#because writing things take anywhere from one day to like a year lmao

[bonestrouslingbones]

i think. im gonna do it. im gonna start the atbb reboot

[nebulouscoffee]

Me, attending the latest in a ridiculous number of funerals this year in the place of a childhood friend who couldn't be there, watching the lifeless body of an old lady who used to make me snacks in the kitchen when I was a kid be carted away forever while my friend's mother cries and tells me she's grateful I could be there because it felt like having the support of her own daughter, hugging her and talking reassuringly and not processing a single one of these emotions: ... I am going to write soooo much fanfiction about this

[luvjunie]

Hey sweetie, I’ve been a real big fan. Can you write some HCS or a fic about the both Miles being twins?

a/n: ABSOLUTELY 10000% YES. i had way too much fun with this oml. and omg thank you you’re so sweet! 😭 btw, let’s just pretend that in this au they don’t have the same name since they’re ‘twins’ lmao

— headcanons. miles and miles as twins

Twins? Yes. Polar opposites? Definitely.

They both have a completely different sense of style, but one thing they have in common is that they both love Jordan’s. However I feel like miles!42 is a full blown sneakerhead. Has the better collection and often finds miles!1610 wearing his shoes, because somehow 42 always manages to win the snkrs raffles.

“Are those my brand new fuckin’ 4s?” “Uh… no?” “Take my shit off before I tweak out.”

42 keeps his side of the room squeaky clean, gets upset if there’s even a sock that does not belong to him on his side

Absolutely hates the song Sunflower. Cannot stand it, makes him wanna rip his hair out. The minute it came out 1610 played it into the dirt and 42 swears he can still hear it in his dreams till this day

1610 is the more affectionate one (outwardly) while 42 likes to pretend he’s completely devoid of that as if he doesn’t love his brother with everything in him.

“You got exactly three seconds to get off me.” “Just hug me back, damn!”

They’re the kind of brothers to open soundcloud, turn on a random trap beat and see who can go the longest freestyling. They do that thing where guys bring their fist to their mouths and squeal and shove each other out of excitement when they get a good flow going back and forth

42 is definitely the athletic type, plays football and soccer. 1610 is more in tune with his artistic side. Will play sports for fun but doesn’t care for them like that

42 is introverted as hell, doesn’t really like talking to people. 1610 is more of a social butterfly

They’ve never once liked the same girl. Ever. Their taste is drastically different

“Bro, you like a white girl?” “…Yes? What does her race have to do with anything?” “See me personally—“. “Literally nobody fucking asked.”

Used to help each other break out of their cribs when they were babies. Either that or Jeff and Rio would wake up to find that 42 had climbed into 1610’s crib after they’d been put down and slept with him instead. it was impossible to keep them apart from each other, so eventually they just broke down the second crib and let them use the one.

You can tell who is who in their baby pictures. You guessed it, 42 was the oddly solemn one who always wanted to play by himself. They worried about him for a bit. They also had to tickle him as an attempt to get him to smile in pictures, and just their luck, he’s never been ticklish

When they were eight years old, 1610 accidentally broke the wolverine action figure 42 never went anywhere without, and 42 cried about it for three days straight

They definitely ask for each other’s opinions on their outfits

“Do you think this shirt goes with these pants?” “The entire outfit is black… how would it not go together?”

They both obviously love their mother but 42 is the biggest mama’s boy. Always in the kitchen helping her cook, will watch her telenovelas with her and actually keep up with the plot. He’ll willingly follow her to the grocery store or accompany her on her ridiculously long Ross/Tjmaxx sprees because he likes hanging out with her

They terrorize the fuck outta their dad and have been doing so since they entered this world because they think it’s funny. Stupid shit like dying his boxers pink, or looking up a cracked tv screen video on youtube just to watch him nearly have a heart attack thinking they broke it. They used to twin-swap when they were younger to get out of certain things, but it’s 100% impossible to pull off now. They’re way too different, physically and mentally

Uncle Aaron took 42 to get his ears pierced when he was thirteen, something 1610 would never do. Rio basically had an aneurysm when he came home with them in and Jeff was not pleased but Aaron took the blame for it, said it was his idea. 42 made up some bullshit lie about how if he takes them out before they heal completely they’ll get infected. Still has them in till this day

42 is exactly fourteen minutes older and refuses to let 1610 hear the end of it, but 1610 is taller by an inch and weighs a little more.

“I don’t know why you’re talking shit like I’m not older than you. Pipe down lil’ bro.” “Sorry, is someone talking to me right now? Cause I sure as hell can’t see ‘em.” “Nigga it’s ONE INCH”

They’re definitely scrapping over that, and both get smacked upside their heads by Mama Rio for fighting with each other

42 needs the tv and the fan on, SIMULTANEOUSLY when he sleeps or he’ll be up the entire night. 1610 can’t stand it

1610 will try and turn the fan off after his brother’s been asleep for probably two hours, thinking he’s in the clear until he hears—

“Do you value your life? Turn my damn fan back on.”

Deep down 42 is a big ass softie and loves spending time with 1610, he has no idea what he’d do without him. He’s just not the best at expressing it. 1610 teases him about it simply because he enjoys aggravating his other half

“You still got plans with Ganke tonight?” “Nah, his mom’s dragging him to some baby shower.” “Oh, cool, cool… So what movie are we watching?” “Huh?” “Huh—Headass. What movie are we watching tonight?” “Sorry, I’m not understanding. Are you—asking to spend time… with me?” “Damn, I need to say it in Spanish? Matter fact, you probably won’t understand that either. No sabo ass.”

[i-love-your-light]

too many thoughts on the new hbomberguy video not to put them anywhere so:

with every app trying to turn into the clock app these days by feeding you endless short form content, *how many* pieces of misinformation does the average person consume day to day?? thinking a lot about how tons of people on social media go largely unquestioned about the information they provide just because they speak confidently into the camera. if you're scrolling through hundreds of pieces of content a day, how many are you realistically going to have the time and will to check? i think there's an unfortunate subconscious bias in liberal and leftist spaces that misinformation is something that is done only by the right, but it's a bipartisan issue babey. everybody's got their own agendas, even if they're on "your side". *insert you are not immune to propaganda garfield meme*

and speaking of fact checking, can't help but think about how much the current state of search engines Sucks So Bad right now. not that this excuses ANY of the misinformation at all, but i think it provides further context as to why these things become so prevalent in creators who become quick-turnaround-content-farms and cut corners when it comes to researching. when i was in high school and learning how to research and cite sources, google was a whole different landscape that was relatively easy to navigate. nowadays a search might give you an ad, a fake news article, somebody's random blog, a quora question, and another ad before actually giving you a relevant verifiable source. i was googling a question about 1920s technology the other day (for a fanfiction im writing lmao) and the VERY FIRST RESULT google gave me was some random fifth grader's school assignment on the topic???? like?????? WHAT????? it just makes it even harder for people to fact-check misinformation too.

going off the point of cutting corners when it comes to creating content, i can't help but think about capitalism's looming influence over all of this too. again, not as an excuse at all but just as further environmental context (because i really believe the takeaway shouldn't be "wow look how bad this one individual guy is" but rather "wow this is one specific example of a much larger systemic issue that is more pervasive than we realize"). a natural consequence of the inhumanity of capitalism is that people feel as if they have to step on or over eachother to get to 'the top'. if everybody is on this individualistic american dream race to success, everyone else around you just looks like collateral. of course then you're going to take shortcuts, and you're going to swindle labor and intellectual property from others, because your primary motivation is accruing capital (financial or social) over ethics or actual labor.

i've been thinking about this in relation to AI as well, and the notion that some people want to Be Artists without Doing Art. they want to Have Done Art but not labor through the process. to present something shiny to the world and benefit off of it. they don't want to go through the actual process of creating, they just want a product. Easy money. Winning the game of capitalism.

i can't even fully fault this mentality- as someone who has been struggling making barely minimum wage from art in one of the most expensive cities in america for the past two years, i can't say that i haven't been tempted on really difficult occasions to act in ways that would be morally bad but would give me a reprieve from the constant stress cycle of "how am i going to pay for my own survival for another month". the difference is i don't give in to those impulses.

tl;dr i hope that people realize that instead of this just being a time to dogpile on one guy (or a few people), that it's actually about a larger systemic problem, and the perfect breeding grounds society has created for this kind of behavior to largely go unchecked!!!

[hard-core-super-star]

make every mistake [H.Steinfeld]

pairing: hailee steinfeld x reader

summary: you run into your ex at the vanity fair party, almost a full year after your breakup, and are forced to accept some hard truths.

warnings: technically none; bitter exes being bitter but also getting distracted; A LOT of references to cheating [very open to interpretation, though; more than one reference to JA; rubix please get over sunkissing challenge; did not proofread at all so it might not make the most sense at times; does this count as a ventfic?

wordcount: 1.5k

a/n: i was supposed to be writing something else [what a surprise lmao] but...it's sunkissing's anniversary and unfortunately, that song still means a lot to me and i needed to be nostalgic for a second. plus, last year's vanity fair party is what inspired me to start writing fanfiction again so...consider this a very weird, bitter, and nostalgic first anniversary celebration. i hope you enjoy and thank you so much for your love, support, and patience this past year, i plan to continue writing for you guys for a LONG while <3 [and yes, this is sunkissing (sad girl edition)]

* * * * * * * Whoever coined the phrase,”wrong place, right time,” as a good thing seriously owes you some compensation. It implies that there could be something possibly good in the situation you’re in but what could be good about being stuck at the same party your ex is also at?

Of course, that person might get along with your friends who have been trying to convince you that this situation is a fantastic opportunity for you to show how happy you are. Something that would work if it were true.

But it’s not.

How could happiness be anywhere on your radar when every time you interact with someone, they’re quick to remind you your ex-girlfriend is currently parading around with a quarterback? Not to mention, the amount of cheating rumors hasn’t been helping you feel much better about the situation.

Maybe you’re overly petty or arrogant, maybe even codependent, but time has done little to heal the wounds caused by a certain actress.

Which is why you were supposed to be out having fun in the first place…although maybe all of this could have been avoided if a certain 22-year-old hadn’t lied her ass off and told you there was no chance in hell your ex would show up.

All you know is you’re stuck in a room full of people you don’t care about, anxiously looking around every few minutes hoping you won’t run into her. It’s exhausting but it’s also highly addictive.

You’re in the middle of debating ditching Billie and the rest of your friends instead of torturing yourself for another hour when you catch a glimpse of the person you’ve been trying to avoid all night. 

Your eyes find her for just a few seconds and yet the whole world seems to stop all at once. 

Just like the first time.

You wouldn’t say you have a habit of romanticizing the past…except when it comes to Hailee Steinfeld and her ridiculously enchanting energy. A lot of things have changed since the day you met but the one thing you’re sure will remain a part of you forever is the way your heart takes off running when she's around.

Running away would be easy. It would probably be the solution to your impending problem and yet you stay. Because as much as you hate to admit it…you’ve missed her. Seeing just a glimpse of her feels like ecstasy after spending so long trying to erase the thought of her from your mind.

You know you’re chasing after someone who isn’t even there anymore, someone who vanished the day Hailee chose to go out to dinner with that guy instead of coming home to you. The person you love has been shoved back into far more closets than you can count but you’re an addict and the thought of getting her back for just a few minutes gives you a greater high than anything else ever could.

So, despite the thousands of reasons not to, you find yourself walking toward her. You tell yourself it’ll be fine, she’s in the middle of ordering a drink and the chances of her paying attention to you are close to zero.

You quickly learn close to zero isn’t enough.

You arrive at the bar right when she’s turning around to go back to whoever it is she’s pretending to get along with tonight. Her eyes instantly find yours and whatever liquid courage you had fades away in that very same instant.

For a second, you expect her to walk away without even acknowledging your presence, but then her mouth opens. “I can’t believe you actually left the house for this.”

There were a thousand sentences you were hoping to hear her say and the one she chose is nowhere on it. It does nothing except remind you of all the infuriating reasons why you can’t be around her anymore.

“Gee thanks, don’t sound too excited.”

She merely shrugs, acting like she can’t see the way your smile drops. “Just being honest.”

At some point in your relationship, you would have made fun of her for sounding so much like the characters she loves to play on TV but today, her attitude pisses you off like nothing else.

“Honest, huh?” You scoff. “That's gold coming from the cheater.”

There’s a flash of something in her eyes, mostly annoyance, and you know damn well that’s exactly what you’re looking for. A sign that she’s still human despite how much she loves to pretend like she doesn’t have feelings anymore.

Unfortunately, you’re sure her reaction has more to do with the fact that you’re in a room full of people who could overhear you than anything else.

“Oh, come on. I didn't cheat on you,” she says in the exact same tone as all the times before.

“Right, right, you just casually had dinner with your new boyfriend while we were still dating.”

A crack begins to form in her facade but you’re too annoyed to celebrate. 

All she does is groan before placing her drink down on the bar and coming toward you. She wraps her hand around your arm, seemingly unaware of the sparks her touch ignites, and drags you toward the first secluded area she finds.

“Are we seriously going to have this fight again?” She questions you once you’re away from prying eyes.

“Sure,” you reply. “The only thing we ever do is fight.”

“Stop acting like I’m the only one in the wrong here. We both made mistakes.”

You scoff. “You’re right, I trusted you wholeheartedly. What a stupid mistake.”

“Oh my God.” She throws her hands up, frustration dripping out of her every pore, and yet she makes no move to walk away from you. “You haven’t changed one bit.”

“Changing isn’t always such a good thing. Just ask Martini and Brando, I bet they love the weather in Buffalo.”

It’s another cheap shot and you know it. Most of all, you see it. The flash of hurt that lingers in the eyes you know so well. 

“Don’t,” she warns.

You can’t stop yourself from adding more fuel to the fire despite her warning. “Why? Is that more honesty than you can handle?”

“y/n, stop. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re right, I don’t know. Because I have no idea who you are anymore.”

It suddenly strikes you that you’ve had the same exact conversation with her before. You don’t know why you keep doing the same thing and hoping for a different ending. Especially considering Hailee is the most stubborn person you’ve ever met.

“You’re not the only one,” she says with a sigh, practically deflating in front of your eyes. “Believe it or not, you’re not the only person I’ve disappointed lately.”

“No offense but that’s the most accurate thing you’ve said in a while.”

A small chuckle escapes her and the sound instantly brings you back to simpler times. To spontaneous dates at the beach, random car drives to the middle of nowhere to watch the sunset, sleepless nights spent helping her rehearse for an early morning shoot the next day.

To being in love.

Back when your love actually mattered.

“Do you ever regret it?” You find yourself whispering into the space between you after a long silence. “Regret us?”

Her answer might split you in two but you're tired of the desperation that clings to you from the sheer amount of unsaid things that still linger in your mind. 

“No,” she replies, her voice so quiet you almost miss it. “I regret how things ended, I regret what I did to you…do you?”

You shake your head before you can stop yourself, the truth spilling out of you just as fast as the tears that painted your face the day she left. “I regret…how much I love you…how impossible it is for me to hate you.”

For a split second, you catch sight of the Hailee you once fell in love with. The one with warm eyes and the softest smile imaginable. The one who could easily break your walls down with a single chuckle. 

“Give it a few days,” she replies. “It’ll stop being so impossible.”

 It’s ridiculous how enamored her words make you. It’s also stupid and infuriating that no matter how badly you want to walk away from her, you can’t find a way to make your feet move. You’re stuck and that growing smirk on her face tells you she knows exactly how much you’re struggling.

“No witty comeback?” She questions, her head tilting slightly to the side in an almost mocking gesture.

“I’m just trying to decide if I should slap you or not.” Your words hold no real bite to them, even if you wish they did, and you both have to pretend neither of you notice the way you lean toward her.

Her eyes betray her as they slide down your face until they reach your lips. Her gaze rests there for longer than would be appropriate for an exchange between old friends. But you’re not old friends. You’re something more. Something that exceeds categories and reasons.

Something that rests completely in the space between your mouths.

It should be easy to turn away from her…but it isn’t…and you can’t stop yourself from meeting her half-way when she leans in close enough for you to feel her breath on your lips.

It’s a mistake.

But it’s one you make as easily as falling in loving her.

[semperama]

Soak + dosh please

This is way too long for tumblr and I'm sorry, but it totally ran away with me. Also there is going to be a Part 2, I promise. Also I'll put it on AO3 later when I can think of a title lmao. Please forgive me because I have no idea how to write Josh yet, but this was fun!!

----

It’s probably crazy for Daniel to be in the back half of his 30s and still feel like a fucking imposter all the time.

He opens the door to Josh tossing a football back and forth from hand to hand, mouth curved into a grin, and has to bite down on the inside of his cheek just until it hurts, just to make sure this is real. He heard a story once—maybe an urban legend—about a man who was in a coma and thought he lived a whole entire life, great job and wife and kids and the whole nine. Sometimes he thinks that could be him. F1 driver, friends with fucking—movie stars and NFL players. It’s all a little much when just a minute ago he was a kid with goofy hair and crooked teeth and a sense of humor no one got.

“Hey,” Josh says, with his stupid handsome face. “Good to see you, man.”

Daniel steps back to let Josh in and wills the blood vessels in his face to fucking cool it. “Welcome to my humble abode,” he jokes. Another thing to be self-conscious about, this stupid-huge house that’s always empty. It’d be great for parties, but Daniel’s never thrown one.

They should have made other plans, Daniel thinks. A concert. A movie. A bar. Hanging out at home—who does that? Teenagers?

“Humble indeed,” Josh says with a chuckle, elbowing Daniel in the ribs as he walks by. “They don’t pay you anything to drive those cars, huh?”

“Yeah, I’m barely scraping by.” Daniel settles into the banter, grateful for it. “Can I get you anything? I have water, stale bread, maybe some mouse droppings…”

Josh throws his head back at that one, his laugh sending electric tingles down Daniel’s spine. “No beer hidden anywhere?” he asks, and Daniel grins at him, indulgent.

“I think I can rustle one up for you, maybe.”

He waves Josh out to the patio and then heads into the kitchen to grab two bottles out of the fridge. It’s the middle of the season, just a couple weeks until he has to be in Austin, so he probably should be sticking to clear liquor if anything, but who’s here to judge him?

“Did you bring that for me?” Daniel asks when he emerges into the sunshine, nodding at the football Josh cradles in one palm as the takes the beer bottle from Daniel with the other.

The corner of Josh’s mouth tilts upward. “You just about creamed yourself last time we tossed the ball around,” he says. “I figured I’d make your day.”

“My year, more like.” Daniel can’t deny it; Josh has his number on this one. “I don’t want you to be bored, though. You do this for a living.”

“You ever get tired of racing?” Josh asks.

Daniel chuckles, shaking his head. “Touche.”

There’s no grassy field behind Daniel’s house to play in, but they make do with the long strip of pool deck, all the chairs pushed to the side. At first, they just toss the ball back and forth lazily. That’s honestly enough for Daniel, just watching the satisfying spiral of the ball and feeling the slap of leather against his palms. It’s warm and breezy and Josh keeps grinning at him—he could do it all fucking day.

But eventually he gets antsy, wants to make sure Josh is still having fun, so he starts trying to make things difficult, prancing back and forth, sometimes running to the other side of the pool. It feels better when Josh is laughing at him. It feels like he’s pulling his weight.

“Come on, really throw one,” he says, holding his hands up in preparation. Josh chuckles at him, pulls his arm back, hesitates, and then lets it fly. This time, when it hits Daniel’s hands, the sound is loud, echoing. It fucking stings.

Daniel wants it again.

“Is that, like, your maximum?” he asks as he lobs it back.

Josh grins and shakes his head. “Nah, man. I don’t want to hurt you. You gotta be able to hold a steering wheel in a few days.”

“Oh, come on,” Daniel says, hopping from foot to foot and shaking out his arms. “You won’t hurt me. I can take it.”

Josh quirks and eyebrow at him. “You sure do talk a big talk, Ricciardo.”

All the blood rushes to Daniel’s face. He can only hope he’s already red enough from exertion and the sun that Josh won’t notice. Josh seems so fucking implacable, but Daniel’s been soaked in sweat and breathing hard for a while now, his t-shirt clinging to his chest. He pinches the fabric and unsticks it, letting some of the breeze in, but doesn’t help much.

“Just once,” Daniel says, unable to help the pleading note in his voice. “I want to know what it’s like.”

Josh walks over to the table near the house where their sweating beer bottles sit and takes a long swig. Daniel watches the bob of his throat, watches him lick the moisture from his bottom lip when he sets the bottle back down. When he turns back toward Daniel, he starts tossing the ball from hand to hand again, putting a spin on it, the silence stretching until it makes Daniel’s skin prickle with discomfort.

“Alright,” Josh says at last, “but I don’t want to hear your crying if it hurts.” He beckons Daniel with two fingers. “Come here. I need to show you how to catch it first.”

“I know how to catch it,” Daniel says, but he jogs over anyway.

“You know how to catch a ball thrown by a buddy,” Josh says. When Daniel stops a couple feet away, Josh lunges for his wrist and drags him in closer. “You don’t know how to catch a pass thrown by one of the most powerful arms in the NFL.”

“Fuck,” Daniel says, embarrassingly, out loud. He jerks his wrist out of Josh’s hand and wipes his palms on his shorts. “Fine, fine. Show me, then.”

Josh tucks the ball into his armpit, then cups his hands together, a foot or so out from his chest. “This is the way you have been catching it,” he says. “Which is good if you’re a professional receiver. But this time—” He brings his hands to his chest and turns his palms upward— “let it hit your chest first and kinda fall into your hands.”

He motions for Daniel to show him, and Daniel mimics his hand placement as best he can, hands cupped near his stomach. Josh rolls his eyes and puts his hands under Daniel’s, nudging them upward and squeezing, molding them into the shape he wants. His fingers are softer than Daniel thought they’d be, maybe a little callused but still gentle. Daniel can feel his heart thundering against his ribs, and he can only hope Josh can’t feel it too, close as he is.

“And, uh,” Daniel says, voice cracking, “what’ll happen if I don’t to it right?”

“Oh, nothin’ much.” Josh grins, winks at him. “Just a broken finger or two, maybe. But I hear you already have some experience with that anyway.”

Daniel lets out a nervous, high-pitched giggle. “Christ.”

“I’m just messing with you,” Josh says. “I’ve never broken anyone’s fingers.” He pushes on Daniel’s shoulder, like he’s trying to wrestle some of the tension out of him, then points past Daniel’s ear to the far side of the pool. “Go to that corner over there. Then put your hands like I showed you. I’ll put the ball where it needs to be, and you’ll be fine.”

If Josh keeps talking like that, Daniel’s pretty sure he’s going to embarrass the hell out of himself. His shorts are too loose, too thin, and he’s already half hard in them. He wonders, sometimes, if players get like this during games, if it’s normal to be turned on by the perfect tight spiral or the smack of leather against your skin. He’s not sure if it’s the game, the thrill of it, or if it’s Josh, all that power right up close, all of it focused on Daniel.

He turns and jogs back over to the far side of the pool, getting as close to the edge of the deck as he dares. Sweat is dripping into his eyes, and swiping a forearm across his head doesn’t help much. After this, a cold shower. He fucking needs it.

“Alright,” Josh calls to him, “you ready?”

Daniel puts his hands in position and looks to Josh for approval. “Like this?”

“That’s fine,” Josh says. “A little higher, maybe.” Daniel brings his hands up another inch, and Josh nods at him. “That’s good. Now…don’t move.”

The windup feels like it takes forever. Daniel watches Josh’s arm, the bulge of his bicep, the way the muscles of his forearm shift as he brings the football up past his ear. His feet jig a little, his body arcs back. The expression on his face—it’s like he’s already so fucking pleased with himself, and he ball hasn’t even left his hand yet. Daniel wants to reach down and adjust himself, but he can’t move. He isn’t allowed to move. Josh told him not to.

Then, suddenly, the ball is shooting through the air, so fast Daniel can’t even track it like he should. Good thing Josh is a pro and didn’t need Daniel to track it. It hits his chest right where it was supposed to, so hard it nearly knocks the wind out of him, and his fingers curl around it instinctively, hugging it into his body.

“Holy fuck, mate,” Daniel says in disbelief. His palms are still stinging from the last throw, and now his chest aches, and—he feels like he’s losing his mind, but he wants more. It’s still not enough. He wants to catch ten more passes like this. Twenty. He wants his whole chest to hurt, his whole body to be one big bruise.

“You okay?” Josh says, and suddenly he’s right there in front of Daniel again, prying the football out of his hands. “All good?”

“Yeah, I—” Unthinkingly, Daniel reaches down and lifts up the hem of his shirt, looks down at his chest. He expected—maybe was hoping—to see a mark there already, but the skin is just a little red, a faint starburst in the center of his breastbone.

“You’ll have a hell of a bruise there tomorrow,” Josh says. He pokes the spot with two fingers, and the throb of pain makes Daniel’s dick throb in sympathy. If Josh looks down, Daniel’s fucked.

Of course, Josh does look down.

“Hmm.” The sound comes from somewhere deep in Josh’s chest, and this time Daniel’s whole body throbs. “Is that for me? Or the ball?”

That nervous laugh bubbles out of Daniel’s mouth again. He feels so fucking unsexy right now, like he’s in one of those nightmares where’s he’s shown up to school in his underwear. “I dunno, dude,” he says. “You get a personal demonstration of the talent of someone you admire and see how you react.”

“Mhm,” Josh hums again, thoughtfully this time. “No, I know.”

He touches Daniel again, pressing his thumb against the spot on Daniel’s chest and rubbing gently. Anymore of this, and Daniel’s going to have to climb out of his own skin. He takes a deep, shaky breath and pastes on a smile, then steps backward so Josh’s hand is hovering in midair, nothing left to touch.

“Anyway.” Daniel steps out of his shoes. He tugs his shirt off the rest of the way, refusing to notice whether Josh is still looking or not. “I gotta get out of this heat. You coming?”

He’s a coward, but he doesn’t wait for Josh’s answer, only steps around him and takes a flying leap into the pool. The cool water closes over his head like relief. He floats there, weightless, until his lungs burn.

[dotster001]

Hi! Since Aromantic awareness week is almost around the corner, may I ask for some queerplatonic relationship headcanons with the dorm housewardens? Also your writing is amazing, wish I could write that well lmao

Queer platonic Relationship HC's

Summary: aro! dorm leaders with aro!gn!reader

A/N:Guess who can finish things on time! 😂 Also, I had to look up what specifically a QPR was..and low key...when I talk about the relationship I want on my non aro days...I think this is what I want. Anyway, happy aro awareness week! Whether you're a full time aro, or on a spectrum like me, I hope you take this week to feel valid!

CW:discussions of the internal gaslighting that comes with being aro and ace, because at least for me that's important to discuss.

First Years

His favorite thing to do after a long day is sit next to you and quietly do homework or paperwork together. He feels so safe just sitting with you. He likes to lean over and look at what you're doing, before making a comment or a suggestion. He likes when you do it too.

Another thing he likes to do is straighten your outfit. Before you go out for the day, he gives you a once over, then straightens your tie and your collar, and retucks in your shirt, before giving you a nod and sending you on your way. It gives him a giddy feeling when he sees you later in the day, and your outfits is still as crisp and clean as the Queen would want.

You got Trey's strawberry tart recipe when he graduated. When Riddle has a particularly bad day, you've usually already figured it out and are baking a tart for him. He comes into the kitchen and slumps on the countertop, and just watches you. It's one of the few times he lets his posture slip, and lets himself whine about things. Then when it's finished, he gets the first slice, and you both get to enjoy it together.

He's only a cuddler on bad days. So you both have your own rooms. But cuddling is never off the table if it's needed. On either of your bad days, you can go to the other's room, and silently slip in beside them.

His biggest thing is he wants to coparent a hedgehog with you. Since you're both aro in these HC's, he figures this is his best opportunity. You'll both fight for hours on a name before deciding on something like "Rosebud" or "Queenie". He wants to make sure it's healthy, but also can't resist giving it surplus of treats. If you try to put it on a diet, both of them are going to pout at you until you cave.

He uses you to keep his mother off his back relationship wise. When she needs him to attend an event, you dress to the nines and become the "perfect trophy spouse". Both of you are the "perfect married couple" and it makes her rich friends and her bugger off.

Romantic or platonic, he's always on the lookout for a cuddle buddy. When he starts the relationship, he's very clear that he wants you to be his real life body pillow. And maybe that's how the relationship started, both of you wanting cuddle buddies with no (romantic) strings attached.

His spell drive teammates really like you. Because it means Leona will actually play, and play well. For Leona, it means everything to him that someone sees him as important enough to come see him. It makes him feel loved and supported, which gives him the energy to play.

He'll drive you anywhere you need to go. You being there for him is everything, so he pays it back by giving you rides, and just showing up for you. It's only fair. You support him, he has to support you. No one is allowed to feel second, not in his house.

Never stops calling you herbivore, but it definitely becomes an affectionate thing. He's thrilled when you start to call him carnivore. Loves sarcastic back and forth with you, especially when you are using your nicknames instead of your names.

You made out once. It was because he was curious if he was capable of romantic feelings, and felt like if they would be for anyone, they would be for you.  Obviously, you both got nothing from it, but at least you can say you tried if Farena gets too pushy about the specifics of your relationship. (He means well, he just gets excited when it comes to his baby brother)

He likes it when you stay with him when he works late. You don't even have to talk, just sit on the couch and read, or doodle, or nap while he finishes his paperwork. He likes to look over and see you doing stuff. He's not alone.

He wants cuddles, but he's self conscious about it at first. So you start out with two rooms. As he gets more comfortable with you, and learns you aren't going to tell him he was creepy and to fuck off,  he starts to formulate a plan. He asks you to wait with him in his office, and waits until you fall asleep on the couch. Then he slips in next to you, and you both wake up snuggled together. He did this a couple times, until you got used to cuddling and just came to him in the night. Does he know it was manipulative? Absolutely! Does he have the confidence to be normal? Nope.

The two of you team up to trounce Idia twice as hard, in board game club. Azul spends way too much time planning strategies, and gives you a PowerPoint presentation before every club meeting with what he is going to do, and what you are going to do. Idia hates that there are two of you now.

Gets migraines sometimes, and is incredibly appreciative when you let him lay in your lap and massage his temples, or run your fingers along his scalp. The twins tease him for being "weak" with you, but when he's got a migraine he can't bring himself to care. Plus he knows you'll kill the twins for him. You're great like that.

He cooks for you a lot. He pretends it's to test out new menu items, but growing up with Mama Ashengrotto gave him feeding people as a love language. No matter what you look like, he's always worried you're too skinny. He's still too self conscious if you try to flip the tables on him, but give him time, and he'll let you feed him too.

Probably started as a fake dating thing so that his family would stay off his back. He is the heir to essentially an empire, and is expected to find a partner! So, since you are on the same page, he turns to you in his hour of need.

He's always touching you. Especially the more animated he gets. When he's talking or telling a story, he touches your shoulder a lot, especially when he's talking about you to someone else. If he's not touching your shoulder, he's squeezing your knee, or laying his head on your shoulder, or…well I think you get it.

Calls you "his treasure" so often that people ask all the time if you are dating. You both always laugh and say no…but people ask it so often that sometimes you both start to gaslight yourselves, like, "are we dating?" Then something will happen that reminds you both you're aro, and it'll make you laugh all over again.

He always just knows how you feel, and is three steps ahead. If you're sad, you come home and he's already made you some food. If you're getting sick, he's already gotten medicine, laid out your pajamas, and made your bed super comfy for you. You don't know how he does it, he just seems hyper aware of everything when it comes to you! He just wants you to be happy!!!!

Because he's so important, you probably aren't allowed to live with him until he is head of his family, and can dictate his own life. So you have lots of sleepovers, where you stay up late, and gossip about everyone, and Jamil has to come in and yell at you both to go to bed! (Honestly, he's just like a mom sometimes.)

He likes to take you on shopping sprees with him, holding your hand and dragging you place to place, and paying for anything you so much as look at. Meanwhile, Jamil is trailing behind you both with the most exhausted expression on his face.

Bonus: he feels like the kind of aro that when people try to explain romantic attraction to him, he's like, "But I love everybody! 🤗" And then the people explaining it facepalm.

Vil likes to model his looks for you before he debuts them to the public. He knows they're good, but it's fun for him to put on a mini fashion show. He especially likes when you get excited about a look. Those are the ones he posts on his own magicam.

Vil hates it, but he's slowly picked up your speech patterns from how often you two are together. He'll be having a normal conversation, then he'll see Epel smirk, and Rook giggle, and he'll realize he said something that only you would say. It's embarrassing for him, but hilarious for Epel, who finally gets to correct his grammar.

He formulates a personal skin care product line for you. Everyone's skin is different, and it's Vil's love language to take care of people's skin, and help them achieve their "highest form". He'll even apply it for you, he'll do the hard parts. Just show up to his room at 7:30 pm sharp. Or he'll send Rook after you.

If you are okay with it, he likes to coordinate your makeup and outfits so that you both are matching. He already knows he is the fairest one of all, but he'd be willing to share the title with you. And dressing you up gets him so excited for the day. He's almost unrecognizable with how excited he gets when you are matching. He'll stand next to you while you both look in the mirror, and have the dopiest grin on his face.

He takes you out on spa days with him. You both get massages, and mani petis, and facials, and chat about all your woes and celebrity gossip. It's the most human anyone, except you, gets to see Vil. You know the people running the spa go home and brag about what they witnessed, but no one will believe them. Vil Schoenheit? Gossiping and laughing like a teenager? You must be drunk.

Bonus: Him and Rook had a QPR before you two, but they "split" amicably because Rook is too much of a lover, and needed more. Vil gets it though, and still allows Rook to dote on him when he needs someone to pamper.

The big thing in this relationship is emotional support. He "keeps you around" (his words) because he feels better when you guys hold hands. He'll bring you everywhere with him, because you holding his hand makes things better. He'll go places with you too, it's only fair. Ortho's just happy Idia is finally touching grass.

When he doesn't come to class in person, he likes to text you to see what you're up to. He gets giddy every time you text him back. He gets even more excited when you send him a meme with no explanation, and he gets to use his top notch brain to figure out what you are up to, and why it's relevant. 

Movie nights. A lot of them. He brings one of his fave obscure movies, and you both watch and critique them. He thinks you both should start a podcast so that others can hear your excellent opinions.

He's so chatty with you. He hasn't been uncomfortable having a conversation with you since when you first met. Other people ask how you got him to be so talkative, and you don't really have an answer? If Idia is feeling particularly annoyed today, he'll say something like, "Y/N is friend shaped, you aren't." Then continue the conversation as though he didn't just totally wreck that person.

Everytime he  has a new invention, you're the first to know. Then he gets excited and practices his speech with you. With others, he gets high and mighty, like he is all too aware of how much smarter he is. But with you he's patient. He answers all your questions, and even lets you test the invention out.

Despite being willing to leave his room for you, he still has bad days where it's just too hard. And he is so grateful to you when you go on snack/meal runs for him. He could cry when you bring him the food. You're sent from the gods. You have to be! No one but an angel would be so perfect and kind to him.

He could cry with happiness when you let him babysit Grim. He has a whole plan; games they can play, food he can feed him, hours of petting scheduled in…he's so pumped! He's hoping you'll see he can co parent more cats with you in the future.

Look, I already HC Mal as Ace (it's fine if you don't, that's just my opinion). I feel like he's the aro ace that just…never gets it? He'll have his arm wrapped around your shoulders for moral support, and people will be like, is that your mate? And he'll just look really confused like…no? He does a QPR so naturally, that it's never actually "official". You're just kind of the person who lives in his castle, cuddles with him, and is there for every major life event he goes through. No big deal. 

He gets a little jealous when you hang out with another friend, like Sebek or Silver. He knows you don't mean anything by it…but you're his best friend, right? They're just secondary friends, right? No, he's not pouting, but yes, he would like to join you, thanks for asking.

Draconic instincts are to hoard, and deck out their loved ones in shiny things. You'll find random shiny trinkets on your pillow when you wake up, like you just got visited by the tooth fairy. He's acting like an excited puppy if you wear or display the things he gives you. He'll bring it up to everyone you see. "Doesn't Y/N look great in that bracelet? That's one of the best pieces from my hoard. 😊" If you give him shiny trinkets and rocks back, he'll treat them like the most precious things in his life. He'll be giving diplomats a tour of the castle, and they'll arrive at a pedestal with a single rock on it, and he'll proclaim it "the kingdom's greatest treasure!"

Makes this face all the time when he's around you: 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

You're his guest of honor at every single event. And he always announces your entrance like you are the most powerful person in the room. "I would like to present Y/N L/N, the greatest human to ever live, and my best friend!" More than one diplomat has been very confused by who the fuck this human is. 

The nicknames, oh my God the nicknames. Think Anne Perkins and Leslie Knope. "Y/N, you beautiful tropical fish." "Y/N, you beautiful, talented, brilliant, powerful musk ox." "Y/N, you tricky minx." He could give Rook and Floyd a run for their money with his nicknames for you. (Honorable mention to the time he called you "the most precious child of man to ever child of man.")

[finniestoncrane]

What're the Riddlers' favorite places to......cuddle? And who are the softest, snuggliest sweethearts about it?

Favourite Place to Cuddle

Riddler Headcanons THANK YOU SNOW for letting me write the fluff i thought i was going to write before lmao here's their favourite snuggling spots and their hug status too because you're right, some of them are huggers and some are. not 💚 request info • prompt list • send me a request • kofi • masterlist minors DNI!! 🔞 cw: soft and squishy fluff, sexually suggestive

gotham

favourite place: in bed

either directly after sex, or when you first wake up, or when you lay down to finally go to sleep

his arms are around you and you're held so tight there's no escaping

(but why would you want to wriggle free of his sweet cuddles?)

it just feels so natural and romantic to him, to have you in his bed with his body wrapped around you

hug status: gosh his cuddles are so sweet, they last forever and they take your breath away (or constrict your lungs...)

dano

favourite place: on his stream

it gives him neverending joy when you come up behind him and wrap your arms round his neck and shoulders

or when you feel brave enough to plop yourself down on his lap

all while he's streaming to his loyal followers, who he hopes are very jealous that he has someone to hug and hold

it gives him the ego boost he needs to get up to his nefarious little silly activities

hug status: he says thank you everytime you finish cuddling with him because he feels like he needs to ;-;

twojar

favourite place: the shower

holding you from behind while the water beats down on you both?

hands free to caress your front, your stomach, your chest, maybe even a little bit further south...

it makes him feel dominant still, to be cradling you

to be in control of the length and manner of the cuddle

hug status: he'll only hug you when he feels like it, it feels stifled, almost for show sometimes, but there's warmth in it

btaa

favourite place: while you're dancing

nothing feels better than holding you tight, resting his head on your shoulder, you against his

as you both sway gently to whatever music he has put on

his arms around you, keeping you close, sighing softly

the joy of humming along to the tune and hearing you hum right back

hug status: he's not always aware when you need a hug but when he does cuddle into you it's always perfect

arkham

favourite place: anywhere, as long as it's private

it's unlikely that he'll ever take the initiative to hug you first, because it's not something he thinks about or feels like he needs

but he'll accept a hug from you, or at least he'll let you hang off of him while he stands still and waits for it to be over

but ground rules: you're allowed to hug him twice a day, at most, only when no one is around

and it can't last for too long either, he has things to be getting on with thank you

hug status: he's prickly, but the fact that he lets you hug him at all suggests that he might be softer than he's willing to admit

telltale

favourite place: the back seat of a car

it feels very much like you're on a date, makes him feel young

going to some lovers' lane where he can get into some heavy petting or maybe even more

it's really the only place he gets soft and romantic, the rest of the time he's quite cold and dominant

but the nostalgia, the adrenaline, the innocence, it all does it for him

hug status: don't even think about hugging him without advanced warning in writing

zero year

favourite place: anywhere

but you have to be constantly draped over him, wrapped round his neck

so everyone can see that he has someone who is willing to hug him

and he's definitely going to be grabbing you back

although... maybe not in the traditional sense of a cuddle... maybe more... desperate and gropey than that...

hug status: makes a pouty face and says "where's my hug?" but it's still somehow hard to say no to him

unburied

favourite place: back row of the movie theatre

it's less about the location of this one and more the sort of risk that accompanies it

because with him, hugs are always just the first step

they're a slippery slope to even more physical contact of a more lewd nature

and sitting in the back row, getting cosy, the risk of getting caught? perfect for him

hug status: cuddles are how he expresses himself, how he apologises, initiates sex, lets you know he missed you etc.

btas

favourite place: snuggled up on the sofa

whether you're watching a movie, or playing a video game, he likes you to be close to him

he'll put his arm over your shoulder and pull you in

shifting you closer, inch by inch, until you're practically on his lap or sitting between his legs

just him and you, no one around to interrupt you while he's peppering kisses over any part of you he can reach

hug status: he's definitely a big hugger! absolutely loves being in contact with you

young justice

favourite place: anywhere, as long as it's in public

he'll literally take a hug from you regardless of the situation

he's so touch-starved and desperate to be loved and held and wanted and squished

a quick side-hug, a big bear hug, a hug that knocks him over

literally nothing makes him happier than knowing you're willing to be seen doting over him in front of other people

hug status: absolute soft boy, will melt into your arms when you hug him but is a bit nervous about intiating any cuddles

[commander-krios]

THINGS THAT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT MY FELLOW WRITERS

I was tagged by @lemonsrosesandlavender, thank you so much!! These are always fun <3

Tagging: @aevallare, @eluvisen, @aceghosts, @storyknitter, @starknstarwars and @my-favourite-zhent

Last book I read: 

The last book I finished was "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien but that was like last year lmao Currently, my reading list has "The Time of Contempt" by Andrzej Sapkowski (i'm about 1/3 of the way through it I think) and I might attempt to start the Dune series if I get brave enough.

Greatest literary inspiration: 

Sylvia Plath and J.R.R. Tolkien are pretty important to me as far as writing goes. And Jeaniene Frost. They are all different in their styles and writing but each have their importance to fiction.

Things in my current fandom I want to read but I don't want to write:

More tiefling refugee fics! I don't have a preference on which ones because I love them all! Bex, Danis, Lakrissa, Alfira, Ikaron, Guex etc all deserve as much love and attention as Rolan, Dammon, and Zevlor imo. I mean, I WILL probably write more for them eventually, but I'd like to be able to read more about them in general.

Things in my current fandoms I want to write but I think nobody would be interested in them but me: 

Me and maybe a handful of people maybe, but I'd like to write more about the Zhentarim prior to the events of BG3. Mainly focused on my former Zhent and Rugan, but there are some relationships I'd like to explore more and some characters like Zarys and Roah.

You can recognise my writing by:

Descriptive emotion, angst, pining, hurt/comfort. I love writing self reflection for a character as well as characters taking in the things around them: scents, sounds, people, etc.

My most controversial take ( current fandom):

I not a fan of x reader fics. Idk why they got to be so popular but I'd rather read about people's OCs! I've read a few x reader in the last few months and they can be done well, but I think it's a POV thing for me. I don't like being the one put in the situations.

Current writing mood (10 – super motivated and churning out words like crazy, 0 – in a complete rut):

Uhhh anywhere from a 0 to a 3, depends on what part of the day we're at. It's been a struggle for the last few months. I did write a little bit for Round Rugan with my friends in the Zhent Discord Server, but personally, it's been tough. I'm hoping I got a breakthrough on my cat!Juni fic though, so fingers crossed.

Top three favourite tropes:

Hmmm that's a tough question. If we're going by favorite tropes to write, I'd say hurt/comfort. I always need hurt with the comfort, even if it's held off for a bit. Some good ole mutual pining. It's always requited even if a character doesn't realize it. There needs to be a resolution to it though. And found family. I am a sucker for found family always.

Share a random frustration:

Fandom. Just... fandom.

[etincelleart]

Hey. Hope you're having a wonderful day

Just wanna say that your characters are amazing. Exactly what got you into creating them ? Any sort of inspiration ?

Hey, I'm having a good night and hope you too !

Thank you so much, I'm happy you appreciate them :) I'm happy to tell the tiny story behind their creation-

So, back in march/april 2021 I was in my last year of my bachelor's degree studying animation, and I still wasn't sure about going in the master's degree in animation as well after that. There were a lot of struggles at this moment but anyway

The thing is that for the master we had to create a short film, alone and (almost) fully done by ourselves, so our teachers asked us to start a sort of book or sketchbook to do researches and brainstorming about the film during summer. Even if I wasn't sure to continue I started it, and sketched a lot of stuff and various ideas I had at this moment

Then I ended up not going in the master's degree and taking a gap year instead, but I still continued to sketch stuff in that sketchbook because I still wanted to do my own film at some point. Uni or not the diploma was mostly a reason to make a film, but I in any case I wouldn't be free to do like I want because of teachers' reviews etc. I wanted to make it truly my own, maybe not perfect but just give it a try and be free to tell the story I want.

But I was frustrated because I wasn't finding something that would make me feel like it's my own stuff, it was too similar to RWBY for a lot of things (already a big inspiration at this moment, I was in the V8 brainrot for the first half of 2021 lmao). So I wasn't really going anywhere

BUT, randomly in december 2021 I had a pretty wild and pretty dream, I decided to paint digitally the main scene of it and doodle some concepts I had from it in my sketchbook :

I also ended up writing and composing a tiny song based on it (in french sorry-). It's not perfect at all or anything because I'm not a pro or super good, but creating a link between visual art & music helps me a lot most of the time so I do it (also for fun 'cause I love it) :

After that it didn't evolved much outside of the fact that I already had some sort of script for a "short film" or a teaser idk, I wrote that when I was in uni last winter. But I still wasn't really sure about the main characters or even their designs, even if Gris was the one I thought the most about and changed a lot of stuff

So last january/february I started to work on a first design and turn around for Gris :] (she didn't even have a name yet at this moment)

I continued to think of it until recently at the end of this summer where I sketched another design for her. As for Fauve, I knew for a long time I wanted Gris to have a strong bond with someone to help her go through stuff (and also a gf lol). I never really worked a lot on Fauve, I only knew she was going to have red or brown hair. x)

And I just sketched a first rough thing after Gris and liked it, so I kept it, it was really simple and easier than Gris' researches aha, idk Fauve's vibes felt pretty natural and logical after Gris was done.

Also if you're curious here are some of the first design ideas for them I had back in 2021/2022 :]

It changed a lot--

Anyway, now I'd love to develop more stuff and make a short film :]

[retrievablememories]

only have eyes 42 | yeri, taeyong (m)

pairings: vampire yeri x fem black reader, vampire taeyong x fem black reader summary: it’s surprisingly easy to be seduced by two benevolent strangers who fill in the empty spaces of your life—especially when you have no clue of their true nature. genre: romance, vampire!au, 1800s!au word count: 4.3k warnings: mentions of traditional gender roles/pressures to get married. blood consumption. kissing. biting. sexual tension. no full smut but suggestive content so MDNI. virgin!reader i guess? taeyong’s kind of a simp. voyeurism/eavesdropping. more creep behavior from taeyong. did i unintentionally write sugar mommy!yeri? well. undercurrents of manipulation/deceit. yeri and taeyong are fake cousins. gonna very tentatively put infidelity here just in case, although yeri and taeyong are both in on everything that’s happening between them and y/n, so… a/n: this is a sequel of sorts to “steal you,” set a few years after the initial events, with a different MC…as the previous one is dead. i unintentionally retconned some things in the original fic while writing this, but whatever!

note that precise historical accuracy wasn't the aim here, since these are only vignettes/scenarios and not a full story (yet?)

there’s a lot of background context that’s not (explicitly) mentioned here, so i'm thinking of writing a larger fic for this? we'll see...this is really just self-indulgent bisexual thoughts lmao 🙃

Days spent running the dress shop with your mother and youngest sister are often hectic and occasionally slow, but rarely are they fun. At least not for you. The kind customers make up for the rude and impatient ones, but there is only so much smiling you can do when your mother’s friends and acquaintances keep stopping in to ask you Have you found a suitor yet? or I can still arrange a meeting for you with my son, if you’d like!

Both your sisters had already found husbands. Your middle sister married at 20, and you hardly see her anymore since she went to live with her husband’s family. The youngest married at 19, but her husband still allows her to keep working at the shop because of how much she enjoys it—and because all money she earns goes directly to him, of course.

With you being 24 and having already rejected more than one proposal from men you hardly knew, everyone has been breathlessly expecting you to follow suit. You try in vain to ignore their expectations. You aren’t sure you’ve ever felt any romantic love for another person before—not the way your sisters or others describe it—and though the mounting pressure vexes you, you are mostly okay with that reality. You can’t miss what you’ve never had.

Until, one day, a particular woman walks into the shop.

You haven’t seen her in the shop before, or anywhere else around the city, and you are certain she would’ve remained in your memory if you had.

Years from now, when you think back to how this inscrutable woman altered your life’s path, you’ll remember this first day so clearly—all because it was raining. It was not the type of bone-soaking downpour you’ve always hated, but a gentler shower.

A man accompanies the woman, carrying a delicate pink and white umbrella above her head as he opens the door for her. When she steps inside, some water droplets roll off the umbrella and onto her pinned-up black hair, making her shiver when they reach her neck and slide into her collar. That small motion makes you smile in amusement before you can stop yourself, and at the same time, you catch her eye. She takes your expression as a welcoming smile and returns the gesture.

With her smooth skin, perfectly curved Cupid’s bow, and captivating eyes, she is remarkably beautiful.

You do not know who the man is, just assuming him to be a servant by the way he is holding her things and attending to her, but you find your eyes also lingering on him, despite yourself. He has a nice side-profile reminiscent of one you’d see in a painting, with a sloping nose, a handsomely formed bone structure, and plump lips. The second thing you notice is that his clothes are of a higher-quality than many of the servants you see daily; maybe he isn’t one at all. You’d gotten so into the habit of making (usually correct) assumptions about the shop’s patrons.

“Good morning. Fine weather today, isn’t it?” you say with a laugh.

The man gives an answering chuckle. “If you like nearly being washed into the gutter, maybe.”

“You’re endlessly dramatic,” the woman comments, raising a gloved hand to check for any more water droplets in her hair. Even her small movements are graceful in a way that comes naturally.

“...So, how may I assist you?” you ask, giving them both your attention while trying to avoid seeming like you’re staring.

“My lovely cousin Yerim here—” The man pinches the woman’s chin, and she sweeps his hand away in shocked annoyance “—is incredibly indecisive and has made me take her to every dressmaker on this side of London, so I do hope you have something here that catches her eye.”

“It’s not been every dressmaker,” Yerim clarifies, rolling her eyes with a small grin. “But your dresses in the window seemed exceptionally pretty, so I was curious.”

“Oh, of course. There are more fabrics like those, if you’ll follow me.”

You and Yerim look over the rows of available fabrics, and you give some recommendations on patterns and colors you think would fit her. She listens diligently as you talk, as if she couldn’t be more interested in anything else. A bit flustered by the attention, you end up keeping your eyes on the fabrics more than on her face.

As you’re explaining a particular material, she grasps the edge of the fabric you’re holding, brushing her lacy-gloved thumb across it until the digit bumps into the side of your hand. She giggles discreetly and only moves her hand away—causing the lace to slide across your skin—after it’s already lingered for what’s considered a little longer than normal.

You struggle not to pause in your speech as your mind stalls on that moment, giving her an apologetic smile when you stammer anyway. You don’t yet understand why you’re reacting like this, but the meaning will become clear to you in due time.

--

“You’re certain Taeyong won’t mind being left behind?”

He’d been accompanying the two of you on your walk through the park, which is scarcely filled with people at this time of day. Everyone else is at work, which you normally would’ve been too. Except for Yerim—who had enough money that your impromptu free day could be easily pulled off, and who’d nearly begged you to come out with her by offering to pay for two days’ worth of your earnings. It was a difficult overture to reject, and your mother had surprisingly few complaints about it. Not when part of the money was also going into her own purse.

Now, it’s just you and Yerim walking along the path together, as Taeyong had become preoccupied with ogling at a family of geese sunbathing in a field. You think it’s a bit eccentric how he always gets lost in excitement over stray animals and pets and the like, but that’s just how he is. You aren’t actually concerned about him being left behind, but more so because he’ll complain to Yerim about her “stealing you away” for the rest of your outing if you let him.

Yerim’s deeply rose-pink lips draw up in a smirk, and she rolls her eyes. “He’ll be quite fine by himself. Believe me, he survived well long before me.”

“You two seem to get along quite well. Most cousins I know have a world of problems between them. Families are so aggravatingly complex.”

Yerim gazes ahead down the path, as if she’s suddenly lost in her thoughts. Sunlight peeks through the lace trimming of herhatand creates shadowy patterns on her face. She often wears one of her pretty hats or even uses an umbrella when she steps out during the day, claiming her skin burns easily. “We both want the same things, so it makes it easier to relate to each other.”

“Well, now that’s intriguing. What similar things do you both want?”

Yerim looks at you, turning her body toward you with the motion, and you feel like you’ve suddenly got the sun bearing down on you in all its fullness. She slips her hat off, as if doing so will help her see better, and grasps the brim of it in her gloved hands.

“Life,” she replies, and though she doesn’t explain further, it feels like the type of answer with a world of meaning behind it.

“Life,” you repeat, and you try not to sound incredulous or mocking. “I would think you’d already experienced any spoils of life you could dream of and then some.”

“There’s always more.” Yerim says it with the subtle intensity of someone who harbors a constant hunger just beneath the surface, a yearning that even you can pick up on. It makes your skin become hot, and you internally chastise yourself because you’re sure she doesn’t intend it how you’re assuming. “Don’t you want more, too?”

“I suppose so,” you answer.

“Do you?” Yerim asks again, like she wants you to expand upon your response.

“The dress shop is fine,” you say, though that doesn’t feel truthful, “but it…would be nice to travel the world.” You speak the first desire that comes to mind, which makes it seem more real now that you’ve acknowledged it aloud.

“Hmm, wouldn’t that be nice? You could do just that.” Yerim comes to a stop in the middle of the pathway, and you do too, looking back at her to see why she’s paused. Yet again, she doesn’t give any hint about how doing just that could be possible in your current circumstances.

She twirls the large, lacy hatin her hand and holds it up in front of both of you, so that if anyone were coming from the other direction—say, another park visitor, or Taeyong—they wouldn’t see your faces. “But, even more importantly, there’s something I want to show you. Close your eyes.”

Her voice is measured and secretive. Her eyes are mischievous. The air thickens between you in the few seconds that you stare at each other within the concealment her hat provides, and it surprises you how quickly you come to the conclusion of what this something must be.

“Here?” you murmur.

Yerim nods, her face betraying no apprehension, only sweet anticipation. “Close your eyes?” she asks again. And so you do, your lips twitching into a small smile before you try to assume a straight face.

While you’re looking at the backs of your eyelids, you hear her heeled boots shuffling in the dirt and feel her presence growing closer. There’s a pause, an exhalation like she’s laughing without sound, then the press of those rose-pink lips upon yours.

This lovely woman who’s always in your shop, with a face you can hardly look away from and an ever-present magnetic aura, has her mouth over your own, her free hand grasping your waist earnestly. Her mouth is gentle and warm, and that familiar rose petal scent envelopes you.

It’s the first time you’ve kissed each other, but it feels like you’ve already done this multiple times before. The nerves you expected to feel are not there—there is only the soft familiarity, the fragrance of her perfume, and the warmth of her hand on your waist.

It’s a short kiss, which you try not to feel disappointed about. Yerim understands your desire and finds it amusing. She offers you a knowing smile, but she won’t give you any more unless you ask for it, and right now, your pride is still too stubborn to allow that. You’re still unsure why this lavishly moneyed woman is wanting to spend so much time with you, or what the mysterious things she says mean, or if there could be something else to all of this. What something else is, though, you have not a clue.

--

It wasn’t your intention to spend the night at Yerim’s home. But after you finish an exhausting day of tending to customers and working on complex sewing projects, she brings you to her house for the first time to have dinner. And you get so caught up in eating and touring every nook and cranny of the place—which really wasn’t as large as you expected it to be—and even playing a game of cards with her and Taeyong, that she insists it’s too late at night for you to go back home. Surely, you could wait until morning for them to return you to your own residence before work?

Before you know it, you are lying next to Yerim in her bed during the dark and early hours of the morning, gazing at the rest of the room through the wispy fabric draped around her canopy bed. You could’ve slept in a guest room of your choosing, but somehow, you’d been talked right into her bed. And it did not take much convincing for you to acquiesce.

“Are you happy?” Yerim asks. She hasn’t bothered to climb under the covers, and neither have you. She lies down with her arms folded across her stomach, knees bent, and toes curling absentmindedly into the comforter. This position makes her nightgown pool around her waist, exposing the length of her legs under the opposing candlelight and moonglow. You try not to stare. You don’t know how she has this much energy at night, as her body has hardly stopped moving since you began getting ready for bed.

“Yes, actually…I had a lovely time this evening, despite the earlier exhaustion.”

Yerim smiles. “I mean in general. Do you fancy working at the dress shop? You told me it was ‘fine,’ but you always seem so…unlively when I come in—in that split second before you notice my presence…”

“What do you get out of being that observant?” you ask, somewhat jokingly.

“It means I know everything.” She says it with some air of seriousness, as if she were truly granted omniscient powers you weren’t aware of. You only blink in response. “Now, why do you look that way?”

“Maybe I am just…stressed.”

Yerim turns onto her stomach and props her head up on her arms, using her pillow as a support, and your own stomach involuntarily tumbles with her gaze fixed on you. “What distresses you?”

Glancing up at the patterned ceiling, you close your eyes for a long moment and let the ensuing darkness surround you. It’s somewhat comforting. “My mother is anticipating that I should find a proper husband soon. We make money from the shop and live fairly comfortably that way, but she insists I must have a man to take care of me, like my sisters.” You sigh deeply as you continue with, “And bear children, of course.”

Yerim laughs like you’ve told a joke she can’t believe, and you are startled, as nothing you’ve said is particularly amusing.

“Shall we find you a proper husband who will support you handsomely, then?” she suggests through a giggle.

Your brows draw together, and you turn your head to look at her and those errant eyes. “Who?” You begin to regret mentioning this at all, wondering if she’ll actually use her social standing to contribute to the effort of marrying you off to some wealthy stranger. Surely, this will not be the culmination of your friendship…

Yerim moves so that she’s on her hands and knees now, and she doesn’t stop shifting until she’s hovering over you. You watch with eyes growing wide as her arms cage you on either side of your body, her legs sliding between yours. “Me. I will be the proper husband who supports you handsomely.”

Finally, a hesitant yet amused grin disrupts the prior confusion on your face. “Really? And who will approve of that?”

“That hardly matters. We’ll need no one’s approval.”

Her hair falls over her shoulders and dangles in front of you, and you part it like a curtain to brush away the shadows obscuring her face. Her visage is half-shadow and half-candlelight, reminiscent of an oil painting. The glitter of her eyes and the glint of her teeth as she smiles are sharp, as if you could be physically cut by these flashes of light, and your chest stirs with something like unease for a moment. You don’t know why.

Your voice is quiet when you say, “You won’t find any opposition from me, then.”

“In that case, close your eyes again.”

“Why? Perhaps I don’t want to lose this view.”

Yerim draws her index finger across your lower lip. “I’ll give you a gift—one like that day in the park.”

Your heart stutters at the thought. “Do what you will,” you murmur, letting your eyelids slip down.

The same hand that was on your mouth takes your chin in a loose grip, and you make a small noise when she lowers her body flush against yours.

Her kiss is no longer soft or brief. Her lips press against yours as if she means to meld every part of your beings together, her tongue slotting itself into your mouth, and you accept the proposition.

You kiss until your lips hurt, though that’s more likely from the way she keeps biting your bottom lip until she draws blood—and then she kisses you even more feverishly as if she’s invigorated from the bloodshed, the primal quality of it. It makes your lip sting, but you realize you like the sensation.

Her body continually shifts against yours during your embrace, and by the time she separates from your mouth to give your neck a wild, messy lick, your underwear has grown damp and your legs knock clumsily into hers. Dizzy with lust you’ve never encountered before, you find you’re unable to do anything but lie prone and let her do what she wishes to you.

Meanwhile, Taeyong stands outside of the door as still as a statue, listening to the now-familiar sound of your blood rushing and your heart pulsing—the unique rhythm of every human’s blood that defines their very existence. No two bodies are ever quite the same. The sweet music of your blood is punctuated by your small murmurs and moans, and he doesn’t need to press his ear to the door to hear clearly, but the absurdly human desire to do so is still there, if only to get closer…

He knows that Yerim must realize he’s out there, listening in like a pervert, and he does not care.

--

You’re sitting at Yerim’s kitchen table sewing a rip in a scarf of yours when you prick your finger on the needle. You drop your materials from the shock of the sudden injury and hold your finger, watching blood bead up on the pad of it as it throbs with pain. Taeyong is away from the kitchen counter and by your side before you even register it, and you are slightly startled by him sliding into the seat next to you.

“What?” you ask.

“Can I see it?”

“Is there any gauze?” you ask, showing him your finger.

Taeyong carefully grasps your wrist with both hands. “For this little wound? It’ll stop bleeding in minutes.” There’s a certain urgency to his movements and his tone that makes you curious. “All it needs is this.”

Taeyong presses his lips to your finger as if to soothe it. You’ve licked your own cuts after the many times you’ve been pricked while sewing, but to have someone else do it, and in such a manner, was…strange. The action enflames your body; it seems oddly more satisfying than it should be to him, as if he gets some kind of bizarre gratification from it. He inhales deeply and doesn’t move his mouth; he just keeps it pressed against the cut until he finally moves your finger away, the sphere of your blood broken and smeared across his lips. He drags his tongue across his lower lip to rid it of the blood smear, and your body twitches; you want to look away. You feel like you’re witnessing something obscene and private you aren’t meant to see.

You don’t say anything as he takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes the rest of the blood away from your finger before quickly tucking the cloth back into its place. You wonder if he’ll wash it; it’ll be ruined by your blood otherwise.

Unbeknownst to you, he will take this handkerchief out in the privacy of his room later that night and press his face into it, breathing in the faint scent of your blood and imagining the faded taste of it on his lips.

“Are you well?” he asks.

“...It still hurts. I didn’t think a silly kiss would help,” you answer, and chuckle quietly to try to defuse the nerve-wracking atmosphere of that earlier moment.

“Fine, hold on a minute.”

Taeyong finds gauze in another room and comes back to wrap a small piece of it around your finger, protecting your cut from the outside world. Afterwards, you’re about to slip your hand out of his when his grip tightens, and you pause.

“What’s troubling you?” you ask, already knowing something is amiss from the furrow in his eyebrows and the tension in his body that wasn’t there before.

Taeyong drops his head, pressing his forehead to your wrist, and you think he might sob or collapse for no apparent reason. Alarmed, you’re about to speak again when you realize this isn’t the case; he lifts his head so that you can see him lower his lips to your hand again. He kisses the back of your hand in a way that’s markedly different from his previous touch; this one is more sensual, intentional in its purpose to rouse a response from you. His mouth trails a path down to your uninjured ring finger, and you observe silently as he bites the tip of it softly.

“I’m jealous of you and Yerim…” The confession comes out in a sigh, like it’s a sound his body needs to release rather than a thought-out sentence.

“Jealous…” It’s not a question, as you already had an idea of this in the back of your mind, but you don’t know why he’s chosen now to mention it.

“I’d also like to know just how soft your lips feel, or what they taste like…” Taeyong keeps kissing the tips of your fingers and your knuckles slowly, almost like he’s pretending your hand is your mouth with how engrossed he is in this task. You find this shameless display simultaneously embarrassing and appealing in some deep part of yourself; it’s the way he prostrates himself before you, flays open his hidden desires to you. “I’d like you to touch my body the same way you touch hers…I’d like to make you moan desperately the same way she does, late at night when you believe me to be asleep.”

Your only answer is a rough exhalation. Your dress feels uncomfortably hot; you wonder how he knows of those things. Does he stand outside the door? Listen at the wall? You didn’t realize the walls were that thin around here, and you think maybe you should be more put-off by his unabashed eavesdropping.

“What do you say to that?” he asks, lifting his head to look at you.

“I say it’s rather pathetic,” you answer, meaning it wholeheartedly—and for some reason, the pitiable state of his desire makes it more alluring to you. There’s a thoughtful pause between the two of you. You make no move to reject him when he leans closer, staring at your lips. One of his hands releases yours and touches your throat instead, his fingertips splaying to rest above your pulse.

“Then allow me to make myself appear even more pathetic in your eyes for just a moment.” Taeyong’s so close that his lips almost brush yours when he speaks. Your mouths connect only for a second before the front door opens. That brief touch of his lips to yours is all you receive.

The separation between you widens to its original innocuous breadth as Taeyong sits back in his seat. He is placing your hand back into your lap when Yerim walks into the kitchen a few moments later, and she abruptly stops in the doorway. You think she must be upset because she has somehow figured out what transpired. In actuality, she is cross because of the lingering smell of your blood in the air, which your human senses can’t pick up.

“Yerim…” you say, your throat feeling choked. You two hadn’t spoken seriously about a relationship, especially not with the dilemma of your mother still hunting for a husband for you and the fact that you’d both be shunned, but you realize that kissing your lover’s cousin is probably not the way to go about things.

Yerim walks over to the two of you and greets you as she normally would. “Y/N,” she says calmly, stroking a finger against your cheek; there’s always some part of her body touching yours whenever you meet. The same hand lands tightly on Taeyong’s shoulder afterwards, and the smile she gives him is close-mouthed and unnatural. He looks up at her with a face that isn’t guilty, but more curious and slightly irritated. “You haven’t been hurt badly, have you?” she asks, glancing at the gauze on your finger.

“Oh…no. It was just a pinprick,” you say, tentatively picking your sewing materials up off the table. Yerim’s tension rescinds when she notices the sewing needle, though her gaze towards Taeyong stays suspicious. “I…think I’ll just go and put this away for now.”

The two wait until you leave the room to speak in barely audible tones.

“Remember our arrangement,” Yerim whispers, unable to keep the disgust out of her voice.

“You’re eager to lambast me for bloodshed I didn’t even cause, yet you drew her blood on her first night here. Who exactly has forgotten themselves?”

Yerim’s tone is perfectly matter-of-fact when she responds with, “I have more self-control than you—as all the unsuspecting human women of London you’ve ravaged are well-aware of your lack.” She levels Taeyong with a deadpan look. “She wasn’t in any danger with me that night.”

“You’re fond of drawing this dance out beyond reason, and then you have the audacity to be surprised when one’s patience wears thin.”

“Then maybe I’ll return to finding prey on my own if you’re so worn thin. Do recall that you’re the one who asked me to help you sweep up all your mess from the beginning, so I’d speak more carefully if I were in your place.”

“Just unbelievable,” Taeyong mutters as Yerim brushes past him without a second glance. His fingers twitch over the pocket where the blood-smeared handkerchief rests, but he dismisses the urge to pull it out now.

Self-control, he thinks. You have no monopoly on self-control.

[dnangelic]

ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘɪᴄᴋ ᴜᴘ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴜʀʀᴇɴᴛ ᴍᴜꜱᴇ(ꜱ) ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ?

biting the bullet and saying why not! i usually avoid protagonist types because i get intimidated by the amount of detail and canon i feel like i have to memorize in order to properly do them justice, same with more 'popular' charas/muses giving me more personal pressure to be a portrayal worth.... something?? respect and validity?? attention and friendship from my mutuals lmao 😭 but considering dnangel was painfully niche (despite the way everybody and their mom at least recognizes it) and about half the series was only in japanese anyways, (let's see you try to find full-length dnangel LN translations that aren't mine) AND it's been like 30 years since the series started, i figured i'd have nothing to lose if my tried my best with daisuke. dai's always basically been my first magical girl (boy-) exposure and for that i'm very grateful. i still remember how beautiful sugisaki's art was to me even while being shook that dai was falling off a cliff in vol 2. my whole life might as well have led up to this point is basically what i'm saying-

ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ?

nothing much beyond the obvious taboos/what's in my rules. although, i don't really like if it a muse relationship doesn't go anywhere and stagnates at something like making fun of dark or daisuke nonstop. yeah they can be your funny guys, but don't suddenly ditch me or go off in an ooc post rant if that funny stuff takes an actual serious turn. i try to incorporate a lot of facets into dark and daisuke both, so i get frustrated when people solely try to force them into shallow facades of themselves. humor's great, but there's a point where people have to take daisuke and dark's feelings seriously too, or else i won't feel reciprocated, and i'll start losing respect for portrayals and muses.

ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏ ᴡʀɪᴛɪɴɢ?

i just like writing in general really. if you write with me i really enjoy it. thank u so much💐✨. being able to take dark and daisuke out of their somewhat limited canon and put them through certain experiences or in front of certain personalities that i'd otherwise never ever get to see is very fulfilling for me, especially since the series probably won't get anymore updates in the future (holding out for an anime revival but for now i'll take the brand new 2024 drama cd.) if we're talking deepest indulgences... off the top of my head, i really like it when dark gets to be actually intimate with others without worrying over the curse or keeping any secrets for daisuke, which includes him being with even younger muses who just kind of marvel at him and look up to him be it as an older brother type figure or not. on daisuke's side of things, i'm just like sugisaki lmfao- i like it when he gets to do things and actually prove to muses that he's a) capable and unstoppable when he tries and b) actually kind of an impulsive hothead underneath all the anxiety dkjfkgjk.

ʜᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴜᴘ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴꜱ?

i wish i was the sort of person to spitball silly little headcanons out one after another but i'm not. most headcanons i have usually fulfill some kind of thematic or relate directly to canon; dark's skin being ice-cold and marble-smooth is all headcanon, him having fangs (sharp teeth) and claws is very very arguably headcanon, (as in, canon never comments on either or, but let it me known my dark absolutely does have these features,) all to better suit and exaggerate his role as 'the beast' and something inhuman, on the scarier and supernatural side of things. daisuke tumbling locks as a (quite telling to the perceptive) habit with his hands is headcanon, and so is his and dark's shared appreciation for fruits/sweets --- it's part of the fractured fairy-tale motif, but also the biblical, which both often have overlapping dealings and warnings in regards to sins, temptations, and pride, a la eating the apple / the gingerbread house. dark and dai are both the tempers and the ones tempted, but they're also thieves and possessive saviors; their eyes are kind but covet, their hands are cold but their smiles are warm, they clutch at and take anything that isn't theirs but often for the sole sake of keeping and protecting it. most of my headcanons end up revolving around that sort of thing.

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ ɪɴ ꜱɪʟᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴏʀ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘʟᴀʏ ᴍᴜꜱɪᴄ?

my surroundings are endlessly noisy so i usually have something playing. it's also why i write better at night during dead hours because it's quietest, but by then i'm usually worn out and just want to sleep 😂

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘʟᴀɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʀᴇᴘʟɪᴇꜱ ᴏʀ ᴡɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇᴍ?

i'm a winger. if i focus too long on quality for literally every single interaction i'd never get any replies out, but i do enjoy writing more complex/dramatic replies for mutuals whose styles better suit it. this is why my writing style shifts around between asks/responses/mutuals sometimes, although sometimes it's on purpose. dark's responses can seem far more complex and grandiose than daisuke's at times, but that's because mentally, daisuke's much younger and simpler and much more emotional/energetic. if i'm really inspired by a response but don't have the immediate time to sit and focus on a full length reply, sometimes i'll just jot down a sentence or two i want to use so i don't forget into my notes app, and it's usually smooth sailing from there.

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏ ꜱʜɪᴘᴘɪɴɢ?

romantic? it's not my priority, especially since my standards are very strict. i refuse to get into a ship that feels empty because forcing something i don't actually feel for is the fastest way to kill off my muse. idc about kisses and i sure as hell don't do smut, my muse (both of them, dark included at least physically) is a minor, but if something happens naturally (which isn't at all impossible, this is daisuke i'm writing here,) then i'll roll with it and see where it goes. really it's not daisuke developing an attraction to another muse that i'm afraid of, just annoying muns or getting a negative reaction to potentially introducing any kind of narrative conflict. i like some drama. i like some figuring it out. i like depth touching depth. daisuke's entire life/series begins with him literally being rejected by his first crush on his birthday and he's part of a buy one boyfriend get one free package alongside dark; he's always got a lot to figure out. so i guess my advice is really don't ask me to ship unless you're fully prepared to understand what exactly that means with daisuke.

romance aside? i love daisuke having mentors. or rivals. or people he attaches to as a sibling or some kind, given he's a lonely single child already used to being immensely responsible. or i like seeing him being stuck in complicated situations and putting other people into complicated dilemmas because his alignments are all over the place. he works with criminal muses, law-enforcement related muses, magical-related muses, inter-dimensional related muses, art-related muses, older or younger, nobility, there's sm you can do with him, he can go just about anywhere. i enjoy this.

ᴡʜᴀᴛ'ꜱ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴀʟɪᴀꜱ/ɴᴀᴍᴇ?

tsun

ᴀɢᴇ?

💀 im getting older....

ʙɪʀᴛʜᴅᴀʏ?

mar 20th

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ᴄᴏʟᴏʀ(ꜱ)?

black, red, hey wait a minute-

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜱᴏɴɢ(ꜱ)?

i'll talk about for dark and daisuke specifically - dark is always those moody, weepy sounding vkei or jrock (duh) songs while daisuke gets all the cutesy, lovey-dovey, high-energy jpop music. throw in the occasional mix of the two (like metal covers of high energy pop songs) and i've got all the vibes i need. go into my audio tag and maybe then you will Understand

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ᴍᴏᴠɪᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜᴇᴅ?

half of sonic 2 (i didn't get to finish it because it was on a plane flight ---)

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ꜱʜᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜᴇᴅ?

i haven't watched any shows in FOREVER 😭

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ꜱᴏɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪꜱᴛᴇɴᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ?

halyosy's snowman (the rerec ver) (thank you project sekai)

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜰᴏᴏᴅ?

p...pizza....

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜱᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ?

fall right when it's riiiiiight before winter.

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀ ᴛᴜᴍʙʟʀ ʙᴇꜱᴛ ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅ?

mutuals that have stuck with me for yrs are all my best friends. mutuals that are nice to me now are also my best friends

tagged by @primordyalsoul ty sumin!!!!!!

[manofthepipis]

Howdy mo! Kind of a silly question but do you have any personal headcannons based on the addisons/spam?

aaaaa hi!! :D not a silly question at all!! i actually do have a couple i've had in my notes as i've thought about them, most i've thought about while writing but haven't had anywhere to put them lmao

I say it's a little but it's a lot i lied haha

-banner does all different types of clothing and he even knits sweaters. he got survey into it one night while they were talking. (my personal headcanon is that banner is the one that talked to survey to give up their search for spamton, as clicks and sponsor never talked about it.)

-Sponsor sells pretty much everything due to them being a sponsor-ad. their advertising comes in many different forms, like items relating to lightners' searches. They are the most adaptable out of the group, and always carry a variety of random items to sell.

-Addisons have computerized inventories. Like a pop-up storage space. They use this for business and advertising primarily and carry handheld devices outside of the inventory. Spamton's has been broken for years and doesn't work properly, and whenever he tries to summon it, it will glitch and leaves the ground littered with a bounty of [pipis]. Because of this, he lugs around what he can in his pockets or garbage bags (say like his shop inventory with broken swords, potion bottles, etc). At one point he could do two things at once and carried items in his pillowcase as he moved from dumpster to dumpster. Still, purses and bags are fashionable, so sometimes an addison will carry one.

-speaking of that, spamton's addison abilities don't work anymore, but some are salvaged through neo (summoning white letter projectiles, the white light that can become a laser.) Some attempts he's made at pop-up ads haven't gone away and are still glitched up in the trash zone.

-During spamton's big shot days, the addisons were STEAMING in jealousy after what happened at the grille. Each one would do what they could to sabotage spamton's advertising when it would interfere with their own business, including tearing down posters, putting their own advertisement over things, the works. Clicks even went as far as to contact darkners that could help to block spamton's ads in the streets of cyber city, having billboards, links, etc as coming up blank. Strangely, they'd all turn back to normal the following morning, as if someone had reverted all of his progress. How strange indeed.

-Survey wasn't the only addison to look for spamton after he disappeared.

-It's rare to see an addison without their standard outfit, and to have spamton shun their appearance for better/flashier suits was a HUGE slap in the face for their darkner type's signature. As well as getting his hair dyed.

-Spamton's transformation took place over the course of a short time, and it wasn't his benefactor's intention to break him. He just was overloaded and mentally broke, and in an attempt to fix him, the man on the phone turned him into a puppet as his code got more and more out of control.

-Weather rarely occurs in cyber city, but when it does, it mainly freezes over. I headcanon spamton in this time would take abandoned clothes from the trash behind banner's storefront to stay warm. He'd learned to sew and patch clothing, but working with string is something he really has to mentally power through.

-Spamton learned to heal himself after the successful heist of the Keygen, because the swatchlings REALLY messed him up in their efforts to keep him out. This gives the other addisons the idea to make healing items of their own down the road, matching the items they sell, that could benefit the lightner, but nothing really compares to how effective spamton's healing is.

-Spamton doesn't sleep often now (sales could be at any moment!) but also because he sleepwalks. When he does, it's jarring to see, as he sleepwalks like a puppet being lazily made to move around. The addisons would find this immediately unnerving and try to calmly get him back to bed if they could.

-Spamton, because he doesn't have a predominant hue, can turn all colors, but it's an ability that, like many he has, is broken. Red is the only color that works reliably in tandem with his emotions (rage being the most constant emotion he feels), but the rest will come out of nowhere all at once at random.

-Spamton paid Queen to have his face and ads be in fireworks at one point.

-The addisons' businesses took a major hit during the early 2000's and they each got very competitive with eachother. Most resentment for Spamton came from this time, who knew his success was the direct result of driving them all apart. When Spamton disappeared, they started to heal from that aspect of their fallout.

-Spamton truly thought to go to the addisons after his world crashed and burned, but his priorities with Neo and with the light world proved more important. Besides, who knew if they'd even recognize him? As their names and memories were replaced by his ever-growing need for the light, the more he would find himself walking around the addisons street at night, and then wondering why he was even there.

-A customer naive enough to sample an addison's http cookies is just agreeing to be bombarded with a heap of said addison's advertisements around them as the customer taking the sample is just an invitation to get advertised to. (other addisons are exempt from this)

-by the time spam got his big break, he was so desperate for something to change in his life he would have snapped anyway if it hadn't happened. Dude was like constantly teetering on that line of 'I'm gonna lose my shit if I don't have one good day by tomorrow' lol

That's all I got for now!

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

What does Éminence Grise's Darkling think of Alina?

OMG idk if it’s a formatting error or a tumblr glitch but the bold is killing me So we have established that this is not a formatting error and actually I love that more 😂😂

I find this surprisingly difficult to answer, because I keep falling back on describing the relationship/how he actually treats Alina as opposed to his thoughts. His thoughts are trickier to articulate because he has multiple levels of bias going on.

The fic is set an ambiguous number of years after when S&B takes place but with the big difference that the stag never was in imminent danger of being found and therefore Baghra never did the thing. Alina never ran away, and they never had a big gloves off, falling out.

A lot of my typical interpretation of Alarkling as a ship, and how I view his feelings about her, hinge on him having preconceived expectations that don’t really match her personality. But I do think, as the series progresses, who she really is and how that surprises and confounds him, solidifies their dynamic and does make him more wretchedly obsessed lol. There’s some cognitive dissonance between the sort of white knuckle control he wants, and what he actually responds to as a person.

This fic is basically a scenario where he’s been able to get to know her under far less dramatic circumstances, and has had several years to try to force her into his preferred mold. And before the actual events of the fic, I think he’s basically been as successful as he can possibly get?

His standards are simply unattainable, and he’s baseline moody and inconsistent, but he has pretty much eroded nearly all of her boundaries. She is entirely emotionally dependent on him, though she’s mostly content to let him be cold to her and keep her at arm’s length. His values are the main standard she holds herself to— both simply because they are his, and his good opinion is practically the only one that matters to her, but over time she has genuinely absorbed a lot of his opinions. She appears to be fully content to remain within the constraints of the power dynamics of their relationship, where she’s basically forever a pupil learning at his feet. If they disagree— which they basically have not in any material way, they’re fighting in the story rn but it’s not really been disagreement— she’s learned to capitulate and assume she’s incorrect. Their primary conflicts stem from his inconsistency and temper, which she’s learned to mostly just wait out.

So in short, he thinks the relationship is going great! Or at least that it has been until the engagement nonsense that will obviously blow over soon. (lol. lmao)

Moving past their dynamic in practice to what he actually thinks of her, I think he primarily thinks of her, very simply, as his. That possessive element is the defining aspect. She’s his like girlfriend-protégée, diamond in the rough who isn’t anywhere near her final state yet. She’s only in her malleable first century or whatever, like she barely even counts as a fully formed person yet ajdjfhffd

He likes her, and has genuine rapport with her— I think that’s something that exists in canon. And while I cannot speak to the success of it, I’ve definitely tried to write them here with a lot of genuine familiarity and intimacy. I think he’s already pretty damn emotionally compromised, but from his own point of view he’d only really allow that he’s fond of her and feels indulgent of her youth/willfulness/silliness etc. But at the end of the day, he mostly thinks of her as something that is his to mold.

She asks him in one of the recent-ish chapters whether her feelings matter to him, and… basically they do not tbh. She has been literally trying to break up with him for multiple chapters and her input matters little enough that he’s not even actually registering it!

What he’s responding negatively to is more that she’s acting in ways he doesn’t like, that she seems genuinely invested in her engagement, and that she’s actually holding a grudge when he treats her poorly. She’s also completely correct in surmising that he’s so cold to her mostly because he is feeling jealous, and insecure, and wants to hurt her just to know that he can, as proof that she loves him and can be hurt by him. He’s only comfortable with a dynamic that’s dramatically in his favor. So being on any sort of emotionally even footing, let alone uneven in her favor, where he would be the one feeling jealous, results in him lashing out at her to “get even.”

But he’s not genuinely internalizing that she wants to end their relationship, that that is something she can even do or have a say in. He just doesn’t take it seriously enough to even get mad about it.

Anyway, this is something that’s not really specified in canon, and seems to be easy to interpret either way, but Grisha longevity seems to hinge on how much power they have. And S&B seems to imply Alina actually isn’t that powerful before the amplifiers. So for the purposes of this fic, to lean into the fundamentally transformative nature of his designs on her, Alina isn’t immortal on her own, and they both know this. Without the stag, she could have a, not necessarily ordinary, but at least uh… fathomable life, that’s probably somewhat long lived, but not anything that’s unheard of for Grisha. But he’s planning to elevate her to basically an immortal, unknowable state, that is going to inherently cut her off from all former, mortal, peers— because he also assumes there’s no merit in forming any real attachments if everyone you know will die in the blink of an eye. I don’t think Alina would necessarily reach that conclusion? But we’re talking about what he thinks.

Meanwhile, I want to stress that immortality has not been a particularly positive experience for him! He might think it’s genuinely an honor to elevate someone like that, that she should be grateful for it, but it’s also not not a cruel act, even from his own perspective. And that’s of course not even getting into how he very much stil intends to kill the stag himself so that he can take control of the amplifier, and her power.

[i-luvsang]

hi marimoon ^^ saw your post from four days ago, and i hooe i'm not too late for this? ateez req incoming.

in honor of october (based off smth that happened this friday for me), teacher/employee reader and the guys preparing for kindergartners up til third graders going trick or treating tomorrow!! they probably planned matching outfits, some of them. hwa as toothless and somebody as light fury, for example. surprisingly i cant think of a specific member to pair this with? i just think its cute,,

just imagine these guys playing bits of the characters they're dressed up as,, aughh

pls take care of yourself!! missing u lots, marimoon

; 🌂

HELLOOOO you are absolutely not too late, though i am late to the whole october and halloween thing here lmao. was struggling with this request and i thought maybe my thoughts would flow better if i wasn't thinking of it as a formal request and just blabbed about it right here. but i adore this concept so i still wanted to write something about it and get something to you even if it's messy and possibly ends up incoherent :))

nonetheless, i hope you enjoy my word vomit because i truly do love this idea and you for planting it in my head <3 (only cw is alcohol mention, which has nothing to do with the children i promise lmao)

first of all i love this idea of this au where they're all teachers. given the kindergarten through third graders it's kinda perfect because each grade can have two teachers and they're like teacher pairs and it's cute and fun. and to add reader into this i thought it would be super cute if reader was like the school librarian and gets to interact with all the teachers and their classes. i was thinking about san and woo as the kindergarten teachers just because of how well they played with little arin and ayun. and then yeosang and jjong with the first graders just cuz i think they'd be so cute with younger kids but first graders are slightly less insane than kindergartners maybe ?? plus i think they'd be the funniest pair of teachers like i just adore they're dynamic and i'm just thinking about jongho turning all the children against yeosang and they just relentlessly tease him forever <3333 next up in second grade i put yunho and mingi and idk this is such a horrible idea like they would never get anywhere that classroom is just screaming and more screaming and the quiet kids are just like save us please :D and last but not least, we have seongjoong as the third grade teachers because i think they'd be the only one's who can discipline older kids and that hongjoong might die if the kids were even less mature that the third graders already are.

and then yeah, you are the school librarian (or some other staff member that frequently works with the classes but i'm just saying librarian bc i work at my school's library and what's fanfic without it being a self insert <3). and yeah you get to be besties with all of them because they're a whole big squad that kinda scares the other teachers but they kidnapped you into their group because you're just so cool and awesome and they love you and the things you do for their students <3

what they also love about you is that you love halloween and always help them prepare for taking the students trick or treating. i like the idea that all the pairs of teachers have a tradition of matching their costumes. and this year, it goes (mostly) great for (almost) all of them. the night before the event, the nine of you have a halloween party amongst yourselves, a tradition that started a few years ago. obviously, you all show up to seonghwa's apartment in costume.

this year, san and wooyoung have defaulted on onesie costumes, explaining that before, they had attempted to diy complicated anime character costumes. it was going well (or so they say) until yesterday when they realized they had neither the skills or time to finish the costumes. they are very pleased when you tell them you're a big fan of their matching kuromi and my melody onesies, and that you think the kids will also enjoy these far more than whatever elaborate plan they had before. jongho, on the other hand, is having a blast making fun of them.

and while woosan are stunning in their hello kitty costumes, yeosang and jongho are really vying for your favorite pair this year. though, it looks like yeosang’s thick biceps are struggling against the sleeves of his snow white dress despite his lovely features being complimented by the femininity of the outfit. jongho looks as charming (completely unfunny pun intended) as always in his prince charming outfit, ready to unknowingly continue stealing the hearts of all of his student’s parents.

yet, these costumes, along with yunho and mingi's, are causing a lot of noise because the tall pair of best friends showed up as a princess and his knight in shining armor. jongho is indignant, convinced that he and yeosang's costumes are far better. yeosang is drowning a bit in the shouting, but doing his best to defend himself when he gets the chance. wooyoung has told yeosang that he's a costume repeater because he played snow white in a play in middle school, but san thinks it looks cooler this time because of yeo's far bigger muscles. mingi says he looks prettier because his dress his pink and yunho won't really defend him on it, but insists that the costumes are different enough because he's a knight, not a prince (and that he's cooler for that same reason).

this time, seonghwa has chosen neither to be a part of the chaos nor to attempt to stop it, and is instead happily perched on the couch with a glass of wine because he is finally satisfied with his costume this year.

time and time again, seonghwa insists on dressing as toothless, convinced that it's the perfect costume for him. and time and time again, he begs hongjoong to be a matching light fury with him. and, you know it... time and time again, hongjoong has refused. he's offered to dress as hiccup, and maybe a different dragon, but he refuses to complete seonghwa's request. secretly, you think it's just hongjoong's way of getting back at seonghwa for the printer incident. but finally, seonghwa found a solution to make his dreams come true and just completely ditched hongjoong as his costume partner.

that is where you come in, sitting next to seonghwa in a matching light fury costume. hongjoong is actually still a part of this costume, dressed as hiccup so that the kids don't question him, but his part in this plan a bit irrelevant to seonghwa. he's just so happy to finally have completed this costume, and will not stop bragging about it to everyone in the room. he's told you that he won't allow you to be anywhere but at his side tomorrow so that he can show off your costumes, and you just nod along despite knowing that your job and large groups of children will certainly take you else where.

but aside from the fighting regarding jongsang and yungi's costumes, the night was lots of fun in which you all exercising your very special crafty skills that come with being elementary school workers. so there are so very adorable decorations that you'll set up in the morning tomorrow and another lovely set of halloween memories with your favorite people <33

[hyperfigations]

Maybe Dylan and male reader unexpectedly reuniting in the same dorm room months after everything went down? And reader admitting after a while that he has had the biggest crush on Dylan while they were counselors and Dylan is just like 😦 because he felt the same

A/N: This. Was. So FUN to write OMFG. And I kinda changed my x reader to a 3rd person POV which I think I work with better LMAO. ANYWAYS, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it! ALSO!

Summary: Dylan and Reader reunite unexpectedly at college. Reader tells him he's had a crush on him since forever.

Word Count: 1,601

TW: Mentions of (watered down) depression/PTSD/anxiety

Time can heal all wounds. 

That’s what they all say, but they never take in account for wounds left by monstrous werewolves at a children’s summer camp. Those wounds take a little more than time, but that isn’t to say that (Y/N) wasn’t on the path of healing. He still had nightmares, remembering running for his life from supernatural beings every other minute of that night. Screaming out in the middle of the night, jumping awake in a cold sweat. He just wanted to forget everything. 

So… He tried. And showing up on the first day of orientation week was the first step toward becoming a normal teenager starting his adulthood. And boy, was he excited. Just getting away from home, into this new environment made him feel a sense of finally being normal. (Y/N) didn’t ever want to look back at the boy who held himself in his room, isolated from everyone and everything, reliving the bloody memories that replayed over and over in his mind. People would call, trying to reach out… Ryan, Kaitlyn, Jacob and… Dylan. But seeing their faces light up the screen on your phone, (Y/N) could only see them with blood dripping down their faces. The full moon reflected in their irises, revealing the dread and terror in their souls. 

It hurts to remember them like that. He just wanted to remember them from before everything that they went through. He wanted to remember that amazing summer. It hurt even more that (Y/N) couldn’t even gather the strength to call them back to even tell them how much he truly missed them. He didn’t have anything against them, but he had to be alone. Just for now. 

Maybe, he had thought, if this college thing goes the way he plans, he can return their calls. (Y/N) wanted to catch up with them so badly, but until he bettered himself, he just could not. 

(Y/N) went into his dorm room, plopping his bags on the floor. It was a little rank, the crappy beds creaking on the shifty bed frames. Yeah… This place was a shithole. The air, though it was a little unnatural, was like a breath of fresh air. A sigh slipped from (Y/N)’s lips as he fell face first into the bed. The blue, rubbery mattress pushing his nose into his face. He couldn’t breath against it, but he kept his face there anyway. A muffled laugh travels along the wrinkles of bed. 

This was it. He was here and he finally could start a new life. One where he didn’t have to survive the night from crazy hillbilly hunters and their weird werewolf secret. It made him extremely reassured.

“Yep, this is the room!” A voice chimed in behind (Y/N).

The roommate! Oh shit, the roommate. Worry bubbled up in his stomach as (Y/N) began to lift himself from the bed to turn to the person he was going to share this small room with for the rest of the year. The person who he’d have to explain to about his night terrors and anxiety. 

But when (Y/N) saw the person, his heart dropped to the ground. He stared at this guy in pure shock, slowly standing on his feet. His knees shook slightly but he held himself up. He recognized that goofy grin from anywhere, that weirdly perfect brown hair. 

“(Y/N)?” The roommate let out a dopey chuckle. “Holy shit, man!”

“...Dylan,” (Y/N) whispers in disbelief.

Dylan laughs, quickly throwing his things to the ground. He grabs (Y/N)’s arm and pulls him in the most giant hug he’s ever been given. (Y/N) still in pure shock, slowly raises his arms to hug him back tightly. He pushes his face into his chest, breathing in that idiotic 3-in-1 shampoo he aparently still uses. 

Suddenly, Dylan pushes (Y/N) gently from him, staring at his face. (Y/N) couldn’t help but notice that his happy expression was no longer there, but now he looked troubled. 

“Why the hell haven’t you called anyone? I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for 2 months!” Dylan frowns. 

“I-” (Y/N) began, but a lump started to grow in his stomach. He anxiously pushes his fingers through his (H/L), (H/C) hair. “Yeah… I’m sorry. It’s been rough.”

Dylan’s eyes examine his face, but he nods understandingly, “Same… I’m sorry, man.”

“No, no, don’t be sorry. You don’t know how much I wanted to call you. I just needed some,” You sigh. “Some time? I guess?”

Dylan nods, looking at the floor. The two of you stood there in silence, both of you too scared to even look at each other. 

(Y/N) eyes drifted to the cold, silicone hand still on his forearm. His lips curved downward. “You got a new hand, Dylan.” He said.

“Ha! Yeah! Just came in a few weeks ago! It’s just my casual hand though, I got to show you my fancy one that's coming in!”

“Fancy one?”

“Yeah! Spoiler alert, I’m going to look super cool with it.”

“Is it a robot hand?”

“Psh, uh, yeah. Obviously it’s a robot hand.”

Again… silence. The air was heavy and it was hard to push words out through the thickness. 

“So-” They both began simultaneously. 

“Ha, sorry!” They both apologized, bashfully looking down. 

“Oh my god, (Y/N), two months apart and we still are on the same wavelength,”

(Y/N) snickered, looking up at the tall boy. “No kidding. Can’t really turn it off, I guess.”

Looking at him this close, made (Y/N) remember so much. And the memories flooding back were not bad. Not one. He began to remember the silly little details of their time at Hackett’s Quarry Summer Camp. Helping the kids get splinters out of their fingers, being warm by the campfire listening to Ryan’s creepy stories, Dylan’s laughter when a kid nearly peed their pants at said stories… When Dylan and (Y/N) spent time in the radio station in the early mornings to announce the activities for the day. The lone nights just staring at the stars, talking about each other’s futures. He could remember the thump of his heart against his ribcage every time Dylan was near, and Kaitlyn’s stupid knowing glances.

 Not one memory that Dylan Lenivy was in, was one (Y/N) regretted. Why had it taken so long to realize that he wasn’t alone in his trauma? He had a support system right here. One he could, one hundred percent, rely on.

“Dylan…”

Dylan looks up from his feet, staring into your eyes. (Y/N) felt heavy under those dark brown eyes, anchoring him to the ground.

“I should have called you, or anyone for that matter. You guys are my entire world and I don’t know what I would do without you. I just… am not ‘fun’ to be around anymore. I’m so lost… and scared all the time. I don’t- I’m just not… me. Not anymore,”

Dylan blinks at you, “You’re still you, (Y/N). You’re always going to be you, even if you change. You just are like- A new you. A new you is still you, ya know?”

He couldn’t help but shake his head, looking away from Dylan. “I know… But what if people don’t like new me? What if-” Hastily, (Y/N) bit his tongue, stopping himself from continuing.

“What if??”

(Y/N) shut his eyes, cursing himself out in his head. “What if… you don’t like me?”

Dylan quickly shook his head. “No way, (Y/N). In no world do I not like you.”

“No Dylan. I mean…”

He sighs.

“I mean like like.” 

The silence is incredibly loud between the two freshmen. When (Y/N) takes a small peak at Dylan’s face his jaw was completely dropped. For once in his life, Dylan Lenivy was speechless. That was a mistake. That was such a huge mistake, (Y/N) thought. Panic starts tightening his heart in a chokehold.

“Shit. I- Forget I said anything, I mean we should just get unpacked right? Got a lot of unpacking to do,” (Y/N) begins to ramble, turning to his bags.

“.... I like you too, (Y/N),” 

He stops halfway bending over to unzip his bags. (Y/N) slowly stand back up, straight, turning back to him. 

“I do. I really like you. I mean, I always have, I was actually going to tell you that night but we kinda got wrapped up in… other things, haha…” 

(Y/N)’s eyes rapidly blink at him, the shock returning. “Really?” He stutters out. 

“Yeah, really,” Dylan laughs out nervously. “ (Y/N), you’re my best friend. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

He steps closer, looking down at you. His right hand guiding (Y/N) to hold it, “Old you, new you. It doesn’t matter to me as long as it’s just you. All I need is you.”

(Y/N)’s eyes widened, lips slightly parting.  In that moment, he finally felt like he was just him. He didn’t need to be old him. His trauma didn't change who he truly was. Those words tugged at his heartstrings, making his eyes gleam up with admiration. So, yeah, continuing (Y/N)’s life was a good decision for him. But he didn’t need to “start over,” he just needed to grow, and this time he wasn’t going to be alone. (Y/N) gripped Dylan’s hand tightly, smiling huge at him. 

This time, he’ll have Dylan by his side.