#but here are promos while i finish stuff before coming back to write!

[magicshopaholic]

Words Unsaid (Jungkook x OC)

Summary: Jungkook has something he wants to ask you, but the timing just never seems to sit right.

Pairing: Jungkook x OC

Genre: Fluff

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 7.3 K

Warnings: none

A/N: This took longer than expected to post (but a surprisingly short amount of time to write). Savour it, for the angst will be back in full force next fic :D Takes place a couple of weeks after Unfinished Business and can be read standalone.

Tagging: @bbl32 @ggukkieland @bangtannoonalvg @pb-n-juju @juciu @jeoncookie-bts @quarter-life-crisis2 @dreaming-with-happiness @meirkive  @faearchives @margopinkerton @sumzysworld @purpleseoul7 @kflixnet (italics cannot be tagged. If you want to be added to the taglist, drop a comment or ask)

Listen to: "thinking out loud" by ed sheeran

jungkook masterlist | main masterlist

The sun is near setting when lunch comes to a natural end. Namjoon places his credit card on the bill out of habit and, somewhat conscious that it’s not just the two of them here, Jungkook drops his on top of it.

“All good, kid.” Namjoon good-naturedly flicks Jungkook’s credit card off the bill just before the waiter picks it up.

Feeling Lia’s eyes on him, vaguely amused, Jungkook feels his ears heat up and quickly pockets his credit card. “What’s your plan for the rest of the day?” he asks, desperate to change the topic.

“Not much.” He shrugs. “Probably pick up some stuff at this store we saw earlier today, then maybe a walk down the Han if it gets cooler…” He turns slightly as Kaya returns to her seat, fluffing out her hair a bit.

“Seoul has never been this warm, has it?” she remarks. “I’m glad I cut my hair before I came here.”

“It should rain soon,” answers Lia, in her accented English. While her grasp on the language hadn’t necessarily been a surprise to Jungkook, the way it sounded - and how much he liked it - definitely was. She hadn’t ever spoken much English around him, for there was never much of a need, but when Kaya visited and they’d finally met, Jungkook discovered he was obsessed with her English accent. It made her sound older, unattainable and - ironically – more Korean.

“Maybe it will,” says Namjoon, nodding and looking out the glass windows at the sunlight.

“Maybe it will while you’re walking down the Han river,” points out Jungkook. 

“Looking forward to it.”

“Oh, that reminds me - can we make a detour home before we head to the market?” Kaya asks him. “I need to pick up my power bank. My phone’s almost dead.”

Namjoon nods. “Sure. You guys need a ride?” he asks Jungkook and Lia.

“Oh -” They exchange a look, for they were dropped by a company car after Jungkook finished filming a promo. “Actually, yeah,” says Lia, nodding. “We also need to stop by, uh, Jungkook’s house for a minute. You’ll want to change, I guess?”

Jungkook nods mutely, his neck getting hot again. He avoids Namjoon’s eyes; the older member’s subtle questioning a couple of days ago, about how serious is this getting, had been one thing. That, coupled with the abrupt way he and Lia had stopped talking when Jungkook had returned from the men’s room earlier during lunch, made him uneasily conscious that something was still unsaid.

They head out of the restaurant, waiting until Namjoon’s car is brought out by the valet before ducking inside quickly, Kaya in the driver’s seat and Namjoon in the passenger seat next to her. Jungkook notices a few phones out in the open and pointed towards them as they drive away.

“See you tomorrow!” Lia waves at them as they drive away from the porch of Jungkook’s building in Hannam-dong, where his new penthouse sits tucked into the top floor. As the car disappears around a corner, both of them turn around and head inside together.

In the lift, Jungkook watches the numbers increase, his hands in his pockets and his bottom lip between his teeth. The words are there, somewhere, in moments at the tip of his tongue and in others, so far away that they may as well be someone else’s.

“Hey.”

He’s jerked out of his reverie. “Yeah.”

Lia is looking at him, frowning slightly. “Everything okay? You’ve barely said two words since we left.”

“I’m fine,” he answers as the lift stops and they step out, the doors opening right in front of his apartment. “I just, uh…” He pats his pockets and pauses. “... forgot my keys. I think. Shit.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she mutters easily, reaching into her small sling bag for her own keyring and selecting the shiniest one. “This is when it helps to have a spare set with someone else,” she points out.

Jungkook nods sheepishly and steps aside so she can unlock the door to his home. “Actually, Lia…” He takes a deep breath as Namjoon’s face swims to the forefront of his mind, the familiar raised eyebrow and chin tilted upward that, irritatingly knowing but unwilling to give him the answer. No, he would want Jungkook to come up with the answer himself. 

He clears his throat as Lia pauses. “Yeah?”

“Um, I was wondering -” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Just say it. Say it. He makes the mistake of glancing at her again, her raised eyebrows and - to his slight anxiety - hopeful expression.

Shit.

“Would you, um… do you think you would you like to…” 

Come on now, Jungkook, Namjoon would say sternly. Say it already.

“... try a beef bulgogi tonight? I know we usually do pizza on Sunday nights but I saw this recipe online and I really wanted to try it. Plus, we won’t even have to shop - we have that fillet in the freezer so part of the work is really already done, if you think about it…”

He’s rambling, he knows, but it’s only to try and distract himself from the annoyance at himself as well as the brief but clear disappointment in her expression. Her shoulders fall slightly and she bites her lip, turning back to the door and pushing it open halfway.

“Beef bulgogi sounds great,” she says finally, looking up at him after a moment’s hesitation, and giving him a small smile. “Thanks.”

He follows her inside, still deflated. Lia goes straight to the fridge for a bottle of cold water while he heads into his room, shedding his t-shirt on the way. Turning on the bathroom light, he grabs his facewash from the wall-mounted shelf, half-stocked with haircare products, face scrubs, masks, serums and a tub of scrunchies and claw clips. A Dior perfume he’d gifted her earlier this year was also there next to his own Calvin Klein cologne. 

Realising he’s been staring at her belongings for over a minute with emulsified facewash on his face, he quickly scrubs it off and hurries out, passing by her chest of drawers next to the closets. 

Jungkook wishes he wasn’t such a coward. He wishes he had the exact right words and that his mouth moved on its own to deliver the message to her. She’d helped him set up the apartment when he’d moved in last month; most of her belongings are here, she returns here more often than not after work, half the groceries in the pantry are stocked by her. She has a set of keys, she uses his extra parking space - but none of it matters as long as it’s still Jungkook’s house. 

In the kitchen, Lia is standing by the counter with a bowl of watermelon in front of her, scrolling on her phone. She looks up when he enters. 

“I cut the other half that was in the fridge,” she informs him. “Rest of it is inside.”

He swallows. “Thanks.”

Jungkook doesn’t know what he would do without her. The house feels far too big and empty when she isn’t around and he wishes there were some way for her to get that message without him having to spell it out.

But if you do spell it out, comes Namjoon’s voice again, what’s the worst that could happen.

She could say no and then I could die, he thinks, shuddering.

He stands on the opposite side of the counter and leans over to examine the pink fruit. Lia raises an eyebrow and pops a piece into his mouth. 

“Wow. Sweet,” he comments, voice slightly muffled. 

She half-chuckles and nods, going back to her phone and taking a piece as well.

Say it. But is this really the moment? Does there need to be a moment? What would that moment even look like? What would she want that moment to -

“Kook,” says Lia, slowly placing her phone down. “I was thinking… I’ve been coming over here after work the last few days. And I’ll probably be here tomorrow as well, so…” She bites her lip.

“Yes,” whispers Jungkook breathlessly. If Lia were to ask the question - nothing like it. No chance of rejection, no scope for awkwardness. Of course, if any of the guys got wind of the fact that she had been the one to ask, they wouldn’t let him live it down, especially Jimin. Suddenly, he half-hopes she isn’t asking.

“Do you think it would be weird if, you know…”

Holy shit. Screw Jimin and his opinions. Despite a crappy first date a year ago, if this is really how far they’ve come since then, he should consider himself the luckiest man in the world. Unexpectedly, Jungkook’s heart begins to race. 

“… if I went home on Monday evening? It’s been a while and I have an important meeting on Tuesday and all my blazers are at home so in a way, I have to…”

Jungkook nods mutely, barely hearing her, for his heart is hammering so loudly he can hear it in his teeth. It occurs to him that Lia might have been anticipating the same question and subsequently felt the same disappointment, and it only serves to make him feel worse.

“… take my car, too. Jungkook?”

He looks up warily, irrationally worried his shame might be written on his forehead for her to see, possibly triggering her to pull the plug on this entire thing, this whole relationship, to save herself the embarrassment of dating a silly pop star who can’t string six words together -

“Hm?”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m fine,” he chokes. “Thanks for the, uh, the fruit.”

Lia raises her eyebrows, but there’s a flash of knowing in her eyes. Not wanting to decipher it, for there’s no telling where his mind will take him, he shakes his head slightly and leans forward, kissing her on the cheek.

It doesn’t end there. Later that evening, Jungkook is still reeling from his horrendous inability to pluck up the courage to ask his girlfriend a simple question. The general mood between them seems to have gone back to normal, somewhat, but it nags at the corner of his mind.

They are heading to the executive floor gym in his building, accessible only to the handful of residents on the top floor, when another opportunity seemingly presents itself.

It’s a glorious workout in one of the best gyms in the country; in fact, Jungkook is rather upfront about it being one of the main reasons he chose to buy a property in this particular building in Hannam-dong. Towards the end of a particularly difficult set of reps on the bench press station, Jungkook looks up to see a face, upside down and hovering above him.

“Shit!” he gasps, gripping the barbell tightly so it doesn’t fall on him. 

Eunwoo grins. “What’s up? Wasn’t expecting to see you here today.”

“I could’ve died,” points out Jungkook, sitting up and giving him a friendly dap. “No, Lia wanted to work out, too, and it’s been a, uh… somewhat stressful day.”

“Yeah?” Eunwoo, also sweating and glowing, looks around the gym with his hands on his hips. “Lia is here? Oh, there she is…” He nods at the treadmills where she’s jogging fast, AirPods in and the rest of the world shut out.

They chat for a bit about nothing in particular, catching their breath. Somewhere during the conversation, while they’re at the water station and filling up tiny glasses with fruit-infused ice water, Jungkook wonders if the time has truly come to pick another’s brain. Eunwoo is a good friend and they’ve known each other a while, but it would be the first time he’s actively confided in someone else about his love life. From his experience, it could go either way.

While he’s pondering this, Eunwoo nods and flashes a smile at something over his shoulder.

“Hey, guys.” Lia walks over and pours herself a glass. Her skin pale and glowing, her cheeks flushed lusciously. The ends of her high ponytail stick to her damp collarbones and Jungkook bites his lip without thinking, ridiculously attracted to her at the moment.

“Noona, do you agree with JK’s plan of building a home gym?” Eunwoo asks, seamlessly continuing their discussion. “It’s going to be so much maintenance of equipment,” he tells him, shaking his head.

“Really?” Lia turns to Jungkook, frowning. “When did that happen? I thought you were happy with this gym.”

“I am - and I’m not planning on building a home gym,” he clarifies, suddenly anxious with both sets of eyes on him. “I was just discussing the merits of possibly having one.”

“Such as?”

“Well… privacy, for one. I know the building has good security but they're also fairly lax with allowances,” he points out, not wanting to specify the incident last week that had prompted this train of thought, when he was half-certain he’d spotted someone pointing their phone at him and Lia. 

“Allowances? You mean guests?” Eunwoo wrinkles his nose. “They don’t allow guests in here.”

“Yes, they do.”

“No, they don’t. They don’t allow anybody but residents in the gym.”

There’s a brief but painful pause following his words. 

“They do, actually,” says Lia.

“I don’t think so.”

“Yes, they do,” adds Jungkook tightly, glaring at Eunwoo and moving his eyes deliberately in Lia’s direction, hoping to God he’ll drop it.

Eunwoo frowns slowly, apparently working this out. “What?” he mutters, shaking his head at Jungkook. “No, I’m just saying… wait, how are you so sure?”

“Because I’m technically a guest,” says Lia lightly.

“You are?” Eunwoo raises his eyebrows. “But I thought you were - oh.” To Jungkook’s horror, a blush creeps up his friend’s face. Lia goes still next to him and it takes every ounce of Jungkook’s strength to not turn in her direction.

For the next few seconds or so, the three of them stand there in silence, scarcely making a movement. 

“Excuse me? May I?”

“Yes! Of course, of course -” Jungkook immediately blurts out while Eunwoo practically trips over himself to take a step back and make way for another patron. 

“I’m going to stretch and cool down for a bit,” says Lia, touching Jungkook’s shoulder. “How far along are you?”

“Oh, I still have a bit to finish,” he answers, a bit apologetically. “I was going to box for a bit before ending with cardio.”

“That’s fine, I'll just head back h- uh, to your place and shower… if that’s okay?”

Not least because she hasn’t needed to ask such a question in months, Jungkook nods wordlessly. She gives him a small smile and moves away, and Jungkook watches her leave before turning back around to see Eunwoo giving him a look.

“Shut up,” he mutters.

Eunwoo chuckles as they head over to the boxing bag. “Man, I am so sorry about that. I really thought you’d asked her to move in with you - I thought part of the reason you bought a new house was because you wanted her to move in. You were asking about bathrooms with his-and-her sinks, man. What happened?”

“Okay, first of all, I only asked if you’ve ever seen one in real life - not that I wanted one,” he corrects immediately, strapping on his gloves while Eunwoo gets behind the bag, ready to hold it. 

“And the other thing?”

“I’m working on it,” mutters Jungkook, going into stance and holding his hands up. “I just want to do it right. Make sure it’s a good time, that I’m not hurrying anything - that kind of thing.”

Eunwoo hums and nods. “Well, if it helps, she didn’t seem freaked out. If anything, she looked a little annoyed.”

Jungkook freezes. “She did? She looked annoyed - wait, really? Are you serious?”

His eyes widen. “Wh- no. Not - not annoyed like that. Not like a pissed off annoyed, more like a… like a chill annoyed.” When Jungkook says nothing, he shakes his head. “You know what? Don’t worry about it. Maybe it is too soon. Or maybe it isn’t,” he amends quickly. “What do I know? You know my last three relationships lasted, like, four months each - so I’m probably not the best person to be giving you any kind of advice.”

“That’s the most airtight thing you’ve said so far,” mutters Jungkook. “Alright, I’m coming in.” Waiting a moment for Eunwoo to grip the bag, he cocks his elbow back and punches it.

—

Despite his deadly faux pas, Eunwoo had inadvertently provided Jungkook with a rather helpful bit of direction. Perhaps it is time for him to lean on a friend for advice, but Eunwoo was also right that he is not one of them, not with his flighty flings and lack of depth in them. The advice matters and so does the friend, prompting Jungkook to ask himself: which of his friends is the expert on the opposite of short-term flings?

“Namjoon hyung!”

Namjoon stops in his tracks at the sound of his name and turns, waiting for Jungkook to catch up with him. 

“Oh, thanks,” says Jungkook, taking a cigarette from the pack Namjoon offers him and leaning forward so he can light it. “Thanks for getting us the evening off, by the way.”

“Kaya is leaving this weekend,” is all Namjoon says in response, shrugging.

“Right.” Jungkook nods, taking a drag and blowing it out, wondering briefly if he should care that they might be seen smoking right outside the Hybe building. “Won’t this make you a couple minutes late, though? If you want to make the best of the next few days?”

Namjoon chuckles. “I don’t want to smoke inside the house.”

“Uh-huh. Speaking of which…” He exhales, suddenly nervous. “I was hoping for some advice.” He clears his throat. “Regarding… relationships.”

Namjoons raises his eyebrows but says nothing else. “M-hm.”

“I have reason to believe,” he begins slowly, “that Lia might want me to ask her to move in with me.”

“Okay.”

Jungkook pauses, searching his leader’s face for a hint. Finding none, he continues. “Well… I want to ask her. But I also don’t want her to feel like I’m asking her just because she wants me to ask her. And I also don’t want to mess it up.”

“How would you mess it up?”

“I don’t know… maybe I’m completely off track and she doesn’t want to move in with me at all? Maybe she thinks it’s too soon?”

Namjoon nods, hearing him out. Then he shakes his head. “Well, personally, I don’t think that’s the case.”

“What isn’t? You think she wants to move in?” Jungkook’s momentarily relief is interrupted by a horrifying thought. “Oh, my God - did she say something to you? Yesterday, at brunch, when I went to the men’s room?”

“Jungkook, you were gone for two minutes.”

He’s about to argue but stops himself. He knows Lia and she is hardly the type to secretly vent her feelings to his friends behind his back, hoping it will get back to him. No, she’s more straightforward than that.

Somewhat satisfied, he takes a different turn. “Okay, let’s get down to it, then. How did you ask Kaya to move in?”

“Well…” Namjoon frowns thoughtfully. “Actually, I didn’t.”

“You… what?” Jungkook squints. “Wait, so… you didn’t ask? You both just knew, telepathically, when to start living together?” he asks incredulously, thinking privately that it could just be believable.

“No,” says Namjoon patiently, chuckling again and flicking some ash off his cigarette. “I didn’t ask because I didn’t have to. Where else is she supposed to live when she comes to Seoul? Where am I supposed to live when I go to see her?”

“Yeah… okay, but… well, would you say you live together?” he presses. “Or do you just, like, crash at each other’s place when you visit?”

“Well, we definitely don’t crash at each other’s place,” he mutters. “Maybe we did right in the beginning? I guess I’d say we live apart, but it’s only because we have to. I don’t know - when she came to Seoul for work last year while I was in service, she stayed at Hannam even though her aunt lives in the city, too.” He shrugs. “If that helps.”

“Huh.” Jungkook considers this. “So, like, do you guys ‘go home’ or do you go back to ‘your place’?”

“Home,” he answers casually, not skipping a beat. “Even her apartment is home. ‘Home’ is what you make it, to a large extent. It’s a place of comfort - an apartment is only part of that,” he says wisely. “I feel more at home in her studio apartment in London with her than at Hannam by myself. The people make the home - and that’s for you to decide.”

Jungkook stares, feeling his cigarette burn away in his hand. “That’s really not the kind of thing I’m looking for, hyung,” he states, before dropping his face in his hand.

Namjoon clicks his tongue and stubs his cigarette on the tray atop the trash can next to him. “Don’t overthink it,” he says, clapping him on the shoulder. “Go about it logically: she’s been your girlfriend for six or seven months now, you bought a new place which is significantly bigger than your old one and she’s in her thirties, meaning she’s most likely thinking long-term.” 

Jungkook gazes at Namjoon’s raised eyebrows, quite certain he’s meant to pick up some meaning out of this. “So…”

“So… if you’re worried she might say no…”

“Chances are… she probably won’t?”

Namjoon grins and nods. “Exactly. Just be yourself, be genuine, be honest - and remember you’re both together for a reason. And I think - I think - she has a thing for you, too,” he adds seriously.

“One can only hope,” he mutters, albeit slightly mollified. “I really don’t want to mess this up.”

Namjoon observes him - for too long. For a moment, it seems as though he’s about to say something that makes Jungkook’s stomach jolt unpleasantly, but at the last second, he shakes his head.

“Impossible to mess it up. Honestly,” he says reassuringly, and Jungkook almost believes him. “It’s a part of the journey and if you think she’s expecting it, just take the plunge. Don’t add unnecessary pressure by trying to make it perfect.”

While the last bit simply isn’t in Jungkook’s DNA, he nods anyway. 

—

“Damn it.” 

Lia doesn’t look up from the email she’s writing, despite Dal’s repeated exclamations from the kitchen. Finally, he sticks his head out around the door.

“Did you know the faucet is leaking?”

“Yes,” she mutters, still not looking away from her screen.

“And did you know it’s dripping out of the sink zone and onto the floor?”

“Yeah?”

“And did you know it’s fucking disgusting?”

Lia sighs and finally turns her head to glance at him. “Yes, I know. I mopped it up this morning.”

Dal steps out, frowning. “So this much water leaked in the last six hours?” When Lia nods, he sighs heavily and trudges into the living room, falling onto the sofa. “I suppose we can text the landlord but I don’t know what good that will do.”

“Probably as much as it did when we told him about the seepage in the bathroom ceiling.”

“Yeah. Didn’t realise the kind of shoulder strength you need to baste upwards.” A moment later, he chuckles. “Helped that there were three of us there, though. Jungkook was really looking for any excuse to be around you back then, wasn’t he?”

Without meaning to, Lia feels a smile creep up her face at the memory. “It was cute,” she says, slightly defensive. “And we really needed the extra hands, especially to clean up.”

“Oh, sure.” There’s a comfortable silence, the only sound being the clicking of Lia’s keyboard. “Speaking of,” he speaks, and his tone is slightly different, “I’m surprised to see you here.”

Lia doesn’t look up, but she’s certain she knows where he’s going with this. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. You haven’t been around much.”

“You think so?”

“M-hm. In fact, I was starting to wonder if you’d moved out or something and I missed the memo.”

“You were still paying only half the rent, though, weren’t you?”

“Lia.”

“‘Sup.”

From the corner of her eye, she sees a movement and ducks out of habit.

“Lee-lee,” he says again, and she finally meets his gaze.

“I know what you’re getting at, and no,” she says dryly, “no updates on that front. I’m still your roommate for the foreseeable future.”

Dal raises his eyebrows. “Okay.”

Lia turns back to her laptop but doesn’t resume her typing. “What?”

“What what?”

“You’re still looking at me.”

“No. I’m just looking in your general direction.”

She gives him a look. “Just say it.”

“I thought you were moving in with Jungkook.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because he told me last time he came over that he wanted you to move in with him.”

Lia scoffs. “No way did he say that. Liar.”

“Fine, he didn’t use those exact words,” he admits, rolling his eyes. “But he just happened to mention that his new place is bigger, that the gym is fantastic, that it has a really good running trail or something…”

“Maybe he was just making conversation?”

“... and how much closer it is to the Hybe office.”

He works at Hybe, too, technically. The words are on the tip of her tongue, but she can’t deflect anymore; Dal will see right through it. She sighs and puts her laptop away.

“What do you want me to say?” she asks steadily. “We aren’t living together. It’s not the end of the world.”

“I’m not saying it is, at all.” He holds up his hands. “Do you want to, though?”

Lia is silent for a moment. “He needs to ask first. But… yeah, I guess. Could be fun. We’ll save on a lot of fuel.”

“Ooh, stop, I’m swooning.”

She flashes him an embarrassed sort of smile. “You know what I mean. We basically do live together already - but this is a big deal for Jungkook. He’s never done the long-term relationship, adult couple milestone thing before. The last thing I want to do is scare him off.”

Dal nods thoughtfully. “Well, hopefully it’ll go better than your last adult couple milestone thing.”

She snorts, covering her face. “Hey, to be fair, I did move in with him,” she points out. “Kind of.”

“You lasted less than a month before you were back here.”

“Yeah. God, he was such a manchild. Can’t believe I was ever attracted to him.”

“I told you he had an asshat kind of face. But you didn’t listen. Didn’t he have a shrine to his ex-girlfriend in the bathroom or something?”

“It was a couple of bottles of her shampoo and lotion, not a shrine,” she corrects him, “but, sort of. He was so blown away when I asked him to get rid of it - like, sue me, I don’t want to live with my boyfriend and sentimental haircare products belonging to his ex. It just goes to show, you never know enough about your partner until you actually share a living space together.”

“You think there’s more to Jungkook? Because I like him for you, honestly. But he seems to be a more…” Dal grimaces, trying to find the word, “... what you see is what you get… kind of person.”

“That’s a good thing,” she remarks. “Means there’s no lying, no games. None of that shit.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Well, it’s good you know what you want. How long are we planning to wait for him to pop the question?”

“We are not waiting for anything. I, on the other hand…” 

It’s a good question, unfortunately, one that Lia has deliberately tried not to think about because there’s simply no correct answer.

“... will take things as they come.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

She narrows her eyes at her oldest friend, recognising both teasing masking genuine concern. “I’m not going to pressure Jungkook. And I’m not going to get my hopes up either,” she states, trying to ignore the quiet tugging at her heart and standing up, stretching.

“Hey, just say the word and I will -“ Dal makes a flailing kind of gesture and flexes his triceps, “- whip him into shape.”

“Oh, really? Not only will it probably be evenly matched, but who’s going to help you both carry cartons of beer into each other’s houses if you’re both maimed?” She taps her temple sarcastically.

“Well, you’ll be a resident in one of our houses at any given time so I guess we’ll be looking at you.” Dal shrugs in satisfaction as Lia chuckles and starts heading inside her bedroom, considering a shower before bed.

“Oi, Lia.” 

Lia turns in her doorway, recognising the subtle change in tone once again. It wasn’t surprising that Dal and Jungkook got along easily enough; despite her boyfriend’s initial reservations, most of which were based on Dal’s gender and inopportune timing, he had eventually moved past it to begin actually enjoying his company. Oh, he would never admit it, but Lia had woken up more than once in her own bed, alone, while hearing two male voices laughing in the living room with the television on.

As for Dal, the only thing he had needed to say was “Lee-lee, for once, you’ve found a good boy.”

Therefore, while Lia prefers to handle her relationships herself, she recognises the value of her oldest friend’s opinion.

“I just want to let you know,” he begins seriously, and she feels the muscles in her face go slack. He bites his lip. “I just wanted to let you know,” he repeats, “that if Jungkook has a shrine to his ex in his house, you can always move back in here.”

There’s relief, and Lia doesn’t want to admit there’s relief. “Shut up,” she mutters, turning back around as Dal laughs at his own joke behind her.

It’s not the greatest comfort, but Lia uses it as such after that. Worst case, I move back in with Dal, she thinks. We stay roommates until we’re eighty, when either I die first from stress about work or he does driving his car like a maniac. Jungkook brings a carton of beer to the funeral and shares it with whichever one of us is still alive.

It’s a mildly depressing train of thought, especially when she imagines her eighty year old self heading back to her apartment while seventy-seven year old Jungkook, in his infinite wisdom, still hasn’t asked her to move in with him.

Nearly a week later, Lia has successfully kept her desires to herself, while Jungkook has continued trying to pretend he isn’t thinking about it just as much.

“Remind me again why we’re going to this club?” she asks him as they walk to his car in the basement parking. “It doesn’t really sound like your scene.”

“It isn’t,” he admits. “But the DJ tonight is a friend of a friend… of an acquaintance, who’s also kind of an ex-colleague.” He wrinkles his nose. “I wouldn’t normally go but he helped me out during the production of my debut album and I accidentally told him I owed him.”

“Ah. Mistake number one.”

“It might be. You look quite club-ready for someone who doesn’t really enjoy clubs either,” he remarks, playfully smacking her backside. “Leather pants and everything.”

“Faux leather,” she corrects, leaning over and bumping his hip with hers. “I figured I may as well look the part of a popstar’s girlfriend. Plus,” she adds after a moment, as they climb into the car and begin strapping in, “it’s the only party outfit I have at your place.”

Predictably, Jungkook freezes for a moment before clumsily buckling himself in. He doesn’t meet her eyes and swallows as he looks ahead.

“By the way, I hear the gin martinis at this club are to die for,” he declares, completely transparent. “Did you know, the martini is one of the top five drinks people order on a first date?”

Abrupt subject change coupled with a random fact that doesn’t sound completely true; Jungkook is nervous. It’s exasperating and endearing all at once.

“That’s… interesting. Maybe you should’ve invited your single friends tonight. Or if this DJ is an ex-colleague, at least the ones in your group.”

“What, all two of them?”

“Isn’t it three?”

“I don’t think so.” Jungkook shrugs as they pull out of Hannam Hill. “Or maybe it is. I don’t know. Yoongi hyung isn’t very forthcoming about his dating life and I’m too afraid to ask.”

Lia chortles as they turn into the main road, reaching for her party clutch for her phone, when she realises…

“Oh, no,” she mutters under breath.

“What?”

“I, uh…” She bites her lip, internally swearing at herself. “I was moving stuff from my regular bag to the clutch and I forgot… you know what, can we make a quick detour to my apartment? It’s on the way.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is. If you take a right after the signal then you can take the parallel road to the church at the end of my street.”

“That’s not the same road - and come on,” he whines, his shoulders falling. “I don’t want to take a detour. What did you even forget? Power bank? Because my phone is fully charged.”

“It’s not a power bank - look, it’s kind of important, Jungkook. It’ll take, like, five extra minutes.”

“But -”

“Kook!”

“What? What did you even forget that’s so important? Is it make-up or something? Because you look -”

“It’s tampons, Jungkook.”

“It’s -”

“Tampons,” she repeats. “And I don’t want to stop at a drugstore because they may not have the exact brand that I use and most of the others chafe… down there.”

There’s a few seconds of silence while Jungkook stares out of the windshield as the car zooms down the road, his ears turning red.

“Which signal was it again?”

True to her word, they reach her three-storey apartment building a few minutes later and jog up the stairs together.

“I swear, I just need to pick up a couple of extras,” she promises him. “The last time I was caught without any on me and then I had to borrow one and it was just the worst time I - oh, my God!”

Lia gasps as she stops in her tracks in the doorway of her apartment, Jungkook right next to her. 

“Is that -”

“Water,” she sighs, shaking her head. “Shit, it came into the living room? I thought we fixed that damn leak,” she mutters. She places her hands on her hips and looks up at Jungkook.

“Well?”

Jungkook looks blank. “Well… what?”

“Well… I’m going to have to wade in there,” she says slowly, already dreading it. “Do you want to come?”

“Ordinarily, I would love to because that sounds so fun, but these are Balenciaga.” He raises his right leg to show her his shoes, mimicking her position until Lia looks away.

“Alright. Wait here then,” she tells him, before gingerly placing one heeled foot into the water and cringing in anticipation. It reaches ankle deep, missing the hem of her pants only due to the height of her heels. With no specific attachment to her shoes, she takes a couple of more hesitant steps.

“Ugh, I can hear the faucet dripping from here,” she grumbles. “Sure you want to just wait out there?”

“Totally. You’re doing great, though, baby.” He grimaces as she walks further in. “Is it cold? It looks cold.”

“No, it’s room temperature. I’m just glad it hasn’t reached the sofa or the cushions or anything in the - whoa!” Lia grabs the arm of the chair beside her as she slips, thankfully saving her ankles as her knee breaks the fall.

There’s a sound of splashing before Jungkook is right next to her a second too late. “Shit, you okay?”

“Uh, yeah. No injuries, I think.” She twists to see him kneeling next to her. “What happened to your Balenciagas?”

It seems to have occurred to him only now. “Oh…” He looks down at his shoes, now submerged. “I can try blow drying them, probably?”

“Probably.” She tries to hide a smile before giving up. “Take them off before they get any more damaged, though.”

He takes her advice this time and they both rid themselves of their shoes, tossing them on the chair before splashing their way into the kitchen.

Jungkook whistles. “Wow, that’s some leak,” he remarks, following her as she falls to her knees to get a good look at the thin but steady stream of water spilling from a crack in the pipe. “Is this the only leak?” he wonders out loud before pressing his hand against the crack so the water suddenly stops.

“No, there’s a small one here, too,” she answers, squinting at something on the other side of the pipe, a little higher up. “It’s only a few drops out of this one but it’s still bad enough.”

“Maybe we can -” Jungkook grunts and tugs at the pipe, “- wrench it into place? To block this crack?”

“Doubtful. It’s a really old pipe, too, so I’m afraid it might break.”

“It’s metal - can metal break?”

“I mean… yeah? I guess? Look, it’s all rusted up here.”

“Oh, yeah…”

In his effort to look, Jungkook’s hand slips off the crack and the flow of the water resumes. 

“Okay, this can’t go on - we need to block this for now so we can get rid of this fucking flood,” she decides, noting in worry how the water level is slowly rising. “And I’m calling the landlord tomorrow and giving him a piece of my mind.”

“Um -” Jungkook looks around from his position by the pipe. “We have a towel, some flour and stuff… maybe we stick some dough onto it?”

“Worth a shot but I don’t know if it’ll hold till tomorrow. Maybe we should try moving the pipe,” she admits, holding the top of it and wondering if it’ll work.

“Okay, let’s do that. Worst case, we find a plastic or metal box, cut it in just the right dimensions to cover the crack and fix it around the pipe.”

“Worst case.” 

Jungkook waves her over and they grip the pipe together. “If this goes south, just remember that I love you.”

Despite the chaos and the fact that her faux leather pants are damp and disgusting, Lia snorts. “Shut up, you dork. Come on, let’s do this.” Both of them pull the top part towards the lower one to try and close the gap.

“A little to the left, come on…”

“It’s - not - moving -” Lia bites her lip and jerks the pipe back, accidentally slipping again and falling back onto her boyfriend. The jolt makes Jungkook tip over and the pipe twists on the rust, bursting.

“Oh, my - “ Jungkook’s words are cut off when a jet of water hits him square in the face. Lia gasps and reaches for the pipe as he fumbles, sputtering, and lunges towards the pipe to turn it away.

“Jungkook, no! It’ll break if you -” 

But Lia is cut off as well and almost knocked backwards by the force of the water. It’s everywhere now; her clothes, her hair - she’s fully drenched. Next to her, Jungkook looks like he’s been dunked into a lake, his long thick hair sticking to his forehead.

“Take cover!” he yells, pulling open a cabinet behind him with one hand and yanking something out, while the other hand covers the jet of water uselessly. He replaces it with the lid of a cooking pan and tosses her another one which splashes into the water next to her.

“Thanks! I - Jungkook!” She brandishes the utensil while trying to dodge the water. “It’s a sieve!”

“What?”

“It has holes!”

“I can’t see! Wait -” He crawls towards the cabinet but slips midway, swearing loudly. 

“Careful!” She ducks and tries to get to the pipe but feels him grip her forearm and pull her back.

“You’ll hurt yourself!” he yells, handing her another pan. “Jesus - how did you guys let this stupid faucet get this bad?”

“I told you - our landlord is a jackass who ghosts us if we bring up fixtures!”

“Well -” Jungkook pauses, wincing a little as the water continues to ricochet off the pan he’s holding up. “In that case, this is probably as good a time as any to ask you this, but do you want to move in with me?”

Lia almost swallows a mouthful of tap water. “What?”

“Just - I mean, this apartment is unlivable!” he says loudly. “And I’m a much better landlord! And also -” He gags and spits out some water, “- I love you and all!” He shrugs awkwardly, drenched to the bone with his oversized t-shirt sticking to his shoulders and chest.

Lia tries - she really tries - to keep a straight face, to attempt to understand what goes on in Jungkook’s head. But it’s a lost cause, for at the end of the day, whatever it is, it just works. Through the irritation at her landlord and the general shock of being waterboarded by a broken pipe, she sees it. A shine in his doe eyes, a hint of nervousness. 

She doesn’t realise immediately why the water hits her suddenly with force or why Jungkook’s eyes widen belatedly.

“What are you doing? The water is - oh.” The anticipation turns into the beginnings of a smile when he works out why she has knee walked all the way towards him and he stands on his knees as well, just as she reaches him and places her arms around his neck, and kisses him.

When she pulls away, he’s grinning. “That’s a yes?”

“That’s a thank God you finally asked.” 

Jungkook nods sheepishly. “I wanted it to be perfect, honestly. I was just waiting for the right time and -” He sighs, shaking his head so droplets of water fall from his hair.

“You know what? I think this, unexpected as it was, is pretty perfect,” she says honestly. “So… I guess that’s a yes,” she clarifies, meeting him in a kiss once again.

There’s a muffled sound and then a splash, followed by a gasp.

“Oh, my God! What the fuck?”

Jungkook jerks away, pursing his lips. “As long as he is never allowed in our house,” he declares, glaring and pointing in the direction of the living room.

She gives him a look. “Pretty sure you’ll crack before I do on that front,” she guesses, just as Dal appears in the doorway of the kitchen, looking incredulous.

“What the fuck happened in here?”

“What do you think? That damn faucet,” she snaps, pointing at it. “This is the landlord’s problem now - he and his insurance can handle it.”

“I agree, but - God, are you guys okay?”

“Yeah, we were using lids…” Jungkook picks his up and places it in front of the stream of water, much more unfazed about it now than he was before. 

“Lids? Why didn’t you guys just turn off the water?” Taking a long step across the flooded kitchen floor, he reaches for a panel behind the left-most cabinet and twists a lever - and the water stops.

Speechless, Lia turns to look at Jungkook who is looking back at her with equal dismay. “We thought of dough before we thought of turning off the water,” he mutters, shaking his head.

“And we’re taking it to the grave,” she replies, squeezing his hand.

He’s wet, his designer clothes ruined - but Jeon Jungkook is glowing. A moment later, he squeezes her hand back.

“Deal.”

—

Thank you for reading. Don’t forget to leave a review :)

[cirrus-grey]

I have now finished watching Good Omens Season 2

If you haven't already, please block the tag "good omens spoilers" - I won't post anything else until Friday night at the earliest, but after that all bets are off.

@albertinesimonet, I did not manage a full liveblog but I did jot down my reactions after watching each episode, and those are compiled under the cut :)

(SPOILERS!)

Episode 1:

Holy flipping fuck are they actually making the ineffable husbands canon???

Okay.

Look.

I saw that it was trending alongside Supernatural and OFMD. I suspected it was going this way, and the season had ended with some sort of confession/immediate separation.

That did not prepare me for the season to open with Crowley saying "hello gorgeous" to a nebula and Aziraphale being disappointed that Crowley wasn't talking to him. Or for Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy to be playing while Crowley rushed to Aziraphale's aid, like-

This is a fanfic. This is a motherfucking fanfic, and I am pleased to say that my brain is processing it as such, a well-written but ultimately non-canon fanfic (*puts on my "I still have book!omens brainrot" shirt*) that just so happens to have been written by one of the original authors.

Anyway, outside of my snorting disbelief that the first ship that I ever shipped is apparently going canon in one 'verse, I do actually have some legitimate theories, which run as follows:

A. I know this season is the plot-bridge between the original novel and what would have been the sequel, and B. I know the sequel was going to involve the second coming of Christ, therefore C. I suspect this Resurrectionist group that kept getting hinted at in the promos is trying to bring Jesus back, Gabriel found out and tried to stop it, and that's why he lost his memories. I'm a tad bit surprised Heaven as a whole doesn't seem to be involved in the return of their special boy, but I guess we'll see how that plays out as the season goes along.

Episode 2:

Oh hey, I've read this one before! "It's ancient Biblical times and Crowley and Aziraphale are angsting about their orders and finding solace in each other's company" may have never gotten its own tag, but there are certainly enough fics about it that it could.

"Can I be a blue one?" Weird kids are the best.

So the Resurrectionist is a pub, not a group. Still think they have something to do with the second coming, but I'm open to being proven wrong.

Gotta say, I didn't expect Every Day to be plot-relevant. I knew they had it for the soundtrack, but I'm really liking this sort of spooky-mystery-music-mixup they've got going with it - love the way its incorporated into the end credits, too.

Totally down for master-thief Jane Austen, btw.

How many people are writing fics about Crowley and Aziraphale getting caught in a rainstorm and hiding under an awning even as I type...

Episode 3:

How to run a bookshop, a guide by A.J. Crowley: Carry large stacks of books around aimlessly and then toss them on the floor when you get bored.

I'm honestly surprised his awning plan nearly worked. Curses be upon weak awnings, I suppose.

I do like that the Bentley recognizes that it has to play nice with whichever one of its dads is in the driver's seat lol

Okay so they keep drawing attention to the fact that there's flies in the bookshop, and now Beelzebub is acting off. Are the flies like... telepathically communicating Gabriel's worldviews to them? Is that how they figured out he was there?

That bit he said when Crowley mentioned tempests is definitely from the Revelations. I unfortunately don't know enough about the Revelations to draw any new conclusions from this. I know they deal with the apocalypse and the antichrist, but that was S1 stuff so there must be something else...

(That bit definitely sounded like Rapture stuff though, just saying)

Lotta talk about people coming back from the dead, here. It's doing little to dissuade me from my idea that this is all related to the second coming. Their "little" miracle was strong enough to bring 25 people back? Okay. How did Gabriel add his own power to it... and who did he bring back? (Does 1 Jesus = 25 normal people?)

...Okay yeah I just googled it and the second coming (and the rapture) is definitely in Revelations. Apparently the appearance of the antichrist is its herald. *insert 'oh yeah it's all coming together' gif here*

...

Several-hours later addition: When they were talking about gravity Gabriel seemed upset that the book didn't stay where it was put, "it goes down." And that flies go up.

...did he "go down," turning into a human, and is Beelzebub "going up," and that's why they're so worried about finding Gabriel? Figure out what happened to him, so it doesn't happen to them as well? Hmm...

Episode 4:

"The rumors that you two are an item..." Yeah holy fuck they're actually doing this. I don't know why it keeps catching me by surprise??? I guess it's not like, the forefront of the plot, so every time it comes to the front it feels a bit like a new thing, but still.

Aziraphale's smug fucking little eyebrow raise at that "I didn't think you were his type." He's like yeah, and what do you know, hm?

Did not expect the entire episode to be backstory, but that was very cute, especially given how much people fixated on the church scene in S1. That little showcase of their trust, both of them worried it'll go wrong but still willing to try because they feel safe with each other. I like that they managed to keep the tension of the setting, that "I'm pointing a gun at my best friend and this could go horribly wrong" feeling, even when it's well-established that the worst that could happen is paperwork.

Also, Crowley trying really, really hard to give Aziraphale positive feedback on his magic tricks even when he knows they suck. That's true love, right there.

Another showcase of people coming back from the dead. We've had the kids getting "brought back" from shape-shifting, the "resurrectionists" digging up dead bodies, and now actual honest-to-god zombies. I am Sensing A Theme.

...are the zombies still around? What's-is-face the demon did say eternal undeath...

Aaaaaand there's going to be an army of demons dropping in on the local business association meeting. I hope Aziraphale has enough tea cakes for everyone.

Episode 5:

SEAMSTRESSES SHOUTOUT ITS A FUCKING DISCWORLD REFERENCE

I know most people are probably going wild over the Dr. Who references but. It's the seamstresses guild...

I'm sure Mrs. Sandwich and Rosie Palm would get along famously.

In other news wow they're just being blatant about the ineffableness of these husbands now, aren't they? The great thing about that is I'm watching it with my parents and I don't think either of them have clicked that it's going canon - like, they're just interpreting it as a running bit, 'haha isn't it funny that everyone keeps mistaking them as a couple' kind of thing. The same thing happened when I showed them OFMD, neither of them realized Ed and Stede were actually going to be a real canon thing until the kiss. I mean, maybe they've worked out that this is going somewhere by now? But I don't want to ask in case they haven't, because I'd love to see their reaction if it blindsides them.

I am Not Normal about the dancing. Aziraphale's giddy little grin when he drags Crowley to the floor? The fucking. Hand presses. I've probably read too much Jane Austen if I'm going this insane about them just pressing their palms together.

And just... that whole fucking scene. The amount of queer people - either queercoded or just flat-out obviously queer - is making my heart feel full. When Aziraphale referred to the magic shop owner's partner using 'they' before we met them I thought it was just, you know, being polite, he'd never met them and didn't want to assume, but then they showed up in person and folks were still using they and they were so obviously giving a huge middle finger to gender norms I just-

Man I need to watch more queer shows I love this feeling.

And the army of demons is more of a large crowd but, well, still threatening. I like the use of masks to hide demonic traits, clever costuming detail there.

But. My dudes. Don't split up, what the fuck are you doing? You've been here for all of human history, you know how stories go, surely you know things always go wrong when you split the party??? I love protective!crowley, I do, but my dude taking off to bring this mess to heaven's attention is not the way to go about saving your angel. And Aziraphale, buddy, I don't know what you're planning to summon there but I really don't think it's going to go well.

...Maybe he's planning to teleport himself, Gabriel, and the humans up to heaven, too, to get them away from the demon crowd. It would be funny if Crowley and what's their name, Muriel, step out of the elevator and Aziraphale is just. There already.

(I don't think that's gonna happen though. I think everything is just gonna get Worse)

Anyway sidenote Lottie if you've read this far, when Gabriel started talking about feeling like a house I immediately thought of you, I know that's a theme you like ♡

Episode 6:

Jesus Christ!

(Called it!)

So I got a lot of the details wrong, but I was spot on with my two big predictions from the beginning. (Hey that ending reminded me of OFMD and Supernatural, I've got a great idea, why don't we all blog about the three of them and get them trending together-)

Gotta say, I'd only given a passing thought to Gabriel and Beelzebub being a Thing, their shippers must be going wild.

I knew there was a reason they kept drawing attention to that fly.

*Spots fire extinguishers* "Hey is that a Magnus Archives ref-" *Is brutally murdered with a lead pipe before I can finish*

I actually kind of love that Nina and Maggie didn't get together at the end of it all? I had felt like it was all going a bit too fast for them and I'm so glad they acknowledged that. They've got time, now, to work things out, and I love that they left it with the certainty that they'd be there for each other in the future... but not quite yet.

Oh! Oh! Oh! And they fit in the halos-used-as-lethal-frisbees-sequence! That was fabulous, I want to see more exploding headgear.

...anyway I think that's all the little bits I wanted to mention before getting to the Main Event.

I'm actually... not all that devastated about that ending? Like, okay, my heart was breaking watching it, the miscommunication and assumptions leading to a dramatic separation, it's tragic and angsty and oh my god my ship kissed my first ever ship kissed they did it they did the thing-

But. Two seconds after the credits started rolling my mind was already flying to, "oh thank goodness, they've got a Source On The Inside now and they might actually have a shot at stopping the end of the world instead of, you know, being blindsided by it because no one in heaven or hell is talking to them"

Like, sure, major breakup here, Crowley's gonna be pissed and Aziraphale might have to do their silly little "I'm sorry" dance three or four times before they can actually get down to business, but I don't think there's a question that both of them still trust each other immensely and know they can rely on each other to help out in a pinch. They'll be walking on eggshells for a bit, but it's pretty obvious that Aziraphale wouldn't have taken the promotion if he'd known Crowley wasn't going to come with him and as soon as he manages to properly communicate that fact they'll be fine.

(Sidenote, this, right here, exemplifies the difference between Book!Aziraphale and TV!Aziraphale. Book!Aziraphale is way more cynical about the whole heaven-and-hell system, he'd never say "heaven's still the good guys," and he'd be very, very suspicious of a sudden promotion landing in his lap after such a tumultuous sequence of events. TV!Aziraphale might not be the sweet little innocent bean fandom makes him out to be, but damn is he naive compared to his book counterpart. Makes me wonder how much of the hypothetical sequel has to change to work with this plotline - I'd bet my ass he wasn’t an archangel in that one.)

Can Crowley... hear the soundtrack? "No nightingales" like how does he know that's significant? Sir you are breaking the fourth wall-

(And how powerful is he? He's a nobody in hell but he keeps stopping time and could access classified documents up in heaven, something made his and Aziraphale's miracle blow up and apparently it wasn't Gabriel, and he also just brought a whole ass dude back from the dead??? Maybe those "Crowley is Raphael" theorists from S1 had a point)

Anyway, to cap it all off: my current predictions for S3 are the aforementioned ineffable husbands makeup and subsequent spy shenanigans as they scramble to try to stop Apocalypse 2: Jesus Boogaloo; they fail and Jesus comes back, but instead of following the Great Plan he instead chooses to side with "all of humanity against all of heaven and hell" (maybe Adam shows up too to help out?); and Crowley, despite his repeated protests, actually does end up running a bookshop because he doesn't trust Muriel to do it properly.

I summation, yes I am still alive, and very excited for the next season, whenever it happens. Also I need gifsets of the dance scene and that kiss ASAP please and thank you.

[the-phantom-author]

as we get closer to the release of tortured poets department and the eventual downfall of popstar i’m thinking of her and where she’s at currently.

(she doesn’t really do anything wrong, much like taylor swift didn’t do anything wrong back in 2016, it’s just people think she’s too man hating, too political, too polarizing, the album is taken wrongly by the mainstream people despite a lot of fans, hers and hasan’s alike, defending it and finding the true meaning)

she’s definitely having shows across australia after finishing her tour in asia, she meets up with hasan in australia and she’s joining any IRL streams with him because they’re Official (after their hard launch after her NYE show and him being her date to the grammys and his to the streamies) and they’re living laughing loving, cute little dates, he’s in the crowd and all the fans notice him cheering her on. and maybe every once in a while she will surprise everyone and sing slut!

with about twoish weeks till TTPD, she’s dreading promo like any talk shows but she LOVES to do things like the spotify stripped back sessions of doing some cool covers, meeting tons of fans, and coming home after a long day to join hasan on stream. she misses kaya because she’s absolutely fallen in love with her, since she can’t get one because of being so busy.

and while hasan has heard a lot of bits and pieces of TTPD since they’ve hung out so much and when they started dating she’s took him to the studio a few times but mainly he’s just heard her singing around the house or humming something or she practices something out loud while she’s writing the song, he’s never ever heard it in full. so a couple days before it’s release she plays the entire thing for him in one sitting, no stopping or pausing, he’s just sitting there quiet and focused on what she’s truly saying. safe to say it makes him a bit emotional because he did not understand the depth of her emotions and pain when they first met.

all in all she’s just being pop royalty and being iconic on streams all the time

Yes!!!!!

Her vibing with Alex and Aleksa the whole time she's in Australia. Not to mention going to the zoo with them!!! She now wants a pet Koala and Hasan has to fight everything within him when telling she can't.

Omg and him listening to TTPD before it's releases. He's the first person who's not involved in the making of it to hear it. Some of the song really get to him, because they've talked about this stuff before. And he knows for a fact that he's the person she's confined in the most about these things, so when he hear these song and there so much more,,, more, his heart breaks a little. He just feels bad that she had to go through all that.

Also her trying to convince her manager to let her do YouTube/twitch stuff for promo only. Like she could be on In The Tub (again), or The Yard (again), or I spent a day with Anthony Padilla, or [Insert literally any other youtube thing here].

[u-changed-my-life]

He doesn't really post anything non work related, not these days anyway. He used to post all kinds of things, like him cooking or goofing off on set but he hasn't done that in ages, minus the very occasional story add. He posted one pic of him holding a girl's hand to one of his stories a while back but other than that it's mostly promo stuff for the projects out now. He doesn't use it nearly as often as Taylor does.

It really just seems work related for him. Yes they announced the sequel, but it's not in production yet, the script isn't complete yet and he has two projects out now that he is supposed to promote. It isn't anything deeper than that. The noise from some is nonsense. Anyone with eyes can see how much he enjoys being around Taylor. People who were at both events posted about how cute and close they were both nights. Once the project starts it will be all over his gram, but again, he doesn't use his as often as Taylor does.

Hi Anon! 👋

First of all, thanks a million for your ask! I always love it when my inbox has them!!

I don't know if you work with or are associated with RWRB in some way or an avid fan with a keen eye. So, I don't know whether to take your comment as a statement of fact or observation.

Either way, it seems legit, as in a correct analysis to me! 🙏 And thank you for saying this. Personally, I still think it's weird that he hasn't posted about RWRB 2 and ngl, I would have liked that. Makes me think, it's somewhere in the queue and it will come up eventually once he is finished talking about the other projects that chronologically came before it. And tbh, it also makes me hopeful that one day, when we are going about our business, like normal, he might do a massive photo dump BTS from the screening and we will lose our minds! 😂 Also, both, the Idea of You and RWRB are by Amazon Prime. And I think they are not done promoting The Idea of You yet. So, you will still see Nick promoting The Idea of You while Taylor and the rest are shouldering the RWRB bit.

Whatever it is, you are absolutely right in saying- it's not that deep. His Insta is now work stuff, and once he is working on RWRB, we will get loads of stuff.

I should probably warn anyone who reads my Tumblr that what I write here is "the heart wants what the heart wants" kinda stuff. 🥲 And atm the heart wants some post from him retweeting or reblogging or saying something about RWRB 2. Because, it is still one of his biggest ever hits and a big part of his fan base. I think it will be nice and his RWRB fans would love it, especially the Henry-Alex shippers who like Nick as Henry or came to know of him through this movie.

Don't try to look for logic (or sanity 😜) in my want, coz you won't find one!

[likeadevils]

In preparation for ttpd release, I started to listen to your playlist of Taylor's songs in writing order and I love it so far! It really gives me an entirely new way of looking at the songs and the connections between them, so big thank you for your work on it!

I just have a few questions that I'd like to know as I'm listening (I'm on early fearless rn):

how did you order tracks that don't have a clear order? (iirc, a lot of the late albums we don't really know besides some earlier/later tracks). Is it based on vibes, or just completely arbitrary?

Also, how did you deal with songs that some time to write (like Innocent taking a few months, or her coming back to finish change after winning her first big award)? Is it the beginning date, or finishing it, or maybe somewhere in the middle?

Thanks a lot in advance <3

songs that took a while to write: i’ll put the all dates i know she worked on it— like, begin again is in there twice, because i’m fairly confident in both dates, but change is only when she finished it, because i have no idea when she started it. i also don’t put the same song over and over in a row (like all too well is only in there once even though we know of at least three drafts, because it would just be listening to the same song over and over). with innocent specifically, i took the six months quote as it taking her six months to get in the headspace to write it, not like she was picking it up and putting it down, so i only put it in once.

songs that i don’t know the order of: short answer, i put my best guess. it’s normally easier to figure out when she recorded a song, or at least what songs she recorded around the same time, so like, a lot of lover is just broken up by producer/studio credits (though i am fairly confident about the back half).

and then with folklore and evermore, it’s much easier to figure out the order than the dates— every artist has a different way they answer “tell me what it was like making this song” and aaron’s go to is “it was right before this song and right after this other song” which is so helpful— so like, folklore especially, i’m pretty confident that that’s the general order of stuff, even though i only really know cardigans date.

but, here are the stretches i’m not super confident about

* a lot of the first half of speak now is speculative, but not really in long stretches? but haunted, foolish one, superman, last kiss, timeless, and never grow up can all easily jump around the year (though, i’d put money on never grow up being written in early september 2009. not a lot of money, but like, still money. like $5). and then like, the speak now vault tracks in general are speculative, she did like no promo for it so who knows)

* wildest dreams-wonderland: all of these songs were recorded in october/november 2013, but we don’t know the exact order (wildest dreams is first because selena gomez said she was there when it was written and her schedule just doesn’t align with taylor’s that fall meaning it was almost definitely written before going into the studio, blank space was likely written in late october based on candids matching behind the scenes studio stuff, the last three are just alphabetical order)

* look what you made me do-this is why we can’t have nice things: this is mostly just based on how long her hair was in the making of a songs

* cruel summer-soon you’ll get better: cruel summer is early cause she said she was just jamming with jack and annie and the song kinda fell into their laps, and that sounds like she wasn’t intensely writing so i put it early. she teased daylight lyrics somewhere in the summer i believe so i put that pretty early, but aside from that like. these probably weren’t even recorded in a block they could literally be wherever

* i forgot that you existed-all of the girls: same proudcers, she said she started working intensely on the album right after tour ended and idk what else she was recording in november, so like. all recorded at the same time, guessing that it’s pretty early in the recording process, but that exact order of the tracks can change, as well as where they fall in the album development too. but i’m like 85% sure they were all recorded in the same week or so

* august-mirrorball: most of the jack stuff was done before aaron came in, but idk the exact order of these specific ones

* invisible string-betty: mostly circumstancial— like, epiphany is the first track taylor brought to aaron instead of the other way around, so i put it towards the end, stuff like that

* gold rush-no body no crime: all recorded in late september, but written beforehand, no idea in what order

* maroon-dear reader(/question-you’re losing me): again, all recorded within like a month of each other, no idea in what order besides question probably being in late november and youre losing me on december 5

* lavander haze-karma: pretty sure they were all written in early 2022, not totally sure in what order, beyond bigger than the whole sky being in march, snow on the beach probably being in april, and karma probably being last

[space-specs]

for the fanfic ask meme- 🎃 👀 🧠 (guy gardner bc i want you to talk about my blorbo)

🎃 Do you write fics for certain holidays? Which is your favorite holiday inspired fic?

I have yet to write any fics for any holidays (unless you count Pride Month, in which case, gonna promo my criticism of Devin Grayson's Jon Kent Pride story here). I may write a Christmas fic if I can ever get the time in the holiday season because it's fun. I also have a soft spot for Jewish batfam content, but I would need to do quite a bit of research before I wrote a fic for any Jewish holiday.

On that note, I'll rec some other people's holiday fics, lol.

Latkes and Other Fried Foods by metukah — a collection of very sweet and fun Hanukkah stories featuring the Bats!

Cherish The Present by Listentothelittlebird — part of a larger AU (Code Bat) that I love very dearly and will not shut up about. Fluffy Christmas content!

Holiday Trappings by Cloaked Sparrow — also part of a larger AU that I actually need to read the rest of. I stumbled upon this one and really enjoyed it. Jason is loves his family and fjdklfgjfkjfh also....gift-giving as a love language is my shit.

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

teehee, this one is fun because I have like 5 open wips + nearly 20 just snippets sitting around.

I'm behind on the Year of the OTP stuff, so I actually have two timberkon fics going at the same time (and I'm hoping I can finish one of them before the end of the month at least). March is a cryptid-hunting road trip fic and April is Kon being oblivious af and not realizing he's been dating Tim and Bernard for weeks because I think that trope is fun.

There's also my big Jason wip that I've been working on for over a year (this was supposed to be a quick thing and it got WAY out of hand). I have a lot of feelings about it, but the basic premise is Jason gets to Gotham and starts his whole plan, but the Bats kinda realize that while he IS killing people, he's definitely more vigilante than criminal and their goals kinda align. So they decided to just work with him rather than against him (because Bruce has an established history of working with characters with different modalities on killing, both in and out of Gotham). And then Jason goes "well, now what?" and just....fails to tell them that "hey, btw, I'm the dead Robin" for like a year while he bonds with them and also gets to see how his death changed things up close and personal. (I'm not kidding, I'm keeping a timeline for this for my own personal reference and we're up to 70% of a year now. Also over 20k words. Holy shit.)

But because it's YOU asking and you get to hear about most of my fics as I'm writing them, I will add a bonus of the summary of wip I have not really told you about:

His siblings all follow Bruce's no kill rule for one reason or another, but the realities of vigilante life is never nearly so black and white. Jason’s there to help with all the grays. Or, 6 times Jason hides a body from Bruce + 1 time he nearly finds out.

🧠 Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

Oh, you want me to talk about your blorbo. I see how it is /lh.

Trying to think of something that isn't just straight up lifted from headcanons we've already discussed....hold on.

Being a GL isn't exactly conducive to having a stable job, so when he first starts out and is in space more often than he's Earth-side, he fills his time on Earth doing volunteer work with kids because he likes helping out and it gives him something to do for the like week he's back home. It doesn't really provide income, so he usually just crashes at other people's place. Hal, John, the jl:i peeps at some point, Oliver Queen on one memorable occasion. Eventually, he gets the bar and his own place, but he still tries to keep up the volunteer work when he can.

Speaking of the bar, to me, Guy's strength in the kitchen is his adaptability, and being a GL only enhanced that. Between having to figure out what makes for good eats on various alien planets and having to come home from long space trips to the 6 shelf stable items left in the pantry, Guy is something of an expert in turning a handful of mismatched ingredients into something enjoyable. This is in direct contrast to Hal Jordan, whose time as GL has just made him used to eating whatever, and now he has the most bizarre palette and will just throw together the strangest combinations and enjoy it. (Both of them have developed a keen sense for what kind of foods will keep their bodies fueled longer and their eating habits reflect that).

[lovecolibri]

SaL anon here my friend after a very, very long week. This is actually my 3rd attempt at sending you an ask. First, I finally had time and was excited to type up something for the latest episode and then the Buck LI stuff came out and the mood for that was killed. Next I had mostly typed up my salty thoughts only to have my internet go down (yes, I whined at home "what i was going to read??!!" and pointedly ignored my very much filled bookcase because my ships aren't in them). So here let's see if this one works out.

So how is it KR and the promo dept always manage to kill any joy we have when we get fed any kind of Buddie content (the follow-up to the Eddie getting shot, and the 5b and premier come to mind here)?? Seriously Buck and Eddie more or less went on a date and had family night together and almost immediately they came back with "look Buck and Eddie are going to go on dates!!". Its exhausting cause it seems like any time they put out a story that might even be slightly suggestive of them being more than platonic bros they insist on following it up with stories to "prove" they are, no matter how recycled those plots are.

And okay let's take a second here to ask WTF is KR doing with these characters? In 6b alone we've had Buck dying, a coma dream, PTSD, super powers, and now he's getting a crush, and we STILL haven't finished the accursed sperm donor storyline??!! Bobby and Athena investigated had the death of a beloved friend 🙄 plot, HenRen had the nonsensical Denny secretly seeing his Dad which was never an issue before plot, and Madney and Eddie are just kinda there?? The other characters have had at best one storyline where the audience has to either invent or rewrite the backstory for. But for Buck he's had like 50 plotlines, none of which have really gone anywhere? I love Buck but I'd rather have him have 1 good arc and resolution than whatever this bullshit is. I'd easily take that screentime and give it to any of the other characters if it meant we got 1 well thought out and executed storyline. Instead we're just recycling and redressing old plots for everyone else while KR uses a magnetic poetry set to plan what Buck's doing from episode to episode. We have 5 episodes left in the season, 4-5 guest characters that are going to be incorporated (including 2 much beloathed ones 🙄🙄🙄), and nothing really setup for our mains to do (even Eddie dating isn't setup, it literally hasn't come up after Ana and you'd think they could have in 6a while he was watching his son mature).

Anyway, I'll stop the rant here though there's definitely more I could say. I'll close off saying I hope you're feeling better today since this week looks like its been rough on you. Sending you virtual tea, soup, and hugs!!

Long week is RIGHT my friend! I'm so sorry you were foiled in your previous attempts! I am right there with you on the Buck LI stuff just...sucking a lot of the joy out of things for me. Because of course we're doing this again 🙄🙄🙄 I was even writing up notes on a possible fic and you KNOW I haven't written anything since Malex and even that was before s4 started. But alas. That sucks about the power going out! I hate when that happens especially if I was in the middle of something! (Also I am SO with you. I keep buying books and then just...not reading them because my brain says "it's not our blorbos so no.)

I am just...so tired at this point. Like yes these people *may* not stick around, but even so, I don't want to loose out on Buddie scenes and Buckley-Diaz family scenes! I don't want Buck to have 90% of his time and discussions with some new character I do not know or care about instead of Eddie and the firefam! They already tried to do that with BT and it was the woooooorst! I want Eddie to have screentime and arcs but again, I don't want the little time we DO get to be wasted on some random side character! And lets be honest, there is no person they can introduce at this point that can compare with the relationship Buck and Eddie have already built and the ways in which they are the perfect partners for what each other needs. So the options are to a) cut down on seeing that relationship so their new het ones don't look so shitty and lame in comparison, b) have these women be mostly just Blurry Girlfriends in the background with no personality or depth just to have the boys paired off so they don't have to do Buddie while still centering their relationship so people can't call them out for not committing to Buddie because their "friendship" looks basically the same, or c) give them LIs that are basically the other's personalities transplanted into a female body in order to have the relationship be anything close to what Buck and Eddie need in a life partner. These are all terrible options, and I hate them, more than I hate the idea of them ending up single even though it undercuts their own narrative set up for the characters but that's a cop-out too.

ANYWAY

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 to everything about Buck's 700 shitty arcs this season while everyone else is mostly twiddling their thumbs. KR is literally the worst at pacing and planning, and constructing a season with any kind of flow. On the bright side, Ravi is coming back and Chim is going to get to do something! I'm so excited! I was really hoping for more of him and Bobby teaming up last week because the little crumbs we got were GOLD.

I did have a very emotionally rollercoaster-y week and the show being Like This absolutely Did Not Help, but I am making it work. Mostly with loooots of fic. Cheers friend, lets see if we can make it through the finale intact, if Buddie dreams can make it through the finale intact, and if the SHOW can make it through the finale intact with how these renewal negotiations are going.

[faboover]

4 Years of Making Videos on RWBY Volume 6

Introduction

Hi, I’m Fabian. I run a YouTube Channel called Faboover in which I post Let’s Plays, Fan-Trailers, AMVs, Toonami Promos, and Toonami Music Videos. I also make Video Essays discussing, analyzing, and criticizing RWBY, which I started doing with RWBY Volume 4 back in 2017. 

Over a 4 Year Period (2019-2023), I made 5 Videos discussing multiple aspects about RWBY Volume 6. The video series is titled “Thoughts” and covers my Thoughts on the Topics of Story, Animation & Editing, Design, and whatever Miscellaneous Topics can be included in each. What I want to do here is go over what went into each of these Videos I made this time around for Volume 6 and why it took me so long to produce them. I also want to finish this up by explaining what I’m going to be doing for Future Videos for RWBY.

Links to the RWBY Volume 6 Thoughts Videos are provided below with the Date I released them and how long each are.

Thoughts - RWBY Vol. 6: Story (12/1/19, 30:23)

Thoughts - RWBY Vol. 6: Animation & Editing (7/1/20, 30:55)

Thoughts - RWBY Vol. 6: Design Pt. 1/2 (4/15/21, 26:28)

Thoughts - RWBY Vol. 6: Design Pt. 2/2 (9/12/21, 35:36)

Final Thoughts - RWBY Vol. 6 (10/23/23. 1:09:30)

If you want to read this easier and easily jump to different sections of the post, please go to the Google Docs Link for it provided below.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D6j5usI6mTC-zvn8ioViyDvqcJ8hIKAfArg3Et3hS2E/edit?usp=sharing

Story Video

This is pretty standard fare for me as it closely resembles how I’ve done this Video for Volumes 4 and 5 in which I talk about the Characters and Overall Story Stuff for RWBY Volume 6. The change up here is how Ruby is the last Character and Topic for the Video after getting into all of the Other Characters and Overall Plot Stuff for Volume 6.

The reason I had Ruby as the Last Topic for the Video is because of how I felt it would be best to go over everything else first in order to get into Ruby’s Story for Volume 6. I especially felt that I needed to do it this way with the Overall Story Beats for the Volume as how the plot progresses would be important in understanding what is going on with Ruby.

My favorite Topic for the Volume 6 Story Video is Qrow. This is mainly because I hadn’t talked about him at length like this before. My favorite bits I talked about in relation to Qrow is how Qrow kept his distance during the initial phases of the heist and how important it is that Ruby kept approaching Qrow while his spirits were down.

I don’t have any issues with how this video turned out. I believe I started writing this video in the middle of 2019, recorded my Audio for the Video in September, and finally released it in December of 2019.

Animation & Editing Video

I’m going to start this one off and say that I really need to come up with a new way to introduce these Videos talking about RWBY’s Animation. I started this Video the exact same way I did for the previous two I made on the Same Topics for Volumes 4 and 5. I don’t remember if I noticed this repetitive intro after writing, recording, editing, or releasing the Volume 6 Animation Video. I most likely noticed when editing the video.

Anyway, this is a video in which I got to do some cool stuff with. Got to breakdown Oscar’s Character Animation for the scene in which Jaune comes at Oscar, which I hadn’t analyzed and brokedown the animation in a dialogue scene before. Got to revisit the Topic of Squash and Stretch and highlight the use of a Smear Frame on Nora, which actually isn’t the first time they’ve done a Smear Frame like that. The bit I’m more proud of is my breakdown for the Animation and Action during the Fight between Yang and Adam.

I actually took notes this time around starting from Blake and Adam’s Fight on the Antenna and through the Woods up to the end of Yang’s Fight with Adam. Helped me identify all of the strengths for these Fight Scenes. Obviously, I focused on Yang and Adam’s Fight. The part of the breakdown for Adam and Yang’s Fight that I got a lot of positive responses to is my analysis and breakdown for Adam’s 3 Drawing Slashes against Yang, which was adapted from Monty’s Test Animation for a fight between Adam and Yang.

One of the things I took major umbrage with is how people would passive-aggressively dismiss the quality of the Fight between Yang and Adam by saying that it was only Good because of Monty. This being because it took moments from the Test Animation Monty did for a fight between Yang and Adam that leaked. So, I started this section of the video by highlighting Yang’s Animation since the Test Animation mainly focused on Adam. Doing this would show how much additional stuff was done in this Fight that didn’t come from that Leaked Test Animation Monty made.

One of the last topics for this Animation and Editing Video was a small bit in which I brought up the Special Effects Animation for Volume 6. This section was originally going to contain more, but as you will come to see, the Topic became much more complicated as I first pushed it into the next Design Video. A Video which would then become a 2 Parter because of how complicated covering the Topic truly became.

Design Part 1

This Design Video covered Topics that I usually cover in my previous Design Videos for RWBY (Characters, Environments, Grimm, Sound, etc.), but I went about covering them differently. This time around, I took the approach of presenting what went into producing what was seen in Volume 6 and not just talking about what I think about each Design Topic, which obviously bloated the length of the Video.

The section of this First Design Video for Volume 6 I’m very proud of is the section in which I went over the Conception, Influences, Initially Planning, and Implementation of The Apathy. How I approached writing this section was mainly influenced by the “Exploring” Series on the YouTube Channel GoodBadFlicks. This is also a section that I spent more time scoring (implementing music) than anything I had done previously. Another thing I did is purposely not show the Apathy until I actually started talking about them. This is a section I put a lot of thought and effort into how I wrote, spoke about, and edited. I would later upload this section as a Standalone Video while editing my Final Thoughts Video for Volume 6.

Design Part 2

The Design Part 2 Video covers the Special Effects and Visual Effects (VFX) of RWBY up to Volume 6 with brief mentions about Volumes 7 and 8. This is the first time I have ever spent so much time researching a subject and writing about it in a presentation/video essay type format. I kid-you-not, I spent months going through the Commentaries, watching the Behind the Scenes, looking over Crew Demo Reels, reading Articles, etc. in order to understand as much as I could about the Production of RWBY in relation to Special Effects and VFX. What was originally intended to be a small section to be included in the Animation & Editing Video quickly became more and more complicated as I continued to gain knowledge through my research.

Why did I even start researching these aspects of RWBY’s Production?

It started with the 2D Special Effect for the Fire in the Fireplace at the Brunswick Farm. 

My first reaction was, “This is odd. I know they don’t do Fire Effects like this from what I saw in Volume 2 Episode 4, Volume 4 Episode 8, and Volume 5 Episode 10.” 

But then I went, “Wait, do I actually KNOW that they don’t do Effects like this or am I just making a Baseless Assumption?”

I later messaged Hypeathon, who had done a 3 part video series on Monty and RWBY, and asked if he had any resources on the Special Effects for RWBY (I was only focused on the Special Effects at this time and was looking to get sources for the Volume 6 Animation Video). Hypeathon would then provide me much more than I expected and directed me to review the Commentaries.

As I mentioned earlier, I found myself traversing down a Rabbit Hole I wasn’t expecting. See all of my Notes and References used for the 2nd Design Video in the Google Doc linked below.

RWBY Special and VFX Sources, References, Notes, etc.

I would write this section with the original intention of including it with everything I was writing for the 1st Design Video; however, when it came time to review my initial draft for the section that would become the 2nd Design Video, I found myself not liking it.

I felt like it was directionless and uninteresting. It came off like I was just spouting information rather than presenting information. That’s when I messaged Hypeathon again and asked if he would be okay with proofreading and providing feedback on the First Main Draft of the Special Effects and VFX Section for my Original Volume 6 Design Video Script.

Hypeathon accepted. 

So I provided him the Current Draft of my VFX Script and a Document with all of my Notes and References so he would know where information was coming from and have context to how I was writing this part of my script. Hype would give feedback, suggestions, alternations, and notes to the Draft I gave him as I continued to write the rest of the Original Design Video with consideration to everything Hype was providing me and giving feedback to.

As we were doing this, the page count on this Original Design Video’s Script ended up getting pretty high and about to hit 20 Pages. Why this was a big deal is because the previous Story and Animation Video Scripts were around 10 Pages and ended up to be about 30 Minutes each. I came to realize that I was about to have an Hour Long Video on my hands. Thus, I made the decision to split the Design Video into two parts.

This decision helped give Hypeathon more time to go over and provide feedback on the rest of the Special and VFX Draft I sent him and also gave me more time to finesse my scripts for the now 2 Part Volume 6 Design Videos.

If you would like to see the Original Draft of the Special and VFX Script I sent Hypeathon and the feedback and notes Hype provided to it, it is linked below.

(I DID ASK HYPEATHON IF HE IS OKAY WITH ME SHARING THIS HERE FIRST)

Special Effects of RWBY Draft (with Hypeathon’s Feedback)

I am overall proud of how the Volume 6 Design Part 2 Video turned out. The only thing I wished I did better on is the section of the Video talking about RWBY Volume 3.

When it came to my research I did for this Video, I was initially only focused on anything dealing with the Special Effects of RWBY. It wasn’t until I started researching Volume 4 that I pivoted to research not only the Special Effects but also the VFX and Production of RWBY as a whole.

Despite this change in approach to what topics I was going to be researching and covering for the Video, I never went back to Volume 3 and is why I said that the Special and VFX for Volume 3 had little change. This is also why the Volume 3 Section of the Design Part 2 Video covers mostly the Production of RWBY and not the Special and Visual Effects. That said, doing it this way did help provide a smoother transition to talking about Volumes 4 and 5.

Final Thoughts

Talk about another mile and a half. This Final Thoughts Video for Volume 6 took me a long while to write and edit. Part of it was all the stuff regarding Adam and the White Fang I had been planning to cover in this video, and another part was the Jaune and Pyrrha Section of the video.

I was originally writing the section regarding Adam’s Character as a sort of play by play about Adam, what we see of him, what others say about him, and what he says throughout each Volume. That was getting very long. I got to the point where I was writing in this way up to Volume 5 and went, “This is too long” and I didn’t feel like this is how I actually want to talk about Adam’s Characterization. I’m referring to the Tone of my writing. Thus, I consolidated it with a complete rewrite so that it would be better focused. Even with that done, I still faced hurdles when it came to writing those sections about Adam and the White Fang.

The number of times I thought about removing specific sections of the Adam and White Fang Topics to the point where there were times when I did remove them. This is all because I was super anxious about covering these topics as I am obviously going to be getting into and discussing the Racial Subject Matter and Implications regarding the character of Adam and representation of the White Fang.

Running through my mind when considering whether to keep these topics were:

Is my perspective important?

What if I’m ignorant?

What if I say something in this video that someone could take major offense to?

What if I say or present something in a way that makes someone who respected me now think less of me?

What if I make the conversation regarding these issues in RWBY Discourse worse?

Thoughts like these would just spring up from time to time during the writing and editing process. Yeah, I even considered cutting these parts out from the video during the editing phase after I had already recorded my audio for the video. This anxiety once I got up to the Adam’s Character Section of the video during the editing phase really kept me away from the video timeline and hindered me from making any significant progress on the full video. I think it took me 2 to 3 months to finally edit those sections of the video. It took me about a month to edit the first 20 minutes of the video.

The reason I kept these sections regarding Adam’s Character and the White in the video despite my anxiety about them is because I essentially forced myself to. “If I don’t talk about this now, then I am never going to.” That was my mentality with keeping these sections regarding Adam’s Character and White Fang in the video. 

“If I don’t do it now, then I never will.”

Now, why would the Jaune and Pyrrha section of this Final Thoughts Video be hard for me to write and such? Well, that’s because that section was originally intended to be a Standalone Video. One that I hinted I was going to be making in my Update #14 Video that I put out on 11/7/18. I later confirmed that I was planning to make a video regarding Jaune and Pyrrha in my Update #16 Video that I put out on 9/1/19.

I started writing the script for the Standalone Jaune and Pyrrha Video, but all I was able to complete is a single paragraph. That video would only make sense with what was already out for RWBY at the time when I first hinted at it, which was Volume 6. That’s why the Topic for Jaune and Pyrrha got added to the Final Thoughts Video. It was also to address the scene in which Jaune talked to Nora and Ren at Pyrrha’s Statue.

When I finally got around to including that section about Jaune and Pyrrha in my script for the Final Thoughts Video, I was at least able to start making good progress. That was the case until I actually got to talking about Jaune in Volume 6 in which I hit a wall.

The problem was how I couldn’t think of what I wanted to say and how to say it. This was because I essentially looked at what I was writing so far regarding Jaune and Pyrrha and went, “Where am I going with this?” It was the last part of this section to write before concluding it, and I had lost the narrative.

I think it took me quite a while to figure it out. Rewatching the scene with Jaune, Nora, and Ren helped me to finally develop a connective through-line for what I wanted to cover and get across.

The only other major topic in the Final Thoughts Video I want to talk about here is the Bumblby Section. It was a topic I had originally planned to be in the Final Thoughts Video since around the time I started writing the first Story Video. I originally wrote it as though RWBY Volume 6 had just ended and was focusing on a specific aspect about the relationship.

Did they pander with Bumblby in Volume 6?

I had finished writing the full Final Thoughts Video around October or November of 2022. Volume 9 had not come out yet. By the time I finally got around to editing the Bumblby Section of the Video, Volume 9 had finished and Yang and Blake officially became a couple. I was playing back what I had said in the Video in my Video Editor and asked myself, “Does it even matter anymore?”

The answer I came to was obviously, “No.”

So I cut out all the parts where I referenced anything regarding fan-service and pandering. Re-recorded some of my lines to remove mentions of those as well. All so I could just focus on the 2 small problems I had with Blake and Yang’s Relationship, how it was presented in Volume 6, and then talked about how I wasn’t impressed with how it progressed afterwards in Volumes 7 and 8.

If I had to pick what my favorite section that I did for the Final Thoughts Video, it would be a toss up between these two.

Adam in Volume 6

Jaune and Pyrrha

The reason for the Volume 6 Adam Section is because of how it is an overview and analysis regarding Adam and his Character. It also gave me the opportunity to cover aspects about Blake’s confrontation with Adam at the end of Volume 5 that I didn’t get to cover in my original RWBY Volume 5 Thoughts Series due to how I needed to compress and focus my talking points regarding the last 4 episodes of that Volume.

My favorite bit I talked about regarding Adam in Volume 6 was the line in which Adam said to Blake how he just wasn’t good enough for her for Blake to then retort back that it was way more than that. I really liked digging into why Blake would respond back with that in regards to Adam.

The Jaune and Pyrrha Section should be obvious as Jaune is one of my Favorite Characters in RWBY. So, getting into stuff regarding Jaune and Pyrrha and explaining why I have interest in Characters like Jaune was really enjoyable.

If I was to put out one of these as a Standalone Video, it would be the Jaune and Pyrrha Section. It was originally intended to be one and covers more about the Characters than just one Volume.

Why Did These Videos Take So Long?

The title for this part of the write up speaks for itself. The answer is due to a variety of reasons.

Motivation

Energy

Time

Distractions

Procrastination

Anxiety

Just to name a few.

One of the big contributors as to why I took so long to make each of these Videos is because I would just end up in a Writer’s Block pretty frequently as I wrote the scripts for the Videos. I would just get stuck. I would know what topics I wanted to include and talk about. I would have these topics titled and listed out in my initial draft. But then, I would just struggle with figuring out what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. I also struggled with the script writing process itself because of how I would just forget how to write. I cannot count how many times during the writing process for these Volume 6 Thoughts Videos that I would stop and ask myself, 

Should I be starting a new paragraph?

Wait! When should a new paragraph be started?

Am I employing proper Grammar here?

Am I structuring my sentences properly?

I bet if you look over this whole write-up you are reading right now, you can find examples of me still struggling with stuff like that.

Another big contributor as to why it took me so long to get these videos out are the lengths of each video. Each video is 30 minutes or longer. Those are some daunting video lengths to produce.

I ended up developing a way to help myself not feel so overwhelmed by the length of each video by adding markers for each section/topic of the Video in the Video Editor’s Timeline and then moving these marked sections/topics far apart from each other in the Timeline. This is so I could just focus on the current section I am editing and not worry about how much more I have left to do in order to complete the video. Essentially, I broke down the video into sectioned tasks instead of just one large project. Despite that, I obviously still struggled to make progress when editing the Videos.

Another thing I would do to help me make progress when editing the videos is open my Vegas Project for whatever Thoughts Video I was working on at the time every time I started up my computer. However, I would also open other things such as YouTube, Social Media, etc. I would also spend time on my Phone reading through and watching the same stuff. I would just gravitate to whatever would be more interesting or immediately fulfilling for my mind to engage with.

One of the things that I do, which can be called a compulsion at times, is Day Dream whenever I’m listening to music. Not just Day Dream, but imagine and play out whole scenarios in my head to the music I’m listening to. This is how I develop the ideas for my Fan-Trailers, Toonami Promos, and Music Videos.

The reason this can be called a Compulsion is because sometimes my mind will just get stuck and locked into one thing, this one scenario. So, I have to grab my phone and start listening to music so I can play out what is currently running through my head until it’s done, but then like 30+ minutes have passed.

This can all be related to ADHD, which I have now started taking medication for after completing an ADHD Test that my Psychiatrist had me take. If you look through my Likes on Twitter, you can find me liking and retweeting stuff in regards to ADHD over the years because I just related them to my experience when editing these videos over the last 4 years.

Neurodivergent Kids when listening to music:

https://x.com/EthanTheRaccy/status/1690786287349846016?s=20

ADHD when you are passionate vs not:

https://x.com/AdonisThuul/status/1680623330800304131?s=20

“I just need to finish this project”:

https://x.com/choinheap/status/1651924410570350592?s=20

Markiplier Talks about ADHD:

https://x.com/ac_maestro/status/1642882059801698305?s=20

McNasty’s Quote Tweet adding onto what Markiplier said:

https://x.com/McNasty/status/1644400896221265921?s=20

Future Videos

I’m now 3 Volumes, 1 Spinoff, and a 2 Part Crossover Film behind in regards to my Thoughts Series of Videos for RWBY. Obviously, it now takes me too long to produce these videos. So, what am I going to do moving forward?

The Thoughts Video Series I’ve been making for each Volume of RWBY will be no more. One reason is the aforementioned time it now takes for me to write and produce them. The other reason is that my Format with these videos just won’t work with Volumes 7 through 9. Especially with the Story Videos as each of the Characters’ Stories are told through those Volumes and not isolated to just one.

Will I be making any videos talking about, discussing, analyzing, and criticizing RWBY?

YES

How am I going to do so if I’m not going to do it in my usual format anymore?

I will instead be producing Videos that are about a single topic rather than just a Broad Topic with a bunch of Individual Topics. This will make the Video focused and, hopefully, shorter. This will also be focused more on Topics that I want to talk about rather than Topics I’m not that interested in.

I already tested putting out Videos in that format by uploading sections of my previous Thoughts Videos for RWBY Volume 6, which are all linked below.

How RWBY Vol. 6 Put More Focus on Ruby (3:33)

Yang VS Adam - A Brief Animation BREAKDOWN (13:11)

The Apathy: Influences, Design, and Implementation (7:23)

A VERY GENERAL Overview of RWBY's VFX (12:56)

These also showcased the new Thumbnail and Video Title Formats I will be using when making Videos like this. I previously opted for just “Thoughts - <Subject>: <Subject about that Subject>” as I didn’t want my Titles to come off as Clickbait or anything like that.

The previous titles would communicate that these are my thoughts about this subject and will be talking about this sub-subject of the subject in the Video. The Title explains exactly what I’m doing in the video. Of course, this Title format is boring and doesn’t really prepare the person coming into the video with what to expect.

The New Video Title Formats I’m going to be doing, as seen in the Titles of the previous 4 videos I linked, are much more intriguing and attention grabbing. Each of these videos has already done better than the originals they came from in regards to Engagement (Likes and Comments).

I’m gonna be challenging myself over the next week to write, record, edit and upload a Video in this format. I will be discussing and going over a Scene from RWBY Volume 9. So, please look forward to it!

If you want to hear my early thoughts regarding Volumes 7 and 8, you can hear me talk about them on this Episode of the Dumb Weebs Podcast linked below.

Dumb Weebs Podcast Episode 9 - IRONWOOD WHY (RWBY Volume 8)

If you want to read an Analysis Piece I wrote and posted to my Tumblr Blog about Ruby for Volume 8, that is also linked below.

The State of Ruby as of RWBY Vol. 8 Episode 8

[reliablejoukido]

Zuzu's tentative fic project update schedule

Now that NaNo is over, I want to throw some dates out for publishing updates. I want to try to stick to these dates as best as possible, but since the vast majority of these projects require making text boxes and linking them to AO3, lateness is a real possibility.

The most important takeaway from this schedule is that while I will be taking a nice long writing break until the spring, I'll still be publishing fic updates in the meantime. And hopefully drawing some promo art for a few of them.

See under the cut for the schedule, as well as general details about each project

"Somewhere Only We Know"

Chapter 11/16: January 1

Chapter 12/16: February 1

Chapter 13/16: March 1

Chapters 14-16 have not been written, and I don't plan on picking the story back up until the spring. I also need to draw the promo art for 11-16, so that will be a winter goal. In the meantime, I think I just need some time to reread, replan, and refocus. I do plan on posting the final chapter, chapter 16, on August 1st, 2024.

"So Come and Dance with Me"

Chapter 8/9: December 15

Chapter 9/9: January 15

I have not forgotten about this story! I finished it ages ago, but NaNo and other stuff got in the way of having enough time to make the text boxes. I can't wait to have the final chapter published. The whole story was a delight to write, and I will miss Michael Barton dearly when it's all done.

"Bar-Crossed Lovers"

Chapter 4/4: December 2

I'm only adding this one here because I'm posting this schedule before the final chapter. But yeah, it'll be out tomorrow. I love this fic with all my heart. There MIGHT be an explicit sequel down the road, but that probably wouldn't happen until the summer.

"The Universal Language of Friendship"

If you've been following my NaNo updates, then you're aware that I had to put this one on the back-burner until I could come up with more motivation and more material. I'm sorry to say that I don't know when I'll be picking it back up. But like I said in my other updates, I need to take care of myself and I need to be feeling a story to write it. And I'm just not feeling this one. For now. Stay tuned.

"Backstreet's Back" (working title)

Okay I originally had a whole paragraph written out about how the drafts for this story were a hot mess and I had no idea when or how this was being published. And then I randomly decided to post chapter 1 today. So yeah, I'm breaking this one up into multiple chapters. Dunno what the schedule is going to be, but luckily there are no text boxes to make.

[bciwasinlove]

So this half-written post has been in my drafts for a couple weeks now didn't really think I would bother finishing it but after tonight thought I should. I have seen some [on both Tumblr and Twitter] have such a double standard when it comes to H&L and don't really care for both like they claim. Maybe some should just be say their a solo stan bc you only care about Harry bc he's Louis bf not for much else and are always one foot out the door from stanning Harry.

PSA This is my thoughts if you don't agree or don't do any of this just please keep scrolling. Also, some of these points may be relevant to only Twitter while other points only Tumblr but I'm posting this on both apps so I'm just putting all my thoughts collectively into one post.

From what I constantly see from my time on both apps especially this last year is that there is a huge double standard when it comes to L&H...

1) Some of you will defend Louis against every little piece of hate he receives but the problem lies when you turn a blind eye to some of the awful stuff said about Harry.

2) Some have stated [actually a lot] that they won't call themself a harrie bc toxic solo harries exist and they hate Louis but are fine calling themself a louie even tho toxic solo louies who hate Harry exist. Sounds like you only pretend to care about Harry as stated before bc he's Louis bf.

3) Back when we got Italy Elounor date pics everyone made memes and jokes about it or kept saying things like "poor Louis hate that he is forced to stunt with Eleanor" [did not blame Louis at all for it] but when we got Holivia Italy date pics I saw some of those same people [including a former mutual] get mad and fully blamed Harry for it as if it isn't the same situation. Where is the difference between both stunt vacations ?? Neither had a say in it and both were forced to do this bc both are closeted.

I feel like some think just bc Harry gets more media attention and promo that means he has more say and is more free but that is not the case. It's been pretty clear since last October when Jingle Ball was filmed Harry has not been well. He seems so fuckin done with everything since than and the only time he seemed decently happy was when he was filming a movie where he plays a gay man and slightly when performing bc he has missed doing so.

Don't even think some heard the full line correctly bc after he says it's about sweetness and a fan yells p***y he says "It's about female o****am" AND THAN "that's totally different it's not relevant" [the name of the song came from a book about that.] A lot of major UAs cited it as "so that settles that" which isn't correct and changes how to perceive what he meant. Also some seem to forget their are three other guys on the writing credits for WS who are into women.

4) We all know the solo harrie UA HSD who was exposed in a way for hating Louis and being very toxic saying lies about Louis and a ton of larries were like I dont care if they give fast/good updates on Harry they hate Louis so don't follow there's other UAs. Well some time later a popular solo louie UA got exposed for being run by a tumblr r*d who says awful stuff about Harry.

They even claimed Harry and his team helped start BG to ruin Louis careers and some of those same larries who said unfollow HSD bc they hate Louis said "I don't care what this acc [the SL UA] says elsewhere I'm here for updates" so when it's hates against Louis unfollow but when it's hate and lies about Harry it's turn the other way who cares ???

5) Just a few days ago we had that ss of Eleanor's text about football from "daddy" clearly meant to mean Louis and having him listed as "daddy" is sexual but everyone just found it funny and brushed it off like who cares we know they aren't actually together but when H says one line at a concert everyone loses their shit.

So that could easily mean the sweetness part is about himself and the other meaning [that he says isn't relevant] is about the other writers who most likely know what THAT is like compared to Harry [who regadless of his sexuality] has been with Louis since he was 16. Or like stated the book he read that gave him the idea of the song title.

Here is a good ask/post about WS meaning and how it can have multiple meanings NOT just one.

https://daisiesonafield-blog.tumblr.com/post/663910079575326720/hiii-im-from-argentina-and-last-night-on-midnight

TBH I don't even see a big deal in this and why it really matters. The biggest reason I have seen people complain about it is we will get more hate for this but how much more hate can we really get that makes a difference or is anything we haven't heard before? Whether this was said or not I had already been told every phrase in the book like "you're delusional" "go seek help" " go to a psych ward" ext. and it doesn't change the fact that Larry is still real. I know some can't handle those things [those who can't should definitely step away from online fandom for a while] I'm just saying we got told all those things before it's nothing new the amount we get at this point is a blur.

The second biggest reason I have seen is this gives antis the incentive to sexualize him but didn't they have enough incentive before when they kept shoving the WS meaning down our throats along with the womanizer image? Plus whenever Harry did something before Illuding to something sexual [example medicine and how he acts on stage when singing it mainly with his mic] everyone would be like yeah Harry 🤩 but now with this people are saying he shouldn't have said this bc this eggs antis on to sexualize him ??

So he just shouldn't have done half of the things he did on stage during HS1 tour bc a lot of how he acted on stage mainly during Medicine egged them on. We could get a picture of Harry sitting on a chair and they will find a way to sexualize him [I have personally seen it happen.] They have never had human decency and would have still acted whatever way they will act in the coming future regardless of this.

If I get hate from antis for what he said well I got told all those things after Louis bullshit tweet, Liam calling Larries delusional, Gemma saying false goodnight when asked if Larry was real, the twins saying Larry isn't real, Louis saying he will marry Eleanor one day ext. And anyone else who was around for those event mostly just ignored what all of them said or laughed at it so why is Harry saying this much different? All those things fueled antis just as much as this would so what does it matter at this point? The bullshit tweet from Louis 2012 was enough for them say all they had I really don't see this changing much.

This isn't the first time something like this has been done clearly and it won't be the last if it's an issue for you every time this happens it is probably best for you to just leave the fandom. If it's ONLY an issue when it's Harry saying something to allude to Larry not being real or playing into the "I'm straight" image just unstan Harry.

Someone did dmed me saying I think those mad at Harry from a newer stans perspective are not used to this type of situation and were expecting Harry to be coming out but got things like this instead and an older stans perspective has seen shit like this time and time again like in 2014/2015 when we thought they might be coming out but we got Dani and babygate instead.

If you were/are only here bc you want or expect them to come out just leave now bc you will not survive another year in this fandom where the endless cycle of them going one foot forward out the door to two steps back in the closet keeps happening. I've been a fan for 10 years I've seen it all became a Larrie after Haylor happened I guess I just became numb to all this.

My main point of this post is I'm tired of seeing people treat L&H differently when it comes to them being in the closet and having to go about being seen as straight. You can't say one is "forced to do and say things" but than say the other is "free to do and say as they please" when things related to closesting happen.

For any stunting related thing either both choose to do what they do and to be in the spot their in or neither is anywhere near free and has a say in what they do. One getting more promo and media attention doesn't make them any more free when they are heavily tied up in s*ny's ropes as their "golden boy" money maker 🤑🤑🤑. If you treat Harry completely different than you do Louis for the same thing then just be a solo stan please.

[literallymitch]

…𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐭? || 𝐃.𝐃

requested: no

summary: third part of the reputation series in which the reader thinks about her tme with Damiano

pairing: Damiano David x Famous!Reader

word count: 2.2k

what kind of content: fluff, one part is a bit more spicy

warnings: panic attack, some spicy stuff in the middle

a/n this really turned out the way I wanted sorry

part 1  part 2

@maneskinweek

“Are you ready to destroy the whole industry?” Basti, my producer, asked me laughing.

“To destroy the industry? I don’t know. But I’m definitely ready to get back to making music now.” I answered him.

“As if you weren’t writing and recording some melodies on your phone already for the past three months. We both know Mr. Loverboy gave you some inspiration.”

Feeling caught, I just shook my head and looked at the floor. Basti was right, Damiano really inspired me a lot over the past few months. I never really was a huge love song writer, but here I am trying to come up with anything that’s not a love song.

After Basti and I finished our session today, I went back home. Back home, the house was empty. It was kind of weird being home alone with my cats again. The last few months, Damiano was either at my house or I was at his place. There weren’t a lot of days we didn’t spend together. I sighed, dropping my bag to the floor and taking of my shoes. I already was in comfy clothes, so I thankfully didn’t have to change. Again I checked my phone to see if Damiano has texted me. Seeing there were no new messages from him, I got a bit sad. I know he was on a promo tour through Europe now, and still I was as impatient as a little kid, waiting to open presents on Christmas day.

I walked into the kitchen to grab myself something to drink and the leftovers from dinner yesterday, then I made my way to my patio. Usually I would sit here with Damiano talking about the most random things. Instead, I was sitting here eating my dinner alone now. After a while I got up to get my notebook, I then returned to my patio to write yet another love song about Damiano.

Knew he was a killer first time that I saw him Wonder how many girls he had loved and left haunted But if he's a ghost, then I can be a phantom Holdin' him for ransom

“Oh my god, stop staring at him. It’s like your eyes are actually glued to him.” my friend said, laughing.

I tried not to stare at him, but it was like he’s a star glowing while all the other people in the bar are just invisible. They still were right, I should stop staring. I should try not fall for someone like him in general. There was no way he does not have a god complex, looking like this. I don’t even want to know how many girls had sleepless nights because of him. No, I wouldn’t be one of them. Never in a million years this I want to be in the same situation I was a few years ago.

I had to laugh a little, thinking back to the night I first saw Damiano. I really thought I wasn’t going to fall in love with him. And here I am now writing another love song about him. I still couldn't believe how quick and hard I fell for him.

Some boys are tryin' too hard He don't try at all, though

All the other guys I dated before, always tried to play the most romantic dates or buy the most expensive gifts. Damiano on the other hand hasn’t done such things yet. He isn’t the most romantic person ever, but he also doesn’t have to be. It’s the little gestures and the things he says, that make me fall for him more and more every day. These are the things, that make me feel like he actually cares about me. A smile formed itself on my face thinking back to the little things Damiano did, that made my heart beat faster.

“Y/n look, your favorite movie is on. I’ll get us some popcorn”

“Text me when you get home, safely!”

One thing that really stuck in my mind, happened some night after we knew each other for two months then.

I sat in my room crying, having a mild panic attack. I usually got used to reading some hate comments about me that popped up online now and then. This time it was different. I saw a tweet that said I’d never sell a single ticket anymore. I knew this wasn’t true, because I still had fans that stood behind me, but it felt like someone ripped my heart out. Making music and performing it in front of big audiences always was my dream. A dream that became reality. A dream that now was destroyed. I was so scared I couldn’t to the stuff I loved the most anymore. That’s when the panic attack started. It was so bad, I didn’t even hear Damiano come back.

“Hey Y/n what’s wrong. God come here.”

He pulled me in his arms, trying to calm me down, as I just sobbed into his shirt.

“Y/n you need to breathe, ok? Breath with me, come on, you can do it.” he made me look at him, trying to help me steady my breath.

After a while, I finally calmed down a little.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”,  he sounded worried, as he spoke.

“I- I just saw something on Twitter, saying that I won’t sell tickets anymore, and I don’t know, I just felt like my whole world is crushing down. Music is my life, and I’m scared I won’t be able to ever make music again. Also, seeing all this hate gets me more than I thought.” I told him honestly.

“Everything will get better, ok? You will be able to do music again and the hate will stop, because the truth always comes out ok and until then I’ll always be by your side. I won’t let you do this alone.”

Younger than my exes but he act like such a man, so

Damiano is the first guy I’m dating, who is younger than I. He’s 22, and I’ll be turning 25 soon. The guys I dated before Damiano usually were my age or a bit older. I never saw myself dating someone younger who's younger than me, thinking they wouldn’t be mature enough. Boy was I wrong. Damiano is more mature than all my exes together. His parents definitely raised him well.

I see nothing better, I keep him forever Like a vendetta-ta 

The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that Damiano is actually perfect. He’s funny, caring, good to talk to, gorgeous and so much more. I have only known him for three months now, but there was no way he’d get rid of me ever again. I rolled my eyes at myself, as I realized how bad I fell for him.

I-I-I see how this is gon' go Touch me and you'll never be alone I-Island breeze and lights down low No one has to know

One week after my panic attack, the Italian and I did a two-day trip to Capri. We couldn’t really go out a lot, because we didn’t want to get seen by paparazzi. The people who owned the place, we stayed at, were so nice and told us there was a quiet beach close to our house, only some locals knew about. We took a walk down the beach that night after dinner. It was beautiful.

When we got back to our place, we went upstairs to our bedroom. I opened the window and enjoyed the sound of the ocean. Suddenly, I felt a pair of arms wrap around my waist from behind. I put my hands over Damiano's as he pushed my hair to the side and started kissing my neck.

My heart started beating faster, and I had a tingly feel in my stomach. He started to slightly suck on the skin of my neck, between his little kisses. When he started to suck and nibble on my sweet spot, I let out a small moan. I could feel the singer smirk against my neck. He turned me around and his smirk turned into a smile as he saw that I was blushing.

“You’re too cute.” he said before he started kissing me.

As we made out, things got a bit more heated. My hands were buried in his hair, slightly pulling it, which made Damiano moan now. Hearing him moan turned me on even more. The slight island breeze and his touch made me go crazy. He lifted me up and carried me to the bed. I could feel his hard-on pressing against me.

“I want you.” he whispered against my lips.

Me, I was a robber first time that he saw me Stealing hearts and running off and never saying sorry But if I'm a thief, then he can join the heist And we'll move to an island

Remember when Damiano asked me where my boyfriend was, the night we first met? I didn’t lie when I said Andre wasn’t my boyfriend, but he wanted to be my boyfriend. After our dated he actually asked me to be his girlfriend saying that I “stole his heart”. I wasn’t interested in him, nor did I want to have a relationship. At least that’s what I thought before I laid my eyes on Damiano. Now look where we are now. I wanted to steal his heart, but I wouldn’t run off this time. I would run away with him. Capri definitely seemed like a good place to stay at.

Every lover known in comparison is a failure I forget their names now, I'm so very tame now Never be the same now, now

As I said before, all the guys I dated before Damiano were nothing compared to him. He was the diamond between all these stones, that were my exes. Usually I gave boys a hard time trying to get with me, really making sure they were worth my time. With Damiano, it was different. He just had to exist, to make me fall for him and give him a chance. Everything just felt like it was meant to be with him. Everyone around me could feel how I got much more chill since I was with him. Normally, I was always stressed by every little thing that didn’t work out like I wanted it to. Now I was barely stressed and I love it. I felt like a whole new person when I was with him. I was relaxed, happy and carefree. Never have I felt like this, with any of my boyfriends, before.

Baby, let the games begin Let the games begin Let the games begin

“So when can I tell the others, you're finally mine?” Damiano asked me

“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend right now,” I was kind of shocked since I didn’t see that coming.

“Yeah, I mean it’s kind of overdue isn’t it?”

“Yes it totally is” I gave him a kiss, both of smiling bright.

“Good now I can tell the others you’re mine, and you can write more songs about me.” he winked at me.

“Wait, did you read the stuff in my notebook?”

“Yes, but by accident, and I think you’re gorgeous too.”, before I could say anything else he kissed me again.

In the middle of the night, in my dreams You should see the things we do, baby In the middle of the night, in my dreams I know I'm gonna be with you So I take my time 

I woke up the next morning having a smile on my face. Sadly, I wasn’t able to wake up next to Damiano. The dream I had kind of made up for the empty spot in my bed beside me. All the nostalgia yesterday probably made me dream about Damiano. Not that it was the first time I did so, actually I dreamed of him a lot. That’s why I always made sure to go to bed earlier when he wasn’t around. Less time being sad, because he wasn’t there. More time dreaming of him in the middle of the night.

Are you ready for it?

I finally got a call from Damiano shortly after I woke up.

“Hey, beautiful, did you sleep well?” I was greeted by his soothing voice

“Hey handsome, yes I did. I’m gonna have breakfast now and then drive to the studio.“

“Great, we have a show later. I won’t keep you distracted for too long now, so you can finish up the songs about me. I also need to go now sadly, I’ll text you later bye amore.”

“Bye love.”, the sadness in my voice was a bit more clear than I thought it would be.

I tried not to think about the fact, that Damiano won’t come home in the next two weeks, but rather about songs that weren’t about him. I can’t release an album full of love songs after what is happening right now.

There will still be a ton of love songs on this album, and Damiano better gets ready to hear me simp about him for at least forty minutes.

[tommybaholland]

I would like you to write tom holland x actress!reader, so y/n is getting ready for photoshoot but tom holland was facetiming y/n hoping how's it going, he misses her. they haven't seen each other for a month. After that they do photoshoot and Wired autocomplete interview. then the crew got surprised and y/n misses tom, she sooo surprise and he came to visit for her. i luv them!

missing you

featuring: tom holland (x actress!reader)

you thanked the hair stylist once they were done with your hair and remained in the dressing room to have a quick facetime with your boyfriend. 

“hey, love,” tom answered, his voice slightly raspy. “wow, you look really beautiful.” 

“thank you,” you smiled. you couldn’t see him too well but you could make out the grainy outline of his facial features and part of his bare shoulders and chest. he looked like he was still in bed. “why is the room so dark?” 

“i’m just laying down for a bit,” tom explained.

“how are you feeling?” 

“okay. i just wish you were here.” 

you frowned. “yeah. i wish i was there to take care of you.”

“nah. then i’d just get you sick. your company is really all i need. i’m so lonely,” he pouted playfully. “but if i get you sick then i get to take care of you so it could be a win-win for me.” 

you laughed at his very ‘tom’ logic. “i know. i miss you too. i think we have some time off soon but if you’re sick then we can always see each other when we’re done with promotion stuff.” 

tom groaned. “ugh. i don’t know if i can wait that longggg, love.” 

“i know this has been a long one but what you do you normally do when i’m away?” 

he didn’t respond, his face buried in the pillow. then after a few minutes, he started giggling. 

“what’s that one line from spongebob? where spongebob’s like, ‘what do you normally do while i’m at work?’ and patrick says--”

“‘wait for you to get back,’” you finish for him, laughing along. 

“yeah. i feel like patrick right now, babe.” 

“aww. well, just focus on getting better and maybe do some golfing and i’ll be back before you know it,” you promised.

the pout was still present on his face. “okay. i’ll try to survive until you come home.”

you smiled before you looked at harrison in the mirror, seeing that he had entered the room. 

“we’re getting ready to start-- oh, is that tom?”

“harrison?” tom spoke through the phone. 

you nodded, raising the phone up to harrison so he could see his sickly best friend.

“hey, mate,” harrison greeted. they had a quick chat about harrison’s recent debut. 

“it’s been fun to see you on the other side of things, dude. i’m so happy for you,” tom praised. “i’ve been watching your interviews and they’re hilarious.”

harrison laughed. “thanks, tom. we have to get going if we’re gonna make this next one, though,” he reminded, looking down to you. 

you nodded. “okay, babe. looks like i have to go.”

“alright, baby. i love you and miss you so much,” he blows a kiss to the camera.

“love you. miss you too,” you smile. 

“see you, harrison.”

“yeah, see you, man.” 

you end the facetime and follow harrison out to the set where you would be doing a promo shoot for the irregulars. like harrison, this was your first major role and the promotional part was just as important as the actual shooting of the show. you had been with tom through several of his press junkets but now you understand how taxing and exhausting it can be, especially when you’re away from your boyfriend for so long. 

you would’ve liked to have him with you for some of it, like you had with him. but lately your schedules haven’t been matching up so easily. once you were done filming the show, he had gone off to film for spider-man and once he was done with that, you had started the promotional period for the show. there were short periods in between when you got to see each other but it wasn’t nearly enough time. 

the heart certainly grows fonder when you’re apart from each other. 

besides all that, you found press stuff to be pretty fun for the most part. photoshoots were really easy and usually didn’t take that long. this one took a little longer because harrison was with you and you both took some individual pictures as well as some photos together. if anything, you’re glad he was your co-star. you knew this wouldn’t be the case for every job you get so you tried to enjoy it while it lasted. 

after the photoshoot, you and harrison went over to the studio where they film the wired autocomplete interviews. interviews were a bit more daunting part of press, mostly because you felt the pressure to be liked by the general public and that could put a lot of stress on you to be more performative. luckily, your actor boyfriend has been there to remind you to just be yourself and that’s really the best way to handle it. 

you had seen several of the autocomplete interviews and always thought they were funny so you were actually looking forward to this one. 

once you arrived at the studio, you got all set up with harrison beside you and then the director explained how it was going to work. it seemed like it was pretty lax, which was nice because there was no one asking questions. rather, the questions were actual google searches that people had made so you and harrison were the ones who really got to lead it. 

“you guys ready?” 

you and harrison nodded. 

“three...two... one...action!”

harrison started. “hi! i’m harrison osterfield.”

“and i’m y/n.”

“and this is our wired autocomplete interview.” 

“ladies first,” harrison insisted, prompting you to grab your board. 

“okay,” you agreed with a laugh. 

“here. i’ll hold it and you can rip the tape off,” he offered.

“good idea.”

a lot of the questions were pretty basic like where you were from, where you went to school, if you went to acting school, what your favorite food is, etc. but then you got to a certain one. 

“‘is y/n--’ okay. let’s see,” you said as you peeled off the masking tape before reading the full question. “‘is y/n dating tom holland?’” 

you laughed awkwardly before answering, as this was the first question about your relationship status in an interview. 

“yes. we are dating,” you responded. your mind suddenly wandered to your earlier conversation with him, causing your mouth to keep moving. 

“i haven’t seen him in a bit but--” you paused when you realized what you were saying. “um, i’m pretty busy these days.” 

you ended with another awkward laugh and shrug as harrison nodded. 

“okay. that’s all for me. your turn, harrison.” 

you continued on with the interview despite feeling put off by the fact that you missed tom. fortunately, harrison’s questions were more entertaining and perked you up again. 

“‘does harrison osterfield drink the juice?’ wait. what does that mean?”

you bursted out laughing at the vague question. 

“y/n, what’s so funny? i don’t get it.”  

“nothing, nothing,” you replied. “just answer what you think it means.” 

you had finished the interview on a high note. 

“you seemed to be in a better mood than earlier,” harrison remarked. 

“yeah.”

“are you okay?” 

“i just,” you started. “we’ve never been apart for this long and it’s just really hard. i didn’t think it was going to be a big deal and i thought i could handle it but i can’t.”

harrison frowned. “hey. no, no. you’re doing a great job. i promised,” he comforted before looking down to his phone. 

you stood up off your chair. “i’m going to get some water.” 

you began to walk away until harrison abruptly stopped you. “wait, y/n!” 

you looked back to him as there was some commotion at the back of the set. you ignored it, looking incredulously at harrison. 

“what?” you asked in an annoyed tone. you just wanted some water. 

suddenly, a third voice appeared. 

“aww, love. don’t be mean to harrison like that.”

you turned to see none other than your boyfriend standing there. you couldn’t react in any other way other than clapping a hand over your mouth and beginning to cry in disbelief that he was actually there.

“baby, it’s okay,” he cooed, walking over and wrapping you up in a hug. some of the crew watching the whole reunion began clapping and cheering. 

he rubbed your backed as you sobbed into his shoulder for a few moments before lifting your head up to wipe your eyes.

“how, how-- what-- i,” you stuttered, wanting to know how this could be happening right now. 

“what? are you not happy to see me?” he pouted playfully, brushing some hair out of your face. 

“no! i am but i thought you were sick.” 

“well,” he smirked. “i am an actor, darling.”  

you rolled your eyes facetiously before he continued his explanation. 

“i got in late last night and stayed in a hotel. i wasn’t sick but i gotta admit, i am pretty tired.” 

you laughed. “you’re so dumb.” 

“don’t blame this all on me! harrison was in on it too!”

you looked over to harrison who was still sitting there, watching this all go down. he held his hands up. 

“guilty. but i’d like to add that tom was freaking out that you had found out somehow and has been texting me all day.”

“no. i really had no idea but i was worried about you,” you prodded at tom’s shoulder with a finger. 

“i’d say it was worth it. wouldn’t you?”

you nodded. “i suppose.”

“can i have a kiss now, please?”

you leaned in and pressed a short kiss to his lips but of course, that wasn’t enough to satisfy him. he kept pulling you in for more before you began to get embarrassed with the other people around. 

“alright, i’ll stop. but don’t think you can escape from my sneaky kisses!” he took your hand in his and began leading you out of the studio.

“wait, we still have some promo stuff to do for today.” 

tom shook his head. “you don’t. can’t say the same for him,” he nodded over to harrison. “i’ve sorted it all out with your manager and it’ll just be me and you for the next two days. does that sound good?”

well, you couldn’t argue with that.

welcome to wild card night! requests are open and ready..

[doyouremem8erme]

I would love to see a directors cut of the vivisectanne au, it's my favorite fic series of yours (I am very mentally ill)

WOOO this may get longish im just gonna rant abt all sorts of stuff i did in there. under the cut for length and discussion of. the topics of this au! so cw for mentions of vivisection, torture, self harm, and suicidal thoughts, and passages from the fics that may contain descriptions of those. even if youre tagged you dont have to read through all of this. its heavy.

so first off the first chapter was originally all i wanted to write! i heard darcy's line at the end of tbote and i was like. woah i can do something cool with that. however i just.... kept writing. this means each installment is much more cohesive than my usual multichapters i'd published before, since i try to write them all at once before posting!

so it all started with good old vivisectianne. i wanted a bit of a callback to tc&tk with some of the first scenes:

this place, right here, where it took apart marcy's phone, is where it then takes apart anne! why did i say that so cheerfully–

ok heres an actual funny fact

this exchange originally consisted of something like this:

"...you may call us darcy."

"that's cringe."

"YOURE CRINGE!" (immediately stabs anne)

i didnt even rewrite it until i'd finished the entire fic and was rereading it for editing! it just. no longer fit the overall tone whatsoever.

ok chapter 2 comments:

dont have a lot of comments here. basically, when i decided on the length/format i wanted the fic to be (4 chapters each), i chose to have each of the first three chapters be from a different point of view, with the last being sort of a "finale." so here we switch to sasha pov!

And once she does, the robot can do nothing to prevent her from sending a punch into its eye that leaves it sparking on the ground, and Sasha wipes the blood the shattered glass has left on her fist away on her bottom hem of her tunic, and runs through the door.

^ decided to try my hand at foreshadowing stuff for once lmao, since very soon sasha will lose her eye to darcy. the actual eye loss happens offscreen between chapter 2 and 3 but this clues a careful reader in on what may be to come.

this fic was written shortly after the all in promo, so the fight between darcy and sasha is inspired by the theories revolving around that!

when sasha mentions that "olivia told [her] what it did to [marcy]," this is bc i wanted to make sure that sasha knew the basics of what had actually happened to marcy. since they were imprisoned together for a brief time during the events of the first chapter while anne was having a bad time, olivia did a bit more explanation than whatever the heck her warnings in tbote were.

ohohoho time to talk abt one of my favorite chapters... chapter 3 of icduysg!!!

people who have caught on to the pov switching would likely guess that this chapter was marcy pov. however i wanted to write the opening scene to be ambiguous for anyone else, so that the reveal sort of . comes slowly.

She wakes up on the floor of the basement with a stabbing pain in her heart. Or what’s left of it, after everything. She can’t see, she can’t—she scrabbles at her head, fingers glancing off glossy metal, and throws the object covering her face to the ground with a clank. Her hands are covered in blood. There’s a flame-edged scythe on the floor beside her, and Frog she hates that fiery blade because it’s too familiar to one she knows all too well.

the first lines could be a giveaway, but everything that comes afterward makes it more and more clear whose pov this is supposed to be.

“Please, Marcy! I—I forgive you. For everything.” And yet her words hit her like a sword to the back. And she remembers. Fire and pain and blood and dying and waking up and almost safe and claws on her scalp that tear into skin and cold metal restraints and the helmet’s slow descent and pain and screaming and screaming and screaming and orange and lightning and loneliness and darkness and the Core and—

of course i had to take the cheesy way. why not? "i forgive you for everything" / "thank you for everything" stab ME in the chest when i hear them too! rlly loved using the simile there bc it has greater meaning with marcy yknow. the way the return of memories is written in this fic, as seen also in the next chapter, is inspired by some of  nosferatank's incredible prose!

a close reader will notice that something is wrong with marcy as soon as she can't move her arms to hug sasha: she's losing control again throughout this scene. and then, though it isn't explicitly stated, sasha sees something wrong with marcy's eyes. it's marcy pov, she wouldnt be able to look in her own eyes and know that they're orange. the reason marcy remains lucid throughout it regaining control here is that the helmet is gone: i believe this is discussed in the sequel, i'll go through that when i get to it in here lol.

The invasion goes smoothly, she’s told the next time she wakes up. She doesn’t ask how it went, only knows that the castle is back in Amphibia, and that Darcy has pulled her from the tank at last, and that her world has been thoroughly conquered. It’s been about a month since they tried to rescue Marcy, apparently. A month since it took Anne apart to see how her powers worked, callous to her screams of agony.

we start out the finale chapter with a timeskip and another ambiguous pov. it's anne this time, at least at the beginning of the chapter.

and we get the next example of that style of implementing rushing memories:

Pain and screaming and blood hot on lips and pleading-desperate for this to end and flaming heat and obsidian-sharp agony and—

the basment scene with marcy waiting for anne and sasha to go through with their plan is one of my favorites. had a lot of fun with the usage of light:

Light does return, in the form of a streak of yellow light painted against the black.

andrias extends his sword in the darkness of the basement. marcy, of course, is terrified.

this fic by @skibs-scribbles is an influence throughout the last section of the finale of this fic and the tone of the entire sequel! one of my faves.

last note on this fic:

But on the nights when they get to be together, even for a few hours, they sleep in each other's arms, and let the nightmares and tears and phantom screams run through. And then they stare out at the smog-blotted stars over a world that once seemed so bright, like the kids they were before this world broke them.

this is just one of my favorite lines from the fic, im super proud of it. suits being the last line of the fic.

on to sdlgwyd!

as a marcangst lover, i chose to make this entire fic be from marcy's point of view, as she seemed the most interesting character to follow in the au. her guilt, even more intense here than in canon, seemed like an interesting place to pull from, not to mention that she's my favorite character.

a lot of this fic ends up being an allegory for self-harm, given that not only are there themes of it throughout, but the core's methods of torture very much resemble common forms of self harm.

most of the first chapter is just intended to set up the rest of the fic. this means it's establishing how the core and marcy function, the situation anne and sasha are in, etc.

one thing i think it's funny to point out, given that i wrote this before all in:

Sasha jokes, once, early on, when they still think that this may be a temporary arrangement to buy them enough time for an escape, that they now match: the deep, slicing burn on her own chest; the gnarled line of scar tissue mirrored on Marcy’s front and back[.]

look how close i got to manifesting canon! if sasha had been facing away from darcy during that scene in the last fic i wouldve straight up predicted that wild bit in all in lmao.

She deserves it. The Core agrees. And she’s not sure which of them started that line of thought anymore.

this line was surprisingly hard to word right, but i liked what i ended up with. this becomes important throughout the fic: does marcy actually think she deserves this pain, is the core only telling her that, or is it true?

when marcy goes to visit olivia and yunan in the dungeons, we get this line:

She stops in front of where it should be. The cell is drowned in thick shadows, draped over the stone like swaths of gauzy black cloth. 

the "swaths of gauzy black cloth" simile is very much intended to give a sort of funeral, mourning, etc. vibe. it seemed fitting, giving how they've likely been crying over marcy all this time.

She pauses for a glance down at the carbon-fiber bracers she knows are in place around her forearms, covering from palm to elbow in dark, dull-metallic, charcoal-gray, covering the scars that lie there. They can assume it’s only using the chair, the very place where they saw such horrible things happen to her, once again, for all she cares. They don’t need to know what happens when it picks up a glinting blade, the same one it’s used to make the changes it deems necessary for her body so long as it’s shared with a computed mind. 

this is one of the most prominent examples of the overarching allegorical theme of this fic. marcy hides the damage the core has done to her using her own hands. for whatever reason, she doesnt want them to know how it's actually been hurting her.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Is that all she can say anymore? Only those words that dribbled from her lips along with a shower of blood the night she was so violently killed, left to bleed to death with a smoking wound? Will she ever find another way to justify the fact that she’s still alive, ask for forgiveness for her existence, the pain she’s caused?

wanna point out this passage not just bc im absolutely obsessed with how i wrote it but bc. marcy girl. you need help. her mental state is in shambles bc of the suffering the core has caused.

when marcy gets back to the trio's chambers, she overhears anne and sasha discussing plans to escape. the core is not happy about this.

not only is this a pretty deep look into marcy's thoughts, theres another reference to a separate fic! during the "escape lies..." passage, there's this section:

Escape awaits off the edge of the protruding form of that ancient weapon from the top of the highest level of this castle, jutting into the void, high enough, even with the castle resting on the ground. High enough, though she won’t test it, she tells herself (the Core wouldn’t let her die anyway, she knows. It would stop her, or catch her, or do whatever it takes to repair her, bring her to life again, no matter how broken she becomes).

this is a bit of a shoutout to a plot point in beauty and the beasts by @your-local-hurt-comfort-junkie-1, another fic i adore. i wont spoil the exact thing, but if youve read that fic, you likely know what i mean.

another shoutout in this scene is "'We can’t leave.' Her words are not entirely her own." this is of course a reference to awakening by oh geeez: "lately my head's on fire and my voice is not my own..."

the next chapter contains yet another fic shoutout:

this passage is a reference to this evil thing that @maldito-arbol did in the wjh series lmao.

and then of course, inevitably:

And that subconscious wish has been granted. It’s her skin filled with gashes once again, worse than it’s ever drawn them before, her own blood splattering her face as the Core digs deeper and deeper.

...she gets that wish granted.

Not even Olivia and Yunan can help anymore, their words falling upon dulled ears and their touch upon numb skin, like she’ll never perceive the world as brightly as she once did ever again.

core bestie. you need to stop. your host is gonna break if you kepe this up.

the finale chapter of this fic is fun!

we start out with a confusing dive into a scene without context, set up to match marcy's confusion here. eventually, you can figure out what happened: marcy was knocked out by sasha and anne so that they could deal with the core.

after they succeed in their plan, they head off to kill andrias.

“I wanna kill him.” Her voice has a coldness Anne’s never heard from her. And it trembles, because she knows there was a time Andrias truly cared for her. But he’s gone too long letting the Core torment her, pretending he’s blind to the torture.

guess how much i listened to hayloft ii while writing this chapter lol. yeah it was a lot. the emphasis on "her" is of course to clarify that the core has used her voice to speak like this to anne: that's what it did back in the first chapter of icduysg.

By now, Marcy has recovered from the removal of the Core’s data enough to stand, albeit shakily, and most likely soon won’t be able to at all, after the exoskeleton finally gives out when the background functions programmed into her brain stop running.

marcy doesnt have time to confront this right now, but itll come up in the third installment! without the core powering her exoskeleton, she won't be able to walk on her own before long.

a couple scenes in this chapter are inspired by pieces of art i couldnt stop thinking about. here's the first one:

It feels heavy in her hands. She’s never held this before, only a smaller version, crafted for the Core to use in her own grasp. This is the weapon that killed her. This is the weapon that will kill her murderer. 

and the art:

the dialogue in this scene is somewhat inspired by anne's speech in all in: this was written after the finale episodes aired. meanwhile, i tried to emphasize marcy's frazzled mental state through her own dialogue. for example:

she's just not doing so well rn. havent watched arcane since last year but the vibes of this might have jinx killing silco energy??

and then andrias's actual death scene is very likely an obvious reference:

yep, direct shout-out to true colors. marcy's "you brought this upon yourself" is meant to parallel "now look what you've made me do," while "i'm truly sorry for what i did to you" lines up with "i'm sorry for everything."

anne and sasha assisting in holding the sword while marcy stabs andrias is inspired by the other art i mentioned:

and finally the fic ends on a hopeful note that's been missing since the very beginning. i really wanted this to have the same sort of distinctly soft and gentle ending seen often at the end of some epic story, when things return to a status quo. similar tone to the end of adventure time, before the island song montage, or something. a sense of saying goodbye. there's an important detail mentioned in the last section of this fic, but i wont point it out bc it spoils some of the vaugely planned plot points for the next fic in the series!

hope you enjoyed this very deep dive in to the au, this took so long to write lmao.

[unladielike]

KNOWING YOUR PARTNER WELL CAN POTENTIALLY MAKE WRITING TOGETHER A LOT EASIER. REPOST DO NOT REBLOG !!

NAME: livita (or livi for short)

PRONOUNS: she/her but i won’t be up in arms if you happen to accidentally misgender me. 

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION: tumblr ims or discord but i may be slow to respond if the topic doesn’t revolve around my special interest or roleplay stuff

NAME OF MUSE(S): vivian, kensuke hibiki from the caligula effect whose blog you can find here, and a myriad of other obscure muses on my canon multimuse

RP EXPERIENCE / HOW LONG (MONTHS / YEARS?): OH GOD... i’ve honestly been rping for a long, long while, but tumblr wise, i think i’ve been at it for eight years now? so my first ever blog was made when i was 17 years old.

PLATFORMS YOU’VE USED: gaiaonline, quizilla, email, discord (but ended up discovering it isn’t for me), and tumblr

BEST EXPERIENCE: probably meeting/befriending @aaetherius​ tbh. honestly, i don’t ever regret writing with noise all those years ago, because they helped me gain more experience with novella-esque replies and inspired me to play around/experiment with language. ofc, i only ended up settling on a proper writing style after writing with several other partners over the years, but noise was prob the first one i had that made me develop a love for world building and lore oriented headcanons. ofc, i sadly cannot emulate their descriptive, thought-provoking writing, but i like to think my own writing managed to improve partially because of noise.

RP PET PEEVES / DEALBREAKERS: i seriously have a lot, that i could go all day, talking about them, but the biggest is prob a lack of communication and the ‘i  don’t owe my partners shit’ mentality that is practically rampant in the rpc. ofc, as some of you might know, i’m autistic, so if a partner suddenly ghosts me out of the blue or gives me the silent treatment, especially due to issues with me they never bother addressing, chances are high i would end up softblocking, because i was previously traumatized by someone who did the exact same thing. due to this, i really, really love if a partner tells me stuff and is actually honest with me. like, seriously, i can’t stress enough how much i appreciate someone going, ‘livi do you mind only sending in one ask from one muse at a time?’, instead of internalizing that shit until the bitter end, to the point where resentment builds. but yeah, i had someone claiming i had double standards when it comes to female muses, due to the fact i never once bothered reblogging a promo for their best friend’s female oc... and i’m just ‘first of all, you never asked me to reblog it, and second of all, you have another thing coming if you think i have the attention span to constantly lurk on the dash.’

FLUFF, ANGST OR SMUT: sweats... is it bad i can’t really settle on one? cause i think they’re all great. granted, i need to be in the right state of mind to write smut, but i still love it.

PLOTS OR MEMES: memes, hands down... i’m not against plotting though. i just may not be the best at it.

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES: both can be good, as sometimes, you might want a more chill rp experience or something shorter to respond to for a change of pace, but if i write three paragraphs, only to receive two sentences back, then that to me seems incredibly lazy. like, yes, i prefer quality over quantity, but there has to be actual effort put into your replies for me to wanna respond.

BEST TIME TO WRITE: basically when i have caffeine in my system, meaning usually after i had finished drinking my first coffee of the day.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S): it depends on which muse you’re talking about, because i have more than a few, but considering vivian had first started off a self insert before later evolving to become her own person separate from me, i’d say we definitely have some stuff in common... like us both being autistic and sharing the same birthday. vivian, however, is more extroverted than me, less picky when it comes to food, and not afraid to speak her mind even if it means pissing someone off.

TAGGED BY: @immoralraigan ( thank you for tagging me, bandy! <3333 ) TAGGING: @eliteimperialism / @etoilexdechue / @sadamenai / @afacere​ / @enterthestratosphere​ / @shatterher / @banditborn​ / @hehosts / @dxfiedfxte / @s-talking and whoever else might be interested!

[suchalonelysunflower]

Babylon (l.h)

End Up Here -Part 5

Pairing: Luke Hemmings x 5sos! Fem! Reader

Summary: A lot has happened and too many things were left unsaid. Even after a month they still find ways to be in each others mind.

Warnings: Angst and smut. Mentions of vioence, physical abuse, mental abuse, sexual abuse, harassment, cheating, fighting, sexism, frustrations, alcohol. Language and some grammatical errors (English is not my first language, I’m sorry)

Word count : 10.1 k

Author’s Note: I cried a lot writing this, so I’m sorry. Final Part coming up March 16th! Remember that Reblogs, Feedback, Comments and Likes are very important! You have no idea how much they help me ❤️ Hope you like it and Happy Reading 🦋🌻✨

My Materialist // wanna be part of my tag list?

Series Materialist || part 1 || part 2 || part 3 || part 4

Liked by banksmadden, 5soslover55 and 1,750,316 others

yn5sos how did I end up here?

View all 55,432 comments

ashtonirwin who’s there with you?

hater7 pathetic

ynfan2 LEAVE HER ALONE PLEASE

5sosfan9 this is so irresponsible. I thought you were better.

↪️ yn5sos me too

*

“OUT OF CONTROL: Singer Y/N L/N seeing partying once again after the concert. L/N was last seen with a crowd of people, none of which were her bandmates” 

“Sensitive, are we? On their last concert, Y/N L/N from the band 5 Seconds of Summer was caught running away from the stage mid-show, leaving her poor bandmates Calum Hood and Michael Clifford to finish the song for her. L/N came back minutes later to finish the show. Videos show the singer crying along to the love songs” 

“5SOS BREAKING UP? SINGER Y/N L/N GOING M.I.A ON BAND’S SOCIAL MEDIA LEAVES FANS CONFUSED AND WORRIED” 

*

“Y/N?!” Ashton kept banging at the door. His patience ran thin as the girl refused to answer “Y/N! C’mon!” 

“She’s still not answering?” A voice called behind him. 

Calum and Michael were already dressed up, ready for another day of interviews in a foreign language. Ashton assumed that the girls were already downstairs waiting for them. 

The older man shook his head, frustration clear on his face as he kept banging on the door like it was his drums. 

“Y/N, I will break down the door if you don’t open it!” 

It wasn’t an empty promise. They could pay the hotel after but he’d be damned if something happens to Y/N. 

She hasn’t been herself since Luke left. When they came back from doing promo that day they were met with the news of him leaving. Y/N didn’t leave her room that whole day. 

They were mad, furious even, with Luke. All the things they warned him about were thrown down the drain. They told them not to believe the media and to talk to Y/N but he did none of those things, he only made it worse for all of them, especially the girl who was now spending half the tour absent-minded over heartbreak. 

She told them several times that she was fine “I asked him to leave” She would say. But they know better than to believe her right away when she says those stuff, not after that night when she told them the truth about Madden. They swore never to make that mistake again, but history was repeating itself! Only this time it was ten times worse. 

Y/N would go out every night after the show, no matter in which part of the world they found themselves in. She was determined to drown herself in alcohol rather than self-pity. They tried to spot her several times but she wouldn’t listen, so they agreed that at least one of them would accompany her whenever she went out just to make sure that she is safe and that she doesn’t go too far. 

Last night, however, it was Michael’s turn but Beth felt sick so he couldn't go. He texted Calum, but he was already asleep so he didn’t see the message. Ashton was out with Dani for a date night and when he came back he found Michael in the lobby asking for some medicine for Beth’s stomach and when Calum answered their call with a sleepy voice they realized that Y/N was alone. 

And now she wouldn’t answer the door. 

“Y/N, I swear to God!”

“Why do you gotta bring the lord into this?” 

The three men turned around and found Y/N standing next to them. Her hair was messy and her makeup was smudged, but his eyes remained empty as she looked at them quizzically. 

“Were you already downstairs this whole time?!” Ashton asked, raising his voice. Y/N cringed as she shushed him.

“Ugh, could you talk any louder? My head is killing me”

Calum looked at his friend up and down, realizing what was happening “You just came back, didn’t you?”

All three of them turned their heads to her, unable to believe what was in front of them. This wasn’t the Y/N they knew. She was never like this, ever. 

Y/N rolled her eyes at the sad, angry, and pitiful looks of her friends. She didn’t need to answer what was obvious. 

“Where were you all this time?” Michael asked “We were worried sick” 

“Wow, thanks dad,” She said with sarcasm, walking towards her door as she tried to find her key somewhere along with her pockets “I was at the bar. Did you know they open 24 hs? There’s no such thing as the last call here! I love this country” 

She let out a little squeal of joy when she finally found her key, pushing Ashton out of the way with the side of her body as she inserted it on the lock. 

“We have an interview in 30 minutes!” He reminded her.

“Yeah, your girl told me that downstairs” She answered before she started to close the door “Have fun with that” 

But before she could close it completely, Ashton’s foot got in the way.

“You can’t keep doing this, Y/N,” He said with a serious tone, ignoring the pain of the door hitting his foot, still trying to close on him. 

Y/N pushed a little harder “I want to sleep, Ashton. Good night” 

“No! Goddammit, Y/N. This has gone too far!” 

She opened the door, making Ashton trip, and almost fell to the floor in front of her. She was beyond pissed as she began to talk.

“No! Everything has already gone too far, I’m just catching up!” She spat loudly, making the boys look at her in surprise “Madden went too far, the media went too far, the industry went too far and Luke went too far. And I let them crash into me like I’m just a bystander, waiting to pick up the pieces they left of me! So excuse me for finally doing whatever they thought I did. Forgive me for catching up to this fucked up world and finally live up to their false expectations! But I’m not allowed to break down, not right now and probably not ever! So I will keep running. Maybe that way, if I catch up, they’ll leave me the fuck alone” Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke, but she will not cry in front of them. Not anymore “So, good fucking night” 

Ashton closed his eyes when he felt the wind of the door slamming inches away from his face. He raised his hand to knock again, but soon he let it fall with a sigh. 

He turned around to face the guys and they all had the same hurt expression, not because she hurt them, but because she was hurting herself. They all thought she was doing it unconsciously, but now it was rather obvious that she knew exactly what she was doing. 

Y/N is destroying herself because there’s almost nothing left of her. So she’s speeding up the process. 

“We can’t leave her like that” Michael said in a whisper, none of them were looking at the door right now, all their eyes were set on the floor as they contemplated their options.

“Well, she doesn’t want to see us. That’s for fucking sure” Calum murmured. 

The three men stood in silence in the hallway. Breathing heavily from time to time as their minds tried to find a way to reach out to Y/N before it was too late. 

“We have to do something” Michael broke the silence again, fidgeting with his fingers as he met the worried eyes of his two best friends “The fans are already saying that she’s going to leave the band and-“

“No,” Ashton interrupted him, clenching his jaw as the headlines of the articles ran through his mind “We are not letting that happen” 

“But what if she wants to?”

“Then that’s not our Y/N/N,” He said “And I refuse to lose her this way or in any way, for that matter”

After a few minutes, it was clear that Y/N was not coming out of her room any time soon. So the boys had to get downstairs to get to the interviews, already thinking about excuses to justify her absence once again. 

They wanted to stay with her, but management was already being too hard on them as it is, and they didn’t want Y/N to pay the consequences if they didn’t show up to at least one promo interview. So they had no choice but to leave her alone in her room. 

Once the elevator doors opened, the three of them were met with the worried eyes of their girlfriends who quickly met up with them halfway. 

“How is she doing? She didn’t speak to us when she came through the doors” Bethany explained as she stood next to Michael, grabbing his hand in comfort.

Ashton just shook his head.

“We talked,” Kat said with a sigh “We decided that we are staying here with her” 

“What?”

“You’ll be fine in the interviews without us, but she needs someone. Even if we just wait for her in the lobby all day. Someone needs to check up on her” Kat continued. 

“She’s lonely,” Danielle followed, “Even if she doesn’t want to admit it. She’s hurting too much for words to even describe” 

The boys knew they were right. Even if Y/N doesn’t want to, they will still be there for her every step of the way. They were not going to leave her to drown. 

“Thank you,” Ashton said, truthfully “But there’s gotta be something else we could do for her… just standing by and keeping an eye on her while she wastes away is just…” 

He couldn’t finish the sentence, he didn’t need to. They all knew what he was referring to; that damn feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. 

“We’ll figure something out,” Calum said confidently “We are not going to give up on her”

*

There was nothing much to do back in L.A. as Luke found out when he stepped out of the plane almost a month ago. His life has completely changed since he met her and now… Now she was gone and he was left with nothing.

It was his own fault, that’s what he reminded himself every single day since the morning Y/N asked him to leave. He acted on emotions rather than with reason, angry with the world that allowed him to get close to her just to rip her out of his hands the moment he realized his mistakes. He should’ve listened, should’ve fought, should’ve stayed. He should’ve done a lot of things and now he doesn’t even have the chance to fix it. 

He hasn’t checked anything about Y/N since he came back. No articles, no tweets, no posts… nothing. He feels as if he didn’t have the right anymore. He never had the right to do it from the beginning, not without letting them fill his brains with lies that eventually left him in pieces.

How could he? How could he let all those things get to him? Everyone told him to ignore them, not to believe the lies that were written for the clicks and the gossip. He knew the truth, he lived with it, and yet, he had turned on her the second it had become too much. 

Y/N was a private person and Luke could never understand why. Why if she was so private with her life did every news article write about her? They were all lies. And if he had at least an ounce of decency he would’ve realized that sooner and stand by her side instead of siding with the media. Yet, those thoughts were sticking with him at the back of his head, haunting him even in his sleep. 

How easy it was for him to turn away from her. How easy it was for him to leave her. But how hard it was to ignore the love he feels for her, knowing that she won’t take him back and with good reason. Y/N deserves better, in every way, shape, or form. She was such a bright light in such a dark world, and he just hopes she will be strong enough to see it someday, even if he’s not by her side anymore.

God, he was just a fucking idiot. 

And now, as he walked past the coffee shop where they first met while he fought the urge to cry again, he was willing to beat himself up for it. For losing the only person he cared about just because he wasn’t brave enough to fight for her as he should’ve. There wasn’t anything that didn’t remind him of Y/N, nothing he could do to shake the self-inflicted pain he caused, so he thought better than to let it consume him. 

Luke sat on an empty bench near the campus, his classes didn’t start until a month from today but he longed for some kind of distraction. Once he settled, he took out his notebook and started writing. He doesn’t write about love anymore, rather he wrote about the loss of it while still mourning it fresh on the flesh. Finally understanding what Ashton meant when he said that heartbreak breaks you, and, for a moment, he thought about how she might feel at this moment; if she, at least once, thought of him with something wasn’t hate.

He spent hours sitting outdoors, writing as if his time were to end at any moment. He wrote letters of forgiveness, poems of grief, and free thoughts of the guilt he was feeling. He didn’t mention her, but they were all about and for her. For his Y/N who was now a world away and who he will not call his ever again. 

It must’ve been late when his phone started to ring; the streetlights were starting to lit up the pavement as the sun started to set, leaving soft shades of pink and purple to cover up the sky. He didn’t know the number, so he let it ring thinking it might be just one company trying to sell him something he didn’t need. 

But the unknown caller was relentless; calling and calling until Luke decided to answer after the fourth time. 

“Hello?” He said, annoyed by the interruption. He didn’t want to talk to anyone; not like he had anyone to talk to, after all. 

“You fucker” The voice at the other end said. Luke froze when he recognized it. 

“A-Ashton?” 

“Were you expecting the fucking queen?” He sounded angry and even through the phone he left Luke completely intimidated as he sunk into his seat. 

“How - Whose number is this?” Luke asked, knowing he had all their numbers saved in his phone. 

“Would you have answered if you saw my name on the screen?” He wouldn’t, they both know it. But at the same time…

“Why are you calling me?” He finally muttered, his head wrapped around the only reason Ashton, out of all people, would be calling him. He knew it was not to catch up “Is Y/N okay?! Did something happen to her?!” 

Something must be terribly wrong if Ashton was calling him. That man was very protective over his best friend and Luke was sure he would’ve killed him if he found him the day where he yelled at her, knowing that Y/N must’ve told him everything. He knew Y/N was not going to forgive him and neither will the boys for that matter. That day he lost more than just his girl. 

Ashton laughed without any kind of humor “No, she’s not. Of course, she’s not! You happened to her, mate. I don’t know what the fuck you did but she hasn’t been the same since you left.” 

Luke’s eyes widened “She didn’t tell you?” 

If he thought about it, it really wasn’t that surprising. Y/N never talked about her problems with him, but the boys always knew everything, them being the only people she knew she could trust with her whole heart. Luke had always been jealous of that, but once he found out the truth of why she kept some things for herself he understood why she could only trust her bandmates with it. He immediately thought that she would tell them everything, every word he said and the hateful words he wrote, but she didn’t and that could not mean anything good. 

“She told us enough. That you believed the lies of her and Madden and didn’t let her explain before you lashed out and she asked you to leave. Not a single detail about it, only that you were gone and were not coming back. I guess she didn’t want us to kick your ass, but Luke, you better be certain that-”

“I know!” Luke said with a sigh “I deserve it” 

“Dude, what the fuck did you do to her?” 

How could he tell him? How could he mutter the courage to tell one of his best friends how he absolutely fucked up? Ashton would hate him, with every reason in the world he should hate him. Luke just hoped that he didn’t. 

He, Calum, and Michael were the only friends he knew since he met Y/N. They took him in, welcomed him into the group with gritted teeth with the only condition to never hurt their friend. And after a year of being friends, he broke not only Y/N’s trust but theirs as well. And the fact that Y/N didn’t tell them what he’d done seemed cruel because now he had to. Breaking more hearts than their own. 

“I fucked up, Ash” Luke muttered, rubbing his eyes with his fingertips as he crouched forward on the bench and placing his elbows on the top of his thighs, getting ready to face the consequences of his actions “I fucked up badly. I was just- You saw those articles, you saw those tweets and those photos. She never talked about him so I thought… What was I supposed to think? She had a reputation, and with the way, she acted the night before it all made sense to me. So I snapped”

“Luke, I swear to GOD if you touched her-”

“NO! God no, I would never!” Luke quickly stated, horrified at the thought of ever hitting her. He was not like that. He would never be like that “But the things I said to her… fuck, Ash. I threw everything in her face, called her a whore and a cheater without giving her a chance to explain herself. I was so fucking angry and she didn’t say a word. She took all of it in silence and I kept going, even when she begged me to stop I kept going... I didn’t know. You must know that I didn’t know what happened to her or her past with Madden. If I knew then I would’ve never-” 

“But you did” 

Ashton's words were simple, but they cut deeper than a knife through Luke’s heart. He never heard him sound so disappointed and angry. It reminded him of her and the last words she said to him.

“Luke, this girl has been through so much and you still went and dragged her through the mud just to hurt her”

“I didn’t want to-”

“Don’t fucking interrupt me” Ashton barked into the phone “You did. She gave you everything she could give and you threw it on her face like it was nothing without a chance to explain herself. And it’s not like she could run off, turn off her comments and go back to a normal life! I have never seen Y/N so broken since-” He stopped “What did she tell you?” 

Luke knew he was referring to Madden. He remembers her face covered in tears, lips trembling and body shaking as she told him what happened in that relationship. He finally saw the hurt and scars that covered her soul. 

“She told me what she could” 

Ashton sighed “Then you must know that she would never go back to him,” He said, Luke could tell by his voice that he was hurting, too “He met her at a concert in our second world tour as a solo act. He is the son of a very famous producer and they hit it off right away. We didn’t know exactly when things turned for the worse, but we knew something was happening. She would cover herself more, never hanging out with us unless he was present, she wouldn’t eat in front of him or talk to any of us directly unless it was something about work and that still pissed him off. We all heard the rumors of him cheating on her, but she always dismissed them saying that he loved her and he would never do that. I still wonder what other things we didn’t know that she’s still processing.

It wasn’t until the night he almost killed her that we understood the severity of it. She came by my house while I and the others were hanging out. She was bleeding all over herself, her face was covered in blood just as her shirt and pants. It was terrifying; I don’t remember ever driving that far to the hospital, paying the nurses to keep quiet because she kept asking to keep it a secret. That bastard broke her nose and one of her ribs. She had bruises on her arms, stomach, eye, inner thighs, and legs and a cut over her eyebrow. She lost a lot of blood on her way to my house so Calum had to donate some of his because she needed a transfusion. She stayed in the hospital overnight; the next morning we filed a restraining order against Madden and she moved in with me that same day, promising herself and to us that she would never let someone do that again to her. We promise we would never let anything happen to her from that moment on” 

Luke was shedding silent tears at Ashton’s story, all the things he imagined happened to her didn’t compare to the reality she suffered. And he only made it worse. 

“She was never the same after that” Ashton continued “Until you came into the picture” 

Ashton could hear Luke crying over the phone, his sniffs had given him away. But he knew he needed to hear this; he needed to know. 

“We didn’t want you to get close to her, afraid you might hurt her the same way Madden did, but she insisted that you were different, that you were a good guy. And against our better judgment, we believed her. We never expected that little by little, we would get our Y/N/N back. She was smiling again, laughing and singing songs about the love we never thought she’d be able to sing again. It was so obvious that she loved you that we couldn't do anything about it but be happy for her, you brought her back to us. 

I guess Madden saw that and didn’t like it, that’s why he came to see her that night. We don’t know much about what happened there or what he said to her, but she was shaking when she came back. All she said was that he cornered her, threatened her and called the paparazzi that worked for his father to take pictures of them, and since we were not in America, there was nothing the restraining order to do to help her”

“He did what?!” Luke shouted at the phone, fuming over the fact that that fucker decided to get close to her when she was vulnerable. He promised that if he ever saw him he’d kill him. 

“Now you care about what happened?” Ashton asked in return, frustration lacing his voice at Luke’s sudden feeling of protection “Luke, she called you over ten times that day as she was breaking down in the green room. She asked us all if we could get ahold of you because the driver came back without you. She was so fucking scared and you weren’t there when she needed you by her side. So don’t you fucking dare get offended right now. It already happened and you weren’t there” 

Ashton was right. Luke had no right to be furious at the moment, given that he was the one who abandoned her deliberately when he saw the pictures of her and her abuser. He had the excuse of ignorance, but that wasn’t enough. It never has, not it ever will be, because his girlfriend needed him at the time and he left her alone. 

He cried into the phone, not caring if Ashton could listen or not. He was so fucking angry at himself, at Madden, at the world… He was supposed to protect her, he said he would and then he gave the final punch. He failed her because of his insecurities. 

“I’m sorry” He cried, but Ashton was having none of that. 

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing for”

“She doesn’t want to-”

“Listen to me you shit” Ashton hissed into the phone “I don’t care what you think she wants. She is destroying herself over the fact that the last person she thought would hurt her left her because he chose to believe the lies of the media over his own girlfriend”

Luke’s heart broke all over again “She’s what?” 

“Oh my god, how dense are you, dude? Now you decide to ignore the gossip?! She’s been going out all night, drinking herself to death and refusing help from any of us. She is slowly killing herself by killing her soul” He sounded worried, scared even, as he muttered the last words “We are losing her” 

“Wh-what can I do?” Luke asked helplessly. Not being able to bear the thought of Y/N being gone. 

“We booked you a flight. Figure it out and don’t make us regret it” 

*

“Forgetting the lyrics again? Y/N L/N surely knows how to displease an audience”

“Y/N L/N MISSES YET ANOTHER INTERVIEW AFTER PAPARAZZI CAUGHT HER AT A PARTY THE NIGHT BEFORE”

“What is going on with YN?” 

*

He arrived late to the hotel, having his flight delayed for a few hours, and the boys were already waiting for him in the lobby. Luke took a deep breath as he spotted them from afar, they were talking among them, concerned looks covering their expressions as they looked through their phone. 

Luke walked up to them, mustering enough courage to say “Hi,” 

The three men turned towards the blonde, Calum quickly walking up to him and punching him in the face, caught Luke by surprise as he backed up holding his nose and looking at Calum with widened, surprised eyes. 

“That’s for hurting my best friend, you asshole!” He said, making the other guests look in their direction. 

Luke hissed as he made sure he wasn’t bleeding “Thank you. I deserved that” He said, blinking twice “But to be honest I was expecting Ashton to deliver the blow” 

“Calum won at rock, paper, scissors” Ashton shrugged “But that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. We still need to have a serious talk and I might punch you there” 

Luke nodded, understanding that he did not only fail Y/N, but he also failed them. He promised them that he would take care of their best friend and they believed him. They even helped them get together and served as trust advisers for Luke about what it means to date a celebrity and yet he ignored every single one of them. 

He might never get their trust back, but now they needed to focus on other things more important than that.

“Where is she?” He asked. 

“Out,” Michael answered “The girls went with her. We don’t want her to be alone when she’s drunk” 

They started walking towards the door, getting into the car that would take them to Y/N and the rest of the girls. “Do you know what you will say to her when you see her?” Calum asked. 

“No,” Luke answered honestly “I guess I’ll know then”

“And you better not fuck it up again, Hemmings, or I swear it’s going to be the last thing you do” 

*

The dance floor was crowded. People were dancing one against the other as the beats of the songs reverberated all over their bodies and started the flame of having just one night of fun. Among them it was Y/N, dancing in the corner with her friends and ignoring their concerned eyes as she moved freely thanks to the alcohol that was cursing through her veins. She knew she had to wake up soon, but she just wanted to keep living this dream every night instead of facing the nightmares that would come in the morning.

She missed how easy everything was before that night when the nightmare started. When she couldn’t find Luke in the crowd of their concert nor their bedroom late at night. Now she doesn’t even want to go to sleep, knowing that she won’t find him there ever again, all because she asked him to leave. 

But he wanted to leave, even before she asked him he was already getting his stuff to leave her “cheating ass”, writing words that describe their relationship as toxic. Is that what it was? Were they toxic or just scared? She couldn’t tell the difference anymore, not after spending night after night trying to erase those words out of her mind, but they were already scared forever in her skin. She promised herself she would carry them as a battle wound, as proof that no matter what you do, you could never win when the whole world seems against you even when you have done nothing wrong… Unlike now. 

She knew what she was doing, she knew she was disappointing a lot of people. She was disappointed in herself, too, but she couldn’t stop. The world was finally telling truths about her and it felt nice to at least have that. They denied her the truths for so long, feeding everyone lies that they would believe without hesitation or her explanation, just like Luke did, and now she was finally acting like people supposed she had. Now, at least she had control over that. 

She wondered if Luke ever thinks about her. If he’s forgiven her for whatever he thinks she’s done or if he continues to read the articles and rejoice in the fact that he was right, even when he wasn’t, he was right. Maybe he’d be proud? 

“Darling, are you alright?” She heard Bethany shout over the music. All the girls were looking at her. She didn’t realize she stopped dancing. 

However, she just nodded “I’m going to get more drinks!” She said, faking a smile even though the girls could tell that she was crying. But she was so far out she couldn’t even feel the tears that rolled down her cheek.

Y/N gripped the marble countertop of the bar, trying to hold herself steady. She was thinking again, she didn’t want to think anymore. She ordered two shots of tequila and drowned them down before asking for two more. But before she could drown the fourth one, someone snatches the drink out of her hand.

“Heeey” She slurred “Don’t get between me and my- oh, hello!” She smiled happily at the stranger who took her drink from her “You look a lot like my ex-boyfriend” 

Luke’s eyes widened at the word. She has never called him her boyfriend in front of people before. He glanced behind her and saw Michael, Ashton, and Calum already standing next to their girls, nodding encouragingly at him. 

“Ex-boyfriend?” He asked, eyes meeting hers and noticing the glimmer of tears in them. But she kept on smiling and nodding before she started to pout.

“But shhhhh,” She said, laying her head on the counter, almost like she wanted to take a nap “It’s a secret. No one knows we’re together… or were together. They will never leave him alone if they find out”

“Who?” 

Y/N looked to the sides, almost as if making sure no one was listening before she leaned into him and whispered “The media,” Then she started to giggle “If they found out I have a boyfriend then they will want to know everything about him! And poor Luke wouldn’t be able to handle that, he shouldn’t go through that” 

Luke’s heart broke at the sight of the drunk girl sighing in the bar, holding her empty shot glass and sniffing every other word to stop the tears from falling.

“He doesn’t deserve that, the hate. He’s a good guy, a little shy and awkward, but he’s nice. But the media is cruel and a liar, and I don’t want him to feel baaaaad. How stupid it is that because I love someone they should get hated on, right? Hahaha, I just wanted to protect hiiiim, cause I love him sooo so much. I even protected him from my friends! You know?! I never told them what he did to me in case they wanted to keep their friendship going, Luke is a very shy guy and he loved them very muchhh, I couldn't take that from him"

“Even if he hurt you?” Luke’s words were careful and filled with pain. When the boys told him that she was getting drunk each night he never imagined her this far gone. He never imagined her this sad. 

Y/N shook his head “I deserved to get, hic, hurt” She said between hiccups “He said I was a cheating whore monster liar, b-b-but I don’t blame himmmm. I’m sad but at least he doesn’t have to deal with me anymore and this BULLSHIT” She yelled, throwing her hands up to the sky. But then she started crying, sobbing as she tumbled backward before Luke caught her.

Luke was trying to contain his own tears as she sobbed into his embrace “I just want to tell him that I’m sorry I couldn’t protect him from myself” She cried “I wanted to be happy with him but we are both sad and toxic for each other. That’s what he said in his poem. I-I-I just w-want him to be ha-happy” 

Luke cried as he held her, burying his face into her hair as both of their bodies trembled. Even when she had every right to hate him, she still wants to protect him. Something he should’ve done. 

“I’m so sorry, my love” He cried, making Y/N look at him with worried, tearful eyes.

“Oh, don’t cry, stranger,” She said as she cupped his face and wiped his tears “I’m sad but you should be happy!” 

“Why?” 

“C-cause you’re not me” 

Luke stared into her eyes, she was smiling while the tears kept falling. Even at her lowest, she tried to be strong for everyone around her, even the stranger she thought he was. He pressed his lips on a thin line and nodded, hugging her tighter as if he was trying to hold on to the last piece of her that didn’t show coldness to him before she remembers everything in the morning. At least he would hold her one more time. 

Y/N didn’t understand much of what was happening but she returned the hug with the same energy, letting the stranger cry into her shoulder as she rubbed his back with her fingertips, wondering what Luke was doing right now. She decided that she didn’t want to know. 

“I want to sleep,” She said after a minute of holding the man. 

Luke pulled away from her, wiping his tears as he nodded “Then let’s get you to bed, my love” 

She shook his head, pulling on his hand as he tried to walk them out of the club “But Luke won’t be there when I wake up” 

All the wind was knocked out of his lungs, did she want him there? “I’ll be there,” He said. 

“What?” 

“He’ll be there. I promise”

Luke gave one last look at the group. They were all staring at him with worried and hopeful eyes, actually surprised that this didn’t end badly just yet. Luke nodded at them and pulled Y/N with him, the rest of the guys followed him into the car as they made their way back to the hotel. 

Y/N slept all the way back, her head was placed in Luke’s shoulder as the blond kept staring at her, silent tears still dying on his cheek. The guilt was eating him alive; it was painful to see her this way, but at the same time he knew that she was at peace as she slept, letting the world fade for at least a few minutes before reality came crashing down.

When they reached the hotel, Luke carried her back into her room. He sat her down on the bed and started to take off her shoes as she lazily rubbed the tiredness from her eyes, suddenly waking up for a moment.

“Luke?” She asked. Luke raised his head and was met with her eyes already locked with his, a glaze of new tears adorned her pupils as she whispered “Am I dreaming right now?” 

“No,” He answered, voice as soft as hers as he got up and placed a kiss on the top of her head “No, you’re not, darling”

“Good. I always hate to wake up without you there” She said, looking over her shoulder to the empty side where Luke used to sleep. 

They both stayed quiet for the rest of the night. Luke took off her silk shirt and leather pants and helped her put on one of the big shirts she’s used to sleeping in. He wiped the makeup off her face and followed her nighttime routine without missing a step. When she was done, she curled up to her side and quickly fell into a deep slumber. 

Luke stared at the girl, his heart aching for her as he saw how fragile she looked while she slept. He thought about all the things she said that night, how he never considered her side of the story before. How he just assumed that she was hiding him because she didn’t want people to find out she was taken when in reality she didn’t want people to hurt him the way they hurt her. The way he hurt her.

Tears started to pick up in his eyes again. He hated to cry but there was nothing else he could do at the moment. Everything became too much too fast and he didn’t know if he could fix it. So all he could do was cry for the girl he loves and the girl he lost, not knowing if she would ever come back to him. 

“I’m sorry” He whispered in a quiet sob, getting into bed with her and holding her close “I’m sorry, Y/N. I’m sorry, my love” He kept murmuring into her hair until sleep claimed him as well. 

*

The next morning Y/N wakes up in her hotel bed but she doesn’t know how she got there. She looks to her side but the bed is empty, yet she finds an aspirin and a bottle of water in her nightstand. She wonders who was the poor soul that had to go with her last night to make sure she doesn't end up drunk in a ditch, at least they succeeded. 

Then she hears water running up in the bathroom and her heart sinks. Did she bring someone here last night? No, she wouldn’t do that. But she was very drunk… Oh my god, what did she do? 

Luke could hear her shuffling in the bed as he brushed his teeth. “It is now or never,” He thought, but he didn’t know what he would find behind the door. She didn’t know him yesterday, but today was another story and Luke’s heart shrank at the thought of Y/N hating him for coming back, even if it was to apologize to her. He was terrified, but he was tired of running away. 

As soon as he opened the door he was met with Y/N’s surprised gaze. The girl was quick to cover herself up, cheeks tinted red at the sight of her ex-boyfriend in her hotel room. She didn’t miss the flash of hurt that ran through his face when she did that. 

“Luke…” She said in one breath, suddenly feeling self-conscious by his presence “What are you- Did we-?” 

“No,” He answered quickly, stepping closer to the bed “No, we didn’t. You were drunk and I- You know I would never do that to you” 

“I thought we didn’t know each other…” 

Her words lingered in the air between them, creating a tension that could be cut with a knife. How fast did they become strangers when they used to know every single cardinal point of their bodies, every breath they took and what they meant, every sigh, every look… Now they were just two people in a room with so much to say but with no words coming out of either of their mouths.

Luke noticed how her eyes changed. While they were no longer filled with tears, they now laid emotionless in front of him, dull and empty as she stared at him. 

“I did this to her,” He thought “I took the light of her eyes. It’s my fault” 

She cleared her throat, breaking the silence as she spoke “Well, thank you for bringing me here last night. You can go now” She said, tearing her eyes away from him as she sat on her edge of the bed. 

Luke stood still “No,” 

“I’m asking you to leave” Y/N clarified, her voice growing stronger but still a bit sore. 

“And I’m telling you I’m not going” He responded, taking tentative steps towards her “Something I should’ve done all those weeks ago” 

He was standing in front of her in a matter of seconds; he crouched to meet her eyes but she quickly turned her face away “Y/N, please” He begged, his hand coming to rest on her cheek as his knuckles caressed her skin while the other one was placed on top of her hands, both intertwined with each other on top of her thighs “You could look at me yesterday, please don’t deny me at least that. Let me see you, my love” 

But Y/N didn’t move, her face stayed turned to the side with her hair covering most of it. She couldn’t look at him, she just couldn’t. It was too hard, too painful. Luke sighed.

“Okay, it’s okay. You don’t have to, but at least listen to me, yeah? I just- I need you to listen, Y/N, please” He pleaded, placing both hands on top of hers “Y/N, I love you” 

The knot in his throat became tighter as he noticed how the veins of her neck tensed and she started to grip her hands tighter. But she needed to hear this, and even though it hurt to see her like that, he continued. 

“I love you. I love you. I love you” He said, voice breaking at the end, impossible to fight that choking feeling in his throat “I loved you since the moment I saw you. You were all dressed up in Calum‘s clothes and you had a pen in your hair, and I thought you were the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, but you were so nervous about trying to clean the coffee you spilled that you didn’t even notice I fell for you without knowing your name” He let out a tearful chuckle “I started to fall that day and I haven’t stopped, not even for a second. Y/N you are- You are the best thing that has ever happened to me and I was an idiot for not seeing that. I don’t know what I have to do for you to forgive me, but I’ll do anything, my love. Anything to make it better. Cause I followed you blindly from the start, and I’m so sorry I let you down. I’m so, so fucking sorry that I let my insecurities come in our way. I love you, even then I never stopped loving you”

He could see how her chin started to tremble, she was trying to hold off the tears as much as him “I - I wish I could go back in time. I would’ve never said the things I said, I would’ve never doubted you or left without listening to what you had to say. I should’ve fought harder for you, but I was a coward. I still am, if I’m being honest, but I will not run away, Y/N. Not anymore. I know I will never deserve you, but I’ll do my best and try. Because you, my love, are the love of my life, the greatest love I have and - and I can’t -“ 

It became too much for him. He couldn’t say anything else without breaking down. But he wanted her to know how much she meant for him, how much he is willing to fight for her if she lets him. She needed to know how sorry he was and how much he still loves her. But the words got stuck in his throat. The poet was left speechless.

“Y/N you are so strong,” He finally said “So strong, my love. And I’m so fucking proud of everything you do, I always have and always will be” He brought her hands to his lips and started pressing kisses all over it while wetting them with his tears “I wish I could take back everything I said. All those words were said out of anger and jealousy, that is not how I see you at all. You are so beautiful, Y/N, inside and out. So kind, so smart, so giving… You are perfect. And I love you, I love you, I love yo-”

Suddenly his words were interrupted by her lips as she started kissing him. Y/N didn’t want to keep listening anymore so she did the only thing he could, the thing she wanted to do the most since she saw him come out of the bathroom. 

Their hands flew to cup each other’s cheeks, keeping their faces as close as they could, feeling how their tears became one as they started to deepen the kiss. They rocked back and forward with the intensity of their energies colliding once again, it was everything they needed and more. Suddenly, Luke got up from the floor and brought Y/N along with her, pressing her against the wall as their lips never left each other.

“I love you” He breathed into her lips before kissing her again and again and again, already getting lost in the feeling of euphoria she brought to him “I love you”

She kept crying as their lips met, savoring every word, every praise that came from his mouth, trying hard to hold on to them as she felt her breath become short “I missed you” She cried into the kiss, pulling away to see his face. 

Luke’s eyes were blown wide as he stared at her, their lips were pink as they tried to catch their breaths. He knocked his forehead against hers before kissing it lightly “Please, forgive me” He begged, holding her tight against his chest. 

“Luke,” She whispered as she tugged on his shirt, making him look back at her “Kiss me” 

He looked at her softly, his baby blue eyes saying more than he ever could as he caressed her cheek one more time before leaning down and trapping her lips with his. He had no rush because there was no other place he’d rather be, no other person he’d rather spend time with. Only her. Only his Y/N. 

Her hands traveled tentatively under his shirt, softly caressing the skin of his back and his stomach as she parted her lips to grant him more access and control. Luke’s hand that was not cupping her cheek rounded around her waist, bringing her body closer to him with the need of feeling her, all of her. 

“Y/N…” He groaned, tilting his head back when he felt her kiss along his jaw and neck.

“Please…” She murmured against his skin, sucking and kissing on the spot that she knew would make him shiver. 

Luke pressed her against the wall with his body completely covering hers. He grabbed the back of her thighs and lifted her feet from the ground as she locked her legs around his waist. “Please,” She begged again, closing her lips around the shell of his ear and slightly biting into it. She could feel him getting hard as her hips moved forward, her core pressing against his hardening cock. She moaned softly into his ear  “Please, Luke. Please” 

The movement of her hips was all Luke needed to lose himself to her, thrusting right back at her and moaning at the friction of her soaked panties against his clothed erection. Her sound became more breathy and he knew she was getting close just by the friction alone, having spent too much time without this feeling. 

“Y/N…” Luke groaned into her after a particularly hard trust “I-”

“I know” She breathed “I need it too,” 

Without a second thought, Luke turned both of them around, still holding Y/N by the back of her thighs as he placed them back into the bed. Now it was his turn to kiss along her face, her lips, her neck… everywhere she would give him access to and would leave her breathing his name. His hands fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, taking it off completely in one swift move and occupying his hands by touching her breasts, massaging them softly as his lips closed against one of her nipples, tongue circling around the hard pebble until they were nice, erect and wet from his kiss only to do it again with the other one. 

Y/N was a whimpering mess under him, her fingers tangling in his hair as he sucked on her sweet spot, kissing down her body until his lips found her wet panties. He kissed over her clothes bundle of nerves, making her moan and begged for more as he swiftly hooked his long fingers at either side of her hips and pulled them down, kissing along her thighs up and down and up again only to finish tongue deep into her hole, lapping at her arousal and moaning against her at the taste of her. He always found her exquisite. 

Stars were playing behind her eyelids as she felt one finger inside her while Luke’s lips closed against her clit, sucking it lightly as he inserted another finger per her request, thrusting then inside and out as she chanted his name like a prayer when her walls clenched against them. 

Luke licked her clean as her fingers played with his hair, relishing this intimate moment as a precious memory for the future. When he pushed himself up he noticed that there were a new set of tears rolling down her cheeks “Are you okay, love?” He asked, “Did I hurt you?” 

She shook his head, looking up at him with teary eyes “I love you” 

His eyes soften at her words, hands caressing the side of her face as he leaned in without thinking, kissing her tears away with such care, never wanting to see them again.

“Luke…” She whispered, kissing his chin “Luke, make love to me” 

Blue eyes met Y/E/C, sharing all the love he had in them before leaning down again to trap her lips with his; tongues dancing together like it was the first time all over again where no other words were needed. 

Y/N helped him out of his shirt and shorts, pumping his cock in her hands as he moaned in her ear how good it felt before lining it up with her entrance, quiet gasps leaving each other’s mouths as they felt the familiar stretch when he bottomed out. 

Soft words and kisses were shared as Luke’s thrusts were slow and steady. It was silent, needy, passionate; it was everything they needed and more. Their hands explored the familiarity of their bodies, leaving faint marks as they enjoyed their shared pleasure.

“Please,” She begged against his lips, moaning as Luke started hitting her spot “Please, please, please, plea-” 

Her orgasm came over her like a wave and Luke was entranced with her face as it contorted in extasis, helping him reach his climax as he cum inside her, painting her walls as his thrusts became sloppy. 

They stayed like that for a while, kissing on top of each other as their bodies stayed connected in the most intimate way. But soon Luke had to get up, getting a wet cloth from the bathroom and cleaning her up, whispering sweet nothings to her as he did so. 

He climbed into the bed next to her, pulling her closer against his chest as his back rested against the headboard, drawing circles in the soft spot of her back and resting his chin on the top of her head. 

They must’ve fallen asleep after a while because when he opened his eyes again he felt Y/N crying into his chest.

“My love?” He asked, worry lacing his voice as he accommodated himself better so he could see her face. Y/N eyes were puffy and filled with tears as she struggled to contain a sob “What’s wrong?” 

Y/N sniffed, voice breaking as she asked “You love me?” 

Luke furrowed his eyebrows in confusion “What a stupid question,” He said as he started playing with your hair “Of course I love you” 

“But what else?” 

Her question confused him, even more, when he saw pure heartbreak spread along her face. 

“What else what?” 

“You love me and what else?” She repeated her question. 

“What else is there?” 

Luke’s answer made her lips tremble as a new set of tears filled her eyes. His heart fell to his stomach with her reaction, not knowing what he did to make her this upset “Baby, what’s wrong? Is love not enough?” 

Y/N shook her head as she took a deep breath, trying to find enough voice and courage to say what she needed. 

“I’m not perfect, Luke” 

“I know,” He said, bringing his fingers to caress your cheek but you shook your head.

“No, you don’t know” She stated, tears rolling down her cheek “You still see me as something out of your reach, as something you don’t deserve because you hold me to such standards that is impossible for me to live up to your expectations. I will let you down, even without wanting to, I will. And- a-and I don’t think I’ll be able to stand that look in your eyes once I do. I can’t go through that again” 

She cried softly for a while, trying to find the right words to say.

“Luke, I need you to listen to me very carefully and really think about what I’m asking for here, okay, love?” She said after collecting herself just enough. He nodded as he gave her his undivided attention “Luke, I love you. More than anyone in the world, I love you. I thought I would never say those words again but I can’t deny my feelings for you nor do I want to. I love you. But I also love my life” 

Luke’s eyes were fixed on her as she spoke, nodding along to what she was saying. She took another deep breath before continuing. 

“A life that is filled with concerts, traveling and recordings and parties and interviews… A life that I chose to follow my dreams and make them come true. A life I am not going to give up because it’s mine and I truly love it. But in this life, there are some bumps in the road. There will always be people trying to bring me down, sending hate to me and the ones I love, spreading rumors all around where sometimes you won’t be able to distinguish fiction from reality. With people trying to get to me, by flirting or abusing their power with threats. But I keep going, I deal with all of that because that’s just the way it is. I will go to an interview that might get twisted, I might go and get flirted on by a random stranger that works for publicity. I might have rumors of me dating people I haven’t even met! All of that without my consent or knowledge. But I agreed to this when I agreed to follow my dreams and I can’t help it when it happens and most of the time I can’t say anything about it even if it hurts. 

And when that happens I need to know that you will trust me. Because I cannot possibly ask you to leave your dreams to follow mine, meaning that we won’t be together all the time like we’re used to. And I need to know that you will trust me when I’m away from you”

Luke stayed quiet, his mind running a thousand miles per hour at her words. Could he trust her? When they were together on tour, and even at home in L.A, the rumors about Y/N were strong, so much so that he didn’t know if they were true or not. And even though he knew her, he still wasn’t sure. He doubted her, more times than not he did which ended up in him losing her until last night. He trusted her now, but…

“I don’t know,” He answered honestly, feeling like the weight of his shoulders was being lifted as he spoke “I don’t trust my mind, not when it’s about you. Not really. I trust you here, right now but I can’t promise that my insecurities won’t get in the way, changing that for the future. But I can try, I’ll do my best-”

“What if your best is not enough, Luke?” She asked, sucking the air out of both of them. 

“What?” He asked in return, voice small and soft. 

She sighed, blinking through the tears “What if- What if it’s not enough? You love me, but you don’t trust me. I love you, but I’m scared you’re going to run away every time you hear something about me that could tint the image of me you have in your mind. I’m scared of that Y/N because I’m not her and I might never be able to compete with her. I wish I could tell you that everything will change for the better, that love will be enough. But if we can’t see a future now…”

“There might not be a future at all” Luke finished for her. 

The truth hurt more than they could ever have imagined, but it was still the truth. Without trust, there is no love that could endure the passings of times, but they could try, couldn’t they? 

“What now?” He asked after a moment of silence. 

“Hold me?” 

Luke opened his arms and Y/N nested into them, setting her head upon his chest and letting his heartbeat be the melody of her heartbreak. “I love you” She whispered into his skin.

“I love you, too” 

“I might never stop loving you” 

“You don’t have to” 

She sighed “I know, that’s what scares me”

Luke nodded, even though she couldn't see him. He let his fingertips trace up and down her arms and back, serving as the only comfort he could give right now.

“Stay with me tonight?” She asked, tilting her head so she could look him in the eyes “Just one night the two of us where we can leave the world behind. Just us and for tonight that’s enough”

He smiled sadly “Morning will come eventually” 

“And what will happen to us in the morning?” 

Luke let out a sad sigh “I don’t know” 

.

.

Tags: @iknowyouthinkimbulletproof @mystic-232 @talksoprettyjjx @theshyspy @hoodhoran @flaneurcth @notinthesameguey @bubblegum18 @irwin-fletcher-ash @just-here-to-escape-from-reality @1980holland @wiiildflowerrr @myloverboyash @nicebasscalum @calumspupils @secretsicanthideanymore @the-ghost-of-ash​ @alltimesos @kingxnichole @givebuckyhisplumsnow @hufflehemm @wildflower98 @girl-toxxic

[btsslowburnfic]

The Arrangement Ch. 16

Story summary: Desperately in need of money, you answered the questionable ad. AKA-Arranged marriage AU featuring Y/N and Yoongi

Chapter Summary: Dinner at the “Best Diner in Seoul.” (Still not a date though, right?)

Previous Chapter here

The two of you dropped the van off without any issues. You walked outside the rental agency, onto the main street stretching your arms overhead. You turned to face Yoongi, “Alright, are you ready for dinner at the best diner in Seoul?”

Yoongi smiled, glad you had rallied from earlier. He put his hands in his pockets. “The best? I don’t know; that’s a pretty high standard. This is a world-class city.”

You started to walk, “It is, and I have eaten a lot of places. This one is the best diner.”

Yoongi followed you to the subway station.  “Where is this diner?” He asked. The subway was uncrowded, with not much of a rush happening on Sunday night. You each scanned your cards. 

“It’s by work.”

Yoongi racked his brain trying to think of a diner near BigHit but wasn’t able to. He shrugged.

The subway car was mostly empty and the ride back to the city center was smooth. Yoongi scrolled through his phone. You got off and you led him down a few alleyways to an unassuming diner. It was truly a hole in the wall. 

The neon sign above the door, “Dynamite Diner,” had a few letters out: DYMT DNER. Yoongi chuckled slightly and made a confused face, but took your word for it as you opened the door. The inside of the diner was clean and brightly decorated. There was a counter with bright white stools and several cherry red booths around the perimeter. Donuts sat in a display case next to a vintage register up on the countertop.

“I should have brought my sunglasses,” Yoongi joked as he followed you over to one of the booths. You laughed and put both your personal and work phones on the table and stretched. You were certain you would be sore tomorrow from moving all those boxes. 

"What is that?" Yoongi asked, sounding mildly horrified as he gestured to your personal phone. 

"Oh this?" You held it up. You had jokingly changed your lock screen to the picture you took of him sleeping the other night to see how long it would take him to notice. "It's you, looking so adorable." 

His eyes widened "You put Tubby on me." 

"Aww is that the bear's name?” You turned the phone back towards you to look at it. “So cute". 

Yooongi touched his ear awkwardly, "It’s a dog, not a bear. Tubby was my family's pet growing up; our first dog. Anyways, I can't be your lock screen!" He pouted, a slight accent suddenly permeating his speech. 

You looked over at him, trying to keep a straight face. "Ok first of all it looks like a bear, but that it was your family’s dog makes it even more adorable. Secondly, it's my personal phone sooo…. Third. where are you from?”

“What...what does that...Daegu.”

You smirked and looked at your phone again. “I guess if it really bothers you I can change it, but look? It makes me smile." You held it up and grinned. 

The waitress came over, dropped off menus, and took your drink orders: Coffee, water, and a cup of ice for Yoongi.

"Oh my God, keep it." Yoongi opened his menu, clearly flustered. 

You laughed, "Are you sure?" 

"Yes, just stop showing it to me. Put it face down." 

You smiled and complied, then flipped through the menu. “Why did we both just order coffee?” You asked. “It’s 9 pm. That’s a terrible idea.”

“I can drink coffee and fall asleep, no problem.  What's good here?” 

“The noodles are really good. I'm getting the gaeranjim tonight. I used to come here after working at the bar since it's open 24/7.”

Yoongi looked over at, watching you scan the menu. You gave so much to the people you cared about." Spicy or regular?" 

"Huh?" You asked, bobbing your head back up. 

"Spicy noodles or plain?" 

"It's cold out, so you have to get spicy." You said it so matter of factly. 

“Ok, of course. Why did I even ask?” 

You put the menu down and grabbed your work phone.  "Let's see what this week brings. Meetings. Meetings. Sound mixing? Recording. Meet with Hoseok. Hair and make-up department. Photo shoot? Photo shoot?" 

Yoongi sat his menu down and interlaced his fingers in front of his face, resting his mouth against them. “Yep. They want new pictures for social media and for the album. My next album deadline is in 90 days but they begin all of this stuff in advance for things like printing and promos.” 

“Oooo so you'll be like a model?”

Yoongi rolled his eyes and the server walked up to the table. She sat down all of the drinks carefully. The two of you placed your food orders and handed in the menus.

“Min Yoongi. Model.' You teased, striking a pose. 

“Are you saying I'm not good looking enough to be a model?” He feigned offense while pouring his coffee over the ice and stirring it.

“Oh please, I told you at the job interview I thought you were good looking. It's just hard to imagine you sitting still and being pretty.” 

Yoongi rubbed the back of his neck. “Well it's in my contract. And my fans like it. As much as I hate parts about my job, I do love my fans. " He took a sip of his drink.

“That's sweet.” You smiled.

Yoongi blushed a little, “Well I wouldn't be where I am without them, right? You have to have an audience to be a performer. Someone has to listen, otherwise you're just screaming into the void.”

“I guess that makes sense. Being on the consumer side of things I never really thought of it like that. Huh.” You sat back in the booth thoughtfully and sipped some coffee. 

Yoongi looked out the glass window at the street outside. It had been a strange couple of weeks for him and yet this all felt normal. He couldn't remember the last time he had gone out to a restaurant with someone because he wanted to. He covered a yawn and looked back over at you. 

You were people watching in the diner. You were normally only here in the middle of the night. The bell above the entrance dinged and you saw Chinsun, your regular server, walk in to begin her night shift. You smiled as you remembered all the coffee and bullshit you had shared with her. There were nights you got off work at 3 and knew it made more sense to power through and go into the office. You decided you would talk to her later if she wasn't busy. 

The food came out a few minutes later.  Hunger had snuck up on you. You went from zero to famished. You began blowing on your meal.

“Y/N?” You heard the familiar voice of Chinsun “I haven't seen you in a while.” She had on her white and red work uniform and her graying hair done up in a bun.

You looked up from your eggs and smiled,  “Nice to see you. I quit working at the bar, I just have 1 job now.” You said happily. 

“That's great, you can only burn the candle from both ends for so long. I'm surprised you did it for as long as you did.” She responded.

You shrugged and took a sip of water. “Well we all do what we have to.”

“And?.... who is your friend?” Chinsun gestured to Yoongi who was mid-slurp on his noodles. Apparently he was also starving.

“This is my boss, Min Yoongi.”

He patted his mouth with a napkin before speaking, “Hello,” he bowed his head. “Nice to meet you.” 

“I’m Chinsun. It’s nice to meet you too.  Well I'll let you get back to your meal, I'm glad you stopped by, I was worried when I didn’t see you for a while. Make sure you two come back!”

“Thank you. You are so sweet. I’ll make sure to stop in again soon, take care.” You took a bite as soon as she left.

“These noodles are in fact, the best.” Yoongi appraised between slurps. 

“I told you. You can’t beat a hole in the wall diner sometimes. So...new album in 90 days? How’s it going?”

“It’s ok. A few songs are done. I got feedback from Adora last week so that was helpful. This album in general will be less….angry. Yeah less angry sounding.”

“Cool. What comes first, the music or the lyrics?”

“They are separate completely. The music and then I see if any of the  lyrics I’ve written match the mood. Sometimes it just goes together and sometimes it doesn’t.” 

“Interesting.”

Yoongi talked a bit more about the process of creating an album from start to finish. You had never put any thought into it so it was fascinating. The rest of your meal passed without incident and you were happy that when they brought the bill, Yoongi actually let you pay. 

You waved to Chinsun as you exited. Yoongi rubbed his stomach. “Too many noodles.”

You smiled and then looked up at the sky. It was beginning to snow. “No such thing. And look. What great timing. The first snow of the year.” 

“Gross.” He quickly replied.

“Ahahaha you really hate the cold don’t you?” You said as you held out your hand, watching the flakes land and melt almost instantly.

“I do. The snow is pretty though. I’ll look at it tomorrow from the warmth and safety of inside.”

“You’re no fun. I love the snow.” You played with it for a few more seconds. “Alright let’s get back.”  

The snow continued to fall as you began the short walk back to BigHit. It was so pretty. The sidewalk was almost empty and the snowfall made it seem even quieter than it was. You took your phone out and snapped a picture for Instagram. In a few minutes, you were back at the building. The two of you scanned your badges to enter the lobby and waved to the night security guard.

“I’m heading to the studio. You should take some aspirin and a hot bath.” Yoongi said while you waited for the elevator.

You reached over without thinking and dusted snowflakes off of his hair. “Do you need help with anything? I also had coffee, I’ll probably be up for a while.”

Yoongi was briefly unable to answer, still surprised from having been dusted. “Nope. I’m just going to write. Go, rest your muscles. Watch Netflix. Relax. You literally moved a small apartment’s worth of stuff today.”

The two of you got on the elevator. “Alright. If you insist. I’m not going to argue with that. Where is the aspirin?”

“My bathroom. Bottom left drawer.”

“Got it.” The elevator slowly climbed. You took a deep breath and looked over at Yoongi. “Thanks again for all your help today. Like. ALLLLL of it. The van, my aunt, my brother. Thanks. It was a lot.”

Yoongi avoided eye contact, finding his shoes very fascinating. “No problem. Like I said, it wasn’t that bad for me. I got free soup and noodles.”

You laughed, “Good to know your chauffeur services are so affordable.” The elevator stopped on the 14th floor. 

“See you tomorrow.” Yoongi started to exit, “If Jin’s girlfriend acts up, call me.” Yoongi added as though he suddenly remembered something.

“Now that I know that’s a thing, apparently, I’ll be fine.  Thanks though.” You waved as the doors closed.

You’d be fine. Yoongi reassured himself as he walked over to the studio. He was suddenly acutely aware of just how quiet the 14th floor was with no one else on it. He walked over to the large windows on the opposite side of the elevators. The snow was really coming down now, and the ground would soon be blanketed. He opened the shopping app and searched “snow gloves.” He took a deep breath, What am I doing? He walked over to the other side of the floor, punched in his passcode, and entered Genius lab, ready to get some writing done.

--

Fuck, you were so glad today was almost over. You walked into the apartment and immediately started a bath. You set up your laptop on the toilet lid. You were going to live your best life, watching Netflix in the bathtub. You had heard of such luxuries and were strangely excited by it. You headed up to the loft area, randomly grabbed a stuffed animal and threw it onto Yoongi’s bed. You grabbed the aspirin and smiled as you passed the Pikachu you had yeeted onto Yoongi’s comforter and imagined his annoyance when he discovered it. Ah, it made you laugh. You grabbed yourself some water from the kitchen and headed off to soak away your soreness and forget the day. You paused briefly to admire the snow coming down in full force now. So beautiful.  NEXT CHAPTER

@lidda  @anpanman-sonyeondan   @firefairy1  @cuteipat  @sugaslittlekookies  @janeelizabeth1216 @deeepvibes @gxldenhunny @livelyjay @niniita-ah @bobbyboops @honeysunandsoil @deathkat657 (i missed your tag for the last chapter, so sorry!!)