#change my header location in there. lol.

[pancakehouse]

omg did you update your blog or am i just inattentive??? regardless i’m loving the theme

hehehe hiiii froggie yes i did like last weekend i think!!!! thank you sooo much darling xx was having a very cute lil life crisis so decided to change it in lieu of chopping all my hair off and dyeing it platinum blonde !!!!! <3 <3

[asimplearchivist]

𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓠𝓾𝓮𝓼𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷

𝐂𝐇. 𝐈 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐏𝐎𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐍, 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍. 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐕 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓.

[𝓪𝓼𝓲𝓶𝓹𝓵𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓬𝓱𝓲𝓿𝓲𝓼𝓽'𝓼 𝓶𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽] [ 𝐏𝐎𝐊𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐍 𝐌𝐘𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐃𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐎𝐍 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ] [ AO3 | SPOTIFY | PINTEREST ] summary ✨ ⤏ lu poses a question that makes eliana wonder about the nature—and the unpredictable forgiveness—of time. pairing(s) ✨ grovyle/hero (nostalgiashipping) word count ✨ 4.3k a/n ✨ [header credit] | [divider credit] ⤏ posting the ending arc of a story before the main part of it is perhaps a bold move, but…that thing will take me an indeterminate amount of time to complete (if ever), so I had to silence the voices in my head by at least getting this out of my system. it's been fermenting in the back of my mind since 2016, guys. my infatuation with this old ghost has cursed me in the best (and worst) possible ways. ⤏ any references to what may read as backstory prior to this would be explained in the main story. if I never fully write it out, I do at least intend to flesh out a solid outline here on tumblr, so keep your eyes peeled for that, at least, and I am always welcome to questions either in the comments or in my askbox. I really just want my moots to be able to understand the things I yap on about like I'm stark-raving mad tbh lol ⤏ enjoy the feels-train coming into the station, guys! grab your tickets and climb aboard! :) ✨ MASTERPOST ✨ ✨ ⤏ NEXT CHAPTER [TBA] ✨

The question that would irrevocably change their combined lives came as a casual, off-handed supposition one lazy, sunny afternoon.

Eliana had been elbow-deep in a crate packed full of orbs that she had pulled from storage at Kangaskhan’s for the sole purpose of sorting the muddled amassment, organizing the ones to keep for the team’s utility or delivery to the ever-growing list of clients mounted to the board on the cave wall, and recycling those of which they owned in excess—and thus didn’t need—at Wynaut’s. She had stayed occupied with that blissfully mind-numbing task since they had eaten a mild breakfast of toasted flatbreads with liberal smears of honey and slices of freshly ripened fruit while Lu had taken it upon himself to reconcile the veritable mountain of job requests they kept stored in a chest, which had gotten quite out of hand considering the lid struggled to properly latch when shut.

They had worked in companionable silence while the sun had crawled towards its zenith, the plunking percussion of orbs clinking into the slotted tray Eliana used for such occasions as the mood to take inventory struck her kept time over the underlying rhythm of papers crinkling and shuffling as Lu compiled them into neat stacks by location and urgency filling the open maw of the bluff sheltering them from the worst of its glaring rays.

The balmy, salt-infused wind helped to wick the worst of the burgeoning summer’s heat, but the lack of clouds had cautioned them to stay indoors nevertheless—while Eliana did require a certain amount of sunlight as a part of her daily nourishment, full exposure with no breaks (while traveling at times harsh terrain and facing feral Pokémon while on missions in unpredictably dangerous mystery dungeons to boot) spelled out the possibility of her photosynthetic ears and tail flagging. That condition was uncomfortable at best—and most grass-types at the peak of health don’t even blink to shed the resulting wilted flora in order to allow for new growth to replace the lost organic material—but, at worst, it could pose somewhat serious health issues if left unacknowledged. Sunning in the mornings or afternoons proved most fruitful and kept her leaves glossy and lush.

It was the first day off their little team had taken in months, besides. They both had needed the break between the back-breaking, frantic jobs that had lately dominated the majority of their time after their recent promotion to Guildmaster Rank not even a month prior. As his most accomplished graduates by far, Wigglytuff had been relying more and more frequently upon them for assistance in maintaining the background runnings behind the face of the Guild—and particularly on Lu for the administration since Chatot couldn’t handle as much of the active work (namely running errands and maintaining documentation) as he used to due to the injury that he had incurred in Brine Cave)—so, despite being at the most stable point of their exploration careers thus far, they were busier than they had ever been before.

That was precisely why Lu’s soft-spoken question took Eliana off-guard like it did—it came unbidden, at completely random, considering that the topic hadn’t even touched the fringes of her mind in days for how severely she’d been distracted by the perpetual stream of waking, eating, packing, hiking, exploring (which usually entailed a rather harrowing combination of rescuing and battling Pokémon who, frankly, should have known better), resting, and repeating it all over again while keeping up with basic chores and routines for thier team to continue working as seamlessly as always.

Perhaps her guilt from the fact that she hadn’t devoted the concept much thought was excusable for this very reason, although it certainly did not alleviate the somewhat painful sensation in the least.

“…Do you ever think about what happened to the paralyzed future?”

It took a long moment for Eliana to compose herself, and she bought time by carefully finishing a stack of Escape Orbs that would afford them a refreshed supply of Reviver Seeds for the coming week. She tilted her head as if to roll the question around within her head, her tail curling over her paws as she parsed an appropriate response. “…Of course I do.”

“Dialga said that the timeline was restored,” Lu continued absentmindedly, eyes trained on the wrinkled parchment clasped between his tarsus pads, but the creases of his melancholic frown gave away the depth of his thoughts on the subject, “and you were brought back, but…what do you think happened to…everything else?”

He left that remark intentionally vague and open-ended for her benefit, no doubt, so she could divert the conversation if she needed to. Lu was also so considerate of her somewhat fragmented feelings on the matter, but she did wish that he wouldn’t treat it as though he should walk entirely on eggshells when bringing up one of the primarily defining moments of her conscious recollection.

“I…don’t know,” she answered truthfully, looking out towards the rippling sapphire ocean stretching out as far as the eye could see. “He never told me. I had assumed…”

At her trailing off, Lu raised his considerate gaze to gauge her expression. Besides her furrowed brows, Eliana felt no distress—and after reading her aura just to be certain (because she knew Lu, and she knew how fretful he grew over her), he set the paper down and pinned it with a coin to prevent it from wiffling away in the wind. “…That they’re gone?” he finished tentatively.

To acknowledge her reluctant, if hopeless, conclusion verbally hurt her too much, so Eliana gave him a stunted, singular nod.

“I don’t know, either,” Lu said after a long pause, “and I wouldn’t ever want to have false hopes, but…surely if you were brought back, Eliana, they would have been, too…?”

Eliana didn’t really want to dwell on the possibility. While the notion would vastly alleviate the guilt that plagued her every single time her mind drifted to her old companions (and she, too, had wondered at such a possibility before with the same reasoning), if the contrary were ever to be confirmed, it would grieve her all over again. She still struggled to reconcile their loss—because she had lost them, regardless of whether they had, by some miracle, survived like her, and they were separated by an indeterminate and insurmountable length of time beside—and if such hypothetical hopes were ever disappointed…well, she already had a hard enough time coming to terms with her emotions as it was.

“Maybe,” she offered mildly, returning her attention to her unfinished task. The rest of the crate would likely keep her busy until sundown.

“You know…” Lu resumed his own work, as well, tone then more conversational than cautious. “…we could always ask Dialga. Who knows? Since all the time-space issues surrounding us have been resolved, maybe we could—”

“I find that unlikely,” Eliana interrupted him, coarser than she intended to. When she snapped her head around to look at him, however, with shame lancing through her, he didn’t look ruffled in the slightest—such was the imperturbable nature of her partner, and the rational adult he had grown into from a timid, if somewhat passive-aggressive and hot-headed, youth. “I was brought back as a personal favor to you for saving Temporal Tower. I don’t know that Dialga—or whoever granted that wish—would allow for the timeline to have lingering echoes like that. And if…if they did…survive,” she ground out through gritted teeth, “there’s no guarantee that their memories would remain intact. If everything was overwritten, then…maybe they…maybe they wouldn’t even…”

Lu stood and stepped over to her, coiling his arms around her torso and tugging her into a hug. His warm, broad paws rested between her shoulder blades and stroked the length of her spine respectively, soothing her flaring tide of emotion. She blinked away the sting in her eyes and leaned into his touch with a soft, shaky sigh.

“I understand,” he murmured. “I’m sorry I brought it up. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s alright,” she responded, muffled slightly by the fur cushioning her cheek. “I’m okay, just…I still have a hard time thinking about it.”

“I know. We can talk about it later, or…or never, if you want. It doesn’t affect me nearly as much as it does you, and I hate to see you cry.”

“Lucky for you, I hate to see myself cry, too,” she responded wryly with a sniffle, trying to grasp at the levelheaded disposition she wore most of the time. She didn’t usually keep her walls up around Lu, but she was particularly sensitive about this topic and…well, she had trouble with figuring out what to do with the equal parts grief, guilt, and anger that had come to reside in the scarred hollows of her heart that had once been occupied by her fellow future Pokémon. As she had countless times before since returning from the odd state of limbo in which she’d been trapped for the time between the Tower’s rescue and Lu’s breaking point, she opted to unceremoniously shove the complicated and snaring web of uncertainty to the back of her mind to be dealt with never later. “Do you want to go to Spinda’s tonight? I’m getting thirsty and I found some Joy Seeds we could try.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” Lu smiled, although she knew without a doubt that he noticed her deflection tactic. “Let’s finish up all this and we’ll call it a night.”

It didn’t take long to complete their tasks—Eliana tucked all of the excess items they’d elected to trade into a crate for Lu to carry and they discussed what jobs they should take the next day on their easygoing walk through Treasure Town. There was a handful of rescue and criminal apprehension requests for the Mystifying Forest a couple of days old that would be simple enough to complete. They could save the ones farther out for later in the week so they’d have better time to prepare the necessary supplies.

Spinda’s Café was moderately busy, but the background murmur of conversations and laughter helped to distract Eliana’s melancholy mind. She hadn’t quite been able to shake off their discussion of heartaching hypotheticals, even caught up in the soothing routine of taking inventory, so she distracted herself by entering the line to order while Lu when over to Wynaut and Wobbuffet in exchange for prize tickets that they would redeem later, once they weren’t so tired.

Domesticity elicited a more comfortable weariness, however, than exploring did (given the stresses revolving around dealing with the feral Pokémon in the mystery dungeons and their job requests’ oftentimes complex and tenuous mission objectives), and Eliana relished in being able to sit at one of the tables closer to the edge of the room with peace of mind—Kangaskhan had mentioned that their storage limit had been approaching, so Eliana was glad to keep herself busy in such a way.

Lu brought their drinks over once they were done, and they sat in oscillations of companionable silence and idle remarks while people-watching or bringing up recurrent topics that needed updating in context of their exploration team duties.

Not too much later, Bidoof and Corphish descended the stairwell, engrossed in a lighthearted chatter until they spotted the Guild graduates off to the side by themselves.

“Well, howdy!” Bidoof greeted with a toothy grin, “it’s sure been a while, yup yup!”

Eliana chuckled. They’d seen the lot of them only yesterday while checking the job bulletin boards and asking about Croagunk’s stock on special items. “It’s nice to see you two. Would you like to sit with us?”

“Hey, hey! Thanks for the invitation!” Corphish crowed, clacking his pincers enthusiastically. “I’ll go wait in line!”

“Gee, thanks, Corphish!” Bidoof said, clambering up onto the stool to be more closely leveled with the second-stage evolutions. “I didn’t see you two come through the crossroads today, yup yup.”

“We took an off-day,” Eliana told him, leaning down to sip from the dried reed that served as a straw. Lacking opposable thumbs, while something she had mostly grown accustomed to, was not ideal, but given the fact that many other Pokémon also didn’t possess them, there were always accommodations for it. “We’ll probably head back out tomorrow. What did you do today, Bidoof?”

“I sort of did the same,” he replied jovially, “since I filled in for Diglett as a sentry…although Chatot said I was more distracted than usual and didn’t seem very pleased, yup yup.”

“If you did that all day,” Lu said with a chuckle, leaning in and folding his forearms on the table, “I can imagine all the footprints started to blur together after a while.”

“Sure ‘nuff!” Bidoof laughed in return. “My eyes are still dazzled from all the sunshine, yup yup—I don’t know how Diglett can stand it!”

“He’s used to it,” Lu said, “because I’ve asked him the same thing before. He says they’re normally sensitive to light because he’s an underground dweller, but he’s adapted to it since Dugtrio spends so much time outside. Maybe you didn’t strain your vision too terribly—maybe you won’t get a headache on top of it.”

“Aw, I already started getting one, trying to keep up with all the visitors we had today,” the plump mouse Pokémon admitted sheepishly, “and Loudred was extra cranky, yup yup. My ears are still ringing. It didn’t help that I got worked up.”

“About what, Bidoof?” Eliana asked, frowning lightly. While Bidoof had his moments when he frustrated some of the others in times past—with herself included, she couldn’t deny that—he’d come a long way since Lu and herself had graduated. The thought of him getting his feelings hurt by someone else irked her, after all the support he’d given them both throughout the years—and if he had a name to give, one had best believe that she’d have some choice words for whichever poor soul who decided to pick on their mentor. “What happened?”

“Well,” he started, somewhat bashfully, “before you two came along, when I was still the newest apprentice at the Guild, I ran into a little patch of trouble with a group of thieves for a spell. I saw another one of those Pokémon come in—a different one, thankfully—and it reminded me of all of that.”

“Oh, no, Bidoof!” Lu breathed. “Did they show back up? Do we need to coordinate with Officer Magnezone? They didn’t harass you, did they?”

“No, sirree,” Bidoof replied hurriedly, “there’s nothing to worry about there! I haven’t seen their faces turn up around Treasure Town again since the Guildmaster gave them what-for.”

“That’s good,” Eliana murmured. “Were they trying to rob you?”

“Yup yup, my savings,” he said. “I got a mite discouraged with my progress around that time, so I thought about buying a TM to make me stronger. One of them saw it and they tried to ambush me in a secret mystery dungeon they thought no one else knew about. Tricked me right good, they did, but…I got something real special out of the whole thing.”

“And what was that?” Lu asked curiously.

“He got to meet Jirachi, hey hey!” Corphish piped up, his legs tapping the floor as he brought two glasses over brimming with smoothies. “That was his first real mission as a full-fledged explorer!”

“Aw, shucks,” Bidoof hedged, eyes averting and ears curling on his signature expression of embarrassment, “I was just going to say that I found a priceless treasure. I don’t really like spreading that information around a whole lot, you know, since he likes his sleep so much, but since it’s you guys…”

“Right,” Corphish said, setting the drinks down with a clunk upon the table before hauling himself up into the seat next to the normal-type. “I forgot that it’s all hush-hush—I’m sorry, Bidoof.”

“I’m curious, though,” Lu said quietly, leaning closer, “I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned this story, Bidoof. Isn’t Jirachi a Mythical Pokémon?”

“A renowned granter of wishes, from what I’ve heard,” Eliana offered—the trivia case easily, although the reasons she knew it did not…such was the curse of her amnesia, “if they’re awakened from their deep slumbers, that is. I take it that you had a wish granted, Bidoof?”

“He did, hey hey,” said Corphish indignantly, “but he never has told us what it was!”

“It’s sort of personal to me,” Bidoof answered quietly, twiddling his toes. “If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all,” she told him warmly, “I completely understand. You have the right to share something like that or not.” She glanced sidelong at Corphish with an amused look. “Even if others’ curiosity is strong.”

“I never meant anything by it!” muttered the ruffian Pokémon. “I was just curious, is all, hey hey.”

“That’s alright,” Lu assured him. He looked back to Bidoof. “May we at least ask if it came true?”

“It took a little while, but it sure did!” said the normal-type with shining eyes focused on the pair of them. “Even if it got a little scary, I’m so glad I got so experience all that!”

“You said it was a secret mystery dungeon,” Lu continued, tone brimming with that familiar, scarcely restrained enthusiasm he’d always shown information on new, undiscovered places. “Is it really that hard to find?”

“Not really,” Bidoof said thoughtfully, “but it had a passage that no other explorers knew about. The Guildmaster figured it all out right quick.”

That sounded like Wigglytuff, alright. Eliana smiled. “Does the name of that mystery dungeon happen to be Star Cave?”

Bidoof, Corphish, and Lu starred at her, stupefied.

“Why, yes, it is,” Bidoof breathed. “How’d you know that, Eliana?”

“I’ve read about it before in passing,” she explained. “You forget that I spent a lot of hours in the Guild’s library. There’s not a whole lot on this continent that I don’t know at least a little bit about.”

If the trio noticed how she intentionally left out the second half associated with that recollection, they didn’t point it out. She hadn’t spent those late nights combing through dusty tomes, scrolls, and maps alone, after all, and Lu had never been a night owl like she was, so he had usually ended up snoozing away despite his best efforts to be helpful by remaining awake and alert. She could still recall the looming, massive shadow cast against the plastered wall of the last room in the basement level by numerous flickering candles and oil lamps crackling merrily away in the hushed ambience of crinkling paper, notes scratched out with ink quills, and the harmonious layering of rumbling baritone and whispered falsetto indicating points of interest for further study and investigation within the texts in the otherwise undisturbed and cozy silence. The mere image lurking behind her mind’s eye of that pair of broad, pale hands pressing carefully down on the warped, darkened pages to help her track the pacing of the ancient glyphs caused her throat to tighten, so she shook her head to dismiss it.

“I was always told stories about Jirachi growing up,” Lu remarked, sidestepping the elephant in the room with all the grace of a dancer, “but I always wondered whether they were true or not. It’s nice to know that there’s still a little magic in the world.”

“Yup yup, it sure was an amazing thing to witness,” said Bidoof, his onyx gaze glittering in awe in the wake of the (likely far more pleasant) memory. “I think that I’m mighty privileged to have seen it all happen right in front of my eyes.”

Eliana glanced at Lu, noticing a similar expression mirrored upon the aura Pokémon’s face—a sort of childlike wonder that had, to her relief, never been crushed by the harrowing events they’d endured.

By the time they got home that night, they were properly exhausted. Lu cut up some fruit as a late snack for them to eat while they settled down, enjoying the mild salty breeze combing through their fur and tugging playfully at their ears and tails. Neither of them spoke until they finished, tossed their scraps into the compost bin, and got comfortable on their beds. Eliana let out a content little sigh as she curled up on her side, tucking her legs and venturing out with the end of her tail to curl around Lu’s own. It wagged unconsciously in response—a reaction that used to embarrass him.

“Good night, Lu,” she murmured drowsily, her eyelids fluttering shut.

“Good night, Eliana. Sweet dreams.”

“You, too.” That was something with which she struggled, he knew, especially after what she’d gone through with her Dimensional Scream and the nightmares they’d both had leading up to the final confrontation with the perpetrator of her amnesia. It gave the sentiment all the more sincerity.

Eliana did manage to slip into a steady, if light, sleep unplagued by regurgitations of her traumas… but she roused when she felt Lu slip from her grasp and shuffle out of bed. She lifted her head, bleary and confused by her mind still muddled, and squinted at the shape of her partner sitting near the edge of the bluff in the direct park of the wind blasting up the cliff. Her fuzzy gaze passed over his relaxed form, and she picked up on the light thumping of his tail in the dust on the floor and the fiddling of his blunted claws playing with his scarf.

“What’re you so excited about?” she croaked, digging the heel of her paw into the corners of her eyes to dislodge the crust that had gathered there. “The sun’s not even coming up yet, Lu.”

He turned his head, somewhat surprised, and a flash of sheepishness passed over him at the realization that he had accidentally woken her up. “You can go back to sleep,” he told her gently, “I just can’t get my mind to slow down after hearing everything that Bidoof had to say.”

Star Cave, while rarely marked on any save the oldest maps, was one mystery dungeon which they had not yet explored. She had intended to bring it up to Lu eventually, since she kept a list of locations they had been to, but she hadn’t realized that a Mythical called it his abode. She suspected that there was more to Lu’s excitement than the mere idea of investigating a new place, however.

“Do you want to have your biggest wish granted?” she teased with a lopsided grin, turning over onto her front to prop her chin on the edge of the hay pile. “Bidoof made it sound like that guy gets pretty cranky when he’s woken up from his century-long naps—we may not want to fight a sleepwalking Mythical, you know.”

“I’ve already had my biggest wishes granted,” Lu pointed out after a beat, his expression softening as he looked at her. Her flesh warmed beneath her pelt at the fondness warming his crimson irises. “I got to join the Guild, and I got you back. There’s not a whole lot more that I could ask for, to be honest, but the idea of it is still so exciting!” He tilted his head, considering. “Surely there’s at least one thing you’d like to have, Eliana. You don’t ever ask for very much.”

“I don’t know,” she trailed off, glancing thoughtfully out towards the rippling, mercurial sea. One obvious answer popped into her mind, but it wasn’t one she dared give voice to. She shrugged and settled on, “…I’d like to get my memories back, I think…if I had to pick one thing, that is.” She exhaled forlornly. “Even if…if I never see them again, I’d…I’d at least like to remember them.”

Lu turned fully to face her, folding his legs beneath him as his eyes shone with hope at her admission. “…You know,” he said, “we could go check it out, at least. Jirachi might not even be there anymore, since Bidoof found him, or his part of the cave could have been resealed. But if he is there…I think it would be amazing to have our wishes granted.”

“So you do have one?” she queried, quirking a brow.

“I do,” he nodded, “but it’s bad luck to say what they are before they come true.”

“You have a point. Maybe that won’t come back to bite me.” Eliana rested her check on the soft bedding with a gaping yawn. “You should try to get some sleep, Lu. If we want to plan for that trip, we’ll need to get an early start, at least, and get these jobs wrapped up. It’s quite the hike out there from what I remember.”

Lu obediently returned to his bed, and this time he reached out and grasped her paw in his own. “…For what it’s worth, Eliana,” he murmured, “I know it was hard on you, losing your memories, and that it still bothers you, but…I’m glad I got to meet you, despite it all…maybe that’s selfish of me.”

“I don’t think so,” Eliana returned quietly, squeezing the roughened pads of his toes fondly. “I think everything happens for a reason. Darkrai caused it, sure, but…I like to think that our meeting fulfilled some greater purpose in the long run.” She met his eyes in the dark. “I hope you know that I wouldn’t trade it for the world, Lu.”

“I know,” he said softly, and this time they didn’t wake until the sunrise crept over the horizon.

[hypnag0g]

Do you have examples of your web/graphic design-ish art on hand? I've caught glimpses and it's some REALLY excellent stuff

howdy! thank you so much for this wonderful ask, i very rarely get the chance to talk about my web/graphic design stuff, so seize any chance i can get! you'll have to forgive me for how scattered this everything is, my graphic design stuff normally ends up as a smaller part of illustrations, so a lot of it is gonna be cropped, haha.

my hypnagog header is probably the thing i'm most proud of, it was the first custom font i ever made that felt like i captured what i saw in my head. kind of a clunky way to put it but before this i'd change my header logo and general "branding" like once every three months, yet this one has stuck around for like 2ish years!! here it is in my classic colorway and my new green/orange one.

here are a couple of my older logos for a bunch of random projects (a comic about evil horses, a defunct community project, a bunch of little glyphs for hypnagog before i settled on my current aesthetic, and one for story about evil clones)

here are three posters i did for a couple of classes, they're more illustrative than graphic design but there's still elements that feel close enough to gd for me to post lol (a pitch poster for ANOTHER comic i was working on, an editorial piece about the recent HPAI surge, and a quick zine about my experiences with internet horror)

and FINALLY. here's my web design stuff. full disclaimer, i learned how to code on neopets, and i've never been able to break free of it's pull, so p much everything i've ever done for web design has all been on neopets, or on clone sites that emulate it pre-2007.

i'd love to link you these two but they're unfortunately behind a login screen on my current petsim of choice, so i hope the screenshots will do! these two are pet lookups coded from the ground up to look like social media profile pages (fun sidenote: Butch has a normal profile, Ransom is a silly hacker stereotype, and he had no choice but to "customize" his profile when faced with the insanely unsecured back-end of LUNET.)

aside from that, my other most recent web project was developing a really sleek character directory for my toyhou.se. i made all the graphics on this page and i'm super proud of it, haha.

oh i almost forgot. i also have a bunch of really dumb banners that my friends and i use in discord in tandem with a bot that posts them on command - most of them are intentionally designed to look bad, but some of em (especially the data "webba" banner) were made with a lot of care, haha.

i think i might be forgetting some things, but that's pretty much it! my next big project is building out my neocities - i'll definitely post about it when its finished because i wanna use it as a secondary posting location for all my stuff :o]

thank you again!!!!

[lila-rae]

I still can’t believe your header picture is real 🙃 We constantly live on crumbs and then to get stuff like that… the lighting, the cinematography, the location…wow. I still don’t think people should film them like they’re animals at the zoo, but I can appreciate the sharing is caring attitude lol

Right.

It’s just such a petty picture

Speaking of I’ve been debating changing my pfp but like it’s been this one for year and I don’t know if I can move on from that image. It’s all my favorite things

[exololyunho]

this header looks god awful but I made it so I'm a tiny bit proud of it. anyways I already have a series in progress that I desperately want to finish but i decided I wanted to work on something a little different so im writing a Zoo AU fic that's reader x mingi

description that is copy and pasted from wikipedia except with the characters changed:

Violent animal attacks upon humans are occurring all over the world. Y/n L/n, an American zoologist and her Korean friend, Jeong Yunho, a safari guide, as well as Park Seonghwa, a Los Angeles reporter, Kim Hongjoong, a quirky veterinary pathologist, and a French intelligence agent, Song Mingi, all seek to investigate the mysterious pandemic as the attacks become more coordinated and ferocious.

zoo is a tv show I fucking love and I thought it would make for an interesting fic so what im doing is essentially rewatching the episodes from season 1 to create myself an outline. the show takes place over many different locations until about half way through if I recall correctly so there's a lot of jumps around. right now, only Yunho, Mingi, Seonghwa, and Hongjoong are main characters, but im planning on tying in the rest of the boys, although some of them will definitely not be good guys. the plot of the show is cheesy and a little confusing so if for some reason someone sees this and wants to watch the show to understand, you'll spoil it for yourself so if you do want to read this I don't recommend watching until I finish. atm, im only planning on writing out season 1, but depending on my satisfaction with what I write and public perception, I might write the rest of the show, although it does get shitty after season two.

I am aware that this is super ambitious, especially since I have a bad habit of not finishing projects I start, but my New Years resolution is the fix that and I'm actually pumped about this, even if it does take me forever to write out since im turning 45-50 minute episodes into single chapters

I also want to make it clear that I in no way shape or form own the plot. I'm simply borrowing it and changing it a bit to put the ateez members in a dystopian/scifi environment. I will change probably more than a few things, but mostly how scenes play out since I just straight up don't like how the show handles things sometimes, but I'm keeping in the essential bits so the plot stays together. I am changing lines and characters to fit my needs so it won't be an exact copy, but all the main elements will stay

anyways thanks to all my 5 followers for coming to my ted talk if you read this lol im planning on posting the first chapter in January after I stop screaming and crying over halazia

[redmoonrises]

Ooh could you tell me about creaturae? What's it about??

This is gonna be a long one anon! Lol

Creaturae is my eternal wip, in the sense that I'll probably always be adding to it. It's a universe also known as "the end of all stories", and the basic premise is that this is where all stories end up after they're completed (or abandoned). Most often it's artifacts and locations that show up, and maybe the actual books/movies/podcasts/etc themselves, but sometimes characters show up too. Not all of them, though. Most characters are simply left to rest when their story is done.

Most of the art I've posted is tangentially related to creaturae in some way, other than fandom stuff (but occasionally even that). The header for my blog is actually a character lineup for most of the main guys in creaturae, though some designs have changed slightly since I made it. Basically anything I post that's related is under the tag #creaturae.

One of the main characters, Jay (far left on the blog header), along with a few others not in that lineup are characters from a different story I'm co-writing with a couple irls. They ended up on Creaturae after their stories ended, though not everyone from their story showed up there. Jay also has a few AU doppelgangers kicking around on creaturae who also ended up there in similar manners.

Creaturae's plot happens in what amounts to story arcs, usually influenced by whatever fandom I'm involved in at the time. There's backstory for a few characters before that (Rev, Rupee, Iden/Genesis/Parzival) but the first arc introduces the idea of parallels. Essentially, the characters on creaturae will be drawn into playing out character arcs from a world that's drifted close to creaturae. This is basically how most arcs start, either with parallel shenanigans, a powerful artifact, or characters from another world travelling through a rift (gateways between dimensions). The current arc involves lots of stuff from The Magnus Archives cause it's my current hyperfixation!

I've posted about creaturae and some more specific stuff before under the tag (#creaturae) that I probably missed here if you're interested! Some of the really old stuff has been changed or scrapped but I think most of it should still be accurate! If you have more questions let me know, I'm always happy to ramble about Creaturae :D

[worriedvision]

Arranged marriage (Part 2) - Ayato

Okay so gender neutral reader as usual. possibly gonna do headers for each character lol. I'll attach part 1 to this in a bit, trust me!

--

The day after the wedding, Ayato informed you that there would be no honeymoon. To his pleasure, you explain that you  knew fine well that there was no such time for this. 

The two of you sleep in separate rooms, have separate workspaces, Ayato even requested you eat elsewhere. In all honesty, it felt like he pushed it a bit far after he scolded Thoma for bringing you in for your evening meal, only to be told that you were not worthy of eating in the same room. Thoma turns to apologise, only to see you close your eyes to collect your emotions before nodding, Thoma returning you to your room before getting a maid to bring your dinner.

You overhear the maids sometimes, gossiping about how lousy of a spouse you were to Ayato. They seemed to believe you requested separate living spaces, but you never bother to correct them when they apologise pathetically when you make your presence known.

Part of you hoped the marriage would eventually build into something nice, but you realise Ayatos attitude towards you does not change.

Thankfully for you, your had your own library to look at. You could finally start to investigate what happened to your knights, hopefully getting answers.

--

You're out on an evening stroll, unaccompanied despite the maid supposedly being tasked to ensure your safety. While you found yourself on edge, you were thankful for the silence as you begin to go through the documents you found that you could relate to the poisoning of your kingdom. Hearing a rustling in the woods, you put your bag back to where it was, hoping you weren't about to be ambushed.

To your relief, Kazuha emerges. He gestures quietly for you to follow him, clearly wanting to talk, and you agree, taking your bag with you.

"It's been a while, my friend." Kazuha sighs out.

"Yeah, it has..." You reminisce sadly as you remember the last time you saw Kazuha. His Kingdom suffered the same fate as yours, the only difference being his family also got hit hard.

"I saw you got married recently." Kazuha begins. "Unfortunately it seems this isn't a happy ending for you, from what I saw."

You look over, silently asking him what he saw, only for him to smile sadly at you.

"You put on a great performance, pretending the marriage was a happy one." Kazuha begins. "Almost everyone was fooled. However, I know you much better than an outsider. I know that kiss never happened." Kazuha admits.

"So...what brings you to talk to me today?" You quiver out, following Kazuha.

"I think you'd like to be involved in a discussion." Kazuha begins. "We have gathered a small team to look into the poisoning that occurred."

You can't help but look up, eager to get to the bottom of this. If it were anyone else, you would be wary, but because it was Kazuha you trusted him.

"Great, because I have some infor-"

Kazuha cuts you off, a finger to his lips. Pointing to a nearby camp of treasure hoarders, you nod in understanding before silently following Kazuha to the location.

--

"Who was supposed to escort them?" Thoma huffs out, all the maids looking down in shame. Reluctantly, the maid who slacked off raised her hand. Thoma shakes his head, making note of their name before dismissing everyone else. Getting the maid to wait for further instruction, Thoma goes to Ayatos room.

"My Lord?" Thoma calls.

"Yes?" Ayato sighs out of frustration, ready to sleep.

"I found the maid who-"

"Thoma." Ayato cuts him off, opening the door. "I thought I told you before that if _ were to go missing, nobody was to be punished."

Thoma furrows his brows, finding himself unable to stop himself from speaking out of line this one time. Thoma knew you, he knew you had feelings for a man who simply did not care. He also knew that if the maid didn't slack off, you wouldn't have gone missing.

"_ has no use here. I see this as a good thing." Ayato explains tiredly. Before Thoma can ask about the punishment that should be administered, Ayato slams the door shut, obviously exhausted.

"With all due respect, my Lord, this was an avoidable situation. If that maid-"

Ayato grumbles out, rubbing his face before he looks directly at Thoma.

Returning to the maid, Thoma can't help but let his eye twitch momentarily before dismissing them. Seeing her beaming as she leaves, Thoma clenches his fist, not saying a word but staring daggers into the floor.

[justoneday-namjoonii]

Medusa; lp 2

⇢ pairing: mobster!Yoongi x OC (brief Jaebeom x reader)

⇢ genre: angst, fluff, mobster!au, performer!au fakemarriage!au

PART 1

⇢ He’s an unruly mobster who’s never had to take responsibility for anything. His father has fallen ill, bringing the impending fate to succeed him closer. She’s dancing in a strange city to support what little family she has left. They have a mutual goal — being married to a stranger for one year can’t be too bad.

⇢ warning: mature content, toxic ex, violence, language, character death, Jungkook is mean but it’s brief, mob activity, OC’s life motto is “idgaf” but it bites her in the butt, also this is fiction baby girl so its not real please do not take anything in this story seriously protect yourself💜

author’s note: I hope you enjoyed part 1 and now part 2! please ignore the old title on the header lol I didn’t want to change it. Will proof read later :))

1 Week Ago

Yoongi gladly sent you his address upon your request and the time to come meet him. 7 o’clock in the morning.

Your life can be summed up in a hand full of chances, this is another one of those instances. The location you asked Yoongi send you was deep in a neighborhood of mansions, the homes had about a mile between them. This could be dangerous, he could be lying to you and just trying to lure you to his house. Normally, it takes a lot for you to trust a man and when you do, even then you hesitate. But for some reason, you feel like you can trust Yoongi.

When you pull into the driveway, you see a few luxury vehicles outside and you’re sure there are more in the garage. The home is sleek and modern, not as big as some of the other house but still bigger than anything you could afford. 

“What are you doing...” You mumble to yourself, hopping out of the car with your purse on your shoulder. You weren’t sure how to dress so you went with a more casual outfit, nothing as fancy as you used to wear to the club. With shaky hands, you ring the doorbell and take a few seconds to breathe. 

The door opens and your met with Yoongi in a similarly casual outfit, sweats and a sweatshirt. He opens the door wider, beckoning you to walk in, “Good morning, how was the drive?” 

“It was good, a little far from where I live,” You hesitantly walk inside as he shuts the door behind you. It takes a moment for you to say anything because you can’t help but look around in awe, it’s beautiful. 

“Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea?”

“No, I’m fine,” You sit on the couch, hands in your lap as you twiddle your fingers.

“So, what changed your mind?” He takes a seat in the couch across from you, coffee in his hand. “Last night, you had every excuse in the world, your boyfriend, we just met, I was sure I wouldn’t hear from you, not this soon at least.

“Well...” You sigh, “I quit my job last night.”

“Aw, for me?” 

“No, not for you,” You roll your eyes, “there were rumors going around because the owner never liked me. I didn’t do it for you but when you tipped me $500, everyone in the club found out because because my boss blabbed...If I had stayed there, I feel like there would have been a target on my back. I’ve been wanting to leave for a while anyway,”

“Well, it’s perfect timing for me, if you’re serious about accepting my proposal that is.”

You take a deep breath. “I think I am interested and you seem genuine but marriage is a big decision, I want to be sure I’m not about to ruin my life completely,”

“The fact that you showed up tells me you trust me, at least a little bit,” He takes a sip of coffee, assuming its not the latter, “if you do accept, we’d have to have a wedding, as soon this month. You could have a little fun planning that because, before we get married, I need to have some things transferred over to me .”

“I get to plan a wedding?” You don’t know why the idea of planning a wedding is convincing you to actually do this.

“Yeah, does that sweeten the deal?” He giggles at your little girl like excitement, “you won’t have a budget or anything like that, you can go crazy, it’s my gift to you.”

“Wow…My family has to come, I can’t get married and my siblings not be there.”

“Oh, is that an ‘I do?’”

“Yes, I’ll do it-“

“Yes, fuck yes!” Yoongi suddenly gets up and you gasp when your lifted from your seat and spun around.

“Yoongi!—“ You hold onto his neck instinctively, trying to keep yourself from being dropped.

“You don’t know how you just changed my life,” He lets you down with the biggest, sweetest smile you’ve ever seen, “I love you for this.” 

He laughs because, he’s only joking of course.

Today, you’re picking up the rest of your things from Jaebeom’s apartment.

You’ve dreaded this. When you arrived home that night, Jaebeom arrived right behind you and he was in a good mood. He came in with his LV bags and greeted his precious Namu first before finding you in the kitchen.

“Can you believe I was actually starting to miss you?” He drops his bags and leans down to kiss your neck for longer than you’d prefer. Yet, for the first time in a while, you don’t pull away, you feel you owe him at least that as a parting gift.

“What did you do while I was away? Find another boyfriend,” 

It’s the first time that accusation is actually true.

“I quit yesterday.”

“God, finally, that job made you so bitchy-”

“I’m also moving out.”

Silence sweeps the kitchen as he processes what you just said.

“Ok, where are you going?”

“I found a place, it’s pretty far from here,” You clear your throat, “I’ll be out of here tomorrow.”

“So, you have been fucking someone else,” He concludes, his year-long suspicions seems to be confirmed in his mind, “I’m not even surprised.”

“I don’t need to hear this from you, Jaebeom. You of all people don’t need to be throwing accusations like that at me, when you crawl back here in the middle of the night do think I don’t know what you’ve done!? I’m not stupid, you come here smelling like liquor and skanks. You should be happy I’m leaving, we fell out of love a long time ago…If we were even in love in the first place.”

After that, he said a few hurtful things and you did the same. Things got heated very fast but they deescalated just as fast. He ended up storming out and you packed with tears in your eyes—freedom. You’re finally free, these tears are an expression of the feelings you’ve been holding in for a year now. Living paycheck to paycheck and trying push down your feelings towards him. In the beginning, it wasn’t so bad but he started to grow tired of you, it was a mutual feeling.

Yoongi was so excited, you’ve only known the man for a few days but something tells you this behavior is rare. He made a call and said his cousin would be coming over to help you all devise a plan. Hanse be the only other person to know about this little scheme. Hanse has been over for about an hour trying to come up with your cover story.

“You were in Bali a month ago,” The more time you spend here, the more comfortable you become, “if we say that’s where we met, wouldn’t it look like an obvious staged marriage?”

“Yeah, you have a point,” Hanse withdraws the rest of his previous idea, “maybe, let’s say you met last summer,”

“I was in London last summer for a month, dancing for a small company, where were you?”

“I was vacationing in Europe, so that’s perfect. We can say we met then and have been keeping touch ever since.”

“Okay, so what about the proposal?” Hanse adds.

Yoongi glances at you, “We can say it happened in Bali, I took you with me as a surprise and we talked about tying the knot then but hadn’t made it official.”

“That sounds like a solid story,”

“Good, now that that’s settled, we need to get the rings,” Yoongi smiles, “we’ll go out while Hanse looks for some nice venues.”

He gets up with a light stretch and you’re still staring in shock. “W- wait, wait! How can all of this happen so fast? A ring, a venue, a wedding this soon? I thought I would have some time tat least. And you all may have forgotten but I still have a boyfriend I have to break up with, I can’t go home with a ring,”

“I’ll hold on to it for you if that’s what worries you,”

”Thats not it, it’s just been so long, I’ve been wanting to leave for so long now,” You take a moment to relish in this once in a lifetime opportunity, “this doesn’t feel real,”

“It’s real.”

•

3 Weeks Until the Big Day

If someone said you’d be on your way home from dress shopping with a ‘personal assistant’, courtesy of your ‘fiancé,’ you’d tell them to get lost. But here you are, exhausted from your trip to the third and final boutique. Hanse joined about an hour ago with the wedding planner, they were getting the Yoongi’s guest list together and needed yours.

After finding the dress, you went to lunch and Hanse joined you to give you the overview of your pitiful list. He stared at Yoongi’s staggering 200-person guest list compared to your fraction of that, “There’s no one else? It is your special day,”

“The planner called me last night about that,” You shrug, “I want my grandma, my sister and my two brothers, a few friends from school and a friend from my old job, that’s about it.”

“Yoongi’s gonna be pissed I put this many people on the list,” He thinks aloud, “we’ll be lucky if he let’s me keep even 20 people.”

“Is your family really that big?”

“Yeah, but some of the invitations are just formalities for business partners and such, the immediate family, some of them are just invited to shove this in their face, a big ‘fuck you’ to some people to be honest, people like my mother,”

“Your mother? Oh, is that the woman Yoongi referred to as his ‘bitch aunt?’”

“Yep, she wants anyone but Yoongi to be the head. When she wants something, she’s irrepressible, she’ll do anything to make it happen,”

“So, you’re the only one on his side then,” You conclude, “that’s cute.”

“So are you now. It’s a grim situation because his father, my uncle, is on his deathbed. There’s a lots a stake if Yoongi doesn’t inherit the position, the whole family knows it,”

“Wow...you all have some complicated lives,” You grab your purse and unpin your hair, “I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that.”

“Y/n, you’re about to marry into the family, you’ll be apart of our complicated lives,” He laughs at the thought, “did you forget? Anyway, I’m gonna head out too, there was a family meeting I should have been at an hour ago, weren’t you supposed to be there?”

”Yoongi told me he’d pick me up later, something about things getting ugly in the first hour, his step mothers I think?”

“Oh, that’s right, she’s bringing her son so see Yoongi and their dad, the family haven’t been together like this in a while… I think all the ex-wives kids will be there.”

“Sounds fun.”

*

2 Weeks Until the Big Day

The marriage license.

The one thing that completely crossed your mind, you forgot that was a necessary part of a legal marriage. So, when Yoongi had a driver pick you up and bring you to the courthouse, things got real. And when he said to bring your ID, birth certificate, and social security number, it got insanely real. Not only that, but tonight his family has a dinner, he said they’re itching to meet you. It’s stressing you out.

Yoongi sat beside you with a calm demeanor, as if he were relieved. You were aware that this needed to be done, but you couldn’t stop worrying about one thing. 

“Alright, I will make copies of these so I can issue your license,” The woman leaves the office with a kind smile and shuts the door. When she .comes back, she congratulates you both and sends you on your way. This time, you both go back in the same luxury car and it’s silent until Yoongi speaks.

“So, it’s Medusa?” Yoongi looks at you, in disbelief or amusement, it’s hard to tell. The image runs through his mind of any parents choosing to name their newborn after a snake-haired goddess. “That’s your real name?”

“I’m surprised you hadn’t background checked me, but yeah.”

“What inspired that name?”

“A motorcycle. My my biological father was apart of some biker gang and thought it was, quote ‘a bad ass name,’ that’s all I know about the guy,” You cringe, “I was hoping you wouldn’t find out,”

“I would have eventually found out, there’s a lot of paperwork involved in this whole marriage thing.”

“I know,” You lean against the window. 

“It’s not bad actually, I could get used to it-“

“Please don’t, there’s a lot of pain attached to that name,” You confess, “I don’t claim that part of myself anymore, I go by Y/n.”

He’s taken aback by your firm yet pained request and it piques his interest in your mysterious past. “If that’s what you want, I respect that.”

You sigh in relief. “Thank you.”

“Tonight, we can grab takeout and talk on the couch. We should do that type of couple stuff, we’ve got to make sure we’re telling these people the same story.”

“Yoongi,” You lean back with a heavy sigh, “I want to get something over with, it’s killing me just thinking about it.”

“Get what over with?” He’s suddenly absorbed in his phone, head down and eyes trained on the screen.

“Do people expect us not to touch each other?” That sounded much weirder than you intended, “I don’t want the first time I kiss you to be in front of everyone, that’s awkward...”

Yoongi doesn’t try to hide the smile on his face. “Are you trying to say we should practice?”

“We’re getting married in a week, when were we supposed to?” You feel a heat rise to your face, “I’m not trying to say we have to do stuff, It’s just, if people see that we aren’t...Y’know, acting like newlyweds, it may spur suspicion.”

He tilts his head in thought, you’re probably right. This may be a business contract but it has to look and feel real to everyone around them. “I’d have to agree with you there.”

“It will probably do us some good since we’ll be living together. Though, we’ll have plenty of time to get used to intimacy on the honeymoon,”

Your heart skips a beat—you completely forgot about the honeymoon. By the time you think to say anything else, the driver makes a stop and gets out of the car, leaving you alone with Yoongi. Without hesitation, you scoot from your side of the car over to him. Your heart drums in your chest but you don’t let your face show it.

“This is apart of the deal,” You reiterate to him and your self, “right? We both agree on that.”

Yoongi simply encourages you to take the lead with his hand guiding yours to his face. He can’t help but doubt your vigor, you look away as if you’re still on your initial thought. You swallow, eyes wavering from his lips and to your hands. As if your nerves couldn’t get worse, the driver comes back and you freeze. Yoongi mentally coos, he didn’t think you had a shy bone in your body.

“We don’t have to force it,” He smiles, pinching your chin gently, “we’ll do it eventually.”

“I could live without it to be honest.” Your stomach churns and you nod, sitting back with red cheeks. Well, that was embarrassing. You’re the one who initiated it and you completely chickened out. Yoongi is an intimidating guy but intimidation rarely tames you. But the nerves of having to play the part got to you, you didn’t think it would.

After a short drive, the driver arrives at the mansion. You get out after Yoongi insists on opening the door for you. When you asked him why you couldn’t get it yourself, he said his father treated his wives like extra weight sometimes, he didn’t want to look like that. This marriage, albeit staged, is going to look better than his fathers. 

You follow him inside and expect to see Hanse but he’s nowhere to be seen. Over the past two weeks, you’ve come to appreciate your friendship with him. Without him, you don’t know if you could truly go through with this with a part of your sanity. Since Yoongi hasn’t really been around a lot, he’s been booked with appointments and meetings. You wonder if it will always be like this. That’s certainly a possibility. After all, he made it very clear that your role is to look pretty and be there for any wife-like activity he may need you to do.

You sit on the couch with your favorite black sweats and a box of sushi in front of you.

He opens his side dishes and grins to himself, “I meant to ask you, how did the break up go?”

“He thinks that I’ve been with someone else and that’s why I decided to leave him, we had a nasty argument and he walked out,” You spare him the other details, “I’m just glad its over,”

“You were in one hell of a toxic relationship,” He points out the painfully obvious, “have you always been attracted to people who end up treating you like shit?”

You pause mid chew of your sushi.

“It seems that way, doesn’t it?” You sigh, “Maybe you’ll be the first to change that.”

“It’ll be my pleasure,” Yoongi confidently replies, “In front of everyone, we need to look like a married couple,” He gazes off, “but when it’s us, we’re just friends doing each other a favor.”

“That sounds good to me.”

“Good.”

“As long as you don’t catch feelings,” You smirk to yourself, “we’ll be fine. Now that we have that out of the way,” You give him a mischievous smile, “we need rings.”

“Hanse will handle that-”

“We’re not marrying Hanse,” You quip, “we’re marrying each other so we should pick the rings.”

Yoongi decided not to argue with you on this. Without a second thought, he made a private appointment at a luxury jewelry shop for the next morning. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy the spoiling. It was as if money was easy to come-by for him, it’s never been that way for you. When you count every penny and work to make the lives of those you love better, there’s never enough left over to spend on yourself. 

You got dressed that morning in a dress and sandal heels, something nice but cheeky. Yoongi doesn’t show much of what he’s think n his face, but those eyes. When you walked out of the guest bathroom, where you’ve decided to stay until he’s put a ring on it. But the same look he gave you in the club, was the same look he gave you this morning—it did boost your ego a bit. If there’s one thing you appreciate about him, it’s his honesty. He’s never lied about his attraction to you, and neither have you. You don’t hate each other. The jewelry clerk knew Yoongi, had probably sold him the dozens of watches and necklaces he has in his closet.

“I didn’t know you were engaged, congratulations!” Zhilang exclaims with more excitement than his own family members, “I’m flattered you chose to bring someone so special here.”

“Where else would I have gone?” Yoongi tugs you closer with the hand on your waist, “I want the best for the love of my life, she’s very particular you know,” He looks at you, face so close you can’t help but giggle, “just like me.”

“N- Nice to meet you,”

Wow, you’re stuttering?? You have to roll your eyes at yourself.

“So, Yoongi gets all of his jewelry from you?”

“Has for years. The Min’s have been loyal customers here, he gets first pick from all our new pieces. I never thought he’d be here for a wedding ring,” She probably knows him as the bachelor you thought he was when you met, “I never thought he’d be the type to settle down.”

“You’d be surprised,” You look down at the selection of wedding bands in the cases, “he’s more of a romantic than he lets on.”

“I knew it! It’s always the cold types who are the biggest softies,” Zhilang pulls a key out of a pass code locked drawer, “is there a particular style you’re looking for? I can pull my best rings from the vault.”

“Oh, um, something not too bulky, but I do like big diamonds, gold bands…Can I see what you have? I might see something different that I like.”

“Of course, give me one moment.” She disappears into the back and you sigh in relief.

You move your face close to his ear. “Do I have a budget?”

“If you did, I would have told you,” He smirks when your mouth gapes in surprise.

“Really?...I don’t want to go crazy-”

“Shush, known of that,” He shakes his head, “You like it, It’s yours. You’re doing me the biggest favor of my life, you don’t need a budget,” It’s admittedly an ego-boost to be able to blow his money on you, it’s something he rarely even does for himself.

“I’m back, and I think you’ll really like these,” Zhilang has an assistant help her bring several rings to display in front of you, “please, try some on.”

You’ve never had this much money in front of you before, probably hundreds of thousands judging by the size of these stones.

“Wow, these are so beautiful,” Yoongi lets go of your waist to let you get close and personal with the jewelry, “Yoongi, look at this one,” You grab the first one that catches your eye and slip it on your finger, “do you like it?”

He nods, taking your hand into his and sending butterflies to your stomach. “You’ll be the one wearing it, baby doll, how’s it feel?”

“It’s a little heavy, let me try something else,” for about 30 minutes, you look through the dozens of rings and you appreciate Yoongi patiently staying by your side. Ring after ring, you show it to him, stare at it for a minute and then try a different one.

“Sweetheart,” Yoongi sighs, trying to hold on to his patience, “how about this one? You keep trying it on, I think that’s a sign.” He takes your wrist in hand and slides the ring on your finger.

“I do really love it…But you don’t think it’s too much, do you?”

“No, it fits you, I think this is the one. Wouldn’t you agree Zhilang?” He shows your hand, getting an enthusiastic response from her.

“Absolutely! Everything looks good on you but this one is different, it looks like it was made for you.”

After the flattery and Yoongi’s sweet-talking, you finally walk out of the jewelry shop with a new ring and a huge smile. On the car ride to the next destination, you admired the ring with starry eyes. In times like this, you realize how much you’ve been deprived of fine jewelry. Of fine anything for that matter. He drives with one hand while his other hand rests on the gear shift. For a moment, you imagine what his hand would look like in yours or on your thigh, it’s only a fleeting thought though.

“My mom will talk about me like a dog when she sees this, she always said I was destined to be a gold digger…Nothing I can do will make the money I want, wealth doesn’t run in the family.”

“Sorry but your mom sounds like an asshole,” He recalls the lack of your parents names on the guest list. He knows your dads out of the question, but what about your mom? “I noticed she’s not on the list but your grandma is, is that why? What’s with the relationship there?”

“We’ve always had a rocky relationship, but I do have to talk to her pretty frequently because of my younger siblings. The ones she decided to have when I was a teenager and drop off on my grandma, just like she did me.”

“Maybe I’ll come with you to see her before the wedding, where does she live?”

��Jail.”

5 Days Until The Big Day

”Your ID, miss?”

The officer grabs the card and sends you through security. You’re asked to leave your purse in a locker and then you’re escorted into the waiting room. Some people are smiling, greeting their beloved family members with enthusiasm. You wished it were like that for you but it’s not. When she walks through those doors, a grin on her face and hands free of cuffs. She’ll be out early on good behavior, that surprises you more than anything.

“Well, this is a pleasant surprise,” She takes a seat in front of you and all you can see is her orange jumpsuit, “what brings you here? You didn’t bring the kids, and it’s not Christmas, or my birthday, so let me guess…Did you and your boyfriend screw up your lives the way I did 20-something years ago?”

“Wow, you really know how to start a riveting conversation,” You shake your head, “that’s not why I’m here, that will never be why I come to see you.”

“Ok, so what is it?-…No fucking way,” She stares down at your crossed arms and catches a glance at the rock on your finger, “a ring?”

“That’s what I came here to tell you,” You roll your eyes, “I’m getting married this weekend.”

“I didn’t think you were serious with that guy-“

“We’re not together anymore.”

“Oh...so if it’s not him,” You watch her as the gears turn in her head to form an explanation, “what did you do to get a man to marry you? Are you having some old-ass millionaire’s baby or something?”

“Helena, what the hell? No, he’s not old and nobody’s pregnant. I’m not like you, I’m not gonna get pregnant by ‘accident’ 3 times. Hera was purposeful, you actually thought a pregnancy would make that guys stay, but it didn’t happen, unfortunately,” You had to let her have a taste of her own medicine.

“Ouch,” She smirks, “Come on, you have to admit this is weird. You? Marriage, it doesn’t even sound right... How much is he paying you?”

“Do you want me to leave?” You threaten.

“Is this all you came here to tell me?”

“I guess so,” You conclude, not in the mood to be the adult in the conversation, “I’ll send you a picture, see you after the rest of your sentence.” You get up with a forced smile, ready to leave this dreaded place.

“When will I be able to meet him?” 

“I don’t know, maybe next time I bring the kids... Why do you care?” It’s a genuine question, she’s never really taken a true interest in who you’re with, why would marriage be any different? When she gives you an expressionless face, you take the liberty to bid her a much-anticipated farewell. 

As you left the room, you could have sworn she felt a tinge of jealousy or shame? Helena is a lot a things, but she’s shameless. There’s not much that she worries about when it comes to how she’s perceived. But it must hurt to see your daughter getting married when you couldn’t keep not even one of your three baby-daddys. Even if this is fake, you’re going to milk the fact that you found someone who cares enough about you to call you their wife. Even if it is temporary, it’s starting to feel really good.

The dinner was orchestrated by Yoora to congratulate Yoongi on his engagement, supposedly. The lavish dinner hall was bustling with people and Yoongi was debating whether he’d even humor her with his presence, or yours. But you insisted that you meet this aunt of his and at least some of these people before they see you walk down the isle.

Today, you two coordinate outfits together and you had a lot of fun doing that. You were going to go for dark green but Yoongi leaned towards black. The compromise was black for him and dark green for you. It took you less time to get ready so you’re waiting patiently in the living room.

“Oh, you’re ready,” When Yoongi walked out of his room, you remembered why you gave him the time of day. “You look great.”

“Thank you, so do you,” He’s not bad on the eyes at all.

He picked one set of keys from the key-rack and walks to one of the few luxury cars in the garage. He briefed you in the car about a few family members and you tried to remember everything.

“You know what? I think I want to go back home, I feel like I’m gonna throw up,” You stand with Yoongi in the foyer where none of the guests would enter, “I was fine until I started hearing everyone, there’s a lot of people in there.”

“This is the same group of people who’ll be at the wedding, minus about a hundred,” He walks you over to the coat closet by your arm, “this will make the big day a lot easier and we can leave early, I’ll make something up so we can bail. Besides I’m sure they’re anxious to gossip about us so we can give them plenty of time to do that.

“Ok…” You don’t know where these nerves are coming from but they’re eating you up. It takes a moment for you to gather yourself but when you do, you hook your arm around Yoongi’s and prepare to be judged.

When the two of you make your way down the hall, the voices get louder and you force a calm facade. It occurs to you when you enter the room that these people aren’t normal.

“My nephew and his beautiful bride,” A loud voice reverberates throughout the room

That must be Yoora.

Every eye lands on you and you receive a variety of looks. The first person you notice is a little girl with two pigtails and a judgmental look. You survey the room with an anxious smile hiding behind a confident one.

“This is Y/n, my fiancé,” Yoongi presents you with a proud grin,

“Hi, it’s nice to finally meet you, I’ve heard so much about you,” You lean over to give her a hug.

“Oh,” She gives you a brief embrace before glancing at Yoongi, “hopefully only good things, but knowing Yoongi, I’ll just say, don’t believe everything you hear.”

She erupts in laughter, the glass of wine in her hand being swiftly taken by the waiter she hands it to.

“But it’s lovely to meet you,” She gives you a smile before leaving to socialize with some other, “let me introduce you to the family.”

“Ah, ah, you’re not stealing her away,” Yoongi doesn’t let you get pulled away and he gives you a look of reassurance. “We’ll get around to everyone soon, you should go see Hanse, he said he has something to tell you.”

Yoora goes on her way and Yoongi walks you over to who you assume is his fathers most recent wife. The little girl sitting next to her seems to have a permanent scowl plastered on her adorable little face.

“Y/n, I’d like you to meet Ellen, my dads wife and Emma’s mother,” Yoongi glares down at Emma for a moment when she rolls her eyes, “did I say Emma? I meant the gremlin-“

“Don’t call me that!” She whines, still not fully acknowledging you.

“Settle down Emma, your brothers just teasing,” Ellen shakes her head, “welcome to the family, Y/n? You are so beautiful, when did you two meet? ”

“Oh, thank you,” You smile softly, “a year ago in London, I was dancing at a company for a month and met him while he was vacationing.”

“You’re a dancer? I used to dance at a ballet studio in Paris when I was around your age, it was some of the best years of my life,”

She recalls her youth, Yoongi breathes a sigh of boredom. The night goes on like that, you meet his family members and he hovers around like a helicopter parent. He really doesn’t trust these people with you and it makes you smile.

“Hi, I’m Kim, Yoongi’s half sister from our dads second marriage.” A pretty girl came up to you had short curly hair and a tiny black dress—she also has Yoongi’s eyes.

“Nice to meet you,” You put down your appetizer to greet her, “your dads genetics are strong, you look just like Yoongi,” You hope she takes that as a compliment.

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” She sighs, eyeing Yoongi who watches you from the corner with some man you haven’t met.

“Well, I’ll see you at the wedding, congrats,”

With that, she leaves and Yoongi quickly comes over to you. Before even saying anything, he leans down to kiss your temple and you look up.

“Let’s bail,” He whispers

You nod, holding onto his hand so he could escort you out. He says a few words to Hanse and you’re able to say goodbye to a few people before Yoongi is opening the car door for you. It feels good to be on your way home with someone. With Jaebeom, you’d always arrive home at different times. And when you were home together, you felt more like roommates than a couple.

“That went well,” You exhale.

“Yeah, I’m surprised they were so well behaved,”

“I was surprised you kissed me,” You give him a cheesy smile, “that was cute.”

“You could have kissed me back.”

“Yeah,” You sigh, because that was actually a thought you had.

Once you make it home, you both go change into some comfortable lounge clothes. It feels good to take off your extravagant clothes and walk out to a friend on the couch. Yoongi has some soft instrumental music playing, a glass and a bottle of wine on the end table.

“Want some?” He offers a glass.

“Nah, just brushed my teeth,” You take a seat in the corner of the couch, “thanks though.”

You sit back and cover up with a blanket and get comfortable. He looks more comfortable than this corner though. “Yoongi?

When you look up Yoongi’s face is glowing red, from the alcohol you assume. “Hm?”

“Are you sure I’m the one you want?” You scoot closer to him and he gives you a soft look. “You could have anyone, and you want to marry me,“

“We’ve talked about this; I wanted you the first time I saw you.”

You swallow, “My ex would say one thing but his actions would say another, so it takes a lot for me to be sure people are telling me the truth-“

“I’m not your ex, Y/n,” Yoongi turns his body towards you, head resting on his hand, “you don’t live with him anymore, you don’t sleep with him anymore. You live with me now,”

“I know.”

“I don’t know if he loved you but if he did, he probably did a shit job at showing you. What we have isn’t love but I at least appreciate you, if that’s what you need to hear.”

“I appreciate you too, you’re giving me more than I’ve been given by anyone, it’s crazy…”

“You’re giving up a lot by marrying me, you’re entitled to compensation,”

You stare into his eyes, his eyes—not Jaebeom’s eyes that only saw your body, and what it could do for him. This isn’t like that, Yoongi doesn’t demand physical payment for staying with him, it increases his appeal more than you thought it would.

“Thanks,” You don’t know what to say other than thank you, “you’re really red in the face,” You giggle, pointing to your cheek to show him.

“Yeah, that always happens,” He smiles.

“Yoongi,” You hug him, catching him off guard but it’s pleasant. He reciprocates your hug with his warm arms around your waist. You look up at him and his sleepy orbs study your face. It takes a single moment to gather the courage and peck his lips, earning a look of surprise.

“Oh,” He smirks, “that’s it?”

“What do you mean?…” You twiddle your fingers behind his neck.

When he suddenly kisses you, you feel the breath leave your lungs. His hands tighten around your waist and pulls you onto his lap. He starts off gently, softly prodding against your lips, he’s so different. You let yourself fall into him and you ignore any feelings of doubt. This feeling is so familiar to you, Jaebeom demanded it of you for months. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t demand it back sometimes. Yoongi is like a breath of fresh air. He’s about to be your husband and this is the first time you’re really touching him. You rake your hands through his hair, earning a sigh of satisfaction from him. Against your better judgment, you imagine this is what being loved feels like—why would you do that?

“Wait,” You gasp, “Y- yoongi.”

“I thought you wanted to, sorry,” He rubs his lips with the back of his hand, “you don’t want to?”

When you don’t say anything but press your hands to his chest, he gently lifts you off of him.

“We don’t need to force it,” He reassures you with a nod.

“It’s not that, I don’t feel like it’s forced I just haven’t been with anyone but Jaebeom in a long time…”

“That’s okay,” He tilts his head. “take your time.”

“I don’t want to take my time though, it’s fun to be with you…” You bite your lip, a little embarrassed. “You’re so different .”

“Ok, then let’s have fun,” His eyes drag from your eyes to your lips.

Yoongi is about to be your husband and you’re about to be his wife. The world is going to think it’s real, you two have to make it look real without making it feel real.

[bl00dgutsgl0ry]

prompt 16 from the angst list w/ childe (“you’ve changed”) but is it possible to have a happy ending 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

Pairing - Childe/Tartaglia/Ajax x Reader

Warnings - None I don’t think?

Word Count - 2.5k

Other Comments - I’ve tried to write this like five times now oh my god, also yes I know the header looks dumb I slept on it and now I hate it but I didn’t wanna make you wait any long I’m so sorry! ANYWAY I love this prompt and I love writing angst with all my heart hehe. ENJOY! No I did not proof read this I am currently late for work LOL

       Life used to be so simple when you were younger. You had a lovely close knit family, you went to a great school, you had great friends. All around you were a happy little kid. The best thing you will ever remember from your childhood was your best friend Ajax. Everything was so simple.

 Ajax was the poster child of a “perfect kid”. He was well liked by his teachers and peers, he had superb grades, he was becoming a young prodigy in his combat class, and above all, he was your all time best friend. You two were inseparable ever since you had met when your parents had all gotten to know each other once at an event. 

      No one ever really saw one of you without the other, and if they ever did come across such a sight, it would never last long. You two also almost went through the entirety of school being in the same class, and if you weren’t, Ajax would always find a way to catch you right as you were being dismissed. You two had the most innocent yet cliché childhood friendship, as you two played with each other or hung out day after day. 

      “One day (y/n) I’m going to marry you! I promise!” Ajax enveloped you in a hug as the two of you giggled.

      This lasted for quite some time, that was until Ajax had turned eighteen. His combat skills had skyrocketed since his adolescent classes and competitive matches. Combat came like second nature to him, and that didn’t go by unnoticed. Very quickly Ajax got an offer for a job, one that he would never tell you details about. You remember the shock that enveloped you when Ajax excitedly spouted the good news to you.

      You didn’t know whether to be happy or sad. You wanted to be happy for your childhood friend because this was an amazing offer for him, and an incredible opportunity to keep growing. But on the other hand you wanted to be sad because you knew you would see him less and less as time went on, not only that but you were still just so uncertain about this job. Ajax never withheld information about what was going on in his life until now; what if he got himself into something awful? Nonetheless you quickly plastered a shocked and excited expression on your face, as you rambled different forms of congrats and praise for being so good. Before Ajax left to go back to his home you gave him the tightest hugged and made him promise to stay close. Ajax was floored that you valued your friendship with him so much you would make him promise something he would never give up. 

      Time had passed and you noticed yourselves slowly drifting apart. It went from calling each other less, to only texting, then to texting less until you guys barely talked. You understood Ajax was busy, but it still stung seeing you what you thought would’ve been your life long friend slowly forget about you. That was until you had received something in the mail with a very familiar name on it. Ajax.

      A small black box containing what looked to be a hand made scrappily hammered ring along with a letter at the bottom landed on your desk in your bedroom, assuming one of your parents must’ve dropped it off in there. All doubts about Ajax in your mind had been eased as you delicately slid the heavy polished ring on your finger. After you did you giggled in excitement as a delicate pink blush found its way to the tops of your cheeks and ears. You had almost forgotten about the note neatly folded, awaiting to be opened and it’s contents to be discovered.

       You gently unfolded the letter, almost scared that you’d rip it. Inside was the most beautifully written borderline love letter you had ever read, it was almost like romantic poetry, and at the very end was a sentence you wanted to burn into your memory ‘remember that promise?’. Your mind was immediately flooded with all the fond memories you had with Ajax, blushing more and more as you uncovered them. By the end of your daydream session butterflies were fluttering around excitedly in your stomach. You didn’t want to be friends with Ajax anymore. You wanted to love him.

      It had been years since you last heard from him. Not a day has gone by that you haven’t worn the ring Ajax had given you so long ago. You moved away from Snezhnaya after you turned eighteen, now residing in Mondstadt whilst you were going to college; you planned to move back after getting your degree but you made some great friends and the carefree culture of the windy city really called to you. Though after one of your parents' health took a turn for the worst you had made quick plans to go visit with your family.

      It had felt like ages since you last stepped foot out into the familiar icy air, looking around to see the sheets of snow and ice covering the ground. Luckily the streets were plowed, which allowed you to maneuver through the city. Your visit has been great since setting foot in your childhood home. You were happy to be home for the time being, happy to relive the nostalgic moments of your younger days. Everything had changed so much since then. You had barely even thought about Snezhnaya or even Ajax for that matter despite wearing his ring every day, wanting to start fresh when you left for college.

       You suddenly realized you had let your head drop accidentally dozing off, jerking yourself out of melancholy memories. You decided it was probably jet lag, but it was far too early to go to sleep so coffee sounded like a good solution. You remembered an old coffee shop you used to study at whilst you were in high school, that was conveniently within walking distance to your house. With a quick five minute walk to the outdoor shops that littered the local streets you lived by, you located the coffee shop taking a minute to stare at the outside. It hadn’t changed at all.

      Smiling to yourself you walked in and politely ordered a coffee before sitting down at a high table by the window. The stand for the table had a heater built in, keeping you warm as you looked out the thin glass shielding you from the icy winds. You took in the old streets, smiling as you once again lost yourself in the nostalgia of everything. You hadn’t noticed a strikingly tall ginger walk into the shop, and you also hadn’t noticed the considerably loud gasp and call of your name. You only noticed the man's presence when he tapped on your table, causing you to jolt and promptly turn in his directly. It took you a minute to realize who you were staring at. 

      “(Y/n)? What the hell are you doing here?” Ajax. There he stood, at the side of you bent over at the hips slightly so he wasn’t completely towering over you. Ajax didn’t want to see you here. He didn’t want to see you at all. You were still fresh in his mind just like you were the last day he had seen you. He missed you. His eyes fell to your hand where he saw the ring he had made and sent to you still on your finger after all these years.

      Your face was almost unrecognizable after all the time that passed, you had grown so much since then. Something unsettled Ajax about your demeanor, you were like an open book to him when you guys were younger as you wore your heart on your sleeve. Looking at you now though, there was no glimpse at the emotions you were feeling in this moment. Were you happy to see him again, since you wore his ring? Were you upset with him breaking his promise? Ajax couldn’t tell as you stared blankly at him for what seemed like ages, giving it enough time to make the air solidify and turn stale and uncomfortable. You finally shook yourself out of this trance you were in, as you suddenly stood up.

      “Wha- Hey, wait a minute (y/n)! What are you doing here?” You didn’t acknowledge Ajax’s voice, subliminally yearning to fall into his strong arms. You were upset. How dare he ask you what you’re doing here. You weren’t the one who had completely abandoned everyone in your life for some sketchy job. You grabbed your coffee before swiftly beginning to exit. Something in Ajax was different. He didn’t really take kindly to you ignoring him, as you felt a vice like grip grab onto your wrist, causing you to flinch and whip around to angrily rip your arm out of his grasp.

      “Don’t touch me Ajax! How dare you have the audacity to ask me what I’m doing here! This was my home! I didn’t abandon everyone I knew and loved on some sketchy ass whim!” Ajax stared at you. Were you joking?! Some ‘sketchy ass whim’?! You supported him when he first told you!

      “What the hell is wrong with you (y/n)?!” Your eyes narrowed as you grit your teeth, you grip on your coffee tightening. Without even thinking you threw it in his face.

      “What’s wrong with me?! You’re so fucked up Ajax! We were best friends and then you completely vanish from reality! You promised me we would stay close!” Now it was time for Ajax to grit his teeth. So you were upset with him about that.

      “(Y/n) that was years ago!! We grew up! That was just a stupid childish promise!” As soon as those words left Ajax’s mouth, he went silent as his eyes widened in horror at his on voice. The entire coffee shop was silent as they all watched your argument break out. Ajax didn’t mean to say that, he knew he had fucked up his promise with you and he hated himself for it; he just didn’t know how to explain what he was doing without scaring you off or pushing you away. Turns out he was already doing that by vanishing. He wanted you to forget about him, he knew that when he took the job to join the Fatui and serve the Tsaritsa he would never be able to give you what you deserved. A normal and happy relationship. Ajax was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard a sniff and realized you were beginning to cry.

      “Ah… So that’s what it was. Just a way to get me to get off your back. I suppose the ring served the same purpose? Whatever Ajax, you’ve changed and I don’t ever wanna see you again.” You quickly ripped the ring off before throwing it in the trash as you stormed out, trying not to audibly cry, as you had already embarrassed yourself enough in that shop. Ajax stood statuesque still. Holy shit he had made everything so much worse. He sighed before snapping out of his position to grab some napkins, to hopefully dry himself off before venturing back outside. He had to fix this.

      It had been a couple days since your argument with Ajax and you were in shambles. This could not have come at a worse time. You were just happy that this Gods awful trip was coming to an end soon. You sighed as you flipped onto your back in your childhood bedroom, trying to reminisce on the old memories you had here, but all of them had gotten tainted by Ajax. He had ruined everything for you. You regretted everything with him, with getting so close to him. Tears had started to well up in your eyes but you quickly blinked them away before they had gotten the chance to fall. You hadn’t noticed before, but there was this weird tapping sound coming from your window; which caused you to anxiously investigate. You pulled your curtains back to be greeted with Ajax, who looked at you sheepishly. You blankly stared at him for a moment before closing the curtains and going back to lay on your bed, trying your hardest to ignore Ajax’s protests and calls of your name. After a while everything had gone silent, until your door opened and Ajax emerged one again.

      “Uh… I’m sorry about coming into your room uninvited but one of your parents called me inside and said I could just come in. In hindsight I probably should’ve knocked before coming in and-”

      “What the hell do you want Ajax.” You cut off the young man's babbling without looking at him, you were on your side laying down on your bed with your back facing him.

      “I wanted to make everything up to you. I want to explain everything and I want to tell you about my job finally.” Ajax was hopeful that you would allow him the opportunity to explain himself.

      “No. Now get out of my house.” Ajax’s heart sunk. No… No no no you had to let him explain himself, he needed to explain. He needed you.

      “Please (y/n) I know you don’t owe me anything, not even your time, but please I owe you this.” You sighed, before slowly sitting up and facing him finally. You stared at him for a moment before speaking.

      “Fine. But you have two minutes, so you better speak quickly.” Ajax’s heart fluttered. He spent those two minutes exactly, explaining everything that happened. You were silent for the most part, staring at your hand and you fiddled with your fingers. Ajax waited anxiously for your response. When you didn’t give him anything he took this as a sign to move onto faze two of his apology. For the last couple of days he had been running all over Snezhnaya spending preposterous amounts of mora. He had presented you with flowers and food; but above all he presented you with a ring.

      “That is one promise that I am going to keep true. Please (y/n) forgive me and make me the happiest man in the world and marry me.” You stared at him with large eyes and Ajax took a hold of one of your hands and gently slid the beautiful ring onto your ring finger. Tears once again began to well up in your eyes, and suddenly your arms were wrapped around his torso as you cried into his chest. You missed this. He still felt the same way he did when you hugged him last, he even smelled the same. 

      “Is that… A yes?” You nodded furiously, face still buried deep in his chest. You were willing to forgive him, but above all, you were willing to love him again.

[missfluffywriter]

Purple Irises I Mafia Park Jimin x Reader

Author’s note: Ooof it’s finally out. That took way longer than I expected!!!! I’ve been MIA for like almost two weeks now. I am so sorry this was lateeee!! And we’re almost as 100k!!! Ahhh I don’t want to dissapoint anyone! Sheesh anyway, that’s it for me. Happy readings!

Word count: 12.3k

Genre: Mafia AU, (slight) Doctor au, (slight) Florist au

Pairing: Park Jimin x Reader

(Series) Summary: You were supposed to be delivering flowers, how did you end up in an operation room digging out a bullet from a mafia boss’ shoulder?

Purple Irises: Royalty and wisdom

Warnings: Guns, language, discription of gore, minor character death,  inconsistant grammar lol

Yes I had make that a header, the gore is like pretty discriptive and I don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable. I have put markers where the discription starts and where it ends if you would like to skip the the gory bits look out for the markers and just skip that little bit, you won’t miss anything important I promise!

Previous chapter I Next chapter I Masterlist I Requests are open!

‘Tansies’

“(Y/n)? What’s wrong?” Unease lacing Jimin’s voice as he shadowed your path.

‘No, never theorize before you have data,’ You reprimand yourself, recalling one of the many pieces of advice you had filed away for future use. For all, you knew Duri may have simply liked the vibrance of the golden blooms and added the sunny flower to accent the otherwise monochrome room with a pop of color.    

“(Y/n)?” Tenderly taking your hand into his Surprisingly larger ones. His attention wholly focused on your ever-changing expression.

“Oh, uh, flower一uh tansies一 where? Where is she?” Mind working faster than your mouth could articulate, you stumble on your words, (e/c) orbs searching for a certain peach-blonde female.  

“Where is who?” Jimin questions, his honey-brown orbs narrowing in confusion, your jumbled mess of a sentence further perplexing the silver-blonde.

“Soomin!” Your answer is immediate, almost urgent as your body makes a full ninety-degree turn, holding onto Jimin's comforting grasp, your eyes hunting for the peach haired woman in the space behind you.

“What?!” The woman in question squeaks, startled by your booming voice as she enters the room, having just returned from stationing her men to accommodate the situation. Preparing them to move out at a seconds notice though maintaining a certain level of organization.

“Flowers, did Ji-Eun like flowers? Or did she have an interest in them or anything?” You question the female eagerly, gesturing to the lavender vase as she fluidly makes her way towards the object of your concerns.

Her facial features fold into a frown at your question, looking at you as though you had just asked the most bizarre of questions. “Not that I know of,”

“Do you know who might have put those there?” You blurt, eyes actively scanning over the blonde girl's expression. The imperativeness in your voice may have come out more of as panic as Jimin’s hold around your hand tightens comfortingly, which does to some length relax your posture.

“Why the fuck would I know?” She glares, exaggeratedly dropping her hands to further display her incredulity.

‘Damn it,’ Your teeth grab onto your lower lips, softly nibbling on the soft muscle. The tightness of frustration seizes your chest. This did absolutely nothing to narrow down the variables and possibilities of what had really happened, and this largely widens the margin of error when making predictions or even planning your next move. There was nothing more aggravating than missing pieces of information, especially when lives were on the line.  

“But,” Soomin’s sharp voice breaks you from your train of thoughts. “I do know that Duri would never own something as hideous as that,” Emphasizing “that”, she gestures to the slender lavender vase that held the flowers.    

And she was right, although the vase in itself wasn’t all that awful. It was just that the lilac of the vase clashed with the golden petals of the tansies and the overall aesthetic of the room. But did that actually mean something?

The skin of your palms tingled as sweat accumulated on them from both excitement and fear. Your instincts scream at you in warning, there was more to these flowers. ‘No, that still doesn’t account for every variable. One of the maids could have put it there. Or maybe she just felt like having flowers in her room,’ But this was too perfect, flowers with a meaning of a declaration of a war placed at a kidnapping site of a possible ally. But then why bother leaving a declaration of war in the language of flowers? It would have been much easier to leave it in writing, would it not?

As a matter of fact, not leaving any sort of note or evidence of their presence would have given the kidnappers - or rather the Yeongs - a bigger advantage. So why go through the trouble of declaring war through flowers? And flowers of all things; if you hadn’t been there, the men and even Soomin together wouldn’t have caught it.

Your eyes widen at the thought; if you hadn’t been there no one would have noticed this message - if it was a message. And it clicked, this was a warning, a proclamation. And the reason behind the effort put into this covert notice. This message wasn’t just for anyone to find, this was a message for you to find and in translation for Bangtan. This was Yeong's declaration of war against Bangtan. But more than that, they were targeting you. They chose to relay their words through you.

In other words, this was a warning to you as much as it was for Bangtan. This was their way of letting you know they knew you existed and that they were preparing to deal with you as well. If they knew of your hand in the recent achievements then their mole must be much closer than you might have earlier anticipated.  

“Jimin,” You breath out, your grip on his hand tightening in distress.

“What is it?” Jimin soothingly rubs his thumb back and forth, trying to ease your hold and worry.

“Tansies,” You say. “Tansies mean hostility, “I declare war against you”,” Eyeing the male you guide his thoughts to where yours were. The whites of his eyes are a little more visible as his eyes spread a tad apart, understanding what you were insinuating to.

“Are you sure?” He asks, his voice breathy in the same disbelief you were in earlier. You reply with a tentative nod, his expression souring as he turns to the peach-blonde female leaning against the wooden desk. “And you’re positive it was the Yeongs that called for this attack?” He asks Soomin.

“Well, considering we have security footage of one of Yeong’s closest men calling the shots on the scene,” She scoffed at the male’s question. “So yes, I’m sure,”

“So does this mean what I think it means?” Taehyung quips from his seat on the sofa.

“This is Yeong’s move,” Jimin mutters, his honey-brown orbs narrowing as he moves towards Taehyung and Hoseok.

“So Yeong’s called a war against you, huh?” Soomin’s voice audibly drops an octave, her chocolate-colored orbs sharpening into a glare.

“We’ll have to be extra careful from here on out,” You state, singing as you rest your weight on the desk behind you.

“What a shit storm,” The chestnut-haired breaths out as he rests his head against the back of the sofa.

“I can’t exactly speak for Duri but,” Soomin pauses. “Know that you can expect my full support going on out,”

“Oh?” Taehyung eyes the female.

“Yes,” She affirms confidently. “Yeong dares to take one of my own, my mother, no less. The bastard isn’t gonna get away with this,” Growling as she spoke, anger burned in her chocolate irises.

“We appreciate your support,” Jimin replies formally. An action you wholeheartedly agree with. If Yeong was on the move then Bangtan had to begin preparations as well.

“Don’t worry we can go over those details some other time,” Soomin waves her hand dismissively, knowing you wouldn’t have been satisfied with just her vow.

“Thank you,” Your eyes fall to the floor, head tilting down in respect to the girl.

“And I guess I should thank you too, huh?” Looking to the ebony-haired male that had been standing silently to the side.

“Huh? Me?” Hyuk questions, his eyes blowing wide as he points a finger to himself.  

“Yes, you,” Chuckling, you nod. “If you hadn’t pointed out the flowers I would have totally missed it.”

“Oh, no!” Hyuk furiously shakes his head from one side to another. His cool disposition melting in a flustered mess. “I was just trying to make conversation, and those flowers were the first thing that caught my eye was all.”

“Well, I’m glad it did,” You smile at the slender man as he fakes a cough, gathering together his composure. “Thank you, Hyuk,” You softly express your gratitude, partly to further fluster the male.

“Uh, no probl一”

“We found her!” Namjoon charges into the room, cutting off the ebony-haired male. A cell-phone in hand, Namjoon power walks to Jimin. “Ji-Eun was there at the location,”

“She was?! Are you sure? Was she okay?” Soomin kicks herself off the desk as she practically rushes Namjoon.

“Yes,” Namjoon speaks. “The location you gave me led us to an abandoned building way far up in the mountains. I had operatives closest to the location scope it out and the building was guarded by Yeong’s men and she was there. Ji-Eun Duri was seen on the third floor of the building,” He narrated the situation.

‘This feels too easy,’ Your forehead knitted together as you listened to the male. Now that you knew of Yeong’s awareness of you, this was too easy, too simple, too straightforward. After everything that’s happened, it couldn’t be possible that straight forward. Almost as if someone had dictated the direction of the scene, like this was meant to happen.

Really thinking about the whole situation, this worked out too perfectly, considering a thousand variables that could have been in play. This scenario was far too ideal. If Duri’s captors had the time to place those flowers. ‘The footprints!’ Your head snaps to the floor as you examine muddy footprints left behind by the kidnappers.

And sure enough, none of the footprints led towards the vase, all of them stopped quite a distance from the desk. So unless they threw the vase onto the desk, someone else either planted the flowers late on or there was someone else with the kidnappers. But the question was who? And if all of this was scripted by the Yeongs then what was the real goal? What were they after?

‘Think, come on think. There must be something I’m missing! What could they gain by kidnapping Ji-Eun Duri? Why Ji-Eun Duri? And Why today? Why would they take her only to let us find her?’ Your breath caught in your throat as you realized you had just answered your own question. ‘So that’s what’s going on,’  

“Well then, what the hell are we waiting for?” Soomin’s booming voice startles you from your thoughts. “Let’s get going already!” She briskly stomps out of the room.

“Hyuk,” Jimin calls for the charcoal-haired male. “Follow her and make sure she doesn’t get herself killed,”

“Sir,” Hyuk salutes before hurting after the female that had stormed out the room. Though normally the peach-blonde was a rational woman, however, going by the way she charged away. Her sense of reason may not be at its peak at the moment.    

“Where is our team right now?” Shining, Jimin asks Namjoon.

“I told everyone to be on standby a good distance from the actual building. Which was made easy thanks to the place being surrounded by a forest,” The syrup-brown haired man reports.  

“Good, tell them to stay there until we get there,” The silver-blond nods approvingly, making his way toward the exit before noticing your lack of presence.

“(Y/n)?” Calling for your name, the don pivots on his foot to meet your rattled expression as you stiffly stood by the desk.

“Where are Jiyoung and his family being kept?” You ask the two men.

“At one of our safehouses farther away from the city… Why?” Namjoon answers his calm features hardening into a serious expression.  

“Jimin, Namjoon before we leave, can you do something for me?” You request.

“What do you want me to do?” The taller of the pair inquires, looking down at his boss questioningly.

“Man, they really dragged us out, huh?” Taehyung yawned, stepping out of the luxurious short limousine, he stretched his limbs.

“Where is Duri?” Soomin demands the minute she steps out of her sleek black SUV.

“Over there,” One of the many well-dressed men points to a cloud-grey, four-story building situated a distance away, and the more you examined it, the more it looked like a school. “She is being held in one of the rooms on the third floor.”

“How many of them are there?” Jimin comes to stand beside the peach-blonde as he questions the man standing before them.

“Not many,” The male answers. “Ten or fifteen at most,”

“That’s it?” Soomin blanches at the man’s reply.

“Yes, ma’am,” He respectfully responds.

“Report,” Jimin commands as the other man bows before beginning.

“The main and back entrances are each guarded by two guys. From what we could see there are men on each floor stationed around the stairs or hidden in rooms. The first floor has the most men, the second floor has fewer men, but the third floor is the least guarded,” He gives a detailed report of the situation.

“Do they have a sniper?” Namjoon asks.

“Not that we’ve seen,” A diplomatic answer if you’d ever heard one. The hickory-brown haired male that had been explaining the situation cleanly offered his findings without promising or assuring you of anything. You would have to remember to bring him up at the meeting, he could prove useful in a higher position, but at the same time, he could also become a threat. ‘No, stay focused,’ Shaking your head you refocus yourself on the task at hand.

“Send out the snipers, we’re going with the usual,” Jimin directs both the man standing before and Namjoon, who acknowledged the command with a nod, walking towards the group that had been gathered.

“The usual?” You question the silver-blonde.

“We attack with all our forces while our snipers provide support from a distance,”

“So basically you’re gonna rush ‘em,” You retold what you had taken away from the mafia don’s plan.

“Pretty much yeah,” Taehyung chirps in, hands behind his head, he strolls over to where you stood.

“What if they use Ji-Eun as a hostage and threaten to kill her?” A questioning brow lifts on your face as you ask the group of three men and a woman.

“I… didn’t think that far,” Taehyung pauses, surprised, his eyelids fluttering as his hands drop to his sides and into his pant pockets.

“Right,” You huff a breath as your brain moves to formulate a plan that would give you a better chance of getting Duri out of her captors hold, safely and quickly. Eyebrows furrowing together, your forefinger moves up to rub the skin underneath your lower lip.

Duri’s safety was the top priority, you needed a plan that ensured Duri’s well being while effectively dealing with the armed men and minimize damage and loss for both Bangtan and Soomin.

“First things first, we need to take care of the men closest to Ji-Eun. Then we can deal with the others as they come,” Heaving a deep sigh, you decide to speak your thoughts aloud when your imagination begins running rampant and muddling any coherent plan that may have formed.

“Tell me,” You call for the attention of the three men standing before you, the same thoughtful expression present on each of their faces. “Can the snipers take out the people guarding Ji-Eun?” You ask.

“Uh. We’ll have to draw them to a place where the snipers have a clear shot,” Jimin answers.

“But that doesn’t mean we would get them all and I don’t think the guys from the first and second floors would do nothing when they hear gunshots firing,” Taehyung adds, waving his hand dismissively as if rejecting your idea.

“If we could somehow clear the first floor, lure the men from the second floor to the first and take care of them there while taking out the guys up top, then we’d be golden,” Stringing together the few intelligible thoughts that you retained from the jumbled mess your mind had been.

“We sure would, wouldn’t we?” An aloof hum leaves the chestnut-haired mafioso’s lips.

“Thanks, Taehyung,” You grumble at his unproductive contribution to the conversation.

“Well then, why don’t we do just that?” A rich, honeyed voice resounds in the vicinity.

“Hyuk,” You say the name of the owner of the sweet voice. “There are too many variables, too many things that could go wrong,” You explain, providing examples of the many mishaps that could occur. “Like what if we don’t get all of the guys from the third floor? Or what if someone from the second floor got to the third floor?”

“Plus, we can’t exactly use guns,” Jimin chimes into the conversation.

“And why can’t we use guns?” Nose scrunching in confusion Taehyung asks.  

“Were you even paying attention?” Your question flatly, your black gaze staring him down. “The loud sound would give us away,” You explain with another deep breath as exasperation made its way into your system. The situation was much more complicated than you had originally expected.  

“No. I think guns will be plenty useful,” Hyuk strums as his forefinger swipes across his cupid’s bow. 

“Oh really? And how would that be?” Shifting your weight in your other foot, you ask. 

“Just leave it to us,” He says, much to your confusion.

“Us?” You repeat.

“Well, them,” The charcoal-haired mafioso gestures to the group of men and woman standing behind him.

“Them?” Your face scrunches at the male’s vague words. 

“Yes, with the team gathered here today,” Hyuk further explains with a proud smile. And though your expression remained muddled with confusion.

“And just what exactly do you intend to do?”

“Hm, I’m surprised you don’t already know,” Your features sour at his words, though it wasn’t exactly his words that off-put you, it was his mocking tone of voice. Besides, did he expect you to know everything?

“And just what might that be?” You ask the ebony-haired male.

“It’s simple really,” He answers. “We’ll need a distraction upfront while people sneak in from the back. And when it comes to Ji-Eun-ssi, our snipers will be watching her until our rescue team has a chance to get to her,”

You fall into silence as you consider Hyuk’s plan. It was by no means a foolproof plan, but a plan nonetheless. It was a gamble seeing as you would be risking the lives of those who would be playing decoy, but it was absolutely better than just rushing into the enemy’s fortress without an organized plan of attack. You look to Jimin for his take on the matter and you see the same consideration that you had displayed on your face.

“Jimin,” At the call of his name he lifts his gaze to meet yours. To find the same question in your (e/c) orbs that he had been mulling over. After seeing a deep breath leave Jimin’s plump lips, you decide it would be better to do something than doing nothing.

Tentatively you pull Jimin’s soft hand into yours, giving it a reassuring squeeze simultaneously letting him know of your thoughts. His eyes fall to your hold before returning the comforting gesture, a soft smile curling onto his plump lips.

“Alright then, change of plans,” The don finally speaks. “Namjoon split the team into two, we will be going with this new plan,” He commands, piercing gaze landing on the syrup-brown haired man.

“Got it,” With a sharp nod, Namjoon turns towards the crowd standing by.  

“Taehyung, Hyuk, you two are with me,” Removing his expensive navy suit blazer, then undoing the cuffs of his shirt, Jimin instructs his operatives. “We’ll be going with the infiltration team,”

“Oh. You’re dead fucking wrong if you think you’re leaving me here,” Soomin’s pointed voice cuts through the atmosphere as she shrugs off her black, business-casual blazer. Subsequently revealing a glossy, cinnamon-brown, leather double shoulder holster, two jet-black guns neatly tucked in their spaces.

“Do what you want,” Jimin’s voice drowns in apathy as he inspects one of the guns from his double shoulder holster - the gun you recognized as a tanfoglio force. You don’t exactly remember much about that particular gun; it looked awfully similar to the one you were carrying. ‘Now’s not the time for that!’ Admonition yourself for drifting thoughts, you return to the situation at hand.  

“We’re going to be in enemy territory, be careful, watch yourself. And remember, the idea is not to get killed,” Separating from your little huddle, Jimin continued, once satisfied with the state of the weapon and securing it back into its place. Soomin and Taehyung wordlessly followed as the mafia boss made his way towards the decently sized group of men and women gathered.

Unsure of what you were supposed to do, you quietly trail behind the trio, assuming you would be tagging along as you had been up to this point. However, you were sorely mistaken as you were stopped by the baritone voice of a certain chestnut-haired mafioso.

“And where do you think you’re going?” Taehyung asks, stepping directly in front of you.

“Uh, with you guys?” Your answer comes out as more of a question, seeing as you yourself weren’t sure of where you were supposed to be or go.

“No, you are not,” Jimin interjected, gently pulling you into him with an arm, a gesture you gladly obliged, making yourself comfortable in his hold.

“Well, then where am I supposed to be?” Craning your head towards the silver-blond you ask.

“Here,” Jimin casually replies.

“Here?” Mimicking the mafioso’s words, you look at the male questioningly.

“Yes, here,” He says, his eyes drifting to Hoseok’s form. “While we take care of that, you and Hoseok are staying right here,”

“So, you want me to stay back?”  

“Exactly,” Jimin nods.

“Why?” The question flies out of your mouth before your brain could register what was coming out of your mouth.  

“You already know why,” The silver-blond’s response is immediate as his eyes narrow at the unusual amount of attitude that laced your voice. You lowered your head as his hardened gaze fell onto you. He was right, you did know why you were being left behind. With your current level of skill, you were more of a hindrance than any help.

“Just stay here, okay?” Sighing, Jimin pulls you into a proper embrace as he speaks to you softly, delicately even. “We’ll be back soon enough,” The warm breath of his whisper brushes against the inner shell of your ear ticklishly before moving his lips higher tenderly placing a lingering kiss on your temple.

The action sent the metaphorical butterflies of your stomach into a frenzy. There it was again, the Jimin effect, you contemplated officially naming this - now - regular phenomenon. With an inaudible groan, you bury your flushed face into his neck, sluggishly nodding a ‘yes’. Before a single coherent thought is finally able to process in your brain.

“Wait if I can’t go, then why are you going?” You ask, tilting your head upwards to meet two gorgeous pools of honey - which are Jimin’s eyes.

“Because I’m the boss,” The nonchalance in his tone truly astonished you, your agape mouth a clear sign of your amazement and dismay. How could he talk about walking into a dangerous and very much so a life-threatening situation so calmly, so easily?

“Isn’t that more of a reason to not go?” You blanch at he male’s coolness.  

“No,” You receive a single worded answer as he gently presses a chaste kiss on your forehead before releasing you from his warmth.

“But一”

“Everything is set, we’re ready to move out,” Namjoon’s firm voice interrupts your oncoming rebuttal to Jimin’s short statement.  

“Then let’s move out,” The silver-blond moves further away from you, though you suspect he was purposefully ignoring you.

“Jimin wai一” You call, only from the man to completely discounts your voice, continuing on his path. ‘He’s ignoring me isn’t he?’ Relenting with a sigh you instead decide to wish the group their best. “Be careful out there,” To which Jimin acknowledges your words, turning to give you an adorably sheepish grin. Before his gaze flickered to the crimson-haired male standing beside you, his golden honey orbs hardened into a chilling stare, a wordless warning.  

“And they’re gone,” You say, heaving another breath, a wistful smile tugging at your lips. In your mind you were sure Jimin would be perfectly fine, he had been in the business for years, life-threatening situations were nothing new to him; he had faced and survived many of these situations since before you had arrived. So why would this be any different? He had survived many times before, he could surely do it again. Yet you still couldn’t help but worry your head off. The rational side of you knew he would be fine, but the irrational side of you ached to be by Jimin’s side to personally make sure he returned safe and sound. Not that you had the skill to actually pull that off.

“Hey, don’t worry about it, okay? As long as Taehyung’s with him, nothing will happen to Jimin,” Sensing your inner turmoil, Hoseok offers words of cheerful reassurance. “Besides I think he’s just trying to protect you,” He was absolutely trying to protect you. If the scowl Jimin had given him was anything to go by. Hoseok was convinced that regardless of if you had prior experience in the field or not, Jimin would have most certainly made you stay behind. A cold shudder reverberated through Hoseok’s body as he recalled the withering glare Jimin had thrown at him. A silent warning, saying something along the lines of “anything happens to her and it’s on your head”.  

“Let’s go sit inside the car, yeah?” The scarlet-haired male gave you the best smile he could muster with Jimin’s warning still ringing in his head. Hoseok had seen the young don when he was angry - when he was truly angry. The palpable chaotic fury that rolled off the don moved in waves, crashing against all those who stood around him. The reason not many knew of the true extent of Jimin’s anger was that few ever survived his wrath. The silver-haired mafia boss was nothing to be trifled with on a good day, one could only imagine what he was like on a bad day.

Hoseok may have been close with the don, but you too held a special place in the mafia boss’ heart. Considering that factor, it would be near impossible to anticipate Jimin’s reaction should anything happen to you.  

“Aren’t you going to sit with me?” Your delicate voice brings the mafioso back from the flashbacks of an angry Jimin on catastrophic rampages.

Hoseok gulps down the saliva that had pooled in his mouth before answering you, “Uh, no, I need to be out here, just in case they need me,”

“Oh, okay,” You return, closing the car door as you did.

Just as you had settled into your seat, the sharp, deafening sound of gunfire reverberated through the area, the pops of gunshots so loud they were heard over five-hundred feet away.

For minutes you sat silently, (e/c) orbs thoughtlessly tracing the stitches and ridges of the leather seats. The popping and booming of gunfire becoming nothing more than white noise, a strange emptiness taking over you. No thoughts passed your mind, you could feel yourself sitting down, you could feel the sharp biting sensation of running your nails up and down the first knuckle of your forefinger. Eyes zeroing in on a single point on the plush seat, it was almost as if your body had been locked in place, you could feel but you could not move - not fully at least, but it was more of you didn’t want to move.

You weren’t sure just how long had passed in this frozen state, but you were broken from your spell-bound state when your ears started ringing from the silence of the area. Inhaling through your nose, you leaned against the back of the car seat, stretching your arms as a drawn-out yawn leaves your lips. Wiping away the tears that had pooled at the corners of your eyes, you rub circles on the pinna of your ear once the ringing from the quiet becomes too uncomfortable. ‘It’s too quiet,’  

Fully registering your thoughts, your eyes fly open, head swinging towards the car door where Hoseok had been standing against. The crimson-haired male had a similar look of confusion playing at his expression; head sawing from one direction to another, trying to make sense of the sudden quiet that had fallen on the previously bustling battlefield.  

“What’s going on here?” Quietly mumbling to yourself, you gently push open the car door. Hoseok jumped, his hands automatically reaching for the guns tucked away in his shoulder holsters when he heard the door behind him open, his attention having been concentrated on gauging the situation, deciding on whether to send you home or not.  

“Hoseok, what happened? Did they win?” Dangling your feet out of the car, you awkwardly ask, your proper communication skill having disappeared in that instance.

“Aish, (Y/n),” He sighs moving aside, allowing you space to step out of the car. “You surprised me.”

“So, are we done here?” Pushing the door closed, you ask the mafioso.

“I’m not sure,” He mutters, his hand coming to brush against his lips. “I haven’t heard anything from either team,”

A soft ‘oh’ leaves your lips as you watch the direction the two groups had left. ‘I don’t like this,’ The eerie stillness felt something akin to the calm before a storm. Anxiousness bubbled and churned in your chest, your palms getting clammy with your sweat when you suddenly felt your heart drop. A cold pricking sensation rapidly spreading throughout your body like vines of ice wrapping around your insides. Inhaling through your mouth while your mind flies in a thousand different directions trying to figure out why you felt that chill.  

‘Just as BBC Sherlock Holmes said, “Intuitions represent data processed too fast for the conscious mind to comprehend.” So think! There has to be something!’ With your brain running a mile a minute, no coherent thoughts were forming, and even if they were forming you would forget them not a minute later as too many thoughts and scenarios all playing out in your head at once. Deciding your brain had once again failed you and that nothing comprehensible was coming out of it the next best thing would be to go into the building in person.  

“We should go up there,” You breathe out, which was also the only warning you gave the crimson-haired male before storming towards the abandoned building.

“No, we’re gonna stay he一 (Y/n)!” Hoseok gets no more than five words in before he is chasing after you as you scamper off in the direction of the building.

“Come on slowpoke!” You exhorted, daring him to catch up to you. A horrible idea really, seeing as he was faster than you and would probably catch you before you even reached your destination, but more than that you weren’t sure what you would do once inside the building.

Usually, you would never rush into unpredictable situations where you weren’t sure just what exactly could happen or situations you had an obvious disadvantage in, but here you were charging headfirst into a practical battlefield with little to no fighting experience. ‘So much for being rational,’ You scoffed to yourself, though you knew you were running straight into the belly of the beast, you could feel the light flutter of excitement, however today, you didn’t have to bite back an excited grin. The ominous chill you had felt earlier was still ever-present, sitting at the forefront of your mind. And you knew this somehow involved Jimin, which only caused your stomach to churn.  

“(Y/n), come back here!” All of the scarlet-haired mafiosos’ words fell to deaf ears. Not really, truthfully you were hearing every on of Hoseok’s words and you actually wanted to go back to the limo as there was a large possibility you would become a major hindrance to the people fighting, but something was happening, something bad, and you needed to be there to prevent it, only the question was, what was happening?  

“What?” A quiet whisper that leaves your lips as your head frantically sways one side to another taking in the sight, or rather a lack of one. There were no people, no cars, no weapons, nothing; just barren empty grounds. You slow down to a jog as you cautiously enter the building. What exactly was happening here?

BANG BANG

You flinch when the loud booms of gunfire reach you, your eardrums ringing as you slowed further into a stalk as you navigated through the desolated building. But a single question rang in your head louder than any gunshot had, if there were people inside then why wasn’t there anyone outside?    

As you quietly climb the staircase to the second floor, once again notice the lack of personale, enemy, or otherwise. The first floor was supposed to be just as heavily guarded was it not? So why was it deserted?

“(Y/n),” Hoseok growls, roughly tugging at your upper arm, you turn to look at him as his grip tightens. “We’re leaving now.” He barks, pulling you down the steps.

“Hoseok, Hoseok, come on,” Your attempt to call for his attention fails as he continues on his path with you in tow.

“What were you thinking!?” He chides you sternly. “What if something happened to you? What if you got hurt? What if they took you hostage too, huh?”

“Hoseok, listen to me,” You struggle against his stronghold, though your intent was to break free from his grasp, all you could do was struggle as Hoseok’s vice-like hold being too powerful for you to break. And thankfully he does. Halfway down the stairs he pauses and turns to you, though begrudgingly, he gives you the attention you requested.

“What?” The single word comes out like a quiet snarl.

“Guns are firing on the second floor, you can hear the fight going on up there. But the first floor is deserted, practically empty, why?”

“How about we go back to the car and then you can sit there and figure that out, yeah?” He says stiffly, turning to continue on his path.

“Hoseok, listen to me,” You plead, futile wrestling against the stronger male’s grip.

“I did and now we’re leaving,” Huffing, he turned raring to leave. 

“Look, we're already here,” You exclaim, jerking your arm towards you, though his hold doesn’t falter in the slightest, instead just moving with your actions.

“Not for long,” Scoffing, he simply ignores your struggles as he moves.

“Hoseok,” You call helplessly, which is again met with indifference. ‘Alright then, be that way,’ If Hoseok was going to be difficult then you would have to get creative. You needed a distraction, something that would loosen his hold. But what?

You desperately searched for something, anything you could use when a wicked smile danced on your lips as you found your distraction.

“Jimin watch out!” Hollering at the top of your lungs, you tear your arm from Hoseok’s grip, his hold loosening as he processed your words. Immediately you break for the second floor, skipping steps at a time, you launch around the corner and into the corridors.

“Jimin, where?一 (Y/n)!” The red head’s voice booms as he races after you. “Wha一 (Y/n)! Don’t!”

All sense of caution out the window you focus on getting as far into the building as you could before you were caught again, a terrible idea.

“(Y/n)! Get down!” You barely register Hoseok’s words before the next thing you knew the floor was getting larger. ‘Larger?’ The only thought you were able to make out as a series of ear-splitting gunshots echo throughout the floor. And this was much, much louder than the one you had heard earlier as if they were right beside you.

‘Oh, right,’ Perhaps they sounded as though they were beside you because they were right beside you.  

“My God! I thought you were supposed to be smart!” Hoseok shouts as he brings you closer to his body. Leaning against the wall next to the door, he returns fire, making sure to push you further against the wall to completely hide you from sight.

You wince when more gunfire follows, the already blasting noise of the shots reverberating against the wall of the abandoned building and becoming louder. ‘Earbuds,’ Quickly fishing out the noise-canceling earbuds and stuffing them at the entrance of your ear canals, effectively muffling most to all of the sounds.  

“What the fuck?!” Hoseok curses while with practiced movements his hands automatically remove the used cartridge, changing them with new ones. ‘How many of them are there?!’ Carefully aiming at one of the two men that had been shooting at you he manages to injure one of them. But this wasn’t right, the first and second floors should have been cleared by now, so why were they still here? Alive at that?

“Shit,” He mutters as he ducks back behind the wall as a few more shots follow. His head snaps to his side when he feels a hand tightly clutching at his arm. ‘Now's not the time for that,’

Heaving out a sigh he uses the hand he had been holding the gun with to cover yours, giving it a reassuring squeeze with the gun still in his hand. His eyes soften when he sees your expression, eyes wide, eyebrows knitted, and lips tugging downwards, worry, and concern written across your face. However, this expression was different from your (e/c) orbs pooled with guilt and anxiousness. And he knew the idiot of a woman sitting beside him was worried for him much more than herself.

“(Y/n), listen carefully,” He speaks gently. “Go to the first floor and hide, then when you can get back to the car and get out of here. Here are the keys一” Your eyes fall to the single key with a sunflower keychain he places in your palm. “一It doesn’t matter where you go, just get as far as you can. Then contact one of the guys, and they’ll come to pick you up wherever you are. But, if you can, go back to the mansion, okay?” He instructs, but this felt much more like a goodbye, which you absolutely did not like. He didn’t even ask if you could drive or not. Regardless, you were not leaving, not yet, not without Jimin... and everyone else of course.

“And don’t forget, Yoongi gave you those for a reason,” His gaze points to the two firearms strapped to your thighs. “If you think you need it, use it,”

“Why are you talking as if you’re not gonna be with me?”

“Because I’m not,”

“Like hell, you’re not,”

“Okay, you were right. Something’s going on here, all this,” He gestures to the space around you. “Doesn’t feel right. And it’s become too dangerous for you to be here. So, you need to go home”

“Then you’re coming with me,”

“No, I am not,” He sighs. “I need to stay here,”

“Why?” You ask petulantly.

“Look, if we both leave then they’ll follow us, so I need to stay here and distract them while you get the hell out of here. Then I’ll just meet up with Jimin and the others,”

“I’m not going, Hoseok,” not without him, the words are left unsaid and you’re not sure whether Hoseok understood the unheard words or not. But more than that, no matter how experienced he may have been, one man against - god knows how many enemies - were not the odds you were leaving him in - not that you were leaving.

“(Y/n), you need to go,” The male pleads, exasperation evident in his voice. “Please,” He adds.

Beats pass though not a moment goes by without the constant barrage of enemy fire, just how many of them were there?

“Fine, I’ll go,” Gruffly, you mutter. You didn’t like the idea of leaving Hoseok in such unfair odds but you also knew that this was perhaps the only opportunity you would get to find what your senses have been roaring at you to find. 

“Thank you,” Hoseok breathes a sigh of relief. “Alright, when I say go, you go,”

You nod at his instructions, you face to the opposite direction Hoseok was, reading yourself to bolt away.  

“Alright go!” You launch off of your position, straight towards the staircases, and up to the third floor. Hoseok’s eyes widen as he watches you ascend to the third floor.  

“(Y/n)!一shit!” Ducking away from the gunshots his eyes fill with panic as he sees your figure disappear up the steps.

“Jimin’s gonna skin me alive,” He snarls before digging for his second gun and fully entering the room, pure rage and irritation filling his veins. ‘Oh, you’re gonna get it the minute I find you!’  

“I’m sorry Hoseok, but I need to do this,” Though in hindsight you never said you were going back to the car, you only said you would go, not where to.  

‘Okay,’ Crouching, you cautiously approached the closest room to the staircase, though making sure to divert a part of your awareness behind you.  

You could hear the muffled booms of gunshots as you made your way closer to the first door. Though judging by how faint the sounds were, you knew the shootout was happening farther up than where you were.

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However, you maintained your cautiousness as you slowly peeked into the room. And the sight that welcomed you was nothing less than bloodcurdling, it was like you were in the set of a horror movie as any normal human being seeing this would be retching their guts out. Not many people understand the true extent of damage a bullet can really do. They don’t realize that a single bullet has the ability to not only pierce tissue but also shatter bones and even dislocate limbs, especially when in close quarters.

Bringing your palm to cover your mouth, your eyes rove across the room, taking in the sight before you. Lifeless bodies were scattered across the floor. For some you could see the damage that had been done; one of the bodies had been shot somewhere on the jaw, and the whole jaw had been destroyed, as a matter of fact, not much of the jaw was left. You could see some portions of the cheeks though the tissues frayed and torn with only parts of the upper jaw remaining.

The other bodies were in similar conditions, holes blasted through the flesh and bones alike. Leaving ruptured cracks and gaps in the muscles, chunks of flesh litter around the bodies, blown off by the bullets that pierced the flesh. Large rust-colored splotches decorated all corners of the room, no area had been left untouched, almost as if carnage itself had washed over. Although the sheer amount of dried blood would have been enough to make the sight gruesome, in this case, the blood was only a cherry on top.  

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Tearing your eyes from the horrendous sight of the room, you quickly charge ahead, caution once again was thrown to the wind as you try to accept your new reality. This was your new reality, this was your life, this was the world you had entered.  

Your eyeballs burned as tears pooled at the corners of your eyes, blurring your vision. When coming into this life, you thought you knew what you were getting into, what lied ahead of you, what would become of you. You thought you knew, and you did, you knew this would become a part of your life. But knowing that something is a part of your life and watching it become a part of your life, were two very different things.

It was true you had your strange bouts of excitement at the most inappropriate times, in places where you should be fearing for your life, or fearing for someone else's life. But that didn’t mean you weren’t scared, that you didn’t fear the worst, however, that also didn’t mean you fully understood the worst.

Back then, perhaps you didn’t, it was more likely that you didn’t. Sure, you knew people would get hurt, blood would be shed, lives would end. You knew that in your mind, you understood it in your conscious, but seeing the death, the hurt, the destruction was much different from simply knowing about it.  

And now that you truly understood the weight of death, you were scared - terrified. Perhaps it may have been much more bearable if you had only your own life to fear for, but you didn’t. You had eight other lives to worry about. Shelty, Hoseok, Namjoon, Jin, Yoongi, Taehyung, Jeongguk, and Jimin. Jimin.

You could feel a bitter-cold chill spread through your back, all the way to your feet as images of your dear friends in the same state as those people you had found earlier came to mind. Swallowing the lump in your throat you forcefully push away the image as far away as you could. Trying to forget the horrifying thought altogether, you shake your head clearing your mind, refocusing on the task at hand.

Breathing in a deep breath, then slowly exhaling, you steady yourself before moving on.

As carefully and as discreetly possible, you poke your head through the next door. And this room was in a similar condition as the first one. Tearing your eyes from the sight, you move on to the final door. However, the final room before the turn that continued onto a new corridor was without any traces of bloodshed. The room itself was old and worn down but bodies didn’t litter the floor or blood painted the walls.

Heaving out a breath you continue down to the end of the hallway before turning to the new corridor. And you could hear the muted booms of gunfire, though this time there were a lot fewer than before. And seeing as you were on the way to - what you were assuming - the only set staircase in the building, so there could only be one explanation to the reduced numbers of gunshots. People were dying. And you could only hope your friends were safe.  

Quietly, you unlatch the strap holding your tanfoglio witness in place, removing the gun from its holster, you point the nose of the gun towards the floor. Inhaling and exhaling deeply you stabilize any shaking or jittering. If you were going to use such a destructive weapon you couldn’t afford to make many mistakes.

Muzzle pointing downward, hands tightly clutching the grip, you move into the new hallway. Taking deliberate steps you stalk towards the first door in the hallway.  

Courtesy to the noise-canceling earbuds protecting your hearing you couldn’t hear much aside from muffled gunshots and muted shouting coming from the end of the long hallway. And because of those earbuds, you had almost missed the sounds of struggles coming from the first door.

Leaning against the wall along the door, you prepared yourself for whatever awaited you in that room. ‘What?’ Eyes the size of saucers, you watched motionlessly. The scene before you looked as though your nightmares had come to life.

Jimin, pinned to the wall by a tall, bulky man. Held to the wall by his throat, you couldn’t clearly see his face, but you could never mistake the silver platinum mop that was Jimin’s hair.  

“Why don’t you just die already!?” A cry so loud you could hear the hulking man with dark mocha brown hair through your earbuds.

“Jimin?” A faint whisper leaves your lips. The words are so soft that it goes completely unnoticed by the two men.

Seconds pass of you standing there, unmoved, mind blank as you thoughtlessly started. But then your body moves as if it knew what to do before you did. You don’t feel yourself moving however, as your eyes remained fixated on the figure before you, there was a gun held up in your peripheral vision. And it was your arms that held the gun. You don’t feel anything happen but you were leaning forward, arms ready to support the backlash of gunfire. For seconds the gun bounces with the rhythm of your breathing. Up and down and up and down, before slowly the movements steady and you finally regain control and feel of your body. And you know what you have to do.

‘Always aim for the center of the chest. Hitting something is better than nothing,’  You recall Yoongi’s words, reciting them like a prayer. ‘Once you have an aim, lock it. Watch your breathing...then,’

Breathing in through your nose, you click off the safety at the side of the gun, then holding the breath you took in its place before slowly letting it out, watching the minuscule movements that came with the action. Then at the trough of your breath, you squeeze the heavy trigger, bringing it all the way to its end.

BANG

Your solid stance efficiently absorbs the shock of the gunfire. Though the powerful blast of the gun ricochets throughout your body, adrenaline pumping through your veins, you feel your heart’s rapid thudding in your chest cavity.

Your eyelids flutter as you gather your bearings, readying yourself for another shot if there was the need. But as you watch red bloom across the white suit jacket the man wore, your shoulder slack, arms falling to once again point the mouth end of the gun to the ground.

Breaking into a fit of coughs, Jimin gasps for the oxygen his lungs had been deprived of. Taking in as much air as he could and too occupied with accommodating his body for the air it had been denied he had failed to notice just who exactly his savior was.

“Holy Fuck!” He chokes out as he uses the wall he was being held for support. “Ha, ha, Taehyung一 Have (Y/n) sent home,” Taking in another deep breath he continues. “Tell Hoseok to take her home. It’s too dangerous for her here,” He speaks, head down, steadying his breathing, he was still unaware of just who he was talking to.

“Jimin,” Your voice came much softer than you intended to, though it was enough to get the male’s attention. The silver-blond’s had snapped up to meet your quivering form.

���(Y/n)!” He exclaims, immediately walking over the corpse lying on the floor, swiftly pulling you into the room before poking his head out of the door, looking both ways. After determining the area was safe he turned on his heel to face you, his vice grip locked onto your wrist. “What are you doing here?! You shouldn’t be here!” Gently pushing you closer to the back he hisses.

“I told you to stay back didn’t I! What are you doing here? Where is Hoseok?” He releases a barrage of questions, but you stand there wordlessly, eyes tracing his visage. You had almost lost him, you had almost lost Jimin. If you hadn’t come up here, no one would have found him, you would have lost Jimin…  

The tears that were pooling your eyes earlier came crashing, cascading down your cheeks as a river of tears soon following the first few droplets, soft hiccups left your lips as you collapsed into Jimin’s arms, not caring the exterior of his suit and shirt were curated with dried blood. And pushing away the thought that you had just killed someone.

“(Y/n),” The don whispers softly, wrapping his own arms around your frame.

The tears slow once you feel Jimin’s comforting warmth surrounding you. Burying your head into the crook of his neck, you take in the scent of Jimin’s cologne as you felt the calm thudding of his heart and the soft rise and fall of his chest. It takes much longer than you had expected it would take to convince yourself that Jimin was indeed alive and breathing, that he was alright, and that he was with you.

“Yo, boss一oh,” You entirely ignore Taehyung’s voice as a ginger sigh leaves your lips, tightening your hold around the male, nuzzling further into Jimin’s familiar warmth. Though you feel Jimin’s head turns towards the owner of the nonchalant voice.

“What’s she doing here?” The chestnut-haired male asks the mafia boss, only to receive silence as an answer. “(Y/n), what are you doing here?” Taehyung questions you directly, and this time his voice was a deal gentler than what it had been before. Though again his question was only met with silence.

“Is the floor cleared?” Jimin looks at the male standing by the door.

“Uh一 yeah, we secured the building, and uh一 Ji-Eun Duri was freed. And well, everyone gathered back in the room we found Ji-Eun, you were the only one not there… so I went out to look for you,” The younger awkwardly explained. “I’ll just head back, you guys come whenever you’re ready,” Taehyung quickly adds before scampering away.

“(Y/n),” Sighing softly, Jimin speaks. “We need to go,”

“Okay,” You mumble as you reluctantly let go of the male. Jimin tenderly takes your hand into his as he leads you back into the hallway and to - what you assumed was the bigger room.

“(Y/n)! There you are! Oh my god! Never ever pull something like that again! Do you hear me?!” Hoseok’s voice booms in the room as he comes in barreling towards you, though his intentions to chastise you fizzle out as he takes in your dazed form, clinging to Jimin’s arm.

“I’m sorry Hoseok, I promise I won’t do that again,” Your eyes flutter open and close, a small smile curling on your lips as you are brought back from your disoriented state.

“You better not,” Hoseok adds, his eyes narrowing playfully.

“I won’t,” Chuckling, you return. Your quiet laugh smoothly eased the tension that had built on Jimin’s shoulders, his expression reflecting the release of tension as his scowl morphs into a fond smile.  

“So you actually found everything I left, huh?” Duri’s crows from her position on the single chair that sat at the center of the room.

“I guess I did,” You hum.

“Well, good job then,” She gives somewhat half-hearted praise.

“Hah, thanks,” You huff out a playful scoff.

“(Y/n),” Namjoon calls and you hum at the call of your name. “About the thing, you asked me to do before we left,”

With the progression of Namjoon’s words, your mind instantly sobers, now wide awake and fully aware of your surroundings and situation. ‘You can contemplate life choices after we get home. For now, focus,’

“Right,” You reply. “What happened?”

“It was exactly as you said,” The syrup-brown haired male speaks grimly. “There was an attack at the safe house Jiyoung and his family were being kept in. As well as an attack at the hospital Gu Joon’s sister was being treated in,”

“I see,” You mumble, bringing your index finger to rub the skin under your lower lip.

“Wait. Wait, What?” Taehyung arms flail in the air, his eyes wide as he questions you.

“Wait, we did make it in time, didn’t we?” Ignoring the chestnut-haired male, you continue the conversation.

“Thanks to your warning we did,” Namjoon says. “Jiyoung and his family were moved as soon as we left for this location. So was Gu Joon’s sister,”

“That's good,” You breathe a sigh of relief, it would have become quite problematic if anything were to happen to those people.

“Oh? So the little fox able to see past Yeong’s trick?” Duri's eyes narrow as a smile curves onto her lips, amusement dripping from her onyx orbs. ‘So she knew?’ You thought, examining her overly entertained expression.

“I certainly hope so,” Grumbling, you tug Jimin closer to you, more so than you already were. ‘The tansies!’ The words jumped in your mind as you talked to the female, almost as if triggered by the presence of the older woman.

“Tell me, Ji-Eun, do you like flowers? Or have any interest in them?” You ask, tentatively waiting for the charcoal-haired woman to answer.

“Flowers?” She parrots, her eyes narrowing quizzically.  

“Yes, flowers,” You affirm. “I didn’t really take you for someone who would be all too interested in flowers, but the flowers on your desk were really pretty and very well taken care of,”

“What flowers?” Duri questions, your eyes narrowing at the woman as a sly grin twisting onto her lips.  

“You know, the pretty yellow flowers that were on your desk,” You describe tansies without mentioning the flower by name.

“I don’t have any flowers on my desk,” She answers, head tilting back as she crosses her legs. With the sly smirk the woman wore one would assume she was lying, but this Ji-Eun you were talking about. This woman could never be as simple as that.

‘So it was the Yeongs after all,’ You watched as his expression grew ever more amused as the time passed. You may have not known her for longer than a single night, but anyone could tell, she was not a woman so easily interested. She was a cautious woman, you knew that much. It was not possible she would just let herself be kidnapped, for someone who's been in the business for as long as she has, she was taken without much of a fight. From all the experience she had, one would think she had precautions taken for such events.  

Though there may have been a few explanations, at the moment the most probable one was that she let herself be caught. She did this on purpose, but then, she also let herself be found. Why? Why would she let herself be caught then leave a way for people to find her? Though it was more of she was allowed to be found and yet. She had this whole elaborate plan for people to find her. ‘An elaborate plan?’ Your eyes widen as you register your own thoughts.

‘Of course!’ You had assumed that her whole iCloud rescue plan had been created in advance, a just-in-case precaution - seeing as she didn’t carry any trackers - so the iCloud tracking method was near perfect for this situation.

But that was precisely it, it was perfect for this situation. And that is why the method is so flawed - as a matter of fact - the iCloud tracking may have been the most flawed tracking method of all. For one, if the mobile phone had been switched off the computer wouldn’t have been able to track it. And what if her battery had run out? What if they had taken her farther and possibly out of the tracking radius? What if they had destroyed her phone? Or taken it? Like any serious kidnappers would. There were too many uncontrollable variables and not enough information. Simply put there were too many conditions to be met for the plan to work successfully.

And thus the conclusion, she knew she was getting kidnapped and that her kidnapping was nothing more than a distraction for something else. It was a distraction for the Yeongs to be able to regain control over their former operatives or possibly even revenge against them for betraying the Yeongs.

‘But was that really it?’ Revenge against the former members? Did the Yeongs even have the resources for something so petty? But then, why would someone smart enough to make a two prompt plan - infiltrating Bangtan’s ranks then using a ceasefire signing and attack to send Jiyoung into the fray - do something so brash and unnecessary as taking revenge when they had already suffered heavy losses.

“Unless,” too absorbed in your own thoughts, your mouth moves before your brain does.

“What?” Hoseok questions, unsure of what you were saying.

“Nothing, I was just thinking,” A sheepish grin curls onto your lips as you reassure the men around you. The redhead eyes you doubtfully, but drops the subject nonetheless. Sighing in relief, your drifts from the male to land on the awfully entertained expression dancing on Duri’s face, her onyx orbs taunting you as she watched you reach the somewhat guided conclusion.

The many puzzle pieces were coming together, the jigsaws were fitting into their places. Only for you to realize the puzzle you had just solved was nothing more than a piece in a larger whole.

“Right, so how about we postpone that meeting for another time and call it a day for today,” Soomin quips, a hand on her hip - she tries her best to maintain a blank expression, however, an exhausted scowl breaks through her usually well-crafted mask.

“We can hold the meeting five days from Wednesday,” Duri says, massaging her wrists as she stood from the chair she was most likely bound to. “I’ll send your right hand the exact date.”

Humming in acknowledgment, Jimin looks to the three core members present, a silent command lying in his gaze. Quickly recognizing the order the men swiftly move into action. Namjoon turns away, fishing out his cell-phone and calling god knows who; while Taehyung moves to talk to - who you were guessing - the many Bangtan operatives that were standing to the side. Hoseok on the other hand, entirely excuses himself from the group, jogging down the hallway you had come from - probably to get the car ready, though you weren’t too sure just what exactly he had planned to do as you had the keys to the car.

“Five days from Wednesday then,” Jimin bids the two women goodbye as he places a hand on your back, gently nudging you towards the same way you had entered form.

You weren’t sure just how long the whole ordeal had actually taken, but the sharp orange light that covered the grounds told you it was much longer than what you had may have felt.

The rest of the daylight passed in a blur as there was much to do. Many of Bangtan’s members were injured, few fatally so. Those who were gravely wounded were rushed to the gang’s official doctor, but most of the operatives only had minor injuries: cuts, scratches, bruises, easily treatable wounds. And though it wasn’t part of your original job description, your inner doctor wouldn’t let those injured go without cleaning and dressing their wounds.

That was where the rest of your day had gone. Cleaning and dressing wounds of the twenty or so operatives that had participated in the day’s rescue mission. However, with only you on the job, getting to everyone - quickly - would have been nearly impossible. Fortunately, Jin had joined you in your endeavors, putting the skills you had taught him to use. And going by the speed you were getting through people, it was almost as if two long term professionals were on the case. A pleasant surprise really, you had assumed Jin would fumble with the bandages of the first few patients - a sound assumption, seeing as Jin didn’t have official training before working with you - but you were proven very wrong as the older male swiftly and deftly handled the bandages, efficiently treating one patient after another. And thanks to that great efficiency, you were done with everyone long before the moon had reached its peak. Though, you couldn’t help but feel as if the day’s patients were used as exercise tools to improve the male’s skills.  

A soft chuckle left your lips as you stepped into the luxurious waterfall shower, where the shower head was attached to the ceiling. The controls of which were actually quite easy to operate; there was a knob for hot water and a knob for cold, the only problem was - they were both identical to each other… and the shower head was right over the controls as well. So you did the only thing any sane person would do, you turned both knobs to where you thought would be the right temperature, then ran like hell to the other corner of the shower space.

You sighed as the hot water soothed your tense muscles. Looking up, you let the water splash you face, and though the temperature of the water may have been a tad too hot for your face, that was the only thing you could do to distract yourself from the feeling in your chest, or rather the lack of feeling. The warm liquid cascaded down your body as you motionlessly stood under the falling water.

‘Who am I kidding?’ Brining a palm up to cover your eyes, before lowering it, you gaze falling onto the limb. This was the hand you used to pull the trigger, this was the hand you used to end a life. But it doesn’t shake, it doesn’t quiver, it doesn’t tremble now and didn’t tremble then. You remembered it, you remembered everything - vividly - like a film in HD.

How you held up the gun, how you aimed, how your body moved, everything. Though you also recall not feeling nothing.

No, that wasn’t true. That wasn’t true at all. You did feel it, you felt every bit of it. From raising the gun to pulling the trigger, you felt it all. Your body wasn’t moving on its own, it was you, you were the one in control, everything that happened was what you did. Then why did you think your body was moving of its own accord?

A question you were doing everything possible to avoid, a question you didn’t want to think about, a question you already knew the answer to. And you knew, part of the reason you insisted on treating the wounds of those injured was so you had something else to focus on, something to distract you, something you could use as an excuse to not think.

‘Maybe I am heartless,’ You thought as you used a fluffy white towel to dry your body, quickly slipping on a pair of penguin shorts and an oversized t-shirt, you shuffle out your door towards your last patient of the day.  

Softly knocking on the double doors, you wait for Jimin to allow you in. Though minutes passed not a sound came from the room. ‘Is Jimin not in?’

“I’m coming in,” You announce as you hesitantly twist the golden door handle, poking your head through the crack you had opened. And the sight that welcomed you, had to be one of your favorite scenes you had ever seen.

There he was - a ferocious mafia boss - sitting on his bed - running his fingers through the fur of Shelty’s fluffy head on his lap as he read to your seventy-pound puppy dog.

“Well hello, you two,” You playfully greet the pair as you take your usual route to the first-aid box.

“Hey,” Jimin returns, closing the book in his hand, he shifts farther into the bed, making room for you when you return.

“You didn’t come by earlier,” You mention, as Jimin - in fact - hadn’t shown up to the medical room for an injury check. And coincidentally enough happens to be the only one of the four that you had yet to examine. Granted, you did somewhat corner the other three into an examination.

“Were you injured?” You ask, easing your way back to the bed - tentatively sitting beside the male.

“No,” The silver-blond answers shortly.

“Don’t lie to me,” You huff

“I’m not,” Removing his shirt over his head, the boss pouts.

“Uh-huh,” Nodding in mock agreement, you eye the small cuts and scratches littering his forearm.

A peaceful silence falls as you wordlessly apply antibiotic ointment to the healing wound. And even though you had repeated this routine nearly every night since your arrival, skipping removing the bandages still leaves an odd discomfort. It felt as if you had missed a step when in reality it was just the night bandaging happened after Jimin’s before bed shower and the old bandages were removed before he would shower.

Gently wrapping the fresh, clean gauze around the boss’ shoulder your mind drifts as your hands move with practiced ease. The events of the morning felt almost as if it were part of the distant past, not something that occurred just hours ago. The kidnapping, Duri’s clues, her clues actually leading you to her, the tansies, the attack on the two former Yeong operatives, you little epiphany, you killing someone. So much happened in the span of fewer than twelve hours. Your movements slowed as your thoughts drowned your consciousness. A familiar melancholy settling in your chest once again.

“(Y/n),” Jimin’s voice is soft as he calls for your attention.

“Huh? what?” You snap from your thoughts with a heavy sigh as you look to the silver-blonde in question. “What’s wrong?” You ask.

“Nothing,” He pauses. “It’s just, you were spacing out,”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” You apologize, moving on to the smaller cuts and scratches. “It’s gonna sting, okay?” Softly, you warn the male, bringing an alcohol pad to his forearm. For minor injuries, you used band-aids to cover them up.  

You fall into another silence as you individually place each band-aid on each scratch. While reflecting on the events of the day, you fail to notice the stiffness of this silence. It was unlike when you enjoyed the silence and simply basked in each other's presence. This was a familiar silence, a silence that had fallen once before. And Jimin was quick to recognize.

“(Y/n),” He mumbles, gently taking your hand into his then pulling you into him. “I never really thanked you for saving me, did I?” He whispers, rubbing soothing circles on the small of your back.

“Thank you, (Y/n),” The silver-blond murmurs in your ear, placing a chaste kiss on your temple.

“Jimin,” You mutter into his bare chest, turning your body to comfortably rest against the male. “It’s happening again.”

“(Y/n), you did what you had to do,” The hold around your body tightens as he speaks.

“I felt nothing, I feel nothing. Even as I pulled that trigger there was nothing. All I knew was I had to do it, but there was no reluctance, no hesitance, I wasn’t scared,” You barely make out as your throat constricts, eyes prickling with tears that threaten to fall at any given moment. A hollowing feeling burning in your ribcage.

“But that’s exactly what scares me,” You lift yourself from his chest just enough to meet Jimin’s honey-brown orbs. “It scares me I could kill someone so easily, then move on even easier,” Your tear ducts run loose as droplets of salty liquid freefall down your cheeks.  

“Once I even thought my body was moving on its own,” You scoff at your own miserable excuses. “But it wasn’t, it was me. I was moving my body - I raised the gun - I pulled the trigger, I killed the man.” Your voice comes out much stabler than you had expected.

“You know, I think the only reason I thought my body was moving on its own was that I was trying to justify my feelings. I was trying to justify not feeling anything as I killed a man.” Your voice elevated as you spoke, getting louder and louder as the sentence went on.

“Who does that?!” You exclaim, hand moving wildly, exaggerating your words. Jimin opens his mouth to speak, but you cut him off - continuing on your tangent.

“And I know I said that I would take things as they came, but I killed someone. I ended a life with my own two hands. I should feel something shouldn’t I?! Remorse? Pain? Guilt? Something? Anything? But I don’t. And that’s terrifying, but maybe even that maybe I’m just tricking myself into thinking I’m scared, maybe I’m not even scared!” Your voice rises as your words bumble together into barely coherent blubbers.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright, it’s okay, you’re okay,” He shushes you, pulling you back into his embrace, tenderly running his fingers through your locks. The feeling of his digits combing through your hair instantly soothing you.

“It’s alright, there is nothing to justify,” He speaks slowly, calmly. “You did what you had to do to protect your own,”  

“That’s not it! I killed someone just hours ago and I just moved on like it was nothing!” You try to convey your thoughts, but your thoughts were getting louder and muddling as time went on.

“(Y/n),” Jimin murmurs.

“Just what kind of monster am I,” You rest your forehead against Jimin’s bare chest, all your bravado draining from your body as tears continue to run down your flushed cheeks.  

“(Y/n),” All he could do was try his best to comfort you and hope you snap out of your current mindset. Jimin wasn’t all too sure how to react when you reprimanded yourself for something those in the mafia community were trained and schooled to do. The first kill is never light, most aren’t even able to pull the trigger, while some retch their guts out once they do. He had been carefully observing your behavior and temperament from the moment he realized you had just had your first kill. He was prepared for you to hurl your guts out the moment you saw the dead body, or even later, thinking it may have been a delayed reaction. And yet there was nothing, especially after you had regrouped with everyone else. He could see you were distracted, but quickly regained composure then almost instantly returned to your work. As you were standing, he could practically see the wheels in your head-turning. And if there were ever a ranking or a test for newcomers, you would have passed with flying colors. Yet you couldn’t see how useful and quite honestly necessary abilities you had.  

Eventually, as it was made clear you would be spending the night in Jimin’s room - he fully pulled onto his lap. Continuing to rub circles on your back as you cried.

“I don’t know what to do,” After what felt like hours of bawling your eyes out, a quiet whimper left your lips as the exhaustion of the day and the crying hit you like a freight train.

“Just keep going as you are and you’ll be fine,” Jimin whispers next to your ear, his warm breath against your skin sending goosebumps down your spine.

“Whas that supposed to mean?” A muted whine resounds in your chest at the feeling, you bury your head into Jimin’s neck, nuzzling into his skin as you basked in his warmth. The strong pull of sleep swamped you as the pleasant heat of Jimin’s body and his comforting touch ease you into sleep’s embrace. And at that moment, it was just a tad too tempting to resist.

“Goodnight (Y/n),”

◇─◇──◇─────◇──◇─◇

A quick taglist! 

I saw your message and I felt like I should lol hope you don’t mind. Thank you for reading! Lots of love! 💜

@crookedstarlitnight​

Comment or send in an ask if you would like to be tagged too!

[shoutogepi]

pleaaseee i'm so in love with the new theme :DD how do you make your blog look so good?? idk how to make mine not look bland lol :,)

awweeee thank you lovely 💘💘 tbh i’m in love with it too hehe togepi is my fav pokemon and sho is holding her so tender TT.... beside the header, which i explained in my previous ask, i also like to use special text on my blog!! to do this:

- google “Fancy text generator”. the first result should pop up and be named the same thing.

- enter your desired text in the box and the changed text outputs will be in a list on the right!! copy the one you want and paste it wherever you desire on your blog.

- note that if you change your bio on mobile and you have links located there, the links will disappear. for this reason i only change my bio on pc tumblr!! maybe there’s a way around it but that’s just my method, tried & true! (you can still edit colors/border and avi settings, just don’t touch the bio text)

- also note that if you use this fancy text as the first part of a post (whether that be header or first words), the hyperlink to that post will be super ugly and long!

hope this helps ☺️💗

[leng-m]

Now that I’ve invested in a good monitor that actually has relatively accurate colours, I figured I experiment a little bit more with Sano and Anina’s skin tone, something that was a real challenge to locate with my blue-tinged laptop screen. 

I know I edited a bunch of my artwork a few months ago to fix their skin tone, but I’m not completely happy with it either. Sometimes, at a quick glance, they would seem too red, unnaturally red, like they just came out of a blazing sauna after being trapped in it for 10 hours.

It’s really hard to settle on a definite colour, because colour is relative, and I know if I put them on a non-white background, it would have to change again. But I wanted a reference at the very least to help guide me once I start adding in more colours. The strangest part about this exercise is that every skin tone I experimented with seemed like “the one” while I was working on them XD. I was like, “Yes, that’s exactly how I imagine them” for every single one, lol. These 6 were the ones I liked best, and right now, I’m leaning towards D or E. 

If I seem oddly fixated about their skin tone, it’s because I really want there to be no question that they’re dark-skinned. It’s so rare to see dark-skinned Filipinos in entertainment in the Philippines, let alone ones who are in lead roles. I actually saw a couple of documentaries (this and this) that showed how ridiculous skin-bleaching has become in the country nowadays. It’s shocking. 

But it’s not like Sano and Anina are dark-skinned as a response to this. They’ve been canonically dark-skinned since inception. It’s just that I don’t feel as if my artistic skills have showcased that in the past. So here I am clearing up any ambiguity. (Also, Sano and Anina have average skin tone in my world; everyone is either as dark as them, or slightly darker/lighter. That’s why I really want to settle on a tone for them, because they’re going to be my basis for other characters.)

Also, set 1 and set 2 have different shades of hair. Sano and Anina have black hair, but painting with black had always felt a little weird to me. I think their warm skin tone makes their hair have cooler hue, almost like blue or purple, and it just never sat right with me. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. So in the past, I settled with painting their hair dark brown. =/ Hopefully I’ll figure out how to actually paint black hair.

I don’t know if I’m going to be updating any of my old artwork. Maybe if I’m feeling quite industrious. I feel like it’s important for me to at least fix what I consider to be “official” artwork, like the header for my website, but I’m worried that the composition for those won’t really support darker skin colours =(. 

[gwentoryfics]

so you wanna start a writeblr...

i’m no pro, but here are some tips i have for anyone who’s interested in posting written content on tumblr! this is primarily relevant to kpop fanfic blogs, but some of the more general tips could certainly apply to other writers.

Pick Your URL

if you don’t have an account yet, making one is the first step! think hard about what you want your url to be. as you can see, mine includes the word ‘fics’ to make it clear that this is a fanfic blog, but that’s not a very common tactic. if you’re writing about a particular fandom, i’d recommend tailoring your url to that fandom. and i also recommend sticking with your url once you’ve picked it - i personally always forget who people are when they change their urls. it’s confusing for your followers so unless you have a really good reason to change it, just don’t.

Find a Theme

honestly, this is one thing i still struggle with lol. i think a lot of people probably access tumblr on their phones instead of computers, in which case this step isn’t really that important, but it’s always good to have a desktop layout that looks nice! you can poke around through the free themes that tumblr offers, or search for your own. personally, i just check out the blogs of people i follow from time to time. if they have a theme that i like, there’s usually a link somewhere on the page back to the theme creator’s blog, and then i’ll scroll through that blog looking for something that might work for me. probably the most important thing is to make sure your theme is text post friendly. you want your text posts to take up a lot of space on your screen so that they’re more easily readable - that means any theme that has more than one column is a no-go.

Build Your Bio

your bio should share some very basic info about you, such as your name (or a penname/persona), pronouns (if you’re comfortable sharing that info), and a link to your masterlist. if you don’t know how to add links in your bio, check out these steps. you might also want to include a “most recent” link so that your followers can easily locate the most recent thing you’ve written. and of course, feel free to include anything else that you want to be easily findable for your readers.

Post When Tumblr is Active

this might vary a little bit for everyone, and you’ll get more of a sense for this the more active you are on tumblr, but i’ve found that tumblr is usually most active around 7pm/8pm in my time zone (CST). that could totally be different for you. but try to get a feel for when people seem to be most active on tumblr, and take advantage of that by posting during the high times.

Format Your Posts

there are a few things you can do to make your posts look nice. one thing i highly recommend is creating a custom header image for your fic. canva is an easy and free resource that i like to use - just make a free account and then use their free templates and stock images to throw something together. if you choose to use something created by someone else, like a gif of an idol, make sure that you credit that person.

after your header image, definitely include info about what the reader should expect from this fic. this info helps readers decide if they’re actually going to read your work, so it’s very important that you’re clear. definitely feel free to steal my formatting - i always include genre, character pairing, word count, summary, warnings, links to other parts of the fic, an author’s note, and tags. although my summary is usually a full-fic summary, my warnings are specific to the part they’re posted in. you can indent this info to keep it separate from the body of the fic.

please, for the love of god, use a Keep reading break if your fic is more than a few hundred words. if you don’t use a Keep reading break, then everyone will have to scroll through the thousands of words you’ve written, and that’s SUPER annoying to people who aren’t actually interested in reading it (even if they plan on returning to it later). i’ve very intentionally decided to avoid someone’s writing because they didn’t use a Keep reading break, and having to scroll through it was such an inconvenience to me that i deemed their fics not worth reading. be considerate and use the break - bonus points if you keep all smutty content after the break!

last thing: figure out how you want to break between scenes. tumblr used to have a really simple line that you could insert between scenes to create a visual break between scenes, but it didn’t hide content the way the Keep reading break does. unfortunately, they took it away, so now we have to get creative. i’ve seen some writers just use a single asterisk (*) between scenes. i ended up creating my own scene break image in canva and i just insert it after every scene. this is what mine looks like:

whatever you end up using, just make sure it’s simple so it doesn’t draw too much attention.

Be Smart About Tags

figure out what tags are used for your fandom, and be sure to use them every time you post! i think the first five tags are the most important - i’m pretty sure those are the ones that your post can appear in when someone searches that tag. 

for example, my main fic is a smutty fic that features a few members of the kpop group pentagon. so depending on what happens in the part i’m posting, i’ll usually include tags such as: hongseok smut, wooseok smut, kino angst, hyunggu angst, hongseok scenario, hongseok fic, wooseok scenario, wooseok fic, kino scenario, kino fic, hyunggu scenario, hyunggu fic. 

Join a Network

this tip is a bit more kpop fanfic specific - i’m not sure what kinds of networks are out there for other writers.

networks are a great way to share your works with a wider audience, and they’re also a great way to meet other writers that are interested in the same things you are!

one of the best networks that i’ve joined is @ksmutclub. they have a big following, and they do a really good job of staying on top of reblogs. keep an eye on their blog to see when applications are open. i should also mention that, because it’s a smut network, they’ll only reblog smutty content. this network is also open to all kpop fandoms!

there are also other networks, like @uni-network​, which don’t actually require an application. if you create content for pentagon, tag it with #uninet and it’ll get reblogged. the only caveat is that they don’t reblog smutty content because they want the blog to be open to all ages. you are still welcome to use the tag, though - just keep your smut under the cut!

i’m also a member of @universenet​, but i don’t think they’re active anymore...

Follow Other Writers

this one might be hard to do depending on the size of your fandom, but if you can find other content creators, give them a follow! and if you enjoy their work, reblog it! your blog will benefit from you sharing content that’s not your own (as long as you’re reblogging, not reposting. you always want to give credit to the original creator). plus, you want people to interact with your blog, so do your part and interact with others, too!

that’s all i’ve got for right now, but i’ll add to this post again if i think of anything else! and of course, please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about starting a writeblr! i’m happy to help.

[ddaenghoney]

Series: of Silver

Finale  

[epilogue follows]

Attending a performing arts university, you’ve been managing just fine until the fall semester of your third year starts off by making out at a party only to realize the random guy was actually transfer Jeon Jeongguk, whom you had previously agreed to help get used to the city.

Pairing(s):

Jeon Jeongguk x Y/N

masterlist link is in blog description

disclaimer: any character depicted do not represent the actual personality of the respected idol in real life.

Warning(s)/genre(s): College!au, fluff, developing relationship, love triangle(s)??, some angst/drama here and there– Jeongguk has a dog this series isn’t allowed to be too tragic.

Tag(s): @butterflylion @rjsmochii @mahakookie @dammit-jjk @joanc24 @detectivebts @insaisissables @fuzzyballoontrash @sweet-unicorn-world @yeontanie21 @nctpity 

If you enjoyed the story, please let me know!! : )

Below the cut are final words and fun facts about the story! If you’ve read it all, thank you and I hope you enjoyed!!

Thank you for reading this whole story!!! It’s been such a fun time making it. of Silver is a nice break from the amounts of angst/drama/snakeyness I put in my other aus lmaoooooo. This one hasn’t veered too far in any way from what I intended with it! I hope you all enjoyed and maybe even connected with some of the problems/motivations the characters go through and overcome! Thank you one more time for reading it all! See you in the next story!

The name “of Silver” comes from a couple of different things. It coincides with Jeongguk’s dog’s name in the story which is Heartgold from the Pokemon game lol, where the complimenting game is called Soulsilver. Both of those are obviously from the idiom “Heart of Gold, Soul of Silver” SO the reason I didn’t put anything before “of” is because the absence is supposed to be symbolic of different things in the story you could place there. Whether it’s “Soul” or “relationship” or “person” etc., doesn’t matter because the idea is that whatever is there has gone through purification(or more accurate to the story: change) in order to be what it is. So basically the title is saying “this is what it is because it altered to become more precious(aka silver which is a precious metal aslkdjfgh)”

Seokjin’s twitter name got cut off throughout the whole story lol, but his twitter name is “Don’t DM me about dorm life” because he is the reluctant RA aklsdjfgh

I gave Jeongguk a Golden Retriever puppy because it’s Jeongguk’s spirit animal let’s be real alskdjghf no but also because of the name I gave it lol.

Seoyoung originally wasn’t supposed to have feelings for Jeongguk; in the original idea she was just using him sort of to make her feel better about herself?? But I didn’t want the story to get too far into the drama side so I made it a bit simpler.

The original profile picture Jeongguk had in his phone for Seoyoung was of them that he took; the header on her twitter is also a picture he took.

Jeongguk only lets Y/N call him Jeonggukie. He’s shut down literally everyone else from calling him that lol

I know Jeongguk and Y/N never said I love you to each other in the story, but like…. They’ve only been dating for a couple of months so I didn’t feel like it was needed to be said yet lol. Although Jeongguk admitted he does love her, just not to her alsdkjfhgk.

The location of the cafe Jeongguk and Y/N frequent is upstairs in a bookstore that you have to enter to get to the cafe; I may recycle this location in a one shot I’d like to make about Namjoon where it originally came from but we’ll see lkdjfgh

The ending contact name for Jeongguk in Y/N’s phone has emojis added by Jeongguk which explains why there’s a lot lmaooo

During their senior year Jeongguk and Yoongi would’ve got an apartment together so Jeongguk could take care of Gold. After graduation Y/N and Jeongguk(and Gold) move in together.

There were supposed to be so many more twitter fights but I couldn’t figure out how to place them in lmaoooo rip they’re so fun to make lol

Seoyoung’s friend that got into a fight with the characters on twitter is named Nia and she’s the same girl in the written piece where Jeongguk took drunk Seoyoung home.

I wanted to hug Jeongguk like every time Seoyoung dragged him, it made me feel bad writing those scenes )))):

Yoongi’s dog Holly exists in this universe, but he lives with Yoongi’s family back in his hometown (I thought I’d mention this because Jeongguk mentioned Yoongi missing Holly very early on in the story)

Gold lives with Jeongguk(or technically Yoongi in the story) because Jeongguk adopted him independently of his parents who really weren’t about to take care of the little guy out of nowhere lmao

If I ever showed Jeongguk’s contact name for Y/N it would’ve said “my baby” with a barrage of heart emojis after it and the peach : )

Seokjin was also supposed to shred Seoyoung on twitter but that didn’t happen either double r i p

This story ended up being largely more focused on Jeongguk’s perspective rather than Y/N’s in my opinion; he even got his own written scenes dedicated to himself too so

Originally I thought Jimin’s character would be more important and I thought Namjoon’s character wouldn’t be as important as he ended up being lol.

Actually, Namjoon was almost going to be an antagonist? But I didn’t want the story to get too dramatic for the sake of keeping it mostly light-hearted.

I realize a lot of the written parts take place in only a few settings/or similar circumstances, this was to show the change in their relationship behavior along the way, but also because they’re both too busy to go to a bunch of different places and don’t have much time during the day together lmaooo

The picture of Jeongguk in the red plaid and scene from chapter 38 take place where the series’ header takes place!

Thank you again for reading! If you enjoyed the story, please please let me know, it means a lot!! have a great day/night!

[fallingin-like]

november 17

above the clouds by @gluupor​ [requested by @fuzzballsheltiepants]

see which other fics i’m reviewing this month! / my review request post! 

this is an absolutely amazing fic that features airships, android!neil, and fantastic world-building. it’s a really fun and adventurous read, but still contains enough angst to break your heart. if you haven’t read this yet, drop everything and read it now. if you have read it, read it again.

okay i enjoyed this fic so much that i cannot put it in words. i remember when i first read it, i always get so excited when i see that you’ve posted and i read it in an hour, the time passing by so quickly. i couldn’t pull myself away and was reluctant to go back to real life after i finished reading. all your characters are so entertaining and as always, are integrated so nicely into this au.

things that stood out to me:

”over the khazak grass plains, year 1424 new era (ne), january” i just think that this adds a lot to the story so efficiently. we have a location and time and i just feel like this sort of title/header establishes a tone (makes me feel a steampunk/sci-fi kind of vibe). i’d be interested in how you came up with which locations and years to use?

”andrew shut off the engines and revelled in the silence. he could still hear the mechanical noises that resulted from keeping the gasbag at the appropriate pressure to maintain their altitude, but it was as quiet as it got aboard an airship.” i love this, mostly because i can relate to it? i’m really used to driving with music on, but lately i’ve been turning off the radio and driving in silence which is a really interesting experience, especially since i drive an electric car for work which is really quiet most of the time. also it introduces us to the airship!

”neil would eventually man the flight deck for night watch as he didn’t require any sleep” i am immediately invested in this version of neil and want to know EVERYTHING that he is capable of doing

andrew is wearing a scarf that nicky knitted for him!!! that is adorable! both nicky doing this for andrew, but also andrew wearing it!

your description of the monster is amazing. i would love to explore it. on the ground though (i am afraid of heights and not as brave as andrew lol) i saw that you were inspired by the mortal engine series and i can definitely see aspects of this both here and in later portions of the fic although i only watched the movie which was… interesting haha. were there any other sources of inspiration? i found that this reminds me a little of the films ‘alita, battle angel’, and a little bit of ‘castle in the sky’ as well

having little glowing things in their lamps instead of fire? woah that’s so cool

”neil was futzing around inside it with a tiny screwdriver” LOVE the word futzing. i’ve not heard it before, but it feels right. also it’s kind of cute that they are all helping each other out on the ship

algae bricks and beetle bricks? do they just,,, bite into it? because that feels so chaotic to me. lol mix into water and make it into mush? i am currently very grateful for the food i have

”jealous, aaron? don’t worry; i’ll come service you once i’ve got andrew settled tonight.” NEIL, YOU’RE GOING TO BE THE DEATH OF ME

”’better do it in the reclaimer,’ said kevin, taking him literally. ‘we need to preserve water if we’re headed to palmetto before our next resupply.’” one of the many things that i love about your writing is your amazing characterization of mr kevin day. what a legend 

”he wasn’t entirely sure why he wasn’t telling the others about wymack’s summons; there was something about it that put him on edge and he wanted to keep it to himself for now.” oh nO this is bad news!! you did a great job of introducing this undercurrent of worry into a scene that had just been so light and funny

“‘yes, i did,’ said andrew, keeping his voice steady. ‘last week before we headed into the plains.’” my stomach dropped at this point, memory problems are always so scary because it’s so hard to tell what the source of the problem is. andrew’s calmness is directly contrasting this, but it feels like it takes effort which is even scarier!

”andrew had spent his childhood shutting down any emotions. they’d been a liability in the type of life he’d led” and ”he had been destined for a short life with a brutal end. sometimes that seemed preferable to how much caring about other people could hurt. he often cursed those responsible for how his life had changed” ahhh this is so sad, but also really soft? because he’s come so far? and he’s opened himself up and let himself be vulnerable by caring

hearing the backstory of the twins is so interesting to me, you do a great job at both establishing this world that these characters are living in and how they fit in with it

”andrew was left with little choice but to do something nice to shut him up” i think this is one of the most andrew-like sentences to be ever written haha

”by all rights he should have died in the slums, but instead-and andrew was never sure exactly how he’d done it-he’d attached himself to andrew and aaron, like a barnacle that they couldn’t remove and grudgingly came to care about” cute!!! the tone is really andrew-like too

woah all these languages are pretty cool! i like the idea of having a common trading language, and the idea of having mandonese and spanglish is interesting.

”that seedy is mine” I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THIS AT FIRST BUT THIS IS SO FUNNY. lowkey reminds me of the lego movie haha. also seems fitting of kevin to collect ancient artifacts, even if he doesn’t really know what they do

ANDREW AND AARON AS GANG LEADERS YES PLEASE. i absolutely love it when people have such a great reputation. very exciting to hear that drake is not going to be an issue in this fic!!! wait a second… andrew and aaron were 16? so small!

hmmm i am interested how kevin got stuck in shanghai?

bad news that wymack is asking neil to stay on the ship. all this mystery and hiding is making me feel like things are not looking so good

”he’d forgotten again that it was bee whom andrew wanted him to see” NOOOOO

ohmygoodness the usbee. do they pronounce it uzz-bee? because that’s definitely how i picture them saying it and it is so funny to me. 

”i informed you that people are after you because i actually care about what happens to you, you miserable little gremlin” i really can never say it enough, but i love the way you use affectionate insults like this so so much.

”’oh, you know,’ said andrew idly, ‘those that slay together slay together.’” NO BIG DEAL. 

”a nobody who got the drop on you. better luck next time” NEIL I KNOW THAT YOU REALLY CAN’T HELP IT BUT PLEASE CONTROL YOURSELF AROUND SOMEONE WHO YOU KNOW IS SO DANGEROUS

”’this time, it was eavesdropping,’ said neil brightly” he’s so enthusiastic!! cute!!

”how do you travel now?” i am also interested in this!! for all i know, he just slides through shadows and pops up wherever andrew is haha

”neil flicked his fingers dismissively. andrew’s eyes narrowed at the performance. he wasn’t this dramatic, was he?” i am very sorry to break it to you, but andrew minyard you are one of the most dramatic people ever

ooooh dang neil is good. does his android body not process poison? also where did he get the knowledge that andrew was going to be set up anyway?

”within a few hours neil had forgotten the whole conversation, but he retained the knowledge that andrew had forced him to see bee and wasn’t happy about it” noooo why is this happening, it’s so heartbreaking to see neil forgetting things (also feels extra-bad because alzheimer’s runs in my family and this could definitely be me in the future which is Scary) and i Hate when andrew and neil are fighting because andrew is just trying to take care of neil!!! ;-;

”mickey, the mouse-shaped god of old america” OHMYGOODNESS

as startling it must have been to andrew, hearing about the moriyamas previously owning neil, i’m curious what was going through neil’s mind during this conversation. it must be so disorienting, not remembering your past. all of a sudden, you just started existing

”’shoot them. escape on the monster,’ said andrew. that was their usual plan for hostility they didn’t want to deal with.” i mean, i guess that’s a pretty solid plan. LOL

ohmygoodness katelyn also having red hair and blue eyes? “andrew always pretended not to notice that he and aaron had suspiciously similar taste in people, gender notwithstanding” LOLOL

”neil’s tension was ratcheting higher the longer they stayed in the region, something which he wouldn’t explain to andrew’s satisfaction.” ahhhh we! need! better! communication! what is neil hiding?

I HATE THAT NATHAN IS GOOD AT ACTING. YOU MAKE ME WANT TO BELIEVE HIM SO BAD EVEN THOUGH I KNOW HE’S LIKE SUPER SUPER EVIL AND IS GOING TO HURT EVERYONE NEIL AND ANDREW KNOW. 

thank you andrew for knowing better and for always thinking ahead. i feel like i can really trust you to take care of neil (and you, gluupor to take care of these characters even if sometimes you break my heart while doing so)

andrew: mawp mawp mawp mawp mawp mawp (LOVE THIS)

”wymack had always said it was because andrew had a death wish but it was really just because he liked going fast” this is really cute! both in this fic and in the series, andrew is like this and he had so little enjoyment as a child, was forced to grow up so quickly, and i’m grateful that he gets to have these little things

”’’M not,’ muttered andrew, too hot to put any effort into lying” so cute!!!

”stop and take a look? sure, why not? i don’t think we’ve got anything else pressing taking up our time right now” I CANNOT GET OVER HOW FUNNY THIS FIC IS

”’old news,’ said aaron. ‘we’ve moved on. now we’ve decided to crash into the sea’” it turns out that sometimes i actually really like aaron! now is one of those times.

oh my goodness, neil speaking only spanglish and BITING. “neil spat several curses at him before literally spitting as well” the scary thing is, this is still in character for neil haha

that’s so sweet of wymack to give andrew his ship!! ahh he’s such a soft character and i’m glad that all the foxes have someone who is taking care of them

what a beautiful way to wrap up this fic! also i feel strangely glad that nathan wasn’t actually the one to invent the tech needed to create neil. he’s too gross and evil to create such an intricate and wonderful person like neil.

BURIED IN ASH FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS WHAT

WAIT VALLEY OF SILICA LOL

oh dang yellowstone supervolcano. i’ve learned a tiny tiny bit about that and it’s actually pretty scary thinking about the consequences of it erupting and also knowing there is basically nothing we can do to stop that from happening and also very little we can do to predict it

andrew and neil are so so cute ahhh

also quick shoutout to the amazing art featured in this fic! so beautiful.

i love the flashbacks that you include. they provide valuable information and understanding of how the characters have developed, but it also gives a bit of a break from the intensity of the main plot. we get a little time to breathe and recover.

as the story travelled to different areas of the world, it was really interesting to see how you included history into it. i think my favourite story was the volcano and the ash-winter that followed. kind of scary to think of the possibility of that actually happening, because even though we have pretty cool tech, i don’t think things would go well. you do such a great job with your world-building, i never found myself confused about what was happening, the geography of it, the new tech, and the politics. i loved how you were able to smoothly include canon events/characters/things and have it work so well within this au.your descriptions are so so good and make this fic really immersive, i feel like i’m experiencing them with the characters.

definitely one of my favourite things about your writing is how you consistently do such an amazing job of incorporating humour and little character quirks into the fic. it really shows how much skill and talent you have because it’s always effortless and reads so easily. it fits well with the characterization and tone of your fics. i will forever be a fan of your dialogue and all the interactions between everyone seemed so realistic.

i’m continually impressed by your consistently marvelous storytelling. you manage to captivate me no matter what subject you choose. thank you so much for writing this!!

[corbincarroll]

hi! how did you make you banner i love it!! :)

thank you! i’ll give a detailed rundown under the cut! i was actually in the middle of making a new header when you sent this, so good timing!

a quick explanation is that i cut out an image, paste it onto a fresh canvas, edit to my desire, and then use a gif overlay on top to give that snow effect!

so i’m going to explain this in as much detail as possible to try and make it as clear as possible, so hopefully this will be useful no matter how much PS experience one has! i used photoshop cc 2017 to make this! i’ve learned ps pretty much through just trial and error so if i do things weird, im sorry sdklfjdslk

start:

the first thing i do is open a blank document in PS sized to the tumblr header size which is 640x360 on mobile, you can size up if you want, but just keep the ratio the same!

player image:

so first i grabbed a picture, and for this i prefer pictures where the player(s) is(/are) isolated, and it’s even better when there’s not much going on behind them because it makes it much easier to cut out the part you want!

the picture i used for this is from this post on the yotes instagram!

next, i open this up into PS, so i have both the photo and the blank canvas (red arrow) open. the blue arrow points to where you can change workspace presets to allow different tools onto your workspace. i’m currently using the photography preset, but will eventually switch to motion later on.

now i begin cutting out my player. there’s multiple methods to do this and each once has it’s pros and cons. the quickest way for me is not necessarily the best way, but it does what i need it to do, especially when the item to be cut out is isolated in front of a quiet background. i use the quick selection tool to quickly select the area i want with a larger brush, and then i go in with a smaller brush size to clean up the edges and details.

when the option with the plus is selected you are grabbing more area, and when the option with the minus is selected you are are deselecting area. the 22 highlighted above references the brush size, the appropriate brush size, or what is “big” or “small” will depend on the size of picture you’re working on so just play around with what you’re comfortable with!

nick is selected, as you can see below, with the line around his body. this is not quite as careful as i would be if i was actually making this for someone to use, but for demonstration purposes it works. you can zoom in further and use the smallest brush size possible and really be careful cutting things out. you can zoom in but uping the number at the bottom left handside of the screen!

once you have everything selected, right click and choose layer from copy which will create a new layer with just the area you have selected.

now i turn off the layer with the full picture, leaving only the layer i just created. to do this, click the little eye next to the bottom layer on the right hand of the screen, as seen below.

now you’re left with a transparent player to work with! this is where i do any coloring i want to do as well, so i will quickly do that. i am not great at this part so i will just recommend looking up coloring tutorials if you want more specific help here, or just mess around with different adjustment layers which is what i do lol. once it’s colored to my liking, i merge the layers together, making them into one layer, which means the coloring won’t impact any layers below it once i move it to the canvas where we’re actually going to create the header. you do this by selecting all the layers (ctrl + click all the layers or shift + click the top and bottom layers to select them all), and then right clicking and selecting merge layers from the options.

assembling the image:

now im going to work on the base of the header, or basically the rest of it except for the moving bits! what i want to do here is move the player image over the header canvas, resize the image, decide on the color of the background, whether i’ll use any other images or textures, etc.

first i’ll think about my background color of choice. a lot of people use the color that they use for their mobile blog on here, or something complimentary or matching their accent color, etc. i really like a simple clean look so i used a white background for this header because i think it makes the image itself pop and allows the accent colors on my blog to also pop because i use white as my main color on my blog.

if i wanted to use another color, i normally pull from some part of the image i’ll be bringing over. for this i’d use the color dropper tool (see below), clicking on color on my image i want to use.

then i’ll pull up the color boxes in order to create a custom color from that color (click define custom colors), and then you can mess around with by clicking different boxes on the color scale along the right side of the panel below, or if you want an unrelated color, click on parts of the entire rainbow scale thing. once you have a color you like, selected add to custom colors and you can work with it. i create a new blank layer and then use the paint bucket tool to color it in. this is where you could also use gradients to jazz up the background a little too.

now i’ll drag my player over into the header canvas. i do this by click + dragging the layer from the right side over to the tab of the header canvas until the screen changes over to that workspace and then i drop the layer onto the canvas.

and

now nick is over on the blank canvas but as you can see, he needs to be resized. so i ctrl + t, which allows me to transform his layer (make sure you only have the layer w the image selected on the right hand side layers panel). i hold down the shift key (this keeps the ratio true) and begin to make him small by dragging the arrows. make sure you do not let go of the shift key too early or it will fuck up the image and make him too long or too wide, etc. then i hit enter, and it completes the transformation. i then drag him to wherever i want him.

now that he’s resized and where i want him, i mess with the blending options to blend him into the background more pleasingly. now this really isn’t gonna look good since i was so sloppy cutting him out earlier, but just mess around with it until you get something you like. you do this by right clicking on the layer you want to blend and then selecting blending options. i normally do a drop shadow and maybe some other stuff, but i find this changes depending on the image, background, colors, etc.

there’s a lot of stuff you can do here, with the different options and the different settings for each one!

gif overlays:

now it’s time to add a gif overlay which i how get the snow falling effect. there’s multiple posts with these kinds of gifs out there, i’ll be using one from this post (method one) and one from this post (method two). neither are the one i used when i first made this header but i cannot find the one i used then; the principles still apply. now is the time to either add the timeline to your workspace, or change it to the motion preset.

on the timeline section at the bottom of the page, there should be a create timeline animation button, click that.

as with gifs from videos, there’s multiple ways of making these gifs. i’ll run through two here.

method 1: this is the method i used when i first made this header!

if you use a gif overlay, and it comes with frames, create as many frames as that gif comes with to then copy those frames onto. open your gif and see how many frames/layers. this one has 29 as you can see below. 

now click the little button with lines at the top right corner of the timeline. it looks like this.

next click select all frames from the menu that pops up, and then select that menu again and click copy frames. now go back to your header and create the frames i talked about earlier, you need 29 (or whatever it may be for your gif). do this by selecting the button below, located along the bottom of the timeline. do this as many times as needed until you have enough frames.

now select all the header frames once again and go back to the menu where you copied the frames and select paste frames this time. a menu will pop up, and choose paste over selection. this will match up the frames/layers so frame one of your header will match with frame one of the gif. adjust the gif size if you need to, once again using ctrl + t, and make sure you still have all the layers selected and that you are still on frame 1. also make sure you move these layers under nick in the layer order.

now adjust the frame rate. this will depend on your tastes entirely so test it out. my go to frame rate is 0.05 for everything i do pretty much, as a baseline, and then i adjust from there. to do this, once again select all your frames. next, click on one of these little carots, select other, and input your frame rate in the box that pops up.

method two:

this method is when your overlay comes in timeline form (idr what it’s called) instead of frames, looking like this.

drag the layer from the layer panel onto the header canvas, just like we did with nick earlier. make sure it goes under nick in the layer order. adjust the size if necessary, still using ctrl + f to keep the shape. make sure to click this button at the bottom left corner of the timeline to convert the frame into a timeline.

now, make sure to drag each layer to the same length, aka whatever length the gif layer is. make them match!

changing the color of the overlay:

this works with either method above! create a new layer and fill it with the color you want the snow to be. place it below everything except the background layer. add a gradient layer on top of the gif layer. right click on this layer and click create clipping mask. this is what my layers look like, i don’t normally label them but hopefully this is clear.

open the properties panel for the gradient map and make sure this gradient is selected and is black and white.

finally, change the blending to lighten on the gif layer! this should do the trick!

final touches:

i like to kind of have my header melt into my blog color, so i like to kind of transition the bottom of my header into whatever color my blog is. to do this, i use a multitude of methods. for this header in particular i used the eraser tool + a textured kind of fan brush to swipe back and forth creating the half erased look at the bottom. the setting seen below are probably similar to what i did when i originally did this header!

again, this is something that you can play with a lot yourself, especially by downloading brush packs and seeing what cool textures you can create.

saving:

to save, file > export > save for web

make sure you select “forever” and not “once” so that the gif loops!

original:

gif method 1:

gif method 2:

(ignore how this is also different i had to remake it once again bc i didn’t save it lmaoooooo)