#either way i just feel like. if you want me to be constructing a vivid intimate visceral sense of this character’s‚ like‚ sillage—

[elwenyere]

Crafting Comments on Fics

So with Comment Fest approaching - and with the possibility of bot-generated comments undermining the value of reader-writer engagement - I thought it might be helpful to provide a short explanation of some different approaches I use in crafting comments, in order to identify a few places to get started for anyone who has wanted to leave more (or more detailed) comments but who feels unsure how to get going. 

This is far from an exhaustive list, and the categories are designed to allow for a mix-and-match construction with varying levels of development (from basic to more elaborate). At the heart of it, I think of commenting as a practice of paying attention to what I notice in a story and then crafting language to share those observations with the writer. So each of these categories starts from something we might notice when we read.

1. Affect: how the fic affected you/made you feel

This is a great place to start if commenting feels intimidating, because you’re drawing from your own emotional responses. A basic template might be something like “_____ made me ________.” You can pick a particular moment (the scene with the tooka infestation, the kiss in the Denny’s parking lot, the moment we realize character x was dead the whole time, etc.) or focus on the fic as a whole; and you can describe the effect in simple terms (made me cry, smile, laugh, feel soft, etc.) or extravagant ones (made me want to roll myself into the sea, made me feel like I had ascended to a new astral plane, shook me so deeply it registered a 10.3 on the Richter scale). The idea is to take one or more responses you had to the fic and let the writer know what they were/what about the story produced them. 

2. Memory: what from the fic has stuck with you

If a story has an especially strong effect on you, you might also let the author know what particular moments, lines, or images are going to linger in your mind after you finish reading. After identifying the detail(s) you want to flag (if you were going to bookmark this fic with a note to remind Future You which one it is, what image or scene or plot premise or line of dialogue would go in the “the one with the ___________” slot?), you can describe the way it’s sticking with you in general terms (I’m still thinking about it, chewing on it, rotating it like a Hot Pocket in a microwave), or you can point to some of the reasons why it’s sticking with you (it captures character x’s whole deal so well, it reminds me of y moment in the film/tv show/comic, it crystallizes a larger theme in the story so effectively). 

3. Appreciation: what in the fic seems beautiful, artful, striking

In this approach you’re giving a writer a sense of what stood out to you aesthetically about the story: the moments that made you feel like “put a frame around that fucker because I want to keep staring at it.” This category can feel tricky because there might be terminology specific to the form that we’re not familiar with, so it can feel hard to describe what exactly makes a moment strike us as well-crafted. But we might think about the appreciation approach as having a basic template: “_____ is so ________.” The first slot can be either general (the whole story, a larger scene, the way the author writes dialogue or description or a major character) or very specific (copying and pasting a particular line or passage, identifying a pattern of imagery, pointing out the way the author narrates a specific kind of experience). And the second slot can be just one adjective (beautiful, visceral, unsettling, powerful, stunning, lyrical) or a more elaborate evaluation (so effective at conveying emotions, so hard-hitting after the slow build-up, so vivid I feel like I’m actually there). 

4. Discovery: what the fic showed you/made you think about

Sometimes you read a fic that makes you think about the media/the ship/the characters in a new way, and that’s a really powerful thing to share with the writer. As with the other approaches, you can frame this in terms of the fic as a whole or pull out particular lines or plot points, and you can either describe the effect on your thinking in general terms (this changed my brain chemistry, this blew my mind, this is canon for me now) or in specific ones (I’d never thought about x moment in the film that way before, but now I’m going to think about it that way every time; the line where character x says y was like a lightbulb moment for me - it clarified so much about x’s motivations; I would never have thought about this show as being about z theme, but after reading this fic, I’m seeing z everywhere). 

------

So there you have it: a non-exhaustive list of things we notice about stories and some ways to talk about that. I hope it’s helpful. And of course, when in doubt or when pressed for energy, a string of emojis, a keyboard smash, or an all-caps “I LOVED THIS!!!” are also wonderful ways to share a little love with fic writers.

[doctorstrangereview]

Strange Tales #126

Cover Date: November 1964 On-Sale Date: August 11, 1964

It all changes here! In celebration, Doc reclaims some cover real estate and the blurb even depicts a scene from the story. What changes? Doc meets Dormammu! Up until this moment, Dormammu has simply been one of the funky names Doc calls on to put the whammy on his foes. Also, until now, most of his foes haven't been all that impressive on power level with Nightmare and Loki being the possible exceptions. And Doc doesn't call on either to power up. Dormammu is on whole other level.

Our story continues immediately after Doc's battle with Baron Mordo last issue. We see his astral body returning to his physical body. Now, Mordo's body should be in the house as well, but that never gets addressed. He must have gotten out somehow; we definitely haven't seen the last of him. No sooner than getting up from his comfy, funky chair (sadly, not the one with the dragon head), he's in the grip of a powerful spell, without his consent, that manifests itself as a floppy white and yellow bullseye. There's a nice touch from Ditko. Doc goes in the top of the bullseye and at the spell's terminus, The Ancient One's pad, he comes out the bottom. It even has a funky curl, like it's squeezing him out.

The Ancient One is dressed today in a fine frock. The original coloring is red, but the Masterworks recoloring makes it a vivid fuchsia. Once again I prefer the recoloring. Today's crown has less ostentatious horns that the last story but the detail is more intricate. The Ancient One makes a ghost thing visible to Doc just as it leaves. Doc prepares himself to jump to the old guy's defense, but he's like "Don't worry about it, he's just a messenger of the Dread Dormammu. Oh, by the way, Dormammu is gonna invade our dimension and take over. I just got back from being Mordo's captive and haven't had my old man nap yet. Can you deal with this?"

"Sure thing, daddio! Send me!" And Doc disappears into some whirling and hairy dots. Perhaps this is Ditko's answer to Kirby Crackle. The next thing Doc knows he's somewhere else, floating through a ring of smoke and heading toward a nasty beastie indeed. The smoke ring is a nice call back to the splash page!

The as-yet-unnamed nasty beasty is the G'uranthic Guardian who will show up here and again. I don't know if this is actually a living being or some magical construct that guard's Dormammu's "palace." Doc approaches the nasty beastie who looks down on him and shoots out some light that probes his brain, without his consent. It's a test of some kind that Doc passes and the cool six-sided doors open for him. He steps through, and we get get our first look at how bat-crap crazy Ditko makes this very brightly lit "dark" dimension.

That's right, the other side of this door is floating in nothing and Doc is walking along a floating ribbon all curled up. Nightmare's realm was weird, but this is drug-trippy crazy! What was Ditko on? This imagery continues throughout the story, so get yourself a copy if you want to see it all.

Next, we get our first glimpse of Dormammu. He doesn't quite look like his popular image yet. For one, he's wearing a two-tone green thing with funky shoulder accoutrements and not the purple we're used to seeing him in. His head isn't surrounded by flames, but smoke and his head is blue, instead of red. He only has a hint of eyes. He's also sitting in a funky throne. We will later learn this is the Azure Throne and it is almost never depicted as blue.

Dormammu is like "WTF? Who the hell is this? Where's The Ancient One?" One of the sychophants surrounding Dormammu isn't toadying up enough and dares to question Dormammu's ability to instantly wipe out the mortal and he instantly imprisons them until he doesn't feel like it anymore.

Meanwhile, Doc is facing a series of challenges as he moves toward the big bad. His first challenge is a little yellow creature who feeds on spells. Doc figures this out quickly and feeds him until he pops like a balloon. This is being watched by a certain silver-haired lady. Yes! We are finally introduced to the as-yet-unnamed Clea. At first he thinks this is The Ancient One returning, but realizes it can't be "for he is young -- and fair to behold!" While Clea's libido gets fired up, Doc is drawn into some object that looks like a flying magic carpet. "Oh well," thinks Clea, "better luck next time."

Doc defeats a bunch more of Dormammu's minion who appear before him. Dormie's not happy. He banishes them to limbo.

Dormammu is like "Enough of this! If you need something done, you just gotta do it yourself. Bring it on, earther!" Clea senses things are coming to a head and decides to shout about it.

The entrance Dormie conjures for Doc is just bizarre. It's like a big sheet of paper with a mini, desaturated bifrost coming out of it. Clea attempts to warn him off, but Doc proceeds to the ominous assignation. Doc finally confronts Dormie at last! "I won't kill you until the Ancient One shows up." Doc replies "Nah! You gotta deal with me." "No really, send in the Ancient One." "Nope. It's gonna be me." "You're funeral, blue dude!"

And we break here until next month. Last month was great, but this is just freaking crazy! Ditko is in top form here. Who knows how many pencils were ground to little nubs to draw these 10 pages? Visually, it's spectacular. Ditko had spent a number of stories with lazy backgrounds, but he must have been saving it up for this story. Dormammu's motivation for invading earth isn't exactly original, but it starts a great story. There isn't really anything in the way of plot holes. It doesn't mess with continuity. And it's the springboard of a new era where the villains are more powerful and the stakes are greater. I can't wait for part two!

[magicalyaku]

Greetings! I just realized that all it takes to get rid of me is giving me a good videogame to play. I started playing I was a Teenage Exocolonist and it's so hard to stop! Why is it so good?! Aaah! Ahem. Anyway, welcome to Part Two of my big wrap up of all the books I read between April and July! The theme this time is France & Other Places! Yes, somehow France got lumped in with all sorts of otherworldy realms. :P

A Paris Affair (Maureen Marshall): Not sure why my brain thought I'd get something like In Memoriam with this. It's historical fiction as well but otherwise they have nothing in common. If I had to compare it, it'd be to Will Darling by KJ Charles (which I loved). A capable protagonist, a sly, lying, and handsome rich guy, and conspiracies. It was fun! Vivid. It made me want to actually go and look at the Eiffel Tower again. Like, I've been there as a child but it's not that special for us nowadays, right? But reading about its construction and the discourse about it, it started to feel a little special. I also liked the historial bits about Parisian culture und such. I'm not into history at all, but getting small bits in my books is nice.

The Alchemy of Moonlight (David Ferraro): Major content warning for spiders in this one. There are a few scenes in the first half of which one is really, really not fun if you can't stand spiders. Personally, I tried very hard not to think about what I was reading. /D I'm usually only bad with visual images but given that I just had an unfriendly encounter with General Spidermom and her hellspawn in my bathroom I was a little unamused. Anyway, the rest of the book was fine. (Just fine.) It's apparently gothic but despite the crawlycrawly and the old castle and the ghosts and secret tunnels, the vibe was a little lost on me. It's also set in France and apart from the occassional croissant it didn't feel French at all. The Paris Affair? So French, so lively! This one? Could have been any European country with nobility. As for the love interests, one was too good to be true (meh), the other one started out toxic, but was redeemed (meh as well). The ending, well … In some ways, it turned out pretty good (I did went woah! at one point). In others, I thought it was a little easy (didn't feel that relationship solution. Seemed to me more like "I don't want to decide, so I'll take the easy way out.") And the protagonist … he wasn't terrible. I just thought he must be the prettiest thing alive if every guy falls for him at first sight. And I wish we would have been told how his aunt knew about his preferences? Usually, in this type of story, it's revealed that the hero had like one experience with the stable boy or some lord's son or whatever, but there's nothing in here. He had never talked about it before and yet his aunt knew well enough to want to send him to an asylum of all things! Give me details! All in all, it was entertaining to read, but in the end it was just fine.

Otherworldly (F.T. Lukens): This is the book that held up the entire post. I thought maybe I'll remember something about it later! I didn't and I feel bad about. I have no recollection of the time and place I read this either. But that is how it is. It's a solid book, I'd say, otherwise I would have something to nag about. 8D Nah, Luken's books usually are good. Cute, adventurous, ultimately positive. And the cover art is beautiful.

The Diablo's Curse (Gabe Cole Novoa): This is the sequel to A Wicked Bargain. Do you have to read it beforehand … probably not? Dami is the only recurring character and there are only a few allusions to the first book. I certainly didn't remember much except the general setup around el Diablo and the contracts. And that I had some issues with Mare and how the plot progressed as in "I have to save my dad, but I'm here doing nothing for two months". That didn't happen in The Diablo's Curse! The first part is so fun with the dynamic between Dami and Silas, and afterwards it's very focused and always going forward with just the right amount of tension. Also, I just like Dami. And I like, intended or not, how their gender fluidity parallels their upbringing (as in no human culture to tell them how to be, and that paired with an adaptable body). I enjoyed reading this a lot!

Nightmares in Paradise (Ring of Solomon 2) (Aden Polydoros): I faintly remember being a little disappointed by the first volume because I wished it would try a little harder and dig a little deeper. This second volume does that, you know, a little, I think. I'm not the biggest fan of the writing style with its million pop culture references, but I can imagine kids loving it. Also, I have to give the author credit for actually writing different than in his books for older readers. I liked this better than the first volume. Grumpy Ash is good and he doesn't behave like one of the kids. I was a little shocked how easily they kill off three children in the beginning. Like wtf, can you please think about that for two seconds, dear protagonists? Never mind the main bully guy, but what about the other two? That was a little weird. Other than that, the story takes place in the Garden of Eden and has some more biblically accurate depictions of angels and a lot of "they can either be good or bad" and I wonder how actual Christians think about this. :'D

That's it for Part Two. Two more to go! Next up will be Gay Adult Fiction series. And August is almost done as well haha …

[freeuselandonorris]

💫what is your favorite kind of comment/feedback? & 💞what's the most important part of a story for you?

(for the writer asks here!)

💫 what is your favourite kind of comment/feedback?

I MEAN look, I am continually delighted that anyone leaves me any feedback at all. not in a ‘aw-shucks my writing is so bad’ way because I know I’m a decent writer! but I am as guilty as anyone for leaving tabs open like ‘I’ll make time to write a comment on this fic soon!’ for six weeks. people are busy! there’s a lot of shit demanding our attention and engagement!

that said, when people pull out particular lines or little character details that they loved, it really makes my day. one of my favourite parts of writing — and fic-writing especially, because we’re all getting to play about in an established universe full of shared reference points — is adding in those tiny details, like little Easter eggs. it makes me really happy when people pick up on them.

also I really like it when people are simultaneously disgusted and turned on by my nasty kink fics 😌

💞 what’s the most important part of a story for you?

ooh. this is an interesting one.

continuing from my point above, for me, writing is an excuse to prod at people. this applies whether I’m writing fic, original fiction, poetry, whatever. I’ve never been great with plots — I understand how they’re constructed and what makes them work, but they’re mostly a necessary evil.

with fic in particular, when I’m writing a particular pairing or fandom, it’s because I want to put myself in the shoes of someone I find fascinating, figure out how they speak and what makes their mannerisms engaging, who they might fall in love with or which particular ways they might want to fuck nasty. obviously a lot of what I write is RPF so that comes with the caveat that I’m very aware that I don’t actually know these real people, nor am I claiming to/want to — I’m just borrowing the shapes. it’s like people-watching cranked up to maximum volume.

all that to say that for me, character analysis is the reason I write 99% of the time, and particularly how certain characters relate to each other. this is partly why I write SO many fics with uneven power dynamics, either inherent (e.g. team principal/driver) or manufactured (kinky shit). it’s such a great framework to explore how two (or more!) characters relate to each other, and I have so much fun loading the scales in one direction or another. for me, if a story (and especially a fic) has strong characterisation and makes its protagonists feel real and vivid and engaging, I can forgive a lot of other issues.

thank you for asking! 🤍

[sora227]

Songs I want in Project Sekai !!

Welp, you guys asked for it (not really) Here is the full (kinda) list of songs I really want in prosekai :)) I am so normal about this... there are 40 songs I have written down, along with the reasons and the vocals I want. Have fun reading this.

Virtual Singers

AaAaAaAAaAaAAa - Nashimoto Ui Miku Reason: I love this song, and the chart would be sooo cool. But I really don’t want anyone to cover it, it’d feel weird, even if N25 sang it.

SIU - Maretu Miku Reason: MARETU WHY AREN’T YOU IN PROSEKAI YET??? This song needs to be added, N25 could cover it but I prefer Miku.

Monster - Kira Gumi Reason: We need more Kira songs plspslspls,, this one’s his most viewed song?? I think?? Either way, emo gacha animation meme phase, but good nonetheless.

Triple Baka - Lamaze-P Miku and Teto Reason: Baka baka baka

Dancing Samurai - Kanimiso-P Gakupo  Reason: I love Gakupo, the chart would be funny, this entire thing would be for the laughs the sillies and the hahas.

Proof Geometric Construction Can Solve All Love Affairs - ManboP Gumi Reason: HOW IS THIS NOT IN PROSEKAI YET IT’S SO REAL??? Amazing song.

Leo/Need

Tokyo Teddy Bear - Neru Honami, Saki, and Rin Reason: This song is incredibly requested but HOW IS IT STILL NOT IN THE GAME YET?? Anyways, I chose the vocals bc Ichiho sang Lost One’s Weeping, so pls let Honasaki sing this one. It’d be cool. We’d see a more powerful side to their voices. Yay!! 

Brain Revolution Girl - Maretu Ichika, Saki, Honami, Shiho, and Miku Reason: MARETU WHY AREN’T YOU IN PROSEKAI YET??? pt 2. This song is good idk man.

Overdose - natori Ichika, Shiho, and Kaito Reason: Not vocaloid, but this song has been stuck in my head. Kaito cover plsss. Don’t stop it music darling!!! OOoooo.

Life Reset Button - Kemu Shiho, Ichika, and Rin Reason: MMmm good song slap, Ichiho w.

Oeoeo - Nashimoto Ui Saki, Ichika, and Miku Reason: I actually really like Nashimoto-P, there’s not 1m+ views for this but whatever. OeOeO. Ik it’s about being drunk but it’s good. Okay. Plus being sick is Saki hahahahah I’m so sorry.

Ensei Rock - Hirose Aru Ichika and Miku Reason: GOD THIS SLAPS it’s so emo but as you can tell I really like l/n singing dark songs. Another Ichika and Miku duet lolz. Anyways.

More More Jump!

DARLING - MARETU Minori, Airi, Shizuku, and Haruka Reason: MARETU WHY AREN’T YOU IN PROSEKAI YET??? pt 3. This song is so pop please do this one at least pjsk. They would all sing this one fore sure.

Nee Nee Nee - PinocchioP Haruka and Shizuku Reason: Cute! Sillies. We need more Shizuharu songs fr.

Age Age Again - Mitchie M Airi, Minori, and Miku Reason: AGE AGE AGE AGE AGAIN!! Did you know that Mitchie M basically owns MMJ. Yeah guys. How has this not been added yet huh. Airi and Minori would fit this song fr.

Dance of Corpses - Kikuo Minori, Haruka, and Luka Reason: I think the Minoharu contrast of voices would be cool. Also ik Miku originally sings it, but guys please let Luka sing. For me.

Electric Angel (GIGA arrange) - Yasuo, Giga, Orebanana-P Shizuku, Airi, Rin, and Len Reason: How is this song NOT in yet?? It’s so cute. Shizuairi and the Kagamine twins would be so cute, this song makes me happy.

Ohedo Julia Night - Michie M Minori and Miku Reason: Kanade and Ichika both had duets with Miku, so let the other protagonists have them too! This would fit WxS too, but because I’m silly why not. Just give Minori a duet with Miku only. Yup.

Vivid Bad Squad

Cinderella - Deco27 (Giga First Night Remix) Kohane and Miku Reason: This fits Kohane, and she should only sing it with Miku. Giga owns VBS just like Mitchie M owns MMJ. Real.

Getcha! - Giga and Kira Kohane and An Reason: THIS SONG OMFG AABLDHSD THIS SONG NEEDS TO BE ADDED. LIKE ASAP. OKAY THEY BOTH SANG IN ENGLISH THEY WOULD SLAY THIS. N O TELLING ME OTHERWISE.

KANKAN☆DANCIN - Kira and Kuraiinu Akito, An, Rin, and Len Reason: Akian so funny. Don’t listen to this often, but yeah. Okay.

Mobius - Hiiragi Kirai Kohane, Toya, and Kaito Reason: We need more Hiiragi Kirai songs. Yeah, that’s it.

On My Seventh Birthday - MASA Akito, Kohane, Len, and Rin Reason: IMAGINE BRUH. Hi Masa fans. This would be weird and cool. It begs for a 3dmv. Another song that could be WxS, but might as well. NOT putting The Fox’s Wedding on this list because goh dayum no.

Star Lily Dance Performance (Remix) - MASA Akito and Toya Reason: I FUCKING NEED THIS. I’M FR. THIS SONG IS AMAZING. Actually yk what. This is the ONLY SONG I need in pjsk, and I need it to be Akitoya. Post canceled, top 5 reasons why this song should be added and it must be Akitoya. Number one, it’d be both a good 2dmv and a 3dmv. Number two, they would eat the song up. Number three, this song is *claps*. Number four, only normal onibi series song. Number five, gay people. Bonus: Hai hai hai azore! I am so normal about this song (lie).

Wonderlands X Showtime

Hate It! Hate It! Huge Ego! - Takeaki Wada Tsukasa and Miku Reason: I love this song. SO glad they added Trash and Trash, it’s my fav from Kurage-P/Takeaki Wada. This song fits Tsukasa before the main story,, and no one should sing it but him! And Miku. 

Close and Open, Demons and the Dead - HACHI Emu, Tsukasa, Rui, Nene, and Miku Reason: OKAY, I AM NORMAL ABOUT THIS. We need the Hachi song. Yes, we. They would all sing it. It would be amazing. This is my second wanted, first being Star Lily Dance Performance. It'd be soo funny and kinda dark, they would eat the 3dmv like always. !!! Yeah.

Hole Dwelling - Kikuo Emu, Tsukasa, Rui, and Nene Reason: This song is so dark and weird, it’s so WxS. I don’t want a virtual singer to sing with them, this would just be them.

The Chattering Lack of Common Sense - Ghost Rui and Nene  Reason: They fit the roles, and they both speak english!!! Unlike Tsukasa and Emu lolz. I love Ghost’s songs.

I’m Only Just Getting Started - Nashimoto Ui Rui, Tsukasa, and Len Reason: The vibes this song gives are REAL!! So WxS, and I want another Ruikasa cover. I want Len to sing this too because it’d be cool. Soooo ffksfa;fnfn yeah. YEAH!!!

Queen - Kanaria Emu and Nene Reason: Almost everyone asks for this cover, and there’s a good damn reason. It's called King 2.0

Nightcord at 25:00

Abnormality Dancin’ Girl - Gurichy Mafuyu, Ena, and Meiko Reason: AHHH THIS SONG FITS THEM BOTH??? Ena suffers because she’ll never be perfect, and Mafuyu suffers because she has no CHOICE but to be perfect. I love Guchiry's songs a lot, and this is one of the most popular. Plus we already got one (1) Meiko cover. We can do this folks.

Lagtrain - inubakumori  Kanade, Ena, and Miku Reason: Good calm sad song. It’s quite popular. I like inubakumori.

Disappearance Addiction (MARETU remix) - Kairiki Bear Mizuki and Mafuyu Reason: I LOVE IT WHEN MIZUMAFU SINGS TOGETHER. THEY BOTH SOUND SO AMAZING. Venom was so real, now we must have DA, but the Maretu Remix is so yooo.

Therefore you and me - TadanoCo Mizuki and Ena Reason: It gives Charles vibes. That's it.

Yellow - Yoh Kamiyama Mafuyu, Kanade, and Miku Reason: Not a vocaloid song, but Kanamafu + Miku complaining about Mafuyu’s mom is so real. Oh, and they fit the voices.

The Snow White Princess Is - Noboru-P Kanade, Mafuyu, Ena, Mizuki, and Miku Reason: Yeah. They should all sing this! It’d be cool. So true.

Extra

Plus Boy - Giga, Reol Rui, Tsukasa, Akito, Toya, and Len Reason: I regret my life’s decisions, thanks a lot. They sang ifuudoudou, they can probably do this. Uh... Also let Tsukasa say fucking again for the third time now pls. That’d be so funny. I’m sorry. They shouldn’t sing this it’s so aaaaaaaaa but?? I thought it’d be funny to add.

My Time - Bo En Tsukasa, Kohane, and Minori Reason: OMORI REFERENCE???? Gasp. Tsukasa would NOT sing the english parts, but him saying oyasumi would be real!!

Confusion - Maretu Ichika, Kanade, and Miku Reason: My favorite Maretu song, it means a lot to me. It’s quite underrated, I never think it’ll be added. But I still love it.

I’m glad you’re evil too - PinocchioP Ichika, Minori, Kohane, Tsukasa, Kanade, and Miku Reason: This song… so… abfabdbfkasdfjaqadnlbladsd chefs kiss. This would make me break out into tears if they did a cover of this. They’re all glad Miku’s there, “evil too”. The reason they didn’t break? Miku, the Sekai, and their friends. And they’ll sing why to you about their life, their experiences that started because of a passion, and a little robot singer. Forever more.

...and, that's it! Thanks for reading all this way, I appreciate it :)

[aeide-thea]

was rereading a fic i have bookmarked, that i’m quite fond of, and got tripped up by a passing characterization of a character’s scent as, among other more specific descriptors, “something undoubtedly male”—i know i’m unusually allergic to sweepingly stereotypical gender assertions, and i do in fact get the sort of sexiness descriptions like that are trying to reach for, but i really gotta say, i think it’s lazy unexamined shorthand and cheapens the writing

[uncpanda]

The Ties that Bind: Aardvark

Synopsis of series: Being the older sister of a literal genius? It’s not easy. Raising said genius from childhood on? An act of love. Uprooting your life again when he gets in over his head? A no brainer. Finding a new family and support system for yourself? Well, you suppose that’s just luck. 

AN: We all know Reid loves Halloween, but maybe there’s a special reason as to why he does? 

Warnings: parentification

Year: 1987

 Master List

“I want to be an Aardvark.”

You stare at your little brother, not quite sure what to say, “Like Arthur, from the show?” 

He shakes his head, “No. Like the animal. Did you know they eat termites?” 

Ahh, he must have taken out a book on them, that explains the sudden fascination. But you really doubt a store is going to have an aardvark costume, and even if they did, you’re not sure you could tear your mom away from her book to take you both there. She’s become increasingly distant in the past few weeks, and you just hope the phase will end soon. Either way, this one is on you. 

At six years old, Spencer has had enough disappointment in his life, and eleven it’s your job to take care of him. You’re his big sister after all. “That costume is going to be really unique, so unique I don’t think a store is going to have it.” You watch his shoulders slump for a second before saying, “So, we’ll just have to make it.” 

You find a brown sweatshirt, and khaki pants at goodwill. You use your lunch money to pay for them, and Spencer beams at you. The ears are made from construction paper, felt, and one of your old headbands. The nose, the most difficult part, is made out of one of William’s old socks stuffed with newspaper. You fasten it to Spencer’s face with string. 

To be honest, the kid looks nothing like an actual aardvark, but you suppose it’ll pass for Halloween. And Spencer, well he’s thrilled with the end result, and that’s what matters. He wears it proudly to school on Halloween, and he must tell you a million different aardvark facts in the process; facts that will stick with you for the rest of your life, and you like to whip out as a party trick. 

When you pick him up from school he’s still in amazing spirits and he tells you he’s won an award for most creative costume. He proudly shows you the little plastic medal, before slipping it around your neck, “You’re the one who made it, I just wore it.” He explains. 

Your mom is still buried deep in her work when you get home, but she does take enough time to look at Spencer’s costume, listen to a few aardvark facts, and take a picture of the two of you. You put the polaroid in the scrapbook you had started after William had left. 

When that’s done, she retreats back to her office. You grab a pillowcase, hand it to Spencer, and set out to trick or treat. Your eyes never leave your brother. You stay focused on him as he goes up to a house, says the magic words, and then returns to your side. He looks vastly different from kids in their store bought costumes of superheroes, and cats, and witches. But Spencer is unique, and you’d have him no other way. 

By the end of the night, your feet hurt, and you’re feeling a little cranky, but Spencer is still on his Halloween high. He hands you a very heavy pillow case, and talks about all of his favorite moments from the day in vivid detail. When you get home he takes time to sort out his candy. You’re not quite sure what his organization system is, but you watch in fascination as he sorts them into four piles. 

When that’s done, he goes and gets three ziplock bags and a marker. With handwriting that is extremely neat for a six year old he writes his name on one bag, your name on the second, and mom on the third, before putting a pile of candy into each. When he hands you the bag with your name on it he says, “I know you gave up trick or treating for me, but you deserve some candy. I think I got all your favorites in there.” 

Your eyes prickle with tears, and you wrap your arms around him, and he immediately snuggles into the hug. “You’re my all time favorite Aardvark, you know that?” 

He grins, “I figured as much. I’m very smart, ya know.” 

Yes, you do know, you also know that he’s incredibly kind, and you wouldn’t trade him for the world. 

“You are very smart, so put that big brain to use and start brainstorming for next year. We’ll make an even cooler costume!” 

“Yes!” 

Tag List (If your username is striked out it means it wouldn’t let me tag you): 

@hateinthemorning @nightressposts @bulldozed88 @toastedside @am3l1a-24  @wintelu @escapingthoughtsandsecrets @moonwarriorx3 @fallen-wolf22  @donttellanyoneireadfanfiction @kathleenjasmine @l-vvne @sekhmet5 

@lil-frenchfri77  @prettylittlemoonlight @webreathfandoms

 @fandomsstolemylife00 @gracesd1ary @eli-side-blog @sleepy-time  @bcarolinablr @acoolnight @violet-potter @ssavanessa22 

[aestherians]

Choice or Chance?: Exploring voluntarity and categorization in the otherkin and therian communities

Under the cut is the full script for my Othercon 2021 lecture, in which I examine the way we categorize nonhumans based on the perceived amount of choice they had in their identity and how this practice is detrimental to both questioning people and our community as a whole. At the end, I propose a new way to define otherkind and otherlinkers to hopefully move our community forward.

Reading time: 30-40 minutes.

The focus of this lecture has changed a bit since I started working on it. My earliest idea was to discuss the grey area between otherlinks and kintypes - in fact one of my working titles was Grey Zones and Silver Linings. And I still plan on talking about this, though not in the way you might expect. I originally wanted to argue that those who found themselves in this grey area should be able to choose how they wanted to refer to their identity, but the more research and thinking I did, the more I realized that this would still leave a bunch of people torn and confused and wouldn’t solve any of the greater problems in our community. It also seems like such a water-is-wet statement with how the conversation has developed… and you know me, I’m only happy when I’m starting controversies.

So I went looking for the root of this whole categorization debacle.

The nonhuman community, as we know it, didn’t always exist, and though we often say it has roots in elven communities from the ‘70s, that’s only half the truth. While the Elf Queen’s Daughters and related successors such as the Silver Elves are the earliest known organized nonhuman communities, they’re by far not the only pioneers.

Because nonhuman identifying people have always existed, and our numbers have always been relatively small, some of us ended up grouping together without even being aware of the other groups that existed. And of course, all these independently formed groups ended up with their own cultures and traditions and philosophies.

Mailing lists, like the Elfinkind Digest, were generally open for anyone to join and read. But they also weren’t widely known or easy to stumble upon for folks who didn’t already have an interest in these kinds of spirituality and identification. This resulted in a culture where people’s self-identification was generally respected, and they would only be questioned if they made extraordinary claims.

Compare this with the newsgroup Alt.Horror.Werewolves, which was open for anyone to access on Usenet, and which was originally created as just a place to discuss werewolf media. On AHWw, the therians (or ‘weres’ as it was back then) would frequently have to defend their existence against strangers who just found them by coincidence. This would lead to a culture more focused on appearing respectable, which in turn would lead to grilling of new members and shut-downs of “fluffy” topics.

Other independent groups, such as Alt.Fan.Dragons, which was centered around dragons, or Always Believe, which was centered around unicorns, had their own cultures as well. For example, AFD generally accepted dragons from modern fiction, which would not have been tolerated on AHWw.

The Silver Elves is another semi-independently evolved group of elves, fae and similar beings that still exists to this day. They only represent a fraction of our community, but for today’s discussions I find their writings very illustrative. They’ve written about choice of identity on multiple levels. For starters, they believe a lot of elven spirits have actively chosen to incarnate into human bodies. More provocatively, and more interesting to me, they’ve stated multiple times that simply wanting to be an elf means you are an elf.

This is in contrast to the therian community on AHWw, where there was a big focus on involuntary shifts and theorizing on why some people were born with and animal side. I think it’s reasonable to assume this focus on involuntary experiences is due to the werewolf narrative that the community stemmed from. In werewolf media, a person’s wolfish side is rarely, if ever, a choice, while in new age and spiritual communities, like that of the Silver Elves, there’s a greater emphasis on choice of spirituality and subsequently on choice of identity.

It wouldn’t be right to say that every therian back then shared the same idea; however, the idea that involuntary shifts are a core trait of therianthropy does seem to persist in the AHWw’s userbase. Nearly all introduction posts include a line about involuntary shifts. Another idea that repeats itself is that the therian either had a “sudden awakening” or “just always knew” they were animalistic; contrasted with the Silver Elves’ idea that simply wanting to be an elf is enough for you to be one.

-

There are two main ideas about origins that seem to persist in all of this: That one is either born nonhuman or becomes nonhuman. Both are equally true. The ‘born-this-way’-narrative is quite a bit more common than the ‘becoming’-narrative, though that’s not to say that the idea of becoming nonhuman is rare, or even all that controversial in most communities - with a few caveats, that is.

The idea that one can become nonhuman tends to rest on the idea that what we become is outside our control. On the more metaphysical side of things there are stories of people being spiritually transformed into an animal after encounters with an animal spirit, or of having a shard of a god put into them. And on the more mundane side, there are stories of imprinting on a species during early development, or of taking on the experiences of a character after being engrossed in a piece of media. Most people I’ve talked to don’t have a problem with these ideas of ‘becoming’ as something outside your control.

What really gets people’s goat is when someone describes specific choices they’ve made on their journey, which ultimately led to their nonhuman identity.

This finally leads to the theme of this lecture: The topic of choice itself and how we categorize others based on the perceived amount of choice or chance there’s been in the development of their identity.

Questions I’ll discuss include: What kind of choices do we have regarding our identities? What the heck does ‘choice’ even mean in this context? And how does the idea of choice (or lack of choice) affect the way our community functions?

There are many kinds of choices that we inarguably do make on our journey of self-discovery. Probably the first universal choice is to undertake the journey and to seek out a nonhuman community. Choices that naturally follow include choice of labeling - whether we want to call ourselves otherkin, therian, fictionkin, nonhuman, and so on - and the choice to accept or reject whatever feelings caused us to seek out a nonhuman community in the first place. In this line of thinking, being otherkin is a choice - you choose to label yourself as otherkin. However, the feelings, on which you base your decision to label yourself, are not a choice. The feelings that pushed you towards the community were already there.

Another choice that follows pretty naturally in this line of thinking is the choice to strengthen whatever connections you already have. This is something I’m intimately familiar with, as I’ve been doing it since I awakened as a bison. Before I even became aware of my species identity, I knew I was nonhuman. I’d been having simultaneous bison and gnoll feelings for a few years, but couldn’t separate them, and had, without much introspection, decided that I must be some weird kind of wolf. I think a lot of us with uncommon theriotypes have gone through a phase like that.

However, one day I experienced a very strong flashing image - basically a flashback - of being physically a bison. The vision was so vivid and tactile, I immediately knew what it meant, and for the next few weeks I ignored every experience that wasn’t quite bison in nature, and just examined the recognizably bovine feelings. This helped strengthen my bison identity, and in total my questioning process only took around 2 months.

Though I’ve settled in my identity as a bison, and I’m comfortable referring to myself as a bison, I never quit reinforcing it. While I didn’t create the original bison-like feelings, I’m very conscious of the fact that I do choose to connect every trait to my bisonhood that I can. Whether I see the traits as a cause of my current bisonhood, or a result of it, things like being stubborn, preferring physical fights over verbal ones, and even liking the taste of those Beanboozled jellybeans that are supposed to taste like grass… all these traits, that any human could have, are things I connect to my identity as a bison.

I’ve experienced some pushback towards this idea from a few therian communities. A very common rebuttal I’ve run into in introduction threads and grilling threads (which, introduction threads should never be grilling threads in my opinion, but that’s another story)… a very common rebuttal to considering these kinds of traits part of your nonhuman identity is: “Isn’t that just a regular human thing?”

I have so many problems with that question, I’m honestly not sure where to even begin. Yes, those traits are experienced by humans all the time. I think some of the only experiences in the community that regular humans don’t experience are, perhaps, species dysphoria and shifting. But if your identity began and ended with having dysphoria and experiencing shifts, it would hardly qualify as an identity. Treating an identity like just the sum of its parts, rather than a whole and complicated construct, is reductive and it doesn’t just hinder discussion, it stifles discussions.

I don’t know, maybe I’m the odd one here, but my whole nonhuman identity can not be encompassed by my horn dysphoria or the fact that I sometimes feel more like a prey animal than an apex predator. My identity is so much more than that. It’s how I view the world and how I view myself in relation to the world. It’s how I react to things, what I like and dislike, and what I want out of my life. When you envision an identity in this way, as a way to describe who you are, rather than a summary of every individual thing you experience, you absolutely will see some overlap with humans, like it or not.

Another reason I dislike the question “Aren’t those just human traits?” is that it’s often asked in communities where the consensus is that you were born nonhuman, and that your identity is somehow more real or ‘valid’ if it can be corroborated by childhood memories.

While looking back at your childhood and seeing how your current identity might have formed or changed throughout the years can help paint a picture of the identity as a whole, that kind of reminiscence should always be secondary to what you are currently experiencing. Your identity is not based on the fact that you played dog when you were a toddler. Pretty much every human child has played dog or been obsessed with cats or wished they were a dragon. It might be related to your current identity, but if those were your primary nonhuman experiences you would hardly consider yourself nonhuman, nor would you find a home in the community.

No, your identity is based on who and what you are right now, and what you’re experiencing this moment. The validity of your identity should not be judged based on the number of times you pretended to be that creature in kindergarten. Your kintype should be determined based on your current experiences. And if your current experiences include things that humans can also go through, that should have no impact on the validity of your identity.

-

Alright, back on topic: Hopefully, we can agree that there’s no shame in strengthening your connections, reinforcing what traits you already have, and in drawing connections between a nonhuman identity and seemingly human traits. Which is a nice segue into a statement that might ruffle a few feathers:

Linktypes are typically based on preexisting traits that are reinforced to fit a certain narrative or ideal. A copinglink or an otherlink is rarely if ever pulled out of thin air. You just can’t craft an identity from nothing. Yeah, crazy, I know?

This parallels otherkin identities, which, as I mentioned earlier, are based on preexisting experiences and connections that one chooses to give a name and to strengthen.

The process of becoming a linker usually starts with recognizing certain traits that one either wants, or already has but wants to reinforce, by focusing them through a linktype. For example, wanting to become better at handling stress can be difficult to accomplish on its own, but is made easier by thinking about what a specific character or animal would do in a stressful situation.

But you can’t just establish a connection to any given character. There needs to be a resonance between you and the linktype, and if you don’t already have that resonance with the character, it’s impossible for you to craft an identity around them. And in that sense you could easily argue that there is an involuntary aspect to linktypes.

Once the prospective linker has recognized a connection with a character, they will begin the process of reinforcing the identity, which can include anything from writing fanfics in 1st person to wearing clothes reminiscent of the character to asking people to treat you like the character. All things that an otherkin or fictionkind might do when first establishing their identity.

A key trait of linking is that a linktype should fade away once you stop reinforcing it… Linktypes are supposed to go away if you just ignore them and push them away long enough. They’re built to be temporary.

However, a significant number of linkers or former linkers have talked about their linktype becoming an inseparable part of how they view themselves - even the ones who might be able to force their linktype away would at this point become completely different people if they did so.

In other words, their linktype has become an inherent part of who they are as a person. This integrality can appear regardless of how much effort they put into creating the linktype in the first place, and regardless of how nonexistent the linktype was before they created it… What I’m getting at is that some people describe creating an identity from scratch by their own choice, which later becomes an irreversibly ingrained part of them. It’s an experience completely contrary to the idea that we are born nonhuman. I’ll refer to these people as ‘linkers-turned-kin’.

There are a few regular rebuttals I’ve seen to this idea: That linkers-turned-kin just had a late awakening. Or that, perhaps, they felt compelled by their inner true species to seek out the identity. Or even that they were actually born nonhuman, but just didn’t realize until later.

All these rebuttals are disrespectful of the linker-turned-kin’s experiences and intelligence. I won’t even try to hide it: They make me angry. The rebuttals ride on the idea that the born-this-way idea of nonhuman identities is a fact rather than a common belief. I know that for a lot of people the born-this-way narrative rings true. I see you and I am not trying to invalidate your beliefs. Instead, I want you to acknowledge that others may not have the same belief as you. For several people in our community otherkinity is an identity that develops in response to certain traits they have - for some, those traits are inherent, something they’re born with. For others they’re traits that developed later in life, or that were worked towards. And I want to argue that, for some, these traits were expressly chosen.

The reason these arguments against linker-turned-kin make me so angry, aside from the fact that they’re built on the idea that linkers-turned-kin don’t understand their own experiences, and the assumption that your idea of how nonhuman identities work trumps someone’s lived experience… Another reason the arguments make me so angry is that they prescribe more importance to the why than the how of our identity. When you define otherkin by the way our identity formed, you’re basically saying that the cause of otherkinity is more important than the experience of otherkinity.

-

We can’t talk about this without also exploring the community’s animosity towards psychological beliefs.

Through my years in the community, I feel like I’ve had to handhold some folks through the concept of religious tolerance. I remember a little over 4 years ago someone on tumblr asked me my opinion on fictionkind - it would be another 2 years before I had my own awakening, so my response was basically that I was fine with fictionkind, though I didn’t understand their experiences and the only way it could fit into my own worldview was as a psychological phenomenon. Even after my awakening, the latter still holds true. My fictionkinity is primarily psychological. But yeah, somehow my statement that I didn’t believe fictionkinity was caused by past lives got twisted into me saying that fictionkind were all just roleplayers.

Rereading the whole debacle that ensued, this twisting of my words had little to nothing to do with my own personal beliefs - it instead exposed a widespread antipathy towards psychological otherkin. When I have talked about my current experiences as a gnoll, my shifts and my flashbacks and my hiraeth, people generally accept it without a second thought. But when I mention that I believe it’s caused by various psychological phenomena, I have on multiple occasions been told that it must not be a real identity. Some people have even treated my parallel life as just an elaborate fantasy, rather than something that’s completely real to me. I have, word for word, been told that there’s no way I could identify as a nonhuman, or be another species than a human, without believing I have a nonhuman soul. A direct quote: “To say “I am fae” when [you] don’t believe in fae is illogical.”

What I take from these kinds of responses is that a subset of people within our community take it for granted that whatever beliefs someone has about the origin of their identity are objectively true, rather than understanding that our beliefs about our origins are just that: Beliefs. Whatever conclusion we’ve reached based on our experiences, reincarnation or imprinting or something else entirely, and no matter how much we believe in it, it will always be a belief and never a fact. I’m fully convinced that my bison identity is caused by a past life, and that my gnoll and Ben 10 identities are caused by various psychological phenomena. But if that doesn’t fit into someone else’s worldview, they have all the right in the world to explain it away however they want. I have friends who believe my bison identity must be caused by something psychological, and I have friends who believe my gnoll identity must be caused by something spiritual. That is their prerogative.

It doesn’t matter how people make sense of my nonhumanity, as long as they’re respectful towards my own experiences with my identity and don’t try to impose their beliefs on me. If you have to quietly believe that someone really has a faerie soul in order to accept that they’re really a fae, so be it. As long as you don’t try to deny the reality of their current identity. As long as you don’t try to claim that they aren’t really nonhuman, just because they have the quote-unquote “wrong” beliefs about their origin.

There is another, more recent and more prominent, example of the animosity towards psychological otherkin that comes to mind. I will not mention the term itself for fear of people harassing its creator. For the purpose of this lecture, I’ll refer to the concept as “nonhuman by birth”, which is essentially its meaning. If you know which word I’m talking about, I ask that you please don’t mention it in the chat. If you need to know, you can DM me. Also, don’t misunderstand this as me hating on people with past life or soul beliefs. Remember, my own bison identity is based on a soul from a past life.

So, last year a rather old community member on tumblr coined a term, separate from ‘otherkin’, to refer specifically to those who believe they have a nonhuman soul. Which wouldn’t be a problem in and of itself. After all, terms like animafidem and cerebrumalius have been around for half a decade with no issues. However, “nonhuman by birth” is specifically described in its coining post as a “less bastardized” alternative to the word ‘otherkin’. What this post describes as “less bastardized” is spiritual experiences, and specifically those spiritual experiences that are based on soul transfers and reincarnation. Essentially “nonhuman by birth” defines all other beliefs as bastardizations of what otherkinity is supposed to be. All beliefs, including spiritual beliefs that aren’t based on souls or past lives, psychological beliefs, beliefs of becoming nonhuman, beliefs based on magic, neurological beliefs, and archetypal beliefs… None of these are quote-unquote “true otherkin” according to the “nonhuman by birth” concept.

The word thankfully never gained much traction off tumblr, but I have seen individuals use it, and it always, without fail, makes me feel unwelcome, and unwanted. Not because there’s anything wrong with a strong belief in past lives or souls, but because those who choose to use that label specifically believe themselves to be the only true nonhumans. Because the term itself is not based on a respectful, individual belief, but on what its coiner believes to be an objective fact. Because this subset of our community has an almost-evangelical conviction that all nonhumans have nonhuman souls, and those who don’t have nonhuman souls are not nonhuman.

And like I mentioned earlier: The cause of otherkinity can affect the experience a lot. That’s why we have these discussions in the first place - we come together due to our similarities, and we try to understand each other and ourselves by discussing our differences. And this is exactly why proclaiming any version of nonhumanity as the One True Kind of Nonhumanity is so damaging. It completely stifles any exchange of ideas. It makes it impossible for us to understand our differences, and it leads to more and more narrowly defined subcommunities that all believe themselves to be more real than the others.

To define is to limit. We need some limitations, otherwise a dog is a cat and no words have meaning. But we need to be extremely careful where we want those limits to be, otherwise we end up with a community where psychological otherkin are bastards, and only those who are born with nonhuman souls are really nonhuman.

-

The next thing I want to discuss is subjective truth… Subjective truth is one of the most important concepts to understand and really internalize if we wanna have fruitful discussions and respectful experience sharing. In short, a subjective truth is something that is not real because it can be proven to exist through scientific measurements but is instead real because a person experiences it as real. If I make the claim that tea tastes better than coffee, for example, you cannot refute that simply because you think coffee tastes better. We have to understand each other’s experiences and accept that we experience the world in different ways. It’s equally true to say that coffee is better than tea and that tea is better than coffee. This is what I was talking about when I said that the “born-this-way”-narrative and the becoming-narrative are equally true.

So, how does subjective truth apply to this discussion?

A phenomenon in the community I’m sure we’re all aware of is kin memories. If you’re somehow not aware of them, in short they are images, episodes, sensory information, and similar experiences that are thought to stem from another life, usually a past life. They have all the qualia of a memory, except they didn’t happen to the body currently recalling them. These experiences, though, are not restricted to those who believe their nonhumanity stems from a past life. They aren’t even restricted to spiritual otherkin. Plenty of folks with psychological beliefs, mixed beliefs, and other beliefs report the exact same experience: Images, episodes, and sensory information that does not originate from this world or from this current life.

For decades there’s been a lexical gap in the community to describe these memories that aren’t memories. Which is where I can’t avoid tooting my own horn a bit. I have an extremely rich and detailed parallel life as a gnoll, from which I can quote-unquote “recall” events, people, traditions, names, and so much more. It’s all integral to my nonhuman identity.

However, because I believe it all stems from some deep unconscious part of my brain, and because it feels like a parallel life, not a past life, I never felt right calling these things memories. So almost two years ago at this point, I undertook the quest to fill that lexical gap. And after looking through dozens of obscure web pages and dictionaries and articles, I found something useful: The word ‘noema’. Noema is a rarely used Greek word that translates to concept, idea, perception, or thought. And I’ve been very happy to see the term catching on in my corner of the community, where it’s often used as a broader alternative to ‘memory’.

In philosophy, a noema is defined as “the perceived as it is perceived.” At first this might sound a bit vague or esoteric, but when looked at through the lens of subjective truth it suddenly starts to make sense. A subjective truth is something that’s real just because a person experiences it as real. A noema is the perceived as it is perceived. So when we’re using noema as a substitute for memory… when we’re discussing memory-like experiences in the community and we explicitly refer to them as noemata, instead of referring to them as memories, the actual cause of the noema is then irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that it’s in one way or another perceived as a memory. When talking about noemata, it’s completely and utterly irrelevant if they’re real in any objective way - the only thing that matters is that the individual experiences the noema as real. Essentially the word ‘noema’ makes the cause irrelevant, so we can instead focus on the experience alone.

And I think the fact that this word has caught on (at least on tumblr) hints that our community might be moving in a positive direction. I at least dream of a community where we care a lot less about our origins, and a lot more about our actual presence in the world.

-

I had a conversation with a friend a few months ago, about this community-wide worry about the origins of our identity. And just to reiterate, I’m not saying your spiritual beliefs are irrelevant, because they can be really important when forming a whole picture of your identity. I’m more so saying they can be a bit of a distraction. In my opinion, the whole discussion about spirituality vs psychology is a red herring. Most of us didn’t seek out the community because we had certain spiritual beliefs. We sought it out because we felt not-quite-human, and it was only later that we reached any conclusions about why we feel nonhuman.

So, my friend and I talked about the role this discussion of origins plays in our community, and we reached a few interesting conclusions. For starters, it’s really upsetting to some folks to have to earnestly consider the idea that reincarnated souls are no more real or ‘valid’ than psychological imprinting, or any other non-spiritual beliefs for that matter. That’s part of what started the whole ‘nonhuman by birth’ idea I mentioned earlier. And it seems this uncomfortableness stems from a place of insecurity.

At the risk of offending some folks, I’m gonna draw a parallel to the trans community. In the trans community there’s a discussion of origins that parallels the one in the kin community and is likewise an attempt to draw lines between the quote-unquote ‘real’ trans people and the so-called transtrenders - which are supposedly people who pretend to be trans for clout. Those who attempt to draw these lines proclaim that being trans is a medical condition that they wouldn’t wish on their worst enemy, and one that’s marked by intense dysphoria and stress. They’ll also regularly state that being trans is only real or ‘valid’ because it has been proven through MRI brain scans that some female-assigned people have supposedly male brains, and vice versa.

(And just to make things clear, those brain scans are not real. It’s malicious pseudoscience spread by people who want to ‘cure’ transness by preventing trans kids from being born.)

But I think this attempt at validating your identity - in this case with science - stems from a dislike of one’s own traits, or more likely from the outside world’s dislike of those traits. When certain trans people try to prove themselves more valid than others in the eyes of the public, it’s not because they just hate those they deem ‘not trans enough’ - it’s because they’re afraid of being rejected by the rest of the world. These people are basically saying: “I didn’t choose to be trans. This is how I was born, so you have to accept it because it’s unchangeable.” It’s a cry for acceptance in an unaccepting world. And all this is not to say that some trans people aren’t born trans; I really think most trans people have a narrative like that. I’m more so trying to get across that, someone else’s narrative of choice should have no impact on your narrative of involuntarity. Both are real ways to experience being trans. And in many ways, having a narrative of choosing to be trans is necessary for the community, because it closes the doors for eugenicists who would try to eliminate quote-unquote “the trans gene”.

Viewing transness as a purely medical phenomenon where you need to meet certain requirements to get a trans diagnosis is a really reductive way to look at identity. Like I mentioned earlier: An identity is not just the sum of its parts, and it cannot be summarized by being forced to feel dysphoria. The fact of the matter is that we don’t know trans people are real because we have brain imaging technology, or even because certain people meet the medical criteria for having gender dysphoria. We know trans people are real because there are real people who identify as trans. We should be able to trust that people are trans when they tell us they are. And I think we need to look at nonhuman identities the same way.

Before I move on to the conclusion, I want to explain why this topic has become so important to me. A couple of months ago, after a good year or two of introspection, I realized I had created a hearttype. Not a kintype, but nonetheless an equally integral part of how I view myself and engage with the world. And changing something so fundamental about myself sent my thoughts racing.

When I was a kid I picked up a fear of spiders. It wasn’t bad enough to give me panic attacks, but it was bad enough that I couldn’t pick up a spider and carry it outside, even though I could do so with other bugs. I was around 10 years old when I decided that this was dumb, and I wanted to change it. So as a tween I quickly started on my own exposure therapy, looking at photos of spiders, reading about them, photographing them in nature, and after several years it had gotten to the point where I barely had a reaction to seeing them. But as I continued on, getting used to the idea of holding them and touching them, something changed in me.

Where I had previously felt fear, I started to feel admiration and love and a sense of familiarity. I wanted to surround myself with these animals, I wanted to work with them, and I started spending a not-insignificant amount of money on terrariums. And now, after more than a decade of rewriting my own thoughts and changing a mild fear into a love so deep it affects my sense of identity itself, I feel confident saying I created a hearttype. It was not an easy process. Like I said, it took more than a decade. Changing your entire mindset like that can’t be done with just a snap of your fingers. But evidently, some people are able to do it.

Though I have to add that, even here, it’s very easy to argue that there was some level of involuntarity. I already had an emotional response to spiders when I was scared of them. I don’t think I could form this kind of relationship with something I’m completely indifferent to, like, I dunno, a Toyota or a Marvel character. You can’t really form a relationship from nothing. And I appreciate this argument, because it really highlights just how confusing the entire concept of choice is, and how it doesn’t make sense to define ourselves by our lack of choice, when we can’t even define what counts as a choice.

But yeah, realizing that I created a hearttype, an identity that at the time was considered involuntary… realizing that I didn’t just play a part in creating this identity, but that I did create it, period. It sent my mind spinning, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what else might be possible. If I could create such love in myself, could I also do the opposite and tear down my own hearttype and recreate the phobia? Not something I want to test. But I think I could. And which other identities could be created like this?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the creation process has no impact on the nature of the identity itself, and I ended up posting a really controversial thing on tumblr. In hindsight I understand why some people got so pissed off about it, but I still stand by those thoughts. I’ll read it to you in full: “Theoretically I probably could force myself to not be otherkin. But it would take a decade or more, the way my hearttype creation did, and it would require constant work throughout those years. However, I see no way I wouldbenefit from that work, the way I did when I unintentionally created a hearttype in the process of getting rid of a phobia. It would just rid me of a part of myself that’s intrinsic to how I recognize myself. That’s not something I in any way want - and because I don’t want it, and because the choice would have to happen continuously on a timescale I can barely comprehend, I couldn’t make that choice in practicality.”

A very long and very complicated discussion came out of this post that I’d need a whole separate lecture to recap. But a few important ideas were developed, which I need to mention here. For starters, when discussing shadowwork and the Jungian archetypes, Jasper accidentally coined the term ego alteration. Through that discussion we ended up defining ego alteration as the process by which you proactively alter your conscious mind, your self-perception, and your thought-patterns. It’s not something to be taken lightly, as you’ll essentially be changing your sense of self by it. And it’s also not something everyone has the ability, desire, or drive to do. To integrate something into your sense of self, or to remove something that’s currently a part of your sense of self is serious business, and, like my hearttype creation, is something that should be thought about on a decades long timescale. I don’t have time to get in-depth about it here, but to consciously change your identity and your sense of self is definitely possible for some folks, and it’s nice to have a name for the concept.

Something else that came of that discussion is my own thoughts about how we define otherkin. The most common definition I’ve seen is “to identify, wholly or partially, as something nonhuman on a nonphysical level, by no choice of your own.” … I suggest we drop the last bit.

Okay, it’s a bit more complicated than just deleting a few words. In order to drop the “by no choice of your own” bit, without losing the meaning of otherkinity completely, and letting kin for fun take over, we’d need to rethink that entire definition.

Instead of defining otherkin by the amount of choice we had in the formation of our identity, I suggest we define otherkin by how integral our identities are to us. It was briefly mentioned on in one of the other panels (though I forget which one), but a pretty big source of conflict is that kin for fun just don’t understand the gravity of otherkin identities. If we define otherkinity as something that’s inseparable from who we are as individuals, it would not only make it clear to kin for fun that this is, well, not for fun. It would also get around the problem of people who worry that their identities might be invalid because they’ve made certain choices.

Your otherkinity is inherent, and by that I mean you would be a fundamentally different person if not for your kintype. At its most basic level, your kintype is what you recognize yourself to be. It’s the kind you belong to, rather than, or in tandem with, belonging to humankind. You kintype is an intrinsic part of you, and even if you could get rid of it, it would fundamentally change who you are is a person. If you chose not to be otherkin, you would also choose not to be you. In that sense, I suppose otherkinity is involuntary, in that you yourself can’t choose not to be otherkin, because as soon as you make that choice, you aren’t you. Though you could also argue that it is a choice because you wake up every day and choose to be you. And thus, the topic of choice leaves us running around in circles like it always has.

Being otherkin… being otherkind has never been about being forced to feel species dysphoria. It’s about being of another kind. It’s about knowing and recognizing humankind, and accepting that, in one way or another, that does not describe us.

And all this is not to say that copinglinking shouldn’t be a concept, but we need to rethink that as well. From the very few copinglink writings that exist, one topic I’ve seen several times is the idea of copinglinks becoming inseparable from you. This is not the point of links, and those who do go through a change like that find themselves more at home in the kin community than the link community. I don’t want to impose myself on linkers, but if we want these two words to make sense and have a use, we need to redefine both. I suggest defining copinglinks and otherlinks by their lack of integrality or by their ability to be dropped when necessary.

The line that has been drawn between otherkin and copinglinkers doesn’t help anyone as it is. There are far too many nonhumans who straddle the line, who feel torn between either community, or who only call themselves linkers because they feel pressured to do so. There are far too many nonhumans who don’t feel like they have a community they can call home.

So, I’m gonna propose a new and much more inclusive definition: To be otherkin is to identify as something nonhuman on an inherent or integral level. There you go, clean and simple. No more caveats or nested sentences.

[alustriel-the-star]

Destiny written by the rain: Itachi x Fem!Reader

Chapter 3

Summary: The moment of Itachi's death so vivid memory to reader even today. But that light of hope will it be enough? Absence of him cracked her soul.

Previous Chapters : 1 & 2

Masterlist

Art

"How soon is next time?"

"Sorry y/n there will be no next time."

There was an unusual absence of stars being freckled across the darkness. There was no moon, either not even a new moon - it just… wasn’t there. There was mountain side, the sheer silence of the area alone was deafening, oppressive in combination with the lack of light. There in all that land stood out like a bright flower among the plain wastes, a large construct of complex architecture. Now completely destroyed by the conflict of two brothers. The memory of Itachi's death was your void prison. Sasuke's as well.

A deep ache slowly settled in your chest. Events playing again before your eyes.

Itachi's eyes snapped open. For a moment, disbelief rendered him nearly frozen in shock. What are you doing here witnessing his last moments. His last and finale battle. Itachi knew this would happen someday, but he hadn’t been prepared for you to see it all. The pain that tightened the musculature in the center of his chest felt as if it was pulling inwards from every possible direction; an overwhelming sense. Was it his illness announcing that the time is up? Or was it because of you, he was madly in love with you. It was mistake to let you approach him and to love him. Mistake he would do over and over again.

Itachi wasn’t afraid of death. It was time and he could hear your voice before he died on your arms. In his last breath he whispered please forgive me.

Itachi whispered in the darkness. He knew that he was dying at least he would be free. Free to wait for you, free of pain of his burdens of all lies and deception. He was still alive, though dying, but he was practically limp now, too weakened to even move his eyeballs.

A weak smile settled on Itachis face one last time. His last drops of strength went into that smile just for you. His vision was unfocused, darkness was taking him. There was barely any sound now, but the crying voice of yours was slowly fading out of his ears as his senses began to stop working. His entire body felt completely numb now; but internally, he still felt as if he was made of ice. His fire inside was dying. Barely able to form a single breath, he somehow managed to finally push the words out of his vocal chords.

“Don’ t mourn for me… Don't cry for me I died years ago. Don't cry for me I am finally alive"

And his eyes fell shut for the last time. He would never open them again. His time had come to claim him. His body was limp in your arms. There would be no evidence left behind of his death. Sasuke took Itachis body from you....

"Mum..Mum...Are you allright?" Your son was calling you. You were spacing out on him.

"Yes my darling I fine" Itachi lived in this boy. In this child, yours and his. He was the spitting image of Itachi. Like a ghost of Itachi walking this earth. That face so stunning so horrific the face of thousand nightmares and dreams. That was Itsuki. Enemies would say- Horrific so horrific the red glowing eyes power bleeding from them. But for you he was your beloved son.

"How I wish that I had chance to meet dad. How was it like mum to love him, to wait for him to be trained by him? To have him even briefly near you?" Itsuki would often imagine how would be like to have his father alive.

"It is like dying every day, it's like being alive. It is so great joy that it hurts. I hate that feeling cause I know I can't escape it and I don't want to escape. I love him in the way I can't explain in the way no one will ever understand. It's most powerful thing I ever felt, stronger then his death, stronger then your sharingan Itsuki ."

[mythicamagic]

"You couldn't handle me even if I came with instructions."

Okay, curiosity got the better of me, and even though there are so many good prompts to choose, I settled with this one. There is no telling which way it will go, but it sounds amusing! Have fun! ^_^

Decided to do something different with this involving mind reading, hope you like.

----

Becoming privy to Sesshoumaru's thoughts happened about as unexpectedly as one would think. Having returned from the future after three years, Kagome had figured the amount of weirdness in her life would scale back a bit. The jewel was gone, and everyone was enjoying their 'happily ever afters' so surely she could finally gain some semblance of normalcy in the past, right?

'Irritating…'

Kagome shifted, sneaking a glance at the Daiyoukai as he sat at the base of a tree. His voice resounded inside her mind, seemingly without his knowledge or consent. He was eyeing something flitting about mid-air. A fly, she suspected.

Golden eyes shifted, slit pupils keen. A hand blurred, catching the thing between forefinger and thumb.

'Die.'

Green light shone out from between his fingers, successfully killing his 'prey.'

Kagome supposed it was somewhat comforting to know that his thoughts were about the same as whatever words he deigned to speak aloud. The psychic ability she'd gained only applied to Sesshoumaru, and had happened one random day when she'd been fighting a demon.

Between one moment and the next- a presence had warmed her side as he'd deflected an attack meant for her. This had resulted in sharp, static red youki swallowing their forms briefly- Sesshoumaru's energy rushing through her system. It had stolen Kagome's breath and sent her heart thundering.

A second later, she'd started hearing his thoughts. Most startling of all, they'd begun with something completely unexpected;

'I will keep you safe, foolish miko.'

Biting her lip, Kagome snuck another glance at him- only to find Sesshoumaru gazing back. Squeaking, she focused on her forgotten work, roughly weaving a basket with a little more force than necessary.

"Are you alright, Kagome?" Sango asked, sitting beside her on the grassy hill as they prepared a few herbs and useful things for Kaede.

"Fine! Totally f-"

'Her scent is erratic, yet the woman continues to sneak glances at me. How odd. Is she becoming interested in this one? It is long overdue.'

"What?" Kagome questioned out loud, feeling Sango’s perplexed stare. The heat of another pair of eyes warmed the nape of her neck.

'Hn, I have not sensed her pine for the Half Breed in many months after their breakup. It is possible she is looking for another male. The miko is not promiscuous enough to trifle with me. She requires...a lasting bond.'

Biting her lip, Kagome's eyes burned with want to look at him again.

'Could I keep a miko? She is not like others. They usually despise my kind- and I do not care for them. But this bratty, fiery woman has proven herself through her dealings with the Jewel and the Spider. Mn...the thought of having her should not stir my blood so,' he sighed in her mind. 'Perhaps once I accept my interest in her, the vivid fantasies will stop.'

What fantasies? she wondered.

Kagome really should not have asked, because somehow a lewd mental image of herself was projected from his head directly into her gawking brain.

Standing quickly, skirts swaying about her thighs- Kagome forced a smile. "I-I forgot to do something earlier! Sorry Sango, I'll finish up with you later."

Hurrying down the hill, she stiffened upon hearing a silky voice trail after her inside her mind.

'Why is she leaving? This is unacceptable. She takes her mouth-watering scent with her,' he seemed to pause contemplatively. 'Must your retreating form be so pleasing to the eye, Kagome?'

Kagome flushed red, feeling the urge to cover her ass while running from the unexpected thoughts. However, she kept her hands at her side- a weird thrill of excitement racing down her spine.

Like a radio broadcast sounding out from a speaker- the further she ran, the dimmer his velvety voice became.

---

Emerging from Kaede's hut a few days later, Kagome fussed with her new clothing. Miko robes felt somewhat uncomfortable, but Kaede had insisted she at least try getting used to wearing them for a few days.

She honestly couldn't imagine walking around in such garments as a permanent uniform. They reminded her too much of someone else.

'No.'

Kagome jerked, freezing in place and pretending to fiddle with her collar, trying to secretly glance around for the elusive Daiyouaki.

'...Those robes do not suit her. What's more- her light scent is muddied with unnecessary feelings. Those clothes make you self-conscious, do they not, miko? Take them off.'

Blinking, Kagome's heart warmed slightly inside her chest. He could read her so easily? He...cared about how she felt?

"And those pants cover her long legs. Disgusting. You are the one who forced me into appreciating a woman's thighs, miko. Bare them to me again.'

Hissing a short breath through her teeth, Kagome whipped her head to one side- spying Sesshoumaru lingering by a hut about 40 yards away. He stiffened, blatantly surprised she'd pinpointed his location so easily.

'Could she sense me?'

Blushing, Kagome cleared her throat and gave a slight wave, before disappearing back inside the hut. She wanted to test something, and the fluttering inside her lower stomach was getting too prominent to ignore.

---

Stepping out after a quick wardrobe change, Kagome pretended not to notice him again, fiddling with her cute modern outfit. She felt more at ease in her home wear, and the voice in her head seemed to agree.

'That is much better…' Sesshoumaru's tone slid into that of curiosity. 'You feel mischievous, miko? Now why is that? I sense your fluttering excitement.'

Raised her arms above her head nonchalantly, Kagome arched her back as she stretched.

'What…?' the thinness of his tone almost made her grin ferally. 'What...are those?'

Kagome had never intended to wear them. In fact, she'd stuffed them deep inside the depths of her backpack because Yuka, Eri and Ayumi had taken it upon themselves to buy her something 'sexy' for her bad boyfriend and Souta had innocently walked into her room one day while she was packing. She hadn't had the heart to tell her friends she'd broken up with Inuyasha a long while ago.

She had no need for black lacy thigh highs, complete with suspender garter belts resting enticingly on her thighs. Or at least, she hadn't until today. Kagome stretched with a little more exaggeration, letting out a breathy sigh as her pleated skirt hitched up, exposing more of her toned legs to his gaze.

A terribly loud noise deafened her hearing like a clap of rumbling thunder, heralding a storm. Kagome realised a little belatedly that it hadn't been contained to the privacy of Sesshoumaru's mind- the growl rippling through the space between them.

He stood much closer than expected, golden eyes pinning her in place.

"Oh- hi there, Sesshoumaru," Kagome hid her surprise behind a smile. "Something wrong?"

The Daiyoukai's burning, orange eyes searched her face. Slowly, they dimmed back into gold, as he realised there was nothing appropriate he could say.

'Do you know what you are doing, little minx? Or are you completely unaware of how badly I desire those thighs wrapped around my waist?'

"Nothing," he said out loud, face completely devoid of expression.

Kagome arched a brow. He had a damn good poker face.

"Well...okay," she lifted a shoulder, taking a few steps away. "But you know, if something was bothering you, it would be better all round to just tell me. I'm not a mind reader."

Mild intrigue flickered. "I do not think you would appreciate knowing my innermost thoughts."

"Try me."

Sesshoumaru's lips curved, his blank expression cracking into something more honest and imperfect. Human, almost, in its raw appetite- the demon circling around her slowly like a predator. "The dark hungering of an inuyoukai is not something that pure and pretty miko's could stomach," he uttered.

Kagome took a breath, keeping to her bravado. Because if she didn't keep her courage, the thoughts she'd heard so clearly inside her mind would remain exactly that- formless. Never touching reality.

And that felt like a shame.

"Maybe not all of them could, but I've journeyed across Japan with a perverted con-artist and been kidnapped by dark and terrible demons much bigger than you," she hummed, keeping eye contact. "And I'm not promiscuous or anything, but I'm not a prude either. Given the right person, even I can get a little...hungry."

She heard a sharp in-take of breath. Sesshoumaru stopped, lingering in close proximity as his voice dropped into something downright sinful. "How surprising."

Kagome lifted a shoulder. "Not really, but judging by your hesitancy to share anything on your mind- maybe my 'dark hungering' would be too much for you."

Golden eyes flashed. "Preposterous."

"No, no- I think it's true," she gave an impish smile. "You couldn't handle me even if I came with instructions."

This seemed to snap his carefully constructed facade of control. Sesshoumaru's claws snapped out, fingers trembling as they gripped her hair. A fierce breeze lashed around them as Kagome realised he'd collected white energy around their forms- speeding them out of sight into the lush forest. Away from the safety of witnesses. None could save her now.

Sesshoumaru bore down over her, neck craned, mouth hovering close. It was sharp teeth that brushed her parted lips first.

'I will have you- strange, enticing, annoying woman.'

Kagome shuddered, blue eyes darkened as her thighs rubbed together. Her hands met silken robes, gliding up into silky hair as his arm swooped down, hooking beneath her knees.

While their lips crashed together and Sesshoumaru held her aloft- Kagome smiled and wordlessly obliged by wrapping her thighs around his lean waist, giggling as the taciturn demon inwardly purred.

[bangchanswolfpelt]

please PLEASE elaborate more on sweet bf hongjoong who tries to pry open every kink you have 💋

quick warning: this is more me thinking out loud than it is actual smut, so feel free to ignore it if that's not a thing you're interested in.

i'm still definitely getting to know Hongjoong, but he gives me the distinct vibe of someone who could be very sexually adventurous, but also someone who doesn't really have a whole lot of actual experience. like, this boy was so busy working, he barely even went to high school—to me, that kind of laser focus on work says that he probably hasn't had time for much of a social life or relationships, and i feel like he's not the type to necessarily go for quick flings.

so like, i'm really into the idea of exploring a relationship where he's figuring out sex with a more experienced reader. reader might be older (i can definitely see Joong being the type to be interested in someone older than him), but we might also keep that vague.

there would be lot of actual talk about sex and kink, i think, and definitely a lot of doing things out of order, because he's a fuckin Scorpio and what do order and convention even mean??? did you think Hongjoong was going to wait until after he put his dick in you to pry all your deepest and most depraved secrets from you? virginity is a social construct, he has pussy to eat and a soulmate to unravel like a murder mystery.

(also, i. almost never use the phrase soulmate unless i'm talking about aus where soulmates are a real, observed phenomenon, but also. i feel like Hongjoong would genuinely think of the person he's with as his soulmate? idk, i just feel like when things get serious with this boy, they get Serious, he doesn't seem like someone who does things halfway.)

((re: doing things out of order, one thing that's very vivid in my mind is Joong on your lap after he's confessed to you that he really wants you to peg him. you're both fully clothed, and at this point in the relationship he’s never even gotten more undressed for you than maybe taking his shirt off, but he's grinding up against you, panting and moaning and babbling as you grope his ass and tell him exactly how you're going to ease him open with your tongue and your fingers before you make him take your strap. he cums in his pants with his face buried in the crook of your neck, tears running down his face because he wants you to fuck him so badly.))

i'm imagining a lot of very gently (and occasionally not-so-gently) taking care of him and exploring what he's interested in. as he gets more comfortable, eventually Hongjoong would realize how much focus you're putting on his wants and needs and start trying to find ways to delve into yours, because he cares about fulfilling your needs, but also because the idea of leaving you in any way unsatisfied is unbearable to his pride and the idea of not understanding the fullness of your desires would be untenable to his curiosity. he'd also be interested in switching things up in a more distinctly d/s way; you take the lead in a lot of earlier exploration and he defers to that, but as time goes on and he inevitably sees you in more vulnerable situations, he'd realize that sometimes you're more inclined to follow than lead, and that he's also sometimes very into that.

we're definitely getting into watersports and ear kink. ear kink because watching ALICE ASMR and going from 'i think this is kind of hot?' to 'what do i even do with this?' was a big impetus for this whole disjointed verse—like, i just very vividly imagined him finding you getting yourself off and playfully demanding to know what you're watching, then instead of being weirded out, just jumping fully onboard in a way you didn't even think was possible—kissing your ears and whispering the weirdest, filthiest dirty talk into them while he fingers you in motions that mimic the way the ears in the video are being played with. watersports because i feel like Joong would be really into the vulnerability of you wetting yourself for him, and also the inherent filthiness and taboo of it, and also because i personally am very into it.

medical kink could be a lot of fun, i think—i can see him being the type to look up and teach himself how to do a whole actual cranial nerve exam while thinking "This is great. I'm going to get a good grade in sex, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve."

playing with consent might also on the table—i can see him being into cnc, but also maybe a little uncomfortable with how into it he is, and that could be an interesting place to go. menophilia, somno, and sounding are all things i can see him getting into, too, but i'm not leaning super hard into any particular direction with any of them.

there's definitely gonna be some affectionate degradation: Hongjoong strikes me as the type to very lovingly call you 'slutty', and i feel like a part of him would enjoy it more knowing that you did used to sleep around before you settled down with him. he enjoys knowing that you could have anyone you want, that you had so many people you wanted, but it's him you've chosen to be with now. it's a very unique kind of possessiveness that i think he has—he doesn't care about being your only one, he just cares about being the one who's indispensable to you—which is why i think we could also get into him sharing you, i'm thinking with either Seonghwa or maybe the rest of 5racha.

this is all very up in the air, tho. i've got some scenes a little more clearly sketched out, but i'm honestly not sure i've got Hongjoong's character down well enough to do something so ambitious? if you've actually made it this far, i'd love to hear your thoughts!!

[dakotafoster]

ᴅʀᴜɴᴋ ɪɴ ʟᴏᴠᴇ

ραιяιиg : katsuki bakugou x g/n reader

ɢɛռʀɛ: fluff ♡ crack humor

աօʀɖ ƈօʊռȶ : 2.1k

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢs: a bit steamy

𝕤𝕦𝕞𝕞𝕒𝕣𝕪 : When your boyfriend comes home intoxicated, he shows you a side of him that is reserved for only you. ✰

This will be my first one-shot on this blog, so please any constructive criticism will be really helpful! Hope you all enjoy. ッ

╔═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╗

It was a chilly starry night. Japan from the balcony window had never looked so serene until now. The bright stars that dotted the dark velvet sky, giving the gloomy canvas a little bit of life--of light. It was somber yet luminous, they drew the lights of heaven and gave the citizens of below a meager taste of something so divine and sublime, a measly fragment of the beauty we long to see in ourselves and the world around it. It was magnificent.

A heavy knock interrupted your attention on the black before you, muffled whispers and giggles could be heard from the opposite side of the chestnut door. As you lifted yourself from the glass railing you took a brief gander at the clock sitting on the desk beside your TV. It read 2:43 a.m.

Wrapping a small nearby cardigan around your frame and rubbed your eyes of sleep before making a beeline toward the door, the muffled voices becoming clearer as your got closer.

“Dammit Bakugou, quit messing around and give me your keys!”

“Gotta find it in my ass first shitty hair!”

Swinging the door open your (e/c) optics landed upon a frustrated Kirishima who was wrestling a very drunk Bakugou for a silvery white ring of keys right outside your flat doorstep. Bakugou seemed to be having an absolute blast, giggling like a little school girl as he evaded Kirishima’s attempts to swipe the item from his grip, and Kiri was having none of it. They both seemed rather oblivious to your presence and persisted to look like complete idiots in the halls of the complex.

“Both of you stop it before you wake up the neighbors!”

Your harsh tone is what finally received their attention, gazing timidly at you with wide eyes frozen. In one last attempt to get a rise out of Kirishima, Bakugou swiped his palm brutally on the back of his friends head, his head flung forward rough smack and a grunt, mumbling something about Katsuki being a dick. You heaved out a sigh at the sight of your boyfriend, his face sheen with a thick layer of sweat and a radiant red flush adorned his cheeks and across his nose. His eyes still the blazing crimson you had come to adore so much puffy and irritated.

“Sorry ‘bout this (y/n)... I didn’t mean to wake ya but Bakugou has had too much to be alone right now, and I still have to take care of Kaminari so...”

Kirishima timidly began to caress the back of his spiky locks, giving you a sheepish grin and gave a quick glance at the blonde next to him who was struggling to keep himself from tumbling forward. Too exhausted to even argue, you simply waved Kirishima off and moved to grab hold of your intoxicated boyfriend. The strong aroma of what was seemingly Fireball mixed with rum made your nostrils flare in distaste, far from his usual caramel scent.

“It’s fine Kiri. Just get home safe ‘kay?”

“Yeah, have a goodnight (y/n)”

You slammed the door behind with a swing of your foot, you then proceeded to lead Katsuki into your bedroom with an arm wrapped around his bulky torso to keep him straight. He stumbled over his feet a couple times along the way there, leaning on you for support so he didn’t face plant or dive to the floorboards in any way. He was mumbling incoherently to himself, slumping against your shoulder which led to his breath brushing up against the side of your face and into your ear, the hot sensation produced a shiver down your spine. Katsuki interpreted this rather well, because he immediately attached himself to your neck and pressed soft, open-mouthed kissed to your soft spot. He knew exactly how to drive you crazy even if he couldn’t even fucking walk straight.

“I need you babygirl.”

“Not tonight ‘Suki, maybe tomorrow.”

Your eyes fluttered shut at the feeling of his searing hot lips against your pulse, his wet tongue slipping out everyone and then teasingly. You hummed softly and weakly cupped his scalding cheek to pull him from your nape, cursing whatever deity that made him so goddamn tempting.

“C’mon lets get you ready for bed hun.”

“Mmm... Babe...”

He groaned lowly as you sat him down at the foot of your bed, his large frame slouching over his knees. Crouching down you gripped his ankle and raised his seemingly massive leg into your lap, silently untying his shoes whilst feeling his vivid gaze burning holes into your skull. Placing his shoes to the side you began to fumble with his belt to get rid of his ebony jeans. Amid doing so, Katsuki had graced with a lazy smirk and casually reached his generous hands to your head, running his fingers through your (h/c) strands.

“Hell yeah, this is what I like to see baby.”

Fuck. The way the words fell from those lips made you utterly weak. Your face felt like it was on fire with how carnal his gaze was, you were sure you looked like a fish out of water with the shock and overwhelming arousment you were feeling. Nevertheless, it was short lived when Bakugou dropped onto the bed and burst into a fit of laughter and giggles just by your reaction. You couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle with a twitch of your brow, you gave a quick smack to his thigh and tiredly tugged at his jeans once he had calmed down. His endless taunting was never so apparent until now and frankly, it was debilitating and instigating all at once.

“Stay here. Please don’t try and get up, I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“Yeah.. Sure.”

He released a small giggle and his head rolled to his left shoulder, laying tired on his back upon your white duvet. You rose from your spot on the floor and exited the bedroom to get him a glass of water and some ibuprofen to somewhat relieve his hang over. You didnt think you’d return to find a very naked and very erect Katsuki laying splayed out across the bed, the remainder of his clothes discarded on the side of the bed and his arms crossed behind the back of his head, his sculpted six-pack presented to you in such a way it made you drool like a fucking dog.. And the same arrogant smirk he’d been adorning for entirety of his stay among your apartment, the same enticing glimmer in his optics.

“Oh my god Katsu! What the fuck?!”

You shrieked, averting your eyes to your feet and stumbled around to find his boxers or at least something to conceal his manhood. Bakugou cackled our in delight before he was met with his boxers on his face, picking up on a faint grumble and your feet stomping toward the nightstand next to him.

“Put on your damn boxers Bakugou! I’m too fuckin tired for this shit..” You hissed at your dopey, idiotic boyfriend as he just began to fumble with the garment and mishandle them up each leg, snickering throughout the whole process. “Okay okay... No need to yell. So much for trying to serve it to you like a Hot ‘n Ready Hotpocket.”

You’ve never laughed so hard in your damn laugh at that. He grinned at your shaking form, watching intently as you struggled to breath through each laugh and chuckle, snorts coming out every few seconds. God, you hated him and loved him simultaneously for doing this to you. You wanted to give in to his desire because Jesus the sex was with him was down right unbelievable. Man, did this hunk of a man know how to pleasure a woman and fuck was he exceptional at doing so. Although, at the same time you were tempted to knock his ass into sleep. Either way you couldn’t officially decide. After several moments you composed yourself, taking deep breaths as you made your way into your restroom. You managed to stifle a few chortles in the process of grabbing a rag and moistened it with lukewarm water from your sink, then returned thankful you hadn’t walked in on another naked Bakugou. Making your way around the king sized mattress you were pleased to find he had already taken the ibuprofen and the water both absent.

“Let me clean your face baby. It’s all sweaty and sticky.”

You mumbled out drowsily, sitting down beside Katsuki and tilting his chin up to face you and nimbly wipe his face clean. You looked up at him to make sure we wasn’t falling asleep and you froze, your heart erupted at the sight you were provided with. Katsuki’s face was free of his usual scowl, instead his eyebrows were relaxed, tilted upward and his lips in a small, soft smile. Those dazzling vermilion eyes staring into you, glistening with so much adoration and passion for you. You choked, mesmerized with how calm and serene he looked. The next words to tumble from his lips could’ve sent you melting onto the floor like wax.

“I am really really... Really in love with you (y/n).”

You believed every single word. You never even questioned it for a second in that moment. Really because you had no reason to discredit his love for you, he was a genuine man with a sharp and palpable tongue 24/7. You both were aware of that, and you didn’t complain. It was nice to have him so honest with you, and yes sometimes he wasn’t always nice with the way he expressed such honesty you had grown accustomed to it. Which is why you had been so shocked to see the brash and usually loud brute suddenly become so hushed and tender.

“I mean it princess. I love you so fuckin’ much. I know I don’t really show you how much I do like normal shitty couples, and i’m really fucking sorry for that but I love you with everything I got babe.. I know how much I can be a pain in the ass sometimes.. But.. I promise I’ll never stop lovin’ you, and I’ll show you every damn day just to fucking prove it. M’kay? Your fucking stuck with me until you’re too damn old to even try and fight me on it. I’m so happy I met you and I’m terrified at the same, ‘cause fuck babe I never knew I wanted love until now, until you. I never saw the fuckin’ point. So please jus.. Fuckin’ stay and be in love with me too.”

He refused to give you a chance to reply before he gingerly took your face into his hands and brought his lips to yours. The world fell away as you felt his soft, chapped lips against your own. The kiss with just as delicate as his words and touch, moving smoothly and overwhelming emotion. You immediately raised your hands to weave together behind his neck, pulling him in gently to deepen the kiss. In response to this, Katsuki rolled his tongue across your bottom lip in a silent request for an entrance. You whimpered, opening your mouth as his tongue began to explore your wet cavern, faintly tasting the alcoholic beverages from just hours before. His thumbs swiping tenderly across your cheekbones and your fingertips tangled themselves around his strong neck.

It wasn’t rushed or rough in any way, not like the many nights were he would intend on fucking you senseless, this is when he would truly let himself be vulnerable. Moments like these when he was so damn soft and loving toward you, and only you.

The kiss lasted for what felt like only a minute when in reality lasted 15 minutes. He left you seeking for more. Heaving for breath at the mere intensity of the make-out, resting his forehead against yours, noses brushing against each other gently. You both stayed like that for a moment, just basking in each other’s loving glow with stupid grins across your lips. You took your time taking in this hidden side of your boyfriend, loving each second of it while you still could before he would return to his sullen self. You reveled in every moment you lost yourself in his soft caress, were it was nobody but the two of you acting almost as one. In which you could feel close to him away from intercourse and instead with sensual kisses and grazes. Nonetheless, he was certainly the half that made you whole.

“I’m in love with you too Katsu’.”

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

Thank you so much for reading! Request are open, and feel free to leave feedback or ask any questions! ʕ•́ᴥ•̀ʔ

- 𝖑𝖎𝖟 ☾ ✩

𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙙 : (𝟔/𝟐𝟏/𝟐𝟎 - 𝟏:𝟓𝟓 𝐚.𝐦.)

[ladykissingfish]

A Date with an Angel // Part Three // Sasori and Itachi

Sasori

“Do you like this place? It’s really colorful, isn’t it?” “It’s alright.” “These nachos are delicious. Do you want some?” “No thanks, the cheese would upset my stomach. I’m mildly lactose intolerant.” Konan just sighs to herself and picks her drink back up, slowly sipping as she tries to think of a good topic for conversation. Earlier, when the redheaded house member Sasori had invited her to spend an evening with him, her surprise had been greater than with any of the others so far. When she’d first been introduced to the household back when she moved in, she’d taken one look at Sasori and had been shocked; later on she sat in Nagato’s room and demanded to know why he was employing children to do the type of work that they did. “Children?”, he’d responded, shaking his head. “Sasori is no child; he’s 35 years old. He’s older than me and you, even.” 35?? With his short stature, smooth, unlined face and vibrantly colored hair ... it was simply unbelievable. The more she got to know him, however, the more she realized that he was indeed very mature; maybe too mature. He never smiled, never laughed, and made even less conversation than Kakuzu did. Whenever Konan made meals, he never joined any of the others at the table. “Don’t worry; it don’t have anything to do with you or your cooking,” Deidara had told her one night when she questioned it. “The guy just never eats. Hardly sleeps, either. It’s like he’s not human or something.” Considering his quiet, serious personality, his choice of venue to take Konan to tonight was entirely odd. “A comedy club?”, she’d asked, as he guided her through the doors. “Mm. They’re amateurs but really quite good. I’m sure you’ll laugh a lot.” And laugh Konan did — but not Sasori. His facial expression didn’t change once all evening, and he didn’t so much as crack a smile through even the most hilarious of acts. Now it was the interlude between sets, and Konan was trying to find something, anything to make conversation about. Before she can, the next guy comes on. It’s a man with a small dummy that he sits on his knee, that “tells” the jokes for him. Konan happens to glance at Sasori and is startled; for once, he seems interested. His eyes stay fixated on the little wooden toy throughout the man’s set, and when he’s done, it’s the first time that Sasodi cracks any kind of a smile. “Are you a fan of ventriloquism?” Sasori turns towards her, and unleashes more words than she’s heard him say in the entire time of living at the house. Sasori is gesturing, he’s vivid and animated as he explains the process of creating dummies and puppets, and the finer points of ventriloquism. “I didn’t know this was a hobby of yours.” He raises an eyebrow, and tells her it goes far beyond a hobby. The show is over so he takes her back home, and brings her straight to his room (which she’s never seen the inside of before). She gives a little gasp upon entering; Sasori’s shelves are filled to the rafters with various wooden constructs, some unfinished, some painted, some clothes, some with hair and jewelry and —

Konan goes to pick up a smaller one laying on a bench, gently turning it this way and that. “This is so realistic,” she says, softly. “I wish I had the patience for creating art like this.” “What do you mean? Your art is amazing as well.” She blinks when he says that; surely he’s not referring to — “I’ve been in awe of your origami for quite some time. The things you create are very beautiful. I’d love it if you could teach me your technique sometime.” Konan blushes; nobody except Yahiko had ever complimented her origami hobby before. She sees a piece of paper laying on his desk, and begins slowly folding and teaching him how to make a basic flower. After observing and asking questions, he’s able to replicate the simple lotus. She then asks him if he could walk her through the process for creating one of his pieces, which he does, from sanding to sculpting to painting. “Things like this are better than humans,” he tells her, quietly, at one point. “These you can create, and you can control. But you never really know what a person is thinking, or feeling, or what they’re going to do next.” At the end of it, Konan glances up at the clock on his wall and gasps: 1am?! Where had the time gone?? She gets up and thanks Sasori for (what turned out to be) a lovely evening. He hesitates, then takes her hand and gives it a light kiss. “You are welcome to come back any time you wish,” he says, as he walks her to his door. “I’m a night owl so if I’m not out on a job, I’ll be awake and working.” She nods, smiles, then returns to her own room. Before she falls asleep she thinks of another flower to teach him: the campanula. These bright blossoms offer beauty, and intricacy ... and are a symbol of new friendships.

Itachi

“Oh my Goddd.” “What’s wrong, Konan?” “Nothing; it’s just, I haven’t felt this relaxed in a while. Itachi smiled and took a sip of his lemonade, before answering, in his quiet way, “Me, too.” When Konan had been approached by the dark-haired Itachi earlier in the day and asked if she wished to spend some time with him that afternoon, she’d been excited. Itachi was somebody that mostly kept to himself within the house; always quiet, very soft-spoken but when he DID speak he always said the most profound things Konan had ever heard. He was one of the most calm and mature members of Nagato’s team, an Konan’s shock upon discovering that he was only 21 years old was immense. One night she went into the kitchen to cook everyone a meal, and was pleasantly surprised to find Itachi there ahead of her, doing prep-work for the dish she had said she was going to make. From then on, the two developed a slow, lovely friendship, punctuated mostly by them cooking together and occasionally watching a movie in the living room. Today however was the very first time she went anywhere with him in public, and she was nearly flabbergasted when they pulled up to a well-known luxury spa. “This — Itachi this kinda stuff is expensive. I can’t let you —“ but he just waved her off, took her inside, and told the lady behind the desk that they both wanted “the works”. A slow, soothing full-body massage, manicures and pedicures, eye and hair treatment, mud masks, as many desserts as they wanted (Itachi especially seemed to have a thing for the sweet dumplings), and now, a hot tub. “I wouldn’t have thought a guy would be into stuff like this,” Konan commented, reaching for her sweet tea. “Man or woman, everyone needs the chance to relax, don’t they?” Konan nods, and then says “Well I’m sure that all of you that work for Nagato do. But me? What am I doing that I deserve something like this? MY job isn’t nearly as stressful, and —“ “You take care of all of us. You’re there for us. That may sound simplistic, but that’s no small feat, my dear.” The two are quiet for a while, listening to the relaxing nature-esque background music of the spa, before Itachi says, quietly, “If — if you ever feel like talking about HIM, you can talk to me. I don’t know if you’re ready but I want you to know I’ve experienced loss, too.” Konan closes her eyes; while she appreciates Itachi’s kindness, she’s NOT ready to talk about Yahiko. So she asks instead, “You lost someone close to you?” He nods, faces her, and tells her the story about losing his parents in a car accident when he was 12. His voice wavers when he tells her that they were coming home from a parent-teacher conference for HIM, and how, for the longest time, he blamed himself for their deaths. “Me and my younger brother Sasuke were taken in by my older cousin Shisui,” he explained, now smiling. “Nice guy but definitely not father material. I guess it’s just the Uchiha curse; you lose someone and have to go to someone else. It happened to me, to Obito —“ Konan stops him, and is REALLY surprised to learn that Itachi and Obito are distant cousins. “But anyway, I just want you to know I get it. If the day ever comes when you want to talk, I can be there for you.” She scoots over in the water and hugs him; she blushes when she realizes her towel has slipped, and for a brief few moments their bare chests are touching. “S-sorry about that,” she says, backing away and covering up. “Don’t worry about it,” he replies; but he’s blushing quite hard as well. The drive home is quiet, each feeling comfortably invigorated and relaxed. When they get to the front door, Konan leans up and kisses Itachi’s cheek, thanking him for a lovely day. He tells her that she made the day even lovelier. They go inside and all of the boys make it a point to go up to Konan and tell her how great she looks after her day of pampering, which she appreciates. She goes into the kitchen to start dinner, and once again finds Itachi there ahead of her. She smiles and ties on her apron, and the two create another delicious meal together.

[the-haven-of-fiction]

Not A Christmas Movie

Genre/Rating: Fluff and Sweetness of the holiday variety, T

Summary:  Tom and Astrid find themselves in a unique situation on Christmas Eve. 

Author’s Notes:  My first sappy romantic Christmas one shot, y’all!  Move over, Hallmark!  I tried to cover some of the best cheesy themes, I hope you enjoy it.  Thank you to Pillow Talk and Lolo for proofing.  

The sound of the wind and snow raced through the trees and whipped against the walls of the cabin, the remote mountainous location devoid of any welcoming lights from neighbors.  The two travelers dropped their luggage upon crossing the threshold and rushed to push the heavy door shut behind them.   

“When we get through this, neither you nor my sisters are ever allowed to make fun of my emergency preparedness again!  We’d be in major trouble without it!” Astrid declared, brushing snow off her jacket and holding up the lantern from the referenced emergency preparedness with her other hand as Tom attempted to lock the door.

“I think I can safely and assuredly,” he paused to run his tongue over his perpetually chapped lips in concentration, “give you my word as an Englishman that I shall never,” a grunt of effort, “allow either myself or your sisters to utter a syllable of criticism on that score.”  

She couldn’t help but giggle at his struggle with the lock.  

“Remember when you had the brilliant idea to build a set for one of our backyard holiday productions?  Was that when you played Scrooge?  Your word as an Englishman may be good as gold, but your complete lack of skill with anything slightly mechanical is something I wouldn’t swear by.”

Even in the dim light of the lantern, the slight twitch of a smile was visible on his face, the vision of the pathetic attempt so vivid in his memory.  

“No one is going to believe this,” she sighed, shivering and looking around for a light switch.

“Truth is stranger than fiction,” Tom quipped. “The best intentions of a Christmas surprise, a series of unfortunate events, a comedy of errors…”

“I blame my soon to be ex-mechanic, the weatherman, Anya and Arlyss and their crazy idea about trying to organize our families into coming out here to the wilderness to have some kind of storybook Christmas,” she huffed, fumbling along the wall, but finding the switch and flipping it to On in relief.

They both groaned when nothing happened.  No electricity, no heat.

“They must have disconnected the electricity during renovations, fantastic.”  He followed close behind her as they made their way around the cabin.  Although the snowstorm was in full force and there weren’t any outside lights on the driveway, they could see evidence of construction as they had pulled up a few minutes earlier.  

“Well, at least there’s a fireplace and I think there is actually a pile of wood next to it,” Astrid pointed as she spoke.  “How about that.  Must have been stocked by the same person who left the door unlocked. Remind me never to hire this company, whoever they are.”

“I could go outside and check for the…uhm…the…” Tom stuttered and gestured, making what she assumed was meant to be a square shape of some kind.

“The breaker box?” she asked dryly.  

“Exactly, yes,” he answered in a tone of false bravado, clearing his throat. “I was merely waiting to see if you knew the name.”

“Santa doesn’t bring presents to little boys who lie, ya know.”  She set the lantern on the mantle next to a small glass dish of matches.  “Especially little boys who grew up in a centuries-old estate and have servants who take care of locking the doors and fixing the electrical problems.”

“They are not servants, they are staff, Miss Sassy, and I doubt Father Christmas knows we are here, no one does,” he replied.  “Add the one forgotten mobile and the other with no service to the list of things that won’t be believed.”

“Well, anyways, Professor,” she went on in an exaggerated manner, “I may have a First Aid kit in my emergency supplies, but I am not equipped to perform any surgery on wounds you would most certainly incur from trying to play Electrician.”

He knew she was correct and they both smiled, cheeks rosy with cold.

“I suppose it was fortuitous that I ended up teaching Classics rather than embarking upon a career in carpentry.”

Astrid got a fire going and they were able to scope out their surroundings more thoroughly. A last-minute change of plans had allowed the visiting Tom and originally scheduled-to-work Astrid to join their families in the mountains for Christmas, but a quick succession of unforeseen events had brought them here, stranded close to midnight in a semi-livable cabin during a snowstorm on Christmas Eve.

The owners must have been undergoing some kind of renovations.  The cabin obviously had been inhabited previously, but half the interior wasn’t complete, including the kitchen.

“The toilet flushes!” she shouted from the bathroom.  “And there’s running water in the sink!”

“Unfortunately there is no sofa or chairs of any sort and only one bedroom,” he reported when she came back into the main room, “No fireplace, but it does have a bed with linens.”

“Well, my kit has extra batteries so we should be okay with the lantern in there,” she assured him, completely missing his point about the issue of a single bed.

He noticed that her shivering wasn’t decreasing as much as it should, looking her up and down in concern.  She was wearing an ankle-length corduroy skirt in a shade that matched her eyes, with a long-sleeved but thin sweater.  

“I think we should go through our luggage and put on a couple of more layers.  That centuries-old estate was a bit drafty, so I am accustomed to an indoor chill,” he informed her with a tinge of that irritating blend of both humility and privilege.

She rolled her eyes, but went over to her suitcase and started sifting through her clothes.  

“You and the twins have always been bossy. It’s a wonder how I have managed to get through life as an adult without the three of you hovering over me like you did when I was a kid.”

He pulled on another shirt and grinned at her.

“I still remember the day you were born.  I was visiting Dad and Roberta that year for Christmas,” referring to the alternating schedule their families had of who went to which country for the holidays. “And your sisters and I were old enough to be excited rather than jealous of a new child coming.”

Astrid turned away from him, hoping he wouldn’t see her reaction.  Why did it please her so much to hear him speak of her birth with such affection?  It must be this ridiculous situation.  And the holiday.  And her birthday.  And this sparkling blue-eyed man whose place in her life she had never been quite able to define.  Not a blood relation, but as close as a family member, certainly more than a friend.  But more than a friend, in that sense?  College and adulthood had made the unanswered question less important, as the shared summers and holidays of their childhood had grown fewer and fewer.  She didn’t let herself ponder why he hadn’t married and had a dozen children to help him keep up that manor. Any woman would be elated at the prospect of sharing her life with him; she knew he had a string of casual relationships, just as she had, but their age difference had made her sure years ago that he would be a distant memory by this time.  

“Born on Christmas Day to parents named Joseph and Mary, merely the beginning of my life’s trajectory of ‘You won’t believe this!’ events, continuing to this bizarre night that has practically every plot point needed for a cheesy holiday movie except that we aren’t secretly pining for each other.”  She zipped up the windbreaker over the thicker sweater before reaching for her parka, not seeing the brief flicker in his eyes.

“Did you know that Arliss wanted to call you Snowflake and Anya’s choice was Mistletoe?” Tom picked up her scarf and hat that he had placed on the hearth so they would be toasty and walked back to her.

“I hear that story every year, along with all the suggestions from everyone to aunts and uncles to the postman.  Thank God my parents went with something on theme, but not silly.”  She pulled on her boots after a second pair of socks and looked up at him.

His expression changed and he drew in a short breath.

“Do you like your name?”

The inquiry was brimming with something that sounded like hope to her.

“Oh, yes, I’ve always loved it.  In fact, I love it as much as I’ve disliked having a birthday on Christmas because it is beautiful and unique and it made me feel beautiful and unique.”

A wave of pure delight lit up his face and something clicked in her mind.  Her parents’ version of where her name came from was always that someone had mentioned it to them and they couldn’t remember who it had been.

“It was you, wasn’t it,” Astrid said.  And it wasn’t a question. “It was your suggestion.”

He worried at his lower lip, a tic she’d come to know years ago that was a sure indication of him being both pleased and embarrassed.

“Yes,” the soft affirmation punctuated by the crackles and pops from the fire. “And your description is precisely how I thought of it then, thanks to having just started Latin in school, and,” a heartbeat of silence, “it is how I think of you now.”

He was standing directly in front of her and paused to survey her face for a few seconds before tapping lightly under her chin.  

Without even thinking about it, it seemed, she looked up at the ceiling so he could wrap the heated scarf around her neck.  The warmth felt wonderful, although the feeling caused by this stunning revelation about her name and the look on his face was already warming her up in a way she tried to herself wasn’t happening.

He tucked her hair behind her ears and pulled the hat down while she argued with herself that he was simply being affectionate in the manner of a friend.

“Well,” she said, a little too loudly, stepping back from him, “That down comforter is calling to me, I guess we should be getting to bed.”

Good heavens, the bed, she thought.  As in one bed.  

As in here, as in they were stuck with a snowstorm swirling around them.  

In a cabin that was being renovated.  With no power or heat.  

On Christmas Eve.  

This couldn’t be real, it was not a Christmas movie.

“I suppose we should,” still in that soft voice.  

A distraction.  She needed a distraction.

“Oh!  I just remembered!  I have my favorite Christmas movie downloaded on my phone, we can watch it before we go to sleep.”

Less than two hours later, David Niven was giving his sermon and Loretta Young was gazing up at him while Cary Grant walked away in the snow.  Tom was propped up a bit against the headboard and had insisted on holding the phone so she could stay under the blankets.  Somehow she had ended up almost pasted to his side as the story progressed and his arm was around her.  About halfway through, they’d had a little tussle about whether or not he should leave the warm cocoon of the bed and get them another candy cane from her Snack Pack.  He argued that they had already brushed their teeth, but a sincere plea from her with an affectionate “Be naughty with me, Professor!” addition was something he simply couldn’t resist.  

She sighed and closed her eyes, contented and drowsy and finally no longer cold, too tired and confused to attempt to figure out what was happening, how years of ignoring what was just below the surface had nearly bubbled over.  It was impossible.  He wasn’t interested.  He was just being Tom.  Typical Tom.  Caring, attentive, making you feel like you were the only person in the room.  She wouldn’t think about this anymore right now.  Maybe tomorrow.  Or not.  

Tom closed the app on her phone and noticed the time.

“Hey there, it’s 12:01.”

“Mmhhmm,” she murmured, feeling herself about to drift off.  He was so familiar, so comforting, so exactly like Christmas itself should be.  She wanted to enjoy this moment before she went back to being the little kid and he the older…the older what?

“Happy Birthday,” he said and dipped his head to kiss her forehead, his breath sweet from the earlier candy cane.

She turned upwards toward him without opening her eyes to give him a peck on the cheek, almost without knowing what she was doing in her sleepy state, but she miscalculated and missed his cheek, her mouth landing on his.

He didn’t jerk back in shock.  Or horror.

It’s now or never, she thought, suddenly wide awake and ready to throw caution out the window that was probably frozen shut by now.

Ten seconds later, ten minutes later, she wasn’t sure which, he pulled back breathlessly and she opened her eyes. 

“What are you doing?” he asked in bewilderment, in surprise, but not in accusation.

“I’m kissing you, do you mind?” she responded, quickly pulling off her mittens and his beanie so she could sink her fingers into his curls.

“I, uhm…”

“Have no fear for your virtue, Thomas,” she teased in a low voice, tugging on a fistful of those ginger locks and causing a sharp gasp from him that thrilled her and gave her courage. “We are wrapped up like a couple of stuffed sausages in this icebox and there is a foot of clothing between us.”  

His gaze narrowed and focused on her lips.

Another kiss, sweet and shy, but sure.

“I thought we weren’t secretly pining for each other,” he quoted her words back to her.

“I lied,” Astrid admitted while placing a string of kisses down his nose and nipping the tip. 

The gasp changed to a growl, his grip on her upper arms tightening.

“Santa doesn’t bring presents to little girls who lie,” using her words against her, again.

She kissed him, again.  Longer, lingering.

They were side by side now, the blankets becoming tangled.

“Did you lie?” she whispered, not knowing what to do next if he denied it, but also feeling like she couldn’t let another minute pass without settling the matter.

He propped himself up on an elbow and raised an eyebrow at her.

“I don’t recall either confirming or denying your assertion at the time,” wanting to tease her in return.

“But,” he rushed to continue upon seeing her immediately crestfallen, “I will make it absolutely clear now,” each word followed by a brush of his lips across her jaw and down her neck, “that you,” lifting his head to smile at her, “are the one I desire.”

Tears of happiness welled up and slipped down her cheeks.  

“Happy Christmas, my starshine,” he whispered against her lips.

[thanekrios]

The way fall smells

SUMMARY: Tommy always loved the distinctive scent of fall. After a day patrolling with Joel, he remembers why.

The leaves had grown old and begun falling, laying carpets of warm hues on every trail surrounding Jackson. Tommy took a deep breath, taking in the unique sharpness in the air that came with the last months of the year.

It had been a good day. They had patrolled until noon, everything clear – no signs of Hunters or infected– and after checking in, left for the rest of the day to hunt and walk, to talk and have a snack under the orange light of the late afternoon just like they did when they were young.

Joel was having a good day too; Tommy could see it. For the whole afternoon, his shoulders had been relaxed, arms resting at his sides; every now and then, he stopped to take in the shushing of the leaves or the landscape. He was at peace.

Over the course of two years, Tommy had seen how his brother’s sharp edges had begun to dull and a smile would come to him easier than a frown. He talked more, about Sarah and Tess and sometimes even about himself; he hummed around Tommy, sang around Ellie. For a long time, Joel’s hatred for everything was like an all-consuming fire. But Tommy knew that as catastrophic as fires could be, they could also restore – he had seen it with grasslands, entire fields cleansed by the flames, making way for new vegetation to thrive. And now, he had seen it with Joel.

“We should head back.” Joel said as he got up and brushed breadcrumbs off his jacket. “We don’t want it getting too late.”

“Yeah,” Tommy agreed as they began walking in Jackson’s direction. “Got any plans for tonight?”

“Watchin’ a movie with Ellie.”

‘You’re both welcome to join us for dinner if you like.”

Tommy made a pause and considered his words.

Whenever they had them over, it wasn’t just dinner. It was a series of stories from any period of their lives. The brothers grew more excited with each anecdote, Maria would bid them goodnight long after their plates had been cleared; and as their laughter turned loud like thunderclaps, Ellie began knocking down every miserable object in her proximity as she became overexcited while shouting No fucking way! Then came the guitars. More laughter and clatter. And before they knew it, Maria was walking out the door for an early patrol.

So, Tommy added:

“Before your movie.”

“Thanks, but we don’t wanna interrupt Maria’s sleep two nights in a row.” Joel’s eyes ran across the golden foliage, the corners of his mouth curving.

“Well, I’m sure Ellie would appreciate some leftovers.” Tommy found himself smiling as well. “I can leave’em by the porch.”

“Usual place?”

“Usual place,” he confirmed.

“Appreciate it.”

They walked in silence for a while, enjoying the brittle sound of falling leaves and with each step, they walked into memories.

Tommy loved fall.

He first became enchanted with it as a child. He craved the crunching of a dry leaf under his booted feet, having a hot drink when his lips were chapped, listening to Joel play soft melodies as the sun set fire to the clouds. But above all, he looked forward to the unmistakable scent of summer’s perishing.

Tommy knew he came across as simple, devoid of imagination. Even before the outbreak people had assumed there wasn't much to him, that he never dreamt of anything other than a job in construction, blindly following Joel’s steps. He knew why it was easy to believe he had chosen an uncomplicated life rather than having settled for it. He didn’t make any effort to correct anyone. His dreams had been his own. Truth was, Tommy had wanted to be a storyteller in his youth.

During his childhood, he imagined the playful winds that came with fall were whispering stories, travelling through the rattling orange and yellow leafed trees, there for anyone who was willing to listen. Tommy imagined, to escape the empty rooms, the absent parents. He opened his mind and closed his eyes to craft tales of floating homes in the sky and flying whales and homemade dinners.

Fall shaped each story and realm that sprang in his heart and imagination. He didn’t speak of any of them, for whenever he had attempted to put it into words, the intricacy of each story, the vibrance of every world, the heartbreak experienced by each character became colorless.  

"All imagination and zero talent," he confessed to Joel in his early teens.

Joel, who wasn't the wordy type either, comforted him the only way he knew how: by handing him his treasured guitar.

"You can tell stories with this, too."

By trading words for melodies, Tommy had compromised. If that was to be the only way to set his stories out into the world, it was enough.

Joel stopped and took in a deep breath, catching Tommy’s attention. His older brother let out a pleased sigh:

“I like the way it smells.” He didn’t need to say more, Tommy knew what he meant, but he continued, “Y’know, fall.”

He took in the words and allowed them to travel the usual road, back into his heart. 

“Yeah,” Tommy agreed. He buried his hands deep in his jacket pockets and filled his lungs with fresh air. He had heard that many times before but never from Joel. “Y’know, Sarah used to say the same thing.”

Something softened in Joel’s eyes, the look on his face echoing the one Tommy had seen on him countless times, whenever he had braided Sarah’s hair with so much care and tenderness it made it difficult to think of him as anything other than a loving father.

“Did she now?”

Tommy nodded:

“She said she liked the way fall smelled and then, uh, asked me what the smell was.”

“What did ya say?”

“I dunno, somethin’ dumb, like dust from a dirt road or somethin’.”

“That…that’s pretty accurate. Why’d you say it’s dumb? Was Sarah disappointed or somethin’?” Joel asked after a moment.

Tommy quirked a brow:

“Sarah? Our Sarah? That girl didn’t act disappointed a day in her life.”

“Yeah” Joel agreed in a whisper.

“But she asked me again the year after that. And then the one after that. And it kinda became a game we played. I gave her the thickest answers and she took’em. Then she started havin’ answers of her own.”

“Oh, yeah? What’d she say?”

“Well, a bunch of stuff. Good stuff. I think one time she said, uh, sharpened pencil. Yeah, that was it. Sharpened pencil. She also came up with…”

In recent years, Tommy had become an active forgetter, a problem that had triggered countless arguments with Maria. But those moments with Sarah, he remembered better than entire years.

“Apples, yeah. Refreshin’ and sweet and sour. There was, uh, wet soil after rain and hot hay dryin’ in the sun.”

“That’s…that’s a good one” Joel chuckled before kneeling to tie his shoelace. Tommy was certain his brother was only pretending to do it to shield his face. Then, as he stood up, he held his gaze. His smile was wide, eyes gleaming. “What else?”

Tommy didn’t have to think too hard. He knew just the one.

It had been a late afternoon, two days before the outbreak. Orange tinted the town as if the moment already belonged to a memory. Sarah had a plan; she would go to Tannhaus Watches & Jewellery to get Joel’s birthday present and he would go to the bakery next to it and place an order for a cake.

“Divide and conquer!” Sarah had repeated on their way to town.

The breeze carried the earthy sweet scent of the piles of leaves, tickling his nose. For once, he had decided, he would ask the question first:

“What does fall smell like?”

It had taken her but a few seconds to whip up an answer, taking Tommy by surprise:

“Fall smells like you, Uncle Tommy.”

Tommy’s words had died in his throat. He looked down, speechless still, and rested his eyes on her smile, equal parts sweet and smug. The realization of never having felt more loved dawned on him—it was a similar sensation to floating downstream. He felt weightless.  Tommy remembered how when Sarah was little, they spent most of their time lying on golden grass, looking for shapes in the clouds or loudly singing along in his car. Sometimes they sat on the porch and drank extra sweet hot cocoa and he told her – in his own convoluted way – the stories he had told himself as a child to feel less alone. Tommy had reminded her, through his stories and his terrible mac and cheese dinners, that he would always be there for her – just like Joel had been for him.

“Alright. You win, sweetheart,” he said when he meant to say Thank you, I love you too.

Sarah had wrapped her skinny arms around his waist. She would never do that again.

They made their way down the street, their sneakers brushing against the asphalt, the musky fragrance of wisterias faint in the air.

“I wasn’t tryin’ to win but I’m glad I did.” And she had meant I love you more.

Jackson peered through the trees, lights dotted across the county. The temperature had dropped, the chill bit at Tommy’s ears, pink shading his cheeks. A big lump had formed in his throat — there was no way he would be able to speak without his voice breaking. It didn’t matter, he wanted to share it with Joel. The words poured out of his lips as tears ran down his cheeks. He stopped. He half laughed; half cried. Then explained, in vivid detail, how Sarah had made him feel. He apologized. Hell, he didn’t even know what he was apologizing for. Talking about Sarah? Crying? He had grown so used to getting burned whenever he had brought her up, it was still easy to forget just how much Joel had changed.

After Sarah’s death, for the first part of the nightmarish years they spent together, barely scraping by, surviving at the cost of their own humanity, he dreamt of her almost every night. Waking up in sobs, the light dissolving into grey shadows. Joel had refused to look at him, splintering Tommy’s heart. They never spoke of the past. They never spoke of her. They took. They survived. And their hollowness deepened with every wretched day.

Time moved forward; the changing of the seasons serving as the last remaining proof of it. He found comfort in the breeze that came as the year was about to end, revisiting memories and his old stories. Sometimes, as he patrolled, he ventured back into his worlds and again greeted the heroes of his childhood. He knew that there was no room for dreams or stories and his heart ached as he gave them up all over again. And then, he watched how the seams of Joel’s humanity continued ripping one after the other. He had believed he would never get his brother back. But now, Joel’s eyes glistened, a combination of longing and joy. He told him there wasn’t a thing to be sorry for. He listened and placed a hand on his little brother’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Joel said softly once Tommy hung his head and fell quiet.

Tommy nodded, letting out a trembling vaporous exhalation.  

“I’ve always wanted to tell you about that,” Tommy said as the knot in his throat loosened and he looked back up at Joel “I just didn’t know how.”

“I’m glad you finally did.” Joel gave Tommy’s shoulder a little squeeze before letting go.

Tommy watched him walk ahead, his silhouette against the sinking sun. He couldn’t see it, but he knew Joel was smiling. He was smiling too. The wind blew. It smelled like fall. It smelled like home. 

[hansolmates]

jjk; angel’s trumpet [04]

summary; one second, your life is flashing before your eyes and the next, you’re transported into a world exactly like your own. but the jungkook you meet in this world isn’t a renowned singer or your former almost-lover, in fact he has no clue who you are and why you know him so well. as you work to find your way home lost and confused, you conclude that you’re either dead or in the middle of the most wicked drug trip of your life. pairing; idol!jk x reader (f), alternatively film producer!jk x reader genre/warnings; fluff, angst, supernatural, idol!au, non-idol!au, alternate universes, themes of fate, language, alcohol consumption, mentions of smut in future chapters w.c; 5k a/n; lot of angst in this one!! if your heart aches i urge u to do what i do and hug some stuffies (my current fav stuffie is my bt21baby cooky) i hope u enjoy more of w1!jk, ty for all the love pls share and like if you enjoy!  

[03] [04] [05] -> masterpost

W1. 

Jungkook is strongly advised not to visit you. 

Jungkook has been strongly advised over the past two weeks not to visit you, despite the fact that visitors have been allowed since two days ago considering the fact that you are confirmed comatose. 

A coma. You’re in a coma. It’s weird how much the notion echoes in Jungkook’s thoughts, constantly nudging the back of his mind like a petulant child wanting an out. He’s never met anyone who’s been in a coma before, the condition only reserved for late night melodramas and medical movies. 

And in all of those shows, the person bedridden until further notice always looks like a wreck. He feels like ripping his heart out at the thought of you with tubes and liquids going in and out of your body, face ashen and devoid of any thought other than pain. He needed to see you, to support you even if you didn’t know. 

After days of persistence and Namjoon’s inability to say no to Jungkook, Namjoon agreed to let Jungkook swing by the hospital after his solo recordings. He couldn’t get there fast enough, knowing Namjoon is already there and probably taking care of you. 

He takes slow steps to your room, as if trudging through a sea of molasses. Careful to not let his combat boots strike the linoleum, he catches the tail end of a conversation. Your room is large enough for two patients, but so far you’re the only one checked in. There are three other people in your room, concealed by a thin curtain revealing them as shadows. Jungkook lingers behind, staring intently at the shadow of your figure laying in bed. 

“How inhiberated was your friend the night of the incident?” Jungkook’s presuming it’s your nurse, going over protocol. 

The second voice is Sehlyung, the bubbly coordinator who immediately befriended you the week you got hired. Her voice is no longer chipper, but strained and weak, as if she’s been crying for days. 

“I don’t know exactly how much,” she sniffs, “but it was a lot. She had a rough day, I—I just wanted to help her forget a little,” her soft cries reverberate throughout the white-walled room. “I should’ve, I should’ve helped her upstairs. I knew how messed up she was and I left her alone!” 

Jungkook’s fists clench beneath his hoodie, familiar moisture creeping into his eyes. 

Sehlyung’s words felt like a jab to his form, already aching at the wounds in his own heart. It isn’t the answer the nurse wants, but it seems like the poor woman has been holding in a lot of pent up stress. Namjoon’s trying to placate her, and Jungkook can see the way he’s patting your friend’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort. “No one’s blaming you, so please don’t blame yourself,” Namjoon’s words are like a balm to the proverbial wound, “Nurse, is it possible to project how long it’ll take until she wakes up?” 

“Hard to say,” your nurse replies, and has the decency to sound sad, “it could be weeks, or even months. Judging by her high amount of brain activity however, she’s predicted to awake with very minimal brain damage.” 

Brain damage? 

“Eventually her insurance will run out however, the longer we need to sustain her will depend on how much her cosigner—”

“Money will not be an issue,” Namjoon cuts in smoothly, almost sounding insulted that the nurse would even bring up such a thing. “We can’t put a price on our precious friend’s life.” 

As much as Namjoon’s words alleviated Jungkook’s initial anxieties, the question still stands. Will you come out of this the same person you left? How long will that take, weeks, months, years? He’s extensively Googled before this, reading way too many WebMD articles that he probably shouldn’t have, effectively skewing his perception on the matter. 

He fiddles with his hands in the kangaroo pocket of his sweater, clammy from the heat. You’re suffering, and just like Sehlyung, he’s trying very hard not to blame himself. 

•━━━━━━»•»💮💮💮«•«━━•••

W2. 

Angel’s Trumpet  Scientific Name: Brugmansia  Order and Family: Polimonailes and Solanaceae Summary: A higher order of nightshade, the Angel’s Trumpet is a show-stopping pendulous flower that hangs like bells. In myth, they were prized as chimes holding magical properties. In modern use, Angel's Trumpets have occasionally been used to create recreational drugs, but the risk of overdose is so high that these uses often have deadly consequences.

So you’re either dead or in the middle of the most wicked drug trip of your life. 

You push away from your MacBook, rolling over to your bed to mull. It’s near two in the morning, and you’ve channeled both your love for Buzzfeed Unsolved and your poster making skills in order to construct The Timeline. 

Using your somewhat solid memory from the past two weeks and Hoseok’s own timeline from his daycare shift, you spent the entire night plotting as to why you’re in W2 and how you can leave. 

Your plan of action is minimal, definitively so because there are no leads other than Sehlyung’s wine dealer, and Jungkook. 

Something must’ve been in the angel’s wine, something dangerous. You remember the sky flickering that night, wondering if you were hallucinating or very drunk. Scientifically speaking however, if you really are under the influence of this flower, the hallucinogens should’ve left your body by now. 

Unless it’s magic that brought you to this world. As absurd as it is, the notion of magic gets easier and easier to cite as the days go on. 

And if it is some form of magic, something tells you that Jungkook has something to do with it. But why? 

One: Jungkook’s birth flower, you muse. You think back to how vivid the ink appeared on Jungkook’s skin, how precious the design meant to him. It made you think back to your Jungkook, who couldn’t stop fidgeting as he was so excited to get some serious ink done when visiting a friend in Jeju island. How bright his face glowed after it healed and how proud he was to show it off. 

Two: The last thing Jungkook said to you. How coincidental must it be for him to specifically cite your relationship could work in “another world”? 

You’re definitely overheating your brain at this point, and you trudge yourself out of bed to make something to eat. If you were going to spiral, you were going to spiral with a full stomach. 

The pot as the water starts to boil, crackling and bubbling angrily because you are impatient and cranked up the heat to high. An open ramen block sits on the counter, ready to be softened. Suddenly, the door unclicks and you point your fork at the door. Panic fills you, wondering who could be visiting at this hour. 

“Home sweet home!” Taehyung cries, swinging the door open so hard that it reverbs and hits him in the forehead. However he is unfettered, flashing you a toothy smile as he dumps his luggage at his feet. “Care to open another ramen packet for me, roomie?” 

You lower your fork, remembering that Taehyung’s due to come back sometime this week. “Welcome back,” you exhale, forcing a smile as you watch Taehyung arrange his mess in a corner, “did you have a good trip?” 

“Yeah, Busan’s nice,” he replies easily, dumping his body on the couch. He looks the same, shaggy brown-black hair and mischievous chocolate eyes. He still has an affinity for earth tones and long coats that make his shoulders look good. Despite the fact that you always expect that their counterparts will look alike, it baffles you how easy it is to forget you’re not in your world. “What about you? Why’re up so late?” 

“My thesis was bugging me,” you lie easily, “I’m gonna work on it in the library tomorrow.”

“Ah, is that why you’ve been ignoring Jimin’s texts?” 

You stop swirling the noodles in your pot, looking up from your spot at the counter. “He told you?” 

Truth be told, you haven’t been exactly comfortable conversing with Jimin. You feel a little bad if your alternate self had a thing for the young man, but you know in your heart you definitely did not hold any romantic or sexual attraction towards him. 

“Duh. You’ve hurt his heart.” 

You scoff, dividing the pale yellow noodles and soup between two bowls. “Jimin’s a big baby, that’s why.” 

“C’mon, you love that big baby,” Taehyung jests, “have lunch with us tomorrow during his break,” his eyes are glued to the bowls in your hands, as you carefully walk over to place them on the coffee table. Like an eager puppy, he scrambles off the couch and onto the floor, joining you in your meal. 

You bite back a sigh, stuffing your face with hot noodles to give yourself some time. It still grossed you out that you supposedly hooked up with Jimin on the regular, but at the possibility that you were potentially messing up your alternate universes’ life still held you back for telling Jimin to kindly stop sending dick pics. 

“If you pick me up from the library tomorrow I’ll come,” you concede, “just don’t make it weird, okay? I’ve had a hard week.” 

“Done,” and that became that. 

Taehyung and you cite the silence as being exhausted from today’s events, and you two quickly scarfed down your meal and headed off to bed. Another day gone, and another day longer it takes for you to return to your world. 

•━━━━━━»•»💮💮💮«•«━━•••

“Your life’s totally an anime movie,” 

As much as you love Hoseok’s support, the fact that he’s so excited is a little unnerving. 

“You’re like an alien! Or Phil of the Future who’s trying to get back to his timeline!” 

“Hoseok…” 

“Right, right. Sorry. But think about it,” he jabs a finger in your notebook, citing the pastel pink sticky note where it’s crossed out. “If you fall in love with W2 Jungkook like W1 Jungkook implied, it’ll fulfill your prophecy and you can go back home! And then when you go back home, W1 Jungkook will realize he was being a pussy and then grovel at your knees for forgiveness and—”

“Please stop,” your head is throbbing. The fact that you’re talking about two Jungkooks is terrifying, because it was hard enough for you to handle one Jungkook on their own. “Even so, what’s to say that Jungkook and I really aren’t meant to be? It’s not like W1 Jungkook was wrong. He has a busy life and I know a romantic relationship could add extra stress on him.” 

A little part of you felt good to tell another person about your struggles between Jungkook and yours’ unnamed relationship. Of course, you had to catch yourself sometimes when you delve a little too much. Hoseok after all, doesn’t know either Jungkook. You also forget yourself, often muttering a variant of  “shut up Hobi you absolute Fruit Loop” when Hoseok gets too giddy. The Hoesok next to you is still just as new of a friend, not this co-worker you’ve spent the better half of two years with. 

But back to his theory, while there was no symbolic chime that signaled the start, it grew into a slow, easy love, at least for you. As your and Jungkook’s feelings grew, the more your panic bubbled to the surface. Was it a risk you were both willing to take? Evidently not, from the way Jungkook had slammed the door in your face. 

Another reason why you’re hesitant to test the falling in love theory—it’s too easy to fall in love with Jungkook all over again. It scares you. Without his music career in the way, what’s stopping you? 

Hoseok squeezes your hand at the way you stare so intently into your timeline, sending you a tender smile, “Don’t think so hard. Even so, a little date won’t hurt, right?” he whispers, picking up his things, “text me if anything happens. My kids are coming soon.”

You give him a halfhearted wave, leaving him to his shift at the daycare. You were so engrossed with the influx of information yesterday that you failed to ask Jungkook for his phone number. This meant that you had to do some intense social media stalking in order to find him. If he’s anything like W1 Jungkook, you’re going to have a hard time finding any updates from him.

“Excuse me? Professor?” 

Tilting your head from your notepad, you notice an undergrad had replaced the seat that Hoseok previously occupied. She’s a pretty thing, with long raven black hair and almond shaped eyes. You suddenly feel very ratty and underdressed as a professor, the leggings and oversized sweater with a questionable stain really giving off baked-potato vibes. 

“Do… yeon?” you say, remembering her from an email thread you sent a while ago. 

She beams, “Yeah! I’m so glad I found you. I know Professor Kim said he’d be absorbing your classes since you’re on leave, but I really need help with my final draft. Professor Kim tried to help me and…” 

“Let me guess,” you smirk, “his thoughts were way too convoluted and you need me to get straight to the point.” 

Doyeon snaps her fingers, “Exactly!” 

While apprehensive with medical knowledge, you can still find confidence in your essay grading skills. You spend the next half hour looking over Doyeon’s paper, pointing out how things she could improve on or articles she could cite. Soon enough, Doyeon texted two other members for her study group, saying that it’s a once-in-a-semester-offer to get some time with you. 

And you’re baffled at how easy it is to fall into this professor role. It makes you believe that if you really wanted to, being a professor would also be a perfect job for you. The students are buzzing around your table, excitedly whispering how happy they are to work with you after so long, and that they miss the way you teach your lectures. For two blissful hours, you forget your circumstance and keep your focus entirely on your students. 

A loud, obnoxious cough breaks you and your students out of their work bubble. Taehyung is tapping his Valentino loafers impatiently, holding a very large back of what seemed to be you and Jimin’s lunch. 

“Sorry kiddos,” Taehyung sing songs, already stuffing your work stuff in your bag, “she promised to go out and have lunch with mature adults.” 

“We’re literally like, a couple years younger than you,” Chan scrunches his face, sending you a pleading look. 

“Sorry Chan, I did say I was going to have lunch,” you concede, “but please email me if you have any more questions. Otherwise, you’re right on track!” 

You wave at the thankful students happily, and Taehyung literally has to drag you out by the arm and shove him into his Uber before you could relent. 

“Damn girl,” Taehyung chuckles, relieved to finally get you out of the library, “you didn’t hear me the first three times I was calling you. Chan looked like he was about to rip my head off!” 

You shrug lightly, “What can I say, the time really flew with them.” 

•━━━━━━»•»💮💮💮«•«━━•••

What a coincidence, you’re in the same place he is, again. More specifically, his new workplace. 

How is it possible that you have so many handsome friends? Jungkook is baffled by the way Park Jimin and the dark-haired friend feed you fries like you’re their precious daughter. In response, you scrunch up your nose and push them off, instead deciding to shove five fries in your mouth all at once. 

As much as he wanted to ask you out since you admired his tattoos yesterday, he can’t find it in him to go up and interrupt your lunch. Besides, he has work and he doesn’t want to complicate things if Jimin finds out he was the one responsible for nearly running you over the other day. 

If he walks fast enough, he can avoid any awkward interaction and make it to his office so he can give the day’s full report—

“Jungkook! Get your cute butt over here and meet my friends!” 

Crap. 

Trying not to glare daggers at his new co-worker, he places a thin smile on his face as he moves to your table in the corner of the cafeteria. He lets Jimin give the whole spiel on how he hired him, and Jungkook decides to hover awkwardly while the rest of you are sitting. The sun filters its way through the windows and bleeds brightly onto your body, making his throat dry and constrict in awe. Your expression is definitely more positive since that time at the library, and he wonders what he has to do to reach that level of contentment you’re sporting. 

“Guys, this is Jungkook. I just hired him last week. He’s like my son.” 

“Ewh,” the dark haired guy upturns his nose. “But hi, I’m Taehyung.” 

While Jimin goes into detail about how amazing he found his work, he can’t help but notice the fond smile that melts upon your face as you listen intently to Jimin. Jungkook wants to archive that expression on your face and save it to memory, the way you look so pretty with your chin nestled in your hand, turning your head slightly to gaze at him with a look of what—pride? Affection? 

“You sound like quite the artist,” you muse, “I would love to see some of your work if Jimin says it’s that good.” 

He rubs his head bashfully, clutching the camera hanging on his chest like an anchor. “Oh no, I’m just starting out,” he replies shyly, although he would be lying if he said he didn’t crave the attention you were bestowing on him. 

“He’s actually going out to Dongdaemun to get some stuff done for his portfolio,” Jimin pipes up, “hopefully get some good content for the commercial he’s filming.” 

“Oh, do you mind if I tag along?” you ask, picking at a hangnail, “I’ve always been so curious about the producing process.” 

Jungkook’s eyes dart between Jimin and his friend, noticing the telepathic conversation they’re exchanging between you two. Jungkook’s palms start to sweat, not because Jimin definitely wants to probe, but because you made the first move. You pay no mind to the boys, nonchalantly pushing in your chair as you practically float to Jungkook’s side. 

“Wait,” Taehyung recovers first, “you know him?” 

You agree with a vague wave of your hand, “we work in the same area.” 

Jungkook knows for a fact that’s not true, as you only started appearing in his life when he almost knocked you out. But Jungkook can only nod like a bobblehead, not wanting to get into the nitty-gritty. 

“I promise to stay out of your way,” you say, “but don’t feel pressured if you don’t want me to go at all!” 

“No no, I want you to come!” and Jungkook raises his voice a little too high to be deemed mannerly, and he watches you step back a bit at the sudden intrusion. His face is on fire, especially when there’s a little smirk grazing your lips. 

“Well if you want me, you’ll have me.” you flirt, gesturing for him to take the lead. 

Jimin and Taehyung’s faces have fallen flat. There’s a stray bit of limp lettuce hanging sadly  from Jimin’s lip as he watches Jungkook escort you out of the building. Meanwhile, Jungkook is swallowing the biggest smile on his face. He’s going to spend the rest of the day with you. He doesn’t know if he’s going to get a decent shot in because you’re a definite distraction, but it’s totally worth it if he can get to know you a little better. 

You mention that you haven’t walked around Seoul in a while. Jungkook wants to ask more about it, but as open as you display yourself, there’s definitely something guarding you. Jungkook wants to chalk it up behind the whole fiasco of mistaking him for someone else the other day, so he doesn’t want to step on those eggshells again. 

But Jungkook is here to work. So he tells you to walk on and lead the way to Dongdaemun while he gets ample footage of the city. 

He’s taking pictures of you along the way, but he decides to leave that part out. He likes the way your long red dress swishes in the breeze, the tail end of the fabric brushing against his legs whenever he gets too close. 

You stop in front of a pet store, face glowing as you point to their aquarium tank. “Look!” you cry, tugging his sleeve over as if you’re long lost friends, “it’s my boi Nemo!”

He cracks up at your joke, as you excitedly shout to Jungkook that “you found your son!” and it spurs him on to continue his peals of laughter. The joke isn’t that funny but it’s humorous enough coming from you and the smile on your face is enough for him to return one equally as big. 

“C’mon,” his fingers brush over the bare skin of  your forearm, sending sparks straight to his heart, “it’s getting dark. Just keep swimming.” 

Jungkook manages to get some good sunset content before the sky turns navy. He’s not a big fan of photographic tourism spots, but Jimin insisted that the big boss wanted a specific style for their company and he needed to get used to making the usual seem unique. 

Looking over his shoulder, he sees you swinging your legs on a nearby bench. You’re munching on a bubble waffle, cheeks puffed as you concentrate on the Cheonggyecheon stream, water babbling. 

He’s about to ask you if you want him to take a picture of you, because he thinks you would look beautiful with your dress billowing as you hop over the stones, but he notices the sadness in your face as you gaze at the water. 

Lowering his camera, he sees the way your chewing slows, as if you don’t feel like putting anymore effort in the action. Your dimmed gaze seems to peer into a different world, as if you could dive right into the water and transport yourself far, far away from here. 

Jungkook takes tentative steps, crouching down from your space at the bench so he would have to look up at you. His hand hovers to balance himself on your thigh, but he thinks better of it and decides to hold onto the wood. 

“Can I ask you something?” 

He doesn’t comment on the strain in your smile, “Sure.” 

“Do I remind you of y’know, him? Your Jungkook?” 

Your smile increases, and he doesn’t expect it. Shifting over, you pat the space next to him. It’s a tight fit, and your thighs brush his. “Yes and no. It doesn’t hurt or anything, really,” you answer softly, and you reach for his hand, pulling the long sleeves apart to reveal his tiger lily tattoo. He doesn’t believe your excuse for a damn second, but decides better than to speak against you. “He’s still around, even if he isn’t here. I guess I was just thinking about how we could never go out like this.” 

He tenses under your ministrations, and you immediately pick up on it like a sixth sense. “I’m not trying to replace him,” you add, and he tries to relax as you trace the petals on his arm, “I’m sorry if you felt that way. But it’s... impossible to compare you to him, really.” 

“So, would you be interested in seeing me again?” 

“I’d be upset if you weren’t, Kook.” you manage to pout, and you slide your hand down to thread your fingers between his. “Can I take you out on a date?” 

“Only if I can take you out on one after.” 

And it’s easy for the both of you to forget your circumstances, at least for tonight. 

•━━━━━━»•»💮💮💮«•«━━•••

Jungkook drops you off at your apartment soon after, and it feels nice to kick off your shoes and place your bare feet on your soft carpet. 

Your roommate’s feet are propped up, covered by a fuzzy grapefruit-colored blanket. Taehyung stretches his head from the couch to throw you a teasing smile, “Sooo, how was your night?” 

Instead, you point a finger at the flatscreen playing some Korean drama. “Is that Jin?” you balk.

Taehyung cranes his neck to where he paused the drama. The man on the screen is definitely Kim Seokjin, judging from the plush lips and irritatingly symmetrical face. He looks absolutely comical in his Joseon get up and mustache, and you’re not surprised that he made it to the acting industry. 

“Kim Seokjin? Yeahhhh,” Taehyung melts, relaxing into the couch, “that man is so fine I just want him to bend me over that little well and—”

You physically gag, causing Taehyung to break into peals of laughter, forgetting about his fruitless celebrity crush. Only you would never forget this interaction, the words currently searing  into your memory at the thought of seeing Seokjin and Taehyung in the same room when you manage to return. “So?” he goads, “Jungkook? He looked like a scared bunny when Jimin glared at him.” 

“It was… good,” you settle as an answer, reaching over to ruffle Taehyung’s messy bed head. “I like him, Tae.” 

“That’s good,” Taehyung nods, “you deserve more happiness in your life.” 

“You think so?” 

“I know so!” Taehyung jerks up, punching his fist in the air. You giggle at his antics, and he ushers you over to the couch, “good things are coming, y/n. I can feel it.” 

You don’t tell him, but you can feel it too. Sharing his blanket you snuggle further into the couch, asking questions about the famous actor Kim Seokjin and his litany of dramas he’s filmed under his belt. Tonight, falling asleep next to Taehyung, you have the best night’s sleep in weeks.

•━━━━━━»•»💮💮💮«•«━━•••

W1. 

Jungkook sits in your sickness. 

Namjoon says he doesn’t have to, doesn’t need to stay the night. You’ll be fine, your family will come in the morning and care for you. For once, Jungkook tucks his tail and says he wants to, even compromises to bring his work so he doesn’t miss a deadline. 

But he can barely get a bar in because he’s too focused on you, your form all-encompassing as he makes sure you’re well-taken care of. Sehlyung dropped off your things from the apartment, carefully packed neatly in a duffle bag you’ve never used. 

Soft, lo-fi hip hop plays from his computer speakers as he takes the time to nurture you, care for you. It’s dark outside, the only light emanating from the hallway and a dim desk lamp. He’s done his research, making sure to keep you as clean as you would like to be. He brushes your hair, takes the time to remove the tangles and pin it out of your face. His hands are slightly greasy when he’s done, and his hand falls to your hospital sleeve. 

“I wonder how I should wash your hair,” he says aloud, “maybe I can get a small basin or something? It’s not the first time I washed your hair, remember when you sprained your arm after we snuck around in Dongdaemun?” he smiles at your peaceful expression, neutral, “you were such a baby, didn’t feel like shampooing with one hand.” 

Talking is also good, too. They say that sometimes the patient can hear and recall conversations family and friends have shared. It’s a little jarring to them, almost like they’re drowning in their heads and unable to bubble up to the surface to reply, but it’s still reassuring to hear familiar voices. 

He massages your limbs with lavender scented baby lotion, making sure your body isn’t wasting away and stretches your fingers and toes. You’d have a fit if you didn’t do your whole lotion routine daily, wanting to be soft and huggable at all times of the day. He puts on a pair of pink bunny socks, making sure your feet don’t get too cold in the sterile room. 

Running out of things to talk about, he settles for singing along to his playlist, knowing how much you loved to fall asleep to the sound of his voice. He’s tired and he doesn’t feel one-hundred percent, but he hopes you appreciate the sentiment either way. 

Weaving through the wires and cords that sustain you he places your hand in his larger one. Jungkook wishes he could care for you everyday like this, treat your body like a temple and wait for you to wake up. Resting his head on the mattress, his soft locks brush against your thigh unkempt as he focuses on tracing words on your palm. 

Lavender. Chicken. Netflix. 

Your nurse steps in, giving Jungkook a polite wave as she does her nightly rounds. He mumbles a half-hearted greeting in response, immersed in working between the lines on your soft skin as he traces character by character. Your nurse is quick with her work as she checks things off on her iPad and checks the machines that keep them informed. As if she’s intruding on an intimate moment, she types her findings faster. 

JK. y/n. Still with you. Sorry. Love. 

Your hand twitches in his grasp. It’s minuscule, a brief curl of your fingers. The pad of your thumb barely brushes his knuckle and Jungkook’s reeling. It’s only half a second, but Jungkook cries “whoa!” and sits up straight, startling your nurse, “she’s moving!” 

Your nurse smiles sadly at the sparkles of hope in his eyes. “It’s only muscle spasms, Jungkook. It happens sometimes,” and she catches herself before Jungkook’s shoulders deflate and sink into the floor, “but see her eyes?” 

He blinks, watching as the nurse gestures to your face. She’s right, your eyes are movie, flickering back and forth. Your lids may not be open, but the movement is there.

“She’s either dreaming or really listening to you, Jungkook,” your nurse murmurs fondly, “make sure you keep her entertained, being in a coma is awfully boring.” 

Jungkook thanks her, sending a terse smile as she whisks herself away. He squeezes your hand firmly, wishing you would give him another sign. He feels like he’s chasing you now, reaching out to you, talking to you in hopes you’ll reply. It’s ironic, considering this time he’s not sure if you’ll turn around this time, bounce back as you once were. 

Wiping the wetness from his eyes, he tucks you in and scoots his chair closer to your bed. “Wake up soon, yeah? We’re waiting for you,” he whispers, holding your hand next to his head as he tries to fall asleep. 

Tonight, he’s dreamless.