#also on a more personal note that paragraph about feeling time stopped is how i felt during lockdown

[janusofguardia]

Snow Fic

(No, I don’t have a better title XD)

Summary: Janus never liked snow, but it’s what reminds him of home. 

Rating: G

Warnings: Angst, sadness, doubting reality

I’ve actually had this fic cooking in my WIP’s since 2020! One major reason why it took so long is cus I didn’t know how to write snow (it never snows where I’m from), so I had to ask help from friends and the good people of the CT discord server XD

Hope you like it! 

------

Janus never liked snow. 

To begin with, it never really snowed in Zeal. It was never too hot either. The Kingdom’s protective magic saw to it that its citizens would only ever experience pleasant weather that was never too hot or too cold. 

It snowed down below though, where the Earthbound Ones dwelt. Janus quickly learned on his first trip there that snow was the worst weather phenomenon he had ever encountered. It was a pain to walk in. It wet his feet and ruined his good boots. And as if the numbing cold weren’t enough, icy powder blew all around and left him soaked, freezing, and miserable. 

To make matters worse, it was always like this. Always. It was a constant blizzard and he had no idea how his sister Schala managed to remain so graceful as she administered aid to the Earthbound Ones. 

Of course, Janus didn’t have to be there, but he chose to anyway because he wanted to be by his sister’s side. Never mind that he was casting a low-level fire spell to keep warm. 

Now, Janus stood in the open courtyard of Guardia Castle. It was snowing and he hated it just as he always did. He discovered that winters here weren’t as bad as the frigid blizzards he had known, but he hated it all the same. Snow was still a pain to walk in, it still left him soaked, and it still ruined his good boots. 

He still didn’t have to be out there in the open, fully exposed to the weather he hated, but he chose to anyway. It was as awful as ever, but if he closed his eyes and focused on the feel of the wind and the cold flakes falling from the sky, he could pretend he was home. 

Never mind that the snow reminded him of the unpleasant dwellings of those who were considered beneath him (Schala would say: “We are not above anyone Janus, no matter what they say. We are all equal in this world and must be kind to one another.”). Never mind that the cold wind stung his face and he was starting to shiver. It felt close enough to home. 

And “where” was home, anyway? Or, “what” was home? “What” even was this “Kingdom of Guardia that stood on the earth yet had tolerable winters and also no humans at all who could use magic” that Janus now lived in and had come to know as part of his “existence”? 

When he first arrived in this realm, he spent much of his time seeking answers and trying to find what had happened to the world he knew and how he could return. Years passed with still no leads, and the young prince soon found himself wondering if his old life was just a dream. Other times, he wondered if it was being in Guardia that was. 

(Am I a Prince of Zeal dreaming of Guardia, or a child of Guardia who simply dreamt of Zeal?)

There was one thing Janus was certain of, and it was that he felt time stopped. Years passed, and though he was growing into a young man, he often felt as if he was still the child whose world was ripped from him. 

The wind howled. (The ordinary kind). Janus closed his eyes. He could almost hear Schala calling him to return to the Land Bridge. 

-----

A/N: And that’s it! Even after learning more about snow (and boy did I learn a lot!) I had to juggle which parts specifically Janus hated, and in a way that suited the vibe of the fic. I’m glad I finally got to post this, and in December too XD 

Thank you to those who helped me learn more about snow! (I hope I got it right lol)

[allywthsr]

WRONG PERSON | (l.norris)

summary: you send a sexy video to some tinder guy, until you realize you tapped Lando‘s contact instead, you both help the other to finish what you started

wordcount: 2.4k words

pairing: landonorris x fem!reader

warnings: smut!, talking about toys, details about masturbation, phone sex, dirtytalk

notes: inspired by this!!! Tell me what you think, I‘m still scared to write smut, hope you all like this🫣

You were working for Quadrant, it wasn’t like you were some important boss or something, you mostly dealt with customers and sometimes got to plan a video, but Lando still took the time and got to know you. When the whole team went out for dinner, Lando talked to everyone for at least twenty minutes, he wanted to know who was working for him and his brand.

There was no denying you found him handsome, everybody thought he was pretty, but you needed to hide your excitement in your panties whenever he was near you. Not only did he make eye contact every time you two talked, but he also smelled delicious, you wanted to rip his clothes off, the whole time he was near you.

But back to where you were now, laying in bed naked, at almost one am, with your phone in your hand. You were single and desperate, texting with guys from Tinder, who were not worth more than a quick fuck, but you were young and had your needs.

With your phone in one hand, and your left boob in the other, you recorded a small video, where you were squeezing your boob and moaned slightly. You‘ve been snapchatting with a guy you met on Tinder, both of you were horny and needed a release, so why not help each other? You quickly wrote a text to the video, to make it more seducing, ’ You make me so wet…‘ and taped on the slot on Snapchat where he was for the last few snaps, before you could double check that you selected him, you hit sent and threw the phone next to you.

While you waited for his answer, your hand slowly made its way to your pussy, circling your wet clit. With a moan, you teased yourself and kept stopping the sensation in your most private area. When you heard the Snapchat notification tone, you took your phone in your hand and only saw that Lando send you a snap, it wasn’t unusual that he would snap you, you two were streaking after all, but at that time was a little odd, because you were kinda bored and waiting for your guy to reply, you withdraw your fingers from your wet cunt and opened Lando’s snap.

With a gasp, you threw away your phone, the first photo was a normal snap, a picture of his bedroom with some series on Netflix playing, but when you tapped on the screen to exit the snap, a new picture popped up. You could see his hand holding his boxershorts clothed dick, he was hard and big, long and thick. He also wrote a little text, you had to read it twice, making sure your mind wasn’t playing tricks on you, ’was this meant for me, babygirl?‘

You didn’t know what to do, so you did nothing for a few seconds, you didn’t feel horny anymore, suddenly aware of the cold air hitting your still-hot pussy. Should you reply and apologize, saying how you accidentally sent your boss a nude, and look him in the eye at the next dinner? Impossible.

You thought about leaving the country and starting all over again, where no one knew Lando, but that wasn’t a solution either, you had to face him and say that it wasn’t meant for him. But how can you get rid of the image in your head of his dick, the only thing that was roaming through your brain right now was how lucky his future wife would be. With a dick like that, she sure would be happy for the rest of her life.

You excited the snap and took a deep breath, what were you going to say, sorry I send you a nude, but your dick looks nice? No. It took you at least two minutes to think about it and when you took a picture of half your face and started writing a paragraph of apologies, your phone showed you an incoming call.

Lando Norris.

Shit. Your whole body tensed, you couldn’t answer, you just had to pack your things and go, leave London and Lando behind, but something in you didn’t want that, and after what seemed like hours, you did answer the call.

”Hey Lando, look uhm, I‘m sorry I sent you that video, it wasn’t meant for you, obviously. B…But thank you for responding, I mean that picture was nice, but I don’t think that this uhm professionalism between us should be broken. If.. if you want me to leave Quadrant, I‘ll do that.. uhm I’m sorry for sending you that, and I-“

”Y/N, will you stop rambling?“, his voice sounded like he was out of breath, you started shaking when you heard him speak.

”I‘m sorry, for rambling and sending you the video.“

He chuckled, ”Don’t be, maybe you could’ve seen by my response, that I wasn’t mad about it. Sure having your employee suddenly sending you a video where she squeezes her boob and moans, isn’t something I‘d expect, but you have beautiful boobs.“

You didn’t know what to say, so the only thing that came out of your mouth was a: ”Thank you?“, you could hear your heartbeat in your chest, the silence on the other line panicked you.

”But, maybe this is unprofessional of me now, but you left me in a kind of hard situation, Y/N. I bet you’re still wet if your fingers would slide between your legs, aren’t you?“

Your breath hitched, was this for real? Was Lando Norris, your boss, dirty talking to you?

”I..I don’t know, it was a pretty big shock to see you replying, I‘m not as horny as I was ten minutes ago.“

”Then I want you to glide your hand over your boobs and stomach, down to your pussy, I bet it’s pretty, and then tell me how wet you are.“

With a small sigh, you did what he told you, gliding over your boobs and stomach to your pussy, you touched your entrance slightly and felt yourself pulsating, you may not be as horny anymore, but your wetness said otherwise, maybe a part of you already found it hot that Lando actually replied to you.

”Fuck, I‘m so wet Lando.“

You heard a moan from the other line and some sheet rustling, ”Baby, I want you to touch yourself like you would do without me. Finger yourself, rub your clit, do whatever satisfies you. I‘m hard as a rock baby, I need to touch myself too, I wish you were here to do it for me.“

You did as Lando told you, rubbing your clit in circles and feeling yourself come closer to the edge, this whole situation was so hot, it turned you on so badly.

”Please touch yourself, Lando, I wish I was there to help you.“

”I could eat you out until you’re crying and begging me to stop because you would be overstimulated.“

Another moan escaped your mouth and slowly you let your fingers slip into you, which was no problem due to your wetness, but it wasn’t enough, you needed more, thankfully Lando seemed to know what you were thinking when he heard your unsatisfied moans.

”Do you need more baby? Are your fingers not enough, you need my dick to stretch you out?“

You let out whiny and breathy ’yes‘, this situation was so bizarre but hot at the same time.

”Do you have any toys, Y/N? I want you to use a toy on yourself.“

”I..I do.“

”Show me.“

”Can we switch to FaceTime? It’s easier, and I want to see you.“

Lando hummed and muttered a quick goodbye before the screen with the call disappeared, the only thing you could see on your phone now was the picture you took a few minutes ago, and before you could do anything else, the FaceTime call from Lando came in. You answered without thinking about it and you were greeted with a big and girthy dick, and your mouth watered a little. You held the phone up, so he could see your face and your boobs, which he commented with a quiet ’fuck‘.

”Show me your toys, baby.“

You quickly got up and propped the phone against your lamp that stood on the nightstand, while you looked under your bed to fish out the box with your toys. It wasn’t like you were some pornstar and had thousands of toys, but over the years you had collected a fair amount of little helpers.

By now Lando had switched back to his face, so you could see his little beard and his eyes, he kept biting his lower lip, while watching you.

You opened your box and grabbed the first toy you saw, a standard dildo, it was skin-colored and a bit longer and thicker than the normal ones. You showed it to Lando and he groaned, tilting his head back, ”Is that your favorite?“, he asked.

You shook your head and pulled out a pink satisfyer, it was a mixture of a vibrator and dildo, but it also had a clit sucking element. That one was your favorite, you had spent hours with this beauty, and it never left you hanging. ”This is my favorite, you don’t know how good this feels.“

”Tell me about it.“

”It’s so fucking good, Lando. This clit sucking thing? It feels like heaven, it gets me there within a few minutes, the fastest I‘ve ever had an orgasm.“

”I bet I could get you there faster.“

That statement left you with a smirk, only the thought of Lando going down on you, made your head spin, you needed that.

”I can see that you’re imagining it right now, I bet you taste amazing, I would finger you, while lapping at your clit, you would be so full.“

You shut your eyes, and whined, your pussy clenching around nothing.

”What else do you have in there?“

”I have a wand“, you lifted the typical wand and dropped it on the bed, ”I also have a rabbit vibrator, and this“, you lifted another pink vibrator, but this one was smaller.

”You know what this is for, Lando?“

”I‘ve seen it in porn“, he smirked, ”have you ever let someone control it while being somewhere public?“

You nodded, it was a vibrator that you would insert into your pussy and it could be controlled with an app, you‘ve only used it once with someone.

”I was on a date with someone from Tinder, and we‘d been sexting for days and I gave him the app and he controlled it over dinner, it was an experience and I loved it.“

”I want to control it in our next meeting, seeing you tremble over some video ideas is going to be fucking hot.“

Another wave of pleasure rushed through your body, you couldn’t believe you were talking that way with your boss, unbelievable.

”I want you to use that rabbit on you.“

You chuckled, and held the rabbit vibrator into the camera, ”This one?“

Lando nodded eagerly, with a smirk you opened your mouth, dared your tongue out, and licked a long stripe over the part that goes inside of you. After a few licks, you put it fully in your mouth and started sucking it.

You could see how Lando started touching himself again, his eyes closed every now and then and he let out small whimpers. This was your sign that you needed to touch yourself too, so you laid on the bed and flipped the camera to your lower part, where the vibrator was circling your clit. Lando also flipped the camera and you saw his dick that was already leaking pre cum, he moved his thumb over his tip every now and then while moving his cock through his fist, collecting the white fluid. Due to your wetness, the vibrator slipped inside of you with ease, you turned it on and gasped when you felt the vibrations.

”Do you like that? Having your pussy stuffed.“

”Yes, Lando, yes. I need you here next to me.“

”I need you too, wrapped around my cock, you would be screaming and keeping up the neighbors all night.“

With a loud moan, you could feel yourself getting closer to a release, the tip edging your clit made you almost scream and the way you moved the vibrator in and out of you, made you see stars. Lando also was about to cum, he saw that your pussy got wetter and wetter, your fluids squeezing out of your cunt every time the vibrator left it.

”I’m about to cum, Y/N. Show me your face, are you cumming soon?“

You moaned loudly again and flipped the camera, just like Lando did, “Yes, Lando, I wish it was you filling me so well.“

With a loud moan and a lot of curses, Lando spilled his cum all over his hand and stomach, he quickly flipped the camera again, now showing you the mess he created, “That’s all for you, baby, I wish it was inside of you instead on the stomach. Cum for me Y/N, let go.“

While he said those words to you, you felt yourself falling over the edge, with moans and grunts. Lando was sure he never heard something so sexy, those sounds alone made him horny again, he needed to feel you close.

When both of you came down from your highs, you two let out a laugh, realizing what you just did, you had phone sex with your boss, but it felt right and good, and the way his cum sat on his stomach, made you horny again, you needed him.

“You feeling better now?“

“Lando, you’ve no idea, so much better than the weird Tinder guy the video actually was for.“

“I bet, but I still need you, Y/N.“

“Are you in London?“

He hummed.

“Well, my bed is cold without you in it, if you want, my pussy is ready for you, Lando.“

“Send me your address, I’ll be over in ten minutes, you better not start without me, or you’ll get punished.“

taglist: @millinorrizz @jamieeboulos @loxbbg

[melodic-haze]

MORE SAD SUB ARLECCHINO. PLEASE. I NEED TO EAT. like shes in absolute TEARS SHES SO ME I LOVE HER PLEASE FEED ME MORE.

☆ — DEMO TRACK: sub!Arlecchino x dom!Reader

☆ — TYPE: NSFW

☆ — CONTENT WARNINGS: A lil petplay (it's like one paragraph)

☆ — NOTES: I lied about not writing for this week lol I needed a distraction. Anyway combined these two bc they worked very sillily together hope yall don't mind 🫶 also YES I DO REMEMBER YOU 🎀 anon w my first ask about Arle :333

Oh man oh man oh MANNN I wanna do soooo many things to her auhfhthgh

Much as I ADORE absolutely ruining this absolute UNIT of a woman, I also want to take care of her and dote on her so much to the point where she fucking cries from being treated so well UGHHHHH

I feel like there are times at night when she remembers what she had lost in order to get to where she is right now (the chance to have a life that went in a more conventional direction, along w ESPECIALLY Clervie) and while she has learned to deal with the feeling itself in solitary, whenever you see her look out the window she is no longer The Knave—this was Peruere, a lonely girl yearning for something from so long ago

Even when she seems like such a self-assured person, all that composure threatens to fall into pieces the moment you, the one she now holds so achingly dearly in her heart, go to hug her and tell her that she's no longer alone :( no matter how many times you tell her or no matter how many times this scene repeats, it will never stop affecting her so deeply :(((((

I do think that she actually does love to sit on your lap. Sure, maybe it's kinda unnecessary and even more than a little embarrassing, but it makes her feel cared for instead of the way around that she's used to 🫶

"Who would've known that the real reason why you like being on my lap was for this, though..?"

You curled your fingers up in order to emphasise your point, hitting that specific spot within her that forces out a strangled gasp as her thighs make a feeble attempt to close themselves off.. despite the fact that you were comfortably sat right in-between.

Arlecchino makes no effort to answer you properly right away with one of her ever-so-composed words of wisdom or whatever they may be—she opts to tuck her head into the crook of your neck as fat tears roll down her cheeks, your skin almost as wet as her drooling cunt that you just can't get enough of.

(Her makeup is smudged too, though by this point it doesn't really seem like she cares.)

Though with the way your other hand was wrapped around her, softly stroking her back as if soothing your crying mess, and the way her own arms were clinging onto you, you both knew there was so much more to this position beyond your carnal actions.

Something much more emotionally charged, something much more than she usually let herself handle.

And perhaps it might also be because you had been at this for a while; your little lapdog was desperate for a release every time.. only for you to take the chance away from her, as if faking your pet out of her sweet treat. You couldn't help but play with her a little, not when her reactions are often the sweetest—uncharacteristic whines making its way out of her lips as she pleads you to fuck her silly, to--

"--make me forget for a brief moment, please-- ah..!"

And as her loving partner, of course you'd want to comfort her in whatever way you can.

"I'll make you forget your very title, Peruere."

"Please--"

Especially if it means fucking her until all that longing is long gone.

Need her to go from crying about who she had to kill to crying about who she ended up gaining in the end (and crying about how you make her feel too :3)

Just softly tell her that you love her, sing her praises, take care of her, kiss the tears rolling down her face, give her everything that she hadn't been meant to have or hadn't even realised she could ever have as the 'monster' her past has created

I just really really wanna spoil her and make her cry by overwhelming her with so much affection she doesn't know what to do with as someone who doesn't often let such things dictate her actions dude idk 🤷‍♀️

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Do you see the differences between the game and the novel Twisted Wonderland? I didn't notice much until I searched on Youtube, Novel Ace was ready to apologize to Yuu ( in this case Yuuya) for insulting, Malleus isn't our little sweet dragon boy but literally choking Yuuya ?!

Yes, I do keep up with the differences between all official adaptations of TWST! This includes the light novel, which in my opinion has the most frequent and significant deviations from the game. It’s been very interesting to compare the two.

I don’t immediately comment on every change (of which there are many) I see unless specifically asked about it or I notice something pretty major. Some examples of the latter would be the like novels elaborating on Leona’s motives or Riddle’s flashback and the consequences of his actions.

I think this is facilitated by two factors: 1) the light novel format allowing for more space to expand on ideas and concepts, and 2) Yuuya is the most different Yuu we’re gotten. The game Yuu is very much a blank slate for players to project onto in order to easily immerse them in the story. Meanwhile, the manga Yuus tend to be the “helpful” types that move the story along in their own way. This is because the manga has limited space in the magazines they run in, so they need to keep things snappy and follow the main story pretty strictly. The light novel is able to stop and have the POV character reflect, doubt themselves, and refuse involvement because a medium that is inherently mostly words forces you to slow down and take in everything on the page. There’s no limit or demands of a book, so the events have much more time to “marinate”.

Personally, I really love a lot of the minor changes in the light novel. I feel they really flesh out the relationships between characters, particularly Yuuya and his friendship with Ace and Deuce. Ace actually has the guts to realize he was the one who fucked up and apologizes for being an ass. It’s so in line with the brutal honesty he dishes out it to others. Deuce stays up late into the night talking to Yuuya and makes them feel welcome because when was the last time he had done anything like this? Yuuya was always the loner back home, ignored by his classmates and feeling invisible. Now he has loyal friends who got his back and actively tell off mob students who sneer at his enrollment. Moments like this make me really care about their bond and make it more believable that they would trek halfway across Twisted Wonderland to come to Yuuya’s aid in the eventual book 4 of the novelization.

dbksbejwjwwhei The one thing that caught me off guard about your ask was the “Malleus chokes Yuuya” part, which I do not recall ever happening 😅 I went back into the light novel to cross reference just in case I had forgotten! I believe you’re referring to when Yuuya and Malleus first meet in book 2? In which case, I think there was reader misinterpretation involved.

What happens is that Malleus begins to introduce himself, then stops and says he permits Yuuya to pick a name for him. But Yuuya, feeling uncomfortable with the idea of nicknaming someone he just met, so he asks for Malleus’s actual name (something which game Yuu does not do). This incurs Malleus’s anger—“I have said no. Did you not hear me?” It is then that we get a few paragraphs describing how Yuuya goes “stiff”, a “briar-like tension seizes his body, making it impossible to move”, “fear [making his] heart race”, he “[forgets] to breathe” etc. (Fan translation by Yuurei!)

To me, that… doesn’t read as Malleus choking Yuuya, let alone laying a finger on him. It’s more like Yuuya is so consumed by fear that he finds himself entirely paralyzed and unable to argue back, so instead he submits and lets the subject drop. There’s no mention of Malleus “letting go” or anything either, just the fairy lights brightening again once his mood clears and he realizes Yuuya isn’t looking to defy him. It’s also important to note that, previously, the night in this scene was described as tranquil and pleasant—the emphasis is on how Malleus’s mood shifts the atmosphere and the “feeling” of the night.

So!! The “seizing” mentioned is NOT literal; a feeling could “seize” you too, coming in suddenly and with great power. This is a literary device known as personification, or giving a non-human object or action human-like qualities or skills. When used to describe the briar-like feeling, it’s also a simile, which is when you use “like” or “as” to compare two things.

… Besides, imagine Yuuya being choked out by someone during your first meeting and then no description of him freaking out?? And then still building a whole friendship based on this weird encounter??? Even though Yuuya has a history of catastrophizing and even thinks about Leona explicitly tearing his throat out just because of Leona’s powerful presence???? That just does not make sense. It also doesn’t make sense for Malleus’s character. Yes, he can lash out at people, but here it feels like he’s telegraphing his displeasure (via the atmosphere, similar to how his mood disrupts the weather) rather than resorting to a physical attack (or using magic to bind someone in place).

[wetsocksinbed]

shit people need to hear about COD:

Ghost isn’t some broken uwu boy. Infantilising assault victims is demeaning and disrespectful

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, König is extremely overrated for a character that only appears as a playable operator and not as anything in the campaign

You’re allowed to ship whoever you want, it’s a free world, but throwing a tantrum when people say they don’t ship GhostSoap or Korangi, and calling them homophobic (I’ve seen this too many times at this point) is disgusting and you’re essentially stereotyping us LGBTQ individuals as aggressive and pushy when it comes to queer ships. The characters of Ghost and Soap are canonically coded to be like brothers, and you need to stop thinking that a headcannon is the same as real cannon

Stop replacing Gaz with König, it’s giving ✨racism✨

Alex, König, Farah, Alejandro, Rudy and Horangi are not part of TF141, stop including them in it?????

König and Ghost are canonically enemies and wouldn’t have each other on speed dial just tag your fics as OOC at this point

the entirety of the Call of Duty franchise was coded for straight white “alpha male” boys who live in their mothers basements, stop acting like it’s anything more than that. You won’t find the representation you’re looking for in it and honestly with the way it’s headed at the moment, I don’t think you ever will

we can tell if you’ve never played the games based on how you write the fics. You don’t have to be a game fan or player, but at least do your research on the characters you’re writing about before you hit “post”

Makarov and Graves are terrible people and shouldn’t be idolised. Before you tag me with your “let people do what they want” let me remind you that Graves is canonically racist. @mockerycrow made a good post about why Makarov is a shit person and I recommend you read it

All of the characters have their flaws. Ghost, Soap, Gaz, Price, they all have done bad things. Price is known to commit war crimes if it means getting the mission done

König having social anxiety doesn’t mean he’s a broken husk. You can function completely fine with the disorder if you can find a way to distance yourself from who you are as a person. Say, like, constantly wearing a mask? I promise you that the Austrian soldier wouldn’t be a sobbing mess because he got looked at funny

Also, he is only obsessed over because of his mask and the weird obsession people on this app have with infantilising people with trauma and mental illnesses (see first paragraph regarding Ghost)

The way some of the fans obsess over the actors is uncomfortable and genuinely creepy. It’s like this generation thinks that anything behind a screen isn’t real and can’t feel anything. They’re people who act. They’re not the characters you play.

feel free to add more to this, I’m tired and sick and wanted to rant

notes:

don’t attack me with the “yeah but not me” shit. Obviously I don’t mean everyone.

this doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the games the way you want, it just means don’t fucking police it and gatekeep it and expect everyone to accept your interpretation of it

[toast-the-unknowing]

on fanfic plagiarism

Almost five years ago, in January of 2019, someone I'd never met before reached out to tell me that one of my Pynch fics, "Word on the Street," had been plagiarized.

I remember that the stolen fic was posted in k-pop fandom, though not what specific band it related to -- I'm not into k-pop, or really into pop music at all.

I remember that the person who messaged me told me that they had found my fic because the plagiarist had a reputation for stealing fic, so when they'd posted a new story, this person had known to do some digging.

I don't remember what the plagiarist's username was. I remember scanning the stolen story, trying both to read every detail and to avoiding taking any of it in, because looking at that right-but-wrong, not-quite-there, uncanny-valley-ness of it made me queasy.

I remember being darkly amused that the plagiarist had cut out the reference to the main character suffering physical abuse at the hands of his father -- I guess it didn't make sense in the context of the new character. It's almost like the story wasn't written for him. It's almost like someone wrote the story about Adam Parrish, instead.

I filed an AO3 complaint, on the grounds that this was a blatant and unarguable violation of their plagiarism policy. Within twenty-four hours, they got back to me, and the story was removed.

It was a weird, uncomfortable, gross feeling, knowing someone had taken words I'd written and passed them off as their own.

But at the same time -- "Word on the Street" was a silly thing I dashed off pretty quickly, during a period of my life when I was doing a lot of writing. It hurt to have it stolen. It was a violation. But…I had other words, that were more important to me. Maybe that was a buffer.

-

Last month, about six weeks ago, someone I'd never met before reached out to tell me that one of my Pynch fics, "there's talk going 'round this town," had been plagiarized.

I was, bizarrely, amused.

I was less bizarrely furious. I was understandably, relatably, I would say rationally, furious. But in a way (and as always, when I say in a way, I am calling back to the scholars of overthinkingit.com for whom in a way is meant as the thing I have just said or am about to say is false) -- in a way, I was amused.

The plagiarist clearly did a 'find and replace' on the character names, to replace Adam and Ronan's names with those of k-pop characters. They did a bad job of it, since the name "Ronan" still appears in one paragraph and the name "Parrish" still appears in two paragraphs. The fic is here, in case anyone doesn't believe me, under the name "i do(n't remember)". At first when I complained about the fic on tumblr, I didn't mention the name, or which fic they'd stolen, because I was worried about anyone…I don't know, making a scene. I've stopped caring. AO3 user springguk is bad at find and replace and they should feel bad. About their computer skills, and also about their blatant plagiarism.

springguk also did some more edits to my fic, I have to give them credit for that. I wrote "there's talk going 'round this town" within a relatively short time span, for me. I tend to either finish things within one week, or else take several months. I believe this one took about five or six weeks completely to write -- I was very inspired.

(I was inspired, specifically, by the press coverage of Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves 'discovering' they might be 'accidentally' married. I mention that in my author's notes. springguk doesn't mention what 'inspired' them in their author's notes. I wonder how they talk about it with friends. They do, in their author's notes, include a link to their ko-fi, and a request that people buy them a coffee.)

If I'd taken longer with this fic, I might have made some edits. Even at the time, I knew I was being self-indulgent in letting the scene with my teenage female OC talk at such length with Ronan about what his non-canonical film career had meant to her, a person the audience didn't care about. But I had fun. I liked Fox. I didn't want to cut her, and what the hell, it was fanfic. I decided to self-indulge.

I was darkly amused to find that springguk did cut out the scene with Fox from their plagiarized version. Maybe springguk is a more disciplined editor than I am. Maybe springguk just didn't have a good k-pop character to map Fox onto. Maybe springguk didn't even realize that Fox was an OC. Do you know anything about the fandom you steal fics from, springguk? I can't help but wonder. Have you read The Raven Cycle? Do you care about teenage OCs who steal cars because of fake films that are clearly meant to be stand-ins for The Fast and the Furious franchise?

Maybe springguk just didn't give a fuck, because none of their heart and soul was poured into this fic. I cared too much about Fox. springguk doesn't care about a single word in the fic they published. Why would they? They didn't write it.

I'm being a little mean in naming them so many times. But I'm able to, this time, because although I filed a plagiarism complaint with AO3 six weeks ago, springguk's stolen fic "i do(n't remember)," is still available to read on AO3 to this very day. I don't have to wrack my brains to remember what their username was, or which k-pop band they recast my work with. I can just look at their fic with its 24 comments and 151 kudos. Hell, maybe that fic is even better than mine, if you don't mind that by cutting the sequence with Fox they've sacrificed a fairly substantial development in the romantic relationship, and also if you don't care that at one point the characters names switch from Jeongguk and Taehyung to Ronan and Parrish, because seriously, for fuck's sake, if you're going to steal a fic at least do a goddamn ctrl+f at the end.

I was mad. I was amused. I made a complaint that the AO3, six weeks later, has still not acted on. I mostly moved on.

-

Tonight, someone I'd never met before reached out to tell me that one of my Pynch fics, "while we're on the subject, could we change the subject now," had been plagiarized.

I wanted to vomit.

I was supposed to be playing Dungeons and Dragons online with friends tonight; I spent the entire call unable to focus on anything anyone was saying. I had to keep reminding myself that I was on camera and my face wasn't supposed to look like that.

"while we're on the subject, could we change the subject now" is the first of a series of, currently, twelve fics. skytoseungmin, the person who stole it to pass it off as their own work, knew this. Their stolen version was published as part one of a series, though they hadn't published any of the sequels. Presumably, they wanted to wait long enough to make it plausible they'd gone and written the follow ups, instead of just finding them.

skytoseungmin likely didn't know that this fic and this series are intensely personal. They didn't know that the apartment that Adam -- Seungmin, in their ill-gotten version -- lives in, that was based in part off of the apartment I lived in for a year in Pico-Robertson with talldecafcappuccino. They didn't know that the 7-Eleven Adam buys coffee at is the same one I used to tease talldecafcappuccino for buying coffee at. They didn't know that the strip club where Adam and Ronan have their humorously ill-timed romantic revelation outside of, that was the strip club I used to use as a landmark when giving people directions for how to navigate the confusing as fuck freeway exit I lived near, which once caused me to accidentally tell my highly Catholic parents "just go past the strip club and you're good!"

skytoseungmin didn't know that the apartment Adam -- sorry, Seungmin, thoroughly, they were better with find and replace than springguk -- lived in, was also based off of my ex's apartment in Palms, where I as the mere visiting girlfriend was never allowed to park in the parking lot. Where I would sometimes have to spend twenty or thirty minutes circling the neighborhood before I could find parking, often a walk of several minutes away. skytoseungmin doesn't know that when Ronan's car get towed from a McDonald's parking lot, that that was a specific McDonald's on Venice Boulevards, the same one my ex's asshole roommate used to just roll his eyes and say that I should park at. skytoseungmin doesn't know that I once wished passionately that I had just parked in that McDonald's parking lot and risked getting towed, on the occasion that a man followed me several unlit blocks from my car. skytoseungmin doesn't know that when I talk about how helping someone park is the truest love language there is in Los Angeles, that that was what I meant. Has skytoseungmin ever had to circle to half an hour to find parking in Los Angeles? Has skytoseungmin ever loved someone enough to do that, instead of saying, fuck it, they can come to me or we're breaking up? Has skytoseungmin ever loved someone in Los Angeles enough, to do as my ex did, and come running as fast as humanly possibly when their girlfriend called them whispering and crying on the phone, someone's following me, please, I'm scared, I wish I just parked at the McDonald's?

"while we're on the subject, could we change the subject now" is a very personal fic.

It isn't half as personal as some of the fics that come after.

skytoseungmin marked their plagiarized version of the fic as part one of a series. Were they planning on stealing part two, where I, through an alternate universe characterization of Ronan Lynch, dig into my experience of grief and trauma surrounding my grandmother's dementia? Were they planning on stealing any of the explicit fics, where I play with kink and desire in ways I haven't even exposed to my actual sexual partners, but where I felt able to through the guise of fandom? What else was skytoseungmin planning on stealing, with charming little author's notes apologizing for how they missed the fandom-relevant date they were shooting for, because they were so busy with exams, tee-hee! Why the excuses, skytoseungmin? how long does it take you to ctrl+f, even if you are more thorough about it than springguk?

If I seem too accusatory and mean-spirited toward skytoseungmin, well, the LA verse is a very personal fic.

And it's also, it turns out, only one of eight different fics that they stole from me.

I didn't even notice at first, to be honest. I was too stunned. But my friend Jessie, my Lady Galahad, went to my defense and clicked through to the author's page, while I was still reeling at the horrible possibilities of part one of a series. It turned out, of eight fics on skytoseungmin's author's page…I had written every single one of them.

Some were short and pretty lighthearted, things I hadn't had to invest too much of myself into -- like I said, sometimes, I can write a fic in under a week.

Other things…

They stole the space western AU.

I don't think I can articulate to any human being how much that hurt me, to look at it, to see.

I wrote that as a thank you gift for someone who donated to Fandom Trumps Hate.

I spent nearly two years of my life on it -- two years during which, because of mental health issues and life situation changes, my words per year dropped precipitously. I still haven't recovered. I still think of what a failure I am for not writing more, currently, actively, and I remember how the space western AU was both a symptom of that and a defiance of it: yes, writing has become fucking hard, fucking NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE, but I'm still doing it, goddamn it, you can't stop me, even if all I produce is the tiniest trickle of words a month. it can still add up, somehow, if we just keep TRYING.

To see the space western AU, casually nestled amongst a half dozen other fics that were all apparently casually dashed off in the same month…I know it was theft, I know it was a lie, but it still felt like a slap in the face, why can't you write this fast?

Jessie, my Lady Galahad, went on a campaign of commenting on all of skytoseungmin's (my) fics, and I am so thankful. The k-pop fans who heard Jessie have been reaching out, to her, to me, to each other on Twitter, and I am so thankful for them too. skytoseungmin has deleted all of their (my) fics on AO3, and their entire AO3 account, and their entire twitter, apparently. Maybe they were hoping to get enough clicks to parlay them into some kind of book deal, and they'd now rather give up what was a low investment effort on their part than be associated with accusation of plagiarism.

I suppose they can always start over with a new user name and someone else's fics if they really want to.

I suppose they can always start over with a new username and my fics, if they really want to.

And after all, AO3 has still not reached out to me about springguk, and "i do(n't remember)" is still sitting there. Maybe springguk is also going for a book deal. Who knows?

Why complain about any of it?

In a way* (and remember what "in a way" means), isn't it a compliment, if someone loves the words I wrote, even if they don't know it was me that wrote them? toast-the-unknowing and shinealightonme, if they're the same name (and they are), then why not springguk or skytoseungmin, too?

Am I making too big of a deal out of this? Does everyone just have their work stolen from them, all of the time? Is that simply the cost of doing business in an era and an ecosystem where we all can copy and paste twenty-four thousand words with greater ease than our ancestors could transcribe a single phrase? Are more prolific, more famous, more successful fan authors looking at my piteous cries and thinking, bitch, you've only been ripped off by k-pop fans ten times, come back when you have real problems?

And yet in a month, a year, a whole life phase of not being able to write as much as I would like to, because of my health, because of my work, to have someone else just casually pass off the words I have managed to eke out, as though they have no value, as though it were no more than photo copying a shitty flier to stick under a windshield wiper…

I can't imagine springguk or skytoseungmin give a shit how I feel about any of this. At best, they roll their eyes; at worst they laugh to know they hurt me -- and what's the difference between the two? I'll never know either way.

I know that some of the people they duped do care, and are also upset. That helps. And also, it doesn't help.

I just fucking hate all of this, and if all I have are words, and if my words are valuable enough for someone to steal, then here, here are enough of them to choke on. I know I did.

[azuresage]

It gets talked about a lot but I still can't stop nerding out about Link's characterization in TotK. It's done through his many creative dialogue choices and his expressions of course, but it's also done so subtly through what he *doesn't* say. Notably, he doesn't talk about himself. And this is why nobody recognizes him unless they've already met him. Because he doesn't tell them when they've got the wrong impression of him.

The meme about Link having Tony Hawk syndrome is so real. People will look at him and straight up say, "Wow, you look exactly like Link!" without a hint of irony. Lookout Landing has a detailed picture of his face in their watchtower and the search party still doesn't recognize him. Penn works with Link for a long time and thinks he's unlucky that the Yiga keep "mistaking" him for the Hero (granted, Traysi asked him to deliberately keep quiet, but Penn still didn't put two and two together himself). I think the reason for this, aside from it being really, really funny, is that Link just doesn't talk about himself. He doesn't feel the need to.

Characterization isn't just about what we see a character doing, it's also about how other characters respond to them. Link is so unassuming and humble that he doesn't match people's expectations of what "Link" should be like. The three Gerudo ladies hanging out around Outskirt Stable are one of many perfect examples. Link stands in front of them carrying the Master Sword, but they expect the Hero to be taller than they are, with a giant glowing sword, so they don’t believe it's him. Obviously that's not the reality, but they don't know that. Link doesn't correct them, either. Again, he doesn't feel the need to.

This is also why many NPCs from BotW don't recognize or remember Link. To them, he was just a passerby that did them a good turn once 6+ years ago. Nobody's going to remember a person like that for so long after. They had no way of knowing he was the Hero, unless it came up for story quest reasons. When they hear stories about the Princess's Appointed Knight who woke up from his 100 year nap, defeated the Calamity, and rescued Zelda, they imagine someone larger than life. Then when they see what Link actually is like, they can't put two and two together.

This is true even during the Hyrule Restoration efforts. Link always follows behind Zelda as her shadow, which she notes in her diary, but the people in the stable investigation quests and in Hateno don't recognize him either, even though he went everywhere she did. Link is just that unassuming. He resigns himself to being a shadow, allowing Zelda to take the lead and do as she pleases but always staying nearby to support and protect her. He doesn't need to be recognizable to do his job. And we know from both BotW and now TotK that he's wholly devoted to her. He's content with this. Many people more eloquent than I have spent many paragraphs elaborating on this. I just wanted to focus on what it says about his character.

Link is humble and unassuming, so much so that nobody believes that he's the Hero unless they already know him. He's devoted to Zelda, so much so that he's willing to do anything to chase even a glimpse of her. He doesn't talk about himself or correct people who have the wrong impression of him. He doesn't need to do that to chase his Zelda. He is a person of great humility in spite of his station. I think that's so interesting and neat how the comedy of him being unrecognizable also tells us all this about him. It's also cool how this is only one aspect of him; all the dialogue choices and expressions he makes during cutscenes and actions out in the world show a whole other, lighter side to him that meshes with this. It's all so good. I am in love with it. It always kills me inside when people dismiss his characterization as being nonexistant or flat just because it's not spoonfed to them or when they say Link being unrecognizable is lazy writing instead of a deliberate choice. I am biting and gnawing and gnashing over him and his relationship to Zelda. I love them so much.

[deafeninggardenerpanda]

i'd love to hear about manmaru metadede !!! i heard it's really Gay but no one ever details it. not a lot of it is translated too, as far as i know, but i really like it.. any excuse to talk about something you like is good too

NO YEA not a lot is translated and the manga itself is already more niche compared to like, mopupupu so its not too well known. translation efforts have really started picking up the past year though (shoutout to @/kirby-manga-translated they do great work). if it needed to be restated for new followers since i havent tl'd in a while, i know a decent amount of japanese so i read them on my own :)c

shoutout to my guy @/rosakikoza as well for giving me his scans hehe. the majority of images below are his or taken from his scans. the rest are mine

*deep breath* the tangent. im gonna need to put this under a cut dont mind me 😍😍😍 did i say 3 paragraphs? i meant 20. like 20 paragraphs

meta knight is absolutely pathetic and incredibly down bad for dedede this manga. its adorable. multiple people ive talked to or seen have come to the conclusion it seems like he has a huge crush on him. a quick brief for those who dont know but this mangas meta is admittedly Veryyyyy different from how you'd expect a meta knight to be. uncharacteristically friendly and cheerful and. pathetic is really the best word for it. hes kinda a loser. incredibly protective of dedede, he switches between two modes of fussing over him quite a bit and semi-often going into incredible rage bloodlust modes over protecting him or his image (youll see a good amount of jp fanwork depict this version of him as a yandere for that reason)

theres also been more than one occasion where meta knight tries to commit seppuku upon accidently doing something he sees as unforgivable towards his king (its in the chapter i just screenshotted above too, another time he broke dededes clock and freaked out about it). i-. dont consider this a cute ship thing for the record im just stating it to emphasize the extent of metas obsession towards dedede this manga. the mans got Problems...

apart from that, also quite differing from most interpretations of both of them, both of them seem to genuinely really like spending time around each other all the time. it comes off as casually domestic and is very cute...

regardless of my attempts to brief it, i dont feel like im explaining this very well so lemme just show you a frankly ridiculous amount of reasons for why i keep feeling like this mangaka ships metadede

-fake kiss: self explanatory

-fake proposal: also self explanatory

mk: Will you marry me!?

ddd: Yes!

context for this scene is that theyre rehearsing for a play, but actually its later revealed that meta knight is playing the princess while dedede is playing the male protag so im not exactly sure it makes sense that hes the one proposing here. my speculation is that to make the proposal seem legit for the gag they Had to use meta LMAO but thats just my take

also to be noted, right after kirby hears the proposal he immediately runs off and tries to tell everyone the news before ddd+mk stop him and explain that its fake. hes not thrown off or weirded out at the idea that they could be getting married in the slightest. kirby says gay rights Real i love him sm

-this one is from what i call the memory loss chapter:

dedede loses his memories from getting hit in the head too hard. the gang figures out that beating dedede up or otherwise causing him injury causes him to regain some of them back though, to which kirby attempts to harm him with increasingly violent means, much to meta knights horror. mk spends the entire chapter trying to protect dedede from him, and it doesnt work obviously, but after a particularly hard hit dedede remembers everyone again... except for meta knight. to which meta knight gets upset about and lets kirby lay into dedede for real. you see where people get the yandere personality from now right. i dont recall this trait coming out too often but ill talk more about it later

-the whole chapter thats a cinderella retelling with dedede and meta knight. also also self explanatory COME ON LOOK AT THIS ONE. LOOK AT IT.

mk: Y…You're…

ddd: Wow, he's so beautiful!! It's like I'm dreaming…!

-theres the mangaka chapter which is a more recent one

the gang makes manga for dedede. meta knight's manga is about how cool, brave, and heroic dedede is. mysteriously enough however the only thing hes good at is drawing dededes face and nothing else. the implications of this one drive me absolutely insane. is it supposed to imply that meta knight stares at his face all day?? admires his appearance??? he looks at him so much he basically has his face memorized????? HUH???????? theres no heterosexual explanation for this. acting like a teenager with a crush out here got damn

=various images im sharing out of context because they r cute

head pats. holding hands and reaching the goal together. peak.

KNIGHT DRESSUP FOR THE KNIGHT. AHAAHGH

ddd: Hoho, pretty spiffy don'cha think?

mk: Ohh!? It suits you!!

fellas is it gay to shout "OHH! META KNIGHT!!" with a dopey grin on your face upon being saved like a damsel in distress

sometimes meta knight acts domestic as fuck too. his copy abilities as he states are: cook! clean!! and sleep!!!

regarding my thoughts on their dynamic in this series overall, i think theyre absolutely adorable. meta knight emits dog energy in this one. eager golden retriever towards dedede, though dedede has his sweet moments towards meta knight too. (viewing it with a shipping lens just for this post ofc) while meta is the more active crusher, some of the stuff above seems to imply that dedede has feelings in return as well :') they just get along really well too its great. theres a different chapter where they perform as a comedy duo. theyve done plays in multiple chapters. its my hc for these versions of them that they love doing performances of all kinds together and do a lot of rehearsals and writing in their free time...

and the yandere stuff i feel like i should address as well. i try not to take some aspects Too seriously because its to be expected things are over emphasized for the sake of the joke with gag mangas. but oh man the man definitely has problems. he needs therapy. i tried to be transparent in listing those aspects as well so people can make their own conclusions on it But theres one more thing id like to mention regarding that

meta knights personality has been shifting to be different from what i listed, as of the most recent volume. my beloved forgotten land arc... a first for this series in that, while the chapters still retain their gag humor and dont take themselves that seriously, its a serialized story that mostly follows along with the game plot that lasts nearly the whole volume (as opposed to other game arcs in this manga being episodic stories, using the games as their theme rather than a full on setting). with the more serious tone of the serialized story, theres a frankly startling hint of character development i never wouldve expected from a gag manga at the end of it

kirby gets ko'd the first round of the meta knight cup so meta knight joins the meta knight cup instead. turns out when he does that the final boss of the cup is dedede. meta knight Really doesnt want to hurt dedede and so dedede promptly kicks his ass without a second thought and wins the tournament. while the crowd cheers for dedede's victory, meta and dedede have a small talk where dedede tells him he doesnt need to fuss so much about hurting him/him getting hurt. presumably this is supposed to mark the end of meta knights intense overprotectiveness because (its never been clear-cut due to the nature of the manga previously, so its a lil hard to say) dededes shown he can handle himself, or like, isnt some fragile thing. i really hope itll stick around because i think its a great addition to both of their characters. the meta-knights have also been appearing way more frequently as of very recent chapters (ones that havent been compiled into a volume yet) which seem to also hint to meta knight getting more independence to his character from dedede's loyal servant. im very excited to see where it goes :D

and like, last last disclaimer if anyone needed it; even tho i love metadede and i like to see things through ship glasses sometimes i absolutely try my best to keep my biases out of my translations. putting out accurate translations means a lot to me! this entire post is me purposely putting the ship glasses on so please dont take it as "omg metadede is canon in this manga". you know way back when i was the only active translator for this manga someone tweeted at the mangaka on twitter mentioning that there were english translations around and he replied to that person. didnt respond to the fan translation thing specifically but the fact that he could know who i am definitely kinda terrifies me. if anyone goes around saying that his manga is the metadede manga because of me and he even has the slightest sliver of a chance of seeing that i will kill yall fr LOL

[doodlebug-aboo]

Steve doesn’t like to admit it, but he likes to snoop. He’s a nosy guy. Anytime he’s in someone’s house for the first time, he snoops through their bathroom when he’s in there. He lies to himself and says it’s to be prepared for anything. Figure out where they keep the painkillers, the first aid kit, the extra toilet paper, the towels, but really he’s just curious. He always has been. He never snoops around when the person is there, but he can never decide if that’s better or worse.

The first time Steve is allowed into Eddie’s room, when he isn’t fighting for his life against creatures from the Upside Down that is, Eddie’s words catch him off guard.

“Get your snooping done now, man. There’s a lot of shit to sift through.”

He doesn’t ask how Eddie knows he likes to snoop, but he takes the opportunity after getting express permission while Eddie leaves to grab them some drinks from the kitchen. There is a lot of stuff, like Eddie said, but not in a way that’s messy. Steve wouldn’t call his room messy, just maybe a little crowded. In the best way possible, though. It looks lived in. Like a lot of love went into creating this space just the way Eddie likes it. It’s comforting.

The one place Steve pays the closest attention to is the small desk, littered with crumpled papers, notebooks, maps of fantasy worlds Steve has never heard of, pens and pencils, dice, you name it. Looking through the papers, Steve sees most of them are notes about a new campaign he knows Eddie has been working on for the kids. Steve knows Eddie’s been pouring over it endlessly because Will is visiting for the whole summer and the kids begged Eddie to write a campaign and play with them, and Eddie wants to make it the best possible game for the kid.

When Eddie comes back into the room, Steve stops his snooping and sits on the edge of the bed.

Steve takes a look at Eddie’s desk every time he’s in his room, now. He likes to see what Eddie is working on, likes to be able to ask him about it and watch his face light up as he starts to talk about something he’s passionate about.

One day, Steve walks into Eddie’s room and sees the amount of crumpled notebook paper seems to have multiplied drastically. He normally wouldn’t un-crumple any of the thrown away ideas and stick to the ones currently being worked on, but the magnitude of papers littering the floor nags at his curiosity too much to leave them be. So he picks up a few of the balls of paper and smooths them out best he could to read what they say.

Most of the papers are filled with a litany of crossed-out words and phrases, sometimes whole paragraphs of text. After looking at each paper, Steve realizes they’re song lyrics. He knew Eddie wrote music for his band, but he still hadn’t heard any of their music. Not for lack of wanting to, simply because Eddie told him he’ll invite Steve to one of their shows when he’s comfortable. It hurt Steve a bit to know Eddie still wasn’t comfortable enough to show him his original music, but he also knows that music is much more sacred to Eddie than it’s ever been to himself.

The lyrics really stand out to Steve, though, and he tries to wrap his head around them. It looks like Eddie is struggling with one song in particular he wants to write, because the lyrics are similar but different on every page. It’s a song about someone, it looks like, and it almost sounds like a love song, but not the kind of pop-style love song Steve is accustomed to, of course.

Steve knows not every love song has to be about one person in particular, but he feels like he knows who Eddie is writing about. It’s on the tip of his tongue. He knows Eddie is writing about one specific person. Too many times are the lyrics hyper-specific, but those are always the ones that are crossed out. Many mentions of brown eyes, the way they style their hair, their lips. Comments about hands, necks. There’s even a long paragraph entirely crossed out detailing moments they’ve shared, and it sounds eerily familiar.

It’s a lyric on the last paper Steve grabbed from the floor that makes the realization hit him like a truck.

Matching scars across our skin

Can’t believe you let me in

There’s something crossed out so intensely Steve can’t read it, but he can read the lines right below it.

If you’re the king, I’ll let you reign

But loving you’s a losing game

Steve knows, immediately, who the song is about, and before he even has time to react to this new knowledge, Eddie is walking through the door to his room again.

As soon as his eyes land on Steve, he freezes. “You weren’t supposed to see those, Harrington.”

But Steve is looking at him with awe in his eyes. “Are you writing a song about me, Munson?” He means for it to come out more teasing, but his voice is soft. Almost shy.

Eddie pulls a chunk of his hair forward to cover his face, looking down and anywhere other than Steve. “Don’t be ridiculous. Me? Writing a song about King Steve?”

Steve smirks a little and walks closer to Eddie. Not too close, he doesn’t want to scare him away. There’s also a small seed of worry sitting in the back of his brain waiting to sprout that maybe, just maybe, he’s wrong about this. But he really hopes he’s right. “You know, you only bring out the King Steve shit when you’re too afraid to say what you’re really thinking.”

Eddie’s eyes widen and he looks at Steve in shock. “You… noticed something that specific?”

Steve just shrugs, closing the distance between them a little more, only about a foot and a half separating them now. “I notice a lot of things about you, Munson.”

Steve sees Eddie’s shoulders relax slightly from where they raised up closer to his ears. “If you’re just saying all this to pull a prank on me or something, that’s really fucked up, Steve.”

Steve quickly shakes his head. “I’m not. I promise I’m not, Eds. I would never.”

Eddie seems to be thinking really hard for a long moment, once again looking away from Steve. He fidgets with his rings a bit, spinning one slowly on one of his fingers. Steve’s eyes track the movement. Finally, Eddie looks at him again. “Fuck it.”

Eddie closes the distance between them, grabs Steve’s cheeks in both of his hands, and slams their lips together. It’s not a graceful kiss by any means, and not exactly what Steve had imagined their first kiss would be like. If he had imagined it before, which he definitely didn’t do, especially not every day. But regardless, it’s still one of the best kisses Steve’s ever had, and he’s had a lot. Everything about it is just so Eddie, he can’t even describe it. The gentle, almost shy hesitation he can feel mixed with the desperation of a man on his death bed. Steve wraps his arms around Eddie’s waist before they pull back, smiling at each other.

Eddie’s grin is almost blinding as his eyes scan over Steve’s face. “I’m almost finished with the final version of the song… you should come see us when we’re ready to play it.”

Steve’s eyes light up. “You mean I get to finally go see Corroded Coffin perform live?”

Eddie laughs. “Yes, that’s what I mean. I’ll let you know when we’ll play it for the first time. I’m not the singer, so you’ll have to hear Gareth singing about you, but at least you’ll know the lyrics are mine.”

Steve smiles, pressing a much softer and gentler kiss to his lips. “You’re more of a sap than I thought you’d be.”

“Oh, shut it, big boy.”

[riitah]

[chocolate kisses] - gojo satoru x fem!reader

SYNOPSIS: gojo satoru is your best friend, and always will be. nothing more, nothing less. despite you having rejected him years ago, there was no awkward tension between the two of you. in fact, to everyone else, it seemed as if you two were already a thing well before gojo had said anything. holding hands, sharing sweets, falling asleep on each other’s shoulders – these were things couples did, no?

yeah, but everything was strictly platonic. from your viewpoint, anyway.

but lately, you’ve been getting this strange sensation near your chest whenever the two of you decided to do something that required physical contact. and these beautiful, mesmerizing eyes that you didn’t think much of before now put you in a trance whenever he takes off his blindfold.

how could you confess your feelings when you were the one who refused his?

WORD COUNT: 1.5k  

HONORABLE MENTIONS: special thank-you to my beta readers “henry rumpelstiltskin III of the nuclear sock kingdom” and forel :)

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I’ve recently started getting into Jujutsu Kaisen and, though I don’t exactly have a strong romantic attraction to him, Gojo’s been on my mind a lot. After reading several pieces of fanfiction about him, I decided that I wanted to write my own (honestly his personality’s probably gonna be so influenced by them 😭). So enjoy a small oneshot featuring this man, the first work on my blog that isn’t Genshin related.

Also, we’re gonna pretend that the Jujutsu world pumps out daily newspaper articles that only sorcerers can access 😁👍

Gojo Satoru. The strongest jujutsu sorcerer. You would’ve liked to add “self-proclaimed” in front of it, but there was no denying how powerful your best friend was. Especially after you personally fought him one-on-one.

You scowled and turned off your phone, freeing yourself from having to continue reading the article titled, “Gojo Satoru, the World’s Strongest Jujutsu’s Sorcerer, has Defeated Yet Another High Grade Curse and Saved Millions of Lives!” with his – as much as you hated to admit it – gorgeous face plastered smack in the middle of the screen every few paragraphs. Were all of the exclusive Jujutsu World newsletters and their long-ass titles about him now?

“(Y/N)!” someone shouted from outside the door. Moments later, a certain white-haired individual popped his head into the room, a gleeful smile on his face. “You’re still here! What’re you doing?”

Speak of the devil.

You sighed in response, massaging your right temple as you mentally prepared for another lunch break spent with this man. “Toru, don’t you have anything else to do other than coming here to bother me?”

With an exaggerated gesture, he clamped one of his hands over his chest and tilted his head to one side. “I’m hurt! Don’t you enjoy my company?”

“The day I got assigned to the seat next to you back when we were students at Jujutsu High was one of the worst days of my life.”

“Aw, c’mon, we both know that I made your high school years the most enjoyable!”

He strode into the room – quite indifferently, a sharp contrast to his previous overdramaticized display of sadness – and with him, his intimidating aura. Despite his laidback attitude, he did carry a pinch of…

You squinted at him as he set down a paper bag on the coffee table and plopped down next to you with his legs spread wide as if he was trying to get into your personal space without actually doing so, quietly searching for a word that fit.

“What’s up?” He noticed your gaze and turned to look at you, a smirk resting on his lips. Despite his eyes being covered by the blindfold that he constantly paired with almost all of his outfits (which is…just one), you could tell that there was a teasing glimmer in them right now. “Finally regretting rejecting me? Hm?”

You snorted at the joke that he’s made one too many times, and when he leaned in you lightly pushed against his chest. “You wish. And stop occupying 75% of a couch that’s meant to fit at least three people.”

To this, he closed his legs and scooted closer to you instead. The wood creaked under his weight as he gently pressed against your side.

Your arms resting against each other.

Your breathing syncing.

His head moving to rest on top of yours.

You playfully rolled your eyes and indulged in his intimate behavior like you always did. Only this time – along with the various other times the last few weeks – every touch felt electrifying and sent shivers down your spine.

You pushed these weird sensations aside, entwining his fingers in yours, something you’ve done well over a million times. His hand felt rough, calloused – all from training, you knew. A direct piece of evidence that proved just how much work he put into becoming the best of the best. A direct piece of evidence that proved why he held the title of the strongest jujutsu sorcerer and not you.

Biting down a surge of jealousy, you closed your eyes and gently laid your head on his shoulder. Noticing how his posture felt somewhat stiff, you started rubbing invisible circles into the back of his hand – just the way he liked it when he felt stressed.

You heard him exhale, a quiet sound that exited his body with poise and ease. You weren’t sure how anyone could breathe so elegantly, but here he was. And, just as you expected, his body sank lower into the cushioned seats as the tension left it, pulling you backwards.

For several moments, everything felt tranquil. Then, he just had to ruin it with a, “(Y/N), your heartbeat’s accelerating,” the smugness in his tone evident.

You harshly elbowed him and pinched his cheek, pulling on it hard.

“Ow!”

You half expected him to turn on his Infinity, but your fingers remained in contact with his face with no signs of slipping.

“Okay, okay, it didn’t – now will you please let go?”

You released him from your grasp and he rubbed at the spot, which was now red. “You know, if you wanted to touch my face so bad, you could’ve just asked.”

“Are you asking for a slap this time, Gojo Satoru?”

“Will that make you stay with me until the end of your break?”

“No, that’ll cost you another five slaps.”

“So mean! My presence should be more than enough to cover for it.”

“Not everyone’s obsessed with you,” you huffed indignantly before readjusting yourself into a more comfortable position. “Get that inflated ego of yours checked out.”

He merely chuckled and pulled you closer to him, moving his thumb to the area where your pulse resided. “But are you sure you’re not in love with me? (Y/N)?”

His voice dropped an octave when he drawled out your name. And your chest tightened in a way you couldn’t explain. Without even realizing it, you dug your fingernails into his skin, your breathing shallow.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” you managed to say with a shake of your head.

“Keep pressing your sharp fingernails into my hand and I’ll start bleeding.” He laughed, and then, before you could apologize, added, “And I mean, why else would you be reading an article about me?”

“You – you saw that?” you whispered, horrified. Just how long had he been watching you before he made his presence known?

“So you are head over heels for me?”

He was half teasing, and half serious. You didn’t know how you should respond and looked down at your lap.

Seconds lapsed by in silence, but they felt like an eternity. Without alerting you to what he was doing, Gojo slid his blindfold off and shook his head a little.

Then he parted his lips, his voice more sincere than you’ve ever heard it.

“(Y/N), will you look at me?”

And you reluctantly obliged, heart nearly stopping when you met his pretty blue eyes.

His messy hair, now no longer supported by the black piece of fabric, swept over his forehead like a blanket of snow. And his eyes, half lidded as he stared down at you expectantly, sparkled like rare jewels in the dim light.

They were beautiful. He was beautiful.

You wondered if he was just doing this to guide you towards the more favorable answer to his second to last question.

“Please tell me the truth, (Y/N).”

You swallowed thickly, unable to look away. Mesmerized.

Entranced.

The way he said it made you want to give in with a simple “yes.”

“I–you–? I mean–”

When you finally spoke, words tumbled out of your mouth out of order, reducing whatever meaning you meant to put behind them to nothing but a mess of letters.

“I…I think so? I don’t know–”

And Gojo stared at your reddening face all the while, his serious façade breaking as the corners of his mouth twitched upwards in amusement.

“Let me ask you this, then.”

He brought his face closer to yours, the distance between the two of you almost enough for the tips of your noses to touch.

“What do you feel when I do this?”

He brushed a strand of hair out of your face, his finger slightly brushing against your cheekbone.

“Or when I touch you like this?

One warm hand caressed your cheek, a faint scent of chocolate wafting to your nose.

“…giddy,” you mumbled, the proximity and skin contact making you a little dizzy. “And nervous, I suppose.”

His eyes flickered from your (E/C) ones to your lips.

“And what if I told you I wanted to kiss you right now?”

The same hand trailed down your jaw until it reached your chin, where it stopped, awaiting your answer.

You didn’t know what sudden wave of confidence washed over you, but the next words that left your mouth weren’t products of a stumbling, stuttering mess.

“I’d let you.”

Without wasting any more time, he closed the remaining distance by bringing his lips to yours.

They were soft – just like you had imagined them to be, if not better – and tasted like chocolate. As he pressed himself against you, you ran your hand through his hair, enjoying every declaration of love he mumbled against your lips.

“You made me wait years for this, you know. Really uncool.”

You giggled when he leaned down to steal another kiss, arms still wrapped around his neck. “I know. Consider it punishment for constantly teasing me for more than an entire decade.”

Your competitive streak didn’t die down, no. But for now, maybe you could see him as something more than just a best friend and rival.

You smiled as you watched him grab the bag he placed on the table earlier and dig into it to hand you your favorite box of chocolates.

Gojo Satoru. The strongest jujutsu sorcerer, and the only one who has your heart.

[writing-for-life]

I know I don’t have to do this, but I just want to say how much I appreciate everyone who regularly stops by my blog or interacts with my posts.

I know I don’t have to do this either, but I also want to say that I love when people on here actually talk to each other and comment instead of just staying in their own little bubble. I think we need more of that to get back to a fandom culture that isn’t driven by binary thinking, metrics, weird ideas of BNFdom/fandom hierarchies and seeing everything as “content” we consume for a quick fix. It’s the human element that makes fandom worthwhile.

And I know that I have to do the next thing least of all, but I also want to apologise to everyone I overlook by accident, or whom I don’t manage to get back to. My blog has really exploded over the past year, which was very unexpected, and I get hundreds of notes every day (439 notifs on old and new posts were waiting for me when I checked in this morning, and that’s only the ones that came in while I was sleeping). I don’t want to switch off notifs completely because I want to know what’s going on and interact, and I try to stay on top of it all. But I do this in my spare time like most of us, write and curate in batches to feed my queue and otherwise only keep an eye on personal interactions like messages, asks, people who tagged me. There are comments and reblogs with commentary I would often love to get back to, but I don’t always manage, plus I know some stuff simply slips through. And I sometimes feel bad about it because as one might have gathered from the second paragraph, the connection is what really matters to me.

So if I ever forget or don’t manage to get back to you, it’s nothing personal. It’s just that I also work and have a family.

So thanks again, and lots of love to everyone 🖤

[vickyvicarious]

Oh my God, so if I understood correctly Mina Murray and Jonathan would send letters to each other in SHORTHAND before they got engaged? That's so nerdy and also romantic.

YES. It's just straightforward canon (well, not the "before they got engaged" bit, necessarily, but the letters):

He and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a stenographic journal of his travels abroad.

The shorthand becomes useful later, and in fact they both take it up with the expectation of it being useful in Jonathan's career (and Mina working with him). But that is only one factor. Another equally strong component, I am utterly convinced is that these two nerds both find it fun.

I bet they started sending the shorthand to one another as little postscripts. Jonathan writes a letter to Mina and ends with a shorthand note: "PS - As you can see, my shorthand is improving rapidly. How is yours coming along?" She answers back with a full final paragraph in shorthand: "As you can see, I am learning as quickly as I can! It still takes me a little while to translate, but I like to think I am all the more thorough for the time. I can't help but notice you misspelled 'rapidly' in your last letter." (It's a cute little prank, Jonathan did in fact write the word correctly, but she makes him go back and double-check and then they both laugh about it and they just progress from writing little bit notes like this to filling up more and more until they're writing the whole letter in shorthand. Justifying that they are 'getting in practice' even though they obviously are just having tons of fun, the nerds)

I also love the idea of them being a little more openly romantic in their letters when writing in shorthand - though Jonathan one time does send a note like, "please, I'm not the only person at the office who can read shorthand, you can't send that kind of thing to my work!!!" and Mina had to answer back like, "all I said was that I looked forward to spending more time with you after our wedding, it was perfectly innocent. Unless you took it some other way...?" And then Jonathan revenging himself with some really dramatic prose praising her at great romantic length with the justification that he knows her coworkers can't read shorthand so she won't have any problem with it. Meanwhile she is reading it during her lunch break all blushy and kind of getting where he's coming from because he didn't write anything salacious but it still feels scandalous! But she loves the letter and reads it ten times that day anyways.

I dunno, just! Them being cute and in love!

(Also I definitely imagine them as the kind of people to take advantage of the mail throughout the day. They don't constantly write little notes to one another, but they also don't let the fact that they can see each other in person later stop them if they feel the urge to share a snippet of their day.)

[coffeeandjournaling]

Project Ecco

A solo roleplaying game by Elliot Davis

Materials

game manual

a planner, new or used

a coin/d2 and d6

materials to destroy your planner

further into play: additional coin and die, standard deck of cards, tarot deck

Premise

A mysterious agency, an even more mysterious entity feeding on time itself and smack-dab in the middle: You. As an extension of the Agency, you are tasked with uncovering the truth about “ECCO”, the Entity of Chronological Consumption and Obfuscation. Navigating the chaos of days flying by with the aid of a simple coin, will you complete your mission to the Agency’s satisfaction straightforwardly or will you travel down a road not yet taken, peeking behind a curtain of lies? Who is really on your side? Or, perhaps more importantly, on whose side are you?

Mechanics

In Project Ecco, you progress through time and the game using a regular planner and a variety of different time travel tools. While you might be tempted to use a brand new, untouched planner for this, a used one will do just fine and might even make the game more personal and varied, since existing notes or special dates can be incorporated into play. Keep in mind that your planner will end up at least partially destroyed by the Entity, then again the level of destruction is completely up to you. Scissors are certainly an option, but a good opaque paint marker achieves the same effect with less confetti.

Your tools of choice are in essence a set of game oracles: prompts decided by dice, playing and tarot cards determine how far back or ahead in your planner you travel and which challenges you encounter along the way. Time travel can be quite random, so don’t be scared when you land on the same day more than once. At least as long as you have your trusty coin, the only thing that will keep you from slipping in-between time and experiencing some truly harrowing events. How you respond to these prompts is up to you. Write, draw, use planner stickers; the only limit is the space your planner gives you for the date you are currently on.

During your travels, you tally up the times you either make it back to the Agency or get uncomfortably close to the Entity. Entity encounters in particular are interesting because they prompt you to destroy random dates in your calendar, possibly forcing you into a timeline divergence later on. Completing six encounters either way triggers the endgame – but not necessarily the end of the journey…

Thoughts and Examples from my Playthrough

I had a lot of trouble trying to summarize the game in the above paragraphs. Project Ecco is a very meaty, complex (but not necessarily complicated) game and is more of a five-course meal than an afternoon snack. Consequently, reading the setup instructions can be a little intimidating for someone who has only started dabbling in solo play. Everything is explained thoroughly without being exhausting, however, and on top of that I found myself really interested to read about the different tools and mechanics. In fact, I had to stop myself from snooping too much so as not to spoil my first playthrough.

Your game can last you several sessions over a couple of days. Don’t worry, though, all the cool time travel tools make for a fresh and exciting experience. Special dates, timeline divergences, personal notes and Agency/Entity encounters also serve to keep you on your toes. Whenever you feel like you have seen it all, a new prompt throws you a curveball, altering your perspective on the world and its inhabitants. It’s also great for replayability purposes, as your first playthrough can influence how you go about the challenges on your second round. I usually don’t care much for replay value (my time is limited and there’s a lot of games to try out), in this case, however, it’s so on theme that it’s almost a crime not to play again.

When you have the general cycle down, the game is a breeze. Have I mentioned that I love the time travel devices? Each and every one is unique in the way it lets you progress. As soon as you pick them up during the game, you can switch freely between them. Either you are very strategic about it to avoid repeat visits to certain dates or you embrace chaos for some interesting results. In the beginning, I dreaded losing my coin and experiencing timeline divergences. The closer I got to the endgame, the more I revelled in the wild and unpredictable element they brought to the game and the story that unfolded.

At this point, it shouldn’t amaze me that much how game designers manage to achieve this impeccable level of worldbuilding with just a bit of flavour text and a handful of prompts. From the agents’ designations being real world dates to the time travel tools with clear retro vibes, Project Ecco lets you dive into an 80s sci-fi flick with you as the protagonist torn between your fragile loyalty to the Agency and the conflicting discoveries you make about the Entity. I suppose if there was one thing you wanted to knock, it could be that this is not a very character-driven game. A lot of journaling games focus on the character you create, often as a stand-in for yourself, dealing with their emotions and feelings as they react to the events thrown at them. This is more of mystery thriller focused on plot than a character exploration game. Character creation is as simple as picking your agent designation and, if you’re using a personal planner and are very meticulous in adding dates specific to your character, weaving in details during the game. That being said, I did manage to spin this into a tragic queer romance…such is the nature of solo roleplaying. Hence, others might disagree on this with me, and that’s totally fine.

My attention span has been wavering lately, so I honestly didn’t expect to stick with this. But everything about Project Ecco drew me in. I love the manual that looks like a genuine little agent handbook and the details of the understated illustrations. A solid white-black-and-red colour scheme is always a classy choice. The prompts are descriptive enough to give you guidance and bits of lore without limiting you to a specific path. It’s simply an overall round and well-thought-out experience through and through. I’m a little peeved I didn’t get the Temporal Spread – Samantha Leigh was a guest writer for this specific time travel tool and I’ve been dying to get into their other games (especially Outliers, which seems to deal with adjacent themes), so I was looking forward to get a peek at their writing here. Alas, my agent just wasn’t destined to have it…perhaps the next one will.

I wonder how well this would hold up with a digital planner. Mostly, I am an analogue player when it comes to journaling games. I like how tactile it is and that you're creating an artifact of play to keep on your shelf, something very unique and often verging on if not being outright artistry. But the analogue format does (perhaps intentionally) limit your word count and thus keeps journaling rather short and to the point. I suppose a digital format would allow for more character development, if that is your goal. It would also extend your playtime – which is already significant as is. Still, certainly an interesting option, especially when you plan on playing more than twice.

This might be your cup of coffee if...

you revel in a good time travel mystery.

you prefer to play longer games with more complex mechanics than the average journaling game.

you enjoy some solid worldbuilding and lore to add onto over time, possibly in multiple playthroughs.

you are not afraid to mess up some prime stationary. Seriously. If you love your planner? Do not use it for this. Bullet journaling queens and kings, beware!

You can get Elliot Davis’ Project Ecco HERE on itch.io or as a physical copy available at the online sources linked in the description of the game. Make sure to check out Cassi Mothwin’s flip through of the game and take in the incredible actual play episode by the My First Dungeon podcast crew that I enjoyed immensely and proves that this game supports a more light-hearted tone, as well. In case you are the creative type, Davis is currently still running a game jam for supplements for and games inspired by Project Ecco on itch.io that lasts until March 1st. Plenty of time left to get your head in the game. :)

[beautifulfuckup99]

Do you only do BTS? Because I would love a plus-size doc, why choose with Namjoon, Bangchan and Seongwha 🫠🫠🫠

For you, babes, I'm gonna make it a preference of sorts. Hope you like it!

Title: My Girl

Warning(s): Body image issues, hints of ED: Count!ng Calor!es, nut also all-around fluff...

Author's Note: I'm sure this isn't what was wanted, but trust me, it's needed. Lol.

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

Namjoon:

Breathing in through your nose filled your lungs with the fresh pine scented air of the park you and Namjoon had walked to for a random, mid-day picnic. The scenery was a calm and quiet one. Ducks floating on by in the pond right in front of you, birds flying through the sky over you, and not a single person in sight. You two had gone far enough into the field of the park that you were basically alone. With a soft sigh of contentment, Namjoon set his book down. "I could sleep here." He notes, voice as deep as the body of water in front of you. You eye your boyfriend as he fixes his beanie before laying back, head going to your thighs. You instantly stiffen in slight embarrassment. You could never help it. You knew your body and you knew how it looked. And you knew your handsome boyfriend could always find better. And you knew this angle wasn't flattering at all. "Joonie..." You mutter as you cover his face with your hand as he tries looking up at you. "What?" He chuckles. "Stop that, Y/N. I wanna see you." He smiles as he moves his face from under your palm to smirk up at you before nuzzling more into your thighs. "Like my own personal pillow." He teases and you swat lightly at his broad shoulder. "What? You are!" He laughs. "Not funny. My fat thighs aren't your pillows." You snort and he turns his head to kiss your bare thigh that was only on display because Namjoon begged you to wear a sundress he'd bought for you weeks ago as a 'just because' present. "Yes, they are. I have commanded it..." He smirks. "And don't call them fat." He says as he gives you a look. "I love your thighs, baby." He adds softly, turning his head to kiss your bare skin again, making you blush harder and swat lightly at his arm as he laughs before looking up at you. "Let's start packing up." You say gently after a bit of resting in the silence. Namjoon playfully groans before sitting up to start putting the leftovers back in the basket. You collect the books to put back in your bag but pause whenyou're overcome with the urge to peak in on what Namjoon had been reading these past few days. He must be learning something new because he's been damn near obsessed with this book. You skim the pages for context clues as to what his nose has been buried in and pause as you spot a sentence that has been highlighted. 'The skill of observing is just that: Instead of focusing on the body, have them focus on everything and anything else around them. Mindful breathing is wonderful in that you can do it anytime, anywhere. Focus your attention completely on the new of life, thereby reducing the focus on negative thoughts they may have. And show patience when those thoughts occur anyway'. You blink a bit, slightly confused until you see Namjoon's usual scribbled handwriting next to that paragraph in particular. Little phrases shaped as ideas written a pen, saying things like 'More dates?', 'More traveling?', 'Nature. She likes nature...', 'Quiet. Give her quiet.'. You feel your heartbeat quicken as you silently flip to the front cover of the book since Namjoon had taken off the sleeve of the book. The title is called "Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Loving Insecurities". You slowly look over at your boyfriend who was folding up the blanket you two had been laying on, none the wiser to your findings. Your boyfriend who you've only had the honor of calling your boyfriend for 5 months. Your boyfriend who's decided to spend his time off reading up on how to love you better. You slowly walk over to him as he speaks softly about getting ice cream and place a hand on his shoulder to pull him down to your level, kissing his lips softly. He's surprised, but quickly kisses back. You pull away slowly and smile. "I'd love ice cream." You say gently as you stroke his soft skin with the pad of your thumb. He smiles bashfully and nods. "Then let's go..." He says as he finishes packing up.

Bangchan:

"Oh, that's so pretty..." You say as you hold your boyfriend's hand as you stare up at the window display that showed a mannequin wearing a beautiful red, thinned-strapped, sweetheart-lined dress. Going out was a rarity with how busy you two had been lately, but you were enjoying this peaceful moment of mindlessly window shopping. And you knew even though Bangchan would rather be resting lazily at home, he was allowing himself to be dragged around all for your happiness. "Wanna head inside?" The five-foot-seven Korean man asks softly, and it makes you eye the rest of the store. "Nah. Nothing there would fit me. God, if I had that body type..." You sigh as you eye the mannequin, making Bangchan nudge you playfully. "You wanna be headless and plastic?" He asks as he eyes you oddly and you laugh softly. "Yup. The embodiment of beauty." You play along before you continue walking, pulling him along effortlessly. "Well, I for one, like how you are now." He states simply and you chuckle a bit. "Yeah, yeah." You mutter. "What? It's true." He defends lightly as he softly swings your entwined hands back and forth as you two walk through the shopping center. "Okay, sure. Cause it's not like you're my boyfriend who'll be in the doghouse if you say otherwise..." You tease and he laughs softly before kissing your hand tenderly. A full week goes by and as you lay in bed, one night, scrolling through your phone, Bangchan walks into the bedroom of your cozy loft. "Mail." He says as casually as he can master, which for him is an average tone. You look up from your phone and see the box he'd laid out on the edge of the bed for you. "And... What's this?" You ask as you slowly sit up, watching as your boyfriend gets more comfortable on his side of the bed. He gives a slight shrug before watching you the way a child watches their parent open a gift from them. His eyes giving away his emotion like always. The excitement was clear in those eyes. You hum and grab some scissors from your nightstand. You open the box and freeze as you see the same dress that you had stared at through the shop window that day, only it was your size. "How...?" You stop your questioning and look at your boyfriend in shock. "You are the embodiment of beauty, babe." He says in a soft voice as he watches you closely. You feel your face heat up and turn back to the box. You pull the dress out and see it's the exact same one, just as perfect as when you spotted it that day. "How did you even find this?" You ask in awe as you scrunch your nose in pure delighted confusion. You hadn't been able to get this damn clothing item off your mind since that day, and now here it was. Right in front of you, in your grasp and it looked even more beautiful in person. The plus size sections here in Korea weren't as... widely selective as they were in the US. You'd gotten used to seeing a gorgeous clothing item in a store and putting it back on the rack when you saw it wasn't in your size. "I ordered it online. I wasn't gonna watch you give up something you want badly because the store doesn't have your size. That's dumb." He shrugs as you set the dress down and move over to hug and kiss him while he playfully groans like it's killing him. But you see the tips of his ears turn pink at your affection. "You're amazing..." You whisper with a giggle before kissing his lips firmly as he laughs. "Well? What are you waiting for? Try it on!" He says and you giggle excitedly before jumping out of bed and running to the bathroom with the dress in your tight grasp.

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

Running out of space, but I will be posting part 2! So, if you're a Seongwha stan, then... Stay tuned!

[peachesofteal]

RAAAAAAAAH CHAPTER 13 BRO!!!!!

as always, i read it like a rabid animal, and then reread the prev 4 chapters and then reread this again HAHA

your work ages like fine wine, and i read and treasure every word of it, especially on rereads when i can make myself slow down to really take it all in <3

"He takes it all away. Every time." made me WEEP!!!!! its what she DESERVES!!!! the dependability and the escape into him and simon (simon takes charge obvs, but johnny is just as much an outlet. sweet sweet boy)

i think he also realizes that she's seeing it as escapism and starts to fall away a bit, bc of how he stops her and asks to check in. it makes me curious abt his and simon's early relationship, if he's recognizing the same pattern of behavior and comparing them.

going on with that, when she was showing them her scars, AUUUUUUGH. that hit so hard man. the “No but… they’re hideous.”

“No.” Simon croaks, voice thick. “There isn’t a single part of you that isn’t perfect.”

SIMOOOOOOOON he sees so much of himself in her. its gotta be heartbreaking, knowing she's where he used to be. he gets it fr. i cant imagine two people more suited for her, someone who's been where she is and got out, and the person who's helped get that someone out of that pit. fuck dude. you're so good at this HAHAHA

im not gonna say nothin abt the good girl stuff…. but heehee!

also also "I'm not a little human nurse" made me laugh so hard LMAO pure arizona from grey's. ive been watching it lately (started right before you started posting simple math actually) reading the hospital bits of SM, you do a really good job of capturing the same energy and stakes and work dynamics that you get watching grey's. im honestly still waiting for the other shoe to drop on the stupid attending marshall, there's always something that a shitty attending can mess up down the road lmao

the ending on this chap killed me though. they knew she was flighty, and that she's smart and capable, but its gotta be so hard to get the relief of her coming back after the day out without answering the phone, only to find the papers the next morning. in bunny's defense though, she mentioned in chapters before moving in (i think before graves hurt her?) with them that she had to start looking at outs, and these papers aren't a 2-day turnaround; she probably bought them weeks ago and only now picked them up. i could be wrong though! i think its unfortunate timing, but she also probably just wants the relief knowing that she's got the backup plan accessible. as much as she loves the boys and penny, she's still not used to having the dependability. the safety scares her, or at least gives her the idea of a false sense of security, since she's been on edge for so so long.

i give her big smooch. poor bun. poor boys, and poor penny. manifesting the worst for graves, truly, rot in hell you idiot american

i hope you're feeling better, its lovely to read your works but even better when you're doing well yourself ❤️❤️❤️

I loved reading this! I adore you.

I love how you noticed that Johnny does stop to check in. He has a very firm grip on her mental and emotional state, (it’s not his first rodeo) and he knows just how to bring her back.

The two of them + Bunny is really a dream come true even if she doesn’t realize it yet (they do) and it will take a lot of time and work on everyone’s part.

I think your notes in your last paragraph are pretty spot on, too. Bunny will talk about it more in the next two chapters but- getting a new identity is not a two day turnaround.

Also yeah, I was channeling Arizona with that line 💀 I was hoping someone would catch it!

10/10 I love your breakdowns, no notes, perfection, they always make me smile.

[thepenultimateword]

Hey! Can you please continue short prompt #56? I’m literally on the edge of my seat wanting more lol. Thx ❤️

Part One

Supervillain's office smelt like someone had dumped a gallon of autumn spice cologne over every cherry wooded inch of the room. Villain tried hard not to gag as they came through the door--they were already in enough trouble as it was--but they couldn't seem to completely wipe their grimace. The scent made their eyes sting and lingered bitter in the back of their mouth.

"You needed me?" Villain piped up and then immediately winced. Was Supervillain going to take that in a romantic way? Of course, Supervillain didn't need them; first of all, it was just a dating app match, and second of all it wasn't like Supervillain couldn't date whoever they wanted. They didn't want Supervillain to assume that they assumed that something was about to happen between them. Villain wasn't that pathetic. Or desperate. Or interested.

"Ah! Villain." Supervillain swiveled in their desk chair, steepling their fingers beneath their chin. "Quick question. Roses or orchids?"

Villain stared, facial muscles seizing in involuntary shock. They didn't even think they could blink. "Uh...orchids?"

"Eating in or eating out?"

"I don't get why--"

Supervillain cocked their head to the side, the sharp cut of their slow blink stopping Villain short. Those eyes were like clear-cut diamonds, so pale they were almost devoid of color. In picture, Villain could stare for hours, but in person, it was a little like being flayed alive.

Villain swallowed. "Depends on my mood and how long of a day I've had."

Supervillain considered that for a moment, and though their eyes vaguely clouded over, the change in luster was not enough to stop their vacant gaze from piercing straight through Villain's throat. Another sudden blink seemed to file that information away for later and on they went.

"Movie or dance?"

"Movie I guess."

"Salty or sweet?"

"Neither. Spicy."

They were getting the hang of this question game.

"PDA or privacy?"

Nevermind.

Villain blushed and looked down at their knees. "A little of both."

This time Villain did take a physical note on the notepad in front of them. Then they marked something on a grid sheet and nodded Villain politely back toward the door. "Alright, I'll take that into consideration. You can return to your workstation now."

Villain blinked. "What?"

"I said that's all I need from you, you can get back to work."

Was Villain hearing this right? Not acknowledging the dating app was one thing--there were a million ways to explain it away, and after all, it was sort of embarrassing--but to ask all these odd personal questions and then dismiss them?

"You're not even going to tell me what all these questions are for?"

"Just a little pop quiz."

Villain blinked again. "What?"

Supervillain pulled a stack of papers across the desk and began initialing sections every few paragraphs. "I'm gathering data from my admirers in order to transfer it into my ruling style. Whatever attracts you to me could also be used to "attract" more followers and sway the public to my side."

"Oh." Villain hated the humiliated flush spreading across their cheeks, but they hated the disappointed knot in their chest even more. "That...makes sense."

Stupid. Why didn't they deny it? Tell Supervillain that their little narcissistic test didn't apply to them because they'd only swiped up out of pity. Why did any words at all refuse to come to their mouth?

They turned numbly back toward the door, barely feeling their legs move them across the room and down the hall back to their desk. They stared blankly at the blueprints they'd been drawing up for a new destructive weapon, something that had been meant to really make them stand out from the rest of the think tank, and half-considered crumpling it into the garbage can beside their desk before they forced their hand to take up their pencil again and went back to sketching lines. This jilted feeling didn't mean they still didn't want a raise.

They lost themselves in the work, letting it consume them whole, anything not to think about the humiliation and irritating hurt roiling in the back of their mind. It was nearly midnight when they realized Supervillain's story made no sense. How did gathering data on Villain have anything to do with Supervillain's admirable qualities?

They must have dozed off sometime after that because when they came to themself again, they were blinking morning light from their eyes and their cheek was pasted to the blueprint sheet. Lifting their head groggily, the glint of blue glass caught their eye.

A little vase of red orchids sat safely on the far corner of their desk.

Villain rubbed their eyes, but when they lowered their fists the orchids still stared prettily back. They looked around the empty office for matching gifts, even mozied around to the other dead departments to widen the pool, but it became quickly apparent that they weren't going to find anything.

They were the only one with flowers, and based on yesterday's interrogation they knew who they were from. They just wished they knew what that meant.

…

I felt like this scenario could go lots of ways, hopefully this one is ok :)

Master Taglist:

@moss-tombstone @crazytwentythrees @just-1-lonely-person @the-vagabond-nun @willow-trees-are-beautiful @cocoasprite @insanedreamer7905 @valiantlytransparentwhispers @whovian378 @watercolorfreckles @thebluepolarbear @yulanlavender @kitsunesakii @deflated-bouncingball @lem-hhn @office-plant-in-a-trenchcoat @ghostfacepepper @pigeonwhumps @demonictumble @inkbirdie @vuvulia @bouncyartist @lunatic-moss-studio @breilobrealdi @freefallingup13 @i-am-a-story-goblin @ryunniez @rainy-knights-of-villany @distractedlydistracted @saspas-corner @echoednonny @perilous-dreamer