#but those are horrendously hard to edit

[a-very-fond-farewell]

comes in real late to announce that *deep breath* guess who finally finished ch.11???

[muirneach]

i kind of hate this article about the mats cause it’s just non stop ‘this band absolutely fucking SUCKED bob was the WORST their live shows were AWFUL and they gave HORRIBLE interviews and their albums FLOPPED’ as if rolling stone mag didn’t solidify their image as rowdy drunkards and help lead to their downfall. that said paul and tommy are perhaps the cutest ever and paul is literally me

[merlucide]

POOKIE I CUT MY HAIR AND THIS SOUNS STUPID BUT CAN I PLEASE HAVE A RIN, CHIGIRI, OTOYA , REO, HIORI AND KURONA REACTING TO READER CUTTING HER HAIR AROUND SHOULDER LENGH AND DOING CUTE LIL HAIR SLYES WITH PINK BOWS AND STUFF AHHHH WHEN SHE USED TO HAVE LONG HAIR?!!?

(If it’s too much characters just do a few 😭💀)

BLLK BOYS REACTION TO YOU CUTTING YOUR HAIR

Notes: OFC POOKIE🤩🤩 and hair slays so hard omg 🤭 slay the house downs boots Houston I’m deceased😍😍

characters: Rin, Chigiri, Otoya, Reo, Hiori, Kurona

warnings: cursing

Edit: oh my god I freaking misread this. ARE U KIDDING ME?!?! IM SO SORRY OMG. UH??? IM SO PISSED RN

ITOSHI RIN

He was stopping by your house to give back your hair tie (yes that is his excuse to see you)

He did not expect you have cut your hair and NOT tell him

Bc girl who do you think you are for not telling him?? 🙄 

He likes to feel involved😔

“You cut your hair.” No shit Sherlock 😐

lmao he kinda glares at you for not telling him. 

When yall cuddle (only way he’ll be in a better mood) he twirls you hair around and mumbles ‘it’s looks pretty on you’ 

And you’ll be like “what did you say?” 😯

“I didn’t say anything moron.” 😡

damn bro chill🙄🙄

Anywho he totally tries to do your hair, he’s not bad but like he’s not good

He can do basic braids, he tried French braiding and he got so pissed he couldn’t do it.

He went home and YouTubed how to French braid so next time he can’t do it 😘

CHIGIRI HYOMA

He thinks you look so pretty!! He really loves this look on you

He of course loved your hair before, but this one in his opinion, suits you better

He totally does your hair bc come on.

You want French braids? On it. Dutch? Ofc. Fishtail? Rope? Infinity? Carousel? Mermaid? Check, check and check mf 🤩

Beware, he yanks you head back if it’s tilted. He’s like a mom getting you ready for picture day 😭

He makes you do his hair after lol

OTOYA EITA

He looks at you hair and then back at you

“Your hair looks fire bro”

Bitch I’ll strangle you

Please, please don’t let him touch your hair.

He make make it look horrendous.

It will be full of knots when he’s finished. 

Seriously, don’t let him near your hair.

He’ll try to do piggy tails and they will be so uneven and wonky looking 😭

He blames his mistakes on you cus it’s “not the right kind of hair” 

🙄🙄

MIKAGE REO

He gets so excited to see your new look

Makes you do a spin and all :3

He’s literally fangirling you lmao

“Y/N-san you look amazing! This haircut suits you wonderfully!!”

He insists on buying you new hair accessories.

I’m sorry I know I use the ‘he’d buy u stuff’ sm 💀 

He’s actually pretty decent at doing your hair.

Puts a big ass bow in you hair lmao

HIORI YO

He loves you new look!

He tells you that it was time for something new and he loves it (not in a negative way)

he ruffles you hair lmao

like it was so pretty 🥲 why

he fixes it dw

Puts you hair in piggy tails and then y’all take those cute aesthetic couple pictures

KURONA RANZE

AH HE THINKS YOU LOOK JUST SO PRETTY!!! 

he’s so blushy and gushy cus he thinks it looks really good on you.

He flicks the bottoms out and spins you around so he can see everything.

Obviously he braids your hair🤭

he does like small braids into a jumbo braid

It looks weird but he just likes braiding lmao

you braid his hair after :3 

seriously idk why this took so long for the low quality that this is 💀💀

Made April 7th 2024

[mrs-monaghan]

omg all these ppl sharing tehir friends being tkkr/ynmnr remind me this bitch from my university dorm! you know we were dorm mates w this one girl. starting from fist day of semester I had this weird feeling about her (not related to her being a tkkr but her whole vibe was off) while talking about interests and hobbies we kinda realized we have similar tastes in certain things.

she told me that she’s into bts and we started talking about them. everything was fine until out of nowhere she told me that she believes that tkkr are a couple and I feel like she was trying to fish an answer out of me ykno about tkk dating. she was kinda trying to test me if that makes sense. after that I told her that I’m a hard core jm stan and that why I’m leaning more towards duos that include jm and I’m not kidding you shaz her whole demeanor changed and the look she gave me was just horrendous. and I didn’t even told her tkk couldn’t be real because jk and jm are literally dating but change was drastic!

after that she keep giving me cold feet and randomly showing “cute tkk art” which was humanloure or whatever that btchs name and when I told her to stop showing me weird things she became super defensive (I wasn’t try to be an asshole it was just getting weird the way she was trying to prove me tkkr is real by showing ugly ass fanarts ) when I told her about my discomfort she would say things like “but they are cute” “they look so good together” “anyways they are dating”

when she kept doing this I totally stopped talking to her and just ignored her ass that whole semester. we weren’t best friends or anything just dorm mates. i just wanted to share this because before all of this happened to me I just thought that there’s no way a irl tkkr would act the way they are acting in online spaces but those weirdos we saw on report pages are literally exist irl

Of course they do. I like to think online personalities are an extension of RL personalities. So of course this is how they are out there too!!

This is my Facebook cover photo, right?

A friend of mine from the Gallavich (shameless) fandom saw this and she was so excited! But at the time of seeing my cover photo she also noticed I kept sharing JK in my stories (dreamers had just dropped) and so she didn't know if I was gonna turn out to be vermin. So it took her months... months! To even DM me. She didn't do it until she saw me in the comment section of Jikook public group.

I asked her why she never told me sooner that she was Army and she told me that she didn't want to ruin our friendship. So it was better for her not to know. And you know what? That made sense to me. I was like, fair enough.

I mentioned before that my baby got attached to shot glass of tears, right? It was the only song that could get her to sleep. So one time I'm just pushing the pram around a shop and the cashier comes up to me like "is that JK?" And of course we started to gush. She told me that she was Taegi biased and immediately I went "are you a Taekooker?" You know, I didn't want to waste time. I needed to know quite early on. She told me she almost became one due to the edits on YouTube and that it was the reason she stepped away from the fandom. That's why she didn't even know about SGOT or GOLDEN. Coz she left when she saw she was starting to become one of them 😂

I commended her for it and currently we are friends. Her self awareness saved her basically 😂 So yes, anon. The way they are online is the way they are in person. That's why I always say a Vminkook concert wouldn't be the best idea 🤭🤭🤭

[thevestigeofvanillaan]

Bullworth Academy.

south park - bully scholarship edition (2006) au.

part one.

sorry this is SO delayed.. ive been so busy and my phone broke but hopefully this is good enough for now, the juicy stuff is coming soon guys😭👍.

content: swearing, stereotypes, hateful/discriminatory comments, groping of a minor, "y/n", smoking, >18 characters, alternate universe (characters aren't canon), alcohol, lot of dialog, talking through facial expressions (partial)

summary: at bullworth academy, you'll never get your way. beyond the cliques of jocks, nerds, greasers, preppies, bullies, and even non-clique students; are a bunch of assholes who attempt to make anyone's life harder with the snap of their finger. and when you met the people in the cliques, you realize how real it all was.

tags: @h-harleybaby @p1-f1 @hannah-h-pleb @milkyhere @cristuit @z-zephyrr @bro-flov-ski @59candelas

"Don't forget your suit case in the trunk!" Your mom said as she pulled in front of the large black gate.

"Not gonna." You reply, scoffing at her giggly tone. She's gonna run off and have a blast without having to take care of her teenage daughter, isn't she?

She pouts, "You know this is for the best, darling. I mean, you have been acting like a fool at your normal high schools; so maybe a change of scenery will do it for ya."

You sarcasticly smile and slam the door, walking to the trunk to grab your bag.

Grunting, as it's heavy with your needs for however long you'll be sleeping in those damn girls dorms.

"Need help with that?" An older woman asks, walking up.

You finally get it out, close the trunk and tap on the car hard so your mom gets the message to leave. "Uh, nah, I've got it."

"You've been expected, you're a week late Miss L/N." She says.

"Yeah, who are you?" You ask trying not to sound too disrespectful as she leads you through the gate and towards the main school building.

She cacks like a dog before whispering, "The one who's fucking the principal, little brat. Get inside." Practically shoving you into the building.

It was horrendously spirited on the second week of school. Football season was pretty huge for Bullworth. They went all out.

Getting acquainted to all this was weird to say the least. You'd gotten a tour of the school and the dorms by the same woman who never actually introduced herself.

"So, 'one who's fucking the principal'.." You start. "Thanks for the tour, but I need to get settled on my own now."

With a coy smile, she says "Farewell then. Bullworth will treat one like you good." She then winks and walks away.

Couldn't tell whether that was meant in a sweet way or not. You enter the dorms and attempt to walk to your room with the background full of moaning and coughing likely from smoking. You find your way to the noise of the coughing which sounds like it's in the direction of your room anyways.

How lucky, it was in your room. Two girls, one blonde, one with black hair, both smoking a joint.

You walk in awkwardly and set your suitcase somewhere, putting ur backpack on the floor as they watch your every move.

The blonde stands up. "Hi! You're the new girl.. you're Y/N, right?" She offers the blunt to which you take a hit as you nod.

"Sure." You cough and blow out some smoke.

"I'm Bebe, and this is Wendy." She points at the black haired girl. "This is Wendy's and your room, and I'm sure you'll get along. She can be shy sometimes, but once she's used to you and smoked up, you'll love her." She introduced.

Handing the blunt back and nodding at Wendy, you make your way to sit on the empty bed.

"You been helped around by Ms. Fuckface?" Bebe asks.

"I'm assuming so." You shrug and Wendy hands you the blunt.

Bebe giggles, "Let us introduce you to Bullworth."

The duo walks you around the premises.

"You kissed my Eric?!" A tall brunette cheerleader screams.

"He's not yours, bitch!" A similarly brunette girl screams back before plunging forward and grabbing the others' hair.

"Melody Adams, and Delilah.. nobody knows her last name." Bebe says as we walk past the cat fight.

Curiously asking, "Who's Eric?.. The.. guy they were yelling about.?" You ponder around.

Bebe hums. "He's actually new too. Wrestler, fucks around, but does good deeds to keep out of shit between the cliques."

"Dreamy." Wendy adds quietly and Bebe scoffs.

She points, "There he is! Eric!"

He walks over in all his pride. "Well hello there, who's this sweet piece of pie?"

"Quit it, Cartman. This is Y/N L/N. She just started today, we're getting her to know the place better." You wave as Bebe introduces you.

You notice that Wendy squeezes a finger of yours, and has a devious look on her face when you look at her. All you do is smile back

Eric chuckles. "Alls I know is don't get into shit with any of the cliques, keep your reputation good throughout all them and you'll be fine." He winks and walks off."

"Dreamy." Wendy repeats.

You giggle, "As if. Seems kinda extra.. and—"

"Horny, right?" Bebe interrupts.

"I guess." You shrug and watch him skate until you can't see him anymore.

The bell rings indicating its lunch time. You had both classes in the afternoon so you didn't have to worry until later.

"Let's go to lunch! Show you all the cliques." Bebe winks and grabs your hand, dragging you inside the school and to the cafeteria.

Once you're there, you see the groups of people wearing different uniforms. "Over there are the non-cliques, they for the most part leave people alone and are.. lone wolves. There's not that many so you'll see Eric, Kyle, Butters, and then a bunch of other unimportant people. But they're like, the trio of the non-cliques.. that can be us just.. guy version!"

Bebe went on a mission to deeply explain who everyone was before taking you to the non-clique table. "Hey guys!"

"Shut up, Bebe." That red head she called Kyle spoke with a mouth full of food.

Butters, the blonde wearing a pink shirt reaches out a hand, "Butters, it's uh, nice to meet you." He nervously smiles as you shake his hand.

"Y/N."

"Aren't you just adorable, 'Y/N'.." Kyle mocks before laughing.

Eric scoffs, "Leave her alone, man."

He only laughs harder before standing up, "Come on, Cartman. Let's go egg some prep scum houses."

Butters hastily follows but not before he gives an awkward wave goodbye as to say "nice meeting you".

You wave back and once they're far enough to where they can't hear, you ask "Why do you all call him Cartman?"

"It's not rare for Bullworth students to be known as their last names.. don't be surprised if you're called L/N a couple times or more." Bebe responds, drinking from a water bottle in-between sentences. "Vodka." She shrugs with a smirk. "Want some?"

Contemplating before taking a large sip, you stand up. "I'm gonna go for a walk, see you soon?"

"Later, L/N." Bebe winks and you wave to Wendy who returns it.

You walk around campus on your own, earbuds plugged in and music playing.

Eventually when you're done walking, the bell rings alarming to go to class, in which you make your way to.

Scoffing to see Kyle in the same Chemistry class as you. But at least you knew someone there.

Walking up to the teacher, saying "Hi, I'm Y/n. Where do I sit?"

"Ah," He smirks. "You're the new girl."

You nod and awkwardly smile at his weird facial expression.

He wraps an arm around your waist, which was odd but you were too stunned or scared.. or.. something to even move away. His hand moved up and down the side of your waist as he introduced you to the class.

"You can sit next to Stan, sweetheart. Stan, raise your hand so the pretty girl can see who you are." The teacher says and your face scrunches up.

You see a boy raise his hand, closer to the back of the classroom. You finally leave your teachers hold and walk over to Stan.

Stan only looks at you when you sit down. And once the teacher begins teaching, Stan whispers, "He's a weirdo.. seriously. The groping? Was that really at all necessary?"

Giggling slightly, you respond, "It was uncomfortable."

"Understably. Dude's got at least 15 years on you." He laughs quietly.

There's silence until he speaks again a few minutes later. "Do you got a pencil? Don't got one ever and I think there's gonna be a pop quiz today."

"Yeah, mom made sure to give me extras because 'you need to take notes'.." You scoff and reach for your bag to grab a pencil.

When you look up, you see a familiar pair of eyes staring into yours.

Kyle.

He looked fierce. And it was then when you got a good look at him. Scar on his left eye brow. Freckles among his face. And small yet noticable beauty mark below his right eye.

As you look down for just a moment you see how his arms are crossed. The rest of his body is facing diagonally, but his eyes are on you. His posture was laid back, and his legs were manspread.

At that, you make a dirty face as to say, "What are you looking at?". His face responds with his eyebrows raising, like he was cockily saying "You.", before he smirked.

His eyes fall down to your chest and his smirk only grows. Your curiosity leads you looking down, to see cleavage hanging out of the too tight uniform.

Mentally scoffing, you look up and quirk an eyebrow, to say "Like what you see?".

He nods slowly, and only one time with a grin.

You covered your cleavage with your hand, almost like saying "Too bad.".

Sitting up and handing Stan the pencil, saying, "Keep it."

He looked at it, then at you with a crooked smile. "Thanks."

Class ended after a ridiculously long wait. There was a pop quiz, which he didn't make you take since it was your first day.

As you leave the classroom, a familiar red head catches up to you, walking beside you. "What?" You ask.

"Can't walk with the new girl? Jeez." He scoffs sarcastically.

Giggling at first. "No, you can't walk with the new girl." You respond and breifly look at him. He raises both arms as to retreat, though he keeps walking. "What do you want?"

"Wanna walk you to your room. Is that a problem?"

"Sure is. You know if you get caught by any prefects you'll be in big trouble, right? Even I know that and I just got here."

He chuckles as you both exit the school building, making your way to the girls dorms. "I'm the star student of this school. I wouldn't get in trouble."

"Okay, 'star student', what's it mean when a girl says 'go away'?" You ask, not expecting an answer.

And he didn't give one. Just kept walking by your side until you reached the building. You watched as he looked around before walking in with a smirk.

To that, you were appalled. And now you're the one making sure nobody sees him in there.

Checking around to make sure no girls are walking around you quickly guide him to your room before shutting the door.

"Okay, why are you even here?" You ask genuinely.

He chuckles. "Hang out, get to know what the new girls motives are."

"Motives?" To that, you laugh. "I have no motivation or clear purpose of being here other than the fact that my mom hates me and wants me to stop getting kicked out of regular school systems. There's nothing different or 'new' about me. I don't even want to be here so would you just—"

He cuts you off by aggressively kissing you. "God, I thought you were quiet but you're just talk, talk, talk, aren't you?"

You couldn't seem to form a sentence that would even fit this scenario anymore. Only sitting down on your bed and staring at your shoes.

Not long later is when Kyle sits beside you, you could sense he was looking at you but you didn't want to look at his face. "Wanna know my motive?" He asks.

There's silence. "Do you?" He asks once more.

To which you respond, "I'm waiting."

"To kinda make like uh, a statement. A lifestyle. To change the Bullworth way to be.. Kyle's way. You know?"

"You're not always gonna get your way." You look at him. "Nobody does."

"Well what do you think im trying to do? I'm trying to make it so it can always go my way!"

You laugh. "You're an asshole. Is this supposed to make me like you? Because it's not working."

"No." Silence appears for longer. Nobody spoke for what felt like several minutes. But you noticed how when he was thinking his leg bounced rapidly up and down.

He finally stood up. "You wanna go somewhere?"

to be continued..

[cobwebcorner]

How to Character

Was reminiscing for the days when I, as a small teen, wrote horrendous zelda fanfic and how I really really wanted to be able to write everyone in character but I had no idea how. I ended up giving everyone one or two Quirks or Bits and that was it, that was their character. I made Skullkid a pervert and gave Ganondorf a gambling problem. It was the best I could do at 16. In service to past me, I thought I'd put together a ramble about how to write a pre-existing character In Character. Maybe it'll help someone who's just starting out.

Point 1: He wouldn't Fucking Say That Check the canon and determine how the character talks. Are they formal or informal? Do they use sayings from a particular region? Do they swear or not? In most cases older characters aren't going to be using the most hip slang, and will be a little more formal. Also, no one should be talking like a therapist (unless they are a therapist. Hannibal fandom gets a pass). Here's an example of a character voice breakdown: Albert Wesker speaks somewhat formally, is likely to use complex vocabulary or 'science-y' language (fucking complete local saturation goddammit) (but he does not do this as often as you'd think), and doesn't swear unless it's a dire situation. He also doesn't use slang.

Now there's another layer to dialog to consider too: directness, lying, euphemisms, and hypocrisy. These are things that can vary depending on which characters are talking, what they're talking about, and if they're in public or private. In general, you're more likely to be direct and truthful with friends and loved ones, while strangers are more likely to get told white lies, vague euphemisms, or to be redirected entirely off of sensitive topics. This isn't true in all cases, so it's another thing to watch out for in the canon. An example: Luis Serra and Leon Kennedy (Remake edition) are both very cagey with each other from the start. Leon has to badger Luis multiple times just to get an answer for why Luis is helping him. Luis is exceptionally good at dodging questions he doesn't want to answer, and for his part, Leon has no interest in explaining his mission or backstory to this shady guy.

Point 2: He Wouldn't Fucking Do That Here are some aspects to consider when plotting a character's actions.

Morality: What are the character's values? What are their hard lines in the sand, and what do they see as a gray area? What are their goals? How important to them are those goals, and what are they willing to sacrifice to reach them? What kinds of things can push them to break with their values, or even rewrite them completely?

Intelligence: This isn't just 'how smart are they' on a pure IQ level. How much do they think things through, versus acting on instinct? Do they panic? Do they have a plan or are they flying by the seat of their pants? Do they think quickly, or do they need time to process? Are they really confident about some inaccurate piece of information that could lead them to wrong conclusions (see also: distorted worldviews, best applied to villains)? What are their biases? Are they observant or do they miss a lot of things?

Emotions: Are they repressed or are they in touch with their feelings? Do they mask their feelings, or are they openly emotional? Do they compartmentalize? How much self-control do they have? Are they hot-tempered or cold? Once they've been angered, does it burn out quickly or do they hold a grudge for ages? What scares them, and how brave are they when they have to face those things? How about their emotional intelligence? Do they have any idea why they're acting the way they are, or are they not thinking about it? (It's fine and normal for you, the author, to understand how a character is feeling more than the character does. Also, more importantly, there's ways to convey how they're feeling other than just having the character say it out loud) It's better to think of all these things as sliders instead of modes.

Point 3: Shipping. Yeah I know why you're all here This is an area where we have to make up a lot of stuff ourselves. Either the canon doesn't dwell on the romances and leaves us lacking in detail, or the two characters never got together in canon (or, cough, never even met), so we have to figure out how they would work in a relationship by our lonesome. How do you do that while keeping people in character?

Step 1: build up each character's sexuality, their relationship with their sexuality/sex in general, their taste in other people, and how they react to feelings.

Example using canon reference: Ada Wong has a canonical soft spot for Leon Kennedy. You can then look at Leon's character traits / actions and use that to figure out what Ada's tastes are. She rarely expresses this softness openly, and enjoys teasing him and running off. From this, we can guess that she's probably not the type to settle down as a domestic housewife and invest in a serious, traditional long-term relationship. Example without canon reference: Vergil Sparda managed to make a son, but we've never seen him in a relationship of any kind and we know very little about Nero's mother (other than she was in a cult that worshiped Vergils' father so…there's some interesting implications). Instead, we can make guesses about Vergil's tastes based on what he values, as well as his own character traits. Vergil's a proud perfectionist who values power above all things. He is constantly driven to prove himself. So, it's a safe guess that he would be drawn to people who are strong fighters or otherwise highly skilled in their field, or people who boost his ego (again, see: one night stand with a woman from a cult that worshiped his father).

Building up what two characters' tastes are, as well as what things they might hold in common, is very useful for the 'getting together' stage. If you're shipping two characters, you probably already have an idea why you think they would work together. Just invest that into their characterization as they encounter each other.

Step 2: staying themselves while staying together I think it's tempting to start following a "this is what characters in love do" playbook once you've gotten your lovebirds together, instead of considering what the characters would really be like in a relationship. I see so many of those 'headcanon' posts going around that just sound like generic lists of behaviors instead of things a specific character would do based on their history and personality. I'm going to point back up to the 'emotions' paragraph and say that this is a really big thing to keep in mind when writing romances. Emotional expression versus repression and emotional intelligence play a huge role in how two characters will act and react to each other. Do the characters even realize what they're feeling for each other? Once they've accepted it, how do they act on it? Are their feelings more important than other goals in their life? Where does their new partner rank on their list of priorities?

By all means, let characters change a little around their partner. People have many facets and often shift what face is showing depending on who they're around, so someone who is loved and trusted will get to see a different side than Joe Nobody on the street. However, the change can't be so drastic it's unbelievable. Any really significant change in characterization needs to have work put in for it to happen. Also, try to avoid the tired trope of the magical healing cock. Relationships don't solve people's problems. If anything, they can add a lot of new complications.

Step 3: getting spicy As someone who finds 90% of written smut so boring I skim over it, let me just get up on a soap box for a minute and point out that using it as a form of character study makes it so much more interesting. Not every sex scene has to be about two characters doing everything right and having totally optimized sexy as possible sex with their flawless bodies. Let them goof off, let them mess up, let them banter, let them be weird and gross and human. Kink, especially, has a deep psychological aspect that is fun to explore with different characters. I keep a little file with some general characterization notes for my major players, and part of that is a list of what they're into, what they're 'meh' about, what is a hard "no" for them, and why. It's a fun exercise.

[binxyu]

Part 2: The memories you two had burnt into ash as you threw away the remains of the relationship you had with Jungkook. Jungkook seemed to hate Jimin but everything else about him remained painfully similar. You, on the other hand, grew a mask that dug into your skin so horrendously that no one could recognize you. Neither one of you remembered the other and yet fate seemed to have other plans.

>>Pairing: Jeon Jungkook (dom) x fem!reader (sub) | fuckboy!jk x witch!reader

>>Word Count: 7.7k

>>Genre: Mini Series / Smut & Angst

>>Warnings/Kinks: Arguments, breast play, creampie, fingering, oral (receiving), praise, unprotected sex, witchcraft

>>Author’s Note: Hi guys! It’s been a pretty rough year for me so far and i’m so sorry i’ve been inactive for so long. Life really got in the way but i’m hoping to get back into it slowly. I’ll be working on requests soon and thank you for supporting me! I hope you enjoy this long overdue second part to slow burn and if you enjoy my writing i would really appreciate a tip. Woman in STEM struggling here fr :( Love you guys!

Memories of you swarmed his mind and Jungkook desperately tried to hold onto you as your body turned into ash, flying away from his grasp. Every kiss, every night together, and every study session gone like the wax of the candle you had burnt. He could remember the event but never who it was with.

It was similar for you, like someone had reached their hand inside your skull to rip out every precious memory you had of him. The pain still somehow lingered even after you had no idea who you were mourning over and witchcraft became a cause of pain to you. Your entire personality had changed overnight. Even Taehyung could only see glimpses of your past self.

Everyone around you remembered what you and Jungkook shared but they just assumed you two broke it off and moved on. Taehyung remained friends with Jungkook but you two never seemed to cross paths.

“Tae, do you know where my lab report papers went?”, you yelled from your bedroom, shoving papers all over the floor as you searched for the damn thing you had been working on for days. The dark circles underneath your eyes were evident from that work. Typically, you’d just pull up the papers on your laptop and print them out again but the papers you were looking for had the peer edits on them you needed to edit it.

“No clue. Maybe ask Namjoon if he has them. You’ve been pretty forgetful lately so maybe you left them the last time you two studied together”, Tae suggested, leaning against the frame of your bedroom door as he watched you. He was eating one of the cookies you had bought the other day when you were stocking up on comfort foods. Midterms were kicking your ass, especially after switching your major to biology.

Taehyung tried to convince you that you never liked those terribly hard advanced math and science classes but you insisted it was a much more practical major in comparison to your theology one. Besides, you couldn’t even stomach the idea of continuing learning religion after your own had hurt you so much.

“Can you take a second to breathe? Damn woman”, Tae huffed, shoving the last bit of cookie into his mouth and swallowing it in what looks to be a single chew before he’s walking over to you. There’s sweat dripping down your forehead and your hands are shaking in sheer panic. He’s never seen you so miserable before.

“Tae, I need to get this done. If I don’t find those damn papers I’m done for”, even you were aware you sounded more than a little dramatic but it did feel like the end of the world. Tae just nodded and rubbed your shoulders, trying to get even a smidge of the worked up tension out of you.

“Okay okay. I’ll call Namjoon and if he doesn’t know where it is then I’ll help you look for it”, you finally nodded and sat down on your bed, waiting for Tae to call your friend. His phone barely rang once before Namjoon picked up, his voice on speaker so that you could listen to it.

“Hey Nam, do you happen to have Bae’s lab report? She’s freaking out and needs it tonight”, you had no idea where Tae got the idea of Bae for your nickname as it was a recent development. He said you were the “Bae to his Tae” which you said was stupid but he just waved you off and it stuck.

“Oh, let me look. Maybe I accidentally grabbed it”, you could hear Namjoon shuffling through his backpack. Your hands were clasped so tightly together that your fingers were turning red.

“Here it is! I’ll bring it right over. Sorry about that”, you let out the loudest sigh of relief you’ve ever had. Tae laughed and thanked Namjoon before hanging up. He looked at you and then around your room, still disappointed at how barren it looked without all your candles, crystals, and collectibles. They were pretty and brightened the room up.

Now it was just a dull white room with a dull black bed and desk. No color.

“See? You need to stop freaking out. It’s bad for you”, Tae ruffled your hair and his boxy grin filled up your view. You despised that grin. Not because it wasn’t cute because it was. It’s because that grin held so much mischief and trouble behind it.

“Stop that”, you pushed him away with your hand on his forehead and he stumbled backwards.

“What? I didn’t do anything”, he huffed, crossing his arms like a toddler having a temper tantrum.

“Kim Taehyung. I’m your best friend and I know that grin well”, you glared at him, crossing your arms back as if you were scolding him.

“I was just thinking that after you were done with your report thingy we could go clubbing”, he suggested, puppy dog eyes already at the ready. You quickly averted your gaze.

“Tae, I can’t. I have so many things to do. Midterm week, remember?”, Tae put both of his hands on each of your cheeks and squished them together, making you look at him.

“Sureee but it’s one night. Come on”, Tae nudges you with his shoulder, wiggling his eyebrows playfully to attempt to loosen you up. You finally sighed and nodded your head.

“Help me edit this paper and I’ll go with you”, he nods enthusiastically and grabs the papers out of your hands, running to your desk to begin helping you edit. You couldn’t help but laugh and soon enough the night came.

Jungkook showed up to the club with yet another bruise purpling his cheek, replacing the one that had just freshly healed. Yet another fight to add to the list Jimin had made up in his mind. The lit cigarette in Jungkook’s hand was something he never imagined to see considering how important his ex-friend had considered his health before.

Jimin watched as Jungkook settled into one of the seats, elbows on his knees as he took a puff from the cigarette. He took a deep inhale of it, let it settle into his chest, and then blew it out. He had new tats all up his right arm, an eyebrow piercing, and a lip piercing. If Jimin was still his friend then he’d tell him how proud he was.

Jimin finally looked away when Jungkook finished smoking, throwing the cigarette to the ground and stepping on it with his black boots. The fire went out and he picked it up to put in the trash next to the seat he was in. He looked completely different and acted so differently.

A woman seemed to notice those differences too as she approached Jungkook in a red dress that was skin tight, showing off every curve. She quite literally fell into his lap, arms wrapping around his neck as if they had known each other for years. Like this was instinct.

Soon enough, they were making out on the couch. Jungkook’s big tattooed hands holding her face as she started to grind against his thigh. It was so inappropriate that you had to avert your eyes as soon as you saw it.

“Ew, Tae I already want to leave”, you were going to cut off your best friend’s circulation if you kept up the tight grip you had on his arm. It was like you thought he was going to disappear any moment.

“Bae, you can let go of my arm now. No one is going to eat you alive”, Tae laughed and you finally loosened your grip when you noticed his skin was turning red. Taehyung didn’t even question the fact that you didn’t bring up Jungkook. He just assumed seeing him makeout with someone else was too much to talk about.

“Whatever. Can we dance now?”, you weren’t a total debbie downer and Tae knew that as he guided you to the dance floor, immediately starting to dance along with you. The rose quartz necklace you always wore bounced against your chest as you swayed and jumped along with the music. It was the first time in ages that Taehyung could say you looked happy.

He wasn’t the only one to notice.

From his spot on the couch, Jungkook couldn’t keep his eyes off that very same necklace. His hands were on the woman on his lap but his eyes were on you. Something seemed to keep his gaze trapped as he watched the sweat go down your face as your eyes closed. You were stunning and felt so familiar but he couldn’t place why his body called for you.

There was a woman just as beautiful on his lap currently, ready to abide by his every wish and command and, yet, he wanted you. His head tilted as he tried to find a reason for it until finally the woman kissing his neck realized his hands had stopped moving along her thighs.

“Hey, what are you looking at?”, she asked, getting off of him to stand in front of him, hands placed firmly on her hips.

“Sorry sweetheart, I think I’ve changed my mind”, he gave a half-hearted smile and she scoffed before walking away, looking for another man to seduce for the night. He couldn’t blame her. Sex was fun.

“Tae, don’t you dare leave me”, by the time you had opened your eyes to reality, you noticed that your best friend was dancing with another girl. He gave an innocent boxy grin to you and you knew you were doomed for a lonely night on the dance floor. You shook your head but waved him along and he went to dance with her, hands placed on her hips.

You knew it was bound to happen considering this is what always happens when Tae takes you clubbing.

You were about to walk away to the bar when you felt someone close to your back, stopping you in your tracks before the person tapped your shoulder. You turned around to see the guy from the couch towering over you. Now that you were closer to him, you could see the tattoos crawling up his arm. From the brief look you had, you could make out an eye, some words, and multiple shapes on his hands.

“Can I help you?”, you raised an eyebrow, immediately crossing your arms to look more guarded. You had to stop the little habit you had developed where you death gripped the necklace around your neck when you were anxious. The gaze of the man in front of you had made you feel small and it was unwelcomed.

“I was wondering if you were free tonight, princess”, something crawled up your spine when he said princess.

“Sorry, I don’t do that”, you shook your head, knowing he just wanted to have sex with you. You had to admit that he was attractive but you knew your worth despite how desperate you were for some affection. Being a woman in STEM was rough for sure.

“Aw, what a pity. That’s okay. I just want you to know you’re gorgeous”, he smiled and your heart skipped a beat, your arms involuntarily falling to your side. He had two bandages on his forehead, covering what looked to be a massive scar. The bruise on his cheek didn’t help hide his devilish demeanor either but yet his eyes screamed playful and innocent like an angel. He’s definitely dangerous and you shouldn’t be near him.

He was about to turn around and your brain screamed at you not to but your hand seemed to grab his arm before you could convince yourself otherwise. It felt like hands were gripping your body, holding you in place as he spun back around to look at you again. It was such a foreign feeling to not have control over yourself and you almost thought of a supernatural reason before you shut that down.

“What’s your name?”, you looked up at him, still holding onto his arm. He smirked and leaned down so you could hear him better over the blasting music, coming face to face with you.

“Jungkook”, he gently removed your hand from his arm and kissed it, raising an eyebrow as you repeated the name in what looked like a trance.

“Jungkook. Okay”, you nodded and he chuckled, looking down at your lips and he bit his own. Jungkook looked like it was ripping him apart not to touch you.

“Oh, hey Jungkook”, you felt the arm of your best friend land on your shoulders before you heard him. No girl in sight with him and you would have to remember to ask him what happened with her.

“Hey Taehyung, what brings you here?”, Jungkook looks irritated that he was interrupted but smiles at your friend nonetheless. You were beyond confused on how the two knew each other.

“___ needed a night out, so I brought her here”, Taehyung gestured with his head down to you and Jungkook looked down at you again.

“Yeah, and we were just leaving”, you smiled at Jungkook and grabbed Tae’s hands to drag him out of the club. If you stayed under that man’s hungry gaze any longer then you might’ve ripped his clothes off instead.

“You literally introduced us to each other, Bae”, Taehyung rubbed his eyes, obviously too sleepy to deal with your shit. It was the morning after you two had gone clubbing and your best friend was half asleep at your kitchen table. He was waiting for breakfast, eyes half closed as he leaned his chin against his hand.

“But I’m telling you I don’t know him”, of course you had to ask about Jungkook considering he was the most handsome man you had ever seen. Bruises and all.

“Well, I’m telling you you do. You two were disgustingly in love at one point”, Taehyung fake vomited and got up to take the spatula from you. Obviously he was just joking with you cause you had no recollection of the tattooed stranger. But, as you watched Tae sleepily flip the pancakes, you wondered why you did find him so familiar.

“Whatever you say. I have to go to the chem lab now”, you laughed and slung your backpack over your back. Taehyung turned to look at you and sighed before flicking the rose quartz around your neck, causing it to sway.

“Where do you think the necklace came from? It certainly didn’t just randomly manifest on your doorstep”, he turned back to the stove and your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. You didn’t have time to process what he said before you were out the door heading to your lab. You couldn’t afford to be late over a man you barely know.

Lab seemed the same as usual. You grabbed the safety goggles you had to wear every time before you walked over to your table, setting up your laptop, a calculator, and some paper in case you had to show work. Time passed by as you waited for the class to start and your lab partner never showed up.

Your TA came over and raised an eyebrow to which you responded with a simple shrug. You really didn’t want to have to do this lab alone.

“Jungkook, since your partner also isn’t here then you can partner with ___ today”, your TA called out to a man on the other side of the room. Your jaw almost dropped when it was the same Jungkook from the club that stepped out from behind another table and walked over. He somehow even pulled off the goofy looking safety goggles.

“Long time no see ___”, Jungkook chuckled, getting some gloves out of the box set up at your table. He rolled up the sleeves of his sweater, revealing the ink that you had briefly scanned over the night prior. Talk about mouthwatering.

“Yeah, guess fate really does exist”, you pull the gloves onto your hands before you start looking over the instructions for the lab. You were trying so hard to ignore the stare that was obviously coming from your lab partner.

“Are you going to start the experiment or just stare at me the whole time?”, one thing you were not going to play with is your grade.

“Not sure. Are you going to give me your number?”, he raised an eyebrow at you, obviously not kidding. How annoying.

“Seriously? Just do the damn work”, you huffed in annoyance. You already had a massive headache and this playboy was not making it any better.

“Taehyung said you needed to destress. I can help with that”, he suggested and you couldn’t help but scoff as you poured the solution into the well.

“Really? Cause, at the moment, you’re just causing more of it”, you shook your head and shoved the instructions in his direction, “turn on the computer”. He did as you asked as slow as possible just to irritate you.

“That could change if you give me your number”, you could tell he would’ve backed down if you told him to but you didn’t know if you wanted him to.

“Fine”, you sighed and held your hand out. Jungkook grinned and placed his phone into your hand, watching as you reluctantly put your number in there.

“Sweet, now watch me finish this in thirty minutes tops, sourpuss”, he confidently said once he had his phone back and you shook your head as another chill went up your spine. It was like a ghost’s finger was tracing it.

“Bet”, you stated before you solely focused on the experiment.

Jungkook was like an irritating candle that wouldn’t go out. You kept trying to extinguish that flame he seemed to have for you with no luck. The wick kept relighting itself and it seemed he wouldn’t give up on you. You couldn’t tell if you were just his next sex target or if he genuinely wanted to know you. Probably the former.

It finally got to the point that you resorted back to your tarot cards, something that you swore you’d never use again. You’d only do it once for some clarity and you’d throw the damn things away.

As you shuffled the deck, you felt some of your stress naturally melt away. You pictured Jungkook in your head as you shuffled them, waiting for some cards to fly out. You expected it to naturally take a while since you haven’t used the cards but three cards immediately fell out of the stack.

You laid them out and put the other cards to the side. What stared back at you was the lovers reversed, the high priestess reversed, and the wheel of fortune. You scratched your head as you looked at them, wondering why those were the ones to fall out. It’s like your brain was clouded as you tried to place them together.

The lovers reversed was for the loss of a lover that you can’t seem to remember and the high priestess reversed is the loss of an inner voice which is likely your connection to your religion. At least one makes sense. But, as you stare at the wheel of fortune, you’re baffled even more. Fate.

It couldn’t be a coincidence, right? You and Jungkook had just talked about fate in your lab the other day.

“Oh, fuck you. Just confusing me more. What do the lovers reversed have to do with him?”, you rested your forehead against the table as another throbbing headache started to form. You couldn’t tell if it was from the Jungkook situation, the lack of sleep, water, and food, or stress.

You have an inkling that you gave up witchcraft for a reason tied to that lovers card but you didn’t want to cause the headache to worsen by thinking about it.

“Any leads there detective?”, you stood straight up just to see Namjoon standing in your doorway. His eyes scanned the cards spread out on your desk and he almost smiled before you quickly started putting them away.

“Not really. I got the lovers reversed and I have no idea why”, Namjoon didn’t really know the meaning of the card but if he did then he would definitely have the answer to why you got it.

“You’ll figure it out. I’m sure”, he smiled half-heartedly as he leaned against the door frame. He and Taehyung were about to work together on Namjoon’s latest newspaper article.

“Thanks, Nam”, you smiled at him before you grabbed your bag and stood up from your desk chair.

“Where are you heading?”, Namjoon tilted his head, moving out of your way as you left your bedroom.

“To the library. I’m going to do some investigating”, you smiled at him before leaving the apartment, closing the door behind you. You could only hope that he and Tae wouldn’t destroy the place while you were gone.

The walk to the library always felt weird to you, your feet dragging behind you as if the world didn’t want you to go. You couldn’t really listen to that instinct though considering you couldn’t really focus in your room on schoolwork. Plus, the library has always been a safe place for you.

The door creaked as you pushed it open, revealing the familiar layout of books in front of you stacked neatly on each shelf. You really didn’t want to go to the section you needed to go to for answers but you allowed your feet to naturally lead you there.

The words “THEOLOGY” stared back at you as if to taunt you. You let out a huff and suddenly a splitting headache erupted, causing you to grip your head as the horrendous pain engulfed it. Rumbling began to fill your ears and you looked up to see the bookshelves under the sign shaking horribly, books falling onto the ground. You blinked and they stopped moving, as if it had never happened to begin with.

The headache went away just the same but one of the books that had fallen caught your eye at the bottom of the bookshelf. It was simply titled “love magick” in bright pink, standing out against its solid black cover. It looked old, dust layering it and, as you picked it up to inspect it, most of the dust flew up into the air.

“Sourpuss? What are you doing here?”, fate really did like to fuck you over, didn’t it?

“Oh, nothing”, you quickly hid the book into your arm, hiding the cover as unsuspiciously as you could, “just doing some research for a paper”.

“Well, that’s boring. Want to know what is not boring though?”, Jungkook raised an eyebrow as he stepped closer to you, causing you to subconsciously step back until your back was against the bookcase behind you. The scene felt oddly familiar. Something was holding you in place as Jungkook finally stopped in front of you, chest pressed against your own.

“Do I even want to know?”, you tried to sound confident but your voice came out shaky.

“You”, your face twisted into confusion as a Jungkook that looked much younger than the one in front of you flashed inside your head saying the very same thing. Jungkook couldn’t understand why you suddenly dropped your book and shook your head, trying to think of a reason. You didn’t even know Jungkook back then, so how did you know what he looked like?

“What’s wrong?”, he looked down to see the book you had dropped, about to crouch down to get it but he read the title before he did.

“Why are you reading about love magick?”, Jungkook tilted his head and finally crouched down to pick up the book, turning it around in his hands to figure out why you would want such a thing. “That’s an odd research topic for a STEM major”.

“I have a humanities class, idiot”, you scoffed, quickly trying to come with an excuse. You reached out to grab the book back but Jungkook held it high enough out of your reach.

“Really? Cause it would make a lot of sense why I feel this pull to you if you’ve been doing some kind of love spell on me”, you felt almost offended that he could think such a thing and your patience hit an all time low.

“That is not what’s happening, Jungkook! I don’t understand the pull either. Yes, I practiced witchcraft before but I gave it up. I just wanted to find answers”, you sighed, trying to take deep breaths between words. Jungkook looked confused, slowly lowering the book back down and you grabbed it from his grasps to hold it close to your chest.

“Why’d you give it up?”, he was talking to you but you noticed his eyes were set on the crystal around your neck, the bright pink reflecting in his brown eyes. You tried to find an answer to his question but couldn’t find one just like you couldn’t give an answer to Taehyung when he asked. You just threw your stuff out with no explanation.

“I don’t know. It just felt wrong to do it. Like it ripped something away from me”, you shrugged, opening the book to start flipping through the pages.

“Do you think you did something to me?”, he raised an eyebrow, watching the pages with you and he could barely see the recipes on the paper due to all the words filling them. Warnings, rules, and everything else under the moon seemed to be written in there. Jungkook had no idea how you could read that stuff.

“I’m not sure but it could explain why Taehyung seems to think we knew each other before. I just don’t know why I would do such a thing”, Jungkook finally got fed up with the crystal swaying back and forth, distracting him and he grabbed the damn thing to stop it. You tried to jump back from the sudden contact just for the bookcase to stop you in your tracks.

He seemed to freeze in place, hand tightly grasping the rose quartz. The memories seemed to rise from the dead, building up from the ash inside his brain. You were just staring at him with wide eyes as his cold eyes slowly started to well up with tears. You had no idea how you had upsetted him but you just stayed still in fear that you would make it worse.

“Jungkook? Are you okay?”, you looked up at him and his arms slowly wrapped around you, holding you so tight that you thought he would break your ribs.

“I know you don’t remember but just stay still a minute, princess”, Jungkook buried his face into your shoulder, rubbing your back as if he had known you forever.

“O-Okay”, your voice cracked, awkwardly rubbing his back in return. You never thought you would see such a fighter in such a fragile state.

“Ok, princess I need you to hold this”, he pulled back and held up the crystal to you. You didn’t understand considering you had touched that thing multiple times.

“Alright?”, you reached up and touched it with your finger to find that, like you expected, nothing happened.

“Nothing? Hmm, wrap your hand around it”, he gripped your hand and made you grip it just like he had, holding your hand on his own to keep it in place. You felt more from his hand than the necklace.

“Still nothing. What happened, Jungkook?”, you ripped your hand from his, getting a little freaked out from the sudden contact. Jungkook was into you but he never initiated physical contact past the club.

“I remember everything. We did know each other before the club. You’re the reason I know Taehyung”, you couldn’t deny that that checks out considering Taehyung had told you that the morning after the club.

“Really? Then, why can’t I remember?”, you frowned, looking down at the necklace as if it would suddenly work for you.

“You did a bond-breaking spell. The necklace must be connected to why you did it or something, right?”, Jungkook raised an eyebrow and you guessed that also makes sense since Taehyung said Jungkook gave it to you it.

“Listen, I know it’s confusing right now but we’ll figure it out, okay?”, he gently put his hands on your shoulders and you could see the sincerity in his eyes.

“Okay, do you remember anything that I had the night I did the spell?”, you raised an eyebrow, grabbing Jungkook’s hand to drag him out of the library and towards your apartment. You had to have done the spell there considering candles were needed for that spell.

“Not particularly”, you could tell he was deep in thought even though he was staring at you, probably trying to make up for the lost time you two had.

You began to go through the process of a bond-breaking spell in your head. Candles, carve the initials, tie the rope, and burn. Candles, carve the initials, tie the rope, and burn.

“That’s it! Burn!”, you stopped in your tracks, turning to look at Jungkook. He looked even more confused than before.

“You know nothing, do you? I had to burn the candles which means I used a lighter, right?”, you asked as if he could answer and you continued on your way, not even letting him answer before he was being dragged behind you again.

“Taehyung! Do you know where my lighter is?”, you stopped using the thing when you gave up witchcraft since you had no use for it. You had no idea what Tae had done with it after you gave it to him to use. He could use it more than you.

“Uh, why?”, he turned around on the couch along with Namjoon, both of them staring at you and a wide-eyed Jungkook. They looked at each other and then back at you both.

“I think I did a bond-breaking spell on Jungkook and I”, Taehyung just looked at you with a blank stare, having no idea what that meant, “aka I made us forget about each other”. You rolled your eyes.

“Oh, well that explains a lot. Why would you do that though?”, he tilted his head and Namjoon couldn’t help but be curious too. You looked at Jungkook along with them. He looked absolutely guilty.

“You have to listen all the way through cause it is going to sound bad at first”, he gently let go of your hand just in case and you all nodded, staring at him eagerly.

“Jimin and I were obviously close friends before and he dared me to try to take ___ out because he had some weird vendetta against her due to her religion. It started out as a deal when I started to talk to you and when you were tutoring me”, your face scrunched up at the knowledge that you were being played around with. No wonder you did the spell. You had to trust Jungkook though.

“I realized, though, that I really did like spending time with you. You made me a better person and student and I think I made you more confident in your religion which explains why both of those things were stripped away after the spell. Anyways, I only continued talking to Jimin to get the necklace as a gift for you but you overheard us talking and misunderstood. You did the spell before I could explain”, it seemed like Jungkook said it all in one breath but you understood enough for relief to flood through you. Your hand instinctively held onto the necklace.

“Wow, that’s a lot”, Namjoon blinked a few times like his brain couldn’t keep up with all the information.

“Yeah, for real. Now, let me try to remember where I put that lighter”, Tae jumped up and started rummaging through drawers in your kitchen. You couldn’t focus much on him though with all the information that was just thrown at you.

“Found it!”, it had probably been after a few minutes of you and Jungkook just staring at each other before Taehyung ran over with the white lighter in his hands. He stopped and held it out to you like it was a fragile item.

“Thank you. Hopefully this works”, you smiled weakly at Jungkook and he smiled back, trying to offer some courage. You finally picked up the lighter, warmth flooding into your hands and up your arms before your own memories started to reappear. Jungkook held onto you as you started to become overwhelmed, shaking where you stood. The feeling you had before the spell came flooding back.

Your heart begged for Jungkook just like your body did before.

You pressed your cheek against Jungkook’s chest, gently punching him with your fist over and over again.

“You’re such an asshole”, you mumbled and he laughed, wrapping his arms around you. His chin ended up on top of your head.

“How am I the asshole?”.

“For not just asking me to be your girlfriend in a normal way”, you sighed, knowing that all of this could have been avoided.

“I’m sorry”, Jungkook’s heart swelled as he kept reliving all of your memories together in his head. He gently ushered with his head for Taehyung and Namjoon to leave and they nodded, gathering their belongings before heading out the door.

“For importantly, though, change your major back to theology. You’re miserable, princess”, you raised your head to look at him, an eyebrow raised.

“Your makeup doesn’t really hide the eyebags”, he smiled apologetically, trying to explain how he knew as best as he could.

“Yeah, I know. I’ll change back”, you smiled, just staring up at what you now know is someone meant to be in your life.

“Good cause I was definitely prepared to take your calculator or something if I needed to”, Jungkook smiled and you didn’t respond, too lost in the memories that didn’t seem to stop. Some were much more distracting than others.

And Jungkook certainly wasn’t helping when one of his fingers was absentmindedly circling your hip bone under your shirt, the fabric having risen up a bit.

“Jungkook”, his eyes moved to follow you as you looked up at him, his finger never stopping the shapes he was drawing unknowingly. He seemed so lost in thought that he barely registered that you were leaning up to kiss him.

“Jungkook, baby, I can’t reach”, your hands cupped his cheeks and he finally snapped out of his trance, looking at you below him. You really couldn’t because of how tall he was, especially since he was wearing boots.

“Oh, sorry princess”, he chuckled and finally leaned down to mesh your lips together, electricity sparking through you both and his hands traveled higher up to your rib cage. Your body shivered in response, moaning into his mouth. Jungkook pulled back in shock, wondering what could have elicited such a response.

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s been a while”, you pouted and he just smiled, continuing to make shapes in your skin.

“I think this time I should make sure you never forget me”, he grinned and leaned down to cup the backs of your thighs with his hands, lifting you up effortlessly. Almost naturally, your legs wrapped around his waist.

“How do you plan on doing that?”, you run your fingers through his black hair, realizing it was much longer than before. You liked how curly it had become with the length.

“Well, if you will allow it, I want to treat you right this time”, Jungkook kissed the tip of your nose and you couldn’t help but nod. You had never seen such a sweet side to him and you were curious what that could be like in the bedroom. Especially considering you had not hooked up with anyone else after him.

“Please, Jungkook. But, I need you to know I haven’t done it since then”, he nodded and laid you down on your bed gently, hovering over you. It was a scene you’d love to get used to again.

“That’s okay. I’ll take it slow and if anything hurts please let me know, okay?”, you immediately nodded and Jungkook started to gently lift your shirt up until it stopped right below your breasts.

“God, I remember all the places I wanted to kiss you. I should’ve”, he sighs, pupils blown out as he takes you in.

“Really? Show me”, you were curious as you watched the man lean down, pressing his lips against the hip bone he had been circling earlier. You gasped as he suddenly bit down on the area and then licked it like he was soothing the pain.

“Here? Was this where my finger was?”, you felt yourself getting light-headed from both how close Jungkook was and from the aftermath of your memories and feelings coming back. “Princess”, his mouth moved upwards, teeth grazing against your skin until he made it to the lower part of your ribcage. “Here?”, you were so wet as you were focused on the past things Jungkook had done to you.

“Sweetheart, pay attention”, Jungkook began to push the fabric of your shirt a little higher and sucked on the underside of your boob. You immediately snapped out of the library memory that was playing in your head. Your hands were gripping his shoulders and you hadn’t even realized. “Here?”.

“Uh, yes. Well, no”, you shook your head to try to regain the past few moments back. “Oh, it was the first one!”, Jungkook chuckled at how excited you got, his hands pulling the shirt and bra off of you to throw off to the side. You shivered from how intensely he was looking at you from your chest, eyes locked on you.

“Do you remember when you realized you liked me?”, you asked, realizing Jungkook was now distracted. His eyes were darting from your breasts to your face, breathing shallow.

“Remember what?”, he finally asked, not even paying attention as he started to trace a finger around the birthmark on your ribcage.

“When you started to like me”, his hand came up to cup your breast and you instantly clenched around nothing.

“Ever since I laid eyes on you. Both times”, he looked up at you, eyes glazed over with so much lust and love that you were almost convinced this wasn’t Jungkook looking at you.

His eyes roamed until they were on the small of your back, pushing there gently to arch your back. You watched as he fit one of your breasts into his mouth, sucking on it as you rubbed your thighs together. You never noticed how sensitive your nipples were until they hardened under Jungkook’s tongue. Jungkook groaned and you looked down to notice he was stroking his cock between every breath he took between sucking your tits, watching the hard points of your nipples.

“Princess, I think I’ve changed my mind”, you were about to frown, wondering what you did wrong. Jungkook rested his head against your sternum, looking down at your body. “I think my favorite color must be red now”, he said as his finger trailed along the waistband of your underwear peeking out from over your skirt. He moved his finger down to push the skirt down your legs, shoving it off the bed along with your shirt.

You let out a sigh of relief and Jungkook smirked as his finger moved down your panties, grazing over your clit and down to the wet spot in the fabric. “Damn, princess”, he quietly whispered and your cheeks heated up at the knowledge that you were way too swollen and wet for how little he has done. “Your body really did miss me, huh?”, Jungkook looked up at you and you just nodded, too overwhelmed to speak.

He moved the fabric of your panties to the side, his finger getting soaked between your folds and he slowly started to sink the digit into your entrance. There was no resistance and Jungkook smiled at how you clenched around the finger, trying to make sure the pleasure wouldn’t leave.

“Fuck, you are so beautiful”, the words barely reached your ears as you closed your eyes, leaning against the pillow below you as pleasure erupted through you. You could feel Jungkook’s lips trailing along your stomach as he slowly added another finger, stretching you out more. His fingers were big and you had to open your legs further to make room. His other hand began to circle shapes on your hip.

“Relax, sweetheart”, your hands immediately gripped his arms when he curled his fingers just right inside of you, your mouth hanging open as pleasure went up your spine. He smiled at the sight, continuing to thrust into that spot. “There it is”, your nails were digging into his skin but Jungkook didn’t mind one bit. He only had one goal in mind and that was to get you prepped for him, resulting in his face slowly going lower down your body.

You didn’t really notice until you felt his warm tongue press against your clit, causing you to clench around his fingers and let out a gasp. Your hands moved to grip the sheets when Jungkook moved his own to hold your thighs apart, feeling them shake within his grasp. You could feel the knot in your stomach tighten up and you were clenching tightly around Jungkook’s fingers, barely allowing him to move them.

“I’m gonna cum! Fuck, Jungkook”, he kept his speed steady, swiping his tongue back and forth on your bundle of nerves until you’re cumming all over his fingers. He slowly pulled them out, letting you ride the orgasm. Embarrassment fills you as you look down to see his digits completely soaked in your arousal. Your chest rises and falls quickly as you calm down from your high.

“Can you handle more, baby? Can I fuck you?”, he’s gently rubbing your sore thighs as he looks down at you, waiting patiently for a response as you catch your breath. You move your hands to rub his arms, letting him know you’re okay.

“Yeah, please fuck me”, you nod and Jungkook kisses your forehead as he pulls down his pants and boxers. You watch as he starts pumping his cock with his hand, quickly being reminded of how big he is. Your mouth practically waters at the sight, watching as precum starts to leak from the tip.

He pushes himself between your thighs, aligning his cock with your entrance and the tip is pressing against your entrance.

“Are you ready? Let me know if it’s too much”, you nod and Jungkook leans down further against you, allowing you to wrap your arms around him as an anchor before he’s pushing himself in slowly. The burn of the stretch is worse than usual and your nails dig into Jungkook’s skin as you wince.

“Jungkook, hurts”, he immediately stops, looking down at you with concern. You wrap your legs around his waist and the new angle helps a little bit with the stretch.

“Just wait a second. I’m okay”, you smile reassuringly and he nods, pressuring his forehead against yours as he relishes in how you feel.

“Princess, you’re so tight and warm”, he sighs and you smile before you’re kissing him, getting used to the stretch he was providing you. You pulled back and gave Jungkook a nod. He slowly started to push more inside until he bottomed out, completely pressed against you.

“Can I move, princess? Or do you need more time?”, he gently pushed your legs up against your chest.

“You can move”, you nodded and looked down, watching as his cock completely came out of you just to go all the way back in as Jungkook moved. A bulge formed in your stomach every time he went back inside and you could’ve cum just at the sight of that.

“Fuck, I forgot how good you take my cock”, he groaned, watching the same scene you are and you clenched at the praise. Jungkook had to have noticed cause he grinned before his finger was circling your clit, enhancing the pleasure he was already giving you plenty of. He started setting an even pace and the familiar knot was forming again in your stomach, your legs shaking around Jungkook’s waist.

He was a little clumsy sometimes, cock slipping out just for him to have to align it back in but he felt too good for you to mind at all. His voice was tickling your skin as he whispered about how beautiful you are or how good you felt but you honestly couldn’t focus much on it. You were sucking him in deeper with every thrust he took, gripping him harder as if your body couldn’t let him go.

You watched as Jungkook trembled on top of you, pure pleasure going across his face as his cum filled you, spilling out as he continued to thrust. You grinned and bit into Jungkook’s shoulder as your own orgasm engulfed you, holding him close to you as he started to slow down.

“Would now be an appropriate time to ask you to be my girlfriend?”, Jungkook leaned back a bit to see your face, sweat dripping down both of your faces as his cock remained inside of you. You laughed and kissed him on the nose.

“Better late than never, I guess. Yes, I would love to be your girlfriend”, you nodded and Jungkook smiled at you, starting to place kisses anywhere he could reach before he collapsed on your chest.

“Good. Also, I’m going to buy you crystals after we rest. This place is boring without them”, your new boyfriend says as he briefly looks around your room. You do the same and realize he’s right.

“Sounds good to me”, you grin and finally let yourself rest, holding Jungkook as close as he was holding you.

[dramalets]

2024 Watch List pt1

Here we go again!

To sir, with love - This is a lakorn so it's appropriately dramatic. The mothers are absolutely foul and do an awful lot of scheming and yelling. Jam/Film are intensely watchable and make wet fish kisses look terribly romantic. Tongtong Kitsakorn as Yang was a revelation. I'm sad he's pm just a lakorn actor/pop star because he is so watchable. I loved that, though they were evil and insane, the mothers all felt fleshed out and realised. You understood why they were yikes. 3½/5 (2/1/23)

A Boss & a Babe - I quit this at episode 2 and then decided to go back to it. I don’t regret doing so. This isn’t top tier but it’s also not shit tier. Cher, the very dictionary definition of toxic positivity, and Gun, an autism coded cat man, enter into an extremely quick romance (like seriously, it’s taken hard worn lesbians longer to say I love you) the catch being they’re intern and company boss. Honestly in another drama that would have been the the huge hiccup of the series, keeping them apart, but it’s consistently shown to be more of an issue for others that it is for them. This is very low conflict, mostly romcom fluff with two weirdly intense, barely explored side stories for support characters. I didn’t loath Force in this and would actually like him to be given more roles where he’s just a soft simp and not a boring sarcastic one. Book does some good comedy work here. 3/5 (4/1/23)

The day I loved you - I know this won’t work for everyone. It’s a bittersweet ten episode love story between a boy with ASL and the ‘rebel’ exchange student at his school. Pinoy BL, for me, either really hits or really misses and this hit. It does use a questionable model of disability, namely the inspiration model, but I cant nit pick too much when this is only ten 15/20 minute episodes. I enjoyed it a lot, you may also if you’re okay with a bittersweet ending vs an out and out happy one. 3½/5 (12/1/24)

VIP Only - Well this was adorable. Slow as molasses and just as sweet. This probably won’t be for everyone, very slow and not much happens other than character growth and a love story, but it worked for me. The edit is horrendous in places and I do wish Taiwan did longer episodes, but those are my only gripes. 3½/5 (19/1/24)

I cannot reach you - I don’t really watch Jbl. There are just styles and tropes that I don’t enjoy watching that Japan uses a lot of. It’s a taste thing more than it is anything else. So keep that in mind. This is full of a lot of the things I don’t like; over action, randomly running everywhere, sudden non-con. But it’s also endearingly sweet and very well acted, so I did find myself enjoying it. I don’t think this’ll awaken a desire to watch lots of Jbl but it has made me consider some others. 3/5 (20/1/24)

Last Twilight - I had a lot of fun with this. The dialogue and acting were all top notch and, as ever with Aof productions, it was stunning to look at. It weaves the story of two broken people healing one another very well with Jimmy & Sea doing beautiful work as Mhok & Day. I think this came a little unstuck at points in the end. I liked most of the romance movie style ending but I remain a little unsure about Day’s ending. Still, this is a show that I enjoyed every week and will have no issues rewatching. 4/5 (26/1/24)

Old Fashion Cupcake - I’m working on trying out more JBL to get a feel for what I do and don’t like. This? This I like. We don’t have enough stories about older people anyway and this does it well. Togawa’s slow courting of Nozue through shared experiences and casual intimacy is delicious to watch. 4/5 (4/2/24)

Pit Babe - I love when I show wholly knows what it is and doesn’t try and be anything but that. This knew it was a big ol’ fanfic and leaned wholeheartedly into that. Whether it was the breeding program subplot or the consistently dumb toothpaste and sausage ppl it handled them both with equal aplomb. It’s also worth noting that was largely really well acted too! Pavel, Nut & Sailub particularly impressed me but there was nobody bad. 4/5 (9/2/24)

Our Dining Table - My journey into JBL continues and this was the best one yet. Soft pining between two sad boy leads with a gorgeous found family story woven in. The treacle slow courting between these two won’t be for everyone but it was wholly for me. 5/5 (17/2/24)

Cooking Crush - The edit on this was criminally bad at points, sometimes I truly felt I’d skipped a part and I hadn’t at all, but it still served up a good little story. If you’re visiting this for the romance it’s not really that, the story is in the friends and their lives more than it is in Ten & Prem’s romance. I loved the comedy in this, it hit those notes well and was never over the top. (Lots of puns that I expect are super good if you speak Thai.) Nobody is bad in this, everyone delivers, but OffGun are as watchable as they always are and the few kisses they do have are perfect. 3/5 (18/2/24)

The Novelist - When I say I don’t love JBL it’s usually because the tropes are just too tropey for my tastes. Apparently I’m a lying liar who lies because this is extremely Japanese and I loved every moody second of it. Kijima is a sad, lonely, messed up man who doesn’t think he’s deserving of anything good and it’s wildly compelling to watch. 4/5 (18/2/24)

Mood Indigo - Fucked up 4 Fucked up. Two broken, sad, lonely men mess up repeatedly, and erotically, that’s it that’s the show and I ate it up with a spoon. Deeply flawed assholes being toxic together, when it’s well written and well acted, is so disgustingly watchable to me and this certainly was. 5/5 (18/2/24)

The Novelist: Playback - Continues where The Novelist ends. I watched the clean version of this, it was what was available to me, and was still deeply entertained. So if you think people watch this series for the heat then you’re incorrect. This is another instalment of Kijima Rio being a horribly broken fuck up of a man. I loved it. 4/5 (21/2/24)

Tokyo in April is… - I love a good destined to be together trope when it’s done well and this is done beautifully. Kazuma and Ren fall in love as teenagers and are separated before finding one another again as adults. The pacing on this is a little rough, I get what they were doing with the sub-plot but it felt mildly unneeded and time would have been better given to exploring our leads generally or even Ren’s painful family issues. This is still a lovely drama that I wholly recommend. 4/5 (21/2/24)

[dangerouscommiesubversive]

13 Books Tag Game

Way back in April I was tagged in this by @materassassino and I've had it saved in my drafts ever since, determined to Actually Do It instead of spacing out as I so often do with tag games despite enjoying them greatly.

1) The last book I read

I think the last book I finished reading was A House With Good Bones, by T. Kingfisher--an excellent haunted house novel, although not my favorite.

2) A book I recommend

Lud-In-The-Mist, by Hope Mirlees, an extraordinarily dreamy novel from 1926 which I read first in college. It's about fairies and a town that's supposedly forgotten them, and it's simple and fun and often very funny. Or, if you'd rather read something more solidly grounded in reality, I really love The Cunning Man, by Robertson Davies. Davies is a favorite author of mine in general, but The Cunning Man is I think his best.

3) A book that I couldn’t put down

I mean, there's a lot of those, but most recently I think it was The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison. I loved it so much that when I finished it I immediately ducked out of my home office to return it to the library and get out the next one, The Grief of Stones, and then I loved that one a lot as well, and now I anxiously await the next one, The Tomb of Dragons, which I think is coming out next February?

Around that same time I also read Just Like Home, by Sarah Gailey, which I was similarly unable to put down. That one is another haunted house book, and it's very much horror and it's about parental abuse and sometimes it gets very creepy, so do be warned.

4) A book I’ve read twice (or more)

Oh good heavens. I've read a lot of books twice or more; I love to re-read. Apart from my repeated re-readings of every Narnia book, Sabriel, a good deal of David Eddings...I think the best example I have is The Iron Dragon's Daughter, by Michael Swanwick. I read it for the first time when I was twelve, which is way too young to be readng that book, and I've re-read it every three or four years since then.

5) A book on my TBR

Lots of things, but most recently we picked up a copy of Ursula Le Guin's essay collection The Language of the Night because Rudo wanted me to read the title essay, and I'm going to do so once I've finished one of the books I'm currently reading.

6) A book I’ve put down

Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake, several times. Someday I am determined to read all of Gormenghast, but it just hasn't caught me right yet. This is fine, sometimes I make a couple of false starts before I can really get into a book--it took me at least three tries to read The Worm Ouroboros, for example.

7) A book on my wish list

Frillions of books on there, so we'll go with something I specifically want in hard copy. Recently Rudo and I have been going through Tubi's "New to Who" collection of classic Doctor Who serials, and we both fell horrendously in love with Seven, who's lovely. We especially enjoyed Remembrance of the Daleks, and I found out that not only did the Ben Aaronovitch, the writer of the serial, actually get to do the novelization, it was printed a while ago in an absolutely beautiful hardcover alongside Prisoner of the Daleks by Trevor Baxendale. Obviously I want to read the novel, but I also want that specific edition, just because it looks so pretty.

8) A favorite book from childhood

Many such, I was and still am a big reader! Emperor Mage by Tamora Pierce was a frequent re-read, and one that I still love.

9) A book you would give to a friend

Which friend? For what occasion? I give lots of books to lots of friends for lots of reasons! But if we're saying, generally, "what's a book I'd hand to someone and beg them to read it," I'll go with Little, Big, by John Crowley. It's incredible.

10) A book of poetry or lyrics that you own

I have a bunch of poetry collections but I think my favorite is a little cheap Dover collection of Gerard Manley Hopkins. "The Windhover" is so good that I want to eat it.

11) A nonfiction book you own

A Burglar's Guide to the City, by Geoff Manaugh--a book about architecture, but from the perspective of how criminals, burglars especially, interact with buildings.

12) What are you currently reading

Thousand Autumns volume 5 by Meng Xi Shi, Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz by Garth Nix, Lord Seventh by priest, volume 3 of Dangerous Convenience Store, and I got a bit distracted in the middle of Riddle-Master, which is the omnibus edition of Patricia McKillip's Riddle-Master trilogy, but I'll get back to it.

13) What are you planning on reading next?

Everything. Try me.

I will tag @calyxcurl, @travelingneuritis, @ardatli, and @tsunflowers! But please don't feel pressured!

[kalofi]

an ode to luffy and zoro and the passage of time. i wrote this a while ago and recently edited it enough to feel comfortable posting here! it started as a relationship analysis then kind of got away from me, but i hope you enjoy my little thoughts and headcanons nonetheless

(will start under the cut)

they still fit

the thing about zolu is that their intrinsic understanding of one another allows them to communicate with each other without the use of actual words. which on one hand is like so romantic on its own bc goddam u love someone so much u know them or what they want just with a glance but on the other hand can also lead to problems bc. well as much as they know each other there are gonna be things that NEED to be said, but therein lies the problem. because they’re so used to not having to say anything that if a situation came where they ever had to actually explain themselves to the other i imagine it would not go very smoothly. because luffy is not really one to talk about highly emotional things and zoro is not one to talk in general. and that’s why they work bc neither of them cares for the whys or hows they just DO. sometimes, though, for things to work you HAVE TO TALK and they’re not used to that.

so like post timeskip when they’re reunited and still trying to get used to everyone being around again i’d imagine a lot of things would go unsaid between zoro and luffy bc they both had their fair share of things to deal with over the two years they were separated. luffy and impel down and marineford and ACE god. ace. and zoro and mihawk and his training and the baboons. monkeys. whatever. and they both have new scars that the other hasn’t seen and they’ve both grown in multiple ways and i think they both realize that they won’t fit like they used to. everything is different and new and it’s not BAD per say but it’s. weird. they don’t want to talk about it because they’ve never NEEDED to talk about it before and starting now would mean that they’ve changed, would make it real. but now it’s like there are so many things that they just don’t know about each other anymore and they don’t know how to feel about that.

it’s not horrendous and doesn’t impede on the group dynamic at first because they figure time will sort them out as it usually does, but i’d imagine their relationship does become a bit strained bc as much as they trust each other to do what they need to do, it’s hard to have full confidence in someone when you haven’t seen them in 2 years and feel like you don’t truly KNOW them anymore.

so they fight and they eat (more so on luffy’s part) and they nap (more so on zoro’s part) but there’s always this niggling feeling that something is not quite RIGHT. that they’ve all filled in the roles they were meant to just like always, but something hasn’t clicked yet. and the rest of the crew feel it too bc as normal as they act, zoro and luffy don’t have that sense of easiness around each other that they used to.

it’s like everything is back where it’s supposed to be, but they’ve grown too big for the holes they left to fill in two years ago. no matter how much they claw and dig, they’re stuck in these places that are meant to be theirs, but are small and uncomfortable and don’t quite manage to hold all that they are now.

i’d imagine that it’d eventually come to a head during battle, where luffy and zoro fall out of sync for the first time since. since EVER and it nearly costs someone their life and they KNOW that. everyone is fine in the end but the idea that them not understanding each other enough that it caused them to mess up when it really counted scares them.

and maybe it’s nami or maybe it’s sanji or maybe it’s all of them, everyone else, but they can’t take this weird in-between their captain and first mate have fallen into, so they put them somewhere, tell them to “FIGURE IT OUT.” and leave them.

and it’s quiet. all those times of ‘not having to say anything’ leave them scrambling in this moment, because now there are words that NEED to be said but they don’t know what or how to say them, and so they’re quiet. but luffy’s never been good with silence or stillness and so he does what luffy does best, meaning whatever he feels like in the moment.

he just scooches a bit closer, traces the scar bisecting zoro’s eye, and zoro lets him. doesn’t flinch or question it, just accepts his fate as he’s always done when it comes to his captain and allows luffy to do whatever he wants, because then it must be what zoro wants too.

then luffy places a palm on zoro’s chest, over the scar mihawk gave him two years ago (the scar that sealed zoro’s fate, tied him to luffy’s will forever) and follows it with his fingers, from collarbone down to where his haramaki prevents his hand from going any further. his gaze is pensive but tender, and his touch is so soft and fleeting—gentle in a way zoro didn’t know his captain could be.

he brings his hand back up to zoro’s chest and rests it over the swordsman’s heart, lets it stay there for a moment. luffy watches his own hand on zoro’s chest, as if trying to see through his skin to the heart that’s beating a steady rhythm underneath. zoro watches luffy through it all, so he catches the captain’s quiet smile, as if he’s content with what he’s found hidden between zoro’s ribcage.

luffy draws his hand back after a minute to place it over his own scarred chest (over the starburst pattern that carries deeper pain than just broken nerves and raw skin) and points at his eye, his scar crinkling up with the force of his grin.

“zoro! we match now!”

then he’s laughing that little shishishi of his that sounds mischievous and full of promise and so luffy that zoro can’t help but crack a smile of his own. he chuckles breathlessly, because having luffy smile at him freely once more—without that twinge of unsurety that he’s been sporting ever since they reunited—knocks something around in zoro’s lungs, pushes up up up into his throat and leaves him choking.

it’s love, he realizes. it’s always been love.

it had been driving zoro crazy, that smile that wasn’t really a smile. made him want to grab luffy and shake him by the shoulders, made him want to shout “WHAT IS IT? WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET YOU TO STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT?” because zoro really would have done whatever luffy had asked, if it meant things could go back to how they were. but he knew that was impossible and he knew it wasn’t his place to question, so he’d kept his mouth shut and felt a little piece of himself crumble off and die whenever luffy’s hand stalled right before making contact with him.

it was as if luffy didn’t know if he still had the permission to touch, like he didn’t know if zoro still wanted it.

and zoro did want it, he always does. he had really missed the familiarity and trust that came with his captain’s tactility. he simply didn’t know how to formulate the words, how to ask luffy for his hands without feeling just a little bit pathetic.

but none of that matters now because they are here and they are laughing and luffy feels weeks worth of tension slide off his shoulders. he feels his heavy heart snap back into place like his rubber limbs, pumping blood up to his cheeks and nose and maybe a bit too much to his brain too, because he feels lightheaded and airy and free, like he could float away any second. but it’s okay because zoro is wrapping his arms around him and neither of them are going anywhere.

they’ve gotten older and put on some pounds and muscle and scars since they last held each other like this, but that ‘something’ finally shifts and clicks into place and luffy finds his body still fits perfectly against zoro’s own. it’s as if they had been waiting for each other, had been learning and changing just so they could slide back into place even more snug than before.

he realizes that trying to force themselves to fit into those empty spaces they used to occupy two years ago would never work, doesn’t even know why they kept trying to make it, because they’re different now but that’s a GOOD thing.

the zoro and luffy of two years ago are dead and gone, buried six feet under their grief and anger and loss, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make new places for these new versions of themselves. they’ve grown and changed and that just means there’s more of them for the other to love.

everything’s not perfect, not yet. there’s still things they need to discuss, but it’s definitely a start and that’s better than anything to either of them right now. luffy looks and sees in zoro’s eyes that his swordsman feels the same way.

neither of them have to say it, but they know that things’re gonna be alright, and that’s more than enough.

[cornbread-but-minecraft]

Beta 3 for Cornbread's Texture Fixer is now out on Planet Minecraft!! Featuring a bunch of fixes for the new Tricky Trials blocks, items, and UIs, as well as a ton of other miscellaneous things like the chat settings popup and various gamepad helpers!

I have not yet updated the cover to reflect the release of the Tricky Trials update, but I will soon. Eventually.

Link

Changelog:

General Changes

The hover and pressed textures on the Realms button on the Title Screen are no longer swapped. (Added textures)

The rightmost pixel on the Realms button on the Title Screen no longer appears slightly stretched on some monitors. (Added JSON)

The enchantment glint no longer appears pixelated on the Mace. (Added Texture)

The item stack count in container screens is now layered correctly again (Mojang, why did you break this? It benefitted no-one). (Added JSON)

The hotbar is now aligned to the pixel grid. (Added JSON)

The item durability bar is now aligned to the pixel grid. (Added JSON)

Sandstone and Quartz Slabs now have their side textures again (Mojang broke them). (Added JSON)

The bottoms of Quartz Slabs now use the correct texture again (Mojang broke these as well). (Added JSON)

Specifically normal Blackstone Double Slabs now use the correct texture on their tops and bottoms (kind of an oversight on my part, but it still wouldn't have happened if Mojang had done it right themselves). (Added JSON)

Cartography Tables no longer use a custom bottom texture. (Removed JSON)

Polished Tuff Slabs now use a custom side texture. (Added JSON, texture)

Item Locks are now consistently layered above their associated item in container screens, like they are on the HUD. (Added JSON)

Tweaked anti-aliasing on the icon for the Darkness effect. It should now look better at lower HUD opacities. (Added texture)

The gamepad helper on the Dressing Room button on the Pause Screen now properly disappears when Hide Controller Hints is enabled. (Added JSON)

Various icons that should not turn green no longer do so when hovering over their associated buttons while using this pack alongside leaf4e's green hud with the default green hud subpack enabled. (Removed, added JSON (kinda? i mostly just renamed it))

Fishing Hooks are now rotated along a less broken looking axis than in vanilla. (Added JSON)

The Close Button on the Chest and Horse Screens now uses custom textures (textures/cb_custom_ui/dialog/) that fit a tiny bit better into the allotted space. (Added JSON, textures)

The Crafter Screen no longer looks horrendously broken! Still controls a little funky, but that's a job for Conglomeration (different resource pack). (Added JSON)

The pipes in the Brewing Stand Screen are layered correctly again! Not actually entirely sure what Mojang even did to break them in the first place, though. (Added JSON)

The shaded part of the indent on the Chat Settings panel is no longer a lighter color than its background. (Added JSON, texture)

Moved the Close Button on the Chat Settings panel (and similar) a pixel down and to the left for consistency with container screens. Hopefully this doesn't break anything. (Added JSON)

The scrolling elements on the Chat Settings panel are no longer cut off! The scroller is still slightly farther left than I would like, but those are hard :( (Added JSON)

The Gamepad Helpers on the Chat Screen are now properly layered beneath the darkness that appears when the Chat Settings panel is open. (Added JSON)

The Gamepad Helper for pasting text on the Chat Screen now properly disappears when Hide Controller Hints is enabled. (Added JSON)

The rightmost pixel on the background of the banner/panel thingy that appears when you click on a resource pack no longer appears slightly stretched on some monitors. (Added JSON)

The rightmost pixel on the outline of the world thumbnail on the Edit World Screen no longer appears slightly stretched on some monitors. Its size has not been fixed, though. (Added JSON)

Technical Changes

Moved all custom block textures (those being the ones that aren't in vanilla, like the slab side textures) to a new folder "textures/cb_custom_blocks" and renamed most of them.

Yes, I am aware that the folder name makes it sound like the blocks themselves are custom. I'll deal with that later maybe.

Removed an unused folder from the subpacks folder. Not sure why that was even there in the first place.

Furnace tweaks were moved to Conglomeration in a previous version. I have now removed the associated texture (textures/cb_custom_ui/container/furnace_arrow_on.png).

Unused part of the JSON for the background of the scrolling panel on the Trade Screen is now commented out instead of ignored.

Added global UI variable ("$cb_is_texture_fixer_beta_3": true).

A comment in ui/_global_variables.json that referred to java edition as just 'java' no longer does so and now ends with a period.

[spockandawe]

Okay! I'm rapidly reaching the point of needing some creative self-care, or I'm going to crash even more viciously than I'm already starting to. Bad things: work is about to be SO fucking intense for the rest of the month, and while my home is unpacked, it is Comically unorganized. Good things: being unable to walk to work leaves me with more free time and less exhaustion per day, and I've recently refreshed myself on what supplies i have. I also am all set to start figuring out how to paint a house as soon as I can test my samples and clear a room. This will scratch the novelty itch, so i can be responsible and avoid buying new things. But i also can't lose focus on the organizing or I'll Adjust and never finish 😂

Let me see

Crochet in general: crochet is what I've been patching the mounting anxiety with, and i DO want to use up yarn, but it's hard on my wrist already, I can't afford to get too deep.

Baby blanket: almost done, could probably finish tomorrow in meetings, but because it was pretty bland, it won't be that fulfilling

Big Boi blanket: god, it's been years, I want to finish, but i WILL need to buy some yarn

Rocky horror lips: tedious single crochet, fun concept, but need to avoid wrist fuckery

Cross-stitch starscream: yes! I want to do this!! But this will be the opposite of quick gratification

Art........?: ALSO YES, goddammit, i want to figure out the stupid tablet! But good LORD, it's hard to decide what to do. And I'm in one of those phases where I'm not FAST, and I'm not vibing with what i make. The solution is just to draw more often, i know. But fuck.

Hc/mq: had a conceptual breakthrough, maybe? But i still don't know how it will proceed, so idk whether to commit the energy

Bwx/xl: this is half done already, AND outlined, I don't know why I can't do it. If i make myself, maybe i can find my groove

Lqg fic: it'll be long and intimidating 😭

Bingge lite: it's been 84 years...... But i really really really really love it and want to be able to share it. But the scope will be Horrendous, it may need percolation and warmer weather

Raksura core: i, uh, um 🫥 (i want to finish it! I really do! I can't focus worth SHIT)

Quilting: that would be good! Use up stuff! I want to be better! But god, the PREP WORK

Addendum: can i think of a fandom quilt i could pull off? Even if it was. Idk. Bingqiu colors. That might help me focus. But i also need to use up my stash :T

Long furby: would be good. I've had the materials for-fucking-ever

Pyrography: ooh, maybe. Especially if I can find art i dont have to compose. But if i set off the smoke alarm while it's this gross outside ill Die

BOOKS: heavy lifts and decision paralysis all around. Could be star wars (long, not for me, have to match existing volume), cnovel (several wips, but each is so much work to format, good god), ofic (not for me, also have to revamp formatting), ilcbt latest edition (needs the luxury treatment, which requires brain), pof latest edition (needs the luxury treatment, which requires brain), and all of the most appealing projects need a lot of materials, and I'm still in debt, lmao

Peerless fic: I've had the concept locked down for years, but i need to refresh on more of their late-stage characterization before feeling confident

Fourteenth year of chenghua fic: i also have the concept locked down! But i want to see the final evolution of wang zhi's relationship to the other two first

2ha fic: I ALSO HAVE THE CONCEPT LOCKED DOWN. but i still haven't...... finisheddddddddd, and this is going to need to be a fairly lengthy fic to wrangle xue meng in a believable way

[smokeybrandreviews]

Crisis at the Borderlands

Borderlands was always going to be terrible. In order for that film to be a thing, it needed a hard R rating and there was no way 2K was going to let that happen. Leave money on the table by alienating the children audience? For shame! I’m not a looter shooter guy so I never played the Borderlands games, but I am aware of most of that world’s lore. I understood, pretty early on, that this thing was definitely going to get a film adaption and the only way to do  it, was to lean heavy in the absurdity of it all. I’m talking Guardians of the Galaxy meets Deadpool. You need the crass vulgarity and over-the-top gore in order to properly realize Pandora in real time. Eli Roth is good at that. It’s an odd thing to see because it’s almost as if they were shooting for Guardians and landed on the first Suicide Squad, when the second one was right there as the blueprint. I wouldn’t be surprised if this thing was shot for the R and edited around the PG-13, which would mean there are SWATHS of this film on the cutting room floor. I haven’t seen it and don’t really plan to but I hear there is a pretty great film in to be seen, if you can cut through the mire of mediocrity. A pretty common critique floating around is that Borderlands is simultaneously the most expensive and cheapest looking film you will ever see. All of that ambition, all of that6 potential, all of that budget, lost in the wind. This thing cost a hundred million to make, and had an eight million opening weekend. Hard pass, all across the demos. Who was this movie for? Where did all that money go? I can tell you where a big chunk of it went; The cast.

The worst thing about this film, and the one thing I absolutely knew was going to tank it, was the cast. When I saw Cate Blanchett in that horrendous wig, I knew this film was doomed. Never mind about the atrocious green screen, why the f*ck did you cast Blanchett, a damn near sixty year old woman, in the role of Lilith, a Siren who is very much not that? No shade to Blanchett, she is gorgeous and one of my favorite actresses working today with a range to be envied by anyone, but this was not the look, chief. Jamie Lee Curtis is an even more egregious miss as Dr. Tannis. Just, how? How do you look at Patricia’s model and see a sixty-five year old woman? How do you get Kevin Heart and nor, say, Terry Cruz for Roland? I mean, they nailed Tiny Tina and Mad Moxxi and I’ll even give them Jack Black as Claptrap, but your leads are all wrong. And, more to the point, expensive. Cate and Jaime are Oscar winners, which immediately jacks their rates through the roof. Blanchett is known to do her thing in the geeky pool, no one will come close to her Hela, but Curtis has a disdain for that type of stuff. Her rancor over Marvel proved that much but, her willingness to pop into the One Piece adaption is pretty chill. Either way, you’re paying top dollar for those two and Hart ain’t showing up for less than ten million on any project. Those three right there probably account for a quarter of the budget, if not more. And they’re all miscast! It’s nuts! Sh*t smacks of Corpo panic induced by microtransaction greed. Considering this is 2K we’re talking about, I wouldn’t be surprised.

It’s nuts to me because you could have cast younger, less expensive stars, gave it the R rating it need to thrive, and made this movie for substantially less risk. Someone like a Vanessa Kirby would have been dope as Tannis and I can’t unsee Samara Weaving trouncing about as Lilith. Both of them are excellent actresses, both of them have a solid fan base, and both of them are cheap. I already tapped Cruz for Roland and you can throw the most money David Eddings has ever seen, his way and have him voice Claptrap in the film, giving an organic tie to the games, and allow the rest of that budget for scripting and world building. That’s the strength of those games, the world around those characters, Obviously, develop relationships and make them compelling because no one cares about a journey if the characters aren’t solid but it’s the world around them which drives a lot of that pathos. There is heart in those Guardians films but you’re nuts if you think traversing across space and interacting with alien civilizations didn’t go a long way to bolstering that endearment to those films. Ivan totally see a neon drenched, kinetic ass violence streak, chock full off heartwarming character moments and saturated in CG blood splatter, absolutely killing a January to mid-March box office. There’s no way, especially after the reception to that initial trailer, you release this thing after Deadpool and Wolverine drops. That movie was going to kill, regardless of quality, because it’s the swan song to Fox-Marvel. That was their Endgame. You’re not stopping that momentum as proven by the fact the entire thing has leaked online and the f*cker is still doing numbers in the box office. Corpos are dumb. Avi Arad got his name on this was a huge red flag and guess what? He’s delivered another turd. Bless him for nurturing Marvel in the beginning but it’s readily apparent he needs to step aside. He’s too old school for his own good and just delivered a tepid reminder of what video game adaptions used to be, but without anything to redeem all of the horrible choices made.

[night-market-if]

unrelated to my "HOLY SHIT" ask from the day before (i'll get back to that lol), i do wanna talk a lil about Hazel if you choose to take her with you to see Caliban because it gave me pause. And i didnt know if anyone else had brought it up so it's a lil late but

Spoilers (for if people didn't do it i suppose): Idk, i actually was very surprised that Hazel had such a strong reaction to it. Only because whether you condemn Caliban or not, Hazel is willing to comfort you either way. ...As long as she wasn't there.

It's very fair that Hazel did not want to go, and that it was unfair to push her boundary when she's uncomfortable. But i actually found it frustrating and hypocritical that Hazel did not express any issue with it as long as she didn't have to see it with her own eyes.

I don't think that's a bad thing to be clear! I find that makes Hazel a very well rounded character. Often, it's very easy to excuse or look the other way from the questionable and morally dubious choices our loved ones make, so long as we don't have to witness it. It's very flawed, and human.

But, to me personally, the narrative seems to be saying that MC is very much in the wrong for pushing Hazel when she didn't need to be, and that they very much want to gain her forgiveness. I...did not feel the same lol.

It felt frustrating because, MC thus far has had to make very scary and difficult choices to save a world whose people are indifferent or ignorant to it dying. All the hard choices that were placed on their shoulders alone. And Hazel can get angry and feel hurt and betrayed that MC would push her beyond her comfort, because she has that option. MC does not.

But with everything going on, there wasn't a chance to discuss the situation, or even the status of the relationship (because Hazel has distanced herself from MC). So i was wondering if this would be something explored in Book 2.

Hazel is one of the sweetest, kindest characters in the story, so it makes pushback against her choices difficult because i dont want to be callous to her. but then we've seen what she's capable of, and she's not someone to be trifled with, she is not above making morally questionable choices after all. Because is sacrificing the spirits of the alley any different from sacrificing Caliban?

I hope this didn't come off as rude, I just wanted to hear your thoughts on this.

I have been WAITING for someone to call me on this. :) I think a lot of people just didn't take that route so I don't have a lot of readers on it.

So, yes, you are correct that it isn't so much the action itself that makes Hazel upset, but that her boundary got pushed and she is a part of it. And yes, it has not been able to really be addressed between MC and Hazel because there is just so much stuff going on that their relationship kind of got put on the back burner (because it is supposed to be a relationship thing. I think a code got messed for some people). Now, that being said, chapter 12, you do start to address it and that is one of the things that the MC can call her out on. MC can express sorrow for maybe pushing their boundary, but for Hazel to constantly be in support of MC's boundary being pushed and expect no anger in return, is a hard thing to maybe stomach.

I am hoping to have it one of two ways for that conversation.

You understand it. You are apologetic. Hazel responds.

You understand it in theory, but you are also hurt and frustrated by her reaction, just as she is with yours. Hazel responds.

I'm not sure how Hazel's response to either of those is going to be yet because I haven't written it.

But, the main idea of what I have there, while it is going to be expanded on and cleaned up in the final edit, I do think is fundamentally going to stay the same. Hazel spent most of her life with her boundaries being crossed in horrendous ways. She also spent a long time turning a blind eye to what the people she loved did that were not so great. This moment, is far more about past issues than the MC themselves. But, Hazel's anger comes off I think differently than other RO's and she almost gives no room to talk. She hides. She has been doing so for a long time by not leaving that shop too often.

It is a character flaw for sure and one that will be focused on in Book 2. Don't worry, that is not going to be dropped and I think if the scene is not concluded in this book, it will be one of the first that is dealt with come the beginning of Book 2.

Thank you so much for this question. I love these in depth character explorations and going back and forth on them.

🪷✨🪷✨ If you want to support me 🪷 ✨🪷✨ Demo 🌿 Patreon 🌿 Ko-fi 🌿Discord

[inveryiswriting]

Hi, so, I accidentally published this without editing well, so I deleted it and was so close to do something drastic. Now, English it's not my first language and I'm too used to narrate in Spanish, just in case.

Okay, now, this is a "tribute" to Wheel Bitten, a webcomic made by @toxooz (An amazing artist with such rich variety of designs, and creator of many of the blorbos that are, currently, eating my brain), because of that, if someone reaches this and hasn't read it yet, here's a link to it.

A tribute for a gentle giant "Tor Gith".

It is something that many of us don’t think about regularly, because we constantly move around, going to different places. But there’s this feeling when you go to certain places, just as your feet touch the ground nearby, looking at the first couples of details that are common to you. Sometimes is dreadful, your throat closes and every inch of your body feels like being pulled away from there.

That doesn’t happens when I go near the skating park. No… no, I feel so light, and it’s not like this place tries to drag me, it just feels right to be there.

The wire fences rise from the ground and stay as the hard skin of this gentle giant. The pavement extends, scratched by wheels and long forgotten falls. The rails, as I like to call those, the bones, have seen so much pain and bruises, but also every bit of comfort that came afterwards. Like everything, here I have dropped so many tears, but none of those were bitter, just empty reactions after the physical pain of it all.

As I get near, even with no lights around, I remember my way into this place. How my heavy tail sways from side to side and grazes the floor, the way my shoes hit underneath me and the wind goes against my long fur.

I skate around, feeling kinda lonely, but I just need to cool off. My balance is not the best to do many tricks, but I keep going, just like Ollie always tells us. For pain is another casualty that can catch you with every step, and now I’m lucky that it doesn’t go deeper than my skin.

It doesn’t feel that right to be here… it’s a weird feeling, like being around school after class. There’s no one around and… now, more than ever, I kinda hate being so shy, because I miss having them around.

I’m safe here, I survive because of this place, but it would be nice to live. The difference between living and surviving is how much you struggle to keep your head up at the sky, and now, the stars above seem brighter than ever.

It’s kinda stupid to be skating while looking anywhere else than the floor, so, naturally, I fell hard to the ground.

And now there’s no face peeking over me to make sure I’m okay, just the stary night sky. Somehow, everything feels more real here, in Tor Gith, or just our skatepark, where even the sensations are allowed to rise above the gray surroundings.

As I breath in, my lungs fill and my chest loses the grip it has on so much shit.

I stand up, reaching with a hand at the jaws behind my head, checking that the wires of my braces haven’t popped off. Just standing here, wishing for this place to open up and swallow me whole, keep me here until the morning, hoping for someone to come early and be here.

I can actually be here, waiting for company.

The skatepark sleeps at night, with no flow of monsters to keep it awake and thrilled. But now it stays with one eye open, watching over me. Maybe I’m just dumb and sad, but that thought feels nice. Something bigger… something special taking care of me.

This place was left alone to rot, from what I remember to hear, both from others and my parents. It grew bitter and alone, the stagnant water of rain filling the bowl like an empty stomach. With fallen trees that broke its skin. The floor used to be cracked and scarred from neglect. Until someone came and pumped life into it again, healing and working on every inch that was left alone.

It could’ve been forgotten and never explored again, but now the skatepark’s life comes along everyone that goes around and inside of it. The heart of a place beats for everything that exists within.

I’m just one, but thinking that I’m still capable of keeping it awake is a comforting feeling.

This place is nothing without its people, and I feel that I’m no one without it. For monsters bring the magic that made this place so warm and happy, keeping this air of family and belonging. For all that may desire to be somewhere, this skatepark stays day and night waiting for them, and many of us wait to be able to come here and live as if there’s nothing outside this breathing walls.

There was someone for this park, someone that saw so much potential into something that may have looked like an impossible project, or even a dead thing that should’ve been left to rot and eaten away. But it only needed someone to believe in it.

And I love that you did it, a beacon for everyone that needs it.

[ultfreakme]

what do you think..a JayJon social media au would be like? with or without powers? if you’re into those types of aus, you don’t have to answer if not!! Or maybe what’s a type of au you think would suit JayJon that you haven’t seen yet?

Hm, socmed AU? Huh I haven't thought much about it but I'd like a with powers one. Hehe I already had a bunch of headcanons, mostly that Jon stalked The Truth on social media and obsessively interacted with the account. Jay being Jon's social media manager kinda after the identity reveal. Official Batman picking fights with Official Superman account lol. People making fan edits of JayJon being cute lmao.

AU which I haven't seen yet?

Okay I discussed this on the supertruth discord. AU where exposure to red sun + multiversal travel and just being half-kryptionian and half- human has made......Jon a ghoul that craves human and kryptonian flesh. No wait hear me out, this is mostly for horror and thematic purposes.The primary one being that Jon hides these cravings but the more he hides, the worse he gets. These cravings are a representation of Jon suppressing his trauma and refusing to tell anyone about what he actually experienced. When Clois +superfam do learn what's up, they are terrified of him and aren't open to understanding him.

The cravings reduce to mere blood drinking vampire stuff when he's around Jay though. And that is because Jay is accepting and ready to hear out Jon's experience. He's the one person who doesn't expect him to be something he isn't. Jay accepts him, the ugly, the horrendous, the beautiful and the mundane. Basically, acknowledging the hunger reduces it. It's also a neat way to actually contend with literally everyone telling Jon he's an abomination but in canon he is perfectly fine, better even. Giving him something actually fucked up and hard to contend with will make superfam and us the audience question the idea of 'abomination' and how just because Jon doesn't fit into superfam expectations, doesn't mean he's lesser.

I am so sorry anon, you came to me for an innocent socmed AU and I have ended things in cannibalism. I am aware that like me and five others are the only people interested in this.