on the door. Jeno went to open it and revealed who it was. Jia.

“I’m gonna go,” you said rushing past everyone. You heard someone call your name but paid no attention to it as you raced towards your room.

Why was everyone making a big deal out of it? It was in middle school. That was so long ago. And you still have yet to find out what the hell Jeno was talking about. Was the we he was talking about him, Haechan, and Renjun? Was that supposed to be an intervention about your crush? Did they know something you didn’t?

You contemplated all of this on your bed for 30 minutes until you heard knocking at your door. You really didn’t want to get up and see who it was. But they keep incessantly knocking so you got up a grumbled the whole way to your door.

“What?!” You yelled as you opened it. On the other side was Jaemin, looking like some just kicked his puppy.

“Jae, look I-“ you were cut off by Jaemin pulling you into a hug. Slowly you wrapped your arms around his middle arms he squeezed you tighter.

“I broke up with her,” he stated. “You were wrong. I realize I wasn’t happy with her. I’m happy with you.”

That made you pull back. He kept his arms locked around you though, like he was scared to let go. You tugged on him to pull him into the room and closed the door behind him. When you turned back around, Jaemin pulled you into another hug.

“Y/n, I’ve liked you since middle school. But I didn’t think you liked me back. The boys told me. I’m sorry I’m an idiot. I thought that dating Jia could help me get over you but that went horribly wrong. Because,” he paused. He pulled back and looked you in the eye. “Because, Y/n, I love you.”

You couldn’t help the smile that spread across your face at his confession. He smiled back down at you and you swore your heart skipped a beat.

“I love you too, Jae,” and at that, Jaemin finally pulled you in for a long awaited kiss.

———

[bloopbyoop]

weep woop

ayo. ive read my scheduled email and its time for freewriting shit again. lmao. I want this post to be like a small light from a lit match stick inside a very hollow, icy, and numbing cave. (sounds cartoonish right? I know. Im obsessed with Adventure Time.) I want all people to be genuinely happy.  Spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Upon reaching my 24th anniversary in this world, I finally learned how to truly embrace all my emotions. Some are more overwhelming than the other, but we have to heed in our treacherous yet perplexing minds that everything is fleeting and we are in control. The feeling of extreme sadness fades, but so does joyful states. Everything can change in a matter of minutes or years. You are in control of all your emotions. You are in control of all your life choices. Your actions. Your words. Your perspective. It feels weird to actually write about it. I've wanted to talk about it. I never wanted help from anyone as I firmly believed that I was alone. Sure, I have a family and friends, but it is hard to see that when your head is clouded with negativity. I've even come to the point where I was too overwhelmed, I found being physically hurt less painful. The pain I felt distracted me from what I was thinking. My mind tended to go bonkers. lmao. But bro, I was so good at concealing my bonkers mind. It's easy to fake any emotion that you have. Slap anything sunshine-y or happy to anything and people would believe you. It went on for years. Long story short, thousands of bracelets collected, it became worse. The physical pain could no longer withhold the emotional pain. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't stop thinking. And voila! I found a good amount of self help books (from tumblr) and novels. Novels that brought me to different places. Self-help books that made me understand what I feel and what to do. I've read that taking the easy way out will leave everyone sad. AND IN THE FIRST PLACEEEEEE, I NEVER WANT THATTTTTTT. I want everyone to be happy. I would act foolish and do dumb shit to make everyone happy in a heartbeat. So, that idea made me push a few more years. Later on, the crippling shit came crawling back again to my head, sooooooo I needed new shit to keep me distracted again. Films, series, music, and short clips from YouTube helped me out a lot. Every single time that my mind is going to think like anything that can think of, even to the point that I was just going to think that I might be hungry, I'd watch something. There's just something about silence for me. Because of this new habit of mine, I've learned more about myself. I love different types of things. I like horror. I like thriller. I like comedy. I like romance. I love all types of films, but there is something about the horror genre that interests me. I still can't point out what, but I love watching horror films. With regards to music, I've learned that I love Indie, Punk Rock, Rap, and Pop. We all can't like a specific genre. It's stupid to ask "what genre of music do you like?". It's not actually stupid-stupid, it's just stupid. Ya know? Anyway, passing this phase, I needed to find something again because it's not doing the shit that it was supposed to, I tried investing more time on video games. By investing more, I mean a whole shit lot. I love video games since I was young cuz.... u know.... they keep u... try to guess it! oh yeah. you got that right! distracted! I love the aggressive plays and trashtalks that my friends and I make. The short stories we tell one another. The rants. The lame jokes. The late night we sound drunk but we are not drunk jokes. The roleplays. The lame jokes. The memes. And once again, The lame jokes. Something about lame jokes and the laughs and curses after that always gets me every single time. Oh shoot. Yup Yup. Few years later, I finally noticed the pattern that my sadness is temporary. I got over it one way or the other (or another. depends on how you wanna read it. i dont wanna say another cause i might write about one direction like what im doing now so-). Happiness is temporary as well. But, we are the ones who are actually in control of our emotions. If you wanna feel sad, be sad for a while. You're getting too sad? Try hanging out with your funny friends. Can't do that? Find an alternative. Watch a movie, knit a sweater. Anything your mind could think of as long as it will keep you mentally distracted from being physically and mentally hurt. I do have a few notes though. We cannot and should never assume what people are going through. It may be petty for you, but it may be very crucial to them. So never everrrr say things like: -Some people have it worse than you -At least you have ..... These sheetsss are annoying as heckkk and could really down someone. I know it is not your intention to annoy but people react differently. alsooooooo, it is not okay or normal to hate on things for bandwagon. that is just plainly crazy and stupid. let people enjoy things. anddddddd never suppress your emotions. admit what you feel inside and try to think of a way to resolve ittttt. keeping it to yourself will just make it worseeeeee. find your own outlettttttttt. hihihi ️ alsooooo. being more spiritually full with God's words and ideas really help me to be spiritually happy. ps. im christian but i dont discredit other religion and even applaud other religion's ideas and beliefs. this is a really long, selfish post so i might as well recommend some things I like : Songs with their lyrics that made me go through life. “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier” -All These Things That I've Done, The Killers “It's not too late, I'm still right here” -Breaking Your Own Heart, Kelly Clarkson "And the salt in my wounds / Isn't burning any more than it used to / It's not that I don't feel the pain / It's just I'm not afraid of hurting anymore / And the blood in these veins / Isn't pumping any less than it ever has / And that's the hope I have / The only thing I know that's keeping me alive" -Last Hope, Paramore “There is not a single word in the whole world / That could describe the hurt / The dullest knife just sawing back and forth / And ripping through the softest skin there ever was / How were you to know?” -Hate to See Your Heartbreak, Paramore "It's holding on, though the road's long / And seeing light in the darkest things And when you stare at your reflection / Finally knowing who it is / I know that you'll thank God you did" -1800, Logic "Did some things you can't speak of / But at night you live it all again / You wouldn't be shattered on the floor now / If only you had seen what you know now then" -Innocent, Taylor Swift (My bb) "10 months sober, I must admit / Just because you're clean don't mean you don't miss it / 10 months older, I won't give in / Now that I'm clean I'm never gonna risk it // Rain came pouring down when I was drowning / That's when I could finally breathe / And by morning gone was any trace of you, I think I am finally clean" -Clean, Taylor Swift “I guess I always knew / That I had all the strength to make it through.” -Believe in Me, Demi Lovato "I'm addicted to the madness / I'm a daughter of the sadness / I've been here too many times before / Been abandoned and I'm scared now / I can't handle another fallout / I am fragile, just washed upon the shore / They forget me, don't see me / When they love me, they leave me" -I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me, Demi Lovato “I'm overwhelmed / I need a voice to echo / I need a light to take me home / I need a star to follow / I don't know” -Nightingale, Demi Lovato "I'm a walking travesty / But I'm smiling at everything. // Arrogant boy, Love yourself so no one has to." -Therapy, All Time Low "I tried it once before but I didn't get too far / I felt a lot of pain but it didn't stop my heart. / But maybe I'm alive 'cause I didn't really wanna die / But nothing very special ever happens in my life / Take the blade away from me I am a freak, I am afraid that / All the blood escaping me won't end the pain / And I'll be haunting all the lives that cared for me / I died to be the white ghost / Of the man that I was meant to be" -Ghost, Badflower "Are the pieces of you / In the pieces of me? / I'm just so scared / You're who I'll be / When I erupt / Just like you do / They look at me / Like I look at you" -DNA, Lia Marie Johnson Movies and series to try : -The Perks of Being a Wallflower (The book is bomb af. if yall havent tried, ur missing out) -The Kings of Summer -Never Let Me Go -The Art of Getting By -Silver Linings Playbook -Winter’s Bone -The Lovely Bones (The script. The words) -Me and Earl and the Dying Girl -American Horror Story -Black Swan

pps. remember that every one has their own pace and point of view. don’t push yourself too hard, and don’t overthink. give yourself time, and respect all your emotions. analyze them but not more than like 5 minutes as anything beyond that might cause you to overthink and be sadder. and sad is not rad. hehe. you got this. you got you. self love is the best even though it can be tricky to do. nobody else is like you. you’re the only one of you (i just remembered me.......... i might have hummed it while typing it mid sentence). consider other people’s opinion but do not let it cloud your own judgement as you know yourself best. dont let other comment’s define you. spread love. vibe people you vibe with. ayeeee lets go!!! 

ppps this is my last post bc im happier now and know myself better. i no longer limit myself on the age that I want. I want to live as long as how God wants me to be. hehe. 

x :D

[cyb3r-s1ut]

Hotline Bling • Zion Kuwonu

Summary • To be honest, I don’t even know yet.

WC • Circa 1,600

Genre • Mild Angst, nothing too bad.

You used to call me on my cellphone

Late-night when you need my love

Call me on my cellphone

Late-night when you need my love

And I know when that hotline bling

That can only mean one thing

I know when that hotline bling

That can only mean one thing

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

3 months, 1 week, and 4 days. That’s how long it had been since Zion last saw you. But, hey, who's counting? If he had been, he would have succumbed to that void feeling in his chest by now. The one created by you but ultimately worsened by his actions. His actions ruined the best thing he ever had. But it was your fault too, right?

If you didn't have such an illuminating smile, such a feather-light yet addicting touch, such an effervescent personality, such a radiant aura then the both of you he wouldn't be in this situation. No. If you hadn't wanted something more and Zion hadn't been too scared of ruining a good thing even though he knew you deserved more— deserved better. He knew you deserved the world and the stars along with it, but he was so afraid he couldn't give it to you. So he cowered behind his thoughts; he dismissed the relationship you had, shutting you out in the process.

He was expecting you to dismiss the fact that he couldn't come to terms with himself you and continue with the late-night phone calls. The sneaking out of the house at 1 and 2 in the morning — when he thought everyone was asleep — to spend hours at your place. Half naked smoke sessions with deeply thought out conversations lingering in the air with every puff. Or hot nights in your room that always seemed to end with clothes scattered here and there, fluffy comforter somehow still clinging to a corner of the bed, and the sheets tangled around only you because he was never there when you woke up. ’He had better, more important things.’ you would convince yourself. But when you finally stopped gaslighting yourself with that excuse, you found out he couldn't face his own music.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Ever since I left the city, you

Got a reputation for yourself now

Everybody knows and I feel left out

Girl, you got me down, you got me stressed out

'Cause ever since I left the city, you

Started wearing less and goin' out more

Glasses of champagne out on the dance floor

Hangin' with some girls I've never seen before

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Guilt. Jealousy. Anger. Sadness. Utter outrage. One of these emotions— maybe even a mixture— was grasping at his heart and yanking at the strings right now. Even so, he couldn’t stop rewatching the clip on his phone in front of him. It wasn’t like he was meaning to find you. He just happened to be scrolling through the explore page on Instagram and much to his sudden disbelief you were the thumbnail on some video. Against his better judgment (of course) he clicks the video, watching you hold a cup of God-knows-what in the air as your body hazily sways in a sea of people inside of what looks to be a club. Zion’s face is still one of shock as the girl recording yells something cringey about all of her friends being ‘baddies’ and ‘hot girls’ and continues to survey each of her friends, including you, while everyone gets more excited with the new song’s change of pace.

It could’ve been all in his head but that video seemed way longer than the allotted one minute. He doesn’t know how many times he watches the video before he decides to click on the girl’s profile (a bad decision on behalf of his 2 functioning brain cells). His thumbs seemed to move on their own as he scrolled down her page and searched through countless posts of herself, her with her family, and her with her friends. Zion couldn’t pry his eyes from the screen as he clicked on a picture with you in it, hoping you would be tagged. You were, of course, so he clicked. Another mistake on his part.

Your username and bio were both different. Even though he hadn’t visited your profile in a while, he did remember the main details of it. Zion repeated his earlier actions, examining your page this time. There were posts of yourself. You and your dog. You and your family. You and this new group of friends he had never seen until now. You and some MAN? You and this man hugging, holding hands, kissing, traveling, eating out together? You and Zion used to tell each other about everything, and you had certainly never mentioned him before. You People aren’t supposed to move on this fast. Hell, Zion hadn’t even moved on. He still listened to the playlist you two had created together. He still dreamed about you. He still woke up with the lingering touches of you on his body as if you had been beside him moments before. He still had late-night venting sessions with Nick as he sniffled and wiped his teary face after genuinely expressing what he was never able to tell you face-to-face.

But now, here you were. You had completely evolved from the person Zion knew almost four months ago. You weren’t the same girl who posted simple photos of herself in cute, comfortable outfits captioned with inspirational quotes, or wholesome reviews of the new Greek mythology book you had bought at your favorite Barnes and Noble. This was some girl who had grown to almost a million followers in just three months. This was some girl who posted pointless photos of her newest bottle of wine or Hennessey; some girl whose wardrobe would alternate between Burberry pantsuits and Louboutin heels, to Adidas tracksuits and air force ones, to what could very well be some bundle of strings Fashion Nova tries to pass off as a dress. This new girl — this new you — was copacetic, thriving, and glowing. You were happy with this seemingly very outgoing of people who the old you would’ve never thought about fraternizing with. Worse of all, the new you appeared to be enjoying life with some new guy, a guy that wasn’t Zion. He’s a complete mess without you laying next to him at 2 in the morning and you were supposed to be the same. Zion was supposed to have the same crippling effect on you as you did on him.

Apparently, Zion had been sitting in his whirlwind of thoughts long enough for his phone to lock. He pulled himself out of his trance and made his only decent decision of the day. He went to find Nick, knowing he would still be awake and available to examine whatever emotional baggage Zion had this time. He told Nick about his earlier revelations (leaving out the part about your apparent love interest). “Why don't you just talk to her, bro? Tell her how you actually feel.” weren't the words he expected to hear. He didn't know what to expect, honestly.

As Zion laid in his bed he picked up his phone with shaky hands. When he unlocked it, he felt another tug at his heartstrings, forgetting that his phone had locked on a gorgeous post of your beaming smile while he was in a daze earlier. The time I'm his phone read 1:46 A.M. He didn't want to call you. You might not pick up. But he wanted an immediate response. Zion needed validation right now. He silently prayed that your number hadn't changed along with everything else during your productive time period. He opened his messages and clicked on your name; ’y/n💛’. Zion smiled to himself as he looked at the last messages sent between the two of you. You had been sending memes back and forth, with the last message before the hiatus being three emojis expressing your enjoyment.

Zion pondered for a few moments on what to type. ’Yo y/n it's me.’ ’Hey it's me, Zion.’ ’Hey y/n we haven't talked in a while.’ He wasted a good twenty minutes overthinking, typing, and erasing potential conversation starters. Then he just decided to pour out what was left of his heart. Fuck it.

He didn't expect you to reply quickly, but he wanted you to, so Zion kept his phone unlocked and open to your messages as he waited. He had peeked two minutes after hitting send, but he didn't notice it then. Zion let five more anxious minutes pass before checking again. He almost didn't notice it that time, but somehow he managed to spot it.

The small subscript under his message. ’Read’

Zion didn't know if it was him being delirious with fatigue or the actual fact of you acknowledging but ignoring him, but his breathing got short and shaky and his tears started to roll. It was finally happening. That void feeling in his chest — in his heart —, that place where special memories of you were kept, had finally drawn him in and suffocated him with the realization that you didn't want him anymore. You no longer needed Zion to bring you the pleasures of life. For all he knows now, you never really did.

[radramblog]

Nuz Report- X Water/Poison

God I feel like shit both mentally and physically right now, and I cant put a button on why. This might be an issue, considering I’ve got like half an hour or so to get this bad boy done.

Hmm. Let’s talk about the nuzlocke I finished yesterday, that’ll work, I can vomit words on that.

I finished a Pokemon X Duolocke with 1 death yesterday, but the fuckers made me fight for it.

For round 6 of the Nuzlocke Premier League, we did Duolocke Runs of Pokemon X and Y. Now I was hoping to take this month off, since only 3 of the team’s 4 members have to do each round, and I’ve done literally all of them previously without a break. But unfortunately, our 4th had to pull out for real life stuff- understandable, but still a pain. Kalos is probably my worst region for Nuz stuff (save Galar which I haven’t tried yet) and being locked to two types, after my allies had taken the starters I didn’t despise, was not exactly a thrilling prospect.

(these screenshots were taken post-E4. I was Lv.68 going in, same as Diantha’s ace.)

With my teammates taking Psychic/Normal and Fighting/Dark respectively, my only starter choice was Froakie. This is literally the first time I’ve used Froakie for anything, and it meant I had to reckon with the abyss that is its natural learnset. Chau (named after Knives from Scott Pilgrim) was an absolute mess until it hit Greninja, and even then took forever to be actually good. Pinch-hitting with U-turn was useful, but that TM comes frustratingly late.

With Froakie in mind, and Dark taken, one of my types had to be Water. I ended up choosing Poison for the natural synergy- Poison can take on the Grasses that scare my Water types, and Water can deal with Poison’s Ground weakness. Greninja, being also Dark, can scare off Poison’s Psychic weakness, with the Poisons taking the Fairies that Gren doesn’t like. It made sense to me.

The only other super earlygame mon that made it to the final team was Pikablu the Azumarill. Gen 6 introduced a thing where baby Pokemon get 3 perfect IVs by default, and Pikablu’s ended up in Attack, Defense, and Speed (with Huge Power of course), making it one of the best Azumarills you can possibly end up with. Funny rabbit didn’t get to abuse its powerful Fairy STAB until learning Play Rough very very late, but thwacking things with Return and Aqua Tail proved to be enough.

While I played around with a Beedrill and Panpour early, the next mainstay wouldn’t show up until Sycamore offers a Gen I starter in Lumiose, where I of course chose Bulbasaur. Rafflé was such a versatile, hard-hitting mon that did a patently absurd amount of work in the E4. Sleep Powder is a useful enough tool that access to it guaranteed him staying on the team, but being the first actually good Poison around (save Budew->Roserade, but I didn’t know where to get a Shiny Stone and it’s redundant anyway) meant a lot early on.

It was around here that I had the only death of the run. Outside of Connecting Cave lies a trainer with an Axew, which I completely forgot knows the frankly overpowering at that point Dragon Rage, one-shotting Anaesthesia the Croagunk. It was a real shame, I was kind of hoping she’d be able to redeem the line for me, but I guess it wasn’t to be. She was Modest anyway so she wouldn’t have been good regardless, I suppose.

Moving through gyms and the awful Kalosian pacing, I ended up picking up a few other temporary team-members- Vaporeon and Crobat. [bad meme] the Vaporeon, despite having an excellent nature, just didn’t have the stats to cut it, and I wasn’t comfortable with Flaps adding yet another Electric weakness to the team, especially with Clemont approaching.

[bad meme] would get replaced by Lagrange the Lapras, since Ice seemed like an extremely handy type to have around. Lapras is another one of those mons that’s just generally pretty solid, his bulk being much appreciated along with the coverage Ice Beam (and later, Thunderbolt) brought. Looking back, I ended up with a bit of a bulkier team than average, but I feel like that was fine to make up for the fragility of Chau and one of my later members.

Clemont was the first Gym that actually scared me, and it wasn’t because of his actually good Pokemon. My main answer to him was Venusaur, except, he has an Emolga….that bloody rodent gave me more trouble than anything else on the team, since it hit everything super-effectively if I didn’t grind something else up (and I didn’t).

Choices for the team ended up being pretty slim pickings. The lategame of XY has a lot less variety for my two types than the earlygame, with multiple repeated options, and a lot of them were less than appealing. Combine that with my lackluster luck with a lot of areas and my team felt a little stretched for playables. That Beedrill only left the team after Clemont.

It would be replaced by Quaaaaaaaaag. Despite having the worst of Quagsire’s two abilities, he pulled more than his weight, even if he just clicked Earthquake most of the time. An immune switch for Electric was absolutely essential for the run, letting Chau’s U-turn be extremely safe in certain scenarios.

The last team member was somewhat of a surprise. I was running around Frost Cavern for the only legal encounter, a 10% shot at Haunter. I’ve always been a lot less high on that line than most, gotta get that hipster cred in, but that does fly out the window when you get to legitimately use a Shiny one.

Unfortunately due to the rules of the NPL, I was not permitted to get Mega Akuta running, confining him to the shade shiny he was. But I wasn’t going to pass up the chance anyway. Akuta had huge utility being able to switch into Normal, Fighting, and Ground completely freely, and break just about anything with a variety of heavy Special attacks. His paper-thin defenses didn’t matter if he never got hit, though I was always loathe to switch him in just in case he got Crit to death on entry.

The final team paired up awkwardly against the Kalos E4, and I was a bit worried about having 4 waters and 2 poisons instead of 3/3 (my other options were like, not good) but we made it through without losing anyone. Malva and Drasna were, unsurprisingly, not hard, and Siebold’s Gyarados terrified me with Dragon Dance but didn’t actually get an attack off before Lagrange’s Thunderbolt took it out. I was extremely concerned about Wikstrom, but a rather silly strategy prevailed- using Rafflé to Sleep Powder and set up Growth (shoulda taught Swords Dance tbh) before rolling him with Bulldoze (I forgot to get the Earthquake TM). Diantha was similarly scary, seeing as her Mega Gardevoir had SE on everything except Quaaaaaaaaaag , and he wasn’t going to be able to take two. Chau was in when she came out, and I knew Night Slash wasn’t going to KO, so she had to get out of there- U-Turning into an already chipped Akuta was the only play and I had to hope she went for Moonblast instead of Thunderbolt. She did, but it got the Special Attack drop, which presented its own conundrum- does Akuta KO from here, or does he die? Because I can’t switch around forever, chip damage wasn’t going to get me far when she had healing items in reserve. I went for it, and it turns out Akuta did get the KO, but I was nailbiting the whole time.

I’m hoping next round, Crystal Superless, is less grating on my nerves, if I even have to do it at all. Because, fuck, I need a break.

What’s that, NWC is starting again? Oh, sign me up fam,

[notjanine]

2020 in books!

the only kind of new year’s resolution i made as a naive baby last january was to try to read 40 books for the year. (i read 37 in 2019, for context.) well, with all of my commuting time eliminated and an increased need for immersive escapism, i ended up surpassing that goal three times over lmao (thanks library ebooks!)

idk how to summarize my year in books in a way that makes sense but

(f) = fiction, (nf) = nonfiction, (p) = poetry.

books that rewired my fucking brain:

braiding sweetgrass by robin wall kimmerer (nf)- GOD?!?!?! good. dr. k is right. ostensibly a book about plants, but actually a book about shut up and go outside. consumerism and capitalism are doing their damnedest to fuck you up, but you can just choose to value different things. take care of yourself by taking care of your environment. etc etc.

wasp by richard jones (nf)- lissen. when i got this book, my wasp-phobia was so severe that i had to put it away face down on a high shelf because there are wasps on the cover and i couldn’t bear to RISK even GLIMPSING them. now i am like... a wasp evangelist. (also due to the bugs 101 course on coursera it’s so good.)

wag by zazie todd (nf)- i have a dog, but i am NOT a Dog Person (i.e. i love my dog, but please keep yours away from me, thanks.) this book helped me understand my little guy better, plus it gives actionable tasks and activities to do with and for your pup! plus, y’know, learning about things you’re scared of helps to lessen that fear. i’d recommend this to anyone who has, wants, or regularly interacts with a dog.

a closed and common orbit by becky chambers (f)- is this series complete fluff? absolutely. am i fundamentally different after reading this one? maybe.

the best we could do by thi bui (nf)- this is so far outside of my personal experience but somehow still made me come to peace with my relationship with my mom?? and it’s barely even about that?? idk. this is probably objectively the best book i’ve read this year.

books that were just fun as hell:

mexican gothic by silvia moreno-garcia (f)- this book made me YELL out loud

death on the nile by agatha christie (f)- i grew up on agatha christie shows, but never actually read her before this year! she really was That Bitch. read this before the movie comes out

cosmoknights by hannah templer (f)- i read this in one sitting through the worst headache i’ve had in years. it is a goddamn DELIGHT. this book has everything: spaceships. mech suits. fighting the patriarchy. a perfect otp. fun art in bright colors with clean lines. onomatopoetic WAPs from before the song gave that hilarious context. 800 lesbians. this is an antidepressant in graphic novel form.

stiff by mary roach (nf)- ms. roach is like the 4th most represented author on my bookshelf because she 1. stays writing about shit i’m interested in and 2. manages to talk about gross and ridiculous things without resorting to sensationalism. it takes skill to write a hilarious book about corpses.

black sun by rebecca roanhorse (f)- excellent sexual tension between a horny siren pirate and a hot doomed... monk, kinda? set in the pre-columbian gulf of mexico with magic and shit.

cuisine chinoise by zao dao (? n/f)- this graphic novel about chinese food history/mythology is BEAUTIFUL.

the color of magic by terry pratchett (f)- you’d think a hardcore douglas adams stan would have gotten to this sooner, but no, i had to date a nerdy white boy to get here. it’s fun though! i’m not gonna read them all, but this one was good. bonus: contains one (1) great himbo.

gideon the ninth by tamsyn muir (f)- like 500 pages of action and mystery and jokes and space necromancy. harrow the ninth gets a special mention bc it has a meme reference that took me out so hard i had to close the book, lie down, and groan for an entire minute before continuing.

other minds by peter godfrey-smith (nf)- i love octopuses. on one tma bonus ep, jonny sims says that if a creature can choose to do evil, then it’s a Person. octopuses are People. but anyway frfr this has an explanation of the evolution of consciousness that is cool af. (this one is much better than the other recent popsci octo book which i will not name out of politeness.)

the perfect predator by steffanie strathdee and thomas patterson (nf)- i read this bc my microbiology prof recommended it and it’s cool as heck! it’s got adventure, drama, mystery, Science-with-a-capital-S. i’m biased bc i’m a bit of a microbes nerd, but i had a blast with this. (but only bc we know going in that everything works out okay; if i hadn’t known that, i would have been TOO stressed!)

books that were a little less fun but still very readable:

my sister, the serial killer by oyinkan braithwaite (f)- i couldn’t find this as funny as other people bc i, too, have a beautiful sister who’s an insufferable narcissist, so it hits a little too close to home, but. it is a wild ride.

piranesi by susanna clarke (f)- idek what to say! i went into this one blind just bc it had a cool cover and title, so i guess i’d recommend that for other people too.

the sixth world series by rebecca roanhorse (f)- monster hunting! a post-apocalyptic take that doesn’t feel tired.

the shades of magic trilogy by v.e. schwab (f)- easy escapism. some ideas feel a little first draft-y, but idk, it’s also a pretty simple premise (which isn’t a bad thing). it’s a decent urban fantasy set in ~georgian?-era london. very actiony. suffers from a bit of i’m-not-like-other-girls disease, but i didn’t even notice until book two or three, so.

the only good indians by stephen graham jones (f)- starts off a little ??? (and reeks of being Written By A Man) but picks up. the pacing’s great and there’s just a super fucking cool monster.

robopocalypse by daniel h. wilson (f)- this reads like a tv miniseries so much that i can’t believe it isn’t one yet.

confessions of the fox by jordy rosenberg (f)- not my usual cup of tea, fiction-wise, but still compelling. a fresh take on the white-male-english-professor-self-insert? but not insufferable. gets weird!

spinning silver by naomi novik (f)- rumplestilstkin, but make it interesting! a great, richly-told fairy tale, but like, large scale. good to read on a cold day while you’re wrapped up in a blanket with some hot tea.

interior chinatown by charles yu (f)- compulsively readable. a couple things bugged me, but not enough to make me dislike it. a fun companion piece to how to live safely in a science fictional universe. i like this guy’s style.

cannibalism by bill schutt (nf)- COOL. mostly covers the animal kingdom (fun), spends too much time on the donner party (less fun), ends with a SPICY take on prions that i cannot get out of my head!!!

buzz, sting, bite by anne sverdrup-thygeson (nf)- BUGS! broad but not overwhelming, neither dumbed down nor overly scientific, short enough to finish in a day or two. recommend this to literally everyone.

books that made me want to read everything else in the author’s ouevre:

the time invariance of snow by e. lily yu (f)- this FUCKS but it’s too short!!!

an unkindness of ghosts by rivers solomon (f)- okay this book is SO good and so well-written and interesting and blah blah blah all the good things, but... the whole time, i was just like?? why???? why is this what you’re choosing to write about??? (i did also read the deep and blood is another word for hunger after this one, and i did like them both, especially the latter, but i think they can do better! like i think they could write a perfect book and i am gonna be *eyes emoji* until then.)

the space between worlds by micaiah johnson (f)- a fine debut novel, but i want to see her do something a little more... idk, refined? i think she overreaches here, like it’s a little... idk looper? this is how you lose the time war? there’s a better comparison, but i can’t think of it, but you get the idea. and then halfway through it shifts gears to mad max. there’s something weird about one of the central relationships, like it’s not complex enough to take as long to resolve as it does. idk idk. there are just a lot of little nitpicky things. it’s not bad! but i think she can do better and i look forward to finding out.

postcolonial love poem by natalie diaz (p)- thinky! like i tried to read this before bed, but it’s not the sort of thing to parse out while you’re falling asleep, it requires more attention than that.

books that Learned Me Somethin:

smoke gets in your eyes by caitlin doughty (nf)- i am a self-professed death obsessed weirdo, fascinated by death and mourning, but i didn’t know all that much about what happens to a body between the dying and the funeral! this book isn’t big, but it covers a lot and doughty’s writing style is engaging and honest. it’s very memorable.

queer by meg-john barker and julia scheele (nf)- i’m gonna be totally honest and say Queer Theory is above my intellectual pay grade, but this book takes you by the hand and explains the basics.

vitamania by catherine price (nf)- LMAO my fellow americans, never take a supplement. this book is great and well-researched, but normal folks don’t need to read it, just listen to season two of the dream podcast, which definitely cribbed from this.

vegetable kingdom by bryant terry (nf)- this is a fine cookbook, my favorite of his that i’ve read so far. gets a special mention bc i had a religious experience just reading one of his kohlrabi recipes. absolutely gutted that i didn’t have an opportunity to try it this year, since the pandemic put the kibosh on all family bbqs.

the best american food writing 2020 edited by j. kenji lopez-alt (nf)- this really is just a great collection.

are prisons obsolete? by angela y. davis (nf)- yes.

i moved to los angeles to work in animation by natalie nourigat (nf)- before reading this, i had basically zero knowledge of how the animation industry works. now i know like three things.

the secret lives of bats by merlin tuttle (nf)- BATS! okay this book is more about the adventures of being a bat scientist than it actually is about bats, but there are bats in there. insectivorous bats basically shit glitter, you should know this.

books from valuable perspectives:

hood feminism by mikki kendall (nf)- a breakdown of who’s getting left out of feminist spaces, why that’s happening, and why it shouldn’t be happening.

all you can ever know by nicole chung (nf)- a (transracial) adoptee’s take on adoption and learning more about her birth family. the personal storytelling of this one really stuck with me.

motherhood so white by nefertiti austin (nf)- a single-mom-by-choice’s take on the foster system/adoption process. walks you through some things i always wondered about and some things i wouldn’t even have thought about.

this place by kateri akiwenzie-damm et al (? n/f)- i, like a lot of non- native americans, only know that history in broad strokes. getting this many highly specific stories in one dense and beautiful book felt like a lucky find. and taking that perspective into the future in the context of that history is v good.

empty by susan burton (nf)- eating disorder stories are important to me bc i care about food so much. this one is so relatable- not in its specificity, but rather its generality. it’s easy to empathize with her perspective because it’s like, Oh, i don’t have that exact problem, but i struggle with different problems in a very similar way. (feels like the opposite of roxane gay’s hunger, in a way.)

obit by victoria chang (p)- this exploration of grief is... woof.

short story collections are hard to evaluate bc you’ll never read one where every single story hits but i generally enjoyed these:

a thousand beginnings and endings edited by ellen oh and elsie chapman (f)

how long til black future month? by n.k. jemisin (f)

her body and other parties by carmen maria machado (f)

books i revisited:

the broken earth trilogy by n.k. jemisin (f)- i read the series backwards this time and like... i can’t really find any faults in these books, man. they’re just the best.

everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too by jomny sun (f... but is it really?)- half of this book’s sales are from me buying it for other people bc it’s the only way i know how to say i love you. i reread it every time just to make sure it still feels right and it always does.

other honorable mentions:

white is for witching by helen oyeyemi (f)- not to pit two bad bitches against each other, but this book does what akwaeke emezi’s freshwater was trying to do. it’s a little weird, a little haunted, a little of a lot of things. read this only in the dead of winter. (and with stephen rennicks’ score for the little stranger playing in the background.)

homie by danez smith (p)- there’s a lot going on here, but this just made me crack a smile a couple times in a way that no other book of poetry has ever done.

the murder of roger ackroyd and murder in mesopotamia by agatha christie (f)- That Bitch!

blues by nikki giovanni (p)- she sure has some Things To Say

the three-body problem by cixin liu (f)- interesting concepts, but... idk something’s missing? felt weirdly soulless to me. i’m probably not gonna read the sequels. but it did make some points!

the sisters of the winter wood by rena rossner (f)- i’m a slut for shapeshifting, okay. but this is a good fairy tale, it works!

parable of the sower by octavia butler (f)- i read this in march, when the pandemic was just kicking off and boy that was not the right time. def my least favorite of hers so far, but an octavia butler i don’t love is still better than a hell of a lot of other books. no idea when or if i’ll get to a good enough headspace for the sequel.

faves:

saturnino herrán by adriana zapett tapia (nf)- i got to learn new things about my mans and see some of his paintings i’ve never even seen online! GOSH.

on food and cooking by harold mcgee (nf)- yeah yeah, i’ve already mentioned this book half a dozen times on here this year, but i don’t care. this book lives off the shelf in my home bc i reference it like every other fucking day. this book is a part of me now.

[donatello-writes]

Take a Break - Donatello x Reader

Sitting in the lair, you watched as Donatello paced back and forth. He was in full on speech mode. The fast talker rattled off description of application as he scrawled equations onto a blackboard. The resident genius had been helping you prepare for your up and coming college exams, and mathematics was your weakest subject. You were less than a week into the intensive study session, and you had already reached your limit. He, conversely, seemed as though he could continue on for another week like this. The ever present sparkle in his eyes never fading as he half taught, half geeked out about numbers.

Bags under your eyes, you struggled to stay awake as he bombarded you with information. It wasn't long before your mind began to wander. Trying to focus on what he was saying, you stared at his lips. This was a mistake. They looked so soft and inviting, begging to be kissed. You soon found yourself yearning to have them on yours. The tall terrapin had been looking especially attractive as of late. Perhaps choosing to study with your boyfriend wasn't the best idea. His mask appeared more vibrant than usual. Did he just wash it? A faint hint of vanilla and coconut wafted in the air...Had he recently taken a shower? How could he be so alluring without even trying? With a call of your name, your displeased teacher woke you from your distracting thoughts,"Y/N, are you even listening?" arms crossed, he patiently awaited your answer. Without a word you stood up, walked to him, and pulled at his suspenders teasingly. "Y-Y/N, you need to focus...your exams are next week and--" You quickly brought his gentle scolding to a halt as you took his lips in yours. He hesitated for only a few seconds, but simply couldn't fight his desire. At that moment he realized just how hard the two of you had been working. Admittedly, he wasn’t the least bit tired, but he had definitely been yearning for intimacy. And judging from your actions, so had you.  With a dreamy expression, he gazed back at you and snorted, "I suppose we could afford to take a break." 

The scent headcanon that I used is from the wonderful @memes-in-a-half-shell , and the post can be found here ---> (x)

This story is one of a series, you can find the Raphael one here --> (x)

[vanaera]

You Will Feel A Flash of Red

Synopsis | Seokjin colors your life with his outrageous ideas and unnecessarily wild adventures, along with his stupid mission to always scare you whenever you run into each other. Against your better judgment, you’ve already started to entertain foreign feelings in your heart concerning the certain boy. And it doesn’t help you already get scared easily without him adding his shenanigans in the mix. You just want Seokjin to stop…making you feel too much all at once. Genre | Fluff, semi-crack Characters | Seokjin x Reader (College!AU bc I’m soft and my uni life is mundane af) Wordcount | 2.7k A/N | Hi hons, this is something short and fluffy I came up with while I’m resting from my recent 21k-wordsmash-work Daffodil Rings. Hope you like this!

               Everything can be colorful if you will them enough to. Grocery shoppings can be filled with oranges and greens that warm you up as you push past the cold airconditioned mart. Laundry days can be cooled with the tranquility of blues and whites that coax your eyes to relax from such a fast-paced week. You learned to make this your coping mechanism ever since you started associating colors for everything that lived in your grey, mundane life.  

               Your study table and work station are your usual pliant canvases to your color imageries. However, your biggest coloring book has to be the people that surround you. For instance, your bestfriend, Park Jimin, is a golden drizzle of yellow for his unfailing optimism whether it be finals week or rush hour dashes. Meanwhile, your other friend, Kim Namjoon, is an inky indigo for his strange concurrent displays of placidity and chaos wherever he goes.  Your roommate, Wendy Seon, is an easy magenta for her innateness to attract attention wherever she goes. Unlike her, Min Yoongi, your batch representative, was a hard-to-determine cream white for his introvertedness and tough-bitch acts. But among these people you have met, there is one who stands out like a sore thumb: Kim Seokjin.

               Kim Seokjin is a friend of Namjoon and you only knew about it when you shared a general education film class with him in sophomore year. He was easy to say…a different story from anyone you’ve met.  

               “You’re Y/N, right?”

               Your eyes flit to your left to meet the eyes of the boy seated next to you and you nodded slowly. How did he know you? Much more your name? You’re sure you’ve never met him before and you’re much surer you’re someone everyone can easily miss.

               “Namjoon told me your name when I asked him about you. I’m Kim Seokjin,” he offers a hand. You shook it slowly, your head tilted to the side, still bewildered as to how he knew you. Unfazed by your questioning stare, Seokjin grins. “I didn’t know you’re also taking this class.”

               “I…I like films so yeah,” you shrug.

               “Me too!” Seokjin chuckles. He leans closer to your seat. “You’re in the biochemistry program right?”

               Your forehead furrows. “Excuse me?”

               “Oh, I am in the biology program and I saw you going out of the lab when our class was about to start in the same lab. Your blue scrunchie gave you away.”

                Your hand deftly reached up to your ponytail and Seokjin laughs. “Don’t worry, you look cute with it,” he waves off and the furrows on your forehead only grow deeper. What is this man spouting about? Is he outright hitting on you–  

               The door swings open and the professor barks the usual morning greeting. Your thoughts were immediately halted. A few minutes is all it takes for everything to settledown into a metronome of students whispering across each other and pens scribbling notes. You wouldn’t have found yourself bothered again by the strange man sitting beside you if Seokjin didn’t just open his mouth to say the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard in your entire life when the professor asked everyone what names they would like to be called in class.

               “Señorita. Call me señorita.”

               Needless to say, the class erupted into a hysterics and you’re left wondering for days (and oddly irritated) why everyone finds it so funny to bring that scenario up again and again until the next two weeks.

               Such small timeframe is also enough for you to say Seokjin’s a mess.  But oh, everyone will disagree. They will say “Oh my God, how can Seokjin be a mess? He’s like the university crush and he has damn good grades and have you seen him wearing those goggles during lab hours?! He’s the only one handsome enough to pull it off as a fashion statement! ” in their wistfully annoying voice. First of all, you don’t care whether he’s good in what he does or he has a really good-looking face. What else but a mess will be someone who’s all-over-the-place?

               Some days, Seokjin is a calm sky blue you can actually have fun with talking about film what-ifs and chemistry memes.

               “Yo Y/N, imagine if The Princess and The Frog was remade and instead of a frog, the prince is a pterodactyl.”

               “I don’t want to imagine that.”

                “The solution of the plot will still work though. You can’t kiss pterodactyls though, but guess what?”

               “I don’t want to guess.”

               “C’mon, just play along!”

               “Fine, what?”

                “They will peck you!”

                 “Have you ever wondered what Australia will be called if it suddenly finds itself abundant of silver.”

               “No. Leave Australia alone.”

               Seokjin doesn’t hear you and bursts out “Agstralia!” He guffaws at his own joke and you can’t help but snicker at his priceless face and laugh at yourself in pity for finding it even remotely funny.

               When his laughter dies down, Seokjin goes again, “Then what if it’s filled with copper?”

               You don’t want to answer him, already biting your lip in silent laughter.

               “Custralia!”

                 Most of the days, Seokjin’s a fiery orange of fireworks who drags you into the wildest rides of your life with his ever loud, but oddly inviting, “Yo, Y/N!” Like that one Monday afternoon he coaxed you (in some goddamn way you dumbly agreed to) to scavenge for some specimen of Bermuda grass to see it under the microscope and check if it has any semblance to the Bermuda Triangle (of course it has none). You accomplished nothing that day but run around like cockroaches with no heads when an old woman chased you for trampling on her “garden” which is just a plain expanse of grass. Or that one Wednesday morning he asked you to accompany him in his dorm just in case he managed to summon a demon when he tries to cook using an old Latin cookbook he found in some thrift store. You didn’t summon anything that day but you ended up with you two getting summoned by the condominium’s landlord because Seokjin accidentally set off the unit’s fire alarm.

               There are also times when Seokjin’s an endearing bloom of pink. Like those days when his hand casually brushes against yours as you walk side by side to your film class and he’ll send you one of his goofy smiles. Or those weekends where he’ll accompany you to study in the library, helping you make flash cards for your upcoming long quizzes.   Seokjin makes you feel warm at the slightest of stares and lingering gazes. Especially in those nights where he lays his head on your shoulder as you watch required films, and he’ll stare at you while doing kissy faces when you tell him his head is too heavy.  You never knew you would be able to fill something, no someone, in such a delicate color you know you have already started to reflect on your cheeks just at the sight of him.

               But all of that gets ruined because Seokjin always, always, makes you see blazing scarlet everytime he carries on  his life mission to scare you whenever you meet. It started when your professor assigned your class to watch The Shining for a horror genre essay and you, like the scaredy cat you are, begged Seokjin to watch it with you. Of course you didn’t tell him you’re not too fond of horror films, afraid of being called out. Obviously, it only takes one stare at your curled up form for Seokjin to put two and two together and realize you’re such a…coward. And of course, like the obnoxious boy he is, Seokjin takes advantage of such knowledge and decides you need a little spice in your life–a spice you didn’t really need, nor will ever need in your entire life.

               Whenever you’ll meet him on the corridors of your film class, Seokjin is now nowhere to be found. Instead, he’ll demand you to answer a quick survey first, a condition for him to show up, and you, like the exasperated idiot you are, answer it just to get on and over with it.  Like always, you end up screaming at a scary video mid-answering the questions and you never learn your lesson.  Everytime you’ll pass by each other in hallways, Seokjin bellows a loud “Boo!” with a thunderous clap of his huge ass hands and you always jump in shock like a cat on her hackles.  You never knew how to expect the shits he pull up because Seokjin always changes his patterns. One day, he even pulled up a Scream mask by your locker just right after you closed it shut, making you scream as you fall on your bum.

               At the end of the day, Seokjin always makes sure to apologize and assure you that it’s just his way to bond with you. “I just can’t get enough of your priceless face” he snickers and you start to chuckle too at his attempts – because even if you’re scared, his shenanigans actually helped you, in some way, get less scared of horror film jump scares.

               However today–today is a different straw.

               It was nine o'clock in the evening and you just got out of your building after an org meeting. The campus gate you usually take in your commute home was already locked closed at eight so you have no choice but to take the other gate–the one on the far left boundary of the campus. All would have been fine about that gate if you hadn't read the Facebook freedom wall post concerning it yesterday. Apparently, some student was jogging around the route towards the gate every night before he goes back to his dorm. In the entirety of his jog, he hears footsteps behind him that he didn't mind at first– until he passes by a guard who greets him and asks him what's he's doing alone so late. When he glances to the left, there was actually no one following him.

               At the thought of the Facebook post, you grab the straps of your bagpack tighter. All is well. You just have about twenty meters to go before the gate and after that, you'll get on a bus. Just a little bit more and–

               Step. Step. Step.

               Jesus fucking Christ. You bit your lip and walked faster. Your steps are frantic and you could feel cold perspiration start to form on your nape. You could feel yourself tripping on your shoes anytime soon but the only thought running in your mind now is outrunning the thing behind you.

               However, the steps behind you also quickened its pace.

               Fucking shit. You break into a run. You don't care about social conventions nor how ridiculous you probably look right now with your eyes teary, mouth dry, and hair frazzled. All you know is that you have to get OUT of there.

               But your effort is not enough because just five steps in, a hand shoots out behind you and you have nothing to do but scream. Scream, drop down, and cry.

               “Leave me a-alone please. Just let m-me go home. I'm to-too young to die!”

               “Yo Y/N. It's me, Seokjin.”

               You cried harder.

               In the next second, you feel him squat down and gesture toward your arms, tightly corded around your knees with your head still buried between them. But you didn't move. You can't move. Your fingers are still shaking, and your heart won't stop pounding too fast. And you feel like any second right now, you're about to explode.

               “Y/N, I'm sorry I scared you. I just saw you going out and I have something to say to you before you go home.”

               You couldn't hold it in. You pin Seokjin with the meanest glare you can muster. “WHY DO YOU HAVE TO COME AT ME LIKE THAT THEN?!”

               “I was just running after you! You were walking too fast and you didn't see me so I–”

               “I thought you were a ghost! Jesus Christ!”

               “A ghost?” Jin sputters before breaking out into a loud guffaw. “I'm so handsome to be a ghost. Seriously, Y/N–”

               “It's not funny anymore you know,” you whisper. Seokjin's chuckles immediately die down. “Can you just stop,” you hiccup, “scaring me everytime we meet? It's not good for my heart.”

               “I...I didn't know you felt like that,” Seokjin mumbles and he looks down, rubbing his nape. “I...I thought you were also having fun because you always laugh after it.”

               “It was fun,” you admit, “but it's also scary. I'm a coward you know. I have my limits.”

               “I'm sorry,” Seokjin mumbles. But before you can reply that it's alright as long as he doesn't do this shit again, he has already cupped your face in his hands, leaving you no choice but to look at him. Look at him in all your snotty glory.

               Seokjin however, doesn't seem to care. “I'm sorry I scared you that bad. I would not have started doing this scaring thing if I knew it will end up with you breaking down. I'm sorry I didn't know you get scared this bad. I don't like...making you cry.” At this, you feel his thumbs pressing on your cheeks and wiping away the tears that have streaked down in your panic. You can't move, this time for a different reason. You can't feel anything but the presence of the boy in front of you. His warm, beautiful eyes that only look like that when they meet your eyes; his much warmer hand that feels too big on your face–big and secure enough for your hand to hold with an assurance he’ll never let go. His cheeks are rosy, just like his ears and you feel oddly elated it has grown pinker just in five more seconds of staring at his eyes. And his lips–pink and plump and looking so soft–fills your senses into sensory overload that you honestly feel you're heating up like a boiling kettle by now.

               Good for you, Seokjin doesn't question your frozen stance and silently helps you up on your feet. “Sorry’s not enough. I'll make up for what I did. C'mon.”

               Before you knew it, he's already steering you away from the gate and back into the campus. And now at ten thirty, you find yourself munching on a strawberry ice cream cone with Seokjin beside you, your knees bumping into each other.

               “Why do you do it anyway?”

               “What do I do?”

               “Scaring me,” You answer, wiping your lips.

               “Are you...still angry about it? I'm sorr–”

               “No,” you wave off, “I'm just...curious, yeah. I've never had someone doing that to me and you're probably the only one crazy enough to do that. I'm just curious why you do it in the first place.”

               “Well, you already said it," Seokjin chuckles. “No one has ever done it to you yet. So I did.”

               Your brows raise, your forehead furrows. "Wh-why?”

               “Because I want to be different when it comes to you. I've seen you goofing off with Jimin on hallways and–I don't know why, I just get this feeling that I have to be unique when it comes to you.”

               “Why? I mean," you sputter, "I don't require you to be…different to be my friend.”

               “I just want to. It feels good that I get to be the wild adventure of your life. It feels good that I get you to look only at me like that–begrudging but curious, skeptical but willing, and," he smiles, "cute. Especially when I get you to laugh.”

               You look at him, mouth agape, but Seokjin just laughs and gestures you to eat your ice cream because it's starting to melt. You oblige, but you can't help but let your eyes linger on the boy next to you. The boy you didn’t know was like the biggest hotshot of your batch but was the one to actually remember you from the crowd just by your favorite scrunchie. The boy who used to be your greatest dilemma but now the best highlight of your life. The boy that annoys you to no end but oddly makes your heart flutter at the same time. Seokjin, the boy you can now begrudgingly admit you're definitely crushing on. Because you know there's no other answer to the overwhelming, warm flash of soft red you feel on your chest whenever you're with him.

               You know you're right because after that night, you start to associate Seokjin mostly with red. Fresh roses, picnic dates, heart-shaped promises, sweet laughter, cherry kisses–a plethora of everything your heart started to long for.

 A/N | HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BEST GIRL @sophrosinn!!! Thank you for being a stable shoulder I can lean on in times of problems, for being a great listener to everything I rant about, and for being one of my bestest friends who never failed to support me in my dreams.  (Thank you for also comforting me when I broke down in our live news presentation in our media literacy class. I’ll never forget that). I never imagined you’ll be one of my few friends I get to keep ‘til now since it’s only two years ago we got to really, really talk with each other. Remember how we just used to pass by and greet each other in our freshman until 11thgrade year in high school? Such a great plot twist. Time sure flies fast when you’re with the best people. Meeting you is surely a blessing. I wish you more amazing years ahead of you and may you accomplish all your endeavors. I love you!

P.S. I hope you liked this fluffy fic hehe this idea started to bother me ever since your birthday started to near. And yeah, I HAVE to include the pterodactyl joke because it’s your and Jin’s trademark uwu

All Rights Reserved © Vanaera. Reposts, modifications, and translations of content are not allowed without direct permission.

[meat-husband]

Bubba Sawyer - Alphabet Ask Meme

I’m hoping to start doing requests on this blog, so I thought I would start up with the alphabet ask memes as a sort of intro! I figure all the letters get asked eventually, so I’m just doing all of them in one go. There will be one of these posted for each character I’m writing.

I have a page with what and who I write for here.

Both the NSFW and fluff alphabet asks are under the cut!

NSFW Alphabet

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Cuddles are mandatory – Bubba will pout and whine if you try to get out of it (why would you though, hug that boy). He can get clingy though, and won’t want to get up once you’re both settled.

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Obviously, Bubba loves his masks (yes they count as a bodypart, let him live!). He puts a lot of effort into them and would love for you to help style them.

When it comes to you, he’s in for the whole package. There’s not one thing he could pick above another (but he’s totally a leg man, fyi).

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

Let’s be honest, Bubba’s pull out game weak. He doesn’t care where he cums most of the time, but there’s a lot of it so even if he only meant to get it one place, it ends up everywhere.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

He would never admit to it or ask for it, but he’s put a lot of thought into hanging you from the meat hook in the kitchen and just keeping you there to use whenever he wants through the day. Obviously he wouldn’t hurt you, and it makes him feel guilty to even think of hanging you up like meat but he can’t stop thinking about it.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Bubba is a sheltered baby, he’s got no idea what you’re talking about but he’s eager to go along with whatever you want. You’ll have to have a lot of patience if you want to cum with him though, it will take him a few tries to understand what to do.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

He likes when he can grab handfuls of you and just hold on. Lay on your side, one leg under him and one over his hip, and let him go to town. He can be as handsy as he wants this way, plus easy access to kisses, and it will keep him from hitting too deep in his enthusiasm.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Bubba is here to have fun. He’s going to laugh and smile and make silly faces to amuse you, he doesn’t get very serious unless he’s upset.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

You can shower all you want, that house has no AC and he’s doing manual labor all day so he’s pretty much always sweaty. He’ll clean up when he gets too bloody, but otherwise you’ve just gotta put up with it until the next shower.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

Bubba is romantic in his own way. He’s already geared towards taking care of everyone else, so making you food, giving gifts and doing special things for you is just part of his personality. He doesn’t have much of an idea what romance is exactly, so if you want anything traditional, like a private dinner or date night, show him how it’s done by surprising him and he’ll pick up on it and return the favor.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

Before he had a partner, it’s not something he would do often. Between Drayton’s anger and Nubbin’s teasing, he felt too guilty doing something so selfish. The thought doesn’t cross his mind once he’s got someone of his own though. Why do it alone when it’s so much more fun with you?

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

I think it's pretty common to headcanon Bubba with a breeding kink and I am all about that shit. But have you considered size kink Bubba, because I sure have! He’s a big boy and usually sort of self conscious about it, but seeing the comparison between the two of you makes him excited. It’s so easy to pick you up or to cover your body with his completely. The way you have to climb up him to sit in his lap, or how careful he has to be not to squish you under him. And he loves being the little spoon, with you trying and failing to wrap him up in your arms as well as he does to you.

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

If his brothers are gone, anywhere is fair game. Most often it’s outside in the dirt or in the barn where the generator can cover up some of his noise. Otherwise it’s strictly in your room, door locked to keep wandering siblings out.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

You’re not sure there’s anything that doesn’t turn him on, really. Something as small as eye contact or a smile has set him off before, so it’s safe to assume anything you do or say is motivation enough to send him your way with grabby hands and a tent in his pants.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

He wouldn’t say no to anything you ask him for, so you’ll have to figure out what he likes best and what he doesn’t want to do again. He’ll make it known right away if he’s uncomfortable with anything, squawking and waving his hands nervously.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

Absolutely loves it either way. Surprisingly, he picks up on using his mouth very quickly and it’s probably what he’s best at. Don’t expect him to sit still when you return the favor though, you can try and hold his hips down all you want but he can’t stop himself from thrusting up to meet your mouth.

P = Pace (Are they fats and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

Bubba’s got no sense of the word ‘slow’ and even less of ‘gentle’. He’s not being rough or hurting you, but he’s fast and eager and the sooner he gets his cock in you, the happier he is.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

He doesn’t think of them too differently, sex is sex. Most of the time he won’t be able to spend as much time with you as he’d like, since there’s so much work to do around the farm, but it’s rather easy to distract him from his chores if you really want to - just make sure to help him catch up with them afterwards.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

He’ll gladly try whatever you want to, so long as you show him what to do. He’s too nervous to do anything too risky though, especially if there’s a chance of being caught by his brothers.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

Theoretically, he has to stop eventually. You have yet to find that point and you will definitely wear out before he does, but you’ll keep trying.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

That kind of shit would get sniffed out in a second and you’re not sure whether Nubbins or Drayton finding it would be worse.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He’s got no threshold for teasing, he gives in right away. Like yeah, he wants you to get all squirmy and beg for him, but he doesn’t have the willpower to not put his cock in you when you ask for it.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

Drayton keeps a broom in the hallway to bang on the ceiling - it doesn’t work, but it makes him feel like he’s doing something.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

He is an expert at arts and crafts. He will constantly make you things, which is flattering until you realize he’s throwing out tooth and wire friendship bracelets left and right (Nubbins has 14 of them and will only wear them all at once, like a scrawny maraca). He’s already covered the living room in hot glued bones and tacky, handmade throw pillows. His crafting knows no bounds and he cannot be stopped.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

You’ve created a monster. There is no universe in which he is not ready to fuck you at a moments notice. He’s still trying to grasp the idea that maybe you need to rest sometimes.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Almost immediately. You’ve barely got time for some snuggles before he’s out. Good thing is he’s a deep sleeper, so it’s easy to get out of bed without waking him, but he’s extra grumpy if you do. Despite the body heat he puts off, you aren’t getting a sliver of blanket either, he’s already tangled in it and no amount of force can pull it away from him.

Fluff Alphabet

A = Attractive (What do they find attractive about the other?)

He wouldn’t be able to pick one thing. He feels amazingly lucky to have someone at all, let alone someone so perfect in every way.

B = Baby (Do they want a family? Why/Why not?)

It’s not the first thing on his mind, but he’s definitely aware that a baby is coming along sooner or later. He’s more worried than excited at the thought, since he’s the baby of the family and hasn’t experienced anything like it before. He’ll go into overdrive making things for the future baby once it’s a sure thing - pillows, blankets, footie pajamas. They might be a little macabre with all the human teeth and hair used in their production, but it’s the thought that counts.

C = Cuddle (How do they cuddle?)

Bubba is the champion of Extreme Cuddling™. Doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, he’ll find some way to wrap himself around you. You’ve gotten used to doing the dishes with his arms around your waist and your feet dangling off the ground.

D = Dates (What are dates with them like?)

The most common are quick picnic dates, sitting in the shade behind the house and watching the sunflowers. Bubba won’t want to go too far from the house, but you might convince him to go down to the creek with you once he realizes you’re not going to be swimming in your clothing.

E = Everything (You are my ____ (e.g. my life, my world…)

Family. He was raised with the thought that there was family and there was food, and only those two groups. They’re the only things that matter and you take care of your family by providing food. Once he decides he wants you around, even if it’s not romantic yet, he automatically puts you in the first group.

F = Feelings (When did they know they were in love?)

Bubba falls fast - in the matter of a few weeks or less. His face is always red and he can’t stop knocking things over when you’re around and you caught him staring at you four times just during breakfast. Drayton tries to put a stop to it before anything can happen, but you’ve already figured it out and even if you’re not quite as far along as Bubba, it’s still adorable.

G = Gentle (Are they gentle? If so, how?)

He’s more clumsy than rough, so he might be a little awkward but still gentle. His fingers will get caught while petting your hair or he’ll throw you over his shoulder instead of picking you up in his arms.

H = Hands (How do they like to hold hands?)

He would much rather be holding on to another part of your anatomy tbh, but hands will do. Hand holding is fine if there’s no time for cuddling, but he likes being closer so he’ll still probably drape himself over you.

I = Impression (What was their first impression?)

He didn’t have much of an impression at first, he isn’t trying to make friends with the meat, you know. Once it’s clear you’re not for eating, though, he’s fairly happy about having someone new around, especially when you turn out to be so nice! He quickly develops a crush, and I mean quick - pretty girl said good morning to him? Heart eyes, motherfucker.

J = Jealous

He doesn’t really have anyone to be jealous of since you live with his family, and he likely wouldn’t think of such a thing as cheating on a partner. If a situation did occur where someone else was paying you special attention he’d probably get a little jealous and then you’d have a tantrum on your hands. He’d be extra protective afterwards, realizing that someone could try and steal you away.

K = Kiss (How do they kiss? Who initiated the first kiss?)

Bubba starts the first kiss, but you’ve got to stop him and show him what to do. It takes a few tries before he realizes that eating and kissing require two different techniques. He’s always going to be a messy kisser but it’s more out of enthusiasm than anything, he’s just so excited every time it happens.

L = Love (Who says ‘I love you’ first?)

Definitely Bubba. Maybe it’s not those exact words, you can’t really tell, but he’s pretty obvious about his affections from the beginning.

M = Memory (What’s their favourite memory together?)

Bubba does love when you surprise him with gifts, small things taken from victims or found in the crowded attic, or handmade love letters with big lipstick kisses. He keeps them all and likes to look at them sometimes, especially when you’re out in town with his brother, and remember how sweet it was to be given something special.

N = Nickel (Do they spoil? Do they buy the person they love everything?)

If he ever finds out that there is something you want or need, he’s gonna do his best to provide it. It might be a handmade version, possibly containing some human material, but he tried his best so you can’t turn it away. He does like to dress you both up for dinner sometimes, keeping dresses and skirts for you to wear and sharing his make up and jewelry.

O = Orange (What colour reminds them of their other half?)

Purple. It’s his favorite color and he loves to dress you in it. That blouse is the ugliest thing you’ve seen in your life and it does not match those pants in any way, but it makes Bubba happy so you will gladly suffer these crimes against fashion.

P = Pet names (What pet names do they use?)

Bubba loves pet names! He definitely has some for you, although you can’t exactly understand them. You tend to call him sweet things like honeybun or sweetie pie and he loves it. You may not be doing it on purpose, but it sort of amuses him that the names are all food based.

Q = Quaint (What is their favorite non-modern thing?)

The most up to date thing they own is probably the old, beaten up truck Drayton drives (which Bubba is strictly forbidden from messing with). The rest of the house is pieced together with messy repairs from years of family life and everything in it is about as new as the house itself. The Sawyers are old fashioned and tend to use and recycle everything the family has ever owned, whether that be clothes or furniture.

R = Rainy Day (What do they like to do on a rainy day?)

There’s still work to be done no matter the weather, but if he can get away with it then he’s sleeping in for once. He hates getting out of bed in the mornings, having to slide you off his chest and untangle himself from the blankets is hard to do when you’re so warm and comfy.

S = Sad (How do they cheer themselves/others up?)

He’s like a worried mother hen anyways, so when anyone is feeling bad he’s extra jittery, flapping his hands and muttering and offering food or small gifts to try and make them feel better. Drayton tends to wave him off with a snarl and you can’t say that you’ve ever seen Nubbins acting like anything other than manically excited. You let him tend to you however he wants, more to soothe him than yourself, but watching him run around trying to cheer you up tends to get you smiling anyways.

When he’s upset himself he’s actually really easy to take care of, as any amount of positivity will draw him out of a bad mood quickly. Cuddling and soft praise or even just taking a short nap together will turn his day around.

T = Talking (What do they like to talk about?)

You cannot understand a word of his babbling but he will go on for hours regardless. Sometimes it’s easy enough to understand what he’s trying to get across, but you don’t know how his brothers seem to know exactly what that gurgle means in detail. He’s patient with you though and doesn’t get upset when you’ve got to resort to charades.

U = Unencumbered (What helps them relax?)

Snuggling up on the couch and listening to the old radio (if you can keep the other two from messing with it). Really, any kind of snuggles are fine, but the tinny white noise in the background is extra relaxing.

V = Vaunt (What do they like to show off? What are they proud of?)

Bubba is very proud of the work he does for the family. He isn’t a great cook by any means, he can’t exactly bring in the meat himself and he’s not very diligent about cleaning but no one else can do the butchering or the heavy lifting. Anything he can do to contribute, even just helping you with the dishes, makes him happy.

W = Wedding (When, how?)

You’re probably not going to go down to the courthouse, but there will be a wedding of sorts. Drayton isn’t the most traditional person when it comes to things like this, but he’ll be the one pushing for some sort of celebration. After all, you’re part of the family now so they might as well make it as official as they can.

X = Xylophone (What’s their song?)

He’s not picky with music, he’ll listen to whatever is on the radio. His brothers fight over the station, changing the channel the moment the other one leaves the room, but he always likes whatever it gets left on so he doesn’t touch it.

Y = Yes (Do they ever think of getting married/proposing?)

He doesn’t really understand marriage, since it’s not like he’s out of the house much and grandma has been dead for years. He moves pretty quick in how seriously he takes your relationship though, going from ‘puppy love’ to ‘absolutely devoted’ in a short amount of time. Once you get to anything more serious than shy glances he’s pretty much hooked for life tbh.

Z = Zebra (If they wanted a pet, what would they get?)

Bubba has never met an animal he didn’t like, so he’d take anything Drayton would let him get away with. The chickens in the yard are his favorites, but he’s strangely okay with killing them when the time comes.

[meetmetotheriver]

Sims Meme!

I was tagged by @mikexx2, like, weeks ago. (Thanks for thinking of me!) So I thought I'd try to answer one of these for once, this is pretty broad and generic.

When did you start playing Sims?

It must have been in the year of 2000, not long after it was released, that I first tried it out. I played TS1 sporadically, typically being obsessed with it for a few days, then not touching it for weeks and months. I never played any EP after Unleashed. The game was fun, but the lack of progress (read: aging) always sort of left me hanging - it was like a fancy electronic doll house, but it lacked an important element of purpose to me.

I semi-intentionally avoided TS2 for a while after it came out, and part of the reason was that I was afraid I'd get hooked. Then I finally gave it a go at the end of 2006. And well, here still I am, 11 1/2 years later. I should have listened to myself, I guess. :P

Have you been playing consistently or do you have breaks inbetween?

I have been playing fairly consistently. There's been small breaks here and there, and a few big ones, but I keep coming back. Even though I haven't been actively posting much over the past few years, I've still been playing. But granted, considerably less than I used to. Funny how having children means you have a lot less spare time, huh? :P

Do your family and friends know that you play The Sims?

Well, Mr. Meetme (my SO) most certainly knows. Haha. Other family members sort of know? But not to what extent, that I'm part of an online community, and so on. I don't think they'd "get" it. My friends/colleagues, no - haven't felt the need to elaborate on it. It goes under the general "video game" category.

Do you spend more time in build or live mode? Why?

I think it's pretty even? And it varies a lot. Sometimes I just want to focus on playing, sometimes I just want to build. I dunno. I enjoy both aspects equally, and they tie in to each other - playing out sims' lives inspires me to create their homes and towns, and creating their homes and towns makes me want to play them living there. ;)

Do you play with supernatural creatures (like Vampires, Werewolves etc.)? Why/why not?

Rarely. Most of them don't interest me that much, I guess. Most of them feel too easy, or too same-y, to play. Vampires, plantsims and witches (when maxed) don't need to sleep or eat and are incredibly easy to care for, with just small effort (keep those vampires out of the sun - but then they'll live forever...). Zombies don't really appeal to me on any level (I never watched The Walking Dead, either). Werewolves are sort of neat, though it sucks a bit that over time they all get the same personality. Bigfeet and Servos aren't "full" sims. Having one special creature here and there is okay, but I'd never want a 'hood full of them.

Aliens are my favourite, honestly, and they don't even have any special powers. Haha. But they DO have special genetics, and I'm all about the fun genetic mixing. It's one of my favourite aspects of TS2. (And the removal of recessive genes is one of my major disappointments in later titles.)

Do you have one specific family you play with all the time (like a legacy of some sort) or do you rotate between a couple of households?

I can never stick to just one household - then they would literally have to be the only household in the neighbourhood. It's not so much that I must have a grand great number of households (although I do think I'd get bored with just one or two, either way, in the long run), but I'm obsessed with keeping the passage of time synced. I want to play neighbourhoods where everyone interacts and age at the same pace, not one where your "main" household is on generation 5 while your sim's great great great aunt is still a teenager in another household. D:

Do you like to create your own neighborhoods or do you play with the existing families? Tell us about your progress :)

It's been all about the premades for a very long time for me. Sometimes I've had adventures of making my own, sometimes they've even been pretty successful, but I've always come back to the premades. I dunno. Familiarity, I guess? They're like old friends by now. And the community sense of it, seeing what others do, being inspired (or anti-inspired) by it, that part is fun.

I also can never stick to a thing for more than a year, maybe two or three at the very most, and I restart and reset and restart over and over again. As much as I like the "breeding" part of the game, I have to admit it is a lot harder for me to connect with the sims born from premades in my game, than the original premades.

Do you create custom content? If so, what keeps you motivated? (If not, would you like to? What stops you from learning it? For players that don’t use mods, why do you stay away from CC?)

Well, I made those template thingies. I also share lots I build every now and then. A whole neighbourhood once. But CC as in CAS and buy/build mode stuff or mods, no. I guess a big part of it is that I feel like someone else has already made pretty much everything I could possibly want, and the few things they haven't I haven't wanted enough to invest time and effort in learning to make it myself. If I did end up learning to make something, it'd most likely be game mods (as in hacks, not CC in general - why have we started mixing those terms now? A chair or a lipstick is not a mod). I've dabbled in modifying a couple of existing ones a couple of times.

If there was one piece of CC or (if you play without mods) one piece you wish the developers implemented, what would it be?

"One piece". I'm not sure how to answer this one. There's no single little thing, like a piece of clothing or whatever, that I depserately want and that doesn't already exist. As for bigger stuff, such as a whole extra aspect of the game, like body sliders or farm animals (that are household members and not just objects) or whatever, I would always rather have those as actual implemented parts of the game than as CC, you know? Because the possibilities for adding cool stuff is obviously a lot greater with the actual source code for the engine instead of modding stuff in. But that's not gonna happen.

Modders have made a ton of cool stuff and keep doing it though, so props to them. I don't have the creativity to come up with a good idea for something for them to make, nor the knowledge to say what would be realistic, and I guess I'm too boring for pure wishful thinking, so have a block of text saying basically nothing instead!

What other expansion and/or accessoires pack do you wish the developers would have come out with?

I don't even know anymore. I can think of several improvements to the existing ones, but I feel like what we got was pretty good, overall. I'm also drained from typing now, haha.

Tagging anyone and everyone! Especially @strangetomato. :D

[denimwrites-archive]

“I love you, dumbass!”

Prompt: Not a request - The way you said “I love you.” prompt list #3- A scream and #15- Loud, so everyone can hear

Fandom: Dear Evan Hansen

Pairing: Connor Murphy X Reader

Summary: You were tired of Connor pushing you away. You attempted to talk to him, but he only responded when he was high, nevertheless you keep trying. It starts to get better with the help of a certain meme man, but three words are the key to saving your relationship with Connor.

Word Count: 5,706

Warnings: Swearing, mentioned homelessness, talk of mental illness?, and drug use

A/N: Okay I’m not super good at angst, but I gave it a shot. Also I’ve never been high or anything so god knows if I even portrayed it correctly. Plus I said something about Larry working from home which I have no idea if that’s canon or not but I think that that’s one of the reasons why Larry and Connor are at odds because it’s just like one of them is always there meaning they’re always at each other’s throats?? (Also Artist!Connor). (Sorry for repetitiveness, this probably sucks but I spent way too long on it so I’m just going to post it).

~~~

This was the last straw. Connor had ignored you practically all summer, responding to your texts days later with only one word or maybe just an emoji. You had tried to respect his wish to be left alone, but you had wanted to check up on him at least once a week. That isn’t bad considering at the end of Junior year you two had been hanging out almost everyday after school.

You thought that maybe it was just the summer changing him since he had to spend more time with the family that didn’t understand him, but then you heard from Zoe that he had barely been home that summer. Disappearing early in the morning and usually sneaking back into his room after everyone had already gone to bed.

You wished you could have seen him over the summer, but you got a job as a camp counselor that was a few hours away. It was an okay experience, but you missed your home and your friend. When you were finally making your way home at the end of the summer, you couldn’t think of anything but hanging out with Connor again, making fun of the other stupid teenagers and complaining about homework and worrying about the future, together.

When the first day of senior year rolled around and you finally saw him in the hallway, you ran up to him, a big smile on your face, expecting at least something that said he was happy to see you. But all that met you was an angry Connor who slammed his locker and stormed past you before you could even say ‘hi’.

You stood there stunned for a good minute, the annoying voice of Jared Kleinman finally snapping you out of your trance. “Sorry, (Y/N), looks like Connor finally stopped believing in your ‘friendship’.”

“Shut it, Kleinman,” you said, brushing past him on your way to class. You sat through all the shitty first day icebreakers and the going over of summer materials, not really paying attention as your mind raced over all of your summer interactions with Connor, and even back to the end of junior year.

You couldn’t think of anything that could have caused him to be so angry at you. Your brow furrowed as you made your way to the cafeteria, you got in the lunch line and got some food. Scanning the room you see Connor sitting by himself at a table in the corner. You set your shoulders, take a deep breath, and make your way over to him, ready to stand your ground.

As you approached his table, Connor looked up at you and you could see his eyes soften slightly before his eyebrows furrowed and he looked down at his plate in almost disgust. That look was supposed to be aimed at you, your mind said. You shook your head slightly and sat across from him, not scared of his apparent anger.

You didn’t say anything as you began eating. You paid him no mind, even when you could feel his gaze on you. If he wanted space, then he would have to be a big boy and use his words to tell you as such instead of pushing you away.

When you both had finished eating, you finally looked at him and he was looking at you. He was definitely less angry now, but his face still didn’t hold the friendly look that he used to aim at you whenever you two were together. You took a deep breath, about to say something, when he abruptly said, “What the fuck do you want from me?”

You sat there looking at him in confusion with your mouth slightly open for a few moments, completely unsure of what he was asking. When you didn’t immediately answer, Connor stood up and grabbed his things, leaving his lunch tray behind as he left the cafeteria. You were still frozen, trying to comprehend what the hell he meant by his question.

However, you did notice when the cafeteria went mostly silent to watch Connor leave and then stare at you. Snapping out of your thoughts, you glance around you and the normal sounds of high school started once again. You furrowed your brows at your lunch tray and the tray that still lay in front of you. Taking a deep breath, you grabbed your stuff and both trays, throwing them away as you head out of the cafeteria.

You didn’t know where you were going but you knew that you had to get away from people for a while. Heading out the school’s back door, you made you made your way to the football field. Quickly climbing the stairs of the bleachers, you took a seat and started rummaging through your backpack, looking for anything to distract your from the thoughts in your head.

But when you reached for the book you had to read for english, you heard a voice coming from underneath you. Just great, you thought, first I have Connor being a moody bitch, then Kleinman has to be an ass and make things worse, and now I can’t even try to have a second of peace to myself.

You get up, and work your way back down the bleachers, bookbag in hand, then look for a way underneath them so you can see who decided to be a wise ass and encroach on your spot. When you finally found the culprit though, you started to turn around, not wanting to get your head bitten off by Connor again. But when he saw you, he called out to you. Slowly turning back around to face him, you see the smoke that permeated around him and realize that he was getting high.

You sigh, slightly in relief but also from the memories of the random stuff he would say when high. You had learned that there were different kinds of stoners, and Connor was more of a relaxed stoner, something that you never thought you would be grateful for before now. As you made your way closer, he patted the spot next to him and you cautiously took a seat, setting your bag next to you.

To your surprise he put an arm around your shoulder and brought you closer to him. You sat in his half embrace rigidly, unsure of what you were really doing. He didn’t say anything, just smoking and looking off into space. Sometimes he would give your shoulders a squeeze and you’d look at him only to find him already looking at you with an actual smile on his face.

You smiled back and gave him a slight bump with your shoulder which caused a laugh to escape from him. You smiled and laughed with him. Then he was smiling. And your heart started to beat just a little bit faster. Even with the shit way Connor had been treating you lately, you still couldn’t help the butterflies that formed in your stomach whenever he was happy. You really wish it happened more often.

Soon enough he was actually talking. He spoke his sentences at a leisurely pace, in no hurry to convey their full meaning. He was talking about how shitty life at home was and how Larry thought he was such a screw up and his mom tried to understand him but could never see things from his perspective. Zoe was always on his nerves, and even if he didn’t mean to he always let his anger out on her, cause she was the closest target.

That much wasn’t really new, but he went on to explain that over the summer, things had gotten worse since there was no school to get away from his parents, especially Larry. With him working from home, it was nothing but constant scrutiny for Connor. So he would just leave. He would wander around town and get lost. Hike through the woods and end up sleeping outside. He was almost homeless, only stopping by for a new sketchpad, pencils, change of clothes, or a shower. And even then, when he came to do stuff he made sure that no one knew he was there.

“It was just better to disappear than deal with all of that bullshit, you know?” he asks. You nod, and he continues to talk about some of the cool people at the park that he would sometimes sketch. He was talking about this one plant near his favorite people-watching spot when he suddenly went quiet.

When you looked up at him, he was just staring at you again. You give him a quick nudge and then he shakes his head slightly before looking at the ground in front of him, still not saying anything. As you’re about to ask him something, he turns back to you and says, “I don’t know why you want to be friends with the school shooter. I mean you’re just too nice to be seen with me so I don’t know why you are. Seen with me. “

“What’s the matter, scared I’ll ruin your bad boy reputation?” you teasingly asked. But then Connor’s head was slightly resting on top of yours and he was mumbling something you couldn’t hear. “What was that, princess?”

“You’re too good for me. No wonder I don’t stand a chance with you.” You’re left dumbfounded at his words and you sit there in shock, Connor’s arm still around your shoulder, his head resting on yours, as his breathing gets more even. Soon enough it’s obvious that he’s asleep. You almost try to get out of his grip, but it’s quickly obvious that that would wake him up, so you sit there quietly contemplating all that he just said.

Your thoughts are still quite a mess by the time that Connor starts to stir sometime later. You shift a little bit when you feel him tense next to you and carefully look up at him, only to see his eyes still hazy but growing harsher by the second. He quickly removed his arm from your shoulder and rose to his feet. You get up without prompting and grab your bag, sulking away from him and back to school before he even utters a word, feeling his glare on your back.

Even with only an hour before school ended, you couldn’t focus on anything that the teacher was saying, your mind racing with all that Connor had said. It definitely explained his shitty communication, but what the hell happened that made him hate you? Or did he like you? You thought it was hard before, now you were all kinds of confused.

Sure you thought Connor was a great guy, but he never seemed interested in you that way, so you didn’t think of him that way. Even if you stole glances of him, looked forward to all of your conversations, and your heart beat just a little bit faster whenever he smiled, it was only because he was a good friend. Totally.

His words ran through your head late into the evening. I don’t stand a chance with you. Who did he think he was competing with? He knew that you disliked pretty much every other person in your grade. Maybe the weed was just making him spew bullshit, you thought to yourself, trying to come up with an excuse as to why he seemed so wishy washy between his words and actions.

You didn’t get much sleep that night with all of those thoughts and possibilities running through your head. So when it came time for school the next morning, you weren’t ready to deal with Jared Kleinman first thing.

“Hey there, (Y/N). How’re things going with the shooter? I heard he was quite the sweetheart yesterday in the cafeteria. Care to comment?” he asked with his usual smirk.

You scoffed at him and continued the walk to your locker, unaware that Jared had decided to saunter after you. He made his presence known again as he slammed your locker door into the ones next to you, causing you to jump. He leaned against the brightly painted doors in an obviously forced casual kind of way.

Glancing at him warily, you start to grab the things you need for your first class. You notice Connor out of the corner of your eye and you take a deep breath, all the thoughts from last night sprinting through your mind. But you decide to take the chance, walking up to him and clearing your throat when he doesn’t immediately notice your presence.

When he finally turns towards you, his annoyed expression turns to something more along the lines of hostility. It almost makes you take a step back, when his smiles from yesterday make their way into your mind, helping you to hold your ground. Squaring your shoulders, you open your mouth to ask him something when he looks behind you and scoffs before pushing past you, knocking into your shoulder as goes.

You turn around confused as to what the hell happened when you see Jared still standing by your locker, staring intently at you. You narrow your eyes at him before marching up to him. “What the hell did you do?” you demand.

“Nothing! What makes you think I did something? He’s the one who always acts like a psychopath.” Jared isn’t looking you in the eye and you know he isn’t saying something, but whatever he did to piss Connor off doesn’t matter as much as the fact that he did it.

“Just leave me and Connor alone, okay Kleinman? I don’t know what your beef with him is, or if you’re really just that much of an asshole that you would mess with him for no reason, but seriously, just drop it. For your own sake.” You slam your locker and walk away from him, not sparing him another glance, missing the slightly hurt look on his face.

The morning ticks by agonizingly slow as you wait for it to be lunch so you can try to straighten things out with Connor again. Finally the bell rings and you rush to the cafeteria, grabbing your lunch and making your way to the same table that you sat at yesterday.

And like yesterday, you set your shoulders, took a deep breath, and made your way to where Connor was sitting. You take a seat across from him, but today you look at him expectantly. This time, he’s the one to ignore you, just sitting there looking at his plate. After a few minutes of waiting for him to at least acknowledge you, you let out a sigh and proceed to eat.

After you’re both done eating, it’s obvious that Connor is just going to try and brush you off again so you reach across the table and grab his hand, but he quickly jerks back and stands, already gearing up to storm off. You attempt to grab his arm again, desperate to get him to listen to you. He makes it quite obvious that he isn’t going to pay attention to anything you have to say, but you follow him anyway as he makes his way into the hallway.

You knew that the cafeteria was watching you chase after him, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to care. Connor seemed to be making his way to the front of the school, probably ready to skip the rest of the day. Knowing you didn’t have much time, and just wanting him to stop ignoring you, you yell after him, “Connor Murphy!”

The other kids milling in the hallway all turn towards you, but his steps don’t falter as he continues to stomp towards his destination. Gritting your teeth in frustration you start running, trying to catch up with him. Damn you, Connor Murphy, and those insanely long legs of yours, you thought.

You’re finally able to step in front of him, but when he moves to step around you, you’re in front of him again. You continue to block him until you hear him sigh in anger and annoyance. “What do you want?” he asks, venom in his voice.

“I want you to be straight with me. I want you to talk to me without sounding like you want to bite my fucking head off when you aren’t stoned out of your mind. I want to know why the hell you didn’t think you could come to me when your summer went to shit. I want to know what happened to my best friend, Connor Murphy.”

He rolls his eyes at you, like you were the one being dramatic, before scoffing and turning away from you, already moving away. You can only stand there and wonder what the hell happened. Feeling something build up in your chest you don’t really know what happens until it already has. Almost like an out of body experience.

You find yourself grabbing ahold of the back of his jacket, pulling him to a stop before marching in front of him and getting into his face, finger poking into his chest as you scream at him. “I don’t know what the fuck your problem is, but I’m done with it. You are done blowing me off. I don’t care about your problems getting in the way because I will make them my problems too. You aren’t alone in this mess of a world, you moron. So stop acting like you are. Pushing me away isn’t going to accomplish anything.”

Out of breath from your tirade, you finally realize what you just did. Taking a step back you look around to see everyone staring at you, including Connor. He doesn’t look as angry as he did, more surprised than anything else.

As you’re about to say something else, he pushes past you again. You don’t follow him this time, staring at the ground in defeat. You turn around and head back inside the school, through the back and to your spot at the bleachers. You glance below them, even though you know Connor won’t be there, you still hoped that the relaxed Connor of yesterday would be there again so that you could actually have a conversation.

Letting out a long sigh you lean back and look at the clouds, letting time pass by unnoticed. As you zone out of your thoughts you don’t notice what’s happening under the bleachers until you smell a hint of weed. Your heart races as you make your way under the stairs, hoping it’s your stoner. You freeze as he finally comes into sight, obviously higher than he was yesterday by the fact that he doesn’t even notice you sit next to him.

After a few minutes of stillness and silence, you quietly ask, “Connor?”

His unfocused eyes snap to you, and he gives a big smile. “(Y/N)! I was just thinking ‘bout you,” he mumbles. Connor gestures for you to come closer, and you gently ease your way towards him, but when you’re in his arms reach he grabs you and pulls you into his chest. You tense at the contact, thoughts racing with how his sober self probably hates you. As he wraps an arm around you he starts talking to himself about random things.

You don’t even notice it when his hand starts running through your hair, or when his hand rests on your hip, too caught up in your inner dilemma. Slowly you become aware of these things as you start to listen to what Connor is saying. His words seem to float from one subject to another, and as you shift to look up at him, he stops talking just to look at you.

Then he’s talking about you and all the things he admires about you. The way your eyes light up when you talk about something you’re passionate about. The look you get on your face whenever Connor teases you about your taste in music. The way your eyebrow furrows when you’re confused by something in class. He continues to talk and you just look at him in amazement, astonished that he noticed all of these things.

Soon he’s just rambling about how cute you are and just listing all your different body parts. “Your elbow is really something, you know that? It’s the cutest fucking elbow I’ve ever seen. Even your wenis is cute. And really moisturized. It’s a nice wenis.” Connor finally noticed your staring and looks deeply into your eyes. You sit there, contemplating everything that he’s said, when he says it. The words that would change everything.

“I love you.”

You sit there speechless. Connor doesn’t seem to mind as he rests his forehead against yours, his eyes soon drifting shut. You carefully shift from under his grip until you’re sitting a few feet away from him, looking at anything other than his sleeping form. You had no idea how to deal with the bombshell he had just dropped. Was that the reason he had been acting like a dick lately? Having to deal with confusing emotions about you while also managing all the shit his parents put on him?

You had no idea how to process it, so you got up and walked back to class, almost numb as your brain focused on nothing but those three simple words that had built and destroyed so many things throughout history.

The rest of your classes bring no answers and as you try to work on homework that night your mind only wants to think about all of the things Connor said leading up to his big confession. It couldn’t just be the weed, right? It was the reason he was telling you, yeah, but his feelings weren’t entirely made by the drug. Or could they be? The same questions from yesterday ran through your mind, but this time they were that much heavier.

The next morning you barely noticed Jared next to your locker, trying to annoy you again or something probably. You didn’t even know why Jared had been hanging around you so much lately since you guys weren’t really friends. Nonetheless, he shakes you out of your thoughts with a poke to your cheek. Rubbing it and giving him a look you ask, “What?”

“Look, I know that it isn’t my place, especially since Connor and I have a mutual-hate agreement, but he just really doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“Doing?”

Letting out a sigh, Jared continues, “He doesn’t know that treating you the way he has been is no way to deal with feelings. I know from experience. But you didn’t hear anything from me.” Then he’s gone, walking down the hallway. Your eyes follow him and you see him share a glance with Connor as he goes. Connor feels your gaze on him and turns to look at you.

You give him a small wave, and he just turns away, slamming his locker hard as he leaves for his first class. You sit in your first period, Jared’s words ringing in your ears, and you make a decision then and there. You will try to talk to Connor again today at lunch, and if that doesn’t work then you’ll just have to go back to the drawing board.

As lunch draws nearer, you start to doubt your plan. Nerves setting in, you try to calm yourself as the bell rings. You head to the cafeteria again and this time decide to sit at the table Connor usually uses before he gets there instead of waiting in line for lunch. You keep scanning the cafeteria for him, starting to think that he might not sit here if he sees you.

You’re thankfully proven wrong when he sets his tray on the table while you weren’t paying attention, lost in your thoughts. You take it as a good sign that he decided to sit at his normal spot, but are still unsure about how to start the conversation. You two sneak glances at each other, and are relieved that Connor’s looks are actually pretty gentle, especially compared to the ones you’ve seen in the past few days.

Time continues to pass as you sit in silence. You still haven’t gotten lunch, but the tension holds you hostage, not wanting to screw up again and have to think of some other way of getting Connor’s attention.

Much to your relief and confusion, Jared comes by and sits next to Connor. His eyes immediately snap to Kleinman’s and you swear if looks could kill, Jared would be pushing up daisies. Jared gives him a knowing look, drops a note onto his lunch tray, pats him on the back, then walks away as if nothing happened.

You look at the note in curiosity, but don’t reach for it. Connor glances at you before snatching the note and sticking it in his pocket. He then starts to stand, grabbing his lunch tray and hastily making his way towards the exit. You stand and follow him, knowing that you weren’t the reason for his retreat made you confident that you might actually be able to talk to him. If you were able to catch up with him that is.

Connor was almost jogging through the hallway, which meant that with his long legs you had to practically sprint to catch up with him. He stopped at his locker and grabbed something before going through the school’s back door. Knowing where he was going, you paused at the door to catch your breath.

When you finally make your way back under the bleachers for the third time that week, you sit across from Connor, rather than next to him. He reaches out to you, but you just shake your head gently. He seems to pout slightly, but continues to smoke nonetheless. You sit in silence for a while as he finishes his blunt.

You can see him relax more and more and then he’s insistently reaching for you. You try to resist, but he just seems so open and wanting of some kind of touch that you give in and lean into his side. His arm rests around your shoulders and soon enough your head is on his shoulder and his head is on top of yours, resting gently. As you shift slightly, Connor begins talking and you freeze, not wanting him to clam up again.

He spoke of the shitty summer again, but added that he always tried to keep his phone charged so he could talk to you. Connor had looked forward to your little check ups but didn’t want to worry you with his almost homelessness, so he tried to brush you off. You understood why he had done it, but it made your heart hurt to think about all of the days that you were unknowingly standing by as he was in pain.

You grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze when there was a lull in the conversation. He squeezed back and you said, “I promise to be there for you in the future. As long as you promise to be honest with me and tell me when you need me. You know I would have been here in a heartbeat if I had known, summer job be damned.” He nodded his head, and you could feel the movement, giving his hand another squeeze.

Connor also talked about the good times over the summer though, like how he was able to really focus on his art this summer. And how there were these really sweet old ladies who would walk through the park on their way to bingo and compliment him on his sketches and offer to take him home for a meal.

Your eyes were starting to close, lulled by the sound of Connor’s voice and comforted by his arm around you. It was also becoming obvious that he was also starting to drift off by his slurring words. You snuggled further into his chest, head turning to hide itself in his neck. He tightened his grip on you and started mumbling about how caring you were. You fell asleep with his kind words floating through your head.

Awakening with a start at the sound of the bell, you look around in a daze, not seeing Connor anywhere. You frantically looked around but didn’t see any sign of his bag or anything. Then you were running back to the school, desperate to find him. You knew you were going to do something you might regret, but you couldn’t live with Connor only talking to you when he was high.

The hallways are flooded with students who are at their lockers or heading to the parking lot, ready to leave school for the day. You rush around trying to spot him in the crowds, and head outside, hoping he was waiting by his sister’s car. Your peers give you strange looks as you run down the aisles looking for Connor, starting to call his name.

Finally you see him walking down the sidewalk and you really start screaming for him. You know that he heard you since he glances back at you while grabbing his headphones out of his bag. You pick up your pace and run after him, catching up with him halfway through the parking lot.

You are out of breath and double over, a few feet away from him, but he continues to walk, ignoring you. He doesn’t slow down or even acknowledge you as you step next to him. You grab his sleeve and he turns to you with a scornful look, yanking his arm out of your grip. “Connor,” you start, but he just picks up his pace. You try to keep up with him, but he just keeps speeding up. You finally stop and yell, “I love you, dumbass!” At that he gives a pause, still turned away from you.

“I don’t care about all the shit you’re going through, I want to be there for you, but I can’t do that if you’re always running away from me. That’s not going to stop me from trying though, because I’ll always chase after you Murphy, because I care about you.”

It seems as if time is frozen around you. Your heart pounds as you realize that everyone is staring at you, and that Connor still hasn’t turned around. Trying to breathe properly and wondering how you could be so stupid to bear your heart in front of half the school, you don’t notice that Connor has turned around until he’s standing right in front of you, looking at the ground sheepishly.

He quietly takes your hand and pulls you along with him, ignoring the students who gape at you as you pass by. You walk in silence off of the school grounds and down the sidewalk. You don’t know where you’re going, but you let him lead you there. Soon enough you find yourself at the local park.

You take a seat at one of the benches and Connor pulls you into his side by tugging at your hand, still in his. You comply and are resting your head on his shoulder just like you were earlier. Connor takes a deep breath, like he’s about to say something, but then lets it out as a long sigh. You don’t know how long you sit there, but you understand that this is hard for him.

“I really do love you, you know?” you ask him quietly. He doesn’t say anything, but squeezes your hand. “I’m sorry for not being there for you this summer, but--”

“I’m not mad about the summer,” he cuts you off. “I just…” he trails off, unsure how to say what he wanted to. Connor takes another deep breath and continues, “This summer made me realize that I don’t know what I would do without you. I was dependent on your smile and your stupid jokes, and it scared me. But I also scared myself with how much angrier I was when you weren’t around.”

He swallows, trying to piece together what to say next. “You ground me. And I didn’t want to burden you with the fucked up thing that is me. So I thought that if I pushed you away everything would go away, but it only got worse because I saw you everyday and wanted nothing more than to hug you tight and not let you go.”

You give his hand a squeeze. “I would definitely be okay with that,” you look up at him with a small smile on his face. You see his lips quirk up, and he shakes his head at you slightly. You squeeze his hand again and he looks back at you. “I mean what I said though. I will be there for you no matter what. Even if you try to push me away, I’m going to be there. Because you’re my rock too, Connor.”

You two sit on the bench actually talking for the rest of the afternoon. School goes back to normal, and you can see Jared give you two a knowing look in the cafeteria the next day. Connor flips him off and you just chuckle, reaching for his hand. Things will be okay if you just stick together. Grounding each other.

~~~

At the end of the day, it dawns on you to ask, “Hey, Connor?”

“Hmm?”

“What did that note that Jared gave you say?”

“It didn’t say anything really, it was just an accurate drawing of what Kleinman thinks of me.”

“And that is…?”

He takes the note out of his pocket and hands it to you. You unfold it to find a fairly accurate picture of a donkey with several large arrows pointing to the animal’s rear end. “Ah,” you say, as if it were obvious.

Connor chuckles and gives you a kiss on the temple, taking the note back from you. “I guess we should thank him though, since he kind of helped us get our shit together.”

“Yeah, but annoying him is so much more fun.” You two share a look and laugh, glad to be comfortable with each other again, but at the same time closer than ever.

[heyktula]

59 + kylux please (idk when you posted the meme, hope im not too late)

59: mistaken identity (I’m deeply sorry that it took me so long to get to this--but I hope you like the result!)

It’s the fourth ruined console this week, smoking and sparking and melted. They’ll have to laser-cut the fucking thing out of the kriffing wall in order to replace it, and the custom finish they use on the Finalizer’s interior durasteel panels isn’t fucking cheap because Hux thought he could afford a bit of luxury, could afford some fucking matte black panels, because he hadn’t banked on having a fucking toddler with temper tantrums and a lightsaber on his fucking flagship.

Hux is completely fucking done. 

Fuck billing him for the repair expenses, Hux decides. Fuck it.

He’ll just have Lord Ren assassinated.

It takes less than a week for Hux to identify his future assassin. The Knights of Ren are rarely seen without their masks. They don’t all use the training facilities—Hux assumes they have training space in their rooms, though he hasn’t been down there since they arrived because he doesn’t care to know what they’ve done to the section of his ship designated as theirs—but one of them has been using the common facilities late at night.

Presumably the knight thinks no one else is awake, but he clearly doesn’t understand that General Hux is always awake, always watching—and so Hux has a front-row seat via the security feed to a remarkably young human adult male with a non-regulation haircut, beauty marks scattered across his face, and a truly phenomenal physique running through the same series of training moves every night between eleven pm and one am.

Tonight, Hux has the security feed broadcasting over a secure channel to his private datapad, and he’s standing outside the room in question, waiting for the knight to finish his training, which should be—ah,  yes, there. The knight finishes his last series of moves, and then pauses in the center of the room, bent over panting with his hands on his knees.

Hux slips into the room, and executes the code that simultaneously locks the doors, shuts off the security feeds, and turns the lights down to forty five and a half percent. He’s already halfway across the room when the knight notices him and throws out a hand, stopping Hux in his tracks with one of his banthashit force techniques.

"Oh, come now,” Hux says. “I don’t really think that’s necessary, do you?”

The knight hesitates, and Hux notices again how very young he is. The security feed really hadn’t done the man any favours—he’s easily twice as beautiful up close, with a slightly crooked nose and lips that Hux would love to bite until they bleed.

The knight staggers back and lowers his hand, and Hux finds himself free to move again.

“It’s only,” Hux says, advancing again with a slightly slower pace, as though he is stalking the  younger man—which, truthfully, he is. “You look so beautiful when you’re training. You must be one of his best knights.”

“I am,” the young man says unsteadily. “One of his—his best.”

“But not the best,” Hux says casually. He’s close enough to touch the other man now, and be damned if the other man isn’t exactly his height, and kriffing hell, those lips are just made for cocksucking. Hux lifts his hand and places it on the younger man’s bare chest, pressing his fingers into sweat-damp skin.

“I could be,” the man insists.

“Yes,” says Hux, and he drags his hand up the man’s chest to his jaw, caresses the young man’s cheek with his thumb. “You could be.”

There is a droplet of sweat on the man’s cheek. Hux brushes it away with his index finger, then pulls his hand away, watching the way the knight sways toward him before stabilizing.

Hux lets him gain his footing, lets him think this is over—and then takes three quick steps toward him, bringing his arm up quickly and shoving the knight in the chest. The knight yelps and goes over backward, and before he can get up, Hux has pressed his boot into the other man’s crotch.

The knight stills underneath him, breathing heavily.

“You could be one of his best,” Hux says, letting his voice drop and go throaty. “Or … you could be one of mine.” He takes a moment to get his breathing under control, because it wouldn’t do to appear affected this early. “Do you want to be good for me?”

“Yes,” the knight breathes.

“Good,” Hux purrs, and he pushes his boot down harder into the knight’s crotch.

His right boot makes an irritating squeak as he heads back to his quarters twenty minutes later, but he’s satisfied with his progress.

Lord Ren is glaring at him on the bridge the next day.

Typical, Hux thinks, but he doesn’t let it bother him, because his plan is in motion, and Lord Ren won’t be a problem for much longer.

The second-tallest knight, Hux’s knight, is hovering behind Lord Ren, though, and Hux makes a specific point of letting his hand casually graze over the knight’s robe as he passes by. Just so the knight knows that he’s there. 

Just so the knight knows he’s watching.

“You were staring at me today,” Hux breathes into the knight’s ear later. They’re in the training room again, and the knight is naked to the waist, Hux straddling him and pinning him down.

“Y-yes,” the knight says.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Hux says. “People will notice.” He shifts upwards, onto all fours, and carefully shuffles backwards, until his hips are aligned over the knights.

“I was careful,” the knight insists. “Nobody saw.”

“Lord Ren might have seen,” Hux muses.

The other knight inhales sharply, opens his mouth—and Hux drops his hips, grinds down onto the knight, and the other knight moans and contorts upwards, pressing what feels like an awkwardly large dick up against Hux’s crotch.

Hux tips his head up to cover for the eye roll that he can’t quite repress, and lets the knight continue grinding on him.

There’s a wet spot on Hux’s jodhpurs when he leaves the training room that night.

It’s not his.

Hux is proud of how smoothly his plan is going. It won’t be long now—and it’s well-worth the inconvenience of the knight’s ejaculate, because it gets Hux that much closer to Kylo Ren’s execution.

Hux is standing on the bridge. Lord Ren refuses to look at him, which Hux finds hilarious because they’re in the midst of a discussion about a rebel base that they’re planning to attack that evening, and Ren is being such a fucking child about the whole thing.

Hux makes eye contact with the knight that he fondly thinks of as his from across the room, and subtly taps his temple with his finger. Continues to speak to Lord Ren about deployment of stormtroopers and the number of units Hux will agree to release to him while vividly imagining sucking the knight’s cock.

The knight doesn’t so much as twitch or react, and Hux is so, so proud of him.

“... will that be satisfactory, Lord Ren?” Hux asks.

There’s a sharp burst of static from Ren’s vocoder, before Ren turns on his heel and stalks out.

Hux’s knight keeps watching Hux, and Hux winks at him before going back to his console.

“I want more,” the knight breathes. “I want more, I want more, I want—let me—”

Hux swallows, tips his head down to grimace, and swallows again, before looking back up at the knight. “I could be convinced,” he says gently. “But I would need you to do me a favour.”

“O-oh?” the knight says.

He always looks so shattered after an orgasm, and Hux loves it, loves him, loves watching him fall to fucking pieces underneath Hux’s tongue, and oh, fuck, the things he and this knight will be able to do once the knight has assassinated Kylo Ren for him …

Hux stands back up. “What would you do for me?”

“Anything,” the knight breathes. “Anything, General, please—I would do anything for you.”

Hux lets himself grin. “I need you to kill Kylo Ren.”

The day after Hux’s discussion with his knight, Kylo Ren destroys another console.

Hux shrugs it off.

The problem is temporary, and not worth the inevitable migraine.

“I want to see it,” Hux muses as he rotates his gloved fingers inside the knight’s ass, holding the knight’s hips still with his other hand. “I thought I might like you to do it in private—but no, I’ve changed my mind. I want to watch.”

The knight pants underneath him, black curly hair in complete disarray around his face, lips bitten, honey-brown eyes hazy with lust. “You—you want—to watch—me—confront—Kylo Ren.”

“Have you thought about how you might do it?” Hux asks, pulling both his fingers out, pouring lube on his glove, and then working three fingers back inside the knight. “How you might kill him?”

“With my, uh, saber?” the knight asks.

“Don’t sound so uncertain,” Hux says, curling his fingers up hard against the knight’s prostate.

The knight bucks his hips up into the air, gasping and coming untouched all over his own chest.

“Figure it the fuck out,” Hux says casually. He pulls his fingers out of the knight, and then pulls his glove off completely, drops it on the floor with its mate. Hux has no intention of bringing lube-soiled gloves back to his room—but maybe the knight will use them to jack off later—who knows what kind of perversions he holds. “I want him assassinated, and quickly.”

“And you promise,” the knight says, voice raw and broken. “You promise—that after I … subdue Kylo Ren.”

“Kill,” Hux specifies.

“That afterwards … you’ll let me fuck you?”

“Yes,” Hux says. “I promise.”

Hux looks down at his datapad when it pings, sees a meeting invitation from Kylo Ren to a conference room on the second deck. The invitation gives him pause for a moment—he’d expected it to come from his knight—but then he recalls that none of the knights had been issued datapads, so this makes perfect sense.

“Lieutenant Mitaka,” Hux says casually, tucking his datapad into the pocket of his greatcoat. “The bridge is yours.”

Mitaka snaps into a salute, nods his head as Hux departs.

Hux is half-hard by the time he reaches the conference room, wondering if his knight has started already, if he’ll open the door to a mess of blood and guts and gore, if he’ll open the door just in time to hear Kylo scream, the sound crackling through the vocoder—or if he’ll open the door before things have even properly gotten going, and will then be able to watch the entire assassination, from start to finish.

Hux takes a deep breath outside the conference room to compose himself, and then walks in.

There is only Kylo Ren, standing in the middle of the room. Hulking in the middle of the room. The conference table has been pushed aside, and the chairs all shoved against the wall.

“Kylo,” Hux says coolly, and he busies himself by pulling his datapad out of his pocket, and dismissing a few notifications. “Will your knight be joining us?”

“Not so much,” Kylo says, and there’s a click and then an odd hissing sound. “It’s just you and me, General.”

Hux’s blood runs cold, because he recognizes that voice. He recognizes that voice, because how could he not recognize that voice, because—

“You,” Hux spits.

“Me,” Kylo Ren says, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips.

They’re the same fucking lips that Hux has been watching contort in pleasure as he’s fingered or sucked orgasms out of the knight, the knight Hux had been seducing specifically to assassinate Kylo Ren, the knight that Hux had thought was his—

“The whole time,” Kylo confirms. “It was me the whole time.”

“I’m leaving,” Hux says flatly. “This meeting never happened.”

“I think,” Kylo says, running his fingers down the sides of his surcoat, and then pulling the surcoat over his head and dropping it on the floor. “That you owe me a fuck, General.”

“I owe you no such thing,” Hux snaps.

Kylo is standing right next to him now—still taller than Hux, but less so now that the mask is off. He ducks his head next to Hux’s ear. “You’ll find,” Kylo breathes, “that I’m quite subdued at present.”

Hux is not overly surprised when he turns to leave and realizes that he can’t, that Ren has locked him into place with the force.

But with Kylo this close to him, with Kylo’s gloved hands hovering just above Hux’s waist and his hot breath in Hux’s ear, knowing exactly how Kylo pants when Hux touches him, how his voice gets breathy and uneven when Hux twists his fingers on Kylo’s cock the way Kylo likes, how Kylo’s hips jolt when he orgasms …

… Hux finds that he doesn’t mind all that terribly.

After all, subdued is subdued—and if Kylo’s not dead, at least Hux can make use of his cock on occasion.

.

[etymologv]

dear mother of penguins

genre: oneshot, almost drabble-like, fluff, slight angst (but really, mostly some schoolgirl fluff lol). Hamilton references.

pairing: highschool!kim taehyung x reader

word count: 2.3k+

summary: A series of interactions with Kim Taehyung, someone you never understood enough, and possibly never will.

(a/n): this was my first ever fic and short story that's not for a school requirement and I just really felt like writing this, edited a bit from the original version from my main blog. enjoy! :)

Taehyung. He has always intimidated you without even trying to. He was tall, or at least much taller than you were. He was popular for being and having basically everything everyone else seemed to look at—good looks, an angelic voice, brains, and good humor. Maybe a little too much humor though. But deep inside, you knew you loved it.

Decent. That was how you described, maybe rated him in eighth grade when your best friend of two years Irene asked you what you think about him, because everyone just liked him. You found that part odd though, because you’ve known him for two years and you have always thought that he was decent at best.

Math. It was a math project in the first semester of tenth grade that made you talk for the first time. You’ve had interactions before, but those interactions didn’t even reach the point of interacting enough for them to count as actual conversations. And for the first time, you thought, maybe he isn’t as intimidating as you had always viewed him.

“Ah, I’m lucky,” you hear him whisper as Mr. Jung announced the pairings for the project. He was even smiling. You almost blush.

At around nine in the evening, he contacts you in the form of a Facebook message, the first of your Messenger conversation.

Taehyung: Helloooo im starting w page 5 and working my way up, can u start w page 1??haha

And so you did. After finishing two pages, you read his messages on his progress and oh my goodness he has finished three pages and apologizing for doing almost nothing?! Though you didn’t mind. You were even amused.

Fresh linen. You noticed that that was how he smelled while you were checking each other’s work. Attractive, you thought to yourself.

Glances. You found yourself stealing glances only to see him already looking at you.

Fast forward, your English teacher announces that your project for the year is a stage play. And of course, everyone wanted Taehyung to be the male lead character.

He deserved it though, he had this soothing voice that could have this aggressively ambitious vibe to it if he wanted to. Perfect for Alexander Hamilton. You even thought he sounded a bit like Lin Manuel-Miranda.

You ended up having the role of his mistress. Who would sit on his lap grabbing his hair, his face buried to your shoulder. Now, let us tone that down before you experience problems in breathing and just talk about the part where you would cup each other’s left cheek. Your innocent high school heart gets on the verge of exploding just with the thought of your scenes.

After your first weekend practice for the stage play, you had snacks. And a whole pack of ice cubes for some reason.

After the war, I went back to New York, a-after the war I went back to New York-

Non-stop. That was the song that was playing when he ended up in front of you, cupping both cheeks instead of one. Neither of you said anything. Staring. There was just staring.

This is the first murder trial of our brand-new nation-

Your heart was thumping violently, pace increasing each discernable unit of time. You were scared, scared of how you looked, if you blushed. You were scared that however you reacted would give you away. You looked down and tried to play off the looking-down as something cute by swaying your head with his hands still on it. Left, right, left. He removed his hands. Neither of you said anything, and both of you just joined your classmates in the game they were playing using the ice cubes.

You felt something. You felt it. No matter how many times you tried to reason out what happened with it simply being part of practicing. Hell, the song where you were supposed to do that wasn’t even playing.

After some minutes, you ran to Jimin to give him a detailed report on the interaction. Sometimes you regret telling one of his closest friends about how you like Taehyung a lot, but Jimin was that kind of person who would smile at you and support you on your almost-nonexistent moves, as he puts it.

The next week, he laughed maybe a little too loudly at a joke you said.

I hid the letter and I raced to her place-

You ran to each other, his arms grabbing yours. You insist that you had nothing to do with your husband James Reynolds knowing about your affair. And then you whispered, “You know, this does look very similar to In Time. I’m basically draining the time you have left right now.” He let go of your arms and started laughing. Really loudly. While walking around and eventually banging his right fist against the wall for more laughing support. It was very Kim Taehyung to laugh at whatever whenever, but you couldn’t help but think this was maybe a little too much. Still, you liked it. A smile forms on your lips. His boxy smile, that signature Kim Taehyung smile, that was going to be the death of you.

Later that day, Jimin and Taehyung started paper mache-ing their way to making guns for props.

“Can you help Taehyung with the gun he’s working on? You can tear the newspapers for him. If you want.”

Ah, Jimin. If you looked closely, you would have seen how his eyebrows bounced up and down slightly. Breathe in, breathe out. With a careful small quick smile, you nodded.

You grabbed the lifestyle section and sat on President Washington’s chair. Or Alexander Hamilton’s. Depends on which song you look at. Can you even look at songs? What are you even saying? Breathe in, breathe out. He chose one of the chairs for Non-stop, which was very much beside yours.

And you were talking. After 15 minutes, you still were. At first, it was just about music taste and all that jazz (and sometimes you hate your humor for having puns even in your narrations), but the topics somehow got deeper. It felt amazing. He intrigued you, he seemed like someone that’s unreachable, in the sense that he wasn’t the type to go below the surface.

“Is Supreme close?” You were curious. He was part of Supreme, the dominating social group of the school, but part of you didn’t feel like the group was healthy for each other. Damn, a lot of people even thought their name itself wasn’t good for them. A couple, both sides members of Supreme too, suddenly went awkward because Supreme kept pushing them together. Jongdae, also a member, posted an unfunny meme of Taehyung’s picture even though Taehyung wasn’t laughing anymore. Maybe they just didn’t have the word limits in their vocabularies.

After some seconds, he replied, “I guess so, yeah, I mean we do hang out sometimes, eat lunch as a group, watch movies and shit like that.”

“I mean, close, like open to each other, like you’d share what you’re feeling, joke around but know each others’ limits, and ‘shit like that’?”

Taehyung looks up. “I guess I can’t say everyone’s comfortable with everyone. You see, we’re like a network of units of close friends. The girls have their own thing most of the time too.”

You’re reminded of how many times the thought that he keeps everything to himself without any form of release has crossed your mind. You just feel it when someone’s down. And whenever you feel that he is, nobody asks him if everything’s okay.

You find yourself wanting to be the one he opens up to.

You stand up and make your way to Jimin to refill your cup of glue solution. When you come back, Taehyung is sitting your chair, chuckling, “Thank you for the chair. You can go sit on my hand-me-down-much-less-comfortable one.”

And suddenly you were both laughing full on, both wondering why, but still laughing.

“Oh, and hey, let’s exchange numbers? For stage play matters?” He looks like he’s trying to hold back laughter, but you take his phone and enter your number anyway. He adds a contact to your phone as well.

The next weekend, he was late to the practice, but maybe it’s you who came early since aside from you, there were only five people.

To Taehyung

Heyheyhey where are you?

You text him. There was no reply.

“Have you realized anything yet?” was the first thing he said when he arrived.

“What is there to realize?”

“Well. Maybe I entered one less digit than I was supposed to in your contacts.”

Taehyung that little…  “Yah!” So that was why.

Taehyung with his hair down, parted in the middle. That would make you melt faster than the sun can.

The day before the stage play, he had his hair down, parted in the middle. And dear mother of penguins he looked amazing. Breathe in, breathe out. Do not fangirl in front of him. “You look nice with your hair down,” you manage to tell him without melting because you would like to reiterate—dear mother of penguins he looked amazing.

But dear grandmother of penguins, he styled his hair like that for the whole week.

Summer. It was one summer three am when he messaged you with only your name in it. You replied as soon as you woke up, which was eight hours later.

You: Hi, sorry for replying late, what’s up?

Taehyung: Ah, nothing, I’m sorry

Taehyung: Again im sorry

You: What for? everything ok??

Taehyung: Nothing, sorry again

The next day, you message him.

You: Henlo

Taehyung: I heard that greeting was for stinky people?? Stop greeting yourself HAHAHA

You: YAH!!!

You: >:<<<<<

Taehyung: Anyways

Taehyung: Yesterday when I chatted you

Taehyung: I said it was nothing because I was drinking with Yoongi at that time haha

A beat. Your heart just skipped a beat.

Nana. In the middle of the first semester of twelfth grade, you noticed that he’s been with Nana a lot recently. Nana getting into his car with him. Nana spending lunch with him. You’d try to avoid selfish thoughts, but you can’t help but notice how you’ve been talking much less. And not so long after it was confirmed. You were beginning to sound like a thirteen year old whose crush won’t like her back at this point, But she was everything you weren’t. Fair skin, bright eyes, long legs. She screamed the societal standards of beautiful.

But you can’t forget how she broke Jimin’s heart, and how Taehyung’s could be broken too.

Watch. That was all you could do. Watch and see what happens. You’d accept it if they’re happy. Though that would hurt you, you would somehow accept it and learn to be happy for them as well. If he gets hurt, then you’d be there, and when he heals, you’d still be there. You would cry with him and recommend both sad and uplifting songs and crack the corniest of the jokes with him. You were still young, and it wasn’t sure if your feelings for Taehyung would fade or not. But you would watch. You would be open to other possibilities, because whatever happens, happens.

Twelve years after. It was twelve years after you graduated from high school that you first saw him in person again. You entered different universities, and just… lost touch. The last time you heard from him was when he messaged you saying that he was going to delete his Facebook account because his parents told him to, but he didn’t mention his new number.

You were absent-mindedly munching down popcorn when Jimin called your name. He was at the food counter, arguing with the staff because he was pissed that they were out of cheese powder, and put barbecue flavor powder instead on your shared extra-large bucket, without telling either of you about it. He was extra mad, because he planned everything for the string of activities for your honeymoon. You both wanted cheese, you both loved cheese and knew it, but you didn’t mind barbecue. Except he did, because it was an extra-large bucket that is not cheese. He was so mad to the point that he wanted to talk to the manager, but the manager was on leave, and the owner of the movie house was there instead.

You stood up, walked to the counter, and instantly froze when you saw the reason Jimin called you. There he was, Kim Taehyung, hugging Park Jimin. He was the owner, and you have no idea why you haven’t seen each other when this movie house was where half your dates with Jimin took place. Seven years of frequenting the place and not noticing at all? Was this the first leave of the manager in seven years? Didn’t other customers with worse tempers have complaints?

“Hi,” was all you could say.

“Hi, it’s been so long. How are you?”

You run to them and join the hug, and after pulling away, you say, “As much as I would like to talk to you right now and catch up, the movie we’ve been planning on watching since the trailer came out is starting in fifteen minutes and I’m sorry.”

“Coffee? The three of us? After the movie?” He offers.

After the movie, you catch up. He tells you that his parents gave him this movie house as a gift when he finished college. And that he took a business management course. And that he and Nana broke up after five years of going on and off. You tell him that after seven years of being with Jimin, you got married about a month ago. Your husband adds that this movie date was part of your honeymoon which you’re not supposed to know how long it’s going to be because he’s got it all planned as a surprise, and that he’s still upset about the popcorn flavor, but of course he’s joking and Taehyung knows that. What he didn’t tell you was that he has seen you and Jimin several times, but he didn’t want to show himself. Watch. That was all he could do. He knew that he was special to you, but he also knew that Jimin was much more than that. You looked much happier, you were much happier. He figured that showing himself might confuse you, and he didn’t want to risk that. He believed that you and Jimin were strong, but he still wanted to wait for the right time. Though the right time never seemed to come.

And there he was, watching you two leave the café, smiling at how being in a fight with the cheese powder supplier gave him peace.

[crystal-grumps]

Not a lot went up during Angst Week.

Yeah… not many people submitted things for us to post. I (Mod Penguin) was writing something to post but I ended up getting stuck on it and that week got kinda rough for me so I scrapped it… I kinda blame some poor planning as well. I thought it might be cool to line up an angst week with my Birthday (since Angst is my specialty) but I failed to realize that most people would be starting school that week an likely unable to participate… Again, I take full blame for that.

Almost 90% of our content is user submitted… so if we hit a lull there isn’t too much we can do. We try to dig up old submissions on the occasion but a lot of them are from before we were mods and it’s kinda hard to remember the context. We might do a full Inbox clean-out to make room for newer submissions and salvage what we can.

We’ve had a bit of a content lull in general… Personally, I blame the extreme hiatuses and general lack of news for regarding new SU episodes on CN’s part. Granted, the Hiatus will always be a part of the entertainment industry, and CN is always 3rd behind Nick and Disney. But in terms of keeping the SU flame alive: most we’ve had are a few podcasts with the cast/crew on ITunes and the occasional teaser or Meme from their social media plugs. 

Another part is in due to Controversies with certain youtubers… Pe//wDie//Pi/e and J/on//Tro//n in the last year were under heavy fire because of outright racist and anti-Semitic statements. We didn’t make any real statements on them because the truth was we didn’t know exactly what to do. We weren’t sure if we could remove them because these two in particular took the rolls of two characters who’s equivalents are very important in SU. And if we did remove them we’d have to shift things around and find other youtubers to replace them as well. And if THOSE guys did something bad it’d be phase-1 all over again. (Which is the main issue we get with these sorts of things and the problem we have to face with having an AU based around real-life people).

We also had the issue of past content created for these characters, which personally I don’t think we’ll remove them (AND WE HAVE NO PLANS TO) because it’d be censoring the blog’s history and hey, history has it’s faults… It’d be worse to erase the bad parts and pretend they never happened than to acknowledge that they were a part of the story and learn from them.

Though, I think I speak for us when I say that we should have definitely been better at addressing the things that happened than to wait for them to blow over, and on behalf of all the mods: We apologize. We do not stand with anything these two have done or said. We’re just in a bit of a bind trying to figure out what exactly to do. This is also why we’ve more hesitant about asks regarding adding certain youtubers/groups (A big one being the O//n/ey-Plays group, who… aren’t really the best in regards to LGBT or Racial problems and we aren’t too keen on adding them in when they have that already under their belt… We didn’t really have much of a choice with Matt/Ryan but they’ve seemed to have mellowed out since joining Grumps so maybe those two have seen the error of their ways… but we can’t say the same for On//e/y and his friends)

TL,DR: We have some management things we need to address/adjust/fix… We plan to do so once we figure something out.

(I also want to say, if you have any issue with the things said, take it up with me personally... I’d be happy to hear your input, and also would request that no backlash to come to any other mods but myself. The majority of this post is my actions, my opinions, and If i anger or upset someone: It’s my responsibility to address/listen to it. My main blog is @penguinpatrolerarmy. Message me there.)

-Mod Penguin

The text under the cut contains things regarding Hiatus and the state of television… If you are interested in reading about it. I figured i’d include these things as they do somewhat affect the blog:

To continue: The news of Adventure Time’s final season going to be dumped on Hulu makes me think the same is going to happen with Steven Universe. The main reason the network doesn’t air their episodes as often as TTG is because their longer overarching plot lines makes it harder for new fans to jump into it. Same thing happened with the Attack On Titan fandom, A large majority who only watched the anime and couldn’t access or didn’t want to read the manga moved on in what ended up being a 4 ½ YEAR hiatus… TV animation, especially story driven and action based shows that cost more to produce, isn’t as financially successful on cable today.

DVDs/Blu-rays are dying out to the digital market, so putting out every episode online where viewers can pay to watch them at anytime and at their own pace is the better for the company’s finances. That’s why Voltron: LD does so well and is booming in popularity… more people have Netflix today than they do Cable. Plus, fans who just outright purchase a show only have to worry about regular 6-month to 1 Year hiatuses before getting an entire season dumped out in a day… Sometimes even Less than that.

I apologize for rambling, but I wanted to get things stated while it was fresh in my mind. 

[megamikethomson]

Can youtube famous person logan paul locate redemption in boxing?

"i'm an athlete, i'm humorous, i'm innovative, i can inform a story, i'm likable. I'm able to sing, i can act," logan paul says. "i do not know if there may be someone at the net who can fulfill the matters i simply said. Most crucial, i paintings tough as f---."

nov 6, 2019

. Editor's note: this tale carries mature content. On a september morning in l. A., one of the internet's most famous entertainers isn't within the temper to entertain. He is no longer right here for the jokes and antics that have described his youtube career, logan paul says into a digital camera, his blond hair cut brief, his hands every decorated with a silver ring. This 12 months, he insists, he is a boxer first. However when he walks onto the stage near staples center, shades on, biceps peeking out from the sleeves of his flamboyant silk blouse, it speedy turns into clear what form of mood paul is in. Minutes into the introduction, he starts offevolved flicking a cup of ice water at his opponent, british youtuber olajide "ksi" olatunji, prompting safety to get between them. When it's his flip to talk, paul grabs the mic from the podium, stalks the level with a hungry energy and rattles off a chain of insults. "you look a bit thick, and you scent like herpes" is one of the greater memorable ones. He works the gang, getting people to chant in full, youthful voice, anything from "americaa" to ksi "has no d---." ksi retorts, "go ask your mum. Your mum's proper there. Hey, how's my d---?" paul is going over to his mother, pam stepnick, whose youtube channel "vlogmom" has 793,000 subscribers, and asks if ksi does in reality have one. "no!" she publicizes optimistically. 2 associated

it feels like a scene out of a drunken frat celebration, simplest hosted with the aid of sober adults who make a residing from supplying amusement for the few hundred kids there (and hundreds of thousands greater on line). The youngest stand on a planter to look. The oldest appear to be they are in college. There's a strong ksi contingent, but most of them are logan paul lovers. "i like the way he respects his enthusiasts."

these children are the purpose logan paul and ksi are here nowadays, why those two net stars with little boxing enjoy and 20 million youtube subscribers every had been sanctioned via the california nation athletic commission to degree a expert fight at staples middle on nov. 9. Due to the fact once they orchestrated their own newbie fight ultimate yr, so lots of those youngsters tuned in that the adults could not assist but determine out the way to coins in. They could have needed to google their names, however they understood what logan paul and ksi could do for them. As mainstream amusement yearns to attain young human beings at the net and net stars yearn to move mainstream, logan paul and ksi -- and their mixed forty million fans -- might be boxing's best suit. To be clean, neither of those men is a expert boxer, and how they fell into boxing is one of the high-quality flukes of the internet. Ksi, the 26-year-vintage son of nigerian immigrants to the u. K., began his career posting motion pictures of his exploits on fifa. One among paul's earliest videos confirmed him prank-calling a restaurant below the name "mike buttski." neither of them had ever boxed until 2018. But they both have viewership numbers that mainstream leisure stores dream of, and their fight remaining year dwarfed most professional bouts in pay-in keeping with-view buys. An 18-yr-antique ksi fan says he used to love paul however feels the 24-12 months-old "crossed a line with the japanese forest thing." that "jap wooded area issue" become the primary time many human beings outdoor the youtube era had heard of logan paul. In december 2017, paul and his buddies took a trip to the aokigahara woodland outdoor tokyo, referred to as a not unusual suicide web page, and filmed a video providing a person putting from a tree. In it, paul, sporting a fuzzy "toy tale" alien hat, says, deadpan to the digital camera, "what, you in no way stand subsequent to a dead guy?" the incident become the most debatable of paul's debatable career. The net declared him canceled, and he lost enthusiasts, sponsorships and a moneymaking partnership with google. For a second, it appeared as though logan paul's profession might be over, that this one stunt too a ways could turn his lovers, not to say commercial partners, towards him for suitable. Jake paul, left, who has 19. 7 million youtube subscribers -- and a bunch of controversies -- of his own, is education with his brother for a ability combat later this year. Chris mcpherson for espn

paul does not keep away from speakme approximately tokyo. In truth, he brings it up frequently, as though he is familiar with that the only manner to triumph over his mistake is to face it head-on. He credit it for bringing him to boxing. , "a 2nd chance." but as paul humps the air onstage, it looks like simply one of those matters he says that does not pretty maintain up. The element about logan paul is that if you wait long enough -- or now not very long at all -- he's going to contradict himself. How does punching every other man within the face in the front of thousands and thousands of humans redeem him? Or even if boxing does equal redemption, what does redemption suggest to logan paul? Paul's six-bedroom, $6. 6 million mansion sits deep inside the hills in l. A. It is listed on google maps as maverick establishments, paul's logo, however the compound is ringed by tall wooden spikes, defenses to maintain lovers and trolls out. Within the front door lies a frame pillow adorned with paul's blue-hoodied picture, one of the many props that litter the area. The logan paul of these days is calmer than the rabble-rouser of the day prior to this. He has traded his silk blouse for black exercise clothes, takes lengthy pauses earlier than answering questions and selections on the pores and skin on his legs and arms whilst speakme. Lying outstretched on an good sized tan beanbag in his recording studio, he rails approximately how underwhelmed he was by way of the information convention. He feels he wasn't his great self -- and blames it on ksi. "i idea he would supply me greater to paintings with," he says. "when you consider that he did not, i finished up going to a place of the vintage logan paul that i'm not sure i loved. Just a man that yells and screams and says mean matters."    BOXING DAY

paul regularly talks approximately the antique logan and the brand new, as if his lifestyles can be split into earlier than tokyo and after tokyo. "before, i'd say or do whatever. I would do whatever the f--- i wanted. That was the brand. F--- absolutely everyone, i got this," he says. "whilst tokyo happened, it become like a slap within the face."

long before tokyo, earlier than his meteoric rise and his cancellation, paul changed into a 10-year-antique in ohio with a digital camera, a brother and an concept. He'd heard of a new internet site wherein absolutely everyone could submit some thing, so he and his younger brother, jake, commenced making stunt videos and comedy skits inspired via "jackass." they cherished it, and a few human beings on-line appeared to love it too. The brothers gathered approximately four,000 youtube followers over 8 years, paul remembers. Now not bad for two children from a suburb of cleveland, but they wanted greater. Two-time heavyweight champion shannon briggs is assisting paul hone his left hook and increase his endurance with the aid of setting him via the paces inside and out of the ring. Chris mcpherson for espn

then got here vine. The brothers' emblem of bro-y bodily comedy and hyper-masculine meme humor took off on the fast-lived platform of looping six-second motion pictures, and the money started coming in. Paul started out doing ad campaigns and backed content with main businesses consisting of pepsico and dunkin' donuts. He asked his dad, greg, how plenty money he had in his own bank account, and whilst the answer changed into less than the nineteen-yr-antique had, logan realized he might be a web star full time,

"i'm a maverick. I am in contrast to some other author at the net," he says when asked what makes his channel so special. "i'm an athlete, i am funny, i am innovative, i will inform a story, i'm likable. I can sing, i will act, my bodily comedy is on factor. I can do the splits. I don't know if there is a person at the internet who can fulfill the matters i simply stated. Maximum essential, i work difficult as f---."

the maximum he has made off youtube in a year is somewhere between $6 million and $7 million, which he says is not plenty, at least now not compared together with his clothing line, maverick by means of logan paul. He can't imagine a universe in which he would no longer be a web author, but if social media had no longer been created, he thinks he would be "inventing merchandise that might revolutionize human era." as a substitute, he is revolutionizing the net, and he talks approximately his profession as though he can already see his call glowing within the record books. "i do not know if i've visible a upward thrust as large as mine, or a fall as large as mine, in internet history," he says. "from any author. And i do not know if it will ever take place once more."

as paul talks, people are available in and out of the room casually, one guy carrying only a towel. No one can confirm how many human beings truely live within the house, even though paul's complete-time chef says she constantly has food geared up for 10 to 20. The vibe is sort of a college dorm, wherein all the residents are employed inside the business of logan paul. In fall 2016, paul lower back to youtube from vine and began day by day vlogging. For nearly 500 consecutive days, he lived approximately eighty% of his life publicly on video. A few days the content created itself, like when he drove an electric blue bus to appear on "jimmy kimmel," wherein he informed a story about losing 15% of a testicle due to a stunt. Other days he had to create something -- whatever! -- to preserve visitors hooked. "so you provide you with the maximum random, outrageous s--- you may, damage a few plates, call it a day," he remembers. His subscriber matter soared. Forbes estimated his 2017 income to be $12. Five million, making him the fourth-highest-paid youtube star that year. Dwayne "the rock" johnson partnered with him for an internet collection to sell "baywatch." he and jake "became a staple of a generation," logan says,  youngsters who showed different youngsters that ordinary existence may be more than college and homework and chores. "we simply made some thing we wanted come real." paul felt invincible. "i was becoming one of these skewed person because of the internet and the type of content material i was making, and it being advocated every day time and again again by 7 million human beings looking my day by day vlogs," he says. It truly is how he got to tokyo, pushed to insanity through the set of rules that made him a star. After tokyo, as he study article after tweet after article about what he had done wrong, paul stopped day by day vlogging and took a month off -- the maximum time he has ever spent faraway from the internet -- and it gave him tension. Making movies was such an ingrained a part of his identity and his existence. He failed to recognise what to do with himself. And so boxing stored him. Ksi's project gave him an out while he was at his lowest, a place to direct his power that wasn't the net. "boxing allowed me to respire for a 2d, to awareness on personal, bodily, intellectual growth," he says. "human boom, no longer subscriber increase." he says he changed, evolving like a pokemon (his analogy) to emerge as a higher man or woman. This time, paul and ksi will compete with out headgear as experts in a cruiserweight bout sanctioned through the california nation athletic fee. Chris mcpherson for espn

it's a pleasant narrative, one that lets in paul to forged himself as but some other sufferer of the net. It is such a nice narrative that paul has released a documentary about his submit-tokyo rehabilitation that he tweeted could be "timeless & our proudest piece of work."

but he would not appear all that one of a kind. At the least the fellow making d--- jokes onstage the day earlier than does not appear distinctive. It's never honestly clean when he's speaking if he's being critical or if he is trolling. One minute he's talking candidly approximately how lots he loves interest, the following he's bragging that he may be the largest prizefighter inside the global. "allow's be honest, it is just appearing," paul says. "i can be that guy, for certain. Or i can be this guy. Or i can be the man in training camp who doesn't communicate and is locked in. I can morph relying on what the occasion is."

he won't be vlogging each day anymore, but paul never stops mythologizing and remythologizing his own tale on his channel. He calls himself a storyteller, and his most important problem is himself. From a distance, the group of younger guys in black raincoats appears menacing. However drawing close the vintage theater in east london on a rainy october evening, it becomes apparent that a few are in faculty uniforms. Others convey their backpacks, which might be thoroughly searched for viable projectiles and guns. This second information conference have been introduced less than a week before -- a remaining-minute addition because of famous call for -- and round four,000 kids display as much as fill the theater. It's hard to pinpoint how this spectacle started, on account that youtubers are continuously rewriting their narratives, spawning a subgroup of youtubers who dissect and explain those narratives with their personal memes and thrives. According to ksi, it began with joe weller, a british youtuber with approximately 5 million subscribers, who challenged ksi to a boxing fit to settle a red meat. (the subgroup of youtubers disputes whether the beef changed into true and whether the combat turned into arranged.)

"boxing allowed me to breathe for a second, to consciousness on personal, physical, intellectual boom," logan paul says. "human boom, now not subscriber growth." chris mcpherson for espn    boxing day

authentic or now not, ksi and weller did field, in february 2018, which ksi received by using technical knockout. In the ring afterward, he challenged logan paul. (ksi talks up his hatred for paul, but he said he selected paul because it turned into "a smart way" to faucet into the yankee target audience.) paul commonplace, and in august 2018, they went six rounds at a packed manchester area. The first-class of boxing become low, the undercard laughable, however the fight bought almost 1,000,000 pay-in keeping with-view buys on youtube at $10 a pop. All the ones eyeballs -- younger, rate-paying eyeballs! -- were too much to ignore. Eddie hearn, the clean-speakme englishman who promotes bona fide boxing stars like anthony joshua, says he laughed while he heard about the first combat, which led to a majority draw. "'these men are going to appear to be idiots,' i said," he recalls. "a week later, they bought out manchester area. They did one million pay-in line with-view buys. From there you start knowledge how young people are digesting content and knowledge that our recreation is an growing old game. We need to carry a younger fan base into the game."

hearn agreed to level a rematch, this time and not using a headguards, smaller gloves and professional opponents at the undercard. It is the best components, if it really works, and will usher in a new commercial enterprise version. Boxing lovers will nevertheless music in, joined through those thousands and thousands of young, price-paying youtube lovers whom hearn can then convert into long-time period customers. "part , show them what we love approximately boxing and we are hoping you revel in it too." hearn has been inundated with requests from youtubers and mainstream celebrities alike to be on the undercard or to degree fights in their personal. Jake paul, who has 19. 7 million youtube subscribers of his own, is schooling along with his brother for a ability combat later this year. A few of the kids within the london theater say the beef between ksi and logan paul isn't always actual. "they're simply doing it for the money and interest," one teen says. However nobody wants to miss the hype. They might hate paul, however they recognise the whole thing approximately him. A stunning variety of human beings within the crowd are boxing fanatics, complete of admiration for anthony joshua and tyson fury. But they nonetheless can not wait to peer this fight, even supposing the level is an awful lot lower. "it's beginner, yeah, but since  the people, it's extra interesting," says an 18-yr-old who has been looking ksi on youtube for four years. Another 18-year-antique with glasses and zits says he has lately started posting videos of himself gambling fifa on youtube, hoping to follow in ksi's footsteps. He shrugs away the controversies of ksi's profession, including accusations of sexual harassment in 2012. "he's my concept," he says. "he started from being a everyday man or woman to being well-known."

within the first ksi-paul exhibition in august 2018 on the sold-out manchester area in manchester, england -- ksi's home usa -- they fought to a majority draw, 57-57 on two scorecards, with the 1/3 choose scoring it fifty eight-57 for ksi. Tom jacobs/reuters/newscom

as soon because the display starts offevolved, the lovers set free a roar. Status in the orchestra pit among them and the degree, it is impossible to listen whatever over their "f--- you, logan" chants. (paul later said he may want to barely listen both.) people begin ducking, and some gadgets land on the degree: wadded napkins, coins, a vaseline bottle. Some thing lands next to me with a thud, bouncing off a youtuber nearby. The volume has a acquainted cover: "a doll's residence," via henrik ibsen, weaponized.

"come right here."

for a minute, i'm no longer positive which folks shannon briggs, the 2-time heavyweight champion education logan paul, is speakme to on this sunny october morning. However then i understand he is watching me. I leap forward gingerly, and briggs makes me maintain directly to the heavy bag so i can see how sturdy paul has come to be. "deliver me 5 tough punches!" he orders paul.

"he is a specimen! He's constructed like a soldier!" briggs declares proudly as the heavy bag rattles in my arms. I can't disagree. Interior paul's private health club, the partitions are a window into his mind. Directly above is an american flag mural; to the left is a listing, painted to appear to be handwriting at the lined paper that children use in college, with I may be the nice. I may be a champion." pondered within the mirror are  more mantras: "dent the universe" and "unharness the beast."

paul, shirtless and sweaty, would not well known briggs or me during our alternate. He rarely speaks in any respect in the course of the exercise, even though he listens carefully to the schooling personnel. He seems exhausted however centered, his face with out the same old cheeky grin and meme-in a position expressions. He and jake commenced the day with 20 minutes of jump-roping and a drill in which they practiced punching with 3-pound weights. "drills pay the payments!" briggs yells. Paul has always been athletic -- he played football and wrestled in excessive college -- however that is the hardest he is ever educated. Having tired early in the first fight, he desires to increase his staying power. The underneath-the-belt animosity among ksi and logan paul might be synthetic -- but their appeal to boxing promoters eager to lure a younger fan base into the game isn't always. Smxrf/superstar max/gc pictures/getty snap shots

promoting the fight is the easy element. Paul has been telling journalists that he's going to knock out ksi inside the first spherical and that he desires to fight conor mcgregor inside the ufc next. But here in the health club, it will become clean he's taking this critically. He is familiar with that whoever falls on nov. Nine might not simply lose one combat; the humiliation will stay at the internet for all time, the memes and gifs haunting him in every comment segment and twitter feed. In the direction of the cease of the exercise, briggs turns off the track. "ain't no track in the ring!" he appears pleased with paul's left hook. "if you just do that, bro, this s---'s over." he tells paul to prevent, to rest and get well for sparring tomorrow. "while you get it proper, you gotta permit it pass."

as paul walks slowly in the direction of the principle house, his interest returns to the logan paul empire. One man is hosing down tie-dyed hoodies inside the backyard for the logan paul merchandise line. Paul asks personnel members if they've uploaded the modern-day episode of his podcast, "impaulsive," and listens to the hole more than one times over lunch, checking for some thing in the first few traces of his audio: "educate shannon briggs found out that remaining night time i blew my batch, i threw away my valuable seed ..." paul is probably targeted on boxing, however the content material gadget doesn't prevent. Carved into the wall out of doors logan paul's health club is a giant buddha. He doesn't need to be photographed with it, although, lest the buddhists come after him on-line. "we have needed to keep away from it earlier than," he explains to us. A photographer then shows that paul wear his gray fur coat. (he's depicted sporting it, and a crown, while driving his pet parrot, maverick, in a mural in his residence.) his publicist hesitates, then asks us to make clear that it is faux fur. Simply this week, paul has been within the headlines for the subsequent: making light of london's knife disaster before his trip there; pronouncing that ksi became "on his fifth abortion. It really is five toddlers dead"; and claiming he already has mind harm from boxing. He seems willing to mention just about some thing to promote the combat, so it is surprising to analyze that he does carefully manipulate his photo. However to a man whose task is to draw attention, it's all a question of threat versus reward. "if i am being sincere, whenever i say or do something questionable, i recognise what i'm doing," he says later.

"the character of logan paul is simply an amplified model of logan. It is nevertheless me," he says. "i have all of it in me. I'm no longer faking any of it." chris mcpherson for espn

in among photo setups (with faux fur coat, with out buddha), paul settles returned into the large beanbags in his studio and starts speaking again about how tokyo was a turning point and the way he "used boxing to break out the hollow i used to be in." he corrects himself: "that i placed myself in" -- as though he can pay attention a self-help guru telling him to accept duty for his movements. He's not the person chasing clicks and money. The antique logan, he says, didn't take criticism nicely. The antique logan would have broken a ksi fan's smartphone at the l. A. News conference due to the fact the kid got in his face. The antique logan would had been indignant by way of his videographer, who recommended going into the second information convention that he act less like a baby. The trash-talking and the debate don't seem to healthy into this photo of a new guy, but paul would not see the contradiction. "you noticed the practice these days. I am taking this game fantastically severe, so i am going to do everything in my electricity to break him down," he says. "at the clicking conferences, i am going to say the whole thing i will to f--- him up. Right now i want to f---ing murder this youngster. That is still an actual version of me. I am now not doing that for views."

he insists that he is genuinely not pushed by using clicks anymore, that he most effective wants to make content material that resonates with him. He plans to release a track album after the fight and jokes approximately having a child (but without a spouse). "own family channel coming quickly!" he says with a laugh. But all of what we see onstage and on-display screen is authentically him. "the individual of logan paul is simply an amplified model of logan. It's nevertheless me. I have it all in me. I am now not faking any of it."

and how would he describe himself? "i do not know," he says. "only a dude disguised as a dude playing every other dude."

if he knocks ksi out in a bout that generates blockbuster viewership numbers, will people forestall talking approximately logan paul as "that guy who did that element in tokyo" and begin speakme about him as "the man who had that extremely good fight"? Chris mcpherson for espn

Then he says he's now not concerned approximately redemption. "i desired to prove to logan that i could redeem myself, forgive myself, stand tall with my chest out and move on. And i did that. I am now not so involved approximately what the public thinks of me, or what they suppose the future of logan paul seems like."

the logan paul narrative has shifted once more. He's not selling a redemption tale however the tale of a a hit transition from youtube to seasoned boxing. If the boxing in shape is the success he needs it to be, if it generates the blockbuster viewership numbers hearn and dazn are betting on, if he knocks ksi out as he plans, then maybe we will forestall speaking about him as "that guy who did that factor in tokyo" and begin speaking about him as "the man who had that tremendous combat." what paul is familiar with, what makes him the appropriate celebrity of our age of brief attention spans and information fatigue, is that so long as he continues transferring, continues talking, keeps locating the next factor, humans will preserve watching. His sins can be forgotten, if no longer forgiven, simply some other entry in a protracted listing of stunts. He's handiest as canceled as his latest headline. That's what he is learned from all of the controversy, the largest revelation earlier than and after tokyo. "if you don't give up, no one can forestall you," he says. "you understand how many times i have been canceled?"