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onlyswan · 11 months

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summary: in which you drive jungkook mad but you make his heart beat.

idol!jungkook x f!reader, est. relationship / fluff, suggestive, a pinch of angst / word count: 5k

content/warnings: tried sumn different so this is mainly from jungkook’s pov :D !! drummer!oc ur so cool & i’m stealing u from ur bf 🏃— mention of a 10 yr age gap between jk & a guy who likes oc (he’s hella pissed off) ; mentions of (car) s^x ; allusion to a bl^wj^b ; jk just got home from tour & oc is tipsy, needy, & dramatic as hell T_T ; oc /briefly/ touches jk while he’s driving & he /nearly/ loses his shit & crashes the car (he doesn’t) (i’m kidding) + to the anon who wanted to jk’s cheek scar to get a kissy here u go 🥺

> in which masterlist!

note: oc is so shot glass of tears coded especially in this… i’m glad i’m posting this after golden came out just so i could say it 🥰 this takes place after this drabble sooo the end of oct 2018 <3 if u’ve read the prev drabble too, this was when jk said those exact words in the past 🥺 wrote this in the middle of hell week so i was half out of my mind :'] as always feedback & reblogs rrr always appreciated !! 🥺

—

jungkook loves the sound of rain— the gentle knocks on every surface of the earth has always been a lullaby even during daylight.

tonight is a different story, however. it is defeaning, terrifying even. he can barely see what is infront of him, spare the occasional headlights blazing across the slippery roads. his umbrella is being stolen away by the harsh gusts of wind and the mud stains on his sneakers are well-hidden by the plain black.

and yes, he is tired; and yes, this is hard, but that is the end of it.

you’re exactly where you told him you’d wait, far behind the edge of the roof where the rainwater falls from and splashes on the ground. you stand out in his blue oversized shirt, one that he purposely left behind in your closet so he could have something else to wear when he sleeps over.

you’re too busy typing on your phone to see him crossing the parking lot; he feels his very own vibrate in the pocket of his sweatpants. however, his giddy smile fades when a man exits through the entrance door and approaches you with a red umbrella. his strides become slightly hurried then, as he watches you politely decline it with that heart-fluttering smile of yours everybody adores.

“oh no, really, i’m fine. you might need it later! my boyfriend is already coming to pick me up anyway.”

jungkook acts cool. he tucks his hand in the pocket of his sweatpants, tries to make himself appear bigger because he realizes that he would be inches shorter than the man if not for the platforms of his shoes.

“____, baby!”

upon hearing your name coming from the lips of your lover, your face lights up even brighter.

“jungkook!”

you greet him with an embrace, jumping into his arms before he can properly set down his umbrella on the ground.

“yah, yah-yah! be careful!” he chuckles as he wraps his arms around your waist to catch you, peering down to check how high your boots are for you to be running and jumping around freely.

“hey, i’m going back inside- there’s more customers coming in. make it home safe, alright?”

the stranger tries to catch your attention, and jungkook’s protectiveness swiftly kicks in when he lays a hand on you and slides it down to your lower back. your boyfriend turns you away from the unprompted touch by pulling your body closer to his side, and he is unable to control how his eyebrows knit together in annoyance.

he wasn’t planning on giving much thought to the presence of a man around you. he knows better than that. but he has never heard about this one, which raises the question of who the fuck is he to freely touch you like that?

“oh- alright! thank you, jun!”

“you better take care of ____, man. it’s dangerous around here during this time.”

he receives a rather heavy and condescending pat on the shoulder, and so, with his annoyance bubbling worse, he wears a passive aggressive smile on his face.

“yeah, of course i am,”

jun’s nostrils flare as he witnesses you sneakily slide your hands underneath jungkook’s hoodie in search of warmth.

“i’m here now, so there’s no need to worry about my girlfriend anymore.”

he nods, then forces himself to smile. “that’s good, then.”

“yeah, thanks. we’re leaving.”

“oh, okay. have a nice night!”

“you too,”

he turns on his heel and returns inside the busy establishment— but not before jungkook made sure that he saw the bruises on his knuckles that he got from his boxing sessions.

his jaw clenches as he glares at the door.

is he being petty? sure, to hell with that. he doesn’t care. he’s always been one to trust his gut, and he has a bad feeling.

he is met by a love-drunk smile when his undivided attention is at last given to you, in the form of fond eyes and affectionate strokes of your hair.

“who was that?”

“eh, new bartender,” you shrug with disinterest. “hm, i think he’s 31…? he’s nice but he keeps talking about wrestling.”

he raises an eyebrow at the mention of his age, while your lips form a sad pout.

what the hell? he thought he would be 25 at most.

“the tv has been in the same channel for the past two weeks because of him. it’s all i’ve been seeing! i don’t like it-” you whine in distress, quite frankly, a little traumatized.

an endeared smile is coaxed out of him at your adorableness, how your speech is a little slurred and how you’re looking at him like you’re begging him to do something about it.

“makes me nervous,”

his dominant hand closes into a fist.

if he only he had known. should’ve fucking punched the guy, give him a taste of what he seems to be a huge fan of.

“let’s watch something calming when we get home, how about that?”

you nod your head, eyes that twinkle with eagerness fluttering shut when he leans in for a much awaited kiss. how sweet, he feels a little more alive than before. he can smell it, even taste it— the peach margarita you started sipping on before the band’s first set. concocted by jun, he presumes. he pulls away with a small smile, licking his lips for the traces of you that clung to him.

out of the blue, you burst into a fit of giggles, weak knees buckling as your weight crashes on him.

“i missed you!”

“babe, are you seriously drunk?” he chuckles, holding you with a secure grip around your torso.

“maaaybe tipsy…? i was pretending not to be.” you stand on your tip-toes to nuzzle your face against his neck, mumbling sheepishly. “only trust you.”

—

“i should’ve accepted the umbrella.” you grunt childishly, body going limp on jungkook’s back, except for the arm holding up the umbrella that shields the both of you from the pouring rain.

“yah!” he scolds you, clearly not pleased with the words that just came from your mouth. “what does that mean?”

“i’m embarrassed! they’re probably feeling bad for you.”

the last sentence comes out as a whisper, pertaining to the side glances you’ve been attracting from strangers as you make your way to your boyfriend’s car.

unfortunately, he had to park somewhere far because the restobar’s parking lot was already full.

you jokingly complained about staining your white boots with dirt and mud, but you instantly regretted it when he bent down, signalling you to ride on his back without an ounce of hesitation.

“our shoulders always get wet when we share an umbrella,” he said. “if i carry you, wouldn’t it be better?”

“embarrassing? some would even say romantic!”

something peculiar happens then— when your lips ghost over his left cheek, planting an affectionate kiss there that lasts for seconds. you pull away with a smacking sound, giggly and bubbly, might be his favorite version of you.

“i love you,” you hum, grasping the umbrella upright before it could tip over.

he doesn’t know if you did it on purpose or not, kissing him precisely where his scar is, but his heart jumps in his chest when he feels it begin to throb.

as if the wound from his childhood has come alive. as if, once again, he is bleeding as he glares at his older brother, and he still wants to play games on the computer oblivious to the fact that it would leave a permanent scar, a brand new landmark on his body.

you mistake his silence for something else.

you frown, warm breath tickling his neck as you quietly ask. “are you still mad at me?”

he sighs, vision landing on the ground as his walking pace slows down. “no? i was wrong. i shouldn’t have questioned your decision in the first place… why would i be mad?”

you started playing the drums for your friend’s band two months ago, just as soon as he left for tour. you volunteered after witnessing how distraught they were when their drummer vanished without a trace. he learned that it used to be a hobby of yours from childhood until early teenage years, playing the drums, but it was robbed from you when your father took his instruments with him when he abandoned your home for another.

he was pleasantly surprised when he learned about it, recounted all the times your hands and fingers were drumming on any sort of surface and his head naturally bopped to the beat, but then again, you never brought it up.

isn’t ____ so cool? he would proudly say when he flaunts you to his friends, even the protocol team, who have never seen him so happy.

three times a week, from nine in the evening until midnight, your phone was propped up on an empty table infront of the stage, and him, on the other side of the globe, excitedly watched you from backstage while he was getting ready for their own show. some other times, he was in his hotel room, or the private jet. his patience has been tested by crappy wifi, nosy and noisy people, and his earphones that stopped working while you looked insanely attractive grooving to ‘why’d you only call me when you’re high?’ as you effortlessly played the drums. he showered you with compliments as you did for him. you’re working hard so he must do the same.

he arrived home from tour the other day, spent the rest of its hours sleeping. yesterday, he waited for you at school and then at work like a lost puppy, slept on your bed (if he’s being honest, the two of you didn’t do much sleeping) then woke up at 9am for work.

and he tried his best, he really did, to get out of the company early enough to catch you playing a song or two. after all, it was your last day at the job.

much as you enjoyed reconnecting with an old flame— loved the overflowing tips that came from those who were amazed by your talent (well, there were also those who were just trying to get into your pants), the moment that the old drummer got down on his knees begging to be taken back by his best friends, just like how you became a part of the band, you voluntarily stepped down.

jungkook didn’t agree with this decision. he didn’t understand why you’d sacrifice something that makes you happy for a person who fucked up and wasted what they had. you went back and forth over it on the phone until you cried, told him that it wasn’t easy for you, and he couldn’t hold you in his arms or kiss your face. he could only apologize, and it even felt insincere doing it through a screen.

maybe he’s only relieved that you no longer need to be around a man an entire decade older than he is, who is obviously interested in you and serves you alcohol drinks. no, that doesn’t sit right with him. he needs jun, or whatever the fuck his true name is, to stay very far away from his baby.

“i’m just sad that i never got to watch you perform in person.”

you rest your cheek on his shoulder, heavy eyelids slowly blinking as the headlights of a black van blindsides you.

what the fuck. too bright.

“me too…”

—

“i’m bored,” you release a dramatic sigh, stealing a glimpse of jungkook at the driver’s seat, just to see if you caught his attention like you intended.

his eyes are trained on the dashboard, however, focused on the navigation guide displayed on his phone. he isn’t very familiar with this part of the city. it took him more than an hour to arrive at the address you sent him, including the time he spent in the middle of traffic.

“forty-eight minutes, then we can do whatever you want.”

“whatever i want?”

he slows down the car, briefly turning his head to find you expectantly looking at him with wide, hopeful eyes.

“of course,” he laughs, taking one hand off the wheel to squish your cheeks together. “just tell me what it is, baby.”

he doesn’t catch the sad look that flashes across your face after you lose his touch.

“then i’ll tell you when i figure out what i want,” you say quietly.

“i thought you already had something in mind?”

“nope,” you answer with yet another sigh.

you choose to stare out the window in silence, body completely slumping into your seat in defeat.

jungkook’s senses are sharp, or he likes to believe so. “are you okay?”

“i’m okay,”

“you sure?”

“hmm,” you hum curtly, and then you close your eyes, so he decides not to press further despite wanting to.

he meets a red traffic light not long after that. and so, he hurriedly grabs the black fleece blanket in the backseat. he envelopes you in it, crossing the distance between you to softly press his lips onto yours for a goodnight kiss. he feels you respond, albeit lazily, and he smirks cockily when you lift yourself up to chase him for one more, please— desperately, to get your fill of goodnight kisses from the many nights that you missed it.

the time seems to tick excruciatingly slow now that you’re quiet. a minute is multiplied by a hundred. the steady rhythm of your breathing keeps him sane throughout dark avenues and encounters with reckless drivers of the midnight scene.

he missed you. he missed you so much, and he knows that you’re tired from university, and tutoring high school students in english, and playing the drums for more than two hours… but he selfishly wishes that you’re awake right now so he can make up for the two months that you were apart.

be careful of what you wish for, they said.

jungkook should know better by now.

“i can’t sleep,” he hears you whisper in a dulcet tone that indirectly tells him you’re in need of some love… but he isn’t given the chance to act upon that request because you’re already all over what it is that you need.

he swallows thickly, glancing down at your hand that has somehow found its way to his inner thigh— zeroing in on your red nails, can feel them faintly grazing his skin.

you’re so pretty. everywhere.

even when naked and bare.

no, especially. it’s all he can think about.

he can draw you from memory.

“____,” he utters your name through gritted teeth, heart beginning to race a thousand miles per second in his chest.

the effect of your teasing touch is instantaneous, slowly inching closer and closer to where his growing erection is. his eyes remain focused on the road, but he fears that he’ll start thinking with his dick soon if you carry on with this act a few seconds longer.

“shit, not now, baby- please- not while i’m driving.”

your bottom lip is caught between your teeth, poorly concealing a self-satisfied smirk, and you pretend not to hear a single word from his plea.

a minx, that’s what you are, always causing trouble and blurring lines in his eyes.

“____, i’m not joking around. don’t make me mad-”

his warning is cut short by-

“fuck… fuck,” he curses, filter flying out the window once he feels you tracing the outline of his hard-on, the feather-light touch of your fingers smoothly gliding across the fabric of his sweatpants, and he completely loses it when your soft palm caresses his cock, so gentle that it feels almost innocent.

okay, so he couldn’t feel it because you weren’t skin-to-skin, but he knows that your hands are soft, can feel his imagination running wilder because he has memorized the way they feel on most parts of his body.

you’re so incredibly nasty and evil for this— squeezing him lightly, taking advantage of how sensitive he’s gotten, making him tremble as pleasure shoots up his spine. his breath stutters in his lungs and he unconsciously pushes harder on the gas.

and although it means fighting every fiber of his being that painfully yearns for more, he seizes your wrist in an iron grip, placing your hand over the gearstick while his sits heavy on top of yours.

“____! behave! you’re going to get us killed!”

he watches you jut out your bottom lip through the rearview mirror, eyes hazy with lust staring down at where your hand used to be, and then his handsome face. he is evidently flushed, honey skin dusted with a rosy pink. all the way to the tips of his ears, down to his neck.

while he’s driving? really?

doesn’t this only happen in wet dreams?

you are not real.

“then pull over,” you plead. “please?”

he releases a shaky breath. you’re always so needy with alcohol in your system, drove him into total insanity while he couldn’t be here to give you what you wanted.

“no, you need to learn how to be patient… told you we can do whatever you want when we get home, right?”

wrong move.

the silence returns, and just when he thought that you went back to your journey to slumber, the sound of your sniffles fill the car.

jungkook’s heart breaks into a million pieces.

also, he wants to slam his head against the steering wheel.

you make it so fucking hard to resist you; you always get what you want. it becomes much harder when he is the subject of your desire and he loves being loved.

“haven’t i been patient enough…? i missed you so much.”

“and i missed you too!” he brings your intertwined hands to his lips, pressing them on your skin. “fuck, you have no idea how much… please, don’t cry.”

“then pull over,” you stubbornly insist, and he is so close to driving this car into a lamp post. “fuck me at the backseat.”

“can’t,” he mumbles, sounding almost pained, and he is. he wants you so bad, it hurts. “we’re going to have to do it without protection.”

“what do you mean?” you exclaim.

you rip your hand away from his, not wasting time in unlocking the glove compartment, and a sound of sheer disappointment escapes from your mouth as you collapse back on your seat.

“jungkook, i hate you!”

“well right now i hate myself too!” he cries out in frustration. “i didn’t have the time to buy more, okay?”

“and there’s not one in your wallet?”

“babe, are you serious?!”

“what?!”

somehow, his hands still expertly swivels the steering wheel as the car meets a curve.

but he feels dizzy. the ghost of your touch is still there, a promise of carnal pleasure unfulfilled.

“stop the car,” you say out of the blue, rather calmly, and that terrifies the shit out of him.

he swallows the lump in his throat, eyes switching between you and the road in panic. “huh?”

“i said stop the car, i’m stepping out.”

“babe, come on,” he moans, ruined and tormented. he reaches for your hand but you scoot further away from him, and he ignores the way his heart drops to his stomach as he kneads your exposed thigh instead. “please, don’t be like this. i just got home.”

“jungkook! if you don’t let me get off this car right now, i swear!”

the urgency embedded in your threatening voice leaves your boyfriend with no choice but to pull over to the side of the street as soon as he gets the chance.

he carries on to unbuckle his seatbelt.

“baby, stop being stu-”

he tries to reach for you, but he is rudely ignored as you hop off the car and slam the door shut on his face.

“…bborn…”

he blinks.

he inhales. he exhales.

and then he buries his face in his hands to scream… as quietly as possible.

“what the fuck was in that margarita?!”

—

jungkook steps out of the car worried sick about you. now wearing a black bucket hat, his head whips in different directions in search for the familiar shape of your body, your hair, your shirt that is his, anything.

his arm rests on top of the car door, the other on the roof, fingers drumming on it anxiously as he chews on his bottom lip.

there are mostly restaurants here, it seems. some are already closed, some are still lights on. not far away, he hears a karaoke place bursting with music and laughter. he looks up and he finds that the night sky remains barren of stars; there’s no guidance from the heavens that will lead him to you.

except for the sound of your sweet voice calling out his name.

he turns around, and he knows it’s going to sound extremely silly, but damn, you make his life feel like a movie— because you’re jogging towards him, and the universe begins moving in slow motion. perhaps it is to prevent him from falling on his knees in relief, because he genuinely thought that you already went home on your own like the stubborn brat that you are.

“____, where did you go?! you can’t just run off like that! seriously, that was not nice!”

“i forgot my wallet!” you squeal as you halt infront of him, slapping your forehead as a way to scold yourself. “i found a hotteok cart!”

his anger quickly dissipitates. he scans your face, mouth agape in bewilderment.

you, screaming at him to stop the car because there was a sighting of your favorite snack? makes sense.

he dishes out the wallet from his pocket. “wha- i thought you… you didn’t have money?”

you shake your head to answer his question.

“then how are you already eating?”

you take another bite from the hot hotteok you’re holding in a paper cup, and then you shrug.

“i was already eating when i realized it,” you point at yourself, a mischievous smile tugging at the corners of your lips. “so he let me run back here. does it look like this face would steal?”

“you’re impossible!” he bursts out laughing, the unique sound of his joy harmonizing with the mundane noises of the city.

he is thoroughly amused and in awe of your undeniable charm never failing to work its magic. if you just gave it a shot, you might be even better at him at his job.

you’re pliant as he captures your wrist, tugging you away with him so he can lock the car.

“i bought three, by the way.” you note as the two of you start walking, with you clinging to his side. “the last three then mister can go home.”

you put the hotteok near his mouth, and he pauses to take a big bite. “have you even had dinner?”

“just the four margaritas- they were yummy! or was it five?”

he clicks his tongue in disappointment, but he doesn’t get to say anything more about it because you’ve reached the hotteok cart, and he’s already handing the vendor the money.

“thank you!” he bows his head politely as he accepts the remaining two you mentioned earlier, handing them over to you.

“no, this is yours.” you speak with tenderness, giving back one of the cups to him. “then we’ll split the third one. it’s really good!”

the vendor secretly watches the interaction with a fond smile as he packs up to finally, finally end his long day working at the busy streets of seoul.

—

you’re sat together on the hood of jungkook’s car as you share a midnight snack. with caring hands, you rip the hotteok apart in perfect halves, offering the other to your lover. he accepts it in between his teeth.

“do you want drums as your christmas gift?”

“love,” you search for the words to say as you chew the food in your mouth. “i can barely fit in my apartment. where am i going to put a drum set…? not to mention that i can’t even cry without my neighbor hearing it.”

his shoulders drop in dejection, and you rub your boyfriend’s back in an attempt to comfort him.

“you must really want to see me play, don’t you?”

“i’m dying to,” he says in pure jungkook fashion, tone dramatic and thick with an accent that is entirely his. “i can’t believe there were regulars who saw you every night, while i, your boyfriend, didn’t even see you once…! even that fucking bartender… this- this can’t be right! do you think this makes sense? no, right?”

“aw, my baby,” you coo at him, jutting out your bottom lip as you tenderly cup his face.

“i don’t trust him, by the way,” he scoffs. “as much as possible, stay away from him when you visit, alright…? if i see him touching you one more time, i don’t know what i’ll end up doing to him.”

“i don’t like him either,” you giggle. “so that’s easy.”

he stares at your bloodshot eyes. damn it, you haven’t sobered up.

“____, i’m serious. he’s weird. i’m worried about you but i can’t always be here to protect you.”

you blink at him innocently. “i am too! serious!”

“you promise me?”

“i promise!”

he nods, teeth sinking into his bottom lip as he gets lost in the sea of his own thoughts. “i should talk to your friends about this, too. is that okay?”

“if that will ease your mind,” you half-smile, heart fluttering in your chest because you feel so cherished.

comfortable silence follows suit.

the hotteok is still soft and warm and sweet. if your love had to be delivered to his doorstep, it would in the form of your favorite food.

he sighs to gain more of your sympathy, basking in the attention he’s receiving from you. he missed this. he missed you. he sounds like a broken record, but it’s true.

“come ooon, don’t be sad! i’ll make it up to you! but it’s a surprise!”

“surprise?” he eyes you with suspicion. “what surprise?”

“just trust me, alright?”

you poke his cheek where his dimples are, and you witness them pop out as he copies your contagious smile.

“can i make a guess?”

“nope!”

you fit the remaining piece of your hotteok in your mouth, jumping off the hood of the car. you stand before him as you wipe your hands clean with a small paper napkin.

“don’t you dare. if you guess it right then my plans will be ruined!”

—

you’re back on the passenger seat to travel the remaining twenty-seven minutes to your apartment.

jungkook melts into the tenderness of your touch as he drives. you’re tracing the toned muscles of his arms; stroking his hair, his face, and the smell of the sticky brown sugar from the hotteok still lingers on your skin.

“when are you going to start getting tattoos?” you wonder out loud as he intertwines your fingers together on top of his thigh. “i think you’d look so pretty.”

“i’m planning on it.”

his heart skips a beat at the thought of you remembering that he wants his skin artfully inked as you absentmindedly distracted yourself with it.

he licks his lips, smiling as he looks over at you. “you really think so? pretty?”

“hm, hot, too,” you stick your tongue out playfully, and he snorts out a laugh. “but as long as you’re happy, then nothing else matters.”

“of course- wait, yah! you still need to eat dinner.” he reminds you once he recognizes the path you’re taking.

a grocery store is not more than a kilometer away, if his memory serves him right.

“what do you want? i don’t mind cooking.”

“for you to fuck me, that’s what i want. you won’t mind that, too?”

oh my fucking god.

he wishes you were passed out drunk instead so he wouldn’t have to suffer this battle between self-control and his insatiable appetite for you.

“baby, aren’t you still sore from this morning?”

“a little,” he notices you squeezing your thighs together from his peripheral, and along with it, the bruises on your knees from when you worshipped his body last night. “but i want you.”

your giggles in reaction to him frustratedly running his fingers through his hair seems to only fuel the dirty thoughts in his head. he uncomfortably shifts in his seat to adjust himself.

“can you just bring it up when we get near your house? you’re killing me over here!”

“but why? i’m having fun.” you bring your tangled hands over to your side, peppering the back of his hand with innocent kisses. “i love you. you’re so cute.”

“are you… are you seriously calling me cute after what you just asked me to fuck you?”

his disbelief is challenged by your amusement.

“why not? being one dimensional? boring. being different things all at once? sexy.”

jungkook doesn’t need to see you play the drums to know that you are the only one capable of making his heart beat like this. to feel it pounding, it turns out there’s another way besides performing, he can just be alone with you. a different type of addictive exhilaration. he isn’t at the top of the world; he free falls as it revolves around you.

you always know the right words to say, because right now, he is preening. he’s wearing a big smile, the kind that looks like he’s laughing, but he’s not— almost. the kind that reaches his eyes, shapes them into little crescent moons.

how did he get so lucky?

rehearsals in the morning be damned, he will be fucking you good all night.

you make a noise of confusion when the car swerves into the trees at the side of the road.

“what are we doing here?”

jungkook only spares you a glance. “get in the backseat, baby.”

—

taglist in the reblogs! send an ask/dm if you want to be added (or removed) :D

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#jungkook #jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #jungkook smut #jungkook drabble #jungkook one shot #jungkook scenario #jungkook imagine #jungkook fic #jungkook fanfic #jungkook x reader #jungkook x you #bts fluff #bts reaction #bts imagine #bts fanfic

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fraugwinska · 1 month

Note

I'm so in love with your writing!!!! If you are doing requests could you write about the first time Alastor and his darling spend the night together? Maybe they are up late listening to music and his darling suggests he stay the night. They are new to the whole relationship thing and Alastor is awkward but agrees. Could be a touch spicy but mostly just fluff. <3

I did a unique take on this, I hope you don't mind, my lovely Anon? I had the inspiration for it in a fleeting moment and just started to type, remembering your ask... And I kinda love what came out of it! :> As always, @macabr3-barbi3 was my rock and my anchor during the writing process - you have too much patience with me, love! <3

And a huge 'Thank you' to the lovely, ever-so-talented @minkdelovely for prereading this for me to find the perfect title for this story. You are both an inspiration and a delight, and I truly appreciate you, my darling!

Kissing was something Alastor had slowly gotten used to. Kissing you, that is.

You had made it easy for him, he'd give you that. Patience is a virtue rarely found in hell, but when the turning point in his friendship with you tipped the scale to the side of more amorous realms, the Radio Demon, normally superior and confident, had found himself to be exceedingly useless. The lines between companionship and partnership were drawn by his mind rather than physical barriers, and crossing them alone had been a tremendous effort for him. Alastor had never thought he'd feel anything for another sinner, hell, the bare concept of feeling was generally strange to him.

Love was something that had been intimately intertwined with the feeling he had for his mother. So pure, and so lost and unretrievable after her untimely death. To feel this similar yet completely different kind of love for you? Unimaginable, and yet, there you were. And with an unbelievable ease you slowly took root in his mind, weaving your way into his thoughts and settling in his heart without you putting in real conscious effort. Had your encounters been mostly accidental and brief at first, Alastor found himself longing to walk into you more and more before actively seeking your company. To you, he was never unwelcome, in complete contrast to the other residents of the hotel, who tended to avoid or flee from him whenever they could. Whether he would be annoyingly chatty in amusement, hurtful in cold anger or buzzing with excitement (and sometimes murderous glee) - you entertained his whims, listened intently or soothed him with a few chosen words, always finding the right ones.

You shift in his arms, your head leaning a little in to grant his hungry mouth better access to yours with a small, delicious sigh, ignoring or maybe even blissfully unaware that your lips must've caught on his teeth somewhere along the line and ripped open, thin, beautiful crimson lines slowly running down the sides of your mouth. He always said that red suited you best.

Your differences made you quite an odd sight in hell's scenery. What many could only admire with a good dose of fear was never scary to you and the fact you openly regarded the Radio Demon with polite respect and genuine endearment left quite an impression on the others - so much so that it had earned you the hushed title 'Daddy-Deer Whisperer', bestowed by the ever-so-childish Angel Dust. It was when he caught you scolding Angel for using that expression and spreading his usual slander about him with a rare display of open anger that he first felt the gentle tug in his chest that has since remained whenever you were near Alastor. At first, he had shrugged it off as another of his eccentricities, or perhaps hunger pangs he hadn't fulfilled for a while (A very likely thing given his... appetite). But it persisted whenever you looked at him with that little smile on your lips, and he knew. Knew that he had to have you, and that you would be his, in good time. He could never have imagined how easy that would turn out to be, how accommodating to his needs you were from the moment you acknowledged his advances, and were able to keep up with his admittedly glacial pace from then on. While no one dared to ridicule him to his face, the others were comfortable enough around you to tease you for having a partner that seemed so uninterested in physical attention. Well.

While they were not completely mistaken, they didn't know all there was to Alastor the demon with the eternal smile. The foreignness of what it meant to touch and love and the, he had to say it, pitiful lack in experience made Alastor hesitant for the first time in both of his lifes. How could he publicly display his affections when he could barely bring himself to show them in the confines of your company alone? Yet you never demanded anything physical from him, and he realized with a startle that you were perfectly content with just being with him. Where it had taken him weeks to consider kissing you for the first time, it took another couple or so to slowly allow his touches to drift from a brief grasp on an elbow or waist to a tighter grip, resting a hand at the small of your back, enjoying the sensation of your hip bone gently pressing into his palm, pulling you a little bit closer as your hands ran over his arms. In his embrace your arms found their natural place on his shoulders, the weight becoming familiar and calming to him. Until one day, it wasn't anymore. One day he noticed, truly recognized the feeling of you in his arms and found himself struggling not to pull you even closer. And without much thinking, his lips had been on yours, chaste almost and testing, savoring the contact and tasting you without the need to devour. And he found that with you, only you, just a taste was so much more satiating.

It was the first of many kisses shared, but to Alastor, this one held a special significance. You had been stunned, yes, but when he withdrew, overstimulated and unsure of his actions, he found neither judgment or reproach, only a silent smile and a hint of blush on your cheeks before you had returned the affection in your own, respectful way that he appreciated so much - soft pressure and warmth enveloping his hands - and a change of topic, easing him into a lighthearted conversation that had lasted hours, just to calm his nerves. Since then, Alastor has held on to these memories, his firsts with you. And there were countless - all kept near to your heart. Charlie, Angel and Niffty could pester you with any intrusive, interrogating question, you would only smile at them and repeat the same sentiment: What you see is the only thing you get to know.

"Alastor?"

"Hm?" Your voice pulls him out of his thoughts, and his eyes focus on your beautiful face where he sees your brows furrowed with what he learned is concern.

"Is everything okay? You seemed to be somewhere else."

Ah, you were worried. For him. As you always were, so susceptible to his needs, as if it was natural to you. Another peculiarity and yet an incredibly welcome thing for a creature like him who found himself on the receiving end of unreciprocated concern very, very rarely.

"Just a little lost in thought is all, my dear."

"We can stop you know, it's almost midnight anyway." you say softly, your hands streaking soothingly over his arm as they slowly retreat from his shoulders.

He pauses, debating if the sensation of your fingertips touching the soft skin below his buzzed undercut, coupled with a very, very warm and inviting kiss had been enough. Had it ever been? Enough? It wasn't that you ever had any expectations of what would come after, seemingly content with anything he'd allow you to have - a softly spoken praise, an elegant compliment or even just peaceful silence before he'd take his leave. And knowing this Alastor suddenly is... displeased with the idea of this moment not lasting.

His claws wrap around your hands, a gentle pull guiding them back to their rightful place, back to the nape of his neck. He enjoys the rare sight of your surprised and red-flushed face before he let his lips trail your jawline, relishing in the way your skin breaks into goosebumps under his mere breath and fleeting touch before he speaks.

"I'm not so sure about that. Being able to stop, that is."

And he's true to his words. A searing fire is lit when your lips meet his again and his body tenses as he tries and fails to restrain the feeling it coaxes within him. Alastor wants to stay this time, wants to hold this miraculous thing that loves him so undeservingly close, wants to experience the feeling of skin on skin in your pristine bed sheets as he allows himself a rare night of sleep, with your sweet sighs as his lullaby and soft body as his covers. Another first with you, to add to the collection. And while you were always willing to indulge him, he feels, in the way you were pressing into him in cautious urgency, the whine that slips beyond the restriction of your bitten lips and the tremble of your fingers that you weaved into his hair, that this is - finally - what you, maybe for the first time, selfishly crave for, too.

Patience is a virtue, yes, but after all this saintly time he'd allow the both of you the sin of greed for a night.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #alastor #alastor x reader #hazbin hotel fanfiction #fraugwinskawrites #alastor fluff #the fluff fairy strikes again!#A pinch of tension #Alastor is bad at having feelings #what else is new #gravitational pull #kiss the deer

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meanbossart · 4 months

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Ask compilation: I'm Starting To Think That This Drow Guy Is Kind Of An Asshole Edition.

Probably a Ranger in the hunter subclass. I actually intended to multi-class him as fighter/ranger at some point and make that his official class, but I haven't had time/quite figured out the best build that would still suit him - Ranger makes a LOT of sense with his backstory, arguably more than fighter, but he's still supposed to be a magic-less brick-house with 19 strength who hasn't handled a bow and arrow in 10 years, so I'm not sure where that leaves us LOL

A lot of people have suggested that Berserk Barbarian would fit him well, but I think that implies a lot of other characteristics that do NOT suit him at all so 🤷

HE DIDN'T EVEN GO TO THE CRECHE, and honestly it made the game feel much more immersive to pick one path and stick to it like Halsin suggested, even if I did have to endure the shadow cursed lands without the shiny mace 😂

Probably for the best, it'd be a real shame if the story ended there just because he didn't like Vlaakith's attitude.

But yeah Lae'zel (who, for the record, I adore) never stood a chance in his playthrough. Sorry baby girl.

I'm either uninformed or we have different definitions of what constitutes a crush, but sure I'll play in this space LOL

He's both jealous but also kind of aloof when it comes to things like that. It's yet another symptom of his arrogance, where it seems unfathomable that anyone who has him would be genuinely tempted by someone else. He doesn't mind a normal amount of glance-stealing and flattery, even playful flirting to a degree, but if there's persistence or if his partner seems to seek another person out for things he thinks he should be providing, he feels threatened.

Also, he has a difficult time discerning that "deep emotional connection" does not equal "romantic interest". So, at least immediately after the events of the game, he's more likely to be made insecure by his partners forming deep bonds with others than any throwaway expression of physical desire or fleeting infatuation.

[MORE UNDER THE CUT]

Let me preface this with the (hopefully unnecessary) disclaimer that this murderous dark-elf's opinions are not my own, and that I very much purposefully made a bit of an asshole character because I find that entertaining.

And now that you're hopefully primed for what's coming - DU drow is pretty damn judgemental of people's looks save for the rare times when they give him a good impression right off the bat. He notes people's appearances and makes preemptive assumptions about them without even realizing it. He definitely does not equal beauty to value or prowess (in fact he will very much still mock of you if you seem too concerned with your appearance) but he does prescribe things based on looks.

I don't think he'd take issue with what you're describing, It sounds like a pretty average body, but he would assume that person is weaker and less fit to "keep up with him", basically. Which kind of diminishes interest.

As far as to what he finds immediately attractive, he definitely prefers people who seem physically fit (not more than himself though - gods forbid). But, the caveat to this whole tangent is that once you get past initial impressions, he could definitely come to be sexually attracted to pretty much any type of body attached to the person he's in love with.

Thank you! There was no main event, just the building up of resentment over time and the opportunity she saw opening up when the Chosen's plan came into motion. She definitely didn't always hate him though, they had a fairly close relationship until his obsessive behavior and arrogance became an issue.

Thank you!!!

They call him the/that drow, dark elf, or "big drow" if there's more than one present. In private they might facetiously call him Bhaalspawn if they get tired of referring to him by race.

I'll be honest, I forgot whether or not I found it in his playthrough LOL but if he did stumble across that would be VERY funny. He'd be like "look at these idiots and their fake murder god. What kind of dimwit would worship carnage as a religion. Hey Shadowheart get a load of this-"

HAPPY YOU ENJOY HIM! I think his unique situation overall with having been such a overwhelmingly horrid person and forgetting all about it is my favorite bit. That's kind of vague, I know, but I often think of dreams I've had where I committed a crime or did something horrible, and that immediate feeling of relief and disconnect that follows immediately after waking up. That's kind of what I imagine it's like for him - he knows of the things he did, but he doesn't really. In theory it's all true but that's a truth far too fantastical for anyone to conceptualize even if it's put right in front of your face.

That, tackling the guilt (or lack thereof) of something you genuinely don't feel like you've done and the intricacies of it, that's a fascinating state of mind to explore. I love how many directions you can take that.

For me, having a character who is not good, but is not necessarily pure unadulterated evil, makes for a lot of complex thought experiments and contradictory values. DU drow has a lot of those - things he believes and abides by absolutely except for this specific instance, being contradictory is a pillar of his character and it can be a little challenging to keep up with it - but I'd be lying if I said I don't deeply enjoy that aspect as well all the same.

THANK YOUUUU It took me so long to figure out how to draw Astarion in a way I liked, I'm so relieved that others enjoy it too 😂

Shockingly he did succeed it and was immediately put-off by it, lmao. They wouldn't really develop much of a relationship for a while after that, so at that point DU drow just figured he was trying to get something from him and wrote him off, much as he did with everyone else with the exception of Shadowheart.

He didn't meet her at the Tiefling grove! I didn't even know you could meet her before-hand for the longest time. But he did super, duper kill her at camp of course.

He managed to hide the body and everyone else was none the wiser, huge blood bhaal-sigil on the ground aside lmao. He was a little shocked but didn't feel all that bad about it, kind of resigning to that primal feeling of satisfaction at a job-well-done that overwhelmed him instead. He decided she was too weak to survive out there and he had just spared her the trouble.

#ask compilation #du drow lore

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sunshine-theseus · 10 months

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Photo Roulette | Chloe Kelly x Reader

Words: 1.6k Summary: Media day has Chloe finally revealing her relationship. Warnings: Angst, fluff, suggestive themes (I know degrees like PhDs take super long but for the sake of this story please either pretend they don’t, or that she is super smart and managed to cut the time in like half.) Requested by - @charligrantismygirlfriend

After graduating from Oxford with a bachelor’s degree and PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biochemistry, I made the move to Manchester as a clinical biochemist. Falling in love with a professional footballer was not on my list of things to do when I moved, but when a new work colleague insisted I take their extra ticket to a “derby match” as they called it, I took the chance to broaden my non-existent Manchester social circle.

And somehow, I caught the eye of the blonde forward. The number 9 jersey found it’s way into my hand with a signature and phone number and by 7pm that night, I had a date set up.

We went on a few before Chloe and I made anything official. And with making it official, came a set list of rules regarding our relationship and her work, number one was that it didn’t exist to fans. Well, it did, but no one would know who the mystery girl was. It was a tough rule to follow, it meant whenever we hung out, we had to be hyperaware of our levels of affection and what we discussed. Dates had to be at home or in a very secluded corner of a high-end restaurant with a name no one knows how to pronounce, because that means no one there would care who we are.

I was, and forever will be grateful that those places weren’t an issue for us. Both with rather lucrative professions, my starting salary slowly increasing the longer I stay, and her’s naturally growing with the popularity of the game. It also meant it was easier for us to find a more private area to buy a house, 1 ½ years without a single issue of fans knocking on the door or press waiting for some big news story to break. The perfect paradise.

No one knew who the famous Chloe Kelly is dating and had no way of finding out. Until media day.

“Have fun! I won’t be finished at the lab until late, so maybe we’ll get takeaway for dinner?” I kiss Chloe goodbye as I pick up my keys and bag from beside the door.

“For sure! Have a good day staring at cells. At least it’s not jail cells.” I chuckle and make my way out.

My day is in fact consumed with studying pathogens within blood and other bodily fluid. It’s nearly 6pm when Filipa taps me on the shoulder, breaking my concentration and reintroducing me to my surroundings. She helps me pack everything away, we say our farewells and I head home, picking up a vegetarian pizza on the way.

“How was media day?” I ask, plopping down on the couch next to Chloe, who rests her arm around my shoulders.

“Bloody weird as usual. I did this “go through your phone” thing, but it was all good fun. I did some mini games with Yui as well. She wants us to come over for dinner again sometime.”

“Absolutely. I miss her oh my god.” I take a bite of the pizza and rest my head on her shoulder, images on the telly flashing in front of us, neither one paying attention.

“How was your day at the lab Dr Spencer Reid?”

“You’ve been watching Criminal Minds again?”

“Mhm.”

“Spencer and I are two different types of doctors.”

“Mmhm.”

“I mean we both have the honorifics but his is like, not the same. Well it is but… never mind.” I can see Chloe’s lip twitch upward as I try to explain and lightly nudge her.

“I love listening to you get defensive about your title. You deserve it more than anyone in the world.” Her lips press gently to my hairline, then to my cheek, and finally land on my own lips.

“Plus, I love calling you doctor, it’s kind of hot.” My face flushes and I smack her arm.

“Behave!”

“Sorry… doctor.” To make it brief, the night didn’t end there. It ended much, much later, with both of us panting, the cotton sheets covering her soft skin while I splash my face with water in the ensuite.

~~~~~

I don’t give the results of Chloe’s media day another thought for a very long time. Until a month later when Fillipa, in similar fashion to the day of filming said content, breaks me from my work and places her phone on the desk in front of me.

I give her a rather confused look, but she just points to the screen and presses play.

“Well, the next part of Unlocked is one of my favourite bits; Photo Roulette.” The guy who sits next to Chloe explains the rules.

“Fillipa what is this?”

“Just keep watching.” I watch as Chloe scrolls through the thousands of photos stored on her phone, until he tells her to stop.

Her finger lands on a photo, one that no one can see yet, and she lets out a hearty laugh.

“’S it a good one?” he claps his hands together and waits to see the results. There are a few moments of silence before Chloe explains the picture, showing it to the host.

“It’s a picture of my girlfriend, Y/n. I was trying to teach her football and she comes out in this goofy old kit of mine that’s like 4 sizes too big for either of us, socks rolled all the way up with a huge grin on her face.” The smile that shines on Chloe’s face as she recounts that day makes it hard for me to feel the anger boiling in the pit of my stomach. The picture shows up on screen, taking up the whole space, and now the secret is revealed to everyone who we worked so hard to hide it from.

“Is this the secret girlfriend you’ve been hiding the identity of for over 2 years? You finally decided it’s time.” He lets out a laugh after the comment, but I can see the recognition in her eyes and the smile fades from her face. She doesn’t say anything.

It takes me 32 minutes on average, to drive home. On any other day. But when I get into the car, I have to decide whether I should take significantly longer, or cut the time in half, to confront my girlfriend with my findings.

I arrive home at 5:21. With the combination of leaving work a few minutes early, and the somehow blessed lack of traffic, it’s nearly 15 minutes earlier than usual.

“You’re home early!” a cheerful shout echoes down the hall, blissfully unaware of the rage bubbling beneath my skin.

“Just thought I’d get home before the fans tracked me down and swarmed me.” I seethe through my teeth as I kick off my shoes and make my way toward our bedroom.

“What d’you mean?” it’s almost precious, the confused look and the head tilt that greets me.

“Well now that everyone knows who I am, I didn’t want to risk being seen.” I see the moment of realisation.

“Oh fuck I completely forgot! I didn’t mean to I swear. I’m so sorry it just slipped out.”

“How do you slip up like that Chlo? That was our one agreement, our one rule. Fans would not know. God I’ve seen how cruel people are to player’s partners, I’ve seen couples break up because of fans. Chloe what the fuck!” I fall forward onto the bed and scream into the pillows.

“Well you never asked how I feel about having to hide my girlfriend from everyone! I get you want privacy and security of fans not knowing but I want to be able to celebrate with you after wins, or just rest in your arms after a loss, without worrying if someone will see. I want to be able to take you to big games and pull you onto the pitch and kiss you in front of everyone and show them how much I love you. It’s not fair that I have to pretend you mean nothing!” A tear leaks from my eye, and I soon start to sob. My shoulders shake and I can feel the puddle of tears get soaked up by the pillow.

I feel the dip of the bed beside me and Chloe’s arm wraps around me while her lips press light kisses against my back.

“I’m sorry. I want to be there for you too. Show the world I love you. I’m just scared. I’ve never really been seen by people outside of academics. I’m scared to just… be seen.” I roll over and pull Chloe down to rest her head against my chest, running my hands through her hair, untangling the small knots.

“I will love you no matter what. If you decide to continue keeping it private or if you, break up with me.”

“Chloe I will not fucking break up with you. I think- I think I want people to know. I want to love you properly.” Her head tilts up and I lean down, pressing a kiss to her lips.

~~~~~

“Chloe Kelly takes a shot… AND IT GOES IN. SHE SCORES THE WINNER IN THE 92ND MINUTE!!” I yell from the friends and family section as Chloe practices shots in front of me.

She turns dramatically toward me with a glare on her face, but I poke out my tongue and she breaks out into a smile. She makes the short jog over to me and pulls me into a kiss. A rather passionate one if you want to be specific. I grab her by the shirt and pull her close, kissing her harder as people around us jokingly cheer.

“See you after the game baby.” she pecks my lips once more before running back to her teammates who clap her on the back and tease her.

“That’s my girlfriend!” I scream and point, and the same people laugh along with me.

Thank god for media day.

#woso x reader #womens soccer #woso #wsl #chloe kelly #chloe kelly x reader #woso fanfics

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 1 year

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Ace, Lilia: Be Not Deceived

OH???? 👁️ One of the paintings in the background is the Ace of Hearts card soldiers… Does this mean we’ll get to see the actual character inspos for each boy, even the obscure ones like Jack and Sebek??? Will we finally solve a 3+ year long mystery??????? 🔍

… Also, not Ace casually wanting to go to karaoke with Scar 😭 (Funny, cuz he was denied hearing L*ona sing during Endless Halloween Night.) Figures that Ace would be the best at singing of the first years, the others are just no competition…

A Tale as Old as Time.

Not every work of art had a seriousness about it. In fact, Ace preferred to ogle the sillier pieces, finding solace in the nonsense and the chaos of them.

Hands shoved into the pockets of his finely tailored slacks, he found himself entranced by a bed of oysters. They were pried open, one half of their shells propped up to resemble bonnets. Their fleshy, round faces were still drowsy from sleep.

Little babies, the whole lot of them.

“My, you’ve taken quite an interest in that painting. I wouldn’t have expected it of you.” The remark came from Lilia, who curiously peered over at Ace from one side. “Have you an interest in oysters?”

“Nah, can’t stand’m. Especially raw,” he replied. “I was just thinkin’ of something I heard from back home."

“Oh?" Lilia’s large eyes glittered with a keen interest. “Now this I must hear.”

“It’s not really that interesting.” Ace shrugged. “A walrus dressed up in a suit to wine and dine a bunch of oysters—but the punchline is, instead of being taken out to dinner, the oysters are the walrus’s dinner! We have a Walrus-brand oyster sauce in the Queendom of Roses that gets its name from that story."

“Kufufu, I see! What a fascinating origin," Lilia mused. "It's a cautionary tale to not trust strangers. It brings to mind warnings to be wary of wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

"I guess so? The walrus looked nice at first glance, but he basically robbed a cradle. Seriously, who'd actually go and kidnap a baby like that? It’s just an exaggerated story to scare gullible kids into acting straight.”

Lilia's mouth adopted a mysterious, knowing smile.

"Oh, you'd be surprised!" he chuckled softly. "You never know when a big, bad monster might come in the night to steal you away from your family."

There was an eerie intenseness behind his every word, the magenta of his irises darkening to match. A shiver bolted down Ace’s spine. Lilia, too, was a creature of that very night that threatened to consume him.

"Y-Yeesh, you're freakin' me out, Lilia-senpai” Ace jokingly shoved his upperclassman. His fear had been fleeting, easily chased off with a laugh. “Don't say scary stuff like that. Halloween isn't for like another whole month!"

“Oopsie~ Perhaps I’m a little overeager.”

“I’ll say.” Ace rolled his eyes. “Sometimes I forget how weird you can be.”

“What, you don’t think someone as adorable as me could possibly be capable of committing a war crime or two?” Lilia grinned. “I’m not entirely innocent, you know.”

“You definitely wouldn’t be able to pull off any war crimes though!! You just act way different than your looks would suggest.” Ace rapped his knuckles on the wall beside the framed oysters. “Like the lying walrus.”

“Do you think I’m a lying walrus?” The question was teasing.

“Everyone is. There’s plenty of them in Heartslabyul too.” Ace counted off on his fingers.

“Loosey Deucy comes off like a straight-laced honors student, but he’s an ex-delinquent and dumb as a rock. Cater-senpai looks flashy and friendly, but he’ll trick you into doing his chores and leave you hanging. Trey-senpai’s got his weird teeth hobby… and then there’s Riddle-ryocho, who has a babyface but throws fits like an active volcano!!

“The Great Seven had parts of themselves that were surprising too. No one would think the King of Beasts would be the type of guy to be belt out a song, but he still did. That’s what moved the hyenas to join his cause. It just goes to show that you really can’t judge a book by its cover.”

"A good takeaway from the tale," Lilia agreed. "Taking the morals of a story to heart... you're very clever, Ace."

"The cleverest." He cheekily stuck out his tongue.

The knowing smile suddenly returned to Lilia's face. "I'm sure you have a wicked side to yourself as well. As you've said, we all have a bit of the lying walrus in us."

"No way, miss me with that. I’m the poor, helpless victim,” Ace grumbled, rubbing at his neck. It had stiffened considerably at the memory of his skin chaffing. “Haaah, if only I wasn't bullied so much by my dorm leader~"

"By Riddle?" Lilia smirked a little. "His temper is rather infamous. Silver and Sebek are his club mates. I've heard of Riddle's rage.”

"Dude, you don't know the half of it. He's always nagging me one way or another, and if I don't listen... BAM!

"'Off with Your Head'!!" Ace scrunched up his face in a show of pretend anger and pantomimed casting a spell by wiggling his fingers. The voice he adopted was elegant, yet arrogant—a replica of Riddle's. "Now you sit there and think about what you've done, Ace! The collar comes off when you've repented."

He fell back with a groan, Lilia's amused chuckle accompanying him in the otherwise quiet museum.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up while you still can."

From the corner of his eye, Ace spotted the oysters again. The entire bed, a colony of easily deceived infants. Unaware of the world and its eager, snapping jaws—the jaws of a well-dressed walrus.

“Guess a smile and a snazzy suit is all it takes to get people to waltz right into a trap, huh? With the right looks and attitude, even a villain can be made to pass as a hero.”

Ace tugged at the silver sash slung across his torso, drinking in the details of his luxurious platinum suit. A bow tie, a vest, a jacket with trailing coattails. Shining fabric, pure and unblemished.

He was all dressed up, with nowhere to go. Only lies to tell.

“You make for a good hero,” Lilia offered, “with that winsome charm and cheer of yours. Ah, but that’s not all. It never is. These old eyes can’t be deceived.”

“Whaaat? I can’t believe you’d side with Riddle over me. I’m being unfairly ganged up on here!! Aaah, my senpai are so mean to me…!”

His laments echoed off the cavernous rooms of the museum. Mere whining of a high school boy against the backdrop of great figures and illustrious history.

He was small, one little white lie against a sea of them.

“… Juuust kidding.”

Ace turned away, a wink thrown playfully at the painting of the oysters before their very doom.

As if anyone would believe that.

#Ace Trappola #Lilia Vanrouge #twisted wonderland #twst #twst imagines #twisted wonderland imagines #disney twisted wonderland #spoilers #something no one asked for #Ace birthday takeover #twst scenarios #twisted wonderland scenarios

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joezy27 · 1 year

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"How To Write HAWKEYE" by Matt Fraction

My process for Hawkeye isn’t like anything else I’ve ever used for writing, and it’s sort of involved. For a lot of reasons—none of which have to do with the how of anything, let alone the how of writing comics—my approach with this book, I decided early on, would be completely different than anything I’d ever done before. I’ll get into some of the why and how here, but, from that decision, everything about writing Hawkeye kept getting weirder.

About a year before I started on Hawkeye, I started to experiment with writing in a method called Marvel Style or Plot Style. It’s called Marvel Style because Stan Lee came up with it when he was the only writer at Marvel and had to produce eight books a month. Stan started to write in a way that leaned very heavily on his artists rather than requiring him to produce the screenplaylike scripts most of us think of as full scripts or just, y’know, scripts.

Art by David Aja

Here’s an example of a full script I gave to my dad:

PAGE ONE 1.1 A SWEATY GUY gets out of a car. GUY We’re here. 1.2 The guy walks to a house, nervous, peering over his shoulder as he goes. GUY Ha ha. 1.3 He walks up to the front porch almost on tiptoes. GUY ha. 1.4 CLOSE: Still nervous, still on edge, he adjusts his tie. Blood under his fingernails. Uh-oh. NO DIALOGUE 1.5 FROM BEHIND: As he pokes his finger into the doorbell, we see, with his other hand, he’s got a gun held behind his back. SFX Ding dong

Note: SFX means Sound Effects

And so on. Now that took me as long to type as it took you to read, but you get the gist: dramatic beats and certain visual moments are isolated and chosen because they transmit the narrative and dramatic story flow to an artist who chooses his shots (or might take my suggestions if there are any) accordingly and crafts a sequence of images, keeping in mind moment, frame, image, flow. Isolated dialogue runs below to allow the artist to understand how much space to allot for words, and that’s it. McCloud-101 stuff, right?

But Marvel Style for David [Aja, the artist on Hawkeye] looks something more like this:

PAGE ONE Okay, David, on this page, a little car pulls up to a little suburban house and NERVOUS MAN gets out half-laughing to himself. He skulks to the front door, maybe adjusts his tie. He’ll have, like, blood under his fingernails. He looks over his shoulder, knocks. Then the last image on the page needs to be: we see he’s got a GUN BEHIND HIS BACK. “We’re here,” he’ll say, at some point, to no one in particular. And maybe giggle on his way to the door. NERVOUS KILLER CREEP here to WREAK HAVOC, David. Okay.

And I’ll move on to page two. My scripts are super informal. Nobody, but your artist and letterer are gonna read it, so why not make it fun for them to read?

I chose to write Hawkeye for David like this for several reasons. First, my favorite pages from our time on Iron Fist, which was written Full Script-style, always came when he’d politely and respectfully diverge from what was scripted for him, make something magical, then find his way back to where he was expected to be. So I’d start writing more and more vaguely for him, to give him more and more freedom, and he always crushed it. By “crushed it,” I mean he made a great page that made me look smarter than I am. Second, and I mean no disrespect to any of David’s other collaborators, many of whom I’m a fan, but I never liked David’s work more than I did on Iron Fist. And they were all doing full script for him. So, y’know—maybe a lightbulb went off. Third, writing Marvel Style scares the living crap out of me. It is the antithesis of what we teach ourselves as writers. It requires trust and sharing and believing in your partner—and he’s a partner, not an artist here, just check the credits page—and trusting in the collaboration above all else. And it’s easy to see how slippery a slope Marvel Style can be to get to “PAGES SEVEN THROUGH NINE: They fight.”

Art by David Aja

I started experimenting with Marvel Style because it scared me, and when I get scared, I get exhilarated. These things, this job, it’s the best, but it can grind you down. It crushes your wrists and warps your spine and dries your eyes and smooths down your teeth and grows your gut. Excitement and danger, though meager compared to what, say, a firefighter might encounter, is important in your work.

Also, I thought it could save me time. I thought I could do half my work on layaway, basically; that I could crank out a plot in three or four days and script a few weeks later, in one or two days. I mean, it worked for Stan, right? And he and his partners—partners—only created the dang Marvel Universe. Lastly, it’s [Marvel Comics’s former editor-in-chief and current chief creative officer] Joe Quesada’s fault.

Let me digress here for a second: Joe da Q is a great guy. Great artist, great boss, great dad, great guy. And I love talking to him about the art of the art, because he’s been around and has some stories and a head full of great thoughts about it all and … and you do it for about a minute and a half and you realize exactly how Joe earned everything he earned and you couldn’t be happier. Anyway, one night Joe is winding Mr. Brian Michael Bendis up at BarCon. BarCon is the “con” that happens in the bar of the guest hotel of whatever con you’re at, literally, every single night, of every single convention, ever. Anyway, so Joe is claiming much of Marvel’s now-decades-long dominance over comics came from the inescapable visual firepower of our founding fathers, that Marvel’s visual style is as much a key to its successes as the radioactive spider. And if you doubt it, just look at how the key moments in the company’s history were written: Marvel Style. Brian howled in outrage, “That’s not writing, that’s cheap, that’s lazy. When you cede control of choice of moment to someone else, you’re just mad-libbing …” It went on and on. Joe poking, Brian exploding, and Joe giggling with glee.

Joe Quesada loves his family, the Mets, the Beatles, Marvel, and winding Bendis up, in that order.

I realized though, as I listened to them play-fight, that it was making me nervous. Just to think about Marvel Style. Just to pretend I’d even try it, even on a short story made me, sweartagod, nervous. So many of my favorite comics were done by singular cartoonists—Eisner, Hernandez, Brown, Clowes, Chaykin. And the more I thought about it, how could I ever hope to write the thing those guys did for themselves? You can’t. A writer could never coax American Flagg! out of Chaykin—unless they gave him a Marvel Style script and treated him like a partner as invested in the storytelling as the writer.

So I knew I had to try it.

This comic has been written in a giant scramble. All out of order. Not by design but … but because Team Hawkeye does nothing the easy way.

I know a big part of Brian’s lessons here is that the only way you need to find is your way. That your way is the right way and anything else is an obstacle but … but please, god, don’t do it like this. This is how I know how to do Hawkeye.

My initial pitch for Hawkeye ended up being published as issues 4 and 5. It’s our first two-part storyline and is very different than the issues on either side; international travel, glamorous and exotic casinos, international cabals of evil. Clint-as-Bond, where he’s in a tux more than a supersuit. Marvel said okay—remember, we just needed like nine of these—but I pulled out because it wasn’t right. When I sat down to write it, it wasn’t right, and I had to leave. I had a story, not a book, and so I stopped.

Then one night I thought about Jim Rockford and The Avengers—the UK ones I mean—for whatever reason, and found my book.

So I had to repitch. I got it, luckily, but everyone thought I was nuts. Anyway.

I was going to write Marvel Style for David. It was going to be all done-in-one, or sometimes two, issue stories. It was going to be about what Hawkeye did when he wasn’t being an Avenger because, when I got the book, Clint Barton was everywhere and I didn’t want to step on toes. Give me him on his day off, I figured. It was going to be street-level, real-world kind of stories, in, of course, the Mighty Marvel Manner. I would try to counteract the banal everyday stuff with a complicated structure that would reward close-reads. So yeah, there might be an issue that’s about Clint trying to buy tape, but it’s going to start with a car chase, cut back two days, then cut forward again, and on and on. And he would have a kind of mentee/partner in a young girl named Kate. It’s a double act.

So then I wrote the first issue. And I sent it in, and my editor said what I felt and suspected: “This is a second issue.” And he was right. It was as much about Kate as Clint, and it’s Clint’s book, so back to the drawing board.

Then I wrote what became issue 1. So, psychically, the order of Hawkeye to me goes 4, 5, 2, 1. Physically, in terms of what was actually typed and invoiced, Hawkeye was 2, 1, then 4 and 5—because those were for a guest artist—then 3, then 6. It can wreck your head if you have more than just that to do, let me tell you.

Art by David Aja

HAWKEYE ISSUE 6

Issue 6 was a breakthrough for a lot of reasons. First off, though, at this point, there were five other issues and they were all written out of order and it was hard for me to keep track of what was happening when and where.

I knew 6 was our December issue, and I always wanted to write a story with Christmas as a backdrop, so I locked in to making it a holiday issue. And I wanted to do a story about Clint wanting to hook up his DVR, but things kept getting in his way. Somehow those two strands tied together in my head.

I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said this job kills your hands and your wrists. Add to that I’m an art school dropout who misses his sketchbooks and I’ve, from the start, always started my comics writing in cheap little notebooks. Partly to get away from typing, partly because I love the feeling of graphite dragging across the page, partly because I’ve thought out and problem-solved in sketchbooks my whole life.

I wish I knew how I made the following intuitive leap, but I think that’s just it—like so much about my writing, Hawkeye especially, is all intuitive. I took pieces of paper and folded them in half. Across the top, I wrote the issue number and title. Down the left, I numbered 1 through 20 to represent each of the twenty pages of the first five issues, and then I wrote in a short sentence or phrase about what happened on each of those pages. I needed to, at a glance, be able to see how I was pacing things. And if I want to check, oh, how many pages that fight scene was on page 3, I could just consult my mockups and move on. I could just carry them around in the back of the notebook, lay ’em all out in front of me, and see six months at once. Perfect.

For whatever reason, I have continued to write like this for Hawkeye. I’ll lay out the last few issues and the next few issues, even if all I have is the cover idea and title (if I’ve got the title I have a vague sense of what the story will be), and look at how they all flow in and out of one another. Here’s the mockup for issue 6.

I randomly gave myself six days to tell this story in. (There’s a DJ Shadow track called “Six Days” that director Wong Kar Wai shot a video for, and I like the song and the video and I like the sound of “six days” as an increment of time. It comes up in my work a lot I’ve noticed.) Now, at some point in the writing, I realized everybody in the real world has to endure the holidays together, so I thought, “Great, we’ll find out what day our book comes out and make that the day the book starts on, and then bip and bop around the real days of the month.” But at that point, it had started on a Thursday or whatever, so I had to rework it all, and I kept getting confused.

As I pecked through the list, things got complicated. Look in those margins and you can see me losing the real time aspect of it, the actual days and how they all fit. So I had to get linear for my own sanity, if nothing else.

Here’s me boiling down the six days just so I could keep track—but once you tie a comic down like that with a nonlinear chronology, suddenly this all gets important. Well, was the fight at night? Okay, so then the next morning he has to be here, and beat up. But if … well, wait, he needs to be there, too. So maybe the fight was really the night previous, like, at 12:01 a.m., and it’s really been closer to forty-eight hours since, and…

Anyway, it was weirdly algebraic. You’ll see, in the script, how I added time even to help David and Matt Hollingsworth, our genius colorist, in their staging.

With my little half-sheet done, it was time for me to write my take on Marvel Style for David.

My Marvel Style scripts are really, if I’m being honest, about 15 percent less full than a typical full script. There’s dialogue sometimes. And if there’s, say, six little paragraphs on a page, you can tell how many panels a page I’m thinking about. But it’s as Marvel Style as I get. It works for us, though. For example, using the page as a kind of Advent calendar—to use an Advent calendar as a design device, came entirely from David. As I said—I trust in him to be as invested in storytelling as I am, and he produces things I’d never think of, let alone know how to explain in a script for someone to draw.

Notes for Haweye #6

ART PROCESS From my script, David produces thumbnails—and they are the most laborious thumbnails you can imagine. All of David’s heavy lifting is done here. These things are tiny little bursts of science. Not that his mark making isn’t important, but his thinking is paramount to all of it and you can see it all in the layouts. It’s his half-sheet, if you will. Hardest work goes there.

Art by David Aja

So I take the layouts and do a dialogue pass the best I can. Scenes can grow or change or transmute from what I’d written, or I can give notes and add things or take away. It’s great—as long as I can tell what’s happening, I mean. Which isn’t always.

So then David enlarges the pages with his own dummy lettering pass. By “dummy lettering pass,” I mean he actually letters the book roughly, but completely, so I can see where things need trimming and he can see how the words work in the frame. He sends this back and I tighten up my script accordingly.

Once David’s art gets the editorial okay from editor Steve Wacker, it goes back to David and colorist Matt Hollingsworth who have been, in the background, talking about the color schema for the issue. In a book where time shifts so hard and weird, color is one of the primary keys to helping orient the reader. Our readers are smart; they always get it. A big part of the why is Matt, doing subtle, almost invisible little things to keep you going with us. I could talk about this more at length, but it’s not my place to; let me just say, there is tremendous storytelling happening with our book’s colors.

Art by David Aja

Then I adjust the lettering until poor Chris Eliopoulos (letterer on Hawkeye) wants to murder me and the book has to be sent to press. Wait two weeks and, voilà!

We must be doing something right.

Hawkeye script by Matt Fraction, art by David Aja

HAWKEYE - The Fraction & Aja Creative Process

Words for Pictures - The Art and Business of Writing Comics and Graphic Novels (2014)

#Hawkeye #Clint Barton #Kate Bishop #Matt Fraction #David Aja #Matt Hollingsworth #Chris Eliopoulos #Marvel Comics #Words for Pictures

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sc0tters · 1 year

Text

A Needed Apology | Nico Hischier

summary: you go to a bar where you think it’s a coincidence that you run into Nico, little do you know that he planned it all.

song: Uh Oh - Tate McRae

request: yes/no

warnings: swearing, toxic Nico is still here.

word count: 1.43k

authors note: originally when someone request this song I had no clue what to write for it but I was listening to the playlist that I made for the celly and this song came after the song from part one and I realised that this is how you guys are getting the part two for this! If you want to check out the rest of the celly playlist you can do so here!

pt 1

It had been a rough four months for you.

You truly thought that Nico was the reason why your problems started but it seemed that leaving him only caused more. Sure it was easy finding yourself a little one bed apartment in the heart of Newark but you couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Nico was everywhere, literally. The billboards, the ads, the local news and newspapers, even on social media because you had followed the Devils for such a long time that your account didn’t seem to notice when you unfollowed the Devils as the universe wanted you to feel the pain of seeing Nico content scattered throughout your for you pages.

A friend suggested that you put yourself onto a dating app, not because they wanted you to find some rebound but because they thought you needed a confidence boost.

Well what a real confidence boost it was when you were in the middle of swiping through different profiles and you were faced with Nicos. Sure it was hypocritical but seeing him on there was a punch to your gut, however, it did make you think back to his alleged mistress that he had been seen with the day after you broke up with him.

It was like a last resort when your friends dragged you to a bar, the shitty week you had combined with the pictures of some girl leaving a restaurant under the comfort of Nico’s arm meant that you were in dire need of a pick me up.

Despite what the steady stream of girls in and out of Nico’s life the captain truly did miss you. He didn’t enjoy sitting at home on the couch alone because all he’d end up doing was just stare at your seat.

Yes you were that kind of couple, your big L shaped couch had a cushion that you sat on and it was right next to Nico’s.

His coping methods certainly weren’t healthy but it was very much like bandaid on a duct tape size hole. For every girl in his bed it was less space that you had available for you to haunt his mind.

It was a major blow to the ego watching you walk out of the door to your apartment, yes you were putting on a brave face for your friends but that didn’t stop Nico from growing irritated.

You two were meant to be the total end game of couples, the big proposal with the Disney princess wedding, it was all meant to be in your future but you just threw it all away.

And for what? Sure Nico hadn’t accepted any type of boyfriend duty over the last month but that wasn’t his fault, he had been going through a rough patch as an ice hockey player and as an NHL team captain so you had to be put on the back burner.

It honestly surprised him when you left he couldn’t even really process what happened because two days later and he was already on a flight starting a fourteen day road trip.

Your dating profile had thrown him off. Really he had no clue why you were on that app, not when he was trying to get you back at least.

Sure his efforts might have been unsuccessful, he tried calling your friends, even showing up to their apartments asking where you were but none of them ever said a word usually acting like they weren’t home.

They had also blocked Nico from everything on your phone so that he couldn’t try to call, because they all knew you’d go running back the moment he called.

So when he finally got a sighting of life from you as the captain stared over Jacks shoulder to see your Instagram story with the caption girls night.

He knew what he had to do. Yes it was a little unorthodox but Nico knew the only bar in the whole of Jersey that you went to with your friends. The group loved the atmosphere and the bartenders so you guys were never going to change things.

And that’s how it happened, Nico walked in and within milliseconds he had found you.

You were talking to some guy who seemed to find everything you said hilarious.

Nico didn’t often get jealous but when you put your hand on the boys arm it unlocked a part of the captain that only you could find.

That was the thing about you two, Nico did love you and that part was real. But the fame and stress of being captain had officially gotten to him and maybe that meant it would be better if you weren’t in his life anymore. At least then he couldn’t fuck your life up anymore than he already had.

Yet when that guy leaned down to kiss you it had the Swiss man striding over to you quicker than he could try to apologise “hey schatzi!” Nico called out causing your head to quickly whip around.

You thought you were dreaming when you locked eyes with Nico “you didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend,” the boy you had been talking to spat as he sent you a glare “keep that bitch bro,” he added as he turned his attention to Nico.

The captain really wished that he didn’t say that “what’d you just call her?” He scoffed as he furrowed his eyebrows “a fucking bitch,” the younger of the two boys repeated himself.

All you could do was watch on as Nico grabbed him by the shirt “that wasn’t very nice,” Nico pointed out as he clenched his fist causing you to realise what was going on.

It was like clockwork as you quickly tried to get between the two of them “he isn’t worth it Neeks,” you placed your hand on the captains shoulder as you sent him a serious look.

But that didn’t seem to work “he can’t be calling you shit like that,” as right as Nico was you didn’t want to cause a scene “if you let him go I’ll talk,” you offered as you pursed your lips into a thin line.

Clearly that’s why he came over to you right?

Nico didn’t even have to think about it as he dropped the boy sending him a glare that caused him to scurry off “outside,” you motioned to the door knowing that your friends would kill you if they saw you with him.

He grabbed your hand as you pulled him outside “and I’m not your fucking schatzi anymore,” you added as you scoffed.

The captain had to say that he really thought it would be easier getting you back “baby-” Nico tried to reach out as you continued pacing back and forth at the entrance of the bar.

You sent him a glare as you stopped “I dumped you Neeks I can’t be your baby anymore either!” You added as you began to grow frustrated.

Nico sighed as he held his hand out for you to grab so that he could pull you closer “I know I fucked up baby,” he mumbled as he let his hands fall to your waist as you stood between his legs.

It was pathetic the way you practically melted into his touch “let me make it up to you,” he proposed as his voice went soft.

Anyone who saw you would have thought that you were a couple calming down after a night, not one who was trying to get back together.

But when you remained silent it gave Nico the green light to continue talking “I missed you ya know?” He confessed as he tucked your hair behind your face giving him a chance to really look at you.

Your lips formed a pout “no you didn’t,” you shook your head “not when you’ve got all of those girls.” That was your way of telling him that you knew about them all and that you weren’t actually impressed by it.

The boy smiled “they don’t compare to you,” he whispered as he hooked his two fingers under your jaw.

That should have been the moment you ran away “promise?” You asked voice barely a whisper at this point.

Nico nodded “of course I do baby,” before you knew it the Swiss man leaned in to kiss you. It wasn’t earth shattering or suffocating either, it was hungry but sweet. He let his tongue swipe across your bottom lip and just as you were about to let him in you pulled away.

“Take me home Neeks or lose me forever,”

#nico hischier x reader #nico hischier imagine #nico hischier #nico hischier x y/n #nico hischier oneshot #hockey imagine #hockey imagines #nhl imagine #nhl oneshot #imagines #oneshots #ambers 150 celly #amber writes fics

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thedevilsoftruth · 5 months

Note

Hey!, I just finished rewatching moon knight and now scrolling through the moon knight tags when I came across a post about how Mr knight is actually Marc Spector and Steven Grant is a playboy billionaire in the comics and I was shook. Then I came across your post of you ranting about the differences from the show to the comics, which blew my mind!, and now I’m so intrigued and curious about the true lore of moon knight, every time I try to search about it on google I just get references from the shows (so frustrating) I can’t afford to buy the comics, so if you can/want could you please tell me all the important and interesting facts/lore that’s in the moon knight comics?

Sorry for the long message, just came across your page and pressed follow, love your content!. ❤️

AAAAAAGGGGHHHH HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT. GIIGLING AND KICKING MY FEET IN THE AIR. HEY, LOOK MA, I MADE IT!! I GET TO EXPLAIN THE MOON KNIGHT COMICS LORE TO SOME GUY ON THE INTERNET!!

in all seriousness, this made my day. I'm so glad you enjoy my content, and I will happily explain to you the MK lore!

I completely get you on the not wanting to but the comics thing. Comics are expensive. Honey, imma be real with you, readcomiconline.li is where it's at. It's where I read all of the comics I didn't have.

So before I go on a tangent and explain things, and this goes for anyone wanting to start reading the comics, heres a little list of all the comics I've read so far in what I understand to be chronological order.

It's a little bit cheesy and a VERY long run, but Marc Spector: Moon Knight from 1989-94 is maaayybbeee where you want to start off, but maybe not. I didn't start off with this run, but even as bad as the old comics are, they're a bit important.

But, I HIGHLY suggest you start out with the Lemire and Smallwood run from 2016. It was the first run I completed, and it's an amazing run and VERY important to read. Many people say it's the best run. It's certainly a run, I'll tell you that. ( Also I didn't read that one online, I received it last year as a Christmas gift. Also readcomic doesn't have all of the issues, so be warned on that. )

Next I read From The Dead. And I moved on to Vengeance of The Moon Knight from 2009. And after I'd suggest reading Age of Khonshu, Devils Reign and then The Midnight Mission. You can read all of these for free on readcomiconline.li ( don't type in comics plural because it will direct you to the wrong site ) be warned though because there are a lot of ads and you will get jumpscared by anime boobies.

Now moving onto what you asked me for. The important stuff, right.

I'm new to this whole comic reading stuff as well, and for anyone else reading this who knows more than I do, please add additional information I missed down in the reply section. It would mean a lot. So now I'm going to give a you a quick run down on Marc's origin story. ( And for a quick disclaimer, I will come off as not taking myself seriously in some parts of this post because I don't take myself seriously lol. )

Marc Spector was born on March 9th, 1987 in Chicago Illinois into a Jewish family. His father was Elias Spector and his mother was Wendy Spector ( his younger brother being Randall Spector )Elias was a rabbi who manged to escape Nazi prosecution during the days of Hitler and all that jazz. Because Elias was a rabbi, Randall would get picked on at school a lot, and Marc would be there to stand up for him. Even at a young age Marc was exposed to a lot of violence. That could come from growing up yk... Kinda poor and having to stand up for your lil bro.

Marc's violent nature was really born when a close family friend of his, Yitz Perlmen was discovered to be a secret serial killer who targeted Jews. From what I understand, Perlmen tried to Kill Marc ( mind you Marc was like 11 or 12 ) but Marc had escaped but his traumatic experiences led him to form D.I.D

As seen in the Lemire run, the first time Marc had encountered Khonshu was when he was 12 and was getting diagnosed for his D.I.D Marc wasn't told to his face from the doctor about his disorder and was told to step outside the office. Marc tried to evesdrop on the conversation, and from outside of the doctor's office, he meets Khonshu. Khonshu tells him, " That man in there is not your true father. I am. " Mind you, Marc is 12!!! 12!!!! Khonshu began manipulating Marc since he was twelve because he was, obviously really fucking young, and traumatized. Khonshus tactics were to strip Marc away from his religion and culture and make him submit to him.

So anyways, Marc was sent to Putnam Psychiatric Hospital and would stay there until he was 18 when his father funeral came along and he was let go for a week to go visit his family. This is where we learn Marc's relationship with his father was complex. Marc tells his mother, Wendy, that his father must have been happy to send him away because he was embarrassed by him. Wendy and Marc have an argument, which ends in Marc saying he's going to the bathroom, when he actually leaves to his childhood bedroom and escapes out the window when he hears Khonshus voice.

Marc later enlisted into the U.S marines Corps and served as a private for a couple years. But on Marc's second tour to Iraq, superiors started to report his odd behavior and they found out that Marc had lied about his disorder, leaving him to be discharged. Marc joined the CIA and served with his brother Randall. Randall was jealous of Marcs talents and killed Marc's girlfriend, Lisa, because she was going to expose a gun scheme. Marc then like... Threw bombs at Randall and shit and then assumed he was dead...but he wasn't.

Marc left the CIA after that and started doing illegal boxing, where he met his soon to be best friend, Jean-Paul Duchamp ( usually refered to as Frenchie ) and they became mercenaries together and started killing a bunch of people, in Marc's case, for mooonnneeyyy!!! Get that bag, girlie. And then Marc got put on trial for war crimes!! His crime being yk...assistanting the president of this south African country called Bosqueverde as one does.

And then he started to do missions under this group call the Karnak Cowboys and fell in love with one of his groupmates, Layla El-faouly, as seen in later issues of The Midnight Mission. Then she fucking died when an escape went wrong.

So anyways Marc meets this funny lil guy named Raoul Bushman ( he is not funny lil guy, he's killed hundred of people, probably) So Marc works for him with Frenchie and they, together, set to north Sudan to raid a dig site. ( This should start to sound familiar, as it was briefly touched on in the show when Arthur's guys captured Steven and put cuffs on him and slammed him in the back of their car ) Looks like raid shadow legends went down again, and things started to get not so epic when Raoul killed the lead Archeologist of the dig site, Peter Alraune in front of his daughter Marlene. This pissed the ever loving shit out of Marc because even though Marc likes violence, he doesn't enjoy violence against innocent people, and so he punches the fucker but uh oh! The Raoul Bushman Strikes Back, and he fucking KILLS MARC IN RETURN AND EVERYONE ELSE EXPECT FOR FRENCHIE AND MARLENE AND THIS ONE MF WHO TOLD HIM HE WOULD TELL HIM WHERE THE DIG SITE WAS. ( really Raoul left Marc mortally wounded, but he was on the brick of death, basically)

Marc was able to regain conscious and drag himself halfway to Khonshus tomb ( which is what Raoul was looking for ) Marlene and a bunch of other citizens find Marc and they carry him to Khonshus tomb. Marc hears Khonshus voice for yet another time, and Marc is revived and becomes the Moon Knight we all know and love. Then he basically killed Raoul's guys and then fell in love with Marlene.

So that's his origin story. Now onto the stuff I know as fact but it won't be explained in chronological order because I haven't read a ton of comics to explain it in chronological order.

He used Steven as a a way to handle money and build wealth so they could have recourses like vehicles, weapons and a ton of other random bullshit ( go!! ) that they don't need. Jake was used as a new York taxi driver so that he had his eye in the streets and knew when shit was goin down. They're both kind of horny. Jake literally spends some of his free time in a strip clubs drinking rum. ( As seen in the midnight mission and implied on in the Lemire run. )

His relationship with Marlene was long, but didn't last because, if I'm recalling correctly, Marc had a mental breakdown and decided to basically stop working for Khonshu so he could be with Marlene. But soon after he started hearing Khonshus voice again and Marlene couldn't take anymore of it, so she left him.

And then there's that bullshit with The Midnight Man. All I know is that he passed away from cancer and had a son named Jeff Wilde. Jeff aspired to Marc and wanted to be his sidekick, kind of like Robin and Batman in the Lego Batman movie with a little less adoption, but Marc kept on refusing as a way to protect Jeff. The Jeff had this whole thing where he turned evil or some shit idk and I guess Marc killed him? I'm not sure. Please, moon knight gang, let me know what happened in the reply section because I'm ignorant.

Marc had his independence from Khonshu after banishing Khonshu to Asgardian Prison ( seen in Age of Khonshu and discussed in The Midnight Mission) and decided " fuck you, I don't need need you anymore. Imma do my own thing and you can't do nothing about it " and then he became Mr. Knight. Mr. Knight is kind of a detective and he consults with policemen ( as seen in From The Dead ) Moon Knight is the one who does all the fighting.

From where Marc's development is at right now, Marc was running a thing called the Midnight Mission, which was a place where citizens would go to to report strange things happening in the city.

Additional, fun information:

Marc has a daughter named Diatrice. He only knows about it because Jake had a secret relationship with Marlene on the side after Marc and Marlene broke up.

He sleeps all day in the tomb of Khonshu and fights crime at night. He's like a bat!!

His ringtone ( as seen in the midnight mission) is The Killing Moon by Echo and The Bunnymen. ( Y'all should listen to it, if you haven't. it's really good. ).

He drives a red convertible car ( as seen in the Brain Micheal Bendis run, don't read it it's REALLY bad and insufficient. ) and also a motorcycle ( as see in Vengeance of The Moon Knight)

He was originally supposed to fight mainly just werewolf's and um... Writers at Marvel had different ideas.

His favorite drink is an ice cold vodka ( as seen in the Midnight Mission)

He had a mansion and then his money went bye bye and now he lives in a haunted house ( as seen, once again, in the Midnight Mission)

Frenchie is also gay! Hes married to a man named Rob! ( And this is only from what I've heard, by he apparently had a secret crush on Marc at some point.)

And yeah. That's all I have for ya today. Thank you if you made it this far, and I hope I was able to satisfy your curiosity a little bit!

Goodknight everyone!!!

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happyk44 · 6 months

Note

Thoughts on poseidon children with siren powers?

I actually wrote a post featuring that! I think I may have mentioned it a couple other times? But, lol, that may have just been in my head.

But ultimately, yeah!! I think it would be really cool if the Big Three kids all had manipulating people's minds powers - partly to represent the fact that their dads are kings, and have a bunch of people/creatures tied to them/at their disposal and son. And also because I think it just makes them more OP. And also because I have endless ideas of many things and it's fun to fantasize.

With Hades's children, the ability to manipulate someone lies in the soul. Compared to Charmspeak, it irreversibly changes a person because it's not just a "suggestion" that people follow through on. It's literally taking their soul and changing it. There's no waking up and thinking "why did I do that?"

I actually came up with this concept years ago (like. over a decade. christ. the passage of time). It happened in a. Very convoluted daydream I've been writing and rewriting in my head since I was 12 - essentially one of Nico's older siblings from the wayback times protects him from an enemy by telling them, "You want to walk into the ocean and not stop."

And they do. They stop and walk away. This is their soul's greatest wish. So they walk into the ocean, they drown, and at no point, not as they walk across sand, not as they inhale water, not as they land in the waiting room of the Underworld, does that want change.

However, children of Hades typically do not like using this power because a) free will, b) they disagree with the idea of changing a formed soul, it would be different if they were desiccated/severely splintered and faded, and lacked any sense of consciousness, but forcibly editing someone's living soul is essentially rewriting someone's story and it fucks up their history, and personhood, and so on, and etc, and c) living souls are gross and they don't really like touching them if they don't have to.

I've written a couple things on it before - just flick through my PJO tag and I'm sure they'll pop up eventually 😂

With Zeus's children, the ability to manipulate someone lies in the concept that Zeus is a) king of Olympus, and b) the god of law and order, and justice. It works best in battle - giving orders to enemies to make them turn on their friends, forcing comrades at arms to become more efficient, to follow through instead of veering off course.

In casual, everyday stuff, it's more influential - sort of forcing their beliefs, their rules, their "law" on other people. Jason believes wholeheartedly in the laws of New Rome, and when he sees someone who isn't following a law to the letter, he can just be like, "Don't you think following your assigned patrol route is really great?" and other people will be like "yeah! it is great" and bing bang boom, suddenly they're following the patrol rouote and refusing to deviate no matter how much others may try to convince them to.

People who are more suggestible are more likely to fall under it faster. They may even by their internal rules completely rearranged by it, thereby unable to wake up/snap out of the control. I think this depends on intensity as well and it's probably far more exhausting to really force a permanent change, whether the person in question is super susceptible to suggestion. People who embody chaos are harder to control and more likely to snap out of it when they do fall under. I like to think children of Poseidon fall under that type because the ocean is chaotic. Dionysus's kids are likely the same way 😂

(Lol, imagine Zeus giving all his kids different orders and Dionysus just squints at him, fully "Father, I cannot express how hungover I am. Also I have this cocaine party I need to attend, so sorry, here's some bitching wine to make up for it" and Zeus is just pinching the bridge of his nose and counting to ten slowly because he does not have the energy for this rn)

The kids can also push their idea of justice on other people. Jason, aware that someone else in the cohort won't do execute the correct punishment, can simply harness that belief that this punishment is the correct thing to do (according to New Rome's laws, or even Jason's own beliefs), and say, "Cut off his hand", and that person will comply. They may awaken from it afterwards and be horrified, or, if they're not as suggestible, may even be aware that they're under Jason's control, but in the moment (even if they're aware), all they'll think is "this is the right thing to do".

Also, for me anyway, children of Hades and Thanatos are basically immune to it because laws and justice differ between life and death. This is something I adapted into my OG story, so ofc I'm happy to keep it in line w/ my PJO headcanons - but everyone else can play with these concepts as they want, don't worry.

I have also talked about this before - again, flick through the PJO tag and you will likely fall across something eventually

Now! Children of Poseidon, my beloved ocean, the clingiest bastard in the world, lol, (ofc including non-clingy Neptune in this as well, all of this is equivalent to the Romans). I think siren powers only work when they're in water. Typically they need some kind of body of water: river; lake; ocean; puddle if they're desperate, but it probably won't be as effective

The more skilled kids can utilize the water in the air to use this power, but most of them can't, and need something far more concrete, something they can plant their feet in, something they can feel.

The most basic and common use of the power, ofc, is the siren song - a melody, humming, singing actually lyrics to lure or distract the people in range. Most use this in order to distract enemies away from their friends, or to lull them into a stupor for an easier kill.

Other uses of the power: mind-control (similar to Charmspeak, the more suggestible the person, the longer it lasts after the user has left the body of water), empathic manipulation (being able to manipulate someone's feelings through the use of your voice), sonic scream (Zeus's kids can probably do this too, but it's not part of their version of a manipulation power). There are probably other uses but I'm blanking rn. All I can think of is the fourth PotC movie with the mermaids and how nice that song was 😊 🎶 "my jolly sailor bold" 🎶

I think kids, like Percy, who are naturally tone deaf tend to have a far harder time using this power, much less mastering this. Daughters have an easier time mastering it (since sirens are typically depicted as woman - there were male sirens according to Wikipedia, but they faded out of art around 5BC).

And yeah! I think that's it. Oh, actually, I wrote something a long while ago (you will have to scroll quite a bit to find it, or check out my blog's archive? It's probably in 2021 or 2020?), where Nico does a similar thing, singing softly to entice souls that have fallen to the ocean to come to him. In the story, it's implied that the intensity of his song hits Percy's living soul, causing him to want to go with Nico. I think this is something for all the Hades's kids, Nico is just best at it because - in my headcanons anyway - he is most attuned to souls.

Emerged from the idea of Hades walking through a forest in the early days after the war, singing the lullabies he used to sing to his younger siblings, and souls emerging from wherever they've hidden themselves - in the dirt, in caves, in the trees, behind bushes, refusing death - to take his hand and let him walk them home.

Aaaaaaand that should be it! :) Thanks for the ask! This was fun to ramble about 😂

#happy talks pjo #percy jackson #hades (pjo)#nico di angelo #jason grace #poseidon (pjo)#zeus (pjo)#happy's asks #chiefkideclipselamp

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multi-fandom-agereg · 1 year

Note

oo can u do some hc's for caregiver venti? and he calls his little "my little star" bdjsfdhdk ^_^

☁️ Venti Agere Headcanons ★ Genshin Impact ☁️

🌺 | CG!Venti { Genshin impact }

🌺 | includes: Headcanons and bonus story w/ GN!Little!reader

⚠️ | petnames, physical touch, wine (brief sentence), affectionate drinker (also brief sentence) will have the symbol "⚠️" next to the wine/drinking parts so you can skip if you're uncomfy!

(ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; laidback, cooperative, careful, and playful is what describes him the most when it comes to littles. He is never rushy with them and is a very good listener!

(ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; he is also very good on handling tantrums and your frustrations. He never raises his voice and let's you have your fits and say what you have to say. Then afterwards asks if you'd like to talk about it with him

(ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; he does have rules for you, nothing too big besides a bedtime schedule and self care

(ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; Bored? No worries! He has things for you to do. They're mostly small chores like picking up your toys or pick up your small messes. But of course he always has awards afterwards.

(ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; he awards you alot, probably a lot more than he needs too. You can call him a spoiler and it fits him perfectly. when you accomplish something he loves to praise you and let's you pick out something you like! (Toys, pacifiers, etc)

(ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; petnames! Yes! He's 100% on board on that boat. He calls you many many petnames and nicknames. However, his most common ones being "Traveler" and "(my)little star"

(ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; He likes to pinch your nose and pretending that he took it. He also likes to play peekaboo, hide and seek, video games and vice versa

(ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; you're the only one who's allowed to touch his hair. He even lets you style it! He loves how creative his little star is

(ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; when it comes to sleep (💤) he plays his Lyre for you. He plays a gentle lullaby until your head hits the pillow. He lets you touch and fiddle with his Lyre but that mostly depends. It's not that he doesn't trust you with it, but it's old and it's the only one he has

⚠️ (ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; doesn't like to drink around you when you are regressed. mainly since he can't think right when he is in that state of mind. But if for instance, you regress suddenly and he golfed down 2 drinks already: he is actually very affectionate. He cuddles you, calling you his baby and singing to you in a whisper. He is an affectionate drunk, the only difference between him and his sober self is that the rules don't stick as much

⚠️ (ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; like literally he would be like "hey, little star.. time for bed" and you say "no" and he'd be like "..alright, that's fine"

(ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; when outside, he loves doing chawk drawings. As well as butterfly catching and picking small flowers in the fields

(ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; he adores any petname you give him! like daddy/dada/papa/bubba, Ven... list goes on! He might tear up a little if you call him anything at all

(ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; works amazing with nonverbal littles. He always carries a little instrument with him which you press a key that help him understand what you need. (It took him months to remember the cord code but he got it finally)

(ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; if not the said instrument, he carries around little sticky notes as well! He's always open for suggests too

(ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; if you draw/color/etc he will always hang them up on the walls. He loves to see his little artist go to work! It makes him proud

(ᴗ ᴗ ♪) ; the type of caregiver to be like "no traveler, you're too little for that.." or "no, you're too tiny for that, let me help you" orr he holds your hand so you don't accidentally wander off or out of his sight. Doesn't matter the age, he'll always be overprotective at times like this

“papa's here, little star" { short story }

*click*

the sound of the front door opened followed by a bell that rung whenever someone came inside the small cabined house. Venti opened the door gently, making his presence known before he made it fully inside of the house. He closed the door gently behind him; automatically assuming that you were already asleep by now. He made his way through the house while the only noise was heard was his gentle foot creaks and the tv in the background. His hair was messy and he smelled like sweet honey and a splash of dust. "Daddy!" A small voice was heard from the room he just passed by. His eyes widened a bit before he turned to see his little one peeking from the doorway. You held your favorite blanket and stuffed animal tightly in your arms, looking up to see an unreadable expression from his face. His face softened immediately before crouching down to his knees, opening his arms up for his little. You caught the cue and ran with open arms to your caregiver. Wrapping your tiny arms around him, he did the same as he snaked his arms gently around your figure. A moment of silence passed between the two of you, before he pulled away a little to see your face. "Hey, firefly.. why are you up so late..?" He asked quietly. He looked up the clock from across the hallway. You looked up at him with some tears threatening to escape your tear ducts. "...I missed you.." you said simply, buring your face into his shoulder. Another few of seconds pass before venti let out a gentle sigh. Gently kissed the top of your head, rubbing your back in a sense of reassuring you. "..it's okay little one. Do you wanna sleep with daddy?" He asked, looking down at you. Once he saw the nod of confirmation, he picked you up slowly and letting you rest in his arms before he made his way into the bedroom.

He sat you down on the bed, making sure you're as comfortable as possible. After you get covered up, he slipped into the bed next to you, cuddling you to his chest. He rubbed the back of your head, resting his chin on your head. "..I love you papa.." you whispered, burying your head into his chest, hearing his slow.. gentle heartbeats.

"...I love you too. My little star.. sleep well.."

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glowstone23b · 1 year

Note

warden/ancient city thoughts …

Anicent cities aren’t actually cities, they’re actually massive temples instead that devoted themselves to a certain god (im not sure what god the old builders would worship akandk)

They laid many people to rest in those underground crypts, that a bit of their souls leaked out of the bodies and infected the glowing cave vines, resulting in a strange mutation of sculk

and as more people died and got places in those tombs,,, the more sculk spread

Eventually some worshippers caught notice of this and assumed it to be some gift from the gods, so they continued to add fuel to it, experimenting with it, etc, finding out that when a creature dies— instead of the soul ascending to an afterlife, it is instead pulled down by the sculk and merged into what was like a sentient hivemind of connected souls working together to become something akin to an organism

At some point, as evolution of the sculk furthered and sculk sensors formed, it eventually led to a sculk shrieker

and after worshippers activated it a couple times in a row,

It summoned the massive, blind hulking beast known as the warden. It harvested as many souls as it could from the worshippers as it chased after them, leaving no one in it’s wake, before retreating back into the biomass until the next time there is a significant amount of soul that alerts the shriekers once more

Ok mini rant story thing over. i like to think that sculk works in a weird sort of method

Catalyst farm and form the extra sculk needed to begin an infection —> sensors pick up on sounds made by noises that supposedly could be creatures with a soul —> shriekers sound a scream that helps determine if a warden should form —> warden harvests any nearby creatures to help the sculk spread. if killed, the warden drops a catalyst, so it can all begin again

The warden itself is a weird amalgamation of human souls stuck together fused with the sculk. the main reasoning for it being blind (other than cave animals usually being blind since low to zero light requires little need for eyes) is because detecting sound means a very high chance of something w soul

Sculk sickness …. Possibly a rare disease only picked up by deep miners. nasty no good and probably hurts as the sculk eats you from the inside out

Illagers came across the ancient cities and set up camp for a short amount of time to try and study the sculk . you can imagine what happened to them

[ i like to think every ‘living’ creature in minecraft has a soul. that keeps them alive and thinking and breathing and stuff. and undead mobs have soul residue which leaves them with very basic instincts or things they subconsciously remember how to do ITS A FUN THOUGHT ]

[ in my little au illagers love experimenting w souls . because the more you experiment the more messed up results you get (vexes being the fused collective of 2-3 allays, or creating abominations via sticking two different mob souls together… possibly how ravagers came to be since they look a bit like villagers that got turned into beasts . fun theorizing ]

Hey invention? Phanon? I love your mind, it's wonderful. Have a drawing!

I've never drawn a warden before, mostly because it's been very daunting, but I think I got it out the way I wanted it to!! Sculk itself is kind of like... a fungus-y tentacle-y mixture, and i got some inspiration from the devil's fingers fungus irl! Really cool, I suggest giving it a look-see.

In my head, sculk would start off kind of like little eggs or pips or... whatever those things are... there's a name for it, when a plant or a cell decides to split off to make a new plant or cell? Mitosis? Bulbs? Plantlets? There's a word I'm looking for. Anyways. They'd probably grow mini sculk bits off of more mature ones so they can drop off and spread on their own, kind of like some types of succulent if that makes sense? Which explains the little sticky-outy bits on the wardens' horn things. Man, there's gotta be proper terminology for this, my brain is not finding the right words today.

They'd release some sort of bioluminescence when disturbed, and have an almost tar-like substance produced to trap smaller mobs (spiders, bats, etc.) that happen to wander too close, akin to fly traps. It wouldn't work as well for humans, but it's not uncommon to have your foot tugged on by some sculk in the hopes it can digest you.

I went off "The warden itself is a weird amalgamation of human souls stuck together fused with the sculk" because it's FREAKING COOL, so !!! Yeah!! I've got some of the larger/longer sculk tendrils used as arms and 'fingers' in a sense, though they're not all that precise in use. It just opts to smack the heck out of people usually. The bones in the shoulders and feet I thought were really cool on the in-game design, so I feel that the sculk would grow around any sorts of bones it had access to to keep a more stable structure. Keeping yourself upright if you're a soft mass of plantiness/fungus-yness would be a little tough, I think. Also, keeping bones close to the sculk might make it easier to tether souls together? Who knows!

It'd be neat to see what types of matter the sculk would attach to to form a warden-- it could be enderman bones, for all we know! Big and long and short and stubby, and all of the bones are in the wrong places. Using femurs for toes, or ribs for arms... it'd definitely not be fun to see in person.

Sculk sickness sounds SO NEAT TOO!!! I imagine you might be able to inhale it, like spores? Since it feeds off of xp or souls, you just keep fueling it once you're infected whether you like it or not. Does it have any cure, or would you have to have some sort of surgery to try to remove the existing sculk from your body? That'd cause a heck of a lot of complications, if it were to block anything internally. Wild, but neat to theorize about.

And YES on the experimenting with souls thing! Especially with the update so vexes look a lot more like allays-- definitely experiment material. I wonder how many more mobs are out there that we haven't seen because they haven't been made yet? Just mish mashes of any sort of soul they could get their hands on, inhabiting a body that doesn't feel quite right. Kinda interesting!

Thank you for sharing as always ily you rule. Your theories slap, may your inventory be full of diamonds or something. May the Nether's fire guide your way, idk. More piglin-y, as per my blog, lol.

#minecraft #glowstone23b asks #glowstone23b art #minecraft worldbuilding #phanon #brandnewinvention #minecraft warden #minecraft sculk #minecraft deep dark #that should be enough tags #idk #not nether #also that #anyways. apologies for the late reply also but i wanted to make art for it #and i was out volunteering with animals so life is good :)#expect delayed replies from me unfortunately #but i wanna sit down to read your stuff when i have the time to respond to it because it's lovely #phanon-menal if you will #ok that's it for now you never cease to amaze!! stay fed and hydrated bud!!

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spectrum-core · 7 months

Note

hi if you don’t mind me asking I’d love to hear more about serrated duo parallels?

Alright, just to make sure we are on the same page because I'm not sure if many people know who am I even talking about when I say serrated duo, I mean this pair of goofballs who I love very much.

Fuckass essay about them and how this thing even came to be (which is not what you asked for but it's still important I think) under the cut, as a warning though this is EXTREMELY long, i'm also writing it assuming the readers have played ruina to completion, have at least glanced at the ruina artbook once and are decently familiarized with the pjm universe and its terminology.

"But Spec", you may (and reasonably so) say, "these guys show up in different story tiers, one is a glorified ranged attack tutorial with a minor lore exposition attached to him and the other doesn't even have anything going on due to being a general reception, what the hell".

So let's get into this, more meticulously organized than some essays I've submitted for my uni classes because I care that much about these guys (don't be like me and do your uni projects, please).

Table of contents:

How the fuck did this even come to be 1.1. Me yapping about character dessign

Liwei as a character 2.1. The surface 2.2. Emotional internal nature 2.3. Resentment

Dong Hwan as a character (sorry can't separate him into many categories bc there's NOTHING THERE man i'm absolutely grasping for straws here i KNOW it, but please bear with me)

Summarizing parallels

If you don't feel like sitting through my attempts to contextualize how this ship came to be and me desperately grasping for straws, feel free to skip all the way down to part 4

1.- How the fuck did this even come to be

Honestly the whole thing started as a sleep deprivation shitpost I rolled with because yeah i like these two guys a lot (if you read that one post talking among other things about why I like liwei so much in the first place, the short reply also applies to dong hwan and... Yeag, the only thing that's better than one hot guy is two hot guys and so on).

There was also an interesting aspect about this because maybe it's just me but based of liwei's dialogue lines and keypage text he suggests not trusting, or even liking/admiring/looking up to, high graded fixers (despite feeling that he's supposed to). With an emphasis put into colors because, I mean, he fucking died because he met one at the wrong moment, but I feel it's a general thing he feels for grade 2s and above.

With this in mind, putting him to interact with a grade 1 is... at the very least it has the potential to put them into a funny mutual vitriol kind of dynamic with lw constantly thinking "what's the deal with this guy? does he expect me to praise him just for having a high grade? well, tough luck, i'm no bootlicker" and dh constantly thinking "what's wrong with this man? is he unable to recognize greatness even if it punched him in the face...? should i punch him in the face?", but it becomes far more interesting when you try to imagine (and, with dong hwan being an absolute background character we can only assume things of from extremely vague hints, pretty much all we can do about him is imagining) what made them both special enough for each of them to think "wait, hold on, i actually like this guy" of the other.

After the initial shitpost stage was over, we (the guy who came up with serrated duo while sleep deprived and me) started talking about why we liked both characters and we essentially concluded that, at least dessign wise, they are the same type of guy (ofc I also added a couple of characters I like and who fit the criteria to my post but this post isn't about them).

1.1.- Me yapping about character dessign

On top of that, if you pay attention specifically to liwei and dong hwan in there, you can notice that there's a pretty neat balance of common and contrasting themes in their dessigns, almost in a two sides of the same coin way, so here's a non exhaustive list:

both characters have a primarily monochrome/dark aesthetic going on, with their eyes being the primary colored element that stands out in their dessigns (yeah, you could say that dh has brown hair too but it's a dark shade of brown that doesn't catch the eye nearly as much as the bright-yet-deep shade of red of his eyes)

on top of that, liwei's eyes are blue while dong hwan's are red (i thought they were reddish brown at first but that's just an effect of the transparency, if you separate the sprite in it's different parts, you'll notice his eyes are actually red), which happens to link with a certain trope about two-sides-of-the-same-coin pairs... (will elaborate on this later trust me).

despite the previously mentioned similar monochrome aesthetic, there's a clear contrast between their styles and how they wear their clothes, with liwei having a much more "only informal if it's more practical that way" type of look, with a focus on practicality over trying to stand out too much (for the most part at least, he was dessigned with the idea of a cool guy in mind after all), while dong hwan is essentially wearing a business suit in the most fucked up way possible (really, what the fuck dong hwan), which of course makes his dessign incredibly memorable. To further elaborate on this (and to add details that don't really follow this formal until unpractical/informal AND unpractical pattern): -Liwei's clothes stay in similar shades of grey and black giving him a more uniform look, while dong hwan uses more contrasting shades in his clothing (despite wearing primarily black clothes, that light grey shirt absolutely stands out, and by extension he does) -Liwei wears long boots, while dong hwan wears regular shoes -Liwei wears a long coat, while dong hwan wears a short jacket -Liwei has a fully buttoned dress shirt with a tie, dong hwan wears his shirt unbuttoned, in an universe where clothes are basically like armor this is essentially him saying that he's confident that his opponents won't be able to hit him in the chest, or that even if they did he wouldn't get too hurt from it, and it's a dessign detail that absolutely stands out in an universe where most characters only show skin in their head, neck and hands at most, as we know since its stated in multiple keypages and cutscenes, if a character shows more skin than the absolutely bare minimum, then that means that A. they are inmensely strong, and B. they are even more confident in their capacities, with this being a tactic to intimidate potential enemies for many factions -Liwei wears fingerless gloves while dong hwan wears regular gloves, while at first glance this detail seems to subvert the pattern, let's be real here... have you tried to hold any object and using it properly with gloves? unless you're wearing latex gloves or something made of very thin fabric that shit's absurdly hard, of course i assume there's weird city tech involved in dh's gloves but at least that's my own personal impression of that particular contrast)

and going back to common but not really details: both characters have something noteworthy in their ears (this is most likely just a result of the characters being visible as chibis in game so the best way to give them memorable dessigns is by slapping somewhat unique stuff in their faces and heads BUT IM GRASPING FOR STRAWS HERE OK) with liwei's earpiece (which serves a practical function) and dong hwan's earrings (which look cool as hell, going in line with both characters' general priorities)

similarly, both have something in their opposite eyes, with liwei partially covering his right eye with his hair and dong hwan having the scar going through his left eye.

the right-left motif is actually very relevant in their dessigns. You see, most character sprites in ruina switch the hand in which they're holding their weapons for certain frames (or at least, this is not uncommon to see), either for rule of cool, clearer silhouettes or whatever reasons. However, in every frame in which liwei is visibly holding his knife, he holds it with his left hand (and when he uses his pistol he holds it with both hands), suggesting that he may be left handed. On the other hand (see what I did there?), dong hwan consistently holds his knife with his right hand, in every. single. frame. of his sprite, suggesting that he's right handed instead.

And of course, both of them have elements in their opposite legs too, with liwei having these two stupid fucking belts (affectionate) in his right leg while dong hwan has... whatever the fuck that thing is, in his left leg.

Of course I'm not here saying that they were given contrasting dessigns on purpose, but all these details end up making both of them looking really cool when put together, specially with how their dessigns emphatize their personal preferences and priorities, something I will elaborate upon in each character's section later.

2.- Liwei as a character

Liwei is one of my favorite pjm characters as a whole, yes i like him more than ayin, yes i like him more than angela, yes i like him more than carmen, yes i like him more than dante, yes i like him more than your favorite sephirah/patron librarian/sinner, no im not saying i think any of these characters is bad or poorly written and in fact i think pjm has made an amazing job with protagonists so far catching my interest even with characters i thought i wouldn't vibe with at all, but i have a thing for unremarkable background guys.

As you may have guessed, this means that i have a lot, and i mean A LOT to say about him.

This also means that I have a very specific interpretation of him, this interpretation, while clearly taking bases from what we can see of him in game, is entirely fanmade and i'm not trying to claim this is what anyone intended to convey with him, but it's what makes sense for me.

This interpretation also strays away from some other fan characterizations I've seen of him. So if you think he's actually, at his core, a serious, formal, emotionally detached and unbearably professional, even outside work hours, guy who's deeply dedicated to the honorable task of murder and who is in good terms with the shi association or holds them in high regard? sorry, but for me he's nothing like that.

2.1- The surface

"But Spec", you may say again, "he does act emotionally detached during his cutscene, he even says that people die all the time! are you sure you are actually reading this character right?"

Of course I'm not, I'm just saying that I'm reading him in a way that makes enough sense to me, but I do have reasons to believe that the serious and emotionally detached attitude is an akward mixture of a facade he puts up to be taken seriously by others and an incredibly unhealthy coping mechanism, so let's start by analyzing his artbook profile...

Wait a minute, is that..?

Ok, I'll see myself out and continue writing the actual character analysis this is what people are here for.

Anyway, going back to the character profile, you may be inclined to see it and assume "well, that actually just proves that he's a serious and formal dude" at first, until you realize that artbook profiles, due to their in-universe explaination being that they were compilled by roland and angela from the information they could take out of the guests' books, are most likely to be about what the guests perceive themselves as/would say to describe themselves rather than what they actually are when looked at from an outsider's perspective. Further proof of the artbook profiles being subjective comes from how the profiles change almost erratically for distortions and ego users, with people in the middle of both states simply not knowing how to describe themselves, the fact that we lack any information about the agents of the head as they were never booked, or how characters such as tomerry have...

This, which I mean, it's very clear that's just tomerry talking about themselves.

Now, liwei's personality traits, or at least what he'd use to describe himself, are "Meticulous, Efficient, and Sharp". We know that he has to be efficient at the very least, considering the nature of his job and guns in universe, the same thing goes for meticulous, we can assume he wants to do things the right away so that he gets paid, sharp as a personality descriptor can take multiple meanings and frankly i don't know which was the original korean word used to describe him so i can't tell which is the right one but most of them seem pretty accurate, at least when looking at him from a surface perspective.

To be honest, I don't think any of the traits mentioned there is precisely wrong, I simply don't think that they are the main or core ones, but they are the traits liwei tries to show, at least.

Another interesting detail is that all full stop fixer artbook profiles have food related items for the likes and and dislikes sections, except for stephan disliking dangerous jobs.

Not particularly noteworthy for this category in particular but still tangentially linked to a point that I believe is also a core characteristic of all three full stop fixers and that is key to understand all three of them, their dynamics and the choices they make during their reception: they are Poor As Shit, because guns and bullets are expensive of course, we also get to see this in stephan's obssesive fixation in money (come on nobody actually checks their bank account as a hobby... right, guys?), and of course this ties in with wanting to be seen as someone serious and professional people will trust with their money AND with the idea of them having the need to maximize efficiency to... well... you... you know... not end up even worse than they actually are.

2.2- Emotional internal nature

Alright, and here we dwell into the actually spicy part of the essay, at least for liwei's character: the moments in which the mask of a professional and emotionally detached guy cracks and he shows his more emotional, and mostly caring, side. This is focused in the way in which he treats stephan and tamaki (compared with how several other faction leaders treat their underlings).

While I should probably need to read all the dialogue in the game to make sure this is a particularly notorious detail, something that inmediately caught my attention is... the fact that liwei never uses a single honorific when refering to other people, neither he's bothered by stephan's more informal speech and the fact that he doesn't refer to him by any honorific or title either (sure, you could say this is because they were in a life or death situation but also y'know, it says something about you that the people below you don't feel the need to use formalities when talking to you), the only person he calls by title instead of first name is... well, the blue reverb, whose real name we can assume he didn't know, with also him being someone perfectly capable of killing not only him but the guys standing beside him as well, you'd want to be as respectful as possible when talking to a guy like that and trying to negotiate.

(even then he doesnt use any sort of honorific towards him, at least in the english translation of the text, he simply refers to him by title)

He neither uses any title or honorific when talking to angela, despite keeping a formal/respectful attitude, i honestly believe that he is genuinely formal and respectful but... you know, that's not the beginning and end of who he is.

Of course, this isn't a major point, but I think it's worth mentioning considering how important honorifics can be to establish the speaker's relationship with the people a message is directed to, they can be used to distance oneself from others. So in a way it could be seen as him putting himself at an "equal" position relative to stephan and tamaki, as opposed to trying to assert that he's their superior (at least in the context of the mission they were working in, since his title is merely fixer, not operator, president, director or anything implying some form of leadership on his end).

Another extremely important detail is his inmediate first reaction once argalia shows up and ruins their plan is... not coming up with a plan b, not trying to fight him in any way, not doing anything about trying to save what little money they can, he quite literally tells stephan "forget about money, we need to survive now".

His initial reaction is directly just yelling at his team to run away, and this stays consistent once he:

Notices that stephan and tamaki are beginning to argue over the future of their mission and how much money they lost.

Realizes that they can't outrun argalia as long as they're wielding their heavy (and again, extremely expensive) equipment. This says a lot as it shows that he cares enough for the people under his care to let the office go bankrupt if it means they can live.

Needless to say, stephan and tamaki refuse to do so and while he clearly isn't precisely happy about the inevitable confrontation with argalia, he doesn't argue about this, he does understand their concern about money, he's not like the other authority figures who will ignore their underlings' concerns at best and ditch them once they outlive their usefulness at worst (at least, that's what i imagine he thinks as he makes these choices).

Not to mention, once they are in a, if only slightly, safer situation in the library, his inmediate response is trying to comfort stephan and tamaki, things dont look good but theyre at least alive, for now.

And there's this line which... doesn't seem to fit at first glance with the idea of him wanting his office to survive at all costs... right?

That is until you realize that he says that line during yet another argument between stephan and tamaki, as an attempt to get them both to calm down, this could also fit in with him trying to keep or restore the cynical, stoic and serious act, but then again we get to see his more emotional and sincere side once he:

Gets killed, quite literally saying that he didn't want to die yet, at least to me this line alone is enough to pretty much confirm that he didn't really mean it when saying that trying to delay their deaths was pointless, but if you need more, he also acts against that same line when he...

Sees his allies die, and inmediately starts freaking out.

Wins the reception, in which case his inmediate first concern is, again, not money, lost ammunition or anything, but rather if stephan and tamaki are okay and if they will be safe once they return.

I don't think that line was him fully lying though, it does say something about him that makes enough sense to me and fits with the rest of the characterization: that his cynism runs much, much deeper than stephan's.

Tl;dr he is extremely caring and emotional deep inside, and even though he tries to suppress that side of himself it always finds a way to show itself, I feel like in other contexts this makes him prone to emotional outbursts and generally make him an unpleasant person to be around... save for people who are already familiar with his personality quirks and the fact that he is Like That.

2.3- Resentment

Of course, this dissonance between the person he tries to pretend to be to fit in/keep his job and the person he actually is made him grow a pretty strong disliking of... well, everything he considers related to the fact that he has to act like that to get enough money to feed the people in his office.

I also feel like he feels genuine guilt over the fact that his job is essentially just glorified murder, I have no base for this other than the more detached way in which he refers to the church of gears, it almost feels like hes forcing himself to not care because its them or him and his office, and that he has genuine self-hating tendencies because of it (which he also uses his stoic act to hide, he doesn't want to worry his office and become a burden to them, after all), in a way he may be trying to overcompensate by being nice to his office to feel like there's people he can help/protect.

But this hatred towards himself also manifests in the form of hatred towards anything he can blame over him being the way he is and working the job he has.

As I said before, I don't think liwei likes colors, or most high grade fixers for that matter, you may also extend this to figures of authority, influential organizations or even the city's society as a whole (and honestly? i do personally, i don't think he's actually capable of forming any particularly healthy bond with people outside his office because of this, and even then saying that the relationships he has with his office are healthy is... generous to put it softly, this is not to say that he secretly hates the other people in the office, but rather that he fears that they may secretly hate him, because he's the highest graded member of the office, he hates people sitting above him so it only makes sense that people below him hate him for being above them, right?), and of course I'm not saying this because I'm projecting or because I think it's cool and edgy and sad but I actually have bases for this from what I can see in the game.

The first example of him not trusting high grade fixers AND influential organizations being one of the very first things he says when being introduced: that having an important person, from an important organization, belonging to an important section of said organization, approach him and give him a request was shady as fuck.

And he turned out to be right, as Yujin was planning for him and his office to get sent to the library and die there so she could read their books and find some passage saying shit like "well we were found by the blue fucking reverb and our only choice was to come here and die even though we were royally fucked either way life sucks see you all in hell my final message 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕" so she could use that on her favor.

In this topic too, I'm personally firmly opposed to the idea of full-stop office being affiliated to the shi association and this is the hill i'm willing to die on, but I digress.

We see this same resentment on an even deeper level in his keypage where he talks about colors (and we can assume this view extends to other high graded fixers, and to a lesser extent to the hana association), he doesn't sound like he wants to become a color, he doesn't sound like he even likes the concept of colors being a thing that exists in the first place.

The most important lines from these fragments to me being the following:

"A color is the dream [...] of all fixers who wish for freedom.", freedom is a VERY relevant concept in project moon and ruina makes a very clear point about how nobody is free in the city, roland says it, most plot relevant guests say it, some patron librarians say it too... a huge part of the story is how angela comes to terms to the fact that turning human wont grant her freedom and how she ultimately becomes free by embracing her nature as a machine (so free indeed that the head decides to kick her and the entire library out of the city, not only shes a machine that acts like a human, which is already a major city wide taboo, she made a choice that no human in the city should ever make). Essentially, liwei seems to see colors (and im assuming that by extension high graded fixers) as the ultimate example of an impossible aspirational class (think of these "self made" enterpreurs who received extremely generous financial support from their rich parents to start massive companies as the closest irl equivalent, except that obviously not the same, i will elaborate more on this later).

"They put forward the colors as great and successful people that other fixers will look up to. They dream of earning wealth and fame, and to be free like them one day." Why would he be talking in third person here if he too admired colors, or wanted to be like them, or thought that were free in any way? Also that separation between money and fame (something that colors objectively do have since they can afford exclusive high tech weapons and armor) with freedom (something that is debatable, but liwei seems to assume colors don't have) feels too much like a deliberate choice to further push towards that point of him seeing colors as not only an impossible goal to achieve for the average fixer but also that the ideal of a color as someone who is free is something impossible to achieve even if one were to become a color.

"Colors are assigned by the 'Hana Association'. [...] The title of a color is forcibly given to fixers who qualify essentially. Can a fixer be truly happy with freedom that was forcefully handed to them?" This particular fragment, specially the last sentence, is absolutely key for Liwei's characterization, and the final and most important part of him saying "wait, no, colors aren't free, because nobody is" to me. It is also worth noting that this fragment can be read in multiple ways, all of them are important and accurate for his characterization.

He thinks that the responsability and risks that come with being handed the title of a color are far greater than the prestige that comes with the title, can you really say that someone who cant afford to decline requests due to being contacted by the most important organizations in the city, whose closest friends or family WILL be regularly targetted by rivals either to extort them for money or just try to attack them to the point in which most high graded fixers abandon any personal attachment to others, who will have to see the horrible things that happen in the city in an almost day-to-day basis and will likely have to do even worse things in the name of corporate interests is free? Can you really call it freedom if you can't refuse it? Essentially he is saying "actually every single aspect of being a color is terrible and to make matters worse that life is forced on them after they go through extreme miseries in the hopes for a better life but all they get is more of the same if not even worse, they aren't free and shouldn't be refered to as such."

He thinks that in order to become a color (or any highly graded fixer, really), you must essentially lose yourself, which is to say abandoning all friendships or familiar bonds, only keeping shallow interactions with people, desensitizing themselves to whatever horrifying shit they may have to see, abandon all sense of morality as they never know what their next request will be and "im sorry but i dont do xyz, it does against my personal morals" isnt an argument that will work in a place like the city, this also fits into the whole "actually having a much more chaotic emotional side he's trying his absolute hardest to supress but failing" theme mentioned in point 2.2., someone who is so deeply emotional and whose actions are ultimately defined by what is the most likely to keep the people around him alive is obviously not going to like the idea of keeping his distance to them, or to dispose of people with lower grades than him because they were supposed to be expendables anyway.

I don't remember the exact quote and i dont feel like looking for it but in one of gebura's cutscene she claims that all power in the city only serves to strike those below but never up. You have to climb to get stronger and then you'll only be able to assert dominance (through violence) over people weaker than you are, and she grew to dislike this, as she wanted to protect others but was never able to do so because of how the city was dessigned.

Of course, liwei reached the same conclusion but he took the much simpler but much more unhealthy approach of assuming "well, if things are like that, then that must mean that everyone in a position of power (over me) must be responsible for this".

Of course this also comes with the side effect of him being as caring for the rest of the office as he can because he doesn't want to be like other figures of authority as i mentioned in point 2.2, but thats not to mean that things are all fine in the office, i feel like there are several moments in which he internally curses his position of authority but not quite (bc i don't think he's actually The Big Guy In Charge of the office, really), most obviously the aforementioned moment in which he yells at tamaki and stephan to drop their guns so they can run away and live when they clearly dont want to, i feel like at moments like that he feels like they only do things because he tells them to and they "can't argue" (except that they do, fortunately for him the enviroment in the office is healthy enough for the rest of full stops to not abuse this fact, but the "what if"s are absolutely eating him from the inside). As ironic as it sounds his earnest desire to not be Like The Others is the same thing stopping him from being the perfect and efficient leader he wishes to be, and he probably isn't sure of which thing he values more than the other (it's staying true to his own morals and keeping the people under him safe).

However, there's a key detail here that's worth noting: liwei has a tendency to treat everyone else as equals, sure he is formal and respectful when doing so (pressumably even when talking to people he'd rather never interact with if we assume his conversation with argalia was actually how he is and not him just walking on eggshells to not get killed) but he doesn't bother trying to make a clear distinction of who is above and below him, no matter what their title and rank may be, and for people who are used to being looked up to by everyone else this will be seen this as him insulting them in some way, it may come from a sincere desire of him to come off as insulting while not breaking any (major) social convention in an act of malicious compliance or just the type of person he is, that's up to you to determine.

"But how the hell does any of this relate to dong hwan?" we'll get there right now.

3.- Dong Hwan as a character

This is kinda... the hardest point to talk about, because sure I can yap all I want about him but... it's hard to without going "Source: I made it up" too much.

So, looking at his combat sprites you may notice one thing: he is unbelievably hot for real what the hell he has an incredibly smug aura, most people who care about him to some extent i've seen tend to depict him as a very prideful person, and honestly i dont think differently either.

HOWEVER, i feel like despite this he's still a levelheaded guy who can aknowledge his own flaws. On top of that, i think he's a pretty charismatic guy and he's capable of noticing other people's strenghts, and he'll let people know about their own strenghts too.

Also, to contrast with his smug and cheerful exterior, his combat lines depict him as someone very serious when at work, he doesn't even react emotionally to getting killed.

His first "on kill" line is also particularly interesting, as it shows that he prefers to work on his own (unlike everyone's favorite monochrome moody boy), which makes sense considering that he comes alone to the library when you fight him, he may belong to a one-man office (which is the closest a fixer can do to be fully independent, as far as we are aware).

His keypage story also fits this more serious and analytical personality but not much of it is particularly noteworthy from a character analysis perspective, it doesn't say much that you couldn't notice from his combat lines anyway.

Another important factor to me and to contrast him to liwei is... okay, this may be the fact that he's a solo fight and he is, pressumably, an independent fixer, so he's not titled as a member of a particular organization, instead his title (for him, his reception, his keypage and his book) is "dong hwan, the grade 1 fixer", which i mean, again, is most likely just so we dont fight this guy with zero context on who he is and what hes even doing in the library in his own is he stupid? but i like to imagine that the in universe explaination is that he has tied his perception of himself and his own self worth to his grade, to the point in which using both his name and grade is what comes naturally to him when introducing himself, since books are essentially physical manifestations of the soul, then it just makes sense then that his book will give both his name and grade the same importance. This may come from a need to compensate for something else and i actually like to imagine that's the case because it adds yet another layer of parallels with liwei (source: trust me).

Another point is... remember that I mentioned how food was a very consistent thing in the full stops' likes and dislikes sections in the artbook? this point is also not relevant but dong hwan is frequently assumed to be the owner of that pub that shows up at that short side story about roland and angelica which i never watched because i Literally Can Not Care about angelica sorry, but, hey, it's a cute detail, i think he should cook for the full stops.

I feel like there's something to be said about dh's red eyes because in pjm when a character has red eyes you know that means one thing: they will be a big deal, but dong hwan, other than looking incredibly fucking cool and carrying me through the snow queen suppression (FUCK THE SNOW QUEEN ALL MY HOMIES HATE SNOW QUEEN) and star of the city tier 1 (thank you dong hwan i love you dong hwan)… he is rather unremarkable on the grand scheme of things, he's a general reception so you don't even need to defeat him to beat the game, and he only serves to give us some insight on who the fuck was the vermillion cross, and even then he does a terrible job at explaining who he was other than "well, he was a guy i guess" and honestly, the relevance of both liwei and dong hwan is ALSO an important factor in these parallels, as with one being the guy who introduces the concept of colors and the other being the guy who introduces one particular color fixer by casually mentioning being friends with him, both feel like characters who would be much more narratively important in any other story, but here they... aren't.

4.- Summarizing Parallels

Aka the part you may want to skip to if you don't care about me analyzing characters with little background info about them.

So, basically a list of personality (and background, i guess) traits they have in common and how they're different:

Both characters are putting some sort of facade, with liwei trying to act serious and stoic so he's taken seriously while dong hwan... i dont think he even knows what the facade he's putting even is, he's been putting an act for so long that his mask became his true self

In both characters' cases, the first impression they give isn't really the kind of person they truly are (in lw's case this is a deliberate choice and in dh's case i assume that's just the type of person he is), HOWEVER, while liwei acts serious and analytical (and to some extent he is), his true self is far more emotional and prone to form deep bonds with people, while dong hwan has a more passionate, smug and cheerful external attitude but he's much more serious and levelheaded deep down

Both characters have different, conflicting views about their grades, however these differences ultimately lead to both of them being able to treat each other as equals, or as close to that as possible in the city, i feel like liwei can see dong hwan as someone of worth so to speak for reasons unrelated to his grade, while dong hwan does see liwei as a good person (well, good is a subjective term specially in a place like the city) and far better at teamwork than most people in the city, in a way both value something in the other that the other never stopped to consider "hey this is actually a good thing i have"

Both characters are (pressumably?) trying to compensate over something, with liwei putting his professional and formal act to compensate for his sentimental self while dong hwan puts a strong emphasis on his high grade for... who knows, really, i just like this parallel being there because i think it adds a lot

Both have problems forming relationships, with liwei being a generally unpleasant person but being capable of forming deep, meaningful relationships with the people capable of seeing through it, while dong hwan is a charismatic guy liked by almost everyone he's met, but whose relationships tend to be shallow

Not really a personality thing but both characters have a thing for being remarkably unremarkable guys, dong hwan is obviously forgotten by most ruina playes because he's a general reception and the biggest impression liwei leaves in most players is "OH SHIT HE HAS A GUN", even though both are pretty intentionally dessigned with the intention of making them look cool however ive very rarely come across full stop or liwei fans (by which i mean people who like them particularly instead of "actually the entire pjm cast is cool and that includes them) and dong hwan fans are.... yeah, i think ive met like, 4 of them at most (thanks guys i owe you my life)

Something about their combat styles including their passives, liwei's only visible passive is called Concentration and gives him extra strenght for the first turn of a fight, after which he relies in the fact that his attacks weaken the enemy, so he comes off as the sort of guy who prefers to keep his distance and figure out the opponent's weak spot(s) (something he canonically is good at doing) to keep an upper hand at combat, however despite this he's still lacking in both strenght and technique, being only a grade 4 (which i mean let's be real the grades go from 9 to 1 and i feel like a majority of fixers are in the lower grades so he's still pretty much above average but he isnt doing all the cool shit you see the stronger characters do, because that's not the kind of character he is). On the other hand dong hwan's passives have much more cooler sounding names (Fervor, Carver of Scars, Toughness...), all of them focused on either inflicting bleed (status ailment that gradually makes the opponent lose hp)/buffing him against enemies with bleed or buffing him as he gains emotion levels, and his focus is just inflicting bleed like crazy, as well as delivering harder blows against people with bleed, prioritizing raw damage over strategy (but likely being able to figure out an opponent's weaknesses as well, brute strenght alone are most likely not enough to get you far in a world where the powerful people are INSANELY strong bc physical enhancements are commonplace)

I feel like in a way both admire each other, liwei admires dong hwan's capacity to keep a cool head at all times when at work and not letting his feelings have too much weight over his desicions, but dong hwan admires how honest liwei is about himself as well as his capacity to work in a team taking in consideration what will be best for the team as a whole even if it's perjudicial for him in particular.

In Conclusion

Your honor, two of them

#library of ruina #anon #spec-reply #this isnt probably very coherent #and probably not very exhaustive either #but i started writing this 10 hours ago and ive only stopped to eat and i barely proofread this anyway here you go anon #.🔫#🩸🔪

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hyunjinners · 9 months

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Alright! I would like to create a story about the k-pop group Xdinary Heroes, focusing on Jooyeon. The storyline I'd like to envision involves a romantic encounter followed by a marriage proposal. If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to know how this would unfold. However, if specific requests aren't accepted, I'm open to suggestions and trust in your creativity.

𐐪♡︎₊˚ 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐒 𝐌𝐄 - Lee Jooyeon x reader

𝗦𝗨𝗠𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗬 - where his and Jooyeon's relationship begins in spring and a new phase begins with the opening of the flowers of the next spring… || 𝗣𝗔𝗜𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚 - Jooyeon x fem¡reader || 𝗚𝗘𝗡𝗥𝗘 - established relationship, cute, happy ending, comfort || 𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚 - can be read as idol and non-idol || 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗗𝗦 𝗖𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗧 - 3,08k || 𝗔/𝗡 - Hello! Well, this chapter was requested by an anonymous reader. I hope you like it and that it meets your expectations. As there was no specification of which pronoun should be used, I placed the reader as female. Remembering that English is not my first language, I apologize in advance for any spelling and/or grammatical errors. Enjoy the chapter - reviews are welcome in the comments! ;) 🤍🌼

⊹₊˚ʚ❛masterlist❜ɞ

𝗥𝗘𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦𝗛𝗜𝗣𝗦 had never been his strong suit, not in real life at least. From a very early age, you learned from books and stories told through other people's experiences about what love was like, but never tried to answer for herself. Love for people is like a delicate subject, with its point of view varying depending on who has experienced it.

Love was like a philosophy, being able to be diverse and never really reaching the absolute truth. Perhaps the true understanding of love has not been achieved for the simple fact that it is experienced by different people. Different minds, personalities, character and even desires. It's not a bad thing, but love is not something that should be debated, but rather vivid - and you were completely aware of that.

His love of reading was a type of love you knew him well. The need to read what you felt was like oxygen for you. You were no fanatic, but he felt that the world of reading was a world that served to give a little hope to his harsh reality. Reading is like traveling without leaving your place, it's expanding your frontiers of knowledge without having exactly too many experiences. Reading allows you to get to know a world in which people, from an early age, ignore the harsh truth that it really was.

You always carried a book with you and felt that as long as you had one in your hands, you were complete. Well, until that day in the park.

The ecological park in his city was very close to his house, allowing him to access that place almost daily. Sitting down on the grass in front of the various species of flowers that lay in front of you, you closed your eyes breathing in the moist air that spring gives you. Opening your sketchbook and notes, you began to draw the flowers that caught your attention the most.

Momentarily, your eyes look up when you hear the sound of light footsteps towards you. A tall boy, long black hair with blonde highlights and a cute smile bowed slightly towards you when he realized he felt your presence. With a slight nod, you slowly closed your notebook, curious as to why the boy was there.

"Hey, sorry to bother you. So where I was sitting there was a lot of sun and this was the closest place that had shade, so I wondered if, you know, if I can sit here with you." He rambled nervously and you giggled at how cute he was. Nodding, you moved - even if not necessary - to the side so he could sit down.

A comfortable silence settled in as he listened to music on his headphones and you went back to drawing. You loved reading, but writing was also your strong point. Putting his emotions and experiences from other readings on paper was like a form of escape for him. Next to the drawing, you began to write what came to your mind, "he loves me…your love…bloom…"

You sigh when you realize that you weren't able to finish the poem, Perhaps due to a moment of distraction, creativity evaporated from his pores and nothing he said seemed to make sense. Feeling watched again, you look to the side and the boy jumps in fright when he is caught in the act watching you. He fake coughs to try and alleviate some of his embarrassment and you didn't miss the way his cheeks were red as he looked at you with a look of mixed emotions.

"I'm sorry I looked, it was inevitable. You know, your drawings are amazing and your writing is really good, your art is really inspiring and I take my hat off to you, I really do." You laugh awkwardly, fidgeting with your hair nervously. Now you were the one blushing. "I appreciate the compliment, but I don't think it's exactly an art...I just like passing time."

"And who said it isn't? Art is everything we do with passion and devotion, externalizing it in a more visible way to others. You do it because you like it, right? Then you have your art."

You sigh, flattered and surprised. This boy was definitely his undoing from now on.

And it really was.

Jooyeon was the key in his heart that allowed him to experience, experience and believe in love. He was her love. He made himself part of his life and it became his art, his passion. Everything you did for her was with complete devotion and pleasure, wishing he felt and enjoyed the feeling of being loved and loving too. He loved you with all his might and was the kind of person who was easy to love.

E, with the blink of an eye, it had been five years since you met him and three years since he asked you to be his girlfriend. Apparently he wasn't the only one who was easy to love. He loved loving you. Ironic, but true. Jooyeon felt that her life had been shaped by the hands of destiny with the aim of loving her and making her feel important in this challenging and oppressive world. Like a gentle breeze, his zeal for you entered your pores, making you rest peacefully during your days with the knowledge that you had a home where you could return to rest if you felt alone during your journey in life.

It wasn't uncommon for Jooyeon to treat her with treats, affection and some walks, but this week, he brought out the nerves in your skin as he assured you that this time he had prepared everything for you. He stated that it was simple, but from the heart. Getting ready casually - just as he requested - but not messy, you walked to the city center where he arranged to meet you as soon as he got off work.

You saw Jooyeon standing in front of your favorite restaurant with a small white bag in her left hand and nervously looking at her cell phone in her right hand. When your eyes met, he put his cell phone in his pocket waving happily at you, an almost childish joy shining in his eyes.

You run to hug him and he catches you so hard you almost can't breathe. Laughing, you gently slapped his back, "love calm down. I can't breathe," he reluctantly pulls away, tucking a messy strand of hair behind your ear, then holding her face and placing a quick peck on her lips, as they were in a public environment.

"I thought you were going to abandon me here. I was almost leaving." He dramatically puts his hand on his heart as if it's about to break. You let out an amused laugh at the situation, hitting Jooyeon on the arm and rolling your eyes, "stop the drama. Is this all just because I took five minutes?"

He shakes his head playfully, placing his right arm over your shoulders, kissing your temple then, "You know, your 'only five minutes late' made us miss our reservation, so I had a better idea."

"Where are we going, Jooyeon?"

"Just watch, trust me."

You brush aside the hair that was stuck to Jooyeon's forehead that was stuck together because of the humid air and send a piece of egg into her mouth. He nods gratefully as you lie down next to him.

The two of you were constantly improving your relationship and trying to do new things whenever possible, but an encounter at the city's most popular sauna was surprising and a little funny. Of course, relaxing your muscles after many days of hard work wasn't a bad idea.

Playing with the hem of his shirt, you find yourself watching him. You always thought he was cute, but at the same time he was extremely attractive and his long damp hair stuck to his thick neck and his veins marking made her sigh and think about how lucky she was to have such a handsome boyfriend.

He catches her staring and laughs at her expression for being lost in thought. He strokes her hair and you close your eyes momentarily enjoying the moment. "What are you thinking, pretty girl?" You laugh at the nickname he's called you since you started your friendship. You bite the inside of your mouth and answer him with a smile, "It's nothing, just...thank you. Thank you for bringing me here today. I don't think there is another person who would make me so happy to take me to a random place just because they don't have the patience to wait for a reservation and still make me laugh with it. You are incredible, the best of all. I don't think I can live without you. Above all, you are my best friend and confidant, I feel happy to be able to share spontaneous and joyful moments like this with you."

He places a sincere kiss on your forehead before pulling you into a hug that envelops you with so much affection for the effect he has on you. You rest your head in the crook of his neck and breathe in the smell that reminded you so much of having a home. He smelled of comfort - and a hint of orange and cinnamon and it made the hairs on your arms stand up. He brushes your hair aside to whisper in your ear, like a secret only you could hear, the only one worthy of being able to share, “I love you. You are my everything and I couldn't imagine anyone else by my side. Thank you for being with me." You look at him and say before connecting your lips, "I love you too."

"I can't believe you're going to make me walk more, Jooyeon. I want to sleep," you whimper dramatically and he could swear he would explode with cuteness if he didn’t squeeze your cheeks right now. Sighing in a fake eye roll, Jooyeon bends down in front of you, "Come on, you can go upstairs." You jump and clap childishly as you climb onto his back and he continues walking. "You're really spoiled, you know that?" He tries futilely to hold back a laugh. "And you're the best in the world." You fix the ponytail you made in his hair when you were in the room - which after much insistence he allowed you to do.

"But where are we going anyway?" You asked with a cute pout resting your head on his shoulder while playing with his hair. "Look ahead, we're here." Raising your head, you saw the beautiful lighting that decorated the ecological park that you knew so well. Anxious and happy, you practically jumped off his back, grabbing Jooyeon's hand, pulling him more hurriedly.

With so much tiredness and exhaustion recently, you hadn't been able to go to the park for almost a year and you already missed the place that served as a box of personal memories and your relationship. This is where you read your first book. It was here that he discovered his passion for flowers and consequently for painting, and it was here that you met the love of your life and the person who turned it upside down in a way that you found welcome.

Sitting on the same bench where you first met, Jooyeon put her arm around your shoulders and you joined your hands, resting your head on his shoulder. Closing your eyes, you breathe in the humid, nostalgic air that that park brought at this time of year. Spring was like a box of memories for you. The best experiences of your life happened during this season, maybe that's why the flowers love it so much that they only open at this time of year, They are grateful for the beauty and grace that this season pours like a gentle breeze over them.

Observing the flowers - now illuminated by the small yellow lights that twined around the trees - you squeeze Jooyeon’s hand and pull away slightly to look him in the eyes. "Thank you for bringing me here after so long." His expression changes from happy to confused when he sees Jooyeon shaking her leg frantically while playing with her nails. You caress his knee making him stop his movements immediately. "Everything is fine?"

His nervousness reminded her of the first time she saw and her heart almost missed a beat. He throws his hair back and as if a flash of determination has cleared his mind, he looks at her with a deep and courageous look, but still sweet and calm. "I thought so much about what I could do today that I felt like a chore machine. But then I realized that with you things don't need to be planned. You are spontaneous, unique, cheerful, very intelligent and kind. I think my way of loving is quality time and with you by my side, everything becomes so easy and less tiring…”

Listening in silence, you affectionately caress his hand, absorbing every word of what is being said by him. "And I need you. I want you only for me."

"But you have me all to yourself, love." You giggle, confused and amused at how cute he looked at the right choice of words, "no, it's not just that. Not just like that. I want you all to myself... forever and ever." Jooyeon holds her hand, guiding her to stand up, then joining their hands together.

"I didn't bring you here just because we hadn't seen each other in a while, but for a bigger reason. It was here that we met for the first time… It was the first time I looked at my world, my universe. And I can say with certainty that even after these years of our relationship, my heart still misses the same beat as when I saw you for the first time."

"Jooyeon…"

"Can I tell you a secret?" You nod, your cheeks almost burning in embarrassment, "There wasn't any sun, you know, that day. Where I was there was also a shadow… I just wanted to talk to you, but I didn't have the courage to come without an excuse." He scratches the back of his head with a funny laugh, still a little embarrassed by the sincerity. "Can I tell you a secret too?" A playful smile appeared on her lips and you learned to whisper in Jooyeon's ear, "I knew there was no sun. I wanted you to talk to me too." A childish laugh leaves your lips and you feel almost light for being sincere after so long, like two teenagers discovering love.

"But I don't regret it. I don't regret lying to talk to you. You taught me the meaning of life, made me see things as a masterpiece, improving my art. You made me understand the meaning of flowers, you made me believe that 'she loves me' is more than just a child's game… and I want more. I want to be with you more, with the security that you won't escape my hands," Jooyeon kneels down, taking out a small velvet box from her pocket that held such great meaning.

Over the course of your relationship with Jooyeon, you learned that the little things are the most important things on a journey. Small moments build a relationship and, a small velvety box of crimson color, improves relationships. "Will you accept being mine forever?" You've imagined this moment your whole life, he thought he was going to cry or scream, but his only reaction was to kneel down next to Jooyeon and hug him tightly, feeling the transformation of the atmosphere into something so sincere and simple, yet very meaningful.

"You don't need to give me a speech, Jooyeon. If today you see differently because of me, It's because at some point I learned to love things because of your influence. You taught me what art is, and I learned to live my passions because of it. Thank you for making me understand the meanings of flowers."

"... so is that a yes?" Jooyeon pulls her away a little to face her. You laugh at the doubtful expression on his face, he was still your cute boy. Slowly and tenderly, you connected your lips in a delicate kiss that carried more than a thousand words in the silence of the night. With a caress on his cheek, you pull away resting your forehead on his.

"Do you still have doubts?"

A/N - It's finally out! I confess that I have a lot of chapters to do, but I already advanced this one because an idea came to me at the time. I hope that you enjoyed! I confess that I don't follow the group, but I remember the announcement when they debuted. Anyway, don't kill me if the personalities didn't match 😭 I did something really sweet on purpose, I confess that I love a sad chapter, but when I write something happy, I can't stop haha. Please leave your feedback in the comments, it encourages me ;)

P.s: For those who asked me before, don't worry, the chapters are almost ready, I should be releasing them soon so keep an eye out! (☆^ー^☆) ⊹₊˚ʚ❛like × reblog !¡ original by:: @hyunjinners ^-^ ❜ɞ

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coraniaid · 10 months

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Finished Children of Memory yesterday. Really liked it, unsurprisingly. I think this is one of my favorite science fiction series in a while.

I don’t really know whether it makes sense to rank the books individually, but for what it’s worth I enjoyed this one a little more than the second and a little less than the first.

(Spoilers below the cut for the whole trilogy.)

Big fan of the (I think only ever implicit) pun suggested by the Corvids dyadic nature. One half is a creative problem solver that explores new things and one half keeps track of the state of the world around them and the history of how it came to be this way. They are thought and memory. Huginn and Muninn. Odin would approve. (The book also features a protagonist being hanged from a tree, though she already had knowledge of other worlds at the time.)

And while I'd never describe the series as “hopepunk” (because, as I said, I liked it…), it is also – despite its far future setting being incredibly grim in many ways, starting as it does with a civilization ending war followed by the slow extinction of life on Earth – almost aggressively hopeful. Particularly when it comes to the question of sentience and the possibility of peaceful cooperation between very different types of intelligence.

I mean, this is a trilogy that introduces, in order:

The corrupted and imperfect digital copy of the mind of a misanthropic scientist who died tens of thousands of years before the story begins

The species of cannibalistic spiders that worship her as a god and built a computer out of ants for her to live in

Spacefaring octopuses with distributed, ever-changing personalities whose main desire in life is to avoid the company of other octopuses

A mind-controlling parasite that loves making friends and going on adventures and is directly responsible for the deaths of billions

Neuorodivergent talking mutant crows who, if pressed, will patiently explain to you that of course they're not really sentient, they're just animals mindlessly operating on instinct so as to effectively mimic the illusion of sentience (just like you, right?)

The ghost of a teenage girl who never actually existed who is on a quest to save her long-dead grandfather from a witch

The alien computer that's been patiently simulating the entire history of the colony said girl might have grown up in if only its founders hadn’t all died before landing on its planet

And then goes on to argue that yes, actually, these all count as people. Even the brain-eating parasite. Especially her. (She feels very guilty about the multiple zombie apocalypses she started once it is explained to her that taking over people's bodies without their consent is generally frowned upon in polite society.)

Because the universe is mostly cold and empty and utterly inhospitable to life, so why not be as generous as you can be in your definitions of who counts as sentient? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the closest thing the series has to outright villains (Liff’s Uncle Molder in this book, These-Of-We in the second book, Captain Guyen and the religious fanatic Portia in the first book) are people who refuse to accept the personhood of others (whether that’s starving people from the neighboring farms, potential new friends who vocally object to you taking over their brains and using their bodies to go out and explore the universe, the aforementioned cannibal spiders who are already living on the planet you've decided to move to or the smaller, weaker male spiders who object to being eaten.)

#books #children of time

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mrshigurumasshop · 2 years

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Bar Scenes | Haikyuu Men ~ the one where me - the author - is a sucker for meeting at the bar/club troupes

➤ pairing: bokuto kōtarō, kuroo tetsuro, iwaizumi hajime, matsukawa issei x fem!reader (separate)

➤ mentions of: fluff, alcohol, a bit suggestive, literally the men being down bad from the start, sorry some are shorter than other, this is very much self-indulgent, half proof-read

➤ note: i love reading stories with the love interests meet at the bar troupe, idk why. so, here’s one of many takes on different troupes i love to read

navi.

●∘◦❀◦∘● ●∘◦❀◦∘● ●∘◦❀◦∘● ●∘◦❀◦∘●

Bokuto Kōtarō ~ he sees you first

Personally I feel like Bokuto would see you first when you walk into the bar across the dance floor from where he’s at. Like immediately he’s head over heels for you.

But a part of him gets so flustered over you that’s he’d get shy instantly considering how much of a people person he is. He also tells Akaashi the second the words come to mind when he saw you.

“God Akaashi, she’s was so beautiful!” he says with a whine and a pout. You were long lost out of his view.

“Then go up to her, Bo. You know how to talk to people better than me so I’m your worst wingman,” his best friend says.

Bo pouts before taking the last swig of his beer and scooting himself out of the booth his group is at. “I’m gonna get another beer,” he says to Akaashi who gives him a thumbs up.

Bo continues to pout with a sigh as he slides into a seat at the bar. “Two beers,” he smiles sweetly to the bartender who nods in response. Bo figures he’d drink away his sorrows as much as he can. He can take down beers without feeling remotely tipsy.

The volleyball player dozed off a bit while waiting for beer. He thought about you again as if your presence put a stamp on his memory. He immediately noticed the soft smile you were carrying when one of your friends was talking to you. He noticed the small dimple on one of your cheeks when you giggled at whatever thing your friend said.

He loved the way your outfit molded itself onto your body giving others, especially himself, a glimpse big enough but also small enough to leave imagination behind. But he got rid of those thoughts quickly out of respect for you as if you can read his mind.

Bo sighed again as he was about to grab his beer for a drink. But before he could even lift the bottle up, you came into his view. Literally, you jumped a little into the seat next to him. “Hi, can I have a glass of wine,” you ask with a polite but pretty smile.

His heart nearly stopped and the wheels in his head were going into near overdrive seeing how pretty you are closer into view. Before he could stop himself for opening up his big mouth the words that came to mind went straight to his lips.

“Wow… You’re even prettier up close,” he blurts out while admiring your features.

Your eye’s widened as you turned to look at the rather odd but very handsome looking owl of man next to you. Your cheeks felt like they were going to burn off from how hot the peppered haired man made you feel. “Oh,” you gasp with a nervous laugh, “Were you talking to me?”

Bo’s eyes widened when your big beautiful eyes locked with his gold ones. He actually blurted that out and you heard him. His chest flutter though hearing such sweetness in your voice so he swallowed up his nerves and cleared his throat.

“Yes,” he smiled, “I didn’t mean to say that out loud but you’re so beautiful that I obviously couldn’t hide it.” He laughs as he nervously runs the back of his neck.

Then you laughed. Not a mean or mocking type of laugh. A contagious one that could rot someone’s tooth from how sweet your voice is. Bo laughed with you as your laughter turns into small giggles. “Sorry, I thought that was cute,” you giggled.

“No worries! I’m glad I can make you laugh already,” he smiles as he leans towards you s bit.

You look away from such a handsome face because never have you thought that you’d find someone so attractive. You bit your lip nervously and it made Bo hold back a groan from how fucking sexy you looked doing that.

“I’m Bokuto Kōtarō,” he introduces himself with his hand out towards you.

You smile as you locked gazes with him again. You gently place your hand in his, “L/n Y/n.”

“Beautiful name for a lady such as yourself,” he coos and kisses your knuckles with pride; as if he wasn’t so close to shitting his pants 3 minutes ago.

“Thank you. You should here my phone number,” you smile.

God, did Bo want to marry you right then and there. Since then he was totally smitten over you.

Kuroo Tetsurō ~ smooth/cheesy pickup line

Kuroo would definitely say something super sly and flirty with a small mix of cheesy depending on the person.

He’s definitely got some courage into talking to you first when he saw you seat yourself at the bar as you ordered your drink. Kuroo immediately gets up from his seat to conveniently get a new beer as he shoves a piece of paper into his pocket. He sits next to you while also keeping some space just in case you get uncomfortable and orders his usual. After taking down his order the bartender places your drink in front of you.

Kuroo waits for you to pay and get far enough away from your seat before turning around in his seat and calling after you.

“Miss!” he calls to you over the loud music.

Your turn around and see the bed head looking man standing from where you leaving with a smile. “Hi, how can I help ya?” you smile politely.

“Um, you dropped something,” he nervously laughs as he pulls out his hand towards you.

“Oh! What was it?” you asked curiously.

“My number,” Kuroo says smoothly. Your smile instantly grew wider as you began to laugh with his following right after. “Too much?” he asks with a smile.

You shook your head with a giggle. “Actually no, it was oddly enough,” you say as you let him place the piece of paper in your hand.

“Good but that was the first thing I thought of when I saw you,” he smiles.

Your cheeks hurt from being all giddy over the stranger in front of you. He looks like he just got off work considering the fact he was wearing a suit. But he was tall and handsome, flirty and not in the overbearing way. Him trying and thinking of what he was going to say to you made your heart flutter.

“Well, you got my attention,” you say as you punch in his number on his phone.

Kuroo was so proud of himself to say the least. He’ll happily vent about this encounter to Kenma even though the gamer probably won’t be close to listening to him. He’s sees you type away on your phone for a few seconds before locking eyes with him again. He quickly looks down at his phone feeling it vibrate in his pocket

hi, i’m L/N Y/N <3

Kuroo’s heart couldn’t stop threatening from beating out of his chest. He looked back towards you and introduced himself. “Kuroo Tersurō,” he smiles, “I hope you’re free for dinner next Saturday at 7?”

“Only if you greet me with something smoother than earlier,” you coo.

“Only for you, sweets,” he says with confidence.

Next Saturday came by quickly and Kuroo greeted you with something cheesy but smoother than butter at the chosen restaurant he picked out for the date.

Iwaizumi Hajime ~ the introverts

Both you and Iwa were definitely out of your comfort zone being at a really popular bar/club in the city.

He had to step outside to take a breather from the booze and sweaty bodies filling the club. It was a Friday night and everyone in their mother was out. He was ambushed by Oikawa and his friends in the parking lot of his workplace after his 9 hour shift. Iwa caved into their whining after 20 minutes which led to his current position.

Leaning against the wall on the side of the building, Iwa takes a deep breath with his eyes closed. It was almost just as loud outside as it is inside the club. Then he heard a pair of heels walk into the alleyway a few feet away from him. You both nod at each other with soft smiles as acknowledgment.

“Not your forte?” you ask as your nod your head to the club.

Iwa chucked with a nod of his head. “Not at all. I was dragged my neck to come here,” he says.

You giggle softly, “I was dragged by the hair out of bed,” you counter playfully.

Iwa laughs this time in response. “I was ambushed at work,” he replies back.

“Ah, so we have the worst friends,” you say in a sarcastic tone.

“Definitely the worst,” he smiles as he admires your features. He couldn’t take his eyes off you the second he heard your footsteps come into his field of hearing. “Um, I’m Iwaizumi Hajime,” he introduces.

“L/N Y/N, nice to meet you Iwa,” you say sweetly. Hearing his nickname slip from your lips made his heart almost drop out of his ass, “So, do you have a drink of choice? Or do you prefer the food trucks down the street?” you ask with a slight tilt of your head.

Iwa smiles and didn’t hesitate to answer. “Food trucks,” he answers as he walks towards you. Both of you hold gazes onto each other letting the surrounding neon lights, light up your features. He then offers his arm to you, “Does soup dumplings sound like a good choice?”

“Always,” you say with a factual tone.

“Good,” he says as he walks you both out of the alleyway, “Should you text your friends you’re leaving?” he asks out of curiosity. He doesn’t want anyone thinking he kidnapped you.

“Nah, they’re too busy playing tonsil hockey with their boyfriends,” you laugh making him chuckle.

“Ah, is that not your forte?” he asks in a teasing tone.

You look up at him with this sparkle in you eyes and he knew right away that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you. He couldn’t place what it was but with how beautiful you look right now, that’s all he could think about.

“As long as the person that’s getting food with me at the moment is okay with it,” you coo at him.

Iwa smiles softly as he gently grabs your hand and brings it up to his lips. He places soft kisses on your knuckles that immediately made your stomach do all types of flips.

“I got you, doll…”

After that night, you both made it an annual thing to go to food trucks on your anniversaries and to make out after to reminisce.

Matsukawa Issei ~ you curve every guy but him

Issei only goes to bars/clubs to pass time. He never actually indulges himself in anything other than an occasional swig of his drink.

But this time, all night he was watching you dance away the mountains of alcohol you were happily taking down.

He would definitely just look from afar because he wouldn’t want to ruin your fun more than what other guys he was watching doing. Issei watched at least four guys try to grind their way behind your moving figure on the dance floor but you’d immediately stop and decline their unwanted partnership.

Thankfully, they didn’t take it to heart but definitely had the egos popped considering how disappointed they looked when they gave you your space. Issei didn’t bother to try after watching the first guy walk away with a pout so he’s been admiring you from the bar.

After some time, Issei was busy talking to his old high school classmates that he finally rid of you from his mind. He didn’t want to come off as creepy just in case it was coming off that way so he instead chose to listen to Oikawa’s drunken rambling. But Issei naturally tuned him out like he usually does and goes back to look at you at the dance floor.

Much to his surprise, he caught you staring at him before quickly looking away from his direction. His cheeks flooded in red and heat because the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen was staring at him.

Then on cue, the music transitioned into a slower yet sexier song making everyone hastily find a dance partner to grind on like high schoolers. As usual, Issei wasn’t going to indulge but that was until he felt someone poke his shoulder.

He turned around locking eyes with yours and his cheeks flushed almost comically. Your smile made his heart melt. “Hi,” you say with a nervous giggle.

Issei cleared his throat and shyly replied back, “Hi.”

“Do you want to join me?” you ask as you nod your head to the dance floor.

Issei didn’t even say a word in response as he put his beer down and got up from his seat. He felt like he got a rush of adrenaline knowing that you chose him to want to dance with. “I’d love to join you,” he coos as he takes your hand in his.

He leads you both to the dance floor ignoring the supportive howls from his friends back at the bar. Mentally he is thanking Oikawa for telling him to loosen up a bit tonight so here he is with you.

Once you both found a bit of space, you didn’t hesitate to wrap your arms around his neck. Issei had to hold back a groan as he felt your fingers run through the back of his hair. He gently slotted one of his legs between yours, letting both of your bodies mold into each other’s hold. His hands settled just above your waist to ensure you that he’d guide you through the song.

God, Issei loved having you in his arms; forget the fact that he has every inch of your body in his grasps. He loves the fact that it’s you in his grasp. He just wanted to keep you in his arms for the rest of his life the second your chests pressed against one another. Feeling your fingers in his hair made him want to fall asleep right the on the dance floor.

After a bit of dancing and by a bit? You guys danced to near endless amount of songs together. So much so that you just realized you never asked for his name. You had slightly pulled away from him; just enough to gaze into each other’s eyes and rest your foreheads against each other. Your bodies swayed to the music as you giggle softly making him raise an eyebrow with a soft smile on his face.

“What’s up, love?” he asks in a gentle tone like there’s no music blasting out your ear drums.

“Never got your name, handsome,” you coo at him as you play with his small curls behind his head.

“Matsukawa Issei,” he says as he softly pulls one of your hands to his lips to seal his introduction with a kiss. He then keeps your hand in his hold against his chest, “Yours, pretty girl?”

“L/N Y/N,” you smile as you ghost your nose over his, “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

“Beautiful,” he murmured against your lips, “May I be frank?”

“Go ahead,” you smile.

“I can’t help wonder what your lips taste like,” he mumbled making you giggle. Then in a blink of an eye, he felt something soft, warm, and almost cherry flavored against his lips. This time he let out a soft groan he didn’t want to hide anymore.

The hand that was keeping yours locked in his was free from your grasp just so he could cup the side of your face gently. He was desperate to have you closer to him than you already are. And just as he was falling deeper for you, he felt some eyes lingering around.

His eyes opened for a moment only to immediately lock eyes with one of the guys you had turned down previously. He internally smirked and swelled with pride seeing how betrayed the stranger looked. Then he feel back into bliss with you, erasing everything that happened to be there with you.

You both pulled away with lovesick smiles on your faces. His thumb caressed your cheek making you feel warm and safe in his hold. “You know I’d love to show you off like this for the rest of my life,” he smiled softly with a nervous laugh.

You laughed as you stood on your tip-toes to place a kiss on his nose. “I sure hope so, handsome…”

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