#another reason for this is that I'm working on writing a cover letter and I think I deserve some fun after I'm done

[kuiinncedes]

fngfdjngjdfkng

[tmae3114]

Generally speaking I keep my fic ideas and etc close to my chest and only discuss them with friends, for a number of reasons (mostly related to my brain being weird or mean to me)

BUT

I have a few WIPs with solid foundations and names atm and ask games are fun and I do know how to keep things vague enough to avoid engaging Annoying Brain Mode

So, here’s a list of names for various WIPs of mine. Send me an ask with one and I’ll give you some random info about it :3c It might be random vague details, it might be the current provisional summary, it might be something completely different :3c

Do Not Go Gentle (Into The Dawn)

Once More (Unto Destiny)

How Our Bodies, Born To Heal

A Fistful Of Love And A Blade Made Of Faith

(I Must Be A) Poster Child Prodigy

Each Brave Step Forward

On The Horizon (There’s A Light)

(also you can send more than one ask if you feel like it)

[bokutosbabe]

Now I'm Covered In You

(bllk boys as boyfriends)

a / n — thought making another post in this form would be fun, so i hope you enjoy!

content — bllk characters x reader, gn! reader, pet names used in a few parts, sadly canon otoya i fear, misspelled words are there for a reason i swear, cheater! otoya and oliver, some characters repeated, lmk if i missed anything!

synopsis — bllk boys and what type of boyfriend they'd be

✿.｡. “ how's one to know? ” .｡.✿

—The Romantic One

is always planning surprises for you, and i mean always. there's not a single week where you aren't being taken on 'adventures' that always lead you to a different restaurant.

what's the point in having all this money and not spending it on you?

they are constantly writing you love letters and poems. well, they try to anyway. they're not the best with their words and with many spelling mistakes, rather liking to show with actions, but they tried for you.

usually their poems end up something like this

' roses are red

so is my heart

my darling

my deer

my sweet buttercup

you taste just like a

tasty soda pop '

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ ISAGI YOICHI, shido ryusei, jyubei aryu, ALEXIS NESS

— The Player

you know the famous saying, "how you get them is how you lose them?" yeah that's exactly how this relationship is.

you'd been one of their many side quests while they had a relationship going on. eventually after they'd ended said relationship, they'd chose you as their next partner.

they do spoil you with many gifts, mostly after you catch them cheating on you for the umpteenth time, but you stayed because they 'loved you'

sure they told you they loved you, but that wasn't really the case when they'd broken up with you because you were 'boring' them.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ OTOYA EITA, oliver aiku

— The Protector

is constantly worrying about you and is looking out for your safety.

with them being this 'big bad' soccer player, many people refuses to even look you in the eyes when you were with them. but if someone dared to hit on you when they walk off for a second? please pray for them.

some guy could be asking you for directions and he'd come up behind you and wrap an arm around you without even uttering a word. you didn't have to look at them to know the look they were giving the man was nothing but deadly.

some may call it controlling, but you knew them, they just wanted to keep you safe from all these men.

you had him, who else would you need?

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ KUNIGAMI RENSUKE, rin itoshi, SHOEI BARO, tabito karasu

— The Funny (insane) One

is constantly making jokes- some that aren't funny - but you laugh anyways.

everyone always asks you how your relationship is doing so well, and the answer is always, " i don't know," because you genuinely don't. yes, the two of you get into arguments, and sometimes the two of you get heated enough to have to take time apart from each other, but you always come back together.

how?

because they always forget what the fight was even about and come back into your space to show you some cat meme they believe you would like.

and the two of you laugh until you feel better again.

maybe you don't know how your relationship is so healthy, but you know why you're happy.

because they take the time to make you laugh.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ BACHIRA MEGURU, RYUSEI SHIDO, gin gagamaru, seishiro nagi

— The Traditional One

dates. Dates. DATES!!

they took you on soooo many dates before officially asking you to be their partner.

they definitely give the vibes of "my mom taught me i needed to..."

just the best gentleman!

you need to step over a puddle? they're putting their jacket down over it for you (it wasn't necessary, but they insisted on it)

you talked about wanting to see a movie once? he's already bought the tickets.

if you get married? he's insisting you stay home

" a pretty face like you doesn't need to work, i'll provide us everything." in his words

will do anything for you, really.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ YUKIMIYA KENYU, michael kaiser (pls ignore the mom part), REO MIKAGE, oliver aiku (again)

✿.｡. “ i'd meet you where the spirit meets the bone ” .｡.✿

likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated!!

[deerboybreeder]

LONG fucking fantasy below the cut whoops. Tw for rape, drugging and stalking ♥️

I move to a small town in the middle of nowhere to completely restart my life. The community is small and tight knit, but thankfully extremely accepting, so me being trans is a non issue! Or at least, people have the decency to not say anything about it to my face. I feel welcomed in this town, though I spend a lot of my time improving the patch of land I moved onto and less talking to residents, even though I've met nearly everyone.

I start getting letters in the mail, complimenting me in sweet, flowery language. It makes me feel special, but there's no return address, so I can't write back. But over time, the letters get more possessive. Once, the letter describes my body fairly graphically, in all the most complimenting ways, but it's clear they saw me working shirtless in my garden, tits free to the wind. My land is huge and fenced in, someone would have to have jumped my fence and gotten very close without my noticing to see me doing that.

I start spending a little less time at home and more time in town, hoping to make some connections to keep my mind off my "secret admirer", who started recently describing how beautiful and motherly of a man I would make swollen with his baby. I don't tell anyone about it, embarrassed by the content, and the fact that despite the obvious escalation, it makes me wet to think about all this attention. I'm not beloved by the town, but I make a few good friends.

One day, a year to the day I moved into town, a package shows up at my door. Its from my secret admirer, a very small bottle of wine with a letter attached. Praising all my accomplishments this year, in detail, in order. Singing my praises and wishing for even more in the upcoming year. Against my better judgement, I accept, and take the wine inside.

I generally am a lightweight when it comes to alcohol- I learned that recently, out with friends at the local bar. One had bought me a drink and I needed help home afterwards, and the friend that bought me the round felt so badly about my state he walked me home himself. But I had nothing else to do that day, so I poured myself a glass anyway.

I don't drink often, so I didn't recognize right away that something was wrong. Didn't notice that I was fading in and out of consciousness on the couch until one moment I was watching a documentary on wilderness survival, and the next it was about space travel. My body was heavy, I could barely move, so the couch would have to do that night.

I almost chalked it up to overindulgence when my front door opened.

It was a small town- I had no reason to lock my door. Even my secret admirer hadn't made mention of wanting to break in, just lamented that they couldn't work up the courage to approach me first. But apparently, this was how they chose to do it.

I yelled, a slurred and disoriented thing. Time was runny, and I didn't even have time to process running before they were on me. A mask, sunglasses and a ball cap obscured my attackers face, hair seeming meticulously tucked into the cap to further obscure their identity.

I tried to struggle, but I'm small and they're much bigger- not to mention the wine that I realize must've been drugged. They shush me, clearly altering their voice so I wouldn't know who they are- small town, after all.

They pull up my shirt, tangling me in it and covering my face so I can't see them. Everything is running together, and at some point they've taken my pants off too, Im lying naked before them. Everything narrows down to sensations that run together. A mouth sucking on my nipple, my attackers hands running reverently down my body. They're murmuring words I can't understand because my head is swimming from the spiked drink. Their fingers find my wet and waiting slit, and they thumb over my tdick, and despite myself I make a strangled noise.

Then, I am aware of their cock at my entrance, and I get another burst of fighting, but it's useless. They shush me, kissing the side of my face through the fabric of the shirt around my face, and promise to be gentle as they push themself into my dripping cunt. They moan openly into my ear, muffled by the shirt, and start playing with my tits while they rape me.

Everything is blurry, I keep slipping in and out of consciousness, only to wake up and find that they're still fucking me. They whisper praises, saying they wish they'd done this a year ago when I first moved in, how much of a tease I was working in my garden shirtless or changing in front of the window. How we were going to be so happy together, how excited they were to realize I had a womb they could fill. How they'd start with one, but they knew I would look heavenly round and heavy with their baby for the rest of my life.

I don't know how much time passed, them using my pliant body like a cocksleeve. They were mostly true about being gentle, aside from the bruising on my hips where they held me down. They came against my waiting cervix at least once, but it all ran together for me. After cumming inside me, they gently rubbed my stomach over my womb, scratching the trail of dark hair that sprouted over the year taking testosterone.

I wanted to cry, but they stayed inside me growing soft for a while, gently fondling me or kissing my body. Eventually, I blacked out entirely.

The next morning I couldn't pretend it was a dream- I was left tangled up in my clothes, though a blanket from my room was draped over me and my TV turned off. My cunt was sore and I had the world's worst hangover. I stumbled to the shower and tried not to throw up.

I didn't want to be alone, so after my chickens were fed I went down to the friends house who helped me home that night. He had been so kind, and we'd started getting close. He had even dismissed a mutual friend making a joke about taking advantage of me the night he helped me home- he'd just helped me to my bed and left. I could trust him.

He knew something was off the moment he saw me, and ushered me inside. He got me water from his fridge, and sat down with me to let me talk.

I told him everything. First about the rape that night, then elaborating to the stalker in tears. He looked horrified, and let me sob in his arms. He was so kind to me, so good to me. I told him I didn't want to be alone. He offered to move in with me for a little while, to make sure nothing else happened. I agreed immediately, and he started packing up his things right that second.

His time spent moved in was nice. I got up early for my chickens and garden, but somehow he was always up earlier, making me coffee and breakfast. Some days he even watered my plants for me, just to be kind. He was sweet, always there to support me. He slept on the couch with no complaints, and even held me close when a noise outside had me convinced the stalker was going to break down the now locked door and rape me again.

The admirers notes slowed. They first were promises of coming back again, to see my "beautiful fertile body" up close again. Then threats when my friend moved in. Then nothing. I thought the nightmare was over.

I had chalked up the throwing up to a traumatic response and the drugs working their way out of my system. When it continued I didn't think much of it. Attributed the weight gain to my friend fussing over me and making sure I ate well. But the slightly round look of my stomach unsettled me, so I bit the bullet and took a pregnancy test.

Positive.

I was in hysterics when I saw the lines, and my friend ran into the room asking if I was hurt. I just shook my head and showed him the test, and he took me into his arms. We both know by this point it was too late to abort in the state this town was in, and travel costs put it out of the question if I could go out of state to have it done.

My friend assured me that it would be alright. That he'd help me through this. That he'd even help me raise the baby if I didn't want to be a single father.

Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, maybe it was the kindness he'd shown me this past month or two. Maybe it was the way he looked up at me, having knelt down in front of me to make his promise of support. But I kissed him. I had fallen in love with this man, who'd taken care of me in my time of greatest need. And with the way he kissed me back, he'd fallen for me too.

It was like a switch was flipped, like he had been holding back this entire time. I invited him into my bed, and every night his hands were on me. I loved the way he felt, so happy to have someone else touch me after what happened. Every touch was adoring and reverent, he made me feel like a prince. Id beg him to cum deep inside me and breed me, and he'd get a look in his eyes when he pounded my cunt. It helped me pretend it was his baby growing inside me, especially when he'd put his hand on my growing stomach protectively.

Our relationship moved quickly. We were dating for only three months when he proposed to me, but it felt like three years. Gladly I accepted, and it took only two months to set up the wedding. He handled everything, insistent I just relax because he didn't want to stress out the baby. I was heavily pregnant at our wedding, and I heard a few murmurs about it being a shotgun wedding. I let them gossip- I hadn't told anyone about my attack, and I didn't care if they thought we were just getting married because I got knocked up. My husband and I knew the truth.

Those final few months were hard, but my wonderful husband took such good care of me. Doted on me hand and foot, took care of the chickens entirely, and with winter setting in soon I didn't need to tend the garden at all. This loving wonderful man cared for me through every stage of this unwanted pregnancy and turned it into the start of a beautiful life. It was like a scene out of a romance novel.

My labor was hard, but he was there through it all. Fussing over me and ensuring I got the best care. It hurts beyond words, the baby huge and heavy, but I managed. A sweet baby girl.

He was overjoyed. The next two months spent in a sleepy newborn haze, of course. But he was always there, at my side. He cooked dinner, kept the house tidy, watched the baby as I tended the chickens, our main income aside from a few residuals from some old novel he wrote years ago. He didn't even ask for sex, knowing I was healing, even if I wanted to regardless of doctors orders. But we waited.

The anniversary of the attack came and went, and he held me through my sobs. Reminded me that even if the experience was horrible, we had our beautiful daughter, and our beautiful relationship, because of it. And he was right. I was able to leave it behind.

As time wore on, he continued to be an amazing husband. Attentive in daily life, wonderful to our child, and absolutely fantastic in bed.

Nights spent after the baby was sleeping entwined in each other. His cock buried to the hilt in my needy cunt, his mouth on my heavy milky tits. Some nights, id let him take Polaroid photos of me impaled on his cock, or sucking him off, or stroking my tdick as his cum leaked out of me. I never saw where he kept them, but the idea that my body was so important to him he kept photos around made me feel good and loved. I never needed to ask with him, he somehow always knew what I needed, and I was often marked with hickies along my body from him. He said he was claiming every part of me.

A few months into summer, I felt off again. This time I didn't wait, and took a pregnancy test right away. Positive again. We weren't trying explicitly, but we weren't preventing it either, especially not with how I begged him to breed me every night. I told him, and he was overjoyed. I felt like I was in a fairy tale.

We decided to turn his old stuff into a playroom, since the nursery itself was small. I set to work on it in the mornings, while he was making breakfast. It was a lot to take down and move, so it took a while. While emptying his desk to have him move it to storage, I found a little cardboard box. Curious, I opened it up.

At first I thought it was the dirty photos he had taken of me. The idea of him alone in his study, fucking his hand to these photos when working late on a new story made me shiver. But then, under those photos were more. Candid shots of me out with friends, even before the baby. I hadn't gotten out much after the baby came, not like I went much of anywhere after the attack. These photos were old.

Then, the ones from my home. In through the windows while I was changing. My shirtless working in my garden. Me reaching for a gift wrapped bottle of wine.

With shaking hands, I set the box down. My husband, unbeknownst to me, had come up behind me. He wrapped his arms tightly around me, in a way hours ago I would find protective but now felt like a vice grip.

"What's the matter, love?" He asked, as he placed a hand over my womb, once again full of his child. "I told you we were meant to be. That you would look beautiful heavy with my baby for the rest of your life. I know you think so too. Why else would you beg me to breed that fertile, beautiful body of yours again? Just as I said before. If it weren't for that night, we wouldn't have our daughter, or our marriage. I just wish I'd done it sooner."

[kbandtrash]

Less Than Three (Hongjoong x Reader)

~Rachel~

@sorryimananti-romantic hahaha remember how I said I was the slowest writer ever? Apparently that's not true because it only took me a month and a half to write this. I need help

Content: fluff, a whole lot of delusional one-sided pining (the cute kind though) (from him), silly middle school antics from both teachers and students, betting, friends to lovers

Summary: Kim Hongjoong teaches middle school math and finds himself absolutely smitten with you, the math department's newest hire. You're the last person to find out.

Note: This is set in an American-style middle school because that's where my teaching experiences have been and I figured my best work would come out of the system I'm most familiar with

Word Count: 11.5k

Why did Hongjoong choose middle school?

He asks himself this question every day as well

If he wanted to be a math teacher, high school was clearly a better option

But no he had started out in a middle school, promising to take a high school position as soon as one opened up

And now he was actively avoiding high school principals that wanted to recruit him

Is it because he found out the math is easier to explain and the kids really aren’t that bad?

Yeah sure

But this year he had another reason to stay

See his math department had a position open up this summer and as he got to take part in interviews to select a new hire

He fell in love

Now that was not the whole reason he advocated to hire you

In fact your credentials as a math teacher

The places you had taught before

Your praxis exam scores

Your recommendation letters

The professional development programs you were a part of

Test scores from your previous classes

The way you understood math

And especially the way you believed that every student had the potential to pass your class

All of these made you the obvious choice and everyone else agreed

But he was struck several times with Cupid’s arrows throughout the interview and that absolutely did not hurt his opinion of you as a potential colleague

On this particular morning his excuse to talk to you before classes started for the day was a test for your 7th graders

Which they would be taking next Friday

Your feedback always ended up being valuable anyway so there was no need for this to be an “excuse” but it got to be one anyway

You were typing something up when he knocked on the open door to your classroom to announce his presence

You finished typing your sentence before you looked up, and when you saw Hongjoong leaning against the door frame with some papers in his hand, you greeted him with a smile and a wave

He wondered if it would look unprofessional if he grew out his hair to cover his ears

You looked gorgeous today (every day) and he knew there was no stopping his ears from turning bright red

“I have the unit tests for 7th,” he said, stealing a chair from a desk to sit backwards on while he talked to you

“Oh good!” you replied. “I’ll take a look at those and get them back to you by lunch”

Buy lunch he thought

That sounded like an excellent idea

He should buy you lunch

He didn’t say that though

“Works for me. How was your weekend?”

And he stalled and stalled and stalled until the first bell rang and he had to get out to hall duty

At lunch he walked in again while you were putting in assignment scores and munching on some pretzel sticks

“I made a key for that new assignment we decided to add for 8th grade. Can you check answers if you get the time?”

His heart did a little flip as you covered your mouth with your hand while you finished chewing

How could you be so graceful and polite?

And your hands were so pretty wow

“Yes just as soon as I finish putting these in. And—” you turned your chair around and grabbed something from behind you— “here are the 7th tests from this morning. I added a couple notes on the integer operations review questions, but other than that, I think they’re great”

He unfortunately did need to go and eat his own lunch and fulfill other teacherly lunchtime duties so he couldn’t stall as much as this morning

But he read your notes on the way back to his classroom

And boy he could have lived in your handwriting

The pen that you used was the perfect instrument to capture every letter, every dot, every loop in a way that encapsulated your personality

And as soon as he caught himself thinking that he knew he needed to ask the home ec teacher to smack him over the head with a frying pan because wowie

He would need professional help in order to date you like a normal person at this point

Anyway he was practically skipping back after lunch because he came up with another question to ask you

There were students there so instead of using your first name he caught your attention by calling you Miss (L/N)

Which for some reason gives him more butterflies than calling you normally

This time luckily instead of giving you a new task it was a task he could do for you

“How many copies of the activity page should I put you down for?”

“Ooh good question”

You put your finger over your lips as you counted on your other hand and he had to actively look away and think about other things

There were students present after all

“Which classes are you doing it with?” you ended up asking

He used the opportunity to set a hand down on your desk and lean forward in a cool pose

“I’m making the eighth graders do it but it’s extra credit for the seventh”

“That sounds like a good plan to me. So sixty for the eighth graders and then how many do you think I would need if it’s optional?”

Oh boy he loved it when you asked for advice

It gave him the chance to look cool and smart and he always got to play it off as the humble senior teacher

“I do half just to be safe. Plus then you have extra if you want to do it again later in the year or even next year”

And then your face did that thing it did when you liked a suggestion he gave

Your face lit up with your eyebrows raised and your mouth in a little “ooh”

There were students around there were students around

“Okay then sixty for the eighth graders and forty-five for seventh. A hundred and five?”

He scribbled the number down on the copy request form

“Excellent. I’ll run this down then”

He gave you a smile and a wave as he went to attend to his own class

Which you returned

And he was sure his heart would never physically recover from the stress it was under this year

You didn’t need to know that you were the only other teacher he was sharing this particular activity page with

He would give it to the other teachers if they asked him for it but he wasn’t going to go out of his way for this one because it was kind of silly and short

But he would do anything to make your first year at a new school just a little bit easier

Back in his classroom he tried to get class started when one of his eighth graders had the audacity to raise his hand and say the following:

“You just walked back from Miss (L/N)’s class huh?”

Mr. Kim squinted suspiciously at the student

“Yeah…why”

“You’re way nicer when you go to her class before our class starts”

Before he had any time to figure out what that meant, the class exploded in giggles and shouts of agreement

“Yeah you smile a lot more this year than you did last year” a girl who had had his class the previous year as well agreed

And then from the back corner

One of the notorious trouble makers stood up

Pointed his finger up at poor Mr. Kim, who was now considering taking a high school position again

And shouted “Mr. Kim has a crush on Miss (L/N)!!!”

There was no longer any hope for this class

Exponent rules? Down the drain

Hongjoong was now a laughingstock

Irredeemable in front of a bunch of 13-14 year olds

So he stood with his hands clasped behind his back, lips pursed, and his eyes dangerously blank

It wasn’t long before kids started shushing each other

Even once they were quiet, he held their attention for a second longer

“If you have two to the fourth times two to the third, what’s the product?” he asked clearly, writing the problem on the whiteboard in new black marker

Not addressing the issue would not stem the tide of curious teenagers for long but it would have to be a band-aid solution until he figured out how to do this properly

Because he couldn’t allow rumors to spread that he liked you because firstly unprofessional and secondly what if you heard them and thought he was weird

But he couldn’t lie and allow rumors to spread that he definitely didn’t have a crush on you because firstly. unprofessional kids don’t need to know about that stuff

Like they think they’re all mature and old enough to date when they can’t even drive yet like can you imagine as a teenager asking your mom to drive you to your date with your girlfriend. Embarrassing

BUT SECONDLY

What if you heard the rumors and maybe you did like him back and it crushed your heart to hear that he didn’t like you

While the kids were working on their assignment and he was working on his computer he decided the best way to explain this to them

If they ever brought it up again

Was that they’re always in a better mood when they get to talk to their friends, right?

You’re a good friend and it’s fun working with you

The other math teachers are fun too but you’re close to his age so it makes sense that you would be closer

Yep

Good explanation Mr. Kim

Literally just one day later the kids bring it up again and they do not buy his explanation

They don’t even pretend to because their brains are not developed enough to have that kind of social tact

And the rumor doesn’t exactly spread like wildfire around the school but everyone knows about it you know what I mean

Except you actually

You’re usually very aware of everything going on in your classroom but somehow this particular subject escaped your attention

You learned early on that for some reason kids don’t have shame anymore in spilling their guts to the classroom about what they’re gossiping about

So the usual “if you can’t wait to tell your friend later then tell the whole class now” classroom management tactic is now useless

So you didn’t do that instead you just asked them which problem they’re helping their friend with and if they’re not helping their friend with math then they should get back on task

You didn’t think that any middle school level gossip could actually be that interesting anyway so yeah you had no idea that kids were shipping the teachers

And you didn’t want to know

So you stayed blissfully ignorant

While Hongjoong was lowkey agonizing over it

Now you and Hongjoong tend to eat lunch in your own classrooms rather than the staff lounge

Because why use up any more social energy than necessary right

But there is a vending machine in the staff room and Hongjoong was craving something sweet one day

And when he walked in the other teachers in there suddenly went awkwardly silent

And he knew

They were talking about him

Yeah he should take a high school position next year

Two of the younger teachers, Jung Wooyoung from the history department and Choi San from the phys ed department, broke the silence giggling to each other

“Sorry Hongjoong” San apologized “the kids are just hilarious these days. They’re so excited about you and (Y/N) it’s adorable”

Hongjoong gave them a look

“Adorable?”

“Well firstly you” Wooyoung pointed out “I never thought I’d see you fall head over heels but I totally get it. She’s super cool”

“And secondly the kids” San continued “any time you guys are talking in the hall I have all of the girls talking about it during warm ups. The boys all think of you as their role model when it comes to liking a girl”

“That reminds me!” Wooyoung interrupted “I actually did have a boy confess to a girl in my class the other day and you wanna know what he told her??”

Hongjoong’s eyebrows furrowed in a glare, absolutely sure that his reputation was never going to recover

“He said ‘I like you more than Mr. Kim likes Miss (L/N)’”

The teachers tried to tone down their laughter out of respect

Hongjoong wanted to leave immediately but this stupid vending machine was having issues

“And then you know what she said back?”

Wooyoung was having trouble holding himself together

His eyes were shining a little with tears of laughter

“She said ‘That’s impossible. No one can like anyone more than Mr. Kim likes Miss (L/N)’”

The other teachers could not hold it back anymore

The vending machine finally gave Hongjoong his candy bar

(Plus the extra one he bought for you)

So he made his way swiftly back towards the door

“Oh no no wait” Wooyoung called after him

“Tests to grade” Hongjoong lied simply

“No come on you have to hear this”

Hongjoong stopped at the door, fighting the urge to classroom manage his coworkers

He looked back both unimpressed and expectant at the same time

“Okay everyone raise your hands if you betted on before Christmas break” Wooyoung called out

Some of the teachers looked at him like he had just asked out a widow at her husband’s funeral

But they raised their hands sheepishly anyway

“Great yes and after Christmas break?”

The other half raised their hands, most of them looking like they wished that had eaten lunch in their own classrooms

“These are bets on when you’re going to ask her out” Wooyoung explained cheerfully

“Wasn’t someone also trying to get bets going on whether you would confess first or she would notice first?” San asked

“That was also me” Wooyoung said with a grin

The lounge door opened again and in walked the principal and one of the vice principals

Hongjoong thought this was finally the end to this stupid conversation

But no

“Oh Hongjoong!” the principal greeted him with a pat on the arm “I’ve got $50 on you dating before Christmas. Don’t let me down”

Waiting until the end of the school year to take a new position would simply not be soon enough

Hongjoong needed to find a new job or retire within the month

But then on the way back to his classroom he remembered he had an extra candy bar for you

So he made a detour

But what greeted him was a closed door with the window on the door covered

He hadn’t ever seen your door shut like this before so he wasn’t sure what it meant exactly

Maybe you went out to lunch today?

Then he could just nab one of your sticky notes and leave the candy bar on your desk with a positive message

He would rather give it to you himself, but the idea of you finding the candy bar on your desk later made his chest feel all warm and cozy so it was fine

Your door was unlocked, so he pulled it open just enough so he could see inside

And you were in there actually

Slumped in your desk chair with your head in your hands

Oh

Oh no

Hongjoong had been there before

Every teacher had been there before

The work of a teacher isn’t as easy as most people would like to believe

Especially for middle school, and even more so for math, it takes someone with unending patience and courage to help kids learn every day

And some days that patience and courage runs a little thinner than other days

Even experienced teachers wonder from time to time if it’s worth the soul that they give to their classes

The classes that seem sometimes not to notice one way or the other if you’re teaching or not

You hadn’t noticed that you weren’t quite alone anymore, so that left Hongjoong with a choice to make

Did he let you have this moment to yourself?

Or did he try to help you through it?

He closed the door as softly as he could

And then he gave a little knock to give you some privacy and some time to gather yourself

Then he opened the door and stepped halfway through

“The vending machine spat out two candy bars instead of one” he lied with a grin, holding up the extra candy bar and wiggling it between his fingers

You had sat up and were resting your chin on your hand curiously

But there was definitely a downtrodden aura about you that he couldn’t miss

“That’s pretty lucky,” you replied

He took that as permission to enter and on his way to your desk he snagged his usual chair to sit backwards on

“How’s today going so far?” he asked as if he knew nothing, setting the candy bar down on top of your closed computer

“Oh, you know,” you sighed

He chuckled, opening his candy bar, not making eye contact with you to relieve some pressure for you to keep up an act

“That good, huh?”

You laughed in return

“Just got my butt kicked by a bunch of seventh graders, so yeah, it’s kind of whatever right now”

Ah the teacher equivalent of “I want to quit my job and hide in my bed for the rest of my life”

“Oh, yep, I’ve been there more than once” he said with a nod “and sometimes there’s really nothing you could have done better, you know? Kids are just like that sometimes. It makes me glad I’m not an elementary school teacher”

“Oh my word yes” you agreed, finally picking up the candy bar “at least I can kick these gremlins out after 45 minutes and I don’t have to see them again until the next day. I can’t imagine being with the same class all day”

Did Hongjoong end up squandering his entire eating time just to talk with you and make sure you felt better?

Yes

He would have to sneak bites of his sandwich in between activities during his afternoon classes

But like it wasn’t the first time he’d had to do that and heaven knew it wouldn’t be the last

At least he had a good reason today instead of something stupid like he was lost in the test grading sauce and forgot to eat

He proceeded to get his butt kicked by his afternoon classes because he couldn’t wipe his lovefool smile off his face

But it was okay because once again it wasn’t the first time and heaven knew it wouldn’t be the last

Not long after came the hallowed and hated teacher inservice day

Professional development day

Both a huge waste of time and a relaxing little work day

The administrators usually planned a series of workshops for the morning that all looked. well. kind of stupid but it was all planned with good intention

Then it was lunch time

And then after that you had until the end of contract hours to do whatever pretty much

The math department liked to go to lunch together and then have a really productive planning meeting until people got bored and then it was individual prep time pretty much

Mostly it was just kinda nice to be at school without kids there

This year was no exception to all of this

But Mr. Principal had $50 on the line and decided to play matchmaker about it

For each of the workshops the teachers were split into groups

And you and Hongjoong had been placed together every single time

Somehow you genuinely thought it was just good luck

Hongjoong was hyperaware of every other teacher looking and pointing and giggling and you were so peacefully oblivious to it

The first workshop was about medical emergency training, specifically training teachers in case of allergy or diabetic emergencies

As soon as the nurse finished with the epipen instructions you leaned over to Hongjoong and whispered “like this?” 

And stabbed him with the fake epipen right in the thigh

Hongjoong swore he was going to die right then and there because why was that so attractive???

“Four…five…six…seven…eight…” you counted out, holding the epipen in place for the full ten seconds

And like a good patient he sat like a statue because his circuits were absolutely fried

You glanced up at his face and your expression immediately dropped

You checked the epipen all over to make sure it was just a trainer

(It was)

“Hongjoong are you okay?? Your face is all red did I do something wrong?” you worried

He unfroze and tried to undo the damage of his Little Moment but the nurse was already over at the table taking a closer look at him after dismissing the rest of the teachers to practice

She looked at you and then at Hongjoong and then at you again and back at Hongjoong and a funny look of understanding came over her face

“Are you Mr. Kim the math teacher” she asked

He nodded awkwardly

“And are you Miss (L/N) the math teacher” she asked

“Yes?” you answered

She patted Hongjoong on the shoulder

“He’ll be fine in a minute or so” she reassured you, glancing up and away somewhere else

You both followed her gaze over to the principal, who gave her a bright smile and a thumbs up

Which looked innocuous enough to the untrained eye

But to Hongjoong this was just another in a long list of embarrassments

The principal had told the guest workshop speakers about him

And he had been spotted that easily

After that was administration-provided snack time

Hongjoong offered to grab sodas if you would grab chips and stuff

And at the soda table he was greeted by Wooyoung and San, who called him affectionately Mr. Traffic Light

Hongjoong resisted the urge to react publicly

Even though there were no children around he refused to allow himself to be caught cursing them out

But he brainstormed violently about the ways he could get back at them without getting caught

Truly his middle school teacher powers of ignoring were activated because those two were practically dancing around him trading one-liner after one-liner and Hongjoong paid them no mind

Until he realized they were following him back to the table where he was sitting with you

He did not need them teasing him around you so he tried to shoo them off

But Wooyoung gleefully turned his attention up to the projector screen where the groupings for the next workshop were displayed

Truly your presence was the only saving grace this day had to offer

They were in this group with you two

The computer teacher/school tech support guy was leading this workshop and he was showcasing how one might use ai in their classroom

And all four of you were totally zoned out because firstly ai in a math classroom?? For what

Chat bots are notoriously bad at math

Ai in San’s gymnasium? Once again no practical application

And Wooyoung honestly just wasn’t that interested because none of you were listening so he didn’t feel like he had to either

So he decided flirting with you was more fun

Just to make Hongjoong mad

But for all of his whispered pick up lines and compliments you had approximately the same response as to this ai workshop:

Playing gamepigeon with Hongjoong under the table

(Which Hongjoong had initiated by the way)

(And you had perpetuated after destroying him at the mini golf game)

Aka you ignored Wooyoung pretty well

So Hongjoong got to glare over at him with the peace of mind that your attention was fully his right then

San tapped your shoulder and asked for your number

Which you gave him a little too easily for Hongjoong’s continued peace of mind

But then San just made a group chat for the four of you to play uno together for the remainder of the workshop

So Hongjoong decided that actually this setup wasn’t so bad

The last workshop was unfortunately much more important so the four of you couldn’t continue slacking off

The principal was running this one and it was genuinely for the betterment of the school environment

Plus San and Wooyoung were sent off to other groups

So it was the two of you and a few other senior teachers that were going to have a discussion about one of the behavior initiatives that the school was trying out

You were the only two math teachers in the group, so when the principal passed out data that had been collected about this behavior initiative, the other teachers sort of automatically passed the papers to you

(And the science teachers in the group but that’s irrelevant)

There was only one copy of each dataset, so that meant you got to share

And that meant that you got to scoot your chairs close together to look at the paper at the same time

And even better the text was kind of small so you had to bring the papers close to your faces to read them

So the two of you were shoulder to shoulder

Practically cheek to cheek, your heads almost touching

To read this data and explain it to the less number-savvy teachers

Today was actually pretty fantastic so far, Hongjoong thought

He also wondered if you could physically feel the heat coming off of his face but that was not something he was going to let bother him right then

He was going to live in the moment

And perhaps thank the principal later

After a surprisingly productive and insightful discussion

It was finally ~lunch time~

The math department gathered up in the department head’s classroom to decide which of the nearby restaurants to choose to go to

And no one could agree

Not a single person was feeling like eating the same thing

Except Hongjoong he was agreeing with whatever you said

Not just because he wanted you to have your way but because whatever you said sounded good to him too

Maybe it sounded good because you said it but nonetheless

And then the department head said the following fateful words:

“How about you two just go ahead and we’ll try to decide on something for the rest of us

Hongjoong was suspicious right then and there that this was a setup

The department head probably had money on Before Christmas

But Hongjoong was absolutely not going to let this opportunity slip through his fingers

“I’m cool with that” you answered before Hongjoong could gather his thoughts enough to say anything

Then you turned to him

“I need to go grab my purse from my classroom. Do you need anything from yours?”

“Oh, yeah, just my wallet” he answered totally on autopilot

You stopped by your classroom first and then his since his was closer to the front of the school

He was so excited to finally realize that dream of his from a few weeks back

He was gonna buy you lunch

And not only that it was just the two of you going out to lunch

It didn’t matter that this wasn’t a date

Or that technically you were just gonna buy food and eat it back at school

It was special to him to go somewhere with just you 

That wasn’t school

Seriously he was so happy he couldn’t stop smiling when he told the cashier that your orders were together and he was going to pay

You kinda elbowed him and told him he didn’t have to do that

But he just shrugged and turned his smile on you

“But I wanted to” he replied

You accepted that

“It’s on me next time” you promised

And oh man he could have died right there he felt so complete

Except if he died then there would be no next time

But you were saying next time and it made him think that wow yeah this would happen again

You meant if it ever happened again but he was determined that it was a certain for the future

Because even if it didn’t happen by chance then he would make it happen himself

When you got back to the school the rest of the math department was gone so you started eating without them

And that was a magical moment of peace too

Just the two of you

No one around to tease Hongjoong

He could almost pretend you were just normal friends and he wasn’t head over heels for you

Then the rest of the department came back and they all had food from the same restaurant

So Hongjoong had been right to be suspicious earlier

It was most definitely a setup to get the two of you by yourselves

And he liked it so he wasn’t going to complain about it

Even though it was embarrassing

Well as fun as professional development day ended up being

Parent teacher conferences were not

Hongjoong was looking forward to more Mr. Principal shenanigans

Like maybe when all the teachers were in the gym yours and his table could be next to each other

And he could talk to you when neither of you had any parents

And when the night was wrapping up

And he could walk you out to your car because it was dark

And maybe treat you to dinner because the school-provided food wasn’t usually that great

But no

None of that could happen

Because someone had decided to have teachers stay in their classrooms for conferences this year

The parents would have the wonderful opportunity to get lost in their child’s school trying to find all of their classes

What a joke

They were probably going to get so many complaints they would switch it back to normal next semester

But the one time Hongjoong was looking forward to parent teacher conferences

Of course

Was the one time they had to switch it up

The one silver lining in this was the teachers complaining about it together

Hongjoong’s favorite email he had ever received was now from Wooyoung

Who was replying to the email notifying teachers of the different setup this year but just to Hongjoong

In all lowercase:

“hey loverboy u see this crap

math teacher romancephobic fr smh”

And then with his full professional email signature at the bottom

This precious email was moved to Hongjoong’s funny emails folder, which was usually reserved for unhinged student emails

He did not reply to it

San and the other phys ed teachers were joking about how nice it would be to have the gym to themselves for once but they were in agreement that this probably wouldn’t last

Of course the math department had tests scheduled across all the grades right before conferences

Which of course left everyone grading like crazy

And of course the kids trashed the classrooms the day before

And of course the head janitor ended up getting sick

So it was up to the teachers to make sure their classrooms didn’t look like trash

Even though they had 150+ tests to grade and a pile of late work to grade

And they had 24 hours (7 of which were going to be spent teaching, and hopefully 7-8 would be spent sleeping) to make this all work before parents started showing up at 4 o’clock tomorrow afternoon

What a time this was going to be

So Hongjoong picked up his pile of tests and went to your classroom

Predictably you were grading tests

He stole a student desk and moved it close to your desk

“Which tests are you working on?” he asked

“Eighth” you replied, not looking up from the test you were currently grading

“How does this sound” he began “I’ll take your seventh and you take my eighth so we don’t have to switch answer keys?”

Still barely looking up, you handed him three binder-clipped stacks of paper

“As long as you don’t mind working to music” you replied, your eyebrows raising as a little smile played on your lips

He took your tests and handed you his eighth grade tests

(This worked out nicely as you both had three classes of seventh and two classes of eighth. He was tricking you into letting him take the heavier load ohoho so sneaky)

(He was just lucky you were grading eighth instead of seventh first)

“Don’t mind?” he snickered, uncapping his favorite felt-tip grading pen “I’d prefer it”

And that’s how speed grading turned into karaoke

Grading went almost certainly slower than it would have if you had worked alone but it was way more fun this way

Of course he ended up with sixty some more tests to grade than you

So when you finished you left for a bit and came back with snacks

As well as his pile of late work

He tried to protest but no no

“You’re not nearly as sneaky as you think you are Mr. Kim” you teased him “You thought you could fool a math teacher into thinking we had an equal workload here?”

“That wasn’t the point” he whined, trying to put the cap back on his pen and inking his finger instead

“Then what was the point?”

I love you that’s the point

But what was the point actually

What was a point he could believably tell you without giving himself away

“Just…because” he said convincingly, shrugging his shoulders and settling back into his tests “You look stressed these days. Wanted to do something nice I guess”

You brandished his late work stack again

“So I’m going to do something nice too”

Yeah he probably wouldn’t ever feel this way about anyone ever again

For him at this point it was you or nothing

But the problem was he was willing to let it be nothing for far too long

He would never make a single move unless he knew you were okay with it

Because if he and his stupid heart ruined whatever you had going now then it would really be nothing

He wouldn’t give up the something he still had

He was like a curve approaching an asymptote

He could get infinitely close, but he would never actually touch you

After settling your gradebooks for tomorrow you started by picking up your classroom together

This did go faster with music by the way

And then you picked up his classroom together

And then he realized Hongjoong realized he could have his wish

The one about walking you out to your car and taking you out to dinner

Walking you out was easy but taking you out was another story

He would have to suggest it himself

A little known fact about teachers is that they became teachers because they don’t know how/don’t want to talk with other adults

Kids don’t judge you if something comes out of your mouth a little different than you meant it

Other adults are mean and judge you over silly things

This unfortunately meant that he didn’t know how to ask you to go to dinner with him without making it sound like a date

He was kinda just hoping a lil Kdrama moment would happen and one of your stomachs would rumble really loud so he could laugh it off and say you should go eat together

But you got closer and closer to your car and no tummy rumbling

You got to your car and no tummy rumbling

You opened your door and said goodbye and still no tummy rumbling

“Wait!!!”

He could have slapped his own mouth

You were a little startled but it stopped you from getting in your car

“Hmm?”

“Just uh…it’s kinda late and snacks are great but they’re not that filling…so do you wanna um…” he trailed off and did not finish his thought

“Wanna what?” you asked

Big boy pants Hongjoong come on

“Go grab dinner? Or something?” he finally spat out

He must not have seen your face light up in the dark

“No pressure” he added when you didn’t answer within 0.05 seconds

“No that sounds great! I was thinking of grabbing something on the way home anyway and it would be way more fun to do it with someone else” you accepted

He let you pick the place again and you drove separately because after you would be going in different directions

But it ended up being a nice little fast casual restaurant

And it didn’t feel like a date really but it kinda felt like a date but no it didn’t

It just ended up being a comfortable little outing between friends

Hongjoong knew he couldn’t stop smiling

And he wondered if you already knew how he felt about you

He was sure he didn’t smile like this at anyone else

And you were many things but dense couldn’t possibly be one of them

He knew he was the opposite of subtle

But if you were willing to spend time with him like this then that meant he didn’t make you uncomfortable

Honestly he was so used to the way you made him feel at this point that loving you from afar felt like second nature

Being friends with you was enough if he could keep loving you like this

The waiter came by and asked if it was one check or two

And Hongjoong was fully prepared to pay once again

But you beat him to it

You were already prepared with your card and everything

“I owe you for last time, remember?” you told him with a cheeky grin

He shook his head

“You don’t owe me anything”

“Well then next time it’s on you”

Hongjoong started to smile again

“Next time?”

“Well, yeah” you said with a shrug, now a little bashful “This was fun. We should keep doing it”

“It is fun” he agreed with a laugh “It’s nice to hang out with people outside of school for once”

You laughed at that

“Oh boy tell me about it. Nobody told me that teaching would ruin my social life”

And things just kind of continued like that for a while

Before you had come to the school, Hongjoong had lowkey felt like he was kind of going nowhere with his life

Any time he spent at school outside of his contract hours felt like an infringement on his personal time

Or not even at school, just away from home

He had been hoping that taking a high school position would give him back a little bit of the passion for teaching that he was losing

He hadn’t even been teaching that long it’s just that the profession really is like that

Indescribably rewarding and incredibly draining all at the same time

(Especially these days. Sometimes you really wonder if it’s worth it)

But having something to look forward to every day besides a favorite class ended up being what he needed to love his job wholeheartedly again

It wasn’t just you he had fallen in love with

He had also found new friends in an unlikely place

The math department was like family and he enjoyed their company dearly

But that weirdo phys ed teacher and obnoxious history teacher had turned into excellent friends frighteningly fast

Sometimes they joined you and Hongjoong on your dinner outings

And honestly it was such a blast

An amendment to my previous statement about teachers being teachers because they don’t like talking to other adults:

Other teachers often do not count as other adults

Sometimes they do when you have to have grown up conversations

But gossiping about students does not count as grown up conversation

There were some eighth graders that all four of you had

Hongjoong not currently but he’d had them for previous classes and they were now in your class

Was it a little embarrassing as 20 somethings to have your main source of gossip be preteens?

Yeah but oh man there is nothing like finding out which of your students are lying to their other teachers about the work they need to do

Or what they’re like in other classes

(You and Hongjoong, and sometimes Wooyoung, tended to have very different opinions about some students than San did so it was double fascinating)

Who they’re friends with outside of your class

Or crushes they have on each other

Basically if you spend every day around preteens you gossip like them too

It was now November and starting to get uncomfortably cold outside

So San had offered his home as a little gathering space for you all to order food and hang out

It was almost like a little Friendsgiving

“Any of you have (male student name, obnoxious connotation)?” Wooyoung asked, taking a sip of his soda

You immediately scoffed

“I’m about to write an email home about that kid”

Hongjoong was surprised

Annoying kids existed in every class but you usually had something nice to say about them at first at least before you got into the bad behavior

He hadn’t had this particular student but he was intrigued as to why he annoyed you so much

Wooyoung and San also both looked surprised

“He’s great in gym—like cooperative, doesn’t do stupid stuff too often—” San said “but that doesn’t usually mean anything about how they are in math class”

“No he’s great in history too” Wooyoung added “finishes all his work on time, helps his friends with theirs if he finishes”

Your eye might have twitched a little bit

You let out an unamused laugh and crossed your arms over your chest

Hongjoong was fascinated and quite enamored with this new side of you

“If he has time to help his friends then he should be working on the seven late assignments I’ve been reminding him about. He hasn’t turned in anything for two weeks”

Wooyoung gasped and covered his mouth

“You’re joking”

“I’ve talked to him about it twice and I warned him if I had to remind him a third time then I would email his parents” you said, shaking your head “Like I asked him if he’s understanding the material, if he’s got something going on at home, if he needs some help, and he’s giving me nothing to go off of”

Wooyoung smiled devilishly

“He’s been lying to me, then. I ask him every day if he has other classes to do stuff for and he says no. I will absolutely be getting on him about that”

San shook his head

“Teenagers” he sighed

Everyone nodded and repeated what he’d said

“Teenagers.”

After a moment of silence, Hongjoong spoke up

“How about (female student name, pleasant connotation)?”

The mood lifted immediately and everyone gave their own version of the word “aww”

“She is the highlight of my whole day” you said

“Seriously she’s so polite and she tries so hard even when she’s having a hard time” Wooyoung agreed

“Super athletic too” San added

“Ooh and (male student name, pleasant connotation)?” you said to another chorus of agreement “He’s kind of a punk sometimes but he’s another one that always does his best”

Hongjoong smiled

Complaining was fun, but he loved the light in your eyes when you talked about the parts of the job that you loved

Anyway as I said it was November and the Before Christmas faction of teachers was starting to get nervous because there was no sign of anything happening

They saw you walk out together more than usual but they didn’t know that you were meeting up outside of school and stuff

The kids were also more riled up about it than usual

To the point where Hongjoong wondered if the other teachers were inciting chaos on purpose

It was getting bad enough that one of his classes almost failed a test across the board—on a unit about rounding and converting fractions to decimals of all things

As in the easiest math ever

So Mr. Kim had to resort to drastic measures

At the beginning of all his classes, he drew a box on the edge of the whiteboard

“This is the nonsense box” he explained with a teacherly smile

That is to say frustrated but still filled with love for his students

“Every time one of you is talking about anything that is not related to class, a tally mark goes in the box. Each tally mark represents an extra fifteen seconds you get to sit in your seat after the bell rings”

A chorus of protest arose

“I don’t want to hear it” Mr. Kim shook his head “How many of you are planning on retaking last Friday’s test?”

About half of the hands in the room came up sheepishly

“Exactly. It’s because we’re constantly off topic that no one is able to listen and learn in here. We can do better, okay?”

And then immediately from the back of the room

“Ooh, Miss (L/N) just passed in the hall!!!”

And chorus of “Ooooooh”

Whether it was true or not, Hongjoong was happy to draw his first tally mark without a word

Just that same teacherly smile

Another round of protest came and he drew another one

After the third tally mark, they shut up

“Good. Let’s talk about coefficients. Has anyone heard that word before?”

Once again I will say it was November

And the month after November is December

And December is the month of Christmas

Not just Christmas break

But Christmas itself

And that meant that Hongjoong now

After coming back from a brief Thanksgiving break

Had only a few weeks to find you a Christmas present

Now he wasn’t thoughtless like this wasn’t the first time it had crossed his mind

It had just stressed him out wondering if he would have the guts to confess his feelings for you or if he would be outed somehow first

Plus in case y’all didn’t know teaching (especially teaching around the holidays) is stressful

He just imagined Christmas as this far off date that was too good to ever come

And so he hadn’t even had time to think about what to get you

Something for your classroom?

Something for your home?

A cute accessory?

A fun math shirt?

Not a gift card though that was far too impersonal

Nothing seemed good enough for you

If he were to deliver his feelings with a gift like any of these, it felt insufficient

Most lunches the last bit of November and the first week of December

(If not spent pestering you)

He spent fretting over his Amazon cart with his head in his hands

And then the most unfortunate miracle occurred

The heaters toward the math hall decided working at full capacity was a waste of tax dollars

And the weather was shaping up to be quite uncomfortable

Everyone started to bring blankets and stuff but it was never quite enough

Your classroom was especially cold, since it was the farthest down the hall

So Hongjoong was gifted an opportunity

He went and found one of those soft and cozy electric blankets

In a color he assumed to be your favorite considering how much you wore it and how many of the little trinkets around your classroom were that color

And he packaged it like he had meant to give it to you for Christmas anyway

Then he brought it for you the next day

You were sitting at your desk in your full winter outdoor gear with a blanket that did look cozy but thankfully was not electric

And your teeth were practically chattering as you waved hello

He still hadn’t taken off his coat or his gloves either actually

He set the present on your desk

“I was saving this for Christmas but I think you might need it more now” he told you with a grin

Your curiosity was suddenly piqued

You opened the gift cautiously, glancing up at him every few seconds

But as soon as you felt the material of the blanket, you perked up

And upon discovering that it was electric you could have cried

“I haven’t been able to feel my fingers since last week” you told him gratefully “Seriously I was trying to figure out how many space heaters I would need to buy to survive the winter”

“The department head has one in her classroom” he said “If you grab your old blanket and your laptop then you can let your new blanket heat up here while we hang out over there”

What a beautiful suggestion

The department head raised her eyebrow at the two of you coming in with blankets

But she smiled too when she saw you settling down in front of her heater

“Don’t tell anyone” she said “but sometimes I take a nap over there during lunch”

“Oh I see exactly why” you agreed, sitting cross-legged and setting your computer in your lap “I can literally feel my bones thawing out”

Hongjoong settled down a respectable distance from you

But he thought someone else was pranking him when he felt a blanket drape over his shoulders

He looked around, startled, and then he realized it was the other side of your blanket

You had thrown your blanket over him to share, even though he had one of his own

And now you were pulling his arm to get him to scoot closer to you

Was this a dream??

He would not be happy if his alarm rang

But no it was real and he happily obliged

You were sitting shoulder to shoulder again

Just like at the professional development workshop

Except this time it was so warm and cozy and there was definitely a much less professional vibe

The department head raised her eyebrow at you once again

But Hongjoong was way too enamored with your shy smile to notice

After just a few minutes in this cozy little haven

Your time was unfortunately cut short

Not by students arriving to school

But by Wooyoung poking his head into the classroom

“Oh I’ve been looking everywhere for you guys”

He stepped into the classroom and greeted its owner accordingly

She nodded as if to allow him permission to enter

“They have hot chocolate down in the teachers lounge” Wooyoung informed them “I figured you icicles back here in the freezer rooms would want some but it looks like you were hiding a—” he looked down at the two of you skeptically “campfire back here”

Wooyoung clearly thought he meant something by that but no one else knew what he was trying to say

So his last comment went ignored

“Do you want hot chocolate?” Hongjoong asked you “I can go get some for us”

“No it’s okay I’ll go with you” 

Oh Wooyoung saw exactly what was going on here

Hongjoong did not

Hongjoong was a little confused—was his help becoming an awkward burden to you?

While Wooyoung saw the truth

You just wanted the excuse to walk with him

Now Wooyoung had two choices

He could step back and let you two walk down together, maybe say something to speed this math teacher romance along

Or he could third wheel

And who was Wooyoung if he didn’t pass up the chance to annoy?

Plus he had taken an oath once he started collecting bets that he wouldn’t try to swing the competition one way or another

And since telling you about the hot chocolate while you were together felt like pushing the competition faster, it felt right to pull it back a bit by getting in between you for a few minutes

So he offered hands to both of you to help you off the floor

“Let’s all go together then” he said “You should also find out if your campsite director wants any”

“Campsite director?” Hongjoong asked, shutting his computer

You also closed your computer and set it aside, looking around to figure out who Wooyoung was talking about

“Your gracious host this morning” he clarified, giving the department head a charming little wave

You both took Wooyoung’s hands at the same time and almost pulled him down with you in the process of standing up

As you straightened your pants, you asked the department head if she wanted you to bring her back any hot chocolate, to which she responded yes please

Wooyoung insisted on walking in the middle

And Hongjoong wondered if all of the patience he had acquired as a middle school teacher was going to be spent on not wringing this guy’s neck this morning

Fortunately Mr. Jung acted enough like one of Mr. Kim’s students that he was able to pretend he was one and just let it go

Unfortunately by the time they got back to the department head’s classroom kids were starting to show up so that was the end of artificial campfire cuddle time

But there was a silent agreement as you picked up your blankets and computers that you would be doing this again sometime

The first few weeks of December didn’t necessarily fly by but they did go by quickly in hindsight if that makes sense

And before everyone knew it

Christmas break was upon you

And there was no further progression of the math department couple

The Before Christmas teachers had gotten antsier and antsier right up until the day before break started

But thankfully no one had been worried enough to interfere

Hongjoong decided to stay in his classroom that day

(As if he didn’t stay in his classroom every day)

Because people had been giving him disappointed looks all over the school and he was tired of it

Even the principal had made a trip to Hongjoong’s classroom the Friday afternoon before everyone left

Just to tell him how disappointed he was that he hadn’t had the guts to make a move even when he knew the principal’s precious money was on the line

And ask him if you were secretly dating already and just didn’t want to make a big deal about it

But ultimately to wish him luck and a nice break

A few minutes after he left, you popped into his classroom

You had your bag and your coat and it looked like you were ready to head home

“Are you so ready to get out of here?” you asked

He stopped immediately in the middle of his task and slammed his laptop shut

Contract hours had ended a whole minute ago and he had wasted a whole minute still doing work? On break?

“Say no more” he said, standing up and putting his coat on “We should have left five minutes ago”

“Wholeheartedly agree” you replied “I would have but the principal visited me and I felt like I had to look like I was doing something”

Hongjoong froze

The principal had visited you too?

Why?

For what purpose?

Betting purposes?

This technically didn’t still count as Before Christmas Break right?

“That’s weird haha he came and visited me too, like ten minutes ago” he said with the normalest most unbothered tone he could manage

(He tried)

(His voice was not quite an octave higher than usual)

(Which is considerable improvement since it’s usually an octave and a half)

“Maybe he’s just making rounds” you said with a shrug “It’s nice to see how much he cares about this school. Definitely one of the better principals I’ve worked with”

Hongjoong relaxed perhaps too visibly

“Yeah if you need a guy to have your back he’s got it no question”

“Anyway if you don’t have any plans for the day after Christmas you should spend it with me”

If Hongjoong had been drinking something he would have choked

Even if he’d had plans in the first place he would have canceled them for you

“My day is wide open” he said “As is almost all of my break”

You smiled and his stomach did a flip

He wondered if it was ever going to stop doing that

He hoped not

“Mine too. If you’re bored, you can probably text me and I won’t be doing anything”

Was it cringe that he was now looking for technically his second Christmas present for you?

Yeah maybe but that was his lifestyle now

To quote N.Flying’s Lovefool “if they call me a lovefool it’s okay as long as it’s for your sake”

Even if you didn’t see him that way that was A-Okay

Anyway he found some cute little math-themed trinkets like pi earrings and a right triangle pin that said “I’m always right”

Because actually who are math teachers if they don’t like puns

And the morning after Christmas Day he wrapped them up all nice for you

And he got ready to meet you at a little restaurant you now frequented together

But this was actually like the first time he was meeting you on a whole day off so he had to figure out how to dress not like a teacher but still kinda nice

He had no idea

All of his pants were teacher pants

His shirts? All teacher shirts

He was way too good at dressing for his job

So he wore jeans instead of his usual khakis and hoped that was different enough?

He also layered one of his graph paper teacher shirts with a plain t-shirt underneath and didn’t button it up

He looked himself up and down in his mirror, trying different poses to make sure he looked like a Normal Guy

In the end he decided his hair was the only issue

He only knew how to style it in a teacherly fashion

And leaving it unstyled wasn’t an option

So he looked up some tutorials on some easy styles but he just could not see himself as anything other than a math teacher

So he gave up and just prayed that he looked okay

You looked perfect of course

The difference was subtle in theory but the way you dressed, the way you did your hair and makeup, it made for a world of difference

Oh you looked so gorgeous he was never going to get over it

Your eyes practically sparkled when you met him out front and man he thought before that he couldn’t be more in love with you but he was wrong

You did seem a little more awkward today than usual and he couldn’t figure out why

Like you almost seemed nervous

What for? It was just him

You got your food and he suddenly remembered the gifts in his pocket

“Oh!” he exclaimed, pulling them out “I know I gave you the blanket a few weeks ago but I found these and I knew you had to have them. Merry double Christmas?”

You covered your mouth to hide your laughter and your bite of food

“That’s so funny because I found something for you too”

And you pulled a little package out of your bag

Down bad wasn’t even a good descriptor anymore and neither was head over heels like there had to be a stronger silly description of being in love and if there wasn’t it would have to be invented for him

You had found him a shirt that said “Math is hard. So is life. Get over it.”

(Tbh an actual shirt that I own)

And he promised you he would be wearing it the day you all got back from break

As for his silly little gifts you adored them

You put the pi earrings in immediately and started brainstorming what do do with the other things out loud

He could not have been happier with himself

And then you caught him staring at you

You paused in your excited little ramblings

He sat up a little straighter, wondering what to say next

But you smiled and looked down at your plate

“You’re pretty cute, you know that?” you told him, unable to meet his eyes for more than a second

In front of you, his first instinct was to deny the possibility and he followed it without thinking

“Eh, no I’m not—not in comparison to you, anyway”

Hmm if he wanted to keep his feelings secret then that was not the thing to say

But you deserved to know it

Not just cute but beautiful

Heartstoppingly so

You took the compliment well anyway

“Have you ever thought…” you began, trailing off

You watched him as he waited for you to continue, his eyes wide and curious

“Never mind” you dismissed with a casual wave of your hand

“No hey what were you going to say?” he asked

“Nothing I just had a weird thought for a second”

“No no come on! You know I wouldn’t judge you for anything”

You hesitated again and he could see that same nervousness he’d noticed before

“Have you ever thought…I don’t know” you put your elbows up on the table “of us as more than friends? Like dating maybe?”

Once again he was going to be very upset if his alarm clock went off now

But even if this was a dream, there was no harm in saying it out loud

“Every day since the day I met you” he answered honestly

You blinked like you didn’t believe him

“You’d better not be joking because I mean this like I’m risking our whole professional relationship here—”

And then he realized

You literally had no idea about him

Genuinely no clue that the whole school knew exactly how you had him wrapped around your finger

Except you

“—on the slightest chance that you might feel the same way—”

“Hey” he stopped you softly “I would never joke about how I feel about you”

Embarrassment began to set in for both of you

“Seriously,” he said, holding back a laugh, “you can ask any of my students, any of the teachers. I think you were the last one to find out that I have a massive crush on you”

“Oh no you’re kidding!” you exclaimed, your hands coming up to hide your face

“I really wish I were—Wooyoung has two rounds of bets going with the teachers about when and how we would end up dating. It’s just about me though—I don’t think anyone else knew about you”

You buried your face further in your hands

“That is so embarrassing” you whined “Seriously I might kill Wooyoung when we get back from break”

“I’ll help you” he promised

You ended up deciding to tell the other teachers on account of the bets they had placed on you

But you asked them not to tell the kids

Hongjoong was comfortable dealing with them at this point and he didn’t see the point in subjecting you to the attention he got about it

Speaking of the bets

No one won any of them technically

The two categories were before/after Christmas break and you notice/he confesses

And since you confessed during Christmas break well

As tempting as it would have been to say that you two deserved the money

(Especially on those teacher salaries)

You just made Wooyoung give it back to everyone who had put money down

And honestly? Very little about your at school dynamic changed

The kids still teased Hongjoong every day about his obvious soft spot for you

But he didn’t care because he knew better than they did anyway

You did actually start to notice now that kids were gossiping about you and Hongjoong

And it was really funny actually

Especially when he stopped by your classroom and the kids went dead silent watching you

Or when you left his classroom and you heard the kids explode with their weirdo little preteen comments from just outside in the hallway

Wooyoung insisted on telling you about every time you were mentioned in his classroom

This included the story about the girl rejecting a boy because quote no one can like anyone as much as Mr. Kim likes Miss (L/N) enquote

And you about died from laughter and embarrassment

Because how had you missed every single sign thrown your way??

It was so obvious now that you were dating him and you knew why he spent as much time as physically and contractually possible in your classroom

Because like I said very little about your at school dynamic changed

He still treated you almost exactly the same way

Except now if you were having a bad day he could hug you and kiss you on the head and tell you that everything would be okay and you were a good teacher

And if he got cold he could come to your classroom and have you sit on his lap while you shared your blanket

You were very very careful with any displays of affection by the way like it was only behind a locked door that you would even dare

Because firstly unprofessional

A literal breach of the code of ethics more likely than not

And secondly what if the kids saw you???

The other teachers were whatever like you didn’t really want them to walk in on you either but at least they were other adults

But the kids??? 

There were already too many rumors flying around the school about you and they did not need a even whispering of confirmation

The end of that came of course when you got engaged like a year or so later idk and you showed up to school with a ring on your finger and the kids went wild

“Mr. Kim she has a ring!!!”

“Mr. Kim what are you going to do?? She’s gonna get married!!”

“Mr. Kim you must be heartbroken”

You had prepared for this together

You had known it was coming so you knew you had to be ready for the chaos it was going to cause

So you had decided that he would also start wearing a ring to match even before the wedding

So to all his very concerned students he got to hold up his hand and say in the coolest most chic manner possible

“And who do you think gave her the ring huh?”

It was like setting off a nuclear bomb of middle school gossip but it was so worth it

Anyway breaking the chronological flow going back in time because this needed to be the last scene

The cutest change with your at school dynamic now that you were dating was now you could exchange secret messages on sticky notes with the papers you traded

He started it by handing you a test key to check with a sticky note on the top that you assumed was a label for what the test was

But on closer inspection it was a pickup line

“The limit of my love for you is like the limit of 1/x as it approaches 0; it doesn’t exist”

So you wrote back on the same sticky note “well mine is like 1/x^2 and it approaches infinity so there” and handed it back to him once you checked his key

Not to be outdone he wrote you a new note

“Girl are you a 30° angle inscribed in a circle because you’re acute-y pi”

Oh that one was bad

You had to give him something worse

“If we’re both math teachers, how come we have so much chemistry?”

You handed him that one in between classes

And as he read it he had to disguise his sudden laughter as a cough because there were kids around and they didn’t need to be curious about what he was laughing at

His next sticky note had a crease down the middle horizontally

128√e980

You recognized it immediately but you folded it in half to reveal the secret message anyway

“I love you”

So you gave him back “I hope you like fractions because you’re my other half”

You stored all these away in a little file on your computer titled “Valentine’s Day Math Jokes”

Maybe for some future Valentine’s Day activity

But mostly just to keep them all somewhere safe where you could look at them any time you wanted

Without some kid being like “oooh Miss (L/N) whatcha lookin at”

Your favorite note from him was about as simple and dorky as they came

Much like Hongjoong himself actually

Simplify 2x+6i<2(x+9u)

First you distributed the 2 on the right

2x+6i<2x+18u

Then since there was a 2x on both sides, you could subtract them and cancel them

6i<18u

Then divide by 6

And the answer made you smile every time

i<3u

(so I know how I wrote this so fast actually. I just have a goal to write 250+ words every day and uh pretty much every day of the month of January ended up dedicated to this one. Someone said Math Teacher Hongjoong and I (graduated in December with a math teaching degree, student taught in a middle school for 4 months) went feral over it whoops)

Masterlist

[one-piece-aus]

Whumptober Day 24

Paulie x Reader

"[Y/N]! THAT DRESS IS WAY TOO SHORT! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!"

"Calm down, Paulie." You roll your eyes and adjust your hold on your clipboard. "It's right at my knees, no big deal."

"Of course it's a big deal! This is a work zone and you're distracting the men here!" Paulie scolded with flustered red colouring his face.

Ah, such is the life of a lady working in Dock 1. You were part of the inventory keepers, noting when supplies arrived and where they'd go. Paulie the shipwright gambler, kept getting flustered over every little thing about your appearance when you two ran into each other during the same shift. At first, it bothered you, and if it weren't for Paulie seeming to be one of Iceburg's favourites, you would've tried drowning him. Then, someway, somehow, he grew on you.

"Oh pleasure, I won't be distracting anyone." You wave your pen around dismissively. "Besides I even got bending down covered, I'm wearing shorts underneath, see."

You tease him and lift the hem of your dress to show him your black shorts. Paulie's nose exploded blood out, steam flying from his face. Giggling, you drop your dress' hem back down.

"I think you broke him, [Y/n]," Kaku commented, walking up to you.

"He'll be fine. Whatcha need?" You turn to your other co-worker.

"New shipment came from the West Blue," Kaku informed you, leaning closer to add, "Devil Water Pose."

Devil Water Pose... Devil Wanted Poster...

Looks like another assignment has been added, which means your time at Water 7 is closing. Who knew Nico Robin would come here...

"Got it." You nod, keeping your smile. Kaku tips his hat and leaves to help other workers.

"What was that about?" Paulie asked, lighting up a cigar and raising a brow at you.

"Oh, Kaku just let me know about some supplies that just came in. I should go mark that." You spin away, finding it hard to face Paulie.

Paulie stares at your back, mildly puzzled. Something felt off, you don't leave in a hurry like that, especially in high heels. Maybe he's just overthinking.

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

You sigh, sitting at the bridge near Galley-La, clipboard in hand. Clicking the pen several times, trying to brush away writer's block, you stare at the paper underneath all the pages you stuff into the clip. If only you had more time to write this.

"What got you all bummed out?"

"Ah!" You flipped the papers down to hide the final page. Looking up, you see him. "Paulie, you scared me."

"Sorry," he apologized and leaned back against the railing of the bridge. "You gonna tell me what you were writing?"

"A love letter for you," you tease.

"Don't joke about that!"

You giggled, amused by his flustered state, until you looked back at the clipboard. Your mood goes back down. "I... I am writing a letter, I'm just not sure how to write it."

"Who's it for?" Paulie inquired, puffing out some smoke.

"...Someone I care about, I won't be able to see them for much longer."

"How come?"

"Work reasons," you answered, keeping it vague.

"Shame."

"Yup..." You stare at the water canal, biting back your tongue.

"Why don't you take the day off tomorrow to spend time with them?" Paulie asks.

"He'll be busy."

Paulie grumbles beside you. "What a chump, leaving soon and not bothering to spend time with you."

You giggle at the irony. "I don't blame him, Paulie. It's just how things are." You hear the man huff beside you before you continue. "Besides, he probably doesn't realize I care about him... I... I've been a little distant, you know."

"Shouldn't matter if you've been distant, it matters if he cares about you. Otherwise, you're just wasting your time." Paulie put out his cigar. You hum, acknowledging his words, even if your dilemma is different. A hand rests on your shoulder, you glance at Paulie. "If means anything, all of us at Galley-La care about you, [Y/n]."

"Thank you, Paulie." You wrap your arms around him, catching Paulie off guard. If things were different, maybe you would've given more than a hug. "Thank you for caring about me."

Paulie halts his emotions, sensing there's more to your story than you're telling him. He returns the hug, not understanding why it feels like you're saying goodbye.

And he won't know, until he reads your letter after you're gone.

Tags: @bookandyarndragon @roseoftrafalgar

[odocoiileus]

Hello! I'm not sure if you write for him, but can I have some hcs for RZ Michael Myers with a very silent s/o? (Like almost mute but can still talk, can be gn or any gender u want) Ty!!

pairings: rz! michael myers x gn! reader

warnings: mentions of murder, blood/gore,

a/n: of course anon! I write for any slasher for the most part. I'm also a huge fan of rz michael lol

talk about a match made in hell heaven, both of you are as quiet as a mouse.

it's a miracle that michael didn't kill you, though I fully believe that the reason he spared you in the beginning is because of how quiet you were — maybe he saw himself in you. either way, you're glad to be alive

it definitely took awhile for you two to get to know each other, considering you are both very very silent.

somehow, it still works out.

I imagine the both of you bond over doing arts and crafts, if you like those. such as mask making, drawing, letters confessing your love (seeing as you don't like to talk, this is probably the easiest way to express your feelings other than physical touch or gift giving, acts of service)

on the very rare occasions you do speak, it's usually only when Michael comes into your house soaked with blood, staring at you like a wounded dog. even then, it's probably only uttering his name.

you'll bandage whatever wounds he has (which isn't very often, I mean, the mans a tank) in silence, it's a comfortable silence. besides your irritated glare, of course.

you don't need to talk for him to be able to understand your anger when he's covered your floor with blood, which you'll have to clean up later

I think another way you could bond would be doing his hair, either braiding it or simply running your fingers through it. possibly even trim the dead ends.

this would be further into your relationship when the two of you are fully comfortable. I like to headcanon that Michael has a very high pain tolerance, but is tender headed. beware of knots!

I think Michael would be happier with a silent significant other such as yourself than one that's constantly yapping. it makes the connection much more genuine and deeper.

[shinobushaori]

I’m literally obsessed w/your work it’s keeping me sane while I try not to think about what’s going to happen to Shinobu in the next movie 💔

I’d like to request just some fluff of Shinobu x a fem reader and they haven’t seen each other for a while. Shinobu is busy being a Hashira and taking care of patients, and reader is busy being slayer taking on mission after mission. Finally, the reader makes it home to the butterfly mansion when it’s already well past dusk, and finds Shinobu slaving away doing late night research. At first Shinobu thinks the reader is some random assistant, but then she quickly realizes it’s the reader, and so Shinobu immediately halts all of her research to dote on the reader. Eventually it leads to the reader gently/lovingly scolding Shinobu for being up late again, which eventually leads to the reader and Shinobu going to bed, and as they catch up, cuddle, and exchange kisses both reader and Shinobu fall asleep. Just very fluffy stuff :D Maybe it even rains too, or it’s cold so Shinobu and the reader have to snuggle up under the covers. All in all just comfort and fluff!

A/N: You're in luck! I actually wrote something really similar but tweaked it a bit to more fit your request. And I'm so happy that my work distracts you as much as it distracts me! Especially from what's going to happen next year LMAO yeah I did find out while writing this tho that I suck at dialogues so that's.. something... hope you enjoy!

LIMITED TIME

- kochou shinobu x f! reader

warning: none

word count: 1.6K

"Finally!"

You squished the demon's remaining ashes under your feet, successfully extinguishing whatever profanities it managed to scream at you. Not bothering to listen to any of them. You're just glad that after a week of overstaying yourself in this village, you've finally gotten rid of the reason you were here in the first place.

It wasn't a strong opponent by any chance but it sure was tricky and cunning. Using ways that even you, who usually just go for the head, think of your actions more deeply. After all, one mistake could lead to a terrifying massacre.

But you waved all of that away. You managed to slay the demon and save people in the process, that's important.

After a while of receiving the countless grateful thank yous, you passed everything else to the Kakushis that had recently arrived with a nod.

"Ame."

Your crow perches on your shoulder and you smile, patting her ruffled feathers as she caws loudly. "Rest! Rest! Rest!"

You chuckle, "Alright, I got it."

Your thoughts wander as you walk towards the direction your crow was guiding you. Warmth settled on your stomach when you realized the familiar pavement and purposely stationed planted flowers as well as the occasional flutter and waves of butterflies.

'Ah.' You fully relax your body, seemingly melting from the warmth on your face alone. You cannot deny that you've longed so much from your family and most of all, from your lover.

It was an unexpected development, you could admit. From close co-workers to friends and then something more. Shinobu captivated you in more ways imaginable and possible. So, imagine the loneliness that clouded you every day that you were away. Being a Hashira as well as her, duties were indeed more important. But sometimes you wish you could be selfish for once and stay one more day with her, free of any worries outside normal, mundane concerns.

Alas, duty calls and you had to be away for two whole months! Countless missions left and right, your recent being the longest you've ever had. It was exhausting and mentally taxing waking up and only having comfort from the frequently exchanged letters sent by the girls and Shinobu before you ready yourself for another night of demon hunting.

Though, you suppose none of those matters now as you stood at the sight of the Butterfly Estate with a tired smile. The sun had already retreated for the day and the bustling mansion was still up and lively, likely nursing after wounded slayers.

You didn't want to possibly distract them so you discreetly went inside and almost immediately bolted towards the work office Shinobu must be working herself on.

You weren't wrong as the clanks and light stomps become audible from behind the thin door.

You widely grinned, you didn't notify any of the girls of your arrival as even you weren't sure when you're free of the duties given towards you. So, you were giddy in your place to surprise Shinobu with your presence.

You raise your arm to knock.

-

Shinobu releases a tired exhale. After the seemingly endless hours stretching on, the beaker she held between her fingers made it entirely worth it. With this specific mixture, she should have a nicely prepared scabbard full of poisonous concoctions of wisteria enough to last a few missions.

'I shouldn't worry for a while.' Shinobu sets the glass aside but momentarily pauses when a knock becomes audible. However, before she could speak, the swish sound of the door harshly sliding enters her ears.

She inwardly sighs, "Aoi-chan, I greatly appreciate your concerns but didn't I-"

"Give the poor girl a break, won't you?"

Shinobu blinks, snapping her head behind. Gaping with widened eyes as your tired state emerged from whatever hell hole you came from.

She eventually snapped out of this quick trance, smirking as you walked closer towards her while she slightly leaned on the table behind. "Oh? Don't tell me you abandoned your missions to visit me? That's sweet but I'm afraid I have to report you to Master~!"

You chuckled, missing her soothing voice yet teasing tone. The two months away truly took so much precious things that you can't help but treasure everything you missed from Shinobu. As you got closer, you immediately pulled her in a tight hug, inhaling the wisteria scent that clung itself onto her and she giggled at your desperate hold.

Feeling you rubbing your head on her neck made Shinobu even giddier, "Now, now. Are you actually coaxing me into not snitching? How cunning of you, my dear."

Already used to this, you didn't mind her teasing behavior. You know just how you could shut Shinobu's mouth and she's well aware of your ability to do so. That in mind, you worked your magic as your hands slowly wandered around her body, while placing small light kisses on her jaw and neck below, grinning at the way she softly sighed as you did so.

Shinobu bit her lip, feeling herself immediately fluster at your touch. She cannot deny she longed so much from you. From your silent touches to the loving gazes. After all, work and research could only do so much to distract her from her aching yearning for you. She's just glad that you're finally free of your duties as much as she is currently too. Tilting her head, she hums at the way your lips last longer on her skin and your palms softly caressing her waist.

"Missed you." You grumbled, leaning away to face her before tilting your head.

"Don't you miss me, too?"

Shinobu chuckles, finding your pleading eyes adorable as she brought a hand to rub your cheek. "Of course I did, my beloved." Her reply easily gets a shy smile from you.

"Good," You sigh, pressing closer towards her again. "..because I missed you so much I could just die."

The Hashira pats your head, loving the way you leaned most of your weight onto her, "Hmmm.. so dramatic."

You completely ignored her words, rather continuing on complaining about your previous missions, grumbling and groaning as if Shinobu was giving attention to everything other than the way you twirled her hair around your finger or the way you lock your jaw the moment you recall something entirely embarrassing or annoying. She could just stare all day and not get tired of doing so.

"..'nobu, Shinobu.. are you listening to me?" She hums, licking her lips and bringing her eyes back and up to your own with a sly grin.

"Something about demons, yes?"

Yep, she wasn't listening. You shook your head. "Well, that's all from me, how about you? I trust that you've been taking care of yourself?"

Shinobu visibly beamed, "Of course, I have-!"

"Don't even lie."

You immediately deadpanned. "You have a futon in here, which you only bring out if you spent a few nights here again. And don't think I didn't notice your cold and untouched dinner set aside either."

Her smile tensed, her head tilting as her purple eyes seemed to glint with a single brow raised. "Well, what's the point of asking something you're already aware of?"

You roll your eyes, "I wanted to test you," You shrug, leaning away from her touch. "I guess you failed."

Shinobu didn't even let a single second pass without her arms tangled around your neck as she immediately pulled you in, her smirk widening.

"Don't think I would let you escape that fast~"

You giggle, easily balancing the two of you as you give her a short kiss. "I'd be saddened if you did." You give her hips a small squeeze, "After all, I wouldn't dream of letting you go."

She huffs in amusement, "My, what a sweet talker you are."

"Says you."

Shinobu laughs, slowly pushing you towards the conventionally placed futon on the side. The two of you immediately cling onto each other, with you burying your head on Shinobu's neck while she lovingly caress your hair, the warm blanket sat above you two.

Pure small moments like these, seemingly ordinary yet profoundly precious, are what Shinobu cherishes the most. Nothing else but love and care radiating from the two of you. How she wishes time could stop and stretch on endlessly just for the two of you to spend time together.

You soon break the long and comfortable silence. "Take care of yourself, will you? Not just for me but for the girls as well."

You take a small peek at her, pouting at the way Shinobu simply smirks with her eyes closed, your words seemingly entering and leaving one ear to another.

"I mean it, Shinobu. Don't push yourself too hard, you deserve a break too."

She sharply exhaled yet the smile plastered on her lips softened hearing your words and you snicker seeing it. You know she secretly likes being taken care well. Although, you doubt she'll agree hearing it.

You return to your supposed location, deep down her nape once again with a satisfied smile. The warmth in your stomach increasingly grows, content being beside your lover like this.

"I love you."

Shinobu feels the heat creep up her face and ears, her heart tug felt painful yet she loved every single beat of it because she knows it's all because of you. You always make her feel like she's floating, always without a single fail. And at that moment, she feels all the strain for the past weeks leave her body as her comfort fully and rightfully embraced her.

Words could never capture the actuality of her feelings and yet it easily left her mouth anyways.

"I love you too."

As she always had and always will.

shinobu secretly liking being taken care of is so so canon to me that i jst had to mention it as a small detail idk why

GRGRGRGG i feel like I could've done better at portraying shinobu but i cant let yall starve any longer so i forced myself to publish this heheheh hopefully i could finish other requests too, have a nice day!

[bettyfrommars]

Death Becomes Us

vampire!Eddie Munson x supernatural!Reader

Series Masterlist

🚨: 18+Only, mature themes, blood, enemies to lovers, mention of a rough past, brief homelessness, eventual smut. Reader has visible scars, and an important history to go with them, but the specific skin tone is not mentioned. The Upside Down exists but is also very different from how it was in the show. Bob Newby is alive and well. Reader and Eddie are around 30.

Word count: 4.4k

Playlist: here

A/N: I came up with this during another True Blood re-watch, but as I started writing, it morphed into something else. If you are a fan of the show, part 2 will start to feel more familiar to you. I'm still deeply involved writing a different series atm, but have been dipping into this piece as I sink further into the sea of insanity. I'm not entirely sure how far I will take it🫶 Idk, it's just something fun and random. Hope you enjoy xoxo

------

Death Becomes Us - Part 1 - Dead Again

------

Daytime in Hawkins was safe; that is when the living walked the streets. You were turned down by several different places while looking for work, including the gas n’ sip, the hardware store, and Family Video. You were just about to head back when you saw the blue neon on the side of the next building, bricks painted black, windows heavily curtained. The sign said “Main Vein” in cursive blue letters and there was a red and white sign hanging underneath that read: HELP WANTED.

Because of the floor to ceiling, black out curtains, you couldn’t get a glimpse inside, and when you tried the door, it was locked. You noticed there was more written in cursive on the Help Wanted sign: Humans Needed for Day Help, and then a phone number.

You bent your knee to make a table for yourself and wrote the number on the back of the application for Family Video in blue ink, along with the name of who to ask for: Bob.

You took one last look at the place before returning to your ride that was parked on the other side of the street. It was the 1976 Cadillac hearse that your father drove for 15 years as a funeral director before he passed on, and then he had one last ride in it.

Your hearse was your house at the moment. You’d made a cozy little bed for yourself on top of a bedroll in the back where 2 decades of corpses had been escorted to their final resting place.

You’d been parking (living) at the Love’s Truck Stop that was just off the freeway about ten miles from Hawkins. They had showers there and you could brush your teeth, and splurge on a muffin and coffee in the morning. You should’ve moved on by now, but for some reason, you couldn’t. Hawkins had a hold on you unlike any town you’d happened upon in the past few months. Maybe it was all the death.

You’d called Bob at Main Vein from one of the payphones inside Love’s earlier and he told you in a chipper voice to come by the next day at a designated time after sunset, and that he was looking forward to meeting you.

Propped up behind the single bench seat in the hearse, you heard the motorcycles before you saw them. The windows around the coffin hold of the hearse were covered to ensure your privacy, but then their headlights lashed through the cracks in the black velvet curtains as they passed, shooting bright shafts of light across your face.

You poked an eye out to see the same vampire boys on motorcycles that you’d witnessed the night before. They always raced down from the hills, headed for the bridge and into town, long hair and black coats flying out behind them, howling and calling out to each other.

You drank the rest of your Yoohoo, hoped it wouldn’t make you have to pee before morning, and tucked yourself way down in the blankets, covering your head.

-----------

Sure, you were one of the living, but the sun had never agreed with you. You shielded your face with your arms, as if it were raining, as you dashed in and out of your hearse to do some errands the next day, including stopping by to check out a trailer for rent in an area that was mostly vampires. The human manager on duty was a woman in a floral muumuu and iridescent pink lipstick; her name was Dolores. She looked you up and down with unapologetic judgment.

“You’re not from around here, I take it.” She put her hands on her slight hips and exposed her pearly dentures to you in a bit of a grimace, squinting at the sun, her short, orange hair in perfect curls from her rollers..

You bit the inside of your cheek and told her you’d only been in town a few days.

She paused to indulge in a painfully drawn-out appraisal of the visible scars on your body. Thick, pronounced, railroad scars around your wrists that you tried to cover up with leather cuffs and bracelets, one that came up from the middle of your chest and peeked out from the collar of your shirt, one that looked like a long lash from the side of your mouth to your ear. Your left eyebrow was also cut in half by a line of scar tissue. There were other scars that you always kept covered up, and would never let anyone see: you were the freak of the human world, and you didn’t have an excuse to hide like the vampires did, but you secretly envied them for it.

“You’re not a damn tourist, are you?” Dolores asked, gesturing to the Polaroid camera you had in your hand.

“This? No,” you assured her. “I don’t really care for vampires.”

This was a relief for Dolores, because ever since families had started flocking to Hawkins to get a glimpse of the bloodsuckers, the whole town had become a nuthouse of folks wanting a tug on Satan’s proverbial ball sack. People wanting to rent the vacant trailer just so they could see the Fangers come out at night and smoke their cigarettes and fornicate with each other?? Didn’t these idiots know that they killed humans for fun? Drank their blood? All of it was an abomination and a sin against god and Dolores was one of the most god-fearing woman in the county.

She fumbled with her keys as the two of you came up onto the porch of the rental. The exterior was yellow, which was probably your least favorite color, and the porch was wobbly, bare wood, and the first step was cracked like someone had stomped on it a little too hard. There was a small, round metal table with two metal camp chairs with a used ashtray sitting in the middle.

“The ad mentioned that the rental is furnished?” You wanted to confirm because you had no furniture of your own and that particular detail was a huge selling point. Otherwise, you were doing just fine in the hearse, even if the coffin rollers stuck in your back at night.

Dolores nodded as she turned the knob and pushed the door open. “Previous resident couldn’t take it all with him when he moved up to Heaven to be with Jesus, so you’ve got a sofa, kitchen table set, TV, microwave,” she went over to stand by the pea green, formica island that jutted out as a divider between the living room and kitchen, opening her palms to the sky. “Gas stove, baseboard heat. Standing shower only, no bathtub.” There was a large velvet painting of geese in flight over a pond above the wagon wheel design, orange and brown couch.

You followed her hand gesture down the narrow hallway. “Plenty of storage space. Brand new toilet, just had it installed. First months rent plus $100 deposit, $25 deposit for each pet. Garbage and cable included. Rent is due on the 5th of every month, no exceptions.” She came in close to say the next part, whispering it, covering her mouth. “Might want to turn the mattress over before you sleep it, though. Poor thing passed away in there and it was a week before anyone realized.”

The unpleasant odor hiding under a mask of Glade room freshener you’d been trying to identify was suddenly explained. You could also hear flies buzzing down the hall.

Dolores stepped up to pull back one of the brown curtains of the front window, exposing the glorious expanse of the sparse, dead grass that separated you from your neighbors. “It’s quiet during the day, you won’t hear a peep, but I advise you to lock your doors at night and don’t go out unless it’s absolutely necessary,” she turned to make serious eye contact with you. “Or unless you’ve got some kind of death wish.”

You came over to look out of the window as well, taking note of a garden gnome statue flipping the middle finger on the weathered porch steps across from yours. “I thought vampires and humans were successfully co-existing for the most part since we offered them asylum from the Upside Down? It made worldwide news. With the invention of synthetic blood substitutes, I heard it’s been going fairly well, considering.” You could feel Dolores frowning at you, upset that you didn’t want to engage in her rhetoric. You cleared your throat. “Like I said, I don’t care for them myself. I'm sure there are a few bad apples who ruin it for everyone."

Dolores wiped her face of any emotion. “Those bad apples you speak of? Well, you’re in luck, hunny, because they’re all right here in this trailer park.”

You lifted the Polaroid camera to your eye from where it hung around your neck, and snapped a photo of the vulgar gnome on your neighbors porch before you followed Dolores to the office to sign paper work.

----------

You got out of of your hearse in front of Main Vein just as the sun set, tall trees tucked cozily in the hazy purple sky, and there was an immediate shuffling of feet, opening of windows, and mumbling of voices all around the town as humans locked their doors and the dead were rising.

You were about to touch the metal handle on the curtained, glass door to Main Vein, when someone pushed it open from the inside, startling you.

A stout, cute man appeared with sparkling, eager eyes, and rosy apple cheeks. His skin flushed with the vibrant color of someone who was alive, just as he flashed a mouth of vampire teeth.

“Don’t vorry,” he said in an attempt at a Hungarian accent. “I von’t suck your blahhhd,” and then the plastic white teeth in his mouth slipped and he caught them in his hand, sucking back a line of saliva, smiling at you, chuckling at his own joke, skin crinkling around his eyes.

You were too confused to speak, your mouth moving like a fish out of water, hand paused in the air.

“I’m just kidding, it’s a joke,” he said, holding up the teeth in his hand to assure you they weren’t real as he held the door open. He had on a plaid sweater vest over a white shirt and trousers. “I’m not a vampire. But a lot of my friends are. Come, come, let’s get you some tea or something. Do you like sweet tea? I just made some. Is that your car out there? That’s amazing!”

You didn’t get a chance to introduce yourself as you shuffled in, smiling and nodding.

The inside of Main Vein looked like a hip dive right out of a movie: exposed brick on one wall, dotted in artwork, a long bar on the opposite side that appeared to serve beer, wine, and cocktails, classic, original wood floor, and a small area toward the back where some microphones and instruments were set up. The blue neon repeating the name Main Vein above an open space behind the bar where the kitchen was.

“Are you musical?” The man you assumed was Bob asked over his shoulder as he gestured for you to take a seat at a table where it looked like he’d been jotting things down in a spiral notebook.

“I sing sometimes,” you cleared your throat. “In the shower, mostly.”

Bob Newby laughed so hard he threw his head back. “Oh, you’ve got a sense of humor, I like it. We need more of that around here. Don’t we, Argyle?”

You hadn’t noticed him at first, but on a stool behind the bar, a tall guy with long, straight black hair sat a bit hunched over, engrossed in a celebrity magazine.

“Totally, man,” Argyle agreed, but then he looked up. “Wait, what was the question?”

“That’s Argyle, he really is a vampire. He lives upstairs. He’s also the best bartender in town,” Bob moved his hand between the two of you. “Argyle, this is---”

You told them your name.

“Rad,” Argyle said, hoping from the stool, flapping his magazine down on the counter, squinting across the bar to see you better in the dim, blue light. “It will be nice for Bob-a-roonie to have another human around. I like your scars, they’re sick.”

You hadn’t even been interviewed yet, let alone officially hired, so you weren’t quite sure how to respond, but you nodded at what was intended as a compliment.

Bob adjusted himself in the seat across from you, and you asked if he preferred to be called Bob or Bob-a-roonie, to which he responded: “You can call me anything you want, just as long as it’s not late for dinner.”

When Argyle brought over two glasses of sweet tea, his sharp fangs shot out when he winked at you, and you weren’t sure if it was a threat or something flirtatious. One thing unnerving about vampires was how the irises of their eyes went completely black when their fangs came out; that was something that would take you a while to get used to. You’d heard about the phenomenon, but in person it was particularly jarring.

Bob asked you a few standards, polite questions, but then the curiosity was killing you, and you had to ask: “What type of food do you serve? I thought vampires only subsided on blood?”

Bob smiled and wagged his finger at you. “I knew you were a smart one. You ask good questions!”

He came forward in his seat, excited. “This place,” he gestured around the building. “Is about to be one of the first crossover Human/Vampire establishments in the area. I asked myself one night, I said Bob, what is missing in Hawkins? And then I went to make plans with my girlfriend, who just happens to be a vampire, and there was nowhere we could go out on a date together where the menu accommodated both of us.”

Okay, you could see where this was going.

“So, here we have it,” He sat back, giving himself a bit of double chin as he smiled. “Our menu offers a selection of blood substitutes like Fang Tang and LifeForce, as well as some ethically sourced blood from local donors, and then we have a full bar and an appetizer menu. We’ll have an open mic night, maybe a bingo night. Vampires and humans having a laugh together. It’s perfect, right?”

Your eyes didn’t know where to settle as you took in the information, imagining vampires on dates with humans, and human/vampire hybrid families all clinking silverware and slurping their meals like it was the most natural thing in the world. It was a scenario you’d never imagined or heard of before, but hey, if Bob was excited about it, well, then, you were excited about it too.

“It’s great,” you cleared your throat, taking a sip of tea. “When do you plan to open?”

Argyle heard your question from behind the bar and he snorted a laugh, flipping the page on his magazine.

“Well, we are open, technically. We’ve been open for a week,” he stuttered but then gave an approving sniff. “but new concepts like this take time to catch on.”

“Plus,” Bob continued, eyebrow raised. “That’s where you come in. I want to start opening earlier on the weekends, see if we can get a bit more human traffic in to try out our happy hour menu that Argyle worked so hard on. What does your availability look like?”

“Oh, I’d be happy to work whenever you need me,” you assured him. “I don’t have any restrictions.”

“What about kids? No family?” He asked it innocently enough, but still it put a lump in your throat for some reason. You were almost 30, and you weren’t falling in line with the standard human breeding ritual, so it made people curious.

You lowered your eyes as your index finger started to work at a piece of skin on your thumb. “Nope, just me.”

“I’m sorry,” Bob’s brow creased. “I didn’t mean for it to sound…I just wanted to know if you could work weekends, that’s all.” He exhaled a breath, slapped his hand to his thigh, and then asked you when you could start.

You were on the verge of telling him you could start immediately when the door to the outside opened, and out of the corner of your eye, you saw Argyle’s face light up at the sight of whoever it was.

“Yo, Eddie, man, what’s going on, my dude?”

“Not much,” a deep voice muttered as you peeked over your shoulder to see who it was, trying not to twist around fast and make it obvious.

But it was still obvious, and his eyes snapped to yours as he stood in the doorway, hesitating with his toes at the threshold, holding the door open with his body.

The guy called Eddie was at least 6’3” with a strong, but thin build, long wavy dark hair passed his shoulders and across his forehead. There was a tattoo along the side of his neck, and on the backs of his hands, while the rest of him was in all black: boots, jeans, leather motorcycled jacket, and a tattered Type O Negative shirt underneath with ragged edges around the neckline where the collar had been ripped out. His skin was not chalk white, more like vanilla ice cream, and his plump lips were somehow pink.

Eddie was a vampire.

“Come on in, Eddie,” Bob swung his hand over his head, gesturing for him to enter. “Fang Tang cocktails are half off until midnight.”

At Bob’s formal invitation, Eddie stepped into the space, and made his way over to the bar to straddle a stool and talk with Argyle.

“What do you think?” Bob’s voice brought you back to reality.

“Sorry?” You swallowed awkwardly as you turned back to him.

“Tomorrow? Can you start tomorrow?”

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

As you parked your hearse at an angle next to the trailer, you took notice of how changed the scene was from earlier that day. Every single curtain in the 10 or 12 trailers were open, exposing vampire lives being lived, television being watched, couples kissing, and there was a bonfire in the middle of the courtyard. A few heads atop dark shadow figures turned at the beam of your headlights before you flicked them off.

You were safe in your rental from vampires, you knew this, and it had been confirmed by Eddie pausing at the door of Main Vein earlier.

They had to be invited in.

But, you were fair game out in the open, so lingering there after you slammed the hearse door was possibly, as Dolores suggested, a death wish.

Maybe that was the point. Maybe you didn’t care anymore.

You were cautious not to land your foot on the broken stair as you made it up to the porch and put your new key in the lock. All around you floated the soft existence of a summer evening: crickets and frogs sounding their alarms while the incense of charcoal briquettes filled the air and the occasional tipsy laugh cackled in the distance. Bottle rockets zoomed off at a shrill speed and then exploded into tiny gold bursts in the sky.

A few minutes later, you stood staring at the dark red and yellow stain on the mattress in the wood-paneled bedroom of your trailer while you ate a few salted peanuts from a jar, deciding in that moment you’d rather sleep on the sofa for a night than do the work of scrubbing it, turning it over, and dressing it with new linens. You were too exhausted for that shit.

You washed your face and unpacked a few things, but that was the extent of your energy. You decided it was time for a beer on the porch before bed, and that is what you went out to do.

To your delight, there was a black and white cat walking the plank of your porch railing. Not much older than a teenager, with handsome yellow eyes. You held your beer in one hand while you stroked her from head to toe with the other, grinning and cooing as she bucked against your touch and purred. Your porch light was broken, but the glow from inside your trailer lit the expanse of her long whiskers.

“Dio,” a deep voice said from somewhere in the darkness, startling you.

You stepped back, closer to the door of your trailer, eyes adjusting to the outline of a silhouette at the bottom of your stairs.

Vampire Eddie flicked his lighter, and you caught his face in the flame, just long enough for him to ignite the end of his cigarette before it was dark again. His eyes lifted to meet yours at the last second before he fell into shadows again.

“Her name is Dio,” he repeated, introducing his cat. “She doesn’t like anyone but me.”

As he said it, the Dio in question sprang down from the beam to circle your legs, purring, rubbing her face on you. “Well, I don’t know about that,” you started. “She looks like she---”

“What are you doing here?” Eddie’s voice interrupted.

You glanced around, wondering if someone else had walked up.

“You don’t belong here,” he continued talking to you, specifically. You watched the cherry of his smoke light up as he inhaled, and then a plume of white smoke on the exhale, like you were having a conversation with The Invisible Man.

You leaned your shoulder against the railing and laced your fingers around your beer. “Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t belong here,” you countered, meeting his eyes as best you could in the darkness, tension sparking like electricity in the space between. “This is my porch.”

Eddie scoffed, flicking ash to the ground. “You have no idea what you’ve stumbled onto here, Princess.”

You wandered over to close the distance between the two of you, down the three rickety stairs to the dead grass, as another bottle rocket fizzed like pop rocks overhead.

Eddie stood his ground, even though it was insane Human behavior to be so casual with a vampire like that. Did you have a wooden stake you were going to try and drive through his heart? That was one of the only myths that held true for slaying his kind: wood and silver and sunlight; the trinity of vanquishing. Holy water was a joke, he could drink that all day long, and crosses were everywhere in his home décor.

There you stood, within arms reach of a supernatural killer. He could rip your throat out in the time it took for you to steal your next breath, but instead, he shifted his mouth to exhale his smoke to the side so it wouldn’t go in your face.

His eyes never left yours.

Chocolate brown peepers, rimmed in long, dark lashes; you could see the fine details of his face now that you were closer. You waited for his irises to go full black as Argyle’s had done when his fangs came out, but Eddie only parted his lips as the muscles of his throat jerked in a reflexive swallow as you matched the intensity of his eye contact. You intrigued him in a way that no one had in a very long time.

“So, what do you want?” You asked, point blank.

He used the hand holding his cigarette to jerk his thumb over his shoulder. “Dio and I live here,” he said, referring to the trailer with the vulgar gnome on the steps. “I’m just having a smoke before I go inside. If that’s alright with you?”

“Oh,” you felt a bit foolish, but how were you supposed to know? Earlier, you’d noticed an old van parked in his spot next to the trailer, but now there was a black BMW there, and you weren’t a car expert, but it appeared to be one of the newer models.

“Whose car is that?” You asked with a jerk of your chin. There was a better way you could’ve asked it, but that is just what slipped out of your mouth in the moment.

Eddie turned his head to stare at the BMW for a blink, cigarette secured between his lips. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart,” he told you with a squint.

You regretted ever trying to make conversation. “Great, well, enjoy your evening. Or the start to your day. Whatever the hell it is,” and then you stuffed one hand in your pocket and spun on your heel.

His heightened reflexes had a hold of your arm in a flash to catch you and stop you. His touch was icy on the crook of your elbow, and when you spun around, you regarded him with eyeballs that were milk white, void of iris or pupil. “What the hell…” he hissed under his breath, fascinated. But then you blinked, and your eyes were back to their natural state, and it made him question what he’d just seen.

He noticed your scent was different too, come to think of it. You smelled human, but there was also something else mixed in with your tissues, swimming in your bloodstream. It hinted to rain and static and firework sparks.

“What are you?” He called from the bottom of the steps as you booked it up the stairs and across the porch.

With your hand on the doorknob to your trailer, you responded, “don’t worry about it,” calmly, without looking back, and then you fumbled the door shut behind you and locked it, frantically, as if you were being chased.

“What are you?” His question repeated in your head, as you worked fast to make sure all of the curtains were closed. You didn’t want anyone to see you. You stopped in the hallway and put your face in your hands, trying to catch your breath, trying to figure out why that question had bothered you so much; it’s not as if you’d hadn’t been asked it a millions times before. Why did he bother you so much? He was just an ordinary vampire for fucks sake, you demanded that you get a hold of yourself.

Absently, your fingertips traced the ridge of the long scar across your cheek, and you prayed to whichever deity was listening that any interaction with your neighbor Vampire Eddie from there on out would be minimal.

--------

Part 2: When Doves Cry

[sh1-n0bu]

Dear Judal/Judar, (From Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic),

Hello! How are you doing these days? I've heard from a source that you've been busy with your duties lately. It's not easy being a Magi, from what a little boy with blue hair told me.

Do you still take time to care for yourself, such as doing your makeup and hair? I remember it being really pretty the last time I saw it, though, my memory might not be the best. Years of working yourself as a slave in the slave trade does that for you, I suppose.

Right, the reason I'm writing this letter. Today is actually my last day of being a slave. I wish I could say that I'm finally being freed from my shackles from all these years, but that isn't the case.

Unfortunately, I will be killed tomorrow for the death of my master.

I'm writing this letter from my cell while waiting for the executioners to take me away, to the person I value the most. I still can't think of a reason why you helped me that day when I was attacked by those bandits. Perhaps it was for your own benefit, or you simply did it out of boredom. That seems like something you would do.

Or the occasional nights where you visited my barren room to accompany me. Those visits might've been small to you, but to me, they were more precious than any gold or gems I've seen. You made life feel like it was worth living a little longer in.

I may have only met you sparingly, but you've given me advice and wisdom that helped push me forward, to keep striving for what I wanted. Even if it was selfish.

In the end, all I truly wanted was you.

Sincerely, a friend.

I hope this letter finds its way to you, even after I pass.

𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜! 𝙣𝙤𝙗𝙪’𝙨 𝙢𝙖𝙞𝙡 𝙙𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙞𝙘𝙚!

to: judar from magi

being a magi was, in all honesty, fucking boring. at least, to someone like judar.

he hated the constant bows and kneeling, the constant titles, names that are bestowed upon him. the duties of a magi, of having to choose a king so that one day, his chosen king would actually become a successful one rather than some pathetic excuse of a ruler. don’t even get him started on the annoying meetings, rituals, magoi training, diplomatic reasonings and travelings. ugh. at least he can run away from those boring, long, arduous meeting to have some fun in the gardens.

by fun, the arrogant magi meant slacking off as he bites into another random peach he stole from the kitchen on the way there. or even by running away from the castle’s depressing walls to see what was different on the outside world since the last time he visited. he could also hear some of those pathetic elder magicians cry out as they chase after him in a measly attempt to bring him back to his "duties" as they call it. duties, his ass. all the magi saw were bunch of papers, scrolls and more boring meetings with diplomats. he wanted to have some fun, y'know?!

it was during one of those usual running away from duty moment when he saw something that barely managed to pique his interest. a slave, judging by the chains keeping their feet together to not let them run away, but somehow protecting a kid as they face off against a bunch of hooligans looking to make names for themselves. judging by the lack of magoi fluttering around the adult slave, they weren't a magician, a dungeon capturer, a household vessel user nor even a fanalis. the slave was just some random human who was acting as a hero to protect the kid covering behind them.

judar should have left when the first punch landed and yet something compelled him to stay. to watch how the common, unlucky folk suffer while he goes on about his day and night like nothing is out of place within the safety and comfort of the palace walls. watch as how even when threatened with the most vile and terrifying actions imaginable against them, the human persists to keep a random child safe.

to intervene when the third punch landed.

the dark magi doesn’t know what compelled him to act out or to protect this random slave and a homeless child. they meant nothing to him, just some random poor folk that he saw. yet something felt weird. seeing how the unlucky get treated simply for being born unlucky caused him to stay and to protect them when they could provide him absolutely nothing. not even a fickle of entertainment. magis are the ones who have stayed at the top of the food chain since the beginning of time and will continue to do so. the magois and rukh of the world and people are at their disposal, ready to carry out their command at any given moment.

yet here judar was, protecting some two strangers whose rukhs barely flickered enough to cause some color. such fickle beings, such unlucky creatures and yet here he was… here he was reaching a hand out to help them on their feet, accompanied with a “are you two alright?”. what has gotten into him all of a sudden? whatever it was, it didn’t go away after saving their lives. no, it stayed and lingered on forcing him to do the same.

since there was nothing else to give the twisted magi some sort of entertainment at the time, he decided to continue to stay with the pair. and he continued to do so even at the following days when he no longer needed to save them. just his presence hovering around the pair was enough to shoo away any other assholes that wanted to cause them harm. and in a way, judar felt happy that no one was hurting them, at being their protecter in a sense.

everyday, judar would find himself running away from his duties at the kou castle to pay a visit to the slave he helped. the child had disappeared one day he returned and all the explanation he got was that the child had escaped. how? no one knows. but the adult who was left behind had an odd sense around them. their rukh was starting to dim and become more slower. were they sick? they didn’t look like it. but just in case they were indeed getting sick, he whispered a few health spells on them alongside a protection one before leaving.

each day judar comes to spend some time with the slave — while also using it as an excuse to run away from his magi work — he started to look forward to these little moments in his life. a peach from the castle one day, a fruit on the market square he saw on another day, a beautiful yet a simple looking ring one of the merchants were selling. each time he brings a little gift, the slave always bashfully denies it at first, saying that they were a slave and not a worker. each time judar made them accept his gifts.

judar will never confirm it out loud but he loved the little meetings he had with them. they were… nice. kind to him. not the bootlicking type of kind that he runs into everyday but the kind that is genuinely coming from the bottom of the heart and he felt that. judar enjoyed the little laughs the slave would make whenever he tells a joke or a funny story from the castle. the little dimple in their cheeks and the bright smiles. judar liked the look of awe on their face whenever he showed them a small trick — a little show of rukhs swarming at the tip of his wand or the icy flower he creates at random before tucking it behind their ear.

the prideful magi would never say it, but… he loved this person. this kind person who just gotten unlucky.

“i’ll get you out of here, alright? wait for me. i’ll come back tomorrow to set you free”

yet where were you? the rooms that you usually clean were being cleaned by another servant. when the servant in the room saw him, they dropped their towel to the floor in shock. but judar didn’t care if the servant was about to drop to their knees to honor his title or anything. he had no time for it.

“you didn’t knew, high magi? their master was killed and so, all the master’s slaves must be killed as well” the poor shaken up servant explains, handing him a letter as well. taking the letter, the magi wasted no time in ripping open the letter to read its content. judar was seeing red. he always had a certain amount of hate towards those who worked in the slave trades. he may be egotistical at times but judar still had feelings and emotions.

and right now, he was enraged.

“where? where did the executioners took them?” he asked frantically, almost sounding like a madman as he forces the poor servant to answer him. if his past self had looked at himself now, he would have laughed at the look on his face. maybe even mock himself for even daring to become this soft. but he didn’t care for that or how soft he had grown since meeting them. right now, he was just focused on finding them. and this time, he will hold his promise and set them free.

[mercair]

Goodbye Mercair

On January 7th of 2017, i posted my first song ever. It was a shitty self-insert megalo that never got any likes and barely got listened to. But i didn't really make it to get popular, i knew at the time that that would never happen and i was okay with it, because i didn't make that song for that. That first song was my way of thanking this community for helping me so much during a grim part of my life, to thank YOU, Undertale/Deltarune fan just for being there, creating stuff, and making people happy... I wanted to pay back the happiness this community gave me, and it has been like that ever since.

But now i realize, after 7 years, that... I'm not needed here. Whether i'm here or not, people would still be happy. People would have banger songs to listen to and characters to obsese over, without me. And that's wonderful! I enjoy seeing people happy more than i enjoy seeing myself. Just like in real life too, i'm the kind of person that can disappear from earth, and almost nobody would notice. But it's not like i can blame them, in the last 7 years i've been here i barely talked to anybody, i barely interacted and i barely got any friends.

And also, i'll just never be able to pay my debts with this community. I owe you guys so much, but nothing of what i do will ever be enough, not for me at least. And now i just have nothing to offer. I have no new ideas, i'll have no way of composing in what seems like months at this point, and i just lost my motivation. I've ran out of excuses to justify my presence in this place.

But also, in all honesty... After 7 years of creating stuff, even though i told myself that i never did it for popularity... I just thought i would stop feeling like a nobody, and that i'd stop feeling jealous of everyone else's success on this community. Is that ungrateful of me? Am i being greedy and not appreciative enough of what i got? Honestly, that's another reason of why i decided to leave; i'm just so secretly jealous of every other famous person in this fandom, i just think it'd be unfair for you guys to have a person like me around here. Ungrateful, greedy, jealous.

So i decided it's just time. To give up. To leave.

Once i'm done writing this letter, it'll be over. I'll stop being a musician, and i'll stop being an artist too. But please don't be sad about that. I don't want you to be sad. I want you to keep being happy, living in this fandom, like always. Keep making banger tracks, keep making cool art whether it's of your favorite characters or your own awesome ocs, keep talking to your friends and the people who love you, and overall, just forget about me. Forget about all of this. All my creations, all my characters, songs and concepts, they're not worthy of your praise. But everyone else's stuff is. So please, don't remember me or else i won't be able to leave this place in peace.

And now, i guess the question people are more interested in right now is "What will happen to all your stuff then?" Well, as some may have noticed, i've already taken down all of my original tracks from my soundcloud account, except for the covers/songs i made for other people and collabs, which are still up, since they're either not my characters, or i just wasn't the only one that worked on it, and it would be unfair to delete it. The soundcloud account will soon go unnamed, and i'll erase any connection to me it has, so people will be able to listen to those songs, without my name in it. As for my Tumblr and Twitter account... I'm now debating on whether or not to delete them, or just do the same and erase my name from both of them. I also gotta point out the possibility of me regreting this decision, but even if i do, i'm most likely not coming back.

So that's it. But before i go, i want to apologize. For everything.

I'm sorry i wasn't the best at what i did.

I'm sorry if my music wasn't good enough to make you smile or bang your head to it.

I'm sorry if my artistic abilities never catched your eye.

I'm sorry that i was never able to make a character you could obsess over.

I'm sorry if i was just too awkward and unfunny when talking to you.

I'm sorry if i was never able to become your friend and be someone you could talk to on the daily.

And most of all, i'm sorry for thinking that i could be like you. That i could be one of you.

All of you are so talented... SO incredibly talented and such good people... You're all legitimatlly amazing, and don't let people tell you otherwise. You're all gonna do great stuff in the future with the skills you have now, i guarantee it.

Well, i have to go now.

Thank you. For everything, and for what you did for me so many years ago. Thanks to you, i managed to be happy for the last 7 years of my life.

Goodbye UTDR.

[kerubimcrepin]

Liveblog: Wakfu Season 2 (episodes 10-12)

BRAKMAR BRAKMAR BRAKMAR! Sorry, as an Atcham fan, I love Brakmar just as much as I love Bonta.

Two cities alike in their shitty dignity.

My favorite dystopia <3

Other things that exist in Krosmoz in Wakfu era: neon signs and these wagons for transportation.

Now I'm imagining Atcham advertising himself this way...

I think Joris should go there and be a Bonta nationalist. Mostly because I think the resulting brawl would be hilarious.

They covered the entire place in blood...

If this is a real crime in Brakmar then I cannot imagine how Atcham's triple-crossing self was living in Brakmar after betraying them to go live with his family and Bonta. And how he then went on to live back in Bonta again.

Actually insane.

I do wonder where this ruling comes from, historically. Though probably it's just "We HAVE to out-evil Bonta. So misogyny it is."

I don't even have that much to say about this — besides "grrr Bonta and Brakmar lore"

Sex-work is pretty common and open in Brakmar. We have seen that it is also present in Bonta, albeit only/mainly in red-light districts.

Somehow I doubt they have a lot of legal protections, considering the Brakmarian views on women's rights. Sad.

I never know how to approach this topic but,,, I'm pretty sure homophobia is probably real in the World of Twelve. (Though to check for sure, I'd probably have to read Dofus Manga and see what characters say about Goultard and Arty's Deep Friendship)

This doesn't matter too much, because none of the setting really explores this (and mostly, it's a result of various jokes by the writers), — but it does mean that, canonically, Crepin-Jurgens are pro-gay rights.

Ngl I am a bit sad that I accidentally named my oc the same-name-1-letter-apart on accident, but that's life for ya.

Multiple people in the World of Twelve can be Maudes/Mauds. XD

I think a lot about Brakmar. There's a reason I like it so much. Dofus MMO mentions that some people are too poor to leave... Wakfu series implies that Maude stays for the sake of her career, or because she feels that this way she might help other women.

Even if it's not the best, neither is Bonta. Brakmar is a home to many people, some of them kind, some of them not so much. And I think it's realistic that people would choose to live there and genuinely love this city.

See?! It's alright if I name my oc a similar name to another canon character, because Ankama already did this to Marline and Marilyn.

Very important lore: As of Wakfu era, plumbing and canalizations still exist. So it's okay to write these characters using sinks and taking showers or whatever. You're welcome.

I love Brakmar. So much.

[kesbeacon]

Reading your sock post, I realized you might just be the person to ask a question that a friend posted on FB: a knitting worldbuilding question!

In A Tale of Two Cities, Madame DeFarge knits the names of targets for the guillotine into her work. What was her coding scheme? The friend speculated that Dickens had met Charles Babbage at some point and was doing something with binary. After poking around a bit on the internet, I decided Dickens made it up, not knowing anything about knitting.

I did find schemes for encoding messages in two dimensions, possibly using colors. But such a scheme seems unlikely to encompass 26 letters and 5 accents in a way that can quickly encode a name (since there was a fair bit of volume to keep up with at the time).

What do you think? Is there a plausible scheme today? And would such a scheme have a chance of being available at the close of the 18th century?

So, I'm not an expert on this either! But I'll give it a go.

The first thing I remembered was that this has been done, albeit long after Dickens' day. I have seen videos and posts in which people talk about knitting as spycraft during the world wars. The challenge I then had was 'is this all just a giant game of internet telephone?'

And, my friend, this led me down a rabbit hole. I’ll get to your question in a bit, I just need to go on a detour about checking your sources. Because most of what I could find online was from sites with names like ilikeknitting500 dot com or girlbosshistory dot net (not real examples), all with the same vague story – in Belgium, the resistance would have people sitting by trainyards knitting, and they would drop a stitch for one kind of train, and purl for another, and so on and so forth. As a result, the government banned exporting knitting patterns! But they can’t even agree on what world war it was or which government banned it.

So where does this claim come from?

It took me a little while to find real articles with sources. What I eventually came away with was an Atlas Obscura article that has citations. One citation was a book I can't access by someone who, while I can't find any evidence she's a historian herself, has been endorsed by at least a couple. The link did give me an excerpt about a woman who would use her knitting to cover for tapping information about troop movements in code to her children below, who would write it instead of doing their schoolwork. In a similar vein, I could find information on people who used knitting to hide their spy work, as in the case of Phyllis Latour.

The other relevant citation was to a journal article in a (student-run, admittedly, but in some fields this isn't abnormal) peer-reviewed Open Access journal by an Jacqueline Witkowski, who is now an Associate Professor of Art, even if she wasn't then. This was the best of the bunch, because this cited a BBC Radio 4 program on the history of MI6. I thought this was going to be the end of the road for me, but then I realised you don’t need a TV licence to listen to the radio and that I do have a BBC account, so I logged in and listened to it and – bingo.

Alan Judd, a writer and ‘former soldier and diplomat’ according to Wikipedia, is the biographer of Mansfield Cumming, the original head of MI6, and he tells us about Belgian professionals recruiting little old ladies to go sit by train stations and knit, with the dropped and purled stitches. (He mentions nothing about banning sending knitting patterns.) Crucially, this is definitely during the First World War. I can’t access the book (and certainly can’t be bothered), but I would call this reasonably credible – it’s not as good as something from an actual archive, and I don’t automatically trust the BBC, but this radio series seems serious and also has the involvement of Actual MI6. So I think this is about as good as I’m going to get in a single evening.

We still don’t have the other half of the claim, the censorship. Witkowski says, “This [...] led to the Office of Censorship’s ban on posted knitting patterns in the Second World War, in case they contained coded messages.” There is a citation. But the citation is a Telegraph column by people involved in QI. QI, or Quite Interesting, is a British comedy panel show that I would place in the ‘edutainment’ category – it is an endless source of weird little facts, some of which are even true. Wikipedia has a section on mistakes and fact correction, and I can tell you from having watched the programme that it is usually correct on a surface level, but if you know anything about the relevant topic you’ll immediately start going ‘well, it’s actually more complicated than that…’

The QI column says, “During the Second World War the Office of Censorship banned people from posting knitting patterns abroad in case they contained coded messages,” and gives no sources. On historyhub.history.gov, someone has asked if there are any primary sources for this claim. Textual Reference Archives II Branch (RR2RA) replies that ‘some articles specify that this was a practice by the British government, whereas others attribute it to the United States,’ and gives the asker links to the records of the American Office of Censorship, and where they can learn more about British censorship. There are no more replies. I would hazard a guess that QI meant the Americans; UK censorship was handled by the Ministry of Information, which is common knowledge here and not something they would fuck up.

I originally was going to wash my hands of it, but then I thought… just one primary source? Just try? So I looked at a US government printout of their censorship regulations from 1943. No mention of knitting patterns, but all printed matter is banned for export to Europe, which would presumably encompass commercial knitting patterns by default.

So that’s that tangent, I wrote, thinking this was over. Because Charles Dickens died in 1870 and published ToTC in 1859, long before ANY of this happened! Also, Madame DeFarge’s code is far more sophisticated than any of this stuff. So let’s get back on track.

Your friend is not the only person to have speculated on the Babbage connection – Paul Curzon of Queen Mary University London also raises the possibility that Dickens was thinking of Babbage and Lovelace’s work –

Wait. Is that… I thought I’d escaped my tangent! But Curzon has dragged me back in! He adds an interesting note at the end of the article, though he doesn’t cite it - “In the Second World War, the United States censors held on to a letter that contained a knitting pattern so they could knit the jumper in case it did contain a message. Ultimately they banned people from posting knitting patterns overseas at all (along with playing chess by post) in case people were hiding messages in them.” I wish he’d cited it, but this is at least a real academic – a little more credible than QI! I hoped that this would be the source of the QI claim, but unfortunately I think it post-dates the QI article – it’s hard to tell. But QI could easily have got hold of that censorship decision.

YANKS SELF BACK WITH THE BIG HOOK.

Dickens was, in short, probably making an almost science-fictional prediction. He moved in the Babbage/Lovelace circle and would have known about their work. What Curzon does not say is that this is also the age of Morse code, which came into use in the 1840s, and the beginning of Boolean algebra! It’s easy to imagine him taking these ideas, along with any knitting knowledge he may have had, and coming up with the concept. Madame DeFarge is ahead of her time, but not too far ahead of Dickens's.

Now, I’m not a Dickens scholar, but I happen to be friends with someone who is and is also a knitter. So I’ve asked her if he might’ve known diddly squat about knitting, and we’ll see what she says.

…

How might it have worked? Well, knitting is versatile. You can, for instance, knit Doom. But Doom is already binary, because we have established systems of binary coding. DeFarge does not, and it wouldn’t be intuitive to convert these into names, especially before Boolean algebra. She might’ve had a Morse code-like framework. Morse code isn’t actually binary – it’s sort of trinary, because you need to space the letters. This isn’t necessarily a problem; you can use a yarnover (followed by knitting/purling two together, obv) to separate the letters, with, say, knit being dot and purl being dash. If you’re experienced, you might be able to read it as fabric, but it would be easiest to read it back in reverse as you unravel it.

Knitting this would likely be pretty quick. She can’t be using actual Morse code for the very simple reason that she pre-dates Mr Morse, and I also don’t know how actual Morse code handles French diacritics, but it took me, a person who has never done this before and doesn't understand Morse and had to make some modifications on the fly, about quarter of an hour to knit the Morse code alphabet (minus Z bc I reached the end of a row and got bored). It would be easier if you were using colours; you could have one colour for dot, one for dash, and use purl stitches to mark the ends of words. I cba to do that right now though.

In summary, clearly Madame DeFarge is an extremely adept code-maker of a kind that is… easier to have in fiction than in real life. She's ahead of her time and in some ways ahead of twentieth-century spycraft, but not implausibly ahead of Dickens's. And I’m a fucking nerd.

And @ the internet at large, generalised-you should check your fucking sources.

[desultory-novice]

I find it hilarious that kirby doesn't know how to read or write. Yet he completely understands the concept of money and how it works!

So... I had a lot to say about the "Kirby can't read" thing?!?

See, this struck me last time I saw someone bring up Kirby can't read as proof Kirby is a very young child. (1) Speaking broadly, we as a species tie age/intelligence to reading level, which, by my reckoning, is a holdover of the school system. (:cough: That or callous systems of oppression to deny various people rights based on things like money, land, freedom, gender, religion, race, etc :cough:)

A Kirby who can't read must be a Kirby who hasn't gone to school!

But wait... ..."School??"

[continued below...w/ pictures!]

-

Is there even "school" in Dream Land? Waddle Dees seem to get put to work serving the king or guarding treasure or swinging happily across train tracks ("Oh my god, he's got airpods in! He can't hear us!") pretty much from the moment they make their first "Wanya!" In fact, Wise Waddle Dee seems to have become "wise" because...he found a book? Now, he was able to read it, but how long did it take him?? Can the other Waddle Dees read? Was Delivery Waddle Dee (?) taught to read by Wise Waddle Dee? How long did it take them to acquire this skill? They've all been there for X amount of time...

If Dream Land and Popstar as a whole has no mandatory schooling -public, private, or otherwise - can we really judge intelligence or age based on the same things we judge them on in the real world?

Another thing that made me question the logic of age = schooling was, amusingly enough, deciding to finally check out a rather FAMOUS episode of the anime...

A shame that the, erm, "feel good" ending leaves a bitter taste in the mouth now.

Anyway, the reason I went to watch the whole thing in the original Japanese was because I spotted something of interest and had to confirm it for myself...

King Dedede (at least in the anime) can't read either!

Now, Anime King Dedede also has cartoon human teeth (?) drives a ridiculously sized car everywhere, and abuses his gay snail second-in-command for "comedy" + a lot of other things we very much doubt of our beloved game Dedede. He's also portrayed as comically dumb. A little sad that the anime uses lack of literacy as an indicator that "Oh, look! He's embarrassingly stupid!" (That whole episode was Escargoon's fault. Not that I blame him, given the way Dedede treats him, but you really couldn't have just read the book aloud?!)

Anyway - because I'm me and I love to overanalyze insignificant or discarded tidbits and try to find clever ways to re-apply them in various canon - I thought about this and considered, "Yes, indeed! Why WOULD Dream Land have traditional schooling?! Why would anyone without a specific interest in books have any need develop the skill of reading in this world?" What is there TO read, even?

(Helpful road signs? All visual!)

My interpretation, at least, is that game Dedede is intelligent, if flawed. Still, he builds robots! He's good at chess! But these "smart" things are no indication he's good at reading or writing.

The note sent to Kirby in Kirby Fighters 2? We don't know Dedede wrote that. Meta Knight, who can read (...or so we assume?!?! Maybe That Book Meta Knight Was Reading on the Knoll in the Opening Cutscene for Return to Dream Land and Return to Dream Land Deluxe is a picture book!) might have written it for the two of them. Although... this puts another funny, twisty idea in my head!

We gather that, regardless of Kirby's need to read, Kirby has terrible handwriting, as implied by Kirby and the Forgotten Land. (Planet Robobot as well as various merch shows us that Kirby's not all that good at art, either.) Which is excusable, since they're writing with little nubs! Meta Knight has nubs too, but he covers them with (magical?) gloves that somehow give them better grip??

With these pseudo-hands, Meta Knight MUST be better at both letter writing and art than Kirby! Except... do we know that for sure...?

I point you to a certain Star Allies picture where Meta Knight's mirror duplicate, Dark Meta Knight, is drawing peacefully alongside Adeleine, Ribbon, and Daroach. Adeleine aside, the rest are, y'know, decent! ...Except Dark Meta Knight, who is TERRIBLE. Maybe even worse than Kirby! But...if Dark Meta Knight draws as badly as Kirby, and Dark Meta Knight is Meta Knight's mirror world duplicate...

Do you see where I'm going with this...?

(I blew out all my art skills on Apologies. Take this Kirby Meta Knight tier scribble...)

Just imagine, King Dedede boldly dictating the duo's letter of challenge to Meta Knight for the knight to write down... horribly! And King Dedede, who can't read, has no idea it's written in "Nub Scratch," nods happily that their "flawless" letter should be sent to Kirby immediately! Meta Knight, who cares about his image, does not clue him in to the truth. Neither does Kirby, who couldn't read it even if it were legible. Meta Knight's bad handwriting remains a secret that goes with him to his probably very cool-looking grave!

...

As for how money fits into the low-literacy world of Kirby, it's not hard to imagine King Dedede being responsible for that! The man loves his shinies! Assuming he wasn't born with a king's robe and crown on him, we have to accept that he dressed himself that way because he likes it! He likes being/looking wealthy and in charge. He likes gold. Maybe not as much as a certain rat, but enough.

And what is a kingdom without its own currency? ...Or maybe all those treasures in the Great Cave Offensive came with price tags and Kirby's just dutifully reporting the numbers to us?

--

(1)Young/Child Kirby is fine, btw! Honestly, some more modern content, like the concert, have been skewing in a young Kirby direction, with Kirby needing to take a nap in the middle of the show due to how late it was. As an old school fan, I still prefer my Kirby to be something unfathomably old (yet forever young at heart) or something cosmic beyond our mortal concept of age while still somehow able to be a friend to all... but that's a Dess-Lore thing!

(2) Of course, Kirby (and by association, Meta Knight) aren't natives to Popstar - Kirby being a wanderer carried on a Spring Breeze - thus, Dream Land's lack of an education system wouldn't affect whether the two know how to read or write. But I believe the same "Why does reading matter on their planet of origin?" / "Why would they have such a system?" COULD apply to them as well.

...For the humor of it, if nothing else!

[coffeelovesdramasalatte]

LITA Ep. 5 Rewatch Thoughts Part 1

(edit bc I started writing this post like 6 months ago - hi! I'm gonna finish going through the rest of the phayurain episodes of LITA finally! I've lost all sense of shame so these posts are just gonna be love letters to Eul, hope that's ok) Hi hi hi! I find it absolutely hilarious that the notes on the final part of my episode 4 rewatch post (which contains my best screenshots of That Scene) has like triple the notes of the rest of the parts. I love the thirsty LITA fam <3 I think I kept it mostly clean for the first 3 episodes but LITA brainrot is real and from here on out I'm putting down all my deranged thoughts into words so enjoy

Onwards to episode 5!! Ok so y'all should know by this point that BossNoeul sang the opening right? I added it on spotify and have listened to it on repeat so much over the last week that I could probs (badly, bc my singing voice leaves much to be desired but I can and will belt it at the top of my lungs) karaoke it now. If y'all haven't heard the full version check it out bc they rap a few bars and Noeul has this line "shake your bo- shake your bo- shake your body" that makes me lose it every time

The recap sees us revisiting some rather adorable moments from the previous episode including PhayuRain in the rain and tub. Imagine if they stuck the leg kiss in the recap >.<

We open to sunlight pouring in through the curtained windows on the morning after. I kind of wish the last episode had ended with this scene bc it would have been a soft transition after the intimacy PhayuRain shared rather than the abrupt cut to credits. But I digress.

Phayu's hair looks glorious out and I wish we'd gotten to see it like this more. In fact I think we should've seen Rain push his hands through it and grip it during episode 6's NC scene. Also the definition of that bicep? Sir pls.

I ADORE how sweet Phayu is towards Rain all the time, and this is yet another example. I love it when characters look fondly at their lover (I finally get to use that word for them!!), cover them with a blanket, and then give them a forehead kiss before sliding out of bed. SO FOND

I just think it's really attractive when people do this. Rain was really missing out by snoozing.

The state of Rain's neck and chest sends me into hysterical giggles every time. Phayu you did not have to go that hard with the marking bestie (let's be honest though, looking at the state of Phayu's neck post episode 6 they both have marking kinks) - everyone's gonna know Rain's officially yours soon enough. Also throwback to how like two months ago (or something like that idk the exact timeline) Rain was like hmph I never want anything to do with P' Phayu ever again. I didn't hear any complaining from you last night hmm??? Also I love how confident Rain was in his abilities to seduce Phayu, so true of him

I'm DECEASED

OK WAIT I think I finally get the whole yellow-blue thing. It literally is just that yellow is Rain's representative color and Phayu's is navy blue. So by making Rain put on Phayu's navy blue shirt for the "morning after" they're just reiterating that Rain belongs to Phayu now. Mystery solved :)

Obligatory shot bc he's worked hard for these gains and I think he deserves some appreciation ft. Rain who's making the same face as all of us. I think they spent like 30 whole seconds on Phayu's shoulders and that's so valid of them

Sir, do you have a good reason for striding in here shirtless and sweaty to wake your new bf up? Methinks someone was hoping for round 2

Ok, and we're back to Rain in a yellow t-shirt looking very feverish. He's holding his teal green phone (case) up though which is a combo of yellow and blue, isn't it? I'm sorry my color theory is lacking. His eyebrows look really nice here and I don't know why I noticed. I hope he has a good nap! But oops he misses calls from Phayu...

This episode's title is "the Calm Before the Storm" which implies it's gonna be a mostly tooth-rotting fluff episode and that drama is on the way next week. I'm already smiling so wide my cheeks hurt so the title is apt.

Phayu (dressed in navy blue!) is here to make sure his precious Rain is ok and Mama is already planning the wedding in her head.

The first three or four times I watched this, I was paying too much attention to their faces and probably missed a lot so let's break it down a bit. Phayu comes in, Rain's surprised and sits up, and Phayu sits down next to Rain on the bed but facing away. Phayu is slightly upset that Rain went away without saying anything and he was worried that since Rain was sick that him driving home alone was dangerous. The second Phayu sits down this way, Rain reaches out to grab his arm but Phayu pulls away. Compared to couples in other dramas, PhayuRain depend on touch a lot to communicate so obv the situation is quite serious plus Phayu is not immediately making eye contact with Rain.

The next couple of shots are just back and forth where Phayu asks why Rain left and Rain tells him what happened and apologies for worrying him. He looks v v soft and fluffy here

Gonna take a second to appreciate the background music bc it sounds so serious and doom-y right now but they're literally about to clear it all up so it was unnecessary to go that hard. Sound artist I love you

Throughout this conversation, Phayu starts far away (which for PhayuRain means there's like 1.5 meters of distance between their faces instead of 0.15 meters) but he moves closer and tilts his body more in Rain's direction as Rain gives each justification. He also lets Rain grab his arm. It's very subtle but I like the acting choices here.

Phayu, Rain is sick. Can you pls stop staring at his lips bff give him some rest (spoiler alert I counted like 5 lip-looks in the next 10 seconds, Phayu didn't hear me)

OK this hug. Exquisite. The gap has been bridged, all parties are happy again, and they both absolutely sink into each other.

Boss' little shoulder rub here is so soft and gives us more PhayuRain believability. We can see how worried he was and how relieved he is now that Rain is safely in his arms again.

Rain's cheek-smushed nod agreeing to never disappear from Phayu's side ever again is everything to me.

I don't actually think this was what I was supposed to get out of this but there's something about the symmetry of this hug and them being in the shape of a triangle and how technically their first encounter as a couple involved Phayu's triangle tool etc. etc. etc. Also headpat alert!

More subtle and soft gestures from Phayu. Rain is down bad.

HANDS!!!

We really heard the MWAH here and I want to forehead kiss whoever placed the mics

Everyone needs to observe Rain's expression right after Phayu asks this question bc it's very sus

(I couldn't get it in motion but Rain straightens up a bit and raises his eyebrows. Someone thinks they're about to get spanked like before)

Except this is not that kind of punishment and I can't believe Phayu really brought along a rectal suppository. To his credit though, I believe they're supposed to be more immediately effective than oral medicines because they absorb more directly into the body so he just wants Rain to be healthy faster. Although I wish Phayu would've not proceeded to yank Rain's pants off without permission, it's fiction and I hope if Rain had shown signs of major discomfort he would've listened. I do have to wonder if Mama put on headphones though bc Rain was really loud with his protests. I also think this must've been funny to film bc if you look closely before it cuts to Rain's mom, Rain looks like he's holding back laughter.

Uh-oh, Mama it's better if you walk away now

This sequence was actually so adorable and funny. I love purrito!Rain and Phayu is looking way too smug. Mama Rain walked out of there trying to name all the yellow and blue flowers she could for the wedding centerpieces.

omfg Phayu calling Rain's mom "Mama" is so friggin cute and I love how smoothly he just slid into son-in-law position

Rain's like excuse me I'm sick I should NOT be slandered right now

To part 2 with all the cute shots!!

[eirinstiva]

All the world's a stage: His Last Bow

Today I received the last story of the year from my dear friend Watson. Did he write it? Apparently he didn't. It was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Billy again? Mycroft Holmes? We don't know, but at least I'm sure the author wasn't Sherlock Holmes because there's not a single cry of "my Watson would do this better". We know our drama queen. My theory is that Mycroft wrote it after hearing Sherlock and John talking about this case, and then ACD edited it.

[ID: Cover of The Strand Magazine vol. 65, no. 321, September 1917. And illustration of a street in navy blue. Crossing the middle of the page there's a red band with Sherlock Holmes profile that says "Sherlock Holmes outwits a German Spy]

There are many reasons of why I love this story: Holmes has the chance to use chloroform:

[ID: Sherlock Holmes (as Altamont) with a goatee, using chlorofom-soaked rag to sleep Von Bork. Illustration by Alfred Gilbert]

Holmes and Watson working together once more:

[ID: Holmes and Watson walking Von Bork slowly. Illustration by Alfred Gilbert]

Holmes in disguise with longer hair and a horrible goatee, the references to professor Moriarty, colonel Moran and Irene Adler Norton, Martha the housekeeper (Mrs. Hudson? I don't know) there's a cat! but what I really like is how Sherlock Holmes used all his knowledge, talent and expertise to work as a spy.

This is his last case. This is his last play. That's why the title of this story has been translated into Spanish as Su último saludo en el escenario, El último saludo (as in my copy of Todo Sherlock Holmes) or La última reverencia. The detective works incognito for two years: he changes his appearance, he speaks with American accent and he travels to another places. Sherlock is an actor and all the world is a stage, and for his last show he calls his friend Watson to work with him at his side for the grand finale. Holmes takes the time to drink wine with Watson and to talk about everything and nothing while Von Bork is tied (somebody is third-wheeling here, or as we say in Chile, Von Bork is playing the violin). The detective takes the chance to steal £500, use his own book Practical Handbook of Bee Culture as a decoy, and make a dramatic identity reveal because Holmes loves to be dramatic, and he really loves to be dramatic when Watson is at his side. The previous short stories are the evidence.

What happened after this? my friend Doctor Watson answer this question in the preface of the book His Last Bow:

The friends of Mr. Sherlock Holmes will be glad to learn tha he is still alive and well, though somewhat crippled by occasional attacks of rheumatism. He has, for many years, lived in a small farm upon the downs five miles from Eastbourne, where his time is divided between philosophy and agriculture. During this period of rest he has refused the most princely offers to take up various cases, having determined that his retorement was a permanent one. The approach of the German war caused him however, to lay his remarkable combination of intellectual and practical activity at the disposal of the government, with historical results which are recounted in His Last Bow. Several previous experiences which have lain long in my portfolio have been added to His Last Bow so as to complete the volumen JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.

It's been a year since Letters from Watson reunited old and new fans to read the short stories on Sherlock Holmes and next year it's time to read the novels!