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generalluxun · 1 year

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Record Scratch Chapter 5 -Fanfiction

Nino tries to parse exactly what happened during his last visit to Chloé's. He seeks out help but between inexperience and too much experience, it's hard to find. Meanwhile, that aforementioned shopping trip gets him some new threads, and lots of new questions.

Full text after the break.

Nino woke to a banging on his door, followed by a realization his alarm was screaming at him, and the dim recollection that it had been doing so for a while now. His brother’s voice called again through the door and Nino dove to silence the beeps. Beeps. Nino ran a hand over his face, checked the time, and called an apology to Chris. The night-fog was clearing slowly, carrying with it wisps of dreams in black and white. In some Alya smiled at him from under the brim of a fedora. In others Chloé purred at him from inside a cocktail dress. Nino stumbled to the shower and burned himself clean, or tried to at least. The searing touch of the water on his skin felt all too close to the touch in some of those dreams.

Nino doused his head under the water and shook it, then pulled back the curtain just enough to be heard, directing his question toward his discarded pajamas. “Hey little dude, you know much about girls?”

Wayzz slipped out of the pile and hovered over. After reaching out a tentative paw, the turtle Kwami dove into the spray, letting it wet him completely. “I am sorry, Nino. I do not. Protection is a concept that applies somewhat universally. My holders are rarely involved in deep personal relationships, preferring to care for all.”

Nino applied soap and cloth with a purpose. “Lucky me. You saw what went down.”

Wayzz admitted, “It is the lot of a kwami to observe much of their holder’s private life.”

Nino snorted, scrubbing his face. “I need to talk to… someone. I just don’t know who. There’s no one who isn’t all wrapped up in this one way or another.” Nino flashed a grin down at Wayzz and affected his detective drawl. “They say keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Well, I’m living that life, and it might just be the end of me.”

The turtle kwami smiled sympathetically. “Just do not forget, if you do not protect yourself, you cannot protect others.”

Protect myself… Nino killed the water and let himself stand in the sound of dripping water, the air cooling his skin outside in a way nothing seemed able to cool it within. “Right, little dude. Maybe we should talk to someone in the thick of things, after all.”

She was the go-to girl, one ‘Marinette Dupain-Cheng.’ Everyone seemed to know her, or be known by her. She had a hand in everything, usually a helping one. A little bit ditzy, a whole lot of heart, Mar could worm her way into your life. She certainly had with Adrien Agreste. That pair knew something about the ins and outs of love and woes. She was thick as thieves with my ex, but I figured I might be able to rely on her to keep a secret. My list of potential confidants was short.

I cornered her at her locker before classes. The press of the public created its own brand of anonymity, still, I pulled my hat down low as I leaned on the locker beside hers. “Hey, Mar. New jacket?”

Always ask a designer about their clothes.

She blushed a pretty pink, and nearly dropped the book she was holding. “This? Oh, yes but no. I’ve had it for a while but I did some work to update the style and cut. Things change a bit in a few years, you know.”

She danced a little circle, twisting to show off the slim-fit gray garment. I took the appreciative once over, but kept it civil. Mar was a good kid, and at one time I’d had eyes for her, but she’d been so deep in Adrien for so long that the girl aspect of her had just fallen away in my eyes. “Looks good Mar, but then, you always did know how to make something old, new again. In fact, that’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

The abrupt shift brought her out of her pink cloud. Her smile fell into a serious expression. “I wanted to talk to you too, Nino.”

This could be trouble. Her other half had already collared me once. Was I setting myself up for round two? I rolled the shoulder carrying my bag and tilted my head to indicate I was game. “Ladies first.”

Mar hesitated, never a good sign. Something that gave Marinette pause could kill a lesser person. “It’s about- you’ve been- I- you’ve been talking to Chloé recently.”

That was one way to put it, amateur orthodontics was another. Maybe I could get what I wanted without being too obvious though. I played it cool, pulling out my phone to check for notifications I didn’t expect to find, just to show my ease. “Yeah, Mar?”

My calm seemed to have the opposite effect on her. Marinette shouldered her pack but then bounced on her toes. “I just was wondering, what about?”

A contrary streak spoke for me. “That’s personal, Mar.”

Concern painted those kind features. She gestured vaguely as she spoke. “I just don’t want you to get hurt, Nino. I know you’re going through a rough time right now…”

I gave her a reassuring smile. “No need to worry about me, Mar. You know I can take care of myself.”

Her reply was too quick. “Yeah, but it’s Chloé.”

This wasn’t going how I wanted it to. I tried to remind her. “Mar, all that’s ancient history. Sure, open eyes and all that, but fresh starts too, right?”

Her eyes lit up, and I had hope. Silly me. “That’s just it though.” Mar began counting on her fingers. “I’ve talked to Sabrina, Chloé’s made no attempts to reconnect there. I’ve checked with Juleka, nothing there. I’ve looked in on her extracurriculars, nothing. She just comes in and goes home, no time for anyone still. Zoé says they’re not really talking much, and that her sister hasn’t changed as far as she knows. I had some of our friends track her to see where she spends her time these days and it’s all the usual things; shopping and more shopping, ballet, and attending fashion shows. She doesn’t even seem to be doing anything for after Lyceé yet. She’s probably just going to rely on Daddy’s money. I don’t think she really has changed, and none of us want to see you taken in. We’re your friends Nino, we’re worried about you.”

Damn.

That onslaught made me wish I had something to soothe my nerves. I loved Mar, everyone loved Mar, but right now red was boiling up in my veins. I took my hat off, adjusting the fit just to break eye contact as I responded. “All that, eh? Just from me talking to her once in the hallway?”

I’d played it too cool, or maybe Mar was too far into her groove, because she didn’t get the hint. “Well, not just the one time. Zoe said you’ve been over at the hotel at least three times, and one of those was right after you talked in the hallway. She said you left late from that one, and that Chloé wasn’t wearing shoes when Jean answered the door. I’m not sure what that means, but it’s worrying don’t you think?”

I put my hat back on, slowly. By the time I looked back at her, Mar finally seemed to have caught up with where her mouth had run her. I pushed off the lockers. “Anything else, Mar?”

Her features went from energetic to pleading. “Nino, we’re worried about you. Alya-”

Nino was boiling, and he hated it. He was angry at Marinette. He didn’t want to be angry at Marinette. He’d never been on the inside of one of these little hurricanes. Protect yourself. It would be easy to use the anger for that, but it wasn’t his way. He could let himself feel angry, but he didn’t ever want to be angry.

He dropped his affected speech and spoke gently. “That’s between Me and Alya, Mar. Just like what’s goin’ on with Chloé is between me and her. Believe it or not, I was coming to see you about just that, but now? I’m going to have to sit on this a bit longer. I don’t want this blowing up any worse than it is.”

She reached out, touching his arm. “Nino…”

He slipped her touch, but turned it into a limp fistbump, to show his willingness. “It’s okay Mar, just, let it be?”

The intense energy seemed to leak out of her. Nino was sure he’d gotten this right, until one last spark made her perk up. “You should know-”

A wave of murmurs cut her off. A ripple of noise down the hallway that turned both of their heads.

Nino could see her coming. Mar was left hopping, just to get a look until Chloé got close enough that the parting students left a clear line of sight. Nino had those several seconds to brace himself, he still wasn’t prepared.

BeeBee.

Her long-unused trademark sunglasses were in place. Her golden locks were pinched back in an equally golden metallic bananclip, left to shimmer down her back. Large golden hoops dangled from each ear, swaying with her ground-devouring pace. She wore -against all precedent- an oversized black hoodie. It looked comfortably plush and warm. She had one of her hands in the Kangaroo pocket, the other held her phone, thumb swiping away as she moved.

Her hips though… hips… Nino’s mind drifted back, and not without reason. She wore deep green baggy-bottomed cargo pants, with dangling straps swaying from the pockets. Strappy heels poked out from the cuffs with each of her steps. The show stoppers though, were the cut outs. Great angles of fabric cut from over each hip, contrasting tanned skin with lush green cotton. With her sweatshirt covering up the theoretical waistband to her pants, what little remained at the hips reminded Nino of a similar look in gold.

She passed by without a word or a glance. As the noise resumed a new layer of whispers had joined the normal buzz. Nino looked at Marinette who looked every bit as stunned as Nino had felt until he remembered. Dressed down I might just survive. I want you in something comfy, dressed to unimpress.

He chuckled. “She was right.”

Marinette snapped out of her daze to look back at him. “What?”

Nino tapped the front of his cap. Suppose I should try and clean myself up for a day. Detective Lahiffe spoke through Nino’s voice. “One thing she still has from the old days. She’s still a bee.”

Marinette was still looking at him as if he were speaking another language. Not that he could blame her. He was only just learning it himself. The part of him that despised authority reveled in this moment, and offered parting words. “She tastes like honey.”

“Well, I suppose it’s not a total loss. It’s not enough to get you out of this, if that’s what you were hoping.”

Nino straightened his vest, checked his collar and adjusted his fedora while Chloé circled him as they stood in her foyer. She was back in more usual garb for herself, a black belted yellow thigh length dress, with white ankle boots that put her two inches above him in height. He caught her eyes on the next pass. “Hey, these are quality threads. I wore this to the dance at the end of last year.”

Chloé stopped, hand on hip and smirked. “I know. I was there, believe it or not. Like I said, it’s not a complete disaster. It shows you have some promise, there's one glaring problem with it though.”

Nino held his arms out, at a loss. “What? Come on, I make this look good.”

She stepped up to him and readjusted his collar. “Full of yourself today? You do it better than it does you, I’ll give you that. The problem is, see these boots I’m wearing? One of them costs as much as your whole outfit.” She patted his chest. “Let me introduce you to the world of designer brands custom tailored to fit your body and you’ll never go back.”

The way she said ‘your’, she was really saying ‘mine’. I kept myself from swallowing, showing fear would get me in trouble again. Trouble I wasn’t sure I wanted to avoid anymore, but also wasn’t sure I wanted to provoke just yet. I arched an eyebrow at her in response to her little speech. “Why do I feel like knowing you is gonna be bad for my bank account, BeeBee?”

Her smile only grew in response, the delighted debutante. “Oh, pssshh, I know you won’t be able to afford a thing where I’m taking you. I buy it, you wear it, that’s the way we play.” She reached up, plucking the fedora from my head. In a flash it was atop her head, her ponytail pushing it off at a jaunty angle. “This might need to go though.”

I laughed and snatched it back, resettling my topper before flashing her a winning grin. “You want me, you put up with the hat, sweet cheeks.”

“Ugh!” BeeBee’s scowl lacked bite, but she put on a good show. “Do you mean you, or that ridiculous little accent?”

She went for my hat again, I caught her hands. She pulled free and we sparred back and forth until I trapped them both again. “You like the ridiculous accent.”

She rolled her eyes and tugged halfheartedly before leaning in, trapping both of our hands between us. Her voice dropped to a whisper that I felt in my spine. “Was it you, or the accent that grabbed me the other night?”

She was throwing sparks, instincts warned me to back down. To hell with instincts though; lessons from years past. This was now. “Maybe both. Would two pairs of hands on you be so bad?”

My words drew a gasp from her lips. She froze, flush-cheeked and breathless. I wanted to kiss the breath back into her, I was beginning to think she would let me. I saw just a flash of pink, a tongue too timid to wet dry lips. This close, I could feel her coiling, tensing for another lunge. Yet there was something… something in the depths of those night-blue eyes.

I let go of her. With a single step back I gave her space. With a half-smile I gave permission to take it all as a joke. Relief and rejection roiled on a maskless face. Relief won, but only just. For the first time I realized, as big as the show might be, as deep as the power might run, Beebee was just a stiff like me, trying to figure her way through this crazy life. I might even have a leg up.

Nino traded the hat back, setting it atop Chloé's head again. "You get it today though. It's your hands treating me like a Moroccan Ken doll, right?"

With that she unfroze. She adjusted the hat, turning to a mirror to do so and the haute lilt flowed once more from her lips. "Me? Wear this? In public? Not only was my breakfast more expensive, it clashes with just about everything I own."

Then wear it by itself. Nino stopped that line before he could speak it. They'd just navigated back out of a moment like that. Instead he just waited, watching her fuss with the hat -but not take it off. The reprieve was good, it let him get over the fact that the thought hadn't been in black and white this time. It had been in full color.

Shopping with Chloé was an experience. Nino had been shopping before. He’d even been shopping with an entire fleet of female friends before. Chloé was a one woman armada. Nino took the attitude of ‘go with the flow’ early on, it was a wise decision. They were in and out of stores he’d never even heard of; stores where people opened the doors for you. Chloé moved through racks and displays like a hunter. She rejected far far more than she ever picked up, and she did not ask for opinions.

Everything seemed normal, dialed up, but normal until she approached him with the first real selection of clothes. It wasn’t an armful -he’d been subjected to that by Alya, Nora, and Marlena on different occasions- It was just one outfit. The usual ‘Try this on’ however, was absent. Instead she held the emerald shirt up beside him then nodded. “Follow me.”

He was at a loss, people didn’t try on clothes in detective novels. So, he was himself, noticing the consternated but submissive looks the staff were throwing at them as Chloé opened up one of the dressing rooms and ushered him inside.

“Put these on.” She passed him a pair of slacks, then turned her attention to unbuttoning the shirt.

Nino had a brief moment of self consciousness, but the way she paid him exactly zero mind while she worked helped him overcome it. A little voice in his head also whispered he’d very nearly shown her quite a bit more than his undies a few days ago. He turned away and stripped off his jeans, moving a little faster than usual because even a good argument couldn’t defeat nerves entirely.

He was fighting with the hook-button-fastening where a simple snap or button should be when her hands brushed his sides. Nino suppressed a giggle, but not a squirm. Instead of an embrace though her hands grabbed hold of his t-shirt and pulled it up over his head. He was spun, wrist gripped, and fitted into the button down in quick, deft motions. She was buttoning him up before he could form a thought, but by the time she got up to his neck he couldn’t hold it in any longer. “This normal for you?”

She startled back from wherever her thoughts had been. His fedora fell from her head. Nino snagged it but was pulled back into place firmly. Chloé buttoned the last button. “Button downs? Rarely. They tend to be cut in a way that makes my figure disappear, which should be illegal.”

Nino adjusted the lay of the shirt across his shoulders. Chloé immediately adjusted it a further time. He spoke in a warm but low tone, trying to blend in a little good humor to keep it light. “Not that, though you’re right. I think it was three months before Alya saw me with my shirt off. Closer to eight before she was the one taking it off.”

She made that little ‘oh’ sound again. This one small and skittish. It was cute, where the others were suggestive. So why is it turning me up just the same?! Chloé just shook her head and leaned in. What Nino took for a hug was her looking down over his shoulder and smoothing the shirt against his back. “This is fashion, it’s entirely different. Fittings are all about being poked and prodded with a purpose.”

She paused and withdrew. With hands clasped in front of her the meteoric blond stood while visible effort crossed her features.

“Does it bother you?” she finally asked.

Nino had to repeat the question in his head twice. It didn’t want to stick. Once it did though, it brought a smile to his face. He put his hat back on. “Nah, I’m just not used to it, so just be a bit patient.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh is that all.” then stalked a circle around him. Nino stood still, waiting like prey before a predator. At last, she nodded. “I like it.”

Nino raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t I have a say in this?”

She flicked her ponytail. “Why? I’m the one who has to look at you in it.”

There were a lot of ways to go with that. Nino picked the one that seemed the most fun. “Does that mean I get to pick out something for you that I have to look at then?”

Trapped by her own logic, Chloé puffed out her cheeks and crossed her arms. She looked away, then looked back. Nino gave her his best grin. She tapped her foot then threw up her hands. “Fine! One outfit! No more! I can try to not die for a single day. What are you going to force me to embarrass myself in?”

Nino held up a finger, still grinning. “Ah ah ah, I’m going to hold that until the end. It’s a little bit of insurance, to keep you from getting too crazy with your toy.”

She huffed indignantly, and turned to pick up the hangers. “Just get those off. We’ll get your measurements so they can tailor some for you that fit properly.”

Adorable. Nino balked at the word, his hands halfway to his shirt buttons. It’s one thing to see a dame as sexy. That’s the oldest game in town having its way with you. Sexy, hot, fertile, lush, aphroditic, all came from a place of instinct. They called it sex drive because it always takes the wheel. Cute, adorable, charming, these were words of choice. These were value judgments that had nothing to do with an endorphin cocktail swilling in your veins. I’d toyed with the notion of learning to appreciate BeeBee for the fire-and-brimstone experience she was. Seeing her as anything else had seemed impossible, and yet I might already be there.

My only worry was being unable to tell if I was just seeing it, or if it was real. I passed off my new clothes and got a pat on the cheek. For a few short breaths while I was alone I lived in that world, and it was the best place I’d never known I could want to be. Then that entrancing voice raised itself to shouting out on the sales floor. Reality wasn’t quite ready yet, it seemed.

#ml fanfic #miraculous ladybug #nino lahiffe #marinette dupain cheng #chloe bourgeois #DJBling

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oldsouldreamer85 · 3 years

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@elvensorceress wanted to know more about my wolfstar fics... 🥰

This post may get a bit long. But it’ll be worth it. Here we go, honey...

We Won’t Be Like The Others is an AU. “They were all muggles” type of thing. Anyway, Remus isn’t thrilled by the prospect of his 10 year High School reunion approaching. Mostly because the idea of seeing and interacting with his former classmates when he’s still single, especially ex-boyfriend Benjy Fenwick, is the last thing he wants to do. Enter former classmate Sirius who convinces Remus to attend the reunion as his fake boyfriend to make Benjy jealous.

This fic not only has one of my favorite tropes (fake!boyfriend), but bed sharing (yay!), flirting, some texting, James and Lily both being adorable together, soft boys, PDA, and Sirius using endearments for Remus simply because upfront it irritates him.

Here’s a little snippet from the first chapter:

He reared back in disgust watching Sirius leer at him. A moment later he realized Sirius wasn’t in fact looking at him. Twisting himself around in the booth he sat in he quickly realized the man wasn’t focused on him at all, but a couple roughly their age, sitting down at a far table.

“Proof right there, Remus, that there is a goddess who loves bisexuals like yours truly and only wishes to fulfill aforementioned bisexual’s fantasies with some much-needed eye-candy. Stellar stuff,” Sirius declared eagerly, nearly drooling by the look of it. “But as luck would have it they’re not sitting in my section. Bollocks.”

“Revolting,” Remus muttered to himself, revulsion flooding his features. “Were you even listening to me?” he demanded in an attempt to derail Sirius’s lust-filled daydreams.

“Course I was, darling. Something along the lines of you being insecure about meeting up with everyone again when you’re single? Guess you were right. You’re not over the drama of high school,” Sirius said, finally leveling his gaze with Remus again.

Remus stared at him in disbelief. “That wasn’t my… Don’t call me that!” he snapped irritably.

“Aww, come on, Remus. If I can’t call you ‘mate’ or some other form of affection what the bloody hell am I supposed to call you?” Sirius grumbled in frustration.

“Nothing preferably,” Remus growled.

I Would Ruin Myself is another Muggle AU. The Marauders get invited by James to his aunt and uncle’s summer house that they have in the U.S. (Rhode Island if you’re curious about specifics). Lily and her friends Mary, Dorcas and Marlene are all invited as well. Some chaos (teenaged hormones and angst basically), confessions, such supportive friends, coming out, heartache and unrequited love that’s not really unrequited happens.

This one. Ugh. What can I say about it? I’m just...I’m madly in love with it all right? I’ve wanted to write a fic like this since I was in my twenties. Just took Taylor Swift, a pandemic and me going through “I need my people” withdrawal to make it a reality. And one of my favorite parts about this fic that was a pleasant surprise was Remus and Peter, their friendship, how I’m writing them. I love it so much. And I also adore Remus and Dorcas together. Not sure if it’s because everyone within their friend group think they’re “getting closer” in the hetero sense or if they really are due to their friendship.

Have a snippet:

“Excuse me,” he mumbled, getting to his feet, heading back in the direction of the house.

Once there he slowly climbed the stairs, making himself comfortable on the top step, letting loose a heavy sigh as he buried his face in his hands.

Just as he was about to start crying from the frustration he was currently feeling, he drew in a sharp breath hearing the sounds of someone clearing their throat in front of him.

“’m all right, Pete. Promise, mate,” he mumbled, keeping his face covered by his hands when he spoke, hoping his lies would be enough to satisfy his friend into leaving him alone.

“All right. But you should know I’m not Peter,” the person in front of him volunteered.

Slowly dropping his hands into his lap, Remus looked on in surprise as Dorcas stood in front of him.

“Oh. Sorry, Dorcas,” he apologized, giving the girl before him a bashful smile.

“’s all right, Remus. Would you like some company?” Dorcas asked.

Remus sighed again, softly in resignation, nodding his acquiescence as he gave Dorcas another weak smile. “Why not?” he finally questioned aloud, amusement flooding his features as Dorcas climbed the stairs and settled down next to him a moment later.

“Do you mind me confessing something?” Dorcas asked, looping her arm through Remus’s as she spoke.

Remus shrugged, his gaze drifting upward, focusing on the blanket of stars above them briefly before returning his attention to the girl at his side. “All right then. Perfect night for it,” he encouraged gently.

“I fancy her, Remus. Marlene. And it-it’s killing me a little watching her and Sirius together. And I feel awful about that because I’m supposed to be her best friend and want her to be happy, yeah? But I’m also a bit jealous if I’m being honest. I don’t know. I figured you’d have some understanding of what I’m feeling because you-you have feelings for Sirius, don’t you?” Dorcas whispered hoarsely, fighting off tears that were suddenly welling in her eyes.

Remus swallowed thickly, eventually nodding again. “Yes. Yes, I do,” he admitted quietly, relieved to feel a sense of relief wash over him instead of the familiar sense of dread he’d grown accustomed to feeling as of late whenever he thought about Sirius and his more than platonic feelings for his best friend.

Hopefully me rambling about these two fics with you will get me motivated to keep working on them. I do love them and want to get back into these worlds.

But another quick surprise? That original story with Reagan and Oliver I keep talking about? And how it started off as fic? Yeah, it was originally Wolfstar. Ugh. I love these boys so much. Could talk about them all night. Thanks for the ask, hon!! Gave me an excuse to do just that. 🥰💜

#wolfstar #remus lupin #sirius black #my boys #my babies #rs and ow #elvensorceress ask #wip ask #fic ask #my loves

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scriptaed · 4 years

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his side, her side | 11:11 P.M.

genre: angst/fluff/implied smut;

pairing: reader x jungkook;

length: 4.3k;

synopsis: a collective snapshots in time shared between two, whose fates were undeniably intertwined and futures would never come to be.

a/n: alternatively: his side, her side pt. 11;

her side;

“What?!”

Your fists slam on the counter much more forceful than necessary when you hear the words Jeon Jungkook slip from Yezi’s lips but, luckily for you, the vibrations from the music blasting through the cramped club that had overfilled the capacity hours ago are enough to drown you out. Another large gulp of liquor downed under the influence of yet another wave of unsolicited sorrow, which had ironically arisen by the holy glass itself, submerges you in a somber state you had long sought for amidst what seemed to be a fragile girl wielding an unbreakable shield they called “strength.”

“I said,” your friend repeats as she leans in but nevertheless screams aloud, “isn’t that your coworker a-k-a diehard crush, Jeon Jungkook?!”

“No,” you groan, slapping her arm with a grotesque look on your face as you scream right back at her through your strained throat, “I meant I know what you said and, damn, are you trying to expose me to the entire world!”

Yezi only gives you an unimpressed frown of impertinence, “excuse me, but you’re the one who’s yelling right now!”

Rolling your eyes and succumbing to the scorching heat in your cheeks, your face collapses into the palms of your two hands that immediately begin rubbing circles into your temples. The toxins in your blood have your head throbbing and you almost feel as if your controller has been handed to an unknown being or, rather, substance.

“Ugh,” you mutter through gritted teeth, “I can’t believe he’s still following me around! Even on my very last day!”

“Following you?” your friend almost chokes on her water as she pokes a finger into your hollow head. “The alcohol must have really eroded whatever little was left in here, huh?”

“Then,” you sway your head much too quickly, for your entire body nearly tumbles off the stool before you caught yourself with a heavy step to the right, “explain how he always ends up at the same street, the same cafe, the same bar, and, and, and how he’s always at the same place at the same time as me, and how no matter how hard I try to avoid him, he’s always right there? Just waiting for me at the end of whatever independent paths we take?”

Yezi can only blink her eyes blankly at you. Her look is an ambiguous mix of concern, having witnessed a crazy lady babble on about the epitome of destiny, and a tinge of awe, a temporary moment of envy after being struck with a story seemingly straight out of a fairytale. Without a clear explanation to your nonsensical albeit pristinely truthful question, your friend finds herself in the same position as you had been just half a year ago: at a loss for words.

Clearing your throat to recover from your outburst, a moment you had internalized and failed to bury like you had so promised to yourself, you lean against the counter once again with a head that hangs low and a pair of eyes that wander across the room.

Despite your eternally intertwined future with the very man beholding your gaze and every ounce of your current attention, you had somehow managed to abandon the shared memories in the past months… or so you thought; because you here, having the false pretension of leaving what you denied to call anything but fleeting infatuation, yet feeling as though time had never passed at all.

Butterflies fluttering, heart pulsing, and an incessant sick twisting of insecurities shoved somewhere in the back of your conscience—you’re right there back in the pool where the start to your end was born.

“Did you tell him?”

“About what?”

“About you leaving the company.”

“Oh, no,” you simply mumble, eyes quickly flickering to the tabletop after spotting the familiar woman beside him. Still, curiosity gets the best of you when you can’t help but peak at the two, the female seemingly much more distressed and the male hanging his head low apologetically, before you, too, hang your head low in shame. “Sorry. You must be sick of hearing about him.”

“No, it’s fine,” Yezi’s voice softens as she places a comforting hand over yours. “You okay? About Jieun, I mean.”

“Yeah,” you shrug, chuckling, “it’s… it’s whatever. I got over it months ago.”

Your friend nods hesitantly, “...you think they’re fighting?

“...I don’t know. Not my business either way.”

Your words are like a self-inflicted attack. How shameful is it of you to speak from a feigned moral high ground? His business has never been your business—that is an unequivocal truth. So why is it that you feel the way you do? Prying, hurting, and, dare you admit it, somewhat rejoicing over the downfall of what had ended you and him.

And just as you down another glass of liquor, nearly collapsing backwards when you throw your head back, you catch Jieun pointing a finger—a somewhat accusatory albeit much softer than one thrown by a witchy nemesis—at you before she grabs her purse and runs out of the club in tears. Jungkook, on the other hand, remains still in his chair with lowered eyes fixated to the empty stool beside him, as though repaying whatever debt he owed to the ghost of a woman who had long left his side.

“Oh my God, did you just see—”

“—Lee Yeji!” someone shrills and you have to crane your neck to gander at the stranger who had just appeared out of thin air. The slight breeze of her beeline past you hits you seconds late—a recurring sign to you and your reproaching intake limit. “Is that you?!”

“Linzy!” your friend jumps to her feet and joins in on the stranger’s screams as well as small hops. “Oh my God, how long has it been?!”

“Where have you been all this time?!”

“Here in this boring city, duh,” Yezi bursts into a cackle. “How have you been?! You still hung over your ex?”

The lack of an introduction would have been painfully awkward for you as you stared at the fond reunion between two friends, but thanks to the alcohol stirring your mind that had floated elsewhere and the blood running through your heated system, it’s almost as if you’re just a member of audience, watching another crappy chick flick.

“First of all, I’ve moved onto another man. And second of all, rude,” the woman named Linzy throws her head back in a fit of laughter. Honestly, watching the hysteria between the two has you smiling against your rested hand; and if it weren’t for her averted attention to you, you probably wouldn’t have noticed until you quickly hid the ditzy smile on your face. “I’m sorry, is it okay if I borrow Yezi for a second? We haven’t talked in sooo long.”

“Oh no,” you quickly shake your head, gesturing them toward the dance floor, “go right ahead. I think I can do without her constant jabs at my nonexistent love life.”

“Oh my God,” Linzy gapes, “she does that to you, too?!”

“Hey, you two can be friends but not over a common dislike for me, okay?” Yezi warns with a wary finger before joining the two of you in a heap of laughter. Patting your shoulder and leaning in, your friend squeezes you lightly, “I’ll be right back in ten minutes, alright? Wait for me here. If something comes up and you have to leave, text me.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, will do, mom” you shoo her away, “I’ll have you know I’m a grown ass adult. Now go and scream your head off.”

“What?” she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “You’re a young adult who still can’t handle her alcohol?”

“I said,” you raise your voice in the midst of cackles, “go and scream your head off!”

Luckily for you, your friend whirls around and skips off to join the black silhouette of a sweaty crowd going at it on the dance floor before she could catch the proof of her aforementioned premonition; because only five minutes after averting your eyes from the empty stool beside you and downing another glass or two in a vain attempt to distract yourself from checking the presence of the boy across from you, a wave overtakes you and your lightheadedness takes a turn for the worse.

Maybe it’s the alcohol that brings out the irrational side of you or maybe your senses had truly been heightened or maybe you’re just imagining things, but you swear a pair of resilient, watchful eyes reciprocate your occasional peak to the other side—and even though you know it would be another step toward a ticking time bomb, you just wish you’re right.

You’re hoping for a miracle to happen, for him to come up to you, for you to muster enough courage to strike a conversation, or for fate to brush off your accursed wish to finally untangle your paths from his; but when your eyes peek upward once again, your heart sinks at the empty chair where he had once sat, swirling his glass with those boldly peering eyes of his. Sighing, one swivel in your seat and a slight sway too hard to the left, you nearly hurl yourself into the arms of the girl beside you only to find yourself in someone else’s.

A pair of sturdy hands twice the size of yours hold you steadily and it only takes you a glance to the hands on your left shoulder along with the familiar heftiness of his built chest against your back for you to know exactly whose hold you had allowed yourself into.

And for once, you’re thankful to the little antics pulled by fate itself.

“Hey,” he utters, peering down at you from above.

“Oh,” you manage to say, head leaning against his chest as you crane your neck to stare at the face that hovers above yours. “It’s Jungkook.”

The little crooked smile on his pressed lips have you flashing the goofiest grin at him—and you know it’s the goofiest of all your grins, but you’re helpless under the sway of his magnetic presence.

“Still can’t handle liquor, I see.”

“Shut up,” you laugh much more than elicited, “are you saying you can drink now? After, what, six months?”

The boy shrugs smugly, “maybe. I’m a grown ass adult now.”

“You? An adult?” you can’t help but laugh at the bewildered grin of disbelief plastered across his face. Something about the high of the liquor and the constant stream of background noise that drowns you out has your words slipping from your lips with utter ease. For once, you’re neither bashful nor wary of how you carry yourself in front of him. It’s refreshing albeit all the more worrying when you consider all that you’ve left buried away from him. “So? What’re you doing here, grown ass adult Jeon Jungkook?”

The smile on his face fades as he mutters, “nothing, really.”

“Really?” you quirk a brow. “Where’s your girlfriend, Jieun?”

“...she’s not my girlfriend,” he responds flatly, “...anymore.”

“Oh,” you can only utter in shock, speaking exactly what flashes across your mind, “fuck, I’m screwed.”

Jungkook frowns with knitted brows, “what?”

“I meant,” you quickly assert, realizing your errs, “I meant I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Yeah,” he smirks, scoffing at you impudently. “You shouldn’t have.”

A comfortable silence befalls the two of you in the midst of rowdy hundreds—well, until yet another word slips your mind… in addition to your lips.

“...heartbreaker.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

The widened grin of mischief that stretches from ear to ear has you mirroring that goofy grin of him as you can’t help but become enraptured by the facial profiles of the charming man just several inches from you. If this were sober you, you would have been much more distant, emotionally and physically; but the sway of the night has you completely under its control.

Plus, you’ve given away all your last fucks long ago when you decided to aspire for a job in another city nearby. Maybe this is your last chance to finally get rid of what had left your chest heavy so long ago.

“Well, I’m just going to grab my friend before I pass—oh shit,” you curse as you nearly tumble to the floor, hands sprawled out and hair forming curtains around your lowly hanging head just as he catches you and brings you back to your feet. Stumbling over your heels, your hands grasp tightly onto his as you try to shake the locks of hair out of your shrouded vision. “Sorry, I mean, thanks—” you laugh “—for saving me from eating shit.”

“Holy fuck,” the boy remarks, chuckling worriedly, “you’re a mess. Go home.”

“I’ll have you know,” you emphasize, sing-songing at this point, “that I am—” you point a finger against his chest and his eyes flicker in amusement over your jab “—going home, just need to… find my friend.”

“Where’s your friend?”

“There,” you throw a hand off into the space somewhere toward the floor.

“Where the fuck is ‘there?’”

“There!”

Jungkook frowns, “where??”

“I said,” you’re basically whining as you jump up and down while holding him for stability and, luckily, he holds you even tighter, “there!!”

“Holy shit,” he shakes his head, furrowing his brows and laughing in disbelief, “fuck this, I’ll take you home.”

“Shut up, nope,” you adamantly shake your head, trying to toss his hands to the side only to nearly trip over your own feet once again.

To your rescue, once again, Jungkook throws your right arm over his shoulders with one firm hand and another much gentler, chivalrous hand over to your left waist, careful not to invade your personal space. Laughing at how ironic the night has turned out to be, somehow ending up in the arms and closer than ever to the man you had sworn to have gotten over less than an hour ago, you give into the force of gravity and fate as your head rests helplessly against his chest.

“Just, just,” you struggle to remember what you wanted to say, “just admit you want to use this as an… an excuse to bring me home.”

The boy only chuckles under his breath as he leads you out of the doors and a blast of fresh, night air refreshes your complexion, “whatever gets you home safe.”

“Ah,” you sigh, a puff of white escaping into the air just as he waves a hand out to tail a cab, “I hate it when you do that.”

“Do what?” he arches a brow.

“That,” you say in a fit of frustration over your lack of constraint but continue nonetheless, knowing well just how long this night will haunt you for the sleepless nights ahead, “when you act all gentlemanlike with me...”

“Is that a bad thing…?”

“Yes!” you exclaim just as a cab halts by the sidewalk. “I hate how you treat me so well!”

“The fuck,” he utters under his breath, holding you steady in one hand and opening the door to the cab with another, “fine, get in by yourself, then.”

Caught off guard by the loss of his firm hold, you hesitate, suddenly gripping onto his hands tighter than ever as you take a step down the sidewalk, “wait—”

“—that’s what I thought,” he quips before suddenly picking you up into his arms, your legs dangling freely in the air without the burden of your weight, and gently placing you down into the middle backseat. Your head is spinning at this point from the spur of events and from literally being swept off the feet. You would have been foolish to deny the weight in your chest that settles when you realize your whimsical night has come to end when, to your surprise, the boy gets into the seat right beside you. With a loud huff and a slam of the now closed door, Jungkook speaks, “Providence Street, please.”

He still remembers where you live.

Gaping at him in the full darkness of the backseat with the countless golden streetlights that pass by like flickering beacons of warmth, a fleeting albeit numerous opportunity to gaze at the apple of your eye in its full glory, and gulping when you notice him staring right back at you with those twinkling, unreadable eyes of his, you finally acknowledge that you really couldn’t care less if he catches you staring… which he does.

And it’s that this moment, this unconquerable, fleeting, otherworldly moment of an unbreakable high as your head shuffles to the side along with waves of the bumpy ride and your eyes spot the arrival of that one magical hour, one magical minute, 11:11, that an epiphany dawns upon you.

Something will inevitably ensue tonight and, whatever it may be, whether you confess or not, you just wish you could finally let bygones be bygones, as the two of you should have been in the first place.

his side;

If there’s one thing this man did not expect from a night that has thus far been nothing but dread, it would be crossing paths with the rare one who could etch stars into his skies out of nothing.

“What?” Jungkook can’t help but crack a crooked grin at the goofiest grin adorning his star’s’ beet red cheeks.

“You’re doing it again!” she hollers into the front of the cab rather than the subject at hand.

“Doing what?”

“It. You’re doing…” she pumps a fist at her chest twice, “things again!”

“You’ve...” Jungkook pauses, looking her up and down with concern overshadowed by bemuse because, well, look at her, he chuckles to himself, so gauche in her own adorable attempts at daintiness, “...lost it.”

“I honestly think I have,” she laughs with a hand to what he figures must be an overwhelming lightheadedness.

There must be something about the heat in her cheeks that run down her bare neck and along the dress straps that had slipped from her collarbones, something about the first recognition of a level vulnerability that she had never bared to him before, because even he could peer at her and her unreachable high that is cloud nine, all whilst beside her. Ice-thawing and sun-basking, he could only watch in admiration as a magic stronger than any drink spurs her forward; and he could tell it would take her little to nothing to muster the courage to just jump and fall…

…and when she leans in to whisper, he has an inkling of tonight’s impending stain.

“Do you wanna hear a secret?”

Quirking a brow at her, he remarks, “only if it actually makes sense.”

“Okay,” she giggles before quickly adding, “you’re really not dating her anymore, right?”

“...no?” Jungkook answers, confused. “Why—”

“—cause I won’t tell you if you are!” she exclaims playfully, throwing her hands out into the air. She continues on her babbling before he could even react. “Oh, and I’m not doing this because I want to take advantage of your breakup. Oops, was that too much too soon? Well, I’m only telling you because I want to get over it. Don’t act on it, okay?”

“The fuck?” he utters with a raised brow, softly chuckling. “Uh, on second thought, I think I’ll pass—”

“—promise me you believe me when I say I don’t feel this way anymore!”

Having never seen a more childlike side to a rather dependable colleague he once knew, Jungkook can’t help but laugh in disbelief, “feel what way?!”

She smiles heavy-lidded at the sheer confusion plastered across his frown, seemingly coming in and out of consciousness. It’s a smile that could only come from a dreamer doing everything they wished they had done yet could never come to have done; and when he locks gazes with hers, it’s almost as if the two had drifted elsewhere from their bodies and are now merely watching themselves in the scene before the grand confession of a romcom through the fourth wall.

With a finger wagging at him, beckoning for him to lean forward, which he does reluctantly, he can’t quite believe what slips from her lips.

“You’re so good looking.”

...and when the two of them had registered her words, neither of them budge. Jungkook remains still, ears next to his lips and showing the most evident falter in his usual apathetic demeanor through the way at which his ears redden with each passing second. Slapping a hand against his chest, she pushes him back into his seat and chimes cheerfully, “like sooooooooo good looking! Don’t tell them I said this, but every girl at work thinks you’re handsome and I hate it cause it’s. so. true.”

“You’re,” the boy scoffs in disbelief, blinking blankly at you because: one, he had never heard of such rumors and two, he had never seen her speak so brazenly, “you’re going crazy.”

“I am and what?” she challenges, slapping his chest again as he sits there blinking helplessly, “It’s your fault you look like this!”

“What even—”

“—and what about that kiss?!” she throws her hands up again. “Why did you even kiss me if you were going to date someone else later? Huh?!”

He never thought the day would come for her to mention that kiss… especially not tonight.

“And why are you always so nice to me?”

He chuckles at her less than threatening lashing, “am I supposed to be mean to you?”

“Well,” she scoffs in disbelief, “why are you literally everywhere I go then? You stalking me or something?”

“This is fucking hysterical,” Jungkook cracks a lopsided grin of mischief, pulling a phone out of his pocket. Throwing a peace sign at the camera, he pans the camera between him and the star of the night. “It’s January 11, 2020. A sober Jeon Jungkook checking in and, here, we have a messed up Y/N. Say hi—”

“—I am not messed up!” she interjects, pointing an accusing finger at the camera. “The only reason I’m messed up is because of you! And you know what’s even worse?”

“What could possibly be worse than you waking up to watch this horrific video?”

Flailing her arms, she exclaims in a huff of frustration, “you don’t even know how badly you messed me up, Jungkook!”

He raises a brow, raising the phone to get a better angle of the two of you. He doesn’t know why but his grip tightens. “Yeah?”

“You know,” she begins, flopping her hands into the air again.

“What now?” he chuckles, completely bemused as he watches your drunken state through his phone screen; and through his peripherals, he could catch the utterly enraptured grin of his in the corner of his screen and he just knew: he would be watching this special little clip over and over. “Just wait ‘til you watch this video—“

but her voice comes in a loud frustrated huff, a final remark cooked up in for relentlessly long years of a sheep, forgiving herself for losing sights of her captor

“—I really liked you, Jeon Jungkook!”

He freezes.

Silence befalls the cab.

But, like she always does, she never stops to wait for him.

“I mean, I really,” she emphasizes adamantly, as if he had failed to hear her when it’s anything but, “reaaaaaaaally liked you!”

Head rolling back against the headrest as the cab comes to a stop at the red light, she closes her eyes as she persists on her self-heist and blurts out frustratingly, “but you didn’t even know! And if you did, you didn’t even seem to fucking care!”

The boy wishes he could speak. Hell, he even curses at himself for staying still the way he does now… but, what should he even say? After pining for many months, falling, acknowledging, despairing and getting over the star he had always thought to be out of reach only to discover she had been within a drink, a night, a confession’s reach, how should he feel?

What good would it do to now recognize a love line that could have been but never came to be for the two?

Lowering his phone and stopping the recording, a bittersweet upturn of one corner of his lips lingers just as his thumb does over “delete.”

And after all the fond memories the two had shared within the span of a year, the gatekeeper figures maybe, for the girl’s sake, he would be the sole witness to all evidence of tonight.

“Hellooo?” she cranes her neck to look at him with heavy-lidded eyes. “Did you hear me? I said I like—I mean, liked—you.”

“I heard you,” he presses a finger against the spot between her brows, scrunching his nose by her breath that reeks of alcohol as his tap has her head tipping onto her left shoulder. The girl only groans in protest because, apparently, she lacks the energy to defy him physically. Gazing at her from afar, a wave of adoration overwhelms him and he can’t help but chuckle under his breath. Discarding himself of his jacket, he drapes it over her bare shoulders. The boy leans in closer with one hand placed to her cheek, gently lulling her back to the right until her head lies comfortably in the crook of his left shoulder; and when he speaks, he speaks lowly but clearly, “I just wish you had told me earlier.”

The rest of the car ride proceeds in silence but never had there been more words than all that had been said tonight.

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bookcoversalt · 4 years

Note

Have you noticed the latest edition of Charlie Bowater can only draw one (1) face? She did The Princess Will Save You and Cast In Firelight both YA Fantasy set to be released this year. And they are how you say... the same fucking cover

Ah yes so you saw the same tweet I did

I know I literally just posted that we cannot outlaw book covers from looking like each other, but ! Oof!

The only thing that softens the blow here is that Charlie has improved at representing nonwhite features such that characters look like POC rather than tan white people, although,, that bar was low. Anybody remember the ACOTAR coloring book.

(Would you have guessed that 2/3 of these people are nonwhite? Or even that they’re supposed to be three different men? I guess all the men in Prythian have the same haircut?)

But that minor victory is mostly lost in the quagmires of the fact that Charlie’s style is to give everyone instagram face:

I wouldn’t even call this “Sameface” necessarily: that implies limitation, that an artist is only capable of drawing a single facial structure competently. Bowater is incredibly technically talented, she just chooses to give everyone catlike fae eyes and the cheekbones of a starving nymph. (My previous post on this here.)

But I don’t really blame her for that, or for these hilariously identical, nearly devoid of personality covers. Artists are allowed to do whatever they want. Artists who make art for covers are being art directed by designers and marketing teams who bear responsibility for how the finished pieces turn out.

No, this is our fault, as a community and an industry and..... society, kind of, for valuing character portraits that are “pretty” (“pretty” being an extremely loaded, culturally subjective concept) over art that actually Says Something About The Story. Bowater’s style happens to dovetail perfectly with what we currently collectively find pretty, and so we’ve put her art on a pedestal at the cost of everything else art can or should do for our stories.

And this is understandable: in contemporary western culture, pretty is a value unto itself. Seeing our characters portrayed as pretty denotes them as special, as smart, as powerful. It’s almost impossible to de-program ourselves from that reaction. There are approximately five kajillion studies on how beautiful people are at personal and professional advantages; how they’re perceived to be happier, healthier, more successful, and how those perceptions can translate into realities. (Nevermind how thinness and whiteness enter that equation, see above note about “pretty”.) I would love to see more “average” or weird- looking characters abound (and be accurately visually represented) in the YA/ Genre lit sphere, but for now... everyone is pretty.

Which sometimes means everyone is pretty boring.

But that’s just the specific, "What’s the deal with Bowater’s success in book circles and her style and all the sameiness” part of this equation. What if we backed up and asked: why character art at all? Beyond a question of “pretty”-ness (and general obvious Artistic Quality), why do we gravitate towards it, what's the purpose of it, how does it fall flat in a general sense, and how can it be utilized more effectively?

This is something I think about all the time. I follow writers on social media (because..... I am a writer on social media, regrettably), and we have an enormous collective boner for character art. “Getting fanart [of the characters]” is one of the achievement pinnacles constantly cited when people get or want to get published. Commissioning character art is something we reward ourselves with, or save up for (WHICH IS GOOD AND CORRECT. FREE ART IS GREAT BUT DO NOT SOLICIT IT. PAY YOUR ARTISTS). And like???? Same????? We love our stories because we’re invested in our characters. Most humans, even prose writers, are visual creatures to some extent, and no matter how happy we are with our text-based art, it’s exciting to see our creations exist in that form. So we turn that art into promo material and we advocate for it on our covers-- because it’s so meaningful to us! It goes with the story perfectly!! Look at my dumb beautiful children!!!!!

But on an emotional level, it’s hard to grasp that it only means something to us. Particularly when you take into account the aforementioned vast landscape of beautiful visual blandness of many characters (in the YA/ genre lit sphere, that’s pretty much all I’m ever talking about), character art can be like baby photos. If you know the baby, if that baby is your new niece or your friend’s kid, if you’ve held them and their parent texts you updates when they do cute shit, you’re probably excited to see that baby photo. But unless it’s exceptionally cute, a random stranger’s baby photo isn’t likely to invoke an emotional reaction other than “this is why I don’t get on facebook.”

Seeing art of characters they don’t know might intrigue a reader, but especially if the characters or art are unremarkable-looking, it’s doing a hell of a lot more for the people who already have an emotional attachment to that character than anybody else. And that’s fine. Art for a small, invested audience is incredibly rewarding. But like the parent who cannot see why you don’t think their baby is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BABY IN THE WORLD???? I think we have trouble divesting our emotional reaction to character art from its actual marketing value, which.... is often pretty minimal. This is my hill to die on #143:

Character portraits, even beautiful ones, are meaningless as a marketing tool without additional context or imagery.

I love character art! I’m not saying it should not exist or that it’s worthless! Even art that appeals to only the one single person who made it has value and the right to exist. And part of this conversation is how important for POC to see themselves on covers, whether illustrations or stock imagery, particularly in YA/kidlit. I’m not saying character portrait covers are “bad”.

I am saying that I have seen dozens and dozens of sets of character art for characters who look interchangeable, and it has never driven me to preorder a book. (Also one character portrait for a high-profile 2019 debut that was clearly just a painting of Amanda Seyfriend. You know the one. There’s nothing wrong with faceclaims but lmfao, girl,,,,)

I’m sure that’s not true for everyone! I am incredibly picky about art. It’s my job. There’s nothing wrong with your card deck of cell-shaded boys of ambiguous age and ethnicity who all have the same button nose and smirk if it Sparks Joy for you.

But if your goal is not only to delight yourself, but to sell books, it’s in your best interest to remember that art, like writing, is a form of communication. The publishing industry runs on pitches: querys, blurbs, proposals, self-promo tweets. What if we applied that logic to our visuals? How can we utilize our character design and art to communicate as much about our stories as possible, in the most enticing way?

Social media has already driven the embrace of this concept in a very general sense. Authors are now supposed to have ~ aesthetics. “Picspams” or graphics, modular collages that function as mini moodboards, are commonplace. But the labor intensity and relative scarcity of character art visible in bookish circles, even on covers, means that application of marketing sensibility to it is less intuitive than throwing together a pinterest board.

Since we were talking about it earlier, WICKED SAINTS, as a case study of a recent “successful” fantasy YA debut, arguably owed a lot of its early social media momentum to fanart.

(Early fanart by @warickaart)

The most frequently drawn character, Malachiasz, has long hair, claws, and distinctive face tattoos. WS has a strong aesthetic in general, but those features clearly marked his fanart as him in a way even someone unfamiliar with the book could clearly track across different styles. Different interpretations of his tattoos from different artists even became a point of interest.

(Art by Jaria Rambaran, also super early days of WS Being A Thing)

Aside from distinctiveness, it's a clear visual representation of his history as a cult member, his monstrous powers, and the story’s dark, medieval tone. The above image is also a great example of character interaction, something missing from straightforward portraits, that communicates a dynamic. Character dynamics draw people into stories: enemies-to-lovers, friends-to-lovers, childhood rivals, platonic life partners, love triangles, devoted siblings, exes who still carry the flame-- there’s a reason we codify these into tropes, and integrate that language and shared knowledge into our marketing. For another example in that vein, I really love this art by @MabyMin, commissioned by Gina Chen:

The wrist grip! The fancy outfits! These are two nobles who hate each other and want to bone and I am sold.

In terms of true portraits, the best recent example I can think of is the set @NicoleDeal did for Roshani Chokshi’s GILDED WOLVES (I believe as a preorder incentive of some kind?):

They showcase settings, props, and poses that all communicate the characters’ interests, skills, and personality, as well as the glamorous, elaborate aesthetic of the overall story. Even elements in the gold borders change, alluding to other plot points and symbology.

For painterly accuracy in character portraits on covers, I love SPIN THE DAWN. The heroine looks like a beautiful badass, yes, but the thoughtful, detailed rendering of every element, soft textures, and dynamic, fluid composition form a really cohesive, stunning illustration that presents an intriguing collection of story elements.

The devil isn’t always in the details, though: stark, moody, highly stylized or graphic art with an emphasis on textural contrast and bold color and shape rather than representational accuracy can communicate a lot (emotionally and tonally) while pretty much foregoing realism.

The new Lunar Chronicles covers are actually the best examples I found of this (Trying to stay within the realm of existing bookish art rather than branch into All Art Of Human Figures Forever):

Taking cues from styles more typical of the comics and video game industries. (Games and comics, as visual mediums, are sources of incredible character art and I highly recommend following artists in those industries if you want to See More Cool Art On Your Timeline.)

TL;DR: Character art and design, as a marketing tool (even an incidental one) should be as unique to your story and your characters as possible, and tell us about the story in ways that make us want to read it. I tried to give examples because there are so many ways to do this, and so many different kinds of art, and I could give many more! But I’m bored now. So to circle all the way back:

These are not just bad because they look like each other, although that is embarrassing and illuminating. These are bad covers (although,,,,, PRINCESS is the far worse offender, at least FIRELIGHT suggests a thoughtful cultural analogue) because a desire for Pretty Character Art overrode the basic cover function to tell us about the story. We get no sense of who these people are, what their relationships are, what these books are about beyond the most general genre, or why we might care. The expressions are vague, the characters generic-looking, the compositions uninteresting and the colors failing to be indicative of anything in particular.

They’re somebody else’s baby pictures.

(And yes, that’s the CRUEL PRINCE font on PRINCESS. I better not have to do a roundup post but it’s on thin fucking ice.)

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mypunkpansexualtwin · 3 years

Text

WIP Wednesday

I am, again, untagged but undeterred! Who wants more Wingman? No? Too bad, that’s what you’re getting!

I... haven’t slept yet. Consider yourself tagged if you want to do this and please please tag me in your WIPs, I really love seeing what my friends, mutuals, and followers are all working on. Part of this is under a cut, mostly for the sanity of Future Me.

About halfway down the block, they realized at about the same time that they had nothing to talk about.

“So…”

“So...”

So. Akira didn’t remember how to have a normal damn conversation. He wasn’t going to blame that on the fact that the only people who’d spoken to him on a regular basis in the past five months were all eccentric to say the least, but it definitely hadn’t helped. One of the top five current sanest people in his life was the drag queen proprietor of a bar in the red light district, for crying out loud. Not to mention he’d always been more of a listener to begin with because it was less stressful. So long as the person talking wasn’t a harried reporter who could only ever be found at the aforementioned drag bar. Or his homeroom teacher being blackmailed into dubious side work by a late student’s family. Or an ex member of the goddamn yakuza. Being “robbed of one’s place to belong” apparently also did a number on one’s sanity.

Akira was pulled from his thoughts by Ono awkwardly clearing his throat.

“I, uh, heard that one of the Japanese schools staying here is Shujin. That you?” Jason hazarded.

“Yup.”

“Phantom Thieves Shujin?”

“That’s the only one I’m aware of.” Akira responded blandly. Not the best topic for small talk considering the apparent state of his brain-to-mouth filter, but better than walking along and twiddling their thumbs until one of them decided to leave. Probably.

Jason cracked a smile and jokingly asked, “Do you know them?” Even half-expecting it, the question still caught him a little off guard. Although not as much as it would have a few months prior, considering he’d gotten it just as jokingly from several of Leblanc’s regulars since May. Meaning he’d had time to practice his answer.

“Oh yeah,” Akira responded, pouring every ounce of sarcasm he had into a completely truthful statement, “I found them on accident and they made me their leader.” Then he rolled his eyes for good measure. Who needed to be a good liar when you could just tell the truth in a way nobody would believe?

“Pff, why would they do that?” Jason snorted, indulging the “joke.” Akira shrugged in response.

“No idea,” he answered, again, completely honestly. “My unparalleled charisma? My superior adaptability?” He paused for his date to stop laughing before he continued, “My cool glasses?” That earned him a scoff.

“Clark Kent you ain’t, buddy.” Ono retorted dryly, but the effect was ruined by the smile trying to break out across his face. Topic successfully deflected.

“Definitely no Superman, either.” Akira stretched and laughed softly.“Too gangly.” He was finally starting to actually relax a little when an arm snaked around his waist and tugged him close, effectively shooting his progress in the face.

“I dunno if I’d say gangly. Lean, maybe?” Ono’s voice was close to his ear again and his hand was ridiculously warm where it rested on his hip. “Whatever you wanna call it, it definitely suits you.”

“Uh. Th-thanks.” A few moments passed, allowing Akira to attempt to scrape together something resembling a brain cell.

“Y’know, if you’re here to make memories, maybe we should get on that.”

Attempt failed, try again later. Something about the guy’s voice, especially with the way it ghosted across an apparently very sensitive spot just behind his ear, seemed to have a vendetta against Akira trying to think. Purely on impulse, with no input from his higher functions that had all abandoned him at that point, Akira turned his head and hummed his assent against the corner of Ono’s jaw. He felt a shiver run through the taller boy and a decidedly Arsene-shaped sense of smug satisfaction in the back of his mind. Akira wasn’t sure if he should offer his inner self thanks or wonder where the hell this kind of helpful nudge was earlier that afternoon with Ryuji. Or at literally any point with Ryuji. Maybe it was for the better, he really didn’t have the nerve to follow up on a move like that. And if he couldn’t with the guy who’d arranged the damn date, there was no way he’d have been able to after probably ambushing his unsuspecting best friend. There was no point in dwelling on that, though. Instead, he met the hooded gaze Jason levelled at him with a smirk meant to cover his rising nerves.

Anyone who knew Joker, Infamous Leader of the Phantom Thieves would have recognized that particular smirk as the prelude to him being a little shit, but Ono did not. He had no idea what to expect when Akira replied lowly, “I think you might be onto something there.” The blond leaned in a little, eyes fluttering shut as Akira reached up to settle one hand on the back of Jason’s neck--

--and shattered the moment with a quiet click from his phone’s camera. Ono blinked a few times, looking up to where Akira was holding his phone up for the selfie he’d just snapped, and back to Akira’s face. Double take. Triple take. And then he fixed him with the most unimpressed face Akira had ever seen in his life, which had to be some kind of world record.

“Uhhh, say ‘cheese?’” He cracked a smile and tried hard not to laugh as that look somehow turned even more unimpressed.

“Ha freaking ha.” Ono pouted up at the camera. “Seriously. I’m gonna crack a rib laughin’ here. You’re hilarious.”

“Are you saying you don’t want a picture of yourself when you look this good?” Akira replied innocently and lowered his arm a little. Maybe it was unfair to push the buttons of a guy so obviously and aggressively walking the fine line between confident and vain, but the way his pout deepened before twisting into a smile was too cute.

“Fine, twist my arm why don’t you?” Jason rolled his eyes good-naturedly and settled against Akira before looking up into the camera. Halfway through the burst of pictures Akira took, Jason exacted his revenge and pressed a kiss to that sensitive spot he’d ghosted his breath over a moment ago. Thankfully the camera didn’t pick up the deeply embarrassing yelp that particular move elicited from Akira, but there was no hiding the way the phone suddenly jerked in his hand halfway through the dozen or so pictures, or the way his face had gone completely scarlet in all of them from that point onward. It was his turn to pout as he swiped through his camera roll and deleted the blurriest ones. “Ooh, definitely send me that one. And those two.” Ono instructed with his chin hooked over Akira’s shoulder. Naturally the guy wanted the pictures with the worst of Akira’s tomato face, but at least the rest he requested were nice. Maybe Akira wouldn’t be spending the rest of the night too mortified.

The incoming text notification that dropped from the top of his screen said otherwise. Goddammit.

“Oh man, the timing on that’s almost spooky. Hell of a coincidence.” Jason laughed as the preview of Futaba’s ‘who the heck is that guy???’ disappeared into the notifications bar. Akira groaned.

“Not a coincidence.”

#my writing #persona 5 #misguided wingman #any and all bits of the persona peanut gallery in akira's head is less a separate entities thing #and more like 'romantic impulsivity and maxed courage stat is stored in the arsene'#I'm working on the final chapter of this and am really hype #like. REALLY hype.#like planning at least 2 spinoff fics that resolve the nonsense #plus possibly a third that's literally just a chatfic of the other thieves betting on pegoryu becoming canon #I've been doing this for how many weeks and only just thought to start putting it under a cut

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cherrywoes · 3 years

Text

003 | CONTROL

“AND SHE ATTACKED YOU first?” the police officer inquired, his notepad barely much of note except for scribbles of your name, age, number, and a lawyer to contact if, god forbid, the girl pressed charges against you—because it was highly likely given your celebrity status and the man had seen more than enough lawsuits against people like you go horribly wrong. “With a bowl of soup and by yanking your hair, you said?”

“Yes,” you affirmed, side eyeing Iwaizumi Hajime giving his version to another officer who had arrived with the one interviewing you. A further look around the room revealed Yuuji’s girlfriend sitting at a table, holding a napkin and an ice pack to her nose, with aforementioned boyfriend comforting and doting over her, attempting to soothe her anger over a potentially broken bone. You would be surprised if it wasn’t at least fractured. “I didn’t even do anything to her; you can ask anyone here what happened.”

The officer nodded and wrote something else down. “And what is your relationship with the victim’s boyfriend?”

Victim? Gag me, you thought, eyebrows contorting into a barely concealed sneer. If anyone was the victim, it was your hair; you’d spotted more than a few [color] strands wrapped around that girl’s knuckles when she collapsed to the tile floor. Props to Yuuji for being more loyal to her than he had you, but he really knew how to pick them, didn’t he?

“He’s my ex-boyfriend. She was the one he cheated on me with, to put a long story short.” You watched the officer’s eyebrows raise as he continued to write down the basics. The press would have a field day with this one. “There’s plenty of backstory about that in the papers if you want to read more about it.”

You deceptively left out the fact that you’d retaliated by sleeping with the captain of his volleyball team at the time, Shinsuke Kita. He’d been surprisingly easy to convince, citing that it was only logical for you to want to get back at Yuuji by sleeping with the one person he probably respected more than anyone else on their team. Everything had been no strings attached with him for a while, and when you both became too busy to hook up on weekends you’d agreed to break it off cleanly and remain friends—it wasn’t like Kita was ridiculously hard to communicate with, unlike Yuuji. You half mindedly wondered if he was in the city or not around this time of year; he was probably dealing with the rice harvest right around now.

“Is there anyone to represent you in case a lawsuit is filed against you for damages?”

“Semi Eita.”

The cop gave you yet another look before writing down the name.

Semi was Akaashi’s lawyer and therefore your lawyer. However, you had only met him a handful of times, and even then it was on the terms of strangers. He was the best lawyer in Tokyo and everyone knew it. If Yuuji’s girl wanted to try and pull a lawsuit over on you, she would have a nasty surprise coming her way.

“Alright, we’ll call you if anything comes up.” He tucked away the notepad and bowed his head to you. Then he stepped outside to make a call, leaving you to stand alone near the window. With no other option but to sit and wait for them to let you go, you sat down and unlocked your phone.

Surprise flickered over your face when, lo and behold, Oikawa Tooru’s name popped up in your new messages. Somehow between getting your hair pulled out and soup thrown at the back of your head, he’d messaged you and you hadn’t heard the notification over it. You debated if you wanted to answer it—or at the very least read it. He hadn’t said a word to you in over a month after flaking out on you for that shoot, leaving you with Ushijima (you weren’t sure if you felt lucky or cursed after that) in the process.

Before you could let your finger press down on the screen, Iwaizumi Hajime, the reason for you being there in the first place, walked over. The cop was seemingly done with him and had gone outside to speak with his associate, the two standing close and debating over something with someone on the phone—their supervisor, perhaps?—which left everyone in the small onigiri shop to wait for them to come back.

“So, I guess you’re wondering about Shittykawa too.” You blinked at his blunt tone, surprised as he slid into the booth across from you. Your water and onigiri lay abandoned on the table, still clean but your appetite not allowing for food. “He told me about you a lot. [Name] [Surname], right?”

“Yes, and wherever he is I’m going to kick his ass,” you deadpanned.

“Get in line.” Iwaizumi scowled. “I haven’t heard a word from him in over a month and then he texts me that everything’s fine. I’m assuming you got one too?”

“A bit ago, but…” You shrugged and inclined your head in Yuuji’s direction. “I was a little busy at the time.”

Iwaizumi raised an eyebrow. “Ah. Well, supposedly he’s fine so he should be back in Japan in a bit. Though I wouldn’t bet on him participating in any shoots afterwards though.”

“And why not?” You asked, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. You didn’t think you could deal with Ushijima, not again—you’d beg Akaashi to do it with you, especially after those infuriatingly confusing texts he’d sent you on your flight back. He’d probably need some gentle coaxing but you could probably get him to do it. “It’s not like he can just quit, Akaashi would kill him.”

Iwaizumi shrugged, as if saying ‘I don’t know’ and left it at that.

Before you could further interrogate him, the cops entered the shop again and gestured for you, Yuuji, and his girlfriend to go over to them. You flashed a quick wave to Iwaizumi, who nodded, and approached the cop. You kept a healthy distance from Yuuji’s girlfriend, conscious of your hair and the strands you were likely lacking at her hands, and set your gaze on the cop expectantly. You half expected a lawsuit at best, arrest of both of you at worst; just because they could, not that they had any reason to take both of you to prison.

“No charges are being pressed on either side,” the cop began as a starter. You figured Yuuji had a hand in that, otherwise she would be slapping you with a lawsuit before you could blink. “Miss Fujimura, you’ll be required to attend weekly therapy sessions as a result of an unfounded outburst of anger and cleared by a licensed therapist. Miss [Name], you are free to do as you please and may sue if you wish.”

You rolled your eyes. “I don’t need to sue her. But thanks.”

A few more moments of the cops speaking to the girl, Fujimura-san, and you were able to leave, finally. Iwaizumi exchanged numbers with you before you left, citing that you could trash talk Oikawa behind his back whenever he got back which you found hilarious and slightly touching. But of course, as all things did, it had to come to an abrupt end.

You should have known something bad would happen with the way your day had been going. It was almost like foreshadowing; you’d managed to weasel your way out of that one, but this one?

You were lucky to get out alive.

The gun against the man’s head was astonishingly real and very much loaded, judging by the click when the hammer pulled back. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and he was sweating profusely, each droplet rolling down his face and landing on the expensive carpet. You swore if the man wouldn’t have been shot for crying, he would have been leaking giant alligator tears.

You weren’t the one holding the gun. It felt like you were.

You glanced at the back of Ushijima’s head, followed the silhouette of his arm and the hand that held the gun.

Where had it all gone wrong?

a/n: i struggled so much with this chapter it wasn’t even funny. that’s why it took so long for me to update it; i was never happy with it and this is how it turned out. i’m probably going to focus on waking up the devil mostly and then come back with fresh eyes. <3 check it out if you like oikawa!

MASTERLIST.

< PREVIOUS CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER >

taglist (open): @toaster-stick @katemocha @momowhoo

#ushijima wakatoshi x reader #ushijima wakatoshi #ushijima x reader #wakatoshi x reader #ushijima wakatoshi x y/n #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyū!!#haikyuu x reader

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whirlybirbs · 5 years

Photo

✶ ┈ PART ONE !

summary: the origins of the whole “let’s pretend to be married so the grandmaster doesn’t kill us while we try to get off this floating junk pile to stop your sister from destroying your home” bit. because it’s about time. pairing: fake!wife reader x loki, set in ragnarok. a/n: all the fake!wife reader and loki stuff? here’s 2k of their origin story. READ PART TWO HERE.

The first time you meet him, he’s tinkering with Erik Selvig’s self autonomy.

(Erik’s your boss -- a nice guy. You like him. Jane does, too. You’re running quantum decay samples for S.H.I.E.L.D. the day Loki crash lands on Earth. You’d thought you were having a bad enough day… and then the Tesseract went and spat out the resident super-villain who later opened the interdimensional front-door for the Chitauri and proceeded destroyed half of New York city. Talk about a bad day.)

The second time you meet him, you have Jane to thank.

She’s clutching the spectrometer with wide eyes and you realize in that moment, this is a lot like getting a text from an ex, except the text is the equivalent of crashing a party via falling through the roof. The Bifrost, a glittering quantum anomaly, allows for a fold in time and space. Cosmic kick-back ripples around an arrival, alerting the various quantum measuring devices in the office. The energy signature is familiar -- it’s Asgardian.

She’s pacing. You hate when Jane paces. It makes you anxious.

“I’ll go,” you offer up, “I’ll go, check out the anomaly, make sure everything’s alright --”

Jane blinks, running a hand through her hair as she chews her lip. She makes a pained sound -- the one of a woman torn between science and the unplanned visit of an ex boyfriend -- before nodding and shoving the hand-held spectrometer your way. She nods, speaking to try and convince herself:

“You’re right. No, totally. You should go. It wouldn’t be good if I saw him and --”

“Yeah, no, fuck that,” Darcy supplies, “He ditched you for space gems --”

“Infinity Stones.”

“Same shit, different name!” Darcy shrieks, “Listen, I love him but god, he needs to get his priorities in order, Jane --”

You nod, shrugging on your jacket and buttoning it. You tuck the device in your pocket after eyeing the projected address: 177a Bleecker Street.

“It’s just across town,” you chide, “I’ll hop over, check it out and call if it’s something horrible like, uh, I dunno? An alien invasion?”

“Oh goodie.”

Jane looks pale. “Tell him I say hi. Er… Maybe don’t. Don’t. I don’t wanna seem like --”

“I’ll feel it out,” you chirp, waving your hands in a gesture for her to calm down, “If he asks, I’ll tell him you’re great.”

“If he asks about me, tell him I’m still single!” Darcy cries as you close the door behind you.

Normal.

Today had been shaping up to be normal.

You’d left your normal apartment, took a normal train ride, got your normal coffee order from the normal place two blocks from the office. You arrived at your normal time, ready for a normal day at work.

And then, Thor and his brother decided to change the trajectory of your day and, subsequently, life.

Here you are, half past noon, being welcomed into the Sanctum Sanctorum by some neurosurgeon-turned-supreme-wizard to see your co-worker’s Old Norse God of an ex-boyfriend.

(You know Thor. You’ve met countless times now; the first time was at Jane’s birthday part two years ago. The night had ended in Jane calling you an Uber back to your own apartment, only after you’d gotten blackout on rum and cokes, and spent three whole hours trying to lift Thor’s hammer. Mew-mew, Darcy had called it. You woke up the next morning with a sore back.)

You’ve clearly interrupted something because aforementioned God of Thunder is on the floor, looking like he might throw up any second. You peer around the man who answered the door, squinting. “Uh...”

“Can I help you?”

“Doctor!” Thor cries with sheer excitement from his place at the bottom of the stairs. He stands slowly, staggering over and welcoming you into a crushing grip. He hugs you like he had at last year’s Christmas party. There’s no love lost. You laugh, clapping him on the back as he lifts you into the air, “It is wonderful to see you! Wizard man, this is my good friend --”

“Stephen Strange,” he juts out a yellow gloved hand out in greeting. You shake it, “You must be one of Jane Foster’s associates, then.”

Stephen Strange is an odd one. You can’t help but note the ever-so-faint fluttering of his cape. You realize there’s no wind. You opt not to say anything, just smooth down your scarf and shift from one heeled boot to the other as you exchange looks between the wizard and the God. You push your glasses up your nose as you introduce yourself.

“Just doing my usual quantum disturbance welfare checks,” you say as Thor places you down. You wave the hand-held measuring device in your hand, “Someone had to come and make sure it was Thor and not some eight-legged horse looking to stomp all over Times Square.”

Thor grins.

Stephen smirks.

“How is Jane?” Thor asks quietly, his hand gentle on your shoulder, “Well, I hope?”

“Oh, you know,” a soft shrug, giving him a so-so gesture as you wince, “Breakups suck.”

He gets this look on his face -- it’s a mixture of regret and longing and you know Jane’s decision for space has been as much as a blow to him as it was to her. Jane, selfless as always, knew he needed to focus on his current mission more than her. She’d never forgive herself if she kept pulling him from his search for the stones. Thor sighs, clearing his throat as he nods.

“I, uh, I agree,” he speaks softly, “Please, do tell her I wish her well in all her… science endeavors.”

“Of course,” you say with a smile, “Speaking of which… what’s with the drop-in?”

Stephen’s brows raise and he sighs. “He’s looking for his father.”

Your face twists into confusion. “Odin? What, is he, like, missing?”

Thor’s posture shifts then and he rolls his eyes. Annoyance floods the blonde’s shoulders and he shakes his head. His nostrils flare. “Loki dropped him here on Earth.”

You recoil. “Loki…? Isn’t he --”

“Dead? I thought so as well, but no, the snake has been masquerading as my father on Asgard for the last two years,” Thor supplies, “Speaking of which…”

Stephen jumps. “Oh, yeah, right.”

The second time you meet him, he lands at your feet with a loud groan and a bad attitude.

“I have been falling! For thirty minutes!”

You yelp, hand flying over your mouth at the sudden appearance of the man you’d watched on CNN wreak havoc on NYC. He hits the floor with a resounding thud! and looks… less imposing now, flat on the floor with wild black curls flying about. He’s swathed in a well-tailored black suit and you can’t help but think he’s the exact opposite of Thor. The God of Mischief pushes himself upwards, eyes wild with anger.

Thor hides a chuckle at his brother’s expense.

You blink with wide eyes between Strange and Thor, wondering why the hell no one seems to be as off-put as you are.

“Do you just…?” you make the same sort of gesture Stephen had just made to open the portal Loki had fallen out of with a confused look on your face, “Do that normally?”

A shrug.

He turns to Thor then, shaking hands and gesturing once more to sling open another portal.

“I trust you can handle it from here,” Stephen says to Thor, “Good luck.”

This portal, unlike the one Loki had fallen through, overlooks the ocean. You can smells the sea breeze and hear the whisper of tall grass waving in the wind. You feel a bit like you’ve opened a book in the middle of a chapter -- you’re not sure what the hell is going on and before you can ask, Loki is honing in on you like a predator his next meal. He’s standing before you, leering with an angry look that should have probably sent you for the hills.

Instead, you pull another face.

“What is this? A wretched little pest, here to help?”

“Brother --”

“Have we met?” Loki sneers, lip curling as he hisses, “Or do you simply bear resemblance to every other disgusting worm on this planet?”

You push your glasses up again. Suddenly, you’re away of the behavioral tango you’re locked in. It’s like a psychological game of chess. You decide to move your pawn.

“We have, actually,” you chirp with an uncanny amount of unamusement. Thor’s eye twitches behind you, “You tried to blow up my lab station…? But, uh, I doubt you probably remember that, huh? Yeah, you were, uh, kinda busy terrorizing my boss and half the other staff on call… No, no, I get it. I’ve gotten a haircut since, so --”

“Doctor, please, ignore him --” Thor tries, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Oh, you’re one of Selvig’s wenches then.”

That doesn’t get the rise out of you that Loki had predicted. You frown, hands in your pockets. Your body language is guarded. Loki’s lip twitches.

“That’s an awfully misogynistic thing of you to say.”

There’s a glimpse of a recoil in his eyes at that. He takes a step forward, as if to challenge you -- to which Strange clears his throat. The game is stopped, if only for a moment, and Loki’s anger is redirected towards the wizard with a new-found malice.

“And you must be the second-rate sorcerer --”

You move, hand planted on the chest of the God of Lies as he shoves past you. He steps on your toes then, scuffing your shoes and you groan -- shoving him backwards with an annoyed cry. Thor makes a face, hands moving to try and pull you from the path of his brother.

“Hey, God of being-an-asshole, do you mind?”

“Move, bug, I have a pig to gut --”

“Alright, nope, bye-bye.”

Thor’s too late and you’re thrown through the portal. The ground is yanked out from underneath you like a tablecloth is yanked out from under a tea set. The flick of Strange’s wrists sends you careening into the grass on the other side of the portal. Loki lands, quite literally, on top of you a moment later, knocking the wind out of both of you. He groans, only to be cut off by your hands shoving him off as you try to roll as far away from the trickster as you can. Loki curses, annoyance boiling over --

And then Thor calls his name.

Today is not normal.

Before you can ask how the hell you’re going to get back to your New York office building, you’re painfully aware of the weight of the situation at hand. If someone told you you’d watch the two crown princes reconcile with their father that day, you would have laughed in their faces… Mostly since this is not reconciliation. Loki looks broken at the mention of his mother. Thor is in the midst of trying to work out the possibility of having a sister when Odin flutters to the wind in golden glimmers. There’s an electric threat in the wind.

In Odin’s absence, centuries of anger comes to a head.

You’re there, stepping between the brothers --

“This is your doing --”

“I had no hand in this --”

Hela arrives on the roll of thunder, and you realize quickly that this is all very much above your pay grade.

Normal.

Today had been shaping up to be normal.

And then, you were shoved out of the Bifrost by green gilded hands amidst fleeing the Goddess of Death’s claws -- the last thing you see is a twisted look of shock on Thor’s face as you’re sent careening through rainbow light. The Bifrost shatters around you like ice and you’re sent tumbling through the universe, the weight of the situations terribly apparent as you spin and spin and spin and spin and fall.

The second time you meet Loki, he throws you out of a glimmering quantum anomaly in an attempt to save himself.

#loki x reader #loki imagine #fakewife!reader + loki WHO #loki x fake!wife #loki x fake!wife reader

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katie-dub · 5 years

Text

The Bottomless Brunch Incident

Summary: There are some things you shouldn’t do while drinking - driving, texting ex boyfriends, carving pumpkins. But Emma Swan was never one for following the rules.

AO3

Hello! Yes, it’s been 84 years and honestly I thought my days of writing CS fic were done, but the words are back so here I am, putting out some Halloween-type fic inspired by my ridiculous life. (No, really.) And a little birdie ( @profdanglaisstuff ) told me that it was @thisonesatellite ‘s birthday, so happy birthday Steph! (And thank you Saira for reading this for me!)

“Emma can do that! Emma! EM-MA!” Mary Margaret’s voice rang out across the bar.

Emma looked up without releasing the straw from her lips, continuing to slurp down her delicious alcoholic beverage of indeterminate origins. She hoped that she had struck that sweet spot between paying just enough attention to satisfy her friend, while also not making it clear to the rest of the room that she was the Emma in question.

“Come here here, Emma!” Mary Margaret had started flailing dramatically.

Emma sighed, there was nothing for it, she was going to have to go see what she wanted or risk being dragged over there and causing even more of a scene. She stood up, and was a little surprised to discover that the ground seemed to sway beneath her.

“Woah, who’s playing Inception with the floor?” she muttered to her feet, watching them suspiciously for signs of further unexpected movements and only making a move to her friend when she was satisfied that the ground was definitely upright again.

“What’s up Ms?” she asked, stumbling, but styling it out by leaning against the bar. And if her arms happened to miss the target ever so slightly, no one seemed to notice. At least, no one who would say anything.

“Emma! You’re exactly the person we need! The lovely um -”

“Killian”

“- that’s right, Killian, needs help.”

Emma looked up into the most stunning pair of blue eyes she’d ever seen. They were so rich and intense - like sparkling sapphires and forget-me-nots and the clearest, bluest summer sky all combined - and they were smirking at her in undisguised amusement.

Oh fuck, she was staring.

She blinked and concentrated on ignoring the resulting gravity shift in her brain that caused. When she reopened her eyes, she took in the rest of the owner of those eyes. A cocked eyebrow, an amused smirk, black and ginger scruff and mussed up hair that fell into his eyes.

It was a good look.

More than good, Emma’s lip curled up in a predatory grin, she licked her lips. She liked what she saw, a whole lot.

“Killian here needs a white in shining armour to help him impress a lady.” Mary Margaret said eagerly, clapping her hand on Emma’s shoulder. Emma’s heart dropped. A lady. Of fucking course the most gorgous man in the bar needs her help to get in some poor soul’s pants. “Killian, this is my dear friend Emma, and she carves the best pumpkin that you will ever have the pleasure of seeing. In. Your. Life.”

It took Emma’s brain a minute to process what Mary Margaret had just said. “No, there’s no way for me to make sense of that. What’s happening here?”

“Killian -” Mary Margaret pointed with all the unselfconscious flourish that only the very intoxicated can pull off “- needs you, Emma Swan -” her finger jabbed towards Emma “- to carve him a pumpkin for a lady.”

“Carve your own damn pumpkin,” Emma snarled, feeling a childish urge to pout because Killian was taken.

“I would but -” Killian raised his left arm to indicate the prosthetic he had in place of a hand “- this makes it somewhat tricky.”

Oh God, I’m an asshole, she thought, refusing to help someone differently abled.

“Oh - I’m - er, I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok, love, you didn’t cut off my hand”

“Someone cut off your hand?” Emma shrieked in alarm, and Killian looked startled.

“Well, they were a surgeon, it wasn’t like Peter Pan chopped it off and fed it to a crocodile,” he said with a laugh.

Emma’s face burned in reply.

“So anyway, my prosthetic makes pumpkin carving alone somewhat tricky. And my friend Will was supposed to turn up to help, but I forgot that he’s a wanker so that was never going to happen. And I might’ve struggled through, only the bottomless brunches that we offer is so popular that the whole place is packed. So now I need to go to Belle’s literary Halloween party straight from my shift with an ‘epic and on-theme jack o lantern’ that is currently but a sad, humble pumpkin. In short: help me Swan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.”

“Perhaps I should just carve Don’t Panic in large friendly letters?” Emms suggested.

Killian scoffed. “No need for that. I’m a frood who really knows where my towel is.”

Her jaw dropped. “You know Hitchhiker’s Guide?” she gasped.

“I’m a British geek, of course I do, I’d have my geek licence revoked for not know that. It’d be like a Ben Wyatt who couldn’t do sums!”

“It just doesn’t add up?” Emma smirked and Killian grinned in reply.

“Oh I knew I liked you.”

“What does the lovely Belle like?” Mary Margaret butted in. Emma scowled. Right, there was a lady. “Ooooh Emma, maybe you could do something from Beauty and the Beast? You know, because of the name?”

“That sounds a little complex for me, Ms, um..” Emma said.

“Oh don’t go to any trouble on my account,” Killian said.

“Killian, stop flirting with my customers, and get back to work!”

Killian rolled his eyes, but straightened up, scratching behind his ears which had turned a little red at his boss’ words.

“Just leave it with me,” said Emma confidently, “I’ll wow this Belle for you!”

And she started carving a pumpkin, because what else can you do when you’re drunk and the guy you’re into has the hots for someone else.

🎃🎃🎃

It was probably not the best pumpkin Emma had ever carved. It certainly wasn’t the safest thing she ever did, wielding a sharp knife while so drunk she had to close one eye and squint to see straight. But still, some time later she had produced a Frankenstein’s Monster pumpkin that Mary Margaret squealed “she’ll love it!” over, before turning a colour befitting of said monster.

In the rush to save both the jack o lantern and the bar floor from the indignity of Mary Margaret’s depositing the contents of her stomach upon them, Emma had to leave without saying goodbye to Killian or hearing his thoughts of her carving.

It was probably for the best.

🎃🎃🎃

Emma had thought that she would be too embarrassed to ever set foot in The Rabbit Hole again after The Bottomless Brunch Disaster. But just three weeks later, she found herself cajoled into going with Ruby to meet a new girl she’d started seeing. Emma left her hair down, letting it fall forward over her face to hide from the shame.

“Emma, come join me!” Ruby called out and Emma looked up to see her sitting at the bar. She shook her head minutely, she couldn’t go sit at the bar, what if Killian were there? She’d be mortified.

“Swan Kenobi as I live and breathe!”

Emma was fairly certain that her heart stopped in that moment. Just for dramatic effect. Killian was here. Well, there was no point hanging back now she’d been caught.

“Hi Ruby,” she said as she walked up to her friend, “Killian,” she greeted him with a short nod.

Ruby looked back and forward between them. “I didn’t know that you knew each other.”

“Oh we don’t really,” Emma said, “I just carved a pumpkin for him a few weeks ago. How’d that go by the way? Did you win the heart of the princess?”

“Hold up,” said Ruby. “You carved him a pumpkin? How is that sentence meant to make any kind of sense to me?”

“He was trying to impress some girl and Mary Margaret was there, probably handing out hope speeches like Halloween candy, and somehow it was decided that a gorgeous Frankenstein’s Monster pumpkin would be the way to do it.”

“Emma carved that jack o lantern you brought to Belle’s party?” Ruby gasped in delighted shock, while Emma was left reeling by Ruby’s statement.

“You know Belle?” she asked.

“Hi there!” A petite brunette appeared from nowhere, presumably the aforementioned Belle, and she proceeded to give Ruby a kiss.

“Emma, meet Belle, my new girlfriend,” Ruby introduced the newcomer.

It took a long time for the pieces of the puzzle to click into place in Emma’s head, but when they did she was left feeling inexplicable angry with Killian. “I pulled out my best work for nothing?" she snapped at him.

"I wouldn't say nothing, lass, I did need help with carving a pumpkin for Belle’s party. Your friend got it into her head that men and women can’t be friends or some such nonsense. Honestly, she was drunk and offering me help, I wasn’t trying to trick anyone. And besides that pumpkin brought a very enchanting lady into my life."

There was someone else now? I mean, the guy was hot, but was she gonna have to fight a crowd to get to him? Not that she was interested of course.. She leaned in with her chin on her hands, attempting to look nonchalant.

"Another one? Tell me, what's this one like?"

"She's a tough lass, but with a heart of gold. The kind to take pity on a miserable sod in a bar and try to help him get his happy ending, a real saviour, you know?" Emma's heart beat faster. "And she has the most bewitching green eyes that I could get lost in." She started to smile. “And she’s the best pumpkin carver I ever met and if she’d be up for it, I’d love to get a drink with her sometime.”

“Killian Jones will you stop fucking about and do your damn job!” Killian’s boss had come up behind him, causing him to jump. She stomped off, leaving him and Emma to say their goodbyes.

Thinking quickly, Emma reached over the bar, grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him in for a kiss. It was hot, sweet and far too fast. “You’re on,” she said, releasing him and stepping back from the bar “but let’s go somewhere else next time - and let’s not talk about pumpkins again.”

“As you wish,” came the faintly stunned reply from Killian as she turned and sauntered out of the bar, already looking forward to next time.

🎃🎃🎃

So... yeah. Don’t drink and carve people, that way leads to madness. What’s the wackiest Halloween-related thing you’ve ever done?

#cs fic #captain swan #cs halloween #cs ff #cs ff au #cs au #katie dub writes

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surveys-at-your-service · 4 years

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Survey #265

“all is fair in love and war, i’m still rotten to the core.”

What's the latest youtube channel you've discovered and binge-watched? Ha, a WoW channel that basically gives advice and tutorials on stuff. She doesn't have many videos, but she's pretty successful already and chill as hell. Kraken Latte. Does it snow where you live? Occasionally. Very rarely does the snow stick, though, because the ground will be too warm. Do you think your hair looks better long or short? Short. Do you look best with or without bangs? Bitch I loved my emo bangs fuck off. Well, they weren't technically bangs, my hair was just parted far to the left. Do you enjoy editing photos on your phone? Well, my phone doesn't have GREAT camera quality, but I usually do some subtle edits if I take a pic on it. What's your favorite thing to do on your phone? Play Pokemon GO REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Which season do you wish would last longer? Shit man, fall. At least here, the phase of colorful leaves is VERY short. Goes from green to totally bare in what feels like just a couple weeks. How many outdoor birthday parties have you had? Hell if I know. How much taller or shorter are you than your mom? We're the same height. Who is your favorite sibling? Lol wow that's mean. Do you have neat handwriting? Yeah. Do you like sushi? I've actually never tried it, but I'm quite certain I wouldn't like it. Have you ever tried seaweed? Actually yes, I believe in the 4th grade? We had I think authentic Japanese (or Chinese, idr) food, and I recall there being seaweed. I didn't like it. The only thing I liked was the white rice, I think. Do you have an actual pig-shaped piggy bank? No, but I think I may have as a kiddo. Did you dream of becoming famous as a kid? No. Have you ever been to a gynecologist? I actually haven't because I've always said I wasn't sexually active (back then it wasn't a conscious lie, I just genuinely didn't realize what we were doing was just shallow sex). I'm absolutely terrified to go anyway because I'm just very very very private about this sort of thing and honestly think I'll have a panic attack when I do have to for the first time anyway. Name three games that you are good at. Shadow of the Colossus, Silent Hill, World of Warcraft. What was your favorite board game as a kid? Ha ha, somehow, it was this shopping game called "Mall Madness." Veeeery unfitting of who I was and what I enjoyed as a kid. Do you get on Facebook every day? Pretty much. Did you watch the Kids Choice Awards when you were a kid? No. What was your favorite girl group when you were growing up? Spice Girls, I think. Do you have memories that still make you cry? Yes. Have you made your own mask to help prevent the spread of the virus? No, considering I don't leave the damn house like ever. Do you know anyone who has the virus? Yes. Not personally, but distantly. Are you proud to be an American? (if applicable) Sometimes. What countries have you visited? I haven't left America. Have you ever had a controlling boyfriend/girlfriend? No. How many true heartbreaks have you had in your lifetime? Romantically, I only consider one to be a *real* heartbreak. Have you ever cut yourself? Yeah. Do you feel like everything is falling apart around you? BOY DO I!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Was your first kiss romantic? Yes. Do you miss any of your exes right now? My PTSD has been awful awful AWFUL the past few days, so yes. A lot. Have you ever overdosed on anything? Yes. What would you say if you found out your last ex was in a relationship? I'd be happy for her of course, but I'd also be very confused. She's made it clear she doesn't believe a relationship is the best idea for her right now. Who was your date to prom? Jason took me to his senior prom, and I took him to mine. Do you still talk to your first love? No, I haven't spoken to him in over three years now. Wow. Whose wedding did you go to first? I don't remember. I'm sure it wasn't the first, but ONE of the earliest that I do remember was when my friend Summer's mom got remarried. He sadly passed away a long while ago though. Are you ashamed of anyone you've dated in the past? Tyler, yes. It was so pointless and a "let's see how this goes" versus a "I really like this guy and really want this relationship" thing. I honestly think I only said yes to dating because I didn't want to hurt his feelings and I was lonely. What about anyone you've been friends with? There were certainly times it felt very weird calling Colleen my best friend with how bitchy she could be. Especially when you consider how non-confrontational I am, while she charged like a goddamn bull into arguments. Have you ever made out with someone in a pool? Uhhh I think that one night when I lived at the apartment and it was just us out there late at night. He and I went back inside before Jacob and Amanda TO hardcore make out because we both way too obviously wanted it so I wouldn't be remotely surprised if we snuck in some action at the pool oof. Who’s the last person that slept over your house? Sara. Do you still talk to the last person you kissed? Yes. Have you ever kissed someone with a tongue ring? No, I was the person with the tongue ring. I actually took it out a little while back because I was tired of accidentally chomping down on it when eating and chipping teeth. I'd already told myself if I did it one more time I would, and especially right now, we can't afford to keep filling cavities that have come from it. I don't at all regret getting it and it'll always be one of the cutest piercings I think I've ever had, but it was just time for it to come out. Is it hard for you to get over a lover? I THINK I'VE MADE THAT!!!!!!!!!!! O BVIO US S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Have you ever tried making someone jealous? Not to my recollection. Did your last relationship end because of you or the other person? Both of us really, but she initiated the breakup, you could say. Who is the last person you flirted with? Sara. Who's the most racist person you know? Jesus Christ, I live in the South. I know dozens of racists. I guess the worst is uhhh OH the aforementioned Colleen, holy fucking shit. I highly highly highly doubt that has changed at all since we last associated with each other. If you could be a film character, who would you be? Let me be Alice Liddell. Crunchy peanut butter or smooth? Smooth is the only way to go with pb. Would you rather always be in a crowd, or be the only person on earth? "Always be in a crowd. It wouldn’t be fun, but I think it’d be better than being that alone." <<<< This. I legitimately think I'd wind up killing myself in the other case. Would you rather be rich, or famous? Why? "Rich, because...what’s the point of being famous if you’re not rich? Just everyone knowing all of your business?" <<<< Also this. Do you squeeze the toothpaste from the top or the bottom? "I start off from the top until it gets used enough that I have to squeeze up from the bottom." <<<< Lemme just steal all this person's answers lmao. How many children do you want? Girls or boys? None, but if I was to have kids, I'd definitely want a girl. Is there a story behind your name? What is it? No. What was one of the most fun things you and your college roommate did together? I didn't have a college roommate. Well wait no, during my first college attempt is when I lived w/ Jason, Jacob, and Amanda. I'd honestly prefer to not think too hard back on it to answer this. Does anyone know your bank pin number other than you? Who? I don't even have a bank account. Have you ever had a boyfriend/girlfriend who was depressed? Yeah, multiple. Would you be embarrassed to buy pads/tampons/condoms? Which one more? Pads or tampons, nah. I'd feel awkward buying condoms though. Are your parents gullible? Dad probably is; he has very little common sense. I got it from him lmao. Mom, heeeeell no. Do you still own a VCR? No. What color is the computer/laptop you’re on? Did you buy it yourself? It's black. No. Does the smell of cigarettes, weed and beer repulse you? All three do. Was the last person you kissed younger or older than you? Younger. Have you ever purchased Girl Scout cookies? Yeah. How often do you drink Monster? Never, because I don't like it. Have you ever made totally pointless videos with your friends? HAHA I was a cringy teen once, my friends. Do you like sitting on the inside or outside of a restaurant booth? Inside. I feel safer. Do you own a nightgown? No, I haven't worn those since I was a kid. Have you ever worn fishnets? Fishnet gloves. I WISH I could pull off fishnet pants. Would you rather go out to eat or be eaten out? In times like THESE???????? Bitch I wanna go eat out at a yummy restaurant. Do you always wear your seat belt? ABSOLUTELY. I get so stressed out when I see people not wearing one. Have you ever liked someone much older than you? Not much older. Have you ever been in a play? Just school ones as a kid. Is there ice cream in your freezer? No, but there's popsicles from when I couldn't get my tongue ring out and it was massively swollen and in terrible pain. Thank God I finally got it out. Have you ever liked the lyrics of a band but hated the music? Probably. Does your bathroom have a window? Yeah, but it's very small and up kinda high. Do you go somewhere to get your eyebrows done? I used to, but I don't anymore. I just leave them be. Do you believe prayer really works? Nope. Have you been on a date in the park? No. Are there any diseases/health problems that run in your family? A whole. Fucking. Lot. To just name a few, depression, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, diabetes... Do you have asthma? No. Last person to take off your pants, besides you? Jason. Least favorite alcoholic drink? Mother of God, this white wine I tried at Colleen's forever ago. It was fucking repulsive. How did you meet the last male you texted? I mean I literally came from his balls so like Have you ever had an embarrassing email address? Ha ha yeah, the one I've always had. It's not very adult-ish or "serious"-sounding, but I don't want to change it now. Do you put shampoo in your left or right hand? Left. I squeeze with my right. Do you have a bull ring through your nose? No, I don't feel that would look good on me. Do you and your dad get along? Yes. When was the last time you did clay work/pottery? My last year of art in high school. I made an anatomical heart for Jason. I wonder a lot if he still has it after how much work I put into it. Do you like art, hate it or just not mind it? I adore art. The world would be so much more boring without it. If you had to choose would you prefer dull pain for 12hours or sharp for 2? Ew, dull. Two hours with sharp pain sounds awful. Do you know the words to the national anthem of your country? Yeah. Would you rather be a Model, Famous Scientist, Singer or Chef? Scientist, probably. I'd love to be a biologist anyway, and that's a type of scientist. Would you rather be a pilot, crime scene investigator or estate agent? Ohhh, crime scene investigator. Does making others happy really make you feel happy? Yes! Did you ever swear at a teacher in school? Why? No. Have you ever pricked your finger on Holly or another ‘sharp’ plant? Yeah. Have you ever written your own short story? Yes. What about a novel? Or perhaps you started and couldn’t finish? "I started writing several novels, but abandoned them all." <<<< Same yo. Either of the above, if this was the case, place short synopsis here: The first one was about a very close meerkat family, divided into elemental "breeds," and the prince falling in love with another of his kind. His father had a stray brother who constantly aimed to destroy the family, but he was converted towards the end. That's all I can really remember about that one. There were others like two species of animals I made also falling in love, despite being predators and prey of each other, and fulfilling some sorta prophecy with their offspring. The other two I recall- yo fuck it I keep remember more and more okay I wrote a LOT. Do you prefer SciFi/Fantasy/Action/Horror or Rom/Com/RealLife? I'm guessing you mean in books, given the last three questions? I have a strong preference for fantasy. What do you have a lot of faith in [note: can be anything]? Hell if I know. Would you rather have a big house, a lot of kids or a high flying job? High flying job, easily. I don't want kids, nor do I need a large house, especially considering I hate cleaning even this tiny one. Have you ever been to a creepy/haunted/abandoned place? Yeah. What did it look like and what were the circumstances? It was this really old, mostly dilapidated shack full of cool stuff. It was by the field near our old house. Me, my sister, and our friend hung out there and explored all the time until this freaky woman showed out and told us we shouldn't be there. Do you know a Jack? What’s he like? Yeah. I don't him that well though, so idk. How about a Lisa? What’s she like? Yeah, she's one of my WoW friends that I've become really close with. She is an absolute sweetheart, but talks about herself way, way too excessively to the point it's hard to have a conversation sometimes. I know she doesn't realize it, though. When you have children, would you like twins? I say enough that I don't even want kids, SO FUCK NO. Do you know any twins? If so, what are they called? Yes. Tyler and Taylor. I know others, but idr their names. What personality trait does nearly everyone in your family seem to have? We're stubborn as all fuck hell. Do you have any nicknames that aren’t derived from your actual name? Yeah, some online ones and then my mom has called me "Twinkie" since I was a baby. Do you have any allergies? Yeah, of pollen and silver. What is the longest your hair has ever been? To or maybe even past the small of my back. Have you ever been on a blind date? No, not my jam. What is the oldest piece of clothing you still wear and how old is it? I really don't kn- oh yes I do. I have these oooold old thin and sewn-back-up-fifty-times Batman pj pants from when Jason and I were together, so maybe like... seven years? Thanks PTSD, I'm attached to them because Batman was his thing. How often do you eat out at a fancy restaurant? Just about never. Nutella or peanut butter? UGGGGGHHHHH I've been on a nutella thing lately. Have you ever hosted a wild party? Definitely not. Name/author of the last book you read cover to cover. Do you recommend it? Wings of Fire: The Lost Heir by Tui Sutherland. Yes, it was very good. How many of your Facebook friends do you actually hang with? Besides my immediate family, like... none anymore. Have you ever donated blood? Yes. From 1-10, how much do you like decorating for holidays? This is hard to gauge. I've never seriously done it myself, and I don't really have the motivation to do it just to take it all down a month or so later. I love it in concept, but yeah. Favorite animated Disney character? Probably Kiara from TLK2. Have you ever cooked a big family meal by yourself? Ha, no. Favorite winter activity? TAKING PICTURES IN THE SNOOOOOOOOW. Do you consider rapping singing? I mean I guess? Does your home have a fireplace? No. Do you listen to any religious music? No. Do you drink soda? If so, which one is your favorite? Ugh... soda is my weakness. I'd probably lose weight easier if I just stopped drinking it. Mountain Dew Voltage is my favorite, and I've also been on a serious strawberry Sunkist thing lately. How easily do you cry? I cry very, very easily. Can you handle spicy foods? What is your spice limit? Oh yeah. The only way I know how to gauge this one is that I enjoy the "hot" sauce at BWW lol. I've actually kinda cut back on HOW much I enjoy it, though; like I'm more into enjoying my food thoroughly lately than the adrenaline of spicy food. What day of the week is laundry day for you? I personally don't do the laundry because Mom prefers to just do ours together, so. It varies, I think. Have you ever played spin the bottle? No. Do you have any stickers on your laptop computer? If so, what are they of? Not on mine, but the one I currently have to use has tooons. I don't feel like looking at the lid trying to list what they are tho. How often do you say "y'all?" It's pretty much in my normal vernacular due to where I live. Do you believe in evolution? Yes. I have questions and curiosities about it, but when you consider how truly short it has been since considerable natural selection has been observed, why couldn't it exist on a bigger scale? Do you live in an apartment or a house? I live in a house. How long have you been at your current job? I'm unemployed. Have you ever ended a romantic relationship? Yes. Phrase you say the most? Probably "oof" lmao. Have you ever kissed anyone of the same gender? If so, did you like it? Yes and yes. Have you ever given anyone CPR? No. Have you ever learned to do anything from a how-to video on YouTube? Yes, mainly just editing stuff. Have you ever auditioned for a reality competition show? No. Have you ever been in the audience for the taping of a TV show? No. I've been at hockey games with Dad, but I don't consider those "TV shows." Have you ever given money to a street performer? I've never even seen one. Do you own any homemade clothing? Not that I know of. Have you ever bought anything from a flea market? Yeah, decorations 'n trinkets and stuff. I love flea markets. Have you ever quit a job? Yes. Are your birth parents together? No. Do you or have you ever worn glasses? I've worn glasses for years now. Have you ever been broken up with? AKA died in spirit? :^) Have you ever been the victim of a nasty prank? Not to my recolleciton. Favorite fandom? Y'all been known, the Markiplier fandom is a goddamn family. Can you surf? No. What motivates you to do well in life? The knowledge that I've most likely only got one life to make something of. How lucky do you consider yourself? I mean, ALL things considered, I'd say I'm at just below the baseline, maybe? I mean I could be homeless or dying of malaria or something. Have you ever been summoned for jury duty? No. Favorite summer activity? Swimming! Have you ever lived on a farm? No. I wanted to for years as a little kid, though. How often do you get mad at yourself? I've lately been in an almost constant state of anger regarding myself, honestly. Have you ever gotten any stitches? Yes. Favorite YouTube channel? The Marker Plier guy. Do you have a pool at your house? No. Last thing that made you laugh? Something on Game Grumps. Earbud or earmuff headphones? Earbuds. Earmuffs hurt my head and ears. Have you ever been a bridesmaid or a groomsman? Yes. Have you ever gotten a New Year’s kiss exactly at midnight? I don't think so. Have you ever voted for a reality competition show? The only time I did that I remember is when Landau Eugene Murphy Jr. won America's Got Talent. I adored him and voted like mad. Does anyone in your family currently serve in your country’s military? Ummm maybe distantly? I don't know anyone off the top of my head. Are you comfortable with watching rated R movies? Well yeah.

#survey #surveys #questions

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prorevenge · 5 years

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Abuse my girlfriend? Ok.

I'm in a relationship with this beautiful, amazing girl. She has always been there for me - supported me through and through the toughest points of life; my academics, family problems, and even going as far to comfort and calm me down during episodes of my panic attack, which is difficult feat to acquire. Over time, I have stopped taking my antidepressants because life has become way easier thanks to her, and a couple of my best friends. I'm now a clean, young healthy man with several hobbies and socialises more easily with people, which is something that wasn't always the case. Mostly thanks to her. There's a lot to how this amazing girl changed my life and what issues that have been clear because of her, but this isn't what you came for. Needless to say, I love her.

Here's the fucked up part. Before she got into a relationship with me, she had a serious relationship with this scummy motherfucker we'll call RL: an abbreviation of his real name. RL dwarfed the definition of mistreatment with his actions against her; cheating on her constantly, stalking, sexual harassing and lastly, destroying her self esteem and tearing down her mental strength. Calling her fat, when she was of a perfectly healthy BMI, reducing her to borderline anorexia that worsened her anemic condition - at one point calling her a pig when he forcefully exposes her stomach in a secluded public area. Ignores her most of the time and only comes to her for intimacy. At one point, he followed her home against her own will when she has made clear she doesn't want that, appearing at the front doorstep of her apartment when she was with her girlfriends. Then cheating on her when she told him that her parents in actuality, did not allow him to enter the house and she was instead trying to defend their relationship.

A true definition of a fucktard of the highest order.

I'm not done yet. After cheating on her multiple times(also cheating on the girls she cheated on her with), he dumped her after found no more use of her; then spread rumours about how he was in the right, claiming that he had been ignored when she was the one constantly asking him to chat or hang, only to be left on read.

Fast forward a few months, and with no one else to fuck around with in his school, he turned to her. At the time, she was still confused over him and was in horrible mental instability due to the combination of the abusive relationship and stressful academics. So, she took him in, and they so called "made up". A few hours later, he went to another girl's house and made out with her, which at the time, she suspected but did not know and hence didn't confront him about it. As it turns out, he only got back to her because he wanted to go on his first ever third base with her. After 3 days of getting back with her, he once again paid no attention to her texts and then proceeds to slide his hand on her legs towards her no no zone. She pushed him back, and stormed out of the area.

The worst part was that she was the one who apologised.

As her birthday approached, she asked him to come down to her chalet party, to which he agreed. But no, this is indeed worse than the fact that she was the one who apologised. He dumped her on her birthday, left her in tears in the evening. Before doing so, he yanked her into a stairway and went second base with her, which was then interrupted as he asked for a break up. He also asked for a last kiss after breaking up with her, which she reluctantly gave.

She was left in tears for hours before she got over that scummy human being, and left with psychological torment of anxiety, trust issues and low self esteem all thanks to this jackass.

I remember seeing him that day at the party. I also remember really wanting to clock his jaw that it'd pop straight out and make him look like GradeAUnderA.

Queue the revenge: He thinks he's a tough guy. Underage smoker, underage drinker, illegal gambler, selling of contraband cigarettes/alcohol to minors and has a lot of his so called 'bad boy' friends who also share some of his vices. He would flaunt all of this on instagram, and some of the more fucked parts on his more private account which I found my access to. Casual, and classic morons who think with the so called glory that they so delusionally think they'd get but instead gets the polar opposite. This was something I did not include in my previously written post that I took down and if you two are viewing this story now, this wasn't the main revenge queue. Anyways, he thinks he's the shit and feared by many. I wasn't scared.

I compiled all evidences of his school rule breaking and illegal activities, as well as screenshots of his texts asking for sexual favours from 3 of his exes that I got into contact from friends owing me favours. I reported this activity police, as well as sending an angrily written email to the school about how he drunkenly took a piss at a void deck. Spread about his fucked up actions and conversations to some of my friends in his school and to the friends of mine inside of schools around his school. The word spread like wildfire, and the school and police was also alerted on the aforementioned activities.

He was suspended for months, caned, and sent to a rehabilitation centre as well as the boys' home for corrective training and community service. His parents are also now divorced partially due to this incident. He was fined by the health and national environment agency for underage smoking and alcohol consumption. His schoolwork has taken a huge toll and he has essentially zero friends because of all of the rumours. A small act more, and he will be expelled from the school as a build up to the previous incident. Not forgetting to mention, he sabotaged his other friends for illegal gambling, so he's going to have a nice time when he eventually comes face to face with them - as I found out from one of my buddies in his school.

There was another more brutal part of the revenge that I had written here centering around that aspect, not this. This is a side effect to the true story that happened that I didn't want to write out.

Don't fuck with my girl. Don't psychologically torment someone because it can leave them scarred for life. You could've left her suicidal for all I know.

I hope you read this one day, motherfucker.

TL;DR I got my girlfriend's ex in severe consequences because of the abuse he put her through.

(source) story by (/u/horsefucker88)

#prorevenge #by /u/horsefucker88 #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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9uk · 5 years

Text

From The Bottom of My Heart

⌲ summary : maybe you and Jungkook, through heaven or hell, have always meant to stay close to each other.

⌲ pairing : bully!jungkook x reader

⌲ word count : 3.6k

⌲ genre : angst, fluff idk

⌲ warnings : mentions of past abuse, xoxo

⌲ a/n : this is what y’all hoes wanted hehe, so here it is. Happy New Year’s in advanced! also, happy birthday taetae <3

**Spin-off from my series Let Me Stay Close To You. If you haven’t read it, I’d suggest you read it first to have a better understanding of the context of this story. Read it here.

It's that time of the year again—where gifts are exchanged and gingerbread houses are made, where evergreen conifers are decorated with ornaments hung by the overly-excited children and the smell of Ceylon tea, baked potatoes and ham fills the kitchen. Everyone gathers around the fireplace and share their strange or ridiculous encounters over the year, laughters bursting and smiles everlasting while the star ornament sits on top of the Christmas tree gently, shining.

At least that's what you think Christmas is like, and should be.

In the sad world of reality, you have always spent the festive occasion coped up in your mother's café, selling log cakes and butterscotch cookies, telling kids to be careful with the hot chocolate you have just created and handed over to them.

It's the season when the shop is exceptionally busy, with overflowing customers who have foam gathered on their upper lips as they chat with joy over a cup of peppermint mocha latte.

It's supposed to be a wonderful period—well at least for you this year.

You are thousands of miles away from that crusty coffee place your mother runs, and you have completely forgotten about everything you've painstakingly memorised on the Christmas menu.

When you first received a hug from Sooyoung in what seemed like decades, the gesture ignited a small thought at the back of your head, that Christmas this year was going to be a little less lonely and spiced with fun instead. Who would have thought that friendships can appear as strong steel bridges of bonds, but yet so easily snap like a wooden plank.

With the money you received from your parents and the pay you get at that greasy restaurant, you were able to rent a not too shabby apartment a few streets from the university. But the fact that you are now living alone, that's the part that creeps into your late night thoughts at times.

You clearly remember Jungkook bugging you with an undefeated persistence to get your ass to the Christmas party Taehyung holds every year.

"C'mon, it will be fun. I promise, you have me!"

He knows what you have in mind, that all your friends have left your side and you would feel like a total loser and loner at the party.

Ex-friends, you mean.

If it weren't for them, you wouldn't have attended a single party at all.

He continues nudging your arm and whining for what seems like the nth time. "Please-"

"Okay, okay."

He looks at you with those big round glossy eyes you can't say no to. "I'll go."

And that is why you are currently freaking out over what to wear to the party. If only Sooyoung was—nevermind, screw that.

You fish out a random black dress from your closet and headed out before you changed your mind.

Being alone is no obstacle to you. It was being alone at a party that frightened you, it was a place where you are supposed to enter with friends—to be able to slowly fit into the crowd and be comfortable with the atmosphere in the house.

However, you were feeling jittery—much more than when you are called out to present your answer in front of the whole class. You didn't realise how accustomed you were to Sooyoung's constant bubbly presence beside you, not until this day. The party had just begun a while ago, and you hoped your entrance would hold the least significance to anyone in there, and you brushed off the thought of everyone's eyes on your weird form. That brat Jungkook had told you that he'd be waiting for you inside, and made you come to the party all by yourself.

What were you so afraid of anyway?

Maybe a couple of rumours had been spread between the ladies, and they would send you judgemental looks—but you were very used to it since the start, so why are you being so self-conscious right now?

Nonetheless, you picked up the phone and decided to dial someone—correction. The only one who you acquainted with in this college and is still on good (but strange) terms with you.

It was clear as day and green as grass that Namjoon has begun to harbour an interest much more than just physical attraction for you. During occasional study dates and the tutoring he offers you, you never once failed to catch him staring at you at least twice. You were pretty sure that there weren't any vegetable stuck between your teeth or crumbs on the corner of your lip though.

"What?" You look up to meet his eyes.

"What?" The both of you chuckle at the same time when he immediately shoots the question back at you.

"Why're you looking at me like that?" Namjoon is rendered speechless, it was almost as if all the excuses for him gawking at you in this manner had transformed into useless brain juice.

You were so far the first and only person who didn't judge or criticise him based on his looks. You even thought he was handsome and told him that straight in his face, and it made him wonder if you had standards lower than hell. "Nothing much, I-I think you look gorgeous today." He quickly averts his gaze to the homework before him, pretending to scribble somehing just to avoid your eyes and hide his blush. You shift your chair closer to him and lean in towards his face. "So...you mean only today?" You purposely pout.

His head shoots up, flabbergasted and he instantly corrects his words. "No! I mean—"

A cheeky smile grows on your face to replace the initial pout and you reassure him, "I'm just kidding, relax."

Namjoon's lips part slightly before he shakes his head and grins at your antics.

Namjoon informs you of his boredom and agrees to go with you to the party.

As expected, the house is filled with people for the alcohol here is free. In the stressful life of books and papers, who wouldn't mind a shot of tequila or two?

Namjoon is the gentleman that he is, offering you a ride to the venue but you politely decline. Instead, you choose to make your way over alone and meet him at the party itself. Having him accompany you was more than enough.

Your hand is on the handle of the front door to Taehyung's house and you cannot help but shift your weight nervously between your two feet. For some reason, the loud noises travelling from the inside are making your breath quicken and the overthinking to get to the better of you. You really hoped that not a single person would be attracted to your tiny appearance at this major party. It was then you realised how much Sooyoung and friends made you feel comfortable attending a huge party like this, they held your hand and gave you the much assurance you needed—that you were not alone.

And now you're back to square one.

What if everyone was playing games and having fun but suddenly upon your arrival the music dies down and all heads would be turned towards the main door with faces glaring at you?

Even though that is something that least likely would happen, you still prepare yourself for an unfortunate event like the aforementioned, or the worst that could happen. Right, just retreat and go home to the comfort of your laptop and bag of chips. And probably never face anyone in school ever again. Jesus Christ, the more of you think about it, your grip on the door handle is beginning to loosen and you would really be in bed in no less than a second. And your hesitance would result in a disappointed Jeon Jungkook.

Wait no, your meekly absence would never disappoint anyone.

You're not that important in such annual affairs.

You're not Regina George or something.

Now you feel stupid in this over-planned outfit and your makeup feels too extra.

You're just a loser with like barely any friends. Get it together. Why did you even agree to come? Just because Jeon Jungkook begged at the minimum? And he's nowhere to be seen. Just text Namjoon you're not feeling well, perfect excuse. You should have just remained at home where-

"Y/N!" The dark oak door suddenly flies open causing you to jump a little. His eyes are wide and shining with excitement, the dimples and wide grin supporting the assumption.

"How long have you been standing there? Come on in!" Namjoon is acting more like the host of the party than Taehyung is with the lovely invitation.

After he takes a proper look at you, his tongue darts out to wet his lips and he reaches out to intertwine his hand with yours to pull you into the house.

To say that you were merely overthinking would be an understatement.

Everybody was minding their own business, whether you stepped foot inside or not.

No one even acknowledged or is aware about your presence.

Except for a certain someone.

Namjoon is still holding your hand in a gentle yet possessive way, and he is different today for an unknown cause.

His confidence is exceptionally striking today and is clearly radiating off him. He is finally able to raise his head to meet the eyes of people with ease.

The way he waves and firmly greets an acquaintance walking past him and makes his way through the group of people in this place— makes you smile involuntarily, for you recall he first time you met him, when he didn't even have the courage to lift his head to face you.

He leads you to an empty spot and cages your head between his both palms fixated onto the wall. Namjoon looks just about ready to devour you whole there and then.

"Someone's...confident tonight." You quirk a brow up and place your hands on his hips to pull him a little closer.

Nothing but an innocent gesture.

Teasing him was fun and you both enjoyed it. Your touch sends him groaning softly to himself and he tries to resist from kissing you there and then.

"Look princess," He calls lowly, "Let's take things slow tonight."

It was the first time he has ever called you by that pet name and you must admit you're rather turned on—no, taken aback, you mean. Right, just surprised.

The feeling of someone intensely staring is doing nothing but growing stronger with every inch Namjoon is gradually closing between your faces. It felt like sharp daggers shooting right at the both of you at that moment and it made whatever you were doing become uncomfortable.

For you were under the predatory gaze of someone.

Suddenly, when Namjoon's lips finally bump into yours, you felt like he was too close for your liking.

You had no idea why you were feeling and acting this way, but you pushed his body away from yours. He panics and questions if he has crossed the line worryingly. "No, no, sorry I need to excuse myself to the washroom. " You desperately wave both hands to assure that it had nothing got to do with him—but you.

It didn't feel right at all.

And with that, you hastily left his side, dashing upstairs to god knows where.

You're in search of a balcony or some sort, a quiet area that gets your fresh air and being alone.

Maybe it was too much to take, with how Namjoon was acting so boldly, and how things would escalate to another level once you give him consent. You also did not wish for the friendship to be left in shattered pieces after the both of you do something friends should not do.

Maybe he was stepping on the line, and you were decisive enough to push him further from it—but not enough to tell him. It would bring his well built self-esteem down. If you were going to reject him, you would have to do it properly and respectfully.

[20:44] Me: hey joon, i'm sorry. i needed to leave because something cropped up at home. the next ben & jerry's will be my treat. see you ard

You switch off your phone and tuck it away into your small bag.

You had just so happen to find a balcony when you randomly entered one of the rooms upstairs. Lucky for you, there weren’t any people banging the life out of each other in the bedroom you selected. You quietly shut the door close behind you as your eyes roam around the four walls.

On the dresser, there is a picture frame of Taehyung with his family at highschool graduation. You waltz your way over to the family portrait and pick it up carefully.

You swipethe layer of dust coating the glass with your finger and Taehyung and his family smiling brightly can be seen clearly.

He hasn’t changed much, boxy grin and cresent eyes still intact.

There is a sense of longing and envy blooming in your heart, and it clenches tightly, sourly.

You never had the blessing to be able to spend your graduation day with your family, the entire school is clueless that you even have a father. You lived your teen years in shame and hiding. It’s a pity because you did not have the opportunity to take pictures like Taehyung did in the open field, throwing his hat up to the sky and receiving flowers from his parents. Placing the frame down gently, you went to the balcony and closed the curtains for privacy in case anyone happened to come in to disrupt your moment of peace.

“What the hell are you doing?” Taehyung snatches his wrist away from Jungkook’s hard grip. He slams the door shut and confronts Taehyung. “Were you the one who invited that Namjoon guy?”

He furrows his brows at his friend, beyond agitated.

“Who?!” Taehyung questions back. “I don’t even know who-”

“Then do you know where Y/N is?” Jungkook prompts again, desperate.

“And how would I know that? You were the one secretly staring at her ever since she came in.” Taehyung had a point. But right when he saw Namjoon approach you, and you willingly went along to wherever he brought you—he couldn’t bear to just watch and not be able to do anything. Just then, a random girl went up to him and tried her luck—but obviously to no avail. After he shrugged her pestering, you were nowhere to be seen. Namjoon too, had disappeared somewhere else and he started growing worried. Had Namjoon managed to get you to his place?

“Ah…” He plops down onto his friend’s bed and tugs at his hair in frustration. The thought of Namjoon having his way with you and all to himself makes him boil in anger. He thinks you don’t deserve Namjoon, who has tried his shot with almost every girl—yet at the same time he thinks he is unworthy of you as well.

There is an inner conflict going on between his heart and mind. Was it really right to have someone he did not deserve at all? Will he even manage to get closer to you, open up your world and heal the both of your broken hearts together? Jungkook is capable at countless things—except you.

You were the enigma in his life, so forbidden and mysterious that he really wants to connect and share a special bond with you. He doesn’t say it aloud, but you meant a lot to him in a way or another.

“Something bothering you?” Taehyung probes, folding his arms trying to figure out his bestfriend.

“How…How do you confess to someone?”

The question comes out as a shocker to Taehyung, but he is willing to help his friend out in a time of crisis for such a matter.

“Ha! You’ve came to the right person.” Taehyungs face beams with delight. “First,” He reaches out to grab Jungkook’s hand and interlace his fingers together with his. “Hold her hand. Properly, tightly. To show that you’re genuine in your confession. Also, to show how serious and certain you are about her.” Jungkook’s face contorts in disgust at the sight of Taehyung being a cheesy romantic. “Then,” He pulls Jungkook up from his bed and leans into his ear. “Look her in the face and tell her every word from the bottom of your heart. The words you’ve been wanting to tell her but never got the chance to..” Jungkook is frozen stiff with his bestfriend demonstrating on him. But Taehyung doesn’t stop.

He leans in close and pulls Jungkook into a tight hug. “Hug her! It must be tight as well, so that she can feel the affection you are trying to show.” Taehyung squeezes Jungkook and squeals happily for him. “Get off me! You’re squashing me dude!” Jungkook almost couldn’t breathe and Taehyung pats his back before stepping away. “That’s about it, there can be bonus if you want.”

“Nope, I’m good.” Jungkook smiles and pushes Taehyung to at least an arm’s length away.

“Back to real talk though, it’s Y/N isn’t it?”

“Did someone call me?” You emerge from the curtains through the balcony sliding doors, pretending to be oblivious. Jungkook presses his lips into a line and looks down at the floor, embarrassed to the sky. Taehyung notices and quickly announces that he has to host the party.

You carried on with your act, seeing as to how flustered Jungkook was becoming.

“I thought Taehyung called me.”

“No.” Jungkook hides his hands into the pockets of his jeans to appear collected, but truth is he was hiding how shaky and nervous he was around you—and the possibility that you had just heard their entire conversation.

“Is that so?” You doubt. Jungkook doesn’t reply, only giving you a nod of affirmation. “Well if that is so, I’ll make my leave.”

You smile at him and head for the door. Jungkook’s mouth open slightly.

“Wait, Y/N!”

The feeling of his fingers softly wrapped around your wrist is unexplainable—unlike the past, this time he holds you with care and a mindfulness to not hurt you in any way.

You spin around to face him.

“Uh, yes?”

Jungkook had always known you were decent looking, but this time you looked extraordinarily beautiful. The way you looked at him through your long lashes, the faded cherry lip tint you had on, your rich long locks falling over your shoulder and the mini black dress that hugged your figure so perfectly your cures were on display—you were the epitome of perfect, looking so endearing in a simple outfit as such and he swore to the heavens he would take immense care of you if you were ever in his arms. The scar doesn’t go unnoticed by him, and his stomach twists in an unpleasant manner at the sight of it. He is still unable to accept how he treated you in the past, and he hates himself more than anything for it—he wishes that you would at least grant him a chance to make up for his wrongdoings.

There is a need surging throughout his body, into his legs; stepping closer to you, into his hands; coming up to run his fingers through your hair and hold your face in place, and his face; diving in recklessly to smash his lips onto yours.

Maybe you thought that he would go according to Taehyung’s plan—confess then give you a a warm hug. But this wasn’t what you were expecting at all.

Jungkook kisses you like it was the last time when it’s only the first, he tilts his head and meld his lips feverishly with yours. It feels like forever with the way he is kissing you, so slow and intimate yet so hasty and desperate. You are able to feel the feelings he is trying to convey through this intimacy—filled with regret, want and a sense of belonging. You belonged to him. Back then, now and in the future. Always.

You wrap your arms around his waist and pull him in closer, mouth opening to grant his tongue access. He smiles into the kiss for a split moment before his tongue is darting out to swirl messily with yours, causing you to moan softly in his mouth. His grasp on your jaw doesn’t loosen and he bites down onto your lower lip before reluctantly pulling away.

A glow of red starts creeping onto his cheeks when the both of you look at each other, faces shy yet hearts pulsating with happiness.

You are the first to break the silence, smiling up at him, “That was…” You couldn’t bring yourself to say it. Everything between you and Jungkook had gone through mountains and seas, but this time—it escalated quickly to a whole new level. It was too much to accept at the moment, but it felt great with him for some reason. The both of you, so unfamiliar with each other’s worlds, yet understanding them to a depth no one outside can reach. There was still much to learn about each other, but you already felt this inseparable connection with the man standing before you.

You allow yourself to bury yourself into his chest and muffle your giggles, and he encases you in his muscular arms in a way never before. Hugging him made you feel complete, like two hearts that were finally pieced together as one. It provided you with a warmth so peculiar and never felt before. It felt surreal, almost akin to a dream.

He strokes your hair lovingly and places a firm yet chaste kiss on the top of your head. “Let me stay close to you Y/N,” He nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck. “For a long, long time…I will love and take care of you all my life.”

You smile and flutter your eyes close, waddling aimlessly around the room with arms around each other basking in the shining moonlight—never wanting to let go of each other.

410 notes · View notes

watchtheblog · 5 years

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the girlfriend experience

my birthday is coming up (september 26) so i wrote 1200 words about nonsense so that i could bury a birthday wish list at the bottom of this, rather than tastelessly flaunting the fact that i’ve compiled a list of things i would let strangers buy me for my birthday… which i do every single year!

(if you came here looking for the blog about being ghosted, here.)

*******

it is my understanding that “dating” is “eating dinner with someone who wants to fuck you until they actually get to fuck you and then you just get really invested in serialized television shows and have sex until the next ‘yanny/laurel’ debate inevitably tears you apart.”

it is also my understanding that once i meet someone i like, he’s my boyfriend so, historically, “dating” has been me interviewing someone to be a handyman i’ll pay in kisses.

but i am an ever-evolving, discombobulated little bug, so i recently gave *auditioning to be someone’s girlfriend* a chance.

please strap in and come along on this journey through what it is like for me to go on one single date as a person who cannot complete any task without overthinking it to the point of absolute ruin because her brain is a defective rube goldberg machine.

(if you don’t care, please scroll to the end to find the list of things i’d like for my birthday (and then do with that information what you will). if you care a lot, please also check out what it’s like inside my brain when i have to go to a party.)

A SUITABLE DATE

i have a v specific “type” from which i never stray. the main sine qua non are: over 6’3”, 200lbs+, 45+, appears to be afflicted with a football related brain injury, will disrespect me, not currently under the influence of essential oils.

further than this, what i’m also looking for in a man is someone with at least one divorce under his belt, an angry ex wife, 1-4 kids, and a complete inability to figure out what makes me happy (but someone who is in relentless pursuit of that formula).

six men meet these requirements.

THE PLAN FOR THE DATE

i prefer to make plans with 2 - 5 hours notice because this effectively mitigates the chance of me cancelling, but this often isn’t feasible because other people have lives that don’t only involve sitting at home waiting to take me out on a date.

also, people who make plans like this are usually trying to hook up, and as we all know… i don’t even fuck!

so a date is scheduled in 2-3 days — any farther in advance i cannot plan without first consulting a psychic and my hormones’ advisory board.

THE LEAD UP TO THE DATE

i can do nothing but spiral. i wonder if my date is on another date, if i can compete with this hypothetical other date, if i should cancel because i’m certain no one will ever love me as much as my ex, if i should cancel just to be problematic, or to exert cancelling power, or to perpetuate cancel culture?!

no, don’t cancel. we could fall in love and be really happy for a few years, and then i could get really into learning to cook or become a pilot or something. anyway, worst case scenario: he doesn’t like me, and i obsess about him for 400x the length of our courtship… but on the plus: i get to talk about him on the internet forever!

should i go blonde? should i wear a wig? i wonder if there will be hotdogs on the menu at the restaurant.

how can i unlearn every repellent personality quirk i’ve developed from birth in the next 48 hours?

“how do you… kiss?” i wonder, right before i consider tranqing myself.

luckily, i am promptly choked to the point of syncope by these thoughts of uncertainty and self doubt.

DAY OF DATE PREP

eventually, by the grace of God, i wake up on the morning of the date.

getting ready for anything i’ve ever done in my entire life, including a black tie wedding, has taken me 9 minutes, but i’m going to spend 2 hours sitting in a chair next to someone i’m not going to fuck, so i’ve chosen to block out a full 10 hours for no reason.

i fill the day applying every type of scrub and mask to my face, body, and hair. i try on every item of clothing i have accumulated over the past 5 years, including a $20,000 couture tom ford gown that a celebrity i forget once wore to a televised award show.

i’m now trying on sweatpants. i’ve put a heel on. “who is stopping me from wearing this?” i ask myself, knowing no one is stopping me from leaving my house and going on a date with a man i could easily get to fall in love with me in 2 hours if i don’t show up to dinner dressed like i just came from a fashionnova casting.

~ wow, time really does fly when you’re watching all your neuroses exit your body to perform a recital for you ~

moments before i have to cut this shit out and decide on something to wear, i lather my entire body in the richest lotion i can find, which notably takes 4-6 hours to sink in.

now it’s time to wiggle into the only outfit i ever leave my house after sunset wearing - a pair of black jeans that i’ll never fit into and a baby’s white tee shirt.

oh. we’re now not going to a restaurant. dinner is at his house.

i set myself on fire.

THE DATE

i am v rude for the first 45 minutes because i have no manners.

no. it’s because i’m nervous, and thus if i’m not cantankerous, filling the space with my shitty attitude, i will have nothing to say because my mind erased all logical ideation as soon as i stepped foot in this man’s home.

it becomes clear that this behavior will no longer be tolerated, so i pivot before i’m cancelled. i change the narrative. i’m nice now.

usually, when i find myself at a man’s house, the only thing i’m thinking is “please don’t have an acoustic guitar” and that thought repeats ad infinitum until i am free… but i know this man does not have an acoustic guitar (or i assume), so all i’m thinking is “does this man like the personality i’ve whipped up for him using a recipe i found in a cosmo from 2002??!”

he does to some degree - or he’s pretending - because he asks to see me again (yay!), and then shows me his house, and then my favorite part comes…

we kiss.

we kiss and i’ve forgotten entirely how to kiss. literally no idea. never heard of it. i am a human shrug emoji.

“i don’t know how to do this.” - me, talking about kissing to the man i’m “kissing”.

he seems unbothered by this - more acting! - because we move locations, and he is doing his thing while i continue to be an oral cadaver.

that stops for a reason that seems natural and not because he realizes i am an embalmed corpse. and we talk, and that’s nice because my brains have returned for a brief guest appearance.

and then i leave, excited because i like him and it feels like he likes me.

in the uber, he texts me the same thing he texted me before the last time i never heard from him again... and then i never hear from him again!*

and that, my friends, is a date!

*(i’m kidding. i heard from him one more time. he was cancelling plans we’d made to hang out!!)

thanks for reading - or scrolling prodigiously - here are some things i’m interested in receiving for my birthday:

(if for some perverse reason you’d like to see my prior innocent but spectacularly misguided registries, please go here. it’s a doozy! however, please note i will only be accepting gifts from this year’s registry. so stay current!)

THE LIST

1. someone bullied me out of leasing a car i really wanted and so now i have no car which is unfortunate. would be nice if someone would throw half the cost of this vehicle at the mercedes store so i could pay a small amount every month to drive this until i’m bored of it in 9 months. it would also be nice if the inside were red because that’s a new kink i have - red leather seats.

2. i can’t tell if it’s basic to want this, but i also do not care at all. it’s perfectly sized to carry all of the 300 notebooks i scribble in. apparently it’s possible to have your name embroidered in lieu of the brand’s… that would be nice; my name is mercedes.

i also like this even though it looks like the only thing it can hold is a small stack of x-rays…

or this. (definitely indisputably basic. but again. i don’t care.)

this is cute

3. one of these dresses even though the only things i do are go on vacation or lie in bed. i’m a size 0 or 34 or whatever the smallest size is.

option one, option two, option three, option four (for the zero people considering purchasing a gift for me. this is my favorite, of course, because i am insane), option five

4. a vacation - because (see above) i don’t like to be in los angeles for longer than 10 days at a time. here are some ideas:

a local vacation, a vacation in montana, a vacation in mexico. also in mexico. also in mexico.

5. either of these v big suitcases (vacation things!)

6. these shoes or these shoes. i’m a size 38.

7. gift card for an in home massage or one a week for the month of september? up to you!

8. any of these candles. they’re the only candles i’ll allow in my home now, so please don’t stray.

9. a book. i love to read, and i thought it would be nice to remind you i’m a thoughtful and educated thot.

have never read this. one of my favorites but have only read on my iPad... sad! first edition of the aforementioned

10. a necklace. a custom one (18 inch) or this long thing

misc:

an erewhon gift card, this perfume, or this perfume, a robe, a weekly delivery of macarons…

#lists of things #my birthday #birthday lists #lists of things i want #9/26; never forget #invidious consumption #things I want for my birthday

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cottagethings · 4 years

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self-quarantine activities

1. Complete a puzzle: The more pieces the better! Feeling extra saucy? Take on a Rubik's Cube. More of a word person? Crossword puzzle!

2. Start a journal or blog. Sure, it can be about the coronavirus, but it could also be about a specific interest from chess to cheese.

3. If it won't bother your neighbors: Dust off that old instrument and practice.

4. Text all your exes just in case you have one more thing you wanted to get off your chest.

5. Write poetry. Perhaps you can craft a haiku for Mother's Day, or something without a specific structure. Just try it!

6. Watch all the really long movies you’ve avoided until now.

7. Download Duolingo, or a similar app, and teach yourself a foreign language.

8. Finally read “Infinite Jest,” “Les Miserables” or even “The Stand.” Go all in and read “Ulysses.” You got this.

9. Meditate. Try lying down with your eyes closed, palms up and while focusing on your breath. Or spend 20 minutes sitting crosslegged and repeat a soothing word to yourself in your head. (The latter is more like transcendental meditation.)

10. Face masks, moisturizer, oh my! Treat yourself to a 10-step skin care routine you don’t have time for during a normal work week.

11. Look at pictures of puppies.

12. Put together the most attractive charcuterie board possible, but you can only use foods you already have in your fridge and cupboard.

13. Take note from "Tangled" star Rapunzel, who has an entire song about how she's spent her days alone in a castle. Activities included in her ditty: Ventriloquy, candle-making, papier-mâché and adding a new painting to her gallery.

14. Write actual letters to family and friends. After that? Write thank-you notes to service people who you remember went out of their way for you.

15. Learn calligraphy. YouTube can help.

16. Finally read the rules to those long and intense board games you've never played with the family. Encourage the family to play.

17. Put on a soap opera. Mute the sound. Create your own dialogue.

18. Have a space in your home where all of the tupperware goes? Organize it and actually match lids to containers.

19. Try on all your clothes and determine whether they “spark joy” á la Marie Kondo.

20. Better yet, go through this process with your junk drawer and supply shelves.

21. Have a roommate meeting about how to be more considerate of one other, especially while you will likely be spending more time together. Bring baked goods.

22. Bake those goods.

23. Watch the films that won Oscars for best picture.

24. Watch films that won Independent Spirit Awards for best picture.

25. Watch films that critics say should have won those aforementioned awards.

26. Read all the New Yorker issues piled on your desk.

27. Will Tom Hanks into recovery from coronavirus by watching every Tom Hanks movie chronologically.

28. Knit or crochet.

29. Use Skype, FaceTime, Google Hangouts or Marco Polo to video chat with your long-distance friends.

30. Try out at-home aerobics or yoga videos. Consider downloading a fitness app with curated workout playlists.

31. Look at yourself in the mirror. Attempt a self portrait with pencil and paper.

32. Take a bubble bath (bonus: Add a glass of wine).

33. Make a classic cocktail, from negronis to Manhattans and aperol spritzes. Don't forget the garnish.

34. Coloring books: They’re not just for kids.

35. Take time to reflect: What have you accomplished in the last year? What goals are you setting for yourself in the next year?

36. Write a short story or get started on that novel.

37. Actually try to reproduce something you see on Pinterest. Probably fail. Try again.

38. Clear out the family room and camp indoors with all blankets, popcorn and scary movies.

39. Finally get around to fixing that broken door knob and loose tile or cleaning scuffed up walls.

40. Acquire a foam roller and treat yourself to some physical therapy.

41. Pretend you're 13 years old and fold a square piece of paper into a fortune teller you put your thumbs and pointer fingers into. Proceed to tell fortunes.

42. Learn how to braid (fishtail, French, etc.) via YouTube tutorial..

43. Throw out all your too-old makeup and products. (Tip: most liquid products have a small symbol on them noting expirations, usually six months to a year. This includes sunscreen!)

44. Interview your grandparents (over the phone, of course) and save the audio. Can you create an audio story or book with that file?

45. Go through your camera roll, pick your favorite pics from the past year and make a photo book or order framed versions online.

46. Go on a health kick and learn how to cook new recipes with ingredients you may not be using already, from miso to tahini.

47. Create a Google document of shows or movies you’re watching and share it among family and friends.

48. Make a list of things for which you are grateful.

49. Have your own wine tasting of whatever bottles you have at home. Make up stories about the journey of the grapes to your mouth.

50. Work on your financial planning, such as exploring whether to refinance your loan or ways to save more money.

51. Perfect grandma’s bolognese recipe.

52. Make coffee, but this time study how many beans you use, which types, how hot the water is, how long it brews and whether any of that makes a difference.

53. Buy gift cards from your favorite local businesses to help keep them in business while we quarantine.

54. Watch “Frozen 2,’ which went up early on Disney Plus. Another new movie on the streaming service: "Stargirl."

55. Write a book with your family. Pick a character and each member writes a chapter about their adventures. Read aloud to each other.

56. No March Madness? Have a Scrabble tournament. Or Bananagrams. Pictionary, anyone?

57. Get into baking with "The Great British Baking Show," but your technical challenge is baking something with the ingredients you have on hand (that you didn't already use in the charcuterie board).

58. Indoor scavenger hunt.

59. Alternate reading the Harry Potter series with your kids and cap each one off with the movie.

60. Dye your hair a new color. No one else needs to see it if you don't like it.

61. Read Robert Jordan’s 14-book “Wheel of Time” series before it streams on Amazon starring Rosamund Pike.

62. Write a play starring your loved ones. Perform it via a video call app.

63. Go viral in the good way by making a quarantine-themed TikTok.

64. Rearrange your sock drawer. Really.

65. Stop procrastinating and do your income taxes.

66. Make lists of all the museums, sporting events and concerts you want to visit when they finally reopen.

67. Get into comics with digital subscriptions on your tablet, like Marvel Unlimited.

68. Rearrange your furniture to make it seem like your home is a totally different space.

69. Practice shuffling playing cards like a Poker dealer. Be ready for employment opportunities once all casinos open back up.

70. Organize your spice rack alphabetically or get crazy and do it by cuisine.

71. Teach your dog to shake. Hand sanitizer optional.

72. Memorize the periodic table. You never know when that will come in handy.

73. Order and put together some IKEA furniture. Time yourself.

74. Get a free trial of a streaming service and binge-watch as much as you can before it expires.

75. Apply for a new job. You have remote work experience now.

76. Learn a new style of dance via YouTube, from bellydancing to breaking.

77. Update or write your will and organize your affairs. Yes, it sounds melodramatic and morbid but let’s face it: This is a task many of us avoid because we never have the time. Now we do.

78.The parades have been canceled but you can still make corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day.

79. Bring out the Legos. Build your house inside of your house.

80. Watch the "Star Wars" movies in this and only this order: Rogue One-IV-V-II-III-Solo-VI-VII-VIII-IX.

81. Two words: Coronavirus beard! Grow it, moisturize it, comb it, love it.

82. Learn the words to "Tung Twista." Get them so ingrained in your brain that you can rap them as fast as Twista can. Impress everyone.

83. Been meaning to get some new glasses? Try on new frames virtually on sites like GlassesUSA.com.

84. Attempt things with your non-dominant hand, from writing to brushing your teeth. Prepare to be frustrated.

85. How many words per minute can you type? See if you can get speedier by taking a typing course.

86. Prepare to verbally duel a bully who wants to discuss the evolution of the market economy in the Southern colonies, by memorizing Matt Damon's "Good Will Hunting" speech.

87. Learn origami. Make cranes for your loved ones.

88. Stretch. Work on your flexibility. It's possible to get the splits back, right?

89. Try to speak in pig Latin. Or, "ig-pay, atin-Lay."

90. Talk to your plants. How are they doing? Make sure they are getting the amount of sunlight they should be. Check their soil. Water if necessary.

91. Deep condition your hair and put paraffin wax on your hands. Enjoy your soft hair and nails.

92. Consider donating money to food banks to help families struggling to get meals.

93. Write a song. If you want to make it about your time inside and put it to the tune of "My Sharona" and replace "Sharona" with "Corona," do what you have to do.

94. Study the art of beatboxing.

95. Try moving in super-slow motion. It's OK to laugh at regular speed.

96. You know how there are dozens of ways to wear a scarf, but you only wear it the one way? Learn the other ways.

97. Learn Old English words. Pepper them into your conversation. Wherefore not?

98. Try on a new shade of lipstick. See how long it takes your partner to notice it.

99. Take deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth.

100. Sleep. Get lots of it.

#corona #coronavirus #quarantine #self care #activity #freetime #dosomethingforyourself

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randomwordprompts · 5 years

Text

If It’s Magic | Chapter 6

A/N: This took longer than I planned but it’s here! I don’t do summaries cause I want y’all to read it so do that lol

Warnings: Light Angst if you squint hard enough Taglist: @bartierbakarimobisson @oceanscorazon @supersizemeplz @wakandas-vibranium @wakandan-flowerz @yaachtynoboat711 @great-neckpectations @reaperdeldrunk @storibambino @babygirlofwakanda

September 2nd, 2015 - Manhattan, New York

Amira slept soundly in the king-sized bed, clad in only a t-shirt that was too big for her plump frame. She rested on her back because she’d fallen asleep with her hulking boyfriend on her chest, though he now resided between her legs, pressing soft kisses to her thighs. His attentions grew more and more lingering as he neared her sex, his beard tickling her skin. She stirred slightly when he parted her lower lips, his own wrapping around the bundle of nerves at her apex. It didn’t take long for Amira to fully wake up with a groan of his name, her hand snaking into the hair he’d pulled up into a messy bun the night before.

“Jason...shit, you’re almost as insatiable as me.”

“Almost? I think it might be a tie.”

She chuckled sleepily and muttered about how it wasn’t even close before pushing his head back down between her thighs. Jason grunted hungrily and continued to make a breakfast out of her pussy, smirking against her skin when she pulled his hair loose and ran her fingers over his scalp, scratching lightly. Her hips bucked towards his mouth as he worked for his wet reward, her voice growing louder when he slipped two fingers into her, curling onto her g-spot with ease. It didn’t take long for her to release into his mouth and onto his hand with a moan of his name, all her movements pushing his shirt that she wore up around her breasts. Jason pulled away and sucked his fingers clean, eyes on Amira as she sat up and removed the only fabric covering her body. He grinned and removed his boxers before climbing on top of her, hooking her thick legs up with his arms and pushing into her with one smooth thrust.

They moved in tandem, meeting each other’s ministrations as hushed profanities and short grunts were passed between them along with lustful encouragements. Without much warning Amira came again, scratching at his shoulders and chest as he worked her through her orgasm. Jason followed closely behind her, his warm seed shooting into her as he moaned into the crook of her neck. They rested for a moment in each other’s arms but Amira was the first to speak.

“That was lovely, but now you definitely have to feed me breakfast.”

...

“Girls, with a boy like that it’s serious…”

Lucy danced and bopped around her shared dorm to Eros and Apollo by Studio Killers, singing along to the lyrics as she did some light cleaning. At some point, she paused to just sing and dance, not hearing the front door open behind her as she belted.

“Soon he will eat your ass like cereals…”

“Now I know damn well she said ‘hearts’, not ‘ass’. Clean ya ears, Lu.”

She jumped at the sound of her roommate’s voice and turned to face Amira before running over and hugging her with a laugh.

“I thought it was ass, it’s the accent. But hey girl!! You got Jason to propose yet?”

“Bitch, it’s been like two months-”

“Three! Time flies when you having fun, but you should remember these things.”

Amira rolled her eyes and took her bags into her room, laughing though she truly couldn’t believe it’d been a whole three months since she’d officially started dating Jason. Her lips spread into a grin as she realized it would’ve been four if she hadn’t avoided him for a month after the night they spent together, assuming he couldn’t be serious about dating her. He did everything he could to change her mind, including an elaborate surprise that involved “Amira, be mine?” being sky-written in the middle of a New York day. Once she gave him a chance she realized Jason was charming, funny, sweet, sexy, and all around just a great guy. He was basically perfect for her.

Almost.

He may be perfect for her, but he wasn’t Xavier. A thought she found herself feeling guilty for thinking about more and more recently, but one she pushed to the side as Lucy filled her in on some of the campus gossip she’d heard since being back.

…

“Daniel, open this door!”

“Not happening.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“He’s not here Marcy, but I’ll make sure he knows you came by.”

Daniel sat on the couch writing on his laptop as he lied through his teeth for his roommate, the young man in question next to him rolling his eyes at the pure desperation he felt coming off the girl in question, Marcelline, on the other side of the door. He shook his head when she finally caved and left, not missing Daniel’s gaze on him.

“What?”

“The hell did you do to Marcy?” Daniel was plain and blunt, per usual.

“I only fed off her once and it wasn’t even a full feed! Every time I would get into what she was doing, she’d say cock and my dick would go soft.” Xavier exclaimed, tired of her completely.

Daniel made a face at the sound of the aforementioned word, shuddering at the thought of being in that situation.

“Damn, I didn’t even know Black girls used that word. Even still, I can’t keep covering for you when she comes here looking for yo ass.”

Xavier sighed, sitting down next to his roomie, “I know, I’ll talk to her later on today. For right now I need to focus on this damn Lit class. Who gives a whole ass assignment on the first day?”

…

Amira looked over her reflection one last time, smoothing her hands over the strapless orange sundress that adorned her frame. She decided to pair it with her clear chunky sandal heels and opted for a natural makeup look, ready for her lunch date with Jason. After adding some gloss to her lips and pulling her box braids up into a high pony, she grabbed her small purse and headed downstairs to wait for him so Lucy wouldn’t scream loud enough to alert their entire floor.

Once downstairs in the lobby, she pulled out her phone and began scrolling through Instagram while texting Francois to find out how the family was doing, pausing only when she heard an all too familiar voice call her name. Her eyes lifted to see Xavier just coming off the elevator, gaze widening slightly before her fingers floated across her screen to text her brother once more.

Xavier just came off the elevator...

Porque? Did he see you?

He called out my name and is walking over to me dude

OI RUN AWAY

FRAN I-

“Amira?”

“Xavier, hey!”

Amira stood to greet him with a friendly hug, ignoring the way her heart tugged at her to kiss him all over his face. She noticed he’d started growing his hair out over the summer, keeping the sides tapered low. She also didn’t miss the flicker of hunger in his eyes when she stood and he took in her outfit but chose to ignore it. Instead, she tried to keep the conversation light.

“You look good, how have you been?”

Xavier rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous habit of his, before he answered.

“I’ve been okay, how about you? We didn’t see you around campus much over the summer…”

“I was around for classes but I ended up staying with a friend till Labor Day.”

His brow raised then, wondering who this friend was since she didn’t say Lucy. Before he could ask they were interrupted by the ring of Amira’s phone, one look at the screen causing her to immediately answer it. He noticed her smile when she did, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes the way it used to when he made her smile. While he thought about that, Amira turned and walked a few feet away as she talked to Jason.

“You almost here?”

“That’s why I’m calling, babe. We hit some snags during the morning shoot so we’ll have to work through lunch. I’ll make it up either later or tomorrow?”

Amira sighed, hoping he was going to tell her he was outside to save her from this awkward convo with Xavier. Since that wasn’t the case she told him she understood and that they’d talk later, stunned silent when the words “alright, love you” left his lips. So stunned she hung up without replying. When she turned around she found Xavier standing where she’d left him, looking at his own phone. Just when she was going to say something to him, a shrill voice caught both his attention and hers.

“Xavier!! X!”

Marcy sped up her formerly relaxed walk down the hallway at the sight of the towering incubus, his face shifting just enough to show his exasperation if you knew him as well as Amira did. She invaded his personal space without warning, completely ignoring the fact that Amira was less than five feet behind her.

“Marcelline, back up. You smell horrible, criss...”

She looked like he’d punched her in the gut, checking herself for any stench and finding none. Before she could question him Amira finally spoke.

“He means your aura, honey. I can smell the desperation from here and I don’t even know you.”

“Desperation?! Listen here you fat bitch, I don’t know who you think you are but-”

Before she could finish her sentence Amira was in her face with a hand wrapped around her throat tightly enough to just cut off her air supply, her face an indifferent mask.

“Unlike you, I know exactly who I am, and right now I’m someone that could snap your neck between her fingers. Now clearly the gentleman doesn’t want to fuck you so take your L and keep it pushing.”

Marcy choked out a weak reply only to have Amira let her go with a forceful push, knocking her onto the floor before she scrambled away wheezing. Xavier looked at his ex with a wonder she hadn’t seen in a while, one that had her stomach fluttering. He opened his mouth but she held up a hand to stop him.

“I know. You’re welcome. See you around, X.”

Amira moved around him and walked towards the elevator before he grabbed her arm lightly, making her look back at him.

“Hey, wait. If you’re not busy could I take you to lunch? Just to catch up.”

“Xavier, I’m not about to-”

“I don’t wanna fuck you. Well, I do, but I also just miss my best friend. So have lunch with me?”

She pondered it for a moment, but she couldn’t deny the sincerity in his eyes.

“Alright, let’s go. But just lunch.”

#random stories #if it's magic #Amira & Xavier #original characters #randomwordprompts #my writng

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