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jamaiskookie · 4 years

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i would like more soundcloud rapper yoongi x idol y/n please it’s so cute

v-live alert! -myg

pairing: idol! y/n x soundcloud rapper! yoongi

wc; 2.9k

a/n: lots of you asked, and so you shall receive. ps, i wrote this really rushed but i kinda love it. lmk what you think, love you guys <3

[V LIVE] Surprise LIVE!

the v-live notification. or, more accurately, the sound of war. alternatively, you dance around your studio on a livestream and yoongi has a mental breakdown.

masterlist PREV

“i miss you too!“ you say, replying to one of the first comments that pop up on the live.

you probably should’ve showered before going live... and you probably should’ve changed out of sweats.

whatever.

it’s not like your fans haven’t seen this before.

half of your pre-debut pictures are just downright disgusting.

the number of viewers on the top of your phone begins to climb up to the thousands, increasing every half a second.

it always amazes you how many people show up to your lives. sometimes you wonder if your fans genuinely have nothing better to do. how do they always show up so fast?

the comments begin to flood with greetings and exclamations of ‘oh my god i’m so early!11!1’ and the multicoloured heart pop up on your screen, building up an impressive stream of likes.

“where am i?“ you read through the comments and look around, as if you forgot where you were. “in the studio.“ you grin when the comments flood with questions asking if dreamcloud is getting new music.

you can’t answer, of course, but it’s fun to see. you squint at your phone, which is propped on an elaborate setup that you spent the past twenty minutes preparing.

(three books on one eyeshadow palette and a selfie stick gingerly placed on a small stool)

((you pray to every deity out there that it won’t fall))

“i was just bored,“ you shrug, speaking to the screen. “so i decided to come on here and talk to you guys. how have you been?“ you ask.

hundreds of comments answer.

“i’m alright“

“i’m good!“

most of them contain some form of sappy declaration like ‘my day is much better now that you’re here!’ it makes you smile. how cute.

the v-live notification.

or, more accurately, the sound of war.

that cursed, terrible ding! haunts yoongi’s darkest and most terrifying nightmares. the sheer amount of panic that rushes through his veins when he hears that godforsaken noise, god.

the number of lives he’s missed- yoongi can’t even bear to think about it.

so maybe it was a blessing in disguise that yoongi put his phone on do not disturb so he didn’t have to hear that disgusting sound. instead, he found out the news via a gorilla’s screech.

“Y/N’S LIVE RIGHT NOW STARTED FOURTY SECONDS AGO HURRY UP YOONGI GET YOUR ASS UP AND STOP STUDYI-“ jimin yells from his room down the hall.

yoongi almost falls out of his chair scrambling to get to his phone. it’s not like he was really studying anyways- more like using his pencils to tap out a cool-sounding beat on his desk out of boredom.

watching your live > passing his music theory class.

priorities.

with shaky hands, he grabs at his phone, slumping onto the floor and he sees the familiar blue icon with the notification popped up on the screen.

[V LIVE] Surprise LIVE! Y/N: let’s chat <3

an unnatural squeak that slightly resembles the sound a mouse slips out of yoongi’s mouth.

even when he was a baby starrie and was glued to his phone at all times, he’s never been this early to a live. he unlocks his phone, cursing his momentary clumsiness. he clicks into the live, smiling when your beaming face blasts up on his screen.

you haven’t gone live in so long- it’s nice to see your face again.

“- how have you been?“

“good.“ yoongi types out in the comment box, mumbling the words as he’s typing. “way better now that you’re live.“ sometimes yoongi cringes at himself when he types these things. i mean, who could possibly guess that min yoongi, resident scary-emo-couldslapyouintheface bad boy socially un-responsible simped over a k-pop idol?

he can already see his reputation go down the drain.

he also wonders what it says about himself that he’s a 20-something college student who’s life practically revolves around you, an idol who’s just about a year younger than him.

but dreamcloud is a part of his identity now. he identifies as a starrie no matter what. you know how the old saying goes-

once you stan, you can’t unstan. or something like that, he’s honestly not sure.

you tuck your head onto your hand, diligently trying to keep up with all the comment. with a gasp, you nod at something. “oh, you’re right, user yoonalova98!” - that’s another thing special about you. whenever you read out comments, you also read out the username of whoever wrote it.

you explained in one interview- that it’s cooler to give credit and talk to your fans as if you’re just chatting as friend. saying the username feels like you’re saying their names.

what kind of lucky fan would get their comment read aloud by Y/N?

ugh.

yoongi blinks when he remembers that technically, he’s sort of part of this group of elite, recognised fans.

his twitter stan account got almost five thousand more followers after Y/N replied to his selca. the post itself has tons and tons of likes and retweets.

insane, that Y/N- Y/N herself- knows of his existence. Y/N- the love of his life, has seen his FACE. she commented three HEART emojis below a selfie that he took.

if he thinks about it too much, he’ll start feeling faint again.

“our anniversary is coming up soon! i can’t believe it’s been three years already. time does pass by when you’re having fun.“ you say. yoongi thinks that it’s rather ironic that you would forget your anniversary, when yoongi’s had a calendar countdown to January 14th since the beginning of september.

“ahh,“ you say, leaning in closer to the screen. “from user lialiarach, ‘did you watch jisoo unnie’s acting debut’ - i did! we all watched it and cheered her on during the premiere!“

jisoo’s new drama is good. it’s a fantasy-horror blend, and he, jimin, namjoon and jin finished all 16 episodes in two days when streaming hit Netflix.

your head tilts and you smile. “song recommendations?” you wonder aloud, and yoongi scrambles to get a pen and notepad out. you don’t do ‘y/n’s listening parties’ as much anymore, but your taste in music is impeccable and he collects all the songs in a playlist.

it’s called ‘wedding tunes’ (jimin named it, not him, yoongi swears)

everytime he tries to change it back, it somehow switches back to wedding tunes the next day.

it’s disturbing how good jimin is at this kind of stuff. hopefully yoongi won’t have to bail him out of jail one day.

“okay!“ you say, pulling your laptop open. you hum as you scroll through some page that yoongi can’t see- and he anxiously waits for the first song to be played with twitchy hands and a strong grip on his pen.

the first bar plays out and yoongi’s already in love.

“this is,“ you say over the music, double checking just to make sure. “don’t need your love by NCT...“ you squint. god knows there are too many NCT members. “dream! NCT dream featuring HRVY.“

“NCT dream...“ yoongi mumbles to himself, writing the song down on the notepad.

“you know,“ you say over the music, spinning in your chair and nodding to the beat. “i’ve only met the NCT guys a couple times at music shows and such but they’re all so nice. i can’t remember all their names, but i’m decently familiar with their faces. how do they even have 23 members? how does it all work??“

you dance around the studio, singing along nonsensical lyrics that don’t make sense but sort of fit the rhythm of the song (??)

“don’t need your loo-ooove-!!! dum dum duhhhh duhros noya!!!” yoongi stifles a laugh. there’s a reason why you constantly forget lyrics on stage.

which is quite ironic, actually, because half the time you’re forgetting the lyrics to a song you wrote yourself.

afterwards, you play all the hidden gems- and yoongi’s proud to say he’s familiar with quite a few of them.

airplane by j-hope (a youtube star turned successful rapper-vocalist-dancer)

sweet night by v (the internet’s resident eye-candy)

and then you continue to scroll through your laptop, biting your lip and murmuring quietly to yourself. you glance once back at your phone screen.

okay, listen.

yoongi knows that he’s delusional, okay?

but everytime you look straight in the screen it’s almost like you’re looking directly at the camera it’s almost like you’re staring into his soul. which makes zero sense, but it still makes his heart skip a beat.

let him dream, please

“what am i scrolling through?“ you say, reciting a question from the chat. “soundcloud, user chachachae.“

soundcloud?

oh.

that’s pretty cool.

he didn’t know you had a soundcloud account!

you usually post all your covers and random shorts to instagram or another one of your personal blogs.

for a moment, yoongi indulges himself by wondering if you’d ever listened to his music. his soundcloud account is linked in his twitter bio, after all...

but he shakes those thoughts away as fast as they came. he doesn’t need to entertain himself with such silly thoughts.

“ooh, this one’s good!“ you say, clicking onto something.

still with you by JAYKAY (pffftt haihdkahjd) starts playing and you lean back, humming along. yoongi knows this one too!! now he’s 3 for 3!! he and you do share a similar taste in music, so maybe it does make sense.

even though you’re actually main vocalist and lead dancer, you do listen to a lot of rap music. but the music you make is nothing like the old school hip hop tracks that yoongi is partial to.

the music you make- how can he explain it?

sweet like honey with a little bit of tang.

like barbecue honey!!!!

ok that was a bad analogy.

all of his favourite dreamcloud tracks are written by you- cloud nine, up in the sky, are u still here, quicksand- the list goes on and on and on.

it’s like listening to your voice solves anything he goes against. bad day? dreamcloud. something to celebrate? blast your debut song. in need of a party song? easy fix. he gets aux cord rights? (granted, this doesn’t happen very often, since seokjin insists that his music taste is superior to his friends.) but anyways, y/n can fix it.

listening to your voice feels comforting. it invokes something in him that he honestly cannot explain with words. you’re his inspiration. not just in music- but in life. he admires how you’re able to smile through anything, how you take responsibility for your own actions.

he admires your kind heart, which offers generosity and forgiveness to even the most underserving people.

he admires your passion, for music, for your members, for the smallest things. he admires how you’ll love everyone and anyone.

even though he’s never really met you, he feels like he knows you. he wishes he could, anyways. he wants to thank the person who’s gotten him through such bad days.

yoongi curses himself again for being so delusional.

he keeps telling himself that he can’t get so attached. then he’ll end up like one of those creepy fans who are convinced their idols actually like them.

blech.

“okay, next song!“ you exclaim cheerfully. “i really like this one, guys. he’s this soundcloud star. he makes really cool music.“ yoongi readies his pen. if this person really is a soundcloud star, then there’s a high chance yoongi knows of him. a smaller chance that he actually knows the guy personally; either online or from real life.

you press the space bar almost obnoxiously, like you’re about to reveal something grand. you look into the camera, and you lock eyes with yoongi- through that cursed, horrible screen.

the first note plays and yoongi thinks that it sounds... oddly familiar, actually. for a moment, he sighs in disappointment. this one doesn’t sound as great as the previous few songs. almost like it’s incomplete, imperfect. something about it bugs him at the very bottom of his gut.

jimin figures it out before he does.

“AHHHHHHHHH YOONGI!!! OH MY GOD-!!!! YOONGI ARE YOU SEEING THIS? YOONGI!! HYUNG!“ yoongi grumbles, wondering what the hell jimin is screeching about now.

“oh, for fuck’s sake,“ he mumbles. the difference between him and jimin is the way they express their emotions. while yoongi bottles it all up, choosing to deal with things alone and slump around, jimin has no other choice but to scream things out. it’s a wonder they’re such good friends, really. “what is it now?“ yoongi mutters to himself.

“yeah yeah, a gentle breeze- “ and then it hits him. all at once.

“holy fucking shit.“ he whispers to himself, slumping down on the floor. he can barely hear what you say next.

“this song is called people by agust d. he goes by the name suga on social media-!“ yoongi falls down, gasping for air. “i’m a fan,“ you remark casually. “mr. suga producer-nim!! i’m your fan! please continue to make good music!“ you chuckle. “what am i doing right now? he probably isn’t even watching.“ you stare innocently at the phone camera, as if you don’t even know that you’re changing someone’s life right now.

out of his peripheral vision, he can see jimin rushing into the room, crouching next to him and placing a hand on his back, murmuring something yoongi can’t hear through the sound of his sobs.

huh. when did he even start crying?

“he makes rap and really cool hip hop music. you guys should give him a listen. his lyrics are really meaningful, too.“ you nod along, reciting the lyrics word for word- even though you really can’t rap.

“what kind of person am I? am I a good person? or a bad person? many of ways to judge just a person. everyone will live on, everyone will love, everyone will fade away“ you headbang along to the beat.

yoongi slides down the wall inch by inch. he wonders if he’ll faint or vomit first.

other people seem to make fun of people like him- people who find solace in idols, in music. that’s partially why he doesn’t like disclosing the fact that he’s a diehard fan of an idol girl group.

but in hindsight, that’s so stupid. who gives two fucks about his interests? hell, yoongi’s been depressed half his life. and if a group of girls who sing songs and perform make him feel better, what’s so wrong with that?

jimin’s voice is a little clearer now, and so is yours. you’re singing along to the lyrics- the lyrics that he wrote. the lyrics that he spent hours agonising over, wondering whether his shortcomings and anxiety in his life were worth posting on the internet for his measly following to see.

wondering if the music he made had any impact at all, if one day he might see his dream come true, to see his music being played in public. wondering if anyone might hear his songs and think that it helped them get over a bad day. just like you have for him.

yoongi’s sobs wrack through his body, tears flowing freely on his face. he’s crying hard. ugly crying, like a baby throwing a temper tantrum. his cries echo through the room. if he could see himself right now...

well, he doesn’t want to think about it. he’s sure it’s not a pretty view.

jimin looks over him, smiling proudly. his eyes are glassy, and he tucks yoongi’s head in his chest, putting his arms around him and embracing him.

yoongi’s shoulders shake. if it was any other day, he would usher jimin out the room. he hates it when people see him being vulnerable. even his own family hasn’t seen him cry that much.

but right now, he can’t bring himself to do anything but cry. other people may ask why this is such a big deal, why someone emotionally constipated like min yoongi would cry like this for such a small matter.

this, he doesn’t know how to explain either.

all he can think about is how much it means to him. that someone he admires so much is now, in turn, saying his music- no, his life- is good. nothing much else. but just knowing that you’ve listened to his work, that you know of his alter ego’s name...

his crying sounds grow larger.

jimin pets at his hair. “shh,” he murmurs. “it’s okay.” jimin’s voice also grows a little shaky. he tears up, but continues to comfort the crying boy in his arms. “you did it, hyung. it’s okay. you made it. you did it. why are you crying? this is good news! this is so great! i’m proud of you, we’re all so proud of you.”

yoongi tries to speak; it doesn’t go very well. but when he tries again, he manages to choke something out.

“i did it.“ he says, before burying his face back into jimin’s hug. the two boys sit on the ground, crying together. an hour passes, then two.

slowly, yoongi drifts off to bed on the ground, the melody of his own song blended with sound of your voice echoing in his head.

my ordinary became your special, my special became your ordinary. so what? what if you just brush by? what if you get hurt? sometimes you might get hurt again, sometimes you might shed tears. so what? so what if you live like that?

~ people by agust d

tags; @jksbbyfacebunny @extremeobsessions101 @dwcljh @stonyiscanon @bishuthot @s0seo @cecedrake2217

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sweetescapeartist · 3 years

Text

DBS COLORING BOOK CHAPTER 73 REVIEW

Alright... let's do this.

The first 4 pages are good. Good flow, not too many pages, no dialogue (thank God). Page 5 is where the paneling gets unnecessary. The last 2 panels aren't needed.

Page 6 is absolutely stupid. Goku & Granolah are flying at extremely high speeds, Goku is firing ki blasts that are moving at a higher velocity than he is currently moving, Granolah moves even faster in order to dodge Goku's ki blasts, then Granolah is using his scarf that is wrapped around a tree to swing around the tree & get behind Goku... A SCARF.

The scarf would tear apart instantly if Granolah tried to use it to catapult/swing himself around faster than Goku can perceive.

YOU: "The scarf is probably really strong tho!"

Sure let's assume that. In that case, the tree would be uprooted from the velocity Granolah is moving. Either way, it doesn't make sense. If this was early Dragon Ball and Yamcha did something like this when fighting Goku, then yeah it would be reasonable and look cool. With the power these characters are at now, it just looks ridiculous and inconvenient. It doesn't work here. Granolah could've easily dodged on his own and much faster that wraping his scarf around the tree.

So Granolah swings around and kicks Goku through tons of trees. (Saiyans killed his ppl but Granolah is killing his planet. Ironic)

Hey look! Another stupid page 😒

Page 7. Goku got sent flying back at a speed capable of easily cutting through tons of trees, but he slows himself down by grabbing a branch & swinging around it? Why? Again, at that speed, Goku would yank the limb of the tree clean off or uproot the entire tree. That wouldn't slow down his speed. He would be better off just stopping in the air on his own as if he applied the emergency breaks. Characters have done that plenty of times. Again, stuff like swinging around trees and tree branches is stuff they would had done in OG Dragon Ball.

Why is Goku blocking like that?? He isn't reinforcing his arm, he's holding his wrist whole his forearm gets punched. That would damage his arm and/or wrist.

*Boom boom! Bam bam!* They hit each other some. But are you ready for this? Pages 11-12...!

Why did Goku yell as if he is transforming? He is using Ultra Instinct, right? You don't yell to power that up. Remember the Moro arc? He calmly breathes to go into the state. Remember the chapter before? He calmly closes his eyes to focus. Why is he yelling then tapping into UI? Because Toyotaro can't write consistently. This page was...! just dumb...

Also... What is this SSB with Ultra Instinct then? You remember the SSB aura around UI Omen in the Moro arc? What's the difference between "Blue plus Ultra Instinct" & "Ultra Instinct plus Blue?"

Granolah says he can read Goku's blood flow and cell movements. That should come in handy later when he could potentially find a weakeness in Goku using UI. Hopefully Goku doesn't tell him he can't stay in the form too long. 🤞

SSB with UI is more focused that lower forms in combination with UI. Goku should be nearly untouchable. Pages 13 - 14 show how well Goku can dodge. Looks like ballet in a way, like Goku us dancing around him. I like that. Then he uses a point blank Kamehameha. Looks cool. But it turns out that Granolah simultaneously hit Goku somehow. Not a complaint here.

Pointless panels of Oil being blown back by the force. Pointless panels of Vegeta not paying attention to the fight and looking around. Pointless 2 panels of smoke clearing away. The entire page doesn't add anything at all. Page 17 could be omitted & it would flow better.

Goku is on the ground for the... 3rd time in this battle? I wish it would at least have Granolah say he didn't realize how difficult UI with SSB would be for him, but he barely saw an opening. That would be some sort of respect for Goku and did some clever foreshadowing. But we get Granolah insulting Goku instead. Whatever.

This "vital points" nonsense is so stupid. Everyone in DB has nearly identical vital points. Majin Vegeta knocked Trunks out by chopping at his vital point. These characters know what vital points are and know them well as we have seen when they were in combat since early DB. Granolah should be saying "My right eye will always find an opening." But maybe its a translation error or something. I won't be too harsh about this one.

Wait wait wait. Lemme get this straight...

Whis trained Goku, then Goku is able to use UI in the ToP.

Merus trains Goku to use UI Omen at will.

Goku later masters UI with silver hair.

Whis points out new flaws that didn't exist then trains Goku even further.

Goku has been trained by 2 Angels to the point of being able to go into Mastered UI at will and recieved further training after mastering the Angelic power. How is it that Goku has the gull to say "No, Ultra Instinct should have no weaknesses. If anything's lacking, it's gotta be my training."

And he's telling Granolah that he is vulnerable for some reason...? He's just foreshadowing for the reader that he will lose. The last 4 or 5 panels of page 19 isn't needed.

Whatever. Let's move on. So on page 20, for some reason, Goku has a confused look & a question mark in his speech bubble after Granolah blames Saiyans for killing his ppl. Maybe Goku doesn't understamd why Granolah is repeating himself for the 3rd or 4th time? Or he wasn't listening the earlier times. Can't blame him. Granolah's speeches bored me too.

Granolah copies Moro & makes lava rise from the core of his beloved home planet in order ro hurt Goku. Poor Sugarians. I wonder if there will be a "You're becoming the bad guy now, Granolah." type of story. Dont really care though. Goku escapes by teleporting. He mentions how Granolah has Moro's move. I guess Granolah is supposed to be like Cell and have others techniques... like Moro before him... They are both altered copies of Cell who is much cooler than both of them combined...

Well, here they are making Vegeta look capable (somehow?). Also its interesting that the bloodthirsty Granolah is allowing Goku & Vegeta to chat about their discovery of who his ppl are. The the ex-detective Vegeta quickly figures out that Maki & Oil fooled them. That was rushed. "But Vegeta was suspicious of them before." Yes, but there was no reason or anything we heard that would make Vegeta suspicious. The writing is bad. Also it's convenient that Oil has a drone all of the sudden to eavesdrop. The last 4 panels of page 24 are pointless.

GOKU: "Hey let's talk to him and clear things up."

VEGETA: "Nah. He's probably too stubborn. Just fight to move the story along instead."

Goku says he hasn't used his full power yet & Vegeta is surprised. How does Vegeta not realize Goku hasn't used his full power, Mastred UI? Then Vegeta says "Tch... Gotta resort to that in the end, huh?" Toyotaro is having Vegeta downplay UI in order to hype up Vegeta's fight next chapter. Bad writing. There's better ways to hype Vegeta up. Toyo chose one of the worst ways to do so.

Granolah... Just standing and waiting for Goku to come back. What a patient revenge fueled man.

UI Goku through the fog looked cool. (And his wounds heal? Ok...) But, seeing that made me realize something else. It would be much cooler if it went from page 22 then skip to page 26!

We don't need Goku & Vegeta chatting. The reveal of UI would not have had a pace breaker. It just happens & you see that Goku is serious now. Show don't tell.

GRANOLAH: "I can't perceive... any vital points?!"

That sounds stupid, so I do think it is a translation error.

GRANOLAH: "I can't perceive... any openings?!"

Now that reads much better! (I also edited the dialogue to "openings" in the pic above.)

Great... Goku conveniently exposed a weakness in UI that Whis had conveniently made up in CH 71. Although, in CH 59 Whis said that Mastered UI doesnt have the stamina issue that UI Omen has. Then in CH 64 it shows that the stamina issue is gone with Mastered UI during the 3 chapter battle with Moro. Goku never looked fatigued or weak in this form. Only time the form went away is when "planet" Moro drained Goku of his energy.

But now Goku & Whis say otherwise. How suddenly contradictory. Page 26 of this current chapter (CH 73) would be better if the last 2 panels were omitted.

Mastsred UI Goku easily takes down Moro- I mean Granolah. Also Goku tries to chat now after attacking Granolah. Should've said something before you start kicking ppl in the face. But this is shown to prove Vegeta is right about not being able to reason with Granolah. Even if it makes no sense.

Cool dodging & aikido type movement from Goku.

Goku using "the force" & stopping Granolah's movements was cool. Reminded me of Goku doing something similar to Broly in the DBS movie. Or more similarly, like Zamasu did in the manga.

I guess Toyotaro is suggesting that the quick flurry of punches is a Master UI kind of move. (Although it originated in the anime when UI Omen Goku was punching back against Jiren & when he did so to block attacks from Jiren in EP 129.) I hope this move isn't over used that it ends up losing its flare.

Vegeta pretends to be upset that Goku defeated Granolah while in the previous chapter, Vegeta told Goku to fight first.

Somehow Vegeta is able to sense that there are 2 Granolahs. You can say because he has spirit control, but Goku has been through that kind of training with Roshi, Kami, & King Kai (possibly some with the Yardrats too which helped him control Super Saiyan at the level he could). And with Instant Transmission, Goku must be an expert in detecting ki. He can feel ki in different realms and locate ppl from far across the galaxy Goku should sense this too. All this writing is doing is trying to make Vegeta appear as the more capable fighter & get Vegeta fans hype for his next battle. That's all.

The switcheroo (I think I used that wrong) of a fake Granolah was a kinda clever idea. But Goku not knowing what "split" means is asinine.

Goku literally says "Split...? What's that mean?"

Goku has seen firsthand when Tien split into multiple Tiens, Goku knows the Yardrats can split themselves into many ppl, he saw merged Zamasu split himself, & he saw Moro split himself. Why is he written so stupid? I need answers Toyo.

Page 40....

HOW IN THE HECK did Mastered UI get caught off guard?! Ain't it supposed to automatically grow sturdier as necessary?! Boy oh boy, this writing... A positive is that the punch looks like the 1 inch punch Goku did to Golden Freeza (inspired by the legendary Bruce Lee).

So if actual Granolah is twice as strong and can one shots UI Goku... Vegeta doesn't stand a chance. But the bad writing will make a way for Vegeta to look somewhat capable.

Granolah says UI becomes less sharp over time. Only problem is that Goku fought longer against Moro. This fight of UI Goku should have been longer. If the fight was longer when in the UI "transformation" then I would be more generous about Granolah finding an opening. Speaking of openings, Granolah says "opening" instead of "vital point." Must be a translation error.

Goku is in a near death-like state and Vegeta is like

VEGETA: "Leave that fool alone. Fight me instead."

Vegeta threatening Granolah is either stupid or smart. Smart = Vegeta provoking Granolah to get an advantage mentally. Dumb = Vegeta reverting to his Cell saga overconfidence that Toyo always does.

IN CONCLUSION:

STILL NO IMAGE OF FREEZA... I guess he isnt that important to the story after all. And this storytelling is so bad because Toyo can't stay consistent at all, he doesn't understand the characters, & he can't come up with anything besides "this form also drains stamina." You can say he & Toriyama write this together but I doubt it. Toriyama corrects his art & just gives the story a pass.

Recently it seems that Toriyama is more interested in the DBS movies being produced. Toriyama just writes an outline, Toyotaro & Toei write their versions of the story around that, Toriyama corrects Toyotaro's art & Toriyama also corrects or adds to what Toei thinks up. Example being when Toei created Kale & Toriyama created Caulifla in response.

I'm not excited for the next chapter. I don't care what Vegeta does. How is Vegeta going to win against someone who one shotted Goku in UI. Either the writing will be kinda smart or just plain stupid. I'm expecting stupid.

Idk if I'll review the next chapters. The bad writing was too much for me. I wrote this review last month right 1 day after the chapter came out, but I didnt want to read the manga again to get the images I need for this review. So I put it off for almost 1 month.

I wanna take a break from this bad manga...

#dragon ball #dragon ball super #dbs #dbs manga #dbs manga chapter 73 #review #Goku #Vegeta #Granolah

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red-the-dragon-writes · 3 years

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Today's post is not on the usual "writer blog fare" side. Instead I am going to introduce you to several fun facts about various animals on our planet and then talk about worldbuilding.

1. Lampreys are a kind of "living fossil"- a not-really-so-scientific term for a creature that has lived unchanged for a very long time, so long that we have fossils of them looking the same way they do now. They don't have proper jaws, just a circular sucking mouth with teeth set into it and a tongue designed to strip flesh off of what it touches. They're finless fish, look quite a bit like eels, and have this really alien, uncanny vibe to them.

[id: a long, slender bluish-silver lamprey sitting among rocks. It has a long snout, an eye, and then six small perforations in its side arranged at an even interval sitting behind the eye. The environment it is sitting in is very yellow and green in comparison. end id]

[id: an image of a lamprey from below. The snout ends in a round, flat mouth which is studded with teeth in four concentric circles. The teeth are smallest near the outer edge and largest in the middle, and look like very sharp round points. In the center of this ring is another, smaller circle, where the pointed, tooth-like tongue can be seen, as well as a hole for the lamprey to actually ingest food with. Its eye is visible, as are some of the perforations on its side. This one is a more mottled gray than the first one was, and less shiny. end id]

Sea lampreys, which are the kind i've sort of not really kinda researched, are a major pest in the Great Lakes, where they regularly attack fish. They can get up to two feet in length. Despite this, they are not particularly dangerous towards humans.

2. Horseshoe crabs are also "living fossils." They've been around and virtually unchanged for millions of years. They're not true crabs, and are more closely related to chelicerata species, like spiders and scorpions (and many more). There are a lot of cool features of horseshoe crabs, but one of their most extremely cool, to me, is their blood.

I'm not going to post any images of what I consider to be animal cruelty, so you'll have to take me at my word here, but this is a bottle of horseshoe crab blood. If you're sensitive to images of animal cruelty, I don't recommend looking for proof, but if you aren't, there are plenty of images of the blood coming out of the creature for you to verify this with.

E[id: a bottle of slightly frothy, opaque blue liquid. It is sitting in a row with several other bottles of the same material. end id]

I am a sucker for blue blood, I just think it's neat, so that's all I'd need as an excuse to slam some horseshoe-crab-inspired nonsense in my exceptionally gory and fucked up wips, and if you've been reading along with WiB you may have noticed that blue blood does come into play at some point! But that's not all that's neat about horseshoe crab blood. Unfortunately for the horseshoe crabs, but fortunately for us, their blood is literally the only source of an important compound used for detecting the presence of dangerous bacteria in certain pharmaceutical drugs. (Fortunately, there are replacements that will hopefully become more popular in coming years.)

Now that we've gone over all that, onto the worldbuilding!

I worldbuild by Rule of Cool. Let's just get that out of the way. Every so often people will ask me how my worlds get so expansive (not WiB, WiB i made up on the fly by cribbing from fanfic and like... BBC Merlin. Assume very little of this holds true for WiB) and the answer is largely that I take every interest I have ever had in anything and smash it all together and throw it at my wip to see what sticks. and then I just... like... reasonably attempt to figure out what the natural conclusions will be.

So: we have lampreys. We have blue-blooded ancient sea creatures with spectacularly important and valueable blood. We are writing this into a story that takes place on land, somehow.

- The first option, and the one I'm going to talk about most because I did it, is just to rule-of-cool it into a character. (Or a place, or an item, or whatever, but largely I do rule-of-cool on living creatures and think harder about the world around them.) If you've been keeping up with WiB, you may have noticed that (spoilers) Zero Point is some kind of fucked up magician with a lamprey mouth in their hand who shapeshifts and bleeds blue. This is where I got those inspirations from (along with, like, some other stuff. I promise there are no lamprey assassins, but- continuing in the trend of stealing from sea creatures- the bobbin worm is a spectacularly beautiful, spectacularly deadly creature if you're within its weight range. which is like, goldfish size, but. And cuttlefish are known to disguise themselves as other animals, and can change sexes if the male:female ratio where they are isn't ideal.)

So you can take the elements you like, and just kind of slam them together haphazardly, which is what I did with Zero Point. The trick to this kind of worldbuilding is just to avoid looking too closely at it. The magical assassin has a fucked up mouth in their hand? Yeah, okay, that seems kind of fucked up and creepy. What do they do at all times? They hide it under a glove. So the protags Just Straight Up Never Ask. And voila; it never gets explained, and it never has to.

Same with the blue blood. It shows up, it functions as a plot device because only Zero Point has blue blood; it is never explained or even delved into with much detail. And if it were, it would fall apart instantly, because the justification is literally just "i thought it was neat. No, no one else is like that. I don't even know why they are. i just felt like it"

- The second option is to consider the effects of the things that you're working with, and then work off of that.

Let's take Zero Point again. Strip them of their context (weird assassin with magical powers) and just like, consider the fact that this is a creature with blood that regularly retails for over $10,000 USD, is intelligent as fuck, shapeshifts, has a mouth in their hand that may or may not be their actual mouth, and can exist on land so long as they have suitable access to water. What does that mean for our setting? Surely they're not the only person like that; so you have a whole species of people who are sort of but not really amphibious, shapeshift, and maybe have magical powers, who knows. They can't shapeshift their fucked up lamprey mouths, maybe. That seems like a reasonable limit. So their blood is highly valuable- what does that mean for their relations with other people, or their culture? What kind of foods do they eat? How do they create a sense of culture as shapeshifters; is there even a way that they represent themselves in art? How do they interact with the world? Do they have a "true form" or not? Every one of these questions will spawn new questions. If you answer all of them you'll lose your mind, but if you answer at least ten you'll spawn a much more background-heavy world that can help to shape your story much more effectively than trying to just craft a narrative will. Sometimes it works very well for a story. Sometimes it gets you lost in the weeds.

- The third option is to reference something else, and build off that. Again, let's use Zero Point as the example.

In the original story that the WiB ensemble is from, Closerverse, which may have some mentions on this blog but honestly I have no idea, there is a city that I've done quite a bit of worldbuilding on. This city is called Hudson, and one of the major important features of it is that it is partially underground. (This is a reference to the DFZ of Rachel Aaron's Heartstrikers series). Hudson is intentionally run to be the worst, most unpleasant city in the world, and one of its features are its wildly intelligent, dangerous forms of aquatic life. The lowest level of this city is partially submerged, and all of these creatures plague the people who live down there.

Closerverse was also set during a period of early industrialization, and Hudson heavily referenced US history, especially 1900s-1920s labor history. Tenements, pollution, zero protections for workers, et cetera. Hudson is a nasty, miserable place, and everyone who lives there can feel the jaws closing in on them.

Anyway, in Closerverse you got these fucked up massive eel-like creatures (lampreys, but with extra features) that due to some rather significant meddling wound up growing legs and then got really massive and started eating people. They have blue blood, glow in the dark, and make fairly decent eating as long as they aren't eating you. And they're intelligent. Given the whole "mutual eating each other" thing, the eels and the people of Hudson have some pretty major animosity going on.

Most of Zero Point's stuff is really just me referencing the Hudson Eels, because I fucking love those. They're some of my favorite worldbuilding elements ever. But given that no one else in WiB has ever seen a Hudson Eel, let alone seen their blood get dry on things, or whatever, everything about Zero Point is wildly out of context. And that almost makes it better, because the whole deal with them is that they're mysterious and weird, and having them be a mysterious and weird reference to something no one but I know about most likely is like, fun and neat.

There are, of course, other modes of worldbuilding as well, but I typically aim to stick to the first two as much as possible. The cooler you make something, the more possible questions it raises; the more questions something raises, the deeper your world gets.

Although, a word of advice: sometimes animals just do things. Sometimes bodies just have features. Who would invent fingernails? But having them is mighty convenient, isn't it? For that matter, who would come up with a deeply logical and reasoned explanation for eyebrows- but not having those would be very strange, to us. You can get away with doing a lot by just having that be how it is, and not having the characters comment on it.

Also, the more "shaped" a thing should be, the more you'll want to take the second approach. For house design, something intentionally built, you'll want to know why it was built, and what purpose is this and that room, and why is it painted such and such colors. But if you're talking about adding a second moon, like... fuck dude, who needs to know why there's a second moon? Maybe if you have sailors you have to know what it'll do to your oceans, but that's the kind of thing you can kind of just say exists and move on. You'll figure it out; it gets pretty intuitive.

Anyway, happy worldbuilding!

#writing advice #long post #worldbuilding

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xlady-saya · 4 years

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better than a night light [fic]

Relationships: andrew minyard/neil josten

Summary: Neil hasn’t had the chance to examine the feeling of fear in a long time. He��s all too familiar with it though; from the nightmares, to the memories of a cold basement floor, he knows the feeling like the back of his hand.

But this fear is new, loaded with ridiculousness and a complete lack of reason. It’s nothing more than pixels on a screen, far away theories that can’t hurt him like his past can.

Maybe that’s why he’s beginning to not mind it as much. It doesn’t hurt that Andrew is also there to hold him through it.

Tags: neil is a scaredy cat, fluff, fluff and humor, the monsters watch alien movies

Read on ao3!

The movie poster Nicky keeps shoving in Neil's face doesn't exactly do much in terms of persuasion.

Neil stares at the bold graphics, at the text of the title that drips as if it’s oozing blood. It's got an almost static quality to it, not original, but not trying too hard to be. It's an older movie, that much is clear, so not exactly Nicky's usual taste. There's nothing there to tell him about the plot, just a few shadows and a stark silhouette standing in the center. Neil stares at the poster on Nicky's phone, then at Nicky's expectant expression, and then back.

Surely there has to be some kind of clue to tell him what this is all supposed to mean, but he's not seeing it.

Nicky does his best to show Neil a few more posters from the same movie, some restyled and revamped for the modern era, but...

Nothing.

"For fuck's sake," Nicky huffs, putting his phone away. "It's a classic horror movie, Neil, and we're watching it tonight."

Oh. Neil's not sure why he had to know that.

It's never up to him to pick the movies for movie night, mostly because most do nothing for him or bore him to tears altogether. Watching them with Andrew is typically the only time he bothers to pay attention, and that's for the commentary about the stupid characters.

Nicky is the opposite.

He and Allison fight over the films every Friday night like it's a ritual, but on the rare occasions the upperclassman are busy, Nicky takes over and tries his best to drag Neil into it too. A seasoned movie buff, he's made it his mission to find a movie genre Neil actually likes. Neil's attempts to convince him otherwise have fallen on deaf ears.

After weeks of action spy movies and no luck, Nicky's obviously decided to up his game by switching to a new theme altogether.

Neil's not sure what this will do, though. The horror movies Nicky has picked in the past only served to annoy Neil or make him laugh with their horrible effects and impractical plot points. Nicky had still labeled that as progress.

Already, Neil is rolling his eyes. Neil has dealt with real horrors; ghosts and poltergeists aren’t what haunt him. He's only seen one or two slasher films with the team, but those were just nonsensical.

It's not something he enjoys thinking about, but it's hard to be afraid of being sliced open by some fictional asshole in a mask when his childhood already made him numb to the feeling of a blade.

As if sensing the underlying truth behind Neil's annoyance, Andrew makes his presence known with a loud thump of his soda can against the counter.

Nicky jumps, but Neil turns on instinct, a small smile on his face. They have new barstools, and he swears they're a little taller than the other ones. Andrew's legs swing, almost carefree in nature, and Neil averts his eyes at the glare he receives for staring.

"I said no horror movies," Andrew says finally, flicking another page of his novel over. It's for a class, Neil notes, and beams a little brighter. Part of their pact; if Neil has to do better in school, Andrew has to start trying to, too.

With some encouragement...it wasn't a hard compromise to make.

"Technically, you said no slasher movies," Nicky says, smirking at the loophole. Andrew stares, thoroughly unamused, and Neil blinks between them. He hadn't known about that. He glances back over to find Andrew already looking at him, resignation clear on his face. It's a common expression from the beginning of their this—less rare now, but just as endearing in Neil's mind.

It's Andrew's 'you caught me caring about you, and I hate that because it's not hard' look.

Neil hops up to sit on the counter, and Andrew's gaze flicks down to his knee as if debating resting his chin on top of it.

"You don't need to baby me, those movies don't affect me," Neil says with a fond smile. It's the truth; he's not sure why, but the masked villains and their carving knives just seem tacky to him at best. He understands Andrew's reasoning though, and appreciates it more than he can say.

Andrew would never think of him as weak, and Neil can handle most things no matter how painfully they might stir up old memories. Regardless, Andrew will spare him if he can.

The look of acknowledgement passes between them, and Andrew nods.

Then: "Even still, they're bad," Andrew says, aiming the statement at Nicky. "I refuse to suffer through them."

Aaron, who up until this point has been a silent bystander on the couch, grunts an affirmative. Kevin's got his headphones in, not even listening.

"Killjoys," Nicky mutters, clutching his phone tight to his chest. He points an accusatory finger right at Andrew, and keeps it there in challenge. "You might like it too, if you would just give it a chance!"

Andrew, highly unconvinced, raises a brow at Neil. The blond and Nicky are a lot better at having actual conversations without Neil now, to the point where Neil wouldn't even call Nicky afraid of Andrew anymore. Still...looks like this is not a case Andrew has the energy to make.

Neil smiles, all too smug.

"I thought you said horror movies were overrated?" he asks Nicky, grin just the right amount of shit-eating. "And by overrated, you meant you're super scared of them and won't be able to sleep for days."

"First of all, Neil, fuck you," Nicky says without hesitation. Aaron snorts in the background. Unwilling to be defeated, Nicky holds up his hand, counting off the reasons. "Second of all, this one is different! It's an alien movie, and those don't scare me as much. I mean, they're super impractical!"

That's what's super impractical?

Neil rolls his eyes. Their whole lives are impractical. Ha.

But ah, Neil realizes. Maybe that's the reason for the weird poster silhouette. Aliens. He'd almost prefer a slasher film. He crosses his arms, blowing his overgrown bangs out of his eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure Jackson with his goalie mask is just as realistic."

The room goes silent, and Neil isn't too prideful when it comes to pop culture. It's clear he fucked that up. Nicky blinks at him, and even Aaron is confused enough to turn around and lean over the side of the couch.

Neil blinks back, combing his brain for the revision. Nothing.

Andrew sighs below him, long and suffering, and this time he really does put his chin on Neil's knee. He glares a hole into Neil's abdomen, but Neil suspects it's mostly self directed.

"I think he means Jason," Andrew says, closing his eyes to ground himself. Neil's always been quite impressed with his self-control. "He's just trying to provoke me."

Oh, yeah. That prick.

A small chorus of realization goes through the room as Neil smirks down at his boyfriend.

Nicky squints. "Huh? Provoke you how?"

"Don't ask about their weird flirting," Aaron interrupts, making a slicing motion over his throat. Then, after a beat, he shoots a glare at his brother, who actually meets it for once. "Though for the record, you deserve to have a thing for morons."

Hey.

"That time, I really thought his name was Jackson," Neil defends, not caring that he just exposed how sometimes he will say the wrong shit on purpose just to get Andrew...in a mood. Aaron gags, and Neil is quite done with the conversation.

He squeezes Andrew's earlobe because, well...it's right there.

Nicky throws his hands up. "Oh my god, who cares! Neil, the point is that yes, a serial killer terrorizing a summer camp? Unlikely. But if someone were inclined, they could. And at minimum, slasher movies are scary because I could actually be stabbed on any given day."

"The chances of you running into a slasher are still pretty low," Neil tries, and Nicky gives him one of those looks like he's missed the point entirely.

"I'm talking about Andrew."

Ah.

"That's fair," Andrew says, eyes closing once more as Neil kneads his ear gently.

Done with the lot of them, Nicky shows Neil the button to rent the movie on his account, and rebelliously presses it. As if that somehow traps Neil in this apartment. Like he can't just leave.

The sad thing is that he won't.

Even without the upperclassman to join them tonight, this is his family—despite all their shitty taste.

"Your point?" Neil asks, though he's fully resigned at this point.

"So, alien movies are way cooler than anything else. Plus, the effects in this one are practical," Nicky says, and Neil tilts his head. Instead of bewildered, Nicky's excitement only grows. "You know, none of that cheap computer crap. You'll see, you'll love it."

Nicky squeals lightly as he goes to make snacks, dropping a few dishes in the process. It's a chorus of curses and clanging that Neil is all too used to, and Andrew barely flinches from it. It's hard to mind anything with Andrew's head in his lap and Neil's hands moving into his hair.

Neil stares over at the television, and sees his own annoyed expression staring back from the void.

Love it, will he?

Yeah, whatever you say.

They're about thirty minutes into the movie when Neil realizes there's a problem.

Nicky, for effect, has turned out all the lights, and the television illuminates the whole room despite its dark ambience. Neil's perfectly prepared to not pay attention, especially when the movie starts off slow and without any of the promised aliens. Nicky scolds him for his impatience, and things gradually start to get more suspicious between the characters on screen.

Neil's not bored out of his mind, but he's yet to see the full appeal. Because it's his spot, he curls up into Andrew’s side, sharing the bag of plain gummy worms between them since Neil hates the sour ones. Neil's more fixated on that at first; sometimes if they grab the same one on accident, they'll start the contest of pulling the poor worm and stretching the gelatin until it snaps. So far, Neil has won the longest piece two out of three times.

Then, in a shocking twist, the alien shows up.

Nicky was right about the practical effects. It's a grotesque creature, animatronic and padded with a fleshy substance that looks like bile. Its limbs are coated in it, sticky and disproportionate to its thin, skeletal body. Neil can see every disgusting ridge, and grimaces at the bubbles of flesh and pus that the effects team coated it with. After a while, he stops viewing it as a product of humans, as a robot. He starts seeing it as just the creature, in all its vileness. Random limbs and appendages shoot out from it, impaling some of the unlucky side characters, and the squelching sounds make Neil want to vomit.

Neil's throat begins to feel tight, and he's not sure why.

Throughout the next fifteen minutes, the creature starts its ruthless hunt after the team of scientists which make up the main cast. Only when it disappears does the audience realize the creature can shapeshift—that it's among them, somewhere on the base.

At first, Neil thinks he might have to go to the hospital. His pulse is fast, and he's sweating a little. It's weird, and he finds himself trying to calm down his own breathing. His muscles aren't usually this tense, and there's a nausea-inducing lump in his stomach, swimming around like the goop on screen. Maybe he's sick, maybe he ate some undercooked meat for dinner. That has to be it. He tries his best to stretch out, but his ankle hits Kevin's fancy metal flask, and Neil nearly jumps out of his skin from the cold when it coincides with a character being ripped in half on screen.

"Damn, that was pretty cool," Aaron concedes from his beanbag, watching the characters rush to safety from the gore they just witnessed. Even Kevin is invested, though he's still occasionally checking Exy stats on his phone. The creature is gone again all too soon, blending in, and the scientists begin to arm themselves against one another. Nicky looks over at Aaron gleefully, triumphant for his good choice.

At this point, Neil hates to admit he's fully invested. The characters in the movie have started to suspect one another, and the focus has shifted from the gore and the alien’s origin over to pure paranoia. It does a remarkably good job of capturing that feeling—one Neil knows all too well. Neil begins to suspect some of the characters too, even the main protagonist. The theories run through his head, but the film leaves everything as vague as can be.

There's a blanket of dread over him he's never felt before, because it's not real. There's no imminent danger to his person or his family, but he wonders what he'd be feeling if he were in this situation. The idea of imposters, walking around and having no way of telling them apart from your friends, from a human...

It takes Neil awhile, perhaps a little too long given his acquaintance with the emotion, to understand the tension in his body is fear.

He's afraid.

And isn't fear a strange thing?

He tries to remember fear, and it's not hard. It's always cold, piercing. It narrows down the world so that the fear is all that exists, along with the impending doom of the consequences that come with it. For him, fear has always eventually had a result. His fear was always well-founded. But this is nothing like that fear. Real, genuine, valid fear. This is not being threatened by his mom's scowl from across the room, or being on the basement floor, seconds from death. This is a queasy, unrealistic fear. One he can't get rid of, as much as he knows it shouldn't exist. There's nothing on the horizon, nothing coming to get them.

It's a lot of what-ifs and how-comes.

Neil hates it.

He can't look away as the characters all perish, eaten alive in part by the alien, but mostly by their own suspicion. In the end, the discord between them kills them all, and the ending hints heavily at the creature's survival and spread into the outside world.

Maybe here.

Neil scoffs at his own ridiculousness, rolling his eyes. That would never happen. He knows that, it's just—

"So?" Nicky says right in his face, and Neil jumps. Luckily, no one notices, and Andrew has already moved to switch the television off. Good. He surely would've felt the jump of Neil's body.

"So?" Neil parrots, unable to keep up. He keeps looking out the dorm windows, watching the darkness for any sign of life beyond it.

"Did you like it, Neil?" Kevin asks, turning around from his perch on the floor. He's also been weirdly committed to finding things for them to enjoy outside of Exy. Neil has a feeling that's mostly Thea's and therapy's doing, an attempt to get them some distance from the harsh Raven routines of old.

Kevin's attempt at getting them into trivia had been a disaster, and he'd abandoned it quickly.

Neil swallows the lump in his throat, eyes tracking Andrew to keep himself grounded. Aliens or no aliens, the sight of Andrew is a relaxant that's fifty times stronger.

Still, all he manages is a small: "It was okay."

It's a compliment coming from him, since his standard response is to shrug whenever any credits roll, and Nicky heads off to shower for bed with an extra lightness in his step.

Neil is not so fortunate.

An hour later, they're all turning in. Kevin has already passed out while Nicky takes his time in the bathroom with his twenty minute skincare routine. Neil had done everything in his power to not be alone once the lights began to go out. He's lucky his proximity to Andrew isn't unusual, but he keeps a few steps of distance just to throw off any suspicion the blond might have about why his boyfriend’s clinginess is off the charts.

The night sky is still pitch black through the windows, and any passing noise has Neil turning around and checking on his family critically. No, no—if Kevin were a creature, he wouldn't be snoring so loud.

Right?

He feels like a child, and does his best to go about his business without reading into everything so much. Even still, he hops onto the bed so he doesn't have to stand in front of the bottom of the bunk for too long. Something could grab his feet.

Andrew, per routine, wraps his arm around Neil's midsection to pull him closer, not yet aware of what's happening. Neil usually delights in this each time it happens, though he's certainly used to it by now. The path to sharing a bed had been a cautious one, and spooning even more so, but now he can't imagine sleeping without being cocooned like this.

Tonight, however, there's a problem.

Neil stiffens when Andrew moves to scoot him closer, a stark contrast to how he usually relaxes all his muscles. It's kinda fun when Andrew drags him. Andrew pauses, regarding Neil curiously, and Neil's dry throat seems to close up even more. The dread in his veins obviously isn't apparent, but it feels that way. Paling internally, Neil says, "I want a glass of water."

He really wants a glass of water. Fuck.

But is it worth it? Is he willing to die for a glass of water? He can make it until morning. If he were smart, he would've thought about this when everyone was still in the living room and he had access to knives to defend himself.

Andrew, calm as ever, concedes with a short nod. He removes his hand and waits for Neil to get up, and that's when Neil can't hide it anymore.

See, he doesn't move. Neil just lies there, staring up at the ceiling, and feels Andrew's eyes grow more and more critical with each passing second. Neil is torn. Does he get up despite his fear to preserve his dignity? Andrew of all people deserves to know when Neil has none to spare. Neil doesn't hide anything from Andrew, no matter how ridiculous.

The truth is, he'd love nothing more than to stay here on this bed with Andrew, where it's at least kind of safe. But, if he thinks more critically, he'll never get over this fear if he doesn't venture out into the dark common area to get his goddamn water.

Also, he's thirsty.

What to do, what to do.

At this point Neil begins to squirm, his gaze flicking over to the open bedroom door. It's black on the other side, inviting him and his imagination to wreak havoc.

Humans can survive a few days without water.

The whole time, Andrew doesn't stop staring at him, and Neil winces when he feels a gentle tap against his collarbone.

He's hesitated too long to keep the secret now. Better get it over with.

"Neil."

"Uh. Y-yes?"

"Look at me," Andrew says, and Neil can't disobey a request like that. Andrew's sleepy voice is gravely and soothing, like enticing smoke from a cigarette, and Neil follows it with all his senses. He turns over, then tenses up. Now his back is to the door. Can't have that.

He goes back to lying flat, and turns his head to send Andrew a desperate look.

It's stupid, it's pathetic. But...

"It's dark." That’s all he says.

Andrew's brows knit together, searching for the truth under that statement. "It's one in the morning."

Oh, but I'm the smart mouth.

Neil glares, and jumps when Nicky drops something in the bathroom. Neil waits for a sign of movement, and breathes a sigh of relief when Nicky's routine resumes.

Andrew sends him another look, no doubt already piecing it all together, and Neil huffs to himself.

"Asshole," he says, and picks at the thread of their blanket with his finger. He tries not to think of the aliens splitting open. Quietly, he admits: "The creature in the movie could see better in the dark."

It should be helpful to say it aloud, but it's not. It should convince Neil he's being truly unreasonable, that the odds of something otherworldly coming to target him are slim. He should be more worried about real killers coming for him on any given day.

But here he is, still afraid.

Andrew, in his own Andrew way, actually looks surprised. Something swims across his features that Neil has seen before, but can't pinpoint in the moment due to his own shame. He groans, turning away.

"Shut up, I know, forget it, I'm—"

A hand comes out to grab his chin, and Andrew turns Neil's face back towards him in one firm motion. Okay, now Neil definitely knows there's something in that look, and it renders him speechless for a moment.

"You're afraid." He swears he sees the corner of Andrew's mouth twitch, and he's so fixated on it that the truth comes easily.

"Yes."

"Of the...aliens. From the movie?"

Ah, but when put that way...

Neil groans again, pouting slightly. It's hard for Andrew to ruin anything for Neil, but it's difficult to stare fondly at one's boyfriend when he's trying to wring the embarrassing truth out of you. "Yes! I don't know why, okay?"

Andrew just nods, not judging. Not yet. Taking that into account, he taps Neil's chin a few times, maybe to the beat of invisible cogs moving in his head. Then he pauses, and gives Neil's earlobe a tug. Because...it's there. "Nicky said aliens are impractical. They aren't real. You know this, I assume."

Neil glares, but doesn't refute the statement. He's familiar with Andrew's process of retracing their steps, hypothetically. Trying to understand where the fear came from, how to best help Neil push it aside.

"Neil, confirm these things for me," Andrew says, and Neil nods, counting the freckles that dance over Andrew's nose. "You have dealt with members of a deadly mafia family."

Neil, because he's a shit, takes time to think about it. It's worth it when Andrew huffs.

Neil nods. "That is true."

"You are arguably more capable than me when it comes to killing someone," Andrew points out, and Neil does his best to ignore the spark of heat in Andrew's voice from that knowledge. "In fact, you've probably killed many people without remorse."

Hm. Okay.

"Mhm." Neil hums, and while he sees where this is going...

"You could potentially be Jackson, minus the hockey mask," Andrew finishes, and Neil is only somewhat insulted. What does he want with a summer camp?

Feigning stupidity this time, Neil squints. "Wasn't he immortal?"

"Neil."

Neil's laughter dissolves into a desperate whine, and he throws his hands behind him, hitting the headboard. Dammit. "Just—I know it makes no sense," he huffs. He scrambles up to a sitting position, an explanation on the tip of his tongue, and Andrew follows him calmly. "I know they're not real but...I think that's the problem. It's an unknown. I'm familiar with killers, with knives on my skin."

Neil almost feels guilty when he mentions it; Andrew accepts all his scars and experiences, but it doesn't mean he likes that they happened. They can't change the past, but the idea of either of them being hurt never fails to put a little pit of anger in their guts. He sees it bloom in Andrew's right then, and Neil smiles gently to quell it. It's not about that right now.

"But this is so removed from any of that," Neil explains, laughing at himself. It's sort of amusing if he thinks about it—that he’s made it to the point where he has the luxury of being afraid of such things, but he still doesn't feel relief. "I know it should be stupid and ridiculous. But that's probably why it bothers me. I mean, okay, what do we really know about aliens anyways? Nothing! No road map, no weapons. We're completely unprepared."

And...his explanation goes off the rails just like that.

Neil thinks he has a good point though. Like...who is really to say aliens don't exist? And if they do, they're all pretty much fucked. Who wouldn't be afraid?

Andrew only stares at him.

At the expression of disbelief, Neil whines and does his best to backtrack, but Andrew is having no more of it. Andrew just lays back down, hands covering his face.

It's a novel reaction, considering this is Andrew. He looks so beside himself, unable to process whatever is going on in his head, but not in the bad, overwhelmed way he might be used to. Neil leans over him, and artfully pokes Andrew between the eyebrows.

"Andrew?"

His boyfriend sighs. "I don't ever know what to do with you," he concedes, removing his hands so Neil can see his pissy expression. "Alien movies. It's goddamn alien movies."

Neil's not sure what to make of that, but even in the dimness of their room he can see the reluctant fondness in Andrew's face, poorly concealed behind a facade of neutral indifference. That, and the tips of his ears look a little red.

Neil's confused as hell before he realizes what it must be. He perks up, fear momentarily put on pause. "Oh...oh, you like this," he observes, not smug, just factual. Andrew glares. "You think it's—uh..."

Not hot, at least Neil doesn't think so. But—

"The word you're probably looking for is cute." Andrew grimaces when he says it, like it's a crime for the word to come out of his mouth. If Neil's being honest, he's surprised too. Not that Andrew thinks it, but that he actually said it. Hm. That's new. Neil likes it. He always insisted to Andrew that he didn't have to try harder at verbal affection just for Neil's sake, not if he didn't want to.

Clearly, part of him does.

Andrew glares at Neil's small smile, pushing his face away. "And you're wrong, so don't read into it."

Neil ignores that advice completely. "Oh, okay. So you think it's cute," he repeats, and mulls that over in his head.

"I just said—"

"Wait, why?" Neil asks, suddenly offended. Here he is trying to tell Andrew his alien attack plan, and the blond thinks the severity of the situation is cute. "Does my terror mean nothing to you?"

"Not in this case," Andrew admits, and this time there's clearly a small smile threatening to break the mask. Neil tries (pettily and unsuccessfully) to not let it affect him. "Now quit it, and go get your water."

Shit.

The fucking water.

The source of his woes comes back as a painful reminder in the form of his parched throat, scratchier now from all the discussion.

Noticing Neil's stricken face, Andrew wordlessly gets up with him, pulling him along to the edge of the bedroom so Neil can't talk himself out of it. Flicking on the light for the living area, Andrew pushes Neil out in front of him, a silent nudge to hurry up.

The room definitely looks a lot less sinister like this, but Neil's brain is reluctant to let him relax. He walks quickly and stiffly into the kitchen, turning back halfway to make sure that yes, Andrew is watching him.

"I'm here," the blond says, despite the roll of his eyes.

Neil practically runs to get his water, moving back to Andrew faster than the speed of light. As absurd as Andrew finds it, he dutifully waits for Neil to step fully back into the light of the bedroom before turning off the living room light again, and offers to take Neil's glass back when he finishes. Unwilling to lose Andrew by making him go alone, Neil takes his turn watching from the door.

Andrew looks back—not out of fear, but just to see the way Neil tracks his every move, wary of the surroundings. Something soft escapes Andrew's mouth, a vulnerable sound Neil swallows when he gets back into their bed.

He still can't fall asleep, but at least Andrew holds him a little tighter that night, a silent reminder that Neil's not alone in the darkness.

Neil's entire being burns with embarrassment, and he can't wait for a few days to pass so his brain will forget the movie entirely.

At least then the fear in his veins will be but a lingering memory, teasing fuel for Andrew at most.

Except, per routine, Andrew is a giant bastard.

"We're watching this tonight," he says a week later, throwing a library DVD into Nicky's lap.

Neil doesn't think much of it as he finishes the last of his math problems at his desk, kicking his legs happily since this means he'll be done with homework and his kissing ban will be lifted.

Nicky's voice has all his expectations shriveling up and exploding like alien guts. "Aliens again?"

Neil's head snaps up to meet Andrew's gaze across the room, betrayal lining his face. The DVD cover Nicky is looking at is old school again, another classic Neil assumes. It's less detailed than the first one, with nothing but a green, glowing egg on the front.

Hell no, Neil thinks, and glances back at Andrew with a desperate look in his eyes. Maybe it's a joke.

But Andrew's sense of humor is cruel.

"It wasn't awful," Andrew answers Nicky while looking right at Neil. There's nothing amused or challenging in his features, but Neil still senses it. Andrew has weighed Neil's fear, has no doubt picked it apart and tried to decide whether or not that fear should be quelled, or if it's fair game to prod.

The conclusion is clear.

"Awesome!" Nicky shouts, unaware of the turmoil between the two of them. "Finally, we found something you don't tune out completely."

"I'll make the snacks," Aaron says, and Kevin actually seems okay with the selection. He shoots them both a weird look—which, given the intensity of Neil's stare, is appropriate. However, living with them has given Kevin enough insight to know when and when not to intervene. He walks past them, as he should.

When they're actually getting settled in to watch the damn film, Neil has switched tactics. He's refusing to meet Andrew's gaze, foot tapping impatiently against their stained carpet. As peeved as he is, the fear is starting to outweigh it. What if this movie is worse? Is he ready for another night wondering if aliens are going to come absorb him into some hybrid monster?

What the fuck does the egg mean? Aliens lay eggs?!

Neil refuses to sit by Andrew at first, and Andrew's legs are spread in such a way that his lap is wide open and inviting.

It's difficult to resist.

Eventually, Andrew sighs, and slouches into the couch a little more, leaving a perfect Neil-sized spot next to him.

"You're going to sit over there by yourself?" Andrew asks. With the rest of the group out of earshot, he adds lowly: "Aliens pick off the stragglers first."

Neil's glare would melt flesh from bone if it wasn’t directed at Andrew. The blond is unaffected by Neil's threats, though there's definitely power behind them. Just...never towards him.

An unfortunate fact, but one Neil would never betray.

Sulking, he climbs up onto the couch and fits himself snuggly into Andrew's side, head on his chest. Completing the dance, Andrew manhandles Neil to rest more comfortably against him, and Neil ignores the smugness radiating off the blond.

When Aaron walks in, he regards them suspiciously. Neil hates him for smiling that knowing, shit eating little grin once the realization hits him.

Fuck Aaron. Neil knows he's afraid of possession movies. He better be ready.

"This one is especially gross," Aaron says, offhand, but aimed at Neil entirely. "I've seen it."

Neil stares into the television again, done with all of them, and hopes his brain is over it. He hopes this movie is as boring as it can be. "Let's get this shit over with."

And they do. But no, the movie is not boring.

This film is arguably worse than the one they watched last weekend. The aliens are somehow grosser, with tar-like skin and oozing orifices. Even worse, they're more parasitic than the other aliens, and extremely hard for these idiot characters to kill. Neil sees one of the alien babies jump down someone's throat and has to look away.

He supposes it's too late to ask how he got here, to wonder why he can't get over it and understand none of it is real.

But then again, what does he know about the universe?

Neil's glad everyone else is too into the film to notice him burying himself further into Andrew's chest, eyes glued to the screen reluctantly. That's the problem with fear—it takes hold of him. He's not one of those people who can look away or close their eyes, so he just wrings Andrew's shirt between his hands into a wrinkly mess.

At a certain point, the alien from earlier bursts through the character's chest and makes Neil jump away from Andrew's, but the blond grabs Neil's head gently in anticipation of this (which means he's seen this shit already, the asshole) and guides it to rest over his heart. It should make it worse, the rhythmic beating, pumping in time with the chest burster's onslaught. Instead, it's grounding, as it always is, and he sighs.

He wonders if this was Andrew's plan all along, but would that make sense? Having to comfort a scared Neil can't be anything but annoying.

Later, when he's having a mug of hot chocolate with Andrew and Aaron before bed, and steadily getting grumpier with the thought of the sleepless night to come, he says as much.

Aaron just looks at him, as if he can't believe Neil exists. "You really are a moron."

And with that, he goes back to his own dorm.

Neil tries to get clarification, but Andrew only takes the mug from his hands. He avoids Neil's questioning gaze and laces their fingers together, pulling Neil into the room before the lights go out.

It's hard to look serious when he's lying on top of Andrew's chest, glare peaking out, but he tries.

It's weekend three of Andrew's onslaught of alien movie sequels, and luckily he's promised to back off from now on.

Still. Neil's gonna pout all he wants.

A sound from outside makes him jump, but it's just an extra hard downpour knocking against the windows. If Neil closes his eyes, he almost sees the alien claws tapping on the glass, trying to get in.

"Poor, frightened little bunny," Andrew states without any inflection or tone, but Neil can sense the teasing underneath.

"Fuck you," he says, but it's dampened by the way he leans over to close the window blinds.

It helps. A little.

"And risk the alien contamination?" Andrew adds, tugging on Neil's bangs for his attention. Like he has to; he somehow always has it, even when Neil is less than pleased. "Tell me, just what do you think is going to happen? Nothing's going to burst out of you just from watching that movie."

Neil feels his stomach flip flop from the thought of it, his heart taking the tower of terror through his body. He makes a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat, and Andrew pulls him up by the scruff of his neck to get a better look at him.

"I still feel queasy," Neil says, a poor attempt at revenge. Andrew doesn't move away, isn't even remotely grossed out.

The blond just sighs, and rolls Neil over to the other side of the bed in a display of vulnerability. Instead of being pressed to the wall, Andrew's back is open to their room, to the world. Neil balks for a moment before he gets himself under control. They've done this a few times, so he closes his jaw. He knows he should be happy for these moments, not surprised by them. Because he knows they're not small. It's Andrew telling him something, it's Andrew giving. And that's nothing new.

Still, Andrew never has his back to the door, and it probably won't last long. Eventually they'll go back to their normal positions, but for now Andrew shields Neil from the world.

It's a silent emphasis, a promise.

Despite the dimness and the new tension in his shoulders, Andrew's gaze is like a spark to the gasoline pooling in Neil's body. "Neil, you're safe."

Yes. Deep down, that's the biggest truth of them all.

Neil sighs, and gently rolls them back over. It's his own affirmative, his own way of protecting Andrew—whether it be from real threats, or fictional ones. He slides over Andrew until he's on the edge of the bed, and is happy when the bits of tension bleed back out of Andrew. Much better.

"I know that." Neil curls up, and though his back is to the door, he doesn't turn away. It's another silent response. He's afraid, but he knows if an alien were to suddenly bust through the door...

Well, Andrew would let him know. "But I'm still...mph," he grunts, glaring at the blinds above Andrew, and this time, the edges of the blond's lips lift easily. Just for Neil to see.

"Scared?"

Neil rolls his eyes for the billionth time, mostly at himself. "Yes, Andrew, the stupid alien movies scare me. I'm glad you're enjoying it so much."

He won't lie; he expects a silent response, maybe the old 'I don't enjoy anything' just to make him laugh, because they both know it's not true.

Instead, Andrew grabs his wrist, tracing the veins there with his thumb.

"You're right," he admits, slow, as if he's considering taking it back. Neil waits with bated breath, and Andrew must ultimately decide that it's impossible to. "I am."

The blatant admission catches him off guard, and well...Andrew can be pretty cute too, when he avoids Neil's gaze like this. The blond fixates on where they're connected, tracing the scars farther up Neil's arm.

Neil hums. "Because you're a cruel otherworldly imposter, or because you know I secretly have a thing for when I amuse you?"

The master plan, all along.

At Neil's cheeky grin, Andrew rolls onto his back, questioning his existence. He slides Neil's hand over his chest, draping it across him. "You're a nuisance," he mutters, and Neil's grin softens at the edges. He still doesn't understand it all, but when Andrew's being so open like this he can't help but dive in. He slides his hand lower, resting it over Andrew's heart.

"Your heart's beating fast," he says quietly, nearly a whisper. "Could be a chest burster."

"Mourn me," Andrew responds, and Neil smothers his laugh in his pillow. It's got that fresh lavender scent, and reminds him that there's no way he's going to do laundry by himself this week. That room is dark.

For whatever reason, that makes him laugh more. He hears Andrew move closer, hears the stuttering breath of words kept back, and peeks an eye out. Andrew tends to look kind of constipated when he's trying to say something especially revealing, and Neil has long since stopped telling him he doesn't have to.

Because...Andrew told him it wasn't necessary.

'If I want to say something, I'll say it.'

Neil smiles; he remembers thinking it was such an Andrew answer. So now he waits patiently, letting his giggles fade into staggered huffs.

Moments pass, and then, quietly: "I like it," Andrew says, voice barely above a whisper. It hasn't lost its firmness, its inability to be argued with. "I like that you're scared of something that actually can't ever hurt you."

Neil's smile falls, but he's not upset, not in the slightest.

Andrew's statement from weeks ago feels wrong now. It's Neil that doesn't know what to do with him sometimes.

There's plenty of things Neil is scared of—things that have actually hurt him, ruined and scarred him. Those fears are more deeply ingrained and clawing, impossible to erase completely with a few nights of sleep. He doesn't have to wonder if they're real, how they'd hurt him or how painful it would be.

He knows. He can feel the ghost of a blade often, the searing scent of burning flesh whenever he's near a bonfire or when he touches his scars. He sometimes still wakes up from nightmares of being held down, except this time he's not able to get back up. He's never able to run again.

And as much as Andrew would like to, he can't go and reach into the past to stop those things from happening. The realities are so much more frightening, and that terror has no remedy. Andrew knows that better than anyone.

So maybe it's nice, maybe it's just a little rewarding, to see Neil so scared of fictional aliens and monsters instead. Those are the things that can't hurt him, that can't reach him. Perhaps it's better that they occupy his mind instead so that the other demons do not.

And that's the consideration that has Neil so at a loss; he can't do much more than echo Andrew's name in his head over and over, and scoot closer to him until he's all he can make sense of.

It's quiet, aside from the rain, but now it actually sounds like itself, calm and cleansing.

"Well, yeah," Neil whispers into Andrew's chest, then sits up. He wants to say it more firmly, with no room for doubt. This way even if Andrew doesn't believe him...he knows how Neil feels. "You protected me from all that other stuff, so those fears...they're easier now."

He's never put it into words before, but it's the truth. He'll always have nightmares about knives and guns, about fires and cold, blue eyes. But he knows any new threats that come crawling back from the mafia underworld won't have just him to deal with. He'll have Andrew by his side, fighting.

So he's not as afraid of that.

Andrew's grip around him tightens, a promise that never has to be renewed. Neil knows it's forever in place.

On the other hand...

Neil nudges Andrew sheepishly, tapping his finger right between Andrew's pecs. "I just don't know if you stand a chance against an alien hivemind," Neil admits. Though to be fair, no one does. They're all fucked.

Andrew, after a beat of silence, concedes. "For once, I think you're right."

Neil nearly feels better from that, light and warm, but then Nicky comes back into the room and turns off the lights abruptly, plunging them into darkness.

And suddenly, nothing is okay.

He scoots as far away from the edge as possible, practically pinning Andrew to the wall, but the blond takes everything with a sigh.

He deserves it anyways.

Neil still jumps from any little sound the next few nights, and yes, Andrew has to walk him to the laundry room, but that's alright. The teasing he eventually gets from the rest of the Foxes is more than worth it if he gets to make Andrew hold him extra tight.

The fear eventually fades, diluted, but if he pretends to cling to it a bit longer…no one has to know.

If Andrew catches onto Neil's dramatic, fake flinches and continued unwillingness to go anywhere by himself, well...

He certainly doesn't point it out.

#aftg #all for the game #andreil #andrew minyard #neil josten

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duhragonball · 4 years

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‘21

Amidst all the popular hype for seeing the end of 2020, it didn’t hit me until about lunchtime what the real highlight is that I’ve been waiting for: For the first time since 1999, the year finally ends in “numberty-number” again. It low-key irritated me that we had to call it “two thousand three” and I was relieved when “twenty-thirteen” caught on, but it still wasn’t right because it was too short, and now we’re back in the sweet spot, and I should be safely dead by 2100, so that’s one less thing I gotta deal with.

Really, even “numberty hundred” rings true to me. “Nineteen hundred” sounds like a year. “Twenty-one-oh-six” sounds like a futur-y year, which is even cooler. So did “Two thousand five”, until I was actually living in it, and it sounds even worse now that it was a long time ago and adults will talk about their childhood happening in that year. Daniel Witwicky would be old enough to get married and grow a fancier beard than me. That’s nuts. My point is that, honestly, it’s the year 3000-3019 that I have to worry about, so if I ever decide to go vampire, those will be the years I hide in the ocean or force society to reset the calendar, whichever’s easier.

I spent New Year’s Eve finishing Superliminal, which I bought on Steam after I watched Vegeta play it on YouTube. It has a similar look and feel to the Stanley Parable, so if you liked one you’d probably enjoy the other, although Superliminal has a different theme. I kept hoping I’d find some secret passage that I wasn’t supposed to take, and a narrator would scold me for finding the “Chickenbutt Ending”, but it doesn’t work that way. Superliminal’s all about puzzles and awesome visuals, but it does have the same soothing design aesthetics as TSP. Honestly, I enjoyed just wandering around in Stanley’s office, and Superliminal does the same thing with a hotel and several other settings. It’s nice.

This got me thinking about how I kind of did everything there was to do in The Stanley Parable, and I sort of wished they would add new stuff to the game, but I’m not sure there would be much point to that. I could play the older version, but it presents the same message, just with different assets. The Boss’s Office would look different, but it’d be the same game. And this got me thinking about various “secret chapters” in pop culture. Secrets behind the cut.

I first heard about this idea in the 2000′s, when fans invented this notion that there was a secret chapter of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I read a website that tried to explain the concept, and of course it lauded J.K. Rowling with all this gushing praise for working an Easter egg into the book, a literary work of “well, magic.”

That pretty well sums up my distaste for Harry Potter, by the way. These days, JKR has thoroughly crapped all over her reputation and legacy, but in the 2000′s it felt like half the planet was in a mad rush to canonize her as a writing goddess, to the point where fans were congratulating her for writing secret chapters that didn’t actually exist. The idea was based on lore from the books about Neville Longbottom’s parents. They were patients in a mental hospital, and he’d go to visit them, and they would give him bubble gum wrappers, intended to demonstrate how far remove they’ve become from reality. The secret chapter lies in those wrappers, which all read “Droobles Best Blowing Gum” or some such. What if Neville’s parents were only pretending to be mentally ill, so as to throw off their enemies? Naturally, they would want to stay in contact with their son, so the bubble gum wrappers would have to contain coded messages. Said code involves unscrambling the letters on the wrappers to make new words, like “goblin” or “sword” or “Muggle” or “Dumbledore”. The problem is that you can also use it to make other words like “booger” or “drool” or “booobbiess.” Play with it enough, and you can make the code say anything you want it to say, which means it’s no code at all.

But the idea was that the not-yet-published sixth HP book would reveal all of this gum wrapper nonsense, and Neville would decode the messages and discover all of his parents’ super-cool adventures. I’m not sure why we needed a secret chapter if Book 6 was going to explain all of this anyway in several not-secret chapters, but that was the whole point. Fans didn’t have Book 6 yet, and they were so desperate to read it that they started trying to extrapolate what would happen next based on “clues” from the previous five. That’s like trying to figure out what Majin Buu looks like by watching the Androids Saga. I guess some wiseguy would have guessed that he’d resemble #19, but that’d just be blind luck.

And when you get down to it, this whole secret chapter business is really just a conspiracy. This is literally how Qanon works. Some anonymous jackass posted vague “hints” on an imageboard, and people went goofy trying to interpret them and figure out what would happen in the future. They call it “research” because they spend a ton of time on this, but there’s no basis to any of it. It took me a few minutes to figure out that you can spell “Muggle” with the words in “Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum”, but that’s not research and it doesn’t prove anything. But all these guys keep looking for “Hilary Clinton goes to jail next week” and lo and behold that’s all they ever find.

In the same vein, the gum wrapper thing was really a complaint disguised as a conspiracy, disguised as a “magical secret chapter”. At least a few fans wanted to see more Neville in their Harry Potter books, they wanted Neville’s parents, or someone like them, to have cool spy adventures or whatever else. The point is, they clearly weren’t getting what they wanted out of the printed works, but they didn’t want to turn against their Dear Beloved Author, so they started casting about for an alternative reality, one where J.K. Rowling wrote a cooler story and hid it in the pages of the one that actually went to press. So instead of just saying “Hey, Order of the Phoenix was kind of a letdown, I hope there’s more ninjas in the next book,” they said “Rowling is a genius because I wanted ninjas and she’s definitely going to give them to me, I have the gum wrappers to prove it.”

The same thing happened all over again when the BBC Sherlock show took a turn for the nonsensical. I don’t know from BBC Sherlock, but I watched the fascinating video critique by Hbomberguy, and it sounds like the show did tons of plot twists until it stopped making sense altogether in the fourth season. If you skip to 1:09:00 in the video, you’ll hear about fan theories that suggested that season four was supposed to be crappy, as part of a secret meta-narrative plan that would be paid off in a secret, unannounced episode that would not only explain everything, but retroactively justify the crappy episodes that came before. But it’s been a few years and it never came to pass, so I think we can call this myth busted.

Most recently, I think we’ve all seen a lot of talk about the final season of Supernatural, where I guess Destiel sort of became canon but only one guy does the love confession and the other doesn’t respond. But I guess he does say “I love you too” in the Spanish dub, which means the English language version was edited for whatever reason. It’s not exactly a secret episode, but the implication is that there’s more to this than what made it to the screen. So the questions turn to what the screenplay said, what the writers and actors wanted to do, etc. etc. My general impression is that SPN fans are a bit more used to crushing disappointment, so they’re not quite as delusional about this show being unquestionable genius, like Sherlock and Harry Potter. Maybe this is an Anglophile thing? Like, if you suck at something with a British accent, people will accept it more unconditionally?

I had seen something on Twitter about how there should have been a secret Seinfeld episode in the 90′s. Someone suggested it at the time, they tape a whole episode, then wait until 2020 to air it, because by then it would be worth a fortune. But they didn’t do it, because it costs a lot of money to make a TV episode, and if you don’t air the show right away, you aren’t making that money back any time soon. Yeah, you might recoup a fortune someday, but Seinfeld was making a ton of money then. It exposes the fannish nature of the idea. A fan would love to discover a cool secret chapter, but a content creator isn’t necessarily keen on making a cool thing and then hiding it where few people would find it.

I thought about doing this myself recently. Maybe Supernatural gave me the bug, but I thought “I’m writing this big-ass story, so what if I wrote me a secret chapter for it? Wouldn’t that be cool?” But no, it wouldn’t be cool, because it’d be the same work as writing a regular chapter, and the same stress I feel when I hold off on publishing it. Except I’d just never publish it, I’d put it in some secret hole on the internet and hope that some superfan who might not even exist can decode whatever clues I leave.

I mean, it’d be awesome if it got discovered and everyone loved it. “Hey, I found this hidden chapter! Mike’s done it again!” And I could bask in the glory. But what if no one finds it? Then I just wasted my time, right? I want people to read my work. My monkey brain needs the sweet, sweet validation of those kudos and comments, folks. Once I realized that, I understood why no one else would want to do a secret chapter either. Easter eggs are one thing, but the bigger bonus features they put on DVDs were pretty easy to find, and with good reason.

I think that’s what made the Stanley Parable so appealing to play, because it teases you with the idea that you can “break” the game and find some extra content that you weren’t supposed to see, but as you go exploring all those hidden areas, it gradually becomes clear that this is just part of the game; you were meant to find all these things, and that’s why they were put here. It’s hidden, but he secret aspect of it is just pretend.

I suppose that what I like about games like TSP and Superliminal is the illusion of secrets more than the secrets themselves. I like roaming through the hallways, having no idea what I might find ahead. I kind of wish I could open all the doors, and not just the ones the game designers put stuff behind, but the reality is that there’s nothing on the other side. I used a cheat code once to explore the unused doors in TSP and it’s just a bright white field on the other side. Interesting to look at, but not much of a reveal. Honestly, the doors themselves are more appealing than anything that could lay behind them.

And that’s probably what makes secrets so fun. They could be almost anything, but once you open the present, the number of possibilities drops to one. If they had ever made that Secret BBC Sherlock Episode, I doubt it would have lived up to expectations, but fans could amuse themselves by imagining what could have been in it. In the end, though, things usually don’t justify the hype. For every Undertaker debut at Survivor Series 1990, there’s a Gobbledygooker debut at Survivor Series 1990. It’s impossible to manufacture a secret with a guaranteed payoff.

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this-do-be-therapeutic · 5 years

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Fall

Sebastian Stan x Reader

A bunch of fluff that will hopefully make you smile.

Warning: Seb is so good???????????????????

A/N: Just like my last one, this both felt super long and super rushed at the same time???? IDEK anymore, man. I hope you enjoy.

If you have any writing tips (like not writing all of your fan fictions at 1 in the morning), I’m open to any and all of them!!!

People love Fall for many reasons. The pretty leaves changing colors, the weather getting cooler letting everyone get ready for hot chocolate and cuddling, Thanksgiving, even the leaves when they fall and get to the satisfying crunchy state. However, that was also the worst part of fall, the leaves falling. I always spent over an hour raking up the leaves that fell from my huge maple tree in my huge yard and the two other trees in my yard, it was so much work, every single year.

And that’s exactly where I am right now, raking up the leaves for my parents because they’re both old and always working. My mom recently got kidney stones take out, so it’s understandable that she wouldn’t want to be dealing with these. My dad was always busy working in his store that he owned with a partner and my brother. Why my parents couldn’t ask one of the other boys to do it, I’m not sure, but whatever.

I’m raking up the leaves, with my rake, like every normal person does, when I hear a loud whirring noise. Like someone running a motor, and the sound of leaves rustling after it.

Okay, so someone is cleaning off their sidewalk with a leaf blower, fantastic. I’m glad people care about others walking on the sidewalk.

I turn to glance at the good samaritan and am shocked at what I see. Not only is that man absolutely stunning in his leather jacket, short brown hair that looks way too soft to be real falling in his eyes, his perfect muscular build that is oh so tasty, but he’s not using the leaf blower to clean the sidewalk. Oh no, he’s using it in his freaking yard?! Who on earth does that? That is not morally okay. I take back everything I said about his stunning body.

Okay, fine, it’s not the worst idea. In fact it’s kind of genius, sort of. But you’d think with a body like his, he’d be fine doing a little work, and I definitely would not mind him doing it. But it’s also kind of dumb. First of all, you can’t really aim with a leaf blower, it’s just air, so it goes everywhere, often times making an even bigger mess than you started with. And it doesn’t make satisfying piles that everyone loves to jump in even when it’s not the leaf pile they made in their own yard and it makes a huge mess for the owner of whoever’s house it is has to clean up and it’s so rude and frustrating and freaking trespassing and GET OUT OF MY YARD, YOU CHILDREN.

Anywayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

I continue to stare at him doing that for a few more minutes, torn between swooning and going over to chop off his head (and maybe keeping it in the freezer with some sunglasses, kinda like Medusa, ya know? Because I’m sure his gaze is just so darn captivating I would freeze up the moment he looks at me, wink wink) when he glances up at me. He turns off his darn leaf blower and sends me a shining smile while walking over to my parents’ yard. And let me say this right now, he gets more and more attractive the closer he gets, HOT DANG.

“Hi neighbor. Couldn’t help but notice you checking my girl out. She’s pretty, right?” Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my gosh his voice is breathtaking. But who is he talking about? Is this his way of telling me to stop looking at him because he’s off the market without actually having a female around??????

“She? What are you talking about?”

He smiles even wider, as if excited to show me this girl. He lift his leaf blower, using his head to gesture at it a little. “Her name is Ethel. She works real hard and well. Had her for about 5 years now.” First off, that’s a gross name (A/N, I am so sorry if your name is Ethel, I asked my friend for a name and he came up with that and the reader had to think it was gross, love you!), and second, what?

“You... You named your leaf blower?”

“Of course, who doesn’t?”

“Any person with any sort of common sense????”

“I don’t see a problem with it. People name their cars. Anyway, my name is Sebastian Stan.” At least his name isn’t terrible. I kinda like it, actually.

“Huh, well good for you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do.” I gesture to the yard and my rake before I begin again, the sound of the leaves getting crushed and moved loud and hopefully ending the conversation.

“Wait, what’s your name?” And he didn’t leave.

“Doesn’t matter, you won’t be seeing me again anytime soon. I don’t live here, and I only come when my parents ask me to.” And that’s when it starts to rain. “Freaking hormonal weather...” I curse the rain because it means I can’t finish my work today.

“Shoot, I should get home, get Ethel in a warm dry place, she gets a little finicky when she’s wet.” He smiles again before walking away.

I sigh and sit on my parents’ porch. I took a cab here, neither of my parents are home so the door’s locked, I don’t have a key, and I can’t call a cab because of course my phone decided to die a little after I started raking. So I just sit there, watching the rain pour down on the pile of leaves I had managed to make.

A few minutes of sitting there by myself and Sebastian comes jogging into my yard with an umbrella. “Locked out?” he asks, as if it’s not obvious.

I roll my eyes and respond, “No, I just love sitting in the freezing cold rain without a jacket watching my hard work get ruined.”

He chuckles a little before walking up to me, offering his hand. “Come to my place. It’s warm and unlocked right now. I also make a mean cup of hot chocolate.”

“Tempting, but how do I know you’re not just luring me into your house so you can murder me?” I glance at his hand. It looks rough and calloused. Probably from lifting weights. Those metal bars aren’t exactly easy on the skin.

“Come on, would I do that? With a face like this?” His smile is literally blinding me.

“Yes.”

He sighs, his smile falling a little, making me sad. “Come on, at least if I’m a murderer you’ll die comfortably and not out in this ice cold rain.”

I nod a little. “I guess you’re right.” I reach up and take his hand, his smile back to its original brightness as he pulls me up.

“So, do I get to know your name yet?” He wraps his incredibly warm arm over my shoulder so I fit under the umbrella with him.

“Not until I’m certain you won’t kill me.” He laughs again and squeezes my shoulders gently in amusement as he leads us back to his house. My hand flies to his chest in that action and I can feel his well defined pectorals, taunting me because I can’t see them.

“I guess I’ll just have to come up with a name on my own. How about... Jessica?”

“Oh gosh, can we end this nonsense right now? I don’t want you calling me any actual names.”

“But you look like a Jessica to me.” I shoot him a glare right as he looks at me. “Fine fine, how about Princess?”

“You’re killing me, Sebastian.”

“I think it fits you.” He squeezes me again as we get to his door.

“And how do you figure that?” He pulls his arms from around me, causing me o shiver from the cold reaching where I was used to his warmth.

“So far you have been nothing but a royal pain.” He opens the door before closing his umbrella and shaking the water.

“Wow, thank you so much. That means a lot to me.” Sebastian looks back at me and we both just stand there, looking at each other, his face no longer having his beautiful smile. Instead, he looks thoughtful and serious.

“That’s exactly why I said it. I couldn’t possibly risk upsetting the princess.” He continues with a straight face for just a few more moments before bursting out laughing and telling me to go inside with his arm. “Please, come inside. Ladies first.”

I scoff, just thinking ‘That’s what she said’ as I walk in. When I first walk in I see the living room. A love seat against one wall across the TV on top of a little dresser thing, most likely full of movies, consoles, games, all the works a stereotypical man would have. Between the TV and couch is a coffee table, a vase of yellow roses in the middle of it. In the corners of the room are lamps and other plants.

“Please, have a seat. I’ll bring you something to drink.” He shuts the door and heads into what I can only assume is the kitchen. I take a seat on the couch, enjoying the softness on my bum.

Sebastian comes back around 5-10 minutes later with 2 cups of a steamy beverage. He takes a seat next to me and hands me one. Hot chocolate, I soon realize. “Thank you, Sebastian.” He nods silently, watching my reaction as I blow on it before taking a small sip. At first, all I can feel is it burning across my tongue and down my throat, but the after taste is magical. It straight up tastes like caramel Lindor chocolate truffles. “Holy heck, that is amazing!”

He sets his own cup down with a smile. “I’m glad you like it. My mom taught me the recipe. She is a magical woman. She would have liked you.”

“Oh? How come she isn’t around to like me?”

“She lives in Romania.”

“Romania? Is that where you’re from?” He nods, his hair that had been tucked away falling back into his face. My hand shoots up to tuck it away so I can see his beautiful eyes better. “Do you miss being there?”

“Of course. My family is there, and many of my old friends.”

“How come you moved here, if you liked it so much?”

“I don’t know, I guess I just felt a pull to move across the globe. Maybe it was your soul telling mine it missed me.” He smiles sheepishly and looks down.

“Do you really believe that stuff?” He nods again. “That is so disgustingly cute.” I smile when he looks up again.

“You have a beautiful smile, you know that?”

‘No, not many people tell me that. I guess I don’t do it that often.” I lean my head against the back of his couch. “Not many people try so hard to get me to smile.”

“Well then it is their loss. Your smile is breathtaking. Thank you for blessing me with your smile, Princess.”

“Y/N.”

“What?”

“Y/N, that’s my name.” He hums softly.

“I think Princess fits you better.”

#Sebastian Stan #sebastian stan x reader #Sebastian Stan Fluff #Sebastian Stan x Female Reader #Bucky Barnes #Bucky Barnes x Reader #Bucky Barnes x Female Reader #Bucky Barnes Fluff

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franklyshipping · 5 years

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Day 8 ~ Christmas 2019 Ego Fanfics

Day 8 here we are holy moly! Now, festive times can bring along unwanted stress, so let's get rid of some of that today! LET'S DO IT!

TAGGING: @googlee-oliver

There are so many ways to give someone that you love a gift, and I personally am always honoured at the thought of someone even thinking about wanting to get me something. Something that’s always particularly special though, it’s when someone decides to hand-make a gift for one of their loved ones, I just find it so precious. Especially since making a gift for someone can be so difficult, certainly more difficult that regular crafting. You always want it to be completely utterly perfect, and you get paranoid and scared if you don’t get something exactly right and it takes at least 10 attempts to make something you think is even half decent.

Of course, sometimes this can be quite stressful….and sometimes, getting a little help can make things all the better. I regret to say that someone was experiencing sad stress right now, but you need not fear, because a certain little green glob was on a mission to find someone who could ease the stress and frustration….of Goopiplier. Gooper was speeding down corridor after corridor, just looking for somebody, anybody, who could help the poor guy….and Gooper ended up bumping into the ankle of the perfect person.

‘Wohoah! Whehere are you off toho in such a hurry?’

Oliver, the yellow Google facet, giggled as he looked down at Gooper, before crouching down so he could pet his back softly. Gooper relished in the affection for a few moments, before remembering his purpose. He bounced and gurgled intently to the android, who immediately furrowed his brows in concern.

‘Goop is upset and he needs someone’s help?! Where is he? Can you take me to him?’

Gooper eagerly yipped, before hurrying back the way he came with Oliver following quickly behind, his mind racing with worry as he hoped that Goop wasn’t panicking too much. Either way though, Oliver was resolute on helping, whatever the problem was. Gooper halted at Goop’s bedroom door, motioning to it…and Oliver could feel his own emotions building when he heard wet, muffled sobs coming from inside the room. Oliver smiled gently down at Gooper.

‘It’s okay bud, I’ll take it from here.’

Gooper mewled and nuzzled Oliver’s ankle as a thank you, before vacating. Oliver then turned his attention to the door, which was slightly ajar, before deciding to carefully push it open.

‘Goop?’

Oliver spoke softly so the man wouldn’t be startled, and thankfully he wasn’t. Oliver caught a quick glimpse of the man’s face before he tried to hide it, he had a slime-esque beard as always, but his eyes were puffy and there were tears and snot on his face from all the crying he’d clearly been doing. Goop gulped before trying to speak in a stammer free voice….which unfortunately he didn’t quite manage.

‘Hey Oli uh…l-look I’m uh…d-doing a Christmas g-g-…g-gift thing so uhm…c-c-…u-uhm…’

Oliver’s android heart broke at hearing Goop whimper and seeing him tremble from how upset he was, and he immediately came up to him and placed a gentle hand on his arm.

‘Oh Goop, what happened? You can tell me, it’s just you and me here, and I won’t tell anyone else if you don’t want me to….’

Oliver spoke in a gentle, reassuring voice…and it was that kindness that caused the last dam to break in Goop’s mind. His words were rambles as he turned to the sweet android, and his emotions just ran from his lips like a raging river.

‘I-I-I t-tried t-to make W-Wilford a p-pretty p-p-present b-but i-it’s useless a-a-and stupid and I-I kn-know he’s gonna hate it a-a-and think i-it’s worthless a-a-and h-he’ll h-hate me!’

Goop sobbed into his hands, sniffling as his whole body seemed to shake with his panicked upset; needless to say, Oliver was quick to act. Different people are cheered up by different things, sometimes it’s a light-hearted joke that shines through the dark crap, sometimes it’s soothing words, sometimes it’s the opportunity to vent, and sometimes it’s physical contact. Oliver had made it a secret project and find out and file away exactly what soothed each and every one of the egos, and thankfully he knew what Goop needed. A damn tight hug and the opportunity to just cry it all out.

‘Hey…hey it’s okay, I’ve got you. Just let it out Goop, just let it all out…’

Oliver wrapped his arms around the weeping man, holding him close to his chest with one hand rubbing his back and another hand buried gently in his hair. At first, Goop was inclined to protest, but as soon as he felt Oli’s warmth he just couldn’t pull away. He sobbed into Oli’s chest for a while, he was just so stressed and nervous that it just became too much for him. He’d never been a part of a family like this wherein he could give anyone any gifts, so this was a seriously big deal for him. Also, Wilford was like his idol; he was charismatic, talented, and didn’t care if he was seen as weird by others, he just owned it. That’s why it was so important for Goop to get this gift right.

‘I-I j-just….I-I-I wanna m-make this p-perfect….’

He stuttered still, but his sobs had died down thanks to Oliver’s affection and patience. The android smiled softly into Goop’s shoulder, rubbing his back as he replied in a soft voice.

‘I get, I really do. Sometimes with these things you just work on them so much that it makes it hard to see just how good they are, sometimes you need another pair of eyes to see the perfection…’

They slowly parted from the embrace, and Oliver smiled up at Goop now as he continued.

‘I could be that other pair of eyes, if you like?’

Goop nibbled his bottom lip nervously…he was still so scared of what he made being terrible, but on the other hand he really trusted Oliver, he was one of the kindest and most honest people ever; Goop knew that if anyone was going to make him feel better about this whole debacle, it would be the android of sunshine.

‘….o-okay….okay I’ll show you….’

Oliver’s smile widened, he couldn’t deny that he was excited to see what Goop had been working on for Wilford; Oliver knew that Goop had a talent for crafting, so the android had a really good feeling about this in his core. Goop led him over to a little work bench he had in his room, and moved a metal bucket aside….and Oliver’s eyes widened. Goop had, somehow….made a lava lamp from scratch.

‘Is….did you MAKE a lava lamp?’

Oliver’s mouth and eyes were wide as he took a closer look, whilst Goop fiddled with his fingers nervously.

‘U-Uh…yeah uhm, well, I-I’ve tried to….’

It was the most beautiful thing that Oliver had ever seen in his entire life. The lava lamp was a good thirty centimetres high and about fifteen centimetres in diameter, it had been crafted absolutely gorgeously. The lighting sequence transitioned through a sequence of pinks into purples, with a hint of magenta at points too, and the movement of the lava-slime substance was beautifully slow and hypnotic. What’s more, the heat it radiated was nothing short of comforting, it wasn’t too overwhelmingly hot, just a soothing, radiant warmth; oh also, the lava-slime clumps were embedded with silvery glitter. Oliver let out a soft gasp as he looked back to Goop finally.

‘This is so…just….I-I don’t know how to describe it! Beautiful isn’t a good enough word for it! The substance moves so smoothly up and down, the colours of light are so soothing and fit so perfect with Wilford! Plus, he’ll adore the fact that it’s, y’know, a lava lamp! I know he’s going to adore it!’

Goop blinked a few times in shock, having to take a minute or so to process all the praise he was being given. Oliver….thought it was better than good. Goop developed a wobbly, happy smile, letting out a light residual sniffle as he mumbled.

‘Y-You really think that?’

Oliver grinned as he nodded eagerly.

‘Heck yeah! It’s so cool, I really mean it!’

Goop’s smile widened, before he looked down to the floor, bashfully rubbing the back of his neck.

‘Ahaww shucks….’

Oliver let out a fond giggle.

‘Don’t you start crying again on me mister!’

Goop blushed at that.

‘I-I won’t I won’t-‘

‘Oh! Speaking of which, what kind of friend am I if I don’t clean you up?’

Goop blinked a few times, before his blush darkened as Oliver tilted his head up and started wiping and dabbing softly at his eyes and cheeks with a handkerchief.

‘Y-You don’t have to-‘

‘Nonsense, I want to! Plus, those tears might ruin your slime beard and we CANNOT have that!’

Goop let out a giggle, which warmed Oliver’s core so much, Oliver was much happier seeing Goop smiling instead of being so morose and disheartened. Oliver took his time drying away Goop’s tears and softly dabbing against his puffy skin, being careful to make his fingers a tad cooler so that the skin would feel soothed. However, that little giggle that Goop had let out was somewhat stuck in Oliver’s mind…and Oliver came to the logical conclusion that in order to help maintain Goop’s cheered up state, a state of mirth should also be involved. Oliver’s eyes gleamed for a moment, before he casually spoke.

‘Oh my! How did you get tears behind your ears?’

Goop furrowed his brows…what? For a moment he was seriously worried that Oliver was shorting out or low on charge, but he soon realised what Oliver was doing….when his nimble fingers skittered behind both his ears. He let out a wide eyed squeal and jumped away from the android, blushing rather red already as he stuttered in a very cute manner.

‘D-Dohon’t even think about it!’

Oliver giggled, and tucked his handkerchief away as he softly stepped towards Goop with a playful grin in place.

‘I just wanna make sure you’re all cheered up-‘

‘Y-You don’t need to tickle m-me to do that!’

‘Ohhh but I think I DO!’

Goop squealed and gasped when he was suddenly tackled to the floor by the, ultimately far stronger, android who wasted no time in straddling his hips and pinning his arms under his knees. Oliver let out a content sigh, before cooing.

‘Now, where was I?’

Oliver didn’t wait for an answer before he went back to skittering behind Goop’s, very adorable, ears which made Goop burst into spluttery giggles and snorts.

‘Pfthfttth-hehehey! Stahahappit yohohou ahass stahahappit!’

Oliver giggled, internally squealing at how adorable Goop looked as he tossed his head from side to side, he was so precious. Oliver’s nails were very precise as they stroked right in the crooks behind Goop’s lobes, all the while Oliver grinned and crooned.

‘Awww you look so much happier already, how could I possibly stop?!’

Goop squealed and kicked out reflexively, biting his bottom lip as he tossed his head about as much as he could, but Oliver was just too damn good at this. Usually if Goop got tickled, people never went for his ears because most people didn’t want to get part of his gooey beard on themselves, so that tickle spot always remained safe…until now of course.

‘Ihihihit tihihickles soho bahahad!’

Oliver fondly rolled his eyes.

‘Nooo! Really?! Well now that IS a revelation!’

Goop snorted, attempting to glare up at Oli through his flustered grin.

‘Shuhuhut uhuhup!’

Oliver grinned, his tongue poking out through his teeth cutely as he let his fingers traipse down away from Goop’s ears, now occupying themselves with softly trailing up and down his arms. Oliver smiled softly as he looked down at Goop.

‘You know, I don’t think I will. I’m really enjoying tickling you y’know, and that just makes me wanna talk even more! I wanna talk about how pretty your grin is, how sweet your giggles are, how cute your blush is! And ESPECIALLY how adorable it is when your goopy beard wobbles when you laugh!’

Goop’s eyes widened with embarrassment as he spluttered, caught between shaky giggles and utter speechlessness as all the teasing compliments built up in his brain. He’d never been complimented this much in his life, nor had he ever been teased this much in his life, and the intense combination of the two was just making him crumble into a flustered mess.

‘Ohogod-p-plehease just sh-shush! I-I c-can’t…’

He trailed off with a soft whine as he flicked his gaze away from the android, and Oliver felt like he was going to melt right there and then at how his teasy kindnesses affected the guy.

'Awwww, can the wittle goopy baby not handle the teasies?’

Oliver cooed with a giggle, now deciding to sneak a finger into each of Goop’s closed armpits, which caught the poor guy very off guard as he tried to retort.

‘I-I’m not a g-goopy ba-EEE OHMYGOD GEHET OHOUT OF THEHERE!’

Oliver grinned with evil delight at how Goop squealed and threw his head back, letting out a string out deep cackles that sounded like they came from the very depths of his sensitive soul. Oliver kept his fingers wiggling as he teased.

‘Oh…but…oh dear, it seems now I’ve put them in, I can’t get them out! Oh jeez, maybe if I wiggle them more then that’ll help get them out…’

Goop’s cackles got louder as Oliver sped up the tickling wiggling, making Goop thrash and cry out in growing flustered desperation.

‘NAHAHA THAHAT’S NAHAHAT HEHEHELPIHING!’

Despite Goop’s words, Oli maintained a concerned demeanour, letting out little gasps and grunts as he wiggled and twisted his fingers about constantly.

‘I am trying, but goodness me your thrashing is not helping! It’s only a little finger in each little armpit…’

Goop merely wailed, arching his back as his feet hit the floor wildly with his struggles and reactions.

‘C’MAHAHAHAN!! PLEHEHEHEEEASE!!’

Oliver giggled, and let his façade drop as he removed his fingers from Goop’s sensitive hollows. Goop was gasping, and his voice was caught in a much higher octave as he looked up at Oliver with flustered shock; he hadn’t ever fathomed sweet little Oliver being so damn evil!

‘Thahat w-was soho e-evihil! L-Like, s-seriously e-e-ehevil!’

Oliver giggled, raising a playful eyebrow down at Goop as he booped the guy’s nose.

‘I barely even did anything, it’s not my fault you’re a ticklish goopy baby!’

….I swear to god, Goop’s face was almost a fricking magenta colour after Oliver said those words. His voice somehow managed to go even higher too as he stammered.

‘I-I-I a-am n-not!’

Oliver giggled with an excited gasp, noting how that particular little nickname affected the sweet, ticklish man. Oliver teasingly ran his fingers over Goop’s torso now, focusing on his tummy as he raised an eyebrow down at him playfully.

‘Ohh? Does a certain ticklish goopy baby like that nickname?’

Goop pursed his lips and looked away from Oliver, fighting giggles as his lips and belly both trembled. Honestly, he did rather like that nickname, and frankly he was enjoying all of this too….but what he enjoyed the most was Oliver’s teasing. Oliver’s teasing gave him chills and goose-bumps and made him blush so hard he was hotter than the lava lamp he’d made for Wilford; disagreeing with Oliver was like a game, and it was a game that Goop wanted to play.

‘N-Noho…’

Oliver cocked his head down at Goop fondly. He could see that Goop adored it, he couldn’t hide the joy gleaming in his hazel eyes. Oliver understood why he disagreed though, it was simply Goop’s way of asking for even more teasing, and Oliver was more than happy to oblige.

‘Hmmm….that’s interesting…’

Goop let out a flustered whine as he felt Oliver’s fingertips splay over his sensitive tummy, before the android continued to speak in a low, teasing purr.

‘…because it seems to me, that the nickname suits you perfectly. You can’t deny that you’re oh so beautifully ticklish, you know you can’t hide it. Plus, you’re certainly goopy with that beard of yours jiggling away as you laugh so sweetly…’

Goop had his eyes squeezed shut out of flustered frustration as giggles built up in his belly and chest, feeling Oliver’s fingers curl and uncurl as his teases flowed so effortlessly was making it so damn hard to hold everything in….and ultimately, it was his final words that did it.

‘And frankly, you have the sweetness, softness, and cuteness of the most precious baby boy….ever!’

Oliver finished his tease by turning his tickling from anticipatory lightness, to devilish scratchiness. Goop let out a cry as he sharply arched his back, before he became a mess of giddy laughter and writhing beneath Oliver; his tummy was so damn ticklish, as I think we can concur.

‘NOHOHAHAHA NAHAT THE TUHUHUMMY OHOHO GAHAD NAHAT THEHERE! OHOHOLIIII!!!'

Oliver grinned with delight at his reaction, he ADORED playing with people’s hyper ticklish spots; people always got to the ultimate peak of cuteness once they were just consumed by mirth and nothing else. He kept on scratching as he cooed in the teasiest tone he could possibly muster.

‘Awww kitchy kitchy coo! Awww lookit the ticklish goopy baaaby! Does he like the tummy tickles, I think he liiiikes theeem!’

Goop was shaking his head frantically as his eyes started to water, the teasing was just absolutely breaking him.

‘NUHUHUHUH! NAHAHAT TRUHUHUUUE!!!’

Oliver giggled and cooed right in his face happily.

‘Is too truuuue!’

Oliver even went as far as too kiss Goop’s nose, making the mirthful man squeak and scrunch up his face; it was true tickle torment, there was no escape from the tickling or the teasing.

‘OHOHOHOLIIII!!!’

‘Yeeees Goopy?’

Goop was reaching the end of his resolve….but he was feeling much better as a result.

‘MEHEHEHERCYYY!!!’

Oliver giggled fondly, and had mercy, since he could see that he’d almost reached his limit. The android released Goop’s arms from beneath his knees, but flopped on top of him for a cuddle as he nestled into the man’s chest affectionately.

‘Do you feel a bit better?’

At Oliver’s soft question, Goop grinned his widest grin yet as he looked down at the warm, selfless sunflower android snuggled into him.

‘Yeah….yeah I do….’

Goop’s grin then morphed into a smirk, and he wrapped his arms around Oliver tightly as he growled.

‘Let me show you how grateful I am.’

Oliver spent the rest of the day basically being tortured….with love. He was accosted with gooey kisses and nuzzles and nibbles, which made him squeal and wriggle about like the cutest being ever; but let’s be real, no matter how messy it gets, love is the best thing around.

WOOO HOPE YOU LIKE THIS NEXT FIC LEMME KNOW IF YA DO WOOOO LUV YOUS XX

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softjeon · 5 years

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Caim | Pt. 1

• Pairing: Witch!Yoongi x Namjoon • Genre: Fluff/ a bit of angst | Witch!AU ( → Gifset Trailer) • Words: 12,7k | written with @cassiavioletblue • Disclaimer: black magic, cursed induced dark thoughts & anxiety, mentioning of death, smut content

↳ Caim (scottish, n.) - an invisible circle of protection, drawn around the body with the hand, that reminds you that you are safe and loved, even in the darkest times or just a story about how Namjoon stumbled in the middle of Yoongi’s spell.

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There was a light breeze coming from the climate control, maintaining a pre-set temperature so comfortable that it could be compared to sitting under the shield of a tree with a gentle breeze. The auditorium was lit with ceiling and wall lights, which could be dimmed or suited to the desired lighting. Namjoon sighed and looked up at his class, “I’d like to remind each and every one of you that I won’t be teaching lectures next semester.” A sad murmur went through the crowd that had Namjoon smile nonetheless, glad that the student’s apparently liked his lectures. “I’m still going to work through your assignments and will send your grades to the administration as soon as possible.” Namjoon took his stack of papers and dismissed the class, before he pushed it all into his bag, not really caring about being careful or neat.

Only when it was completely quiet did Namjoon step away from the podium. The first time Namjoon had entered the auditorium, he had thought he had entered some kind of sports arena. He had wondered how those sitting way high from the entrance door could still follow his lecture or his lab experiments, but he had underestimated the new media system. Everything was shown via cam, his hands as big as the ones of a giant on the big screen behind him. He felt nervous every time, praying to whatever higher power there was not to spill anything expensive or any acid on him in front of an audience. It had only happened once. He was glad, he’d rather just deal with his clumsiness on his own in his home and not have a dozen of students watching him.

At home, Namjoon closed his eyes to concentrate once more, but when he opened them there was still nothing but his pounding headache. With a sigh he gave up on his plan to finish a stretch of his dissertation. Distractions assailed him from every mental quarter - the headache making him feel light-headed, the phone call with his boss still on his mind. Some days, Namjoon had no idea how he managed to work on and finish his assignments, when instead, all he wanted was to climb in bed and stay there until he felt better. The headaches were the reason he moved further away from the city and to a small village right outside of town. He didn’t mind the twenty-minutes that it took him to drive to the university. But he had minded that there was no park near his house, only a loud bar right outside his apartment that made it so much harder for him to concentrate.

Namjoon took his jacket off the wardrobe and closed the door behind him. A smile on his face that let his dimples show as he greeted a neighbor on his way out. He took in the fresh air, feeling his headache dissolve slowly. It became his little routine to walk right down his street to the park nearby and the road that followed all through it. Normally he’d take the same way back, but something made him take a turn left, strolling through the streets deep in thoughts. Coming by a few shops and a bakery, Namjoon bought some fresh bread for the next morning and a cinnamon bun for him to eat right away. Munching on it while he was standing at a stop light, there was a sudden insistent push at his leg.

“Oh, hello there cutie,” Namjoon reached out, letting the cat sniff at his hand, before he caressed over its fur, it’s back arching beneath his hand, the tail sliding between his fingers as he pushed himself against his leg again. For a moment, he scratched and patted as the animal wriggled with pleasure. His fingers were gently circling the cat’s neck, while the cat began to purr. The cat nudged his leg with his nose again and Namjoon could have sworn he saw a thankful smile on its mouth, before it snapped his head around as if someone was calling for it. Namjoon looked up, narrowing his eyes a little to try and see whatever the cat had been looking at. But there was nothing, but a small alley behind them, one that lead up to a shop.

The cat quickly trotted along the way, its bushy tail swaying proudly. Namjoon followed it without a second thought, just because he was curious. At the end of the alley there was another shop, one that he might have missed if the cat hadn’t caught his attention. Before the cat reached the entrance of the shop there was someone reaching out for it, as if he had expected the cat.

“Hobi! Stop getting up to nonsense! I need you right now you need to guard the...”

The rest of the sentence was swallowed by the distance because whoever was inside the shop had quickly picked up the cat and left and all that Namjoon could see was a small figure with delicate hands that had stood out against the black fur because they had been so pale - and silver-grey hair. Intrigued he walked closer, not even sure what kind of shop this was or if it was even officially open. Still he was too curious to keep out and so he was clearing his throat politely to signalize that he was there - although no one was around anymore. Neither the silver haired nor the cat where anywhere to be seen and there was also no other customer in the shop. The door however was open and so Namjoon carefully stepped inside.

It was cooler inside the shop but not cold, rather refreshing and the first thing he noticed was the smell. It was spicy, a bit like cinnamon but apart from that Namjoon couldn’t recognize anything. He was sensitive to smell as too much of it could worsen his headaches, but he liked this one. It was...relaxing. He instantly felt more calm and his worries that he might intrude dissolved into thin air. It was so peaceful here… he just wanted to look around.

There were shadowy flecks falling onto the shelves and only when he looked up and saw that there was dark green vine with leafy branches growing all around the windows did he realize what it was. The plant was partially blocking the sunlight falling through the window causing the shadowy patterns. There was so much stuff inside the shelves, so many things that Namjoon had never seen before that he curiously reached out his hand for the very next thing to see what it was.

“May I help you?” A voice behind him made him flinch and almost knock something off the shelf when he pulled back his hand in reflex before turning around.

Namjoon recognized the silver-haired man right away. He was stunned for a second, not a word coming from him as he simply stared. He was handsome, very much so - Namjoon noticed it instantly and it was making him blush as he realized how much he was staring right now. “I…eh…I don’t know,” Namjoon finally spoke up, in all honesty, “Actually, your cat made me stumble upon your shop.”

“Hoseok?” Yoongi looked visibly surprised and then he turned, hissing something at his cat who looked strangely pleased with itself. He sighed and then mumbled, “As you are already here…” Yoongi put up his salesman smile and said as if he’d asked this a hundred times before, “What is it you want? What do you need? A hint of the future? A protective crystal? Cleansing a house of spirits? Helping decisions with a pendulum?” At Namjoon’s confused look he stopped and then added, “You do know what kind of shop this is, don’t you? Or did you expect this to be a cat cafe?”

He send his cat a look that said, ‘See what kind of people you bring here? Stupid ones!’

Namjoon shook his head, furrowing his brows as he was confused what kind of person would give a cat such a human name. “No, not really. I’m new, I just moved here, so I don’t know any of these shops around. I was just taking a look and I couldn't tell from the outside.” He chuckled lightly, “But I guess it’s an esoteric shop? A beautiful one at that.” Namjoon turned a little, letting his gaze wander around the little shop that he couldn’t wait to explore further. “I don’t think you can help me with any of that, except if you’re able to oscillate my headache away, then count me in.”

Yoongi laughed. “Oh, that’s no problem. I could totally do that. But I know something that might be even more helpful than that.” He hurried off and while continuing to talk to him so Namjoon could hear only bits and pieces and how he picked things up from different shelves. He quickly came, hands full of dried herbs and strange little bottles back to ask, “Do you want something external or internal?”

Namjoon still looked confused so he chuckled and clarified, “I mean balm or tea? I’ve got this great peppermint oil with chamomile and lavender - or if you just get them at night you could buy Valerian and hop drops - or if you like incense I have a great mixture or you could try a classic and get some tea with ginger, feverfew and coriander seeds, with just a hint of angelica and a pinch of willow bark and some rosemary. Or skullcap?” It seemed like he was talking more to himself now, giving Namjoon an intense glance as if he could figure out what kind of headaches Namjoon suffered from just by looking at him with furrowed brows. His customer though, just stood there frozen, his mouth agape as he looked at all the small bottles in Yoongi’s hands. His very delicate hands. That’s the other thing he noticed about him right away. For a moment, Namjoon wondered if they would feel as soft as he imagined them to be.

“You’re cute when you ramble,” Namjoon chuckled, only realizing too late, when the words were already out of his mouth, that he had thought out loud. He blushed, trying to somehow cover up his own mishap and quickly added, “I get my headaches randomly, mostly from sitting at my desk or standing in my lab all day.” Namjoon finally answered – at least one of Yoongi’s questions, “It helps just to get some fresh air sometimes but one some days…it can get quite painful. So, whatever you feel like would help, I guess?” With the hot tingling feeling still on his cheeks, he smiled awkwardly.

Yoongi blinked and almost lost control of one of the bottles who were balancing dangerously on top of each other and almost toppled over. Did that customer just flirt with him? He didn’t have to look at Hoseok to know that the cat was absolutely entertained.

“That’s…uhm, I see what I can do. Just wait a second while I mix some stuff together.” He went back into his storage room where the real magic was safely put away for humans to not get accidentally mess with it while wondering when had been the last time that he had actually been flirted with. By a human. Jimin flirted with him all the time but as a love witch that didn’t count. He chuckled at what Namjoon would do if he would reciprocate the flirting. Ask him out for coffee? Cook him dinner? Paws against his leg brought him back to reality. “Alright, alright, I get it. No getting lost in thoughts while handling magic that concerns the head. You’re right. I should be more careful.” He willed down the urge to ask Hobi if he remembered the last time they had a magical mishap and Yoongi accidentally spilled something over him tinting Hobi’s fur purple for a few days, but he really didn’t want to get scratched in his sleep.

Namjoon took the time to put his cold palms against his cheeks, hoping it would calm his heartbeat and make the blush disappear again. He cursed at himself quietly, walking through the shop a little more, looking everywhere but where Yoongi went in hope to get his blushing in check before the other returned. He let his hand wander over a few books that were neatly stored in a shelf, reading their titles with interest as he had never heard of them, opening a book about crystals when Yoongi cleared his throat making him jerk around. Pushing the book back into its original place, Namjoon walked over to the counter, “It looks good, whatever it is. How do I use it?”

Yoongi had half a mind to give Namjoon obscure instructions just to see the other look at him with his wide eyes and blushed cheeks again but he figured if he wanted the other to come again he should play nice. “If you feel the headaches coming then use a teaspoon of this in hot water - not boiling - and let it soak for about five minutes. Then drink it when it has cooled down a bit. If the headache won’t get better repeat within an hour but it should lessen the pain with the amount of one teaspoon alone, if you run out of this mixture just visit again and I can refill it.”

Namjoon nodded, mumbling the instruction under his breath once more to not forget about it. “Thank you, really! It sounds promising,” He said with a smile that showed his dimples, before he reached back to get out some money to pay for it. “Tell Hobi I’m glad he showed me your shop.” When he paid for it, Namjoon reached out for the little jar, “And that he got really nice, fluffy fur.” As if he heard his name, the cat jumped up on the counter, nudging his face against his arm softly. Just as Namjoon was about to reach to scratch the cat behind it’s ears again, Yoongi held onto his wrist tightly, making him freeze on the spot.

“What is this?” Yoongi’s eyes narrowed as he inspected the wound on the inside of Namjoon’s arm. It looked almost healed but there was still something wrong with the skin; the color was off, it still looked bruised and patchy. It sometimes looked like this when you spilled a potion onto your skin - but the human in front of him seemed to have absolutely zero percent of magic in him. Maybe he wasn’t as innocent as he appeared and instead had been spying in his shop? Or... could he be a witch hunter? Hobi next to him meowed loudly, telling Yoongi to cut the bullshit. As if he would actually be stupid enough to bring a witch hunter into Yoongi’s own shop!

“Sorry,” Yoongi relaxed a little, the apology being for both of them. “It just looks… bad. How were you hurt? I can get you something for this as well if you want?”

Namjoon was a bit stunned, while the other still held onto his wrist tightly examining the wound. He had been right; his hands were just as soft as they looked. With a shy chuckle he answered, “I’ve been working on some experiments for my dissertation. It’s just a bit of a chemical burn, I guess. Don’t worry...it doesn’t hurt anymore.” Namjoon rubbed the back of his neck nervously with the other hand, “I don’t really got more money with me though.” He blushed lightly when he quietly added, “I could come back tomorrow?”

Yoongi huffed, “You do realize that ‘just’ and ‘chemical burn’ don’t belong in the same sentence, don’t you? And that anything you use to heal works better the quicker you use it after your accident?” He let go of Namjoon’s hand and hurried off to get something from the shelves in the back area were the magic stuff was, “Shouldn’t you know all the safety measurements by heart if you’re already writing your dissertation? You need longer gloves if you use dangerous shit like that...”

He came back with a little jar that had nothing on it, no sign, no description. “Put a little bit of this on the burn every night before you go to sleep. Make sure all the damaged skin is covered. Do not eat it. Try not to spill some more chemicals on that area before it’s healed.” He told him with a deadpan expression and then placed the jar in Namjoon’s hand. “See it as a ‘new customer’ kind of gift. And I somehow have the feeling you might come back for more anyway - so it’s a good investment.”

“I do know that, but…I’m clumsy, I guess,” Namjoon admitted in defeat and added, “I wasn’t planning on doing any more damage to myself. I’ll try my best.” With a smile he stuffed the jar into his bag and caressed over the Hobi’s fur one last time, thanking Yoongi once more for his help before he was out the door.

“You’re staring, Yoongi,” Hoseok licked his fur nonchalantly, sitting on a nearby shelf that he had hopped on, as if it was his throne. “I’m not!” Yoongi answered sharply, the pout evident in his voice. He knew he had lost the argument with the way Hobi just continued cleaning his fur, not even sparing him a glance. “Why do you have to drop random strangers in here anyway? Give me a warning next time please? What if I had been in midst of a spell?” His complaining was pointless because Hobi had his own head though luckily he never pulled off something like this without reason. “Did you wanted me to help him? With his pains? Or does he work in a factory for canned tuna and you’re expecting gifts the next time he comes back here?” There was no seeing behind his familiar’s motives but Yoongi was certain that it would soon show.

“Yeah, actually,” Hobi meowed a little before he jumped of the shelf, trotting over to Yoongi, “I was hoping for him to give me some of the cinnamon bun he was eating.” It was when he had seen the burn on Namjoon’s hand, quickly realizing that usual human medicine would take too long and leave a horrible scar. “I thought he was cute. I’ve never seen him here before,” Hoseok added, walking ahead with his head held high, “So…you’re hoping he comes back as well, huh?”

“Knew it! You’re a greedy little thing.” He shook his head, contemplating, “Though I wouldn’t say no to a cinnamon bun either...”

Or to cinnamon flavored kisses…

He blushed a little when he realized where his thoughts were going and then quickly turned, clearing his throat to play it cool, “Of course I want him to come back - it’s good to have regular customers.” He neither fooled Hoseok nor himself.

As Yoongi was busy in his shop and Hoseok had not managed to get anything remotely like a cinnamon bun he decided to go for a little walk. His fluffy tail up in the air did he walk on furry paws along the sidewalk. As Namjoon had stuff from Yoongi in his pockets and the hues of Yoongi’s magic around him (as he had been in the shop for a while) Hobi decided to just take a look where Namjoon was living. He quickened his pace, galloping along a garden wall and hopping over small fences to use some short cuts. The trail would fade quickly so he had to hurry to keep on Namjoon’s tail (and hope that he wouldn’t get into a car or some other kind of transportation with closed doors or Hobi would be left with nothing).

Just as he thought that he had lost Namjoon did he see a door closing behind him. It was a small apartment complex with a white front door and two steps leading up to it. Hobi quickly run up the stairs, meowing against the door but Namjoon didn’t hear him or was too far away already. He got on his hind legs and drummed against the door with his paws for a minute but when that didn’t work either he pouted (as much as you could pout as a cat) let it be and decided to take a look around the house instead.

There was a small patch of grass in the backyard that you couldn’t call a garden and when he looked inside the balcony door which was made of glass he saw two teenagers sitting in front of the TV playing video games on a carpet that was obviously made from synthetic fiber. They were yelling at each other and eating chips and Hobi shook his fur in disgust. Greasy, electrically charged hands in his fur was the last thing he wanted. They had a rose arch with roses climbing up to the first floor - where everything was dark. He wiggled his way up the arch, climbing along the roses and then tried to see if this could be where Namjoon lived. But if the other wasn’t really heavily into girls clothes then it wasn’t his room. Hobi hesitated, wondering if Namjoon was already in a relationship but then he figured that climbing up another floor couldn’t hurt.

Namjoon was munching on the bread he had bought earlier as he eyed the little jars that the salesman at the shop has given him. He was curious about if it really would be helpful to his headache and his burn. Taking the steaming hot water from the stove, Namjoon poured it into a cup, doing just as Yoongi had ordered. The smell of fresh herbs filled his nostrils and he closed his eyes, already feeling the soothing effect on it on his thundering mind.

He sat down at his laptop again, pushing the little button to light up the screen. Sighing deeply, he took a sip from his tea. “Let’s do this.” Namjoon mumbled to himself. Half an hour later, Namjoon was so deeply immersed into his writing that he didn’t notice the magic unfolding around his wrist where he had put the crème. He only felt a slight tingle, one that didn’t bother him because he felt relaxed and his mind at ease. Namjoon took another sip from his tea, furrowing his brows deeply in concentration as he read over a paragraph once more. “Therefore, it is important that…,” He mumbled to himself, his fingertips tapping against the warm cup, before he typed in the finishing sentence of this paragraph. With a content smile Namjoon leaned back in his chair. He had finally been able to work and finish the pages he had on his small to-do list. He stretched his arms over his head, lacing his fingers together at the back of his head, closing his eyes for a moment as the sun was peeking through his window right next to him, warming up his cheeks perfectly, not noticing the furry black cat that jumped up on his window sill only a few inches away from him and only separated by glass.

Oh, there he was! Hobi had almost regretted his decision as he’s had to climb up the next floor without any help, having to bury his claws into the wooden outside of the house. Not that he couldn’t do it, but it was way more exhaustion than just hopping along a rose arch where you practically had a ladder. Luckily he saw Namjoon right away and the other was even facing towards him so it would be easy to get his attention. Hobi got up on his hind legs again, balancing easily on the windowsill while he started drumming his paws against the glass.

As he hadn’t expected anything, the sudden sound right next to him made Namjoon jerk in surprise and with that, he flailed his arms around pushing his cup of tea over and pouring it all over his pants. He screamed in sudden pain, hissing and mumbling curse words at himself as he jumped up from his seat, only to stumble over his own feet. Hastily, he grabbed a towel, dabbing on his jeans to soak up the hot water as much as he could before he opened the window to let the cat in simultaneously.

“What are you doing here, Hobi?” He asked in surprise, not really expecting an answer. Namjoon would have recognized that cat anywhere with its fluffy black fur and green eyes that were piercing right through him.

Hoseok proudly jut his chin forward, flattered that Namjoon had recognized him immediately and let him in without hesitation. He was a bit sorry for startling Namjoon enough for him to spill that tea over himself. Although it gave him the perfect opportunity to hop on the table right away and sniff the bread. It wasn’t a cinnamon bun, but it was at least something. While Namjoon continued to dab at the spilled tea he started munching on the bread, putting his paws on it to keep it from slipping while messily ripping chunks out of the fluffy food. He meowed contently. It had definitely been worth it to follow that human. And as he was already he could also take a look around, see if Namjoon was in a relationship, if he was superstitious - and just generally if he would be a suitable partner for Yoongi. His witch spent too much time alone in his opinion.

That wasn’t healthy, not even for a witch.

“Hey,” Namjoon looked up to see the cat munching on his bread happily, “I’m not sure if you’re supposed to eat this. Won’t you get a stomach ache, Hobi?” Once more Namjoon didn’t expect an answer but for a second, just a mini-second he could swear he saw the cat shake his head. Shaking his own, to get rid of the sudden ‘hallucinations’ Namjoon took the cat around its stomach to lift him up and started scratching him behind his ears lovingly, “Let me see if I got some tuna for you, right? So, your cute owner won’t get mad at me okay? And I don’t really want to be responsible for you getting sick either.” Hobi wiggled in protest and was about to be vocal about it when Namjoon mentioned something about tuna and he cocked his ears. He immediately stopped wiggling because if Namjoon would actually feed him tuna he could carry him around all he wanted. That the other had called his witch ‘cute’ was filed away for later after the more important questions had been answered (fresh or canned Tuna, in oil or water, one bite or a full meal..)

He put Hobi down again, opening the fridge as he mumbled to himself, “Ah, somewhere...I know I wanted to make myself some pizza.” A nudge on his leg made him look down, “Please don’t look too closely. It’s not very organized. It happens when you live alone, believe me.” Taking out the can of tuna, Namjoon turned towards the kitchen counter, “And talking to cats is probably another clue for me being on my own too much. Just me and my books.” Hoseok stayed close, sniffing here and there. He would have loved to tell the other that this was nothing against Yoongi being deeply immersed in a spell or potion. The difficult ones that could take a few days to brew had the other forgetting everything else in concentration and Hobi had to do some kind of obstacle course, hopping over books and running around vials and ingredients if he wanted to go out. Namjoon’s human mess absolutely fine in comparison. And probably not half as dangerous. Sadly, Namjoon wouldn’t be able to understand him so instead he just rubbed his head against the humans leg and meowed happily when the other prepared him the tuna. A full can!

Namjoon sighed deeply and poured the tuna onto a plate, shoving it towards the cat. The movement made him stretch his arm out, enough for him to see how his skin had drastically healed up where he had put on the creme from the esoteric shop. “Oh,” Namjoon wiped over the almost closed up wound, there was barely any trace left from his chemical burn, “Is your owner a magical healer or something? Look at that...it’s almost completely healed. His knowledge about herbs must be amazing and here I am failing at even keeping a bonsai tree alive.” A smile appeared on his lips, one that showed off his deep dimples. Hobi noisily dug into the food, his tail splayed out on the tiles. Maybe he could ask Yoongi to give Namjoon some hints about bonsai tree care in return for his splendid dinner.

Namjoon caressed over Hobi’s fur once more, chuckling low at the way Hobi was munching as if he had been starving before, which definitely couldn’t be true. “Did you follow me all the way to get some food, hm,” Namjoon mumbled, before he got up and yawned, “It’s warm enough anyways, so I’ll leave the window open for you, so you can jump out whenever but please,” He looked down at the cat, “Don’t rip open my couch with your claws, okay? It’s brand new!” The young man laughed at himself, shaking his head about how he was talking to a cat so nonchalantly, as if he had been doing it naturally forever. There were still some moving boxes standing around, while Namjoon maneuvered around them, bringing Hoseok a bowl of water as well and then retreated to his bed, tiredly rubbing the sides of his head. He smiled when he saw the cat walking around, sniffing some things and looking at him. Maybe he should get a cat himself? Maybe he would feel less alone then. Namjoon sighed softly and closed his eyes.

Hoseok enjoyed it a lot that Namjoon was so talkative because he thought nothing worse than being ignored. It also gave him a better idea of who Namjoon was as a person. Just the information about the couch was tempting him because sharpening your claws on new stuff where no one had scratched before was always exciting. Though of course he didn’t - not after being fed tasty tuna!

After properly cleaning his fur like he did after all especially tasty meals he began running around a bit to check Namjoon’s apartment out, but the man was making it difficult for him. There were no personal photos up yet that could tell him if he had family or who his friends were but in the bathroom there was only one toothbrush, so he probably lived alone. He didn’t have a trash can in the bedroom were Hobi could have looked for used condoms so he opened the drawers in his nightstand to check but there was nothing there that could tell him if Namjoon was having a partner. Just a book, some glasses and an opened bag of snacks that Hobi wasn’t sure was still edible. Quickly he made his round through the whole apartment but most of Namjoon’s stuff seemed to be still in boxes and he couldn’t open them (he had tried!) because Namjoon had used an excessive amount of tape that stayed stuck in his claws when he scratched it. As his duty was done here and his stomach was full Hobi said goodbye to Namjoon and then climbed through the window to run back to Yoongi and tell him what he had seen.

The next morning, Namjoon had wondered about the scratches on his boxes, but when he realized that Hobi most likely had tried to rip it open, he only laughed. He already liked that cat as it seemed that it had a mind of its own. The scratches reminded him about unpacking though, something that he had forgotten about over working on his project. With the headaches being gone, Namjoon could concentrate a whole lot better and finally move in completely, making his apartment feel like home for the first time. He was taking his time, unpacking one by one, while working on his dissertation in between, making the days go by fast.

So, Namjoon hadn’t even notice a week had gone by already, when he sighed, taking the knife to open up the final box. Deep in his thoughts and a lack of concentration later, Namjoon felt the pulsating deep in his finger, blood dripping down onto the carpet painting the spots in a dark color.

“Ahgh damn it,” He cursed and ran into the bathroom, quickly reaching for his first aid kit that he stored there. It was almost a routine by now, calming himself, disinfecting the wound and then looking closely if it wasn’t a deep cut. Luckily it wasn’t. Namjoon wrapped a bandage around his hand, hoping that the pressure kept it from bleeding too much. He sat down, leaning his head against the tiles, only opening his eyes when his stomach was growling low making him wonder when had been the last time he properly cooked himself a dinner. Probably way too long ago. He just found it easier to prepare something for more than one person, but he wasn’t fooling himself either. He was a terrible cook, having no clue about recipes or anything else but simple meals - which included pasta and pesto (no self-made ones).

“Maybe the cute guy has some cookbooks?” Namjoon thought to himself aloud and despite him knowing it wasn’t very likely to find a step by step cookbook in an esoteric shop, he got up anyways. Maybe the curiosity about his name and seeing the cute salesman again after days spending inside of his apartment, had gotten the better of him way too quickly, blending out everything else.

When the door opened the little bell chimed and Hobi’s head perked up. Yoongi finished the line in his book and then looked up as well. “Oh,” He had thought that Namjoon wouldn’t come back so soon especially after Hoseok had told him that the other was so busy writing something that he was practically still living outside of boxes. Then he noticed the bandage on Namjoon’s hand and furrowed his brow. “Did you burn yourself again?”

Namjoon hadn’t really expected for Yoongi to remember him, because he must see a dozen of people every day, but he had hoped he would and now that it happened, his heart made a jump. One that made him lose his breath for a second and the blush creep up his cheeks. “This?” Namjoon quickly hid his hand behind his back, “N-no, not really. I cut myself…was unpacking a few of my things. Didn’t pay attention.” He walked over to the counter with a smile, “But speaking of burning yourself…you’re not having any cook-books do you?”

“Huh, wait you... what?” Yoongi walked around the counter and reached out his hands for Namjoon, “Show me. This is bleeding way too much for a papercut. Did you grab a knife at the wrong end or how did you manage to do this?” He had to look up at him because at this close proximity it showed that Namjoon was so much taller than him. “How old are you exactly?”

Namjoon blinked at him in confusion but held out his bandaged hand anyways for him to look at. “I’m twenty-eight …why do you ask? I told you I’m just clumsy. I had a streak of bad luck lately,” Namjoon said, not wanting to seem like he was hurting himself every day, though that might seem true when Yoongi would see all the bruises on his knees where he bumped into furniture daily. “I wanted to cut open the tape, so I can open the box. But I was thinking about…,” Namjoon looked down at Yoongi. This close he could almost feel his breath, hear his heartbeat. “Too many other things…” Your name for example, Namjoon added in his mind.

Yoongi shook his head, murmuring to himself, “Twenty eight and can’t open boxes…” The ‘streak of bad luck’ had him listening up. “Did you piss off a witch? I have something against hex bag magic and curses if you want.” The amused smile on his lips didn’t make it clear if he was joking or really offering a service. He took the bandage from Namjoon’s hand and began unwrapping it. “Let’s take a look then..”

“A witch?” Namjoon furrowed his brows, but his thought vanished the moment Yoongi began to look at his cut thoroughly, hissing in pain. “Please be careful. It only happened like thirty minutes ago. It’s not deep, I checked it.” He added but let Yoongi do his work nonetheless, because he liked his soft touch on his own rougher skin. His delicate hands seemingly small next to his own. He liked it way too much already how Yoongi was so caring, his fingertips caressing over his wrist softly as he studied the wound. He’d hurt himself over and over again if it meant for Yoongi to touch him. Meanwhile his own gaze wandered over Yoongi’s face, taking in every line, every mole he could see, his cute button nose and the softness off his cheeks. He wondered what it would feel like to lean his own against it, to feel it on his chest. Namjoon shook his head quickly, shaking himself out of his stupor. He didn’t even know his name, barely even saw him twice and was already thinking about sleeping next to him? Once more his mouth was faster than his mind, the words slipping from his lips before he could take them back. “Don’t you want to tell me your name before you start becoming my personal nurse?”

“P…personal nurse?” Yoongi looked actually offended while Hobi meowed joyfully in the background, “It seems you need way more than a ‘nurse’ if you’re searching for Cookbooks in a wiccan shop. I mean I do have cookbooks but I’m not sure if ‘Magical cooking for all seasons’, ‘recipes for kitchen witches’ or ‘The wicca cookbook’ are really what you are looking for. I also have lots of books about herbalism and spices but with your luck you’ll end up poisoning yourself. Why don’t you try to get something more…suitable? Like ‘cooking for beginners’ or ‘easy recipes for children’.” He teased Namjoon with a straight face, sighing as he saw the cut. Namjoon had been right and it wasn’t deep, but it nonetheless looked raw and red and painful and so Yoongi made the decision to take the risk and use some magic on Namjoon again. Just this time. “Follow me, I think I’ve got some anti-inflammatory herbs in the back. And maybe some natural pain relief as well.”

“Or you could just tell me when you close up the shop so we can grab something from the bistro nearby? No lives in danger then,” He chuckled nervously, feeling more brave now that Yoongi had turned his back on him and he followed him. “I mean…I just moved here, that’s why…I mean….you could tell me where…it’s good to order food and stuff.”

Yoongi chuckled. He definitely hadn’t expected Namjoon to get bold so soon. “Are you asking me out, Namjoon?” His back was still turned towards him while he rummaged in the drawers for his dried herbs but the smile was visible in his voice. “I should warn you I’m a little harder to please than my cat - so you won’t win me over with some tuna.” He turned around with the herbs in hand. “There, let me patch you up. Again.”

Namjoon cocked his head to the side, “How do you know I gave him some tuna? That he was with me?” The blush was still heating up his cheeks and Namjoon sighed, quickly adding, “I mean, yeah, but no, only if you want to of course. I don’t know many people around, yet and I guess, you’re cute and weird. But I like that!” He nodded quickly, “I’m weird, too… and…I love good food. So, what do you think?”

Yoongi shrugged his shoulders and casually mentioned, “He smelled like your salve and tuna when he came back. And Hobi likes to stalk customers sometimes. So, I figured he followed you - and you fed him, because it’s hard to steal tuna for a cat.” The reality was that Hobi had told him, but he couldn’t just say that. “Cute and weird…,” Yoongi looked amused. “Well if we have so much in common you’re right, we should share our passions. But I’m not that much for takeout. If you want to learn to cook anyway why don’t you come here after closing time and I’ll cook something for us. Some simple stew or vegetarian meal that you could easily cook at home as well if you want.”

Namjoon’s eyes widened. He was really a failure when it came down to flirting or anything regarding the matter of romance. The more it surprised him that Yoongi wanted to meet up with him. Him, out of all people. “Sure! Just tell me when and I’ll be there!” Namjoon nodded eagerly, noticing Hoseok in the corner of the room so he quickly winked at him before turning back to Yoongi.

“I haven’t gone grocery shopping, but I can do that tonight and then we can cook tomorrow. Any allergies I should know of? I don’t want you to end up in hospital because of some peanuts or fish sauce.” He carefully placed the herbs on Namjoon’s cut and wrapped a clean bandage over it, while Namjoon shook his head.

“Yoongi.” The witch mumbled, confusing the other for a second before he realized that he just told him his name. Namjoon’s heartrate picked up and hadn’t stopped, even when only thirty minutes later he waved him goodbye again, leaving the witch back in his shop. Hoseok was roaming around the shop, meowing melodically in content while Yoongi was preparing new tinctures or helping customers and only when he turned the sign around that said ‘closed’, the black cat jumped up on the counter. “I can’t even remember you ever having a date. The only thing I remember was that…one…mishap with Jimin,” Hoseok licked his paw, not even looking up as he kept on talking, “Or that one time with Jungkook but…never a date.”

“Can you please stop memorizing my hook ups? And it’s not really a ‘date’. I’m just helping a poor human and learn him how to feed himself. If he’s as nice and charming and interesting as Namjoon then that’s just a bonus. But we both know it would never work. Not with someone living outside of everything magic. He could stumble upon a potion or mess with my concentration while doing a spell or watch me working some magic. It’s way too dangerous nowadays with a camera on every phone and the internet as a way to spread pictures and videos like lightning. I don’t want to be the cause for a modern witch hunt. And I don’t want to get involved with the GOMs (Guards of Magic) either. They’re scary as hell.”

Hoseok nudged Yoongi softly on his arm, which he had crossed in front of his chest as he was ranting about everything negative that could happen. “And still you invited him.” Hobi meowed, pawing against his arms, so the witch was lifting him up, scratching him behind his ears (just like he loved it) and giving him comfort in return. “I don’t think Namjoon is…that kind of a human. He doesn’t seem like he would exploit someone. You just don’t want to get involved with someone else. Human or witch alike. Just relax and see where it goes…I’ll keep an eye on him,” The cat nuzzled his head against him softly, adding quietly, “And don’t forget to add more tuna on your shopping list.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re a spoilt little ball of fluff, just so you know it.” It was nice to have someone that he could fully trust, someone who would always have his back even if they were not the same species. Yoongi buried his face in Hobi’s fur to give him a quick kiss and then helped him up so he could sit on his shoulder while he was putting the last few things away before closing up. “Nothing can happen while cooking dinner. It’ll be fine,” He calmed himself. Now that he had properly thought about it there was a nervous flutter in his stomach starting to rise. He gave the shop a last view before turning off the lights. “Let’s head home, Hobi.”

...

The moment Namjoon had closed his laptop the next day, he couldn’t sit still. It had been fine while he was immersed in his text, writing, thinking about anything else but Yoongi. Looking at his watch, he decided to take a quick shower, putting on comfortable clothes that were decent enough to be seen as ‘formal’ but not ‘too formal’ to make it awkward.

He stared down at his watch once more, calculating the time it would take him to walk over to Yoongi’s, tapping his foot onto the ground nervously. Reaching for his wallet, he pushed it down his back pockets, then gave himself a once over in his mirror. It had been a long time, since he felt this anxious.

Fifteen minutes later, Namjoon leaned against the staircase, scrolling through his phone in thoughts. Despite his calculation, he had been five minutes early, waiting for Yoongi to close up the doors. When Yoongi saw Namjoon waiting outside the shop all dressed up and with nowhere to go he broke into a smile. He opened the door wider, making the bell chime. “Come one in! You don’t have to wait outside when it’s so much nicer in here. How’s your hand?” The last customers of the day had just left and if no one came in at the very last minute then the evening was already theirs.

Namjoon mimicked his smile, stuffing his phone back and following Yoongi inside. The shop already felt so familiar to him and still, there were new objects, new dry herbs hanging from somewhere that he hadn’t seen before. The shop was changing each time, making it even more interesting to him. “It’s good. It healed up pretty fast,” He answered, walking deeper into the shop after Yoongi, “I’ve never seen anything heal so fast. Whatever you’re doing, you seem really good at it. How did you start by the way? This isn’t something you learn in school, right?” Leaning onto the counter, Namjoon greeted Yoongi’s cat with a smile and a soft caress over his fur, not really bothered by the cat – rather the opposite, he felt more calm now that he could play with Hobi’s fur while listening to Yoongi, unaware that the cat was listening as well, soaking in every bit of information he could get.

“What do you mean, when I started with herbalism or the selling herbs in the shop?” He contemplated how much truth he could tell Namjoon without giving away too much. “I was always interested in botanical stuff I guess. Not just the healing kind, the deadly ones and those used for food - I guess what fascinated me is that no matter what plant it doesn't just solely exist for ‘looking nice’ there’s always so much more behind it. Knowing what to use it for can literally save lives. Or improve your own. You can make cloth from them, paper, even built whole houses - their use is practically endless. And when I realized how much demand there is for medical herbs or incense or spices… I started the shop. And completed it with all kinds of stuff that I deemed fitting.” Hobi’s purring rang loud in the short silence. ”I learned most of it through knowledge that came from my family but also books and other herbalists and nowadays the internet can help too. You’re right though you probably wouldn’t get that kind of knowledge in school. Seriously though school might be good for trying to find out who can stick to rules or filter out people just for the hell of it - they learn you nothing that will help you actually living your life or finding your passion or…,” Yoongi stopped dead in his tracks and paled a little, “Wait - you’re some kind of teacher, right?”

“Some kind of, yeah. I’m an assistant professor at university for chemistry and philosophy,” Namjoon answered, “But it isn’t anything like school and you’re right about that, I guess. I want to write more books though and become a real professor. That’s why I’m writing my dissertation right now. And that’s why I moved here, too. The headaches were killing me and only getting worse in the city. Here it’s ten times calmer.” A smile pulled at his lips, observing Yoongi closely as he was tidying up the shop to close it up, “Do you need help with anything? Normally I am good with my hands,...just not anything tool-related.”

Yoongi eyed Namjoon carefully. Was this some kind of dirty flirting or just Namjoon talking and not realizing how this might sound on a date. He couldn’t imagine that the same human who blushed so easy tried to make sexual innuendos five minutes into their date, but you never knew with them so Yoongi decided to keep it just as ambiguously and answered, “Oh, you’re welcome to proof that to me. And don’t worry about tools. Practice makes perfect right? And I’m good with...practically anything you can think of.” He gave him a promising smile. If Joon had really thought about kitchen stuff then it was absolutely true. And if he hadn’t... well then he would definitely blush now and give himself away.

But Namjoon only smiled as an answer. “I’ll be your perfect assistant tonight, then,” He laughed softly, brushing through his hair. “Do you live here?” He nodded behind the counter of the shop, where he could see another room but wasn’t sure if it lead somewhere else. “In the shop, I mean?”

Yoongi laughed at that. “Ah, no, luckily I earn enough money with this to be able to live in a proper apartment. I don’t think Hobi would have chosen me as his caretaker if I didn’t - he’s a high maintenance cat.” The mirth brought a sparkle to his eyes. “I just thought that this would be nicer because… we have more room here and also... don’t take it the wrong way but I don’t like taking people home right away. It’s too...private I guess? I’m not one of those modern minimalists where everything is white and clean and arranged in a certain style with neat furniture and fitting accessories. I’m messy and personal and have a collection of things that’s important to me that are practically splayed all out over the bookshelf. I might clean up if you’re worth it. But I’d rather do it like this first.”

Namjoon softly chuckled, “It’s okay, don’t worry about it. I was just wondering…about you, I guess.” He leaned onto the counter, while Hoseok was pushing his snout against his arm, whining for more caresses and Namjoon happily gave in. “So, what have you decided on teaching me? I’m ready to learn.” There was a beaming smile on his face making his dimples show. Hoseok purred in content, happily leaning into Namjoon’s touch. “I like him,” He meowed happily, only for Yoongi to understand.

“I thought about a spicy rice bowl with pork and vegetables. Don’t let Hobi have too much meat please. He knows he’s not supposed to eat ingredients when I’m cooking so he’s going to try it with you. I hope you can withstand his meows. He can have something later when we’re eating as well.” He opened a bag and took out some vegetables, placing them on the counter where he normally prepared ingredients for his potions and herbal mixtures. He’d made sure that it was extra clean. Nothing would be worse than accidentally bewitching Namjoon because he had overseen a drop of potion.

It had been so long since Namjoon had been cooking with someone else that at first it felt a little awkward. Especially because he wanted to get to know the other a little more, not only was he interesting as a person, but he was very handsome. And Namjoon wasn’t very good at making a lot of friends. He was too much in his head, too immersed into his books and working that most of the time people dismissed him easily again because they felt left out. Namjoon had gotten around the counter and took one of the knives, helping Yoongi cutting the fresh vegetables while they were talking about everything and nothing at all.

“I don’t know why I chose to move into this little town, but there’s something about it right? It’s small, cute and magical. I mean just look at your shop,” Namjoon smiled and gave the finished vegetables over to Yoongi, “It’s covered with climbing plants and flowers. It’s beautiful! I wouldn’t be surprised if your shop is the motive of a postcard somewhere.” He laughed, reaching for his glass of wine and pouring in some more of the red beverage before he filled up Yoongi’s glass as well. “And the people are nice and very helpful.” He winked at the other teasingly.

“Oh, just because we don’t want you to ruin our positive vibe, you know ‘mean bleeding out from trying to make himself a sandwich’ doesn’t sound so good on the news.” It was fun, their little banter. And Namjoon was easy to work with as he was eager to learn. It showed, that he used his head more than his hands but who nowadays did? Except maybe for witches who tried to stay as close to nature as possible. Soon enough their rice was frying, the vegetables cooking, and the meat was all ready to be decorated onto the plates. Hobi had been playing nice and hadn’t tried to steal some meat (probably because Yoongi had told him to not mess up his date - and that he would get an extra plate with unseasoned rice and fresh meat if he behaved). Bribing his familiar was always very successful.

They sat down at the small table Yoongi had and when they finally took their first bite, Namjoon couldn’t help himself but groan delightfully. “This…is heaven,” He said, munching happily, thanking the other once more for the lesson and the amazing food. “Did you move here, too? Or have always been here?” Taking a sip from his glass of wine, he studied Yoongi’s face in the soft light and when a smile pulled at his lips, he couldn’t help but mimic him. His heart making a weird jump, leaving him breathless for a moment.

“I’ve moved here as well a few years ago, before that I’ve been here and there, never longer than a few years. I like it here so far which means Hobi and I will probably stay for a few more years. Or who knows maybe we’ll live here forever.” He couldn’t give Namjoon more details as the reasons why he’s had to move before had been mainly witch-related. Someone had found out about them. The space where they lived had been too close to another magical creature who didn’t like to share. A city with bad karma and lots of bad luck. Witch hunters. Too little nature and no possibilities to grow his herbs and plants. It wasn’t easy to find the right place for a human - and even more difficult when you were a witch.

Namjoon loved listening to Yoongi. He probably could have done it all night if he wanted to. They were laughing, smiling, sharing stories as much as they wanted to let the other in, the alcohol loosening them up a little more. Namjoon ended up sitting on the floor, the cat on his lap and candles all around them while he leaned over to look at the book Yoongi was showing him. He wasn’t quite sure what the other was talking about (something about the herbs that he had sold Namjoon, so much he could say) as he had gotten lost in the other eyes quickly and it only stopped at Yoongi’s lips. He chuckled softly, when he noticed the small pout he was doing while talking. It was incredibly cute in Namjoon’s eyes. He was sure he hadn’t seen anyone as cute as this man.

When the clock chimed in, remembering them that time was a concept they had to follow and that midnight wasn’t a time to be up for normal people Yoongi jerked, his eyes widening in surprise. “Oh! It’s... way too late already. Time really flies when you’re having fun.” His face was a little heated from the wine and talking too much and maybe Namjoon’s close proximity played a little part in his inner heat as well. He put the book aside, carefully placing a bookmark between the sides so they could continue where they had left off if Namjoon wanted. “I guess you should better head home. You want to be well rested if you’re writing something as important as a dissertation.”

He yawned in response. “You’re right,” Namjoon stretched his tired limbs, waking Hobi in the process who meowed in protest, but the human got up anyways. “I really had a great night,” His own cheeks were dusted in a rosy tone. Stretching his hand out, he helped Yoongi to get up from the floor, “You should rest as well. You have a shop to open soon again.” Walking over to the counter, Namjoon reached for his jacket. Although Yoongi was right and it was way too late already, he felt sad that the night was over, and he had to go back to his own, empty apartment.

“Thank you again,” Namjoon’s voice softened, reaching for the door handle only to turn around again to look at him. “For the food, the lessons on cooking and herbs. I still think you’re cute when you’re rambling,” He couldn’t help but smile, leaning in quickly to give Yoongi a small peck on his cheek. “I hope we can do this again sometime?” As it was pitch black dark outside Yoongi had rummaged for the pocket flashlight that he normally had somewhere in his jacket. He had enchanted it, so it guaranteed a safe passage home. Just as he had found it Namjoon leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. Yoongi stiffened in surprise, his heart missing a beat before picking up the pace. “Th...thank you. I had fun too,” No one had called him cute in quite some time. ‘Scary’ maybe or ‘weird’ or even ‘dangerous to humanity’. Not cute.

“I.. I’d like to.” He awkwardly pressed the flashlight into Namjoon’s hands. “For the darkness. So that you’ll see where you’re going.” He explained quickly.

Namjoon bit his lip to hide the smile that was showing, holding on tightly to the flashlight all the way back home. His own heart didn’t calm down all night, making him stay up and daydream instead - neither did he care.

Hoseok purred, nosing Yoongi’s leg to make him lift him up, “He’s already around the corner. So…why are you staring again? Or is it the kiss? Did he bewitch you?”

“Haha, you’re not funny”, Yoongi picked the cheeky up nonetheless, burying his face in the fluffy cats fur to hide his happy smile. “I got to say you’ve proven good taste in humans.” He closed the door so the cold couldn’t get in. “If our next dates are as enjoyable as this one it might be worth the risk to keep him in our life as a regular, don’t you think?”

“Oh,” Hoseok meowed softly, nuzzling his face closer to Yoongi’s body. He yawned, showing off his pink tongue and stretched out his paws, “I think so, too. It’s getting exhaaaausting to be the only one to fulfill your need for cuddles. I could use a break for once or twice.” Hobi was just teasing the older, but at the same time he hoped it could be true - not for the reasons to get more time off, but simply for Yoongi. “Do you think he-,” A sudden loud thump noise, sounding like a bird flying against a window broke Hobi off. “What was that?”

Yoongi flinched hard, in his head he was going through the hidden places where he had stores battle magic and defense items but then he heard a disgruntled chirp and the scratching of claws. If someone wanted to attack him quietly and effectively then they were doing a very bad job at it. He gave Hobi an encouraging pat and the cat jumped to the floor accompanying him to the window where the chaotic sounds were coming from. In front of the glass there was a big, old fluffed up owl who was staring accusingly at him with yellow eyes, opening its beak to let out another frustrated squeal. “Yeah, yeah, slow down, I’m coming!” Yoongi hurried over to open the window so that the fluffball of an owl could come in which it did with a majestic flap of his wings (Yoongi was pretty sure it tried to get back his dignity after its crash landing).

“Jeez, why can’t the swamp wizards just sent an email like most of us do nowadays? They might think it’s ‘safer’ like this but honestly, a call or a coded message would work just as well. Just faster. And less feathery.” He watched as one of the auburn feathers slowly sank onto his kitchen floor.

There was a note attached to the Owl’s leg and the witch untied it, quickly getting a few sunflower seeds from the shelf nearby to pour them in front of the owl. It began picking at it immediately, happy about the treat. Opening the letter, Yoongi leaned against the counter to read.

“Dear Yoongi, I’m sorry I had to send ‘Screech’ but my Wi-Fi is broken again and I need to place an order for a spell. I hope he is not too loud (if he is screeching, just pat his head once or twice) and not annoying you too much. Just send him back as soon as you have the spell. Thank you.”

The rest of the letter was written in code.

Yoongi looked at the owl who was looking back at him just as suspiciously, opening its beak again - before it let out a surprised squawk and hoped aside as Hobi had sniffed its tail. Yoongi tried his best not to grin (and failed). The thing was it wasn’t that uncommon for other witches to ask for spells. Not everyone was talented in every part of the magical spectrum and sometimes they just weren’t willing to take the risk or simply didn't have enough practice to pull it off. Yoongi had it all: The talent, the recklessness, the practice. He wasn’t stupid though. Magic followed a few rules, no matter if it was ‘white’ or ‘black’. He preferred the white kind of magic - or greyish because it was more fun - simply because he felt better with knowing that his magic did good. Nonetheless he didn’t refuse to dabble a bit in black magic, for people he knew and trusted. It also paid a lot better. However, as the rule ‘whatever you send out will come back to you three times’ did apply to custom spells as well of course he never finished the spells. He prepared them, filled potions in bottles or ingredients in boxes, sometimes summoning spirits or waking sleeping creatures - but before it was finished he always send it back to the paying customer with instructions to finish the spell or seal the contract. Therefore, the customer could use magic he normally had no access to - and Yoongi didn’t have to suffer the consequences or curse people against his will. It was a win-win situation for everyone involved.

Hoseok jumped up on Yoongi’s shoulder, gazing down at the letter and then at the owl again, who was hopping back and forth, leaving the cat wondering if he was okay. Maybe it had hurt his head a little too much from flying against the window? Hobi nibbled at Yoongi’s ear. “What’s it about? It seems urgent if he sends an owl in the middle of the night…”

Yoongi sighed, “Ah, it’s messy. Some black magic shit. A blood curse. A really bad one. Bad karma for at least three generations. He wrote something about getting revenge for…” He stopped short and reached up to scratch Hobi’s ear. “Actually, I don’t feel like you should know all of this.” He trusted Hoseok blindly. But he was a happy and forgiving spirit and Yoongi didn’t like to drag him down. “How about we prepare a place to sleep for screech, he must be tired after the long flight from the swamp and through the whole city. And then I’ll bury myself in books and we can get everything for the spell ready tomorrow. Then, when I prepare the curse I’d like you to take a long, nice walkthrough the sunny gardens and when you come back there’ll be chicken waiting for you, maybe with some carrots added as a side dish. How does that sound?”

Hoseok had only nodded at that, how should he have known that not a delicious meal but hell breaking loose was waiting for him at the end of that day. Therefore, the cat had trotted out, leaving Yoongi to his books the next morning. He had only softly pushed his wet nose against Yoongi’s cheek, reminding him to concentrate and not forget to close the shop door. He preferred sniffing flowers instead of mingling with dark magic, especially ones that were about bad karma. In a way, he was afraid that it could affect Yoongi’s own. And he didn’t want that for him.

Yoongi had gotten up early, barely eating anything for breakfast because he felt like he could work magic best when he wasn’t ‘grounded’. It was a dangerous game he was playing, and he knew it, but he had always been too curious for his own good, too interested in trying out what was forbidden and pushing his boundaries. So, he had figured why not doing others a favor while doing so? They would get their black magic in the end anyways and this way he could at least have some control over it. It always made a difference who did it and with what mindset and intention. Of course, his spells and curses where just as effective - but he hoped that it made at least some kind of difference if the witch supplying the magic wasn’t doing it out of pure evil intentions…

When he had found what he had been looking for, he checked for his ingredients and realized that he was missing some bones, so he went over to the fish products shop and sneaked into their back alley. It wasn’t a nice way to get some fish bones, but it was easy and free and painless for anyone involved so he ignored that fishing in stinking trash might not be as dignifying as people thought of “preparing spells”.

When he came back he heard that Screech was awake (kind of hard to miss with a voice like that) so he patted the owl a little before getting back to work.

…

Back at Namjoon’s place, the other was sitting on his computer once more staring at the same sentence for what felt like hours now. His tea cup was empty now and he had nothing of the mix of herbs left that he bought from Yoongi. A smile stole it’s way on his lips as he thought about the other, wondering what he was doing right now and if he had been thinking about last night as well. There was just something about him, that Namjoon couldn’t quite put his finger on it and there was a lot more that he wanted to know about him. About Hobi and how he had found the cat, if he had family somewhere or what his favorite places and colors were. Namjoon jumped up from his seat, grabbing his jacket, the empty can and his keys. The need of a new mixture of herbs was a great reason to stop by his shop.

…

Yoongi was very careful with his preparations, the circle of salt, the ring of protection, asking for guidance and support from the elements. He didn’t want any traces of this curse left in his home. Afterwards he would make a cleanse, of both himself and the house with sea salt and sage, incense and herbal tea. He also took out the trash right away afterwards so that any bones or bloody parts of the spell would be out, and nothing would remind him of the spell - except for the money in his bank account.

Yoongi closed his eyes and tried to focus, banishing everything but the here and now from his mind. He could feel the familiar tingling at the back of his spine, the warmth spreading from the tips of his fingers. It was an intoxicating and thrilling feeling to be filled with magic and he enjoyed the rush every time.

…

Namjoon didn’t call out for Yoongi right away when he stepped into the shop later, instead he let the little bells by the door do their job announcing his arrival. The smile was still beaming on his face as he walked around a few shelves and back to the counter, hoping to see Yoongi there – either working or deeply concentrating on preparing something. But he didn’t find either. Not even Hoseok was there. He furrowed his brows in confusion, looking around carefully. Maybe Yoongi wasn’t there? But why did he leave the shop open then? Namjoon was about to call out for him, when instead there was a sudden smell of smoke reaching his nostrils. Namjoon leaned over the counter quickly. His heart pace was picking up fast, his body on alert right away.

There was a fire.

He could see some smoke.

The lights flickering.

Namjoon stormed around the corner and pushed the door to the back open in a rush.

Yoongi always closed and locked the door when he was doing spell work. That’s why he didn’t double check before starting. Except this time when he had been covered in fish trash he didn’t want to touch the door handle, so he had told himself to do it later. Except that he didn’t. So, while he was immersed in the spell, repeating the invocation in his head over and over again, blind to everything else but the magic slowly rising within him. And Namjoon was constantly coming closer to him…

Namjoon stopped dead in his tracks when the moment he stepped into the room; the smoke seemed to appear just as quick as it had appeared. His eyes flickered around the room quickly, before it landed on Yoongi. The other had his back turned to him, sitting on the floor in a circle of salt. Namjoon cocked his head to the side, when he saw there were herbs neatly placed in the circle and a few more things he couldn’t decipher, yet. But there was something still pulling him towards Yoongi, something that wanted to ask if he was okay, if he needed help with anything. Something didn’t seem right. Slowly he came closer and reached out for him.

Namjoon was more focused on Yoongi than on the salt so when he moved forward his foot crossed the line, smudging the careful placement of the salt and opening the circle.

The moment the circle was broken Yoongi could feel it, the breach, the intrusion, the foreign energy that shouldn‘t be there. He whipped around, his eyes glowing from the magical fire that filled him to the brim, with enough force and the potential to damage the life energy of three following generations. The atmosphere of the room changed immediately, as Yoongi’s concentration was ripped to shreds, he didn’t see Namjoon, it was just a split second decision, a knee jerk reaction born from fear of being caught, his magic still caught up in curses and his mind filled with fear and anger. He threw his magic right against Namjoon who had absolutely no chance against the onslaught of its force, he tumbled backwards and was thrown against the wall where Yoongi pinned him. His eyes still hadn’t cleared, they iris glowing, the rest as dark as one would deem fit for a demon. He got up on his feet, walking closer to the intruder, the enemy, the potential danger…

The scream from Namjoon sounded choked off as his back hit the wall. A feeling off a million needles pushing into his body, making him cry out in pain. He couldn’t move. His arms on each side, pressed against the wall tightly. “Y-Yoongi, st-stop,” Namjoon wasn’t sure the one in front of him had anything to do with Yoongi, the one he knew about. The sweet guy whose cheeks were blushing each time he got complimented, mumbling grumpily after. It wasn’t him. There was nothing sweet about him. The darkness pulled him under and for a moment Namjoon could see nothing but darkness. The magic surged through him, shaking him to his core and Namjoon screamed until it found its place, settling in his body and he fell onto his knees. He coughed violently, feeling dizzy and his vision blurry. “Stop, make it stop, please,” He cried out once more and he rolled over onto his back, spasms shaking his body.

Yoongi shuddered when the magic slipped from his fingertips, sinking into Namjoon’s skin and curling under it, rolling up into a tight ball of malevolence like a snake, a parasite that had found its place and starts doing what it had been brought alive for right away: damaging, destroying, feeding off a person's life energy. It wasn’t really his actions that brought Yoongi back to himself, it was the sound, Namjoon’s painful, utterly lost gasp, that spoke of hurt and true horror. There was no time to slowly find back into his body, to ground himself, to open the circle like he normally would have after he deemed it save again, follow the steps like he should - because his circle had already been broken and now there was nothing but chaos and wrongness and confusion.

That’s what Yoongi felt first when his mind tried to make sense of the picture in front of him: Namjoon on his knees before him, collapsed against the wall, looking up at him in fear and pain and for a moment Yoongi just felt confused, no guilt, no horror, just confusion. Then he realizes what had happened, step by step did he recapitulate his actions, rolling up everything backwards until he could watch it inside of his mind like his own personal horror movie with him and Namjoon as the main actors.

Namjoon who walks in on him. Who shouldn’t be here, but Yoongi hasn’t locked the door. And Hobi is out so he can’t warn him. Namjoon breaking the circle which breaks every protection Yoongi had drawn around himself. His surprise and fear which alters the spell - because they always fed from emotions and intentions. The spell doing what it is supposed to do which is destroying and hurting and cursing.

Just that it had found the wrong person.

Namjoon.

He had cursed Namjoon, with a blood curse. Something that had sunken into his very spirit. And what was worse was that he hadn’t even done it properly; it was a half-finished thing born from half the preparations in combination with an instinctual urge to protect himself from harm. So, he couldn’t just reverse this. He had left the path which meant he couldn’t just get back on it. He had cursed Namjoon.

Oh heavens, he had cursed Namjoon!

A/N: Here’s another story that you’ve been waiting for! Finally a different type of pairing, huh. Well, I guess we have to admit that we just love writing Yoonkook and Minjoon, so forgive us for writing so much about them but those are our favorites. Anyways. This time you can enjoy a little witch!Yoongi meeting a cute human who he accidentally curses. Oops! What’s gonna happen next? We will see next week ;)

Don’t forget on sunday (Easter) the sequel to ‘Mile High Valentine Club’ will come out as well! Happy reading! Don’t forget to leave us comments on how you liked it!

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jayfromriverside-blog · 5 years

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Comics I read this week (8/26 - 8/30)

Hey anyone and... anyone I guess. For all those looking to get into comics or who are already comics readers but don’t know which books are good, here’s an opinion on just that!

Give it a read, let me know what you think, light some pitchforks, whatever you like:

Justice League #30

I was conflicted reading this week’s issue of Justice League: while I’m really liking the direction that Scott Snyder is taking the story, I’m really getting sick of Jorge Jimenez’s art on the series.

While Jimenez was a breath of fresh air on the “Superman: Rebirth” series with his CG texturized drawing and smooth surfaces, his ultra-stylized and cartoony figures are starting to look more plastic and stretchy as this series goes on. He’s got a bad habit of smoothing over his character’s proportions, which make these heroes that are supposed to be cut and strong look flat and almost doughy. It’s starting to grind on me more as each new issue comes out, and maybe it’s time for an artistic switch-up on this title.

In terms of the story though, this was a good set-up issue for the Justice/Doom war that Snyder and co. have been building up to on this run. We’ve got all the pieces in place: a gathering of forces by both sides; a romp through time which sees the League meeting with both Kamandi and the classic JSA; and everything going awry right from the get-go!

The only thing I’m slightly concerned about storywise is that Catwoman was in the Doom lineup, and with the rekindling of Bat-Cat in the latest Batman issues, I’m hoping this isn’t a portend for another breakup in King’s run. My heart couldn’t take another.

Superman #14

Let me be clear on one thing before I start in: I’m a fan of Brian Michael Bendis. His work on “Ultimate Spider-Man,” “Daredevil,” and “Alias” are some of my favorite comics, and his more recent work with “Naomi,” and “Event Leviathan” has been really good. With all that being said... man, this Superman comic has sucked hard since he took over.

Let’s just start at the story:

It’s felt like Bendis has been really looking forward to getting started on his upcoming run with the new “Legion of Superheros,” which is something to potentially get excited about for the near future. What’s not exciting at all is the realization that this whole Rogol Zar arc has been a poorly thought out lead-in to the Legion’s return. SPOILER WARNING FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO READ THIS GARBAGE FIRE: the Legion show up at the end of the issue to invite Jon to join, as a commemoration of the day the United Planets was formed. This is fine, and could be an exciting new direction for Jon that harkens back to the classic comics. BUT did we really have to suffer through weeks of nonsensical story just to get this?

Just to recap this arc: Rogol Zar appears out of nowhere, looking like Lobo, Doomsday and a garbage disposal with a bland imagination all had an orgy and he was the deformed kid that came out of it. This beefed-up piece of blandness comes out of the sky to fuck up Superman cause he heard there were some Kryptonians still alive in the Universe and apparently he’s a space-racist.

Superman struggles against this remnant from the 90s while the worlds shittiest not-dead Grandpa, Jor El, is off in space traumatizing Jon and stressing him out so much he ages up to a teenager.

But it’s ok guys! Jor El knows who Rogol Zar is, they have a connection of sorts! And Rogol Zar caused the destruction of Krypton! But now he’s allied with Jax Ur, and also now Zod maybe? And the Thanagarians are involved? So are the Guardians? Wait, now Rogol Zar is also effected by Kryptonite because he’s a Kryptonian? And now he’s just captured like that, but Thanagar’s under attack, oh wait just kidding it’s not?

Those last 2 plot points literally happened in 3 pages this issue, right after each other. So this story is confusing and non-sensical and ultimately doesn’t mean anything, because the whole point turned out to be that Bendis needed something, some plot device to make it so Superman could say “we can’t have secrets like this tearing apart worlds like Krypton, we need a United Planets.”

None of this crap story is helped by Ivan Reis’ art, which I know some people love, but to me it looks like everything bad with the 90s except with better backgrounds and textures. But even if I didn’t hate his art, his page and panel composition is often confusing, especially during fight sequences, which doesn’t help when the story is confusing to begin with.

After reading this week’s issue, I want nothing more than to die in the garbage fire Bendis has lit and take this whole comic with me.

The Terrifics #19

Shouts out to DC for finally figuring out how to write a Fantastic 4 comic, maybe they can show Dan Slott how it’s done. But seriously, “The Terrifics” has been the exact kind of science-adventure story that needs to be around in comics, as the landscape needs it’s fare share of science-criminals and heroes to balance things out.

First thing to note for this week, the art is great. Max Raynor (first time I’ve seen their work) has a great kind of cartoony playfulness to his characters and line-work, while at the same time keeping the models tight and well detailed.

I’m glad that the writers of the story realized that the Terrifics function best when they’re dealing with light-hearted cross-dimensional adventures, and this new one seems like it’ll be great from the start. In keeping with the “Year of the Villain,” Lex Luthor has made an offer to Bizarro (the one for the HTREA, not the one from the Outlaws), giving him a time-machine device to reek some havoc with.

I don’t want to spoil the issue too much, as if you haven’t read the Terrifics you really should give it a go, but let’s just say that it involves Bizarro at one point destroying Algebra, and a Bizarro Terrifics team known as “The Terribles” breaking through to the main DC dimension to challenge their Terrific rivals.

If you’re looking for something fun, cheesy, but heartwarming and action packed, definitely give the Terrifics a try.

The Flash #77

Look, I’m still not digging this whole “Force War,” or “War of the Forces,” or whatever the Flash team is trying to build up with these new force users. It felt like the DC Creative team was trying to retcon Flash to be more mythical with “Flash: Year One,” pitting the Flash against the Turtle and creating this whole mythology around the Forces of the Universe to make it seem like this clash was inevitable.

But what this has done for me is just make the Flash feel smaller and less special. These forces and the grander narrative behind them have just diminished the Speed force, which was still shrouded in some mystery after all these years in the DC Universe, to just one force, just A force.

There are two silver linings from this week’s issue, one more bittersweet than the other. First off, the art has gotten ten times better than it’s been in weeks. Rafa Sandoval’s pencils are crisp and clean, and though his action feels static sometimes, he’s miles better than what we’ve been seeing for a few months now.

Second, though this Force War already feels like a dud, a cool concept was introduced in a throwaway line. Flash fans, feel free to crucify me, but with the Black Flash’s appearance this week, Commander Cold talked about how he was acting like an anti-body for the Speed Force in trying to eliminate these new force users. If that’s true, it makes the Speed Force almost like a living creature that feel’s like it is under attack. But this also makes me think that, wouldn’t it have been cooler if you had the same motivation for the appearance of the Black Flash, but instead of the Force users, it was Speedsters it was targeting?

What if all of the new Speedsters were putting a strain on the Speed Force, hurting it in some way that awoke the Black Flash? It’d still give Barry a reason to reconcile with Wallace and Avery, but would also replace this Force War with a Speed War? Spitballing here, but that sounds cooler to me.

Ice Cream Man #14

And now we break up the superheroes for something a little more horrific. For anyone who doesn’t know what “Ice Cream Man” is, the best way I can categorize it is a horror anthology series.

The story, setting and characters change from week-to-week, except for one presence: the Ice Cream Man. Even when he’s not in whatever nightmare is being doled out that week, his fingers can be felt all over the story, and they dig into the fears you try to hide and pry them open.

The theme of this week’s story was communication, and maaaaaaaaan does this comic have a way of making you feel depressed and scared all at the same time.

The two main characters are a husband and wife, the former who is deeply dissatisfied and finds escape in crosswords, the latter who is so starved for communication and intimacy that she makes problems out of nothing just to have something to talk with her husband about.

I don’t want to spoil too much, as I think everyone should be reading this book, but things take a turn for the hellish when the husband goes out to buy more crosswords and finds himself trapped in one, while his wife finds out that her delusions may have been true, and worse than she thought.

For long-time readers, the biggest thing from to take away from this issue is that perhaps the Ice Cream Man’s influence is spilling out into the world more and more, and things will only get worse from here.

Spider-Man: Life Story #6

For any fans of Spider-Man, go out and buy this book. Doesn’t matter if you’re a new fan or a hardcore fan, this is a story for anyone who has any love for Spider-Man in any shape. This story isn’t perfect all the way through, but man is it an incredible ride.

For anyone who hasn’t heard of this comic, writer Chip Zdarsky took the gargantuan task of creating one long-form story out of the entire continuity of Spider-Man, from the 1962 till 2019, and showing how this life that we’ve seen Spider-Man live would actually play out in real-time.

This comic took some of the best and worst arcs, from “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” the birth of Venom and “The Superior Spider-Man,” to “The Clone Saga” and the Inheritors (god those pseudo vampires were dumb), and not only makes them work within this different world that Zdarsky has made, but makes them work as a part of the larger narrative.

While it’s not perfect all the way through, seeing the characters we know and love, especially Peter and MJ, live their lives with wrinkles and all feels like something special, and I encourage anyone who is curious to go out and cop this 6 issue series and join the ride.

Runaways #24

For all manga fans out there, I’m a huge fan of the “slice-of-life” genre. For any non-manga fans, slice-of-life stories are ones that celebrate the everyday little moments that make up most of our lives. Riding bikes with friends, going to the movies, starting a new hobby, or even just going to the store and deciding what to get for dinner, these are all the kind of topics that a slice-of-life narrative covers. With her run on “Runaways,” Rainbow Rowell has essentially made a superhero slice-of-life comic, and I’m really liking every moment of it.

This week’s issue focuses almost entirely on Karolina and Nico spending a night out “superheroing.” Except it becomes apparent pretty early on that neither really knows what they’re doing, and whatever little problems they run into (fender bender on the 405, potentially lost children, etc.) are better left to themselves, as they either wouldn’t be able to help or would actually get in the way. It’s weird to say that watching superheroes be ineffective is really entertaining, but that’s exactly what I’m saying, and I think that is in large part to the good character writing that Rowell has done on her run, and the warm art of this series that helps you feel safe and cozy.

My favorite part of the issue is when Karolina and Nico stop for a bite to eat, and Karolina feels like she has to apologize for wasting Nico’s time. Nico just laughs it off and tells her that she was just looking to spend time with her partner, so in her eyes tonight’s mission was a success. It’s cute, it fits with the characters and how we’ve seen them grow over the run, and I like it a lot.

That’s not to say there isn’t any action in this issue. By the time the story is done there’s a super-powered dance fight and a mysterious new superhero debuting on the scene. I’m excited to see where both of those threads go heading into the next issue.

Justice League Dark #14

Since the Rebirth of this team this has been one of the comics that I look forward to the most each new issue, and this is quickly becoming one of my favorite iterations of the team. While Batman’s gothic-detective aesthetic fit well with the team, he always felt too based in technology and the modern world to really embrace magic. On the other hand, Wonder Woman is a walking myth, a demi-god on earth, someone who is made of magic. Her role as the leader of this team alongside heavy hitters like Zatanna and Swamp Thing, along with smaller characters like Detective Chimp and Man-Bat, has felt natural and authentic.

Another great part of having Diana on the team rather than Batman is that her personality stands out. Whereas Batman and most of the magical characters in DC are generally tragic, Wonder Woman is a symbol of hope and optimism, someone who fights to see the best in people and bring that best version out of them. This works especially well with her band of misfits, who despite having much more experience than Wonder Woman in the world of magic, have far less experience in being part of a team, let alone in being “superheroes” in the traditional sense of the word.

As for this issue, it’s a set-up chapter that ticks all the right boxes. We’ve essentially got the “Dark” Justice League Dark coming together, led by a newly powered up Circe, who are raring up to wage a Witching War against their good counterparts. While their final players are coming into the fold, the villains have already managed to plant a couple of seeds of doubt into the team which will certainly bloom into dissension. Can’t wait to see where this goes next.

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #11

Tom Taylor gets Spider-Man.

It’s a simple statement, but as we’ve seen over all of the years with Spidey, not a whole lot of writers have really understood what makes Spider-Man so spectacular, amazing, superior, etc. It’s a testament to how well Tom Taylor is writing Spider-Man in this series that he’s telling small scale stories without a whole lot of action, death-defying adventure or real conflict, and yet this is some of the best Spider-Man I’ve read in years.

The opening pages set the tone for the story right away, with one of the simpler but most honest statements I’ve seen in a Spider-Man book:

“See, Captain America is Captain America. Thor is Thor. But Spider-Man...

Spider-Man is Peter Parker...

And Peter Parker is my responsibility.”

That’s the thesis statement for this story, detailing a day in the life of Mary-Jane Watson, the often under appreciated girlfriend of our titular web-head.

The story from then on is pretty much in her hands, with occasional monologuing from a sleeping Peter, as Mary-Jane goes about what we can only assume is a pretty typical day in the life of the girlfriend of one of NYC’s premier heroes.

Small scale stories are essential in superhero comics in order to break up long events and arcs. They’re breathing room, time for the readers to catch their breath and assess the new status quo before things get wild again. But they’re also often the stories which show us the foundations of who these heroes really are. It’s been said that power doesn’t corrupt, it reveals, and when characters with as much power as Spider-Man aren’t up against the wall and forced to make a decision, the decisions they do make show us that much more about the person beneath the mask.

Tom Taylor has managed to show us just who Spider-Man and the people in his life really are underneath their masks by lowering the stakes. The stories are small and simple, the consequences often equally so, but what’s been created is true to the characters more than almost any stories I’ve seen before, and it’s lovely. This is one of the best books being written right now, and if you’re not reading it yet, you need to go out and fix that right now.

Detective Comics #1010

It feels like there isn’t much to say about this week’s issue. We’ve still got the stranded billionares on the island, who are now clearly being held hostage by Deadshot. Meanwhile Bruce is rescued and patched up by two WWII fighter pilots who have been stranded on this island since the war, neither knowing which side won.

I’m a big fan of Deadshot when he leans into his nihilistic killer persona, and this “The Most Dangerous Game” setup with a tech-deprived Bruce and Deadshot duking it out on an island seems interesting. Tomasi has been generally pretty good with his run on Detective Comics, so I’m excited to see how long he runs with this arc of Bruce and Deadshot trying to outsmart each other in this deadly game of cat and mouse.

#comics #superhero #dc comics #marvel #batman #spiderman #superman #wonder woman #the flash

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