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jhdyuiee · 3 months

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wildflower

❁ pairing: fake bf!jaehyun x fem!reader

❁ tags/warnings: angst, fluff, smut!, fake dating turned real, protected&unprotected sex (reader is on pill), oral (f&m receiving), fingering, breast&nipple play, hickies, spanking, kissing/making out, pet-names (baby, babe, beautiful), different positions, multiple orgasms, arguing, cursing, slight cheating (at the end), nudes, suggestive texting

❁ w.c: 11.9k!

❁ a.n: i’m back with a second release! next release will def be a different member, && possibly also inspired by another song by billie (her new album just too good ㅠㅠ ! ) i love u all, stay safe! jiji out 🤍

“i should put it all behind me, shouldn't i? but i see her in the back of my mind, all the time.”

“i'd never ask who was better, 'cause she couldn't be more different from me. happy and free…”

“did i cross the line? you say no one knows you so well, but every time you touch me, i just wonder how she felt. valentine's day, cryin' in the hotel i know you didn't mean to hurt me, so I kept it to myself.”

kim yuna is her name. she was one of my closest friends, knowing her since primary school. i loved her like she was my own flesh and blood. nothing could ever come between us, well that’s what i thought… that was until he came into her–our lives.

jeong jaehyun.

it was a good 5 years that the two of them were together. heck everyone was sure you the pair would get married, have a family, and grow gray and old together. yet, they seemed to fall out of love and let one another go.

i remember that night, the night she came over to me crying on my shoulder. it was just the two of us that night, i held her tight, trying everything in my power to comfort her. i just couldn’t fathom how someone like jaehyun, who once showed her the world could let her go. love was a complicated thing, an inexplicable feeling that could dissipate in the blink of an eye.

so from that day on, it was just us two. “you’ll never leave me right, y/n?” i recalled yuna’s soft voice as we ate breakfast the following day. “of course not,” i replied. it became my mission to be with yuna forever, nothing in this world– universe could tear us apart.

└───❀̥˚───❀̥˚┘

july. the hot summer days rolled around, and so did he. i think the universe liked to mock me, play tricks or whatever because jeong jaehyun stood before me. in the short span of the months since their breakup he seemed to have changed, his aura seemed different, unrecognizable even.

“i knew i’d find you here,” he spoke. i looked at him with a puzzled expression, “if you came to get back with yuna, she doesn’t want to see you ever again!” a low chuckle emitted from his throat, “funny, i’m actually here for you.”

i was beyond confused, what could he want with little ol’ me? “me? what kind of business do you have with me?!” “if you come with me, i’ll be glad to tell you.”

“if you can’t tell i’m kind of in the middle of work right now,” i said, and i really was. my shift at the cafe was today and i wouldn’t be able to get off until a couple more hours. “then i’ll come back for you. you’re off at 5, right?” I didn’t respond, just signaling him with a nod of my head.

it didn’t take long before he was gone, leaving me so puzzled. why was he showing up now? how did he know i got off at 5? but most importantly, what could he want with me? when yuna and him were together, we weren’t particularly close to the point we could call each other friends, so whatever just happened right now has every right to leave me confused.

he sure is a man true to his word. when i opened the cafe doors, there he was leaning against his car. “get in,” he said. i raised a brow, “are you planning to murder me jeong?” he laughed, “no, why would i?” he walked along to the other side, opening the door for me. i hesitantly got in. once we both were in, he drove to whatever destination he was taking me to. i prayed he really wasn’t going to outright murder me.

the car ride was silent, besides the low music from the radio. r&b, his favorites as yuna used to tell me about. i gazed out the windows, watching the tall buildings and fancy dressed people walk. a couple minutes later we arrived at our destination, an underground parking lot. yep definitely getting murdered.

he opened the door and i stepped out, bracing myself for death. however, instead of that i was met with his hand on my shoulder which caused me to flinch. “relax, i told you i wasn’t going to murder you.” i let out a relieved sigh, “then what are we doing in a sketchy parking lot?” “we’re heading to my apartment,” he said.

“wait, wait, wait! i am not sleeping with you!” he looked at me, laughing a couple moments later “what? no?! i’ll tell you once we’re inside.” he didn’t let me utter another word before he guided me inside an elevator and pressed the button to the last floor.

jeong jaehyun screamed money. the man was rich, his father was the former ceo of a big corporation, to which jaehyun now inherited. it made sense why he lived in such a lavish building and owned such a luxurious car. though behind the facade, the man had his trauma. his mother died in a car accident when he was little, which is why he has no driver as it was his family driver who led his mother to her death. i only know all this information on him because of yuna, when they were together he was all she could talk about nights on end. it was annoying, but people in love are… well crazy in love.

when we finally made it to his floor, we stepped out. i followed behind him as we made it to his front door. he put in his code and let me in. i began taking off my coat and shoes when he spoke. “anything to drink?” he asked. “water is fine,” i replied.

“make yourself at home, the living room is straight ahead. you can wait for me there,” he says. i walked further into his apartment, it was minimalist. the whole space just screamed him, jaehyun. i sat in the –comfortable– black sofa whilst i waited for him. i’d hope this talk wouldn’t take so long. i texted yuna i wouldn’t be back until later today. since their break-up she began living with me.

he walked into the living room with two glasses of water in hand, handing me one. he sat besides me, on my left side. i took a sip of my water, clearing my dry throat. “so? what sort of business do you have to settle with little ol’ me?” i asked.

i turned to face him, his eyes set on me. his expression turned serious, his thoughts unreadable. i suddenly became really nervous, an unsettling feeling in my stomach.

we remained in silence until a beat or two later he finally spoke. his words leaving me all the more speechless that i needed him to repeat what he just said. “what? what did you just say?”

“date me.”

he couldn’t be serious right now. his ex’s best friend? he must have some humorous side to him because what the actual fuck was he saying?

“quite the bullshit jeong,” i slightly raised my voice. i was feeling slightly irritated now because just what in the world is jeong jaehyun thinking?!

he propped his elbow on the side of the sofa, “i’m not joking. date me y/n.”

“how can i-” he interrupted me mid sentence, “i’m kidding well kinda. listen i just need you to pretend you’re my girlfriend.”

pretend to be his girlfriend?! is he in his right mind? “what? why?” i questioned him. no matter how much i tried to make sense of the situation, i just couldn't comprehend it, it was impossible to.

“just one month, that’s all. i just need to prove to my father that i do have someone in my life so he could quit with the whole blind date bs.”

“b-but why choose me?” his intense gaze never faltered, “hmm, i don’t know. i just felt like you were the only woman capable of agreeing to such a thing, and plus you’re the only woman i felt like i was on somewhat good terms with.”

“good terms? may i remind you, you dated and broke my best friend's heart!?” his eyes softened, “look yeah i could’ve guessed you hate me now, but i’m sorry… what happened between me and her was mutual, some things were just never meant to be…”

some things are just never meant to be. i wonder what he means by that. yuna never really gave me the details surrounding their break up, so i suppose all this time i assumed it was because jaehyun had done something. however, the way his face softened at the mention of their relationship made me wonder if they’re was more to the story than yuna had led off.

“of course you don’t have to agree to it if you don’t want to,” he said when he noticed how lost in thought i was. my mind just circulating on him, yuna, and his proposal. would it be a bad idea to accept his offer? i mean i’d just have to put up with him for a month… i even doubt yuna would ever find out.

i brushed off any further thoughts and looked at jaehyun straight in his eyes. my mouth hesitated, was i really making the right choice? “i- i’ll do it. i’ll pose as your girlfriend for one month.” it was strange, after i released those words it felt like something within me ached, regret screaming at me. truly y/n… were you making the right choice…?

i watched as jaehyun’s eyes widened, possibly from not expecting me to accept his proposal. “really? you’ll do it!” his voice sounded a little too excited. i was scared.

“y- yes,” my mouth spoke for itself.

“great! then i’ll sort you out on the details,” jaehyun explained. i followed along as jaehyun explained how this arrangement would go. we’d only meet on days in which we would need to visit his father, we planned out our story on how we’d met and such, and we decided it’d be best to exchange contacts to make things easier.

i stared at my phone, jaehyun, read the screen. i sighed, i really was doing this. “then now that it’s all settled, let me drive you back home,” he announced. in all honesty, i was going to reject his offer, but then i remembered how late in the night it was, and how i don’t feel all too comfortable riding in a taxi this late at night.

so now here i was in his car once more, and it made me realize how many more times in the future i’d be situated in this exact same spot. the car ride was silent, except for the music playing in the background which made up for the utter silence.

when we arrived, i thanked him for the ride. “it was nothing,” he said. i’ll message you when my father tells me to go visit him again.” “mm, sure thing,” i replied, as i reached for the car handle and opened the door. i took one final glance at jaehyun before exiting his vehicle. through the moonlight i could still see his face light up into a smile, accentuating his dimples.

thump.

that was weird, “see you later then,” i swiftly said as i felt like i needed to get out of this car as soon as possible. with a final goodbye i finally made my way to my apartment. i opened it, noticing the television was on in the living room. yuna must’ve stayed up trying to wait until i’d arrived.

“i’m home!” i slightly yelled. i began making my way to the living room where she was. “what took you so long, you said you’d come back as soon as possible,” she said.

“sorry, it seemed more things needed to be discussed.” i felt outright terrible. lie after lie came out of my mouth when yuna questioned why i was out for so long.

i had to keep the meeting with jaehyun a secret until i die. who knows how yuna might’ve react knowing i, her bestest friend, was out with her ex. not to mention how i’d just agreed to become his fake girlfriend.

i sighed, in which yuna noticed. “are you sure everything is alright?” she asked. i embraced her in my arms, resting my chin on her shoulder. “yes, i assure you nothing bad happened.” i let go of her a second later, “now let’s go rest. i’m sure we’ve both had a long day.” she nodded, taking one last glance at me as i stood watching her walking to her bedroom.

“good night, y/n.”

“good night yuna,” i replied back as i turned my body to walk to my bedroom. i wanted nothing more but to soak myself in a warm bath and recount just what the hell my life was or is going to become. i did just that, spending quite a bit of time in the bath before i headed off to bed. i wrapped myself in my bed sheet, the effects of the bath dawning over me. i felt myself relaxing into a deep slumber. no matter how chaotic today was, i felt most at peace here in my bed.

└───❀̥˚───❀̥˚┘

since that day i have had yet to receive a message from jaehyun. it felt almost as if that day never had happened, like some part of my imagating– a dream, no a nightmare.

ping.

great. the universe indeed must find enjoyment in mocking me. there it was, a message from jaehyun.

jaehyun: my father asked me to come around tomorrow. could you make it?

y/n: sure thing. what time?

jaehyun: around noon sounds fine?

y/n: okay

jaehyun: great! i’ll tell him you’ll be coming with me.

jaehyun: i’ll come pick you up tomorrow.

y/n: alright, see you tomorrow.

i sighed as i read his last message, see you tomorrow. tomorrow’s the big day. the first day of our whole hoax. i wonder if his father would buy into it considering the fact that me and jaehyun have had very little history together. whatever, i’m sure we’d find our way around it.

i got up from my chair, exiting the employee lounge. my break was almost over so i shut down any further thoughts and focused only on the tasks at hand.

hours later, i readied myself to leave the cafe. i realized it would be rather rude of me to not bring something to give his father so i tried to as quickly as possibly to make it to the shopping center before it closed. I strolled along, hopping from store to store. nothing really was catching my eye, in fact i had no idea what to buy! i felt like it’d be quite troublesome to text jaehyun about it, so i opted out of it and just went with whatever was going to capture my attention.

after a few more rounds, i finally found something. these really eccentric and beautiful shot glasses. i prayed that mr.jeong was a drinker because if not then i’d really would want to jump off the face of the earth.

shot glasses in hand, i made my way to pay for them. i gotta say they were quite the price tag, but that didn’t matter. this was all so i could win the favor of jaehyun’s father tomorrow. really, really prayed he drank.

└───❀̥˚───❀̥˚┘

d-day. i could barely get a wink of sleep last night. nervousness, a bit of excitement, and worry overcame me last night. would we really be able to pull this off? what if his father disapproved of me? gosh, i really am a worrying mess.

as i got ready, i put on my best outfit. it was one that seemed fit to make a good impression. I opted for a natural make-up look and some loose curls. i checked my phone once again, 11:45 a.m. 15 minutes to spare, i rushed to the kitchen. although i felt too nervous to digest anything right now, i couldn’t go on a completely empty stomach. so i toasted myself some bread and poured myself some orange juice. quite the breakfast i gotta say.

as i finished up i heard as my phone began ringing. must be jaehyun, i thought. i rushed to my bedroom where my phone was placed on my nightstand. surely enough i was right, it was jaehyun calling.

i picked up, “hello?” i spoke. “hey, y/n i’m almost at your place. you ready?” he said in my ear. “y-yeah just waiting for you,” i replied. Is it just me or did that sound slightly weird? whatever it already came out of my mouth. y/n you fool.

“oh, okay then i’ll be there in 5.” “mm, i’ll start going down then,” i said and later bid him a goodbye although i’d see his face in a couple minutes. i rushed inside my closet, opting to pick out the most suitable looking purse. with purse and gift in hand i swiftly exited my apartment.

i stood up straight, trying to give myself boosting affirmations, and eliminating any worrisome or negative thoughts from my head. as i headed outside my apartment complex, there he was. he must’ve barely arrived as he was just getting out his car, until he spotted me. he waved me down.

i walked a little faster, stopping when we stood measly inches apart. “well, you look beautiful,” he says. i tried my hardest not thinking anything of his little compliment. “thanks… i suppose,” i responded earning me a slight chuckle from jaehyun. “ready to go?” jaehyun asks, and before i could respond he guides me to the passenger side of his car.

he opened the door for me in which i then sat down in the passenger seat. he then closes the door, walking over to the drivers side.

i expected for the car ride to be silent, but i then got the urge to bombard jaehyun with questions. “what kind of person is your father?” i asked first. i looked over at him noticing how he seemed to be deep in thought. “hmm, i suppose he isn’t some ruthless man you should worry about. trust me y/n he’ll like you, he is rather… weak.”

weak? mr.jeong? the man who built an empire. it seemed hard to believe, so i'll just have to see it with my own two eyes once we meet. the ride continued with me asking more questions in which jaehyun delightedly answered back to.

time seemed to have flowed quickly as we now made our way inside the gate surrounding the jeong residence. my nervousness was starting to kick in again. i began taking deep breaths, in and out, in and out, in and- “ready?” jaehyun spoke, startling me. i glanced up to where he now was, waiting for me to exit the car. it was all going too quick!

i waited for jaehyun, but when he took a little too long i looked at him. he looked pensive like he was in some very serious thinking. “something wrong?” i asked. he looked at me, eye-to-eye. “is it okay with you if we hold hands… you know to make it seem like we really are a couple.”

ah, right we’re supposed to pose as a couple right now. he had a point so i took his hand. i felt as he tensed up before seemingly relaxing down a bit after. “here we go,” he says as he rang the doorbell. i inhaled one last time, bracing myself for what's to come.

the door swung open a minute later, where we were both greeted by an older, yet young looking lady. “jaehyun!” she exclaimed. “Hello, ms.kim!” he replied back. they briefly hugged before he turned to me, “y/n this is ms.kim. she works for my father and was my nanny back when i was a child,” he explained. “ah, and ms.kim this is y/n my girlfriend,” jaehyun said as he turned back to speak to ms.kim.

“y/n! darling, wow you’re gorgeous! jaehyun sure hit the jackpot with you,” she teased, smiling brightly. i had to admit, i quite embarrassed. “no, no, no i’m sure i’m the lucky one here,” i smiled before continuing, “it’s a pleasure to meet you ms.kim!” instead of reaching out for my hand, she warmly embraced me in her arms. when we parted she spoke again, “ah, come in, come in!”

we walked inside the big home, my eyes soaking in every detail. “where’s my father?” jaehyun asked. “hmm, that old man? he’s probably in his office, i’ll go get him,” she says, but before departing she tells us– well i, “make yourself at home.”

when we were finally alone, i exhaled again. “she’s sweet, i like her,” i whispered, fearing they could hear me from where they were. “i’m glad she seems to like you already, she’s not quite the most accepting person.”

“by the way, i’ve been meaning to ask. what’s in that bag?” jaehyun asked me as he looked down to the gift bag i held in my hand. “ah, a gift for your father.” “a gift? you didn’t have to go out of your way to do all that,” he said. “i know, but i would’ve felt rather rude if i didn’t get him anything. speaking of which please tell me he drinks,” i said.

“i quite very much enjoy drinking,” a voice spoke. my head whipped back, my eyes coming in contact with a man who quite just looked like jaehyun but in an older version. they looked like copies of one another.

“ah, it’s nice to meet you mr.jeong, my name is y/l/n,” i said as i bowed. my hands clenched around the gift bag just a bit tighter. “oh dear, no need to do all that y/n!” he said. i raised myself, gathering the courage to walk towards the man.

“then i hope you can accept my gift… though it’s nothing too grand, i hope you could still enjoy it sir,” i spoke nervously as i handed him the gift bag. he took it, giving me smile just like jaehyun’s. “oh gosh, you didn’t have to. jaehyun! why didn’t you stop her,” he said, giving his son a stern look.

jaehyun just gives him a shrug of his shoulders. “thank you very much anyway dear. i’ll be sure to open it later, for now let’s have some lunch.” as we headed to the dinning table, i felt jaehyun’s hand in the lower part of my back. he leans down, “good job” he whispered into my ear. his hot voice, practically causing me to almost melt away. i glanced up at him, his eyes catching mine and that’s when he smiled fondly at me, in which i later returned as well.

└───❀̥˚───❀̥˚┘

lunch was more than great. the food was quite possibly the most delicious food i’ve had in a while. mr.jeong throughout the whole lunch would just go on and on talking about jaehyun’s life, his business, and other random subjects.

“jaehyun, be a dear and go with ms.kim to pick up the desserts,” his father spoke. oh, oh. this could translate to: leave, i wanna talk to y/n alone. fuck, fuck, fuck. i was getting even more nervous than i originally was.

jaehyun sighed, “alright,” he said. he got up, walking over to where i sat across from him and leaned down, “you’ll do great. i’ll try and be quick” he whispered into my ear. what i didn’t expect was after he said that he pecked my cheek. i just lowly said, “okay.”

“don’t be too harsh on her dad,” jaehyun said before leaving. jaehyun was gone before his father could say anything back, it was just the two of us for god knows how long. i’d had hoped it wouldn’t go past 15 minutes.

“don’t be too nervous, i’m not here to tear you apart,” his father spoke when he noticed how tensed up i’d gotten. i tried relaxing a bit, reassuring myself in my head that it’d be alright.

“i do gotta admit, when jaehyun first told me about you i was shocked. my son who would rather die than date a woman, telling me he has a girlfriend almost made me believe if i had made it to heaven,” he said, seemingly joking. i giggled a bit. “however, seeing you here today and the way he is around you i can tell he seems serious about this.”

serious my ass, i thought. it was all an act, god the oscar’s should give jaehyun an award for his stellar performance at fooling his father. “y-yeah,” i began saying. “when jaehyun first approached me, asking to take me out on a date, i was surprised as well. i mean little ol’ me with a man out of my reach… i have to admit i thought it was a foolish prank but then i realized how genuine he was. you raised him to be an amazing and loving man, mr.jeong.”

his face softened, “no, no i don’t deserve the credit, his mother does. he told you didn’t he, about his mother?” i nodded, even though it was technically yuna who had told me. “well, since my wife’s death my– no our lives have not been the same. everyday i lived in regret and sorrow, but then i remembered i had to keep going, not necessarily for me but for my son. his mother taught him everything she could’ve possibly taught him while she was still alive and for that i am forever grateful for.”

hearing him talk made my heart ache. i realized in that moment just how much not only jaehyun must’ve gone through but his dad as well. losing someone is not easy, getting over them is in fact far from it. “i’m sure she must be proud of the person jaehyun has become today,” i said. he smiled, “yeah, i’m sure she is. i guarantee you she would’ve adored you as well.” my heart broke all the more, even if this was a fake relationship those words still hit me.

i smiled weakly, lips twitching as i felt my eyes blurr. i blinked and there they were, tears streaming down my face. “oh dear, i didn’t mean to make you cry,” mr.jeong said, handing me a napkin. i wiped those darn tears away and later continued my conversation with his father.

contrary to my expectations, mr.jeong truly was a kind soul, weak to his family. i could also safely say that by the end of our conversation he seemed to like and approve of me. mission accomplished, i suppose.

└───❀̥˚───❀̥˚┘

jaehyun and ms.kim arrived well past 15 minutes, but that didn’t matter because the conversation between mr.jeong and i was a great one. “he didn’t tell you anything bad right?” jaehyun spoke as he ate a piece of his dessert. i glanced over at his father giggling, “hmm just how you got stuck in the snow one time and cried out because they took forever to take you out.” jaehyun groaned, “dad!”

mr.jeong crossed his arms, smiling. “what can i say, you were quite a cute child back then.” i laughed, and enjoyed the company. i could get used to this… but right, this would only last a month. i tried shoving such thoughts from my head, deciding on focusing on the present.

we stayed for a while longer, deciding to leave once the sun was starting to set. i bid ms.kim a farewell before doing the same to mr.jeong. “come back again soon dear, with or without him,” mr.jeong said. i smiled, “will do!”

and so after having said our farewells, me and jaehyun headed off. i would say me and him we’re making progress as the car ride back was filled with lots of chatter. the poor guy investigating me on what stories his father had told me about him.

“well, i’m glad he likes you,” jaehyun said, “yeah, guess we really pulled this off,” i replied.

“mmm, he seems relieved that i finally have someone in my life now,” he continued. however, i didn’t respond back. i was too busy probing on the thought of how it seemed like jaehyun never told his father about yuna. i was too scared to bring up the subject, remembering how jaehyun became when her name was ever mentioned, so i left it at that: an insignificant thought.

the car ride back to my apartment continued with chatter. when we had arrived, i lingered in his car for a while. “so, i’ll see you next time?”

we both looked at one another. jaehyun’s mouth fell open, then closing. he didn’t respond, just giving me a simple nod of his head.

“then, drive home safely. bye jaehyun,” i said, opening up the passenger door. before i closed it jaehyun spoke, “sleep well y/n.” my face flushed, “mmm, you too” i said before closing the door. i gripped my bag, walking into my apartment complex as quickly as possible. god, what is wrong with you?!

as i opened the apartment door, i noticed the television playing. “ah, welcome home y/n!” yuna said cheerfully. she stopped for a brief moment, observing me. “hmm, what’s this our little y/n out on a date?!” she teased.

what do i say? yes, no? i mean it’d be fine as long as i didn’t tell her the name right?

“y-yeah,” i said, rather shyly. her eyes widened, squealing “who is it! someone i know!?” she bombarded me with questions. “n-no! he’s just some guy i’m getting to know,” i said. i can’t believe i’m lying to my best friend right now, but then again it’s not like i can tell her: “hey! i’m going out with your ex boyfriend!”

“well if you ever decided to make it official, introduce me to the guy! he’s gotta need my approval after all,” she said smiling. yuna was always the opposite of me, she shined bright everywhere she went. it was no shocker how she managed to get someone like jaehyun to fall head over heels for her.

i laughed at her declaration, “sure thing.” we stayed up for a while longer before we both headed off to bed. today was surely a long day, going surprisingly better than i had anticipated. it all led me to ponder how things would go in the future. it made me both nervous and excited for what was to come.

however only later would i realize how i crossed the line. it would be far too late to go back.

weeks passed, days flowed by and life was surprisingly better than ever. since my first meeting with jaehyun’s father, i’d visited him a few more times and now july was just about over. today, i got ready to go see jaehyun’s father again. though, jaehyun described it as a quick visit. nonetheless, i rushed to get ready since he would be here in around 15 minutes.

i made my way to the front of my apartment complex where he was waiting. it was always the same routine every single time. part of me was growing accustomed to this, but i constantly reminded myself of the month period which for a fact was close to coming to an end.

i hated to admit it but i didn’t want this to end, but i couldn’t bring myself to tell jaehyun about this secret of mine. hating to admit i blushed everytime he showered me with the littest bit of –fake– affection, that effect he was just having on me. i hated to admit just how much i’d grown to like him…

“everything alright?” he questions me. i snapped out of my thoughts, my face facing his as he held the steering wheel. “y-yeah just didn’t get enough sleep,” i lied.

“sorry to drag you out like this, but i know how much my dad would’ve bugged me if i didn’t bring you along,” he chuckled, which caused me to smile. yup, i’m completely fucked.

when we arrived at mr.jeong’s residence we were greeted by ms.kim who informed us mr.jeong had some friends over. moments later, he walked in with said friends and introduced me to each one of them. his use of the word, “daughter-in-law” not going unheard by me. jaehyun must’ve heard it too.

i was too focused on the conversation between the men that i failed to notice when jaehyun leaned down into my ear whispering, “i didn’t know they’d be here, i swear. the old man told me he had something to tell me but in reality i thought he’d just found some excuse to bring you along.” i turned to him, our faces only centimeters apart, my eyes widened.

“i-i, it’s alright,” i whispered. jaehyun closed the small distance between us until i could feel his breath on my face and the light touch of his lips on mine.

“oh young people,” mr.jeong said.

shit, i was too caught up in the moment i had forgotten they were right in front of us. my face felt hot, my whole body did. just a single move and our lips would’ve met each other. “if you don’t mind, can you excuse us,” jaehyun spoke up as he got up. his hand, taking mine to guide me up.

“sure, sure. enjoy yourselves,” his father said. god, this was so embarrassing. before leaving, we said our goodbyes and headed back to his car. in the car it was silent, the air felt different; i couldn’t speak.

i opted to look outside through the window, but the unfamiliar landscape drove me to finally speak. “th-this isn’t the way to my apartment…”

a beat later he answered, “i know we’re heading somewhere first.” i wondered where that could’ve been, but i didn’t get to wonder for long as i soon recognized we were heading to his apartment instead. i wonder what he could’ve wanted.

once i was back into the familiar, yet unfamiliar apartment, we sat on his sofa. there was silence for a while, before he made the first move. “what would you say if we extend our agreement?” he asked, but his eyes didn’t meet mine.

“wh-what…” i said. i was confused what he meant by this, i mean i could interpret this a hundred ways. he scratches the back of his neck, “fuck. that’s not, well i do mean.. mm,” jaehyun said, he seemed at a loss of words.

there was a brief moment of silence again, before he spoke up again. “date me. no agreement, contract, anything of the sort.”

no fucking way! “huh? you want us to date for real, but-” he interrupted me before i could finish. “before you say anything more, i want you to know that in all honesty i don’t want this to end. i’ve enjoyed every moment we’ve spent together, your smile, laugh, and that bright light you radiate. i like every part of you y/n… i like you.”

my eyes widened. no way, this was a confession... jaehyun was confessing to me. did i feel him the same way he felt? were these feelings of mine more affection than friendship? who am i kidding, they were. the truth in fact was that i liked jaehyun romantically, i couldn’t deny it any longer.

“i-i like you too…”

i watched as his face softened, his dimpled smile making it’s appearance. his smile was the most precious and beautiful i’d ever seen. one of his hands made their way to my cheek, caressing it. his body inched closer, until there was only a small distance between us.

“can i?” he whispered. i nodded, shyly closing my eyes. i felt as his lips touched mine. they molded perfectly into mine, felt soft too. it was a gentle kiss, but it quickly became something i enjoyed with all my heart.

i parted away first, trying to catch my breath but i was already starting to miss the feeling of his lips on mine. so i leaned back into him, our kiss deepening more this time around. his tongue intruded inside my mouth, colliding with mine. he then bit into my bottom lip, but quickly kissed on it. jaehyun places his hands on each side of my hips, guiding me to straddle his lap without breaking the kiss.

we continued devouring one another, enjoying what the other had to offer. things only escalated further when his hands began traveling along my body. his fingertips left a trailing blaze of heat throughout me. my hips then began moving on their own, my lower area in the need of some friction. i felt his cock hardened as i continued grinding on him. his hands now on my hips, gradually helping me pick up the pace.

his lips letting go of mine just to say, “hold on.” in which i followed, wrapping my arms around his neck as he gets up, walking to what i then knew was his bedroom. jaehyun gently lays me on his bed, my eyes on him as he lifts his shirt, taking it off and tossing it somewhere in his spacious room. his eyes then meeting mine, causing a smirk to form on his face. “like what you see?” he teases. i felt my face heat up. “don’t you think it’s a bit unfair for me to be the only one without a shirt?” he continued saying.

i lift myself up from his bed, hands grabbing the hem of my shirt, getting it over my head and onto the floor. i noticed as jaehyun’s eyes never left mine, soaking me all in. i felt quite shy so i covered my breasts with my arms. jaehyun got closer, “don’t be shy now baby, you're beautiful.”

baby. beautiful. god, his sweet words were so beautiful. i once again did as he said, putting my arms down to my sides. he closed the distance between us, colliding his lips onto mine in a deep and passionate kiss. all the while his hands began working with the hook of my bra until it came off me. he parts, bringing his lips to kiss all over me from my cheek to collarbone. when he brought his lips to my neck however, i felt as he sucked harshly onto my skin, causing me to wince. he parts, muttering a “sorry” against my neck.

jaehyun was marking me up, claiming what was his.

traveling further down, he stops at my breasts. i felt as his lips kissed the valley of my breast before going onto one. he stuck his tongue out, brushing against my nipple. he licked the bud until it hardened, and then went over to my other neglected breasts to do the same. this however didn’t satisfy him, so he began marking me up again, adding biting my tits into the mix. the attention and pleasure he was giving my tits was more than enough to make me a whining and needy mess. i was sure if he were to take off my skirt right now, my thighs would be dripping.

it was as if he was reading my mind because one of his hands began traveling inside my skirt until it cupped my sex. i moaned into the spacious room. “this wet already?” he muttered against my breast, letting his mouth room further down my body until it reached my belly. for a brief moment his hand comes back up from my skirt, using both his hands now to take off my skirt. while he tossed the skirt somewhere around the room, i began taking off my white laced panties. his eyes glued to me, it was like we were the only two people in this world.

with my panties off, i felt as the cool air hit my warm sex. jaehyun pried my legs open, using two of his fingers, to slide along my cunt. he gathered some of my juices onto his fingers only to bring them to his mouth and lick it up. “mm, so sweet. might get addicted, baby,” he says sweetly. he then brings his fingers back onto my cunt, teasing me. “p-please,” i whined.

“hmm? please what baby?” he says, staring at my desperate state. “to-touch me… your fingers, in me please,” i begged with the man above. jaehyun had you wrapped around his finger, practically putty in his hands.

jaehyun simply smiles before intruding his fingers into your hole. he feels as your gummy walls clenched around his fingers, squeezing him so tight. his eyes blessed with the sight of you trying to grind against his hand as you arch that pretty back off his bed. your beautiful singing of his name and moans we’re blessing his ears. so, so beautiful– he thought.

his fingers plunged in and out of you at a fast pace, you felt yourself nearing the end. the knot in your stomach threatening to unleash at any moment, just a little more, a little…

“don’t worry baby, go on cum… i got you,” jaehyun groaned. it was then when he brought his thumb into the mix, using the digit to rub your clit so deliciously. you grip the bed sheet, eyes rolling back until you saw white. your orgasm came crashing out, better than any previous orgasms you’ve or other guys have given you.

i panted, trying to catch my breath from that mind-blowing orgasm. my eyes returned to focus back to jaehyun as he licked his hands clean. when he finished he opened the drawer on his nightstand, fishing out a condom. unzipping his pants, he pulls them down along with his boxers until his cock sprung out. the poor thing looked hard as a rock, his tip red and leaking with pre-cum. my mouth nearly drooled at the sight, i wanted it in my mouth, a taste of it. “next time baby, right now i really wanna be in you,” he says, when he notices how focused i was on his cock.

he opens the condom, then sliding it onto his cock. “can you go lay over there baby,” he says, pointing in the direction of where his pillows were. i quickly made my way over there, laying back on my back. the mattress dipped when jaehyun got on, and he stopped in front of me. one of his hands wrapped around his cock. “open up for me baby,” he says in a low voice. opening my legs for him, he shuffled a bit further. his cock reached my pussy, where he used my wetness on the condom.

“ready?” he says, eyes staring straight at mine. i nodded my head, yes. all the confirmation jaehyun needed to start pushing his cock inside you. he was unlike any guy you’ve had before. the delicious stretch of his cock has you a moaning mess, arms wrapping around his neck to pull him deeper. the tight squeezing of your pussy around his cock doesn’t go unnoticed by him as it has him groaning and moaning into your ear.

“you feel so good, baby. so perfect. it’s as if you were made for me, this pussy was made for me,” he whispered into my ear. his words ignited me even more, my pussy clenching around him all the more. when all of him was in me, he lifted his body up and grabbed my thighs on both his hands. “don’t squeeze me too tight now or i won’t last long,” he says before sliding his cock out, leaving his tip inside.

gripping me tighter, he pounded his cock back inside me. thrusting ruthlessly and hard, i could feel as he reached deep inside me– his tip kissing my cervix beautifully. the pace didn’t falter even after what felt like 10 minutes. i moaned and chanted his name like it was the only word in my vocabulary. drool escaping my mouth and eyes watering with tears, was the state i was in. “who’s making you feel so good baby?” he says slightly panting.

when i didn’t answer, jaehyun lifted one of my legs higher. in this position, his cock pierced inside me even deeper than before. i could practically feel his nestled in my womb. “mmm~ ahh, uhh fuck. y-you! you! only you are jae!” i moaned loudly.

satisfied with your response, jaehyun decides to give you a reward. he places his thumb back onto your swollen clit, abusing the poor thing. with every pinch and rub to your clit you were growing closer. however, you felt strange. as you tried voicing your concern, jaehyun shushes you with his mouth on yours.

by this time it was too late, you came gushing out like a waterfall. he parts from the kiss, saliva connecting the two of you. he looks down to where you both were conjoined, “let me guess, that was your first time squirting?” you nodded dumbly, too fucked out of your mind. “wow, i’m honored baby,” he says as he continues fucking me through my orgasm. through my hazy state i noticed as his pace began to falter, slowing down a bit.

his cock twitched inside me, allowing himself to thrust a couple more times before he came into the condom. the air of his room smelled like sex, evidence of what had just transpired. he pulls out, taking off the condom as he walks over to dispose of it. “that was amazing baby,” he says, going back to lay beside me.

his arms wrap around my body, embracing me as we laid there. “i’ll clean you up in a bit, let us just enjoy this for now,” he says. before i knew it my eyes fluttered shut. i passed out for the night, too exhausted to stay awake for even a second more.

└───❀̥˚───❀̥˚┘

i stirred my eyes open, coming face to face with the bright summer sun. i got up, taking my surroundings in. an unfamiliar bedroom… no wait, this is jaehyun’s bedroom. in that moment, the flashbacks of what happened last night replayed in my head. i turned to the other side of the bed, noticing it empty, but the scrambled bed sheets signified he was in fact there. i looked down to notice myself in a shirt that wasn’t mine, jaehyun’s.

fuck. wait… why did it dawn to me now that i literally agreed into becoming jaehyun’s –real– girlfriend. yuna... isn’t this betrayal? did i cross the line? i couldn’t ponder for too long before the bedroom door flung open.

jaehyun.

he wore gray sweats and a white t-shirt. “drooling already?” he teased coming to my side. i got up, sitting on the edge as i wiped my lips and felt as something wet touched the back of my hand. fuck i really was drooling. he laughed, going onto his knees, laying his head on my thighs. i combed a hand through his hair, “you’re quite the beast jaehyun.” he glances up, “what are you trying to say?” he says raising a brow.

“you know exactly what i mean!” slightly raising my voice. he still acted like he had no idea what i was referring to. “ughh, thanks to you i could barely walk,” i said shyly. it was true though, getting up from the bed, i could feel the ache.

he chuckled, “but you enjoyed it didn’t you?” i squinted my eyes, “we-well yes, but that’s besides the point! anyways did you clean me?” he nods his head, “yup, but you were sleeping so soundly i didn’t wanna wake you up, you’re quite the heavy sleeper babe.”

my heart nearly melted, “thanks jaehyun.” he smiled, a mischievous one in which i knew meant no good. “how about giving me a reward?” he asks sweetly. no matter how much i tried resisting i ended up giving in.

“i-thought this was a reward for you?” i tried saying as the sensation of his tongue running along my cunt cleared all normal functions from my brain. “it is,” he says as he raises his head to look into my lustful eyes. “your sweet pussy is such a delicacy for me. plus i haven’t had any breakfast yet,” he continues saying, giving me a wink at the end as he dove back in.

last night was not enough for jaehyun it seems so because you two were going right back at it throughout the morning. i mean not that you were complaining...

february 13th. the day before jaehyun’s birthday and also we can’t forget valentine’s day.

it has now been well over 6 months since me and jaehyun had begun dating and all of it has been a bliss. jaehyun truly was the best boyfriend i could ever ask for. everything seemed right, but then i spiraled into a panic. it wasn’t often but occasionally guilt would eat me away, my consciousness yelling at me. however it was too late to turn back now, not unless a time machine magically appeared. yet again, i didn’t regret a single thing… was it bad that i didn’t?

but i see her, yuna, in the back of my mind. all the time, like a fever. did i cross the line?

and i then realized that it wasn’t reassurance that i needed from jaehyun, it felt like something more, something i so desperately was trying to search for…

nonetheless today is his pre-birthday dinner! i can’t be moping around in depressing thoughts! quickly getting outta bed, i began getting myself ready. unlike other days, today i went for a cute some-what skin tight dress, heels, loose curled hair, and a tad bit more make-up. before making my way downstairs to meet up with jaehyun, i grabbed a small gift bag and tucked it inside my purse.

as i made my way down, i saw his car come rolling in. a smile making its way on my face as he gets out of the car to greet me. “you’re quite breathtaking,” he says as he pecked me on my lips. i let out a dreamy sigh, “and you’re quite the charmer.” he smiled, taking my hand to guide me to the passenger seat of his car. after shutting the door, he walks over to his door and begins the drive.

unfortunately, he knew about his pre-birthday dinner, only because i am not the world’s best driver so i can’t be the one to drive us there. i planned for it to be a small dinner at an italian restaurant we both enjoyed. however, what he was unaware of was about how i called the restaurant a couple days ago to inform them if they could bring out a cake. so technically i’m still seeing this as a whole surprise!

when we finally arrived at the restaurant, he took my hand in his to walk me. luckily for those reservations we made because if not we would’ve waited hours just to get a table. when we got situated at our table, a waiter came by not too later to take our orders. once we got our food, we ate while chatting about anything and everything. we enjoyed each other’s presence as we ate on a cool february night.

a while later i excused myself, under the circumstances that i had to use the restroom. yet in reality i was going to go inform the waiter to bring out the cake. i returned to my seat afterwards and waited for them to arrive.

“happy, happy birthday! happy birthday! happy birthday to you!” the waiters around us sang as they clapped their hands. i recorded the scene as jaehyun look bewildered, his cheeks adorning a pink-ish color. cute, i thought. one of the waiter places the cake on the table, and after they finished singing jaehyun blew the candle. the waiters later dispersed, leaving me and jaehyun alone.

“so this is why you wanted to come here?” he questioned. i smirked, “yup, yup and they so kindly agreed to it!” he sighed before giving me a slice of his cake. we continued chatted whilst we ate the very delicious cake. whereas i note jaehyun’s eyes never leaving me, watching me intently as i licked the icing off my fork.

jaehyun clears his throat, catching my attention, “w-we should get going soon.” i raised my brow, “huh, but-” he interrupted me before i could continue, “i have a better idea.”

“oh yeah, and what could that be?” i questioned him. “you’ll see. follow me,” he says, getting up and taking me by my wrist. we quickly stop by to pay before we leave. jaehyun’s pace slightly rushed.

when we arrived at the parking garage, he pinned me to the passenger door. not even a second later does he take my lips on his. he kisses me with such passion, lust, and hunger— even if he had just eaten. i was a bit bewildered at first but i soon sink into the kiss, my arms wrapping around his neck.

his knee comes in between my legs, as his hands began to roam my body. a hand slips under my dress, causing me to moan into the kiss when i feel his hand travel further up only stopping to rub two of his fingers against my pussy.

i pant as i part from the kiss, “s-stop, not here jae.” i felt hazy already, and as i looked at him i noticed those lustful eyes of his. “get in then, we’ll continue this somewhere else,” he mutters into my ear before pecking my temple. we rushed inside the car, leaving the parking lot as he drove us quickly to the nearest hotel.

└───❀̥˚───❀̥˚┘

we just barely made it inside the door when jaehyun’s desperate hands began removing the dress i wore, later pooling at the bottom of my feet. “fuck, when i saw you in that dress i wanted nothing more but to rip it off you and fuck you,” he mumbles into my ear as his hand begin to remove my panties. “no bra too? fuck, you’re going to be the death of me baby,” he groaned.

being completely naked with the cool door pressed against my back, jaehyun soaks me all in before using his fingers to rub against my cunt again. “this wet already? all for me, is that right?” he continues teasing. i let out a small whimper before muttering “yes.”

jaehyun quickly takes his hand away from my aching pussy, licking his fingers clean. he moans in satisfaction as he tastes my juices. using both his hands, he quickly begins removing his clothes, his hard cock resting against his stomach. he watches as i stare intently, bringing one hand to his cock he begins jerking it. fuck, now this is going to kill me.

“Get on your knees baby,” he says. i sank into my knees in no time, face only about an inch away from his leaking cock. “open,” he continues as he grabs the back of my head to inch me closer to his cock. my mouth falls open, making on “o” shape. “good girl,” he groans when his tip intrudes inside my mouth.

he slowly moved his cock furthur inside my mouth, but when i begin to slightly gag he stopped. “you can take it, ain’t you’re first time baby,” he says and he has a point, though it was just too big i could never seem to fit it without gagging, drooling, or tearing up. he begins moving his cock again, and i finally feel the tip reach down my throat, so deep. “that’s right, shoved down deep in ya,” he groans. he stays snugged in my mouth for a moment before telling me, “now your turn, suck me off baby.”

i place my hands against his thighs to move my head back, until only his tip was inside. i use my tongue to swirl around his tip, my hands soon helping in jerking the rest of his cock. i hear the way jaehyun’s moans and groans filled the room, my ears blessed.

i let go of his tip, bringing my tongue to lick him along his cock and pecking his tip. i repeated this on the other side, glancing up to look at jaehyun’s state. he was an absolute wreck already.

“come on baby, i told ya to suck it,” he groans. so i stop licking his cock, sinking his cock slowly into my mouth. “th-that’s it, your mouth feels so fucking good. cock fits all snug, ain’t that right baby.”

jaehyun’s words ignited a fire within me. i eagerly began sucking his cock, bobbing my head while he held me. while i was doing my ministrations on his cock, i felt my breathing getting constricted so i stopped. i kept the head in my mouth still, using my tongue to swirl around it.

once i felt well again, i took him back in. my hands traveled to his balls, fondling them as i continued sucking on him at a slightly faster pace. the noises he emitted signaled he was close to releasing. so in a despair, jaehyun’s hips began moving. he fucked his cock inside my mouth ruthlessly as i gagged and tears rolled down my face. yet still it felt so good; i didn’t stop the swirling of my tongue on his cock nor the fondeling on his balls.

“so close baby, just a bit more,” he moans. a couple more thrusting of his hips into my mouth, he releases inside it. the taste of his cum courses throughout me. he pulls his cock out, using his fingers to shove back any of his cum that had escaped. i swallowed all that he gave me, opening my mouth to show there was no more.

“get up and bend over,” his deep voice says. i do as he says once more, placing my hands on the door whilst my ass comes into his view. i hear him emit a pleased moan before groping my ass. “so beautiful,” he mutters.

you feel as he slides his cock in between ur ass, rubbing it against you. almost naturally you begin to move, you wanted nothing more but for him to fuck you. a low laugh comes out of his mouth before he slaps your ass. you couldn’t help but yelp in surprise. the coolness of the door, brushing against your already hardened nipples.

it wasn’t long though before he slid himself inside you. his cock enters you almost smoothly. “so wet, it slid right in,” he chuckles, fingers digging into your ass.

he stays pressed against you for a while before he pulls back, cock sliding out too. jaehyun slides back in, those gummy walls of yours still tightening around his cock. he fucks you ruthlessly and brutally, not caring how loud you were because after all the noises coming out of you were a symphony.

his pace doesn’t falter, keeping it past 100. the sweet chants of his name, pushing himself forward. he slaps your ass more than once when he notices how you’d tighten around him even more. “i-i’m gonna cu-“ he interrupts you. jaehyun uses his hand to turn your head around, locking his lips onto yours. the two of you hungrily kissed one another, so lost in it that you failed to notice when his hand traveled down.

you moan into the kiss when you feel his digits, working on your clit. pinching and rubbing you so good that you felt your stomach tighten. letting go of his lips, saliva connecting you moan out loud when you feel your orgasm unleashing. you faintly hear the sound of it splashing onto the floor, making a mess. “good girl,” he praises you as he continues fucking into you.

your orgasm only made you tighten around him all the more, scrambling with jaehyun’s brain. he was getting close and you could feel it in the change in pace. his cock twitches inside you and he slaps your ass roughly one last time before you gush inside you. his hot white seeds painting your womb, stuffing you full.

jaehyun pulls out hesitantly, his eyes feasting upon your fucked state. his seeds slowly spilling down your legs. “not yet,” he mumbles before he effortlessly carries you to the bed.

he didn’t let you rest the whole night, continuing to spill deep inside you in the bed, against the wall, and in the bathroom where you two were supposed to “shower.” and well while he took you in the shower, it’d occur to you something important…

“happy birthday love,” you say as you kiss his lips. ah right, jaehyun remembers too that it was his birthday now. he smiles into the kiss, feeling your love. a long fucking later, the two of you collapse on the bed, both so utterly exhausted from the night’s activities. the last thing you remember was when he engulfs you into him, pecking your head as your eyes flutter shut.

└───❀̥˚───❀̥˚┘

the sun shines through the curtains, stirring your eyes open. you grumble as you turn to the other side of the bed, prying jaehyun’s hands off of you. you get up to use the restroom as you had the urge to pee.

once you finish your business, you go over to the sink to wash your hands, looking in the mirror. the hickies and love bites all over your body capturing your attention. that dumbass, you thought.

making your way out the bathroom, you notice jaehyun sitting on the edge of the bed. “awake already?” he asks. i smile, “i should be asking you that birthday boy.”

“come here,” he says. “i’m not gonna suck you off again,” i replied. his face saddened, “why not?” “i know you’re just teasing me,” i said. he chuckled before signaling me over. i go over to him, sitting beside him. “how’d you sleep,” he asks, resting his head on my shoulder. “like a baby,” i reply. “how about you?” he pondered for a moment, “the best i’ve ever slept in my whole life,” he answered. i giggled at his response. we stayed like that for a while, his head resting on my shoulder and mine on top of his, in silence before he looked up to kiss my lips. the kiss was gentle and full of love.

he pulls away, “i love you.” i smile at him— i know that you love me, you don’t need to remind me. “i love you too jae.”

soon after, jaehyun gets up saying he needs to use the restroom. i’m left alone in the room, lost in my own thoughts until i hear a phone ping. i turn to the nightstand beside the bed. jaehyun’s phone is the only one there. i inch closer to grab his phone as curiosity took over me.

phone in hand i press on the screen, a message displayed on his home screen. an unsettling feeling set in my stomach, nauseating even. my fingers moved on their own, inputting his pass code. then my fingers tap on the message’s app.

i froze. my heart stopped beating. the feeling of wanting to throw up arising in my throat. this couldn’t be, no what?

yuna…

what was her contact doing in his phone. it didn’t make any sense.

the message he received from her was simple: “happy birthday.” however there were 10+ messages left unopened. once again my finger moved on their own, opening their chat.

my eyes watered until eventually tears came spilling out of my eyes. i couldn’t believe what i was seeing. messages yuna sent over the course of our relationship. from “i miss you” to “i’m lonely, miss you fucking me.” and probably the worst of it, images of her bare and open displayed. i was beyond sick to my stomach.

however, that wasn’t even the bad part. as i scroll further up i found messages in which he had responded to. their conversations disgusted me, how could he do this while we dated? while he whispered to me he loved me? had it all really been nothing but a lie, a play?

“hey baby, how about we- shit!” jaehyun says coming out of the bathroom. he notices your sobbing state, his phone in your hands. he rushes over to you, “wh-what happened baby?” he asks. though as he reaches over to try and wipe the tears off your face, you swat his hand away. he widened his eyes in surprise, you’d never done this before.

you shove the phone to his chest, in which he takes it into his hands. all color drained from his face when he saw what it was that made you like this. “look y/n i can explain,” he starts off but you stop him. “explain what?! how since the start you’ve been cheating on me!?” i replied back in a harsh tone. i begin to get up from the bed, roaming the hotel room in search of my clothes. “j-just please, baby hear me out,” he continued.

“fine, i’ll hear you out,” i said, picking up my clothes. jaehyun begins, “i-i well fuck, where do i even begin,” he groaned, palming his face. you made a sour look, it’s so bad he doesn’t even know where to start, you think as you pull your dress over your body.

“you know when i first approached you asking to fill in as my fake girlfriend?” he starts, but when you don’t respond he continues. “you told me that day that if it was a ploy to get back with her, you wouldn’t do it…” again, he is met by your silence. “well, in truth y/n that was all there was to it. my father didn’t really care if i had someone in my life or not, i.. i just selfishly wanted her back. at the time however i knew she wanted nothing to do with me, so then popped the idea of using you as a means to get back with her.”

“you’re disgusting,” i say, crying all over again. his face showcasing hurt. how could he be the one hurt in this situation, you thought.

“you’re not wrong about that,” he says. “so then when did it start?” i questioned. “the day after we met my father,” he confessed. “that following day i went over to your apartment complex, waiting until she appeared. and well when she did, i confronted her. that day i pleaded with her, and so we spent the entire day together. we managed to clear our misunderstandings, and well we ended up.. in my bed,” jaehyun continued, hesitating to say the last words.

his bed? the very first place we spent passionately together… i couldn’t comprehend it, my heart ached so much it started going numb.

“after that night, we actually never saw each other again. instead we resorted to calling and eventually just texting. it went on for a while actually, in fact a couple months after we actually started dating…” every word coming out of his mouth was another stab to me, hurting me the more he continued. “however… the more time i spent with you, knowing you all the more i began realizing how i’d fallen in love with you,” he confesses. “bullshit,” i blurted out.

“it’s not… please believe me y/n,” he pleads with me. “how could i? why should i? you fucking lied to me jaehyun!” i shouted, every raw emotion coming out.

“fine… if you won’t believe me that’s fine but, y/n i truly did fall in love with you. i love you to this day, this very moment. and since realizing that i stopped answering her, it didn’t matter to me when she’d occasionally message me because all i wanted was you!” jaehyun says.

“love doesn’t mean lying jaehyun.” i watched as he opened his mouth again, but closed it soon after. he knew you were right. “i- i get that i was in the wrong but-” he starts by saying before i decide to cut him off. “enough of this jaehyun, no matter what comes out of that mouth of yours won’t change my mind.”

“wh-what do you mean,” he mutters, his lips trembling. jaehyun feared what you meant by this, he feared his number one fear coming true. that fear was none other than losing you.

“i mean that we’re over.”

your words hit jaehyun like a bulldozer. so hard he almost feels the pieces of his shattered heart. never once in his life has regretted his life, unlike today. he should’ve told you, he knows he should’ve but he was too cowardly to do so. and now he’s bearing the consequences, watching you deeply hurt because of his actions.

when you feel as though nothing more could be said or done, you grab your purse and walked to the hotel doorway. you faintly hear as jaehyun calls out to you, but you try to ignore it. however he grabs one of your arms by your wrist, stopping you just as you were about to open the door.

you turn back, “what?” you say in annoyance. “pl-please don’t leave. just tell me how i could fix things, you-” you interrupt him again.

more annoyed this time you say, “what don’t you get!? jaehyun we’re over! nothing you say or do now is going to change what happened.” he grips you a little tighter, causing you to look up at him. your heart almost sinks as you see him with tears rolling down his eyes like waterfalls. oddly enough you also begin to shed tears.

“p-please,” you plead with him. “just let me go jae. you and i both know this is irreversible.” his eyes soften, causing you to look down. you just couldn’t look at him, it hurt you even more. that was when you noticed the small gift bag in your purse.

his birthday present. you’d forgotten to give it to him. you know that now is not the right time to give it to him, but nonetheless you still decide to do so. taking out the small gift, you hand it over to him. that causes his hand to let go of your wrist so that he’d be able to take the gift in both his hands.

swiftly you grab the door handle, opening the door. you glance back one last time, a frozen jaehyun in the doorway. “goodbye jaehyun,” you say as you walk out. then right before the door closes you hear him say for one last time, “i love you, y/n.”

└───❀̥˚───❀̥˚┘

once you made it inside the elevator you slumped down to your knees, waterfalls of tears omitting from your eyes. you couldn’t believe it, jaehyun… how could he. moments of the two you flashed through your head.

part of you wishing you’d said more, questioned him more. like asking him: “do you see her, in the back of your mind? In my eyes?” but then again part of it felt like it made sense now, why you were always on edge.

as you walked along the side walk, you thought that perhaps this was for the best. i mean everything happens for a reason after all. one day this would be all but just a fleeting memory, a blurry memory i would have no recollection of. i’d hoped and prayed for that.

today. valentine’s day, cryin’ in the hotel… i know you didn’t mean to hurt me so i kept it to myself.

2024.07.13

final a.n: as promised here is the other fic i planned to release 😛!! woohoo, this was a rlly fun one to write, since i deeply enjoy this song that the fic is inspired by. also ngl when i was writing the second snusnu scene i was playing cas new album “x’s” && started sobbing ㅠㅠ . oh pls anyhow i hope u enjoyed this one, it was quite long but felt worth writing 🤍 also! thank u for all the love on “million dollar baby !” i appreciated all the love and support thank uuuu! stay safe yall & love u all very much, jiji out 🤍 [ new fic out next week: expect haechan or doyoung 🤫 ] !

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leonawriter · 3 months

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Excuse me while I basically make Azure Throne into a hakukai fanfic.

This got... really long, and veered off from what I intended for it several times, but is basically at heart as I said, a look at Azure Throne through the lens of "what if we work on the assumption that Hakuba knew it was Kaito from the start, and/or they're actually outright flirting."

Hakuba: Kuroba what are you doing here. Why aren't you even in a disguise- oh, I see. This is interesting.

Kaito: Oh god it's Hakuba he's going to see through me like I'm made of cellophane or something. Please don't call me out here. I am pretending not to know you. Shush. PLAY ALONG.

Kaito: Come on please let one of my detectives have SOME faith in me. Restore my faith in humanity. Take the fucking bait, Hakuba.

Hakuba: Oh, that's. That's... I see what's going on here. That does complicate matters. All right, fine. I'll play along. Because I want to find the truth more than I want you arrested.

Hakuba: [Merely pays more attention to the actual suspects]

Kaito: [internally shouting "THANK YOU."]

Hakuba: We need to know exactly where everyone is, what they were doing, and if you'll excuse me I am going to geek out over science now-

Kaito: Okay well watch me explain in detail how Kaitou Kid (who is Not Me, by the way, in case you needed to be reminded) got in here. And let's conveniently not bring up how no one knows how Shinichi got here and Kid left.

Hakuba: Oh, and I anticipated your entire trick.

Hakuba: Because I know exactly how you work and I also know exactly what your clothes are made of.

Kaito: Wow... you're creepy, you know that? This is why I try and send you off on a wild dove chase each time you're heading to one of my heists.

Hakuba: Isn't it funny how I planned to catch Kaitou Kid that way, and instead I caught you two. I'm sure there's absolutely no connection between either of you and Kid... is there? Kaito?

Kaito: Oh but you know you can't say anything until this case is closed. I know you can't.

Hakuba: This means you too, Kaito. I'll be needing your firsthand knowledge of the way things went, of course.

Hakuba: It'll be good to have another actual detective on board for this!

Honestly I can just leave this one be. Kaito is enough of a tsundere that "But, to think Hakuba came back... he should have just stayed and studied in London forever!" is accurate to what I think he'd be thinking right there.

It also matches with the several times (Dark Knight and Green Dragon especially) when he's personally redirected Hakuba away from the heist.

Plus, with his attachment issues (one parent he idolised is dead, the other is barely home), I think Kaito would have a very hard time dealing with Hakuba, who (like his mother) travels a lot, and is... barely there, really. :(

Hakuba: Now, I wonder if you can keep up as a detective when playing one?

Kaito: Oh yeah? Watch me! Uh... I just need a pointer. That's all.

The interesting thing here is that Kaito has played at being a detective in the past. He's even played at being Mouri Kogoro right next to Hakuba here, in the Twilight Mansion case. However... in that case he wasn't needing to play a smart detective, and in any other instance he wasn't technically a "detective" (Magic Lovers Murder Case, where Katsuki Doito is a medical student) or he knows that Conan is capable of solving the mystery if he gives the right hints (Four Masterpieces, when he's being Takagi).

There's also the time when he played Hakuba himself in the movie Private Eye's Requiem, and we don't know how many times he'd have done that, that we haven't seen.

Point is, though, Hakuba doesn't know how good Kaito's observational skills are as a detective and it feels kind of like... if he knows (and I'm sure he has a gut feeling from the start even if he doesn't have evidence) he wants to know- "I can keep up with you, on your territory, but can you keep up with me, on mine?"

With that in mind, the fact that Kaito's only relaying what Shinichi's telling him must be... frustrating, for someone who'd actually be curious what Kaito can do, and I'm sure Hakuba would want to push Kaito to be able to figure things out for himself as well.

But I digress. Moving on.

Hakuba: [Has just seen "Kudo" flirting and being sentimental with Ran, "his" girlfriend, in a way that Shinichi himself says is so spot-on its kinda pissing him off] Oi. Kaito. I thought you were interested in Aoko. Watch it. [Also kinda jealous himself.]

I freakin' LOVE these two panels. This entire sense of "Yeah Hakuba's got Kaito sussed and he's already got half of what's going on with Conan, and yeah the next thing he does is question "Are you really Kudo Shinichi?" it's because of a potential flawed deduction when Shinichi's supposed to be this perfect saviour of the Japanese Police Force.

And in posing the question in such a way, he's allowing Kaito - master of disguise! - to come up with a cover story. Which, of course, he does.

But overall? It's the sense of... actually, just as I said. Hakuba's going "Shh. I'm talking to [him]! Don't interrupt us, okay?" - He's going "I know you're helping him, but I want to know his capabilities. Not yours."

Kaito just calling his ass out like "Hakuba I know you're obsessed with me- I mean Kid- c'mon I know you better than that~"

Also the phrase "Rumoured to have his eyes light up at the mere mention of Kid" more like. Kaito you have seen that in person.

More like I look at it and I'm like, is this Kaito saying "I Know What You Are"?

I know that it's not just them, but it's this nice little touch of the two of them standing next to each other, while Conan is on the other side of the group, and they're both mirroring the other's posture.

Kaito's already thought to himself how he barely needs to change his voice, and it's easy to imagine him barely changing his behaviours but adjusting so that he's more serious and less playing the clown or showman.

In this case, he's fully paying attention to the case (just as he has in previous ones as a witness) and...

He and Hakuba are on the exact same wavelength, with Hakuba finishing Kaito's sentence here.

Again with the twinning. Kaito has a slightly more clueless look about him, I'd say, but that's because he is out of his depth. Other than that? He's just as much taking Hakuba's lead on the case as he is Shinichi's!

The sheer amount of "Kuroba, your alibi is slipping!"

Hakuba's not going to outright cover for something that might be noticed as a flaw later on, nor is he outright going to call Kaito's disguise out immediately when other things are going on. He is, however, going to tease him to hell and back, push buttons, you name it.

And, of course, Hakuba in hearing Kaito's alibi and seeing Conan back it up, will also know that Conan is on Kid's side here even more than before.

Small and simple observation: Kaito is behind Hakuba.

At this point Hakuba in canon and the Hakuba who knew from the moment he laid eyes on him both know that this is Kaito. It's Kaitou Kid.

The start of the case had the crime get pinned on Kid.

Yet - Hakuba's just fine with Kaito watching his back and/or fully capable of doing whatever he likes behind him, knowing full well that Kaito's a skilled magician who'd be able to hide his actions. The obvious point is that he trusts Kaito.

And then - we get to the Flirtening.

I call it that because in canon it's bad enough, with Hakuba clearly only started making moves on Ran to make Kid slip up.

But in a world where he knows it's Kaito from the start? In Hakukai Fanfic Land?

First off- I'd say that this is actually payback.

Earlier on in the case, Hakuba saw Kaito (as Shinichi) flirting with Ran. Thinking back to the very first set of cases Hakuba ever appeared in, and... he'd walked into class for the first time and seen Kaito being mean to a girl, to Aoko, who was clearly hurting, and then tried to be nice to her by saying, basically, "If he won't take you to the concert you wanted to go to, I'll go with you."

Going on him knowing that this here is Kaito? He'd be seeing Kaito flirting with someone who isn't Aoko, and getting very in character, and... basically going "watch it."

So Saguru is a) defensive for Aoko, b) jealous because oi, why are you flirting with her, when he is right here, and c) using this as a means of poking a hole in Kaito's disguise, because sure he's more interested in the truth than he is in arresting Kaito, but that doesn't mean he's above making life hard for him.

In which case...

Kaito going "What did you say, jerk!!" is just as much "oh shit yeah I'm supposed to be being Shinichi right now" as it is "Hakuba why are you flirting with someone else?"

The reaction would be delayed because a) Kaito knows Hakuba's not interested in Ran, or not interested in girls in general, and b) the sheer amount of "what the fuck is happening. what is going on in front of me here" he'd be feeling.

Because for one thing, Conan's down there making attack dog noises, and for another- d'you think Kaito would just reflexively fall back into poker face if he saw the guy he likes/who he knows is interested in him just easily flirting around? I think that ordinarily Kaito would just be like "eh, that's just Hakuba being Hakuba" but I'm also aware of how fragile Kaito's social connections and relationships often are, as well as the rift between logic and emotion.

After this we have a few different things happening at once.

We have Kaito not having asked which cheek Ran had kissed Shinichi on and gesturing to the wrong one, which Ran instantly notices:

Note that the flashback isn't just for our benefit; we see later on that Ran realises probably in this moment that there's something Wrong with "Shinichi" because how could he forget which cheek she kissed him on?

This being relevant because right before that...

He'd told Ran to not "space out" - but with the weirdness going on between him, Hakuba, and Conan, I wonder if it was actually Kaito who knew he was kind of spacing out here! Like, sure, Shinichi's sending Kaito lines, but in terms of narrative and themes...

And in canon, this is where Hakuba first notices the mike and earpiece that Kaito and Conan are using to communicate. Even in a version where he knew it was Kaito from the start, this would still be where Hakuba realises "Hey, what's UP with that kid?"

Hakuba, in canon: Could it be... that those two...

My headcanon for that is that he was meaning to say "are working together," which is the easiest and most obvious/simple conclusion of his sentence.

Hakuba, in fanfic hc land: Hey, why are they working together? I know I didn't warn him I'd be here, but he could have been working with me. That kid already stole some of my reputation regarding going against you, and now this too?!

Honestly, sometimes I remember the times when Kaito has shown himself able to figure out a trick or even a murder trick more or less on his own or at the same pace as Shinichi, and I see times like this when he's shown as needing a lot more help, and I feel frustrated that Kaito's seeming to be dumbed down a little to make Shinichi look better.

But then, I think about how there's multiple times over the course of not just Detective Conan but also Magic Kaito itself, where Kaito is uncomfortable around murders and dead bodies.

Which then starts to make sense of the times when he relies more on his detectives' wits for things like this; if it's a logic puzzle trick that he can treat as one, then he can keep up. If there's blood and bodies and Someone Died Here, which they did - someone died before his heist could even begin! - then his mind has a hard time, skittering around the unnerving parts and not being able to give the trick the attention it needs.

I'd imagine his thought process goes kind of like "Okay okay so if I could think of anything that'd be really useful (but a guy died a minute ago I was out there and doing normal things and a guy died) yeah but if you don't think smart now it's going to happen again or they won't get caught (oh god what if I can't do it) I have to but-" and... so on.

And back to point, but - Hakuba hasn't really seen Kaito in the direct aftermath of him having seen someone die, when Kaito isn't pretending to be someone else.

Technically, he still hasn't here, because Kaito is Being Shinichi.

Dark Knight had Hakuba arrive on scene late, as Kid was already leaving the scene, and in Twilight Mansion Kid was Mouri Kogoro, so even if his reactions were touched with reality, no one could tell what was Kid and what was Kogoro. Here, Hakuba wasn't the first on scene, and he only sees Kaito once Kaito's had a chance to put his poker face (and a Mask of Shinichi) on.

I'd even say that... this being Detective Conan, we've had a chance to see an entire character development arc between Shinichi and Kaito, even if it is still one-sided and not the healthiest of dynamics. We know that Shinichi's not really going to hand Kaito to the police on a silver platter.

But Hakuba? The irony is that in MK canon Hakuba is KNOWN for calling Kaito with helpful knowledge about his opponent (Golden Eye, infamously) and withholding information that would put suspicion onto Kaito's civilian identity (Midnight Crow, at least). And yet in this heist, because we're a) seeing things from Conan and Kaito's perspective here, and b) we haven't seen what Hakuba would do in this sort of situation before, he seems... more of a threat if he outright found them out than if it were just the police (who they can trick) or Hattori (who Shinichi would be able to shush).

Personally, I believe that Hakuba WOULD have worked with Kaito to come to all of the same conclusions that they came to in canon with Shinichi as the POV. Hakuba's a good enough detective, after all, as we even see him doing this in canon, drawing the same conclusions without Shinichi having to whisper in his ear once.

Is Kaito side-eyeing Hakuba because he knows Hakuba's being a little shit over this but he can't say anything because he can't admit that he knows the guy personally as well as he does? Is Conan flailing because he feels like they've been sussed out?

Or is it more along the lines of "Oh, you think you're so smart, don't you? Soooo clever. Yeah sure, after you've been hounding me all case- but don't think I'll let you have the last laugh"?

And now, I'm thinking of Shinichi hearing some of the familiarity come out in their voices around now, if not before, and he's finally realising "Oh- okay so Kid knows this guy. Not just aware of him, he knows him. Oh. Oh shit."

Fun fact: we do not see Conan again alll the way through the explanation of the fireman's carry that Hakuba is doing with Kaito as his partner. The next time we see Conan, it's after they've pinned the criminal in place.

I find this interesting because... in spite of this being a case that Hakuba is starring in - the guy who is well known for asking "Why did you do it?" - it's the victim's wife who asks that, by way of her "But why did you kill my husband!?" and it's Conan who suggests a potential reason.

In a sense, they've both stolen Hakuba's thunder here, the wife by taking his catchphrase and Conan for taking the words out of the criminals mouth before the guy can admit it himself, in his own words.

(Ironically, Kaito would agree with Conan on this, probably, what with him having said "isn't it your job to figure [motive] out?" but as I've said before, I see worth in Hakuba asking for it in the criminals' own words.)

I feel like both I and other people have probably made all the jokes about the "I've got the stamina to keep carrying you for ages" part that I don't need to rehash it that much, haha.

But I DO have other observations.

Kaito: So, you figured it out, huh... Hakuba: Of course!

Like... even way aside from the fact that Hakuba's probably just internally going "you're SO lucky I like you, otherwise I'd have just pointed out that you just flattened your hair the moment I walked in" there's something this reminded me of.

In the translation here, Kaito trails off on an ellipsis, but... in a way, that's a question. It's literally "So, you figured me out?" except Kaito may well have been expecting it even in canon, so it's no longer a question.

What's the significance of this?

Well.

It brings to mind how Toichi asked "Will you be able to stop me?" and Yusaku said "[Yeah...] of course!"

And of course we know that whatever Yusaku was able to do, it was never enough to stop the legend of Kaitou Kid from growing - and we also now know that he almost certainly knew that it was his brother Toichi right from the start.

In many ways it's meant to show how Kaito and Shinichi have taken up their fathers' mantles and become each other's rival... but this moment of "You found me out?" "Yeah, of course!" shows that Hakuba is just as much Kaitou Kid's worthy rival. He is thematically and narratively Kid's rival.

(And this is where I get my post limit for images, whoops!)

So, yeah. Kaito then has a space of about three [3] panels between Hakuba saying "I know you're Kid" and then Hakuba trying to walk and finding his legs are cuffed together.

I'd also say that in terms of pranks that Kaito (as Kid) has played in order to get out of a Situation, that was... a lot more on the immature roughhousing side than a lot of what he does. So much of his DC appearances relies on... action movie stunts? Stuff that's actually really risky? Because he needs to rely on that. But with Hakuba he doesn't have to. It reads more like play fighting.

(Because Hakuba, he knows, isn't going to attack him with a deadly soccer ball or knock him out midair.)

A thought on why he cuffed Hakuba's legs together like he did even if they're on better terms would also be the easy "Kaito knows that Nakamori is there, knows that Hakuba wouldn't be allowed to carry him all the way to the station, knows that something would go wrong, and almost certainly by this point knows that he shouldn't go out in public as Shinichi. So he's just as much going "yeah nope, not doing that, bad idea on SO many levels" as he is "I don't fancy going to jail today."

And, for an ending note: Hakuba at no point seems frustrated or upset that Kaito got away. Not for one single moment.

If anything, I'd say he's just going "Ah, there he goes again. Look at him go." with a fond look in his eye.

#dcmk stuff #leona rereads dcmk #hakuba saguru #kuroba kaito #this got LONG #hakukai #sort of???? close enough #this is a mess because I started it and then kept going back to it when tired and whoops I'm tired now #so the tone and the sorts of things I picked up on vary massively #hope you all enjoy it though!

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gotta-get-back-to-hatchetfield · 1 year

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Okay so I took some notes during the Hatchetfield Halloween party stream

This doesn't include spoilers for Working Boys (which was actually fucking excellent) and also doesn't include the proposed NMT3 episode descriptions just because I didn't screenshot and I've seen a billion posts of them going around.

Steph's mum's dead, Matt Lang says it's likely something to do with when Solomon Lauter says about the black book 'I'm never touching that book again'.

Nora is the owner of beanies

Melissa is a serial killer in every reality

The black alters constructed by the church of the starry children: Lakeside mall, Waylon place, the highschool, the starlight theatre, CCRP (formerly the site of the Hatchetfield Gazette)

Greenpeace girl's real name is Harmony Jones

Duke's dad was the sheriff of Hatchetfield and was murdered in October 2005 by Wilber Cross

Linda auditioned for Working Boys but was the only person not to make the cut.

Working boys was originally going to be much longer and more complicated and the black book prop was originally commissioned for it. In the end most of that content ended up getting lifted and pulled into nightmare time episodes. The song 'The Summoning' was originally written for Working Boys as the goal was to trick the cast into performing the ritual. This also originally wasn't supposed to happen in Nerdy Prudes.

They're keen to put the brakes on Hatchetfield at some point soon and the next musical definitely won't be Hatchetfield.

NMT2 ends on a cliffhanger because they originally intended to do NMT3 very shortly after to wrap up some of the loose ends.

Doing NMT3 will depend on demand. Writing a season of NMT takes about 4 times the amount of time as writing a musical and If they did NMT3 they'd want to make it even less zoom cally than NMT2 (i.e. have characters talking to each other) which also takes a lot of time and money. They are very keen to do it on a personal level as the arc from NMT2 currently feels unfinished but doing it will depend on demand.

They're keen to do more film style things akin to Working Boys.

Proposed NMT3 episode 'Bottle Imp' was originally planned to be part of NMT S1 E2.

NMT3 would revolve around Halloween.

They originally thought the musical trilogy would start with nerdy prudes must die and have the sequel be 'horny campers must die' (which became absintence camp), the third in the trilogy would have followed a similar plot to proposed NMT3 episode 'Devils night'.

The soldier referenced in the description for proposed NMT3 episode 'Orbweaver' is General MacNamara.

If they ever did another Hatchetfield musical at some point in the future it would be about Miss Holloway and her origins story.

They want to do a Hatchetfield movie at some point, and Working Boys was a test for how well Hatchetfield transfers over to that medium. This would have to be isolated in location and character list to be feasible. Their current thoughts for this would be 'Cast Party Massacre' which would involve a lot of the new characters we met in Working Boys.

#starkid #nmt3 #nerdy prudes must die

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 9 months

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IOTA Reviews: Conformation and Re-Creation (The Final Day)

Well, here we are. The final two episodes of Season 5. It's been a long and complicated journey, so let me get you up to speed on what exactly happened this season, episode by episode.

Evolution: Ladybug and Cat Noir chase Monarch through time, and it's not nearly as cool as it sounds.

Multiplication: Adrien likes Marinette now because the plot says so.

Destruction: Cat Noir accidentally Cataclysms Monarch, and it somehow leads to the most guilt he feels using his Cataclysm on anyone.

Jubilation: Ever want to have the image of Ladybug and Cat Noir being teen parents burned into your brain? No? Too bad!

Illusion: Nino establishes himself as a leader so terrible, Zapp Brannigan would call him an idiot.

Determination: Marinette likes Cat Noir now because the plot says so.

Passion: Nathalie shows she'd rather silently judge Gabriel for his actions over actually doing anything to stop him.

Reunion: Marinette talks with the spirit of Joan of Arc, and it's not nearly as cool as it sounds.

Elation: Someone tries to murder Marinette over ice cream for the third time in four seasons.

Transmission: Yeah, I totally believe you're replacing Marinette and Adrien with two new main characters in the middle of your fifth season.

Deflagration: Because of Tikki and Plagg's terrible decisions, Monarch comes the closest he's ever come to winning.

Perfection: Kagami becomes a giant cloud Akuma, symbolizing her also becoming a total airhead for the rest of the season.

Migration: The writers realize they have no idea what to do with Luka, so they kick him out of the show entirely.

Derision: “How many things do you want to retcon to make this story work?” “Yes.”

Intuition: Gabriel continues to prove how pathetic of a villain he is, even when he has unlimited chances.

Protection: Even after being tricked three times by her, Kagami still thinks Lila is a trustworthy person.

Adoration: “We have Lumity at home”.

Emotion: The episode where Felix essentially commits genocide is somehow also the one where the writers want the audience to start viewing him in a sympathetic light.

Pretension: Felix likes Kagami because the plot says so, and vice versa.

Revelation: Lila only gets as far as she does thanks to Marinette becoming as dumb as the rest of the class.

Confrontation: Our heroes expose the villain's evil plans by spying on them through a bathroom peephole.

Collusion: Remember kids, violent revolutions against politicians are never the answer.

Revolution: Remember kids, violent revolutions against politicians are always the answer.

Representation: To the surprise of literally no one, Felix is revealed to be a Sentimonster, yet the writers still won't tell us that Adrien and Kagami are the same.

Now that you're all caught up, let's get into the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Conformation and Re-Creation

After a brief news report showing everyone enjoying the first day of Summer vacation, Gabriel and Tomoe finally decide to launch “Perfect Alliance”. What does this plan entail? For starters, Gabriel transforms into Monarch, detransforms to akumatize himself into Nightormentor again, gives himself the powers of the Mouse, Rooster and Horse Miraculous in order to clone himself and fly around the globe to spread his nightmare dust. Because just akumatizing Sandboy again and giving him the Mouse Miraculous' Multitude was just too complex of a plan.

Marinette is the first to be affected by the dust, we get a dream where she dresses up as a knight to save Adrien from a cheap recolor of Fang in his dragon form.

This is a weird episode of Super Why.

Marinette defeats the dragon, who reverts back to Gabriel, who is accidentally killed by the fight, causing Adrien to cry since Adrien was watching the whole thing. Marinette wakes up, thankful that it was all just a bad dream sequence. She decides she needs to find out just where Gabriel sent Adrien to make sure he's safe, something that won't make sense as I'll explain later on. As she tries to leave, she keeps experiencing sudden headaches, as do her parents and Alya.

Meanwhile, Adrien is still left reeling from the effects of the nightmare dust from last episode, to the point where he has a panic attack, demanding to be let out. Gabriel, seemingly aware of this, decides to give Adrien the “antidote”, an Alliance ring with an app called “Perfect Alliance”. So once again, despite claiming to do this for his son, Gabriel willingly chose to make his life worse as part of his evil plans. Remember this, it'll be important later on.

Plagg suggests Adrien transform into Cat Noir, but Adrien reminds him that there are cameras everywhere, so he can't risk it. Plagg disables the cameras, but Adrien still says no. Whether he was aware that the robot who was sent to give him the Alliance ring with the new app had a hidden camera is irrevelant, because Adrien gives a different reason why he can't transform.

Adrien: I'm not in my right mind. I'm too angry; at myself for falling short of Marinette's love, at my father for sending me here in London, at this stupid app and these rings that use my image... it makes me sick! This nightmare is giving me the horrible feeling that, if I transform, I'll get akumatized and destroy everything with my Cataclysm. Marinette, Ladybug...

Plagg: Surely Ladybug can help you.

Adrien: If I ask her for help, I'd have to give her information that would jeopardize my secret identity... and I can't.

youtube

Okay, let me make one thing clear. The reason that Adrien can't risk exposing his identity thanks to all the cameras is a good one, and the fact that he doesn't want to risk exposing his identity to Ladybug in particular is a good sign of character development, but the problem I have is the fact that the writers decided to bench Adrien in the first place.

Yes, you heard that right. In arguably the most boneheaded decision in the show's history since... well, a lot of things this season, Adrien, despite being the son of the main villain, isn't going to get involved in the final battle at all.

There are multiple reasons why Adrien staying put in this room is a terrible idea, and most of them involve the fact that almost none of the in-universe explanations for this hold up.

Adrien is being heavily monitored by cameras? We just saw Plagg was able to disable them with ease.

Adrien can't ask Ladybug for help without jeopardizing his secret identity? The fact that he's at risk of being akumatized as is, with or without the Cat Miraculous, will still blow his cover due to Monarch's mind reading abilities (which we saw when Monarch almost learned Luka's secret in “Migration”), so he really has nothing to lose here.

Adrien isn't in the right state of mind thanks to the nightmare dust? Literally every other character who takes part in the final battle is able to either find a way to fight off the nightmares or keeps going while still under the influence of the nightmare dust.

Adrien's ultimate plan to take off his Miraculous and let Plagg choose a new temporary holder? We saw this exact same scenario play out earlier this season in “The Kwamis' Choice”, and things went horribly, horribly wrong.

Do you see why this makes no sense? Even though the show loves to boast about how valuable of an asset Cat Noir is, the writers are bending over backwards to justify keeping Adrien as far away from the final battle as possible, because they know damn well that they'd have to address how terrible his father really is with the reveal.

And the best part? This is basically the last we'll see of Adrien in this episode. Do you want to know how many lines he gets in the next episode, AKA, the final episode of the season? Three. AND THEY'RE ALL AFTER THE FINAL BATTLE.

But we're not done talking about this stupid idea yet, because unlike the other episodes, I have something else to rant about: The writers' commentary. In November of 2023, around four months after the finale premiered, the writers of this show recorded their own audio commentary, and while I don't have the exact translation (if anyone reading this has a translation of this, I would really appreciate the effort), I have seen one post summarizing the things they said, and all I can say is DEAR. LORD. This is not just shooting yourself in the foot. This is shooting yourself in the foot multiple times with Judas Bullets.

Like, it's amazing. We've always speculated just what goes through the writers' heads that makes them come up with some of the strangest ideas to take the story, and now, we have a first-hand account of why these episodes turned out the way they did. For this one moment, they gave about three explanations as to why Adrien was benched for the finale.

Let's start with the first one, Cat Blanc. I know what you're thinking, wasn't Cat Blanc an Akuma from an alternate timeline that our Adrien shouldn't know about? Not according to Melenie Duval. While Adrien's fear of being akumatized is reasonable, Duval claims that he could become Cat Blanc... which makes no sense as A) Adrien's nightmare was of an entirely different Akuma, and B) The aforementioned nightmare dust never informed Adrien of the alternate timeline where Cat Blanc destroyed the world, it just provided him with a nightmare about a similar scenario.

And in case you weren't questioning this woman's judgment, Duval has done on the record to state that her favorite episode of the entire show is “Derision”.

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Our next reasoning is especially stupid, as the rest of the writing team reveal that they had planned to keep Adrien out of the final battle as far back as 2014, nine years before the finished product premiered. Why would they do that? Because they wanted Ladybug to unify with the Cat Miraculous, of course! Sure, you could have just saved this unification for a special or something like that so you don't bench one of your main characters, or you could have at least had Adrien willingly give his Miraculous to Ladybug to unify with in person, but nope. This is seriously one of their defenses— I mean, explanations, for why Adrien isn't allowed to be in the final battle, because they thought it would be more important to give Marinette her 10th new form in three seasons than letting Adrien get some form of closure with his father.

And here's the final reason they gave in the commentary. Remember that dream sequence of Marinette dressed as a knight that was also sort of foreshadowed in “Gabriel Agreste”? Turns out, the writers wanted to, and stop me if you've heard this before, play with the tropes and symbolism of fairy tales. Wow, I've never seen any kind of pop culture do that before... except for Into the Woods, The Princess Bride, Hook, Shrek, Princess Tutu, Ella Enchanted, Hoodwinked!, Enchanted, Tangled, Once Upon a Time, Frozen, RWBY, Ever After High, Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarves, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, and Nimona. But other than those, that's so original!

Even though the writers are acting like they're breaking new ground, do you want to know what they mean by this? They're just doing another damsel in distress situation but this time, Adrien, the boy, is the one who needs to be saved by Marinette, who is, GASP, a girl?! WOW! That totally changes everything!

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Okay, yes, the damsel in distress trope has usually been seen as a misogynistic one due to the fact that the people who needed to be saved are usually women, but like I mentioned way back in my “Gabriel Agreste” review, just swapping the genders isn't enough to breathe new life into a trope as old as this one. It's arguably worse because Adrien isn't just someone who needs to be saved. He's a superhero, and like I mentioned, there were plenty of options to get him out of his room in London.

And I'm guessing that some of you are thinking, “But IOTA! You just want Adrien to save the day by himself because he's a guy!” Just remember that I had this exact same problem last season where the roles were reversed. Remember how I hated the way Marinette's arc about dealing with the stress of being Guardian was hijacked by Adrien complaining about Ladybug not trusting him? This time, we have an arc about Adrien trying to break free from his father's influence that's been hijacked by Marinette needing to save Adrien by herself, robbing him of any agency he had to the plot entirely. This issue isn't about gender. It's never been about gender. I would have the exact same problem if Adrien was the one who confronted Monarch by himself while Marinette was trapped in her room.

This leads to the biggest problem I have with this plot development: It ultimately goes against the core theme of teamwork the show keeps trying to convey. Remember how last season, Marinette needed to learn to let other people trust her? Now, she's going to beat up Monarch all by herself without any help. Remember how last season, Adrien needed to prove he didn't deserve to be left in the dark about everything? Now, he's going to stay all the way in London while his partner gets in the fight of her life. It's detrimental to both of them as characters, and makes everything that happened to them in Season 4 completely pointless.

Okay, now that I've spent five pages ranting about this insane decision, let's get back on track, shall we? As the Perfect Alliance app helps Adrien and Kagami calm down, Marinette sneaks into the Agreste mansion as Ladybug. Meanwhile, Nathalie has her own nightmare about Gabriel winning, AKA, the very thing she could have stopped a long time ago by ratting her evil boss out to Ladybug and Cat Noir.

We then learn just what the Perfect Alliance app really does. Basically, thanks to the technobabble, it helps alleviate the stress from their nightmares. Or, to put it in Layman's terms, Gabriel and Tomoe plan to get the entire population of Earth addicted to cyber crack. We see this affect several of Marinette's classmates, but because Mylene has a sudden disdain for technology that “Was made without respect for the Earth's resources”, she's the only one who sees the problem here. I'd ask why this wasn't established earlier this season, but it doesn't matter, since Mylene gives in anyway,

Because it's a day that ends with a “Y”, Gabriel goes to talk to Emilie's body yet again, and it seems like even the writers realized how tired this got, as Nathalie finally decided to ambush him with a crossbow.

Miss Sancoeur, I served with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I knew Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy the Vamprie Slayer was a friend of mine. Miss Sancoeur, you're no Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Yes, it only took five seasons worth of evil plans for Nathalie to realize just how demented her boss really is.

Nathalie: I can't let you do that... if you make the wish to bring her back, someone will have to go in her place. Emilie would never have agreed to this!

Gabriel: Do you think I'd be monstrous enough to sacrifice a human being?

Uh... yes? That is literally what equivalent exchange means. You really don't know how the wish works after researching it?

Shockingly, the frail woman armed with nothing but a crossbow isn't able to stop someone with superpowers. There isn't even a fight. Monarch just knocks the crossbow out of her hands and she faints. Maybe you should have actually come up with some sort of plan before confronting Gabriel by yourself, dumbass.

Back to Ladybug, she searches through Gabriel's stuff and finally learns he's Monarch... even though she should already know thanks to Felix and Kagami's play last episode. She even looks pretty shocked to see Monarch detransform.

Back to the commentary, the writers justify this with their absurd “Every episode can be watched on its own” rule. Because simply having Marinette say she already knows was out of the equation, I guess. Seriously, earlier in the episode, Tikki (who, along with Plagg, wasn't affected by the nightmare dust for some reason) had doubts that Marinette should break into the Agreste mansion, and it came across like neither of them knew the truth, and this was a reckless decision that wasn't motivated by Gabriel being Monarch at all. Once again, the writers fail to understand the idea of using “Previously On...” segments to help new viewers catch up on what's happening. It's even more confusing when you remember that Tikki knows Adrien is Cat Noir, so his father being Monarch coupled with his sudden absence should be setting off all kinds of red flags in her book.

Ladybug tries to text Cat Noir about who Monarch really is, but chooses not to send it after Gabriel pushes a few of her buttons. Rather than jumping Gabriel while she still has the element of surprise, she only chooses to grill Nathalie for questions once Gabriel is out of the room. And of course, only when she's on death's door does Nathalie tell Ladybug to stop Monarch, but not before telling her to transform back.

We see Gabriel and Tomoe put their plan into action. They create a fake scene of Ladybug and Cat Noir kidnapping Adrien and Kagami in order to rile up the public (who aren't in the best state of mind thanks to the nightmares) in order to for them to use the Alliance rings to transform them into the “Miraculized”. In other words, it's basically “Heroes' Day” all over again. Seriously, think about it. Just like “Heroes' Day”, it looks like Adrien is being harmed by Ladybug in an attempt to push the population to the brink of despair so Gabriel can create an army in the process. Yeah, the public doesn't know the two are the same, but the audience does. Granted, this is a minor nitpick compared to the rest of my problems with this episode, but I hope you can see what I'm getting at here.

Case in point, the reason Nathalie told Ladybug to detransform was because Gabriel has found a way to track her and Cat Noir through their “quantum signatures”. With Cat Noir, it was thanks to the dust from Gabriel's Cataclysm wound, and with Ladybug, it was thanks to the Magical Charm she gave Gabriel earlier in “Gabriel Agreste”... which he shouldn't have since it was destroyed in “Dearest Family”.

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Seriously, this is the season finale. How the hell are the writers still struggling to remember important events like this?

Now's as good a time as any to talk about the Miraculized's design. Yeah, they're pretty lame. They all look like they're wearing fencing gear, and don't look intimidating in the slightest. They also now have the ability to use every Miraculous power at once, which breaks the previously established rules about the Alliance rings in that only one ring can handle each Miraculous power. You could at least argue that the robots used in “Confrontation” had more advanced technology that made them capable of using multiple powers, but nothing has changed about the Alliance rings to justify this. And remember, this is something every Miraculized in the world can use, yet the system hasn't been completely fried, and as we'll later see Monarch can still freely use the other Kwamis' power even when they're being shared with the Miraculized across the world. In fact, how can the Miraculized even transform like this? Monarch doesn't akumatize anyone to spread this transformation. Gabriel just tells to say “Alliance, Miraculize Me!”, and now they can transform. Was this always a function of the Alliance rings? Is there a tiny Akuma hidden in each ring? How the hell does any this work?

Ladybug fights off some of the Miraculized who used Voyage to find her, and remembers Nathalie's advice to detransform. So just like in “Passion”, even though she's still wearing her Miraculous, the system specifically designed to track her down isn't able to find her unless she's still transformed. Marinette runs away to a safe place before running into Plagg, who tells her Cat Noir is out of commission. With no other options, Marinette decides to unify with the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous, turning into Bug Noire, revealing her identity to Monarch in the process, and ending the episode.

Bug Noire's design is admittedly pretty nice. I like the balance of red, black, and green, though the hair is a little too long for my taste. Granted, I still don't get why this is the reason why Adrien can't be here to fight Monarch alongside his partner. I'm just saying, was it really worth it, writers?

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... NATHALIE

Yep, right before the finish line, Nathalie gets her second award this season. After spending several episodes doing nothing but letting herself rot away, Nathalie only chose to finally do something about Gabriel once he was literally about to enact his final plan, thought she could stop him with nothing but a crossbow, and only begged Ladybug for help when it looked like she was about to die and had nothing left to lose.

“Re-Creation”, the final episode of the season, starts off with Lila watching some broadcasts of people succumbing to their paranoia (and she does it while smirking because the writers still don't think we understand she's evil) and transforming into Miraculized while she puts on a new disguise that makes her look like an evil Edna Mode.

How come Lila isn't even affected by the nightmare dust like the rest of the human population? As always, never explained!

Back in the Agreste mansion, Bug Noire and Monarch are duking it out, and we get some pretty creative uses of Lucky Charm, like when she summons a piano to crash down on Monarch. Meanwhile, after Marinette's friends manage to get the Alliance ring off a Miraculized Ivan, we get to see how the rest of the world is dealing with the Miraculized. In Shanghai, the Renlings help Fei through her nightmares, Su-Han has recruited Jagged Stone, Luka, Penny and Fang to the Order of the Guardians instead of actually getting backup like he said he would in “Multiplication”, Present Bunnix finally decides to do something and uses Burrow to sent the Guardians to Paris, while the United Heroez fight off the Miraculized and learn the true nature of the Alliance rings. Just remember, it was too much for the writers to let Adrien get involved in the final battle, yet all these side characters get to do something in the finale for some reason.

Meanwhile, as if things couldn't get any worse, Nino decides the Resistance needs to get involved after reassuring Mr. Damocles that they never give up. Believe me, not much would change if you guys just threw in the towel, especially now that the United Heroez are here, and have Eagle, a member whose powers work as an instant cure for everyone's nightmares. Hey, while we're on the subject, does anyone know where the United Heroez were this entire season? I can excuse Fei as she's just one teenager in Shanghai, but the Americans have a small army of heroes, including the president, yet they just let two violent coups in France happen last week.

As Bug Noire and Monarch keep fighting, Bug Noire comes up with the brilliant idea to Cataclysm the Butterfly Miraculous, only being foiled by Monarch already having Resistance active. Okay, is a side effect of using the Cat Miraculous this season a taste for blood? Why the hell are the heroes so okay with trying to use Cataclysm on their enemies now? Bug Noire then decides to use her Cataclysm for something far more reasonable, breaking the ground beneath her and Monarch. Because I guess Bug Noire is really gunning for Biggest Idiot this episode.

Back with the Resistance, they meet up with the Guardians, United Heroez, and Ladydragon, who have actually been getting shit done. Wow, it's just like that scene from that one movie where all the characters we've come to know over the years rally together for the final battle! What was it called again? Oh yeah, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over.

While the other heroes are overwhelmed by the Miraculized, we cut back to Bug Noire and Monarch yet again, now inside the area where Emilie's body is. The two keep fighting as Monarch tells Bug Noire why he's doing all this, all while Lila breaks into the mansion.

Monarch: I want my wife, Adrien's mother, to come back to us! Once our family is reunited, Kagami and Adrien will become the eternal icons of this world! And we will be here to witness their absolute triumph!

Bug Noire: “Your wife”? “Come back”? “Kagami and Adrien, eternal icons”? How many lives are you going to ruin in the name of your crazy dreams?!

Monarch: As many as it takes! In order to bring Emilie back, someone else will have to disappear! In order to heal the wound that Cat Noir inflicted on me, someone else will have to be wounded!

Bug Noire: Someone else? But who?

Monarch: Anyone! No one matters except us! How about you, Marinette? Wouldn't you give your life for your sweet Adrien's happiness?

Bug Noire: Do you really think that's what he'd want? To discover that his father has turned into a supervillain, willing to make innocent people pay the price of his madness?

Monarch: Adrien would do the same thing!

Bug Noire: Never! Unlike you, Adrien has made his peace with it. He's not living in the past! He has a whole life ahead of him!

Bug Noire: You'd know this if you ever took an interest in him. But in reality, Adrien means NOTHING to you anymore! You've locked him in your house! Locked him in your Alliance rings!

Bug Noire: Locked him into a life that allows you to hide behind him in order to justify YOUR madness!

Monarch: All I want is for him to be happy!

Remember all of this, because it's going to be important soon.

Bug Noire uses her Lucky Charm, and gets a tube of glue. She uses some of it on this random boomerang she found (I'm assuming it's the remains of Nathalie's crossbow), sticks it to her yo-yo, and then throws it at Emilie's coffin. Monarch reflexively grabs the sticky boomerang, and loses all of the rings on his right hand just as Bug Noire uses Cataclysm on the elevator to get to this area of the mansion, with the intent on CRUSHING EMILIE WITH IT. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen! Monarch saves his wife, but because he's distracted, he can't stop Bug Noire from throwing her staff at the Butterfly Miraculous, knocking it off and reverting Monarch back to Gabriel. Bug Noire ties up Gabriel's feet, and when Gabriel tries to sucker punch her with Venom, Bug Noire grabs the hand, threatening to Cataclysm the remaining Alliance rings and the two rings she should damn well know contain Adrien's Amok. Either she's bluffing, or we accidentally got the Paris Special universe's version of these events.

Bug Noire tries to reason with Gabriel, who then breaks down crying, showing how deep down, he just really cares about his family. And even though just six episodes ago, Marinette said that it was very easy for idealistic people to be taken advantage of by others, she buys into Gabriel's last-minute sob story, and wouldn't you know it, he stabs her in the back. Congratulations, Marinette. You just doomed the universe. Even when the Dino Charge Rangers accidentally got everyone on their planet killed, they were at least able to fix it themselves.

It's time to go back to the commentary, where we can learn the writers' true intent for this scene. They honestly believe that both Marinette and Gabriel care for Adrien in their own ways, and the whole reason that Marinette chose to trust Gabriel was to teach the lesson that it's important to talk out your feelings with others... a lesson that fails because 1) Marinette had already beaten Gabriel through violence, 2) Marinette trusting Gabriel backfired horribly, and 3) Gabriel won because he took advantage of Marinette's trust! You can't teach a lesson about trust when for all intents and purposes, Marinette once again lost BECAUSE SHE CHOSE TO TRUST SOMEONE!

Even though he had to unify with Tikki and Plagg to try making the wish in “Deflagration” (I really shouldn't have used the “Great Continuity!” clip earlier), we get yet another retcon this season: Tikki and Plagg have to reveal their true forms. Yeah, I know Tikki's true form was briefly seen in “Dearest Family”, but that doesn't change the fact that Monarch didn't do this when he had the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous in “Deflagration”.

Tikki and Plagg's true forms just look okay. I like the otherworldly theme, but they don't really stand out much. They honestly look more like forms Ladybug and Cat Noir would have than anything else.

It's here that we get the culmination of five seasons' worth of lore. After a brief glimpse of it in “Ephemeral”, Tikki and Plagg, the Kwamis of Creation and Destruction will merge their energies to form their true true form, the Kwami of Reality itself, able to grand any wish asked. This majestic, otherworldly being's name? Gimmi. Just... Gimmi. The commentary claims they're named after an ABBA song, and I wish I was making this up.

Like with Tikki and Plagg's true forms, Gimmi has an okay design. They're just a little too pink for something meant to be a fusion of the red Tikki and the black Plagg.

As Marinette begs Gabriel not to go through with this, Gabriel doesn't think twice about it, and instead, gives Marinette the rings containing Adrien's Amok, along with a request, fully aware that his time is almost up.

Gabriel: Marinette, make sure that Adrien never knows about the villain that I was, but instead, that he remembers the times I tried to be a good father.

Alright, we've finally gotten to the most controversial part of the episode: Gabriel's “redemption”, and I put that term extremely loosely.

Put aside the fact that almost a third of this season was spent telling the audience that a certain character who shall not be named is beyond saving despite working alongside him multiple times for the past two seasons, Gabriel's last-minute redemption falls flat because he doesn't even seem to feel remorse for what he's done. Not once does he actually say he's sorry for what he's done, just how Emilie's death affected him. That's understandable, but he doesn't even seem to acknowledge the weight of his actions or how many lives have been endangered. Remember earlier, when Monarch said he was perfectly okay with sacrificing someone else if it means his family can be happy? Yeah, that never comes back, especially now that him making the wish is portrayed as a good thing when every time it's been discussed ever since it was first explained in “Robostus” just how dangerous actually using it is.

In fact, let's discuss the fact that Gabriel is getting to make the wish in the first place. The whole idea of this basically contradicts Gabriel supposedly realizing he's gone too far. Rather than just having Gabriel give up his quest and let Emilie rest in peace, we're supposed to be happy that Gabriel double-crossed Marinette even when the music is making it seem like it's a bad thing... WHICH IT IS! Once again, for a show that loves to go on and on about how powerful love is, it really loves to show people getting screwed over whenever they decide to show compassion to their enemies. Imagine if in Return of the Jedi, when Luke chose to not give into the Dark Side by sparing Vader, Vader took the chance to kick him in the crotch while he was distracted. That's basically what happened here.

Next, notice how Gabriel specifically asks Marinette to make sure Adrien never learns the truth about who he was, and “Remembers the times he tried to be a good father”. After everything he's done, Gabriel isn't even willing to let Adrien learn about what he's done, because he wants him to focus exclusively on the times he TRIED to be a good father. This isn't the matter of Gabriel missing Adrien's fencing tournament because he had an important business meeting. Gabriel was a literal supervillain who preyed on innocent people in order to obtain absolute power, and he wasn't even a good father to his only kid. He was neglectful, controlling, and in the last few months of his life, spent more time trying to ruin his relationship with his girlfriend for no reason other than because he thought his associate's kid was a better match for him. He was a terrible father, and Gabriel even seems to be aware of this, but rather than find a way to repent for everything he's done, Gabriel is basically going to take the coward's way out by forcing Marinette to sugarcoat his life instead of admitting he was, at the very least, a flawed parent, all so Adrien will feel bad when he finally drops dead.

And yeah, let's talk about how Gabriel assumes that Adrien shouldn't be allowed to know the truth... WHEN THAT'S NOT HIS DECISION TO MAKE. Adrien should be the one to judge whether he believes Gabriel was a good father or not. Of course Gabriel would assume he was a good father despite the numerous red flags, but Adrien is another story. By keeping the truth hidden from Adrien, you're depriving him of a potentially important moment in his life where he finally learns to break free from his father's influence. Instead, even though he's a fucking superhero, we're just supposed to accept the fact that Adrien is just a poor, fragile, sensitive baby boy who can't handle hearing any bad news or else I guess he'll explode. It says a lot when, of all movies, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier did a better job handling an idea like this, by saying that pain is a natural part of life.

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But let's talk about the biggest problem with this turn of events: The fact that it essentially vindicates everything Gabriel has done, with or without the mask, as well as essentially convey a pro-child abuse message. In case you weren't around before I posted this review, I asked my followers who have been victims of child abuse or poor parenting to share their experiences so I could get an idea of how similar they were to what Adrien has had to go through. And a lot of them were pretty similar.

During almost all of what I read from these people, their parents or guardians shared one thing in common: An inability to admit being wrong. All of them tended to either blame their kids for whatever happened to them, or find ways to justify their poor treatment. As far as they're concerned, it's the kid's fault that they're being treated so poorly. And while I'm sure a handful of people isn't enough to survey the entire population of abuse victims on this planet, the fact that some of these people, as in actual victims of child abuse, were able to see similarities with their own upbringings and the way the main villain treats his son and don't buy the show deciding to act like all of that was perfectly okay says a lot about how much this finale dropped the ball when it came to the lesson it wanted to teach.

Yes, from what I've read from my followers and other things online, some abusive parents do believe that what they're doing to their children is out of a warped view of love, but that isn't enough to validate their actions completely, and it obviously doesn't validate Gabriel's actions during the last five seasons. During the entire run of the show, Gabriel has denied his son a normal life, treats him like an object, and despite claiming that he really loves him deep down, he almost never shows it. It seemed like the show was either going to have Gabriel realize the error of his ways due to how fruitless they ended up being, but having him get the upper hand on Marinette at the very last second ultimately makes it so all of his effort, every evil plan, every civilian endangered, was all worth it. And that's why Gabriel's final moments supposedly acting like he's repented for his actions don't work, and why it turned what was initially just a boring finale into one that was beyond infuriating.

And I'm assuming that you're thinking to yourself, what exactly is the wish Gabriel was so desperate to make that he tricked Marinette at the last second?

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We never really learn what kind of wish Gabriel makes using Gimmi, even in the epilogue. I'm also going to talk about this in a later post, but of course Astruc, being Astruc had to give his usual sarcastic remarks to anyone who had the slightest question about what the hell just happened.

I love how someone will ask something like “Do you mind clearing up a few questions I have about the season finale?”, and Astruc will hear what they said as if they just asked, “Is Mylene secretly the reincarnation of the Anti-Christ?”.

So Gabriel makes his wish, somehow reunites with Emilie's soul as he ascends to Heaven... until the angels realize they made a horrible mistake, and send Gabriel to his custom-made Tenth Circle of Hell. Reality itself is rewritten and all of the characters we've come to know over the past five seasons are effectively dead. If that isn't supposed to be a happy ending, I don't know what is.

According to the transcript, it's been a month after the wish is made, we see how Paris has changed since then. Not only has Miss Bustier given birth to her baby, she's also been elected as Mayor of Paris, already passing her first law, the “Eco Rule”.

Miss Bustier: It consists of very simple principles: don't take more from the Earth than what it can give us, distribute its riches equitably and don't pollute more than it can recycle.

Remember when Mylene said that you can't solve climate change with a single law? I guess the writers forgot to recycle that moral too, because despite the vague as hell guidelines, Paris has already adapted to function without plastic wrappers or cars. Just remember, it's only been one month since the wish was made. Even Star Trek needed at least 130 years and a nuclear war before its utopian society could be established. And that's not even getting into the new school she's helped create.

Miss Bustier: In this new school, there will be no classes or struggling to get good grades. Children of all ages will be able to intermix and freely access all kinds of activities.

The fuck you mean “no grades”?! How the hell will that even work?! We're supposed to see this as her being an impressive politician, but it comes across like some grade schooler's “If I were president” essay. And remember, ONE. MONTH.

How else has the Eco Rule been implemented? All of the Alliance rings have been melted down and reforged into a statue honoring... the great hero, Gabriel Agreste.

Yep. This is the ultimate fate of the main villain after five seasons of terrorizing the city of Paris: He gets a fucking statue in his honor. Are we sure this is a victory for the good guys? And no, just surviving the villain's master plan doesn't count as a win.

Even better, according to Adrien, he somehow helped defeat Monarch... even though Gabriel is Monarch, so is Monarch a different person in this world? What about Monarch's previous identities, Hawkmoth and Shadowmoth? Did they still exist in this world? They had to, considering that Chloe and Andre are still nowhere to be seen since the revolution, implying that either she's different in this world, or she also betrayed Ladybug for the same reasons. Nathalie is also back in full health, so did she ever use the Peacock? Was the Peacock ever damaged? We see Felix has it in this new world, but Emilie is still dead, so did she die of different causes in this timeline? Speaking of time, what happened to Bunnix? Did she survive too? Is she aware of the changes to the world like she was in “Cat Blanc”?

To summarize, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?

Adrien is hesitant to wear the ring because he's not sure if he can ever be even half the man his amazing father was. Marinette tells Adrien to be himself while handing the ring to him. So... was this an order? If so, was it intentional? Does Marinette even know what she's doing, or because she's a product of Gabriel's wish, she has to do this without a hitch? In fact, when he made the wish, why didn't Gabriel make Adrien, Felix, and Kagami humans instead of forcing them to rely on rings containing their souls that can easily break?

This scene is a great way to summarize Adrienette this season: The writers trying to write a heartwarming scene while hoping the audience doesn't think too hard about all the uncomfortable things it implies.

After reforging the Miraculous she got back from Monarch, Marinette decides to hand them off. Because fuck it, let's break the temp hero rule while we're at it! Chloe who? Ladybug, Cat Noir, Rena Rouge, Carapace, Viperion, Pegasus, Ryuko, Vesperia, Polymouse, Pigella, Purple Tigress, Miss Hound, Rooster Bold, Caprikid, Minotaurox, Bunnix, and even Argos (despite being the reason the heroes lost their Miraculous in the first place) assemble, ready for whatever challenge the world throws at them. Also, there's no reveal between Ladybug and Cat Noir this season because the writers still want to drag this plotline out, even when there's no excuse as to why they can't now that Monarch is gone.

We then learn who got the Butterfly Miraculous: Lila, who plans to get revenge on Marinette. Yep, the girl who has never even touched a Miraculous in five seasons is going to be Hawkmoth's successor. Not Tomoe (who I should mention never answered for being Gabriel's accomplice), not Audrey, not even Chloe. It's Lila. How the hell did she even get it anyway? Did Gabriel intentionally recreate the world to have Lila get the Butterfly Miraculous, or did Lila somehow retain her memories through close proximity to the wish and--

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Fuck it, season's over anyway. Thank God...

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS...MARINETTE

While I can't say for certain what she did with Adrien is her fault thanks to Gabriel making the wish, I can say a good chunk of the things Marinette did leading up to Gabriel winning are on her. She recklessly used her Cataclysm multiple times in her fight with Monarch, tried to crush Emilie's comatose body with debris, once again chose to gloat about how she was going to take Gabriel's Miraculous instead of just doing it the first chance she got, seemingly forgot Adrien was a Sentimonster, and somehow managed to lose even when she had Gabriel at her mercy.

So, yeah... this finale was terrible, if it wasn't obvious from this review.

It was just a complete trainwreck from start to finish. A good chunk of the first part was spent either ignoring the events of the last episode, or coming up with excuses as to why Adrien shouldn't get involved. And that's not even getting into Nathalie's “redemption”, which only really happened once she had nothing to lose, seeing how she was even closer to dying than Gabriel was. In fact, now that I think about it, why was more emphasis given to Nathalie's declining health over Gabriel? You know, the guy who's enacting his final plan because he's supposedly hours from death, yet effortlessly manages to clone himself, fly around the world as an Akuma, and keep up with Bug Noire when he struggled to enact a plan that required him to leave the lair without traveling around the world during “Intuition”? Given how we now know that the writers wanted the final battle to involve Bug Noire, I'm starting to think they also prioritized her opponent being in top shape while ignoring the Cataclysm wound affecting him.

The second half was mostly boring thanks to just how low the stakes felt. We know where Adrien is, and since Bug Noire was fighting Monarch, there was no danger of them taking her Miraculous, so for the most part, the Miraculized fighting the other heroes just felt like padding. Nobody even seemed to look for Ladybug or Cat Noir, not even the heroes. Of course, then we got to Gabriel's wish. I've gone over this before, but it bears repeating. Gabriel's “redemption” just doesn't work due to how little effort is spent actually making the audience feel bad for him other than saying “His wife is dead, and he's sad, so that justifies everything”. It doesn't help that we kind of had four episodes explaining why some people can't change, and it wasn't used when talking about Gabriel, but rather, Chloe and Lila. Because these writers really have their priorities straight.

The ending of the season itself practically falls apart with how many plotholes and unfortunate implications it has. And before you say that stuff like Adrien once again being left in the dark can be resolved next season, here's the thing: This was planned to be the series finale with how everything feels wrapped up. There's a sense of finality that shows all the main characters getting their happy ending, and we're just supposed to not question the new utopia Paris is now, much less the fact that even after eight years, Ladybug and Cat Noir still don't know who the other is. Even putting that aside, the show has always done a poor job of following up on plotpoints established in earlier seasons, as the lunchroom scene from “Illusion” shows.

Here's a summary of all the lessons the finale teaches: We shouldn't hold terrorists accountable for their actions if they just say they love their family, abuse victims should be constantly coddled and shouldn't be allowed to know the truth about their viewers, it's okay to keep crucial information from your significant other, genocide is okay as long as the person who commits it says it's for a good cause, love for others can easily be taken advantage of, so never trust anyone, genocide is the only way to create an eco-friendly world, environmental protection laws can be passed within a month and nobody (not even car manufacturers) will complain, teenage girls are worse than abusive parents who double as supervillains, and even if it was planned for almost a decade, don't let your main heroine be the one to save the day, but rather, the villain.

If anyone reading this is planning on becoming a writer and is worried that people won't like their work, just remember that there are people who get paid to work on this show.

But yeah, this is how the season ends, not with a bang, but with a nosedive. I was mostly pissed off with how Seasons 3 and 4 ended, but here? I'm just disappointed. This was the finale that we waited eight years for. The epic final battle against Monarch, and rather than the ultimate fight to the finish, the writers came with several excuses to not involve one of the two main characters in the final battle, the other main character fails to actually save the day, and the villain is rewarded for all of actions because he chose to turn himself into a messiah. I tuned into this season to at least see how the story would end out of curiosity, but it didn't even deliver an ending that made all the pointless filler, poor writing, and bad characterization worth it. I started this finale off bored, and I ended up furious for how lackluster this ending felt. It says a lot when this finale has been compared to Star vs. the Forces of Evil in terms of just screwing everything up.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE SEASON IS... MARINETTE

Marinette may not have been able to beat Gabriel in terms of stopping his plan, but she did manage to outdo him in terms of stupidity. Because she got the award four times this season (Evolution, Revelation, Confrontation, Re-Creation), she takes home the title of Biggest Idiot.

And for those who are curious or didn't keep up with my reviews, Gabriel gets second place with three Biggest Idiot Awards (Intuition, Protection, Revolution), we have a five-way tie for third place with Luka (Determination, Migration), Mayor Andre (Adoration, Action), Chloe (Deflagration, Collusion), Felix (Emotion, Representation), and Nathalie (Passion, Conformation), who all got the award twice, and a ten-way tie for fourth place with Alya (Multiplication), Xuppu (Destruction), Mr. Damocles (Jubiliation), Nino (Illusion), Joan of Arc (Reunion), Ice Cream Man Andre (Elation), Kagami (Perfection), Kim (Derision), and Tomoe (Pretension) each getting the award once.

And with that, we're done with Season 5. It's been a long road, but all I can say is...

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At least, until the analysis and ranking posts.

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shooting-love-arrows · 10 months

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I might be cringe-

How about a detective/journaliest reader entering a haunted library or mental hospital or anything? Where the yandere is actually the one who ordered reader's boss to send them there? Or just knew how to pop reader's interest

Dear @mil-vc,

It's not cringy at all. Here's my interpretation of your request. Have a nice day!

@shooting-love-arrows

𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐄! 𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐓 [𝐎𝐂] who lures their darling into their trap

PAIRING: 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 [𝐎𝐂] x [JOURNALIST] reader (gender not mentioned/impled/specified) Tw. another floating red flag, obsessive/creepy behavior, possession, murder (?), rituals, supernatural activities, it takes a darker turn so yeah…

𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

Who became so desperate to interact with you face to face that one day, they decided to possess your idiotic boss. Their plan was carefully thought over and had a clear goal at the end of it. The way there was long, complicated and tedious. It took a lot of energy and effort since they were tied by invisible strings to the place they died. However they knew it would be worth it in the end. After all it was for you. And once they succeeded? 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 decided to use it to its fullest. It was a once in a lifetime chance.

“I summon thee, hear me. I am in need to borrow the body of a mortal. Hear me!” After the last word left their mouth, 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 were blinded by the light. When they opened them again, they successfully possessed the body of your boss.

Who lures you into their trap. After the possession, 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 had no time to waste. Since they acquired quite a lot of knowledge about you. Being a journalist, they knew you treasure your job, were exceptionally good at it and you were a curious little thing too. Taking into consideration all those facts, you basically gave them a solution on the golden plate. But to you, it came as a surprise that your (possessed) boss gives you a job to investigate the supposed haunted gothic mansion.

You shifted uncomfortably in your seat. Your (possessed) boss' stare was unnerving to say the least. His beady eyes were glued to you since the moment you entered his office. You cleared your throat, cutting the awkward silence. You ‘boss’ snapped out of the trace and straightened his back. “I want you to investigate a supposed haunted mansion.” ‘he’ informed you and gave you a thin folder of documents related to the said place. “Our source said that something suspicious is taking place there.” Of course, you accepted it.

Who wants to eagerly welcome you in their 'humble' abode. Well, as much as ghosts can welcome their guests. The gothic mansion might be a bit dusty, the time of its splendor long since passed but still! It was enormous and what matters is what it can become in the future. And his welcome tactic? They like to spook you. It's all harmless tho! Shifting objects around. Imitating sounds like footspes or whispers in your ears. Playing with your flashlight. Those all are little tricks and parts of their personality from where 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 were still alive.

You stepped into another endless hall of the supposed haunted mansion, shining your flashlight around. “Ah!” You jumped back when a wooden chair was tipped back and fell. Like a ripple in the water, the echo of its fall carried around the empty halls. Your heartbeat began to pick.. The longer you stayed there, the more paranoid you became. Something just wasn’t right with this place…Scratch that, everything was wrong with it. Then your flashlight started to flicker. “Oh no, no, no.” You started to visibly panicked and began hitting your only source of light. You even turned to praying to let it work properly again. Thankfully it seemed to work because the flickering stopped. You sighed in relief just as a violent shiver racked your body. You began to regret taking that task. Meanwhile 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 grinned playfully and moved their fingers along your spine.

Who decided to trap you in the said place by manipulating energy to tie to the place. It was another step of their plan.𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 had you right where they wanted you to be and everything was prepared early. Slowly but surely, they began to lead you into the direction of a hidden chamber which was a magic room. And when you crossed its threshold, your fate was sealed.

“I hope you’ll understand what I’m about to do is for your own good. For us to be happy for all of the eternity.”

Who processes to possess you and finalize the ritual. Since they were in the place they were tied to, their powers and energy was much stronger so possessing you came more easily to them. Unfortunately, they couldn’t fully appreciate being in your body. This step was their least favorite part of their plan but it needed to be done. 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 steered your body in the middle of the room and started muttering incantations. They reached for the ancient dagger laying by your feet and raised it to be at the same level as your beating heart. With the last words of an ancient language leaving their mouth, they drove the weapon into your heart. The ritual was completed.

“Welcome home, love.” The news about your dissapearance ended up being on the cover of the very newspaper you worked for.

All of the published posts on this account/blog belongs to @shooting-love-arrows. I do not consent to my works being: translated, stolen, published or reposted on this and other sites. Likes, reblogs, comments are highly appreaciated. Thank you.

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avionvadion · 6 months

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Okay so I made a post before how Lilith might be one of three things- two of which involved her being a Red Herring, one of which involved her working with Eve, and a third with her being a villain duo with Eve. Now I have a different theory, and one I’m leaning towards.

In the Jewish Text and Bible, Lilith becomes a Succubus. A creature of temptation and lust.

We see in the family portraits that Lilith has horns. If Hazbin Hotel is following the lore, then she was probably still transformed into a Succubus. But, we also know that, in Hazbin Hotel lore, those who become demons take on traits based on their souls. (Ie, Angel Dust and his family all being spiders due to their mafia family’s “web of crime”.) So if this applies to Lilith as well, since she fell from humanity, there has to be a reason for WHY she became a Succubus specifically.

My theory: Lilith approached Lucifer first. She seduced him to escape Adam, and fell into lust. Maybe she loved him, maybe she didn’t.

(And yes I know the creator said they were madly in love, but that was also back when we only had the pilot and when we thought Lucifer was an asshole instead of an adorable duck obsessed dad who’s trying his best.) (It could also just be the creator trying to trick everyone so as to make the twist a bigger surprise; some creators do that.)

Unlike Lucifer, who fell into despair, Lilith thrived in Hell, her songs being the reason why everyone sings. She wanted an escape, Lucifer was her way out, and I’m absolutely convinced it was her plan to feed Eve the apple.

I also think she gaslit Charlie- a lot- because in the first episode Charlie says that “saving her people” was her mother’s dream, believing her father to have just “allowed” the extermination. But we later find out Lucifer fought to have the Hellborn protected, and that he once tried to do exactly what Charlie is doing now and redeem Sinners. But he failed.

Whether or not Lilith eventually fell in love with Lucifer, I’m convinced their relationship started as Lilith trying to use Lucifer, and when his ideals began to deviate from her own, she took that as a sign and “split” from him. (As Charlie has said in episode five). Lilith lied to try and create enmity between the father and daughter, probably so Charlie wouldn’t continue what Lucifer started, as that would go against Lilith’s ultimate goal (most likely a Rebellion against Heaven, if we go with the posters seen in the pilot) but evidently failed.

Lucifer still wears his ring because he’s still in love with her, but to Lilith he was most likely a means to an end and being with him no longer served a purpose. Now Charlie is standing in the way of Lilith’s goal, having successfully redeemed a Sinner.

And what are some of Lilith’s many titles in the old texts and bible?

“”A breeder of evil spirits” and “a child murdering monster of the night”.”

As a special mention, one of Eve and Lucifer’s punishments were this; “Enmity will be born between you and her, between her offspring and yours, and they shall bruise your head and your offspring shall bruise their heels”.

So Lilith is definitely going to be a complicated character, whereas Eve will be more the result of God’s will/punishment.

Anyways, this is all to say that I support both women’s rights and women’s wrongs, and as much as I’m obsessed with Lucifer I would absolutely adore a (potentially villainous) Lilith who is doing fucked up things for a misguided/believes she’s in the right kind of reason.

#Hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel theory #hazbin hotel lilith #hazbin hotel lucifer #hazbin hotel spoilers #hazbin hotel eve

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heaven-is-in-your-arms-series · 9 months

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The Romance of Inao

The story of Inao originally comes from the Javanese and Malay Panji stories, centered around Prince Panji and Princess Kirana.

The stories have spread throughout SouthEast Asia and they have their own versions of the tales with different names for the characters.

I am going to focus on the Thai dance drama version where Prince Panji is called Inao.

Brace yourselves, this one is long and complicated and a lot of information is not easily available in English so it's not as complete as I would like it to be but here goes.

Inao is the son of the king of Kurepan

Bussaba/Kirana is the daughter of the king of Daha

At birth they are betrothed to each other

When Inao is 15, his grandmother passes away in the kingdom of Manya.

The kings of Kurepan and Daha send him to represent them at the funeral.

In Manya, Inao meets and falls in love with princess Jintara.

After the elaborate funeral celebrations are over, he wishes to stay in Manya with Jintara.

But his father orders him home and Inao leaves, after sending a lovelorn letter to Jintara.

At home in Kurepan, his father decides to speed up that marriage! (Clearly sensing trouble.)

But Inao refuses to go along with this plan and goes off hunting.

Having left the palace, he takes on a disguise, along with a few loyal followers and after an encounter with a bandit, he acquires two captured princesses.

They all head to Manya where the king happily welcomes him and Inao makes Jintara his wife.

Jintra, clearly drunk on love, decides to magnanimously invite the two princesses to be Inao’s concubines (polygmy was standard in this time.)

Inao’s father orders him to return home and marry Bussaba but Inao send’s word that he is no longer willing to go along with those plans.

The king of Daha felt slighted and angry and Bussaba too, felt shamed by Inao’s actions, although at this point, they had never actually met each other. (Can you guess what is going to happen?)

Rather recklessly, the king of Daha decides to marry her off to the next person that asks and the king of Joraka, famously ugly, promptly proposes, much to the King of Daha (and Bussaba’s) dismay. Unable to back out of his rash declaration, he reluctantly accepts the proposal.

But, plot twist, the king of Kamang Kuning ALSO wanted to marry Bussaba, because unlike Inao, he knew what she looked like and he was prepared to fight to have her.

Daha Vs Kamang Kuning

Fight!

The King of Daha was obliged to ask Kurepan for help (which must have sucked) and Inao was ordered to go to Daha and help the king sort out this mess since it was all his fault for backing out of the betrothal.

Jintara does not want Inao to go, fearing the worst but Inao decides that this is one summons that he cannot ignore. Perhaps a twinge of guilt at work there too. He promises to return though. (do you think he will?)

(now in SOME versions, an alternative situation occurs where poor Jintara is tricked away and murdered and Inao goes mad with grief for a time before finally regaining his senses when his original intended comes to save him. In this version poor Jintara is usually a commoner and so, sadly, easily got rid of.)

Inao rides in to the rescue and kills the king of Kamang Kuning.

Entering the palace of Daha to celebrate, he finally comes face to face with Bussaba.

(I like to imagine a Bollywood slo-mo moment here, where a mysterious wind blows Bussaba’s hair back from her face, as their eyes meet and a song starts to play.)

He instantly falls in love and realises what a MISTAKE he’s made. (It’s really all your own fault Inao. Minimal sympathy right now.)

I particularly enjoy the accounts where he is standing by Siyatra (Bussaba’s brother) when he spots her and he is so overcome with passion that he repeatedly kisses her brother, mistaking him for her. (Ok, Inao, you tell yourself that.)

The King of Joraka was ALSO on the way to help Daha but he arrived too late to be of any assistance. (Ugly and useless!)

Inao was now desperate to prevent Joraka’s marriage to Bussaba and the king of Daha was sympathetic but he had already given his word. (Unlike some, he doesn’t renege on a promise.)

Beach holiday filler episode time!

Ok, not really but the king of Daha and his wives and followers decide they simply must climb the mountain Wilismara to make offerings and worship to the Buddha image there.

Madewi, the king's second wife, suggests that Bussaba go and ask the image about her fate. Using lighted candles to decipher the Buddha’s message.

She lit three candles, one for Joraka on the left, herself in the middle and Inao on the right.

Bussaba asks the sacred image to extinguish the candle of the person who is not her soulmate.

Inao had secretly followed her and overheard this conversation and he plays a trick, pretending his voice is that of the god’s and persuading Bussaba and Madewi that Inao is her true soulmate.

He sends his follower Prasanta to drive out the bats and extinguish the candles and the darkness he finds and embraces Bussaba.

Madwei is furious about this (Bussaba less so,) and she argues with Inao who has the audacity to claim that he never refused Bussaba. (I think your dad has a letter suggesting otherwise buddy.)

Inao reluctantly hands Bussaba back to Madewi but asks Bussaba for a piece of cloth from her clothes, to hold when he is missing her. (smooth.)

What comes next is a cycle of adventures where the lovers are separated and have to search for each other before they are eventually reunited in a happy ending but they are not all told in the Lakhon Nai dance drama.

In many versions, Bussaba has to temporarily take on the disguise of a man and she has an active role in trying to help rescue Inao.

In a Javanese version, a demon takes her place and pretends to be the princess, called Candra Kirana in this story and the real princess appears at the court, disguised as a man to win back her man.

#man suang fic inspiration #apo nattawin #khem #thai culture #thai dance #thai literature #Indonesian culture #panji cycle #man suang meta #dance #traditional dance #thai dance drama

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frost-eyed-autumn · 6 months

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Homecoming || starsburned

@starsburned

Standing outside of here now was a weird feeling. It wasn't as though he'd ever been to this place before - Dazai's place, the one he'd taken up in after leaving the Port Mafia. He'd never once visited it or even given it a glance, hardly even knowing it existed. Even when he did learn about it, he never made a point to come by.

Yet, standing here now was surreal in a way. The Black Lizard and a scattering of their men were on standby elsewhere, watching and blocking off every street and alleyway leading in and out of this city block, to make sure no one they didn't want could get through while the two of them worked. Not the police, not civilians, and certainly as fuck not the ADA.

The latter was highly unlikely at this hour anyway. The deep hours of night had always belonged to the Mafia; that never changed. Once morning hit, it wouldn't matter if they knew. Everyone here would be long gone with a job well done.

But...

"You're really sure about this?"

Dazai, dressed to conceal his identity as just another Port Mafia grunt, stood beside him. Chuuya's hands were shoved into his pockets, his coat customarily hanging off his shoulders with the sleeves dangling loose.

They'd discussed it at length ; Dazai's leaving the ADA. More importantly, faking his death so that he could do so without hassle. They didn't need those Agency toddlers getting some kind of bullshit in their minds about staging some rescue operation over something that was inevitably Dazai's choice and Dazai's choice alone. As much as Chuuya would deeply enjoy the Agency giving him an excuse to crush them, he knew better than to instigate anything if it wasn't on Mori's order.

Everything was set to make this night happen. They'd discussed every step at length and how to make it look convincing. Both Dazai and Chuuya had plenty enough experience killing people, so it wasn't hard to imagine just how a murder scene should look.

The biggest complication in all of that would be potential civilian witnesses, which was the largest hole in their plan they would have to cover, and the part they'd spent the longest discussing, but they'd come to a reasonable way to handle that too.

"You know, once this is final, there's no going back. I have no doubts the Agency would be fine taking you back and I'm sure you could come up with a convincing excuse for your absence if you ever decide you liked being with them better after all,--"

After all, the Agency were soft and, frankly, gullible. If Dazai fabricated some story about how he'd been attacked and taken prisoner or held against his will, likely they'd believe it. It wouldn't be hard to trick them into letting him come back with few, if any, questions.

"--but the Port Mafia isn't going to let you get away with betraying them twice. Matter of fact, I'd hunt you down and kill you myself, for real this time. You'd better be absolutely certain this is what you want."

#t: Homecoming #starsburned #Main verse #ic #I Hate Everything About You || Dazai

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em-dash-press · 1 year

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Why Writers Use Red Herrings

If a teacher has ever tried to explain an English reading assignment to you before, they’ve likely called something a red herring. Google that term and you’ll see a fish. It’s also a term for a literary device.

These are a few things you should know to use them in your stories.

What Is a Red Herring?

The term “red herring” first appeared only in conversations. People used it to describe a herring fish split lengthwise down the middle (kippered) because it smelled extra bad and looked red. They also called a fish a red herring if it was cooked a certain way because the final dish also had a strong smell while retaining some red coloring.

Literary experts note that it appeared in the written word first in an early 13th-century poem. It was just used to describe a red herring, which likely meant the herring was split lengthwise as well.

The first use of it being anything other than that was in 1981. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable recorded the phrase as drawing attention away from the main issue with a secondary issue.

No one’s really sure exactly when it became a method of distraction, although there’s a long-running story that trainers teaching hunting dogs would use a literal kippered herring to draw dogs away from whatever scent they were chasing. Back in 1599, a writer mentioned this use of red herrings and praised its effectiveness.

People have generally used it as a literary term ever since.

A red herring is a plot device that distracts the reader from the actual rising action or mystery.

You don’t need one in every story. They’re mostly effective at making the reader think they’ve figured out something essential to your plot, so they’re best in mystery genres. However, there are a few times you can use them to trick and surprise your readers.

Moments to Use a Red Herring

When You Want Your Reader to “Figure Something Out”

Mystery writers have a common goal: reveal the answer to their plot’s primary mystery at the time of their choice. Readers who solve the mystery too early don’t get to savor the rest of the story as much because there’s less tension.

You can use a red herring to make the reader feel like they know where your plot is going, but it’s all a distraction. Don’t plan on writing a story no one will solve early—there will always be a few sharp readers who can put your clues together. However, you can delay the big reveal with a red herring.

Example: Your protagonist is trying to figure out who stole their bike. You introduce a side character who mentions being jealous of the bike and learns to ride after it gets stolen. The reader will think this side character is the thief, but your protagonist finds out it was their own best friend who knew the code to their garage.

When You Want the Reader to Feel Surrounded by Potential Answers

Consider your favorite mystery book, show, or movie. You probably tried to solve the mystery before it ended, but you had a handful of people that could potentially have caused the inciting incident.

That’s because the writer purposefully used multiple red herrings. It makes the reader spin in circles as they try to guess how your story will end.

You can use this option if you feel like your plot is too obvious. Multiple red herrings complicate things if your herrings have good enough reasons to potentially be the bad guy.

Example: Your protagonist’s great-grandfather is found murdered in his isolated cabin. They search for clues to find the murderer by talking with everyone who knew him. Some relatives would stand to gain from their inheritance, while others have reasons to seek revenge. Your protagonist isn’t sure who the murderer is until the last minute when the same person tries to kill them for getting too close to the truth.

When Red Herrings Don’t Work

When the Individuals Have No Motive

You wouldn’t suspect someone of a crime if they had no reason to commit it. Readers won’t try to pin a mystery on a character without a good motive. Make sure you know the specific potential motive for each red herring before writing them into your story.

When They Feel Too Obvious

The point of a red herring is to hint at a possibility. Your reader won’t guess an incorrect answer to the mystery if it’s too obvious.

Example: Your protagonist talks to their cousin to find out if they could be the one to have killed their great-grandfather. The cousin says, “Yeah, I hated his guts. I had a million reasons to kill him. Too bad it wasn’t me.”

This is too direct. The cousin is all but admitting potential guilt. In real life, the protagonist would get suspicious (encounter a literary red herring) if the cousin was shifting on their feet, not making eye contact, and responding, “We didn’t really get along much. There was some troubled history there, but I wouldn’t ever dream of hurting him.”

The words are less direct because they sound like something an innocent person would say. The body language and an indicated tone of voice make this character a red herring because it’s translating as guilt. If they continue doing things that make it seem like they feel guilty, the cousin will be a stronger red herring.

When You Don’t Know Your Overall Plot’s Direction

You won’t be able to mislead people if you can’t confidently lead them to your story’s ending. It’s crucial that you already know who your primary antagonist is before writing red-herring characters or elements. Try making a plot map or outlining your work in other genres to practice for your future mystery tales.

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Anyone can learn how to use red herrings by understanding what they do and when to weave them into your plot. As long as you know what your big reveal will be at the end of your story, you can use red herrings to keep your readers on their toes and help them enjoy your work more.

#red herring #literary devices #writeblr #writers of tumblr #creative writing #writing tips #writing help #writing advice #writing inspiration #writing #writing community #writing resources

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13eyond13 · 11 months

Note

If you don't mind, can I ask something from Death Note? What do you think are Light and L's greatest personality strengths and weaknesses? Why? What do you love about their dynamic? Sorry if you've answered these questions before.....

Interesting question! I'll just give a few for both of them: LIGHT'S STRENGTHS: He's extremely good at being patient and keeping calm under ridiculous amounts of pressure, actually. We often remember him for his explosive tantrums, but when you think about it those are pretty rare and usually when he's literally experiencing something that could genuinely see him exposed as the world's worst mass-murderer + get him the death penalty for it.... pretty hard to come up with any bigger stakes than that. I love watching him walk through the methodical steps of his plan and talk himself down from the panic ledges he often finds himself on. He's often so good at thinking ahead and typically makes pretty smart judgment calls (unless his ego kinda trips him up) He's also good at being flexible and utilizing the people/things he's surrounded with to suit his needs and help him achieve his goals. He repurposes many of the things he already owns to be good hiding places for the notebook, for example, and he allows stuff like Misa to become his partner because it was the best solution for his overall goals, even though he clearly didn't think she was actually his ideal romantic match. He's a weirdly pragmatic guy in spite of all his idealism and fussiness about the particulars of his "brand"

He's got time management and organizational skills up the wazoo. All that top student in Japan prep school stuff definitely helped him maximize his "saving the world" and sneaking around kinda schemes. He's good at reading people and figuring out what they want/like and then trying to be that for them. Obviously a strength when it comes to charming and persuading other people to do what he wants and to see things from his POV. LIGHT'S WEAKNESSES: I think he's deathly afraid of making mistakes or disappointing his family or having to consider himself one of the evil people that he grew up thinking were the irredeemable scum that the world would be better off without. He's also got a pretty inflated and fragile ego that is easily bruised by somebody treating him as inferior or mocking him or teasing him in any way. I think partially he's that oversensitive about things because ON SOME LEVEL he really does feel incredibly guilty about what he's doing as Kira, so he reacts with wild lashing out whenever somebody voices those things about him that he's so adamantly refusing to consider or believe. THE TRUTH HURTS, as they say. He's empathetic to a point, but certainly has a sizable cruel streak and seems to enjoy watching other people suffer and die whenever he's the one deciding that they defied him or got in his way as well. And I think the privileged lot in life he had and his young age and the particular family he was born into up makes it so he has a lot of naive blinders on about the complicated reasons things are the way they are, and gives him a very over-simplified black and white version of right and wrong that he sincerely believes he knows best about and can forcibly slot the entire world into for the betterment of all of mankind.

L'S STRENGTHS: -he's really good at marching to his own beat, so to speak? His independence and his seeming indifference to how other people view him or whether or not they approve of him can often help him achieve results that a more compromising or people-pleaser personality probably could not -HE NOTICES ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. Could definitely put "keen attention to detail" on his resume as one of his big strengths lol -He's great at utilizing the element of surprise. Always has a trick or two up his sleeve, and probably an excellent poker face too - He's pragmatic as hell as well, and I think this helps him make tough judgment calls and remain mentally flexible in the face of big shocking twists and so on whenever he needs to be L'S WEAKNESSES:

-He can be very unsympathetic and blunt to other people during sensitive situations at times, which definitely stresses and offends the people he's relying on, sometimes until they feel like working with him is either not possible or a bad idea -He is so competitive and stubborn and caught up in being right that I think it can sometimes cause him to bite off a lot more than he can chew and get himself into very sticky situations and dangerous messes -He's not very flexible about things like his own routine or habits, which also probably adds to him being quite difficult to work in a team with. He's probably extremely used to working alone and being kind of spoiled and catered to in whatever ways help him personally work best WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THEIR DYNAMIC:

I love how much they're both like. Clearly not very romantic or warm and fuzzy people, yet they both appear to be ridiculously drawn to each other and fascinated by each other, seemingly somewhat against their own wills too hahaha. They literally just become attached at the hip nearly the instant they first start interacting, and neither one of them can barely spare a thought for anybody/anything else the entire rest of the time. They're just really funny together in a chemistry sense, too. I think their senses of humour and senses of fun have a lot of similarities, as well as their not-so-secret senses of superiority about almost always being the smartest person in the room / winners of everything they try. They have fun similarities but also fun differences as well - I love how Light's sort of like the popular social chameleon idealistic optimist and L's sort of the mysterious lone wolf cynical pessimist, and Light's sort of slick and organized yet secretly unhinged and L's sort of shabby and chaotic yet oddly refined. IDK they're just the funniest pair, I think they go together so naturally and so well hahaha

#l lawliet #light yagami #lawlight #ask #anon #p

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jackietorrance · 2 years

Text

Idiotic Designer

Wednesday Addams x Designer!Reader

In the middle of the semester, a dead soul girl had arrived, who caught the attention of anyone who was in the same environment and with you could not be different.

It was in another botany class that you saw the girl of so many rumors about attempted murder, this only contributed to getting your attention even more, maybe she could help you?

You were sitting together with Xavier at the same table, just waiting for the beginning of the class, but when the Gothic girl penetrated your field of vision, you knew what Xavier wanted. Another thing you knew was how much Xavier was different and smiling when Addams had enrolled in Nevermore, and you wanted to give a vote of confidence for him to have his initiative, so he soon got up and went to sit down with his ego friend who had his neighboring seat vacant.

But Xavier kind of didn't know how to take advantage of the moment, since your vote was instantly extinguished when Addams kneaded his drawn spider, one of the thousands of stupid tricks he had with him.

During the day of inclusion, you had been given Xavier's task, since he got sick and you were stupid enough to cover up your presence with some of your skills stolen from metamorphosis.

You were walking to Weathervane, since today you should be an employee of the place, it was not so complicated to locate in the environment since you had a strong friendship with Tyler Galpin. Both had more in common than they imagined.

It was on your walk to the cafeteria that you saw Wednesday talking to Enid about something, you resisted the desire to follow her to find out what you would do, since inside the mind of the little gothic, there was something that no one could ever understand, it fascinated you.

When you arrived at the scene, your task was just to serve the clients, as a helper for Tyler. But when the door bell rang again, you hurried to answer and come face to face with the Addams girl whose name you discovered to be Wednesday. Wednesday Addams.

"Good morning dear, is there anything I can be useful to you?" You said with the same cheerful face as always, that to her it sounded like pathetic.

“Tyler.” Wednesday said, dead.

“Unfortunately Tyler can't answer at the moment, can I help with something?" You commented, your smile becoming something mocking and your eyes shining red

"Pilgrim Temple, where is it?" Wednesday said introducing you to a map.

“Uh yes, he stays.." you say trying to find the exact location. "Here" you say and then look both sides trying to find some other presence in the place.

"I can take her," you said looking for some sign of affirmation in Wednesday's expression.

“I can get by on my own”

“Oh come on, I can help you, I also have a powerful little friend with me" you say and then half of your head is wrapped in a black goo, affectionately nicknamed "Zembluz", but you return to normal quickly, since no kind of demonstration of your abilities was allowed on this damn day.

Wednesday just continues with his look without any emotion in him.

“Please, my Hera, your nicknames for Wednesday

Wednesday turns and walks hurriedly to the door and looks at you again.

“We do not have much time”

You just smiled at her, according to the plan

“And here it is, it's like a house for me." You said removing some leaves that covered the passage.

Wednesday walks silently, a small hand being kicked out of his backpack. Then you follow Wednesday and enter the small fence, decreasing to only a small ball of gum that crawls all over the place and stops on top of one of the rotten boards of the place, soon returning to its original shape.

“Don't you have the like, the visions?" You ask

“They don't happen when I want, they are involuntary, and I venture to say that someone, or rather, something told you about it" The Gothic says threatening, giving a quick look at the appendix that followed her, like a pet.

“Me and the little guy have had several conversations, about us and about... you." You murmur and before Wednesday does something, a noise is heard up close. You quickly turn into the small mucus to prepare for what comes, although you know about everything, you would like to keep the fun of the mystery for Wednesday.

But when an old man, who looked like the "resident" of the abandoned cabin, appears, you relax and wait for Wednesday commands.

“Thing" the dark girl orders, and well, the appendix knew how to make the old man not bother for a while.

When Wednesday was about to cross the wooden gate, she slid to the ground quickly, and you were fast enough to hold it. And that's how it happened, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 1 hour and Wednesday woke up. You were sitting, leaning on one of the boards with a part of Zembluz transformed into an umbrella that you used to cover Wednesday, which was leaning on the floor, with your legs doing like two walls to protect it from anything.

With Wednesday's abrupt liftings, it ended up waking you and Thing who seemed so relaxed in the middle of all that rain.

“Whoa! Wednesday! Are you okay?" You hurried to get up and help Wednesday, after all, she had fainted at once, and you logically worried.

“Here- I know what happened” Wednesday held the umbrella in his hand and took it. You followed her hastily and well, Wednesday owed you a story after all that.

After that day, your school life has changed, now, you have officially become a kind of partner for Wednesday in your investigations, now you spend more time with Wednesday than with your own best friend. Tyler had mysteriously disappeared and the murders of the monster continued incessantly, his cycle of friendships also changed, Enid and Eugene got closer to you, and Zembluz found a partner besides you to talk to.

“If in Rowan's mother's view it showed Crackstone, it is obvious that he will revive, that's clear, but how is he doing? Each part that the monster took from his victims forms the basics of a body, like Frankestein." You spoke to Wednesday while she read the book that Fester had shown her, and in the end, you served as Ali Nanny who has her queen as Wednesday.

“The monster is controlled by his master, and is faithful to him, I doubt that in Jericho he has some kind of resurrection technology, all this happens here." you just nodded.

In all this time of investigation you had begun to develop feelings for Wednesday's advanced intellect, his talent, his beauty, his murderous aura, but you were afraid that when the monster was captured she would completely forget about you.

You already knew that you had fallen madly in love with her, and the tendency was only to get worse, another thing you knew was that Wednesday would not get involved with absolutely anyone, but despite wanting all this mystery to continue, your desire for Wednesday's satisfaction spoke louder.

So despite being reluctant, you had to talk about everything, absolutely everything.

——————————————————————————————————

Hi ladies and gentlemen, English is not my main language, so I apologize if something is wrong. Thank you for everything

#netflix wednesday #wednesday addams x gender neutral reader #wednesday addams #wednsday addams #wednesday netflix #wednesday addams x reader #wednesday #Wednesday Addams x FemReader

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yurtletheturtlehenderson · 2 years

Text

How You Met THE SPARROW ACADEMY:

PAIRINGS: Sparrow Academy x Genderless!Descriptionless!Reader

FOLLOW UP TO: How You Met - The Umbrella Academy

A.N: we need more sparrow content ASAP. I fell quick and I fell hard

WARNINGS: Quick and minor mention of a bus crash (under Marcus tab), varying degrees of content for each character, me borrowing a villain from the comics I don't know shit about other than what i read off of TUA Fandom Wiki, and me still getting the hang of this format and writing and just having fun and being silly with it more than taking it seriously

LINKS: main masterlist || sparrow masterlist

MARCUS HARGREEVES:

Ahh Marcus 😍

He's really just so... 🤩😍🤪🥰😚☺️😅😘☺️🤩

Yeah

Oh my gosh seriously, theres a reason he's number one and it's because he's the biggest dork

You knew a thing or two about putting up about three different kinds of walls until you could hardly recognize yourself, what with you basically being the Lila of the Sparrows

It's complicated how you met but also, not in the slightest

True, there was only one Handler and the only kid she ever "had" was Lila

But she wasn't your mother, she was your boss

One that you only ever met once or twice, but you can hardly remember it, it was so long ago

You were recruited by her, however, at a unusually young age annnndd long story short, you quit

Working for an organization out of time sounded cool, and was. For about 2 (non)minutes

Then it just got depressing and way WAY confusing and downright dangerous

It took so many (non)years to plan an escape and then another two or so to actually put it into action and escape

Nothing unusual, you were constantly jumping from year to year, place to place, never staying one place too long. (Kinda like couch surfing! Time surfing if you want to put it that way)

It went off without hitch, your little plan, and had been going fairly smooth for what you perceived as about four or five years

Then said "pitstop" in good ol' 2009

That's when your path collided with the Sparrows

And when it did, you crashed

No literally, there's a literal crash involved

It was definitely something that happened by total chance

And yeah, you could argue that's how most things are, but, hopefully you get what I mean

Like, it's crazy how you just happened to forget something when you left for your walk for work and decided you had time to go around the corner and get it. Crazy that you had just enough time to catch the next bus

And that next bus just so happened to be the one that got caught in the crossfires of a Sparrow vs Villain of The Week fight

Thankfully nobody was seriously hurt, but there were a great number of close calls

You being one of them

And you had Sloane Hargreeves to thank

In a spur of the moment as you were fleeing the bus with the rest of the crowd, she pulled you lot from across the street and out of harms way

When the fight had died out, the weirdo supervillain calling himself the Murder Magician was taken away (his sidekick, the assistant as well) And the Sparrows were swarmed with press and thankful citizens

You think, because of this, it'd be virtually impossible to get any face time with the famed sparrows, right?

Wrong

Again, it's crazy how you just so happened to be trying to make a beeline out of there (what? being on the run meant blending in, and you couldn't very well do that from here) when you ran into a very handsome wall

"Oh! My apologies, I didn't see you there"

Okay, so. Not a wall. Just a very tall, very handsome, and very very famous man you knew more about than you probably should thanks to your old job maintaining timeliness and such

You insisted you had to go, but wouldn't you know it, your little streak of luck wasn't over yet

That murder magician guy? Did I mention? He had a little something called a murderbot

Kind of makes sense now, I guess. Usually, supervillains aren't as cool with being caught unless they have another trick up their sleeve

So, kinda awkward, but

the thing kinda took ya hostage along with some other unlucky few in the crowd thanks to advantage it got witht he element of surprise and all

Marcus and the sparrows handled it fairly quickly but it was still upsetting!

Experiencing a bus crash, a murder magician, his murderbot and then two rescues all in one morning can take a lot out of you!

Marcus, having already ran into you and then letting you get kidnapped right in front of him immediately after, he felt kinda responsible for you. call him old fashioned (lol)

He asked multiple times if you were okay

He did not want to leave your side until he knew you were okay

He'd invite you back to the academy where Grace could check you over for potential injuries (concussion, internal bleeding, etc) and he could be certain you'd be getting good medical care

(even though EMTs are right the f there lmao)

He may be a dork but he's also a spoiled rich kid like his siblings lskd8v8

You, all the meanwhile, having a whole different timeline's worth of knowledge on him and his siblings thanks to your time at the commission (this excludes the kugelblitz since that was technically not supposed to happen... I think) felt like you were treading dangerous waters interacting with someone so famous in history

I kinda lost where this was going lol but I do know that after all that, it was a bit harder to say no to Marcus and the little soft side he started to show when he was getting worried

Cause you were definitely started to get a little dizzy and you definitely hit your head at some point in all that chaos

And a very handsome, very famous, very dorky, and very kind man was now very worried about you

Okay, so maybe you could be a little bit late to work

SPARROW!BEN HARGREEVES:

I finally understand the term poor little meow meow

He is a wet cat

Angry and petty and snippy

And inexplicably ruthless

You two would probably meet somewhere totally unexpected

Hold on let me think of it real quick

I guess I could see you working their PR or something, if that was even a thing for them (you being newer, and ofc around their age)

Idk I feel like, with Sparrow Ben, and how much of a little shit (affectionate) he is, I think it would be kinda hilarious and yet totally on brand for him to have a connection (good or bad) with someone who got paid to tell him what to do - ie, he thinks he doesn't need it and that it's the others that need to behave and rebrand themselves when he's like, right there

His promo poster was literally the Had To Do It To Em pose, you know I'm right about this

Not exactly the kind of image that's super great for, you know, a superhero

So yeah, he would have to listen, but he'd give a stink

And even a bigger one when you threw it right back

I'd think you'd have to have that kind of skill, at least to some degree, after working in such a field

Or maybe I'm just talking out of my ass

The point is, y'all would likely be bitter, but like, the kind that got comfortable after a while?? If that makes sense??

Either way, he's such a little shit and i just don't see an instance where you meet and it's perfect sunshine and rainbows right off the bat pfft

FEI HARGREEVES:

BIRD SANCTUARY!! BIRD SANCTUARY!! BIRD SANCTUARY!!

YOU WORK IN A BIRD SANCTUARY

You two are a match made in the cosmos and its sickening 🥰

Fei, like her aforementioned brothers, takes herself and the job pretty seriously

So it can be a bit rare for someone to see her in her true element

Or at least--

People who really know her

Her family

So, when a total stranger just comes along and just,,

✨️✨️✨️

Its really special

And what better than bonding over birds, and nerding out over birds?!

I feel like she wouldn't exactly shy away from whatever she may be feeling

But I also think she'd try to underplay it

Ya know, keep it cool and not make a huge deal

You know, it wasnt a huge deal that one day, on her day off, she decides to visit a reveried bird sanctuary just outside of town

And that, upon that visit, she happened to stumble upon you, unable to stop yourself from spewing bird facts and hey? Did this random visitor know about the loyalty of crows and all the limitless examples of humans befriending crows??

Well they did now

Oh no did she love your corny enthusiasm over birds - crows especially!!

She just couldn't help herself when she first overheard you and wanted a better view

Sure she spent her time communing with the birds around her, but a select few of crows--her crows--adopted a sudden interest in you and your info-dumping to unwilling visitors, flocking to you wherever you went

It wasn't unusual for birds to bond with caretakers but you didn't recognize these crows that now seemed to follow you everywhere, always keeping a polite distance and paying careful attention to anything you had to say

Soon enough, you were fully conversing with these crows, making sure they were comfortable wherever they might have come from

That pretty much sealed the deal for her

From then on, she knew she had to make herself known to you; introduce herself, commend your respect for her birds (and the others in the sanctuary)

Yall hit it off immediately, no surprise ajdkps

Oh she's also so fucking smooth adjsjs

Idk, shes just kinda sweeps you off your feet when she finally introduces herself to you, commending you for your respect to your birds (totally teasing you for how you, by extension and strictly technical terms, treated her through her birds) and is such a coy little fker who loves seeing you get all flustered

My god though, shes also so fucking soft and sweet and loyal when you earn her trust

Either friend or partner, she'll come across something she'll think you'll like and give it to you next time she sees you (ohh idk, like a crow)

Shes so fucking loyal and just so heart melting while also being the coolest, smallest fker ever and AHHH

I just love her

ALPHONSO HARGREEVES:

Jskapsoyc

He's so boyfriend shaped

I love him, I need to know more about him, and I'd love to say how you guys met was some miraculous coincidence that makes perfect sense like Fei, but honestly he just really strikes me as someone you just Bump Into, ya know?

He's a guy, and he's just around

Maybe you met in a convenience store

That feels like something that would happen (or maybe I'm just still thinking of his fight scene with Diego)

Oo! Honestly, some place like a bowling alley or arcade

He, like Marcus, is such a dork

But he holds himself as like, a, Cool Dork, ya know?

And it's not as hidden

It's not hidden at all, he's such a snarky pizza-eating, soda-chugging, quick-as-a-whip dork

He feels comfortable in public, for not all the right reasons

And he's easy to run into

He gets a lot of mistreatment by Sparrow fans, but his attitude is much like his power

Arguably, it's because of his powers

He's rubber, they're glue; what bounces off of him sticks to you

ie, he's so good at letting a bad attitude bounce off of him and stick to his attackers

And yeah, sometimes his walls are down and stuff gets to him when he isn't prepared, but overall he is sadly (and infuriatingly) used to it

He's not always the favorite among fans, is what I'm trying to get at

>:( fucking stupid if you ask me

But!!

Woah woah woah. Hold on...

Back up

Apparently he's... your favorite?

Lol okay, yeah, sure, you're totally not trying to be nice, he thinks (note the sarcasm)

Like I said, he's used to feeling the occasional tap on his shoulder -- like now, where he stands in line for some good ol' mediocre bowling alley hotdogs -- cause someone recognized him

He was, arguably, one of the more recognizable sparrows after all, behind Christopher obviously, so

Here we go, he thinks, turning around, hands lazing in his pockets and quite possibly the least enthusiastic look any living thing could conjure on his face

And just like anyone else, you stood waiting as he turned to face you, smiling in a way that was all too obvious you were trying to hide your excitement

"Hey," he nods

"Sorry," you laughed, but not in the usual way. More like an awkward chuckle that sounded nervous. That wasn't too unusual, either

"Sorry," you said again, burying your hand back inside your pocket like the other. "you probably get this all the time, pretty much everywhere"

He shrugged it off, not appearing too bothered by it

"No problem," he said, glancing back ahead to check the line. It still was pretty long; some issue with the deep fryer holding up the line, by the looks of it. He had time. He looked back at you, waiting indifferently for whatever to come. "What's up?"

Judging by the looks of it, you had already started backtracking the moment you got his attention. You were second guessing getting his attention. Cause figures

"Just a big fan," your hands were still in your pockets, fiddling and moving around visibly through the thin cotton, maroon zip-up sweatshirt

You had shrugged, and thats when he noticed your zip up was familiar; it was a piece of sparrow merch

An older one, judging by how worn it looked

The little sparrow insignia higher up on the left breast of the jacket was still there, but it was significantly faded, and the matching white rope laces dangling from the hood were fraying at the ends

He nods again, leaving the future of the conversation up to you

Wildly inconvenient for you, you thought, considering you hadn't exactly thought this far ahead. At least, if you had, you immediately forgot.

You said the first thing that came to mind, cause of course you did

"I loved the Sparrow comics when I was younger,"

Okay, yeah, you definitely regretted this. This was mortifying. Plain and simple.

Sadly, however, Alphonso saw this in your face and misconstrued the reasons for regret

He thought you were regretting talking to him when really you were just getting in your own head

You quickly assure him though, that, actually, he's your favorite and you think he's super cool and you've actually been a fan of his since yall were kids

He takes the information like any other fan interaction,

That is until it really clicks for him you're being totally serious and your enthusiasm is genuine and he kinda :o

Then he's such a suave little shit I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

Goes straight to his head, God bless <3

SLOANE HARGREEVES:

Love of my life, bane of my existence 🥰

She's perfect and such an inconvenience to me personally

I love her entirely <3

She's the sweetest of the sweet and sunshine in every sense of the word

Huh? Oh right!

How you met... *ahem* ☺️

Oh no biggie, she just uhh, saved your life is all

Okay okay, maybe not your literal life but she did save your morning shake which saved your morning which saved your ass from your boss

She was a blushing mess despite the grace of her powers and agility -- but it technically had been her fault

Sloane had been in such a rush, she unintentionally collided with you on one of the busier streets downtown

Totally cliche and a meet-cute right out of the movies

I honestly don't think I have much else to say about that, it was pretty straight forward and sweet (like her)

Admittedly you had been rattling around her head for a few days afterwards cause hey 👀👀👀 she can appreciate what's in front of her - and yet, she was kicking herself for not doing something about it

She held a lot of responsibility as a sparrow and part of her was afraid, not so much upholding the sparrow image, but disappointing her siblings

Sloane dreams of a having a life of her own, unsanctioned by her father and/or her brothers and sisters. She's been planning ahead for her inevitable exit, why had she chickened out with you??

Almost two weeks had passed since she ran into you and thirteen days since she talked herself into giving up on anything happening.

She had scolded herself, really, how foolish it was of her to think she could have something sweet and endearing with a very cute person like you

Sloane is a romantic in every sense, and this had merely been proof. How naive

And...

How naive of her to think she saw you standing out like a sore thumb in one of the sparrow crowds stationed outside for one of their outings

She had to do a double take when you gave her a shy wave, and she definitely had to make sure she wasn't making a fool of herself as she made her way over

You had sent her a grateful nod when she covertly steered you two out of the reach of cheering fans crowding around you trying to get to her and her siblings

Sloane may or may not have failed in her attemps to tamper down the corny smile that came with your being here

You looked almost, shy

"I thought you seemed familiar," you smiled, looking up over her shoulder at one of the many huge banners plastered on the academy. She followed your gaze over her shoulder and then quickly averted her gaze, not overly eager to see the sight

Were her cheeks always this sore?

JAYME HARGREEVES:

She was forged by the gays, for the gays

I love that trope where the sunny sunshine one is the grumpy grumps favorite

I feel like that could easily apply to her

But I also feel like it wouldn't be like that immediately, if at all

Not even soon

It would be a long process to get her there cause she's a sparrow after all, and being a sparrow means you come with an ego and stubbornness so strong it might as well be its own superpower

When she met you, she was irrationally and entirely furious

A big part of it was you kept cropping up everywhere

You delivered a pizza to her and Alphonso once upon a time and ever since, by total coincidence, you kept reappearing

She didn't believe it was accidental ofc

She thought you were some stalker

Meanwhile you were just as confused

It wasn't exactly love at first sight for you, either

Jayme was brash and short tempered, but when she was around you -- bumped into you on the street, out for a run in the park, whatever -- she was just plain cruel

And the thing is, she didn't know why

All you had done was the deliver the pizza, made light conversation with Alphonso and wished them both a good day before leaving

The fucking nerve of you

She's just crushing hard, actually

Nah, you're just annoying to her, that's totally it

She totally didn't think you were infuriatingly attractive, fun to be around or anything. And the display of dry humor she witnessed when you were chatting with her brother totally didn't anger her in a way she couldn't understand because she wasn't used to cute people saying stuff that she almost laughed at

But she didn't laugh. So there

She won, you lost

And you didn't even know it.

You simply thanked Alphonso for the early arrival tip, nodded a goodbye to both of them and then left

Just like that. No fan freak outs despite you knowing who they were, no autographs. Just a "thanks for saving the day" and a "let it cool for a few minutes, the pizza oven can get pretty hot and it was a short drive here"

That's it.

But that's just the thing.

That was never it.

There was always more, and Jayme wasn't buying it.

You were too calm, like you had been planning that meeting for ages

Maybe you were, even if that didn't make a damn lick of sense

Alphonso calls her out on her shit and he's the only one she really listens to even though she's not happy about it

On some level she knows she's being an asshole but it's kinda hard for her to help

Oh, real quick, by the way

If you're in the community and that's the context between you two for this preference, I don't mean to say she's acting like this cause of internalized homophobia or anything, she's just kind of an asshole skskxhcppff

This girl knows she's gay

Like Ben, she's more like a cat than a dog

She's cute, but she bites, and she's quick and really, she's just a total dick

It's also just kind of a Hargreeves thing, too to be fair

But, like cats, it's kind of, weirdly, part of their charm

She does make an effort though, after her talk with Alphonso, to be less... dickish

It works

Kind of

After a few practice runs

And lots of pizza orders later

But eventually, she's working her way up to answering the door and getting the pizzas from you with one goal in mind

Not making you storm away in rage

I mean, sure, part of the reason she gets so mad is cause you can actually keep up with her

It's never been this hard for her to get the last word in cause you actually can keep up with her and whatever she dishes out to you, you dish right back

In a way, she's kinda met her match

And that made things worse

But. You were still human and she was the one who was a literal super whose specialty was finding someone's weakness

(Actually Jayme sometimes worries she does that somehow without actually using her powers, so that was a big part of her wanting to be better ☹️)

And she's making mild progress!

It isn't until she's dialing the pizza place and working through her nerves as she does so that she realizes why she's so nervous

And then she throws the phone on the couch in embarrassment cause ew feelings

But one thing keepa her from giving up completely:

For whatever reason, you keep coming back

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